24713	----	None 
15550	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 15550-h.htm or 15550-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/5/5/5/15550/15550-h/15550-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/5/5/5/15550/15550-h.zip) Juvenile Library Girls Series ETHEL MORTON AT ROSE HOUSE by MABELL S. C. SMITH The World Syndicate Publishing Co. Cleveland New York Press of the Commercial Bookbinding Co., Cleveland 1915 [Frontispiece: "Here's where we should land"] CHAPTER I ROGER'S IDEA For the fortieth time that afternoon, it seemed to Ethel Brown Morton and her cousin, Ethel Blue, they untangled the hopelessly mixed garlands of the maypole and started the weavers once more to lacing and interlacing them properly. "Under, over; under, over," they directed, each girl escorting a small child in and out among the gay bands of pink and white which streamed from the top of the pole. May Day in New Jersey is never a certain quality; it may be reminiscent of the North Pole or the Equator. This happened to be the hottest day of the year so far, and both Ethels had wiped their foreheads until their handkerchiefs were small balls too soaked to be of any further use. But they kept on, for this was the first Community Maypole that Rosemont ever had had, and the United Service Club, to which the girls belonged, was doing its part to make the afternoon successful. Helen, Ethel Brown's sister, and Margaret Hancock, another member of the Club, were teaching the younger children a folk dance on the side of the lawn; Roger Morton, James Hancock and Tom Watkins were marshalling a group of boys and marching them back and forth across the end of the grass plot nearest the schoolhouse. Delia Watkins, Tom's sister, and Dorothy Smith, a cousin of the Mortons, were going about among the mothers and urging them to let the little ones take part in the games. Everybody was busy until dusk sent the small children home and the caretaker came to uproot the pole and to shake his head ruefully over the condition of the lawn whose smoothness had been roughened by the tread of scores of dancing feet. It was while the Club members were sitting on the Mortons' veranda, resting, that Helen, who was president of the Club, called them to order. "Saturday afternoon is our usual time of meeting," she began, "and no one can say that we haven't put in a solid afternoon of service." Groans as one and another shifted a cramped position to another more restful for weary feet confirmed her statement. "What I want to say now is that it's time for us to be thinking up some more service work. We are all studying pretty hard so we don't want to undertake anything that will use up our out-of-door time too much, but we haven't anything in prospect except helping with the town Fourth of July celebration, over two months away, so we might as well be planning something else." "Do I understand, Madam President," asked Roger, "that the chief officer of this distinguished Club hasn't any ideas to suggest?" "The chief officer is so tired that not even another glass of lemonade--thank you, Tom--can stir her gray matter." "Hasn't anybody else any ideas?" Silence greeted the question. "I seem to remember boasts that ideas never would fail this brilliant group," jeered Roger. "There were some such remarks," James recalled meditatively; "and I remember that you prophesied that the day would come when we'd call on you for information about some stupendous scheme of yours that was literally as big as a house. Let's have it now." "Do I understand that you're really appealing to me to learn my scheme?" inquired Roger, swelling with amusement. "If it's any satisfaction to you--yes," replied his sister. Roger burst into a peal of laughter. "Shoot off the answers, old man," urged James. "We're waiting." "Breathlessly," added Margaret. Roger settled himself comfortably on the top step of the piazza and leaned his head against the post. "It certainly does me good to see you all at my feet begging like this," he declared. "Bosh! You're at ours and I can prove it," asserted Tom, stretching out a foot of goodly size. "Peace! Withdraw that battering ram!" pleaded Roger. "I'll tell you all about it. Tom's really responsible for this idea, anyway." "Ideas, real fresh ones, aren't much in my line," admitted practical Tom, "but I'm glad to have helped for once." "I don't suppose you remember that time last autumn when I went in to New York to see you and you took me down to the chapel where your father preaches on Sunday afternoons?" "I remember it; we found Father there talking with a lot of mothers and children." "That's the time. Well, those women and children got on my nerves like anything. You see, out here in Rosemont we haven't any real suffering like that. There are poor people, and Mother always does what she can for them, and there's a Charitable Society, as you know, because you all helped with the Donnybrook Fair they had on St. Patrick's Day. But the people they help out here are regular Rockefellers compared with those poor creatures that your father had in his office that day." "Father says he could spend a million dollars a year on those people, and not have a misspent cent," said Delia. "What hit me hardest was the thin little children. Elisabeth hadn't come to us yet," Roger went on, referring to a Belgian baby that had been sent to the Club to take care of, "and I wasn't so accustomed to thinness as I've grown to be since, and it made me--well, it just made me sick." "I don't wonder," agreed Delia seriously. "That's the way they make me feel." "I know what you thought of," exclaimed Ethel Blue, who was so imaginative and sympathetic that she sometimes had an almost uncanny way of reading peoples' thoughts. "You wanted to bring some of those poor women out into the country so that the children could get well, and you told your grandfather about it and he offered you a house somewhere." "That's about it, kidlet. I heard one of the women say that she'd had a week in the country--some sort of Fresh Air business--and that the baby got a lot better, and then she had to go back to the city and the little creature was literally dying on her hands." "You want to give them a whole summer," guessed Ethel Brown. "That's the idea. Since I've seen what proper care and good food and fresh air have done for that wretched little skeleton, Elisabeth, I'm more than ever convinced that if we can give some of those mothers and babies a whole month or perhaps two months of Rosemont air we'll be saving lives, actually saving lives." Roger looked about earnestly from one grave face to another. All were in sympathy with him and all waited for the development of his plan, for they knew he would not have laid so much stress upon it if he had not thought out the details. "I've talked it over with Grandfather and he rose to it right off. Here's where the house comes in. He said he was going to build a new cottage for his farm superintendent this spring--you know it's almost done now--and that we could have the old farm house if we wanted to fix it up for a Fresh Air scheme." "Mr. Emerson is a brick. I pull my forelock to him," and Tom illustrated his remark. "Where's the money to come from?" asked James, who was both of Scottish descent and the Club treasurer, and so was not only shrewd but accustomed to look after details. "Grandfather said he'd help in this way; if the Club would study the old house and decide on the best way to make it answer the purpose he would provide two carpenters for a fortnight to help us. That will mean that if we want to do any whitewashing or papering or matters of that kind we'll have to do it ourselves, but the carpenters will put the house in repair and put up any partitions that we want and so on." "Is it furnished?" "There's another problem. The superintendent has had his own furniture there and what will be left when he goes is almost nothing. There are some old things in the garret, but we'll have to use our ingenuity and invent furniture." "The way I did for our attic." Dorothy reminded them of the room where the Club had been meeting ever since its members returned from Chautauqua where it had been formed the summer before. "Just so. We'll have to make a raid on our mothers' attics and also on the stores in town that have their goods come in big boxes, and I imagine we shall be able to concoct things that will 'do,' though they may be remarkable to look upon." "The mothers and children will be out of doors all the time, so they won't sit around and examine the furniture," laughed Delia. "It will be scanty, probably, but if we can get beds enough and a chair apiece, or a substitute for a chair, and a few tables, we can get along." "There's your house provided and furnished after a fashion--how are you going to run it?" inquired Helen. "It takes shekels to buy even very plain food in these days of the 'high cost of living," and we've got to give these women and children nourishing food; they can't live on fresh air alone." "Praise be, fresh air costs nothing!" "That's one thing we'll get free," laughed Roger. "Grandfather told me to investigate and see what I could find out about finances and then let him know. So I went in to see Mr. Watkins." "And never told me," said Tom reproachfully. "Of course not. All of you people were too sniffy. I told your father what the plan was and what Grandfather had said. He thought it was great. He's a corker, your father is." Delia and Tom looked somewhat startled at this epithet describing their parent, but Roger meant it to be complimentary, so they made no remonstrance. "He said right off that he could provide the women and children in any numbers and that he'd select the ones that needed the change most and would be most benefited by it." "It's not hard to find those," murmured Delia. "Then he said that he had certain funds that he could draw on for such cases and that he'd be just as willing to pay the board for these women and children at Rosemont as anywhere else, so that we could depend on a small sum for each one of them from the treasurer of the chapel." "That ought to cover the expense of their food," said Helen, "but we'll have to have a housekeeper and a cook." "That's what Aunt Louise said." "Oho, you've been talking with Mother about it!" exclaimed Dorothy. "I knew the Club would come to me sooner or later, it was only a matter of time, so I made ready to answer some of the questions you'd be asking me." They laughed at Roger's preparedness, but nodded approvingly. "Aunt Louise said she'd pay the wages of the cook, and then I toddled off to Grandmother Emerson and told her I was planning to raid her attic for old furniture, and asked her incidentally if she thought we could run the thing without a housekeeper." "I hope she said 'yes'," exclaimed Margaret, who liked to administer a household. "Grandmother was very polite; she said she thought the U. S. C. could do anything it set out to do, but that there would be countless odds and ends that would occupy us all summer long--" "Like making a continuous stream of furniture!" "And going marketing and doing errands." "And mowing the grass." "And playing games with the kids." "O, a thousand things would crop up; we never could be idle; and so she thought we'd better have a responsible woman as housekeeper. What's more she said she'd pay her." "It wouldn't be polite for me to say about a lady what you said about Mr. Watkins," said James-- "For which I apologize," declared Roger parenthetically. "--but I'd like to remark that she's one of the most reliable grandmothers I ever had anything to do with!" They all laughed again. "Where we'll get these two women I don't know," said Roger. "My researches stopped there. But I suppose it wouldn't be difficult." "I've heard Mother say that the 'responsible woman' was the hardest person on earth to find," said Helen, thoughtfully. "But we can all hunt." "I know some one who might do if she'd be willing--and I don't know why she wouldn't," said Ethel Brown. "Who? Who? Some one in Rosemont?" "Right here in Rosemont. Mrs. Schuler." "Mrs. Schuler?" There was a cry of wonder, for Mrs. Schuler was the teacher of German in the high school. She had been engaged to Mr. Schuler, who taught singing in the Rosemont schools, before the war broke out. Mr. Schuler was called to the colors and lost a leg in the early part of the war. Since he could no longer be useful as a fighter he had been allowed to return to America, and his betrothed had married him at once so that she and her mother, Mrs. Hindenburg, might nurse him back to health. He had been slowly regaining his strength through the winter, and was now fairly well and as cheerful as his crippled state would permit. "You know I've been to see Mrs. Hindenburg a good deal ever since we got her to go to the Home to teach the old ladies how to knit," said Ethel Brown. "I know her pretty well now. The other day she told me she had had an application from a family who wanted to board with her this summer, and she was so sorry to have to turn them away because she didn't have enough rooms for them." "I don't see how that helps us any." "You know Mr. Schuler hasn't been able to take many pupils this winter and I shouldn't wonder if Mrs. Schuler would be glad to have something to do this summer when school is closed. Now if they would go to our Fresh Air house and take charge there for the summer it would leave Mrs. Hindenburg with enough space to take in her boarders. She'd be glad, and I should think the Schulers would be glad." "And we'd be glad! Why, Fraulein is the grandest housekeeper," cried Helen, using the name that Mrs. Schuler's old pupils never remembered to change to "Frau." "German housekeepers are thrifty and neat and careful--why, she's exactly the person we want. How _great_ of you to think of her, Ethel Brown!" "You know she wanted to adopt our Belgian baby, so I guess she's interested in poor children," volunteered Ethel Blue. "Are our plans far enough along for us to ask her?" inquired Margaret. "We ought to ask her as soon as we can, because Mrs. Hindenburg's plans will be affected by the Schulers' decision," Helen reminded them. "I think we are far enough along," decided Roger. "You see, the idea is new to you, but I've been working at it for a good many months now, and if we all pull together to do our share I know we can depend on the grown-ups to do theirs." "Shall we appoint Ethel Brown to call on Mrs. Schuler and talk it over with her? She knows her better than the rest of us because she's seen her at home oftener." "Madam President, I move that Ethel Brown be appointed a committee of one to see our Teutonic friends and work up their sympathies over the women and children we want to help so that they just can't resist helping too. Is your eloquence equal to that strain, Ethel?" Ethel thought it was, and promised to go the very next afternoon. The discussion turned to the next step to take. "Grandfather's superintendent is going to move into the new cottage next week," was Roger's news, "so then we can go over the old house and see how it is arranged and decide how we'd like to change it." "And also find out just what furniture is left and draw up a list of what furniture we shall need." "Had we better appoint committees for making the different investigations?" inquired Tom, who was accustomed to the methods of a city church. "Later, perhaps," decided Helen. "At first I think we all want to know the whole situation and then we can make our plans to fit, and special people can volunteer for special work if we think it can be done best that way." "It's a great old plan you have there, Roger," cried Tom, thumping his friend affectionately on the shoulder. "I bow to your giant intellect. We'll do our best to make it a success." CHAPTER II MOYA AND SHEILA Elisabeth of Belgium was walking sturdily now on the legs that had been too weak to uphold her when she first came to Rosemont in November. Her increasing strength was an increasing delight to all the people who loved her--and there was no one who knew her who did not love her--but her activity obliged her caretakers to be incessantly on the alert. Miss Merriam, the skilled young woman from the School of Mothercraft, who had pulled her through her period of greatest feebleness, now found herself sometimes quite outdone by the energy of her little charge. The Ethels were always glad to relieve her of her responsibilities for an hour or two, and it was the afternoon of the day after Roger had reported his plan to the Club that found the cousins strolling down Church Street, "Ayleesabet" between them, clinging to a finger of each, not to help her stand upright but to serve as a pair of supports from which she might swing herself off the ground. "See! She lifted her whole weight then!" exclaimed Ethel Blue. "We shall have to give up calling her 'baby' soon. She's becoming an acrobat!" "It's all due to Miss Merriam. I wish she didn't look so tired the last few days." Ethel Blue made no reply. She guessed something of the reason that had made Miss Gertrude appear distressed and silent. A certain note that she herself had placed in a May basket and hung on Miss Merriam's door might have something to do with her appearance of anxiety. She changed the subject as a measure of precaution, for she had been in the confidence of Dr. Watkins, the elder brother of Tom and Delia and a warm admirer of Miss Merriam's, and she did not want the conversation to run into channels where she might have to answer inconvenient questions. "This scheme of Roger's is pretty tremendous," she began by way of introducing a theme in which Ethel Brown would be sure to be interested. "We--the Club, I mean--never has 'fallen down' yet on anything, even some of our 'shows' that we didn't have much time to get up, so we ought to have confidence in ourselves as a Club." "With this next undertaking, though, we don't really know how the thing is done." "How to make over the house, you mean?" "How to make over the house and how to run the Fresh Air settlement when the house is made over." "There's no doubt we'll know more at the end of the summer than we know now! We've got to get information from every source we can." "The way Roger has up to now." "We must think of every one we know who has made over a house, and Dr. Watkins ought to be able to tell us of some people who have had Fresh Air children staying with them, so we can get some idea about what they need and how a house is managed." "Come, come." A chirp rose from near the ground. Ayleesabet was tired of being disregarded for so long. "You blessed Lamb!" cried Ethel Blue. "Did you say, 'Come, come,' just because you heard it? Did you think we were talking very learnedly about things we didn't know much about! Never mind, ducky daddles, we'll know a lot about them six months from now!" "Just the way we've learned a lot about babies in the last six months from this little teacher!" added Ethel Brown. "Come, come. Home, home," remarked Elisabeth insistently. "What's the matter? Are your leggies tired? Want the Ethels to carry you?" Elisabeth made it known that she would like some such method of transportation, and sat joyfully on a "chair" which the two girls made by interclasping their wrists. Not for long did this please her ladyship. "Down, down," she demanded in a few minutes. "We might as well go home if she's too tired to walk and too restless to ride," decided Ethel Brown, and they turned about, to the evident pleasure of the baby. As they were returning along Church Street but were still at a distance from Dorothy's house Elisabeth suddenly gave a chirrup of delight. The Ethels looked about to see the cause of this unexpected expression of joy. Crawling out through a hedge on to the sidewalk was a child of about Elizabeth's age, but a thin and dirty little mite, with a face that betrayed her race as Irish. "What's this morsel doing here all by herself!" exclaimed Ethel Blue. "She must have run away; or perhaps she isn't alone. Let's look about for her mother." Up and down the street they looked while Elisabeth scraped acquaintance with the sudden arrival upon her path. "It doesn't seem as if she could be far off." In truth she was not far off, for as the girls wondered and exclaimed a weak voice made itself heard from the other side of the hedge. "Don't take her away," it said. Leaving the children to entertain each other on the sidewalk they enlarged the hole from which the new baby had crawled, and pushed their way through it. On the ground behind the hedge, and hidden from the sidewalk by its thick twigs lay a young woman, so pale that she frightened the girls. "Don't take the baby away. I'll feel better in a little while. She crept off from me." "How did you get here?" asked Ethel Brown. "I came out from New York to look for work in the country. I felt so sick I lay down here." "Did you get any work?" A slight movement of the head indicated that she had not. The Ethels consulted each other by disturbed glances. There was no hospital nearer than Glen Point, and indeed, the woman seemed so ill that they did not see how she could reach the hospital even in the trolley. As they stood silent and perplexed the honk of a motor roused the almost unconscious woman. "Is the baby in the street?" she inquired frantically. Ethel Brown crushed her way through the hedge, and found that the children were still on the sidewalk, but were so near its edge that the driver of the car had tooted to warn them back. To her delight she saw that the driver was Grandfather Emerson. She waved her hand to stop him. "You're a great caretaker!" he cried. "Why do you leave Elisabeth to look after herself in this fashion? And who's her friend?" Ethel climbed into the machine beside him and told of the discovery that the girls had just made. Mr. Emerson drew the car alongside the curb and jumped out with anxiety written on his face. The hole in the hedge was too small for him to push through so he ran around the end, and approached the prostrate form of the woman. Her eyes were closed and she lay so still that Ethel Blue, who was rubbing her hands, shook her head as she glanced up gratefully at the new arrival. "What's this, what's this?" asked Mr. Emerson in his full, rich voice. Its mere sound seemed to carry comfort to the poor creature lying at his feet. He knelt beside her. "Hungry, eh?" he asked. "We'll see about that right off. Can you eat these cookies?" He took a thin tin box out of his pocket and opened it. "I have a little granddaughter named Ethel Brown who insists on my keeping cookies in my pocket all the time so that I can eat them when I'm driving. See if you can take a bite of this." A fluttering hand took the cooky and put it between the pale lips. Helped by the girls the woman struggled to her feet and stood wavering before she tried to take a step. She was a young woman with very black hair and gray-blue eyes and a face that was meant to be unlined and pretty and not gaunt with hunger and furrowed by anxiety. "You're very good," she whispered feebly. Supported on each side she managed to reach the sidewalk, where she looked about wildly for her baby. An expression that was sad but infinitely relieved came over her features when she saw the two children sitting in the gravel of the walk filling their tiny hands with pebbles. "A cooky won't hurt the baby either," decided Mr. Emerson, and he gave one to each of the children. The Ethels had no chance to ask him what he meant to do without their discovery hearing them, so they helped the woman into the machine, put in the two children and climbed in themselves. To their great interest Mr. Emerson turned the car about and headed it for his own home. "I wonder what Grandmother will say," murmured Ethel Brown to Ethel Blue, who was steadying the ill woman's head as it lay against the back of the seat. Ethel Blue lifted her eyebrows to indicate that she could not guess; but both girls knew in their hearts that Mrs. Emerson would do what was wisest and for the best good of the strays. She came to the door in answer to the sound of the horn. "How did you get back so soon?" she began to inquire of her husband when her eyes fell on the passengers in the car. "An accident?" she asked anxiously as she ran down the steps. "The girls found this woman and her child part way over here and I thought I'd better bring her on and get your opinion about her. I think she'd like something to eat," and the kind old gentleman smiled in friendly fashion as the woman opened frightened eyes at the sound of a new voice. Among them they succeeded in getting her into the house and into a cool room, where she lay exhausted on the bed, her hand holding tight to the little hand of her baby, lying wearily beside her. "Sunstroke?" asked Grandmother. "Hunger," replied Mr. Emerson, and he and Ethel Brown went down stairs at once in search of food, while Mrs. Emerson and Ethel Blue managed to undress their patient and put her into a fresh nightdress and bathe her face and hands. By the time they had done this and were undressing the baby, Ethel Brown and Mrs. Emerson's cook were at the door with jellied broth, milk, gruel and a cooling drink. Ethel Blue fed the woman, spoonful by spoonful, and Ethel Brown gave the baby alternate spoonfuls of gruel and milk. "Sleepy now?" asked Mrs. Emerson when the dark head sank back on the pillow. "Take a nap, then. See, the baby is right here where you can lay your hand on her. We'll look in now and then and just as soon as you wake up you must take some more food." "Must!" repeated the girl, for she was hardly older than Miss Merriam they saw when her hair was pushed back from her face. "Must! 'Tis _glad_ I'll be to be doing it!" and a ghost of a smile fluttered her lips. Outside of the bedroom door Mrs. Emerson asked for an explanation and the others for her advice. "I don't see how we can tell what we can do until we pull her through this trouble and find out what the poor soul wants to do herself." "She said she came out from New York to look for work in the country." "Then we must find her work in the country. But the first thing for us to attend to is to get her poor body into such a condition that she can work. She's a sweet looking young woman. I'm glad you brought her home, Father," and between Mr. and Mrs. Emerson there passed a smile of such understanding as makes beautiful the lives of people long and happily married. CHAPTER III THE FARMHOUSE It took a long time to bring Moya Murphy and little Sheila back to health and strength, but it was only a day or two before Moya was able to tell her story to Mrs. Emerson. She was twenty-five, she said, and she had come to America with her father and mother five years before. The New World had not given a warm welcome to the new arrivals, for both of the parents had fallen ill with pneumonia only a few weeks after they landed, and both died within a few days of each other. Moya, left alone and grieving, had soon after married Patrick Murphy, a lad she had known in the old country. A happy life they led, especially after little Sheila came to bless them. When the declaration of war in Europe upset business conditions in America, Patrick lost his "job" and all summer long he walked the streets, working for a day now and then, but never securing a permanent position, and always growing weaker and less able to work because he was underfed. The little three-room flat that had been such a joy to them, had long been given up and they lived and ate and slept in one room, and thanked their stars that they had a landlord who did not insist on being paid regularly, as did some they knew about who put their tenants out on the street if the rent was not forthcoming promptly. "Somehow it's the sudden things that happens to me," said Moya to Mrs. Emerson. She was sitting on the latticed back porch of the Emersons' house, her fingers busy shelling peas for Kate, the old cook who had lived with Mrs. Emerson ever since she was married. "Patrick was crossing the street--'tis only six weeks ago, but it seems years! An automobile with one of the shrieking horns screamed at him. 'Twas the policeman on the crossing told me. Patrick was light on his feet always, but that was when he had enough to eat ivery day. He thried to jump back and his foot slipped and he fell under the car and it killed him." She sobbed and Mrs. Emerson and Kate wiped their eyes. "Two days it was before I knew it; there was nothing on his clothes to tell who he was, and I only found out when he didn't come home and I went to the police and they took me to the Morgue and there he lay. They gave me twenty dollars--the policemen did. They collected it among themselves." "Didn't they arrest the driver of the car?" "'Twas a light car and it sped away before any one saw the number." Kate Flanigan gave a grunt of disgust at the brutality of the driver. "I gave the landlord half the money the policemen gave me. I owed it for the rint. Then I set out to hunt work. Ivery day I walked and walked and ivery day I carried the baby, for where could I leave her? Nobody wanted a girl who wasn't trained to do anything, and even if I had been able to do something well they wanted no baby. There's no room for babies when you have to work," she said bitterly. "I want you to feel that you are safe here, you and Sheila," said Mrs. Emerson gently. "Mrs. Morton and Mrs. Smith and I have been talking it over with Kate, and this is what we've planned, provided you agree." Moya gathered up her baby jealously in her lap. "It will keep you and Sheila together," said Mrs. Emerson quickly, noticing her gesture, and smiling approvingly as Moya at once let the child slide off her lap on to the floor where she sat contentedly playing with some of the pods of the peas that had fallen from the pan. "Perhaps Kate has told you that we are planning to have some women and children who need country air come out from New York this summer and live in a farmhouse that we have on the place here." Moya nodded. "She did." "We need a cook. We are going to give them simple food, but nourishing and well cooked." "If it's me you're thinking of for the cooking, ma'am, I'm a poor cook beyond potaties and stew." "You never were taught to cook?" "Taught? No, ma'am. I picked up what little I know from me mother. 'Tis simple enough, but too simple for what you need." "If you'll try to learn, here's what we've planned. Kate needs a helper. Not because she isn't strong and hearty, but because Mr. Emerson and I want her to have a little more time for pleasure than she has had for a good many years. She won't take a real vacation, so we are going to give her a partial vacation." "Me being the helper?" inquired Moya, her thin face lighting. "More than the helper. Kate has agreed to teach you how to cook all the dishes that it will be necessary to cook for the women and children this summer. You couldn't have a better teacher." "I'm sure of it," answered the young woman, turning gratefully to Kate. "I'll do my very best." "You shall have a room for yourself and the baby, and wages," and she named a sum that made Moya's eyes burn. "I'm not worth that yet," she cried, "but I know you'll need me to dress respectable, so I'll not refuse it and I'll get some decent things for the baby and mesilf!" "If Kate finds that you take hold well she'll teach you more elaborate cooking. There's always a place waiting somewhere for a good cook, and here's your chance to learn to be a really excellent cook." So the problem of obtaining a cook was settled without trouble, and as Ethel Brown found Mrs. Schuler not only ready but eager to act as Matron, two of the possible difficulties seemed to have proved themselves no difficulties at all. CHAPTER IV PLANS The work of the carpenters filled in very acceptably the time when the members of the Club were toiling at school. A visit of inspection toward the end of June gave the onlookers the greatest satisfaction. "Everything is as fine as a fiddle!" exclaimed Roger as they all stopped in one of the upstairs rooms. "Now it's up to us to do the papering and painting and to concoct some furniture." So it was decided that all the bedrooms should have white paint and walls of delicate hues and that Mrs. Schuler's office should be pink with white paint and white curtains at the windows. "We can get very pretty papers for ten cents a roll," said Margaret. "I saw some beauties when I went to the paperers to get some flowery papers for James to cut out when he was pasting decorations on to our Christmas Ship boxes." "Are you going to use wall paper?" asked Miss Merriam quickly. "Aren't we?" inquired Margaret. "It didn't occur to me that there was anything else. There is paper on the walls now." "It's a lot more sanitary to have the walls kalsomined, I know that," said James in a superior tone. "Haven't you heard Father say so a dozen times?" "I suppose I have, now I think about it," replied Margaret. "It stands to reason that there would be less chance for germs to hide." "Do you suppose these old walls are in good enough condition to go uncovered?" asked Roger, passing his hand over a suspicious bulge that forced the paper out, and casting his eye at the ceiling which was veined with hair cracks. "Probably the walls will not be in the pink Of condition," returned Mrs. Morton; "but, even so, color-washing will be better than papering." "We can go over them and fill up the cracks," suggested Tom, "and we can whitewash the ceilings." "That's what I should advise," said Miss Merriam. "Put the walls and ceilings in as good condition as you can, and then put on your wash. Kalsomining is rather expensive, but there are plenty of color washes now that any one can put on who can wield a whitewash brush." "Me for the whitewash brush at an early date," Roger sang gayly. "What do you suggest for these upstairs floors, Miss Merriam? Grandfather thought they weren't bad enough to have new ones laid, but they do look rather rocky, don't they?" He cast a disparaging glance at the boards under his feet, and waited for help. "Were you planning to paint them?" "Yes," Roger nodded. "Then you ought to putty up the cracks first. That will make them smooth enough. They're not really rough, you see. It's the spaces between the planks that make them seem so." "That's easily done. We thought we'd paint these old floors and stain the new ones down stairs." "I'd do that. Paint these floors tan or gray, if you want them to confess frankly that they're painted floors, or the shade of some wood if you want to pretend that they're hard wood floors." James moved uneasily. Roger guessed the reason. "What's the matter, old man? Treasury low?" "It always is," answered James uncomfortably. "How are we going to fill it?" "That's what I've been thinking," Ethel Brown said meditatively. "It's time we did something to earn something." "Everybody I've sold cookies to all winter seems to have stopped eating them," complained Ethel Brown. "I'm thinking of getting up a cooky sale to relieve my financial distress." "There's an idea," cried Tom. "Why can't we have a cooky sale--with a few other things thrown in--and use the proceeds for the decoration and furnishing of Rose House?" "We've had so many entertainments; can we do anything different enough for the Rosemonters to be willing to come?" "And spend?" "I think the Rosemonters have great confidence in our getting up something new and interesting; ditto the Glen Pointers," insisted Margaret who lived at Glen Point and knew the opinions of her neighbors. "Where could we have it--_it_ meaning our sale or whatever we decide to have?" "Why not have it here? Let's wait until the boys have the house all painted and whitewashed and colorwashed so it looks as fresh as possible, and then tell the town what it is we are trying to do this summer, and ask them over here to see what it looks like." "Good enough. When they see that it's good as far as it goes, but that our Fresh Air people will be mighty uncomfortable if they don't have some beds to sleep in and a few other trifles of every day use, they'll buy whatever we have to sell. That's the way it seems to me," and Roger threw himself down on the grass before the front door with an air of having said the final word. "Let's ask the people of _Rose_mont to come to _Rose_ House to a _Rose_ Fête," cried Ethel Blue, while every one of her hearers waved his handkerchief at the suggestion. "I'll draw a poster with the announcement on it," she went on, "and we can have it printed on pink paper and the boys can go round on their bicycles and distribute them at every house." "We must have everything pink, of course. Pink ice cream and cakes with pink icing--" "And pink strawberries--" "Not green ones! No, sir!" "And watermelons if we can get some that won't make too much trouble for Dr. Hancock." "How are we going to serve them? We can't bring china way out here--and we won't have any for Rose House until after we give this party to earn it!" "They have paper plates with pretty patterns on them now. And if they cost too much we might get the plain ones and lay a d'oyley of pink paper on each one," suggested Margaret. "Probably that will be the cheapest and the effect will be just as good, but I'll find out the prices in town," promised Delia. "I have a scheme for a table of fancy things," offered Dorothy. "Let's have it under that tree over there and over it let's hang a huge rose. I think I know how to make it--two hoops, the kind Dicky rolls, one above the other, the smaller one on top, and both suspended from the tree. Cover them inside and out with big pink paper petals." "How are you going to make it look like a rose and not a pink bell?" inquired Delia. "Put a green calyx on the top and some yellow stamens inside and then make a stem that will look like the real thing, only gigantic." "How will you manage that?" "Do you remember those wild grape vines that Helen and Ethel Brown found in the West Woods and used for Hallowe'en decorations? If we could get a thick one and wind it with green paper and let it curve from the rose toward the ground it ought to look like a real stem." "We could hang the rose with dark string that wouldn't show, and fasten the stem to the branch of the tree with a pink bow. It would look as if some giant had tied it there for his ladylove." "I have an old pink sash I'll contribute to the good cause," laughed Helen. "I've been wondering what to do with it for some time." "Everything on the table must be pink and shaped like a rose or decorated with roses--cushions, pen-wipers, baskets, stencilled bureau sets--there are a thousand things to be made." "Boxes covered with rose paper," suggested James solemnly. Everybody shouted, for James's imagination always seemed to be stimulated whenever he saw a chance to make something with paste-pot and brush. "How about music?" This question brought silence, for it was not easy to arrange for music in the open. "I wish Edward and his violin were here," said Delia, referring to her brother, Dr. Watkins, who had recently gone to Oklahoma to assist an older physician in a flourishing town there. He had been very attentive to Miss Merriam and she was annoyed to find herself blushing at the mention of his name. Ethel Blue, who had been in his confidence, was the only one of the young people who glanced at her, however, so her annoyance passed unnoticed. "He isn't, and a piano is out of the question. I wonder, if Greg Patton would bring his fiddle?" "Why didn't we think of him before! He and some of the other high school boys have been getting up a little orchestra; I shouldn't wonder a bit if they'd be glad to help--glad of the experience of playing in public." "We haven't got to make oceans of paper roses, this time," remarked Ethel Brown gratefully. "Nature is doing the work for us." She waved her hand at the clump of bushes which was to conceal Dorothy's fortune telling operations, and which was pink with blossoms. "Our bushes at home are loaded down with them, too," said Margaret. "Everybody's are, so I don't suppose it would be worth while to have a flower table." "There's no harm in trying. We could say on the poster that exceptionally choice roses will be on exhibition and sale and--and why couldn't we take orders for the bushes? Use the beauties for samples and if people like them, get roots from the bushes they came from and supply them the next day!" Ethel Blue was quite breathless with the force of this suggestion and the others applauded it. "Just as I think of Ethel Blue as all imagination and dreams she comes out with something practical like that and I have to study her all over again," said Roger, observing his cousin with his head on one side. Ethel Blue threw a leaf at him which he dodged with exaggerated fear. They decided to have the Rose Fête just as soon as the boys put the house into presentable condition, and then the girls separated, Ethel Brown and Dorothy to see Mr. Emerson about securing the boxes, Helen and Margaret to measure the windows for curtains, Delia and Ethel Blue to work out the design for converting ordinary Chinese lanterns into roses which they had thought of as lending a charm to the veranda and the lawn after the sun went down, and the boys to calculate the quantities of putty and paint and color-wash, based on information given Roger by the local painter and decorator, who was quite willing to help with advice when he found that there was no chance of his own services being called into play. CHAPTER V THE ROSE F�TE The United Service Club had made so good a name for itself in Rosemont during the few months of its existence that when Ethel Blue's posters brought to their doors the news that the U. S. C. was to give a Rose Fête at Rose House the townspeople were eager to know what attraction the members had devised. The schools were still in session so the Ethels and Dorothy at the graded school and Helen and Roger and the orchestra boys at the high school made themselves into an advertising band and told everybody all about the purpose of the festival. The scholars carried the information home, and there were few houses in Rosemont where it was not known that Mr. Emerson's old farmhouse was to be turned into a summer home for weary mothers and ailing babies. Helen and Margaret, after consulting with their mothers and Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Emerson, had decided that a cot or single bed and two cribs ought to go in each bedroom except Moya's, where one crib would be enough. This meant that five beds and nine cribs must be provided, and the number made the girls look serious as they calculated the probable proceeds of the Rose Fête and subtracted from them the amount that they would have to pay the local furniture dealer, even though he, being a public spirited and charitable man, offered them a discount. For a day or two they went about in a state of depression, for they had hoped to be able to supply the furnishings without making any appeal to the grownups. Thanks to Dorothy they could discount any expense for bureaus and desks and tables, but their ambition did not soar to constructing bedsteads; these had to be bought or given. It became evident after a number of householders had inquired how they could help, that there was a chance that the U. S. C. treasury might not be reduced after all by the purchase of beds. When one lady was informed by Helen of their schemes for filling the rooms--how the carpenters had provided them with a table that would do for the dining-room and how shelves innumerable were to do duty for innumerable purposes,--and she had added ruefully, "But we can't make very good beds, and we do want the women to sleep well, poor things. We've got to buy those--" she had cried, "Why, I have a cot in my attic that I should be _delighted_ to let you have, and my daughter's little boy has outgrown his crib and I'm sure she'll contribute that." A week before the Fête, however, they had been promised all the bedsteads they needed--though some lacked springs, some mattresses, and almost all were without pillows--four cribs, half a dozen chairs and two high chairs, and a collection of odd pieces. Helen refused nothing but double beds; there was not space enough for those in a bedroom with three people in it; it would seem to the women too much like the crowded tenements they came from, she thought. Miss Merriam objected also, on the ground that it was not well for babies to sleep with grown people. "What do you think of this plan?" Ethel Brown asked her mother after the girls had made a careful list of their gifts. "We did think that if we didn't have a stick in the house the people would be interested in helping us because of our poverty. We've found out that they are awfully interested even without seeing the house. Do you think it would be a good scheme to put into the rooms the things we have ready and to fasten on the door a notice saying 'THIS ROOM NEEDS' and under that a list of what is lacking? Don't you think some of them would say, 'I've got an extra cushion at home that would do for a pillow here; I'll send it over'; or 'Don't you remember that three legged chair that used to be in Joe's room? I believe these children can mend it and paint it to look well enough for this room'?" "Ethel Brown, you're running Ethel Blue hard in the line of ideas!" cried Roger admiringly from a position at the door which he had taken as he passed through the hall and heard discussion going on. "It's a capital idea," agreed Mrs. Morton. "You'd better ask Grandfather again for a wagon and go around and collect the things that have been promised. You don't want to bother people to send them over themselves." Every one worked with vigor during the last few days before the festival, for the renovating of old furniture takes more time than any one ever expects it to. The results were so satisfactory, however, that neither the boys nor the girls gave a thought to their tired hands and backs when evening brought them release from their labors. The great day was clear, and, for the last of June, cool. Every plan worked out well and every helper appeared at the moment he was wanted. The box seats and tables, superintended by Ethel Brown and served by half a dozen friends all wearing white dresses and pink aprons, bloomed rosily on the veranda. Under the large rose Delia and Ethel Blue, dressed in pink, sold fancy articles. Dorothy, sitting "under the rose" in the rose jungle, and dressed like a moss rose, with a filmy green tunic draping her pink frock, described brilliant futures to laughing inquirers. Margaret, dressed to represent the yellow Scottish roses, sold flowers from the Ethels' garden and took orders for rose bushes. The boys were everywhere, opening ice cream tubs for Moya in the background, guiding would-be players to the tennis court and the croquet ground, and directing new arrivals where to tie their horses and park their motors. Every member of the club was provided with a small notebook wherein to jot down any bit of advice that was offered and seemed profitable or to record any offer of fittings that might be made. Helen took no regular duty, leaving herself free to go over the house with any one who wanted to know the Club's plans, and she had more frequent need than any of the others to use her book. Ethel Brown's scheme had been followed. On the door of each room was posted a list of articles needed to complete the furnishing of that room. "They certainly aren't greedy!" exclaimed one matron after reading the notice. "This says that this room is complete except for bed clothing." She waved her hand around with some scorn. Helen dimpled with amusement. "We thought we'd make one room as nearly complete as we could," she explained. "You see this has a bed, two cribs, a looking-glass, and shelves as substitutes for a washstand and a closet and a table and a bureau. "There are no chairs, child!" "These two boxes are the chairs. We had a few chairs given us but they'll be needed down stairs. We think they'll have more exercise than any chairs ever had before. They'll be used in the dining-room for breakfast, and then they'll be moved to the veranda to spend the morning, and in they'll come again for dinner and out they'll go for the afternoon, and in for supper, and after supper they'll be moved into the hall which is to serve as the sitting room!" Helen's hearer pressed her hand to her head. "You make me positively dizzy!" she exclaimed. "At any rate I'd like to make this room complete according to your notions, so I'll send you some sheets and pillow cases and blankets and a spread if you'll allow me." "We'll be glad to have them," accepted Helen, beaming. "Roger will call for them if that will be more convenient for you," and she made a note of the gift and the time when it should be sent after. Other women remembered as they examined the door lists that they had a mattress that could be spared, or a pillow or two or a pair of summer blankets. "What are you going to do for ornaments," asked another. Helen laughed. "James Hancock has an idea for decorating the walls so that they'll interest the babies, and we're going to have fresh cheese-cloth curtains at all the windows, but that's the end of our possibilities." "I have several bureau scarves that are in good condition but they have been washed so many times that they're a little faded. If you'd like those--?" she ended with an upward inflection. "We would," replied Helen promptly. "Could you use some prints of pictures--good paintings?" inquired yet another, a person whose taste Helen knew could be trusted. "We'd be glad of them. We can frame them in passepartout. We'd be especially glad of madonnas." "That's just what I was going to offer you. A club I once belonged to studied celebrated paintings of madonnas one winter and I made this collection. Many of them are only penny prints and some are cut from magazines--". "They're perfectly good for us," Helen reassured her, and made another note in her book. Most of the visitors went home with the falling dark, but some stayed to see the rose lanterns lighted, and others, who had not been able to come in the afternoon, drove or walked out from town in the evening and were served with ice cream and strawberries from a supply that had been wonderfully well calculated. "Let us have just a week to spend this money and to make up the sheets and pillow cases and curtains and you can tell Mr. Watkins to send out the women," Helen announced triumphantly to Delia. "I'm going to spend the week with Margaret so I can come over with her every day and help," returned smiling Delia. "Then we shan't need a whole week. When you go home to-night please ask your father to be making his selection--four mothers with two children apiece. You and Tom can escort them out on the Tuesday after Fourth of July." CHAPTER VI FURNITURE MAKING It did not take the women long to adjust themselves to life at Rose House, and as for the children, they loved it from the first. It was a great international gathering that was sheltered on the old farm. Mrs. Schuler was German; Moya, Irish. Mrs. Peterson, a Swede, occupied the rooster room with her baby and her flaxen-haired daughter of three; Mrs. Paterno, an Italian, found good pasturage among the cows of the violet room for her black-eyed boys of two and four; Mrs. Tsanoff, a Bulgarian, told the Matron that her twin girl babies were too young to pay attention to the kittens on the curtains of the yellow room; while Mrs. Vereshchagin, a Russian, discovered that the puppies of the blue room were a great help to her in holding the attention of her boys of three and five when she was putting them to bed. Mrs. Schuler shook her head doubtfully when she took down their names and nationalities in her notebook on the day of their arrival. "If we get through the summer without quarrels over the war it will be a miracle!" she exclaimed to her husband. But she found that the poor creatures were too weary, too sad, too physically crushed to have spirit enough left to fight any battles, even those of words. With almost every one of them there had been a tragedy such as often comes to the immigrants who reach the United States equipped for success only with strong muscles--a tragedy of wasted hope and broken courage and failing vigor if not of death. Mrs. Paterno was the only one of them who could sympathize with Moya's widowhood; her husband had seen the Black Hand death sign a few months before, had disregarded it and had been stabbed in the back one night as he came home from his work. Conversation was not carried on fluently among them. They met on the common ground of English, but not one of them could speak it well, each one translated phrases of her own tongue quite literally, and the meaning of the whole talk was largely a matter of guesswork. What they did understand was nature's language of motherhood. They were content to sit for hours on the veranda or in the grove or behind the house, preparing vegetables for Moya, chattering about their babies and explaining their meaning by gestures that seemed to be perfectly understood. The women had daily duties to perform according to a schedule worked out by Mrs. Schuler, who apportioned to each a share of the general work of the house in addition to the care of her own room and the washing for herself and her children. With so many fingers flying the tasks were soon done, and then they sat on the porch or in the grove among the sweet-smelling pines, or walked in the pasture or up and down the lane leading to the main road. Once in a while they went to Rosemont, but for the most part they were too languid to care to walk far and too glad of the change and the rest and quiet to want to weary themselves unnecessarily. The boys had built a platform across the back of the house, and it was here that they did their carpentry, an awning sheltering them from the sun or rain. A cupboard at one end held their tools, and their partly finished articles were neatly stacked in a corner. As they got out their tools now James made a confession. "To tell you the honest, unvarnished truth, I'm tired of making chairs. It seems as if we'd never have enough." "It takes an awful lot to furnish a house," commented Roger wisely, "and you know we had very few given us so if we want enough we have to make them." "We've got all the chairs you've done upholstered all they're going to be," said Ethel Brown. "Why can't Ethel Blue and I each make a high chair?" "No reason at all," agreed Roger quickly. "You've watched James and me and seen our really superior workmanship; imitate it, my child!" The girls were already turning over the boys' supply of boxes to select those suitable for the chairs for the children. They took four that had held lemons or other fruit and were tall and narrow when stood on end. The boards they were made of were very light but quite solid enough to hold the weight of a small child. To make it firm upon the ground, however, they sawed a piece of heavy plank a little larger than the end upon which the box was to stand and nailed it on from the inside. When the high chair was done the boys complimented their co-workers on the success of their first experiment. "I hardly could have done it better myself," said Roger grandly. All the high chairs were covered with blue and white cretonne to match the blue and white of the dining room and the girls set to work to tack on the outside covering and to cut out the covers of the small cushions that were to make the seat and back comfortable. The cushions themselves they had made from ticking filled with excelsior when they had calculated the number of high chairs they must have. The boys, meanwhile were constructing two chairs of quite different build. One was a heavy chair for the hall or the veranda, its original condition being a packing box a foot and a half deep, about twenty inches wide and three or four feet long. This also was set on end, and the other end and the cover were laid aside to be used in making the seat and in shutting in the openings below the seat. "How are you going to fasten that seat so it won't let the sitter down on the floor?" inquired Ethel Blue, as James explained what he was going to do. "Do you see these cleats, ma'am? These are each a foot long. I nail one of these standing up straight at each edge of the sides and the back--six of them altogether. Then I lay three other cleats across their tops--thusly." "O, you've made a sort of framework that will support the seat! I get that!" exclaimed Ethel Blue. "All you have to do now is to nail your seat boards on to those horizontal cleats and it's as firm as firm can be." "Aren't you going to do something with those sides--those arms, or whatever you call them?" inquired Ethel Brown. "They seem sharp and uncomfortable and in the way to me." Both boys studied the chair seriously before answering. Then they took a pencil and paper and consulted. "I should think it would look pretty well to cut out a right angle on each aide," suggested James. "That would leave a sort of wing effect like a hall porter's chair, only not so high, and at the same time it would make an arm to rest your elbow on. How does that strike you ?" Roger nodded. "It hits me all right. I was thinking of a curve instead of a right angle, but the right angle will be easier to make. Go ahead." So the right angle was decided on and James proceeded to cut it. Roger, meanwhile, had been sorting out the wood he needed for a chair of another pattern. "I wish Dorothy would heave in sight," he growled as he piled some half inch thick strips in one heap. "She told me she'd tell me all she knew about chair legs when I reached this stage of proceedings." "She will," answered a cheerful voice, and gray-eyed Dorothy appeared from the house. "I felt in my bones that you'd be beginning this lot this afternoon, so I ambled over to see if I could help in any way." "Keep right on ambling till you reach this end of the platform and tell me whether you said that chair legs could be made of this stripping or whether I'll have to get solid pieces, square-ended, you know, joist or scantling or whatever it's called." "Strips will do, only you'll have to use two for each leg. Nail them together at right angles. It will make a two-sided leg, but it will be plenty strong enough, though perhaps not truly handsome." "If handsomeness means solidity--no. Still, they'll do. Can you give me the lengths for these strips?" and Roger waved his saw at his cousin as if he were so impatient to begin that he could not wait to study out the lengths for himself. "For the one I made for the attic," replied his cousin, "I cut four strips each two inches wide and twenty-one inches long for the front legs and four strips each two inches wide and twenty-five inches long for the back legs. Then there were two two-inch strips seventeen inches long to go under the seat to strengthen it front and back, and two two-inch strips each thirteen inches long to go under the seat and strengthen it on the sides. That's all the stock you need except the box." "I suppose you've got a particular box in mind to fit those sizes." "Those sizes fit the box, rather. Yes, I got a grocery box that was about eighteen inches long and thirteen wide and eleven deep. I saw one here just like it before I gave you those measurements, so you can go ahead sawing while I pull off one side of the box--the cover has gone already but we don't need it." Quiet reigned for a few minutes while they all worked briskly. "Now I'm ready to put this superb article together," announced Roger. "How high from the ground does the seat go?" "Nail your cleats across with their top edges fifteen inches from the ground and nail the bottom of the box on to the cleats. See how these two-sided legs protect the edges of the box as well as make it decent looking?" "So they do," admitted Roger. "They aren't so bad after all." "I think those sides are going to be too high," decided Dorothy after examining the chair carefully and sitting down in it. "Don't you think it pushes your elbows up too high?" Roger tried it and thought it did. "Suppose you saw those sides down about five inches." Roger obeyed and Dorothy tried the chair again and pronounced it much improved. "It's comfy enough now, but these arms don't look very well, and they'd be liable to tear your sleeves," she said. "Let's put on some strip covers. They'll give a finish to the whole thing, and hide the end of the two-sided legs and be smooth." "Plenty of reason for having them. How many inches?" "Twelve," answered Dorothy after measuring. "The top of the back needs a strip cover, too. Cut another nineteen inches long. There, _I_ think that's not such a bad looking chair!'" "Do you want cushions for those chairs?" inquired Ethel Brown, appearing at the door with a piece of cretonne in her hand. "We've got material enough for at least seat cushions for both of them." "They'll be lots more comfy," admitted James, "if the excelsior crop is still holding out." "It is. I'll make them right off, and Ethel Blue can help you out there." She retired from view and sent out her cousin, and until the sun set the two boys and Dorothy and Ethel measured and sawed and nailed, with results that satisfied them so well that they did not mind being tired. CHAPTER VII TROUBLE AT ROSE HOUSE "If it weren't that I could come out here and see you every day or so I should be wild to get back to work in Oklahoma." Edward Watkins was the speaker. He and Miss Merriam were walking through a wooded path that ran from Rosemont to Rose House. The day was warm and the shade of the trees was grateful. "How is your patient?" asked Gertrude. "Getting on very well, but the doctors won't let him travel yet." "Have you heard lately from your doctor in Oklahoma?" "I hear about every day! I was with him just long enough for him to find that I was useful and he's wild to have me there again. I wired him that I'm ready to go, but that the sick man is nervous about making the return trip alone. Of course he wants to keep on the good side of a good patient, so he answered, 'Stay on'." "Are you able to do anything for your patient? He's still in the hospital, isn't he?" "I go there every day and he sends me on errands all over town. I'm getting to know almost as much about oil as I do about medicine! But I'm rather tired of playing errand boy." "You have a chance to see your family." "And you. But I'm supposed to stay at the hotel, much to Mother's disgust. I'm doing a little medical inspection among Father's poor people, though. That whiles away a few hours every day, and of course, every time I go to the hospital the doctors there tell me about any interesting new cases, so I'm not 'going stale' entirely." "As if you could!" exclaimed Gertrude admiringly. "You're just storing up ideas and information to startle the Oklahoman natives with." "The 'natives' in Oklahoma are all too young to be startled," laughed Edward, "but of course I'm stowing away everything new I hear about methods of treatment and operations and so on to tell Dr. Billings when I get back. Now let me hear what you've been doing. How are these kiddies at Rose House?" "I want you to look them over and talk with the mothers. Dr. Hancock comes over when we send for him, but all these people are so delicate that I feel that they ought to have a physician's eye on them all the time." "They have you pretty often, don't they?" "I go over every day either in the morning or the afternoon, and I give them advice about the babies, and teach them and Moya how to prepare their food, but they do such strange things that you can't forestall because you never had the wildest idea that any woman in her senses would treat a baby so." Edward laughed. "Russian and Bulgarian peasant customs, I suppose. I never shall forget the first time I saw a two-day old negro baby sucking a bit of fat bacon. I nearly had a chill." "Didn't the child have a chill?" "Not the slightest! If they get ahead of you with some pleasing little trick like that you can console yourself with the thought that generally there is some basis of old-time experience that has shown it to be not so harmful as we are apt to think." "I've done enough tenement house work to know that the babies certainly survive extraordinary treatment, but these babies here are so delicate that they ought to have the most careful diet. Most of them need real nursing." "Do you think your talks are making any impressions on the mothers?" "Sometimes Mrs. Schuler and I think so, and just then it almost always happens that one of them does something totally unexpected that gives our hopes a terrible blow." "Let's trust that this is a good day; I'd rather talk to you than work over a case this fine afternoon." Gertrude smiled at his tone and they walked on in silence out of the wood and across the brook and down the lane that brought them to the back of Rose House where the Club boys and girls were busy making a piece of furniture of some sort. Mrs. Schuler was talking to Moya in the kitchen. "I've brought Dr. Watkins to see everybody," announced Miss Merriam gayly. "Where are they all?" "The ones who are at home are up in the pine grove, but Moya has just told me that Mrs. Paterno and her older boy and Mrs. Tsanoff and one of the twins have gone to town." "Walked?" "Walked by the road on this scorching day!" Miss Merriam turned to the doctor. "This is one of the unexpected events we were just talking about. Little Paterno is four and too large for that little woman to carry, and far too small and weak to take that long walk on his own legs even on a more suitable day than this, and the Tsanoff twins are just holding on to life by the tips of their fingers!" She sat down in despair. Dr. Watkins looked serious. "Is there any way of heading them off or bringing them back. Can we reach them anywhere by telephone?" "No one knows where they can have gone. It seems it must have been about an hour and a half ago that they started and I should think they'd be back before long if they're able to come back--" "--under their own steam!" finished the doctor with a doubtful smile. "Let's go to the grove and see the women and children there and perhaps the others will be in sight by the time you've finished your examination." They turned toward the pines whose thick needles cast a heavy shade upon the ground and gave forth a delicious fragrance under the rays of the sun. As they disappeared Mrs. Schuler went out on the platform where the carpentering operations were going on. "I'm so disturbed about those women," she said, "I've come to see what you're doing to divert my mind from them." "We're going to make two of these seats, one for your office and the other for the veranda," said Ethel Brown, standing erect and putting a hand upon her weary back. The rest of the young carpenters stopped their work and wiped their perspiring foreheads while they explained the construction of the piece of furniture to their friend. "This long narrow box is the seat, you see. It's a shoe case, and it's just the right height for comfort. Roger has put hinges on the cover, so you can use it for a chest and keep rugs and cushions inside." "That's about as simple as it could be. Does it take all of you to help Roger do that?" "O, that's only a part of the entire affair. We're making these two sets of shelves to go at the ends of the seat." "I see. A great light breaks on me!" "They're to be fastened to the ends of the seat." "Not for keeps. That's Ethel Blue's patent. She said it would be awkward to move about if it were all built together, so we're making it in three parts, and we're going to lock them together with hooks and screw eyes." "That is clever! Then if you want to you can use these sets of shelves for little bookcases in another room or you can fasten on one of them and not the other." "Ethel Blue and I thought we'd make pink cushions for your office if you'd like them." "I think they'd be charming. That pink room raises my spirits when--" "--when you get _blue_?" suggested Roger. "I'll have to go there now to get revived if those women who walked to town don't turn up soon," and the Matron went to the corner of the house whence she could see the lane that led from the road. "If they come home ill I'll have to ask you to make two bed trays," she suggested as she peered across the grass. "How do you make them?" "Ask Ethel Blue." "Merely put legs on a light board so that the weight of the plates will be lifted from the sick person's legs as he sits up in bed." "What's to prevent the plates sliding off?" "Nothing if he's much of a kicker, I should say," laughed Roger; "but you could put a little fence an inch or two high at the back and sides and keep them on board." "You'd better begin them right off," said Mrs. Schuler dryly, "for here they come." She disappeared around the corner and the young people followed to see what was the matter. Trouble there was in very truth. Mrs. Paterno led the way stumbling and running. Her face was flushed a deep, threatening crimson and her breath came fast. By the arm she held little Pietro, who from exhaustion had ceased to scream and merely gave a gulping moan when the gravel scraped his bare knees as his mother jerked him along regardless of whether he was on his feet or whether she dragged him. Behind them at some distance came Mrs. Tsanoff carrying her baby in her arms--one of the twins that always seemed to be merely "holding on to life by the tips of its fingers," to use Gertrude's expression, and now seemed to have lost even that frail hold. It lay in its mother's arms white and with its eyes closed. Mrs. Schuler ran to meet the Italian woman and lifted the worn child into her arms where he sank against her shoulder as if in a faint. "Run up in the grove and get Dr. Watkins and Miss Gertrude," Helen said to Roger. "Ask them quietly to come here. Don't frighten the women." Roger dashed away, his swift feet slowing to a walk as he neared the bit of woods where he delivered his message in an undertone. Ethel Blue meanwhile, had rushed into the house to tell Moya to heat plenty of water and to crack some ice, and Margaret had opened Mrs. Schuler's closet of simple remedies and found the bottle of aromatic spirits of ammonia. Ethel Brown and James ran to meet Mrs. Tsanoff, Ethel taking the baby from her and James steadying her shaking steps by a stout arm under her elbow. As Dr. Watkins ran around the corner of the house he came upon Helen trying to help Mrs. Paterno, who was pushing her away with both hands, while she kept looking over her shoulder and screaming hysterically. Edward seized her hands and commanded her attention at once by speaking to her in Italian. Although she did not know him she responded to his command to tell him of what she was afraid, and poured out a story of terror. "_Mano, nera, mano nera_--the Black Hand," she repeated over and over again, and Edward, who had heard her history, realized that something she had seen had set her mind in the old train of thought. While Miss Merriam attended to the children he calmed the woman and then turned her over to Mrs. Schuler with instructions to put her to bed in a darkened room and to see that some one stayed with her or just outside her door. Fortunately for the doctor his experience with the people among whom his father worked in his East Side chapel had given him a smattering of many languages and he was able to make out from Mrs. Tsanoff, although her fright and fatigue had made her forget almost all the English she knew, what had terrified her companion. They had gone to the stationery shop of the Englishman who also sold ice cream and soda, she said, and they had had each a glass of soda and the children had each had an ice cream cone. Edward groaned and over his shoulder directed Delia to run and tell Miss Merriam that both babies had had ice cream cones. "It will help her to know what to do until I come," he explained. Just as they were coming out of the store a dark man who looked like an Italian had passed them. So far as she noticed he had paid no attention to them, but Mrs. Paterno had seized her arm, pointing after him, and then had picked up Pietro and started to run toward home. Neither far nor fast could she go in such heat with such a burden and the poor little chap was soon tossed down and forced to run with giant strides all the rest of the eternal mile that stretched between Rosemont and Rose House. Mrs. Tsanoff herself had followed as fast as she could because she was afraid that something, she knew not what, would happen to her friend. She, too, was sent to bed, with Moya standing over her to lay cool compresses on her eyes, to sponge her wrists and ankles with cool water and to lay an occasional bit of cracked ice on her parched lips. The condition of the two children was pitiable. The heat, the sudden chill from the ice cream and the terrible homeward rush sent them both so nearly into a collapse that the doctor, Mrs. Schuler and Miss Merriam worked over them all night, resting only when Dr. Hancock, who had heard the story from James and Margaret and came up to see the state of affairs, relieved them for an hour. "How are we ever going to teach them the madness of such behavior?" Gertrude asked wearily as Dr. Watkins insisted that she and Mrs. Schuler should go to bed as the dawn broke. "The poor little Italian woman is almost mad already, thanks to this Black Hand business. It will take her a long time to recover her balance, but I think I can teach the others a lesson from this experience of their friends. Wait till to-morrow comes and hear me talk five languages at once," he promised cheerfully as he turned her over to Mrs. Schuler. CHAPTER VIII SOME ENTERTAINMENT The escapade of the Italian and Bulgarian women played havoc with the calm of Rose House for several days. The women themselves had narrow escapes from illness and the children were so seriously ill that a trained nurse had to be sent up from the Glen Point Hospital, as neither Miss Merriam nor Mrs. Schuler could undertake nursing in addition to their other work. When all was well again Miss Merriam redoubled her efforts to teach the women something of proper care of their children and themselves, and, with the help of Dr. Watkins's knowledge of languages, she began to hope that she was making some progress. Mrs. Tsanoff and Mrs. Peterson, who had little babies, were taught to modify milk for them, the dangers of giving small children foods unsuited to their age was talked about now with the recent experience to point the moral; and ways of keeping well in hot weather were explained and listened to with interest. Substitutes for meat were discussed earnestly, chiefly on account of the high cost of living but also because meat was declared to be far too heating for warm weather use. Each of the women knew of some dish which took the place of meat and she was glad to tell the others about it. Mrs. Paterno knew very well that cheese is one of the best substitutes for meat that there is. "Americans eat cheesa after meata; then sick," she declared with truth. Her receipt for a risotto Moya wrote down in the blank book in which she was collecting recipes and Mrs. Paterno beamed when it came onto the table. Chiefly for the purpose of giving the little Italian woman a change of thought, the U. S. C. made a point of providing Rose House with some sort of entertainment every few days. Once they introduced the inmates to an American hayride, and the four women, with Moya and the older children, screamed with delight as they found themselves moving slowly along on a real load of hay--for Grandfather Emerson declared that that was the only kind of hayride worth having. Again they all stowed themselves away in the automobile and went to a pond ten miles away for a day's picnic. That proved not to be a success, for everybody was so tired all the next day that there was a nearer approach to disagreement among them than ever happened before. Mrs. Schuler made up her mind that home--meaning Rose House--was the best place for them and that amusements must be found at home and not afield. CHAPTER IX A NEW KIND OF GRASS SEED "Your grand-father told me once about a field he had that was filled with daisies," said Ethel Blue. "It looked awfully pretty, but it spoiled the field for a pasture; the cows wouldn't touch them." "I remember that field. We used to make daisy chains and trim Mother's room with them," said Ethel Brown. "Mr. Emerson tried ploughing up the field and he had men working over it for two seasons, but on the third, up they grew again as gay as you please. They acted as if he had just been stirring up the soil so they would grow better than ever." "Poor Grandfather; he had a hard time with that field." "He said he really needed it for a pasture, so he made up his mind that if he couldn't root out the bad plants, he'd crowd them out. So he bought some seed of a kind of grass that has large, strong roots, and he sowed it in the field. As soon as it began to grow he could see that there certainly were not so many daisies there. He kept on another year and the cows began to look over the fence as if they'd like to get in. The third year there were so few daisies that they didn't count." "I remember all that," said Ethel Brown, "but what does it have to do with Mrs. Paterno?" "Why, if we--or Edward--could make her get a grip on herself and control herself that would be like Mr. Emerson's digging up the daisies. It would be hard work and an awfully slow process. But if we also could fill her mind with thoughts about working for her children and trying to make other people happy and with making embroidery which she loves to do, why wouldn't it help? These new things she's thinking about would be like the strong, new grass seed that didn't give the weeds a chance to grow." Dorothy stared seriously at Ethel Blue. "She does perfectly beautiful embroidery," she said slowly, as she tried to think out a way to put Ethel Blue's suggestion into effect. "Do you suppose she'd be willing to teach us how to do it? That beautiful Italian cut work, you know. If we should call ourselves a class and ask her to teach us it might give her something quite new to think about." "I'd like to learn, too," agreed Ethel Blue. "I heard Mother say once that there was a school in New York for Italian lace work. Let's get Delia to find out about it, and when Mrs. Paterno grows stronger and goes back to the city she might go there. They have a shop uptown where they sell the pupils' work. The class here and the prospect of having regular employment when she went back--" "Work she likes." "What are you youngsters plotting?" asked the cheerful voice of Grandfather Emerson, who came around the big oak from the grass grown lane so quietly that they did not hear him coming. They told him their plan, and he listened intently. "The poor little woman has had such a shock that it will be a long time before she can control herself, I'm afraid," he responded sympathetically, "but I believe you've hit on the right way." "Then we'll get Edward Watkins to ask her whether she'll be willing to teach a class, and we'll all join it." "The other women might like to learn, too." "Perhaps they could teach. Bulgarian embroidery has been fashionable lately, you know, and the peasant women do it." "Your grandmother and I went through a Peasant's Bazar when we were in Petrograd and there were mounds of embroidery there that the peasant women had made." "The Swedes do beautiful work. Why don't we have a class for international embroidery?" laughed Dorothy. "I think Mother would like to learn the Russian; she's crazy about Russian music and everything Russian." "We'll ask Mother and Grandmother, too, and perhaps the Miss Clarks would come and the women could charge a fee and make a little money teaching us and be amused themselves." "I dare say it will do the others good as well as the little Italian. You've hit on something that will benefit all of them while you were trying to help Mrs. Paterno," surmised Mr. Emerson. "What I came over here this morning to see you about was this," he went on in a business-like tone that made them look at him attentively. "Grandmother and I think that Mrs. Paterno has been a trifle too exciting for you young people the last few days. We think you need a change of thought as well as that young woman herself." They all sat and waited for what was coming, quite unable to guess what proposition he was going to make. "Helen and Roger are somewhat older and stand such upheavals a little better than you girls, so my plan doesn't include them." "Just us three?" asked Ethel Brown. "Just you three. Here's my scheme; see if you like it. I have to go over to Boston to-morrow on a matter of business and it occurred to me that it would be a pleasant sail on the Sound and that you'd be interested in seeing the city--" "O--o!" gasped Dorothy; "Cambridge and Longfellow's house." "Concord and Lexington!" cried Ethel Brown. "The Art Museum!" murmured Ethel Blue. "And Bunker Hill Monument, and, of course, the Navy Yard especially for this daughter of a sailor," and he nodded gayly at his granddaughter. "Grandmother will go, to take you around when I have to attend to my business, and we can stay a day or two and come back fresh to attend to Mrs. Paterno's affairs. How does it strike you?" Without any preliminary conference, the three girls flung their arms around his neck and hugged him heartily. "Have you talked about it with Mother and Aunt Louise?" asked Ethel Brown. "I'm armed with their permission." "I guess we were all worrying about Mrs. Paterno," admitted Ethel Blue. "This will be the strong grass seed that will clear up our minds so that we can help her better after we come back." "I think you're the most magnificent Grandfather that ever was born!" exclaimed Ethel Brown, standing back and gazing admiringly at her ancestor. "Thank you," returned Mr. Emerson, bowing low, his hand on his heart, "I am quite overcome by such a wholesale tribute!" "Had we better tell Mrs. Schuler about the embroidery class plan?" asked Dorothy. "Run up to Rose House now and explain it to her and ask her to talk to the women about it while you are gone, and then when you get back she'll have it all ready to start," Mr. Emerson suggested. The next twenty-four hours were full of excitement. Each of the girls had only a small handbag to pack, but the selection of what should go into each bag seemed a matter of infinite importance. The Ethels filled their bags twice before they were satisfied that they had not left out anything that would be wanted, and Dorothy confessed that she had first put in too much and then had gone to the other extreme, and that it had not been until after she had had a consultation with her mother that she had decided on just the number and kind of garments that she would need for a two-day trip to the Hub of the Universe. "Why is it called that?" she asked of Ethel Brown. "I asked Mother and she said that people from New York and other cities used to say that Bostonians thought that their town was the centre of civilization. So they guyed it by calling it the 'Hub'." Roger and Helen went into New York with the travellers and Delia and Margaret were on the pier to see the steamer leave. It was a glorious afternoon and the boat slipped around the end of the Battery while the westering sun was still shining brilliantly on the water, touching it with sparkles on the tip of each tiny wave. The Statue of Liberty, with the sun behind it, towered darkly against the gold. The huge buildings of the lower city stretched skywards, the new Equitable, the latest addition to the mammoth group, shutting off almost entirely the view of the Singer Tower from the harbor, just as the Woolworth Tower hides it from observers on the north. Between them Grandfather and Grandmother Emerson were able to point out nearly all of the sights of the East River--several parks and playgrounds, Bellevue Hospital, the Vanderbilt model tenements for people threatened with tuberculosis, the Junior League Hotel for self-supporting women, the old dwelling where Dorothy's friend, the "box furniture lady," had established a school to teach the folk of the neighborhood how to use tools for the advantage of their house-furnishings. The boat was one of those which steams around Cape Cod instead of stopping at Fall River, Rhode Island, and sending its passengers to Boston by train. Early morning found them all on deck watching the waters of Massachusetts Bay and trying to place on a map that Mr. Emerson produced from his pocket the towns whose church spires they could see pointing skyward far off on their left. Twin lighthouses they decided, marked Gurnet Point, the entrance to Plymouth Bay, and they strained their eyes to see the town that was the oldest settlement in Massachusetts, and imagined they were watching the bulky little Mayflower making her way landward between the headlands. Mr. Emerson convoyed his party to a hotel on Copley Square and left them there while he went out at once to meet his business friends. "How far away Rosemont seems, and poor Mrs. Paterno with her troubles," she said an hour later as they stood before Sargent's panel of the Prophets in the Public Library. CHAPTER X TROLLEYING As for the Art Museum, they wandered delightedly from one room to another, but went away with a sensation of having seen too much that was almost as uncomfortable as that of having eaten too much. "I should like to come here or to go to the Metropolitan in New York with some one who could tell me about every picture or every object in just one room and stay there for an hour and then go away and think about it," said Ethel Blue. "We will do that some day at the Metropolitan," said Mrs. Emerson. "If the Club would like to go in a body some day we can get one of the guides who do just what you describe. We can tell her the sort of thing we want to see--classical statuary or English artists or the Morgan collection--and have it all shown to us from the standpoint of the expert critic. Or we can put ourselves in the hands of the guide and say that we'd like to see the ten exhibits that the Museum looks upon as the choicest." "Either way would be wonderful!" beamed Ethel Blue, and the three girls promised themselves the delight of reporting Mrs. Emerson's offer to the Club at its next meeting. The homeward trip was made by a route quite different from the one by which the party reached Boston. Grandfather proposed it at breakfast on the morning of the day on which they had intended to leave in the afternoon. "Are you people very keen on this drive through the Park System to-day?" he asked. The girls did not know what to say, but Mrs. Emerson scented a new idea and replied "not if you have something to suggest that we'd like better." "How would you like to trolley back to New York?" "Trolley back to New York!" repeated the girls with little screeches of joy. "All the way by trolley? How long will it take? I never heard of anything so delightful in all my life!" After such a quick and satisfactory response Mr. Emerson did not need to lay his plan before them in any further detail. "I see you're 'game,' as Roger would say, for anything, so we'll go that way if Mother agrees." Mrs. Emerson did agree and even went so far as to say that she had wanted to do that very thing for a long time. "It's lucky Grandfather insisted that we shouldn't bring anything but small handbags," said Ethel Brown. "These little things we have won't be any trouble at all, no matter how many times we have to change." They started in heavy inter-urban cars which rode as solidly as railroad cars and enabled them to be but very little tired at the end of the first "leg" of the journey. The wide windows permitted views of the country and the girls ran from one side to the other of the closed cars, so that they should not miss anything of interest, and sat on the front seat of the open cars into which they changed later, so that they might have no one in front of them to obstruct their view. They went out of the city straight westward through Brookline, through Chestnut Hill, where is one of the reservoirs from which the city is supplied; past Wellesley, where they saw the college buildings rising among the trees on the left. The party reached Springfield at dusk and had time to take a walk after dinner. They admired the elm-bordered streets and the comfortable houses, and they thought the Arsenal looked extremely peaceful outside in spite of its murderous activities within. It was a deep sleep that visited them all that night. A whole day in the open air with the gentle but continuous exercise provided by the car made them unconscious of their surroundings almost as soon as they touched their pillows. CHAPTER XI THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY With a long and varied day ahead of them they were delighted to find the morning clear when they awoke. "There are almost as many points of interest in the Connecticut River Valley as there are on the Concord and Lexington road," Mr. Emerson told the girls. "We're going first to Holyoke, which is one of the largest paper manufacturing towns in the world. I have a little business to do there and while I am seeing my man you people can take a little walk. Be sure you notice the big dam. It's a thousand feet long. The Holyoke water power is very unusual." Perhaps because they were not experts on water power they were not greatly impressed by the floods of the Connecticut River diverted into deep canals and swimming along so smoothly as to impart but little idea of their strength. Only the whir of the great mills gave evidence that iron and steel were being moved by it. "How Roger would enjoy this!" cried Ethel Brown, and "Wouldn't Helen be just crazy over all the history of this region?" added Ethel Blue, while Dorothy, who had travelled much but never without her mother, silently wished that she were there to enjoy it all. "There's another girl's college of note," and Mrs. Emerson pointed out Mt. Holyoke at South Hadley, northeast of Mt Tom. "And we're going to see Smith College to-day! I feel as if I wanted to go to all of them!" cried Ethel Blue. "You might take a year at each and find out which was best suited to your temperament," laughed Mrs. Emerson. From the foot of the mountain they went northward again to Northampton. "Here's where I ought to go if names count for anything," decided Dorothy. "If all the girls named Smith who go to college anywhere should go here because of the name there wouldn't be room for any other students," said Mr. Emerson jokingly. "They say," returned Dorothy on the defensive, "that in the beginning all the people in the world were named Smith and it was only those who misbehaved who had their names changed." "You can at least pride yourself on their being an industrious lot. Think of all their crafts--they were armorers and goldsmiths, and silversmiths and blacksmiths." CHAPTER XII THE BERKSHIRES AND BENNINGTON Greenfield, where the party spent the night, they found to be a pleasant old town with the wide, tree-bordered streets to which they were growing accustomed in this trolleying pilgrimage. A quiet hotel sheltered them and they slept soundly, their dreams filled with memories of colleges and rose gardens and Indians in romantic confusion. The next day they started westward. Pittsfield they found to be a large town whose old houses surrounded by ancient trees gave a feeling of solidity and comfort. "Longfellow wrote 'The Old Clock on the Stairs' here," said Mr. Emerson pointing out the Appleton house. "The first stanza describes more than one of the old mansions," and he recited:-- "Somewhat back from the village street Stands the old-fashioned country seat. Across its antique portico Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw, And from its station in the hall An ancient timepiece says to all,-- 'Forever--never! Never--forever!'" "I remember that poem, but I never liked it much;" acknowledged Dorothy; "it's too gloomy." "It is rather solemn," admitted Mr. Emerson. "You'll be interested to know that merry Dr. Holmes used to come to Pittsfield in the summer. There are many associations with him in the town." "I'm sure he wrote gayer poems than 'The Old Clock on the Stairs' when he was here." "Is this a very old town?" Ethel Blue asked. "It was settled in 1743. Does that seem old to you?" [Illustration: "It was settled in 1743"] "1743," Ethel repeated, doing some subtraction by the aid of her fingers, for arithmetic was not her strong point. "A hundred and eighty-seven years," she decided after reflection. "Yes, that seems pretty old to me. It's a lot older than Rosemont but over a hundred years younger than Plymouth or Boston." "A sort of middle age," Mr. Emerson summed up her decision with a smile. After luncheon at the hotel an early afternoon car sped on with them to a station whence they took an automobile for a drive through Stockbridge and Lenox with their handsome estates and lovely views. The trolley whizzed them back over the same route to North Adams and westward to Williamstown. "One of my brothers--your great-uncle James, Ethel Brown--went to Williams College," said Mr. Emerson, "and I shall be glad to spend the night here and see the town and the buildings I heard him talk so much about." "Why don't we get out, then?" "We're going now to Bennington, Vermont." "Vermont! Into another state!" exclaimed Ethel Blue. "When we come back we'll leave the car here." "Are those the Green Mountains?" asked Dorothy as the trolley ran into a smoother country than they had been in while traveling in the Berkshires, but one which showed a background of long wooded ranges rising length after length against the sky. "Those are the Green Mountains; and this is the 'Green Mountain State,' and the men who fought in the Revolution under Ethan Allen were the 'Green Mountain Boys'." "But, ranged in serried order, attent on sterner noise, Stood stalwart Ethan Allen and his 'Green Mountain Boys' Two hundred patriots listening as with the ears of one, To the echo of the muskets that blazed at Lexington!" quoted Mrs. Emerson. "They were bound northward to the British fort at Ticonderoga." "Did they get there?" "They took the British completely by surprise. That was in May, 1775. It was in August, two years later that the battle of Bennington took place." "We'd better agree to have dinner or supper here if we don't want to get back to Williamstown after all the food in the place has been eaten by those hungry college boys," suggested Mrs. Emerson. Mr. Emerson took a hasty glance at the setting sun. "You never spoke a truer word, my dear," applauded her husband, "though this is vacation and the boys won't be there! Still, I'm as hungry as a bear. Let's have our evening meal, whatever it proves to be, in Bennington." They were all hungry enough to think the plan one of the best that their leader had offered for some time, so it was only after what turned out to be supper that they went back to Williamstown. In the moonlight the towers of the college buildings glimmered mysteriously through the trees, and the girls went to bed happy in the promise of what the morning was going to bring them. Ethel Brown was sorry that there were no students to be seen on the grounds when they wandered about the next morning, for she would have liked to see what sort of boys they were, and, if she liked their looks, have suggested to Tom or James that they come here to college amid such lovely surroundings. She liked it better than Amherst but Ethel Blue preferred that compact little village, and Dorothy clung to her deep-seated affection for Cambridge. "After all, our Club boys have their plans all made so we don't need to get excited over these colleges," decided Ethel Brown; "and I'm glad they're all going to different ones because when they graduate we'll have invitations to three separate class-days and other festivities." "What a perfectly beautiful tower," exclaimed Dorothy. "It's the chapel. That light-colored stone is superb, isn't it!" "Some of these other buildings look as old as some of the oldy-old Harvard ones." "They can't be anywhere near as old. This college wasn't founded until 1793." "That's old enough to give it a settled-down air in spite of these handsome new affairs. There must be lovely walks about here." "Hills almost as big as mountains to climb. But the boys don't have any girls to call on the way the Amherst boys do, with the Smith girls and the Mt. Holyoke girls just a little ride away." "Perhaps they'd rather have mountains," remarked Ethel Brown wisely. As the college was not in session Mr. Emerson was not able to see any of the records that he had hoped to look over to search for his brother's name, and as almost all of the professors were out of town, he could not question any of the older men of the place as to their recollection of him. He was quite willing, therefore, to take a comparatively early train for Albany. They arrived early enough to go over the Capitol, seated at the head of a broad but precipitous street. It was very unlike the stern simplicity of the Massachusetts State House, but they amused themselves by saying that at least the two buildings had one part of their decoration in common. In Albany the tops of the columns were carved with fruits and flowers, all to be found in the United States. In Boston a local product, the codfish, held a position of honor over the desk of the Speaker of the House of Representatives. "All made in the U. S. A.," laughed Dorothy, quoting a slogan of the wartime, intended to help home industries. They wanted to see the Cathedral and St. Agnes' School as well as the State Board of Education Building, and after they had hunted them out with the help of a map of the city, and had taken a trolley ride into the suburbs, and had eaten a hearty dinner they were glad to go to bed early so as to be up in time to catch the Day Boat for New York. "What splendid weather we've had," exclaimed Mrs. Emerson as they took their places on the broad deck of the handsome craft. It was not the same one that had taken them to West Point at the end of May. This one was named after Hendrik Hudson, the explorer of the river. They found it to be quite as comfortable as the other, and the day went fast as they swept down the stream with the current to aid them. Occasionally broad reaches of the river grew narrower and wider again as the soil had proven soft or more resistant and the water had spread or had cut out a deep channel. Off to the west the Catskills loomed against the sky, more varied than the Green Mountains and more rugged. "More beautiful, too, I think," decided Ethel Blue. "I like their roughness." A storm came up as they passed the mountains and the thunder rumbled unendingly among the hills. "Listen to the Dutchmen that Rip Van Winkle saw playing bowls when he visited them during his twenty years' nap," laughed Ethel Brown who was a reader of Washington Irving's "Sketch Book." "I don't wonder he felt dozy in summer with such a lovely scene to quiet him," Mrs. Emerson said in his defence. "I feel a trifle sleepy myself," and she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes with an appearance of extreme comfort. They passed Kingston which was burned by the British just two months after the battle of Bennington; and by a large town which proved to be Poughkeepsie. "Here's where we should land if we were going to finish our investigation of colleges by seeing Vassar," said Mr. Emerson. "I'm glad we aren't going to get off!" exclaimed Ethel Brown. "I'm so undecided now I don't see how I'll ever make up my mind where to go!" "Something will happen to help you decide," consoled Dorothy. "Isn't this where the big college boat races are rowed?" she asked Mr. Emerson. "Right here on this broad stretch of water. A train of observation cars--flat cars--follows the boats along the bank. I must bring the Club up here to some of them some time." "O-oh!" all the girls cried with one voice, and they stared at the river and the shore as if they might even then see the shells dashing down the stream and the shouting crowds in the steamers and on the banks. Below Newburgh the river narrowed beneath upstanding cliffs and a point jutted out into the water. "Do you recognize that piece of land?" Mr. Emerson asked. No one did. "You don't recall West Point?" "We're in the position now of the steamers and tugs we watched while we were having our dinner at the hotel. Do you see the veranda of the hotel? Up on the headland?" They did, and they felt that they were in truth nearing home. The remainder of the way was over familiar waters, and they called to mind the historic tales that Roger and Mr. Emerson had told them on the Memorial Day trip. "We've seen so much history in the last week, though," declared Ethel Blue, "that I don't believe I can ever realize that I'm living in the twentieth century!" CHAPTER XIII HUNTING ARROW HEADS The week after the home-coming from the Massachusetts trolley trip was a time of busyness for the Ethels and Dorothy. Helen and Roger and the grown-ups who had stayed at home had to be made familiar with every step of the way, and the whole long history lesson that they had had was reviewed especially for Helen's benefit. She looked up battle after battle in large histories in the library and was so full of questions as to how this place and that looked that the girls regretted that they had not taken a kodak so that they might have gratified her curiosity by showing her pictures of all the historical spots in their modern garb. Affairs at Rose House had to be brought up to date. Mr. Emerson undertook the management of Mrs. Tsanoff's affairs and went into town the very day after his return to call on Mr. Watkins and find out where Tsanoff was working. He found that he had been discharged from his position but a few days before. He had become so downcast as a consequence that he had not sent word to his wife of this fresh disappointment, and he was unspeakably grateful to Mr. Emerson for the chance that he opened to him. A kodak of his dark, sensible face was easily obtained to send to Massachusetts and Mr. Emerson went home feeling that the first step had been well taken. Making Mrs. Tsanoff understand the new proposition was not easy, but Mrs. Schuler and Moya had learned something of her language as she had learned more English during the summer and, when Mr. Emerson showed her a photograph of the Deerfield farm and told her of its advantages for her husband and the children she was eager to go to it at once. "The fields, the cows," she kept saying over and over again, and the girls realized how strong within her was her love for the country for which she had made the poor exchange of the city, and they sympathized keenly. The result of the correspondence between Mr. Emerson and the Deerfield people was that the Bulgarians were put on the train for Springfield within ten days, each one of them, even the twin babies, wearing a small American flag so that they might be recognized by their new employer who was to meet them at Springfield and convoy them home. Mrs. Tsanoff left Rose House in tears, kissing the hands of all the girls and murmuring her gratitude to all of them over and over again as she wept and smiled by turns. The other women had started the embroidery class, teaching each other and Mrs. Morton, Mrs. Smith and the Miss Clarks. The plan was working out very well, Mrs. Schuler thought, especially with Mrs. Paterno, who evidently loved the work and in it was already losing something of her fear and anxiety. Roger had made a sideboard for the Rose House dining room assisted by the members of the Club who were "not off gallivanting," as he expressed it. "It's mighty good looking," commented Dorothy as she examined it. "Was it hard to make? It looks so." "No worse than that seat we made for Mrs. Schuler's room. We made two cupboard arrangements for the ends just like those, only we put a door over each one of them. Instead of a big box between them to be used as a seat we put a shelf resting on the cleats that went across the backs of the bookshelves. Then we connected the two cupboards with a long plank." "You put a back behind the shelf." "We put on thin boards for a back, but we haven't decided yet whether we made a mistake in putting doors in front or not. I like them with doors the way we have it, but Margaret thinks it would have been rather good without any doors. What do you think?" "I think Mrs. Schuler will like it better with doors. The linen or whatever she keeps in there will be cleaner if it isn't exposed to the air on open shelves and the doors will serve as a protection against dust." They all agreed that it was one of the best pieces of furniture that they had yet made for the house, and the travellers were sorry that they had not had a hand in its construction on account of the experience the progress of the work would have afforded them. A few days later the Ethels planned an excursion for the benefit of the younger children which was to be somewhat in the nature of a picnic, but it was arranged to have everyone attend who could do so. There was intense excitement among the smaller children when the announcement was made that the picnic would be held early the following week, providing the weather proved clear enough not to interfere with their plans. Dicky's share in the excitement of the journey was the stirring up of a deep interest in Indians. When the Ethels told him that they were going over to the field that Grandfather Emerson was having cleared he insisted on going with them to hunt for arrow heads. They waited until a day after a rain had left the small stones washed free of earth, and they made an afternoon of it, all the Club and all the Rose House women and children going too. The boys carried hampers with the wherewithal for afternoon tea, and the expedition assumed serious proportions in the minds of those arranging it when Dicky asked if they would need one of Grandfather's wagons to bring home the arrow heads in. As a matter of fact they did not find many arrow heads. Whether the earth had not yet been turned over to a sufficient depth or whether the Indians who had lived about Rosemont had been of a peaceful temper or whether the field happened not to be near any of their villages, no one knew, though every one made one guess or another. They planned the search methodically. "I saw a lot of Boy Scouts one day clear up the field in Central Park in which they had been drilling," said Tom Watkins. "They stretched in a long line across the whole field and then they walked slowly along looking for anything that might have been dropped in the course of their evolutions." "Did they find much?" "You'd be surprised to know how much!" "Let's do the same thing here. If we stretch across the field then every one is responsible for just a small section under his eyes--" "--and feet." "--and feet. I wish we had an arrow head to show the women so they'd know exactly what to look for." "Father had one in the cabinet," said Roger, "and I put it in my pocket for just this purpose. I don't know where he got it, and it may not be of exactly the kind of stone these New Jersey Indians used, but it will show the shape all right." "They always used flint, didn't they?" asked Margaret. "Flint or obsidian or the hardest stone they could find, whatever it was." "Bone?" "Sometimes. I saw quite large bone heads at the Natural History Museum." "I've seen life-size boneheads frequently," announced James solemnly, not smiling until Roger and Tom pelted him with bits of sod. The arrow head was passed from hand to hand and every one studied it carefully. Then they stretched across the field and began their search. The result was not very satisfactory from Dicky's point of view, for he concluded that he need not have worried as to how the load was to be carried home. There were only seven found. Of these, however, Dicky found two, one by his unaided efforts and the other through Ethel Blue's taking pains not to see one that lay between him and her. Nobody else found more than one and several of them found none at all, so Dicky, after all, was hilarious. In a corner of the field they built a fire and heated water for the tea in a kettle thrust among the coals. Ears of corn still in the husk were roasted between heated stones, bits of bacon sizzled appetizingly from forked sticks and dripped on to the flames with a hissing sound, and biscuits, fresh from Moya's oven, were reheated near the blaze. It was while they were sitting around the fire that Dicky's mind turned to the remainder of the Indian's equipment. "What did he do with thith arrowhead?" he inquired. "He tied it on to the end of an arrow, and shot bears with it." "What'th an arrow?" "A long, slender stick." "Do you throw it?" "You shoot it from a bow." "What'th a bow?" "A curved piece of wood with a string connecting the ends." "How doeth it work?" Roger heaved a sigh and then gave it up.. "Me for the bushes," he cried. "Language fails me; I'll have to make a bow and arrow." "It's the easiest way," nodded Tom. "Bring me a switch and I'll make the arrow while you make the bow." "Who's got a piece of string?" inquired Roger a few minutes later as he held up his handiwork for the admiration of his friends, James produced the necessary string and Roger strung the bow. "Now, then, let's see what it will do," he said. Adjusting the arrow he drew the cord and sent the simple shaft whizzing through the air against a tree where it stuck in the bark for an instant before it fell to the ground. "Do you think it's safe for Dicky to have an arrow as sharp as that?" inquired Helen. "That's not sharp enough to do any damage. It didn't hold in the tree." Dicky was delighted with his new toy and went off to test its power, followed by Elisabeth of Belgium, Sheila, Luigi and Pietro Paterno, Olga Peterson and Vasili and Vladimir Vereshchagin. The romper-clad band stirred the amused smiles of the elders watching them. "They certainly are the cunningest little dinks that ever happened!" cried Ethel Brown, establishing herself comfortably to help make small bows and arrows for the rest of the flock. The girls as well as the boys of the United Service Club knew how to use a jacknife and the diminutive weapons of the chase were soon ready. The Ethels were hunting through the luncheon basket for string when a howl from the other side of the field made them drop what was in their hands and rush toward the trees where the children were playing. The mothers followed them, Mrs. Paterno and Mrs. Vereshchagin in the lead. "I certainly hope it's not the little Paterno," said Ethel Blue breathlessly to Ethel Brown as they ran. "Mrs. Paterno never will forgive Dicky if he's got him into trouble again." They concluded when they came in sight of the group of children that the Italian woman had run from nervousness and the Russian because she recognized the voice of her offspring, for it was Vladimir whose yells were resounding through the air. Dicky was bending over him and the other children were standing around so that the runners as they approached could not see what was the matter. Mrs. Vereshchagin increased her speed, uttering sounds that fell strangely on her listeners' ears. The group of children fell away as their elders came near, and the Ethels, who were in front, saw that Vladimir was pinned to a tree by Dicky's arrow which had pierced the fullness of his rompers. He could not be hurt in the least, but the strangeness of his position had startled and angered him and was causing the shrieks that had frightened them all. Fortunately for Dicky, Mrs. Vereshchagin, unlike Mrs. Paterno, had a sense of humor, and as soon as she saw that her child was neither injured nor in danger she burst into laughter as loud as his cries of rage and terror. Roger quickly unfastened him from the tree to which he was bound and handed him over to his mother, none the worse for his experience except that his rompers were torn. Turning to Dicky, Roger decreed that the head must be taken from his arrow. "It's not your fault, old man," he said; "but Helen was right--this thing is too sharp." "I'll tell you what to do, Roger, get some of those rubber tips that slip on the ends of lead pencils. The English stationer must have some. If you put them on all these arrows they can't do any harm." "Meanwhile the kiddies had better not have them," Mrs. Schuler decided, so they were put aside with the basket, to be finished later when the needed tips should be procured in Rosemont. "You got off pretty well, that time, sir," laughed Roger. "What were you trying to do?" "I wath an Indian thooting bearth. Vladimir wath a bear." "A Russian bear. You got him all right; but let me tell you, young man; you must be mighty careful what you aim at, for international complications may follow." "What'th that?" "That means it's dangerous to aim at _anybody_. I'll make you a target and when you get so you can hit the bull's eye three times out of five at a distance of fifteen feet I'll give you a better bow. Is it a bargain?" Dicky shook hands on it solemnly. "Remember now, no shooting at any living thing." "Not a cat?" "Not a cat or a bird, a dog or any other animal on two legs or four." "All right," nodded Dicky, and Roger knew that he would keep his word, for that is a part of the training of a soldier's son. The experiences of the afternoon were not yet ended. The arrow episode over the children looked about for other amusement. They drifted away from the group still gathered about the embers of the dying fire and made their way among the bushes standing uncut on the edge of the new clearing. Once in a while their laughter was borne on the breeze. It was a long time before any one thought of seeing what they were doing. Then Ethel Brown rose and sauntered in the direction whence the sounds came. "With Dicky in the lead," she thought, "it's just as well to keep an eye on them." As she approached the woods she saw the little army of rompered youngsters, each armed with a switch, and each doing his best to strike something high over his head. They all stood with their eager faces looking upward and their arms working busily with what muscle the summer had given them. Leaves were falling from the bushes and the lower branches of the saplings that were struck by their rods, and it was evident that they were causing great destruction to the foliage, whatever the real object of their attack. Ethel's wonderment increased. "Children do get the greatest amount of fun out of the smallest things," she thought. "What can they be doing?" When quite near the thicket, however, her slow steps quickened into a run. Her sharp eyes discovered hanging from one of the trees over the heads of the children one of the large wasps' nests which seem to be made of gray paper. It had caught Dicky's attention and he had coveted it for purpose of investigation. Summoning his cohorts he had pointed it out to them and had urged them to bring it down. Each one had broken a stick; some had stripped off the leaves entirely; others had left a tuft at the end. In both cases the weapons looked dangerously destructive to Ethel, as she ran toward them and saw one pole after another swish past the home of the paper wasps and expected the colony to rush forth to defend their abode. With a cry of warning she bore down on them and with a sweep of her arms turned them all back into the open field. Dicky was indignant. "What you doing that for?" he demanded angrily. "One more thwat and I'd a had it." "You don't know what it is," cried Ethel breathlessly. "You'd all be stung if there were any wasps at home. That's their house and they get awfully mad." The children looked back fearfully at the object of their attack. "You've had a narrow escape," insisted Ethel, and then to divert their minds from what had happened she made them stretch themselves in a line and hunt for arrow heads all the way back to their mothers. "Thith ith a funny thtone," exclaimed Dicky, picking up a rather large oblong stone that had a groove all around its middle. "It looks like Lake Chautauqua. doesn't it? You know they say that 'Chautauqua' means 'the bag tied in the middle'." "Did the Indianth uthe it?" Dicky asked as he laid his trophy in Roger's hand. "I rather think they did," returned Roger excitedly. "It looks to me as if this was a hammer or a hatchet. See--" and he held it out for the girls and James and Tom to see, "they must have lashed this head on to a stout stick by a cord tied where this crease is." "It would make a first-rate hammer," commended James. "The Indians didn't manufacture as many of these as they did arrow heads, because, of course, they didn't need as many. I rather guess you've made the big find of the afternoon," and Dicky swelled with pride as his brother patted him on the shoulder. When it became time to go home the Ethels offered to take the short cut to Rosemont and get the rubber tips for the children's arrows. "If we go across the field and the West Woods we come out not far from the stationer's, and we can leave the tips up at Rose House on the way back so they'll be ready for you to put on to-morrow and the youngsters can have the bows and arrows to play with right off." "Let me go," begged Dicky. "All right," agreed Roger. "Be careful when you go over the railroad track, girls. Mother isn't very keen on having Dicky learn that road, you know." They promised to be careful and set forth in the opposite direction from the rest of the party whom they left putting together the remnants of the feast and packing away the plates. It was an interesting walk. They played Indian all the way. Ethel Blue's imagination had been greatly stimulated by the tale of the attack on Deerfield and she pretended to see an Indian behind every tree. Ethel Brown pretended to shoot them all with unerring arrow, and Dicky charged the bushes in handsome style and routed the enemy with awful slaughter. "This is just the kind of game we ought not to play if we want to make Dicky think of peace and not of war," declared Ethel Blue at last when she had become breathless from the excitement of their countless adventures. "That's so. It's funny how you forget. It's just as Delia says--we don't realize how fighting and soldiers and thinking about military things is put into our minds even in games when we're little." "I'm really sorry we've done this," confessed. Ethel Brown as they fell behind their charge. "Dicky's 'pretending' works over time anyway, and he may dream about Indians, or get scared to go to bed, and it will be our fault." "It's rather late to think about it--but let's try not to do it again. Isn't there something we can call his attention to now to take his mind off Indians?" Dicky was marching ahead of them drawing an imaginary bow and bringing down a large bag of imaginary birds, while from the difficulty with which he occasionally dragged an imaginary something behind him it seemed that he had at least slain an imaginary deer. Naturally, with his hunting blood up, the Ethels found him not responsive to appeals to "see what a pretty flower this is" or to examine the hole of a chipmunk. He was after more thrilling adventures. Still, by the time they reached the railroad track, everyday matters were beginning to command his attention. This short cut across the track was one that he had seldom been allowed to take, and the mere fact of doing it was exciting. He stopped in the middle and looked up and down the line while the girls tugged at him. It was only when he saw a bit or two of shining metal which, according to his arrow head game of the afternoon, he picked up and tucked away in the pocket of his rompers, that his attention was once more turned to the gathering of the wonders that seemed to be under his feet all the time if only he looked for them hard enough. The errand to the stationery shop was successful. The stationer said that most pencils now were made with erasers built into them, but that he thought he had a box of old tips left over. He hunted for them very obligingly, and set so small a price on them that the Ethels took the whole box so that they might have a liberal supply in case any were lost off the arrow heads. Dicky put one in his pocket so that he could place it on his arrow as soon as he got it into his hands once more, and he begged the Ethels to go home by way of Rose House so that he could fix it up that very night. "Is it early enough?" asked Ethel Blue. Ethel Brown thought it was. "But we'll have to hurry," she warned; "there's an awfully black cloud over there. It looks like a thunder storm." They scampered as fast as their legs would carry them and reached the farm in the increasing darkness, but before any rain had fallen. They found all the bows and arrows standing in a trash basket which Roger had made for the dining room. "Mr. Roger stood them up in that so the children wouldn't be apt to touch 'em," explained Moya. Dicky sat down on the hearth and set to work on the arrow which he recognized as his because of its greater length. "You'll have to hurry or we'll get caught," warned his sister. "We ought to start right off," urged Ethel Blue. "We'll have to run for it even if we go now." Mrs. Schuler brought in the cape of her storm coat. "Take this for Dicky," she said. "If it does break before you get home it will rain hard and his rompers won't be any protection at all." "Put it on now, Dicky," commanded Ethel Brown. "Stand up." Dicky rose reluctantly. "Why do you fill up your pocket with such stuff," inquired Ethel impatiently. "There, throw it into the fireplace--gravel, toadstools, old brass," she catalogued contemptuously, and Dicky, swept on by her eagerness, obediently cast his treasures among the soft pine boughs that filled the wide, old fireplace. "I'll clear them away," promised Mrs. Schuler. "Hurry," and she fairly turned them out of the house. "You made me throw away my shiny things," complained Dicky as they ran down the lane as fast as they could go. "Never mind; you'd have jounced them out of your pocket anyway, running like this," and Dicky, taking giant strides as his sister and his cousin held a hand on each side, was inclined to think that he would be lucky if he were not jounced put of his clothes before he got home. CHAPTER XIV THE STORM After all, they need not have jerked poor Dicky over the ground at such a rapid pace for the storm, though it grumbled and roared at a distance, did not break until a late hour in the night. Then it came with a vengeance and made up for its indecision by behaving with real ferocity. To the women at Rose House, accustomed to the city, where Nature's sights and sounds are deadened by the number of the buildings and the narrowness of the streets, the uproar was terrifying. Flash after flash lit up their rooms so that the roosters and puppies and pigs and cows on the curtains stood out clearly in the white light. Crash after crash sent them cowering under the covers of their beds. The children woke and added their cries to the tumult. As the electric storm swept away into the distance the wind rose and howled about the house. Shutters slammed; chairs were over-turned on the porch; a brick fell with a thud from the top of the chimney to the roof; another fell down the chimney into the fireplace where its arrival was followed by a roar that seemed to shake the old building on its foundation. "Grrreat Scott!" ejaculated Mr. Schuler, who had learned some English expressions from his pupils. He was returning through the hall from a hobbling excursion to make sure that all the windows down stairs were closed. The candle dropped from his hand and he was left in the dark. His crutch slid from under his arm, and he was forced to cling to a table for support and call for his wife to come and find it for him. Mrs. Schuler reached him from the kitchen where she had been attending to the fastenings of the back door. Fortunately her light had survived the gusty attack and she was able to help her husband to his prop. "What is it?" she cried breathlessly, "Is the house falling? Did you ever hear such a noise!" Mr. Schuler never had. The outcry upstairs was increased by the shrieks of Sheila who had slept until the last shock and who woke at last to add her penetrating voice to the pandemonium. "Do you smell something queer?" asked Mrs. Schuler. "Do you think that was a lightning-bolt and it set the house on fire?" Her husband shook his head doubtfully. "The lightning has gone by," he said, but they went together on a tour of investigation. Nothing was burning in the kitchen, but the rays of the uplifted candle showed a zigzag crack on the wall behind the stove. "That wall is the chimney," said Mrs. Schuler. "Something has happened to the chimney." "Let's go into the dining-room and see if anything shows there." Into the dining-room they went. An acrid smell filled the room, and as they entered a smouldering flame in the fireplace burst into a blaze, from the draught of the door. Its fuel consisted only of some trash that had been tossed into the fireplace and hidden behind the fresh pine boughs that filled the opening through the summer. The drinking water in the pitcher on the table was enough to put an end to it. "It's hardly large enough to bother to put out," exclaimed Mr. Schuler, "if it weren't that the chimney seems to be so shaken that the flames might work through somewhere and set fire to the woodwork." "There's no doubt about something serious having happened to the chimney," and Mrs. Schuler stooped and pushed back three or four bricks that had tumbled forward on to the hearth. "The back is cracked," she announced from her knees. "With that big crack on the kitchen side I rather think Moya had better use the oil stove until Mr. Emerson can send a bricklayer to examine the chimney." "Everything but this seems all right here; you'd better go up and try to calm the women," advised Mr. Schuler. The wind storm was dying down and the inmates of Rose House were becoming quieter as the din outside moderated. The Matron went from room to room bringing comfort and courage as her candle shone upon one frightened face after another. "It's all over; there's nothing to be afraid of," she said over and over again. Only to Moya did she tell what had happened to the chimney, so that she might prepare breakfast on the oil stove. "It almost seems I heard a giant fall down the chimney," the Irish girl whispered hoarsely. "I dare say you did hear the bricks falling. There's a gallon or two of soot in the dining-room fireplace for you to clean up in the morning." "'Tis easy, that, compared wid cleaning up the whole house that seemed like to tumble!" said Moya with a sigh of relief. The children were already asleep and the remainder of the night was unbroken by any sound save the dripping of the raindrops from the branches and the swish of wet leaves against each other when a light breeze revived their former activities. Little Vladimir was up early with a memory of something queer having happened in the night. He was eager to go downstairs and find out what it was all about and his mother dressed him and let him out of her room and then turned over to take another nap. When Moya went down to set the oil stove in position for use he was amusing himself contentedly with the rubbish in the fireplace, his face and hands already in need of renewed attention from his mother. "'Tis the sooty-faced young one ye are," she called to him good-naturedly. "Run up to the brook and wash yerself an' save yer mother the throuble." She opened the back door and he ran out into the yard, but instead of going up the lane to the brook he scampered round the house and down the lane. Moya called after him but he paid no attention. "Sure, I've too much to do to be day-nursing that young Russian," she murmured. There were wonderings and ejaculations in many tongues when all the women and children came down and examined the cracks in the kitchen side of the chimney and in the back of the dining-room fireplace and saw the heap of rubbish and bricks piled up in the fireplace. It gave them something to talk about all the morning. This was lucky, for the grass was too wet for the children to play on it, and when mothers and children were crowded on the veranda idle words sometimes changed to cross ones. "Tis strange; they's good women, iv'ry wan, take 'em alone," Moya had said one day to Mrs. Schuler and Ethel Blue when they heard from the kitchen the sounds of dispute upon the porch; "yit listen to 'em whin they gits together." "That's because each one of them gets out of the talk just what she puts into it," explained the Matron. "Manin' that if she comes to it cross it's cross answers she gits. It's right ye are, ma'am. 'Tis so about likin' or hatin' yer work. Days when yer bring happiness to yer work it goes like a bird, an' days when ye have the black dog on yer back the work turns round an' fights wid yer." Ethel Blue listened intently. Things like that had happened to her but she had not supposed that grown people had such experiences. She remembered a day during the previous week when she had waked up cross. A dozen matters went wrong before she left the house to go to school. On the way the mud pulled off one of her overshoes, and her boot was soiled before she was shod again. The delay made her five minutes late and caused a black mark to deface her perfect attendance record. Every recitation went wrong in one way or another, and every one she spoke to was as cross as two sticks. As she thought it over she realized that if what Mrs. Schuler and Moya said was true the whole trouble came from herself. When she woke up not in the best of humor she ought to have smoothed herself out before she went down to breakfast, and then she would have picked her way calmly over the crossing and not tried to take a short cut through the mud; she would not have been delayed and earned a tardy mark; she would have had an unclouded mind that could give its best attention to the recitations so that she would have done herself justice; people would have been glad to talk to her because she looked cheerful and was in a sunny mood and no one would have been cross. "I guess it was all my fault," she thought. "I guess it will pay to straighten myself out before I get out of bed every morning." All was well in and out of Rose House on the morning after the storm. Every one told her experiences as if she were the only person affected and they all talked at once and enjoyed themselves immensely. Vladimir came running up on to the porch in the middle of the morning and threw himself across his mother's lap. "Where have you been now?" she asked him. He had come to breakfast only after being called a dozen times and he had disappeared immediately after breakfast. "What have you been doing?" The little fellow laughed and poured into her lap a handful of nickels and ten-cent pieces. "Where in the world did you get those?" demanded Mrs. Vereshchagin. "Who gave them to you?" "A man in the road." "A man in the road? All that money? What for?" "I gave him the shiny thing and he gave me those moneys." "What shiny thing?" "The shiny thing I found on the floor." "Where on the floor?" "In the dining-room, and the youngster ran into the house to point out exactly the place where he had found the 'shiny thing.'" "A 'shiny thing'," repeated Moya, who was putting the room in order and heard the Russian woman's inquiries. "'Tis two of 'em I found mesilf on the floor when I cleared up the mess from the fireplace this morning. 'Twas two bits of brass. See, I saved 'em," and she shook from a scooped-out gourd which served as an ornament on the mantel two bits of metal. "Was it like these, Vladdy?" she asked, but Vladimir was too tired of being questioned and ran away without answering. His mother shook her head as she gazed at the bits lying on her palm. "Not worth all these moneys," she murmured as she counted forty cents in the small coins in her other hand. It was a mystery. Moya put the bits of brass back into the gourd and went on with her dusting. Mrs. Schuler telephoned to Mr. Emerson early in the morning, telling him of the damage to the house and asking him to come and see what had happened go that the bricklayers might be set to work as soon as possible. "I'm afraid to let Moya light the kitchen stove until I'm sure the chimney is sound," she explained. Mr. Emerson telephoned the news to his grandchildren and he and all the Mortons with Dorothy and her mother and Miss Merriam and Elisabeth arrived at the farm at almost the same time. "I'm glad the house is in as good condition as it seems to be," exclaimed Mrs. Morton. "I couldn't bear to have the old homestead fall to ruin. I was startled at Father's message." "Not so startled as all the people here were in the night," laughed her father who had been talking with Mrs. Schuler. "It seems that the worst noise came after the electric storm was over, but while the wind was at its highest." "The chimney wasn't struck by lightning, then." "It was not lightning," asserted Mr. Schuler. "The wind knocked bricks from the top of the chimney. I saw one or two on the roof this morning. As you see, several fell down the chimney into the fireplace." "I can't see how bricks from the top of the chimney could have made the crack in the kitchen side of the chimney and this crack in the back of the fireplace." "Nor I," agreed Mr. Schuler. "The roar was tremendous. I could not believe that I was seeing rightly when I beheld only these few fallen bricks." "It sounded as if the whole chimney had fallen," Mrs. Schuler confirmed her husband's assertion. "Mrs. Peterson says it sounded to her like an explosion, sir," said Moya, who had been talking with the women on the porch. "Her room is right over this. The bricks fell through the chimney, banging it all the way, says she, and thin there was a roar like powder had gone off, as far as I can understand what she says." "If Mrs. Paterno heard that she must have thought the Black Hand was getting in its fine work, sure enough," smiled Mr. Emerson. "Praise be, her room is on the other side of the house. We were all wailing like banshees up there, but she no more than the rest. 'Tis better she is," and Moya nodded reassuringly to the grown-ups, who were, she knew, deeply interested in the Italian woman's recovery of her nervous strength. "This explosion business I don't understand," Mr. Emerson said slowly to himself. "What did you find in the fireplace this morning, Moya? I wish you had left all the stuff here for me to see." "I'm sorry, sir. I was only thinkin' about havin' it clean before breakfast. There was the bricks, sir, two of 'em; and a pile of soot and some bits of trash wid no meanin'--" "Did you find my two thinieth I picked up on the track yesterday?" asked Dicky. "Ethels made me throw away all the thingth in my pocket and my thinieth went too." "What does he mean by his 'shinies'?" asked Mr. Emerson. "He picked up a lot of stuff yesterday when we were hunting arrow heads and walking to Rosemont by the short cut over the track. When I was putting Mrs. Schuler's storm cape on him I emptied out his pocketful of trash into the fireplace." "What did the shinies look like, son?" inquired Dicky's grandfather. Dicky was entering into an elaborate and unintelligible explanation when Moya took the bits of brass from the gourd. "Would these be the shinies?" she asked. Mr. Emerson took them from her and examined them carefully. "I rather think the explanation of the explosion is here," he decided. "You say you picked these up on the track, Dicky?" "Yeth, I did, and Ethel threw them away," repeated the youngster who was beginning to think that he had a real grievance, since his "shinies" seemed to have some importance. "These are two of the small dynamite cartridges that brakemen lay on the track to notify the engineer of a following train to stop for some reason. They use them in stormy weather or when there is reason to think that the usual flag or red light between the rails won't be seen." "Dynamite!" exclaimed Ethel Brown, looking at her hand as she remembered that she had not been especially gentle when she tossed the contents of her brother's pocket into the fireplace. "There is enough dynamite in a cartridge to make a sharp detonation but not enough to do any damage, unless, as happened here, there were two of them in a small space that was enclosed on three sides--" "The trash was blown out on the floor of the room," interrupted Mr. Schuler. "--by walls that were none too strong. With a wind such as last night's knocking down the chimney at the top and bricks setting dynamite cartridges into action below I only wonder that the old thing is standing at all this morning." They gazed at it as if they expected the whole affair to fall before their eyes. "I'll call up the brickmason and find out when he can come to examine it; he may have to rebuild the entire chimney." Mr. Emerson was moving toward the hall where the telephone was when his eye fell on Elisabeth sitting contentedly on the floor close to the wall turning over and over something that gleamed. "What have you got there, small blessing?" he asked, stooping to make sure that she was not intending to try the taste of whatever it might be. "Hullo!" he cried, straightening himself. "Hullo!" and he held up his discovery before the astonished eyes of the group. "It looks like a gold coin, Grandfather!" exclaimed Ethel Brown. "That's just what it is. A guinea. Its date is 1762. Where did you find it, Ayleesabet?" he asked the child, who was reaching up her tiny hands for the return of her new plaything. "Here, here," she answered, pointing to the floor where the casing of the chimney yawned from the planks for half an inch. "Here," and she pushed her fingers into the crack. "I saw her pull something that was sticking out of there a little bit," said Dorothy, "but I was interested in what Mr. Emerson was saying and I didn't pay much attention to what she was doing." Miss Merriam took Elisabeth on her lap and peered between her lips to make sure that no dirt from the floor was visible. Then she took a small emergency kit from her pocket, extracted a bit of sterile gauze and wiped out the little pink mouth. "I live in hopes that the day will come when she'll outgrow her desire to test everything with her mouth," she remarked amusedly. "Is it guineas ye're speaking about?" asked Moya. "Perhaps 'twas a guinea young Vladdy the Russian found this morning. He said he found a 'shiny thing.' I thought 'twas one of thim cartridges, like I found myself." "Another shiny thing? What did he do with it? Let's see it?" demanded Mr. Emerson. "He said he gave it to a man in the road and the man gave him a handful of ten-cent pieces and nickels. There was forty cents of it. I heard Mrs. Vereshchagin counting 'em." "Forty cents! It must have been a valuable shiny thing that a man in the road would give a child forty cents for. He knew its value. I should say Vladimir and Elisabeth had tapped the same till. Helen, go and see if you can find out anything more from the child or his mother. And Roger, get a chisel and hammer and hatchet and perhaps you and Mr. Schuler and I can take down these boards and see what there is to see behind them." "Wouldn't it be thrilling if there should be a hidden treasure!" exclaimed Ethel Blue. "Aren't you shivering all over with excitement, Miss Gertrude?" Meanwhile Roger and his grandfather were prying off the boards that covered in the chimney on the right side and supported the mantel-shelf. As it fell back into their hands two more gold coins tumbled to the floor. "Just take off this narrow plank, Roger and let me squint in there. Stand back, please, all of you, and let us have as much light as we can." "I have a flashlight," said Mr. Schuler. "Just the ticket. Now, then--," and Mr. Emerson kneeled down, peering into the space that was disclosed when the boards fell away. "I see something; I certainly see something," he cried as the electricity searched into the darkness. He thrust in his arm but the something was too far off. "Take my crutch," suggested Mr. Schuler. Mr. Emerson took it and tugged away with the top. "It's coming, it's coming," his muffled cry rose from the depths. Another tug and a blackened leather pouch, slashed with a jagged tear from which gold pieces were pouring, tumbled into the room. "Pick it all up and put it on the table, Roger, while Mr. Schuler and I decide how it happened," ordered Mr. Emerson. The investigation seemed to prove that there probably had been a crack in the bricks at the back of the mantel at the time when Algernon Merriam, Miss Gertrude's ancestor, had thrust the bag into the mantel cupboard. It had fallen off the back of the shelf and into the little crevasse where it lay beyond the reach of arm or bent wire or candle light for over a hundred and thirty years. "Evidently last night's big shaking widened the crack and let the bag fall down. The ragged edge of a broken brick tore the leather and the two coins that Vladimir and Elisabeth found slipped out and fell just inside the plank covering of the chimney and below it out on to the floor." "So did the two that fell out when we were working," added Roger. "Let's open it and count the money. This may be some other bag," suggested Helen, who had brought back no farther information from the Russian. "If it's Algernon's it ought to have--how many guineas was it?" "Five hundred and seventy-three, and a ring and a miniature," continued Ethel Brown who had heard his story. "In a box," concluded Ethel Blue. "I can't wait for Roger to undo it!" They gathered around the table on which Roger had placed the stained bag, the gold coins gleaming through a gash in its side. Moya cleaned the outside as well as she could with a damp cloth. "See, here are some crumbs of sealing-wax still clinging to the cord," and Grandfather Emerson cut the string that still tied the mouth. Before their amazed eyes there rolled first a small box and then guineas as bright as when they were tied up in their prison. "We shan't have to count the guineas; if the ring and the miniature are in the box that will prove that it's Algernon's bag," said Helen. "Here, young woman; hands off," cried her grandfather as Helen was preparing to open the box. "Algernon and Patience were no direct ancestors of yours. Miss Merriam is the suitable person to perform this ceremony." Helen, smiling, pushed the basket toward Miss Gertrude who slipped off the string with trembling fingers. "I'm almost afraid to take off the cover," she whispered. "O, do hurry up, Miss Gertrude," implored Ethel Brown. "I think I shall burst if I don't know all about it soon!" With misty eyes Gertrude slowly lifted the cover from the box. Wrapped in a twist of cotton was a ring set with several large diamonds. "Is it marked 'Gertrude'?" asked Dorothy breathlessly. Miss Merriam nodded. Below the ring lay a miniature, the portrait of a fair woman with deep blue eyes. It was set round with brilliants and on the gold back was engraved, "Gertrude Merriam." Miss Merriam stared at it and then handed it to Mr. Emerson. "What a marvellous likeness!" he exclaimed. "You must be able to see it yourself." Gertrude nodded again, not trusting herself to speak. "There's no question that she's your ancestor. Now, I'd like to see if the correct number of coins is here if you'll let Roger and me count your guineas for you." "Count my guineas?" cried Miss Merriam. "Certainly they're your guineas. You're a direct descendant of Algernon and Patience. The bag and its contents belong to you." Gertrude stared at Mr. Emerson as if she could not understand him. "Mine?" she repeated, "mine?" but when Mr. Emerson insisted and the other elders congratulated her and the girls kissed her and Roger shook hands formally, she began, to realize that this little fortune really was hers by right and not through the kindness of her friends. The count of the coins proved exact. There were 569 of them. "Here are the two that fell on the floor when we were hammering," said Roger, laying them on the table. "They make 571." "And here is the one that Ayleesabet found," added Mr. Emerson, drawing it from his pocket. "That is the five hundred and seventy-second. Young Vladimir's trophy has gone for good, I'm afraid. He must have sold it to some passer-by who knew enough to realize that it was a valuable coin and wasn't honest enough to hunt for the owner or to pay the child its full value." "Every one of the 573 is accounted for, anyway," declared Roger. "You won't think it impertinent if I figure out how much you're worth, will you Miss Gertrude?" "I shall be glad if you will," she answered. "A guinea is 21 shillings and a shilling is about 24 cents in American money. That makes a guinea worth about $5.04. Five hundred-and-seventy-two times that makes $2882.88." "Almost three thousand dollars!" exclaimed Gertrude, her face radiant; "why--why now--" she broke off suddenly and hid her face on Mrs. Smith's shoulder, sobbing. "Now I can pay all my indebtedness and be free to do what I please," she said to her friend in an undertone. Mrs. Smith patted her gently, for she knew what it was she wanted to be free to do. "This fortune is going to mount up to more than three thousand dollars," declared Mr. Emerson. "There isn't a coin here that was minted later than 1774. There can't be, because Algernon came to this country in the early part of 1775. Pile them up according to the dates on them, children, and let's see what there is that will appeal to the dealer in antiquities." "At that rate every coin here, even the youngest, is worth more than $5.04," exclaimed Roger. "You get the idea, my son," smiled his grandfather. "We'll sell these coins separately for Miss Gertrude and get a special price on each one. Here's one, for instance, that ought to be worth a good bonus; it is dated 1663. It was over a hundred years old when your respected great-great-grandfather brought it over here, and if I remember my English history correctly it was in 1663 that guineas were first minted. This is a 'first edition,' so to speak." Gertrude leaned back in her chair, smiling happily. CHAPTER XV GERTRUDE CHANGES HER NAME The Club had been prominent figures at Mrs. Schuler's wedding, but that was a very small affair at home, and Miss Gertrude's was to be in the church with a reception afterwards at Dorothy's house. The Club felt that they wanted to do every bit of the work that they could, not only because they loved Miss Gertrude but because she was going to marry the brother of two of the Club members. She had said that she would like to have the church decorated with wild flowers so that she might take away with her the remembrance of the blossoms that she had seen and loved in the Rosemont fields. The Club held a special meeting to talk over their plans for the wedding. It was at Rose House, for they had become accustomed to meeting there during the summer, when every moment could be utilized for work on something connected with the furnishing of the house while at the same time they could talk as they hammered and measured and screwed and sewed. They were gathered under the tree where the squirrel lived. As they established themselves, he was sitting on a branch above them, twitching his tail and making ready for a descent to search for cookies in their pockets. Helen called the meeting to order and told them what Miss Gertrude had said about the decorations. "Has any one any suggestions?" she asked. "Shall we have all the different kinds of flowers we can find or select one kind?" asked Ethel Brown. "We can get goldenrod and asters now." "And cardinals and cat-tails." "And 'old-maids'." "And hollyhocks." "Nobody has said 'Queen Anne's Lace.' I think that's the prettiest of all," urged Ethel Blue. "Wouldn't it be delicate and fairy-like if we trimmed the whole church with it!" "O, Ethel, I see it in a flash!" cried Delia. "Not banked heavily anywhere, but always in feathery masses." "On the altar and winding the chancel rail." "A cluster on the end of each pew." "Long garlands instead of ribbons to close the ends of the pews." "An arch about half way up the aisle." The whole scene grew on them as they talked and they waxed enthusiastic over the details. They had learned that flowers to be used for decoration should be picked the day beforehand and placed in water over night so that the moisture should have time to force itself into the stalks and to drive away the first wilting. They decided to gather all the Queen Anne's Lace that they could find in all Rosemont, accepting the help of all the children who had asked if they might help. Mrs. Smith was building a new house, and Dorothy and the Ethels had planted a flower garden on the new lot although the house was not yet done. They had arranged to have a succession of pink blossoms. For fear it would not turn out well because they had not been able to have the soil put in as good condition as they wanted on account of the disturbed state of the place with workmen constantly crossing, they had tried another pink garden at Rose House, and the Ethels had planted still another bed in their own yard. "Among them all I should think we ought to find enough, if all the blossoms don't take it into their heads to fall off the very day before," said Ethel Brown gloomily. "Don't talk that way!" insisted Ethel Blue. "We'll find lots of pink flowers and Aunt Louise's drawing-room will look lovely." "We can put some of the feathery white with it." "And we must find some soft green somewhere. The coloring of the room is so delicate that the pink and white effect will be charming," and Helen leaned back against the tree trunk with a satisfied smile. "The next point is that Aunt Louise says she'd be very glad if we'd all assist at the reception just as we do at Mother's teas--handing things to eat and being nice to people." They all nodded their understanding of their duties. "Are all of you girls going to be dressed alike?" asked Tom. "No, sir. Delia is to be maid of honor. She's to wear the most delicate shade of pink you can imagine. The Ethels are to have a shade that is just a wee bit darker, and Margaret and I are to come last--" "Being the tallest." "--wearing real rose-colored frocks. It's going to be beautiful." "I can easily believe it," declared James, making an attempt at a bow that was defeated by the fact that he was lying on his back and found the exploit too difficult to achieve. "I also seem to see you flitting around the house under those pink decorations. You'll run the bride hard." "Edward won't think so," laughed Tom. "Now what are we going to give to Gertrude--" "Hear him say 'Gertrude'," said Ethel Blue under her breath. "She asked us to. Of course we call her by her name. She's going to be our sister." The Ethels looked quite depressed, for calling Miss Gertrude by her first name was a privilege they knew they never should have. "I was inquiring what we're going to give Gertrude as a Club. We Watkinses are going to give her something as a family, and Delia and I have each picked out a special present from us ourselves--" "That's the way we're doing," came from the Mortons. "--but I think it would be nice to give her something from the whole of us, because if it hadn't been for the Club and the Club baby she wouldn't have come here at all." "Let's put our colossal intellects on it," urged Roger. "If we could think of something that no one else would give her--" "And that would remind her of us and the things the Club does." "The Club makes furniture," laughed Roger, "but I shouldn't suggest that we repeat our latest triumph and give her a sideboard made of old boxes." They all roared, but James came up with a serious expression after a roll that took him some distance away from his friends. "Boxes am ree-diculous," he remarked, "but furniture isn't. Isn't there some piece of furniture that they'd like better than anything else we could give them?" "I've got an idea," announced Roger. "Quick, quick; catch it!" and Tom tossed over his cap to hold any notions that might trickle away from the main mass. "Since we've been doing this furniture making for Rose House I've spent a good deal of time in the carpenter shop on Main Street. You know it belongs to the son of those old people down by the bridge, Mr. and Mrs. Atwood." "The ones we gave a 'show' for?" asked Delia. "The same people. The son was pleased at our going there and he hasn't minded my fooling round his place and he's given me a lot of points. He makes good furniture himself." "As good as yours?" asked James dryly. "Go on!" retorted Roger. "He's a real joiner rather than a carpenter, but there isn't any chance for a joiner in a town like Rosemont, so he does any kind of carpentering." "Go ahead, Roger. We don't care for the gentleman's biography." "Yes, you do; it has some bearing on what I'm going to propose." "Let her shoot, then." "Mr. Atwood has a whole heap of splendid mahogany planks in his shop. I came across them one day and asked him about them. He's been collecting them a long time and they're splendidly seasoned and he's just waiting for a chance to make them into something." "A light begins to break. We'll have him make our present. Are you sure he'll make it well enough? It's got to be a crackerjack to be suitable for Miss Gertrude." "This is what I thought. The doctor and Miss Gertrude both like open bookcases. I heard them say once they liked to be able to take out a book without having to bother with a door." "Me, too," agreed Margaret. "And I never could see the use of a back." "That's what I say," said Helen. "I'd rather dust the books more carefully and not have the extra weight added to the bookcase." "You know the furniture they call 'knockdown'?" Everybody nodded. They had all become familiar with various makes of furniture since their attention had been called to the subject by their summer's interests. "I think Mr. Atwood can make us a bookcase that will consist of two upright end pieces with holes through them where each shelf is to go. The shelves will have two extensions on each end that will go through these square holes and they will be held in place by wedges driven through these extensions on the outside of the uprights. Get me?" They all said they did. "That's all there is to the bookcase. It can be taken to pieces in ten minutes and packed flat and shipped from Rosemont to Oklahoma with some chance of its reaching there unbroken; and it can be set up in another ten minutes. What do you say?" There wasn't a dissenting voice, and they were so pleased with the scheme that they went to Mr. Atwood's that very afternoon, looked at the wood, talked over the finish, and left the order. It was so simple that the maker thought that he could have it done before the wedding and he agreed to take it apart and pack it for shipment so that there would be no danger of its not making its journey safely. The wedding day was a trifle too warm, Dorothy thought as she gazed out early in the morning and considered the flowers that must be set in place several hours before the time when they were to be seen. "We must take care not to have them look like those dandelions in the book wedding that began so joyously and ended all in a wizzle," she murmured, and she was more than ever glad that they had taken the precaution to pick them the day before and have them in water. By early afternoon all was in readiness and the girls were resting. Miss Gertrude had not been allowed to help but had stayed quietly in her room. The wedding was at half past four, and at that hour the little church, which looked perfectly lovely in the opinion of the decorators, was pleasantly filled with murmuring groups of Rosemont people, who agreed that the feathery decorations proved yet another plume in the caps of the Club members, and of New York people who gazed at the modest country chapel and found it charming. There was a happy _brrrr_ of pleasant comment while the organ played softly. Roger and James were two of the ushers. Friends of Edward's, young doctors, were the other two. As the organ broke into the Lohengrin march and Edward, with Tom for his best man, appeared at the chancel, Gertrude came down the aisle from the other end of the church. She wore a simple white trailing dress of soft silk, clasped at the breast with the ancient brilliant-framed miniature of another Gertrude Merriam. A pearl pendant, a gift from Ayleesabet, hung from her neck. On her ungloved right hand the older Gertrude Merriam's ring blazed beside Edward's more modest offering. The Ethels held each others' hands as they stood behind the bride, wreaths of Queen Anne's Lace over their arms, and a delicate blossom or two tucked under a pale blue ribbon in each filmy white hat. It seemed but a moment to them and it was all over and Miss Gertrude was no longer "Miss Gertrude" but "Mrs. Edward." The doctor seemed to have put on new dignity and the girls found themselves wondering if they should ever call him "Edward" again. Gertrude swept by them with her eyes full of happiness, but when she reached the back of the church she gave a lovely smile to the women and children of Rose House seated in the last pews. "I want every one to see my lovely presents," Miss Gertrude had said, so the guests exclaimed over the pretty things grouped in the library. It was all simple and happy, and a bit of pathos at the end of the afternoon brought no depression. Gertrude was just about to go upstairs to change her dress and she stood with her maids and ushers, around her, exchanging a laughing word or two with them, when a little procession made its way toward her from the dining-room. It consisted of all the women and children from Rose House, dressed in the fresh clothes which the women had made for themselves and the children during the summer. They were all so smiling that they could hardly have been recognized as the forlorn creatures who had come to Rosemont early in July. Each woman held in her hand a centrepiece, embroidered in the characteristic work of her country. Mrs. Vereshchagin led the way, because she could speak English a little better than the others, but her English failed her when she came face to face with the bride. "We love you," she said simply, making a sweeping gesture that included the bridegroom and all the U. S. C. members who were standing about. "We give you these embroideries of our lands. We love all of you." And all the women and children cried in chorus, "We love all of you." 
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19878	----	Water-Supply and Irrigation Paper No. 92 Series M, General Hydrographic Investigations, 8 DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CHARLES D. WALCOTT, DIRECTOR THE PASSAIC FLOOD OF 1903 BY MARSHALL ORA LEIGHTON [Illustration] WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1904 CONTENTS. Page. Letter of transmittal 7 Introduction 9 Precipitation 11 Descent of flood 14 Highland tributaries and Central Basin 14 Flood at Macopin dam 15 Flood at Beattie's dam, Little Falls 16 Flood flow over Dundee dam 17 Damages 23 General statements 23 Highland tributaries 23 Ramapo River 23 Pequanac and Wanaque rivers 24 Central Basin 25 Lower Valley 25 Paterson 26 Passaic and vicinity 27 Preventive measures 28 General discussion 28 Lower valley improvements 29 Flood catchment 31 Pompton reservoir 31 Ramapo system 33 Wanaque system 34 Midvale reservoir 34 Ringwood reservoir 35 West Brook reservoir 35 Pequanac system 35 Newfoundland reservoir 36 Stickle Pond reservoir 36 Rockaway system 37 Powerville reservoir 37 Longwood Valley reservoir 37 Splitrock Pond 38 Upper Passaic Basin 38 Millington reservoir 38 Saddle River 39 Summary of flood-catchments projects 40 Preferable reservoir sites 40 General conclusions 44 Index 47 ILLUSTRATIONS. Page. PLATE I. _A_, Beattie's dam, Little Falls, N. J., in flood; _B_, Flood-water lines in residence district, Paterson, N. J. 16 II. _A_, Pompton Lakes dam and water front of Ludlum Steel and Iron Company; _B_, Dry bed of Pompton Lake 24 III. Flood district of Paterson, N. J. 24 IV. _A_, Washout at Spruce street, Paterson, N. J.; _B_, River street, Paterson, N. J., after flood 26 V. _A_, Effects of flood in mill district, Paterson, N. J.; _B_, The wreck of a hotel in Paterson, N. J. 26 VI. _A_, Devastation in Hebrew quarter, Paterson, N. J.; _B_, A common example of flood damage 28 VII. _A_, Inundated lands at Passaic, N. J.; _B_, Undamaged bridge across Passaic River after partial subsidence of flood 28 FIG. 1. Comparative flood run-off at Dundee dam, March, 1902, and October, 1903 18 2. Diagram of flood flow at Dundee dam, flood of 1903 20 LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, HYDROGRAPHIC BRANCH, _Washington, D. C., December 4, 1903._ SIR: I have the honor to transmit herewith a manuscript entitled, "Passaic Flood of 1903," prepared by Marshall Ora Leighton, and to request that it be published as one of the series of Water-Supply and Irrigation Papers. This paper is a continuation of Water-Supply and Irrigation Paper No. 88, by George B. Hollister and Mr. Leighton, and describes the flood of October, 1903, which was higher and far more disastrous than the flood of 1902. The occurrence of two great floods in the same basin during so short a period makes the subject worthy of attention, especially as the district is, from a manufacturing and commercial standpoint, one of the most important along the Atlantic coast. Very respectfully, F. H. NEWELL, _Chief Engineer_. HON. CHARLES D. WALCOTT _Director United States Geological Survey_. THE PASSAIC FLOOD OF 1903. By MARSHALL O. LEIGHTON. INTRODUCTION. In the following pages is given a brief history of the disastrous flood which occurred in the Passaic River Basin in October, 1903. In the report by George Buell Hollister and the writer, entitled "The Passaic Flood of 1902," and published by the United States Geological Survey as Water-Supply and Irrigation Paper No. 88, are discussed the principal physiographic features of the drainage basin and their general relations to the stream flow. This report will not repeat this information, and the discussion will be confined to the flood itself. References to local features will be made without explanation, the presumption being that this publication shall accompany the earlier one and be, as it is, a continuation of it. In the present report more attention is given to an estimate of damages than in the earlier work, and remedies by which devastation may be avoided are briefly considered. Passaic River overflowed its banks on October 8, 1903, and remained in flood until October 19. Between these dates there occurred the greatest and most destructive flood ever known along this stream. Ordinarily the channel of the lower Passaic at full bank carries about 12,000 cubic feet of water per second, but at the height of this flood it carried about 35,700 cubic feet per second. The flood period for the entire stream can not be exactly stated, as the overflow did not occur at the same time in different parts of the basin. For example, the gage-height records at Dundee dam show that the flood began to rise on October 8 at 6.30 a. m., and reached a maximum of 9-1/2 inches over the dam crest at 9 p. m. on October 10. Similarly, on Beattie's dam at Little Falls the flood began to rise at midnight on October 7, and reached its maximum at 2 p. m. on October 10, or about thirty-eight hours after the initial rise, the height of the water being 1.29 inches over the crest of the dam. The flood rose on the highland tributaries as follows: On Ramapo River the flood crest passed Hillborn at about 10 a. m. on October 9 and reached Pompton, at the mouth of the river, shortly after noon of the same day. The highest reading recorded on the Geological Survey gage at the feeder of Morris Canal, in Pompton Plains, was 14.3 feet, at about 6 o'clock on the morning of October 10. As this gage is read only once daily it is probable that this reading does not represent the height of the flood crest. Evidence shows that it passed this point on the previous day. Records of the Newark water department show that the flood on Pequanac River began to rise at Macopin dam on October 8 at noon, and rose rapidly to the maximum of 6,000 cubic feet per second at 4 p. m. on October 10. No records are available with reference to the rise of flood on Wanaque River. Observations made on Pompton Plains on the morning of the 11th show that Pompton River was well within its banks at that time; therefore the Ramapo, Wanaque, and Pequanac must have discharged their flood waters some time previous to this hour. The fact is important when considered in connection with the height of water in the main stream at that period. This observation was made only eighteen hours after the maximum height over Beattie's dam at Little Falls, and twelve hours after the flood crest passed Dundee dam. The conditions here outlined illustrate the rapidity with which flood waters are discharged from the Pompton drainage area, and the deterring effect of Great Piece Meadows upon the flood. The rise of the flood on Rockaway River at Old Boonton was almost coincident with that on Pequanac River at Macopin dam. The maximum flow occurred fourteen hours later than the maximum on the Ramapo at Pompton. The flood crest did not reach Chatham on upper Passaic River until the morning of October 11, or about twenty-four hours later than the flood heights in Pompton and Rockaway rivers, and about twelve hours later than the maximum over Dundee dam. Adequate reasons for these differences in flood periods between neighboring points are abundant. They are apparent after a review of the physiographic conditions described in Water-Supply Paper No. 88. The flood of 1903 was the immediate result of an enormous rainfall, and not, as is often the case in north temperate latitudes, the combined effect of rainfall and the rapid melting of accumulated snows. The records of weather-observation stations in northern New Jersey and New York fail to show, throughout their entire observation periods, as great an amount of precipitation in so short a period. The storm which was the immediate cause of the flood occurred principally between October 8 and 11. During that interval rain fell to an average depth of 11.74 inches over the Passaic Basin. The Passaic Basin is fairly well supplied with storage facilities, which, under ordinary circumstances, would temper the severity of floods by holding back a large amount of water. In this case no such effect was produced, as the reservoirs, lakes, and ponds on the drainage area were filled, or practically so, at the beginning of the storm, and there was consequently no available space in which to hold back even an appreciable part of the run-off water. Over some of the dams in the highland region a comparatively small amount of water was being discharged at the beginning of the storm. Therefore, while these storage basins may have had a certain deterring effect upon the rate of flood accumulation, they could not, in the end, assist materially in preventing damages in the lower part of the drainage area. PRECIPITATION. The precipitation records for June, July, August, and September are given below: _Precipitation, in inches, in Passaic Valley and vicinity, June to September, 1903._ -----------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+------------ | June. | July. | August. | September. -----------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+------------ |Normal. |Normal. |Normal. |Normal. | Observed.| Observed.| Observed.| Observed. -----------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+------------ Highland region: | | | | | | | | Dover | 3.29 | 15.02 | 5.54 | 5.47 | 5.08 | 9.04 | 4.02 | 3.39 Chester | 3.48 | 12.80 | 6.42 | 7.59 | 5.16 | 9.35 | 4.60 | ... Charlotteburg | 3.52 | 9.45 | 5.54 | 3.97 | 4.98 | 7.78 | 4.80 | 3.29 Ringwood | ... | 10.13 | ... | 3.08 | ... | 6.17 | ... | 3.06 Red Sandstone | | | | | | | | plain: | | | | | | | | Paterson | 4.31 | 11.17 | 5.32 | 5.40 | 4.31 | 10.89 | 4.86 | 2.88 Hanover | 3.32 | ... | 5.23 | 5.40 | 5.20 | 9.40 | 4.52 | ... River Vale | 3.17 | 10.62 | 4.87 | 3.41 | 4.17 | ... | 3.61 | 2.90 Essex Fells | 3.08 | ... | 7.03 | ... | 5.95 | ... | 3.67 | 1.80 Newark | 3.60 | 11.51 | 4.48 | 4.27 | 4.75 | 14.54 | 3.83 | 4.56 South Orange | 3.57 | 9.28 | 5.43 | 4.22 | 5.05 | 13.75 | 4.04 | 3.80 New York City | 3.13 | 7.42 | 4.26 | 3.23 | 4.70 | 5.96 | 3.72 | 2.60 Plainfield | 3.62 | 10.14 | 5.86 | 4.70 | 4.37 | 6.87 | 4.42 | 7.10 Elizabeth | 3.68 | 8.76 | 5.74 | 4.31 | 4.26 | 7.15 | 4.14 | 4.38 -----------------+--------------+--------------+------|-------+------+----- An examination of the above table shows that throughout the summer of 1903 the precipitation was considerably above normal. The records for June and August indicate extremely wet months, and the July figures are slightly above while the September figures are somewhat below normal. The important fact shown by this table is that disastrous floods may occur after long periods of abundant rains. It has been observed that heavy precipitation may be expected after protracted periods of drought. Such a belief is not altogether fanciful. In the northeastern part of this country the total amount of precipitation is approximately uniform from year to year. The variations, comparatively speaking, are not very wide, and we are therefore led to expect that there are in operation influences which serve to compensate for excesses or deficiencies in our annual rainfall. Therefore after the abundant precipitation of the summer of 1903, an observer might have had some measure of justification in predicting a normally or abnormally dry fall. In view of the actual events the fact must be emphasized that in adopting measures to prevent floods the margin of safety must be extremely wide. The extraordinary rainfall of those three October days can not with assurance be accepted as the maximum. _Precipitation, in inches, in Passaic Valley and vicinity, October 7 to 11, 1903._ ---------------------+------------------+------------------+-------- | From-- | To-- | Station. +------+-----------+------+-----------+ Amount. | Day. | Hour. | Day. | Hour. | ---------------------+------+-----------+------+-----------+-------- Highland region: | | | | | Dover | 7 | | 11 | 9 p.m. | 10.13 Little Falls | 7 | 4 a.m. | 11 | 7 a.m. | 14.13 Charlotteburg | 7 | | 10 | | 12.67 Ringwood | 8 | 11 a.m. | 9 | 8 p.m. | 10.63 | | | | | Red Sandstone plain: | | | | | Paterson | 7 | 5 a.m. | 9 | 3.45 p.m. | 15.04 River Vale | 8 | 8 a.m. | 11 | 6 p.m. | 12.55 Essex Fells | 8 | | 9 | 4 p.m. | 10.66 Newark | 8 | 8.30 a.m. | 11 | 5 a.m. | 12.09 South Orange | 8 | 6 a.m. | 10 | Night | 10.48 ---------------------+------+-----------+------+-----------+-------- The extremely rapid rate of precipitation during the crucial part of the storm is shown by the recording gages placed at observation stations in Newark and New York City. _Hourly records of precipitation at New York observation station, October 8 and 9, 1903_. Inches. Oct. 8, 9 to 10 a. m. 0.08 10 to 11 a. m. .02 11 to 12 m. .32 12 m. to 1 p. m. .10 1 to 2 p. m. .05 2 to 3 p. m. .06 3 to 4 p. m. .34 4 to 5 p. m. .01 5 to 6 p. m. .10 6 to 7 p. m. .02 7 to 8 p. m. .93 8 to 9 p. m. .32 9 to 10 p. m. .24 10 to 11 p. m. .27 11 to 12 p. m. .26 9, 12 to 1 a. m. .30 Oct. 9, 1 to 2 a. m. 0.25 2 to 3 a. m. .75 3 to 4 a. m. .34 4 to 5 a. m. .46 5 to 6 a. m. .41 6 to 7 a. m. .29 7 to 8 a. m. .51 8 to 9 a. m. 1.38 9 to 10 a. m. 1.04 10 to 11 a. m. .08 11 to 12 m. .23 12 m. to 1 p. m. .24 1 to 2 p. m. .31 2 to 3 p. m. .32 3 to 4 p. m. .01 _____ Total 6.92 _Hourly record of precipitation at Newark observation station, October 8-11, 1903_. Inches. Oct. 8, 8.25 to 9 a. m. 0.05 9 to 10 a. m. .04 10 to 11 a. m. .00 11 to 12 m. .00 12 m. to 1 p. m. .14 1 to 2 p. m. .72 2 to 3 p. m. .49 3 to 4 p. m. .11 4 to 5 p. m. 1.05 5 to 6 p. m. .45 6 to 7 p. m. 1.20 7 to 8 p. m. .60 8 to 9 p. m. .24 9 to 10 p. m. .24 10 to 11 p. m. .13 11 to 12 p. m. .17 9, 12 to 1 a. m. .29 1 to 2 a. m. .33 2 to 3 a. m. .62 3 to 4 a. m. .29 4 to 5 a. m. .35 5 to 6 a. m. .26 6 to 7 a. m. .13 Oct. 9, 7 to 8 a. m. 0.29 8 to 9 a. m. .69 9 to 10 a. m. .69 10 to 11 a. m. .39 11 to 12m. .20 12m. to 1 p. m. .39 1 to 2 p. m. .28 2 to 3 p. m. .34 3 to 3.25 p. m. .13 11.50 to 11.55 p. m. .01 10, 3 to 4 a. m. .02 7 to 8 p. m. .07 8 to 9 p. m. .09 9 to 10 p. m. .02 10 to 11 p. m. .04 11 to 12 p. m. .04 11, 12 to 1 a. m. .06 1 to 2 a. m. .09 2 to 3 a. m. .03 3 to 4 a. m. .05 4 to 5 a. m. .01 _____ Total 11.83 From the above tables it may be seen that the maximum rate of precipitation per hour was 1.38 inches at New York and 1.2 inches at Newark. Comparison of the tables on pages 11 and 12 gives an excellent idea of the intensity of the storm. The amount of water falling in a single storm is nearly equal to the total for June, a month of unusual precipitation. The average of the total amounts of precipitation recorded at the various stations in the Passaic area is 11.74 inches. These totals are fairly uniform, none of them varying widely from the average. Therefore the figure 11.74 represents a conservative mean for a calculation of total amount of water over the drainage area. Assuming this as the correct depth, the amount of water which fell on each square mile of the Passaic drainage area during the storm was 27,273,000 cubic feet, or for the whole Passaic drainage area over 27,000,000,000 cubic feet, weighing about 852,000,000 tons. This amount of water would, if properly stored, fill a lake with twenty times the capacity of Greenwood Lake, would cover Central Park in New York City, which has an area of about 1.5 square miles, to a height of 645 feet, and, at the present rate of water consumption in the city of Newark, N. J., would supply the city with water for twenty years. DESCENT OF FLOOD. HIGHLAND TRIBUTARIES AND CENTRAL BASIN. A description of the descent of flood waters from the highland tributaries into the Central Basin has been given in Water-Supply Paper No. 88. It has been shown that the lands of the Central Basin are covered even in ordinary freshets, and that in the event of a great flood the waters merely rise higher, being, for the greater extent, almost quiescent, and beyond the flooding of houses and barns and the destruction of crops, little damage is done. In other words, the flood along this portion is not torrential in character. During the flood of 1903 the water fell so quickly all over this basin, and was collected so rapidly by the small tributaries, that a lake was formed at once which served as a cushion against which the raging torrent of the highland tributaries spent itself without doing extraordinary damage in that immediate region. Bridges which might have been lost in a smaller flood like that of 1902 were actually standing in slack water by the time the mountain torrents appeared in force. These streams caused much destruction higher up in the mountains, but in the Central Basin their energy became potential--a gathering of forces to be loosed upon the lower valley. A discussion of the effects of this will be taken up under the heading "Damages." In Water-Supply Paper No. 88 is given the proportion of flood waters contributed to the Central Basin by each of the tributaries. These figures were computed from the results of gagings maintained for a period sufficient to afford this information within a reasonable approximation. In the case of the storm which resulted in the flood of 1903 it is probable that data referred to can not be safely applied. The flood of 1902 was the result of abundant rains following upon and melting a heavy snow. Weather Bureau records show that neither the depth of the snow nor the amount of subsequent rainfall was uniform, or even approximately so, over the Passaic drainage area. Indeed, so marked was the variation that it was believed that the mean rainfall for all the observation stations on the basin did not bear sufficient relation to observed run-off to allow of any reliable deductions. In the case of the October storm, however, the distribution of rainfall was more nearly uniform, and the run-off from the highland tributaries into the Central Basin must have been proportionately different in amount from that indicated in the upland tributary tables in the report of the previous flood. The data given for the 1902 flood can not, therefore, in the case of the highland tributaries, be applied to the conditions which obtained in the flood of 1903. FLOOD AT MACOPIN DAM. Mr. Morris R. Sherrerd, engineer of the Newark city water board, has furnished flow computations over Macopin intake dam, which is the head of the Newark pipe line. As about 73 per cent of the Pequanac drainage area lies above this intake, the table on page 16 shows roughly an equivalent percentage of the flow contributed by Pequanac River to the Central Basin of the Passaic. In consulting this table it should be borne in mind that the entire run-off of the drainage area above Macopin is about 25,000,000 gallons per day more than the amounts presented in this table. All reservoirs and ponds connected with the conservancy system of the Newark water supply were filled except that at Oakridge, which was about 1.5 feet below the crest of the spillway. _Flow of Pequanac River over Macopin dam, October 7-24, 1903._ [From Newark water department.] Cubic feet. Oct. 8, 6 a. m. to 12 m. 240,600 12m. to 4 p. m. 347,600 4 to 6 p. m. 842,200 8-9, 6 p. m. to 6 a. m. 40,110,000 9, 6 a. m. to 12 m. 51,870,000 12m. to 1 p. m. 15,100,000 1 to 5 p. m. 62,430,000 5 to 10 p. m. 89,040,000 10 to 11 p. m. 19,520,000 9-10, 10 p. m. to 8 a. m. 201,350,000 10, 8 a. m. to 12 m. 75,670,000 12 m. to 6 p. m. 103,650,000 6 to 12 p. m. 73,530,000 11, 12 to 6 a. m. 56,820,000 6 a. m. to 12m. 41,440,000 12 m. to 6 p. m. 32,755,000 6 to 12 p. m. 25,665,000 12, 12 to 6 a. m. 23,800,000 6 a. m. to 12m. 20,725,000 12 m. to 6 p. m. 18,450,000 6 to 12 p. m. 15,105,000 13, 12 to 6 a. m. 13,370,000 6 a. m. to 12 m. 11,890,000 12 m. to 6 p. m. 11,230,000 6 to 12 p. m. 11,230,000 14, 12 to 6 a. m. 9,626,000 6 a. m. to 12 m. 8,690,000 12 m. to 6 p. m. 8,022,000 6 to 12 p. m. 7,353,000 15, 12 to 6 a. m. 6,952,000 6 a. m. to 6 p. m. 12,700,000 15-16, 6 p. m. to 6 a. m. 10,965,000 16, 6 a. m. to 6 p. m. 10,025,000 16-17, 6 p. m. to 6 a. m. 9,091,000 17, 6 a. m. to 6 p. m. 8,690,000 17-18, 6 p. m. to 6 a. m. 9,893,000 18, 6 a. m. to 6 p. m. 10,565,000 18-19, 6 p. m. to 6 a. m. 8,690,000 19, 6 a. m. to 6 p. m. 6,952,000 19-20, 6 p. m. to 6 a. m. 6,150,000 20, 6 a. m. to 6 p. m. 5,882,000 20-21, 6 p. m. to 6 a. m. 5,749,000 21, 6 a. m. to 6 p. m. 5,481,000 21-22, 6 p. m. to 6 a. m. 5,214,000 22, 6 a. m. to 6 p. m. 4,144,000 22-23, 6 p. m. to 6 a. m. 3,677,000 23, 6 a. m. to 6 p. m. 3,877,000 23-24, 6 p. m. to 6 a. m. 5,749,000 24, 6 a. m. to 6 p. m. 5,615,000 FLOOD AT BEATTIE'S DAM, LITTLE FALLS. The flow over Beattie's dam at Little Falls, has been calculated according to coefficients used for the same dam in Water-Supply Paper No. 88. Recorded gage heights show that over the main dam there was a maximum depth of 11.12 feet, which continued from 2 to 8 p. m., on October 10, representing a maximum flow of 31,675 cubic feet per second. (See Pl. I, A.) In the following table is set forth the flow of the river over Beattie's dam during the flood, and for purposes of comparison, the figures for the flood period of March, 1902. It should be borne in mind in consulting this table, that in the case of the flood of 1903 exact dates and hours are given, while the figures for the 1902 flood represent flow determinations at six-hour intervals, beginning with the initial rise of that flood. * * * * * U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 92 PL. I [Illustration: _A._ BEATTIE'S DAM, LITTLE FALLS, N. J., IN FLOOD.] [Illustration: _B._ FLOOD-WATER LINES IN RESIDENCE DISTRICT, PATERSON, N. J.] * * * * * _Flood flow over Beattie's dam during floods of 1902 and 1903._ -----------------+------------+------------+ Date and hour. | 1903. | 1902.[A] | -----------------+------------+------------+ | Sec.-feet. | Sec.-feet. | Oct. 8. 12 p.m | 1,645 | 490 | 9. 6 a.m. | 4,235 | 700 | 12 m. | 8,560 | 1,350 | 6 p.m. | 15,755 | 2,120 | 12 p.m. | 23,927 | 3,540 | 10. 6 a.m. | 28,370 | 4,250 | 12 m. | 31,305 | 4,600 | 6 p.m. | 31,675 | 5,000 | 12 p.m. | 30,770 | 6,500 | 11. 6 a.m. | 29,840 | 7,600 | 12 m. | 28,950 | 8,250 | 6 p.m. | 26,960 | 9,000 | 12 p.m. | 25,530 | 10,200 | 12. 6 a.m. | 24,435 | 11,450 | 12 m. | 22,625 | 14,700 | 6 p.m. | 20,810 | 18,150 | 12 p.m. | 18,655 | 20,650 | 13. 6 a.m. | 17,930 | 22,200 | 12 m. | 16,190 | 22,700 | 6 p.m. | 14,900 | 23,400 | 12 p.m. | 13,615 | 23,300 | 14. 6 a.m. | 12,340 | 22,950 | 12 m. | 11,740 | 22,650 | 6 p.m. | 10,975 | 22,350 | 12 p.m. | 9,820 | 22,100 | 15. 6 a.m. | 9,180 | 21,150 | 12 m. | 8,330 | 19,900 | 6 p.m. | 7,700 | 18,900 | 12 p.m. | 7,005 | 17,350 | 16. 6 a.m. | 6,695 | 15,750 | 12 m. | 5,920 | 13,900 | 6 p.m. | 5,620 | 13,300 | 12 p.m. | 5,360 | 11,800 | 17. 6 a.m. | 4,855 | 10,650 | Below full bank | 8,900 | Do. | 8,500 | Do. | 8,100 | Do. | 8,200 | Do. | 7,000 | Do. | 6,250 | Do. | 5,900 | Do. | 5,300 | Do. | 5,200 | Do. | 4,900 | -----------------+------------+------------+ [Footnote A: At six-hour intervals.] FLOOD FLOW OVER DUNDEE DAM. The flood, as indicated by gage heights at Dundee dam, lasted from about 6.30 p. m. October 8 to about midnight October 18. Although the maximum recorded gage height was 19 inches higher than during the flood of 1902, the actual time during which the river was out of its banks was forty-five hours less than at the earlier flood. Examination of fig. 1 shows that the flood of 1903 was decidedly more intense than that of 1902, the maximum height being reached in 1903 in about sixty hours, while in 1902 the maximum was not reached until the expiration of about one hundred and twenty hours. At Dundee dam the familiar break in the progress of the flood took place about thirty-five hours after the initial rise. It occurred before the time of the maximum gage height at the mouth of Pompton River, and there is nothing to indicate that it was caused, as has been claimed, by slack water from the Pompton flood being forced back into Great Piece Meadows. There is no doubt that a part of the Pompton flood was so diverted, but there was maintained throughout at Little Falls a steady pressure, which constantly increased to maximum. This flood check, at Dundee dam was observed in 1902, but it could not be shown to arise from the frequently mentioned phenomena at the mouth of Pompton River. It is important to prove or disprove this hypothesis. If it were found to be true, it could be advantageously taken into consideration in connection with measures for the prevention of flood damages. As the Pompton had no such effect upon the flood flow at Dundee dam in two consecutive historic floods, the writer is inclined to believe that the idea is entirely erroneous. [Illustration: FIG. 1.--Comparative flood run-off at Dundee dam, March, 1902, and October, 1903.] Since the flow curves in fig. 1 were drawn it has been found by careful observation that the depressions which occur in the rise of every flood over Dundee dam are probably due to the carrying away of the flashboards which are placed upon the dam crest in times of low water. A review of the gage heights recorded by floods for several years past shows that the break occurs when the height of water over the dam crest reaches from 40 to 60 inches. The flashboards used upon this dam are usually 18 inches wide, and as they are supported by iron rods, which are of approximately the same strength and are placed upon the dam by one crew of workmen, it may be safely assumed that they are of approximately equal stability and might be expected to fail almost simultaneously along the length of the dam crest. So sudden a decrease in the effectual height of the dam must lower the water on the dam crest markedly, and as every other probable cause has been eliminated in the case of the recent flood, the explanation of the check in the progress of floods over this dam may be safety accepted as due to carrying away of flashboards. This effect should be apparent in the gage-height records only. In the flow diagrams (figs. 1 and 2) the effect would not be the same, but the curve would rise more sharply. Similarly, the measurements at the beginning are not correct, as they are calculated according to gage heights measured from the stone crest of the dam. Therefore, a true flood curve at this point would be much flatter at the beginning and rise sharply at a period coincident with the carrying away of the flashboards. An important difference between the two floods is that the earlier continued longer, but the later one was much higher. The flood of 1902 was caused by the turning of an equivalent of approximately 6 inches of precipitation into the main channel during a period of six days. In the deluge of 1903 there fell 11.74 inches of rain, the greater part of which was precipitated in 36 hours. Thus it is seen that there was in the flood of 1903 a larger rainfall during a much shorter period than in the flood of 1902. Computation shows that the total run-off from the drainage area above Dundee dam during the earlier flood was 13,379,000,000 cubic feet, and that on account of the frozen condition of the ground at that time this amount of water represented practically all of the precipitation. During the flood of 1903 there was a total run-off for the same area of 14,772,000,000 cubic feet, which represents about 66 per cent of the observed precipitation. According to these figures the total amount of run-off in the 1903 flood was only 10 per cent greater than that in 1902, while the actual flood height during the 1903 flood was 27 per cent higher than during the flood of 1902. The above comparison shows, in a striking manner, the effect of the condition of the surface. In the case of the later flood we had, as has been stated in previous pages, an area which had been well watered during the previous summer, and the observed ground-water levels were fairly high. There was, however, sufficient storage capacity in the basin to retain about 34 per cent of the precipitation occurring between October 7 and 11. This water must have been largely absorbed by the earth. The general relations of the floods of 1903 and 1902 can therefore be briefly stated as follows: _General relations of floods of 1903 and 1902._ -----+--------------+--------------+-------------+-------------> |Average | Duration of | Maximum | Total |precipitation.|precipitation.| flood flow. | run-off. | | | | -----+--------------+--------------+-------------+-------------> | _Inches._ | _Days._ |_Sec.-feet._ | _Cubic feet._ 1902 | 6 | 6 | 24,800 |13,379,000,000 1903 | 11.74 | 3 | 35,700 |14,772,000,000 -----+--------------+--------------+-------------+-------------> <-----------+------------- Run-off. | Duration of | flood at | Dundee dam. <-----------+------------- _Per cent._| _Hours._ [B]100 | 270 66 | 225 <-----------+------------- [Footnote B: Approximately] In the following table and fig. 2 are recorded gage heights taken at hourly intervals during the crucial part of the flood and the amount of water expressed in cubic feet per second flowing over the crest of the dam at each gage height. [Illustration: FIG. 2.--Diagram of flood flow at Dundee dam, flood of 1903.] _Flow of Passaic River at Dundee dam, 1903._ ------------------------------------------- Date and hour. | Gage. | Flow. ---------------------+-------+------------- |_Feet._| _Sec.-feet._ Oct. 8. 6.30 a. m. | 0.66 | 780 1 p. m. | 1.50 | 3,175 6.30 p. m. | 2.17 | 5,500 8 p. m. | 2.59 | 7,300 10 p. m. | 3.00 | 9,125 11 p. m. | 3.33 | 10,700 12 p. m. | 3.50 | 11,525 9. 1 a. m. | 3.50 | 11,550 2.30 a. m. | 3.59 | 11,950 4 a. m. | 3.50 | 11,525 6 a. m. | 3.66 | 12,300 8.30 a. m. | 3.75 | 12,775 9.40 a. m. | 4.00 | 14,075 10.55 a. m. | 4.66 | 17,650 12 m. | 4.75 | 18,200 1 p. m. | 5.25 | 21,050 2 p. m. | 5.37 | 21,750 3 p. m. | 5.45 | 22,250 3.45 p. m. | 5.37 | 21,750 4.25 p. m. | 5.29 | 21,300 5 p. m. | 5.23 | 20,950 5.45 p. m. | 5.19 | 20,700 6.30 p. m. | 5.17 | 20,600 7 p. m. | 5.11 | 20,250 8 p. m. | 5.13 | 20,350 9 p. m. | 5.17 | 20,600 10 p. m. | 5.21 | 20,750 11 p. m. | 5.27 | 21,150 12 p. m. | 5.4 | 21,950 10. 1 a. m. | 5.5 | 22,500 2 a. m. | 5.66 | 23,500 3 a. m. | 5.73 | 23,900 4 a. m. | 5.91 | 25,050 5 a. m. | 6.00 | 25,650 6 a. m. | 6.2 | 26,900 7 a. m. | 6.33 | 27,700 8 a. m. | 6.4 | 28,150 9 a. m. | 6.6 | 29,400 10 a. m. | 6.83 | 30,750 11 a. m. | 6.89 | 31,250 11.35 a. m. | 6.97 | 31,750 12 m. | 6.93 | 31,450 1 p. m. | 6.95 | 31,650 2 p. m. | 7.13 | 32,800 3 p. m. | 7.19 | 33,150 4 p. m. | 7.25 | 33,500 5 p. m. | 7.39 | 34,450 6 p. m. | 7.39 | 34,450 7 p. m. | 7.40 | 34,500 8 p. m. | 7.54 | 35,350 9 p. m. | 7.62 | 35,800 10 p. m. | 7.60 | 35,700 11 p. m. | 7.57 | 35,500 12 p. m. | 7.43 | 34,650 11. 1 a. m. | 7.47 | 34,950 2 a. m. | 7.5 | 35,100 3 a. m. | 7.42 | 34,700 4 a. m. | 7.3 | 34,450 5 a. m. | 7.3 | 34,150 6 a. m. | 7.3 | 34,150 7 a. m. | 7.37 | 34,300 8 a. m. | 7.33 | 34,100 9 a. m. | 7.31 | 33,900 10 a. m. | 7.23 | 33,450 11 a. m. | 7.25 | 32,525 12 m. | 7.18 | 33,100 1 p. m. | 7.18 | 33,100 2 p. m. | 7.17 | 33,300 3 p. m. | 7.08 | 32,450 4 p. m. | 7.00 | 31,950 5 p. m. | 6.96 | 31,700 6 p. m. | 6.89 | 31,250 7 p. m. | 6.86 | 31,050 8 p. m. | 6.83 | 30,850 9 p. m. | 6.79 | 30,600 10 p. m. | 6.81 | 30,700 11 p. m. | 6.73 | 30,200 12 p. m. | 6.71 | 30,100 12. 1 a. m. | 6.63 | 29,600 2 a. m. | 6.59 | 29,350 3 a. m. | 6.55 | 29,100 4 a. m. | 6.51 | 28,800 5 a. m. | 6.42 | 28,250 6 a. m. | 6.42 | 28,250 7 a. m. | 6.39 | 28,100 8 a. m. | 6.39 | 28,100 9 a. m. | 6.25 | 27,200 10 a. m. | 6.21 | 26,950 11 a. m. | 6.17 | 26,700 12 m. | 6.05 | 26,100 1 p. m. | 6.06 | 26,050 2 p. m | 5.93 | 25,200 3 p. m. | 5.89 | 24,950 4 p. m. | 5.87 | 24,800 5 p. m. | 5.79 | 24,300 6 p. m | 5.77 | 24,150 7 p. m. | 5.75 | 24,250 8 p. m. | 5.73 | 23,950 9 p. m | 5.63 | 23,300 10 p. m. | 5.59 | 23,100 11 p. m. | 5.54 | 22,750 12 p. m. | 5.49 | 22,450 13. 1 a. m. | 5.44 | 22,200 2 a. m. | 5.39 | 21,000 3 a. m. | 5.35 | 21,650 4 a. m. | 5.30 | 21,350 5 a. m. | 5.24 | 21,000 6 a. m. | 5.21 | 20,850 7 a. m. | 5.16 | 20,525 8 a. m. | 5.13 | 20,350 9 a. m. | 5.08 | 20,100 10 a. m. | 5.04 | 19,800 11 a. m. | 5.00 | 19,560 12 m. | 4.94 | 19,200 1 p. m. | 4.89 | 18,900 2 p. m. | 4.85 | 18,700 3 p. m. | 4.84 | 18,650 4 p. m. | 4.75 | 18,200 5 p. m. | 4.71 | 17,900 6 p. m. | 4.66 | 17,650 7 p. m. | 4.64 | 17,550 8 p. m. | 4.59 | 17,250 9 p. m. | 4.54 | 17,000 10 p. m. | 4.51 | 16,750 11 p. m. | 4.49 | 16,700 12 p. m. | 4.37 | 16,000 14. 1 a. m. | 4.37 | 16,000 2 a. m. | 4.35 | 15,925 3 a. m. | 4.35 | 15,925 4 a. m. | 4.33 | 15,800 5 a. m. | 4.34 | 15,850 6 a. m. | 4.31 | 15,700 7 a. m. | 4.27 | 15,500 8 a. m. | 4.25 | 15,300 9 a. m. | 4.17 | 14,900 10 a. m. | 4.08 | 14,500 11 a. m. | 4.05 | 14,325 12 m. | 4.02 | 14,150 1 p. m. | 4.02 | 14,150 2 p. m. | 4.01 | 14,100 3 p. m. | 3.97 | 13,900 4 p. m. | 3.94 | 13,750 5 p. m. | 3.85 | 13,300 6 p. m. | 3.75 | 12,775 7 p. m. | 3.75 | 12,775 9 p. m. | 3.71 | 12,550 12 p. m. | 3.66 | 12,300 15. 6.30 a. m. | 3.50 | 11,525 1 p. m. | 3.41 | 11,050 6.30 p. m. | 3.41 | 11,050 16. 6.30 a. m. | 3.00 | 9,125 1 p. m. | 3.00 | 9,125 6.30 p. m. | 2.91 | 8,700 17. 6.30 a. m. | 2.5 | 6,900 1 p. m. | 2.5 | 6,900 6.30 p. m. | 2.5 | 6,900 18. 6.30 a. m. | 2.5 | 6,900 1 p.m. | 2.41 | 6,500 6.30 p. m. | 2.33 | 6,200 19. 6.30 a. m. | 2 | 4,900 1 p. m. | 2 | 4,900 6.30 p. m. | 2 | 4,900 DAMAGES. GENERAL STATEMENTS. Estimates of flood damages are always approximations only. It is possible to determine with a fair degree of assurance the cost of replacing structures which have been carried away, to estimate the value of goods destroyed--especially if they be commodities stored in shops or warehouses--to calculate the amount of operatives' wages lost, and in the case of general mercantile business to estimate the damages incurred through consequent reduction of trade. Destruction by flood, however vast, is incomplete. It differs materially from destruction by fire, for often destructible property is of value after floods have passed. Buildings which are inundated still retain value, and many kinds of merchandise are not totally destroyed. Therefore when the amount of damages is calculated there is always to be taken into consideration the fact that a part of the material which has been flooded can be reclaimed, and retains some proportion, at least, of the value which it had previously possessed. Furthermore, damages by flood enter into practically every detail of social and business affairs. There are losses which are severe to one or more persons, and which can not be appreciated except by those whom the floods have actually overtaken. Therefore estimations of flood damages can be only approximate, and while a measure of accuracy may be reached with respect to a part of the losses, there remains a necessity for approximation which can not be classed with carefully computed damages along other lines. HIGHLAND TRIBUTARIES. Along the three northern tributaries, the Ramapo, Wanaque, and Pequanac, and at their confluence with the Pompton, the destruction by flood waters was far greater than along the Rockaway, Whippany, and upper Passaic, or in that area described as the Central Basin. In the drainage areas of the three tributaries last mentioned the waters were higher than in the flood of 1902, but the general effects were of the same nature, and consisted principally of flooded lands, houses, and washouts. There were few radical cases of complete destruction like those which marked the course of the flood in the northern tributaries. The principal interest is therefore confined to the Pompton and the three highland tributaries which discharge into it. _Ramapo River._--The greatest destruction was along the Ramapo. It is the largest of the upland branches, and was therefore the heaviest contributor to the main stream. Throughout the flood period the stream was especially violent, causing great apprehension in the lower valley. The destruction along several stretches of the valley was almost complete. Nearly all the dams failed, and every bridge across the river, with one exception, was carried away. Some small villages were swept bare, and the damages to realty value and personal property were excessive. It was only by strenuous measures that the dam impounding the waters of Tuxedo Lake was saved. If this had failed the destruction along the entire course of the river, even to the cities in the lower valley, would have been enormously increased. The dam at Cranberry Pond, in Arden, failed in the early part of the storm, the flood waters disabling the Tuxedo electric-light plant and inundating the Italian settlements along the river below. The failure of the dam conserving the waters of Nigger Pond, which lies at the head of a small tributary emptying into the Ramapo below Tuxedo, resulted in the inundation of Ramapo village. The village of Sloatsburg was practically obliterated. The damage at Pompton Lakes was especially severe. During the early part of the flood the timber dam of the Ludlum Steel and Iron Company, which raised the water to a height of 27 feet, and afforded 7.04 horsepower per foot fall, was carried away with a part of the headrace. (See Pl. II, _A._) This sudden emptying of Pompton Lake, an expanse of 196 acres (see Pl. II, _B_), was extremely destructive to Pompton Plains, and the destruction of the dams above on Ramapo River, which followed some time after the bursting of the lower dam, refilled Pompton Lake above its former level, and caused greater damage than that which resulted from the failure of Pompton dam itself. The large iron bridge just below the dam was carried away, with the stores of the Ludlum Steel and Iron Company. The river front along this company's property was destroyed, along with coal docks at the head of Morris Canal feeder. The channel of the river below the dam is filled with débris, which will raise the height of the water in the tailrace, and unless it is cleared will diminish the available power at the iron works. It has been authoritatively announced, however, that the power facilities will not be restored, as the Ludlum Steel and Iron Company is preparing to use steam power exclusively. _Pequanac and Wanaque rivers._--Along Pequanac River the principal damage consisted of washed-out roads and destroyed bridges. The large ponded area in this basin was practically full at the time of the flood, and, as measurements at Macopin dam show, the run-off per square mile was extremely large. In the Wanaque drainage area the storage facilities afforded at Greenwood Lake were probably useful in holding back a part of the water for a brief period, but the damages along the stream are comparable to those of the Pequanac. The effect of the flow from these two streams, added to that of the Ramapo, was particularly disastrous over the Pompton Plains. Three * * * * * U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 92 PL. II [Illustration: _A._ POMPTON LAKES DAM AND WATER FRONT OF LUDLUM STEEL AND IRON COMPANY.] [Illustration: _B._ DRY BED OF POMPTON LAKE.] U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 92 PL. III [Illustration: FLOOD DISTRICT OF PATERSON, N. J.] * * * * * bridges at Pompton station, over Wanaque and Pequanac rivers, were carried away, and in the end one bridge only remained over Pompton River, that at Pequanac station. In all about 100 houses were inundated on Pompton Plains, and the damage to roads and culverts was particularly severe. The total loss in the drainage area of Pompton River was $350,000. CENTRAL BASIN. Over the Central Basin there was the usual impounding of flood waters, but the effects were not materially different from those described in the report on the flood of 1902. The damage along this basin from floods of this character is accumulative by reason of the fact that the presence of water over the land for so long a period kills the desirable feed grasses and fosters in their place the coarse meadow grass. This effect has been observed for some years, particularly since the flood of 1896. It is estimated that over the Central Basin the damage to crops and arable land alone arising from the floods of 1902 and 1903 amounts to $300,000. A statement of the damage arising from the later flood can not separately be made, as its effect upon the fertility of the meadow lands can not be determined without the experience of a planting season. LOWER VALLEY. The flow of the stream through the constricted channel at Little Falls and on to Great Falls at Paterson is given in the weir measurements on page 17. It was attended by comparatively large damages, the features of which were not materially different from those described in the previous report. The pumping station of the East Jersey Water Company, situated just below Little Falls dam, did not suffer as severely as during the previous flood, by reason of the fact that extensive and effective barricades were placed so as to keep a large part of the water away from the pumps. This was not accomplished in the flood of 1902. The total damage in this district amounted to nearly $200,000. The channel contours were changed somewhat in this portion of the stream. In the river at the pumping station of the East Jersey Water Company there was completed a somewhat interesting cycle of changes, described in the following extract of a letter from Mr. G. Waldo Smith, chief engineer for the New York aqueduct commissioners, and formerly engineer and superintendent of the East Jersey Water Company: "No better illustration of the old adage, 'The river claims its own,' could be given than that offered by the action of Passaic River at Little Falls, New Jersey, at the point where the works of the East Jersey Water Company have been constructed. These works were built between 1897 and 1900. In the course of the work the river channel for a distance of several thousand feet down stream from the power house was drained and improved, so that the head on the wheels at the ordinary stage of the river was increased about 6 feet. From the time this improvement was completed to March, 1902, through the action of the ordinary flow of water and moderate floods, this head had been reduced about one-third. The great freshet of March, 1902, cut off about another third, and the recent flood has completed the cycle and entirely wiped out the benefit due to the river improvement, and the water at the pumping station stands now at almost precisely the same level that it stood before any improvements were undertaken. New bars were formed in approximately the same location as they existed before, and, so far as possible, except for the changed conditions brought about by the building of the power station, the condition of the river is not dissimilar to that existing when the work was commenced. "In this connection it might be well to state that a New Jersey drainage commission, in blasting out a channel below the Little Falls dam some years ago, dumped a considerable portion of the excavation in the deep water under the Morris Canal viaduct. "The action of the two great floods, March, 1902, and October, 1903, has washed a large part of this material out of this deep hole and piled it up in the river about 300 feet below where the river widens, and reduces the force of the current. "I have made no estimate of the amount of material deposited in the river, but offhand should say that it would be at least 100,000 yards." _Paterson._--The flood district in the city of Paterson (see Pl. III) comprised 196 acres and involved the temporary obstruction of 10.3 miles of streets. Along the streets close to the river banks the height of water was 12 feet, sufficient to inundate the first floors of all the buildings (see Pl. I, _B_), and in some cases to reach to the second floor. During this flood period householders who remained at their homes were compelled to use boats, while in the more exposed places the danger was too great to admit of remaining, and at one time 1,200 persons were housed and fed in the National Guard armory at Paterson. The bridges crossing Passaic River in Passaic, Essex, and Bergen counties were almost completely destroyed, and the damage amounted to $654,811. Within the limits of Paterson, below Great Falls, all of the highway bridges except two were either severely damaged or completely carried away. West street bridge, the first below the falls, was a Melan concrete, steel-arch structure, built in 1897, and costing $65,000. It was composed of three spans, each about 90 feet long. The flood practically split two spans longitudinally, the upstream side of each, equal to about one-third of the width of the bridge, being carried * * * * * U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 92 PL. IV [Illustration: _A._ WASHOUT AT SPRUCE STREET, PATERSON, N. J.] [Illustration: _B._ RIVER STREET, PATERSON, N. J., AFTER FLOOD.] U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 92 PL. V [Illustration: _A._ EFFECTS OF FLOOD IN MILL DISTRICT, PATERSON, N. J.] [Illustration: _B._ THE WRECK OF A HOTEL IN PATERSON, N. J.] * * * * * away. This structure was built to conform to the established grades of streets on both sides of the river and was completely inundated, forming a barrier for floating débris and practically making a dam in the river. Main street bridge is a 3-span, steel-arch structure, which was completely covered during the flood, but was only slightly injured. Arch street bridge, built in 1902 to take the place of a structure carried away by the March flood, was a concrete-arch bridge of three spans. It was undermined at the north pier and collapsed, being practically destroyed. The original cost of this bridge was $34,000. Its piers presented a serious obstruction to the flow of the stream, especially as the channel is very narrow at this point. In addition to this, the bridge was of low grade and admirably adapted for deterring flood flow. Below Arch street bridge all the other structures crossing the Passaic were of iron and were carried away, with the exception of Sixth avenue and Wesel bridges. Those destroyed were designated as follows: Straight street, Hillman street, Moffat, Wagaraw, Fifth avenue, East Thirty-third street, and Broadway bridges. All these structures were built too low, and were inundated during the early stages of the flood. The damage to real property, stock, and household goods in the city of Paterson amounted, according to certified returns, to about $2,700,000. It is impossible to secure correct figures, because merchants and manufacturers refuse to give details of losses, fearing that the publication thereof would affect their credit. General ideas concerning the destruction by the flood can be gathered from Pls. I, _B_, III, IV, V, and VI. _Passaic and vicinity._--Below the city of Paterson destruction was as complete as in Paterson, although the damage was not as great because the improvements were not as valuable. Damage to property, exclusive of public works, in this region, amounted to about $1,250,000. This estimate does not take into consideration losses by manufacturers arising from destruction of raw materials or finished products. The flood was about 4-1/2 feet higher than that of 1902. (See Pl. VII, _A._) On the right bank of Passaic River, in the city of Passaic, the damage was severe, especially to manufacturing plants. In addition to the flood in the Passaic itself, the bursting of Morris Canal, a few miles east of Passaic, flooded Wesel Brook, which in Passaic is used as the tail-race of the Dundee Power Company. The capacity of Wesel Brook channel is limited, and the extraordinary amount of water which was turned into it carried away all culverts and bridges from Richfield to Passaic. Below Passaic, along the river front of Essex County, the damages to bridges amounted to $50,000. (See Pl. VII, _B._) The loss due to washouts in roads throughout the county amounted to $15,000. The effects of the flood were apparent along the entire length of the river and into Newark Bay. The damage from inundation in Newark and vicinity amounted to $753,199. The figures above given with reference to damage along Passaic River are uncommonly accurate, being for the most part the result of a house-to-house canvass by the northern New Jersey flood commission. As has been stated above, tradesmen are reluctant to give full details with reference to their losses through fear of injured credit. Roughly estimating the damage as a whole, and taking into consideration factors which were given to the writer confidentially, the damage throughout the drainage area from this flood will amount to not less than $7,000,000. PREVENTIVE MEASURES. GENERAL DISCUSSION. In the consideration of means of preventing damages by floods every plan proposed falls under one of two general heads--the storage of flood waters or an increase in the capacity of the streams. The first plan involves the construction at selected localities of reservoirs of sufficient size to hold all or a greater part of the waters which run over the surface during and after storms. This plan is not practicable except where valleys or plains are inclosed by high ridges and these ridges approach sufficiently near each other to admit of the economical construction of a bank or dam across the gorge or bed of the stream which flows through, so that the inclosure will be complete and form a water-tight basin. Where such a reservoir exists the water can be held back and gradually let down through properly provided gates so that the channel will not be flooded. For flood purposes alone it would be necessary to provide reservoirs of sufficient capacity to contain the run-off waters resulting from the largest storms. With such provisions it would be necessary to entirely empty the reservoir as soon as possible after a storm had passed and leave its full capacity available for the next storm. It is therefore better, wherever possible, to provide a reservoir capacity considerably larger than that represented by the run-off from the heaviest storms, so that water may be stored for use as power or domestic supply. With such provision it is necessary merely to draw from the reservoir water to a depth equivalent to the stream run-off in the drainage area above. The second plan for prevention of flood damages involves provisions for letting the flood water out rapidly by removing obstructions to its flow by straightening and deepening the channels and providing long embankments, dikes, or levees which rise above the ordinary river level to a height exceeding that of the stream during its highest floods. This plan is most generally followed in the case of large rivers like * * * * * U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 92 PL. VI [Illustration: _A._ DEVASTATION IN HEBREW QUARTER, PATERSON, N. J.] [Illustration: _B._ A COMMON EXAMPLE OF FLOOD DAMAGE.] U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER NO. 92 PL. VII [Illustration: _A._ INUNDATED LANDS AT PASSAIC, N. J.] [Illustration: _B._ UNDAMAGED BRIDGE ACROSS PASSAIC RIVER AFTER PARTIAL SUBSIDENCE OF FLOOD.] * * * * * the Mississippi, where the contributing area is enormous and the conservation of the waters would be impracticable even if the nature of the country would admit of the construction of reservoirs. In Switzerland, where the torrents occasioned by the rapidly melting snows are especially destructive, the flood waters are confined by a series of parallel dikes on each side of the river, which have the effect of dividing the flow into several parallel streams. As the main river channel fills and overflows the inner dikes, the overflow water collects into the first series of parallel channels, and when a height is reached at which the second dikes are overflowed the water collects into the third, and so on. This gives an enormous carrying capacity, the limit of which is approached slowly, and therefore abundant opportunity is afforded for preparation upon the part of the riparian owner. The drainage basin of Passaic River is admirably adapted to the development of the conservation system. At its headwaters in the mountains of northern New Jersey are numerous sites for reservoirs. The comparatively limited area draining into Passaic River makes such a scheme relatively inexpensive. On the other hand there is abundant opportunity for effective work in removing obstructions and straightening and deepening the channel of the lower river. So that, all things considered, the prevention of flood damages in the Passaic Basin can be best accomplished by a combination of the two general methods above outlined. LOWER VALLEY IMPROVEMENTS. The channel of Passaic River below Great Falls, at Paterson, is of limited capacity. To anyone making an inspection, especially within the city of Paterson, it is readily apparent that the river bed has for years been considered a legitimate field for encroachment. Owners of lands fronting on the river have increased their holdings by filling in beyond the channel line. Buildings have been erected upon these tracts and the builders have not hesitated to extend retaining walls still farther into the river bed. Refuse from the city's streets, light and unstable in character, has been freely deposited upon the bank to be carried out into the river. Thus the channel has been constricted laterally, the bottom raised, and there is left for the flood waters no alternative than that of extending themselves in the upward direction. It would seem that this, at least, should have been unobstructed. Such, however, is not the case. The bridges across the Passaic have apparently been erected without reference to channel capacity. The authorities have evidently considered it more important to retain established approach levels than to provide proper capacity for river water. As an example the following instance may be cited: During the flood of 1902 a steel truss bridge across the river in Paterson was carried away. The point of crossing was one of the narrowest places in the stream and it should have been clear to everyone that the space beneath the bridge was not large enough to carry flood waters. It should have been apparent that a new bridge, if erected at that point, must be higher than the old one, to be thoroughly safe. Notwithstanding, the new bridge was erected at the level of the old one, and in addition to this, it was a concrete arch structure, and the great piers and low arch springs reduced the former channel capacity about 15 per cent. This new bridge, as might be expected, collapsed during the October flood. Along the entire course of the stream in the lower valley we find a continuation of instances of unreasonable encroachment and ill-considered bridge engineering, and there is opportunity for relieving a large part of the purely local obstructions by straightening the channel at chosen points. Although this matter has not been thoroughly investigated it is readily apparent to one traversing the river bank that considerable relief may be secured in this manner. Damage, however, can not be prevented by this means alone. It would, of course, be possible to erect high and resistant levees along the entire course of the river, but this would be extremely expensive and would destroy the water front for commercial purposes. In fact, such a plan is quite visionary. At the present time there are no obstructions in lower Passaic River the removal of which would give relief in the event of floods like those of 1902 and 1903. When one considers the amount of water which was carried into the lower valley, the heights which it reached, and the area which it inundated, the futility of any local improvement except levee construction is emphasized. The present channel of the river will not carry without damage the amount of water recently thrown into it, and while it is important to provide regulations which will in the future prevent encroachment, and which will correct the evils now present along the channel, these measures can not, operating of themselves, give relief from flood devastation. Immunity from flood destruction in the Passaic must come, if it ever comes, from the construction of flood-catchment reservoirs in the uplands. It is not necessary to spend any great amount of time in determining the cause of floods upon the Passaic. A review of the flood history of this river shows that in every case floods arise from extraordinary precipitation. High waters occur through the melting of snows and during periods of abundant rain. The heavy floods which have been regarded as extraordinary are clearly the result of unusual conditions of precipitation. The river carries the usual flood waters, and no damage is done until the water poured into it is far beyond its carrying capacity. Therefore the provisions which are made for preventing damage by floods must, if they be effective, be designed to meet extraordinary conditions, and means which would prove effectual in ordinary cases will not stand the test. In order to appreciate the extent of the flood in the lower valley it is necessary to visit the flooded area and observe the points of flood height. Unless one does this he will be very readily deceived when he considers means of flood prevention. FLOOD CATCHMENT. Among the highland tributaries of Passaic River there are three principal areas where storage reservoirs for flood catchment may be placed: (1) The Ramapo, Wanaque, and Pequanac drainage basins, from which the waters are carried into the central basin by Pompton River; (2) the Rockaway drainage basin, and (3) the upper Passaic drainage basin. The remaining principal tributary of Passaic River, the Whippany, is not well provided with storage reservoir sites. The combined capacity of catchment reservoirs which could be constructed in these drainage areas is considerably more than the volume of the heaviest known rainfall, that of October 8-11, 1903. In the description of reservoir possibilities in the following pages the data with reference to many of the basins are computed from planimeter and other measurements, the United States Geological Survey topographic maps being used as a base. The measurements are therefore not of refined accuracy but suffice for the purpose in view--that of showing flood catchment possibilities. POMPTON RESERVOIR. There are in the Pompton system several sites on Ramapo, Wanaque, and Pequanac rivers which, if utilized, would afford sufficient storage for flood catchment purposes, but the entire flow of the river system may be conserved in what has been described as the Pompton reservoir. This project was first presented by Mr. C. C. Vermeule in the year 1884, the details being described at some length in the Engineering News, of April 12 of that year, pages 169-171. In this article Mr. Vermeule presented the possibilities of Pompton reservoir for use as an additional water supply for the city of New York, at the time when the Quaker Bridge reservoir on the Croton watershed was being considered. A few pertinent quotations from this article may be of interest: This basin, subdivided by minor ridges which cross it, furnishes several admirable sites for large storage reservoirs, with catchments from 50 to 400 square miles in area, lying above on the primitive rock of the Highlands. About 6 miles of the northeastern end of the basin is cut off by Hook Mountain, a small ridge of trap which crosses it from east to west, inclosing a basin 21 square miles in area, known as Pompton Plains, having its outlet at Mountain View, 5 miles west of Paterson, at a pass in Hook Mountain, through which the Pompton River flows to join the Passaic, 2 miles below. This pass is the gateway by which the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, the New York and Greenwood Lake Railway, and the Morris Canal enter the plains. The basin is also crossed near its head, above Pompton, by the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railroad. The Pompton River has a drainage area above Mountain View of 420 square miles. It is formed near the head of the basin by the confluence of the Pequanac from the northwest, the Wanaque from the north, and the Ramapo from the northeast. * * * The entire flow from this watershed may be stored by building a dam across the gap at Mountain View and converting Pompton Plains into a great lake covering an area of 21 square miles. The elevation of the river at the gap is 168 feet. The slopes in the basin being gentle up to an elevation of 220 feet and abrupt beyond it, it will be advisable to take this as the minimum or low-water level of our reservoir. It is generally estimated that 25 per cent of the volume of the mean annual rain on a given catchment is sufficient reservoir capacity to fully utilize the flood flows. We have long series of observations of rainfall at three points, which may be taken to fairly represent the Passaic catchment. At Newark the mean annual rainfall is 46.2 inches, at Paterson, 50 inches, and at Lake Hopatcong, 42. The last being on the Highlands, like most of our watersheds, is perhaps the safest to use. Now, 25 per cent of 42.5 inches, 10.62 inches, which, on 420 square miles, give a volume of 10,362,000,000 cubic feet, the necessary capacity of reservoir. By raising our reservoir to 240 feet when full we secure a capacity of 10,493,000,000 cubic feet, or ample to utilize the heaviest floods of the watershed. This gives a beautiful sheet of water 21.1 square miles in area, with bold, rocky shores, and a depth at dam of 72 feet. We secure the above capacity by uncovering but 22 per cent of the reservoir bottom; and, as we shall presently see, we shall rarely need more than half this storage, and probably not oftener than once in ten years will we expose over 10 per cent of the area. By building side dams to keep certain flats always flowed this may be reduced to 5 per cent; and this area will be pretty evenly distributed around 36 miles of uninhabited shore line, leaving the reservoir open to no valid sanitary objections. On the contrary, by relieving the remainder of the Passaic Basin of the flood waters of the Pompton, which now flow large areas of flat land during wet seasons, the sanitary condition of the valley would be much improved. In constructing this reservoir Mr. Vermeule stated that the following work would be necessary: The removal of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad from the basin by changing the alignment for 6 miles. It may be done without increase of length or detriment to the alignment. Three and one-fourth miles of the Morris Canal must be rebuilt. No engineering difficulties are involved. Of the New York and Greenwood Lake Railway, 9 miles would have to be rebuilt. The New York, Susquehanna and Western Railroad would be slightly shifted or raised for 3-3/4 miles. A dam 2,400 feet long and 80 feet in height, with tunnels, wasteweir, and accessory works would be required at Mountain View. The situation is such that an ample wasteweir may be built at a low-side dam on the solid rock of Hook Mountain remote from the dam, and outlets may be had by tunneling the same ridge. Hence the dam may be a plain, heavy earthen embankment; built, of course, with every precaution but subject to less than the usual dangers of such works. However, a masonry dam might readily be substituted. There would be 14,000 acres of arable land, swamps, and rough mountain land flowed. The works are estimated to cost as follows: Railroad and canal diversions $505,000 Dam and accessory works 1,162,000 Land damages 1,400,000 _________ Total 3,067,000 A recomputation of the drainage area above Mountain View, made by the northern New Jersey flood commission, shows that it is 380 square miles in extent. It was decided by this commission that the construction of this reservoir would be the most approved method of preventing disastrous floods in the lower valley of the Passaic. By raising a dam to a height of 202 feet above tide, 8 inches of water on the drainage area above might be held back, which, it was believed, would be a sufficient maximum for flood catchment. With this amount of storage the estimates of the flood commission showed that the remainder of the drainage area would not turn a sufficient amount of water into the lower valley channel to cause flood damages. It was also demonstrated by the flood commission that by increasing the height of the dam an opportunity would be afforded for conserving water, and at the maximum height of 220 feet above tide sufficient storage capacity would be available to provide 5,000 horsepower at Little Falls, Great Falls, and Dundee dam throughout all dry seasons. The value of such a storage reservoir for municipal water-supply purposes is self-evident. The cost of Mountain View reservoir would be about $3,340,000. Developed for flood catchment with the spillway of the dam at 202 feet above sea level the area of the reservoir would be 13.4 square miles, and the storage capacity 7,200,000,000 cubic feet. RAMAPO SYSTEM. Along the Ramapo Valley there are alternative propositions, one of which involves the construction of a dam below Darlington and another across the head of Pompton Lake. In either case the water might be raised to the 300-foot contour, and if the dam across Pompton Lake were constructed a continuous lake would be formed extending 10-1/2 miles to Hillburn, N. Y. The improvement in either case would be positive, for as the country surrounding is hilly or mountainous it affords excellent opportunity for the location of summer homes and parks, the lake being a potent factor in beautifying the situation and increasing the value of the surrounding region. There are, nevertheless, several things to be taken into consideration, the most important of which are the improvements which have been made by wealthy residents along the valley where it has already been developed as a summer resort. By the construction of a dam at Darlington 1,100 feet long and 70 feet high, the water would be raised to the 300-foot contour. The reservoir would have a water area of 2,064 acres, and the approximate storage capacity of 2,325,000,000 cubic feet. A dam across the head of Pompton Lake 2,850 feet long and 100 feet high would raise the surface of the proposed lake to the 300-foot contour. This reservoir would have an area of 6.19 square miles and a capacity of 6,300,000,000 cubic feet, equal to 17.5 inches run-off from the drainage area. Here the measure of safety is wide, and if there were drawn from the lake an amount of water equal to 12 inches on the drainage area there would still be 5.5 inches which could be used for compensating purposes. The construction of either one of the above-described reservoirs would involve interstate complications, as the 300-foot contour in Ramapo Valley includes a considerable part of the State of New York. This obstacle was deemed insurmountable by the northern New Jersey flood commission, and that commission directed studies to a reservoir which at the time of maximum flood would not back water into New York State to a greater height than it already rises during such floods. The following description is taken from the report of the engineering committee of the flood commission: An admirable dam site is offered on Ramapo River about 2 miles above Oakland village. The drainage area tributary to this point is about 140 square miles in extent, the country for the most part being quick-spilling and upland. By constructing there a dam 700 feet long and 65 feet high a reservoir with a water surface of 2.8 square miles would be afforded, the flow-line elevation being 280 feet above tide. The capacity of such a reservoir would be 1,768,000,000 cubic feet, equal to about 5.5 inches on the drainage area. WANAQUE SYSTEM. Near the headwaters of Wanaque River is Greenwood Lake, a large body of water described in Water-Supply Paper No. 88. Its value as a flood catchment basin is somewhat uncertain, as it is used as a storage feeder for Morris Canal. The surface level of this lake is controlled by gates, which naturally are operated by the canal authorities for the benefit of the canal. Therefore it is the object to store as great a volume of water as possible, and the water falls below the dam crest at the outlet of the lake only when the dam opens in dry seasons and makes it necessary. Under such conditions there is no certainty that storage capacity will be available during the time of a great storm, and in fact Greenwood Lake has been overflowing at the commencement of the storms which caused both of the recent floods. In view of the condition expressed above it will be necessary in providing for flood catchment in the Wanaque drainage area to omit entirely from consideration the possibility of assistance from Greenwood Lake. Below this point in the basin are several sites at which could be raised dams, which would effectually retain a large proportion at least of storm run-off. They may be described as follows: _Midvale reservoir_.--By building a dam 60 feet high and 1,200 feet long across Wanaque River near Midvale, a reservoir would be formed which would have a water surface of 2.1 square miles and a capacity of 1,491,000,000 cubic feet. The drainage area above this site is 83 square miles, and the storage capacity would therefore be equal to about 7.7 inches on the drainage area. The construction of this project would involve the relocation of about 4-1/2 miles of the New York and Greenwood Lake Railroad; the damages apart from this would be nominal, the cost of the entire reservoir construction being about $1,000,000. _Ringwood reservoir_.--Ringwood Creek runs through a gorge about 1 mile above its confluence with the Wanaque. Above this is a well-defined basin. A dam about 70 feet high and 585 feet long would create a lake having an area of 520 acres, the surface of which would be 380 feet above sea level. The drainage area tributary to this point has an area of about 20 square miles, and as the proposed reservoir would have a capacity of 915,800,000 cubic feet, there could be conserved a run-off of 20 inches. Allowing for a flood run-off of 12 inches there would still be available for compensating purposes 8 inches on the basin, equal to 373,550,000 cubic feet. The construction of this reservoir would involve the relocation of about 2 miles of the Ringwood branch of the New York and Greenwood Lake Railroad, and the condemnation of comparatively valuable improvements in the proposed basin. _West Brook reservoir_.--The drainage from 5.7 square miles might be conserved by the erection of a dam on West Brook, a tributary of Wanaque River, which enters it from the west. There is an available site at which a dam 280 feet high might be erected. At this elevation the length along the top would be about 1,150 feet and about 2,330,000,000 cubic feet of water would be impounded. Little benefit would be derived from such a reservoir, as the limited drainage area affords a comparatively small proportion of flood run-off that might be well cared for at a lower point. For compensating purposes, however, a reservoir might be constructed here, the capacity of which could be adjusted to the actual demands. If the dam were raised to a height of about 280 feet from the base the storage afforded would be equal to 176 inches on the watershed, or about four average years of precipitation, which is far beyond all probable storage necessities. The maximum available storage capacity is given in this case merely to show possibilities. PEQUANAC SYSTEM. There are few available reservoir sites of large size along the lower reaches of Pequanac River. In the upper basin, however, there is a sufficient available storage capacity to afford almost complete control of destructive floods from that part of the drainage area. Large tracts are already reserved by the city of Newark for collection of municipal supply, and the storage capacity developed is sufficient to serve the city throughout the driest seasons. The total capacity of Clinton, Oakridge, and Canistear reservoirs is about 1,155,000,000 cubic feet. These basins are not available for flood catchment, as the water is used for city purposes and an endeavor is made to have in storage at all times the largest possible amount. The condition is exactly similar to that described in the case of Greenwood Lake. In considering the means for the construction of flood-catchment reservoirs in Pequanac Basin there must be taken into account the conservation and delivery of the Newark supply. The adjustments with reference to the amount of water available at Macopin intake would have to be met, and if the system were interfered with compensation therefore would be taken into consideration. _Newfoundland reservoir_.--Pequanac River passes through a deep gorge between Copperas and Kanouse mountains, just below the village of Newfoundland. This point has been considered an excellent site for the construction of a dam, and in the installation of the present water-supply system of Newark it is proposed that the entire valley in which Newfoundland is situated be overflowed. The site is one of the most advantageous known for the creation of a flood-catchment basin. If a dam 50 feet high were erected across this gorge, a lake would be formed which would have a surface area of 3.15 square miles and a capacity of 3,267,200,000 cubic feet, equal to a storage of about 30.5 inches on the 46.12 square miles of contributing drainage area. This would afford complete protection in case of a sudden run-off of 12 inches, would provide for the supply of the city of Newark without greatly disturbing the present storage system of that city, and would still yield a large amount of water for compensating purposes in dry seasons. The construction of Newfoundland reservoir would be very expensive, as it would involve the flooding of Newfoundland Village, in which there is considerable improved property. About 3 miles of the track of the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railroad would be submerged, as well as a considerable mileage of macadamized highways. On the whole, however, the Newfoundland reservoir project is the most favorable which can be found on the Pequanac Basin. There are above this point numerous reservoir sites, but their combined capacity would not be equal to that of the proposed Newfoundland reservoir, and the construction would be probably quite as expensive. _Stickle Pond reservoir_.--Below Newfoundland there are few available places at which water could be stored. Stickle Pond is probably the best adapted of any of those available. If a dam 1,050 feet long and 80 feet high were erected across the river about 1 mile below the present outlet of Stickle Pond, a lake would be formed having a surface area of 422 acres and a storage capacity of about 800,000,000 cubic feet. The drainage area above this dam would be approximately 4 square miles. This is a comparatively small amount of storage, yet it would provide for all flood catchment in that comparatively limited area and would be of assistance at times in compensating the dry flow of the Pequanac. ROCKAWAY SYSTEM. Rockaway River offers a greater number of available reservoir sites than either of the other highland tributaries of the Passaic. Some of the reservoirs which could be constructed could be used solely as catchment areas to hold back flood waters, while the capacity of others would be so much greater than any single flood run-off that they might serve also as compensating reservoirs. A large dam is now in process of erection at Old Boonton, conserving a considerable amount for the water for the municipal supply of Jersey City. This reservoir can not be depended upon as a flood-catchment area, as it will be the aim of those in authority to maintain the water in it as high as possible. _Powerville reservoir_.--A short distance above Boonton the erection of a comparatively small dam would flood a large, irregular, flat basin having an area of a little more than 4-1/2 square miles and extending up the Rockaway Valley to Rockaway Village, up Beaver Brook to Beech Glen, and north and south for considerable distances. The probable capacity of this reservoir has been estimated, and it is fairly certain that it is considerably more than would be sufficient for flood catchment. Its construction would, moreover, improve the entire valley and be of advantage to many interests. The northern New Jersey flood commission has selected for investigation a reservoir site on Rockaway River at Powerville. By the erection of a dam across the stream at this point, 28 feet in height and 470 feet long, a reservoir 4.6 square miles in area, with a capacity of 1,565,000,000 cubic feet, would be afforded. The drainage area above this point is 114 square miles. The cost of such a reservoir is estimated at $600,000. North from Powerville, near the confines of the proposed Powerville reservoir, there is an available reservoir site along Stony Brook. By the erection of a dam 1,100 feet long and 120 feet high a lake would be formed 645 acres in extent, which would serve as a flood-catchment basin and a compensating reservoir. This reservoir would hold approximately 850,000,000 cubic feet. The construction of a reservoir at this place offers no engineering difficulties, and the project may be regarded as extremely favorable. Dixons Pond, west of Rockaway Valley and northwest of Powerville, is a small sheet of water which lies in a valley which might be flooded to a greater height. By the erection of a dam 450 feet long and 30 feet high a lake of 136 acres would be created, which would form a part of the flood catchment and compensating service. _Longwood Valley reservoir_.--A large storage basin is afforded in Longwood Valley which, if developed to its full extent, would extend from a point about a mile below Lower Longwood 7 miles up the headwaters and reach to about 1-1/2 miles above Petersburg. An alternative proposition is afforded which involves the submerging of less than half this area. A dam 800 feet long and 55 feet high might be erected across a gorge about 1 mile south of Petersburg. There would be formed a lake of about 1.247 square miles, or 800 acres in extent. The hamlet of Petersburg would be submerged, but the damages from the destruction of improved property would not be very great, as the improvements and the land are not especially valuable. This reservoir would have a capacity of about 964,000,000 cubic feet and the surface would be at a height of 800 feet above sea level. The alternative plan, that of using a longer stretch of the valley for reservoir purposes, would involve the construction about 1 mile below Lower Longwood of a dam 1,300 feet long and 110 feet high. The reservoir thus formed would be 1,900 acres in extent and contain approximately 3,447,000,000 cubic feet. The drainage area above this dam is limited, and if the reservoir were drawn down to an amount equivalent to 15 inches upon the drainage area there would still remain an enormous amount of water which could be used in a compensatory way to tide over dry seasons. _Splitrock Pond._--By erecting a dam 550 feet long and 30 feet high across a gorge at the outlet of Splitrock Pond, a lake could be formed having an area of 625 acres and adding to the present storage capacity of the lake an amount approximately equal to 475,000,000 cubic feet, equivalent to 38.75 inches on the drainage area. Thus it is seen that if this reservoir were drawn down an amount equivalent to 15 inches on the drainage area, which would without doubt give sufficient protection from all floods, there would still remain a storage capacity of 23.75 inches for compensating purposes in addition to the amount now available in Splitrock Pond. This project is one of the most attractive in the Rockaway Basin, as the damages which would be caused by flooding would be, comparatively speaking, nil. The property is, however, now owned by the East Jersey Water Company, and is prized highly as a reservoir site by that corporation. UPPER PASSAIC BASIN. _Millington reservoir._--There is an area of swamp land, comprising a part of the drainage area of upper Passaic River above Millington, which is known as Great Passaic Swamp. It is bounded on the south by a long, narrow trap ridge known as Long Hill, the summit of which ranges from 400 to 500 feet in elevation, or roughly 200 feet above the border of this swamp. To the northwest the land rises gradually toward Trowbridge Mountains, while to the northeast is the terminal moraine. The outlet of Passaic River at Millington is by a narrow gorge, which offers natural facilities for the erection of a dam. The whole situation is exceptionally good, and the surface of a reservoir might be fixed at any elevation between 240 and 300 feet above sea level. With the surface of the reservoir at 300 feet a dam 1,600 feet long and 90 feet high would be required. This lake would have an area of 28.46 square miles. The drainage area above Millington has, however, an area of only 53.6 square miles, and the proposed reservoir would therefore cover more than half of this. Therefore the conservation of so large a quantity of water would not be necessary nor advisable, unless the beautifying of the surrounding country were an object to be taken into consideration, which might be profitable. A better project, however, would be to construct a dam at Millington 900 feet long and 50 feet high, the crest being about 260 feet above sea level. There would be formed a lake with an area of 19.41 square miles, and a capacity of 1,477,600,000 cubic feet, equal to 9.864 feet on the drainage area. This project is too great for the necessities here presented, and would not be wisely considered unless it were found advantageous to improve the country generally as a place of suburban residence. The land which would be flooded with the reservoir crest at 260 feet is of a wet, swampy character, and its value for agricultural purposes is somewhat doubtful. Such construction would involve the flooding of 13 miles of road, which, however, would not involve a great loss of invested capital, as the roads generally are of a poor character. A second alternative would involve the construction of a dam across the Millington gorge, 550 feet long and 30 feet high, raising the water to 240 feet above sea level and creating a lake of 14.40 square miles. This would conserve 4,026,000,000 cubic feet, equal to 2.69 feet on the drainage area. This would be ample for flood purposes and would still afford a large impounded area, as the drawing off of an amount equal to 10 or even 15 inches on the watershed would not reduce the size of the lake to any great extent. The whole project here presented involves few difficulties, and as the drainage area above is of small extent, the mere question of conserving the flood waters could be met without great difficulty. The natural advantages, however, are so great and the land included within Great Passaic Swamp is of so little value that the surrounding country would be improved and beautified by the construction of such a reservoir. The opportunity for varying the character of the reservoir to meet the ideas of those interested seems unexampled, and as a whole it presents an extremely interesting field which may be profitably exploited. SADDLE RIVER. This stream has been described in the report on the flood of 1902, already referred to. It contributes a large amount of water to the main artery of the Passaic below Dundee dam, and as the river channel at that point is overburdened under the present conditions because of lack of slope and numerous catchments, together with what is known as the Wallington Bend, it increases very materially the damage caused by floods. The most effectual remedy in the case of Saddle River floods is that of construction of flood catchments. No studies have been made of the situation in the Saddle River drainage area, but a superficial inspection of the basin shows that opportunities for the construction of flood-catchment reservoirs are not numerous. SUMMARY OF FLOOD-CATCHMENT PROJECTS. By following the plans described in the preceding pages absolute flood catchments may be provided above Little Falls on the Passaic Basin for 551.7 square miles, leaving only 221.2 square miles from which flood run-off would flow immediately. The accomplishment of this would involve the construction of Pompton reservoir, which would withhold all flood waters from the northern tributaries. It would leave unprovided for 20.2 square miles on the Rockaway, 71.7 square miles on the Whippany, 46.2 square miles on the upper Passaic, and 83.7 square miles tributary to the Central Basin and not included above. Leaving Pompton reservoir out of consideration, and conserving flood run-off on the Ramapo, Wanaque, and Pequanac rivers, there would be absolute flood catchment up to a 12-inch run-off over 494.8 square miles above Little Falls. This would leave 278.1 square miles unprovided for, the run-off from which would not overburden the channel in the lower valley, provided, of course, that channel were improved to a maximum carrying capacity. PREFERABLE RESERVOIR SITES. The following table and discussion of preferable sites for flood prevention are taken from the report of the engineering committee of the northern New Jersey flood commission: Table showing detailed facts regarding possible reservoir sites on Passaic drainage basin. KEY: A: Area of watershed. B: Area of reservoir. C: Height of dam. D: Length of dam. E: Elevation of flow line. F: Storage, watershed. G: Storage capacity. H: Total cost. --------------+-----+------+-----+------+------+-------+-------+--------- Reservoir. | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H --------------+-----+------+-----+------+------+-------+-------+--------- | Sq. | Sq. |Feet.| Feet.| Feet.|Inches.|Million| | mi. | mi. | | | | | c.f. | Ramapo | 140 | 2.8 | 65 | 1,700| 280 | 5.5 | 1,768 | $900,000 Wanaque | 83 | 2.1 | 60 | 1,200| 275 | 7.7 | 1,491 |1,000,000 Newfoundland | 52 | 1.8 | 40 | 430| 780 | 8 | 966 |1,800,000 Rockaway | 114 | 4.6 | 28 | 470| 520 | 6 | 1,565 | 600,000 Millington | 56 | 15.8 | 25 | 220| 245 | 31 | 4,060 | 370,000 Great Piece | 773 | 37 | 21 | 1,500| 178.5| 9[C]| 8,950 |2,625,000 Mountain View | 380 | 13.4 | 42 | 2,150| 202 | 8 | 7,200 |3,340,000 Do. | 380 | 13.9 | 44 | 2,380| 204 | 9 | 7,900 |3,460,000 Do. | 380 | 14.3 | 46 | 2,470| 206 | 10 | 8,700 |3,590,000 Do. | 380 | 17.4 | 60 | 3,000| 220 | 17 |15,000 |5,260,000 --------------+-----+------+-----+------+------+-------+-------+--------- [Footnote C: Including water discharged through fixed openings, in a flood similar to that of October, 1903. Maximum discharge, 12,000 cubic feet per second.] With the exception of the Millington reservoir site where the cost of the dam is a small factor, the elevation of flow line in the various reservoirs which determines the capacity was fixed so as to afford an approximate storage equal to a run-off of about 8 inches from the drainage area above each dam site. This amount is somewhat in excess of the run-off for the flood of October, 1903. It was found impracticable on the Rockaway reservoir site to provide for a storage greater than 6 inches. On the Wanaque the amount which can be stored falls slightly under 8 inches, while on the Ramapo it is possible to obtain only 5-1/2 inches, by reason of the fact that with a greater storage capacity the slack water would reach into New York State. The economical height for a dam at the lower end of the Great Piece Meadow, if such dam is provided with fixed discharge openings which will carry a maximum outflow of 12,000 cubic feet per second, will provide a reservoir which will dispose of a run-off of 9 inches on the drainage area above. The following combinations of reservoir sites, with their respective drainage areas, proportional storage, and estimated costs, give the facts necessary for final deductions: --------------+---------------+-----------+---------------+----------- | Drainage | Water | Equivalent | Site. | area. |collected. | area | Cost. | | | retarded. | --------------+---------------+-----------+---------------+----------- |_Square miles._| _Inches._ |_Square miles._| Ramapo | 140 | 5.5 | 96.25 | $900,000 Wanaque | 83 | 7.7 | 80 | 1,000,000 Pequanac | 52 | 8 | 52 | 1,800,000 Rockaway | 114 | 6 | 85.5 | 600,000 |---------------+-----------+----------------+---------- Total | 389 | | 313.75 | 4,300,000 |======================================================= Ramapo | 140 | 5.5 | 96.25 | 900,000 Wanaque | 83 | 7.7 | 80 | 1,000,000 Rockaway | 114 | 6 | 85.5 | 600,000 Millington | 56 | 31 | 56 | 370,000 Total | 393 | | 317.75 | 3,870,000 |======================================================= Great Piece | 773 | 4.5 | 435 | 2,625,000 Mountain View | 380 | 8 | 380 | 3,340,000 --------------+---------------+-----------+---------------+----------- The necessity to retard the flow of or provide storage for approximately 380 square miles of highland drainage area has been determined after careful study, and there has been deduced an amount which may safely be expected to represent the maximum for the highest floods. When the highland tributaries are sufficiently checked the natural storage on Great Piece Meadow in its effect upon flood control becomes more apparent. Our investigations show that the holding back of the flood flow--that is, 8 inches run-off on approximately 380 square miles of flashy drainage area above Great Piece Meadow--is necessary to reduce the discharge in the river through the city of Paterson to 14,000 cubic feet per second for a flood similar to that of 1903. From the foregoing table, in which different reservoir projects are compared, it is seen that only the reservoirs designated as Great Piece and Mountain View will fulfill the requirements within a reasonable limit of cost. It is also shown that a combination of any other available sites would involve the expenditure of more money for their construction and the control of less tributary drainage area than is fulfilled by the demands of the Passaic drainage basin. We are therefore brought to the conclusion that only two of the projects above set forth will be effective. First, the construction of a regulating dam on the main stream above Little Falls, which we have called the "Great Piece" Meadow Reservoir, and second, the building of a dam at Mountain View across Pompton River. The relative cost of these reservoirs, constructed for flood control exclusively, is $2,625,000 for that on Great Piece Meadow and $3,340,000 for the Mountain View site. Details of these estimates are as follows: _Estimate of cost of Great Piece Reservoir, dam at Little Falls._ [Elevation of flow line, 178.5 feet. Storage and disposal of 9 inches collected.[D]] Earth excavation, 17,600 cubic yards, at 35 cents $6,160 Rock excavation, 8,800 cubic yards, at $2 17,600 Rubble masonry, 29,100 cubic yards, at $5 145,500 Ashlar masonry, 1,800 cubic yards, at $12 21,600 Facework of rubble masonry, 2,850 square yards, at $1.50 4,275 Concrete masonry, 250 cubic yards, at $6 1,500 Slope paving, 300 cubic yards, at $2 600 Crushed stone, 150 cubic yards, at $1.50 225 60-inch cast-iron pipe in place, 360 tons, at $35 12,600 Relocation of railroads, Erie, 5 miles, at $20,000; Delaware, Lackawanna and Western, 4.5 miles, at $40,000 280,000 Relocation of highways 170,000 Real estate: Above Mountain View 500,000 Additional for village of Singac 100,000 22,000 acres, at $50 1,100,000 ---------- 2,360,000 Add for engineering and contingencies 240,000 ---------- 2,600,000 Protection of pipe lines, Newark and Jersey City 25,000 ---------- 2,625,000 The effectiveness of a reservoir built upon the lines proposed in the case of Great Piece Meadow depends upon the adjustment of outflow so that the channel below will not be overborne, while at the same time sufficient storage capacity is afforded to hold temporarily the water which enters above the dam in amount greater than the carrying capacity of the outflow apertures. The dam across Passaic River above Little Falls would be provided with apertures which would discharge 12,000 cubic feet per second under the maximum head in the storage basin. As the flood rises these apertures would discharge a constantly increasing amount of water to the maximum, and for a considerable time thereafter the maximum would be maintained, the discharge decreasing after the flood according to the height of water remaining in the reservoir. [Footnote D: Includes water discharged through fixed openings for a flood similar to that of October, 1903. Maximum flow, 12,000 cubic feet per second.] _Estimated cost of Mountain View Reservoir._ [Elevation of flow line, 202 feet. Storage of 8 inches on watershed.] Earth excavation: Stripping dam base, 83,500 cubic yards, at $0.30 $25,050 Core wall trench, 24,900 cubic yards, at $1 24,900 Rock excavation, 10,100 cubic yards, at $2 20,200 Rock fill in dam, 197,000 cubic yards, at $1.25 246,250 Rubble masonry, 23,200 cubic yards, at $5 116,000 Concrete, 30,000 cubic yards, at $6 180,000 Gate chambers and tunnels 65,000 Reconstruction of highways 142,400 Reconstruction of railroads 815,000 Real estate 1,360,000 ---------- 2,994,800 Engineering and contingencies 325,200 ---------- 3,320,000 Protection of Newark pipe line 20,000 ---------- Total cost 3,340,000 [Same for elevation of flow line, 204 feet. Storage of 9 inches on watershed.] Earth excavation: Stripping dam base, 85,200 cubic yards, at $0.30 $25,560 Core wall trench, 26,000 cubic yards, at $1 26,000 Rock excavation, 10,600 cubic yards, at $2 21,200 Rock fill in dam, 214,000 cubic yards, at $1.25 267,500 Rubble masonry, 24,500 cubic yards, at $5 122,500 Concrete, 30,500 cubic yards, at $6 183,000 Gate chambers and tunnels 65,000 Reconstruction of highways 142,400 Reconstruction of railroads 815,000 Real estate 1,435,000 ---------- 3,103,160 Engineering and contingencies 336,840 ---------- 3,440,000 Protection of Newark pipe line 20,000 ---------- Total cost 3,460,000 The final recommendation of the committee involves the consideration of two projects for flood storage, one on Great Piece Meadow and the other above Mountain View on the Pompton. In making such recommendations the committee is of the opinion that it must take into account matters of engineering policy with regard to future needs and contingencies, as well as the bare necessities of the present. If there were none other than the single problem of prevention the committee would advise the construction of the reservoir on Great Piece Meadow by reason of its smaller probable cost and its equal efficiency. It is plain, however, that there are many important features of public policy involved in the subject at hand. Population in the valley of the Passaic is developing so rapidly that in only a few years the present sources of water supply will be inadequate. The whole subject of water supply for northern New Jersey demands immediate consideration, and it would not be wise to take up the matter of prevention of flood damage in the Passaic without basing the value of every project upon its adaptability for use in future water-supply needs. By expending $2,600,000 a great reservoir could be constructed upon Great Piece Meadow which could not be adapted for any purposes except to regulate floods; it would stand in season and out of season a huge feature of the valley and entirely useless and inoperative save on the occasion of high water. However great might be the needs of the inhabitants of the Passaic Valley for a conserved water supply, the construction on the meadows, representing an enormous expenditure, would furnish no solution of the problem. It would admit of no enlargement for water-supply storage and would be available for no purpose except flood regulation. When we consider the Mountain View project, however, we find that as a measure for the prevention of flood damages it fulfills all the requirements and provides in addition all the possibilities and advantages demanded inevitably in the near future. The Mountain View site is an ideal one for the reservoir, and its initial development for flood catchment does not involve the expenditure of a dollar that would be lost in the development of the basin to greater capacities for water supply. From its lowest level, at 202 feet above tide, to its maximum capacity, at a level of 220, there would be no depreciation. Every dollar spent in the initial construction would be effective in the maximum development. The probable cost of Mountain View reservoir, estimated at $3,340,000, exceeds that of Great Piece by $700,000. It is realized that to many persons this margin may seem very wide. Let us consider briefly just what it really represents. Suppose, for example, that the Great Piece project is constructed at a cost of $2,600,000. After the elapse of a few years it will be necessary to provide additional storage in the Passaic highlands for water supply or the maintenance of water power. The Mountain View reservoir, or its equivalent in capacity and cost, will then be necessary. The situation will then be as follows: By constructing the Great Piece reservoir in preference to the Mountain View for flood catchment, $700,000 would be saved. We can consider that this amount might be expended to pay a part of the cost of additional conservation above referred to. If, on the other hand, Mountain View had been constructed, there would have been paid on the final cost of conservance the sum of $3,340,000, which, as stated in previous pages, would also have effected flood relief. There would then be the difference between $2,600,000 and $700,000, or $1,900,000, which represents the actual loss which would accrue by reason of the construction of Great Piece reservoir. The engineering committee, after presenting the merits of both Great Piece Meadow and Mountain View projects, therefore recommends the adoption of the latter in spite of its greater cost, because it is believed that in the end the construction of the Great Piece project would involve an expenditure not warranted by public economy or general expediency. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 1. Great floods in the Passaic Basin arise only after a specially violent precipitation. 2. Under present conditions floods may be expected at frequent intervals. 3. A part of the damage along the lower valley is the result of encroachments on the part of individuals and public and private corporations. 4. The channel in the lower valley may be improved at certain points by straightening it and judiciously making cut-offs. 5. Without the construction of numerous levees the lower valley channel can not be made to carry great flood waters without damage. 6. Immunity from floods can be effected only by the construction of catchment reservoirs in the highlands or levees in the lowlands. 7. Levee construction would involve more damage than is now caused by floods, and the cost thereof would be prohibitive. 8. Flood catchment reservoirs may be constructed economically and provide storage to compensate for the dry-season flow, thereby maintaining water power at Paterson, Passaic, and other points, and providing for municipal water supply in the future. INDEX. Arch street bridge, Paterson, destruction of; 27 Beattie's dam, flood flow at; 16-17 flood period at; 9 view of; 16 Bridges, destruction of; 26-27 Capacity of streams, increase in; 28 Central Basin, damage in; 24 flood in, descent of; 14-15 Charlotteburg, rainfall at; 11, 12 Chatham, flood period at; 10 Chester, rainfall at; 11 Cranberry Pond, dam at, failure of; 24 Damages, discussion of; 23-28 Darlington, reservoir site at; 33 Dixons Pond, reservoir site at; 37 Dover, rainfall at; 11, 12 Drought, relation of rainfall to; 12 Dundee dam, flood flow over; 17-22 flood flow over, diagram showing; 20 flood period at; 9 floods at, comparison of, figure showing; 18 East Jersey Water Company, damage at pumping station of; 25-26 Elizabeth, rainfall at; 11 Essex Fells, rainfall at; 11, 12 Flood, descent of; 14-22 period of; 9-10 prevention of; 28-44 Flood damage, plates showing; 26, 28 Floods, general conclusions concerning; 44-45 Great Passaic Swamp, reservoir site at; 38-39 Great Piece reservoir, cost of, estimate of; 42 Greenwood Lake, use of; 34 Hanover, rainfall at; 11 Hebrew quarter, Paterson, devastation in, plate showing; 28 Highland tributaries, damages along; 23-25 descent of flood in; 14-15 Hotel, wreck of, plate showing; 26 Little Falls, dam at, view of; 16 damage at; 25-26 flood flow at; 16-17 flood period at; 9 rainfall at; 12 Longwood Valley, reservoir site in; 37 Lower Longwood, reservoir site near; 38 Lower Valley, damage in; 25-28 improvements in, discussion of; 29-31 Ludlum Steel and Iron Company, water front of; 24 Macopin dam, flood flow at; 15-16 flood period at; 10 Main street bridge, Paterson, destruction of; 27 Midvale, proposed reservoir near; 34 Mill district, Paterson, effects of flood in, plate showing; 26 Millington, reservoir site near; 38-39, 40 Mountain View, reservoir site at; 31-33, 40 Mountain View reservoir, cost of, estimate of; 43 New York City, rainfall at; 11, 13 Newark, rainfall at; 11, 12, 13 Newark water department, information furnished by; 16 Newell, F. H., letter of transmittal by; 7 Newfoundland, reservoir site near; 36, 40 Nigger Pond, dam at, failure of; 24 Oakland, reservoir site near; 34 Obstructions to flow of Passaic River, discussion of; 29-30 Old Boonton, flood period at; 10 Passaic, damage at; 27-28 inundated lands at, plate showing; 28 Passaic Basin, reservoir sites in upper; 38-39 storage facilities in, effect of; 11 Passaic River, bridge over, plate showing; 28 flood flow of; 17-22 diagram showing; 20 flood period on; 10 floods on, comparison of, diagram showing; 18 flow of, obstructions to; 29-30 Passaic Valley, rainfall in; 11, 12 Paterson, damage at; 26-27 flood district of, plate showing; 24 flood-water lines in residence district of, plate showing; 16 Hebrew quarter in, devastation in, plate showing; 28 mill district, effects of flood in, plate showing; 26 rainfall at; 11, 12 residence district, flood-water lines in, plate showing; 16 views in; 16, 24, 26, 28 Pequanac Basin, reservoir sites in; 35-36, 40, 41 Pequanac River, damage along; 24 flood flow of; 16 flood period on; 10 Petersburg, reservoir site near; 37 Plainfield, rainfall at; 11 Pompton Lake, dry bed of, plate showing; 24 reservoir site at; 33-35 Pompton Lakes, damage at; 24 Pompton Lakes dam, plate showing; 24 Pompton Plains, damage at; 24 highest water at; 10 Pompton reservoir, discussion of; 31-33 Powerville, reservoir site near; 37 Precipitation, amount of; 11-14 Prevention of floods, discussion of; 28-45 Rainfall, amount of; 11-14 relation of drought to; 12 Ramapo River, damages along; 23-24 flood on, time of; 9 Ramapo Valley, reservoir sites in; 33-34, 40, 41 Reservoir sites, comparison of; 40-44 Reservoirs for preventing floods, discussion of; 28, 31-40 Residence district, Paterson, flood-water lines in, plate showing; 16 Ringwood, rainfall at; 11, 12 Ringwood Creek, reservoir site on; 35 River street, Paterson, view of; 26 River Vale, rainfall at; 11, 12 Rockaway Basin, reservoir sites on; 37-38, 40, 41 Rockaway River, flood period on; 10 Saddle River, reservoir sites on; 39-40 Sherrerd, M. R., aid by; 15 Smith, G. W., quoted on changes in channel at Little Falls; 25 South Orange, rainfall at; 11, 12 Splitrock Pond, reservoir site on; 38 Spruce street, Paterson, washout at, plate showing; 26 Stickle Pond, proposed reservoir at; 36 Stony Brook, reservoir site on; 37 Storage reservoirs for preventing floods, discussion of; 28, 31-40 Streams, capacity of, increase in; 28 Vermeule, C. C., quoted on Pompton reservoir; 31-32 Wanaque Basin, reservoir sites in; 34-35, 40, 41 West Street Bridge, Paterson, destruction of; 26 West Brook, reservoir site on; 35 PUBLICATIONS OF UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. The publications of the United States Geological Survey consist of (1) Annual Reports; (2) Monographs; (3) Professional Papers; (4) Bulletins; (5) Mineral Resources; (6) Water-Supply and Irrigation Papers; (7) Topographic Atlas of United States, folios and separate sheets thereof; (8) Geologic Atlas of United States, folios thereof. The classes numbered 2, 7, and 8 are sold at cost of publication; the others are distributed free. A circular giving complete lists may be had on application. The Bulletins, Professional Papers, and Water-Supply Papers treat of a variety of subjects, and the total number issued is large. They have therefore been classified into the following series: A, Economic geology; B, Descriptive geology; C, Systematic geology and paleontology; D, Petrography and mineralogy; E, Chemistry and physics; F, Geography; G, Miscellaneous; H, Forestry; I, Irrigation; J, Water storage; K, Pumping water; L, Quality of water; M, General hydrographic investigations; N, Water power; O, Underground waters; P, Hydrographic progress reports. The following Water-Supply Papers are out of stock, and can no longer be supplied: Nos. 1-14, 19, 20, 22, 29-33, 46, 57-64. Complete lists of series I to P follow. (WS=Water-Supply Paper; B=Bulletin; PP=Professional Paper.) SERIES I--IRRIGATION. WS 2. Irrigation near Phoenix, Ariz., by A. P. Davis. 1897. 98 pp., 31 pls. and maps. WS 5. Irrigation practice on the Great Plains, by E. B. Cowgill. 1897. 39 pp., 11 pls. WS 9. Irrigation near Greeley, Colo., by David Boyd. 1897. 90 pp., 21 pls. WS 10. Irrigation in Mesilla Valley, New Mexico, by F. C. Barker. 1898. 51 pp., 11 pls. WS 13. Irrigation systems in Texas, by W. F. Hutson. 1898. 68 pp., 10 pls. WS 17. Irrigation near Bakersfield, Cal., by C. E. Grunsky. 1898. 96 pp., 16 pls. WS 18. Irrigation near Fresno, Cal., by C. E. Grunsky. 1898. 94 pp., 14 pls. WS 19. Irrigation near Merced, Cal., by C. E. Grunsky. 1899. 59 pp., 11 pls. WS 23. Water-right problems of Bighorn Mountains, by Elwood Mead. 1899. 62 pp., 7 pls. WS 32. Water resources of Porto Rico, by H. M. Wilson. 1899. 48 pp., 17 pls. and maps. WS 43. Conveyance of water in irrigation canals, flumes, and pipes, by Samuel Fortier. 1901. 86 pp., 15 pls. WS 70. Geology and water resources of the Patrick and Goshen Hole quadrangles, Wyoming, by G. I. Adams. 1902. 50 pp., 11 pls. WS 71. Irrigation systems of Texas, by T. U. Taylor. 1902. 137 pp., 9 pls. WS 74. Water resources of the State of Colorado, by A. L. Fellows. 1902. 151 pp., 14 pls. WS 87. Irrigation in India (second edition), by H. M. Wilson. 1903. 238 pp., 27 pls. The following papers also relate especially to irrigation: Irrigation in India, by H. M. Wilson, in Twelfth Annual, Pt. II; two papers on irrigation engineering, by H. M. Wilson, in Thirteenth Annual, Pt. III. SERIES J--WATER STORAGE. WS 33. Storage of water on Gila River, Arizona, by J. B. Lippincott. 1900. 98 pp., 33 pls. WS 40. The Austin dam, by Thomas U. Taylor. 1900. 51 pp., 16 pls. WS 45. Water storage on Cache Creek, California, by A. E. Chandler. 1901. 48 pp., 10 pls. WS 46. Physical characteristics of Kern River, California, by F. H. Olmsted, and Reconnaissance of Yuba River, California, by Marsden Manson. 1901. 57 pp., 8 pls. WS 58. Storage of water on Kings River, California, by J. B. Lippincott. 1902. 100 pp., 32 pls. WS 68. Water storage in Truckee Basin, California-Nevada, by L. H. Taylor. 1902. 90 pp., 8 pls. WS 73. Water storage on Salt River, Arizona, by A. P. Davis. 1902. 54 pp., 25 pls. WS 86. Storage reservoirs of Stony Creek, California, by Burt Cole. 1903. 62 pp., 16 pls. WS 89. Water resources of Salinas Valley, California, by Homer Hamlin. 1903.--pp., 12 pls. The following paper also should be noted under this heading: Reservoirs for irrigation, by J. D. Schuyler, in Eighteenth Annual, Pt. IV. SERIES K--PUMPING WATER. WS 1. Pumping water for irrigation, by Herbert M. Wilson. 1896. 57 pp., 9 pls. WS 8. Windmills for irrigation, by E. C. Murphy. 1897. 49 pp., 8 pls. WS 14. Tests of pumps and water lifts used in irrigation, by O. P. Hood. 1898. 91 pp., 1 pl. WS 20. Experiments with windmills, by T. O. Perry. 1899. 97 pp., 12 pls. WS 29. Wells and windmills in Nebraska, by E. H. Barbour. 1899. 85 pp., 27 pls. WS 41. The windmill; its efficiency and economic use, Pt. I, by E. C. Murphy. 1901. 72 pp., 14 pls. WS 42. The windmill, Pt. II (continuation of No. 41). 1901. 73-147 pp., 15-16 pls. WS 91. Natural features and economic development of Sandusky, Maumee, Muskingum, and Miami drainage areas in Ohio, by B. H. Flynn and M. S. Flynn. 1904.--pp. SERIES L--QUALITY OF WATER. WS 3. Sewage irrigation, by G. W. Rafter. 1897. 100 pp., 4 pls. WS 22. Sewage irrigation, Pt. II, by G. W. Rafter. 1899. 100 pp., 7 pls. WS 72. Sewage pollution near New York City, by M. O. Leighton. 1902. 75 pp., 8 pls. WS 76. Flow of rivers near New York City, by H. A. Pressey. 1903. 108 pp., 13 pls. WS 79. Normal and polluted waters in northeastern United States, by M. O. Leighton. 1903. 192 pp., 15 pls. SERIES M--GENERAL HYDROGRAPHIC INVESTIGATIONS. WS 56. Methods of stream measurement. 1901. 51 pp., 12 pls. WS 64. Accuracy of stream measurements, by E. C. Murphy. 1902. 99 pp., 4 pls. WS 76. Observations on the flow of rivers in the vicinity of New York City, by H. A. Pressey. 1902. 108 pp., 13 pls. WS 80. The relation of rainfall to run-off, by G. W. Rafter. 1903. 104 pp. WS 81. California hydrography, by J. B. Lippincott. 1903. 488 pp., 1 pl. WS 88. The Passaic flood of 1902, by G. B. Hollister and M. O. Leighton. 1903. 56 pp., 15 pls. WS 91. Natural features and economic development of the Sandusky, Maumee, Muskingum, and Miami drainage areas in Ohio, by B. H. Flynn and M. S. Flynn. 1904.--pp. WS 92. The Passaic flood of 1903, by M. O. Leighton. 1904.--pp., 7 pls. SERIES N--WATER POWER. WS 24. Water resources of State of New York, Pt. I, by G. W. Rafter. 1899. 92 pp., 13 pls. WS 25. Water resources of State of New York, Pt. II, by G. W. Rafter. 1899. 100-200 pp., 12 pls. WS 44. Profiles of rivers, by Henry Gannett. 1901. 100 pp., 11 pls. WS 62. Hydrography of the Southern Appalachian Mountain region, Pt. I, by H. A. Pressey. 1902. 95 pp., 25 pls. WS 63. Hydrography of the Southern Appalachian Mountain region, Pt. II, by H. A. Pressey. 1902. 96-190 pp., 26-44 pls. WS 69. Water powers of the State of Maine, by H. A. Pressey. 1902. 124 pp., 14 pls. SERIES O--UNDERGROUND WATERS. WS 4. A reconnaissance in southeastern Washington, by I. C. Russell. 1897. 96 pp., 7 pls. WS 6. Underground waters of southwestern Kansas, by Erasmus Haworth. 1897. 65 pp., 12 pls. WS 7. Seepage waters of northern Utah, by Samuel Fortier. 1897. 50 pp., 3 pls. WS 12. Underground waters of southeastern Nebraska, by N. H. Darton. 1898. 56 pp., 21 pls. WS 21. Wells of northern Indiana, by Frank Leverett. 1899. 82 pp., 2 pls. WS 26. Wells of southern Indiana (continuation of No. 21), by Frank Leverett. 1899. 64 pp. WS 30. Water resources of the lower peninsula of Michigan, by A. C. Lane. 1899. 97 pp., 7 pls. WS 31. Lower Michigan mineral waters, by A. C. Lane. 1899. 97 pp., 4 pls. WS 34. Geology and water resources of a portion of southeastern South Dakota, by J. E. Todd. 1900. 34 pp., 19 pls. WS 53. Geology and water resources of Nez Perces County, Idaho, Pt. I, by I. C. Russell. 1901. 86 pp., 10 pls. WS 54. Geology and water resources of Nez Perces County, Idaho, Pt. II, by I. C. Russell. 1901. 87-141 pp. WS 55. Geology and water resources of a portion of Yakima County, Wash., by G. O. Smith. 1901. 68 pp., 7 pls. WS 57. Preliminary list of deep borings in the United States, Pt. I, by N. H. Darton. 1902. 60 pp. WS 59. Development and application of water in southern California, Pt. I, by J. B. Lippincott. 1902. 95 pp., 11 pls. WS 60. Development and application of water in southern California, Pt. II, by J. B. Lippincott. 1902. 96-140 pp. WS 61. Preliminary list of deep borings in the United States, Pt. II, by N. H. Darton. 1902. 67 pp. WS 67. The motions of underground waters, by C. S. Slichter. 1902. 106 pp., 8 pls. B 199. Geology and water resources of the Snake River Plains of Idaho, by I. C. Russell. 1902. 192 pp., 25 pls. WS 77. Water resources of Molokai, Hawaiian Islands, by Waldemar Lindgren. 1903. 62 pp., 4 pls. WS 78. Preliminary report on artesian basins in southwestern Idaho and southeastern Oregon, by I. C. Russell. 1903. 52 pp., 2 pls. PP 17. Preliminary report on the geology and water resources of Nebraska west of the one hundred and third meridian, by N. H. Darton. 1903. 69 pp., 43 pls. WS 90. Geology and water resources of a part of the lower James River Valley, South Dakota, by J. E. Todd and C. M. Hall. 1904.--pp., 23 pls. The following papers also relate to this subject: Underground waters of Arkansas Valley in eastern Colorado, by G. K. Gilbert, in Seventeenth Annual, Pt. II; Preliminary report on artesian waters of a portion of the Dakotas, by N. H. Darton, in Seventeenth Annual, Pt. II; Water resources of Illinois, by Frank Leverett, in Seventeenth Annual, Pt. II; Water resources of Indiana and Ohio, by Frank Leverett, in Eighteenth Annual, Pt. IV; New developments in well boring and irrigation in eastern South Dakota, by N. H. Darton, in Eighteenth Annual, Pt. IV; Rock waters of Ohio, by Edward Orton, in Nineteenth Annual, Pt. IV; Artesian well prospects in Atlantic Coastal Plain region, by N. H. Darton, Bulletin No. 138. SERIES P--HYDROGRAPHIC PROGRESS REPORTS. Progress reports may be found in the following publications: For 1888-89, Tenth Annual, Pt. II; for 1889-90, Eleventh Annual, Pt. II; for 1890-91, Twelfth Annual, Pt. II; for 1891-92, Thirteenth Annual, Pt. III; for 1893-94, Bulletin No. 131; for 1895, Bulletin No. 140; for 1896, Eighteenth Annual, Pt. IV, WS 11; for 1897, Nineteenth Annual, Pt. IV, WS 15, 16; for 1898, Twentieth Annual, Pt. IV, WS 27, 28; for 1899, Twenty-first Annual, Pt. IV, WS 35-39; for 1900, Twenty-second Annual, Pt. IV, WS 47-52; for 1901, WS 65, 66, 76; for 1902, WS 82-85. Correspondence should be addressed to THE DIRECTOR, UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, WASHINGTON, D. C. 
35697	----	* * * * * +-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For | | a complete list, please see the end of this document. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------+ * * * * * HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE FIFTEENTH REGIMENT NEW JERSEY VOLUNTEERS. FIRST BRIGADE, FIRST DIVISION, SIXTH CORPS. TRENTON, N.J.: WM. S. SHARP, PRINTER AND STEREOTYPER. 1880. SKETCH. Every regiment of soldiers has a character of its own. This "character" is the sum of the elements of individual character, and the circumstances affecting its organization and management. The Fifteenth Regiment New Jersey Volunteers was organized at Flemington. It was recruited in the "hill country" of the State--three companies from Sussex, two each from Warren, Hunterdon and Morris, and one from Somerset. There being no large cities in this district, it was composed almost wholly of "freeholders" or the sons of freeholders--young men who were well known in the communities from which they came, who had a good name at home to adorn or lose, and friends at home to feel a pride in their good behavior or suffer shame at the reverse. They were an educated and intelligent class of men, many of them of liberal education and in course of training for the higher walks of business or professional life. They were men of a high tone of moral character and of that sturdy and tenacious patriotism which the history of every country, and especially of our own, shows to reside more especially in the fixed population connected with the soil as its owners or tillers. Reared in the mountain air they were generally of vigorous and healthy physique. The writer saw much of Union soldiers during four years of service--regulars, volunteers and militia--and hopes he may be permitted to say, without invidious comparison, that this regiment was marked for the high intellectual and moral character of its enlisted men. Those accustomed to the management and handling of troops know what this means on the battle field and in active campaign. It was largely officered with men who had already seen a year of active service, and who subjected it at once to a rigid discipline. It was mustered into service on the 25th of August, 1862. Two days later it moved to "the front," at the perilous moment when Pope and Lee were in their death-grapple about Bull Run. Pope being defeated, and the rebels marching for Pennsylvania, the capital was to be more completely fortified on the west and north, and prepared for possible attack. The first duty assigned the regiment was to erect fortifications at Tenallytown, Md., at which they toiled day and night for about one month. On the 30th of September it proceeded to join the victorious Army of the Potomac on the battle-field of Antietam, and, by special request of the corps, division and brigade commanders, was assigned to the First Brigade, First Division, Sixth Corps--the already-veteran "First Jersey Brigade." It afforded much gratification and a home-like feeling, to be brigaded with five other regiments of the same State. Whilst the Army of the Potomac was being re-fitted and supplied for the fall campaign, the regiment enjoyed, in the midst of picket and other duties, a much-needed month of opportunity for drill and discipline at Bakersville, Maryland--a short time, as all experience will attest, to convert into "soldiers" a thousand men fresh from the untrammeled freedom of civil life, strangers to the rigor of military discipline, the profession of arms, and the art of war. How industriously, willingly, and effectively that month was employed, the subsequent history of the regiment fully attests. From this time forward, to the close of the war, its history is that of the famous "Sixth Corps"--than which, probably, no corps ever did more hard fighting and effective service, or achieved a more enviable fame. Its official fighting record, as made up by the Adjutant-General of the State, is as follows: Fredericksburg, Va., Dec. 13 and 14, 1862; Fredericksburg, Va., May 3, 1863; Salem Heights, Va., May 3 and 4, 1863; Franklin's Crossing, Va., June 6 to 14, 1863; Gettysburg, Pa., July 2 and 3, 1863; Fairfield, Pa., July 5, 1863; Funktown, Md., July 10, 1863; Rappahannock Station, Va., Oct. 12, 1863; Rappahannock Station, Va., Nov. 7, 1863; Mine Run, Va., Nov. 30, 1863; Wilderness, Va., May 5 to 7, 1864; Spottsylvania, Va., May 8 to 11, 1864; Spottsylvania C.H., Va., May 12 to 16, 1864; North and South Anna River, May 24, 1864; Hanover C.H., Va., May 29, 1864; Tolopotomy Creek, Va., May 30 and 31, 1864; Cold Harbor, Va., June 1 to 11, 1864; Before Petersburg, Va., June 16 to 22, 1864; Weldon Railroad, Va., June 23, 1864; Snicker's Gap, Va., July 18, 1864; Strasburg, Va., Aug. 15, 1864; Winchester, Va., Aug. 17, 1864; Charlestown, Va., Aug. 21, 1864; Opequan, Va., Sept. 19, 1864; Fisher's Hill, Va., Sept. 21 and 22, 1864; New Market, Va., Sept. 24, 1864; Mount Jackson, Va., Sept. 25, 1864; Cedar Creek and Middletown, Va., Oct. 19, 1864; Hatcher's Run, Va., Feb. 5, 1865; Fort Steedman, Va., March 25, 1865; Capture of Petersburg, Va., April 2, 1865; Sailors' Creek, Va., April 6, 1865; Farmville, Va., April 7, 1865; Lee's Surrender, (Appomattox, Va.,) April 9, 1865. In the operations and battles of a large army or corps, a single regiment is so swallowed up in the general mass; its movements and conduct, under fire and out of range, are so intermingled with those of many others, that, to write the history of one is to write that of the army or corps as a whole. This would take volumes; it cannot be done in these brief notes. It must be assumed that the glowing pages which record the battles of the Rebellion are familiar to all; and surely he is a doubtful patriot who has not followed them with deep and absorbing interest. We can here only glance at the regiment at some of those points in its career at which it was in some way distinguished from the general mass, by position, or by special acts of endurance and courage. It received its baptism of fire at the disastrous battle of Fredericksburg, December 13th, 1862. On the morning of the 12th, the division crossed the Rappahannock at "Franklin's Crossing," below the town, and advanced over the broad plain toward the high ground beyond, under cover of a dense fog, to "find the enemy," whose position, below the town, could not be seen--the Fifteenth on the right of the line. Just before reaching "Deep Run," the enemy discovered the advance, and opened with their heavy guns from the Heights to the right and front. The long line of a full regiment did not waver in the least, though new to the field of battle, and saluted suddenly, for the first time, with the terrifying explosions of shells from guns of large calibre. Carefully observed, they seemed to be nerved and animated by the presence of danger. Patriotic resolve and high moral courage--which had brought them to the field--mantled to their brows. Their commander then and ever after knew and trusted his command. A few men were wounded, but none killed, as the writer remembers. Arrived at the ravine, it was permitted to remain under its cover during the balance of the day, whilst a large army was getting into position, and plans of attack matured. Before light on the morning of the 13th, it was moved out of the ravine and silently deployed as a skirmish line, under cover of the darkness and fog, so near to the rebel skirmish line as to distinctly hear their conversation. Such close contact, face to face with an armed enemy, gave rise to thoughts and emotions new to them, and the gradual lifting of the darkness and fog was watched with anxious faces; but not a man showed signs of flinching. At the coming of light their sharp and obstinate skirmish fire opened the first battle in which they took part. The memorable conflict of the day swept chiefly to the right and left of their long line, but involved four of the left companies, which participated in the charge at that point with the Fourth and Twenty-third, and suffered serious loss. During the following night the drum-corps carried rations from the trains, several miles away, across the river, and distributed them along the line, replenishing the exhausted haversacks--a hard night's work, and a kind of drumming for which they felt they had not enlisted; but they had new lessons in music yet to learn. In the morning the regiment was relieved from its advanced position by the One Hundred and Twenty-first New York, under a galling fire. The battle was over, however, and the army re-crossed the river. The regiment went into camp near by, at White Oak Church, and, after participating in the fruitless expedition known as Burnside's "Mud March," spent a dismal winter. Typhoid fever, the enemy which no army can conquer, broke out with distressing virulence, and a considerable number died of disease. In every regiment there is a somewhat uniform number of constitutions which cannot resist the privations, hardships, excitements and exposures of vigorous warfare. These must be eliminated by death and permanent disability. In some cases the process is gradual; in others, sudden and rapid, as was the case with the Fifteenth, owing to its being suddenly taken from civil life and thrust at once into the severest service, sustained by excitements and courage until the campaign was over, and then dropped into a muddy camp in very inclement weather. It was ever afterward free from sickness to a marked degree. In the May following came the "Chancellorsville" campaign under Hooker. The part assigned to the Sixth Corps was to take the Heights of Fredericksburg, and then strike the enemy in flank and rear, and unite with the main army, which crossed the river at the upper fords. Crossing the river at the same place as before, on the morning of the 3d of May, the Fifteenth was placed on the extreme left of the corps line, to support a battery, and, with the balance of the brigade, to hold in check a large force of the enemy formed on his right, to strike the corps in flank and rear, as it attacked the Heights, which was effectively done by a firm stand, though with considerable loss. The balance of the corps having carried the Heights by a gallant charge, it marched through the town, over the Heights, and up the plank road to Salem Church, a few miles from Chancellorsville. Here it encountered a large part of the rebel army, diverted to its front after a successful checking of Hooker. A determined assault was delivered, but failed to drive them from their well-chosen position. The Fifteenth charged gallantly through a wood, pushed the enemy some distance before them, and held the position until ordered to retire about dark, the general attack having failed of its purpose. The night was spent in caring for and removing the wounded. It is thought the Fifteenth was one of the very few regiments which succeeded in getting off all their wounded, which was mainly due here, as afterward, to one of the most brave and faithful chaplains, who was ever with his men, in battle as in camp, and serving them with sleepless and tireless vigilance. The next day was spent in constant manoeuvering before a rapidly concentrating enemy, and during the night the corps was ordered to re-cross the river, at Banks' Ford. After another day spent in drawing the artillery and pontoon trains through the mud to the high ground, it returned to its old camp, after the loss of many of its bravest and best men and officers. At Gettysburg--the decisive victory of the war--during the pursuit of the flying rebel army through Pennsylvania, Maryland, and down the Katoctin valley, back to the line of the Rappahannock; again on the advance up the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, nearly to its crossing of the Rapidan, (where the Fifteenth reached the farthest point of any regiment); back to Centreville by a rapid retreat parallel with the enemy attempting to turn the Union flank; again forward to the battle of Rappahannock Station, through the futile Mine Run expedition, and back to winter-quarters at Brandy Station--the regiment bore an equal and always honorable part with the other regiments of the corps, doing its share of the fighting, and suffering its share of the loss. Nothing is remembered, however, which distinguished it from the balance of the corps, except, perhaps, that it covered the return from the third crossing at Fredericksburg--(a demonstration made by the First Division in the early part of June, to develop the movement of Lee toward Pennsylvania)--and took up the pontoon bridge in the face of the enemy--a delicate and difficult service, executed without loss, in a driving rain. The winter of 1863-4, at Brandy Station, was diversified by severe picket and fatigue duty, and embraced an expedition by the brigade to Madison Court House, as a diversion in favor of Kilpatrick's celebrated raid to the fortifications of Richmond. The men, under the lead of the chaplain, built a large and commodious house of logs, in which religious services--never intermitted, when possible to be held--and literary exercises were held. This was a great help to the religious and moral tone of the regiment, as well as conducive to its military effectiveness. A "Church" of one hundred and thirty members was organized, and forty-six men were hopefully converted to the Christian faith. The services were interesting and solemn, and were attended by many even from distant camps. Two-thirds of the members of this little church, doubly militant, afterward fell in action, bravely battling for their country and their God. Who will question the usefulness and value of a zealous religious instructor in the ranks of an army in the field? On the 4th of May, 1864, the army broke camp for the long and bloody campaign from the Rapidan to Petersburg, and the 5th, 6th, and 7th found the regiment engaged, with the balance of the army, in "the Wilderness," doing its full duty with the regiments which fought by its side. On the 8th, about noon, at the head of the corps, it reached the front of Spottsylvania C.H., after a long night march, by a circuitous route. Warren, whose corps (the Fifth) had moved by a more direct route, and reached the position first, had met with a check. He sent to Sedgwick--the grand old leader of the Sixth--for aid, and the Jersey brigade was sent to his assistance. After some manoeuvering, the Fifteenth, with the Third, (then little more than a detachment, and used as a skirmish line,) was selected to make an assault on the enemy, and develop his position and strength. No charge was ever more gallantly delivered. With two armies looking on, it advanced across an open field; when within about three hundred yards of the front of the wood in which the enemy was posted, it fixed bayonets, and with a line of glittering steel as steady as on dress-parade, dashed up to the rebel position, to find them strongly entrenched and in full force. As far as rifle-shot could reach, upon each flank they opened upon the devoted little band. Notwithstanding the deadly fire, it drove the enemy out of the work in its front, captured two prisoners, and, to save annihilation, was ordered by its commander to retire. One hundred and one of its brave officers and men were left upon the field, killed or wounded. It may be doubted if a more perilous "forlorn hope" was ever more daringly executed. The Sixth Corps took position on the left of the line as it was formed, its lamented commander falling on the same spot at which one of the color-bearers of the Fifteenth had but just fallen; and on the afternoon of the 9th the regiment was detached, with the First, to turn the right flank of the enemy and gain possession of a cross-roads. After wading a deep swamp, and a sharp brush with the rebel skirmishers, the cross-roads was under their guns, and they were separated some distance from the main army. The next morning, being ordered to develop the flank of the enemy's main line, the two regiments advanced, drove the rebel skirmish line before them for about a mile, and finally struck the right of the rebel line, strongly entrenched on the top of a high hill. This was the position afterward known as "the bloody angle." The two regiments attacked vigorously, but were forced back by a heavy musketry and artillery fire. Two more regiments were sent to their assistance, and again they attacked, but with no better success, and they were compelled to be content with holding the position they had gained in an unequal contest. The characteristic orders under which they were acting, issued by an able general officer, afterward killed, and sadly missed, were--"Fight! Fight! ---- it, fight!" Two days later, this was found to be the strongest field-work ever attacked by the army. On the afternoon of the same day, (the 10th,) a series of assaults was organized along the different corps lines. The Second Division of the Second Corps, which had come up by the crossroads taken as above related, was to make the charge on the extreme left, and the two detached regiments reported to, and participated in the charge with it. Only one of these assaults was successful, (that of the Sixth Corps,) and the line of works and many of the prisoners captured by it had to be abandoned, owing to the failure of the attacks to the right and left. That on the left being unsuccessful, and the troops retiring from the hill, left the two detached regiments again alone to hold the ground which had cost them a severe struggle. This they did until relieved after dark, when, rejoining their brigade, they left the position to the Second Corps, all of which was concentrated there on the night of the 11th. On the 12th came one of the most stubbornly-contested struggles of the war. It was for the possession of the "bloody angle" which the Fifteenth and First had repeatedly attacked two days previously. The first charge was made by the Second Corps early in the morning, took the rebels by surprise, carried a part of the line of works, captured several thousand prisoners and a large number of guns. The Sixth Corps was moved to the position as soon as practicable, to complete the victory, the enemy having recovered from the shock and concentrated his forces. The First Division was ordered to attack first, to the right of the Second Corps, in _echelon_ of brigades, the First Brigade on the right, and the Fifteenth Regiment on the extreme right of the front line. It was placed in position, in a wood of low pines, by a superior officer, in a drizzling rain. At the order to charge, it dashed gallantly forward with bayonets fixed, and trailed to escape the low branches, into the narrow strip of open ground, upon the opposite margin of which was the rebel intrenched line, covered with an _abattis_ of slashed brush. Its line being very oblique to that of the enemy, it was compelled to execute a halfwheel, under a most murderous fire. Again it dashed forward, carried the work at the point of the bayonet, (and with some actual bayonet fighting, a very unusual thing,) captured a stand of colors and all the rebels who did not fall or run. It was the only regiment of the Sixth Corps which got inside the enemy's fortifications that day. Its right flank, however, being entirely "in the air," and a solid rebel line moving toward it, subjected to the continued fire from a second rebel work in front and from the numerous "traverses" of the line to the left which had not been carried, it was compelled to retire again to the wood. This desperate charge was made at fearful cost. More than half of the rank and file, and seven of the most valued officers fell, killed or wounded, inside or near the hostile works. Out of four hundred and twenty-nine men and fourteen line officers who crossed the Rapidan on the 4th, only one hundred and twenty-two men and four officers remained. It has been said that the other brigades did not get actual possession of the works in their front. They did, however, gain and hold a position so near as to command and hold them under their guns, until abandoned during the night. How obstinate and determined was the rebel defence was shown by the fact that the trench, full three feet deep, was, in places, even full of rebel dead, and a pavement of mud covering the uppermost bodies, told how they had stood upon their fallen comrades and continued the fight. A large white oak tree was cut off by bullets even with the top of the breastwork, and in its fall pinned one rebel soldier to the ground. From Spottsylvania to Petersburg--a sanguinary track, with every here-and-there a fierce encounter with the foe--thence, in July, to Washington, where Early was met at the head of Seventh street; thence into the Shenandoah Valley, under Sheridan, the regiment shared the successes and failures, the honors and losses, of the army and corps. It was often detached for special service of responsibility and danger. In the pursuit of Early's flying troops from the gates of Washington, it became necessary to send a force across to the parallel road on which the enemy were moving, to ascertain the position of the rear of their column, and verify a suspected intention on their part to halt and strike in flank our rapidly-advancing column. The Fifteenth New Jersey was sent upon that mission, and executed it to the satisfaction of the corps commander, but found no such design on the part of the enemy. A few days later, Early contested the crossing of the Shenandoah at Snicker's Ford, and it was desired to examine the fords lower down the river. The Fifteenth was again sent, tested the fords, the depth of water, bed of the stream, &c., under a skirmish fire, and returned with its information--which was not needed, as the upper ford was abandoned by the enemy during the night. At Winchester, on the 17th of August, whilst Sheridan was retiring before Early's army, reinforced by Longstreet, (not because unable to cope with it, but because under orders from Grant not to accept or deliver battle at that time,) the First Brigade was left, with the cavalry, to obstruct their march whilst our army was crossing the Opequan and getting into position. The Fifteenth Regiment was deployed into a skirmish line, and posted across the turnpike by which they were approaching, the other regiments being posted farther to the left. From noon until nearly dark it held them in check, with the assistance of two squadrons (dismounted) of the Third New Jersey Cavalry, deluding them into the belief that Sheridan's whole army was there in position to receive their attack. The men were carefully posted along a small stream, behind stone fences, trees, and rocks. Two rebel skirmish lines successively pushed against them, soon retired, being badly punished, and Early's army ployed into columns of attack. There was something seriously ludicrous in the sight. Twenty thousand rebels could be distinctly seen from the hills on which our right rested, carefully forming to attack a feeble line of skirmishers. Our brigade numbered but eight hundred and fifty muskets, all told; no supports but the color-guards. The cavalry, massed to the rear, could render no assistance against heavy columns of infantry. Whilst the formation was proceeding, the stubborn skirmish continued, and, as we afterward learned, Early decided to postpone the attack until the next day. Just before dark, however, Breckenridge, who commanded Early's left division, was led in some way to suspect the weakness of the force before him, and obtained permission to put his left brigade in charge. The solid mass plunged directly through our attenuated line of one man to every five or ten paces; then brigade after brigade charged in _echelon_ from their left to right. The fighting qualities of men were seldom more severely tested. It was easy to get away, but to hold the enemy on the right, or so obstruct them that the other regiments posted to the left could get out, was a serious problem. The line was rallied and re-formed, from one stone fence to another. In the darkness the men sometimes became intermingled with the enemy, a Union officer, at one time, assuming command of a rebel regiment. About eleven o'clock, in the outskirts of the city, the contest was finally given up, all the left getting away but a detachment of the Tenth, which got lost in the darkness, and a few men of the Fifteenth and Fourth, surrounded unawares. On the 19th of September came the battle of the Opequan--generally known as the battle of Winchester. Viewed in all its relations, it was one of the most important of the war. At the first onset of Sheridan's army, the enemy were forced some distance from their position; but the impetus of the assault being broken by an obstinate resistance, the Union lines retired a short distance, and the enemy made a counter advance. The Fifteenth was pushed forward on a double-quick, across a ravine, to take possession of a hill and obstruct their advance, whilst the lines were being reorganized. It was a perilous duty gallantly discharged. One of our division commanders said the movement saved the day. The re-formed lines again advanced, gathering up the Fifteenth in their progress, and Early was sent "whirling up the valley." Three days later, (on the 22d,) at Fisher's Hill, which they regarded as an impregnable position, the First New Jersey Brigade was designated to lead the charge, being about the centre of the corps line. Sweeping down through a ravine, clambering up the opposite rocks to the grassy slope which fronted the rebel line, under a perfect storm of bullets, which fortunately passed almost wholly just over their heads, they rushed up to and entered the works in advance of any other troops, capturing a number of guns, and pursued the flying enemy across the plain until darkness covered their retreat. It was the first brigade re-formed after the long charge, and ready for the night march in pursuit. At Cedar Creek, on the 19th of October--another famous victory--after the left of the Union line, composed of parts of the Eighth and Nineteenth Corps, had been routed by the enemy's successfully executed surprise before daylight, the Sixth Corps moved rapidly by a flank across the track of their advance, and the Jersey Brigade occupied the most advanced and difficult position, holding it firmly under severe fire. Once it was ordered back to the general alignment, but its former place being considered a key position, it was ordered to retake it, which it did, and held it tenaciously and successfully, until again ordered to retire, with the whole corps, to the new line selected for strategic reasons, (the first having been assumed in the haste and confusion of the morning.) This was no "rout," as represented by a popular ballad, but a movement deliberately planned and executed by Gen. Wright, in the absence of Sheridan, who, upon arrival, after his famous "ride," found the corps in a well formed-line, and quietly taking their luncheon, preparatory to the counter attack of the afternoon, which routed the army seven times encountered within four months, captured a considerable part of it, with guns and colors, and ended its existence as a separate command. In this battle, one of the three field officers of the Fifteenth was killed, and the other two wounded; the line, rank and file, suffered severely. From Cedar Creek, back to the main army before Petersburg, through the remaining operations there, including the final assault and capture of Petersburg and Richmond, along the rapid pursuit to Appomatox, we cannot follow the regiment in detail. We have already exceeded our limits. We must content ourselves with saying that, throughout these, and those of previous campaigns which have been passed over without mention, it always did its duty. In the long marches, by night and day, in summer's heat and winter's cold, through loamy mud and mucky swamp, in rain and snow, over frozen hummocks or glaze of ice, burdened with arms, ammunition, rations, accoutrements and equipments, often pressed to the limit of human endurance, it was always in its place, and cheerfully responded to the word of command. In the numerous minor fights and skirmishes, which often try the soldier more than the general engagement, it did what was expected of it. In the death-grapples of army with army, from 1862 to 1865, it bore the stars and stripes with honor and distinction. No regiment fought with more tenacious courage, or presented a more steady and unbroken front to the foe. Where the fire was hottest, the charge most impetuous, the resistance most stubborn, the carnage most fearful, it was found. It was never ordered to take a position that it did not reach it. It was never required to hold a post that it did not hold it. It never assaulted a line of the enemy that it did not drive it. It never charged a rebel work that it did not breach it. Whatever might be the general result, the Fifteenth New Jersey Volunteers always performed the part assigned it. The sad part of the story--that at which eyes will moisten and hearts ache--must be told in few lines. Such a record must be traced in blood. When the roll is called, three hundred and sixty-one times it must be answered, "Dead on the field of honor." They gave their lives for the Union, for their country, for the cause of human liberty. Their names should be written in gold, and hallowed by a grateful people with affectionate remembrance. No other regiment from New Jersey suffered nearly so heavy a loss, though most were much larger in numbers. Add to this "roll of honor" the unknown number of those crippled by wounds and wasted by incurable disease; remember that they came chiefly from the original nine hundred and forty-seven, and some idea may be formed of the horrid work of war. It is often a source of painful reflections to look back over the history of this regiment and think of the large number of promising young men, many of them the brightest, bravest, purest, and best of our State, who fell along its bloody pathway, from Fredericksburg to Appomattox. Who can estimate their value to our State and country, if living? Fallen, who can compute the loss? CASUALTIES DURING THE WILDERNESS CAMPAIGN. (_Correspondence of the Sussex Register._) SUNDAY, May 15, 1864. I send you a list of casualties in our regiment up to the present time. Most of those reported missing, are most likely killed or wounded and prisoners. The desperation of our fighting has never been equalled in this war. Our brigade is nearly used up. Col. Ryerson of the 10th N.J., is killed, and Lieut. Col. Tay[1] a prisoner. Lieut. Col. Wiebecke of the 2d, was killed yesterday. Capt. H.P. Cooke of the 2d, is a prisoner; Col. H.W. Brown of the 3d N.J., is wounded. Capt. Van Blarcom was lost in a charge on Sunday last. Capt. Walker, Capt. Shimer, Lieut. Van Voy, and Lieut. Justice were killed in a charge on Thursday, the 12th inst. Capt. McDanolds was wounded at the same time thro' the jaw and both legs, one of which has been amputated. Lieut. H.M. Fowler was wounded at same time; also, Lieut. Penrose. Capt. Hamilton[2] was wounded on the 6th inst., thro' both thighs (flesh wound.) Capt. Vanderveer had the fingers of his left hand shot off. A part of the 10th Regt. and a part of the 2d, were captured yesterday while on picket. Lt. Col. Wiebecke was wounded and left on the field--the rebels found and shot him and stripped him entirely naked. We are very busy, and on duty night and day. All of us are nearly worn out. We suppose that we are beating the enemy, but there is much confusion of reports, &c. As I write this we are lying about a mile and a half from Spottsylvania Court House, on the extreme left of our lines. Sergt. Van Gilder, Co. K, will die of his wound--a canister shot in the side--the ball remaining. Albert L. Carmer, Co. D, will most likely die--shot through the lungs. There are many badly wounded. Our regiment captured a battle-flag from the rebels. We took it off their breastworks. Excuse this rather confused statement; it is as good as I can do in the time I have. Very respectfully, MARSHALL B. STULL. FOOTNOTES: [1] Lieut. Col. Tay has since been recaptured from the enemy, and is now with his regiment. [2] Capt. Hamilton has since died of his wound. KILLED, WOUNDED AND MISSING, DURING THE SERIES OF BATTLES FOUGHT IN SPOTTSYLVANIA COUNTY, VA., FROM MAY 4th TO MAY 15th, 1864. COMPANY A. Capt. C.C. Shimer, killed. Sergt. Paul Kuhl, killed. Sergt. Lucien A. Voorhees, killed. Lieut. George C. Justice killed. Sergt. William B. Dungan, wounded. Corp. John F. Servis, wounded. Corp. Jonathan P. Collins, killed. Corp. Joseph Runkle, wounded. Private David Allgard, missing. David Anthony, killed. Jacob Apgar, killed. Jacob Bryan, wounded. William B. Bryan, wounded. John Butler, wounded. John Burns, wounded. John Brogan, killed. Jacob Beam, wounded and missing. George S. Beaver, wounded. Andrew Closson, missing. Isaac Dayton, missing. Joseph Dawes, missing. Joseph Everett, killed. John Evans, missing. William Gulick, wounded. Geo. P. Henderson, killed. Lewis Higgins, missing. William L. Higgins, wounded. Silas Hockenberry, killed. Lemuel Hockenberry, wounded. Moses Housel, missing. John W. Henry, wounded and missing. Herman Helmbold, killed. Garret Hogan, missing. Henry P. Johnson, wounded. John Moser, wounded. Van Meter P. Hammet, wounded. Cornelius I. Nevius, killed. William N. Peer, killed. James C. Palmer, wounded. John Rouch, wounded. George Kessler, wounded. Robert Sorter, wounded. Joseph Sullivan, wounded. Henry C. Smith, killed. Charles Scherer, killed. Charles E. Smiley, wounded. Theodore Stammets, wounded. John Staats, missing. Abram Trauger, wounded. Peter I. Tenbroeck, wounded. COMPANY B. Capt. J.S. McDanolds, wounded. Sergt. E.B. Nicholas, wounded, thigh. Sergt. Samuel B. Danly, wounded, leg. Sergt. C.W. Beegle, wounded. Corp. D. Sharp, wounded. Corp. John L. Young, killed. Private John H. Allen, wounded, hand. James D. Baylor, killed. W.K. Barker, wounded. T.H. Barker, missing. F.M. Beegle, wounded. George Bilby, wounded, dangerously. H.H. Carr, wounded, leg. Thomas Dougherty, wounded. James Egbert, missing. Frank S. Fernald, killed. H.J.V. Heed, wounded. A.G. King, killed. Charles Hand, wounded, knee. William Lippencott, wounded, leg. Thomas Mitchell, wounded, hand. John Mott, wounded. Jared P. Minton, missing. John Ogden Martin, killed. William Schenck, wounded, head. Clinton Swick, wounded, knee. A.R. Skinner, wounded. William Sidner, killed. John Sherer, wounded. Patrick Timmons, wounded. Charles K. Vought, killed. George Vossler, killed. O.W. Vossler, killed. S.S. Van Ness, wounded. George Welter, killed. John A. Wilson, wounded. COMPANY C. Capt. Lewis Van Blarcom, missing. Lieut. William W. Van Voy, killed. Sergt. John Van Houten, killed. Corp. William Trelease, wounded and missing. Corp. Manuel Johnson, wounded. Corp. John A. Cliff, missing. Color Sergt. Samuel Rubadon, killed. Sergt. Israel D. Lum, wounded. Private Lewis Turner, wounded. William Bailey, missing. William D. Briggs, missing. Jeremiah Haycock, killed. Andrew J. Jennings, killed. John Guy, killed. Edwin C. Reger, killed. John Rutan, killed. John Miller, killed. Edgar A. Farrand, killed. Moses Laramie, missing. Charles H. Guerin, wounded. Samuel D. Doty, wounded. George Hull, wounded. Dennis Heffron, wounded. Alfred Mills Armstrong, wounded. Silas Trowbridge, wounded. Lewis L. Davis, wounded. COMPANY D. Capt. James Walker, killed. Sergt. William Doland, wounded, arm. Corp. Sanford Simmons, wounded seriously. Corp. Peter Gunderman, wounded. Corp. Wilbur F. Harris, killed. Corp. George Dennis, killed. Corp. James H. Terwilleger, missing. Private Albert L. Carmer, wounded. Private George T. Fallin, killed. Leonard Decker, killed. George W. Shipps, wounded. Jacob South, wounded. Wilson T. Labar, wounded. Austin Meeker, wounded, bowels. Wesley M. Ayres, missing. Isaac Sharp, missing. William S. Wooster, missing. William C. Dickerson, missing. Lorenzo D. Fulford, missing. Patrick Hughes, killed. John Hubbard, missing. Abraham Johnson, killed. Alfred B. Jackson, missing. John Moran, missing. William Stuart, wounded. Joseph E. Rogers, wounded. Abm. Hendershot, wounded. David Hendershot, wounded. John Bowman, wounded, slight. Alpheus Decker, wounded. John Emery, wounded. Martin Fredericks, killed. John Hopkins, wounded. Barnard Johnson, wounded. James Mangan, missing. Patrick Mullen, killed. John M. Minion, missing. William A. Ward, killed. Stephen Hankins, wounded. COMPANY E. Capt. John H. Vanderveer, wounded. Sergt. Benj. O. Scudder, killed. Sergt. Garret I. Schenck, wounded. Corp. Daniel Richardson, killed. Sergt. Wm. C.E. Gulick, killed. Private Abm. D. Baird, wounded. Peter S. Bennet, wounded. Nicholas Conover, killed. Andrew Cranney, missing. Peter Dennis, killed. William K. Dow, wounded. Francis Hughes, wounded. John H. Jones, wounded. James McKensey, killed. Thomas McConral, wounded. Benjamin Moulton, wounded. John W. Priestley, wounded. William H. Rose, killed. Jeremiah Slack, wounded. George Thompson, wounded. John L.S. Van Doren, wounded. COMPANY F. Capt. Ellis Hamilton, wounded. Lieut. James W. Penrose, wounded. Sergt. Enos G. Budd, wounded. Sergt. Phineas H. Skellinger, wounded. Sergt. Lewis H. Salmon, wounded. Corp. Alonzo Heddin, wounded. Corp. Joseph K. Crater, wounded, stomach. Corp. Charles L. Milligan, wounded, leg. Corp. W.H.K. Emmans, wounded. Corp. Peter J. Sutton, wounded, slight. Private Joseph Anthony, wounded, leg. Henry H. Berry, wounded, breast. Charles Covert, killed. George D. Foulds, killed. Isaiah Frutchey, wounded. James M. Ingle, wounded. Abm. Jacobus, wounded, slight. David C. Lantz, wounded, leg. Whitfield Lake, wounded, arm. James Latteret, wounded, head. Andrew J. Opdyke, wounded, back. Frank H. O'Neil, wounded. Jacob A. Peckwell, killed. Andrew F. Salmon, wounded, body. Lawrence H. Wise, wounded, shoulder. Elias Williamson, killed. COMPANY G. Lieut. Henry M. Fowler, wounded. Sergt. William E. Trimmer, killed. Sergt. Jacob J. Lair, wounded. Sergt. William M. Thompson, killed. Sergt. Jacob F. Thatcher, wounded. Corp. John Bocock, wounded. Corp. John Garren, missing. Private William Ashcroft, wounded. Nathan Culver, wounded. George Haney, missing. Cornelius King, missing. Simeon G. Peddrick, missing. John Reisinger, wounded. John M. Smith, killed. Levi Stull, killed. William H. Wyckoff, wounded. George D. Wagoner, wounded. James C. Myers, wounded. COMPANY H. Sergt. John B. Lunger, killed. Corp. James O. Dufford, killed. Corp. Albert H. Greely, killed. Sergt. James Donnelly, wounded. Corp. John Mowder, wounded. Corp. William G. Bailey, wounded. Private James Murphy, killed. William E. Archer, killed. William J. Bodine, killed. William S. Cearfos, killed. Joseph B. Steele, killed. William Crotsley, wounded. Abm. Rush, wounded. William Seguine, wounded. Jacob L. Lunger, wounded, hand. Samuel Trimmer, wounded, hand. William Black, wounded, neck. Simon W. Van Horn, wounded. Garner H. Deremer, wounded. George Dufford, wounded. Jacob D. Garretson, wounded. David Hoffman, wounded. Edward E. Kitchell, wounded. Isaac Medick, wounded, arm off. John Slack, wounded. Isaac K. Deremer, missing. William Howard, missing. COMPANY I. Sergt. James E. Cole, killed. Sergt. Charles C. Simpson, killed. Corp. John K. Fretz, killed. Corp. William Weed, killed. Corp. William H. Case, missing. Private David Moore, killed. Nicholas V. Bennet, wounded. Edward Dardis, killed. John Gunderman, killed. John A. Hunterdon, wounded. John D. Padgett, wounded. William N. Padgett, missing. Ephraim Shay, wounded. Alfred J. Taylor, wounded. John Drake, wounded. Annanias Drake, wounded, breast. Austin Gunderman, wounded, leg. Henry I. Hendershot, wounded. Nelson S. Hardick, wounded, slight. Henry Martin, wounded. Ira M. Stuart, wounded, hand. Nathan Earles, wounded in seven places. Moses Fenner, missing. Elijah Pelton, missing. COMPANY K. Sergt. Martin C. Van Gilder, wounded. Sergt. James W. Mullery, wounded. Corp. Peter Smith, wounded. Corp. James Cassedy, wounded. Private Isaac Byram, wounded, head. Monmouth Boyd, wounded, arm and side. Chileon Brown, wounded. Seaman Conklin, missing. John Card, Jr., wounded. Daniel L. Coykendall, missing. William Flannigan, wounded. Benjamin M. Hough, wounded. Mordecai W. Holly, wounded, arm. Lewis L. Kent, killed. James Lacy, missing. Sidney N. Monks, killed. Jesse Mullery, wounded, dangerously. Bowdewine Meddaugh, wounded. Isaac Paddock, wounded. Frederick Van Riper, wounded, hip. Total officers and men killed, 76; wounded, 162; missing, 41. In all, 279. Since the foregoing was in type, we have received a list of the killed and wounded, drawn up by Chaplain Haines, which differs in a few particulars. For instance-- In Co. B--the Chaplain puts down A.G. King as wounded, and O.W. Vossler wounded and missing. In Co. C--Capt. Lewis Van Blarcom, wounded and missing. In Co. D--John Hubbard, wounded; John Moran, killed; Abraham Johnson, missing; Barney Johnson, wounded in both arms and missing. In Co. G--Lieut. H.M. Fowler, missing. In Co. H--Jacob Garretson, killed. In Co. I--Sergt. James E. Cole, wounded and missing; David Moore, do.; Alfred J. Taylor, do.; Elijah Pelton, wounded. In Co. K--Wm. Flannigan, missing; Benj. M. Hough, do. By comparing these returns with the list made out by M.B. Stull, the variations will be seen. We do not know which of the returns is the more correct. Both have been very carefully compiled. [When the army crossed the Rapidan on the 2d inst., the 15th regiment mustered about 450 officers and men. After the series of battles from the 4th to the 15th inst., there were but 157 fit for duty left.] FIFTEENTH REGIMENT NEW JERSEY VOLUNTEERS. Officers originally mustered 38 Enlisted men originally mustered 909 Officers gained 72 Enlisted men gained 852 --- Total strength 1871 Officers mustered out 18 Enlisted men mustered out 398 Officers resigned 26 discharged 8 promoted 33 transferred 14 died from diseases 1 wounds 8 dismissed 2 Enlisted men discharged 189 transferred 605 promoted 43 died from disease 98 wounds 239 in prison 15 deserted 108 not accounted for 66 --- Total 1871 LOSSES BY DEATH OF NEW JERSEY REGIMENTS THAT SERVED THREE YEARS. -----------+----------+---------+---------+---------+--------------- Number of | Died of | Died of | Died in | Total | Regiment. | Disease. | Wounds. | Prison. | Deaths. | -----------+----------+---------+---------+---------+--------------- 1 | 55 | 153 | 19 | 227 | 2 | 39 | 100 | 21 | 160 | 3 | 48 | 160 | 5 | 213 | 4 | 74 | 158 | 25 | 257 | 5 | 66 | 138 | 9 | 213 | 6 | 48 | 122 | 10 | 180 | 7 | 107 | 135 | 18 | 260 | 8 | 94 | 173 | 17 | 284 | 9 | 114 | 96 | 44 | 254 | 12 Companies. 10 | 120 | 102 | 52 | 274 | 11 | 83 | 130 | 20 | 233 | 12 | 72 | 175 | 13 | 260 | 13 | 35 | 68 | 3 | 106 | 14 | 71 | 146 | 31 | 248 | 15 | 99 | 247 | 15 | 361 | Cavalry. | | | | | 1 | 137 | 124 | 37 | 298 | 12 Companies. 2 | 142 | 52 | 40 | 234 | 12 Companies. 3 | 49 | 49 | 47 | 145 | 12 Companies. -----------+----------+---------+---------+---------+--------------- RECAPITULATION OF NEW JERSEY THREE-YEARS REGIMENTS. A: Officers. B: Enlisted Men. C: Total strength. D: Resigned. E: Discharged. F: Promoted. G: Transferred. H: Died. I: Deserted. J: Dismissed. K: Not accounted for. L: Total. --------------+-----------+------------+------+-----------+ | | | | | THREE-YEARS | Mustered | Gained. | | Mustered + REGIMENTS. | in. | | | out. | --------------+----+------+-----+------+ +----+------+ | A | B | A | B | C | A | B | --------------+----+------+-----+------+------+----+------+ 1 | 38 | 996 | 61 | 302 | 1397 | 29 | 454 | 2 | 38 | 1006 | 79 | 1075 | 2198 | 46 | 1083 | 3 | 38 | 1013 | 76 | 148 | 1275 | 22 | 337 | 4 | 38 | 871 | 99 | 1028 | 2036 | 41 | 742 | 5 | 38 | 823 | 66 | 845 | 1772 | 16 | 184 | 6 | 38 | 860 | 50 | 537 | 1485 | 20 | 159 | 7 | 38 | 882 | 108 | 1878 | 2906 | 45 | 976 | 8 | 38 | 851 | 87 | 1819 | 2795 | 45 | 941 | 12 Co.'s. 9 | 42 | 1115 | 85 | 1495 | 2701 | 35 | 1235 | 10 | 35 | 883 | 69 | 1597 | 2584 | 32 | 847 | 11 | 39 | 940 | 57 | 804 | 1840 | 23 | 444 | 12 | 39 | 953 | 57 | 850 | 1899 | 40 | 903 | 13 | 38 | 899 | 57 | 444 | 1438 | 29 | 481 | 14 | 39 | 968 | 47 | 330 | 1384 | 29 | 481 | 15 | 38 | 909 | 72 | 852 | 1871 | 18 | 398 | Cavalry. | | | | | | | | 12 Co.'s. 1 | 44 | 998 | 150 | 2125 | 3317 | 38 | 1329 | 12 Co.'s. 2 | 44 | 1105 | 36 | 1715 | 2900 | 38 | 1216 | 12 Co.'s. 3 | 47 | 1131 | 59 | 997 | 2234 | 38 | 994 | --------------+----+------+-----+------+------+----+------+ --------------+--------------------------------------- | CASUALTIES THREE-YEARS |--------------------------------------+ REGIMENTS. | Commissioned Officers. | --------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---+ | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | --------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---+ 1 | 24 | 6 | 25 | 1 | 10 | | 4 | | 2 | 27 | 6 | 21 | 5 | 9 | 1 | 2 | | 3 | 23 | 7 | 46 | 2 | 10 | | 4 | | 4 | 29 | 17 | 36 | 3 | 7 | 1 | 3 | | 5 | 23 | 4 | 26 | 19 | 13 | 2 | 1 | | 6 | 26 | 4 | 26 | 5 | 4 | | 3 | | 7 | 30 | 12 | 29 | 10 | 13 | | 7 | | 8 | 35 | 3 | 25 | 3 | 10 | | 4 | | 12 Co.'s. 9 | 36 | 11 | 31 | 3 | 10 | | 1 | | 10 | 20 | 25 | 21 | | 5 | | 1 | | 11 | 24 | 6 | 18 | 9 | 11 | | 5 | | 12 | 14 | 12 | 18 | | 9 | | 3 | | 13 | 32 | 4 | 25 | 2 | 3 | | | | 14 | 20 | 9 | 14 | 5 | 8 | | 1 | | 15 | 26 | 8 | 33 | 14 | 9 | | 2 | | Cavalry. | | | | | | | | | 12 Co.'s. 1 | 42 | 22 | 63 | 7 | 16 | 1 | 5 | | 12 Co.'s. 2 | 13 | 5 | 17 | | 3 | 2 | 2 | | 12 Co.'s. 3 | 17 | 13 | 23 | 2 | 5 | | 8 | | --------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---+ --------------+----------------------------------+------+ | CASUALTIES | | THREE-YEARS +----------------------------------+ | REGIMENTS. | Enlisted Men. | | --------------+-----+-----+----+-----+-----+-----+ | | E | G | F | H | I | K | L | --------------+-----+-----+----+-----+-----+-----+------+ 1 | 326 | 112 | 37 | 217 | 124 | 21 | 1397 2 | 372 | 205 | 47 | 151 | 204 | 19 | 2198 3 | 376 | 93 | 38 | 203 | 111 | 3 | 1275 4 | 302 | 78 | 47 | 250 | 371 | 109 | 2036 5 | 392 | 523 | 40 | 201 | 251 | 77 | 1772 6 | 360 | 309 | 27 | 176 | 209 | 157 | 1485 7 | 362 | 405 | 44 | 247 | 656 | 70 | 2906 8 | 428 | 333 | 31 | 274 | 416 | 247 | 2795 12 Co.'s. 9 | 341 | 534 | 17 | 244 | 167 | 36 | 2701 10 | 268 | 162 | 48 | 269 | 748 | 138 | 2584 11 | 224 | 315 | 29 | 222 | 451 | 59 | 1840 12 | 159 | 206 | 38 | 252 | 216 | 29 | 1899 13 | 148 | 408 | 24 | 103 | 178 | 1 | 1438 14 | 150 | 298 | 32 | 240 | 97 | | 1384 15 | 189 | 605 | 43 | 352 | 108 | 66 | 1871 Cavalry. | | | | | | | 12 Co.'s. 1 | 298 | 448 | 76 | 282 | 425 | 238 | 3317 12 Co.'s. 2 | 88 | 376 | 32 | 231 | 724 | 153 | 2900 12 Co.'s. 3 | 70 | 274 | 24 | 140 | 439 | 187 | 2234 --------------+-----+-----+----+-----+-----+-----+-------+ * * * * * +-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Typographical errors corrected in text: | | | | Page 17: FN 1: Liet. replaced with Lieut. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------+ * * * * * 
17492	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 17492-h.htm or 17492-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/7/4/9/17492/17492-h/17492-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/7/4/9/17492/17492-h.zip) SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COUSIN TOM'S by LAURA LEE HOPE Author of "Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's," "Six Little Bunkers at Aunt Jo's," "The Bobbsey Twins Series," "The Bunny Brown Series," Etc. Illustrated [Illustration: THEY STEAMED ON DOWN PAST THE STATUE OF LIBERTY. _Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's._ _Frontispiece_--(_Page_ 57)] New York Grosset & Dunlap Publishers * * * * * BOOKS By LAURA LEE HOPE 12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. 50 cents per volume. THE SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDMA BELL'S SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT AUNT JO'S SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COUSIN TOM'S SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDPA FORD'S SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT UNCLE FRED'S THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES THE BOBBSEY TWINS THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN A GREAT CITY THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON BLUEBERRY ISLAND THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON GRANDPA'S FARM BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE PLAYING CIRCUS BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT AUNT LU'S CITY HOME BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CAMP REST-A-WHILE BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE BIG WOODS BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON AN AUTO TOUR BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR SHETLAND PONY THE OUTDOOR GIRL SERIES THE OUTDOOR GIRLS OF DEEPDALE THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT RAINBOW LAKE THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A MOTOR CAR THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A WINTER CAMP THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN FLORIDA THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT OCEAN VIEW THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON PINE ISLAND THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN ARMY SERVICE * * * * * Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York Copyright, 1918, by Grosset & Dunlap * * * * * Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. SAMMIE'S STORY 1 II. TREASURE HOPES 13 III. ON THE BOAT 23 IV. A MIX-UP 33 V. MARGY'S CRAWL 41 VI. AT COUSIN TOM'S 51 VII. DIGGING FOR GOLD 62 VIII. ROSE'S LOCKET 72 IX. THE SAND HOUSE 82 X. THE PIRATE BUNGALOW 93 XI. GOING CRABBING 101 XII. "THEY'RE LOOSE!" 111 XIII. IN THE BOAT 123 XIV. VIOLET'S DOLL 132 XV. THE BOX ON THE BEACH 143 XVI. CAUGHT BY THE TIDE 153 XVII. MAROONED 162 XVIII. THE MARSHMALLOW ROAST 170 XIX. THE SALLIE GROWLER 181 XX. THE WALKING FISH 191 XXI. THE QUEER BOX AGAIN 200 XXII. THE UPSET BOAT 208 XXIII. THE SAND FORT 218 XXIV. A MYSTERIOUS ENEMY 227 XXV. THE TREASURE 236 SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COUSIN TOM'S CHAPTER I SAMMIE'S STORY They were playing on the lawn of Aunt Jo's house--the little Bunkers, six of them. You could count them, if you wanted to, but it was rather hard work, as they ran about so--like chickens, Mrs. Bunker was wont to say--that it was hard to keep track of them. So you might take my word for it, now, that there were six of them, and count them afterward, if you care to. "Come on!" cried the eldest Bunker--Russ, who was eight years old. "Come on, Rose, let's have some fun." "What'll we do?" asked Rose, Russ' sister, who was about a year younger. "I'm not going to roll on the grass, 'cause I've got a clean dress on, and mother said I wasn't to spoil it." "Pooh! Clean grass like Aunt Jo's won't spoil any dress," said Russ. "Anyhow, I'm not going to roll much more. Let's get the pipes and see who can blow the biggest soap bubbles." "Oh, I want to do that!" cried Vi, or Violet, who was, you might say, the third little Bunker, being the third oldest, except Laddie, of course. "What makes so many colors come in soap bubbles when you blow them?" she asked. "The soap," answered Russ, getting up after a roll on the grass, and brushing his clothes. "It's the soap that does it." "But soap isn't that color when we wash ourselves with it," went on Vi. "And what makes bubbles burst when you blow 'em too big?" "I don't know," answered Russ. Like many an older person, he did not try to answer all Vi's questions. She asked too many of them. "Let's blow the bubbles," suggested Rose. "Then maybe we can see what makes 'em burst!" "Come on, Margy and Mun Bun!" called Vi to two other and smaller Bunkers, a little boy and girl who were digging little holes in a sandy place in the yard of Aunt Jo's home. "Come on; we're going to blow bubbles!" These two little Bunkers left their play and hastened to join the others. At the same time a boy with curly hair and gray eyes, who was Violet's twin, dropped some pieces of wood, which he had been trying to make into some sort of toy, and came running along the path. "I want to blow some bubbles, too!" he said. "We'll all blow them!" called Rose, who had a sort of "little mother" air about her when the smaller children were with her. "We'll have a soap-bubble party!" "Shall we have things to eat?" asked Mun Bun. "'Course we will," cried Margy, the little girl who had been playing with him in the sand. "We always has good things to eat at parties; don't we, Rose?" "Well, maybe we can get some cookies from Aunt Jo," said Rose. "You can run and ask her." Off started Margy, eager to get the good things to eat. It would not seem like a party, even with soap bubbles, unless there were things to eat! All the six little Bunkers felt this. While Margy was running along the walk that led to the kitchen, where Aunt Jo's good-natured cook might be expected to hand out cookies and cakes, another little Bunker, who was walking beside Violet, the one who had been trying to make something out of pieces of wood, called out: "Nobody can guess what I have in my mouth!" "Is that a riddle, Laddie?" asked Russ. For Laddie was the name of the gray-eyed and curly-haired boy, and he was very fond of asking puzzle-questions. "Is it a riddle?" Russ repeated. "Sort of," admitted Laddie. "Who can guess what I have in my mouth?" "Oh, it's candy!" cried Violet, as she saw one of her brother's cheeks puffed out. "It's candy! Give me some, Laddie!" "Nope. 'Tisn't candy!" he cried. "You must guess again!" Nothing pleased Laddie more than to make his brothers and sisters guess his riddles. "Is it a piece of cake?" asked Mun Bun. "Nope!" "Then 'tis so candy!" insisted Violet. And then, seeing her mother coming down the side porch, she cried: "Mother, make Laddie give me some of his candy! He's got a big piece in his mouth, and he won't give me any!" "I haven't any candy!" declared Laddie. "I only asked her if she could guess what I had." "'Tis so candy!" insisted Violet again. "No, 'tisn't!" disputed Laddie. "Children! Children!" said Mrs. Bunker softly. "I don't like my six little toadikins to talk this way. Where's Margy?" she asked as she "counted noses," which she called looking about to see if all six of the children were present. "Margy's gone to get some cakes, 'cause we're going to have a soap-bubble party," explained Russ. "What makes so many pretty colors come in the bubbles, Mother?" asked Violet. "It is the light shining through, just as the sun shines through the water in the sky after the rain, making the rainbow." "Oh," said Violet. She didn't understand very well about it, but her question had been answered, anyhow. "And now what's Laddie got in his mouth?" she went on. "Make him give me some, Mother!" "I can't, 'cause it's only my tongue, and I can't take it out!" laughed Laddie, and he showed how he had thrust his tongue to one side, bulging out his cheek, so it really did look as though he had a piece of candy in his mouth. "That's the time I fooled you with a riddle!" he said to Violet. "It was only my tongue!" "I don't care! When I get some real candy I won't give you any!" cried Violet. "Here comes Margy with the cakes!" exclaimed Rose. "Now we'll have the soap-bubble party." "But don't get any soap on your cake, or it won't taste nice," warned Mother Bunker. "Now play nicely. Has the postman been past yet?" "Not yet, Mother," answered Russ. "Do you think he is going to bring you a letter?" "He may, yes." "Will it be a letter asking us to come some other place to have a good time for the rest of the summer?" Rose wanted to know. For the six little Bunkers were paying a visit to Aunt Jo in Boston, and expected to leave shortly. "I don't know just what kind of letter I shall get," said Mrs. Bunker with a smile, "but I hope it will be a nice one. Now have your party, and see who can blow the largest bubbles." "Let's eat our cake and cookies first," said Russ. "Then we can't get any soap on 'em." "Why not?" asked Violet, who seemed especially fond of asking questions this day. "'Cause they'll be inside us--I mean the cookies will," explained Russ. "Oh, that would make a good riddle!" exclaimed Laddie. "I'm going to make up one about that." The children went out to the garage, where there was a room in which they often played. There they ate their cookies and cakes, and then Russ and Rose made some bowls of soapy water, and with clay pipes, which the little Bunkers had bought for their play, they began to blow bubbles. They made large and small ones, and nearly all of them had the pretty colors that Violet had asked about. They took one of the robes from Aunt Jo's automobile, and, spreading this out on the grass, they blew bubbles and let them fall on the cloth. The bubbles bounced up, sometimes making several bounds before they burst. "Oh, this is lots of fun!" cried Laddie. "It's more fun than making riddles." "I wondered why you hadn't asked one," said Russ with a laugh. "Oh!" he suddenly exclaimed, for he had happened to laugh just as he was blowing a big bubble, and it burst, scattering a little fine spray of soapy water in his face. Margy giggled delightedly. "I like this!" said Mun Bun, as he put his pipe down into the bowl of water and blew a big string of little bubbles. Just then a voice called: "Hey, Russ! Where are you?" "Back here! Come on!" answered Russ, laying aside his pipe. "Who is it?" asked Rose. "It's Sammie Brown, the boy we met the other day when we went to Nantasket Beach," Russ explained. "He lives about two blocks from here, and I told him to come over and see us. Here he is now!" and he pointed to a boy, about his own age, who was coming up the walk. "Hello, Sammie!" greeted Russ. "Want to blow bubbles?" "Yes," was the answer, and a pipe was found for Sammie. He seemed to know how to use it, for he blew bubbles bigger than any one else. "What's inside the bubbles?" asked Violet, who simply had to ask another question. "Is it water?" "No, it's air," said Sammie. "If you could blow a bubble big enough to get inside of you could breathe the air, just like outside. Only when it was all breathed up you'd have to get more." "Would you, really?" asked Rose. "Sure," Sammie answered. "How do you know?" Violet questioned. "'Cause my father's a sea captain, and he takes divers out on his boat and they go down after things that sink. The divers have air pumped to them, and they wear a big thing on their heads like a soap bubble, only it's called a helmet. This is pumped full of air for the diver to breathe." "Oh, tell us about it!" begged Laddie, laying aside his pipe. "Did your father ever go down like a diver?" asked Russ. "Yes, once or twice. But now he just helps the other men go down. He's been a sea captain all his life, and once he was shipwrecked." "What's shipwrecked?" asked Margy. "It's when your ship hits a rock, or runs on a desert island and sinks," said Sammie. "Then you have to get off if you don't want to be drowned. And once my father was shipwrecked on a desert island that way, and they found a lot of gold." "They did?" cried Russ. "Sure! I've heard him tell about it lots of times." "Oh, is it a story?" asked Rose. "No, it's real," said Sammie. "Tell us about it," demanded Laddie. "Well, I don't 'member much about it," Sammie said. "But if you come over to my house, my father'll tell you about it. Only he isn't home now 'cause he's got some divers down in the harbor and they're going to raise up a ship that's sunk." "Couldn't you tell us a little about it?" asked Russ. "Did your father dig gold on the desert island?" "Yes, he dug a lot of it," said Sammie. "He's got one piece at home now. It's yellow, just like a five-dollar gold piece." "Where was the island?" asked Violet. "Maybe we can go there," suggested Laddie. "That is, if it isn't too far." "Oh, it's terrible far," said Sammie. "It's half-way around the world." "That's too far," said Russ with a sigh. "Maybe we could dig for gold here," suggested Rose. "There's nice sand in one part of Aunt Jo's garden, and I guess she'd let us dig for gold. We could give her some if we found any." "I don't guess there's any gold here," said Sammie, looking the place over. "This isn't a desert island." "We could pretend it was," said Laddie. "Let's do that! I'll go for a shovel." He ran to where the garden tools were kept, but, on the way, he heard the postman's whistle and stopped to get the mail. This he carried to his mother, and, when she saw one letter, she cried: "Oh, this is from Cousin Tom! I hope it has good news in it!" Quickly she read it, while Laddie wondered what the good news was about. Then Mrs. Bunker said: "Oh, Laddie! We're going on another nice trip! Cousin Tom has invited us all down to his seashore cottage! Won't that be fine? We must soon get ready to leave Aunt Jo's and go to Cousin Tom's!" CHAPTER II TREASURE HOPES Laddie Bunker looked up at his mother as she finished reading the letter. Then he shook his head and said: "We can't go to Cousin Tom's!" "Can't go to Cousin Tom's!" repeated his mother. "Why not, Laddie, my boy?" "'Cause we're going to dig for gold here. Sammie Brown's father is a sea captain, and he has divers. He knows a lot about digging gold on desert islands, Sammie's father does, and we're going to make believe Aunt Jo's back yard is a desert island, and we're going to dig for gold there." "But there isn't any," replied Mrs. Bunker, wanting to laugh, but not doing it, as she did not want to hurt Laddie's feelings. "Well, we're going to dig, just the same," insisted Laddie. "We can go to Cousin Tom's after we find the gold." "Oh, I see," said Mrs. Bunker with a smile. "Well, don't you think it would be nice to go to the seashore? There is plenty of sand there, and perhaps there may be a desert island, or something like that, near Cousin Tom's. Couldn't you dig for gold and treasure at the seashore?" "Oh, maybe we could!" cried Laddie. "I guess that would be nice, Mother. I'll go and tell the others. We're going to Cousin Tom's! We're going to Cousin Tom's!" he sang joyously, as he raced back to where he had left Sammie Brown telling his story, and the other little Bunkers who wanted to dig for gold. "I think it will be just lovely for the children at Cousin Tom's," said Mrs. Bunker to her husband, who came out to see if there were any letters for him. "They can play in the sand and never get a bit dirty." "Yes, they can do that," said Mr. Bunker. "So Cousin Tom wrote, did he? Well, I suppose that means we will soon be leaving Aunt Jo's." "I shall be sorry to see you go," said Aunt Jo herself--Miss Josephine Bunker, to give her complete name and title. She was Daddy Bunker's sister, and had never married, but she had a fine home in the Back Bay section of Boston, and the six little Bunkers, with their father and mother, had been spending some weeks there. While Mr. and Mrs. Bunker are talking about the coming trip to the seashore, and while Laddie is hurrying back to tell his brothers and sisters the good news, there will be a chance for me to let my new readers hear something about the children who are to have the largest part in this story. This book is complete in itself, but it forms one of a series about the six children, and the first volume is called "Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's." In that I introduced the boys and girls. First there was Russ, aged eight years. He had dark hair and eyes, and was very fond of whistling and making things to play with, such as an automobile out of a soap box or a steamboat out of a broken chair. Rose, who was next in size, was seven years old. She often helped her mother about the house and looked after the younger children. And that she was happy when she worked you could tell because she nearly always sang. Rose had light hair and blue eyes. Vi, or Violet, was six years old. As you have noticed, she was very fond of asking questions, and she looked at you with her gray eyes until you answered. Laddie, her twin brother, was as persistent in making up queer little riddles as Vi was with her questions, and between the two they kept their father and mother busy. Margy, or Margaret, was five years old, and almost as dark as a little Gypsy girl. Margy and Mun Bun usually played together, and they had a great deal of fun. Lest you might think "Mun Bun" was some kind of candy, I will say that it was the pet name of Munroe Ford Bunker, and it was shortened to Mun Bun as the other was too long to say. Mun Bun was rather small, even for his age of four years. He had blue eyes and golden hair and looked almost as I have an idea fairies look, if there are any real ones. So there you have the six little Bunkers. When they were at home, they lived in the town of Pineville, on the Rainbow River. Mr. Bunker was a real estate dealer, whose office was about a mile from his home. In the first book of the series I told you of a trip the Bunkers took to Grandma Bell's at Lake Sagatook, in Maine. Grandma Bell was Mrs. Bunker's mother, and in the Maine woods the children had so many good times that it was years before they forgot them. They had quite an adventure, too, with a tramp lumberman, who had a ragged coat, but I will not spoil that story by telling it to you here. Before the Bunkers left Grandma Bell's they received an invitation to visit Aunt Jo in Boston, and they were at her Back Bay home when the present story opens. There had been adventures in Boston, too, and the pocketbook which Rose found, with sixty-five dollars in it, was quite a mystery for a time. But, finally, the real owner was discovered, and very glad she was to get the money back. "Well, we have had good times here at Aunt Jo's," said Mrs. Bunker to her husband, when they had read all the letters that had come in the mail. "And now it is time for us to go. I think we shall enjoy our stay at Cousin Tom's." "It will be fine for the children," said their father. "Yes, they are already counting on digging gold out of the sand," said Mrs. Bunker with a laugh. "Sammie Brown has been telling them some story about buried treasure his father found." "Well, I believe that is a true story," said Mr. Bunker. "I heard my sister say something about Mr. Brown having been shipwrecked on an island once, and coming back with gold. But if we go to Cousin Tom's we shall have to begin packing soon, shall we not?" he went on. "Yes," agreed his wife. "We are to leave about the middle of next week." "We have been doing a great deal of traveling so far this summer," went on Mr. Bunker. "Here it is about the middle of August, and we have been at Grandma Bell's, at Aunt Jo's and we are now going to Cousin Tom's. I had a letter from Grandpa Ford, saying that he wished we'd come there." "And my brother Fred is anxious to have us come out to his western ranch," said Mrs. Bunker. "If we accept all the invitations we shall be very busy." So Mr. and Mrs. Bunker talked over the time of leaving, what they would need to take, and the best way of going. Meanwhile Laddie had run back to tell his brothers and sisters the good news. "We're going to the real seashore!" he exclaimed. "It's down to Seaview where Cousin Tom lives, and we can dig for treasure there!" "Can we really?" asked Violet. "What's treasure, Russ? Is any of it good to eat? And look at that robin! What makes him waggle his tail that way? And look at the cat! What's she lashing her tail so for?" "Wait a minute, Vi!" cried Russ with a laugh. "You mustn't ask so many questions all to once." "Treasure isn't good to eat!" said Laddie. "But if you find a lot of gold you can buy ice-cream sodas with it." "Maybe the robin is flitting its tail to scare the cat," suggested Rose, who remembered Violet's second question. "Well, I know why the cat is lashing her tail," said Russ. "Cats always do that when they think they're going to catch a bird. This cat thinks she's going to catch the robin. But she won't!" "Why not?" asked Rose. "'Cause I'm going to throw a stone at it--at the cat, I mean," explained Russ. He tossed a pebble at the cat, not hitting it, and the furry creature slunk away. The robin flew off, also, so it was not caught, at least not just then. "I know a riddle about a robin!" said Laddie. "Only I can't think of it now," he added. "Maybe I shall after a while. Then I'll tell it to you. Go on, Sammie. Tell us more about how your father got the gold on the desert island." "He dug for it," Sammie answered. "He and the other sailors just dug in the sand for it." "With shovels?" "No, they used big shells. It's easy to dig in the sand." "Is sand the best place to dig for gold?" Rose wanted to know. "I guess so," answered Sammie. "Anyhow there's always sand on a desert island, like that one where my father was." "There's sand down at Cousin Tom's," put in Laddie. "I heard my mother say so. I'm going to dig for gold, and if I get a lot, Sammie, I'll send you some." "I hope you find a big lot!" exclaimed the visiting boy with a laugh. They talked over their hopes of finding treasure in the seashore sand, forgetting all about the soap bubbles they had been blowing. "I'll be lonesome when you go away," said Sammie to Russ. "I like you Bunkers." "And we like you," said Russ. "Maybe if we dig for gold down at Cousin Tom's, and can't find any, you'll come down and help us." "Sure I will!" exclaimed Sammie, as if that would be the easiest thing in the world. "I'll ask my father the best way, and then I'll come down." "Could you bring a diving suit?" asked Laddie. "Maybe the gold would be down on the bottom of the ocean, and we'd have to dive for it. Would your father let you take a diving suit?" "No, I don't guess he would," said Sammie, shaking his head. "They are only for big men, and you have to have air pumped down to you all the while. It makes bubbles come up, and as long as the bubbles come up the diver is all right." "Did a shark ever bite your father?" asked Rose. "No, I guess not," Sammie answered. "Anyhow he never told me about it. But I must go now, 'cause it's time for my lunch. I'll come over after lunch and we can have some more fun." Sammie said good-bye to the six little Bunkers and started down the side path toward the front gate of Aunt Jo's home. Hardly had he reached the sidewalk when Russ and the others heard him yelling: "Oh, come here! Come here quick, and look! Hurry!" CHAPTER III ON THE BOAT "What is it? What's the matter?" cried Rose, as she hurried after her brother, who started to run toward Sammie Brown. "I don't know," Russ answered. "But something has happened!" "Maybe Sammie found the treasure," suggested Laddie. "Oh, wouldn't that be great? Then we wouldn't have to dig for it down in the sand at Cousin Tom's!" "Pooh! there couldn't be no treasure out in front of Aunt Jo's house," exclaimed Violet, not being quite so careful of her words as she should have been. By this time Russ and Rose were in the front yard, but they could not see Sammie, because between the yard and the street were some high bushes, and the shrubbery hid Sammie from sight. "What's the matter?" asked Rose. "What happened?" Russ wanted to know. "A policeman has arrested a big bear!" cried Sammie. "Come on and see it! The policeman has the bear, an' there's a man with gold rings in his ears, and he's got a red handkerchief on his neck, or maybe that's where the bear scratched him, and there's a big crowd and--and--everything!" Words failed Sammie. He had to stop then. "Oh--a--a bear!" gasped Rose. She and Russ, followed by the rest of the six little Bunkers, hurried out to Aunt Jo's front gate. There they saw just what Sammie had said they would--a policeman had hold of a long cord which was fastened about the neck of a bear. And there was an excited man with a red handkerchief tied about his throat, and he had gold rings in his ears. He was talking to the policeman, and there was a crowd of men and children and a few women about the bear, the policeman, and the other man, who seemed to be the bear's owner. "What happened?" asked Russ of a boy whom he knew, and who lived a few doors from Aunt Jo's house. "I don't know," was the answer. "I guess the bear bit somebody though, and the policeman arrested it." "No, that wasn't it," said another boy. "The bear broke into a bake shop and ate a lot of pies. That's why the policeman is going to take it to the station house." "Here comes the patrol wagon!" some one else cried, and up the street dashed the automobile from the precinct station house, its bell clanging loudly. "Get in!" the six little Bunkers heard the policeman say to the man with the red handkerchief around his neck. "Get in, you and the bear! I'll teach you to come around here!" "Oh, maybe the bear bit the policeman," half whispered Rose. "No, my dears," said Aunt Jo, who, with Mother Bunker, had come out to see what the excitement was about and why the six little Bunkers had run so fast around the side of the house. "Nothing much at all happened, my dears," said Aunt Jo. "But in this part of Boston, at least, they don't allow performing bears in the streets. That is why the policeman is taking this one away. The man, who is an Italian, led his tame bear along the street and started to have the animal do tricks. But we don't allow that in this Back Bay section." "Will he shoot the bear?" asked Mun Bun breathlessly. "Oh, no," said Aunt Jo with a laugh. "The poor bear has done nothing, and his master did not know any better than to bring him here. They will just make them go to another part of the city, where, perhaps, performing bears are not objected to. Whether they allow them anywhere in Boston or not, I can't say. But he will be taken away from here." The automobile patrol, with the bear and man in charge of the policeman, rumbled away. The crowd waited a little while, and then, as nothing more seemed likely to happen, it began to scatter. "I'm glad we saw it," said Russ, as he turned back into the yard. "So'm I," added Laddie. "It's 'most as much fun as digging for gold. Say, Russ, I hope we find some, don't you?" "I sure do! I wish we were at Cousin Tom's right now. I want to start digging for that treasure." "Don't be too sure of finding any," said Mother Bunker, who heard what her two little boys were saying. "Many persons dig for gold but never get any." "Oh, we'll get some," declared Russ, and if you read this book through you will find out that what Russ said came true. After supper that evening, when they had finished talking about the bear that had been arrested, Laddie and Vi wanted to go out into the yard and start digging. "Oh, no," said their mother. "You have been washed and dressed, and digging will get you dirty again. Better wait until to-morrow." "I thought we were going to start to pack to-morrow to go to Cousin Tom's," remarked Rose. "So we are, but I guess you'll have time to dig for a little gold," returned Mother Bunker with a laugh. "Though that doesn't mean you will find any," she went on with another laugh. The next day Laddie and Vi did start to dig in a place where Aunt Jo said it would do no harm to turn over the ground. "Though if there is a golden treasure in my yard I never knew it," she said. "But dig as much as you like." "I--I just thought of a riddle," said Laddie, as he and Vi started out. "Let me hear it," suggested Aunt Jo. "What is it that's so big you can't put it in anything?" he asked. "That's the riddle. What is it that's so big you can't put it in anything in this world?" "The ocean," answered Rose, who came along just then. "Nope!" and Laddie shook his head. "Well, the ocean is terrible big," Violet stated. "Yes, it is," agreed Laddie. "But that isn't the answer to my riddle." "Do you mean the sky?" asked Russ. "That's big, too." "That isn't the answer," said Laddie. "I'll tell you, 'cause you never could guess it. It's a hole that you dig. You can dig one so big that you couldn't put it in anything. Not even the biggest box that ever was. Isn't that a good riddle?" "Yes, it's pretty good," agreed Russ; and he commenced to whistle a merry tune. "But you could fill a small box with some dirt, and dig a little hole in that, and you'd have a hole in a box," he added, after a moment. "Yes, but the answer to my riddle is a _big_ hole," said Laddie. "Now come on out and dig!" "How big a hole are you going to dig?" Vi wanted to know. "Oh, not the kind in my riddle," replied her brother. "We'll just dig a little one and make believe we're after treasure." Of course I need not tell you that Laddie and Violet did not find any. Treasure doesn't usually grow in Boston back yards. But the children had fun, and that was best of all. During the next few days there was much packing of trunks and valises to do, for the six little Bunkers were getting ready to go to Cousin Tom's at Seaview. This was a place on the New Jersey coast, and none of the Bunkers had ever been there. For Cousin Tom had been only recently married to a very pretty girl, named Ruth Robinson. Cousin Tom and his bride had stopped to pay a visit to Daddy and Mother Bunker when the young couple were on their honeymoon trip, and then Cousin Tom and his wife had said that as soon as they were settled in their new seashore home the Bunkers must come to see them. "And now we are going," said Mother Bunker, on the morning of the day they were to leave Aunt Jo's. The last trunk had been locked and sent away, and the family of travelers was soon to take the train from Boston to Fall River. There they would get on a boat that would take them to New York, and from New York they could go on another boat to Atlantic Highlands, in New Jersey. Then they would take a train down the coast to Seaview. "Well, I certainly shall miss you!" said Aunt Jo, as she kissed the big and little Bunkers good-bye. "And I hope, children, that you find lots of treasure in the sand." "We'll dig deep for it," said Laddie. "Did you hear my riddle, Aunt Jo, about what's so big you can't put it in anything?" "Yes, dear, I heard it." "The answer is a _big_ hole," went on Laddie, lest his aunt might have forgotten. "I remember," she said with a laugh. The trip to Fall River was not a very long one, and the six little Bunkers, who looked out of the windows at the sights they saw, hardly realized it when they were told it was time to get off the train. "Where do we go now?" asked Rose, as she helped her mother by carrying a package in one hand and holding to Margy with the other. Rose was a real "mother's helper" that day. "We go on the boat now," said Daddy Bunker. "And I want you children to be very careful. We are going to ride on the boat all night, and we shall be in New York in the morning." "Shall we sleep on the boat?" asked Laddie. "Yes, we'll have cute little beds to sleep in," said Mother Bunker. A half hour later they were on one of the big Fall River boats that make nightly trips between New York and the Massachusetts city. The Bunkers were shown to their state-rooms. They had three large apartments, with several bunks, or beds, in each one, so there would be plenty of room. They had their supper on the boat, and then they went out on deck in the evening. There were many sights new and strange to the children, and they looked eagerly at each one. Then it grew dark, and it was decided that the time had come for little folks to "turn in," and go to sleep. Laddie, who with Russ and his father shared a room together, was looking from the window of the stateroom, out into the dark night, when he suddenly cried out: "Oh, there's going to be a big thunder storm! I just saw the flash of lightning!" "Are you sure it was lightning?" asked Mr. Bunker with a smile. "I didn't hear any thunder." "There it is again!" cried Laddie, and this time a ray of bright, white light shone in the window, full in Laddie's face. CHAPTER IV A MIX-UP "That isn't lightning," said Russ, who had come to the window of the stateroom to stand beside his brother and look out. "'Tis, too!" insisted Laddie, as another flash came. "It's lightning, and maybe it'll set our boat on fire, and then we can't go to Cousin Tom's an' dig for gold! So there!" Mr. Bunker, who was opening a valise in one corner of the room, getting out the boys' pajamas for the night, had not seen the light shining in the window, but had seen the glare of it on the wall. "'Tisn't lightning at all!" declared Russ again. "How do you know it isn't?" asked Laddie. "'Cause lightning flashes are a different color," said Russ. "And, besides, they don't stay still so long. Look, Daddy, this one is peeping right in our window like a light from Aunt Jo's automobile!" Mr. Bunker turned in time to see the bright flash of light come in through the window, and then it seemed to stay in the room, making it much brighter than the light from the electric lamps on the wall. "Of course that isn't lightning!" said Mr. Bunker. "That's a search-light from some ship. Come on out on deck, boys, and we'll see it." The bright glare was still in the room, but it did not flare up as lightning would have done, and there were no loud claps of thunder. "Well, if it isn't a storm I'll come out on deck and look," Laddie said. "But if it rains I'm coming in!" "It won't," said Daddy Bunker with a laugh. "We'll go out for a few minutes, and then we'll come in and go to bed. To-morrow we'll be at Cousin Tom's." Out on the deck of the big Fall River boat they went, and, surely enough, the light did come from the search-lantern of a big ship not far away. It was a United States warship, the boys' father told them, and it was probably kept near Newport, where there is a station at which young sailors are trained. The warship flashed the light all about the water, lighting up other boats. "I thought it was lightning," said Laddie. "It is a kind of lightning," said Daddy Bunker. "For the light is made by electricity, and lightning and electricity are the same thing, though no one has yet been able to use lightning to read by." Mrs. Bunker, who had left Rose in charge of Margy and Mun Bun, came out on deck with Violet, and met her husband and the two boys. She was told about Laddie's thinking the light was from a storm, and laughed with him over it. "I'm going to make up a riddle about the search-light to-morrow," said the little fellow eagerly. They stayed out on deck a while longer, while the boat steamed ahead, watching the various lights on shore and on other vessels, and occasionally seeing the glare of the search-beam from the warship. Then, as it was getting late and the children were tired, Mother Bunker said they had better go to their beds. This they did, and they slept soundly all night. The morning was bright and fair, and the day promised to be a fine one for the rest of the trip to Cousin Tom's. As I have mentioned, they were to take a boat from New York City to Atlantic Highlands, and from there a train would take them down the New Jersey coast to Seaview, and to Mr. Thomas Bunker's house on the beach. "Are we going to have breakfast on the boat?" asked Russ, as he helped his father gather up the baggage, whistling meanwhile a merry tune. "No, I think we will go to a restaurant on shore," said Mr. Bunker. "I want to telegraph to Cousin Tom, and let him know we are coming, and I think we shall all enjoy a meal on shore more than on the boat after it has tied up at the dock." So on shore they all went, and Daddy Bunker, after leaving the hand baggage at the dock where they were to take the Atlantic Highlands boat later in the day, took them to a restaurant. "Shall we have good things to eat?" asked Violet, as she walked along by her mother's side. "Of course, my dear," was the answer. "That is what restaurants are for." "Will they have as good things as we had at Aunt Jo's?" "Well, yes, I think so." "Will they have strawberry shortcake?" "You don't want that for breakfast!" laughed Daddy Bunker, turning around, for he was walking ahead with Russ. "I like strawberry shortcake," went on Violet. "It's good and mother said they had good things in a rest'ant. I want strawberry shortcake." "Well, you shall have some if we can get it," promised Mother Bunker, for Violet was talking quite loudly, and several persons on the street, hearing her, looked down at the little girl and smiled. "All right," said Vi. "I'm glad I'm going to get strawberry shortcake in the rest'ant. What makes 'em call it a rest'ant, Daddy? Does an ant rest there? And why doesn't Aunt Jo come to one an' rest?" "I'll tell you about it when we get there," said her father. The restaurant was not far from where they were to take the boat for Atlantic Highlands, and, though it was rather early in the morning, quite a number of persons were at breakfast. There was a smell of many things being cooked, and the rattle of dishes, and of knives, forks and spoons made such a clatter that it sounded as though every one was in a great hurry. "Are all these people going down to the seashore like us?" asked Violet, who seemed to have many questions to ask that day. "Oh, no," answered her father. "They are just hungry, and they want their breakfast. Perhaps some of them have been traveling all night, as we were. But come, we must find a table large enough for all of us. I don't believe they often have a whole family, the size of ours, at breakfast here." A waiter, who had seen the Bunkers come in, motioned them to follow him, and he led them to a quiet corner where there was a table with just eight chairs about it. "Ho! I guess this was made specially for us," said Russ with a laugh, as he slid into his seat. "Yes, it just seems to fit," agreed Mr. Bunker. "Now, Mother," and he looked over at his wife, "you order for some of the children, and I'll order for the others. In that way we'll be through sooner." "Have they got any strawberry shortcake?" asked Vi. "I want some." "I don't see it down on the bill of fare for breakfast," replied her father, "but I'll ask the waiter." One of the men, of whom there were many hurrying to and fro with big trays heaped high with dishes of food, came over to the Bunkers' table. "No, the strawberry shortcake isn't ready until lunch," he said. "But you can have hot waffles and maple syrup." "Oh, I like them!" and Violet clapped her hands. "I like them better than strawberry shortcake." "Then you may bring some," said Mr. Bunker. It took a little time to get just what each child wanted, and sometimes, after the order was given, one or the other of the youngsters would change. But finally the waiter had gone back to the kitchen, to get the different things for the six little Bunkers and their father and mother. "And now we can sit back and draw our breaths," said Mrs. Bunker. "My, I never saw such a hungry lot of children! Now sit still, all of you, until I 'count noses.' I want to see if you're really all here." She began at Russ, and went to Rose, to Violet, to Laddie, and to Margy, and then Mrs. Bunker suddenly cried: "Why, you're not Mun Bun! Where is Mun Bun? You are not my little boy!" And, surely enough, there was a mix-up. For in the seat where Mun Bun had been sitting was a strange little boy. He was about as big as Mun Bun, but he was not one of the six little Bunkers. Where was Mun Bun? CHAPTER V MARGY'S CRAWL Mother Bunker looked at the strange little boy. And the strange little boy looked at Mother Bunker. "Where did you come from?" asked Mr. Bunker. "Over there, and I'm hungry!" said the little fellow. "I'm terrible hungry, 'cause I didn't have no breakfast yet. Has you got any breakfast?" and he looked at each plate in turn, for the waiter had put plates in front of each of the Bunkers. "No, you hasn't anything to eat, either. I guess I'll go back," and he started to slip down from his chair. He was sitting between Violet and Margy. "Wait a minute, my little man," said Daddy Bunker with a smile. "Don't run away so fast. You might get lost. Who are you and where do you live?" "I live away far off," answered the strange boy. "My name is Tommie, and I come in a ship and I'm going out West, and I'm hungry!" "Oh, maybe he's lost!" exclaimed Russ. "I'm sure Mun Bun is!" said Mrs. Bunker. "Oh, where can he be? He was in his chair a minute ago, and then I looked to see what else I wanted to order to eat, but when I looked up there was this strange boy, and Mun Bun was gone. Oh, I hope he hasn't gone into the street!" and she looked toward the door of the restaurant. Mun Bun was not in sight, and Mr. Bunker got up from his chair to make a search. The strange boy who had said his name was Tommie, looked about hungrily. Just as Mrs. Bunker was going to call a waiter, and ask about Mun Bun, there came a cry from another table at the far end of the restaurant. It was the voice of a woman, and she said: "Oh, that isn't Tommie! Where is he? Where is Tommie?" "I guess that explains the mystery," said Mr. Bunker with a smile. "The two boys are mixed up. We have Tommie--whatever his other name is--at our table, and Mun Bun must have gone down there," and he pointed to the table where the woman had called for Tommie. There were five children at this table, waiting for breakfast as the six little Bunkers were waiting, and one of them was Mun Bun, as his mother could see. She ran down the long room. "Oh, Mun Bun!" cried Mrs. Bunker. "What made you go away? Why did you come over here?" And she hurried to his chair and took him in her arms. At the same time the boy who had called himself Tommie, slipped out of his chair and hurried with Mrs. Bunker back to the table where the woman who had called him sat. "Now I guess the mix-up is straightened out," said Daddy Bunker with a laugh. "Mun Bun slipped away, when we were not looking, and went to the wrong table. At the same time a little boy from that table came to ours. They just traded places." "Like puss-in-the-corner," said Rose, who had followed her mother and father to the other end of the room. "That's it," agreed Daddy Bunker. "I'm sorry you were frightened about your little boy," he went on to Tommie's mother. "We didn't know we had him." "And I didn't know I had yours," she said with a smile. "I have five children, all girls but this one, and when I didn't see Tommie in his place, but saw, instead, this strange little chap, I didn't know what had happened." "That's just the way I felt," said Mrs. Bunker. "I have six, and when we travel it keeps me and their father busy looking after them." "My husband isn't with me now," said the woman, who gave her name as Mrs. Wilson. "But I expect to meet him at the station. We are going to Asbury Park for the rest of the summer." "We are going to Seaview," said Mrs. Bunker. "Perhaps we may meet you at the shore." "I hope so," said Mrs. Wilson, as Tommie slipped into the seat out of which Mun Bun slid. "Now here comes your breakfast, children." "Yes, and the waiter is bringing ours," said Mr. Bunker with a look over toward his own table. "Come, Mother, and Mun Bun. You, too, Rose." They said good-bye to Mrs. Wilson, and soon the six little Bunkers at one table were eating waffles and maple syrup, and at the other table the five little Wilsons were enjoying their meal. "What made you go away, Mun Bun?" asked his mother, as she buttered another waffle for him. "I wanted to see if they had any shortcake down there," he explained. "I wanted some like Vi did, and I went to another table to see. But there wasn't have any," he added, getting rather mixed up in his talk. "And when I wanted to come back I didn't know the way and I sat down and you weren't there, Mother, and I was afraid and----" "But you're all right now," said Mrs. Bunker, as she saw Mun Bun's chin begin to quiver as it always did just before he cried. "You're all right now, and not lost any more. Finish your waffle, and we'll soon be ready to go on the boat to Cousin Tom's." The children were eating heartily, for they were hungry after their night trip from Fall River. Laddie, who had had several helpings of waffles, at last seemed satisfied. He leaned back in his chair and said: "I know another riddle. When is Mun Bun not Mun Bun?" "He's always Mun Bun, 'ceptin' when Mother calls him Munroe Ford Bunker, when he's got himself all dirt," said Vi. "I don't call that a riddle." "It is a riddle," insisted Laddie. "When is Mun Bun not Mun Bun?" "Is it when he's asleep?" asked Russ, taking a guess just to please his small brother. "Nope! That isn't it," went on the small boy. "It's awful hard, and you'd never guess it, so I'll tell you. Mun Bun isn't Mun Bun when he's Tommie Wilson. Isn't that a good riddle?" he asked. "Mun Bun isn't Mun Bun when he's Tommie Wilson." "Yes, that is pretty good," said Mr. Bunker. "But now we had better hurry, or we may be late for the Atlantic Highlands boat. Are you all through?" They were; all but Mun Bun, who saw a little pool of maple syrup on his plate, and wanted to get that up with a spoon before he left the table. Then once more the six little Bunkers were on their way. The Atlantic Highlands boat left from a pier near one of the New Jersey Central Railroad ferry slips on West street in New York City, and it was quite a long walk from the shore end of the pier to the end that was out in the Hudson River. It was at the river end that the boat stopped, coming down from a pier farther up the stream. "Now are we all here?" asked Mother Bunker, as she and her husband started down West street. "I don't want Mun Bun to change into some one else after we get started on the boat, for then it will be too late to change him back. Are we all here?" They were, it seemed, and down West street they hurried. The way was lined with out-door stands, where it seemed that nearly everything from bananas and oranges to pocketbooks and shoes, were sold. West street is along the river front, where many boats land, and there are sailors, and other persons, who have no time to go shopping for things up town, or farther inland in the city of New York. So the stands on West street are very useful. You can buy things to eat, as well as things to wear, without going into a store. A big shed over the top keeps off the rain. As the Bunker family hastened on, Margy, who had been walking with Rose, let go of her sister's hand and cried: "Oh, look at the little kittie! I want to rub the little kittie!" A small cat had crawled out from under one stand and was walking along the street. Margy saw it, and, being very fond of animals, she wanted to pet it. But the cat, young as it was, seemed to be afraid. As Margy ran from Rose's side and trotted after the furry animal, it gave a sudden scamper under another stand. But Margy had chased kittens before, and she knew that once they got under something they generally stayed near the front edge, hoping they would not be seen. By stooping down, and reaching, she had often pulled her own kitten out from under her mother's dresser. "I can get you! I can get you!" laughed the little girl. Paying no attention to her clean, white stockings, which her mother had put on her only that morning, Margy knelt down on the sidewalk, and stretched her arms under the fruit stand, beneath which the half-frightened kitten had crawled. If the little cat had known that Margy only wanted to stroke it softly and pet it I am sure it would not have run away. But that is what it did, and that is what caused all the trouble. For there was trouble. I'll tell you about it. "Come on out, kittie!" called Margy. "Come on out! I won't hurt you! I like kitties, I do! Come on out and let me rub you!" She stooped lower down to see under the edge of the fruit stand. By this time Mrs. Bunker had seen what had happened, and she called: "Margaret Bunker, get right up off your knees this instant. You'll spoil your clean white stockings! Get up! We'll miss the boat!" But Margy paid no heed. She could see the kitten now, back in a dark corner under the stand, and she wanted to get it out. "Come on, kittie!" called the little girl. "Come on out, and I'll take you to Cousin Tom's with us and you can play in the sand! Come on, I'll rub you nice and soft!" "Mew! Mew!" said the kitten, but it did not come out. And then Margy did a very queer thing. With a sudden wiggle and a twist she crawled all the way under the fruit stand, her little legs, in the white stockings, being the last to disappear. "Oh, catch her! Quick! Catch her!" cried Mrs. Bunker. But it was too late. Margy was out of sight under the fruit stand after the little kitten. CHAPTER VI AT COUSIN TOM'S When Mr. Bunker heard his wife calling as she did, he stopped and looked back, for he was walking on ahead with Russ and Laddie. Then all the other Bunkers stopped, too, and gathered around the fruit stand. All except Mr. Bunker and the two boys knew what had happened, for they had seen Margy crawl under. The man who owned the stand, who had gone away from it a moment to talk to the man who kept a socks-and-suspender stand next to him, had not seen the kitten crawl under his pile of fruit, nor had he seen Margy go after it. But when he saw the seven Bunkers gathered in a group he at once thought they wanted to buy some apples, pears, or oranges. "Nice fruit! Nice fruit!" said the man, who was an Italian. "Very nice good fruit and cheap." "No, we don't want any fruit now," said Mrs. Bunker. "I want my little girl." "Lil' girl? Lil' girl!" exclaimed the Italian. "No got lil' girls. Only got fruit, banan', orange, apple! You want to buy? Good nice fruit cheap!" "No, I want Margy!" cried Mrs. Bunker. "Where is she?" asked Mr. Bunker, who, as I have told you, had not seen where Margy went. "She's under the stand," explained his wife. "She went to get a kitten," added Rose. "No got kittens nor cats needer," said the Italian. "Only got fruit. Nice fruit, cheap!" Mr. Bunker stooped down to look under the stand. "No fruit there!" the owner said. "All fruit on top. Nice fruit, cheap!" "I am looking for my little girl," explained Mr. Bunker. "She crawled under there--under your stand--after a kitten." And just then could be heard a loud: "Mew! Mew! Mew!" "Oh, she's caught it! Margy's caught the kittie," cried Mun Bun. "I can hear him holler." Certainly something seemed to have happened to the kitten, for it was mewing very loudly. Mr. Bunker reached in under the fruit stand, and made a grab for something. He gave a pull and out came--Margy! And as Margy came into view, being pulled by one leg by her father, who found that was the only way he could reach her, it was seen that the little girl held, clasped in her arms, the kitten after which she had crawled. "I got it! I got it!" cried Margy, as she sat down on the sidewalk in front of the fruit stand. The kitten was a soft, furry one, but it was rather mussed and bedraggled now, from the way Margy had mauled it. And the little Bunker girl was rather tousled herself, for there was not much room underneath the stand where she had crawled. "Oh, my dear Margy!" cried Mrs. Bunker. "You are such a sight!" "But I got my kittie!" said the little girl. By this time quite a crowd had gathered around the six little Bunkers and their father and mother. Margy still sat on the sidewalk, with the kitten in her lap, petting and rubbing it. "Come! We must hurry!" exclaimed Mr. Bunker. "We may miss the boat. Get up, Margy. Rose, you help your mother dust Margy off, and then we must hurry." "Can't I take the kittie?" asked the little girl. "No, dear," answered her mother. "It isn't yours. And besides, we never could take it to Cousin Tom's with us. Put it down, Margy, my dear!" "Oh, oh, I don't want to!" cried the little girl, and real tears came into her eyes. "I got this kittie out of a dark corner, and it loves me and I love it! I want it." "But you can't take it," said Daddy Bunker. "The kittie must stay here. It belongs to the fruit stand. It's your cat, isn't it?" he asked the Italian. "My keeten? No. I have no keeten. I sell banan', orange, apple! You buy some I give you keetie. Me no want!" "No, and we don't want it, either," said Mrs. Bunker. "I was hoping it was yours so you could say you had to keep it here to drive the mice away. If Margy thought it was yours she wouldn't want to take it away." "Ah, I see!" exclaimed the Italian with a smile. "All right, I keep the keeten," and he said the name in a funny way. "There, Margy!" exclaimed her father. "You see you'll have to leave the kitten here to keep the mice away from the oranges." "Can't I take it to Cousin Tom's with me?" "No. And you must put it down quickly, and hurry, or we shall miss the boat." Margy started to cry, but the Italian, who seemed to understand children, quickly offered her a big, yellow orange. Then Margy let go of the kitten, and the fruit man quickly picked it up and put it down in a little box out of sight. "She no see--she no want," he whispered to Mrs. Bunker. "I want an orange!" exclaimed Mun Bun, seeing Margy beginning to eat hers. "I likes oranges!" "All right, we'll all have some," said Mr. Bunker. It seemed like disappointing the stand-owner to go away without buying some, after all that had gone on at his place of business. So Mr. Bunker bought a large bag of oranges, telling his wife they could eat them on the boat. Margy forgot about the kitten, and, being dusted, for she was dirty from her crawl under the stand, the six little Bunkers once more started off. This time their father and mother watched each one of the boys and girls to see that none of them did anything to cause further delays. Russ and Rose and Laddie and Violet were not so venturesome this way as were Margy and Mun Bun. "Now here we are at the dock, and all we have to do is to walk straight out to the end of the pier and get on the boat when it comes," said Mr. Bunker. "It is nearly time for it. I don't believe anything more can happen." And nothing did. There was a long walk, or platform, elevated at one side of the covered pier, and along this the children hurried with their father and mother. A whistle sounded out on the Hudson River, which flowed past the far end of the dock. "Is that our boat?" asked Russ. "I hope not," his father answered. "If it is, we may miss it yet. But I do not think it is. There are many boats on the river, and they all have whistles." A little later they were in the waiting-room at the end of the dock, where there were a number of other passengers, and soon a big white boat, with the name "_Asbury Park_" painted on one side, was seen steering toward the dock. "Here she is!" cried Mr. Bunker, and, a little later, they were all on board and steaming down New York Bay. They steamed on down past the Statue of Liberty, that gift from the French, past the forts at the Narrows, and so on down the bay. Off to the left, Daddy Bunker told the children, was Coney Island, where so many persons from New York go on hot days and nights to get cooled off near the ocean. "Is Seaview like Coney Island?" asked Vi. "Well, it may be a little like it," her father answered; "though there will not be so many merry-go-rounds there or other things to make fun for you. But I think you will have a good time all the same." "We're going to dig for gold, like Sammie Brown's father," declared Laddie. "If we find a lot of it we can buy a ticket for Coney Island." "What makes them call it Coney Island?" asked Vi. "Did they find some coneys there?" "I don't know," her father replied. "What's a coney, anyhow?" went on the little girl. "I don't know the answer to that question, either," said Mr. Bunker. "You'll have to ask me something else, Vi." "Maybe it's an ice-cream cone they meant," said Russ, "and they changed it to coney." "Did they, Daddy?" Vi wanted to know. "Well, you have a questioning streak on to-day," laughed her father. "I'm sorry I can't tell you how Coney Island got its name." So the children looked, first on one side of the boat and then on the other as they steamed along. Now and then Vi asked questions. Russ whistled and thought of many things he would make when he reached Cousin Tom's. Laddie tried to think up a riddle about why the smoke from the steamer did not stack up in a pile, instead of blowing away, but he couldn't seem to think of a good answer. And, as he said: "A riddle without an answer isn't any fun, 'cause you don't know when people guess it wrong or right." Finally the boat turned toward land and, a little later, Daddy Bunker said they were near Atlantic Highlands. Then the steamer slowly swung up to a big pier, the gangplank was run out, and the six little Bunkers, with their father and mother and the other passengers, got off, their tickets being taken up as they left the boat. A train was waiting at the pier, and soon, with the Bunkers in one of the coaches, it was puffing down the track, along the edge of the water. Above the train towered the high hills which gave Atlantic Highlands its name. On the heights, at a station called "Highlands," are two big lighthouses. The Highland light is as bright as ninety-five million candles, and on a clear night can be seen flashing for many miles. "Could we come down and see the light some night?" asked Russ, as his father told him about it. "Yes, I think so," was the answer. "But get ready now. We shall soon be at Cousin Tom's place." The train rumbled over a bridge across the Shrewsbury river, which flows into Sandy Hook Bay, and then, after passing a few more stations, the brakeman cried: "Seaview! Seaview! All out for Seaview!" "Oh, now we're at Cousin Tom's!" cried Rose. "Won't we have fun?" "Lots!" agreed Russ. "And don't forget about digging for gold!" added Laddie. They got off the train, and Cousin Tom, who was waiting for them, hurried up, all smiles. Behind him came his pretty wife. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you!" said Cousin Ruth. "Are all the six little Bunkers here?" Cousin Tom wanted to know, with a grin. "Every one!" answered Mother Bunker. "But we nearly lost Margy. She crawled under a fruit stand after a kitten. Where is she now? Margy, come back!" she called, for she saw the little girl running toward the train. "Don't get on the cars!" cried Mrs. Bunker. The train was beginning to move. "Come back, Margy! Oh, get her, some one!" But Margy was not going near the train. Suddenly she stooped over and caught up in her arms a little, white, woolly poodle dog. "Look what I found!" she cried. "If I can't have a kittie cat, I can have a dog. He is a nice dog and he jumped off the train 'cause he likes me!" And, just as Margy picked up the dog in her arms, a woman thrust her head out of one of the windows of the moving train and screamed. CHAPTER VII DIGGING FOR GOLD The dog began to bark, the engine of the train whistled, the woman with her head out of the car window kept on screaming, and the conductor, standing out on the platform, shouted something, though no one could tell what it was. "It sounded," said Daddy Bunker, afterward, "like that Mother Goose story, where the fire begins to burn the stick, the stick begins to beat the dog, the dog begins to chase the pig and the old lady got home before midnight." "What is the matter?" asked Cousin Tom, who had stopped greeting the six little Bunkers to look at Margy and the dog, and listen to the screaming of the woman on the train. No one seemed to know, but, suddenly, the engine whistled loudly once, and then the train came to a stop. Out of the car rushed the woman, down the steps and toward Margy. "My dog!" she cried. "Oh, my pet dog! I thought he was killed!" "No'm, I picked him up," explained Margy, as the woman took her pet animal. "I saw him, and he came to me, 'cause he liked me. I almost got a little kitten, but it went under a stand and when I pulled it out Mother wouldn't let me keep it. Now I can't have the doggie, either," and Margy acted as if she were going to cry. "I'm sorry, little girl," said the woman, "but I couldn't give up my pet Carlo. He is all I have!" and she cuddled the dog in her arms as she would a baby. "Did you stop my train, lady?" asked the conductor, and he seemed rather angry. "Yes," was the answer. "My Carlo ran off, just as it started, and I saw the little girl pick him up. Then I pulled the whistle-cord, and stopped the train. I just had to jump off and get my Carlo!" "Well, now that you have him, please get back on again," said the conductor. "We are late now, and must hurry." "I'm sorry I can't leave Carlo with you, for I'm sure you would love him," said the woman to Margy. "But I could not get along without him." Margy did not have time to answer, as the woman had to hurry back to the train. The conductor was waiting, watch in hand, for the train had stopped after it had started away from the station, and would be a few minutes late. And on a railroad a few minutes mean a great deal. "Oh, dear!" sighed Margy. "I had a little kittie and then I didn't have it. Then I had a little dog and now I haven't that, either! Oh, dear!" "Never mind," said Cousin Tom, as he patted the little girl on the head. "You can come down to the bungalow and play in the sand, and maybe you can find a starfish or something like that." "Oh, are there fish down in your ocean?" asked Russ. "Lots of 'em, if you can catch 'em," said Cousin Tom, laughing. "And is there any gold?" Laddie asked. "I never found any, if there is," was the answer. "But then I never had much time to dig for it. You may, if you like. But now are you all ready?" "All ready, I think," said Mother Bunker. "Don't pick up any more stray dogs or cats, Margy, my dear." "This one came to me," said the little girl. "I loved him, I did, but now he is gone." However there was so much new to see and talk about down at the seashore that Margy soon forgot about her little troubles. There were some carriages and automobiles at the station, and, dividing themselves between two of these, the Bunkers and Cousin Tom and his wife were soon driving down toward the ocean, for Cousin Tom lived on a street not far from the beach. He was the son of Mr. Ralph Bunker, who had been dead some years, and Mr. Ralph Bunker was Daddy Bunker's brother. So the children's father was Cousin Tom's uncle, you see. "Did you have a nice trip?" asked Cousin Ruth, of Mrs. Bunker, as she rode beside her in the automobile. "Yes, very. Laddie thought a search-light was a thunderstorm, when we were coming down on the Fall River boat, Margy crawled under a fruit stand in New York to get a stray kitten, and Mun Bun got mixed up with another little boy. But we are used to such things happening, and we don't mind. I hope you will not be driven wild by the children." "Oh, no, I love them!" said Cousin Ruth with a smile, as she looked over at the six little Bunkers. "That's good," said their mother with a smile. "Of course they get into mischief once in a while, but they are usually pretty good and don't give much trouble. They play very nicely together." "I'm sure they must. I shall love them all--every one! I wonder if they are hungry." "They generally are ready to eat," said Mrs. Bunker. "But don't fuss too much over them. They can wait until meal time." But the six little Bunkers did not have to do this, for when they reached the bungalow, not far from the beach, where Cousin Tom and his wife lived, there was plenty of bread and jam for the hungry children--and hungry they were, you would have believed, if you could have seen them eat. Cousin Ruth seemed to think it was fun. "Welcome to Seaview!" cried Cousin Tom, when the children were eating and Mr. and Mrs. Bunker had laid aside their things and the baggage had been carried to the different rooms. "Now I want you all to have a good time while you're here. Make yourselves right at home." "They seem to be doing that," said Daddy Bunker, for the children just then finished their bread and butter and jam, and began to run all around the house. Cousin Tom's bungalow was about a block from the ocean, and on a new street in Seaview, so there were no other houses very near it. Not far away was what is called an "inlet." That is, the waters of the ocean came into the land for quite a distance, making a place where boats could get in and out without going through the surf, or heavy waves. This inlet was called Clam River, for toward the upper end, a mile or so from the sea, it was shallow and sandy, and many clams were found there. Clam River was a harbor for fishing and lobster boats, and they could run into it and be safe from storms at sea. "I'm going out and dig in the sand!" cried Mun Bun. "I'll come, too," said Margy. "Well, don't pick up any stray dogs or cats," warned her mother. "Perhaps you had better go with them, Rose," she said to the oldest girl. "All right, Mother. I'll look after them," was the answer, and Rose became her mother's little helper again. Vi and Laddie seemed to be looking for something. They wandered about the big porch of the bungalow, and out in front, up and down. "What do you want?" asked Cousin Ruth, who saw them. "Something we can use to dig for gold," answered Laddie. "Dig for gold!" exclaimed Cousin Ruth. "Is that a riddle?" for she had heard that Laddie was very fond of asking riddles. "No, this is real," answered the little fellow. "'Tisn't a riddle at all. Sammie Brown's father dug for gold, and we're going to. There is always gold in sand." "Oh, I'm glad to know that," answered Cousin Ruth. "We have so much sand around us that if it all has gold in it I'm sure we shall soon be rich. But I wouldn't be too sure about it, Laddie. Some sand may not have any gold in it. But you may dig all you like. You'll find some shovels and pails on the side porch. I put them there on purpose for you children." Vi and Laddie found what they wanted, and hurried down to the beach to dig. Margy and Mun Bun went also, with Rose, while Russ, having found some bits of driftwood, began to whittle out a boat which he said he was going to sail on Clam River, where the water was smooth. Mr. and Mrs. Bunker sat in the bungalow talking to Cousin Tom and his wife, telling them about their trip and the visit to Aunt Jo's, from whose house they had just come. "I hope you can stay the rest of the summer with us," said Cousin Tom. "It is a lovely place," said Mrs. Bunker, "And we shall stay as long as you like to have us, for I think the children will like it here. And we are more than glad to be with you and Cousin Tom. But we have half promised to visit Grandpa Ford." "Yes, and he surely expects us," added her husband. "Is it all right for the children to play on the beach?" he asked his nephew. "Oh, yes, surely. Did you think anything could hurt them?" "Well, I didn't know. It's so near the water----" "The beach is a very safe one, and the water is shallow, even at high tide," said Cousin Tom. "At low tide you can wade quite a distance out. The children will be all right. But do they really expect to find gold by digging?" "I believe they do. It's a story they heard," said Mr. Bunker with a laugh. "Near Aunt Jo's lived a boy whose father was a sea captain, and who, I believe, did once find gold on an island. It set Laddie and Vi to thinking they might do the same. But, of course, there isn't any gold here." "Of course not," said Cousin Tom. So Mr. and Mrs. Bunker talked with Cousin Tom and his wife, while the children played outside. The sun was going down, and it would soon be time for supper, when Mrs. Bunker, who had gone upstairs to change her dress, heard Rose calling: "Come back, Laddie! Come back! You mustn't get into that boat!" "Into a boat? Oh, I should say not!" cried Mrs. Bunker, who could not see from her window what was going on. "What are you doing, Laddie?" she called, as she hurried down. She heard her little boy's voice in answer: "I'm going off in the boat and dig for gold. No, I won't come back, Rose. I'm going to dig for gold. Come on, Vi!" Fearing that something was going to happen, Mrs. Bunker ran out on the porch, from where she could see the beach. CHAPTER VIII ROSE'S LOCKET Mrs. Bunker gave a quick glance about to see what was happening. She noticed Margy and Mun Bun, well up on the beach, digging holes and making little piles of sand. But down near the inlet, where a boat was tied, Rose was having trouble with Laddie. The little boy who was so fond of asking riddles, and his sister Violet, who liked to ask questions, had left the place where they first had begun to "dig for gold," as they called it, and Laddie was about to get into the boat, calling to his sister Vi to follow. "No, you mustn't go!" declared Rose. "You mustn't get into the boat. Mother told me to stay and watch you, and you've got to keep here on the beach and dig for gold!" "There isn't any gold here!" declared Laddie. "I've dug all over, and we can't find any; can we, Vi?" "Nope, not a bit," and Vi shook her curly hair. "So we're going out in the boat, like real sailors. That's what Sammie Brown's father did," went on Laddie. "Then we'll find gold." "But you mustn't get into the boat, Laddie, unless Daddy or Cousin Tom is with you!" said Mother Bunker. "Do as Rose tells you, and come away." Laddie did not want to, but he always minded his mother, except when he was very bad, and this was not one of those times. So he went slowly away from the boat, which was tied to a little pier. "I was going after gold," he said. "We can't find any here," and he pointed to the holes he and his little sister had dug. "But if you went out in the boat alone, or with Vi, you might fall into the water," said his mother. "Never get into the boat unless some big person is with you, Laddie. And I mean you, too, Vi." "All right," said the two children. "We won't." "Come on!" called Rose to them, now that the dispute was over. "We will go farther down the shore and dig. And if we don't find any gold maybe we'll find some pretty shells, or a starfish." "Does a starfish twinkle, Mother?" asked Vi. "No, I don't believe it does, my dear." "Then what makes 'em call it a starfish?" the little girl wanted to know. "Because it has five arms, or perhaps they are legs, and as a star, such as you see in our flag, has five points, they call the fish that name. It is shaped like a star, you see. It doesn't twinkle, and it eats oysters, so I have read." "How does it crack the oyster shells?" asked Vi. "Oh, now you are asking too many questions for a little girl, and some that I can't answer," said Mrs. Bunker with a laugh. "Run along and play in the sand with Rose. But don't go too far, for it will be time for supper soon. And don't forget about the boat!" "I hope we find a starfish," said Laddie, glad he had something new to think about. "Could I make up a riddle about one, Mother?" "I guess so, if you tried hard." "I know a riddle about the sand," went on the little chap. "Why is the sand like a boy?" "It isn't," said Rose. "Sand isn't at all like a boy." "Yes, it is," went on Laddie. "A boy runs and so does sand." "Sand doesn't run," declared Rose. "Yes, it does," insisted her little brother. "I heard you say that some sand ran down into your shoe. So sand runs and a boy runs and that's a riddle." "Yes, I guess it is," laughed Mother Bunker. "Well, you run along and play." And Rose and Laddie and Violet did. They went to where Margy and Mun Bun were digging holes in the sand. "Did you find any gold?" asked Laddie. Mun Bun shook his head until his hair was in his eyes. "We found a lot of funny little white bugs that jump," he said. "They were awful nice little bugs, and they wiggled and wiggled in the sand," added Margy. "Oh, I want to see some!" cried Vi, and then Margy and Mun Bun dug until they found some "sand hoppers," for the other children. They are a sort of shore shrimp, I think, and very lively, jumping about, digging themselves holes in the sand in which they hide. Margy and Mun Bun and Laddie and Vi became so interested in looking for the sand hoppers that they forgot about digging for gold, and it was almost time for supper when Russ came whistling down the beach calling: "Who wants to come and see me sail my boat?" "I do! I do!" cried Mun Bun and Laddie, and the girls, Rose also, said they would go. "I haven't got all the sails on yet," explained Russ, "but I guess it will sail a little this way, and I can put some more sails on to-morrow." From an old shingle and some sticks Russ had made a nice little boat, fastening to the mast a bit of cloth, which looked like a sail. Followed by his smaller brothers and sisters Russ took his boat to a place in the inlet where the water was not deep, and there he let the wind blow it about, to the delight of all. Then came a call from the bungalow. "Supper, children! Come on in and get washed!" "Oh, I'm so hungry!" cried Rose. "So'm I," agreed Russ. Margy and Mun Bun didn't say anything, but they looked as if they could eat. "I thought of another riddle," said Laddie, as he went along with Russ. "It's about why does the sand run." "No! That isn't it!" laughed Rose. "You've started it backward, Laddie, and spoiled it." "Oh, yes, now I know. Why is sand like a boy?" "Because they both run," answered Russ. It was easy to guess the riddle after Laddie had partly told it to him. "Cousin Tom said lobsters run backwards," put in Violet, having heard Rose say that Laddie started his riddle backwards. "What makes lobsters go that way, Russ?" "I don't know. I s'pose 'cause they like it." "Do fish go backwards?" the little girl went on. "I never saw any," Russ answered. "And can they stand on their heads?" went on the little girl. But no one could answer this question, and there was no time to do so, anyhow, as they were now at Cousin Tom's bungalow, and from it came the smell of many good things that had been cooked for supper. "My! you have a houseful with all of us Bunkers," said the children's mother, as they gathered about the table. "Yes. There wouldn't be room for many more," said Cousin Tom's pretty wife. "But I like company." "Even if they eat so much it will keep you busy buying more?" asked Daddy Bunker. "Oh, I guess they won't do that," replied Cousin Tom, laughing. "We're going to dig gold in the sand, and then we can buy our own things to eat," declared Laddie. "Well, until you do that I'll see that you get enough to eat," said his cousin. After supper they went for a ride on the inlet in Cousin Tom's big rowboat. "I think we had better go back," said Mother Bunker, after they had ridden about a bit. "It is getting late, and I see two of my little tots are getting sleepy." This was true, for Margy and Mun Bun were nidding and nodding, hardly able to keep their eyes open, though it was hardly dark yet. But they had been up early and they had traveled far that day. Back to the bungalow they went, and soon the four smaller children were in bed. "And it will be time for you, Russ and Rose, in a little while," said Mrs. Bunker. They were allowed to stay up a half hour longer than the others. While Daddy Bunker and Cousin Tom and the two Mrs. Bunkers were talking on the side porch, and watching the moon rise, as though it came right from the ocean, Russ and Rose sat down on the beach. They were within call from the bungalow, though about a block away from it, Cousin Tom's place being the first one up from the water. Russ picked up a shell, and started to dig. "What are you looking for?" asked Rose. "I was just wondering if there was any gold here," said her brother. "Sammie Brown said there was gold in sand, and there's lots of sand here; isn't there, Rose?" "Yes, but Laddie and Violet dug in a lot of places to-day, and so did Margy and Mun Bun, and they didn't find any gold." "They didn't know how to look for it," declared Russ. "You have to dig deep for gold." "I'll help," offered Rose. "I like to dig in the sand." She found a clam shell, as large as the one Russ had, and with those for shovels, the children began digging on the beach in the moonlight. They could look back and see the bungalow, and Mr. and Mrs. Bunker could see the children from where they sat. The ocean surf made a loud noise. "Doesn't it sound nice and scary-like?" asked Rose, as she reached her arm down into the hole she was digging, and scooped up some damp sand. "Yes. It's like the desert island Sammie told about," agreed Russ, listening to the boom and hiss of the waves as they broke on the beach. "Have you found any gold yet, Rose?" "No. Have you?" Russ shook his head. "I guess we've got to go deeper," he said. It grew later. The moon rose higher, and it became a little more "scary-like." Presently Mrs. Bunker called: "Come, Rose! Russ! Time to go to bed!" "All right!" they answered. They were tired enough to want to go to sleep. They dropped their clam shells near the holes they had dug, and started up the beach. Suddenly Rose gave a cry. "What's the matter?" asked Russ. "My locket! My gold locket that Grandma gave me! It's gone! Oh, I have lost my lovely gold locket!" CHAPTER IX THE SAND HOUSE "What's the matter?" called Mr. Bunker from the bungalow porch. He had heard the sobbing voice of Rose. "Has anything happened?" he went on. "Tell Daddy what it is." "I have lost my lovely gold locket!" sobbed Rose. "The one Grandma gave me! I dropped it in the sand, I guess, when I was digging the holes for gold. I wish I hadn't dug!" "Stand right where you are!" called Daddy Bunker. "I'll bring my electric flashlight and look around for your locket. It may have dropped on the sand right where you are. So don't move until I get there and can see the place. I'll find your gold locket, Rose." The moon was bright, and, shining on the ocean and on the white sand, made the beach very light. But still, as Rose looked about her and over to where Russ stood, she could not see her gold locket. And she wanted very much to get it back, as it was a present from Grandma Bell, and Rose liked it more than any of her other gifts. She did not often wear it, but on this occasion, coming on the trip from Aunt Jo's, Rose had begged to be allowed to hang the ornament on its gold chain about her neck, and her mother had allowed her to do so. Rose had promised to be careful, and she had been. She had noticed the locket after supper and when she came out in the evening to dig in the sand with Russ. But now it was gone, and just where she had dropped it Rose did not know. "And now my lovely locket is gone!" she sobbed. "Never mind! I'll get it for you," said Daddy Bunker. Russ and Rose stood still as he had told them to do, and now they saw their father coming toward them waving his pocket electric light. He usually carried it with him to peer into dark corners. It would be just the thing with which to look for the lost locket. "Did you remember where you had it on you last?" asked Daddy Bunker, as he came close to Rose. "Just before Russ and I started to dig with the clam shells to find the gold," she answered. "Where was that?" her father asked. Russ and his sister pointed to where two little piles of sand near some holes could be seen in the moonlight. "That is where we dug for gold," said Rose. "But we didn't find any," added Russ. "You may now, if you dig--or to-morrow," said their father. "Really?" inquired Russ. "You may dig up Rose's gold locket," went on Mr. Bunker. "I don't believe there is any other gold in these sands, even if Sammie Brown's father did find some on a desert island. But if Rose dropped her locket here, there is surely gold, for the locket was made of that. Now don't walk about, or you may step on the locket and bend it. I will flash my light as I go along, and look." Daddy Bunker did this, while Rose, standing near her brother, looked on anxiously. Would her father find the piece of jewelry she liked so much? It was hard to find things, once they were buried in the sand, Rose knew, for that afternoon Cousin Ruth had told about once dropping a piece of money on the beach, and never finding it again. "And maybe my locket slipped off my neck when I was digging the deep hole," thought Rose; "and then I piled up the sand and covered it all over." Daddy Bunker must have thought the same thing, for he flashed his light about the sand piles made by Russ and his sister. He did not dig in them, however. "We won't do any digging until morning," he said. "We can see better, then, what we are doing. I thought perhaps the locket might lie on top of the sand, and that I could pick it up. But it doesn't seem to. You had better come in to bed, Russ and Rose." "But I want my locket," sighed the little girl. "And I thought I could find it for you," said Mr. Bunker. "I think I can, in the morning, when the sun shines. Just now there are so many shadows that it is hard to see such a little thing as a locket." "Will it be all right out here all alone in the night?" asked Rose. "Oh, yes, I think so," her father said. "As it is gold it will not tarnish. And as no one knows where it is it will probably not be picked up, for no one will be able to see it any more than I. And I don't believe many persons come down here after dark. It is rather a lonely part of the shore. I think your locket will be all right until we can take a look for it in the morning." "Maybe a starfish might get it," said the little girl. "Oh, no!" laughed Daddy Bunker. "Starfish like oysters, but they do not care for gold lockets. I'll find yours for you in the morning, Rose." This made Rose feel better, and she went inside the bungalow with Russ and her father. Mrs. Bunker, as well as Cousin Tom and his wife, felt sorry on hearing of Rose's loss, but they, too, felt sure that the ornament would be found on the sand in the morning. I do not know whether or not Rose dreamed about her lost locket. Certainly she thought about it the last thing before she fell asleep. But she slumbered very soundly, and, if she dreamed at all, she did not remember what her visions of the night were. But she thought of her locket as soon as she awoke, however, and, dressing quickly, she ran down on the sand. Her father was ahead of her, though, and, with a rake in his hand, he was going over the beach near the place where Russ and Rose had dug the holes. "Is this the only place you children hunted for gold?" asked Mr. Bunker, as he saw Rose coming along. "Yes, Daddy," she answered. "And we were right there when I didn't have my locket any more. Can't you find it?" "I haven't yet," he answered. "I've raked over the sand as carefully as I could, but I didn't see the locket." "Did you look down into the holes we dug, Daddy?" "Yes, and all around them. It's queer, but the locket seems to have disappeared." "Maybe a starfish came up and took it down into the ocean with him." "No, Rose. If the locket was dropped on the beach it is here yet. But it is rather a large place, and perhaps I am not looking just where I ought to. However I will not give up." Daddy Bunker looked for some little time longer, pulling the sand about with the rake, but no locket showed. Then others looked, including the children, Cousin Tom, his wife and Mother Bunker. But they had no better luck. "Well, we know one thing," said Daddy Bunker. "There is gold in this sand now if there was not before. Rose's gold locket is here." "And I don't guess I'll ever find it," said the little girl with a sigh. "Oh, dear!" "Maybe it slipped off your neck in the house," suggested Cousin Ruth. "I'll look carefully, and you may help me." But this did no good either, and though the search was a careful one, and though the sand was gone over again, the lost locket was not picked up. "I'm going to dig every day until I find it!" said Rose. "And I'll help!" added Russ. "So will I!" said Laddie; and the other children, when they knew what a loss had come to Rose, said they, also, would help. If it had not been for this accident the visit of the six little Bunkers to Seaview would have been without a flaw. Even as it was, it turned out to be most delightful. Seaview was a fine place to spend the end of the summer, and Cousin Tom and his wife made the children feel so at home, and did so much for them, that Russ and the others said they never had been in a nicer place. "If I only had my locket!" sighed Rose, as the days passed. But it seemed it would never be found, and after a time, the thought of it passed, in a measure, from the little girl's mind. She did not speak of it often, though sometimes when she went down on the beach, near the holes she and Russ had dug in the moonlight, Rose looked about and scraped the sand to and fro with a shell or a bit of driftwood. But as the beach looks pretty much alike in many places, it is hard to know whether, after the first few times, Rose dug in the right place. Cousin Ruth looked again all through the bungalow for the gold locket, and, whenever any one thought of it, he or she poked about in the sand. But the locket seemed gone forever. There was plenty to do at Seaview to have fun. The children could go in wading and swimming, they could play in the sand, they could sail toy boats in the inlet and they could go out in a real boat with their father or Cousin Tom. More than once they were taken out on the quiet waters, and they sat in the boat while their father or his nephew fished. Once Russ held the pole and he caught a funny, flat fish, that seemed as if it had been put through the wringer which squeezed the water out of the clothes on wash day. "What kind of fish is that?" asked Violet, when she saw it flapping about in the bottom of the boat. "It's a flounder," answered Cousin Tom. "Is it good to eat?" "Yes, very good." "Maybe it swallowed Rose's locket. Do you think so, Daddy?" asked the little girl. "Oh, no, Vi. Now don't ask so many questions, please." "Could I ask a riddle?" Laddie wanted to know. "Oh, I suppose so," laughed his father. "What is it?" "I haven't made it up yet," went on Laddie. "It's going to be about a flounder and a wringer, but I got to think. When I get it ready I'll tell you." "Don't forget!" laughed Cousin Tom. It was about a week after Rose had lost her locket and it had not been found, that one day Russ called to Rose: "Come on down to the beach. I know how we can have some fun." "What can we do?" asked his sister. "We'll build a house and have a play party," answered Russ. "Where?" "On the beach. We can build a house in the sand." So the children started off, with their shovels and sand pails. Their mother watched them, thinking how nice it was that they could be at the shore in hot weather. It was about an hour after Rose and Russ had started down the beach together to make a sand house that Mrs. Bunker, who was just thinking of taking a walk and having another look for the lost locket, heard cries. "Mother! Mother! Come quick!" she heard Russ calling. "What's the matter?" cried Mrs. Bunker. "Oh, come quick!" went on Russ. "Rose is in the sand house! Rose is in the sand house!" Not knowing what had happened, Mrs. Bunker set off on a run down the beach. CHAPTER X THE PIRATE BUNGALOW The mother of the six little Bunkers was used to having things happen to them. She did not have half a dozen children without knowing that, nearly every day, some one of them would fall down and bump a nose, cut a finger, get caught in a fence, or have something like that happen to make trouble. So, in a way, Mrs. Bunker was used to calls for help. "But this seems different," she said to herself, as she ran along. "I'm afraid something has happened to Rose." And something had. As Mrs. Bunker came within sight of Russ and his sister, where they had gone to dig their sand house, their mother saw her oldest boy dancing about on the beach. "Where is Rose?" called Mrs. Bunker. "What have you done with Rose?" "I didn't do anything to her, Mother!" answered Russ. "But she's in the sand house and she can't get out!" Mrs. Bunker kept on running toward the children; at least toward Russ. Rose she could not see. "She can't get out of the sand house 'cause it fell down on her," explained Russ. "I tried to pull her out, but I couldn't, so I hollered for you, Mother!" "Something dreadful must have happened! I wish I had stopped for Daddy!" thought Mrs. Bunker. By this time she was close beside Russ, who was capering about like an Indian doing a war dance. But Russ was not doing it for fun. He was just excited, and couldn't keep still. "Where is your sister?" asked Mrs. Bunker. "There!" answered Russ, pointing. Then Mrs. Bunker understood why she had not seen Rose before. It was because the little girl was hidden behind a pile of sand. But there was more than this the matter. For Rose was down in a hole, and the sand had caved in on her feet and legs, covering her up almost to her waist. Rose was held fast in a heap of sand, and, wiggle and twist though she did, she could not get out. "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" sobbed the little girl, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I'm all fast and I can't get out!" "I'll get you out! There! Don't cry any more," said Mrs. Bunker. "I'll soon have you out. Get a shovel, and help me dig Rose loose," she called to Russ. "All right," answered the little boy. He had stopped jumping about now. "Where are your shovels, Russ?" asked his mother, looking about for something with which to dig. "We didn't have any. We used big clam shells," he answered. "Here's one, and I'll get another." The large clam shells were pretty good to use as shovels, though Mrs. Bunker felt that she could have worked faster with a regular one. However, she had to do the best she could, and really the shell scooped the sand out very well. Russ helped, and they both set to work to dig Rose out of the hole in which she was partly buried. "It's a good thing the sand didn't slide in on you and cover your head," said Mrs. Bunker. "How did it happen, Russ?" "Well, we were digging a sand house--it was just a hole in the sand, you know," the little boy explained. "We were going to put some sticks across the top, when we got it deep enough to stand up in, and put some seaweed over the sticks for a roof. I saw some boys on the beach make a sand house like that yesterday. "But after we dug down a way," he went on, "Rose got down in the hole so she could dig better. She scooped the sand up to me and I put it in a heap on the beach. And then, all of a sudden, a lot of the sand slid in on Rose and she was held fast and--and----" "And I couldn't get out, but I tried like anything!" added Rose, as her brother stopped for breath. "And then Russ screamed for you and--and--Oh, I'm so glad you came!" and Rose leaned her head against her mother, who was busy digging out the sand with the clam shell. "I'm glad I came, too, my dear," said Mrs. Bunker. "After this don't dig such deep sand holes, or, if you do, don't get into them. Sand, you know, is not like other dirt. It doesn't stay in one place, but slips and slides about." "But we want to have something to play in!" exclaimed Russ. "Well, we want you to have fun while you are here at Cousin Tom's, but we don't want you to get hurt," said Mrs. Bunker. "Can't you make a little playhouse of the driftwood on the beach? That would be nicer to play in than a damp hole." "Oh, yes, we could do that!" cried Rose. "Let's make a wooden house on the beach, Russ! There's lots of wood!" "And then we can play pirates!" added the little boy. A little later Rose had been dug out of the sand, and though her dress was a little damp, for the sand, as one dug down into it, was rather wet, she was not hurt. All along the sands at Seaview, after high tide, were bits of planks and boards and chips, and after Rose had been dug out of the sand house she and Russ began gathering all the wood they could pick up to make what Russ said would be a "pirate bungalow." Mrs. Bunker, after telling the children once more not to dig deep holes, left them on the beach to play, herself going back to Cousin Tom's bungalow. Margy and Mun Bun, who had been gathering shells and stones down on the sand, had come up to play in front of the house, on a bit of green lawn. Laddie and Vi, who had walked up and down the beach, looking for some starfish, which they did not find, came to where Russ and Rose were getting ready to play. "What are you making?" asked Laddie. "A pirate bungalow," answered Russ. "Want to help?" "Yep," answered Laddie. "And I will, too," said Vi. "What are you going to put in it? Will it be big enough for all of us, and what makes so much wood here, Russ?" "Now if you're going to ask a lot of questions you can't play!" said Rose. "You just help pick up the wood, Vi." "Can't I ask just one more question?" "What is it?" asked Russ, smiling. "What makes the ocean so salty?" Vi asked this time. "I got some water on my hands and then I put my finger in my mouth and it tasted just like I'd put too much salt on my potatoes. What makes the ocean so salty?" "I don't know," said Russ. "We'll ask Daddy when we go up. But come on, and let's build the bungalow. I'll be a pirate, and we'll play shipwreck and everything." "I'll be a pirate, too," added Laddie. "I know a good riddle about a pirate, but I can't think of it now. Maybe I will after I've been a pirate for a while." "We'll be pirates, too," said Vi. "No, girls can't be," said Russ. "You can be our prisoners. Pirates always have prisoners." "Prisoners? What's them?" asked Vi. "They're what pirates have," explained Laddie. "I know, 'cause I saw some pictures of 'em in a book. Pirates always keep their prisoners shut up in a cave." "I'm not going to be in a cave," said Rose. "I was in the sand house when it caved in, and I don't like it." "But you get good things to eat," explained Russ. "Pirates always have to feed their prisoners good things to eat." "Then I'll be one, 'cause I'm hungry," said Vi. "So'll I," added Laddie. "I'll be a prisoner. I guess I'd rather be a prisoner than a pirate, Russ. You can be the pirate and get us all good things to eat." "All right, I will. Now come on, we've got to get a lot more wood to make this pirate bungalow. Get all the wood you can." "Why don't you get some?" asked Laddie, as he saw his brother sitting down on a pile of drift pieces that had already been gathered. CHAPTER XI GOING CRABBING Russ Bunker looked up at his brother Laddie and smiled. Still he made no move toward helping gather the driftwood for the bungalow they were going to make. "Well, why don't you help get wood?" asked Laddie again. "Think we're going to do all the work and have you sit there?" "Say, I'm a pirate, ain't I?" asked Russ, not getting his words just right, though his brother and sisters understood what he meant. "Didn't you say I was to be the pirate?" "Yes, 'cause we don't want to be," retorted Rose. "Well, all right then, I'm going to be the pirate," went on Russ. "But you've got to get us good things to eat," said Vi. "We're the prisoners, an' you said they had good things to eat." "I'll get good things to eat if Cousin Ruth'll give 'em to me," promised Russ. "But I'm the pirate, and pirates don't ever work. They just boss the prisoners. Now come on, prisoners, and build me the bungalow!" and Russ leaned back on a pile of sea weed and looked very lazy and comfortable. "Don't pirates _ever_ work?" asked Laddie. "Nope! Not the kind I ever heard Mother read about in books," went on Russ. "They just tell the prisoners what to do, 'ceptin', of course, when there's any fighting. Pirates are 'most always fighting, but we won't play that part, 'cause Mother doesn't like that. I'll be a good pirate, and I'll let you prisoners build the bungalow." "But you've got to get us something to eat," said Vi again. "I'll do that," promised Russ. "I'll go up now and ask Cousin Ruth for some, and you prisoners can be getting a lot of wood." The plans Russ made came out all right. Cousin Tom's pretty young wife was very glad to give the children some crackers and cookies to take down on the beach to eat, and when Russ got back with the bag of good things he found that Rose, Laddie and Violet had collected a large pile of driftwood. "Now we'll make the bungalow," decided Russ. "I'll help work at that, 'cause the pirates want it made just so. But you prisoners have got to help." "Can't we eat first, 'fore we make the bungalow?" asked Violet. "I'm as hungry as anything!" "Yes, I guess we could eat first. I'm hungry, too," returned the "pirate." Then the "pirate" and his "prisoners" sat down on the sand together, as nicely as you please, leaning against bits of driftwood covered with seaweed, and ate the lunch Cousin Ruth had given them. It did not take very long. Probably you know what a very short time cookies last among four hungry children. "Well, now we'll start to build," said Russ, when the last cookie and cracker had been eaten. "First we'll stick up four posts in the sand, one for each corner of the bungalow." The children had made playhouses before, not only at their home in Pineville, but while they were at Grandma Bell's house, near Lake Sagatook, Maine; so they knew something of what they wanted to do. Of course the bungalow was rather rough. It could not be otherwise with only rough driftwood with which to make it. But then it was just what the children wanted. When the four posts were set deep in the sand, in holes dug with clam shells, the children placed boards from one to the other, sometimes making them fast, by driving in, with stones for hammers, the rusty nails which were found in some pieces of the wood. Other boards or planks they tied together with bits of string. Over the top they placed sticks, and on top of the sticks they spread seaweed. "We don't want the roof very heavy," said Russ, "'cause then if it falls in on us, as our snow house roof did once, it won't hurt us. All we want is something to keep off the sun." "Won't it keep the rain out, too?" asked Rose. "No, I don't guess it will," answered Russ, as he looked up and saw several holes in the roof. "Anyhow we won't play out here when it rains. Mother wouldn't let us." The pirate bungalow was soon finished; that is, finished as much as the children wanted it, and then they began playing in it. Russ pretended that he was the pirate, and that the others were his prisoners. He made them dig little holes in the sand, and bring in shells and stones as well as seaweed. This last he made believe was hay for a make-believe elephant. "Do pirates have elephants?" asked Violet. "Sometimes maybe they do," her brother said. "Anyhow I can make believe that just for fun." "Are we going to eat any more?" asked Laddie. "Or is that only make-believe, too?" "I'll see if I can get some more from Cousin Ruth," promised Russ. Once more he made a trip up to the real bungalow, and Cousin Ruth, with laughter, filled another bag with cookies. This time Margy and Mun Bun, tired of playing with the shells and pebbles, went down on the beach to the driftwood pirate bungalow. It was rather a tight squeeze to get all six of the little Bunkers inside, and not have the place burst and fall apart. But they managed it, and then they sat under the seaweed roof and ate the cookies, having a fine time. "My, this is cozy!" cried Cousin Tom, as, with Daddy Bunker, he came down to see what the children were doing. "And you've had something to eat, too!" he went on, as he saw some crumbs scattered about. "Yes, we had some," said Russ, "but it's all gone now. But if you are hungry I can get some more," and he started from the bungalow. "Oh, no!" laughed Daddy Bunker, who had been told by his wife of Russ' two visits to Cousin Ruth's kitchen. "I guess we don't feel hungry now. Anyhow dinner will soon be ready." The children played in the pirate bungalow all the remainder of the day, stopping only for dinner and supper. The seaweed roof kept off the hot August sun, and, as it did not rain, the holes in the covering did not matter. Rose and Violet took their dolls down and played with them there. Russ, after a while, gave up being a pirate, and said his "prisoners" could all go, but they seemed to like staying around the driftwood house. "If we had a door on it we could stay in it all night," said Vi. "Why didn't you make a door, Russ?" "Too hard work," he answered. "Anyhow we don't want to stay down here all night." "The waves might come up and wash us away," said Rose. Laddie, who had been smoothing the sand in one corner of the pirate bungalow, now stopped and seemed to be thinking hard. "What's the matter?" asked Russ. "I have a new riddle," was the answer. "It's about a door." "Is it why does a door swing?" asked Violet. "'Cause if it is, I can answer that one. I've heard it before. A door swings because it isn't a hammock." "Nope! 'Tisn't that," said Laddie. "This is my new riddle. What goes through a door, but never comes into the room?" "Say it again," begged Russ, who had not been listening carefully. "What goes through the door, but never comes into the room?" asked Laddie again. "It's a good riddle, and I made it up all myself." "Does it go out of the room if it doesn't come in?" asked Rose. "Nope," answered Laddie, shaking his head. "It doesn't do anything. It just goes through the door, but it doesn't come in or go out." "Nothing can do that," declared Russ. "If a thing goes through the door it's got to come in or go out, else it doesn't go through." "Oh, yes, it does," said Laddie. "Do you give up?" "Is it a cat?" asked Vi. "Nope." "A dog?" "Nope." "A turtle?" guessed Mun Bun, who didn't quite know what it was all about, but who wanted to guess something. "Nope!" said Laddie, laughing. "I'll tell you. It's the keyhole!" "The keyhole?" cried Russ. "No!" "To be sure!" answered his small brother. "Doesn't a keyhole go all the way through the door? If it didn't you couldn't get the key in. The keyhole goes through the door, but it doesn't come into the room nor go out. It just stays in the door. Isn't that a good riddle?" "Yes, it is," answered Rose. "I'd never have guessed it." "I thought it up all myself while you were talking about a door to this bungalow," said Laddie. "What goes through the door but doesn't come in the room? A keyhole," and he laughed at his own riddle. The next day Cousin Tom went down to the beach, where once more Russ, Rose and the others were playing in the driftwood bungalow, and called: "How many of you would like to go crabbing?" "I would!" cried Russ. "So would I," said Rose. "What is it like?" asked Vi, who, you might know, would ask a question the first thing. "Well, it's like fishing, only it isn't quite so hard for little folk," said Cousin Tom. "Come along, if you're through playing, and I'll show you how to go crabbing." "Are Daddy and Mother going?" asked Rose. "Yes, we'll all go. Come along." The six little Bunkers followed Cousin Tom up the beach to the inlet. There, tied to a pier not far from Cousin Tom's bungalow, was a large boat. Near it stood Mother and Father Bunker and Cousin Ruth. Cousin Ruth had some peach baskets, two long-handled nets and some strings to the ends of which were tied chunks of meat. "Are we going to feed a dog?" asked Russ. "No, that is bait for the crabs," said Cousin Tom. "Come, now, get into the boat, and we'll go for a new kind of fishing." CHAPTER XII "THEY'RE LOOSE!" "All aboard!" cried Russ as he stood on the edge of the little wharf in the inlet, at which the boat was tied. "All aboard." "Does he mean we must all get a piece of board?" asked Violet. "No," answered her mother with a smile. "Russ is saying what the sailors say when they want every one to get on the ship, take their places, and be ready for the start." The rowboat was a large one, and would hold the six little Bunkers, as well as their daddy and mother and Cousin Tom. Cousin Ruth had intended to go, but, at the last minute, the woman living in the next bungalow asked her to help with some sewing; so Cousin Ruth stayed at home. "I'll get all ready to cook the crabs if you catch any," she said with a smile, as Cousin Tom and Daddy Bunker rowed the boat out into the inlet. "Oh, we'll get some!" cried Russ. "Crabs bite, don't they?" asked Violet, who seemed started on her questioning tricks. "Well, they don't exactly bite; it's more of a pinch," said Cousin Tom. "But it hurts, I can tell you." "Then I'm not going to catch any," declared Violet. "I'll just watch you." "Oh, a crab won't pinch you if you catch him in a net; and that's what I'll do," said her cousin. "We'll soon be at the place where there are lots of them, I hope." As Cousin Tom rowed along, he told the six little Bunkers that the crabs swam up the inlet from the sea to get things to eat, and also for the mother crab to lay eggs, so little crabs would hatch out. "And when the big crabs swim up, which they do whenever the tide runs into the inlet, twice a day," said Cousin Tom, "we go out and catch them. Of course you can catch them at other times, but the crabbing is best when the tide is coming in." "But I don't see any hooks on the lines," remarked Laddie, who was looking at the strings in the bottom of the boat. On one end of each string was a short piece of wood, and on the other end a piece of meat, while on a few were some fish heads. "You don't need hooks to catch crabs," explained Cousin Tom. "All you need to do is to tie a piece of meat on the string." "And does the crab bite that?" asked Russ. "No, but he takes it in his strong claws, to hold it so he can tear off little pieces with his smaller claws and put them into his mouth," said Cousin Tom. "A crab's mouth is small, and he has to tear his food into little bits before he can swallow it. He uses his big front claws for grabbing hold of what he wants to eat and holding on to it, and he likes old meat or fish heads best of all. "So, when we get to the place where I think some crabs are, we'll let down the pieces of meat. The crabs, swimming along, or crawling sideways on the bottom of the inlet, as they more often do, will smell the chunk of meat. They will take hold of it in their claws, and then one of us can reach down the net and scoop it under Mr. Crab. That's how we catch them." "But how do you know when one has hold of the piece of meat on the string?" asked Rose. "You can feel him giving it little jerks and tugs," said Cousin Tom. "Or, if the water is clear, you can see him as he takes hold of the chunk of meat. Then you want to pull up on your string, very, very gently, so as not to scare the crab and make him let go. If you know how to do it you can lift your string up with one hand, and scoop the net under the crab with the other. But when you children have a bite, your Daddy or I will use the net for you." "Oh, it's going to be lots of fun," cried Violet. "I like this kind of fishing." "And there aren't any sharp hooks to hurt the crab," added Rose. "No, it doesn't hurt a crab to catch him this way," said Daddy Bunker. "And crabs are very good to eat after they are cooked. I like them better than fish." "Is a crab a fish?" asked Laddie, who was holding a little stick down in the water, watching the ripples it made as the boat was rowed along. "A crab is a sort of fish," said Cousin Tom. "Why did you ask?" "Oh, I am trying to make up a riddle about a crab and a fish," said Laddie. "But I don't guess I can if they are pretty near the same. I guess I'll make up a riddle about a boat. I have one 'most thought up. It goes like this: When a boat goes in the water why doesn't the water go in the boat?" "It does, sometimes, if the boat leaks," replied Cousin Tom with a laugh. "I hope your riddle doesn't come true this trip, Laddie!" "Oh, well, I haven't got the riddle all made up yet," was the answer. "I can't think of a good answer. Maybe I can after I catch some crabs." "Why doesn't our boat sink?" asked Violet. "'Cause it's wood, and that floats," said Russ. "Well, once you made a little wooden boat, and it sunk when we put a lot of stones on it," said Vi. "And my doll--a little one--was on the boat, and she got all wet." "Well, if a boat is made of wood, an' it's big enough, it won't sink, will it, Daddy?" asked Russ. "No, I don't believe it will, if it doesn't get a hole through it so the water can get in. But sit still now, children. I think we are at the place where Cousin Tom is going to let us catch crabs. Aren't we, Tom?" asked Mr. Bunker of his nephew. "Yes," said Cousin Tom, "this is a good place. There is plenty of seaweed on the bottom of the inlet here, and the crabs like to hide in that--especially the soft-shelled crabs." "Are there two kinds?" Russ inquired. "Yes, hard and soft," was his cousin's answer. "Like eggs," said Russ with a laugh. "There are hard and soft boiled eggs. Isn't that so, Cousin Tom? "Yes," said Cousin Tom with a smile. "But the funny part of it is that sometimes the same crab is soft-shelled, and again it is hard-shelled. An egg can't be that way. Once it is boiled hard it never can be boiled soft again." "What makes soft crabs?" Rose wanted to know. "A soft-shelled crab is a hard-shelled crab with its old, hard shell off, and it is only soft while it is waiting for its new shell to harden in the salty sea water," explained Cousin Tom. "You see a crab grows, but its shell, or its house that it lives in, doesn't grow. So it has to shed that, or wiggle out of it, to let a larger one grow in its place. When it does that it is a soft-shelled crab for a time, and very good to eat. But you can't catch soft-shelled crabs on a string and a chunk of meat. You have to go along and scoop them out of the seaweed with a net. But now we will fish for hard-shelled crabs." Cousin Tom and Daddy Bunker had rowed the boat about a mile up the inlet, and now the anchor was tossed over the side, to keep the craft from drifting with the tide. "Now each one of you take a string, and toss the meat-end of it over the side," said Cousin Tom. "Keep hold of the stick-end, or tie that end to the boat. If you lose that you can't pull in your crab. Each one of you keep watch of his or her string. When you see it beginning to be pulled, or when you feel a little tug or jerk on it, as if a fish were nibbling, then pull up very slowly and carefully. And look as you pull. Don't pull it all the way to the top, or the crab, if there is one on it, will see you, let go, and swim away." The six little Bunkers did as they were told. Of course Margy and Mun Bun were too little to know how to catch crabs, but they each had a line, and Mother Bunker said she would catch them for the small tots. "Oh, I think I have one!" suddenly exclaimed Russ in a whisper. "Look at my line move!" "Yes, you may have a crab on there," returned Cousin Tom. "Pull up very gently." Russ did so, while his cousin reached forward with the long-handled net ready to scoop it under the crab, if it should happen to be one. Up and up Russ pulled his line. Every one was eagerly watching, for they wanted to see the first crab caught. And then, as the chunk of meat on Russ's string came near the top of the water, Rose, from the other end of the boat, cried: "Oh, it's only a piece of seaweed!" And so it was! How disappointed Russ was! The bit of green seaweed, catching on his line, had wiggled and tugged, as the tide swayed it, just as a crab would have done. "Oh, I have one! I have one!" suddenly called Laddie, from his end of the boat. "He's a big one! He's pulling like anything!" "Well, don't get excited and fall overboard," said Daddy Bunker. "Keep still, pull up slowly, and I'll get him in the net for you." Slowly Laddie pulled up. Every one was watching. Would his "bite," too, prove to be only seaweed? "Yes, you have one!" said Mother Bunker in a low voice, so as not to frighten the crab. I don't really know whether loud noises frighten crabs or not, but generally every one keeps quiet when fishing. "Yes, Laddie has a crab," said Daddy Bunker. "Wait, now, I'll get it in the net!" [Illustration: THE CRAB HAD HOLD OF LADDIE'S BAIT IN BOTH CLAWS. _Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's._--_Page 120_] Laddie's father dipped the net down into the water, shoved it under the crab, chunk of meat and all, and lifted it suddenly out of the water. The crab had hold of Laddie's bait in both claws, and before the creature could let go it had been caught. "Oh, look at him wriggle!" cried Rose. "Now I'll dump him into the basket," said Daddy Bunker. He turned the net upside down over the peach basket. Out dropped Mr. Crab, letting go of the chunk of meat, which Laddie pulled out by the string. The crab crawled about sideways on the bottom of the basket, raising its claws into the air and clashing them together, at the same time opening and shutting the pinching part. "That's the way a crab fights," said Cousin Tom. "And sometimes two big crabs will fight so hard that one pulls a claw off the other. You have caught a fine, big one, Laddie." "A dandy," agreed Laddie. "And I've got one, too!" cried Vi. "Oh, he's pulling like anything!" She really had a crab on her line. Cousin Tom netted it for her, and it turned out to be larger than Laddie's. "I think the crab fishing will be good to-day," said Daddy Bunker. And so it turned out. From then on each one began to catch the pinching creatures, the older folks using the net when the children had bites. Once Russ tried to use the net himself, but he was not quick enough with it, and the crab let go of the chunk of meat and swam quickly away. "He was a dandy big one, too!" said Russ regretfully. Mun Bun and Margy each one caught a crab, with the help of their mother, and Rose, Violet and Laddie had good luck, also. Cousin Tom and Daddy Bunker, of course, caught the most. Mother Bunker helped the children land theirs in the net. And, after about an hour of fishing, the peach basket was full of the big-clawed crabs. "I think we have enough," said Cousin Tom. "We will take them home and cook them. Then we can eat them cold-boiled with lemon juice on them, or they can be made into a salad." "Catching crabs is lots of fun," said Russ. "Eating them is good, too," said his father. They rowed back home, and found Cousin Ruth waiting for them at the bungalow. "Oh, you did have good luck," said Cousin Tom's wife. "A whole basketful! Well, I'll soon have the water boiling and we'll cook them." The basket full of live crabs was set in the kitchen, and the six little Bunkers and the others went out on the porch to rest and wait for the water to boil. Russ, a little later, wanted a drink, and, going into the kitchen, he turned to go to the sink. He was barefooted, and suddenly he felt a sharp pain on one toe. "Oh, I'm bit! I'm bit!" he cried. "Something pinched me!" And then, as he looked at the kitchen floor, he cried: "Oh, come quick! Come quick! They're loose! They're all loose!" CHAPTER XIII IN THE BOAT Every one out on the porch of the bungalow jumped up on hearing Russ's cries. "What's the matter?" asked Mother Bunker. "What happened?" Daddy Bunker wanted to know. "Oh, they're all loose, and one of 'em bit me," wailed Russ, and now came sounds which seemed to indicate that he was hopping about on one foot, and holding the other in his hands. And he really was doing this, as they found out afterward. "Loose? They're all loose? What does he mean?" asked Rose. "It's the crabs!" exclaimed Cousin Tom, as he made a run for the kitchen. "I guess some of them got out of the basket. They will do that once in a while." Daddy and Mother Bunker, with Cousin Ruth, followed Cousin Tom to the kitchen, where Russ was still hopping about and yelling: "Oh, they're all loose! They're all loose, and one of 'em pinched me! Oh, dear!" "Don't cry, silly little boy!" called his mother. "A pinch by a crab can't hurt as much as that." "Oh, but it hurts like anything!" yelled Russ. "He 'most bit off my big toe!" By this time they were all in the kitchen. The rest of the six little Bunkers had followed their father and mother. They saw a queer sight. Crabs were crawling all over the floor. They had managed to wiggle out of the peach basket in which they had been put as they were caught from the boat. Cousin Tom had spread wet seaweed over the top of the basket, but this had not been enough to keep the crabs in. "Look, they're chasing us!" cried Rose, as a crab came sliding sideways over the oil-cloth, clashing its big claws. "They are only trying to get into the dark corners to hide," said Cousin Tom. "I'll pick them up." "Will they pinch you?" asked Laddie. "No, not if I pick them up by one of their back flippers," said his cousin. "There is a certain way to pick up a crab so he can't reach you with his claws." Just then a crab came toward Cousin Tom. He put out his foot, and held it tightly on the hard shell of the crab's back. Then, reaching behind the crab, and taking hold of one of the broad, flat swimming flippers, he lifted the crab up that way. The crab wiggled and tried to reach Cousin Tom with the pinching claws, but could not. "That's the way to do it," called out Cousin Tom, as he tossed the crab into the basket. "I can do it!" said Laddie, who liked to try new things. "You'd better not," advised his mother. "Look how the crab pinched Russ." "My toe's bleeding," said the little fellow, and so it was. A big crab can easily pinch hard enough to draw blood. "I'll tie it up for you," said his mother. "Perhaps you children had better not try to pick up Crabs the way Cousin Tom did," she went on. "You might make a mistake and get badly pinched." "Yes, let the children keep out of the way," agreed Daddy Bunker. "Cousin Tom and I will catch the crabs." Russ was led away, hopping on one foot, though if he had tried, he could easily have stepped on his sore foot. He was more frightened than hurt, I think. And then the other children followed him, though the twins would rather have staid. It was not easy to catch the crabs, for there were so many of them, and they scurried around so fast. But Cousin Tom picked them up in his fingers, and Daddy Bunker soon learned the trick of this. As for Cousin Ruth, she took the crab tongs, which were two pieces of wood fastened together on one end, like a pair of fire tongs. In these the crabs could be picked up either front or back, or even by one claw, and they could only pinch the wood, which they often did. "There, I think we have them all," said Cousin Tom at last. "And now, as the water is boiling, we can cook them." So the crabs were cooked, and set aside to cool until morning, when the white meat would be picked out of the red shells, and made into salad. "What makes the crabs red?" asked Violet the next morning as she saw the pile of cold, boiled creatures. "They were a sort of brown and green color when we caught them yesterday." "Yes," said her father, "crabs, lobsters and shrimps, when they are boiled, turn red. Just why this is I don't know. I suppose there is something in their shells that the hot water changes." "Can they pinch my toe now?" asked Mun Bun, as he stood near his mother, looking at the basket full of cooked crabs. "Nope! They can't hurt you now; they're cooked," Laddie replied. "I'm not 'fraid!" and he picked up a big crab, holding it by one of the claws. Vi then did the same thing. "Go ahead and take one, Mun Bun," urged Laddie. "No! I don't guess I want to," said the little fellow. "I know a riddle you could make up about a crab," said Rose, who had come to the kitchen to watch Cousin Ruth clean the shellfish. "What is it?" Laddie demanded instantly. "What color is a crab when it can't pinch?" sing-songed Rose. "And the answer is it's red when it can't pinch." "Yes, that is a pretty good riddle," said Laddie, as, with his head on one side, he thought it over. "But I know how to make it better," he went on. "How?" asked his mother. "Let me think a minute," he begged. "Oh, I have it! Why is a crab like a newspaper?" "'Tisn't!" exclaimed Russ who came along just then. He was limping a bit, for his toe was sore where the crab had pinched him. "Yes, 'tis!" declared Laddie. "That's the riddle. It's something like the one Rose told. Why is a crab like a newspaper?" "'Cause it folds its claws when it doesn't want to bite you?" asked Violet. "Nope!" "Tell us," suggested Russ. "Well, a crab is like a newspaper, 'cause when it's red it can't bite or pinch," Laddie said. "See?" "Huh! Yes, I see," murmured Russ. "A crab is like a newspaper because when it's red. Oh, I know! You mean when a newspaper is r-e-a-d. That's a different red from reading. But it's a good riddle all right, Laddie." "I didn't think of it all," said the little boy. "Rose helped." "Oh, well, you made a riddle out of it," his sister told him. "Here comes Cousin Ruth. I'm going to watch her clean the crabs." It was quite a lot of work to take the sweet, white meat out of the crab-shells, but Cousin Ruth knew the best way to do it. In about an hour she had a large bowl full of the picked-out meat, and the children--all except Mun Bun and Margy, who were too little to be allowed to eat any--said the crabs were better than fish. Daddy and Mother Bunker liked them, too. "Some of the crabs have awful big claws," remarked Russ after dinner, as he looked at a pile of the legs and claws. "I guess they could dig in the sand with 'em, the crabs could. They could dig deep holes." "I wish one would dig down and find my lost locket," said Rose with a sorrowful sigh. For, though they had all searched the sand near the bungalow beach over and over, there was no sign of the missing gold locket. "I guess we'll never find it," Rose went on with another sigh. "Not even if a crab could dig down deep." "Well, I'll dig some more," promised Laddie. "Vi and I are going to make some holes in the sand to play a new game, and maybe we'll find your locket that way." But they did not, and Rose, though she herself searched and dug in many places, could not find the ornament. There were many happy August days for the six little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's. They played in the sand, went crabbing and fishing, wading and swimming. One hot afternoon, when it was too warm to do more than sit in the shade, Mrs. Bunker, who had been lying on the porch in a hammock reading, laid aside her book and looked up. "Where has Mun Bun gone?" she asked Rose, who was playing jackstones near by. "And did Margy go with him?" "I don't know, Mother," Rose answered. "They were here a minute ago. I'll go and look for them." Just as Rose got up and as Mrs. Bunker arose from the hammock, a voice down near the shore of the inlet called: "Come back. Get out of that boat! Mother, Margy and Mun Bun are in the boat, and it's loose, and they're riding down the inlet and the tide's going out! Oh, Mother, hurry!" CHAPTER XIV VIOLET'S DOLL You can easily believe that Mrs. Bunker did hurry on hearing what Russ was calling about Mun Bun and Margy. She almost fell out of the hammock, did Mrs. Bunker, she was in such haste. "Daddy! Daddy! Come quick!" she called to her husband, who was in the bungalow, talking to Cousin Tom. "Margy and Mun Bun are in a boat on the inlet and are being carried out to sea. Hurry!" Daddy Bunker also hurried. Mother Bunker was the first to get down to the shore, where she could see what had happened. At first all she noticed was Russ jumping up and down in his excitement, and, at the same time, pointing to something on the water. Mrs. Bunker looked at what Russ was pointing to and saw that it was Cousin Tom's smaller rowboat, and, also, that in it were her two little children, Mun Bun and Margy! And the boat was being carried by the tide down the inlet toward the sea. The inlet, when the tide was flowing in or out, was like a powerful river, more powerful in its current than Rainbow River at home in Pineville, where the six little Bunkers lived. "Oh, Margy! Mun Bun!" cried Mrs. Bunker, holding out her hands to the children. "Oh, what will happen to them?" went on Mother Bunker, as she reached Russ standing near the edge of the inlet. She could see the boat, with Margy and Mun Bun in it, drifting farther and farther away. "Oh, I must get them!" Mrs. Bunker was just about to rush into the water, all dressed as she was. She had an idea she might wade out and get hold of the boat to bring it back. But the inlet was too deep for that. "Wait a minute! Don't go into the water, Mother! We'll get the children back all right!" cried Daddy Bunker, as he ran up beside his wife and caught her by the arm. "How?" asked Mrs. Bunker, clinging to her husband. "We'll go after them in another boat," said Mr. Bunker. "Here comes Cousin Tom. He and I will go after the children in the other boat. You sit down and wait for us. We'll soon have them back!" Cousin Tom had two boats tied at the pier in the inlet. One was the large one in which they had gone crabbing a few days before, and the other was the small one in which Margy and Mun Bun had gone drifting away. Daddy Bunker, left his wife sitting on the sand and ran to loosen the large boat. But Cousin Tom cried: "Don't take that. It will be too slow and too heavy to row." "What shall we take?" asked the children's father. "Here comes a motor-boat. I'll hail the man in that and ask him to go after the drifting boat for us," Cousin Tom answered. "All right," agreed Mr. Bunker, as he looked up and saw coming down the inlet, or Clam River, a speedy motor-boat, in which sat a man. This would be much faster than a rowboat. Just then Mrs. Bunker, who had jumped up from the sand where she had been sitting for a moment, and who was running toward her husband, cried: "Oh, see! The children are standing up! Oh, if they should fall overboard!" Margy and Mun Bun, who, at first, had been sitting down in the drifting boat, were now seen to be standing up. And it is always dangerous to stand up in a small boat. Daddy Bunker put his hands to his mouth, to make a sort of megaphone, and called: "Sit down, Margy! Sit down, Mun Bun! Sit down and keep quiet and Daddy will soon come for you. Sit down and keep still!" Mun Bun and his little sister did as their father told them, and sat down in the middle of the boat. "Now we'll get them all right," said Mr. Bunker to his wife. "Don't worry--they will be all right." Cousin Tom ran out on the end of his pier. He waved his hands to the man in the motor-boat, who was a lobster fisherman, going out to "lift" his pots. "Wait a minute!" called Cousin Tom. "Two children are adrift in that boat. We want to go after them!" The lobster fisherman waved his hand to show that he understood. The motor of his boat was making such a noise that he could not make his voice heard, nor could he tell what Cousin Tom was saying. But he knew what was meant, for he saw the drifting boat. With another wave of his hand to show that he knew what was wanted of him, the lobsterman steered his boat toward Cousin Tom's wharf. A few minutes later Daddy Bunker and Cousin Tom were in it, and were speeding down Clam River after the drifting craft in which sat Margy and Mun Bun. "How did it happen?" asked Mr. Oscar Burnett, the lobster fisherman, as he steered his boat down stream. "I don't know," answered Daddy Bunker "All I know is my wife called to me to come out, and I saw the two tots drifting off in the boat." "They must have climbed in to play when the boat was tied to the wharf," said Cousin Tom. "Then either they or some one else must have loosened the rope." "Maybe it came loose of itself," suggested Daddy Bunker. "It couldn't," said Cousin Tom. "I tied it myself, and I am a good enough sailor to know how to tie a boat so it won't work loose." "Yes, I guess you are," said Mr. Burnett. "The youngsters must have loosened the rope themselves. Or some older children did it, for those two are pretty small," and he looked at Margy and Mun Bun, for the motor-boat was now quite near the drifting rowboat. "All right, Margy! All right, Mun Bun! We'll soon have you back safe!" called Daddy Bunker to them, waving his hands. Both children were crying. Up alongside the drifting rowboat went the lobster craft. Cousin Tom caught hold of the boat in which the children sat, and held it while Daddy Bunker lifted out Margy and her brother. Then the rowboat was tied fast to the stern of the other boat, which was steered around by Mr. Burnett, and headed up the inlet. "I've got time to take you back to your pier," he said to Cousin Tom. "I started out a bit early this morning, so I don't have to hurry. Besides, the tide is running pretty strong, and you'd have it a bit hard rowing back." "It's a good thing you came along," said Daddy Bunker, as he thanked the lobsterman. "The children might have been carried out to sea." "Oh, the life guard at the station on the beach would have seen them in time," returned Mr. Burnett. "But I'm just as glad we got them when we did." "What made you go off in the boat?" asked Daddy Bunker of Margy. "We didn't mean to," answered Mun Bun. "We got in to play sail, and the boat went off by itself." And this was about all the two children could say as to what had happened. They had got into the boat, which was tied to the pier, and had been playing in it for some time. Then, before they knew it, the boat became loose, and drifted off. Russ, who had been playing on the beach not far away, had seen them, but not in time to help them. He had, indeed, called to them to "come out of the boat," but then it was too late for Margy and Mun Bun to do this. There was already some water between their boat and the pier. Then Russ did the next best thing; he called his mother. It did not take long for the lobster motor-boat to make the run back to Cousin Tom's pier, pulling the empty rowboat behind. Mrs. Bunker rushed down and hugged Margy and Mun Bun in her arms. "Oh, I thought I should never see you again!" she cried, and there were tears in her eyes. "We didn't mean to go away in the boat," said Margy. "We didn't mean to," repeated Mun Bun. And of course the children did not. They had been playing in the boat as it was tied to the wharf, and they never thought it would get loose. Just how this happened was never found out. Perhaps Mun Bun or Margy might have pulled at the knot in the rope until they loosened it, and the tug of the tide did the rest. But the children were soon safe on the beach again, playing in the sand, and the alarm was over. "What makes the water in the inlet run up sometimes and down other times?" asked Violet. "It's the tide," said Russ, who had heard some fishermen talking about high and low water. "What's the tide?" went on the little girl. "The moon," added Russ. "I heard Mother read a story, and it said the moon makes the tides." "Does it, Daddy?" persisted Violet. She certainly had her questioning cap on that evening. "Yes, the moon causes the tides," said Daddy Bunker. "But just how, it is a bit hard to tell to such little children. The moon pulls on the water in the oceans, just as a magnet pulls on a piece of iron or steel. When the moon is on one side of the earth it pulls the water into a sort of bunch, or hill, there, and that makes it lower in the opposite part of the earth. That is low tide. Then, as the moon changes, it pulls the water up in the place where it was low before, and that makes high tide. And when the tide is high in our ocean here it pushes a lot of water up Clam River. And when the water is low in our ocean here the water runs out of Clam River. That is what makes high tide and low tide here." "Oh," said Violet, though I am not sure she understood all about it. But after that Margy and Mun Bun were careful about getting into the boat, even when they felt sure it was tightly tied to the pier. They always waited until some older folks were with them, and this was the best way. The happy days passed at Cousin Tom's. The six little Bunkers played on the beach, and, now and then, they looked and dug holes to try to find Rose's locket. "I guess it's gone forever," said the little girl as the days passed and no locket appeared. And she never even dreamed of the strange way good luck was to come to her once more. One warm day, when all the children were playing down on the sandy shore of the inlet, Violet came running back to the house. "Mother, make Russ stop!" she cried. "What is he doing?" asked Mrs. Bunker. "He's taking my doll. He's going to take her out on the ocean in a boat. Make him stop." "Oh, Russ mustn't do that!" exclaimed Mrs. Bunker. "Of course I'll make him stop!" She went down to the beach with Violet, and, just as they came within sight of the group of children, they heard Rose say: "Oh, Russ! Now you've done it! You have drowned Vi's doll!" CHAPTER XV THE BOX ON THE BEACH "Dear me!" exclaimed the children's mother, as she hurried along beside Violet to help settle whatever trouble Russ had caused. "Oh! did you hear what Rose said?" asked Vi. "Did you hear?" "Yes, my dear, I did." "Oh, my lovely doll is drowned!" cried the little girl, and there were real tears in her eyes, and some even ran down her nose and splashed to the ground. "I just knew Russ would be mean and tease me, and he did, and now my doll is drowned and----" "Well, it might better be a doll that is drowned and not one of my six little Bunkers," said the mother. "Though, of course, _I_ am sorry if any of your playthings are lost. Russ, did you drown Vi's doll?" she called to her oldest son. "I didn't mean to, Mother," was the answer. "I was giving the doll a ride in a boat I made, and the boat got blown by the wind, and the wind upset the boat, and the boat went under water, 'cause I had a cargo of stones on it, and----" "What happened to Vi's doll?" asked Mother Bunker. "Why don't you get to that part of it, Russ?" "I was going to," he said. "The doll fell off when the boat upset and sank, and the doll sank, too, I guess." "Is my doll really, really, drowned?" cried Violet. "I--I'm afraid I guess so," stammered Russ. "But maybe I can fish her up again when the tide is low," he added hopefully. "Do it now," sobbed the little girl. "The water's too deep now." "Where did she get drowned?" asked Violet, gazing through her tears at the waters of the inlet. "The boat upset out there in the middle," said Russ, pointing. "Oh, dear!" sighed Violet. "If she was my rubber doll maybe she wouldn't be drowned. But she's my china doll, and they won't float, will they, Mother?" "No, my dear, I'm afraid not. How did it happen, Russ? Why did you take Violet's doll?" "'Cause I wanted to give her a ride, and I didn't think she would care--I mean Vi. Course the doll didn't care." "She did so!" exclaimed the little girl, stamping her foot on the sand. "My dolls have got feelings, same as you have, Russ Bunker, so there!" "Now children, don't get excited," said Mrs. Bunker gently. "Russ, you shouldn't have taken Vi's doll." "Well, I wanted to see how much my boat would hold, and I was playing the doll was a passenger. I'll get it back for her. Cousin Tom will take me out in his boat to the middle, and I can scoop the doll up with a crab net." Mrs. Bunker went with Russ and Violet to find Cousin Tom, leaving Laddie, Rose, Margy and Mun Bun playing with pebbles and shells in the sand. Russ told Cousin Tom what had happened. The little boy had made a boat out of a piece of board, with a mast and a bit of cloth for a sail. He had loaded his boat with stones he had picked up on the beach of the inlet, and had started his craft off on a voyage. Violet had been playing near by with her doll, and when she put it down for a moment Russ had taken the doll and put it on his toy boat. Then he gave it a shove out into the Clam River, the wind blowing on the sail and sending his toy well out toward the middle of the inlet. There the accident happened. The boat turned over and sank. Perhaps if Russ had only laid the stones on, instead of tying one or two large ones fast, as he had, the boat might have floated, even though upset. For if the stones had not been tied on they would have rolled off and the boat would have righted herself and floated, being made of wood. But, as it was, she sank. "And my doll went down with it," said Vi sadly. "Please, Cousin Tom, can you get her back?" "I don't know, Violet. I'll see," was the answer. "The tide is running out now, for it was high water a little while ago. If the boat sank down to the bottom, and stayed there, we may be able to get it when the water is low if we can see it." "The sail is white, and you can see white cloth even under water," said Russ. "But I'm afraid the cloth won't stay white very long. The mud and sand of the inlet will cover it," remarked Cousin Tom. "Did you tie the doll on the boat, too, Russ?" "No, I just laid the doll down on top of the stones." "Then when the boat upset the doll rolled off, and she probably sank in another place," said Mr. Bunker. "I don't believe we can ever find her, Vi, I'm sorry to say, but I'll try at low tide." "Would she be carried out to sea, like Mun Bun and Margy 'most was?" the little girl wanted to know. "She might, if the tide current was strong enough," said Cousin Tom. "What kind of doll was she?" "China," answered Vi. "She was hollow, 'cause she made a hollow sound when you tapped her. And she had a hole in her back, and sometimes I used to pour milk in there, and make believe feed her." "Well, if your doll was hollow, and had a hole in her back, she probably filled with water when she sank," said Cousin Tom. "Oh, dear!" sighed Violet. That evening, when the tide was low, so there was not so much water in the inlet, Cousin Tom and Daddy Bunker, taking Russ with them to show where his boat had upset, rowed out to the middle of Clam River. It took them a little while to find the place where Russ had last seen his toy boat, but finally they found it. Then, looking down into the water, they peered about for a sight of the white sail. "There it is!" suddenly cried Russ, as he leaned over the side of the boat. "I see something white." "Yes, I see it, too," said Daddy Bunker. "Perhaps that is the sail of the sunken toy boat, and perhaps the doll is near here." But when Cousin Tom put down the long-handled crab net and scooped up the white object, it was found to be a bit of paper. "Oh, dear!" sighed Russ. "I wish it was Vi's doll!" He felt bad about the sorrow he had caused his little sister. "We'll try again," said his father, and, after rowing about a bit and peering down into the water, they saw something else white, and this time it really was Russ's boat. Cousin Tom scooped it up in his crab net, and when the stones which were tied on deck, were loosed, the boat floated as well as ever, and the wind and sun soon dried the wet sail. But, though they scooped with crab nets all about the place where they had found the boat, they could not bring up Vi's doll. "Oh, didn't you find her?" asked the little girl, when her father, Cousin Tom, and Russ came back in the rowboat. "No, dear, we couldn't find her," said Daddy Bunker. "Oh, dear!" and Vi cried very hard. "Never mind, I'll get you another doll," said her mother. "They won't ever a doll be as nice as she was," sobbed Vi. "I--I just lo-lo-loved her!" They all felt sorry for Violet, and Russ said she could have his new knife, if she wanted it. But she said she didn't; all she wanted was her doll. "Never mind," said Rose, trying to comfort her sister. "Maybe when I find my gold locket, if I ever do, you'll find your lost doll. We've got two things to hunt for now--your doll and my locket." "But your locket is lost on land, and, maybe, if you dig in the sand enough, you can find it," sobbed Violet. "But you can't dig in the water!" "Maybe she'll be washed up on the beach with the tide, same as the driftwood and the shells and the seaweed are washed up," put in Russ. "I'll look along the beach every day, Vi, and maybe I'll find your doll for you." This comforted Vi some, and she dried her tears. Then Laddie made them all laugh by saying: "I have a new riddle!" "Is it about a doll?" asked Rose. "No. It's about a cow." "How can you make a riddle about a cow?" Russ demanded. "Well, I didn't make this one up," said Laddie; "and it isn't like the riddles I like to ask, 'cause there isn't any answer to it." "There must be some answer," declared Violet. "All riddles have answers." "Well, I'll tell you this one, and you can see if it has," went on Laddie. "Now listen, everybody." Then he slowly said: "How is it that a red cow can eat green grass and give white milk that makes yellow butter?" No one answered for a moment, and then Daddy Bunker laughed. "That is pretty good," he said, "and I don't believe there is any answer to it. Of course we all know a red cow, or one that is a sort of brownish red, does eat green grass. And the milk a cow gives is white and the butter made from the white milk is yellow. Of course that isn't exactly a riddle, but it's pretty good, Laddie." "And is there an answer to it?" the little boy asked. "I don't believe there is," answered his father. "It's just one of those things that happen. Did you make that up, Laddie?" "No. Cousin Tom told it to me out of a book. But I like it." Vi still sorrowed for her doll, and, in the days that followed, she often walked along the beach hoping "Sarah Janet," as she called her, might be cast up by the tide or the waves. Russ looked also, as did the others, but no doll was found. Nor did Rose find her gold locket, though many holes were dug in the sand searching for it. One morning, after breakfast, when he had gone down on the beach to watch the fishing boats come in, which he often did, Russ came running back to the house, very much excited. "What's the matter?" asked his mother. "Did one of the boats upset and spill out the fishermen?" "No'm, Mother. But a box washed up on shore, and it's nailed shut, and it's heavy, and maybe Vi's doll is in it! Oh, please come down and see the box on the beach!" CHAPTER XVI CAUGHT BY THE TIDE Ever since they had come to Cousin Tom's, at Seaview, the six little Bunkers had hoped to find some treasure-trove on the beach. That is, Russ and Rose and Vi and Laddie did. Margy and Mun Bun were almost too little to understand what the others meant by "treasure," but they liked to go along the sand looking for things. At first, when the children came to the shore, they had hoped to dig up gold, as Sammie Brown had said his father had when shipwrecked. But a week or so of making holes in the sand, and finding nothing more than pretty shells or pebbles, had about cured the older children of hoping to find a fortune. "Instead of finding any gold we lost some," said Rose, as she thought of her pretty locket, which, she feared, was gone forever. But now, when Russ came running in, telling about a big box being cast up on the beach, his mother did not know what to think. The children had heard her read stories about shipwrecked persons, who found things to eat, and things of value, cast up on the sands, and she knew Russ must imagine this was something like that. "Hurry, Mother, and we'll see what it is!" cried the little boy, and taking hold of her hand he fairly dragged Mrs. Bunker along the path toward the beach. "What sort of box is it?" the little boy's mother asked. "Oh, it's a wooden box," Russ answered eagerly. "Well, I didn't suppose it was tin or pasteboard," said Mrs. Bunker with a laugh. "A tin box would sink, and a pasteboard box would melt away in the water. Of course I know it must be of wood. But is it closed or open, and what is in it?" "That's what we don't know, Mother," Russ answered. "The box has a cover nailed on it, and it isn't so very big--about so high," and Russ measured with his hands. "Did you open the box?" asked Mrs. Bunker. "No'm," Russ answered. "We were all playing on the sand when I saw something bobbing up and down on the waves. We threw stones at it, and then it washed up on the beach, and I ran down into the water and grabbed it. "Maybe it's gold in it, Laddie says," went on Russ. "But I told him it wasn't heavy enough for gold." "No, I hardly think it will be gold," said his mother with a smile. "And Vi thinks maybe it's her doll," went on the little boy. "Oh, it hardly could be that. Her doll is probably at the bottom of the ocean by this time. It could hardly have been got up and put in a box. I'm afraid you will find nothing more than straw or shavings in your treasure-trove, Russ. Don't count too much on it." "Oh, no, but we're just hoping it's something nice," Russ said. "You go on down where the box is and I'll go get a hammer from Cousin Tom so we can open the box." He led his mother to a little hummock of sand, from the top of which she could look down and see the children gathered on the beach about a square wooden box that had been cast up by the sea. Then Russ ran back to get the hammer. Mrs. Bunker looked at the box. There seemed to have been some writing on a piece of paper that was tacked on the box, but the writing was blurred by the sea water and could not be read. "Oh, Mother! what you s'pose is in it?" asked Vi. "My doll, maybe!" "No, I hardly think so, little girl." "Maybe gold," added Laddie, his eyes big with excitement. "No, and not gold," said Mrs. Bunker. "Candy?" asked Margy, who had not one sweet tooth, it seemed, but several. "Pop-corn balls!" said Mun Bun. "Huh! candy and pop-corn balls would all be wet in the ocean," exclaimed Laddie. By this time Russ came running back with the hammer. Behind him came Cousin Tom, Cousin Ruth and Daddy Bunker. "What's all this I hear about a million dollars being found in a box on the beach?" asked Daddy Bunker with a laugh. "Well, there's the box," said Russ, pointing. "Please open it." "I wonder what can be in it," said Cousin Ruth. "Oh, maybe nothing," replied her husband, who did not want the children to be too much disappointed if the box should be opened and found to hold nothing more than some straw or shavings for packing. "Lots of boxes that are cast up on the beach have nothing in them," said Cousin Tom, as Daddy Bunker got ready to use the hammer on the one Russ and the others had found. "There is something in this box, all right," said Daddy Bunker, as he lifted one end. "I don't believe this box is empty, though what is in it may turn out to be of no use. But we will open it and see." The six little Bunkers crowded around to look. So did Mother Bunker and Cousin Tom and his wife. And then a very disappointing thing happened. All of a sudden a wave, bigger than any of the others that had been rolling up on the beach, broke right in front of the box resting on the sand. Up the shore rushed the salty, green water. "Look out!" cried Mother Bunker. "We'll all be wet!" Daddy Bunker, not wishing to have his shoes soiled with the brine, jumped back. So did the others. And, in jumping back, Mr. Bunker let go his hold on the box, which he was just going to open with Cousin Tom's hammer. And the big wave, which was part of the rising tide, just lifted the box up, and the next moment carried it out into the ocean, far from shore, as the wave itself ran back down the hill of sand. "Oh! Oh, dear!" cried Rose. "Grab it!" yelled Russ. "I'll get it!" exclaimed Laddie. He made a rush to get hold of the box again before it should be washed too far out from shore, but he stumbled over a pile of sand and fell. He was not hurt, but when he got up the box was farther out than ever. Daddy Bunker looked at the water between him and the box, and said: "It's too deep to wade and spoil a pair of shoes. And, after all, maybe there is only a lot of old trash in the box." "Oh, I thought maybe my doll was in it," sighed Violet. "Can't you take your boat, Tom, and row out and get the box?" asked Cousin Ruth. "Yes, I could do that," he said. "I will, too! The water is calm, though I can't tell how long it will stay so." But before Cousin Tom could go back to the pier in the inlet, where the boat was tied, the box was washed quite a distance out from shore. Then the wind sprang up and the sea became rough, and it was decided that he had better not try it. "Let the box go," said Daddy Bunker. "I guess there was nothing very much in it." But the children thought differently. They stood looking out at the unopened box, now drifting to sea, and thought of the different things that _might_ be in it. Each one had an idea of some toy he or she liked best. "Well, we waited too long about opening it," said Mr. Bunker. "We should have pulled the box farther up on the beach, Russ." "That's right," said Cousin Tom. "The tides are getting high now, as fall is coming on, and the tides are always highest in the spring and the autumn. But maybe we can get the box back, after all." "How?" asked Russ eagerly. "Well, it may come ashore again, farther up the beach," replied Cousin Tom. "Then somebody else may find it and open it," Russ remarked. "Yes, that may happen," said his father. "Well, we won't worry over it. We didn't lose anything, for we never really had it." But, just the same, the six little Bunkers could not help feeling sorry for themselves at not having seen what was in the box. They kept wondering and wondering what it could have been. But a day or so later they had nearly forgotten about what might have been a treasure, for they found many other things to do. One afternoon Margy and Mun Bun, who had been freshly washed and combed, went down to the wharf where Cousin Tom kept his boat. "Don't get in it, though," warned their mother. "You were carried away in a boat once, and I don't want it to happen again. Keep away from the boats." "We will!" promised Mun Bun and Margy. When they reached the shore of the inlet Mun Bun said: "Oh, Margy, look how low the water is! We can wade over to that little island!" "Yes," agreed Margy, "we can. We can take off our shoes an' stockin's, an' carry 'em. Mother didn't tell us not to go wadin'." And Mrs. Bunker had not, for she did not think the children would do this. So Margy and Mun Bun sat down on the wharf and made themselves barefooted. Then they started to wade across a shallow place in the inlet to where a little island of sand showed in the middle. And Margy and Mun Bun did not know what was going to happen to them, or they never would have done this. CHAPTER XVII MAROONED "That's a nice little island over there," said Mun Bun to Margy as they waded along. "Yes, it's a terrible nice little island," agreed his sister. "An' we can camp out there an' have lots of fun." "Oh, Mun Bun, catch me! I'm sinking down in a hole!" "All right, I'll get you!" cried the little boy, and he grasped hold of his sister's arm. She had stepped into a little sandy hole, and the water came up half way to her knees. Of course that was not very deep, and when Margy saw she was not going to sink down very far she was no longer frightened. "But I was scared till you grabbed hold of me," she said to Mun Bun. "Is it very deep any more?" "No, it isn't deep at all," the little boy answered. "I can see down to the bottom all the way to the little island, and it isn't hardly over your toenails." The tide was very low that day, and in some parts of the inlet there was no water at all, the sandy bottom showing quite dry in the sun. As Cousin Tom had said, toward the fall of the year the tides are both extra high and extra low. Of course not at the same time, you understand, but twice a day. Sometimes the waters of the ocean came up into the inlet until they nearly flowed over the small pier. Then, some hours later, they would be very low. This was one of the low times for the tide, and it had made several small islands of sand in the middle of Clam River. It was toward one of these islands that Margy and Mun Bun were wading. They had seen it from the shore and it looked to be a good place to play. There was a big, almost round, spot of white sand, and all about it was shallow water, sparkling in the sun. The deepest water between the shore and the island was half way up to Margy's knees, and that, as I think you will admit, was not deep at all. "We'll have some fun there," said Mun Bun. "Maybe we can dig clams," went on the little girl. Clam River was so called because so many soft and hard clams were dug there by the fishermen, who sold them to people who liked to make chowder of them. There are two kinds of clams that are good to eat, the hard and the soft. One has a very hard shell, and this is the kind of clam you most often see in the stores. But there is another sort of clam, with a thin shell, and out of one end of it the clam sticks a long thing, like a rubber tube. And when the clam digs a hole for himself down in the sand or the mud he thrusts this tube up to the top, and through it he sucks down things to eat. The six little Bunkers had often seen the fishermen on Clam River dig down after these soft-shelled fellows. The men used a short-handled hoe, and when they had dug away the sand there they found the clams in something that looked like little pockets, or burrows. "Maybe we can dig clams," said Margy. "We hasn't got any shovel or hoe," returned Mun Bun. "Maybe we can dig with some big clam shells, if we can find some," his sister said. By this time they had reached the little island. Just like the islands in your geography, it was "entirely surrounded by water," and it made a nice place to play, except that it was rather sunny. But Mun Bun and Margy did not mind the sun very much. They were used to playing out in it, and they were now as brown as berries, or Indians, or nuts, whichever you like best. They were well tanned, and did not get sunburned as many little boys and girls do when they go to the seashore for the first time. "We can take the clams to Cousin Ruth and she can make chowder and she'll give us some cookies, maybe," said Mun Bun. "I like clams better than cookies," remarked Margy. "I mean I like to eat cookies, but I like to dig clams." "You can't dig cookies," said Mun Bun. "You could dig one if you dropped yours in the sand," returned his sister. "Yes, you could do that," agreed the little boy. "But it would be all sand, and it wouldn't be good to eat." "I don't guess it would. We'll just dig clams. Anyhow, we hasn't any cookies to dig or to eat." This was very true. And now the two little children began to hunt for clam shells to use for shovels in digging. They wanted the large shells of the hard clam, and soon each had one. Then they began to dig, as they had seen their father and Cousin Tom do. For Daddy Bunker had once taken Margy and Mun Bun with him and the other Mr. Bunker, when they went to dig soft clams. Whether Margy and Mun Bun did not know how to dig, or whether there were no clams in the sand of the island I do not know. But I do know that the two little Bunkers did not find any, though they dug holes until their backs ached. Then Margy said: "Let's don't play this any more." "What shall we play?" asked Mun Bun. "Oh, let's see if we can find some wood and make little boats." So they walked about the island looking for bits of wood. But none was to be found. For wood floats; that is, unless it is so soaked with water as to be too heavy, and all the pieces of wood that had ever been on the island had floated away. "I don't guess we can build any boats," said Margy. "Let's go back to shore and get some wood, and then we can come back and sail boats." "That'll be fun," said Mun Bun. "We'll go." But when he and his sister started to wade back, they had not gone very far before Margy cried: "Oh, the water's terrible deep! Look how deep down my foot goes!" Mun Bun looked. Indeed the water was almost up to Margy's knees now, and she had gone only a few steps away from the shore of the island. "Let me try it," said her brother. "I'm bigger than you." He wasn't, though he liked to think so, for Margy was a year older. But I guess Mun Bun was like most boys; he liked to think himself larger than he was. However, when he stepped out from the island, ahead of Margy, he, too, found that the water was deeper than it had been when they started to wade from the shore near Cousin Tom's pier. "What makes it?" asked Margy. "I--I don't know," answered Mun Bun. "I guess somebody must have poured more water in the river." "Lessen maybe it rained," suggested Margy. "Don't you know how Rainbow River gets bigger when it rains?" "It didn't rain," said Mun Bun, "or we'd be wet on our backs." "No, I guess it didn't rain," agreed Margy. Then she cried: "Oh, look, Mun Bun! Our island's getting awful little! It only sticks out of the water hardly any now! Look!" Mun Bun turned and looked behind him. As his sister had said, the island was very much smaller. "What--what makes it?" asked Margy. "I--I don't know," answered Mun Bun. "But it is getting littler, just like when you keep on sucking a lollypop." And that is just what the island was doing. What Margy and Mun Bun did not know was that the tide had turned, that it was rising, and that it would soon not only make their island much smaller, but would cover it from sight, leaving no island at all! "Oh, the water's getting deeper," said Margy, as she took another step and found it coming over her little knees. "What are we going to do, Mun Bun?" "I--I guess we must go back to the middle of the island and stay there," said her brother. "Oh, shall we ever get off?" Margy asked, and her voice sounded as though she might cry before long. "I can't ever wade to shore when the water is so deep. What are we going to do?" "We'll call for Daddy!" said Mun Bun. CHAPTER XVIII THE MARSHMALLOW ROAST When anything happened to Mun Bun or his sister Margy they always called for Daddy or Mother Bunker. The other children did the same thing, though of course Margy and Mun Bun, being the youngest, naturally called the most, just as they were the ones who were most often in trouble that needed a father or a mother to straighten out. "Our island's getting terrible small," said Margy; "and the water's gettin' deeper all around us." "Yes," agreed Mun Bun, as he got in the middle of what was left of the circle of sand and looked about. "The water is deep. I guess I'd better call!" "I'll help you," said Margy. The two children stood in the center of the sandy island that was all the while getting smaller because the tide was rising and covering it, and they called: "Daddy! Mother! Daddy Bunker! Come and get us!" They called this way several times, and then waited for some one to come and get them. If you want to imagine how Margy and Mun Bun looked, marooned as they were on an island in the middle of Clam River, with the tide rising, just get a big, clean stone and put it down in the middle of your bathtub. If you try this you had better put a piece of paper under the stone, so it will not scratch the clean, white tub. Then on the stone put two other little stones to stand for Margy and Mun Bun. Now put the stopper in the tub and turn on the water. You will see it begin to rise around the stone, and soon only a little of it will be left sticking out of the water. "Daddy! Mother! Daddy Bunker! Come and get us!" Now Margy and Mun Bun did not have very strong voices, and, besides, though they were not far from one part of the shore, it was quite a distance to Cousin Tom's house, where their father and mother were at that moment. Also, the wind was blowing their voices away, and over toward the other shore of Clam River, where at this time no one lived. But the two little Bunkers did not know this, and they kept on calling for their mother or father to come to get them. But neither Daddy nor Mother Bunker answered. And the water kept on rising, for the tide was coming in fast, and it was going to be high. Now it happened, just about this time, that Mr. Oscar Burnett, the lobster fisherman, was coming up the inlet in his motor-boat. He had been out to sea to lift his lobster-pots and he had been waiting at the entrance of Clam River for the tide to make the water deep enough for him to come up. On days when the tide was not so low he could come up all right, even at "slack water." But this time the channel was not deep enough for his motor-boat and he had to wait. And as he puffed up, steering this way and that so as not to run on sand bars, he heard, faintly, the cries of Margy and Mun Bun. Having good ears, and knowing the cries must be near him, Mr. Burnett looked about. He saw the place where the island was now almost hidden from sight because of the rising waters, and he saw the two children, Margy and Mun Bun, standing there, their arms around each other, crying for help, and also crying real tears. For they were very much frightened. "Well, I swan to goodness!" exclaimed the lobster fisherman. "There's those two children again, and this time they're marooned 'stead of being adrift! Yes, sir! They're marooned!" I used that word once before and I forgot to tell you what it means, so I'll do so now. It means, in sailor talk, being left alone on an island without any way of getting off. Sometimes pirates used to capture ships, take off the passengers and set them on an island without leaving a boat. And the poor passengers were marooned. They could no more get off than could Margy and Mun Bun. "Marooned! That's what they are!" said Mr. Burnett. "I'll have to go over and get 'em, just as I got 'em when they drifted down the inlet in the boat. I never saw such children for getting into trouble!" Not that Mr. Burnett thought it was too much trouble to go and get Margy and Mun Bun off the island where they were marooned. Instead, he was very glad to do it, for he loved children. So he steered his motor-boat over toward what was left of the island--which was very little now, as the tide was still rising. Then the lobster fisherman called: "Don't be afraid, Mun Bun and Margy! I'll soon get you! Don't be afraid. Just stand still and don't wade off into the deep water." [Illustration: "DON'T BE AFRAID! I'LL SOON GET YOU!" SAID MR. BURNETT. _Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's._--_Page 174_] The island was shaped like a little hill, high in the middle, and Margy and Mun Bun had kept stepping back until they now stood on the highest part in the middle. All about them was the water, deeper in some places than in others. And you may be sure that the little boy and his sister did not try to get off the high spot. There the water was only over their feet, but if they stayed there much longer it might cover their heads. However no such dreadful thing happened, for Mr. Burnett steered his boat up to them until it grounded in the sand of the island that was now under water. "Now you're all right!" said the kind man. He shut off his motor and jumped over the side of the boat. Right into the water he stepped, but as he had on high rubber boots he did not get his feet wet. Mr. Burnett picked up Margy and set her down in his boat. "Oh, look at the big lobsters!" cried the little girl. "Will they pinch me?" Well might she ask that question, for the bottom of the boat was filled with lobsters with big claws, some of which were moving about, the pinching parts opening and shutting. "They won't hurt you," said Mr. Burnett with a laugh. "Just keep up on the seat, Margy, and you won't get pinched." The seats in the lobster boat were broad and high, and on one of them Margy and Mun Bun, who was soon lifted off the island to her side, were safe from the lobsters, which Mr. Burnett had taken from his pots, some miles out at sea. "How did you come to go on the island when the tide was rising?" asked the fisherman, as he started his boat once more. "The water was low, and we waded out barefoot," explained Margy. "We were goin' to dig clams," added Mun Bun. "But we couldn't find any," continued Margy. "And then when we went to wade back home the water got deep and we were afraid." "I should think you would be!" replied the lobster fisherman. "Well, I'm glad I heard you call. It wouldn't be very nice on your island now." The children looked back. Their island was out of sight. It was "submerged," as a sailor would say, meaning that it was under the water. For the tide had risen and covered it. "Will you take us home?" asked Margy. "That's what I will," said the lobster fisherman. "I'll take you right up to Mr. Bunker's pier. I guess your folks don't know where you are, nor what trouble you might have been in if I hadn't come along just when I did." And this was true, for neither Daddy nor Mother Bunker, nor Cousin Tom nor his wife, nor any of the other little Bunkers had heard the cries of Mun Bun and Margy. But as the motor-boat went puffing up to the little wharf the noise it made was heard by Mr. and Mrs. Bunker, who ran down from the cottage to see it, as they wanted to buy a fresh lobster and they had been told that Mr. Burnett might soon come back from having gone to lift his pots. "Well, I had pretty good luck to-day," said the old fisherman, as he stopped his boat at the pier, and pointed to Margy and Mun Bun. "See what I caught!" "Margy!" cried her mother, in great surprise. "Mun Bun!" exclaimed the little boy's father. "Did you go out in a boat again?" asked Mrs. Bunker. "Oh, no'm, we didn't do that!" said Mun Bun quickly. "We just waded over to the little island," said Margy. "But somebody poured water in the river, and it got high and we couldn't wade back again." "They were marooned in the middle of Clam River for a fact! That's what they were!" said Mr. Burnett. "But I heard 'em yell, and I took 'em off. Here they are." "You must never wade out like that again," said the father of Mun Bun and Margy. "This river isn't like ours at home. An island there is always an island, unless floods come, and you know about them. There is a tide here twice a day and what may seem a safe bit of sand on which to play at one time may be covered with water at another. So don't go wading unless you ask your mother or me first." "We won't," promised Mun Bun and Margy. Then Mr. Bunker thanked Mr. Burnett and after the lobster had been bought the fisherman puffed away in his boat, waving a good-bye to the children he had saved from being marooned on the island. Mun Bun and Margy had to tell their story over again several times and they had to answer many questions from their brothers and sisters, about how they felt when they saw the water coming up. Of course the two smallest of the six little Bunkers had been in some danger, though if Mr. Burnett had not seen them and rescued them, some one else might have done so. But it taught all the little Bunkers a lesson about the dangers of the rising tide, and if any of you ever go to the seashore I hope you will be careful. If you live at the shore, of course you know about the tides. As the August days went on, the children played in the sand and had many good times. Often they would pretend to be digging for gold, as they had heard Sammie Brown tell of his father having done, but they had given up hoping to find any. "But we might find my locket," said Rose. "And we might find that queer box the tide washed away before we could see what was in it," said Russ. "I wish we could find that." Often he would walk along the beach looking at the driftwood and other things cast up by the waves and hope for a sight of the mysterious box. "If we'd only seen what was in it we wouldn't feel so bad," said Rose. "But it's like a puzzle you never can guess." One evening Daddy Bunker came home from the village with some round tin boxes. "What's in 'em?" cried Violet, always the first to ask a question. "Let's guess!" proposed Laddie. "Maybe I can make up a riddle about 'em." "I know what's in them," said Russ. "I can read it on the box. It's marshmallow candies." "Oh, are we going to have a marshmallow roast on the beach?" cried Rose. "Yes, that's what we are going to have," her father said. "Oh, hurray! Hurray! Hurray!" cried the six little Bunkers. CHAPTER XIX THE SALLIE GROWLER Have you ever toasted marshmallow candies at the seashore beach? If you have you need not stop to read this part of the story. But if you have not, from this and the next page you may learn how to do it. In the first place you need three things to have a marshmallow roast, and you can easily guess what the first thing is. It's a box of the white candies. Then you need a fire, and, if you are a little boy or girl, it will be best to have your father or mother or some big person make the fire for you, as you might get burned. Then you need some long, pointed sticks on which to hold the marshmallow candies as you toast them. If the sticks are too short you will toast your fingers or your face instead of the candies. "Have you got lots of marshmallows, Daddy?" asked Rose, as she and the other children gathered about their father. "Plenty, I think," he answered. "We don't want so many that you will be made ill, you know." "I can eat a lot of 'em without getting sick," declared Laddie. "I like 'em, too," said Vi. "Where do the marshmallow candies come from, Daddy?" she asked. "From the store, of course!" exclaimed Laddie. "No, I mean before they get to the store," went on the little girl. "Does a hen lay the marshmallows, same as chickens lay eggs?" "Oh, no!" laughed Daddy Bunker. "Marshmallow candy is made from sugar and other things, just as most candies are." As the six little Bunkers, with their father and mother and Cousin Tom and his wife, walked down to the shore of the sea, which was light from the beams of a silvery moon, Laddie said: "I have a new riddle!" "Is it about marshmallows?" asked Vi. "No. But the candies made me think of it," replied her brother. "It's about a fire." "What is your riddle about a fire?" asked Cousin Ruth, who always liked to hear Laddie ask his funny questions. "Where does the fire go when it goes out?" Laddie asked. "That's my riddle. Where does the fire go when it goes out?" "It doesn't go anywhere," declared Russ. "It just stays where it is." "Part of it goes away," declared Laddie. "Where does it go? Where does the hot part go when the fire goes out?" "Up in the air," said Rose. "Off in the ocean!" exclaimed Mun Bun, who really did not know what they were talking about. "Does it, Daddy?" asked Laddie. "Why, I don't know," said Mr. Bunker. "It's your riddle; you ought to know what the answer is." "But I don't," admitted Laddie. "I made up the riddle, but I don't know what the answer is. If some of you could think of a good answer it would be a good riddle." "Yes, I guess it would," agreed Mrs. Bunker. "This is the time you didn't think of a good one, Laddie. A riddle isn't much good unless some one knows the answer." Perhaps some of you who are reading this story can tell the answer. Down on the beach went the six little Bunkers. There was a bright moon shining and here and there were other parties of children and young people, some going to have marshmallow roasts also, and some who only came down to look at the ocean shining under the silver moon. Mun Bun and Margy, with Violet and Laddie, raced about in the sand, while Russ and Rose helped their father and Cousin Tom gather driftwood for the fire. There was plenty of it, and it was dry, for it had been in the hot sun all day. "What makes the sand so sandy?" asked Vi, as she sat down beside her mother and Cousin Ruth and let some of the "beach dust," as Daddy Bunker sometimes called it, run through her fingers. "That's a hard question to answer," laughed Mother Bunker. "You might as well ask what makes the moon so shiny." "Or what makes the water so wet," added Cousin Ruth. "Oh, you are such a funny little girl, Violet!" "What makes me?" asked Vi. "I suppose one reason is that you ask so many funny questions," said Cousin Ruth. "But there, Daddy has lighted the fire, and we can soon begin to roast the marshmallows." On the beach, near Russ and Rose, where they were standing with their father and Cousin Tom, a cheerful blaze sprang up. It looked very pretty in the moonlight night, with the sparkling sea out beyond. "Can we roast 'em now?" asked Laddie, as he got ready one of the long, pointed sticks. "Not quite yet," said his father. "Better to wait until the fire makes a lot of red-hot coals, or embers of wood. Then we can hold our candies over them and they will not get burned or blackened by the blaze. Wait a bit." So they sat about the fire, while Daddy Bunker and Cousin Tom piled on more wood. The boxes of the candies had been opened, so they would be all ready, and each of the ten Bunkers had a long, sharp-pointed stick to use as a toasting-fork. "I guess we are ready now," said Daddy Bunker, after they had listened to a jolly song sung by another party of marshmallow roasters farther down the beach. "There are plenty of hot embers now." Cousin Tom poked aside the blazing pieces of driftwood and underneath were the hot, glowing embers. "Now each one put a candy on a stick and hold the marshmallow over the embers," said Daddy Bunker. "Don't hold it still, but turn it around. This is just the same as shaking corn when you pop it, or turning bread over when you toast it. By turning the marshmallow it will not burn so quickly." So, kneeling in a circle about the fire, the six little Bunkers, and the others, began to roast the candies. But Margy and Mun Bun did not have very good luck. They forgot to turn their marshmallows and they held them so close to the fire that they had accidents. "Oh, Mun Bun's candy is burning!" cried Rose. "And Margy's is on fire, too!" added Russ. "Oh, that's too bad!" cried Mother Bunker. "Never mind," she said, as she saw that the two little tots felt sorry. "I'll toast your candies for you. It's rather hard for you to do it." Mrs. Bunker's own candy was toasted a nice brown and all puffed up, for this is what happens when you toast marshmallows. So she gave Mun Bun and Margy some of hers, and then began to brown more. The other children did very well, and soon they were all eating the toasted candies. Now and then one would catch fire, for sugar, you know, burns faster than wood or coal. But it was easy to blow out the flaming candies, and, if they were not too badly burned, they were good to eat. "Oh, look at the little dog!" cried Rose, as she put a fresh marshmallow on her stick. "He smells our candy! May I give him one, Daddy?" "Yes, but give him one that isn't toasted. He might burn himself on a hot one. Whose dog is he?" "He just ran over to me from down there," and Rose pointed to some boys and girls about another fire farther down the beach, who were also roasting marshmallows. The dog seemed glad to be with Rose and his new friends, and let each of the six little Bunkers pat him. He ate several candies and then ran back where he belonged. "Oh, he was awful cute!" exclaimed Vi. "I wish we could keep him. Couldn't we have a dog some time?" "Maybe, when we get back home again," promised Mother Bunker. The marshmallow roast was fun, and even after the candies had all been eaten the party sat on the beach a little longer, looking at the waves in the moonlight. "Now it's time to go to bed!" called Mother Bunker. "Margy and Mun Bun are so sleepy they can't keep their eyes open. Come on! We'll have more fun to-morrow!" "I'm going crabbing off the pier," declared Russ. "There's lots of crabs now, Mr. Burnett says." "Yes, August is a good month to catch crabs," returned Cousin Tom. "I'm going fishing," said Laddie. "Can you catch fish off your pier, Cousin Tom?" "Oh, yes, sometimes. But don't catch any Sallie Growlers." "What's a Sallie Growler?" asked Vi, before any one else could speak. "Oh, you'll know as soon as you catch one," laughed her cousin. Then he picked up Mun Bun, who was really asleep by this time, and carried him up to the house, while Daddy Bunker took Margy, whose eyes were also closed. True to their promises Russ and Laddie went down to the little boat wharf the next morning after breakfast. Russ had the crab net and a chunk of meat tied to a string. Laddie had a short pole and line and a hook baited with a piece of clam, for that was what fishermen often used, Cousin Tom said. "Now we'll see who catches the first fish!" exclaimed Laddie, as he sat down on the pier. "I'm not fishing for fish, I'm fishing for crabs," said Russ. "Well, in this race we'll count a crab and a fish as the same thing," returned Laddie. "We'll see who gets the first one." The boys waited some time. Now and then Russ would feel a little tug at his line, as if the crabs were tasting his bait, but had not quite made up their minds to take a good hold so he could pull them up and catch them in the net. And the cork float on Laddie's line would bob up and down a little as though he, too, had nibbles. But neither of them had caught anything yet. Suddenly Laddie felt a hard tug, and he yelled: "Oh, I got one! I got one! I got the first bite!" He yanked on his pole. Something brown and wiggling came up out of the water and flopped down on the wharf. At the same time a little dog that had run up behind the two boys and was sniffing around, gave a sudden yelp. "What's the matter?" cried Russ. "He's bit by a Sallie Growler! The Sallie Growler you caught bit my dog on the nose!" exclaimed another boy and he began striking at the brown thing Laddie had caught, which was now fast to the nose of the dog that had been eating marshmallows the night before. CHAPTER XX THE WALKING FISH Laddie dropped his fishing-pole. Russ let go of his crab-line, and they both stood looking at the dog and at the strange boy. The dog was howling, and trying to paw off from his nose a queer and ugly-looking fish that had hold of it. It was the fish Laddie had caught and which the boy had called a "Sallie Growler." "Cousin Tom told us about them last night," thought Russ. "I wonder why they have such a funny name, and what makes 'em bite so." But he did not ask the questions aloud just then. There was too much going on to let him do this. The dog was howling, and the new boy was yelling, at the same time striking at the fish on the end of his dog's nose. "Take him off! Take off that Sallie Growler!" yelled the boy. But the brown fish Laddie had caught looked too ugly and savage. Neither of the little Bunkers was going to touch it and the new boy did not seem to want to any more than did Russ or Laddie. As for the dog, he could not help himself. The fish had hold of him; he didn't have hold of the fish. Finally, after much howling and pawing, the dog either knocked the fish off his nose, or the Sallie Growler let go of its own accord and lay on the pier. "Poor Teddy!" said the boy as he bent over his pet to pat him. "Did he hurt you a lot?" The dog whimpered and wagged his tail. He did not seem to be badly hurt, though there were some spots of blood on his nose. "I guess he'll be all right if the Sallie Growler doesn't poison him," said the boy. "How'd you come to catch it?" he asked, looking from Laddie to Russ. "I didn't want to catch it," said Laddie. "I was fishing for good fish and I got a bite and pulled _that_ up!" and he pointed to the ugly brown fish that lay gasping on the boards. "Is it a Sallie Growler?" asked Russ. "It is," said the new boy. "And they can bite like anything. Look how that one held on to my dog's nose." "I hope he isn't hurt much," put in Laddie. "I didn't mean to do it." "No, I guess you didn't," said the other boy. "Nobody ever tries to catch a Sallie Growler. They're too nasty and hard to get off the hook. 'Most always they swallow it, but this one didn't. He dropped off just as you landed him and then my dog came along and smelled him--Teddy's always smelling something--and the fish bit him." "Do you live around here?" asked Russ. "Yes, we're here for the summer. I guess I saw you down on the beach last night roasting marshmallows, didn't I?" "Yes, and we gave your dog some," returned Laddie. "What's your name?" "George Carr. What's yours?" "Laddie Bunker." "Mine's Russ," said Laddie's brother. "Oh, look! I guess I've got a crab!" He ran to where he had tied the end of his string to a post of the pier, and began to pull in. Surely enough, on the end was a big blue-clawed crab, and, with the help of Laddie, who used the net, the creature was soon landed on the pier. "Here! You keep away from that crab!" called George Carr to his dog Teddy. "Do you want your nose bit again?" And from the way the crab raised its claws in the air, snapping them shut, it would seem that the shellfish would have been very glad indeed to pinch the dog's nose. But Teddy had learned a lesson. He kept well away from the gasping Sallie Growler, too. "What makes 'em be called Sallie Growler?" asked Laddie, as he and Russ looked at the fish. It was very ugly, with a head shaped like a toad, and a very big mouth. "I don't know why they call 'em Sallie," said George; "but they call 'em Growler 'cause they do growl. Sometimes you can hear 'em grunting under the water. There goes this one now!" Just as he spoke the fish did give a sort of groan or growl. It opened its mouth, gasping for breath. "They're no good--worse than a toad fish!" exclaimed George, as he kicked the one Laddie had caught into the water. "Are there many around here?" asked Russ. "Yes, quite a lot in the inlet," answered George. "They don't bite on crab-meat bait, but if you're fishing for fish they often swallow your hook, bait and all. I don't like 'em, and I guess Teddy won't either after to-day." "Was he ever bit before?" Laddie wanted to know as the dog lay down on the pier and began to lick his bitten nose with his tongue. "Not that I know of," answered George, who was a little older than Russ. "Once is enough. I wouldn't want one to bite me." "Me, neither," added Russ. "Want to help catch crabs?" he asked George. "I have two lines and you can have one." "Thanks, I will. I was out walking with my dog and I saw you two down on this pier. I came to see if you were the same boys that gave my dog marshmallows last night." "Yes, we're the same," answered Russ. "Did he like the candy we fed him?" "Oh, sure! He always eats candy, but he doesn't get too much at our house. Teddy's always smelling things. That's how he came to go up to the Sallie Growler. I guess he'll let the next one alone." "I hope I don't catch any more," said Laddie. "I don't like 'em." "Nobody else does," said George. "We come to the seashore every year, and I never saw anybody yet that liked a Sallie Growler." Laddie, Russ and their new chum stayed on the pier for some time. Russ and George caught quite a number of crabs, and Laddie had fine luck with his fish-pole and line, landing three good-sized fish on the pier. He caught no more Sallie Growlers, for which he was thankful. I guess Teddy was, too, for his nose was quite sore. For several days after that George came over each morning to play with the two older Bunker boys. He brought his dog with him and Teddy made friends over again with Rose and Violet and Margy and Mun Bun, as well as with Russ and Laddie. "I guess he 'members we gave him candy," said Margy, as she patted the dog's shaggy head. There were many happy days at Seaview. The six little Bunkers played in the sand, they went wading and bathing and had picnics, more marshmallow roasts and even popcorn parties on the beach. "I don't ever want to go home," said Laddie one night after a day of fun on the beach. "This is such a nice place. It's so good to think up riddles." "Have you a new one?" asked his father. "Have you thought up an answer yet to where the fire goes when it goes out?" "Not yet," Laddie answered. "But I have one about what is the sleepiest letter of the alphabet." "What is the sleepiest letter of the alphabet?" repeated Russ. "Do you mean the letter I? That ought to be sleepy 'cause it's got an eye to shut." "No, I don't mean I," said Laddie. "But that's a good riddle, too, isn't it? What's the sleepiest letter of the alphabet?" "Do you know the answer?" Rose wanted to know. "This isn't like the fire riddle, is it?" "No, I know an answer to this," Laddie said. "Can anybody else answer it?" They all made different guesses, and Vi, as usual, asked all sort of questions, but finally no one could guess, or, if Mother and Daddy Bunker could, they didn't say so, and Laddie exclaimed: "The sleepiest letter of the alphabet is E 'cause it's always in bed; B-E-D, bed!" and he laughed at his riddle. "That is a pretty good one," said his mother. "You ought to say what are the three sleepiest letters in the alphabet," declared Russ, "'cause there are three letters in bed." "Oh, well, one is enough for a riddle," said Laddie, and I think so myself. One day the children saw Daddy Bunker and Cousin Tom putting on long rubber boots, and taking down heavy fishing-poles and some baskets. "Where are you going?" asked Russ. "Down to fish in the surf," answered his father. "Want to come?" Russ and Laddie did. Rose and Violet were already trying to catch crabs further up the inlet. Margy and Mun Bun had gone to take their afternoon nap. Laddie and Russ played about on the beach while their father and Cousin Tom began to fish, throwing the heavy sinkers and big hooks far out in the surf, trying to catch a bass. The men had to stand where the waves broke, and that is why they wore rubber boots. Suddenly Laddie, who had run down the beach to watch a big piece of driftwood come floating in, called: "Oh, Russ! Come here, quick! Here is a fish that's got legs! It's a fish that can walk! It's worse than a Sallie Growler! Come and look at it!" CHAPTER XXI THE QUEER BOX AGAIN Russ at first thought his smaller brother was playing a joke. "You can't fool me," cried Russ. "I don't want to guess any of your riddles!" "This isn't a riddle!" declared Laddie. "It's a real fish, and it's got real legs. Come and look at it!" He was pointing to something on the beach, which seemed to have been washed in by the tide. "Come on!" cried Laddie again. "It isn't a riddle--honest! It's a fish with legs. I didn't see him walk, but it sort of--sort of stands up!" Still Russ was afraid of being fooled. So he called over to his father and Cousin Tom, who were fishing in the surf not far away. "Daddy, is there a fish with legs? Laddie says he's found one on the beach." "Well, you might call 'em legs," answered Cousin Tom, as he flung his hook and sinker as far as he could out into the ocean. "I guess what Laddie has found is a skate." "But he says it's a fish!" exclaimed Russ. "Now you call it a skate! I guess you're both trying to make up riddles." "No, Russ," said his father, as he reeled in his line. "The fish Laddie sees, and I can see it from where I stand, really has some long, thin fins, which are like legs. And the name of the fish is 'skate,' so you see they are both right. Come, we'll go and look at it." And when Russ got to where Laddie was standing over the queer creature on the beach he had to laugh, for surely the fish was a very queer one. "Isn't it funny?" asked Laddie. "I should say so!" cried Russ. "It's as funny as some of your riddles." And if any of you have ever seen a skate at the seashore I think you will agree with Russ. Imagine, if you have never seen one, a fish as flat as a flounder, with a flat, pointed nose sticking out in front. Away back, under this nose, and out of sight from the top, or the back of the fish, is its mouth. And the mouth is rather large and has sharp teeth. Fastened to the back of the skate is a long, slender tail, like that of a rat, only larger, and between the tail and the round, flat body on the under side, are two things that really look like legs. Perhaps the skate may use them to walk around on the bottom of the ocean, as a horseshoe crab uses his legs for walking. But a skate can also swim, and in that way it comes up off the bottom, and often bites on the hooks of fishermen who do not at all want to catch such an unpleasant fish. The skate swims, using the things like legs as a fish uses its fins, and sometimes, when landed on the shore, the fish really seems to be standing up on these legs, so Laddie was not so far wrong. On each side of the skate were thin, flat fins, which were something like wings. The skate had a humpy head and big, bulging eyes. "What's a skate for?" asked Russ, as he looked at the queer creature. "And who gave it that name?" Laddie wanted to know. "My! You two are getting as bad at asking questions as Violet!" laughed Mr. Bunker. "Well, I'll answer as well as I can. I don't know how the fish came to be called a skate unless it sort of skates around on the bottom of the ocean. Though when a skate is dead its tail curls up and around like the old-fashioned skates once used in Holland. It may get its name from that." "Are they good to eat?" asked Russ. "Some kinds are said to be," answered Cousin Tom, "though I never tasted one myself. I have heard of fishermen eating certain parts of the skates caught along here. But I never saw any one do it. Whenever I catch a skate I throw it back into the water. I can't see that they are good for anything." The skate which Laddie and Russ were watching, and which seemed to have been cast up on the beach by the waves, was flopping about, now and then raising itself on its queer legs, until, finally, the tide came up higher and washed it out into the sea again. "I guess it's glad to get back in the ocean," said Russ. "Yes," agreed his brother. "I'd have put it back in only I was afraid it might bite me." "No, I don't believe it would," said Cousin Tom. "There's heaps of funny things down at the seashore," said Laddie, as he watched to see if the skate would swim back, but it did not. "Lots of funny things," agreed Russ. "The shore is a good place to make riddles," went on Laddie. "And it's a bad place to lose things," said his brother. "Look how Rose lost her locket." "Yes, that was too bad," said Daddy Bunker. "I'm afraid we shall never find that now. There is so much sand here." "We've dug holes and looked all over," said Russ, "but we can't find it." "I wish we could find that box we had up on shore and that the waves came up and washed away," remarked Laddie. "Don't you 'member the box you were going to open, Daddy?" "Yes, I remember," answered Mr. Bunker. "I would like to know what was in that. But I don't suppose we ever shall." "And I guess we'll never get back Vi's doll that I lost," said Russ. "But when I get back home I'm going to save up and buy her another." "That will be a nice thing to do," replied Mr. Bunker. "Of course Violet has, in a way, forgotten about her doll, but I'm sure she would like to have you get her another." "And I will!" exclaimed Russ. He did not even dream how soon he was to do this. "Well," said Cousin Tom, after the skate had been washed out to sea, "I don't believe, Daddy Bunker, that we are going to have any luck fishing to-day. I think we might as well go back to the bungalow and see what they have to eat." "I hope they didn't count on us bringing some fish," said the father of the six little Bunkers with a laugh. "If they did we'll all go hungry." "I don't want to be hungry," murmured Laddie, with a queer look at his father. "Oh, he's only joking," whispered Russ. "I can tell by the way he laughs around his eyes." "Yes, I'm only joking," said Laddie's father. "I guess Cousin Ruth will have plenty to eat. We'll walk along the beach a little way and then go home." The two men reeled in their fish lines and, with the two little boys, strolled along the sand. Laddie and Russ were wondering what they could do to have some fun, and they were thinking of different things when Cousin Tom, who was a little way ahead, cried: "Look! Isn't that a box being washed up on the beach?" They all looked and saw something white and square being rolled over and over in the waves nearest the shore. It was quite a distance ahead of them, but Cousin Tom, handing his pole and basket to Daddy Bunker, ran and, wading into the surf with his high rubber boots, caught hold of the box. "It shan't get away from us this time!" he called to Daddy Bunker, Russ and Laddie as they hastened toward him. "I'll keep it safe this time, all right!" and he carried the box well up among the sand dunes, or little hills, well out of reach of the highest tide. "Why do you say 'this time'?" asked Daddy Bunker. "Did you ever pull in this box before?" "Indeed I did, or, rather, one of us did. This is the same box the children found once before; don't you remember? This time we'll find out what is in this box for sure. And we won't wait for a hammer, either. I'll use a piece of driftwood." As Daddy Bunker and the two boys gathered around the box they saw that indeed it was the same one that had been cast up before by the waves. What could be in it? CHAPTER XXII THE UPSET BOAT Cousin Tom had said he was not going to wait for a hammer to open the box, and he was as good as his word. When he had carried the box well up on the beach, out of reach of even the highest waves, he looked about for a piece of driftwood that he could use in knocking the cover off the case. And while he was thus searching, Daddy Bunker, Russ and Laddie examined the box. "It looks just like the same one," said Russ. "I'm positive it is," added his father. "I remember the size and shape of the other box and this is just the same. And there were two funny marks in the wood on top, and this has the same marks." "There was a piece of paper tacked on the other box," said Russ. "That isn't here now." "That was soaked off in the water and washed away," said his father. "But you can still see the four tacks, one for each corner of the card. I suppose that had some address on but it was washed off by the salt water." "What made the box come back to us?" asked Laddie, as Cousin Tom came walking along with a heavy stick he was going to use as a hammer to open the case. "Well, no one knows what the sea is going to do," replied Daddy Bunker. "It washes up queer things and takes them away again. I suppose this has been floating around for some time--ever since it was washed away from us the time we thought we so surely had it." "It may have been washed up on the beach in some lonely spot a little while after we last saw it," said Cousin Tom. "And it may have been there ever since until the last high tide, when it was washed away again and then I happened to spy it just now. But it will not get away again until we open it." Using the piece of heavy driftwood he had picked up as a hammer, Cousin Tom soon broke the top of the box that had drifted ashore. He pulled back the splintered pieces and eagerly they all looked inside. The box was about two feet long and the same in height and width, and all Laddie and Russ could see at first was what seemed to be some heavy paper. [Illustration: COUSIN TOM BROKE OPEN THE BOX WITH A PIECE OF DRIFTWOOD _Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's._--_Page 210_] "Is that all that's in it?" cried Russ. "Wait and see," advised his father. "There may be something under the paper." Cousin Tom put his hand in and raised the covering. Some bright colors were seen and then what appeared to be a lot of pieces of cloth. "A lot of dresses!" exclaimed Russ in disappointed tones. "That's all!" "But here is something inside the dresses," said his father with a smile. "Something in the dresses?" "Yes. Unless I am very much mistaken there are Japanese dolls in this box--maybe half a dozen of them--and it is their gaily colored dresses which you see. Isn't that it, Cousin Tom?" "You are right, Daddy Bunker! There they are! Japanese dolls!" and Cousin Tom pulled out one about two feet long and held it up in front of the two boys. "Dolls!" gasped Laddie. "Japanese dolls!" added his brother. "A little spoiled by the salt water, but still pretty good," said Cousin Tom, as he pulled another doll out of the box. "They were wrapped in oiled silk and the box is lined with a sort of water-proof cloth, so they didn't get as wet as they might otherwise. Some of the dresses are a bit stained, and I see that the black-haired wig of one of the dolls has melted off. But we can glue that on again. Well, that's quite a find--six nice, large Japanese dolls," laughed Cousin Tom. "They aren't any good for us!" exclaimed Russ. "I was thinking maybe there'd be a toy steam engine in the box." "If there had been it would have been spoiled by the sea water," said Cousin Tom with a smile. "Dolls are about the best thing that could be in the box. They are light and wouldn't sink. And, being so well wrapped up, they didn't get very wet. We can take them home to Rose and Mun Bun and Margy and----" "Oh, there'll be one for Violet!" cried Russ. "Now I can give her back a doll for the one that sunk when my boat upset! Save the nicest doll for Violet!" "Yes, I think that would be no more than fair," said Daddy Bunker. "The sea took Violet's doll and the sea gives her back another. How many dolls did you say there were, Cousin Tom?" "Six. One for each of the six little Bunkers." "Pooh! I don't want a doll!" exclaimed Russ. "I'm too big!" "So'm I!" added Laddie. "Very well. And as there are six dolls and only four who will want them, that will leave two over, so if Rose or Violet or Mun Bun loses a doll we'll have two extra ones. Only I hope they won't lose anything more while we're here," and Daddy Bunker smiled. "Where do you suppose the dolls came from?" asked Russ as Cousin Tom packed them back in the box so the case could be carried to the bungalow. "It's hard to say," was the answer. "As the tag on the box has been washed off we don't know to whom the dolls belonged. They may have gotten in a load of refuse from New York by mistake, from one of the big stores, and been dumped into the sea, or they may have been lost off some vessel in a storm. Or there may even have been a wreck. "Anyhow the box of dolls, well wrapped up from the water, has been floating around for some time, I should say. It came to us once but we lost it. Then we had another chance at it and we didn't lose it. Now we'll take the dolls home and see what Rose, Violet and the others have to say about them." It was a jolly home-going, even though no fish had been caught. Long before they were at the bungalow but within sight of it Laddie and Russ cried: "Look what we got!" "We found the box again!" Rose, Violet, Margy and Mun Bun came running out to see what it all meant. "Did you find my gold locket?" asked Rose eagerly. "No, my dear, we didn't find that," her father answered. "Did you get my doll back from the bottom of the ocean?" Violet called. "Well, we pretty nearly did," answered Russ. "Anyhow, we got you one I guess maybe you'll like as well." Cousin Tom gave Russ one of the Japanese dolls from the box and, with it in his arms, Russ ran toward his little sister. "Look! Here it is!" he cried. "Oh! Oh! Oh!" gasped Violet, hardly able to believe her eyes. "Oh, what a lovely, lovely doll!" A disappointed look came over the face of Rose, but it changed to one of joy when her father took out another doll and gave it to her. Then Mun Bun set up a cry: "I want one!" "So do I!" echoed Margy. "There is one for each of you," laughed Cousin Tom, as he took out two more dolls. "And two left over!" added Russ. "Oh, where did you get them?" asked Rose. "Oh, I just love mine!" and she hugged it to her closely. "My doll's wet!" exclaimed Mun Bun, as he saw the damp dress on his plaything. "Mine is, too," said Violet. "But all dolls have to be wet when they come out of the ocean, don't they, Daddy?" "Yes, I suppose so. And that is where these dolls came from--right out of the ocean." Then the children were told how the queer box had been found again floating near the beach and how Cousin Tom had waded out in his high rubber boots and brought it to shore. Mother Bunker and Cousin Ruth came out to see the find and they, too, thought the dolls were wonderful. "And we saw a fish that could walk," added Laddie when the dolls had been looked at again and again. Then he and Russ told about the queer-looking skate. The doll with the wig of black hair that had been soaked off was laid aside to be mended, as was the one the dress of which was badly stained by sea water. But the other dolls were almost as good as new. And, in fact, Rose and Violet would rather have had them than new dolls right out of the store, because there was such a queer story connected with them. "I wonder if they came right from Japan," mused Rose as she made believe put her doll to sleep. "We can pretend so, anyhow," said Violet. "I'm not going to cry about my other doll that was drowned now, 'cause I got this one. She's the nicest one I ever had." "Mine, too," added Rose. I might say that the six little Bunkers never found out where the dolls came from. But most likely they had fallen off some ship and the oiled silk and other wrappings kept them in good shape until the box was washed up on the beach the second time. "Well, if the seashore is a bad place to lose things on account of so much sand it is also a good place to find things," said Mother Bunker that night when the six little Bunkers had been put to bed and the dolls were also "asleep." "I'm glad you like it here," said Cousin Ruth. "But I am sorry that Rose lost her locket." "Well, it couldn't be helped," said the little girl's mother. "I did have hopes that we would find it soon after she lost it. But now I have given up." "Yes," agreed her husband. "The locket is gone forever." But I have still a secret to tell you about that. A few days after the finding of the dolls all six of the little Bunkers were playing down on the beach. Four of them had the Japanese dolls, but Russ and Laddie did not. Laddie was digging a hole in the sand and trying to think of a new riddle, and Violet had just finished asking Russ a lot of questions when, all of a sudden, George Carr, the little boy whose dog had been bitten by the Sallie Growler, came running around a group of sand dunes, crying: "Oh, the boat's upset! The boat's upset, and all the men are spilled out! And the fish, too! Come and see the upset boat!" CHAPTER XXIII THE SAND FORT "What do you mean--the boat upset?" asked Russ, looking up from the sand fort he was making on the beach. "Do you mean one of your toy boats and is it make-believe men that are spilled out?" "No, I mean real ones!" exclaimed George. "It's one of the fishing boats, and it was just coming in from having been out to the nets. It was full of fish and they're all over, and you can pick up a lot of 'em and they're good to eat. And maybe one of the men is drowned. Anyhow, there's a lot of 'em in the water. Come on and look!" "Where is it?" asked Laddie. "Right down the beach!" and George pointed. "'Tisn't far." "Come on, Mun Bun and Margy!" called Rose as she saw Russ and Laddie start down the beach with George and his dog. "We'll go and see what it is. Vi, you take Mun Bun's hand and I'll look after Margy." "Shall we leave our dolls here?" asked Vi. "Yes. There's nobody here now and we can go faster if we don't carry them," answered Rose. "Here, Mun Bun and Margy, leave your dolls with Vi's and mine. They'll be all right." Rose laid her doll down on the sand and the others did the same, so that there were four Japanese dolls in a row. "Won't the waves come up and get 'em?" asked Margy as she looked back on the dolls. "No, the waves don't come up as high as the place where we left them," said Rose, who had taken care to put the dolls to "sleep" well above what is called "high-water mark," that is, the highest place on the beach where the tide ever comes. "Come on! Hurry if you want to see the men from the upset boat!" George called back to Rose and the others. "Let's wait for 'em," proposed Laddie. "Maybe they'll be lonesome. I'm going to wait." "Well, we'll all wait," said George, who was a kind-hearted boy. "If you can't see the men swim out you can see the lot of fish that went overboard." As the children came out from behind the little hills of sand they saw, down on the beach, a crowd of men and boys. And out in the surf and the waves, which were high and rough, was a large white boat, turned bottom up, and about it were men swimming. "Oh, will they drown?" asked Russ, much excited. "No, I guess not," answered George. "They're fishermen and they 'most all can swim. Anyhow the water isn't very deep where they are. They're trying to get their boat right side up so they can pull it up on the beach." "What made 'em upset?" asked Laddie. "Rough water. There's going to be a storm and the ocean gets rough just before that," George explained. The children watched the men swimming about the overturned boat, and noticed that the water all about them was filled with floating, dead fish. "Did the men kill the fish when they upset?" asked Violet. "No, the men got the fish out of their nets," explained George, who had been at the seashore every summer that he could remember. "There are the nets out where you see those poles," and he pointed to a place about a half mile off shore. "The men go out there in a big motor-boat," he went on, "and pull up the net. They empty the fish into the bottom of the boat and then they come ashore. They put the fish in barrels with a lot of ice and send them to New York. "But sometimes when the boat tries to come up on the beach with the men and a load of fish in it the waves in the surf are so big that the boat upsets. That's what this one did. I was watching it and I saw it. Then I came to tell you, 'cause I saw you playing on the sand." "I'm glad you did," said Russ. "I'm sorry the men got upset, but I like to see 'em." "So am I. Will they lose all their fish?" demanded Laddie. "Most of 'em," said George. "They can scoop up some in nets, I guess, but a lot that wasn't quite dead swam away and the waves took the others out to sea. The fish hawks will get 'em and lots of boys and men are taking fish home. The fishermen can't save 'em all and when a boat upsets anybody that wants to, keeps the fish." After hard work the men who had been tossed into the water when the boat went over managed to get it right side up again. Then a rope was made fast to it and horses on shore, pulling on the cable, hauled the boat up out of reach of the waves, where it would stay until it was time to make another trip to the nets. "Could we take some of the fish?" asked Russ of George. "Oh, yes, as many as you like," said his friend. "The fishermen can never pick them all up." So the six little Bunkers each picked up a fish and took it home to Cousin Ruth. They were nice and fresh and she cooked them for dinner. "Well, you youngsters had better luck than Cousin Tom and I had," said Daddy Bunker with a laugh as he saw what Russ and the others had picked up. "I guess, after this, we'll take you fishing with us." The promise of the storm brought by the big waves that upset the fishing-boat, came true. That night the wind began to rise and to blow with a howling and mournful sound about the bungalow. But inside it was cosy and light. In the morning, when the children awakened, it was raining hard, the drops dashing against the windows as though they wanted to break the glass and get inside. "Is the sea very rough now, Daddy?" asked Russ after breakfast. "Yes, I think it is," was the answer. "Would you like to see it?" Russ thought he would, and Laddie wanted to go also, but his mother said he was too small to go out in the storm. "It is a bad storm," said Cousin Tom. "I saw a fisherman as I was coming back from the village this morning early and he said he never felt a worse blow. The sea is very high." Daddy Bunker and Cousin Tom put on "oilskins," that is, suits of cloth covered with a sort of yellow rubber, through which the water could not come. A small suit with a hat of the same kind, called a "sou'wester," was found for Russ, and then the three started down for the beach. It was hard work walking against the wind, which came out of the northeast, and the rain stung Russ in the face so that he had to walk with his head down most of the time and let his father and Cousin Tom lead him. "Oh, what big waves!" cried Russ as he got within sight of the beach. And indeed the surf was very high. The tide was in and this, with the force of the wind, sent the big billows crashing up on the beach with a noise like thunder. "I guess no fishermen could go out in that, could they, Daddy?" asked the little boy. "No, indeed, Son! This weather is bad for the fishermen and all who are at sea," said Mr. Bunker. They remained looking at the heavy waves for some time and then went back to the house. Russ was glad to be indoors again, away from the blow and noise of the storm. "Do you often have such blows here?" asked Mother Bunker of Cousin Ruth. "Well, I haven't been here, at this beach, very long, but almost always toward the end of August and the beginning of September there are hard storms at the shore." It rained so hard that the six little Bunkers could not go out to play and Cousin Ruth and their mother had to make some amusement for them in the bungalow. "Have you ever been up in the attic?" asked Cousin Ruth. "No!" cried the six little Bunkers. "Well, you may play up there," said Cousin Ruth. "It isn't very big, but you can pretend it is a playhouse and do as you please." With shouts of joy the children hurried up to the attic. Indeed it was a small place. But the six little Bunkers liked it. There were so many little holes into which they could crawl away and hide. The four who liked to play with dolls brought up their Japanese toys, and Russ and Laddie found some of their playthings, so they had lots of fun in the bungalow attic. Cousin Ruth gave them something to eat and they played they were shipwrecked sailors part of the time. With the wind howling outside and the rain beating down on the roof, it was very easy to pretend this. The storm lasted three days, and toward the end the grown folks in Cousin Tom's bungalow began to wish it would stop, not only because they were tired of the wind and rain, but because the children were fretting to be out. At last the wind died down, the rain ceased and the sun shone. Out rushed the six little Bunkers with gladsome shouts. Laddie and Russ had some large toy shovels which their mother had bought them. "What are you going to do?" Rose asked her two older brothers as she saw them hurrying down to the beach when the sun was out. "We're going to make a sand fort and have a battle," answered Russ. "The sand will pack fine now 'cause it's so wet. We're going to make a big sand fort." And he and Laddie began this play. Something very strange was to come from it, too. CHAPTER XXIV A MYSTERIOUS ENEMY "Here's a good place to make the fort," said Russ as he and Laddie reached the beach not far from Cousin Tom's bungalow and looked about them. "We'll build the fort right here, Laddie, near this hill of sand." "What's the hill for?" "That's where we can put our flag. They always put a flag on a hill where everybody can see it." "But we haven't a flag. Where are we going to get one?" "Say, you ask almost as many questions as Vi," exclaimed Russ. "We'll _make_ a flag!" "How?" "Out of a handkerchief. You've a handkerchief and so have I. One is enough for both of us and we can take the other and make a flag of it." "But that'll be a white flag, Russ, and soldiers don't ever have a white flag lessen they give up and surrender. We didn't surrender, 'cause we haven't even got our fort built. We don't want a white flag." "Oh, well, I didn't mean to have a white flag. That's just the start. We'll take a white handkerchief for a flag and we can make it red and blue." "How?" Laddie certainly was asking questions. "Well, Cousin Tom has some red and blue pencils. I saw 'em on his desk the other night. He marks his papers with 'em. You go and ask Cousin Ruth if we can't take a red and a blue pencil and then I'll show you how to make a red, white and blue flag out of a handkerchief." "You won't make the fort till I come back, will you?" "No, I'll only start it. Now you go and get the pencils." Laddie ran back to the bungalow and Cousin Ruth let him have what he wanted. He promised not to lose the pencils, and soon he was helping Russ mark red stripes and blue stars on Laddie's white handkerchief. They did make something that looked like our flag, and then, finding a long piece of driftwood to use as a flag-pole they planted it on top of the hill. Making a fort in the damp sand at the seashore is very easy. It is even easier than making one of snow, for you don't have to wait for the snow to fall and often after it has snowed the flakes are so cold and dry that they will not pack and hold together. But you can always find damp sand at the seashore. Even though it is dry on top if you dig down a little way you will find it moist. Now, on account of the rain, the sand was wet all over and was just fine for making forts. Russ and Laddie had some toy shovels their mother had bought for them. The shovels had long handles and were larger than the kind children usually play with at the shore, so the boys could dig faster with them. "How do you make a fort?" asked Laddie. "Well," explained Russ, "you dig a sort of hole and you pile the sand up in front of you in a sort of half ring and then you can lie down behind it and if anybody throws bullets at you they won't hit you." "Do you have a roof to your fort?" "No! Course forts don't ever have a roof." "Then you get wet when it rains." "Yes, but a soldier doesn't ever mind rain. All he minds is bullets, and they can't hit him in the fort." "Supposin' they come over the top where there isn't a roof?" "I don't guess they'll come that way," said Russ. "Anyhow, you mustn't throw any that way." "Oh! am I going to throw the bullets?" "Yes," Russ replied, "We'll take turns being in the fort. After we get it made I'll be captain of it and you must come up and try to take it away. You must shoot bullets at me." "Real ones?" "No, course not! Make 'em of paper. Then they won't hurt. After a while I'll take down the flag--that means I surrender--and you can be in the fort and I'll fire bullets at you." "That'll be fun!" exclaimed Laddie. "Lots of fun!" agreed Russ. So they dug in the sand with their shovels, piling it up in front of them in a long ridge shaped like a half circle. The ridge of sand which was to be the outer wall of the fort was in front of the hill over which floated the red, white and blue handkerchief flag. Between the hill and the outer wall of the fort was a hole which was made as Laddie and Russ tossed out the sand. "I'll sit down in this hole," Russ explained, "and then it will be all the harder for you to hit me with the paper bullets." The boys fairly made the sand fly as they dug with their shovels, and soon they had quite a high ridge of it half way around the little hill with the flag on top. There was also quite a hole for Russ to stand in and throw paper bullets back at Laddie. "Now I guess we can have the battle," said Russ. "You get a lot of paper, Laddie, and roll it up into bullets." "And I'll make some big ones!" exclaimed the little fellow. "We can call the big bullets cannon balls," said Russ, and Laddie agreed to this. "I'll help you make the bullets," Russ offered. There were plenty of old papers at the bungalow, and soon Russ and Laddie were tearing them up on the beach near their fort and wadding and rolling them up into "bullets" and "cannon balls." "I guess we have enough," said Russ at last. "Come on now, we'll have a battle." "Are Rose and Vi going to play?" asked Laddie. "Nope! Girls never can be in a battle. They can be Red Cross nurses if they want to. But we won't call 'em until after the fight. They'd only holler like anything." Rose and Violet were up in the bungalow playing jackstones, while Margy and Mun Bun had gone for a walk with their mother. So Russ and Laddie had the beach to themselves to play on. Russ got inside the fort and crouched down in the hole he had dug. Laddie took up his position not far away, a little distance down the beach, having with him a pile of paper wads that he was to throw at his brother. "Are you ready?" asked Laddie. "All ready!" answered Russ. "Go ahead and fire!" "Bang! Bang!" shouted Laddie, making believe he was shooting off a gun. The boys often played this game so they knew just how to do it. "Bang! Bang!" Then Laddie began throwing large and small wads of paper at the sand fort behind which crouched Russ. And Russ threw wads of paper at his smaller brother. The sand walls of the fort kept Russ from being "shot" in the battle. Laddie's "bullets" and "cannon balls" hit the sand walls of the fort more often than they struck his brother and Russ only laughed at them, at the same time he was pelting Laddie. "Oh, say! this is no fun," complained the smaller boy after a bit. "I'm getting hit all the while and you don't get any at all." "I do so! I got hit twice!" "Well, that was when I threw cannon balls up in the air and they came down on your head like rain." "Well, you shoot me a few more times and then I'll let you come into the fort," agreed Russ. "I'll pull down the flag and surrender. Go on, shoot me some more!" So Laddie got together more paper "bullets" and "cannon balls" and threw them at his brother. But hardly any of them hit Russ. The fort was a good protection and with the flag floating from the top of the hill made a fine place for him to stay. "This is the last time I'm going to shoot!" cried Laddie, and he took good aim with a large wad of paper which he called a "double cannon ball." He threw it at Russ and then, from some point back of the fort another "cannon ball" came sailing into it, flying off and hitting Laddie's brother. "Ouch! Quit that!" cried Russ. "'Tisn't fair throwing sand! A lot of it went down my neck." "I didn't throw sand!" said Laddie. "Yes, you did, too! That last cannon ball you threw had a lot of sand wrapped up in it." "No, I didn't," cried Laddie. "Don't you think I know!" shouted Russ, scrambling up out of the hole behind his fort. "Can't I feel it?" Just then another paper "cannon ball" sailed into the fort from a sand hill back of it and it fell at the feet of Russ and burst, letting out a pile of sand. "There!" cried Russ. "What'd I tell you?" "But I didn't throw it!" said Laddie. "You looked right at me and I didn't throw it." "No, you didn't," admitted Russ. "It came from in back of me. I wonder who's throwing sand cannon balls at us." And then came another which hit Laddie, sending a shower of the gritty grains down his back. "Hi! Quit that!" cried Russ. He and Laddie looked all around, but they could see no one. A mysterious enemy was shooting at them. CHAPTER XXV THE TREASURE Once more there came sailing through the air a paper "cannon ball." It fell on the ground between Laddie and Russ and burst open, a lot of dry, soft sand spilling out. "There!" cried Laddie. "See! I didn't throw 'em!" "No, I don't guess you did," admitted Russ. "But who did?" Just then a jolly laugh sounded, and out from behind a ridge of sand--one of the dunes made by the wind--came George Carr. "Did I scare you?" asked George. "A--a little," admitted Russ, wiggling to get rid of the sand down his back. "We didn't know who it was," said Laddie. And he, too, squirmed about, for there was sand inside his blouse. "I thought you wouldn't," said George, laughing again. "I saw you playing soldiers and I thought I'd make believe I was another enemy coming up behind. You didn't make any fort in back of you," he said to Russ, "and so I could easily fire at you." "But we don't put sand in our paper bullets," complained Laddie. "Don't you?" asked George. "Then I'm sorry I did. I hope I didn't hurt you, or get any in your eyes." "No," answered Russ, sort of shaking himself to let the sand sift down through the legs of his knickerbockers. "But it tickles a lot." "Well, I won't throw any more," promised George. "But lots of times we play soldier down on the beach and we throw sand bullets. Only we don't ever throw 'em at each others' eyes. Sand in your eyes hurts like anything." "I know it does," agreed Russ. "Mun Bun got some in his the other day and he cried a lot." "Well, come on, let's play soldier some more," suggested George. "I'll be on Laddie's side. You go in the fort, Russ, and we'll stand against you. Two to one is fair when the one is inside a fort." "And won't you throw any more sand bullets or cannon balls?" "No, only paper ones." "All right, then I'll play." Russ went back in his fort, and Laddie and George, outside the wall of sand, began pelting him with wads of paper. But now the battle went differently. The attacking force could shoot twice as many paper bullets and balls as could Russ and they soon ran up on him, pelting him so that he had to put his hands over his head. "All right--I surrender! I give up!" he cried. "Wait till I haul down the flag!" laughed George. Then he took down the red and blue penciled handkerchief and he and Laddie took possession of the fort. Russ was beaten, but he did not mind, for it was all in fun. Then he took a turn outside the fort, with Laddie and George inside. However, as this was two against one, Russ could not win, though the three boys had jolly times. They were pelting away at one another, using paper "bullets" and "cannon balls," shouting and laughing, when, as they became quiet for a moment, they heard a voice asking: "What is all this?" They looked up to see Mrs. Bunker with Mun Bun and Margy. "How-do?" called George, grinning. "Oh, we're having such fun!" cried Laddie. "We're soldiers and we got a fort, and we had a flag----" "It's made out of a handkerchief and red and blue pencils," added Russ. "I want to play soldier!" exclaimed Mun Bun. "No, it's too rough for you," explained Russ. "I want to play, too!" insisted Margy. "We're done playing fort and soldier," said Russ. "We'll play something else." "Let's see who can dig the deepest hole," suggested George. "I'll go and get a shovel, and you have yours, Russ and Laddie. Let's see who can dig the deepest hole!" The two older Bunker boys thought this would be fun, and George ran over to his cottage to get his shovel. "Can we play that game, Mother?" asked Margy. "Yes, you and Mun Bun can do that," said Mrs. Bunker. The warm sun was drying out the beach, and when George came back with his shovel he and Laddie and Russ began three holes in a row, each one trying to make his the deepest. Mun Bun and Margy, each of whom had a small shovel, also began to dig, though, of course, they could not expect to dig as fast as the boys, nor make as deep holes. "I'll sit on the sand and watch you," said Mrs. Bunker. "Maybe we'll find a treasure," suggested Russ. "What treasure?" asked George. "Oh, before we came down here, when we were at our Aunt Jo's in Boston," Russ explained, "we knew a boy named Sammie Brown. His father dug up some treasure on a desert island once. We thought maybe we could dig up some here." "But we didn't--not yet," added Laddie. "And I don't guess we ever will," said Russ. "Only we make believe, lots of times, that we're going to." The three boys dug away and Mun Bun and Margy did the same, only more slowly. Then along came Rose and Violet. "What are you doing?" Violet asked, getting in her question first, as usual. "Digging holes," answered Russ. "Seeing who can make the biggest," added George. "Mine's deeper than yours!" he said to Russ. "Yes, but mine's going to be bigger. I'm going to make a hole big enough so I can stand down in it and dig. I'm going to make a regular well." "I guess I will, too," decided George. "So'll I," said Laddie. "Well, if you come to water, don't fall in," advised Mrs. Bunker with a laugh. "You go get a shovel and dig, too," called Russ to Rose. "No, I don't want to," said his sister. "I'll watch you." My, how the sand was flying on the beach now! Russ, Laddie and George were all digging as fast as they could with their shovels, each one trying to make the biggest hole. Mun Bun and Margy dug also, but, though they made a lot of sand fly, they did not always dig in the same place. Instead of keeping to one hole they made three or four. But they had just as much fun. Suddenly Laddie, who had made a hole in which he could stand, it being so deep that he was half hidden from sight in it, uttered a cry. "What's the matter?" asked his mother. "Did you hurt yourself?" "Did you dig up a Sallie Growler?" asked Vi. "Maybe it's a crab," said Mun Bun, and he dropped his shovel and started for his mother. "No, nothing like that," said Laddie. "Only--oh, goody--I guess I've found the treasure!" he shouted. "Treasure!" cried Russ. "What do you mean?" "I guess I've found some gold in my hole!" went on Laddie. "Come and look! It shines like anything!" Russ and George leaped out of the holes they were digging and ran toward Laddie. Mrs. Bunker got up and hurried down the beach. Mun Bun and Margy followed. Rose and Violet went too. "Where is it?" asked Russ, stooping over the edge of his brother's hole. "Where's the treasure?" "There," answered Laddie, pointing to something shining in the sand. It did glitter brightly and it was not buried very deeply, being near the top of the hole, but on the far edge, where Laddie had not done much digging. "It is gold!" cried George. "Whoop! Maybe that boy you knew was right, and there is pirate's treasure here!" Mrs. Bunker bent down and looked at what Laddie had uncovered. Then she took a stick and began carefully to dig around it. "Here, take my shovel," offered Laddie. "No, I don't want to scratch it, if it is what I think," said his mother. "I had better dig with the stick." She went on scratching away the sand. As she did so the piece of shiny thing became larger. It sparkled more brightly in the sun. "Is it treasure?" asked Laddie eagerly. "Did I find some gold treasure?" "Yes, I think you did, Son," said Mrs. Bunker. "It is gold and it is a treasure." "Did the pirates hide it?" demanded Russ. "No, I think not," said Mrs. Bunker with a smile. "I think Rose lost it." "Rose lost it!" cried the two Bunker boys. "What?" "Yes, it is her locket that she dropped when we first came here and never could find," went on Mrs. Bunker. "Laddie, you have found it. You have discovered the golden treasure--Rose's locket!" Having dug away the sand in which it was imbedded, Mrs. Bunker lifted up a dangling gold chain to which was fastened the gold locket. "Oh, it is mine!" cried Rose. "Oh, how glad I am to get it back again! Oh, Laddie, how glad I am!" Her mother handed the little girl her long-lost locket. It was not a bit hurt from having been buried in the sand, for true gold does not tarnish in clean sand. And the ornament was as good as ever. Rose clasped it about her neck and looked very happy. "How did it get in my hole?" asked Laddie. "It didn't," said his mother. "You happened to dig in just the place where Rose dropped her locket and you uncovered it. Or this may not have been the exact place where it fell. Perhaps the sands shifted and carried the locket with them. That is why we could not find it before. But now we have it back." "It was like finding real treasure," said Russ. "I wish we'd find some more," said George. "I'm going to dig a big hole." But, though he scooped out more sand, he found no more gold, nor did Russ, though they found some pretty shells. Daddy Bunker, Cousin Tom and Cousin Ruth came down to the beach to see what all the joyful laughter was about and they were told of the finding of the lost locket Rose had dropped in the sand. "I never thought I'd get it back," she said, "but I did." "And I never thought I'd get my doll back," said Vi, "and I didn't. But I got a nicer one out of the sea." "Well, that was very good luck," said Daddy Bunker. "For once digging in the sand had some results." They all walked up to Cousin Tom's bungalow. On the way Laddie seemed rather quiet. "What's the matter?" asked his father. "Aren't you glad you found your sister's gold locket?" "Oh, yes, very glad," answered Laddie. "Only I was trying to think up a riddle about it and I can't. But I have one about why is the ocean like a garden?" "'Tisn't like a garden," declared Russ. "It's all water, the ocean is." "It's like a garden in my riddle," insisted Laddie. "Why?" his mother asked. "The ocean is like a garden 'cause it's full of seaweed," answered Laddie. "I don't think that's a very good riddle," remarked Russ. "It wouldn't be a very good garden that had weeds in it," said Mr. Bunker with a laugh. "Anyhow we ought to be happy because Rose has her locket back." And they all were, I'm sure. "What makes gold so bright?" asked Vi, as she saw the locket sparkling in the sun. "Because it is polished," her mother answered. "What makes it polished?" went on Vi. "Oh, my dear, if you keep on asking questions I'll get in such a tangle that I'll never be able to find my way out," laughed her mother. "Come, we'll get ready to go crabbing this afternoon and that will keep you so busy you won't want to talk." "We never came to any nicer place than this, did we?" asked Russ of Rose as they sat on the pier that afternoon catching crabs by the dozen. "No, we never had any better fun than we've had here. I wonder where we'll go next." "I don't know," answered Russ. "Home, maybe." But the children did not stay at home very long, and if you want to hear more about their adventures I invite you to read the next book in this series. It will be called: "Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's," and in it is told all about what happened that winter and how the ghost---- But there. I guess you'd better read the book. "Daddy! Daddy! Come quick!" called Mun Bun, as he felt a tug at his line. "I got a terrible big crab!" "Well, I should say you had!" exclaimed his father, as he caught it in the net. "It's a wonder it didn't pull you off the pier!" The crab was a large one, the largest caught that day, and Mun Bun was very glad and happy. But he was no more glad than was Rose over her locket that had been lost and found. And so we will leave them, the six little Bunkers, enjoying the last days of their visit at Cousin Tom's. THE END THE BOBBSEY TWINS BOOKS For Little Men and Women By LAURA LEE HOPE Author of "The Bunny Brown" Series, Etc. * * * * * 12mo. BOUND IN CLOTH. ILLUSTRATED. UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING. * * * * * Copyright publications which cannot be obtained elsewhere. Books that charm the hearts of the little ones, and of which they never tire. Many of the adventures are comical in the extreme, and all the accidents that ordinarily happen to youthful personages happened to these many-sided little mortals. Their haps and mishaps make decidedly entertaining reading. THE BOBBSEY TWINS THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL Telling how they go home from the seashore; went to school and were promoted, and of their many trials and tribulations. THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE Telling of the winter holidays, and of the many fine times and adventures the twins had at a winter lodge in the big woods. THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT Mr. Bobbsey obtains a houseboat, and the whole family go off on a tour. THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK The young folks visit the farm again and have plenty of good times and several adventures. THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME The twins get into all sorts of trouble--and out again--also bring aid to a poor family. * * * * * GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS SERIES By LAURA LEE HOPE Author of "The Bobbsey Twins Series." * * * * * 12mo. BOUND IN CLOTH. ILLUSTRATED. UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING * * * * * The adventures of Ruth and Alice DeVere. Their father, a widower, is an actor who has taken up work for the "movies." Both girls wish to aid him in his work and visit various localities to act in all sorts of pictures. THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS Or First Appearance in Photo Dramas. Having lost his voice, the father of the girls goes into the movies and the girls follow. Tells how many "parlor dramas" are filmed. THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT OAK FARM Or Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays. Full of fun in the country, the haps and mishaps of taking film plays, and giving an account of two unusual discoveries. THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS SNOWBOUND Or The Proof on the Film. A tale of winter adventures in the wilderness, showing how the photo-play actors sometimes suffer. THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS UNDER THE PALMS Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida. How they went to the land of palms, played many parts in dramas before the camera; were lost, and aided others who were also lost. THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT ROCKY RANCH Or Great Days Among the Cowboys. All who have ever seen moving pictures of the great West will want to know just how they are made. This volume gives every detail and is full of clean fun and excitement. THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT SEA Or a Pictured Shipwreck that Became Real. A thrilling account of the girls' experiences on the water. THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS IN WAR PLAYS Or The Sham Battles at Oak Farm. The girls play important parts in big battle scenes and have plenty of hard work along with considerable fun. * * * * * GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES By LAURA LEE HOPE Author of the "Bobbsey Twin Books" and "Bunny Brown" Series. * * * * * 12mo. BOUND IN CLOTH. ILLUSTRATED. UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING. * * * * * These tales take in the various adventures participated in by several bright, up-to-date girls who love outdoor life. They are clean and wholesome, free from sensationalism, absorbing from the first chapter to the last. THE OUTDOOR GIRLS OF DEEPDALE Or Camping and Tramping for Fun and Health. Telling how the girls organized their Camping and Tramping Club, how they went on a tour, and of various adventures which befell them. THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT RAINBOW LAKE Or Stirring Cruise of the Motor Boat Gem. One of the girls becomes the proud possessor of a motor boat and invites her club members to take a trip down the river to Rainbow Lake, a beautiful sheet of water lying between the mountains. THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A MOTOR CAR Or The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley. One of the girls has learned to run a big motor car, and she invites the club to go on a tour to visit some distant relatives. On the way they stop at a deserted mansion and make a surprising discovery. THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A WINTER CAMP Or Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats. In this story, the scene is shifted to a winter season. The girls have some jolly times skating and ice boating, and visit a hunters' camp in the big woods. THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN FLORIDA Or Wintering in the Sunny South. The parents of one of the girls have bought an orange grove in Florida, and her companions are invited to visit the place. They take a trip into the interior, where several unusual things happen. THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT OCEAN VIEW Or The Box that Was Found in the Sand. The girls have great fun and solve a mystery while on an outing along the New England coast. THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON PINE ISLAND Or A Cave and What it Contained. A bright, healthful story, full of good times at a bungalow camp on Pine Island. GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK THE EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW SERIES May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list BIRDS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW BY NELTJE BLANCHAN. ILLUSTRATED EARTH AND SKY EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW BY JULIA ELLEN ROGERS. ILLUSTRATED ESSAYS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW EDITED BY HAMILTON W. MABIE FAIRY TALES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW EDITED BY HAMILTON W. MABIE FAMOUS STORIES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW EDITED BY HAMILTON W. MABIE FOLK TALES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW EDITED BY HAMILTON W. MABIE HEROES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW EDITED BY HAMILTON W. MABIE HEROINES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW COEDITED BY HAMILTON W. MABIE AND KATE STEPHENS HYMNS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW EDITED BY DOLORES BACON LEGENDS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW EDITED BY HAMILTON W. MABIE MYTHS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW EDITED BY HAMILTON W. MABIE OPERAS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW BY DOLORES BACON. ILLUSTRATED PICTURES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW BY DOLORES BACON. ILLUSTRATED POEMS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW EDITED BY MARY E. BURT PROSE EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW EDITED BY MARY E. BURT SONGS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW EDITED BY DOLORES BACON TREES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW BY JULIA ELLEN ROGERS. ILLUSTRATED WATER WONDERS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW BY JEAN M. THOMPSON. ILLUSTRATED WILD ANIMALS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW BY JULIA ELLEN ROGERS. ILLUSTRATED WILD FLOWERS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW BY FREDERIC WILLIAM STACK. ILLUSTRATED * * * * * GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK * * * * * Transcriber's notes: Punctuation normalised. Page 100, "it" changed to "in". (when it caved in) 
15695	----	[Illustration: Doctor Gordon * * * had not even taken off his overcoat, which was white with snow. Page 104.] "Doc." Gordon By MARY E. WILKINS-FREEMAN Author of "_The Debtor," "A Humble Romance," "The Heart's Highway," "Pembroke," Etc._ Illustrated in Water-Colors by FRANK T. MERRILL Copyright, 1906, by Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman H.L. MOORE SPECIAL EDITION, For Sale exclusively by us in Rahway, N.J. NEW YORK AND LONDON THE AUTHORS AND NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION 1906 COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY MARY E. WILKINS-FREEMAN. _Entered at Stationers' Hall. All rights reserved_. Composition and Electrotyping by J.J. Little & Co. Printed and bound by Manhattan Press, New York. [Illustration: (FACSIMILE PAGE OF MANUSCRIPT FROM DOC. GORDON)] "DOC." GORDON CHAPTER I It was very early in the morning, it was scarcely dawn, when the young man started upon a walk of twenty-five miles to reach Alton, where he was to be assistant to the one physician in the place, Doctor Thomas Gordon, or as he was familiarly called, "Doc." Gordon. The young man's name was James Elliot. He had just graduated, and this was to be his first experience in the practice of his profession of medicine. He was in his twenties. He was small, but from the springiness of his gait and the erectness of his head he gave an impression of height. He was very good-looking, with clearly-cut features, and dark eyes, in which shone, like black diamonds, sparks of mischief. They were honest eyes, too. The young fellow was still sowing his wild oats, but more with his hands than with his soul. He was walking because of a great amount of restless energy; he fairly revelled in stretching his legs over the country road in the keen morning air. The train service between Gresham, his home place, and Alton was very bad, necessitating two changes and waits of hours, and he had fretted at the prospect. When a young man is about to begin his career, he does not wish to sit hours in dingy little railroad stations on his way toward it. It was much easier, and pleasanter, to walk, almost run to it, as he was doing now. His only baggage was his little medicine-case; his trunk had gone by train the day before. He was very well dressed, his clothes had the cut of a city tailor. He was almost dandified. His father was well-to-do: a successful peach-grower on a wholesale scale. His great farm was sprayed over every spring with delicate rosy garlands of peach blossoms, and in the autumn the trees were heavy with the almond-scented fruit. He had made a fortune, and aside from that had achieved a certain local distinction. He was then mayor of Gresham, which had a city government. James was very proud of his father and fond of him. Indeed, he had reason to be. His father had done everything in his power for him, given him a good education, and supplied him liberally with money. James had always had a sense of plenty of money, which had kept him from undue love of it. He was now beginning the practice of his profession, in a small way, it is true, but that he recognized as expedient. "You had better get acclimated, become accustomed to your profession in a small place, before you launch out in a city," his father had said, and the son had acquiesced. It was the natural wing-trying process before large flights were attempted, and the course commended itself to his reason. James, as well as his father, had good reasoning power. He whistled to himself as he walked along. He was very happy. He had a sensation as of one who has his goal in sight. He thought of his father, his mother, and his two younger sisters, but with no distress at absenting himself from them, although he lived in accord with his family. Twenty-five miles to his joyous youth seemed but as a step across the road. He had no sense of separation. "What is twenty-five miles?" he had said laughingly to his mother, when she had kissed him good-by. He had no conception of her state of mind with regard to the break in the home circle. He who was the breaker did not even see the break. Therefore he walked along, conscious of an immense joy in his own soul, and wholly unconscious of anything except joy in the souls of those whom he had left behind. It was a glorious morning, a white morning. The ground was covered with white frost, the trees, the house-roofs, the very air, were all white. In the west a transparent moon was slowly sinking; the east deepened with red and violet tints. Then came the sun, upheaving above the horizon like a ship of glory, and all the whiteness burned, and glowed, and radiated jewel-lights. James looked about with the delight of a discoverer. It might have been his first morning. He begun to meet men going to their work, swinging tin dinner-pails. Even these humble pails became glorified, they gave back the sunlight like burnished silver. He smelled the odors of breakfast upon the men's clothes. He held up his head high with a sort of good-humored arrogance as he passed. He would have fought to the death for any one of these men, but he knew himself, quite innocently, upon superior heights of education, and trained thought, and ambition. He met a man swinging a pail; he was coughing: a wretched, long rattle of a cough. James stopped him, opened his little medicine-case, and produced some pellets. "Here, take one of these every hour until the cough is relieved, my friend," said he. The man stared, swallowed a pellet, stared again, in an odd, suspicious, surly fashion, muttered something unintelligible and passed on. There were three villages between Gresham and Alton: Red Hill, Stanbridge, and Westover. James stopped in Red Hill at a quick-lunch wagon, which was drawn up on the principal street under the lee of the town hall, went in, ordered and ate with relish some hot frankfurters, and drank some coffee. He had eaten a plentiful breakfast before starting, but the keen air had created his appetite anew. Beside him at the counter sat a young workingman, also eating frankfurters and drinking coffee. Now and then he gave a sidelong and supercilious glance at James's fine clothes. James caught one of the glances, and laughed good-naturedly. "These quick-lunch wagons are a mighty good idea," said he. The man grunted and took a swallow of coffee. "Where do you work?" asked James. "None of your d---- business!" retorted the other man unexpectedly. "Where do you work yourself?" James stared at him, then he burst into a roar. For a second the man's surly mouth did not budge, then the corners twitched a little. "What in thunder are you mad about?" inquired James. "I am going to work for Doctor Gordon in Alton, and I don't care a d---- where you work." James spoke with the most perfect good nature, still laughing. Then the man's face relaxed into a broad grin. "Didn't know but you were puttin' on lugs," said he. "I am about tired of all those damned benefactors comin' along and arskin' of a man whot's none of their business, when a man knows all the time they don't care nothin' about it, and then makin' a man take somethin' he don't want, so as to get their names in the papers." The man sniffed a sniff of fury, then his handsome blue eyes smiled pleasantly, even with mischievous confidence into James's, and he swallowed more coffee. "I am no benefactor, you can bet your life on that," said James. "I don't mean to give you anything you want or don't want." "Didn't know but you was one of that kind," returned the man. "Why?" The man eyed James's clothes expressively. "Oh, you mean my clothes," said James. "Well, this suit and overcoat are pretty fair, but if I were a benefactor I should be wearing seedy clothes, and have my wallet stuffed with bills for other folks." "You bet you wouldn't," said the other man. "That ain't the way benefactors go to work. What be you goin' to do at Doc Gordon's?" "Drive," replied James laconically. "Guess you can't take care of hosses in no sech togs as them." "I've got some others. I'm going to learn to doctor a little, too, if I can." The man surveyed him, then he burst into a great laugh. "Well," said he, "when I git the measles I'll call you in." "All right," said James, "I won't charge you a red cent. I'll doctor you and all your children and your wife for nothing." "Guess you won't need to charge nothin' for the wife and kids, seein' as I ain't got none," said the man. "Ketch me saddled up with a woman an' kids, if I know what I'm about. Them's for the benefactors. I live in a little shanty I rigged up myself out of two packin' boxes. I've got 'em on a man's medder here. He let me squat for nothin'. I git my meals here, an' I work on the railroad, an' I've got a soft snap, with nobody to butt in. Here, Mame, give us another cup of coffee. Mame's the girl I want, if I could hev one. Ain't you, Mame?" The girl, who was a blonde, with an exaggerated pompadour fastened with aggressive celluloid pins, smiled pertly. "Reckon I h'ain't no more use for men than you hev for women," said she, as she poured the coffee. All that could be seen of her behind the counter was her head, and her waist clad in a red blouse, pinned so high to her skirt in the rear that it almost touched her shoulder blades. The blouse was finished at the neck with a nice little turn-over collar fastened with a brooch set with imitation diamonds and sapphires. "Now, Mame, you know," said the man with assumed pathos, "that it is only because I'm a poor devil that I don't go kerflop the minute I set eyes on you. But you wouldn't like to live in boxes, would you? Would you now?" "Not till my time comes, and not in boxes, then, less I'm in a railroad accident," replied the girl, with ghastly jocularity. "She's got another feller, or _you_ might git her if you've got a stiddy job," the man said, winking at James with familiarity. "Just my luck," said James. He looked at the girl, and thought her pretty and pathetic, with a vulgar, almost tragic, prettiness and pathos. She was anæmic and painfully thin. Her blouse was puffed out over her flat chest. She looked worn out with the miserable little tediums of life, with constant stepping over ant-hills of stupidity and petty hopelessness. Her work was not, comparatively speaking, arduous, but the serving of hot coffee and frankfurters to workingmen was not progressive, and she looked as if her principal diet was the left-overs of the stock in trade. She seemed to exhale an odor of musty sandwiches and sausages and muddy coffee. The man swallowed his second cup in fierce gulps. He glanced at his Ingersoll watch. "Gee whiz!" said he. "It's time I was off! Good-by, Mame." The girl turned her head with a toss, and did not reply. "Good-by," James said. The man grinned. "Good-by, Doc," he said. "I'll call you when I git the measles. You're a good feller. If you'd been a benefactor I'd run you out." The man clattered down the steps of the gaudily painted little structure. The girl whom he had called Mame turned and looked at James with a sort of innocent boldness. "He's a queer feller," she observed. "He seems to be." "He is, you bet. Livin' in a house he's built out of boxes when he makes big money. He's on strike every little while. I wouldn't look at him. Don't know what he's drivin' at half the time. Reckon he's--" She touched her head significantly. "Lots of folks are," said James affably. "That's so." She stared reflectively at James. "I'm keepin' this quick lunch 'cause my father's sick," said she. "I see a lot of human nature in here." "I suppose you do." "You bet. Every kind gits in here first and last, tramps up to swells who think they're doin' somethin' awful funny to git frankfurters and coffee in here. They must be hard driv." "I suppose they are sometimes." Mame's eyes, surveying James, suddenly grew sharp. "You ain't one?" she asked accusingly. "You bet not." Mame's grew soft. "I knew you were all right," said she. "Sometimes they say things to me that their fine lady friends would bounce 'em for, but I knew the minute I saw you that you wasn't that kind if you be dressed up like a gent. Reckon you've been makin' big money in your last place." "Considerable," admitted James. He felt like a villain, but he had not the heart to accuse himself of being a gentleman before this pathetic girl. Mame leaned suddenly over the counter, and her blonde crest nearly touched his forehead. "Say," said she, in a whisper. "What?" whispered James back. "What he said ain't true. There ain't a mite of truth in it." "What he said," repeated James vaguely. Mame pouted. "How awful thick-headed you be," said she. "What he said about my havin' a feller." She blushed rosily, and her eyes fell. James felt his own face suffused. He pulled out his pocket-book, and rose abruptly. "I'm sorry," he said with stupidity. The rosy flush died away from the girl's face. "Nobody asked you to be sorry," said she. "I could have any one of a dozen I know if I jest held out my little finger." "Of course, you could," James said. He felt apologetic, although he did not know exactly why. He fumbled over the change, and at last made it right with a quarter extra for the girl. "It's a quarter too much," said she. "Keep it, please." She hesitated. She was frowning under her great blonde roll, her mouth looked hurt. "What a fuss about a quarter," said James, with a laugh. "Keep it. That's a good girl." Mame took a dingy handkerchief out of the bosom of her blouse, untied a corner, and James heard a jingle of coins meeting. Then she laughed. "You're an awful fraud," said she. "Why?" "You can't cheat me, if you did Bill Slattery." "I think I don't know what you mean." "You're a gent." The girl's thin, coarse laughter rang out after James as he descended the steps of the quick-lunch wagon. She opened the door directly after he had closed it, and stood on the top step with the cold wind agitating her fair hair. "Say," she called after him. James turned as he walked away. "What is it?" "Nothin', only I was foolin' you, and so was Bill. I've got a feller, and Bill's him." "I'll make you a present when you're married," James called back with a laugh. "It's to come off next summer," cried the girl. "I won't forget," answered James. He knew the girl lied; that she was not about to marry the workingman. He said to himself, as he strode on refreshed with his coarse fare, that girls were extraordinary: first they were bold to positive indecency, then modest to the borders of insanity. James walked on. He reached Stanbridge about noon. Then he was hungry again. There was a good hotel there, and he made a substantial meal. He had a smoke and a rest of half an hour, then he resumed his walk. He soon passed the outskirts of Stanbridge, which was a small, old city, then he was in the country. The houses were sparsely set well back from the road. He met nobody, except an occasional countryman driving a wood-laden team. Presently the road lay between stately groves of oaks, although now and then they stood on one side only of the highway. Nearly all the oaks bore a shag of dried leaves about their trunks, like mossy beards of old men, only the shag was a bright russet instead of white. The ground under the oaks was like cloth-of-gold under the sun, the fallen leaves yet retained so much color. James heard a sharp croak, then a crow flew with wide flaps of dark wings across the road and perched on an oak bough. It cocked its head, and watched him wisely. James whistled at it, but it did not stir. It remained with its head cocked in that attitude of uncanny wisdom. Suddenly James saw before him the figure of a girl, moving swiftly. She must have come out of the wood. She went as freely as a woodland thing, although she was conventionally dressed in a tailor suit of brown. Her hat, too, was brown, and a brown feather curled over the brim. She walked fast, with evidently as much enjoyment of the motion as James himself. They both walked like winged things. Suddenly James had a queer experience. One sense became transposed into another, as one changes the key in music. He heard absolutely nothing, but it was as if he saw a noise. He saw a man standing on the right between him and the girl. The man had not made the slightest sound, he was sure. James had good ears, but sound and not sight was what betrayed him, or rather sound transposed into sight. He stood as motionless as a tree himself. James knew that he had been looking at the girl. Now she was looking at him. James felt a long shudder creep over him. He had never been afraid of anything except fear. Now he was afraid of fear, and there was something about the man which awakened this terror, yet it was inexplicable. He was a middle-aged man, and distinctly handsome. He was something above the medium height, and very well dressed. He wore a fur-lined coat which looked opulent. He had gray hair and a black mustache. There was nothing menacing in his face. He was, indeed, smiling a curious retrospective smile, as if at his own thoughts. Although his eyes regarded James attentively, this smiling mouth seemed entirely oblivious of him. The man gave an odd impression, as of two personalities: the one observant, with an animal-like observance for his own weal or woe, the other observant with intelligence. It was possibly this impression of a dual personality which gave James his quick sense of horror. He walked on, feeling his very muscles shrink. Just before James reached the man he emerged easily, with not the slightest appearance of stealth, from the wood, and walked on before him with a rapid, swinging stride. There were then three persons upon the road: the girl in brown, the strange man in the fur-lined coat, and James Elliot. James quickened his pace, but the other man kept ahead of him, and reached the girl. He stopped and James broke into a run. He saw the man place a hand upon the girl's shoulder, and make a motion as if to turn her face toward his. James came up with a shout, and the man disappeared abruptly, with a quick backward glance at James, into the wood. The girl looked at James, and her little face under her brown plumed hat was very white. "Oh," she gasped, as if she had always known him, "I am so glad you are here! He frightened me terribly." She tried to smile at James, although her poor little mouth was quivering. "Who was he?" she asked. [Illustration: "You don't think he will come back?" Page 21.] "I don't know." A sudden suspicion flashed into her eyes. "He wasn't with you?" "No. I saw him on the edge of the woods back there, and I didn't like his looks. When he started to follow you I hurried to catch up." "Oh, thank you," said the girl fervently. "Do forgive me for asking if you were with him. I knew you were not the minute I saw you. I did not turn my face, although he tried to make me. I don't know why, but I do know he was something terrible and wicked." The girl said this last with a shudder. She caught hold of James's arm innocently, as a frightened child might have done. "You don't think he will come back?" "No, and if he does I will take care of you." "He may be--armed." Suddenly the girl reeled. "Don't let me faint away. I won't faint away," she said in an angry voice. James saw that she was actually biting her lips to overcome the faintness. "If you will sit down on that rock for a moment," said James, "I have something in my medicine-case which will revive you. I am a doctor." "I shall faint away if I sit down and give up to it, if I swallow your whole case," said the girl weakly. "I know myself. Let me hold your arm and walk, and don't make me talk, then I can get over it." She was biting her lips almost to bleeding. James walked on as he was bidden, with the slender little brown-clad figure clinging to him. He realized that he had fallen in with a girl who had a will which was possibly superior to anything in his medicine-case when it came to overcoming fright. They walked on until they came in sight of a farm-house, when the girl spoke again, and James saw that the color was returning to her face. "I am all right now," said she, and withdrew her hand from his arm. She gave her head an angry, whimsical shake. "I am ashamed of myself," said she, "but I was horribly frightened, and sometimes I do faint. I can generally get the better of myself, but sometimes I can't. It always makes me so angry. I do hope you don't think I am such an awful coward, because I am not." "I think most girls whom I have known would have made much more fuss than you did," said James. "You never screamed." "I never did scream in my life," said the girl. "I don't think I could. I don't know how. I think if I did scream, I should certainly faint." James stopped and opened his medicine-case. "I think you had better take just a swallow of brandy," said he. The girl thrust back the bottle which he offered her with high disdain. "Brandy," said she, "just because I have been frightened a little! I should be ashamed of myself if I did such a thing. I am ashamed now for almost fainting away, but I should never forgive myself if I took brandy because of it. If I haven't nerve enough to keep straight without brandy, I should be a pretty poor specimen of a girl." She looked at him indignantly, and James saw what he had not seen before (he had been so engrossed with the strangeness of the situation), that she was a beautiful girl with a singular type of beauty. She was very small, but she gave the impression of intense springiness and wiriness. Although she was thin, no one could have called her delicate. She looked as much alive as a flame, with nerves on the surface from head to heel. Her eyes were blue, not large, but full of light, her hair, which tossed around her face in a soft fluff, was ash-blonde. Brown was the last color, theoretically, which she should have worn, but it suited her. The ash and brown, the two neutral tints, served to bring out the blue fire of her eyes and the intense red of her lips. However, her beauty lay not so much in her regular features as in the wonderful flame-like quality which animated them, and which they assumed when she spoke or listened. In repose, her face was as neutral as a rock or dead leaf. It was neither beautiful nor otherwise. When it was animated, it was as if the rock gave out silver lights of mica and rosy crystal under strong light, and as if the dead leaf leapt into flame. James thought her much prettier than any of his sisters or their friends, but he was led quite unknowingly into this opinion, because of his own position as her protector. That made him realize his own male gorgeousness and strength, and he really saw the girl with such complacency instead of himself. They walked along, and all at once he stopped short. Something occurred to him, which, strange to say, had not occurred before. He was not in the least cowardly. He was brave almost to foolhardiness. All at once it occurred to him that he ought to follow the man. "Good Lord!" said he and stopped. "What is the matter?" asked the girl. "Why, I must follow that man. He is a suspicious character. He ought not to be left at large." "I suppose you don't care if you leave me alone," said the girl accusingly. James stared at her doubtfully. There was that view of the situation. "I am going to see my friend Annie Lipton, who lives in Westover. There is half a mile of lonely road before I get there. That man, for all I know, may be keeping sight of us in the woods over there. While you are going back to chase him, he may come up with me. Well, run along if you want to. I am not afraid." But the girl's lips quivered, and she paled again. James glanced at the stretch of road ahead. There was not a house in sight. Woods were on one side, on the other was a rolling expanse of meadowland covered with dried last year's grass, like coarse oakum-colored hair. "I think I had better keep on with you," James said. "You can do exactly as you choose," the girl replied defiantly, but tremulously. "I am not in the least dependent upon men to escort me. I wander miles around by myself. This is the first time I have seemed to be in the slightest danger. I dare say there was no danger this time, only he came up behind like a cat, and--" "He didn't say anything?" "No, he didn't speak. He only tried to make me turn my head, so he could see my face, and directly it seemed to me that I must die rather than let him. He was trying to make me turn my head. I think maybe he was an insane man." "I will go on with you," said James. They walked on for the half mile of which the girl had spoken. A sudden shyness seemed to have come over both of them. Then they began to come in sight of houses. "I am not afraid now," said the girl, "but I do think you are very foolish if you go back alone and try to hunt that man. Ten chances to one he is armed, and you haven't a thing to defend yourself with, except that medicine-case." "I have my fists," replied James indignantly. "Fists don't count much against a revolver." "Well, I am going to try," said James with emphasis. "Good-by, then. You are treating me shamefully, though." James stared at her in amazement. She was actually weeping, tears were rolling over her cheeks. "What do you mean?" said he. "Don't feel so badly." "You can't be very quick-witted not to see. If you should meet that man, and get killed, I should really be the one who killed you and not the man." "Why, no, you would not." The girl stamped her foot. "Yes, I should, too," said she, half-sobbing. "You would not have been killed except for me. You know you would not." She spoke as if she actually saw the young man dead before her, and was indignant because of it, and he burst into a peal of laughter. "Laugh if you want to," said she. "It does not seem to me any laughing matter to go and get yourself killed by me, and my having that on my mind my whole life. I think I should go mad." Her voice shook, an expression of horror came into her blue eyes. James laughed again. "Very well, then," he said, "to oblige you I won't get killed." He, in fact, began to consider that the day was waning, and what a wild-goose chase it would probably be for him to attempt to follow the man. So again they walked on until they reached the main street of Westover. Westover was a small village, rather smaller than Gresham. They passed three gin-mills, a church, and a grocery store. Then the girl stopped at the corner of a side street. "My friend lives on this street," said she. "Thank you very much. I don't know what I should have done if you had not come. Good-by!" She went so quickly that James was not at all sure that she heard his answering good-by. He thought again how very handsome she was. Then he began to wonder where she lived, and how she would get home from her friend's house, if the friend had a brother who would escort her. He wondered who her friends were to let a girl like that wander around alone in a State which had not the best reputation for safety. He entertained the idea of waiting about until she left her friend's house, then he considered the possible brother, and that the girl herself might resent it, and he kept on. The western sky was putting on wonderful tints of cowslip and rose deepening into violet. He began considering his own future again, relegating the girl to the background. He must be nearing Alton, he thought. After a three-mile stretch of farming country, he saw houses again. Lights were gleaming out in the windows. He heard wheels, and the regular trot of a horse behind him, then a mud-bespattered buggy passed him, a shabby buggy, but a strongly built one. The team of horses was going at a good clip. James stood on one side, but the team and buggy had no sooner passed than he heard a whoa! and a man's face peered around the buggy wing, not at James, but at his medicine-case. James could just discern the face, bearded and shadowy in the gathering gloom. Then a voice came. It shouted, one word, the expressive patois of the countryside, that word which may be at once a question and a salute, may express almost any emotion. "Halloo!" said the voice. This halloo involved a question, or so James understood it. He quickened his pace, and came alongside the buggy. The face, more distinct now, surveyed him, its owner leaning out over the side of the buggy. "Who are you? Where are you bound?" James answered the latter question. "I am going to Alton." "To Doctor Gordon's?" "Yes." "Then you are Doctor Elliot?" "Yes." "Get in." James climbed into the buggy. The other man took up the reins, and the horse resumed his quick trot. "You didn't come by train?" remarked the man. "No. You are Doctor Gordon, I suppose?" "Yes, I am. Why the devil did you walk?" "To save my money," replied James, laughing. He realized nothing to be ashamed of in his reply. "But I thought your father was well-to-do." "Yes, he is, but we don't ride when it costs money and we can walk. I knew if I got to Alton by night, it would be soon enough. I like to walk." James said that last rather defiantly. He began to realize a certain amazement on the other man's part which might amount to an imputation upon his father. "I have plenty of money in my pocket," he added, "but I wanted the walk." Doctor Gordon laughed. "Oh, well, a walk of twenty-five miles is nothing to a young fellow like you, of course," he said. "I can understand that you may like to stretch your legs. But you'll have to drive if you are ever going to get anywhere when you begin practice with me." "I suppose you have calls for miles around?" "Rather." Doctor Gordon sighed. "It's a dog's life. I suppose you haven't got that through your head yet?" "I think it is a glorious profession," returned James, with his haughty young enthusiasm. "I wasn't talking about the profession," said the doctor; "I was talking of the man who has to grind his way through it. It's a dog's life. Neither your body nor your soul are your own. Oh, well, maybe you'll like it." "You seem to," remarked James rather pugnaciously. "I? What can I do, young man, but stick to it whether I like it or not? What would they do? Yes, I suppose I am fool enough to like a dog's life, or rather to be unwilling to leave it. No money could induce me anyhow. I suppose you know there is not much money in it?" James said that he had not supposed a fortune was to be made in a country practice. "The last bill any of them will pay is the doctor's," said Doctor Gordon. Then he added with a laugh, "especially when the doctor is myself. They have to pay a specialist from New York, but I wait until they are underground, and the relatives, I find, stick faster to the monetary remains than the bark to a tree. If I hadn't a little private fortune, and my--sister a little of her own, I expect we should starve." James noticed with a little surprise the doctor's hesitation before he spoke of his sister. It seemed then that he was not married. Somehow, James had thought of him as married as a matter of course. Doctor Gordon hastened to explain, as if divining the other's attitude. "I dare say you don't know anything about my family relations," said he. "My widowed sister, Mrs. Ewing, keeps house for me. I live with her and her daughter. I think you will like them both, and I think they will like you, though I'll be hanged if I have grasped anything of you so far but your medicine-case and your voice. Your voice is all right. You give yourself away by it, and I always like that." James straightened himself a little. There was something bantering in the other's tone. It made him feel young, and he resented being made to feel young. He himself at that time felt older than he ever would feel again. He realized that he was not being properly estimated. "If," said he, with some heat, "a patient can make out anything by my voice as to what I think, I miss my guess." "I dare say not," said Doctor Gordon, and his own voice was as if he put the matter aside. He spoke to the horse, whose trot quickened, and they went on in silence. At last James began to feel rather ashamed of himself. He unstiffened. "I had quite an exciting and curious experience after I left Stanbridge," said he. "Did you?" said the other in an absent voice. James went on to relate the matter in detail. His companion turned an intent face upon him as he proceeded. "How far back was it?" he asked, and his tone was noticeably agitated. "Just after I left the last house in Stanbridge. We went on together to Westover. She mentioned something about going to see a friend there. I think Lipton was the name, and she left me suddenly." "What was the girl like?" "Small and slight, and very pretty." "Dressed in brown?" "Yes." "How did the man look?" Doctor Gordon's voice fairly alarmed the young man. "I hardly can say. I saw him distinctly, but only for a second. The impression he gave me was of a middle-aged man, although he looked young." "Good-looking?" "My God, no!" said James, as the man's face seemed to loom up before him again. "He looked like the devil." "A man may look like the devil, and yet be distinctly handsome." "Well, I suppose he was; but give me the homeliest face on earth rather than a face like that man's, if I must needs have anything to do with him." The young fellow's voice broke. He was very young. He caught the other man by his rough coat sleeve. "See here, Doctor Gordon," said he, "my profession is to save life. That is the main end of it but, but--I don't honestly know what I should think right, if I were asked to save _that_ man's life." "Was he well dressed?" "More than well dressed, richly, a fur-lined coat--" "Tall?" "Yes, above the medium, but he stooped a little, like a cat, sort of stretched to the ground like an animal, when he hurried along after the girl in front of me." Doctor Gordon struck the horse with his whip, and he broke into a gallop. "We are almost home," said he. "I shall have to leave you with slight ceremony. I have to go out again immediately." Doctor Gordon had hardly finished speaking before they drew up in front of a white house on the left of the road. "Get out," he said peremptorily to James. The front door opened, and a parallelogram of lighted interior became visible. In this expanse of light stood a tall woman's figure. "Clara, this is the new doctor," called out Doctor Gordon. "Take him in and take care of him." "Have you got to go away again?" said the woman's voice. It was sweet and rich, but had a curious sad quality in it. "Yes, I must. I shall not be gone long. Don't wait supper." "Aren't you going to change the horse?" "Can't stop. Go right in, Elliot. Clara, look after him." James Elliot found himself in the house, confronting the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, as the rapid trot of the doctor's horse receded in vistas of sound. James almost gasped. He had never seen such a woman. He had seen pretty girls. Now he suddenly realized that a girl was not a woman, and no more to be compared with her than an uncut gem with one whose facets take the utmost light. The boy stood staring at this wonderful woman. She extended her hand to him, but he did not see it. She said some gracious words of greeting to him, but he did not hear them. She might have been the Venus de Milo for all he heard or realized of sentient life in her. He was rapt in contemplation of herself, so rapt that he was oblivious of her. She smiled. She was accustomed to having men, especially very young men, take such an attitude on first seeing her. She did not wait any longer, but herself took the young man's hand, and drew him gently into the room, and spoke so insistently that she compelled him to leave her and attend. "I suppose you are Doctor Gordon's assistant?" she said. James relapsed into the tricks of his childhood. "Yes, ma'am," he replied. Then he blushed furiously, but the woman seemed to notice neither the provincial term nor his confusion. He found himself somehow, he did not know how, divested of his overcoat, and the vision had disappeared, having left some words about dinner ringing in his ears, and he was sitting before a hearth-fire in a large leather easy-chair. Then he looked about the room in much the same dazed fashion in which he had contemplated the woman. He had never seen a room like it. He was used to conventionality, albeit richness, and a degree even of luxury. Here were absolute unconventionality, richness, and luxury of a kind utterly strange to him. The room was very large and long, extending nearly the whole length of the house. There were many windows with Eastern rugs instead of curtains. There were Eastern things hung on the walls which gave out dull gleams of gold and silver and topaz and turquoise. There were a great many books on low shelves. There were bronzes, jars, and squat idols. There were a few pieces of Chinese ivory work. There were many skins of lions, bears, and tigers on the floor, besides a great Persian rug which gleamed like a blurred jewel. Besides the firelight there was only one great bronze lamp to illuminate the room. This lamp had a red shade, which cast a soft, fiery glow over everything. There were not many pictures. The rich Eastern stuffs, and even a skin or two of tawny hue, covered most of the wall-spaces above the book-cases, giving backgrounds of color to bronzes and ivory carvings, but there was one picture at the farther end of the room which attracted James's notice. All that he could distinguish from where he sat was a splash of splendid red. He gazed, and his curiosity grew. Finally he rose, traversed the room, and came close to the picture. It was a portrait of the woman who had met him at the door. The red was the red of a splendid robe of velvet. The portrait was evidently the work of no mean artist. The texture of the velvet was something wonderful, so were the flesh tones; but James missed something in the face. The portrait had been painted, he knew instinctively, before some great change had come into the woman's heart, which had given her another aspect of beauty. James turned away. Then he noticed something else which seemed rather odd about the room. All the windows were furnished with heavy wooden shutters, and, early as it was, hardly dark, all were closed, and fastened securely. James somehow got an impression of secrecy, that it was considered necessary that no glimpse of the interior should be obtained from without after the lamp was lit. They sat often carelessly at his own home of an evening with the shades up, and all the interior of the room plainly visible from the road. An utter lack of secrecy was in James's own character. He scowled a little, as he returned to his seat by the fire. He was too confused to think clearly, but he was conscious of a certain homesickness for the wonted things of his life, when the door opened and the woman reëntered. James rose, and she spoke in her sweet voice. It was rather lower pitched than the voices of most women, and had a resonant quality. "Your room is quite ready, Doctor Elliot," said she. "Your trunk is there. If you would like to go there before dinner, I will pilot you. We have but one maid, and she is preparing the dinner, which will be ready as soon as you are. I hope Doctor Gordon and Clemency will have returned by that time, too." By Clemency James understood that she meant her daughter, of whom Doctor Gordon had spoken. He wondered at the unusual name, as he followed his hostess. His room was on the same floor as the living-room. She threw open a door at the other side of the hall, and James saw an exceedingly comfortable apartment with a hearth-fire, with book-shelves, and a couch-bed covered with a rug, and a desk. "I thought you would prefer this room," said the woman. "There are others on the second floor, but this has the advantage of your being able to use it as a sitting-room, and you may like to have your friends, whom I trust you will find in Alton, come in from time to time. You will please make yourself quite at home." James had not yet fairly comprehended the beauty of the woman. He was still too dazzled. Had he gone away at that time, he could not for the life of him have described her, but he did glance, as a woman might have done, at her gown. It was of a soft heavy red silk, trimmed with lace, and was cut out in a small square at the throat. This glimpse of firm white throat made James wonder as to evening costume for himself. At home he never dreamed of such a thing, but here it might be different. His hostess divined his thoughts. She smiled at him as if he were a child. "No," said she, "you do not need to dress for dinner. Doctor Gordon never does when we are by ourselves." Then she went away, closing the door softly after her. James noticed that over the windows of this room were only ordinary shades, and curtains of some soft red stuff. There were no shutters. He looked about him. He was charmed with his room, and it did away to a great extent with his feeling of homesickness. It was not unlike what his room at college had been. It was more like all rooms. He had no feeling of the secrecy which the great living-room gave him, and which irritated him. He brushed his clothes and his hair, and washed his hands and face. While he was doing so he heard wheels and a horse's fast trot. He guessed immediately that the doctor had returned. He therefore, as soon as he had completed the slight changes in his toilet, started to return to the living-room. Crossing the hall he met Doctor Gordon, who seized him by the shoulder, and whispered in his ear, "Not a word before Mrs. Ewing about what happened this afternoon." James nodded. "More mystery," thought he with asperity. "You have not spoken of it to her already, I hope," said Doctor Gordon with quick anxiety. "No, I have not. I have scarcely seen her." "Well, not a word, I beg of you. She is very nervous." The doctor had been removing his overcoat and hat. When he had hung them on some stag's horn in the hall, he went with James into the living-room. There, beside the fire, sat the girl in brown whom James had met that afternoon on the road. CHAPTER II She looked up when he entered, and there was in her young girl face the very slightest shade of recognition. She could not help it, for Clemency was candor itself. Then she bowed very formally, and shook hands sedately when Doctor Gordon introduced James as Doctor Elliot, his new assistant, and carried off her part very well. James was not so successful. He colored and was somewhat confused, but nobody appeared to notice it. Clemency went on relating how glad she was that Uncle Tom met her as she was coming home from Annie Lipton's. "I am never afraid," said she, and her little face betrayed the lie, "but I was tired, and besides I was beginning to be cold, for I went out without my fur." "You should not have gone without it. It grows so cold when the sun goes down," said Mrs. Ewing. Then a chime of Japanese bells was heard which announced dinner. "Doctor Elliot will be glad of dinner," said Doctor Gordon. "He has walked all the way from Gresham." Clemency looked at him with approval, and tried to look as if she had never seen him walking in her life. "That is a good walk," said she. "Twenty-five miles it must be. If more men walked instead of working poor horses all the time, it would be better for them." "That is a hint for your Uncle Tom," said Gordon laughingly. "I never hint," said Clemency. "It is just a plain statement. Men are walking animals. They could travel as well as horses in the course of time if they only put their minds to it." "Well, your old uncle's bones must be saved, even at the expense of the horse's," said Doctor Gordon. "Bones are improved by use," said Clemency severely, as she took her seat at the dinner-table. They all laughed. The girl herself relaxed her pretty face with a whimsical smile. It was quite evident that Clemency was the spoiled and petted darling of the house, and that she traded innocently upon the fact. The young doctor, although his first impression of the elder woman was still upon him, yet realized the charm of the young girl. The older woman was, as it were, crowned with an aureole of perfection, but the young girl was crowned with possibilities which dazzled with mystery. She looked prettier, now that her outer garments were removed, and her thick crown of ash-blonde hair was revealed. The lamp lit her eyes into bluer flame. She was a darling of a young girl, and more a darling because she had the sweetest confidence in everybody thinking her one. However, James Elliot, sitting in the well-appointed dining-room, which was more like a city house than a little New Jersey dwelling, did not for a second retreat from his first impression of Mrs. Ewing. Behind the coffee-urn sat the woman with whom he had not fallen in love, that was too poor a term to use. He had become a worshipper. He felt himself, body and soul, prostrate before the Divinity of Womanhood itself. He realized the grandeur of the abstract in the individual. What was any spoiled, sweet young girl to that? And Mrs. Ewing was, in truth, a wonderful creature. She was a large woman with a great quantity of blue-black hair, which had the ripples one sees in antique statues. Her eyes, black at first glance, were in reality dark blue. Her face gave one a never-ending surprise. James had not known that a woman could be so beautiful. Vague comparisons with the Greek Helen, or Cleopatra, came into his head. Now and then he stole a glance at her. He dared not often. She did not talk much, but he was rather pleased with that fact, although her voice was so sweet and gracious. Speech in a creature like that was not an essential. It might even be an excrescence upon a perfection. It did not occur to the dazed mind of her worshipper that Mrs. Ewing might have very simple and ordinary reasons for not talking--that she might be tired or ill, or preoccupied. But after a number of those stolen glances, James discovered with a great pang, as if one should see for the first time that the arms of the Venus were really gone, when his fancy had supplied them, that the woman did not look well. In spite of her beauty, there was ill-health evident in her face. James was a mere tyro in his profession as yet, but certain infallible signs were there which he could not mistake. They were the signs of suffering, possibly of very great suffering. She ate very little, James noticed, although she made a pretense of eating as much as any one. James saw that Doctor Gordon also noticed it. When the maid was taking away Mrs. Ewing's plate, he spoke with a gruffness which astonished the young man. "For Heaven's sake, why don't you eat your dinner, Clara?" said he. "Emma, replace Mrs. Ewing's plate. Now, Clara, eat your dinner." To James's utter astonishment, Mrs. Ewing obeyed like a child. She ate every morsel, although she could not restrain her expression of loathing. When the salad and dessert were brought on she ate them also. Doctor Gordon watched her with what seemed, to the young man, positive brutality. His mouth under his heavy beard quivered perceptibly whenever he looked at his sister eating, his forehead became corrugated, and his deep-set eyes sparkled. James was heartily glad when dinner was over, and, at Doctor Gordon's request, he followed him into his office. Doctor Gordon's office was a small room at the back of the house. It had an outer door communicating with a path which led to the stable. Two sides of the room were lined with medical books, and two with bottles containing diverse colored mixtures. A hanging lamp was over the center of a long table in the middle of the room. Around it dangled prisms, which cast rainbow colors over everything. The first thing which struck one on entering the room was the extraordinary color scheme: the dull gleams of the books, the medicine bottles which had lights like jewels, and over all the flickers of prismatic hues. The long table was covered with corks, empty bottles, books, a medicine-case, and newspapers, besides a mighty inkstand and writing materials. There were also a box of cigars, a great leather tobacco pouch, and, interspersed among all, a multitude of pipes. The doctor drew a chair beside this chaotic table lit with rainbow lights, and invited James to sit down. "Sit down a moment," he said. "Will you have a pipe or a cigar?" "Cigar, please," replied James. The doctor pushed the box toward him. James realized immediately a ten-cent cigar at the least when he began to smoke. Doctor Gordon filled a pipe mechanically. His face still wore the gloomy, almost fierce, expression which it had assumed at table. He was a handsome man in a rough, sketchy fashion. His face was blurred with a gray grizzle of beard. He wore his hair rather long, and he had a fashion of running his fingers through it, which made it look like a thick brush. He dressed rather carelessly, still like a gentleman. His clothes were slouchy, and needed brushing, but his linen was immaculate. Doctor Gordon smoked in silence, which his young assistant was too shy to break. The elder man finished his pipe, then he rose with an impatient gesture and shook himself like a great shaggy dog. "Come, young man," said he, "we don't want to spend the evening like this. Get your hat and coat." James obeyed, and the two men left the office by the outer door which opened on the stable. As they came around by the front of the house Clemency stood in the doorway. "Are you going out, you and Doctor Elliot, Uncle Tom?" she called. "Yes, dear; why?" "Patients?" "No; we are going down to Georgie K.'s. Tell your mother to go to bed at once." When the two men were out in the street, walking briskly in the keen frosty air, James ventured a question. "Mrs. Ewing is not well, is she?" he said. He fairly started at the way in which his question was received. Doctor Gordon turned upon him even fiercely. "She is perfectly well, perfectly well," he replied. "She does not look--" began James. "When you are as old as I am you can venture to diagnose on a woman's looks," said Gordon. "Clara is perfectly well." James said no more. They walked on in silence under a pale sky. Above a low mountain range on their right was a faint light which indicated the coming of the moon. The ground was frozen in hard ridges. James walked behind the doctor on the narrow blue stone walk which served as sidewalk. "This town has made no provision whatever for courting couples," said Doctor Gordon suddenly, and to James's astonishment his whole manner and voice had changed. It was far from gloomy. It was jocular even. James laughed. "Yes, it would be difficult for two to walk arm in arm, however loving," he returned. "Just so," said the doctor, "and the funny part of it is that this narrow sidewalk was intentional." "Not for such a purpose?" "Exactly so. It was given to the town by a rich spinster who died about twenty years ago. It was given in her will on condition that it should not be more than two feet wide." "For that reason?" "Just that reason. She had been jilted in her youth, and her heart had been wrung by the sight of her rival passing her very window where she sat watching for her lover, arm in arm with him. It was in summer, and the dirt sidewalk was dry. She made up her mind, then and there, that that sort of thing should be prevented." They had just reached a handsome old house standing close to the narrow sidewalk. In fact, its windows opened directly upon it. "This is the house," the doctor said in corroboration. James laughed, but he wondered within himself if he were being told fish tales. Doctor Gordon made him feel so very young that he resented it. He resented it the more when he realized the new glow of adoration in his heart for that older woman whom they had left behind. He began wondering about her: how much older she was. He said to himself that he did not care if she were old enough to be his mother, his grandmother even, there was no one in the whole world like her. Then they came to the hotel, the Evarts House. It was rather pretentious, well built, with great columns in front supporting double verandas. It was also well lighted. It was evidently far above the usual order of a road house. Doctor Gordon entered, with James at his heels. They went into the great low room at the right of the door, which was the bar-room. Behind the bar stood an enormous man, yellow haired and yellow bearded, dispensing drinks. The whole low interior was dim with tobacco smoke, and scented with various liquors and spices. There was on one side a great fireplace, in which stood earthen pitchers, in which cider was being mulled with red-hot pokers, eager vinous faces watching. Nobody was intoxicated, but there was a general hum of hilarity and gusto of life about the place, an animal enjoyment of good cheer and jollity. It was in truth not respectable to get entirely drunk in Alton. It was genteel to become "set up," exhilarated, but the real gutter form of inebriety was frowned upon to a much greater extent than in many places where there was less license. "Hullo!" sang out Doctor Gordon as he entered. Immediately a grin of comradeship overspread the pink face of the yellow-haired giant behind the bar. "Hullo!" he responded. "Just step into the other room, and I'll be there right away." James followed Doctor Gordon into what was evidently the state parlor of the hotel. There was haircloth furniture, and a mahogany table, with various stains of conviviality upon its polished surface. There was a fire on the hearth, and on the mantel stood some gilded vases and a glass case of wax-flowers, also a stuffed canary under a glass shade, pathetic on his little twig. Doctor Gordon pointed to the flowers and the canary. "Poor old man lost his wife, when he had been married two years," he said. "She and the baby both died. That was before I came here. Damned if I wouldn't have pulled them through. That was her bird, and she made those fool flowers, poor little thing. I suppose if the hotel were to take fire Georgie K. would go for them before all the cash in the till." "He hasn't married again?" "Married again! It's my belief he'd shoot the man that mentioned it." Then Georgie K. entered, his rosy face distended with a smile of the most intense hospitality, and before Doctor Gordon had a chance to introduce James, he said, "What'll you take, gentlemen?" "This is my new assistant, from Gresham, Doctor Elliot," said Gordon. Georgie K. made a bow, and scraped his foot at the same time with a curiously boyish gesture. "What'll you take?" he asked again. That was evidently his formula of hospitality, which must never be delayed. "Apple-jack," responded Doctor Gordon promptly. "You had better take apple-jack too, young man. Georgie K. has gin that beats the record, and peach brandy, but when it comes to his apple-jack--it's worth the whole State of New Jersey." "All right," answered James. Soon he found himself seated at the stained old mahogany table with the two men, and between two glasses, a bottle, and a pitcher of hot water. Doctor Gordon dealt a pack of dirty cards while the hotel keeper poured the apple-jack. James could not help staring at the elder doctor with more and more amazement. He seemed to assimilate perfectly with his surroundings. The tormented expression had gone from his face. He was simply convivial, and of the same sort as Georgie K. He no longer looked even a gentleman. He had become of the soil, the New Jersey soil. As they drank and played, he told stories, and roared with laughter at them. The stories also belonged to the soil, they were folk lore, wild, coarse, but full of humanity. Although Doctor Gordon drank freely of the rich mellow liquor, it did not apparently affect him. His cheeks above his gray furze of beard became slightly flushed, that was all. James drank rather sparingly. The stuff seemed to him rather fiery, and he remembered the goddess in the doctor's house. He could imagine her look of high disdain at him should he return under the influence of liquor. Besides, he did not particularly care for the apple-jack. It was midnight before they left. Georgie K. went to the door with them, and he and the doctor shook hands heartily. "Come again," said Georgie K., "and the sooner the better, and bring the young Doc. We'll make him have a good time." Until they were near home, Doctor Gordon continued his strangely incongruous conversation, telling story after story, and shouting with laughter. When they came in sight of the house Gordon stopped suddenly and leaned against a great maple beside the road. He stared at the house, two of the upper windows of which were lighted, and gave a great sigh, almost a groan. James stopped also and stared at him. He wondered if the apple-jack had gone to the doctor's head after all. "What is the matter?" he ventured. "Nothing, except the race is at a finish, and I am caught as I always am," replied Doctor Gordon. "The race--" repeated James vaguely. "Yes, the race with myself. Myself has caught up with me, God help me, and I am in its clutches. The time may come when you will try to race with self, my boy. Let me tell you, you will never win. You will tire yourself out, and make a damned idiot of yourself for nothing. I shall race again to-morrow. I never learn the lesson, but perhaps you can, you are young. Well, come along. Please be as quiet as you can when you go into the house. My sister may be asleep. She is perfectly well, but she is a little nervous. I need not repeat my request that you do not mention your adventure with Clemency this afternoon to her." "Certainly not," said James. He walked on beside the doctor, and entered the house, more and more mystified. James was not sure, but he thought he heard the faintest little moan from upstairs. He glanced at Doctor Gordon's face, and it was again the face of the man whom he had seen before going to Georgie K.'s. CHAPTER III The next morning after breakfast, at which Mrs. Ewing did not appear, Doctor Gordon observed that she always took her rolls and coffee in bed. James followed Doctor Gordon into his office. Clemency, who had presided at the coffee urn, had done so silently, and looked, so James thought, rather sulky, as if something had gone wrong. Directly James was in the office, the doctor's man, Aaron, appeared. He was a tall, lank Jerseyman, incessantly chewing. His lean, yellow jaws appeared to have acquired a permanent rotary motion, but he had keen eyes of intelligence upon the doctor as he gave his orders. "Put in the team," said Gordon. "We are going to Haver's Corner. Old Sam Edwards is pretty low, and I ought to have gone there yesterday, but I didn't know whether that child with diphtheria at Tucker's Mill would live the day out. Now he has seen the worst of it, thank the Lord! But to-day I must go to Haver's. I want to make good time, for there's something going on this afternoon, and I want an hour off if I can get it." Again the expression of simple jocularity was over the man's face, and James remembered what he had said the night before about again running a race with himself the next day. After Aaron had gone out Gordon turned to James. He pointed to his great medicine-case on the table. "You might see to it that the bottles are all filled," he said. "You will find the medicines yonder." He pointed to the shelf. "I have to speak to Clemency before I go." James obeyed. As he worked filling the bottles he heard dimly Gordon's voice talking to Clemency on the other side of the wall. The girl seemed to be expostulating. When Doctor Gordon returned Aaron was at his heels with an immense bottle containing a small quantity of red fluid. "S'pose you'll want this filled?" he said to Gordon with a grin which only disturbed for a second his rotary jaws. "Oh, yes, of course," replied Gordon, "we want the aqua." James stared at him as he poured a little red-colored liquid from one of the bottles on the shelves into the big one. "Now fill it up from the pump, and put it in the buggy; be sure the cork is in tight," he said to Aaron. Gordon looked laughingly at James when the man had gone. "I infer that you are wondering what 'aqua' may be," he said. "I was brought up to think it was water," said James. "So it is, water pure and simple, with a little coloring matter thrown in. Bless you, boy, the people around here want their medicines by the quart, and if they had them by the quart, good-by to the doctor's job, and ho for the undertaker! So the doctor is obliged to impose upon the credulity of the avariciously innocent, and dilute the medicine. Bless you, I have patients who would accuse me of cheating if I prescribed less than a cupful of medicine at a time. They have to be humored. After all, they are a harmless, good lot, but stiffened with hereditary ideas, worse than by rheumatism. If I should give a few drops in half a glass of water, and order a teaspoonful at a time, I should fly in the face of something which no mortal man can conquer, sheer heredity. The grandfathers and great-grandfathers of these people took their physic on draft, the children must do likewise. Sometimes I even think the medicine would lose its effect if taken in any other way. Nobody can estimate the power of a fixed idea upon the body. All the same, it is a confounded nuisance carrying around the aqua. I will confess, although I see the necessity of yielding, that I have less patience with men's stiff-necked stupidity than I have with their sins." James drove all the morning with Doctor Gordon about the New Jersey country. It was a moist, damp day, such as sometimes comes even in winter. It was a dog day with an atmosphere slightly cooler than that of midsummer. Overcoats were oppressive, the horses steamed. The roads were deep with red mud, which clogged the wheels and made the hoofs of the horses heavy. "It's a damned soil," said Doctor Gordon. This morning after appearing somewhat saturnine at breakfast, he was again in his unnatural, rollicking mood. He hailed everybody whom he met. He joked with the patients and their relatives in the farmhouses, approached through cart-tracks of mire, and fluttered about by chickens, quacking geese, and dead leaves. Now and then, stately ranks of turkeys charged in line of battle upon the muddy buggy, and the team, being used to it, stood their ground, and snorted contemptuously. The country people were either saturnine with an odd shyness, which had something almost hostile in it, or they were effusively hospitable, forcing apple-jack upon the two doctors. James was much struck by the curious unconcern shown by the relatives of the patients, and even by the patients themselves. In only one case, and that of a child suffering from a bad case of measles, was much interest evinced. The majority of the patients were the very old and middle-aged, and they discussed, and heard discussed, their symptoms with much the same attitude as they might have discussed the mechanism of a wooden doll. If any emotion was shown it was that of a singular inverted pride. "I had a terrible night, doctor," said one old woman, and a smirk of self-conceit was over her ancient face. "Yes, mother _did_ have an awful night," said her married daughter with a triumphant expression. Even the children clustering about the doctor looked unconsciously proud because their old grandmother had had an awful night. The call of the two doctors at the house was positively hilarious. Quantities of old apple-jack were forced upon them. The old woman in the adjoining bedroom, although she was evidently suffering, kept calling out a feeble joke in her cackling old voice. "Those people seem positively elated because that old soul is sick," said James when he and the doctor were again in the buggy. "They are," said Doctor Gordon, "even the old woman herself, who knows well enough that she has not long to live. Did you ever think that the desire of distinction was one of the most, perhaps the most, intense purely spiritual emotion of the human soul? Look at the way these people live here, grubbing away at the soil like ants. The most of them have in their lives just three ways of attracting notice, the momentary consideration of their kind: birth, marriage, sickness and death. With the first they are hardly actively concerned, even with the second many have nothing to do. There are more women than men as usual, and although the women want to marry, all the men do not. There remains only sickness and death for a stand-by, so to speak. If one of them is really sick and dies, the people are aroused to take notice. The sick person and the corpse have a certain state and dignity which they have never attained before. Why, bless you, man, I have one patient, a middle-aged woman, who has been laid up for years with rheumatism, and she is fairly vainglorious, and so is her mother. She brags of her invalid daughter. If she had been merely an old maid on her hands, she would have been ashamed of her, and the woman herself would have been sour and discontented. But she has fairly married rheumatism. It has been to her as a husband and children. I tell you, young man, one has to have his little footstool of elevation among his fellows, even if it is a mighty queer one, or he loses his self-respect, and self-respect is the best jewel we have." They were now out in the road again, the team plodding heavily through the red shale. "It's a damned soil," said the doctor for the second time. He looked down at the young man beside him, and James again felt that resentful sense of youth and inexperience. "I don't know how you've been brought up," said the elder man. "I don't want to infuse heretic notions into your innocent mind." James straightened himself. He tried to give the other man a knowing look. "I have been about a good deal," he said. "You need not be afraid of corrupting _me_." Doctor Gordon laughed. "Well, I shall not try," he said. "At least, I shall not mean to corrupt you. I am a pessimist, but you are so young that you ought not to be influenced by that. Lord, only think what may be before you. You don't know. I am so far along that I know as far as I am concerned. I did not know but you had been brought up to think that whatever the Lord made was good, and that in saying that this red, gluey New Jersey soil was darned bad, I was swearing the worst way. I don't want to have millstones and that sort of thing about my neck. I was quite up in the Scriptures at one time." "You need not be afraid," said James with dignity; "I think the soil darned bad myself." He hesitated a little over the darned, but once it was out, he felt proud of it. "Yes, it is," said Doctor Gordon, "and if the Lord made it, he did not altogether succeed, and I see no earthly way of tracing the New Jersey soil back to original sin and the Garden of Eden." "That's so," said James. Doctor Gordon's face grew sober, his jocular mood for the time had vanished. He was his true self. "Did it ever occur to you that disease was the devil?" he asked abruptly. "That is, that all these infernal microbes that burrow in the human system to its disease and death, were his veritable imps at work?" James shook his head, and looked curiously at his companion's face with its gloomy corrugations. "Well, it has to me," said the doctor, "and let me ask you one thing. You have been brought up to believe that the devil's particular residence was hell, haven't you?" James replied in a bewildered fashion that he had. "Well," said Doctor Gordon, "if the devil lives here, as he must live, when there's such failures in the way of soil, and such climates, and such fiendish diseases, and crimes, why, this is hell." James stared at him. Doctor Gordon nodded half-gloomily, half-whimsically. "It's so," he said. "We call it earth; but it's hell." James said nothing. The doctor's gloomy theology was too much for him. Besides, he was not quite sure that the elder man was not chaffing him. "Well," said Doctor Gordon presently, "hell it is, but there are compensations, such as apple-jack, and now and then there's something doing that amuses one even here. I am going to take you to something that enlivens hell this afternoon, if somebody doesn't send a call. I am trying to get my work done this morning, the worst of it, so as to have an hour this afternoon." The two returned a little after twelve, and found luncheon waiting for them. Mrs. Ewing took her place at the table, and James thought that she did not look quite so ill as she had done the evening before. She talked more, and ate with some appetite. Doctor Gordon's face lightened, not with the false gayety which James had seen, but he really looked quite happy, and spoke affectionately to his sister. "What do you think, Tom," said she, "has come over Clemency? I don't know when there has been a morning that she has not gone for a tramp, rain or shine, but she has not stirred out to-day. She says she feels quite well, but I don't know." "Oh, Clemency is all right," said Doctor Gordon, but his face darkened again. As for Clemency, she bent over her plate and looked sulkier than ever. She fairly pouted. "She can go out this afternoon," said Mrs. Ewing. "It looks as if it were going to clear off." "No, I don't want to go," said Clemency. "I am all out of the humor of it." She spoke with an air of animosity, as if somebody were to blame, but when she saw Mrs. Ewing's anxious eyes she smiled. "I would much prefer staying with you, dear," she said, "and finish Annie's Christmas present." She spoke with such an affectionate air, that James looked admiringly at her. She seemed a fellow-worshipper. He thought that he, too, would much prefer staying with Mrs. Ewing than going with Doctor Gordon on the mysterious outing which he had planned. However, directly after luncheon Gordon led James out into the stable and called Aaron. "Are they ready, Aaron?" inquired the doctor. Aaron grinned, opened a rude closet, and produced a number of objects, which James recognized at once as dummy pigeons. So Doctor Gordon was to take him to a pigeon-shooting match. James felt a little disgusted. He had, in fact, taken part in that sport with considerable gusto himself, but, just now, he being fairly launched, as it were, upon the serious things of life, took it somewhat in dudgeon that Doctor Gordon should think to amuse him with such frivolities. But to his amazement the elder man's face was all a-quiver with mirth and fairly eager. "Show the pigeons to Doctor Elliot, Aaron," said Doctor Gordon. James took one of the rude disks called pigeons from the hand of Aaron with indifference, then he started and stared at Doctor Gordon, who laughed like a boy, fairly doubling himself with merriment. Aaron did not laugh, he chewed on, but his eyes danced. "Why, they are--" stammered James. "Just so, young man," replied Doctor Gordon. "They are wood. Aaron made them on a lathe, and not a soul can tell them from the clay pigeons unless they handle them. Now you are going to see some fun. Jim Goodman, who is the meanest skunk in town, has cheated every mother's son of us first and last, and this afternoon he is going to shoot against Albert Dodd, and he's going to get his finish! Dodd knows about it. He'll have clay pigeons all right. Goodman has put up quite a sum of money, and he stands fair to lose for once in his life." "Come on, Aaron, put the bay mare in the buggy. We'll drive down to the field. We haven't got much time to spare." Aaron backed the mare out of her stall and hitched her to the mud-bespattered buggy, and the two men drove off with the wooden pigeons under the seat. They had not far to go, to a large field intersected with various footpaths and with, a large bare space, which evidently served as a football gridiron. "This field is used like town property," explained the doctor, "but the funny part of it is, it belongs to an old woman who is, perhaps, the richest person in Alton, and asks such a price for the land that nobody can buy it, and it has never occurred to her to keep off trespassers. So everybody trespasses, and she pays the taxes, and we are all satisfied, especially as there are plenty of better building sites in Alton to be bought for less money. That old woman bites her nose off every day, and never knows it." On this barren expanse, intersected with the narrow footpaths, covered between with the no color of last year's dry weeds and grass, were assembled some half dozen men and boys. They rushed up as the doctor's buggy came alongside. "Got 'em?" they cried eagerly. Doctor Gordon fumbled under the seat and drew out the batch of wooden pigeons, which one young fellow, who seemed to be master of ceremonies, grasped and rushed off with to the queer-looking machine erected in the centre of the football clearing, for the purpose of making them take wing. The others went with him. Doctor Gordon got out of his buggy, accompanied by James, and they, too, joined the little group. "Got the others?" asked Gordon in a half whisper. "Yes, you bet. We've got the others all right," said the young fellow, and everybody laughed. Men and boys began to gather until the field was half filled with them. They all wore grinning countenances. "For Heaven's sake, boys, don't act as if it were so awful funny, or you'll spoil the whole thing," said the young fellow who had come for the pigeons. Only one face was entirely sober, even severe, as with resolve, and that was the face of a small, mean-looking man between forty and fifty. He carried a gun, and looked at once important and greedy. "That's Jim Goodman," whispered Doctor Gordon to James, "and he's a crack shot, too. Albert isn't as sure, though he's pretty good, too." James began to catch the spirit of it himself. He felt at once disgusted and uneasy about the doctor, but as for himself he was only a young man, after all, and sport was still sweet to his soul. He shouted with the rest when the first pigeon was launched into the air, and Albert Dodd, a tall, serious young man, fired. He hit the bird, which at once flew into fragments, as a clay pigeon properly should. Georgie K. came up and joined them. He was evidently not in the secret, for he looked intensely puzzled when Jim Goodman, who had next shot, hit his bird fairly, but it only hopped about and descended unbroken. "What the deuce!" he said. "Hush up, Georgie K.," said Doctor Gordon. The other man turned and looked at him keenly, but the doctor's imperturbable, smiling face was on the sport. Georgie K.'s great pink face grew grave. Every time Albert Dodd fired the pigeons dropped in pieces, every time Jim Goodman fired they hopped as if they were alive. Jim Goodman swore audibly. He looked to his cartridges. The whole field was in an uproar of mirth. The gunshots were hardly audible for the yells and wild halloos of merriment. The match at last was finished. Jim Goodman's last pigeon hopped, and he was upon it in a rage. He took it up and examined it. It was riddled with shot. He felt it, weighed it. Then his face grew fairly black. From being only mean, he looked murderous. He was losing money, and money was the closest thing to his soul. He looked around at the yelling throng, one man at bay, and he achieved a certain dignity, even in the midst of absurdity. "This darned pigeon is wood," said he. "They are all wood, all I have shot. This is a put-up job! It ain't fair." He turned to the young fellow who had taken the pigeons, and who acted as referee. "See here, John," he said, "you ain't going to see me done this way, be you? You know it ain't a fair deal. Albert Dodd's shot clay pigeons, and I've shot wood. It ain't fair." "No, it ain't fair," admitted the young fellow reluctantly, with a side glance at Doctor Gordon. Gordon made a movement, but Georgie K. was ahead of him. James saw a roll of bills pass from his hands to Jim Goodman's. Gordon came up to Georgie K. "See here!" he said. "Well," replied Georgie K., without turning his head. "Georgie K." "I can't stop. Excuse me, Doc." Georgie K. jumped into a light wagon on that side of the field, and was gone with a swift bounce over the hollow which separated it from the road. Doctor Gordon hurried back to his own buggy, with James following, got in and took the road after Georgie K. "He mustn't pay that money," said Gordon. James said nothing. "I never thought of such a thing as that," said Doctor Gordon, driving furiously, but they did not catch up with Georgie K. until they reached the Evarts House, and he was out of his wagon. Doctor Gordon approached him, pocketbook in hand. "See here, Georgie K.," he said, "I owe you a hundred." "Owe me nothing," said Georgie K. It had seemed impossible for his great pink face to look angry and contemptuous, but it did. "I don't set up for much," said he, "but I must say I like a square deal." "Good Lord! so do I," said Gordon. "Here, take this money. I had Aaron make those darned wooden pigeons. Jim Goodman has skinned enough young chaps here to deserve the taste of a skin himself." "He ain't skinned you." "Hasn't he? He owes me for two wives' last sicknesses, to say nothing of himself and children, and he's living with his third, and I shall have to doctor her for nothing or let her die. But that wasn't what I did it for." Georgie K. turned upon him. "What on earth did you do it for, Doc?" said he. "Because I felt the way you have felt yourself." "When?" "When the woman that made those wax-flowers, and loved that little stuffed bird in there, died." Georgie K.'s face paled. "What's the matter, Doc?" "Nothing, I tell you." "What?" "Nothing. Who said there was anything? I had to have my little joke. I tell you, Georgie K., I've _got_ to have my little joke, just as I've got to have my game of euchre with you and my glass of apple-jack; a man can't be driven too far. I meant to make it right with him. He's a mean little cuss, but I am not mean. I intended to spend a hundred on my joke, and you got ahead of me. For God's sake, take the money, Georgie K." Georgie K., still with a white, shocked, inquiring face, extended his hand and took the roll of bills which the doctor gave him. "Come in and take something," said he, and Doctor Gordon and James accepted. They went again into the state parlor on whose shelf were the wax-flowers and the stuffed canary, and they partook of apple-jack. Then Doctor Gordon and James took leave. Georgie K. gave Gordon a hearty shake of the hand when he got into the buggy. Gordon looked at James again with his gloomy face, as he took up the lines. "Failed in the race again," he said. "Now we've got to hustle, for I have eight calls to make before dinner, and it's late. I ought to change horses, but there isn't time." CHAPTER IV The weeks went on, and James led the same life with practically no variation. The sense of a mystery or mysteries about the house never left him, and it irritated him. He was not curious; he did not in the least care to know in what the mystery consisted, but the fact of concealment itself was obnoxious to him. As for himself, he never concealed anything, and when it came to mystery, he had a vague idea of something shameful, if not criminal. Doctor Gordon's incomprehensible changes of mood, of almost more than mood, of character even, disturbed him. Why a man should be one hour a country buffoon, the next an absorbed gentleman, he could not understand. And he could not understand also why Clemency had never left the house since he had met her on the day of his arrival. She evidently was herself angry and sulky at being housed, but she did not attempt to resist, and whenever Mrs. Ewing expressed anxiety about her health, she laughed it off, and made some excuse, such as the badness of the roads, or some Christmas work which she was anxious to finish. However, at last Mrs. Ewing's concern grew so evident that Doctor Gordon at dinner one day gave what seemed a plausible reason for Clemency remaining indoors. "If you will have it, Clara," he said, "Clemency has a slight pain in her side, and pleurisy and pneumonia are all about, and I told her that she had better take no chances, and the weather has been raw." Mrs. Ewing turned quite white. "Oh, Tom," she murmured, "why didn't you tell me?" "I did not tell you, Clara dear, because you would immediately have had the child in a galloping consumption, and it is really nothing at all. I only want to be on the safe side." "It is a very little pain, mother dear," said Clemency. When Clemency spoke to Mrs. Ewing, her voice had a singing quality. At such times, although the young man's very soul was possessed of the mother, he could not help viewing the daughter with favor. But he was puzzled about the pleurisy. The girl seemed to him entirely well, although she was losing a little of her warm color from staying indoors. Still, after all, a pain is as invisible as a spirit. Her friend, Annie Lipton, spent a few days with her, and then James saw very little of Clemency. The two girls sat together in Clemency's room, and only the Lord of innocence and ignorance knew what they talked about. They talked a great deal. James, whenever he was in the house, was conscious of the distant murmur of their sweet young voices, although he could not distinguish a word. Annie Lipton was a prettier girl than Clemency, though without her personal charm. Her beauty seemed to abash her, and make her indignant. She was a girl who should have been a nun, and viewed love and lovers from behind iron bars. She treated James with exceeding coolness. "Annie Lipton is an anomaly," Doctor Gordon remarked once over his after-dinner pipe, when they sat in the study listening to the feminine murmur on the other side of the wall. It sounded like the gentle ripple of a summer sea. "Why?" returned James. "She defies her sex," replied Doctor Gordon, "and still there is nothing mannish about her. She is a woman angry and ashamed at her womanhood. If she ever marries, it will be at the cost of a terrible mental struggle. There are women-haters among men, and there are a very few--so few as to rank with albinos and white blackbirds in scarcity--man-haters among women. Annie is a man-hater." "She is very pretty, too," said James. "If you attempt the conquest, I'll warn you there will be scaling ladders and all the ancient paraphernalia of siege needed," said Doctor Gordon laughingly. James colored. "It may be that I am a woman-hater," he replied, and looked very young. Doctor Gordon again laughed. A little later they went to Georgie K.'s. They went nearly every evening while Annie Lipton was with Clemency. After she had left they did not go so often. "It is pretty dull for Clemency," Doctor Gordon would say, and they would remain at home and play whist with the two ladies. James began to be quite sure that Doctor Gordon's visits to Georgie K.'s were mostly made when Mrs. Ewing looked worse than usual and did not eat her dinner. James became convinced in his own mind that Mrs. Ewing was not well, although he never dared broach the subject again to the doctor, and although it made no difference whatever in his own attitude toward her. As well might he have turned his back upon the Venus, because of some slight abrasion which her beautiful body had received from the ages. But one day, having come in unexpectedly alone, he found her on the divan in the living-room, evidently weeping, and his heart went out to her. He flung himself down on his knees beside her. "Oh, what is it? What is the matter?" he whispered. Her whole body was writhing. She uncovered her eyes and looked at him pitifully, and yet with a certain dignity. Those beautiful eyes, brimming with tears, were not reddened, and their gaze was steady. "If I tell you, will you keep my secret?" she whispered back, "or, rather, it is not a secret since Doctor Gordon knows it. I wish he did not, but will you keep your knowledge from him?" "I promise you I will," said James fervently. "I am terribly ill," said Mrs. Ewing simply. "I suffer at times tortures. Don't ask me what the matter is. It is too dreadful, and although I have no reason to feel so, it seems to me ignominious. I am ashamed of being so ill. I feel disgraced by it, wicked." She covered her face again and sobbed. "Don't, don't," said James, out of his senses completely. "Don't, I can't bear it. I love you so. Don't! I will cure you." "You cannot. Doctor Gordon does not admit that my case is hopeless, but he gives no hope, and you must have noticed how he suffers when he sees me suffer. He runs away from me because he can do nothing to help me. That is the worst of it all. I could bear the pain for myself, but for the others, too! Oh, I wish there was some little back door of life out of which one could slip, and no blame to anybody, in a case like this. But there is nothing but the horrible front door, which means such agony to everybody who is left, as well as the one that goes." Mrs. Ewing had completely lost control of herself. She sobbed again and moaned. James covered one of her cold hands with kisses. "Don't, don't," he begged. "Don't, I love you." Suddenly Mrs. Ewing came to the comprehension of what he said. She looked at his bent head--James had a curly head like a boy's--and a strange look came into her eyes, as if she were regarding him across an immeasurable gulf. Nobody had ever seemed quite so far away in the world as this boy with his cry of love to the woman old enough to be his mother. It was not the fact of her superior age alone, it was her disease, it was her sense of being done forever with anything like this that gave her, as it were, a view of earth from outside, and yet she had a sense of comfort. James was even weeping. She felt his tears on her hand. It did her good that anybody could love her so little as to be able to stay by and see her suffer, and weep for her, and not rush forth in a rage of misery like Thomas Gordon. In a second, however, she had command of herself. She drew her hand away. "Doctor Elliot," she said, "you forget yourself." "No, no, I don't," protested James. "It is not as if I--I were thinking of you in that way. I am not. I know you could not possibly think of me as a girl might. It is only because I love you. I have never seen anybody like you." "You must put me out of your head," said Mrs. Ewing. "I am old enough to be your mother; I am ill unto death. You must not love me in any way." "I cannot help it" Mrs. Ewing hesitated. "I have a mind to tell you something," she said in a low voice. "Can I rely upon you?" "I would die before I told, if you said I was not to," cried James. "It might almost come to that," said the woman gravely. "A very serious matter is involved, otherwise there would not be this secrecy. I cannot tell you what the matter is, but I can tell you something which will cure you of loving me." "I don't want to be cured," protested James, "and I have told you it is a love like worship, it is not--" Mrs. Ewing interrupted him. "The worship of a young man is not to be trusted," she said. "I cannot have you made to suffer. I will tell you, but, remember, if you betray me you will do awful harm. Neither the doctor nor Clemency even must know that I tell you. The doctor knows, of course, the secret; Clemency does not know, and must never know. It would be the undoing of all of us, the terrible undoing, if this were to get out, but I will tell you. You are a good boy, and you shall be spared needless pain. Listen." She leaned forward and whispered close to his ear. James started back, and stared at her as white as death. Mrs. Ewing smiled. "It hurts a little, I know," she said, "but better this now than worse later. You are foolish to feel so about me; you were at a disadvantage in coming here. It is only right that you should know. Now never speak to me again about this. Think of me as your friend, and your friend who is in very great suffering and pain, and have sympathy for me, if you can, but not so much sympathy that you too will suffer. I want sympathy, but not agony like poor Tom's. That makes it harder for me." "Does she know?" asked James, half-gasping. "You mean does Clemency know I am ill?" "Yes." "She knows I am ill. She does not know how terrible it is. You must help me to keep it from her. I almost never give way when she is present. I knew she was taking a nap this afternoon, and the pain was so awful. It is better now. I think I will go to my room and lie down for a while." Mrs. Ewing rose, and extended her hand to James. "I have forgotten already what you told me," she said. "I can never forget!" "You must, or you must go away from here." "I can never forget, but it shall be a thing of the past," said James. "That is right," Mrs. Ewing said with a maternal air. "It will only take a little effort. You will see." She went out of the room with a flounce of red draperies, and left James. He sat down beside a window and stared out blankly. The thought came to him, how many avowals of love and deathless devotion such a woman must have listened to. Her manner of receiving his made him think that there had been many. "It is quite proper," he thought to himself. "A woman like that is born to be worshiped." Then he thought of what she had told him, and a sort of rage filled his heart. He recognized the fact that she had been right in her estimation of the worship of a young man. He is always trying to turn his idol into clay. The door opened and Clemency entered, but he did not notice it. She came and sat down in front of him, and looked angrily at him, then for the first time he saw her. He rose. "I beg your pardon, I did not hear you come in," he said. "Sit down again," said Clemency pettishly. "Don't be silly. I am used to having young men not see anybody but my mother when she comes into a room, and it is quite right, too. I don't think there ever was a woman so beautiful as she, do you?" "No, I don't," replied James. Clemency eyed him keenly. Then she blushed at the surmise which came to her, and James also blushed at the knowledge of the surmise. "You can't be much older than I am. I am twenty-three," said Clemency after a while. Then the red suffused her very throat. "I am twenty-three, too," said James. Then he added bluntly, for he began to be angry, "A man can think a woman the most beautiful he ever saw without--" "Oh, I didn't think you were such a fool," said Clemency; then she added, in a meek and shamed voice, "I should have been awfully disgusted with you if you had not thought my mother the most beautiful woman you ever saw, and I am used to men not seeing me. I don't want them to. I think I feel something as Annie Lipton does about men. She says she feels as if she wanted to kill every man who looks at her as if he loved her. I think I should, too." "Miss Lipton has a great many admirers," remarked James by way of changing the subject. "Oh, yes, every young man for miles around, ever since she was grown up. She doesn't like any of them." Clemency looked at James with sudden concern. "I am going to tell you something," she said, "even if it is rather betraying confidence. I think I ought to. Annie told me she had taken a great dislike to you, from the very first moment she saw you, so it would be no use--" "I am sorry," replied James stiffly, "but as I had no particular feeling for her, except admiration of her beauty, it makes no especial difference." "I thought, of course, you would fall in love with her," said Clemency. Then she added, with most inexplicable inverted jealousy, "You must have very poor taste, or you would. You are the first one." "Some one has to be first," James said, laughing. "I don't know but I was horrid to tell you what I did," said Clemency, looking at him doubtfully. "I don't thing it as horrid for a girl to assume that every man is in love with her friend as it would be if she assumed something else," said James. He knew that his speech was ungallant; but it seemed to him that this girl fairly challenged him to rudeness. But she looked at him innocently. "Oh, no, I never should think that," said she. "Being with two women so very beautiful as my mother and Annie so much makes me quite sure that nobody is thinking of me. It is only sometimes that I feel a little like a piece of furniture, only chairs can't walk into rooms." She ended with a girlish laugh. Then her face suddenly sobered. "Doctor Elliot, I want you to tell me something," said she. "Uncle Tom wouldn't if I asked him, and I don't dare ask him anyway. Do you think mother is very well?" James hesitated. "You ought to tell me," Clemency said imperatively. "I have thought sometimes that she did not look quite well," said James. "What do you think the matter is?" "It may be indigestion." "Do you think it is?" "I don't know. Doctor Gordon has told me nothing, and Mrs. Ewing has told me nothing." "I thought doctors could tell from a person's looks." "Not always." "Doctors aren't much good anyhow," said Clemency. "I don't care if you are one, and Uncle Tom is one. I notice people die just the same. So you think it is indigestion? Well, it may be. Mother doesn't have much appetite." "Yes, I have noticed that," said James. "Then there is something else I want to ask you," said Clemency. "I have a right to know if you know. What does Uncle Tom make me stay in the house so for?" "I don't know," replied James, looking honestly at her. "Don't you, honest? Hasn't he told you?" "No." "Of course, I know the first of it came from my meeting that man the day you came here, but it does seem such utter nonsense that I have to stay housed this way. I never met a man that frightened me before, and it is not likely that I shall again. It does not stand to reason that that man is hanging around here waiting to intercept me again. It is nonsense, but Uncle Tom won't let me stir out. He has even ordered me to keep away from the windows, and be sure that the curtains are drawn at night. I don't know what the matter is. I can't say a word about it to mother, she is so nervous. I have to pretend that I like to stay in the house, and some days I really think I am going mad for fresh air. Uncle Tom won't even let me go driving with him. So you don't know anything about it?" "Nothing whatever." "Well, I can't stand it much longer," said Clemency with an obstinate look. "As for the pain in my side, that's an awful lie; I haven't the ghost of a pain. I can't stand it much longer. Here's Uncle Tom. You are not going to tell him I said anything about it?" "Of course, I am not," answered James. He began to feel that he was entangled in a web of secrecy, and his feeling of irritation increased. He would have gotten out of it and spent Christmas at his own home, but Doctor Gordon had an unusual number of patients suffering from grippe, and pneumonia was almost epidemic, and he felt that he should not leave. It was the second week of the new year when James, returning from a call at a near-by patient, whither he had walked, found Mrs. Ewing in the greatest distress. It was ten o'clock at night, and she was pacing the living-room. Immediately when he entered she ran to him. "Oh," she gasped, "Clemency, Clemency!" "Why, what is it?" asked James. Clemency had not been at the dinner-table, but he had supposed her sulking, as she had been doing of late, and that she had taken advantage of Doctor Gordon's absence at a distant patient's to remain away from the table. "She begged so hard to go out, and said the pain was quite well," gasped Mrs. Ewing, "that I said she might go and see Annie, and here it is ten o'clock at night, and Tom has gone to Grover's Corner, and may not be home until morning, and Aaron is with him, and I had no one to send. I thought I would not say anything to you. I thought every minute she would come in, and Emma has walked half a mile looking for her, and I am horribly worried." "I will go directly and look for her," said James. "I will put the bay in the light buggy, and drive to Westover. Don't worry. I'll bring her back in half an hour." "The bay is so lame she can't travel, I heard Tom say this morning," said Mrs. Ewing. "Then I'll take the gray." "She balks, you know." James laughed. "Oh, I'll risk the balking," he said. He hurried out to the stable and put the gray in the buggy. It was a very short time before James was on the road, and the gray went as well as could be desired, but just before she reached Westover she stopped short, and James might as well have tried to move a mountain as that animal with her legs planted at four angles of relentless obstinacy. CHAPTER V James had considerable experience with, horses. He knew at once that it was probably a hopeless undertaking to change the mare's mind, or rather her obstinacy. However, he tried the usual methods, touching with the whip, getting out and attempting to lead, but they were all, as he had supposed from the first, in vain. A terrible sense of being up against fate itself seized him: an animal's will unreasoning, unrelenting, bears, in fact, the aspect of fate itself. It is at once sensate and insensate. James thought of Clemency, and decided to waste no more time. The gray mare was near enough to a tree to tie her, and he tied her and set out on foot. It was a very dark night, cloudy and chilly and threatening snow. He walked on, as it were, through softly enveloping shadows, which seemed to his excited fancy to be coming forward to meet him. He began to be very much alarmed. He had wasted most of his young sentiment upon Clemency's mother, but, after all, he suddenly discovered that he had a feeling for the girl herself. He thought that it was only the natural anxiety of any man of honor for the safety of a helpless young girl out alone at night, and beset by possible dangers, but he realized himself in a panic. His plan was of course to go directly to Annie Lipton's home, some two miles farther on, then it occurred to him that Clemency must inevitably have left there. If she were lying dead or injured on the road, how in the world was he to see? He felt in his pocket for matches, and found just one. He lit that and peered around. While it burned he saw nothing except the frozen road with its desolate borders of woods and brush, a fit scene for countless tragedies. When the match burned out he thought of something else. Supposing that Clemency were lying half-dead anywhere near the road, how was she to know that a friend was near? Immediately he began to whistle. Whistling was a trick of his, and he had a remarkably sweet, clear pipe. He knew that Clemency, if she were to hear his whistle, would know who was near. He whistled "Way down upon the Suwanee River" through, then he began on the "Flower Song" from Faust, walking all the time quite rapidly but with alert ears. He was half through the "Flower Song" when he stopped short. He thought he heard something. He listened, and did hear quite distinctly an exceedingly soft little voice, which might have been the voice of shadows--"Is that you?" "Clemency," he cried out, and rushed toward the wood, and directly the girl was clinging to him. She was panting with sobs, but she kept her voice down to a whisper. "Speak low, speak low," she said in his ear. "I don't know where he is. Oh, speak low." She clung to him with almost a spasmodic grip of her slender arms. "If you had been ten minutes longer I think I should have died," she whispered. "Don't make a sound. I don't know where he is." "Was it--" began James. He felt himself trembling at the thought of what the girl might be going to reveal to him. "Yes, that same dreadful man. Uncle Tom was right. I stayed too long at Annie's. It was almost dark when I left there. She persuaded me to stay to dinner. They had turkey. I was about half a mile below here when he, the man, came out of the woods, just as he did before. I heard him, and I knew. I did not look around. I ran, and I heard his footsteps behind me. The darkness seemed to shut down all at once. I knew he could catch me, and remembered what I had heard about wild animals when they were hunted. I had gone a little past here, running just as softly as I could, when I turned right into the woods, and ran back. Then I lay right down in the underbrush and kept still. I heard him run past. Then I heard him come back. He came into the woods. I expected every minute he would step on me, but I kept still. Finally I heard him go away, but I have not dared to stir since! I made up my mind I would keep still until I heard a team pass. It did seem to me one must pass, and one would have at any other time, but it has been hours I have been lying there. Then I heard your whistle. I was almost afraid to speak then. Don't speak above a whisper now. Did you come on foot?" "I had the gray mare, and she balked about half a mile from here. You are sure you are not hurt?" "No, only I am trying hard not to faint. Let us walk on very fast, but step softly, and don't talk." James put his arm around the girl and half carried her. She continued to draw short, panting breaths, which she tried to subdue. They reached the place where the gray mare loomed faintly out of the gloom with the dark mass of the buggy behind her. "Let us get in," whispered Clemency. "Quick!" "I am afraid she won't budge." "Yes, she will for me. She has a tender mouth, that is why she balks. You must have pulled too hard on the lines. Sometimes I have made her go when even Uncle Tom couldn't." Clemency ran around to the gray's head and patted her, and James untied her. Then the girl got into the buggy and took the reins, and James followed. He was almost jostled out, the mare started with such impetus. They made the distance home almost on a run. "Oh, I am so glad," panted Clemency. "You see I can seem to feel her mouth when I hold the lines, and she knows. Was poor mother worried?" "A little." "I know she was almost crazy." "She will be all right when she sees you safe," said James. "Is Uncle Tom home yet? No, of course I know he isn't, or he would have come instead of you. Oh, dear, I know he will scold me. I shall have to tell him, but I mustn't tell mother about the man. What shall I tell her? It is dreadful to have to lie, but sometimes one would rather run the risk of fire and brimstone for one's self than have anybody else hurt. If I tell mother she will have one of her dreadful nervous attacks. I can't tell her. What shall I tell her, Doctor Elliot?" "I think the simplest thing will be to say that Miss Lipton persuaded you to stay to supper, and so you were late, and I overtook you," said James. "Mother will never believe that I stayed so long as that," said Clemency. "I shall have to lie more than that. I don't know exactly what to say. I could have Charlie Horton come in to play whist, and be taking me home in his buggy. He always drives, and you could meet me on the road." "Yes, you could do that." "It is a very complicated lie," said Clemency, "but I don't know that a complicated lie is any worse than a simple one. I think I shall have to lie the complicated one. You need not say anything, you know. You can take the mare to the stable, and I will run in and get the lie all told before you come. You won't lie, will you?" James could not help laughing. "No, I don't see any need of it," he replied. "It is rather awful for you to have to live with people who have to lie so," remarked Clemency, "but I don't see how it can be helped. If you had seen my mother in one of her nervous attacks once, you would never want to see her again. There is only one thing, I do feel very weak still, and I am afraid I shall look pale. Hold the lines a minute. Don't pull on them at all. Let them lie on your knees." "What are you doing?" asked James when he had complied. "Doing? I am pinching my cheeks almost black and blue, so mother won't notice. I don't talk scared now, do I?" "Not very." "Well, I think I can manage that. I think I can manage my voice. I am all over being faint. Oh, I will tell you what I will do. You haven't got your medicine-case with you, have you?" "No, I started so hurriedly." "Well, I will go in the office way. I know where Uncle Tom keeps brandy, and I will be so chilled that I'll have to take a little before mother sees me. That will make me all right. I wouldn't take it for myself, but I will for her." "And you are chilled, all right," said James. "Yes, I think I am," said Clemency. "I did not think of it, but I guess it was cold there in the woods keeping still so long." Indeed, the girl was shaking from head to foot, both with cold and nervous terror. "It was awful," she said in a little whisper. James felt the girl shaking from head to foot. Suddenly a great tenderness for the poor, little hunted thing came over him. He put his arm around her. "Poor little soul," he said. "It must have been terrible for you lying out there in the cold and dark and not knowing--" Clemency shrank into his embrace as a hurt child might have done. "It was perfectly terrible," she said, with a little sob. "I didn't know but he might come back any minute and find me." "It is all over now," James said soothingly. "Yes, for the time," Clemency replied with a little note of despair in her voice, "but there is something about it all that I don't understand. Only think how long I have had to stay in the house, and he must have been on the watch. I don't know when it is ever going to end." "I think that I will end it to-morrow," said James with fierce resolution. "You? How?" "I am going to put a stop to this. If an innocent girl can't step out of the house for weeks at a time without being hounded this way, it is high time something was done. I am going to get a posse of men and scour the country for the scoundrel." "Oh, will you do that?" "Yes, I will. It is high time somebody did something." "You saw him. You know just how he looks?" "I could tell him from a thousand." Clemency drew a long breath. "Well," she said doubtfully, "if you can, but--" "But what?" "Nothing, only somehow I doubt if Uncle Tom will think it advisable. There must be some mystery about all this or Uncle Tom himself would have done that very thing at first. I don't understand it. But I don't believe Uncle Tom will consent to your hunting for the man. I think for some reason he wants it kept secret." Suddenly, Clemency gave a passionate little outcry. "Oh, how I do hate secrets!" she said. "How I have always hated them! I want everything right out, and here I seem to be in a perfect snarl of secrets! I wonder how long I shall have to stay in the house." "Perhaps you are wrong, and your uncle will take measures now this has happened for the second time," said James. "No, he won't," replied the girl hopelessly. "I am almost sure that he will not." Clemency was right. After she had made her entry and told her little lie successfully, and explained that she had taken some brandy because she was chilled, and Mrs. Ewing had gently scolded her for staying so late, and kissed and embraced her, and gotten back her own composure, Doctor Gordon arrived, and James, who had waited for him in the study, told him the story in whispers. "Now I think you had better let me get a posse of men and scour the country to-morrow," he concluded. "It seems to me that this thing has gone far enough." Doctor Gordon sat huddled up before him in an arm-chair. He had not even taken off his overcoat, which was white with snow. The storm had begun. "It will be easy to track him on account of the snow," added James. "Tracking is not necessary," replied Gordon, with his haggard face fixed upon James. "I know exactly where the man is, and have known from the first." "Then--" began James. "You don't know what you are talking about," Gordon said gloomily. "I would have that fiend arrested to-morrow. I would have him hung from the nearest tree if I had my way, but I can do absolutely nothing." "Nothing?" "No, I can do nothing, except what I have been doing, so far in vain, it seems, to try to tire him out. I traded too much on his impatience, it seemed. I did not think he would have held out so long." "You mean you will have to keep that poor little thing shut up the way you have been doing?" "I see no other way. God knows I have tried to think of another, day and night." "I don't see why you or I could not take her out sometimes when we visit patients anyway," said James in a bewildered fashion. "You don't understand," replied Doctor Gordon irritably. "The main point is: the girl must not be even seen by that man. That is the trouble. Driving, she might be perfectly safe; in fact, in one way she is safe anyhow. She is not in any danger of bodily harm, as you may think, but I don't want her seen." "Why not let me take her out sometimes of an evening then?" said James, more and more mystified. "If she wore a veil, and went out driving in the evening, I can't see how anybody could get a glimpse of her." "You don't understand that we have to deal with a very devil incarnate," said Doctor Gordon wearily. "He will be on the watch for just that very manoeuvre. However, perhaps we may be able to manage that; I will see." "She will be ill if she remains in the house so closely," said James, "especially a girl like her, who has been accustomed to lead such an outdoor life. In fact, I don't think she does look very well now. It is telling on her." "Yes, I think it is," agreed Doctor Gordon gloomily, "but again, I say, I see no other way out of it. However, perhaps you or I can take her out sometimes of an evening. I suppose it had better be you, on some accounts. I will see. Well, I will take off my coat and get something to eat. I suppose Clara and Clemency have gone to bed." "They went hours ago," replied James. It was, in fact, two in the morning. James followed the doctor, haggard and weary, into the kitchen, where, according to custom at such times, some dinner had been left to keep warm on the range. "I'll sit down here," said Doctor Gordon. "It is warmer than in the dining-room, and I am chilled through. If you don't mind, Elliot, I wish you would get me a bottle of apple-jack from the dining-room. I must have something to hearten me up, or I shall go by the board, and I don't know what will become of her--of them." James sat and waited while the doctor ate and drank. When he had finished he looked a little less haggard. He stretched himself before the warm glow from the range and laughed. "Now I feel my fighting blood is up again," he said. "After all, if there is anything in the Good Book, the wicked shall not always triumph, and I may win out. I shall do my best anyhow. But I confess you took the wind out of me with what you told me when I came in. I am glad Clara does not know. Poor little Clemency having to pave her way with lies, but it would kill Clara. Oh, God, it does seem as if I had enough before. Take my advice, young man, and try to think more of yourself than anybody else in the world. Don't let your heart go out to anybody. Just as sure as you do, the door of the worst torture-chamber in creation swings open. The minute you become vulnerable through love, you haven't a strong place in your whole armor." "What a doctrine!" observed James. "I know it, but I have taken a fancy to you, boy; and hang it if I want you to suffer as I have to." "But a man would not be a man at all if he did not think enough of somebody to suffer," said James, and now he was thinking of poor little Clemency, and how she had nestled up to him for protection. "Maybe," said Doctor Gordon gloomily, "but sometimes I wonder whether it pays in the long run to be what you call a man. Sometimes I wish that I were a rock or a tree. I do to-night." "You will feel better after you have had a little sleep," James said, as the two men rose. Suddenly one of Doctor Gordon's inexplicable changes of mood came over him. He laughed. "If it were not so late we would go down to Georgie K.'s," said he. "I never felt more awake. Well, I guess it's too late. You must be dead tired yourself. I have not thanked you at all for your rescue of the girl. She would have been down with a serious illness if you had not gone, for she would have lain in that place being snowed over until somebody came." "She was mighty clever to do what she did," said James. "Yes, she is clever," returned Doctor Gordon. "She is a good girl, and it stings me to the very heart that she has to suffer such persecution. Well, 'all's well that ends well.' Did it ever occur to you that God made up to mankind for the horrors of creation, by stating that there would be an end to it some day? Good God, if this terrible world had to roll on to all eternity!" Doctor Gordon laughed again his unnatural laugh. "Fancy if you were awakened to-night by the last trump," he said. "How small everything would seem. Hang it, though, if I wouldn't try to have a hand at that man's finish before the angel of the Lord got his flaming sword at work." James looked at him with terror. "Don't mind me, boy," said Gordon. "I don't mean to blaspheme; but Job is not in it with me just now. You cannot imagine what I had to contend with before this melodramatic villain appeared on the stage. Sometimes I think this is the finish," Gordon's mouth contracted. He looked savage. James continued to stare at him. Gordon laid his hand on James's shoulder. "Thank the Lord for one thing," he said almost tenderly, "that he sent you here. Between us we will take care of poor little Clemency anyhow. Now go to bed, and go to sleep." James obeyed as to the one, but he could not as to the other. He became, as the hours wore on, so nervous that he was half-inclined to take a sleeping powder. The room seemed full of flashes of lightning. He heard sounds which made him cold with horror. He was highly strung nervously, and was really in a state bordering upon hysteria. The mystery which surrounded him was the main cause. He was never himself before an unknown quantity. He had too much imagination. He made all sorts of surmises as to the stranger who was haunting Clemency. Starting with two known quantities, he might have accomplished something, but here he had only one: Clemency herself. He had a good head for algebra, but a man cannot work out a problem easily with only one known quantity. He began to wonder if the poor girl herself were sleeping. He realized a sort of protective tenderness for her, and indignation on her behalf. It did not occur to him as being love. Still the image of her wonderful mother dominated him. But his mind dwelt upon the girl. He thought of a piazza whose roof opened as he knew upon Clemency's room. He wondered if a man like that would stick at anything. Then he recalled what Doctor Gordon had said about Clemency's not being in any bodily danger, and again he speculated. The room began to grow pale with the late winter dawn. Familiar objects began to gain clearness of outline. There were two windows in James's room. They gave upon the piazza. Suddenly James made a leap from his bed. He sprang to one of the windows. Flattened against it was the face of the man. But the face was so destitute of consciousness of him, that James doubted if he saw rightly. The wide eyes seemed to gaze upon him without seeing him, the mouth smiled as if at something within. The next moment James was sure that the face was not there. He drew on his trousers, thrust his feet into his shoes, and was out of his room and the house, and on the piazza. It was still snowing, but the dawn was overcoming the storm. The whole world was lit with dead white pallor like the face of a corpse. James rushed the length of the piazza. He looked at the walk leading to it. He thought he could distinguish footprints. He looked on the piazza, but the wind, being on the other side of the house, there was not enough snow there to make footprints visible. The snow on the walk was drifted. He looked at it closely, and made sure of deep marks. He stood for a moment undecided what to do. He disliked to arouse Doctor Gordon. He was afraid of awakening Mrs. Ewing, if he ventured into the upper part of the house. Then he thought of the man Aaron who slept in a room over the stable. He reëntered the house, locked the front door, went softly into the doctor's study, and out of the door which was near the stable. Then he made a hard snowball, and threw it at Aaron's window. The window opened directly, and Aaron's head appeared. James could see, even in the dim light, and presumably just awakened from sleep, the rotary motion of his jaws. He was probably not chewing anything, simply moving his mouth from force of habit. "Hullo!" said Aaron, "that you Doctor Gordon?" "No, it is I," replied James. "Put on something as quick as you can, and come down here. Something is wrong." Aaron's head disappeared. In an incredibly short space of time the stable door was unlocked and slid cautiously back, and Aaron stood there, huddled into his clothes. "What's up?" he asked. "I don't know. Have you got a lantern in the stable?" "Yep." "Light it quick, then, and come along with me." Aaron obeyed. "Anybody sick," he asked, coming alongside with the flashing lantern. He threw a cloth over it so as to prevent the rays shining into the house windows. "I don't want to frighten her," he said, and James knew that he meant Mrs. Ewing. "She's awful nervous," said Aaron. Then he said again, "What's up?" "I saw a man's face looking into one of my windows," replied James. Aaron gave a low whistle. "Somebody wanted the doc?" he inquired. "No," replied James shortly, "it was not." "Must have been." "No, it was not." "Must have been," repeated Aaron, chewing. "I tell you it was not. I knew--" James stopped. He suddenly wondered how much he ought to tell the man, how much Doctor Gordon had told him. Aaron chewed imperturbably, but a sly look came into his face. "I have eyes, and they see, and ears, and they hear," he said, after an odd Scriptural fashion, "but don't you tell me nothin', Doctor Elliot. Either I take what I get from the fountain-head, or I makes my own conclusions that I can't help. Don't you tell me nothin'. S'pose we look an' see ef there's footprints that show anythin'." Aaron flashed the lantern, all the time carefully shading it from the house windows, over the walk which led to the front door and the piazza. James followed him. "Well," said Aaron, "there's been somebody here, but, with snow like this, it might have been a monkey or a rhinoceros or an alligator. You can't make nothin' of them tracks. But they do go out to the road, and turn toward Stanbridge." "Suppose we--" began James. He was about to suggest following the prints, when he remembered Doctor Gordon's injunction to the contrary. However, Aaron anticipated him. "Might as well leave the devil alone," said he. "It might have been the old one himself, for all we can tell by them tracks. You had better go back to bed, Doctor Elliot. You ain't got much on. It ain't near breakfast time yet. Better go back to bed." And James thought such a course the wiser one himself. He went back to bed, but not to sleep. He kept his eyes fixed upon the windows. He was prepared at any instant, should the man reappear, to spring out. He felt almost murderous. "It has come to a pretty pass," he thought, "if that scoundrel, whoever he may be, is lurking around the house at night." The daylight came slowly on account of the storm. When it did come, it was an opaque white daylight. James began to smell coffee and frying ham. He rose and dressed himself, and looked out of the window. It was like looking into a blurred mirror. He began to wonder if he could have been mistaken, if possibly that face had been simply a vision which had come from his overwrought brain. He wondered if he should tell Doctor Gordon, if it might not disturb him unnecessarily. He wondered if he should have enforced secrecy upon Aaron. He was still undecided when the Japanese gong sounded, and he went out to breakfast. Clemency was looking worn and ill. Somehow the sight of her piteous little face decided James. He thought how easily an athletic man could climb up one of those piazza posts, which was, moreover, encircled by a strong old vine which might almost serve as ladder. He made up his mind to tell Doctor Gordon, and he did tell him when they were out upon their rounds, tilting and sliding along the drifted country roads in an old sleigh. "I don't think I can be mistaken," he said when he had finished. Doctor Gordon looked at him intently. "You are sure," he said. "You are a nervous subject for a man, and you had not slept, and you had this man very much on your mind, and there must have been some snow on the window which could produce an illusion. Be very sure, because this is serious." James thought again of Clemency's little white face. "Yes," he said, "I am sure." "You have no doubt at all?" "None. The man had his face staring into the room. He did not seem to see me, but looked past me at the bed." "He might easily have thought that room, being on the ground floor and accessible to night-calls, was mine," said Doctor Gordon, as if to himself. "I thought how easily he could have climbed up one of the piazza posts to her room," said James. The Doctor started. "Yes, that is so," he said. "He might have had two motives. That is so." The next call was at a patient's who had a slight attack of grippe. Doctor Gordon left James there, saying that he would make another call and be back for him directly. James noticed how he urged the horses out of the drive at almost a run. He was back soon, and James having made up his prescription, went out and got into the sleigh. Doctor Gordon looked at him gloomily. "He is no longer where he has been staying," he said, and his face settled into a stern melancholy. That evening, although the storm continued, he suggested a visit to Georgie K.'s; and at supper time he insisted upon Clemency's occupying another room that night. "The wind is on your side of the house," he said, "and I am afraid you will take more cold." Clemency stared and pouted, then said, "All right, Uncle Tom!" CHAPTER VI Even the apple-jack and euchre at Georgie K.'s were not sufficient to entirely establish Doctor Gordon in his devil-may-care mood. Georgie K. kept looking at him with solicitation, which had something tender about it. "Don't you feel well, Doc?" he asked. "Never felt better in my life," returned Gordon quickly. "To-night I am feeling particularly good, because I really think I have evolved an utterly new theory of death and disease which ought to make me famous, if I ever get a chance to write a book about it." Georgie K. stared at him inquiringly. "I don't know that you will understand, old man," said Gordon, "but here it is. It is simple in one way. Nobody will deny that we come of the earth; well, we are sick and die of the earth. We grow old and weary and drop into our graves, because of the tremendous, though unconscious and involuntary, wear upon nerves and muscles and emotion which is required to keep us here at all. Gravitation kills us all in the end, just as surely as if we fell off a precipice. Gravitation is the destroyer, and gravitation is earth-force. The same monster which produces us devours us. That's so. I hope I shall get a chance to write that book. Clubs are trumps; pass." "Sure you are well, Doc?" inquired Georgie K., again scowling anxiously. "Never felt better, didn't I just say so? You are a regular old hen, Georgie K. You cluck at a fellow like a setting hen at one chicken." Still Doctor Gordon's gloomy face, although he tried to be jocular, did not relax. Going home late that night, or rather early next morning, he laid his hand heavily on James's shoulder. "Boy, I am about at the finish!" he groaned out. "Now, see here, Doctor Gordon, can't I be of some assistance if you were to tell me?" asked James. He passed his hand under the older man's arm, and helped him through a snowdrift as if he had been his father. A great compassion filled his heart. But Gordon only groaned out a great sigh. "No," he said. "Secrecy is the one shield I have. I don't say weapon, but shield. In these latter days we try to content ourselves with shields; and secrecy is the strongest shield on earth. If I were going to commit a crime, I should never even intimate the slightest motive for it to any man living. I should trust no man living to help me through with it." James felt a vague horror steal over him. He tried to speak lightly to cover it. "I trust there is no question of crime?" he said, laughing. "Not the slightest," replied Gordon. "I have no intention to use a weapon, but my shield I must stick to. Thank the Lord, you were awake last night, and to-night Clemency is in another room. By the way, I have bought a dog." "A dog?" "Yes, a bull terrier, well trained, but he has a voice like a whole pack of hounds. Clemency likes dogs. I will venture that no one comes near the house after this without waking him up." "You will keep him tied though." "Yes, unless I get driven too far," replied Gordon grimly. "Does Mrs. Ewing like dogs?" "She is as fond of them as Clemency." When, the next day, the dog arrived James was assured of the fact that both Clemency and Mrs. Ewing did like dogs. They seemed more pleased than he had ever seen them, and the dog responded readily to their advances. He was a splendid specimen of his breed, very large, without a spot on his white coat, and with beautiful eyes. Doctor Gordon had a staple fixed in the vestibule, and the dog was leashed to it at night. "I can't have my patients driven away," he said with a laugh. That evening Doctor Gordon had a call, and he took Aaron with him. That left James alone with Clemency, as Mrs. Ewing retired almost immediately after Doctor Gordon left. After the jingle of the sleigh-bells had died away Clemency laid down her work and looked at James. The new dog was lying at her feet. "Uncle Tom bought this dog on account of him," she said. As she spoke, she gave an odd significant gesture over her shoulder as if the man were there, and a look of horror came over her face. Immediately the dog growled, and sprang up, raced to the door, and let forth a volley of howls and barks. "He knows," said Clemency. "Isn't it queer? That dog knows there is something wrong just by the way I spoke and looked." James himself was not quite so sure. He glanced at the closed shutters. Then he went himself to the door to be sure that it was bolted as usual, and through into the study. Everything was fast, but the dog continued to race wildly back and forth from door to windows, barking wildly, with a slender crest of hair erect on his glossy white back. Emma, the maid, came in from the kitchen, and met James and Clemency in the hall. She looked white, and was trembling. "I know there was somebody about the house," she said. James hesitated. He thought of a possible patient. Still there had been no ring at the office door. He considered a moment. Then he sent Clemency, the maid, and the dog back into the parlor, and before he opened the outer door of the office he locked the other which communicated with the rest of the house, and put the key in his pocket. Then he threw open the outer door and called, "Anybody there?" Utter silence answered him. He looked into a black wall of night. It was not snowing, but the clouds were low and thick, and no stars were visible. He called again in a shout, "Hullo there! Who is it?" and obtained no response. Then he closed the door, fastened it, and returned to the living-room. "I guess you were right," he said to Clemency. "Yes, I think so," said Clemency. She spoke to Emma. "Jack acted so because of something I said to Doctor Elliot," she added. "He thought something was wrong. He is very intelligent." The dog was again lying at her feet. But Emma shook her head obstinately. She was the middle-aged daughter of a New Jersey farmer, and had lived with the family ever since they had resided in Alton. She had a harsh face, although rather good-looking, "I have been used to dogs all my life," said she, "and I never knowed a dog to act like that unless there was somebody about the house." "Well, I have done all I could," said James. "I called out the office door, and nobody answered. It could not have been a patient." "There was somebody about the house," repeated Emma. "Well, I must go and mix up the bread." When she was gone, Clemency looked palely at James. "Oh," she said, "do you think it could have been that man?" "No," replied James firmly; "it must have been your gesture. That is a very intelligent dog, and dogs have imagination. He imagined something wrong." "I hope it was that," said Clemency faintly. "It seems to me I should die if I thought that terrible man were hanging about the house. It is bad enough never to be able to go out of doors." "Doctor Gordon says I may take you out driving some evening," said James consolingly. Clemency looked at him with a brightening face. "Did he?" "Yes." Then to James's utter surprise Clemency broke down, and began to cry. "Oh," she wailed, "I don't know as I want to go. I am afraid all the time. If we were out driving, and he came up to the horse's head, what could we do?" "He would get a cut across the face that he would remember," James returned fiercely. "But he would see me." "It would be dark." "He might have a lantern." "You can wear a thick veil." Clemency sobbed harder than ever. "Oh, no," she wailed, "I don't want to go so, in the dark, with a thick veil over my face, thinking every minute he may come. Oh, no, I don't want to go." "You poor little soul," said James, and there was something in his voice which he himself had never heard before. Clemency glanced up at him quickly, and he saw as plainly as if he had been looking in a glass himself in her blue eyes. Instantly emotions of which he had dreamed, but never experienced, leaped up in his heart like flame. He knew that he loved Clemency. What he had felt for her mother had been passionless worship, giving all, and asking nothing. This was love which asked as well as gave. "Clemency," he began, and his voice was hoarse with emotion. She turned her head away, the tears were still on her cheeks, but they were very red, and her cheeks were dimpling involuntarily. "Well?" she whispered. "Do you care anything about--me?" Clemency nodded, still keeping her face averted. "That means--" Clemency said nothing. "That means you love me," James whispered. Clemency nodded again. Then she turned her head slowly, and gave him a narrow blue glance, and smiled like a shy child. "I was afraid--" she began. "Afraid of what, dear?" James put his arm about the girl, and the ashe-blonde head dropped on his shoulder. "Afraid you--didn't." "Afraid I didn't care?" Clemency nodded against his breast. "I think I must have cared all the time, only at first, when I saw your mother--" Clemency raised her head immediately and gave it an indignant toss. "There," said she. "I knew it. Very well, if you would rather be my stepfather, you can, only I think you would be a pretty one, no older, to speak of, than I am, and I know my mother wouldn't have you anyway. The idea of your thinking that my mother would get married again anyway, and especially to you," Clemency said witheringly. She sat up straight and looked at James. "I wish your father were a widower, then I would marry him the minute he asked me," said she, "and see how you would like it. I guess you would have a step-mother who would make you walk chalk." Clemency tossed her head again. Then she gave a queer little whimsical glance at James, and both of them burst out laughing, and she was in his arms again, and he was kissing her. "There, that is enough," said she presently. "I once wore out a doll I had kissing her. She was wax, and it was warm weather, and I actually did wear that doll out. The color all came off her cheeks, and she got soft." "You are not a doll, darling," said James fervently, and he would have kissed her again, but she pushed him away. "No," said she, "I know the color won't come off my cheeks, but I might get soft like that doll. One can never tell. You must stop now. I want to talk to you. It is all right about my mother." "It was only because I never saw such a woman in all my life before," said James. "I never thought of marrying." "You would have had to take it out in thinking," said Clemency, "but it is all right. I think myself that my mother is the most wonderful woman that ever lived. I think the old Greek goddesses must have looked just like her. I don't wonder you felt so about her. I don't know as I should have thought much of you if you hadn't. Why, everybody falls down and worships her. Of course I know that I am nothing compared to her. I should be angry if you really thought so." "I don't think so in one way," James said honestly. "I don't think you are as beautiful as your mother, but I love you, Clemency." "Well, that will do for me," said Clemency. "No, you need not kiss me again. I think myself I shall make you a better wife than a stepdaughter. You need not think for one minute that I would have minded you as I do Uncle Tom." "But you will have to when we are married," said James. Clemency blushed and quivered. "Well, maybe I will," she whispered. "I suppose I shall be just enough of a fool to stay in the house, if you order me, the way I do when Uncle Tom does." "You shall stay in the house for no man alive when I have you in charge," said James. "Clemency--" "What?" "I will take you out now, if you say so. I can protect you." "I know you can," Clemency said, "but I guess we had better not. You see Uncle Tom doesn't know yet, and he will be coming home, and--" "I am going to tell him just as soon as he does," declared James. "I wonder if you had better not wait," Clemency said thoughtfully. "Wait? Why?" "Nothing, only poor Uncle Tom is frightfully worried about something now. He worries about that dreadful man, and I am afraid he worries about mother. I don't know exactly what he worries about; but I don't want him worried about anything else." "I can't see for the life of me why he should worry about this," said James with a piqued air. He was, in fact, considering quite naïvely that he was not a bad match, taking into consideration his prospects, and Clemency evidently needed all the protection she could get. Clemency understood directly what his tone implied. "Oh, goodness," said she, "of course, as far as you are concerned, Uncle Tom will be pleased. Why shouldn't he? and so will mother. Here you are young and handsome, and well educated, and good, what more could anybody want for a girl, unless they were on the lookout for a ducal coronet or something of that sort? It isn't that, only there is something queer, there must be something queer, about that man, and I don't know how much this might complicate it. I don't know but Uncle Tom might have more occasion to worry." "I don't see why," said James mystified, "but I'll wait a few days if you say so, only I hate to have anything underhanded, you know. How about your mother?" "Please wait and tell her when you tell Uncle Tom," pleaded Clemency. All the time she was completely deceiving the young man. What she was really afraid of was that James himself might run into danger from this mysterious persecutor of hers if the fact of her betrothal became known. "I shall not mind staying in the house at all now," she added. An expression came over her face which James did not understand, which no man would have understood. Clemency was wonderfully skilled at needle-work, and she had plenty of material in the house. She was reflecting innocently how she could begin at once upon some dainty little frills for her trousseau. A delight, purely feminine, filled her fair little face. "All the same," said James, "I am going to take you out before long. You must have some fresh air." "I don't mind," said Clemency, then she broke off suddenly. She ran to the farther end of the room, sat down, and snatched a book from the table and opened it in the middle, "It is Uncle Tom," she remarked. James laughed, crossed the room swiftly, kissed her, then went into the office to greet Doctor Gordon. Doctor Gordon stood by the office fire taking off his overcoat. He looked gloomier than usual. "Who is in there?" he asked, pointing to the living-room wall. "Your niece," answered James. He felt himself color, but the other man did not notice it. "Mrs. Ewing has gone to bed?" "Yes, went directly after you left." Doctor Gordon's face grew darker. He had tossed his coat over a chair, and stood staring absently at the table with its prismatic lights. "I know where he is," he said presently in a whisper. "You mean?" "Yes," said Doctor Gordon impatiently. "You know whom I mean. I saw him go in--well, no matter where." "I suspect that he has been hanging about here," said James. "What makes you think so?" "The dog barked and acted queer." "Dogs always did hate him," said Doctor Gordon, with a queer expression. Then he gave himself a shake. Here he said: "Let's have something hot and a smoke." He called to Emma to bring some hot water and sugar and lemons and glasses. Then he produced a bottle from a cabinet in the office, and himself brewed a sort of punch, the like of which James had never tasted before. "That's my own recipe," said Doctor Gordon, laughing. "Nobody knows what it is, not even Georgie K. But--" he hesitated a little, then he added laughing, "I have left it in my will for Georgie K. I made my will some little time ago." James felt it incumbent upon himself to say something about Doctor Gordon being still a young man comparatively, and healthy. To his sanguine young mind a will seemed ominous. "Well, I have not reached the allotted span," Gordon replied, "but healthier men than I have come to their end sooner than they expected, and I wanted to make sure of some things. I wanted especially to make sure that Clemency--Mrs. Ewing has relatives in the West, and--" James felt somewhat bewildered. He could not quite see what Gordon meant, but he took another sip of the golden, fragrant compound before him, and again remarked upon its excellence. "That makes me think," said Gordon, evidently glad himself to turn the conversation. "A sip of this will do poor little Clemency good. You say she is in the parlor." "Yes." Gordon opened the door and called Clemency, who came with a little reluctance. The girl was afraid of her uncle's eyes. She sidled into the office like a child who had done something wrong. She took her little glass of punch, and never looked at James or her uncle. James, too, did not look at her. He smoked, and almost turned his back upon her. Doctor Gordon looked from one to the other, and his face changed. Clemency slipped out as soon as she could, saying that she was tired. Then Gordon turned abruptly upon James. "There is something between you two, Clemency and you," he said in a brusque voice. James colored and hesitated. "Out with it," said Gordon peremptorily. "Clemency wished--" began James. "Wished you to keep it secret, of course. Well, she told me herself, poor little soul, the moment she came into the room." James sat still. He did not know what to do. Finally he said in a stammering voice that he hoped there would be no objection. "No objection certainly on my part or Mrs. Ewing, if Clemency has taken a fancy to you," replied Doctor Gordon. "But--" he hesitated a moment. "It is only fair to tell you that you yourself may later on entertain some very reasonable objection," Gordon said grimly. "It is impossible," James cried eagerly. "I have known her only a few weeks, but I feel as if it were a lifetime. Nothing can change me. And as for money, if you mean anything of that kind, I don't care if she hasn't a cent. I have my profession, and my father is well-to-do. Then, besides, I have a little that an aunt, my mother's sister, left me. I can support Clemency." "It is not that," Gordon said. "Clemency has--at least I think I can secure it to her--a little fortune of her own, and she will have something besides. I was not thinking of money at all." "Then there can be nothing," James said positively. His sense of embarrassment had passed. He beamed at the older man. "There can be something else. There is something else," Gordon said gloomily. "I don't know but I ought to tell you, but, the truth is, you know my theory with regard to secrecy. I don't doubt but you can hold your tongue, yet the whole affair is so dangerous, that I dare not, I cannot, tell you yet. I can only say this, that there does exist some obstacle to your marriage with my niece, and your engagement must be regarded by myself in a tentative light. If the time ever comes when you know all, and wish to withdraw, you can do so in my opinion with perfect honor. In the meantime you had better say nothing to any one outside. You had better not even tell Mrs. Ewing. I hope Clemency herself will not. Perhaps when she has had a few hours in which to collect herself, her face will not be quite so tell-tale." "Nothing whatever can change me," said James, with almost anger. Gordon shook his head. "I begin to think I may have done you a wrong having you come here at all," he said. "I suppose I ought to have thought of the possibility, but I have had so much on my mind." "You have done me the greatest good I ever had done me in my whole life," James said fervently. Gordon rose and shook the young man's hand. "As far as Clemency and I and Mrs. Ewing are concerned," he said, "nothing could have been better. Well, we will hope for the best, my boy." He clapped James on the shoulder and smiled, and James went to his room feeling dizzy with happiness and mystery, and a trifle so with the doctor's punch. CHAPTER VII The next morning James was awakened by loud voices coming from the vicinity of the stable. He had not slept very well, and now at dawn felt drowsy, but the voices would not let him sleep. He rose, dressed, and went out in the stable-yard. There he found Doctor Gordon, Aaron, and a strange man, small, and red-haired, and thin-faced, with shifty eyes, holding by the bridle a fine black horse. "Don't want to buy a horse with a bridle on," Doctor Gordon was saying as James appeared. "Do you think I'm the man to bear insults?" inquired the little red-haired man with fierceness. "Insult nothing. It is business," said Gordon. "That's so," Aaron said, chewing and eyeing the black horse and the red-haired man thoughtfully. "Well," said the little red-haired man with an air at once of injured innocence and ferocity, "if you want to know why I object to selling this horse without a bridle, come here, and I'll show you." Gordon and Aaron and James approached. The red-haired man slipped the bridle, and underneath it appeared a small sore. "There, that's the reason, and I'll tell you the truth," said the man defiantly. "Here I am trying to sell this darned critter; paid a cool hundred for him, and everybody says jest as you do, won't buy him with the bridle on. Then I takes off the bridle, and they sees this little bile, and there's an end to it. I suppose it's the same with you. Well, good day, gentlemen. You're losin' a darned good trade, but it ain't my fault. Here's an animal I paid a cool hundred for, and I'm offering him for ninety. I'm ten dollars out, besides my time." "Let me see that sore again," said Gordon. He slipped the bridle and examined the place carefully. Then he looked hard at the horse, which stood with great docility, although he held his head proudly. He was a fine beast, glossy black in color, and had a magnificent tail. "Make it eighty-five," said Gordon. "Couldn't think of it." "I don't know as I want the horse anyway," said Gordon. "I'll call it eighty-seven and a half," said the little red-haired man. Gordon stood still for a moment. Then he pulled out his wallet. "Eighty-six and call it square," he said. "All right," said the red-haired man. "It's a-givin' of him away, but I'm so darned tired of trampin' the country with him, that I'll call it eighty-six, and it's the biggest bargain you ever got in your life in the way of horse flesh. I wouldn't let him go at that figure, but my wife's sick, and I want to get home." The red-haired man carefully counted over the roll of bank-notes which Doctor Gordon gave him, although it seemed to James that he used some haste. He also thought that he was evidently anxious to be gone. He refused Gordon's offer of breakfast, saying that he had already had some at the hotel. Then he was gone, walking with uncommon speed for such a small man. Aaron, James, and Doctor Gordon stood contemplating the new purchase. James patted him. "He looks like a fine animal," he remarked. Aaron shifted his quid, and said with emphasis, "Want me to hitch up and bring that little red-haired cuss back?" "Why, what for?" asked Doctor Gordon. "I guess I have made a good trade, Aaron." "You mark my words, there's somethin' out," said Aaron dogmatically. "I guess you're wrong this time," said Doctor Gordon, laughing. "Come, Elliot, it is time for breakfast, and we have to drive to Wardville afterward for that fever case." James followed Gordon into the dining-room. Clemency said good morning almost rudely, then she hid her face behind the coffee-urn. Gordon glanced at her and smiled tenderly, but the girl did not see it. James never looked her way at all. She turned the coffee with apparent concentration. She did not dare look at either of the two men. She had never felt so disturbedly happy and so shy. She had not slept all night, she was so agitated with happiness, but this morning she showed no traces of sleeplessness. There was an unwonted color on her little fair face, and her blue eyes were like jewels under her drooping lids. They were nearly through breakfast when the door which led into the kitchen was abruptly thrown open, and Aaron stood there. In his hand he flourished dramatically a great streaming mass of black. "Told you so," he observed with a certain triumph. The others stared at him. "What on earth is that?" asked Gordon. "That new horse's tail; it comes off," replied Aaron with brevity. Then he chewed. "Comes off?" Aaron nodded, still chewing. Gordon rose from the table saying something under his breath. "That ain't all," said Aaron, still with an air of sly triumph. "What else, for Heaven's sake?" cried Gordon. "Well, he cribs," replied Aaron laconically. Then he chewed. "That was why he didn't want to take the bridle off?" Aaron nodded. Gordon stood staring for a second, then he burst into a peal of laughter. "Bless me if I ever got so regularly done," said he. "Say, Aaron, that was a smart chap. He has talent, he has." "Aren't you going to try to find him?" asked James. "Well, we'll keep a lookout on the way to Wardville," said Gordon; "and, Aaron, you may as well put the chestnut in the old buggy and drive Stanbridge way, and see if you can get sight of him." "He's had a half-hour's start," said Aaron. "You might track a fox, but you can't him." "I guess you are about right," said Gordon, "but we'll do all we can. However, I think I'll try to get even with Sam Tucker. It's a good chance. I'll drive the new horse to Wardville. Aaron, you just tie that tail on again, and fasten it up so as to keep it out of the mud." Aaron grinned. "Goin' to get even for that white horse?" "I'm going to try it." Gordon was all interest. James regarded him as he had done so many times before with wonder. That such a man should have such powers of assimilation astounded him. He was actually as amused and interested in being done, as he called it, and in trying in his turn to wipe off some old score, as any countryman. He seemed, to the young man, to have little burrows like some desperate animal, into which he could dive, and be completely away from his enemies, and even from himself, when he chose. He hurriedly drank the remainder of his coffee, and was in his office getting his medicine-case ready. James lingered, in the hopes of getting a word and a kiss from Clemency. But the child, the moment her uncle went out, fled. It was odd. She wanted to stay and have a minute with James alone more than she had ever wanted anything, but it was for just that very reason that she ran away. James felt hurt. At that time, the mind of a girl, and its shy workings, were entirely beyond his comprehension. He saw no earthly reason why Clemency should have avoided him. He followed Gordon with rather a downcast face into the office, and begun assisting him with his medicines. Gordon himself was too full of interest in the horse trade to remark anything. At times he chuckled to himself. Now and then he would burst out anew in a great peal of laughter. "Hang it all! I don't like to be done any better than any other man, but that little red-haired scamp was clever and no mistake," he said, "showing me that little sore. I believe he had sandpapered the poor beast on purpose. He took me in as neatly as I ever saw anything done in my life. Well, Elliot, you wait and see me get even with Sam Tucker. I have been waiting my chance. About two years ago he worked me, and not half as cleverly as this either. He made me feel that I was a fool. The red-haired one needed the devil himself to get round him, and see through his little game. Sam Tucker sold me, or rather traded with me a veritable fiend of a horse for an old mare. The mare was old, but she had a lot of go in her, and was sound, and the other, well, Sam had bought him for a song, because nobody would drive him, and he had killed two men. He was a white horse with as wicked an eye as you ever saw, and ears always cocked for mischief, like the arch fiend's horns. Well, Sam, he made some kind of a dye, and he actually dyed that animal a beautiful chestnut, and traded him for my old mare. I even paid a little to boot. Well, next morning I sent Aaron down to the store in a soaking rain, and the horse bolted at a white rock beside the road, and the buggy was knocked into kindling wood. Aaron wasn't hurt. He always comes out right side up. But when he came leading that snorting, dancing beast home, the chestnut dye was pretty well off, and I knew him in a minute. Well, he was shot, and I was my old mare and some money out. I wasn't going to have men's lives on my conscience. But this is another matter. Now I've got my chance to get even, and I'm going to get my old mare back." Presently the two men were out on the road driving the black horse. He went well enough, and seemed afraid of nothing. "There's not much the matter with this animal except the tail and the cribbing, I guess," said the doctor. "As for the tail, that is simply a question of ornament and taste. The cribbing is more serious, of course, but I guess Sam Tucker won't be in any danger of his life." They had not gone far before the doctor drew up before a farmhouse on the left. A man with a serious face, thin and wiry, was coming around the house with a wheelbarrowful of potatoes. "Hullo, Sam!" called Doctor Gordon. The man left his barrow and came alongside. James could see that he had a keen eye upon the horse. "Fine morning," said the doctor. Sam Tucker gave a grunt by way of assent. He was niggardly with speech. "Have you got any more of those Baldwin apples to sell?" asked Doctor Gordon, to James's intense surprise. Sam Tucker looked reflectively at the doctor for a full minute, then gave utterance to a monosyllable. "Bar'l." "So you've got a barrel to sell," said Gordon. Sam nodded. "Well, I'll send my man over for them. They are mighty fine apples, and Emma said yesterday that we were about out. I suppose they are the same price." Sam nodded. "Seems as if you might take off a little, it is so late, and you might have them spoiling on your hands," said Gordon, and James began to wonder if they had come to drive a sharp bargain on apples instead of horses. Sam shook his head emphatically. "Same," he said. "Well, I suppose I've got to pay it if you ask it," said Gordon. "I can't buy any such apples elsewhere. You've got it your way. I'll send the money over by Aaron." Doctor Gordon gathered up the reins, but Sam Tucker seemed to experience a sudden convulsion all over his lank body. "Horse," he said. Doctor Gordon drove on a yard, but Sam, running alongside, he stopped. "Yes," he said placidly, "horse. What do you think of him?" Sam said nothing. He looked at the horse. "He's the biggest bargain I ever got," said Gordon. "I am going to hang on to him. Once in a while there is an honest deal in horses. I am not bringing up anything, Sam. I believe in letting bygones be bygones, although you did risk my life and my man's. But this time I am all right." Gordon gathered up the reins again, and again Sam Tucker stopped him. James barely saw the man's mouth move. He could not hear that he said anything, but a peculiar glow of eager greed lit up his long face, and Gordon seemed to understand him perfectly. "You can take your oath not," he said brusquely. "What do you take me for? You have stuck me once, and now you think you are going to do it again. You can bet your life you are not." Again he gathered up the reins. Sam Tucker's face gleamed like a coal. James saw for the first time in its entirety the trading instinct rampant. Again Gordon seemed to understand what had apparently not been spoken. "No, Sam Tucker," he declared almost brutally, "I will not trade back for that old mare you cheated me out of, not if you were to give me your whole farm to boot. I know that old mare. I wasn't the only one that got stuck. She's got the heaves. I know her. No, sir, you don't do me again. I've got a good horse this time, and I mean to hang on to him." Again Gordon attempted to drive on, and once more Sam stopped him. James felt at last fairly dizzy, when he heard the farmer almost beg Gordon to trade horses, offer him twenty-five dollars to boot, and the apples. He sat in the buggy watching while the mare was led out of the stable, the black horse was taken out of the traces, and the bridle was left on without a remonstrance on Sam's part, and exchanged for a much newer one, while twenty-five dollars in dirty bank-notes were carefully counted out by Sam, and then Gordon jumped into the buggy and drove off. He was quivering with suppressed mirth. "The biter is bitten this time," he said as soon as he was out of hearing of Sam Tucker. Then he made an exclamation of dismay. "What's the matter?" asked James. "Well, I have left my whip. I must risk it and go back. I paid a lot for that whip." Gordon turned and drove back at a sharp trot. When they came alongside the farm fence James saw the whip lying on the ground, and jumped out to get it. He was back in the buggy, and they were just proceeding on their way, when there was a shout, and Sam Tucker came rushing around the house, and held the horse's tail as Aaron had done in the morning. "Comes off," he gasped. "Of course," said the doctor coolly. "I didn't say it didn't. It's for convenience in muddy weather." "Cribs," gasped Sam Tucker. "Yes, a little," said Gordon. "Keep him away from hitching-posts. You didn't say you wanted a horse to hitch. He never cribs when he's driven. Good-day, Sam." Gordon and James were off again. Gordon was doubled up with merriment, in which James joined. "I'm glad to get behind old Fanny once more," said Gordon. "She's worth two of that other animal! Clemency will be glad to see her again. She felt badly when I traded her. In fact, I wouldn't have done it if I had known how much the child cared for the mare. She used to drive her a lot and pet her. I think it will be perfectly safe for you to take Clemency out driving when there isn't a moon. Fanny is pretty fast when she is touched with the whip, and, though she's gentle, she hasn't much use for strangers. I don't think she would stand a stranger at her head. I think you may go out to-night, if you like. Poor Clemency needs the air. We'll use the team this afternoon, and Fanny will be fresh by evening." James colored. He remembered how Clemency had avoided him that morning. "Perchance she won't care to go," he said. "Of course, she will," said Gordon. "She will go, and I want her to, but you must always bear in mind what I told you last night, and--" he hesitated. "Don't do your utmost to make the poor little thing think you are the moon and sun and stars in case you should change your mind," he finished. "I shall never change my mind," James said hotly. "You will be justified if you do," Gordon said gravely. "Perhaps you will not. But you are old enough, and ought to have self-command enough to keep your head, and shield the poor child against possible contingencies. You have not known each other very long. It is not possible that she would die of it now, nor you. If you can only keep your head, and meander along the path of love instead of plunging into bottomless depths, it will be better for both of you. I know what I am talking about. I am old enough to be your father. Go slow, for God's sake, if you care about the girl." "She is the whole world to me," said James. "Then, go slow! It will be better for her if you are not the whole world to her, until you know what a day may bring forth." "I don't care what a day brings forth." "You are tempting the gods?" said Gordon. "Elliot, you don't know what you are talking about. I am not treating you fairly not to tell you the whole story, but I don't see my way clear. You must bear in mind what I say. I did not think of any such complication when you came here. I was a fool not to. I know what young people are, and Clemency is a darling, and you have your good points. The amount of it is, if I don't get stuck by Sam Tucker in a horse trade, Fate sticks me in something bigger. I don't see the inevitable, I suppose, because I am so close to it that it is like facing the wall of a precipice all the time. We have to stop here. The woman's daughter is coming down with a fever, which will not kill her, and she will have it to brag of all her life. She will date all earthly events from this fever. Whoa, Fanny!" That evening James and Clemency went for a drive. It was a clear night, but dark, save for the stars. Clemency had a thick veil over her face, which seemed entirely unnecessary. Directly as they started, she made a little involuntary nestling motion toward the young man at her side. It was as innocent as the nestling of a baby. James put his arm around her. He thought with indignation of Doctor Gordon's warning, as if anything in the world could cause him to change his mind about this dear child who loved him. "You darling!" he whispered. "So you have not thought better of it." "What do you mean?" Clemency whispered back. "Why, dear, you have fairly run away from me all day long." "I was afraid," Clemency whispered, then she put her head against his shoulder, and laughed a delicious little laugh. "I never was in love before, and I don't know how to act," said she. "Put up your veil," said James. "Why?" "I want a kiss." Clemency put up her veil obediently and kissed him like a child. Then there was a sudden flash of light from a lantern, and a dark form was at the mare's head. But she was true to her master's opinion of her. She gave a savage duck at the man and started violently, so that James was forced to release Clemency and devote his entire attention to driving. Clemency shrank close to him, shivering like one in a chill. "He saw me," she gasped. "It was that same man, and this time he saw me." CHAPTER VIII James and Clemency had hardly started upon their drive before there was a ring at the office door, and Doctor Gordon, who was alone there, answered it. He was confronted by a man who lived half-way between Alton and the next village on the north. He had walked some three miles to get some medicine for his wife, who was suffering from rheumatism. He was pathetically insistent upon the fact that his wife did not require a call from the doctor, only some medicine. "Now, see here, Joe," said Gordon, "if I really thought your wife needed a call, I would go, and it should not cost you a cent more than the medicine, but I am dog tired, and not feeling any too well myself, and if her symptoms are just as you say, I think I can send her something which will fix her up all right." "She is just the way she was last year," said the man. He did not look unlike Gordon, although he was poorly clad, and was a genuine son of the New Jersey soil. His poor clothes, even his skin, had a clayey hue, as if he had been really cast from the mother earth. It was frozen outside, but a reddish crust from the last thaw was on his hulking boots. He spoke with a drawl, which was nasal, and yet had something sweet in it. "I would have came this afternoon, but I was afraid you might have went out," he remarked. "Yes, I was out," replied Gordon, who was filling out a prescription. The man stooped and patted the bull terrier, which had not evinced the slightest emotion at his entrance. "Mighty fine dog," said the man. "Yes, he is a pretty good sort," replied Gordon. "Shouldn't like to meet him if I had came up to your house an' no one round, and he had took a dislike to me." "I should not myself," said Gordon. "But he does not dislike you." "Dogs know me pooty well," said the man. "They ain't no particler likin' for me. Don't want to run and jump an' wag, but they know I mean well, and they mostly let me alone." "Yes, I guess that's so," said Gordon. "Jack would have barked if he had not known you were all right, Joe." "Queer how much they know," said the man reflectively, and a dazed look overspread his dingy face with its cloud of beard. If once he became launched upon a current of reflection, he lost his mental bearings instantly and drifted. "Well, they do know," said Gordon. "Now listen, Joe! You see this bottle. You give your wife a spoonful of the medicine in a glass of water every three hours. Mind, you make it a whole tumbler full of water." "Yes, sir," replied the man. "Of course, you need not wake her up if she gets to sleep," said the doctor, "but every three hours when she is awake." "Yes, sir." The man began fumbling in his pocket, but Gordon stopped him. "No," he said, "put up your pocketbook, Joe. I don't want any money. I get this medicine at wholesale, and it don't cost much." "I come prepared to pay," said the man. He straightened his shoulders and flushed. "Oh, well," said Doctor Gordon, "wait. If you need more medicine, or it seems necessary that I should drive over to see your wife, you can do a little work on my garden in the spring, or you can let me have a bushel of your new potatoes when they are grown next summer, or some apples, and we'll call it square. Wait; I don't want any money for that bottle of medicine to-night anyhow. Did you walk over, Joe?" Joe said that he had walked over. "Aaron might just as well drive you home as not," said Gordon. "The sooner your wife has that medicine the better. How is the baby getting along?" "First-rate. I'd just as soon walk, doctor." For answer Gordon opened the door and called Aaron, and told him to hitch up and take the man home. "Doctor Elliot has gone with the bay," said Aaron. "The teams are about played out, and there's nothin' except the gray." "Take her then." "She looked when I fed her jest now as if she was half a mind to balk at takin' her feed," Aaron remarked doubtfully. "Nonsense! Give her a loose rein, and she'll be all right." Aaron went out grumbling. Gordon offered the man a cigar, which he accepted as if it had been a diamond. "I'll save it up for next Sunday, when I've got a little time to sense it," he said. "I know what your cigars be." Gordon forced another upon him, and the man looked as pleased as a child. Presently a shout was heard, and Gordon opened the office door. "Here's Aaron with the buggy," he said. He stood in the doorway watching, but the gray, instead of balking, went out of the yard with an angry plunge. Gordon shook his head. "Confound him, he's pulling too hard on the lines," he muttered. Then he closed and locked the office door, and went into the living-room to find it deserted. Gordon called up the stairs. "Have you gone to bed, Clara?" His voice was at once tenderly solicitous and angry. Mrs. Ewing answered him from above, and in her tone was something propitiating. "Yes, Tom, dear," she called. Gordon hesitated a moment. His face took on its expression of utmost misery. "Is--the pain very bad?" he called then, and called as if he were in actual fear. "No, dear," the woman's patient, beseeching voice answered, "not very bad." "Not very?" "No, only I felt a little twinge, and thought I had better go to bed. I am quite comfortable now. I think I shall go to sleep. I am sorry to leave you alone all the evening, Tom." "That's right," called Gordon. His voice rang harsh, in spite of his effort to control it. He threw his arm over his eyes, and fairly groped his way back to his office, stifling his sobs. When he was in his office he flung himself into a chair, and bent his head over his hands on the table, and his whole frame shook. "Oh, my God!" he muttered. "Oh, my God!" He did not weep, but he gasped like a child whom his mother has commanded not to weep. Terrible emotion fairly convulsed him. He struggled with it as with a visible foe. At last he sat up and filled his pipe. The dog had crept close to him, and was nestling against him and whimpering. Gordon patted his head. The dog licked his hand. The simple, ignorant sympathy of this poor speechless thing nearly unnerved the man again, but he continued to smoke. He looked at the dog, whose honest brown eyes were fixed upon him with an almost uncanny understanding, and reflected how the woman upstairs, who was passing out of his life, had become in a few days so associated with the animal, that after she was gone he could never see him without a pang. He looked about the office, with whose belongings she was less associated than with anything in the house, and it seemed to him that everything even there would have for him, after she had passed, a terrible sting of reminiscence. It seemed to him, as he looked about, as if she were already gone. He was, in fact, suffering as keenly in anticipation as he would in reality. The horror, the worst horror of life, of being left alive with the dead and the associations of the dead was already upon him. Some people are comforted by such associations, others they rend. Gordon was one whom they would rend, whom they did rend. He made up his mind, as he sat there, that he would have to go away from Alton, and enter new scenes for the healing of his spirit, and yet he knew that he should not go: that at the last his courage would assert itself. He sat smoking, the dog's head on his knee. There was not a sound to be heard in the house. Emma, the maid, had gone away to visit a sick sister. She might not be back that night. So there was absolute silence, even in the kitchen. Suddenly the dog lifted his head and listened to something which Gordon could not himself hear. He watched the dog curiously. The dog gave a low growl of fear and rage, and made for the office door. He began scratching at the threshold, and emitted a perfect volley of barks. It did not sound like one dog, but a whole pack. Gordon, with an impulse which he could not understand, quickly put out the prism-fringed lamp which hung over his table. Then he sprang to the dog, and had the dog by the collar. "Be still, Jack," he said in a low voice, and the dog obeyed instantly, although he was quivering under his hand. Gordon could feel the muscles run like angry serpents under the smooth white hair, he felt the crest of rage along his back. But the animal was so well trained that he barked no more. He only growled very softly, as if to himself, and quivered. Gordon ordered him to charge in a whisper, and the dog stretched himself at his feet, although it was like the crouch of a live wire. Then Gordon rose and went softly to a window beside the door. The office had very heavy red curtains. It was impossible, since they were closely drawn, that a ray of light from within should have been visible outside. Gordon had reasoned it out quickly when he extinguished the lamp. Whoever was without would have had no possible means of knowing that anything except the dog was in the office, but the light once out, Gordon could peep around the curtain and ascertain, without being himself seen, what or who was about. He had a premonition of what he should see, and he saw it. The stable door was almost directly opposite that of the office. Between the two doors there was a driveway. On this driveway the only pale thing to be seen in the darkness was the tall, black figure of a man standing perfectly still, as if watching. His attitude was unmistakable. The long lines of him, upreared from the pale streak of the driveway, were as plainly to be read as a sign-post. They signified watchfulness. His back was toward the office. He stood face toward the curve of the drive toward the road, where any one entering would first be seen. Gordon, peeping around his curtain, knew the dark figure as he would have known his own shadow. In one sense it had been for years his shadow, and that added to the horror of it. The man behind the curtain watched, the man in the drive watched; and the dog, crouched at the threshold of the door, watched with what sublimated sense God alone knew, which enabled him to know as much as his master, and now and then came the low growl. Gordon began to formulate a theory in his mind. He remembered suddenly the man whom Aaron had driven home. He realized that the watching man might easily have mistaken him for Gordon himself, going away with his man to make a call upon some patient. He suspected, with an intensity which became a certainty, that the man knew that Clemency and Elliot were out and would presently return, and that it was for them he was watching. All the time he thought of the sick woman upstairs, and was glad that her room faced on the other side of the house. He was in agony lest she should be disturbed. Doctor Gordon was usually a man of resources, but now he did not know what to do. The dark figure on the park-drive made now and then a precautionary motion of his right arm as he watched, which was significant. Gordon knew that he was holding a revolver in readiness. In the event of Aaron returning alone he would probably be puzzled, and Gordon thought that he might slip away. In the event of James and Clemency returning first, Gordon thought that he knew conclusively what he purposed--a bullet for James, and then away with the girl, unless he was hindered. Gordon let the curtain slip back into place, and with a warning gesture to the dog, who was ready for action, he tiptoed across the room to the table, in a drawer of which he kept his own revolver. He opened the drawer softly, and rummaged with careful hands. No revolver was there. He made sure. He even opened other drawers and rummaged, but the weapon was certainly missing. He stood undecided for a moment. Then he went softly out of the room, bidding in a whisper the dog to follow. He crept upstairs and paused at a closed chamber door. Then he opened it very carefully. Mrs. Ewing at once spoke. "Is that you, dear?" she said. "Yes, I wanted to tell you not to be frightened, dear, if you should hear a shot or the dog bark." There was a rustling in the dark room. Mrs. Ewing was evidently sitting up in bed. "Oh, Tom, what is it?" she whispered. Gordon forced a laugh. "Nothing at all," he replied, "except there's a fox or something out in the yard, and Jack is wild. I may get a shot at him. Do you know where my revolver is?" "Why, where you always keep it, dear, in the table drawer in the office." "I don't seem to see it. I guess I will take your little pistol." "Oh, Tom, I am sorry, but I know that won't go off. Clemency tried it the other day. You remember that time Emma dropped it. I think something or other got bent. You know it was a delicate little thing." "Oh, well," said Gordon carelessly, "I dare say I can find my revolver." "I don't see who could have taken it away." said Mrs. Ewing. "I am sorry about my pistol, because you gave it to me too, dear." "I'll get another for you," said Gordon, "Those little dainty, lady-like, pearl-mounted weapons don't stand much." "I am feeling very comfortable, dear," Mrs. Ewing said in her anxious, sweet voice. "You will be careful, won't you, with your revolver, with that dog jumping about?" "Yes, dear. I dare say I shall not use the revolver anyway, but don't be frightened if you should hear a little commotion." "No, Tom." "Go to sleep." "Yes, I think I can. I do feel rather sleepy." Gordon closed the door carefully and retraced his steps to the office, the dog at his heels. He slipped the curtain again and looked out. The man still stood watching in the driveway. Gordon had never been at such a loss as to his best course of action. He was absolutely courageous, but here he was unarmed, and he could have no reasonable doubt that if he should go out, he would be immediately shot. In such a case, what of the woman upstairs? And, moreover, what of James and Clemency? He thought of any available weapon, but there was nothing except his own stick. That was stout, it was true, but could he be quick enough with it? His mad impulse to rush out unarmed except with that paltry thing could hardly be restrained, but he had to think of other lives beside his own. He began to think that the only solution of the matter was the return of Aaron alone. The watching man would immediately realize that he had made some mistake, that he, Gordon, was in the house, or had been left at the home of a patient. He could have no possible reason for molesting the man. He would probably slip aside into a shadow, then make his way back to the road. In such a case Gordon determined that he and Aaron would follow him to make sure that no harm came to James and Clemency. So Gordon stood motionless waiting, in absolute silence, except for the frequently recurring mutter of fear and rage of the dog. As time went on he became more and more uneasy. It seemed to him finally that Aaron should have been back long before. He moved stealthily across the room, and consulted his watch by the low light of the hearth fire. Aaron had been gone an hour. He should have returned, for the mare was a good roadster when she did not balk. Gordon shook his head. He began to be almost sure that the mare had balked. He returned to the window. His every nerve was on the alert. The moment that James and Clemency should drive into the yard, he made ready to spring, but the horrible fear lest it should be entirely unavailing haunted him. If only Aaron would come. Then the man would slip into cover of the shadows, and steal out into the road, and Gordon would jump into the buggy, and he and Aaron would follow him. He knew the man well enough to be sure that he would never venture an attack upon James and Clemency with witnesses. If only Aaron would come! Gordon became surer that the mare had balked. He vowed within himself that she should be shot the next day if she had. Every moment he thought he heard the sound of wheels and horse's hoofs. His nervous tension became something terrible. Once he thought of stealing through the house, and out by the front door, and walking to meet James and Clemency so as to warn them. But that would leave the helpless woman upstairs alone. He dared not do that. He thought then of going to the front of the house, and watching there, and endeavoring to intercept James and Clemency before they turned into the driveway. But he felt that he could not for one second relax his watch upon the watching man, and he had no guarantee whatever that, at the first sound of wheels, the man himself would not make for the front of the house. Then he thought, as always, of not disturbing the sick woman whose room faced the road. It seemed to him that his only course was to remain where he was and wait for the return of Aaron before James and Clemency. He knew now that the horse must have balked. His only hope was that James and Clemency, since it was such a fine night, and time is so short for lovers, might take such a long drive that even the balky mare might relent. Always he heard at intervals the trot of a horse, which only existed in his imagination. He began to wonder if he should know when Aaron, or Clemency and James, actually did drive into the yard, if he should be quick enough. Suddenly he thought of the dog: that he would follow him, and of what might happen. The dog's chain-leash was on the table. He stole across, got it, fastened it to the animal's collar, and made the end secure to a staple which he had had fixed in the wall for that purpose. As yet no intention of injury to the man except in self-defense was in his mind. If actually attacked, he must defend himself, of course, but he wished more than anything to drive the intruder away with no collision. That was what he hoped for. The time went on, and the strain upon the doctor's nerves was nearly driving him mad. Sometimes the mare balked for hours. He began to hope that Aaron would leave her, and return home on foot. That would settle the matter. But he remembered a strange trait of obstinacy in Aaron. He remembered how he had once actually sat all night in the buggy while the mare balked. The man balked as well as the horse. "The damned fool," he muttered to himself in an agony. The dog growled in response. Then it was that first the thought came to Gordon of what might be done to save them all. He stood aghast with the horror of it. He was essentially a man of peace himself, unless driven to the wall. He was a good fighter at bay, but there was in his heart, along with strength, utter good-will and gentleness toward all his kind. He only wished to go his way in peace, and for those whom he loved to go in peace, but that had been denied him. He began considering the nature of the man whose dark figure remained motionless on the driveway. He knew him from the first. It sounded sensational, his recapitulation of his knowledge, but it was entirely true. It was that awful truth, which is past human belief, which no man dares put into fiction. That man out there had been from his birth a distinct power for evil upon the face of the earth. He had menaced all creation, so far as one personality may menace it. He was a force of ill, a moral and spiritual monster, and the more dangerous, because of a subtlety and resource which had kept him immune from the law. He outstripped the law, whose blood-hounds had no scent keen enough for him. He had broken the law, but always in such a way that there was not, and never could be, any proof. There had not been even suspicion. There had been knowledge on Gordon's part, and Mrs. Swing's, but knowledge without proof is more helpless than suspicion with it. The man was unassailable, free to go his way, working evil. Again Gordon thought he heard the nearing trot of a horse, and again the dog growled. Gordon was not quite sure that time that a horse had not passed the house. He told himself in despair that he could not be sure of knowing when James and Clemency came, and again the awful thought seized him, and again he reflected upon the man outside. Suppose, instead of wearing the semblance of humanity, he had worn the semblance of a beast, then his course would have been clear enough. Suppose it were a hungry wolf watching out there, instead of a man, and this man was worse than any wolf. He was like the weir-wolf of the old Scandinavian legend. He had all the cowardly cruelty of a wolf, he was a means of evil, but he had the trained brain of a man. Gordon thought he heard footsteps, and the man made a very slight motion. Gordon thought joyfully that Aaron had left the balky mare, and had returned, but it was not so. He had heard nothing except the pulsations of the blood in his own overwrought brain. He wondered if he were really going mad, although all the time his mind was steadily at work upon the awful problem which had been forced upon it. Should any power for evil be allowed to exist upon the earth if mortal man had strength to stamp it out? Suppose that was a poisonous snake out there, and not a man. What was out there was worse than any snake. Gordon reasoned as the first man in Eden may have reasoned; and he did not know whether his reasoning were right or wrong. Meantime, the danger increased every moment. Of one thing he was perfectly sure: he had no personal motive for what he might or might not do. He had reached that pass when he was himself, as far as he himself was concerned, beyond hate of that man outside. It was a principle for which he argued. Should a monster, something abnormal in strength and subtlety and wickedness, something which menaced all the good in the world, be allowed to exist? Gordon argued that it should not. He was driven to it by years of fruitless struggling against this monstrous creation in the shape of man. He had seen such suffering because of him; his whole life had been so turned and twisted this way and that way because of him, that he himself had in the end become abnormal, and mentally askew, with the system of things. He was conscious of it himself. He had been naturally a good, simple, broad-visioned man, full of charity, with almost no subtlety. He had been forced to lead a life which strained and diverted all these good traits. Where he would have been open, he had been secret. Where he would have had no suspicion of any one, his first sight now seemed to be for ulterior motives. He weighed and measured where he naturally would have scattered broadcast. He had been obliged to compress his broad vision into a narrow window of detection. He was not the man he had been. Where he had gazed out of wide doors and windows at life, he now gazed through keyholes, and despised himself for so doing. In order to evade the trouble which had fallen to his lot, he took refuge in another personality. Thomas Gordon was a man whom a happy and untroubled life would have kept from all worldly blemish. Now the gold was tarnished, and he himself always saw the tarnish, as one sees a blur before the eye. Twenty years before, if any one had told him that he would at any period of his life become capable of standing and arguing with himself as to the right or wrong of what was now in his mind, he would have been incredulous. He had in reality become another man. Circumstances had evolved him, during the course of twenty years, into something different, as persistent winds evolve a pliant tree into another than its typical shape. Gordon had lost his type. As he stood at the window the room grew cold. The hearth fire had died down. He knew that the furnace needed attention, but he dared not quit his post and his argument. He became sure that the maid would not return that night. He knew that Aaron was sitting with his human obstinacy behind the obstinate brute, somewhere on the road. He knew that James and Clemency might at any moment drive in, and he might rush out too late to prevent murder and the kidnapping of the girl. He knew what the man was there for. And he knew the one way to thwart him, but it was so horrible a way that it needed all this argument, all this delay and nearing of danger, before he adopted it. The increasing cold of the room seemed to act as a sort of physical goad toward action. "By God, it _is_ right!" he muttered. Then he looked at the dog crouching still with that wiry intentness before the door. The dog came of a good breed of fighters. He was in himself both weapon and wielder of weapon. He was a concentrated force. His white body was knotted with nerves and muscles. The chances were good if--Gordon pictured it to himself--and again the horror and doubt were over him. He himself had acquired a certain stiffness and lassitude from years, and long drives in one position. He would stand no chance unarmed against a bullet. But the dog--that was another matter. The dog would make a spring like the spring of death itself, and that white leap of attack might easily cause the aim to go wrong. It would be like aiming at lightning. He knew how the dog would gather himself together, all ready for that terrible leap, the second he opened the door. He knew that he might be able to open the door for the leap without attracting the man's attention, faced as he was the other way, if he could keep the dog quiet. He knew how it would be. He could see that tall dark figure rolled on the drive, struggling as one struggles with death, for breath, under the vise-like grip on his throat. Gordon knew that the dog's unerring spring would be for the throat; that was the instinct of his race, a noble race in its way, to seize vice and danger by the throat, and attack the very threshold of life. Gordon returned to the window. It seemed to him again that he heard a horse's trot. He felt sure that it was not the trot of the gray, who had a slight lameness. He knew the trot of the gray. He became sure that James and Clemency would the next moment enter the drive. He set his mouth hard, crept toward the dog, and patted him. As he patted him he felt the rage-crest rise higher on his back. Gordon bade him be quiet, and slipped his leash from the staple. Then he took it from the collar. He listened again. It seemed to him that his ears could not deceive him. It seemed to him that James and Clemency were coming. He was almost delirious. He fancied he heard their voices and the girl's laugh ring out. Holding the dog firmly by the collar, he rose and very carefully and noiselessly slipped the bolt of the door back. Then he waited a second. Then as slowly and carefully, still holding the dog by the collar, and whispering commands to hush his growls, he turned the door knob. [Illustration: "There was a white flash of avenging brute force upon the man." Page 177.] Then the thing was done. He flung the door open. He saw the man in the drive, standing with his face toward the road. He had heard nothing. Then he loosened his grasp of the straining dog's collar, and there was a white flash of avenging brute force upon the man. Gordon saw only one leap of the dog before the man was down. A futile pistol shot rang out. Then came the snarl and growl of a fighting dog fastened upon his prey. CHAPTER IX When Clemency and James returned from their drive, they saw a glimmer of light between the house and stable. "Aaron is out there with a lantern," whispered Clemency. She sat up straight, leaned into her corner of the buggy, and adjusted her hat and straightened her hair with the pretty young girl motions of secrecy and modesty. James peered ahead into the darkness through which the lantern moved like a will-o'-the-wisp. "Your uncle is here, too," he said. Then he drew rein with a sudden, "Halloo, what is wrong?" Aaron came forward, leaving the lantern on the ground. It lit weirdly Dr. Gordon, who was kneeling on the ground beside a dark mass, which looked horribly suggestive. Then James saw another dark mass to the right, the balky mare and a buggy. "Doctor Gordon says you had better hitch to this post here," said Aaron in a sort of hoarse whisper, "and then come to him. He says he needs help, and Miss Clemency, he says, must go around the house and in the front door, and be careful not to let the dog out, but go upstairs, and if her mother is awake, tell her it ain't anything for her to fret about, and Doctor Gordon will be in very soon." "Oh, Aaron, what is the matter?" said Clemency, in a frightened whisper, as James sprang out of the buggy. "It ain't nothin'," replied Aaron doggedly. "Jest a man fell coming to the office. Reckon he had a jag on. Doctor says he may have broke a rib. He's doctorin' him. You jest run round the house, and in the front door, Miss Clemency, and don't let out the dog, an' see to your ma." James assisted Clemency out, and she fled, with a wild glance over her shoulder at the lantern-lit group in front of the office door. While Aaron tied the horse to the post James ran to Doctor Gordon. When he drew nearer the sight became sanguinary in its details, and he could hear from the office the raging growls and howls of the dog. He also heard him leap against the door, as if he would break it down. Gordon had a pail of water and a basin beside him, and he was applying water vigorously to the throat of the prostrate figure. The water in the basin gleamed, in the lantern light, blood red. "Just empty this basin and fill it up from the pail," ordered Gordon in a husky voice, and again he squeezed the reddened cloth over the throat, which James now discerned was badly torn. The man lay doubled up upon himself as limp as a rag. "No, I don't think so," replied Gordon, as if in answer to an unspoken question, as James, having complied with his request, drew near with the basin of fresh water. "Was it the dog?" asked James in a low voice. "Yes, the fool came round to the office door, and--" Gordon stopped with a miserable sigh which was almost a groan, and dipped the cloth in the basin. "How did you get him off?" asked James. "I had the whip, and Aaron came in just then with that damned mare. She had balked. I don't think it is the jugular. It can't be. Damn it, how he bleeds! Run into the office, Elliot, and get the absorbent cotton and the brandy. I've got to stop this somehow. Oh, my God!" James suddenly recognized the man on the ground, and gave an exclamation which Gordon did not seem to notice. "For God's sake, don't let that dog out!" he cried. "Don't risk the office door. Go around the house, the front way! Be quick!" James obeyed. He rushed around the house, and opened the front door. Immediately Clemency was clinging to him in the dim vestibule. "Mother is asleep. I think Uncle Tom must have given her some medicine to make her sleep. Oh, what is the matter? Who is that man out there, and what ails him, and what ails the dog? I started to go in the office, but he leapt against the door, so I didn't. I was afraid he might get out and run upstairs and wake mother. Oh, what is it all about?" "Nothing for you to worry about, dear," replied James. "Now you must be a good little girl, and let me go. Your uncle is in a hurry for some things in the office." He put away her clinging arms gently, and hurried on toward the office, but the girl followed him. "If I don't stand ready to shut the door behind you, that dog will be out," she said. All at once a conviction as to something seized her, and she cried out in terror and horror, "Oh, I know it is that man out there, and Jack wants to get at him. I know." "It is nothing for you to worry about, dear." "I know. Is he going to die? Is he hurt much?" "No, your uncle doesn't think so. Don't hinder me, dear." "No, I won't. I will stand ready and bang the door together after you before Jack can get out. Oh, it is that man!" Clemency was half-hysterical, but she stood her ground. When James opened the office door cautiously and slipped through the opening, she pushed it together with surprising strength. "Don't get bitten yourself," she called out anxiously. For a moment James thought that he might be bitten, for the dog was so frenzied that he was almost past the point of recognizing his friends. He made a powerful leap upon James, the crest upon his back as rigid as steel, but James snatched at his collar, threw him, and spoke, and the well-trained animal succumbed before his voice. "Charge!" thundered the young man, and the dog obeyed, although still bristling and growling. James hurriedly caught up his leash and fastened him to the staple, then he opened the inner office door, and spoke quickly and reassuringly to Clemency, who was huddled behind it shaking with fear. "He is all right. I have fastened him," he said. "Don't worry. Now I must go and help your uncle." "He didn't bite you?" "Oh, no, he knew me the minute I spoke. Sit down here by the fire and don't be frightened; that's a good little girl." With that James was out by the other door and in the drive beside Gordon, who was still assiduously applying water to the red throat of the prostrate man. "It is beginning to slack up a little," he said hoarsely. "Here, give me the cotton, and see if you can't get a drop of brandy between his teeth. They are clinched, but just now he moved a little. He may be able to swallow. Aaron, put the team into the wagon, and get a mattress and some blankets from the storeroom. Hurry, he may come to himself any minute, and he must not stay here any longer than necessary." Gordon was working fiercely as he spoke, and James took the cork from the brandy flask, and attempted to force a little between the man's clinched teeth. Aaron hurried into the stable and lit another lantern, and went about executing his orders. James, kneeling over the prostrate man, attempting to minister to him, saw the face fully in the glare of the lantern. The unconscious face did not look as evil as he remembered it. He even had a doubt if it were the face of the man who had that evening stood at his horse's head, and so terrified Clemency. Then he became convinced that it was the same. There could be no mistaking the features, which were unusually regular and handsome, but with a strange peculiarity of lines. It seemed to James that, even while the man was unconscious, all his features presented slightly upturned lines as of bitter derision, intersected with downward lines of melancholy. All these lines were very delicate, but they served to give expression. He looked like a man who had suffered and made others suffer for his sufferings, with a cruel enjoyment at the spectacle. It was a strange face, but not an evil one. However, after James had succeeded in forcing a few drops of brandy, which were met with convulsive swallowing, between the man's teeth, he moved again, and his eyes opened, and immediately the evil shone out of the face like a malignant flame in a lamp. Knowledge of, and delight in, evil gleamed out of the sudden brightness of the man's great eyes. Then the evil seemed to leap to rage, as a spark leaps to flame. He tried to raise himself, and cursed in a choking voice. He seemed awake most fully to consciousness, and to know exactly what had happened. The dog in the office sent forth a perfect volley of barks. The man had been obliged to sink back, but his right hand fumbled feebly for his pocket. "It is not there," Gordon said coolly. "Shoot him, you--or--" croaked the man in his voice of unnatural rage. "Time enough for that," said Gordon. He spoke coolly, but James saw him shaking as if with the ague. He was deadly white, and his whole face looked drawn and withered. Aaron came leading the team harnessed to the wagon out of the stable. He had brought down the mattress and blankets, as the doctor had directed, and the three men after the rude bed had been made in the wagon lifted the man thereon. He seemed to be conscious, but his muttering was so weak as to be almost inaudible, save for occasional words. After he was in the wagon Gordon, turning to James, said: "You had better go in the house and stay with the women. Aaron will go with me. I shall take this man to the hotel, to Georgie K.'s." A perfect volley of mumbled remonstrances came from the prostrate figure in the wagon. Gordon seemed to understand him. "No, I shall not take you there," he said, "but to the hotel. You will be better cared for. I know the proprietor." He got in beside the man, and seated himself on the floor of the wagon. Aaron mounted to the driver's seat. "Tell Clemency and her mother not to worry if they are awake," Gordon called to James as the horses started. James said yes and went into the house. He entered through the office door, and directly Clemency was in his arms, all trembling and half-weeping. "Oh, what has happened? Has Uncle Tom taken him away?" she quavered. "Hush, dear, you will wake your mother. Yes, he has taken him away." "What was the matter, tell me." "He was unconscious. He had fallen." "He came to. I heard him speak. Were any bones broken?" "No, I think not. You must go to bed; it it very late, dear." Clemency had put fresh wood on the hearth, and the little place was all a-waver and a-flicker with firelight. Grotesque shadows danced over the walls and ceiling, and sprawled uncertainly on the floor. Clemency looked up in James's face, and her own had a shocked whiteness and horror, in spite of the tenderness in his. "Tell--" she began. "What, dear?" "Was it--that man?" James hesitated. "Tell me," Clemency said imperiously. "Yes, I think it was." Clemency glanced as if instinctively at the dog, lying asleep in a white coil on the hearth. "What was the matter with him?" she asked in a hardly audible voice. "He had fallen, dear, and was unconscious." "Nothing--" Clemency glanced again at the dog, and did not complete her question. "He had recovered consciousness," James said hastily. "Then he is not going to die." It was impossible to say what kind of relief was in the girl's voice, but relief there was. "I see no reason why he should. I don't think your uncle thought he would die." "Where have they taken him?" "To the hotel. Now, Clemency dear, you must put all this out of your mind and go to bed." Clemency obeyed like a child. She kissed James, took a candle, and went upstairs. James went into his own room, but he did not undress or go to bed. Instead, he sat at the window facing the street and stared into the darkness, watching for Doctor Gordon's return. He sat there for nearly two hours, then he heard wheels, and saw the dark mass of the team and wagon lumber into sight. He ran through the house, and was in the drive with a lantern when the team entered. "Have you been waiting for us, Elliot?" called Doctor Gordon's tired voice. "Yes, I thought I would." "I stayed until I was sure he was comfortable," said Gordon. He clambered over the wheel of the wagon like an old man. When he was in the office with James, and the lamp was lit, he sank into a chair, and looked at the younger man with an expression almost of despair. "He is not going to die of it?" asked James hesitatingly. "No," cried Gordon, "he shall not!" He looked up with sudden, fierce resolution and alertness. "Why should he die?" he demanded. "He is far from being old or feeble. His vitals are not touched. Why on earth should you think he would die?" "I see no reason," James replied hastily, "only--" "Only what, for God's sake?" "I thought you looked discouraged." "Well, I am, and tired of the world, but this man is going to live. See here, boy, suppose you see if there is any hot water in the kitchen, and we'll have something to drink, then we will go to bed, and God grant we don't have a night call." After Gordon had drank his face lightened somewhat, still he looked years older than he had done at dinner time, with that awful aging of the soul, which sometimes comes in an instant. When finally he went upstairs James noticed how feebly he moved. It was on his tongue's end to offer to assist him, but he did not dare. The next morning, before James was up, he heard the rapid trot of a horse on the drive, and wondered if Doctor Gordon had had a call so early. When the breakfast-bell rang only Clemency was at the table. The maid had returned in season to get breakfast, and was waiting with a severely interrogative face. She had noticed blood on the frozen surface of the drive and had stood surveying it before she entered. She had asked Clemency if anything had happened, and the girl had told her that a man had fallen near the office door on the preceding evening and been injured, and Doctor Gordon had taken him home. "What's the man's name?" Emma had inquired sharply. "I don't know," said Clemency, and indeed she did not know, but there was something secretive in her manner. Emma set her mouth hard and tossed her head. Curiosity was almost a lust with her. She was always enraged when it was excited and not gratified. When James entered, she glanced severely at him and then at Clemency, as she passed the muffins. She suspected something between them, and she was baffled there. "Has Doctor Gordon gone out?" James asked. "Yes, he went right out as soon as he got up. Just had a cup of coffee; wouldn't wait for breakfast," replied Emma in a nipping tone. Neither Clemency nor James made any comment. Both knew where he had gone, and Emma, seeing that they both knew, grew more hostile than ever. Her manner of serving the beefsteak was fairly warlike. After breakfast Aaron told James of some parting instructions which Gordon had left with him. He had the team harnessed, and was to take James to visit certain patients. James went off on a long drive across the country, calling on his way at the scattered houses of the patients. He did not return until noon, just before the luncheon-bell rang. Entering by the office door he found Gordon sitting before the hearth-fire, smoking, and staring gloomily at the leaping flames. He looked up when James entered, said good morning in an abstracted fashion, and asked some questions about the patients whom he had visited. James hesitated about inquiring for the man who had been injured the night before, but finally he did so. The dog had sprung up to greet him, and between his pats on the white head and commands of "Down, sir, down!" he asked as casually as he could if Gordon had seen his patient who had fallen in the drive the night before, and how he was. Gordon turned upon James a face of such fierce misery that the younger man fairly recoiled. "He isn't going to die?" he cried. "No, he is not going to die. He shall not die!" Gordon replied with passionate emphasis. Then he added, in response to James's wondering, half-frightened look, "I have been there all the morning. I have just come home. I have left everything for him. I don't dare get a nurse. I am afraid. He may talk a good deal. Georgie K. is with him now. I can trust him, but I can't trust a nurse. I am going back after luncheon, and you may go with me. I would like you to see him." "Does he seem to be very ill?" James asked timidly. "Not from the--the--wound," replied Gordon, "but I am afraid of something else." "What?" "Erysipelas. I am afraid of that setting in. In fact, I am not altogether sure that it has not. He is an erysipelas subject. He has told me of two severe attacks which he has had. When he fell he got an abrasion of the cheek. That looks worse than the--the--wound. I should like you to see him. You have seen erysipelas cases, of course, in your hospital practice." "Oh, yes." "There is the bell for luncheon. We will go directly afterward." James wondered within himself at the feverish haste with which Gordon swallowed his luncheon, frequently looking at his watch. He was actually showing more anxiety over this man who had hounded him, of whom he had lived in dread, than James had seen him show over any patient since he had been with him. It seemed to him inconsistent. Mrs. Ewing did not come down to luncheon; Clemency said that she was not feeling as well as usual but Gordon did not seem much disturbed even by that. He gave Clemency some powders, with instructions how to administer them to the sick woman before he left, but he did not show concern, and did not go upstairs to see her. Clemency herself looked pale and anxious. She found a chance to whisper to James before he went. "Is that man very much hurt?" she said close to his ear. "Hush, dear. I am afraid so." "Uncle Tom seems terribly worried. I have never seen him so worried even over mother, and he doesn't seem worried about her now. Oh, James, she is suffering frightfully, I know." Clemency gave a little sob. Then Gordon's voice was heard calling imperiously, "Elliot, come along!" James kissed the poor little face tenderly, and whispered that she must not worry, that probably the powders would relieve her mother, and then that she herself had better lie down and try to get a little sleep, and hurried out. Gordon was seated in the buggy, waiting for him. "I don't want to lose any time," he said brusquely as James got in beside him. "Even a few minutes sometimes work awful changes in a case like this. If he is no worse I will leave you with him, and make a call on Mrs. Wells. I haven't seen her to-day, and yesterday it looked like pneumonia, then there is that child with diphtheria at the Atwaters'. I ought to go there myself, but if he is worse you will have to go, and to a few others, and I must stay with him." Gordon drove furiously. Heads appeared at windows; people on the street turned faces of wonder and alarm after him. It was soon noised about Alton that there had been a terrible accident, that somebody was at the point of death, but of that Gordon and James knew nothing. When they arrived at the hotel, Gordon, after he had tied his horse, took his medicine-case, and, followed by James, entered, and went directly upstairs to a large room at the back of the hotel. This room was somewhat isolated in position, having a corridor on one side and linen closets on another, it being a corner apartment with two outer walls. Gordon opened the door softly and entered with James behind him. The bed stood between the two west windows. It was a northwest room. The afternoon sun had not yet reached it. It was furnished after the usual fashion of country hotel bedrooms. It was clean and sparse, and the furniture had the air of having a past, of having witnessed almost everything which occurs to humanity. It seemed battered and stained, though not with wear, but with humanity. The old-fashioned black walnut bedstead in which the sick man lay seemed to have a thousand voices of experiences. A great piece was broken off one corner of the footboard. The wound in the wood looked sinister. Directly opposite the bed stood the black walnut bureau, with its swung glass. The glass was cracked diagonally, and reflected the bed and its occupant with an air of experience. Gordon went directly to his patient. Beside him sat Georgie K. He looked at the two doctors and shook his head gravely. His great blond face was unshaven and paled with watching. Nobody spoke a word. All three looked at the man in the bed, who lay either asleep, or feigning sleep, or in a stupor. Gordon felt for his pulse softly, with keen eyes upon his face. This face was unspeakably ghastly. The throat was swathed in bandages. There was one tiny spot of red on the white of the linen. The man's eyes were rolled upward. Around an abrasion on the cheek, which glistened oily with some unguent which had been applied to it, was a circle of painful red clearly defined from the pallor of the rest of the cheek. Gordon spoke. "How do you feel?" he asked of the man, who evidently heard and understood, but did not reply. He simply made a little motion of facial muscles, of shoulders, of his whole body under the bed-clothes, which indicated rage and impatience. "Does that place on your cheek burn?" asked Gordon. Again there was no answer, this time not even any motion. "Have you any pain?" asked Gordon. The man lay motionless. "Is there any one in the parlor?" Gordon asked abruptly of Georgie K. "No, Doc. You can go right in there." Gordon beckoned to James, and the two went downstairs, and entered the room of the wax flowers and the stuffed canary. "It looks like erysipelas," Gordon said with no preface. James nodded. "All I have done so far, in the absence of any positive proof of the truth of that diagnosis, is to apply what you will think an old woman's remedy, but I have known it to give good results in light cases, and I did not like to resort to the more strenuous methods until I was sure of my ground, for fear of complications. I applied a little mutton tallow, and that was all, but the inflammation has increased since I saw him. It now looks to me like a clearly defined case of erysipelas." "It does to me," said James. "So far--the--wound in the throat seems to be doing well," said Gordon gloomily. Then he looked at the younger physician with an odd, helpless expression. "His life must be saved," said he. "Which do you prefer of the two methods of treating the disease--that is, of the two primary ones? Of course, there are methods innumerable. I may have grown rusty in my country practice. Do you prefer the leaches, the nitrate of silver, the low diet, or the reverse?" "I think I prefer the reverse." "Well, you may be right," said Gordon, "and yet you have to consider that this is a man in full vigor," he added, "that presumably he has considerable reserve strength upon which to draw. Still if you prefer the other treatment--" "I have seen very good results from it," said James. He was becoming more and more astonished at the older man's helpless, almost appealing, manner toward himself. "What is the man's name?" he asked. "I don't know what name he has given here," Gordon replied evasively. "I will tell you later on what his name is." Suddenly the parlor door was flung open, and a woman appeared. She was middle-aged, very large, clad in black raiment, which had an effect of sliding and slipping from her when she moved. She kept clutching at the buttons of her coat, which did not quite meet over her full front. She brought together the ends of a black fur boa, she reached constantly for the back of her skirts, and gave them a firm tug which relaxed the next moment. Her decent black bonnet was askew, her large face was flushed. She had been a strapping, handsome country girl once; now she was almost indecent in her involuntary exuberance of coarse femininity. "How do you do, Mrs. Slocum?" Doctor Gordon said politely. James rose, Gordon introduced him. Mrs. Slocum did not bow, she jerked her great chin upward, then she spoke with really alarming ferocity. "Where has my boarder went? That's what I want to know. That's what I have come here for, not for no bowin's and scrapin's. Where has my boarder went?" A keen look came into Gordon's face. "I don't know who your boarder is, Mrs. Slocum," he said. CHAPTER X Mrs. Slocum looked at the doctor with a wide gape of surprise. "Thought you knew," said she. "His name is Meserve, Mr. Edward Meserve, and if he has come and went, and not told where, he was good pay, and if he was took sick whilst he was to my house, I could have asked twice as much as I did before. I'd like to know what right you had to take my boarder to the hotel. He was my boarder. He wan't your boarder. I want him fetched right back. That's what I have came for." "Mrs. Slocum," said Gordon in a hard voice, "Mr. Meserve is too sick to be moved, and his disease may be contagious. You might lose all your other boarders, and whether he recovers or not, you would be obliged to fumigate your house, and have his room repapered and plastered." "He's got money enough to pay for it," Mrs. Slocum said doggedly. "How do you know?" "You think he ain't?" Gordon looked imperturbable. "He always paid me regular, and he ain't been to meals or to home nights two-thirds of the time." Gordon said nothing. "You mean if my other boarders went, and the room had to be done over, he ain't got money enough to make it good?" Gordon said nothing. The woman fidgeted. "Well," said she, "if there's any doubt of it, mebbe he _is_ better off here." Suddenly she gave a suspicious glance at Gordon. "Say," said she, "the room here will have to be done over. Who's goin' to pay for that?" "The room is isolated," replied Gordon briefly. The woman stared. She evidently did not know the meaning of the word. "Well," said she at last, "if the room _is_ insulted, it will have to be done over. Who's going to pay for that?" "I am." "Well, I don't see why you couldn't pay _me_ for that as well as Mr. Evans." "Don't you?" "No." "Well, I do. Now, Mrs. Slocum, I really have no more time to waste. Mr. Meserve is a very sick man, and I have to go to him. I came down here to consult with my assistant, and you have hindered us. Good-day!" But the woman still stood her ground. "I'm goin' to see him," she said. "He's my boarder." "You will do so at your own risk, and also, if your call should prove injurious to him, at a risk of being indicted for manslaughter, besides possibly catching the disease." "You say it's ketching?" "I said it might be. We have not yet entirely formed our diagnosis." The woman stared yet again. Then she turned about with a switch which disclosed fringy black petticoats and white stockings. "Well, form your noses all you want to," said she. "You have took away my boarder, an' if he gits well, and it ain't ketchin', I'll have the law on ye." Gordon drew a deep breath when the door closed behind her. "It seems sometimes to me as if comedy were the haircloth shirt of tragedy," he said grimly. "Well, Elliot, we will go upstairs and begin the fight. I am going to fight to the death. I shall remain here to-night. You will have to look after my other patients when you leave here. I am sorry to put so much upon you." "Oh, that's all right," said James, following Gordon upstairs. But as he spoke he wondered more and more that this man, after what he had known of him, should be of more importance to Gordon than all others. Even during the short time they had been downstairs the angry red around the abrasion on the cheek had widened, and widened toward the head. Gordon opened his medicine-case and took out a bottle and hairbrush and commenced work. Directly the entire cheek was blackened with the application of iron. Georgie K. had brought glasses, and medicine had been forced into the patient's mouth. "Now go and have some eggnog mixed, Georgie K.," said Gordon, "and bring it here yourself, if you will. I hate to trouble you." "That's all right, Doc," said Georgie K., and went. James remained only a short time, since he had the other calls to make. He returned quite late to find that dinner had been kept waiting for him, and Clemency in her pretty red gown was watching. Mrs. Ewing had not come down all day. "Mother says she is easier," Clemency observed, "only she thinks it better to keep perfectly still." Clemency said very little about the man at the hotel. She seemed to dread the very mention of him. She and James spent a long evening together, and she was entirely charming. James began to put behind him all the mystery and dark hints of evil. Clemency, although fond, was as elusive as a butterfly. She had feminine wiles to her finger tips, but she was quite innocent of the fact that they were wiles. It took the whole evening for the young man to secure a kiss or two, and have her upon his knee for the space of about five minutes. She nestled closely to him with a little sigh of happiness for a very little while, then she slipped away, and stood looking at him like an elf. "I am not going to do that much," said she. "Why not, darling?" "Because I am not. It is silly. I love you, but I will not be silly. I want only what will last. The love will last, but the silliness won't. We are going to be married, but I shall not want to sit on your knee all the time, and what is more, you will not want me to. Suppose we should live to be very old. Who ever saw a very old woman sitting on her very old husband's knee? The love will last, but that will not. We will not have so very much of that which will not last." For all that, James caught Clemency and kissed her until her soft face was crimson, but he said to himself, when he was in his own room, that never was a girl so wise, and how much more he wanted to hold her upon his knee--as if he had not already held her there--and yet she was not coquettish. She was simply earnest, with an odd, wise, childlike earnestness. Early the next morning James went to the hotel, and found Gordon haggard and intense, sitting beside his patient, who was evidently worse. The terrible red fire of Saint Anthony had mounted higher, and settled lower. "It has attacked his throat now," Gordon said in a whisper. "I expect every minute it will reach his brain. When it does, nobody but you and I must be with him, not even Georgie K. He is getting some rest. He was up half the night, bless him! But when it reaches the brain two will be needed here, and the two must be you and I. Take this list, and make the calls as quickly as you can, and come back here." James, with a last glance at the black and swollen face of the man, who now seemed to be in a state of coma, obeyed. He hurried through his list, and returned. He found no apparent change in the patient, and tried to persuade Gordon to take a little rest, but the elder man was obdurate. "No" he said, "here I stay. I have had a bit to eat and drink. You go down yourself and get something, then come back. The crisis may arrive any second. Then I shall need you." The fire had outstripped the blackness on the man's cheek toward the temple. One eye was closed. When James returned after a hurried lunch, he heard a loud, terrible voice in the room. Outside the door a maid stood with a horrified face listening. James grasped her roughly by the shoulder. "Get out of this," he ordered. "If I find you or any one else here listening, you'll be sorry for it." The maid gasped out an excuse and fled. James tried the door, but it was locked. "Is that you, Elliot?" called Gordon above the other awful voice. "Yes." The door was unlocked, and James sprang into the room, but he was hardly quick enough, for the man was almost out of bed, when the two doctors forced him back with all their strength. Then he sat up and raved, and such raving! James felt his very blood cold within him. Revelations as of a devil were in those ravings. Once in a while James opened the door cautiously to be sure that no one was listening. The raving man reiterated names as of a multitude. Gordon's was among them, and many names of women, one especially--Catherine. He repeated that name more frequently than the others, but the others were legion. There was something indescribably horrible in hearing this repetition of names of unknown people, accompanied with statements beyond belief regarding them and the raving man. Gordon's face was ghastly, and so was the younger doctor's. "Look and see if any one is listening, for God's sake," Gordon gasped, after one terrific outburst, and James looked, but Georgie K. was keeping watch that nobody approached the door. James never knew how long he was in that room with Gordon listening to those frenzied ravings, and striving with him to keep the man from injuring himself. The daylight waned, James lighted a lamp. Then a mighty creaking was heard outside, and Georgie K., himself bearing a great supper tray, knocked at the door. "It's me, and I brought you something," he shouted, and then they heard his retreating footsteps. Much delicacy was there in Georgie K., and much affection for Doctor Gordon. James brought in the tray, and now and then he and Gordon took advantage of a slight lull to take a bite, but neither had any desire for food. It was only the instinctive sense that they must keep up their strength in order that nobody else should hear what they were hearing, that forced them to eat and drink. Well into the evening the ravings stopped suddenly, the man fell back upon his pillow, and lay still. James thought at first that all was over, but presently stertorous breathing began. "Now get Georgie K. up," Gordon said hoarsely. "There is no further need for us to be alone, and there will be directions to be given." James went out and found Georgie K. sitting up in his bar-room. "Doctor Gordon wants you," he said. "How is he?" asked Georgie K., following James. "Dying." Georgie K. made an indescribable sound in his throat as the two men ascended the stair. The man was a long time dying. It seemed to James as if that awful struggle of the soul for release from the body would never cease. He knew, or thought he knew, that there was no suffering to the dying man, but, after all, the sounds as of suffering seemed almost to prove it. Gordon whispered for a while to Georgie K., as if the dying man might be disturbed by audible speech. Then Georgie K. tiptoed out in his creaking boots, and James knew that some arrangements were to be perfected for the last services to the dead. Gordon stood over the bed, with his own face as ghastly as that of its occupant. James dared not speak to him. It was midnight when the dreadful breathing ceased, and there was silence. Georgie K. had returned. The three living men looked at one another with ghastly understanding of what had happened, then they hastily arranged some matters. The dead man was decently composed and dressed, his throat swathed anew in linen handkerchiefs, and another handkerchief laid over the discolored face, which had in death a strange peace, as if relieved of an uneasy and wearing tenant. Before Georgie K. went out, the village undertaker had been summoned, and had been waiting for some time in the parlor with a young assistant. They mounted the stairs bearing some appurtenances of their trade. Gordon addressed the undertaker briefly, giving some directions, then he motioned to James, and they passed out. Georgie K. remained in the room. He prevented the undertaker from removing the linen swathe on the dead man's throat. "Doc says it's catching," he said, and the undertaker drew back quickly. When Gordon and James were in the buggy on the way home, Gordon all at once gave a great sigh, like that of a swimmer who yields to the force of the current, or the fighter who sinks before his opponent. "I'm about done, too," he said. "Here, take the lines, Elliot." James took the reins and looked anxiously at his companion's face, a pale blue in the moonlight. "You are not ill?" he said. "No, only done up. For God's sake let me rest, and don't talk till we get home!" James drove on. Gordon's head sank upon his breast, and he began to breathe regularly. He did not wake until James roused him when they reached home. * * * * * The next morning before breakfast James was awakened by a loud voice in the office, the high-pitched one of a woman. He recalled how exhausted Doctor Gordon had been the night before, and rose and dressed quickly. When he entered the office Gordon was sitting huddled up in his old armchair before the fire, while bolt upright beside him sat Mrs. Slocum, discoursing in loud and angry tones, which Gordon seemed scarcely to heed. When James entered she turned upon him. "Now I'll see if I can git anythin' out of you," she said. "He" (pointing to Gordon) "don't act as if he was half-alive. I'm goin' to have my rights if I have to go to law to git 'em. Doctor Gordon took away my boarder. And if I'd had him sick and die to my house, I could have got extra. Now what I want is jest this, an' I'm goin' to hev it, too! Doctor Gordon said Mr. Meserve didn't have money. I don't know nothin' about that. I ain't went through his pockets, but his trunk is to my house, and there's awful nice men's clothes into it, and I mean to hev 'em. That ain't nothin' more'n fair. That's what I hev came here for, jest as soon as I heard the poor man had passed away. I left my daughter to git the breakfast for the boarders, and I hev came here to see about that trunk, and hisn's clothes." James laughed. "But, Mrs. Slocum," he said, "what on earth do you want with men's clothes? You can't wear them." To his intense surprise the great face of the woman suddenly reddened like that of a young girl, but the next moment she gave her head a defiant toss, and stared boldly at him. "What if I can't?" said she. "There's other men as can wear 'em, and they'll jest fit Bill Todd. He's been boardin' with me five year, and if he wants to git married and save his board bill, it's his business and mine and nobody else's." James turned to Gordon, who seemed prostrated before this feminine onslaught. "Do you object to this woman's having the trunk?" he asked. Gordon made an effort and roused himself. "She can have it after I have examined it for papers," he said. "There ain't a scrap of writin' in the trunk," Mrs. Slocum vociferated. "Me an' my boarder hev looked. There ain't no writin' an' no jewelry, an' no money. He used to carry his money with him, and he had a bank book in his pocket, and a long, red book he used to git money out of the bank. I've seen 'em. Doctor Gordon said he didn't have no money. He did hev money. Once he left the long, red book on his bureau, and I looked in it, and the leaves that are as good as money wan't a quarter torn out. I know he had money, an' I've been cheated out of it. But all I ask is that trunk." "For God's sake take the trunk and clear out," shouted Gordon with unexpected violence, "but if there is a scrap of written paper in that trunk, and you keep it, you'll be sorry." "There ain't," said the woman with evident truthfulness. She rose and clutched at the back of her skirt, and tugged at her boa and coat. "Thank you, Doctor Gordon," said she. "When is the funeral goin' to be?" "Tell her to-morrow at two o'clock at the hotel, and tell her to leave," said Gordon, and his voice was suddenly apathetic again. When the woman had gone Gordon turned to James. "How comedy will prick through tragedy," he said. "Yes," James answered vaguely. He looked anxiously at Gordon, whose eyes had at once a desperate and an utterly wearied appearance. "I will make all the arrangements for the funeral, if you wish, Doctor Gordon," he said. "I know the undertaker, and I can manage it as well as you. You look used up." "I am pretty nearly," muttered Gordon. Then he gave an almost affectionate glance at James. "Do you think you can manage it?" he said. James smiled. "It is a new thing to me, but I have no doubt I can," he replied. "You cannot imagine what a weight you would take off my shoulders. Don't spare money. See to it that everything is good and as it should be. The bills are to be sent to me." Gordon answered an unspoken question of James. "Yes," he said, "he had money, a considerable fortune, and he has no heirs--at least, I am as sure as I need be that he has none. In his pockets were two bank books, small check books, and a security register book. I have done them up in a parcel. See to it that they are buried with him." "But," said James. "Oh, yes, I know. Sooner or later there will be advertisements in the papers, and that sort of thing, but that will pass. God knows I would not touch his money with the devil's pitchfork, nor allow anybody whom I loved to touch it. Let him be buried under the name by which he was known here. It is not the name, needless to say, on the bank books. While living under other than his rightful name, he must have gone to New York in person to supply himself with cash. There was some two hundred dollars in bank notes in his wallet. That is with the other things. Let the whole be buried with him, and see to it that Drake does not discover it. You had better take the parcel now. Open the right drawer of the table, and you will find it in the corner. Then, after breakfast, you had better see Drake at once. I will attend to the patients to-day." "You are not able." "Able is a word which I have eliminated from my vocabulary as applied to myself." The funeral, which was held the next afternoon in the parlor of the hotel, was at once a ghastly and a grotesque function. The two doctors, the undertaker and his assistant, Georgie K. and the bar-tender, and Mrs. Slocum with a female friend, and a man, evidently the boarder to whom she had referred, were the only persons present. The boarder wore a hat which had belonged to the dead man. It was many sizes too large for his grayish blond, foolish little head, and, when he put it on, it nearly obscured his eyes. Mrs. Slocum sniffed audibly through the service, which was short, being conducted by the old Presbyterian clergyman of Alton. He hardly spoke above a whisper of "the stranger who had passed from our midst into the beyond." His concluding prayer was quite inaudible. Mrs. Slocum had brought a bouquet of cheerful pink geraniums from her window plants, which on the top of the closed black casket made an odd spot of color and life in the dim room. Among the blossoms were some rose-geranium leaves, whose fragrance seemed to mantle everything like smoke. While the clergyman conducted the inaudible services loud voices were heard in the bar-room, and the yelp of a dog. On one side of the house was the hush of death, on the other the din of life. James wondered what the clergyman found to say: all that he had distinguished was the expression, "The stranger within our midst." It all seemed horribly farcical to him. The dead man in his casket had no personality for him; the sniffs of Mrs. Slocum, her boarder with the hat, assumed, in his eyes, the character of a "Punch and Judy" show. But along with that feeling came the realization of a most terrible pathos. He felt a sort of pity for the dead man, whose very personality had become nothing to him, and the pity was the greater because of that. It became a pity for the very scheme of things, for man in the abstract, born perhaps, through no fault of his own, to sin and misery, both miserable and causing misery throughout his life, and then to end in the grave, and vanish from the sight and minds of other men. He felt that it would not be so sad if it were sadder, if Mrs. Slocum's sniffs had come from her heart, and not from her sentimentality. He felt that a funeral where love is not is the most mournful function on earth. Then, too, he felt a great anxiety for Doctor Gordon, who sat shrugged up in his gray overcoat, with his gray grizzle of beard meeting the collar, and his forehead heavily corrugated over pent and gloomy eyes. He was heartily glad when the service was over, when the casket had been lowered into the grave, when the village hearse had turned off into a street, the horse going at a sharp trot, and he and Doctor Gordon were left alone. He drove. Gordon sat hunched into a corner of the buggy, as he had sat in the corner of the hotel parlor. James hesitated about saying anything, but finally he spoke, he felt foolishly enough, although he meant the words to be comforting. "You did all you could to save his life," he said. Gordon made no reply. When they reached the house, Clemency's head disappeared from the window, where she had evidently been watching. She met them at the office door, with an odd, shocked, inquiring expression on her little face. James kissed her furtively, while Gordon's back was turned, as he divested himself of his gray coat. "Dinner is nearly ready," Clemency said in an agitated voice. "How is she?" asked Gordon, then before she had time to reply, he added almost roughly, "What on earth are you fretting about?" "I am not fretting," Clemency answered in a weak little voice. "There is nothing in all this for you to concern yourself with. Put it out of your head!" "Yes, Uncle Tom." "How is she?" "She has been asleep all the afternoon." "She has not had another attack?" "No, Uncle Tom." Then the dinner-bell rang. To James's surprise, but everything surprised him now, Gordon seemed to recover his spirits. He ate heartily. He laughed and joked. After dinner he went upstairs to see Mrs. Ewing, and when he came down insisted that James should accompany him to the hotel for a game of euchre. James would have preferred remaining with Clemency, whose eyes were wistful, but Gordon hurried him away. They remained until nearly midnight in the parlor, where the funeral had taken place a short time before, playing euchre, telling stories, and drinking apple-jack. James noticed that the hotel man often cast an anxious and puzzled glance at Gordon. He began to fancy that what seemed mirth and jollity was the mere bravado of misery and a ghastly mask of real enjoyment. He was glad when Gordon made the move to leave. Georgie K. stood in the door watching the two men untie the horse and get into the buggy. "Take care of yourself, Doc," he hallooed, and there was real affection and concern in his voice. Gordon drove now, and the mare, being on her homeward road, made good time. James helped Gordon unharness, as Aaron had gone to bed. His deep snores sounded through the stable from his room above. "It's a pity to wake up anything," Gordon said. "Guess well put the mare up ourselves." Now his voice was bitter again. Gordon had the key of the office door, and after locking the stable the two men entered. Gordon threw some wood on the fire. The lamp with its dangling prisms was burning. "Sit down a minute," Gordon said, "'I have something to tell you. I may as well get it off my mind now. It has got to come sometime." James sat down and lit a cigar. He felt himself in a nervous tension. Gordon filled his pipe and lit it, then he began to speak in an odd, monotonous voice, as though he were reciting. "That man's name was James Mendon. He was an Englishman. When I first began practice it was in the West. That man had a ranch near the little town where I lived with my sister Alice. Alice was a beautiful girl. We had lost our parents, and she kept house for me. The man was as handsome as a devil, and he had the devil's own way with women. God only knows what a good girl like my sister saw in him. He had a bad name, even out in that rough country. Horrible tales were circulated about his cruelty to animals for one thing. His cowboys deserted him and told stories. His very dog turned on him, and bit him. God knows how he was torturing the animal. I saw the scar on his hand when he lay on his death-bed. Well, however it was, my sister loved him and married him, and he treated her like a fiend. She died, and it was a merciful release. He deserted her three months before her death. Sold out all he had, and left her without a cent. She came back to me, and three months later Clemency was born." Gordon paused and looked at James. "Yes," he said, "that man was Clemency's father." He waited, but only for a second. The young man spoke, and his clear young voice rang out like a trumpet. "I never loved Clemency as I love her now," he said. CHAPTER XI Gordon smiled at James. "God bless you, boy!" he said. "What possible difference do you think that could make?" demanded James hotly. "Could that poor little girl help it?" "Of course she could not, but some men might object, and with reason, to marrying a girl who came of such stock on her father's side." "I am not one of those men." "No, I don't think you are, but it is only my duty to put the case plainly before you. That man who was buried this afternoon was simply unspeakable. He was a monstrosity of perverted morality. I cannot even bring myself to tell you what I know of him. I cannot even bring myself to give you the least hint of what my poor young sister, Clemency's mother, suffered in her brief life with him. You may fear heredity--" "Heredity, nothing! Don't I know Clemency?" "I myself really think that you have nothing whatever to fear. Clemency is her mother's living and breathing image as far as looks go, and as far as I can judge in the innermost workings of her mind. I have not seen in her the slightest taint from her evil father, though God knows I have watched for it with horror as the years have passed. After she was born I smuggled her away by night, and gave out word that the child had died at the same time with the mother. There was a private funeral, and the casket was closed. I had hard work to carry it through successfully, for I was young in those days, and broken-hearted at losing my sister, but carry it through I did, and no one knew except a nurse. I trusted her, I was obliged to do so, and I fear that she has betrayed me. I established a practice in another town in another State, and there I met Clara. She has told me that she informed you of the fact that she was my wife, but not of our reasons for concealing it. Just before we were married I became practically certain that Clemency's father had gained in some way information that led him to suspect, if not to be absolutely certain, that his child had not died with his wife. I had a widowed sister, Mrs. Ewing, who lived in Iowa with her only daughter just about Clemency's age. Just before our marriage she decided to remove to England to live with some relatives of her deceased husband. They had considerable property, and she had very little. I begged her to go secretly, or rather to hint that she was going East to live with me, which she did. Nobody in the little Iowa village, so far as I knew, was aware of the fact that my sister and daughter had gone to England, and not East to live with me. Clara and I were married privately in an obscure little Western hamlet, and came East at once. We have lived in various localities, being driven from one to another by the danger of Clemency's father ascertaining the truth; and my wife has always been known as Mrs. Ewing, and Clemency as her daughter. It has been a life of constant watchfulness and deception, and I have been bound hand and foot. Even had Clemency's father not been so exceedingly careful that it would have been difficult to reach him by legal methods, there was the poor child to be considered, and the ignominy which would come upon her at the exposure of her father. I have done what I could. I am naturally a man who hates deception, and wishes above all things to lead a life with its windows open and shades up, but I have been forced into the very reverse. My life has been as closely shuttered and curtained as my house. I have been obliged to force my own wife to live after the same fashion. Now the cause for this secrecy is removed, but as far as she is concerned, the truth must still be concealed for Clemency's sake. It must not be known that that dead man was her father, and the very instant we let go one thread of the mystery the whole fabric will unravel. Poor Clara can never be acknowledged openly as my wife, the best and most patient wife a man ever had, and under a heavier sentence of death this moment than the utmost ingenuity of man could contrive." Gordon groaned, and let his head sink upon his hands. "She told me some time ago that she was ill," James said pityingly. "Ill? She has been upon the executioner's block for years. It is not illness; that is too tame a word for it. It is torture, prolonged as only the evil forces of Nature herself can prolong it." Gordon rose and shook himself angrily. "I am keeping her now almost constantly under morphine," he said. "She has suffered more lately. The attacks have been more frequent. There has never been the slightest possibility of a surgical operation. From the very first it was utterly hopeless, and if it had been the dog there, I should have put a bullet through his head and considered myself a friend." Gordon gazed with miserable reflection at the dog. "I am glad that the _direct_ cause of that man's death was not what it might have been," he said. He shook himself again as a dog shakes off water. He laughed a miserable laugh. "Well," he said, "Clemency is free now. She can go her ways as she will. You see she resembled her mother so closely that I had to guard her from even the sight of her father. He would have known the truth at once. Clemency is free, but I have paid an awful price for her freedom and for your life. If I had not done what you doubtless know I did that night, you would have been shot, and it would have been a struggle between myself and her father, with the very good chance of my being killed, and Clara and the girl left defenseless. His revolver carried six deaths in it. It would all have depended upon the quickness of the dog, and I should have left too much hanging upon that." "I don't see what else you could do," James said in a low voice. He was pale himself. He did not blame Gordon. He felt that he himself, in Gordon's place, would have done as he had done, and yet he felt as if faced close to a horror of murder and death, and he knew from the look upon the other man's countenance that it was the same with him. "I saw no other way," Gordon said in a broken voice, "but--but I don't know whether I am a murderer or an executioner, and I never shall know. God help me! Well," he added with a sigh, "what is done, is done. Let us go to bed." James said when they parted at his room door that he hoped Mrs. Ewing would have a comfortable night. "Yes, she will," replied Gordon quietly. Then he gave the young man's hand a warm clasp. "God bless you!" he whispered. "If this had turned you against the child, it would have driven me madder than I am now. I love her as if she were my own. You and your loyalty are all I have to hold to." "You can hold to that to the end," James returned with warmth, and he looked at Gordon as he might have looked at his own father. Late as it was, he wrote that night to his own father and mother, telling them of his engagement to Clemency. There now can be no possible need for secrecy with regard to it. James, in spite of his vague sense of horror, felt an exhilaration at the thought that now all could be above board, that the shutters could be flung open. He felt as if an incubus had rolled from his mental consciousness. Clemency herself experienced something of the same feeling. She appeared at the breakfast-table the next morning with her hat. "Uncle says I may go with you on your rounds," she said to James. She beamed, and yet there was a troubled and puzzled expression on her pretty face. When she and James had started, and were moving swiftly along the country road, she said suddenly, "Will you tell me something?" James hesitated. "Will you?" she repeated. "I can't promise, dear," he said. "Why not?" she asked pettishly. "Because it might be something which I ought not to tell you." "You ought to tell me everything if--if--" she hesitated, and blushed. "If what?" asked James tenderly. She nestled up to him. "If you--feel toward me as you say you do." "If. Oh, Clemency!" "Then you ought to tell me. No, you needn't kiss me. I want you to tell me something. I don't want to be kissed." "Well, what is that you want to know, dear?" "Will you promise to tell me?" "No, dear, I can't promise, but I will tell you if I am able without doing you harm." "Who was that man who was buried yesterday, who had been hunting me so long, and frightening me and Uncle Tom, and why have I been compelled to stay housed as if I were a prisoner so much of my life?" "Because you were in danger, dear, from the man." "You are answering me in a circle." Clemency sat upright and looked at James, and the blue fire in her eyes glowed. "Who was the man?" she asked peremptorily. "I can't tell you, dear." "But you know." "Yes." "Why can't you tell me then?" "Because it is not best." Clemency shrugged her shoulders. "Why did he hunt me so?" "I can't tell you, dear." "But you know." "I am not sure." "But you think you know." "Yes." "Then tell me." "I can't, dear." "When will you tell me?" "Never!" Clemency looked at him, and again she blushed. "You will tell me after--we are--married. You will have to tell me everything then," she whispered. James shook his head. "Won't you then?" "No, dear, I shall never tell you while I live." Clemency made a sudden grasp at the reins. "Then I will never marry you," she said. "I will never marry you, if you keep things from me." "I will never keep things from you that you ought to know, dear." "I ought to know this!" James remained silent. Clemency had brought the horse to a full stop. "Won't you ever tell me?" she asked. "No, never! dear." "Then let me get out. This is Annie Lipton's street. I am going to see her. I have not seen her for a long time. I will walk home. It is safe enough now. You can tell me that much?" "Yes, it is, but Clemency, dear." "I am not Clemency, dear. I am not going to marry you. You say you wrote your father and mother last night that we were going to get married. Well, you can just write again and tell them we are not. No, you need not try to stop me. I will get out. Good-by! I shall not be home to luncheon. I shall stay with Annie. I like her very much better than I like you." With that Clemency had slipped out of the buggy and hurried up a street without looking back. James drove on. He felt disturbed, but not seriously so. It was impossible to take Clemency's anger as a real thing. It was so whimsical and childish. He had counted upon his long morning with her, but he went on with a little smile on his face. He was half inclined to think, so slightly did he estimate Clemency's anger, that she would not keep her word, and would be home for luncheon. But when he returned she was not there, and she had not come when the bell rang. "Why, where is Clemency?" Gordon said, when they entered the dining-room. "She insisted upon stopping to see her friend Miss Lipton," said James. "She said that she might not be home to lunch." Emma gave one of her sharp, baffled glances at him, then, having served the two men, she tossed her head and went out. Nobody knew how much she wished to listen at the kitchen door, but she was above such a course. "Clemency and I had a bit of a tiff," James explained to Gordon. "She seemed vexed because I would not tell her what you told me last night. She is curious to know more about--that man." "She must not know," Gordon said quickly. "Never mind if she does seem a little vexed. She will get over it. I know Clemency. She is like her mother. The power of sustained indignation against one she loves is not in the child, and she must not know. It would be a dreadful thing for her to know. I myself cannot have it. It is enough of a horror as it is, but to have that child look at me, and think--" Gordon broke off abruptly. "She will never know through me," James said, "and I think with you that her resentment will not last." "She will be home this afternoon," said Gordon, "and the walk will do her good." But the two returned from their afternoon calls, and still Clemency had not returned. Emma met them at the door. "Mrs. Ewing says she is worried about Miss Clemency," she said. Gordon ran upstairs. When he came down he joined James in the office. "I have pacified Clara," he said, "but suppose you jump into the buggy, Aaron has not unharnessed yet, and drive over to Annie Lipton's for her. It is growing colder, and Clemency has not been outdoors much lately, and she has rather a delicate throat. It is time now that she was home." James smiled. "Suppose she will not come with me?" he suggested. "Nonsense," said Gordon. "She will be only too glad if you meet her half-way. She will come. Tell her I said that she must." "All right," replied James. He went out, got into the buggy, and drove along rapidly. He had the team, and the horses were still quite fresh, as they had not been long distances that day. There was a vague fear in the young man's mind, although he tried to dispel it by the force of argument. "What has the girl to fear now?" his reason kept dinning in his ears, but, in spite of himself, something else, which seemed to him unreason, made him anxious. When he reached Annie Lipton's home, a fine old house, overhung with a delicate tracery of withered vines, he saw Annie's pretty head at a front window. She opened the door before he had time to ring the bell, and she looked with alarmed questioning at him. "I have come for Miss Ewing, her uncle--" James began, but Annie interrupted him, her face paling perceptibly. "Clemency," she said; "why, she left here directly after lunch. She said she must go. She felt anxious about her mother, and did not want to leave her any longer. Hasn't she come home yet?" "No," said James. "And you didn't meet her? You must have met her." "No." The two stood staring at each other. A delicate old face peeped out of the door at the right of the halls. It was like Annie's, only dimmed by age, and shaded by two leaf-like folds of gray hair as smooth as silver. "Oh, mother, Clemency has not got home!" Annie cried. "Dr. Elliot, this is my mother. Mother, Clemency has not got home. What do you think has happened?" The lady came out in the hall. She had a quiet serenity of manner, but her soft eyes looked anxious. "Could she have stopped anywhere, dear?" she said. "You know, mother, there is not a single house between here and her own where Clemency ever stops," said Annie. She was trembling all over. James made a movement to go. "What are you going to do?" cried Annie. "Stop at every house between here and Doctor Gordon's, and ask if the people have seen her," replied James. Then he ran back to the buggy, and heard as he went a little nervous call from Annie, "Oh, let us know if--" "I will let you know when I find her, Miss Lipton," he called back as he gathered up the lines. He kept his word. He did stop at every house, and at every one all knowledge of the girl was disclaimed. There were not many houses, the road being a lonely one. He was met mostly by women who seemed at once to share his anxiety. One woman especially asked very carefully for a description of Clemency, and he gave a minute one. "You say her mother is ill, too," said the woman. She was elderly, but still pretty. She had kept her tints of youth as some withered flowers do, and there seemed still to cling to her the atmosphere of youth, as fragrance clings to dry rose leaves. She was dressed in rather a superior fashion to most of the countrywomen, in soft lavender cashmere which fitted her slight, tall figure admirably. James had a glimpse behind her of a pretty interior: a room with windows full of blooming plants, of easy-chairs and many cushioned sofas, beside book-cases. The woman looked, so he thought, like one who had some private anxiety of her own. She kept peering up and down the road, as they talked, as though she, too, were on the watch for some one. She promised James to keep a lookout for the missing girl. "Poor little thing," she murmured. There was something in her face as she said that, a slight phase of amusement, which caused James to stare keenly at her, but it had passed, and her whole face denoted the utmost candor and concern. When James reached home he had a forlorn hope that he should find Clemency there; that from a spirit of mischief she had taken some cross track over the fields to elude him. But when Aaron met him in the drive, and he saw the man's frightened stare, he knew that she had not come. It was unnecessary to ask, but ask he did. "She has not come?" "No, Doctor Elliot," replied Aaron. He did not even chew. He tied the horses, and followed James into the office, with his jaws stiff. Gordon stood up when James entered, and looked past him for Clemency. "She was not there?" he almost shouted. "She left the Liptons at two o'clock, and I have stopped at every house on my way, and no one has seen her." "Oh, my God!" said Gordon, with a dazed look at James. "What do you think?" asked James. "I don't know what to think. I am utterly at a loss now. I supposed she was entirely safe. There are almost no tramps at this season, and in broad daylight. At two, you said? It is almost six. I don't know what to do. What will come next? I must tell Clara something before I do anything else." Gordon rushed out of the office, and they heard his heavy tread on the stairs. Aaron stared at James, and still he did not chew. "It's almost dark," he said with a low drawl. "Yes." "We've got to take lanterns, and hunt along the road and fields." "Yes, we have." The dog, which had been asleep, got up, and came over to James, and laid his white head on his knee. "We can take him," Aaron said. "Sometimes dogs have more sense than us." "That is so," said James. He felt himself in an agony of helplessness. He simply did not know what to do. He had sunk into a chair and his head fairly rung. It seemed to him incredible that the girl had disappeared a second time. A queer sense of unreality made him feel faint. Gordon reëntered the room. "I have told Clara that you have come back, and that Clemency is to stay all night with Annie Lipton," he said. Then he, too, stood staring helplessly. Emma had come into the room, and now she spoke angrily to the three dazed men. "Git the lanterns lit, for goodness' sake," said she, "and hunt and do something. I'm goin' to git her supper, and I'll keep her pacified." Emma gave a jerk with a sharp elbow toward Mrs. Ewing's room. "For goodness' sake, if you don't know yet where she has went, why don't you do somethin'?" she demanded. The men went before her sharp command like dust before her broom. "Keep as still as you can," ordered Emma as they went out. "_She_ mustn't, git to worryin' before she comes home." [Illustration: "Saw a little dark figure running toward him." Page 239.] For the next two hours Gordon, James, and Aaron searched. They walked, each going his separate way into the fields and woods on the road, having agreed upon a signal when the girl should be found. The signal was to be a pistol shot. James went first to the wood, where he had found Clemency on her former disappearance. He searched in every shadow, throwing the gleam of his lantern into little dark nests of last year's ferns, and hollows where last year's leaves had swirled together to die, but no Clemency. At last, wearied and heart-sick, he came out on the road. The moon was just up, a full moon, and the road lay stretched before him like a silver ribbon covered with the hoar-frost. He gazed down it hopelessly, and saw a little dark figure running toward him. He was incredulous, but he called, "Clemency!" A glad little cry answered him. He himself ran forward, and the girl was in his arms, sobbing and trembling as if her heart would break. "What has happened? What has happened, darling?" James cried in an agony. "Are you hurt? What has happened?" "Something very strange has happened, but I am not hurt," sobbed Clemency. James remembered the signal. "Wait a second, dear," he said; "your uncle and Aaron are searching, and I promised to fire the pistol if I found you." James fired his pistol in the air six times. Then he returned to Clemency, who was leaning against a tree. "How I wish we had driven here!" James said tenderly. "I can walk, if you help me," Clemency sobbed, leaning against him. "Oh, I am so sorry I acted so this morning. I got punished for it. I haven't been hurt, nobody has been anything but kind to me, but I have been dreadfully frightened." Gordon and Aaron came running up. "Where have you been, Clemency?" Gordon demanded in a harsh voice. "Another time you must do as you are told. You are too old to behave like a child, and put us all in such a fright." Clemency left James, and ran to her uncle, and clung to him sobbing hysterically. "Oh, Uncle Tom, don't scold me," she whimpered. "Are you hurt? What has happened?" "I am not hurt a bit," sobbed Clemency. Gordon put his arm around her. "Well," he said, "as long as you are safe keep your story until we get home. Elliot, take her other arm. She is almost too used up to walk. Now stop crying, Clemency." When they were home, in the office, Clemency told her story, which was a strange one. She had been on her way home from Annie Lipton's, and had reached a certain house, when the door opened and a woman stood there calling her. She described the woman and the house, and James gave a start. "That must be the same woman whom I saw," he exclaimed. "She was a woman I had never seen," said Clemency. "I think she had only lived there a very short time." Gordon nodded gloomily. "I know who she is, I fear," he said. "Strange that I did not suspect." "She looked very kind and pleasant," said Clemency, "and I thought she wanted something and there was no harm, but when I reached her the first thing I knew she had hold of me, and her hands were like iron clamps. She put one over my mouth, and held me with the other, and pulled me into the house and locked the door. Then she made me go into a little dark room in the middle of the house and she locked me in. She told me if I screamed nobody would hear me, but she did speak kindly. She was very kind. Once she even kissed me, although I did not want her to. She brought a lamp in, and made me lie down on a couch in the room and drink a glass of wine. She told me not to be afraid, nobody would hurt me. She seemed to me to be always listening, and every now and then she went out, but she always locked the door behind her. When she came back she would look terribly worried. About half an hour ago she went out, and when she came back brought a tray with tea and bread and cold chicken for me. I told her I would starve before I ate anything while she kept me there. She did not seem to pay much attention, she looked so dreadfully worried. She sat down and looked at me. Finally, she said, as if she were afraid to hear her own voice, 'Has any accident happened near here lately that you have heard of?' I told her about the man that fell down in our drive and died of erysipelas. I did not tell her anything else. All at once she almost fell in a faint. Then she stood up, and she looked as if she were dead. She told me to stay where I was just fifteen minutes, then I might go, but I must not stir before. Then she kissed me again, and her lips were like ice. She went out, and I knew the door was not locked, but I was afraid to stir. I could hear her running about. Then I heard the outer door slam, and I looked at my watch, and it was fifteen minutes. Then I ran out and up the road as fast as I could. Just before I saw Doctor Elliot the New York train passed. I heard it. I think she was hurrying to catch that." Gordon nodded. "Oh, Uncle Tom, who was she, and why did she lock me up?" asked Clemency. "Clemency," said Gordon, in a sterner voice than Clemency had ever heard him use toward her, "never speak, never think, of that woman or that man again. Now go out and eat your dinner." CHAPTER XII Clemency was so worn out that Doctor Gordon insisted upon her going to bed directly after dinner, and he and James had a solitary evening in the office, with the exception of Gordon's frequent absence in his wife's room. Each time when he returned he looked more gloomy. "I have increased the morphine almost as much as I dare," he said, coming into the office about ten. He sat down and lit his pipe. James laid down the evening paper which he had been reading. "Is she asleep now?" he asked. "Yes. By the way, Elliot, have you guessed who that woman was who kidnapped Clemency?" James hesitated. "I don't fairly know whether I am right, but I have guessed," he replied. "Who?" "The nurse." "You are right. It was the nurse. That man had won her over, and set her up housekeeping in Westover. He had been staying at the hotel there before he came here. He was her lover, of course, although he was too circumspect not to guard the secret. She has been living in that house for the last three months under the name of Mrs. Wood, a widow. The former occupants went away last summer, Aaron has been telling me. He said that once he himself saw the man enter the house, and he had seen the woman on the street. She had made herself quite popular in Westover. It was no part of that man's policy to keep his vice behind locked doors. Locks themselves are the best witness against evil. She attended the Dutch Reformed Church regularly. She was present at all the church suppers, and everybody has called on her in Westover. Now I think she has fled, half-crazed with grief over the death of her lover, and afraid of some sort of exposure. Unless I miss my guess, there will be a furor around here shortly over her disappearance. She was not a bad woman as I remember her, and she was attractive, with a kindly disposition. But he had his way always with women, and I suppose she thought she was doing him a service by kidnapping poor little Clemency. I am sorry for her. I hope she did not go away penniless, but she has her nursing to fall back upon. She was a good nurse. That makes me think. I must see if Mrs. Blair cannot come here to-morrow. Clara must have somebody beside Clemency and Emma. I should prefer a trained nurse, and this woman is simply the self-taught village sort, but Clara prefers her. She shrinks at the very mention of a trained nurse. Of course, it is unreasonable, but the poor soul has always had an awful dread of hospitals and a possible operation, and I believe that in some way she thinks a trained nurse one of a dreadful trinity. She must be humored, of course. The result cannot be changed." "You have no hope, then?" James said in a low voice. "I have had no more from the outset than if she had been already dead," said Gordon. James said nothing. An enormous pity for the other man was within him. He thought of Clemency, and he seemed to undergo the same pangs. He felt such a terrible understanding of the other's suffering that it passed the bounds of sympathy. It became almost experience. His young face took on the same expression of dull misery as Gordon's. Presently Gordon glanced at him, and spoke with a ring of gratitude and affection in his tired voice. "You are a good fellow, Elliot," he said, "and you are the one ray of comfort I have. I am glad that I have you to leave poor little Clemency with." James looked at him with sudden alarm. "You are not ill?" he said. "No, but there is an end to everybody's rope, and sometimes I think I am about at the end of mine. I don't know. Anyway, it is a comfort to me to think that Clemency has you in case anything should happen to me." "She has me as long as I live," James said fervently. Red overspread his young face, his eyes glistened. Again the great pity and understanding with regard to the other man came over him, and a feeling for Clemency which he had never before had: a feeling greater than love itself, the very angel of love, divinest pity and protection, for all womanhood, which was exemplified for himself in this one girl. His heart ached, as if it were Clemency's upstairs, lying miserably asleep under the influence of the drug, which alone could protect her from indescribable pain. His mind projected itself into the future, and realized the possibility of such suffering for her, and for himself. The honey-sting of pain, which love has, stung him sharply. Gordon seemed to divine his thoughts. "God grant that you may never have to undergo what I am undergoing, boy," he said. Then he added, "It was in poor Clara's blood, her mother before her died the same way. Clemency comes, on her mother's side at least, of a healthy race, morally and physically, although the nervous system is oversensitive. If my poor sister had been happy, she would have been alive to-day. And as far as I know of the other side, there was perfect physical health, although he had that abnormal lack of moral sense that led one to dream of possession. Did you notice how much less evil he looked when he was dead, even with that frightfully disfigured face?" "Yes." "There are strange things in this world," said Gordon with gloomy reflection, "or else simple things which we are strange not to believe. Sometimes I think people will have to take to the Bible again in that literal sense in which so many are now inclined to disregard it. Well, Elliot, I honestly feel that you have nothing to fear in taking poor little Clemency. I should tell you if I thought otherwise. She will make you happy, and I can think of no reason to warn you concerning any possible lapses, in either her physical or her moral health, and I have had her in my charge since she first drew the breath of life. Come, my son, it is late, and we have a great deal to do to-morrow. This awful business has made me neglect patients. I have to see Clara again, and get what rest I can." Gordon looked older and wearier than James had ever seen him, as he bade him good-night, old and weary as he had often seen him look. A sudden alarm for Gordon himself came over him. He wondered, after he had entered, his room, if he were not strained past endurance. He recalled his own father's healthy, ruddy face, and Gordon was no older. He lay awake a while thinking anxiously of Gordon, then his own happy future blazoned itself before him, and he dreamed awake, and dreamed asleep, of himself and Clemency, in that future, whose golden vistas had no end, so far as his young eyes could see. The sense of relief from anxiety over the girl was so intense that it was in itself a delight. Clemency herself felt it. The next morning at breakfast she looked radiant. Gordon had assured her the sick woman had rested quietly, and told her that Mrs. Blair was coming. "To-day I can go where I choose," Clemency exclaimed gayly. "Not until afternoon," replied Gordon, then he relented at her look of disappointment, and suggested that she go with Elliot to make his calls, while he went with Aaron and the team. It was a beautiful morning; spring seemed to have arrived. Everywhere was the plash of running water, now and then came distant flutings of birds. "I know that was a bluebird," Clemency said happily. "I feel sure mother will get well now. It seems wicked to be glad that the man is dead, especially on such a morning, but I wonder if it is, when he would have spoiled the morning." "Don't think about it, anyway!" James said. "I try not to." "You must not!" "I know why Uncle Tom did not want me to go out alone this morning," Clemency said, with one of her quick wise looks, cocking her head like a bird. "Why?" "He wanted to make sure that that woman has really gone." "Clemency, you must not mention that man or woman to me again," said James. "I am not married to you yet," Clemency said, pouting. "That makes no difference, you must promise." "Well, then, I will. I am so happy this morning, that I will promise anything." James looked about to be sure nobody was in sight before he kissed the little radiant face. "I won't speak of them again, but I am right," Clemency said with a little toss and blush, and it proved that she was. At luncheon Doctor Gordon told Clemency that she could go wherever she liked. She gave a little glance at James, and said gayly, "All right, Uncle Tom." That afternoon Gordon and James made some calls in company, driving far into the hills. They had hardly started before Gordon said abruptly, "Well, the woman is gone, and there is a wild excitement in Westover over her disappearance. I believe they are about to drag the pond. A man who knew her well by sight declares that she boarded that New York train, but the people will not give up the theory that she has been murdered for her jewelry. By the way, I think I need not worry over her immediate necessities. It seems that she had worn a quantity of very valuable jewels. Of course her going without any baggage except a suit-case, and leaving behind the greater part of her wardrobe, does look singular. But it seems that the house was rented furnished, and I fancy she lived always in light marching orders, and probably carried the most valuable of her possessions upon her person and in her suit-case. Well, I am thankful she has decamped." "You don't fear her returning?" asked James with some anxiety. "No, I have no fear of that. She is probably broken-hearted over the death of that man. She is not of the sort to kidnap on her own account. It was only for him. Clemency has nothing more to fear." "I am thankful." "You can well believe that I am, when I tell you that this afternoon I am absolutely sure, for the first time in years, that the girl is safe to come and go as she pleases. I have had hideous uncertainty as well as hideous certainty to cope with. Now it is down to the hideous certainty. That is bad enough, but fate on an open field is less unmanning than fate in ambush. I have long known to a nicety the fate in the field." Gordon hesitated a second, then he said abruptly, with his face turned from his companion, in a rough voice, "Clara can't last many days." James made an exclamation. "She has gone down hill rapidly during the last two days," said Gordon. "I have been increasing the morphine. It can't last long." Gordon ended the sentence with a hoarse sob. "I can't say anything," James faltered after a second, "but you know--" "Yes, I know," Gordon said. "You are as sorry as any one can be who is not, so to speak, the hero, or rather the coward, of the tragedy. Yes, I know. I'm obliged to you, Elliot, but all of us have to face death, whether it is our own or the death of another dearer than ourselves, alone. A soul is a horribly lonely thing in the worst places of life." "Have you told Clemency?" "No, I have put it off until the last minute. What good can it do? She knows that Clara is very ill, but she does not know, she has never known, the character of the illness. Sometimes I have a curious feeling that instinct has asserted itself, and that Clemency, fond as she is of my wife, has not exactly the affection which she would have had for her own mother." "I don't think she knows any difference at all," James said. "I think the poor little girl will about break her heart." "I did not mean to underestimate Clemency's affection," said Gordon, "but what I say is true. The girl herself will never know it, and, you may not believe it, but she will not suffer as she would suffer if Clara were her own mother. These ties of the blood are queer things, nothing can quite take their place. If Clemency had died first Clara would have been indignant at the suggestion, but she herself would not have mourned as she would mourn for her own daughter. I must touch up the horses a bit. I want to get home. I may not be able to go out again to-night. Last night I was up until dawn with Clara." Gordon touched the horses with a slight flicker of the whip. He held the lines taut as they sprang forward. His face was set ahead. James glancing at him had a realization of the awful loneliness of the other man by his side. He seemed to comprehend the vastness of the isolation of a grief which concerns one, and one only, more than any other. Gordon had the expression of a wanderer upon a desert or a frozen waste. Illimitable distances of solitude seemed reflected in his gloomy eyes. James did not attempt to talk to him. It seemed like mockery, this effort to approach with sympathy this set-apart man, who was unapproachable. That night Gordon's wife was much worse. Gordon came down to James's room about two o'clock. James had been awake for some time listening to the sounds of suffering overhead, and he had lit his lamp and dressed, thinking that he might be needed. Gordon stood in the doorway almost reeling. He made an effort before he spoke. "Come into my office, will you?" he said. James at once followed him. Going through the hall the sounds of agony became more distinct. When they entered the office Gordon fairly slammed the door, then he turned to Elliot with a savage expression. "Hear that," he said, as if he were accusing the other man. "Hear that, I say! The last hypodermic has not taken effect yet, and her heart is weak. If I give her more--" He stopped, staring at James, his face worked like a child's. Then suddenly an almost idiotic expression came over it, the utter numbness of grief. Then it passed away. Again he looked intelligently into the young man's eyes. "If I don't give her more," he gasped out, "if I don't, this may last hours. If I do--" The two men stood staring at each other. James thought of Clemency. "Has Clemency been in to see her?" he asked. "Yes, she heard, and came in. I sent her out. She is in her own room now; Emma is with her." Suddenly Gordon gave a look of despairing appeal at James. "I--wish you would go up and see Clara," he whispered. James knew what he meant. He hesitated. "Go, and send Mrs. Blair down here," said Gordon. "Tell her I want to see her." "Well," said James slowly. The two men did not look at each other again. Gordon sank into his chair. James went out of the room and upstairs. He knocked on the door of the sick-room, and Mrs. Blair, the village nurse, answered his knock. She was a large woman in a voluminous wrapper. Her face had a settled expression of gravity, almost of sternness. She looked at James. The screams from the writhing mass of agony in the bed did not appear to be moving her, whereas she in reality was herself screwed to such a pitch of mental torture of pity that she was scarcely able to move. She was rigid. "Doctor Gordon sent me," whispered James. "He wished me to see her. He asked me to say to you that he would like to see you for a minute in the office." The woman did not move for a second. Then she whispered close to James's ear, "_It is on the bureau_." James nodded. They passed each other. James entered the room and closed the door. A lamp was burning on a table with a screen before it. The bed was in shadow. The screams never ceased. They were not human. James could not realize that the beautiful woman whom he had known was making such sounds. They sounded like the shrieks of an animal. All the soul seemed gone from them. James approached the bed. There was a roll of dark eyes at him. Then a voice ghastly beyond description, like the snarl of a hungry beast, came from between the straight white lips. "More, more! Give me more! Be quick!" James hesitated. "Quick, quick!" demanded the voice. James crossed the room to the dresser. The sick woman now interspersed her screams with the word "quick!" James filled a hypodermic syringe from a glass on the bureau and approached the bed again. He bared a shuddering arm and inserted the instrument quickly. "Now try and be quiet," he said. "You will go to sleep." Then he went out of the room. The screams had ceased. As James approached the stair another door opened, and Clemency in a wrapper looked out. She was very pale, her eyes were distended with fear, and her mouth was trembling. "How is she?" she whispered. "Better, dear. Go back in your room and lie down. We are doing all we can." When James entered the office Gordon and Mrs. Blair turned with one accord, and fixed horribly searching eyes upon his face. He sat down beside the table, and mechanically lit a cigar. "How did she seem?" Gordon asked almost inaudibly. "Better." "Was she quiet?" "Yes." Gordon gave a long sigh. His face was deadly white. He leaned back in his chair, and both James and the nurse sprang. They thought he had fainted. While James felt his pulse Mrs. Blair got some brandy. Gordon swallowed the brandy, and raised his head. "It is nothing," he said in a harsh voice. "You had better go back to her, Mrs. Blair." A look of strange dread came over the woman's grave face. "I will be there directly," said Gordon. Mrs. Blair went out. She left the door ajar. The house was so still that one could seem to hear the silence. There was something terrible about it after the turmoil of sound. Then the silence was broken. A scream more terrible than ever pierced it like a sword. Another came. Gordon sprang up and faced James. The young man's eyes fell before the look of fierce questioning in Gordon's. "I could not," he gasped. "Oh, Doctor Gordon, I could not! Instead of that I used water. I thought perhaps her mind being convinced that it was morphine, she might--" "Mind!" shouted Gordon. "Mind, how much do you suppose the poor, tortured thing has to bring to bear upon this? I tell you she is being eaten alive. There is no other word for it. Gnawed, and worried, and eaten alive." Gordon ran out of the room. James closed the door. The dog, who had been asleep beside the fire, started up, came over to James, laid his white head on his knee and whimpered, with an appealing look in his brown eyes, which were turned toward the young man's face. Almost immediately Mrs. Blair entered the room. She was very pale. "Doctor Gordon sent me down for the brandy," she said abruptly. She went to the table on which the brandy flask stood, but she seemed in no hurry to take it. "How is she?" asked James. "I think she is a little quieter." The nurse stood staring at the fire for a second longer. Then she took the brandy flask and went out with a soft, but jarring, tread. Doctor Gordon must have passed her on the stairs, for he returned almost directly after she had left, and stood with his back to James, fussing over some bottles on the shelves opposite the fireplace. He stood there for some five minutes. James glancing over his shoulder saw that he was trembling in a strange rigid fashion, but he seemed intent upon the bottles. The house was very still again. Gordon at last seemed to have finished whatever he was doing with the bottles. He left them and sat down in his chair. The dog left James and went to him, but Gordon pushed him away roughly. Then Gordon spoke to James without turning his face in his direction. "I wish you would go upstairs," he said hoarsely. "Mrs. Blair is alone, and I--I am about done too." James obeyed without a word. When he reached the head of the stairs he felt a sudden draught of cold wind. Mrs. Blair came out of the sick-room, closing the door behind her. Her face looked as stern as fate itself. James knew what had happened the moment he saw her. James began to speak stammeringly, but she stopped him. "Call Doctor Gordon," she said shortly. "She is dead." CHAPTER XIII About two weeks after the death of Doctor Gordon's wife James went to the post office before beginning his round of calls. Lately nearly all the practice had devolved upon him. Gordon seemed sunken in a gloomy apathy, from which he could rouse himself only for the most urgent necessities. Once aroused he was fully himself, but for the most part he sat in his office smoking or seemingly half-asleep. Once in a while a very sick patient acted upon him as a momentary stimulus, but Alton was unusually healthy just then. After an open and, for the most part, snowless winter, which had occasioned much sickness, the spring brought frost and light falls of snow, which seemed to give new life to people in spite of unseasonableness. James had had little difficulty in attending to most of the practice, although he was necessarily away from home the greater part of the time. However, he often took Clemency with him, and she would sit well wrapped up in the buggy reading a book while he made calls. Then there were the long drives over solitary roads, which, though rough, causing the wheels to jolt heavily in deep ridges of frozen soil, or sink into the red mud almost to the hubs, as the case might be, seemed like roads of Paradise to the young man. Although he himself grieved for Gordon's wife, and Gordon himself filled him with covert anxiety, yet he was young and the girl was young, and they were both released from a miserable sense of insecurity and mystery, which had irritated and saddened them; their thoughts now turned toward their own springtime, as naturally and innocently as flowers bloom. There was grief, and the shadow of trouble, but of past trouble; their eyes looked upon life and love and joy instead of death, as helplessly as a flower looks toward the sun. They were happy, although half-ashamed of their happiness; but, after all, perhaps, being happy after bereavement and trouble means simply that the soul has turned to God for consolation. James's face was beaming with his joyful thoughts as he drew up before the village store, got out of the buggy, and tied the horse. When he entered he said "good morning!" in a sort of general fashion. There were many men lounging about. The morning mail had been distributed, and although Alton people got very few letters, still there was a wide interest in the post office, a little boxed-off space in a corner of the store. The store-keeper, Henry Graves, was the postmaster. He felt the importance of his position. When he sorted and distributed the mail from the limp leather bag, he realized himself as an official of a great republic. He loved to proudly ignore, and not even seem to see, the interested and gaping faces watching the boxes. Doctor Gordon's box was an object of especial interest. Indeed, that was the only one to be depended upon to contain something when the two mails per day arrived. Gordon, moreover, took the only New York paper which reached the little hamlet. Alton had no paper of its own. The nearest was printed in Stanbridge. One man, the Presbyterian minister, subscribed to the Stanbridge paper, and paid for it in farm produce. He had a little farm, and tilled the soil when he was not saving souls. The Stanbridge paper had arrived the night before, and the minister had been good enough to impart some of its contents to the curious throng in the store. He was accustomed to do so. Likewise Gordon, when he was not too hurried, would open his New York paper, and read the most startling "headers" to a wide-eyed audience. This morning the paper was in the box as usual, with a number of letters. The men pressed in a suggestive way around James, as he took the parcel from the postmaster. There were no lock-boxes. James hesitated a moment. He had not much time, but he was good-natured, and the eager hunger in the men's eyes appealed to him. There was something pathetic about this outreaching for intelligence of their kind, and its progress or otherwise, among these plodding folk, who had so to count their pence that a newspaper was an unheard-of luxury to them. James opened the paper and glanced over the headlines on the first page. Now, had he looked, he might have seen something sinister and malicious in the curious eyes, but he was so dazed by the very first thing he saw as to be for the moment oblivious to anything else. On the right of the first page was the headline: "Strange dual life of a prominent physician in Alton, New Jersey. Doctor Thomas B. Gordon has lived with his wife for years, and called her his widowed sister, Mrs. Clara Ewing. Upon her death, a few days since, he revealed the secret. Will give no reasons for this strange conduct, simply states that he was justified, even compelled, by circumstances." Then followed a caricature portrait of Gordon, a photograph of the house, one of the village church, and the cemetery and Gordon's wife's grave, with various surmises and comments, enough to fill the column. James paled as he read. He had not known of Gordon's action in telling that the dead woman was his wife. He looked around in a bewildered fashion, and met the hungry eyes. One small, mean face of a small man peered around his shoulder gloatingly. "Some news this mornin'?" he observed, with a smack of the lips, as if he tasted sweets. Then James arose to the occasion. He faced them all and smiled coolly. "Yes," he replied; "you mean about Doctor Gordon?" There was a murmur of assent. James read the article from beginning to end. "I suppose it is news to you," he said, when he had finished. He looked at them all with a superior air. He looked older and more manly than when he had first come in their midst. He _was_ older and more manly, and he was superior. The men recognized it, not sullenly nor defiantly, but with the unquestioning attitude of the New Jerseyman when he is really below the scale in birth and education. Still their faces all expressed malicious cunning and cruel curiosity, which they hesitated to put into words. They knew that Elliot was to marry Gordon's niece; they were overawed by both men, but they were afraid of Gordon. Still Jim Goodman found courage of his meanness and smallness and spoke. "It seems a strange thing," he said, "that Doctor Gordon should hev came and went here for years, and all of us thinkin' his wife were his sister when she were not." "Well, what of it?" asked James. The men stared at one another. "What of it?" repeated James. "I don't suppose there is anything criminal in a man's calling his wife by his sister's name. Doctor Gordon has a sister named Ewing." Again the men stared at one another, and Jim Goodman was the only one who had the miserable courage to speak. "S'pose him an' her were married," he said, in a thin voice like the squeal of a fox. "Which of you wants to be knocked down can make a statement to the contrary," thundered James. "Is that what you make of it?" Goodman shuffled from one foot to the other. Men nudged shoulders, Goodman spoke. "Nobody never knows what is true or ain't true in them newspapers," he observed, and there was a note of alarm in his voice. "I did not read a thing in the whole column which even implied such a thing as you intimated," James said hotly. "Don't put it off on the newspapers!" Then another man spoke, a farmer, tall, dry, lank, and impervious. He was a man about whom were ill-reports. His wife had died some years before, and he had a housekeeper, a florid, blonde creature, dressed with dingy showiness, of whom people spoke with covert laughs. "All we want to know is why Doctor Gordon has never said that her was his wife, and not his sister," he said in a defiant nasal voice. The malignant Jim Goodman saw his chance. He jumped upon it like a spider. "That's so," he said. "Why didn't he say she was his housekeeper?" There was a shout of coarse laughter. The farmer gave a hateful look at Goodman and puffed at a rank pipe. James was furious, but he saw the necessity of a statement of some kind, and his wits leaped to action. "Well," he said, "suppose there was a question of money." The crowd pressed closer and gaped. "Money!" said Goodman. "Yes, money," pursued James recklessly. "Did you never hear of people being opposed to marriages, rich people I mean, and threatening to disinherit a woman if she married the man they did not pick out for her?" "Was that it?" asked Goodman. "I am not saying that it was or was not. I am not going to discuss Doctor Gordon's secrets with you. It's none of your business, and none of my business. All I am saying is this, suppose there had been a girl years ago with a very rich bachelor brother. Suppose the brother had been jilted by a girl, and hated the whole lot of women like poison, and had no idea of getting married himself, and his sister would be his only heiress, and he had set his foot down that she should not marry Doc--the man she had set her heart upon. Suppose he went to--well, the South Sea Islands, for the rest of his life, to get out of sight and sound of women like the one who had jilted him, told his sister before he went that if she married the man she wanted he would make a will and leave his money away from her, build an hospital or a library or something, suppose she hit upon the plan of marrying the man she wanted, and keeping it quiet." "Was that it?" "Didn't I tell you that I would not say whether it was or not? I only say suppose that was the case. Doctor Gordon has a married sister by the name of Ewing living in foreign parts. You can see for yourself how easy it might have been." "What about the girl?" asked Goodman in a dry voice. James flushed angrily. "That is nobody's business," said he. "She is Doctor Gordon's niece." Goodman was unabashed. "How does it happen her name is Ewing?" he asked. "Couldn't it possibly have happened that two sisters of Doctor Gordon's married two brothers?" James cried. He elbowed his way out. When he was in the buggy driving home, he began to realize how the fairy tale which he had related in the store would not in the least impose upon Clemency, how she would almost inevitably hear of the statements in the papers. He wondered more and more that Gordon should have divulged a secret which he had kept so fiercely for so long. When he reached home he went at once into the office, and gave Gordon his mail and the New York paper. Gordon glanced at it, then at James. "Have you seen this?" he asked. James nodded. "I suppose you think me most inconsistent," said Gordon gloomily, "but the truth is I kept the secret while Clara was alive, though I found I could not, oh, God, I could not after she was dead and gone! I had not realized what that would mean: to never acknowledge her as my wife, dead or alive. I found that when it came to the death certificate, and the notice in the paper, and the erection of a stone to her memory, that I could not keep up the deception, no matter what the consequence. My God, Elliot, I cannot commit sacrilege against the dead! Dead, she must have her due. I anticipated this. There was something last night in the _Stanbridge Record_, and yesterday, while you were out three reporters from New York came. I told them that I had done what I had for good and sufficient reasons, which were not dishonorable to myself or to others, and beyond that I would say nothing. I suppose the poor fellows had to tax their imaginations to fill their columns. I don't know what the result will be with regard to Clemency, but I could not help it." There was something painfully appealing in Gordon's look and manner. He seemed so broken that James was alarmed. He said everything that he was able to say to soothe him, commended the course which he had taken, and told him what he had said at the store, without repeating the insinuations which had led him to fabricate such a tale. Gordon smiled bitterly. "All your fellowmen want of you is food for their animal appetites or their mental," he said. "They must have meat and drink for their stomachs, as well as for their curiosity and malice. I have lived here all these years, and labored for them for mighty poor recompense, and sometimes for none at all, and I'll warrant that to-day I am more in their minds than I have ever been before, because they have found out my secret, which has been the torture of my life. I wonder if Clemency has heard anything about it." "I will go and see," replied James. The minute he saw Clemency, who was in the parlor, he knew that she knew. By her side on the floor was the _Stanbridge Record_. She looked at James and pointed to it without a word. Her face was white as death. James took up the paper. That merely announced the fact of Mrs. Gordon's death, dwelt upon her many beautiful qualities of mind and body, her great suffering, and stated briefly the astonishment with which the news was received that she was Doctor Gordon's wife, and not his sister, as people had been led to suppose. "Little Annie Codman just brought it over," said Clemency. "She said her mother sent it. It is just like her mother. Mr. Codman never would have done such a thing." Mr. Codman was the minister. James, for a second, did not know what to say. He thought of the absurd story which he had told, or rather suggested, at the store, and realized that such a fabrication would not answer here. Immediately Clemency fired a point-blank question at him. "Who am I?" she asked. "You are Doctor Gordon's niece, dear." "But--she was not my mother." "No, dear." "Who am I?" "You are the daughter of Doctor Gordon's youngest sister, who died when you were born." Clemency sat reflecting, her forehead knit, a keen look in her blue eyes. "I knew my father was dead," she said after a little. "Uncle Tom has always told me that he passed away three months before I was born, but--" She raised a puzzled, shocked, grieved face to James. "What is my name?" she asked. "My real name?" James hesitated. Then his mind reverted to the tale which he had told at the store. He could see no other way out of the difficulty. "Did you never hear of two brothers marrying two sisters, dear?" he asked. Clemency gazed at him with a puzzled, almost suspicious, look. "I knew I had an aunt and cousin in England named Ewing," she said, "but I always supposed that my English aunt was not my real aunt, only my aunt by marriage, that she had married my father's brother." "Your English aunt is your uncle's own sister," said James. "I see: my own mother and my aunt were sisters, and they married brothers," Clemency said slowly. "That is unusual, but not unprecedented," said James. He had never been involved in such a web of fabrication. He felt his cheeks burning. He was sure that he looked guilty, but Clemency did not seem to notice it. She was reflecting, still with that puzzled knitting of her forehead and that introspective look in her blue eyes. "I wonder if I look in the least like my own mother?" she said in a curious voice, as of one who feels her way. "Once your uncle said to me that you were your own mother's very image," replied James eagerly. He was glad to have the chance to say anything truthful. Clemency's face lightened. She spoke with that fatuous innocence and romance of young girls, and often of older women, to whom romance and sentiment are in the place of reason. "Then I know who that man was," she announced in a delighted voice. "You and Uncle Tom thought I would never know, but I do know. I have found out my own self." "Who was he, dear?" "Oh, I don't know who he was really, and I don't know who that woman was. She does mix up things a good deal, but this much I do know--why Uncle Tom passed off my aunt for my mother, and why we were always hiding from that man. He was in love with my mother, and he was in love with me, because I am so much like her. Now, tell me honest, dear, didn't Uncle Tom ever tell you that that man was in love with my mother before I was born?" "Yes, dear," James answered, fairly bewildered over the fashion in which truth was lending itself to the need of falsehood. Clemency nodded her head triumphantly. "There, I told you I knew," said she. "Poor man, it was dreadful of him to pursue me so, and make us all so unhappy, and of course I never could have married him, even if it had not been for you. I do think he looked like a wicked man, and of course I never could have endured the thought of marrying a man who had been in love with my mother, even if he had been ever so good. But I can't help being sorry for him; he must have loved my mother so much, and he must have wasted his whole life; and then to die among strangers so suddenly, poor man." James felt a sort of pleasure at hearing the girl express, all unknowingly, sympathy for her dead father. The tears actually stood in her eyes. "The queerest thing to me is that woman," she added musingly, after a minute. Then again her face lightened. "Why, I do believe she was his sister," she cried, "and that was the reason she wanted to get me, and the reason why she was so dreadfully upset when she heard he was dead, poor thing. Well, of course, I can't help feeling glad that I am not in danger any more; but I am sorry for that poor man, even if he wasn't good." A tear rolled visibly down Clemency's cheeks. Then she got out her handkerchief and sobbed violently. "Oh, I haven't realized," she moaned, "I haven't realized until this minute, how terrible it is that she wasn't my mother." "She was as good as a mother to you, dear." "Yes, I know, but she wasn't, and it hurts me worse now she is gone than it would have done when she was alive. I don't seem to have anything." "You have me." Then Clemency ran to him, and he held her on his knee and comforted her, then tore himself away to make his morning round of calls. Clemency followed him to the door, and kissed her hand to him as he drove away. James had good reason to remember it, for it was the last loving salutation from her for many a day. When he returned at noon the girl's manner was unaccountably changed toward him. She only spoke to him directly when addressed, and then in monosyllables. She never looked at him. She sat at the table at luncheon and poured the chocolate, and there was almost absolute silence. Emma waited jerkily as usual. James fancied once, when he met her eyes, that there was an expression of covert triumph on her face. Emma had never liked him. He had been conscious of the fact, but it had not disturbed him. He had no more thought of this middle-aged, harsh-featured New Jersey farmer's daughter than he had of one of the dining-chairs. Gordon sat humped upon himself, as he sat nowadays, a marked stoop of age was becoming visible in his broad shoulders, and he ate perfunctorily without a word. James, after a number of futile attempts to talk to Clemency, subsided himself into bewildered silence, and ate with very little appetite. There were chops and potatoes and peas, and apple-pie, for luncheon. When it came to the pie Emma served Clemency and Doctor Gordon, and deliberately omitted James. Nobody seemed to notice it, although James felt sure that the omission was intentional. He felt himself inwardly amused at the antagonism which could take such a form, and went without his pie uncomplainingly, while Gordon and Clemency ate theirs. The dog at this juncture came slinking into the room and close to James, who gave him a lump of sugar from the bowl which happened to stand near him. At once Emma took the bowl and moved it to another part of the table out of his reach. James felt a strong inclination to laugh. The dog sat up and begged for more sugar, and James, when they all left the table, coolly took a handful of sugar from the bowl and carried it into the office, the dog leaping at his side. Emma slammed the dining-room door behind him. Clemency, without a look at him, immediately ran upstairs to her own room. Gordon and James sat down in the office as usual for a smoke until James should start upon his afternoon rounds. Gordon asked him a few questions about the patients whom he had seen that morning, but in a listless, abstracted fashion, then he spoke of those whom James would see that afternoon. "You had better take the team," he said. "Clemency is going with me," James said. Gordon looked at him with faint surprise. "I think you must be mistaken," he said. "Clemency came to me just before luncheon and asked if I had any objections to her spending a few days with Annie Lipton. I told her we could get on perfectly well without her, and Aaron is going to drive her over. She will have to take a suit-case. I knew you had to go in another direction, and could not take her. I thought the change would do her good. Didn't she say anything to you about it?" "I think it will do her good. She needs a little change," James replied evasively. As he spoke Aaron came out of the stable leading the bay mare harnessed to a buggy. "She is going right away," said Gordon, looking a little puzzled. He had hardly finished speaking before Clemency's voice was heard in the hall. It rang rather hard, but quite clearly. "Good-by," she called out. "Good-by," responded Gordon and James together. Gordon looked at James, astonished that he did not go out to assist Clemency into the buggy, and bid her good-by. He seemed about to question him, then he took another puff at his pipe, and his face settled into its wonted expression of gloomy retrospection. Boy's and girl's love affairs seemed as motes in a beam of sunlight to him at this juncture. James started to go, the horses were stamping uneasily in the drive, and he had a long round of calls to make that afternoon. Gordon removed his pipe. "I am putting a good deal on you, Elliot," he said with a kind of hard sadness. "That's all right," James replied cheerfully, "I am strong. I can stand it if the patients can. I fancied old Mrs. Steen was rather disgusted to see me this morning. I heard her say something about sendin' a boy to her daughter, and when I went into the bedroom, she glared at me, and said, 'You?'" James laughed. "Her case is not at all desperate," Gordon said gloomily. "She is merely on the downward road of life. Nothing ails her except that. You can supply the few inadequate crutches of tonics as well as any one. There is not one desperately sick patient on the whole list now, that I know of, although I must confess that that Willoughby girl rather puzzles me. She breaks every diagnosis all to pieces." "Hysteria," said James. "Oh, yes, I know hysteria is a good way to account for our own lack of insight," said Gordon, "and it may be that girls are queer subjects. Sometimes I wonder if they know what they know. Lilian Willoughby does not." Gordon, to James's intense surprise, flared into a burst of anger. "Yes, she does know," he declared. "Down in her inner consciousness I believe she does, poor little overstrung, oversensitive girl, half-fed, as to her body, on coarse food which she cannot assimilate, starved emotionally. If a girl like that has to exist anyway, why cannot she be born under different circumstances? That girl as daughter of a New Jersey farmer is an anomaly. If she mates at all it must be with another New Jersey farmer, then she dies after bringing a few degenerates into the world. Providence does things like that, and the doctors are supposed to right things. That girl has had symptoms of about every known disease, and my diagnosis has failed to prove the existence of one of them. Yet there are the symptoms. Call it hysteria, or what you will. I call it an injustice on the part of the Higher Power. I suppose that is blasphemy, but I am forced to it. Can that girl help the longings for her rights, her longings which are abnormally acute because of her over-fine nervous system? Those longings, situated as she is, can never be satisfied in any way except for her own harm. Meantime she eats her own heart, since she has nothing else, and heart-eating produces all kinds of symptoms. I am absolutely powerless in such a case, though sometimes I make a diagnosis which I think may be correct, sometimes I think there is some organic trouble which I can mitigate. But always I fall back upon the miserable truth which I am convinced underlies her whole existence. She is a creature born into a life which does not and never will afford her the proper food for her physical and spiritual needs. Oh, the horror in this world, and what am I to set myself to right it? Shut the door." "The horses are uneasy," James said. "Never mind, shut the door. Clemency is away, and Emma out in the kitchen. I must speak to somebody, or I shall go mad." James shut the door and turned to Gordon, who sat rigid in his chair, his hands clutching the arms. "Do you think I did right?" he groaned. "You know what I did. Was it right?" "If you mean about your wife," James said, "I think you did entirely right." "But you could not," Gordon returned bitterly. "It was too much for you to attempt, and yet she was nothing to you as she was to me, and the sin would not have been so terrible." "I had not the courage," James replied simply. "You did not think it right. You did not wish to burden your soul with such a responsibility. I was wrong to try to shift it upon you, wrong and cowardly, but she was bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; it was a double crime for me, murder and suicide. It was not because you had not the courage: you have faced surgical operations and dissecting. You dared not commit what you were not sure was not a crime. There is no use in your hedging, Elliot. I know the truth." "Still I think you did right," James said stubbornly. "She had to die anyway. Death was upon her. You simply hastened it." Gordon looked at James, and his eyes seemed to fairly blaze with somber fire; for a moment the young man thought his reason was unhinged. "But what am I? Who is any man to take whip or spur to the decrees of the Almighty, to hasten them?" "She was suffering--" James began. "What of that? Who can say, though she had led the life of a saint on earth, so far as any one could see, what subtle sins of life itself her pains were counteracting? Who can tell but I have deprived her of untold joys which would have compensated a thousand times for those pains by shortening them?" "Doctor Gordon, you are morbid," James said, looking at him uneasily. "How do you know I am morbid? Then that other--Mendon. Who is to say that I was right even about that? It is probable I saved your life, and possibly my own, as well as Clemency from misery. But who can say that death would not have been better for both you and me than life, and even misery for Clemency had that man lived? God had allowed him life upon the earth. I may have shortened that life. He was a monster of wickedness, but who can say that he was not a weapon of God, and that I have not done incalculable mischief by depriving him of that weapon? There is only one consolation which I have with regard to him; unless my diagnosis was entirely at fault, he would have had that attack of erysipelas anyway. I hardly think I deceive myself with regard to that, and there is a very probable chance that the attack would have been fatal. He had nearly lost his life twice before with the same disease. That I know, and I do not think that unless the poison was already in his blood, it would have developed so rapidly from that slight bruise. So far as the simple wound from the dog went, he was in no danger whatever. I have that consolation in his case, in not being absolutely certain that I caused his death; I am not even absolutely sure that I hastened it by any appreciable time. He might have been attacked that very night with the disease. Still there is, and always will be, the slight doubt." "I don't think you ought to brood over that, Doctor Gordon," James said soothingly. He went close to the older man and laid a hand upon his shoulder. Gordon looked up at him, and his face was convulsed. He spoke with solemn and tragic emphasis. "It is not for mortal man to interfere with the ways of God, and he does so at his own peril," he said. CHAPTER XIV The confidence which Gordon had reposed in James seemed for a time to have given him a measure of relief. While he never for an instant appeared like his old self, while the games of euchre at Georgie K.'s were not resumed, nor the boyish enjoyment of things, which James now recognized to have been simply feverish attempts to live through the horrible ordeal of his life and keep his sanity, while he had now settled down into a state of austere gloom, yet he begun again to attend to his practice and to take interest in it. Clemency remained away for a week. Then Gordon brought her home. She was at the dinner-table that night when James returned rather late from a call on a far-off patient. She simply said, "Good evening! Doctor Elliot," as if he had been the merest acquaintance, and went on to serve his soup. James gave her a bewildered, half-grieved, half-angered look, which she seemed not to notice. Immediately after dinner she went to her own room. James, smoking with Gordon in the office, heard her go upstairs. Gordon nodded at James through the cloud of smoke. "She has taken a notion, my son," he said. "She told me on the way home that she wished to break the engagement with you. She would give no reason. She wished me to tell you. I don't take her seriously. She cares as much for you as ever. Girls are queer cattle. She has some utterly unimaginable idea in her head, which will run itself out. If I were you I would pay no attention to it. Simply take her at her word, and let her alone for a little while, and she herself will urge you for a reconciliation. I know the child. She simply cannot remain at odds for any length of time with any one whom she loves, and she does love you; but she is freakish, and at times inclined to strain at her bit. Perhaps Annie Lipton has been putting ideas into her head against marriage in general. She may have frightened her, and they may have sworn celibacy together in the watches of the night. Girls hatch more mischief when they ought to be asleep. They are queer cattle." "The trouble began before Clemency went away," James said soberly. He was quite pale. "Trouble? What trouble?" "I don't know. All I know is, that the very day when Clemency went away she seemed changed to me. You remember how she called out good-by, and I did not go out to help her off as I should naturally have done." "Yes, I do remember that, and I did wonder at your not going." "I did not go because I was quite sure that she did not wish it. She had been very curt with me, and had shown me unmistakably that my attentions were not welcome." "And you don't know why? There had been no quarrel?" "Not the slightest. I have not the faintest idea what the trouble is or was, and why she wishes to break the engagement. All I know is that as suddenly as a weather vane turns from west to north, she turned, and seemed to have no more use for me." "Queer," Gordon said reflectively. He eyed James keenly. "You absolutely know of no reason?" "I absolutely know of none. Clemency is the very first girl about whom I have ever thought in this way. There is nothing in my whole life, past or present, which I could not spread before her like an open book, so far as any fear lest it should turn her against me." "I questioned her," Gordon said, "and she absolutely refused to give me any reason for breaking her engagement. She simply repeated over and over, 'I have changed my mind, Uncle Tom.' I asked her if she had seen anybody else." James flushed hotly. "What did she say to that?" "She said, 'Whom could I have seen, Uncle Tom? You yourself know how many men I have seen here, and you know I never see men at Annie's.' There is no one else. You may be sure of that, and also sure that she still cares for you. I know that from her whole manner. She has simply taken one of those unaccountable freaks which the best of girls will take. Just let her alone, and the whole will right itself. She may have got a sudden scare at the idea of marriage itself, for all I know. I still cling to the idea that Annie Lipton has been putting ideas into her head, in spite of what you say of her coldness before she went there. She may have started herself in the path, but Annie helped her further on." "Of course I must leave here," James said gloomily. Gordon started. "Leave here?" "Yes, of course. Clemency will naturally not wish to have me a member of the household in the existing state of things." "Clemency will wish it. Of course you are going to stay, Elliot." "I don't feel as if I could, Doctor Gordon." "Nonsense!" "It will naturally not be very pleasant for me," James said, coloring. "Why not?" asked Gordon irritably. "You are not a love-sick girl." "No, I am not," James returned with spirit. "I know I am jilted, but I mean to take, and I think I am taking it, like a man. If Clemency does not want me, I am sure I do not want her to have me. And I can stand seeing her daily under the altered condition of things. I am no milk-sop. Generally speaking, living under a roof when you are an object of aversion to a member of the household, is not exactly pleasant." "You are not an object of aversion." "I might as well be." Gordon looked at the young man pitifully. "For God's sake, then don't leave _me_, Elliot," he said. James stared at him. There was so much emotion in his face. "What do you think my life would be without you?" said Gordon. "Aside from your assistance, which I cannot do without, you are my only solace, especially since Clemency is in this mood. Stay for my sake, if it is unpleasant, Elliot." "Well, I will stay, if you feel so about it, doctor," James replied. "Clemency is treating you shamefully," Gordon said. "A girl has a right to her own mind in such a matter, if she has in anything." "The worst of it is, it is not her mind. I tell you I know that." "I am not so sure." "Wait and see! You underestimate yourself, boy." James laughed sadly. Then there was a knock on the office door and Georgie K. appeared. He looked shyly at Gordon. He had a bottle under his arm. "I have brought over a little apple-jack; thought it might do you good," he stammered, his great face suffused like a girl's. Gordon looked affectionately at him. "Thank you, Georgie K.," he said. "Sit down and we will have a game. I'll get the hot water and glasses. Emma is out." "I'll get them," James said eagerly. He went out to the kitchen, but Emma was not out. She was sitting sewing in a gingham apron. "What do you want?" she demanded severely. James explained meekly. "Well, go back to the office, and I'll fetch the things," Emma said in a hostile tone. James obeyed. Presently Emma appeared bearing a tray with the hot water and two glasses, Gordon did not notice the omission of a third glass, until she had gone out. "Why, she only brought two glasses," he said. James felt absurdly unequal to facing Emma again. "I don't think I'll take anything to-night," he said. "Nonsense!" returned Gordon. He went to the door and shouted for Emma with no response. "She can't have gone upstairs so quickly," he said. But when after another shout he got no response, he went himself into the dining-room, and got a tumbler from the sideboard. "She must have gone upstairs at once," he remarked when he returned. "The kitchen is dark." Georgie K. did not remain very late. He seemed nervously solicitous with regard to Doctor Gordon. When he left he shook hands with him, and bade him take good care of himself. "I love that man," Gordon said, when the door had closed behind him. When James entered his room that night he found fresh proof of Emma's inexplicable hostility. The room was in total darkness. He lit matches and searched for lamp or candles, to find none. He fumbled his way out into the kitchen, and got a little lamp, which gave but a dim light, and read, as was his habit, after he had gone to bed, with exceeding difficulty. He also was subjected to a most absurd annoyance from the presence of some gritty particles in the bed. After he extinguished his lamp he could not go to sleep because of them, and lit his lamp again, and tore the sheet off and shook it. The gritty particles seemed to him to be crumbs of very hard and dry bread. He made the bed up again after his clumsy masculine fashion. James had not much manual dexterity, and rested very uncomfortably, from a pronounced inclination of the coverings to slide off his feet, and over one side of the bed. The next morning Emma did not bring hot water for his shaving. She usually set a pitcher outside his door, but this morning there was none. He was obliged to go out to the kitchen and prefer a request for some. "I have jest filled up the coffee-pot and the tea-kettle, and I guess the water ain't very hot," Emma said in a malicious tone, as she filled a pitcher for him. The water was not very hot. James had a severe experience shaving, and his annoyances were not over then. There was no napkin beside his plate at breakfast. He did not like to apply to Clemency, whose cold good morning had served to establish a higher barrier between them, and who sat behind the coffee urn with a forlorn but none the less severe look. He also did not like to apply to Gordon for fear of offending her. It was about as bad to ask Emma, but he finally did, in a low tone. Emma apparently did not hear. He was forced to repeat his request for a napkin loudly. Gordon looked up. "Emma, why do you not set the table properly?" he asked, in a severe tone. Emma tossed her head and muttered. She brought a napkin, and laid it beside James's plate with an impetus as if it had been a lump of lead. Presently James discovered that he had only one spoon, but he made that do duty for his cereal and coffee, and said nothing. He was aware of Emma's eyes of covert, malicious enjoyment upon him, as he surreptitiously licked off the oatmeal, and put the spoon in his coffee. He began to wonder what he could do, if this state of things was to continue. It all seemed so absurd, the grievances were so exceedingly petty. He could not imagine what had so turned Emma against him. He was even more at a loss where she was concerned than in Clemency's case. A girl engaged might find some foolish reason, which seemed enormous to her, to turn the cold shoulder to him, but it was inconceivable that Emma should. He had always treated her politely, even with a certain deference, knowing, as he did, that she was an old and faithful servant, and as the daughter of a farmer being, in her own estimation at least, of a highly superior station to that of servants in general. He could not imagine why Emma was subjecting him to these ridiculous persecutions, before which he was almost helpless. She had heretofore treated him loftily, as was her wont with everybody, except Gordon and Clemency, but certainly she had neglected none of her duties with regard to him. Miserable as James was concerning Clemency, he could not but feel that if he were to be subjected to these incomprehensible annoyances from Emma, life in the house would be almost impossible. He could bear sorrow like a man, but to bear pinpricks beside was almost too much to ask. That noon, when he returned from his rounds, he realized that there was to be no cessation. Clemency was not at the lunch-table. Gordon said she had a headache and was lying down. Emma in passing James his cup of tea, contrived to spill it over him. He was not scalded, but his shirt-front and collar were stained, thereby necessitating a change, and he was in a hurry to be gone directly after lunch. Gordon roused himself, however. "Be more careful another time, Emma," he said sharply. Emma tossed her head. "Doctor Elliot moved jest as I was coming with the cup," she said in a thin, waspish voice. "He did no such thing," Gordon said harshly, "and if he had, it was your business to be careful. Get Doctor Elliot another cup of tea." Emma obeyed with a jerk. She set the cup and saucer down beside James's plate as hard as she dared, and James at the first sip found that the tea was salted. However, he said nothing. Gordon after his outburst had resumed his former state of apathy, and was eating and drinking like a machine, whose works were rusty and almost run down. He could not trouble him with such an absurdity. Then, too, he was too vexed to please the girl so much. He forced himself to drink the tea without a grimace, knowing that Emma's eyes were upon him. But the climax was almost reached. That night when on his return he wished to change his collar before dinner, he found every one with the buttonholes torn. It was skilfully done, so skilfully that no one could have declared positively that it had not been done accidentally in the laundry. James would not appear at the dinner-table in a soiled collar, and was forced to hurry out to the village store and purchase new ones. These, with the exception of the one he put on, he locked in his trunk. He was late for dinner, and the soup was quite cold. When Doctor Gordon complained irritably, Emma replied with one of her characteristic tosses of the head that she couldn't help it, Doctor Elliot was late. James said nothing. He swallowed his luke-warm soup in silence. He began to wonder what he could do. He did not wish to complain to Doctor Gordon, especially as the result might be the dismissal of Emma, and he felt that he could say nothing to Clemency about it. Clemency appeared at the dinner-table, but she looked pale and forlorn, and said good evening to James without lifting her eyes. When her uncle asked if her head was better, she said, "Yes, thank you," in a spiritless tone. She ate almost nothing. After dinner, James had a call to make, and, on his return, entered by the office door. He found Gordon fast asleep in his chair, with the dog at his feet. The dog started up at sight of James, but he motioned him down, and went softly out into the hall. There was a light there, but none in the parlor. James heard distinctly a little sob from the parlor. He hesitated a moment, then he entered the room. It was suffused with moonlight. All the pale objects stood out like ghosts. Clemency by the window, in a little white wool house-gown, looked, ghostly. James went straight across to her, pulled up a chair beside her, seated himself, and pulled one of her little hands away from her face almost roughly, and held it firmly in spite of her weak attempt to remove it. "Now, Clemency," he said in a determined voice, "this has gone quite far enough. You told your uncle that you wished to break your engagement to me. I have no wish to coerce you. If you really do not want to marry me, why, I must make the best of it, but I have a right to know the reason why, and I will know it." Clemency was silent, except for her sobs. "Tell me," said James. "Don't," whispered Clemency. "Tell me." Then Clemency let her other hand, which contained a moist little ball of handkerchief, fall. She turned full upon him her tearful, swollen face. "If you want to know what you know already," said she, in a hard voice, "here it is. She wasn't my mother, but I loved her like one, and you killed her." CHAPTER XV James sat as if turned to stone. All in a second he realized what it must be. He let Clemency's hand go, and leaned back in his chair. "What do you mean, Clemency?" he asked finally, but he realized how senseless the question was. He knew perfectly well what she meant, and he knew perfectly well that he was utterly helpless before her accusation. "You know," said Clemency, still in her unnatural hard voice. "You killed her." "How?" "You know. You gave her more morphine, and her heart was weak. Emma overheard Uncle Tom say so, and that more morphine was dangerous. She might have been alive to-day if it had not been for you." James sat staring at the girl. She went on pitilessly. "You did not see Emma that last time you came upstairs," she said, "but she saw you. She was standing in the door of her room, and she had no light. She saw you and Mrs. Blair going away from her room, and she heard Mrs. Blair tell you she was dead. You killed her. I want nothing whatever to do with a murderer." James remembered that draught of cold air. It must have come from the open door of Emma's room at the end of the hall. He understood that Emma could not have seen him coming upstairs, but that she had seen him with Mrs. Blair at the door of the sick-room, and had jumped at her conclusion. "Emma knew when you went upstairs first," said Clemency. "You left her door a little ajar. Emma saw you giving her a hypodermic. And then when that did not kill her you gave her another. Uncle Tom did not know. He must never know, for it would kill him, but you did kill her." James was silent for a moment. He realized the impossibility of clearing himself from the accusation unless he told the whole truth and implicated Doctor Gordon. Finally he said, miserably enough, "You don't know how horribly she was suffering, dear. You don't know what torments she would have had to suffer." He knew when he said that that he incriminated himself. Clemency retorted immediately, "You don't know. I have heard Uncle Tom say that nobody can ever know. She might have gotten well. Anyway, you killed her." With that Clemency sprang up and ran out of the room, and James heard her sob. As for himself, he remained where he was for a long time. He never knew how long. He felt numb. He realized himself to be in a gulf of misunderstanding, from which he could not be extricated, even for the sake of Clemency. It seemed to him again that he must go away, but he remembered Gordon's pitiful plea to him to remain. Finally he went into his room, to find that Emma, in her absurd malice, had left only the coverlid on the bed. She had stripped it of the sheets and blankets. He lay down with his clothes on and passed a sleepless night. The next morning at the breakfast-table he looked haggard and pale. He could eat nothing. Doctor Gordon looked at him keenly. "What is the matter, Elliot?" he asked. Clemency gave a quick glance at him, and her face worked. "Nothing," replied James. "You look downright ill." "I am not ill." Clemency rose abruptly and left the table. "What is the matter, Clemency? Where are you going?" Gordon called out. "I have finished my breakfast," the girl replied in a stifled voice. Gordon insisted on making some calls that morning, and relieving James. "You are worn out, my son," he said in a voice of real affection, and clapped him on the shoulder. He sent James on a short round in spite of his objections, and the consequence was that James reached home half an hour before luncheon. It was a beautiful morning. Spring seemed to have come with a winged leap. A faint down of green shaded the elms, and there was a pink cloud of peach bloom in the distance. The cherry trees were swollen almost to blossom, and the apple trees had pale radiances in the glance of the sun. The grass was quite green, and here and there were dandelions. Clemency was out in the yard, working in a little flower-garden, as James drove in. She had on a black dress, and her fair head was uncovered. She pretended not to see James, but he had hardly entered the office before she came in. Her face was all suffused with pink. She looked at him tenderly and angrily. "Are you ill?" she said, in an indignant voice which had, in spite of herself, soft cadences. "No, Clemency." "Then why do you look so?" she demanded. James turned at that. "Clemency, you accuse me of cruelty," he said, "but you yourself are cruel. You do not realize that you cannot tell a man he is a murderer, and throw him over when he loves you, and yet have him utterly unmoved by it." Suddenly Clemency was in his arms. "I love you, I love you," she sobbed. "Don't be unhappy, don't look so. It breaks my heart. I love you, I do love you, dear. I can't marry you, but I love you!" "If you love me, you can marry me." Clemency shrank away, then she clung to him again. "No," she said, "I can't get over the thought of it. I can't help it, but I do love you. We will go on just the same as ever, only we will not get married. You know we were not going to get married just yet anyway. I love you. We will go on just the same. Only don't look the way you did this morning at breakfast." "How did I look?" "As if your heart were broken." "So it is, dear." "No, it is not. I love you, I tell you. What is the need of bothering about marriage anyway? I am perfectly happy being engaged. Annie says she is never going to get married. Let the marriage alone. Only you won't look so any more, will you, dear?" CHAPTER XVI After this James encountered a strange state of things: the semblance of happiness, which almost deceived him as to its reality. Clemency was as loving as she had ever been. Gordon congratulated James upon the reconciliation. "I knew the child could never hold out, and it was Annie Lipton," he said. James admitted that Annie Lipton might have been the straw which turned the balance. He knew that Clemency had not told Gordon of her conviction that he had given the final dose of morphine to her aunt. Everything now went on as before. Clemency suddenly became awake to Emma's petty persecutions of James, and they ceased. James one day could not help overhearing a conversation between the two. He was in the stable, and the kitchen windows were open. He heard only a few words. "You don't mean to say you are goin' to hev him?" said Emma in her strident voice. "No, I am not," returned Clemency's sweet, decided one. "What be you goin' with him again for then?" James knew how the girl blushed at that, but she answered with spirit. "That is entirely my own affair, Emma," she said, "and as long as Doctor Elliot remains under this roof, and pays for it, too, he must be treated decently. You don't pass him things, you don't fill his lamp. Now you must treat him exactly as you did before, or I shall tell Uncle Tom." "You won't tell him why?" said Emma, and there was alarm in her voice, for she adored Gordon. "Did you ever know me to go from one to another in such a way?" asked Clemency. "You know if I told Uncle Tom, he would not put up with it a minute. He thinks the world of Doctor Elliot." "It's awful queer how men folks can be imposed on," said Emma. "That has nothing to do with it," Clemency said. "You must treat Doctor Elliot respectfully, Emma." "I'm jest as good as he be," said Emma resentfully. "Well, what if you are? He's as good as you, isn't he? And he treats you civilly. He always has." "I'm a good deal better than he be," Emma went on irascibly. "I wouldn't have gone and went, and--" "Hush!" ordered Clemency in a frightened voice. "Emma, you must do as I say." James drove out of the yard and heard no more, but after that he had no fault to find with Emma, so far as her service was concerned. It is true that she gave him malignant glances, but she made him comfortable, albeit unwillingly. It was fortunate for him that she did so, or he would have found his position almost unbearable. Doctor Gordon relaxed again into his state of apathetic gloom. His strength also seemed to wane. Almost the whole practice devolved upon James. Gordon seemed less and less interested even in extreme cases. Georgie K. also lost his power over him. Now and then of an evening he came, but Gordon, save to offer him a cigar, took scarcely any notice of him. One evening Georgie K. made a motion to James behind Gordon's back when he took leave, and James made an excuse to follow him out. In the drive Georgie K. took James by the arm, and the young man felt him tremble. "What ails him?" asked Georgie K. "I hardly know," James replied in a whisper. "I know," said Georgie K. By the light from the office window James could see that the man was actually weeping. His great ruddy face was streaming with tears. "Don't I know?" he sobbed. James remembered the stuffed canary and the wax flowers, and the story Gordon had told him of Georgie K.'s grief over his wife's death. "I dare say you are right," he returned. "He's breakin' his heart, that's what he's doin'," said Georgie K. "Can't you get him to go away for a change or somethin'?" "I have tried." "He'll die of it," Georgie K. said with a great gulp as he went out of the yard. When James reëntered the office Gordon looked up at him. "That poor old fellow called you out to talk about me," he said quietly. "I know I'm going downhill." "For heaven's sake, can't you go up, doctor?" "No, I am done for. I could get over losing her, but I can't get over what--you know what." "But her death was inevitable, and greater agony was inevitable." Gordon turned upon him fiercely. "When you have been as long in this cursed profession as I have," he said, "you will realize that nothing is inevitable. She might have recovered for all I know. That woman, at Turner Hill, who I thought was dying six months ago, being up and around again, is an instance. I tell you mortal man has no right to thrust his hand between the Almighty and fate. You know nothing, and I know nothing." "I do know." "You don't know, and you don't even know that you don't know. There is no use talking about this any longer. When I am gone you must marry Clemency, and keep on with my practice." James considered when he was in his own room that the event of his succeeding to the practice might not be so very remote, but as to his marrying Clemency he doubted. He dared not hint of the matter to Gordon, for he knew it would disturb him, but Clemency, as the days went on, became more and more variable. At times she was loving, at times it was quite evident that she shrank from him with a sort of involuntary horror. James began to wonder if they ever could marry. He was fully resolved not to clear himself at the expense of Doctor Gordon; in fact, such a course never occurred to him. He had a very simple straightforwardness in matters of honor, and this seemed to him a matter of honor. No question with regard to it arose in his mind. Obviously it was better that he should bear the brunt than Gordon, but he did ask himself if it would ever be possible for Clemency to dissociate him from the thought of the tragedy entirely, and if she could not, would it be possible for her to be happy as his wife? That very day Clemency had avoided him, and once when he had approached she had visibly shrunk and paled. Evidently the child could not help it. She looked miserably unhappy. She had grown thin lately, and had lost almost entirely her sense of fun, which had always been so ready. James went to sleep, wondering how she would treat him the next day. He never knew, for the girl shifted like a weather-cock, driven hither and yon by her love and terror like two winds. The next day, however, solved the problem in an entirely unexpected fashion. James, that morning after breakfast, during which Clemency had sat pale and stern behind the coffee-urn, and scarcely had noticed him, set off on a round of calls. Doctor Gordon, to his surprise, announced his intention of making some calls himself; he said that he would take the team, and James must drive the balky mare, as the bay was to be taken to the blacksmith's. Gordon that morning looked worse than usual, although he evinced such unwonted energy. He trembled like a very old man. He ate scarcely anything, and his mouth was set hard with a desperate expression. James wished to urge him to remain at home, but he did not dare. Gordon, when he left the breakfast-table, proposed that James should take Clemency with him, but the girl replied curtly that she was too busy. Gordon started on his long circuit, and James set off to make the rounds of Alton and Westover. The mare seemed in a very favorable mood that morning. She did not balk, and went at a good pace. It was not until James was on his homeward road that the trouble began. Then the mare planted her four feet at angles, in her favorite fashion, and became as immovable as a horse of bronze. James touched her with the whip. He was in no patient mood that morning. Finally he lashed her. He might as well have lashed a stone, for all the effect his blows had. Then he got out and tried coaxing. She did not seem to even see him. Her great eyes had a curious introspective expression. Then he got again into the buggy and sat still. A sense of obstinacy as great as the animal's came over him. "Stand there and be d----d!" he said. "Go without your dinner if you want to." He leaned back in a corner of the buggy, and began reflecting. His reflections were at once angry and gloomy. He was, he told himself, tired of the situation. He began to wonder if he ought not, for the sake of self-respect, to leave Alton and Clemency. He wondered if a man ought to submit to be so treated, and yet he recognized Clemency's own view of the situation, and a great wave of love and pity for the poor child swept over him. The mare had halted in a part of the road where there were no houses, and flowering alders filled the air with their faint sweetness. Under that sweetness, like the bass in a harmony, he could smell the pines in the woods on either hand. He also heard their voices, like the waves of the sea. It was a very warm day, one of those days in which Spring makes leaps toward Summer. James felt uncomfortably heated, for the buggy was in the full glare of sunlight. All his solace came from the fact that he himself, sitting there so quietly, was outwitting the mare by showing as great obstinacy as her own. He knew that she inwardly fretted at not arousing irritation. That a tickle, even a lash of the whip, would delight her. He sat still, leaning his head back. He was almost asleep when he heard a rumble of heavy wheels, and looking ahead languidly perceived a wagon laden with household goods of some spring-flitters approaching. He sat still and watched the great wagon drawn by two lean, white horses, and piled high with the poor household belongings--miserable wooden chairs and feather beds, and a child's cradle rocking imminently on the top. A lank Jerseyman was driving. By his side on the high seat was his stout wife holding a baby. The weak wail of the child filled the air. James looked to make sure that there was room for the team to pass. He thought there was, and sat idly watching them. The woman looked at him, made some remark to the man, and then both grinned weakly, recognizing the situation. The man on the team drove carefully, but a stone on the outer side caused his team to swerve a trifle. The wheels hit the wheels of the buggy, and the cradle tilted swiftly on to the back of the balky mare, and she bolted. In all her experience of a long, balky life, a cradle as a means of breaking her spirit had not been encountered. James had not time to clutch the lines which had fallen to the floor of the buggy before he was thrown out. He felt the buggy tilting to its fall, he heard a crashing sound and a fierce kicking, and then he knew no more. When he came to himself he was on the lounge in Doctor Gordon's office. Emma was just disappearing with a pitcher in the direction of the kitchen, and he felt something cool on his forehead. He smelled aromatic salts, and heard a piteous little voice, like the bleat of a wounded lamb, in his ears, and kisses on his cheeks, and a soft hand rubbing his own. "Oh, darling," the little voice was saying, "oh, darling, are you much hurt? Are you? Please speak to me. It is Clemency. Oh, he is dead! He is dead!" Then came wild sobs, and Emma rushed into the room, and he heard her say, "Here, put this ice on his head, quick!" James was still so faint that he could only gasp weakly. And he could open his eyes to nothing but darkness and a marvellous spinning and whir as of shadows in a wind. "He's comin' to," said Emma. Her voice sounded as if she felt moved. "Don't take on so, Miss Clemency," she said; "he ain't dead." Again James felt the soft kisses and tears on his face, and again came the poor little voice, "Oh, darling, please listen, please don't do so. I will marry you. I will. I know you did just right. I read one of Uncle Tom's books this morning, and I found out what awful suffering she might have had hours longer. You did right. I will marry you. I will never think of it again. Please don't look so. Are you dreadfully hurt? Oh, when they came bringing you in I thought you were killed! There is a great bruise on your head. Does it hurt much? You do feel better, don't you? Oh, Emma, if Uncle Tom would only come. Can't you hear me, dear? I will marry you. I take it all back. I will marry you! I will marry you whenever you wish. Oh, please look at me! Please speak to me! Oh, Emma, there is Uncle Tom. I am so glad." And then poor, little Clemency, all unstrung and frightened, sank into an unconscious little heap on the floor as Gordon entered. "What the devil?" he cried out. "I saw the buggy smashed on the road, and that mare went down the Ford Hill road like a whirlwind. What, Elliot, are you hurt, boy? Clemency, Emma, what has happened?" All the time Gordon was talking he was examining James, who was now able to speak feebly. "The mare was frightened and threw me," he gasped. "I was stunned. I am all right now. See to Clemency!" But Clemency was already staggering weakly to her feet. "Oh, Uncle Tom, he isn't killed, is he?" she sobbed. "Killed, no," said Gordon, "but he will be if you don't stop crying and making a goose of yourself, Clemency." "We put ice on his head," sobbed Clemency. "He isn't--" "Of course he isn't. He was only stunned. That is only a flesh wound." "I tried to git some brandy down him, but I couldn't," said Emma. "Give it to me," said Gordon. He poured out some brandy in a spoon, and James swallowed it. "He will be all right now," Gordon said. "You won't be such a beauty that the women will run after you for a few days, Elliot, but you're all right." "I feel all right," James said. "It is nothing more than a little boy with a bump on his forehead," said Gordon to Clemency. "Now, child, stop crying, and go and bathe your eyes. Emma, is luncheon ready?" When both women had gone Gordon, who had been applying some ointment to James's forehead, said in a low voice, broken by emotion, "You are all right, Elliot, but--you did have a close call." "I suppose I did," James said, laughing feebly. He essayed to rise, but Gordon held him down. "No, keep still," he said. "You must not stir to-day. I will have your luncheon brought in. Clemency will be only too happy to wait on you, hand and foot." "Poor little girl, I must have given her an awful fright," said James. "Well, you are not exactly the looking object to do anything else," said Gordon laughing. "Where is there a glass?" "Where you won't have it. You won't be scarred. It is simply a temporary eclipse of your beauty, and Clemency will love you all the more for it. You need not worry. Talk about the vanity of women. I thought you were above it, Elliot. Now lie still. If you get up you will be giddy." James lay still, smiling. He felt very happy, and his love for Clemency seemed like a glow of pure radiance in his heart. He lay on the office lounge all the afternoon. He fell asleep with Clemency sitting beside holding his hand. Gordon had gone out to finish the calls. It was six o'clock before he drove into the yard. James had just awakened and lay feeling a great peace and content. Clemency was smiling down at his discolored face, as if it were the face of an angel. The windows were open, and the distant lowing of cattle, waiting at homeward bars, the monotone of frogs, and the songs of circling swallows came in. James felt as if he saw in a celestial vision the whole world and life, and that it was all blessed and good, that even the pain and sorrow blossomed in the end into ineffable flowers of pure delight. But when Doctor Gordon entered this vision was clouded, for Gordon's face had reassumed its old expression of settled melancholy and despair. He inquired how James found himself with an apathetic air, and then sat down and mechanically filled his pipe. After it was filled he seemed to forget to light it, so deep was his painful reverie. He sat with it in hand, staring straight ahead. Then a strange thing happened. The office door opened and Mrs. Blair, the nurse, entered. She was dressed in black, she carried a black travelling bag, and she wore a black bonnet, with a high black tuft on the top by way of trimming. Mrs. Blair was very tall, and this black tuft, when she entered the door, barely grazed the lintel. Gordon rose and said good evening, and regarded her in a bewildered fashion, as did James and Clemency. Mrs. Blair spoke with no preface. "I am going to leave Alton," she said in her severe voice, "and I want to tell you something first, and to say good-by." She looked at Gordon, then at the others, one after another, then at Gordon again. "I did not think at first that it would be necessary for me to say what I am going to," she continued, "but I overheard some things that were said that night, and I have been thinking--and then I heard the other day (I don't know how true it is) that Clemency and Doctor Elliot had had a falling out, and I didn't know but--I didn't quite know what anybody thought, and I wanted you all to know the truth. I didn't want any mistakes made to cause unhappiness." She hesitated, her eyes upon Doctor Gordon grew more intense. "Maybe _you_ think you gave her that dose of morphine that killed her," she said steadily, "but you didn't. Doctor Elliot gave her water, and you gave her mostly water. I had diluted the morphine, and you didn't know it. I had made up my mind that she was going to have the morphine, but I had made up my mind that nobody but me should have the responsibility of it. I'm all alone in the world, and my conscience upheld me, and I felt I'd rather take the blame, if there was to be any. I made up my mind to wait till a certain time and then give it to her, and I did. I am the one who gave her the morphine that killed her. I am going to leave Alton for good. My trunk is down at the station. I came to tell you that I gave her the morphine, and if I did wrong in helping God to shorten her sufferings, I am the one to be punished, and I stand ready to bear the punishment." Gordon looked at her. He did not speak, but it was with his face as if a mask of dreadful misery had dropped from it. "Good-by!" said Mrs. Blair. She went out of the door, and the black tuft on her bonnet barely grazed the lintel. THE END OTHER WORKS BY MARY E. WILKINS-FREEMAN THE HUMBLE ROMANCE and Other Stories Post 8vo. Cloth, $1.25 "A collection of stories of New England life as clearly cut as etchings, marvellous in simplicity and finish." JANE FIELD: A Novel Post 8vo. Cloth, $1.25 "A tragedy told in a few words, moving with the unswerving directness of a Greek play. The novel is lightened by a delicate love interest and touches of homely humor." THE NEW ENGLAND NUN AND OTHER STORIES 16mo. Cloth, $1.25 "Stories of New England village life, the best hitherto written by this author, surpassing those contained in the collection entitled 'The Humble Romance.'" SILENCE AND OTHER STORIES Post 8vo. Cloth, $1.25 "A book like this marks an epoch. It is more important than a change of administration."--FROM AN ENGLISH REVIEW. THE LOVE OF PARSON LORD AND OTHER STORIES Post 8vo. Cloth, $1.25 PEMBROKE: A Novel Post 8vo. Cloth, $1.50 "The greatest American novel since 'The Scarlet Letter.'"--FROM ENGLISH REVIEW. JEROME: A POOR MAN. A Novel Post 8vo. Cloth, $1.50 MADELON: A Novel Post 8vo. Cloth, $1.25 GILES COREY, YEOMAN 32mo. Cloth, 50c. "A great play."--BOSTON TRANSCRIPT. THE PORTION OF LABOR: A Novel Post 8vo. Cloth, $1.50 "A great American novel." THE UNDERSTUDIES Post 8vo. Cloth, $1.25 "Stories of animal life, showing marvellous insight." SIX TREES Post 8vo. Cloth, $1.25 "A unique collection of short stories." THE DEBTOR 12mo. Cloth, $1.50 "The greatest Democratic novel ever written." THE HEARTS HIGHWAY 12mo. Cloth, $1.50 "The greatest of the American historical romances." THE WIND IN THE ROSEBUSH AND OTHER STORIES 12mo. Cloth, $ 1.50 "A collection of wonderful tales of the wierd and supernatural which Poe himself might have written." THE JAMESONS 16mo, Cloth, 50c. "A most entertaining tale, full of kindly humor and sarcasm." PEOPLE OF OUR NEIGHBORHOOD 16mo. Cloth, 50c. "A collection of most diverting sketches. It is like an old photograph album, wherein each photograph is made lifelike by memory or narrative. The doors of a whole country neighborhood are thrown open to the reader." BY THE LIGHT OF THE SOUL (In Press) "A marvellous analysis of character." 
38103	----	TRIAL OF C. B. REYNOLDS FOR BLASPHEMY, AT Morristown, N. J., May 1887. DEFENCE BY Robert G. Ingersoll. Stenographically Reported by I. N. Baker, and Revised by the Author. 1888. PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. MR. C. B. REYNOLDS, the accused, is an accredited missionary of freethought and speech who, under the guarantees of the Constitution, went from town to town in New Jersey, lecturing and preaching to those--had invited him and to all who chose to come. His methods of invitation were the ordinary ones of circulars, newspaper notices, bill posters, and personal address. His meetings were attended by the best people of the place, and were orderly and quiet except as disturbed by Christian mobs, unrestrained by local officials. At one of these meetings, in Boonton, he was attacked with missiles of every kind, while speaking--his tent destroyed, and he compelled to seek safety in flight. An action for damages against the town resulted in a counter action for disturbing the peace. Through the cowardice and inaction of the authorities the issue was never joined. Not daunted by persecution he continued his labors, making Morristown his next field of operations. Here he circulated a pamphlet giving his views of theology, and appended a satirical cartoon of his Boonton experience. This cartoon was the gravamen of his offence. For this he was indicted on a charge of "Blasphemy," and brought before a Morristown jury. The religious farce ended in a fine of $25.00. C. P. Farrell. MR. INGERSOLL'S ARGUMENT Gentlemen of the Jury: I regard this as one of the most important cases that can be submitted to a jury. It is not a case that involves a little property, neither is it one that involves simply the liberty of one man. It involves the freedom of speech, the intellectual liberty of every citizen of New Jersey. The question to be tried by you is whether a man has the right to express his honest thought; and for that reason there can be no case of greater importance submitted to a jury. And it may be well enough for me, at the outset, to admit that there could be no case in which I could take a greater--a deeper interest For my part, I would not wish to live in a world where I could not express my honest opinions. Men who deny to others the right of speech are not fit to live with honest men. I deny the right of any man, of any number of men, of any church, of any State, to put a padlock on the lips--to make the tongue a convict. I passionately deny the right of the Herod of authority to kill the children of the brain. A man has a right to work with his hands, to plow the earth, to sow the seed, and that man has a right to reap the harvest. If we have not that right, then all are slaves except those who take these rights from their fellow-men. If you have the right to work with your hands and to gather the harvest for yourself and your children, have you not a right to cultivate your brain? Have you not the right to read, to observe, to investigate--and when you have so read and so investigated, have you not the right to reap that field? And what is it to reap that field? It is simply to express what you have ascertained--simply to give your thoughts to your fellow-men. If there is one subject in this world worthy of being discussed, worthy of being understood, it is the question of intellectual liberty. Without that, we are simply painted clay; without that, we are poor miserable serfs and slaves. If you have not the right to express your opinions, if the defendant has not this right, then no man ever walked beneath the blue of heaven that had the right to express his thought. If others claim the right, where did they get it? How did they happen to have it, and how did you happen to be deprived of it? Where did a church or a nation get that right? Are we not all children of the same Mother? Are we not all compelled to think, whether we wish to or not? Can you help thinking as you do? When you look out upon the woods, the fields,--when you look at the solemn splendors of the night--these things produce certain thoughts in your mind, and they produce them necessarily. No man can think as he desires No man controls the action of his brain, any more than he controls the action of his heart. The blood pursues its old accustomed ways in spite of you. The eyes see, if you open them, in spite of you. The ears hear, if they are unstopped, without asking your permission. And the brain thinks, in spite of you. Should you express that thought? Certainly you should, if others express theirs. You have exactly the same right. He who takes it from you is a robber. For thousands of years people have been trying to force other people to think their way. Did they succeed? No. Will they succeed? No. Why? Because brute force is not an argument. You can stand with the lash over a man, or you can stand by the prison door, or beneath the gallows, or by the stake, and say to this man: "Recant, or the lash descends, the prison door is locked upon you, the rope is put about your neck, or the torch is given to the fagot." And so the man recants. Is he convinced? Not at all. Have you produced a new argument? Not the slightest. And yet the ignorant bigots of this world have been trying for thousands of years to rule the minds of men by brute force. They have endeavored to improve the mind by torturing the flesh--to spread religion with the sword and torch. They have tried to convince their brothers by putting their feet in iron boots, by putting fathers, mothers, patriots, philosophers and philanthropists in dungeons. And what has been the result? Are we any nearer thinking alike to-day than we were then? No orthodox church ever had power that it did not endeavor to make people think its way by force and flame. And yet every church that ever was established commenced in the minority, and while it was in the minority advocated free speech--every one. John Calvin, the founder of the Presbyterian Church, while he lived in France, wrote a book on religious toleration in order to show that all men had an equal right to think; and yet that man afterwards, clothed in a little authority, forgot all his sentiments about religious liberty, and had poor Servetus burned at the stake, for differing with him on a question that neither of them knew anything about. In the minority, Calvin advocated toleration--in the majority, he practised murder. I want you to understand what has been done in the world to force men to think alike. It seems to me that if there is some infinite being who wants us to think alike, he would have made us alike. Why did he not do so? Why did he make your brain so that you could not by any possibility be a Methodist? Why did he make yours so that you could not be a Catholic? And why did he make the brain of another so that he is an unbeliever--why the brain of another so that he became a Mohammedan--if he wanted us all to believe alike? After all, may be Nature is good enough, and grand enough, and broad enough to give us the diversity born of liberty. May be, after all, it would not be best for us all to be just the same. What a stupid world, if everybody said yes to everything that everybody else might say. The most important thing in this world is liberty. More important than food or clothes--more important than gold or houses or lands--more important than art or science--more important than all religions, is the liberty of man. If civilization tends to do away with liberty, then I agree with Mr. Buckle that civilization is a curse. Gladly would I give up the splendors of the nineteenth century--gladly would I forget every invention that has leaped from the brain of man--gladly would I see all books ashes, all works of art destroyed, all statues broken, and all the triumphs of the world lost--gladly, joyously would I go back to the abodes and dens of savagery, if that is necessary to preserve the inestimable gem of human liberty. So would every man who has a heart and brain. How has the church in every age, when in authority, defended itself? Always by a statute against blasphemy, against argument, against free speech. And there never was such a statute that did not stain the book that it was in, and that did not certify to the savagery of the men who passed it. Never. By making a statute and by defining blasphemy, the Church sought to prevent discussion--sought to prevent argument--sought to prevent a man giving his honest opinion. Certainly a tenet, a dogma, a doctrine is safe when hedged about by a statute that prevents your speaking against it. In the silence of slavery it exists. It lives because lips are locked. It lives because men are slaves. If I understand myself, I advocate only the doctrines that in my judgment will make this world happier and better. If I know myself, I advocate only those things that will make a man a better citizen, a better father, a kinder husband--that will make a woman a better wife, a better mother--doctrines that will fill every home with sunshine and with joy. And if I believed that anything I should say to-day would have any other possible tendency, I would stop. I am a believer in liberty. That is my religion--to give to every other human being every right that I claim for myself, and I grant to every other human being, not the right--because it is his right--but instead of granting I declare that it is his right, to attack every doctrine that I maintain, to answer every argument that I may urge--in other words, he must have absolute freedom of speech. I am a believer in what I call "intellectual hospitality." A man comes to your door. If you are a gentleman and he appears to be a good man, you receive him with a smile. You ask after his health. You say: "Take a chair; are you thirsty, are you hungry, will you not break bread with me?" That is what a hospitable, good man does--he does not set the dog on him. Now how should we treat a new thought? I say that the brain should be hospitable and say to the new thought: "Come in; sit down; I want to cross-examine you; I want to find whether you are good or bad; if good, stay; if bad, I don't want to hurt you--probably you think you are all right,--but your room is better than your company, and I will take another idea in your place." Why not? Can any man have the egotism to say that he has found it all out? No. Every man who has thought, knows not only how little he knows, but how little every other human being knows, and how ignorant after all the world must be. There was a time in Europe when the Catholic church had power. And I want it distinctly understood with this jury, that while I am opposed to Catholicism I am not opposed to Catholics--while I am opposed to Presbyterianism I am not opposed to Presbyterians. I do not fight people,--I fight ideas, I fight principles, and I never go into personalities. As I said, I do not hate Presbyterians, but Presbyterianism--that is I am opposed to their doctrine. I do not hate a man that has the rheumatism--I hate the rheumatism when it has a man. So I attack certain principles because I think they are wrong, but I always want it understood that I have nothing against persons--nothing against victims. There was a time when the Catholic church was in power in the Old World. All at once there arose a man called Martin Luther, and what did the dear old Catholics think? "Oh," they said, "that man and all his followers are going to Hell." But they did not go. They were very good people. They may have been mistaken--I do not know. I think they were right in their opposition to Catholicism--but I have just as much objection to the religion they founded as I have to the Church they left. But they thought they were right, and they made very good citizens, and it turned out that their differing from the Mother Church did not hurt them. And then after awhile they began to divide, and there arose Baptists, and the other gentlemen, who believed in this law that is now in New Jersey, began cutting off their ears so that they could hear better; they began putting them in prison so that they would have a chance to think. But the Baptists turned out to be good folks--first rate--good husbands, good fathers, good citizens. And in a little while, in England, the people turned to be Episcopalians, on account of a little war that Henry the Eighth had with the Pope,--and I always sided with the Pope in that war--but it made no difference; and in a little while the Episcopalians turned out to be just about like other folks--no worse--not as I know of, any better. After awhile arose the Puritan, and the Episcopalian said, "We don't want anything of him--he is a bad man;" and they finally drove some of them away and they settled in New England, and there were among them Quakers, than whom there never were better people on the earth--industrious, frugal, gentle, kind and loving--and yet these Puritans began hanging them. They said: "They are corrupting our children; if this thing goes on, everybody will believe in being kind and gentle and good, and what will become of us?" They were honest about it. So they went to cutting off ears. But the Quakers were good people and none of the prophecies were fulfilled. In a little while there came some Unitarians and they said, "The world is going to ruin, sure;"--but the world went on as usual, and the Unitarians produced men like Channing--one of the tenderest spirits that ever lived--they produced men like Theodore Parker--one of the greatest brained and greatest hearted men produced upon this continent--a good man--and yet they thought he was a blasphemer--they even prayed for his death--on their bended knees they asked their God to take time to kill him. Well, they were mistaken. Honest, probably. After awhile came the Universalists, who said: "God is good. He will not damn anybody always, just for a little mistake he made here. This is a very short life; the path we travel is very dim, and a great many shadows fall in the way, and if a man happens to stub his toe, God will not burn him forever." And then all the rest of the sects cried out, "Why, if you do away with hell, everybody will murder just for pastime--everybody will go to stealing just to enjoy themselves." But they did not. The Universalists were good people--just as good as any others. Most of them much better. None of the prophecies were fulfilled, and yet the differences existed. And so we go on until we find people who do not believe the bible at all, and when they say they do not, they come within this statute. Now gentlemen, I am going to try to show you, first, that this statute under which Mr. Reynolds is being tried is unconstitutional--that it is not in harmony with the Constitution of New Jersey; and I am going to try to show you in addition to that, that it was passed hundreds of years ago, by men who believed it was right to burn heretics and tie Quakers at the end of a cart, men and even modest women--stripped naked--and lash them from town to town. They were the men who originally passed that statute, and I want to show you that it has slept all this time, and I am informed--I do not know how it is--that there never has been a prosecution in this state for blasphemy. Now gentlemen, what is blasphemy? Of course nobody knows what it is, unless he takes into consideration where he is. What is blasphemy in one country would be a religious exhortation in another. It is owing to where you are and who is in authority. And let me call your attention to the impudence and bigotry of the American christians. We send missionaries to other countries. What for? To tell them that their religion is false, that their Gods are myths and monsters, that their Saviours and apostles were imposters, and that our religion is true. You send a man from Morris-town--a Presbyterian, over to Turkey. He goes there, and he tells the Mohammedans--and he has it in a pamphlet and he distributes it--that the Koran is a lie, that Mohammet was not a prophet of God, that the angel Gabriel is not so large that it is four hundred leagues between his eyes--that it is all a mistake--that there never was an angel as large as that. Then what would the Turks do? Suppose the Turks had a law like this statute in New Jersey. They would put the Morristown missionary in jail, and he would send home word, and then what would the people of Morris-town say? Honestly--what do you think they would say? They would say, "Why look at those poor, heathen wretches. We sent a man over there armed with the truth, and yet they were so blinded by their idolatrous religion, so steeped in superstition, that they actually put that man in prison." Gentlemen, does not that show the need of more missionaries? I would say, yes. Now let us turn the tables. A gentleman comes from Turkey to Morristown. He has got a pamphlet. He says, "The Koran is the inspired book, Mohammed is the real prophet, your bible is false and your Saviour simply a myth." Thereupon the Morristown people put him in jail. Then what would the Turks say? They would say, "Morristown needs more missionaries," and I would agree with them. In other words, what we want is intellectual hospitality. Let the world talk. And see how foolish this trial is: I have no doubt but the prosecuting attorney agrees with me to-day, that whether this law is good or bad, this trial should not have taken place. And let me tell you why. Here comes a man into your town and circulates a pamphlet. Now if they had just kept still, very few would ever have heard of it. That would have been the end. The diameter of the echo would have been a few thousand feet. But in order to stop the discussion of that question, they indicted this man, and that question has been more discussed in this country since this indictment than all the discussions put together since New Jersey was first granted to Charles the Second's dearest brother James, the Duke of York. And what else? A trial here that is to be reported and published all over the United States, a trial that will give Mr. Reynolds a congregation of fifty millions of people. And yet this was done for the purpose of stopping a discussion of this subject. I want to show you that the thing is in itself almost idiotic--that it defeats itself, and that you cannot crush out these things by force. Not only so, but Mr. Reynolds has the right to be defended, and his counsel has the right to give his opinions on this subject. Suppose that we put Mr. Reynolds in jail. The argument has not been sent to jail. That is still going the rounds, free as the winds. Suppose you keep him at hard labor a year--all the time he is there hundreds and thousands of people will be reading some account, or some fragment, of this trial. There is the trouble. If you could only imprison a thought, then intellectual tyranny might succeed. If you could only take an argument and put a striped suit of clothes on it--if you could only take a good, splendid, shining fact and lock it up in some dungeon of ignorance, so that its light would never again enter the mind of man, then you might succeed in stopping human progress. Otherwise, no. Let us see about this particular statute. In the first place, the State has a Constitution. That Constitution is a rule, a limitation to the power of the legislature, and a certain breast-work for the protection of private rights, and the Constitution says to this sea of passions and prejudices: "Thus far and no farther." The Constitution says to each individual: "This shall panoply you; this is your complete coat of mail; this shall defend your rights." And it is usual in this country to make as a part of each Constitution several general declarations--called the Bill of Rights. So I find that in the old Constitution of New Jersey, which was adopted in the year of grace 1776, although the people at that time were not educated as they are now--the spirit of the Revolution at that time not having permeated all classes of society--a declaration in favor of religious freedom. The people were on the eve of a Revolution. This Constitution was adopted on the third day of July, 1776, one day before the immortal Declaration of Independence. Now what do we find in this--and we have got to go by this light, by this torch, when we examine the statute. I find in that Constitution, in its Eighteenth Section, this: "No person shall ever in this State be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshipping God in a manner agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience; nor under any pretence whatever be compelled to attend any place of worship contrary to his own faith and judgment; nor shall he be obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or any other rates for the purpose of building or repairing any church or churches, contrary to what he believes to be true." That was a very great and splendid step. It was the divorce of Church and State. It no longer allowed the State to levy taxes for the support of a particular religion, and it said to every citizen of New Jersey: All that you give for that purpose must be voluntarily given, and the State will not compel you to pay for the maintenance of a Church in which you do not believe. So far so good. The next paragraph was not so good. "There shall be no establishment of any one religious sect in this State in preference to another, and no Protestant inhabitants of this State shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil right merely on account of his religious principles; but all persons professing a belief in the faith of any Protestant sect, who shall demean themselves peaceably, shall be capable of being elected to any office of profit or trust, and shall fully and freely enjoy every privilege and immunity enjoyed by other citizens." What became of the Catholics under that clause, I do not know--whether they had any right to be elected to office or not under this Act. But in 1844, the State having grown civilized in the meantime, another Constitution was adopted. The word Protestant was then left out. There was to be no establishment of one religion over another. But Protestantism did not render a man capable of being elected to office any more than Catholicism, and nothing is said about any religious belief whatever. So far, so good. "No religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office of public trust. No person shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil right on account of his religious principles." That is a very broad and splendid provision. "No person shall be denied any civil right on account of his religious principles." That was copied from the Virginia Constitution, and that clause in the Virginia Constitution was written by Thomas Jefferson, and under that clause men were entitled to give their testimony in the courts of Virginia whether they believed in any religion or not, in any bible or not, or in any God or not. That same clause was afterwards adopted by the State of Illinois, also by many other States, and wherever that clause is, no citizen can be denied any civil right on account of his religious principles. It is a broad and generous clause. This statute under which this indictment is drawn, is not in accordance with the spirit of that splendid sentiment. Under that clause, no man can be deprived of any civil right on account of his religious principles, or on account of his belief. And yet, on account of this miserable, this antiquated, this barbarous and savage statute, the same man who cannot be denied any political or civil right, can be sent to the penitentiary as a common felon for simply expressing his honest thought. And before I get through I hope to convince you that this statute is unconstitutional. But we will go another step: "Every person may freely speak, write, or publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right." That is in the Constitution of nearly every State in the Union, and the intention of that is to cover slanderous words--to cover a case where a man under pretence of enjoying the freedom of speech falsely assails or accuses his neighbor. Of course he should be held responsible for that abuse. Then follows the great clause in the Constitution of 1844--more important than any other clause in that instrument--a clause that shines in that Constitution like a star at night.-- "No law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press." Can anything be plainer--anything more forcibly stated? "No law shall be passed to abridge the liberty of speech." Now while you are considering this statute, I want you to keep in mind this other statement: "No law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press." And right here there is another thing I want to call your attention to. There is a Constitution higher than any statute. There is a law higher than any Constitution. It is the law of the human conscience, and no man who is a man will defile and pollute his conscience at the bidding of any legislature. Above all things one should maintain his self-respect, and there is but one way to do that, and that is to live in accordance with your highest ideal. There is a law higher than men can make. The facts as they exist in this poor world--the absolute consequences of certain acts--they are above all. And this higher law is the breath of progress, the very outstretched wings of civilization, under which we enjoy the freedom we have. Keep that in your minds. There never was a legislature great enough--there never was a Constitution sacred enough, to compel a civilized man to stand between a black man and his liberty. There never was a Constitution great enough to make me stand between any human being and his right to express his honest thoughts. Such a Constitution is an insult to the human soul, and I would care no more for it than I would for the growl of a wild beast. But we are not driven to that necessity here. This Constitution is in accord with the highest and noblest aspirations of the heart--"No law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech." Now let us come to this old law--this law that was asleep for a hundred years before this Constitution was adopted--this law coiled like a snake beneath the foundations of the government--this law, cowardly, dastardly--this law passed by wretches who were afraid to discuss--this law passed by men who could not, and who knew they could not, defend their creed--and so they said: "Give us the sword of the State and we will cleave the heretic down." And this law was made to control the minority. When the Catholics were in power they visited that law upon their opponents. When the Episcopalians were in power, they tortured and burned the poor Catholic who had scoffed and who had denied the truth of their religion. Whoever was in power used that, and whoever was out of power cursed that--and yet, the moment he got in power he used it. The people became civilized--but that law was on the statute book. It simply remained. There it was, sound asleep--its lips drawn over its long and cruel teeth. Nobody savage enough to waken it. And it slept on, and New Jersey has flourished. Men have done well. You have had average health in this country. Nobody roused the statute until the defendant in this case went to Boonton, and there made a speech in which he gave his honest thought, and the people not having an argument handy, threw stones. Thereupon Mr. Reynolds, the defendant, published a pamphlet on Blasphemy and in it gave a photograph of the Boonton christians. That is his offence. Now let us read this infamous statute: "_If any person shall wilfully blaspheme the holy name of God by denying, cursing, or contumeliously reproaching his being_."-- I want to say right here--many a man has cursed the God of another man. The Catholics have cursed the God of the Protestant. The Presbyterians have cursed the God of the Catholics--charged them with idolatry--cursed their images, laughed at their ceremonies. And these compliments have been interchanged between all the religions of the world. But I say here to-day that no man, unless a raving maniac, ever cursed the God in whom he believed. No man, no human being, has ever lived who cursed his own idea of God. He always curses the idea that somebody else entertains. No human being ever yet cursed what he believed to be infinite wisdom and infinite goodness--and you know it. Every man on this jury knows that. He feels that that must be an absolute certainty. Then what have they cursed? Some God they did not believe in--that is all. And has a man that right? I say yes. He has a right to give his opinion of Jupiter, and there is nobody in Morristown who will deny him that right. But several thousand years ago it would have been very dangerous for him to have cursed Jupiter, and yet Jupiter is just as powerful now as he was then, but the Roman people are not powerful, and that is all there was to Jupiter--the Roman people. So there was a time when you could have cursed Zeus, the god of the Greeks, and like Socrates, they would have compelled you to drink hemlock. Yet now everybody can curse this god. Why? Is the god dead? No. He is just as alive as he ever was. Then what has happened? The Greeks have passed away. That is all. So in all of our Churches here. Whenever a Church is in the minority it clamors for free speech. When it gets in the majority, no. I do not believe the history of the world will show that any orthodox Church when in the majority ever had the courage to face the free lips of the world. It sends for a constable. And is it not wonderful that they should do this when they preach the gospel of universal forgiveness--when they say, "if a man strike you on one cheek turn to him the other also"--but if he laughs at your religion, put him in the penitentiary? Is that the doctrine? Is that the law? Now read this law. Do you know as I read this law I can almost hear John Calvin laugh in his grave. That would have been a delight to him. It is written exactly as he would have written it. There never was an inquisitor who would not have read that law with a malicious smile. The Christians who brought the fagots and ran with all their might to be at the burning, would have enjoyed that law. You know that when they used to burn people for having said something against religion, they used to cut their tongues out before they burned them. Why? For fear that if they did not, the poor burning victims might say something that would scandalize the Christian gentlemen who were building the fire. All these persons would have been delighted with this law. Let us read a little further: "_Or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching Jesus Christ_." Why, whoever did, since the poor man, or the poor God, was crucified? How did they come to crucify him? Because they did not believe in free speech in Jerusalem. How else? Because there was a law against blasphemy in Jerusalem--a law exactly like this. Just think of it. O, I tell you we have passed too many milestones on the shining road of human progress to turn back and wallow in that blood, in that mire. No. Some men have said that he was simply a man. Some believed that he was actually a God. Others believed that he was not only a man, but that he stood as the representative of infinite love and wisdom. No man ever said one word against that being for saying "Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you." No man ever raised his voice against him because he said "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." And are they the "merciful" who when some man endeavors to answer their argument, put him in the penitentiary? No. The trouble is, the priests--the trouble is, the ministers--the trouble is, the people whose business it was to tell the meaning of these things, quarreled with each other and they put meanings upon human expressions by malice, meanings that the words will not bear. And let me be just to them. I believe that nearly all that has been done in this world has been honestly done. I believe that the poor savage who kneels down and prays to a stuffed snake--prays that his little children may recover from the fever--is honest, and it seems to me that a good God would answer his prayer if he could, if it was in accordance with wisdom, because the poor savage was doing the best he could, and no one can do any better than that. So I believe that the Presbyterians who used to think that nearly everybody was going to hell, said exactly what they believed. They were honest about it, and I would not send one of them to jail--would never think of such a thing--even if he called the unbelievers of the world "wretches," "dogs," and "devils." What would I do? I would simply answer him--that is all; answer him kindly. I might laugh at him a little, but I would answer him in kindness. So these divisions of the human mind are natural. They are a necessity. Do you know that all the mechanics that ever lived--take the best ones--cannot make two clocks that will run exactly alike one hour, one minute? They cannot make two pendulums that will beat in exactly the same time, one beat. If you cannot do that, how are you going to make hundreds, thousands, billions of people, each with a different quality and quantity of brain, each clad in a robe of living, quivering flesh, and each driven by passion's storm over the wild sea of life--how are you going to make them all think alike? This is the impossible thing that Christian ignorance and bigotry and malice have been trying to do. This was the object of the Inquisition and of the foolish legislature that passed this statute. Let me read you another line from this ignorant statute:-- "_Or the Christian religion_." Well, what is the Christian religion? "If you scoff at the Christian religion--if you curse the Christian religion." Well what is it? Gentlemen, you hear Presbyterians every day attack the Catholic Church. Is that the Christian religion? The Catholic believes it is the Christian religion, and you have to admit that it is the oldest one, and then the Catholics turn round and scoff at the Protestants. Is that the Christian religion? If so, every Christian religion has been cursed by every other Christian religion. Is not that an absurd and foolish statute? I say that the Catholic has the right to attack the Presbyterian and tell him, "Your doctrine is all wrong." I think he has the right to say to him, "You are leading thousands to hell." If he believes it, he not only has the right to say it, but it is his duty to say it; and if the Presbyterian really believes the Catholics are all going to the devil, it is his duty to say so. Why not? I will never have any religion that I cannot defend--that is, that I do not believe I can defend. I may be mistaken, because no man is absolutely certain that he knows. We all understand that. Every one is liable to be mistaken. The horizon of each individual is very narrow, and in his poor sky the stars are few and very small. "_Or the word of God,--_" What is that? "_The canonical Scriptures contained in the books of the Old and New Testaments_." Now what has a man the right to say about that? Has he the right to show that the book of Revelation got into the canon by one vote, and one only? Has he the right to show that they passed in convention upon what books they would put in and what they would not? Has he the right to show that there were twenty-eight books called "The Books of the Hebrews?" Has he the right to show that? Has he the right to show that Martin Luther said he did not believe there was one solitary word of gospel in the Epistle to the Romans? Has he the right to show that some of these books were not written till nearly two hundred years afterwards? Has he the right to say it, if he believes it? I do not say whether this is true or not, but has a man the right to say it if he believes it? Now suppose I should read the bible all through right here in Morristown, and after I got through I should make up my mind that it is not a true book--what ought I to say? Ought I to clap my hand over my mouth and start for another State, and the minute I got over the line say, "It is not true, It is not true?" Or, ought I to have the right and privilege of saying right here in New Jersey, "My fellow citizens, I have read the book--I do not believe that it is the word of God?" Suppose I read it and think it is true, then I am bound to say so. If I should go to Turkey and read the Koran and make up my mind that it is false, you would all say that I was a miserable poltroon if I did not say so. By force you can make hypocrites--men who will agree with you from the teeth out, and in their hearts hate you. We want no more hypocrites. We have enough in every community. And how are you going to keep from having more? By having the air free,--by wiping from your statute books such miserable and infamous laws as this. "_The Holy Scriptures_." Are they holy? Must a man be honest? Has he the right to be sincere? There are thousands of things in the Scriptures that everybody believes. Everybody believes the Scriptures are right when they say, "Thou shalt not steal"--everybody. And when they say "Give good measure, heaped up and running over," everybody says, "Good!" So when they say "Love your neighbor," everybody applauds that. Suppose a man believes that, and practices it, does it make any difference whether he believes in the flood or not? Is that of any importance? Whether a man built an ark or not--does that make the slightest difference? A man might deny it and yet be a very good man. Another might believe it and be a very mean man. Could it now, by any possibility, make a man a good father, a good husband, a good citizen? Does it make any difference whether you believe it or not? Does it make any difference whether or not you believe that a man was going through town and his hair was a little short, like mine, and some little children laughed at him, and thereupon two bears from the woods came down and tore to pieces about forty of these children? Is it necessary to believe that? Suppose a man should say, "I guess that is a mistake. They did not copy that right. I guess the man that reported that was a little dull of hearing and did not get the story exactly right." Any harm in saying that? Is a man to be sent to the penitentiary for that? Can you imagine an infinitely good God sending a man to hell because he did not believe the bear story? So I say if you believe the bible, say so; if you do not believe it, say so. And here is the vital mistake, I might almost say, in Protestantism itself. The Protestants when they fought the Catholics said: "Read the bible for yourselves--stop taking it from your priests--read the sacred volume with your own eyes. It is a revelation from God to his children, and you are the children." And then they said: "If after you read it you do not believe it, and you say anything against it, we will put you in jail, and God will put you in hell." That is a fine position to get a man in. It is like a man who invited his neighbor to come and look at his pictures, saying: "They are the finest in the place, and I want your candid opinion. A man who looked at them the other day said they were daubs, and I kicked him down stairs--now I want your candid judgment." So the Protestant Church says to a man, "This bible is a message from your Father,--your Father in heaven. Read it. Judge for yourself. But if after you have read it you say it is not true, I will put you in the penitentiary for one year." The Catholic Church has a little more sense about that--at least more logic. It says: "This bible is not given to everybody. It is given to the world, to be sure, but it must be interpreted by the Church. God would not give a bible to the world unless he also appointed some one, some organization, to tell the world what it means." They said: "We do not want the world filled with interpretations, and all the interpreters fighting each other." And the Protestant has gone to the infinite absurdity of saying: "Judge for yourself, but if you judge wrong you will go to the penitentiary here and to hell hereafter." Now let us see further: "_Or by profane scoffing expose them to ridicule_." Think of such a law as that, passed under a Constitution that says, "No law shall abridge the liberty of speech." But you must not ridicule the Scriptures. Did anybody ever dream of passing a law to protect Shakespeare from being laughed at? Did anybody ever think of such a thing? Did anybody ever want any legislative enactment to keep people from holding Robert Burns in contempt? The songs of Burns will be sung as long as there is love in the human heart Do we need to protect him from ridicule by a statute? Does he need assistance from New Jersey? Is any statute needed to keep Euclid from being laughed at in this neighborhood? And is it possible that a work written by an infinite being has to be protected by a legislature? Is it possible that a book cannot be written by a God so that it will not excite the laughter of the human race? Why gentlemen, humor is one of the most valuable things in the human brain. It is the torch of the mind--it sheds light. Humor is the readiest test of truth--of the natural, of the sensible--and when you take from a man all sense of humor, there will only be enough left to make a bigot. Teach this man who has no humor--no sense of the absurd--the Presbyterian creed, fill his darkened brain with superstition and his heart with hatred--then frighten him with the threat of hell, and he will be ready to vote for that statute. Such men made that law. Let us read another clause:-- "_And every person so offending shall, on conviction, be fined not exceeding two hundred dollars, or imprisoned at hard labor not exceeding twelve months, or both:_" I want you to remember that this statute was passed in England hundreds of years ago--just in that language. The punishment, however, has been somewhat changed. In the good old days when the king sat on the throne--in the good old days when the altar was the right-bower of the throne--then, instead of saying: "fined two hundred dollars and imprisoned one year," it was: "All his goods shall be confiscated; his tongue shall be bored with a hot iron, and upon his forehead he shall be branded with the letter B; and for the second offence he shall suffer death by burning." Those were the good old days when people maintained the orthodox religion in all its purity and in all its ferocity. The first question for you, gentlemen, to decide in this case is: Is this statute constitutional? Is this statute in harmony with that part of the Constitution of 1844 which says: "The liberty of speech shall not be abridged?" That is for you to say. Is this law constitutional, or is it simply an old statute that fell asleep, that was forgotten, that people simply failed to repeal? I believe I can convince you, if you will think a moment, that our fathers never intended to establish a government like that. When they fought for what they believed to be religious liberty--when they fought for what they believed to be liberty of speech, they believed that all such statutes would be wiped from the statute books of all the States. Let me tell you another reason why I believe this. We have in this country naturalization laws. Persons may come here irrespective of their religion. They must simply swear allegiance to this country--they must forswear allegiance to every other potentate, prince and power--but they do not have to change their religion. A Hindoo may become a citizen of the United States, and the Constitution of the United States, like the Constitution of New Jersey, guarantees religious liberty. That Hindoo believes in a God--in a God that no Christian does believe in. He believes in a sacred book that every Christian looks upon as a collection of falsehoods. He believes, too, in a Saviour--in Buddha. Now I ask you,--when that man comes here and becomes a citizen--when the Constitution is about him, above him--has he the right to give his ideas about his religion? Has he the right to say in New Jersey: "There is no God except the Supreme Brahm--there is no Saviour except Buddha the Illuminated, Buddha the Blest?" I say that he has that right--and you have no right, because in addition to that he says, "You are mistaken; your God is not God; your bible is not true, and your religion is a mistake," to abridge his liberty of speech. He has the right to say it, and if he has the right to say it, I insist before this Court and before this jury, that he has the right to give his reasons for saying it; and in giving those reasons, in maintaining his side, he has the right, not simply to appeal to history, not simply to the masonry of logic, but he has the right to shoot the arrows of wit, and to use the smile of ridicule. Anything that can be laughed out of this world ought not to stay in it. So the Persian--the believer in Zoroaster, in the spirits of Good and Evil, and that the spirit of Evil will finally triumph forever--if that is his religion--has the right to state it, and the right to give his reasons for his belief. How infinitely preposterous for you, one of the States of this Union, to invite a Persian or a Hindoo to come to your shores. You do not ask him to renounce his God. You ask him to renounce the Shah. Then when he becomes a citizen, having the rights of every other citizen, he has the right to defend his religion and to denounce yours. There is another thing. What was the spirit of our government at that time? You must look at the leading men. Who were they? What were their opinions? Were most of them as guilty of blasphemy as is the defendant in this case? Thomas Jefferson--and there is in my judgment only one name on the page of American history greater than his--only one name for which I have a greater and a tenderer reverence--and that is Abraham Lincoln, because of all men who ever lived and had power, he was the most merciful. And that is the way to test a man. How does he use power? Does he want to crush his fellow citizens? Does he like to lock somebody up in the penitentiary because he has the power of the moment? Does he wish to use it as a despot, or as a philanthropist--like a devil, or like a man? Thomas Jefferson entertained about the same views entertained by the defendant in this case, and he was made President of the United States. He was the author of the Declaration of Independence, founder of the University of Virginia, writer of that clause in the Constitution of that State that made all the citizens equal before the law. And when I come to the very sentences here charged as blasphemy, I will show you that these were the common sentiments of thousands of very great, of very intellectual and admirable men. I have no time, and it may be this is not the place and the occasion, to call your attention to the infinite harm that has been done in almost every religious nation by statutes such as this. Where that statute is, liberty can not be; and if this statute is enforced by this jury and by this Court, and if it is afterwards carried out, and if it could be carried out in the States of this Union, there would be an end of all intellectual progress. We would go back to the dark ages. Every man's mind, upon these subjects at least, would become a stagnant pool, covered with the scum of prejudice and meanness. And wherever such laws have been enforced, have the people been friends? Here we are to-day in this blessed air--here amid these happy fields. Can we imagine, with these surroundings, that a man for having been found with a crucifix in his poor little home had been taken from his wife and children and burned--burned by Protestants? You cannot conceive of such a thing now. Neither can you conceive that there was a time when Catholics found some poor Protestant contradicting one of the dogmas of the Church, and took that poor honest wretch--while his wife wept--while his children clung to his hands--to the public square, drove a stake in the ground, put a chain or two about him, lighted the fagots, and let the wife whom he loved and his little children see the flames climb around his limbs--you cannot imagine that any such infamy was ever practiced. And yet I tell you that the same spirit made this detestable, infamous, devilish statute. You can hardly imagine that there was a time when the same kind of men that made this law said to another man: "You say this world is round?" "Yes, sir; I think it is, because I have seen its shadow on the moon." "You have?"--Now can you imagine a society outside of hyenas and boa constrictors that would take that man, put him in the penitentiary, in a dungeon, turn the key upon him, and let his name be blotted from the book of human life? Years afterward some explorer amid ruins finds a few bones. The same spirit that did that, made this statute--the same spirit that did that, went before the grand jury in this case--exactly. Give the men that had this man indicted the power, and I would not want to live in that particular part of the country. I would not willingly live with such men. I would go somewhere else, where the air is free, where I could speak my sentiments to my wife, to my children, and to my neighbors. Now this persecution differs only in degree from the infamies of the olden time. What does it mean? It means that the State of New Jersey has all the light it wants. And what does that mean? It means that the State of New Jersey is absolutely infallible--that it has got its growth, and does not propose to grow any more. New Jersey knows enough, and it will send teachers to the penitentiary. It is hardly possible that this State has accomplished all that it is ever going to accomplish. Religions are for a day. They are the clouds. Humanity is the eternal blue. Religions are the waves of the sea. These waves depend upon the force and direction of the wind--that is to say, of passion; but Humanity is the great sea. And so our religions change from day to day, and it is a blessed thing that they do. Why? Because we grow, and we are getting a little more civilized every day,--and any man that is not willing to let another man express his opinion, is not a civilized man, and you know it. Any man that does not give to everybody else the rights he claims for himself, is not an honest man. Here is a man who says, "I am going to join the Methodist Church." What right has he? Just the same right to join it that I have not to join it--no more, no less. But if you are a Methodist and I am not, it simply proves that you do not agree with me, and that I do not agree with you--that is all. Another man is a Catholic. He was born a Catholic, or is convinced that Catholicism is right. That is his business, and any man that would persecute him on that account, is a poor barbarian--a savage; any man that would abuse him on that account, is a barbarian--a savage. Then I take the next step. A man does not wish to belong to any church. How are you going to judge him? Judge him by the way he treats his wife, his children, his neighbors. Does he pay his debts? Does he tell the truth? Does he help the poor? Has he got a heart that melts when he hears grief's story? That is the way to judge him. I do not care what he thinks about the bears, or the flood, about bibles or gods. When some poor mother is found wandering in the street with a babe at her breast, does he quote Scripture, or hunt for his pocket-book? That is the way to judge. And suppose he does not believe in any bible whatever? If Christianity is true, that is his misfortune, and everybody should pity the poor wretch that is going down the hill. Why kick him? You will get your revenge on him through all eternity--is not that enough? So I say, let us judge each other by our actions, not by theories, not by what we happen to believe--because that depends very much on where we were born. If you had been born in Turkey, you probably would have been a Mohammedan. If I had been born among the Hindoos, I might have been a Buddhist--I can't tell. If I had been raised in Scotland, on oat meal, I might have been a Covenanter--nobody knows. If I had lived in Ireland, and seen my poor wife and children driven into the street, I think I might have been a Home Ruler--no doubt of it. You see it depends on where you were born--much depends on our surroundings. Of course, there are men born in Turkey who are not Mohammedans, and there are men born in this country who are not Christians--Methodists, Unitarians, or Catholics, plenty of them, who are unbelievers--plenty of them who deny the truth of the Scriptures--plenty of them who say: "I know not whether there be a God or not." Well, it is a thousand times better to say that honestly than to say dishonestly that you believe in God. If you want to know the opinion of your neighbor, you want his honest opinion. You do not want to be deceived. You do not want to talk with a hypocrite. You want to get straight at his honest mind--and then you are going to judge him, not by what he says but by what he does. It is very easy to sail along with the majority--easy to sail the way the boats are going--easy to float with the stream; but when you come to swim against the tide, with the men on the shore throwing rocks at you, you will get a good deal of exercise in this world. And do you know that we ought to feel under the greatest obligation to men who have fought the prevailing notions of their day? There is not a Presbyterian in Morristown that does not hold up for admiration the man that carried the flag of the Presbyterians when they were in the minority--not one. There is not a Methodist in this state who does not admire John and Charles Wesley and Whitefield, who carried the banner of that new and despised sect when it was in the minority. They glory in them because they braved public opinion, because they dared to oppose idiotic, barbarous and savage statutes like this. And there is not a Universalist that does not worship dear old Hosea Ballon--I love him myself--because he said to the Presbyterian minister: "You are going around trying to keep people out of hell, and I am going around trying to keep hell out of the people." Every Universalist admires him and loves him because when despised and railed at and spit upon, he stood firm, a patient witness for the eternal mercy of God. And there is not a solitary Protestant who does not honor Martin Luther--who does not honor the Covenanters in poor Scotland, and that poor girl who was tied out on the sand of the sea by Episcopalians, and kept there till the rising tide drowned her, and all she had to do to save her life was to say, "God save the king;" but she would not say it without the addition of the words, "If it be God's will." No one, who is not a miserable, contemptible wretch, can fail to stand in admiration before such courage, such self-denial--such heroism. No matter what the attitude of your body may be, your soul falls on its knees before such men and such women. Let us take another step. Where would we have been if authority had always triumphed? Where would we have been if such statutes had always been carried out? We have now a science called Astronomy. That science has done more to enlarge the horizon of human thought than all things else. We now live in an infinite universe. We know that the sun is a million times larger than our earth, and we know that there are other great luminaries millions of times larger than our sun. We know that there are planets so far away that light, traveling at the rate of one hundred and eighty-five thousand miles a second, requires fifteen thousand years to reach this grain of sand, this tear, we call the earth--and we now know that all the fields of space are sown thick with constellations. If that statute had been enforced, that Science would not now be the property of the human mind. That Science is contrary to the bible, and for asserting the truth you become a criminal. For what sum of money, for what amount of wealth, would the world have the science of Astronomy expunged from the brain of man? We learned the story of the stars in spite of that statute. The first men who said the world was round were scourged for scoffing at the Scriptures. And even Martin Luther, speaking of one of the greatest men that ever lived, said: "Does he think with his little lever to overturn the Universe of God?" Martin Luther insisted that such men ought to be trampled under foot. If that statute had been carried into effect, Galileo would have been impossible. Kepler, the discoverer of the three laws, would have died with the great secret locked in his brain, and mankind would have been left ignorant, superstitious, and besotted. And what else? If that statute had been carried out, the world would have been deprived of the philosophy of Spinoza; of the philosophy, of the literature, of the wit and wisdom, the justice and mercy of Voltaire, the greatest Frenchman that ever drew the breath of life--the man who by his mighty pen abolished torture in a nation, and helped to civilize a world. If that statute had been enforced, nearly all the books that enrich the libraries of the world could not have been written. If that statute had been enforced, Humboldt could not have delivered the lectures now known as "The Cosmos." If that statute had been enforced, Charles Darwin would not have been allowed to give to the world his discoveries that have been of more benefit to mankind than all the sermons ever uttered. In England they have placed his sacred dust in the great Abbey. If he had lived in New Jersey, and this statute could have been enforced, he would have lived one year at least in your penitentiary. Why? That man went so far as not simply to deny the truth of your bible, but absolutely to deny the existence of your God. Was he a good man? Yes, one of the noblest and greatest of men. Humboldt, the greatest German who ever lived, was of the same opinion. And so I might go on with the great men of to-day. Who are the men who are leading the race upward and shedding light in the intellectual world? They are the men declared by that statute to be criminals. Mr. Spencer could not publish his books in the State of New Jersey. He would be arrested, tried, and imprisoned; and yet that man has added to the intellectual wealth of the world. So with Huxley, so with Tyndal, so with Helmholz--so with the greatest thinkers and greatest writers of modern times. You may not agree with these men--and what does that prove? It simply proves that they do not agree with you--that is all. Who is to blame? I do not know. They may be wrong, and you may be right; but if they had the power, and put you in the penitentiary simply because you differed with them, they would be savages; and if you have the power and imprison men because they differ from you, why then, of course, you are savages. No; I believe in intellectual hospitality. I love men that have a little horizon to their minds--a little sky, a little scope. I hate anything that is narrow and pinched and withered and mean and crawling, and that is willing to live on dust. I believe in creating such an atmosphere that things will burst into blossom. I believe in good will, good health, good fellowship, good feeling--and if there is any God on the earth, or in heaven, let us hope that he will be generous and grand. Do you not see what the effect will be? I am not cursing you because you are a Methodist, and not damning you because you are a Catholic, or because you are an Infidel--a good man is more; than all of these. The grandest of all things is to be in the highest and noblest sense a man. Now let us see the frightful things that this man, the defendant in this case, has done. Let me read the charges against him as set out in this indictment. I shall insist that this statute does not cover any publication--that it covers simply speech--not in writing, not in book or pamphlet. Let us see: "This bible describes God as so loving that he drowned the whole world in his mad fury." Well, the great question about that is, is it true? Does the bible describe God as having drowned the whole world with the exception of eight people? Does it, or does it not? I do not know whether there is anybody in this county who has really read the bible, but I believe the story of the flood is there. It does say that God destroyed all flesh, and that he did so because he was angry. He says so himself, if the bible be true. The defendant has simply repeated what is in the bible. The bible says that God is loving, and says that he drowned the world, and that he was angry. Is it blasphemy to quote from the "Sacred Scriptures?" "_Because it was so much worse than he, knowing all things, ever supposed it could be._"-- Well, the bible does say that he repented having made man. Now is there any blasphemy in saying that the bible is true? That is the only question. It is a fact that God, according to the bible, did drown nearly everybody. If God knows all things, he must have known at the time he made them that he was going to drown them. Is it likely that a being of infinite wisdom would deliberately do what he knew he must undo? Is it blasphemy to ask that question? Have you a right to think about it at all? If you have, you have the right to tell somebody what you think--if not, you have no right to discuss it, no right to think about it. All you have to do is to read it and believe it--to open your mouth like a young robin, and swallow--worms or shingle nails--no matter which. The defendant further blasphemed and said that:-- "_An all-wise, unchangeable God, who got out of patience with a world which was just what his own stupid blundering had made it, knew no better way out of the muddle than to destroy it by drowning!_" Is that true? Was not the world exactly as God made it? Certainly. Did he not, if the bible is true, drown the people? He did. Did he know he would drown them when he made them? He did. Did he know they ought to be drowned when they were made? He did. Where, then, is the blasphemy in saying so? There is not a minister in this world who could explain it--who would be permitted to explain it--under this statute. And yet you would arrest this man and put him in the penitentiary. But after you lock him in the cell, there remains the question still. Is it possible that a good and wise God, knowing that he was going to drown them, made millions of people? What did he make them for? I do not know. I do not pretend to be wise enough to answer that question. Of course, you cannot answer the question. Is there anything blasphemous in that? Would it be blasphemy in me to say I do not believe that any God ever made men, women and children--mothers, with babes clasped to their breasts, and then sent a flood to fill the world with death? A rain lasting for forty days--the water rising hour by hour, and the poor wretched children of God climbing to the tops of their houses--then to the tops of the hills. The water still rising--no mercy. The people climbing higher and higher, looking to the mountains for salvation--the merciless rain still falling, the inexorable flood still rising. Children falling from the arms of mothers--no pity. The highest hills covered--infancy and old age mingling in death--the cries of women, the sobs and sighs lost in the roar of waves--the heavens still relentless. The mountains are covered--a shoreless sea rolls round the world, and on its billows are billions of corpses. This is the greatest crime that man has imagined, and this crime is called a deed of infinite mercy. Do you believe that? I do not believe one word of it, and I have the right to say to all the world that this is false. If there be a good God, the story is not true. If there be a wise God, the story is not true. Ought an honest man to be sent to the penitentiary for simply telling the truth? Suppose we had a statute that whoever scoffed at Science--whoever by profane language should bring the Rule of Three into contempt, or whoever should attack the proposition that two parallel lines will never include a space, should be sent to the penitentiary--what would you think of it? It would be just as wise and just as idiotic as this. And what else says the defendant? "_The bible-God says that his people made him jealous" "Provoked him to anger._" Is that true? It is. If it is true, is it blasphemous? Let us read another line-- "_And now he will raise the mischief with them; that his anger burns like hell_." That is true. The bible says of God--"My anger burns to the lowest hell." And that is all that the defendant says. Every word of it is in the bible. He simply does not believe it--and for that reason is a "blasphemer." I say to you now, gentlemen,--and I shall argue to the Court,--that there is not in what I have read a solitary blasphemous word--not a word that has not been said in hundreds of pulpits in the Christian world. Theodore Parker, a Unitarian, speaking of this bible-God, said: "Vishnu with a necklace of skulls, Vishnu with bracelets of living, hissing serpents, is a figure of Love and Mercy compared to the God of the Old Testament." That, we might call "blasphemy," but not what I have read. Let us read on:-- "_He would destroy them all were it not that he feared the wrath of the enemy_." That is in the bible--word for word. Then the defendant in astonishment says: "_The Almighty God afraid of his enemies!_" That is what the bible says. What does it mean? If the bible is true, God was afraid. "_Can the mind conceive of more horrid blasphemy?_" Is not that true? If God be infinitely good and wise and powerful, is it possible he is afraid of anything? If the defendant had said that God was afraid of his enemies, that might have been blasphemy--but this man says the bible says that, and you are asked to say that it is blasphemy. Now, up to this point there is no blasphemy, even if you were to enforce this infamous statute--this savage law. "_The Old Testament records for our instruction in morals the most foul and bestial instances of fornication, incest, and polygamy, perpetrated by God's own saints, and the New Testament indorses these lecherous wretches as examples for all good Christians to follow_." Now is it not a fact that the Old Testament does uphold polygamy? Abraham would have gotten into trouble in New Jersey--no doubt of that. Sarah could have obtained a divorce in this state,--no doubt of that. What is the use of telling a falsehood about it? Let us tell the truth about the patriarchs. Everybody knows that the same is true of Moses. We have all heard of Solomon--a gentleman with five or six hundred wives, and three or four hundred other ladies with whom he was acquainted. This is simply what the defendant says. Is there any blasphemy about that? It is only the truth. If Solomon were living in the United States to-day, we would put him in the penitentiary. You know that under the Edmunds' Mormon law he would be locked up. If you should present a petition signed by his eleven hundred wives, you could not get him out. So it was with David. There are some splendid things about David, of course. I admit that, and pay my tribute of respect to his courage--but he happened to have ten or twelve wives too many, so he shut them up, put them in a kind of penitentiary and kept them there till they died. That would not be considered good conduct even in Morristown. You know that. Is it any harm to speak of it? There are plenty of ministers here to set it right--thousands of them all over the country, every one with his chance to talk all day Sunday and nobody to say a word back. The pew cannot reply to the pulpit, you know; it has just to sit there and take it. If there is any harm in this, if it is not true, they ought to answer it. But it is here, and the only answer is an indictment. I say that Lot was a bad man. So I say of Abraham, and of Jacob. Did you ever know of a more despicable fraud practiced by one brother on another than Jacob practiced on Esau? My sympathies have always been with Esau. He seemed to be a manly man. Is it blasphemy to say that you do not like a hypocrite, a murderer, or a thief, because his name is in the bible? How do you know what such men are mentioned for? May be they are mentioned as examples, and you certainly ought not to be led away and induced to imagine that a man with seven hundred wives is a pattern of domestic propriety, one to be followed by yourself and your sons. I might go on and mention the names of hundreds of others who committed every conceivable crime, in the name of religion--who declared war, and on the field of battle killed men, women and babes, even children yet unborn, in the name of the most merciful God. The Bible is filled with the names and crimes of these sacred savages, these inspired beasts. Any man who says that a God of love commanded the commission of these crimes is, to say the least of it, mistaken. If there be a God, then it is blasphemous to charge him with the commission of crime. But let us read further from this indictment: "The aforesaid printed document contains other scandalous, infamous and blasphemous matters and things to the tenor and effect following, that is to say,"--Then comes this particularly blasphemous line: "_Now, reader, take time and calmly think it over_." Gentlemen, there are many things I have read that I should not have expressed in exactly the same language used by the defendant, and many things that I am going to read I might not have said at all, but the defendant had the right to say every word with which he is charged in this indictment. He had the right to give his honest thought, no matter whether any human being agreed with what he said or not, and no matter whether any other man approved of the manner in which he said these things. I defend his right to speak, whether I believe in what he spoke or not, or in the propriety of saying what he did. I should defend a man just as cheerfully who had spoken against my doctrine, as one who had spoken against the popular superstitions of my time. It would make no difference to me how unjust the attack was upon my belief--how maliciously ingenious; and no matter how sacred the conviction that was attacked, I would defend the freedom of speech. And why? Because no attack can be answered by force, no argument can be refuted by a blow, or by imprisonment, or by fine. You may imprison the man, but the argument is free; you may fell the man to the earth, but the statement stands. The defendant in this case has attacked certain beliefs, thought by the Christian world to be sacred. Yet, after all, nothing is sacred but the truth, and by truth I mean what a man sincerely and honestly believes. The defendant says: "_Take time to calmly think it over: Was a Jewish girl the mother of God, the mother of your God?_" The defendant probably asked this question supposing that it must be answered by all sensible people in the negative. If the Christian religion is true, then a Jewish girl was the mother of Almighty God. Personally, if the doctrine is true, I have no fault to find with the statement that a Jewish maiden was the mother of God.--Millions believe that this is true--I do not believe,--but who knows? If a God came from the throne of the universe, came to this world and became the child of a pure and loving woman, it would not lessen, in my eyes, the dignity or the greatness of that God. There is no more perfect picture on the earth, or within the imagination of man, than a mother holding in her thrilled and happy arms a child, the fruit of love. No matter how the statement is made, the fact remains the same. A Jewish girl became the mother of God. If the bible is true, that is true, and to repeat it, even according to your law, is not blasphemous, and to doubt it, or to express the doubt, or to deny it, is not contrary to your Constitution. To this defendant it seemed improbable that God was ever born of woman, was ever held in the lap of a mother; and because he cannot believe this, he is charged with blasphemy. Could you pour contempt on Shakespeare by saying that his mother was a woman,--by saying that he was once a poor crying little helpless child? Of course he was; and he afterwards became the greatest human being that ever touched the earth,--the only man whose intellectual wings have reached from sky to sky; and he was once a crying babe. What of it? Does that cast any scorn or contempt upon him? Does this take any of the music from "Midsummer Night's Dream"?--any of the passionate wealth from "Antony and Cleopatra," any philosophy from "Macbeth," any intellectual grandeur from "King Lear"? On the contrary, these great productions of the brain show the growth of the dimpled babe, give every mother a splendid dream and hope for her child, and cover every cradle with a sublime possibility. The defendant is also charged with having said that "_God cried and screamed._" Why not? If he was absolutely a child, he was like other children,--like yours, like mine. I have seen the time, when absent from home, that I would have given more to have heard my children cry, than to have heard the finest orchestra that ever made the air burst into flower. What if God did cry? It simply shows that his humanity was real and not assumed, that it was a tragedy, real, and not a poor pretense. And the defendant also says that if the orthodox religion be true, that the "_God of the Universe kicked, and flung about his little arms, and made aimless dashes into space with his little fists_." Is there anything in this that is blasphemous? One of the best pictures I ever saw of the Virgin and Child was painted by the Spaniard, Murillo. Christ appears to be a truly natural, chubby, happy babe. Such a picture takes nothing from the majesty, the beauty, or the glory of the incarnation. I think it is the best thing about the Catholic Church that it lifts up for adoration and admiration, a mother,--that it pays what it calls "Divine honors" to a woman. There is certainly goodness in that, and where a Church has so few practices that are good, I am willing to point this one out. It is the one redeeming feature about Catholicism that it teaches the worship of a woman. The defendant says more about the childhood of Christ. He goes so far as to say, that "_He was found staring foolishly at his own little toes._" And why not? The bible says, that "he increased in wisdom and stature." The defendant might have referred to something far more improbable. In the same verse in which St. Luke says that Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, will be found the assertion that he increased in favor with God and man. The defendant might have asked how it was that the love of God for God increased. But the defendant has simply stated that the child Jesus grew, as other children grow; that he acted like other children, and if he did, it is more than probable that he did stare at his own toes. I have laughed many a time to see little children astonished with the sight of their feet. They seem to wonder what on earth puts the little toes in motion. Certainly there is nothing blasphemous in supposing that the feet of Christ amused him, precisely as the feet of other children have amused them. There is nothing blasphemous about this; on the contrary, it is beautiful. If I believed in the existence of God, the creator of this world, the being who, with the hand of infinity, sowed the fields of space with stars, as a farmer sows his grain, I should like to think of him as a little dimpled babe, overflowing with joy, sitting upon the knees of a loving mother. The ministers, themselves, might take a lesson even from the man who is charged with blasphemy, and make an effort to bring an infinite God a little nearer to the human heart. The defendant also says, speaking of the infant Christ, "He was nursed at Mary's breast." Yes, and if the story be true, that is the tenderest fact in it. Nursed at the breast of woman. No painting, no statue, no words can make a deeper and a tenderer impression upon the heart of man than this: The Infinite God, a babe, nursed at the holy breast of woman. You see these things do not strike all people the same. To a man that has been raised on the Orthodox desert, these things are incomprehensible. He has been robbed of his humanity. He has no humor, nothing but the stupid and the solemn. His fancy sits with folded wings. Imagination, like the atmosphere of Spring, woes every seed of earth to seek the blue of heaven, and whispers of bud and flower and fruit. Imagination gathers from every field of thought and pours the wealth of many lives into the lap of one. To the contracted, to the cast-iron people who believe in heartless and inhuman creeds, the words of the defendant seem blasphemous, and to them the thought that God was a little child is monstrous. They cannot bear to hear it said that he nursed at the breast of a maiden, that he was wrapped in swaddling clothes, that he had the joys and sorrows of other babes. I hope, gentlemen, that not only you, but the attorneys for the prosecution, have read what is known as the "Apocryphal New Testament," books that were once considered inspired, once admitted to be genuine, and that once formed a part of our New Testament. I hope you have read the books of Joseph and Mary, of the Shepherd of Hermes, of the Infancy and of Mary, in which many of the things done by the youthful Christ are described--books that were once the delight of the Christian world; books that gave joy to children, because in them they read that Christ made little birds of clay, that would at his command stretch out their wings and fly with joy above his head. If the defendant in this case had said anything like that, here in the State of New Jersey, he would have been indicted; the Orthodox Ministers would have shouted "blasphemy," and yet, these little stories made the name of Christ dearer to children. The Church of to-day lacks sympathy; the theologians are without affection. After all, sympathy is genius. A man who really sympathizes with another understands him. A man who sympathizes with a religion instantly sees the good that is in it, and the man who sympathizes with the right, sees the evil that a creed contains. But the defendant, still speaking of the infant Christ, is charged with having said, "_God smiled when he was comfortable. He lay in a cradle and was rocked to sleep_." Yes, and there is no more beautiful picture than that Let some great religious genius paint a picture of this kind--of a babe smiling with content, rocked in the cradle by the mother who bends tenderly and proudly above him. There could be no more beautiful, no more touching, picture than this. What would I not give for a picture of Shakespeare as a babe,--a picture that was a likeness,--rocked by his mother? I would give more for this than for any painting that now enriches the walls of the world. The defendant also says, that "_God was sick when cutting his teeth_." And what of that? We are told that he was tempted in all points, as we are. That is to say, he was afflicted, he was hungry, he was thirsty, he suffered the pains and miseries common to man. Otherwise, he was not flesh, he was not human. "_He caught the measles, the mumps, the scarlet fever and the whooping cough_." Certainly he was liable to have these diseases, for he was, in fact, a child. Other children have them. Other children, loved as dearly by their mothers as Christ could have been by his, and yet they are taken from the little family by fever; taken, it may be, and buried in the snow, while the poor mother goes sadly home, wishing that she was lying by its side. All that can be said of every word in this address, about Christ and about his childhood, amounts to this; that he lived the life of a child; that he acted like other children. I have read you substantially what he has said, and this is considered blasphemous. He has said, that-- "_According to the Old Testament, the God of the Christian world commanded people to destroy each other._" If the bible is true, then the statement of the defendant is true. Is it calculated to bring God into contempt to deny that he upheld polygamy, that he ever commanded one of his generals to rip open with the sword of war, the woman with child? Is it blasphemy to deny that a God of infinite love gave such commandments? Is such a denial calculated to pour contempt and scorn upon the God of the Orthodox? Is it blasphemous to deny that God commanded his children to murder each other? Is it blasphemous to say that he was benevolent, merciful and just? It is impossible to say that the bible is true and that God is good. I do not believe that a God made this world, filled it with people and then drowned them. I do not believe that infinite wisdom ever made a mistake. If there be any God he was too good to commit such an infinite crime, too wise to make such a mistake. Is this blasphemy? Is it blasphemy to say that Solomon was not a virtuous man, or that David was an adulterer? Must we say when this ancient king had one of his best generals placed in the front of the battle--deserted him and had him murdered for the purpose of stealing his wife, that he was "a man after God's own heart"? Suppose the defendant in this case were guilty of something like that? Uriah was fighting for his country, fighting the battles of David, the king. David wanted to take from him his wife. He sent for Joab, his commander in chief, and said to him: "Make a feint to attack a town. Put Uriah at the front of the attacking force and when the people sally forth from the town to defend its gate, fall back so that this gallant, noble, patriotic man may be slain." This was done and the widow was stolen by the king. Is it blasphemy to tell the truth and to say exactly what David was? Let us be honest with each other; let us be honest with this defendant. For thousands of years men have taught that the ancient patriarchs were sacred, that they were far better than the men of modern times that what was in them a virtue, is in us a crime. Children are taught in Sunday-schools to admire and respect these criminals of the ancient days. The time has come to tell the truth about these men, to call things by their proper names, and above all, to stand by the right, by the truth, by mercy and by justice. If what the defendant has said is blasphemy under this statute then the question arises, is the statute in accordance with the Constitution? If this statute is constitutional, why has it been allowed to sleep for all these years? I take this position: Any law made for the preservation of a human right, made to guard a human being, cannot sleep long enough to die; but any law that deprives a human being of a natural right--if that law goes to sleep, it never wakes, it sleeps the sleep of death. I call the attention of the Court to that remarkable case in England where, only a few years ago, a man appealed to trial by battle. The law allowing trial by battle had been asleep in the statute book of England for more than two hundred years, and yet the Court held that, in spite of the fact that the law had been asleep--it being a law in favor of a defendant--he was entitled to trial by battle. And why? Because it was a statute at the time made in defence of a human right, and that statute could not sleep long enough or soundly enough to die. In consequence of this decision, the Parliament of England passed a special act, doing away forever with the trial by battle. When a statute attacks an individual right the State must never let it sleep. When it attacks the right of the public at large and is allowed to pass into a state of slumber, it cannot be raised for the purpose of punishing an individual. Now gentlemen, a few words more. I take an almost infinite interest in this trial, and before you decide, I am exceedingly anxious that you should understand with clearness the thoughts I have expressed upon this subject. I want you to know how the civilized feel, and the position now taken by the leaders of the world. A few years ago almost everything spoken against the grossest possible superstition was considered blasphemous. The altar hedged itself about with the sword; the Priest went in partnership with the King. In those days statutes were leveled against all human speech. Men were convicted of blasphemy because they believed in an actual personal God; because they insisted that God had body and parts. Men were convicted of blasphemy because they denied that God had form. They have been imprisoned for denying the doctrine of tran-substantiation, and they have been torn in pieces for defending that doctrine. There are but few dogmas now believed by any Christian church that have not at some time been denounced as blasphemous. When Henry the VIII. put himself at the head of the Episcopal church a creed was made, and in that creed there were five dogmas that must, of necessity, be believed. Anybody who denied any one, was to be punished--for the first offence, with fine, with imprisonment, or branding, and for the second offence, with death. Not one of these five dogmas is now a part of the creed of the Church of England. So I could go on for days and weeks and months, showing that hundreds and hundreds of religious dogmas, to deny which was death, have been either changed or abandoned for others nearly as absurd as the old ones were. It may be, however, sufficient to say, that where-ever the Church has had power it has been a crime for any man to speak his honest thought. No Church has ever been willing that any opponent should give a transcript of his mind. Every Church in power has appealed to brute force, to the sword, for the purpose of sustaining its creed. Not one has had the courage to occupy the open field: The Church has not been satisfied with calling infidels and unbelievers blasphemers. Each Church has accused nearly every other Church of being a blasphemer. Every pioneer has been branded as a criminal. The Catholics called Martin Luther a blasphemer, and Martin Luther called Copernicus a blasphemer. Pious ignorance always regards intelligence as a kind of blasphemy. Some of the greatest men of the world, some of the best, have been put to death for the crime of blasphemy, that is to say, for the crime of endeavoring to benefit their fellow men. As long as the Church has the power to close the lips of men, so long and no longer will superstition rule this world. Blasphemy is the word that the majority hisses into the ear of the few. After every argument of the Church has been answered, has been refuted, then the Church cries, "blasphemy!" Blasphemy is what an old mistake says of a newly discovered truth. Blasphemy is what a withered last year's leaf says of this year's bud. Blasphemy is the bulwark of religious prejudice. Blasphemy is the breastplate of the heartless. And let me say now, that the crime of blasphemy set out in this statute, is impossible. No man can blaspheme a book. No man can commit blasphemy telling his honest thought. No man can blaspheme God, or a Holy Ghost, or a Son of God. The Infinite cannot be blasphemed. In the olden time, in the days of savagery and superstition, when some poor man was struck by lightning, when a blackened mark was left on the breast of and mother, the poor savage supposed that son angered by something he had done, had taken revenge. What else did the savage suppose? He believed that this God had the same feelings, with to the loyalty of his subjects, that an earthly chief or an earthly king with regard to the loyalty or tread of members of his tribe, or citizens of his kingdom the savage said, when his country was visited by a calamity, when the flood swept the people away, or the storm scattered their poor houses in fragments: "We have allowed some freethinker to live; some one is in our town or village who has not brought his gift to the priest, his incense to the altar; some man of our tribe or of our country does not respect our God." Then, for the purpose of appeasing the supposed God, for the purpose of winning a smile from Heaven, for the purpose of securing a little sunlight for their fields and homes, they drag the accused man from his home, from his wife and children, and with all the ceremonies of pious brutality, shed his blood. They did it in self-defense; they believed that they were saving their own lives and the lives of their children; they did it to appease their God. Most people are now beyond that point. Now, when disease visits a community, the intelligent do not say the disease came because the people were wicked; when the cholera comes, it is not because of the Methodists, of the Catholics, of the Presbyterians, or of the infidels. When the wind destroys a town in the far West, it is not because somebody there had spoken his honest thoughts. We are beginning to see that the wind blows and destroys without the slightest reference to man, without the slightest care whether it destroys the good or the bad, the irreligious or the religious. When the lightning leaps from the clouds it is just as likely to strike a good man as a bad man, and when the great serpents of flame climb around the houses of men, they burn just as gladly and just as joyously, the home of virtue, as they do the den and lair of vice. Then the reason for all these laws has failed. The laws were made on account of a superstition. That superstition has faded from the minds of intelligent men and, as a consequence, the laws based on the superstition ought to fail. There is one splendid thing in nature, and that is that men and nations must reap the consequences of their acts--reap them in this world, if they live, and in another, if there be one. That man who leaves this world a bad man, a malicious man, will probably be the same man when he reaches another realm, and the man who leaves this shore good, charitable and honest, will be good, charitable and honest, no matter on what star he lives again. The world is growing sensible upon these subjects, and as we grow sensible, we grow charitable. Another reason has been given for these laws against blasphemy, the most absurd reason that can by any possibility be given. It is this. There should be laws against blasphemy, because the man who utters blasphemy endangers the public peace. Is it possible that Christians will break the peace? Is it possible that they will violate the law? Is it probable that Christians will congregate together and make a mob, simply because a man has given an opinion against their religion? What is their religion? They say, "If a man smites you on one cheek, turn the other also." They say, "We must love our neighbors as we love ourselves." Is it possible then, that you can make a mob out of Christians,--that these men, who love even their enemies, will attack others, and will destroy life, in the name of universal love? And yet, Christians themselves say that there ought to be laws against blasphemy, for fear that Christians, who are controlled by universal love, will become so outraged, when they hear an honest man express an honest thought, that they will leap upon him and tear him in pieces. What is blasphemy? I will give you a definition; I will give you my thought upon this subject. What is real blasphemy? To live on the unpaid labor of other men--that is blasphemy. To enslave your fellow-man, to put chains upon his body--that is blasphemy. To enslave the minds of men, to put manacles upon the brain, padlocks upon the lips--that is blasphemy. To deny what you believe to be true, to admit to be true what you believe to be a lie--that is blasphemy. To strike the weak and unprotected, in order that you may gain the applause of the ignorant and superstitious mob--that is blasphemy. To persecute the intelligent few, at the command of the ignorant many--that is blasphemy. To forge chains, to build dungeons, for your honest fellow-men--that is blasphemy. To pollute the souls of children with the dogma of eternal pain--that is blasphemy. To violate your conscience--that is blasphemy. The jury that gives an unjust verdict, and the Judge who pronounces an unjust sentence, are blasphemers. The man who bows to public opinion against his better judgment and against his honest conviction, is a blasphemer. Why should we fear our fellow-men? Why should not each human being have the right, so far as thought and its expression are concerned, of all the world? What harm can come from an honest interchange of thought? I have been giving you my real ideas. I have spoken freely, and yet the sun rose this morning, just the same as it always has. There is no particular change visible in the world, and I do not see but that we are all as happy to-day as though we had spent yesterday in making somebody else miserable. I denounced on yesterday the superstitions of the Christian world, and yet, last night I slept the sleep of peace. You will pardon me for saying again that I feel the greatest possible interest in the result of this trial, in the principle at stake. This is my only apology, my only excuse for taking your time. For years I have felt that the great battle for human liberty, the battle that has covered thousands of fields with heroic dead, had finally-been won. When I read the history of this world, of what has been endured, of what has been suffered, of the heroism and infinite courage of the intellectual and honest few, battling with the countless serfs and slaves of kings and priests, of tyranny, of hypocrisy, of ignorance and prejudice, of faith and fear, there was in my heart the hope that the great battle had been fought, and that the human race, in its march towards the dawn, had passed midnight, and that the "great balance weighed up morning." This hope, this feeling, gave me the greatest possible joy. When I thought of the many who had been burnt, of how often the sons of liberty had perished in ashes, of how many of the noblest and greatest had stood upon scaffolds, and of the countless hearts, the grandest that ever throbbed in human breasts, that had been broken by the tyranny of Church and State, of how many of the noble and loving had sighed themselves away in dungeons, the only consolation was that the last Bastile had fallen, that the dungeons of the Inquisition had been torn down and that the scaffolds of the world could no longer be wet with heroic blood. You know that sometimes, after a great battle has been fought, and one of the armies has been broken, and its fortifications carried, there are occasional stragglers beyond the great field, stragglers who know nothing of the fate of their army, know nothing of the victory, and for that reason, fight on. There are a few such stragglers in the State of New Jersey. They have never heard of the great victory. They do not know that in all civilized countries the hosts of superstition have been put to flight. They do not know that freethinkers, infidels, are to-day the leaders of the intellectual armies of the world. One of the last trials of this character, tried in Great Britain,--and that is the country that our ancestors fought in the sacred name of liberty,--one of the last trials in that country, a country ruled by a State church, ruled by a woman who was born a queen, ruled by dukes and nobles and lords, children of ancient robbers--was in the year 1843. George Jacob Holyoake, one of the best of the human race, was imprisoned on a charge of Atheism, charged with having written a pamphlet and having made a speech in which he had denied the existence of the British God. The Judge who tried him, who passed sentence upon him, went down to his grave with a stain upon his intellect and upon his honor. All the real intelligence of Great Britain rebelled against the outrage. There was a trial after that to which I will call your attention. Judge Coleridge, father of the present Chief Justice of England, presided at this trial. A poor man by the name of Thomas Pooley, a man who dug wells for a living, wrote on the gate of a priest that, if people would burn their bibles and scatter the ashes on the lands, the crops would be better, and that they would also save a good deal of money in tithes. He wrote several sentences of a kindred character. He was a curious man. He had an idea that the world was a living, breathing animal. He would not dig a well beyond a certain depth for fear he might inflict pain upon this animal, the earth. He was tried before Judge Coleridge, on that charge. An infinite God was about to be dethroned, because an honest well-digger had written his sentiments on the fence of a parson. He was indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced to prison. Afterwards, many intelligent people asked for his pardon, on the ground that he was in danger of becoming insane. The Judge refused to sign the petition. The pardon was refused. Long before his sentence expired, he became a raving maniac. He was removed to an asylum and there died. Some of the greatest men in England attacked that Judge, among these, Mr. Buckle, author of "The History of Civilization in England," one of the greatest books in this world. Mr. Buckle denounced Judge Coleridge. He brought him before the bar of English opinion, and there was not a man in England, whose opinion was worth anything, who did not agree with Mr. Buckle, and did not with him, declare the conviction of Thomas Pooley to be an infamous outrage. What were the reasons given? This, among others. The law was dead; it had been asleep for many years; it was a law passed during the ignorance of the Middle Ages, and aw that came out of the dungeons of religious persecution; a law that was appealed to by bigots and by hypocrites, to punish, to imprison an honest man. In many parts of this country people have entertained the idea that New England was still filled with the spirit of Puritanism, filled with the descendants of those who killed Quakers in the name of universal benevolence, and traded Quaker children in the Barbadoes for rum, for the purpose of establishing the fact that God is an infinite father. Yet, the last trial in Massachusetts on a charge like this, was when Abner Kneeland was indicted on a charge of atheism. He was tried for having written this sentence: "The Universalists believe in a God which I do not." He was convicted and imprisoned. Chief Justice Shaw upheld the decision, and upheld it because he was afraid of public opinion; upheld it, although he must have known that the statute under which Kneeland was indicted, was clearly and plainly in violation of the Constitution. No man can read the decision of Justice Shaw without being convinced that he was absolutely dominated, either by bigotry, or hypocrisy. One of the Judges of that court, a noble man, wrote a dissenting opinion, and in that dissenting opinion is the argument of a civilized, of an enlightened jurist No man can answer the dissenting opinion of Justice Morton. The case against Kneeland was tried more than fifty years ago, and there has been none since in the New England States; and this case, that we are now trying, is the first ever tried in New Jersey. The fact that it is the first, certifies to my interpretation of this statute, and it also certifies to the toleration and to the civilization of the people of this State. The statute is upon your books. You inherited it from your ignorant ancestors, and they inherited it from their savage ancestors. The people of New Jersey were heirs of the mistakes and of the atrocities of ancient England. It is too late to enforce a law like this. Why has it been allowed to slumber? Who obtained this indictment? Were they actuated by good and noble motives? Had they the public weal at heart, or were they simply endeavoring to be revenged upon this defendant? Were they willing to disgrace the State, in order that they might punish him? I have given you my definition of blasphemy, and now the question arises, what is worship? Who is a worshipper? What is prayer? What is real religion? Let me answer these questions. Good, honest, faithful work, is worship. The man who ploughs the fields and fells the forests; the man who works in mines, the man who battles with the winds and waves out on the wide sea, controlling the commerce of the world; these men are worshippers. The man who goes into the forest, leading his wife by the hand, who builds him a cabin, who makes a home in the wilderness, who helps to people and civilize and cultivate a continent, is a worshipper. Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers; it is the only prayer that deserves an answer,--good, honest, noble work. A woman whose husband has gone down to the gutter, gone down to degradation and filth; the woman who follows him and lifts him out of the mire and presses him to her noble heart, until he becomes a man once more, this woman is a worshipper. Her act is worship. The poor man and the poor woman who work night and day, in order that they may give education to their children, so that they may have a better life than their father and mother had; the parents who deny themselves the comforts of life, that they may lay up something to help their children to a higher place--they are worshippers; and the children who, after they reap the benefit of this worship, become ashamed of their parents, are blasphemers. The man who sits by the bed of his invalid wife,--a wife prematurely old and gray,--the husband who sits by her bed and holds her thin, wan hand in his as lovingly, and kisses it as rapturously, as passionately, as when it was dimpled,--that is worship; that man is a worshipper; that is real religion. Whoever increases the sum of human joy, is a worshipper. He who adds to the sum of human misery, is a blasphemer. Gentlemen, you can never make me believe--no statute can ever convince me, that there is any infinite being in this universe who hates an honest man. It is impossible to satisfy me that there is any God, or can be any God, who holds in abhorrence a soul that has the courage to express its thought. Neither can the whole world convince me that any man should be punished, either in this world or the next, for being candid with his fellow-men. If you send men to the penitentiary for speaking their thoughts, for endeavoring to enlighten their fellows, then the penitentiary will become a place of honor, and the victim will step from it--not stained, not disgraced, but clad in robes of glory. Let us take one more step. What is holy? What is sacred? I reply that human happiness is holy, human rights are holy. The body and soul of man--these are sacred. The liberty of man is of far more importance than any book--the rights of man, more sacred than any religion--than any Scriptures, whether inspired or not. What we want is the truth, and does any one suppose that all of the truth is confined in one book--that the mysteries of the whole world are explained by one volume? All that is--all that conveys information to man--all that has been produced by the past--all that now exists--should be considered by an intelligent man. All the known truths of this world--all the philosophy, all the poems, all the pictures, all the statues, all the entrancing music--the prattle of babes, the lullaby of mothers, the words of honest men, the trumpet calls to duty--all these make up the bible of the world--everything that is noble and true and free, you will find in this great book. If we wish to be true to ourselves,--if we wish to benefit our fellow men--if we wish to live honorable lives--we will give to every other human being every right that we claim for ourselves. There is another thing that should be remembered by you. You are the judges of the law, as well as the judges of the facts. In a case like this, you are the final judges as to what the law is; and if you acquit, no Court can reverse your verdict. To prevent the least misconception, let me state to you again what I claim: First. I claim that the Constitution of New Jersey declares that: "_The liberty of speech shall not be abridged._" Second. That this statute, under which this indictment is found, is unconstitutional, because it does abridge the liberty of speech; it does exactly that which the Constitution emphatically says shall not be done. Third. I claim, also, that under this law--even if it be constitutional--the words charged in this indictment do not amount to blasphemy, read even in the light, or rather in the darkness, of this statute. Do not, I pray you, forget this point. Do not forget that, no matter what the Court may tell you about the law--how good it is, or how bad it is--no matter what the Court may instruct you on that subject--do not forget one thing, and that is: that the words charged in the indictment are the only words that you can take into consideration in this case. Remember that, no matter what else may be in the pamphlet--no matter what pictures or cartoons there may be of the gentlemen in Boonton who mobbed this man in the name of universal liberty and love--do not forget that you have no right to take one word into account except the exact words set out in this indictment--that is to say, the words that I have read to you. Upon this point the Court will instruct you that you have nothing to do with any other line in that pamphlet; and I now claim, that should the Court instruct you that the statute is constitutional, still I insist that the words set put in this indictment do not amount to blasphemy. There is still another point. This statute says: "whoever shall _wilfully_ speak against." Now, in this case, you must find that the defendant "wilfully" did so and so--that is to say, that he made the statements attributed to him knowing that they were not true. If you believe that he was honest in what he said, then this statute does not touch him. Even under this statute, a man may give his honest opinion. Certainly, there is no law that charges a man with "wilfully" being honest--"wilfully" telling his real opinion--"wilfully" giving to his fellow-men his thought. Where a man is charged with larceny, the indictment must set out that he took the goods or the property with the intention to steal--with what the law calls the _animus furandi_. If he took the goods with the intention to steal, then he is a thief; but if he took the goods believing them to be his own, then he is guilty of no offence. So in this case, whatever was said by the defendant must have been "wilfully" said. And I claim that if you believe that what the man said was honestly said, you cannot find him guilty under this statute. One more point: This statute has been allowed to slumber so long, that no man had the right to awaken it For more than one hundred years it has slept; and so far as New Jersey is concerned, it has been sound asleep since 1664. For the first time it is dug out of its grave. The breath of life is sought to be breathed into it, to the end that some people may wreak their vengeance on an honest man. Is there any evidence--has there been any--to show that the defendant was not absolutely candid in the expression of his opinions? Is there one particle of evidence tending to show that he is not a perfectly honest and sincere man? Did the prosecution have the courage to attack his reputation? No. The State has simply proved to you that he circulated that pamphlet--that is all. It was claimed, among other things, that the defendant circulated this pamphlet among children. There was no such evidence--not the slightest. The only evidence about schools, or school-children was, that when the defendant talked with the bill poster,--whose business the defendant was interfering with,--he asked him something about the population of the town, and about the schools. But according to the evidence, and as a matter of fact, not a solitary pamphlet was ever given to any child, or to any youth. According to the testimony, the defendant went into two or three stores,--laid the pamphlets on a show case, or threw them upon a desk--put them upon a stand where papers were sold, and in one instance handed a pamphlet to a man. That is all. In my judgment, however, there would have been no harm in giving this pamphlet to every citizen of your place. Again I say, that a law that has been allowed to sleep for all these years--allowed to sleep by reason of the good sense and by reason of the tolerant spirit of the State of New Jersey, should not be allowed to leap into life because a few are intolerant, or because a few lacked good sense and judgment. This snake should not be warmed into vicious life by the blood of anger. Probably not a man on this jury agrees with me about the subject of religion. Probably not a member of this jury thinks that I am right in the opinions that I have entertained and have so often expressed. Most of you belong to some Church, and I presume that those who do, have the good of what they call Christianity at heart. There may be among you some Methodists. If so, they have read the history of their Church, and they know that when it was in the minority, it was persecuted, and they know that they can not read the history of that persecution without becoming indignant. They know that the early Methodists were denounced as heretics, as ranters, as ignorant pretenders. There are also on this jury Catholics, and they know that there is a tendency in many parts of this country to persecute a man now because he is a Catholic. They also know that their Church has persecuted in times past, whenever and wherever it had the power; and they know that Protestants, when in power, have always persecuted Catholics; and they know, in their hearts, that all persecution, whether in the name of law, or religion, is monstrous, savage, and fiendish. I presume that each one of you has the good of what you call Christianity at heart. If you have, I beg of you to acquit this man. If you believe Christianity to be a good, it never can do any Church any good to put a man in jail for the expression of opinion. Any church that imprisons a man because he has used an argument against its creed, will simply convince the world that it cannot answer the argument. Christianity will never reap any honor, will never reap any profit, from persecution. It is a poor, cowardly, dastardly way of answering arguments. No gentleman will do it--no civilized man ever did do it--no decent human being ever did, or ever will. I take it for granted that you have a certain regard, a certain affection, for the State in which you live--that you take a pride in the Commonwealth of New Jersey. If you do, I beg of you to keep the record of your State clean. Allow no verdict to be recorded against the freedom of speech. At present there is not to be found on the records of any inferior Court, or on those of the Supreme tribunal--any case in which a man has been punished for speaking his sentiments. The records have not been stained--have not been polluted,--with such a verdict. Keep such a verdict from the Reports of your State--from the Records of your Courts. No jury has yet, in the State of New Jersey, decided that the lips of honest men are not free--that there is a manacle upon the brain. For the sake of your State--for the sake of her reputation through the world--for your own sakes--for the sake of your children, and their children yet to be--say to the world that New Jersey shares in the spirit of this age,--that New Jersey is not a survival of the Dark Ages,--that New Jersey does not still regard the thumb-screw as an instrument of progress,--that New Jersey needs no dungeon to answer the arguments of a free man, and does not send to the penitentiary men who think, and men who speak. Say to the world, that where arguments are without foundation, New Jersey has confidence enough in the brains of her people to feel that such arguments can be refuted by reason. For the sake of your State, acquit this man. For the sake of something of far more value to this world than New Jersey--for the sake of something of more importance to mankind than this continent--for the sake of Human Liberty, for the sake of Free Speech, acquit this man. What light is to the eyes, what love is to the heart, Liberty is to the soul of man. Without it, there come suffocation, degradation and death. In the name of Liberty, I implore--and not only so, but I insist--that you shall find a verdict in favor of this defendant. Do not do the slightest thing to stay the march of human progress. Do not carry us back, even for a moment, to the darkness of that cruel night that good men hoped had passed away forever. Liberty is the condition of progress. Without Liberty, there remains only barbarism. Without Liberty, there can be no civilization. If another man has not the right to think, you have not even the right to think that he thinks wrong. If every man has not the right to think, the people of New Jersey had no right to make a statute, or to adopt a Constitution--no jury has the right to render a verdict, and no Court to pass its sentence. In other words, without liberty of thought, no human being has the right to form a judgment. It is impossible that there should be such a thing as real religion, without liberty. Without liberty there can be no such thing as conscience, no such word as justice. All human actions--all good, all bad--have for a foundation the idea of human liberty, and without Liberty there can be no vice, and there can be no virtue. Without Liberty there can be no worship, no blasphemy--no love, no hatred, no justice, no progress. Take the word Liberty from human speech and all the other words become poor, withered, meaningless sounds--but with that word realized--with that word understood, the world becomes a paradise. Understand me. I am not blaming the people. I am not blaming the prosecution, nor the prosecuting attorney. The officers of the Court are simply doing what they feel to be their duty. They did not find the indictment That was found by the grand jury. The grand jury did not find the indictment of its own motion. Certain people came before the grand jury and made their complaint--gave their testimony, and upon that testimony, under this statute, the indictment was found. While I do not blame these people--they not being on trial--I do ask you to stand on the side of right. I cannot conceive of much greater happiness than to discharge a public duty, than to be absolutely true to conscience, true to judgment, no matter what authority may say, no matter what public opinion may demand. A man who stands by the right against the world cannot help applauding himself, and saying: "I am an honest man." I want your verdict--a verdict born of manhood, of courage; and I want to send a dispatch to-day to a woman who is lying sick. I wish you to furnish the words of this dispatch--only two words--and these two words will fill an anxious heart with joy. They will fill a soul with light. It is a very short message--only two words--and I ask you to furnish them: "Not guilty." You are expected to do this, because I believe you will be true to your consciences, true to your best judgment true to the bests interests of the people of New Jersey, true to the great cause of Liberty. I sincerely hope that it will never be necessary again, under the flag of the United States--that flag for which has been shed the bravest and best blood of the world--under that flag maintained by Washington, by Jefferson, by Franklin and by Lincoln--under that flag in defence of which New Jersey poured out her best and bravest blood--I hope it will never be necessary again for a man to stand before a jury and plead for the Liberty of Speech. 
18158	----	[Illustration: "You must steal in and not wake anybody"] The Butterfly House By Mary E. Wilkins Freeman Author of "A Humble Romance," "A New England Nun," "The Winning Lady," etc. With illustrations by Paul Julien Meylan New York Dodd, Mead and Company 1912 Chapter I Fairbridge, the little New Jersey village, or rather city (for it had won municipal government some years before, in spite of the protest of far-seeing citizens who descried in the distance bonded debts out of proportion to the tiny shoulders of the place), was a misnomer. Often a person, being in Fairbridge for the first time, and being driven by way of entertainment about the rural streets, would inquire, "Why Fairbridge?" Bridges there were none, except those over which the trains thundered to and from New York, and the adjective, except to old inhabitants who had a curious fierce loyalty for the place, did not seemingly apply. Fairbridge could hardly, by an unbiassed person who did not dwell in the little village and view its features through the rosy glamour of home life, be called "fair." There were a few pretty streets, with well-kept sidewalks, and ambitious, although small houses, and there were many lovely bits of views to be obtained, especially in the green flush of spring, and the red glow of autumn over the softly swelling New Jersey landscape with its warm red soil to the distant rise of low blue hills; but it was not fair enough in a general way to justify its name. Yet Fairbridge it was, without bridge, or natural beauty, and no mortal knew why. The origin of the name was lost in the petty mist of a petty past. Fairbridge was tragically petty, inasmuch as it saw itself great. In Fairbridge narrowness reigned, nay, tyrannised, and was not recognised as such. There was something fairly uncanny about Fairbridge's influence upon people after they had lived there even a few years. The influence held good, too, in the cases of men who daily went to business or professions in New York. Even Wall Street was no sinecure. Back they would come at night, and the terrible, narrow maelstrom of pettiness sucked them in. All outside interest was as naught. International affairs seemed insignificant when once one was really in Fairbridge. Fairbridge, although rampant when local politics were concerned, had no regard whatever for those of the nation at large, except as they involved Fairbridge. Fairbridge, to its own understanding, was a nucleus, an ultimatum. It was an example of the triumph of the infinitesimal. It saw itself through a microscope and loomed up gigantic. Fairbridge was like an insect, born with the conviction that it was an elephant. There was at once something ludicrous, and magnificent, and terrible about it. It had the impressiveness of the abnormal and prehistoric. In one sense, it _was_ prehistoric. It was as a giant survivor of a degenerate species. Withal, it was puzzling. People if pinned down could not say why, in Fairbridge, the little was so monstrous, whether it depended upon local conditions, upon the general population, or upon a few who had an undue estimation of themselves and all connected with them. Was Fairbridge great because of its inhabitants, or were the inhabitants great because of Fairbridge? Who could say? And why was Fairbridge so important that its very smallness overwhelmed that which, by the nature of things, seemed overwhelming? Nobody knew, or rather, so tremendous was the power of the small in the village, that nobody inquired. It is entirely possible that had there been any delicate gauge of mentality, the actual swelling of the individual in his own estimation as he neared Fairbridge after a few hours' absence, might have been apparent. Take a broker on Wall Street, for instance, or a lawyer who had threaded his painful way to the dim light of understanding through the intricate mazes of the law all day, as his train neared his loved village. From an atom that went to make up the motive power of a great metropolis, he himself became an entirety. He was It with a capital letter. No wonder that under the circumstances Fairbridge had charms that allured, that people chose it for suburban residences, that the small, ornate, new houses with their perky little towers and æsthetic diamond-paned windows, multiplied. Fairbridge was in reality very artistically planned as to the sites of its houses. Instead of the regulation Main Street of the country village, with its centre given up to shops and post-office, side streets wound here and there, and houses were placed with a view to effect. The Main Street of Fairbridge was as naught from a social point of view. Nobody of any social importance lived there. Even the physicians had their residences and offices in a more aristocratic locality. Upon the Main Street proper, that which formed the centre of the village, there were only shops and a schoolhouse and one or two mean public buildings. For a village of the self-importance of Fairbridge, the public buildings were very few and very mean. There was no city hall worthy of the name of this little city which held its head so high. The City Hall, so designated by ornate gilt letters upon the glass panel of a very small door, occupied part of the building in which was the post-office. It was a tiny building, two stories high. On the second floor was the millinery shop of Mrs. Creevy, and behind it the two rooms in which she kept house with her daughter Jessy. On the lower floor was the post-office on the right, filthy with the foot tracks of the Fairbridge children who crowded it in a noisy rabble twice a day, and perpetually red-stained with the shale of New Jersey, brought in upon the boots of New Jersey farmers, who always bore about with them a goodly portion of their native soil. On the left, was the City Hall. This was vacant except upon the first Monday of every month, when the janitor of the Dutch Reformed Church, who eked out a scanty salary with divers other tasks, got himself to work, and slopped pails of water over the floor, then swept, and built a fire, if in winter. Upon the evenings of these first Mondays the Mayor and city officials met and made great talk over small matters, and with the labouring of a mountain, brought forth mice. The City Hall was closed upon other occasions, unless the village talent gave a play for some local benefit. Fairbridge was intensely dramatic, and it was popularly considered that great, natural, histrionic gifts were squandered upon the Fairbridge audiences, appreciative though they were. Outside talent was never in evidence in Fairbridge. No theatrical company had ever essayed to rent that City Hall. People in Fairbridge put that somewhat humiliating fact from their minds. Nothing would have induced a loyal citizen to admit that Fairbridge was too small game for such purposes. There was a tiny theatre in the neighbouring city of Axminister, which had really some claims to being called a city, from tradition and usage, aside from size. Axminister was an ancient Dutch city, horribly uncomfortable, but exceedingly picturesque. Fairbridge looked down upon it, and seldom patronised the shows (they never said "plays") staged in its miniature theatre. When they did not resort to their own City Hall for entertainment by local talent, they arrayed themselves in their best and patronised New York itself. New York did not know that it was patronised, but Fairbridge knew. When Mr. and Mrs. George B. Slade boarded the seven o'clock train, Mrs. Slade, tall, and majestically handsome, arrayed most elegantly, and crowned with a white hat (Mrs. Slade always affected white hats with long drooping plumes upon such occasions), and George B., natty in his light top coat, standing well back upon the heels of his shiny shoes, with the air of the wealthy and well-assured, holding a belted cigar in the tips of his grey-gloved fingers, New York was most distinctly patronised, although without knowing it. It was also patronised, and to a greater extent, by little Mrs. Wilbur Edes, very little indeed, so little as to be almost symbolic of Fairbridge itself, but elegant in every detail, so elegant as to arrest the eye of everybody as she entered the train, holding up the tail of her black lace gown. Mrs. Edes doted on black lace. Her small, fair face peered with a curious calm alertness from under the black plumes of her great picture hat, perched sidewise upon a carefully waved pale gold pompadour, which was perfection and would have done credit to the best hairdresser or the best French maid in New York, but which was achieved solely by Mrs. Wilbur Edes' own native wit and skilful fingers. Mrs. Wilbur Edes, although small, was masterly in everything, from waving a pompadour to conducting theatricals. She herself was the star dramatic performer of Fairbridge. There was a strong feeling in Fairbridge that in reality she might, if she chose, rival Bernhardt. Mrs. Emerston Strong, who had been abroad and had seen Bernhardt on her native soil, had often said that Mrs. Edes reminded her of the great French actress, although she was much handsomer, and so moral! Mrs. Wilbur Edes was masterly in morals, as in everything else. She was much admired by the opposite sex, but she was a model wife and mother. Mr. Wilbur Edes was an admired accessory of his wife. He was so very tall and slender as to suggest forcible elongation. He carried his head with a deprecatory, sidewise air as if in accordance with his wife's picture hat, and yet Mr. Wilbur Edes, out of Fairbridge and in his law office on Broadway, was a man among men. He was an exception to the personal esteem which usually expanded a male citizen of Fairbridge, but he was the one and only husband of Mrs. Wilbur Edes, and there was not room at such an apex as she occupied for more than one. Tall as Wilbur Edes was, he was overshadowed by that immaculate blond pompadour and that plumed picture hat. He was a prime favourite in Fairbridge society; he was liked and admired, but his radiance was reflected, and he was satisfied that it should be so. He adored his wife. The shadow of her black picture hat was his place of perfect content. He watched the admiring glances of other men at his wonderful possession with a triumph and pride which made him really rather a noble sort. He was also so fond and proud of his little twin daughters, Maida and Adelaide, that the fondness and pride fairly illuminated his inner self. Wilbur Edes was a clever lawyer, but love made him something bigger. It caused him to immolate self, which is spiritually enlarging self. In one respect Wilbur Edes was the biggest man in Fairbridge; in another, Doctor Sturtevant was. Doctor Sturtevant depended upon no other person for his glory. He shone as a fixed star, with his own lustre. He was esteemed a very great physician indeed, and it was considered that Mrs. Sturtevant, who was good, and honest, and portly with a tight, middle-aged portliness, hardly lived up to her husband. It was admitted that she tried, poor soul, but her limitations were held to be impossible, even by her faithful straining following of love. When the splendid, florid Doctor, with his majestically curving expanse of waistcoat and his inscrutable face, whirred through the streets of Fairbridge in his motor car, with that meek bulk of womanhood beside him, many said quite openly how unfortunate it was that Doctor Sturtevant had married, when so young, a woman so manifestly his inferior. They never failed to confer that faint praise, which is worse than none at all, upon the poor soul. "She is a good woman," they said. "She means well, and she is a good housekeeper, but she is no companion for a man like that." Poor Mrs. Sturtevant was aware of her status in Fairbridge, and she was not without a steady, plodding ambition of her own. That utterly commonplace, middle-aged face had some lines of strength. Mrs. Sturtevant was a member of the women's club of Fairbridge, which was poetically and cleverly called the Zenith Club. She wrote, whenever it was her turn to do so, papers upon every imaginable subject. She balked at nothing whatever. She ranged from household discussions to the Orient. Then she stood up in the midst of the women, sunk her double chin in her lace collar, and read her paper in a voice like the whisper of a blade of grass. Doctor Sturtevant had a very low voice. His wife had naturally a strident one, but she essayed to follow him in the matter of voice, as in all other things. The poor hen bird tried to voice her thoughts like her mate, and the result was a strange and weird note. However, Mrs. Sturtevant herself was not aware of the result. When she sat down after finishing her papers her face was always becomingly flushed with pleasure. Nothing, not even pleasure, was becoming to Mrs. Sturtevant. Life itself was unbecoming to her, and the worst of it was nobody knew it, and everybody said it was due to Mrs. Sturtevant's lack of taste, and then they pitied the great doctor anew. It was very fortunate that it never occurred to Mrs. Sturtevant to pity the doctor on her account, for she was so fond of him, poor soul, that it might have led to a tragedy. The Zenith Club of Fairbridge always met on Friday afternoons. It was a cherished aim of the Club to uproot foolish superstitions, hence Friday. It did not seem in the least risky to the ordinary person for a woman to attend a meeting of the Zenith Club on a Friday, in preference to any other day in the week; but many a member had a covert feeling that she was somewhat heroic, especially if the meeting was held at the home of some distant member on an icy day in winter, and she was obliged to make use of a livery carriage. There were in Fairbridge three keepers of livery stables, and curiously enough, no rivalry between them. All three were natives of the soil, and somewhat sluggish in nature, like its sticky red shale. They did not move with much enthusiasm, neither were they to be easily removed. When the New York trains came in, they, with their equally indifferent drivers, sat comfortably ensconced in their carriages, and never waylaid the possible passengers alighting from the train. Sometimes they did not even open the carriage doors, but they, however, saw to it that they were closed when once the passenger was within, and that was something. All three drove indifferent horses, somewhat uncertain as to footing. When a woman sat behind these weak-kneed, badly shod steeds and realised that Stumps, or Fitzgerald, or Witless was driving with an utter indifference to the tightening of lines at dangerous places, and also realised that it was Friday, some strength of character was doubtless required. One Friday in January, two young women, one married, one single, one very pretty, and both well-dressed (most of the women who belonged to the Fairbridge social set dressed well) were being driven by Jim Fitzgerald a distance of a mile or more, up a long hill. The slope was gentle and languid, like nearly every slope in that part of the state, but that day it was menacing with ice. It was one smooth glaze over the macadam. Jim Fitzgerald, a descendant of a fine old family whose type had degenerated, sat hunched upon the driver's seat, his loose jaw hanging, his eyes absent, his mouth open, chewing with slow enjoyment his beloved quid, while the reins lay slackly on the rusty black robe tucked over his knees. Even a corner of that dragged dangerously near the right wheels of the coupé. Jim had not sufficient energy to tuck it in firmly, although the wind was sharp from the northwest. Alice Mendon paid no attention to it, but her companion, Daisy Shaw, otherwise Mrs. Sumner Shaw, who was of the tense, nervous type, had remarked it uneasily when they first started. She had rapped vigorously upon the front window, and a misty, rather beautiful blue eye had rolled interrogatively over Jim's shoulder. "Your robe is dragging," shrieked in shrill staccato Daisy Shaw; and there had been a dull nod of the head, a feeble pull at the dragging robe, then it had dragged again. "Oh, don't mind, dear," said Alice Mendon. "It is his own lookout if he loses the robe." "It isn't that," responded Daisy querulously. "It isn't that. I don't care, since he is so careless, if he does lose it, but I must say that I don't think it is safe. Suppose it got caught in the wheel, and I know this horse stumbles." "Don't worry, dear," said Alice Mendon. "Fitzgerald's robe always drags, and nothing ever happens." Alice Mendon was a young woman, not a young girl (she had left young girlhood behind several years since) and she was distinctly beautiful after a fashion that is not easily affected by the passing years. She had had rather an eventful life, but not an event, pleasant or otherwise, had left its mark upon the smooth oval of her face. There was not a side nor retrospective glance to disturb the serenity of her large blue eyes. Although her eyes were blue, her hair was almost chestnut black, except in certain lights, when it gave out gleams as of dark gold. Her features were full, her figure large, but not too large. She wore a dark red tailored gown; and sumptuous sable furs shaded with dusky softness and shot, in the sun, with prismatic gleams, set off her handsome, not exactly smiling, but serenely beaming face. Two great black ostrich plumes and one red one curled down toward the soft spikes of the fur. Between, the two great blue eyes, the soft oval of the cheeks, and the pleasant red fullness of the lips appeared. Poor Daisy Shaw, who was poor in two senses, strength of nerve and money, looked blue and cold in her little black suit, and her pale blue liberty scarf was horribly inadequate and unbecoming. Daisy was really painful to see as she gazed out apprehensively at the dragging robe, and the glistening slant over which they were moving. Alice regarded her not so much with pity as with a calm, sheltering sense of superiority and strength. She pulled the inner robe of the coupé up and tucked it firmly around Daisy's thin knees. "You look half frozen," said Alice. "I don't mind being frozen, but I do mind being scared," replied Daisy sharply. She removed the robe with a twitch. "If that old horse stumbles and goes down and kicks, I want to be able to get out without being all tangled up in a robe and dragged," said she. "While the horse is kicking and down I don't see how he can drag you very far," said Alice with a slight laugh. Then the horse stumbled. Daisy Shaw knocked quickly on the front window with her little, nervous hand in its tight, white kid glove. "Do please hold your reins tighter," she called. Again the misty blue eyes rolled about, the head nodded, the rotary jaws were seen, the robe dragged, the reins lay loosely. "That wasn't a stumble worth mentioning," said Alice Mendon. "I wish he would stop chewing and drive," said poor Daisy Shaw vehemently. "I wish we had a liveryman as good as that Dougherty in Axminister. I was making calls there the other day, and it was as slippery as it is now, and he held the reins up tight every minute. I felt safe with him." "I don't think anything will happen." "It does seem to me if he doesn't stop chewing, and drive, I shall fly!" said Daisy. Alice regarded her with a little wonder. Such anxiety concerning personal safety rather puzzled her. "My horses ran away the other day, and Dick went down flat and barked his knees; that's why I have Fitzgerald to-day," said she. "I was not hurt. Nobody was hurt except the horse. I was very sorry about the horse." "I wish I had an automobile," said Daisy. "You never know what a horse will do next." Alice laughed again slightly. "There is a little doubt sometimes as to what an automobile will do next," she remarked. "Well, it is your own brain that controls it, if you can run it yourself, as you do." "I am not so sure. Sometimes I wonder if the automobile hasn't an uncanny sort of brain itself. Sometimes I wonder how far men can go with the invention of machinery without putting more of themselves into it than they bargain for," said Alice. Her smooth face did not contract in the least, but was brooding with speculation and thought. Then the horse stumbled again, and Daisy screamed, and again tapped the window. "He won't go way down," said Alice. "I think he is too stiff. Don't worry." "There is no stumbling to worry about with an automobile," said Daisy. "You couldn't use one on this hill without more risk than you take with a stumbling horse," replied Alice. Just then a carriage drawn by two fine bays passed them, and there was an interchange of nods. "There is Mrs. Sturtevant," said Alice. "She isn't using the automobile to-day." "Doctor Sturtevant has had that coachman thirty years, and he doesn't chew, he drives," said Daisy. Then they drew up before the house which was their destination, Mrs. George B. Slade's. The house was very small, but perkily pretentious, and they drove under the porte-cochère to alight. "I heard Mr. Slade had been making a great deal of money in cotton lately," Daisy whispered, as the carriage stopped behind Mrs. Sturtevant's. "Mr. and Mrs. Slade went to the opera last week. I heard they had taken a box for the season, and Mrs. Slade had a new black velvet gown and a pearl necklace. I think she is almost too old to wear low neck." "She is not so very old," replied Alice. "It is only her white hair that makes her seem so." Then she extended a rather large but well gloved hand and opened the coupé door, while Jim Fitzgerald sat and chewed and waited, and the two young women got out. Daisy had some trouble in holding up her long skirts. She tugged at them with nervous energy, and told Alice of the twenty-five cents which Fitzgerald would ask for the return trip. She had wished to arrive at the club in fine feather, but had counted on walking home in the dusk, with her best skirts high-kilted, and saving an honest penny. "Nonsense; of course you will go with me," said Alice in the calmly imperious way she had, and the two mounted the steps. They had scarcely reached the door before Mrs. Slade's maid, Lottie, appeared in her immaculate width of apron, with carefully-pulled-out bows and little white lace top-knot. "Upstairs, front room," she murmured, and the two went up the polished stairs. There was a landing halfway, with a diamond paned window and one rubber plant and two palms, all very glossy, and all three in nice green jardinières which exactly matched the paper on the walls of the hall. Mrs. George B. Slade had a mania for exactly matching things. Some of her friends said among themselves that she carried it almost too far. The front room, the guest room, into which Alice Mendon and Daisy Shaw passed, was done in yellow and white, and one felt almost sinful in disturbing the harmony by any other tint. The walls were yellow, with a frieze of garlands of yellow roses; the ceiling was tinted yellow, the tiles on the shining little hearth were yellow, every ornament upon the mantel-shelf was yellow, down to a china shepherdess who wore a yellow china gown and carried a basket filled with yellow flowers, and bore a yellow crook. The bedstead was brass, and there was a counterpane of white lace over yellow, the muslin curtains were tied back with great bows of yellow ribbon. Even the pictures represented yellow flowers or maidens dressed in yellow. The rugs were yellow, the furniture upholstered in yellow, and all of exactly the same shade. There were a number of ladies in this yellow room, prinking themselves before going downstairs. They all lived in Fairbridge; they all knew each other; but they greeted one another with the most elegant formality. Alice assisted Daisy Shaw to remove her coat and liberty scarf, then she shook herself free of her own wraps, rather than removed them. She did not even glance at herself in the glass. Her reason for so doing was partly confidence in her own appearance, partly distrust of the glass. She had viewed herself carefully in her own looking-glass before she left home. She believed in what she had seen there, but she did not care to disturb that belief, and she saw that Mrs. Slade's mirror over her white and yellow draped dressing table stood in a cross-light. While all admitted Alice Mendon's beauty, nobody had ever suspected her of vanity; yet vanity she had, in a degree. The other women in the room looked at her. It was always a matter of interest of Fairbridge what she would wear, and this was rather curious, as, after all, she had not many gowns. There was a certain impressiveness about her mode of wearing the same gown which seemed to create an illusion. To-day in her dark red gown embroidered with poppies of still another shade, she created a distinctly new impression, although she had worn the same costume often before at the club meetings. She went downstairs in advance of the other women who had arrived before, and were yet anxiously peering at themselves in the cross-lighted mirror, and being adjusted as to refractory neckwear by one another. When Alice entered Mrs. Slade's elegant little reception-room, which was done in a dull rose colour, its accessories very exactly matching, even to Mrs. Slade's own costume, which was rose silk under black lace, she was led at once to a lady richly attired in black, with gleams of jet, who was seated in a large chair in the place of honour, not quite in the bay window but exactly in the centre of the opening. The lady quite filled the chair. She was very stout. Her face, under an ornate black hat, was like a great rose full of overlapping curves of florid flesh. The wide mouth was perpetually curved into a bow of mirth, the small black eyes twinkled. She was Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder, who had come from New York to deliver her famous lecture upon the subject: "Where does a woman shine with more lustre, at home or abroad?" The programme was to be varied, as usual upon such occasions, by local talent. Leila MacDonald, who sang contralto in the church choir, and Mrs. Arthur Wells, who sang soprano, and Mrs. Jack Evarts, who played the piano very well, and Miss Sally Anderson, who had taken lessons in elocution, all had their parts, besides the president of the club, Mrs. Wilbur Edes, who had a brief address in readiness, and the secretary, who had to give the club report for the year. Mrs. Snyder was to give her lecture as a grand climax, then there were to be light refreshments and a reception following the usual custom of the club. Alice bowed before Mrs. Snyder and retreated to a window at the other side of the room. She sat beside the window and looked out. Just then one of the other liverymen drove up with a carriage full of ladies, and they emerged in a flutter of veils and silk skirts. Mrs. Slade, who was really superb in her rose silk and black lace, with an artful frill of white lace at her throat to match her great puff of white hair, remained beside Mrs. Snyder, whose bow of mirth widened. "Who is that magnificent creature?" whispered Mrs. Snyder with a gush of enthusiasm, indicating Alice beside the window. "She lives here," replied Mrs. Slade rather stupidly. She did not quite know how to define Alice. "Lives here in this little place? Not all the year?" rejoined Mrs. Snyder. "Fairbridge is a very good place to live in all the year," replied Mrs. Slade rather stiffly. "It is near New York. We have all the advantages of a great metropolis without the drawbacks. Fairbridge is a most charming city, and very progressive, yes, very progressive." Mrs. Slade took it rather hardly that Mrs. Snyder should intimate anything prejudicial to Fairbridge and especially that it was not good enough for Alice Mendon, who had been born there, and lived there all her life except the year she had been in college. If anything, she, Mrs. Slade, wondered if Alice Mendon were good enough for Fairbridge. What had she ever done, except to wear handsome costumes and look handsome and self-possessed? Although she belonged to the Zenith Club, no power on earth could induce her to discharge the duties connected herewith, except to pay her part of the expenses, and open her house for a meeting. She simply would not write a paper upon any interesting and instructive topic and read it before the club, and she was not considered gifted. She could not sing like Leila MacDonald and Mrs. Arthur Wells. She could not play like Mrs. Jack Evarts. She could not recite like Sally Anderson. Mrs. Snyder glanced across at Alice, who looked very graceful and handsome, although also, to a discerning eye, a little sulky, and bored with a curious, abstracted boredom. "She is superb," whispered Mrs. Snyder, "yes, simply superb. Why does she live here, pray?" "Why, she was born here," replied Mrs. Slade, again stupidly. It was as if Alice had no more motive power than a flowering bush. Mrs. Snyder's bow of mirth widened into a laugh. "Well, can't she get away, even if she was born here?" said she. However, Mrs. George B. Slade's mind travelled in such a circle that she was difficult to corner. "Why should she want to move?" said she. Mrs. Snyder laughed again. "But, granting she should want to move, is there anything to hinder?" she asked. She wasn't a very clever woman, and was deciding privately to mimic Mrs. George B. Slade at some future occasion, and so eke out her scanty remuneration. She did not think ten dollars and expenses quite enough for such a lecture as hers. Mrs. Slade looked at her perplexedly. "Why, yes, she could I suppose," said she, "but why?" "What has hindered her before now?" "Oh, her mother was a helpless invalid, and Alice was the only child, and she had been in college just a year when her father died, then she came home and lived with her mother, but her mother has been dead two years now, and Alice has plenty of money. Her father left a good deal, and her cousin and aunt live with her. Oh, yes, she could, but why should she want to leave Fairbridge, and--" Then some new arrivals approached, and the discussion concerning Alice Mendon ceased. The ladies came rapidly now. Soon Mrs. Slade's hall, reception-room, and dining-room, in which a gaily-decked table was set, were thronged with women whose very skirts seemed full of important anticipatory stirs and rustles. Mrs. Snyder's curved smile became set, her eyes absent. She was revolving her lecture in her mind, making sure that she could repeat it without the assistance of the notes in her petticoat pocket. Then a woman rang a little silver bell, and a woman who sat short but rose to unexpected heights stood up. The phenomenon was amazing, but all the Fairbridge ladies had seen Miss Bessy Dicky, the secretary of the Zenith Club, rise before, and no one observed anything remarkable about it. Only Mrs. Snyder's mouth twitched a little, but she instantly recovered herself and fixed her absent eyes upon Miss Bessy Dicky's long, pale face as she began to read the report of the club for the past year. She had been reading several minutes, her glasses fixed firmly (one of her eyes had a cast) and her lean, veinous hands trembling with excitement, when the door bell rang with a sharp peremptory peal. There was a little flutter among the ladies. Such a thing had never happened before. Fairbridge ladies were renowned for punctuality, especially at a meeting like this, and in any case, had one been late, she would never have rung the bell. She would have tapped gently on the door, the white-capped maid would have admitted her, and she, knowing she was late and hearing the hollow recitative of Miss Bessy Dicky's voice, would have tiptoed upstairs, then slipped delicately down again and into a place near the door. But now it was different. Lottie opened the door, and a masculine voice was heard. Mrs. Slade had a storm-porch, so no one could look directly into the hall. "Is Mrs. Slade at home?" inquired the voice distinctly. The ladies looked at one another, and Miss Bessy Dicky's reading was unheard. They all knew who spoke. Lottie appeared with a crimson face, bearing a little ostentatious silver plate with a card. Mrs. Slade adjusted her lorgnette, looked at the card, and appeared to hesitate for a second. Then a look of calm determination overspread her face. She whispered to Lottie, and presently appeared a young man in clerical costume, moving between the seated groups of ladies with an air not so much of embarrassment as of weary patience, as if he had expected something like this to happen, and it had happened. Mrs. Slade motioned to a chair near her, which Lottie had placed, and the young man sat down. Chapter II Many things were puzzling in Fairbridge, that is, puzzling to a person with a logical turn of mind. For instance, nobody could say that Fairbridge people were not religious. It was a church going community, and five denominations were represented in it; nevertheless, the professional expounders of its doctrines were held in a sort of gentle derision, that is, unless the expounder happened to be young and eligible from a matrimonial point of view, when he gained a certain fleeting distinction. Otherwise the clergy were regarded (in very much the same light as if employed by a railroad) as the conductors of a spiritual train of cars bound for the Promised Land. They were admittedly engaged in a cause worthy of the highest respect and veneration. The Cause commanded it, not they. They had always lacked social prestige in Fairbridge, except, as before stated, in the cases of the matrimonially eligible. Dominie von Rosen came under that head. Consequently he was for the moment, fleeting as everybody considered it, in request. But he did not respond readily to the social patronage of Fairbridge. He was, seemingly, quite oblivious to its importance. Karl von Rosen was bored to the verge of physical illness by Fairbridge functions. Even a church affair found him wearily to the front. Therefore his presence at the Zenith Club was unprecedented and confounding. He had often been asked to attend its special meetings but had never accepted. Now, however, here he was, caught neatly in the trap of his own carelessness. Karl von Rosen should have reflected that the Zenith Club was one of the institutions of Fairbridge, and met upon a Friday, and that Mrs. George B. Slade's house was an exceedingly likely rendezvous, but he was singularly absent-minded as to what was near, and very present minded as to what was afar. That which should have been near was generally far to his mind, which was perpetually gathering the wool of rainbow sheep in distant pastures. If there was anything in which Karl von Rosen did not take the slightest interest, it was women's clubs in general and the Zenith Club in particular; and here he was, doomed by his own lack of thought to sit through an especially long session. He had gone out for a walk. To his mind it was a fine winter's day. The long, glittering lights of ice pleased him and whenever he was sure that he was unobserved he took a boyish run and long slide. During his walk he had reached Mrs. Slade's house, and since he worked in his pastoral calls whenever he could, by applying a sharp spur to his disinclination, it had occurred to him that he might make one, and return to his study in a virtuous frame of mind over a slight and unimportant, but bothersome duty performed. If he had had his wits about him he might have seen the feminine heads at the windows, he might have heard the quaver of Miss Bessy Dicky's voice over the club report; but he saw and heard nothing, and now he was seated in the midst of the feminine throng, and Miss Bessy Dicky's voice quavered more, and she assumed a slightly mincing attitude. Her thin hands trembled more, the hot, red spots on her thin cheeks deepened. Reading the club reports before the minister was an epoch in an epochless life, but Karl von Rosen was oblivious of her except as a disturbing element rather more insistent than the others in which he was submerged. [Illustration: He was doomed by his own lack of thought to sit through an especially long session] He sat straight and grave, his eyes retrospective. He was constantly getting into awkward situations, and acquitting himself in them with marvellous dignity and grace. Even Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder, astute as she was, regarded him keenly, and could not for the life of her tell whether he had come premeditatedly or not. She only discovered one thing, that poor Miss Bessy Dicky was reading at him and posing at him and trembling her hands at him, and that she was throwing it all away, for Von Rosen heard no more of her report than if he had been in China when she was reading it. Mrs. Snyder realised that hardly anything in nature could be so totally uninteresting to the young man as the report of a woman's club. Inasmuch as she herself was devoted to such things, she regarded him with disapproval, although with a certain admiration. Karl von Rosen always commanded admiration, although often of a grudging character, from women. His utter indifference to them as women was the prime factor in this; next to that his really attractive, even distinguished, personality. He was handsome after the fashion which usually accompanies devotion to women. He was slight, but sinewy, with a gentle, poetical face and great black eyes, into which women were apt to project tenderness merely from their own fancy. It seemed ridiculous and anomalous that a man of Von Rosen's type should not be a lover of ladies, and the fact that he was most certainly not was both fascinating and exasperating. Now Mrs. George B. Slade, magnificent matron, as she was, moreover one who had inhaled the perfume of adulation from her youth up, felt a calm malice. She knew that he had entered her parlour after the manner of the spider and fly rhyme of her childhood; she knew that the other ladies would infer that he had come upon her invitation, and her soul was filled with one of the petty triumphs of petty Fairbridge. She, however, did not dream of the actual misery which filled the heart of the graceful, dignified young man by her side. She considered herself in the position of a mother, who forces an undesired, but nevertheless, delectable sweet upon a child, who gazes at her with adoration when the savour has reached his palate. She did not expect Von Rosen to be much edified by Miss Bessy Dicky's report. She had her own opinion of Miss Bessy Dicky, of her sleeves, of her gown, and her report, but she had faith in the truly decorative features of the occasion when they should be underway, and she had immense faith in Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder. She was relieved when Miss Bessy Dicky sat down, and endeavoured to compose her knees, which by this time were trembling like her hands, and also to assume an expression as if she had done nothing at all, and nobody was looking at her. That last because of the fact that she had done so little, and nobody was looking at her rendered her rather pathetic. Miss Bessy Dicky did not glance at the minister, but she, nevertheless, saw him. She had never had a lover, and here was the hero of her dreams. He would never know it and nobody else would ever know it, and no harm would be done except very possibly, by and by, a laceration of the emotions of an elderly maiden, and afterwards a life-long scar. But who goes through life without emotional scars? After Miss Bessy Dicky sat down, Mrs. Wilbur Edes, the lady of the silver bell, rose. She lifted high her delicate chin, her perfect blond pompadour caught the light, her black lace robe swept round her in rich darkness, with occasional revelations of flower and leaf, the fairly poetical pattern of real lace. As she rose, she diffused around her a perfume as if rose-leaves were stirred up. She held a dainty handkerchief, edged with real lace, in her little left hand, which glittered with rings. In her right, was a spangled fan like a black butterfly. Mrs. Edes was past her first youth, but she was undeniably charming. She was like a little, perfect, ivory toy, which time has played with but has not injured. Mrs. Slade looked at her, then at Karl von Rosen. He looked at Mrs. Wilbur Edes, then looked away. She was most graceful, but most positively uninteresting. However, Mrs. Slade was rather pleased at that. She and Mrs. Edes were rival stars. Von Rosen had never looked long at her, and it seemed right he should not look long at the other woman. Mrs. Slade surveyed Mrs. Edes as she announced the next number on the programme, and told herself that Mrs. Edes' gown might be real lace and everything about her very real, and nice, and elegant, but she was certainly a little fussy for so small a woman. Mrs. Slade considered that she herself could have carried off that elegance in a much more queenly manner. There was one feature of Mrs. Edes' costume which Mrs. Slade resented. She considered that it should be worn by a woman of her own size and impressiveness. That was a little wrap of ermine. Now ermine, as everybody knew, should only be worn by large and queenly women. Mrs. Slade resolved that she herself would have an ermine wrap which should completely outshine Mrs. Edes' little affair, all swinging with tails and radiant with tiny, bright-eyed heads. Mrs. Edes announced a duet by Miss MacDonald and Mrs. Wells, and sat down, and again the perfume of rose leaves was perceptible. Karl von Rosen glanced at the next performers, Miss MacDonald, who was very pretty and well-dressed in white embroidered cloth, and Mrs. Wells, who was not pretty, but was considered very striking, who trailed after her in green folds edged with fur, and bore a roll of music. She seated herself at the piano with a graceful sweep of her green draperies, which defined her small hips, and struck the keys with slender fingers quite destitute of rings, always lifting them high with a palpable affectation not exactly doubtful--that was saying too much--but she was considered to reach limits of propriety with her sinuous motions, the touch of her sensitive fingers upon piano keys, and the quick flash of her dark eyes in her really plain face. There was, for the women in Fairbridge, a certain mischievous fascination about Mrs. Wells. Moreover, they had in her their one object of covert gossip, their one stimulus to unlawful imagination. There was a young man who played the violin. His name was Henry Wheaton, and he was said to be a frequent caller at Mrs. Wells', and she played his accompaniments, and Mr. Wells was often detained in New York until the late train. Then there was another young man who played the 'cello, and he called often. And there was Ellis Bainbridge, who had a fine tenor voice, and he called. It was delightful to have a woman of that sort, of whom nothing distinctly culpable could be affirmed, against whom no good reason could be brought for excluding her from the Zenith Club and the social set. In their midst, Mrs. Wells furnished the condiments, the spice, and pepper, and mustard for many functions. She relieved to a great extent the monotony of unquestioned propriety. It would have been horribly dull if there had been no woman in the Zenith Club who furnished an excuse for the other members' gossip. Leila MacDonald, so carefully dressed and brushed and washed, and so free from defects that she was rather irritating, began to sing, then people listened. Karl von Rosen listened. She really had a voice which always surprised and charmed with the first notes, then ceased to charm. Leila MacDonald was as a good canary bird, born to sing, and dutifully singing, but without the slightest comprehension of her song. It was odd too that she sang with plenty of expression, but her own lack of realisation seemed to dull it for her listeners. Karl von Rosen listened, then his large eyes again turned introspective. Mrs. Edes again arose, after the singing and playing ladies had finished their performance and returned to their seats, and announced a recitation by Miss Sally Anderson. Miss Anderson wore a light summer gown, and swept to the front, and bent low to her audience, then at once began her recitation with a loud crash of emotion. She postured, she gesticulated. She lowered her voice to inaudibility, she raised it to shrieks and wails. She did everything which she had been taught, and she had been taught a great deal. Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder listened and got data for future lectures, with her mirthful mouth sternly set. After Sally Anderson, Mrs. Jack Evarts played a glittering thing called "Waves of the Sea." Then Sally Anderson recited again, then Mrs. Wilbur Edes spoke at length, and with an air which commanded attention, and Von Rosen suffered agonies. He laughed with sickly spurts at Mrs. Snyder's confidential sallies, when she had at last her chance to deliver herself of her ten dollar speech, but the worst ordeal was to follow. Von Rosen was fluttered about by women bearing cups of tea, of frothy chocolate, plates of cake, dishes of bonbons, and saucers of ice-cream. He loathed sweets and was forced into accepting a plate. He stood in the midst of the feminine throng, the solitary male figure looking at his cup of chocolate, and a slice of sticky cake, and at an ice representing a chocolate lily, which somebody had placed for special delectation upon a little table at his right. Then Alice Mendon came to his rescue. She deftly took the plate with the sticky cake, and the cup of hot chocolate, and substituted a plate with a chicken mayonnaise sandwich, smiling pleasantly as she did so. "Here," she whispered. "Why do you make a martyr of yourself for such a petty cause? Do it for the faith if you want to, but not for thick chocolate and angel cake." She swept away the chocolate lily also. Von Rosen looked at her gratefully. "Thank you," he murmured. She laughed. "Oh, you need not thank me," she said. "I have a natural instinct to rescue men from sweets." She laughed again maliciously. "I am sure you have enjoyed the club very much," she said. Von Rosen coloured before her sarcastic, kindly eyes. He began to speak, but she interrupted him. "You have heard that silence is golden," said she. "It is always golden when speech would be a lie." Then she turned away and seized upon the chocolate lily and pressed it upon Mrs. Joy Snyder, who was enjoying adulation and good things. "Do please have this lovely lily, Mrs. Snyder," she said. "It is the very prettiest ice of the lot, and meant especially for you. I am sure you will enjoy it." And Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder, whose sense of humour deserted her when she was being praised and fed, and who had already eaten bonbons innumerable, and three ices with accompanying cake, took the chocolate lily gratefully. Von Rosen ate his chicken sandwich and marvelled at the ways of women. After Von Rosen had finished his sandwiches and tea, he made his way to Mrs. Snyder, and complimented her upon her lecture. He had a constitutional dislike for falsehoods, which was perhaps not so much a virtue as an idiosyncrasy. Now he told Mrs. Snyder that he had never heard a lecture which seemed to amuse an audience more than hers had done, and that he quite envied her because of her power of holding attention. Mrs. Snyder, with the last petal of her chocolate lily sweet upon her tongue, listened with such a naïveté of acquiescence that she was really charming, and Von Rosen had spoken the truth. He had wondered, when he saw the eagerly tilted faces of the women, and heard their bursts of shrill laughter and clapping of hands, why he could not hold them with his sermons which, he might assume without vanity, contained considerable subject for thought, as this woman, with her face like a mask of mirth, held them with her compilation of platitudes. He thought that he had never seen so many women listen with such intensity, and lack of self-consciousness. He had seen only two pat their hair, only one glance at her glittering rings, only three arrange the skirts of their gowns while the lecture was in progress. Sometimes during his sermons, he felt as if he were holding forth to a bewildering sea of motion with steadily recurrent waves, which fascinated him, of feathers, and flowers, swinging fur tails, and kid-gloved hands, fluttering ribbons, and folds of drapery. Karl von Rosen would not have acknowledged himself as a woman-hater, that savoured too much of absurd male egotism, but he had an under conviction that women were, on the whole, admitting of course exceptions, self-centered in the pursuit of petty ends to the extent of absolute viciousness. He disliked women, although he had never owned it to himself. In spite of his dislike of women, Von Rosen had a house-keeper. He had made an ineffectual trial of an ex-hotel chef, but had finally been obliged to resort to Mrs. Jane Riggs. She was tall and strong, wider-shouldered than hipped. She went about her work with long strides. She never fussed. She never asked questions. In fact, she seldom spoke. When Von Rosen entered his house that night, after the club meeting, he had a comfortable sense of returning to an embodied silence. The coal fire in his study grate was red and clear. Everything was in order without misplacement. That was one of Jane Riggs' chief talents. She could tidy things without misplacing them. Von Rosen loved order, and was absolutely incapable of keeping it. Therefore Jane Riggs' orderliness was as balm. He sat down in his Morris chair before his fire, stretched out his legs to the warmth, which was grateful after the icy outdoor air, rested his eyes upon a plaster cast over the chimney place, which had been tinted a beautiful hue by his own pipe, and sighed with content. His own handsome face was rosy with the reflection of the fire, his soul rose-coloured with complete satisfaction. He was so glad to be quit of that crowded assemblage of eager femininity, so glad that it was almost worth while to have encountered it just for that sense of blessed relief. Mrs. Edes had offered to take him home in her carriage, and he had declined almost brusquely. To have exchanged that homeward walk over the glistening earth, and under the clear rose and violet lights of the winter sunset, with that sudden rapturous discovery of the slender crescent of the new moon, for a ride with Mrs. Edes in her closed carriage with her silvery voice in his ear instead of the keen silence of the winter air, would have been torture. Von Rosen wondered at himself for disliking Mrs. Edes in particular, whereas he disliked most women in general. There was something about her feline motions instinct with swiftness, and concealed claws, and the half keen, half sleepy glances of her green-blue eyes, which irritated him beyond measure, and he was ashamed of being irritated. It implied a power over him, and yet it was certainly not a physical power. It was subtle and pertained to spirit. He realised, as did many in Fairbridge, a strange influence, defying reason and will, which this small woman with her hidden swiftness had over nearly everybody with whom she came in contact. It had nothing whatever to do with sex. She would have produced it in the same degree, had she not been in the least attractive. It was compelling, and at the same time irritating. Von Rosen in his Morris chair after the tea welcomed the intrusion of Jane Riggs, which dispelled his thought of Mrs. Wilbur Edes. Jane stood beside the chair, a rigid straight length of woman with a white apron starched like a board, covering two thirds of her, and waited for interrogation. "What is it, Jane?" asked Von Rosen. Jane Riggs replied briefly. "Outlandish young woman out in the kitchen," she said with distinct disapproval, yet with evident helplessness before the situation. Von Rosen started. "Where is the dog?" "Licking her hands. Every time I told her to go, Jack growled. Mebbe you had better come out yourself, Mr. Von Rosen." When Von Rosen entered the kitchen, he saw a little figure on the floor in a limp heap, with the dog frantically licking its hands, which were very small and brown and piteously outspread, as if in supplication. "Mebbe you had better call up the doctor on the telephone; she seems to have swooned away," said Jane Riggs. At the same time she made one long stride to the kitchen sink, and water. Von Rosen looked aghast at the stricken figure, which was wrapped in a queer medley of garments. He also saw on the floor near by a bulging suitcase. "She is one of them pedlars," said Jane Riggs, dashing water upon the dumb little face. "I rather guess you had better call up the doctor on the telephone. She don't seem to be coming to easy and she may have passed away." Von Rosen gasped, then he looked pitifully at the poor little figure, and ran back to his study to the telephone. To his great relief as he passed the window, he glanced out, and saw Doctor Sturtevant's automobile making its way cautiously over the icy street. Then for the first time he remembered that he had been due at that time about a matter of a sick parishioner. He opened the front door hurriedly, and stated the case, and the two men carried the little unconscious creature upstairs. Then Von Rosen came down, leaving the doctor and Martha with her. He waited in the study, listening to the sounds overhead, waiting impatiently for the doctor's return, which was not for half an hour or more. In the meantime Martha came downstairs on some errand to the kitchen. Von Rosen intercepted her. "What does Doctor Sturtevant think?" he asked. "Dunno, what he thinks," replied Martha brusquely, pushing past him. "Is she conscious yet?" "Dunno, I ain't got any time to talk," said Martha, casting a flaming look at him over her shoulder as she entered the kitchen. Von Rosen retreated to the study, where he was presently joined by the doctor. "What is it?" asked Von Rosen with an emphasis, which rendered it so suspicious that he might have added: "what the devil is it?" had it not been for his profession. Sturtevant answered noiselessly, the motion of his lips conveying his meaning. Then he said, shrugging himself into his fur coat, as he spoke, "I have to rush my motor to see a patient, whom I dare not leave another moment, then I will be back." Von Rosen's great Persian cat had curled himself on the doctor's fur coat, and now shaken off, sat with a languid dignity, his great yellow plume of a tail waving, and his eyes like topazes fixed intently upon Sturtevant. At that moment a little cry was heard from the guest room, a cry between a moan and a scream, but unmistakably a note of suffering. Sturtevant jammed his fur cap upon his head and pulled on his gloves. "Don't go," pleaded Von Rosen in a sudden terror of helplessness. "I must, but I'll break the speed laws and be back before you know it. That housekeeper of yours is as good as any trained nurse, and better. She is as hard as nails, but she does her duty like a machine, and she has brains. I will be back in a few minutes." Then Sturtevant was gone, and Von Rosen sat again before his study fire. There was another little note of suffering from above. Von Rosen shuddered, rose, and closed his door. The Persian cat came and sat in front of him, and gazed at him with jewel-like eyes. There was an expression of almost human anxiety and curiosity upon the animal's face. He came from a highly developed race; he and his forbears had always been with humans. At times it seemed to Von Rosen as if the cat had a dumb knowledge of the most that he himself knew. He reached down and patted the shapely golden head, but the cat withdrew, curled himself into a coil of perfect luxuriousness, with the firelight casting a warm, rosy glow upon his golden beauty, purred a little while, then sank into the mystery of animal sleep. Von Rosen sat listening. He told himself that Sturtevant should be back within half an hour. When only ten minutes had passed he took out his watch and was dismayed to find how short a time had elapsed. He replaced his watch and leaned back. He was always listening uneasily. He had encountered illness and death and distress, but never anything quite like this. He had always been able to give personal aid. Now he felt barred out, and fiercely helpless. He sat ten minutes longer. Then he arose. He could reach the kitchen by another way which did not lead past the stairs. He went out there, treading on tiptoe. The cat had looked up, stretched, and lazily gotten upon his feet and followed him, tail waving like a pennant. He brushed around Von Rosen out in the kitchen, and mewed a little, delicate, highbred mew. The dog came leaping up the basement stairs, sat up and begged. Von Rosen opened the ice box and found therein some steak. He cut off large pieces and fed the cat and dog. He also found milk and filled a saucer. He stole back to the study. He thought he had closed all the doors, but presently the cat entered, then sat down and began to lick himself with his little red rough tongue. Von Rosen looked at his watch again. The house shook a little, and he knew that the shaking was caused by Jane Riggs, walking upstairs. He longed to go upstairs but knew that he could not, and again that rage of helplessness came over him. He reflected upon human life, the agony of its beginning; the agony, in spite of bravery, in spite of denial of agony, the agony under the brightest of suns, of its endurance; the agony of its end; and his reflections were almost blasphemous. His religion seemed to crumble beneath the standing-place of his soul. A torture of doubt, a certainty of ignorance, in spite of the utmost efforts of faith, came over him. The cat coiled himself again and sank into sleep. Von Rosen gazed at him. What if the accepted order of things were reversed, after all? What if that beautiful little animal were on a higher plane than he? Certainly the cat did not suffer, and certainly suffering and doubt degraded even the greatest. He looked at his watch and saw that Sturtevant had been gone five minutes over the half hour. He switched off the electric light, and stood in his window, which faced the street down which the doctor in his car must come. He realised at once that this was more endurable. He was doing what a woman would have done long before. He was masculine, and had not the quick instinct to stand by the window and watch out, to ease impatience. The road was like a broad silver band under the moon. The lights in house windows gleamed through drawn shades, except in one house, where he could see quite distinctly a woman seated beside a lamp with a green shade, sewing, with regular motions of a red, silk-clad arm. Von Rosen strained his eyes, and saw, as he thought, a dark bulk advancing far down the street. He watched and watched, then noted that the dark bulk had not moved. He wondered if the motor had broken down. He thought of running out to see, and made a motion to go, then he saw swiftly-moving lights pass the dark bulk. He thought they were the lights of the motor, but as they passed he saw it was a cab taking someone to the railroad station. He knew then that the dark bulk was a clump of trees. Then, before he could fairly sense it, the doctor's motor came hurtling down the street, its search-lights glaring, swinging from side to side. The machine stopped, and Von Rosen ran to the door. "Here I am," said Sturtevant in a hushed voice. There was a sound from the room above, and the doctor, Von Rosen and nurse looked at each other. Then Von Rosen sat again alone in his study, and now, in spite of the closed door, he heard noises above stairs. Solitude was becoming frightful to him. He felt all at once strangely young, like a child, and a pitiful sense of injury was over him, but the sense of injury was not for himself alone, but for all mankind. He realised that all mankind was enormously pitiful and injured, by the mere fact of their obligatory existence. And he wished more than anything in the world for some understanding soul with whom to share his sense of the universal grievance. But he continued to sit alone, and the cat slept in his golden coil of peace. Then suddenly the cat sat up, and his jewel eyes glowed. He looked fixedly at a point in the room. Von Rosen looked in the same direction but saw nothing except his familiar wall. Then he heard steps on the stairs, and the door opened, and Jane Riggs entered. She was white and stern. She was tragic. Her lean fingers were clutching at the air. Von Rosen stared at her. She sat down and swept her crackling white apron over her head. Chapter III When Margaret Edes had returned home after the Zenith Club, she devoted an hour to rest. She had ample time for that before dressing for a dinner which she and her husband were to give in New York that evening. The dinner was set for rather a late hour in order to enable Margaret to secure this rest before the train-time. She lay on a couch before the fire, in her room which was done in white and gold. Her hair was perfectly arranged, for she had scarcely moved her head during the club meeting, and had adjusted and removed her hat with the utmost caution. Now she kept her shining head perfectly still upon a rather hard pillow. She did not relax her head, but she did relax her body, and the result, as she was aware, would be beautifying. Still as her head remained, she allowed no lines of disturbance to appear upon her face, and for that matter, no lines of joy. Secretly she did not approve of smiles, more than she approved of tears. Both of them, she knew, tended to leave traces, and other people, especially other women, did not discriminate between the traces of tears and smiles. Therefore, lying with her slim graceful body stretched out at full length upon her couch, Margaret Edes' face was as absolutely devoid of expression as a human face could well be, and this although she was thinking rather strenuously. She had not been pleased with the impression which Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder had made upon the Zenith Club, because Mrs. Slade, and not she, had been instrumental in securing her valuable services. Mrs. Edes had a Napoleonic ambition which was tragic and pathetic, because it could command only a narrow scope for its really unusual force. If Mrs. Edes had only been possessed of the opportunity to subjugate Europe, nothing except another Waterloo could have stopped her onward march. But she had absolutely nothing to subjugate except poor little Fairbridge. She was a woman of power which was wasted. She was absurdly tragic, but none the less tragic. Power spent upon petty ends is one of the greatest disasters of the world. It wrecks not only the spender, but its object. Mrs. Edes was horribly and unworthily unhappy, reflecting upon Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder and Mrs. Slade. She cared very much because Mrs. Slade and not she had brought about this success of the Zenith Club, with Mrs. Snyder as high-light. It was a shame to her, but she could not help it, because one living within narrow horizons must have limited aims. If only her husband had enough money to enable her to live in New York after the manner which would have suited her, she felt capable of being a leading power in that great and dreadful city. Probably she was right. The woman was in reality possessed of abnormal nerve force. Had Wilbur Edes owned millions, and she been armed with the power which they can convey, she might have worked miracles in her subtle feminine fashion. She would always have worked subtly, and never believed her feminine self. She understood its worth too well. She would have conquered like a cat, because she understood her weapons, her velvet charm, her purr, and her claws. She would not have attempted a growling and bulky leap into success. She would have slid and insinuated and made her gliding progress almost imperceptible, but none the less remorseless. But she was fated to live in Fairbridge. What else could she do? Wilbur Edes was successful in his profession, but he was not an accumulator, and neither was she. His income was large during some years, but it was spent during those years for things which seemed absolutely indispensable to both husband and wife. For instance, to-night Wilbur would spend an extravagant sum upon this dinner, which he was to give at an extravagant hotel to some people whom Mrs. Edes had met last summer, and who, if not actually in the great swim, were in the outer froth of it, and she had vague imaginings of future gain through them. Wilbur had carried his dress suit in that morning. He was to take a room in the hotel and change, and meet her at the New York side of the ferry. As she thought of the ferry it was all Mrs. Edes could do to keep her smooth brow from a frown. Somehow the ferry always humiliated her; the necessity of going up or down that common, democratic gang plank, clinging to the tail of her fine gown, and seating herself in a row with people who glanced askance at her evening wrap and her general magnificence. Poor Mrs. Edes was so small and slight that holding up magnificence and treading the deck with her high-heeled shoes was physically fatiguing. Had she been of a large, powerful physique, had her body matched her mind, she might not have felt a sense of angry humiliation. As it was, she realised that for her, _her_, to be obliged to cross the ferry was an insult at the hands of Providence. But the tunnel was no better, perhaps worse,--that plunged into depths below the waters, like one in a public bath. Anything so exquisite, so dainty, so subtly fine and powerful as herself, should not have been condemned to this. She should have been able to give her dinners in her own magnificent New York mansion. As it was, there was nothing for her except to dress and accept the inevitable. It was as bad as if Napoleon the Great had been forced to ride to battle on a trolley car, instead of being booted and spurred and astride a charger, which lifted one fore-leg in a fling of scorn. Of course Wilbur would meet her, and they would take a taxicab, but even a taxicab seemed rather humiliating to her. It should have been her own private motor car. And she would be obliged to descend the stairs at the station ungracefully, one hand clutching nervously at the tail of her gorgeous gown, the other at her evening cloak. It was absolutely impossible for so slight a woman to descend stairs with dignity and grace, holding up an evening cloak and a long gown. However, there would be compensations later. She thought, with decided pleasure, of the private dining-room, and the carefully planned and horribly expensive decorations, which would be eminently calculated to form a suitable background for herself. The flowers and candle-shades were to be yellow, and she was to wear her yellow chiffon gown, with touches of gold embroidery, a gold comb set with topazes in her yellow hair, and on her breast a large, gleaming stone which was a yellow diamond of very considerable value. Wilbur had carried in his suit case her yellow satin slippers, her gold-beaded fan, and the queer little wrap of leopard skin which she herself had fashioned from a rug which her husband had given her. She had much skill in fashioning articles for her own adornment as a cat has in burnishing his fur, and would at any time have sacrificed the curtains or furniture covers, had they met her needs. She would not be obliged--crowning disgrace--to carry a bag. All she would need would be her little case for tickets, and her change purse, and her evening cloak had pockets. The evening cloak lay beside the yellow chiffon gown, carefully disposed on the bed, which had a lace counterpane over yellow satin. The cloak was of a creamy cloth lined with mink, a sumptuous affair, and she had a tiny mink toque with one yellow rose as head covering. She glanced approvingly at the rich attire spread upon the bed, and then thought again of the dreadful ferry, and her undignified hop across the dirty station to the boat. She longed for the days of sedan chairs, for anything rather than this. She was an exquisite lady caught in the toils of modern cheap progress toward all her pleasures and profits. She did not belong in a democratic country at all unless she had millions. She was out of place, as much out of place as a splendid Angora in an alley. Fairbridge to her instincts was as an alley; yet since it was her alley, she had to make the best of it. Had she not made the best of it, exalted it, magnified it, she would have gone mad. Wherefore the triumph of Mrs. Slade in presenting Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder seemed to her like an affair of moment. For lack of something greater to hate and rival, she hated and rivalled Mrs. Slade. For lack of something big over which to reign, she wished to reign over Fairbridge and the Zenith Club. Mrs. Slade's perfectly-matched drawing-room took on the semblance of a throne-room, in which she had seen herself usurped. Then she thought of the young clergyman, even as he was thinking of her. She knew perfectly well how he had been trapped, but she failed to see the slightest humour in it. She had no sense of humour. She saw only the additional triumph of Mrs. Slade in securing this rather remarkable man at the Zenith Club, something which she herself had never been able to do. Von Rosen's face came before her. She considered it a handsome face, but no man's face could disturb her. She held her virtue with as nervous a clutch as she held up her fine gown. To soil either would be injudicious, impolitic, and she never desired the injudicious and impolitic. "He is a handsome man," she said to herself, "an aristocratic-looking man." Then the telephone bell close beside her divan rang, and she took up the receiver carefully, not moving her head, sat up, and put her delicate lips to the speaking tube. "Hello," said a voice, and she recognised it as Von Rosen's although it had an agitated, nervous ring which was foreign to it. "What is it?" she said in reply, and the voice responded with volubility, "A girl, a young Syrian girl, is at my home. She is in a swoon or something. We cannot revive her. Is the doctor at home? Tell him to hurry over, please. I am Mr. von Rosen. Tell him to hurry. She may be dead." "You have made a mistake, Mr. von Rosen," said Mrs. Edes' thin voice, as thin and silvery as a reed. "You are speaking to Mrs. Wilbur Edes. My telephone number is 5R. You doubtless want Doctor Sturtevant. His number is 51M." "Oh, pardon," cried the voice over the telephone. "Sorry to have disturbed you, Mrs. Edes, I mistook--" The voice trailed into nothingness. There was a sharp ring. Mrs. Edes hung up her receiver. She thought slowly that it was a strange circumstance that Mr. von Rosen should have a fainting or dead young Syrian girl in his house. Then she rose from the divan, holding her head very stiffly, and began to dress. She had just enough time to dress leisurely and catch the train. She called on one of the two maids to assist her and was quite equipped, even to the little mink toque, fastened very carefully on her shining head, when there was a soft push at the door, and her twin daughters, Maida and Adelaide, entered. They were eight years old, but looked younger. They were almost exactly alike as to small, pretty features and pale blond colouring. Maida scowled a little, and Adelaide did not, and people distinguished them by that when in doubt. They stood and stared at their mother with a curious expression on their sharp, delicate little faces. It was not exactly admiration, it was not wonder, nor envy, nor affection, yet tinctured by all. Mrs. Edes looked at them. "Maida," said she, "do not wear that blue hair-ribbon again. It is soiled. Have you had your dinners?" "Yes, mamma," responded first one, then the other, Maida with the frown being slightly in the lead. "Then you had better go to bed," said Mrs. Edes, and the two little girls stood carefully aside to allow her to pass. "Good night, children," said Mrs. Edes without turning her mink-crowned head. The little girls watched the last yellow swirl of their mother's skirts, disappearing around the stair-landing, then Adelaide spoke. "I mean to wear red, myself, when I'm grown up," said she. "Ho, just because Jim Carr likes red," retorted Maida. "As for me, I mean to have a gown just like hers, only a little deeper shade of yellow." Adelaide laughed, an unpleasantly snarling little laugh. "Ho," said she, "just because Val Thomas likes yellow." Then the coloured maid, Emma, who was cross because Mrs. Edes' evening out had deprived her of her own, and had been ruthlessly hanging her mistress's gown which she had worn to the club in a wad on a closet hook, disregarding its perfumed hanger, turned upon them. "Heah, ye chillun," said she, "your ma sid for you to go to baid." Each little girl had her white bed with a canopy of pink silk in a charming room. There were garlands of rosebuds on the wallpaper and the furniture was covered with rosebud chintz. While their mother was indignantly sailing across the North River, her daughters lay awake, building air-castles about themselves and their boy-lovers, which fevered their imaginations, and aged them horribly in a spiritual sense. "Amy White's mother plays dominoes with her every evening," Maida remarked. Her voice sounded incredibly old, full of faint derisiveness and satire, but absolutely non-complaining. "Amy White's mother would look awfully funny in a gown like Mamma's," said Adelaide. "I suppose that is why she plays dominoes with Amy," said Maida in her old voice. "Oh, don't talk any more, Maida, I want to go to sleep," said Adelaide pettishly, but she was not in the least sleepy. She wished to return to the air-castle in which she had been having sweet converse with Jim Carr. This air-castle was the abode of innocence, but it was not yet time for its building at all. It was such a little childish creature who lay curled up under the coverlid strewn with rosebuds that the gates of any air-castle of life and love, and knowledge, however innocent and ignorant, should have been barred against her, perhaps with dominoes. However, she entered in, her soft cheeks burning, and her pulse tingling, and saw the strange light through its fairy windows, and her sister also entered her air-castle, and all the time their mother was sailing across the North River toward the pier where her husband waited. She kept one gloved hand upon the fold of her gown, ready to clutch it effectually clear of the dirty deck when the pier was reached. When she was in the taxicab with Wilbur, she thought again of Von Rosen. "Dominie von Rosen made a mistake," said she, "and called up the wrong number. He wanted Doctor Sturtevant, and he got me." Then she repeated the message. "What do you suppose he was doing with a fainting Syrian girl in his house?" she ended. A chuckle shook the dark bulk in its fur lined coat at her side. "The question is why the Syrian girl chose Von Rosen's house to faint in," said he lightly. "Oh, don't be funny, Wilbur," said Margaret. "Have you seen the dining-room? How does it look?" "I thought it beautiful, and I am sure you will like it," said Wilbur Edes in the chastened tone which he commonly used toward his wife. He had learned long ago that facetiousness displeased her, and he lived only to please her, aside from his interest in his profession. Poor Wilbur Edes thought his wife very wonderful, and watched with delight the hats doffed when she entered the hotel lift like a little beruffled yellow canary. He wished those men could see her later, when the canary resemblance had altogether ceased, when she would look tall and slender and lithe in her clinging yellow gown with the great yellow stone gleaming in her corsage. For some reason Margaret Edes held her husband's admiration with a more certain tenure because she could not be graceful when weighed down with finery. The charm of her return to grace was a never-ending surprise. Wilbur Edes loved his wife more comfortably than he loved his children. He loved them a little uneasily. They were unknown elements to him, and he sometimes wished that he had more time at home, to get them firmly fixed in his comprehension. Without the slightest condemnation of his wife, he had never regarded her as a woman in whom the maternal was a distinguishing feature. He saw with approbation the charming externals with which she surrounded their offspring. It was a gratification to him to be quite sure that Maida's hair ribbon would always be fresh and tied perkily, and that Adelaide would be full of dainty little gestures copied from her mother, but he had some doubts as to whether his wonderful Margaret might not be too perfect in herself, and too engrossed with the duties pertaining to perfection to be quite the proper manager of imperfection and immaturity represented by childhood. "How did you leave the children!" he inquired when they were in their bedroom at the hotel, and he was fitting the yellow satin slippers to his wife's slender silk shod feet. "The children were as well as usual. I told Emma to put them to bed. Do you think the orchids in the dining-room are the right shade, Wilbur?" "I am quite sure. I am glad that you told Emma to put them to bed." "I always do. Mrs. George B. Slade is most unpleasantly puffed up." "Why?" "Oh, because she got Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder to speak to the club." "Did she do her stunt well?" "Well enough. Mrs. Slade was so pleased, it was really offensive." Wilbur Edes had an inspiration. "The Fay-Wymans," said he (the Fay-Wymans were the principal guests of their dinner party), "know a lot of theatrical people. I will see if I can't get them to induce somebody, say Lydia Greenway, to run out some day; I suppose it would have to be later on, just after the season, and do a stunt at the club." "Oh, that would be simply charming," cried Margaret, "and I would rather have it in the spring, because everything looks so much prettier. But don't you think it will be impossible, Wilbur?" "Not with money as an inducement." Wilbur had the pleasant consciousness of an unusually large fee which was sure to be his own before that future club meeting, and he could see no better employment for it than to enable his adored wife to outshine Mrs. George B. Slade. When in New York engaged in his profession, Wilbur Edes was entirely free from the vortex of Fairbridge, but his wife, with its terrible eddies still agitating her garments, could suck him therein, even in the great city. He was very susceptible to her influence. Margaret Edes beamed at her husband as he rose. "That will make Marion Slade furious," she said. She extended her feet. "Pretty slippers, aren't they, Wilbur?" "Charming, my dear." Margaret was so pleased that she tried to do something very amiable. "That was funny, I mean what you said about the Syrian girl at the Dominie's," she volunteered, and laughed, without making a crease in her fair little face. She was really adorable, far more than pretty, leaning back with one slender, yellow-draped leg crossed over the other, revealing the glittering slippers and one silken ankle. "It does sound somewhat queer, a Syrian girl fainting in the Dominie's house," said Wilbur. "She could not have found a house where her sex, of any nationality, are in less repute." "Then you don't think that Alice Mendon--?" There was a faint note of jealousy in Margaret's voice, although she herself had not the slightest interest in Dominie von Rosen or any man, except her husband; and in him only because he was her husband. As the husband of her wonderful self, he acquired a certain claim to respect, even affection, such as she had to bestow. "I don't think Alice Mendon would take up with the Dominie, if he would with her," responded Wilbur Edes hastily. Margaret did not understand his way of speaking, but just then she looked at herself in an opposite mirror, and pulled down one side of her blond pompadour a bit, which softened her face, and added to its allurement. The truth was Wilbur Edes, before he met Margaret, had proposed to Alice Mendon. Alice had never told, and he had not, consequently Margaret did not know. Had she known it would have made no difference, since she could not imagine any man preferring Alice to herself. All her jealousy was based upon the facts of her superior height, and ability to carry herself well, where she knew herself under many circumstances about as graceful as an Angora cat walking upon her hind legs. She was absolutely sure of her husband. The episode with Alice had occurred before he had ever even seen Herself. She smiled radiantly upon him as she arose. She was conscious of no affection for her husband, but she was conscious of a desire to show appreciation, and to display radiance for his delectation. "It is charming of you to think of getting Lydia Greenway to read, you dear old man," said she. Wilbur beamed. "Well, of course, I can not be sure, that is not absolutely sure, but if it is to be done, I will manage it," said he. It was at this very time, for radically different notes sound at the same time in the harmony or discord of life, that Von Rosen's housekeeper, Jane Riggs, stood before him with that crackling white apron swept over her face. "What is it?" asked Von Rosen, and he realised that his lips were stiff, and his voice sounded strange. A strange harsh sob came from behind the apron. "She was all bent to one side with that heavy suit case, as heavy as lead, for I hefted it," said Jane Riggs, "and she couldn't have been more than fifteen. Them outlandish girls get married awful young." "What is it?" "And there was poor Jack lickin' her hands, and him a dog everybody is so scared of, and she a sinkin' down in a heap on my kitchen floor." "What is it?" "She has passed away," answered Jane Riggs, "and--the baby is a boy, and no bigger than the cat, not near as big as the cat when I come to look at him, and I put some of my old flannels and my shimmy on him, and Doctor Sturtevant has got him in my darning basket, all lined with newspapers, the New York _Sun_, and the _Times_ and hot water bottles, and it's all happened in the best chamber, and I call it pretty goings on." Jane Riggs gave vent to discordant sobs. Her apron crackled. Von Rosen took hold of her shoulders. "Go straight back up there," he ordered. "Why couldn't she have gone in and fainted away somewhere where there was more women than one," said Jane Riggs. "Doctor Sturtevant, he sent me down for more newspapers." "Take these, and go back at once," said Von Rosen, and he gathered up the night papers in a crumpled heap and thrust them upon the woman. "He said you had better telephone for Mrs. Bestwick," said Jane. Mrs. Bestwick was the resident nurse of Fairbridge. Von Rosen sprang to the telephone, but he could get no response whatever from the Central office, probably on account of the ice-coated wires. He sat down disconsolately, and the cat leapt upon his knees, but he pushed him away impatiently, to be surveyed in consequence by those topaz eyes with a regal effect of injury, and astonishment. Von Rosen listened. He wondered if he heard, or imagined that he heard, a plaintive little wail. The dog snuggled close to him, and he felt a warm tongue lap. Von Rosen patted the dog's head. Here was sympathy. The cat's leap into his lap had been purely selfish. Von Rosen listened. He got up, and tried to telephone again, but got no response from Central. He hung up the receiver emphatically and sat down again. The dog again came close, and he patted the humble loving head. Von Rosen listened again, and again could not be sure whether he actually heard or imagined that he heard, the feeblest, most helpless cry ever lifted up from this earth, that of a miserable new born baby with its uncertain future reaching before it and all the sins of its ancestors upon its devoted head. When at last the door opened and Doctor Sturtevant entered, he was certain. That poor little atom of humanity upstairs was lifting up its voice of feeble rage and woe because of its entrance into existence. Sturtevant had an oddly apologetic look. "I assure you I am sorry, my dear fellow--" he began. "Is the poor little beggar going to live?" asked Von Rosen. "Well, yes, I think so, judging from the present outlook," replied the doctor still apologetically. "I could not get Mrs. Bestwick," said Von Rosen anxiously. "I think the telephone is out of commission, on account of the ice." "Never mind that. Your housekeeper is a jewel, and I will get Mrs. Bestwick on my way home. I say, Von Rosen--" Von Rosen looked at him inquiringly. "Oh, well, never mind; I really must be off now," said the doctor hurriedly. "I will get Mrs. Bestwick here as soon as possible. I think--the child will have to be kept here for a short time anyway, considering the weather, and everything." "Why, of course," said Von Rosen. After the doctor had gone, he went out in the kitchen. He had had no dinner. Jane Riggs, who had very acute hearing, came to the head of the stairs, and spoke in a muffled tone, muffled as Von Rosen knew because of the presence of death and life in the house. "The roast is in the oven, Mr. von Rosen," said she, "I certainly hope it isn't too dry, and the soup is in the kettle, and the vegetables are all ready to dish up. Everything is ready except the coffee." "You know I can make that," called Von Rosen in alarm. "Don't think of coming down." Von Rosen could make very good coffee. It was an accomplishment of his college days. He made some now. He felt the need of it. Then he handily served the very excellent dinner, and sat down at his solitary dining table. As he ate his soup, he glanced across the table, and a blush like that of a girl overspread his dark face. He had a vision of a high chair, and a child installed therein with the customary bib and spoon. It was a singular circumstance, but everything in life moves in sequences, and that poor Syrian child upstairs, in her dire extremity, was furnishing a sequence in the young man's life, before she went out of it. Her stimulation of his sympathy and imagination was to change the whole course of his existence. Meanwhile, Doctor Sturtevant was having a rather strenuous argument with his wife, who for once stood against him. She had her not-to-be-silenced personal note. She had a horror of the alien and unusual. All her life she had walked her chalk-line, and anything outside savoured of the mysterious, and terrible. She was Anglo-Saxon. She was what her ancestresses had been for generations. The strain was unchanged, and had become so tense and narrow that it was almost fathomless. Mrs. Sturtevant, good and benevolent on her chalk-line, was involuntarily a bigot. She looked at Chinese laundry men, poor little yellow figures, shuffling about with bags of soiled linen, with thrills of recoil. She would not have acknowledged it to herself, for she came of a race which favoured abolition, but nothing could have induced her to have a coloured girl in her kitchen. Her imaginations and prejudices were stained as white as her skin. There was a lone man living on the outskirts of Fairbridge, in a little shack built by himself in the woods, who was said to have Indian blood in his veins, and Mrs. Sturtevant never saw him without that awful thrill of recoil. When the little Orientals, men or women, swayed sidewise and bent with their cheap suitcases filled with Eastern handiwork, came to the door, she did not draw a long breath until she had watched them out of sight down the street. It made no difference to her that they might be Christians, that they might have suffered persecution in their own land and sought our doorless entrances of hospitality; she still realised her own aloofness from them, or rather theirs from her. They had entered existence entirely outside her chalk-line. She and they walked on parallels which to all eternity could never meet. It therefore came to pass that, although she had in the secret depths of her being bemoaned her childlessness, and had been conscious of yearnings and longings which were agonies, when Doctor Sturtevant, after the poor young unknown mother had been laid away in the Fairbridge cemetery, proposed that they should adopt the bereft little one, she rebelled. "If he were a white baby, I wouldn't object that I know of," said she, "but I can't have this kind. I can't make up my mind to it, Edward." "But, Maria, the child is white. He may not be European, but he is white. That is, while of course he has a dark complexion and dark eyes and hair, he is as white, in a way, as any child in Fairbridge, and he will be a beautiful boy. Moreover, we have every reason to believe that he was born in wedlock. There was a ring on a poor string of a ribbon on the mother's neck, and there was a fragment of a letter which Von Rosen managed to make out. He thinks that the poor child was married to another child of her own race. The boy is all right and he will be a fine little fellow." "It is of no use," said Maria Sturtevant. "I can't make up my mind to adopt a baby, that belonged to that kind of people. I simply can not, Edward." Sturtevant gave up the matter for the time being. The baby remained at Von Rosen's under the care of Mrs. Bestwick, and Jane Riggs, but when it was a month old, the doctor persuaded his wife to go over and see it. Maria Sturtevant gazed at the tiny scrap of humanity curled up in Jane Riggs' darning basket, the old-young face creased as softly as a rosebud, with none of its beauty, but with a compelling charm. She watched the weak motion of the infinitesimal legs and arms beneath the soft smother of wrappings, and her heart pained her with longing, but she remained firm. "It is no use, Edward," she said, when they had returned to Von Rosen's study. "I can't make up my mind to adopt a baby coming from such queer people." Then she was confronted by a stare of blank astonishment from Von Rosen, and also from Jane Riggs. Jane Riggs spoke with open hostility. "I don't know that anybody has asked anybody to adopt our baby," said she. Von Rosen laughed, but he also blushed. He spoke rather stammeringly. "Well, Sturtevant," said he, "the fact is, Jane and I have talked it over, and she thinks she can manage, and he seems a bright little chap, and--I have about made up my mind to keep him myself." "He is going to be baptised as soon as he is big enough to be taken out of my darning basket," said Jane Riggs with defiance, but Mrs. Sturtevant regarded her with relief. "I dare say he will be a real comfort to you," she said, "even if he does come from such queer stock." Her husband looked at Von Rosen and whistled under his breath. "People will talk," he said aside. "Let them," returned Von Rosen. He was experiencing a strange new joy of possession, which no possibility of ridicule could daunt. However, his joy was of short duration. The baby was a little over three months old, and had been promoted to a crib, and a perambulator, had been the unconscious recipient of many gifts from the women of Von Rosen's parish, and of many calls from admiring little girls. Jane had scented the danger. She came home from marketing one morning, quite pale, and could hardly speak when she entered Von Rosen's study. "There's an outlandish young man around here," said she, "and you had better keep that baby close." Von Rosen laughed. "Those people are always about," he said. "You have no reason to be nervous, Jane. There is hardly a chance he has anything to do with the baby, and in any case, he would not be likely to burden himself with the care of it." "Don't you be too sure," said Jane stoutly, "a baby like that!" Jane, much against her wishes, was obliged to go out that afternoon, and Von Rosen was left alone with the baby with the exception of a little nurse girl who had taken the place of Mrs. Bestwick. Then it was that the Syrian man, he was no more than a boy, came. Von Rosen did not at first suspect. The Syrian spoke very good English, and he was a Christian. So he told Von Rosen. Then he also told him that the dead girl had been his wife, and produced letters signed with the name which those in her possession had borne. Von Rosen was convinced. There was something about the boy with his haughty, almost sullen, oriental manner which bore the stamp of truth. However, when he demanded only the suit-case which his dead wife had brought when she came to the house, Von Rosen was relieved. He produced it at once, and his wonder and disgust mounted to fever heat, when that Eastern boy proceeded to take out carefully the gauds of feminine handiwork which it contained, and press them upon Von Rosen at exorbitant prices. Von Rosen was more incensed than he often permitted himself to be. He ordered the boy from the house, and he departed with strong oaths, and veiled and intricate threats after the manner of his subtle race, and when Jane Riggs came home, Von Rosen told her. "I firmly believe the young rascal was that poor girl's husband, and the boy's father," he said. "Didn't he ask to have the baby?" "Never mentioned such a thing. All he wanted was the article of value which the poor girl left here." Jane Riggs also looked relieved. "Outlandish people are queer," she said. But the next morning she rushed into Von Rosen's room when he had barely finished dressing, sobbing aloud like a child, her face rigidly convulsed with grief, and her hands waving frantically with no effort to conceal it. Chapter IV The little Syrian baby had disappeared. Nobody had reckoned with the soft guile of a race as supple and silent as to their real intentions as cats. There was a verandah column wound with a massive wistaria vine near the window of the baby's room. The little nurse girl went home every night, and Jane Riggs was a heavy sleeper. When she had awakened, her first glance had been into the baby's crib. Then she sprang, and searched with hungry hands. The little softly indented nest was not warm, the child had been gone for some hours, probably had been taken during the first and soundest sleep of the household. Jane's purse, and her gold breast pin, had incidentally been taken also. When she gave the alarm to Von Rosen, a sullen, handsome Syrian boy was trudging upon an unfrequented road, which led circuitously to the City, and he carried a suit-case, but it was held apart, by some of the Eastern embroideries used as wedges, before strapping, and from that came the querulous wail of a baby squirming uncomfortably upon drawn work centre pieces, and crepe kimonas. Now and then the boy stopped and spoke to the baby in a lovely gentle voice. He promised it food, and shelter soon in his own soft tongue. He was carrying it to his wife's mother, and sullen as he looked and was, and thief as he was, love for his own swayed him, and made him determined to hold it fast. Von Rosen made all possible inquiries. He employed detectives but he never obtained the least clue to the whereabouts of the little child. He, however, although he grieved absurdly, almost as absurdly as Jane, had a curious sense of joy over the whole. Life in Fairbridge had, before birth and death entered his home, been so monotonous, that he was almost stupefied. Here was a thread of vital gold and flame, although it had brought pain with it. When Doctor Sturtevant condoled with him, he met with an unexpected response. "I feel for you, old man. It was a mighty unfortunate thing that it happened in your house, now that this has come of it," he said. "I am very glad it happened, whatever came of it," said Von Rosen. "It is something to have had in my life. I wouldn't have missed it." Fairbridge people, who were on the whole a good-natured set, were very sympathetic, especially the women. Bessy Dicky shed tears when talking to Mrs. Sturtevant about the disappearance of the baby. Mrs. Sturtevant was not very responsive. "It may be all for the best," she said. "Nobody can tell how that child would have turned out. He might have ended by killing Mr. von Rosen." Then she added with a sigh that she hoped his poor mother had been married. "Why, of course she was since there was a baby," said Bessy Dicky. Then she rose hastily with a blush because Doctor Sturtevant's motor could be heard, and took her leave. Doctor Sturtevant had just returned from a call upon Margaret Edes, who had experienced a very severe disappointment, coming as it did after another very successful meeting of the Zenith Club at Daisy Shaw's, who had most unexpectedly provided a second cousin who recited monologues wonderfully. Wilbur had failed in his attempt to secure Lydia Greenway for Margaret's star-feature. The actress had promised, but had been suddenly attacked with a very severe cold which had obliged her to sail for Europe a week earlier than she had planned. Margaret had been quite ill, but Doctor Sturtevant gave her pain pellets with the result that late in the afternoon she sat on her verandah in a fluffy white tea gown, and then it was that little Annie Eustace came across the street, and sat with her. Annie was not little. Although slender, she was, in fact, quite tall and wide shouldered and there was something about her which seemed to justify the use of the diminutive adjective. Possibly it was her face, which was really small and very pretty, with perfect cameo-like features and an odd, deprecating, almost painfully humble expression. It was the face of a creature entirely capable of asking an enemy's pardon for an injury inflicted upon herself. In reality, Annie Eustace had very much that attitude of soul. She always considered the wrong as her natural place, and, in fact, would not have been comfortable elsewhere, although she suffered there. And yet, little Annie Eustace was a gifted creature. There was probably not a person in Fairbridge who had been so well endowed by nature, but her environment and up-bringing had been unfortunate. If Annie's mother had lived, the daughter might have had more spirit, but she had died when Annie was a baby, and the child had been given over to the tyranny of two aunts, and a grandmother. As for her father, he had never married again, but he had never paid much attention to her. He had been a reserved, silent man, himself under the sway of his mother and sisters. Charles Eustace had had an obsession to the effect that the skies of his own individual sphere would fall to his and his child's destruction, if his female relatives deserted him, and that they had threatened to do, upon the slightest sign of revolt. Sometimes Annie's father had regarded her wistfully and wondered within himself if it were quite right for a child to be so entirely governed, but his own spirit of yielding made it impossible for him to realise the situation. Obedience had been little Annie Eustace's first lesson taught by the trio, who to her represented all government, in her individual case. Annie Eustace obeyed her aunts, and grandmother (her father had been dead for several years), but she loved only three,--two were women, Margaret Edes and Alice Mendon; the other was a man, and the love was not confessed to her own heart. This afternoon Annie wore an ugly green gown, which was, moreover, badly cut. The sleeves were too long below the elbow, and too short above, and every time she moved an arm they hitched uncomfortably. The neck arrangement was exceedingly unbecoming, and the skirt not well hung. The green was of the particular shade which made her look yellow. As she sat beside Margaret and embroidered assiduously, and very unskilfully, some daisies on a linen centre-piece, the other woman eyed her critically. "You should not wear that shade of green, if you will excuse my saying so, dear," she remarked presently. Annie regarded her with a charming, loving smile. She would have excused her idol for saying anything. "I know it is not very becoming," she agreed sweetly. "Becoming," said Margaret a trifle viciously. She was so out of sorts about her failure to secure Lydia Greenway that she felt a great relief in attacking little Annie Eustace. "Becoming," said she. "It actually makes you hideous. That shade is impossible for you and why,--I trust you will not be offended, you know it is for your own good, dear,--why do you wear your hair in that fashion?" "I am afraid it is not very becoming," said Annie with the meekness of those who inherit the earth. She did not state that her aunt Harriet had insisted that she dress her hair in that fashion. Annie was intensely loyal. "Nobody," said Margaret, "unless she were as beautiful as Helen of Troy, should wear her hair that way, and not look a fright." Annie Eustace blushed, but it was not a distressed blush. When one has been downtrodden one's whole life, one becomes accustomed to it, and besides she loved the down-treader. "Yes," said she. "I looked at myself in my glass just before I came and I thought I did not look well." "Hideous," said Margaret. Annie smiled agreement and looked pretty, despite the fact that her hair was strained tightly back, showing too much of her intellectual forehead, and the colour of her gown killed all the pink bloom lights in her face. Annie Eustace had a beautiful soul and it showed forth triumphant over all bodily accessories, in her smile. "You are not doing that embroidery at all well," said Margaret. Annie laughed. "I know it," she said with a sort of meek amusement. "I don't think I ever can master long and short stitch." "Why on earth do you attempt it then?" "Everybody embroiders," replied Annie. She did not state that her grandmother had made taking the embroidery a condition of her call upon her friend. Margaret continued to regard her. She was finding a species of salve for her own disappointment in this irritant applied to another. "What does make you wear that hair ring?" said she. "It was a present," replied Annie humbly, but she for the first time looked a little disturbed. That mourning emblem with her father's and mother's, and a departed sister's hair in a neat little twist under a small crystal, grated upon her incessantly. It struck her as a species of ghastly sentiment, which at once distressed, and impelled her to hysterical mirth. "A present," repeated Margaret. "If anybody gave me such a present as that, I would never wear it. It is simply in shocking bad taste." "I sometimes fear so," said Annie. She did not state that her Aunt Jane never allowed her to be seen in public without that dismal adornment. "You are a queer girl," said Margaret, and she summed up all her mood of petty cruelty and vicarious revenge in that one word "queer." However, little Annie Eustace only smiled as if she had been given a peculiarly acceptable present. She was so used to being underrated, that she had become in a measure immune to criticism, and besides criticism from her adored Mrs. Edes was even a favour. She took another bungling stitch in the petal of a white floss daisy. Margaret felt suddenly irritated. All this was too much like raining fierce blows upon a down pillow. "Do, for goodness sake, Annie Eustace, stop doing that awful embroidery if you don't want to drive me crazy," said she. Then Annie looked at Margaret, and she was obviously distressed and puzzled. Her grandmother had enjoined it upon her to finish just so many of these trying daisies before her return and yet, on the other hand, here was Margaret, her adorable Margaret, forbidding her to work, and, moreover, Margaret in such an irritable mood, with that smooth brow of hers frowning, and that sweet voice, which usually had a lazy trickle like honey, fairly rasping, was as awe-inspiring as her grandmother. Annie Eustace hesitated for a second. Her grandmother had commanded. Margaret Edes had commanded. The strongest impulse of her whole being was obedience, but she loved Margaret, and she did not love her grandmother. She had never confessed such a horror to herself, but one does not love another human being whose main aim toward one is to compress, to stiffen, to make move in a step with itself. Annie folded up the untidy embroidery. As she did so, she dropped her needle and also her thimble. The needle lay glittering beside her chair, the thimble rolled noiselessly over the trailing fold of her muslin gown into the folds of Margaret's white silk. Margaret felt an odd delight in that. Annie was careless, and she was dainty, and she was conscious of a little pleasurable preening of her own soul-plumage. Margaret said nothing about the thimble and needle. Annie sat regarding her with a sort of expectation, and the somewhat mussy little parcel of linen lay in her lap. Annie folded over it her very slender hands, and the horrible hair ring was in full evidence. Margaret fixed her eyes upon it. Annie quickly placed the hand which wore it under the other. Then she spoke, since Margaret did not, and she said exactly the wrong thing. The being forced continually into the wrong, often has the effect of making one quite innocently take the first step in that direction even if no force be used. "I hear that the last meeting of the Zenith Club was unusually interesting," said little Annie Eustace, and she could have said nothing more hapless to Margaret Edes in her present mood. Quite inadvertently, she herself became the irritant party. Margaret actually flushed. "I failed to see anything interesting whatever about it, myself," said she tartly. Annie offended again. "I heard that Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder's address was really very remarkable," said she. "It was simply a very stupid effort to be funny," returned Margaret. "Sometimes women will laugh because they are expected to, and they did that afternoon. Everything was simply cut and dried. It always is at Mrs. George B. Slade's. I never knew a woman so absolutely destitute of originality." Annie looked helplessly at Margaret. She could say no more unless she contradicted. Margaret continued. She felt that she could no longer conceal her own annoyance, and she was glad of this adoring audience of one. "I had planned something myself for the next meeting, something which has never been done," said she, "something new, and stimulating." "Oh, how lovely!" cried Annie. "But of course, like all really clever plans for the real good and progress of a club like ours, something has to come up to prevent," said Margaret. "Oh, what?" "Well, I had planned to have Lydia Greenway, you know she is really a great artist, come to the next meeting and give dramatic recitations." "Oh, would she?" gasped Annie Eustace. "Of course, it would have meant a large pecuniary outlay," said Margaret, "but I was prepared, quite prepared, to make some sacrifices for the good of the club, but, why, you must have read it in the papers, Annie." Annie looked guiltily ignorant. "I really do not see how you contrive to exist without keeping more in touch with the current events," said Margaret. Annie looked meekly culpable, although she was not. Her aunts did not approve of newspapers, as containing so much information, so much cheap information concerning the evil in the world, especially for a young person like Annie, and she was not allowed to read them, although she sometimes did so surreptitiously. "It was in all the papers," continued Margaret, with her censorious air. "Lydia Greenway was obliged to leave unexpectedly and go to the Riveria. They fear tuberculosis. She sailed last Saturday." "I am so sorry," said Annie. Then she proceeded to elaborate her statement in exactly the wrong way. She said how very dreadful it would be if such a talented young actress should fall a victim of such a terrible disease, and what a loss she would be to the public, whereas all that Margaret Edes thought should be at all considered by any true friend of her own was her own particular loss. "For once the Zenith Club would have had a meeting calculated to take Fairbridge women out of their rut in which people like Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Sturtevant seem determined to keep them," returned Margaret testily. Annie stared at her. Margaret often said that it was the first rule of her life never to speak ill of any one, and she kept the letter of it as a rule. "I am so sorry," said Annie. Then she added with more tact. "It would have been such a wonderful thing for us all to have had Lydia Greenway give dramatic recitals to us. Oh, Margaret, I can understand how much it would have meant." "It would have meant progress," said Margaret. She looked imperiously lovely, as she sat there all frilled about with white lace and silk with the leaf-shadows playing over the slender whiteness. She lifted one little hand tragically. "Progress," she repeated. "Progress beyond Mrs. George B. Slade's and Mrs. Sturtevant's and Miss Bessy Dicky's, and that is precisely what we need." Annie Eustace gazed wistfully upon her friend. "Yes," she agreed, "you are quite right, Margaret. Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Sturtevant and poor Bessy Dicky and all the other members are very good, and we think highly of them, but I too feel that we all travel in a rut sometimes. Perhaps we all walk too much the same way." Then suddenly Annie burst into a peal of laughter. She had a sense of humour which was startling. It was the one thing which environment had not been able to subdue, or even produce the effect of submission. Annie Eustace was easily amused. She had a scent for the humorous like a hound's for game, and her laugh was irrepressible. "What on earth are you laughing at now?" inquired Margaret Edes irritably. "I was thinking," Annie replied chokingly, "of some queer long-legged birds I saw once in a cage in a park. I really don't know whether they were ibises or cranes, or survivals of species, but anyway, the little long-legged ones all walked just the same way in a file behind a tall long-legged one, who walked precisely in the same way, and all of a sudden, I seemed to see us all like that. Only you are not in the least like that tall, long-legged bird, Margaret, and you are the president of the Zenith Club." Margaret surveyed Annie with cool displeasure. "I," said she, "see nothing whatever to laugh at in the Zenith Club, if you do." "Oh, Margaret, I don't!" cried Annie. "To my mind, the Zenith Club is the one institution in this little place which tends to advancement and mental improvement." "Oh, Margaret, I think so too, you know I do," said Annie in a shocked voice. "And my heart was almost broken because I had to miss that last meeting on account of grandmother's having such a severe cold." "The last meeting was not very much to miss," said Margaret, for Annie had again said the wrong thing. Annie, however, went on eagerly and unconsciously. She was only aware that she was being accused of disloyalty, or worse, of actually poking fun, when something toward which she felt the utmost respect and love and admiration was concerned. "Margaret, you know," she cried, "you know how I feel toward the Zenith Club. You must know what it means to me. It really does take me out of my little narrow place in life as nothing else does. I cannot tell you what an inspiration it really is to me. Oh, Margaret, you know!" Margaret nodded in stiff assent. As a matter of fact, she _did_ know. The Zenith Club of Fairbridge did mean very much, very much indeed, to little Annie Eustace. Nowhere else did she meet _en masse_ others of her kind. She did not even go to church for the reason that her grandmother did not believe in church going at all and wished her to remain with her. One aunt was Dutch Reformed and the other Baptist; and neither ever missed a service. Annie remained at home Sundays, and read aloud to her grandmother, and when both aunts were in the midst of their respective services, and the cook, who was intensely religious, engaged in preparing dinner, she and her old grandmother played pinocle. However, although Annie played cards very well, it was only with her relatives. She had never been allowed to join the Fairbridge Card Club. She never attended a play in the city, because Aunt Jane considered plays wicked. It was in reality doubtful if she would have been permitted to listen to Lydia Greenway, had that person been available. Annie's sole large recreation was the Zenith Club, and it meant, as she had said, much to her. It was to the stifled young heart as a great wind of stimulus which was for the strengthening of her soul. Whatever the Zenith Club of Fairbridge was to others, it was very much worth while for little Annie Eustace. She wrote papers for it, which were astonishing, although her hearers dimly appreciated the fact, not because of dulness, but because little Annie had written them, and it seemed incredible to Fairbridge women that little Annie Eustace whom they had always known, and whose grandmother and aunts they knew, could possibly write anything remarkable. It was only Alice Mendon who listened with a frown of wonder, and intent eyes upon the reader. When she came home upon one occasion, she remarked to her aunt, Eliza Mendon, and her cousin, Lucy Mendon, that she had been impressed by Annie Eustace's paper, but both women only stared and murmured assent. The cousin was very much older than Alice, and both she and her mother were of a placid, reflective type. They got on very well with Alice, but sometimes she had a queer weariness from always seeing herself and her own ideas in them instead of their own. And she was not in the least dictatorial. She would have preferred open, antagonistic originality, but she got a surfeit of clear, mirror-like peace. She was quite sure that they would quote her opinion of Annie Eustace's paper, but that did not please her. Later on she spoke to Annie herself about it. "Haven't you something else written that you can show me?" She had even suggested the possibility, the desirability, of Annie's taking up a literary career, but she had found the girl very evasive, even secretive, and had never broached the subject again. As for Margaret Edes, she had never fairly listened to anything which anybody except herself had written, unless it had afforded matter for discussion, and the display of her own brilliancy. Annie's productions were so modestly conclusive as to apparently afford no standing ground for argument. In her heart, Margaret regarded them as she regarded Annie's personality, with a contempt so indifferent that it was hardly contempt. She proceeded exactly as if Annie had not made such a fervent disclaimer. "The Zenith Club is the one and only thing which lifts Fairbridge, and the women of Fairbridge, above the common herd," said she majestically. "Don't I know it? Oh, Margaret, don't I know it," cried the other with such feverish energy that Margaret regarded her wonderingly. For all her exploiting of the Zenith Club of Fairbridge, she herself, unless she were the main figure at the helm, could realise nothing in it so exceedingly inspiring, but it was otherwise with Annie. It was quite conceivable that had it not been for the Zenith Club, she never would have grown to her full mental height. Annie Eustace had a mind of the sequential order. By subtle processes, unanalysable even by herself, even the record of Miss Bessy Dicky started this mind upon momentous trains of thought. Unquestionably the Zenith Club acted as a fulminate for little Annie Eustace. To others it might seem, during some of the sessions, as a pathetic attempt of village women to raise themselves upon tiptoes enough to peer over their centuries of weedy feminine growth; an attempt which was as futile, and even ridiculous, as an attempt of a cow to fly. But the Zenith Club justified its existence nobly in the result of little Annie Eustace, if in no other, and it, no doubt, justified itself in others. Who can say what that weekly gathering meant to women who otherwise would not move outside their little treadmill of household labour, what uplifting, if seemingly futile grasps at the great outside of life? Let no one underrate the Women's Club until the years have proven its uselessness. "I am so sorry about Lydia Greenway," said Annie, and this time she did not irritate Margaret. "It does seem as if one were simply doomed to failure every time one really made an effort to raise standards," said Margaret. Then it was that Annie all unconsciously sowed a seed which led to strange, and rather terrifying results. "It would be nice," said little Annie, "if we could get Miss Martha Wallingford to read a selection from _Hearts Astray_ at a meeting of the club. I read a few nights ago, in a paper I happened to pick up at Alice's, that she was staying in New York at the Hollingsgate. Her publishers were to give her a dinner last night, I believe." Margaret Edes started. "I had not seen that," she said. Then she added in a queer brooding fashion, "That book of hers had an enormous sale. I suppose her publishers feel that they owe it to her to give her a good time in New York. Then, too, it will advertise _Hearts Astray_." "Did you like the book?" asked Annie rather irrelevantly. Margaret did not reply. She was thinking intently. "It would be a great feature for the club if we could induce her to give a reading," she said at length. "I don't suppose it would be possible," replied Annie. "You know they say she never does such things, and is very retiring. I read in the papers that she was, and that she refused even to speak a few words at the dinner given in her honour." "We might ask her," said Margaret. "I am sure that she would not come. The paper stated that she had had many invitations to Women's Clubs and had refused. I don't think she ought because she might be such a help to other women." Margaret said nothing. She leaned back, and, for once, her face was actually contracted with thought to the possible detriment of its smooth beauty. A clock in the house struck, and at the same time Maida and Adelaide raced up the steps, followed by gleeful calls from two little boys on the sidewalk. "Where have you been?" asked Margaret. Then she said without waiting for a reply, "If Martha Wallingford would come, I should prefer that to Lydia Greenway." Maida and Adelaide, flushed and panting, and both with mouths full of candy, glanced at their mother, then Maida chased Adelaide into the house, their blue skirts flitting out of sight like blue butterfly wings. Annie Eustace rose. She had noticed that neither Maida nor Adelaide had greeted her, and thought them rude. She herself had been most carefully trained concerning manners of incoming and outgoing. She, however, did not care. She had no especial love for children unless they were small and appealing because of helplessness. "I must go," she said. "It is six o'clock, supper will be ready." She glanced rather apprehensively as she spoke at the large white house, not two minutes' walk distant across the street. "How very delightful it is to be as punctual as your people are," said Margaret. "Good-bye, Annie." She spoke abstractedly, and Annie felt a little hurt. She loved Margaret, and she missed her full attention when she left her. She passed down the walk between Margaret's beautifully kept Japanese trees, and gained the sidewalk. Then a sudden recollection filled her with dismay. She had promised her grandmother to go to the post-office before returning. An important business letter was expected. Annie swept the soft tail of her muslin into a little crushed ball, and ran, her slender legs showing like those of a young bird beneath its fluff of plumage. She realized the necessity of speed, of great speed, for the post-office was a quarter of a mile away, and the Eustace family supped at five minutes past six, with terrible and relentless regularity. Why it should have been five minutes past instead of upon the stroke of the hour, Annie had never known, but so it was. It was as great an offence to be a minute too early as a minute too late at the Eustace house, and many a maid had been discharged for that offence, her plea that the omelet was cooked and would fall if the meal be delayed, being disregarded. Poor Annie felt that she must hasten. She could not be dismissed like the maid, but something equally to be dreaded would happen, were she to present herself half a minute behind time in the dining-room. There they would be seated, her grandmother, her Aunt Harriet, and her Aunt Jane. Aunt Harriet behind the silver tea service; Aunt Jane behind the cut glass bowl of preserves; her grandmother behind the silver butter dish, and on the table would be the hot biscuits cooling, the omelet falling, the tea drawing too long and all because of her. There was tremendous etiquette in the Eustace family. Not a cup of tea would Aunt Harriet pour, not a spoon would Aunt Jane dip into the preserves, not a butter ball would her grandmother impale upon the little silver fork. And poor Hannah, the maid, white aproned and capped, would stand behind Aunt Harriet like a miserable conscious graven image. Therefore Annie ran, and ran, and it happened that she ran rather heedlessly and blindly and dropped her mussy little package of fancy work, and Karl von Rosen, coming out of the parsonage, saw it fall and picked it up rather gingerly, and called as loudly as was decorous after the flying figure, but Annie did not hear and Von Rosen did not want to shout, neither did he want, or rather think it advisable, to run, therefore he followed holding the linen package well away from him, as if it were a disagreeable insect. He had never seen much of Annie Eustace. Now and then he called upon one of her aunts, who avowed her preference for his religious denomination, but if he saw Annie at all, she was seated engaged upon some such doubtfully ornamental or useful task, as the specimen which he now carried. Truth to say, he had scarcely noticed Annie Eustace at all. She had produced the effect of shrinking from observation under some subtle shadow of self-effacement. She was in reality a very rose of a girl, loving and sweet, and withal wonderfully endowed; but this human rose, dwelt always for Karl von Rosen, in the densest of bowers through which her beauty and fragrance of character could not penetrate his senses. Undoubtedly also, although his masculine intelligence would have scouted the possibility of such a thing, Annie's dull, ill-made garb served to isolate her. She also never came to church. That perfect little face with its expression of strange insight, must have aroused his attention among his audience. But there was only the Aunt Harriet Eustace, an exceedingly thin lady, present and always attired in rich blacks. Karl von Rosen to-day walking as rapidly as became his dignity, in pursuit of the young woman, was aware that he hardly felt at liberty to accost her with anything more than the greeting of the day. He eyed disapprovingly the parcel which he carried. It was a very dingy white, and greyish threads dangled from it. Von Rosen thought it a most unpleasant thing, and reflected with mild scorn and bewilderment concerning the manner of mind which could find amusement over such employment, for he divined that it was a specimen of feminine skill, called fancy work. Annie Eustace ran so swiftly with those long agile legs of hers that he soon perceived that interception upon her return, and not overtaking, must ensue. He did not gain upon her at all, and he began to understand that he was making himself ridiculous to possible observers in windows. He therefore slackened his pace, and met Annie upon her return. She had a letter in her hand and was advancing with a headlong rush, and suddenly she attracted him. He surrendered the parcel. "Thank you very much," said Annie, "but I almost wish you had not found it." [Illustration: "I almost wish you had not found it"] Von Rosen stared at her. Was she rude after all, this very pretty girl, who was capable of laughter. "You would not blame me if you had to embroider daisies on that dreadful piece of linen," said Annie with a rueful glance at the dingy package. Von Rosen smiled kindly at her. "I don't blame you at all," he replied. "I can understand it must be a dismal task to embroider daisies." "It is, Mr. von Rosen--" Annie hesitated. "Yes," said Von Rosen encouragingly. "You know I never go to church." "Yes," said Von Rosen mendaciously. He really did not know. In future he, however, would. "Well, I don't go because--" again Annie hesitated, while the young man waited interrogatively. Then Annie spoke with force. "I would really like to go occasionally," she said, "I doubt if I would always care to." "No, I don't think you would," assented Von Rosen with a queer delight. "But I never can because--Grandmother is old and she has not much left in life, you know." "Of course." "It is all very well for people to talk about firesides, and knitting work, and peaceful eyes of age fixed upon Heavenly homes," said Annie, "but all old people are not like that. Grandma hates to knit although she does think I should embroider daisies, and she does like to have me play pinocle with her Sunday mornings, when Aunt Harriet and Aunt Jane are out of the way. It is the only chance she has during the whole week you know because neither Aunt Harriet nor Aunt Jane approves of cards, and poor Grandma is so fond of them, it seems cruel not to play with her the one chance she has." "I think you are entirely right," said Von Rosen with grave conviction and he was charmed that the girl regarded him as if he had said nothing whatever unusual. "I have always been sure that it was right," said Annie Eustace, "but I would like sometimes to go to church." "I really wish you could," said Von Rosen, "and I would make an especial effort to write a good sermon." "Oh," said Annie, "Aunt Harriet often hears you preach one which she thinks very good." Von Rosen bowed. Suddenly Annie's shyness, reserve, whatever it was, seemed to overcloud her. The lovely red faded from her cheeks, the light from her eyes. She lost her beauty in a great measure. She bowed stiffly, saying: "I thank you very much, good evening," and passed on, leaving the young man rather dazed, pleased and yet distinctly annoyed, and annoyed in some inscrutable fashion at himself. Then he heard shouts of childish laughter, and a scamper of childish feet, and Maida and Adelaide Edes rushed past, almost jostling him from the sidewalk. Maida carried a letter, which her mother had written, and dispatched to the last mail. And that letter was destined to be of more importance to Von Rosen than he knew. As for Annie Eustace, whose meeting with Von Rosen had, after her first lapse into the unconsciousness of mirth, disturbed her, as the meeting of the hero of a dream always disturbs a true maiden who has not lost through many such meetings the thrill of them, she hurried home trembling, and found everything just exactly as she knew it would be. There sat Aunt Harriet perfectly motionless behind the silver tea service, and although the cosy was drawn over the teapot, the tea seemed to be reproachfully drawing to that extent that Annie could hear it. There sat Aunt Jane behind the cut glass bowl of preserved fruit, with the untouched silver spoon at hand. There sat her grandmother behind the butter plate. There stood Hannah, white capped and white aproned, holding the silver serving tray like a petrified statue of severity, and not one of them spoke, but their silence, their dignified, reproachful silence was infinitely worse than a torrent of invective. How Annie wished they would speak. How she wished that she could speak herself, but she knew better than to even offer an excuse for her tardiness. Well she knew that the stony silence which would meet that would be worse, much worse than this. So she slid into her place opposite her Aunt Jane, and began her own task of dividing into sections the omelet which was quite flat because she was late, and seemed to reproach her in a miserable, low-down sort of fashion. However, there was in the girl's heart a little glint of youthful joy, which was unusual. She had met Mr. Von Rosen and had forgotten herself, that is at first, and he had looked kindly at her. There was no foolish hope in little Annie Eustace's heart; there would be no spire of aspiration added to her dreams because of the meeting, but she tasted the sweet of approbation, and it was a tonic which she sorely needed, and which inspired her to self-assertion in a childishly naughty and mischievous way. It was after supper that evening, that Annie strolled a little way down the street, taking advantage of Miss Bessy Dicky's dropping in for a call, to slink unobserved out of her shadowy corner, for the Eustaces were fond of sitting in the twilight. The wind had come up, the violent strong wind which comes out of the south, and Annie walked very near the barberry hedge which surrounded Doctor Sturtevant's grounds, and the green muslin lashed against it to its undoing. When Annie returned, the skirt was devastated and Aunt Harriet decreed that it could not be mended and must be given to the poor Joy children. There were many of those children of a degenerate race, living on the outskirts of Fairbridge, and Annie had come to regard them as living effigies of herself, since everything which she had outgrown or injured past repair, fell to them. "There will be enough to make two nice dresses for Charlotte and Minnie Joy," said Aunt Harriet, "and it will not be wasted, even if you have been so careless, Annie." Annie could see a vision of those two little Joy girls getting about in the remnants of her ghastly muslin, and she shuddered, although with relief. "You had better wear your cross barred white muslin afternoons now," said Aunt Harriet, and Annie smiled for that was a pretty dress. She smiled still more when Aunt Jane said that now as the cross-barred white was to be worn every day, another dress must be bought, and she mentioned China silk--something which Annie had always longed to own--and blue, dull blue,--a colour which she loved. Just before she went to bed, Annie stood in the front doorway looking out at the lovely moonlight and the wonderful shadows which transformed the village street, like the wings of angels, and she heard voices and laughter from the Edes' house opposite. Then Margaret began singing in her shrill piercing voice from which she had hoped much, but which had failed to please, even at the Zenith Club. Annie adored Margaret, but she shrank before her singing voice. If she had only known what was passing through the mind of the singer after she went to bed that night, she would have shuddered more, for Margaret Edes was planning a possible _coup_ before which Annie, in spite of a little latent daring of her own, would have been aghast. Chapter V The next morning Margaret announced herself as feeling so much better that she thought she would go to New York. She had several errands, she said, and the day was beautiful and the little change would do her good. She would take the train with her husband, but a different ferry, as she wished to go up town. Wilbur acquiesced readily. "It is a mighty fine morning, and you need to get out," he said. Poor Wilbur at this time felt guiltily culpable that he did not own a motor car in which his Margaret might take the air. He had tried to see his way clear toward buying one, but in spite of a certain improvidence, the whole nature of the man was intrinsically honest. He always ended his conference with himself concerning the motor by saying that he could not possibly keep it running, even if he were to manage the first cost, and pay regularly his other bills. He, however, felt it to be a shame to himself that it was so, and experienced a thrill of positive pain of covetousness, not for himself, but for his Margaret, when one of the luxurious things whirled past him in Fairbridge. He, it was true, kept a very smart little carriage and horse, but that was not as much as Margaret should have. Every time Margaret seemed a little dull, or complained of headache, as she had done lately, he thought miserably of that motor car, which was her right. Therefore when she planned any little trip like that of to-day, he was immeasurably pleased. At the same time he regarded her with a slightly bewildered expression, for in some subtle fashion, her face as she propounded the trifling plan, looked odd to him, and her voice also did not sound quite natural. However, he dismissed the idea at once as mere fancy, and watched proudly the admiring glances bestowed upon her in the Fairbridge station, while they were waiting for the train. Margaret had a peculiar knack in designing costumes which were at once plain and striking. This morning she wore a black China silk, through the thin bodice of which was visible an under silk strewn with gold disks. Her girdle was clasped with a gold buckle, and when she moved there were slight glimpses of a yellow silk petticoat. Her hat was black, but under the brim was tucked a yellow rose against her yellow hair. Then to finish all, Margaret wore in the lace at her throat, a great brooch of turquoise matrix, which matched her eyes. Her husband realised her as perfectly attired, although he did not in the least understand why. He knew that his Margaret looked a woman of another race from the others in the station, in their tailored skirts, and shirtwaists, with their coats over arm, and their shopping bags firmly clutched. It was a warm morning, and feminine Fairbridge's idea of a suitable costume for a New York shopping trip was a tailored suit, and a shirtwaist, and as a rule, the shirtwaist did not fit. Margaret never wore shirtwaists,--she understood that she was too short unless she combined a white skirt with a waist. Margaret would have broken a commandment with less hesitation than she would have broken the line of her graceful little figure with two violently contrasting colours. Mrs. Sturtevant in a grey skirt and an elaborate white waist, which emphasised her large bust, looked ridiculous beside this fair, elegant little Margaret, although her clothes had in reality cost more. Wilbur watched his wife as she talked sweetly with the other woman, and his heart swelled with the pride of possession. When they were on the train and he sat by himself in the smoker, having left Margaret with Mrs. Sturtevant, his heart continued to feel warm with elation. He waited to assist his wife off the train at Jersey City and realised it a trial that he could not cross the river on the same ferry. Margaret despised the tube and he wished for the short breath of sea air which he would get on the Courtland ferry. He glanced after her retreating black skirts with the glimpses of yellow, regretfully, before he turned his back and turned toward his own slip. And he glanced the more regretfully because this morning, with all his admiration of his wife, he had a dim sense of something puzzling which arose like a cloud of mystery between them. Wilbur Edes sailing across the river had, however, no conception of the change which had begun in his little world. It was only a shake of the kaleidoscope of an unimportant life, resulting in a different combination of atoms, but to each individual it would be a tremendous event partaking of the nature of a cataclysm. That morning he had seen upon Margaret's charming face an expression which made it seem as the face of a stranger. He tried to dismiss the matter from his mind. He told himself that it must have been the effect of the light or that she had pinned on her hat at a different angle. Women are so perplexing, and their attire alters them so strangely. But Wilbur Edes had reason to be puzzled. Margaret had looked and really was different. In a little while she had become practically a different woman. Of course, she had only developed possibilities which had always been dormant within her, but they had been so dormant, that they had not been to any mortal perception endowed with life. Hitherto Margaret had walked along the straight and narrow way, sometimes, it is true, jostling circumstances and sometimes being jostled by them, yet keeping to the path. Now she had turned her feet into that broad way wherein there is room for the utmost self which is in us all. Henceforth husband and wife would walk apart in a spiritual sense, unless there should come a revolution in the character of the wife, who was the stepper aside. Margaret seated comfortably on the ferry boat, her little feet crossed so discreetly that only a glimpse of the yellow fluff beneath was visible, was conscious of a not unpleasurable exhilaration. She might and she might not be about to do something which would place her distinctly outside the pale which had henceforth enclosed her little pleasance of life. Were she to cross that pale, she felt that it might be distinctly amusing. Margaret was not a wicked woman, but virtue, not virtue in the ordinary sense of the word, but straight walking ahead according to the ideas of Fairbridge, had come to drive her at times to the verge of madness. Then, too, there was always that secret terrible self-love and ambition of hers, never satisfied, always defeated by petty weapons. Margaret, sitting as gracefully as a beautiful cat, on the ferry boat that morning realised the vindictive working of her claws, and her impulse to strike at her odds of life, and she derived therefrom an unholy exhilaration. She got her taxicab on the other side and leaned back, catching frequent glances of admiration, and rode pleasurably to the regal up-town hotel which was the home of Miss Martha Wallingford, while in the city. She, upon her arrival, entered the hotel with an air which caused a stir among bell boys. Then she entered a reception room and sat down, disposing herself with slow grace. Margaret gazed about her and waited. There were only three people in the room, one man and two ladies, one quite young--a mere girl--the other from the resemblance and superior age, evidently her mother. The man was young and almost vulgarly well-groomed. He had given a glance at Margaret as she entered, a glance of admiration tempered with the consideration that in spite of her grace and beauty, she was probably older than himself. Then he continued to gaze furtively at the young girl who sat demurely, with eyes downcast beneath a soft, wild tangle of dark hair, against which some pink roses and a blue feather on her hat showed fetchingly. She was very well dressed, evidently a well-guarded young thing from one of the summer colonies. The mother, high corseted, and elegant in dark blue lines, which made only a graceful concession to age, without fairly admitting it, never allowed one glance of the young man's to escape her. She also saw her slender young daughter with every sense in her body and mind. Margaret looked away from them. The elder woman had given her costume an appreciative, and herself a supercilious glance, which had been met with one which did not seem to recognise her visibility. Margaret was not easily put down by another woman. She stared absently at the ornate and weary decorations of the room. It was handsome, but tiresome, as everybody who entered realised, and as, no doubt, the decorator had found out. It was a ready-made species of room, with no heart in it, in spite of the harmonious colour scheme and really artistic detail. Presently the boy with the silver tray entered and approached Margaret. The young man stared openly at her. He began to wonder if she were not younger than he had thought. The girl never raised her downcast eyes; the older woman cast one swift sharp glance at her. The boy murmured so inaudibly that Margaret barely heard, and she rose and followed him as he led the way to the elevator. Miss Wallingford, who was a young Western woman and a rising, if not already arisen literary star, had signified her willingness to receive Mrs. Wilbur Edes in her own private sitting-room. Margaret was successful so far. She had pencilled on her card, "Can you see me on a matter of importance? I am not connected with the Press," and the young woman who esteemed nearly everything of importance, and was afraid of the Press, had agreed at once to see her. Miss Martha Wallingford was staying in the hotel with an elderly aunt, against whose rule she rebelled in spite of her youth and shyness, which apparently made it impossible for her to rebel against anybody, and the aunt had retired stiffly to her bedroom when her niece said positively that she would see her caller. "You don't know who she is and I promised your Pa when we started that I wouldn't let you get acquainted with folks unless I knew all about them," the aunt had said and the niece, the risen star, had set her mouth hard. "We haven't seen a soul except those newspaper men, and I know everyone of them is married, and those two newspaper women who told about my sleeves being out of date," said Martha Wallingford, "and this Mrs. Edes may be real nice. I'm going to see her anyhow. We came so late in the season that I believe everybody in New York worth seeing has gone away and this lady has come in from the country and it may lead to my having a good time after all. I haven't had much of a time so far, and you know it, Aunt Susan." "How you talk, Martha Wallingford! Haven't you been to the theatre every night and Coney Island, and the Metropolitan and--everything there is to see?" "There isn't much to see in New York anyway except the people," returned the niece. "People are all I care for anyway, and I don't call the people I have seen worth counting. They only came to make a little money out of me and my sleeves. I am glad I got this dress at McCreery's. These sleeves are all right. If this Mrs. Edes should be a newspaper woman, she can't make fun of these sleeves anyway." "You paid an awful price for that dress," said her aunt. "I don't care. I got such a lot for my book that I might as well have a little out of it, and you know as well as I do, Aunt Susan, that South Mordan, Illinois, may be a very nice place, but it does not keep up with New York fashions. I really did not have a decent thing to wear when I started. Miss Slocumb did as well as she knew how, but her ideas are about three years behind New York. I didn't know myself, how should I? And you didn't, and as for Pa, he would think everything I had on was stylish if it dated back to the ark. You ought to have bought that mauve silk for yourself. You have money enough; you know you have, Aunt Susan." "I have money enough, thanks to my dear husband's saving all his life, but it is not going to be squandered on dress by me, now he is dead and gone." "I would have bought the dress for you myself, then," said the niece. "No, thank you," returned the aunt with asperity. "I have never been in the habit of being beholden to you for my clothes and I am not going to begin now. I didn't want that dress anyway. I always hated purple." "It wasn't purple, it was mauve." "I call purple, purple, I don't call it anything else!" Then the aunt retreated precipitately before the sound of the opening door and entrenched herself in her bedroom, where she stood listening. Margaret Edes treated the young author with the respect which she really deserved, for talent she possessed in such a marked degree as to make her phenomenal, and the phenomenal is always entitled to consideration of some sort. "Miss Wallingford?" murmured Margaret, and she gave an impression of obeisance; this charming elegantly attired lady before the Western girl. Martha Wallingford coloured high with delight and admiration. "Yes, I am Miss Wallingford," she replied and asked her caller to be seated. Margaret sat down facing her. The young author shuffled in her chair like a school girl. She was an odd combination of enormous egotism and the most painful shyness. She realised at a glance that she herself was provincial and pitifully at a disadvantage personally before this elegant vision, and her personality was in reality more precious to her than her talent. "I can not tell you what a great pleasure and privilege this is for me," said Margaret, and her blue eyes had an expression of admiring rapture. The girl upon whom the eyes were fixed, blushed and giggled and tossed her head with a sudden show of pride. She quite agreed that it was a pleasure and privilege for Margaret to see her, the author of _Hearts Astray_, even if Margaret was herself so charming and so provokingly well dressed. Miss Martha Wallingford did not hide her light of talent under a bushel with all her shyness, which was not really shyness at all but a species of rather sullen pride and resentment because she was so well aware that she could not do well the things which were asked of her and had not mastered the art of dress and self poise. Therefore, Martha, with the delight of her own achievements full upon her face, which was pretty, although untutored, regarded her visitor with an expression which almost made Margaret falter. It was probably the absurd dressing of the girl's hair which restored Margaret's confidence in her scheme. Martha Wallingford actually wore a frizzled bang, very finely frizzled too, and her hair was strained from the nape of her neck, and it seemed impossible that a young woman who knew no better than to arrange her hair in such fashion, should not be amenable to Margaret's plan. The plan, moreover, sounded very simple, except for the little complications which might easily arise. Margaret smiled into the pretty face under the fuzz of short hair. "My dear Miss Wallingford," said she, "I have come this morning to beg a favour. I hope you will not refuse me, although I am such an entire stranger. If, unfortunately, my intimate friend, Mrs. Fay-Wyman, of whom I assume that you of course know, even if you have not met her, as you may easily have done, or her daughter, Miss Edith Fay-Wyman, had not left town last week for their country house, Rose-In-Flower, at Hyphen-by-the-Sea, a most delightful spot. Mr. Edes and I have spent several week ends there. I am prevented from spending longer than week ends because I am kept at home by my two darling twin daughters. Mrs. Fay-Wyman is a sweet woman and I do so wish I could have brought her here to-day. I am sure you would at once fall madly in love with her and also with her daughter, Miss Edith Fay-Wyman, such a sweet girl, and--" But here Margaret was unexpectedly, even rudely interrupted by Miss Wallingford, who looked at her indignantly. "I never fall in love with women," stated that newly risen literary star abruptly, "why should I? What does it amount to?" "Oh, my dear," cried Margaret, "when you are a little older you will find that it amounts to very much. There is a soul sympathy, and--" "I don't think that I care much about soul sympathy," stated Miss Wallingford, who was beginning to be angrily bewildered by her guest's long sentences, which so far seemed to have no point as far as she herself was concerned. Margaret started a little. Again the doubt seized her if she were not making a mistake, undertaking more than she could well carry through, for this shy authoress was fast developing unexpected traits. However, Margaret, once she had started, was not easily turned back. She was as persistently clinging as a sweet briar. "Oh, my dear," she said, and her voice was like trickling honey, "only wait until you are a little older and you will find that you do care, care very, very much. The understanding and sympathy of other women will become very sweet to you. It is so pure and ennobling, so free from all material taint." "I have seen a great many women who were perfect cats," stated Miss Martha Wallingford. "Wait until you are older," said Margaret again and her voice seemed fairly dissolving into some spiritual liquid of divine sweetness. "Wait until you are older, my dear. You are very young, so young to have accomplished a wonderful work which will live." "Oh, well," said Martha Wallingford, and as she spoke she fixed pitiless shrewd young eyes upon the face of the other woman, which did not show at its best, in spite of veil and the velvety darkness of hat-shadow. This hotel sitting-room was full of garish cross lights. "Oh, well," said Martha Wallingford, "of course, I don't know what may happen if I live to be old, as old as you." Margaret Edes felt like a photograph proof before the slightest attempt at finish had been made. Those keen young eyes conveyed the impression of convex mirrors. She restrained an instinctive impulse to put a hand before her face, she had an odd helpless sensation before the almost brutal, clear-visioned young thing. Again she shrank a little from her task, again her spirit reasserted itself. She moved and brought her face somewhat more into the shadow. Then she spoke again. She wisely dropped the subject of feminine affinities. She plunged at once into the object of her visit, which directly concerned Miss Martha Wallingford, and Margaret, who was as astute in her way as the girl, knew that she was entirely right in assuming that Martha Wallingford was more interested in herself than anything else in the world. "My dear," she said, "I may as well tell you at once why I intruded upon you this morning." "Please do," said Martha Wallingford. "As I said before, I deeply regret that I was unable to bring some well-known person, Mrs. Fay-Wyman, for instance, to make us acquainted in due form, but--" "Oh, I don't care a bit about that," said Martha. "What is it?" Margaret again started a little. She had not expected anything like this. The mental picture which she had formed of Martha Wallingford, the young literary star, seemed to undergo a transformation akin to an explosion, out of which only one feature remained intact--the book, "_Hearts Astray_." If Miss Wallingford had not possessed a firm foundation in that volume, it is entirely possible that Margaret might have abandoned her enterprise. As it was, after a little gasp she went on. "I did so wish to assure you in person of my great admiration for your wonderful book," said she. Martha Wallingford made no reply. She had an expression of utter acquiescence in the admiration, also of having heard that same thing so many times, that she was somewhat bored by it. She waited with questioning eyes upon Margaret's face. "And I wondered," said Margaret, "if you would consider it too informal, if I ventured to beg you to be my guest at my home in Fairbridge next Thursday and remain the weekend, over Sunday. It would give me so much pleasure, and Fairbridge is a charming little village and there are really many interesting people there whom I think you would enjoy, and as for them--!" Margaret gave a slight roll to her eyes--"they would be simply overwhelmed." "I should like to come very much, thank you," said Martha Wallingford. Margaret beamed. "Oh, my dear," she cried, "I can not tell you how much joy your prompt and warm response gives me. And--" Margaret looked about her rather vaguely, "you are not alone here, of course. You have a maid, or perhaps, your mother--" "My Aunt Susan is with me," said Miss Wallingford, "but there is no use inviting her. She hates going away for a few days. She says it is just as much trouble packing as it would be to go for a month. There is no use even thinking of her, but I shall be delighted to come." Margaret hesitated. "May I not have the pleasure of being presented to your aunt?" she inquired. "Aunt Susan is out shopping," lied Miss Martha Wallingford. Aunt Susan was clad in a cotton crepe wrapper, and Martha knew that she would think it quite good enough for her to receive anybody in, and that she could not convince her to the contrary. It was only recently that Martha herself had become converted from morning wrappers, and the reaction was violent. "The idea of a woman like this Mrs. Edes seeing Aunt Susan in that awful pink crepe wrapper!" she said to herself. She hoped Aunt Susan was not listening, and would not make a forcible entry into the room. Aunt Susan in moments of impulse was quite capable of such coups. Martha glanced rather apprehensively toward the door leading into the bedroom but it did not open. Aunt Susan was indeed listening and she was rigid with indignation, but in truth, she did not want to accompany her niece upon this projected visit, and she was afraid of being drawn into such a step should she present herself. Aunt Susan did dislike making the effort of a visit for a few days only. Martha had told the truth. It was very hot, and the elder woman was not very strong. Moreover, she perceived that Martha did not want her and there would be the complication of kicking against the pricks of a very determined character, which had grown more determined since her literary success. In fact, Aunt Susan stood in a slight awe of her niece since that success, for all her revolts which were superficial. Therefore, she remained upon her side of the door which she did not open until the visitor had departed after making definite arrangements concerning trains and meetings. Then Aunt Susan entered the room with a cloud of pink crepe in her wake. "Who was that?" she demanded of Martha. "Mrs. Wilbur Edes," replied her niece, and she aped Margaret to perfection as she added, "and a most charming woman, most charming." "What did she want you to do?" inquired the aunt. "Now, Aunt Susan," replied the niece, "what is the use of going over it all? You heard every single thing she said." "I did hear her ask after me," said the aunt unabashed, "and I heard you tell a lie about it. You told her I had gone out shopping and you knew I was right in the next room." "I didn't mean to have you come in and see a woman dressed like that one, in your wrapper." "What is the matter with my wrapper?" Martha said nothing. "Are you going?" asked her aunt. "You know that too." "I don't know what your Pa would say," remarked Aunt Susan, but rather feebly, for she had a vague idea that it was her duty to accompany her niece and she was determined to shirk it. "I don't see how Pa can say much of anything since he is in South Mordan, Illinois, and won't know about it, unless you telegraph, until next week," said Martha calmly. "Now, come along, Aunt Susan, and get dressed. I have made up my mind to get that beautiful white silk dress we looked at yesterday. It did not need any alteration and I think I shall buy that pearl and amethyst necklace at Tiffany's. I know Mrs. Edes will have an evening party and there will be gentlemen, and what is the use of my making so much money out of _Hearts Astray_ if I don't have a few things I want? Hurry and get dressed." "I don't see why this wrapper isn't plenty good enough for a few errands at two or three stores," said the aunt sulkily, but she yielded to Martha's imperative demand that she change her wrapper for her black satin immediately. Meantime Margaret on her way down town to the ferry was conscious of a slight consternation at what she had done. She understood that in this young woman was a feminine element which radically differed from any which had come within her ken. She, however, was determined to go on. The next day invitations were issued to the Zenith Club for the following Friday, from four to six, and also one to dinner that evening to four men and five women. She planned for Sunday an automobile ride; she was to hire the car from the Axminister garage, and a high tea afterward. Poor Margaret did all in her power to make her scheme a success, but always she had that chilling doubt of her power. Miss Martha Wallingford had impressed her as being a young woman capable of swift and unexpected movements. She was rather afraid of her but she did not confess her fear to Wilbur. When he inquired genially what kind of a girl the authoress was, she replied: "Oh, charming, of course, but the poor child does not know how to do up her hair." However, when Martha arrived Thursday afternoon and Margaret met her at the station, she, at a glance, discovered that the poor child had discovered how to do up her hair. Some persons' brains work in a great many directions and Martha Wallingford's was one of them. Somehow or other, she had contrived to dispose of her tightly frizzed fringe, and her very pretty hair swept upward from a forehead which was both intellectual and beautiful. She was well dressed too. She had drawn heavily upon her royalty revenue. She had worked hard and spent a good deal during the short time since Margaret's call, and her brain had served her body well. She stepped across the station platform with an air. She carried no provincial bag--merely a dainty little affair mounted in gold which matched her gown--and she had brought a small steamer trunk. Margaret's heart sank more and more, but she conducted her visitor to her little carriage and ordered the man to drive home, and when arrived there, showed Martha her room. She had a faint hope that the room might intimidate this Western girl, but instead of intimidation there was exultation. She looked about her very coolly, but afterward, upon her return to East Mordan, Illinois, she bragged a good deal about it. The room was really very charming and rather costly. The furniture was genuine First Empire; the walls, which were hung with paper covered with garlands of roses, were decorated with old engravings; there was a quantity of Dresden ware and there was a little tiled bathroom. Over a couch in the bedroom lay a kimona of white silk embroidered with pink roses. Afterward Martha made cruel fun of her Aunt's pink crepe and made her buy a kimona. "Shall I send up my maid to assist you in unpacking, Miss Wallingford?" inquired Margaret, inwardly wondering how the dinner would be managed if the offer were accepted. To her relief, Martha gave her an offended stare. "No, thank you, Mrs. Edes," said she, "I never like servants, especially other peoples', mussing up my things." When Margaret had gone, Martha looked about her, and her mouth was frankly wide open. She had never seen such exquisite daintiness and it daunted her, although she would have died rather than admit it. She thought of her own bedroom at home in East Mordan, Illinois, with its old black walnut chamber set and framed photographs and chromos, but she maintained a sort of defiant pride in it even to herself. In Martha Wallingford's character there was an element partaking of the nature of whalebone, yielding, but practically unbreakable, and sometimes wholly unyielding. Martha proceeded to array herself for dinner. She had not a doubt that it would be a grand affair. She therefore did not hesitate about the white silk, which was a robe of such splendour that it might not have disgraced a court. It showed a great deal of her thin, yet pretty girlish neck, and it had a very long train. She had a gold fillet studded with diamonds for her hair--that hair which was now dressed according to the very latest mode--a mode which was startling, yet becoming, and she clasped around her throat the Tiffany necklace, and as a crowning touch, put on long white gloves. When she appeared upon the verandah where Margaret sat dressed in a pretty lingerie gown with Wilbur in a light grey business suit, the silence could be heard. Then there was one double gasp of admiration from Maida and Adelaide in their white frocks and blue ribbons. They looked at the visitor with positive adoration, but she flushed hotly. She was a very quick-witted girl. Margaret recovered herself, presented Wilbur, and shortly, they went in to dinner, but it was a ghastly meal. Martha Wallingford in her unsuitable splendour was frankly, as she put it afterward, "hopping mad," and Wilbur was unhappy and Margaret aghast, although apparently quite cool. There was not a guest besides Martha. The dinner was simple. Afterward it seemed too farcical to ask a guest attired like a young princess to go out on the verandah and lounge in a wicker chair, while Wilbur smoked. Then Annie Eustace appeared and Margaret was grateful. "Dear Annie," she said, after she had introduced the two girls, "I am so glad you came over. Come in." "It is pleasanter on the verandah, isn't it?" began Annie, then she caught Margaret's expressive glance at the magnificent white silk. They all sat stiffly in Margaret's pretty drawing-room. Martha said she didn't play bridge and upon Annie's timid suggestion of pinocle, said she had never heard of it. Wilbur dared not smoke. All that wretched evening they sat there. The situation was too much for Margaret, that past mistress of situations, and her husband was conscious of a sensation approaching terror and also wrath whenever he glanced at the figure in sumptuous white, the figure expressing sulkiness in every feature and motion. Margaret was unmistakably sulky as the evening wore on and nobody came except this other girl of whom she took no notice at all. She saw that she was pretty, her hair badly arranged and she was ill-dressed, and that was enough for her. She felt it to be an insult that these people had invited her and asked nobody to meet her, Martha Wallingford, whose name was in all the papers, attired in this wonderful white gown. When Annie Eustace arose to go, she arose too with a peremptory motion. "I rather guess I will go to bed," said Martha Wallingford. "You must be weary," said Margaret. "I am not tired," said Martha Wallingford, "but it seems to me as dull here as in South Mordan, Illinois. I might as well go to bed and to sleep as sit here any longer." When Margaret had returned from the guest room, her husband looked at her almost in a bewildered fashion. Margaret sank wearily into a chair. "Isn't she impossible?" she whispered. "Did she think there was a dinner party?" Wilbur inquired perplexedly. "I don't know. It was ghastly. I did not for a moment suppose she would dress for a party, unless I told her, and it is Emma's night off and I could not ask people with only Clara to cook and wait." Wilbur patted his wife's shoulder comfortingly. "Never mind, dear," he said, "when she gets her chance to do her to-morrow's stunt at your club, she will be all right." Margaret shivered a little. She had dared say nothing to Martha about that "stunt." Was it possible that she was making a horrible mistake? The next day, Martha was still sulky but she did not, as Margaret feared, announce her intention of returning at once to New York. Margaret said quite casually that she had invited a few of the brightest and most interesting people in Fairbridge to meet her that afternoon and Martha became curious, although still resentful, and made no motion to leave. She, however, resolved to make no further mistakes as to costume, and just as the first tide of the Zenith Club broke over Margaret's threshold, she appeared clad in one of her South Mordan, Illinois, gowns. It was one which she had tucked into her trunk in view of foul weather. It was a hideous thing made from two old gowns. It had a garish blue tunic reaching well below the hips and a black skirt bordered with blue. Martha had had it made herself from a pattern after long study of the fashion plates in a Sunday newspaper and the result, although startling, still half convinced her. It was only after she had seen all the members of the Zenith Club seated and had gazed at their costumes, that she realised that she had made a worse mistake than that of the night before. To begin with, the day was very warm and her gown heavy and clumsy. The other ladies were arrayed in lovely lingeries or light silks and laces. The Zenith Club was exceedingly well dressed on that day. Martha sat in her place beside her hostess and her face looked like a sulky child's. Her eye-lids were swollen, her pouting lips dropped at the corners. She stiffened her chin until it became double. Margaret was inwardly perturbed but she concealed it. The programme went on with the inevitable singing by Miss MacDonald and Mrs. Wells, the playing by Mrs. Jack Evarts, the recitation by Sally Anderson. Margaret had not ventured to omit those features. Then, Mrs. Sturtevant read in a trembling voice a paper on Emerson. Then Margaret sprang her mines. She rose and surveyed her audience with smiling impressiveness. "Ladies," she said, and there was an immediate hush, "Ladies, I have the pleasure, the exceeding pleasure of presenting you to my guest, Miss Martha Wallingford, the author of _Hearts Astray_. She will now speak briefly to you upon her motive in writing and her method of work." There was a soft clapping of hands. Margaret sat down. She was quite pale. Annie Eustace regarded her wonderingly. What had happened to her dear Margaret? The people waited. Everybody stared at Miss Martha Wallingford who had written that great seller, _Hearts Astray_. Martha Wallingford sat perfectly still. Her eyes were so downcast that they gave the appearance of being closed. Her pretty face looked red and swollen. Everybody waited. She sat absolutely still and made no sign except that of her obstinate face of negation. Margaret bent over her and whispered. Martha did not even do her the grace of a shake of the head. Everybody waited again. Martha Wallingford sat so still that she gave the impression of a doll made without speaking apparatus. It did not seem as if she could even wink. Then Alice Mendon, who disliked Margaret Edes and had a shrewd conjecture as to the state of affairs, but who was broad in her views, pitied Margaret. She arose with considerable motion and spoke to Daisy Shaw at her right, and broke the ghastly silence, and immediately everything was in motion and refreshments were being passed, but Martha Wallingford, who had written _Hearts Astray_, was not there to partake of them. She was in her room, huddled in a chair upholstered with cream silk strewn with roses; and she was in one of the paroxysms of silent rage which belonged to her really strong, although undisciplined nature, and which was certainly in this case justified to some degree. "It was an outrage," she said to herself. She saw through it all now. She had refused to speak or to read before all those women's clubs and now this woman had trapped her, that was the word for it, trapped her. As she sat there, her sullenly staring angry eyes saw in large letters at the head of a column in a morning paper on the table beside her, "'_The Poor Lady_,' the greatest anonymous novel of the year." Then she fell again to thinking of her wrongs and planning how she should wreak vengeance upon Margaret Edes. Chapter VI Martha Wallingford was a young person of direct methods. She scorned subterfuges. Another of her age and sex might have gone to bed with a headache, not she. She sat absolutely still beside her window, quite in full view of the departing members of the Zenith Club, had they taken the trouble to glance in that direction, and some undoubtedly did, and she remained there; presently she heard her hostess's tiny rap on the door. Martha did not answer, but after a repeated rap and wait, Margaret chose to assume that she did, and entered. Margaret knelt in a soft flop of scented lingerie beside the indignant young thing. She explained, she apologised, she begged, she implored Martha to put on that simply ravishing gown which she had worn the evening before; she expatiated at length upon the charms of the people whom she had invited to dinner, but Martha spoke not at all until she was quite ready. Then she said explosively, "I won't." She was silent after that. Margaret recognised the futility of further entreaties. She went down stairs and confided in Wilbur. "I never saw such an utterly impossible girl," she said; "there she sits and won't get dressed and come down to dinner." "She is a freak, must be, most of these writer people are freaks," said Wilbur sympathetically. "Poor old girl, and I suppose you have got up a nice dinner too." "A perfectly charming dinner and invited people to meet her." "How did she do her stunt this afternoon?" Margaret flushed. "None too well," she replied. "Oh, well, dear, I don't see how you are to blame." "I can say that Miss Wallingford is not well, I suppose," said Margaret, and that was what she did say, but with disastrous results. Margaret, ravishing in white lace, sprinkled with little gold butterflies, had taken her place at the head of her table. Emma was serving the first course and she was making her little speech concerning the unfortunate indisposition of her guest of honour when she was suddenly interrupted by that guest herself, an image of sulky wrath, clad in the blue and black costume pertaining to South Mordan, Illinois. "I am perfectly well. She is telling an awful whopper," proclaimed this amazing girl. "I won't dress up and come to dinner because I won't. She trapped me into a woman's club this afternoon and tried to get me to make a speech without even telling me what she meant to do and now I won't do anything." With that Miss Wallingford disappeared and unmistakable stamps were heard upon the stairs. One woman giggled convulsively; another took a glass of water and choked. A man laughed honestly. Wilbur was quite pale. Margaret was imperturbable. Karl von Rosen, who was one of the guests and who sat behind Annie Eustace, looked at Margaret with wonder. "Was this the way of women?" he thought. He did not doubt for one minute that the Western girl had spoken the truth. It had been brutal and homely, but it had been the truth. Little Annie Eustace, who had been allowed to come to a dinner party for the first time in her life and who looked quite charming in an old, much mended, but very fine India muslin and her grandmother's corals, did not, on the contrary, believe one word of Miss Wallingford's. Her sympathy was all with her Margaret. It was a horrible situation and her dear Margaret was the victim of her own hospitality. She looked across the table at Alice Mendon for another sympathiser, but Alice was talking busily to the man at her right about a new book. She had apparently not paid much attention. Annie wondered how it could have escaped her. That horrid girl had spoken so loudly. She looked up at Von Rosen. "I am so sorry for poor Margaret," she whispered. Von Rosen looked down at her very gently. This little girl's belief in her friend was like a sacred lily, not to be touched or soiled. "Yes," he said and Annie smiled up at him comfortably. Von Rosen was glad she sat beside him. He thought her very lovely, and there was a subtle suggestion of something besides loveliness. He thought that daintily mended India muslin exquisite, and also the carved corals,--bracelets on the slender wrists, a necklace--resting like a spray of flowers on the girlish neck, a comb in the soft hair which Annie had arranged becomingly and covered from her aunt's sight with a lace scarf. She felt deceitful about her hair, but how could she help it? The dinner was less ghastly than could have been expected after the revelation of the guest of honour and the blank consternation of the host, who made no attempt to conceal his state of mind. Poor Wilbur had no society tricks. Alice Mendon, who was quite cognizant of the whole matter, but was broad enough to leap to the aid of another woman, did much. She had quite a talent for witty stories and a goodly fund of them. The dinner went off very well, while Martha Wallingford ate hers from a dinner tray in her room and felt that every morsel was sweetened with righteous revenge. The next morning she left for New York and Margaret did not attempt to detain her although she had a lunch party planned besides the Sunday festivities. Margaret had had a scene with Wilbur after the departure of the guests the previous evening. For the first time in her experience, the devoted husband had turned upon his goddess. He had asked, "Was it true, what that girl said?" and Margaret had laughed up at him bewitchingly to no effect. Wilbur's face was very stern. "My dear," said Margaret, "I knew perfectly well that if I actually asked her to speak or read, she would have refused." "You have done an unpardonable thing," said the man. "You have betrayed your own sense of honour, your hospitality toward the guest under your roof." Margaret laughed as she took an ornament from her yellow head but the laugh was defiant and forced. In her heart she bitterly resented her husband's attitude and more bitterly resented the attitude of respect into which it forced her. "It is the very last time I ask a Western authoress to accept my hospitality," said she. "I hope so," said Wilbur gravely. That night Karl von Rosen walked home with Annie Eustace. She had come quite unattended, as was the wont of Fairbridge ladies. That long peaceful Main Street lined with the homes of good people always seemed a safe thoroughfare. Annie was even a little surprised when Von Rosen presented himself and said, "I will walk home with you, Miss Eustace, with your permission." "But I live a quarter of a mile past your house," said Annie. Von Rosen laughed. "A quarter of a mile will not injure me," he said. "It will really be a half mile," said Annie. She wanted very much that the young man should walk home with her, but she was very much afraid of making trouble. She was relieved when he only laughed again and said something about the beauty of the night. It was really a wonderful night and even the eyes of youth, inhabiting it with fairy dreams, were not essential to perceive it. "What flower scent is that?" asked Von Rosen. "I think," replied Annie, "that it is wild honeysuckle," and her voice trembled slightly. The perfumed night and the strange presence beside her went to the child's head a bit. The two walked along under the trees, which cast etching-like shadows in the broad moonlight, and neither talked much. There was scarcely a lighted window in any of the houses and they had a delicious sense of isolation,--the girl and the man awake in a sleeping world. Annie made no further allusion to Miss Wallingford. She had for almost the first time in her life a little selfish feeling that she did not wish to jar a perfect moment even with the contemplation of a friend's troubles. She was very happy walking beside Von Rosen, holding up her flimsy embroidered skirts carefully lest they come in contact with dewy grass. She had been admonished by her grandmother and her aunts so to do and reminded that the frail fabric would not endure much washing however skilful. Between the shadows, her lovely face showed like a white flower as Von Rosen looked down upon it. He wondered more and more that he had never noticed this exquisite young creature before. He did not yet dream of love in connection with her, but he was conscious of a passion of surprised admiration and protectiveness. "How is it that I have never seen you when I call on your Aunt Harriet?" he asked when he parted with her at her own gate, a stately wrought iron affair in a tall hedge of close trimmed lilac. "I am generally there, I think," replied Annie, but she was also conscious of a little surprise that she had not paid more attention when this young man, who looked at her so kindly, called. Then came one of her sudden laughs. "What is it?" asked Von Rosen. "Oh, nothing, except that the cat is usually there too," replied Annie. Von Rosen looked back boyishly. "Be sure I shall see you next time and hang the cat," he said. When Annie was in her room unclasping her corals, she considered how very much mortified and troubled her friend, Margaret Edes, must feel. She recalled how hideous it had all been--that appearance of the Western girl in the dining-room door-way, her rude ways, her flushed angry face. Annie did not dream of blaming Margaret. She was almost a fanatic as far as loyalty to her friends was concerned. She loved Margaret and she had only a feeling of cold dislike and disapprobation toward Miss Wallingford who had hurt Margaret. As for that charge of "trapping," she paid no heed to it whatever. She made up her mind to go and see Margaret the very next day and tell her a secret, a very great secret, which she was sure would comfort her and make ample amends to her for all her distress of the night before. Little Annie Eustace was so very innocent and ignorant of the ways of the world that had her nearest and dearest been able to look into her heart of hearts, they might have been appalled, incredulous and reverent, according to their natures. For instance, this very good, simple young girl who had been born with the light of genius always assumed that her friends would be as delighted at any good fortune of hers as at their own. She fairly fed upon her admiration of Alice Mendon that evening when she had stepped so nobly and tactfully into the rather frightful social breach and saved, if not wholly, the situation. "Alice was such a dear," she thought, and the thought made her face fairly angelic. Then she recalled how lovely Alice had looked, and her own mobile face took on unconsciously Alice's expression. Standing before her looking-glass brushing out her hair, she saw reflected, not her own beautiful face between the lustrous folds, but Alice's. Then she recalled with pride Margaret's imperturbability under such a trial. "Nobody but Margaret could have carried off such an insult under her own roof too," she thought. After she was in bed and her lamp blown out and the white moon-beams were entering her open windows like angels, she, after saying her prayers, thought of the three, Margaret, Alice, and Karl von Rosen. Then suddenly a warm thrill passed over her long slender body but it seemed to have its starting point in her soul. She saw very distinctly the young man's dark handsome face, but she thought, "How absurd of me, to see him so distinctly, as distinctly as I see Margaret and Alice, when I love them so much, and I scarcely know Mr. von Rosen." Being brought up by one's imperious grandmother and two imperious aunts and being oneself naturally of an obedient disposition and of a slowly maturing temperament, tends to lengthen the long childhood of a girl. Annie was almost inconceivably a child, much more of a child than Maida or Adelaide Edes. They had been allowed to grow like weeds as far as their imagination was concerned, and she had been religiously pruned. The next afternoon she put on her white barred muslin and obtained her Aunt Harriet's permission to spend an hour or two with Margaret if she would work assiduously on her daisy centre piece, and stepped like a white dove across the shady village street. Annie, unless she remembered to do otherwise, was prone to toe in slightly with her slender feet. She was also prone to allow the tail of her white gown to trail. She gathered it up only when her Aunt called after her. She found Margaret lying indolently in the hammock which was strung across the wide shaded verandah. She was quite alone. Annie had seen with relief Miss Martha Wallingford being driven to the station that morning and the express following with her little trunk. Margaret greeted Annie a bit stiffly but the girl did not notice it. She was so full of her ignorant little plan to solace her friend with her own joy. Poor Annie did not understand that it requires a nature seldom met upon this earth, to be solaced, under disappointment and failure, by another's joy. Annie had made up her mind to say very little to Margaret about what had happened the evening before. Only at first, she remarked upon the beauty of the dinner, then she said quite casually, "Dear Margaret, we were all so sorry for poor Miss Wallingford's strange conduct." "It really did not matter in the least," replied Margaret coldly. "I shall never invite her again." "I am sure nobody can blame you," said Annie warmly. "I don't want to say harsh things, you know that, Margaret, but that poor girl, in spite of her great talent, cannot have had the advantage of good home-training." "Oh, she is Western," said Margaret. "How very warm it is to-day." "Very, but there is quite a breeze here." "A hot breeze," said Margaret wearily. "How I wish we could afford a house at the seashore or the mountains. The hot weather does get on my nerves." A great light of joy came into Annie's eyes. "Oh, Margaret dear," she said, "I can't do it yet but it does look as if some time before long perhaps, I may be able myself to have a house at the seashore. I think Sudbury beach would be lovely. It is always cool there, and then you can come and stay with me whenever you like during the hot weather. I will have a room fitted up for you in your favourite white and gold and it shall be called Margaret's room and you can always come, when you wish." Margaret looked at the other girl with a slow surprise. "I do not understand," said she. "Of course, you don't. You know we have only had enough to live here as we have done," said Annie with really childish glee, "but oh, Margaret, you will be so glad. I have not told you before but now I must for I know it will make you so happy, and I know I can trust you never to betray me, for it is a great secret, a very great secret, and it must not be known by other people at present. I don't know just when it can be known, perhaps never, certainly not now." Margaret looked at her with indifferent interrogation. Annie did not realise how indifferent. A flood-tide of kindly joyful emotion does not pay much attention to its banks. Annie continued. She looked sweetly excited; her voice rose high above its usual pitch. "You understand, Margaret dear, how it is," she said. "You see I am quite unknown, that is, my name is quite unknown, and it would really hinder the success of a book." Margaret surveyed her with awakening interest. "A book?" said she. "Yes, a book! Oh, Margaret, I know it will be hard for you to believe, but you know I am very truthful. I--I wrote the book they are talking about so much now. You know what I mean?" "Not the--?" "Yes, _The Poor Lady_,--the anonymous novel which people are talking so much about and which sold better than any other book last week. I wrote it. I really did, Margaret." "You wrote it!" Annie continued almost wildly. "Yes, I did, I did!" she cried, "and you are the only soul that knows except the publishers. They said they were much struck with the book but advised anonymous publication, my name was so utterly unknown." "You wrote _The Poor Lady_?" said Margaret. Her eyes glittered, and her lips tightened. Envy possessed her, but Annie Eustace did not recognise envy when she saw it. Annie went on in her sweet ringing voice, almost producing the effect of a song. She was so happy, and so pleased to think that she was making her friend happy. "Yes," she said, "I wrote it. I wrote _The Poor Lady_." "If," said Margaret, "you speak quite so loud, you will be heard by others." Annie lowered her voice immediately with a startled look. "Oh," she whispered. "I would not have anybody hear me for anything." "How did you manage?" asked Margaret. Annie laughed happily. "I fear I have been a little deceitful," she said, "but I am sure they will forgive me when they know. I keep a journal; I have always kept one since I was a child. Aunt Harriet wished me to do so. And the journal was very stupid. So little unusual happens here in Fairbridge, and I have always been rather loath to write very much about my innermost feelings or very much about my friends in my journal because of course one can never tell what will happen. It has never seemed to me quite delicate--to keep a very full journal, and so there was in reality very little to write." Annie burst into a peal of laughter. "It just goes this way, the journal," she said. "To-day is pleasant and warm. This morning I helped Hannah preserve cherries. In the afternoon I went over to Margaret's and sat with her on the verandah, embroidered two daisies and three leaves with stems on my centre piece, came home, had supper, sat in the twilight with Grandmother, Aunt Harriet and Aunt Susan. Went upstairs, put on my wrapper and read until it was time to go to bed. Went to bed. Now that took very little time and was not interesting and so, after I went upstairs, I wrote my entry in the journal in about five minutes and then I wrote _The Poor Lady_. Of course, when I began it, I was not at all sure that it would amount to anything. I was not sure that any publisher would look at it. Sometimes I felt as if I were doing a very foolish thing: spending time and perhaps deceiving Grandmother and my aunts very wickedly, though I was quite certain that if the book should by any chance succeed, they would not think it wrong. "Grandmother is very fond of books and so is Aunt Harriet, and I have often heard them say they wished I had been a boy in order that I might do something for the Eustace name. You know there have been so many distinguished professional men in the Eustace family and they of course did not for one minute think a girl like me could do anything and I did not really think so myself. Sometimes I wonder how I had the courage to keep on writing when I was so uncertain but it was exactly as if somebody were driving me. When I had the book finished, I was so afraid it ought to be typewritten, but I could not manage that. At least I thought I could not, but after awhile I did, and in a way that nobody suspected, Aunt Harriet sent me to New York. You know I am not often allowed to go alone but it was when Grandmother had the grippe and Aunt Susan the rheumatism and Aunt Harriet had a number of errands and so I went on the Twenty-third Street ferry, and did not go far from Twenty-third Street and I took my book in my handbag and carried it into Larkins and White's and I saw Mr. Larkins in his office and he was very kind and polite, although I think now he was laughing a little to himself at the idea of my writing a book, but he said to leave the MSS. and he would let me hear. And I left it and, oh, Margaret, I heard within a week, and he said such lovely things about it. You know I always go to the post-office, so there was no chance of anybody's finding it out that way. And then the proof began to come and I was at my wits' end to conceal that, but I did. And then the book was published, and, Margaret, you know the rest. Nobody dreams who wrote it, and I have had a statement and oh, my dear, next November I am to have a check." (Annie leaned over and whispered in Margaret's ear.) "Only think," she said with a burst of rapture. Margaret was quite pale. She sat looking straight before her with a strange expression. She was tasting in the very depths of her soul a bitterness which was more biting than any bitter herb which ever grew on earth. It was a bitterness, which, thank God, is unknown to many; the bitterness of the envy of an incapable, but self-seeking nature, of one with the burning ambition of genius but destitute of the divine fire. To such come unholy torture, which is unspeakable at the knowledge of another's success. Margaret Edes was inwardly writhing. To think that Annie Eustace, little Annie Eustace, who had worshipped at her own shrine, whom she had regarded with a lazy, scarcely concealed contempt, for her incredible lack of wordly knowledge, her provincialism, her ill-fitting attire, should have achieved a triumph which she herself could never achieve. A cold hatred of the girl swept over the woman. She forced her lips into a smile, but her eyes were cruel. "How very interesting, my dear," she said. Poor Annie started. She was acute, for all her innocent trust in another's goodness, and the tone of her friend's voice, the look in her eyes chilled her. And yet she did not know what they signified. She went on begging for sympathy and rejoicing with her joy as a child might beg for a sweet. "Isn't it perfectly lovely, Margaret dear?" she said. "It is most interesting, my dear child," replied Margaret. Annie went on eagerly with the details of her triumph, the book sales which increased every week, the revises, the letters from her publishers, and Margaret listened smiling in spite of her torture, but she never said more than "How interesting." At last Annie went home and could not help feeling disappointed, although she could not fathom the significance of Margaret's reception of her astonishing news. Annie only worried because she feared lest her happiness had not cheered her friend as much as she had anticipated. "Poor Margaret, she must feel so very bad that nothing can reconcile her to such a betrayal of her hospitality," she reflected as she flitted across the street. There was nobody in evidence at her house at window or on the wide verandah. Annie looked at her watch tucked in her girdle, hung around her neck by a thin gold chain which had belonged to her mother. It yet wanted a full hour of supper time. She had time to call on Alice Mendon and go to the post-office. Alice lived on the way to the post-office, in a beautiful old colonial house. Annie ran along the shady sidewalk and soon had a glimpse of Alice's pink draperies on her great front porch. Annie ran down the deep front yard between the tall box bushes, beyond which bloomed in a riot of colour and perfume roses and lilies and spraying heliotrope and pinks and the rest of their floral tribe all returned to their dance of summer. Alice's imposing colonial porch was guarded on either side of the superb circling steps by a stone lion from over seas. On the porch was a little table and several chairs. Alice sat in one reading. She was radiant in her pink muslin. Alice seldom wore white. She was quite sensible as to the best combinations of herself with colours although she had, properly speaking, no vanity. She arranged herself to the best advantage as she arranged a flower in a vase. On the heavily carved mahogany table beside her was a blue and white India bowl filled with white roses and heliotrope and lemon verbena. Annie inhaled the bouquet of perfume happily as she came up the steps with Alice smiling a welcome at her. Annie had worshipped more fervently at Margaret Edes' shrine than at Alice's and yet she had a feeling of fuller confidence in Alice. She was about to tell Alice about her book, not because Alice needed the comfort of her joy but because she herself, although unknowingly, needed Alice's ready sympathy of which she had no doubt. Her interview with Margaret had left the child hurt and bewildered and now she came to Alice. Alice did not rise and kiss her. Alice seldom kissed anybody but she radiated kindly welcome. "Sit down, little Annie," she said, "I am glad you have come. My aunt and cousin have gone to New York and I have been alone all day. We would have tea and cake but _I_ know the hour of your Medes and Persians' supper approaches instead of my later dinner." "Yes," said Annie, sitting down, "and if I were to take tea and cake now, Alice, I could eat nothing and grandmother and my aunts are very particular about my clearing my plate." Alice laughed, but she looked rather solicitously at the girl. "I know," she said, then she hesitated. She pitied little Annie Eustace and considered her rather a victim of loving but mistaken tyranny. "I wish," she said, "that you would stay and dine with me to-night." Annie fairly gasped. "They expect me at home," she replied. "I know, and I suppose if I were to send over and tell them you would dine with me, it would not answer." Annie looked frightened. "I fear not, Alice. You see they would have had no time to think it over and decide." "Yes, I suppose so." "I have time to make you a little call and stop at the post-office for the last mail and get home just in time for supper." "Oh, well, you must come and dine with me a week from to-day, and I will have a little dinner-party," said Alice. "I will invite some nice people. We will have Mr. von Rosen for one." Annie suddenly flushed crimson. It occurred to her that Mr. von Rosen might walk home with her as he had done from Margaret's, and a longing and terror at once possessed her. Alice wondered at the blush. "I was so sorry for poor Margaret last night," Annie said with an abrupt change of subject. "Yes," said Alice. "That poor Western girl, talented as she is, must have been oddly brought up to be so very rude to her hostess," said Annie. "I dare say Western girls are brought up differently," said Alice. Annie was so intent with what she had to tell Alice that she did not realise the extreme evasiveness of the other's manner. "Alice," she said. "Well, little Annie Eustace?" Annie began, blushed, then hesitated. "I am going to tell you something. I have told Margaret. I have just told her this afternoon. I thought it might please her and comfort her after that terrible scene at her dinner last night, but nobody else knows except the publishers." "What is it?" asked Alice, regarding Annie with a little smile. "Nothing, only I wrote _The Poor Lady_," said Annie. "My dear Annie, I knew it all the time," said Alice. Annie stared at her. "How?" "Well, you did not know it, but you did repeat in that book verbatim, ad literatim, a sentence, a very striking one, which occurred in one of your papers which you wrote for the Zenith Club. I noticed that sentence at the time. It was this: 'A rose has enough beauty and fragrance to enable it to give very freely and yet itself remain a rose. It is the case with many endowed natures but that is a fact which is not always understood.' My dear Annie, I knew that you wrote the book, for that identical sentence occurs in _The Poor Lady_ on page one hundred forty-two. You see I have fully considered the matter to remember the exact page. I knew the minute I read that sentence that my little Annie Eustace had written that successful anonymous book, and I was the more certain because I had always had my own opinion as to little Annie's literary ability based upon those same Zenith Club papers. You will remember that I have often told you that you should not waste your time writing club papers when you could do work like that." Annie looked alarmed. "Oh, Alice," she said, "do you think anybody else has remembered that sentence?" "My dear child, I am quite sure that not a blessed woman in that club has remembered that sentence," said Alice. "I had entirely forgotten." "Of course, you had." "It would be very unfortunate if it were remembered, because the publishers are so anxious that my name should not be known. You see, nobody ever heard of me and my name would hurt the sales and the poor publishers have worked so hard over the advertising, it would be dreadful to have the sales fall off. You really don't think anybody does remember?" "My dear," said Alice with her entirely good-natured, even amused and tolerant air of cynicism, "the women of the Zenith Club remember their own papers. You need not have the slightest fear. But Annie, you wonderful little girl, I am so glad you have come to me with this. I have been waiting for you to tell me, for I was impatient to tell you how delighted I am. You blessed child, I never was more glad at anything in my whole life. I am as proud as proud can be. I feel as if I had written that book myself, and better than written it myself. I have had none of the bother of the work and my friend had it and my friend has the fame and the glory and she goes around among us with her little halo hidden out of sight of everybody, except myself." "Margaret knows." Alice stiffened a little. "That is recent," she said, "and I have known all the time." "Margaret could not have remembered that sentence, I am sure," Annie said thoughtfully. "Poor Margaret, she was so upset by what happened last night that I am afraid the news did not cheer her up as much as I thought it would." "Well, you dear little soul," said Alice, "I am simply revelling in happiness and pride because of it, you may be sure of that." "But you have not had such an awful blow as poor Margaret had," said Annie. Then she brightened. "Oh Alice," she cried, "I wanted somebody who loved me to be glad." "You have not told your grandmother and aunts yet?" "I have not dared," replied Annie in a shamed fashion. "I know I deceived them and I think perhaps grandmother might find it hard not to tell. She is so old you know, and she does tell a great deal without meaning and Aunt Susan likes to tell news. I have not dared, Alice. The publishers have been so very insistent that nobody should know, but I had to tell you and Margaret." "It made no difference anyway about me," said Alice, "since I already knew." "Margaret can be trusted too, I am sure," Annie said quickly. "Of course." Annie looked at her watch. "I must go," she said, "or I shall be late. Isn't it really wonderful that I should write a successful book, Alice?" "You are rather wonderful, my dear," said Alice. Then she rose and put her arms around the slender white-clad figure and held her close, and gave her one of her infrequent kisses. "You precious little thing," she said, "the book is wonderful, but my Annie is more wonderful because she can be told so and never get the fact into her head. Here is your work, dear." An expression of dismay came over Annie's face. "Oh, dear," she said, "I have only embroidered half a daisy and what will Aunt Harriet say?" "You have embroidered a whole garden as nobody else can, if people only knew it," said Alice. "But Alice," said Annie ruefully, "my embroidery is really awful and I don't like to do it and the linen is so grimy that I am ashamed. Oh, dear, I shall have to face Aunt Harriet with that half daisy!" Alice laughed. "She can't kill you." "No, but I don't like to have her so disappointed." Alice kissed Annie again before she went, and watched the slight figure flitting down between the box-rows, with a little frown of perplexity. She wished that Annie had not told Margaret Edes about the book and yet she did not know why she wished so. She was very far from expecting the results. Alice was too noble herself to entertain suspicions of the ignobility of others. Certainty she was obliged to confront, as she had confronted the affair of the night before. It was, of course, the certainty that Margaret had been guilty of a disgraceful and treacherous deed which made her uneasy in a vague fashion now and yet she did not for one second dream of what was to occur at the next meeting of the Zenith Club. That was at Mrs. Sturtevant's and was the great affair of the year. It was called, to distinguish it from the others, "The Annual Meeting," and upon that occasion the husbands and men friends of the members were invited and the function was in the evening. Margaret had wished to have the club at her own house, before the affair of Martha Wallingford, but the annual occasions were regulated by the letters of the alphabet and it was incontrovertibly the turn of the letter S and Mrs. Sturtevant's right could not be questioned. During the time which elapsed before this meeting, Margaret Edes was more actively unhappy than she had ever been in her life and all her strong will could not keep the traces of that unhappiness from her face. Lines appeared. Her eyes looked large in dark hollows. Wilbur grew anxious about her. "You must go somewhere for a change," he said, "and I will get my cousin Marion to come here and keep house and look out for the children. You must not be bothered even with them. You need a complete rest and change." But Margaret met his anxiety with irritation. She felt as if some fatal fascination confined her in Fairbridge and especially did she feel that she must be present at the annual meeting. Margaret never for one minute formulated to herself why she had this fierce desire. She knew in a horrible way at the back of her brain, but she kept the knowledge covered as with a veil even from herself. She had a beautiful new gown made for the occasion. Since she had lost so much colour, she was doubtful of the wisdom of wearing her favourite white and gold, or black. She had a crepe of a peculiar shade of blue which suited her and she herself worked assiduously embroidering it in a darker shade which brought out the colour of her eyes. She looked quite herself when the evening came and Wilbur's face brightened as he looked at her in her trailing blue with a little diamond crescent fastening a tiny blue feather in her golden fluff of hair. "You certainly do look better," he said happily. "I am well, you old goose," said Margaret, fastening her long blue gloves. "You have simply been fussing over nothing as I told you." "Well, I hope I have. You do look stunning to-night," said Wilbur, gazing at her with a pride so intense that it was almost piteous in its self-abnegation. "Is that your stunt there on the table?" he inquired, pointing to a long envelope. Margaret laughed carefully, dimpling her cheeks. "Yes," she said, and Wilbur took the envelope and put it into his pocket. "I will carry it for you," he said. "By the way, what is your stunt, honey? Did you write something?" "Wait, until you hear," replied Margaret, and she laughed carefully again. She gathered up the train of her blue gown and turned upon him, her blue eyes glowing with a strange fire, feverish roses on her cheeks. "You are not to be surprised at anything to-night," she said and laughed again. She still had a laughing expression when they were seated in Mrs. Sturtevant's flower-scented drawing-room, a handsome room, thanks to the decorator, who was young and enthusiastic. Margaret had duly considered the colour scheme in her choice of a gown. The furniture was upholstered with a wisteria pattern, except a few chairs which were cane-seated, with silvered wood. Margaret had gone directly to one of these chairs. She was not sure of her gown being exactly the right shade of blue to harmonise with the wisteria at close quarters. The chair was tall and slender. Margaret's feet did not touch the floor, but the long blue trail of her gown concealed that, and she contrived to sit as if they did. She gave the impression of a tall creature of extreme grace as she sat propping her back against her silvered chair. Wilbur gazed at her with adoration. He had almost forgotten the affair of Martha Wallingford. He had excused his Margaret because she was a woman and he was profoundly ignorant of women's strange ambitions. Now, he regarded her with unqualified admiration. He looked from her to the other women and back again and was entirely convinced that she outshone them all as a sun a star. He looked at the envelope in her blue lap and was sure that she had written something which was infinitely superior to the work of any other woman there. Down in the depths of his masculine soul, Wilbur Edes had a sense of amused toleration when women's clubs were concerned, but he always took his Margaret seriously, and the Zenith Club on that account was that night an important and grave organisation. He wished very much to smoke and he was wedged into an uncomfortable corner with a young girl who insisted upon talking to him and was all the time nervously rearranging her hair, but he had a good view of his Margaret in her wonderful blue gown, in her silver chair, and he was consoled. "Have you read _The Poor Lady_?" asked spasmodically the girl, and drove in a slipping hair-pin at the same time. "I never read novels," replied Wilbur absently, "haven't much time you know." "Oh, I suppose not, but that is such a wonderful book and only think, nobody has the least idea who wrote it, and it does make it so interesting. I thought myself it was written by Wilbur Jack until I came to a sentence which I could quite understand and that put him out of the question. Of course, Wilbur Jack is such a great genius that no young girl like myself pretends to understand him, but that is why I worship him. I tell Mamma I think he is the ideal writer for young girls, so elevating. And then I thought _The Poor Lady_ might have been written by Mrs. Eudora Peasely because she is always so lucid and I came to a sentence which I could not understand at all. Oh, dear, I have thought of all the living writers as writing that book and have had to give it up, and of course the dead ones are out of the question." "Of course," said Wilbur gravely, and then his Margaret stood up and took some printed matter from an envelope and instantly the situation became strangely tense. Men and women turned eager faces; they could not have told why eager, but they were all conscious of something unusual in the atmosphere and every expression upon those expectant faces suddenly changed into one which made them as a listening unit. Then Margaret began. Chapter VII Wilbur Edes thought he had never seen his wife look as beautiful as she did standing there before them all with those fluttering leaves of paper in her hand. A breeze came in at an opposite window and Margaret's blue feather tossed in it; her yellow hair crisped and fluffed and the paper fluttered. Margaret stood for an appreciable second surveying them all with a most singular expression. It was compounded of honeyed sweetness, of triumph, and something else more subtle, the expression of a warrior entering battle and ready for death, yet terrible with defiance and the purpose of victory, and death for his foe. Then Margaret spoke and her thin silvery voice penetrated to every ear in the room. "Members of the Zenith Club and friends," said Margaret, "I take the opportunity offered me to-night to disclose a secret which is a source of much joy to myself, and which I am sure will be a source of joy to you also. I trust that since you are my friends and neighbours and associates in club work, you will acquit me of the charge of egotism and credit me with my whole motive, which is, I think, not an unworthy one coming to you in joy, as I would come in sorrow for your sympathy and understanding. I am about to read an extract from a book whose success has given me the most unqualified surprise and delight, knowing as I do that a reading by an author from her own work always increases the interest even though she may not be an able expositor by word of mouth of what she has written." Then Margaret read. She had chosen a short chapter which was in itself almost a complete little story. She read exceedingly well and without faltering. People listened with ever-growing amazement. Then Mrs. Jack Evarts whispered so audibly to a man at her side that she broke in upon Margaret's clear recitative. "Goodness, she's reading from that book that is selling so,--_The Poor Lady_--I remember every word of that chapter." Then while Margaret continued her reading imperturbably, the chorus of whispers increased. "That is from _The Poor Lady_, yes, it is. Did she write it? Why, of course, she did. She just said so. Isn't it wonderful that she has done such a thing?" Wilbur Edes sat with his eyes riveted upon his wife's face, his own gone quite pale, but upon it an expression of surprise and joy so intense that he looked almost foolish from such a revelation of his inner self. The young girl beside him drove hair pins frantically into her hair. She twisted up a lock which had strayed and fastened it. She looked alternately at Wilbur and Margaret. "Goodness gracious," said she, and did not trouble to whisper. "That is the next to the last chapter of _The Poor Lady_. And to think that your wife wrote it! Goodness gracious, and here she has been living right here in Fairbridge all the time and folks have been seeing her and talking to her and never knew! Did you know, Mr. Edes?" The young girl fixed her sharp pretty eyes upon Wilbur. "Never dreamed of it," he blurted out, "just as much surprised as any of you." "I don't believe I could have kept such a wonderful thing as that from my own husband," said the girl, who was unmarried, and had no lover. But Wilbur did not hear. All he heard was his beloved Margaret, who had secretly achieved fame for herself, reading on and on. He had not the slightest idea what she was reading. He had no interest whatever in that. All he cared for was the amazing fact that his wife, his wonderful, beautiful Margaret, had so covered herself with glory and honour. He had a slightly hurt feeling because she had not told him until this public revelation. He felt that his own private joy and pride as her husband should have been perhaps sacred and respected by her and yet possibly she was right. This public glory might have seemed to her the one which would the most appeal to him. He had, as he had said, not read the book, but he recalled with a sort of rapturous tenderness for Margaret how he had seen the posters all along the railroad as he commuted to the city, and along the elevated road. His face gazing at Margaret was as beautiful in its perfectly unselfish pride and affection, as a mother's. To think that his darling had done such a thing! He longed to be at home alone with her and say to her what he could not say before all these people. He thought of a very good reason why she had chosen this occasion to proclaim her authorship of the famous anonymous novel. She had been so humiliated, poor child, by the insufferable rudeness of that Western girl that she naturally wished to make good. And how modest and unselfish she had been to make the attempt to exalt another author when she herself was so much greater. Wilbur fully exonerated Margaret for what she did in the case of Martha Wallingford in the light of this revelation. His modest, generous, noble wife had honestly endeavoured to do the girl a favour, to assist her in spite of herself and she had received nothing save rudeness, ingratitude, and humiliation in return. Now, she was asserting herself. She was showing all Fairbridge that she was the one upon whom honour should be showered. She was showing him and rightfully. He remembered with compunction his severity toward her on account of the Martha Wallingford affair, his beautiful, gifted Margaret! Why, even then she might have electrified that woman's club by making the revelation which she had won to-night and reading this same selection from her own book. He had not read Martha Wallingford's _Hearts Astray_. He thought that the title was enough for him. He knew that it must be one of the womanish, hysterical, sentimental type of things which he despised. But Margaret had been so modest that she had held back from the turning on the search-light of her own greater glory. She had made the effort which had resulted so disastrously to obtain a lesser one, and he had condemned her. He knew that women always used circuitous ways toward their results, just as men used sledge-hammer ones. Why should a man criticise a woman's method any more than a woman criticise a man's? Wilbur, blushing like a girl with pride and delight, listened to his wife and fairly lashed himself. He was wholly unworthy of such a woman, he knew. When the reading was over and people crowded around Margaret and congratulated her, he stood aloof. He felt that he could not speak of this stupendous thing with her until they were alone. Then Doctor Sturtevant's great bulk pressed against him and his sonorous voice said in his ear, "By Jove, old man, your wife has drawn a lucky number. Congratulations." Wilbur gulped as he thanked him. Then Sturtevant went on talking about a matter which was rather dear to Wilbur's own ambition and which he knew had been tentatively discussed: the advisability of his running for State Senator in the autumn. Wilbur knew it would be a good thing for him professionally, and at the bottom of his heart he knew that his wife's success had been the last push toward his own. Other men came in and began talking, leading from his wife's success toward his own, until Wilbur realised himself as dazzled. He did not notice what Von Rosen noticed, because he had kept his attention upon the girl, that Annie Eustace had turned deadly pale when Margaret had begun her reading and that Alice Mendon who was seated beside her had slipped an arm around her and quietly and unobtrusively led her out of the room. Von Rosen thought that Miss Eustace must have turned faint because of the heat, and was conscious of a distinct anxiety and disappointment. He had, without directly acknowledging it to himself, counted upon walking home with Annie Eustace, but yet he hoped that she might return, that she had not left the home. When the refreshments were served, he looked for her, but Annie was long since at Alice Mendon's house in her room. Alice had hurried her there in her carriage. "Come home with me, dear," she had whispered, "and we can have a talk together. Your people won't expect you yet." Therefore, while Karl von Rosen, who had gone to this annual meeting of the Zenith Club for the sole purpose of walking home with Annie, waited, the girl sat in a sort of dumb and speechless state in Alice Mendon's room. It seemed to her like a bad dream. Alice herself stormed. She had a high temper, but seldom gave way to it. Now she did. There was something about this which roused her utmost powers of indignation. "It is simply an outrage," declared Alice, marching up and down the large room, her rich white gown trailing behind her, her chin high. "I did not think her capable of it. It is the worst form of thievery in the world, stealing the work of another's brain. It is inconceivable that Margaret Edes could have done such a preposterous thing. I never liked her. I don't care if I do admit it, but I never thought she was capable of such an utterly ignoble deed. It was all that I could do to master myself, not to stand up before them all and denounce her. Well, her time will come." "Alice," said a ghastly little voice from the stricken figure on the couch, "are you sure? Am I sure? Was that from my book?" "Of course it was from your book. Why, you know it was from your book, Annie Eustace," cried Alice and her voice sounded high with anger toward poor Annie herself. "I hoped that we might be mistaken after all," said the voice, which had a bewildered quality. Annie Eustace had a nature which could not readily grasp some of the evil of humanity. She was in reality dazed before this. She was ready to believe an untruth rather than the incredible truth. But Alice Mendon was merciless. She resolved that Annie should know once for all. "We are neither of us mistaken," she said. "Margaret Edes read a chapter from your book, _The Poor Lady_, and without stating in so many words that she was the author, she did what was worse. She made everybody think so. Annie, she is bad, bad, bad. Call the spade a spade and face it. See how black it is. Margaret Edes has stolen from you your best treasure." "I don't care for that so much," said Annie Eustace, "but--I loved her, Alice." "Then," said Alice, "she has stolen more than your book. She has stolen the light by which you wrote it. It is something hideous, hideous." Annie gave a queer little dry sob. "Margaret could not have done it," she moaned. Alice crossed swiftly to her and knelt beside her. "Darling," she said, "you must face it. It is better. I do not say so because I do not personally like Margaret Edes, but you must have courage and face it." "I have not courage enough," said Annie and she felt that she had not, for it was one of the awful tasks of the world which was before her: The viewing the mutilated face of love itself. "You must," said Alice. She put an arm around the slight figure and drew the fair head to her broad bosom, her maternal bosom, which served her friends in good stead, since it did not pillow the heads of children. Friends in distress are as children to the women of her type. "Darling," she said in her stately voice from which the anger had quite gone. "Darling, you must face it. Margaret did read that chapter from your book and she told, or as good as told everybody that she had written it." Then Annie sobbed outright and the tears came. "Oh," she cried, "Oh, Alice, how she must want success to do anything like that, poor, poor Margaret! Oh, Alice!" "How she must love herself," said Alice firmly. "Annie, you must face it. Margaret is a self-lover; her whole heart turns in love toward her own self, instead of toward those whom she should love and who love her. Annie, Margaret is bad, bad, with a strange degenerate badness. She dates back to the sins of the First Garden. You must turn your back upon her. You must not love her any more." "No, I must not love her any more," agreed Annie, "and that is the pity of it. I must not love her, Alice, but I must pity her until I die. Poor Margaret!" "Poor Annie," said Alice. "You worked so hard over that book, dear, and you were so pleased. Annie, what shall you do about it?" Annie raised her head from Alice's bosom and sat up straight, with a look of terror. "Alice," she cried, "I must go to-morrow and see my publishers. I must go down on my knees to them if necessary." "Do you mean," asked Alice slowly, "never to tell?" "Oh, never, never, never!" cried Annie. "I doubt," said Alice, "if you can keep such a matter secret. I doubt if your publishers will consent." "They must. I will never have it known! Poor Margaret!" "I don't pity her at all," said Alice. "I do pity her husband who worships her, and there is talk of his running for State Senator and this would ruin him. And I am sorry for the children." "Nobody shall ever know," said Annie. "But how can you manage with the publishers?" "I don't know. I will." "And you will have written that really wonderful book and never have the credit for it. You will live here and see Margaret Edes praised for what you have done." "Poor Margaret," said Annie. "I must go now. I know I can trust you never to speak." "Of course, but I do not think it right." "I don't care whether it is right or not," said Annie. "It must never be known." "You are better than I am," said Alice as she rang the bell, which was presently answered. "Peter has gone home for the night, Marie said," Alice told Annie, "but Marie and I will walk home with you." "Alice, it is only a step." "I know, but it is late." "It is not much after ten, and--I would rather go alone, if you don't mind, Alice. I want to get settled a little before Aunt Harriet sees me. I can do it better alone." Alice laughed. "Well," she said, "Marie and I will stand on the front porch until you are out of sight from there and then we will go to the front gate. We can see nearly to your house and we can hear if you call." It was a beautiful night. The moon was high in a sky which was perceptibly blue. In the west was still a faint glow, which was like a memory of a cowslip sunset. The street and the white house-front were plumy with soft tree shadows wavering in a gentle wind. Annie was glad when she was alone in the night. She needed a moment for solitariness and readjustment since one of the strongest readjustments on earth faced her--the realisation that what she had loved was not. She did not walk rapidly but lingered along the road. She was thankful that neither of her aunts had been to the annual meeting. She would not need to account for her time so closely. Suddenly she heard a voice, quite a loud voice, a man's, with a music of gladness in it. Annie knew instinctively whose it was, and she stepped quickly upon a lawn and stood behind a clump of trees. A man and woman passed her--Margaret Edes and her husband--and Wilbur was saying in his glad, loving voice, "To think you should have done such a thing, Margaret, my dear, you will never know how proud I am of you." Annie heard Margaret's voice in a whisper hushing Wilbur. "You speak so loud, dear," said Margaret, "everybody will hear you." "I don't care if they do," said Wilbur. "I should like to proclaim it from the housetops." Then they passed and the rose scent of Margaret's garments was in Annie's face. She was glad that Margaret had hushed her husband. She argued that it proved some little sense of shame, but oh, when all alone with her own husband, she had made no disclaimer. Annie came out from her hiding and went on. The Edes ahead of her melted into the shadows but she could still hear Wilbur's glad voice. The gladness in it made her pity Margaret more. She thought how horrible it must be to deceive love like that, to hear that joyful tone, and know it all undeserved. Then suddenly she heard footsteps behind and walked to one side to allow whoever it was to pass, but a man's voice said: "Good evening, Miss Eustace," and Von Rosen had joined her. He had in truth been waiting like any village beau near Alice Mendon's house for the chance of her emerging alone. Annie felt annoyed, and yet her heart beat strangely. "Good evening, Mr. von Rosen," she said and still lingered as if to allow him to pass, but he slowed his own pace and sauntered by her side. "A fine evening," he remarked tritely. "Very," agreed Annie. "I saw you at the evening club," said Von Rosen presently. "Yes," said Annie, "I was there." "You left early." "Yes, I left quite early with Alice. I have been with her since." Annie wondered if Mr. von Rosen suspected anything but his next words convinced her that he did not. "I suppose that you were as much surprised as the rest of us, although you are her intimate friend, at Mrs. Edes' announcement concerning the authorship of that successful novel," said he. "Yes," said Annie faintly. "Of course you had no idea that she had written it?" "No." "Have you read it?" "Yes." "What do you think of it? I almost never read novels but I suppose I must tackle that one. Did you like it?" "Quite well," said Annie. "Tell me what is it all about?" Annie could endure no more. "It will spoil the book for you if I tell you, Mr. von Rosen," said she, and her voice was at once firm and piteous. She could not tell the story of her own book to him. She would be as deceitful as poor Margaret, for all the time he would think she was talking of Margaret's work and not of her own. Von Rosen laughed. After all he cared very little indeed about the book. He had what he cared for: a walk home with this very sweet and very natural girl, who did not seem to care whether he walked home with her or not. "I dare say you are right," he said, "but I doubt if your telling me about it would spoil the book for me, because it is more than probable that I shall never read it after all. I may if it comes in my way because I was somewhat surprised. I had never thought of Mrs. Edes as that sort of person. However, so many novels are written nowadays, and some mighty queer ones are successful that I presume I should not be surprised. Anybody in Fairbridge might be the author of a successful novel. You might, Miss Eustace, for all I know." Annie said nothing. "Perhaps you are," said Von Rosen. He had not the least idea of the thinness of the ice. Annie trembled. Her truthfulness was as her life. She hated even evasions. Luckily Von Rosen was so far from suspicion that he did not wait for an answer. "Mrs. Edes reads well," he said. "Very well indeed," returned Annie eagerly. "I suppose an author can read more understandingly from her own work," said Von Rosen. "Don't you think so, Miss Eustace?" "I think she might," said Annie. "I don't know but I shall read that book after all," said Von Rosen. "I rather liked that extract she gave us. It struck me as out of the common run of women's books. I beg your pardon, Miss Eustace. If you were a writer yourself I could not speak so, but you are not, and you must know as well as I do, that many of the books written by women are simply sloughs of oversweetened sentiment, and of entirely innocent immorality. But that chapter did not sound as if it could belong to such a book. It sounded altogether too logical for the average woman writer. I think I will read it. Then after I have read it, you will not refuse to discuss it with me, will you?" "I do not think so," replied Annie tremulously. Would he never talk of anything except that book? To her relief he did, to her relief and scarcely acknowledged delight. "Are you interested in curios, things from Egyptian tombs, for instance?" he inquired with brutal masculine disregard of sequence. Annie was bewildered, but she managed to reply that she thought she might be. She had heard of Von Rosen's very interesting collection. "I happened to meet your aunt, Miss Harriet, this afternoon," said Von Rosen, "and I inquired if she were by any chance interested and she said she was." "Yes," said Annie. She had never before dreamed that her Aunt Harriet was in the least interested in Egyptian tombs. "I ventured to ask if she and her sister, Miss Susan, and you also, if you cared to see it, would come some afternoon and look at my collection," said Von Rosen. Nobody could have dreamed from his casual tone how carefully he had planned it all out: the visit of Annie and her aunts, the delicate little tea served in the study, the possible little stroll with Annie in his garden. Von Rosen knew that one of the aunts, Miss Harriet, was afflicted with rose cold, and therefore, would probably not accept his invitation to view his rose-garden, and he also knew that it was improbable that both sisters would leave their aged mother. It was, of course, a toss-up as to whether Miss Harriet or Miss Susan would come. It was also a toss-up as to whether or not they might both come, and leave little Annie as companion for the old lady. In fact, he had to admit to himself that the latter contingency was the more probable. He was well accustomed to being appropriated by elder ladies, with the evident understanding that he preferred them. He would simply have to make the best of it and show his collection as gracefully as possible and leave out the rose-garden and the delicious little tête-à-tête with this young rose of a girl and think of something else. For Karl von Rosen in these days was accustoming himself to a strange visage in his own mental looking-glass. He had not altered his attitude toward women but toward one woman, and that one was now sauntering beside him in the summer moonlight, her fluffy white garments now and then blowing across his sober garb. He was conscious of holding himself in a very tight rein. He wondered how long men were usually about their love-making. He wished to make love that very instant, but he feared lest the girl might be lost by such impetuosity. In all likelihood, the thought of love in connection with himself had never entered her mind. Why should it? Karl in love was very modest and saw himself as a very insignificant figure. Probably this flower-like young creature had never thought of love at all. She had lived her sweet simple village life. She had obeyed her grandmother and her aunts, done her household tasks and embroidered. He remembered the grimy bit of linen which he had picked up and he could not see the very slightest connection between that sort of thing and love and romance. Of course, she had read a few love stories and the reasoning by analogy develops in all minds. She might have built a few timid air castles for herself upon the foundations of the love stories in fiction, and this brought him around to the fatal subject again almost inevitably. "Do you know, Miss Eustace," he said, "that I am wishing a very queer thing about you?" "What, Mr. von Rosen?" "I am wishing, you know that I would not esteem you more highly, it is not that, but I am wishing that you also had written a book, a really good sort of love story, novel, you know." Annie gasped. "I don't mean because Mrs. Edes wrote _The Poor Lady_. It is not that. I am quite sure that you could have written a book every whit as good as hers but what I do mean is--I feel that a woman writer if she writes the best sort of book must obtain a certain insight concerning human nature which requires a long time for most women." Von Rosen was rather mixed, but Annie did not grasp it. She was very glad that they were nearing her own home. She could not endure much more. "Is _The Poor Lady_ a love story?" inquired Von Rosen. "There is a little love in it," replied Annie faintly. "I shall certainly read it," said Von Rosen. He shook hands with Annie at her gate and wanted to kiss her. She looked up in his face like an adorably timid, trustful little child and it seemed almost his duty to kiss her, but he did not. He said good-night and again mentioned his collection of curios. "I hope you will feel inclined to come and see them," he said, "with--your aunts." "Thank you," replied Annie, "I shall be very glad to come, if both Aunt Harriet and Aunt Susan do not. That would of course oblige me to stay with grandmother." "Of course," assented Von Rosen, but he said inwardly, "Hang Grandmother." In his inmost self, Von Rosen was not a model clergyman. He, however, had no reason whatever to hang grandmother, but quite the reverse, although he did not so conclude, as he considered the matter on his way home. It seemed to him that this darling of a girl was fairly hedged in by a barbed wire fence of feminine relatives. He passed the Edes' house on his way and saw that a number of the upper windows were still lighted. He even heard a masculine voice pitched on a high cadence of joy and triumph. He smiled a little scornfully. "He thinks his wife is the most wonderful woman in the world," he told himself, "and I dare say that a novel is simply like an over-sweetened ice-cream, with an after taste of pepper, out of sheer deviltry." Had he known it, Margaret Edes herself was tasting pepper, mustard and all the fierce condiments known, in her very soul. It was a singular thing that Margaret had been obliged to commit an ignoble deed in order to render her soul capable of tasting to the full, but she had been so constituted. As Karl von Rosen passed that night, she was sitting in her room, clad in her white silk negligee and looking adorable, and her husband was fairly on his knees before her, worshipping her, and she was suffering after a fashion hitherto wholly uncomprehended by her. Margaret had never known that she could possibly be to blame for anything, that she could sit in judgment upon herself. Now she knew it and the knowledge brought a torture which had been unimaginable by her. She strove not to make her shrinking from her husband and his exultation--her terrified shrinking--evident. "Oh, Margaret, you are simply wonderful beyond words," said Wilbur, gazing up into her face. "I always knew you were wonderful, of course, darling, but this! Why, Margaret, you have gained an international reputation from that one book! And the reviews have been unanimous, almost unanimous in their praise. I have not read it, dear. I am so ashamed of myself, but you know I never read novels, but I am going to read my Margaret's novel. Oh, my dear, my wonderful, wonderful dear!" Wilbur almost sobbed. "Do you know what it may do for me, too?" he said. "Do you know, Margaret, it may mean my election as Senator. One can never tell what may sway popular opinion. Once, if anybody had told me that I might be elected to office and my election might possibly be due to the fact that my wife had distinguished myself, I should have been humbled to the dust. But I cannot be humbled by any success which may result from your success. I did not know my wonderful Margaret then." Wilbur kissed his wife's hands. He was almost ridiculous, but it was horribly tragic for Margaret. She longed as she had never longed for anything in her life, for the power to scream, to shout in his ears the truth, but she could not. She was bound hard and fast in the bands of her own falsehood. She could not so disgrace her husband, her children. Why had she not thought of them before? She had thought only of herself and her own glory, and that glory had turned to stinging bitterness upon her soul. She was tasting the bitterest medicine which life and the whole world contains. And at the same time, it was not remorse that she felt. That would have been easier. What she endured was self-knowledge. The reflection of one's own character under unbiased cross-lights is a hideous thing for a self-lover. She was thinking, while she listened to Wilbur's rhapsodies. Finally she scarcely heard him. Then her attention was suddenly keenly fixed. There were horrible complications about this which she had not considered. Margaret's mind had no business turn. She had not for a moment thought of the financial aspect of the whole. Wilbur was different. What he was now saying was very noble, but very disconcerting. "Of course, I know, darling, that all this means a pile of money, but one thing you must remember: it is for yourself alone. Not one penny of it will I ever touch and more than that it is not to interfere in the least with my expenditures for you, my wife, and the children. Everything of that sort goes on as before. You have the same allowance for yourself and the children as before. Whatever comes from your book is your own to do with as you choose. I do not even wish you to ask my advice about the disposal of it." Margaret was quite pale as she looked at him. She remembered now the sum which Annie had told her she was to receive. She made no disclaimer. Her lips felt stiff. While Wilbur wished for no disclaimer, she could yet see that he was a little surprised at receiving none, but she could not speak. She merely gazed at him in a helpless sort of fashion. The grapes which hung over her friend's garden wall were not very simple. They were much beside grapes. Wilbur returned her look pityingly. "Poor girl," he said, kissing her hands again; "she is all tired out and I must let her go to bed. Standing on a pedestal is rather tiresome, if it is gratifying, isn't it, sweetheart?" "Yes," said Margaret, with a weary sigh from her heart. How little the poor man knew of the awful torture of standing upon the pedestal of another, and at the same time holding before one's eyes that looking-glass with all the cross-lights of existence full upon it! Margaret went to bed, but she could not sleep. All night long she revolved the problem of how she should settle the matter with Annie Eustace. She did not for a second fear Annie's betrayal, but there was that matter of the publishers. Would they be content to allow matters to rest? The next morning Margaret endeavoured to get Annie on the telephone but found that she had gone to New York. Annie's Aunt Harriet replied. She herself had sent the girl on several errands. Margaret could only wait. She feared lest Annie might not return before Wilbur and in such a case she could not discuss matters with her before the next day. Margaret had a horrible time during the next six hours. The mail was full of letters of congratulation. A local reporter called to interview her. She sent word that she was out, but he was certain that he had seen her. The children heard the news and pestered her with inquiries about her book and wondering looks at her. Callers came in the afternoon and it was all about her book. Nobody could know how relieved she was after hearing the four-thirty train, to see little Annie Eustace coming through her gate. Annie stood before her stiffly. The day was very warm and the girl looked tired and heated. "No, thank you," she said, "I can not sit down. I only stopped to tell you that I have arranged with the publishers. They will keep the secret. I shall have rather a hard task arranging about the checks, because I fear it will involve a little deceit and I do not like deceit." Annie, as she spoke, looked straight at Margaret and there was something terrible in that clear look of unsoiled truth. Margaret put out a detaining hand. "Sit down for a minute, please," she said cringingly. "I want to explain?" "There is nothing whatever to explain," replied Annie. "I heard." "Can you ever forgive me?" "I do not think," said Annie, "that this is an ordinary offence about which to talk of forgiveness. I do pity you, Margaret, for I realise how dreadfully you must have wanted what did not belong to you." Margaret winced. "Well, if it is any satisfaction to you, I am realising nothing but misery from it," she said in a low voice. "I don't see how you can help that," replied Annie simply. Then she went away. It proved Margaret's unflinching trust in the girl and Annie's recognition of no possibility except that trust, that no request nor promise as to secrecy had been made. Annie, after she got home, almost forgot the whole for a time, since her Aunt Harriet, and Aunt Harriet was the sister who was subject to rose-colds, announced her determination to call at Mr. von Rosen's the next afternoon with Annie and see his famous collection. "Of course," said she, "the invitation was meant particularly for me, since I am one of his parishioners, and I think it will be improving to you, Annie, to view antiquities." "Yes, Aunt Harriet," said Annie. She was wondering if she would be allowed to wear her pale blue muslin and the turquoise necklace which was a relic of her grandmother's girlhood. Aunt Susan sniffed delicately. "I will stay with Mother," she said with a virtuous air. The old lady, stately in her black satin, with white diamonds gleaming on her veinous hands, glanced acutely at them. The next day, when her daughter Harriet insisted that the cross barred muslin was not too spoiled to wear to the inspection of curios, she declared that it was simply filthy, and that Annie must wear her blue, and that the little string of turquoise beads was not in the least too dressy for the occasion. It therefore happened that Annie and her Aunt Harriet set forth at three o'clock in the afternoon, Annie in blue, and her aunt in thin black grenadine with a glitter of jet and a little black bonnet with a straight tuft of green rising from a little wobble of jet, and a black-fringed parasol tilted well over her eyes. Annie's charming little face was framed in a background of white parasol. Margaret saw them pass as she sat on her verandah. She had received more congratulatory letters that day, and the thief envied the one from whom she had taken. Annie bowed to Margaret, and her Aunt Harriet said something about the heat, in a high shrill voice. "She is a wonderful woman, to have written that successful novel," said Aunt Harriet, "and I am going to write her a congratulatory note, now you have bought that stationery at Tiffany's. I feel that such a subject demands special paper. She is a wonderful woman and her family have every reason to be proud of her." "Yes," said Annie. "It is rather odd, and I have often thought so," said Aunt Harriet, moving alongside with stately sweeps of black skirts, "that you have shown absolutely no literary taste. As you know, I have often written poetry, of course not for publication, and my friends have been so good as to admire it." "Yes, Aunt Harriet," said Annie. "I realise that you have never appreciated my poems," said Aunt Harriet tartly. "I don't think I understand poetry very well," little Annie said with meekness. "It does require a peculiar order of mind, and you have never seemed to me in the least poetical or imaginative," said her aunt in an appeased voice. "For instance, I could not imagine your writing a book like Mrs. Edes, and _The Poor Lady_ was anonymous, and anybody might have written it as far as one knew. But I should never have imagined her for a moment as capable of doing it." "No," said Annie. Then they had come to the parsonage and Jane Riggs, as rigid as starched linen could make a human being, admitted them, and presently after a little desultory conversation, the collection, which was really a carefully made one, and exceedingly good and interesting, was being displayed. Then came the charming little tea which Von Rosen had planned; then the suggestion with regard to the rose-garden and Aunt Harriet's terrified refusal, knowing as she knew the agony of sneezes and sniffs sure to follow its acceptance; and then Annie, a vision in blue, was walking among the roses with Von Rosen and both were saying things which they never could remember afterward--about things in which neither had the very slightest interest. It was only when they had reached the end of the pergola, trained over with climbers, and the two were seated on a rustic bench therein, that the conversation to be remembered began. Chapter VIII The conversation began, paradoxically, with a silence. Otherwise, it would have begun with platitudes. Since neither Von Rosen nor Annie Eustace were given usually to platitudes, the silence was unavoidable. Both instinctively dreaded with a pleasurable dread the shock of speech. In a way this was the first time the two had been alone with any chance of a seclusion protracted beyond a very few minutes. In the house was Aunt Harriet Eustace, who feared a rose, as she might have feared the plague, and, moreover, as Annie comfortably knew, had imparted the knowledge to Von Rosen as they had walked down the pergola, that she would immediately fall asleep. "Aunt Harriet always goes to sleep in her chair after a cup of tea," Annie had said and had then blushed redly. "Does she?" asked Von Rosen with apparent absent-mindedness but in reality, keenly. He excused himself for a moment, left Annie standing in the pergola and hurried back to the house, where he interviewed Jane Riggs, and told her not to make any noise, as Miss Eustace in the library would probably fall asleep, as was her wont after a cup of tea. Jane Riggs assented, but she looked after him with a long, slow look. Then she nodded her head stiffly and went on washing cups and saucers quietly. She spoke only one short sentence to herself. "He's a man and it's got to be somebody. Better be her than anybody else." When the two at the end of the pergola began talking, it was strangely enough about the affair of the Syrian girl. "I suppose, have always supposed, that the poor young thing's husband came and stole his little son," said Von Rosen. "You would have adopted him?" asked Annie in a shy voice. "I think I would not have known any other course to take," replied Von Rosen. "It was very good of you," Annie said. She cast a little glance of admiration at him. Von Rosen laughed. "It is not goodness which counts to one's credit when one is simply chucked into it by Providence," he returned. Annie laughed. "To think of your speaking of Providence as 'chucking.'" "It is rather awful," admitted Von Rosen, "but somehow I never do feel as if I need be quite as straight-laced with you." "Mr. von Rosen, you have talked with me exactly twice, and I am at a loss as to whether I should consider that remark of yours as a compliment or not." "I meant it for one," said Von Rosen earnestly. "I should not have used that expression. What I meant was I felt that I could be myself with you, and not weigh words or split hairs. A clergyman has to do a lot of that, you know, Miss Eustace, and sometimes (perhaps all the time) he hates it; it makes him feel like a hypocrite." "Then it is all right," said Annie rather vaguely. She gazed up at the weave of leaves and blossoms, then down at the wavering carpet of their shadows. "It is lovely here," she said. The young man looked at the slender young creature in the blue gown and smiled with utter content. "It is very odd," he said, "but nothing except blue and that particular shade of blue would have harmonised." "I should have said green or pink." "They would surely have clashed. If you can't melt into nature, it is much safer to try for a discord. You are much surer to chord. That blue does chord, and I doubt if a green would not have been a sort of swear word in colour here." "I am glad you like it," said Annie like a school girl. She felt very much like one. "I like you," Von Rosen said abruptly. Annie said nothing. She sat very still. "No, I don't like you. I love you," said Von Rosen. "How can you? You have talked with me only twice." "That makes no difference with me. Does it with you?" "No," said Annie, "but I am not at all sure about--" "About what, dear?" "About what my aunts and grandmother will say." "Do you think they will object to me?" "No-o." "What is it makes you doubtful? I have a little fortune of my own. I have an income besides my salary. I can take care of you. They can trust you to me." Annie looked at him with a quick flush of resentment. "As if I would even think of such a thing as that!" "What then?" "You will laugh, but grandmother is very old, although she sits up so straight, and she depends on me, and--" "And what?" "If I married you, I could not, of course, play pinocle with grandmother on Sunday." "Oh, yes, you could. I most certainly should not object." "Then that makes it hopeless." Von Rosen looked at her in perplexity. "I am afraid I don't understand you, dear little soul." "No, you do not. You see, grandmother is in reality very good, almost too good to live, and thinking she is being a little wicked playing pinocle on Sunday when Aunt Harriet and Aunt Susan don't know it, sort of keeps her going. I don't just know why myself, but I am sure of it. Now the minute she was sure that you, who are the minister, did not object, she would not care a bit about pinocle and it would hurt her." Annie looked inconceivably young. She knitted her candid brows and stared at him with round eyes of perplexity. Karl von Rosen shouted with laughter. "Oh, well, if that is all," he said, "I object strenuously to your playing pinocle with your grandmother on Sunday. The only way you can manage will be to play hookey from church." "I need not do that always," said Annie. "My aunts take naps Sunday afternoons, but I am sure grandmother could keep awake if she thought she could be wicked." "Well, you can either play hookey from church, or run away Sunday afternoons, or if you prefer and she is able, I will drive your grandmother over here and you can play pinocle in my study." "Then I do think she will live to be a hundred," said Annie with a peal of laughter. "Stop laughing and kiss me," said Von Rosen. "I seldom kiss anybody." "That is the reason." When Annie looked up from her lover's shoulder, a pair of topaz eyes were mysteriously regarding her. "The cat never saw me kiss anybody," said Von Rosen. "Do you think the cat knows?" asked Annie, blushing and moving away a little. "Who knows what any animal knows or does not know?" replied Von Rosen. "When we discover that mystery, we may have found the key to existence." Then the cat sprang into Annie's blue lap and she stroked his yellow back and looked at Von Rosen with eyes suddenly reflective, rather coolly. "After all, I, nor nobody else, ever heard of such a thing as this," said she. "Do you mean that you consider this an engagement?" she asked in astonishment. "I most certainly do." "After we have only really seen and talked to each other twice!" "It has been all our lives and we have just found it out," said Von Rosen. "Of course, it is unusual, but who cares? Do you?" "No, I don't," said Annie. They leaned together over the yellow cat and kissed each other. [Illustration: They leaned together over the yellow cat and kissed each other] "But what an absurd minister's wife I shall be," said Annie. "To think of your marrying a girl who has staid at home from church and played cards with her grandmother!" "I am not at all sure," said Von Rosen, "that you do not get more benefit, more spiritual benefit, than you would have done from my sermons." "I think," said Annie, "that you are just about as funny a minister as I shall be a minister's wife." "I never thought I should be married at all." "Why not?" "I did not care for women." "Then why do you now?" "Because you are a woman." Then there was a sudden movement in front of them. The leaf-shadows flickered; the cat jumped down from Annie's lap and ran away, his great yellow plume of tail waving angrily, and Margaret Edes stood before them. She was faultlessly dressed as usual. A woman of her type cannot be changed utterly by force of circumstances in a short time. Her hat was loaded with wisteria. She wore a wisteria gown of soft wool. She held up her skirts daintily. A great amethyst gleamed at her throat, but her face, wearing a smile like a painted one, was dreadful. It was inconceivable, but Margaret Edes had actually in view the banality of confessing her sin to her minister. Of course, Annie was the one who divined her purpose. Von Rosen was simply bewildered. He rose, and stood with an air of polite attention. "Margaret," cried Annie, "Margaret!" The man thought that his sweetheart was simply embarrassed, because of discovery. He did not understand why she bade him peremptorily to please go in the house and see if Aunt Harriet were awake, that she wished to speak to Mrs. Edes. He, however, went as bidden, already discovering that man is as a child to a woman when she is really in earnest. When he was quite out of hearing, Annie turned upon her friend. "Margaret," she said, "Margaret, you must not." Margaret turned her desperate eyes upon Annie. "I did not know it would be like this," she said. "You must not tell him." "I must." "You must not, and all the more now." "Why, now?" "I am going to marry him." "Then he ought to know." "Then he ought not to know, for you have drawn me into your web of deceit also. He has talked to me about you and the book. I have not betrayed you. You cannot betray me." "It will kill me. I did not know it would be like this. I never blamed myself for anything before." "It will not kill you, and if it does, you must bear it. You must not do your husband and children such an awful harm." "Wilbur is nominated for Senator. He would have to give it up. He would go away from Fairbridge. He is very proud," said Margaret in a breathless voice, "but I must tell." "You cannot tell." "The children talk of it all the time. They look at me so. They wonder because they think I have written that book. They tell all the other children. Annie, I must confess to somebody. I did not know it would be like this." "You cannot confess to anybody except God," said Annie. "I cannot tell my husband. I cannot tell poor Wilbur, but I thought Mr. von Rosen would tell him." "You can not tell Mr. von Rosen. You have done an awful wrong, and now you can not escape the fact that you have done it. You cannot get away from it." "You are so hard." "No, I am not hard," said Annie. "I did not betray you there before them all, and neither did Alice." "Did Alice Mendon know?" asked Margaret in an awful voice. "Yes, I had told Alice. She was so hurt for me that I think she might have told." "Then she may tell now. I will go to her." "She will not tell now. And I am not hard. It is you who are hard upon yourself and that nobody, least of all I, can help. You will have to know this dreadful thing of yourself all your life and you can never stop blaming yourself. There is no way out of it. You can not ruin your husband. You can not ruin your children's future and you cannot, after the wrong you have done me, put me in the wrong, as you would do if you told. By telling the truth, you would put me to the lie, when I kept silence for your sake and the sakes of your husband and children." "I did not know it would be like this," said Margaret in her desperate voice. "I had done nothing worth doing all my life and the hunger to do something had tormented me. It seemed easy, I did not know how I could blame myself. I have always thought so well of myself; I did not know. Annie, for God's sake, let me tell. You can't know how keenly I suffer, Annie. Let me tell Mr. von Rosen. People always tell ministers. Even if he does not tell Wilbur, but perhaps he can tell him and soften it, it would be a relief. People always tell ministers, Annie." It seemed improbable that Margaret Edes in her wisteria costume could be speaking. Annie regarded her with almost horror. She pitied her, yet she could not understand. Margaret had done something of which she herself was absolutely incapable. She had the right to throw the stone. She looked at a sinner whose sin was beyond her comprehension. She pitied the evident signs of distress, but her pity, although devoid of anger, was, in spite of herself, coldly wondering. Moreover, Margaret had been guilty in the eyes of the girl of a much worse sin than the mere thievery of her book; she had murdered love. Annie had loved Margaret greatly. No, she loved her no longer, since the older woman had actually blasphemed against the goddess whom the girl had shrined. Had Margaret stolen from another, it would have made no difference. The mere act had destroyed herself as an image of love. Annie, especially now that she was so happy, cared nothing for the glory of which she had been deprived. She had, in truth, never had much hunger for fame, especially for herself. She did not care when she thought how pleased her lover would have been and her relatives, but already the plan for another book was in her brain, for the child was a creator, and no blow like this had any lasting power over her work. What she considered was Margaret's revelation of herself as something else than Margaret, and what she did resent bitterly was being forced into deception in order to shield her. She was in fact hard, although she did not know it. Her usually gentle nature had become like adamant before this. She felt unlike herself as she said bitterly: "People do not always tell ministers, and you cannot tell Mr. von Rosen, Margaret. I forbid it. Go home and keep still." "I cannot bear it." "You must bear it." "They are going to give me a dinner, the Zenith Club," said Margaret. "You will have to accept it." "I cannot, Annie Eustace, of what do you think me capable? I am not as bad as you think. I cannot and will not accept that dinner and make the speech which they will expect and hear all the congratulations which they will offer. I cannot." "You must accept the dinner, but I don't see that you need make the speech," said Annie, who was herself aghast over such extremity of torture. "I will not," said Margaret. She was very pale and her lips were a tight line. Her eyes were opaque and lustreless. She was in reality suffering what a less egotistical nature could not even imagine. All her life had Margaret Edes worshipped and loved Margaret Edes. Now she had done an awful thing. The falling from the pedestal of a friend is nothing to hurling oneself from one's height of self-esteem and that she had done. She stood, as it were, over the horrible body of her once beautiful and adored self. She was not actually remorseful and that made it all the worse. She simply could not evade the dreadful glare of light upon her own imperfections; she who had always thought of herself as perfect, but the glare of knowledge came mostly from her appreciation of the attitude of her friends and lovers toward what she had done. Suppose she went home and told Wilbur. Suppose she said, "I did not write that book. My friend, Annie Eustace, wrote it. I am a thief, and worse than a thief." She knew just how he would look at her, his wife, his Margaret, who had never done wrong in his eyes. For the first time in her life she was afraid, and yet how could she live and bear such torture and not confess? Confession would be like a person ill unto death, giving up, and seeking the peace of a sick chamber and the rest of bed and the care of a physician. She had come to feel like that and yet, confession would be like a fiery torture. Margaret had in some almost insane fashion come to feel that she might confess to a minister, a man of God, and ease her soul, without more. And she had never been religious, and would have formerly smiled in serene scorn at her own state of mind. And here was the other woman whom she had wronged, forbidding her this one little possibility of comfort. She said again humbly, "Let me tell him, Annie. He will only think the more of you because you shielded me." But Annie was full of scorn which Margaret could not understand since her nature was not so fine. "Do you think I wish him to?" she said, but in a whisper because she heard voices and footsteps. "You cannot tell him, Margaret." Then Von Rosen and Aunt Harriet, whose eyes were dim with recent sleep, came in sight, and Harriet Eustace, who had not seen Margaret since the club meeting, immediately seized upon her two hands and kissed her and congratulated her. "You dear, wonderful creature," she said, "we are all so proud of you. Fairbridge is so proud of you and as for us, we can only feel honoured that our little Annie has such a friend. We trust that she will profit by your friendship and we realise that it is such a privilege for her." "Thank you," said Margaret. She turned her head aside. It was rather dreadful, and Annie realised it. Von Rosen stood by smiling. "I am glad to join in the congratulations," he said. "In these days of many books, it is a great achievement to have one singled out for special notice. I have not yet had the pleasure of reading the book, but shall certainly have it soon." "Thank you," said Margaret again. "She should give you an autograph copy," said Harriet Eustace. "Yes," said Margaret. She drew aside Annie and whispered, "I shall tell my husband then. I shall." Then she bade them good afternoon in her usually graceful way; murmured something about a little business which she had with Annie and flitted down the pergola in a cloud of wisteria. "It does seem wonderful," said Harriet Eustace, "that she should have written that book." Von Rosen glanced at Annie with an inquiring expression. He wondered whether she wished him to announce their engagement to her aunt. The amazing suddenness of it all had begun to daunt him. He was in considerable doubt as to what Miss Harriet Eustace, who was a most conservative lady, who had always done exactly the things which a lady under similar circumstances might be expected to do, who always said the things to be expected, would say to this, which must, of course, savour very much of the unexpected. Von Rosen was entirely sure that Miss Harriet Eustace would be scarcely able to conceive of a marriage engagement of her niece especially with a clergyman without all the formal preliminaries of courtship, and he knew well that preliminaries had hardly existed, in the usual sense of the term. He felt absurdly shy, and he was very much relieved when finally Miss Harriet and Annie took their leave and he had said nothing about the engagement. Miss Harriet said a great deal about his most interesting and improving collection. She was a woman of a patronising turn of mind and she made Von Rosen feel like a little boy. "I especially appreciate the favour for the sake of my niece," she said. "It is so desirable for the minds of the young to be improved." Von Rosen murmured a polite acquiescence. She had spoken of his tall, lovely girl as if she were in short skirts. Miss Harriet continued: "When I consider what Mrs. Edes has done," she said,--"written a book which has made her famous, I realise how exceedingly important it is for the minds of the young to be improved. It is good for Annie to know Mrs. Edes so intimately, I think." For the first time poor Annie was conscious of a distinct sense of wrath. Here she herself had written that book and her mind, in order to have written it, must be every whit as improved as Margaret Edes' and her Aunt Harriet was belittling her before her lover. It was a struggle to maintain silence, especially as her aunt went on talking in a still more exasperating manner. "I always considered Mrs. Wilbur Edes as a very unusual woman," said she, "but of course, this was unexpected. I am so thankful that Annie has the great honour of her friendship. Of course, Annie can never do what Mrs. Edes has done. She herself knows that she lacks talent and also concentration. Annie, you know you have never finished that daisy centre piece which you begun surely six months ago. I am quite sure that Mrs. Edes would have finished it in a week." Annie did lose patience at that. "Margaret just loathes fancy work, Aunt Harriet," said she. "She would never even have begun that centre piece." "It is much better never to begin a piece of work than never to finish it," replied Aunt Harriet, "and Mrs. Edes, my dear, has been engaged in much more important work. If you had written a book which had made you famous, no one could venture to complain of your lack of industry with regard to the daisy centre piece. But I am sure that Mrs. Edes, in order to have written that book of which everybody is talking, must have displayed much industry and concentration in all the minor matters of life. I think you must be mistaken, my dear. I am quite sure that Mrs. Edes has not neglected work." Annie made no rejoinder, but her aunt did not seem to notice it. "I am so thankful, Mr. von Rosen," said she, "that my niece has the honour of being counted among the friends of such a remarkable woman. May I inquire if Mrs. Edes has ever seen your really extraordinary collection, Mr. von Rosen." "No, she has not seen it," replied Von Rosen, and he looked annoyed. Without in the least understanding the real trend of the matter, he did not like to hear his sweetheart addressed after such a fashion, even though he had no inkling of the real state of affairs. To his mind, this exquisite little Annie, grimy daisy centre piece and all, had accomplished much more in simply being herself, than had Margaret Edes with her much blazoned book. "I trust that she will yet see it," said Miss Harriet Eustace. Harriet Eustace was tall, dull skinned and wide mouthed, and she had a fashion, because she had been told from childhood that her mouth was wide, of constantly puckering it as if she were eating alum. "I shall be of course pleased to show Mrs. Edes my collection at any time," said Von Rosen politely. "I hope she will see it," said Harriet, puckering, "it is so improving, and if anything is improving to the ordinary mind, what must it be to the mind of genius?" The two took leave then, Annie walking behind her aunt. The sidewalk which was encroached upon by grass was very narrow. Annie did not speak at all. She heard her aunt talking incessantly without realising the substance of what she said. Her own brain was overwhelmed with bewilderment and happiness. Here was she, Annie Eustace, engaged to be married and to the right man. The combination was astounding. Annie had been conscious ever since she had first seen him, that Karl von Rosen dwelt at the back of her thoughts, but she was rather a well disciplined girl. She had not allowed herself the luxury of any dreams concerning him and herself. She had not considered the possibility of his caring for her, not because she underestimated herself, but because she overestimated him. Now, she knew he cared, he cared, and he wanted to marry her, to make her his wife. After she had reached home, when they were seated at the tea table, she did not think of telling anybody. She ate and felt as if she were in a blissful crystal sphere of isolation. It did not occur to her to reveal her secret until she went into her grandmother's room rather late to bid her good night. Annie had been sitting by herself on the front piazza and allowing herself a perfect feast in future air-castles. She could see from where she sat, the lights from the windows of the Edes' house, and she heard Wilbur's voice, and now and then his laugh. Margaret's voice, she never heard at all. Annie went into the chamber, the best in the house, and there lay her grandmother, old Ann Maria Eustace, propped up in bed, reading a novel which was not allowed in the Fairbridge library. She had bidden Annie buy it for her, when she last went to New York. "I wouldn't ask a girl to buy such a book," the old lady had said, "but nobody will know you and I have read so many notices about its wickedness, I want to see it for myself." Now she looked up when Annie entered. "It is not wicked at all," she said in rather a disappointed tone. "It is much too dull. In order to make a book wicked, it must be, at least, somewhat entertaining. The writer speaks of wicked things, but in such a very moral fashion that it is all like a sermon. I don't like the book at all. At the same time a girl like you had better not read it and you had better see that Harriet and Susan don't get a glimpse of it. They would be set into fits. It is a strange thing that both my daughters should be such old maids to the bone and marrow. You can read it though if you wish, Annie. I doubt if you understand the wickedness anyway, and I don't want you to grow up straight-laced like Harriet and Susan. It is really a misfortune. They lose a lot." Then Annie spoke. "I shall not be an old maid, I think," said she. "I am going to be married." "Married! Who is going to marry you? I haven't seen a man in this house except the doctor and the minister for the last twenty years." "I am going to marry the minister, Mr. von Rosen." "Lord," said Annie's grandmother, and stared at her. She was a queer looking old lady propped up on a flat pillow with her wicked book. She had removed the front-piece which she wore by day and her face showed large and rosy between the frills of her night cap. Her china blue eyes were exceedingly keen and bright. Her mouth as large as her daughter Harriet's, not puckered at all, but frankly open in an alarming slit, in her amazement. "When for goodness sake has the man courted you?" she burst forth at last. "I don't know." "Well, I don't know, if you don't. You haven't been meeting him outside the house. No, you have not. You are a lady, if you have been brought up by old maids, who tell lies about spades." "I did not know until this afternoon," said Annie. "Mr. von Rosen and I went out to see his rose-garden, while Aunt Harriet--" Then the old lady shook the bed with mirth. "I see," said she. "Harriet is scared to death of roses and she went to sleep in the house and you got your chance. Good for you. I am thankful the Eustace family won't quite sputter out in old maids." The old lady continued to chuckle. Annie feared lest her aunts might hear. Beside the bed stood a table with the collection of things which was Ann Maria Eustace's nightly requirement. There were a good many things. First was a shaded reading lamp, then a candle and a matchbox; there was a plate of thin bread and butter carefully folded in a napkin. A glass of milk, covered with a glass dish; two bottles of medicine; two spoons; a saucer of sugared raspberries; exactly one square inch of American cheese on a tiny plate; a pitcher of water, carefully covered; a tumbler; a glass of port wine and a bottle of camphor. Old Ann Maria Eustace took most of her sustenance at night. Night was really her happy time. When that worn, soft old bulk of hers was ensconsed among her soft pillows and feather bed and she had her eatables and drinkables and literature at hand, she was in her happiest mood and she was none the less happy from the knowledge that her daughters considered that any well conducted old woman should have beside her bed, merely a stand with a fair linen cloth, a glass of water, a candle and the Good Book, and that if she could not go immediately to sleep, she should lie quietly and say over texts and hymns to herself. All Ann Maria's spice of life was got from a hidden antagonism to her daughters and quietly flying in the face of their prejudices, and she was the sort of old lady who could hardly have lived at all without spice. "Your Aunt Harriet will be hopping," said the perverse old lady with another chuckle. "Why, grandmother?" "Harriet has had an eye on him herself." Annie gasped. "Aunt Harriet must be at least twenty-five years older," said she. "Hm," said the old lady, "that doesn't amount to anything. Harriet didn't put on her pearl breast-pin and crimp her hair unless she had something in her mind. Susan has given up, but Harriet hasn't given up." Annie still looked aghast. "When are you going to get married?" asked the old lady. "I don't know." "Haven't settled that yet? Well, when you do, there's the white satin embroidered with white roses that I was married in and my old lace veil. I think he's a nice young man. All I have against him is his calling. You will have to go to meeting whether you want to or not and listen to the same man's sermons. But he is good looking and they say he has money, and anyway, the Eustaces won't peter out in old maids. There's one thing I am sorry about. Sunday is going to be a pretty long day for me, after you are married, and I suppose before. If you are going to marry that man, I suppose you will have to begin going to meeting at once." Then Annie spoke decidedly. "I am always going to play pinocle with you Sunday forenoons as long as you live, grandmother," said she. "After you are married?" "Yes, I am." "After you are married to a minister?" "Yes, grandmother." The old lady sat up straight and eyed Annie with her delighted china blue gaze. "Mr. von Rosen is a lucky man," said she. "Enough sight luckier than he knows. You are just like me, Annie Eustace, and your grandfather set his eyes by me as long as he lived. A good woman who has sense enough not to follow all the rules and precepts and keep good, isn't found every day, and she can hold a man and holding a man is about as tough a job as the Almighty ever set a woman. I've got a pearl necklace and a ring in the bank. Harriet has always wanted them but what is the use of a born old maid decking herself out? I always knew Harriet and Susan would be old maids. Why, they would never let their doll-babies be seen without all their clothes on, seemed to think there was something indecent about cotton cloth legs stuffed with sawdust. When you see a little girl as silly as that you can always be sure she is cut out for an old maid. I don't care when you get married--just as soon as you want to--and you shall have a pretty wedding and you shall have your wedding cake made after my old recipe. You are a good girl, Annie. You look like me. You are enough sight better than you would be if you were better, and you can make what you can out of that. Now, you must go to bed. You haven't told Harriet and Susan yet, have you?" "No, grandmother." "I'll tell them myself in the morning," said the old lady with a chuckle which made her ancient face a mask of mirth and mischief. "Now, you run along and go to bed. This book is dull, but I want to see how wicked the writer tried to make it and the heroine is just making an awful effort to run away with a married man. She won't succeed, but I want to see how near she gets to it. Good-night, Annie. You can have the book to-morrow." Annie went to her own room but she made no preparation for bed. She had planned to work as she had worked lately until nearly morning. She was hurrying to complete another book which she had begun before Margaret Edes' announcement that she had written _The Poor Lady_. The speedy completion of this book had been the condition of secrecy with her publishers. However, Annie, before she lit the lamp on her table could not resist the desire to sit for a minute beside her window and gaze out upon the lovely night and revel in her wonderful happiness. The night was lovely enough for anyone, and for a girl in the rapture of her first love, it was as beautiful as heaven. The broad village gleaming like silver in the moonlight satisfied her as well as a street of gold and the tree shadows waved softly over everything like wings of benediction. Sweet odours came in her face. She could see the soft pallor of a clump of lilies in the front yard. The shrilling of the night insects seemed like the calls of prophets of happiness. The lights had gone out of the windows of the Edes' house, but suddenly she heard a faint, very faint, but very terrible cry and a white figure rushed out of the Edes' gate. Annie did not wait a second. She was up, out of her room, sliding down the stair banisters after the habit of her childhood and after it. Chapter IX Margaret Edes, light and slender and supple as she was, and moreover rendered swift with the terrible spur of hysteria, was no match for Annie Eustace who had the build of a racing human, being long-winded and limber. Annie caught up with her, just before they reached Alice Mendon's house, and had her held by one arm. Margaret gave a stifled shriek. Even in hysteria, she did not quite lose her head. She had unusual self-control. "Let me go," she gasped. Annie saw that Margaret carried a suit-case, which had probably somewhat hindered her movements. "Let me go, I shall miss the ten-thirty train," Margaret said in her breathless voice. "Where are you going?" "I am going." "Where?" "Anywhere,--away from it all." The two struggled together as far as Alice's gate, and to Annie's great relief, a tall figure appeared, Alice herself. She opened the gate and came on Margaret's other side. "What is the matter?" she asked. "I am going to take the ten-thirty train," said Margaret. "Where are you going?" "To New York." "Where in New York?" "I am going." "You are not going," said Alice Mendon; "you will return quietly to your own home like a sensible woman. You are running away, and you know it." "Yes, I am," said Margaret in her desperate voice. "You would run away if you were in my place, Alice Mendon." "I could never be in your place," said Alice, "but if I were, I should stay and face the situation." She spoke with quite undisguised scorn and yet with pity. "You must think of your husband and children and not entirely of yourself," she added. "If," said Margaret, stammering as she spoke, "I tell Wilbur, I think it will kill him. If I tell the children, they will never really have a mother again. They will never forget. But if I do not tell, I shall not have myself. It is a horrible thing not to have yourself, Alice Mendon." "It is the only way." "It is easy for you to talk, Alice Mendon. You have never been tempted." "No," replied Alice, "that is quite true. I have never been tempted because--I cannot be tempted." "It is no credit to you. You were made so." "Yes, that is true also. I was made so. It is no credit to me." Margaret tried to wrench her arm free from Annie's grasp. "Let me go, Annie Eustace," she said. "I hate you." "I don't care if you do," replied Annie. "I don't love you any more myself. I don't hate you, but I certainly don't love you." "I stole your laurels," said Margaret, and she seemed to snap out the words. "You could have had the laurels," said Annie, "without stealing, if I could have given them to you. It is not the laurels that matter. It is you." "I will kill myself if it ever is known," said Margaret in a low horrified whisper. She cowered. "It will never be known unless you yourself tell it," said Annie. "I cannot tell," said Margaret. "I have thought it all over. I cannot tell and yet, how can I live and not tell?" "I suppose," said Alice Mendon, "that always when people do wrong, they have to endure punishment. I suppose that is your punishment, Margaret. You have always loved yourself and now you will have to despise yourself. I don't see any way out of it." "I am not the only woman who does such things," said Margaret, and there was defiance in her tone. "No doubt, you have company," said Alice. "That does not make it easier for you." Alice, large and fair in her white draperies, towered over Margaret Edes like an embodied conscience. She was almost unendurable, like the ideal of which the other woman had fallen short. Her mere presence was maddening. Margaret actually grimaced at her. "It is easy for you to preach," said she, "very easy, Alice Mendon. You have not a nerve in your whole body. You have not an ungratified ambition. You neither love nor hate yourself, or other people. You want nothing on earth enough to make the lack of it disturb you." "How well you read me," said Alice and she smiled a large calm smile as a statue might smile, could she relax her beautiful marble mouth. "And as for Annie Eustace," said Margaret, "she has what I stole, and she knows it, and that is enough for her. Oh, both of you look down upon me and I know it." "I look down upon you no more than I have always done," said Alice; but Annie was silent because she could not say that truly. "Yes, I know you have always looked down upon me, Alice Mendon," said Margaret, "and you never had reason." "I had the reason," said Alice, "that your own deeds have proved true." "You could not know that I would do such a thing. I did not know it myself. Why, I never knew that Annie Eustace could write a book." "I knew that a self-lover could do anything and everything to further her own ends," said Alice in her inexorable voice, which yet contained an undertone of pity. She pitied Margaret far more than Annie could pity her for she had not loved her so much. She felt the little arm tremble in her clasp and her hand tightened upon it as a mother's might have done. "Now, we have had enough of this," said she, "quite enough. Margaret, you must positively go home at once. I will take your suit-case, and return it to you to-morrow. I shall be out driving. You can get in without being seen, can't you?" "I tell you both, I am going," said Margaret; "I cannot face what is before me." "All creation has to face what is before. Running makes no difference," said Alice. "You will meet it at the end of every mile. Margaret Edes, go home. Take care of your husband, and your children and keep your secret and let it tear you for your own good." "They are to nominate Wilbur for Senator," said Margaret. "If they knew, if he knew, Wilbur would not run. He has always had ambition. I should kill it." "You will not kill it," said Alice. "Here, give me that suit-case, I will set it inside the gate here. Now Annie and I will walk with you and you must steal in and not wake anybody and go to bed and to sleep." "To sleep," repeated Margaret bitterly. "Then not to sleep, but you must go." The three passed down the moon-silvered road. When they had reached Margaret's door, Alice suddenly put an arm around her and kissed her. "Go in as softly as you can, and to bed," she whispered. "What made you do that, Alice?" asked Annie in a small voice when the door had closed behind Margaret. "I think I am beginning to love her," whispered Alice. "Now you know what we must do, Annie?" "What?" "We must both watch until dawn, until after that train to New York which stops here at three-thirty. You must stand here and I will go to the other door. Thank God, there are only two doors, and I don't think she will try the windows because she won't suspect our being here. But I don't trust her, poor thing. She is desperate. You stay here, Annie. Sit down close to the door and--you won't be afraid?" "Oh, no!" "Of course, there is nothing to be afraid of," said Alice. "Now I will go to the other door." Annie sat there until the moon sank. She did not feel in the least sleepy. She sat there and counted up her joys of life and almost forgot poor Margaret who had trampled hers in the dust raised by her own feet of self-seeking. Then came the whistle and roar of a train and Alice stole around the house. "It is safe enough for us to go now," said she. "That was the last train. Do you think you can get in your house without waking anybody?" "There is no danger unless I wake grandmother. She wakes very early of herself and she may not be asleep and her hearing is very quick." "What will she say?" "I think I can manage her." "Well, we must hurry. It is lucky that my room is away from the others or I should not be sure of getting there unsuspected. Hurry, Annie." The two sped swiftly and noiselessly down the street, which was now very dark. The village houses seemed rather awful with their dark windows like sightless eyes. When they reached Annie's house Alice gave her a swift kiss. "Good-night," she whispered. "Alice." "Well, little Annie?" "I am going to be married, to Mr. Von Rosen." Alice started ever so slightly. "You are a lucky girl," she whispered, "and he is a lucky man." Alice flickered out of sight down the street like a white moonbeam and Annie stole into the house. She dared not lock the door behind her lest she arouse somebody. She tip-toed upstairs, but as she was passing her grandmother's door, it was opened, and the old woman stood there, her face lit by her flaring candle. "You just march right in here," said she so loud that Annie shuddered for fear she would arouse the whole house. She followed her grandmother into her room and the old woman turned and looked at her, and her face was white. "Where have you been, Miss?" said she. "It is after three o'clock in the morning." "I had to go, grandmother, and there was no harm, but I can't tell you. Indeed, I can't," replied Annie, trembling. "Why can't you? I'd like to know." "I can't, indeed, I can't, grandmother." "Why not, I'd like to know. Pretty doings, I call it." "I can't tell you why not, grandmother." The old woman eyed the girl. "Out with a man--I don't care if you are engaged to him--till this time!" said she. Annie started and crimsoned. "Oh, grandmother!" she cried. "I don't care if he is a minister. I am going to see him to-morrow, no, to-day, right after breakfast and give him a piece of my mind. I don't care what he thinks of me." "Grandmother, there wasn't any man." "Are you telling me the truth?" "I always tell the truth." "Yes, I think you always have since that time when you were a little girl and I spanked you for lying," said the old woman. "I rather think you do tell the truth, but sometimes when a girl gets a man into her head, she goes round like a top. You haven't been alone, you needn't tell me that." "No, I haven't been alone." "But, he wasn't with you? There wasn't any man?" "No, there was not any man, grandmother." "Then you had better get into your own room as fast as you can and move still or you will wake up Harriet and Susan." Annie went. "I am thankful I am not curious," said the old woman clambering back into bed. She lit her lamp and took up her novel again. The next morning old Ann Maria Eustace announced her granddaughter's engagement at the breakfast table. She waited until the meal was in full swing, then she raised her voice. "Well, girls," she said, looking first at Harriet, then at Susan, "I have some good news for you. Our little Annie here is too modest, so I have to tell you for her." Harriet Eustace laughed unsuspiciously. "Don't tell us that Annie has been writing a great anonymous novel like Margaret Edes," she said, and Susan laughed also. "Whatever news it may be, it is not that," she said. "Nobody could suspect Annie of writing a book. I myself was not so much surprised at Margaret Edes." To Annie's consternation, her grandmother turned upon her a long, slow, reading look. She flushed under it and swallowed a spoonful of cereal hastily. Then her grandmother chuckled under her breath and her china blue eyes twinkled. "Annie has done something a deal better than to write a book," said she, looking away from the girl, and fixing unsparing eyes upon her daughters. "She has found a nice man to marry her." Harriet and Susan dropped their spoons and stared at their mother. "Mother, what are you talking about?" said Harriet sharply. "She has had no attention." "Sometimes," drawled the old lady in a way she affected when she wished to be exasperating, "sometimes, a little attention is so strong that it counts and sometimes attention is attention when nobody thinks it is." "Who is it?" asked Harriet in rather a hard voice. Susan regarded Annie with a bewildered, yet kindly smile. Poor Susan had never regarded the honey pots of life as intended for herself, and thus could feel a kindly interest in their acquisition by others. "My granddaughter is engaged to be married to Mr. von Rosen," said the old lady. Then she stirred her coffee assiduously. Susan rose and kissed Annie. "I hope you will be happy, very happy," she said in an awed voice. Harriet rose, to follow her sister's example but she looked viciously at her mother. "He is a good ten years older than Annie," she said. "And a good twenty-five younger than you," said the old lady, and sipped her coffee delicately. "He is just the right age for Annie." Harriet kissed Annie, but her lips were cold and Annie wondered. It never occurred to her then, nor later, to imagine that her Aunt Harriet might have had her own dreams which had never entirely ended in rainbow mists. She did not know how hardly dreams die. They are sometimes not entirely stamped out during a long lifetime. That evening Von Rosen came to call on Annie and she received him alone in the best parlour. She felt embarrassed and shy, but very happy. Her lover brought her an engagement ring, a great pearl, which had been his mother's and put it on her finger, and Annie eyed her finger with a big round gaze like a bird's. Von Rosen laughed at the girl holding up her hand and staring at the beringed finger. "Don't you like it, dear?" he said. "It is the most beautiful ring I ever saw," said Annie, "but I keep thinking it may not be true." "The truest things in the world are the things which do not seem so," he said, and caught up the slender hand and kissed the ring and the finger. Margaret on the verandah had seen Von Rosen enter the Eustace house and had guessed dully at the reason. She had always thought that Von Rosen would eventually marry Alice Mendon and she wondered a little, but not much. Her own affairs were entirely sufficient to occupy her mind. Her position had become more impossible to alter and more ghastly. That night Wilbur had brought home a present to celebrate her success. It was something which she had long wanted and which she knew he could ill afford:--a circlet of topazes for her hair. She kissed him and put it on to please him, but it was to her as if she were crowned because of her infamy and she longed to snatch the thing off and trample it. And yet always she was well aware that it was not remorse which she felt, but a miserable humiliation that she, Margaret Edes, should have cause for remorse. The whole day had been hideous. The letters and calls of congratulation had been incessant. There were brief notices in a few papers which had been marked and sent to her and Wilbur had brought them home also. Her post-office box had been crammed. There were requests for her autograph. There were requests for aid from charitable institutions. There were requests for advice and assistance from young authors. She had two packages of manuscripts sent her for inspection concerning their merits. One was a short story, and came through the mail; one was a book and came by express. She had requests for work from editors and publishers. Wilbur had brought a letter of congratulation from his partner. It was absolutely impossible for her to draw back except for that ignoble reason: the reinstatement of herself in her own esteem. She could not possibly receive all this undeserved adulation and retain her self esteem. It was all more than she had counted upon. She had opened Pandora's box with a vengeance and the stinging things swarmed over her. Wilbur sat on the verandah with her and scarcely took his eyes of adoring wonder from her face. She had sent the little girls to bed early. They had told all their playmates and talked incessantly with childish bragging. They seemed to mock her as with peacock eyes, symbolic of her own vanity. "You sent the poor little things to bed very early," Wilbur said. "They did so enjoy talking over their mother's triumph. It is the greatest day of their lives, you know, Margaret." "I am tired of it," Margaret said sharply, but Wilbur's look of worship deepened. "You are so modest, sweetheart," he said and Margaret writhed. Poor Wilbur had been reading _The Poor Lady_ instead of his beloved newspapers and now and then he quoted a passage which he remembered, with astonishing accuracy. "Say, darling, you are a marvel," he would remark after every quotation. "Now, how in the world did you ever manage to think that up? I suppose just this minute, as you sit there looking so sweet in your white dress, just such things are floating through your brain, eh?" "No, they are not," replied Margaret. Oh, if she had only understood the horrible depth of a lie! "Suppose Von Rosen is making up to little Annie?" said Wilbur presently. "I don't know." "Well, she is a nice little thing, sweet tempered, and pretty, although of course her mental calibre is limited. She may make a good wife, though. A man doesn't expect his wife always to set the river on fire as you have done, sweetheart." Then Wilbur fished from his pockets a lot of samples. "Thought I must order a new suit, to live up to my wife," he said. "See which you prefer, Margaret." "I should think your own political outlook would make the new suit necessary," said Margaret tartly. "Not a bit of it. Get more votes if you look a bit shabby from the sort who I expect may get me the office," laughed Wilbur. "This new suit is simply to enable me to look worthy, as far as my clothes are concerned, of my famous wife." "I think you have already clothes enough," said Margaret coldly. Wilbur looked hurt. "Doesn't make much difference how the old man looks, does it, dear?" said he. "Let me see the samples," Margaret returned with an effort. There were depths beyond depths; there were bottomless quicksands in a lie. How could she have known? That night Wilbur looked into his wife's bedroom at midnight. "Awake?" he asked in his monosyllabic fashion. "Yes." "Say, old girl, Von Rosen has just this minute gone. Guess it's a match fast enough." "I always thought it would be Alice," returned Margaret wearily. Love affairs did seem so trivial to her at this juncture. "Alice Mendon has never cared a snap about getting married any way," returned Wilbur. "Some women are built that way. She is." Margaret did not inquire how he knew. If Wilbur had told her that he had himself asked Alice in marriage, it would have been as if she had not heard. All such things seemed very unimportant to her in the awful depths of her lie. She said good-night in answer to Wilbur's and again fell to thinking. There was no way out, absolutely no way. She must live and die with this secret self-knowledge which abased her, gnawing at the heart. Wilbur had told her that he believed that her authorship of _The Poor Lady_ might be the turning point of his election. She was tongue-tied in a horrible spiritual sense. She was disfigured for the rest of her life and she could never once turn away her eyes from her disfigurement. The light from Annie Eustace's window shone in her room for two hours after that. She wondered what she was doing and guessed Annie was writing a new novel to take the place of the one of which she had robbed her. An acute desire which was like a pain to be herself the injured instead of the injurer possessed her. Oh, what would it mean to be Annie sitting there, without leisure to brood over her new happiness, working, working, into the morning hours and have nothing to look upon except moral and physical beauty in her mental looking-glass. She envied the poor girl, who was really working beyond her strength, as she had never envied any human being. The envy stung her, and she could not sleep. The next morning she looked ill and then she had to endure Wilbur's solicitude. "Poor girl, you overworked writing your splendid book," he said. Then he suggested that she spend a month at an expensive seashore resort and another horror was upon Margaret. Wilbur, she well knew, could not afford to send her to such a place, but was innocently, albeit rather shamefacedly, assuming that she could defray her own expenses from the revenue of her book. He would never call her to account as to what she had done with the wealth which he supposed her to be reaping. She was well aware of that, but he would naturally wonder within himself. Any man would. She said that she was quite well, that she hated a big hotel, and much preferred home during the hot season, but she heard the roar of these new breakers. How could she have dreamed of the lifelong disturbance which a lie could cause? Night after night she saw the light in Annie's windows and she knew what she was doing. She knew why she was not to be married until next winter. That book had to be written first. Poor Annie could not enjoy her romance to the full because of over-work. The girl lost flesh and Margaret knew why. Preparing one's trousseau, living in a love affair, and writing a book, are rather strenuous, when undertaken at the same time. It was February when Annie and Von Rosen were married and the wedding was very quiet. Annie had over-worked, but her book was published, and was out-selling _The Poor Lady_. It also was published anonymously, but Margaret knew, she knew even from the reviews. Then she bought the book and read it and was convinced. The book was really an important work. The writer had gone far beyond her first flight, but there was something unmistakable about the style to such a jealous reader as Margaret. Annie had her success after all. She wore her laurels, although unseen of men, with her orange blossoms. Margaret saw in every paper, in great headlines, the notice of the great seller. The best novel for a twelve-month--_The Firm Hand_. Wilbur talked much about it. He had his election. He was a Senator, and was quietly proud of it, but nothing mattered to him as much as Margaret's book. That meant more than his own success. "I have read that novel they are talking so much about and it cannot compare with yours," he told her. "The publishers ought to push yours a little more. Do you think I ought to look in on them and have a little heart-to-heart talk?" Margaret's face was ghastly. "Don't do anything of the sort," she said. "Well, I won't if you don't want me to, but--" "I most certainly don't want you to." Then Margaret never had a day of peace. She feared lest Wilbur, who seemed nightly more incensed at the flaming notices of _The Firm Hand_ might, in spite of her remonstrances, go to see the publishers, and would they keep the secret if he did? Margaret continued to live as she had done before. That was part of the horror. She dared not resign from the Zenith Club. However, she came in time to get a sort of comfort from it. Meeting all those members, presiding over the meetings, became a sort of secret flagellation, which served as a counter irritation, for her tormented soul. All those women thought well of her. They admired her. The acute torture which she derived from her knowledge of herself, as compared with their opinion of her, seemed at times to go a little way toward squaring her account with her better self. And the club also seemed to rouse within her a keener vitality of her better self. Especially when the New Year came and Mrs. Slade was elected president in her stead. Once, Margaret would have been incapable of accepting that situation so gracefully. She gave a reception to Mrs. Slade in honour of her election, and that night had a little return of her lost peace. Then during one of the meetings, a really good paper was read, which set her thinking. That evening she played dominoes with Maida and Adelaide, and always after that a game followed dinner. The mother became intimate with her children. She really loved them because of her loss of love for herself, and because the heart must hold love. She loved her husband too, but he realised no difference because he had loved her. That coldness had had no headway against such doting worship. But the children realised. "Mamma is so much better since she wrote that book that I shall be glad when you are old enough to write a book too," Adelaide said once to Maida. But always Margaret suffered horribly, although she gave no sign. She took care of her beauty. She was more particular than ever about her dress. She entertained, she accepted every invitation, and they multiplied since Wilbur's flight in politics and her own reputed authorship. She was Spartan in her courage, but she suffered, because she saw herself as she was and she had so loved herself. It was not until Annie Eustace was married that she obtained the slightest relief. Then she ascertained that the friend whom she had robbed of her laurels had obtained a newer and greener crown of them. She went to the wedding and saw on a table, Annie's new book. She glanced at it and she knew and she wondered if Von Rosen knew. He did not. Annie waited until after their return from their short wedding journey when they were settled in their home. Then one evening, seated with her husband before the fire in the study, with the yellow cat in her lap, and the bull terrier on the rug, his white skin rosy in the firelight, she said: "Karl, I have something to tell you." Von Rosen looked lovingly at her. "Well, dear?" "It is nothing, only you must not tell, for the publishers insist upon its being anonymous, I--wrote _The Firm Hand_." Von Rosen made a startled exclamation and looked at Annie and she could not understand the look. "Are you displeased?" she faltered. "Don't you like me to write? I will never neglect you or our home because of it. Indeed I will not." "Displeased," said Von Rosen. He got up and deliberately knelt before her. "I am proud that you are my wife," he said, "prouder than I am of anything else in the world." "Please get up, dear," said Annie, "but I am so glad, although it is really I who am proud, because I have you for my husband. I feel all covered over with peacock's eyes." "I cannot imagine a human soul less like a peacock," said Von Rosen. He put his arms around her as he knelt, and kissed her, and the yellow cat gave an indignant little snarl and jumped down. He was jealous. "Sit down," said Annie, laughing. "I thought the time had come to tell you and I hoped you would be pleased. It is lovely, isn't it? You know it is selling wonderfully." "It is lovely," said Von Rosen. "It would have been lovely anyway, but your success is a mighty sweet morsel for me." "You had better go back to your chair and smoke and I will read to you," said Annie. "Just as if you had not written a successful novel," said Von Rosen. But he obeyed, the more readily because he knew, and pride and reverence for his wife fairly dazed him. Von Rosen had been more acute than the critics and Annie had written at high pressure, and one can go over a book a thousand times and be blind to things which should be seen. She had repeated one little sentence which she had written in _The Poor Lady_. Von Rosen knew, but he never told her that he knew. He bowed before her great, generous silence as he would have bowed before a shrine, but he knew that she had written _The Poor Lady_, and had allowed Margaret Edes to claim unquestioned the honour of her work. As they sat there, Annie's Aunt Susan came in and sat with them. She talked a good deal about the wedding presents. Wedding presents were very wonderful to her. They were still spread out, most of them on tables in the parlour because all Fairbridge was interested in viewing them. After a while Susan went into the parlour and gloated over the presents. When she came back, she wore a slightly disgusted expression. "You have beautiful presents," said she, "but I have been looking all around and the presents are not all on those tables, are they?" "No," said Annie. Von Rosen laughed. He knew what was coming, or thought that he did. "I see," said Aunt Susan, "that you have forty-two copies of Margaret Edes' book, _The Poor Lady_, and I have always thought it was a very silly book, and you can't exchange them for every single one is autographed." It was quite true. Poor Margaret Edes had autographed the forty-two. She had not even dreamed of the incalculable depths of a lie. THE END [Transcriber's note: The following spelling inconsistencies were present in the original and were not corrected in this etext: wordly ensconsed/ensconced] 
55714	----	The Little Bookfellow Series Stevenson at Manasquan Other Titles in this series: ESTRAYS. Poems by Thomas Kennedy, George Seymour, Vincent Starrett, and Basil Thompson. WILLIAM DE MORGAN, A POST-VICTORIAN REALIST, by Flora Warren Seymour. LYRICS, by Laura Blackburn. [Illustration: PEN AND INK SKETCH OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, BY WYATT EATON _Kind permission of Mr. S. S. McClure_] Stevenson at Manasquan By Charlotte Eaton With a Note on the Fate of the Yacht "Casco" by Francis Dickie and Six Portraits from Stevenson by George Steele Seymour [Illustration] CHICAGO THE BOOKFELLOWS 1921 _Three hundred copies of this book by Charlotte Eaton, Bookfellow No. 550, Francis Dickie, Bookfellow No. 716, and George Steele Seymour, Bookfellow No. 1, have been printed. Mrs. Eaton's memoir is an elaboration of one previously published by Thomas Y. Crowell Co. of New York under the title "A Last Memory of Robert Louis Stevenson"; Mr. Dickie's notes have appeared in the New York World, and Mr. Seymour's "Portraits" have appeared in "Contemporary Verse" and "The Star" of San Francisco._ _Copyright, 1921, by Flora Warren Seymour_ THE TORCH PRESS CEDAR RAPIDS IOWA STEVENSON AT MANASQUAN When I came face to face with Robert Louis Stevenson it was the realization of one of my most cherished dreams. This was at Manasquan, a village on the New Jersey coast, where he had come to make a farewell visit to his old friend Will Low, the artist. Mr. Low had taken a cottage there that summer while working on his series of Lamia drawings for Lippincott's, and Stevenson, hearing that we were on the other side of the river, sent word that he would come to see us on the morrow. "Stevenson is coming," was announced at the breakfast-table as calmly as though it were a daily occurrence. _Stevenson coming to Manasquan!_ I was in my 'teens, was an enthusiastic student of poetry and mythology, and Stevenson was my hero of romance. Was it any wonder the intelligence excited me? My husband, the late Wyatt Eaton, and Stevenson, were friends in their student days abroad, and it was in honor of those early days that I was to clasp the hand of my favorite author. It was in the mazes of a contradance at Barbizon, in the picturesque setting of a barn lighted by candles, that their first meeting took place, where Mr. Eaton, though still a student in the schools of Paris, had taken a studio to be near Jean François Millet, and hither Stevenson had come, with his cousin, known as "Talking Bob," to take part in the harvest festivities among the peasants. These were the halcyon days at Barbizon, when Millet tramped the fields and the favorite haunts of Rousseau and Corot could be followed up through the Forest of Fontainebleau, before Barbizon had become a resort for holiday makers, or the term "Barbizon School" had been thought of. Now, of all places in the world, the quaint little Sanborn Cottage on the river-bank, where we were stopping, seemed to me the spot best suited for a first meeting with Stevenson. The Sanborns were very little on the estate and the place had a neglected look. Indeed, more than that, one might easily have taken it for a haunted or abandoned place--with its garden choked with weeds, and its window-shutters flaunting old spider-webs to the breeze. It was, of course, the fanciful, adventure-loving Stevenson that I looked forward to seeing, and I was not disappointed; and while others spoke of the flight of time with its inevitable changes, I felt sure that, to me, he would be just Stevenson who wrote the things over which I had burned the midnight oil. He came promptly at the hour fixed, appearing on the threshold as frail and distinguished-looking as a portrait by Velasquez. He had walked across the mile-long bridge connecting Brielle and Manasquan, ahead of the others, for the bracer he always needed before joining even a small company. Shall I ever forget the sensation of delight that thrilled me, as he entered the room--tall, emaciated, yet radiant, his straight, glossy hair so long that it lay upon the collar of his coat, throwing into bold relief his long neck and keenly sensitive face? His hands were of the psychic order, and were of marble whiteness, save the thumb and first finger of the right hand, that were stained from constant cigarette rolling--for he was an inveterate smoker--and he had the longest fingers I have ever seen on a human being; they were, in fact, part of his general appearance of lankiness, that would have been uncanny, but for the geniality and sense of _bien être_ that he gave off. His voice, low in tone, had an endearing quality in it, that was almost like a caress. He never made use of vernacularism and was without the slightest Scotch accent; on the contrary, he spoke his English like a world citizen, speaking a universal tongue, and always looked directly at the person spoken to. I have since heard one who knew him (and they are becoming scarce now) call him the man of good manners, or "the mannerly Stevenson," and this is the term needed to complete my first impression, for more than the traveller, the scholar or the author, it was the _mannerly Stevenson_ that appeared in our midst that day. He moved about the room to a ripple of repartée that was contagious, putting every one on his mettle--in fact, his presence was a challenge to a _jeu d'esprit_ on every hand. How self-possessed he was, how spiritual! his face glowing with memories of other days. He had just come from Saranac, Saranac-in-the-Adirondacks, that had failed to yield him the elixir of life he was seeking, where he had spent a winter of such solitude as even his courageous wife was unable to endure. His good spirits were doubtless on the rebound after good work accomplished, for there, in "his hat-box on the hill," as he called his quarters at Baker's, were written his "Christmas Sermons," "The Lantern Bearer," and the opening chapters of "The Master of Ballantrae." In this "very decent house" he would talk old Mr. Baker to sleep on stormy nights, and the good old farmer, never suspecting that Stevenson was "anybody in particular," snored his responses to those flights in fact and fancy for which there are those who would have given hundreds of dollars to have been in the old farmer's place. But it was the very carelessness of Mr. Baker that helped along the talking spell. This is often the case with authors; they will pour out their precious knowledge into the ears of some inconsequential person, a tramp as likely as not, picked up by the way; the non-critical attitude of the illiterate seems to help the thinker in forming a sequence of ideas; this explains, too, why the artist values the lay criticism--it hits directly at any false note in a picture, thus saving the painter much unnecessary delay. Sometimes Dr. Trudeau, also an exile of the mountains, would drop in professionally on these stormy evenings and would stay until about midnight, having entirely forgotten the nature of his visit. Stevenson had this faculty of making friends of those who served him. To the restaurant keeper of Monterey, Jules Simoneau, who trusted him when he was penniless and unknown, he presented a set of his books, leather-bound, each volume autographed, and this worthy man has since refused a thousand dollars for the set. "Well," he explained, "I do not need the money, and I value the gift for itself." I think this friend of Stevenson's must feel like Father Tabb in the library of his friend when he said: "To see, when he is dead, The many books he read, And then again, to note The many books he wrote; How some got in, and some got out. 'Tis very strange to think about." But to return to our story. Stevenson's Isle-of-the-blest was calling to him, and hope lay that way, where life was elementary and where a man with but one lung to his account might live indefinitely. Not that he feared to die. Oh, no! It takes more courage sometimes to live, but it was hard to give up at forty, when one just begins to enter into the knowledge of one's own powers. A blind lady once said to me, in speaking of a mutual friend, "When Mr. B. comes, I feel as if there was a _sprite_ in the room," and this is the way I felt about Stevenson, for during those moments of serious discussion when most people are tense, he moved actively about, and his philosophies were humanized by his warm, brown eyes and merry exclamations. Another reason for the sprite feeling, was that he was consciously living in the past that day, and each face was like reseeing a milestone long passed, on some half-forgotten journey. It was this sense of detachment that, more than anything else, gave us the feeling that he was already beyond our mortal ken, that he was living at once in the visible and in the invisible, one to whom the passing of time had little significance. I think this is true, more or less, of all those who are marked for a brief earthly career. By this time the other members of the family had arrived. His mother, Lloyd Osbourne, and Mrs. Strong, his step-children; "Fanny," his wife, was in California, looking after some property interests she had there, and provisioning the yacht chartered for the voyage to the South Seas. In all his enterprises she was his major-domo, and her devotion no doubt helped to prolong his life. Their mutual agreement on all financial matters reminded me of a remark made by mine host at a country inn, who, in speaking of his wife, said, "She is my very best investment," and so was Mrs. Stevenson to her husband, _Lewis_, for so the family called him, and never Robert Louis. I am inclined to think that yoking of contrasts is an important part in Nature's economy of things. Ella Wheeler Wilcox said to me that she owed her success to Robert--her husband--because in all her undertakings he went before and smoothed the way; but Mr. Wilcox's version of the case is another story. "I keep an eye on Ella," said he, "to prevent her from giving away too much money." Stevenson was now seated before the grate, the flickering light from the wood fire illuminating his pale face to transparency. Now and then he relapsed into silence, gazing into the fire with the rapt look of one who sees visions. "Are you seeing a Salamander," I asked, "or do the sparks flying upward make you think of the golden alchemy of Lescaris?"[A] "A Salamander," he replied, smiling. "Yes, a carnivorous fire-dweller that eats up man and his dreams forever." "Gracious! But you are going to worse things than Salamanders, the Paua,[B] they will get you, if you don't watch out." And then, suddenly becoming conscious of my temerity in interrupting the thread of his reflections, to cover my embarrassment, I ran upstairs for my birthday-book. An autograph! Of course. And he wrote it, reading out the quotation that filled in part of the space. It was one of Emerson's Kantisms, something about not going abroad, unless you can as readily stay at home (I forget the exact words). It was decidedly malapropos and called out much merriment. "Oh, stay at home, dear heart, and rest; Home-keeping hearts are happiest." Somebody quoted, to which another replied: "Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits." The autograph has long since disappeared, but how often have I thought with regret of the amused expression in Stevenson's eyes at the Salamander fancy! What tales of witchery might have been spun from those themes worthy of the magic of his pen, the fire-dwelling man-eater, or the discovery of the Greek shepherd! Stevenson was amused over our enthusiasm, and the eagerness of some of the younger members of the company to lionize him. "And what do you consider your brightest failure?" inquired our host. "'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,'" he replied, without a moment's hesitation, adding, "that is the worst thing I ever wrote." "Yet you owe it to your dream-expedition," some one reminded him. "The dream-expedition?" he repeated. "Yes, that was perhaps a compensation for the bad things." Benjamin Franklin has said that success ruins many a man. The success of "Trilby" killed Du Maurier, and many authors have had their heads turned for far less than the Jekyll and Hyde furore that swept the country at that time. But the Mannerly Stevenson carried his honors lightly. Smiling over the popularity of the "worst thing he ever wrote," he revealed that quality in his own nature that was finer than anything he had given to print, the soul whose indomitable courage could bear the brunt of adverse circumstance, and even contumely, and hold its own integrity, becoming a law unto itself. Here was the man who had passed himself off as one of a group of steerage passengers on that memorable trip across the Atlantic on his way to Monterey in quest of the woman he loved, the man whose life was more vital in its _love-motif_ than any of his own romances, the man who, in spite of ill-health and uncertainty of means, yet paid the price for his heart's desire. "See here," said a lusty fellow, lurching up to him one day on deck. "You are not one of us, you are a gentleman in hard luck." "But," added Stevenson triumphantly, in telling the story, "it was not until the end of the voyage that they found me out." This points the saying that it was the great washed that Stevenson fought shy of, and not the greater unwashed, with whom he was always on the friendliest terms. He talked delightfully, too, on events connected with his journey across the plains, which he made in an emigrant train, associating with Chinamen, who cooked their meals on board, and slept on planks let down from the side of the cars. "The air was thick," said he, "and an Oriental thickness, at that." But this period of his life was a painful subject for his mother, who was present, and some of his best stories were omitted on her account. He told us, however, about being nearly lynched for throwing away a lighted match on the prairie. "And all the fuss," said he, "before I was made aware of the nature of my crime." Both his mother and Sydney Colvin had done their best to make him accept enough money, as a loan, to make this trip comfortable. But he had refused. He was, he explained, "doing that which neither his family nor friends could approve," and he would therefore accept no financial aid. "Just before starting," said he, "being in need of money, I called at the _Century_ office, where I had left some manuscript with the request for an early decision, but was politely shown the door." Consternation seized us at this announcement, for all present knew the editor for a man of sympathy and heart. But Stevenson himself came to our relief with, "But Mr. Gilder was abroad that year." After the lapse of more than a quarter of a century, it might not come amiss to recount another little incident at the same office. I mentioned one day to Mr. Gilder that some notes by Mr. Eaton written during his last illness had been rejected. "You don't mean to tell me that anything by Wyatt was rejected at this office," said he, and going into an inner room, returned in a few minutes with a goodly check. "There," said he, as he put it in my hand, "Send in the notes at your convenience." Stevenson laughed good-naturedly over the dilemmas the editors of western papers threw him into, by their tardiness in paying space rates for the stories and essays that now rank among his finest productions. Indeed one wonders whether he would have survived the hardships of those Monterey days, had not the good Jules Simoneau found him "worth saving," a circumstance for which he is accorded the palm by posterity rather than for the flavor of his tamales. In many ways it is given to the humble to minister to the needs of the great. A distinguished author once said to me: "I could never have arrived without the help of my poor friends." As Stevenson went from reminiscence to reminiscence, we felt that from this period of his vivid obscurity might have been drawn material for some of his most stirring romances, and we were rewarded as good listeners by the discovery of that which he thought his best work, namely, the little story called "Will o' the Mill." "Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Sanborn, his eyes beaming, "if you live to be as old as Methuselah, with all the world's lore at your finger-ends, you could never improve on that simple little story." We teased Stevenson a good deal on the hugeness of his royalties on "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," which, besides having had what the publishers call a "run," was bringing in a second goodly harvest from its dramatization, by which his voyage to the South Seas had become a reality. Remembering his remark that his idea of Purgatory was a perpetual high wind, I asked him: "Why have you chosen an island for your future habitat; or, if an island, why not Nevis in the West Indies, where one is in the perpetual doldrums, so to speak?" "There will be no more wind on Samoa than just enough to turn the page of the book one is reading," he replied; and windless Nevis was British, you see, and his first necessity was to get away where nobody reads. Like Jubal, son of Lamech, who felt himself hemmed in by hearing his songs repeated in a land where everybody sang, so he was shadowed by the Jekyll and Hyde mania in a land where everybody read. The very essence of his isolation is felt in a playful little fling at a Mr. Nerli, an artist, who went out there to paint his portrait, as well as the boredom everyone experiences in sitting to a painter: "Did ever mortal man hear tell, of sae singular a ferlie, Of the coming to Apia here, of the painter, Mr. Nerli? He came; and O for a human found, of a' _he_ was the pearlie, The pearl of a' the painter folk, was surely Mr. Nerli. He took a thraw to paint mysel'; he painted late and early; O now! the mony a yawn I've yawned in the beard of Mr. Nerli. Whiles I would sleep, an' whiles would wake, an' whiles was mair than surly, I wondered sair, as I sat there, forninst the eyes of Nerli. O will he paint me the way I want, as bonnie as a girlie? Or will he paint me an ugly type, and be damned to Mr. Nerli! But still and on, and whiche'er it is, he is a Canty Kerlie, The Lord proteck the back and neck of honest Mr. Nerli." Which shows that he was not altogether free from bothers even after reaching his "port o' dreams" in running away from Purgatorial winds, only to be held up by a paint-brush! Also, as most of us when excited fall back upon our early idiom, so Stevenson, in jest or lyric mood, drifted into the dialect of his fathers. We found, much to our surprise, that Stevenson knew every nook and cranny of the Sanborn estate, and told us of his trespassings--in their absence--in search of fresh eggs for his breakfast, having observed that the hens had formed nomadic habits, laying in the wood-pile and in odd corners all over the grounds. This was during a former visit when he stayed at Wainwright's, a landmark that has since been wiped out by fire. "One day, as I walked by," said he--meaning the Sanborn place--"I heard a hen cackling in that triumphant way that left no doubt as to her having performed her duty to the species. I vaulted the fence for that particular egg and found it, still warm, with others, on its bed of soft chips. After that, I had an object in my long, solitary walks. New laid eggs for all occasions! And why not," he asked merrily, "seeing there was no other proprietor than Chanticleer Peter, who had been the victim of neglect so long that he would crow me a welcome, and in time became so tame that he would spring on my knee and eat crumbs from my fingers?" The Sanborns were in Europe that year and, all things considered, is it any wonder that he took the place for being abandoned? "Nothing but my instinct for the preservation of property kept me from smashing all the windows for exercise," said he. "I am glad _thee_ was good to Peter, said Mrs. Sanborn. Her extinct brood was a pain still rankling in her bosom. She found Peter frozen stiff on the bough on which he was roosting, after his hens had disappeared by methods too elemental to explain. They had left no servants in charge, and neighbors there were none to restrain the attacks of marauders, and they were prize leghorns, too. She almost wailed. What a shame! Well might all bachelors who are threatened with a wintry solitude take warning by unhappy Peter. But he is not without the honor due to martyrdom--is Peter, for Mrs. Sanborn had him stuffed, and presented him to "Fanny," who took him to California, where he survived the great San Francisco earthquake. "He must have been our mascot," said Lloyd Osbourne to me long after, "for the fire that followed the earthquake came just as far as the gate and no farther." Since the cup that cheers is not customary in Quaker homes our hostess proposed an egg-nog by way of afternoon collation and all entered with zest into the mixing of the decoction. One brought the eggs, another the sugar-bowl, while our host went to the cellar for that brand of John Barleycorn that transmutes every beverage to a toast. Now, while Stevenson came to regard new-laid eggs as the natural manna of the desert, he had his doubts as to the feasibility of egg-nog, seeing that milk is a necessary constituent. He did not know, you see, that a little White Alderney cow was chewing the end of salt-meadow grasses in the woods nearby, and, even as he doubted, Mrs. Sanborn and her Ganymedes had brought in a jug of the white fluid, topped with a froth like sea-foam. "It's nectar for the gods on Olympus," said I--meaning the milk. "True Ambrosia of the meadows," agreed Mrs. Sanborn. "Well, this is Elysium, and _we_ are the gods to-day." Elysium-on-Manasquan. "To be more exact," said Stevenson, "it should be Argos; it was there they celebrated the cow, as we are now celebrating----" "Tidy," said Mrs. Sanborn. "Io," corrected Stevenson, waving his fork, for he, too, was helping to beat the eggs: "Argos-on-Manasquan." He lingered over the name Manasquan as though he enjoyed saying it. "The first thing that impressed me in travelling in America," said he, "was your Indian names for towns and rivers. Temiscami, Coghnawaga, Ticonderoga, the very sound of them thrills one with romantic fancies. Why do you not revive more of these charming Indian names?" "We are too young yet to appreciate our legendary wealth," said Mr. Sanborn, with an emphasis on the "legendary." "_Qui s'excuse, s'accuse_," reminded Mrs. Low, who was a French woman. "Quite right," assented Mr. Sanborn, "it is not precedent we lack, but valuations." "To return to Argos," said Mrs. Sanborn--the peace-maker--"I always feel in the presence of a divine mystery when I milk Tidy. No one could be guilty of a frivolous thing before the calm eye of that little cow." Mrs. Sanborn possessed the reverent spirit of the pre-Raphaelites which burned modestly in its Quaker shrine or flared up like lightning as occasion required; and she delighted in the deification of her little cow. And why not? Had not Tidy's worshipped ancestors nourished kings of antiquity, and given idols to their temples, and stood she not to-day as perfect a symbol of maternity? I do not now remember whether it was referring to Samoa as Stevenson's "port o' dreams" that brought up the discussion of dreams. To some one who asked him if he believed that dreams came true, he replied, "Certainly, they are just as real as anything else." "Well, it's what one believes that counts, isn't it, and one can form any theory in a world where dreams are as real as other things, and is it the same with ideals?" somebody ventured. "Ideals," said Stevenson, "are apt to stay by you when material things have taken the proverbial wings, and are assets quite as enduring as stone fences." "And was it a want of faith in the durability of stone fences, or ignorance of their dream-assets, that accounts for the way that Cato and Demosthenes solved their problems?" was the next question, but as this high strain was interrupted by more frivolity, my thoughts again reverted to the solidity of Stevenson's dreams, that now furnished his inquiring soul with new fields for exploitation, as well as a dominant interest to fill up the measure of his earthly span. He regretted leaving the haunts of man, he told us, particularly the separation from his friends, which was satisfactory, coming, as it did, from the man who coined the truism that the way to have a friend is to be one. But this was his fighting chance, "and a fellow has to die fighting, you know." What was civilization anyway to one who needed only sunshine and negligée? Thus in no other than a tone of pleasantry did he refer to his condition, and never have I seen a face or heard a voice so exempt from bitterness. He told me, in fact, that he was unable to breathe in a room with more than four people in it at a time. This sounds like an exaggeration, or one of the vagaries of the sick, yet things that seem trifles to the well, can be tragic to the nervous sufferer. Mrs. Low has told me that at a dinner of only five or six covers Stevenson would frequently get up and throw open a window to breathe in enough ozone to enable him to get through the evening. He was embarking to the lure of soft airs and long, subliminal solitudes, accepting gracefully the one hope held out, when the crowded habitations of cities had become a torture. We felt the pity of the enforced exile of so companionable a spirit, but we did not voice it, feeling constrained to live up to the standard of cheerfulness he had so valiantly set for us. Mr. Eaton, who boasted that, in him, a good sea captain had been spoiled to make a bad painter, encouraged Stevenson to talk freely of his plans, and he dwelt at some length on the beauty and seaworthiness of the yacht _Casco_, that had been chartered for the voyage. This sea theme led, of course, to the inevitable fish stories, and after some mythological whale had been swallowed by some non-Biblical Jonah, I remarked, in the lull that followed, "Maybe the waters of the South Seas will yield you up a heroine." A laugh went around at this, for some present thought I had said a "herring." But Stevenson had no doubt as to my meaning. "I am always helpless," said he, "when I try to describe a woman; but then," he added, brightly, "how should I hope to understand a woman, when God, who made her, cannot?" As straws show how the wind blows, so this little joke throws light on Stevenson 's state of mind toward womankind in general. During this heroine discussion, he remarked that he was always "unconscionably bored" by the conversation of young girls. He had no desire, it seems, to mould the young idea to his taste, as Horace, when he said: "Place me where the world is not habitable, Where the Day-God's Chariot too near approaches, Yet will I love Lalagé, see her sweet smile, Hear her sweet prattle." Even as a school-boy he was unable to mingle with lads of his own age. This, doubtless, is another of the precocities of the early-doomed, who feel that every moment of life they have must be lived to the full. A well-known artist, Who was suffering with tuberculosis, once said to me, in describing his working hours at the studio, "I must make every touch tell, and every moment count." So to Stevenson the rounded out sympathies of maturity were more attractive than the sweet prattle of girlhood, because, like the painter, with his paint, he, with his life, had to _make every moment count_. This, of course, explains his having chosen a woman so much older than himself as a life-companion; a woman in whom he could find a response on his own mental plane. In the following little poem, which is perhaps his best known tribute to his wife, he embodies in cameo clearness my own early impression of the intrinsic qualities of her character: "Trusty, dusky, vivid true, With eyes of gold and bramble-dew, Steel-true and blade-straight, The great artificer Made my mate. Honor, anger, valor, fire; A love that life could never tire; Death quench or evil stir, The mighty master Gave to her. Teacher, tender, comrade, wife, A fellow-farer true through life, Heart-whole and soul-free, The august father Gave to me." It was at the Lows' Apartment in New York that I first met Mrs. Stevenson. I called one afternoon to see Mrs. Low, who was convalescing from an illness. She sent word that she would be able to see me in half an hour, and I was shown into the living-room, where, meditating by the fire, sat Mrs. Stevenson. She seemed exceedingly picturesque to me, in a rich black satin gown, her hair tied back by a black ribbon in girlish fashion and falling in three ringlets down her back. She told me stories of her first arrival in New York that were as amusing as some of Stevenson's prairie experiences. She engaged a messenger-boy to pioneer her through the great stone jungle, not from fear of pickpockets or the like, but to save her from a helplessly lost feeling she always had when alone on the streets of a strange city. On arriving, she went directly to the old St. Stephen's Hotel on University Place and Eleventh Street, registering thus: "Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson (wife of the author of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)." To those of the friends who smiled over it, she explained that, being ill at the time, she had a horror of dying unknown in a hotel room and being sent to the morgue. I replied to this by telling her how my mother, being alone at a large London hotel for a night, insisted on having one of the chambermaids sleep with her, no doubt from the same sense of hopeless wandering in a similar Dædalian Labyrinth. Years after, some autograph collector hunted up that old St. Stephen's register and cut the name from the page, which reminded me of a little story I once told Mrs. Low. As a boy Mr. Eaton one day mounted the pulpit of the church in the little village of Phillipsburg, P. Q., Canada, where he was born, and made a drawing on one of the fly-leaves of the Bible. When it was later told in the village that he had exhibited at the Paris Salon, someone cut the leaf from the Book of Books. When one starts story telling to a good listener, little incidents dart through the brain that for long have lain dormant, and to pass the time, I told Mrs. Stevenson that on the day Mr. Eaton finished his portrait of President Garfield for the Union League Club, he asked the newly landed Celtic maid if she would wash his brushes for him (an office that he generally performed for himself), to which she exclaimed joyfully, "To think that I have lived to see the day that I washed the brushes that painted the President of the United States!" What the artist regarded as an added chore to her already full labors, was to her willing hands a pride and an honor. It may be a truism that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but there certainly seems to be a good deal in a view-point. In looking back, I know that I grasped, that day, something of what the later years proved her to the world, for I read her then, as a highly gifted woman who had submerged her own personality in the greater gifts and personal claims of her invalid husband and in a recent reading of her Samoan notes there was imparted to me, by means too subtle to explain, those glimpses that insight bestows, that are called reading between the lines--a realization of the hardship of much of her life in the South Seas. I felt distinctly the under-current of troubled restlessness beneath the apparent good time of an unusual environment. [Illustration: WYATT EATON AS A STUDENT _Photo by Kurtz, N. Y._] To the woman who loves becoming toilets and the vivacity and movement of life in literary and social centres, and who, moreover, possesses the useful hands and right instincts both in artistic and domestic relationships, the long sojourns in desolate places, the doing with makeshifts and the like that these entail, are a real deprivation, and a persistent irritation that calls for the counteraction of an exceptional degree of poise and self-mastery. Nothing, in short, emphasizes this sense of her isolation, to my mind, so strongly as Stevenson himself in describing her quarters on board the schooner _Equator_, as a "beetle-haunted most unwomanly bower," and this simultaneously with the reminder that it will be long before her eyes behold again the familiar scenes of rural beauty dear to her memory. The pen sketch of Stevenson forming the frontispiece was drawn by Mr. Eaton in a few minutes from memory. I regret to say that it is reproduced from a reproduction, the original (owned by Mr. S. S. McClure) could not be found, when wanted, Mr. McClure being in France at the time, but we were glad to obtain one of these copies, now becoming rare. I have never seen a portrait of Stevenson that equalled his appearance that day. The bas-relief by Saint Gaudens approximates it somewhat in ethereal thinness, but the _verve_, the glow, the vital spark, are lacking even in that. It has always been a satisfaction to me that our meeting was on an occasion when his illness was least apparent. My memory of his face has nothing of that pain-worn expression so often seen in photographs. The afternoon of the day we received his message, I caught a glimpse of him at a distance from my window. He was coming up from the Inlet, where, no doubt, he had gone to take a plunge. There was a briskness about his movements that seemed like the unconscious enjoyment of sound health, and in appearance he certainly was as romantic a figure as any of his own characters. Whenever I read "In the Highlands," I see him as he appeared at that moment, treading through a maze of bright sabatia and sweet clover, the mental picture, as it were, becoming a part of that beautiful and touching poem: In the highlands, in the country places, Where the old plain men have rosy faces, And the young fair maidens quiet eyes; Where essential silence cheers and blesses, And for ever in the hill-recesses Her more lovely music broods and dies. O to mount again where erst I haunted; Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted, And the low green meadows bright with sward; And when even dies, the million-tinted, And the night has come, and planets glinted, Lo! the valley hollow, lamp-bestarred. O to dream, O to awake and wander There, and with delight to take and render, Through the trance of silence, quiet breath; Lo! for there, among the flowers and grasses, Only the mightier movement sounds and passes; Only winds and rivers, life and death. I felt the poetry of the day more poignantly as the hour for parting approached, and when the sun began to wane, I went out on the lawn to see the place under the spell of the lengthened shadows and the mellow sun-rays that turn the tree-trunks to burnished gold. This has always been my favorite hour, this charmed hour before sunset, when we can almost feel the earth's movement under our feet--an hour that transcends in poetry anything that can be imagined by the finite mind. I walked up and down under the cedars bordering the river, to quiet my emotion. It was there, too, under the cedars, that a remark of Mr. Eaton's, in describing to me his first meeting with Stevenson, flashed across my memory: "He combined the face of a boy with the distinguished bearing of a man of the world." And I thought, as I saw him then, merrily recalling the scenes and escapades of student life, "How well the distinguished man of the world had succeeded in keeping the heart of a boy!" A passage in Mr. Low's book, "A Chronicle of Friendships," that recalls that day most vividly, is this: "Stevenson never once excused himself from our company on the plea of having work to do." For so it was with us; he seemed to have no cares or preoccupations, but to be content to be there, enjoying the conversation and the pleasantness of the passing hour. I had a cosy quarter of an hour with his mother after my walk, and off by ourselves, in a corner, away from interruption, she spoke of her son's childhood. In her eyes, he was still the "bonnie wee laddie" who scouted about in his make-believe worlds among the chairs and tables in the drawing-room while she entertained her friends, and we repeated bits from "A Child's Garden of Verses." I think that if there is any clue to the character of a great man we must look to his mother. Mrs. Stevenson embodied the idea of her son's peculiar charm; there was the same triumphal youthfulness, and her cheeks were round and rosy like a ripe apple. I think of the mother now, after so many years, as the crowning influence of the day, quiet and reticent, but always felt, and honored by all as became the mother of our welcome guest. In her letters, written in the Marquesas to her sister in Scotland, she carries out this impression of habitual freshness of spirit, and her humor is subtle and optimistic: "Nothing gives me more pleasure or a better appetite than an obstacle overcome." She shows herself the life of "The Silver Ship," as the people of Fakarava dubbed the _Casco_, and never a word of criticism or complaint is penned at any inconvenience or annoyance endured by the way. Indeed, one marvels at her tranquillity in the midst of so many complications--just as one wondered at the simplicity of Queen Victoria in her diary. One of the chief delights in the perusal of these letters is the questions they project into the mind of the reader. Is it a style, a native virtue, a mannerism, a fad, or what? For example, she never suspects that the French man-o'-war in one of the bays may account for some of the good behavior of the natives, or that their bounty in cocoanuts and bread-fruit may be tendered with an eye to the novelties to be had in exchange, but accepts all in good faith, as part of their native generosity. And what a joy it is to see her taking holy communion with these people, so lately reclaimed from cannabalism, and taking the ceremony "_au grand serieux_"! Thus, a missionary within, a warship without, the amenities of religion and society are enjoyed to the full. One lays down these letters and laughs, many a time, where no laughter was intended. Certainly, she was a good mixer as well as the born mother of a genius. Stevenson's death is an anomaly no less pathetic than his life, for in eluding extinction by consumption, he probably achieved a still earlier end by apoplexy. I had the account from Mrs. Low, who received it directly from "Fanny" by letter. Mrs. Stevenson was mixing a salad of native ingredients of which Stevenson was very fond, when he joined her in the kitchen, complaining that he was not very well, and sitting down, laid his head on her shoulder, where in about twenty minutes he expired. I said at the beginning that I was not disappointed in the personality of Stevenson, but it would be nearer the mark to say that my anticipations fell far short of the reality. It is often the case in meeting literary celebrities that one has the feeling that they are first authors, and after that men. Rodin, the French sculptor, focuses this idea by saying that "many are artists at the expense of some qualities of manhood." With Stevenson one was clearly in the presence of a man, and after that the scholar and the gentleman. Was it not this fine distinction that, in spite of woolen shirt and a third-class transportation, awoke the suspicions of his companions of the steerage, that prompted the already quoted remark, "You are not one of us?" And on that memorable journey across the plains, seeking the woman of his choice, resolved, though penniless and unknown, to make her his wife in spite of every obstacle, the truth that the frailty of the body is no criterion for the strength of the spirit is well brought out. It was, in fact, this quality of initiative that constituted his chief charm--the quality that, above all others, made us so spontaneous in his presence and so proud of his achievement. We knew that we were seeing him at his best, surrounded by his old friends, and with the light of the memory of his youthful ambitions on his face. We knew, too, that the parting would be a life-long one, and that we would never look upon his like again. This regret each knew to be uppermost in the mind of the others, but when the good-byes began, we made no sign that it was to be more than the absence of a day. Nevertheless, the tensity of the last moments of parting was keenly felt. Stevenson had planned to spend his last night at Wainwright's, and Lloyd Osbourne was to row him across the river. Mr. Eaton and I went down to the river-bank to see them off and to wave our last _adieux_. The rumble of carriage-wheels in the distance, and the reverberations of footsteps and voices on the old wooden bridge grew fainter and died away, before the little boat was pushed off; and then, these two friends, Robert Louis Stevenson and Wyatt Eaton, both at the zenith of their life and powers, and both hovering so closely on the brink of eternity, sent their last messages to each other, across the distance, until the little boat had glided away, on the ebb-tide, a mere speck in the gray transparency of the twilight. FATE OF THE _CASCO_ There are ships that, like certain people, seem created for an unusual and distinguishing destiny, and are unable long to survive the destruction of those peculiar conditions that have given them their dominating qualities, animation and color. Mr. Francis Dickie of Vancouver, B. C., has described with a vivid pen the later adventures and slow foundering of the _Casco_. This gentleman has kindly given me permission to reprint it here. Our sympathy goes out to the beautiful yacht in her lonely buffetings and chill decay, but though stricken and vanished, we know that she will live long in romance and in song as "The Silver Ship." FATE OF THE _CASCO_ by FRANCIS DICKIE Forty miles from Nome, Alaska, breaking under the Arctic winter on the shores of bleak King Island, lies the skeleton of a wrecked top-mast schooner. Early in June, 1919, a small crew of adventurous spirits had turned her nose out through the Behring Sea, headed for the Lena River and Anadyn--and gold. She was small and old, this yacht, but what are thirty-three years when a craft has the proper tradition for daring, hazardous adventure? September storms swept upon the _Casco_, pounding her teak sides with unfamiliar Northern blasts. Fog, cold, night--and she lay shuddering on the rocks, snow-beaten, ice-broken, abandoned by her crew. So ships pass and become smooth driftwood on scattered beaches. But sometimes the magic of long adventure will gather around an abandoned hull, and form a rich memory to tempt the eternal wanderlust of man. What is an old ship but a floating castle built upon the memories of the men who have helmed her? Sometimes she plies the same dull course throughout her existence. Sometimes she changes trade with surprising chances. So it was with the _Casco_--now a glittering pleasure yacht, whim of an old millionaire, now stripped of gaudy trappings and bent to the grim will of seal hunter and opium trader. In the opening of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel, "The Wrecker," with red ensign waving, sailing into the port of Tai-o-hae in the Marquesas, the _Casco_ takes her place in fiction. But she is far more romantic as she has sailed in fact. "Winged by her own impetus and the dying breeze, the _Casco_ skimmed under cliffs, opened out a cove, showed us a beach and some green trees, and flitted by again, bowing to the swell ... from close aboard arose the bleating of young lambs; a bird sang on the hillside; the scent of the land and of a hundred fruits or flowers flowed forth to meet us; and presently"-- Presently they sailed among the Isles of Varien, sunny and welcoming in the South Seas. Stevenson wrote this in the cabin of the _Casco_, in the summer of '88. His always delicate health had broken completely under the San Francisco climate. Friends had urged a cruise to the South Seas, he had gladly acquiesced, and looked around for a ship. There was a subtle romantic call for the author of "Treasure Island" in a voyage on a ship of his own choosing and direction under the soft skies of the tropics. The _Casco_ had been built by an eccentric California millionaire, Dr. Merritt, for cruising along the coast, and no money had been spared in her fittings. She was a seventy-ton fore-and-aft schooner, ninety-five feet long, with graceful lines, high masts, white sails and decks, shiny brasswork, and a gaudy silk-hung saloon. She was not perhaps too staunch a cruiser. "Her cockpit was none too safe, her one pump was inadequate in size and almost worthless; the sail plan forward was meant for racing and not for cruising; and even if the masts were still in good condition, they were quite unfitted for hurricane weather." Nevertheless, negotiations were opened with Dr. Merritt. That gentleman had read of Stevenson. He had conceived him as an erratic, irresponsible soul who wrote poetry and let everything else go to the devil. He'd be blamed, he said, if he'd let any scatter-brained writer use his precious yacht. Finally, a meeting between the two was effected; and, speedily charmed by Stevenson's manner, he decided to let him have the _Casco_. Therefore, with Capt. Otis as skipper, four deck hands, "three Swedes and the inevitable Finn," and a Chinese cook, the Stevensons sailed June 28, 1888, for the Marquesas. Stevenson's health rapidly improved in the first weeks of the voyage. He was charmed by the Southern islands and began making notes and gathering data from the natives for later books. He wrote parts of "The Master of Ballantrae" and of "The Wrong Box," and spent much of his time studying the intricate personality of his skipper, whose portrait afterward appeared in the pages of "The Wrecker." After months of idle cruising, it was discovered that the _Casco's_ masts were dangerously rotten. Repairs were immediately necessary. Meantime Stevenson became less and less well. When the ship was again in commission and took them to Hawaii, he realized the impossibility of his returning to America, and, sending the _Casco_ back to San Francisco, started upon the exile that was to terminate in his death. Thereafter, the _Casco_ changed hands frequently, exploring the mysteries of seal-hunting, opium-smuggling, coast-trading and gold-adventure, among other things. In the early nineties, she was known, because of her swiftness, quickness and ease of handling at the wheel, to be the best of a hundred and twenty ships engaged in the extinction of the pelagic seal. But when, in 1898, the sealers found themselves impoverished by their own ruthlessness, the _Casco_, her decks disfigured with blood and her hold rotten from the drip of countless salty pelts, was discarded and left to rot on the mud flats of Victoria. Too much of the spirit of adventure, however, lurked in the tall masts of the _Casco_ to let her waste away to such an ugly ending. When the smuggling of Chinese and opium was at its height, up and down the coast there were whisperings of the daring work of the smuggler _Casco_. The revenue officers knew positively that she was laden with illicit Oriental cargo, and with Chinese immigrants; but she escaped them again and again, her old speed and lightness returning. Once, however, the wind failed her, and the revenue launch hauled alongside. Search for contraband was instituted; but not a Chinaman appeared, not a trace of opium. Fooled!--and they climbed down sheepishly into their launch. Later it developed that while the revenue men were still far astern, the crew had weighted the sixty Chinamen and dumped them overboard along with the opium! [Illustration: THE CASCO, JUST BEFORE IT WAS WRECKED ON KING ISLAND _Kind permission of_ MR. L. W. PEDROSE] From the swift romance of opium running the _Casco_ turned drudge. She carried junk between Victoria and Vancouver; she was a training ship for the Boy Sea Scouts of Vancouver; she was a coasting trader in 1917 when the shipping boom gave value to even her little hulk; and in between times she lay on mud flats. In the spring of 1919 came the stories of gold in Northern Siberia. With high hopes of fortunes to be made, the Northern Mining and Trading Company sprang into existence, and the _Casco_ was chartered to dare the far Northern seas and icy gaps. So she died at sea, as all good ships should, with the storm at her back and the mists over her, with snow as a shroud, and brooding icebergs to mourn. She lies cold and stately, with her memories of tropical splendor, high adventure, and light romance--this little ship whose cabin knew Stevenson. PORTRAITS FROM STEVENSON by GEORGE STEELE SEYMOUR TREASURE ISLAND Jim Hawkins, Jim Hawkins, the treasure ship's a-sailing, The lure of life is calling us beyond the shining sea, The distant land of mystery her beauty is unveiling, And shall we then be lagging when there's work for you and me? The pirate ship is on the main, Jim Hawkins, Jim Hawkins, She flies the Jolly Roger and there's battle in her prow, Then shall we play the craven-heart and lurk ashore, Jim Hawkins, When fortune with a lavish turn is waiting for us now? Jim Hawkins, Jim Hawkins, the pirate crew has landed, With guns and knives between their teeth they're stealing on the prey, Then let's afoot and follow them and catch them bloody-handed-- When life and joy are calling us, shall we bide long away? Jim Hawkins, Jim Hawkins! ALAN BRECK Is't you, Alan? You of the ready sword And nimble feet, and keen, courageous eye, Quick to affront, and yet more quick to spy Aught that might touch your own dear absent lord! Hero and clown! How it sets every chord Athrill to see your feathered hat draw nigh, And all your brave, fantastic finery! Romance no stranger picture doth afford. For I have met you in the House of Fear, Have watched you cross the torrent of Glencoe And climbed with you the rugged mountain-side. We are old comrades, and I hold most dear This loyal friend and yet more loyal foe Who bore a kingly name with kingly pride. ELLIS DUCKWORTH Was there a rustle of the leafy bed? Heard you no footstep in the matted grass? Down the deep glade where fearsome shadows pass What is it lurks so still? What secret dread Troubles the tangled branches overhead? An ye be foe to this good man, alas! No art shall save you though ye walk in brass. Swift to your heart shall the Black Death be sped. The woods are still--for that was years ago-- And now no baleful presence haunts the glade, No train-band rules the highway as of yore. Romance is dead. Adventure, too, lies low. Long in the grave is Duckworth's kingdom laid, And the black arrow speeds its way no more. SAINT IVES Viscomte, your health. Confusion to the foe. The noble lord your uncle--bless his name! And may your wicked captors die in shame. I kiss your hand; I kiss your forehead--so! The castle cliff is steep, but down below Both fortune and the lady Flora wait. Oh, you will meet them, I anticipate, Your hand upon your heart, and bowing low. The stage-coach lumbers heavily tonight. Its wheels sound loudly on the stony flag. What's that! A chest of florins in the drag Gone! And the rascally postboy taken flight! Ah, well, God send him a dark night, and we ... Your health, Saint Ives, in sparkling Burgundy. PRINCE FLORIZEL Try these perfectos, gentlemen. The flavour I recommend. A smoke-royal. With white wines You'll find them fragrantest. That spicy savour Comes only in stock from the Isle of Pines. Here are cigarettes, Turkish and Egyptian, Such as no other merchant has to sell, And Trichinopoly of the same description I smoked when I was called Prince Florizel. That was before I stooped to trade plebeian, Left my exalted home and wandered far, Emptied my plate at danger's feast Protean, Beside the well of wisdom broke my jar. Till Louis looked from out the empyrean And in the dust of Mayfair found a star. THE EBB TIDE Green palm-tops bending low by silent seas Like heads in prayer-- Life's turmoil nor its multiplicities Are there. But only calms and potencies hold sway That will not be denied, Come with the surge of dawn and drift away With the ebb tide. FOOTNOTES: [A] Lescaris was a Greek shepherd who discovered the secret of transmuting the baser metals to fine gold. [B] Paua--Native name for the Tridacna Gigus, a huge clam. When it closes on any one, his only escape is by losing the limb. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: Text in italics is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. Inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, and hyphenation have been standardized. 
3043	----	University, and Alev Akman. THE QUAKER COLONIES, A CHRONICLE OF THE PROPRIETORS OF THE DELAWARE Volume 8 In The Chronicles Of America Series By Sydney G. Fisher New Haven: Yale University Press Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co. London: Humphrey Milford Oxford University Press 1919 CONTENTS I. THE BIRTH OF PENNSYLVANIA II. PENN SAILS FOR THE DELAWARE III. LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA IV. TYPES OF THE POPULATION V. THE TROUBLES OF PENN AND HIS SONS VI. THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR VII. THE DECLINE OF QUAKER GOVERNMENT VIII. THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW JERSEY IX. PLANTERS AND TRADERS OF SOUTHERN JERSEY X. SCOTCH COVENANTERS AND OTHERS IN EAST JERSEY XI. THE UNITED JERSEYS XII. LITTLE DELAWARE XIII. THE ENGLISH CONQUEST BIBLIOGRAPHY THE QUAKER COLONIES Chapter I. The Birth Of Pennsylvania In 1661, the year after Charles II was restored to the throne of England, William Penn was a seventeen-year-old student at Christ Church, Oxford. His father, a distinguished admiral in high favor at Court, had abandoned his erstwhile friends and had aided in restoring King Charlie to his own again. Young William was associating with the sons of the aristocracy and was receiving an education which would fit him to obtain preferment at Court. But there was a serious vein in him, and while at a high church Oxford College he was surreptitiously attending the meetings and listening to the preaching of the despised and outlawed Quakers. There he first began to hear of the plans of a group of Quakers to found colonies on the Delaware in America. Forty years afterwards he wrote, "I had an opening of joy as to these parts in the year 1661 at Oxford." And with America and the Quakers, in spite of a brief youthful experience as a soldier and a courtier, William Penn's life, as well as his fame, is indissolubly linked. Quakerism was one of the many religious sects born in the seventeenth century under the influence of Puritan thought. The foundation principle of the Reformation, the right of private judgment, the Quakers carried out to its logical conclusion; but they were people whose minds had so long been suppressed and terrorized that, once free, they rushed to extremes. They shocked and horrified even the most advanced Reformation sects by rejecting Baptism, the doctrine of the Trinity, and all sacraments, forms, and ceremonies. They represented, on their best side, the most vigorous effort of the Reformation to return to the spirituality and the simplicity of the early Christians. But their intense spirituality, pathetic often in its extreme manifestations, was not wholly concerned with another world. Their humane ideas and philanthropic methods, such as the abolition of slavery, and the reform of prisons and of charitable institutions, came in time to be accepted as fundamental practical social principles. The tendencies of which Quakerism formed only one manifestation appeared outside of England, in Italy, in France, and especially in Germany. The fundamental Quaker idea of "quietism," as it was called, or peaceful, silent contemplation as a spiritual form of worship and as a development of moral consciousness, was very widespread at the close of the Reformation and even began to be practiced in the Roman Catholic Church until it was stopped by the Jesuits. The most extreme of the English Quakers, however, gave way to such extravagances of conduct as trembling when they preached (whence their name), preaching openly in the streets and fields--a horrible thing at that time--interrupting other congregations, and appearing naked as a sign and warning. They gave offense by refusing to remove their hats in public and by applying to all alike the words "thee" and "thou," a form of address hitherto used only to servants and inferiors. Worst of all, the Quakers refused to pay tithes or taxes to support the Church of England. As a result, the loathsome jails of the day were soon filled with these objectors, and their property melted away in fines. This contumacy and their street meetings, regarded at that time as riotous breaches of the peace, gave the Government at first a legal excuse to hunt them down; but as they grew in numbers and influence, laws were enacted to suppress them. Some of them, though not the wildest extremists, escaped to the colonies in America. There, however, they were made welcome to conditions no less severe. The first law against the Quakers in Massachusetts was passed in 1656, and between that date and 1660 four of the sect were hanged, one of them a woman, Mary Dyer. Though there were no other hangings, many Quakers were punished by whipping and banishment. In other colonies, notably New York, fines and banishment were not uncommon. Such treatment forced the Quakers, against the will of many of them, to seek a tract of land and found a colony of their own. To such a course there appeared no alternative, unless they were determined to establish their religion solely by martyrdom. About the time when the Massachusetts laws were enforced, the principal Quaker leader and organizer, George Fox (1624-1691), began to consider the possibility of making a settlement among the great forests and mountains said to lie north of Maryland in the region drained by the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers. In this region lay practically the only good land on the Atlantic seaboard not already occupied. The Puritans and Dutch were on the north, and there were Catholic and Church of England colonies on the south in Maryland and Virginia. The middle ground was unoccupied because heretofore a difficult coast had prevented easy access by sea. Fox consulted Josiah Coale, a Quaker who had traveled in America and had seen a good deal of the Indian tribes, with the result that on his second visit to America Coale was commissioned to treat with the Susquehanna Indians, who were supposed to have rights in the desired land. In November, 1660, Coale reported to Fox the result of his inquiries: "As concerning Friends buying a piece of land of the Susquehanna Indians I have spoken of it to them and told them what thou said concerning it; but their answer was, that there is no land that is habitable or fit for situation beyond Baltimore's liberty till they come to or near the Susquehanna's Fort." * Nothing could be done immediately, the letter went on to say, because the Indians were at war with one another, and William Fuller, a Maryland Quaker, whose cooperation was deemed essential, was absent. * James Bowden's "History of the Friends in America," vol. I, p. 389 This seems to have been the first definite movement towards a Quaker colony. Reports of it reached the ears of young Penn at Oxford and set his imagination aflame. He never forgot the project, for seventeen is an age when grand thoughts strike home. The adventurousness of the plan was irresistible--a home for the new faith in the primeval forest, far from imprisonment, tithes, and persecution, and to be won by effort worthy of a man. It was, however, a dream destined not to be realized for many a long year. More was needed than the mere consent of the Indians. In the meantime, however, a temporary refuge for the sect was found in the province of West Jersey on the Delaware, which two Quakers had bought from Lord Berkeley for the comparatively small sum of 1000 pounds. Of this grant William Penn became one of the trustees and thus gained his first experience in the business of colonizing the region of his youthful dreams. But there was never a sufficient governmental control of West Jersey to make it an ideal Quaker colony. What little control the Quakers exercised disappeared after 1702; and the land and situation were not all that could be desired. Penn, though also one of the owners of East Jersey, made no attempt to turn that region into a Quaker colony. Besides West Jersey the Quakers found a temporary asylum in Aquidneck, now Rhode Island. * For many years the governors and magistrates were Quakers, and the affairs of this island colony were largely in their hands. Quakers were also prominent in the politics of North Carolina, and John Archdale, a Quaker, was Governor for several years. They formed a considerable element of the population in the towns of Long Island and Westchester County but they could not hope to convert these communities into real Quaker commonwealths. * This Rhode Island colony should be distinguished from the settlement at Providence founded by Roger Williams with which it was later united. See Jones, "The Quakers in the American Colonies," p. 21, note. The experience in the Jerseys and elsewhere very soon proved that if there was to be a real Quaker colony, the British Crown must give not only a title to the land but a strong charter guaranteeing self-government and protection of the Quaker faith from outside interference. But that the British Government would grant such valued privileges to a sect of schismatics which it was hunting down in England seemed a most unlikely event. Nothing but unusual influence at Court could bring it about, and in that quarter the Quakers had no influence. Penn never forgot the boyhood ideal which he had developed at college. For twenty years he led a varied life--driven from home and whipped by his father for consorting with the schismatic; sometimes in deference to his father's wishes taking his place in the gay world at Court; even, for a time, becoming a soldier, and again traveling in France with some of the people of the Court. In the end, as he grew older, religious feeling completely absorbed him. He became one of the leading Quaker theologians, and his very earnest religious writings fill several volumes. He became a preacher at the meetings and went to prison for his heretical doctrines and pamphlets. At last he found himself at the age of thirty-six with his father dead, and a debt due from the Crown of 16,000 pounds for services which his distinguished father, the admiral, had rendered the Government. Here was the accident that brought into being the great Quaker colony, by a combination of circumstances which could hardly have happened twice. Young Penn was popular at Court. He had inherited a valuable friendship with Charles II and his heir, the Duke of York. This friendship rested on the solid fact that Penn's father, the admiral, had rendered such signal assistance in restoring Charles and the whole Stuart line to the throne. But still 16,000 pounds or $80,000, the accumulation of many deferred payments, was a goodly sum in those days, and that the Crown would pay it in money, of which it had none too much, was unlikely. Why not therefore suggest paying it instead in wild land in America, of which the Crown had abundance? That was the fruitful thought which visited Penn. Lord Berkeley and Lord Carteret had been given New Jersey because they had signally helped to restore the Strait family to the throne. All the more therefore should the Stuart family give a tract of land, and even a larger tract, to Penn, whose father had not only assisted the family to the throne but had refrained so long from pressing his just claim for money due. So the Crown, knowing little of the value of it, granted him the most magnificent domain of mountains; lakes, rivers, and forests, fertile soil, coal, petroleum, and iron that ever was given to a single proprietor. In addition to giving Penn the control of Delaware and, with certain other Quakers, that of New Jersey as well, the Crown placed at the disposal of the Quakers 55,000 square miles of most valuable, fertile territory, lacking only about three thousand square miles of being as large as England and Wales. Even when cut down to 45,000 square miles by a boundary dispute with Maryland, it was larger than Ireland. Kings themselves have possessed such dominions, but never before a private citizen who scorned all titles and belonged to a hunted sect that exalted peace and spiritual contemplation above all the wealth and power of the world. Whether the obtaining of this enormous tract of the best land in America was due to what may be called the eternal thriftiness of the Quaker mind or to the intense desire of the British Government to get rid of these people--at any cost might be hard to determine. Penn received his charter in 1681, and in it he was very careful to avoid all the mistakes of the Jersey proprietary grants. Instead of numerous proprietors, Penn was to be the sole proprietor. Instead of giving title to the land and remaining silent about the political government, Penn's charter not only gave him title to the land but a clearly defined position as its political head, and described the principles of the government so clearly that there was little room for doubt or dispute. It was a decidedly feudal charter, very much like the one granted to Lord Baltimore fifty years before, and yet at the same time it secured civil liberty and representative government to the people. Penn owned all the land and the colonists were to be his tenants. He was compelled, however, to give his people free government. The laws were to be made by him with the assent of the people or their delegates. In practice this of course meant that the people were to elect a legislature and Penn would have a veto, as we now call it, on such acts as the legislature should pass. He had power to appoint magistrates, judges, and some other officers, and to grant pardons. Though, by the charter, proprietor of the province, he usually remained in England and appointed a deputy governor to exercise authority in the colony. In modern phrase, he controlled the executive part of the government and his people controlled the legislative part. Pennsylvania, besides being the largest in area of the proprietary colonies, was also the most successful, not only from the proprietor's point of view but also from the point of view of the inhabitants. The proprietorships in Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and the Carolinas were largely failures. Maryland was only partially successful; it was not particularly remunerative to its owner, and the Crown deprived him of his control of it for twenty years. Penn, too, was deprived of the control of Pennsylvania by William III but for only about two years. Except for this brief interval (1692-1694), Penn and his sons after him held their province down to the time of the American Revolution in 1776, a period of ninety-four years. A feudal proprietorship, collecting rents from all the people, seems to modern minds grievously wrong in theory, and yet it would be very difficult to show that it proved onerous in practice. Under it the people of Pennsylvania flourished in wealth, peace, and happiness. Penn won undying fame for the liberal principles of his feudal enterprise. His expenses in England were so great and his quitrents always so much in arrears that he was seldom out of debt. But his children grew rich from the province. As in other provinces that were not feudal there were disputes between the people and the proprietors; but there was not so much general dissatisfaction as might have been expected. The proprietors were on the whole not altogether disliked. In the American Revolution, when the people could have confiscated everything in Pennsylvania belonging to the proprietary family, they not only left them in possession of a large part of their land, but paid them handsomely for the part that was taken. After Penn had secured his charter in 1681, he obtained from the Duke of York the land now included in the State of Delaware. He advertised for colonists, and began selling land at 100 pounds for five thousand acres and annually thereafter a shilling quitrent for every hundred acres. He drew up a constitution or frame of government, as he called it, after wide and earnest consultation with many, including the famous Algernon Sydney. Among the Penn papers in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a collection of about twenty preliminary drafts. Beginning with one which erected a government by a landed aristocracy, they became more and more liberal, until in the end his frame was very much like the most liberal government of the other English colonies in America. He had a council and an assembly, both elected by the people. The council, however, was very large, had seventy-two members, and was more like an upper house of the Legislature than the usual colonial governor's council. The council also had the sole right of proposing legislation, and the assembly could merely accept or reject its proposals. This was a new idea, and it worked so badly in practice that in the end the province went to the opposite extreme and had no council or upper house of the Legislature at all. Penn's frame of government contained, however, a provision for its own amendment. This was a new idea and proved to be so happy that it is now found in all American constitutions. His method of impeachment by which the lower house was to bring in the charge and the upper house was to try it has also been universally adopted. His view that an unconstitutional law is void was a step towards our modern system. The next step, giving the courts power to declare a law unconstitutional, was not taken until one hundred years after his time. With the advice and assistance of some of those who were going out to his colony he prepared a code of laws which contained many of the advanced ideas of the Quakers. Capital punishment was to be confined to murder and treason, instead of being applied as in England to a host of minor offenses. The property of murderers, instead of being forfeited to the State, was to be divided among the next of kin of the victim and of the criminal. Religious liberty was established as it had been in Rhode Island and the Jerseys. All children were to be taught a useful trade. Oaths in judicial proceedings were not required. All prisons were to be workhouses and places of reformation instead of dungeons of dirt, idleness, and disease. This attempt to improve the prisons inaugurated a movement of great importance in the modern world in which the part played by the Quakers is too often forgotten. Penn had now started his "Holy Experiment," as he called his enterprise in Pennsylvania, by which he intended to prove that religious liberty was not only right, but that agriculture, commerce, and all arts and refinements of life would flourish under it. He would break the delusion that prosperity and morals were possible only under some one particular faith established by law. He, would prove that government could be carried on without war and without oaths, and that primitive Christianity could be maintained without a hireling ministry, without persecution, without ridiculous dogmas or ritual, sustained only by its own innate power and the inward light. Chapter II. Penn Sails For The Delaware The framing of the constitution and other preparations consumed the year following Penn's receipt of his charter in 1681. But at last, on August 30, 1682, he set sail in the ship Welcome, with about a hundred colonists. After a voyage of about six weeks, and the loss of thirty of their number by smallpox, they arrived in the Delaware. June would have been a somewhat better month in which to see the rich luxuriance of the green meadows and forests of this beautiful river. But the autumn foliage and bracing air of October must have been inspiring enough. The ship slowly beat her way for three days up the bay and river in the silence and romantic loneliness of its shores. Everything indicated richness and fertility. At some points the lofty trees of the primeval forest grew down to the water's edge. The river at every high tide overflowed great meadows grown up in reeds and grasses and red and yellow flowers, stretching back to the borders of the forest and full of water birds and wild fowl of every variety. Penn, now in the prime of life, must surely have been aroused by this scene and by the reflection that the noble river was his and the vast stretches of forests and mountains for three hundred miles to the westward. He was soon ashore, exploring the edge of his mighty domain, settling his government, and passing his laws. He was much pleased with the Swedes whom he found on his land. He changed the name of the little Swedish village of Upland, fifteen miles below Philadelphia, to Chester. He superintended laying out the streets of Philadelphia and they remain to this day substantially as he planned them, though unfortunately too narrow and monotonously regular. He met the Indians at Philadelphia, sat with them at their fires, ate their roasted corn, and when to amuse him they showed him some of their sports and games he renewed his college days by joining them in a jumping match. Then he started on journeys. He traveled through the woods to New York, which then belonged to the Duke of York, who had given him Delaware; he visited the Long Island Quakers; and on his return he went to Maryland to meet with much pomp and ceremony Lord Baltimore and there discuss with him the disputed boundary. He even crossed to the eastern shore of the Chesapeake to visit a Quaker meeting on the Choptank before winter set in, and he describes the immense migration of wild pigeons at that season, and the ducks which flew so low and were so tame that the colonists knocked them down with sticks. Most of the winter he spent at Chester and wrote to England in high spirits of his journeys, the wonders of the country, the abundance of game and provisions, and the twenty-three ships which had arrived so swiftly that few had taken longer than six weeks, and only three had been infected with the smallpox. "Oh how sweet," he says, "is the quiet of these parts, freed from the anxious and troublesome solicitations, hurries and perplexities of woful Europe." As the weeks and months passed, ships kept arriving with more Quakers, far exceeding the migration to the Jerseys. By summer, Penn reported that 50 sail had arrived within the past year, 80 houses had been built in Philadelphia, and about 300 farms had been laid out round the town. It is supposed that about 8000 immigrants had arrived. This was a more rapid development than was usual in the colonies of America. Massachusetts and Virginia had been established slowly and with much privation and suffering. But the settlement of Philadelphia was like a summer outing. There were no dangers, the hardships were trifling, and there was no sickness or famine. There was such an abundance of game close at hand that hunger and famine were in nowise to be feared. The climate was good and the Indians, kindly treated, remained friendly for seventy years. It is interesting to note that in that same year, 1682, in which Penn and his friends with such ease and comfort founded their great colony on the Delaware, the French explorers and voyageurs from Canada, after years of incredible hardships, had traversed the northern region of the Great Lakes with their canoes and had passed down the Mississippi to its mouth, giving to the whole of the Great West the name of Louisiana, and claiming it for France. Already La Salle had taken his fleet of canoes down the Mississippi River and had placed the arms of France on a post at its mouth in April, 1682, only a few months before Penn reached his newly acquired colony. Thus in the same year in which the Quakers established in Pennsylvania their reign of liberty and of peace with the red men, La Salle was laying the foundation of the western empire of despotic France, which seventy years afterwards was to hurl the savages upon the English colonies, to wreck the Quaker policy of peace, but to fail in the end to maintain itself against the free colonies of England. While they were building houses in Philadelphia, the settlers lived in bark huts or in caves dug in the river bank, as the early settlers in New Jersey across the river had lived. Pastorius, a learned German Quaker, who had come out with the English, placed over the door of his cave the motto, "Parva domus, sed amica bonis, procul este profani," which much amused Penn when he saw it. A certain Mrs. Morris was much exercised one day as to how she could provide supper in the cave for her husband who was working on the construction of their house. But on returning to her cave she found that her cat had just brought in a fine rabbit. In their later prosperous years they had a picture of the cat and the rabbit made on a box which has descended as a family heirloom. Doubtless there were preserved many other interesting reminiscences of the brief camp life. These Quakers were all of the thrifty, industrious type which had gone to West Jersey a few years before. Men of means, indeed, among the Quakers were the first to seek refuge from the fines and confiscations imposed upon them in England. They brought with them excellent supplies of everything. Many of the ships carried the frames of houses ready to put together. But substantial people of this sort demanded for the most part houses of brick, with stone cellars. Fortunately both brick clay and stone were readily obtainable in the neighborhood, and whatever may have been the case in other colonies, ships loaded with brick from England would have found it little to their profit to touch at Philadelphia. An early description says that the brick houses in Philadelphia were modeled on those of London, and this type prevailed for nearly two hundred years. It was probably in June, 1683, that Penn made his famous treaty with the Indians. No documentary proof of the existence of such a treaty has reached us. He made, indeed, a number of so-called treaties, which were really only purchases of land involving oral promises between the principals to treat each other fairly. Hundreds of such treaties have been made. The remarkable part about Penn's dealings with the Indians was that such promises as he made he kept. The other Quakers, too, were as careful as Penn in their honorable treatment of the red men. Quaker families of farmers and settlers lived unarmed among them for generations and, when absent from home, left children in their care. The Indians, on their part, were known to have helped white families with food in winter time. Penn, on his first visit to the colony, made a long journey unarmed among the Indians as far as the Susquehanna, saw the great herds of elk on that river, lived in Indian wigwams, and learned much of the language and customs of the natives. There need never be any trouble with them, he said. They were the easiest people in the world to get on with if the white men would simply be just. Penn's fair treatment of the Indians kept Pennsylvania at peace with them for about seventy years--in fact, from 1682 until the outbreak of the French and Indian Wars, in 1755. In its critical period of growth, Pennsylvania was therefore not at all harassed or checked by those Indian hostilities which were such a serious impediment in other colonies. The two years of Penn's first visit were probably the happiest of his life. Always fond of the country, he built himself a fine seat on the Delaware near Bristol, and it would have been better for him, and probably also for the colony, if he had remained there. But he thought he had duties in England: his family needed him; he must defend his people from the religious oppression still prevailing; and Lord Baltimore had gone to England to resist him in the boundary dispute. One of the more narrow-minded of his faith wrote to Penn from England that he was enjoying himself too much in his colony and seeking his own selfish interest. Influenced by all these considerations, he returned in August, 1684, and it was long before he saw Pennsylvania again--not, indeed, until October, 1699, and then for only two years. Chapter III. Life In Philadelphia The rapid increase of population and the growing prosperity in Pennsylvania during the life of its founder present a striking contrast to the slower and more troubled growth of the other British colonies in America. The settlers in Pennsylvania engaged at once in profitable agriculture. The loam, clay, and limestone soils on the Pennsylvania tide of the Delaware produced heavy crops of grain, as well as pasture for cattle and valuable lumber from its forests. The Pennsylvania settlers were of a class particularly skilled in dealing with the soil. They apparently encountered none of the difficulties, due probably to incompetent farming, which beset the settlers of Delaware, whose land was as good as that of the Pennsylvania colonists. In a few years the port of Philadelphia was loading abundant cargoes for England and the great West India trade. After much experimenting with different places on the river, such as New Castle, Wilmington, Salem, Burlington, the Quakers had at last found the right location for a great seat of commerce and trade that could serve as a center for the export of everything from the region behind it and around it. Philadelphia thus soon became the basis of a prosperity which no other townsite on the Delaware had been able to attain. The Quakers of Philadelphia were the soundest of financiers and men of business, and in their skillful hands the natural resources of their colony were developed without setback or accident. At an early date banking institutions were established in Philadelphia, and the strongest colonial merchants and mercantile firms had their offices there. It was out of such a sound business life that were produced in Revolutionary times such characters as Robert Morris and after the Revolution men like Stephen Girard. Pennsylvania in colonial times was ruled from Philadelphia somewhat as France has always been ruled from Paris. And yet there was a difference: Pennsylvania had free government. The Germans and the Scotch-Irish outnumbered the Quakers and could have controlled the Legislature, for in 1750 out of a population of 150,000 the Quakers were only about 50,000; and yet the Legislature down to the Revolution was always confided to the competent hands of the Quakers. No higher tribute, indeed, has ever been paid to any group of people as governors of a commonwealth and architects of its finance and trade. It is a curious commentary on the times and on human nature that these Quaker folk, treated as outcasts and enemies of good order and religion in England and gradually losing all their property in heavy fines and confiscations, should so suddenly in the wilderness prove the capacity of their "Holy Experiment" for achieving the best sort of good order and material success. They immediately built a most charming little town by the waterside, snug and pretty with its red brick houses in the best architectural style. It was essentially a commercial town down to the time of the Revolution and long afterwards. The principal residences were on Water Street, the second street from the wharves. The town in those days extended back only as far as Fourth Street, and the State House, now Independence Hall, an admirable instance of the local brick architecture, stood on the edge of the town. The Pennsylvania Hospital, the first institution of its kind to be built in America, was situated out in the fields. Through the town ran a stream following the line of the present Dock Street. Its mouth had been a natural landing place for the first explorers and for the Indians from time immemorial. Here stood a neat tavern, the Blue Anchor, with its dovecotes in old English style, looking out for many a year over the river with its fleet of small boats. Along the wharves lay the very solid, broad, somber, Quaker-like brick warehouses, some of which have survived into modern times. Everywhere were to be found ships and the good seafaring smell of tar and hemp. Ships were built and fitted out alongside docks where other ships were lading. A privateer would receive her equipment of guns, pistols, and cutlasses on one side of a wharf, while on the other side a ship was peacefully loading wheat or salted provisions for the West Indies. Everybody's attention in those days was centered on the water instead of inland on railroads as it is today. Commerce was the source of wealth of the town as agriculture was the wealth of the interior of the province. Every one lived close to the river and had an interest in the rise and fall of the tide. The little town extended for a mile along the water but scarcely half a mile back from it. All communication with other places, all news from the world of Europe came from the ships, whose captains brought the letters and the few newspapers which reached the colonists. An important ship on her arrival often fired a gun and dropped anchor with some ceremony. Immediately the shore boats swarmed to her side; the captain was besieged for news and usually brought the letters ashore to be distributed at the coffeehouse. This institution took the place of the modern stock exchange, clearing house, newspaper, university, club, and theater all under one roof, with plenty to eat and drink besides. Within its rooms vessels and cargoes were sold; before its door negro slaves were auctioned off; and around it as a common center were brought together all sorts of business, valuable information, gossip, and scandal. It must have been a brilliant scene in the evening, with the candles lighting embroidered red and yellow waistcoats, blue and scarlet Coats, green and black velvet, with the rich drab and mouse color of the prosperous Quakers contrasting with the uniforms of British officers come to fight the French and Indian wars. Sound, as well as color, had its place in this busy and happy colonial life. Christ Church, a brick building which still stands the perfection of colonial architecture had been established by the Church of England people defiantly in the midst of heretical Quakerdom. It soon possessed a chime of bells sent out from England. Captain Budden, who brought them in his ship Myrtilla, would charge no freight for so charitable a deed, and in consequence of his generosity every time he and his ship appeared in the harbor the bells were rung in his honor. They were rung on market days to please the farmers who came into town with their wagons loaded with poultry and vegetables. They were rung muffled in times of public disaster and were kept busy in that way in the French and Indian wars. They were also rung muffled for Franklin when it was learned that while in London he had favored the Stamp Act--a means of expressing popular opinion which the newspapers subsequently put out of date. The severe Quaker code of conduct and peaceful contemplation contains no prohibition against good eating and drinking. Quakers have been known to have the gout. The opportunities in Philadelphia to enjoy the pleasures of the table were soon unlimited. Farm, garden, and dairy products, vegetables, poultry, beef, and mutton were soon produced in immense quantity and variety and of excellent quality. John Adams, coming from the "plain living and high thinking" of Boston to attend the first meeting of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, was invited to dine with Stephen Collins, a typical Quaker, and was amazed at the feast set before him. From that time his diary records one after another of these "sinful feasts," as he calls them. But the sin at which he thus looks askance never seems to have withheld him from a generous indulgence. "Drank Madeira at a great rate," he says on one occasion, "and took no harm from it." Madeira obtained in the trade with Spain was the popular drink even at the taverns. Various forms of punch and rum were common, but the modern light wines and champagne were not then in vogue. Food in great quantity and variety seems to have been placed on the table at the same time, with little regard to formal courses. Beef, poultry, and mutton would all be served at one dinner. Fruit and nuts were placed on the table in profusion, as well as puddings and desserts numerous and deadly. Dinners were served usually in the afternoon. The splendid banquet which Adams describes as given to some members of the Continental Congress by Chief Justice Chew at his country seat was held at four in the afternoon. The dinner hour was still in the afternoon long after the Revolution and down to the times of the Civil War. Other relics of this old love of good living lasted into modern times. It was not so very long ago that an occasional householder of wealth and distinction in Philadelphia could still be found who insisted on doing his own marketing in the old way, going himself the first thing in the morning on certain days to the excellent markets and purchasing all the family supplies. Philadelphia poultry is still famous the country over; and to be a good judge of poultry was in the old days as much a point of merit as to be a good judge of Madeira. A typical Philadelphian, envious New Yorkers say, will still keep a line of depositors waiting at a bank while he discourses to the receiving teller on what a splendid purchase of poultry he had made that morning. Early in the last century a wealthy leader of the bar is said to have continued the old practice of going to market followed by a negro with a wheelbarrow to bring back the supplies. Not content with feasting in their own homes, the colonial Philadelphians were continually banqueting at the numerous taverns, from the Coach and Horses, opposite the State House, down to the Penny Pot Inn close by the river. At the Coach and Horses, where the city elections were usually held, the discarded oyster shells around it had been trampled into a hard white and smooth floor over which surged the excited election crowds. In those taverns the old fashion prevailed of roasting great joints of meat on a turnspit before an open fire; and to keep the spit turning before the heat little dogs were trained to work in a sort of treadmill cage. In nothing is this colonial prosperity better revealed than in the quality of the country seats. They were usually built of stone and sometimes of brick and stone, substantial, beautifully proportioned, admirable in taste, with a certain simplicity, yet indicating a people of wealth, leisure, and refinement, who believed in themselves and took pleasure in adorning their lives. Not a few of these homes on the outskirts of the city have come down to us unharmed, and Cliveden, Stenton, and Belmont are precious relics of such solid structure that with ordinary care they will still last for centuries. Many were destroyed during the Revolution; others, such as Landsdowne, the seat of one of the Penn family, built in the Italian style, have disappeared; others were wiped out by the city's growth. All of them, even the small ones, were most interesting and typical of the life of the times. The colonists began to build them very early. A family would have a solid, brick town house and, only a mile or so away, a country house which was equally substantial. Sometimes they built at a greater distance. Governor Keith, for example, had a country seat, still standing though built in the middle of the eighteenth century, some twenty-five miles north of the city in what was then almost a wilderness. Penn's ideal had always been to have Philadelphia what he called "a green country town." Probably he had in mind the beautiful English towns of abundant foliage and open spaces. And Penn was successful, for many of the Philadelphia houses stood by themselves, with gardens round them. The present Walnut was first called Pool Street; Chestnut was called Winn Street; and Market was called High Street. If he could have foreseen the enormous modern growth of the city, he might not have made his streets so narrow and level. But the fault lies perhaps rather with the people for adhering so rigidly and for so long to Penn's scheme, when traffic that he could not have imagined demanded wider streets. If he could have lived into our times he would surely have sent us very positive directions in his bluff British way to break up the original rectangular, narrow plan which was becoming dismally monotonous when applied to a widely spread-out modern city. He was a theologian, but he had a very keen eye for appearances and beauty of surroundings. Chapter IV. Types Of The Population The arrival of colonists in Pennsylvania in greater numbers than in Delaware and the Jerseys was the more notable because, within a few years after Pennsylvania was founded, persecution of the Quakers ceased in England and one prolific cause of their migration was no more. Thirteen hundred Quakers were released from prison in 1686 by James II; and in 1689, when William of Orange took the throne, toleration was extended to the Quakers and other Protestant dissenters. The success of the first Quakers who came to America brought others even after persecution ceased in England. The most numerous class of immigrants for the first fifteen or twenty years were Welsh, most of whom were Quakers with a few Baptists and Church of England people. They may have come not so much from a desire to flee from persecution as to build up a little Welsh community and to revive Welsh nationalism. In their new surroundings they spoke their own Welsh language and very few of them had learned English. They had been encouraged in their national aspirations by an agreement with Penn that they were to have a tract of 40,000 acres where they could live by themselves. The land assigned to them lay west of Philadelphia in that high ridge along the present main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad, now so noted for its wealthy suburban homes. All the important names of townships and places in that region, such as Wynnewood, St. Davids, Berwyn, Bryn Mawr, Merion, Haverford, Radnor, are Welsh in origin. Some of the Welsh spread round to the north of Philadelphia, where names like Gwynedd and Penllyn remain as their memorials. The Chester Valley bordering the high ridge of their first settlement they called Duffrin Mawr or Great Valley. These Welsh, like so many of the Quakers, were of a well-to-do class. They rapidly developed their fertile land and, for pioneers, lived quite luxuriously. They had none of the usual county and township officers but ruled their Welsh Barony, as it was called, through the authority of their Quaker meetings. But this system eventually disappeared. The Welsh were absorbed into the English population, and in a couple of generations their language disappeared. Prominent people are descended from them. David Rittenhouse, the astronomer, was Welsh on his mother's side. David Lloyd, for a long time the leader of the popular party and at one time Chief Justice, was a Welshman. Since the Revolution the Welsh names of Cadwalader and Meredith have been conspicuous. The Church of England people formed a curious and decidedly hostile element in the early population of Pennsylvania. They established themselves in Philadelphia in the beginning and rapidly grew into a political party which, while it cannot be called very strong in numbers, was important in ability and influence. After Penn's death, his sons joined the Church of England, and the Churchmen in the province became still stronger. They formed the basis of the proprietary party, filled executive offices in the Government, and waged relentless war against the Quaker majority which controlled the Legislature. During Penn's lifetime the Churchmen were naturally opposed to the whole government, both executive and legislative. They were constantly sending home to England all sorts of reports and information calculated to show that the Quakers were unfit to rule a province, that Penn should be deprived of his charter, and that Pennsylvania should be put under the direct rule of the King. They had delightful schemes for making it a strong Church of England colony like Virginia. One of them suggested that, as the title to the Three Lower Counties, as Delaware was called, was in dispute, it should be taken by the Crown and given to the Church as a manor to support a bishop. Such an ecclesiastic certainly could have lived in princely state from the rents of its fertile farms, with a palace, retinue, chamberlains, chancellors, feudal courts, and all the appendages of earthly glory. For the sake of the picturesqueness of colonial history it is perhaps a pity that this pious plan was never carried out. As it was, however, the Churchmen established themselves with not a little glamour and romance round two institutions, Christ Church for the first fifty years, and after that round the old College of Philadelphia. The Reverend William Smith, a pugnacious and eloquent Scotchman, led them in many a gallant onset against the "haughty tribe" of Quakers, and he even suffered imprisonment in the cause. He had a country seat on the Schuylkill and was in his way a fine character, devoted to the establishment of ecclesiasticism and higher learning as a bulwark against the menace of Quaker fanaticism; and but for the coming on of the Revolution he might have become the first colonial bishop with all the palaces, pomp, and glory appertaining thereunto. In spite of this opposition, however, the Quakers continued their control of the colony, serenely tolerating the anathemas of the learned Churchmen and the fierce curses and brandished weapons of the Presbyterians and Scotch-Irish. Curses and anathemas were no check to the fertile soil. Grist continued to come to the mill; and the agricultural products poured into Philadelphia to be carried away in the ships. The contemplative Quaker took his profits as they passed; enacted his liberalizing laws, his prison reform, his charities, his peace with the savage Indians; allowed science, research, and all the kindly arts of life to flourish; and seemed perfectly contented with the damnation in the other world to which those who flourished under his rule consigned him. In discussing the remarkable success of the province, the colonists always disputed whether the credit should be given to the fertile soil or to the liberal laws and constitution. It was no doubt due to both. But the obvious advantages of Penn's charter over the mixed and troublesome governmental conditions in the Jerseys, Penn's personal fame and the repute of the Quakers for liberalism then at its zenith, and the wide advertising given to their ideas and Penn's, on the continent of Europe as well as in England, seem to have been the reasons why more people, and many besides Quakers, came to take advantage of that fertile soil. The first great increase of alien population came from Germany, which was still in a state of religious turmoil, disunion, and depression from the results of the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War. The reaction from dogma in Germany had produced a multitude of sects, all yearning for greater liberty and prosperity than they had at home. Penn and other Quakers had made missionary tours in Germany and had preached to the people. The Germans do not appear to have been asked to come to the Jerseys. But they were urged to come to Pennsylvania as soon as the charter was obtained; and many of them made an immediate response. The German mind was then at the height of its emotional unrestraint. It was as unaccustomed to liberty of thought as to political liberty and it produced a new sect or religious distinction almost every day. Many of these sects came to Pennsylvania, where new small religious bodies sprang up among them after their arrival. Schwenkfelders, Tunkers, Labadists, New Born, New Mooners, Separatists, Zion's Brueder, Ronsdorfer, Inspired, Quietists, Gichtelians, Depellians, Mountain Men, River Brethren, Brinser Brethren, and the Society of the Woman in the Wilderness, are names which occur in the annals of the province. But these are only a few. In Lancaster County alone the number has at different times been estimated at from twenty to thirty. It would probably be impossible to make a complete list; some of them, indeed, existed for only a few years. Their own writers describe them as countless and bewildering. Many of them were characterized by the strangest sort of German mysticism, and some of them were inclined to monastic and hermit life and their devotees often lived in caves or solitary huts in the woods. It would hardly be accurate to call all the German sects Quakers, since a great deal of their mysticism would have been anything but congenial to the followers of Fox and Penn. Resemblances to Quaker doctrine can, however, be found among many of them; and there was one large sect, the Mennonites, who were often spoken of as German Quakers. The two divisions fraternized and preached in each other's meetings. The Mennonites were well educated as a class and Pastorius, their leader, was a ponderously learned German. Most of the German sects left the Quakers in undisturbed possession of Philadelphia, and spread out into the surrounding region, which was then a wilderness. They and all the other Germans who afterwards followed them settled in a half circle beginning at Easton on the Delaware, passing up the Lehigh Valley into Lancaster County, thence across the Susquehanna and down the Cumberland Valley to the Maryland border, which many of them crossed, and in time scattered far to the south in Virginia and even North Carolina, where their descendants are still found. These German sects which came over under the influence of Penn and the Quakers, between the years 1682 and 1702, formed a class by themselves. Though they may be regarded as peculiar in their ideas and often in their manner of life, it cannot be denied that as a class they were a well-educated, thrifty, and excellent people and far superior to the rough German peasants who followed them in later years. This latter class was often spoken of in Pennsylvania as "the church people," to distinguish them from "the sects," as those of the earlier migration were called. The church people, or peasantry of the later migration, belonged usually to one of the two dominant churches of Germany, the Lutheran or the Reformed. Those of the Reformed Church were often spoken of as Calvinists. This migration of the church people was not due to the example of the Quakers but was the result of a new policy which was adopted by the British Government when Queen Anne ascended the throne in 1702, and which aimed at keeping the English people at home and at filling the English colonies in America with foreign Protestants hostile to France and Spain. Large numbers of these immigrants were "redemptioners," as they were called; that is to say, they were persons who had been obliged to sell themselves to the shipping agents to pay for their passage. On their arrival in Pennsylvania the captain sold them to the colonists to pay the passage, and the redemptioner had to work for his owner for a period varying from five to ten years. No stigma or disgrace clung to any of these people under this system. It was regarded as a necessary business transaction. Not a few of the very respectable families of the State and some of its prominent men are known to be descended from redemptioners. This method of transporting colonists proved a profitable trade for the shipping people, and was soon regularly organized like the modern assisted immigration. Agents, called "newlanders" and "soul-sellers," traveled through Germany working up the transatlantic traffic by various devices, some of them not altogether creditable. Pennsylvania proved to be the most attractive region for these immigrants. Some of those who were taken to other colonies finally worked their way to Pennsylvania. Practically none went to New England, and very few, if any, to Virginia. Indeed, only certain colonies were willing to admit them. Another important element that went to make up the Pennsylvania population consisted of the Scotch-Irish. They were descendants of Scotch and English Presbyterians who had gone to Ireland to take up the estates of the Irish rebels confiscated under Queen Elizabeth and James I. This migration of Protestants to Ireland, which began soon after 1600, was encouraged by the English Government. Towards the middle of the seventeenth century the confiscation of more Irish land under Cromwell's regime increased the migration to Ulster. Many English joined the migration, and Scotch of the Lowlands who were largely of English extraction, although there were many Gaelic or Celtic names among them. These are the people usually known in English history as Ulstermen--the same who made such a heroic defense of Londonderry against James II, and the same who in modern times have resisted home rule in Ireland because it would bury them, they believe, under the tyranny of their old enemies, the native Irish Catholic majority. They were more thrifty and industrious than the native Irish and as a result they usually prospered on the Irish land. At first they were in a more or less constant state of war with the native Irish, who attempted to expel them. They were subsequently persecuted by the Church of England under Charles I, who attempted to force them to conform to the English established religion. Such a rugged schooling in Ireland made of them a very aggressive, hardy people, Protestants of the Protestants, so accustomed to contests and warfare that they accepted it as the natural state of man. These Ulstermen came to Pennsylvania somewhat later than the first German sects; and not many of them arrived until some years after 1700. They were not, like the first Germans, attracted to the colony by any resemblance of their religion to that of the Quakers. On the contrary they were entirely out of sympathy with the Quakers, except in the one point of religious liberty; and the Quakers were certainly out of sympathy with them. Nearly all the colonies in America received a share of these settlers. Wherever they went they usually sought the frontier and the wilderness; and by the time of the Revolution, they could be found upon the whole colonial frontier from New Hampshire to Georgia. They were quite numerous in Virginia, and most numerous along the edge of the Pennsylvania wilderness. It was apparently the liberal laws and the fertile soil that drew them to Pennsylvania in spite of their contempt for most of the Quaker doctrines. The dream of their life, their haven of rest, was for these Scotch-Irish a fertile soil where they would find neither Irish "papists" nor Church of England; and for this reason in America they always sought the frontier where they could be by themselves. They could not even get on well with the Germans in Pennsylvania; and when the Germans crowded into their frontier settlements, quarrels became so frequent that the proprietors asked the Ulstermen to move farther west, a suggestion which they were usually quite willing to accept. At the close of the colonial period in Pennsylvania the Quakers, the Church of England people, and the miscellaneous denominations occupied Philadelphia and the region round it in a half circle from the Delaware River. Outside of this area lay another containing the Germans, and beyond that were the Scotch-Irish. The principal stronghold of the Scotch-Irish was the Cumberland Valley in Southern Pennsylvania west of the Susquehanna, a region now containing the flourishing towns of Chambersburg, Gettysburg, Carlisle, and York, where the descendants of these early settlers are still very numerous. In modern times, however, they have spread out widely; they are now to be found all over the State, and they no longer desire so strongly to live by themselves. The Ulstermen, owing to the circumstances of their earlier life, had no sympathy whatever with the Quaker's objection to war or with his desire to deal fairly with the Indians and pay them for their land. As Presbyterians and Calvinists, they belonged to one of the older and more conservative divisions of the Reformation. The Quaker's doctrine of the inward light, his quietism, contemplation, and advanced ideas were quite incomprehensible to them. As for the Indians, they held that the Old Testament commands the destruction of all the heathen; and as for paying the savages for their land, it seemed ridiculous to waste money on such an object when they could exterminate the natives at less cost. The Ulstermen, therefore, settled on the Indian land as they pleased, or for that matter on any land, and were continually getting into difficulty with the Pennsylvania Government no less than with the Indians. They regarded any region into which they entered as constituting a sovereign state. It was this feeling of independence which subsequently prompted them to organize what is known as the Whisky Rebellion when, after the Revolution, the Federal Government put a tax on the liquor which they so much esteemed as a product, for corn converted into whisky was more easily transported on horses over mountain trails, and in that form fetched a better price in the markets. After the year 1755, when the Quaker method of dealing with the Indians no longer prevailed, the Scotch-Irish lived on the frontier in a continual state of savage warfare which lasted for the next forty years. War, hunting the abundant game, the deer, buffalo, and elk, and some agriculture filled the measure of their days and years. They paid little attention to the laws of the province, which were difficult to enforce on the distant frontier, and they administered a criminal code of their own with whipping or "laced jacket," as they called it, as a punishment. They were Jacks of all trades, weaving their own cloth and making nearly everything they needed. They were the first people in America to develop the use of the rifle, and they used it in the Back Country all the way down into the Carolinas at a time when it was seldom seen in the seaboard settlements. In those days, rifles were largely manufactured in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and there were several famous gunsmiths in Philadelphia. Some of the best of these old rifles have been preserved and are really beautiful weapons, with delicate hair triggers, gracefully curved stocks, and quaint brass or even gold or silver mountings. The ornamentation was often done by the hunter himself, who would melt a gold or silver coin and pour it into some design which he had carved with his knife in the stock. The Revolution offered an opportunity after the Ulstermen's heart, and they entered it with their entire spirit, as they had every other contest which involved liberty and independence. In fact, in that period they played such a conspicuous part that they almost ruled Philadelphia, the original home of the Quakers. Since then, spread out through the State, they have always had great influence, the natural result of their energy, intelligence, and love of education. Nearly all these diverse elements of the Pennsylvania population were decidedly sectional in character. The Welsh had a language of their own, and they attempted, though without success, to maintain it, as well as a government of their own within their barony independent of the regular government of the province. The Germans were also extremely sectional. They clung with better success to their own language, customs, and literature. The Scotch-Irish were so clannish that they had ideas of founding a separate province on the Susquehanna. Even the Church of England people were so aloof and partisan that, though they lived about Philadelphia among the Quakers, they were extremely hostile to the Quaker rule and unremittingly strove to destroy it. All these cleavages and divisions in the population continue in their effects to this day. They prevented the development of a homogeneous population. No exact statistics were taken of the numbers of the different nationalities in colonial times; but Franklin's estimate is probably fairly accurate, and his position in practical politics gave him the means of knowing and of testing his calculations. About the year 1750 he estimated the population as one-third Quaker, one-third German, and one-third miscellaneous. This gave about 50,000 or 60,000 to each of the thirds. Provost Smith, of the newly founded college, estimated the Quakers at only about 40,000. But his estimate seems too low. He was interested in making out their numbers small because he was trying to show the absurdity of allowing such a small band of fanatics and heretics to rule a great province of the British Empire. One great source of the Quaker power lay in the sympathy of the Germans, who always voted on their side and kept them in control of the Legislature, so that it was in reality a case of two-thirds ruling one-third. The Quakers, it must be admitted, never lost their heads. Unperturbed through all the conflicts and the jarring of races and sects, they held their position unimpaired and kept the confidence and support of the Germans until the Revolution changed everything. The varied elements of population spread out in ever widening half circles from Philadelphia as a center. There was nothing in the character of the region to stop this progress. The country all the way westward to the Susquehanna was easy hill, dale, and valley, covered by a magnificent growth of large forest trees--oaks, beeches, poplars, walnuts, hickories, and ash--which rewarded the labor of felling by exposing to cultivation a most fruitful soil. The settlers followed the old Indian trails. The first westward pioneers seem to have been the Welsh Quakers, who pushed due west from Philadelphia and marked out the course of the famous Lancaster Road, afterwards the Lancaster Turnpike. It took the line of least resistance along the old trail, following ridges until it reached the Susquehanna at a spot where an Indian trader, named Harris, established himself and founded a post which subsequently became Harrisburg, the capital of the State. For a hundred years the Lancaster Road was the great highway westward, at first to the mountains, then to the Ohio, and finally to the Mississippi Valley and the Great West. Immigrants and pioneers from all the New England and Middle States flocked out that way to the land of promise in wagons, or horseback, or trudging along on foot. Substantial taverns grew up along the route; and habitual freighters and stage drivers, proud of their fine teams of horses, grew into characters of the road. When the Pennsylvania Railroad was built, it followed the same line. In fact, most of the lines of railroad in the State follow Indian trails. The trails for trade and tribal intercourse led east and west. The warrior trails usually led north and south, for that had long been the line of strategy and conquest of the tribes. The northern tribes, or Six Nations, established in the lake region of New York near the headwaters of the Delaware, the Susquehanna, and the Ohio, had the advantage of these river valleys for descending into the whole Atlantic seaboard and the valley of the Mississippi. They had in consequence conquered all the tribes south of them as far even as the Carolinas and Georgia. All their trails of conquest led across Pennsylvania. The Germans in their expansion at first seem to have followed up the Schuylkill Valley and its tributaries, and they hold this region to the present day. Gradually they crossed the watershed to the Susquehanna and broke into the region of the famous limestone soil in Lancaster County, a veritable farmer's paradise from which nothing will ever drive them. Many Quaker farmers penetrated north and northeast from Philadelphia into Bucks County, a fine rolling and hilly wheat and corn region, where their descendants are still found and whence not a few well-known Philadelphia families have come. The Quaker government of Pennsylvania in almost a century of its existence largely fulfilled its ideals. It did not succeed in governing without war; but the war was not its fault. It did succeed in governing without oaths. An affirmation instead of an oath became the law of Pennsylvania for all who chose an affirmation; and this law was soon adopted by most American communities. It succeeded in establishing religious liberty in Pennsylvania in the fullest sense of the word. It brought Christianity nearer to its original simplicity and made it less superstitious and cruel. The Quakers had always maintained that it was a mistake to suppose that their ideas would interfere with material prosperity and happiness; and they certainly proved their contention in Pennsylvania. To Quaker liberalism was due not merely the material prosperity, but prison reform and the notable public charities of Pennsylvania; in both of which activities, as in the abolition of slavery, the Quakers were leaders. Original research in science also flourished in a marked degree in colonial Pennsylvania. No one in those days knew the nature of thunder and lightning, and the old explanation that they were the voice of an angry God was for many a sufficient explanation. Franklin, by a long series of experiments in the free Quaker colony, finally proved in 1752 that lightning was electricity, that is to say, a manifestation of the same force that is produced when glass is rubbed with buckskin. He invented the lightning rod, discovered the phenomenon of positive and negative electricity, explained the action of the Leyden jar, and was the first American writer on the modern science of political economy. This energetic citizen of Pennsylvania spent a large part of his life in research; he studied the Gulf Stream, storms and their causes, waterspouts, whirlwinds; and he established the fact that the northeast storms of the Atlantic coast usually move against the wind. But Franklin was not the only scientist in the colony. Besides his three friends, Kinnersley, Hopkinson, and Syng, who worked with him and helped him in his discoveries, there were David Rittenhouse, the astronomer, John Bartram, the botanist, and a host of others. Rittenhouse excelled in every undertaking which required the practical application of astronomy, He attracted attention even in Europe for his orrery which indicated the movements of the stars and which was an advance on all previous instruments of the kind. When astronomers in Europe were seeking to have the transit of Venus of 1769 observed in different parts of the world, Pennsylvania alone of the American colonies seems to have had the man and the apparatus necessary for the work. Rittenhouse conducted the observations at three points and won a world-wide reputation by the accuracy and skill of his observations. The whole community was interested in this scientific undertaking; the Legislature and public institutions raised the necessary funds; and the American Philosophical Society, the only organization of its kind in the colonies, had charge of the preparations. The American Philosophical Society had been started in Philadelphia in 1743. It was the first scientific society to be founded in America, and throughout the colonial period it was the only society of its kind in the country. Its membership included not only prominent men throughout America, such as Thomas Jefferson, who were interested in scientific inquiry, but also representatives of foreign nations. With its library of rare and valuable collections and its annual publication of essays on almost every branch of science, the society still continues its useful scientific work. John Bartram, who was the first botanist to describe the plants of the New World and who explored the whole country from the Great Lakes to Florida, was a Pennsylvania Quaker of colonial times, farmer born and bred. Thomas Godfrey, also a colonial Pennsylvanian, was rewarded by the Royal Society of England for an improvement which he made in the quadrant. Peter Collinson of England, a famous naturalist and antiquarian of early times, was a Quaker. In modern times John Dalton, the discoverer of the atomic theory of colorblindness, was born of Quaker parents, and Edward Cope, of a well-known Philadelphia Quaker family, became one of the most eminent naturalists and paleontologists of the nineteenth century, and unaided discovered over a third of the three thousand extinct species of vertebrates recognized by men of science. In the field of education, Lindley Murray, the grammarian of a hundred years ago, was a Quaker. Ezra Cornell, a Quaker, founded the great university in New York which bears his name; and Johns Hopkins, also a Quaker, founded the university of that name in Baltimore. Pennsylvania deserves the credit of turning these early scientific pursuits to popular uses. The first American professorship of botany and natural history was established in Philadelphia College, now the University of Pennsylvania. The first American book on a medical subject was written in Philadelphia by Thomas Cadwalader in 1740; the first American hospital was established there in 1751; and the first systematic instruction in medicine. Since then Philadelphia has produced a long line of physicians and surgeons of national and European reputation. For half a century after the Revolution the city was the center of medical education for the country and it still retains a large part of that preeminence. The Academy of Natural Sciences founded in Philadelphia in 1812 by two inconspicuous young men, an apothecary and a dentist, soon became by the spontaneous support of the community a distinguished institution. It sent out two Arctic expeditions, that of Kane and that of Hayes, and has included among its members the most prominent men of science in America. It is now the oldest as well as the most complete institution of its kind in the country. The Franklin Institute, founded in Philadelphia in 1824, was the result of a similar scientific interest. It was the first institution of applied science and the mechanic arts in America. Descriptions of the first 2900 patents issued by the United States Government are to be found only on the pages of its Journal, which is still an authoritative annual record. Apart from their scientific attainments, one of the most interesting facts about the Quakers is the large proportion of them who have reached eminence, often in occupations which are supposed to be somewhat inconsistent with Quaker doctrine. General Greene, the most capable American officer of the Revolution, after Washington, was a Rhode Island Quaker. General Mifflin of the Revolution was a Pennsylvania Quaker. General Jacob Brown, a Bucks County Pennsylvania Quaker, reorganized the army in the War of 1819. and restored it to its former efficiency. In the long list of Quakers eminent in all walks of life, not only in Pennsylvania but elsewhere, are to be found John Bright, a lover of peace and human liberty through a long and eminent career in British politics; John Dickinson of Philadelphia, who wrote the famous Farmer's Letters so signally useful in the American Revolution; Whittier, the American poet, a Quaker born in Massachusetts of a family converted from Puritanism when the Quakers invaded Boston in the seventeenth century; and Benjamin West, a Pennsylvania Quaker of colonial times, an artist of permanent eminence, one of the founders of the Royal Academy in England and its president in succession to Sir Joshua Reynolds. Wherever Quakers are found they are the useful and steady citizens. Their eminence seems out of all proportion to their comparatively small numbers. It has often been asked why this height of attainment should occur among a people of such narrow religious discipline. But were the Quakers really narrow, or were they any more narrow than other rigorously self-disciplined people: Spartans, Puritans, soldiers whose discipline enables them to achieve great results? All discipline is in one sense narrow. Quaker quietude and retirement probably conserved mental energy instead of dissipating it. In an age of superstition and irrational religion, their minds were free and unhampered, and it was the dominant rational tone of their thought that enabled science to flourish in Pennsylvania. Chapter V. The Troubles Of Penn And His Sons The material prosperity of Penn's Holy Experiment kept on proving itself over and over again every month of the year. But meantime great events were taking place in England. The period of fifteen years from Penn's return to England in 1684, until his return to Pennsylvania at the close of the year of 1699, was an eventful time in English history. It was long for a proprietor to be away from his province, and Penn would have left a better reputation if he had passed those fifteen years in his colony, for in England during that period he took what most Americans believe to have been the wrong side in the Revolution of 1688. Penn was closely tied by both interest and friendship to Charles II and the Stuart family. When Charles II died in 1685 and his brother, the Duke of York, ascended the throne as James II, Penn was equally bound to him, because among other things the Duke of York had obtained Penn's release in 1669 from imprisonment for his religious opinions. He became still more bound when one of the first acts of the new King's reign was the release of a great number of people who had been imprisoned for their religion, among them thirteen hundred Quakers. In addition to preaching to the Quakers and protecting them, Penn used his influence with James to secure the return of several political offenders from exile. His friendship with James raised him, indeed, to a position of no little importance at Court. He was constantly consulted by the King, in whose political policy he gradually became more and more involved. James was a Roman Catholic and soon perfected his plans for making both Church and State a papal appendage and securing for the Crown the right to suspend acts of Parliament. Penn at first protested, but finally supported the King in the belief that he would in the end establish liberty. In his earlier years, however, Penn had written pamphlets arguing strenuously against the same sort of despotic schemes that James was now undertaking; and this contradiction of his former position seriously injured his reputation even among his own people. Part of the policy of James was to grant many favors to the Quakers and to all other dissenting bodies in England, to release them from prison, to give them perfect freedom of worship, and to remove the test laws which prevented them from holding office. He thus hoped to unite them with the Roman Catholics in extirpating the Church of England and establishing the Papacy in its place. But the dissenters and nonconformists, though promised relief from sufferings severer than it is possible perhaps now to appreciate, refused almost to a man this tempting bait. Even the Quakers, who had suffered probably more than the others, rejected the offer with indignation and mourned the fatal mistake of their leader Penn. All Protestant England united in condemning him, accused him of being a secret Papist and a Jesuit in disguise, and believed him guilty of acts and intentions of which he was probably entirely innocent. This extreme feeling against Penn is reflected in Macaulay's "History of England," which strongly espouses the Whig side; and in those vivid pages Penn is represented, and very unfairly, as nothing less than a scoundrel. In spite of the attempts which James made to secure his position, the dissenters, the Church of England, and Penn's own Quakers all joined heart and soul in the Revolution of 1688, which quickly dethroned the King, drove him from England, and placed the Prince of Orange on the throne as William III. Penn was now for many years in a very unfortunate, if not dangerous, position, and was continually suspected of plotting to restore James. For three years he was in hiding to escape arrest or worse, and he largely lost the good will and affection of the Quakers. Meantime, since his departure from Pennsylvania in the summer of 1684, that province went on increasing in population and in pioneer prosperity. But Penn's quitrents and money from sales of land were far in arrears, and he had been and still was at great expense in starting the colony and in keeping up the plantation and country seat he had established on the Delaware River above Philadelphia. Troublesome political disputes also arose. The Council of eighteen members which he had authorized to act as governor in his absence neglected to send the new laws to him, slighted his letters, and published laws in their own name without mentioning him or the King. These irregularities were much exaggerated by enemies of the Quakers in England. The Council was not a popular body and was frequently at odds with the Assembly. Penn thought he could improve the government by appointing five commissioners to act as governor instead of the whole Council. Thomas Lloyd, an excellent Quaker who had been President of the Council and who had done much to allay hard feeling, was fortunately the president of these commissioners. Penn instructed them to act as if he himself were present, and at the next meeting of the Assembly to annul all the laws and reenact only such as seemed proper. This course reminds us of the absolutism of his friend, King James, and, indeed, the date of these instructions (1686) is that when his intimacy with that bigoted monarch reached its highest point. Penn's theory of his power was that the frame or constitution of government he had given the province was a contract; that, the Council and Assembly having violated some of its provisions, it was annulled and he was free, at least for a time, to govern as he pleased. Fortunately his commissioners never attempted to carry out these instructions. There would have been a rebellion and some very unpleasant history if they had undertaken to enforce such oriental despotism in Pennsylvania. The five commissioners with Thomas Lloyd at their head seem to have governed without seriously troublesome incidents for the short term of two years during which they were in power. But in 1687 Thomas Lloyd, becoming weary of directing them, asked to be relieved and is supposed to have advised Penn to appoint a single executive instead of commissioners. Penn accordingly appointed Captain John Blackwell, formerly an officer in Cromwell's army. Blackwell was not a Quaker but a "grave, sober, wise man," as Penn wrote to a friend, who would "bear down with a visible authority vice and faction." It was hoped that he would vigorously check all irregularities and bring Penn better returns from quitrents and sales of land. But this new governor clashed almost at once with the Assembly, tried to make them pass a militia law, suggested that the province's trade to foreign countries was illegal, persecuted and arrested members of the Assembly, refused to submit new laws to it, and irritated the people by suggesting the invalidity of their favorite laws. The Quaker Assembly withstood and resisted him until they wore him out. After a year and one month in office he resigned at Penn's request or, according to some accounts, at his own request. At any rate, he expressed himself as delighted to be relieved. As a Puritan soldier he found himself no match for a peaceable Quaker Assembly. Penn again made the Council the executive with Thomas Lloyd as its President. But to the old causes of unrest a new one was now added. One George Keith, a Quaker, turned heretic and carried a number of Pennsylvania Quakers over to the Church of England, thereby causing great scandal. The "Lower Counties" or Territories, as the present State of Delaware was then called, became mutinous, withdrew their representatives from the Council, and made William Markham their Governor. This action together with the Keithian controversy, the disturbances over Blackwell, and the clamors of Church of England people that Penn was absent and neglecting his province, that the Quakers would make no military defense, and that the province might at any time fall into the hands of France, came to the ears of King William, who was already ill disposed toward Penn and distrusted him as a Jacobite. It seemed hardly advisable to allow a Jacobite to rule a British colony. Accordingly a royal order suspended Penn's governmental authority and placed the province under Benjamin Fletcher, Governor of New York. He undertook to rule in dictatorial fashion, threatening to annex the province to New York, and as a consequence the Assembly had plenty of trouble with him. But two years later, 1694, the province was returned to Penn, who now appointed as Governor William Markham, who had served as lieutenant-governor under Fletcher. Markham proceeded to be high-handed with the Assembly and to administer the government in the imperialistic style of Fletcher. But the Assembly soon tamed him and in 1696 actually worried out of him a new constitution, which became known as Markham's Frame, proved much more popular than the one Penn had given, and allowed the Assembly much more power. Markham had no conceivable right to assent to it and Penn never agreed to it; but it was lived under for the next four years until Penn returned to the province. While it naturally had opponents, it was largely regarded as entirely valid, and apparently with the understanding that it was to last until Penn objected to it. Penn had always been longing to return to Pennsylvania and live there for the rest of his life; but the terrible times of the Revolution of 1688 in England and its consequences had held him back. Those difficulties had now passed. Moreover, William III had established free government and religious liberty. No more Quakers were imprisoned and Penn's old occupation of securing their protection and release was gone. In the autumn of 1699 he sailed for Pennsylvania with his family and, arriving after a tedious three months' voyage, was well received. His political scrapes and mistakes in England seemed to be buried in the past. He was soon at his old enjoyable life again, traveling actively about the country, preaching to the Quakers, and enlarging and beautifying his country seat, Pennsbury, on the Delaware, twenty miles above Philadelphia. As roads and trails were few and bad he usually traveled to and from the town in a barge which was rowed by six oarsmen and which seemed to give him great pride and pleasure. Two happy years passed away in this manner, during which Penn seems to have settled, not however without difficulty, a great deal of business with his people, the Assembly, and the Indian tribes. Unfortunately he got word from England of a bill in Parliament for the revocation of colonial charters and for the establishment of royal governments in their place. He must needs return to England to fight it. Shortly before he sailed the Assembly presented him with a draft of a new constitution or frame of government which they had been discussing with him and preparing for some time. This he accepted, and it became the constitution under which Pennsylvania lived and prospered for seventy-five years, until the Revolution of 1776. This new constitution was quite liberal. The most noticeable feature of it was the absence of any provision for the large elective council or upper house of legislation, which had been very unpopular. The Assembly thus became the one legislative body. There was incidental reference in the document to a governor's council, although there was no formal clause creating it. Penn and his heirs after his death always appointed a small council as an advisory body for the deputy governor. The Assembly was to be chosen annually by the freemen and to be composed of four representatives from each county. It could originate bills, control its own adjournments without interference from the Governor, choose its speaker and other officers, and judge of the qualifications and election of its own members. These were standard Anglo-Saxon popular parliamentary rights developed by long struggles in England and now established in Pennsylvania never to be relaxed. Finally a clause in the constitution permitted the Lower Counties, or Territories, under certain conditions to establish home rule. In 1705 the Territories took advantage of this concession and set up an assembly of their own. Immediately after signing the constitution, in the last days of October, 1701, Penn sailed for England, expecting soon to return. But he became absorbed in affairs in England and never saw his colony again. This was unfortunate because Pennsylvania soon became a torment to him instead of a great pleasure as it always seems to have been when he lived in it. He was a happy present proprietor, but not a very happy absentee one. The Church of England people in Pennsylvania entertained great hopes of this proposal to turn the proprietary colonies into royal provinces. Under such a change, while the Quakers might still have an influence in the Legislature, the Crown would probably give the executive offices to Churchmen. They therefore labored hard to discredit the Quakers. They kept harping on the absurdity of a set of fanatics attempting to govern a colony without a militia and without administering oaths of office or using oaths in judicial proceedings. How could any one's life be safe from foreign enemies without soldiers, and what safeguard was there for life, liberty, and property before judges, jurors, and witnesses, none of whom had been sworn? The Churchmen kept up their complaints for along time, but without effect in England. Penn was able to thwart all their plans. The bill to change the province into a royal one was never passed by Parliament. Penn returned to his court life, his preaching, and his theological writing, a rather curious combination and yet one by which he had always succeeded in protecting his people. He was a favorite with Queen Anne, who was now on the throne, and he led an expensive life which, with the cost of his deputy governor's salary in the colony, the slowness of his quitrent collections, and the dishonesty of the steward of his English estates, rapidly brought him into debt. To pay the government expense of a small colonial empire and at the same time to lead the life of a courtier and to travel as a preacher would have exhausted a stronger exchequer than Penn's. The contests between the different deputy governors, whom Penn or his descendants sent out, and the Quaker Legislature fill the annals of the province for the next seventy years, down to the Revolution. These quarrels, when compared with the larger national political contests of history, seem petty enough and even tedious in detail. But, looked at in another aspect, they are important because they disclose how liberty, self-government, republicanism, and many of the constitutional principles by which Americans now live were gradually developed as the colonies grew towards independence. The keynote to all these early contests was what may be called the fundamental principle of colonial constitutional law or, at any rate, of constitutional practice, namely, that the Governor, whether royal or proprietary, must always be kept poor. His salary or income must never become a fixed or certain sum but must always be dependent on the annual favor and grants of a legislature controlled by the people. This belief was the foundation of American colonial liberty. The Assemblies, not only in Pennsylvania but in other colonies, would withhold the Governor's salary until he consented to their favorite laws. If he vetoed their laws, he received no salary. One of the causes of the Revolution in 1776 was the attempt of the mother country to make the governors and other colonial officials dependent for their salaries on the Government in England instead of on the legislatures in the colonies. So the squabbles, as we of today are inclined to call them, went on in Pennsylvania--provincial and petty enough, but often very large and important so far as the principle which they involved was concerned. The Legislature of Pennsylvania in those days was a small body composed of only about twenty-five or thirty members, most of them sturdy, thrifty Quakers. They could meet very easily anywhere--at the Governor's house, if in conference with him, or at the treasurer's office or at the loan office, if investigating accounts. Beneath their broad brim hats and grave demeanor they were as Anglo-Saxon at heart as Robin Hood and his merry men, and in their ninety years of political control they built up as goodly a fabric of civil liberty as can be found in any community in the world. The dignified, confident message from a deputy governor, full of lofty admonitions of their duty to the Crown, the province, and the proprietor, is often met by a sarcastic, stinging reply of the Assembly. David Lloyd, the Welsh leader of the anti-proprietary party, and Joseph Wilcox, another leader, became very skillful in drafting these profoundly respectful but deeply cutting replies. In after years, Benjamin Franklin attained even greater skill. In fact, it is not unlikely that he developed a large measure of his world famous aptness in the use of language in the process of drafting these replies. The composing of these official communications was important work, for a reply had to be telling and effective not only with the Governor but with the people who learned of its contents at the coffeehouse and spread the report of it among all classes. There was not a little good-fellowship in their contests; and Franklin, for instance, tells us how he used to abuse a certain deputy governor all day in the Assembly and then dine with him in jovial intercourse in the evening. The Assembly had a very convenient way of accomplishing its purposes in legislation in spite of the opposition of the British Government. Laws when passed and approved by the deputy governor had to be sent to England for approval by the Crown within five years. But meanwhile the people would live under the law for five years, and, if at the end of that time it was disallowed, the Assembly would reenact the measure and live under it again for another period. The ten years after Penn's return to England in 1701 were full of trouble for him. Money returns from the province were slow, partly because England was involved in war and trade depressed, and partly because the Assembly, exasperated by the deputy governors he appointed, often refused to vote the deputy a salary and left Penn to bear all the expense of government. He was being rapidly overwhelmed with debt. One of his sons was turning out badly. The manager of his estates in England and Ireland, Philip Ford, was enriching himself by the trust, charging compound interest at eight per cent every six months, and finally claiming that Penn owed him 14,000 pounds. Ford had rendered accounts from time to time, but Penn in his careless way had tossed them aside without examination. When Ford pressed for payment, Penn, still without making any investigation, foolishly gave Ford a deed in fee simple of Pennsylvania as security. Afterwards he accepted from Ford a lease of the province, which was another piece of folly, for the lease could, of course, be used as evidence to show that the deed was an absolute conveyance and not intended as a mortgage. This unfortunate business Ford kept quiet during his lifetime. But on his death his widow and son made everything public, professed to be the proprietors of Pennsylvania, and sued Penn for 2000 pounds rent in arrears. They obtained a judgment for the amount claimed and, as Penn could not pay, they had him arrested and imprisoned for debt. For nine months he was locked up in the debtors' prison, the "Old Bailey," and there he might have remained indefinitely if some of his friends had not raised enough money to compromise with the Fords. Isaac Norris, a prominent Quaker from Pennsylvania, happened at that time to be in England and exerted himself to set Penn free and save the province from further disgrace. After this there was a reaction in Penn's favor. He selected a better deputy governor for Pennsylvania. He wrote a long and touching letter to the people, reminding them how they had flourished and grown rich and free under his liberal laws, while he had been sinking in poverty. After that conditions improved in the affairs of Penn. The colony was better governed, and the anti-proprietary party almost disappeared. The last six or eight years of Penn's life were free from trouble. He had ceased his active work at court, for everything that could be accomplished for the Quakers in the way of protection and favorable laws had now been done. Penn spent his last years in trying to sell the government of his province to the Crown for a sum that would enable him to pay his debts and to restore his family to prosperity. But he was too particular in stipulating that the great principles of civil and religious liberty on which the colony had been established should not be infringed. He had seen how much evil had resulted to the rights of the people when the proprietors of the Jerseys parted with their right to govern. In consequence he required so many safeguards that the sale of Pennsylvania was delayed and delayed until its founder was stricken with paralysis. Penn lingered for some years, but his intellect was now too much clouded to make a valid sale. The event, however, was fortunate for Pennsylvania, which would probably otherwise have lost many valuable rights and privileges by becoming a Crown colony. On July 30,1718, Penn died at the age of seventy-four. His widow became proprietor of the province, probably the only woman who ever became feudal proprietor of such an immense domain. She appointed excellent deputy governors and ruled with success for eight years until her death in 1726. In her time the ocean was free from enemy cruisers, and the trade of the colony grew so rapidly that the increasing sales of land and quitrents soon enabled her to pay off the mortgage on the province and all the rest of her husband's debts. It was sad that Penn did not live to see that day, which he had so hoped for in his last years, when, with ocean commerce free from depredations, the increasing money returns from his province would obviate all necessity of selling the government to the Crown. With all debts paid and prosperity increasing, Penn's sons became very rich men. Death had reduced the children to three--John, Thomas, and Richard. Of these, Thomas became what may be called the managing proprietor, and the others were seldom heard of. Thomas lived in the colony nine years--1732 to 1741--studying its affairs and sitting as a member of the Council. For over forty years he was looked upon as the proprietor. In fact, he directed the great province for almost as long a time as his father had managed it. But he was so totally unlike his father that it is difficult to find the slightest resemblance in feature or in mind. He was not in the least disposed to proclaim or argue about religion. Like the rest of his family, he left the Quakers and joined the Church of England, a natural evolution in the case of many Quakers. He was a prosperous, accomplished, sensible, cool-headed gentleman, by no means without ability, but without any inclination for setting the world on fire. He was a careful, economical man of business, which is more than can be said of his distinguished father. He saw no visions and cared nothing for grand speculations. Thomas Penn, however, had his troubles and disputes with the Assembly. They thought him narrow and close. Perhaps he was. That was the opinion of him held by Franklin, who led the anti-proprietary party. But at the same time some consideration must be given to the position in which Penn found himself. He had on his hands an empire, rich, fertile, and inhabited by liberty-loving Anglo-Saxons and by passive Germans. He had to collect from their land the purchase money and quitrents rapidly rolling up in value with the increase of population into millions of pounds sterling, for which he was responsible to his relatives. At the same time he had to influence the politics of the province, approve or reject laws in such a way that his family interest would be protected from attack or attempted confiscation, keep the British Crown satisfied, and see that the liberties of the colonists were not impaired and that the people were kept contented. It was not an easy task even for a clear-headed man like Thomas Penn. He had to arrange for treaties with the Indians and for the purchase of their lands in accordance with the humane ideas of his father and in the face of the Scotch-Irish thirst for Indian blood and the French desire to turn the savages loose upon the Anglo-Saxon settlements. He had to fight through the boundary disputes with Connecticut, Maryland, and Virginia, which threatened to reduce his empire to a mere strip of land containing neither Philadelphia nor Pittsburgh. The controversy with Connecticut lasted throughout the colonial period and was not definitely settled till the close of the Revolution. The charter of Connecticut granted by the British Crown extended the colony westward to the Pacific Ocean and cut off the northern half of the tract afterwards granted to William Penn. In pursuance of what they believed to be their rights, the Connecticut people settled in the beautiful valley of Wyoming. They were thereupon ejected by force by the proprietors of Pennsylvania; but they returned, only to be ejected again and again in a petty warfare carried on for many years. In the summer of 1778, the people of the valley were massacred by the Iroquois Indians. The history of this Connecticut boundary dispute fills volumes. So does the boundary dispute with Maryland, which also lasted throughout the colonial period; the dispute with Virginia over the site of Pittsburgh is not so voluminous. All these controversies Thomas Penn conducted with eminent skill, inexhaustible patience, and complete success. For this achievement the State owes him a debt of gratitude. Thomas Penn was in the extraordinary position of having to govern as a feudal lord what was virtually a modern community. He was exercising feudal powers three hundred years after all the reasons for the feudal system had ceased to exist; and he was exercising those powers and acquiring by them vast wealth from a people in a new and wild country whose convictions, both civil and religious, were entirely opposed to anything like the feudal system. It must certainly be put down as something to his credit that he succeeded so well as to retain control both of the political government and his family's increasing wealth down to the time of the Revolution and that he gave on the whole so little offense to a high-strung people that in the Revolution they allowed his family to retain a large part of their land and paid them liberally for what was confiscated. The wealth which came to the three brothers they spent after the manner of the time in country life. John and Richard do not appear to have had remarkable country seats. But Thomas purchased in 1760 the fine English estate of Stoke Park, which had belonged to Sir Christopher Hatton of Queen Elizabeth's time, to Lord Coke, and later to the Cobham family. Thomas's son John, grandson of the founder, greatly enlarged and beautified the place and far down into the nineteenth century it was one of the notable country seats of England. This John Penn also built another country place called Pennsylvania Castle, equally picturesque and interesting, on the Isle of Portland, of which he was Governor. Chapter VI. The French And Indian War There was no great change in political conditions in Pennsylvania until about the year 1755. The French in Canada had been gradually developing their plans of spreading down the Ohio and Mississippi valleys behind the English colonies. They were at the same time securing alliances with the Indians and inciting them to hostilities against the English. But so rapidly were the settlers advancing that often the land could not be purchased fast enough to prevent irritation and ill feeling. The Scotch-Irish and Germans, it has already been noted, settled on lands without the formality of purchase from the Indians. The Government, when the Indians complained, sometimes ejected the settlers but more often hastened to purchase from the Indians the land which had been occupied. "The Importance of the British Plantations in America," published in 1731, describes the Indians as peaceful and contented in Pennsylvania but irritated and unsettled in those other colonies where they had usually been ill-treated and defrauded. This, with other evidence, goes to show that up to that time Penn's policy of fairness and good treatment still prevailed. But those conditions soon changed, as the famous Walking Purchase of 1737 clearly indicated. The Walking Purchase had provided for the sale of some lands along the Delaware below the Lehigh on a line starting at Wrightstown, a few miles back from the Delaware not far above Trenton, and running northwest, parallel with the river, as far as a man could walk in a day and a half. The Indians understood that this tract would extend northward only to the Lehigh, which was the ordinary journey of a day and a half. The proprietors, however, surveyed the line beforehand, marked the trees, engaged the fastest walkers and, with horses to carry provisions, started their men at sunrise. By running a large part of the way, at the end of a day and a half these men had reached a point thirty miles beyond the Lehigh. The Delaware Indians regarded this measurement as a pure fraud and refused to abandon the Minisink region north of the Lehigh. The proprietors then called in the assistance of the Six Nations of New York, who ordered the Delawares off the Minisink lands. Though they obeyed, the Delawares became the relentless enemies of the white man and in the coming years revenged themselves by massacres and murder. They also broke the control which the Six Nations had over them, became an independent nation, and in the French Wars revenged themselves on the Six Nations as well as on the white men. The congress which convened at Albany in 1754 was an attempt on the part of the British Government to settle all Indian affairs in a general agreement and to prevent separate treaties by the different colonies; but the Pennsylvania delegates, by various devices of compass courses which the Indians did not understand and by failing to notify and secure the consent of certain tribes, obtained a grant of pretty much the whole of Pennsylvania west of the Susquehanna. The Indians considered this procedure to be another gross fraud. It is to be noticed that in their dealings with Penn they had always been satisfied, and that he had always been careful that they should be duly consulted and if necessary be paid twice over for the land. But his sons were more economical, and as a result of the shrewd practices of the Albany purchase the Pennsylvania Indians almost immediately went over in a body to the French and were soon scalping men, women, and children among the Pennsylvania colonists. It is a striking fact, however, that in all the after years of war and rapine and for generations afterwards the Indians retained the most distinct and positive tradition of Penn's good faith and of the honesty of all Quakers. So persistent, indeed, was this tradition among the tribes of the West that more than a century later President Grant proposed to put the whole charge of the nation's Indian affairs in the hands of the Quakers. The first efforts to avert the catastrophe threatened by the alliance of the red man with the French were made by the provincial assemblies, which voted presents of money or goods to the Indians to offset similar presents from the French. The result was, of course, the utter demoralization of the savages. Bribed by both sides, the Indians used all their native cunning to encourage the bribers to bid against each other. So far as Pennsylvania was concerned, feeling themselves cheated in the first instance and now bribed with gifts, they developed a contempt for the people who could stoop to such practices. As a result this contempt manifested itself in deeds hitherto unknown in the province. One tribe on a visit to Philadelphia killed cattle and robbed orchards as they passed. The delegates of another tribe, having visited Philadelphia and received 500 pounds as a present, returned to the frontier and on their way back for another present destroyed the property of the interpreter and Indian agent, Conrad Weiser. They felt that they could do as they pleased. To make matters worse, the Assembly paid for all the damage done; and having started on this foolish business, they found that the list of tribes demanding presents rapidly increased. The Shawanoes and the Six Nations, as well as the Delawares, were now swarming to this new and convenient source of wealth. Whether the proprietors or the Assembly should meet this increasing expense or divide it between them, became a subject of increasing controversy. It was in these discussions that Thomas Penn, in trying to keep his family's share of the expense as small as possible, first got the reputation for closeness which followed him for the rest of his life and which started a party in the province desirous of having Parliament abolish the proprietorship and put the province under a governor appointed by the Crown. The war with the French of Canada and their Indian allies is of interest here only in so far as it affected the government of Pennsylvania. From this point of view it involved a series of contests between the proprietors and the Crown on the one side and the Assembly on the other. The proprietors and the Crown took advantage of every military necessity to force the Assembly into a surrender of popular rights. But the Assembly resisted, maintaining that they had the same right as the British Commons of having their money bills received or rejected by the Governor without amendment. Whatever they should give must be given on their own terms or not at all; and they would not yield this point to any necessities of the war. When Governor Morris asked the Assembly for a war contribution in 1754, they promptly voted 20,000 pounds. This was the same amount that Virginia, the most active of the colonies in the war, was giving. Other colonies gave much less; New York, only 5000 pounds, and Maryland 6000 pounds. Morris, however, would not assent to the Assembly's bill unless it contained a clause suspending its effect until the King's pleasure was known. This was an attempt to establish a precedent for giving up the Assembly's charter right of passing laws which need not be submitted to the King for five years and which in the meantime were valid. The members of the Assembly very naturally refused to be forced by the necessities of the war into surrendering one of the most important privileges the province possessed. It was, they said, as much their duty to resist this invasion of their rights as to resist the French. Governor Morris, besides demanding that the supply of 20,000 pounds should not go into force until the King's pleasure was known, insisted that the paper money representing it should be redeemable in five years. This period the Assembly considered too short; the usual time was ten years. Five years would ruin too many people by foreclosures. Moreover, the Governor was attempting to dictate the way in which the people should raise a money supply. He and the King had a right to ask for aid in war; but it was the right of the colony to use its own methods of furnishing this assistance. The Governor also refused to let the Assembly see the instructions from the proprietors under which he was acting. This was another attack upon their liberties and involved nothing less than an attempt to change their charter rights by secret instructions to a deputy governor which he must obey at his peril. Several bills had recently been introduced in the English Parliament for the purpose of making royal instructions to governors binding on all the colonial assemblies without regard to their charters. This innovation, the colonists felt, would wreck all their liberties and turn colonial government into a mere despotism. The assemblies of all the colonies have been a good deal abused for delay in supporting the war and meanness in withholding money. But in many instances the delay and lack of money were occasioned by the grasping schemes of governors who saw a chance to gain new privileges for the Crown or a proprietor or to weaken popular government by crippling the powers of the legislatures. The usual statement that the Pennsylvania Assembly was slow in assisting the war because it was composed of Quakers is not supported by the facts. The Pennsylvania Assembly was not behind the rest. On this particular occasion, when their large money supply bill could not be passed without sacrificing their constitutional rights, they raised money for the war by appointing a committee which was authorized to borrow 5000 pounds on the credit of the Assembly. Other contests arose over the claim of the proprietors that their estates in the province were exempt from taxation for the war or any purpose. One bill taxing the proprietary estates along with others was met by Thomas Penn offering to subscribe 5000 pounds, as a free gift to the colony's war measures. The Assembly accepted this, and passed the bill without taxing the proprietary estates. It turned out, however, to be a shrewd business move on the part of Thomas Penn; for the 5000 pounds was to be collected out of the quitrents that were in arrears, and the payment of it was in consequence long delayed. The thrifty Thomas had thus saddled his bad debts on the province and gained a reputation for generosity at the same time. Pennsylvania, though governed by Quakers assisted by noncombatant Germans, had a better protected frontier than Maryland or Virginia; no colony, indeed, was at that time better protected. The Quaker Assembly did more than take care of the frontier during the war; it preserved at the same time constitutional rights in defense of which twenty-five years afterwards the whole continent fought the Revolution. The Quaker Assembly even passed two militia bills, one of which became law, and sent rather more than the province's full share of troops to protect the frontiers of New York and New England and to carry the invasion into Canada. General Braddock warmly praised the assistance which Pennsylvania gave him because, he said, she had done more for him than any of the other colonies. Virginia and Maryland promised everything and performed nothing, while Pennsylvania promised nothing and performed everything. Commodore Spy thanked the Assembly for the large number of sailors sent his fleet at the expense of the province. General Shirley, in charge of the New England and New York campaigns, thanked the Assembly for the numerous recruits; and it was the common opinion at the time that Pennsylvania had sent more troops to the war than any other colony. In the first four years of the war the province spent for military purposes 210,567 pounds sterling, which was a very considerable sum at that time for a community of less than 200,000 people. Quakers, though they hate war, will accept it when there is no escape. The old story of the Quaker who tossed a pirate overboard, saying, "Friend, thee has no business here," gives their point of view better than pages of explanation. Quaker opinion has not always been entirely uniform. In Revolutionary times in Philadelphia there was a division of the Quakers known as the Fighting Quakers, and their meeting house is still pointed out at the corner of Fourth Street and Arch. They even produced able military leaders: Colonel John Dickinson, General Greene, and General Mifflin in the Continental Army, and, in the War of 1812, General Jacob Brown, who reorganized the army and restored its failing fortunes after many officers had been tried and found wanting. There was always among the Quakers a rationalistic party and a party of mysticism. The rationalistic party prevailed in Pennsylvania all through the colonial period. In the midst of the worst horrors of the French and Indian wars, however, the conscientious objectors roused themselves and began preaching and exhorting what has been called the mystical side of the faith. Many extreme Quaker members of the Assembly resigned their seats in consequence. After the Revolution the spiritual party began gaining ground, partly perhaps because then the responsibilities of government and care of the great political and religious experiment in Pennsylvania were removed. The spiritual party increased so rapidly in power that in 1827 a split occurred which involved not a little bitterness, ill feeling, and litigation over property. This division into two opposing camps, known as the Hicksites and the Orthodox, continues and is likely to remain. Quaker government in Pennsylvania was put to still severer tests by the difficulties and disasters that followed Braddock's defeat. That unfortunate general had something over two thousand men and was hampered with a train of artillery and a splendid equipment of arms, tools, and supplies, as if he were to march over the smooth highways of Europe. When he came to drag all these munitions through the depths of the Pennsylvania forests and up and down the mountains, he found that he made only about three miles a day and that his horses had nothing to eat but the leaves of the trees. Washington, who was of the party, finally persuaded him to abandon his artillery and press forward with about fifteen hundred picked men. These troops, when a few miles from Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburgh), met about six hundred Indians and three hundred French coming from the fort. The English maintained a close formation where they were, but the French and Indians immediately spread out on their flanks, lying behind trees and logs which provided rests for their rifles and security for their bodies. This strategy decided the day. The English were shot down like cattle in a pen, and out of about fifteen hundred only four hundred and fifty escaped. The French and Indian loss was not much over fifty. This defeat of Braddock's force has become one of the most famous reverses in history; and it was made worse by the conduct of Dunbar who had been left in command of the artillery, baggage, and men in the rear. He could have remained where he was as some sort of protection to the frontier. But he took fright, burned his wagons, emptied his barrels of powder into the streams, destroyed his provisions, and fled back to Fort Cumberland in Maryland. Here the governors of Pennsylvania and Virginia as well as the Pennsylvania Assembly urged him to stay. But, determined to make the British rout complete, he soon retreated to the peace and quiet of Philadelphia, and nothing would induce him to enter again the terrible forests of Pennsylvania. The natural result of the blunder soon followed. The French, finding the whole frontier of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia abandoned, organized the Indians under French officers and swept the whole region with a devastation of massacre, scalping, and burning that has never been equaled. Hurons, Potawatomies, Ojibways, Ottawas, Mingoes, renegades from the Six Nations, together with the old treaty friends of Penn, the Delawares and Shawanoes, began swarming eastward and soon had killed more people than had been lost at Braddock's defeat. The onslaught reached its height in September and October. By that time all the outlying frontier settlers and their families had been killed or sent flying eastward to seek refuge in the settlements. The Indians even followed them to the settlements, reached the Susquehanna, and crossed it. They massacred the people of the village of Gnadenhutten, near Bethlehem on the Lehigh, and established near by a headquarters for prisoners and plunder. Families were scalped within fifty miles of Philadelphia, and in one instance the bodies of a murdered family were brought into the town and exhibited in the streets to show the inhabitants how near the danger was approaching. Nothing could be done to stem the savage tide. Virginia was suffering in the same way: the settlers on her border were slaughtered or were driven back in herds upon the more settled districts, and Washington, with a nominal strength of fifteen hundred who would not obey orders, was forced to stand a helpless spectator of the general flight and misery. There was no adequate force or army anywhere within reach. The British had been put to flight and had gone to the defense of New England and New York. Neither Pennsylvania nor Virginia had a militia that could withstand the French and their red allies. They could only wait till the panic had subsided and then see what could be done. One thing was accomplished, however, when the Pennsylvania Assembly passed a Quaker militia law which is one of the most curious legal documents of its kind in history. It was most aptly worded, drafted by the master hand of Franklin. It recited the fact that the province had always been ruled by Quakers who were opposed to war, but that now it had become necessary to allow men to become soldiers and to give them every facility for the profession of arms, because the Assembly though containing a Quaker majority nevertheless represented all the people of the province. To prevent those who believed in war from taking part in it would be as much a violation of liberty of conscience as to force enlistments among those who had conscientious scruples against it. Nor would the Quaker majority have any right to compel others to bear arms and at the same time exempt themselves. Therefore a voluntary militia system was established under which a fighting Quaker, a Presbyterian, an Episcopalian, or anybody, could enlist and have all the military glory he could win. It was altogether a volunteer system. Two years afterwards, as the necessities of war increased, the Quaker Assembly passed a rather stringent compulsory militia bill; but the governor vetoed it, and the first law with its volunteer system remained in force. Franklin busied himself to encourage enlistments under it and was very successful. Though a philosopher and a man of science, almost as much opposed to war as the Quakers and not even owning a shotgun, he was elected commander and led a force of about five hundred men to protect the Lehigh Valley. His common sense seems to have supplied his lack of military training. He did no worse than some professional soldiers who might be named. The valley was supposed to be in great danger since its village of Gnadenhutten had been burned and its people massacred. The Moravians, like the Quakers, had suddenly found that they were not as much opposed to war as they had supposed. They had obtained arms and ammunition from New York and had built stockades, and Franklin was glad to find them so well prepared when he arrived. He built small forts in different parts of the valley, acted entirely on the defensive, and no doubt checked the raids of the Indians at that point. They seem to have been watching him from the hilltops all the time, and any rashness on his part would probably have brought disaster upon him. After his force had been withdrawn, the Indians again attacked and burned Gnadenhutten. The chain of forts, at first seventeen, afterwards increased to fifty, built by the Assembly on the Pennsylvania frontier was a good plan so far as it went, but it was merely defensive and by no means completely defensive, since Indian raiding parties could pass between the forts. They served chiefly as refuges for neighboring settlers. The colonial troops or militia, after manning the fifty forts and sending their quota to the operations against Canada by way of New England and New York, were not numerous enough to attack the Indians. They could only act on the defensive as Franklin's command had done. As for the rangers, as the small bands of frontiersmen acting without any authority of either governor or legislature were called, they were very efficient as individuals but they accomplished very little because they acted at widely isolated spots. What was needed was a well organized force which could pursue the Indians on their own ground so far westward that the settlers on the frontier would be safe. The only troops which could do this were the British regulars with the assistance of the colonial militia. Two energetic efforts to end the war without aid from abroad were made, however, one by the pacific Quakers and the other by the combatant portion of the people. Both of these were successful so far as they went, but had little effect on the general situation. In the summer of 1756, the Quakers made a very earnest effort to persuade the two principal Pennsylvania tribes, the Delawares and Shawanoes, to withdraw from the French alliance and return to their old friends. These two tribes possessed a knowledge of the country which enabled them greatly to assist the French designs on Pennsylvania. Chiefs of these tribes were brought under safe conducts to Philadelphia, where they were entertained as equals in the Quaker homes. Such progress, indeed, was made that by the end of July a treaty of peace was concluded at Easton eliminating those two tribes from the war. This has sometimes been sneered at as mere Quaker pacifism; but it was certainly successful in lessening the numbers and effectiveness of the enemy. The other undertaking was a military one, the famous attack upon Kittanning conducted by Colonel John Armstrong, an Ulsterman from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and the first really aggressive officer the province had produced. The Indians had two headquarters for their raids into the province, one at Logstown on the Ohio a few miles below Fort Duquesne, and the other at Kittanning or, as the French called it, Attique, about forty miles northeast. At these two points they assembled their forces, received ammunition and supplies from the French, and organized their expeditions. As Kittanning was the nearer, Armstrong in a masterly maneuver took three hundred men through the mountains without being discovered and, by falling upon the village early in the morning, he effected a complete surprise. The town was set on fire, the Indians were put to flight, and large quantities of their ammunition were destroyed. But Armstrong could not follow up his success. Threatened by overwhelming numbers, he hastened to withdraw. The effect which the fighting and the Quaker treaty had on the frontier was good. Incursions of the savages were, at least for the present, checked. But the root of the evil had not yet been reached, and the Indians remained massed along the Ohio, ready to break in upon the people again at the first opportunity. The following year, 1757, was the most depressing period of the war. The proprietors of Pennsylvania took the opportunity to exempt their own estate from taxation and throw the burden of furnishing money for the war upon the colonists. Under pressure of the increasing success of the French and Indians and because the dreadful massacres were coming nearer and nearer to Philadelphia, the Quaker Assembly yielded, voted the largest sum they had ever voted to the war, and exempted the proprietary estates. The colony was soon boiling with excitement. The Churchmen, as friends of the proprietors, were delighted to have the estates exempted, thought it a good opportunity to have the Quaker Assembly abolished, and sent petitions and letters and proofs of alleged Quaker incompetence to the British Government. The Quakers and a large majority of the colonists, on the other hand, instead of consenting to their own destruction, struck at the root of the Churchmen's power by proposing to abolish the proprietors. And in a letter to Isaac Norris, Benjamin Franklin, who had been sent to England to present the grievances of the colonists, even suggested that "tumults and insurrections that might prove the proprietary government unable to preserve order, or show the people to be ungovernable, would do the business immediately." Turmoil and party strife rose to the most exciting heights, and the details of it might, under certain circumstances, be interesting to describe. But the next year, 1758, the British Government, by sending a powerful force of regulars to Pennsylvania, at last adopted the only method for ending the war. Confidence was at once restored. The Pennsylvania Assembly now voted the sufficient and, indeed, immense sum of one hundred thousand pounds, and offered a bounty of five pounds to every recruit. It was no longer a war of defense but now a war of aggression and conquest. Fort Duquesne on the Ohio was taken; and the next autumn Fort Pitt was built on its ruins. Then Canada fell, and the French empire in America came to an end. Canada and the Great West passed into the possession of the Anglo-Saxon race. Chapter VII. The Decline Of Quaker Government When the treaty of peace was signed in 1763, extinguishing France's title to Canada and turning over Canada and the Mississippi Valley to the English, the colonists were prepared to enjoy all the blessings of peace. But the treaty of peace had been made with France, not with the red man. A remarkable genius, Pontiac, appeared among the Indians, one of the few characters, like Tecumseh and Osceola, who are often cited as proof of latent powers almost equal to the strongest qualities of the white race. Within a few months he had united all the tribes of the West in a discipline and control which, if it had been brought to the assistance of the French six years earlier, might have conquered the colonies to the Atlantic seaboard before the British regulars could have come to their assistance. The tribes swept westward into Pennsylvania, burning, murdering, and leveling every habitation to the ground with a thoroughness beyond anything attempted under the French alliance. The settlers and farmers fled eastward to the towns to live in cellars, camps, and sheds as best they could. * Fortunately the colonies retained a large part of the military organization, both men and officers, of the French War, and were soon able to handle the situation. Detroit and Niagara were relieved by water; and an expedition commanded by Colonel Bouquet, who had distinguished himself under General Forties, saved Fort Pitt. * For an account of Pontiac's conspiracy, see "The Old Northwest" by Frederic A. Ogg (in "The Chronicles of America"). At this time the Scotch-Irish frontiersmen suddenly became prominent. They had been organizing for their own protection and were meeting with not a little success. They refused to join the expedition of regular troops marching westward against Pontiac's warriors, because they wanted to protect their own homes and because they believed the regulars to be marching to sure destruction. Many of the regular troops were invalided from the West Indies, and the Scotch-Irish never expected to see any of them again. They believed that the salvation of Pennsylvania, or at least of their part of the province, depended entirely upon themselves. Their increasing numbers and rugged independence were forming them also into an organized political party with decided tendencies, as it afterwards appeared, towards forming a separate state. The extreme narrowness of the Scotch-Irish, however, misled them. The only real safety for the province lay in regularly constituted and strong expeditions, like that of Bouquet, which would drive the main body of the savages far westward. But the Scotch-Irish could not see this; and with that intensity of passion which marked all their actions they turned their energy and vengeance upon the Quakers and semicivilized Indians in the eastern end of the colony. Their preachers, who were their principal leaders and organizers, encouraged them in denouncing Quaker doctrine as a wicked heresy from which only evil could result. The Quakers had offended God from the beginning by making treaties of kindness with the heathen savages instead of exterminating them as the Scripture commanded: "And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them." The Scripture had not been obeyed; the heathen had not been destroyed; on the contrary, a systematic policy of covenants, treaties, and kindness had been persisted in for two generations, and as a consequence, the Ulstermen said, the frontiers were now deluged in blood. They were particularly resentful against the small settlement of Indians near Bethlehem, who had been converted to Christianity by the Moravians, and another little village of half civilized basketmaking Indians at Conestoga near Lancaster. The Scotch-Irish had worked themselves up into a strange belief that these small remnants were sending information, arms, and ammunition to the western tribes; and they seemed to think that it was more important to exterminate these little communities than to go with such expeditions as Bouquet's to the West. They asked the Governor to remove these civilized Indians and assured him that their removal would secure the safety of the frontier. When the Governor, not being able to find anything against the Indians, declined to remove them, the Scotch-Irish determined to attend to the matter in their own fashion. Bouquet's victory at Bushy Run, much to the surprise of the Scotch-Irish, stopped Indian raids of any seriousness until the following spring. But in the autumn there were a few depredations, which led the frontiersmen to believe that the whole invasion would begin again. A party of them, therefore, started to attack the Moravian Indians near Bethlehem; but before they could accomplish their object, the Governor brought most of the Indians down to Philadelphia for protection. Even there they were narrowly saved from the mob, for the hostility against them was spreading throughout the province. Soon afterwards another party of Scotch-Irish, ever since known as the "Paxton Boys," went at break of day to the village of the Conestoga Indians and found only six of them at home--three men, two women, and a boy. These they instantly shot down, mutilated their bodies, and burned their cabins. As the murderers returned, they related to a man on the road what they had done, and when he protested against the cruelty of the deed, they asked, "Don't you believe in God and the Bible?" The remaining fourteen inhabitants of the village, who were away selling brooms, were collected by the sheriff and put in the jail at Lancaster for protection. The Paxtons heard of it and in a few days stormed the jail, broke down the doors, and either shot the poor Indians or cut them to pieces with hatchets. This was probably the first instance of lynch law in America. It raised a storm of indignation and controversy; and a pamphlet war persisted for several years. The whole province was immediately divided into two parties. On one side were the Quakers, most of the Germans, and conservatives of every sort, and on the other, inclined to sympathize with the Scotch-Irish, were the eastern Presbyterians, some of the Churchmen, and various miscellaneous people whose vindictiveness towards all Indians had been aroused by the war. The Quakers and conservatives, who seem to have been the more numerous, assailed the Scotch-Irish in no measured language as a gang of ruffians without respect for law or order who, though always crying for protection, had refused to march with Bouquet to save Fort Pitt or to furnish him the slightest assistance. Instead of going westward where the danger was and something might be accomplished, they had turned eastward among the settlements and murdered a few poor defenseless people, mostly women and children. Franklin, who had now returned from England, wrote one of his best pamphlets against the Paxtons, the valorous, heroic Paxtons, as he called them, prating of God and the Bible, fifty-seven of whom, armed with rifles, knives, and hatchets, had actually succeeded in killing three old men, two women, and a boy. This pamphlet became known as the "Narrative" from the first word of its title, and it had an immense circulation. Like everything Franklin wrote, it is interesting reading to this day. One of the first effects of this controversy was to drive the excitable Scotch-Irish into a flame of insurrection not unlike the Whisky Rebellion, which started among them some years after the Revolution. They held tumultuous meetings denouncing the Quakers and the whole proprietary government in Philadelphia, and they organized an expedition which included some delegates to suggest reforms. For the most part, however, it was a well equipped little army variously estimated at from five hundred to fifteen hundred on foot and on horseback, which marched towards Philadelphia with no uncertain purpose. They openly declared that they intended to capture the town, seize the Moravian Indians protected there, and put them to death. They fully expected to be supported by most of the people and to have everything their own way. As they passed along the roads, they amused themselves in their rough fashion by shooting chickens and pigs, frightening people by thrusting their rifles into windows, and occasionally throwing some one down and pretending to scalp him. In the city there was great excitement and alarm. Even the classes who sympathized with the Scotch-Irish did not altogether relish having their property burned or destroyed. Great preparations were made to meet the expedition. British regulars were summoned. Eight companies of militia and a battery of artillery were hastily formed. Franklin became a military man once more and superintended the preparations. On all sides the Quakers were enlisting; they had become accustomed to war; and this legitimate chance to shoot a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian was too much for the strongest scruples of their religion. It was a long time, however, before they heard the end of this zeal; and in the pamphlet war which followed they were accused of clamorously rushing to arms and demanding to be led against the enemy. It is amusing now to read about it in the old records. But it was serious enough at the time. When the Scotch-Irish army reached the Schuylkill River and found the fords leading to the city guarded, they were not quite so enthusiastic about killing Quakers and Indians. They went up the river some fifteen miles, crossed by an unopposed ford, and halted in Germantown ten miles north of Philadelphia. That was as far as they thought it safe to venture. Several days passed, during which the city people continued their preparations and expected every night to be attacked. There were, indeed, several false alarms. Whenever the alarm was sounded at night, every one placed candles in his windows to light up the streets. One night when it rained the soldiers were allowed to shelter themselves in a Quaker meeting house, which for some hours bristled with bayonets and swords, an incident of which the Presbyterian pamphleteers afterwards made much use for satire. On another day all the cannon were fired to let the enemy know what was in store for him. Finally commissioners with the clever, genial Franklin at their head, went out to Germantown to negotiate, and soon had the whole mighty difference composed. The Scotch-Irish stated their grievances. The Moravian Indians ought not to be protected by the government, and all such Indians should be removed from the colony; the men who killed the Conestoga Indians should be tried where the supposed offense was committed and not in Philadelphia; the five frontier counties had only ten representatives in the Assembly while the three others had twenty-six--this should be remedied; men wounded in border war should be cared for at public expense; no trade should be carried on with hostile Indians until they restored prisoners; and there should be a bounty on scalps. While these negotiations were proceeding, some of the Scotch-Irish amused themselves by practicing with their rifles at the weather vane, a figure of a cock, on the steeple of the old Lutheran church in Germantown--an unimportant incident, it is true, but one revealing the conditions and character of the time as much as graver matters do. The old weather vane with the bullet marks upon it is still preserved. About thirty of these same riflemen were invited to Philadelphia and were allowed to wander about and see the sights of the town. The rest returned to the frontier. As for their list of grievances, not one of them was granted except, strange and sad to relate, the one which asked for a scalp bounty. The Governor, after the manner of other colonies, it must be admitted, issued the long desired scalp proclamation, which after offering rewards for prisoners and scalps, closed by saying, "and for the scalp of a female Indian fifty pieces of eight." William Penn's Indian policy had been admired for its justice and humanity by all the philosophers and statesmen of the world, and now his grandson, Governor of the province, in the last days of the family's control, was offering bounties for women's scalps. Franklin while in England had succeeded in having the proprietary lands taxed equally with the lands of the colonists. But the proprietors attempted to construe this provision so that their best lands were taxed at the rate paid by the people on their worst. This obvious quibble of course raised such a storm of opposition that the Quakers, joined by classes which had never before supported them, and now forming a large majority, determined to appeal to the Government in England to abolish the proprietorship and put the colony under the rule of the King. In the proposal to make Pennsylvania a Crown colony there was no intention of confiscating the possessions of the proprietors. It was merely the proprietary political power, their right to appoint the Governor, that was to be abolished. This right was to be absorbed by the Crown with payment for its value to the proprietors; but in all other respects the charter and the rights and liberties of the people were to remain unimpaired. Just there lay the danger. An act of Parliament would be required to make the change and, having once started on such a change, Parliament, or the party in power therein, might decide to make other changes, and in the end there might remain very little of the original rights and liberties of the colonists under their charter. It was by no means a wise move. But intense feeling on the subject was aroused. Passionate feeling seemed to have been running very high among the steady Quakers. In this new outburst the Quakers had the Scotch-Irish on their side, and a part of the Churchmen. The Germans were divided, but the majority enthusiastic for the change was very large. There was a new alignment of parties. The eastern Presbyterians, usually more or less in sympathy with the Scotch-Irish, broke away from them on this occasion. These Presbyterians opposed the change to a royal governor because they believed that it would be followed by the establishment by law of the Church of England, with bishops and all the other ancient evils. Although some of the Churchmen joined the Quaker side, most of them and the most influential of them were opposed to the change and did good work in opposing it. They were well content with their position under the proprietors and saw nothing to be gained under a royal governor. There were also not a few people who, in the increase of the wealth of the province, had acquired aristocratic tastes and were attached to the pleasant social conditions that had grown up round the proprietary governors and their followers; and there were also those whose salaries, incomes, or opportunities for wealth were more or less dependent on the proprietors retaining the executive offices and the appointments and patronage. One of the most striking instances of a change of sides was the case of a Philadelphia Quaker, John Dickinson, a lawyer of large practice, a man of wealth and position, and of not a little colonial magnificence when he drove in his coach and four. It was he who later wrote the famous "Farmer's Letters" during the Revolution. He was a member of the Assembly and had been in politics for some years. But on this question of a change to royal government, he left the Quaker majority and opposed the change with all his influence and ability. He and his father-in-law, Isaac Norris, Speaker of the Assembly, became the leaders against the change, and Franklin and Joseph Galloway, the latter afterwards a prominent loyalist in the Revolution, were the leading advocates of the change. The whole subject was thoroughly thrashed out in debates in the Assembly and in pamphlets of very great ability and of much interest to students of colonial history and the growth of American ideas of liberty. It must be remembered that this was the year 1764, on the eve of the Revolution. British statesmen were planning a system of more rigorous control of the colonies; and the advisability of a stamp tax was under consideration. Information of all these possible changes had reached the colonies. Dickinson foresaw the end and warned the people. Franklin and the Quaker party thought there was no danger and that the mother country could be implicitly trusted. Dickinson warned the people that the British Ministry were starting special regulations for new colonies and "designing the strictest reformations in the old." It would be a great relief, he admitted, to be rid of the pettiness of the proprietors, and it might be accomplished some time in the future; but not now. The proprietary system might be bad, but a royal government might be worse and might wreck all the liberties of the province, religious freedom, the Assembly's control of its own adjournments, and its power of raising and disposing of the public money. The ministry of the day in England were well known not to be favorably inclined towards Pennsylvania because of the frequently reported willfulness of the Assembly, on which the recent disturbances had also been blamed. If the King, Ministry, and Parliament started upon a change, they might decide to reconstitute the Assembly entirely, abolish its ancient privileges, and disfranchise both Quakers and Presbyterians. The arguments of Franklin and Galloway consisted principally of assertions of the good intentions of the mother country and the absurdity of any fear on the part of the colonists for their privileges. But the King in whom they had so much confidence was George III, and the Parliament which they thought would do no harm was the same one which a few months afterwards passed the Stamp Act which brought on the Revolution. Franklin and Galloway also asserted that the colonies like Massachusetts, the Jerseys, and the Carolinas, which had been changed to royal governments, had profited by the change. But that was hardly the prevailing opinion in those colonies themselves. Royal governors could be as petty and annoying as the Penns and far more tyrannical. Pennsylvania had always defeated any attempts at despotism on the part of the Penn family and had built up a splendid body of liberal laws and legislative privileges. But governors with the authority and power of the British Crown behind them could not be so easily resisted as the deputy governors of the Penns. The Assembly, however, voted--twenty-seven to three--with Franklin and Galloway. In the general election of the autumn, the question was debated anew among the people and, though Franklin and Galloway were defeated for seats in the Assembly, yet the popular verdict was strongly in favor of a change, and the majority in the Assembly was for practical purposes unaltered. They voted to appeal to England for the change, and appointed Franklin to be their agent before the Crown and Ministry. He sailed again for England and soon was involved in the opening scenes of the Revolution. He was made agent for all the colonies and he spent many delightful years there pursuing his studies in science, dining with distinguished men, staying at country seats, and learning all the arts of diplomacy for which he afterwards became so distinguished. As for the Assembly's petition for a change to royal government, Franklin presented it, but never pressed it. He, too, was finally convinced that the time was inopportune. In fact, the Assembly itself before long began to have doubts and fears and sent him word to let the subject drop; and amid much greater events it was soon entirely forgotten. Chapter VIII. The Beginnings Of New Jersey New Jersey, Scheyichbi, as the Indians called it, or Nova Caesarea, as it was called in the Latin of its proprietary grant, had a history rather different from that of other English colonies in America. Geographically, it had not a few attractions. It was a good sized dominion surrounded on all sides but one by water, almost an island domain, secluded and independent. In fact, it was the only one of the colonies which stood naturally separate and apart. The others were bounded almost entirely by artificial or imaginary lines. It offered an opportunity, one might have supposed, for some dissatisfied religious sect of the seventeenth century to secure a sanctuary and keep off all intruders. But at first no one of the various denominations seems to have fancied it or chanced upon it. The Puritans disembarked upon the bleak shores of New England well suited to the sternness of their religion. How different American history might have been if they had established themselves in the Jerseys! Could they, under those milder skies, have developed witchcraft, set up blue laws, and indulged in the killing of Quakers? After a time they learned about the Jerseys and cast thrifty eyes upon them. Their seafaring habits and the pursuit of whales led them along the coast and into Delaware Bay. The Puritans of New Haven made persistent efforts to settle the southern part of Jersey, on the Delaware near Salem. They thought, as their quaint old records show, that if they could once start a branch colony in Jersey it might become more populous and powerful than the New Haven settlement and in that case they intended to move their seat of government to the new colony. But their shrewd estimate of its value came too late. The Dutch and the Swedes occupied the Delaware at that time and drove them out. Puritans, however, entered northern Jersey and, while they were not numerous enough to make it a thoroughly Puritan community, they largely tinged its thought and its laws, and their influence still survives. The difficulty with Jersey was that its seacoast was a monotonous line of breakers with dangerous shoal inlets, few harbors, and vast mosquito infested salt marshes and sandy thickets. In the interior it was for the most part a level, heavily forested, sandy, swampy country in its southern portions, and rough and mountainous in the northern portions. Even the entrance by Delaware Bay was so difficult by reason of its shoals that it was the last part of the coast to be explored. The Delaware region and Jersey were in fact a sort of middle ground far less easy of access by the sea than the regions to the north in New England and to the south in Virginia. There were only two places easy of settlement in the Jerseys. One was the open region of meadows and marshes by Newark Bay near the mouth of the Hudson and along the Hackensack River, whence the people slowly extended themselves to the seashore at Sandy Hook and thence southward along the ocean beach. This was East Jersey. The other easily occupied region, which became West Jersey, stretched along the shore of the lower Delaware from the modern Trenton to Salem, whence the settlers gradually worked their way into the interior. Between these two divisions lay a rough wilderness which in its southern portion was full of swamps, thickets, and pine barrens. So rugged was the country that the native Indians lived for the most part only in the two open regions already described. The natural geographical, geological, and even social division of New Jersey is made by drawing a line from Trenton to the mouth of the Hudson River. North of that line the successive terraces of the piedmont and mountainous region form part of the original North American continent. South of that line the more or less sandy level region was once a shoal beneath the ocean; afterwards a series of islands; then one island with a wide sound behind it passing along the division line to the mouth of the Hudson. Southern Jersey was in short an island with a sound behind it very much like the present Long Island. The shoal and island had been formed in the far distant geologic past by the erosion and washings from the lofty Pennsylvania mountains now worn down to mere stumps. The Delaware River flowed into this sound at Trenton. Gradually the Hudson end of the sound filled up as far as Trenton, but the tide from the ocean still runs up the remains of the Old Sound as far as Trenton. The Delaware should still be properly considered as ending at Trenton, for the rest of its course to the ocean is still part of Old Pensauken Sound, as it is called by geologists. The Jerseys originated as a colony in 1664. In 1675 West Jersey passed into the control of the Quakers. In 1680 East Jersey came partially under Quaker influence. In August, 1664, Charles II seized New York, New Jersey, and all the Dutch possessions in America, having previously in March granted them to his brother the Duke of York. The Duke almost immediately gave to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, members of the Privy Council and defenders of the Stuart family in the Cromwellian wars, the land between the Delaware River and the ocean, and bounded on the north by a line drawn from latitude 41 degrees on the Hudson to latitude 41 degrees 40 minutes on the Delaware. This region was to be called, the grant said, Nova Caesarea, or New Jersey. The name was a compliment to Carteret, who in the Cromwellian wars had defended the little isle of Jersey against the forces of the Long Parliament. As the American Jersey was then almost an island and geologically had been one, the name was not inappropriate. Berkeley and Carteret divided the province between them. In 1676 an exact division was attempted, creating the rather unnatural sections known as East Jersey and West Jersey. The first idea seems to have been to divide by a line running from Barnegat on the seashore to the mouth of Pensauken Creek on the Delaware just above Camden. This, however, would have made a North Jersey and a South Jersey, with the latter much smaller than the former. Several lines seem to have been surveyed at different times in the attempt to make an exactly equal division, which was no easy engineering task. As private land titles and boundaries were in some places dependent on the location of the division line, there resulted much controversy and litigation which lasted down into our own time. Without going into details, it is sufficient to say that the acceptable division line began on the seashore at Little Egg Harbor at the lower end of Barnegat Bay and crossed diagonally or northwesterly to the northern part of the Delaware River just above the Water Gap. It is known as the Old Province line, and it can be traced on any map of the State by prolonging, in both directions, the northeastern boundary of Burlington County. West Jersey, which became decidedly Quaker, did not remain long in the possession of Lord Berkeley. He was growing old; and, disappointed in his hopes of seeing it settled, he sold it, in 1673, for one thousand pounds to John Fenwick and Edward Byllinge, both of them old Cromwellian soldiers turned Quakers. That this purchase was made for the purpose of affording a refuge in America for Quakers then much imprisoned and persecuted in England does not very distinctly appear. At least there was no parade of it. But such a purpose in addition to profit for the proprietors may well have been in the minds of the purchasers. George Fox, the Quaker leader, had just returned from a missionary journey in America, in the course of which he had traveled through New Jersey in going from New York to Maryland. Some years previously in England, about 1659, he had made inquiries as to a suitable place for Quaker settlement and was told of the region north of Maryland which became Pennsylvania. But how could a persecuted sect obtain such a region from the British Crown and the Government that was persecuting them? It would require powerful influence at Court; nothing could then be done about it; and Pennsylvania had to wait until William Penn became a man with influence enough in 1681 to win it from the Crown. But here was West Jersey, no longer owned directly by the Crown and bought in cheap by two Quakers. It was an unexpected opportunity. Quakers soon went to it, and it was the first Quaker colonial experiment. Byllinge and Fenwick, though turned Quakers, seem to have retained some of the contentious Cromwellian spirit of their youth. They soon quarreled over their respective interests in the ownership of West Jersey; and to prevent a lawsuit, so objectionable to Quakers, the decision was left to William Penn, then a rising young Quaker about thirty years old, dreaming of ideal colonies in America. Penn awarded Fenwick a one-tenth interest and four hundred pounds. Byllinge soon became insolvent and turned over his nine-tenths interest to his creditors, appointing Penn and two other Quakers, Gawen Lawrie, a merchant of London, and Nicholas Lucas, a maltster of Hertford, to hold it in trust for them. Gawen Lawrie afterwards became deputy governor of East Jersey. Lucas was one of those thoroughgoing Quakers just released from eight years in prison for his religion. * * Myers, "Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West Jersey, and Delaware", p. 180. Fenwick also in the end fell into debt and, after selling over one hundred thousand acres to about fifty purchasers, leased what remained of his interest for a thousand years to John Edridge, a tanner, and Edmund Warner, a poulterer, as security for money borrowed from them. They conveyed this lease and their claims to Penn, Lawrie, and Lucas, who thus became the owners, as trustees, of pretty much all West Jersey. This was William Penn's first practical experience in American affairs. He and his fellow trustees, with the consent of Fenwick, divided the West Jersey ownership into one hundred shares. The ninety belonging to Byllinge were offered for sale to settlers or to creditors of Byllinge who would take them in exchange for debts. The settlement of West Jersey thus became the distribution of an insolvent Quaker's estate among his creditor fellow religionists. Although no longer in possession of a title to land, Fenwick, in 1675, went out with some Quaker settlers to Delaware Bay. There they founded the modern town of Salem, which means peace, giving it that name because of the fair and peaceful aspect of the wilderness on the day they arrived. They bought the land from the Indians in the usual manner, as the Swedes and Dutch had so often done. But they had no charter or provision for organized government. When Fenwick attempted to exercise political authority at Salem, he was seized and imprisoned by Andros, Governor of New York for the Duke of York, on the ground that, although the Duke had given Jersey to certain individual proprietors, the political control of it remained in the Duke's deputy governor. Andros, who had levied a tax of five per cent on all goods passing up the Delaware, now established commissioners at Salem to collect the duties. This action brought up the whole question of the authority of Andros. The trustee proprietors of West Jersey appealed to the Duke of York, who was suspiciously indifferent to the matter, but finally referred it for decision to a prominent lawyer, Sir William Jones, before whom the Quaker proprietors of West Jersey made a most excellent argument. They showed the illegality, injustice, and wrong of depriving the Jerseys of vested political rights and forcing them from the freeman's right of making their own laws to a state of mere dependence on the arbitrary will of one man. Then with much boldness they declared that "To exact such an unterminated tax from English planters, and to continue it after so many repeated complaints, will be the greatest evidence of a design to introduce, if the Crown should ever devolve upon the Duke, an unlimited government in old England." Prophetic words which the Duke, in a few years, tried his best to fulfill. But Sir William Jones deciding against him, he acquiesced, confirmed the political rights of West Jersey by a separate grant, and withdrew any authority Andros claimed over East Jersey. The trouble, however, did not end here. Both the Jerseys were long afflicted by domineering attempts from New York. Penn and his fellow trustees now prepared a constitution, or "Concessions and Agreements," as they called it, for West Jersey, the first Quaker political constitution embodying their advanced ideas, establishing religious liberty, universal suffrage, and voting by ballot, and abolishing imprisonment for debt. It foreshadowed some of the ideas subsequently included in the Pennsylvania constitution. All these experiences were an excellent school for William Penn. He learned the importance in starting a colony of having a carefully and maturely considered system of government. In his preparations some years afterwards for establishing Pennsylvania he avoided much of the bungling of the West Jersey enterprise. A better organized attempt was now made to establish a foothold in West Jersey farther up the river than Fenwick's colony at Salem. In 1677 the ship Kent took out some 230 rather well-to-do Quakers, about as fine a company of broadbrims, it is said, as ever entered the Delaware. Some were from Yorkshire and London, largely creditors of Byllinge, who were taking land to satisfy their debts. They all went up the river to Raccoon Creek on the Jersey side, about fifteen miles below the present site of Philadelphia, and lived at first among the Swedes, who had been in that part of Jersey for some years and who took care of the new arrivals in their barns and sheds. These Quaker immigrants, however, soon began to take care of themselves, and the weather during the winter proving mild, they explored farther up the river in a small boat. They bought from the Indians the land along the river shore from Oldman's Creek all the way up to Trenton and made their first settlements on the river about eighteen miles above the site of Philadelphia, at a place they at first called New Beverly, then Bridlington, and finally Burlington. They may have chosen this spot partly because there had been an old Dutch settlement of a few families there. It had long been a crossing of the Delaware for the few persons who passed by land from New York or New England to Maryland and Virginia. One of the Dutchmen, Peter Yegon, kept a ferry and a house for entertaining travelers. George Fox, who crossed there in 1671, describes the place as having been plundered by the Indians and deserted. He and his party swam their horses across the river and got some of the Indians to help them with canoes. Other Quaker immigrants followed, going to Salem as well as to Burlington, and a stretch of some fifty miles of the river shore became strongly Quaker. There are not many American towns now to be found with more of the old-time picturesqueness and more relics of the past than Salem and Burlington. Settlements were also started on the river opposite the site afterwards occupied by Philadelphia, at Newton on the creek still called by that name; and another a little above on Cooper's Creek, known as Cooper's Ferry until 1794. Since then it has become the flourishing town of Camden, full of shipbuilding and manufacturing, but for long after the Revolution it was merely a small village on the Jersey shore opposite Philadelphia, sometimes used as a hunting ground and a place of resort for duelers and dancing parties from Philadelphia. The Newton settlers were Quakers of the English middle class, weavers, tanners, carpenters, bricklayers, chandlers, blacksmiths, coopers, bakers, haberdashers, hatters, and linen drapers, most of them possessed of property in England and bringing good supplies with them. Like all the rest of the New Jersey settlers they were in no sense adventurers, gold seekers, cavaliers, or desperadoes. They were well-to-do middle class English tradespeople who would never have thought of leaving England if they had not lost faith in the stability of civil and religious liberty and the security of their property under the Stuart Kings. With them came servants, as they were called; that is, persons of no property, who agreed to work for a certain time in payment of their passage, to escape from England. All, indeed, were escaping from England before their estates melted away in fines and confiscations or their health or lives ended in the damp, foul air of the crowded prisons. Many of those who came had been in jail and had decided that they would not risk imprisonment a second time. Indeed, the proportion of West Jersey immigrants who had actually been in prison for holding or attending Quaker meetings or refusing to pay tithes for the support of the established church was large. For example, William Bates, a carpenter, while in jail for his religion, made arrangements with his friends to escape to West Jersey as soon as he should be released, and his descendants are now scattered over the United States. Robert Turner, a man of means, who settled finally in Philadelphia but also owned much land near Newton in West Jersey, had been imprisoned in England in 1660, again in 1662, again in 1665, and some of his property had been taken, again imprisoned in 1669 and more property taken; and many others had the same experience. Details such as these make us realize the situation from which the Quakers sought to escape. So widespread was the Quaker movement in England and so severe the punishment imposed in order to suppress it that fifteen thousand families are said to have been ruined by the fines, confiscations, and imprisonments. Not a few Jersey Quakers were from Ireland, whither they had fled because there the laws against them were less rigorously administered. The Newton settlers were joined by Quakers from Long Island, where, under the English law as administered by the New York governors, they had also been fined and imprisoned, though with less severity than at home, for nonconformity to the Church of England. On arriving, the West Jersey settlers suffered some hardships during the year that must elapse before a crop could be raised and a log cabin or house built. During that period they usually lived, in the Indian manner, in wigwams of poles covered with bark, or in caves protected with logs in the steep banks of the creeks. Many of them lived in the villages of the Indians. The Indians supplied them all with corn and venison, and without this Indian help, they would have run serious risk of starving, for they were not accustomed to hunting. They had also to thank the Indians for having in past ages removed so much of the heavy forest growth from the wide strip of land along the river that it was easy to start cultivation. These Quaker settlers made a point of dealing very justly with the Indians and the two races lived side by side for several generations. There is an instance recorded of the Indians attending with much solemnity the funeral of a prominent Quaker woman, Esther Spicer, for whom they had acquired great respect. The funeral was held at night, and the Indians in canoes, the white men in boats, passed down Cooper's Creek and along the river to Newton Creek where the graveyard was, lighting the darkness with innumerable torches, a strange scene to think of now as having been once enacted in front of the bustling cities of Camden and Philadelphia. Some of the young settlers took Indian wives, and that strain of native blood is said to show itself in the features of several families to this day. Many letters of these settlers have been preserved, all expressing the greatest enthusiasm for the new country, for the splendid river better than the Thames, the good climate, and their improved health, the immense relief to be away from the constant dread of fines and punishment, the chance to rise in the world, with large rewards for industry. They note the immense quantities of game, the Indians bringing in fat bucks every day, the venison better than in England, the streams full of fish, the abundance of wild fruits, cranberries, hurtleberries, the rapid increase of cattle, and the good soil. A few details concerning some of the interesting characters among these early colonial Quakers have been rescued from oblivion. There is, for instance, the pleasing picture of a young man and his sister, convinced Quakers, coming out together and pioneering in their log cabin until each found a partner for life. There was John Haddon, from whom Haddonfield is named, who bought a large tract of land but remained in England, while his daughter Elizabeth came out alone to look after it. A strong, decisive character she was, and women of that sort have always been encouraged in independent action by the Quakers. She proved to be an excellent manager of an estate. The romance of her marriage to a young Quaker preacher, Estaugh, has been celebrated in Mrs. Maria Child's novel "The Youthful Emigrant." The pair became leading citizens devoted to good works and to Quaker liberalism for many a year in Haddonfield. It was the ship Shields of Hull, bringing Quaker immigrants to Burlington, of which the story is told that in beating up the river she tacked close to the rather high bank with deep water frontage where Philadelphia was afterwards established; and some of the passengers remarked that it was a fine site for a town. The Shields, it is said, was the first ship to sail up as far as Burlington. Anchoring before Burlington in the evening, the colonists woke up next morning to find the river frozen hard so that they walked on the ice to their future habitations. Burlington was made the capital of West Jersey, a legislature was convened and laws were passed under the "concessions" or constitution of the proprietors. Salem and Burlington became the ports of the little province, which was well under way by 1682, when Penn came out to take possession of Pennsylvania. The West Jersey people of these two settlements spread eastward into the interior but were stopped by a great forest area known as the Pines, or Pine Barrens, of such heavy growth that even the Indians lived on its outer edges and entered it only for hunting. It was an irregularly shaped tract, full of wolves, bear, beaver, deer, and other game, and until recent years has continued to attract sportsmen from all parts of the country. Starting near Delaware Bay, it extended parallel with the ocean as far north as the lower portion of the present Monmouth County and formed a region about seventy-five miles long and thirty miles wide. It was roughly the part of the old sandy shoal that first emerged from the ocean, and it has been longer above water than any other part of southern Jersey. The old name, Pine Barrens, is hardly correct because it implies something like a desert, when as a matter of fact the region produced magnificent forest trees. The innumerable visitors who cross southern Jersey to the famous seashore resorts always pass through the remains of this old central forest and are likely to conclude that the monotonous low scrub oaks and stunted pines on sandy level soil, seen for the last two or three generations, were always there and that the primeval forest of colonial times was no better. But that is a mistake. The stunted growth now seen is not even second growth but in many cases fourth or fifth or more. The whole region was cut over long ago. The original growth, pine in many places, consisted also of lofty timber of oak, hickory, gum, ash, chestnut, and numerous other trees, interspersed with dogwood, sassafras, and holly, and in the swamps the beautiful magnolia, along with the valuable white cedar. DeVries, who visited the Jersey coast about 1632, at what is supposed to have been Beesley's or Somer's Point, describes high woods coming down to the shore. Even today, immediately back of Somer's Point, there is a magnificent lofty oak forest accidentally preserved by surrounding marsh from the destructive forest fires; and there are similar groves along the road towards Pleasantville. In fact, the finest forest trees flourish in that region wherever given a good chance. Even some of the beaches of Cape May had valuable oak and luxuriant growths of red cedar; and until a few years ago there were fine trees, especially hollies, surviving on Wildwood Beach. The Jersey white cedar swamps were, and still are, places of fascinating interest to the naturalist and the botanist. The hunter or explorer found them scattered almost everywhere in the old forest and near its edges, varying in size from a few square yards up to hundreds of acres. They were formed by little streams easily checked in their flow through the level land by decaying vegetation or dammed by beavers. They kept the water within the country, preventing all effects of droughts, stimulating the growth of vegetation which by its decay, throughout the centuries, was steadily adding vegetable mold or humus to the sandy soil. This process of building up a richer soil has now been largely stopped by lumbering, drainage, and fires. While there are many of these swamps left, the appearance of numbers of them has largely changed. When the white men first came, the great cedars three or four feet in diameter which had fallen centuries before often lay among the living trees, some of them buried deep in the mud and preserved from decay. They were invaluable timber, and digging them out and cutting them up became an important industry for over a hundred years. In addition to being used for boat building, they made excellent shingles which would last a lifetime. The swamps, indeed, became known as shingle mines, and it was a good description of them. An important trade was developed in hogshead staves, hoops, shingles, boards, and planks, much of which went into the West Indian trade to be exchanged for rum, sugar, molasses, and negroes. * * Between the years 1740 and '50, the Cedar Swamps of the county [Cape May] were mostly located; and the amount of lumber since taken from them is incalculable, not only as an article of trade, but to supply the home demand for fencing and building material in the county. Large portions of these swamps have been worked a second and some a third time, since located. At the present time [1857] there is not an acre of original growth of swamp standing, having all passed away before the resistless sway of the speculator or the consumer. "Beesley's "Sketch of Cape May" p. 197. The great forest has long since been lumbered to death. The pines were worked for tar, pitch, resin, and turpentine until for lack of material the industry passed southward through the Carolinas to Florida, exhausting the trees as it went. The Christmas demand for holly has almost stripped the Jersey woods of these trees once so numerous. Destructive fires and frequent cutting keep the pine and oak lands stunted. Thousands of dollars' worth of cedar springing up in the swamps are sometimes destroyed in a day. But efforts to control the fires so destructive not only to this standing timber but to the fertility of the soil, and attempts to reforest this country not only for the sake of timber but as an attraction to those who resort there in search of health or natural beauty, have not been vigorously pushed. The great forest has now, to be sure, been partially cultivated in spots, and the sand used for large glass-making industries. Small fruits and grapes flourish in some places. At the northern end of this forest tract the health resort known as Lakewood was established to take advantage of the pine air. A little to the southward is the secluded Brown's Mills, once so appealing to lovers of the simple life. Checked on the east by the great forest, the West Jersey Quakers spread southward from Salem until they came to the Cohansey, a large and beautiful stream flowing out of the forest and wandering through green meadows and marshes to the bay. So numerous were the wild geese along its shores and along the Maurice River farther south that the first settlers are said to have killed them for their feathers alone and to have thrown the carcasses away. At the head of navigation of the Cohansey was a village called Cohansey Bridge, and after 1765 Bridgeton, a name still borne by a flourishing modern town. Lower down near the marsh was the village of Greenwich, the principal place of business up to the year 1800, with a foreign trade. Some of the tea the East India Company tried to force on the colonists during the Revolution was sent there and was duly rejected. It is still an extremely pretty village, with its broad shaded streets like a New England town and its old Quaker meeting house. In fact, not a few New Englanders from Connecticut, still infatuated with southern Jersey in spite of the rebuffs received in ancient times from Dutch and Swedes, finally settled near the Cohansey after it came under control of the more amiable Quakers. There was also one place called after Fairfield in Connecticut and another called New England Town. The first churches of this region were usually built near running streams so that the congregation could procure water for themselves and their horses. Of one old Presbyterian Church it used to be said that no one had ever ridden to it in a wheeled vehicle. Wagons and carriages were very scarce until after the Revolution. Carts for occasions of ceremony as well as utility were used before wagons and carriages. For a hundred and fifty years the horse's back was the best form of conveyance in the deep sand of the trails and roads. This was true of all southern Jersey. Pack horses and the backs of Indian and negro slaves were the principal means of transportation on land. The roads and trails, in fact, were so few and so heavy with sand that water travel was very much developed. The Indian dugout canoe was adopted and found faster and better than heavy English rowboats. As the province was almost surrounded by water and was covered with a network of creeks and channels, nearly all the villages and towns were situated on tidewater streams, and the dugout canoe, modified and improved, was for several generations the principal means of communication. Most of the old roads in New Jersey followed Indian trails. There was a trail, for example, from the modern Camden opposite Philadelphia, following up Cooper's Creek past Berlin, then called Long-a-coming, crossing the watershed, and then following Great Egg Harbor River to the seashore. Another trail, long used by the settlers, led from Salem up to Camden, Burlington, and Trenton, going round the heads of streams. It was afterwards abandoned for the shorter route obtained by bridging the streams nearer their mouths. This old trail also extended from the neighborhood of Trenton to Perth Amboy near the mouth of the Hudson, and thus, by supplementing the lower routes, made a trail nearly the whole length of the province. As a Quaker refuge, West Jersey never attained the success of Pennsylvania. The political disturbances and the continually threatened loss of self-government in both the Jerseys were a serious deterrent to Quakers who, above all else, prized rights which they found far better secured in Pennsylvania. In 1702, when the two Jerseys were united into one colony under a government appointed by the Crown, those rights were more restricted than ever and all hopes of West Jersey becoming a colony under complete Quaker control were shattered. Under Governor Cornbury, the English law was adopted and enforced, and the Quakers were disqualified from testifying in court unless they took an oath and were prohibited from serving on juries or holding any office of trust. Cornbury's judges wore scarlet robes, powdered wigs, cocked hats, gold lace, and side arms; they were conducted to the courthouse by the sheriff's cavalcade and opened court with great parade and ceremony. Such a spectacle of pomp was sufficient to divert the flow of Quaker immigrants to Pennsylvania, where the government was entirely in Quaker hands and where plain and serious ways gave promise of enduring and unmolested prosperity. The Quakers had altogether thirty meeting houses in West Jersey and eleven in East Jersey, which probably shows about the proportion of Quaker influence in the two Jerseys. Many of them have since disappeared; some of the early buildings, to judge from the pictures, were of wood and not particularly pleasing in appearance. They were makeshifts, usually intended to be replaced by better buildings. Some substantial brick buildings of excellent architecture have survived, and their plainness and simplicity, combined with excellent proportions and thorough construction, are clearly indicative of Quaker character. There is a particularly interesting one in Salem with a magnificent old oak beside it, another in the village of Greenwich on the Cohansey farther south, and another at Crosswicks near Trenton. In West Jersey near Mount Holly was born and lived John Woolman, a Quaker who became eminent throughout the English speaking world for the simplicity and loftiness of his religious thought as well as for his admirable style of expression. His "Journal," once greatly and even extravagantly admired, still finds readers. "Get the writings of John Woolman by heart," said Charles Lamb, "and love the early Quakers." He was among the Quakers one of the first and perhaps the first really earnest advocate of the abolition of slavery. The scenes of West Jersey and the writings of Woolman seem to belong together. Possibly a feeling for the simplicity of those scenes and their life led Walt Whitman, who grew up on Long Island under Quaker influence, to spend his last years at Camden, in West Jersey. His profound democracy, which was very Quaker-like, was more at home there perhaps than anywhere else. Chapter IX. Planters And Traders Of Southern Jersey Most of the colonies in America, especially the stronger ones, had an aristocratic class, which was often large and powerful, as in the case of Virginia, and which usually centered around the governor, especially if he were appointed from England by the Crown or by a proprietor. But there was very little of this social distinction in New Jersey. Her political life had been too much broken up, and she had been too long dependent on the governors of New York to have any of those pretty little aristocracies with bright colored clothes, and coaches and four, flourishing within her boundaries. There seems to have been a faint suggestion of such social pretensions under Governor Franklin just before the Revolution. He was beginning to live down the objections to his illegitimate birth and Toryism and by his entertainments and manner of living was creating a social following. There is said also to have been something a little like the beginning of an aristocracy among the descendants of the Dutch settlers who had ancestral holdings near the Hudson; but this amounted to very little. Class distinctions were not so strongly marked in New Jersey as in some other colonies. There grew up in southern Jersey, however, a sort of aristocracy of gentlemen farmers, who owned large tracts of land and lived in not a little style in good houses on the small streams. The northern part of the province, largely settled and influenced by New Englanders, was like New England a land of vigorous concentrated town life and small farms. The hilly and mountainous nature of the northern section naturally led to small holdings of land. But in southern Jersey the level sandy tracts of forest were often taken up in large areas. In the absence of manufacturing, large acreage naturally became, as in Virginia and Maryland, the only mark of wealth and social distinction. The great landlord was looked up to by the lesser fry. The Quaker rule of discountenancing marrying out of meeting tended to keep a large acreage in the family and to make it larger by marriage. A Quaker of broad acres would seek for his daughter a young man of another landholding Quaker family and would thus join the two estates. There was a marked difference between East Jersey and West Jersey in county organization. In West Jersey the people tended to become planters; their farms and plantations somewhat like those of the far South; and the political unit of government was the county. In East Jersey the town was the starting point and the county marked the boundaries of a collection of towns. This curious difference, the result of soil, climate, and methods of life, shows itself in other States wherever South and North meet. Illinois is an example, where the southern part of the State is governed by the county system, and the northern part by the town system. The lumberman, too, in clearing off the primeval forest and selling the timber, usually dealt in immense acreage. Some families, it is said, can be traced steadily proceeding southward as they stripped off the forest, and started sawmills and gristmills on the little streams that trickled from the swamps, and like beavers making with their dams those pretty ponds which modern lovers of the picturesque are now so eager to find. A good deal of the lumbering in the interior pines tract was carried on by persons who leased the premises from owners who lived on plantations along the Delaware or its tributary streams. These operations began soon after 1700. Wood roads were cut into the Pines, sawmills were started, and constant use turned some of these wood roads into the highways of modern times. There was a speculative tinge in the operations of this landed aristocracy. Like the old tobacco raising aristocracy of Virginia and Maryland, they were inclined to go from tract to tract, skinning what they could from a piece of deforested land and then seeking another virgin tract. The roughest methods were used; wooden plows, brush harrows, straw collars, grapevine harness, and poor shelter for animals and crops; but were the Virginia methods any better? In these operations there was apparently a good deal of sudden profit and mushroom prosperity accompanied by a good deal of debt and insolvency. In this, too, they were like the Virginians and Carolinians. There seem to have been also a good many slaves in West Jersey, brought, as in the southern colonies, to work on the large estates, and this also, no doubt, helped to foster the aristocratic feeling. The best days of the Jersey gentlemen farmers came probably when they could no longer move from tract to tract. They settled down and enjoyed a very plentiful, if rude, existence on the products of their land, game, and fish, amid a fine climate--with mosquitoes enough in summer to act as a counterirritant and prevent stagnation from too much ease and prosperity. After the manner of colonial times, they wove their own clothes from the wool of their own sheep and made their own implements, furniture, and simple machinery. There are still to be found fascinating traces of this old life in out-of-the-way parts of southern Jersey. To run upon old houses among the Jersey pines still stored with Latin classics and old editions of Shakespeare, Addison, or Samuel Johnson, to come across an old mill with its machinery, cogwheels, flywheels, and all, made of wood, to find people who make their own oars, and the handles of their tools from the materials furnished by their own forest, is now unfortunately a refreshment of the spirit that is daily becoming rarer. This condition of material and social self-sufficiency lasted in places long after the Revolution. It was a curious little aristocracy--a very faint and faded one, lacking the robustness of the far southern type, and lacking indeed the real essential of an aristocracy, namely political power. Moreover, although there were slaves in New Jersey, there were not enough of them to exalt the Jersey gentlemen farmers into such self-sufficient lords and masters as the Virginian and Carolinian planters became. To search out the remains of this stage of American history, however, takes one up many pleasant streams flowing out of the forest tract to the Delaware on one side or to the ocean on the other. This topographical formation of a central ridge or watershed of forest and swamp was a repetition of the same formation in the Delaware peninsula, which like southern Jersey had originally been a shoal and then an island. The Jersey watershed, with its streams abounding in wood duck and all manner of wild life, must have been in its primeval days as fascinating as some of the streams of the Florida cypress swamps. Toward the ocean, Wading River, the Mullica, the Tuckahoe, Great Egg; and on the Delaware side the Maurice, Cohansey, Salem Creek, Oldman's, Raccoon, Mantua, Woodberry, Timber, and the Rancocas, still possess attraction. Some of them, on opposite sides of the divide, are not far apart at their sources in the old forest tract; so that a canoe can be transported over the few miles and thus traverse the State. One of these trips up Timber Creek from the Delaware and across only eight miles of land to the headwaters of Great Egg Harbor River and thence down to the ocean, thus cutting South Jersey in half, is a particularly romantic one. The heavy woods and swamps of this secluded route along these forest shadowed streams are apparently very much as they were three hundred years ago. The water in all these streams, particularly in their upper parts, owing to the sandy soil, is very clean and clear and is often stained by the cedar roots in the swamps a clear brown, sometimes almost an amber color. One of the streams, the Rancocas, with its many windings to Mount Holly and then far inland to Brown's Mills, seems to be the favorite with canoemen and is probably without an equal in its way for those who love the Indian's gift that brings us so close to nature. The spread of the Quaker settlements along Delaware Bay to Cape May was checked by the Maurice River and its marshes and by the Great Cedar Swamp which crossed the country from Delaware Bay to the ocean and thus made of the Cape May region a sort of island. The Cape May region, it is true, was settled by Quakers, but most of them came from Long Island rather than from the settlements on the Delaware. They had followed whale fishing on Long Island and in pursuit of that occupation some of them had migrated to Cape May where whales were numerous not far off shore. The leading early families of Cape May, the Townsends, Stillwells, Corsons, Leamings, Ludlams, Spicers, and Cresses, many of whose descendants still live there, were Quakers of the Long Island strain. The ancestor of the Townsend family came to Cape May because he had been imprisoned and fined and threatened with worse under the New York government for assisting his fellow Quakers to hold meetings. Probably the occasional severity of the administration of the New York laws against Quakers, which were the same as those of England, had as much to do as had the whales with the migration to Cape May. This Quaker civilization extended from Cape May up as far as Great Egg Harbor where the Great Cedar Swamp joined the seashore. Quaker meeting houses were built at Cape May, Galloway, Tuckahoe, and Great Egg. All have been abandoned and the buildings themselves have disappeared, except that of the Cape May meeting, called the Old Cedar Meeting, at Seaville; and it has no congregation. The building is kept in repair by members of the Society from other places. Besides the Quakers, Cape May included a number of New Haven people, the first of whom came there as early as 1640 under the leadership of George Lamberton and Captain Turner, seeking profit in whale fishing. They were not driven out by the Dutch and Swedes, as happened to their companions who attempted to settle higher up the river at Salem and the Schuylkill. About one-fifth of the old family names of Cape May and New Haven are similar, and there is supposed to be not a little New England blood not only in Cape May but in the neighboring counties of Cumberland and Salem. While the first New Haven whalers came to Cape May in 1640, it is probable that for a long time they only sheltered their vessels there, and none of them became permanent settlers until about 1685. Scandinavians contributed another element to the population of the Cape May region. Very little is definitely known about this settlement, but the Swedish names in Cape May and Cumberland counties seem to indicate a migration of Scandinavians from Wilmington and Tinicum. Great Egg Harbor, which formed the northern part of the Cape May settlement, was named from the immense numbers of wild fowl, swans, ducks, and water birds that formerly nested there every summer and have now been driven to Canada or beyond. Little Egg Harbor farther up the coast was named for the same reason as well as Egg Island, of three hundred acres in Delaware Bay, since then eaten away by the tide. The people of the district had excellent living from the eggs as well as from the plentiful fowl, fish, and oysters. Some farming was done by the inhabitants of Cape May; and many cattle, marked with brands but in a half wild state, were kept out on the uninhabited beaches which have now become seaside summer cities. Some of the cattle were still running wild on the beaches down to the time of the Civil War. The settlers "mined" the valuable white cedar from the swamps for shingles and boards, leaving great "pool holes" in the swamps which even today sometimes trap the unwary sportsman. The women knitted innumerable mittens and also made wampum or Indian money from the clam and oyster shells, an important means of exchange in the Indian trade all over the colonies, and even to some extent among the colonists themselves. The Cape May people built sloops for carrying the white cedar, the mittens, oysters, and wampum to the outside world. They sold a great deal of their cedar in Long Island, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Philadelphia finally became their market for oysters and also for lumber, corn, and the whalebone and oil. Their sloops also traded to the southern colonies and even to the West Indies. They were an interesting little community, these Cape May people, very isolated and dependent on the water and on their boats, for they were completely cut off by the Great Cedar Swamp which stretched across the point and separated them from the rest of the coast. This troublesome swamp was not bridged for many years; and even then the roads to it were long, slow, and too sandy for transporting anything of much bulk. Next above Cape May on the coast was another isolated patch of civilization which, while not an island, was nevertheless cut off on the south by Great Egg Harbor with its river and marshes, and on the north by Little Egg Harbor with the Mullica River and its marshes extending far inland. The people in this district also lived somewhat to themselves. To the north lay the district which extended to Sandy Hook, also with its distinct set of people. The people of the Cape became in colonial times clever traders in various pursuits. Although in one sense they were as isolated as islanders, their adventurous life on the sea gave them breadth of view. By their thrift and in innumerable shrewd and persistent ways they amassed competencies and estates for their families. Aaron Leaming, for example, who died in 1780, left an estate of nearly $1,000,000. Some kept diaries which have become historically valuable in showing not only their history but their good education and the peculiar cast of their mind for keen trading as well as their rigid economy and integrity. One character, Jacob Spicer, a prosperous colonial, insisted on having everything made at home by his sons and daughters--shoes, clothes, leather breeches, wampum, even shoe thread--calculating the cost of everything to a fraction and economizing to the last penny of money and the last second of time. Yet in the course of a year he used "fifty-two gallons of rum, ten of wine, and two barrels of cyder." Apparently in those days hard labor and hard drinking went well together. The Cape May people, relying almost entirely on the water for communication and trade, soon took to piloting vessels in the Delaware River, and some of them still follow this occupation. They also became skillful sailors and builders of small craft, and it is not surprising to learn that Jacocks Swain and his sons introduced, in 1811, the centerboard for keeping flat-bottomed craft closer to the wind. They are said to have taken out a patent for this invention and are given the credit of being the originators of the idea. But the device was known in England in 1774, was introduced in Massachusetts in the same year, and may have been used long before by the Dutch. The need of it, however, was no doubt strongly impressed upon the Cape May people by the difficulties which their little sloops experienced in beating home against contrary winds. Some of them, indeed, spent weeks in sight of the Cape, unable to make it. One sloop, the Nancy, seventy-two days from Demarara, hung off and on for forty-three days from December 25, 1787, to February 6, 1788, and was driven off fifteen times before she finally got into Hereford Inlet. Sometimes better sailing craft had to go out and bring in such distressed vessels. The early boats were no doubt badly constructed; but in the end apprenticeship to dire necessity made the Cape May sailors masters of seamanship and the windward art. * * Stevens, "History of Cape May County," pp. 219, 229; Kelley, "American Yachts" (1884), p. 165. Wilson, the naturalist, spent a great deal of time in the Cape May region, because of the great variety of birds to be found there. Southern types, like the Florida egret, ventured even so far north, and it was a stopping place for migrating birds, notably woodcock, on their northern and southern journeys. Men of the stone age had once been numerous in this region, as the remains of village plats and great shell heaps bore witness. It was a resting point for all forms of life. That much traveled, adventurous gentleman of the sea, Captain Kidd, according to popular legend, was a frequent visitor to this coast. In later times, beginning in 1801, the Cape became one of the earliest of the summer resorts. The famous Commodore Decatur was among the first distinguished men to be attracted by the simple seaside charm of the place, long before it was destroyed by wealth and crowds. Year by year he used to measure and record at one spot the encroachment of the sea upon the beach. Where today the sea washes and the steel pier extends, once lay cornfields. For a hundred years it was a favorite resting place for statesmen and politicians of national eminence. They traveled there by stage, sailing sloop, or their own wagons. People from Baltimore and the South more particularly sought the place because it was easily accessible from the head of Chesapeake Bay by an old railroad, long since abandoned, to Newcastle on the Delaware, whence sail-or steamboats went to Cape May. This avoided the tedious stage ride over the sandy Jersey roads. Presidents, cabinet officers, senators, and congressmen sought the invigorating air of the Cape and the attractions of the old village, its seafaring life, the sailing, fishing, and bathing on the best beach of the coast. Congress Hall, their favorite hotel, became famous, and during a large part of the nineteenth century presidential nominations and policies are said to have been planned within its walls. Chapter X. Scotch Covenanters And Others In East Jersey East Jersey was totally different in its topography from West Jersey. The northern half of the State is a region of mountains and lakes. As part of the original continent it had been under the ice sheet of the glacial age and was very unlike the level sands, swamps, and pine barrens of West Jersey which had arisen as a shoal and island from the sea. The only place in East Jersey where settlement was at all easy was along the open meadows which were reached by water near the mouth of the Hudson, round Newark Bay, and along the Hackensack River. The Dutch, by the discoveries of Henry Hudson in 1609, claimed the whole region between the Hudson and the Delaware. They settled part of East Jersey opposite their headquarters at New York and called it Pavonia. But their cruel massacre of some Indians who sought refuge among them at Pavonia destroyed the prospects of the settlement. The Indians revenged themselves by massacring the Dutch again and again, every time they attempted to reestablish Pavonia. This kept the Dutch out of East Jersey until 1660, when they succeeded in establishing Bergen between Newark Bay and the Hudson. The Dutch authority in America was overthrown in 1664 by Charles II, who had already given all New Jersey to his brother the Duke of York. Colonel Richard Nicolls commanded the British expedition that seized the Dutch possessions; and he had been given full power as deputy governor of all the Duke of York's vast territory. Meantime the New England Puritans seem to have kept their eyes on East Jersey as a desirable region, and the moment the Connecticut Puritans heard of Nicolls' appointment, they applied to him for a grant of a large tract of land on Newark Bay. In the next year, 1665, he gave them another tract from the mouth of the Raritan to Sandy Hook; and soon the villages of Shrewsbury and Middletown were started. Meantime, however, unknown to Nicolls, the Duke of York in England had given all of New Jersey to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. As has already been pointed out, they had divided the province between them, and East Jersey had fallen to Carteret, who sent out, with some immigrants, his relative Philip Carteret as governor. Governor Carteret was of course very much surprised to find so much of the best land already occupied by the excellent and thrifty Yankees. As a consequence, litigation and sometimes civil war over this unlucky mistake lasted for a hundred years. Many of the Yankee settlers under the Nicolls grant refused to pay quitrents to Carteret or his successors and, in spite of a commission of inquiry from England in 1751 and a chancery suit, they held their own until the Revolution of 1776 extinguished all British authority. There was therefore from the beginning a strong New England tinge in East Jersey which has lasted to this day. Governor Carteret established a village on Newark Bay which still bears the name Elizabeth, which he gave it in honor of the wife of the proprietor, and he made it the capital. There were also immigrants from Scotland and England. But Puritans from Long Island and New England continued to settle round Newark Bay. By virtue either of character or numbers, New Englanders were evidently the controlling element, for they established the New England system of town government, and imposed strict Connecticut laws, making twelve crimes punishable with death. Soon there were flourishing little villages, Newark and Elizabeth, besides Middletown and Shrewsbury. The next year Piscatawa and Woodbridge were added. Newark and the region round it, including the Oranges, was settled by very exclusive Puritans, or Congregationalists, as they are now called, some thirty families from four Connecticut towns--Milford, Guilford, Bradford, and New Haven. They decided that only church members should hold office and vote. Governor Carteret ruled the colony with an appointive council and a general assembly elected by the people, the typical colonial form of government. His administration lasted from 1665 to his death in 1682; and there is nothing very remarkable to record except the rebellion of the New Englanders, especially those who had received their land from Nicolls. Such independent Connecticut people were, of course, quite out of place in a proprietary colony, and, when in 1670 the first collection of quitrents was attempted, they broke out in violent opposition, in which the settlers of Elizabeth were prominent. In 1672 they elected a revolutionary assembly of their own and, in place of the deputy governor, appointed as proprietor a natural son of Carteret. They began imprisoning former officers and confiscating estates in the most approved revolutionary form and for a time had the whole government in their control. It required the interference of the Duke of York, of the proprietors, and of the British Crown to allay the little tempest, and three years were given in which to pay the quitrents. After the death of Sir George Carteret in 1680, his province of East Jersey was sold to William Penn and eleven other Quakers for the sum of 3400 pounds. Colonies seem to have been comparatively inexpensive luxuries in those days. A few years before, in 1675, Penn and some other Quakers had, as has already been related, gained control of West Jersey for the still smaller sum of one thousand pounds and had established it as a Quaker refuge. It might be supposed that they now had the same purpose in view in East Jersey, but apparently their intention was to create a refuge for Presbyterians, the famous Scotch Covenanters, much persecuted at that time under Charles II, who was forcing them to conform to the Church of England. Penn and his fellow proprietors of East Jersey each chose a partner, most of them Scotchmen, two of whom, the Earl of Perth and Lord Drummond, were prominent men. To this mixed body of Quakers, other dissenters, and some Papists, twenty-four proprietors in all, the Duke of York reconfirmed by special patent their right to East Jersey. Under their urging a few Scotch Covenanters began to arrive and seem to have first established themselves at Perth Amboy, which they named from the Scottish Earl of Perth and an Indian word meaning "point." This settlement they expected to become a great commercial port rivaling New York. Curiously enough, Robert Barclay, the first governor appointed, was not only a Scotchman but also a Quaker, and a theologian whose "Apology for the True Christian Divinity" (1678) is regarded to this day as the best statement of the original Quaker doctrine. He remained in England, however, and the deputies whom he sent out to rule the colony had a troublous time of it. That Quakers should establish a refuge for Presbyterians seems at first peculiar, but it was in accord with their general philanthropic plan to help the oppressed and suffering, to rescue prisoners and exiles, and especially to ameliorate the horrible condition of people confined in the English dungeons and prisons. Many vivid pictures of how the Scotch Covenanters were hunted down like wild beasts may be found in English histories and novels. When their lives were spared they often met a fate worse than death in the loathsome dungeons into which thousands of Quakers of that time were also thrust. A large part of William Penn's life as a courtier was spent in rescuing prisoners, exiles, and condemned persons of all sorts, and not merely those of his own faith. So the undertaking to make of Jersey two colonies, one a refuge for Quakers and the other a refuge for Covenanters, was natural enough, and it was a very broad-minded plan for that age. In 1683, a few years after the Quaker control of East Jersey began, a new and fiercer persecution of the Covenanters was started in the old country, and shortly afterwards Monmouth's insurrection in England broke out and was followed by a most bloody proscription and punishment. The greatest efforts were made to induce those still untouched to fly for refuge to East Jersey; but, strange to say, comparatively few of them came. It is another proof of the sturdiness and devotion which has filled so many pages of history and romance with their praise that as a class the Covenanters remained at home to establish their faith with torture, martyrdom, and death. In 1685 the Duke of York ascended the throne of England as James II, and all that was naturally to be expected from such a bigoted despot was soon realized. The persecutions of the Covenanters grew worse. Crowded into prisons to die of thirst and suffocation, shot down on the highways, tied to stakes to be drowned by the rising tide, the whole Calvinistic population of Scotland seemed doomed to extermination. Again they were told of America as the only place where religious liberty was allowed, and in addition a book was circulated among them called "The Model of the Government of the Province of East Jersey in America." These efforts were partially successful. More Covenanters came than before, but nothing like the numbers of Quakers that flocked to Pennsylvania. The whole population of East Jersey--New Englanders, Dutch, Scotch Covenanters, and all--did not exceed five thousand and possibly was not over four thousand. Some French Huguenots, such as came to many of the English colonies after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes of 1685, were added to the East Jersey population. A few went to Salem in West Jersey, and some of these became Quakers. In both the Jerseys, as elsewhere, they became prominent and influential in all spheres of life. There was a decided Dutch influence, it is said, in the part nearest New York, emanating from the Bergen settlement in which the Dutch had succeeded in establishing themselves in 1660 after the Indians had twice driven them from Pavonia. Many descendants of Dutch families are still found in that region. Many Dutch characteristics were to be found in that region throughout colonial times. Many of the houses had Dutch stoops or porches at the door, with seats where the family and visitors sat on summer evenings to smoke and gossip. Long Dutch spouts extended out from the eaves to discharge the rain water into the street. But the prevailing tone of East Jersey seems to have been set by the Scotch Presbyterians and the New England Congregationalists. The College of New Jersey, afterward known as Princeton, established in 1747, was the result of a movement among the Presbyterians of East Jersey and New York. All these elements of East Jersey, Scotch Covenanters, Connecticut Puritans, Huguenots, and Dutch of the Dutch Reformed Church, were in a sense different but in reality very much in accord and congenial in their ideas of religion and politics. They were all sturdy, freedom-loving Protestants, and they set the tone that prevails in East Jersey to this day. Their strict discipline and their uncompromising thrift may now seem narrow and harsh; but it made them what they were; and it has left a legacy of order and prosperity under which alien religions and races are eager to seek protection. In its foundation the Quakers may claim a share. The new King, James II, was inclined to reassume jurisdiction and extend the power of the Governor of New York over East Jersey in spite of his grant to Sir George Carteret. In fact, he desired to put New England, New York, and New Jersey under one strong government centered at New York, to abolish their charters, to extinguish popular government, and to make them all mere royal dependencies in pursuance of his general policy of establishing an absolute monarchy and a papal church in England. The curse of East Jersey's existence was to be always an appendage of New York, or to be threatened with that condition. The inhabitants now had to enter their vessels and pay duties at New York. Writs were issued by order of the King putting both the Jerseys and all New England under the New York Governor. Step by step the plans for amalgamation and despotism moved on successfully, when suddenly the English Revolution of 1688 put an end to the whole magnificent scheme, drove the King into exile, and placed William of Orange on the throne. The proprietaries of both Jerseys reassumed their former authority. But the New York Assembly attempted to exercise control over East Jersey and to levy duties on its exports. The two provinces were soon on the eve of a little war. For twelve or fifteen years East Jersey was in disorder, with seditious meetings, mob rule, judges and sheriffs attacked while performing their duty, the proprietors claiming quitrents from the people, the people resisting, and the British Privy Council threatening a suit to take the province from the proprietors and make a Crown colony of it. The period is known in the history of this colony as "The Revolution." Under the threat of the Privy Council to take over the province, the proprietors of both East and West Jersey surrendered their rights of political government, retaining their ownership of land and quitrents, and the two Jerseys were united under one government in 1702. Its subsequent history demands another chapter. Chapter XI. The United Jerseys The Quaker colonists grouped round Burlington and Salem, on the Delaware, and the Scotch Covenanters and New England colonists grouped around Perth Amboy and Newark, near the mouth of the Hudson, made up the two Jerseys. Neither colony had a numerous population, and the stretch of country lying between them was during most of the colonial period a wilderness. It is now crossed by the railway from Trenton to New York. It has always been a line of travel from the Delaware to the Hudson. At first there was only an Indian trail across it, but after 1695 there was a road, and after 1738 a stage route. In 1702, while still separated by this wilderness, the two Jerseys were united politically by the proprietors voluntarily surrendering all their political rights to the Crown. The political distinction between East Jersey and West Jersey was thus abolished; their excellent free constitutions were rendered of doubtful authority; and from that time to the Revolution they constituted one colony under the control of a royal governor appointed by the Crown. The change was due to the uncertainty and annoyance caused for their separate governments when their right to govern was in doubt owing to interference on the part of New York and the desire of the King to make them a Crown colony. The original grant of the Duke of York to the proprietors Berkeley and Carteret had given title to the soil but had been silent as to the right to govern. The first proprietors and their successors had always assumed that the right to govern necessarily accompanied this gift of the land. Such a privilege, however, the Crown was inclined to doubt. William Penn was careful to avoid this uncertainty when he received his charter for Pennsylvania. Profiting by the sad example of the Jerseys, he made sure that he was given both the title to the soil and the right to govern. The proprietors, however, now surrendered only their right to govern the Jerseys and retained their ownership of the land; and the people always maintained that they, on their part, retained all the political rights and privileges which had been granted them by the proprietors. And these rights were important, for the concessions or constitutions granted by the proprietors under the advanced Quaker influence of the time were decidedly liberal. The assemblies, as the legislatures were called, had the right to meet and adjourn as they pleased, instead of having their meetings and adjournments dictated by the governor. This was an important right and one which the Crown and royal governors were always trying to restrict or destroy, because it made an assembly very independent. This contest for colonial rights was exactly similar to the struggle of the English Parliament for liberty against the supposed right of the Stuart kings to call and adjourn Parliament as they chose. If the governor could adjourn the assembly when he pleased, he could force it to pass any laws he wanted or prevent its passing any laws at all. The two Jersey assemblies under their Quaker constitutions also had the privilege of making their own rules of procedure, and they had jurisdiction over taxes, roads, towns, militia, and all details of government. These rights of a legislature are familiar enough now to all. Very few people realize, however, what a struggle and what sacrifices were required to attain them. The rest of New Jersey colonial history is made up chiefly of struggles over these two questions--the rights of the proprietors and their quitrents as against the people, and the rights of the new assembly as against the Crown. There were thus three parties, the governor and his adherents, the proprietors and their friends, and the assembly and the people. The proprietors had the best of the change, for they lost only their troublesome political power and retained their property. They never, however, received such financial returns from the property as the sons of William Penn enjoyed from Pennsylvania. But the union of the Jerseys seriously curtailed the rights enjoyed by the people under the old government, and all possibility of a Quaker government in West Jersey was ended. It was this experience in the Jerseys, no doubt, that caused William Penn to require so many safeguards in selling his political rights in Pennsylvania to the Crown that the sale was, fortunately for the colony, never completed. The assembly under the union met alternately at Perth Amboy and at Burlington. Lord Cornbury, the first governor, was also Governor of New York, a humiliating arrangement that led to no end of trouble. The executive government, the press, and the judiciary were in the complete control of the Crown and the Governor, who was instructed to take care that "God Almighty be duly served according to the rites of the Church of England, and the traffic in merchantable negroes encouraged." Cornbury contemptuously ignored the assembly's right to adjourn and kept adjourning it till one was elected which would pass the laws he wanted. Afterwards the assemblies were less compliant, and, under the lead of two able men, Lewis Morris of East Jersey and Samuel Jennings, a Quaker of West Jersey, they stood up for their rights and complained to the mother country. But Cornbury went on fighting them, granted monopolies, established arbitrary fees, prohibited the proprietors from selling their lands, prevented three members of the assembly duly elected from being sworn, and was absent in New York so much of the time that the laws went unexecuted and convicted murderers wandered about at large. In short, he went through pretty much the whole list of offenses of a corrupt and good-for-nothing royal governor of colonial times. The union of the two colonies consequently seemed to involve no improvement over former conditions. At last, the protests and appeals of proprietors and people prevailed, and Cornbury was recalled. Quieter times followed, and in 1738 New Jersey had the satisfaction of obtaining a governor all her own. The New York Governor had always neglected Jersey affairs, was difficult of access, made appointments and administered justice in the interests of New York, and forced Jersey vessels to pay registration fees to New York. Amid great rejoicing over the change, the Crown appointed the popular leader, Lewis Morris, as governor. But by a strange turn of fate, when once secure in power, he became a most obstinate upholder of royal prerogative, worried the assembly with adjournments, and, after Cornbury, was the most obnoxious of all the royal governors. The governors now usually made Burlington their capital and it became, on that account, a place of much show and interest. The last colonial governor was William Franklin, an illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin, and he would probably have made a success of the office if the Revolution had not stopped him. He had plenty of ability, affable manners, and was full of humor and anecdote like his father, whom he is said to have somewhat resembled. He had combined in youth a fondness for books with a fondness for adventure, was comptroller of the colonial post office and clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly, served a couple of campaigns in the French and Indian Wars, went to England with his father in 1757, was admitted to the English Bar, attained some intimacy with the Earl of Bute and Lord Fairfax, and through the latter obtained the governorship of New Jersey in 1762. The people were at first much displeased at his appointment and never entirely got over his illegitimate birth and his turning from Whig to Tory as soon as his appointment was secured. But he advanced the interests of the colony with the home government and favored beneficial legislation. He had an attractive wife, and they entertained, it is said, with viceregal elegance, and started a fine model farm or country place on the north shore of the Rancocas not far from the capital at Burlington. Franklin was drawing the province together and building it up as a community, but his extreme loyalist principles in the Revolution destroyed his chance for popularity and have obscured his reputation. Though the population of New Jersey was a mixed one, judged by the very distinct religious differences of colonial times, yet racially it was thoroughly Anglo-Saxon and a good stock to build upon. At the time of the Revolution in 1776 the people numbered only about 120,000, indicating a slow growth; but when the first census of the United States was taken, in 1790, they numbered 184,139. The natural division of the State into North and South Jersey is marked by a line from Trenton to Jersey City. The people of these two divisions were quite as distinct in early times as striking differences in environment and religion could make them. Even in the inevitable merging of modern life the two regions are still distinct socially, economically, and intellectually. Along the dividing line the two types of the population, of course, merged and here was produced and is still to be found the Jerseyman of the composite type. Trenton, the capital of the State, is very properly in the dividing belt. It was named after William Trent, a Philadelphia merchant who had been speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly and who became chief justice of New Jersey. Long ages before white men came Trenton seems to have been a meeting place and residence of the Indians or preceding races of stone age men. Antiquarians have estimated that fifty thousand stone implements have been found in it. As it was at the head of tidewater, at the so-called Falls of the Delaware, it was apparently a center of travel and traffic from other regions. From the top of the bluff below the modern city of Trenton there was easy access to forests of chestnut, oak, and pine, with their supplies of game, while the river and its tributary creeks were full of fish. It was a pleasant and convenient place where the people of prehistoric times apparently met and lingered during many centuries without necessarily having a large resident population at any one time. Trenton was so obviously convenient and central in colonial times that it was seriously proposed as a site for the national capital. Princeton University, though originating, as we have seen, among the Presbyterians of North Jersey, seems as a higher educational institution for the whole State to belong naturally in the dividing belt, the meeting place of the two divisions of the colony. The college began its existence at Elizabeth, was then moved to Newark, both in the strongly Presbyterian region, and finally, in 1757, was established at Princeton, a more suitable place, it was thought, because far removed from the dissipation and temptation of towns, and because it was in the center of the colony on the post road between Philadelphia and New York. Though chartered as the College of New Jersey, it was often called Nassau Hall at Princeton or simply "Princeton." In 1896 it became known officially as Princeton University. It was a hard struggle to found the college with lotteries and petty subscriptions here and there. But Presbyterians in New York and other provinces gave aid. Substantial assistance was also obtained from the Presbyterians of England and Scotland. In the old pamphlets of the time which have been preserved the founders of the college argued that higher education was needed not only for ministers of religion, but for the bench, the bar, and the legislature. The two New England colleges, Harvard and Yale, on the north, and the Virginia College of William and Mary on the south, were too far away. There must be a college close at hand. At first most of the graduates entered the Presbyterian ministry. But soon in the short time before the Revolution there were produced statesmen such as Richard Stockton of New Jersey, who signed the Declaration of Independence; physicians such as Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia; soldiers such as "Light Horse" Harry Lee of Virginia; as well as founders of other colleges, governors of States, lawyers, attorney-generals, judges, congressmen, and indeed a very powerful assemblage of intellectual lights. Nor should the names of James Madison, Aaron Burr, and Jonathan Edwards be omitted. East Jersey with her New England influence attempted something like free public schools. In West Jersey the Quakers had schools. In both Jerseys, after 1700 some private neighborhood schools were started, independent of religious denominations. The West Jersey Quakers, self-cultured and with a very effective system of mental discipline and education in their families as well as in their schools, were not particularly interested in higher education. But in East Jersey as another evidence of intellectual awakening in colonial times, Queen's College, afterward known as Rutgers College, was established by the Dutch Reformed Church in 1766, and was naturally placed, near the old source of Dutch influence, at New Brunswick in the northerly end of the dividing belt. New Jersey was fortunate in having no Indian wars in colonial times, no frontier, no point of hostile contact with the French of Canada or with the powerful western tribes of red men. Like Rhode Island in this respect, she was completely shut in by the other colonies. Once or twice only did bands of savages cross the Delaware and commit depredations on Jersey soil. This colony, however, did her part in sending troops and assistance to the others in the long French and Indian wars; but she had none of the pressing danger and experience of other colonies. Her people were never drawn together by a common danger until the Revolution. In Jersey colonial homes there was not a single modern convenience of light, heat, or cooking, and none of the modern amusements. But there was plenty of good living and simple diversion--husking bees and shooting in the autumn, skating and sleighing in the winter. Meetings and discussions in coffeehouses and inns supplied in those days the place of our modern books, newspapers, and magazines. Jersey inns were famous meeting places. Everybody passed through their doors--judges, lawyers, legislators, politicians, post riders, stage drivers, each bringing his contribution of information and humor, and the slaves and rabble stood round to pick up news and see the fun. The court days in each county were holidays celebrated with games of quoits, running, jumping, feasting, and discussions political and social. At the capital there was even style and extravagance. Governor Belcher, for example, who lived at Burlington, professed to believe that the Quaker influences of that town were not strict enough in keeping the Sabbath, so he drove every Sunday in his coach and four to Philadelphia to worship in the Presbyterian Church there and saw no inconsistency in his own behavior. Almanacs furnished much of the reading for the masses. The few newspapers offered little except the barest chronicle of events. The books of the upper classes were good though few, and consisted chiefly of the classics of English literature and books of information and travel. The diaries and letters of colonial native Jerseymen, the pamphlets of the time, and John Woolman's "Journal," all show a good average of education and an excellent use of the English language. Samuel Smith's "History of the Colony of Nova-Casaria, or New Jersey," written and printed at Burlington and published there in the year 1765, is written in a good and even attractive style, with as intelligent a grasp of political events as any modern mind could show; the type, paper, and presswork, too, are excellent. Smith was born and educated in this same New Jersey town. He became a member of council and assembly, at one time was treasurer of the province, and his manuscript historical collections were largely used by Robert Proud in his "History of Pennsylvania." The early houses of New Jersey were of heavy timbers covered with unpainted clapboards, usually one story and a half high, with immense fireplaces, which, with candles, supplied the light. The floors were scrubbed hard and sprinkled with the plentiful white sand. Carpets, except the famous old rag carpets, were very rare. The old wooden houses have now almost entirely disappeared; but many of the brick houses which succeeded them are still preserved. They are of simple well-proportioned architecture, of a distinctive type, less luxuriant, massive, and exuberant than those across the river in Pennsylvania, although both evidently derived from the Christopher Wren school. The old Jersey homes seem to reflect with great exactness the simple feeling of the people and to be one expression of the spirit of Jersey democracy. There were no important seats of commerce in this province. Exports of wheat, provisions, and lumber went to Philadelphia or New York, which were near and convenient. The Jersey shores near the mouth of the Hudson and along the Delaware, as at Camden, presented opportunities for ports, but the proximity to the two dominating ports prevented the development of additional harbors in this part of the coast. It was not until after the Revolution that Camden, opposite Philadelphia, and Jersey City, opposite New York, grew into anything like their present importance. There were, however, a number of small ports and shipbuilding villages in the Jerseys. It is a noticeable fact that in colonial times and even later there were very few Jersey towns beyond the head of tidewater. The people, even the farmers, were essentially maritime. The province showed its natural maritime characteristics, produced many sailors, and built innumerable small vessels for the coasting and West India trade--sloops, schooners, yachts, and sailboats, down to the tiniest gunning boat and sneak box. Perth Amboy was the principal port and shipbuilding center for East Jersey as Salem was for West Jersey. But Burlington, Bordentown, Cape May, and Trenton, and innumerable little villages up creeks and channels or mere ditches could not be kept from the prevailing industry. They built craft up to the limit of size that could be floated away in the water before their very doors. Plentifully supplied with excellent oak and pine and with the admirable white cedar of their own forests, very skillful shipwrights grew up in every little hamlet. A large part of the capital used in Jersey shipbuilding is said to have come from Philadelphia and New York. At first this capital sought its profit in whaling along the coast and afterwards in the trade with the West Indies, which for a time absorbed so much of the shipping of all the colonies in America. The inlets and beaches along the Jersey coast now given over to summer resorts were first used for whaling camps or bases. Cape May and Tuckerton were started and maintained by whaling; and as late as 1830, it is said, there were still signs of the industry on Long Beach. Except for the whaling, the beaches were uninhabited--wild stretches of sand, swarming with birds and wild fowl, without a lighthouse or lifesaving station. In the Revolution, when the British fleet blockaded the Delaware and New York, Little Egg, the safest of the inlets, was used for evading the blockade. Vessels entered there and sailed up the Mullica River to the head of navigation, whence the goods were distributed by wagons. To conceal their vessels when anchored just inside an inlet, the privateersmen would stand slim pine trees beside the masts and thus very effectively concealed the rigging from British cruisers prowling along the shore. Along with the whaling industry the risks and seclusion of the inlets and channels developed a romantic class of gentlemen, as handy with musket and cutlass as with helm and sheet, fond of easy, exciting profits, and reaping where they had not sown. They would start legally enough, for they began as privateersmen under legal letters of marque in the wars. But the step was a short one to a traffic still more profitable; and for a hundred years Jersey customs officers are said to have issued documents which were ostensibly letters of marque but which really abetted a piratical cruise. Piracy was, however, in those days a semi-legitimate offense, winked at by the authorities all through the colonial period; and respectable people and governors and officials of New York and North Carolina, it is said, secretly furnished funds for such expeditions and were interested in the profits. Chapter XII. Little Delaware Delaware was the first colony to be established on the river that bears this name. It went through half a century of experiences under the Dutch and Swedes from 1609 to 1664, and then eighteen years under the English rule of the Duke of York, from whom it passed into the hands of William Penn, the Quaker. The Dutch got into it by an accident and were regarded by the English as interlopers. And the Swedes who followed had no better title. The whole North Atlantic seaboard was claimed by England by virtue of the discoveries of the Cabots, father and son; but nearly a hundred years elapsed before England took advantage of this claim by starting the Virginia colony near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in 1607. And nearly a quarter of a century more elapsed before Englishmen settled on the shores of Massachusetts Bay. Those were the two points most accessible to ships and most favorable for settlement. The middle ground of the Delaware and Hudson regions was not so easily entered and remained unoccupied. The mouth of the Delaware was full of shoals and was always difficult to navigate. The natural harbor at the mouth of the Hudson was excellent, but the entrance to it was not at first apparent. Into these two regions, however, the Dutch chanced just after the English had effected the settlement of Jamestown in Virginia. The Dutch had employed an Englishman named Henry Hudson and sent him in 1609 in a small ship called the Half Moon to find a passage to China and India by way of the Arctic Ocean. Turned back by the ice in the Arctic, he sailed down the coast of North America, and began exploring the middle ground from the Virginia settlement, which he seems to have known about; and, working cautiously northward along the coast and feeling his way with the lead line, he soon entered Delaware Bay. But finding it very difficult of navigation he departed and, proceeding in the same careful way up along the coast of New Jersey, he finally entered the harbor of New York and sailed up the Hudson far enough to satisfy himself that it was not the desired course to China. This exploration gave the Dutch their claim to the Delaware and Hudson regions. But though it was worthless as against the English right by discovery of the Cabots, the Dutch went ahead with their settlement, established their headquarters and seat of government on Manhattan Island, where New York stands today, and exercised as much jurisdiction and control as they could on the Delaware. Their explorations of the Delaware, feeling their way up it with small light draft vessels among its shoals and swift tides, their travels on land--shooting wild turkeys on the site of the present busy town of Chester--and their adventures with the Indians are full of interest. The immense quantities of wild fowl and animal and bird life along the shores astonished them; but what most aroused their cupidity was the enormous supply of furs, especially beaver and otter, that could be obtained from the Indians. Furs became their great, in fact, their only interest in the Delaware. They established forts, one near Cape Henlopen at the mouth of the river, calling it Fort Oplandt, and another far up the river on the Jersey side at the mouth of Timber Creek, nearly opposite the present site of Philadelphia, and this they called Fort Nassau. Fort Oplandt was destroyed by the Indians and its people were massacred. Fort Nassau was probably occupied only at intervals. These two posts were built mainly to assist the fur trade, and any attempts at real settlement were slight and unsuccessful. Meantime about the year 1624 the Swedes heard of the wonderful opportunities on the Delaware. The Swedish monarch, Gustavus Adolphus, a man of broad ambitions and energetic mind, heard about the Delaware from Willem Usselinx, a merchant of Antwerp who had been actively interested in the formation of the Dutch West India Company to trade in the Dutch possessions in America. Having quarreled with the directors, Usselinx had withdrawn from the Netherlands and now offered his services to Sweden. The Swedish court, nobles, and people, all became enthusiastic about the project which he elaborated for a great commercial company to trade and colonize in Asia, Africa, and America. * But the plan was dropped because, soon after 1630, Gustavus Adolphus led his country to intervene on the side of the Protestants in the Thirty Years' War in Germany, where he was killed three years later at the battle of Lutzen. But the desire aroused by Usselinx for a Swedish colonial empire was revived in the reign of his infant daughter, Christina, by the celebrated Swedish Chancellor, Oxenstierna. * See "Willem Usselinx," by J. F. Jameson in the "Papers of the American Historical Association," vol. II. An expedition, which actually reached the Delaware in 1638, was sent out under another Dutch renegade, Peter Minuit, who had been Governor of New Netherland and after being dismissed from office was now leading this Swedish enterprise to occupy part of the territory he had formerly governed for the Dutch. His two ships sailed up the Delaware and with good judgment landed at the present site of Wilmington. At that point a creek carrying a depth of over fourteen feet for ten miles from its mouth flowed into the Delaware. The Dutch had called this creek Minquas, after the tribe of Indians; the Swedes named it the Christina after their infant Queen; and in modern times it has been corrupted into Christiana. They sailed about two and a half miles through its delta marshes to some rocks which formed a natural wharf and which still stand today at the foot of Sixth Street in Wilmington. This was the Plymouth Rock of Delaware. Level land, marshes, and meadows lay along the Christina, the remains of the delta which the stream had formed in the past. On the edge of the delta or moorland, rocky hills rose, forming the edge of the Piedmont, and out of them from the north flowed a fine large stream, the Brandywine, which fell into the Christina just before it entered the Delaware. Here in the delta their engineer laid out a town, called Christinaham, and a fort behind the rocks on which they had landed. A cove in the Christina made a snug anchorage for their ships, out of the way of the tide. They then bought from the Indians all the land from Cape Henlopen to the Falls of the Delaware at Trenton, calling it New Sweden and the Delaware New Swedeland Stream. The people of Delaware have always regarded New Sweden as the beginning of their State, and Peter Minuit, the leader of this Swedish expedition, always stands first on the published lists of their governors. On their arrival in the river in the spring of 1638, the Swedes found no evidences of permanent Dutch colonization. Neither Fort Oplandt nor Fort Nassau was then occupied. They always maintained that the Dutch had abandoned the river, and that it was therefore open to the Swedes for occupation, especially after they had purchased the Indian title. It was certainly true that the Dutch efforts to plant colonies in that region had failed; and since the last attempt by De Vries, six years had elapsed. On the other hand, the Dutch contended that they had in that time put Fort Nassau in repair, although they had not occupied it, and that they kept a few persons living along the Jersey shore of the river, possibly the remains of the Nassau colony, to watch all who visited it. These people had immediately notified the Dutch governor Kieft at New Amsterdam of the arrival of the Swedes, and he promptly issued a protest against the intrusion. But his protest was neither very strenuous nor was it followed up by hostile action, for Sweden and Holland were on friendly terms. Sweden, the great champion of Protestant Europe, had intervened in the Thirty Years' War to save the Protestants of Germany. The Dutch had just finished a similar desperate war of eighty years for freedom from the papal despotism of Spain. Dutch and Swedes had, therefore, every reason to be in sympathy with each other. The Swedes, a plain, strong, industrious people, as William Penn aptly called them, were soon, however, seriously interfering with the Dutch fur trade and in the first year, it is said, collected thirty thousand skins. If this is true, it is an indication of the immense supply of furbearing animals, especially beaver, available at that time. For the next twenty-five years Dutch and Swedes quarreled and sometimes fought over their respective claims. But it is significant of the difficulty of retaining a hold on the Delaware region that the Swedish colonists on the Christina after a year or two regarded themselves as a failure and were on the point of abandoning their enterprise, when a vessel, fortunately for them, arrived with cattle, agricultural tools, and immigrants. It is significant also that the immigrants, though in a Swedish vessel and under the Swedish government, were Dutchmen. They formed a sort of separate Dutch colony under Swedish rule and settled near St. George's and Appoquinimink. Immigrants apparently were difficult to obtain among the Swedes, who were not colonizers like the English. At this very time, in fact, Englishmen, Puritans from Connecticut, were slipping into the Delaware region under the leadership of Nathaniel Turner and George Lamberton, and were buying the land from the Indians. About sixty settled near Salem, New Jersey, and some on the Schuylkill in Pennsylvania, close to Fort Nassau--an outrageous piece of audacity, said the Dutch, and an insult to their "High Mightinesses and the noble Directors of the West India Company." So the Schuylkill English were accordingly driven out, and their houses were burned. The Swedes afterwards expelled the English from Salem and from the Cohansey, lower down the Bay. Later the English were allowed to return, but they seem to have done little except trade for furs and beat off hostile Indians. The seat of the Swedish government was moved in 1643 from the Christina to Tinicum, one of the islands of the Schuylkill delta, with an excellent harbor in front of it which is now the home of the yacht clubs of Philadelphia. Here they built a fort of logs, called Fort Gothenborg, a chapel with a graveyard, and a mansion house for the governor, and this remained the seat of Swedish authority as long as they had any on the river. From here Governor Printz, a portly irascible old soldier, said to have weighed "upwards of 400 pounds and taken three drinks at every meal," ruled the river. He built forts on the Schuylkill and worried the Dutch out of the fur trade. He also built a fort called Nya Elfsborg, afterward Elsinboro, on the Jersey side below Salem. By means of this fort he was able to command the entrance to the river and compelled every Dutch ship to strike her colors and acknowledge the sovereignty of Sweden. Some he prevented from going up the river at all; others he allowed to pass on payment of toll or tribute. He gave orders to destroy every trading house or fort which the Dutch had built on the Schuylkill, and to tear down the coat of arms and insignia which the Dutch had placed on a post on the site of Philadelphia. The Swedes now also bought from the Indians and claimed the land on the Jersey side from Cape May up to Raccoon Creek, opposite the modern Chester. The best place to trade with the Indians for furs was the Schuylkill River, which flowed into the Delaware at a point where Philadelphia was afterwards built. There were at that time Indian villages where West Philadelphia now stands. The headwaters of streams flowing into the Schuylkill were only a short distance from the headwaters of streams flowing into the Susquehanna, so that the valley of the Schuylkill formed the natural highway into the interior of Pennsylvania. The route to the Ohio River followed the Schuylkill for some thirty or forty miles, turned up one of its tributaries to its source, then crossed the watershed to the head of a stream flowing into the Susquehanna, thence to the Juniata, at the head of which the trail led over a short divide to the head of the Conemaugh, which flowed into the Allegheny, and the Allegheny into the Ohio. Some of the Swedes and Dutch appear to have followed this route with the Indians as early as 1646. The Ohio and Allegheny region was inhabited by the Black Minquas, so called from their custom of wearing a black badge on their breast. The Ohio, indeed, was first called the Black Minquas River. As the country nearer the Delaware was gradually denuded of beaver, these Black Minquas became the great source of supply and carried the furs, over the route described, to the Schuylkill. The White Minquas lived further east, round Chesapeake and Delaware bays, and, though spoken of as belonging by language to the great Iroquois or Six Nation stock, were themselves conquered and pretty much exterminated by the Six Nations. The Black Minquas, believed to be the same as the Eries of the Jesuit Relations, were also practically exterminated by the Six Nations. * * Myers, "Narratives of Early Pennsylvania", pp. 103-104. The furs brought down the Schuylkill were deposited at certain rocks two or three miles above its mouth at Bartram's Gardens, now one of the city parks of Philadelphia. On these rocks, then an island in the Schuylkill, the Swedes built a fort which completely commanded the river and cut the Dutch off from the fur trade. They built another fort on the other side of Bartram's Gardens along the meadow near what is now Gibson's Point; and Governor Printz had a great mill a couple of miles away on Cobb's Creek, where the old Blue Bell tavern has long stood. These two forts protected the mill and the Indian villages in West Philadelphia. One would like to revisit the Delaware of those days and see all its wild life and game, its islands and shoals, its virgin forests as they had grown up since the glacial age, untouched by the civilization of the white man. There were then more islands in the river, the water was clearer, and there were pretty pebble and sandy beaches now overlaid by mud brought down from vast regions of the valley no longer protected by forests from the wash of the rains. On a wooded island below Salem, long since cut away by the tides, the pirate Blackhead and his crew are said to have passed a winter. The waters of the river spread out wide at every high tide over marshes and meadows, turning them twice a day for a few hours into lakes, grown up in summer with red and yellow flowers and the graceful wild oats, or reeds, tasseled like Indian corn. At Christinaham, in the delta of the Christina and the Brandywine, the tide flowed far inland to the rocks on which Minuit's Swedish expedition landed, leaving one dry spot called Cherry Island, a name still borne by a shoal in the river. Fort Christina, on the edge of the overflowed meadow, with the rocky promontory of hills behind it, its church and houses, and a wide prospect across the delta and river, was a fair spot in the old days. The Indians came down the Christina in their canoes or overland, bringing their packs of beaver, otter, and deer skins, their tobacco, corn, and venison to exchange for the cloth, blankets, tools, and gaudy trinkets that pleased them. It must often have been a scene of strange life and coloring, and it is difficult today to imagine it all occurring close to the spot where the Pennsylvania railroad station now stands in Wilmington. When doughty Peter Stuyvesant became Governor of New Netherland, he determined to assert Dutch authority once more on the South River, as the Delaware was called in distinction from the Hudson. As the Swedes now controlled it by their three forts, not a Dutch ship could reach Fort Nassau without being held up at Fort Elfsborg or at Fort Christina or at the fort at Tinicum. It was a humiliating situation for the haughty spirit of the Dutch governor. To open the river to Dutch commerce again, Stuyvesant marched overland in 1651 through the wilderness, with one hundred and twenty men and, abandoning Fort Nassau, built a new fort on a fine promontory which then extended far out into the river below Christina. Today the place is known as New Castle; the Dutch commonly referred to it as Sandhoeck or Sand Point; the English called it Grape Vine Point. Stuyvesant named it Fort Casimir. The tables were now turned: the Dutch could retaliate upon Swedish shipping. But the Swedes were not so easily to be dispossessed. Three years later a new Swedish governor named Rising arrived in the river with a number of immigrants and soldiers. He sailed straight up to Fort Casimir, took it by surprise, and ejected the Dutch garrison of about a dozen men. As the successful coup occurred on Trinity Sunday, the Swedes renamed the place Fort Trinity. The whole population--Dutch and Swede, but in 1654 mostly Swede--numbered only 368 persons. Before the arrival of Rising there had been only seventy. It seems a very small number about which to be writing history; but small as it was their "High Mightinesses," as the government of the United Netherlands was called, were determined to avenge on even so small a number the insult of the capture of Fort Casimir. Drums, it is said, were beaten every day in Holland to call for recruits to go to America. Gunners, carpenters, and powder were collected. A ship of war was sent from Holland, accompanied by two other vessels whose names alone, Great Christopher and King Solomon, should have been sufficient to scare all the Swedes. At New Amsterdam, Stuyvesant labored night and day to fit out the expedition. A French privateer which happened to be in the harbor was hired. Several other vessels, in all seven ships, and six or seven hundred men, with a chaplain called Megapolensis, composed this mighty armament gathered together to drive out the handful of poor hardworking Swedes. A day of fasting and prayer was held and the Almighty was implored to bless this mighty expedition which, He was assured, was undertaken for "the glory of His name." It was the absurdity of such contrasts as this running all through the annals of the Dutch in America that inspired Washington Irving to write his infinitely humorous "History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty," by "Diedrich Knickerbocker." It is difficult for an Anglo-Saxon to take the Dutch in America seriously. What can you do with a people whose imagination allowed them to give such names to their ships as Weigh Scales, Spotted Cow, and The Pear Tree? So Irving described the taking of Fort Casimir in mock heroic manner. He describes the marshaling of the Dutch hosts of New York by families, the Van Grolls of Anthony's Nose, the Brinkerhoffs, the Van Kortlandts, the Van Bunschotens of Nyack and Kakiat, the fighting men of Wallabout, the Van Pelts, the Say Dams, the Van Dams, and all the warriors of Hellgate "clad in their thunder-and-lightning gaberdines," and lastly the standard bearers and bodyguards of Peter Stuyvesant, bearing the great beaver of the Manhattan. "And now commenced the horrid din, the desperate struggle, the maddening ferocity, the frantic desperation, the confusion and self-abandonment of war. Dutchman and Swede commingled, tugged, panted, and blowed. The heavens were darkened with a tempest of missives. Bang! went the guns; whack! went the broadswords; thump! went the cudgels; crash! went the musket-stocks; blows, kicks, cuffs, scratches, black eyes and bloody noses swelling the horrors of the scene! Thick, thwack, cut and hack, helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy, hurly-burly, heads-over-heels, rough-and-tumble! Dunder and blixum! swore the Dutchmen; splitter and splutter! cried the Swedes. Storm the works! shouted Hardkoppig Peter. Fire the mine! roared stout Rising--Tantarar-ra-ra! twanged the trumpet of Antony Van Corlear;--until all voice and sound became unintelligible,--grunts of pain, yells of fury, and shouts of triumph mingling in one hideous clamor. The earth shook as if struck with a paralytic stroke; trees shrunk aghast, and withered at the sight; rocks burrowed in the ground like rabbits; and even Christina creek turned from its course, and ran up a hill in breathless terror!" As a matter of fact, the fort surrendered without a fight on September 1, 1655. It was thereupon christened New Amstel, afterwards New Castle, and was for a long time the most important town on the Delaware. This achievement put the Dutch in complete authority over the Swedes on both sides of the river. The Swedes, however, were content, abandoned politics, secluded themselves on their farms, and left politics to the Dutch. Trade, too, they left to the Dutch, who, in their effort to monopolize it, almost killed it. This conquest by their High Mightinesses also ended the attempts of the New Englanders, particularly the people of New Haven, to get a foothold in the neighborhood of Salem, New Jersey, for which they had been struggling for years. They had dreams of a great lake far to northward full of beaver to which the Delaware would lead them. Their efforts to establish themselves survived in one or two names of places near Salem, as, for example, New England Creek, and New England Channel, which down almost into our own time was found on charts marking one of the minor channels of the bay along the Jersey shore. They continued coming to the river in ships to trade in spite of restrictions by the Dutch; and some of them in later years, as has been pointed out, secured a foothold on the Cohansey and in the Cape May region, where their descendants are still to be found. Chapter XIII. The English Conquest It is a curious fact that the ancestor of the numerous Beekman family in New York, after whom Beekman Street is named, was for a time one of the Dutch governors on the Delaware who afterwards became the sheriff of Esopus, New York. His successor on the Delaware had some thoughts of removing the capital down to Odessa on the Appoquinimink, when an event long dreaded happened. In 1664, war broke out between England and Holland, long rivals in trade and commerce, and all the Dutch possessions in the New World fell an easy prey to English conquerors. A British fleet took possession of New Amsterdam, which surrendered without a struggle. But when two British men of war under Sir Robert Carr appeared before New Amstel on the Delaware, Governor D'Hinoyossa unwisely resisted; and his untenable fort was quickly subdued by a few broadsides and a storming party. This opposition gave the conquering party, according to the custom of the times, the right to plunder; and it must be confessed that the English soldiers made full use of their opportunity. They plundered the town and confiscated the land of prominent citizens for the benefit of the officers of the expedition. After the English conquest on the Delaware, not a few of the Dutch migrated to Maryland, where their descendants, it is said, are still to be found. Some in later years returned to the Delaware, where on the whole, notwithstanding the early confiscations, English rule seemed to promise well. The very first documents, the terms of surrender both on the Delaware and on the Hudson, breathed an air of Anglo-Saxon freedom. Everybody was at liberty to come and go at will. Hollanders could migrate to the Delaware or to New York as much as before. The Dutch soldiers in the country, if they wished to remain, were to have fifty acres of land apiece. This generous settlement seemed in striking contrast to the pinching, narrow interference with trade and individual rights, the seizures and confiscations for private gain, all under pretense of punishment, bad enough on the Delaware but worse at New Amsterdam, which had characterized the rule of the Dutch. The Duke of York, to whom Delaware was given, introduced trial by jury, settled private titles, and left undisturbed the religion and local customs of the people. But the political rule of the Duke was absolute as became a Stuart. He arbitrarily taxed exports and imports. Executive, judicial, and legislative powers were all vested in his deputy governor at New York or in creatures appointed and controlled by him. It was the sort of government the Duke hoped to impose upon all Great Britain when he should come to the throne, and he was trying his 'prentice hand in the colonies. A political rebellion against this despotism was started on the Delaware by a man named Konigsmarke, or the Long Finn, aided by an Englishman, Henry Coleman. They were captured and tried for treason, their property was confiscated, and the Long Finn branded with the letter R, and sold as a slave in the Barbados. They might be called the first martyrs to foreshadow the English Revolution of 1688 which ended forever the despotic reign of the Stuarts. The Swedes continued to form the main body of people on the Delaware under the regime of the Duke of York, and at the time when William Penn took possession of the country in 1682 their settlements extended from New Castle up through Christina, Marcus Hook, Upland (now Chester), Tinicum, Kingsessing in the modern West Philadelphia, Passyunk, Wicaco, both in modern Philadelphia, and as far up the river as Frankford and Pennypack. They had their churches at Christina, Tinicum, Kingsessing, and Wicaco. The last, when absorbed by Philadelphia, was a pretty little hamlet on the river shore, its farms belonging to a Swedish family called Swanson whose name is now borne by one of the city's streets. Across the river in New Jersey, opposite Chester, the Swedes had settlements on Raccoon Creek and round Swedesboro. These river settlements constituted an interesting and from all accounts a very attractive Scandinavian community. Their strongest bond of union seems to have been their interest in their Lutheran churches on the river. They spread very little into the interior, made few roads, and lived almost exclusively on the river or on its navigable tributaries. One reason they gave for this preference was that it was easier to reach the different churches by boat. There were only about a thousand Swedes along the Delaware and possibly five hundred of Dutch and mixed blood, together with a few English, all living a life of abundance on a fine river amid pleasing scenery, with good supplies of fish and game, a fertile soil, and a wilderness of opportunity to the west of them. All were well pleased to be relieved from the stagnant despotism of the Duke of York and to take part in the free popular government of William Penn in Pennsylvania. They became magistrates and officials, members of the council and of the legislature. They soon found that all their avenues of trade and life were quickened. They passed from mere farmers supplying their own needs to exporters of the products of their farms. Descendants of the Swedes and Dutch still form the basis of the population of Delaware. * There were some Finns at Marcus Hook, which was called Finland; and it may be noted in passing that there were not a few French among the Dutch, as among the Germans in Pennsylvania, Huguenots who had fled from religious persecution in France. The name Jaquette, well known in Delaware, marks one of these families, whose immigrant ancestor was one of the Dutch governors. In the ten or dozen generations since the English conquest intermarriage has in many instances inextricably mixed up Swede, Dutch, and French, as well as the English stock, so that many persons with Dutch names are of Swedish or French descent and vice versa, and some with English names like Oldham are of Dutch descent. There has been apparently much more intermarriage among the different nationalities in the province and less standing aloof than among the alien divisions of Pennsylvania. * Swedish names anglicized are now found everywhere. Gostafsson has become Justison and Justis. Bond has become Boon; Hoppman, Hoffman; Kalsberg, Colesberry; Wihler, Wheeler; Joccom, Yocum; Dahlbo, Dalbow; Konigh, King; Kyn, Keen; and so on. Then there are also such names as Wallraven, Hendrickson, Stedham, Peterson, Matson, Talley, Anderson, and the omnipresent Rambo, which have suffered little, if any, change. Dutch names are also numerous, such as Lockermans, Vandever, Van Dyke, Vangezel, Vandegrift, Alricks, Statts, Van Zandt, Hyatt, Cochran (originally Kolchman), Vance, and Blackstone (originally Blackenstein). After the English conquest some Irish Presbyterians or Scotch-Irish entered Delaware. Finally came the Quakers, comparatively few in colonial times but more numerous after the Revolution, especially in Wilmington and its neighborhood. True to their characteristics, they left descendants who have become the most prominent and useful citizens down into our own time. At present Wilmington has become almost as distinctive a Quaker town as Philadelphia. "Thee" and "thou" are frequently heard in the streets, and a surprisingly large proportion of the people of prominence and importance are Quakers or of Quaker descent. Many of the neat and pleasant characteristics of the town are distinctly of Quaker origin; and these characteristics are found wherever Quaker influence prevails. Wilmington was founded about 1731 by Thomas Willing, an Englishman, who had married into the Swedish family of Justison. He laid out a few streets on his wife's land on the hill behind the site of old Fort Christina, in close imitation of the plan of Philadelphia, and from that small beginning the present city grew, and was at first called Willingtown. * William Shipley, a Pennsylvania Quaker born in England, bought land in it in 1735, and having more capital than Willing, pushed the fortunes of the town more rapidly. He probably had not a little to do with bringing Quakers to Wilmington; indeed, their first meetings were held in a house belonging to him until they could build a meeting house of their own in 1738. * Some years later in a borough charter granted by Penn, the name was changed to Wilmington in honor of the Earl of Wilmington. Both Shipley and Willing had been impressed with the natural beauty of the situation, the wide view over the level moorland and green marsh and across the broad river to the Jersey shore, as well as by the natural conveniences of the place for trade and commerce. Wilmington has ever since profited by its excellent situation, with the level moorland for industry, the river for traffic, and the first terraces or hills of the Piedmont for residence; and, for scenery, the Brandywine tumbling through rocks and bowlders in a long series of rapids. The custom still surviving in Wilmington of punishing certain classes of criminals by whipping appears to have originated in the days of Willing and Shipley, about the year 1740, when a cage, stocks, and whipping-post were erected. They were placed in the most conspicuous part of the town, and there the culprit, in addition to his legal punishment, was also disciplined at the discretion of passers-by with rotten eggs and other equally potent encouragements to reform. These gratuitous inflictions, not mentioned in the statute, as well as the public exhibition of the prisoner were abolished in later times and in this modified form the method of correction was extended to the two other counties. Sometimes a cat-o'nine-tails was used, sometimes a rawhide whip, and sometimes a switch cut from a tree. Nowadays, however, all the whipping for the State is done in Wilmington, where all prisoners sentenced to whipping in the State are sent. This punishment is found to be so efficacious that its infliction a second time on the same person is exceedingly rare. The most striking relic of the old Swedish days in Wilmington is the brick and stone church of good proportions and no small beauty, and today one of the very ancient relics of America. It was built by the Swedes in 1698 to replace their old wooden church, which was on the lower land, and the Swedish language was used in the services down to the year 1800, when the building was turned over to the Church of England. Old Peter Minuit, the first Swedish governor, may possibly have been buried there. The Swedes built another pretty chapel--Gloria Dei, as it was called--at the village of Wicaco, on the shore of the Delaware where Philadelphia afterwards was established. The original building was taken down in 1700, and the present one was erected on its site partly with materials from the church at Tinicum. It remained Swedish Lutheran until 1831, when, like all the Swedish chapels, it became the property of the Church of England, between which and the Swedish Lutheran body there was a close affinity, if not in doctrine, at least in episcopal organization. * The old brick church dating from 1740, on the main street of Wilmington, is an interesting relic of the colonial Scotch-Irish Presbyterians in Delaware, and is now carefully preserved as the home of the Historical Society. * Clay's "Annals of the Swedes", pp. 143, 153-4. After Delaware had been eighteen years under the Duke of York, William Penn felt a need of the west side of the river all the way down to the sea to strengthen his ownership of Pennsylvania. He also wanted to offset the ambitions of Lord Baltimore to extend Maryland northward. Penn accordingly persuaded his friend James, the Duke of York, to give him a grant of Delaware, which Penn thereupon annexed to Pennsylvania under the name of the Territories or Three Lower Counties. The three counties, New Castle, Kent, and Sussex, * are still the counties of Delaware, each one extending across the State and filling its whole length from the hills of the Brandywine on the Pennsylvania border to the sands of Sussex at Cape Henlopen. The term "Territory" has ever since been used in America to describe an outlying province not yet given the privileges of a State. Instead of townships, the three Delaware counties were divided into "hundreds," an old Anglo-Saxon county method of division going back beyond the times of Alfred the Great. Delaware is the only State in the Union that retains this name for county divisions. The Three Lower Counties were allowed to send representatives to the Pennsylvania Assembly; and the Quakers of Delaware have always been part of the Yearly Meeting in Philadelphia. * The original names were New Castle, Jones's, and Hoerekill, as it was called by the Dutch, or Deal. In 1703, after having been a part of Pennsylvania for twenty years, the Three Lower Counties were given home rule and a legislature of their own; but they remained under the Governor of Pennsylvania until the Revolution of 1776. They then became an entirely separate community and one of the thirteen original States. Delaware was the first State to adopt the National Constitution, and Rhode Island, its fellow small State, the last. Having been first to adopt the Constitution, the people of Delaware claim that on all national occasions or ceremonies they are entitled to the privilege of precedence. They have every reason to be proud of the representative men they sent to the Continental Congress, and to the Senate in later times. Agriculture has, of course, always been the principal occupation on the level fertile land of Delaware; and it is agriculture of a high class, for the soil, especially in certain localities, is particularly adapted to wheat, corn, and timothy grass, as well as small fruits. That section of land crossing the State in the region of Delaware City and Middleton is one of the show regions in America, for crops of wheat and corn. Farther south, grain growing is combined with small fruits and vegetables with a success seldom attained elsewhere. Agriculturally there is no division of land of similar size quite equal to Delaware in fertility. Its sand and gravel base with vegetable mold above is somewhat like the southern Jersey formation, but it is more productive from having a larger deposit of decayed vegetation. The people of Delaware have, indeed, very little land that is not tillable. The problems of poverty, crowding, great cities, and excessive wealth in few hands are practically unknown among them. The foreign commerce of Wilmington began in 1740 with the building of a brig named after the town, and was continued successfully for a hundred years. At Wilmington there has always been a strong manufacturing interest, beginning with the famous colonial flour mills at the falls of the Brandywine, and the breadstuffs industry at Newport on the Christina. With the Brandywine so admirably suited to the water-power machinery of those days and the Christina deep enough for the ships, Wilmington seemed in colonial times to possess an ideal combination of advantages for manufacturing and commerce. The flour mills were followed in 1802 by the Du Pont Powder Works, which are known all over the world, and which furnished powder for all American wars since the Revolution, for the Crimean War in Europe, and for the Allies in the Great War. "From the hills of Brandywine to the sands of Sussex" is an expression the people of Delaware use to indicate the whole length of their little State. The beautiful cluster of hills at the northern end dropping into park-like pastures along the shores of the rippling Red Clay and White Clay creeks which form the deep Christina with its border of green reedy marshes, is in striking contrast to the wild waste of sands at Cape Henlopen. Yet in one way the Brandywine Hills are closely connected with those sands, for from these very hills have been quarried the hard rocks for the great breakwater at the Cape, behind which the fleets of merchant vessels take refuge in storms. The great sand dunes behind the lighthouse at the cape have their equal nowhere else on the coast. Blown by the ocean winds, the dunes work inland, overwhelming a pine forest to the tree tops and filling swamps in their course. The beach is strewn with every type of wreckage of man's vain attempts to conquer the sea. The Life Saving Service men have strange tales to tell and show their collections of coins found along the sand. The old pilots live snugly in their neat houses in Pilot Row, waiting their turns to take the great ships up through the shoals and sands which were so baffling to Henry Hudson and his mate one hot August day of the year 1609. The Indians of the northern part of Delaware are said to have been mostly Minquas who lived along the Christiana and Brandywine, and are supposed to have had a fort on Iron Hill. The rest of the State was inhabited by the Nanticokes, who extended their habitations far down the peninsula, where a river is named after them. They were a division or clan of the Delawares or Leni Lenapes. In the early days they gave some trouble; but shortly before the Revolution all left the peninsula in strange and dramatic fashion. Digging up the bones of their dead chiefs in 1748, they bore them away to new abodes in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania. Some appear to have traveled by land up the Delaware to the Lehigh, which they followed to its source not far from the Wyoming Valley. Others went in canoes, starting far down the peninsula at the Nanticoke River and following along the wild shore of the Chesapeake to the Susquehanna, up which they went by its eastern branch straight into the Wyoming Valley. It was a grand canoe trip--a weird procession of tawny, black-haired fellows swinging their paddles day after day, with their freight of ancient bones, leaving the sunny fishing grounds of the Nanticoke and the Choptank to seek a refuge from the detested white man in the cold mountains of Pennsylvania. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE A large part of the material for the early history of Pennsylvania is contained of course in the writings and papers of the founder. The "Life of William Penn" by S. M. Janney (1852) is perhaps the most trustworthy of the older biographies but it is a dull book. A biography written with a modern point of view is "The True William Penn" by Sydney G. Fisher (1900). Mrs. Colquhoun Grant, a descendant of Penn has published a book with the title "Quaker and Courtier: the Life and Work of William Penn" (1907). The manuscript papers of Penn now in the possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, together with much new material gathered in England, are soon to be published under the able editorship of Albert Cook Myers. There is a vast literature on the history of Quakerism. The "Journal of George Fox" (1694), Penn's "Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People called Quakers" (1695), and Robert Barclay's "Apology for the True Christian Divinity" (1678) are of first importance for the study of the rise of the Society of Friends. Among the older histories are J.J. Gurney's "Observations on the Religious Peculiarities of the Society of Friends" (1824), James Bowden's "History of the Society of Friends in America," 2 vols. (1850-54), and S.M. Janney's "History of the Religious Society of Friends," 4 vols. (1860-67). Two recent histories are of great value: W. C. Braithwaite, "The Beginnings of Quakerism" (1912) and Rufus M. Jones, "The Quakers in the American Colonies" (1911). Among the older histories of Penn's province are "The History of Pennsylvania in North America," 2 vols. (1797-98), written by Robert Proud from the Quaker point of view and of great value because of the quotations from original documents and letters, and "History of Pennsylvania from its Discovery by Europeans to the Declaration of Independence in 1776" (1829) by T. F. Gordon, largely an epitome of the debates of the Pennsylvania Assembly which recorded in its minutes in fascinating old-fashioned English the whole history of the province from year to year. Franklin's "Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania from its Origin" (1759) is a storehouse of information about the history of the province in the French and Indian wars. Much of the history of the province is to be found in the letters of Penn, Franklin, Logan, and Lloyd, and in such collections as Samuel Hazard's "Register of Pennsylvania," 16 vols. (1828-36), "Colonial Records," 16 vols. (1851-53), and "Pennsylvania Archives" (1874-). A vast amount of material is scattered in pamphlets, in files of colonial newspapers like the "Pennsylvania Gazette," in the publications of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and in the "Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography" (1877-). Recent histories of the province have been written by Isaac Sharpless, "History of Quaker Government in Pennsylvania," 2 vols. (1898-99), and by Sydney G. Fisher, "The Making of Pennsylvania" (1896) and "Pennsylvania, Colony and Commonwealth" (1897). A scholarly "History of Proprietary Government in Pennsylvania" has been published by William R. Shepherd in the "Columbia University Studies" (1896) and the "Relations of Pennsylvania with the British Government, 1696-1765" (1912) have been traced with painstaking care by Winfred T. Root. Concerning the racial and religious elements in Pennsylvania the following books contribute much valuable information: A. B. Faust, "The German Element in the United States," 2 vols. (1909); A. C. Myers, "Immigration of the Irish Quakers into Pennsylvania, 1682-1750" (1909); S. W. Pennypacker, "Settlement of Germantown, Pennsylvania, and the Beginning of German Immigration to North America" (1899); J. F. Sachse, "The German Pietists of Provincial Pennsylvania, 1694-1708" (1895), and "The German Sectarians of Pennsylvania, 1708-1800," 2 vols. (1899-1900); L. O. Kuhns, "The German and Swiss Settlements of Colonial Pennsylvania" (1901); H. J. Ford, "The Scotch-Irish in America" (1915); T. A. Glenn, "Merion in the Welsh Tract" (1896). The older histories of New Jersey, like those of Pennsylvania, contain valuable original material not found elsewhere. Among these Samuel Smith's "The History of the Colony of Nova Casaria, or New Jersey" (1765) should have first place. E. B. O'Callaghan's "History of New Netherland," 2 vols. (1846), and J. R. Brodhead's "History of the State of New York," 2 vols. (1853, 1871) contain also information about the Jerseys under Dutch rule. Other important works are: W. A. Whitehead's "East Jersey under the Proprietary Governments" (New Jersey Historical Society "Collections," vol.1, 1875), and "The English in East and West Jersey" in Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History of America," vol. III, L. Q. C. Elmer's "The Constitution and Government of the Province and State of New Jersey" (New Jersey Historical Society Collections, vols. III and VII, 1849 and 1872.) Special studies have been made by Austin Scott, "Influence of the Proprietors in the Founding of New Jersey" (1885), and by H. S. Cooley, "Study of Slavery in New Jersey" (1896), both in the Johns Hopkins University "Studies;" also by E. P. Tanner, "The Province of New Jersey" (1908) and by E. J. Fisher, "New Jersey as a Royal Province, 1738-1776" (1911) in the Columbia University "Studies." Several county histories yield excellent material concerning the life and times of the colonists, notably Isaac Mickle's "Reminiscences of Old Gloucester" (1845) and L. T. Stevens's "The History of Cape May County" (1897) which are real histories written in scholarly fashion and not to be confused with the vulgar county histories gotten up to sell. The Dutch and Swedish occupation of the lands bordering on the Delaware may be followed in the following histories: Benjamin Ferris, "A History of the Original Settlements of the Delaware" (1846); Francis Vincent, "A History of the State of Delaware" (1870); J. T. Scharf, "History of Delaware, 1609-1888," 2 vols. (1888); Karl K. S. Sprinchorn, Kolonien Nya Sveriges Historia (1878), translated in the "Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography," vols. VII and VIII. In volume IV of Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History of America" is a chapter contributed by G. B. Keen on "New Sweden, or The Swedes on the Delaware." The most recent minute work on the subject is "The Swedish Settlements on the Delaware," 2 vols. (1911) by Amandus Johnson. 
60300	----	images of public domain material from the Google Books project.) THE NEW JERSEY LAW JOURNAL PUBLISHED MONTHLY VOLUME XLV MARCH, 1922 No. 3 EDITORIAL NOTES. HAPPILY IT IS not such a frequent occurrence as may be supposed that the Judges of our Court of Errors and Appeals split apart so curiously as they did in determining that the Van Ness Enforcement Act should be declared unconstitutional. The result only shows that, like the doctors, Judges cannot all think alike. On the subject of whether whiskey is useful as a medicine or not our New Jersey doctors, on a canvass, split, 520 to 308, or 490 to 319, according as one interprets the replies. In the Nation at large it ran 51 per cent. to 49 per cent., a closer margin. But only half of those who were interrogated by the "Journal of the American Medical Association" responded; what the rest thought we do not know. So on the legal questions involved in the Van Ness Act, counting those Judges who approved the Act as constitutional in the Supreme Court, the difference between a yea and nay vote appears to have been only one. On the subject of whether the Act could be sustained because it took away from defendants the right of trial by jury, which was the great burden in objections made by defendants themselves, the Court held what this Journal has held, that the Legislature had the power to direct that trials might be by magistrates without a jury. It had done so over and over again in other matters and could do so in liquor legislation as well. On other points there were various differences of opinion. However, since the Act as a whole is declared unconstitutional, on the ground that it does not conform to the Federal Act, which declares that the illegal possession, sale, etc., of liquors constitute a crime, instead of disorderliness, the Legislature has passed new statutes which alter the basis of a conviction from a disorderly proceeding to a criminal proceeding. There is no hope in this for bootleggers, except as it permits them to escape by jury disagreements or "not guilty" verdicts. If no law were enacted the Federal Courts would be filled with cases, and the results there would give no hope to criminals. Generally speaking, the upsetting of the Van Ness Act is unfortunate, because jury trials are expensive as well as uncertain; trials before Judges as magistrates are more certain and far less expensive. In the end, however, bootleggers will not win in the game. * * * * * On the question of the legality of "picketing" by strikes the Court of Errors and Appeals of this State also held quite divergent views, but sustained the Keuffel & Esser injunction granted by Vice-Chancellor Buchanan against the International Association of Machinists. The majority decision of the Court was rendered on Jan. 26th, in an opinion by Mr. Justice Swayze. His finding was sustained by 9 affirmative and 5 negative votes. Besides Justice Swayze, the members of the Court voting to affirm were Justices Parker, Bergen, Kalisch and Katzenbach, and Judges White, Williams, Gardner and Ackerson. Voting to reverse were Chief Justice Gummere, Justices Trenchard, Minturn and Black and Judge Van Buskirk. "The object of the appeal avowedly is," said Justice Swayze, "to secure a decision as to the legality of picketing when unaccompanied with violence, molestation of others, annoying language or conduct--in short, what is sometimes called peaceful picketing. Parading in the neighborhood of complainants with placards indicating that a strike is in progress is similar in its legal character to picketing." He then pointed out that the Court is bound in a measure by the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of the American Steel Foundries v. The Tri-City Central Trades Council, in which Chief Justice Taft wrote an opinion upon the rights of strikers, both at common law and as governed by the Clayton act. Taking the Federal decision as a foundation, Justice Swayze said it held the employer had the right to the access of his employés to his place of business and of egress therefrom, without intimidation or obstruction; and the employés, recent or expectant, had the right to use peaceable and lawful means to induce present employés and would-be employés to join their ranks. He remarked that the legality of any particular conduct depends on the facts of the particular case and that picketing may or may not be lawful, as it has or has not an immediate tendency to intimidate the other party to the controversy. Remarking that picketing is illegal if it has an immediate tendency to obstruct free passage such as the streets afford, consistent with the rights of others to enjoy the same privilege, Justice Swayze continued: "Thus men may accost one another with a view of influencing action, but may not resort to persistence, importunity, following and dogging. The number of pickets may of itself make the picketing unlawful, since it may amount to intimidation. Everyone knows that threats of bodily harm may be made by a mere show of force, without violence of language or breach of the peace, and that mere numbers may intimidate. The real question is, 'Does the conduct under existing facts amount to intimidation?' Twenty-five or fifty pickets may, when a single picket probably would not. If information alone were wanted in the pending case, all the information necessary for the defendants to enable them to prosecute their efforts to convert the complainants employés would have been obtained by a few men. The use of twenty-five or fifty or two hundred, as in fact used, was clearly unnecessary, and could not have been intended for any lawful purpose. In view of the testimony as to what actually went on, the Vice-Chancellor properly held that the conduct of the defendants was an illegal interference with the complainants' property rights." * * * * * The opinion noted above is, in the whole, a lengthy one. Judge White concurred in it in a separate opinion. Justice Minturn filed a strong dissenting view, taking the ground that the Court's conclusion served to mark another step in the cycle of judicial legislation, which, beginning with an appropriate effort to curb agitation of a forcible character, has concluded with an edict which will be construed to put an end to peaceable and constitutional economic agitation. "Nothing further," he said, "would seem to be necessary to complete the chaplet of judicial legislation, unless it be the invocation of the provisions of the statute of laborers (Edward III.), under the provisions of which the laborer was effectually conscripted to the service of the master, and to that end was hounded as a helot, and labeled with the brand of Cain. In every other walk of life the peaceful activities condemned by these adjudications are quiescently tolerated, if not approving recognized." * * * * * The cash bonus asked--not asked but demanded in formal resolutions--by various of the associations of the American Legion throughout the country, and which has given the present Congress and the President more concern than almost any domestic subject, has not struck a responsive chord in the popular ear except from the soldiers--a minority of them, as we believe--who want it. Every business man knows it is not the time to pension well soldiers of the late war further than the States are doing it. We have always doubted that the best officers and soldiers of the country were behind the movement. It is to belittle their patriotism to believe that they desire to foist billions of taxes, direct or indirect, upon their country at the present moment. * * * * * When Senator Edge told an assembly at Atlantic City recently that the Senate of the United States, of which he is a member, failed alarmingly in performing its proper duties in a speedy and efficient manner, he only stated what public opinion has long held. The mere fact, to which he did not allude however, that a few men can talk any good project before that body to death, the Senate rules permitting unlimited debate, has served again and again to prove the truth of his statements. The House of Representatives, with its too-many members, is far more reflective of public sentiment than the Senate, and actually does its work more expeditiously when a majority of members desire quick action. A reform in the Senate is of such importance that too much public attention to its improper methods of carrying on public business cannot be given. The press of the country should be a unit in demanding a change in methods and results. The New York "Times" thinks the trouble is largely due to the fact that there is a dearth of strong men in the Senate; that there is no great inducement for a strong man to go to the Senate as a new member, because he is practically "frozen out" of any good committee assignment for a long period of time. It says of a new member: "What will happen to him when he takes his seat in the Senate? He will get only insignificant committee appointments. He will be expected to be silent for at least six months. If he undertakes, as a new Senator, to impress upon the Senate any positive convictions of his own, he will be 'hazed' like a college freshman in the effort to teach him his place. If there is in the Senate a 'career open to talent,' it is open only after long waiting. In short, the Senate that now professes an anxiety for the accession of strong men itself puts formidable obstacles in the way of a strong man. Its rules, as Senator Wadsworth has just been lamenting, make it almost impossible to transact business. Its time is mostly taken up by querulous and ineffective members. Its committees are manned by the rule of seniority, which too often spells senility. Indeed, about the only way in which the Senate as it is at present can be said to be a nursery of political strength is in accordance with the maxim, Suffer and be strong. A Senator who can survive for a few years the suffering, mental and moral, which he has to undergo in the Senate, may emerge into power and influence. But upon the strong man just arrived the Senate always puts a damper." Lots of truth in this. Nevertheless, present Senate rules combined with too much politics and too little statesmanship and business activity are responsible for a deterioration of the public esteem for our highest governing body. * * * * * Dean Stone of the Columbia University Law School of New York City in a report to the President of that Institution made recently sounds a proper warning as to the quality and numbers of young men crowding into the Bars of many of the States. Among other things he said: "It may well be doubted whether there is any profession which makes greater demands than the law on the capacity of its members for sustained intellectual efforts, their powers of discrimination and their ability to master detail. Yet, as I have often had occasion to point out in these reports, increasing numbers of men of mediocre ability and inadequate preliminary education are being attracted to the law by the ever-increasing facilities for law study. What, under the conditions of law study and admission to the Bar of a generation ago, was a task of magnitude testing the patience, stability, character and intellectual power of the prospective lawyer to the utmost may now be performed with relative ease. This is partly attributable to the multiplication of opportunities for law and study nicely adapted to the peculiar type of Bar examination prevailing in most of our States, and partly because Law Schools and Bar examinations too often place the interests of the individual law student and sometimes their own interests ahead of the interests of the profession. It is the duty of Law Schools to dissuade the man of ordinary ability and meagre education from beginning law study, and, if he will not be dissuaded, to apply to him standards of proficiency and attainment worthy of the profession to whose membership he aspires." * * * * * The Washington Conference is over and the results are more than gratifying. Only the blindest obtuseness on the part of the United States Senate has prevented early ratification of the various treaties made by it. The great point gained by this Conference is that it brought Great Britain, France, Japan, China and five other powers face to face in friendliest attitude, and this is what should happen again when occasion calls for it. Every country represented is happy over the result, and to say that America should be is a truism. It marked another great event in world history. * * * * * Some day perhaps, every moving-picture theatre will have this description of the art it employs on its front curtain, for is it not the lucid description recently published in a magazine devoted to the "sublime art" of motion-picture writing? And it will be good for school boys and girls to interpret: "The photodramatist enters the great cosmic drama in keeping with the Infinite Plan; he will be, in the expanse of days to come, a master of new values in art, science, philosophy, religion. From the fastnesses of the invisible world of Thought, fulgurous forces of the very essence of Beauty are sweeping into his consciousness, attracted by the human desire for more complete expression." SOME REMINISCENCES, MOSTLY LEGAL. BY HON. FREDERIC ADAMS, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA. V. SOME NEW JERSEY COURTS AND LAWYERS. In the early autumn of 1862, nearly sixty years ago, I became a law student in the office of Amzi Dodd, in Newark. Mr. Dodd was then at the best of his mental and physical strength. In his office I came to know, admire and revere him, and there was begun a cordial friendship between us which continued unbroken until he passed away in extreme old age. I think that there was not in New Jersey a sounder legal head than his, nor a better balanced and more sagacious legal judgment. Nor was this all. He was profoundly ethical, not obtrusively but sensitively. There was a voice within to which he always listened, and he rested firmly on the fundamental morals which are part of the religion of every good man and underlie the Law itself. Nor was this all, for to the innermost recesses of his nature he was devoutly, rationally and serenely Christian. Mr. Dodd was a Princeton graduate and a contemporary of three remarkable Rutgers men, Cortlandt Parker, Frederick T. Frelinghuysen and Joseph P. Bradley, any one of whom would have conferred distinction on any Bar in the country. Mr. Dodd, though a good and persuasive speaker, had not the oratorical charm of Mr. Frelinghuysen, nor the forensic power of Mr. Parker. He and Mr. Bradley had a good deal in common. Both were scholarly, excellent mathematicians, and had the judicial stamp. In my first year with Mr. Dodd I had an interesting experience. His cousin, Chief Justice Edward W. Whelpley, came to Newark to hold the Essex Circuit, pursuant, I suppose, to some arrangement with Judge Daniel Haines. He was in the office almost every day, and I lost no opportunity to attend Court and hear him try cases. He was an impressive figure, a big man with a heavy voice and a commanding manner. I have sometimes wondered since whether he was really as powerful a Judge as he then seemed to me to be, or whether perhaps his dominating personality threw a kind of spell over me. I remember that his charge would often efface the impressions made by the arguments of counsel. He seemed to be in exuberant health and spirits, and to have before him the prospect of many years of usefulness and distinction. He died on February 22, 1864, and was succeeded by Mercer Beasley, who held office for thirty-three years, and wrote his name high on the scroll of New Jersey worthies. I wonder how many of the Essex Bar now remember seeing Chief Justice Whelpley at the Essex Circuit. He held the Union Circuit also, and, I have heard, used to get his dinner in New York on the ground that there was nothing fit to eat in Union county. He was probably unfortunate in his choice of a restaurant, or perhaps his requirements were unusual, for he is said to have spoken unfavorably of our national bird, the turkey, because a turkey is "too much for one and not enough for two." Judge Haines left the Bench at the expiration of his term on November 15, 1866, and was succeeded by David A. Depue, who held office as Judge and Chief Justice and was a strong pillar of society, until November 16, 1901. A Persian proverb says that a Stone fit for the wall is never left in the road, and so, as it was according to the evident fitness of things that Mr. Dodd should become a Judge, that event came to pass when Chancellor Zabriskie, in 1871, appointed him the first Vice-Chancellor. In 1875 he resigned his office, and in 1881 was reappointed by Chancellor Runyon. He became also a specially appointed Judge of the Court of Errors and Appeals, thus strengthening its equity side. In a Court many of whose most important issues are in equity, and one of whose members is the Chancellor, who is precluded from sitting in equity cases, it is always well that some of the Judges should have, or have had, the valuable experience of sitting alone in equity, and dealing at first hand with the rules of equity practice and procedure. This has been the case with Justice Bergen and Mr. Dodd. No other instances occur to me. The highwater mark of Vice Chancellor Dodd's judicial duty was reached in the memorable case of Pennsylvania R. R. Co. v. National Railway Co., 23 Equity 441, decided at the February term, 1873. This was before the General Railroad Law, and there was a strong movement, backed by much public opinion, and attended by some public excitement and high feeling, to break the monopoly of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company by uniting interests and connecting existing roads, so as to secure an independent through line between New York and Philadelphia. The purpose was meritorious, for the State needed another through line. The case which Vice-Chancellor Dodd decided was in form an application to enjoin the National Railway Company from proceeding with the construction of its road in New Jersey with intent to use it as part of a through line from New York to Philadelphia. The argument which, with the reading of proofs, took two weeks, was upon a rule to show cause why an injunction should not issue pursuant to the prayer of the bill. Attorney-General Stockton, Mr. Theodore Cuyler and others were counsel for the complainant, and Mr. Cortlandt Parker and others represented the defendants. I went to Trenton to hear the opinion. The reading of it took about an hour. The gist of the opinion, which was for the complainant, was this,--not that several links might not form a chain, but that the defendants' so-called links formed no chain because the legislative acts which created them indicated no intent that they should connect. The opinion shows Vice-Chancellor Dodd's strong judicial qualities; admirable language and style, clear statement, controversial force, persuasive reasoning and exposition, all, in their combination, leading up to a high level of jurisprudence. I know of nothing in the New Jersey books more skillful or nobly ethical than portions of this opinion. Vice-Chancellor Dodd would not have esteemed it praise to be told that the case was a test of his nerve, for, though his feelings were easily wounded, he was far above being moved by clamor, either before or after a decision. I will not dwell on Vice-Chancellor Dodd's other opinions. They are numerous and may be consulted in the volumes in which they are printed, beginning with 22nd Equity. A strong magnet was drawing Vice-Chancellor Dodd away from the law to a pursuit attractive to one of his mathematical bent: I mean the intellectual side of the science and art of life insurance, and it finally captured him. Perhaps some readers of the New Jersey Law Journal have been favored, as I have been, by polite letters from one or more insurance companies, offering options between two or three propositions about equally unintelligible, and have, perhaps improvidently, solved the problem by selecting the one which seemed to promise most immediate cash. To such persons, if any there be, I respectfully commend the perusal of a valued and interesting book of about four hundred pages which lies before me, entitled "Reports to the Board of Directors of the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company, made by Amzi Dodd as Mathematician or President, from October, 1877, to January 21, 1901." I can say like Hamlet, "I am ill at these numbers," if I may be pardoned for perverting the meaning of the Prince of Denmark, but I have sufficient comprehension to see that the same man wrote the opinions and the reports, and that they are characterized by the same high mental and moral qualities. Mr. Dodd was fond of Governor William Pennington and liked to talk about him. They became acquainted when they met in a cow case at Orange. An old woman's cow was run down and killed by a Morris & Essex train and young Dodd sued the railroad. It had not then been judicially determined in New Jersey whether a cow or the locomotive had the superior right of way. The case was tried before a Justice of the Peace with a jury. Dodd was very much on his good behavior and treated the Governor with extreme courtesy. He had the crowd with him and triumphantly won the verdict. The next day Governor Pennington called on him, or sent for him, complimented him on his management of the case, and spoke of his own friendship with Amzi Dodd, an uncle of young Amzi, who was a capable Newark lawyer, a careless, unsystematic man of whom I heard Mr. Cortlandt Parker tell that he carried his papers in his hat, and was said sometimes to lose both hat and papers together. One day, Amzi Dodd, the uncle, came into Governor Pennington's office and said: "Good morning, Governor. Confound these young fellows! They get all my books away from me. Now there is 'Elmer's Forms.' I own a copy of it, and it has my name in it, but it is gone. It is a very useful book. I need it every day. Governor, have you a copy that you can let me have?" Governor Pennington, who was a courtly gentleman of the old school and something of a wag, answered very gravely: "Mr. Dodd, I agree with you about 'Elmer's Forms.' It is an excellent office book. I consult it every day and should be sorry to be without it, but you know, Mr. Dodd, that I am always ready to oblige you, and I will cheerfully let you have it if you will promise in writing to return it when I need it." "Certainly," said Mr. Dodd, and dashed off a serio-comic agreement to return the book when called for. He folded the document and handed it to the Governor, and the Governor handed him his own missing book. I told this to my old Yale friend, William Pennington of Paterson, a nephew of the Governor, who chuckled and said, "I can see him doing it." Governor Pennington used often to associate young Dodd with him in the trial of causes. He had been Governor under the old Constitution and _ex-officio_ Chancellor, but was not scholarly and relied very much on his knowledge of the world, tact, and strong common sense. Mr. Dodd once told me that while the Governor knew very little law, he was a most dangerous antagonist before a jury. If he had the close he was almost sure to get the jury with him, and if you had the close he would sit in front of the jury and smile your speech away. Mr. Dodd is my authority for this story: Ex-Governor Daniel Haines, the Justice of the Supreme Court who held the Essex Circuit, was a man of strict views, and Mr. Cortlandt Parker, the Prosecutor of the Pleas, was discharging his important duties with a force and efficiency worthy of national issues and a wider stage, and so, what with the austerity of the Judge and the zeal of the Prosecutor, the way of the transgressor was growing hard, and it was getting to be common talk among the rounders and hangers-on at the courthouse that if a man was indicted he might as well plead guilty at once and save the county the expense of a trial. Some malefactor, with more money or spirit than the others, paid Governor Pennington a good fee and instructed him to fight. The Governor had been informed of the current gossip, and thought he would see what he could make out of it. So he told the jury in his most impressive manner, that a man is taken to be innocent until he is proved to be guilty; that this is the palladium of our liberties; and that he feared that this precious, fundamental right was not sufficiently borne in mind, even in the courthouse of the county of Essex, and that it was too much assumed that conviction ought to follow indictment. At this point Judge Haines, with a flushed face and his eyes shining brightly through his gold-rimmed spectacles, interrupted the Governor, and said that he had heard the remarks of the distinguished counsel with much surprise and regret; that they conveyed an imputation upon the Court itself--an intimation that he was derelict in his duty toward an important class of suitors, the defendants in criminal cases, and that he desired to know and now asked counsel to state from what persons he heard these strictures upon the Court. Governor Pennington, with his usual urbanity, bowed and said: "It is mainly from the criminals themselves." This answer occasioned such a sudden revulsion of thought and feeling as to discompose the Judge and convulse the Bar. It is now just seventy years since Mr. Dodd went to Trenton to hear and see Daniel Webster and Rufus Choate in the case of Charles Goodyear against Horace H. Day, pending in the Circuit Court of the United States before Judge Grier of the Supreme Court, and a District Judge. There is probably now no living member of the Bench or Bar of New Jersey who attended that trial even as a spectator. As to this case I quote briefly from Mr. Choate's "Commemorative Discourse" on Webster, delivered at Dartmouth College on July 27, 1852: "The professional life of Mr. Webster began in the spring of 1805. It may not be said to have ended until he died; but I do not know that it happened to him to appear in Court, for the trial of a cause, after his argument of the Goodyear patent for improvements in the preparation of India-rubber, in Trenton, in March, 1852. There I saw him and last heard him. The thirty-four years which had elapsed since, a member of this College, at home for health, I first saw and heard him in the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in the county of Essex, defending Jackman, accused of the robbery of Goodrich, had in almost all things changed him. The raven hair, the vigorous, full frame and firm tread, the eminent but severe beauty of the countenance, not yet sealed with the middle age of man, the exuberant demonstration of all sorts of power, which so marked him at first--for these, as once they were, I explored in vain. Yet how far higher was the interest that attended him now: his sixty-nine years robed, as it were, with honor and with love, with associations of great service done to the State, and of great fame gathered and safe; and then the perfect mastery of the cause in its legal and scientific principles, and in all its facts; the admirable clearness and order in which his propositions were advanced successively; the power, the occasional high ethical tone, the appropriate eloquence, by which they were made probable and persuasive to the judicial reason--these announced the leader of the American bar, with every faculty and every accomplishment, by which he had won that proud title, wholly unimpaired; the eye not dim nor the natural force abated." Mr. Webster represented Goodyear, Mr. Choate represented Day. The injunction which Goodyear applied for was granted. Day surrendered his license, transferred his factory and machinery to a representative of Goodyear, and agreed to retire from the business for the sum of $350,000, and counsel fees amounting to $21,000 additional, which amounts were paid. Mr. Webster's retainer was $15,000. Mr. Dodd liked to talk about this case. Mr. Webster and Mr. Choate each spoke for two days, or parts of two days. Chancellor Green is said to have called Mr. Choate's argument the finest that he ever heard in Court. Lawyers came from all over the State to attend the trial. Mr. Dodd said that at times Mr. Choate would seem "to go up like a balloon." One who has heard or even read Choate knows how at times he would seem to lift himself and his audience on the rushing wings of his magical oratory. One of the junior counsel for Day had made some impression by dwelling on the hardships of operatives if the injunction should be granted. The day was getting late and Judge Grier suggested to Mr. Webster, who was to speak next, that the Court adjourn until the next day. Mr. Webster assented, but said: "There is one thing that I wish to say now. If Mr. Day's operatives are likely to be distressed, it will be because of his own default, of his own breach of faith, of his own repudiation of his own solemn contract, under his own hand and seal," and, as he said it, his voice deepened and his eyes flashed, and the courtroom rang as with a peal of mellow thunder. Mr. Dodd came out of Court with ex-Chancellor Halsted who said: "Well, Amzi, the old lion has given his first growl." The case is reported in 10 Federal Cases, page 638, Case No. 5569. In a footnote is this extract from Mr. Webster's argument. It is interesting, for it shows him at his very best and is not generally known. His biographer, Mr. G. T. Curtis, speaks of this argument as one of the most remarkable and interesting of his forensic efforts. "I believe," said Mr. Webster, "that the man who sits at this table, Charles Goodyear, is to go down to posterity in the history of the Arts in this country, in that great class of inventors at the head of which stands Robert Fulton, in which class stand the names of Whitney and of Morse, and in which class will stand '_non post long intervallo_' the humble name of Charles Goodyear. Notwithstanding all the difficulties he encountered he went on. If there was reproach he bore it. If poverty, he suffered under it; but he went on, and these people followed him from step to step, from 1834 to 1839, or until a later period when his invention was completed, and then they opened their eyes with astonishment. They then saw that what they had been treating with ridicule was sublime; that what they had made the subject of reproach was the exercise of great inventive genius; that what they had laughed at was the perseverance of a man of talent with great perceptive faculties, which had brought out a wonder as much to their astonishment as if another sun had arisen in the hemisphere above. He says of his cell in the debtors' jail that 'it is as good a lodging as he may expect this side the grave'; he hopes his friends will come and see him on the subject of India rubber manufacture; and then he speaks of his family and of his wife. He had but two objects, his family and his discovery. In all his distress and in all his trials his wife was willing to participate in his sufferings, and endure everything, and hope everything; she was willing to be poor; she was willing to go to prison, if it was necessary, when he went to prison; she was willing to share with him everything; and that was his solace. May it please your honors, there is nothing upon the earth that can compare with the faithful attachment of a wife; no creature who, for the object of her love, is so indomitable, so persevering, so ready to suffer and to die. Under the most depressing circumstances woman's weakness becomes mighty power; her timidity becomes fearless courage; all her shrinking and sinking passes away, and her spirit acquires the firmness of marble--adamantine firmness, when circumstances drive her to put forth all her energies under the inspiration of her affections. Mr. Goodyear survived all this, and I am sure he would go through the same suffering ten times again for the same consolation. He carried on his experiments perseveringly, and with success, and obtained a patent in 1844 for his great invention." There is a spirited report of the same case in 2 Wallace Jr., where, at pages 294 and 295, are some turns of thought and expression very characteristic of Mr. Webster. A few months later, on October 24, 1852, Daniel Webster died at Marshfield. Years after the Trenton trial Mr. Dodd was in Boston, and was inclined to call on Mr. Choate, at his office, but at the very door his diffidence made him withdraw. He should have gone on. An opportunity was lost. It was said of Mr. Choate that he treated every man with the courtesy due to a woman, and every woman as though she were a queen. He bore interruptions cheerfully, almost gladly. Mr. Choate would have been found working at a standing desk covered with his hieroglyphic notes, undecipherable except by himself; he would have cordially owned his visitor's fraternal claim to his attention; and he would have kindled to the depths of his nature at the memory of his last encounter with his mighty friend. * * * * * That the sale of whisky is prohibited by law is held in Ellis v. Com. 186 Ky. 494, 217 S. W. 368, not to deprive it of its character as goods, wares, and merchandise, and a thing of value, within the meaning of a statute providing for punishment of one breaking into a storehouse and taking therefrom goods, wares, and merchandise or other thing of value. IN RE B. & B. MOTOR SALES CORPORATION. (U. S. Dist. Court, Dist. of New Jersey, Jan. 18, 1922). _Bankruptcy--Sale of Auto Truck--Conditional Agreement and Its Transfer--Right to Possession of Property--Uniform Conditional Sales Act_. In the matter of B. & B. Motor Sales Corporation, bankrupt. On exceptions to Master's report denying The First People's Trust petition for certain property held by the Receiver. Mr. Harry Green for Exceptants, The First People's Trust. Mr. Barney Larkey for the Receiver. RELLSTAB, District Judge: The First People's Trust excepts to the Master's findings that it is not entitled to Apex truck No. 5365, found in the possession of the B. & B. Motor Sales Corporation (hereinafter called the bankrupt,) at the time the receiver took charge of the bankrupt's estate. The facts are: The bankrupt carried on the business of buying and selling auto trucks. On July 12, 1920, it agreed in writing with Robert Jones to sell him the truck in question for $1,955, payable in monthly installments. In this writing (called a "conditional sale agreement"), signed by both parties, it was declared, inter alia, that the bankrupt had that day delivered the truck to the buyer; that the title to the truck was not to pass to the buyer, but was to "remain vested in and be the property of the seller or assigns until the purchase price has been fully paid;" that if Jones failed to pay any of the installments when due the bankrupt might without demand, notice, or process, take possession of the truck, whereupon Jones' right therein should terminate absolutely, and all payments made thereon be restrained by the bankrupt as liquidated damages and rent. At the same time, Jones executed two notes to the bankrupt, one for the sum of $1,427.15 (in the conditional sale agreement recited to be the balance to be paid on the truck), payable in twelve monthly installments, wherein it was declared that "upon default in the payment of any installment when due, the whole amount remaining unpaid shall immediately become due;" the other note represented the remainder (or some part of it) of the purchase price. Both the conditional sale agreement and the $1,427.15 note subsequently were transferred by the bankrupt to the First People's Trust. The transfer of the agreement is dated July 12, 1920, and recites that it is simultaneous with the purchase of the note; in terms it sells, assigns and transfers the bankrupt's right, title and interest in the automobile in question and also in the conditional sale agreement, and asserts that the automobile was sold and not consigned to the buyer. The transfer of the note bears no date, is in the form of an endorsement, guarantees payment of the note, principal and interest, waives demand and protest, and is signed by the bankrupt by its President and Secretary, and by the same persons individually. Jones had possession of the truck for several months, and, after making some of the stipulated payments, defaulted in further payments on both notes. The bankrupt repossessed itself of the truck, and was in possession thereof at the time the receiver took charge. Neither the conditional sale agreement nor the assignment was recorded. No rights or interests of any purchaser or creditor of Jones, the buyer, are involved in these proceedings, the controversy being exclusively between the assignee of the conditional sale agreement and the creditors of the bankrupt (seller). The Master held that the assignment of the conditional sale agreement "was to act as a mortgage for the payment of the notes;" and that, as neither the conditional sale agreement nor the assignment had "been recorded in accordance with the laws of the State of New Jersey and ... the B. & B. Motor Sales Corporation had repossessed the truck and had it in its possession at the time of the appointment of the receiver," the receiver, and not the First People's Trust, was entitled to it. First, as to the conditional sale agreement. The New Jersey Uniform Conditional Sales Act, approved April 15, 1919, effective from July 4, 1919 (N. J. P. L., p. 461), in section 1, defines a seller as "the person who sells or leases the goods covered by the conditional sale, or any legal successor in interest of such person." In section 4 it declares that: "Every provision in a conditional sale reserving property in the seller after possession of the goods is delivered to the buyer, shall be valid as to all persons, except as hereinafter otherwise provided." The exceptions here referred to are contained in section 5, which declares that: "Every provision in a conditional sale reserving property in the seller shall be void as to any purchaser from or creditor of the buyer, who, without notice of such provision, purchases the goods or acquires by attachment or levy a lien upon them, before the contract or a copy thereof shall be filed as hereinafter provided, unless such contract or copy is so filed within ten days after the making of the conditional sale." From this recital it will be seen that as no purchaser from or creditor of Jones is questioning the validity of such reservation, as between the bankrupt and Jones, the reservation to the bankrupt of title and property in the truck, was valid, notwithstanding the failure to record the agreement. Second, as to the assignment of the conditional sale agreement: The New Jersey Chattel Mortgage Act (Revision of 1892; 1 Comp. Stat. N. J., p. 463) in section 4, declares: "Every mortgage or conveyance intended to operate as a mortgage of goods and chattels hereafter made, which shall not be accompanied by an immediate delivery, and followed by an actual and continued change of possession of things mortgaged, shall be absolutely void as against the creditors of the mortgagor, and as against subsequent purchasers and mortgagees in good faith, unless the mortgage, having annexed thereto an affidavit or affirmation made and subscribed by the holder of said mortgage, his agent, or attorney, stating the consideration of said mortgage and as nearly as possible the amount due and to grow due thereon, be recorded as directed in the succeeding section of this Act." To constitute a mortgage the right of redemption must exist, and where such right is established the form of the conveyance is not controlling. Wilmerding, Heguet & Co. v. Mitchell, 42 N. J. L. (12 Vr.) 476; Hastings v. Fithian (E. & A.), 71 N. J. L. (42 Vr.) 311. An assignment of a chose in action, even if it be a security for the payment of a debt, is not a chattel mortgage within the meaning of the New Jersey Chattel Mortgage Act. Bleakley v. Nelson, 56 N. J. E. (11 Dick. Ch.) 674. This Act applies only "when the goods mortgaged are capable of such open and visible possession that their holding by a mortgagor, who had given a secret mortgage, might tempt someone to deal with him as the absolute owner." Cumberland National Bank v. Baker, 57 N. J. E. (12 Dick. Ch.) 231, 242. The assignment now under consideration was not given as a security. It was an absolute transfer of the seller's property and interest in the conditional sale agreement and the automobile mentioned therein, without right of redemption. By this assignment The People's Trust became the "legal successor in interest" referred to in section one of the Uniform Conditional Sales Act, supra; and the reservation of property contained in the conditional sale agreement was transferred to it by the assignment. The assigned agreement recited that the automobile had been delivered to the buyer, and the assignment expressly recited that it had been sold to Jones (the buyer); and the assignor at the time of the assignment was not in a position to retain the automobile, or to deliver it to the assignee. What the assignor could deliver to The People's Trust was the conditional sale agreement, and that was done. Had the transfer been to secure a debt, the delivery of the conditional sale agreement would savor more of a pledge than a chattel mortgage, but, as the assignment was absolute and not conditional, it was neither. Such a transaction is not contemplated by the Chattel Mortgage Act, which covers transactions where the title, but not possession, is transferred; but by the Uniform Conditional Sales Act, supra, which operates upon transactions where the possession, but not the title, is transferred. The right of The People's Trust to the automobile is fixed by the assigned conditional sale agreement, and is superior to the rights of the bankrupt or its creditors--here represented by the receiver. As opposed to this view, and in support of the Master's finding, the case of David Straus Co. v. Commercial Delivery Co. (N. J. Ct. Ch.), 113 Atl. 604, affirmed by the Court of Errors and Appeals, 112 Atl. 417, is cited by the receiver. That case, made up of facts which existed before the Uniform Conditional Sales Act went into effect, presents many features similar to the instant case. However, the differences, and not the similarities, are controlling. The pertinent facts were: Coincident with the agreement (called a lease) relating to the delivery and use of the automobile truck, the lessee (driver) entered into a service contract with the lessor (Commercial Delivery Company). In that contract the driver agreed to work the truck under the direction of the lessor for two years, and in no other way than as directed by it, and to deliver to the lessor the entire gross monthly earnings. The contract also provided that out of these moneys the latter was to retain a certain percentage for its services, pay the wages of the drivers, storage charges, repairs, etc., and credit the balance to the driver; and that the truck should at all times be stored in a garage furnished by the lessor. The lessor assigned to the Morris Plan Company all its right, title and interest in the lease and the property therein described, and agreed, "in the event of any resale, release, or repossession of said property," to pay to the assignee any deficiency between the net proceeds of such resale and the amount necessary to pay the unpaid installments. At the time of this assignment the assignee took a note made jointly by the assignor and the driver for the sum advanced by the assignee as consideration for the assignment. Subsequently an equity receiver in insolvency proceedings was appointed for the lessor, and the receiver found it in possession of the truck. The Morris Plan Company petitioned that the truck be delivered to it as the legal owner thereof. The Vice-Chancellor held that the assignor was a debtor of the assignee; that the assignment was not an absolute sale of the truck, but collateral security for the payment of the debt; that while the lease apparently gave the right of possession to the driver (lessee), the actual possession, by reason of the service contract, was always in the lessor; that the assignment of the lease was in legal effect a chattel mortgage; and that not having been recorded it was void as against the receiver and creditors of the assignor. As already stated this finding was affirmed by the Court of Errors and Appeals. In the cited case, as noted, it was held that the possession, as well as the title, of the truck was in the lessor at the time of the assignment of the lease or sale agreement; and that the assignment was not an absolute sale of the agreement, but a security for the payment of the advances made by the assignee for which payment the assignor was jointly liable with the driver. In the instant case, the actual, as well as the right of possession of the truck, was not in the bankrupt, but in a third person--the buyer--and the assignment was an absolute transfer of the bankrupt's property in the conditional sale agreement, without right of redemption. These differences are essential, and distinguish the cases. The fact that the truck was taken from the buyer by the bankrupt subsequent to the latter's assignment of the conditional sale agreement, gave it not property or right in the truck as against its assignee, The First People's Trust. Whatever rights such possession gave it as against the buyer, they were subordinate to the assignee's right of possession on the buyer's default in the terms of the conditional sale agreement then held by the assignee. Such default having taken place, the assignee is entitled to the possession of the truck. The Master's findings are disapproved, and an order will be made giving The First People's Trust the possession of the truck in question. OSBORNE & MARSELLIS CO. v. ESSEX CO. (Essex Co. Circuit Court, Feb. 3, 1922). _Compensation for Road Labor Performed Under County Contract--Ultra Vires Resolution_. Case of The Osborne & Marsellis Company against County of Essex. Messrs. Edwin B. and Philip Goodell for Plaintiff. Mr. Arthur T. Vanderbilt for Defendant. DUNGAN, J.: This is a suit brought by Osborne & Marsellis Company against the County of Essex to recover compensation for labor performed and materials furnished in the improvement of a part of Franklin avenue, a county road in the county of Essex, prior to the allowance of a writ of certiorari to review the legality of the contract under which the work was done, which contract was set aside by the Supreme Court, and the decision of that Court was affirmed by the Court of Errors and Appeals. Chamber of Commerce v. County of Essex, 114 Atl. 426. The case is submitted upon a statement of the case and stipulation of facts for judgment, without pleadings; the parties agreeing that the issues be submitted to this Court for decision, without trial by jury, and that "No appeal will be taken from the judgment entered on his findings." From the agreed statement of fact it appears that there was no irregularity on the part of Osborne & Marsellis in the bid, in the awarding of the contract, or in the execution of the contract, which was approved as to form by the county counsel, and a bond was furnished which was also approved, both in accordance with the resolution of the Board awarding the contract. It also appears that, after the adoption of the resolution awarding the contract, the plaintiff commenced the work and performed work and furnished materials, the value of which, at the unit prices fixed by the contract, amounted to $18,562.80, all of which labor and materials were performed and furnished prior to the allowance of the writ and prior to notice that application would be made for the writ, "except such work as was necessary to leave the unfinished road in condition as required by law." The grounds upon which the contract was set aside appear fully in the case of Chamber of Commerce v. County of Essex, 114 Atl. 426. Two defenses to the plaintiff's claim are urged: First, that the contract was not signed by the director of the Board of Freeholders; and, second, that the resolution constituted an ultra vires act of the Board of Freeholders and that there can be no recovery upon quantum meruit where the act is ultra vires. 1. The resolution of the Board of Freeholders relating to the awarding of the contract, which included other contracts, is as follows: "Resolved that the contracts ... be and the same are _hereby awarded_;" and that "the director and clerk be and they are hereby authorized and directed to execute contracts with said companies pursuant to this resolution," the only conditions being that a proper bond be furnished and that the contract and bond be approved by the county counsel, and both contract and bond were so approved. The contract, therefore, was awarded by the resolution itself, and the formal document, approved by the county counsel, was actually signed by the clerk and the seal of the county affixed thereto by him, and the failure of the director to sign was a failure to perform a purely ministerial act, the performance of which could have been required by proper legal proceedings. Therefore, I hold that the plaintiff is not prevented from recovering on account of the failure of the director to sign the contract. 2. The subject of the contract is one which was entirely within the powers of the Board, and hence it cannot be said that the action of the Board in awarding the contract to the plaintiff was ultra vires in that respect. After the adoption of the resolution awarding the contract, and after the approval of the plaintiff's bond and the form of the contract by the county counsel, and the affixing thereto of the signature of the clerk and the seal of the county, the plaintiff commenced the work contemplated by the contract. Grade stakes were furnished by the County Engineer's department, and the work which was performed was under the supervision and direction of an inspector furnished by that department, and the portion of the road upon which the work was done was completed and left ready for use and is now actually in use by the public. This situation, it seems to me, brings this case within the decision of the Supreme Court in Wentink v. Freeholders of Passaic, 37 Vroom, p. 65, in which it appeared that a contract to do the mason work of a bridge was let to Wentink, which contract the Court subsequently declared void because the firm to whom a contract for the same work had been originally awarded, but which had failed to furnish a bond, had no notice that their bid had been rejected. Wentink expended $600 in attempting to secure materials and in the execution of the contract. The Court held, that even though the county had derived no benefit from such expenditure, Wentink might recover the amount expended. The Court said: "There was no lack of power to make the contract with the plaintiff. The fatal defect was in an irregular exercise of such power. It would be too much to hold every contractor for a public body to a scrutiny at his peril of the corporate proceedings. All that he need look to is the power to make the ostensible contract." On the question of damages the Court said: "In the case in hand the performance of the contract was not prevented by the fault of the defendant, but by _vis major_. The making of the contract was, however, induced by such fault, and on its annulment the defendant should answer, as on a quantum meruit for the work done thereunder," and that, "As to the measure of the quantum meruit for the work done the contract rate should govern." It is admitted that at the contract rate the work which was performed by the plaintiff would have amounted to $18,562.80. Since this case is submitted for judgment without pleadings, and since the statement of the case and the stipulation of facts make no provision for interest, the judgment of the Court will be in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendant for that sum. IN RE ELIZABETH AVENUE ASSESSMENT. (Union Co. Common Pleas, Jan., 1922). _Assessment for Repairing Street--Method Employed--Method Suggested_. In re appeal from assessment for repairing Elizabeth Avenue from Front street to Seventh street, Elizabeth. Mr. Alfred S. Brown, Appellant, in person. Mr. Joseph T. Hague, for City of Elizabeth. PIERCE, J.: This is an appeal from an assessment for repaving with granite blocks that portion of Elizabeth avenue, Elizabeth, extending from a point about 150 feet east of Front street to Seventh street. The error complained of is inequality as compared with other assessments. Appellant is the owner of a triangular lot of land lying between Elizabeth and First avenues, at their intersection at Liberty Square; the lot is bounded northerly 350 feet on Elizabeth avenue, easterly 31 feet on Liberty Square, southerly about 350 feet on First avenue, and westerly 133 feet on abutting property; the lot is vacant except for an old house at the southwest corner fronting on First avenue. The general method of assessment adopted by the Commissioners was as follows: From the whole cost of the improvement, $220,330.56, was deducted $23,127.29, paid by the Public Service Company for repaving its trolley tracks, leaving $197,203.27, of which one-half was assumed by the City and the other half assessed upon abutting property, being at the rate of $8.82 per linear front foot. The Commissioners adopted this linear front-foot rate as the bases of the assessment, and imposed it upon all lots one hundred feet deep; short lots were given concessions assumed by the City, viz., 12-1/2 per cent. off where the lot was 50 feet deep, 18-3/4 per cent. off where the lot was 25 feet deep, and in that proportion. The Commissioners determined that as to all the lots the assessment was less than the value of the lot, and less than the benefit conferred, but gave no consideration as to the relative value of the lots as between themselves. In assessing appellant's triangular lot the following method was adopted: The lot was divided lengthwise by an imaginary line into two equal parts, one fronting on First avenue and the other on Elizabeth avenue. The part on First avenue was not assessed. The part on Elizabeth avenue was assessed at the regular rate of $8.82 for its 350 feet frontage, a total $3,087.00, less three concessions: a concession of 12-1/2 per cent. ($110.25) was allowed on the westerly 100 feet averaging fifty odd feet deep; a concession of 20 per cent. ($441.00) was allowed on the remaining 250 feet averaging thirty odd feet deep; and a concession of 25 per cent. ($68.35) was allowed for the 31 feet fronting on Liberty Square. Total concessions, $619.61, leaving $2,467.40 as the assessment levied. In addition to the concessions the Commissioners made no assessment against the lot for its frontage on Liberty Square. The result reached by the Commissioners was to assess a lot 350 feet in front on Elizabeth avenue, 15-1/2 feet deep at one end and 66-1/2 at the other, nearly four-fifths as much as though the entire frontage had been full lots 100 feet deep. This is unreasonable and I think more than appellant's entire lot should be assessed. I think the Commissioners erred in two respects in their method of assessment: 1. It was improper to divide appellant's lot lengthwise for the purpose of assessment. The lot was already too shallow for the greater part of its frontage for ordinary building purposes, and to divide it further was to leave two narrow strips, one fronting on Elizabeth avenue and the other on First avenue, neither of any sale value, or practical value for any purpose. It was held by the Court of Errors and Appeals in Aldridge v. Essex Road Board (51 N. J. L. 166) that assessors may not divide a lot for the purpose of assessment so that, should a sale result to collect the tax, the property would not bring as much as if sold as part of the original parcel. The rule was followed in Coward v. North Plainfield (63 N. J. L. 61), where, as in the case at bar, an imaginary line was drawn midway between two avenues. 2. I think the Commissioners erred also in disregarding the relative benefit received by lots along the line of the improvement resulting from location and value of the property. The assessment was strictly a front-foot assessment with concessions for short lots, but disregarding the element of location and relative value. The 4th Ward assessment roll received in evidence shows substantial variations in the value of properties on Elizabeth avenue, and inspection of the line of improvement about a mile in length shows greater traffic and better building and values toward Seventh street than opposite and below appellant's lot. The intersection of Elizabeth avenue and High street, a few feet West of Seventh street, is a business center for that part of the City, and values and traffic are materially greater in that vicinity than below Third street. It is manifest that business houses dependent upon traffic for their business are more benefited by a paving improvement than vacant lots at a distance where there is less traffic. It is well settled in New York that the relative value of lots and the buildings upon them must be considered in determining the benefits accruing from a paving improvement (Donavan v. Oswego, 39 Misc. 291, and cases therein cited); and in State v. Rahway (39 N. J. L. 646; affirmed by the Court of Errors and Appeals in 11 Vr. 615) a greater assessment upon lots nearer a business center was approved in a grading, curbing and guttering improvement. The statute provides that "all assessments ... levied for any local improvement shall in each case be as near as may be in proportion to the peculiar benefit, advantage or increase in value which the respective lots and parcels of land and real estate shall be deemed to receive by reason of the improvement." Under the circumstances existing in the case at bar, there being, as I find, a difference in benefit along the line of the improvement resulting from location and value, these elements should have been considered by the Commission and such weight given them as in the judgment of the Commissioners they should receive. In reassessing appellant's lot I suggest a different ratio of concessions for short lots. The concessions adopted by the Commissioners are one-half the concessions allowed by the Newark, or Hoffman rule, in valuing short lots in regular assessments. As evidenced by the result reached in the assessment appealed from, the concessions are inadequate, and I see no reason why the full concessions established by the Newark rule should not be adopted. It is not easy to formulate a rule that will do justice in all cases in assessing irregular shaped lots, but I think a fair result would be reached in the case at bar by deducting from the frontage assessment of $3,087.00 a concession of 25% ($771.00) for the frontage and probable future paving assessment on First avenue; a further concession at the rates given by the Newark Rule for that portion of the lot under 100 feet in depth (20%--$441.00), less the added value under the same rule for that portion over 100 feet in length (7%--$61.74) net $379.26; total net $1,936.74; less such further concession for less than average benefit received by appellant's lot as in the judgment of the Commissioners should be allowed by reason of inferior location, value and improvements. As appellant's lot is not assessed for paving Liberty Square, no concession should be made for frontage on Liberty Square. For the reasons given, the assessment appealed from should be set aside as to appellant's lot. * * * * * Inexcusable delay in presenting a check for payment is held to discharge an indorser from liability thereon if the check is not paid, whether he is in fact injured or not, in the West Virginia case of Nuzum v. Sheppard, 104 S. E. 587, annotated in 11 A.L.R. 1024. STATE v. GRUICH. (Essex Quarter Sessions, Dec. 27, 1921). _Criminal Abortion--New Trial--Postponing Sentence Days_. Case of The State against Anne Gruich. On application for new trial. Mr. Frank Bradner for Petitioner. Mr. John A. Bernhard, Assistant Prosecutor of the Pleas, for State of New Jersey. STICKEL, Jr., J.: Anna Gruich was tried before this Court, Judge Harry V. Osborne presiding, and, on February 21, 1919, convicted of abortion. The minutes of the Court at the foot of the entry of the verdict of the jury contain the words, "Sentence postponed." On the 23rd day of May, 1919, the said defendant was convicted by a jury on a second charge of abortion and, on June 5, 1919, sentence of both convictions was imposed by Judge Osborne, the sentences running concurrently. The conviction on the second charge of abortion having been reversed by the Court of Errors and Appeals at a recent term of that Court and a new trial ordered, application is now made to this Court to grant a new trial on the charge of abortion of which the defendant was convicted on February 21st, 1919. [Here two broad grounds are urged as warranting such action, the first ground involving a question of fact; that part of the opinion is not published. The second ground is that the Court, having postponed sentence thereafter to in a new term of the Court and without having noted in the minutes continuances of the day of sentence, imposed sentence upon the defendant, the contention being the Court then had no jurisdiction to impose any sentence. The opinion continues.--EDITOR]. And I am equally clear that there is no merit in her contention that the Court had no jurisdiction to sentence in the April Term upon a conviction had in the December Term. The theory of the defendant seems to be that, because the minutes do not show that the time for sentence was fixed and then postponed from time to time until the sentence was actually imposed, therefore, no sentence day was, in fact, fixed, no continuance had, and, when the December Term expired, the power of the Court to fix a sentence day or impose a sentence ended. The sentence file of this Court will show that the assumption of counsel is unwarranted, and that a day for sentence was fixed and regular adjournments of that sentence had from time to time until the day upon which sentence was imposed. But, even though we assume that no sentence day was fixed and no continuance in fact taken, the position of counsel in my judgment is unsound. This case is controlled by the principles laid down in the opinion in Gehrmann v. Osborn, 79 N. J. Eq. 430; 82 Atl. Rep. 424, and by the decision in that case, and even though, as counsel for the defendant suggests, I may not be bound by the decision in that case, the reasoning, the logic and learning thereof is such that I am wholly content to be governed thereby in determining this case, and convinced that the decision in that case represents the law of this State. There, as in this case, sentence was postponed, and, although more than two years elapsed before the defendant was actually sentenced, and, although the original postponement was the practical equivalent of an indefinite postponement of sentence, the Court upheld a sentence to State Prison. Here the sentence was imposed but a few months after conviction, and the postponement was not the equivalent of an indefinite postponement. And, like in the present case, there were no continuances of the sentence recorded in the minutes. "The conclusion which I have, therefore, reached," says Vice-Chancellor Garrison, "in the Gehrmann case, is that in the State of New Jersey, if a defendant has pleaded nolle contendere, or guilty, or has been convicted upon trial, the Court has the power, if the defendant does not object thereto, and therefore is assumed to assent thereto, to refrain from pronouncing a judgment or sentence, and may, at a subsequent time, hale the defendant before it, and impose the punishment in the same manner that it would have been justified in pronouncing upon the very day when the case was ripe for sentence." It will be observed from the opinion that the duty rests upon the defendant to object to an indefinite postponement of sentence; that his failure so to do creates a presumption that he assented thereto, and that his assent or acquiescence to such postponement disenables him to complain when thereafter the Court imposes sentence, whether within or without the term in which the conviction is had or plea taken. Here not only is there no proof of an objection, but on page 23 of the testimony it appears that the defendant at least acquiesced in the postponement from time to time of the sentence. Moreover, just as the research of the learned Vice-Chancellor convinced him that an indefinite suspension of sentence has been the custom in our State beyond the memory of those then connected with the administration or practice of criminal law in this State, so, from my own experience as a practitioner in and Judge of this Court do I know that for years it has been the practice to sentence on a given Monday after conviction; to sentence periodically all persons convicted or who have pleaded; to enter in the minutes "Sentence postponed" in bail cases and prisoners "Remanded for sentence" in jail cases and to advise defendant for counsel, or both, in open Court of the regular sentence day; for the clerk to make up a sentence list for said day; for the Court to use such list in sentencing; for the Court to postpone to another day sentences set down upon such sentence day when it so determined, the clerk noting the postponement and placing the case on the new sentence list of the Judge, and for the clerk to take the various sentence lists and file them as a part of the records of this Court. This practice I find was followed in this case and probably accounts for the repeated attendance of the defendant at the courthouse for sentence. The defendant was convicted on February 21st and the first sentence day of Judge Osborne thereafter was February 24th, 1919. The defendant's name appears upon this list for sentence and a notation is made that the sentence was postponed to March 10th; the sentence list of March 10th shows a postponement to March 24th; that of March 24th a postponement to April 14th; that of April 14th a postponement to May 5th; that of May 5th a postponement to May 26th; that of May 26th to June 5th, and on June 5th sentence was imposed. If there is any question about this and the case is to be appealed, I would suggest that the Prosecutor submit as part of the record on this rule evidence of the practice of this Court in sentencing, together with the sentence lists of Judge Osborne covering the period in question. The rule obtained in this case is discharged and the application of the defendant for a new trial denied. IN RE WILL OF MARION. (Essex Co. Orphans' Court, Jan. 12, 1922). _Probate of Will--Signing Will "for Sake of Peace"--Burden of Undue Influence--Facts Considered_. In the matter of the probate of a certain paper writing purporting to be the last will and testament of Elizabeth Marion, deceased. On caveat. Mr. Edwin B. Goodell and Mr. Philip Goodell for Proponent. Mr. Paul M. Fischer for Caveator. STICKEL, Jr., J: I was satisfied at the conclusion of the hearings in this matter that the paper writing purporting to be the will of the decedent had been properly executed, and I was also satisfied that she was capable of making a will; in other words, that she had testamentary capacity; but I had some doubt whether the decedent had not consented to the making of the document in question and signed the same for the sake of peace. Being thus in doubt I asked counsel to submit briefs on that point alone, and counsel for the proponent have submitted a brief. Counsel for the caveator has not submitted a brief, and, as I understand it, does not intend to submit one. The decedent was a woman between fifty and sixty years old. She had several children, two or three sons and two daughters, as I recall it, and one of the daughters, Mrs. Appleton, resided, together with her three children, with the decedent, and had done so for sometime prior to the execution of the document in question. The decedent and her husband had lived apart for some years, and the whereabouts of the husband of Mrs. Appleton were unknown, so that both the decedent and the daughter daily went out to work. The decedent had never made a will. She was not on unfriendly relations with her children, although there is some suggestion that she disagreed with all of them at different times. So far as the testimony shows, she had not indicated definitely to anyone at any time prior to the making of the document in question what she intended to do with her estate. She executed the papers purporting to be her will between five and six o'clock, P. M., on the 21st day of December, 1920. She died about one A. M., the succeeding day. She received the last rites at eleven o'clock in the morning of the day she made the will. At three o'clock in the afternoon, two or three hours before she made her will, she inquired of her daughter where certain insurance papers were, and, being told that they were in possession of the daughter and that the insurance had been paid, she seemed relieved and said she did not want any trouble over her affairs. The daughter then asked her whether she had a will and received a reply in the negative. The daughter, Mrs. Appleton, followed this with an inquiry whether the decedent wanted to have things fixed up, and the decedent did not answer her. The daughter, nevertheless, thinking, as she said, that the employer and friend of her mother, Mrs. Hill, had a will, called up Mrs. Hill and, apparently, either told Mrs. Hill that the decedent wanted a lawyer to make a will, or that she had no will and was dying, for, in any event, Mrs. Hill, shortly after the telephone call, came to the decedent's house with Mr. Edwin B. Goodell, a lawyer of Montclair, to prepare a will for the decedent. The decedent was not asked whether she wanted to make a will prior to this time, and did not in anyway, so far as the testimony shows, request the attendance of Mr. Goodell or anyone else to make a will. When Mr. Goodell acquainted the decedent with the reason for his attendance, she said she did not want to make a will "tonight," or words to that effect; indicating, as Mr. Goodell put it, that she would prefer not to make a will that night. At that time there were in the room with the decedent, who was in bed, very sick, a Mrs. Fischer, Mrs. Wickham, who was holding her up or propping her up in bed, Mrs. Appleton, the daughter, Mrs. Hill and Mr. Goodell. In an adjoining room was a son of the decedent with his child or children. Someone of the persons in the room--the testimony does not agree as to who it was, and it may be that it was more than one--urged and encouraged the decedent to make a will after her remark that she did not want to make one that night. Mr. Goodell says he did not, although he felt that the decedent wanted to make a will, and that if she did not make it that night she would never make it, because he thought she would die before morning. In any event, a short time after she said that she did not want to make a will that night, Mr. Goodell inquired of her what she wanted to do with her property, and someone in the room, he thinks it was Mrs. Wickham--but Mrs. Wickham says it was not, although all seem to agree that it was not Mrs. Appleton--suggested that she wanted to leave her house, the one in which she was then living with her daughter and grandchildren, to the three grandchildren. The decedent assented to this. But Mr. Goodell took the precaution to ask her directly whether she wanted her house to go that way and reminded her it would tie up the sale of the property, because the children were minors. The decedent, in replying to this, said that was what she wanted to do; she wanted it so that it could not be "spent." Mrs. Hill and Mr. Goodell agree as to this testimony, and Mrs. Wickham, the only other person in the room, who was interrogated on this point, said that she had no recollection one way or the other. Then Mr. Goodell inquired of the decedent what she wanted to do with the residue of her estate, and again someone volunteered that she wanted it to go equally among her children. Whereupon Mr. Goodell, having interrogated the decedent, she replied that she wanted the residue to go in that way. Mr. Goodell's recollection is that the decedent nominated the executor, herself, although he said it is possible that someone else in the room suggested it and that the decedent assented thereto. Thereupon, the will having been read, paragraph by paragraph, the decedent and the witnesses duly executed it. The burden of proving undue influence, of course, rests upon the person or persons charging undue influence, and, as was said in the case of Schuchhart v. Schuchhart, in the fourth syllabi, 62 Eq. 710, 49 Atl. 485: "When undue influence is claimed to be established by inference from certain facts proved, and, upon all the facts proved, an equally justifiable inference may be drawn that the will executed was what testator would have made under the circumstances, the burden on contestants is not supported." See also In re Richter's Will, 89 N. J. Eq. 162. The inference which the contestants would have the Court draw from the facts is that the decedent intended to die intestate, so that her property would go to her children equally, and that her objection to making a will that night indicated her desire to die intestate, for she knew that her end was near and believed that if the making of the will were put off until the next day she would be dead and dead intestate. This is an inference which may be drawn from the facts, but an equally justifiable inference is that the decedent had the all-too-common disinclination to draw a will; that she sought to shirk the responsibility of deciding what disposition to make of her property, to avoid making and executing a will; that when brought face to face with her responsibility she yielded to the advice and suggestions of her friends, and, although originally preferring not to make the will, determined to discharge her responsibility and make the will. In no other way can the statement of the decedent that she wanted to tie up the house, so the children could not spend it, be reconciled. That remark indicated that the decedent had aroused herself to the task of making her will, had overcome her disinclination, determined to perform the duty of making a will and had considered the question of the disposition of her property. It is true that others made the suggestion as to what the decedent wanted to do with the property, and I am inclined to think that everyone in the room knew from talking with the decedent that she wanted to leave her property as she actually did leave it, although there is no direct testimony on this point, but the remark about preventing the children from spending the property was the product of the decedent's own mind; she initiated the remark, and thereby revealed her state of mind, both as to the matter of making a will at all and as to how she wanted her property to go. And it is not strange that she wanted the property to go in this way, for she knew it was her grandchildren's home (and we all know the wonderful love that grandparents have for grandchildren); she knew that they could not depend upon a father for support and upbringing and that their mother was the breadearner. Her own children were grown up, married, most of them, and so far as the record shows not to need of assistance. That the devise of the house to the grandchildren is a natural, normal one, is emphasized by her disposition of the residue of her estate, for, having taken care of her grandchildren, assured them of a home during their minority at least, she proceeded to give to her children everything else that she had; and I am inclined to think she believed that the residue of the estate would be much larger than it actually is; that the return she would get from the estate of Timothy Arnold would be larger than it actually was. It is undoubtedly true that, except for the presence of the lawyer, which was brought about by Mrs. Hill and Mrs. Appleton, and except for the advice and encouragement to make a will and at once by those in the room to the decedent, she would have died without a will. But, instead of the presence of the lawyer and the said advice and encouragement dominating the deceased and destroying her free agency, it seems only to have served to arouse in her the necessity for making a will, if she would protect her grandchildren, to re-awaken and revive her apparently dormant and pre-existing desire to provide a home for her grandchildren, to do this and to give her the opportunity to carry out such desire or intention, which opportunity she seized and made the best of, for how else can her response to Mr. Goodell, that she wanted to tie up the house so that it could not be "spent," "That is what I want to do," be accounted for? Certainly acts which produce such a result cannot be said to be acts of undue influence. Stewart v. Jordon, 50 N. J. Eq. 733-741. And it is well settled that it is not the exercise of undue influence to advise, encourage, or urge the making of a will. In re Barber's Will, 49 Atl. 826; In the matter of Seagrist, 1 N. Y. App. Div. 615; 37 N. Y. Supp. 496; Aff. 153 N. Y. 682; 43 N. E. 1107. Mr. Goodell, who drew the will, is a reputable and careful lawyer, and I feel sure that he would not have prepared this will or permitted the decedent to execute it except he felt it represented her real wishes. Nor do I think he would have permitted her to have executed this document if he for one moment conceived that she was making it for the sake of peace or to be rid of her visitors. That fact must also be considered in determining the question in hand. It seems to me, therefore, that the more probable inference to be drawn from the facts in this case is one which requires the upholding of the document as the will of the decedent and that the contestants have not sustained the burden of proving undue influence. The paper writing purporting to be the will of Elizabeth Marion is consequently admitted to probate. WOMEN JURORS. Does the right of suffrage entitle women to serve as jurors? This question has been answered in the affirmative in Michigan, where it was held, in People v. Barltz, 180 N. W. 423, 12 A.L.R. 520, that a constitutional declaration that every inhabitant of the State, being a citizen, shall be an elector and entitled to vote, makes women electors within the meaning of a statute requiring jurors to be drawn from the electors, and they are therefore entitled to perform jury duty. This decision seems to stand alone. A contrary conclusion was reached in Re Grilli, 110 Misc. 45, 179 N. Y. Supp. 795, affirmed on opinion below in 192 App. Div. 885, 181 N. Y. Supp. 938, which involved the right of an enfranchised woman to compel the board of assessors and the commissioner of jurors to complete the county jury lists by including therein the qualified women voters of the county. The Court said: "The only claim made by the petitioner in connection with her application is that jury service is incidental to and a part of suffrage, and since, by the recent amendment of the State Constitution, women are qualified to vote, they must be made jurors. The fallacy of this contention is found in an examination of the history of the jury system since the adoption of the first Constitution in the State of New York. While citizenship has always been a qualification of jury service, every voter has not been included within the jury lists. The various laws with reference to jurors show that men who were entitled to vote have been excluded from jury service." In Illinois, the fact that women are legal voters for the election of statutory officers, and certain other purposes, is held not to make them eligible for jury service in criminal cases, in People v. Krause, 196 Ill. App. 140, and People v. Goehringer, 196 Ill. App. 475. In Virginia, according to 6 Va. L. Reg. N. S. 780, Judge Gardner, in instructing jury commissioners, distinguished between the right to vote and the duty to render jury service, by stating that the former is a constitutional right conferred, while the latter is a legislative duty imposed. He concluded that women cannot lawfully serve as jurors under the Virginia statute, which limits that duty to "male citizens over twenty-one years of age," until the legislature so modifies the statute as to make it applicable to "all male and female citizens twenty-one years old." The Court, in the Wyoming case of McKinney v. State, 3 Wyo. 719, 30 Pac. 293, 16 L.R.A. 710, seems to have been of the opinion that a constitutional provision that "the rights of citizens of the state of Wyoming to vote and to hold office shall not be abridged or denied on account of sex," and that "both male and female citizens of this State shall equally enjoy all civil, political, and religious rights and privileges," did not require that women voters be allowed to serve as jurors. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, in Re Opinion of Justices, 130 N. E. 685, answered questions submitted by the House of Representatives by holding that, under the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of Massachusetts, women are not liable to jury duty. The State statute subjects to jury service persons "qualified to vote for representatives to the General Court." These words, while broad enough to include women, are held not to do so, when interpreted in connection with the history of the times and the entire system of which the statute forms a part. It was determined, however, that the General Court had constitutional power to enact legislation making women liable to jury duty.--_Case and Comment_. MISCELLANY NEW CHANCERY RULE. The Chancery Rules have been supplemented by the addition of a new rule numbered 165a, promulgated January 6, 1922, as follows: 165a. All pleadings, proofs and other papers presented to, and all orders and decrees signed by the Chancellor or a Vice-Chancellor or Advisory Master at the State House in Trenton, shall be forthwith filed with the clerk; and all such which shall be so presented and signed at chambers or elsewhere shall be marked filed by the Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor or Advisory Master (which need only be over the initials of his name and office, and may be done by his official stenographer or sergeant-at-arms at his direction), and all such papers shall be retained by the Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor or Advisory Master and delivered or forwarded by him, or at his direction, to the clerk with all convenient speed. SUPPLEMENTARY PROCEEDINGS. Attention has been called to the Bar of Bergen county by Mr. Justice Parker to a laxity of practice in relation to supplementary proceedings in cases of judgment and execution, and, as the matter should interest the Bar of the State generally we give, herewith, what has been spread before the Bergen attorneys: "1. Originally an attorney or agent could not make the affidavit. Westfall v. Dunning, 50 N. J. L. 459. This was changed by statute. P. L. 1890, p. 185. But it should appear as one of the direct statements in the affidavit that the attorney is the attorney, i. e., "J. S., being duly sworn, says that he is the attorney herein for A. B. the plaintiff," and not merely, "J. S., attorney for the plaintiff, being duly sworn," which is a mere appositive and not a definite statement. "2. Such affidavits frequently say: "that he has read the foregoing petition, and that the statements thereof so far as they relate to his own acts are true, and so far as they relate to the acts of others he believes them to be true." This, it would seem, is not a compliance with Section 24 of the Executions Act. Such an affidavit in Chancery was considered in Barr v. Voorhees, 55 Eq. 561, and held sufficient for an order for discovery, but not for an injunctive order. But it is to be noted that this was under Section 90 of the Chancery Act of 1875 (Rev. 121; G. S. 1895, p. 389) which reads "that he believes the contents thereof are true," whereas, Section 24 of the Executions Act requires the creditor or his agent to verify the petition, in which he shall state the amount due on the execution, the return by the officer, _and his belief_ that the creditor has assets, etc. The belief is, therefore, restricted to the debtor's assets and does not apply to the recovery of the judgment or the issue or return of execution. As to these facts, the late Chief Justice Depue said he doubted the sufficiency (at law) of such an allegation. 10 N. J. L. J. 223-4; Frankel v. Miner, 10 N. J. L. J. 341. "There is no difficulty about an attorney deposing from personal knowledge that a judgment was entered, and execution issued and returned, as these things are matters of record; and as Chief Justice Beasley said in Westfall v. Dunning, 50 N. J. L. 461 already cited: "It is obvious that such a statement could be safely made by anyone who was possessed of the loosest information," etc. He was there speaking of verifying the belief of the _creditor_; under the present act the belief of the attorney may do as well, but the criticism seems applicable to the other allegations also. "The printed forms in Jeffery and on some of the law blanks are open to criticism in the above respects, and debtors should not be hauled before Commissioners for examination unless the statute is complied with." ACCIDENT TO MRS. EMERY. Mrs. John R. Emery, widow of the late Vice-Chancellor Emery, while traveling with friends in Algiers, met with an automobile accident about Feb. 12th. The automobile turned over on the edge of a mine shaft, and it is stated she sustained a fracture of both arms. She went abroad Oct. 8th. DEATH OF NEWARK'S MAYOR. Mayor Alexander Archibald, of Newark, died on Feb. 11th, after an operation for a pressure on the brain nerves. He is said to have been the first Mayor of Newark to die while in office. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, December 13, 1869; was three years of age when his parents came to America. He was a silverware manufacturer in Newark. He was elected to the Council of Newark in 1910; became City Clerk in 1914, and in 1917 was elected City Commissioner and became Mayor. He was a Democrat and was talked of as a candidate for Governor. His funeral was large and observed generally throughout the city. HUMOR OF THE LAW. A Memphis lawyer entered his condemned client's cell: "Well," he said, "good news at last!" "A reprieve?" exclaimed the prisoner eagerly. "No, but your uncle has died leaving you $5,000 and you can go to your fate with the satisfying feeling that the noble efforts of your lawyer in your behalf will not go unrewarded." GOVERNOR'S APPOINTMENTS. Adam O. Robbins, of Flemington, Common Pleas Judge of Hunterdon county in place of George K. Large. Henry E. Newman, of Lakewood, Common Pleas Judge of Ocean county in place of William H. Jeffrey. Marshall Miller, of Bloomsbury, Prosecutor of the Pleas for Hunterdon county in place of Harry J. Able. Wilfred H. Jayne, Jr., Prosecutor of the Pleas for Ocean county in place of Richard C. Plumer. Mahlon Margerum, member of the State Board of Taxes and Assessment. J. Harry Foley, Secretary to Governor Edwards, State Superintendent of Weights and Measures. Joseph A. Delaney, of Paterson, Common Pleas Judge in place of William W. Watson. Joseph F. Autenreith, of Jersey City, in place of President John J. Treacy, resigned, on Public Utilities Commission. Austin H. Swackhamer, of Woodbury, Judge of Gloucester Common Pleas, in place of Francis B. Davis. BOOK RECEIVED. THE NATURE OF THE JUDICIAL PROCESS. By Benjamin N. Cardozo, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1821. This book is especially welcome just now, after reading Judge Cardozo's article in the December number of the "Harvard Law Review," entitled "A Ministry of Justice," which shows that his study of the nature of the judicial process has led him to seek for practical means to correct the errors that have crept into the law in the application of legal principles. This article in the "Harvard Law Review" is in itself the result of his study during his long experience on the Bench of the problem he deals with in these lectures on the nature of the judicial process. The book consists of four lectures delivered in the William L. Storrs' lecture series in the Law School of Yale University, 1921. The titles of the lectures suggest the scope of his inquiry. They include: The Method of Philosophy; The Methods of History, Tradition and Sociology; the Judge as a Legislator; Adherence to Precedent; The Subconscious Element in the Judicial Process. "Any Judge," he says, "one might suppose, would find it easy to describe the process which he had followed a thousand times and more. Nothing could be farther from the truth." In telling of the study of precedents in arriving at the rule of law to be applied to the decision of cases, he takes up, first, in the introduction, the method of philosophy and inquiries, in what proportions different sources of information shall be allowed to contribute to the result. If a precedent is applicable, when shall he refuse to follow it, and if no precedent is applicable, how does he reach the rule that will make a precedent for the future? "If," he says, "I am seeking logical consistency, the symmetry of the legal structure, how far shall I seek it? At what point shall the quest be halted by some discrepant custom, by some consideration of the social welfare; by my own or the common standards of justice or morals?" And again, he says: "The first thing he does is to compare the case before him with the precedents, whether stored in his mind or hidden in the books. I do not mean that the precedents are ultimate sources of the law, supplying the sole equipment for the legal armory, the sole tools, to borrow Maitland's phrase, 'in the legal smithy.' Back of precedents are the basic juridical conceptions which are the postulates of judicial reasoning, and farther back are the habits of life, the institutions of society, in which those conceptions had their origin, and which, by a process of interaction, they have modified in turn." In the lecture on the methods of History, Tradition and Sociology, he shows how the method of Philosophy comes in competition with other tendencies which find their outlets in other methods. The tendency of a principle to expand itself to the limit of its logic may be counteracted by the tendency to confine itself within the limits of its history. "Very often," he says, quoting Justice Holmes, "the effect of history is to make the path of logic clear. History, in illuminating the past, illuminates the present, illuminates the future." The law of real property supplies the readiest example of a field where there can be no progress without history, and where "a page of history," to quote Holmes again, "is worth a volume of logic." He refers to leading examples of cases in which history has moulded the rules established by precedents and customs, and how the Law Merchant has not been moulded into a code, but has been expanded and enlarged to meet the wants of trade, and how the course of dealing to be followed is defined by the customs, or, more properly speaking, the usages of a particular trade, or market, or profession, and the natural and spontaneous evolutions of habit fix the limitation of right and wrong. The law of real estate is taken merely as an example. Maitland, Holmes, Pollock and Pound, and many others, have pointed out the historical origins and development in the forms of action, the law of pleading, the law of contract, and the law of torts. The historic influences are strong in some departments of the law, and in others larger and fundamental conceptions tend to control the judicial mind, and there is a tendency to harmony of the law of different countries. From History and Philosophy and custom he passes to the power of Social Justice, which he says is the force that in our day is becoming the greatest of the directive forces of the law. It is by the way of history and tradition that he comes to the method of Sociology. It is by the common law method of applying old principles to new conditions that Courts have been able to preserve the continuity of the law in changing conditions. Among the leading cases cited is the Bakeries case, Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, wherein Judge Cardozo suggested that in this decision the dissenting opinion of Justice Holmes was the beginning of a new point of view in the dealing with the social welfare, which, he said, has since written itself into law. Justice Holmes made the remark, "The Fourteenth Amendment does not enact Herbert Spencer's Social Status," and Judge Cardozo cites later cases in the Supreme Court to the effect that "A constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism ... or of _laissez faire_." It was by careful research of the effect of long hours of work for women that the change of opinion was brought about. There is a short and very interesting lecture on precedents that are of doubtful value questioning what ought to be done with them. He quotes President Roosevelt's message to Congress, December 8, 1908, in which he says: "The chief lawmakers in our country may be, and often are, the Judges, because they are the final seal of authority.... The decisions of the Courts on economic and social questions depend upon their economic and social philosophy; and, for the peaceful progress of our people during the Twentieth century, we shall owe most to those Judges who hold a Twentieth century economic and social philosophy and not a long and out-grown philosophy which was itself the product of primitive economic conditions." This aroused at the time, he says, a storm of criticism and betrayed ignorance of the nature of the judicial process, but the author said he had no quarrel with the doctrine that Judges ought to be in sympathy with the spirit of their times. Yet this does carry us very far upon our road to the truth. The spirit of the age, as it is revealed to each of us, is only too often only the spirit of the group in which the accidents of birth, or education, or fellowship have given us a place. No effort or revolution of mind will overthrow utterly and at all times the empire of these unconscious loyalties. The relation of the law to the economic and social progress is of great importance at this time, and it is well for us to have the help of this thoughtful and suggestive discussion by an experienced and conscientious Judge. E. Q. K. OBITUARIES. MR. THOMAS W. RANDALL. Mr. Thomas William Randall, long prominent as a lawyer in Paterson, died at his residence at Upper Preakness, a few miles from that city, on Feb. 9, 1922, after a long illness. Up until a few days of his death he expected to live at least through the coming Summer, but the final end came with little warning. Mr. Randall was born at Slough, in Buckinghamshire, England, about twenty miles from London, near the historic Windsor Castle and famous Stoke Pogis church, on June 24, 1853, and is a descendant of some of the most substantial and oldest families in that locality. He arrived in the United States, with his parents, on June 8, 1866, sailing from London, and resided first in Franklin township, Bergen county, and later at Hawthorne, in Passaic county, until he entered upon the study of his profession. He first studied law in the office of Judge Hopper, in Paterson, and afterwards with Messrs. Pennington & DeWitt, of Newark, and also attended the Columbia Law School in New York. He was admitted to the New Jersey Bar at the June Term of the Supreme Court in 1877, and, after spending some time abroad, came to Paterson and entered upon the practice of law, in which he was actively engaged ever after until his last illness. He became a counselor at the February Term, 1889. Mr. Randall took no active part in politics, and never held a political office; he had no liking for mere partisanship. His practice was large in the Orphans' Court and in Chancery proceedings, as he settled many estates. He was a Special Master of the Court of Chancery and as such many matters of reference were heard by him, and always with promptness and efficiency. He was also a Supreme Court Commissioner. He was counsel for many of the old Passaic families and for various corporations. In the great Paterson fire he lost every thing in his office except what was in his safe. He was an extensive reader of good books and had an excellent memory, a refined taste and the best of habits. He had none of the common vices of the day. For many years Mr. Randall was a member of the Second Presbyterian Church. He served there on the Board of Trustees and was also a member of the Session. Mr. Randall served the Second Church in a legal capacity without cost to the congregation and was always glad to give legal advice to the poor in need of it. He also served for many years on the Board of Trustees of the New Jersey Presbytery and was known by every clergyman in that Presbyterian body. He was seldom absent at a stated meeting. Mr. Randall was also the recognized friend of the Young Men's Christian Association and his services in legal transactions were also at the disposal of the Board of Managers. He was counsel for the Young Women's Christian Association and served as a member of the Investment Committee, with other prominent men of the city. When in 1886 the people of the People's Park District appealed to the late Dr. Charles D. Shaw and the elders of the Second Presbyterian Church for the establishment of a Sunday School in that district of the city, Mr. Randall was one of the most interested members of the Session in the movement to that end. Through the aid extended on behalf of the plan the Sunday School was opened a few weeks after the request was considered, and Mr. Randall became the superintendent. He frequently referred to that service as one of the happy experiences of his life. Later the school movement grew into the establishment of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, now one of the most thriving congregations in the city, under the pastorate of the Rev. Franklin J. Miller. Mr. Randall frequently visited the People's Park church and school to note the progress of the work he had a prominent part in starting. He was also interested in the St. Augustine Presbyterian Church, and in establishing headquarters for the colored men on Governor street. Mr. Randall was a Christian citizen and was concerned in the welfare of Paterson. He was a member of the Passaic County Bar Association, a director of the Paterson Building and Loan Association, and was identified with the old Board of Trade. When the centennial celebration of Paterson was held in 1892 he was one of the hundred prominent men of the city selected to plan for that big event. For several years before his death Mr. Randall was a member of the Church of the Redeemer. Mr. Randall was specially fond of his native England, and made various journeys to that county. The Editor of this Journal has special cause to know of his interest in travel and fine qualities as a traveler, having been in his company abroad in 1898, 1903, 1907 and 1910, in some of which occasions he extended his trip to France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany and Holland; also to Ireland and Scotland. In 1910 he saw the Passion Play. He was also a frequent visitor to Lake Mohonk. From its beginning he was a patron and valued friend of this Journal, frequently sending to it copies of legal articles from English newspapers and occasionally contributing to its pages. The article we shall publish in our next issue, entitled "A Letter to Portia," was received from him only a few days before his death, as were some notes concerning the death of his friend, Mr. Robert Hopper, also of the Paterson Bar. In 1879 Mr. Randall married Miss Jennie S. Perry, a well known and highly esteemed teacher in the Paterson Public Schools, and at one time principal of School Number Two. Mrs. Randall died in 1912. There survives one son, Edmund Brown Randall, who is now the Judge of the Paterson District Court. A brother of Thomas W., Mr. Richard Randall, also a member of the Paterson Bar, died Oct. 16, 1913. COL. E. LIVINGSTON PRICE. Colonel Edward Livingston Price, for 56 years past a member of the Essex County Bar, died at his home, 112 Bruen street, Newark, on February 4, from a heart attack, after an illness of about one year. Colonel Price was born in New York City Dec. 20, 1844, being a brother to former Governor Rodman M. Price, and a son of Francis and Maria Louisa (Hart) Price of New York City. He received his education at Dr. Cattell's Edgehill School, Princeton; Dr. Woodhull's School, Freehold, and Dr. John F. Pingry's School, then in Newark and now in Elizabeth. He would have gone to college had it not been for the outbreak of the Civil War. He entered the Union Army in April, 1861, when he was sixteen, as Second Lieutenant of Company E, 74th Regiment, New York Volunteers, having been unable to get a commission in New Jersey. Shortly afterward he was promoted to First Lieutenant. In this capacity he served from July, 1861, to April, 1862, when Major General Hooker placed him on his personal staff as Ordinance officer of the Third Army Corps, "Hooker's Division." As Ordinance officer he served at the siege of Yorktown, Va., and during the whole of the peninsular campaign. In August, 1862, he became Major of his old Regiment, the 74th New York, which he commanded through Pope's campaign in Virginia, in the battles of Bristow Station, Second Manassas and Chantilly. His promotion to the Colonelcy of the 145th New York Volunteers took place on February 18, 1863. He served with this Regiment until January, 1864, taking part in the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. At the end of the War he studied law with the late U. S. Justice Joseph Bradley, and was admitted as a New Jersey attorney at the June Term, 1866, but did not become counselor until February, 1879. He also became admitted to the various United States Courts. He became, in Newark, an active lawyer not only but a strong political speaker and manager, and was long chairman of the Essex County Democratic Committee and, for a time, of the State Democratic Committee. His ability as an organizer and his forcefulness as a speaker made him a powerful factor in moulding sentiment in party conventions. His tall figure and military bearing added their effect. In the latter years of his political activity he was familiarly referred to as the "Old War Horse of the Democracy." As a lawyer he ranked high in municipal practice. He was counsel for the city of Newark and various outlying townships and for many of the Boards in Newark. In 1865, before he became of age, he accepted a nomination for Assembly from Essex county and was sworn into office just after he rounded his twenty-first year. He was re-elected in 1867. As a legislator he applied his active intelligence to a study of the needs of his constituents and of the State in general and was the author of many laws now on the statute books. In later life Colonel Price bought a farm near Branchville, Sussex county, and spent much of his time there. On June 1, 1864, Colonel Price married Emma, daughter of William and Mary Ann Marriott of Newark. On April 27, 1887, he was married again, the second wife being Frederica Theresa, daughter of Edward C. and Eva Elizabeth Eberhardt of Newark. His surviving children are a son, Frank M. Price, who lives at the Price home, and two daughters, Mrs. Frances Maria Josephine Spear, wife of Edwin M. Spear of Trenton, and Mrs. Marion White, a widow, also of Trenton. Edward Livingston Price, the eldest son, died three years ago. The eldest daughter, Marie Louise Jones, died in Kansas City, Mo. MR. CHARLES J. ROE. Mr. Charles J. Roe, of the Jersey City Bar, died in Faith Hospital, St. Petersburg, Florida, on Feb. 10th. For some time past he had not been in good health, and he went South the latter end of January to seek improvement. Soon after his arrival there he became worse and entered the hospital where he died. In Jersey City he had recently made his home, for himself and wife, in the Fairmount Hotel on the Boulevard. Mr. Roe was the son of Charles Roe and Elizabeth Ann (Coult) Roe, and was born in Sussex county, Sept. 11, 1850. His father was the surrogate of that county for three terms (1863-'78) and then opened a drug store in Newton. The son obtained his preparatory education at Chester Institute and Newton Collegiate Institute; then entered Princeton College and was graduated therefrom in 1870, in the same class as Chief Justice Gummere and ex-Judge George M. Shipman of Belvidere. He then studied law with the late Levi Shepherd of Newton, and became an attorney at the June Term, 1873, and a counselor three years later. He practiced very successfully in Newton until 1894, a portion of the time having a law partner, Mr. Frank Shepherd; at the last named date, he removed to Jersey City. Recently he has had, as a law partner, J. Haviland Tompkins, the firm being Roe & Tompkins. Mr. Roe was an Advisory Master of the Court of Chancery and Supreme Court Commissioner. His practice was a general one, but he somewhat specialized in Chancery work. He was recognized as an able attorney, of scholarly instincts, being learned not only in his profession but in the arts and sciences. He knew some foreign languages and had traveled extensively in Europe as well as in this country. Mr. Roe married Margaret, daughter of James F. and Sarah (Northrup) Martin, and is survived by his wife, and his sister, Mrs. John R. Hardin of Newark. Transcriber Notes: Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_. Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS. Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the speakers. Those words were retained as-is. Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted. On page 67, "complaintants" was replaced with "complainants". On page 74, "breaking a storehouse" was replaced with "breaking into a storehouse". On page 76, "B & B" was replaced with "B. & B.". On page 78, a period was deleted after "ESSEX". On page 88, "37 N. Y. Supp, 496" was replaced with "37 N. Y. Supp. 496". On page 90, "haled" was replaced with "hauled". On page 94, "Christain" was replaced with "Christian". On page 94, "Assocaition" was replaced with "Association". 
60238	----	images of public domain material from the Google Books project.) THE NEW JERSEY LAW JOURNAL PUBLISHED MONTHLY VOLUME XLV JANUARY, 1922 No. 1 EDITORIAL NOTES. At least three decisions of nation-wide import were made by the United States Supreme Court in December. The first, American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Trades' Council we give, probably in full, elsewhere, as taken from the "New York Times." It is on the subject of strikes and picketing, and speaks for itself. Another tested the law of Arizona, which made picketing, etc., that tended to destroy an employer's business, lawful, and the law was held to be unconstitutional, although by a divided Court, 5 to 4. Among the dissenters was Mr. Justice Pitney. The main opinion was lengthy and explicit, and we think, fair and just. The third was on the subject of the "open competition" plan by which members of the National Hardwood Manufacturers' Associations believed they were getting around the Sherman Act, but are now told by the Court their practices are in restraint of trade. The Association was prosecuted by the Government in the Federal Court at Memphis, and a permanent injunction was obtained against continuance of the practices of filing by hardwood concerns of reports of business operations with a central organization, such reports being open to all other members of the organization. The opinion holding the conduct of the members of the Association to be illegal was delivered by Justice Clark. As usual, of late, there were dissents, this time by Justices Holmes, Brandies and McKenna. The meetings of the members resulted in concerted action, Justice Clarke stated, to raise prices regardless of conditions, and the plan was termed by him "misleading and a misnomer" and "an old evil in a new dress and a new name." He added that instead of a plan to promote open competition it operated to restrict competition. It was futile, he said, to argue that the plan was merely to furnish information which could not be otherwise obtained. The secretary of the Association, through an expert statistician, utilized replies to questionnaires and other information furnished by the members of the Association as the basis for bulletins and advices. These replies also were utilized in predicting and promoting advances in prices, by withholding of products from the market, awaiting higher prices. * * * * * In the second case referred to in the preceding paragraph the United States Supreme Court thus laid down the rule as to the "secondary boycott": It is to be observed that this [the case in hand] is not the mere case of a peaceful secondary boycott, as to the illegality of which courts have differed and States have adopted different statutory provisions. A secondary boycott of this kind is where many combine to injure one in his business by coercing persons against their will to cease patronizing him by threats of similar injury. In such a case the many have a legal right to withdraw their trade from the one, they have the legal right to withdraw their trade from third persons and they have the right to advise third persons of their intention to do so when each act is considered singly. The question in such cases is whether the moral coercion exercised over a stranger to the original controversy by steps in themselves legal becomes a legal wrong. But here the illegality of the means used is without doubt and fundamental. The means used are the libelous and abusive attacks on the plaintiffs' reputation, like attacks on their employers and customers. Threats of such attacks on would-be customers, picketing and patrolling of the entrance to their place of business and the consequent obstruction of free access thereto--all had the purpose of depriving the plaintiffs of their business. To give operation to a statute whereby serious losses inflicted by such unlawful means are in effect made remedyless, is, we think, to disregard fundamental rights of liberty and property and to deprive the person suffering the loss of due process of law." * * * * * It is with deepest regret that an announcement in our obituary columns in this issue includes the name of ex-Justice Bennet Van Syckel as a deceased member of the Bar and jurist. Those who practiced under him in the Circuits in former years, or who knew him as the bright, fully-equipped ornament of the Supreme Bench, well understand that his passing cuts off the last link between the Supreme Court of a few decades ago and the Court as constituted to-day. Justice Van Syckel was approaching 92 years of age, and many were the hopes that he would retain his health and vigor of intellect until he reached an even hundred years. The Courts wherein he sat, and the present older members of the Bar will see to it that his merits are officially pronounced; we can only say now that no eulogy to be given to his memory will do him over-justice. His dignity, fairness and sound legal judgment on the Bench were such that he deserved even greater honors than he received and his private life was immaculate. An excellent portrait of the Justice as he appeared in 1905 will be found in the Law Journal of that year (Vol. 28, facing p. 6). * * * * * The following seems almost an impossible propaganda to come even from Germany at this time, but especially from one of the sources named. The "Pathfinders League," of Stuttgart, we assume to be a Social (practically Soviet) organization, but the "Christian Young People's Societies," must be at least a quasi-religious body. A circular sent out and published by these organizations on July 22 last says: "War is the most exalted and holiest expression of human activity. Some day the hour of battle will strike for us, too, when we, as officers, go forth against the enemy. The people, which is a minor politically, will then fall into line of itself. In the days of secret, happy expectation there then goes from heart to heart the cry: 'With God for King and Fatherland!' Still and deep in German hearts there must live the joy of battle and a longing for it. So, let's laugh to scorn those old women in men's breeches who fear war and wail that it is horrible and criminal. No and again, No! War is beautiful, and it is glorious to die for the Fatherland and the hereditary ruling house. Our great ally above will lead us splendidly." In New York City there is a municipal ordinance requiring landlords, who are to give tenants under a lease hot water, to furnish it or be arrested, fined and, if thought wise by the magistrate, imprisoned. Recently a landlord in the Bronx was found guilty of failure to supply hot water, and it appeared that the landlord and tenant had somehow become on unfriendly terms; that there was a special valve in the house which permitted hot water to go to one apartment and to be shut off from another; and that the landlord closed down the valve to shut off the hot water of the complaining tenant. Thirty days in prison and a fine of $250 was the penalty imposed by the Justices in Special Sessions. * * * * * Among the important decisions in the Court of Errors and Appeals in this State on Nov. 14th last was one unanimously confirming the conviction of the negro, George Washington Knight, for the murder of Mrs. Edith Marshall Wilson, the church organist at Perth Amboy, in March last, which murder the prisoner had confessed. (See N. J. L. J., April, 1921, p. 102). Although the Court was unanimous in upholding the conviction of Knight, three of the Judges, Chancellor Walker, Justice Kalisch and Judge Black, differed with the view of the majority as to the constitutionality of the Mackay Act of 1921 (Laws, Ch. 349), empowering the Court of Errors and Appeals to review the sufficiency of the evidence in criminal cases, where the defendant elects to take up the entire record. Mr. Justice Kalisch wrote a minority opinion, concurring in the affirming of the conviction but differing with the majority as to the constitutional question involved. Chief Justice Gummere, in the main opinion, said that the statute of 1921 was not novel, but is similar to an Act passed more than twenty years ago, but subsequently repealed, under which the Court of Errors set aside a conviction for murder in the first degree. The first ground of attack was that the Mackay Act violates the provisions of the Constitution relative to trial by jury, which provides that the guilt or innocence of a defendant shall be determined by an impartial jury. The Court said, however, that the question of the verdict being in accordance with the weight of the evidence cannot be raised by the State, but only by the defendant. Therefore, the Court held, the constitutional protection afforded by a jury trial is not lessened by the law under which the accused may elect to have the evidence reviewed. The Court also held that the right given the Court of Errors to order a new trial where the evidence seemed insufficient was not a novel proposition, but was rather extending to the reviewing tribunal a power now existing in the trial Court; that such an extension of power, provided it does not trespass upon the inherent powers of any other Court, is not unconstitutional. Having decided the legal questions involved, the Court reviewed the testimony upon which Knight was convicted and concluded it was sufficient to justify the jury's verdict of murder in the first degree. Later, Mr. Justice Bergen, before whom the Knight trial was held, resentenced the prisoner to be electrocuted. * * * * * At the Convention of the Real Estate League of New Jersey in Newark recently, Mr. Frank B. Jess, of Haddon Heights, whose experience on the State Board of Taxes and Assessment has made him an authority on the subject of taxation, its inequalities and shortcomings, stated with positiveness that the personal property tax is a failure and always will be a failure. "It is obvious," he added, "that if all the taxable property in the State should be assessed at its true value, or at a uniform percentage of true value, the burden of taxation would be apportioned with exact equality. The chief objective of the assessing system of the State, therefore, is uniformity of valuation. It would be foolish to suppose that this ideal can ever be wholly attained. But it is more foolish not to aim at its attainment. The scheme of assessment should be devised with that end in view and so framed as to facilitate its achievement. The prevailing scheme provides as many assessors as there are taxing units. Even if each assessor were an expert the grand result inevitably would be a great variety of valuations. As so many assessors are not experts the absence of uniformity is all the more conspicuous." Mr. Jess said that each assessor or assessing body is now a separate machine, functioning independently in a particular territory. He declared that an assessor should be a part of a system having a central power plant functioning for the entire State. * * * * * After three days of argument by lawyers in the Federal case in New York City concerning the intent of and Court decisions on the Sherman law against trusts, Judge Hand imposed fines of $3,000 each on the seven corporations and ten individuals who had pleaded guilty to violating the Sherman Act. The defendants were those of the Terra Cotta Trust, and included companies in New Jersey, at Perth Amboy and Rocky Hill. Nearly at the same time Judge Van Fleet, so well known as a jurist of California, but descended from an old New York and New Jersey family, did better as to real justice with four members of the Tile and Mantel Trust, who also had pleaded guilty to violations of the Sherman law, by sentencing three of them to pay a fine of $4,000 each and to spend four months in prison, and the fourth to pay a fine of $2,000 and to spend two months in prison. There were also fines on others. The fines on all members of the combine aggregated nearly $170,000. It is clear that only by heavy fines with imprisonment added can the Sherman law against widely-extended and injurious trusts be made to act as a deterrent of such trusts in the future. * * * * * The Attorney-General of the United States, in an address at the last meeting of the American Bar Association in Cincinnati, gave, as suggestions, six rules for the handling of labor disputes. They were: "First--It is an undisputed fact that the public have a right to know what the quarrel is about in every actual or threatened strike or lockout and similar controversies. "Second--There should be some definite agencies in government for ascertaining these facts fully and making an impartial finding by those specially qualified both by temperament and training to do this particular kind of work; and such finding should be reported so that it will be a reliable source of knowledge to which students and publicists and statesmen can resort. "Third--Compulsory jurisdiction over these two factors to compel them to submit to an inquiry of this sort is not only desirable but just. "Fourth--At present our study of this question has not been sufficiently thorough to warrant legislation compelling the acceptance of such findings by the parties thereto. Therefore, the jurisdiction of the proper agency should be obligatory upon the parties to submit to the investigation; the acceptance of the finding by the parties should be voluntary. "Fifth--The experience of the past shows that in most cases full, accurate, reliable publicity has been sufficient to compel an adjustment of these cases. Public sentiment is a controlling factor and it is important, in justice to both of the parties, that it should depend upon something more accurate than successful propaganda. "Sixth--In the course of time knowledge of the nature and causes of these controversies derived in this way may crystallize public sentiment to the extent that laws can be enacted making such controversies impossible." It will thus be seen that Mr. Dougherty does not favor obligatory arbitration in the case of labor disputes, his view being that public sentiment will decide them. But we have always been clear in our own mind that there must be compulsory acquiescence in the findings of whatever tribunal hears such disputes; otherwise one party or the other will, too often, not acquiesce. * * * * * In a recent Chancery case, where an injunction had been ordered by the Court restraining a corporation from doing anything while the matter of a permanent receivership was under consideration, a voluntary petition in bankruptcy was filed. In proceedings against certain officers of the corporation for contempt in thus disobeying the injunction, Chancellor Fielder suspended sentence upon the ground that, as a mitigating circumstance, they had been badly advised, and said: "I think that the conduct of counsel in the case was absolutely reprehensible. Counsel was bound to know the law, and if he did not know the law, he ought to have had common sense enough to know that an order of this Court restraining any act of the corporation was sufficient to forbid the filing of a voluntary petition in bankruptcy. If the order to show cause had been directed to counsel I think I would find him guilty of contempt of Court, and I don't think that any mitigating circumstance could be offered in his behalf." * * * * * Our readers are receiving this month, in addition to the usual charming article by former Judge Frederic Adams, a Fourth of July oration delivered by Mr. Justice Parker of our Supreme Court in the Church of St. Mary's-by-the-Sea, Northeast Harbor, Maine, two and a-half years ago. Because this address is not recent gives special reason for its publication now. We only learned recently of this address and, after seeing it, requested of the Judge the privilege of publishing it in the Law Journal, a request finally granted. It seemed to us not only that the general matter and fine, clear statement of facts and elevated American sentiments warranted the preservation of this address, but also that our readers might be interested to compare what some of our best minds thought of events at the close of the Treaty at Versailles and what has really happened since in American and world affairs. SOME REMINISCENCES, MOSTLY LEGAL. BY HON. FREDERIC ADAMS, LOS ANGELES, CAL. III. ANECDOTES OF THE HARVARD LAW SCHOOL AND OF ITS FAMOUS TRIUMVIRATE. I have on my shelves a beautiful book. "The Centennial History of The Harvard Law School," 1817-1917, published by The Harvard Law School Association, 1918. This work, of about four hundred pages, has been written and compiled by the Faculty, with the assistance of graduates. It is admirably printed on excellent paper and liberally illustrated. The whole story of the great School is spread before the reader: its modest beginning; its Golden Age of Story and Greenleaf; the sedate and conservative era of the Triumvirate, Parker, Parsons and Washburn, in which my own lot fell; and then Langdell, the apostle of a new idea, and his many brilliant and interesting followers. The centre of gravity has been shifted from the text-book to the case and this is philosophical, for evidently the cases are the original evidences of the law. But the idea of taking up what Thackeray calls "the vast legend of the law" as a direct subject of study was so revolutionary that it won its way very slowly. I quote from the "Centennial History" a spirited sketch of Professor Langdell's opening, and of the early history of the new system: "The day came for the first trial of the new method of study and teaching. The class gathered in the old amphitheater of Dane Hall--the one lecture room of the School--and opened their strange new pamphlets, reports bereft of their only useful part, the head-notes! The lecturer opened his. "'Mr. Fox, will you state the facts in the case of Payne v. Cave?' "Mr. Fox did his best with the facts of the case. "'Mr. Rawle, will you give the plaintiff's argument?' "Mr. Rawle gave what he could of the plaintiff's argument. "'Mr. Adams, do you agree with that?' "And the case-system of teaching law had begun.... Consider the man's courage.... Langdell was experimenting in darkness absolute save for his own mental illumination. He had no prestige, no assistants, no precedents, the slenderest of apparatus, and for the most part an uncompromising _corpus vile_. He was the David facing a complacent Goliath of unshaken legal tradition, reinforced by social and literary prejudice. His attempts were met with the open hostility, if not of the other instructors, certainly of the bulk of the students. His first lectures were followed by impromptu indignation meetings. 'What do we care whether Myers agrees with the case, or what Fessenden thinks of the dissenting opinion? What we want to know is: "What's the law?"' "A controversy at once sprang up as to the efficacy of this method of instruction. To most of the students, as well as to Langdell's colleagues, it was abomination. The students cut his lectures; only a few remained. But these few were the seed of the new School. They included several men who afterward attained national reputation: James Barr Ames, his greatest pupil and successor; Franklin G. Fessenden, member of the Superior Court of Massachusetts; Austen G. Fox, a leader of the New York Bar; Edward Q. Keasbey, of New Jersey; James J. Myers, Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and one of the leaders of the Boston Bar; and Francis Rawle of Philadelphia, a President of the American Bar Association. Working out his cases with these enthusiastic young men, patiently and thoroughly as he always worked, Langdell did nothing to force upon others the acceptance of his system. In a few years Ames was appointed to the Faculty, and brought youth, fire, virility into the contest; but for many years the two were alone in their use of the new method. It was ten years before others acceded to it." The fact was that something had to be done. The School was on the down grade. I state this no more strongly than the History does at pages 21 to 25. This was the natural result, I think, of an extremely inefficient method of instruction. Nothing could be less effective than a series of lectures which no one was bound to attend, without recitations or examinations, so that it was possible for a student to receive his degree after a year and a half of residence without learning any law. Such a system might do for very zealous and ambitious students, but not for a large class. That the School held up its head as long as it did was due to two things: the _genius loci_, which counted for a good deal, and the personal influence and example of the professors, who were superior men. I write with the reserve proper to one who is considering an educational policy of which he has had no personal experience, but it seems to me that, in the last analysis, Professor Langdell's new idea was this: to rouse, develop, discipline and cultivate the judgment, and so, as far as possible, to equip each student with that valuable attribute, easily recognized but hard to define or describe, which is called a legal mind. It is judgment that does it. A mechanic of good judgment is already half a lawyer; an attorney of poor judgment will always remain in the apprentice class. I am reminded how I first saw Langdell's name. After I left the Law School I was for a time a member of the New York Bar. As I went upstairs to my office at No. 16 Wall street, I would see above me, at the top of the next flight, the sign of a law firm, Pierrepont, Stanley & Langdell. I knew about Pierrepont, who was a Yale man of the class of 1837, and I somehow got the idea, perhaps unjust to Mr. Pierrepont, that one of the junior partners was an erudite man who acted as purveyor of legal ideas to the head of the firm, somewhat as Sydney Carton did for Mr. Stryver in "A Tale of Two Cities." The selection of Mr. Langdell as a professor was due to the sagacity of President Eliot. An interesting and valuable part of the History is a biographical list of the ninety-one men who were teachers in the School during the century covered by the book. One of the names is that of Justice Francis J. Swayze, of the New Jersey Supreme Court, who began in the Centennial year, 1917, a course of lectures on Legal Ethics, which he continues. I now go back to my own time at the Law School. There was a small Jersey group there. Nehemiah Perry, Henry Young, Job H. Lippincott, Abram Q. Garretson and John R. Emery were men who, like Othello, "have done the State some service." When Vice-Chancellor Emery passed away, I became the only survivor of the little company. Professor Joel Parker, as I knew him, was a courteous gentleman of the old school, sixty-nine years of age, _tenax propositi_ public-spirited, courageous and combative, who had established a high reputation as a jurist by his opinions as Chief Justice of New Hampshire for fifteen years. As a conservative Whig he had supported the Compromises of 1850, but presided over a meeting of the citizens of Cambridge, held June 2, 1856, to denounce the assault on Senator Sumner. The conclusion of his speech on that occasion showed the mettle of the man. "For myself, personally, I am perhaps known to most of you as a peaceful citizen, reasonably conservative, devotedly attached to the Constitution, and much too far advanced in life for gasconade; but, under present circumstances, I may be pardoned for saying that some of my father's blood was shed on Bunker Hill, at the commencement of one revolution, and that there is a little more of the same sort left, if it shall prove necessary, for the beginning of another." The Professor had a true instinct. The attack on Senator Sumner was the first act of civil war; the John Brown raid the second; the firing on Fort Sumpter the third. Professor Parker, when Chief Justice of New Hampshire, had a memorable struggle with Judge Story, who held the United States Circuit Court, over a question under the Bankrupt Law. The facts are stated on pages 245 and 246 of the History of the Law School. In my time it was thought that Professor Parker did not like Story, or Story's rather showy law books. He probably would have agreed with the following remarks on page 12 of the History: "Story was the kindly master who, in his lectures, smoothed the rough places and was profuse with instruction and help. We may suppose his lectures, like his books, to have been learned, fluent, often original and profound, sometimes, however, dodging a difficulty rather than trying to overcome it." I have heard it said that Story stands higher as a writer of opinions than as a legal author. There was in my day a student named Stevenson who was assigned to argue one side of a Moot Court case before Professor Parker, sitting as Judge. Stevenson, who knew and well understood the Professor, in the course of his argument read a few sentences from one of Story's books and then, pausing and looking at the Judge, said: "May it please your Honor. There follows this passage about half a page of Latin. I have not read it, but it looks as though it were on our side." Professor Parker, during the War for the Union was _pro_ the administration _saepe_; _pro lege, pro republica semper_. He had, of course, profound reverence for the writ of habeas corpus. A student once stated a strong case of treasonable conduct and asked him if he would not suspend the writ in such a case. "No, sir," said the Professor, "I would not suspend the writ of habeas corpus, but I would suspend the corpus." Professor Theophilus Parsons was a son of the great Chief Justice of Massachusetts of the same name. He was sixty-six years of age when I knew him, a man of the world who had touched life at many points, a voluminous writer of law books and an instructive and entertaining lecturer. There was a side to his nature which he did not show to his class. I used to have among my books a small volume of sublimated Swedenborgian doctrine written by him. It was difficult to associate it with the genial and jovial man you saw in the lecture room. I have tried to assimilate this message from the New Jerusalem, but have failed, no doubt because of some invincible ignorance and innate incapacity of my own. Professor Parsons saw something of Europe after graduating from Harvard in 1815, and I think was at St. Petersburg with William Pinkney, then American minister, when the Grand-duke Nicholas, who was afterwards Emperor, was married to a Prussian princess in July, 1817. He described Mr. Pinkney as coming in from the ceremony in a real or affected huff, and complaining, as he tore off his gloves, that a beggarly Grand-duke had obliged him to get up at eight o'clock in the morning. "But, Mr. Pinkney," said Parsons, "the wedding was not until twelve o'clock." "True, sir," said Pinkney, who affected to be a man of fashion, "but can a gentleman dress in less than four hours?" Professor Parsons wrote an interesting life of his father, who was an old-fashioned colossus of the common law. Indeed, the Chief Justice took pretty much all knowledge for his province, and was a classical scholar and good mathematician. I moved, or was moved, at the early age of three months, from my birthplace in New Hampshire to the parish of Byfield, Massachusetts, near Newburyport, and lived there for seven years. The father of Chief Justice Parsons was a Congregational minister and pastor of the church in Byfield for more than forty years. When I visit Byfield, as I love to do, I read upon a tablet on the parsonage lawn "Birthplace of Theophilus Parsons." The Chief Justice had an extraordinary knowledge of the early history, laws, institutions, manners and local usages of the settlers of New England. I had among my law books one that used to remind me of him. A young lawyer once asked him what was the best law dictionary. "Kinnicum's is the best," was the answer. A few days later, the young man said to him, "I have asked everywhere for 'Kinnicum's Law Dictionary' and cannot find it." The Chief Justice laughed and said: "Ask for Cunningham's." The book which I had was Cunningham's "Law Dictionary," in two folio volumes. A similar incident is told of Judge Story, who was also a 'longshore man, born in Marblehead, a place which abounded in local peculiarities, as we know from Whittier's version of "Flud Oireson's Ride." Judge Story was opening the Circuit Court of the United States at Salem, and the clerk, as he went over the panel, called "Michael Treffery." No answer. "Michael Treffery!" No answer. "That is strange," said the clerk, "I saw the man here a few moments ago." "Let me see the list," said the Judge. He glanced at it and said, to the clerk, "Call Michael Trevay." The clerk: "Michael Trevay." "Present," said a juror. The clerk: "Why did you not answer?" "You never called my name." Mr. Parsons, before he became Chief Justice, was sitting in his house at Newburyport one Sunday morning, when a client and friend, who lived at Salem, was announced and said: "Mr. Parsons, I beg your pardon for making a call on Sunday. I would not do it if it were my own matter, but the case is that I am guardian for some minor children and a matter of importance to them is coming up in the Probate Court at Salem to-morrow morning. I have had no opportunity to get advice and so I have taken the liberty to ask your counsel." "Never practice law on Sunday," said Parsons. "Why, of course I understand that," said the other, but I thought that perhaps, under all the circumstances, you might be willing to aid me." "Never practice law on Sunday," said Parsons. "Good day, Mr. Parsons, I am sorry to have troubled you." "Stop a minute," said Parsons, "do you want advice as to the moral aspect of the case or as to the legal aspect of it?" "Why, as to the legal aspect, of course. I am satisfied that my position is fair and right. I want to know whether it will stand law." "Well, now, I will tell you," said Parsons, "I don't know anything about your case and I don't want to hear anything about it, but I know you, and if you think that your position is fair and just you may go ahead on that and I will be responsible for the law." Someone asked him, when he was Chief Justice, if it were true that he never lost a case while he was at the Bar. "Yes," said the Chief Justice, "that is true. I never lost a case, but my clients lost a great many." Chief Justice Parsons, because of his preoccupation with his thoughts, was sometimes careless about his dress. He was a clubable man, to use Dr. Johnson's phrase, and some of his intimate friends thought that in a genial hour a useful hint might be given him. So it was arranged that Mr. Harrison Gray Otis should invite the group to dinner and manage the matter. Mr. Otis was the one to do it, for he was a man of taste, quite "the glass of fashion and the mould of form," of great personal elegance and public distinction, and a graceful entertainer. Accordingly, the plan was carefully staged, and during the dinner the conversation took a natural turn toward social customs, usages, modes of dress and the like, and finally Mr. Otis, in a natural way, but with some distinctness, said: "For my own part, I always put on a clean shirt every day." The Chief Justice, who had apparently been giving his undivided attention to his dinner, here looked up and said: "Why, Otis, what a confoundedly dirty fellow you must be! I can wear a shirt for a whole week." Jeremiah Mason told of a professional conference between himself, when quite a young man, and Mr. Parsons before he became Chief Justice. Among the elements in the case was a conveyance of parish land by a clergyman, and its nature and effect were under discussion. Mr. Mason suggested that it might be held to be a covenant to stand seized. Mr. Parsons turned to him quickly and said: "Mason, I like that; that is a good idea of yours; in the relation between a clergyman and his parish there is some analogy to that between a man and his wife." Mr. Mason, in telling the story, said: "I didn't know, or had forgotten, that a consideration of blood or marriage was necessary to support a covenant to stand seized, but I said nothing, and as soon as I got home I took down my books and began to study the subject, and found the blood spurting out between the very lines of the page." It is grateful to recall the remaining member of the Triumvirate, Professor Emery Washburn, for he was an enthusiast, an indomitable and joyous worker at the age of sixty-three. I do not say that Parker and Parsons were not enthusiasts in their own way. They must have been so to accomplish what they did, but neither Parker nor Parsons manifested and imparted the contagious enthusiasm about their daily work which carried Washburn and the class with him along the arid path of the law of real estate. He was always busy and always accessible and perhaps, on the whole, the most useful member of the Triumvirate. He had been a leader of the very able Bar of Worcester and Governor of the Commonwealth, and was the author of valuable law books, with which the profession is familiar. I had a piece of good luck with him in my first and only Moot Court case. As I stood up to open the case, Professor Washburn, sitting as judge, said: "Mr. Adams, instead of reading the printed case, suppose you just state the facts in your own way." It happened that I was about to ask him to let me do that and was already prepared. So I came off with flying colors and probably got more credit for readiness than I deserved. I quote from the "History" at page 285: "In describing his first official visit to the Law School, late in 1869, President Eliot speaks of knocking at the door of Washburn's room and, entering, received the usual salutation of the ever-genial Governor Washburn. 'Oh, how are you? Take a chair,' this without looking at me at all. When he saw who it was, he held up both his hands with his favorite gesture and said, 'I declare, I never before saw a President of Harvard College in this building. Then and there I took a lesson from one of the kindest and most sympathetic of teachers.'" There is, however, historical proof that on at least one prior occasion a President of Harvard was in Dane Hall. John Quincy Adams one day mounted his horse at Quincy and rode over to Cambridge to see President Quincy, who greeted him and pretty soon suggested that they call on Judge Story in his lecture room. The two distinguished visitors were gladly welcomed and were installed by Judge Story, one on each side of him, and he, at their request, proceeded with his lecture. Both of these eminent gentlemen were Stoics. President Quincy went through the New England winters without wearing an overcoat, and Mr. Adams, when at Washington, used to swim in the Potomac and light his own fire in winter and, I believe, read a chapter of the Old Testament and a chapter of the New Testament and wrote in what Henry Clay (who had been tripped up by Mr. Adams on some question of fact) called "that infernal diary of his in which he has put down everything that has happened since the adoption of the Federal Constitution"; and all this before breakfast. As Judge Story proceeded with the rapid and even flow of his lecture, he became aware of a smile upon the faces of his class. A quick glance to either side of him explained it, and, with a cautionary gesture and in a confidential tone, he said: "Young gentlemen, you see before you two melancholy examples of the evil effect of early rising. Always remember that it is of a great deal more importance to be awake after you are up, than simply to get up early." There is another story which does not relate to the Law School, but which I will venture to tell, both as a picture of early Cambridge days, and as a manifestation of Harvard scholarship under adverse circumstances. There was then no Harvard Bridge and no horse-car line, and, when the culture of Cambridge went to Boston to hear Emerson lecture in the winter evening, the best available vehicle was a large, open, four-horse sleigh, owned and driven by a liveryman named Morse. On one such evening the lecture was over, and the return trip was on and so was a fine, powdery snowstorm. The sleigh proceeded across the Cambridge bridge and then through East Cambridge and so to Cambridge, stopping now on one side of a street to discharge passengers at a small house, and now on the other side at a big house, and so on, and the fine snow kept sifting down and Morse, perched high up in front, was growing more and more ghostly, when out from the sleigh rose the voice of James Russell Lowell, intoning a fragment from Horace, adapted so as to embrace the charioteer of the sleigh: "_Pallida Mors[e] pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Regumque turres_," which Conington translates: "Pale Death, impartial, walks his round; he knocks at cottage-gate And palace portal." I have found both pleasure and profit in reviewing these associations, especially the memories of our wise and friendly teachers, and of fellow-students who were soon to be entrusted with the grave interests, the sacred issues of life, liberty and property. As experience and observation widen, one realizes how thin is the crust which separates civilized society from the elemental fires below, and comes more and more to value influences which preserve and institutions which stabilize. Such an influence, such an institution is the Harvard Law School. Such an influence, such an institution is the Brotherhood of the Bar, indissoluble save by death or dishonor. [_To be Continued_] OUR THIRD BIRTH OF FREEDOM.[1] BY JUSTICE CHARLES W. PARKER. [1] Fourth of July Address at the Church of Saint Mary's-by-the-Sea, Northeast Harbor, Maine. Published herein by request of the Editor of the Law Journal. See "Editorial Notes." The exercises of to-day are a revival, temporary perhaps, but still a revival, of the good old custom of celebrating the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by public meetings, with prayer and song, the reading of the Declaration, and a patriotic address. It was a good custom, though it tended to foster some erroneous ideas, particularly that England as a nation was blameworthy in Revolutionary times, rather than the political machinations of George III, the politician king. But it was a good custom for all that, and it is regrettable that it gave place to noise and fireworks. In the more recent years the date has been significant of other great crises in our history than that of Revolutionary times. That was, of course, the greatest of all, and never to be forgotten, as it marks the definite transition of thirteen colonies into thirteen States, organized for war purposes as a nation. There had been over a year of war, beginning with the skirmish at Lexington and the British retreat, followed quickly by Ticonderoga, Bunker Hill, and the investment of Boston. During the fall and winter there were the episodes of the burning of Portland; the capture of Montreal (later relinquished); the capture of Norfolk in December; Arnold's heartbreaking expedition to Quebec through Maine forests in the dead of winter; the battle of Moore's Creek, N. C., early in 1776, called the "Southern Lexington," and, to crown all, the evacuation of Boston. These events and their concomitants, say the historians, made inevitable the Declaration of Independence, though the struggle began only as one for greater colonial self-government and modification of the taxing system. It was our first "birth of Freedom," which has been re-born more than once since. I said the date marked other great crises in our history, and take time to mention two of them, both in the memory of living men. The first, and the greater, was in the midst of our Civil War, when the news of the twin victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg flashed over the land. Dark days were still to come, and men were still discouraged; the war was to be proclaimed a failure by a great political party, but the power of the Rebellion was broken, and, after July 4, 1863, the setbacks to the cause of nationality were but temporary and comparatively insignificant. A second great crisis was safely passed. The third great Independence Day, great for what it brought to others than ourselves, was thirty-five years later, when the tremendous news came that the Spanish squadron, practically all remaining efficient of Spain's navy, had been destroyed off Santiago. That day marked the downfall of Spanish power on this continent, and the liberation of oppressed peoples in both hemispheres; the culmination of a righteous war against a civilized and honorable foe, whose principal shortcoming was a hopelessly antiquated point of view and inability to deal intelligently with modern conditions. These great anniversaries all marked the definite passing of crises; the present one rather falls within a protracted period of crisis than marks the passing of one. If we were to celebrate the anniversary of the greatest crisis of recent times, I should name July 18th, 1918, when, as most of those here will remember, the glad peals of the bell above us sounded the news that the great allied offensive had opened. Of this more in a few minutes. But July 4 as a date does not even mark the signing of the peace treaty. It is suggestive, however, of two things to be borne in mind at this time: the genius of our country as a lover of liberty and fair play, and the relation of that genius concretely to the problems of the recent past, and the present, and the immediate future. The announcement of such a subject gives me pause, for it is one for mature consideration and careful discussion by the best of statesmen. But there are some considerations, rather obvious perhaps, but still worthy of inclusion at this time, which I should like to present. I mentioned a moment ago our love of liberty and fair play. With these goes a constitutional tendency to mind our own business, let other people's business alone, and to avoid interference until convinced of its necessity. Until 1914 we felt secure on our own continent, gave no offense and sustained none. Fearing no war, we deemed preparation a waste of money and time; we were not disposed to pay expensive insurance premiums when our house was too far removed from others to be in danger of conflagration; against internal incendiarism we thought ourselves guarded. The warnings of Manila Bay in 1898 and Venezuela a few years later made no impression. Confident of our ultimate resources, we assumed no one would attack to court ultimate defeat; and above all, fair-minded ourselves, we were utterly incredulous of unfair-mindedness in others. Wise and farseeing men gave warning from time to time, but the impressions were momentary. And so, when in 1914 the assassination at Serajevo was quickly followed by an impossible ultimatum, and this in a very few days developed into a general European war, while our minds and souls revolted at a great injustice, our continental habit of thought resisted the suggestion that we should interfere to right that wrong. We did not see far enough; there were those who did; and I heard two wise men, summer residents here, agree in this very town in August, 1914, that this nation should take part, and at once. But public opinion did not run in that channel; nor was it led into it by our chosen rulers. These also were shortsighted, however their vision may have been clarified subsequently. We were told that a people should be neutral in thought as well as in deed; and so we stood by and watched Belgium, a neutral country, ravaged and pillaged; France invaded and destroyed; Serbia depopulated; Russia crushed. A great crisis like the battle of the Marne stirred men's souls, but without bringing home to us as a nation the ultimate danger to our liberty. The consummate outrage of the "Lusitania" made an impression never effaced, but the rising indignation of the country was met with the caution that "a man may be too proud to fight," and this crisis passed over also. But the great giant was stirring in his sleep. Trumpet calls came from men high in public esteem, among whom it is sufficient now to mention Roosevelt and Leonard Wood. "Preparedness" was their reveille. Our young men heard it, and in 1916 at Plattsburgh, and I think elsewhere, sprang up the training camps. The colleges offered their facilities; and although in the fall of 1916 there was still, as in 1860 and 1861, a large proportion of "peace-at-any-price" men, so large in 1916 as to permit the election of a President on the party slogan "He kept us out of war," the time was fast growing ripe. Infatuated Germany, confident of victory in Europe and of later victory on this continent, or risking all on the submarine issue, went a step too far, and the giant woke up. Woke up,--yes; but about as helpless as Gulliver on the Island of Lilliput. The "man mountain" was tied fast with the cords of unpreparedness, red tape, departmental inefficiency, official jealousy and hostile intrigue. As in 1812, in 1847, in 1861 and in 1898, there was little or nothing ready; all had to be created. The lowering of the thunder-cloud had been unheeded. We had some destroyers and battleships and cruisers; these were sent at once where most needed. But to our shame, be it said, we had no trained men except the little regular army; no great guns; no appreciable number of field pieces; no machine guns; no small arms even, although our .30 cal. Springfield rifle is justly pronounced the best small arm in the world. I have shot it and know it well. They cost at that time about fifteen dollars apiece. A million of them would have cost 15 million dollars, a sum which in these days makes us laugh at its insignificance; it is one-half of one per cent. of our first Liberty loan. We had not even the special tools to make barrels for these small arms in quantity, and actually had to use English tools to make English type rifles, greatly inferior to our own, to get any at all for our men. The other day I saw it announced with pride in the newspapers that our rifle had won in competition over all others; but we did not have them when wanted, and probably have not made them yet. We had no field pieces to use abroad, and our artillery was equipped with the French .75. A few naval guns were landed and mounted toward the termination of hostilities. The aeroplane scandal is known of all men. And it was a year after we declared war before we entered Europe in force, and equipped then with English rifles and French field guns; and our men were transported to Europe mainly on British ships. But in this trying period several things stand out clear and bright, and as inspirations for the future. Two are psychological: the spirit of Americans of alien descent, and the participation of our great educational institutions; one, official as well as psychological, the selective service draft. The patriotism of the native American of the old stock goes, of course, without saying. The true ring of our heterogeneous population of foreign extraction was to many a joyful surprise. That so many who had never seemed to amalgamate with our customs, were largely uneducated, and did not even speak our language, should respond so willingly and gladly to the call to the colors, was a source of some amazement. Not being in their confidence or intimacy, many of us little realized their loyalty: which reminds me of an Italian bootblack who in conversation told me that he wished to travel. I spoke of the beauties of Naples and Sorrento and that neighborhood, and was rather abashed when he said: "Yes, but I would rather see my own country first." I hope that lesson will always be fresh in memory. The same spirit of Americanism marked all nationalities, not excepting the German. The lists of draft registrants from, let us say, the east side of Manhattan Borough, reminded one of the Epistle for Whitsunday: "Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judæa, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians," all heard, and, with the deep realization of newly liberated peoples, showed themselves proud to answer the call. A recent war or Liberty loan poster is most suggestive. You read on it a list of men's names, mostly unpronounceable, and suggestive, in the language of the same Scripture just quoted, "of every nation under heaven," and this is summed up in the phrase, "Americans all." Truly, a fitting tribute to our adopted citizenry, equal in loyalty, bravery, and self-sacrifice to the best of the old Americans. Among them, as just noted, the German names stand out boldly. They are so numerous, in fact, as to attract less notice in this country than they deserve; let us hope that they will be noticed and taken to heart in the misguided country where such names originated. I would that our American army, made up in large part of such men, could occupy Germany for a time as it formally occupied Cuba, for its own good, and give a much needed object lesson in the theory and practice of free institutions. These men, as I have said, were largely uneducated. I turn now for a moment to those in our great seats of learning, and to the heads and faculties and trustees of those institutions. Their stand was doubtless one to be expected, but is still worthy of remark. That the best blood in England suffered the most losses I think is conceded. That would have been the case with us if the war had broken on us as it did on Great Britain. As it was, our boys courted the posts of danger--aviation; submarine chasers; balloon observation, and so on. Some left college to enter the service; others stayed at college awhile, but in order to train and perfect themselves in the art of war. The colleges themselves became military schools; the dormitories barracks. For a short time some anxious mothers held back, and it is little wonder that they did. But it was not for long, and soon the woman who could wear a pin, with one, two, or more stars in it on her bosom, gloried in it, while she who wore a star of gold, in all her grief still cherished the solemn pride, as Lincoln called it, of having laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of her country. Whether the son was a student or ploughboy, a bootblack or factory hand, or the son of a millionaire, the feeling was the same. In fact, there was a tendency at first among the people at large to suspect the well-to-do and moneyed classes of holding back their sons. This soon wore off; and one of the most inspiring as well as instructive sights I ever saw was on this very island; the parade of war mothers on the Bar Harbor fair grounds; women in all walks of life, some with gold stars on their badges. College presidents who encouraged the entry of students into military service came in for adverse criticism, but that soon passed, and now that college, the largest percentage of whose students and graduates went into the service, points with the greatest pride to its record in that respect. I think, however, that the greatest achievement of the war, and the one that makes most for the future safety of our country, is the success of the selective service draft. All the books ever written, all the lectures ever delivered, attacking the pacifistic tendencies of our people, fail to accomplish anything of consequence in comparison with that achievement. Whether our people have undergone a great psychologic change I know not. It is certain that at no time previously had they submitted willingly to be drawn into service. For a century and a quarter militia and volunteers were the basis of the armed power on land. During the Civil War drafting meant riots. During all our prior history bounties for enlistment were an accepted fact. Some of us may have looked into General Upton's great book called the "Military Policy of the United States." Until recently it was withheld, for some reason, from general publication. It is the basis of a later work by another author, "The Military Unpreparedness of the United States," which appeared about 1916. Both exhibit in startling fashion the fundamental evils of volunteering and bounties. But not until the stress of this great war did the old theories give way. We had a real man as Provost Marshal General, and his name is Enoch H. Crowder, and my own University (Princeton) and others as well, honored themselves recently by conferring the LL.D. degree on him. I care not whether he evolved the draft machinery himself or whether it was suggested by others. Probably it was a result of both processes; at least he knew a good thing when he saw it, and, like other large men, was unconcerned about whose idea it was. Here was the problem: several million men of age 21 to 31 to be listed, with particulars about them; those available for military service to be selected; from these, a certain number to be drawn by lot. The system used in the Civil War was hopelessly inadequate; army officers could not be spared to supervise the lists; how were the names to be obtained? How recorded? How drawn? The origin of the fundamental plan was told me by General Crowder himself on the day when he received his Princeton degree. He said that he was in his office racking his brain for a method of registry that would not take a year to operate, when a Congressman came in, and to him he told his difficulties. The interview terminated much like that of Alice in Wonderland and the Caterpillar, who told her how to change her height as it crawled off through the herbage. As the anonymous Congressman was going out through the door, he said over his shoulder: "If they can elect a President in one day, they can register in one day." Let us thank God that the General had good ears, and excellent communication between them and an active brain. "Elect in one day"--48 States; each with so many counties; each county having so many municipalities; each municipality so many election districts; civil, not military, officers for all of them; officers known to and knowing the people; Governors; mayors, election boards. _Why not_? Here is the machinery ready made, and at hand! All that is needed is to get it going. Forty-eight Governors responded enthusiastically; all forty-eight kept the great secret ready to pass it on to local officials; the result we all know. Two other things were needed; the willingness of those that were of draft age to come and say so; and the confidence of the public in a fair drawing. The latter was secured by the use of master numbers applicable to every district; the former came naturally as a result of the system itself. Every man of draft age became qualifiedly a volunteer, and marched to the polling place, saying: "Here I am when wanted." To this the abolition of bounties and substitutes, the curses of the old system, largely contributed. These are three of the great things for which we should give thanks on this Fourth of July: the solidarity of Americanism; the leadership of our Universities, and a practical and popularly acceptable method, now a precedent for all time, of calling up the man power of the nation. A fourth is the resultant of them all: a great army of young men (as has been said many times), future leaders in political life, keenly alive to the real freedom of our American system and determined to uphold it and to stand no nonsense about it. But for the consciousness of our possessing this element, and but for our faith in it, we might well look with most anxious foreboding at many troublesome and dangerous questions now uppermost in our national life. For in the midst of triumph sounds the note of anxiety--many discordant notes in fact. Will the treaty finally be ratified? Will peace last? Will the Germans respect their promises and fulfill them? Or will they, already talking again of a scrap of paper, straightway begin to prepare for a fresh coup twenty-five years or so hence? Must the peace-loving peoples of the world still apply themselves to that most distasteful of all tasks, the invention and manufacture and practice of means of destroying life and property in war? And what about internal affairs? Are individual enterprise and talent to be smothered by rule? Is the Constitution of the United States a worn-out old one-horse shay, ready to drop to pieces all at once? Is the Senate a back number? Is the peaceful rule by majority to be exchanged for Bolshevik dictatorship? Is our transportation industry to be ruined by taxes and rate control at one end and cost of labor at the other? Should we take an active part in the affairs of the Eastern hemisphere, and invite European and Asiatic powers to help regulate our continent; in short should the national policy called the Monroe Doctrine be abolished? These and many similar questions are pressing for solution. They are not mere fancies; they are not partisan issues, though many stentorian shouters proclaim them such; they are live and vital questions which must be solved and will be solved, doubtless at great cost in treasure and perhaps at some cost in blood. That they will be rightly solved in the end I have no doubt. Nothing is settled, said someone, I forget who, until it is settled right. It is for you and me and all of us to bear in mind that our work is only half done: that our sacrifices and labors and efforts during this great war that is just closed, I hope forever, are but the beginning, and that we owe it to our country and our children to do what we can to encourage sanity, deliberation and temperance of thought, speech and action in all classes of the people. Mild as that sounds, it is a stupendous task to perform. There rarely was a time when unthinking people were not more inclined to listen to a demagogue rather than a statesman; and few people think at all; still fewer think straight. It is a rebellious people, saying "Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits." It is a time of epithets rather than of logic, of lying epigrams rather than solid truths. All the wealthy, it seems, are corrupt; all money in large amounts is tainted; even the scales of justice are accused of falsity. Ebullitions of this kind often indicate an undercurrent little suspected. I realize that I am saying little or nothing that is new, and I have no new methods or theories to offer for meeting the situation. One thing is certain; before we can teach other people to think clearly, we must be able to think clearly ourselves; to formulate and make others realize the real issues; to perceive the fallacy or confusion in the opposing line of thought, and point it out without offense. It is a maxim among lawyers that a case well stated is half argued, and nothing can be more to the point at this time. We still have real statesmen; let us listen to them with attention and take care not to hurry too much in deciding. Impulse leads to irretrievable error much oftener than does deliberation. Sober second thought is usually the better. But, notwithstanding this anxiety, let us rejoice in the great victory of Liberty over autocracy and militarism. As we look back over the last five years we see many a vision; some dreadful nightmares, others with the seeming of the good God taking direct part in the affairs of men. The rape of Belgium, the miracle of the Marne, the tedious deadlock in the trenches, the ghastly failure at Gallipoli, the collapse of Rumania, the tragedy of Russia, the debacle in Italy, the heroism of Ypres and Passchendaele and Verdun; then the ever present dark shadow of the submarine; the agonized cry of exhausted England and France for men, men, men, as one offensive broke towards Calais, another towards Amiens, another straight for Paris by way of Chateau Thierry, while our brave boys seemed to be training interminably; the halting of the Hun at Belleau Wood and Chateau Thierry; the crouch of the American wildcats for their spring; until, as men's hearts seemed to fail them, and the cry went up, "How long, O Lord, how long?" the little bell of St. Mary's-by-the-Sea rang as it had never rung before. Peal after peal: some good news: what is it? "The Allies have attacked; the front between Soissons and Chateau Thierry is all crumpled up: the Germans cannot hold the salient." Smash after smash: it is our turn now; in Flanders, in Picardy, in Champagne, in Lorraine: by Britain, by France, by America, singly, doubly, and all together; each day a new victory headlined; the military lines approaching the French boundary; the thumbtacks moved each day on the war maps; St. Mihiel salient wiped out; Rheims freed of bombardment; Argonne Wood, our present day battle of the wilderness, takes time and its awful toll of human lives, but yields, for the first time in history, to an attack by American troops; Grand Pré and open country beyond. Forward again, until a great railroad line is cut, and Sedan, the catastrophe of 1870, becomes the final triumph of 1918. How we watched the telegraphic bulletins! How we studied the maps! Until, after one false report of an armistice, the real armistice came, and our peace-loving people, joint victors in the greatest war of all time, turned into a horde of lunatics. What a day it was, that eleventh of November! I was in Boston to attend the wedding of a nephew, a Colonel of Artillery, who had commanded his regiment at Cantigny and had later been ordered to this country in connection with organization and training of troops. The guests had to walk, as no vehicle could thread the crowd. Late editions of the papers contained the armistice terms in full, and, as our somewhat numerous family was gathered for five o'clock tea, one member was deputed to read the terms aloud, and there were attentive listeners. After he had finished, no one spoke for a moment; and then a voice said, "That seems to cover the ground." Truly we have much to thank God for, this Fourth of July. We have left undone some things that we ought to have done, and we have done some things that we ought not to have done; but I cannot say now that there is no health in us. Once again we have had a new birth of freedom; once again we highly resolve that our dead shall not have died in vain; once again we resolve, and I think that we have shown by deeds our determination, that "government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth." AMERICAN STEEL FOUNDRIES v. TRI-CITY TRADES COUNCIL. (U. S. Supreme Court, Dec. 5, 1921). _Strikes--Picketing--The Clayton Act--Circumstances to Be Considered in Injunction Case_. [NOTE--The following case on picketing is so important, being the latest and a final decision of the highest Court in the United States on a matter which has been treated differently by various Courts, that we reproduce the opinion here, as published in the "New York Times."--EDITOR]. TAFT, Ch. Justice: This is a picketing case. Only two men in the employ of the Foundries had responded to the calling of the strike by the Tri-City Council. They were picketers, were defendants, and were enjoined. Only one of them was a member of a union of that council. The case involves, as to them, the application of Section 20 of the Clayton Act, of which the provisions material here are those which forbid an injunction in behalf of an employer against, first, persuading others by peaceful means to cease employment and labor; second, attending at any place where such person or persons may lawfully be for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information; third, peaceably assembling in a lawful manner and for lawful purposes. The Act emphasizes the words "peaceable" and "lawful" throughout the phrases which were used. We do not think that these declarations introduced any new principle into the equity jurisprudence of the Federal Courts. They are merely declaratory of what was the best practice always. Congress thought it wise to stabilize this rule of action and to render it uniform. Its object was to reconcile the rights of the employer in his business and in the access of his employés to his place of business without intimidation or obstruction, on the one hand, and the right of the employés, recent or expectant, to use peaceable and lawful means to induce prudent principles and would-be employés to join their ranks, on the other. If, in their attempts at persuasion or communication, those of the labor side adopt methods which, however, lawful in their announced purpose, inevitably lead to intimidation and obstruction, then it is the Court's duty--and the terms of Section 20 do not modify this--so to limit what the propagandists do as to time, manner and place as to prevent infractions of the law and violations of the right of the employés and of the employers for whom they wish to work. In going to and from work, men have a right to as free passage without obstruction as the streets afford, consistent with the right of others to enjoy the same privilege. We are a social people and the accosting by one of another in an inoffensive way and offer by the one to communicate and discuss information with a view to influencing the other's action, are not regarded as aggression, or a violation of that other's right. If, however, the offer is declined, as it may rightfully be, then persistence, importunity, and following do become unjustifiable annoyance and obstruction which is likely soon to savor of intimidation. The nearer this is to the place of business, the greater the interference with the business and especially with the property right of access of the employer. Such an attempted discussion attracts the curious, or, it may be, interested bystanders. They increase the obstruction as well as the aspect of intimidation which the situation quickly assumes. In the present case, under the conditions which the evidence discloses, all information tendered, all arguments advanced and all persuasion used were intimidation--they could not be otherwise. It is idle to talk of peaceful communication in such a place and under such conditions. The numbers of the pickets in the groups constituted intimidation. The name "picket" indicated a militant purpose, inconsistent with peaceful persuasion. The employés were made to run the gauntlet. When one or more assaults or disturbances ensued, they characterized the whole campaign, which became effective because of its intimidating character, in spite of the admonitions given by the leaders to their followers as to lawful methods to be pursued, however sincere. Our conclusion is that picketing thus instituted is unlawful and cannot be peaceable, and may be properly enjoined by the specific term of "picketing" because its meaning is clearly understood in the sphere of the controversy by those who are parties to it. We are supported in that view by many well-reasoned authorities, although there has been contrarity of view. A restraining order against picketing by that name will advise earnest advocates of labor's cause that the law does not look with favor on an enforced discussion of the merits of the issue between individuals who wish to work and groups of those who do not, under conditions which subject the individuals who wish to work to a severe test of their nerves and physical strength and courage. But while this is so, we must have every regard for the Congressional intention manifested in the Act to the principle of existing law which declares that ex-employés and others properly acting with them shall have an opportunity, so far as is consistent with peace and law, to observe who are still working for the employer, to communicate with them and to persuade them to join the ranks of his opponents in a lawful, economic struggle. Regarding as primary the rights of the employés to work for whom they will, and to go freely to and from their place of labor, and keeping in mind the right of the employer incident to his property and business to free access of such employés, what can be done to reconcile the conflicting interests? Each case must turn on its own circumstances. It is a case for the flexible, remedial power of a Court of equity which may try one mode of restraint, and if it fails or proves to be too drastic, may change it. McGANN CO. v. LABRECQUE CO. (Essex Circuit Court, Jan., 1922). _Action of Trespass--Lease and Sale of Property--Limitation of Term--Jurisdiction of District Court_. Case of Joseph F. McCann, trading as The McGann Company, against La Brecque Company. Action at law. Trespass. Mr. Milton M. Ungur for Plaintiff. Messrs. Burnett, Sorg, Murray & Duncan for Defendant. (CONCLUSIONS). DUNGAN, J.: This is an action of trespass brought by the plaintiff against the defendant for the wrongful removal of plaintiff's goods from the defendant's premises under the following conditions: P. Ballentine & Sons, a corporation, demised the premises in question to defendant by lease dated August 1st, 1917, for a term commencing November 1st, 1916, and terminating April 30th, 1926. The lease provided: "It is further understood and agreed between the parties hereto that a sale of the property by the party of the first part shall terminate this lease upon six months' written notice to the party of the second part; and, in lieu of compensation, it is hereby agreed that the rent shall be waived during the six months notice to vacate." By deed dated October 15, 1918, proved October 30, 1918, and recorded October 31, 1918, P. Ballentine & Sons conveyed the premises in question by warranty deed to the plaintiff, subject to the above tenancy. By endorsement dated April 30, 1918, made upon the lease, P. Ballentine & Sons assigned said lease and all of the rights of the lessor thereunder, to the plaintiff. October 30, 1918, there was served personally upon defendant a notice, dated on that day, signed by both the grantor and the grantee in the deed last mentioned, as follows: "You will please take notice that the premises leased by you from P. Ballentine & Sons by written lease dated the first day of August, 1917, have this day been sold to LaBrecque Company, Inc., and notice of the cancellation of your said lease is hereby given you pursuant to that clause of your lease reading as follows: 'It is further understood and agreed between the parties hereto that a sale of the property by the party of the first part shall terminate this lease upon six months' written notice to the party of the second part, and in lieu of compensation it is hereby agreed that the rent shall be waived during the six months' notice to vacate.'" The defendant did not remove from said premises at the expiration of six months and the statutory demand for delivery of possession was personally served on defendant. After the expiration of said period, he refused to vacate the premises, and thereupon the defendant here instituted and prosecuted summary proceedings in the Second District Court of the City of Newark, in which Court judgment for possession of the premises was rendered May 23, 1919, and the removal of plaintiffs, being the alleged act of trespass for which this suit is brought, was, by virtue of the order of removal, made by that Court upon said judgment. There is no contention that there was any irregularity in the proceedings of that Court, if the Court has jurisdiction; but the plaintiff here insists that the provisions of the lease above quoted constituted a condition, or covenant, and not a limitation of the term, and that consequently the District Court did not have jurisdiction. The parties hereto have entered into a stipulation to submit this suit to the Court for judgment upon the complaint, answer and reply, which correctly sets forth the facts as above stated, and adds: "If the Court is of the opinion that the plaintiff is entitled to recover, judgment is to be rendered in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendant, and there is to be an assessment of the damages by a jury drawn for that purpose, reserving however all questions of law as to the measure of damages; and, if the Court is of the opinion that the plaintiff is not entitled to recover, judgment shall be entered in favor of the defendant as if said cause had been tried and a verdict in favor of the defendant had been rendered"; both parties reserving the right to appeal from the judgment to be entered. It is admitted on behalf of the plaintiff that, if the said provision of the lease constituted limitation of McGann's terms, then the District Court had jurisdiction and the plaintiff cannot recover in this suit. The jurisdiction of the District Court in such cases is confined in its application to the instant case, to "When any such person shall hold over and continue in possession ... after the expiration of his ... term," etc. Admittedly the decision of this case rests upon whether or not the sale of the premises and the notice given by the lessor and LaBrecque Company to the plaintiff ended the term of the McGann Company. If it did--if this was a limitation of the plaintiff's term,--the jurisdiction of the District Court was complete. The case of Quidort v. Bullitt, 60 N. J. L. 119, is very much in point. In that case it appeared by the affidavit filed with the Justice that the defendants, in May, 1885, leased to the prosecutor a seaside cottage at Cape May for five years, which lease was extended for two successful periods. The lease contained the following provision: "Lessors are to have the privilege of terminating the lease at any time upon giving six months' notice of their intention to do so, prior to the first day of July or any year during the lease.". On October 19, 1895, the defendants caused to be served on the prosecutor a written notice, which, after reciting the terms of the lease stated: "We have determined to avail ourselves of the privilege of terminating the lease. We now give you notice of the exercise of our privilege and of our intention to terminate the said lease on the first day of May, 1896, and demand that you surrender us possession of the leased premises at that time, in accordance with the provisions contained in the lease. This right to terminate the lease is exercised in accordance with the lease and the several extensions thereof. We shall expect you to deliver to us, on the first day of May, 1896, the cottage and bath houses mentioned in the said lease, and also the articles mentioned and set out in the inventory annexed thereto." The tenant refused to deliver possession and, on the 6th day of May, 1896, instituted proceedings before the Justice, which were the subject of review by certiorari in that case. It is insisted on behalf of the plaintiff that whether or not the quoted provision of the lease and the giving of the notice constituted a mere condition or covenant or was a limitation, was not decided in that case; but, while it is not expressly so stated, it seems to me a decision of that question was absolutely essential to a decision of the case. Chief Justice Gummere, in delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court (page 120) said: "The question for determination is whether the Justice had jurisdiction of the cause; if he had jurisdiction, then the writ in this case should be dismissed, but, if he had not, then the proceedings before him should be set aside." Again on page 122 he said: It is alleged by the prosecutor that the facts above recited did not bring the case within the jurisdiction of the Justice for the following reasons: 1. That the privilege of terminating the lease was not a term, condition or limitation of the original lease, but a special privilege, reserved to the lessors, of ending the original term." Thus it is plain that the precise question in issue in this case was before the Court, and that it was necessary for the Court, in order to reach the decision it did, to decide that the quoted provision would constitute a limitation upon the term fixed by the original lease. The case of Miller v. Levi, 44 N. Y. 490, is also applicable to this case. In that case Miller demised to Levi, reserving the right to sell the demised premises and to limit Levi's term thereon to the expiration of sixty days after notice of sale. The sale and notice specified in the lease was made. It was insisted that the Justice had no jurisdiction of the summary proceedings, because this can only be resorted to where the term of the lease of the lessee "has expired by lapse of time," which it was said was not the fact in that case. The Court said: "Immediately upon sale by Miller and notice thereof to the tenant the limitation attached to the estate of the latter, without further act on the part of Miller. There then arose a limitation of his term, to wit, its expiration on the first of May following. The act itself, in the lease contemplated, to wit, a sale without notice, created the expiration. Nothing further was necessary.... The 'term' of the lease must therefore be taken to have 'expired' on the first of May, 1864." I think, therefore, that when the leased property was sold, and the notice of sale given to McGann on October 30th, 1918, the term of McGann under the terms of the lease expired six months thereafter; that the sale and notice constituted a limitation of his term; that the Second District Court of the City of Newark, before which proceedings to remove McGann were instituted May 2nd, 1919, had jurisdiction to hear and determine the matter before it; and that, therefore, the defendant is not guilty of the trespass alleged against him. Judgment is given, therefore, against the plaintiff and in favor of the defendant. * * * * * One hunting on Sunday, in violation of statute, is held to be answerable for injuries accidentally inflicted upon a bystander by the voluntary discharge of his gun, in the Vermont case of White v. Levarn, 108 Atl. 564, annotated in 11 A.L.R. 1219, on violation of Sunday law as ground for civil action for damages. * * * * * The keeping of high explosives in a public highway in a populous community, without guard or signal, to the terror, alarm, and great danger of the citizens, is held to be a common nuisance, indictable at common law, in Kentucky Glycerine Co. v. Com. 188 Ky. 820, 224 S. W. 360, annotated in 11 A.L.R. 715. * * * * * False swearing by a witness is held to be such an obstruction of justice as to constitute a direct contempt of court, in Riley v. Wallace, 188 Ky. 471, 222 S. W. 1085, annotated in 11 A.L.R. 337. * * * * * A petition filed against a partnership by one partner alone must, under section 5a of the Bankruptcy Act and General Order No. 8, conform to the requirements of an involuntary petition and must, therefore, allege insolvency and that an act of bankruptcy was committed by the partnership. Matter of Ollinger & Perry. 47 Am. B. R. 203. * * * * * A parent who takes a deed from his child soon after it reaches majority and while it is living under his roof is held to have the burden of clearing the transaction of every suspicion, and establishing its fairness and good faith, in the Arkansas case of Shackleford v. Shackleford, 223, S. W. 561, annotated in 11 A.L.R. 730. * * * * * Giving a broker the "exclusive sale" of a parcel of real estate is held not to preclude the owner from selling to one whom he had reason to believe had not been procured by the broker, in Roberts v. Harrington, 168 Wis. 217, 169 N. W. 603, annotated in 10 A.L.R. 810, on whether an ordinary broker's contract excludes right of sale by owner. MISCELLANY SOME STATE NOTES. On Dec. 11 Mrs. Mary J. Rellstab, wife of United States District Court Judge John Rellstab, died at her home in Trenton. She had been an invalid for many years. Before her marriage, in 1905, she was Miss Mary Johnston Whittaker, daughter of the late George R. and Mrs. Mary Whittaker. Besides her husband, two sisters, Mrs. J. F. Clement of Philadelphia and Miss Emily Whittaker of Trenton, survive. Mrs. Rellstab was for many years active in church and charity work. On Nov. 25 the Supreme Court suspended three lawyers charged with unprofessional conduct: Mr. William M. Rysdyk, of Jersey City, for one year; Mr. Charles Sloff, of Passaic, for one year, and Mr. Charles K. Richmond, of Passaic, for two years. In the first two cases the cause was financial misappropriation, and in the last case an endeavor to influence a juryman. NEW JERSEY BAR EXAMINATIONS, NOVEMBER TERM, 1921. ATTORNEY'S QUESTIONS. 1. A party in a proceeding in the Orphans' Court appealed from the decree of said Court to the Court of Errors and Appeals. Was this proper? 2. A held in trust for F certain lands and also certain bonds. He died intestate, leaving two sons B and C, B being the elder. C was appointed administrator. To whom did the title to the land and to whom do the bonds descend? 3. W being under indictment by a Federal Grand Jury, applied to the Court for compulsory process for the purpose of obtaining witnesses in his behalf. His application was denied. Was the Court right? 4. A railroad company made a mortgage upon its lands, chattels and franchises. It was duly recorded as a real estate mortgage but it was not recorded as a chattel mortgage. Was it valid as to the chattels against creditors of the company? 5. S went to work for B and took two flags with him. He allowed B to use one of them and helped put it on B's building. Subsequently a hail storm destroyed it. He then sued B for the value of the flag. Should he recover? 6. G agreed to sell and deliver to J certain goods on or before the 15th of July. Instead of delivering the whole of the goods he attempted to deliver the same in instalments, the last instalment to be delivered on July 15. J refused to accept the goods. Was he bound to do so? 7. Where there is a plain repugnancy between the provisions of an original contract, and those of a supplemental one between the same parties relating to the same subject matter, which one controls? 8. S, being indebted to a number of persons, advertised and sold at public sale all of his stock to one person. Was this contrary to the Bulk Sales Act of 1915? 9. One member of the firm of W & Co. which was still in existence, without the authority of the other member, confessed a judgment to Y, a creditor of the firm. Was the judgment binding upon the firm? 10. An agent acting within the scope of his authority, did certain fraudulent acts. Was the principal liable for these acts of the agent? 11. What are the requirements to make an instrument negotiable? 12. John Smith made a will, wherein he gave his son, Thomas, a legacy of $5,000, adding that the legacy should be void if Thomas married any one of the daughters of Robert Jones. Thomas having married one of Jones' daughters, demanded the legacy, claiming that the condition was void. Was his claim good? 13. (a) How soon after the death of a testator may his will be admitted to probate? (b) How soon after the death of an intestate may administration of his estate be granted? 14. What is the difference between the relief granted in equity in cases of mutual mistake and of the mistake of one party? 15. A made a conveyance of real estate to B for the purpose of defrauding his creditors. A having died intestate, his heirs brought suit in Chancery to compel B to convey the property to them. What should the Court do? 16. B made a will leaving all his property to D, whom his (B's) mistress had fraudulently represented to him to be his child. C, the heir at law of B, filed a bill in Chancery to set aside the will on the ground of fraud. D moves to strike out. What should the Court do? 17. B sued A for slander. A pleaded that he was intoxicated at the time he uttered the slander. B moved to strike out this defence. What should the Court do? 18. A sued the City of N for damages. He showed that he had been run over by an ash-cart owned and operated by the City by reason of the driver's negligence and that the driver was drunk at the time and was drunk to the knowledge of the City's foreman when the latter sent him out with the cart. The City moved to nonsuit. Should the motion be granted? 19. A sued B for damages by reason of injuries caused by the joint negligence of B and C. He recovered a judgment which B paid. B then sued C for contribution. Could he recover? 20. A was indicted for murder of B. On the trial it was shown that A killed B while B was trying to rob him on the highway. The prosecutor contended that A could not be acquitted unless it appeared that he could not have rendered the attempt to rob abortive by any means less radical. The Court overruled this contention. Was the ruling correct? 21. A husband decided to move from New Jersey to New York. His wife refused to go with him and filed a bill for maintenance. Could she succeed? 22. How many incorporators must there be to incorporate a company in New Jersey? What facts should appear in the certificate and how should it be executed? 23. A witness at a trial desired to use his own memorandum to refresh his memory. Could he do so? 24. A promissory note on its face was made payable in money. Parol evidence was offered to prove it was payable in stock and that interest on the note was equivalent to the amount of dividends on such stock. Should this evidence be admitted? 25. A landlord and tenant were joined, as defendants, in an action for trespass arising out of the same act. An objection was made for misjoinder. Is the objection good? 26. In a civil action against a husband and wife for damages resulting from an atrocious assault committed by the wife with the encouragement of the husband, an order was made to hold both to bail. Was this legal? 27. A sued the State of New Jersey on a book account. Could he maintain his action? 28. At the hearing of a suit in Chancery, defendant set up the statute of limitations, but this defense did not appear in the answer. Could the defendant avail himself of it? 29. A bill in equity failed to state any equitable cause of action. What would you advise your client to do? 30. A and B came into the office of C, an attorney, to have him draw a deed from A conveying property to B. Before the deed was drawn, C discovered that the title to the property was defective. Should he divulge this fact to B, who has had nothing to do with his employment? COUNSELORS' QUESTIONS. 1. A final judgment in the Circuit Court was brought by writ of error directly into the Court of Errors and Appeals. Was this legal? 2. A widow, whose dower had not been assigned to her, remained upon the homestead of her deceased husband and took to her own use the crops growing thereon. Was she entitled to the same? 3. The Board of Aldermen of the City of J passed an ordinance that no one should conduct a grocery store in the city unless he was a citizen of the State of New Jersey. A, a citizen of New York, having been found guilty of violating this ordinance, certioraried his conviction to the Supreme Court. What should the Court do? 4. A mortgagee in a chattel mortgage held the same for ten days after the delivery of the mortgage and then recorded it. In the meantime a judgment was recovered against the mortgagor, execution issued and a levy made upon the goods and chattels named in the mortgage. Which has priority? 5. S agreed to take the automobile of T to a shop to be repaired and to return it after it was repaired. He took it to the shop, but failed to return it. It was later destroyed by fire while in the shop, and T sued S because of his failure to return the automobile. Was he liable? 6. A purchased an automobile from an infant and sold it to B in good faith for value, neither A nor B having notice of the infancy of A's vendor. Was it a valid sale? 7. R was indebted to S and the latter started a suit to recover the amount due. Thereupon G agreed with S that if he would discontinue his suit and wait for three months before again suing, he would be responsible for the debt. This was done. At the end of the three months was G liable? 8. L agreed to do certain work, part of it to be done on Sunday. T subsequently agreed to pay L for such work. Was he liable? 9. An agent received the instructions of his principal, knowing that in order to carry them out he would have to commit a nuisance, and did actually commit such nuisance. The person injured sued the agent. Was he liable? 10. The partnership accounts between D and M were unsettled, although they had dissolved partnership. D alone could settle them, but refused to do so. What kind of action could M institute against D? 11. Smith purchased a horse from Jones, giving him in payment a check on a bank which he (Smith) had had certified. Smith having learned that Jones had no title to the horse stopped payment on the check. Jones sued the bank which answered, setting up want of consideration for the check. Could it do so? 12. A died January 1, 1915, leaving a last will wherein he bequeathed $5,000 to his son, John, then aged 18, and $5,000 to the A hospital, and the residue of his estate to his daughter, Jane. The legacies remaining unpaid on January 1, 1918, John and the hospital sued the executors for them, claiming also interest. From what date should interest be allowed, if at all? 13. Mary Jones died June 1, 1921, leaving a husband, Peter Jones, by whom she had never had children, and three children by a prior marriage. She left a will devising her real estate to her children, but made no disposition of her personal estate. To whom did her real and personal estate go on her death? 14. B, a creditor of the insolvent firm of J. & S., agreed to sell and assign his claim to D for the sum of $2,000. B thereafter refused to make the assignment. D thereupon filed a bill in Chancery against B for specific performance. Could he maintain his action? 15. A was in possession of a house and lot. B, his neighbor, insisted that A's house was over his line by a foot. How could A test his title, B refusing to bring an action? 16. Brown, as executor of Smith, filed his final account in the Orphans' Court of Salem County, and gave notice of settlement. Grey, one of the residuary legatees, desired to have the accounting in Chancery. Was this possible? If so, how should he proceed and what must he show? 17. In the trial of an action for libel wherein plaintiff claimed compensatory damages only, defendant offered in mitigation of damages evidence that the publication was made in good faith and with honest belief in its truth. The Court excluded the offer, and this ruling was attacked on appeal. Was it correct? 18. Plaintiff, aged nine, who was struck and injured by an automobile while crossing a street, brought suit. The defense was contributory negligence. The Court charged that a child of that age could be charged with contributory negligence, but that in considering that question it was for the jury to consider whether the plaintiff had exercised the caution which would reasonably be expected from one of his years. Was this charge correct? 19. A, an owner of a dwelling house, brought an action against B, who had a tannery in the next block, alleging and showing on trial that noxious fumes from B's tannery had made plaintiff's house untenantable. B moved to nonsuit on the ground that these fumes injured a large number of houses, were a public nuisance and the only remedy was by indictment. The court refused to nonsuit. Was this ruling correct? 20. In what case and under what circumstances can a writ of error issue directly from the Court of Errors and Appeals to the Court of Oyer and Terminer? 21. At common law what right had a husband in personal property acquired by the wife during coverture? What is the rule in New Jersey? 22. The treasurer of a corporation died. There was no provision in the by-laws for the election of his successor. How can the place be filled? 23. On a bill for the construction of a will, evidence was offered of declarations made by the testator at the time of making the will as to his meaning and intention. Should this evidence be received? 24. In a suit involving an account, it appears that the defendant had admitted that a certain sum was due. The defendant, however, demanded the production of the plaintiff's books and on refusal moved for a nonsuit. Should the motion be granted? 25. How is an issue of fact created in a lawsuit? 26. Where may the venue be laid in a transitory action? 27. How should service of summons and complaint be made in a case where an affidavit of merits is desired? 28. X in a bill against Y in his prayer asked for answer without oath. Y answered under oath. How should the answer be construed? 29. A filed a bill in Chancery and failed to pray for general relief. Can he succeed if the special relief prayed for fails? 30. A, clerk in a law firm, not yet admitted to the Bar, receiving a regular salary, had his friends retain his employers. Should the firm divide its fees with the clerk? NEW JERSEY BAR ADMISSIONS, NOVEMBER TERM, 1921. The following were admitted as attorneys by the Supreme Court of this State at the November Term, 1921: ELIZABETH. Bender, Albert C., 714 Elizabeth Ave. Eisenberg, Henry M., 39 Third St. Liotta, Eugene A., 95 Broad St. Weiner, Frank S., 128 Broad St. HOBOKEN. Capelli, George A., 227 Madison St. Greenberg, William, 84 Washington St. Levenson, Jay M., 51 Newark St. Stover, Harriet C., 1037 Bloomfield St. JERSEY CITY. Blumberg, Leo, 139 Magnolia Ave. Ewald, Henry, Jr., 587 Summit Ave. Hoagland, Inez, City Hall. Kelly, James Francis, Lincoln Trust Bldg. Kriegel, Louis J., 665 Newark Ave. Kuebler, Carl S., 75 Montgomery St. McCarthy, James J., 15 Exchange Pl. Pforr, Arthur, 75 Montgomery St. NEWARK. Brown, John S., Central High School, New and High Sts. Citret, Harry, 790 Broad St. Dorgeval, Harold F., 164 Market St. Eisner, Mortimer, 585 High St. Eppston, Joseph G., 20 Clinton St. Federici, Christine A., 1025 Kinney Bldg. Kinkelstein, Milton J., 828 Broad St. Giordano, John C., 226 Hunterdon St. Halpin, Julius H., 133 Somerset St. Merz, Charles D., 324 Hawthorne Ave. Padalino, Frank P., 216 Camden St. Pollard, Robert S., 164 Market St. Potoker, Benjamin, 40 Beacon St. Reid, Alexander F., Jr., 296 Mulberry St. Schneider, Louis, 790 Broad St. Thiele, Richard Hardie, Prudential Ins. Co. Vanderbilt, Leslie L., 14 N. 9th St. TRENTON. Cella, G. Andrew, 345 Hamilton Ave. Heher, John L., 301 Commonwealth Bldg. Josephson, Leon, 1009 Greenwood Ave. OTHER PLACES. Bremer, Philip M., 41 Paterson St., New Brunswick. Colver, Frederick B., Tenafly. Dart, William A., 201 Sheen Bldg., Atlantic City. DeYoe, Willard L., U. S. Trust Bldg., Paterson. Fuller, Ernest, 60 Fairview Ave., So. Orange. Galanti, Benjamin P., Main St., Hackensack. Greenberg, Victor, 153 Grove St., Passaic. Gottko, Anthony A., 37 E. 26th St., Bayonne. Hahn, Harold H., 120 Broadway, N. Y. City. Hendler, Louis L., 165 French St., New Brunswick. Hendrickson, Frank A., 117 Main St., Mt. Holly. Jackson, George T., 706 N. Ohio Ave., Atlantic City. Loder, William W., 107 E. Commerce St., Bridgeton. Lore, Harry T., Section of Surety Bonds, Treas. Dept., Washington, D. C. McDonough, Peter J., Jr., Babcock Bldg., Plainfield. McElroy, Leon E., 115 Main St., Woodbridge. Plympton, George F., 117 Clinton Pl., Hackensack. Preston, Joseph A., 224 Park Ave., Cliffside. Ridgeway, S. Paul, 1 N. Iowa Ave., Atlantic City. Thompson, Rufus B., 505 Federal St., Camden. Visscher, Barent L., 84 William St., N. Y. City. Warsinski, Carl H., 50 Burnside Ave., Cranford. Woods, Elmer B., Glassboro. Zirpoli, Anthony P., 126 Market St., Paterson. * * * * * The following were also admitted as Counselors-at-Law: COUNSELORS. Bergen, Francis L., 2nd Nat. Bk. Bldg., Somerville. Bowne, Edward A., South River. Braelow, Joseph C., 800 Broad St., Newark. Buchanan, Jessie C., 40 W. State St., Trenton. Deegan, Joseph F., 415 Raritan Bldg., Perth Amboy. Fleming, Russell, 790 Broad St., Newark. Gunther, Edward C., Hudson Tr. Bldg., W. Hoboken. Handford, James L., 790 Broad St., Newark. Hirschberg, Samuel L., 84 Washington St., Hoboken. Isaacs, Lionel, 143 Summit Ave., W. Hoboken. Kaplan, Joseph D., 200 S. Broad St., Trenton. Kepsel, Julius A., 243 Montgomery St., Jersey City. Krohn, Herman, 763 Broad St., Newark. Lesser, Louis B., 9 Clinton St., Newark. Matthews, John A., 31 Clinton St., Newark. McCloskey, W. Durward, Thompson Bldg., Lakewood. Miele, Philip J., 75 Montgomery St., Jersey City. Morrison, George R., 190 College Ave., New Brunswick. Praissman, Maurice L., 537 Arch St., Camden. Rauch, Sylvan J., 53 Penna. Ave., Newark. Reussille, Leon, Jr., 34 Broad St., Red Bank. Satz, David M., 763 Broad St., Newark. Schroth, Godfrey W., Jr., 412 Broad St., Trenton. Schultz, Vincent, 790 Broad St., Newark. Seiler, Isaac W., 472 Broadway, Bayonne. Silberman, Paul R., 776 Broad St., Newark. Simandl, Harold, 790 Broad St., Newark. Stiles, Harry A., 95 River St., Hoboken. Stover, Charles W., 84 Washington St., Hoboken. Sullivan, James A., 15 Exchange Pl., Jersey City. Tepper, Harry L., 800 Broad St., Newark. Varbalow, Joseph, 540 Federal St., Camden. Waldman, Herman, 19 Clinton St., Newark. Zimmerman, Thomas L., Jr., 232 Rider Ave., N. Y. City. Zucker, Maurice J., 790 Broad St., Newark. OBITUARIES. EX-JUSTICE BENNET VAN SYCKEL. On Dec. 20th last, following a brief illness of bronchial pneumonia, Supreme Court Justice Bennet Van Syckel, almost ninety-two years old, the oldest alumnus of Princeton University, died at his home in Trenton. Judge Van Syckel was the son of Aaron Van Syckel, and Mary Van Syckel, of Bethlehem, Hunterdon county, and was born there April 17, 1830. His father and his grandfather were country merchants, whose ancestors came with the old Dutch settlers to that part of New Jersey. His father was considered wealthy in those days and was able to give his four sons an excellent education. When Bennet was nine years old he was sent to a boarding school at Easton. At the age of thirteen he completed his preparatory studies and entered Princeton in the Sophomore class. Three years later he was graduated with high honors and for one year was resident graduate Assistant Professor to Joseph Henry, who occupied the chair of Natural Philosophy. Bennet next took up the study of law in the office of Alexander Wurts of Flemington, and was prepared to take his law examination some time before he was of age, but as he could not be admitted to the Bar while under twenty-one was forced to wait. On the twenty-first anniversary of his birthday, at the April Term of the Supreme Court, 1851, he was admitted to the Bar, and became counselor at the June Term, 1854. He at once opened office in Flemington, and practiced there with unusual success until February, 1858, when Governor Randolph appointed him Justice of the Supreme Court. At that time he was the youngest member of the Court. His Circuits were in the counties of Salem, Cumberland, Atlantic and Cape May. When the number of Supreme Court Justices was increased from seven to nine and the districts were readjusted, Justice Van Syckel was assigned to Union and Ocean counties, where he presided twenty-nine years. He was five times reappointed. Only a few months after his last appointment in 1904 he resigned because of ill health and increasing age. After his retirement Justice Van Syckel was made the guest of the New Jersey Bench and Bar, at Trenton, upon which occasion a portrait of him painted in oil was presented to the State, to be hung on the wall of the Supreme Court room at the Capitol. A few months later another portrait was hung in the new court house in Union County, in honor of the Justice who had presided there for so many years. During his term of service Justice Van Syckel delivered some of the most important opinions of the Supreme Court and of the Court of Errors and Appeals. In the prosecution of the Linden and Elizabeth race track gamblers in 1893 he proved a terror to poolsellers, bookmakers and evildoers. It was Justice Van Syckel who wrote the opinion of the Supreme Court when an effort was made to challenge the majority cast in favor of the anti-gambling amendment to the State Constitution, and his opinion upholding the adoption of the amendments was sustained by the Court of Errors and Appeals. At the time of his death a membership in the directorate of the Prudential Life Insurance Company was the former Justice's sole business affiliation. His activity in connection with this post caused his associates to marvel. He attended all the meetings and was as alert as the youngest of his colleagues. At the Princeton alumni reunion in June, 1920, he led the Parade around the baseball field and got a big ovation from the throng in attendance. In his automobile he arose repeatedly and raised his hat in acknowledgment of the applause. In 1911, Woodrow Wilson, when Governor, appointed him and former State Attorney General Edmund Wilson, of Red Bank, as a commission to study the proposed abandonment of the Morris Canal. The report was adverse to the State taking over the canal. The Justice aided in the drafting of the "Seven Sisters" Acts, passed during the Wilson administration, which were designed to curb the activities of the trusts in New Jersey. Justice Van Syckel was a lover of outdoor sports. In his younger days he played town ball and football and later was a great admirer of baseball. He rode horseback, played golf and was a fine wing shot. In politics he was a Democrat, but politics had no place with him while he sat on the Bench. Mr. Van Syckel married Miss Mary Elizabeth Sloane, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Hand Sloane. He is survived by two sons, Charles S. and William S., and a daughter, Bessie. JUDGE WILLIAM R. FRANCIS. Former New Jersey State Senator and former Supreme Court Judge of Dakota, William R. Francis, died in the City Hospital in Newark, this State, on Dec. 15th last, aged 82 years. His death was the result of a fall in the bedroom of his home, 324 S. Orange Ave., Newark. Judge Francis was born in Connecticut. He was a graduate from Oberlin College and then came to Newark, where he became a member of the law firm of Titsworth, Francis & Marsh. He served as city counsel of Newark from 1871 to 1875 and in the State Senate from 1879 to 1881. In 1882 Mr. Francis went to Dakota. At that time the two Dakotas were united in a territory of the United States. After completing his term as Supreme Court Judge there he became attorney for the Northern Pacific Railroad. About twenty years ago he returned to Newark. Mr. Francis was a Master in Chancery and had offices with Scharringhausen & Hartpence, 800 Broad street. Mr. Francis is survived by a widow, who was Miss Annie Yeomans of Newark. He is also survived by a niece, Mrs. C. L. Bryant of Danbury, Conn., and a cousin, Miss Mary Francis, of Newark. Transcriber Notes: Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_. Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS. Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the speakers. Those words were retained as-is. Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted. On page 9, "migh" was replaced with "might". On page 22, the term "plaintiff's term" was obscured by a Google logo. On page 23, "provsion" was replaced with "provision". On page 27, the phrase "committed by the wife with the en-" was moved to the top of the page, since it seemed to be put in the wrong line initially. On page 28, the question mark after "B thereafter refused to make the assignment" was replaced by a period On page 32, "Prinecton" was replaced with "Princeton". 
59877	----	produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Books project.) _THE NEW JERSEY LAW JOURNAL PUBLISHED MONTHLY_ VOLUME XLV FEBRUARY, 1922 No. 2 _SOME REMINISCENCES, MOSTLY LEGAL_ _BY HON. FREDERIC ADAMS, LOS ANGELES, CAL._ IV. CERTAIN COURTS AND LAWYERS. Ever since my boyhood the drama of the courtroom has interested me more than the drama of the theatre. I well remember my introduction to litigated business. I was a youngster on a visit to Boston when some one took me to a Court where a patent case was on trial. I was duly impressed by the imposing personality of the Judge, but my attention was soon fixed by the witness on the stand, whom I happened to know, for my father had once introduced me to him. He was Professor James Jay Mapes, of Newark, New Jersey, a chemist and inventor, one of whose many activities was the manufacture of fertilizers. I had visited one of his factories, somewhere between Newark and Elizabeth, and was surprised to see him at Boston in the rôle of a mechanical expert in a patent case. As the examination carefully proceeded I concluded, with the rashness of inexperience, that the examiner was a very dull man, for he seemed so slow to get an idea. What I then mistook for dullness I now recognize as professional skill, employed by counsel to unfold to the Court and jury the details of a complex mechanism. I know now more about that case than I did then, for, rather to my surprise, I have recently found a report of it in the first volume of Fisher's "Patent Cases," at page 108. The time was August, 1851, when I was not quite eleven years old. The courtroom was that of the Circuit Court of the United States for the First Circuit. Samuel Colt was plaintiff. The Massachusetts Arms Company was defendant. The counsel for the plaintiff were E. N. Dickerson, C. L. Woodbury and G. T. Curtis, and for the defendant R. A. Chapman, G. Ashmun and Rufus Choate, and the Judge was Mr. Justice Levi Woodbury of the Supreme Court of the United States, who was then testing the validity of the patent for the Colt revolver. The charge is reported in full. The verdict was for the plaintiff. Judge Woodbury was a New Hampshire man of some note, then in his sixty-second year, called by Thomas H. Benton "the rock of the New England Democracy," who had been Senator of the United States from New Hampshire, and a member of the Cabinets of Jackson and Van Buren, and, on the nomination of President Polk, had succeeded Judge Story as a member of the Supreme Court of the United States. The trial of the case in which I saw him was one of his last official duties, for he died in the following month. He was succeeded by Benjamin R. Curtis, of Boston, on the nomination of President Fillmore. While I was at the Harvard Law School in 1863-4, Richard H. Dana was United States District Attorney at Boston, and I often saw him at Cambridge, where he lived. His book, "Two Years Before the Mast," was and is a favorite of mine. I suppose that I have read it twenty times, and I hope that the boys of this day read and love it. It is in a class by itself. There is, I think, not in English, and probably not in any language, another account of seafaring life written in the forecastle by one of the crew, who was also a gentleman and a scholar and master of a charming style. The veracity and spirit of the narrative have made it a classic both here and in England. In California it is particularly valued, for Dana was one of the pioneers and had sailed through the Golden Gate on the "Alert" in the winter of 1835-6, many years before the Mexican War and the discovery of gold, when San Francisco as yet was not. When, at the end of the visit, the good ship floated out on the tide, herds of deer came down to the northerly shore to watch the unusual sight. Dana left college and went on this voyage to cure an affection of the eyes. After his return he graduated at Harvard in the class of 1837 and became a lawyer. Mr. Dana was qualified by nature and training to become a leading figure in the public life of this country, and his ambition was that way, but the cards ran against him. As Goldsmith said of Burke, he was "too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit," high-strung and sensitive as a race-horse, well bred and distinguished in bearing, a clear, graceful and forcible speaker, an admirable advocate, and an accomplished jurist. One of his greatest professional efforts and triumphs was his argument before the Supreme Court of the United States in the Consolidated Prize Cases, when he had to make it clear to the Court how it was that the stupendous struggle in which the country was engaged could be a-war with belligerent rights as between ourselves and other nations, and a local insurrection as between ourselves and the South. It may be remembered that, at the centennial anniversary of the battle of Lexington, Mr. Dana delivered the oration. It begins with the words, "How mysterious is the touch of fate which gives immortality to a spot of earth, to a name." It is a noble commemorative address. Concord has always plumed itself because it had a real fight, while the Lexington men only stood up to be shot at and did not damage the English. As the anniversaries were approaching and good-natured rivalry was in the air, Concord issued a prospectus of some kind, which did not suit Mr. Dana's fastidious taste, and he said to Judge Hoar, of Concord: "How is it, Judge, that you folks at Concord have sent out such a shabby, badly-written paper? It is positively ungrammatical." "O," said the Judge, "you know, Dana, at Concord we always did murder the King's English." While Mr. Dana was United States District Attorney he tried the last slave-trading case. The vessel was the "Margaret Scott," which was fitted out, I think, at New Bedford, but did not actually embark on the voyage. The trial was before Mr. Justice Nathan Clifford, of the Supreme Court of the United States. I heard Mr. Dana's summing up and the charge to the jury. Judge Clifford was a tall man of great girth. He stood throughout his admirable charge, which took him an hour to deliver. After about half an hour he told the jury that they might be seated. Governor Hoadley, of Ohio, who was a friend of Judge Swayne of the United States Supreme Court, once told me this story, which he got from Judge Swayne. Judge Grier, when on the Bench sat next to Judge Swayne and, during the latter part of his service, was crippled and dozed a good deal, and sometimes used to annoy Judge Swayne by speaking to him in a stage whisper. A prize case was on trial and there was discussion about belligerent rights, which one of the counsel pronounced belli_ge_rent. The novelty of the pronunciation roused Judge Grier, who said to Judge Swayne quite audibly: "Brother Swayne, Brother Swayne, Judge Clifford is the belli_ge_rent member of this Court." In 1868, while at Boston, I heard part of the argument in the remarkable case of Hetty H. Robinson v. Thomas Mandell, Executor and others. The case was tried before Judge Clifford in the Circuit Court of the United States. Sidney Bartlett and Benjamin R. Curtis (who was then an ex-Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States), were leading counsel for the complainant, and Benjamin F. Thomas, an ex-Judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, was leading counsel for the respondents. The complainant, who is better known to us by her married name of Hetty Green, had filed her bill setting up a special contract between herself and her aunt, Sylvia Ann Howland, for an exchange of mutual wills, and that neither should make any other will without notice to the other and a return of the other's will. Miss Howland had died, leaving a will not in favor of Hetty, but largely to charity. The respondent, Mandell, was her executor. The case is reported in 3 Clifford's Circuit Court Reports, page 169. Judgment was for the respondents, Judge Clifford saying, in his decision: "In this case there was no competent evidence to show that there was any agreement as to the making of mutual wills, and there was nothing on the face of the instruments to warrant any such conclusion." Mrs. Green, whom I saw for the first time, was in Court with her husband, a large, dressy man, looking like an English guardsman. Much testimony had been taken. There was a question of forgery, and enlarged photographs of signatures were standing about. Judge Curtis spoke for two days, one day on the facts and one day on the law, a length unusual for him, for he was generally brief. I heard Mr. Bartlett's opening and part of Judge Curtis's discussion of the facts. Mr. Bartlett was a great lawyer, but not, I should say, a very good speaker. His reputation was for condensation and concentration; for making a direct thrust at the central point, with small regard for introductory and collateral matters. Someone, I think a Judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, said that Mr. Bartlett's mental operations on matters of law bore about the same relation to those of the average lawyer that a book of logarithms does to a common school arithmetic. He continued in active practice until about the age of ninety, made a large fortune, and was famous for his high charges. He was no recluse, but a club man and citizen of the world. This was not the first time that I heard Judge Curtis. To follow any argument of his was an ever fresh delight. I remember as though it were yesterday the neatness and felicity with which, in the case just mentioned, he dismissed one of several propositions submitted by his adversary, saying, with his usual dignity and composure: "I now come to another of this series, I believe it is the ninth. Like all of them, it is not pleaded; like most of them, it is not proved; and, like each and all of them, it would be totally immaterial if it were both pleaded and proved." And then, in his last sentence, with exquisite tact, he lightly touched a certain string: "On one side of this case stands the complainant, with a large fortune; on the other side is a charity; but this Court observes the divine injunction, 'Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty, but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor!'" My friend, Mr. Frank E. Bradner, of the Essex Bar, has referred me to some lines in "The Professor At The Breakfast Table" which speak of Judge Curtis, who was a classmate of Dr. Holmes: "There's a boy--we pretend--with a three-decker brain, That could harness a team with a logical chain; When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire, We called him 'The Justice,' but now he's 'The Squire'." He who runs may read. The class of '29 had its twenty-five years meeting, always a great event, in 1854. Judge Curtis was then on the Bench and it was probably then that he spoke for the manhood of the class. He resigned his office in September, 1857, and became a "Squire." Judge Curtis was a master of the difficult art of Nisi Prius duty. No one could be more courteous, patient and impartial, better equipped with law, more accurate as to fact, or clearer in his rulings and instructions. Any Judge who has spent several of the best years of his life in learning how easy it is to try badly a case with a jury and how hard it is to do it well, will be interested to read the passage which I quote from a private letter written by Judge Curtis to Mr. Webster after he had been on the Bench for about a month: "I presume you will agree with me that there is no field for a lawyer which, for breadth and compass and the requisitions made on all the faculties, can compare with a trial by jury; and I believe it is as true of a Judge as of a lawyer that, in the actual application of the law to the business of men, mingled as it is with all passions and motives and diversities of mind, temper and condition, in the course of a trial by jury what is most excellent in him comes out and finds its fitting work, and whatever faults or weaknesses he has are sensibly felt." The great event of his judicial career was his dissenting opinion in the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, (10 Howard 393, Dec. Term, 1856), in which he asserted the constitutional power of Congress to prohibit slavery in the territories. This was the doctrine of Webster and Mason and of the coming Republican party. Mr. Lincoln, in his debate with Douglas, carried this dissenting opinion with him. There were nine Judges, each of whom filed an opinion. Five Judges were from slave States and were probably themselves slave-holders. Chief Justice Taney wrote an opinion which is called "Opinion of the Court," but may be more accurately described as the opinion of Chief Justice Taney and Judge Wayne, for Judge Wayne, who also filed a separate opinion, was the only one of the six Judges voting with the Chief Justice who concurred in all his points, reasonings and conclusions. Even at this day one cannot read without a shudder the Chief Justice's unflinching declaration as to the helpless and hopeless status of the negro. Judges McLean and Curtis filed dissenting opinions. There are complexities in the record which make it difficult for even a lawyer to determine just how much of the opinions filed by a majority of the Court is decision and how much is _dictum_. The Chief Justice withheld from the files the so-called "Opinion of the Court," and made additions and alterations to the extent of eighteen pages, in evident answer to the filed dissenting opinion of Judge Curtis, and instructed the clerk not to furnish a copy of the "Opinion of the Court" to anyone without the permission of the Chief Justice before it was published in Howard's "Reports," so that Judge Curtis, on application to the clerk, was unable to obtain the amplified opinion. There ensued a correspondence between Judge Curtis and the Chief Justice in which Judge Curtis kept his temper admirably and the Chief Justice nearly, if not quite, lost his, and did so, I think, because he felt that he was in the wrong. Judge Curtis, by leaving office in 1857, at the age of forty-seven, surprised his friends and the country. There were two reasons for it. The state of the Court was such that he did not feel comfortable in it. This does not refer to his controversy with the Chief Justice, to whose memory he afterwards paid a cordial tribute. Indeed, it may be doubted whether he would have felt much more comfortable as a member of the Court under the reign of Lincoln than he was under the reign of Buchanan. He was no party man and did not belong in either camp. His all-sufficient and avowed reason for resigning was that he could not live on a salary of $8,000, and felt bound to secure for himself and his family what Burns calls "the glorious privilege of being independent." This purpose was amply realized. He went at once and inevitably to the front rank of the American Bar and remained there for seventeen years, during which time his professional earnings amounted to about $650,000. This was not in our day of big business, when members of the Bar, who are great men of affairs, but not necessarily great lawyers, receive, or are supposed to receive, rich rewards for services in the organization, manipulation and combination of colossal corporate interests. The annual income of Judge Curtis was not much over $38,000, but, like Mercutio's wound, it was enough, it would serve, and it was fairly earned in the regular practice of his profession, at his office desk, in the trial of cases, and in writing opinions on important questions submitted to him from all parts of the country. He stood so high that his written opinion would often be accepted by both sides of a controversy as the veritable voice of the Law itself. I first saw and heard Judge Curtis at New Haven in 1864, in the trial of a suit in equity brought in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Second Circuit by the Lowell Manufacturing Company against the Hartford Carpet Company for an injunction and accounting. Judge Curtis led for the complainant, and the special interest of the case was that he had against him an opponent worthy of his steel, a man five years his senior, of different race, creed, politics and temperament, Charles O'Conor, the brilliant leader of the Bar of New York. The two men were evidently no strangers to one another. Judge Curtis had said at a dinner party that he regarded Mr. O'Conor's management of the Forest Divorce Case as the most remarkable exhibition of professional skill ever witnessed in this country. In the case which I heard at New Haven the associate counsel were able men, Mr. Edwin W. Stoughton for the complainant and Mr. George Gifford for the respondent, both prominent patent lawyers of New York. The Judges were Samuel Nelson of the Supreme Court of the United States and William D. Shipman of the District Court. It was pleasant, after the crudities of county practice, to see the mutual courtesy of the two leaders. I happen to remember a few gracious words of Judge Curtis: "and such rights, as no one knows better than the admirable lawyer on the other side, do not lie in covenant, but do lie in grant." The argument was not fully intelligible to me, for it dealt largely with considerations arising out of written contracts with which I was not familiar, but it was entertaining and instructive to watch the two men. There came on each side a grateful gleam of fun. While Mr. Stoughton was speaking of the terms of a contract, Judge Curtis, who sat near him, interjected the words: "and no longer." Mr. O'Conor in his argument laid hold of this and said: "Why, you might as well say, 'as long as grass grows and water runs,' 'and no longer'." I recall only one precedent for such an expression. It comes from a land from which we get very little law, though it has given us some lawyers. It is a verse of an old Irish song: "Then Pat was asked would his love last, And the chancel echoed with laughter, O, O yes, said Pat, you may well say that, To the end of the world and after, O." Mr. Gifford, in his argument, had referred to a certain United States statute which, as he said, the Supreme Court had found difficulty in construing. Mr. Curtis, in his closing argument, said: "That statute reminds me of a story of a learned divine of this State who once preached a sermon upon a difficult text in one of St. Paul's Epistles, and said, finally: 'My brethren, I have now given you the results of my most careful study and reflection upon this passage of Scripture, but I feel that, in justice to myself, I ought to say that I very much wish that the Apostle had not used those words'." When Mr. O'Conor, who followed his junior, Mr. Gifford, took his seat after speaking for five hours, the afternoon was getting late, and I heard Judge Curtis say to Mr. Stoughton: "I have to answer more than seven hours of solid argument. I cannot do it in two hours, and shall ask that the case go over until to-morrow." It was so ordered. In the evening he said to a friend of mine: "Nothing has been said on the other side which cannot be answered. The question is whether I can do it." He spoke the next day for two hours and twenty minutes and closed the case. This litigation resulted in a victory for Mr. O'Conor and his associates. In July, 1864, Judge Nelson wrote a short opinion dealing with contractual rights and gave judgment for The Hartford Carpet Company. (Case No. 8569, 15 Federal Cases, page 1021, 2 Fisher's Patent Cases, 472). The Judges and counsel, with the juniors from the Boston and Hartford offices, dined together every day at the New Haven House, and a congenial company it was. Mr. O'Conor, when he was at liberty, would put on the back of his head the silk hat which he always wore and say: "Who's for a walk?" and go off on a tramp under the elms. He was a spare, active man, of nervous temperament and great vitality. In New York he lived at Fort Washington, on the Hudson, and used to rise early, walk to his club on Fifth Avenue, breakfast there and then go down to his office. The keynote of Judge Curtis was serenity, that of Mr. O'Conor was intensity. Beginning to tread law at the age of sixteen, Mr. O'Conor fought his way to the lead, an achievement which no one who knows New York City will be disposed to underrate. In the fine old common law phrase, he "made war for his clients." He was tremendously combative within the rules of the game, and absolutely fearless and independent. His opinions were often extreme and sometimes eccentric. I heard him say at the New Haven House, in the middle of the War for the Union, to a man who asked for political advice: "Take the bull by the horns. Every dollar spent and every life lost in this War is just so much thrown into the great deep." It was like him to offer his professional services to Jefferson Davis in his evil day. He prophesied or hoped that "some future Tacitus" would arise to pronounce the verdict of history on Chief Justice Taney as _ultimus Romanorum_. There was a noble side to Mr. O'Conor's nature. With all his law he was an idealist. In accepting some now-forgotten nomination to the Presidency, he wrote this ringing sentence: "To spend in one's allotted place a blameless life of honest effort, and at its end to perish nobly contending in the Thermopylæ of an honest cause, has always been to me the perfection of a happy individual destiny." Let this be his epitaph. It remained for Judge Curtis, a few years later, to perform a professional duty which made him for the second time a prominent figure in the law and politics of the country. This was his opening argument for the defense in the Impeachment Trial of President Johnson. In a private letter written during that trial, he said: "There is not a decent pretense that the President has committed an impeachable offense." Most intelligent persons will now agree with him. His argument is a masterpiece of luminous reasoning and exposition, and concludes with this grave warning: "It must be unnecessary for me to say anything concerning the importance of this case, not only now, but in the future. It must be apparent to everyone in any way connected with or concerned in this trial that this is and will be the most conspicuous instance which ever has been or can ever be expected to be found of American justice or American injustice, of the justice which Mr. Burke says is the great standing policy of all civilized States, or of that injustice which is sure to be discovered and which makes even the wise man mad, and which, in the fixed and immutable order of God's providence, is certain to return to plague its inventors." * * * * * A landlord is held to be deprived of his property without due process of law by a statute giving the tenant the privilege of holding over at pleasure at expiration of his lease, in Hirsh v. Block, 267 Fed. 614, annotated in 11 A.L.R. 1238, on the constitutionality of rent laws. MAXWELL v. PINYUH. (N. J. Supreme Court, Jan. 20, 1922). _New Trial--Rules of Supreme Court--Orders of Judges--Relaxation of Rules._ Case of Louise Sylvester, Plaintiff, against George S. Pinyuh, Defendant. On motions to vacate certain Rules and Orders. Mr. Harry R. Cooper for Plaintiff. Mr. William J. Hanley, Mr. O. J. Pellet and Mr. Harlan Besson for Defendant. Heard before Justices TRENCHARD, BERGEN and MINTURN. PER CURIAM: This is a motion by the defendant to vacate certain rules heretofore made in the above entitled cause, and a counter motion by the plaintiff to strike out the restraint imposed upon her in a rule to show cause granted by Mr. Justice Minturn on the 25th day of October, 1921, and for permission to perfect her proceeding for a new trial. The facts are substantially as follows: In September, 1921, the case (a Supreme Court issue) was tried in the Monmouth Pleas on an order of reference made by a Justice of the Supreme Court. The jury found a verdict for the defendant, and the plaintiff, on the 22d day of September, applied to the trial Judge for a rule to show cause why a new trial should not be granted, which order was allowed by the trial Judge and was made returnable before him on the 6th day of October, 1921. On the return day of the rule, the attorney for the defendant appeared before the Judge and objected to his hearing the rule on the ground that, it being a Supreme Court issue, the rule must be heard by the Supreme Court. Judge Lawrence reserved decision in the matter, and thereafter came to the conclusion that the action had become a Common Pleas case, and that the rule could properly be heard before him, and fixed October 7th, 1921, for the hearing of same. In the meantime defendant's attorney procured from Mr. Justice Minturn a rule to show cause, returnable before the Supreme Court on the first Tuesday of November, 1921, why judgment should not be entered in favor of the defendant against the plaintiff on the postea, and why the trial Judge should not sign the postea, and restraining the plaintiff from further proceedings until the further order of the Court. A copy of this rule was served upon Judge Lawrence and he thereupon concluded that the rule must be heard before the Supreme Court, and he signed the postea. Plaintiff's attorney was evidently under the impression that, after the postea had been signed by Judge Lawrence, the object of the rule allowed by Justice Minturn was served, and that the stay contained therein was no longer effective and did not restrain him from taking the necessary proceedings to bring on the argument of the rule before the Supreme Court. He accordingly obtained from Judge Lawrence (who evidently entertained the same view) a rule amending the previous rule granted by him to the extent that the argument should be heard before the Supreme Court on the first Tuesday of February. Apparently, because of the uncertainty on the part of plaintiff's attorney as to whether the rule originally granted by Judge Lawrence, and the reasons on which plaintiff rested her motion for a new trial, should be filed in the office of the Clerk of the Supreme Court, or in the office of the Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas, these papers were withheld from the files and were not filed within the ten days required by the rules of this Court. A copy of the reasons and rule were, however, immediately served on the attorney for the defendant. Depositions were also taken by the plaintiff under the rule. On the 15th day of December, 1921, plaintiff's attorney obtained from Mr. Justice Kalisch a rule permitting plaintiff to file the rule to show cause allowed on the 22d day of September, as amended by the rule made by Judge Lawrence on the 30th day of November and the reasons on which plaintiff based her motion for a new trial, with the same force and effect as if the same had been filed within the time limited by law, and, immediately after that rule was granted, filed the rule made by Judge Lawrence and the plaintiff's reasons in the office of the Clerk of the Supreme Court. A copy of the depositions which were taken under the original rule granted by Judge Lawrence were also served on the defendant's attorney. No state of the case has yet been prepared and served, but it is stated to be the plaintiff's intention, should the Court permit her to do so, to immediately prepare and print her case and bring on the rule for argument at the February Term of the Supreme Court. The defendant moves to vacate the rule of September 22d, and the rule of November 30th, amending it; to vacate the rule allowed by Justice Kalisch permitting plaintiff to file such rules and the reasons. The plaintiff moves to vacate the restraint imposed upon her by the rule allowed by Justice Minturn October 25, 1921, and also moves to be allowed to perfect her proceedings for a new trial, and to bring on the same for argument, according to the rules and practice of the Court, at the February term. We think the defendant's motion should be denied and the plaintiff's motions granted. It is of course apparent, and the plaintiff freely admits, that the rules to show cause why a new trial should not be granted were irregular and defective and that they have not been brought on in accordance with the rules of the Supreme Court; but evidently the sole reason therefor was the confusion existing, both in the mind of plaintiff's attorney and that of the trial Judge, as to whether the application for a new trial should be heard before the trial Judge or before the Supreme Court. It seems not to be disputed that substantial reasons exist for giving consideration to plaintiff's application for a new trial. In granting the rule to show cause why a new trial should not be granted the trial Judge evidently felt that the plaintiff should be given her day in Court upon the reasons which were presented to him why the verdict of the jury should not be set aside. We feel that this Court should not allow the technical infirmities in the proceeding to deprive the plaintiff of an opportunity to be heard when, by a suspension or relaxation of its rules, a possible injustice may be avoided. Rule 217 of the Supreme Court provides: "The time limited in these rules for the doing of any act may, for good cause, be extended (either before or after the expiration of the time), by order of the Court, or a Justice or a Judge thereof." Rule 218 provides: "These rules shall be considered as general rules for the government of the Court and the conducting of causes; and as the design of them is to facilitate business and advance justice, they may be relaxed or dispensed with by the Court in any case where it shall be manifest to the Court that a strict adherence to them will work surprise or injustice." We therefore deny defendant's motion to vacate the rules heretofore obtained by the plaintiff to perfect her proceedings for a new trial, and we grant the plaintiff's motion to vacate the restraint imposed in the order of Mr. Justice Minturn, and also grant the plaintiff permission to perfect her proceedings for an application for a new trial, and also permission to bring the same on for argument at the February term of this Court, according to the rules of this Court. The relief thus granted to the plaintiff will be upon terms that she pay the defendant costs upon these motions; all other costs to abide the event. STATE v. GROSS. (N. J. Supreme Court, Jan., 1922). _City Ordinance Against Disorderly Conduct--The Disorderly Act--Removal of Persons from Railroad Train._ Case of The State against Jacob Gross, Prosecutor. On certiorari dismissing conviction. Mr. Charles W. Broadhurst for the Rule. Mr. Joseph J. Weinberger for Prosecutor. Argued before Justice MINTURN by consent. MINTURN, J:. The prosecutor of this writ was convicted before the Recorder of the City of Passaic for violating section 72 of an ordinance of that city which provides as follows: "That any person, who shall in any place in the city of Passaic, make, aid or assist in making any improper noise, riot, disturbance or breach of the peace, or shall behave in a disorderly manner, or make use of obscene or profane language ... shall each be liable to a penalty of five dollars for every offense." The violation complained of was that, while he was a passenger on an Erie Railroad train, and while the train had stopped at Passaic, he refused to remove his baggage from between the seats to the baggage compartment at the request of the conductor, as a result of which the prosecutor became noisy and boisterous, and the conductor thereupon caused the removal of the prosecutor and his baggage from the car, and turned him and it over to a local police officer. He was thereafter prosecuted as a disorderly person and convicted of that offense. Various legal grounds are advanced as a basis for vacating the conviction. One only I deem fatal to its validity. The ordinance in question was intended to apply to public places within the city for the purpose of suppressing disorderly conduct therein, and, while in a limited sense a steam railroad car is a quasi public place as between the State and the railroad, it cannot be reasonably construed as furnishing such a public place within the contemplation of the local legislative body, when they passed this ordinance. A similar contention was before this Court in State v. Lynch, 23 N. J. L. J. 45, where it was held that a saloon, although a public house in contemplation of law, is not a "public place" within the contemplation of the provisions of the Disorderly Act. The words "public places" in this connection were held to be "such places as are in general use for travel by all citizens, and in which all have at all times an equal right of passage and repassage." Adopting this rule of construction the railroad coach in question was not a "place" to which the jurisdiction of the city can be said to extend, and the word "place," therefore, in this connection, must be held to be equivalent to "public place." That this is so is made manifest from the context of the section of the ordinance invoked upon the doctrine of _noscitur a sociis_. Thus, the person charged must not only be in "a place in the city of Passaic," but he must "make, aid or assist in making any improper noise, riot, disturbance or breach of the peace, or shall behave in a disorderly manner or make use of obscene or profane language." This enumeration of specific acts of misdemeanor connotes, generally speaking, the ordinary offense of disorderly conduct, such as is condemned in our Disorderly Act; and, as has been observed, such disorderly conduct, to be the subject of public prosecution, must occur in a "public place," within the jurisdiction of the City Magistrate, and the environment of the city. A travelling car manifestly is not such a public place. 32 Cyc. 1249 and cases. The fact that the prosecutor was noisy in asserting his rights can make no difference in the result, for we may, from experience, judicially notice the fact that the inter-urban railroad train presents no suitable accommodation for one inclined to indulge in either introspection or somnolence. Therefore, an ordinary conversation in a major key when indulged, as was the case here, between a conductor, with a book of railroad rules in his hand emphasizing his duty, and a protesting commuter with an innocuous bag, the owner of which attempted to vindicate in Yiddish-English the rights of the American travelling public, might be the means of provoking an innocent mental diversion for the benefit of the curious passengers, but could hardly be said to evolve the serious accusation of disorderly conduct in a public place, within the meaning of the ordinance. A discussion in an elevated key on a railway carriage, whether it concern a bag or the suspected contents of a bag, is not an unusual episode in everyday American railway life; nor can it be said to be without its compensation and exhilarating effect upon the general body of passengers, so long as it does not assume the intolerant form of vulgarity, or obscenity, and thus warrant the ejection from the train of the malodorous disputant. The fact, of course, is that the voluminous resonance of a conversation cannot be utilized as a standard to guage either its criminality or its literary value, and yet debates in the halls of legislation, in the Courts of justice, not to speak of fulminations from the pulpit, are often measured by the volume of vocalization and the density of lung power behind them. If precedent were invoked from the classics, we have it in "Sweet Auburn;" where, in fancy, we hear the "Loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind;" and Goldsmith's pen picture has placed the vociferous schoolmaster among the immortals, whose "Words of learnèd length and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around." All of this, and more, is familiar experience on the railway train, and thus far has escaped the proscription of the authorities. In Mullen v. State, 67 L. 450, the prosecutor in asserting his rights at a schoolmeeting became, in the language of this Court, "quite noisy and excited." His conception of public duty led him to indulge in what the complainant called "loud language," and for this he was prosecuted under the provisions of the Disorderly Act, which prohibits in "public places" the use of "loud, offensive or indecent language." There was no proof of the indecency or offensiveness of his speech, and this Court held that the uttering of "loud" language was not enough to sustain the complaint. These considerations, without reference to the other objections presented, lead me to conclude that the judgment of conviction should be vacated, and such will be the order. STATE v. CAPRIO. (Before Hon. Fred G. Stickel, Jr., as Magistrate. Nov. 2, 1921). _Prohibition Enforcement Act--Search Warrant--Seizure of Liquor Permits and Certain Liquors._ Case of State against Luigi Caprio. On application to restore property and liquor taken under search warrant issued under the Prohibition Enforcement Act. Before Hon. Fred G. Stickel, Jr., a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, acting as Magistrate under the Prohibition Enforcement Act. Mr. Anthony R. Finelli for application. Mr. J. Henry Harrison, Prosecutor of the Pleas, opposed. STICKEL, JR., MAGISTRATE: On October 3rd, 1921, acting as Magistrate under the Prohibition Enforcement Act, I issued a search warrant directed to Richard Roe, authorizing a search of the drug store, cellar and rooms attached at 7 Bloomfield Avenue, Belleville, New Jersey, and a seizure of the liquor there found, together with all vehicles, fixtures, containers, utensils, machines, contrivances, or paraphernalia whatsoever, there found used or intended to be used in the illegal keeping, manufacture, transportation or sale of liquor. This warrant was based upon an allegation by Nick Takush that he believed liquor was unlawfully possessed in such place, and that he based his belief upon the fact that he had on several occasions purchased whiskey at that address for beverage purposes, and on the 30th day of September, 1921, had purchased two gallons of alcohol there for beverage purposes. Acting under this warrant, the sheriff, through under-sheriff Alfred C. Walker, returned the body of Luigi Caprio, admittedly the owner of said 7 Bloomfield Avenue and of the drug store, cellar and rooms attached. The said under-sheriff also filed an inventory showing that he had seized under said search warrant a two gallon can labeled, "Columbia Spirits;" a five gallon can labeled "Alcohol;" one bottle labeled "Columbia Spirits;" some liquor permits; one five gallon can, full, labeled, "Columbia Spirits;" one bottle labeled "Aromatic Elixir;" one bottle labeled "Alcohol." Application is now made under sections 63 and 64 of the Prohibition Enforcement Act to restore the liquor and property so taken, on the ground that there was no probable cause for believing the existence of the grounds on which the search warrant was issued, and on the further ground that the liquor and chattels taken upon such search warrant are not the same as referred to in the search warrant. There is absolutely nothing in the testimony taken before me to support the contention that there was no probable cause for believing the existence of the grounds upon which the search warrant was issued, but there is some merit in the other contention. The search warrant directs the taking by the sheriff of "liquor found in and upon the premises aforesaid, together with any and all vehicles, fixtures, containers, utensils, machines, contrivance, or paraphernalia whatsoever found, used or intended to be used in the illegal keeping or sale of liquor." It will be readily seen that the sheriff would only be justified in his seizure of the liquor permits if they came within the description "paraphernalia," and clearly the word "paraphernalia" cannot be interpreted, particularly in the light of the words which precede it in the search warrant, to cover liquor permits. The testimony also showed that the five gallon can labeled "Columbia Spirits" was delivered by a drug concern to Caprio while the sheriff's men were there or about the time they arrived. Certainly this liquor is not the liquor referred to in the search warrant, and consequently, not being the liquor referred to in the search warrant, it must be restored to the person from whom it was taken. Therefore an order may be presented, reciting that, so far as the Prohibition Enforcement Act is concerned, the search warrant issued by virtue of the authority thereof is not sufficient to justify the sheriff in retaining the liquor permits and five gallon can labeled "Columbia Spirits," and that in view of the Prohibition Enforcement Act the said liquor permits and "Columbia Spirits" be restored to said Caprio. HARSEL v. FICHTER & ENGELHARDT. (Essex Common Pleas, Dec. 27, 1921). _Workmen's Compensation Acts in New Jersey and New York--Applying to Wrong Tribunal--Election of Tribunal._ Case of Julia Harsel, Petitioner, against William Fichter and John Engelhardt, copartners trading as Fichter & Engelhardt, Defendants. On petition for compensation under Workmen's Compensation Act. Messrs. Kent & Kent for Petitioner. Messrs. Kalisch & Kalisch (by Mr. Isador Kalisch) for Respondent. STICKEL, JR., J.: The employers contend that the petition for compensation in this case should be dismissed because the contract of employment was made in New York, and because the petitioner elected to proceed under the compensation law of New York, subsequently petitioning for compensation under the New Jersey law. In considering the case, I felt I would be aided if I had before me the testimony taken in the New York compensation action, and counsel for the defendant very kindly supplied me therewith. From such testimony, which I have filed in this case, as well as from the deposition filed, I am satisfied and find as a fact that the deceased was hired in New Jersey by Fichter & Engelhardt. It is quite clear to me that the deceased heard of the New Jersey job of Fichter & Engelhardt at the Union rooms in New York and that, being attracted thereby, he, after giving up the New York job, came to the New Jersey job, was seen by the foreman, Millhouse, and employed on the spot. Engelhardt appears to be a silent partner of Fichter, according to his own testimony, and the firm is, in fact, made up as stated in the title to this cause. Furthermore, even though the contract of employment had been made in New York, the accident causing the deceased's death having taken place in New Jersey, the case falls within the New Jersey Compensation Act, and this notwithstanding the existence of a New York Compensation Act. American Radiator Company v. Rogge, 86 N. J. L. 436, aff. 87 N. J. L. 314; 245 U. S. 630; David Heiser v Hay Foundry & Iron Works, 87 N. J. L. 688 (at this time the New York Compensation Act was in force); West Jersey Trust Company v. Philadelphia & Reading Realty Company, 88 N. J. L. 102. As to the question of election, the contention of the employers is wholly without merit. The petitioner, through attorneys other than those who now represent her, applied for compensation under the New York Compensation Act. The Commission held that it had no jurisdiction; that the case was not within the New York jurisdiction, apparently, from the testimony taken, because the Commission found that the contract of employment with petitioner was made in New Jersey and the accident took place there. Thereupon petitioner applied for compensation in New Jersey, and an informal award had been made in New Jersey, and a day fixed to hear the case on the formal petition, before someone in New York claiming to represent Mrs. Hassel, the petitioner, had applied for a reopening of the finding of no jurisdiction by the New York Commission. Petitioner in that posture of affairs advised the New York Commission of the New Jersey proceeding, and asked that the New York proceeding be stayed "pending the trial of her case in New Jersey, and then after and when we receive compensation over there, as I understand the law in this State, Mrs. Hassel can still come in and get the deficiency claim from the Compensation Bureau here," and this request was duly granted. What acts of petitioner constitute the election which should bar this New Jersey proceeding? Certainly not the original application for compensation in New York, for that application was dismissed, and it now appears erroneously, for lack of jurisdiction, and, under such circumstances, it is clear that she has not made a final and binding election such as would preclude her applying to the tribunal in fact possessing jurisdiction. 15 Cyc., p. 262, and cases cited; 20 Corpus Juris, p. 37, and cases cited. If a mistake of a petitioner in applying to the wrong tribunal for relief would not preclude application to the right tribunal (see 15 Cyc., supra) certainly the erroneous finding of no jurisdiction by the tribunal applied to could not have a greater and more binding effect upon the petitioner. And even a correct finding of no jurisdiction would not preclude application for relief to the tribunal possessing jurisdiction. 20 Corpus Juris, p. 27. The only other conduct of petitioner which is relied upon to constitute an election is her request to the New York Commission after someone unauthorizedly had applied for a re-opening of the case, and after the institution of the New Jersey suit to stay the New York proceedings until the completion of the New Jersey proceeding, so that petitioner might obtain in New York the difference between the New York compensation allowance and that of New Jersey, and clearly such conduct, which is, in effect, an election to proceed in New Jersey on the main case, cannot be held to constitute an election to proceed in New York. I, therefore, find that the petitioner is entitled to compensation for three hundred weeks at the rate of twelve dollars per week, and to one hundred dollars, the statutory allowance for funeral expenses, and I will allow counsel for the petitioner a counsel fee for services in this Court of two hundred and fifty dollars. A determination of facts should be prepared by counsel for the petitioner, submitted to counsel for defendant for inspection, and then transmitted to me for signature. STATE v. ASH. (Essex Common Pleas Jan. 6, 1922). _Driving Automobiles Under Influence of Liquor--Review of Evidence Below._ Case of State of New Jersey against Joseph A. Ash. On appeal from Third Criminal Court of Newark. Mr. John P. Manning for State. Mr. Andrew Van Blarcom for Defendant. STICKEL, JR., J.: The defendant-appellant was found guilty in the Third Criminal Court in the City of Newark, Judge Horace C. Grice presiding, for driving an automobile while under the influence of liquor, in violation of Section 1, Chapter 67, of the Laws of 1913, a supplement to the Disorderly Person Act, and he now appeals to this Court. The first point urged as a ground for reversal of the conviction is that "at the close of the case there was a reasonable doubt as to the applicant's guilt; that the State had not sustained the burden of proof, and that the weight of the evidence favored the appellant." It is to be doubted whether this Court has any power to review the evidence at all, in view of the Laws of 1895, Page 197, section 7, 3 Comp. Stat., p. 3993, providing: "That it shall not be necessary to set forth in said conviction [convictions in Police Courts of first-class cities] the whole or any part of the testimony upon which such convictions is had," but, assuming it possesses such power, it cannot extend beyond the point of determining whether there was any evidence before the trial Court to support its finding. See Sec. 39, Laws of 1915, p. 411, Supp. Comp Stat., p. 490; State v. Lynch, 3 N. J. L. Journal 45; Lyons v. Stratford, 43 N. J. L., 376; Orange v. McGonnell, 71 N. J. L. 418. No power to weigh the evidence rests in this Court, and, if it did, I would be unwilling to say, after a reading of the evidence in this case, that the trial Court was wrong in its conclusion of facts; that it should have disregarded the officer's testimony and that of Doctor Mitchell, and believe the story of the defendant and his friend; or even that the Court must have or should have entertained a reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt on the whole case. The trial Court saw the witnesses, had the benefit of the atmosphere of the trial, witnessed the demeanor of the witnesses on the stand, their manner of testifying, and, consequently, was in a better position to determine questions of fact than this Court is, relying, as it must, upon a paper record. There was ample evidence, if believed, to support the charge. The police officer testified that he saw the defendant driving the car, smelled alcohol on his breath, took him to Doctor Mitchell, the police surgeon, to whom the defendant admitted that he had been drinking, and who found him under the influence of liquor, and on the stand the defendant told of having had two drinks of whiskey. The point stressed--that the police officer's claimed identification of the defendant as the driver on South Orange Avenue is so improbable and impossible as to make his whole story increditable incredible and unbelievable--presents a question of fact and argument peculiarly the province of the trial Court, but, in any event, the fair intendment from his testimony, it seems to me, is that either because of the speed of the auto in question, or because of the auto chasing the car in question, with the occupant waving his hand to the officer, he was attracted to the automobile in question, caught a glimpse of the driver, turned around, followed the car, ordered it to stop, saw the defendant while thus endeavoring to bring the car to a stand-still, and then saw him step out of the car and away from the driver's seat. The next point urged is that the Court erred in sustaining an objection to this question addressed to Officer Moffatt by counsel for the defendant: "How many conferences have you had about this case this morning with Captain McRell, or Doctor Mitchell?" After this question was asked the Court said: "Is that material?" "Mr. Manning: I do not see that this is material. We have a right to prepare our case. I object." The Court: "Objection sustained. I think you [counsel for the defendant] probably talked about your case with your client." No objection was made to the Court's ruling by counsel for the defendant, no exception taken thereto, and no effort made to point out the materiality or relevancy of the question, or that it was but the foundation for some legitimate attack upon the credibility of the witness. In that posture of affairs the overruling of the question was in the discretion of the Court and was harmless. State v. Panelli (N. J.) 79 Atl. 1064. The third and last ground urged for reversal is the action of the Court in permitting Doctor Mitchell to answer the following question over objection of counsel for defendant and exception duly taken: "And, in your opinion, would you say his condition to be such as to prevent his driving a car?" Assuming the action of the Court constituted legal error, it could not prejudice the defendant, for the State was not required to prove that the defendant was so far under the influence of liquor that he could not safely drive a car, but merely to prove that he drove the car while "under the influence of intoxicating liquor." This is clearly pointed out by Justice Trenchard in State v. Rodgers, 102 Atl. 433 (at p. 435), where the Justice says: "It will be noticed that it is not essential to the existence of the statutory offense that the driver of the automobile should be so intoxicated that he cannot safely drive a car. The expression 'under the influence of intoxicating liquor,' covers only all the well known and easily recognized conditions and degrees of intoxication, but any abnormal mental or physical condition which is the result of indulging in any degree in intoxicating liquors, and which tends to deprive him of that clearness of intellect and control of himself which he would otherwise possess." The State, prior to the propounding of the said question, had submitted testimony showing or designed to show that the defendant had driven the car while "under the influence of intoxicating liquor," and Doctor Mitchell had already testified that when he examined him he found him under the influence of intoxicating liquor. No legal error being shown or appearing in the record, the conviction is therefore affirmed. IN RE ESTATE OF ECKERT. (Essex County Orphans' Court, Aug. 16, 1920). _Exceptions to Accounting--Depreciation of Securities--Continuing Investments--New and Unlawful Investments._ In the matter of the Estate of August F. Eckert. On exceptions to account. Messrs. Riker & Riker (Mr. Theodore McC. Marsh and Harvey S. Moore), Proctors for Exceptant. Mr. Edward R. McGlynn, Proctor for the Executor. STICKEL, JR., J.: August F. Eckert, of Orange, New Jersey, died on or about October, 1914, leaving a last will and testament, whereby he bequeathed his property to his wife, Caroline Eckert, and to his children Annie M. Eckert and Clara M. Eckert, to be divided equally between them as soon as the youngest child should arrive at the age of twenty-one years. He appointed William Scheerer, executor. Both of the children were of the age of twenty-one years at the time of testator's death. Scheerer duly qualified as executor, and from 1914 to the present time he has been in charge of the administration of the estate. After being cited to account he filed the account here in issue, and Annie M. Eckert, who has married and is now known as Annie Maxwell, filed numerous exceptions to the account. All of these exceptions were disposed of at the hearing except certain exceptions which fell into two classes, first, those relating to the depreciation on certain issues of bonds, generally described throughout the hearing as Public Service securities, and, second, the exceptions based upon the executor's failure to invest the cash on hand. I will overrule the exceptions falling within the first class, namely, those seeking to surcharge the executor for depreciation of securities invested in by the testator and received by the executor as part of his estate. The securities, the subject matter of the exceptions now under consideration, are investments made by the testator. Consequently, unless it can be shown that in continuing these investments the executor failed to exercise reasonable discretion and that there was an absence of good faith in so continuing them, he cannot be charged with depreciation of such stock. The burden of proving such lack of good faith and failure to exercise reasonable discretion is upon the exceptant. This burden she has failed to sustain. I am convinced that whatever the executor did in the management of this estate was done solely with the best interests of the estate in mind. When the decedent died his widow and two daughters remained together as a family and the executor proceeded to administer the estate possessed of the complete and entire confidence of the beneficiaries of the man who had had sufficient confidence in him to appoint him his sole executor. It was his strict duty, perhaps, to close up the business of decedent, collect the assets, pay the debts and at the end of the year distribute, and had he done so he would early have been relieved of his responsibility. But he wanted to help the family, and so he departed from his strict duty and permitted the business to be continued for a time so that the family might benefit from the receipts thereof. Again, he permitted the informal use and division of some of the debts collected and personal property left. But it is entirely clear to me that this was done by common consent of those concerned, including the exceptant. The three, constituting the family, were treated as an entity, and these and other departures from the strict line of the executor's duty were committed because they were for the common good. In line with this policy of helpfulness on Scheerer's part, and of confidence and reliance upon the part of the devisees, the executor was given charge of the lands and permitted to continue the management of the estate long after it should have been wound up. He became, by tacit consent and common understanding, the trustee of the family. They wanted the benefit of his judgment and experience until the real estate could be sold and the proceeds properly invested. This he gave to them. This continued during 1915, 1916 and 1917. No question seems to have arisen as to the propriety of continuing the investments, nor, indeed, were the executor's acts in any respect challenged during this period. Then the exceptant left the family and became Mrs. Maxwell, and in 1918 demanded an accounting. Up to this point no evidence at all of bad faith or unreasonable exercise of discretion appears. The result of the demand of the exceptant was the agreement by the executor and the exceptant, in the office of John P. Manning, her attorney, upon a settlement which provided for a payment of part of her share in cash and part in investments of decedent continued by the executor. The settlement fell through, not apparently because the securities or settlement were unsatisfactory, but because exceptant disapproved of the word "heirs" in the release requested of her by the executor. At the time, in 1918, the exceptant was willing to take, as her share of the estate, some of the same investments which she now declares the executor was negligent in continuing. Thereafter, and up to the filing of the account, the attorneys of the exceptant and the attorneys of the executor were in frequent negotiation, endeavoring to settle the differences of the parties and agree upon a distribution or division. Certainly, during this period, the executor would not be charged with bad faith or failure to exercise reasonable discretion in keeping the subject matter of the negotiations _in statu quo_, ready for immediate distribution or division in the event of an agreement. Where, then, is the evidence of lack of good faith and failure to exercise reasonable discretion? I can find none. Indeed, when it is realized that two of the beneficiaries are entirely content with the executor's retention of the securities in question; that that which the securities in question represent is as valuable to-day as when the decedent died; that the depreciation is a paper or market one, due to abnormal conditions general throughout the world; that with the return of normal conditions these securities are likely to find their old level, and that the exceptant herself has continued to hold her individual securities, of the same general type as those here in question, it is easy to believe that had the distribution of the estate taken place heretofore, to-day would have seen all parties holding on to their securities, collecting their accustomed income, hoping for the return of the conditions which would mean a rise in the market value of their said securities. The mere fact that the executor did not close up the estate within a year or two after the decedent's death, but continued to manage and administer it, including the real estate, with the consent of beneficiaries, did not increase or change his liability. He was bound to take the same care of the estate as before, no more, no less. Perrine v. Vreeland, 6 Stew. 102. We will now take up the claim that the executor should have invested the cash on hand instead of keeping it in the bank, and that, having failed to do so, he must be charged with the difference between the interest he did get and that which he might have received had he invested it. This exception is also overruled. It is true that, generally speaking, it is the duty of an executor to invest funds in his hands; but the propriety of charging an executor or trustee with interest because he has failed to invest the funds depends upon other facts than the mere possession of the funds, and I know of no case holding that where, pending negotiations for settlement and distribution, an executor left the funds of the estate in saving banks, he must be charged with the interest he might have received had he invested the funds of the estate and perhaps thereby interfered with the immediate liquidation and settlement of the estate. On the contrary the tendency of the decisions is to uphold such conduct. His course prior to the demand in 1918 was acquiesced in by the exceptant; his actions since then were governed, and necessarily, by the continually pending negotiations. In any event the uninvested funds at best scarcely equalled at any time, as far as I can discover, two or three thousand dollars, sums perhaps not always easy to quickly and satisfactorily invest. This leaves for consideration only the act of the executor in investing five thousand dollars of his _cestui que_ money in Public Service funds. These were securities in which a trustee had no right to invest. They are not among those investments which our statute permits trustees to invest in, and, in establishing the investments, the exceptant has made out a _prima facie_ case requiring explanation by the executor. Undoubtedly the executor acted in good faith, but that will not protect him as in the case of continuing investments made by a decedent. His explanation, other than that he acted in good faith, appears to be that the investment was made with the acquiescence of the exceptant; that she is estopped from questioning the investment. I doubt that the exceptant had actual knowledge of the investment when it was made, and the general acquiescence which negatived bad faith in the executor in continuing the decedent's investment would not suffice to protect the executor in making an investment of this kind. Nor do I find that she possessed the knowledge of this transaction that would permit of the application of the doctrine of estoppel. As a consequence, unless there are facts which have escaped or have not been brought to my attention which relieve the executor from the normal effect of an investment of this kind, he must be charged with the depreciation of these bonds, unless the beneficiaries agree to accept the bonds as such. [NOTE BY EDITOR.--The above case, which has attracted much local attention, was in part sustained and in part overruled in the Prerogative Court on Jan. 31, and may go to the Errors and Appeals]. IN RE VREELAND. (Essex Common Pleas, Jan. 19, 1922). _Insolvent Debtor_--A preferential payment of a bona fide debt by an insolvent debtor does not bar his discharge under the Act for the Relief of Persons Imprisoned on Civil Process. In the matter of Frank A. Vreeland. Application for discharge as insolvent debtor. Mr. Richard H. Cashion for Debtor. Mr. Frederick J. Ward for objecting Creditor. FLANNAGAN, J.: On June 29th, 1921, Peter M. Dalton recovered a judgment in tort against Frank A. Vreeland, in the Orange District Court, in the sum of $211.80 and costs; execution was issued and returned unsatisfied. On September 9, 1921, the debtor was taken into custody on a capias ad satisfaciendum and released on bail on the following day. The debtor now applies to this Court for a discharge as an insolvent debtor under the Act for the Relief of Persons Imprisoned on Civil Process, having filed what he claims is "a just and true account of all his real and personal estate," as provided by Section 6 of the Act. It appeared from the testimony of the debtor on the hearing before this Court that, after entry of said judgment and on July 5, 1921, he executed to his sister, Laura A. Vreeland, a chattel mortgage, for the sum of $1,505, being the amount of a pre-existing debt for cash advanced by her to him between August 30, 1920, and the date of the mortgage (to wit, July 5, 1921). The debtor has no property of any substantial value remaining, and, while the value of the property mortgaged is questioned, it represented substantially all his resources and appears to be by no means equal in value to the amount of the loan against it, $1,505. The creditor contends that the debtor, having thus made a preference in favor of his sister since the entry of the judgment, he is not entitled to a discharge. This is the only question which is involved in the present application. The statute provides (Section 8) that the Court shall "consider and examine the truth and fairness of the account and inventory," and (Section 11) that, if the Court is "satisfied that the conduct of the debtor has been fair, upright and just," it may proceed to grant his discharge upon compliance by him with the further provisions as to assignment, etc., set forth in the statute. Under Section 15 of the Act it is provided that if it shall appear that the debtors have "concealed or kept back any part of their estate or property, or made any ... mortgage ... with intent to defraud his creditor ... then ... said debtors shall be refused ... discharge." The provision which requires the debtor's conduct to be "fair, upright and just" is restricted to his conduct in making his account and inventory, and "in delivering up to his creditors all his estate" (Meliski v. Sloan, 47 N. J. L. 83; Reford v. Creamer, 30 N. J. L. 253), and, unless the mortgage to the debtor's sister was with intent to defraud, it would seem he is entitled to his discharge. Of course, if the mortgage is fraudulent, he would not be entitled to it. Iliff v. Banhart, 60 N. J. L. 253; affd. 61 N. J. L. 286. There is no evidence in the case that the consideration paid for the mortgage by the debtor's sister was fictitious, or was not bona fide, or that the mortgage was with any promise or expectation of future benefit to the debtor, or was otherwise improper. On the contrary the testimony is that the mortgage was given for money advanced. The only objection to the discharge which the evidence would justify is that the mortgage was given when the debtor was in failing circumstances while insolvent and after the creditor's judgment had been entered. There is nothing fraudulent or wrong, within the meaning of the Act for the Relief of Persons Imprisoned on Civil Process in the giving of a preference knowingly by a person in an insolvent condition. At common law every man, even when in failing circumstances, has a right to dispose of his property, to pay one honest creditor in preference to another one. Garretson v. Brown, 26 N. J. L. 437; affd. 27 N. J. L. 644; Stillman's Ex. v. Stillman, 21 N. J. Eq. 126. If the debt was honestly due the debtor had a right to select his favorites. There is nothing in the Act to change the common law on this subject and hence the debtor was within his legal rights when he made the preference referred to his sister. For these reasons the debtor is entitled to his discharge. N. Y. AND GREENWOOD LAKE RAILWAY CO., et al. v. ESSEX CO. PARK COMMISSION. (N. J. Supreme Court, Dec. 10, 1921). _Certiorari--Railroad Land Acquired by Park Commission by Condemnation--Disuse of Land by Railroad._ New York and Greenwood Lake Railway Co., a Corporation, and Erie Railroad Co., a Corporation, Prosecutors, against Essex County Park Commission. Application for writ of certiorari before Hon. William S. Gummere, Chief Justice. Messrs. Parker, Emery & Van Riper (by Mr. John M. Emery) for Prosecutors. Mr. Alonzo Church for Respondent. GUMMERE, C. J. (orally): As I understand the situation with relation to the law and the facts, it is this: The Park Commission, having been created by the Legislature for the purposes specified in the Act under which it was organized, conceived the idea of acquiring land to be devoted to the uses of a park up in Verona, and that was done, of course, under a form of resolution, and I assume, unless I am corrected, that the land to be embraced in the park was described, in a general way at least, in the resolution. Having taken that step they started in to acquire the land to be embraced in the proposed park, and in carrying out that purpose they approached this railroad company for the purpose of buying from them, for the purposes of a park, this particular piece of land, but they were unable to make any arrangement with the company with relation to its purchase and sale. I say that from my recollection of the provisions in the petition which was submitted to me, and the accompanying affidavits. The railroad company at that time, and that was prior to the first of November, knew that this Park Commission proposed to acquire a tract of land, of which this particular piece was an integral part, for the purposes of public recreation, not only for the citizens of Verona and neighborhood, not only for the citizens of the county of Essex, but for all the citizens of the State who desired to enjoy that public benefit. Now, the Park Commission either had or had not the right to acquire this land in invitum, that is, against the will of the railroad company and by the exercise of the power of eminent domain given to them by the State itself, and so if they had desired to do so (and when I say "they" I mean the railroad company), they could have ascertained just what the steps were that had been taken by the Park Commission antecedent to the negotiations for the purchase of this land. They would have ascertained that this resolution had been passed and that this particular piece of land was only a part, perhaps a small part of the whole territory which was to be acquired and devoted as a unit to park purposes, but they did not do it. They sat still until they received notice that an application had been made to the presiding Justice here for the appointment of commissioners to condemn that piece of land, and a representative of the railroad company appeared here in response to that notice. Of course, there was nothing that could be done in that particular phase of the matter which would operate as a stay, because the Judge in a matter of that kind sits as a mere legislative agent. But, after the Court had appointed the commissioners, this railroad company, having neglected to act promptly in the way that I have already suggested, by certioraring the resolution, and thereby preventing the expenditure of comparatively large sums, I suppose, of public moneys, still waited; not only waited, without attempting to halt the proceedings, but they actually attended before the condemnation commissioners. Counsel says with a reservation, or with an expostulation, or a protest, or what not, but they appeared there for some purpose, and I suppose to see what the award would be. I don't know whether they offered testimony or not as to the value of the land. That has not been spoken of. MR. CHURCH: They did offer testimony. THE COURT: With the apparent idea, then, that they hold on to their legal rights with one hand, and, if the award justified them in letting go, they would let go of their legal rights and take the money. Now the question is whether in that situation this railroad company is in a position to ask relief from a Judge of the Supreme Court, the relief being in the shape of a writ of certiorari; and whether or not the writ will be awarded is a matter resting in the discretion of the Court. I am not speaking about the question of laches, but, in determining whether this writ ought to issue, I must take into consideration all of the circumstances. It appears that the railroad company, instead of acting promptly, has stood by supinely and seen the county of Essex expend a large amount of money for the purpose of acquiring property, the value of which for public purposes would be greatly depreciated if they were to be prevented from taking this land as a part of the scheme to be carried out. So, I would be inclined to say that, in view of that situation, in the exercise of a proper discretion, I ought to tell the railroad company that I cannot see my way clear to allow this writ; that it would be greatly injurious to the people of Essex county and the people of the State, even, and would produce that injury, although the people and their representative, the Park Commission, are in no way responsible for it. Then there is another reason why I think this writ ought not to be allowed. This railroad company received from the State of New Jersey a grant, by the terms of which it was permitted to acquire lands for the construction and operation of a railroad between given points. That grant was not as a matter of course made to the railroad company for the purpose of benefitting it, but to provide a means of transportation by which the public would be served; and it was an implied part of the contract which was created by the tender of the grant and its acceptance, that this corporation would, within a reasonable time, not only acquire the land but build the railroad and carry the people of this State backward and forward across it for the compensation which the Legislature permitted the railroad company to charge; and for over half a century they have violated the implied condition of their agreement. They have acquired the land. They have not attempted, and so far as I know never will attempt, to devote this land to the purposes for which alone they were entitled to acquire it. They are holding it out of the general property of the State, and by doing so prohibiting its use for the benefit of the State, or any of its citizens, or anybody else. In other words, it is not land that is being held by this company for railroad use. It has never been so used by them, since it was acquired over a half century ago, and, so far as anybody can tell, it is quite uncertain whether it ever will be used for the purposes for which its acquisition was permitted. Now, in that situation, the State comes along and through its agent, the Essex County Park Commission (for that Commission is a State agent) says: 'We need this land for public use. You have had your chance to devote it to that use; you have consistently declined, by inaction at least, to so devote it, and now we are going to devote it to the uses and benefits of the State and of the people of that part of the State located within the borders of the County of Essex,' and I am inclined to think that this was the situation contemplated by the Legislature which induced the reservation in the Act of 1921 that railroad companies should not be permitted to act as dogs in the manger and hold out land which they cannot use themselves, never have used, and perhaps never will use, for the only purpose to which they could devote it under their charter. And so, I think, for this reason also this application should be denied. ABSTRACTS OF RECENT PUBLIC UTILITY DECISIONS. _In re West Shore & Seashore R. R. Co._--Application to discontinue maintaining an agent at Forest Grove, as revenues do not warrant expense of the agency; the place to be put under the supervision of the agent at Minetola, who would keep the station open, lighted, etc. The Board permitted the discontinuance, adding that "if future conditions change to the extent of warranting the re-establishment of an agent, the matter will be given further consideration." Report dated Nov. 4, 1921. Mr. George A. Bourgeois for the Company. Mr. Joseph Little and Mr. Charles H. Lincoln for Protestants. Another application was made at the same time by the same Company for the discontinuance of the agent at Buena. The Board said: "While the reasonableness of the Company's desire to reduce operating expenses is recognized, the discontinuance of the agent would undoubtedly result in inconveniencing shippers and receivers of freight and express to an extent that would not be justified considering the volume of business. The necessity for the presence of an agent or clerk for a portion of the day is manifest, and arrangement should be made to have a representativeat the station from 8 A. M. until 1.30 P. M. daily, excepting Sundays: also that the station be kept open during the hours it is at present open for the convenience of passengers. If the Company will arrange to have a representative at the station for the transaction of necessary business from 8 A. M. until 1.30 P. M., and keep the station open covering hours now in effect, the Board will approve such an arrangement in lieu of agency now effective." Report dated Nov. 4, 1921. Mr. George A. Bourgeois for the Company. Mr. Charles Wray for Protestants. _In re Pennsylvania R. R._--Application to discontinue an agent at Allaire. Permit granted. Report dated Nov. 4, 1921. Mr. W. Holt Apgar for Petitioner. _In re City of Newark._--Application for a change in the colorific standard of gas. The Board was about to investigate the rates charged for gas by the Public Service Gas Co., when the City of Newark gave notice of a demand for an increase in the standard. "There was thus," said the Board, "injected into the proceeding a question which had to be decided before the Board's investigation into the rates could proceed, it being impossible to fix a price for gas until the Board should fix the standard for gas under Newark's petition. The rule fixing the standard for gas being applicable to all gas companies in the State, general notice of hearing was given, and the gas companies were represented." Testimony was begun in August last, and the general purport appears in the Report. The Board said: "It does not appear that the gas supplied by the Public Service Gas Company compares favorably with that furnished by other companies, which, confronted by the rule [IX of the standard adopted by the former Utility Board] alone, have applied it in accordance with its apparent literal significance. The rule, however, should be free from any misunderstanding as to its meaning. As the Public Service Gas Company supplies the greater part of the gas consumed in the State, and to now require it to change its interpretation of the rule might result in undesirable complications in the rate proceeding being conducted by the Board without corresponding advantage to its customers, it is deemed inadvisable to insist upon such change. In order, however, that there may not be a continued apparent conflict between the rule as worded and the practice of the Company, the Board will change the wording of the rule so that there will be no doubt if gas is supplied with a minimum daily average of 525 B. t. u. it will be in compliance therewith." Report dated Nov. 4, 1921. Messrs. E. W. Wakelee, E. A. Armstrong and G. H. Blake for Public Service Gas Company. Mr. Jerome T. Congleton and Mr. J. G. Wolber for the City of Newark. Mr. George L. Record for City of Jersey City. Mr. Benjamin Natal for City of Camden. Mr. William A. Kavanagh for City of Hoboken. Mr. Joseph T. Hague for City of Elizabeth. Mr. A. O. Miller for City of Passaic. Mr. William P. Hurley for Town of Nutley. Mr. Welcome W. Bender for Chamber of Commerce of Elizabeth. Mr. F. R. Cutcheon for Consolidated Gas Company. Mr. S. J. Franklin for Cumberland County Gas Company. Mr. H. S. Schutt for Atlantic City Gas Company. Mr. William Wherry, Jr. for New Jersey Gas Association. Dr. W. G. Hanrahan for Rent Payers' Association of Essex County and Federation Improvement Associations. Mr. James W. Howard on his own behalf. _In re Blackwood Water Co._--Application for increase in rates. The Board required, first, that changes must be made in the system so as to provide for continuous operation of the filter plant, additional power to operate the pumping machinery, etc., six different improvements in all. Doing this the Company could make certain increases in rates beginning Jan. 1, 1922. Report dated Nov. 9, 1921. Mr. Lewis Starr for Petitioner. Mr. Samuel P. Hagerman for Township of Gloucester. SOME INTERESTING OUT-OF-STATE DECISIONS. STATE PROHIBITION LAWS AND EIGHTEENTH AMENDMENT. In the habeas corpus proceeding of Jones v. Hicks, decided by the Georgia Supreme Court and reported in 104 Southeastern Reporter, 771, portions of the statement of facts and opinion of the Court by Judge Gilbert are as follows: "Jones was arrested under a bench warrant issued by the Judge of the city court of Macon, based upon an accusation charging him with violating the prohibition law of this State on January 21, 1920. He filed a petition for the writ of habeas corpus, based upon the ground that the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which was ratified on January 16, 1920, and the 'National Prohibition Act' known as the Volstead Act (41 Stat. 305), superseded and abrogated all State laws on the subject covered by said Eighteenth Amendment, and that therefore, at the time this defendant is alleged to have committed the criminal offense charged in the accusation, there was no valid State law in existence. The court refused to release the petitioner, and that judgment is excepted to.... "The second section of the amendment as proposed to the States and ratified, provides that 'The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.' "Three views as to the proper construction of the second section have been generally discussed: (1) That concurrent power means joint power; (2) That the power is given to each, the legislation of either Congress or the States being of equal force with the other; and (3) that the power is in each, but that the legislation of Congress, as the supreme law of the land, will supersede any inconsistent State legislation.... "The Supreme Court of the United States having adversely disposed of the contention that 'concurrent power' means joint power [State of Rhode Island v. Palmer, 40 Sup. Ct. 486], there remain two other views to be considered. Similar, but not identical, questions have been discussed heretofore by Courts of several States and by the Supreme Court of the United States. None of these involved construction of delegated powers to be exercised concurrently. They are cited here for comparison, and not as controlling.... "The sphere in which the Congress, under the Eighteenth Amendment, may legislate for the enforcement of prohibition, is limited to the precise terms stated in the amendment, to wit, 'concurrent enforcement....' From a consideration of the question as above presented, we reject the view that the legislation of Congress will supersede and abrogate the laws of the State which are appropriate for the enforcement of the amendment. We conclude that the power of Congress and of the State is equal and may be exercised by the several States for the purpose of enforcement concurrently within their legitimate constitutional spheres. Ex parte Guerra (Vt.) 110 Atl. 224, and authorities cited. The first section of the amendment is in no way affected or qualified by the words 'concurrent power,' found in the second section." KILLING COWS BY AUTOMOBILE. An automobilist, driving his car at an excessive rate of speed along an improved country road in the night-time, struck and killed two cows being driven along the highway. The animals were walking, one behind the other, in or near the wheel track on the side of the road on which they belonged. The machine, after striking the leading animal, skidded and struck the other cow, killing her instantly and casting her dead body, a distance of 57 feet. The driver admitted he was going "about" 25 miles an hour; and the Court comments: "The result of the catastrophe indicate rather strongly that he underestimated his speed." The Vermont case of Bombard v. Newton, 111 Atl. 510, is based on this occurrence, and was instituted by the owner of the animals to recover damages for their negligent killing. The Court held that the right to drive an automobile along a public highway is not superior to that to drive cows along the highway. "The parties," states the opinion, "had equal and reciprocal rights to the use of the road, and each owed the other the duty of so exercising his own right as not to interfere with that of another. The fact that it was in the night-time affected the rights of the parties only as it bore upon the amount of vigilance each was bound to exercise. The fact that the defendant was operating an automobile, an instrumentality whose capacity for harm is well exemplified by the results in this case, and the fact that the plaintiff was driving cows, animals whose viatic vagaries have come to be known of all automobile drivers, were conditions affecting merely the degree of care required of the parties respectively." MISCELLANY PUBLIC SERVICE LOSES JITNEY SUIT On Dec. 2 the Court of Errors and Appeals, by a tie vote, 7 to 7, practically affirmed the decision of Vice-Chancellor Griffin in denying an injunction to the Public Service Railway Co. to prevent operation of jitneys on the public highways. The affirmative votes were by Justices Black, Kalisch, Parker, Swayze and Trenchard, and Judges White and Van Buskirk; the negative by Chief Justice Gummere, Justices Bergen, Katzenbach and Minturn, and Judges Williams, Gardner and Heppenheimer. Justice Minturn wrote an opinion for the negative view. The essential points relied upon by counsel for the railway company in support of the application for an injunction against the jitney owners were that none of the defendants had applied for and obtained consent for the use of the streets and highways on which they operated, as required by the Limited Franchise Act of 1906; that none of the defendants filed with the chief fiscal officer of the city in which they operate a policy of insurance, as required by the Kates Jitney Act of 1916; that Barnett, though filing a policy of insurance in Newark, filed only a copy of the policy in Elizabeth; that Banker filed a policy in New Brunswick, but none in South Amboy; that the Public Service Railway in the enjoyment of a legal franchise is entitled to an injunction against the alleged illegal competition on the part of jitneys, and that the Public Service is entitled to protection of its franchises and business by injunction under decisions of the New Jersey court. Merritt Lane, counsel for the jitney owners, questioned the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery to grant the injunction, contending that the rights of the Public Service are not of such a nature as to justify it in seeking relief in any Court, and argued that the franchise of the company was not to transport passengers for hire and reward but to lay and maintain rails in public streets and to operate cars thereon. Mr. Lane also submitted that to grant the injunction would create a result manifestly opposed to public policy and would result to the disadvantage of the public. He submitted that the Company was not in a position adequately to handle the traffic and that if the jitney were eliminated hundreds of thousands of persons would be obliged to walk or stand while riding. HUNTING BY FOREIGNERS. The County Clerk of Sussex, Mr. Harvey S. Hopkins, has appropriately called the attention of municipal clerks in that county to their neglect of duty under the hunting and fishing license law. Doubtless the same neglect has resulted in other counties. In sending out the supply of 1922 licenses Mr. Hopkins wrote: "In every monthly report compiled by this office I can see instances where resident hunting licenses have been improperly issued to foreigners who have not yet acquired their final naturalization papers. This is both unjust and unlawful and sooner or later some issuing clerk will encounter serious trouble through his laxity in this matter. Unless you have personal knowledge respecting the applicant, there is but one safe procedure: Compel him to produce his certificate of final naturalization. His first papers, or declaration of intention are not sufficient." Mr. Hopkins also called the attention of the municipal clerks to the change in the fish and game laws which no longer exempt women from the necessity for procuring a license. Formerly women were not required to have licenses to fish, although they had to get them to hunt. Now they have to have licenses for both, as per Chapter 112, Laws of 1921. HONOR TO MR. GASKILL. Mr. Nelson B. Gaskill, formerly Assistant Attorney-General of New Jersey, and now a member of the Federal Trade Commission, has been elected chairman of that body. He is the second Jerseyman to enjoy that honor, the late J. Franklin Fort, former Governor, having been chairman several years ago. Mr. Gaskill is a son of former Judge Joseph H. Gaskill of Burlington County, was for many years connected with the New Jersey National Guard and during the late War held the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Judge Advocate-General's Department. He was appointed to the Federal Trade Commission by the then President Wilson. JERSEY LAW SCHOOL ALUMNI. The New Jersey Law School Alumni Association has completed its organization. The officers elected are: Judge Clyde D. Souter, President; John A. Ammerman, first Vice President; Miss Irene Rutherford O'Crowley, Second Vice President; John A. Matthews, Third Vice President; Miss Helen Oppenheimer, Secretary; Raymond Foster Davis, Treasurer. At the dinner in the Berwick Hotel, Newark, more than 100 lawyers in this State, all graduated from the school, attended. Richard D. Currier, President of the law school, told the guests of the advantages gained by promoting good fellowship in the form of an alumni association. HUMOR OF THE LAW. A certain lawyer was asked by an acquaintance how it was that lawyers contrived to remain on such friendly terms with each other, although they were famed for their cutting remarks. The lawyer looked at him with a twinkle in his eye, and remarked: "Yes, but they're like scissors; they only cut what comes between."--_Japan Advertiser._ * * * * * His Honor: "Get the prisoner's name, so we can tell his mother." Rookie: "He sez his mither knows his name."--_Vaudeville News._ * * * * * "Prisoner at the bar," said the judge, "will you have trial by judge or jury?" "By jury, your honor," said the defendant. "I'll take no chance on you!" "What!" roared the court. "Do you mean to say that I would--" "I don't mean t' say nothing," said the prisoner, stoutly, "but I ain't taking no chances. I done some plumbin' work for you last winter!"--_Richmond Times-Dispatch._ * * * * * There recently died in Illinois an aged farmer, reputed to be wealthy. After his death, however, it was discovered he left nothing. And his will ran like this: "In the name of God, amen. There's only one thing I have. I leave the earth. My relatives have always wanted it. Now they can have it." * * * * * Mr. Hardfax: "So your son left us to go into a bank in the city? How did he acquit himself?" Mr. Timbertop: "He didn't acquit himself. It took the best lawyer in the county to get him acquitted."--_Boston Globe._ THE LEGISLATURE. The 146th session of the New Jersey Legislature opened at Trenton on January 10. The Senate consisted of 16 Republicans and 5 Democrats; the Assembly of 45 Republicans and 15 Democrats. There are two women in the Legislature, Mrs. Catherine Brown, Democrat, of Hudson county, and Mrs. Margaret B. Laird, Republican, who was reëlected from Essex county. Senator William B. Mackay, of Bergen county was elected President of the Senate; and Assemblyman T. Harry Rowland, of Camden, Speaker of the House of Assembly. GOVERNOR'S APPOINTMENTS. Among the recent appointments by Governor Edwards the following will prove of special interest to the Bar: Justice James F. Minturn, of Hoboken, of the Supreme Court, reappointed. Justice Charles C. Black, of Jersey City, of the Supreme Court, reappointed. Judge Walter P. Gardner, Jr., of Jersey City, member of the Court of Errors and Appeals. Mr. Samuel M. Shay, of Merchantville, Common Pleas Judge of Camden county in place of Judge John B. Kates. Judge William H. Speer, of Jersey City, Circuit Court Judge, reappointed. Mr. Willis T. Porch, of Pitman, Prosecutor of the Pleas of Gloucester county, to succeed Oscar B. Bedrow. Mr. John O. Bigelow, of Newark, for Prosecutor of the Pleas. Mr. John Enright, of Freehold, for Commissioner of Education. SOME STATE NOTES. On Jan. 5 former Judge Maja Leon Berry, solicitor of the Ocean County Board of Freeholders, entertained that body, the county officials and newspaper men at a dinner at the Ocean House. The occasion was the host's forty-fifth birthday and he has followed this custom of entertaining the officials for the past twelve years. Mr. James R. Nugent, of Newark, was nominated on January 16 by the Governor for Prosecutor of the Pleas of Essex county, but, a week later, was refused confirmation by the Senate, by a vote of 17 to 3. Mr. William E. Holmwood, of Newark, has removed his law office to 43 Washington street. Mr. J. Victor D'Aloia, of Newark, has gone to Europe for a stay of about two months, so as to visit his parents in Italy. A testimonial dinner was given to Judge Rulif V. Lawrence, of Freehold, at the Hotel Belmont at that place, on January 2, and he was presented with the gift of a gold watch. The Monmouth Co. Bar Association held its annual meeting at Freehold on January 3 and reëlected its President, Halstead H. Wainwright, of Manasquan. The Union Co. Bar Association held its annual meeting at Elizabeth on January 3 and elected as its President Mr. Clark McK. Whittemore. It decided to ask the Legislature to increase the jurisdiction of the District Courts. State Senator Thomas Brown, of Perth Amboy, was appointed counsel for the Public Utilities Commission on January 3, to succeed Mr. L. Edward Herrmann, although the latter is still retained by the Commission as special counsel in the prosecution of the Public Service rate case before the United States Supreme Court. Senator Brown has practiced law at Perth Amboy since 1907. OBITUARIES. MR. GEORGE W. JENKINS. Mr. George Walker Jenkins, one of the best known lawyers of Morristown in former years, afterward as active in corporation matters in New York City, died in Memorial Hospital, New York City, on January 19, 1922. He had been out of health for some months, but went to the Hospital only a few days before his death. Mr. Jenkins was born November 7, 1848, at Catasauqua, Pa., his parents being George and Hannah (Morgan) Jenkins, who were Welsh people and born in Wales. After the usual early education he entered Yale College, from which he was graduated in 1870. He studied law with Messrs. Parker & Keasbey, in Newark, and was admitted to the New Jersey Bar at the November Term, 1873, and became counselor at the February Term, 1880. He began practice at Boonton, but later went to Morristown, where he soon became one of the most active lawyers of the place. He had ability, assiduity and exactness in office matters, being so exact in fact that he became one of the most popular Special Masters of the Court of Chancery to whom other members of the Bar referred their cases whenever practicable. Taking early to politics he was soon prominent in the Republican party, and was elected and served as a Member of the Assembly during the years 1883, 1884 and 1885. He was also counsel to the Board of Chosen Freeholders, and at one time served as Journal Clerk of the New Jersey Senate. In 1886 he ran for State Senator for Morris county, but was defeated by George T. Werts, who afterward became Governor. About twenty-five years ago Mr. Jenkins, while not removing from Morristown, went to New York City, and was engaged from then until recently, when his health became impaired, in carrying on legal business connected with various extensive corporation enterprises. He was Vice-President and director of the Bridgeport (Conn.) Gun Implement Co. and Remington Arms Co., director of the M. Hartley Co., Treasurer and director of the Union Metallic Cartridge Co., Trustee of the Washington Trust Co., etc., in all of which his legal knowledge was used with skill and real ability. He owned a large and handsome residence in Morristown, and also the Silver Lake Farms at Green Village. He was a member of the Morristown Club, Morris County Golf Club and the University, Yale and Union League Clubs of New York City. Mr. Jenkins married Miss Helen Hartley, daughter of Marcellus Hartley, of New York City, who, with one daughter and two grandchildren, survive him. His eldest daughter, Mrs. Frances Greer, of New York City, died about two years since; the surviving daughter is Mrs. Winter Mead, of Sand Beach, Conn. He is also survived by a sister, Mrs. A. L. Dennis, of Plainfield, and by nieces. The interment was at Boonton. MR. JAMES A. GORDON. Mr. James A. Gordon, an active practicing lawyer at Jersey City, died suddenly at his home, 638 Pavonia avenue, on January 11. Complaining that he felt ill, Mr. Gordon left his office the day previous, but his illness gave no indication that death was near. Mr. Gordon was the son of John A. and Isabella (Leslie) Gordon, and was born in the city of Bergen (now Jersey City), October 7, 1860. He was graduated from the Jersey City High School in 1881; read law with Mr. John Linn and Linn & Babbitt, and was admitted as a New Jersey attorney at the June Term, 1885, and as counselor at the June Term, 1888. He soon became one of the ablest of the younger members of the Hudson Bar. His office was at 586 Newark avenue, Jersey City, at the time of his death. He was unmarried and made his home with a sister, Miss Isabelle Leslie Gordon, who, with a brother, William Stewart Gordon, survives him. He belonged to the Bergen Lodge, F. and A. M., and the Hudson Bar Association. MR. ROBERT I. HOPPER. Mr. Robert Imlay Hopper, of Paterson, long a prominent attorney of that city, died on January 24th after a few days illness from a general breakdown. Mr. Hopper was the son of the late Judge John Hopper and Mary A. (Imlay) Hopper, of Paterson, and was born in that city May 28, 1845. After a public school education he entered Rutgers College, being graduated there in 1866. He studied law with his father and became a New Jersey attorney at the June Term, 1869, and a counselor three years later. For many years father and son were associated in practice in Paterson, being severed only because the father was elevated to the Bench. In 1878 he was chosen counsel to the Passaic Board of Chosen Freeholders and served as such for ten years. He was also secretary to the Paterson & Hudson River Railroad (now part of the Erie R. R.), holding that office at the time of his death. He was active in the National Guard of New Jersey, having been Major and Judge Advocate, and was prominent in Masonic circles and in various clubs. His wife, who was Miss Ida E. Hughes, died April 24, 1878. One daughter, Ida, survives. VAN NESS ACT OVERTHROWN. On February 2 the Court of Errors and Appeals of this State declared the Van Ness Prohibition Enforcement Act unconstitutional. This decision reverses the Supreme Court in the three test cases involving the constitutionality of the Enforcement Act and sets aside the opinion written in the lower Court by Mr. Justice Minturn, presumably concurred in by Justices Trenchard and Bergen, who heard the argument below. Had they sat in the full Court there would have been so close a division that the Court would have stood, as we see it, almost even. The news comes to us just as we are going to press, so that the text of the decisions and dissents is not available. The newspapers state, however, that four opinions were filed and that results on single propositions tended to sustain the constitutionality of procedures while as a whole the Act was overthrown. Says one newspaper: "On the question of a jury trial, the Justices found that the denial of it was proper, six votes to five. That the Act was not unconstitutional in describing as a misdemeanor what the Federal Volstead Act describes as a crime, the Court agrees six to six, which upholds the Act. On the two questions of whether the Act was properly described in its title, and whether the functions put upon the magistrates by it could properly be exercised, the Court upholds it nine to two. In other words, each one of these features is in itself constitutional. But there are eight Justices who disagree with it on one point or another and only four who found nothing to disagree with. Therefore, we have the curious phenomenon of a piece of legislation constitutional in each separate part, but under which, as it stands, it is impossible to secure a conviction that will be affirmed. In other words, the Act will not stand as it is." Chancellor Walker devoted the main part of his opinion to consideration of the constitutional question involving the right of indictment and trial by jury, in which he held that the Act was defective. Among other things he said: "It is almost superfluous to say that the proceedings under view are void because there has been no indictment, as that is a mere corollary to the proposition that they are void because the defendant was denied the right of trial by jury. No one can be put upon trial before a traverse jury in New Jersey for a commission of a crime unless upon the presentment of indictment of a grand jury, except in cases of impeachment or in cases cognizable by justices of the peace (or certain military or naval cases)." Chief Justice Gummere's opinion was concurred in by Justice Swayze and Judges Gardner, Ackerson and Van Buskirk. It approached the subject from a different angle than the chancellor, reaching the conclusion that, with the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment, the State had to surrender part of its police power to the Federal Government, and therefore was bound to legislate in conformity with the Volstead Act, which, passed under authority of the Federal Constitution, becomes the supreme law of the land. Justice Kalisch held that the supreme law of the land, embodied in the Volstead Act, having made certain offenses a crime, it was not within the power of the State to classify them as petty offenders. Consideration was given by Judge White to the questions relative to the right of trial by jury and the alleged erroneous interpretation on the question of concurrent power. As to the first objection, that relating to the right of trial by jury, Judge White said he thought the real underlying historically established test depends upon the character of the offense involved rather than upon the penalty imposed. "The offense must be a petty and trivial violation of regulations established under the police power of the State in order that the offender may be summarily tried, convicted and punished without indictment by a grand jury and without trial by a petit jury." It must, of course, Judge White said, be assumed that the punishment for a petty and trivial offense will also be comparatively petty and trivial, otherwise it would violate another provision of the State Constitution which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Transcriber Notes: Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_. Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS. Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted. On page 38, a single quote was added after "and no longer" On page 48, "increditable" was replaced with "incredible". On page 48, "canot" was replaced with "cannot". On page 52, "execuetd" was replaced with "executed". On page 58, "nighttime" was replaced with "night-time". On page 60, a dash was added before "Japan Advertiser". On page 64, "qustions" was replaced with "questions". 
41805	----	of the Digital Library@Villanova University (http://digital.library.villanova.edu/)) CONTENTS INTRODUCTION HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII THE CELEBRATION HISTORICAL DISCOURSE HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN PATERSON, N. J. WITH AN Account of the Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH "Press" Print. HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN PATERSON, N. J. WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE CELEBRATION OF THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH. BY CHARLES A. SHRINER. "Sanctuarium tuum, Domine, quod firmaverunt manus tuæ; Dominus regnabit in æternum et ultra."--EXOD. xv. PATERSON, N. J. PRESS PRINTING AND PUBLISHING COMPANY, 269 MAIN STREET. 1883. INTRODUCTION. The records of the early Catholic Churches in this part of the country are very meagre and to the historian most of them are almost useless. There are, however, still living in this and other cities a number of old people of intelligence and good memory and to these the author is indebted for most of the facts narrated in this sketch of the growth of the Catholic Church in Paterson. In many instances it was found that the memories of these old people were at fault and it was only after repeated comparisons of the numerous dates and diligent search among such records as could be found that the author was placed in a position to give to the public at least a tolerably accurate account of the remarkably rapid growth of Catholicism in Paterson and its vicinity. Whenever any doubt existed as to the authenticity of records or the accuracy of memory the reasons of the author for adopting what he believed to be the true version are given. THE AUTHOR. PATERSON, N. J., November 15, 1883. [Illustration] HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. CHAPTER I. EARLY PERSECUTIONS ON MANHATTAN ISLAND.--MISSIONARIES FROM NEW YORK.--THE FREEDOM OF THE COUNTRY AND OF THE CHURCH ESTABLISHED.--THE FIRST MISSIONARIES IN NEW JERSEY. "History repeats itself" is an old adage and one which has stood the test ever since the sage first uttered it. The first chapter of the history of the Catholic Church, take it as a whole, or in whatever country or nation you like, is written in blood, the precious blood of the martyrs who died for their God and their faith. The second chapter is one of adversity, of persecutions; one in which the property and worldly comfort of the devout are frequently sacrificed to the bigotry of the infidel or the heretic. Thus it goes on from chapter to chapter, from generation to generation, but the hand of God is with his followers and it raises them from the depths of tribulation from which they looked imploringly but confidingly to the God who had created them, to the God who had made himself known to them through the Holy Catholic Church. The first Catholic missionary who came to Manhattan Island and who traveled through the adjacent country was the Rev. Isaac Jogues, a Jesuit. In 1642 he was taken prisoner by the Indians, who tore off his finger-nails and cut off the thumb of his right hand; in 1646 he was killed by the Indians. To-day there is scarcely a hill in that part of the country from which the cross of a Catholic Church cannot be seen. In 1658 a French Catholic was fined twelve guilders in a place now within the city limits of New York because he refused to contribute to the support of a Protestant clergyman, and even in 1778 Father De La Mote, an Augustinian friar, was locked up in prison because he celebrated mass in New York. To-day the triumph of Catholicism in New York is marked by hundreds of churches and scores of converts. It is a peculiar coincidence that the freedom of this country was established in the same year with the freedom of the Catholic Church, and that consequently this, the semi-centennial of the establishment of St. John's Church in Paterson, is also the centennial of the enfranchisement of the Catholic Church in this country. By the New York State Constitution of 1777 Catholics coming from foreign countries were excluded from citizenship, but Congress overruled the action of the New York Convention. "With this attempt," says the late Archbishop Bayley in his History of the Catholic Church in the Island of New York, "to keep up the intolerance of the English colonial government, all legislation opposed to the free exercise of the Catholic religion ceased; and such Catholics as were in the City of New York at the time of its evacuation by the British troops, in 1783, began to assemble for the open celebration of the officers of religion." In 1786 St. Peter's Church--the first Catholic Church in the Diocese of New York--was erected on the corner of Barclay and Church streets. In 1809 the corner stone was laid for St. Patrick's Cathedral and at the consecration in 1815 by Right Rev. Bishop Cheverus, of Boston, the Mayor and Aldermen of New York City and a number of the State officials attended divine service in the new cathedral. In the Catholic Almanac for 1822 was published the following list of the clergy in the diocese: Rev. Dr. John Connolly, St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York. Rev. Michael O'Gorman, " " Rev. Charles French, St. Peter's, " Rev. John Power, " " Rev. Mr. Bulger, Paterson. Rev. Michael Carroll, Albany and vicinity. Rev. John Faruan, Utica and vicinity. Rev. Patrick Kelly, Auburn, Rochester, and other districts in the western part of the State. Rev. Phillip Larissy, attends regularly at Staten Island, and different other congregations along the Hudson River. Such is the brief outline of the early history of the Catholic Church in this part of the country and it will thus be seen that shortly after the Catholics were first permitted to worship God in their own way Catholicism took root in New Jersey. The following concerning the first Catholic missionaries who visited New Jersey is taken from an article which appeared in the Catholic World in 1875: "About this period (1757) there were a few Jesuit priests in Maryland and Pennsylvania; and the earliest account that we have of Catholics in New Jersey is in 1744, when we read that Father Theodore Schneider, a distinguished German Jesuit who had professed philosophy and theology in Europe, and been rector of a university, coming to the American provinces, visited New Jersey and held church at Iron Furnaces there. This good missionary was a native of Bavaria. He founded the mission at Goshenhoppen, now in Berks County, Pennsylvania, about forty-five miles from Philadelphia, and ministered to German Catholics, their descendants and others. Having some skill in medicine, he used to cure the body as well as the soul; and travelling about on foot or on horseback under the name of Doctor Schneider (leaving to the _Sinelfunguses_ to discover whether he were of medicine or of divinity), he had access to places where he would not otherwise have gone without personal danger; but sometimes his real character was found out, and he was several times raced and shot at in New Jersey. He used to carry about with him on his missionary excursions into this province a manuscript copy of the _Roman Missal_, carefully written out in his own handwriting and bound by himself. His poverty or the difficulty of procuring printed Catholic liturgical books from Europe, or, we are inclined to think, the danger of discovery should such an one with its unmistakable marks of 'Popery' about it (which he probably dispensed with in his manuscript), fall into the hands of heretics, must have led him to this labor of patience and zeal. Father Schneider, who may be reckoned the first missionary in New Jersey, died on the eleventh of July, 1764. Another Jesuit used to visit the province occasionally after 1762, owing to the growing infirmities of Father Schneider, and there still exist records of baptisms performed by him here. This was the Rev. Robert Harding, a native of England, who arrived in America in 1732. He died at Philadelphia on the 1st of September, 1772. But the priest principally connected with the early missions in New Jersey is the Rev. Ferdinand Farmer. He was born in South Germany in 1720, and, having entered the Society of Jesus, was sent to Maryland in 1752. His real name was Steenmeyer, but on coming to this country he changed it into one more easily pronounced by English-speaking people. He was learned and zealous, and for many years performed priestly duties in New Jersey at several places in the northern part, and seems to have been the first to visit this colony regularly. In his baptismal register the following among other places are named, together with the dates of his ministrations: a station called Geiger's, in 1759; Charlottenburgh, in 1769; Morris County, Long Pond, and Mount Hope, in 1776; Sussex County, Ringwood and Hunterdon County, in 1785. The chief congregation at this period was at a place called Macoupin (now in Passaic County), about fifteen miles from the present City of Paterson. It was settled in the middle of the last century by Germans, who were brought over to labor in the iron mines and works in this part of the provinces." * * * * * "After the evacuation of New York by the British in 1783, there was a prospect of collecting the few scattered Catholics on Manhattan Island into a congregation, and the venerable Father Farmer used to go twice a year to visit the faithful there, across the northern part of this State, stopping on his way to officiate at Macoupin. On the 22nd of September, 1785, the Rev. John Carroll, who had been appointed by the Pope Superior of the Church in the United States and empowered to give confirmation, set out on a tour to administer this sacrament at Philadelphia, New York and (as he writes to a friend) 'in the upper counties of the Jerseys and Pennsylvania, where our worthy German brethren had formed congregations.' In this year Rev. Mr. Carroll computed the number of Catholics under his charge at sixteen thousand in Maryland, seven thousand in Pennsylvania and two thousand scattered about the other States. The number of priests was nineteen in Maryland and five in Pennsylvania." CHAPTER II. THE FIRST MASS SAID IN PATERSON.--INTERESTING ANECDOTES CONCERNING FATHER BULGER.--PREJUDICE AGAINST THE CATHOLICS. THE OLD CHURCH ON CONGRESS AND MILL STREETS.--ORIGIN OF ST. JOHN'S CONGREGATION. The first priest who placed his foot within what are at present the corporate limits of the City of Paterson was Father Philip Larrissy, a Franciscan monk who came here from New York. Just what year he came here is not positively known but it seems to be tolerably well established that he was here for some years previous to Father Langton. The first mass in Paterson was celebrated in the residence of Michael Gillespie, which stood in Market street on the site of the present Godwin homestead. Father Larrissy was a missionary priest who travelled between New York and Philadelphia and visited Paterson every few weeks. He generally arrived on Saturday evening and as soon as he reached Mr. Gillespie's house a messenger was sent to notify the Catholics that mass would be celebrated the following morning. Up to that time Catholics were compelled to go to New York, frequently performing the journey on foot, in order to attend divine service. Father Langton was the second priest who celebrated mass in Paterson. The Gillespies had removed to Belleville and so a room for the holding of divine service was fitted up in the residence of Barney McNamee on the corner of Broadway and Mulberry street. Here the Catholics attended mass for several years. Father Langton was also a missionary priest, going from New York to Paterson, to Macoupin, Bottle Hill and other places; then returning to Paterson, which was a more important Catholic settlement than any in this part of the State. On his return to New York from Paterson Father Langton stopped at the residence of Mr. Gillespie at Belleville and after celebrating mass there proceeded to Newark, where there were very few Catholics, and from thence to New York. This seems to have been the route taken by the earlier Catholic clergymen, for even Father Bulger, who was not ordained until 1815, said mass in the residence of Mr. Gillespie. Father Richard Bulger was educated at Kilkenny College, Ireland, and was ordained a priest in 1815 by Bishop Connolly. He was for some time the assistant pastor of the Cathedral in New York but spent most of his nine years of priesthood in administering spiritual consolation to the Catholics in Paterson and vicinity and continuing the work in which Fathers Larrissy and Langton had preceded him. It was he who in 1820 erected the first building used exclusively for divine service by Catholics in Paterson and he was the first parish priest in this city. Previous to this time he followed in the footsteps of his predecessors in journeying from place to place, preaching the Word of God by the way and saying mass and administering the rites of the Church whenever opportunity afforded. In 1821 Mr. Roswell L. Colt in behalf of the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures offered to all the various denominations in Paterson ground on which to erect houses of worship. This generous offer was accepted by the Catholics and in this way they came into possession of a piece of property situated on the southwest corner of Congress (now Market) and Mill streets. The deed was given to the Catholics "for the purpose of erecting, maintaining and keeping a building or house for the public worship of God," a clause in the deed providing for reversion of the property to the donor as soon as the property was used for any other purpose than that of divine worship. There were at that time only twelve Catholic families in Paterson, but the prejudice against the Catholic Church which characterized its earlier history in this country had subsided, and the Catholics received aid from persons of other denominations. This, added to their own generous gifts of money and labor, produced a building 25×30 feet in size and one story high. The room was furnished with a plain altar and a number of wooden benches without backs, which served as pews, and the attendance on Sundays did not exceed 50, unless there was an influx of Catholics from some village not supplied with a church. Mass was celebrated every Sunday morning and vespers in the afternoon. The church was named after St. John, the Baptist, and the building still stands where it was erected in 1821, although it has been considerably altered. Father Bulger was taken sick in 1824, while assistant pastor at the Cathedral in New York, where he died in November of that year. He was buried in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Although Father Bulger's years as a priest were few they were devoted to the cause of the Lord with an energy and faithfulness which made him so prominent a figure in the early history of the church in Paterson. Many are the anecdotes told concerning him, some of which are illustrative of his character, and among these the following appear of more than ordinary interest: Archbishop Bayley's book on the History of the Catholic Church contains the following: "The Rev. Mr. Bulger was first sent on the mission to Paterson, in New Jersey, where he labored with great fidelity. During his missionary expeditions through various parts of the State, he was often exposed to insults, and underwent many hardships, which his ardent zeal and buoyant spirits enabled him to bear, not only with patience, but cheerfulness. A large stone was thrown at him through the window of his bedchamber, which nearly cost him his life. On this occasion he published a letter addressed to the inhabitants of Paterson, which excited a great deal of attention, and made him many friends even amongst those who had been most opposed to him." In the same work appears the following: "He was accustomed to tell many laughable stories of his adventures. Trudging along one day on foot, carrying a bundle, containing his vestments and breviary, under his arm, he was overtaken by a farmer and his wife in a wagon. The farmer invited Mr. Bulger to ride; but it having come out in the course of the conversation that he was a priest, the wife declared that he should not remain in the wagon, and he was consequently obliged to get out and resume his journey on foot. It should be added, that the farmer afterwards applied to Father Bulger for instruction, and was received into the Catholic Church." This same story is corroborated by persons still living, and was told to the author of this work with more details. It was a very cold day in winter and there were several feet of snow on the ground. Father Bulger was walking from Hohokus, whither he had gone on a pastoral errand. He was in delicate health and so, when about half way between Hohokus and Paterson, he felt considerably relieved at hearing a wagon approach behind him. It was the wagon of a farmer residing in Paterson. Father Bulger was asked to ride but immediately after he had taken his seat the farmer and his wife suspected that he was a Catholic priest. They plied him with numerous questions to which Father Bulger gave evasive answers, for he was sick and fatigued and anxious to reach Paterson. They asked whether he was married and had children and he replied in the affirmative, adding that he had numerous children. The suspicions of the farmer and his wife increased and Father Bulger was finally asked whether he was not a Catholic and a priest. Rather than deny his faith Father Bulger would have faced death and he replied in the affirmative. He was compelled to leave the wagon and walk to Paterson. When he arrived here he told of his adventure; the brutal treatment he had been subjected to so incensed a number of Catholics and others who were employed in a quarry that they resolved to thrash the inhuman farmer. Father Bulger heard of this project and it was due to his entreaties that it was not carried out. This heroic conduct on the part of Father Bulger was reported to the farmer, who concluded that a religion, whose priests so faithfully carried out the Christ-given doctrine of "Return good for evil," could not deserve the opprobium heaped upon it by Protestants; he applied to Father Bulger for instruction and became a convert to the Catholic religion. The first number of the Sacred Heart Union published at Newark in March, 1881, contains some interesting reminiscences of an early settler near Macopin and among these is the following: "Our next priest was Father Bulger, a native of Ireland, a tall, handsome man, but with a beardless face. He was ordained by 'little Bishop Connolly,' as he was called, and came to us about 1820. Mr. Littell had been notified to expect a priest, and vainly looked among the passengers of the mail-coach for his Reverence. The driver told him that a passenger had booked for Macopin the night before, but had failed to put in an appearance. Late that afternoon a stranger drove up to the shop on horseback and thus addressed Mr. Littell: "'Did you expect a visitor, sir?' "'I did, sir.' "'How did you expect him?' "'By the mail.' "'Might I ask whom you expected?' "'Well,' said Mr. Littell, somewhat nettled by this cross-examination, 'I expect a Catholic priest.' "'Well, suppose you take me for a Catholic priest.' "Surveying the beardless youth from top to bottom, Mr. Littell tartly replied: "'Go back to your wooden college, sir, and get more beard on your upper lip before you come to palm yourself off on me as a Catholic priest.' "'Well,' said the stranger, 'beard or no beard, you must take me for a priest.' "'Perhaps,' thought Mr. Littell, 'I may after all be mistaken; he may be a priest,' and giving him another searching look he inquired: "'Am I talking to Father Bulger?' "'You are,' said the young Father, smilingly; and his laughter drowned the apologies and put to flight the discomfiture of good Mr. Littell. "Father Bulger was a regular apostle; he travelled through Hudson, Passaic and Sussex counties. I remember he was once invited to preach in Newton, and the Presbyterian Church was offered to him. But when the day came for the lecture, the bluelights feared to admit the papist into their sanctuary. To the dismay of the most prominent member of the congregation--an Irishman--they gave a point blank refusal to allow him to preach in their church. Chagrined but undaunted, the Irishman went to the judge who was then presiding over the Sussex Circuit, related to him all the circumstances, and asked him to adjourn the Court so that the priest might give his lecture. Court was adjourned; the judge and a host of legal fledglings, who have since arisen to fame and honor, listened to the young priest's masterly handling of the doctrine of the Real Presence. "'I did not believe,' said an ex-United States Senator, still living among us, 'that the Catholics had such solid proofs for their doctrines.'" Father John Shanahan succeeded Father Bulger. Father Shanahan had been educated at Mount St. Mary's College and had been ordained in 1823 by Bishop Connolly. He remained but a short time and left Paterson to take charge of a mission in Utica, New York, and from thence he went in 1850 on a mission to California. He subsequently returned to New York, where he died in St. Peter's parish. Father Charles Brennan came next. He had been educated in Kilkenny College, Ireland, and had been ordained by Bishop Connolly in 1822. He conceived the idea of erecting a new church, as the Catholics were rapidly increasing in numbers, and proceeded to carry his design into execution. He made a number of tours through the surrounding country soliciting subscriptions and it was while thus engaged that he was taken sick. He went to New York, where he died in March, 1826, and his remains were interred by the side of Father Bulger. While Father Brennan was lying sick in New York Father John Conroy--uncle of the late Bishop John J. Conroy of Albany--was sent to Paterson to look after the welfare of St. John's congregation. Father Conroy was educated in Mount St. Mary's College and was ordained by Bishop Connolly in 1825. He was subsequently assistant at the Cathedral in New York and assistant at St. Lawrence's Church in Eighty-fourth street, New York. He died when chaplain of Cavalry Cemetery, New York. Father Francis O'Donoghue was the next priest. He took up the work left unfinished by Father Shanahan and collected money for the new church. The construction of the Morris Canal at this time brought to Paterson a large number of Catholic Irishmen and it was found that the congregation of St. John's received such numerous accessions that it was necessary to construct a gallery in the church building on Congress and Mill streets. Mr. Colt, on behalf of the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures, showed a disposition not to extend to the Catholic Church any favors he had not shown to congregations of other denominations and at first refused to give the church any more property or permit the sale of the real estate on which the church was situated. Rt. Rev. Bishop Du Bois then came to Paterson and he and Father O'Donoghue called to see Mr. Colt. After a conference Mr. Colt was induced to withdraw his objections to the sale of the Mill street property and the congregation obtained from him the tract of land on Oliver street on which stands the church in which St. John's congregation worshipped nearly a third of a century. The consideration mentioned in the deed from the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures to the Trustees of St. John's Chapel is $2,000, but this amount is charged to Roswell L. Colt on the Society's journal, folio 153, so that the Oliver street property was a gift from Mr. Colt himself. There is a clause in the will of Mr. Colt by which his executors are directed to donate to charities one-tenth of his estate unless it shall appear that he during his lifetime had already disposed of one-tenth of his estate in this manner. Father O'Donoghue was greatly assisted in his work by a young man named Ambrose Manahan, who boarded at Mr. Hugh Brady's house and who received his instructions for the priesthood from Father O'Donoghue. Mr. Manahan was a young man of brilliant genius; he subsequently went to the Propaganda at Rome, where he was ordained a priest on August 29th, 1841, by Cardinal Franconi and made a doctor of divinity; he subsequently returned to this country, where he became President of St. John's College and pastor of St. Joseph's Church in New York. His remains lie buried in New York. The following inscription is found in the Visitors' Book of the Passaic Falls, dated July 25th, 1828: THOMAS IOANNES O'PHLAEGLI. Ioatros kai cheirurgos en enianpto tes chagilos, 1828. F. Frankiskos O'Donogue, Iereus tes ekklesias tes Romes, os oikei ente polei tes Patterson kai episatei ente ekklesia epikalumen tes agiou Ioannou. Reverendus Franciscus O'Donoghue, sacerdos Ecclesiæ Romanæ, atque Thomas Joannes O'Flagherty, M. D., venerunt visum, videruntque cum maxima attonitu ingentem flumenis Passaici defluxum, vigesimo quinto mensis Julii, anno Salutis Humanæ 1828. Vivat America, quamdiu sub auspiciis aquilae Reipublicanæ auram vitalem carpit. CHAPTER III. EARLY CATHOLIC FAMILIES IN PATERSON.--MEN AND WOMEN OF PROMINENCE WHO ASSISTED IN ESTABLISHING THE CHURCH IN THIS CITY. To give a complete list of the Catholics who assisted in the propagation of the faith in Paterson and give each one his or her share of praise for the noble work done in the Lord's vineyard would be a difficult task. Most of the pioneers have passed away to reap in another world the reward for their faithfulness and energy; others removed their families to other States, where their descendants are still prominent in the affairs of the Church. Some of those who did the hardest work when the light of the Catholic Church first dawned in this country are more than dead; they are forgotten, and their names and the remembrance of their existence have passed away; no historian has chronicled their brave deeds, their fortitude and their sufferings; no tombstone records the day of their birth and the day of their death and marks the place where rests the clay which was once imbued with life and vigor and zeal in the service of God. Their deeds are recorded on pages more faithful than those of the historian, more glorious than the tablets of the sculptor, and an omniscient God, who saw their sufferings and comforted them in the midst of their tribulations, has taken them to himself to share with him the perfection of righteousness and happiness. There are, however, still living men and women who figured prominently in the early history of the Church and who remember the names and doings of those who took an active part with them in building up that splendid edifice, the Catholic Church of Paterson. A glance at the families who constituted the Catholic Church in the times of Father O'Donoghue and his predecessors, a glance through the memories of some of the old Catholics of the present day at the Catholic Church of Paterson in 1830 and thereabouts, will undoubtedly be of interest to a great many. The following list is not complete, for the information therein contained was derived not from records but from the memory of human beings. It will, however, show to the rising generation to whom they are indebted for the success of the church in Paterson: who the men and women were whom God made his instruments in establishing Catholicism in Passaic County. AGNEW, PATRICK, was among the earliest Catholic settlers in Paterson. He was for some time employed in the Phoenix Mill but subsequently kept a store in Cross street. His son John is in business in this city; his son Thomas is in business in San Francisco and his daughter Margaret is the wife of Charles H. O'Neill, of Jersey City. BANNIGAN, PETER AND MICHAEL, were two brothers. Peter was a trustee of the old church in Mill street and also of the Oliver street church and resided in Ward street; he was the father of Mrs. Robert Hamil. Michael lived in Cross street, near White's alley; he subsequently erected the brick buildings at No. 19 Marshall street and there he died. BINSSE, DR. DONATIAN, practiced medicine. He was brought up by Rt. Rev. Bishop Du Bois and in Paterson resided on the corner of Hotel and Market streets, and subsequently in the old bank building in Main street. He left Paterson but his remains were returned to this city for interment. His two sons are still living but not in Paterson. BRADLEYS, three sisters, kept a boarding house for some years on Market street, near Mill. Father O'Donoghue boarded with them, as did also several other priests; they left Paterson about 1832. BROWN, JOHN P., was one of the trustees of the Oliver street church when it was building. He was in partnership with Joseph Warren in the leather business in lower Main street and married a daughter of Mr. Warren. BURKE, THOMAS, was a contractor. He built a house adjoining the Catholic Church on Market and Mill streets. His house burned down some years after it was erected and his wife perished in the flames. His only son John was a constable and died some years ago.--Edward Burke, no relation to the foregoing, kept a store on the corner of Oliver and Mill streets. He subsequently removed to New Orleans. He has no descendant living in Paterson. BURNS was the name of a man who was employed in the Phoenix Mill with Patrick Agnew. He had resided in Paterson only a few years when he died. BUTLER, PATRICK, built a house next to that of Thomas Burke in Market street. He kept a tavern for some time and subsequently became a contractor. He was the father of Mrs. Stephen Wall, Mrs. Dr. Quin, Richard H. Butler, Nancy Butler and Louisa Jane Butler, who are still residents of this or New York city. CHAPMAN, PHILIP, died a few years ago at the age of eighty years. He was the tender of the water gates of the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures at the Falls and his descendants still reside here. CONWELL, a distant relative of the late Rt. Rev. Bishop Conwell of Philadelphia, was employed in a cotton mill. He resided in Jersey street and his descendants still live in this city. CORRIGAN, PATRICK, who still resides in Mechanic street with his child, was also employed in the cotton mill. COUGHLIN, RICHARD AND PATRICK, were two brothers. Patrick for many years drove a stage between Hoboken and Paterson. He died in this city. Richard is still alive and is the trusted messenger of the First National Bank. DEVLIN, ARTHUR, was a school teacher, and resided in Prospect street. He removed to Rhode Island, where his sons still reside. DIMOND, JAMES, was a cotton weaver, and resided on Main street, near Fair. He died in Paterson and none of his descendants reside here now. DOHERTY, ROBERT, HUGH AND JAMES, were three brothers. Robert was a school teacher who came here in 1828 and left in 1848 for New York and there started in the livery business. He was a bachelor. Hugh was also a bachelor, and resided in Paterson from 1828 to 1850, when he left the city. He died in 1867, and in his will he bequeathed the property No. 89 Cross street to St. John's Church. James lived here about as long as his brother, and was the youngest of the three. His widow still resides in Pine street. DORIS, JAMES, was a blacksmith, who had a shop in Market street, near Mill. His daughter married John O'Brien, the father of the late ex-Assemblyman John O'Brien of the Second District. DUNN, the father of James Dunn, was among the earliest settlers here and for a long time resided in Van Houten street. FANNING, JAMES, was a trustee of the Oliver street church for some time, and was employed in the cotton mill. He resided in Jersey street, near Market. FINNEGAN, FRANCIS, was a contractor who lived in Main street, near Slater. He subsequently removed to Rhode Island and none of his descendants live in Paterson. FARNON, MICHAEL, resided for many years in Prospect street, and was the father of Thomas Farnon, of this city, and Peter Farnon of Philadelphia. FULTON, was the father of Mrs. Patrick Agnew. He has other descendants still living in this city. GALLAGHER, ANDREW, resided for many years in Prospect street. He was a shoemaker and subsequently a constable. GILLESPIE, MICHAEL, resided for some years on Market street, near Prince, and it was in his house that the first mass was celebrated by Father Larrissy. He subsequently removed to Belleville, where Fathers Langton and Bulger repeatedly said mass. He afterwards moved back to Paterson and took up his residence in Market street, near Cross, where several of his descendants still reside. He was employed in the foundry of Godwin & Clark. At that time the Catholics had no cemetery in Paterson but Mr. and Mrs. Gillespie, rather than see the body of one of their children buried in unconsecrated ground, journeyed to New York with the remains, where they were interred in a Catholic Cemetery. Mr. and Mrs. Gillespie were the parents of nine children, of whom one still survives, Mrs. Connolly, who lives with the Gillespies in Market street. GRIFFITH, ANDREW AND MICHAEL, two brothers, lived on the corner of Cross and Van Houten streets, opposite Colonel Kerr's residence. Michael died unmarried, but Andrew, who was a trustee of the Oliver Street Church when it was in course of erection, had numerous descendants. His children were Mary, wife of Hugh Brady and mother of Mrs. Michael A. Harold, who still resides with her daughter in Marshall street; George, at one time Captain of the City Blues, whose widow is still alive; Margaret, wife of James Shorrock, who died some years ago; Sarah, Michael and Andrew, who died unmarried, and Elizabeth and Augustine, who still live in Paterson. HAGGERTY, JOHN, who still lives with his wife and child on Market street, near Beech, was in his earlier years employed in the foundry of Godwin & Clark. HAMIL, the father of James, John and Robert Hamil, was among the early settlers in Paterson. He is dead now as are also his three sons, but the work that they did still remains and is too well known to need further reference in this work. HAWKINS, JAMES, was a machinist, who resided in Marshall street, near Slater. He removed with his family to California, where he died. HUGHES, some of whose descendants still reside in Paterson, in his earlier years resided in Van Houten street and was employed in a cotton mill. KELLY, PATRICK, was a constable, who subsequently removed to New York, where he died. His daughter is the wife of Matthew Nealon, of this city. KERR, COLONEL JOHN, was one of the most prominent figures in early Paterson. For some time he kept a grocery on the corner of Cross and Van Houten streets, but his principal occupation was that of a contractor. As such he constructed portions of the race-ways and roads for the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures. He also built a number of houses for himself. He had two daughters and one son, who subsequently left Paterson and took up their residence in New York City. He was Colonel of the military of Paterson, and was buried with military pomp, his horse, bedecked with the trappings of mourning and the empty cavalry boots hanging on its sides, following the coffin to the grave. KILEY, JAMES D., was one of the first trustees of the Oliver street church. He taught a private school for some years in Passaic street and then removed to Virginia where his son became Mayor of Richmond. LYNCH, BERNARD--the father of Andrew, Bernard, James, Thomas, Mary and Nancy, all of whom were prominent in church affairs--and his wife lie buried in Sandy Hill. Bernard Lynch, his wife and children are all dead, but their descendants still reside in Paterson. The second wife of Andrew, the oldest son, who was one of the first trustees of the Oliver street church, still resides in Market street, near Cross, with his two sons, James and Bernard. Thomas left Paterson and took up his residence in New York City, where he died. MAGENNIS, ARTHUR, came to Paterson from Matteawan, and was the father of the late Comptroller of the City of Paterson. He kept a store here for some time and subsequently was employed in his son's factory. MALLON, JOHN, was a laborer on the Morris Canal. His children are John, Alderman from the Eighth Ward; Felix, of Jersey City; Mrs. Roe, the wife of a police officer; Mrs. Michael Campbell, wife of the Alderman from the Fifth Ward, and Mrs. Patrick Fitzpatrick. MCCARTHY, JOHN, was one of the first butchers in Paterson. He died here but his descendants have left Paterson. MCCOLLOM, three brothers, were employed as cotton spinners. Their descendants have nearly all sought other places to labor in. MCCROSSEN, DANIEL, resided in Prospect street and had a portion of the original contract for the construction of the Morris Canal. He has a number of descendants residing in Paterson. His widow subsequently married William Bacon. MCGIVERN, THOMAS, and his brother were employed in the Phoenix Mill. They both died here but none of their descendants are at present residents of Paterson. MCGROGAN, THOMAS, was a machinist who died in Paterson, but whose descendants have since left for other parts. MCKENNA, ARTHUR AND HUGH, both died in Paterson. Arthur had no children. Hugh had three children, of whom one became a Christian Brother and the other is Andrew McKenna, an ex-Alderman. MCKEOWN, EDWARD, was a machinist, who, after laboring for some years in this city, went to the South, but subsequently returned to Paterson where he has several children living. He first resided in Elm street.--George McKeown, no relation to the foregoing, was a teamster on the railroad. He died in Paterson and his children still live here. MCKIERNAN, CORNELIUS, was a contractor and subsequently kept a store. His widow died in this city a short time ago. He has several sons living in Paterson.--Dennis, was no relation to the foregoing. He was a laborer and a contractor and subsequently engaged in weaving cotton. A number of his children are dead but some are still residents of Paterson. Among his children were Christopher, John, and Samuel. MCLEAN, THOMAS, was a cotton weaver residing in Elm street. He subsequently went to New York where he died suddenly in a store while making some purchases. His daughter is Mrs. Hugh Rooney. MCNALLY, DANIEL, kept a hotel for some years which was made famous by the fact that General Lafayette stopped there for some time. He built the large hotel on Market street, running from Hotel to Union street, which was subsequently destroyed by fire. He died in Paterson but left no children. MCNAMEE, ROBERT, was a laborer who resided on the corner of Broadway and Mulberry street. His son, Bernard, subsequently occupied the same building and it was here that Father Langton celebrated mass. Both the McNamees were cotton spinners and died in Paterson. There are no descendants of the family in this city. MORGAN, DANIEL, was a laborer who came to Paterson in 1826. When a short time afterwards work was to be begun on the Catholic Church in Oliver street he and a number of other laborers were sent to the site. Before they began to dig the superintendent inquired whether there were any Catholics among the laborers. Mr. Morgan stepped forward and the superintendent said to him:--"Then you dig the first shovelful of dirt," and Mr. Morgan did so. Mr. Morgan is still alive and resides at No. 77 Jersey street. He is the grandfather of Mrs. Dr. O'Grady. MORRIS, MICHAEL, came to Paterson from Godwinville and was at first employed as a cotton weaver, but subsequently devoted his attention to dealing in waste. He was well known to nearly every Catholic in Paterson and vicinity, and his death, which occurred a short time ago, was lamented by all. He has two sons living, Michael J. Morris and the Rev. John P. Morris. His only daughter died, leaving one child. MOONEY, TERENCE, was employed in the cotton mill, and resided on Main street, near Slater. He died in Troy, N. Y., whither he had removed with his family; several of his sons are now in Florida. MULHOLLAND, CHARLES, a cotton weaver, resided on the corner of Prospect street and White's alley. He died in Paterson and his children removed to other places.--James Mulholland, another of the pioneers of the Catholic Church in this city, died some years ago after a long and active life. His descendants still reside in Paterson. MURPHY, PATRICK, resided on the corner of Pine and Grand streets and was in the employ of the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures. His children still live in Paterson. MURTAGH, MICHAEL, was the first superintendent of the Paterson level of the Morris Canal. His son Bernard is dead, but his other son John is in business in this city and some time ago represented the Eighth Ward in the Board of Aldermen. O'CALLAGHAN, JEREMIAH, was employed in a cotton mill. He left three daughters, but no sons. One of his daughters is in business in this city; another is the wife of Thomas Dynan and the third resides in Baltimore. O'DONNELL, WILLIAM, another employee of a cotton mill, removed from Paterson many years ago and went South. None of his descendants reside in this city. O'KEEFE, THOMAS, resided in Ellison street, near Lynch's alley, and was employed in the Phoenix Mill. His descendants subsequently removed to New York and elsewhere. O'NEILL, CHARLES, came to Paterson in October, 1828, and went to work in Prospect street as a shoemaker. Assiduous attention to his business impaired his health, and his physician advised him either to take a sea voyage or obtain some employment in which he could have outdoor exercise. Mr. O'Neill went into the lumber business to which he subsequently added coal and building material. He has always been prominently connected with Catholic Church matters in Paterson, and was one of the first trustees of the Oliver street church. Although eighty-two years of age he still enjoys the best of health and vigor. His son Charles Henry is in business in Jersey City and has held a number of offices, including that of Mayor, to which he was elected for three terms. His second son, Thomas E., assists him in his business, and a third son, John, died some years ago, leaving a wife and three children. His daughter, Susan, is the wife of John Agnew; another daughter is Mrs. Catherine Sharkey and a third Mrs. Dr. Kane. Another daughter, Theresa, has taken the veil and is in the convent at Madison. Ellen and Esther still reside with their parents in Mill street.--John and Barney O'Neill were brothers of the foregoing. John established the shoe business conducted by his sons at No. 122 Main street. He and his wife are dead, leaving three sons and three daughters. Barney married a daughter of James Wade; he was an insurance agent, a justice of the peace and a lay judge of the Court of Common Pleas in this county. Three daughters and two sons still survive him.--Charles and Patrick O'Neill, two brothers, no relation to the foregoing, were employed in a nail factory which stood where the Gun Mill is now situated. They resided in Prospect street and none of their descendants at the present day live in Paterson.--Edward O'Neill, of another family from the foregoing, was also employed in the Phoenix Mill and has several descendants living in Paterson. O'REILLY, EDWARD, kept a dry goods store, and subsequently removed to New York city, where he married and where he is still in business. POWERS, JAMES, for some years kept a store in Cross street, opposite Elm, and erected the brick building situated just below Dr. Quin's office. His only surviving son is ex-Alderman John Powers. His daughter, Margaret, became a Sister of Charity and adopted the name of Sister Regina. She died while at St. Agnes' Institute in this city, and her remains rest in Paterson. Another daughter of Mr. Powers is Julia, wife of William McNair. QUIN, PATRICK, was a contractor and resided in Passaic street. He was for a long time one of the trustees of the Oliver street church. All his children left Paterson after their father's death.--Arthur Quin resided near Clifton and was a contractor, the principal field of his operations being New York city. He subsequently removed to Paterson and put up a number of buildings in West and Main streets. One of his sons is still alive and is a resident of New York city. Dr. John Quin is distantly related to Arthur and Patrick Quin, who were brothers. RAFFERTY, PETER AND PHILIP, were two brothers. Peter removed to California, returned to Paterson for some time, but again turned his face to the Pacific coast; he is now a resident of San Francisco. He was married in Paterson to Miss Susan Russell, a niece of Charles O'Neill. Philip was for many years trustee of the Oliver street church. He was the junior member of the firm of Todd & Rafferty, and died in this city. His first wife was a daughter of Joseph Warren, and his second a daughter of Hugh Brady. RILEY, HUGH, kept a grocery on the corner of Cross and Market streets. None of his descendants live in Paterson. ROSSITER, MARTIN, whose tragic death by being carried over the Falls in the freshet of 1882 was deplored by all, was for many years a farmer in the employ of the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures. His son Richard is still in the employ of that corporation; another son is a priest belonging to the order of Passionists, and a daughter is a Sister of the Sacred Heart. Paul and George, two sons, are employed in New York. SHEA--OR SHAY--BRIAN, was one of the first Catholics who settled in Paterson. He had a private school on the old York road where it strikes the river near the present site of the Cedar Lawn Cemetery. Among his scholars was Henry P. Simmons, of Passaic, recently Lay Judge of the Common Pleas of this county. The building on the York road was used partly as a school and partly as the residence of the teacher. The rising generation of those days referred to it as "The Bellows," from the fact that the wind blew in at the many crevices in the building. Mr. Shea had a son, James, who studied law in New York, and a daughter Harriet. He subsequently owned the property adjoining the Oliver street church, and sold it to McKinney, from whom the church obtained it. SHIELDS, CHRISTOPHER AND PATRICK, two brothers, were in the dry goods business for some years on the corner of Main street and Broadway. They removed from Paterson and have no descendants here. SLAVIN, JOHN, kept a bowling alley on the corner of Ellison and Prospect streets. He died in Paterson, but none of his descendants live here at the present day. TAGGART, PETER, was employed in the cotton mill. His widow, a daughter of Joseph Warren, died quite recently, and his daughter is still living in Paterson, the wife of William S. Kinch. TILBY, DR. JOHN, practised medicine in Paterson and resided in Cross street, near Market. He died in this city, but his two sons and one daughter removed to other places. VELASQUEZ, J., a Spaniard, owned the Phoenix Mill, and subsequently formed a partnership with John Travers and embarked in the manufacture of cotton. He subsequently sold out and left Paterson. WADE, JAMES, according to the most reliable accounts, enjoyed the distinction of having been the first Catholic Sunday school teacher in Paterson, having a class in the old church building on Mill and Market streets. He lived at the corner of Cross and Ellison streets. His daughters are Mrs. B. O'Neill of this city, Mrs. See of Totowa and Mrs. Coughlin of Hoboken. Mr. Wade was a cotton spinner by occupation. WARD, PETER AND JAMES, two brothers, were engaged as butchers, although James for some time worked in the Phoenix Mill. Both subsequently removed to Rochester, where they died and where their descendants still reside. WARREN, JOSEPH, in partnership with Brown, conducted a tannery and a leather store in lower Main--then Park--street, almost opposite Bank street. Mr. Brown's grandson still resides there. Brown boarded with Warren and subsequently married his daughter, after which the family removed to Division street. Mr. Warren was one of the trustees of the Oliver street church when it was building. CHAPTER IV. THE ERECTION OF THE OLIVER STREET CHURCH.--DOUBLING ITS SIZE.--SKETCHES OF THE LIVES OF ITS PASTORS, FATHERS DUFFY, O'REILLY, JAMES QUIN, THOMAS QUIN, SENEZ, BEAUDEVIN AND CALLAN.--A PRIEST'S HEROIC DEATH. The arrangements for the building of a new church in Oliver street were made in 1828, the year in which the trustees of St. John's Church obtained the grant of the land from Mr. Colt. Rt. Rev. Bishop Du Bois, who had so generously interested himself in the welfare of the congregation, solicited subscriptions and among others obtained one of $2,000 from a Southern gentleman. Father Duffy and the trustees of the church were indefatigable in their efforts and in 1829 the foundation of the new church was laid, the work being done by Thomas Parker. It was intended to erect a church fifty-five feet front and one hundred feet deep and the work progressed favorably until the foundation wall had been erected and the lower window frames fixed in their places. Unfortunate dissensions among the members of the congregation then arose and to this was added the debate of the question whether church property in the State should be held by trustees, as had hitherto been the case, or whether the title to the church property should be vested in the name of the Bishop of the diocese. The result was that the work on the new church was stopped for the time being and the congregation continued worshipping in the old church, on Market and Mill streets, which had been somewhat improved. In 1832 the trustees of the church were Charles O'Neill, John P. Brown, Joseph Warren, Andrew Lynch, James D. Kiley and Andrew Griffith. There was no question that the church on Market and Mill streets was too small and that something had to be done to accommodate the constantly and rapidly increasing congregation. So in the early part of 1833 the trustees above mentioned, together with a number of other gentlemen prominent in the church, held a meeting in the yard of the old church on Market and Mill streets and deliberated what to do. It was soon apparent that there were two factions. The one faction favored doubling the size of the church on Market and Mill streets and abandoning the Oliver street enterprise. The other faction, of which Mr. O'Neill was the leader, insisted that a new church be erected on Oliver street and Mr. O'Neill argued strongly in favor of this project. The meeting finally adjourned without having come to any conclusion. The friends of the Oliver street church then visited their opponents at their residences and by dint of argument and persuasion finally induced them to give their consent to the new project so that at a meeting held two weeks after the first meeting it was resolved to go on with the work on Oliver street. It was then discovered that some of the trustees and a portion of the congregation favored constructing the church on the foundations as originally built in 1829; the larger and more conservative element considered the limited resources of the church and finally prevailed. Changes were made in the plans, a portion of the foundation was taken down, so as to bring the windows nearer to the ground, and the second Catholic Church in Paterson was erected. The church on Mill and Market streets had been sold for $1,625. There were two bidders for the work to be done in Oliver street, but James Galbraith being $700 lower than his competitor, the contract was awarded to him and he erected the church. Subscriptions came in better than had been anticipated and the church was compelled to borrow but little; that little was raised on the individual notes of prominent Catholics, but when the church was completed there was very little debt. The work on the church was done under the superintendence of the trustees and Father Patrick Duffy, the pastor of the church. Father Duffy had no clergyman to assist him but his energy and untiring zeal were equal to all occasions; and when he left Paterson in 1836 it was with the sincerest regrets of all the members of the congregation, and the most hearty wishes for his future welfare followed him to the new scene of his labors, Newburg, Cold Springs and Poughkeepsie, N. Y. Catholicism had not as yet taken deep root in that vicinity and Father Duffy had a large field but a small flock. With the increase in the number of the Catholics more priests were needed and Father Duffy confined his labors to the City of Newburg, where he died on June 20, 1853. Father Duffy was succeeded by Father Philip O'Reilly, who still lives in the pleasant recollections of hundreds of citizens of Paterson. He continued until 1845 as the sole shepherd of St. John's congregation. He was a large and powerfully-built man, of commanding presence and very social qualities. He mixed a great deal with persons of other faiths, and by his sociability, brilliancy and powerful arguments succeeded in destroying a great deal of prejudice which had previously existed against the Catholic religion. Father O'Reilly belonged to one of the oldest and most respectable families in Ireland. He was born in the town of Seraba, county Cavan, a county which was once called O'Reilly's county. Father O'Reilly traced his ancestry back to beyond the time of James I., and at the time of Father O'Reilly's labors in Paterson some of his kinsmen were still in possession of the estates which had belonged to the family for centuries. Father O'Reilly was educated in Spain, being a member of the order of St. Dominic, and travelled through Italy, France and England. For some years he was chaplain to the Duke of Norfolk, a position of ease and honor. The duties there were, however, not enough for the restless and untiring spirit of Father O'Reilly, and so when less than thirty years of age he left Europe to seek for sterner duties in this country. He was first stationed at Poughkeepsie and then came to Paterson. From this city he went to Cold Springs, N. Y., where he built the first Catholic church. He was then removed to West Troy, and afterwards placed in charge of St. Bridget's Church in New York. As pastor of this church he died in the 62nd year of his life on the 7th of December, 1854. His remains were interred on the 9th of the same month in St. Patrick's Cathedral, the funeral being attended by a large concourse of admiring and sorrowing friends, both of the clergy and laity. In the latter part of the pastorate of Father O'Reilly the congregation of St. John's had so increased in numbers that it was found necessary to enlarge the church. Steps were accordingly taken in this direction, but the project was not carried into execution until some time after the advent of Father James Quin, who came to Paterson in 1845. There was considerable discussion concerning the plans of the addition and the work was not begun until 1846. Instead of erecting the church to the size of the old foundation walls--which had been entirely torn down and used in the construction of the first part of the church in 1833--the building was made thirteen feet longer, so that the present size of the church is one hundred and thirteen feet deep and fifty-five front. The original plot of land obtained from Mr. Colt would not have permitted of the erection of a building of that size, and so an arrangement was entered into with the county--which at that time was contemplating the erection of the present county jail--by which the congregation deeded to the county a gore of land in return for another gore of similar size. The addition to the church was built by Colonel Andrew Derrom, and resulted in a vexatious law suit which was decided in favor of the congregation. Shortly after the completion of the addition the seating capacity of the church was considerably enlarged by the erection of a gallery on the sides of the church. The seating capacity of the church was about 1,300. As was the case with the first half of the church building the moneys needed for the construction came in in a very satisfactory manner so that the church had very little debt when the structure was accepted from the contractors. When Father James Quin came to Paterson to take charge of St. John's congregation his brother, Thomas, was preparing for ordination, and after Father James Quin had been here about a year he was joined by his brother, who came to Paterson as soon as he had been ordained. Father James Quin was of delicate health, and in addition to the assistance of his brother had the occasional services of Rev. Dr. Cummings, who frequently came to Paterson from St. Stephen's Church. Father James Quin died on the 13th of June, 1851, being at the time pastor of the church. He was the only priest who died in Paterson, and his remains are interred in the cemetery on Sandy Hill. Father Thomas Quin succeeded his brother as pastor of the church and remained about a year. He was educated at St. Joseph's Seminary, at Fordham, and was ordained by Right Rev. Bishop Hughes on June 14, 1849. His remains are interred at Rahway in this State, of which place he was pastor. His sister, Mrs. Bridget Smith, widow of Michael Smith, still resides in this city on Mill street, near Slater. Father Thomas Quin was succeeded by Father D. Senez, who came in 1852 and remained until 1858. In the latter part of his pastorate he was assisted frequently on Sundays by Father G. McMahon. Father Senez came here from Newark and when he left he went to Jersey City, where he built St. Mary's Church, of which he is still the pastor. He made a number of improvements to the Oliver street church in this city and it was with the greatest regrets that the Catholics of Paterson saw him depart for other fields. Father Victor Beaudevin succeeded Father Senez in 1858 and remained until October, 1861. He was a scholastic of the Society of Jesus and was ordained a priest by Rt. Rev. Bishop Hughes on May 25, 1850. When he left Paterson he rejoined the Order of Jesuits and is at present in Canada. He was assisted by Father J. Schandel, who was subsequently the first pastor of St. Boniface's Church of this city, in the erection of which church he received material assistance from Father Beaudevin. Father Callan came to St. John's congregation in 1861 and remained about two years, leaving here in October, 1863. He was one of the most energetic priests that ever came to Paterson. He was quiet and unassuming but continually busy with projects for the benefit of the Catholic Church. His death constituted one of the most romantic episodes in the history of the Catholic Church in this country. Some time after he left Paterson he went on a mission to California traveling thither by boat from New York. While going from San Francisco to his mission in Santa Barbara the steamer on which he was was discovered to be on fire. The wildest confusion ensued and an attempt to run the vessel ashore failed. While most of those on board were busy devising plans for their personal safety and resorting to all kinds of expedients to save their lives Father Callan buried himself giving spiritual consolation and administering the last sacraments and rites of the Church. He had ample opportunity to save his life but the poor distressed on shipboard, who had been injured by the explosion which had taken place, and some of whom were dying, called for the consolations of religion and Father Callan remained to dispense them. He died while in the discharge of his duty--the death of a hero and a martyr. CHAPTER V. THE EDIFICE ON GRAND AND MAIN STREETS.--THE ERECTION OF THE PRESENT CHURCH OF THE CONGREGATION.--THE CORNER STONE LAYING AND THE DEDICATION.--A DESCRIPTION OF THE CHURCH. In 1863 Father William McNulty, the present pastor of St. John's congregation, came to Paterson and took charge of the fortunes and spiritual welfare of the constantly increasing congregation. The Oliver street church had become too small and could no longer hold the large numbers which crowded to it every Sunday for the purpose of attending divine worship. Father McNulty consequently set to work preparing a new edifice. It was his intention to provide a church which should be large enough to afford every Catholic in the city all the conveniences of attending mass and receiving the sacraments and at the same time he intended to erect a structure which would be a credit to the liberality and enterprise of the congregation. He accordingly entered into negotiations with the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures and in 1865 he purchased from it sixteen lots on the corner of Grand and Main streets. The new enterprise seemed to infuse new vigor into the members of the congregation and the full amount of the purchase money of the real estate was raised in two months. Preparations were made for the construction of the new church and on September 10, 1865, the corner stone was laid. The following account of the corner stone laying of the church is taken from the Paterson Daily Press of September 11, 1865: "An immense concourse of people, numbering probably ten thousand, gathered at three o'clock at the site of the new Catholic Church of St. John the Baptist, to witness the ceremony of laying the corner stone of the edifice, by the Rev. Bishop Bayley, Roman Catholic prelate of this diocese. Music was furnished by the band attached to the Church of the Assumption at Williamsburgh, and a large choir of male and female voices. The procession of clergy, preceded by a cross, and accompanying the Bishop in full and splendid canonicals reached the southeast corner of the church about half past two, at which time the pressure was fearful. The corner stone after being crossed and blessed by the Bishop was then laid with the ceremonials prescribed in the Pontifical. It is carved with a cross on the two exposed faces, and has a cavity within, wherein were placed the following articles: "Specimens of the United States currency, gold, silver, copper and paper; also copies of Paterson Press and Guardian of Saturday, copies of the New York Tablet and Herald, and the following document: "JESUS HOMINUM REDEMPTOR. "Lapis hic angularis Templi ad Dei Unius Omnipotentis cultum, sub Patricinio Sancti Joannes Baptistæ in hoc Patersoniensis urbe ædificandi ab illustrissimo et Reverendissimo Jacobo Roosevelt Bayley, hujus Novarcensis dioceseos, Episcopo Pio IX P. M., ecclesiam, per orbem regenti, Patricio Moran Vicario Generali, Gulielmo McNulty Parocho, Jacobo D'Arcy sacerdote coadjutore. "Foederatarum Americæ Septemtrionalis Provinciarum Preside Andrea Johnson, Novae Cæsareæ Gubernatore Joele Parker, urbis hujus Proctore Henrico A. Williams, Architecto Patrico C. Keely, ædificationis, delectis Carolo O'Neill, Roberto Hamil, Gulielmo Watson, Michaeli Morris et Patricio Curran. Benedictus et positus est III Idus Septembri, Anno Salutis MDCCCLXV. Hoc operato, concionem, maxime facundam magna civium adstantium corona, habuit jam laudatus præsul decus gregis, quem diu sospitem nostro sæculo servet, "DEUS, "Cui sit honor, laus et gloria in Sempiternum. "The Bishop, and attending clergy, then traversed the foundations of the edifice, the Bishop blessing them and sprinkling them with holy water. Then returning to the corner-stone the Bishop proceeded to deliver the following address:--'It is the custom of the Bishop in laying the corner-stone of a new church to say something upon the occasion, and it is always a source of great pleasure for me to lay and bless the corner-stone of a new church. The circumstances, it is true, are not always the most agreeable, the ceremony being performed in the open air, and it is sometimes too hot, and sometimes too cold, or it may rain, although to-day the sun has shone out most opportunely. But these, after all, are slight inconveniences. As I officiate upon these occasions, it is impossible for me to separate them from the source of the blessings to follow to the individual and to society. The thought that is always uppermost in my mind when I lay the corner-stone of a church is of those wells in the desert spoken of so beautifully in the old Scriptures; those fountains in the dry and sandy deserts of the East, made by the old patriarchs, which still spread beauty and fertility around them, and still refresh the weary traveller. The wild Arab ranging the desert as he sees and drinks of those living waters, blesses the names of those old patriarchs who made them flow. So it is with the Church of Christ. That Church is, indeed, a fountain of living waters in the desert, spreading fertility and blessings around it and refreshing and blessing the weary traveller on his journey through life. It is indeed a great and a good work we are engaged in. It is a work for the glory and honor of the Good and Supreme Ruler of all things, and it cannot fail to bring down blessings on ourselves and all who come after us. The erection of a church is a noble and substantial act of faith; not expressed in words but built up in enduring brick and stone, and thus stronger and more complete than mere words. It shows that you honor God and love your religion; that you are anxious for the glory of the House of God, and wish its rites to be fitly celebrated. It shows, too, that you are anxious that those who come after you shall bow at the same altars, and be guided by the same precepts that you are guided by. Some would say, looking at the foundations I have blessed to-day, Why an expense that seems disproportionate to the means! It is, perhaps, a natural question, and yet it is one that always sounds badly to the Catholic ear. We should not speak of cost in connection with the house and glory of Almighty God. The question I allude to was first asked by Judas, concerning an act of charity and love done for our Divine Master. Let us recognize by our generosity, by the size, cost and magnificence of the temples we erect to Him, that God is ruler not only over the world, but in our hearts. If you will visit Catholic cities you will find the most beautiful buildings erected, not to purposes of science and art, but to the glory of God, and for works of charity done in His name. The Catholic Church has always been a church builder. She began with the Catacombs, which you will find in many parts of Europe and particularly at Rome. To those places the faithful were wont to flee from the light of day to offer their rites and worship God in their own way. As you pass along those corridors, cut from the solid rock and lined on either side with the bodies of the dead, you find in places they expand into chambers where church rites were held. I recall one near Naples, a church called after St. Agnes, near the scene of her martyrdom, where there is a beautiful church, with an altar and a seat for the Bishop. In some of these churches where the light of day does not shine the walls are decorated with frescoes, from subjects of the Old Testament. I need not say that when the Church came up to worship God in the light of day she continued to erect noble edifices to the glory of God, hence those noble basilicas, churches and cathedrals we see in the old countries. Those noble structures have been stigmatized as creations of the Dark Ages. Some of you may have seen them. Those who have not can form no idea of their beauty and grandeur, which impress even those of other faiths who enter them. They are truly noble poems, built in stone under the light of Heaven. It would be quite as easy for an ordinary person to compose a stanza of Paradise Lost, or Dante's Divina Comedia, as to construct even the slightest portion of one of those beautiful works. It has been the theory of a certain school, now I am happy to say fast passing away, that these noble buildings were the result of superstition; that they were built by men of habits of great violence and crime, who compounded with God, as it were, to keep a portion of their stolen goods, while with the remainder they erected those noble churches and monasteries. This theory was entirely false. These were men like unto ourselves, as regards human nature: when they did wrong they might offer reparation, but it was no superstition that found means to build these churches. In our days men are recognizing a better theory; that it was faith, piety and love for God that prompted these works. Those men in erecting their churches gave expression to their faith, and showed their love to God as you are showing it now.' "(The Bishop said he could not enter into a description of these churches. He would only refer briefly to one, the Cathedral of Chartres, France, of which he found it noted in the chronicle of Haman that it was seventy years in building. One is not surprised that it should have been so, when he looks upon it. It has suffered from the tooth of time, but many of its interior features, and especially its noble old stained windows, are very perfect still. He had been told by an archæologist that it would cost three or four millions of francs to restore it. This noble cathedral was built not by the rich and titled, but by the hands of poor men. There must have been thousands working on it night and day for those seventy years. Thousands of noble persons were busy in supplying provisions to the laborers. Delicate maidens might have been seen carrying stones for the church. The whole population labored, not merely the citizen, but the dweller in the province, to erect that building that should stand until the end of time.) "'They did not build in vain. Their time was well spent. That church has been a constant sermon telling for over a thousand years the glory of God. Who may tell what force such a church may add to a preacher's words? Such churches have stood bearing witness against heresy and false doctrine and helping Catholics to keep the faith. They have been beacon-lights to warn men who wished to serve the true God from their false philosophy. The spirit shown in the project of the large and costly church here commenced is that which has always animated the Catholic heart. I congratulate you, then; I congratulate your zealous and faithful pastor; I congratulate you all; Catholics of this city, and Protestants too; for this is a matter which concerns the interests of all who believe in and love God, who reverence law, order and public security, because all these are founded upon religion. In the place where people do not believe in God, there must be degradation, violence, insecurity and sometimes anarchy. Here we erect another bulwark against irreligion, indifference and vice, which all must acknowledge are spreading over our fair republic. He did not feel the necessity of spending any more breath in exhorting them to carry on generously and faithfully the great work they had undertaken. The rubric in the Pontifical which I hold in my hand imperfectly translated says that it is the duty of the Bishop before he lays the corner stone of a church to take care that means are provided for its completion, and for the support of its clergy, and the proper celebration of worship. But the times are not as they once were. Now we do not find it necessary to wait until all the means are provided. We depend now upon the wide-spread liberality of our people, many of whom, it is true, are poor. We saw to-day a woman, who from her dress and appearance, was evidently casting her all into the treasury of the Lord's House. I cannot condemn her, since the Lord once blessed such an act as hers. How dear will this spot be henceforth! Here you shall worship God; here receive the holy sacraments; here come to hear the words of eternal truth. May it indeed be to you in the language of the old Patriarch, the House of God and the Gate of Heaven. May you here obtain the grace of a good death and be hence admitted to everlasting glory, to a habitation not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.' "While the address was in progress, baskets were passed among the crowd for contributions, a handsome sum being realized. The congregation was dismissed with the Pontifical benediction." The erection of the walls of the church was at once proceeded with. P. C. Keely, of New York, was the architect, but every day while work was going on Father McNulty was present supervising the erection and attending to the many matters which require attention in the construction of so large a structure as St. John's Church. The building was erected by day's work and is one of the most substantially built churches in the country. Father McNulty was assisted by an advisory building committee consisting of Charles O'Neill, Robert Hamil, William G. Watson and others. The stone used in the construction of the church was brought by canal from Little Falls and dressed on the ground as required. The slate used in the roof was imported from England. The chime of bells, the only one in the city, which had been used in the Oliver street church, was transferred to the new edifice. Before the completion of the main building a neat little chapel was built on the north east corner of the property; this was at once fitted up and is at present used for confessionals and other purposes. The total seating capacity of the new church is 1750. The following brief description of the church is taken from the recently published History of Bergen and Passaic Counties: "The church is eighty-eight feet front and one hundred and eighty feet deep; twin turrets rise on each side of the front to the height of the peak, ninety feet, but are to be carried thirty feet higher; on the Grand street side there is a square tower, about one hundred feet high at present; it is to be adorned with a spire rising to the height of two hundred and twenty-five feet from the ground. The main entrance is on Main street, through a fine doorway, the arch of which is about thirty feet high. The roof is supported in the interior by graceful stone columns, sixty feet high, from which spring stout arches of wood painted to resemble stone. The ceilings and walls are decorated in the mediæval style by two celebrated artists from Munich, Messrs. Lang and Kinkeln. Symbolic paintings adorn the side walls, depicting the twelve stations upon a background of gold flecked with blue. The windows are of stained glass each contributed by some member of the congregation." The sanctuary also contains five masterpieces of the painter's art, being representations of the five principal mysteries of the life of Christ, the Annunciation, the Birth, the Institution of the Holy Eucharist, the Resurrection and the Ascension. The following are the positions of the windows and the names of the persons or societies who donated them: ALTAR. Rev. L. G. Thebaud, Rev. W. McNulty. John Agnew, Charles O'Neill. W. G. Watson, S. H. Wall. Miss E. Carr, Mrs. M. Freel. Christopher McKiernan. Robert Hamil, Mrs. B. Mack. St. Agnes' Society, Rosary Society. St. Patrick's T. A. B. Society, Mrs. C. Cameron. United Sons of Erin, United Sons of Erin. ENTRANCE. P. J. St. Lawrence, In memory of P. McKenna. The stained glass windows in the chapel were given by Elizabeth Mooney, Mary Freel, Anna Sullivan and Hannah St. Lawrence. The following is the estimated cost of the various parts of the work: Cutting of the doors, windows, columns, corbels, &c. $ 30,000 Interior decorations 7,000 Main altar--a gift from a member of the congregation 2,000 Windows 8,000 Organ 10,000 Masonry and rest of the work 143,000 -------- $200,000 The present debt of the church is $27,000, and its annual income about $30,000 from all sources, barely sufficient to meet all the large and numerous demands on the treasury. The number of Catholics in the city is estimated at 20,000, more than one-third of the population. The church was dedicated on the 31st of July, 1870. The following account of this ceremony is taken from the Paterson Daily Press of the next day: "Yesterday was a great day for the Roman Catholic population of Paterson, and a proud day for the Rev. Father McNulty, the energetic pastor of St. John's Church, to whose remarkable energy and zeal his people are indebted for so grand a design as the erection of the splendid church which was solemnly dedicated yesterday with all the pomp and magnificence of the Roman Catholic ritual. Before the hour for commencing the services an immense throng had collected in the vicinity of the old and the new church in upper Main street to witness the ceremonies outside while the church was crowded by a vast congregation, admitted by tickets at one dollar each to see and hear the splendid service within. Of the church itself, its main architectural features, dimensions, etc., we have so often spoken that we need not refer to it particularly here save to notice what has been added by the way of furnishing and decorations. The building is yet far from completion and no doubt its full embellishment will be the work of years. It already, however, gives promise of being a very beautiful church. It is frescoed in stone colors, crimson, green, blue and gold. The sculptured capitals of the stone columns are elaborately decorated and gilded. The arches of the clere-story are stone color, edged with maroon, and gold stars, the tracery in relief being light green. The side walls are salmon drab. The seats are of hard wood, walnut, ash, etc., seemingly fashioned more for durability than beauty. The altar, reached by two steps, is placed in a spacious chancel, flanked by commodious chapels. The walls and ceiling of the chancel are frescoed in the same colors as the body of the church, and contain numerous paintings of scenes in the life of our Savior and St. Peter, and other saints. Its large east window has not its glass in yet. The other stained windows of the church are complete. They are very beautiful, and each bears the name of its donor, some of the faithful of the congregation having contributed the money for each, and as long as the church stands the indelible record of their generosity will endure. The chancel is covered by a handsome carpet of brown and blue. The altar is painted white, mauve and gold. It is elaborately ornamented with vases, pictures and flowers, and hung with white lace embroidered with gold grapes. A wreath of vivid green leaves, interspersed with white lilies, is twined in the front. It contains a multitude of tapers, and is surmounted by a figure of Christ upon the cross. The pulpit placed within the body of the church is small, and far from imposing in its appearance. "The ceremonies of dedication commenced outside of the church, where a procession was formed of the clergy and societies, the latter consisting of the Sons of Erin, and the St. John's and St. Patrick's Temperance Societies. The procession was headed by two taper bearers and a crucifix bearer, several of the officiating priests, and the Right Rev. Bishop Wood, of Philadelphia, who conducted the ceremony of dedication. The Bishop was clad in magnificent robes of white satin superbly embroidered in gold devices, and silk flowers of glowing colors. He wore his mitre and carried a gorgeous crozier. The procession marched around the church chanting the Miserere, the Bishop sprinkling the walls with holy water. It then entered the front door and proceeded up the centre aisle to the alter, the Bishop and procession chanting alternately the Litany of the Saints. The Bishop and attendants then traversed the interior limit of the church, the walls of which were sprinkled with holy water by the celebrant, the priests solemnly chanting the while. During this ceremony the candles on the altar were lighted, and all was made ready for the celebration of a solemn mass in the presence of a Bishop. This was celebrated with the utmost pomp. The Bishop commenced the mass and proceeded as far as the Confitieor when the celebrant, Father Senez, of Jersey City, proceeded in the usual form. Father Hennessy, of Bergen, acted as Deacon, Dr. Garvey, of Hackensack, as sub-Deacon, and the Rev. P. McCarthy, of Seton Hall, as Master of Ceremonies. Among the clergy present were the Rev. Monsignor Seton, Chaplain of the Convent at Madison; Dr. Corrigan, President of Seton Hall College; Father Corrigan, of St. Peter's, Jersey City; Father Byrne, of Camden, and the clergy of the church, Fathers W. McNulty, Thebaud and Vescelle. The Bishop's secretary and several of the seminarians of Seton Hall College were also present. "The sermon was preached by the Rev. Mr. Byrne, of Camden, from the 6th Chapter of the Second Book of 'Paraleipomena,' or 'Book of Things Omitted,' and was an earnest and eloquent appeal in behalf of the Catholic faith, which he said makes sermons even of stones, and by its grand and solemn services impresses the mind even of the stranger. The preacher told an anecdote showing how powerfully a Baptist lady had been impressed while visiting Bishop Wood's Church in Philadelphia, so that she dropped upon her knees and prayed as fervently as any. The speaker paid a glowing compliment to the zeal and generosity of the congregation, and especially to the worthy pastor, for the erection of this noble offering to God. It was beautiful architecturally, but it had a beauty for the child of faith, the earnest Catholic, before which all its outward beauty vanished as the glory of the earth before the glory of the heaven. It is the glory and beauty of the indwelling of Christ. "After the close of the mass, the Bishop addressed a few words of congratulation to the congregation. He said they had reared a beautiful and spacious temple and had reason to be grateful to God who gave them so earnest and devoted a pastor to lead them. It is an evidence of His special love. They should have but one sentiment. Thanks be to God; from God all good things come. They must give him all he asks with grateful hearts. He regretted that their own noble Bishop was not there and yet he ought not to regret it, for in that case he (the speaker) should have probably lost the great pleasure of being there. Remember the more God bestows, the more he requires. Their struggle here will only cease with life. There are signs on the horizon, that a special struggle may be coming following the action of the General Council now in session. The storm may come but God will direct it, and it will pass away, and be succeeded by a longer and more glorious sunshine. "The music of the mass was remarkably fine, under the skillful direction of Prof. Davis, the organist of St. John's church. Only a small temporary organ had been set up, it being the intention to order a superb new organ, of dimensions suitable for the church. The full effect, therefore, of the pieces could not be given, but they were rendered with great skill and effect. The Kyrie and Gloria were by Cerutti, the Offertory by Millard, the Credo by Farmer, the Sanctus by Mercadante, and the Agnus Dei by Farmer. The solos were finely rendered by Misses Graham and Maggie O'Neill and Mr. Hensler, bass, and Nauwerck, tenor. The latter is the only one who does not belong to the regular choir of the church. The other members, all of whom did admirably, are Misses Theresa O'Neill, Bowen, Quin, McGuire, Sheehan and Hawley. "The entire services were very impressive and occupied three hours in all. Among the crowded congregation were a great many prominent citizens not of the Roman Catholic faith. The ushers attended with great courtesy to the comfort of all." The time occupied to build the church as it stands at present was fourteen years. In 1872 the congregation purchased four lots of land on Grand street, east of the church building, from the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures, paying therefor the sum of $10,800. The property was bought for the purpose of erecting a parsonage and work on this was begun soon after the acquirement of the real estate. The parsonage is a handsome structure built in the same style as the church and of similar materials. The mason work was done by Patrick J. St. Lawrence, the price being $7,000. The erection of the building cost altogether about $15,000. The congregation retained the old church property in Oliver street but a number of important alterations were made. The building was changed into a hall for lectures, concerts, entertainments and the like and is known as St. John's Hall. A portion of the building is used for school purposes to relieve the parochial school which adjoins it. CHAPTER VI. SKETCH OF THE PASTOR OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH.--A SILVER JUBILEE.--A LIFE DEVOTED TO THE SERVICE OF THE ALMIGHTY.--THE CHOIR OF THE CHURCH.--VARIOUS SOCIETIES OF THE CONGREGATION. No person in Paterson has done harder and more energetic work in the cause of Catholicism than the reverend pastor of St. John's congregation, Father William McNulty. His pluck, untiring zeal, kind disposition and many other laudable characteristics have endeared him to all. Never was this more plainly shown than at the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his ordination. On this occasion, August 6th and 7th, 1882, the clergy, of whom there were nearly half a hundred present presented Father McNulty with an address giving a short sketch of his life and paying him tributes which he had so richly deserved. As this address faithfully depicts the character of the worthy priest and tells of some of the many worthy and more prominent actions it is here reproduced in full: "We are met here to-day to congratulate you on this auspicious occasion, the twenty-fifth anniversary of your elevation to the sacred priesthood. Not to many is it given to see your years in the holy ministry, though years constitute no merit; but to few indeed is it granted to accomplish works such as you have achieved, for you are fuller of works than of days. "Imbued with the missionary spirit of your countrymen, you early left your native land, 'the island of Saints and Apostles,' bidding 'adieu to Ballyshannon and the winding banks of Erne.' Arriving in New York in 1850, you entered the celebrated halls of the Jesuits at Fordham, where you drank deep of classical and philosophical lore; and graduated with distinction. Thence you repaired to that illustrious seat of learning, so justly styled 'the nursery of priests and bishops'--Mt. St. Mary's College, Emmettsburgh, Md., where for four years, guided by the spirit of the saintly Dubois, and the indomitable Brute; under the tutorship of the learned McCaffrey and the gentle Elder 'you were nourished up in the words of faith and good doctrine.' There, under the peaceful shadow of 'the old mountain,' you were taught the chief characteristics of a true minister of Christ; who, according to the Apostle, should be 'of blameless life, sober, prudent, of good behaviour, chaste, modest, not quarrelsome, not greedy of filthy lucre, holding the mysteries of the faith in a pure conscience, an example of the faithful in word, in conversation, in charity, in faith.' "Thus prepared, and having received ordination at the hands of the late lamented Archbishop Bayley, you went forth five and twenty years ago to-day, 'to labor as a good soldier of Christ' in the Diocese of Newark. "You were first selected to assist as Vice-President the present distinguished Bishop of Rochester in conducting at Madison the college of Seton Hall which has since developed into the far-famed institution at South Orange, much of whose success may be traced back to the fact that you reproduced at Madison the zeal which you had seen exercised, and the discipline which you had seen enforced at your mountain 'Alma Mater.' "You were afterwards placed over the missions of Morris county, including Mendham, Basking Ridge and other neighboring stations, where you erected churches and attended to the spiritual wants of that extensive district, at the same time discharging the office of chaplain to the infant community of the Sisters of Charity at Madison, and assisting them very materially in the management of their temporal affairs. "In 1863 the church of St. John the Baptist, Paterson, was without a pastor. The Right Rev. Bishop, knowing the importance of this growing city, which has since become one of the most successful manufacturing centres of the country, and thoroughly appreciating its religious wants, cast his eyes over his clergy, to find one capable of holding the reins of its destiny with a vigorous hand. He knew that in large manufacturing cities, there were numerous dangers to souls, and none more to be dreaded than those arising from intemperance. With that correctness of judgment which always marked his appointments, he fixed his eyes on the Vice-President of Seton Hall, and commissioned him to enter on a new sphere of labor on the banks of the Passaic. Here, indeed, you found a field not wholly uncultivated, for zealous priests had preceded you. That veteran missionary and church-builder, Father Senez, now the highly esteemed pastor of St. Mary's, Jersey City, had labored some years on this mission with distinguished success. The lamented Fathers O'Reilly, Quinn and Callan had left the impress of their zeal and piety on the Catholic population of Paterson. Here you found a spacious church, and a large congregation of generous and devoted Catholics. Nevertheless your penetrating mind soon perceived that the wants of your growing flock were not sufficiently provided for, and that the church was too small to accommodate the crowds which presented themselves Sunday after Sunday for divine worship. In 1865, therefore, having purchased a most suitable location, you laid the corner stone of this magnificent temple, one of the noblest monuments of religion in the United States. After five years of ceaseless toil, at night collecting from your generous flock the necessary funds, by day laboring even with your own hands in the quarry, measuring the stone, mounting the walls, and giving directions to the builders, with untiring zeal and unremitting effort, after an expenditure of $200,000, you at length beheld your church ready for dedication to God. The Archbishop of Philadelphia in the absence of your own ordinary, did you the honor to come from his archiepiscopal city to consecrate this magnificent edifice to the worship of the Most High. This was indeed a proud day not merely for yourself and your devoted people, but also for the entire population of Paterson, all rejoicing that they had in their midst a pastor capable of conceiving and executing so grand a work. "Had you rested here you had done enough to enshrine your name and perpetuate your memory in the grateful hearts of the people of Paterson. But happily this was only the first of your great achievements in their behalf. Having completed the new church of St. John, you next turned your attention to the wants of the orphan, and the need of a suitable cemetery for the burial of the Catholic dead. In 1868, you purchased the beautiful site two miles from the city on the banks of the swift flowing Passaic. Here you erected St. Joseph's Orphan Asylum, and laid out the cemetery of the Holy Sepulchre. In that asylum, under the direction of the Sisters of Charity, ever ready to care for the fatherless, you have every year maintained nearly a hundred orphans, while the cemetery of the Holy Sepulchre, so charmingly situated, and so elegantly laid out bids fair to become one of the most admired repositories of the dead in this State. Finding in 1870, that notwithstanding the immense proportions of St. John's Church, the entire Catholic population could not be accommodated within its spacious precincts, you purchased a very desirable property on Broadway, whereon you erected St. Joseph's Church, which you attended for seven years, and which when ready to be erected into a regular parish, you found to have a value of $30,000. The good work which you began there was successfully carried on by the lamented Father Molloy, and is now being continued with no less success by the present distinguished pastor, the zealous and learned Dr. Smith. "A few years afterwards, perceiving that the Catholic population on the left bank of the Passaic had increased very considerably, you purchased a suitable plot of ground at Totowa, and erected thereon a commodious brick edifice, making the lower story answer for religious, and the upper for educational purposes. At the same time you introduced, and provided a residence for the Sisters of St. Dominic, to take charge of the schools there. Three years ago, after accumulating a property of $20,000, for the new foundation, you recommended the Right Rev. Bishop to erect this second daughter of St. John's into a regular parish church, and had the satisfaction of seeing appointed to its first rectorship Rev. Father Curran, the courageous founder and indefatigable editor of the 'Paterson Times.' "One of the most pressing needs in a great city like Paterson, where in consequence of extensive manufactures there is great liability to accident and disease, was a hospital for the sick and wounded, to the establishment of which in 1869, under the management of the Sisters of Charity, you largely contributed. Under your fostering care and liberal encouragement, this institution of benevolence has gone on for fourteen years in its career of mercy, sheltering the sick and disabled without distinction of country, creed or color. Long may it prosper in its Godlike work, and long may you be spared to be a father and guide to the self-sacrificing sisters who so successfully conduct it. "In 1874, the old pastoral residence having become too small for the accommodation of the clergy, you erected at a cost of $15,000 this elegant parsonage, which forms a fitting appendage to the church of St. John, at the same time converting the old rectory into a home for the good sisters. "But amid all the excellent works of religion in which you have been engaged, not one has claimed more of your attention than the providing of sufficient school facilities for the education of your children, for you have been thoroughly convinced that without the solid groundwork of a sound Catholic education, the Catholic faith cannot take a firm hold on the hearts of our people. Hence from the very commencement of your administration, your most strenuous efforts have been directed to promote the welfare of your numerous spiritual children in this respect. In 1880, although your school facilities were by no means contemptible, yet you saw that the growing wants of the parish demanded more school room, and you accordingly gave orders to your architect so to alter old St. John's Church as to afford you additional school accommodation for one thousand children, while at the same time you entered into negotiations with the Brothers of Mary to conduct those of your schools which were designed for the larger boys. You have now the satisfaction of knowing that, with the Sisters of Charity to teach your schools for girls and smaller boys, and the Brothers of Mary to direct the schools for the larger boys, there are few if any parishes in the diocese that can claim the same advance in education as you can in this great city of Paterson. Again do we say long may you be preserved to preside over the destinies of the Catholic education in this portion of the diocese of Newark. "In 1873, flying from the tyranny of a Bismarck, the Franciscan Fathers, bidding adieu to their native land, arrived in the City of Paterson, friendless and well nigh penniless. Learning that it was their intention, with the permission of the Right Rev. Bishop, to establish themselves in this city, and anticipating no small good to religion from the presence of so zealous and self denying a body of religious men, you extended to them a friendly hand, gave them every encouragement, and permitted your generous people to aid them in the erection of their beautiful church and monastery on Stony Road. Thus St. John's church has had the satisfaction of beholding another of her children snugly ensconced on the banks of the Passaic. "Three years ago, finding that the city was largely extending itself in the direction of the new hospital, and there were numerous children who resided too far away from St. John's schools to avail themselves of their advantages, you erected a frame building for the accommodation of these children, placing it in charge of the devoted Sisters, ever ready to second your efforts in behalf of Catholic education, and it is believed that in a short time the spiritual wants of that portion of the city will enlist your zeal for the erection of a new church and the foundation of a new parish in that section. We may also be permitted to allude to the new church now in course of erection near the river for the Catholic Hollanders under the zealous care of the Rev. Father Hens and not without your encouragement and cooperation. Thus, then, we may on this day congratulate St. John's church upon being the joyful mother of a numerous offspring, which cluster round about her on every side, and may indulge the hope that while each is guarded by its own titular saint, the spirit of the Baptist will still hover over them all. In addition to your labors within the limits of Paterson, you did not fail to extend your pastoral zeal to the neighboring missions of Hohokus and Pompton, where you built churches, and for many years attended to the spiritual wants of the Catholics of those extensive districts, which are now under the zealous charge of the Fathers of St. Boniface's church. "There is another department of your labors to which we cannot close this address without referring. We allude to your efforts in the great temperance movement, which indeed we may say you were the first to inaugurate both in this city and throughout the diocese. Upon your taking possession of this great parish, you were not slow to perceive that one of the greatest evils, and one of the most formidable stumbling blocks to the advancement of religion in your parish was the prevalence of the soul destroying vice of intemperance. We do not by any means wish to insinuate that Paterson was worse in this respect than any of the other great cities of the diocese, but it will be easily understood that in a city like this where the manufacturing interests are so extensive, requiring the employment of so many men and women, and even boys and girls, and distributing such liberal amounts of money in compensation for labor, the temptations to the abuse of intoxicating drinks are indeed very great. Your earliest efforts, therefore, were directed to the restraint if not the total destruction of the vice of drunkenness in your parish. Hence you were not slow to organize temperance societies, not merely for the older men and women, but also for the young men, and even for boys, and from the very day on which you entered the City of Paterson, up to the present moment, you have never relaxed your energies in the promotion of the cause of temperance, and in checking the ravages of intemperance in your parish. And it is not by means of temperance organizations alone that you have succeeded so well in this noble work, but by your personal exertions in visiting the home of the drunkard, in entering the rumshops even at the dead of night to chase away to their homes the resorters of these places, and to reprimand with the boldness and freedom of the Gospel the keepers of these dangerous haunts. Often have you been seen after a hard day's work on the Lord's Sabbath parading the streets of Paterson as if with police authority, to see whether any of your people were staggering along the sidewalk, after filling themselves with drink, or gathered in the beershops indulging in the noise and riot for which such places are notorious. In this persevering effort to maintain sobriety and good order you have had the countenance and support not merely of your own people, but of the entire population of Paterson, and for this work you have received from your fellow citizens, without distinction of creed, the esteem and gratitude it has so eminently merited, while your name has become a household word in Paterson. Even in times of riot and disorder, when the civil authorities found them unable to cope with violence, they did not fail to call upon the pastor of St John's to co-operate with them in the re-establishment of peace and order. "The very children as you move about the city, without distinction of religion, never fail to recognize their dear 'Father Mac,' and you yourself make it your special delight to stop and salute these children. And if by any chance you passed by without noticing them, even Protestant children would run after your carriage and say 'Father Mac, you know me.' Nor did you neglect the young men and the young women of your parish. For the former you provided suitable halls with libraries and reading rooms, and organized them into literary and benevolent societies, where, drawn away from the temptations of the rumshop, and the professional billiard-room, they might have harmless recreation and innocent enjoyment. Many of these young men under your fostering care and liberal encouragement entered the ranks of the priesthood, and are now edifying the Church in various positions of the Diocese, while others similarly favored, are now fitting themselves for the sacred ministry in the principal seminaries of the Church. The young women you gathered into pious sodalities under the direction of the saintly Sisters, and the patronage of the Immaculate Virgin, thus furnishing them with every safeguard against the numerous temptations to be found in populous manufacturing cities, and your labors for both classes have been crowned with success, as any one can see, on Sundays in St. John's Church, whose altar rails are crowded with those devout young men and women, coming forward to nourish themselves with Christ's life-giving bread. Of these young women, not a few, under your fatherly care, and liberal patronage, have joined themselves to the good Sisters, devoting their lives and energies to the teaching of the young and the nursing of the sick. "During the long course of those twenty-five years, with the exception of two brief trips to your native land, you never found the necessity of taking any recreation, but felt it to be your pleasure to increase your labors for your flock. You have worked with the energy of one who truly loves his Divine Master '_Nullo fatigatus labore_.' And your disinterestedness may well claim for you the words of the Apostle, '_Nulli onerosus fui_.' Your patient self-denial, your affability to all, your readiness to listen to the tale of woe, and to relieve the cry of distress, your unflagging zeal in the confessional, your never failing attendance on the sick at the dead of night as cheerfully as at midday, your unwearied earnestness in preaching the word of God, 'in season and out of season,' holding up to your people the beauties and happiness of a virtuous life, and denouncing to them the terrible consequences of wickedness and wrongdoing, your ceaseless efforts to prepare your numerous children for the holy sacraments, all this entitles you to the praise and reward of a true apostle of Christ, and has endeared you to the hearts of young and old--'_pueris senibusque carus_.' In the exercise of your sacred ministry you have been ably seconded and encouraged by your bishops, by the lamented Bayley, the zealous and learned Corrigan, and the amiable, scholarly and energetic prelate who now rules the destinies of this diocese. Nor should we omit to mention the material aid which you have received from the many worthy assistant priests that have labored with you,--the indomitable Kirwan, the polished Moran, the lamented Darcy and Cantwell, the self sacrificing Thebaud, the gentle Zimmer, the hardworking Downes, the zealous Hanly, the laborious McGahan, the eloquent McFaul, the historian Brennan, the courtly Whelan, the genial White and the patriotic Corr, and last but not least the energetic Hickie, most of whom are now filling with distinction the pulpits of flourishing churches. You have won from your fellow-priests the highest esteem and love, which they on this occasion endeavor to express, however feebly, by the accompanying testimonial. Commemorating to-day your five-and-twentieth year of ordination we earnestly hope and pray that your silver crown may be transmuted into gold on your fiftieth anniversary, and that the next quarter century of your ministry may be characterised by the same fruitfulness in good works which we however imperfectly have endeavored to record of the five and twenty years just ended. "Eternal praise and thanksgiving be to the Great Head of the Church and Chief Shepherd of the Flock, Jesus Christ, who has given you the grace and the strength, the health and the perseverance to pass with so much profit to religion this long period of your ministry. Nor should we fail to thank in your name the people of St. John's Church, who for all this time have never faltered in their fidelity and generosity, always responding with liberal hearts to the numerous calls made upon them for religion, education and charity. Well may we conclude with the poet:-- "Non usitato congredimur modo His in jugosis atque sacris locis Hasque inter umbras hospitales Insolitum celebrare festum." The following is a list of the clergymen present at the silver jubilee: Rt. Rev. W. M. Wigger, Most Rev. M. A. Corrigan, Rt. Rev. Edward Fitzgerald, Rt. Rev. G. H. Doane, and the Revs. A. J. Thebaud, S. J., Isadore Daubresse, S. J., John A. Kelly, Thomas M. Killeen, Patrick Cody, Patrick Hennessy, James H. Corrigan, Patrick Leonard, M. J. Kirwan, Pierce McCarthy, L. G. Thebaud, Martin Gesner, Theodore McDonald, O. C., F. Feehan, O. C., Augustus Brady, P. F. Downes, Nicholas Hens, Louis Gambosville, James F. Salaun, John P. Morris, Dennis McCartie, James Curran, Patrick J. McGahan, Isaac P. Whelan, Daniel McCarthy, Michael J. White, Patrick Corr, Michael J. Hickie, Dr. Larkin, David B. Walker, S. J., John J. Sheppard, Michael A. McManus, Ferdinand Muller, O. S. F., and Hugh Murphy. Scores of letters and telegrams were received from priests and others who regretted their inability to be present at the celebration. During his pastorate Father McNulty has been assisted in his labors by a number of priests. His first assistant was Rev. James A. D'Arcy, who was here in 1864. After this time Father McNulty had two assistants. The names of his assistants are Fathers L. G. Thebaud, T. R. Moran, M. J. Kirwan, P. McCahill, P. F. Cantwell, P. F. Downes, Joseph Zimmer, James Curran, James Hanley, I. P. Whelan, M. J. White, Patrick McGahan, James J. Brennan and M. J. Hickie. Of these, Fathers D'Arcy, Moran, Kinwan, McCahill, Cantwell, Downes, Curran, Hanley, White, McGahan and Hickey were natives of Ireland; Father Thebaud was born in New York City, Father Zimmer in Brooklyn, Father Whelan in Elizabeth and Father Brennan in Newark. In addition there were priests who were assistants only for a few weeks, including Fathers McFaul, Corr and others. Father McNulty's present assistants are Fathers McCarthy and Quin. Father D. F. McCarthy was born in Newark and educated at St. Charles College in Maryland and at Seton Hall. Father Thomas Quin was born in Ireland and educated at Seton Hall. The first choir of St. John's church consisted of the Bradley sisters--elsewhere referred to--who sang in the old church on Market and Mill streets; their brother played the flute and at times James Powers assisted on the clarionet. A Professor Wedell was organist in the Oliver street church in 1853 and he remained until 1856, although for about a year of this time Professor Anthony Davis, a brother of the present organist, presided at the organ. Professors Burke and Becker came afterwards and in the first part of 1868 Professor Frank Huber played the organist. He was succeeded in October, 1868, by Professor William Davis, who is still in charge. Miss Ellen O'Neill also frequently presided at the organ in the absence of the regular organists. At the time Professor Davis took charge the choir consisted of Misses Howard, Murphy, Bowen, and Esther O'Neill, who sang soprano and Henry Hensler, who sang bass. Masses in two voices were rendered, until 1869, when, by the addition to the choir of Daniel Sheehan, tenor, the choir was enabled to sing masses in three voices; Misses Maggie O'Neill and Julia Graham, soprano, were also added to the choir. This state of affairs lasted only about one year when some of the choir withdrew and the vocal music for St. John's congregation was furnished for about six years by a quartette consisting of Misses Maggie O'Neill and Frances Lawless and Louis Schmerber and Henry Hensler. The latter died and Frank Hart was put in his place. About six months after this Professor Davis began to form a larger choir and of the original selection a number still remain. Among those who have left are Emil Legay, the present choir master in St. Joseph's church, and John Stafford, who is studying in Rome for the priesthood. The present choir of St. John's Church consists of the following: Organist and Director.--Professor William Davis. Soprano.--Minnie Coniffe, Mary E. Drury, Minnie Dynan, Nora Gannon, Maggie Doyle, Lizzie Lavery, Lizzie Fitzpatrick, Nellie Clark, Mary Stafford, Maggie McCormack, Mary McLean, Ellen Odell.--12. Alto.--Martha Drury, Frances Lawless, Alice Fitzgerald, Nellie Reed, Lizzie Constantine, Maria Hogan, Annie Beresford, Mary McAlonan, Nellie Dunphy.--9. Tenor.--William Stafford, Thomas Canning, Edward Cavanagh, John Carlon, John Van Houten.--5. Bass.--John Best, John Anderson, James Anderson, James Fitzpatrick, William Burns, Thomas Sheeron, Charles Lavery, David Forbes, Alexander Doyle, Philip Bender.--10. Total, 36. The following are the societies attached to St. John's Church: Benevolent Society of United Sons of Erin. This society was founded in 1846 and incorporated in 1859. It has about 100 members and its objects are the relief of the sick and assistance for distressed members, for which purpose it expends about $1,500 per year. St. Patrick's Total Abstinence Benevolent Society was organized by Father McNulty in 1863 and has about 100 members. Its objects are the furtherance of the cause of temperance and the relief of the distressed, for which latter object about $600 per year are expended. St. John's Total Abstinence Benevolent Society was organized in 1867 and has the same objects as the foregoing; it has about 100 members and expends annually about $600 for the relief of distressed members. St. Joseph's Total Abstinence Benevolent Society has the same objects as the foregoing and about 40 members. It was organized in 1875 and expends annually about $300 per year in the relief of the distressed. The Catholic Young Men's Literary Association was organized in 1873 and its object is indicated by its name. It has a library and reading room on the lower floor of the Catholic Institute in Church street. Its membership numbers about 100 and the entertainments it gives occasionally are for the benefit of its library or some charitable institution. The Catholic Sunday School Teachers' Association was organized in 1874 by Father McNulty, who had found it difficult to obtain competent men to teach Sunday School. Almost immediately after its organization a number of its members resolved themselves into the Entre Nous Dramatic Club which gives entertainments for the benefit of its library or for charitable purposes. This dual society has about 100 members and occupies the upper floor of the Catholic Institute in Church street, property originally bought by Father Senez for an orphan asylum. The Sodality of the Children of Mary was organized in 1862 and has about 250 members. It consists of young ladies and is in charge of Sister Regina. The Sodality of the Sacred Heart has about 160 members and was organized about 7 years ago. It also consists of young ladies and is in charge of Sister Stanislaus. The latter has done a great deal of effective work during her 23 years' sojourn in Paterson as a Sister of Charity. The Rosary Society is one of the oldest and most numerous of the societies of St. John's congregation and consists of persons of both sexes and all ages. It is in charge of Father McNulty. The Society of the Sacred Thirst is a temperance organization, and embraces in its membership persons of all ages and of both sexes. It is in charge of Father McNulty. The Society of Holy Angels was organized about thirteen years ago and has about 200 members. Girls from 10 to 16 are eligible to membership. It is in charge of Sister Angelica. The Infant Jesus Sodality consists of about 200 little boys and was organized in 1869. It is in charge of Sister Stanislaus. The Sodality of the Immaculate Heart of Mary was organized about two years ago. It consists of young ladies between 14 and 20 years of age, and is in charge of Sister Immaculata. The Knights of the Sacred Heart are in charge of Sister Stanislaus. This society consists of 172 boys between the ages of 10 and 16 years. Ave Maria Council, Catholic Legion of Honor, was instituted on November 16, 1883, and has about 50 members. Its object is the insurance of lives, and the amounts insured for are between $500 and $5,000. CHAPTER VII. THE DAUGHTERS OF ST. JOHN.--CHURCHES WHICH TOOK THEIR ORIGIN IN ST. JOHN'S CHURCH.--YOUNG MEN AND YOUNG WOMEN FROM PATERSON WHO HAVE DEVOTED THEIR LIVES TO THE SERVICE OF GOD. It has often been stated that the church at Madison--which in the early part of the century was called Bottle Hill--was an offspring from St. John's Church of Paterson; this statement has also been frequently contradicted, and it is certainly safe to say that it is doubtful whether Paterson can lay claim to establishing Catholicism in Madison. St. John's has, however, sufficient glory, for it is the undoubted source of the origin of a number of churches in this vicinity. There is no doubt that the same missionary priests who labored in Paterson also visited other places; thus it has been ascertained that Father Larissy, who according to well authenticated statements was the first priest to read mass in Paterson, subsequently attended the churches in Staten Island and a number along the Hudson places; still St. John's could hardly lay claim to the parentage of these churches, no more than St. John's could be called a child of the church in Newburg because Father Langton paid periodical visits to Paterson from Newburg.[A] It will suffice for the purposes of writing a history of Catholicism in this county to take a glance at the churches whose origin was undoubtedly in St. John's congregation. As has been stated on a previous page, missionaries visited Macopin before they came to Paterson, but there is no doubt that a church was erected in Paterson long before the erection of the church in Macopin. It was not until 1830 that the Catholics of Macopin proceeded to erect a building to be devoted exclusively to the service of God. This church, under the patronage of St. Joseph, was dedicated in 1830 by Rev. Dr. French, from New York, and Rev. Mr. O'Donoghue, from St. John's Church, this city. For many years this church was attended by priests from St. John's Church and subsequently from St. Boniface's Church. Even to this day it has no stated pastor and is attended by priests having charge of churches in the vicinity. The German Catholics of this vicinity did a great deal towards establishing the Catholic Church on the firm footing it has found in this county and too much praise cannot be bestowed on the work of the early German Catholics and their priests. The most prominent figure in the work among the German Catholics is Father Nicholas Hens, the respected and zealous pastor of St. Boniface's Church in this city. This gentleman has spent the best days of an active and useful life among the German Catholics and his labors in the Lord's vineyard have borne excellent fruit. Rt. Rev. Bishop Bayley kept a journal of the more important actions of his life and from this journal the following extract is made: "On Sunday, July 1st, 1860, at half past five, I laid the corner stone of the new German Catholic Church of St. Boniface, which Father Schandel is endeavoring to build. We went in procession to the spot--the cross before, with acolytes, children--Erin's Society as a guard--banners flying--the big missionary cross borne before my carriage by the Germans. There must have been from 8,000 to 10,000 persons present--hot and dusty, but no disturbance. I pitched into Martin Luther for the edification of the multitude." The following is another extract from the same journal: "December 1st, 1861, on Sunday, I blessed the new German church at Paterson." Before this time, however, the few German families gathered once a month or once a fortnight in the basement of St. John's church in Oliver street to have special German services. Among those who attended were John Ratzer, Martin Bauman, Christian Geissler, Leander Kranz, Michael Thalhammer, Joseph Merklin, Joseph Durgeth, Philip Brendel, Mr. Zentner, Mr. Yost, Mr. Schnell and a few others. The services were conducted by Father Hartlaub as early as 1854. On April 18th of that year Father Hartlaub baptized in this church Joseph August Geissler, at present parish priest in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and on December 18th following Emma Mitch, who subsequently attained considerable renown as a singer, was baptized there. Father Hartlaub attended for four years to the spiritual wants of the German Catholics and was succeeded on July 18th, 1858, by Father Louis Fink, at present Bishop of Leavenworth, Kansas. About the first of August, 1859, Father J. J. Schandel succeeded Father Fink and was appointed permanent priest for the Germans. His first baptism was performed on August 11th, and the first marriage at which he assisted was on the 30th of the same month, the contracting parties being Michael Courtade and Miss Anne Mary Brotchie. Father Schandel was very popular amongst all classes of people and his name is still frequently mentioned with reverence and affection. He worked very hard among his countrymen and it was he who conceived the idea and furthered the project of building a church for German Catholics. He purchased the ground on the corner of Main and Slater streets where St. Boniface's Church now stands, and erected that structure which has a seating capacity of 900. The German Catholics in Paterson were few in number and not blessed with worldly riches and Father Schandel was obliged to work for his support in outside missions, a labor to which he devoted himself with assiduity. For a long time he visited regularly every month St. Joseph's Church at Macopin; he also visited occasionally the Catholics in Ringwood and attended to the spiritual needs of the Catholics at St. Francis Church, Lodi. In 1869 he visited Passaic regularly and secured ground for and erected St. Nicholas' Church. Before that time the Catholics of Passaic had worshipped in a room in one of the factories. The interest awakened in the Catholic Church by Father Schandel and the immigration of a number of German Catholics soon gave the worthy priest more to do than he could attend to. He accordingly asked Bishop Bayley for an assistant priest. His prayer was granted and on August 5th, 1869, Father Nicholas Hens, who had just been ordained, came to Paterson. This worthy priest followed in the footsteps of his predecessor, and Fathers Schandel and Hens worked together energetically and in the greatest harmony. The silk mills at this time attracted large numbers of persons to Paterson and Father Schandel concluded that it would be well to erect the Catholics in Passaic into a separate congregation. Bishop Bayley thought well of the plan and on July 21st, 1871, Father Schandel was transferred to Passaic and Father Hens was appointed pastor of St. Boniface's in this city. Father Schandel remained in Passaic until 1873 when he was succeeded by Father Schneider, the present efficient and well-beloved priest of the church. At present there are about 250 families in the congregation in Passaic, and the parochial school, in charge of the Sisters of Charity, is attended by nearly 300 children. Being already in possession of a good and commodious church Father Hens devoted a great deal of time and energy to the establishment of a parochial school, that almost indispensable adjunct to every church. In October, 1871, he opened the parochial school in Main street with 35 children, the teacher being the organist of the church. The number of children continued to increase during the winter and in the following spring there was an attendance of over 80. An additional teacher was employed but during the summer of 1872 the Sisters of St. Dominic were engaged to take charge of the school. Father Hens at once provided a residence for the Sisters, purchasing the house and lot adjoining the church for $4,600. The parish grew rapidly under the able care of Father Hens. The modest church was improved and embellished both outside and inside; the school was enlarged several times and another story added to it. In 1874 the residence of the Sisters was rebuilt and in 1877 a chapel, 65×25 feet in size, was added to it. In 1879 the boys' department of the school was placed under the care of some Brothers of Mary who came to Paterson from Nazareth, near Dayton, Ohio. In the same year the present rectory, in the rear of the church, and a residence for the Brothers was erected. About this time the congregation sustained a serious loss in its membership, twenty families leaving it to attend St. Mary's Church on Totowa for greater convenience and the thirty-five families residing in the Stony Road district allying themselves to St. Bonaventure's Church. Despite this defection the congregation of St. Boniface continued to grow, and soon the church was not able to hold all that wished to worship within its walls. On March 19th, 1882, the feast of St. Joseph, the patron of the Catholic Church, Father Hens bought a plot of ground on River street, near the crossing of the New York, Lake Erie and Western Railroad. Here the corner-stone of a new church was laid on September 4th, 1882, and on May 14th in the following year the new church was dedicated by Rt. Rev. Bishop Wigger. The church was placed under the protection of Our Lady of Lourdes. The erection of this church cut off from St. Boniface's congregation over one hundred German and Holland families, but their places were soon filled, so that at the present day, six months after the dedication of the new church, St. Boniface's congregation is as large as it ever was. Three masses are said every Sunday and the church is crowded every time. The number of families belonging to the church is about 400, and its parochial schools have an attendance of 350. In addition to his many other duties Father Hens has since 1879 had charge of St. Luke's in Hohokus. The ground for this church was given in 1864 by John Jacob Zabriskie, and the erection of the church was the work of Father McNulty. A cemetery adjoins the church. Father Hens's first assistant was Father Kars, who is now the pastor of St Mary's Church in Gloucester, N. J. Then came Father Dernis, at present pastor of the Catholic church in Salem, N. J. Father Dernis was succeeded by Father Geissler, who was the first person baptized in Paterson by Father Hartlaub. After Father Geissler came Father J. W. Grieff, who by his eloquence, affability and energy has made himself beloved and respected by all. Father Hens also derives material assistance from the Franciscan Fathers in this city. Complete baptismal and marriage records of St. Boniface's Church from 1854 are still in existence, and from these the following statistics were collected:-- Name of the Priest. Baptisms. Marriages. Father Hartlaub 88 --- " Fink, O. S. B. 24 8 " Schandel 775 187 " Hens 1,120 221 " Dernis ----- 1 " Geissler 109 13 " Dyonisius, O. S. F. 10 --- " Fidelis, O. S. F. 5 --- " Grieff 186 26 " Kars 29 7 ----- --- Total 2,346 463 Bishop Bayley from 1869 to 1871 confirmed 109 persons of St. Boniface's congregation; Bishop Corrigan from 1871 to 1882 confirmed 448 persons, and Bishop Wigger from 1882 to 1883 confirmed 183 persons, making a total of 740 confirmations. The following are the societies attached to St. Boniface's Church: St Boniface's Benevolent Society was organized by Father Schandel in 1867 and has a membership of 70. The Rosary Society was established by Father Hens in 1873 for the purpose of providing decorations for the altar. It has 115 members. St. Aloysius' Boys' Sodality numbers 57 members and was established by Father Grieff in 1882. The Children of Mary numbers 87 members and was established by Father Hens in 1874. The Confraternity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was established by Father Hens in 1878. The Confraternity of the Poor Souls in Purgatory was established in 1877 by Father Hens and numbers 107 members. In 1867 Father McNulty bought a piece of property on Broadway near East Eighteenth street, running back as far as Fair street. In the front part of this property he erected St. Agnes' Institute which was very popular for a number of years. In the rear of the Institute Father McNulty erected a large frame building which was used as a church by the Catholics who had settled in the eastern portion of Paterson. In a very short time there was a large attendance and regular services were held every Sunday. In 1875 St. Joseph's parish was created and Father Nicholas Molloy assigned to it as regular pastor. Finding that there were more Catholics in a more southerly direction Father Molloy bought a tract of land on Market and Carroll streets and erected thereon the present St. Joseph's church. It is a frame building having a seating capacity of about 600. The lower floor is used for school purposes and the upper as a church. In 1880 Father Molloy left Paterson on account of ill health; he died shortly afterwards in New York city. Rev. Dr. Smith, one of the best scholars and most learned theologians of the country, is the present pastor of this church and he is greatly assisted in his many labors by the Franciscan Fathers. In 1872 Father McNulty bought eight lots on Sherman avenue, near Union avenue, for the purpose of erecting there another Catholic Church. A substantial brick chapel was built, 40×90 feet in size, and two stories high, one floor being used as a chapel and the other for school purposes. The attendance was large from the first, and in 1880 the portion of the city near it was erected into a separate parish under the patronage of St. Mary. The first priest was Father Curran, who did a great deal of energetic work in Paterson, including the establishment of a Catholic weekly paper. In 1883 Father Curran was removed to Arlington, N. J., where he continues to edit _The Catholic Times_. He was succeeded in Paterson by Father Samuel Welsh, who has still charge of the church and who by devotion and ability is rapidly building up a large congregation. Three Carmelite Fathers came to Paterson in 1873 and established themselves on Stony road, where they had purchased a frame dwelling. They erected a neat two-story brick house, the lower floor being used as a chapel and the upper as a residence for the friars. They were recalled to Europe, but on the 26th of August, 1876, two priests, three students, and four lay brothers of the Order of St. Francis came to Paterson and obtained possession of the property vacated by the Carmelites. The Franciscans came from Fulda, in Germany, from which place they had been driven by the German government. In February of the following year Rt. Rev. Bishop Corrigan gave them charge of the Catholics in the vicinity with authority to form a parish under the patronage of St. Bonaventura. On November 24th, 1878, Bishop Corrigan laid the corner-stone of a new church in the presence of a large concourse of people. The Franciscan Fathers went to work with a will and when the new church was completed the property was not encumbered by any mortgage or other claim, as the small debt that remained was in the shape of a note. The Catholic Church provides for the dedication of churches that are not paid for, but no church can be consecrated to the service of God as long as there is a claim on it the prosecution of which might result in the sale of the property and its conversion to other uses. St. Bonaventure's Church, a large and handsome structure, was consecrated on July 4th, 1880, by Bishop Corrigan. Fathers McNulty and Hens, who by their influence had done a great deal towards securing the success of the new project, acted as deacons of honor; Very Rev. Aloysius Laur, Provincial Superior of the Order of St. Francis, as assistant priest; Fathers Muller and Trumper as deacons, and Father Burk, from St. Mary's Church, Hoboken, as master of ceremonies. The cost of the new church was about $30,000. The congregation increased steadily and more priests and students arrived at the monastery, and to-day the order as well as the congregation is in a flourishing condition. For a long time the French and Italian residents of Paterson worshipped in the churches which were most convenient to them, and no attempt was made to provide for them opportunities to attend services in their own language. In 1882 Father Hens induced some of the Fathers of Mercy from New York to come to Paterson occasionally, and services were for some time held in French and Italian in St. Boniface's Church. The numbers of attendants at these services increased, and in 1883 they rented a room in the Smith and Jackson building in Market street. Here religious services are held every Sunday, Father Porcille, one of the Fathers of Mercy in New York, coming to Paterson every Saturday and returning to New York on Monday. The oldest Catholic church in Bergen county, and one of the few Catholic churches out of debt, is St. Francis de Sales' Church in Lodi. It was erected in 1855 and dedicated by Bishop Bayley. It has been attended ever since its organization by priests from Paterson and Hackensack. St. Joseph's Catholic Church at Carlstadt is another daughter of St. John, and was organized in 1872, January 1st, and in the same year the church was built at a cost of $11,000. It has a flourishing congregation and a numerously attended parochial school. The Catholics of Hackensack at one time formed a part of the congregation of St. John's, but in 1861 Father Annellie erected a small church. There were then only 25 Catholic families in Hackensack. In 1866 the corner-stone of the present church was laid, and the building was completed under the pastorate of Father P. Cody. The congregation is steadily increasing. A few months ago Mr. Robert Beattie, of Little Falls, donated enough land to the Catholics in that village on which to erect a church. The corner-stone was laid by Right Rev. Bishop Wigger, and the church is now nearing completion. Catholic priests and religious fraternities have undoubtedly done a great deal for Paterson, but the city has not been ungrateful, and a number of young men and young women from this city have devoted themselves to the service of the Almighty. The following are the priests who grew up in St. John's congregation:-- Father John P. Morris was educated at the American College at Rome and is at present pastor of the Catholic Church at Avondale, N. J. Father M. A. McManus was educated at Seton Hall and is parish priest in Newton, N. J. Father Robert E. Burke was educated at Seton Hall and is parish priest in Mt. Holly, N. J. Father John Sheppard, also educated at Seton Hall, is parish priest in Dover, N. J. Father Alphonsus Rossiter was educated in the convent of the Passionist Fathers at Pittsburgh, Pa., and is at present Superior of that institution. The following young men from the congregation have joined the Christian Brothers in New York: Hugh J. Gallagher--Brother Joseph, 1877. Robert J. Foley--Brother Charles, 1877. Joseph Fitzpatrick--Brother Daniel, 1878. John S. Thornton--Brother Clement, 1879. Arthur McKenna--Brother Felix, 1879. Jeremiah A. Maher--Brother Andrew, 1880. Patrick Lawlor--Brother B. Joseph, 1880. Thomas Hone--Brother B. Edward, 1881. The following are the names of Sisters of Charity at Madison, N. J., who were born in Paterson: Sister Mary Agnes O'Neill, entered the community, Nov. 26, 1858. " " died, Nov. 9, 1877 Sister Mary Ambrose Sweeney, entered, May 24, 1862. " " died, Feb. 19, 1868. Sister Mary Rosina Flynn, entered, July 21, 1862. Sister Adele Murray, entered, Sept. 27, 1862. " " died, April 14, 1871. Sister M. Angela O'Brien, entered, Feb. 19, 1863. Sister M. Genevieve Gillespie, entered, July 18, 1863. Sister M. Regina Powers, entered, Nov. 26, 1863. " " died, June 26, 1873. Sister Teresa Angela O'Neill, entered, Sept. 24, 1866. Sister Margaret Clark, entered, Feb. 12, 1869. " " died, Aug. 23, 1874. Sister Mercedes Sweeney, entered, July 17, 1879. The following are the names of other Sisters of Charity in the same institution who were not born in Paterson but who came from St. John's congregation: Sister Mary Peter Daly, entered, July 19, 1863. Sister M. Lucy Blake, entered, July 20, 1868. Sister Frances Dougherty, entered May 6, 1869. Sister M. Christina O'Neill, entered, Nov. 8, 1869. " " died, Dec. 5, 1875. Sister M. Pelagia Mackel, entered, June 15, 1871. " " died, Oct. 30, 1876. Sister M. Adele Sheehan, entered, Aug. 15, 1871. Sister Marie Vincent Mitchell, entered, April 20, 1872. Sister Borgia Hanley, entered, August 15, 1873. Sister M. Clandine Van Nort, entered, July 19, 1876. Sister M. Placida Hunt, entered, April 30, 1878. Sister M. Francis Lewis, entered, August 1, 1879. Sister M. Barbara Bushill, entered, Feb. 27. 1879. Sister M. Fidelia McEvoy, entered, July 17, 1880. Sister M. Clotilda Kehoe, entered, July 19, 1880. The following is a list of the names of the young ladies from St. John's congregation who joined the Sisters of St. Dominic: Entered, 1874, Sister Bridget Margaret Mahoney. Entered, 1876, Sister Angela Julia Phelan. Entered, 1877, Sister Emmanuel Mary Phelan. Entered, 1877, Sister Eustochium Katie Phelan. Entered, 1879, Sister Baptista Nora Phelan. Entered, 1870, Sister Innocence Bridget Duffy. Entered, 1880, Sister Evangelista Mary Meaghar. Entered, 1880, Sister Sylvester Katie Meaghar. FOOTNOTE: [A] It may be proper to state that there are grave doubts as to the spelling of the name of the second priest in Paterson. In some of the earlier prints he is referred to as Father Langam, Father Langham, and Father Langrey. Mrs. Connolly, in whose father's house the first mass was said in Paterson, calls him Father Langdale, and the fact that a priest named Langdale travelled through the western part of New York State in the early part of the century, after Father Langton had disappeared from the missions in this part of the country seems to corroborate Mrs. Connolly. The late Barney McNamee, who was personally acquainted with Father Langton, in a conversation had some time before his death with Mr. William Nelson assured that gentleman that the name of the first priest he remembered was Father Langton; Mr. McNamee was positive on this point. Mr. Nelson made some researches, and these convinced him of the accuracy of Mr. McNamee's memory. It is for these reasons that the author of this work adopted the spelling Lang-t-o-n in preference to others. CHAPTER VIII. CATHOLIC CEMETERIES IN AND ABOUT PATERSON.--THE ORPHAN ASYLUM AT LINCOLN BRIDGE.--ST. JOSEPH'S HOSPITAL. The histories of the Cemetery of the Holy Sepulchre and the Catholic Orphan Asylum are so closely connected that they will be treated together. The history of the cemeteries in and about Paterson was written some years ago by Mr. William Nelson and published in pamphlet form. To this history the author of this work has little to add. The following are such selections from Mr. Nelson's history as concern the burial places of dead Catholics:-- "Paterson is one of the very few cities in the country--perhaps the only city in the Eastern States--where it has not been usual for the churches to be surrounded by grave-yards. No church has ever been built here, since the city was founded, in 1792, with this appendage, so universal elsewhere. The old Dutch burying-ground at Totowa met the needs of the people in this respect for twenty years after the town was established. The First Presbyterian church being organized in 1813, the Trustees looked about for a suitable cemetery, and with wise forethought selected a spot far remote from the built-up portion of the village. In 1814 they obtained from the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures, a triangular plot of about half an acre, at the corner of Market and Vine streets. This became at once the burial-ground for the whole town, and people of all denominations, Protestants and Roman Catholics, were interred there. In the course of the next ten years or so, the Methodists bought a plot on Willis street, 121×333 feet; and the Roman Catholics secured a burial place, 100×175 feet, on the north side of Willis street, near William, by gift or purchase. In 1826 the Presbyterians bought of the State (which in 1816 had taken 300 acres of land at Sandy Hill and thereabout, in exchange for $100,000 of stock in the S. U. M., subscribed for by the State in 1792) three acres adjoining the first cemetery, the sale being authorized by act of the Legislature of December 28, 1824. In 1835 the Society U. M. sold to the Reformed church a burial plot on Willis street adjoining that of the Methodists, and in the same year the Episcopalians bought of the State (by virtue of an act of February 14, 1833), five acres of land lying at Sandy Hill, between Oak and Cedar streets. Under the authority of an act of February 2, 1838, St. John's R. C. church bought of the State three acres adjoining the Presbyterian cemetery; and the First Baptist church bought three acres near by. In 1851, the Methodists enlarged their cemetery on Willis street by the addition of a plot about 143×333 ft., bought of the S. U. M., and adjoining their first burial ground. Their old cemetery not being popular, in 1854 the Presbyterians bought another tract of 3.74 acres, on Market street, north side, a short distant east of their first purchase. This completes the history of the location of the 'Sandy Hill' cemeteries." "The deed for the Roman Catholic plot on Willis street has not been found on record.[B] "In the Roman Catholic cemetery there are 871 lots, 9 x 12 ft. in area, all sold, and containing fully 3,000 graves. "The Roman Catholic cemetery at Sandy Hill being filled, and all the lots sold, the authorities of The Catholic Church of St. John the Baptist bought, January 30, 1866 for $21,000, what was known as 'the Lynch Farm,' sixty-nine acres, at the southeast corner of Market street and Madison avenue, for a cemetery. One or two interments were made, when, March 27, 1866, an act of the Legislature was approved prohibiting the location or establishment of cemeteries or burial grounds 'within the distance of six thousand feet from the street monument, as established at the corner of Market and Willis streets,' in the city of Paterson, and the proposed cemetery was abandoned, and the property sold. In the Fall of the same year, on September 7, 1866, Mr. William G. Watson bought at an auction sale of the estate of Cornelius P. Hopper, deceased, 24.92 acres of land, on the east side of Haledon avenue, and north of East Main street, and the next day conveyed it to the same church, for $10,770, the object being to locate a cemetery there. A few interments were made in the new grounds, but an act of the Legislature, approved February 26, 1867, prohibited the location or establishment of 'any cemetery or burial ground within the limits and boundaries for the city of Paterson,' and further prohibited the use 'for the purposes of burial,' of 'any cemetery or burial grounds established within one year within said city.' May 1st, 1867, the church bought of Bartlett Smith and wife, of $15,500, three adjoining tracts of land, embracing 73.19 acres in all, at Totowa, just west of the city line, and near the Lincoln bridge, extending from the river back to the Preakness mountain. Here was located the 'Cemetery of the Holy Sepulchre,' tastefully laid out, containing 3,208 lots (1,126 consecrated and 2,082 unconsecrated), and ornamented and improved as well as the exceedingly sandy soil will allow." The interments in this cemetery in 1867 were 17; in 1870 they had increased to 216, and at present they are about 300 per year. The farmhouse situated on the property purchased from Mr. Smith was changed into an orphan asylum; since that time a number of alterations and additions have been made. There are about eighty children in the institution which is under the charge of the Sisters of Charity. These Sisters first came to Paterson in 1853 from Mt. St. Vincent, N. Y., and an orphan asylum was established in Church street. After the removal of the orphanage to its present location the building was changed into the Catholic Institute. St. Joseph's Hospital, also in charge of the Sisters of Charity, was founded on September 11, 1869, the day on which the Sisters bought from the late Alexander P. Fonda a tract of land lying on the east side of Main street, just north of the Newark branch of the New York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad. The tract of land had an area of nine and three-quarters acres, and only a fraction of the purchase money was paid in cash; the balance was secured on mortgage. In 1875 the Sisters, by hard work and economy, had reduced the mortgage to $46,000 and at the present date it is $41,000. When the property was bought there was on it a three-story house, 45×45 feet in size, which had been used as a residence. This was changed into wards for the sick poor, sleeping rooms for the Sisters and one room was changed into a chapel. In addition to this building there was a small barn. In 1871 the Sisters erected another building, two stories high and 130×24 feet in size. The good done by the Sisters in this city for the poor unfortunates who found themselves sick and homeless has been incalculable and has been exceeded only by the zeal and perseverance with which the good Sisters devoted themselves to their truly heroic work. In the first year after the establishment of the hospital 170 patients were cared for; in the past year 740 were received and treated. The money needed in the hospital for the care of these many patients is derived from the pay received by the Sisters who belong to the order and who are engaged in teaching school, and from collections made by the Sisters, as the institution has no endownment. Persons who cannot have the care they might desire at home in times of sickness and who can afford to pay for nursing and treatment may be received in the hospital, but experience shows that less than three per cent. of the patients received pay their board. The sick receive the attention of the ablest physicians of Paterson, who take turns in visiting them; in addition to this there is a house physician who resides in the hospital and who is annually appointed by the Board of Physicians after a very severe examination and who is generally some young physician. The physicians receive no pay for the work they do and thus form an able and very acceptable corps of assistants in the noble work of charity. The total expenses of the institution amount to $14,000 annually and for nearly the whole of this the Sisters are compelled to depend on their own individual efforts. The largest sum ever received from any one source came to hand a few days ago in the shape of a legacy of $1,000 from a Mr. Van Arsdale, who died a short time ago on Long Island. Mr. Van Arsdale was an almost total stranger to Paterson. Several years ago he visited some friends residing in the upper part of Passaic County and while there his attention was called to the noble work done by the Sisters; he paid a visit to the hospital and was so favorably impressed by the workings of the institution that he bequeathed it $1,000. Several months ago the Sisters also received $500 from a gentleman on condition that his name be not published, so that the present year was an unusually fortunate one for the Sisters. Large sums received in this manner are always applied towards paying off the indebtedness on the property. There are at present nine Sisters employed as nurses and in other capacities about the hospital and three are employed in teaching in St. Agnes' school which stands on a portion of the original plot purchased by the Sisters in 1869. St. Agnes' school belongs to St. John's congregation and was erected a few months ago, the congregation having purchased four lots from the Sisters for $2,800. The school is a handsome brick structure and it is expected that in a short time it will form the nucleus to a new congregation. FOOTNOTE: [B] Although I have been unable to find any trace of the deed of this property I have been informed by several old persons that the property was obtained by purchase from a man named Post.--C. A. S. THE CELEBRATION. Without doubt the most impressive religious ceremonies ever held in Paterson were those in commemoration of the semi-centennial anniversary of the dedication of the first building erected by Roman Catholics for church purposes in Paterson--the old St. John's church in Oliver street. The commemorative ceremonies began on Sunday morning, the 18th of November, in the present large and splendid church of St. John Baptist at Main and Grand streets, and ended on Monday morning with a requiem mass for the dead. At all the masses the building was thronged with Catholics, who at the earlier masses pressed forward to the altars in great numbers to receive Holy Communion. The principal service on Sunday was at half-past ten in the morning, when a solemn high mass was celebrated. The edifice was crowded to its utmost capacity, and although benches in the aisles gave extra accommodation, hundreds stood patiently all through the long service. In the immense throng were many Protestants, attracted by the unusual preparations for elaborate music which had been made by Professor William Davis, the organist of the church, and by the announcement that the renowned Bishop McQuaid, of Rochester, was to preach a historical sermon. The music was rendered by the church's choir of 36, reinforced by a boys' choir of 30: an orchestra of 20 pieces (including tympani bought for the occasion) and the great organ of the church, and was conducted by Prof. William Davis, with that perfect knowledge of his art and rare taste which equip him so well for his important position. The musical programme was no doubt the most elaborate ever rendered at a religious service in Paterson, and was carried out in a fitting manner. The singing was most creditable in its precision of time and accuracy of intonation, and the orchestral accompaniments left little to be desired. The programme of the morning was: prelude for orchestra and organ, "The Lost Chord," by Sullivan; Asperges Me, chorus with organ, by Werner; Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus and Agnus Dei from Haydn's second mass; Credo (scored for the occasion by Prof. Davis) from Rossi's mass in D minor; Domine Deus, from same mass, as cornet solo with organ accompaniment; and after mass, a Gregorian Te Deum sung antiphonally by the church choir and sanctuary choir of boys, and for postlude, overture to Auber's "Masaniello," by the orchestra. Rev. Father MacCarthy was the celebrant and his intonation of the mass was most impressive. He was assisted by the missionary priest, Father Walker, as Deacon, and Father Quin as Sub-deacon. Father McNulty was assistant priest, with Fathers Murphy and Van Riel as Deacon and Sub-deacons of Honor. Rev. Dr. Larkin was Master of Ceremonies. The altar boys were arrayed in new royal purple cassocks, scarlet lined, and white gloves, and to each was assigned the care of a portion of the Bishop's vestments. On Sunday evening the congregation was again limited only by the capacity of the edifice to hold those who came, hundreds being compelled to turn away, unable to obtain even standing room. The services were of deep interest, and the music was remarkably fine. After the prelude, by the orchestra and organ, Rossi's vespers were sung, followed by the "Salve Regina," by Spath; "O Salutaris," Giorza; "Tantum Ergo," Hattersly, and a triumphal march on the organ. The rendition of the "Magnificat," bass solo, by Mr. Anderson, the exceedingly brilliant alto solo, "O Salutaris," by Miss Lawless, and the tenor parts, as sung by Mr. Stafford, were commented upon as among the finest features of the evening service. The Papal blessing was imparted by Bishop McQuaid, to whom the duty was delegated by the missionary priest, Father Walker, who was compelled to absent himself, this prerogative being conferred upon missionary priests by the Holy See. Following came a very able discourse on the progress of the Church by Rev. Father Patrick Corrigan, of Hoboken, after which the usual benediction closed the evening services. There was a larger attendance of priests at the service on Monday morning than at any time on the previous day, many being prevented by their ecclesiastical duties in their own parishes from coming before. Bishops Wigger and McQuaid were both present, and the service, which consisted of a solemn requiem mass for the dead of the congregation, was beyond description impressive. A portion of Singenberger's Requiem was rendered, Bishop Wigger officiating as celebrant, with Father Kirwan as Deacon and Father Morris as Sub-deacon. Rev. Father Larkin was Master of Ceremonies. The officiating Bishop was robed in black, as usual in saying masses for the dead. The service began with "Prayer for the Dead," by Dressler, after which came "Requiem" and "Dies Iræ," by Singenberger, "Domine Deus," by Ett, "Sanctus," "Benedictus" and "Agnus Dei," by Singenberger. Bishop Wigger wore a white mitre, instead of the usual golden one, during the services, until, at the close of the mass, the episcopal robes were removed, the incense was brought forward and the "Libera," from Ett's Requiem, was chanted, when absolution was solemnly pronounced by the officiating Bishop, following which came a funeral march by Chopin, and the services of the day were closed. The vocalism at this service was by about sixty children and ten ladies of the regular choir. The following is a list of the prelates and priests who assisted or were present at the services: Bishops Wigger and McQuaid, Rev. M. J. White, Rev. P. Corrigan, Rev. P. Corr, Rev. L. Gambosville, Rev. Dr. Larkin, Rev. J. Salaun, Rev. T. Macky, Rev. M. J. Kirwan, Rev. Hugh Murphy, Rev. P. Hennessy, Rev. D. F. McCarthy, Rev. Pierce McCarthy, Rev. Thos. Quin, Rev. Jas. Curran, Rev. Porcille, O. M., Rev. Father Van Riel, O. C., Rev. Gallant, O. M., Rev. D. B. Walker, S. J., Rev. M. Schacken, Rev. P. F. Downes, Rev. I. Gillen, Rev. J. P. Morris, Rev. S. Walsh, Rev. L. P. Whelan, Rev. M. O'Connor. Rev. J. Zimmer. [Illustration] HISTORICAL DISCOURSE DELIVERED IN ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, PATERSON, N. J., SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1883, BEING THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BUILDING OF THE FIRST STONE CHURCH IN 1833. ECCLESIASTICUS, CHAP. XLIV., 1-15v. The why and the obligation of this celebration are found in the verses of Ecclesiasticus just read. The latter half of this century may, with some propriety, be called an epoch of celebrations, commemorations and jubilees. Many of these are trivial in character and restricted in territory; others are full of meaning, cheering and ennobling to those who participate in them and to many who come within their influence. The celebration to-day is one worthy of a Christian people, commemorating a work wrought in God's name and for His honor, and fruitful of untold religious blessings to a devout congregation. The Church in the United States can, with justice and without a blush, hold up to the gaze of the world the record of her first days, humble and insignificant though they be; for, reversing the tablet, an exhibition of a century's work, partakes of the marvellous,--of the miraculous. Relatively, the accomplishments of the Church in particular localities are as astounding and wondrous as in dioceses, or in the whole country. The beginnings of religion were the humblest conceivable. The priest to whose care was entrusted a territory now covered by one or more dioceses, journeyed from hamlet to hamlet and from house to house, wherever a child of the Church might have his home, to administer the consolation and the helps of the sacraments, and preach the word of life. His altar was a rough board or a table; his vestments and all needed for the mass were carried in a sack on his back, when no conveyance could be had. The conveyance might be an ox cart, a farm wagon, or a stage. It was such in all cases as the country in its days of poverty and simplicity afforded. The heart of the priest was gladdened when he was able to bring the blessings of religion to children of the Church who, few in number and greatly scattered, still held tenaciously to the old teachings and prayers; as it was saddened when one of the faithful pointed out the homes of others who had apostatized, or who, blushing in their ignorance under the contumely heaped on their fellow-religionists, concealed God's gift of faith. These fallings-away from religion are not unknown to-day. We may pity the weakness of the unfaithful in those early times; there is no reason to extend pity to the apostates of these days. In September, 1836, Dr. England, Bishop of Charleston, addressed a long communication to the Society of the Propagation of the Faith at Lyons in relation to the condition and progress of the Catholic Church in the United States. In this document the thoughtful and observant Bishop details the heavy losses the Church has suffered and is still suffering, and assigns the causes therefor with a straightforwardness and boldness eminently characteristic. He does not hesitate to assert that more than two-thirds of Catholic emigrants and their descendants had ceased to profess the Catholic religion, and of these most had united with some of the Protestant denominations. The causes he gives may be briefly summarised as follows:-- 1. The large influx of Catholic emigrants into a new country unprepared for their coming. 2. The absence of Catholic schools for Catholic education. 3. Catholic orphans, picked up by proselytizing institutions, because there were few or no Catholic asylums. 4. The want of a clergy sufficient in number, and adapted to the peculiar circumstances of the country, often not able to speak correctly its language. 5. The sending to America of priests not wanted in the European countries. 6. Injudicious appointments to places of administration. 7. Diversity of nationality ending in jealousies and inefficient co-operation. 8. The active work of wealthy Protestant sects, united in hindering the growth of the Catholic Church, if in nothing else. There are heavy losses to-day in the new portions of our country where priests and churches are few in number and far apart. This a disagreeable fact whose existence and disastrous consequences are not lessened by denial. It is a fact that comes home to the consciences of all concerned. The causes of these losses are somewhat modified from what they were in the days of Bishop England. The Protestant sects are weaker and less earnest in their efforts against the Catholic Church, and have enough to do to hold their own without going after others. The priests, whether born in America or elsewhere, are for the most part educated in the country, are in hearty sympathy with its political institutions, and most devoted to their ministerial duties. Schools, orphanages and hospitals arise so rapidly all over the land that a reasonable hope is cherished that soon no losses will follow through this cause. The broad liberality of treatment which freely grants to all large groups of Catholics the privilege of a church under a pastor of the nationality to which they belong, gives all an opportunity of hearing the Word of God in the language familiar to them from childhood, and of enjoying church customs, music and ceremonies, peculiar to their native province, but not objectionable to established rule and discipline. The Catholic Church is broad enough for harmless peculiarities. The rights of the clergy and those of the laity being now better defined by wise legislation than in the time of Bishop England, there is less of that friction, jarring and revolutionary insubordination which he and others encountered. It is a singular note to make that but few of the first churches established escaped disturbances caused by the ambition, the ignorance or the infidel or heretical notions of a handful of the parishioners. And, what is again to be noted is that the leaven then infused worked for long years, and made itself felt in these parishes after the last of those disturbers had been laid in his grave. It is an unsatisfactory task to try to write the history of one of those early missions or parishes. In those primitive times the wearied missionary made light of his acts and works, and failed to keep a record of his doings, or to write the history of the mission. It was great humility on his part, but it is very disappointing to us. He never dreamt that his humble beginnings would grow into monumental grandeur. It is hard to blame him. The wandering life he led; the lack of facilities in passing from place to place; the hardships he endured; the absorption of his mind in the daily routine of administering the sacraments filling up his whole time left him no inclination to write down what in his eyes seemed of little consequence, or of no special merit. This defect in parochial administration is now in a great degree remedied by the canonical visitations of the Bishop of the diocese, whose duty it is to see that a historical record is kept in every parish, and that all important facts relating to the mission are duly written therein. The religious orders and chiefly that of the Jesuits, have been careful to keep a full history of their transactions in all their missions. It is to the "Relations" of the Jesuits that we owe whatever information we have with regard to the beginnings of Catholicity in New York and the New England States. Wherefore, assembled in this monumental mother church, looking at her daughters, near and far off, beholding around her the fruits of her maternity--the churches, the schools, the hospitals, the orphanages, that have sprung from her loins, we grieve that a fuller account of her incipient struggles and successes is not at hand, and that due honor cannot, therefore, be rendered to the memory of the pioneers, clerical and lay, whose prayers and sacrifices blessed and helped the founding of religion in this town and neighborhood. The story told of the beginning of religion in a particular district is much the same everywhere. It runs in this wise and generally has four stages: 1. One or more families drawn to a locality by the prospect of employment, clinging to the faith of their fathers in the land of their birth,--clinging to it all the more if the hand of oppression for conscience's sake weighed heavily on them at home, journeyed many miles, sometimes hundreds of miles, to New York City or to some other city equally fortunate in having a church and priest, to obtain the succors of religion. At the opening of this century, there was the one church, old St. Peter's, in Barclay street, New York City,--the one star of hope, shining in the firmament which covers the states of New York and New Jersey. Thus, the Catholics of northern New Jersey, craving for the bread of life and the Word of God, from time to time found their way to old St. Peter's. Thus, as I have often heard in Western New York, the parents of ex-Senator Kernan brought their son from Steuben county to New York City for baptism; so also did the Klems of Rochester bring their child to New York City, a distance of 400 miles, where it was baptized by Bishop Connolly. It was a two weeks' ride. There were no canals or railroads in those days; nor were the wagon roads remarkable for smoothness, or well-adapted for speed. The Kernans were from Ireland; the Klems from Germany. They worthily represented a large class of intelligent and devout Christian people who believed and lived according to their belief. The descendants of both families are very numerous, and keep the faith. The second stage of progress in the introduction of Catholicity is the occasional visit of a priest coming oftentimes from a great distance. Thus, we are told that the Rev. Mr. Farmer (Steenmeyer), came from Philadelphia and Conshocken, twice a year, to visit the few scattered families of northern New Jersey. These visits began several years before the Revolutionary War, were discontinued while the contending armies were encamped in that part of the country, and resumed on the return of peace. His visits were chiefly to a settlement of German Catholics at Macoupin in Sussex Co. They had been brought over from Germany about 1767 to work in the iron mines and forges and to burn charcoal. They are not to be confounded with the Hessians who had been shipped to America to fight against the colonists. After Father Farmer ceased to visit Macoupin, the settlers were left for forty years without a priest. During these years of spiritual deprivation, old Marion, the patriarch of the settlement, kept alive religion by rendering such services as were within his power. On Sunday, he gathered together the inhabitants of the place for mass, prayers and the rosary. He taught the children their prayers and catechism. The zealous labors of this pious man not only kept alive the faith, but nourished a spirit of piety among the people. During the war, while the American soldiers and their French allies were encamped around Morristown, the French chaplains officiated about Morristown as their services were sought. In the early years of this century refugees from San Domingo, Guadaloupe and Martinique settled in New Jersey, at Elizabeth, Springfield and Bottle Hill, now known as Madison. Rev Mr. Tisseraut lived for some time at Elizabeth and gave religious services. In 1805, Rev. Mr. Viauney began to pay regular visits to Bottle Hill. He came from St. Peter's, Barclay street. Other priests from St. Peter's attended this French settlement; notably among them was the Very Rev. Doctor Power, whose visits were frequent for several years. Father Malon, at one time assistant to Dr. Power, took up his residence at Madison. Revolutions drove the French to Madison. The hope of employment brought many from Ireland to Paterson. These were only too glad to escape political and religious bondage at home. About 1812, the first priest visited Paterson, saying mass in the house of James Gillespie on Market street and after the removal of Gillespie to Belleville, mass was celebrated yet more regularly in the house of Bernard McNamee on Mulberry street in a room which he had prepared and reserved for this purpose. For some time this room gave accommodation to all the Catholics in Paterson. Among the first to make use of this temporary chapel in McNamee's house was the Rev. Arthur Langdill. Bishop Bayley copies from Bishop Connolly's diary: "Oct. 22, 1817, I addressed a letter to Rev. Arthur Langdill, empowering him to celebrate mass, etc." This diary of the Bishop settles the name of this priest. Father Langdill made his home for a time at Newburg, visiting Northern Jersey and especially Paterson. About 1820, the Rev. Richard Bulger, the second priest ordained by Bishop Connolly, was sent to Paterson as its first resident pastor, or rather as a missionary to Northern New Jersey, with his headquarters at Paterson. God only knows the patient and uncomplaining services, the whole-souled zeal of this truly Apostolic priest, as he travelled through the counties of Passaic, Sussex and Morris. Of a cheerful and gay disposition he delighted in telling amusing incidents connected with his travels. Some have come down to us by tradition curtailed or adorned as the narrator's imagination was lively or dull. One day when the snow was on the ground, trudging along with his pack on his back, making his way to Newton in Sussex County, he was overtaken by a farmer. The latter, as is customary in country districts, kindly "gave a lift" to the stranger, placing him at his side in the sled. Of course, the farmer's curiosity made him forget the world's politeness, and institute a series of leading questions. Are you a peddler? No. Perhaps you will open a store in town? No. A physician? No. A lawyer? No. Then, may I ask, what do you do for a living? Thus driven to the wall by the persistent questioner the priest was obliged to confess that he was a Roman Catholic priest. People in New Jersey had curious notions of what a priest might be: they attributed strange things to them, and had a holy horror of them. Our farmer was not exempt from the prevailing ignorant superstitions with regard to priests, and ordered Father Bulger to quit the sled. After driving on a bit the farmer repented of his severity, again took the priest into his sled, and after suitable instruction ended by receiving baptism as a Catholic. Nearly thirty years later another missionary working in the same field which Father Bulger had cultivated reached the hamlet of Franklin Furnace. At this period, 1848, many Irishmen were engaged in iron mining in this neighborhood. For their spiritual help mass was celebrated in a miserable shanty, a dwelling built before the revolution. Among those who came to assist at it was a venerable gentleman, a Dr. Lawrence, whose history as a Catholic was by request briefly given. In the missionary days of Father Bulger Dr. Lawrence had made the acquaintance of the holy apostle, and by him was instructed, baptized and received into the church. In the long years intervening, he had kept the faith, and availing himself of all favorable opportunities, he received the sacraments, often going to New York city for this purpose. A saint like Father Bulger must have impressed some of his own piety and zeal on the Catholics of Paterson and its outlying districts. It was while he was pastor here, in 1821, that the "Society of Useful Manufactures" gave a plot of ground on the corner of Mill and Congress streets, for the purpose of erecting, maintaining and keeping a building or house of public worship of God. On this plot the Catholics built their first church, a one-story building 25×35 feet, costing $1000. We may smile at the smallness and inexpensiveness of the structure, but any priest of the olden time who labored to build churches when his few parishioners were glad to give a hard day's work for 50 or 60 cents, can readily understand that the building of that first church, at a cost of one thousand dollars, was as great and appalling a task as the construction of the stone church in 1833, at a cost of $15,000. In remote country districts the experience of Paterson and Rochester is repeated year by year. In one place a gutted house is made to play the part of a church; in another, even a smaller edifice than the first of Paterson, and costing less, answers the first demands of religion that the souls of the scattered few may not perish. Blessings on these small and modest shanties, surmounted by a cross and holding an altar. Warmer prayers from loving hearts go not up to heaven from marble basilicas, nor were priests' hearts crushed and broken in the strain to meet interest on debts incurred beyond the power to pay. Father Bulger was soon called to New York to assist Bishop Connolly, and in November of 1824 died after a short illness, and his remains lie under the monument at the left hand as you enter the gateway of old St. Patrick's on Mott street, and side by side are those of Father O'Gorman, the first ordained by Bishop Connolly, who followed to the grave his fellow-missionary within a week. In the dearth of priests to do the work of the diocese the Bishop felt keenly these losses, and in January, 1825, he himself while suffering from a severe cold was called from his bed at night to administer the sacraments to a dying Christian, and within a week, on the 5th of February, joined his devoted assistants in eternity. At one time both Rev. Richard Bulger and Rev. Michael O'Gorman had been stationed at Utica, N. Y. You will allow me, I am sure, the liberty of linking Northern New Jersey and Western New York. Though so far separated they formed parts of the one diocese, and often the priests that labored here were sent to what was then called "The Far West" to hunt up and save the scattered sheep of the one fold. Bishop Timon, in his history of missions in Western New York, writes: "The Catholics of Auburn, then numbering four or five families, and having several children to be baptized, sent to New York for a Catholic priest. The Rev. Mr. O'Gorman came. This was the first visit that Auburn had ever received from a Catholic clergyman." The church built in Paterson by Father Bulger, in 1821, is mentioned in the Catholic Directory for 1822, as the only one in New Jersey, with Rev. Mr. Bulger as pastor. Father Bulger was succeeded by Father Brennan, assisted by Father John Conroy. The latter made the first attempt to build a church in Jersey City. But building on a bed of quicksand the foundations gave way, and the courage of the people was lost for some years. In 1826 Father Brennan died and lies buried near his companions; then came Father Shanahan, the fifth priest ordained by Bishop Connolly. He was followed by Father J. O'Donohue, who afterwards exercised the ministry in Auburn, in Seneca Falls and other places in Cayuga and Seneca counties. It was during his pastorate in 1830 that the church in Macoupin was dedicated by Father Chas. D. French, sent from New York to perform this function. He was assisted by Father O'Donohue. Father French afterwards spent some time in charge of the mission of Greece, a settlement of well-to-do Irish farmers, about six miles west of Rochester. In 1827, the construction of the Morris Canal brought many Irishmen to Paterson. Religion followed in the track of commerce. The first church no longer afforded room for the largely increased congregation. While realizing the need of additional accommodation the parishioners did not venture to do more than secure the lot on Oliver street, and determine to build a suitable church. In 1832, Father Duffy was sent to Paterson as pastor, and it was under his administration, that in 1833 the first half of the stone church on Oliver street was built. It is the 50th anniversary of this building that we this day commemorate with becoming pomp and solemnity. Its erection marked the third stage in the growth of religion. The missionary days were passing away to be replaced by fixed and well ordered ministrations. Here let us pause a moment to give "praise to men of renown, and our fathers in their generation." They that were born of them have left a name behind them, that their praises might be related. And there are some, of whom there is no memorial; and are perished as if they had never been; and are born, as if they had never been born, and their children with them. "But these were men of mercy, whose godly deeds have not failed." ... "Their bodies are buried in peace; and their name liveth unto generation and generation. Let the people show forth their wisdom, and the church declare their praise." So with praise and with prayer we wisely honor the memory of the Gillespies and McNamees whose homes had welcomed the priest. Like Zacheus they sought to see Jesus, and Jesus came to abide in their houses and bless them, when the holy and unbloody sacrifice was offered up under their roof. With them, in just meed of honor, we join the Kerrs, the Burkes, the Wades, and the Bradleys; the Lynches, Griffiths and Farnons; the McNallys, Bannigans, Powers and Butlers; the Quins, Morrises, Mulhollands and Plunketts; the McDonalds, Mooneys, Warrens and McEvoys. Nor can we omit the names of others of later date, who are held in veneration for their good deeds, munificent generosity and exemplary lives, the O'Neills, the Hamils, the Raffertys, the Watsons and numberless others. We have brought our narrative along through the early struggles, the humble beginnings, and the great triumph of the Catholics of Paterson, until the day when with exulting hearts they assembled for the solemn dedication of their new church edifice in 1833, while the Rev. P. Duffy was their pastor. Rev. Mr. Duffy was removed from Paterson in 1836 and sent to Newburgh, where he died in 1853. Father Duffy was succeeded by Rev. Philip O'Reilly, an ex-Dominican, and at one time Chaplain to the Duke of Norfolk, and he gave way in 1845 to the Rev. James Quin. On Easter Monday of 1846 Rev. Mr. Quin began the enlargement of the church, making it 113×55 feet, and with the galleries giving seating accommodations for 1300 persons. It cost $15,000. On the 6th of February, 1847, the enlarged and improved church was dedicated by Bishop Hughes. In 1851 Father Quin died, and was succeeded by his brother the Rev. Thomas Quin. This brings us to the erection of the State of New Jersey into a separate diocese, which was placed under the Episcopal administration of the Rt. Rev. James Roosevelt Bayley. The See of Newark was erected on the 29th of July, 1853, and Bishop Bayley, preconized on the same day, was consecrated on the 30th of October, 1853. On the first of November he was installed in his Cathedral, and promptly began the work of caring for the interests of religion. From the outset of his administration two ideas became fixed and unchangeable in Bishop Bayley's mind. He saw that whatever else might be useful and needful in a diocese, its first wants were churches and priests,--schools and teachers. You who knew him so well, who so often listened to his earnest words pleading the cause nearest his heart, do not require to be told that in those days your Bishop was wrapped up in the carrying out of these ideas. Always gentle, always kind, ever pleasantly smiling, yet he was ever urgent and determined that the churches and schools should be ready as they were needed to meet the necessities of the flock over which he was placed. Bishop Bayley understood clearly that churches and schools which the people's money might build would avail little without priests and teachers. He had the advantage, a great advantage, of being the first Bishop of a diocese, and one whose prospects for growth and prosperity were most promising. He was fresh, vigorous and anxious to spend and be spent. He had the moulding and directing of the work before him according to his own judgment and the carrying out of his own ideas unhampered,--untrammeled. His plans embraced a college and theological seminary as a nursery and training school for priests; a Mother House and Novitiate for a religious community of teaching Sisters. Hence as early as 1856, he founded Seton Hall College and Seminary at Madison, removing them in 1860 to South Orange. Soon after he began the formation of the community of Sisters of Charity at Newark, transferring the Mother House to Madison in 1860. These few words describe the small beginning of each institution; the results of their successful achievements are best estimated by the fact that priests from this seminary cover the State of New Jersey, and 400 Sisters of this community are for the most part engaged in the school-room. The sentiment expressed by the Bishop in his "History of the Church on the Island of New York" was given effective play in his work as a Bishop. He wrote: "If we desire to keep the children in the faith of their fathers, we must, above all things, take measures to imbue the minds of the rising generation of Catholics with sound religious principles. This can only be done by giving them a good Catholic education. In our present position, the school-house has become second in importance only to the House of God itself." When Bishop Bayley was translated from Newark to Baltimore he had the happiness--and for him it was a great one of knowing that there was scarcely a mission in the diocese he was leaving without a Catholic school, and that the foundations for the continuance of the good work were so broad--so solid--that they never could give way. Soon after taking charge of the new diocese of Newark, Bishop Bayley changed the Rev. Thomas Quin from Paterson to Rahway, where he remained until his death. Father Quin was amiable and unassuming, but lacking in the energy and determination demanded by the requirements of the rapidly developing congregation of St. John's. The Rev. Dominick Senez was sent to this mission to replace Father Quin. Father Senez's success as a pastor in many missions was a guarantee that the populous and important parish of Paterson would not suffer under his leadership. The development of many industries called for artisans and laborers. After the famine in Ireland in 1846 and 1847, the prime of the industrial classes flocked to our shores, and many found their way to centres of employment like this city. St. John's of Paterson was a large and growing congregation when Father Senez came here. Much had been prepared for him by others; and much remained for him to do. His great work has always been in the pulpit, in the confessional and in pastoral visitations. With excellent administrative ability he has never allowed debts to accumulate beyond easy control. Soon after taking charge of Paterson he brought to his help the Sisters of Charity of Mt. St. Vincent. The first of these religious women, and the first of any community that worked in the State of New Jersey were brought to Newark on the 18th of October, 1853, by Bishop Bayley, and placed over a girls' orphan asylum and the parochial school for girls. The Sisters of Charity of Newark and Paterson returned to Mt. St. Vincent as soon as the new community founded at Newark, now at Madison, was able to replace them. The Sisters who were at Jersey City on the same terms did not leave according to agreement. On Father Senez's change of field of work to Cincinnati he was replaced by Father Beaudevin, and he by Father Callan, transferred from St. James', Newark. In 1863, the Rev. William McNulty, after a school of preparation in small things, if anything can be called small that belongs to a priest's ministry, was assigned to Paterson. We come now to the fourth stage in the history of Catholicity in this town. It is the period of large developments and remarkable growth. It needed in the pastor, youth, energy, zeal, disinterestedness and a spirit free and unfettered by old ways and traditions. It found all these in the young and almost untried priest. His Bishop in calling him to this responsible post did not blunder into his choice, but made it in full knowledge of what was needed to build up religion in Paterson as well as of the fitness of the selection he was making. It was precisely the capability and exactness of the young priest in the fulfilment of his duties in Seton Hall as chaplain to a convent, and as pastor of a small rural mission, which led his Bishop to believe that the same qualities fitted him for a more onerous and trying field of work. This young priest never disappointed the well founded expectations of his first Bishop, nor has he failed in the estimation of Bishop Bayley's successors, nor has he left it in any parishioner's power to complain that Paterson lagged behind in the race to the goal of great works in which the earnest, generous and self sacrificing priests and people of the United States were running. No one of the causes indicated by Bishop England in explanation of the losses of the Catholic Church can be cast as a reproach at Paterson since the present pastor took charge of this mission. If there are any losses here they must be accounted for by other reasons. This new church, so large, substantial and grand, worthy of Keily's architectural skill, is Father McNulty's enduring monument. I am not an admirer of large churches in America, except where they are demanded in cathedral cities by the necessities of special functions. I would not hesitate for one moment to withhold all praise even here, if I did not know that this church has not been built at the expense of other religious interests; if I did not know that school-houses giving room for all the Catholic children in the parish were provided; as well as homes for orphans and hospitals for the sick. Nor would I lavish commendation on my friend, the pastor of this parish, if I did not know that other parts of this growing city had been cared for and that new parishes had been formed as they were needed. Within the limits of Paterson are the daughters of the mother church, are St. Boniface's and St. Mary's; St. Joseph's, St. Bonaventure's and St. Agnes'. Beyond these limits are the churches at Macoupin, Passaic, Lodi, Hohokus, Bloomingdale and Germantown. There are pastoral residences everywhere; schools in all the parishes; an asylum for orphans; a hospital for the sick; consecrated cemeteries for the dead. Yet the works above ennumerated, praiseworthy and necessary though they be, would be as dross, so much are they in the material order, were they not beautified and enlivened by that spiritual life and glory which make them acceptable in the sight of God. All these material things are but as helps to grace and spiritual advancement. When a congregation flocks to the church, blocks up the way to the confessional and crowds around the altar rail, all know that there is spiritual power in that mission; when homes are Christian, when father, mother and children kneel together in prayer, when the sanctuary of the house is sacredly guarded like the sanctuary of the church, a race of Christian people is preserved. From such Christian homes come forth Christian men and women--come forth priests for the altar, brothers and sisters for the schools. It is the glory of this congregation that religious communities have been largely recruited here; it is the crowning glory of the pastor of this church, as it is unspeakable joy to his heart, that his labors bring forth such fruit, for his work will not end with his days on earth; but will be continued long after by those that have learned from his lips and drawn spiritual life from his example and the outpouring of his own soul. It is a withered and dead parish that yields no laborers for the Lord's vineyard. He is a barren pastor who brings forth none to take his place when he is gone, or who has never summoned to his aid one recruit of his own drilling. For the work accomplished, for blessings received, for a growth and prosperity wondrous indeed, it is a duty for the children of the early Catholic settlers of Paterson not to forget their fathers who "were men of mercy, whose godly deeds have not failed;" it is a joy for them and their children, and for their pastors, and the church, "to show forth the wisdom and declare the praise" of those who builded that Church of St. John in 1833. Blessings on their memory! Prayers for their souls! We pray for the souls of all who in their day helped this church; to-morrow with solemn dirge and rite this duty will be yet more markedly fulfilled. The performance of this sacred duty honors and helps the Bishops, the priests, the people, who toiled under adverse and trying circumstances to lay good foundations for future building; it gratifies the loving hearts of a grateful posterity to acknowledge the rich inheritance of religion that has come down to them, as it will be their earnest endeavor to transmit to their children the glowing faith, the warm piety and the noble spirit of self-sacrifice inherited from "men of renown, and our fathers in their generation." [Illustration] Transcriber's Notes: The Villanova University copy that this text was prepared from contains several handwritten corrections. The original text of the book has been retained for this electronic edition, but since the corrections are probably accurate, they are noted below as "VU corrections." Some inconsistent spelling and punctuation has been retained from the original (i.e. "cooperation" vs. "co-operation," "traveling" vs. "travelling"). For this text edition, oe ligatures have been expanded to oe for Latin-1 compatibility. Table of contents was not present in the original print edition. Page 5, added missing "t" the "the" in "within the city limits." Page 6, VU correction: "Father De La Motte" instead of "Father De La Mote." Page 6, VU correction: "Rev. Phillip Larisey, O.S.A." instead of "Rev. Phillip Larissy." Note that this differs from "Larrissy" / "Larrisey" (two r's) found elsewhere in the text. This may be intentional since it is quoted from another source. Research suggests that "Larisey" may be the most appropriate spelling, but there is enough conflicting information that no attempt has been made to normalize the text in this edition; all references are left as-is. Page 8, VU correction: "Father Philip Larrisey, O.S.A." instead of "Father Philip Larrissy, a Franciscan" (with a later instance of "Larrissy" also changed to "Larrisey"). Page 9, VU correction: "Larrisey" instead of "Larrissy." Page 15, VU correction: "Larrisey" instead of "Larrissy." Page 19, changed comma to period after "employed in a cotton mill." Page 22, changed "a Southern gentlemen" to "a Southern gentleman." Page 22, added missing apostrophe to "O'Neill was the leader." Page 23, changed "succeded" to "succeeded." Page 26, added missing open quote before "DEUS." Page 26, changed "Auno Salutis" to "Anno Salutis." Page 28, changed "shem" to "them." Page 28, added missing open single quote before "They did not build in vain." Page 34, changed "Chior" to "Choir." Page 34, changed double quotes to single quotes after "the nursery of priests and bishops" and after "the old mountain." Page 35, changed "includ-" to "including." Page 39, changed double quotes to single quotes after "Nulli onerosus fui" and around "pueris senibusque carus." Page 40, added double quotes around poem. Page 41, changed comma to period after "Fathers McFaul, Corr and others." Page 43, VU correction: "Larisey" instead of "Larissy." Most likely a typo for "Larrissy" / "Larrisey" but left as-is due to other internal inconsistencies in the text (see page 6 note). Page 55, changed "Singerberger's" to "Singenberger's." Page 58, changed "ircumstances" to "circumstances." Page 59, changed "langguage" to "language." Page 59, changed "heavil yon" to "heavily on." 
46413	----	Transcriber's Note Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=. PROPERTY OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY NOT TO BE TAKEN PERMANENTLY FROM THE SCHOOLROOM STATE OF NEW JERSEY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION TRENTON Special Days and their Observance September 1919 [Illustration] APPROVED BY STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION JUNE 1919 [Illustration: Liberty Bell The symbol of liberty, freedom, justice and order in the government of the United States of America] STATE OF NEW JERSEY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION TRENTON Special Days and their Observance September 1919 [Illustration] APPROVED BY STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION JUNE 1919 CONTENTS PAGE Foreword 7 Acknowledgments 9 Opening Exercises 11 Morning Exercises, Jennie Haver 13 Morning Exercises, Florence L. Farber 24 Opening Exercises, Louis H. Burch 27 Columbus Day, J. Cayce Morrison 33 Thanksgiving Day, Roy L. Shaffer 59 Lincoln's Birthday, Charles A. Philhower 69 Washington's Birthday, Henry W. Foster 89 Arbor Day 109 Trees and Forests, Alfred Gaskill 112 Arbor Day observed by planting Hamilton Grove, Charles A. Philhower 119 Suggestions to Teachers, K. C. Davis 121 Value of our Forests, U. S. Bureau of Education 123 Memorial Day, George C. Baker 125 Flag Day, Hannah H. Chew 141 Bibliography, Katharine B. Rogers 159 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Liberty Bell Frontispiece Columbus, "Admiral at the Helm" 51 Saint Gaudens' Lincoln 73 Gutzon Borglum's Lincoln 85 Stuart's Washington 93 Statue of Washington at West Point 103 FOREWORD In the statutes of the state will be found the following: The day in each year known as Arbor Day shall be suitably observed in the public schools. The Commissioner of Education shall from time to time prepare and issue to schools such circulars of information, advice and instruction with reference to the day as he may deem necessary. For the purpose of encouraging the planting of shade and forest trees, the second Friday of April in each year is hereby designated as a day for the general observance of such purpose, and to be known as Arbor Day. On said day appropriate exercises shall be introduced in all the schools of the State, and it shall be the duty of the several county and city superintendents to prepare a program of exercises for that day in all the schools under their respective jurisdiction. In all public schools there shall be held on the last school day preceding the following holidays, namely, Lincoln's Birthday, Washington's Birthday, Decoration or Memorial Day and Thanksgiving Day, and on such other patriotic holidays as shall be established by law, appropriate exercises for the development of a higher spirit of patriotism. It shall be the duty of the principals and teachers in the public schools of this State to make suitable arrangements for the celebration, by appropriate exercises among the pupils in said schools, on the fourteenth day of June, in each year, as the day of the adoption of the American flag by the Continental Congress. The provisions of these statutes have been carried out in the schools of the state. They are believed in and supported heartily by the public opinion of the state. In order that greater assistance may be rendered to teachers and school officers in preparing for these special days, this pamphlet on _Special Days and their Observance_ has been prepared by the Department, chiefly through the efforts of Mr. Z. E. Scott, Assistant Commissioner in charge of Elementary Education. The pamphlet also contains suggestions concerning the opening exercises of schools. Mr. Scott has been assisted in this work by the following persons, the school officers having in turn been aided by their teachers. To all these grateful acknowledgment is hereby made. George C. Baker, Supervising Principal, Moorestown Louis H. Burch, Principal Bangs Avenue School, Asbury Park Hannah Chew, Principal Culver School, Cumberland County K. C. Davis, formerly of State Agricultural College, New Brunswick Florence Farber, Helping Teacher, Sussex County Henry W. Foster, Supervising Principal, South Orange Alfred Gaskill, State Forester Jennie Haver, Helping Teacher, Hunterdon County J. Cayce Morrison, Supervising Principal, Leonia Charles A. Philhower, Supervising Principal, Westfield Katharine B. Rogers, Reference Librarian, State Library Roy L. Shaffer, Supervisor of Practice, Newark State Normal School It has been the aim of Mr. Scott and his associates to suggest exercises which would be appropriate for the observance of these several days, which would be of interest to pupils, and which at the same time would be of a character worthy of the dignity of the public schools of the state. Calvin N. Kendall _Commissioner of Education_ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Grateful acknowledgment is hereby made to the following publishers and authors for permission to use copyrighted selections: American Book Company, New York, for extract from Green's "Short History of the English People." D. Appleton & Company, New York, for Bryant's "America" and extract from Edward S. Holden's "Our Country's Flag." Henry Holcomb Bennett for "The Flag Goes By." Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, for "The Name of Old Glory," by James Whitcomb Riley. Boosey & Company, New York, for "We'll keep Old Glory Flying," by Carleton S. Montanye. Dr. Frank Crane for "After the Great Companions." Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York, for extract from "The Book of Holidays," by J. Walker McSpadden. Reprinted by permission of the publishers. Copyright 1917 by Thomas Y. Crowell Company. Joseph Fulford Folsom for "The Unfinished Work." Harper & Brothers, New York, for extract from "The Americanism of Washington," by Henry van Dyke. Caroline Hazard for "The Western Land." Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, for Bret Harte's "The Reveille" and extract from "Our National Ideals," by William Backus Gitteau. Kindergarten Magazine Publishing Company, Manistee, Michigan, for nine selections, including two by Laura Rountree Smith and one by Mary R. Campbell. Macmillan Company, New York, for extract from "The Making of an American," by Jacob A. Riis, and "On a Portrait of Columbus," by George Edward Woodberry, used by permission of and special arrangement with the publishers. Moffat, Yard & Co., New York, for extract from "Memorial Day," by Robert Haven Schauffler. New England Publishing Company, Boston, for "Columbus Day" and Walt Whitman's "Address to America." From "Journal of Education." New York Evening Post for "America's Answer," by R. W. Lillard. New York Herald for Mrs. Josephine Fabricant's "The Service Flag." New York State Department of Education, Albany, for "The Boy Columbus" and an extract from speech of Chauncey M. Depew. Theodore Presser Company, Philadelphia, for "Our Country's Flag," by Mrs. Florence L. Dresser. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, for "In Flanders Fields," by John McCrae. Saturday Evening Post, Philadelphia, for "I Have a Son," by Emory Pottle. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, for extract from "With Americans of Past and Present Days," by J. J. Jusserand, copyright 1916; used by permission of the publishers. C. W. Thompson & Company, Boston, for "The Unfurling of the Flag," by Clara Endicott Sears. Copyright; used by permission. Horace Traubel, Camden, for "O Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman. P. F. Volland Company, Chicago, for "Your Flag and My Flag," by Wilbur D. Nesbit. Copyrighted 1916 by publishers. Harr Wagner Publishing Company, San Francisco, for "Columbus," by Joaquin Miller. OPENING EXERCISES This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. _Shakespeare_ OPENING EXERCISES MORNING EXERCISES JENNIE HAVER, HELPING TEACHER, HUNTERDON COUNTY The morning exercise is a common meeting ground; it is the family altar of the school to which each brings his offerings--the fruits of his observations and studies, or the music, literature, and art that delight him; a place where all cooperate for the pleasure and well-being of the whole; where all contribute to and share the intellectual and spiritual life of the whole; where all bring their best and choicest experiences in the most effective form at their command. This quotation from the Second Year Book of the Frances W. Parker School may well be an inspiration, a guide, and finally, a goal for us to use in preparation for the morning exercises. The period given to the opening exercises may be made the most important period of the day. The pupils, whether they be in a one room rural school or a larger town school, need a more receptive attitude toward the work before them. A short time given to interesting, uplifting exercises will do much to control and lead the restless children, encourage the downhearted ones, inspire the indifferent, and give to teachers and pupils alike higher ideals for effective work and right living. A part of the time given to opening exercises should be of a devotional nature--consisting of the reading of short selections from the Bible, without comment--and of prayer and singing. Very careful plans must be made for the devotional exercises if they are to function as they should. Too often the selection of song and Bible reading is made after the pupils are in their seats. A message that is truly inspiring is usually the result of considerable time spent in preparation. The thoughtful teacher will plan her opening exercises as carefully as any other part of her regular school work. The morning exercise affords an opportunity to train pupils for leadership. Recently an interesting morning program of musical appreciation was carried out in a two room country school. When the bell rang the twelve year old pupil leader went to the front of the room and placed a march record on the phonograph. After the pupils were seated she conducted the following program with a great deal of poise and self confidence: _America_, by the School Psalm XXIII Bacarolle from "Tales of Hoffman" (phonograph) Traumerei--Schumann (phonograph) Spring Song--Mendelssohn (phonograph) Flag salute, by the School Following each record on the phonograph she asked for the name of the selection and the composer's name. It was surprising to see how familiar even the little ones were with the classical selections. Some one has said that the only influence greater than that of a good book is personal contact with a great man or woman. Once in a while an interesting talk may be given by a visitor, but the morning exercise period should not be regarded as a lecture period. Occasionally it is well to have leaders of different occupations in the neighborhood give short, pertinent talks on their work. All too often children are blind to the beauty, deaf to the music, and almost insensible to the wonder and mystery of the great world of nature. One day a little country girl found a large, silky, brown cocoon and carried it to school. She didn't know what it was: neither did her teacher. The cocoon was taken home and kept as an object of curiosity to be shown to the neighbors when they called. One warm spring morning a beautiful Cecropia moth, measuring six inches from tip to tip of wing, emerged from the cocoon. That girl will never forget her wonder and awe as she watched Nature stage one of her most beautiful miracles. Any teacher would find it an inspiration and a delight to bring such a charming bit of nature into her morning exercises. Every day Nature is unfolding just as wonderful stories. Our eyes must be open to see them. The opening exercises, conducted as they should be, may be a source of inspiration and a means of training for moral and social behavior, for patriotism, for health, for vocational usefulness, for the right use of leisure--in other words, for useful, patriotic citizenship. There is an abundance of material on every hand that can be used in morning exercises. Following are a few suggestions that may be of help. SINGING Profiting by the experience of French and English troops, instructors taught our sailors and soldiers to sing in unison. It has been found that singing does much to improve the morale of the company. Singing in the morning exercises does much to socialize the group and develop school spirit. There is such a wealth of suitable songs for morning exercises that it seems hardly necessary to suggest many. The hymns selected should be inspiring and uplifting; the patriotic songs should be thoroughly learned and sung in an enthusiastic manner. =Patriotic Songs= America Battle Hymn of the Republic Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean Dixie Flag of the Free God Speed the Right Marching through Georgia Marseillaise Hymn Jerseyland National Hymn Old Glory The American Hymn The Battle Cry of Freedom The Star Spangled Banner =Folk Songs= Annie Laurie Auld Lang Syne Flow Gently, Sweet Afton Home, Sweet Home Juanita My Old Kentucky Home Oft in the Stilly Night Old Black Joe Old Folks at Home Robin Adair Santa Lucia The Blue Bells of Scotland The Miller of Dee =Lullabies= Cradle Song Lullaby and Good-night Oh, Hush Thee, my Baby Sweet and Low Silent Night =Sacred= How Gentle God's Command Holy, Holy, Holy In Heavenly Love Abiding Italian Hymn Love Divine, All Love Excelling Nearer, My God, to Thee Oh, Worship the King The King of Love There's a Wideness in God's Mercy Vesper Hymn MUSICAL APPRECIATION The introduction of the phonograph into the public school and the multitude of records which reproduce the great masterpieces now make it possible for every child to have an opportunity to hear and to be taught to appreciate good music. Frequently part of the morning exercise period should be devoted to an appreciation of good vocal and instrumental musical selections. In one rural school the pupils readily associate the name of the composition and composer with each of the following records, which they helped to purchase: Anvil Chorus from "Il Trovatore"--Verdi Barcarolle from "Tales of Hoffman"--Offenbach Hearts and Flowers--Tobain Humoresque--Dvorak Intermezzo from "Cavalleria Rusticana"--Mascagni Lo, Hear the Gentle Lark--Bishop Melody in F--Rubinstein Miserere from "Il Trovatore"--Verdi Pilgrim's Chorus from "Tannhauser"--Wagner Sextette from "Lucia di Lammermoor"--Donizetti Spring Song--Mendelssohn Traumerei--Schumann Literature on musical appreciation will be mailed free to all teachers who request it from the educational departments of the phonograph manufacturers. Teachers who are really interested in giving their pupils the best music will find that a number of their patrons are willing to lend records to the school for special exercises. Following are suggestive musical programs: A Morning with Beethoven Bible Reading and Lord's Prayer Minuet in G, No. 2 (phonograph) "The Moonlight Sonata," Reading by pupil The Moonlight Sonata (phonograph) The Flag Salute, Pupils A Morning with Mendelssohn Hark! the Herald Angels Sing, Song by School Bible Reading and Lord's Prayer Spring Song (phonograph) Oh, For the Wings of a Dove (phonograph) The Flag Salute, School Indian Songs Bible Reading and Lord's Prayer The Story of the Indians, Pupil Navajo Indian Song (phonograph) Medicine Song (phonograph) Flag Salute, School Negro Songs Old Black Joe, School Bible Reading and Prayer Good News (phonograph) Live a-Humble (phonograph) The Flag Salute, School (The records given are by the Tuskegee Institute Singers) Irish Songs Wearin' of the Green, School Bible Reading and Prayer Come Back to Erin (phonograph) Macushla (phonograph) The Flag Salute, School Scotch Songs My Laddie (phonograph) Bible Reading and Prayer Annie Laurie, School My Ain Countrie (phonograph) Flag Salute, School LITERARY EXERCISES To instil in the hearts of boys and girls a love for good literature is to give them a never ending source of happiness throughout life. Children can be interested in books by hearing stories read, by retelling them, and by reading them. The story of the author's life may add interest to the author's work. Much can be done in morning exercises to start children on the road to good reading. The more work children do themselves the more interested they will be. Following are suggestive literary programs: =Robert Louis Stevenson= Bible Reading by pupils--Philippians IV, 4-8 Stevenson's Prayer for a Day's Work, Recitation by pupil Short story of Stevenson's life, Pupil My Shadow, Pupil The Land of Story Books, Pupil God Speed the Right, Sung by School The Flag Salute, School =Hans Christian Andersen= Psalm 100, Pupil Lord's Prayer, School A Poor Boy Who Became Famous, Retold by pupil The Steadfast Tin Soldier, Retold by pupil The Little Tin Soldier, Song by School The Flag Salute, School =Henry W. Longfellow= The Arrow and the Song, Song by School Bible Reading and Lord's Prayer Scenes from Hiawatha, Dramatization by pupils The Village Blacksmith, Recitation by pupil DRAMATIC EXERCISES When children are truly interested in reading, the natural outlet for the emotions aroused is dramatic action. Let different classes be responsible for dramatizing stories from their history or reading lessons and present the results in the morning exercises. The educative and socializing value to the class presenting the exercise is almost invaluable. Dramatizing the story makes an interesting incentive for a number of language lessons; rehearsing the play provides for much practice in oral expression; and producing the play before an audience gives valuable training in leadership, self confidence and poise. ART APPRECIATION We do not expect many of the school children to become artists, but all can learn to appreciate and tastefully select the beautiful in pictures, personal dress, home furnishing and decoration, and architecture. It has been truly said, "Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not." Frequently a few minutes of the morning exercises may be very profitably, spent in the study of the beautiful. Artistic material to use as illustrations for the talks is on every hand. Inexpensive reproductions of the world's great pictures; illustrations in magazines; beautifully colored papers for color combinations in neckties, dress designing and hat trimming; magazine and catalog pictures of well designed furniture and home utensils can be easily obtained. A suggestive list of morning talks is given below: Famous Pictures The First Step--Millet Landscape with Windmill--Ruysdael The Horse Fair--Bonheur Sistine Madonna--Raphael Morning--Corot How Can We Get Good Pictures for Our Schoolroom Color Harmony in Dress Good Taste in Furniture Home Decoration Beautifying the School Ground Washington, the City Beautiful References How to Enjoy Pictures--Emery A Child's Guide to Pictures--Coffin The Mentor The School Arts Magazine Ladies' Home Journal The Perry Pictures National Geographic Magazine HEALTH TALKS FOR MORNING EXERCISES Truly, "A people's health's a nation's wealth," and every encouragement should be given in school to further the doctrine of healthful living. The medical examiner, the school nurse, the pupils and the teachers, all may do their part to make the health talks practical and of much value to the school. =Suggestive Health Talks= Why we should exercise Care of the Teeth Care of the Eyes Prevention of Colds How to prevent Tuberculosis Swat the Fly How to destroy mosquitoes Cleanliness Safety First Cigarette Smoking Self Control and Good Manners Emergencies School Sanitation =References= Teaching of Hygiene and Safety Pamphlets of Health, from the National Department of Health, Washington, D. C. State Department of Health, Trenton, N. J. Russell Sage Foundation, New York City Health-Education League, Boston, Mass. Farmer's Bulletins from U. S. Department of Agriculture Modern Hygiene textbooks Newspaper and Magazine Articles NATURE TALKS The study of the wonderful things of the world, their beautiful fitness for their existence and function, the remarkable progressive tendency of all organic life, and the unity that prevails in it create admiration in the beholder and tend to his spiritual uplifting. =Suggestive topics for morning exercises= How can we attract the birds? How I Built A Bird House Does it Pay the Farmer to Protect the Birds? The Travel of Birds The Life History of a Frog The Life History of a Butterfly How I made my Home Garden How I raised an Acre of Corn The Trees on our School Ground THE LOCAL HISTORY OF THE COMMUNITY A series of morning exercises may be devoted to the local history of a community. The material may be planned by the pupils with the assistance of some of the older people in the neighborhood. This idea was carried out very successfully in a small town and did much to interest the parents in the school. Many were willing to send family heirlooms to the classroom to use as illustrations for the talks. One charming old lady sent a written account of the history of her old home. Following are some topics that might be developed: Former Location of Indian Tribes in the Community Evidences of Indian Occupation (old trails, implements, mounds, etc.) The First White Settlers Revolutionary Landmarks Colonial Relics Historic Homes in the Community Famous People of the Community A program for one morning might be conducted by the pupils as follows: Proverbs 27:1-2, Pupil Italian Hymn, School Famous People of the Community The Grandfather who fought in the Civil War, pupil The Man who was Governor of the State, pupil The Woman who was a Nurse in the World War, pupil The Man who wrote a Book, pupil The Soldier boy in France, pupil America THE USE OF PUPIL ORGANIZATION IN THE MORNING EXERCISES Much interesting and instructive material can be secured for opening exercises by making use of members of recognized organizations for boys and girls. There are members of the Boy Scouts of America in almost every community. The Camp Fire Girls are getting to be almost as well known. Let each group prepare occasional programs for morning exercises. =Boy Scouts= Bible Reading and Lord's Prayer The Origin and Growth of Scouting The Three Classes of Scouts The Scout Motto The Scout Law "America" and Flag Salute =Camp Fire Girls= Bible Reading and Lord's Prayer The Seven Laws of the Order The Wood Gatherer The Fire Maker The Torch Bearer Song by School The Flag Salute PATRIOTIC EXERCISES The patriotic note should be found in every morning exercise and some periods should be devoted entirely to patriotic selections. The national hymns should be learned from the first stanza to the last. It is hard to get the patriotic note in our singing when we do not know the words. =Suggestive Programs= America, School Bible Reading and Lord's Prayer Patrick Henry's Speech (phonograph) Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (phonograph) Flag Salute Bible Reading and Prayer Army Bugle Call No. 1 (phonograph) The Junior Red Cross Sewing for the Red Cross, A girl Earning Money for the Red Cross, A boy How the Work of the Junior Red Cross develops Patriotism in a school, Pupil Come, Thou Almighty King, School "Patriotism consists not in waving a flag but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong."--_James Bryce_ "One cannot always be a hero, but one can always be a man."--_Goethe_ "Go back to the simple life, be contented with simple food, simple pleasures, simple clothes. Work hard, play hard, pray hard. Work, eat, recreate and sleep. Do it all courageously. We have a victory to win."--_Hoover_ MEMORY GEMS For life is the mirror of king and slave; 'Tis just what we are and do. Then give to the world the best you have And the best will come back to you. _Madeline S. Bridges_ Somebody did a golden deed; Somebody proved a friend in need; Somebody sang a beautiful song; Somebody served the whole day long. Was that "somebody" you? Courtesy is to do and say The kindest thing in the kindest way. Truth is honest, truth is sure; Truth is strong and must endure. _Bailey_ Hang on! Cling on! No matter what they say. Push on! Sing on! Things will come your way. Sitting down and whining never helps a bit; Best way to get there is by keeping up your grit. _Louis E. Thayer_ The day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns and duties. Help us to play the man, help us to perform them with laughter and kind faces, let cheerfulness abound with industry. Give us to go blithely on our business all this day, bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonored, and grant us in the end the gift of sleep. _Robert Louis Stevenson_ Be strong! We are not here to play, to dream, to drift. We have hard work to do and loads to lift. Shun not the struggle; face it; 'tis God's gift. Be strong! It matters not how deep intrenched the wrong, How hard the battle goes, the day how long; Faint not--fight on! Tomorrow comes the song. _Maltbie D. Babcock_ Smile a smile; While you smile, Another smiles, And soon there's miles and miles Of smiles. And life's worth while If you but smile. _Jane Thompson_ You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.--_James Anthony Froude_ Small service is true service while it lasts; Of friends, however humble, scorn not one; The daisy, by the shadow that it casts, Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun. _Wordsworth_ There's so much bad in the best of us And so much good in the worst of us, That it hardly behooves any of us To talk about the rest of us. A wise old owl lived in an oak. The more he saw the less he spoke; The less he spoke the more he heard. Why can't we be like that old bird? Kindness is catching, and if you go around with a thoroughly developed case your neighbor will be sure to get it. The thing to do is hope, not mope: The thing to do is work, not shirk. If you have faith, preach it; if you have doubts, bury them; if you have joy, share it; if you have sorrow, bear it. Find the bright side of things and help others to get sight of it also. This is the only and surest way to be cheerful and happy. MORNING EXERCISES FLORENCE L. FARBER, HELPING TEACHER, SUSSEX COUNTY The short period known as the opening exercise period belongs to all the children of the school. This period should furnish especially favorable opportunities for the development of initiative on the part of pupils, group cooperation, development of the play spirit, interest in community life, interest in and love for our great men and women, and devotion to our Republic. The first problem of the teacher, then, is to understand fully that she is to a great degree responsible for furnishing aims and purposes in this beginning period of the day, or rather in providing the situations through which these aims and purposes may develop. When she feels the importance of this period in the general scheme of the day's work she will plan for it as definitely and as carefully as she will any other part of her program. The working out of a detailed program is of secondary importance. The thing of first importance is that she become fully cognizant of the general aims and ideals which she hopes to achieve. With these firmly fixed in her mind she is ready then to cooperate with the pupils of her room in planning detailed programs. The following projects are in keeping with the principles presented and have been found stimulating in one and two room schools: =Project 1.= The teacher divides her children into groups on the basis of age and ability. For example, in a one room school a teacher might have two groups. Each group is to work out with the teacher a program which it is to give and for which it is responsible. This program may consist of a short story to be dramatized, the story to contain not more than two or three important scenes. The costuming, if any is needed, is to be done by pupils and teacher. Rehearsing is to be directed by the teacher. When the program is presented it should be as a new production to all the school except those who are engaged in presenting it. It is to be given, therefore, as a real play to a real audience. Each pupil should invite a member of the family or a friend. The value of such work will soon be noticed in a better social spirit among the children. The dramatizations given may furnish the material for both oral and written language lessons. Dramatization itself will provide excellent practice in oral expression and also training in initiative, leadership and cooperation. The story presented may furnish many funny settings which the pupils may enjoy with abandon. And what children do not need real merriment in school! Opportunity ought to be afforded all children of our public schools to enjoy a real laugh at least once each day. Teachers need have no fear that the different groups will be over-critical or discourteous to one another. They will understand that they are being entertained and they will cooperate to make the play given worth while. The following stories lend themselves very readily to dramatization. =First and Second Grades= The Three Billy Goats Gruff Spry Mouse and Mr. Frog The Three Bears The Camel and The Jackal The Tale of Peter Rabbit Our First Flag =Third and Fourth Grades= The Sleeping Beauty Snow White and Rose Red Brother Fox's Tar Baby How the Cave Man Made Fire Scenes from Hiawatha Early Settlers in New Jersey =Fifth and Sixth Grades= The Pied Piper of Hamelin Joseph and His Brethren Abou Ben Adhem Paul Revere's Ride Scenes from Life of Daniel Boone Franklin's Arrival in Philadelphia Scenes from Alfred the Great The Battle of Hastings How Cedric Became a Knight =Seventh and Eighth Grades= The Vision of Sir Launfal Rip Van Winkle The King of the Golden River Scenes from Evangeline Landing of the Pilgrims Conquest of the Northwest Territory The Man Without a Country =Project 2.= A special problem in history or geography, for example, may be taken up, such as the life of the people in Japan, or the life of the people on a cattle ranch. In either case the class that presents the work as an opening exercise should be given opportunity to work out certain scenes which it wants to give. These scenes should be presented either by sand-table, by charts, by posters, by pictures from magazines, or by dramatization on the part of the children. Preparation of such work is decidedly worth while, and ought to be a regular part of the day's program. The important scenes should be rehearsed before the final presentation. =Project 3. Poster exhibit.= This project could be arranged for all the children of a given school, in which case the best work would be selected and the children presenting it would discuss each poster in one or two minute talks. A still better way to handle the project would be to have the best posters from different schools. In this case at least one pupil from each school should be invited to present the posters from his school. =Project 4. War programs.= A war opening exercise program could be worked out by the children of a given school. This could be done by having children collect war posters and war pictures made during the recent world war and arrange them in such a way that they tell a connected story. A group should be held responsible for presenting each story or part of a story. A sand-table should be provided if necessary. An excellent war program could be provided by having the emphasis placed upon the various men who have led or are leading in our own national life. Pictures of these men should be secured and children called upon to tell what important work each man has done or is doing. This same device could be carried a step further and a special program arranged, centering around the pictures of the different men who led the allied forces. The older pupils of any school ought to be able to do this work. An additional way by which our schools may help in the work of patriotism is to have an opening exercise by the children whose immediate relatives were at the front. Such a program ought to have for its purpose the idea of service to one's country. Another helpful device would be to have at an appropriate time former soldiers come to the school and talk to the children concerning the meaning of the war. The teacher who plans her opening exercise periods in keeping with the foregoing presentation will make these periods inspiring and helpful to herself and her children. She will be putting across the gospel of good cheer, and cooperation in the new kind of school which offers opportunities for participation in life's present day activities, not preparation for future activities. OPENING EXERCISES LOUIS H. BURCH, PRINCIPAL BANGS AVENUE SCHOOL, ASBURY PARK Play is one of the first manifestations of the child in self expression. As the child grows older this play is made up in part of the imitation of the doings and sayings of the older persons and playmates with whom he is associated. The child reflects the life of his parents wherever it comes under his comprehension. The stick horse gives as much pleasure to the boy as the well trained saddle horse gives to the father. When the child enters school much of the play element of his life is left behind, and teachers have often failed to use to advantage the experience and knowledge the child has in "living over" the actions and sayings of others. The ordinary child has observed the animals and birds around him and can imitate them. He can personify the tree, the flower, or the brook, and gain a clearer knowledge of the purpose and function of the thing personified by so doing. Under the proper direction of the teacher nearly all the common occurrences of life may be dramatized by the children in the ordinary schoolroom and with few so-called stage properties. Older children are interested in the simple dramatizations of the little folks and should have opportunity to see them often, not alone to be entertained, but to be reminded of the simple and easy ways of "playing you are someone else." A grammar grade class may learn many things from watching a primary class dramatize "Three Bears," "Little Red Hen," or "Little Red Ridinghood." The simple dramatization in the schoolroom furnish excellent material for general assemblies or morning exercises. Simple costumes and stage settings satisfy the children, and the setting of the stage or platform for the scene should, in most cases, be done before the children. Children who see the table set, the chairs placed, and the beds prepared for the "Three Bears" know how to get ready for their play when they are called upon to contribute their part for the assembly. Children will bring material for their costumes and stage furnishings from home and should be encouraged to do so. Parents will come to see children take part in a program when nothing else would attract them to the school, and if the home is to be called upon to help the school there must be a closer relationship between parents and teacher. In preparing dramatizations for elementary school pupils but few scenes should be chosen, and in those selected the language and action should be simple and within the capabilities of the children. The following dramatizations were worked out by teachers and pupils of our building as class projects. They were presented in the opening exercises as worth-while classroom projects which would be entertaining and helpful to all pupils of the school, to teachers and to parents. In presenting these scenes the pupils secured excellent practice in oral English work, in dramatic action, and in community and group cooperation. The pupils and teachers who made up the audience enjoyed opening exercises in which there was purpose. All entered into the spirit of the play; all enjoyed the exercises without having to think why. The results have been better team work between teacher and pupils, better school spirit, more pupil participation in leadership activities. The History of Cotton _Prepared by Bessie O'Hagen, Teacher of Fourth Grade, Bangs Avenue School, Asbury Park_ _Characters_: Spirit of Cotton, Little Girl, Maiden from India, Maiden from Egypt, Maiden from America, Spirit of Eli Whitney. _Little Girl_ (_coming into the room in bad humor_). I hate this old cotton dress. I wish I had a silk one. I don't see why we have to use cotton anyway. We have to have cotton dresses, cotton sheets, cotton stockings, cotton everything. I just hate cotton! I'm not going out to play or anything. (_Finally sits down._) I am so tired. I wish I had a silk dress. I hate this cotton dress. (_Falls asleep._) _Spirit of Cotton_ (_skipping into the room_). Heigh ho! Ho heigh! Here am I, the Spirit of Cotton. I heard what you said, little girl. Did you ever see cotton grow? _Little Girl_ (_frightened_). Why, no. _Spirit of Cotton._ How do you know whether it is interesting or not? I will tell you the story of my life. In the early spring the planter gets the ground ready for me. As soon as the frost is out of the ground, he plants me. _Little Girl._ What happens then? _Spirit of Cotton._ The good earth gives me food. The sun and rain make me grow, and soon-- Heigh ho! Ho heigh! There am I, A tall plant of cotton. _Little Girl._ How do you look? _Spirit of Cotton._ My leaves are green like the maple. I have lovely blossoms. They are white the first day and pink the next. _Little Girl._ I thought you said that you were a cotton plant. _Spirit of Cotton._ So I did. My blossoms fall off, and then-- Heigh ho! Ho heigh! There am I, A nice bunch of cotton. _Little Girl._ Is that all? _Spirit of Cotton._ No, I have some friends who will tell you more about my life. (_Goes out and returns leading a little girl by the hand._) This is my friend from India. (_Goes out again._) _Little Girl._ How did you get here? _Maiden from India._ I heard the Spirit of Cotton calling and I obeyed. _Little Girl_ (_pointing to a map of Asia which is pinned on Maiden from India_). Is this your country? _Maiden from India._ Yes, I have come to tell you something about cotton in my country. Cotton was first raised in my country. That was long, long, long ago. _Little Girl._ A hundred years ago? _Maiden from India._ We knew how to weave cotton thousands of years ago. _Little Girl._ Did you know how to weave well? _Maiden from India._ We made such fine dresses that you could draw a whole one through your ring. _Little Girl._ I don't believe I could draw my dress through my ring. _Maiden from India._ I know you couldn't. _Spirit of Cotton_ (_outside_). Heigh ho! Ho heigh! _Maiden from India._ I must return. The Spirit of Cotton is calling. (_Goes out._) _Spirit of Cotton_ (_comes in, leading a little girl by the hand_). This is my friend from Egypt. She has something to tell you too. (_Goes out._) _Little Girl._ Do you know about cotton? _Maiden from Egypt._ Yes, we knew how to use cotton long before your country was even heard of. _Little Girl._ Is this your country (_pointing to a map_)? _Maiden from Egypt._ Yes. _Little Girl._ Did your people like cotton dresses? _Maiden from Egypt._ Yes; just think how warm those woolen ones were. _Little Girl._ I guess every one who ever lived must have liked cotton. _Maiden from Egypt._ All good children do now. _Spirit of Cotton_ (_outside_). Heigh ho! Ho heigh! _Maiden from Egypt._ I must go. I hear the Spirit of Cotton calling. _Spirit of Cotton_ (_bringing a little girl into the room_). This is my friend from America. (_Goes out again._) _Little Girl._ I know you. We studied that map in school. You are from the United States. What did America have to do with cotton? _Maiden from America._ When Columbus first landed on the Bahama Islands the natives came out to his ships in canoes, bringing cotton thread and yarn to trade. _Little Girl._ That was in 1492, wasn't it? _Maiden from America._ Yes, it was 427 years ago. _Little Girl._ Why did you put all this cotton here (_points to cotton pasted on different states_)? _Maiden from America._ They are the cotton states. _Little Girl._ I know which ones they are--North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas. Did America do anything wonderful with cotton? _Maiden from America._ Yes; we raise more cotton than any other place in the world. It is the best cotton too. _Little Girl._ I am so glad of that. We won't let India and Egypt get ahead of us, will we? _Maiden from America._ Of course not. All good little girls must help too. _Little Girl._ I shall always like cotton after this. _Spirit of Cotton_ (_outside_). Heigh ho! Ho heigh! _Maiden from America._ I hear the Spirit of Cotton calling; I must go. (_Goes out._) _Spirit of Cotton_ (_leading a boy into the room_). This is my friend Eli Whitney. (_Goes out._) _Eli Whitney._ I am the Spirit of Eli Whitney. I was born in Massachusetts in 1765. One day when my father went to church, I took his watch to pieces and put it together again. Then I thought I would go to Yale College. When I finished Yale College I went to Georgia. I heard everyone there talking about cotton. They were trying to find out how to get the seeds out of it more easily. I invented the cotton gin. _Little Girl._ What happened then? _Eli Whitney._ One man could now clean fifty times as much cotton as he could before. _Spirit of Cotton_ (_outside_). Heigh ho! Ho heigh! _Eli Whitney._ I hear the Spirit of Cotton calling; I must go. (_Goes out._) _Little Girl_ (_waking up_). Where is the spirit of Cotton? Where is the Maiden from India? Where is the Spirit of Eli Whitney? It must have been a dream! I guess I got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I will always like cotton after this. I am going out to play now. The Cat and His Servant _Prepared by Alice Lewis, Teacher of Second Grade, Bangs School, Asbury Park_ _Dramatized from story of same name_ _Characters: Farmer, Cat, Fox, Wolf, Bear, Rabbit, Cow, Sheep._ _Materials used_: Small branches of tree, box for house, cards with printed names of animals. _Scene:_ The Forest. _Enter the Farmer and the Cat_ _Farmer._--I have a cat. He is very wild so I will take him to the forest. (_Puts cat in bag and takes him to tree._) I will leave him here. (_Takes off bag and leaves the cat._) _Cat._ I will build a house for myself and be the owner of this forest. (_Brings in box and nails boards._) Now my house is done. _Enter the Fox_ _Fox._ Good morning. What fine fur you have! What long whiskers you have! Who are you? _Cat._ I am Ivan, the owner of this forest. _Fox._ May I be your servant? _Cat._ Yes; you may. Come into my house. (_Both go in house._) I am hungry. Go out and get me something to eat. _Fox._ I will go. (_Goes into forest and meets Wolf._) _Wolf._ Good morning. _Fox._ Good morning. _Wolf._ I have not seen you for a long time. Where are you living now? _Fox._ I am living with Ivan. I am his servant. _Wolf._ Who is Ivan? _Fox._ He is the owner of this forest. _Wolf._ May I come with you and see Ivan? _Fox._ Yes; if you will promise to bring a sheep with you. If you do not Ivan will eat you. _Wolf._ I will go and get one. (_Leaves the fox and hunts for a sheep._) _Enter the Bear_ _Bear._ Good morning, Mr. Fox. _Fox._ Good morning, Mr. Bear. _Bear._ I have not seen you for a long time. Where are you living? _Fox._ I am living with Ivan. I am his servant. _Bear._ Who is Ivan? _Fox._ He is the owner of this forest. _Bear._ May I go with you and see him? _Fox._ Yes, but you must promise to bring a cow with you or Ivan will eat you. _Bear._ I will go and get one. (_Leaves the fox and hunts for a cow._) _The Fox returns to the house and enters_ _Cat._ Did you bring me something to eat? _Fox._ No; but I have sent for something and it will be here soon. _Cat._ All right; we will wait. _Enter Wolf with a sheep and Bear with a cow_ _Bear._ Good morning, Mr. Wolf. Where are you going? _Wolf._ Good morning. I am going to see Ivan, the owner of this forest. _Bear._ So am I. Let us go together. _Bear and Wolf walk to Cat's house and place sheep and cow near door_ _Wolf._ You knock on the door. _Bear._ No; you knock on the door. I am afraid. _Wolf._ So am I. Shall we ask Mr. Rabbit to do it? _Bear._ Yes; you ask him. _Wolf_ (_calling to a rabbit who is passing_). Hello, Mr. Rabbit; will you knock at the Cat's door for us? _Rabbit._ Yes, I will. _(Knocks.)_ _Bear and Wolf hide behind the trees and bushes_ _Cat_ (_coming out of his house with the Fox and noticing the cow and sheep lying by the door_). Look! here is what you got for my dinner. There is only enough for two bites. _Bear_ (_to himself_). How hungry he is. A cow would be enough to eat for four bears and he says it is only enough for two bites. What a terrible animal he is. _Cat_ (_seeing Wolf behind the bushes_). Look! there is a mouse. I must catch him and eat him. (_Chases Wolf away._) I think I hear another mouse. (_Sees Bear and tries to catch him but fails._) I am so tired that I cannot run at all. Let us sit by the door and eat our dinner. (_Cat and Fox sit down and eat the sheep and cow._) BIBLIOGRAPHY See Bibliography at end of monograph. COLUMBUS DAY October 12 Columbus, seeking the back door of Asia, found himself knocking at the front door of America. _James Russell Lowell_ COLUMBUS DAY J. CAYCE MORRISON, SUPERVISING PRINCIPAL, LEONIA October 12, 1492! What a date in the world's history--the linking of the new world with the old--the dreams of a dreamer come true--the opening of the gates to a newer and better home for man--the promise of--America! The story of Columbus is a story of romance, of patient perseverance, of high endeavor, of noble resolve--a story that grips and thrills. Every boy and every girl who feels the story wants to discover a new world; and out of that desire may well come the discovery of America--its aims, ideals, opportunities. The Columbus Day program is an opportunity to discover the new world into which we are emerging. Even childhood in the school may come to glimpse that which lies beyond and feel the exultation of the sailor who cried, "Land! Land!" The materials of this program are largely suggestive. It is hoped that they may be of service in program making from kindergarten to high school. The school program of most value is that which results from the creative genius of the children themselves. Let children live the life of Columbus in imagination and they will create their own program and express it in costume, tableaux, music, composition, acting, and dialog. The merit of the Columbus Day program will lie in its leading children, through their own expression, to a better understanding of their country, to a broader conception of patriotism. SUBJECTS FOR COMPOSITION OR ORAL REPORTS Marco Polo A flat world The new idea--sailing west to reach the east The dangers of the western sea The attempted mutiny (See Irving's "Life of Columbus") The signs of land Columbus in chains San Salvador October 12, 1492 The Columbian Exposition, 1892 The discovery of America, 1919 What Columbus would do today A Little Program for Columbus Day Recitation (By three boys bearing the American flag, the Spanish flag, and a drum) _1st_--We are jolly little sailors; Join us as we come; We'll bear the flag of proud old Spain, And we will beat a drum! _2d_--We are jolly little sailors, And we pause to say, We raise the bonny flag of Spain Upon Columbus Day. _3d_--We are jolly little sailors; Raise the red, the white, the blue; Though we honor brave Columbus, To our own flag we are true. _All_--(Beat drum and wave flag) Salute the banners, one and all, O raise them once again; Salute the red, the white, the blue, Salute the flag of Spain! For countries old and countries new, We will wave the red, the white, the blue! Recitation (By eight girls carrying banners that bear letters spelling "Columbus") C Columbus sailed o'er waters blue, O On and on to countries new. L Long the ships sailed day and night, U Until at last land came in sight. M Many hearts were filled with fear, B But the land was drawing near. U Upon the ground they knelt at last S So their dangers all were past. _All_ Wave the banners bright and gay, We meet to keep Columbus Day. Crowning Columbus (Recitation by four children. Picture of Columbus on easel. Children place on it evergreen and flower wreaths and flags) _1st_--Crown him with a wreath of evergreen, The very fairest ever seen-- Our brave Columbus. _2d_--Crown him with flowers fresh and fair; We'll place them by his picture there-- Our brave Columbus. _3d_--Crown him with the flag of Spain; Columbus day has come again-- Our brave Columbus. _4th_--Crown him with red, and white, and blue; Bring out the drum and banners too-- Our brave Columbus. _All_--As we stand by his picture here, Columbus' name we all revere-- Our brave Columbus. What We Can Do (Recitation by two small boys, carrying flag) 1. I wish I could do some great deed-- Just find a world or two, So that the flag might wave for me As for Columbus true. It makes a small child very sad To think all great deeds done. What is then left for us to do? What's to be tried and won? 2. My father says--and he knows too, For he's a grown up man-- That heroes leave some things for us To carry out their plan. He says that if we do our best, Just where we are, you see, We too shall serve our country's flag; True patriots we shall be. _Both._ We'll love our flag, we'll keep its pledge; We'll honor and obey; We'll love our fellow brothers all; And serve our land this way. Recitation (By a very small child, carrying a flag) My beautiful flag, You are waving today, To honor a hero true; Columbus who gave us Our dear native land, Our land of the Red, White and Blue. Recitation (By a very small child, carrying a flag) I'll wave my flag for Discovery Day, And before I get frightened I'll scamper away. Columbus Game The children stand in a circle. They choose one to represent Columbus. The children all sing the song (given below). As they sing the fifth line Columbus points to three children, who become the Nina (baby), the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. These three children come inside the circle, and wave arms up and down as though sailing. The children now all repeat the song, marching round in the circle, waving arms up and down, and the children inside the circle skip round also. The song is then repeated, children standing in a circle, and the three chosen as Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria choose three children to take their places by pointing at any three children in the circle. Game may continue as long as desired or until all have had a chance to go inside the circle.[A] [A] The story of Columbus may be dramatized in connection with this game. Song Columbus was a sailor boy, Many years ago. A great ship was the sailor's joy, Many years ago. The Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria, Little vessels three, The Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria, Sailed out across the sea. _Laura Rountree Smith_ My Little Ship Once I made a little ship, Down beside the sea; And I said, "Come now, dear winds, And blow it back to me!" O little ship that sails the sea. O wind that blows it back to me! Song _Tune, Lightly Row_ Wave the flags, wave the flags; We are sailor boys at play; Wave the flags, wave the flags, On Columbus Day. O'er the waters we will go, Singing, singing, as we row; Wave the flags to and fro, On Columbus Day. (_Children wave flags_) Cross the flags, cross the flags, With their pretty colors gay; Cross the flags, cross the flags, On Columbus Day. We would like to sail, 'tis true, O'er the waters bright and blue, So we cross the flags for you On Columbus Day. (_Children cross flags_) _Laura Rountree Smith_ Recitation for Very Little Boys _1st_--Columbus was a sailor bold, At least that's what I have been told. _2d_--I would also like to sail the sea, If not too far from mother's knee. _3d_--He had three ships to sail the sea, One ship would be enough for me. _4th_--In the Nina I would go; But what if stormy winds should blow? _5th_--In the Pinta I'll set sail; That ship has weathered many a gale. _6th_--The Santa Maria waits for me; O how I love to sail the sea. _7th_--At night we'll glide across the foam, But wish ourselves quite safe at home. _8th_--Kind friends, I hope you understand, We are really happier far on land. (_All join hands and run to seats_) Then come, dear sailors, hand in hand, We'll run to seek the nearest land! Play (_Ferdinand and Isabella on their thrones, chairs with a red drapery concealing them._) _Enter Columbus and followers, bowing low_ _Columbus_ O most gracious majesties! _Ferdinand_ My wise men say your scheme is vain, So your plan I must disdain; If as _you_ say this earth is round No one could stay upon the ground. (_Bows his head and looks very wise. Columbus looks sadly around and sighs. Queen Isabella stretches forth her hand._) _Queen_ I have talked to the Abbot kind, And he has made me change my mind. Take these and these (_dropping her bracelets and necklaces into Columbus' hat_) and may you be, Successful in your quest at sea. _Columbus and followers_ Long live, long live Isabella the queen! Such generous faith has seldom been seen. Long live, long live Isabella the queen! _All_ (_except Columbus, who bows as he listens_) Here's to Columbus, so brave and so true, Who will soon sail west on the ocean blue To--find--the--land--of--India. _Headed by king and queen all march around and off_ _One returns_ Columbus safely made his voyage And now, though he never knew it, He discovered this land, the fair land of our birth, The greatest nation on all the earth. (_Displays flag_) _All except Columbus return and sing America_ _Mary R. Campbell_ Recitation (_By three boys_) _1st_--Columbus dared to cross the sea Where none had gone before; And sailing west from Palos, Spain, He came to our front door. _2d_--His men were only prisoners Queen Isabel set free; For other men, they did not dare To cross the unknown sea. _3d_--He had no friend to share his hope; No one could understand; Now all men honor his great name, Who first saw our dear land. _All_--If we can only be as true To our best selves as he, Speak truth, keep faith, be brave and pure, True heroes we shall be. Discovery Day I wonder what Columbus Would think of us today, Just stepping out from '92, Four centuries on, we'll say. With aeroplanes and warships, And submarine affairs, He'd surely think the mighty sea Was putting on some airs. Discovery Day, we greet you; You're only just begun; Industry, art, and science now, Begin their race to run. But brighter than these wonders, More beautiful to see, Democracy's fair smile begins To dawn o'er land and sea. Discovery Day! When Freedom Shall reign in every land, When nations know their brotherhood, And naught but good is grand. America, thy mission Be this: discover now A _world_ safe for Democracy. 'Tis ours to teach it how. The Flag of Spain _Tune--Long, Long Ago_ There was a flag that waved all over Spain Long, long ago; long, long ago. And many sailors had gone forth in vain, Long, long ago, long ago. Then came the ships and Columbus set sail; Proudly the vessels withstood every gale. Then came the cry, "Blessed land, land we hail," Long, long ago, long ago. Columbus A dreamer they called him, And mocked him to scorn, But O, through this dreamer A new world was born. A new land whose watchword Is ringing afar-- "Democracy! Freedom!" That none shall dare mar. A nation whose vision Is making it be Humanity's champion On land and on sea. America, my land, A dream gave thee birth; Through vision thou'st conquered In all realms of worth. Thy spirit shall beckon Till all nations heed, And follow in wisdom The path thou dost lead. CLASS EXERCISE FOR COLUMBUS DAY The foundation for these exercises should be laid in previous class recitations and specially prepared class compositions which relate developing incidents in the life of Columbus. Several periods used in the preparation of these oral and written exercises will be time well spent. Select the composition which portrays the life pictures most clearly and effectively; and as the writer reads his story, let other members of the class give tableaux or act scenes apropos. The children should be encouraged to initiate their own ideas and execute their own mental pictures in costume, arrangement, facial expression, etc. The following are mentioned _suggestively_: Acts portraying the life of Columbus 1. Columbus, the boy Boy of nine to eleven years, seated, intently studying a geography, _or_ Boy whittling a wooden toy ship. 2. Columbus, the man Larger boy, posing as a dreamer, gazing at and studying the stars, _or_ Larger boy drawing maps, appearing wise and thoughtful. (Let others stand aside, smiling and mockingly pointing.) 3. Columbus' appearance before King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella King and Queen, dressed in royal style, on improvised throne; Columbus kneeling before them; the queen offering him her jewels. 4. On shipboard Boys representing mutinous sailors, their faces depicting fear, anger, dejection--dressed sailor fashion. Columbus displaying confidence, courage and patience--dressed in short full trousers, cape over his shoulders thrown back on one side. Let facial expressions and actions change to show land has been sighted. 5. The landing Columbus planting the flag of Spain in the New World. Sailors (all with uncovered heads) kneeling. Indians (let the boys wear Indian suits) watching from the outskirts, one falling down in worship. 6. The return reception King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella on throne, dressed as before, with guards on either side. Ladies-in-waiting, noblemen, etc., dressed in 15th century style, grouped about. Columbus enters (to music). All bow low except king and queen, who rise to meet him. Columbus kneels before them, kisses the queen's hand and rises. Indians enter (with bow and arrow) and gaze in wonder about. One Indian plucks Columbus by sleeve and gruntingly interrogates him concerning some wonder in the room--a picture of the king and queen, decorated with Spanish flags. The king takes the hand of the Indian, places it in Columbus' hand and, covering them with his own left hand, raises the right to signify his blessing upon the newly found land. Music gives the signal for the recessional. All fall into line and march out--guards, king, queen, Columbus, ladies, and courtiers. The Indians follow irregularly. THE BOY COLUMBUS "'Tis a wonderful story," I hear you say, "How he struggled and worked and plead and prayed, And faced every danger undismayed, With a will that would neither break nor bend, And discovered a new world in the end-- But what does it teach to a boy of today? All the worlds are discovered, you know, of course, All the rivers are traced to their utmost source; There is nothing left for a boy to find, If he had ever so much a mind To become a discoverer famous; And if we'd much rather read a book About some one else, and the risks he took, Why nobody, surely, can blame us." So you think all the worlds are discovered now; All the lands have been charted and sailed about, Their mountains climbed, their secrets found out; All the seas have been sailed and their currents known-- To the uttermost isles the winds have blown They have carried a venturing prow? Yet there lie all about us new worlds, everywhere, That await their discoverer's footfall; spread fair Are electrical worlds that no eye has yet seen, And mechanical worlds that lie hidden serene And await their Columbus securely. There are new worlds in Science and new worlds in Art, And the boy who will work with his head and his heart Will discover his new world surely. COLUMBUS AND THE EGG One day Columbus was at a dinner which a Spanish gentleman had given in his honor, and several persons were present who were jealous of the great Admiral's success. They were proud, conceited fellows, and they very soon began to try to make Columbus uncomfortable. "You have discovered strange lands beyond the seas," they said, "but what of that? We do not see why there should be so much said about it. Anybody can sail across the ocean; and anybody can coast along the islands on the other side, just as you have done. It is the simplest thing in the world." Columbus made no answer; but after a while he took an egg from a dish and said to the company: "Who among you, gentlemen, can make this egg stand on end?" One by one those at the table tried the experiment. When the egg had gone entirely around and none had succeeded, all said that it could not be done. Then Columbus took the egg and struck its small end gently upon the table so as to break the shell a little. After that there was no trouble in making it stand upright. "Gentlemen," said he, "what is easier than to do this which you said was impossible? It is the simplest thing in the world. Anybody can do it--after he has been shown how!" COLUMBUS DAY (_Fitchburg, Massachusetts, Normal School_) This entertainment is simply an attempt to give a few of the most dramatic incidents in the life of Columbus as connected with his discovery of the New World. Other scenes could be readily added, although it would require some care to avoid an anti-climax. A. In Spain at the Council of Salamanca Before this scene is presented give a brief explanation and description of the early life of Columbus and his attempts to obtain aid. _Characters_: Churchmen and counselors at the court of Spain (seven to ten) and Columbus. _Costumes_: The _churchmen_ are dressed in long black garments, except two, who have black capes with white underneath. Columbus wears a long, black garment or coat, which plainly shows the poverty of its owner. _Tableau I--Columbus before the Council at Salamanca_ The characters are arranged somewhat as in a picture of this scene found in the Perry pictures. A picture of this scene is also found in Lossing's History of the United States, volume I. Only the chief characters are shown in this tableau. Three churchmen or counselors are in center near Columbus; two at left, one pointing mockingly, or making fun of Columbus; two stand haughtily in the back, and there may also be two or three at right. Columbus has a partly open roll of parchment in one hand and is pointing with the other. One of the churchmen in the center has an open Bible in his hand, and another has a book which he is holding out to Columbus. B. On Shipboard _Characters_: Columbus, the mate, other sailors. _Costumes_: Columbus, red cape; sailors, sweaters and sailor caps. _Tableau II--Nearing Land; Columbus and the Mate_ The conversation in Joaquin Miller's "Columbus" takes place between Columbus and mate. The sailors are in the background, one holding a lantern. Between the different parts of his conversation with Columbus, the mate goes to consult with the sailors. The last stanza of the poem is given by some one from the wings. When the reader reaches the line, "A light! A light!" Columbus and the mate change their position. Columbus points and the mate raises his arm, peering forward. (Picture in "Leading Facts of American History," by Montgomery, revised edition. Also in "Stepping Stones of American History.") C. In the new world _Characters_: Columbus, three noblemen, eight sailors, six Indians. _Costumes_: Columbus and the noblemen wear the Spanish costume of the fifteenth century (described later). Sailors wear sweaters and sailor caps made from blue, red or grey cambric. Indians wear Indian suits (nearly all boys have or may obtain them from any clothing store). They carry bows and arrows or tomahawks. The spears and swords for this and the following scene are made from wood, bronzed to look like silver. The tall cross is made of wood and stained with shellac. The banner of the expedition is white, with a green cross. Over the initials F and Y (Ferdinand and Ysabella) are two gilt crowns. _Tableau III--The landing of Columbus_ The characters are posed from Vanderlyn's painting of the scene in the Capitol at Washington. Reproductions are found in many histories and among the Perry pictures. Columbus holds the banner of the expedition in one hand, and a drawn sword in the other. One of the men has a tall staff with the top in form of a cross; two others hold tall spears. The Indians are peering out at the white men from the sides of the stage; one of them is down on the stage with his head bowed on his hands, worshipping the strangers; the others seem to be full of fear and curiosity. D. At Barcelona in Spain Before this scene is presented a description of the reception of Columbus by the king and queen upon his return to Spain is given. This scene is more elaborate than any of the others. _Characters and costumes_: Queen, red robe, purple figured front; collar and trimmings of ermine. She wears a crown. Ermine is made of cotton with little pieces of black cloth sewed on it, crown of cardboard covered with gilt paper. Dress cheesecloth with a front of silkoline. King wears purple full, short trousers (trunks), purple doublet, purple cape and gilt crown. The trousers and cape are trimmed with ermine. The two guards have black trousers (trunks) and red capes, collars, and knee pieces made from silver paper; they wear storm hats covered with silver paper, and carry spears. The two ladies-in-waiting wear dresses fixed to resemble the dress of the period. They have high headpieces shaped like cornucopias, made from cardboard covered with gilt paper, and with long veils draped over them; this was one style of headpiece worn in the fifteenth century. The eight churchmen, eight sailors and six Indians are dressed as in previous scenes. The little page of Columbus is dressed in his own white suit. Columbus wears grey and red clothing. The ten noblemen wear combinations of bright colors. The general plan in regard to the dress of the Spanish nobility in the time of Columbus is to have the full, short trousers (trunks) made of one color and slashed with another; the upper garment or doublet made of figured silkoline; the cape of one color lined with another, worn turned back over one shoulder; pointed collars and cuffs of white glazed or silver paper; and soft felt hats with plumes. Each nobleman carries a sword. The gold brought by the sailors may be made by gilding stones. _Tableau IV--Reception of Columbus by King and Queen_ In center of stage is raised platform or throne with two or three steps leading up to it: this throne is covered with figured raw silk (yellow and brown). Chairs are placed on throne for king and queen. The scene is an attempt to represent the reception of Columbus on his return to Spain after his first voyage. (See painting by Ricardo Balaca, the Spanish artist, of Columbus before Ferdinand and Isabella at Barcelona.) A march may be played on the piano while the different characters in the tableau come on the stage and take their proper positions. First the two royal guards march to the throne, taking positions one on each side, so that the king and queen may pass between them in mounting the platform. They are followed by the king and queen, and then the ladies-in-waiting. The king and queen mount the platform and take seats; the ladies wait in front of the platform until the king and queen are seated, then they take positions on each side of the throne. The guards, after the king and queen are seated, take positions on the platform in the rear. All these come as one group in the procession, with only a little space between them. Next come the churchmen. One of them carries the tall cross. They take their places at the right of the queen. The Indians come, shuffling across the stage to the extreme left of the king and queen. Of course they know nothing of keeping time to the music or paying homage to royalty. The sailors march upon the stage, each bringing something from the New World--gold, a stuffed bird, or some product. Each in turn approaches the king and queen, kneels, and then places whatever he carries at the side of the platform, and takes his place on the left. The noblemen, one by one, come in with great dignity, go to the front of the throne, kneel and salute with their swords. Then they go to the right of the stage. Finally the music sounds a more triumphal note, announcing the approach of the hero of the occasion. Columbus is preceded by his page, carrying the banner of the expedition. The page kneels to the king and queen, then goes to the left, where he is to stand just back of the place reserved for Columbus. As Columbus approaches the throne, the king and queen rise and come forward to do him honor. Columbus kneels, kisses the queen's hand, then rises and points out to the king and queen the treasures which his sailors have brought. He also brings forward one of the Indians. The king and queen regard everything with interest. After this, at a signal given on the piano, all kneel to give thanks for the discovery of the New World. The Te Deum Laudamus is chanted or the Doxology is sung. This is the end of the reception. * * * * * This scene may be simplified, if desired, and given in the form of two tableaux. Columbus kneeling before the queen and king and Columbus telling his story may be given separately. There need not be as many characters in the scene. See the picture, "Reception of Columbus" (adapted from the picture by Ricardo Balaca) in "America's Story for American Children," by Mara L. Pratt. It would be easy to give the substance of this entertainment in any schoolroom and without costumes. Even with these limitations the story of Columbus would become more real to the children in this way than it could be made by any description. A good description of the reception of Columbus in Spain after his first voyage is given in the "Life of Columbus," by Washington Irving. A description and picture of the banner of the expedition may be found in Lossing's "History of the United States," volume I. Music that may be used: "Columbus Song," taken from "1492"; the "New Hail Columbia." THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA It was on the morning of Friday, 12th of October, 1492, that Columbus first beheld the New World.... No sooner did he land than he threw himself upon his knees, kissed the earth, and returned thanks to God with tears of joy. His example was followed by the rest, whose hearts indeed overflowed with the same feelings of gratitude. Columbus then rising drew his sword, displayed the royal standard, and ... took solemn possession in the name of the Castilian sovereigns, giving the island the name of San Salvador. Having complied with the requisite forms and ceremonies, he now called upon all present to take the oath of obedience to him, as admiral and viceroy, representing the persons of the sovereigns. The feelings of the crew now burst forth in the most extravagant transports.... They thronged around the Admiral in their overflowing zeal. Some embraced him, others kissed his hands. Those who had been most mutinous and turbulent during the voyage, were now most devoted and enthusiastic. Some begged favors of him, as of a man who had already wealth and honors in his gift. Many abject spirits, who had outraged him by their insolence, now crouched as it were at his feet, begging pardon for all the trouble they had caused him, and offering for the future the blindest obedience to his commands. _Washington Irving_ IMMORTAL MORN Immortal morn, all hail! That saw Columbus sail By Faith alone! The skies before him bowed, Back rolled the ocean proud, And every lifting cloud With glory shone. Fair science then was born, On that celestial morn, Faith dared the sea; Triumphant over foes Then Truth immortal rose, New heavens to disclose, And earth to free. Strong Freedom then came forth, To liberate the earth And crown the right; So walked the pilot bold Upon the sea of gold, And darkness backward rolled, And there was light. _Hezekiah Butterworth_ All hail, Columbus, discoverer, dreamer, hero, and apostle! We here, of every race and country, recognize the horizon which bounded his vision, and the infinite scope of his genius. The voice of gratitude and praise for all the blessings which have been showered upon mankind by his adventure is limited to no language, but is uttered in every tongue. Neither marble nor brass can fitly form his statue. Continents are his monument, and unnumbered millions, past, present, and to come, who enjoy in their liberties and their happiness the fruits of his faith, will reverently guard and preserve, from century to century, his name and fame. _Chauncey Mitchell Depew_ Little wonder that the whole world takes from the life of Columbus one of its best-beloved illustrations of the absolute power of faith. To a faithless world he made a proposal, and the world did not hear it. To that faithless world he made it again and again, and at last roused the world to ridicule it and to contradict it. To the same faithless world he still made it year after year; and at last the world said that, when it was ready, it would try if he were right; to which his only reply is that he is ready now, that the world must send him now on the expedition which shall show whether he is right or wrong. The world, tired of his importunity, consents, unwillingly enough, that he shall try the experiment. He tries it; he succeeds; and the world turns round and welcomes him with a welcome which it cannot give to a conqueror. In a moment the grandeur of his plans is admitted, their success is acknowledged, and his place is fixed as one of the great men of history. Give me white paper! The sheet you use is black and rough with smears Of sweat and grime and fraud and blood and tears, Crossed with the story of men's sins and fears, Of battle and of famine all those years When all God's children have forgot their birth And drudged and fought and died like beasts of earth. Give me white paper! One storm-trained seaman listened to the word; What no man saw he saw, and heard what no man heard. For answer he compelled the sea To eager man to tell The secret she had kept so well; Left blood and woe and tyranny behind, Sailing still West that land newborn to find, For all mankind the unstained page unfurled, Where God might write anew the story of the world. _Edward Everett Hale_ [Illustration: Columbus "Admiral at the Helm"] The fame of Columbus is not local or limited. It does not belong to any single country or people. It is the proud possession of the whole civilized world. In all the transactions of history there is no act which for vastness and performance can be compared with the discovery of the continent of America, "the like of which was never done by any man in ancient or in later times." _James Grant Wilson_ With boldness unmatched, with faith in the teachings of science and of revelation immovable, with patience and perseverance that knew no weariness, with superior skill as a navigator unquestioned, and with a lofty courage unrivaled in the history of the race, Columbus sailed from Palos on the 3d of August, with three vessels, the largest (his flagship) of only ninety feet keel, and provided with four masts, eight anchors, and sixty-six seamen. Passing the Canaries and the blazing peak of Teneriffe, he pushed westward into the "sea of darkness," in defiance of the fierce dragons with which superstition had peopled it, and the prayers and threats of his mutinous seamen, and on the 12th of October landed on one of the Bahama Islands. _Benson J. Lossing_ COLUMBUS[B] [B] From complete works of Joaquin Miller, published by the Harr Wagner Publishing Company of San Francisco. Behind him lay the gray Azores, Behind the Gates of Hercules; Before him not the ghost of shores, Before him only shoreless seas. The good mate said: "Now must we pray, For lo! the very stars are gone. Brave Admiral, speak; what shall I say?" "Why, say 'Sail on! sail on! and on!'" "My men grow mutinous day by day; My men grow ghastly wan and weak." The stout mate thought of home; a spray Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. "What shall I say, brave Admiral, say, If we sight naught but seas at dawn?" "Why, you shall say at break of day, 'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!'" They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow, Until at last the blanched mate said: "Why, now not even God would know Should I and all my men fall dead. These very winds forget their way, For God from these dread seas is gone. Now speak, brave Admiral, speak and say--" He said: "Sail on! sail on! and on!" They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate: "This mad sea shows his teeth tonight. He curls his lip, he lies in wait, He lifts his teeth, as if to bite! Brave Admiral, say but one good word; What shall we do when hope is gone?" The words leapt like a leaping sword: "Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!" Then pale and worn, he paced his deck, And peered through darkness. Ah, that night, Of all dark nights! And then a speck-- A light! A light! At last a light! It grew, a starlit flag unfurled! It grew to be Time's burst of dawn. He gained a world; he gave that world Its grandest lesson: "Oh! sail on!" _Joaquin Miller_ He failed. He reached to grasp Hesperides, To track the foot-course of the sun, that flies Toward some far western couch, and watch its rise-- But fell on unknown sand-reefs, chains, disease. He won. With splendid daring, from the sea's Hard, niggard fist he plucked the glittering prize, And gave a virgin world to Europe's eyes, Where gold dust choked the streams, and spice the breeze. He failed fulfillment of the task he planned, And drooped a weary head on empty hand, Unconscious of the vaster deed he'd done; But royal legacy to Ferdinand He left--a key to doorways gilt with sun-- And proudest title of "World-father" won! _George W. W. Houghton_ With all the visionary fervor of his imagination, its fondest dreams fell short of the reality. He died in ignorance of the real grandeur of his discovery. Until his last breath, he entertained the idea that he had merely opened a new way to the old resorts of opulent commerce, and had discovered some of the wild regions of the East.... What visions of glory would have broke upon his mind, could he have known that he had indeed discovered a new continent, equal to the whole of the old world in magnitude, and separated by two vast oceans from all of the earth hitherto known by civilized man; and how would his magnanimous spirit have been consoled, amidst the chills of age and cares of penury, the neglect of a fickle public, and the injustice of an ungrateful king, could he have anticipated the splendid empires which were to spread over the beautiful world he had discovered, and the nations, and tongues, and languages, which were to fill its lands with his renown, and to revere and bless his name to the latest posterity! _Washington Irving_ ON A PORTRAIT OF COLUMBUS Was this his face, and these the finding eyes That plucked a new world from the rolling seas? Who, serving Christ, whom most he sought to please, Willed the great vision till he saw arise Man's other home and earthly paradise-- His early thought since first with stalwart knees He pushed the boat from his young olive trees, And sailed to wrest the secret of the skies. He on the waters dared to set his feet, And through believing planted earth's last race. What faith in man must in our new world beat, Thinking how once he saw before his face The west and all the host of stars retreat Into the silent infinite of space! _George Edward Woodberry_ Of no use are the men who study to do exactly as was done before, who can never understand that today is a new day. There never was such a combination as this of ours, and the rules to meet it are not set down in any history. We want men of original perception and original action, who can open their eyes wider than to a nationality--namely, to considerations of benefit to the human race--can act in the interest of civilization; men of elastic, men of moral mind, who can live in the moment and take a step forward. Columbus was no backward-creeping crab, nor was Martin Luther, nor John Adams, nor Patrick Henry, nor Thomas Jefferson; and the Genius or Destiny of America is no log or sluggard, but a man incessantly advancing, as the shadow on the dial's face, or the heavenly body by whose light it is marked. _Ralph Waldo Emerson_ ADDRESS TO AMERICA (_From a Commencement Poem, Dartmouth College. 1872_) As a strong bird on pinions free, Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving, One song, America, before I go, I'd sing, o'er all the rest, with trumpet sound, For thee, the Future. Sail--sail thy best, Ship of Democracy! Of value is thy freight--'tis not the Present only, The Past is also stored in thee! Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone-- Not of thy western continent alone; Earth's résumé entire floats on thy keel, O Ship-- Is steadied by thy spars. With thee Time voyages in trust, The antecedent nations sink or swim with thee; With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes, epics, wars, Thou bears't the other continents; Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port triumphant, Steer, steer with good strong hand and wary eye-- O helmsman--thou carryest great companions, Venerable, priestly Asia sails this day with thee, And royal, feudal Europe sails with thee. _Walt Whitman_ AMERICA O mother of a mighty race, Yet lovely in thy youthful grace! The elder dames, thy haughty peers, Admire and hate thy blooming years; With words of shame And taunts of scorn they join thy name.... They know not, in their hate and pride, What virtues with thy children bide; How true, how good, thy graceful maids Make bright, like flowers, the valley shades; What generous men Spring, like thine oaks, by hill and glen. What cordial welcomes greet the guest By thy lone rivers of the West; How faith is kept, and truth revered, And man is loved and God is feared, In woodland homes, And where the ocean border foams. There's freedom at thy gates, and rest For earth's down-trodden and opprest; A shelter for the hunted head; For the starved laborer toil and bread. Power, at thy bounds, Stops, and calls back his baffled hounds. O fair young mother! on thy brow Shall sit a nobler grace than now. Deep in the brightness of thy skies The thronging years in glory rise, And, as they fleet, Drop strength and riches at thy feet. Thine eye, with every coming hour, Shall brighten, and thy form shall tower; And when thy sisters, elder born, Would brand thy name with words of scorn, Before thy eye Upon their lips the taunt shall die. _William Cullen Bryant_ THE WESTERN LAND Great Western land, whose mighty breast Between two oceans finds its rest, Begirt by storms on either side, And washed by strong Pacific tide. The knowledge of thy wondrous birth Gave balance to the rounded earth; In sea of darkness thou didst stand, Now first in light, great Western land. In thee the olive and the vine Unite with hemlock and with pine; In purest white the southern rose Repeats the spotless northern snows. Around thy zone a belt of maize Rejoices in the sun's hot rays; And all that Nature could command She heaped on thee, great Western land. Great Western land, whose touch makes free, Advance to perfect liberty, Till right shall make thy sov'reign might, And every wrong be crushed from sight. Behold thy day, thy time is here; Thy people great, with naught to fear. God hold thee in His strong right hand, My well beloved Western land. _Caroline Hazard_ OUR NATIONAL IDEALS[C] [C] Used by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers. Foremost among the ideals which have characterized our national life is the spirit of self-reliance. The very first chapter of our national history records the story of a man, who arose from among the toilers of his time, and whom eighteen years of disappointed hopes could not dismay. It tells how this man, holding out the promise of a new dominion, at last overcame the opposition of royal courtiers, and secured the tardy support of reluctant rulers. And when, at Palos, Columbus flung to the breeze the sails of his frail craft, and ventured upon that unknown ocean from which, according to the belief of his age, there was no hope of return, he displayed the chief characteristic of the American people--the spirit of self-reliance. What is this spirit? Emerson has expressed it in a sentence: "We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds." This was the spirit which animated that little group of colonists who preferred the unknown hardships of the new world to the certain tyranny of the old; who chose to break old ties, to brave the sea, to face the loneliness and perils of life in a strange land--a land of difficulties and dangers, but a land of liberty and opportunity.... In order that our country may continue this proud record of self-reliance, each one of us has a special obligation. Every citizen in his individual life should live up to the same ideal of self-reliance. The young citizen who relies on himself, who does honest work in school, never cheating or shirking, who is always, ready to do a little more than is actually required of him, who thinks for himself, acts rightly because he loves right actions--such a citizen is doing his part in helping to achieve our national ideal of self-reliance. _William Backus Guitteau_ I believe in my country. I believe in it because it is made up of my fellow-men--and myself. I can't go back on either of us and be true to my creed. If it isn't the best country in the world it is partly because I am not the kind of a man that I should be. _Charles Stelzle_ BIBLIOGRAPHY See Bibliography at end of monograph. THANKSGIVING DAY Last Thursday in November For flowers that bloom about our feet; For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet; For song of bird, and hum of bee; For all things fair we hear or see, Father in heaven, we thank Thee! For blue of stream and blue of sky; For pleasant shade of branches high; For fragrant air and cooling breeze; For beauty of the blooming trees, Father in heaven, we thank Thee! _Ralph Waldo Emerson_ THANKSGIVING DAY ROY L. SHAFFER, STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, NEWARK Among our national holidays Thanksgiving should be a red letter day. We need these days so that the modern tendency of reducing all days to the same mediocre level may be overcome. Such days, when contrasted with common school days, show a wonderful stimulation. Hence it is urged that the celebration of Thanksgiving take on the aspect of the play-festival. The play-festival will have a potent effect on the audience and the actors. The audience will be composed for the most part of the school body and on this body the festival program will have a unifying effect. For this reason it is further urged that an entire grade, or perhaps a group of grades, be employed to render the program. Such a rendition will be treated as a contribution from a part to the whole. The festival to be effective must bind the entire school into one social group. The response of the audience will be complementary and the spirit and the pride of the school will give forth inspiration to the actor and the audience. The performer must make others feel what he knows, and thus his learning becomes intensified. The result is that the play-festival has two high values, the social and the educational. The essential problem which arises, and which must be answered by every teacher, is, "What shall be done to provide a good program, and how shall it be done?" The answer will come from a careful survey of the needs, capacities, and make-up of each individual or group of pupils. The answer includes the utilization of the dramatic instinct, i. e., the play instinct, which finds expression through singing, speaking and dancing. The successful festival must be well organized, and this organization must be effected according to a suitable program. (1) The history of the day must be clearly brought to the attention of the pupils. (2) There should be a committee appointed to have supervision of the arranging of the festival. (3) A program full of content should-be arranged. (4) What constitutes the proper program for a Thanksgiving festival should have the careful thought of those in charge. The children should be actual factors in planning the program, as well as in presenting it. In order that Thanksgiving Day may be celebrated in an appropriate manner it is necessary that its history be fully comprehended by the entire school. Teachers of all grades should use the historic material that will meet the needs and capacities of their pupils. This material should be correlated with as much of the regular school work as may seem advisable. It is essential that the entire school fully appreciate the historic foundations of the day, so that they may comprehend the setting which has so much to do with this holiday. Furthermore, a full comprehension of the history as a background for this festival will stimulate the school audience, so that they will receive from the program those things which we believe they ought to receive from the celebration. HISTORY The following extracts relative to the history of Thanksgiving have been selected because they are exceptionally interesting; they show that traditionally the celebration of this holiday is truly American; they also give hints as to the wealth of material that may be woven into a program for the play-festival. The first year of the Pilgrim settlement, in spite of that awful winter when nearly half of their number perished, had been comparatively successful. The Pilgrims had planted themselves well, and it is easy to understand why this fact should have appealed to the mind of their governor, William Bradford, as an especial reason for proclaiming a season of thanksgiving. The exact date is not certain, but from the records we learn that it was an open air feast. It is evident that it must have occurred in that lovely period of balmy, calm, cool air and soft sunshine which is called Indian Summer, and which may be considered to range between the latter week of October and the latter week of November. It came at the end of the year's harvest. In confirmation, let us quote from the writing of Edward Winslow, thrice governor of the Pilgrims: "Our corn did prove well; and, God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley indifferent good. Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors." We learn that as a result of this hunting expedition they had many wild turkeys, which the women probably stuffed with beechnuts, and they brought home wood pigeons and partridges in abundance. But, it seems, they must have lacked deer, since the Indians, with their king, Massasoit, volunteered to go out and bring in the venison. One noteworthy fact is the relations that existed between the Pilgrims and the Indians. At this first Thanksgiving feast King Massasoit and ninety of his warriors were present. They entered heartily into the preparations of thanksgiving. What a cheerful spectacle it must have been to see the Indian guests appearing, carrying a many branched buck or a pretty doe, possibly hung across the stalwart shoulders of some giant red man? Shall one doubt that the Pilgrim gravity was for a moment dispelled, when the Indians approached with their delicious contribution to the feast? Can't we hear the welcoming cheer that arose from the throats of those Englishmen, or the clapping of the hands of the younger women as those Indian athletes entered the camp? It is also recorded that from their Indian guests the Pilgrims received clams, oysters, fish and vegetables. What a feast this must have been! The warriors remained with the Pilgrims for several days, and contended with them in various games or feats of strength and agility. Perhaps Massasoit unbent from his kingly dignity to show how straight he could send an arrow at some improvised target. Maybe some Puritan maiden laughingly tried her hand on an Indian bow. Possibly, too, in the military drill which Miles Standish with his famous regiment of twenty gave, there was intention on the part of the stout little warrior to show the Indian what a formidable foe the white man might be if provoked. At any rate, the friendship, hallowed by thanksgiving hospitality, continued unbroken for nearly half a century. What a noble, inspiring picture is the history of this first Thanksgiving Day--a picture of piety, of human brotherhood, and of poetry, for which the universal heart of man, when realizing its profound significance, must gladly and proudly give thanks. For many years this autumnal "feast of ingathering" was merely an occasional festival, as unexpected prosperity or hoped for aid in adversity moved our Pilgrim fathers to a special act of praise. It was not until after the Revolutionary War that this day took on a national significance. George Washington issued the first proclamation in 1795. This will be read by many with deep interest, especially in view of the fact that some persons believe that a national Thanksgiving proclamation is a recent invention in our country. After this date it was only occasionally observed until 1863. It was our Civil War which awakened our national conscience, and since that time every President of the United States has issued a Thanksgiving Proclamation, which has in turn been issued to the different states by their respective governors. Thanksgiving is a universal holiday; it is for all the people. As heretofore, each year brings new households, enlarged families, increased affections, comfortable homes, plentiful tables, abundant harvests, a beneficent government, free schools, and religious liberty. There is much to be grateful for in our national history. Whatever may have been our sense of past duty, it is the privilege of all to thank God that He has given us the unexpected and unsought for opportunity to relieve much oppression and to extend the blessings of good government and fair freedom to many millions of people. It is a wonderful opportunity, and no people on the face of the globe have a stricter sense of duty than our great country. We may be far from perfect if tried by the highest standards, but where shall we find a nation which less desires to rule, and desires to rule more justly, giving liberty to all? We as a generation have lived to see what may be the greatest epoch in the world's history. Truly the seeds of this harvest were sown years ago by our Pilgrim fathers. For such mercies what soul will not raise its thanksgiving to God? Let us as teachers of the state of New Jersey teach our children these great truths, and enter with an open mind and a willing heart into each Thanksgiving festival, and let us all try to inculcate in the hearts of our pupils this significant brotherhood. THE FESTIVAL COMMITTEE Let the history of this great Thanksgiving Feast be the background and setting for your play-festival. Let it be the duty of teachers to see that the program for this celebration is inspired by patriotism, by a reverence for God, who has been most gracious to us as a people. For social reasons, it will be well to let some particular grade prepare the program for the festival. The other grades of the school will be in the audience, and thus the whole school will be united into one large social group. Before it is decided which grade shall be selected to prepare the program the principal and teachers should meet and, after talking over the preliminary plans, appoint the festival committee. It is important that the proper kind of machinery for this festival work be constructed. It will be the duty of this special committee to keep in mind such objects of the play-festival as the promotion of a keener appreciation and a more reverent remembrance of great events and great men and women of our history; the promotion of a deep national patriotism; the promotion of a sense of deep gratitude that we live in such a bountiful and beautiful earth. The play-festival should be looked upon as a means of moral, social, cultural and esthetic education. Keeping these things in mind, the play-festival should be invented almost entirely by the children, who will present the program. Of course this will require the watchful guidance of teachers and committee. A play or program that has been already planned for the occasion may be taken, but even in such a program the scenes should be planned by the class. If this plan is followed almost any of the ready-made plays may be adapted for any grade from the kindergarten to the high school. The wealth of historic material which readily conforms to the Thanksgiving program is abundant. There is no school that cannot act some scene, pantomime, tableau or the like, with but little thought and drill. The results obtained by bringing any class in touch with some of our masterpieces of history, literature, art, music, or sculpture, cannot be easily estimated. PREPARING THE PROGRAM A good method of preparing the program is to bring before the class who has been decided upon to render the festival the fact that this grade has been appointed to do this bit of patriotic service. Tell them about the festival, its simple aims; about the historic material on which the day is founded. Have the pupils write their ideas about developing the program. These may be discussed, and the best suggestions can be used about which to form an outline. This is admirable training for the pupils. Not infrequently surprises occur; unsuspected talents are discovered; and often the children who have appeared as dullards in them regular school subjects will take an interest which will lead to salutary results. Many times children will enjoy working on such plans and develop a new interest in their studies. The children should also be asked for suggestions as to developing the stage scenery, costumes, etc. Frequently their suggestions, with slight modifications, have an effectiveness beyond the reach of the teacher. Of course we as teachers must be satisfied with rather crude suggestions, and work up to a satisfactory result. The stage setting should always be simple, but suggestive. Often a play-festival may be rendered with little or no scenery. In fact, most of our present school programs are given without even a semblance of scenery or decorations. Some simple stage setting, scenery, or decorations will add wonderfully to the effect of your program, and this will be found easy to accomplish. This is particularly true of the Thanksgiving Day program. In the rural districts, especially, can be found the proper materials for this day. Such things as cornstalks, pumpkins, apples, fruits, cereals, and vegetables of many kinds will meet your needs. Whatever is good for a harvest home celebration may be used to celebrate Thanksgiving. It is desirable, also, to have simple costumes. The teacher should not be burdened with the making of the costumes. Arouse the interest of your class, and they will take home this interest. The result will be that the teacher will get more than he had hoped or suggested. The work of preparing the music should be done during the period of the day when singing is usually done. The music is very valuable. The whole school appreciates music and singing. It is the one unifying influence within the reach of the school. If all the various classes are used to promote the play-festival a practical correlation of the work of the school may be profitably accomplished. THE PROGRAM Below is submitted a type program for the Thanksgiving Day Festival. This is suitable for fifth and sixth grade pupils. This type of program may be easily changed so that it may be rendered by pupils of the first grade or by students of the high school. Care should always be exercised that the plan of the program is easily understood by the class who renders it. Scenes should be molded to meet the needs and capacities of the grade that is to perform. The dialog or monolog should also be adapted to the ages of the pupils who are to do the acting. Below will be found a list of scenes which by thoughtful manipulation may be made to fall within the command of pupils from the kindergarten to the high school. The bibliography given will furnish much information. THANKSGIVING EXERCISES _In Charge of Grade VI_ Theme: The Harvest =Song=--"America," by the school =Prayer= =Reading=--"George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1795" =Song=--"Harvest Home," by the school =Act I.= Getting ready for seed time _Scene I._ Indians showing the Pilgrims how to plant corn _Scene II._ Resting (a camp scene) Song--"Thanksgiving Day," by the school Recitation--"Thanksgiving," by a pupil =Act II.= A corn husking bee (place, a New England barn) _Scene I._ Husking corn _Scene II._ The frolic _Scene III._ Going home Song--"Star Spangled Banner," by the school The following scenes may be made appropriate for the different grades by changing the quality and quantity of the scenery. Pantomimes are especially to be recommended for use in our school programs. Many of these scenes will lend themselves to this purpose. Hints for the preparation of these scenes may be gained from the great paintings or their reproductions. Autumn Memories The Pilgrims An Indian Camp An Indian Village Miles Standish and his Warriors The Pilgrim's Town Meeting The Pilgrims going to Church The Pilgrims Hunting The Pilgrims Fishing The Husking Bee The Dying Year Thanksgiving at Home The Harvest Home (Old English) The Country Dance The Love Scene of Priscilla and John Alden Miles Standish's Home Many Indian Scenes from Hiawatha Many Harvest Home Scenes BIBLIOGRAPHY See Bibliography at end of monograph. LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY February 12 Again thy birthday dawns, O man beloved, Dawns on the land thy blood was shed to save, And hearts of millions, by one impulse moved, Bow and fresh laurels lay upon thy grave. _Ida Vose Woodbury_ LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY CHARLES A. PHILHOWER, SUPERVISING PRINCIPAL, WESTFIELD The observance of Lincoln's birthday as a national holiday has grown steadily until twenty-four states have designated it by statute as a holiday. The great emancipator is today our foremost national hero. His most unusual career from the log cabin to the White House sets ambition and hope of attainment before the most lowly and the most favorably environed alike. There are many salient reasons why the boys and girls of our schools should study the life of this great hero. He established once and for all time the now inalienable right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to all mankind. Early in life he was dubbed by his friends and neighbors with the enviable title of "Honest Abe." On the frontier we find him inuring himself to toil. He was thoroughly acquainted with that slogan always necessary to success, "hard work." His life was pure, untainted with the vices which spring from luxury, the lust for gain, the greed for fame. Simple in living, steadfast in purpose, kindly in spirit, he towered among his fellows, exemplary of that manhood toward which all boys who would be of worth to mankind should aspire. At the present time it is especially opportune that Lincoln's birthday be celebrated most impressively. The freedom for which we have just been fighting is a greater freedom than that of '61. That was for the freedom of the slave, this for a greater freedom of men already free; that was freedom for a part of mankind, this a freedom for all, for the democracy of the world. The principles for which he stood are the principles for which we must ever stand, but the application of those principles is limitless in its scope. It is for us to see that those who have sacrificed their lives in this great cause shall not have died in vain. It is for the boys and girls in our schools today to carry to a successful issue this great project of making the world safe for democracy and democracy safe for the world, and no small part of this work lies on our shoulders as teachers of boys and girls who will be citizens tomorrow. The law requires that on the last school day preceding Lincoln's birthday appropriate exercises be held for the development of a high spirit of patriotism. The whole day should center around the life of Lincoln. For the afternoon a special program should be prepared and the parents of the school children invited by special letters written by the pupils of the school. The pupils of each school should assist in working out the program. In some schools, in the upper grades the pupils should be held responsible for much of the work in program making. Each teacher and principal should arrange the work of the day and the special program to one end, that of utilizing the great spirit and profound wisdom of a wonderful man to the establishment of a greater patriotism and the working out of the national problems before us. The following general suggestions indicate the important factors to be considered in making a Lincoln program. Point out the significance of the flag salute Analyze the pledge Sing patriotic songs The songs of today The songs of the past Study Lincoln's boyhood. His career from the log cabin to the White House is phenomenal Lincoln the lawyer and politician Emphasize the work and honesty in the life of Abraham Lincoln President of the United States and statesman. His great speeches Read, study and memorize the Gettysburg speech. Each child should have a copy Learn quotations, and know their meaning and application Collect a number of pictures of Lincoln Call special attention to the best statuary Gutzon Borglum's Lincoln before the Court House in Newark, New Jersey, and the statue by Saint Gaudens in Lincoln Park, Chicago, are the most worthy and should be particularly noted "O Captain, My Captain," by Whitman, and "The Perfect Tribute," by Mary Shipman Andrews, should be read by the teacher Do not neglect the great humor in his life; children enjoy a joke Pupils will enjoy writing acrostics on the name of Lincoln The Lincoln Highway and the National Lincoln Memorial are recent monuments to the honor of this great man Let the decorations of the room be in keeping with the celebration Lincoln posters may be made in the drawing class The younger pupils will be interested in collecting the stamps with Lincoln's picture Civil War veterans, Civil War pictures, Civil War newspapers, Civil War correspondence, will make vital contributions in vivifying the life of Lincoln, incidents of the War, and this special observance. Invite veterans to come in and make brief speeches. Request pupils to bring old newspapers, old correspondence, war relics and the like with the assurance that they will be cared for and safely returned [Illustration: Saint Gaudens' Lincoln Lincoln Park, Chicago Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.] Read letters from boys who were at the front. Collect war pictures from the Sunday newspapers. Remember the boys from your community who went to war. Contrast the present war situation and practices with those of the Civil War. Classroom activity of this kind may continue for the whole week. SUGGESTIONS FOR USE OF THE MATERIAL WHICH FOLLOWS Preparatory to the observance of Lincoln's birthday teach carefully and thoroughly the Gettysburg Speech. Each pupil from the fifth grade through the high school ought to know this great masterpiece. Teach the occasion on which it was given, which brought forth this great production, the significance of the speech then and now, and finally have each child give it from memory. A contest in the delivery of Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech would interest the school and the public. The winner should appear on the holiday program. The placing in schools of Lincoln Memorial Bronze Tablets containing the Gettysburg Speech will give special significance to the observance. This practice should be promoted. Every new school should have its Lincoln Memorial Tablet. The most interesting persons in the eyes of children are children. They are most concerned with what kind of a boy Lincoln was. Books such as "Life of Abraham Lincoln for Boys and Girls," by C. W. Moores, and "The Boy's Life of Abraham Lincoln," by J. G. Nicolay, should be made available. Pupils should be encouraged to tell to the class what they have found of interest in the accounts of his boyhood. Incidents of his honesty, his desire for learning, and habit of hard work, will be brought forth and no effort should be spared to emphasize these most important characteristics. Strive for enthusiastic admiration, and the imitation of these most desirable qualities will follow. Stories from his life, incidents in his experience, and periods in his career, such as the twenty-two years on the farm, the twenty-seven years in intellectual pursuits, and the seven years in national service, will give profitable material for work in English. Oral and written reproductions should be taught for some time before the holiday observance and the best of these used on this occasion. Mr. Judd Stewart's suggestions (given on another page) respecting the study of Lincoln's English are very valuable. Give an exercise or two in acrostic writing with the aim of setting forth in a succinct way his admirable character and laudable accomplishments. A problem of this type appeals to children and has value in it. The humorous stories of Lincoln should not be neglected. There is great need for high standards of humor, jokes and jests with boys and girls. Every one should be able to tell a good story well. The humor in Lincoln's life presents good material for such teaching. A study and memorizing of quotations may be begun early in the fall; in fact, such study should be pursued throughout the whole school course. If this is done many pupils will be able to give on February twelfth their choice from among Lincoln's sayings with reasons for their selections and with statements respecting the source of their admiration. Every pupil should have a stock of Lincoln sayings at his command. These selected thoughts should be a part of the thinking of boys and girls. Readings for the week preceding the holiday observance can be made from the following brief publications: "Lincoln Centenary Ode," Percy MacKaye "Commemorative Ode," James Russell Lowell "Abraham Lincoln," Carl Schurz "Abraham Lincoln," George Bancroft "The Perfect Tribute," Mary Shipman Andrews The selections should be read in their entirety, in most cases by the teacher to the class. If there is a pupil who is a very good reader, such a pupil may do it effectively. Each school library ought to have a good selection of Lincolnia from which the pupils could draw books for outside reading. Books such as these should be read by the class supplemental to the study of the Civil War period. A good teacher is able to read well "O Captain, My Captain," and she reads it often to her pupils. Ultimately the children will get the spirit of the poem and some will be able to read it well or give it from memory. The various poems herein mentioned are worthy of similar treatment. As the Gettysburg Speech is studied, so should the Civil War songs be studied. The "Battle Hymn of the Republic" should be sung with all the feeling which its meaning is capable of conveying. As much should be done with "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground." The allusion here is very impressive. The sentiment is the song, the tune is a mode of expression. Each school in the state should have a picture of Lincoln. It should be hung by the pupils where it can be seen by the youngest as well as the oldest. A child does well in having a definite acquaintance with the rugged, kindly face of Lincoln. A look at this picture should give renewed emphasis to his standards of living and the great principles which he established. Not long since a teacher said to me, "When I have a case of discipline where the pupil has difficulty in getting the right point of view I often say to the boy, especially if he be of the upper grades, 'Go out into the hall and look for a few minutes at the fatherly face of the great Lincoln and then come back to me and tell me what you think he would say in this case.'" Such procedure is extremely effective, particularly when the pupil is acquainted with Lincoln's sayings and the great principles for which he stood. Marshall's "Lincoln" is a fine portrait for schools. The decoration of the classroom will present demands for drawing and handwork activities such as picture frames, draperies, red, white and blue chains, and flag decorations. Much can be done in the making of posters with water colors and crayons, in the artistic ornamentation of Lincoln picture mounts on drawing paper, and in the lettering and decoration of Lincoln acrostics. The use of Lincoln picture cutouts; the drawing or painting of flags, the state seal and shields, the American eagle; perspective drawings of the log cabin, the White House and the Capitol are suggested activities. Postage stamps containing Lincoln's picture may be used in connection with handwork and drawing activities. Booklets for acrostics, anecdotes, quotations, brief biography or history incidents, with appropriate cover design, initial letters and simple illustrations will afford attractive and profitable projects. Many other ways and means of presenting the life of Lincoln will suggest themselves to the active, thinking teacher. The whole object is to help boys and girls to know Lincoln as he lived, to make his life function in making their lives better and more worth while through his great thoughts, high ideals and indefatigable spirit of work. The following programs, selections, suggestions and bibliography are intended to make available some selected material which in many cases may not be accessible. ASSEMBLY PROGRAM =Organization of School for exercises= 1. School orchestra 2. Two color bearers at each entrance to auditorium 3. One color bearer with honorary guard of two at each side of platform 4. Color bearer for flag salute--center of platform =Program= Salute flag draped over Lincoln portrait Song, "America" Story of Lincoln's life told by pupil[D] Reading "Gettysburg Address" by teacher Solo "When The Boys Come Home" Reading Civil War letter Solo, "Star Spangled Banner," school joining in chorus Talk by Civil War veteran Chorus sung by school, "Keep the Home Fires Burning" Salute Formal dismissal in keeping with assembly [D] It would be well to have several pupils take part in this, each presenting a period in Lincoln's life. GENERAL PROGRAM FOR CLASSROOM Place in front of the room the picture of Lincoln veiled with the American Flag Unveil picture Pupils stand in saluting posture ten seconds Quote in concert, verse from Ida Vose Woodbury's "Lincoln's Birthday" Song, "Battle Hymn of the Republic" Brief story of life of Lincoln (compare autobiography). (Told by an older pupil--not longer than five minutes) At least three incidents from Lincoln's life given by intermediate pupils Damage to borrowed book Returning of right change Lincoln and the pig Long walk to school Wood chopping for log house Lincoln and his sums Illustrate on sand table Lincoln's log house and the clearing of forest land Recitation, "Gettysburg Speech" "O Captain, My Captain" read by teacher Song, "My Country 'Tis of Thee" Salute flag and give pledge: "I pledge allegiance to my flag, and to the republic for which it stands; one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all" INTERMEDIATE GRADE PROGRAM Reading of acrostics, using letters of Lincoln's name Make Lincoln booklets Conversational lesson in which each child contributes what he knows or was able to find about Lincoln, the teacher adding interesting items Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech recited by one child Civil War newspaper articles read Patriotic songs chosen by children sung Pledge--"I pledge allegiance to my flag, and to the republic for which it stands; one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all" PRIMARY PROGRAM Picture of Lincoln in front of room Salute and pledge Song, "America" Stories about Lincoln selected and read by children from books brought from home or library Recitation, "A Prayer for our Soldiers and Sailors," by Oriola Johnson Marching and military exercises with flags Lincoln's early boyhood told by pupil. A few readings of sketches written by pupils. Request that each child take his composition home and read it to his parents Song KINDERGARTEN OBSERVANCE =1. Morning Circle= Singing Tone plays about flag, etc. Hail to the flag (Gaynor) =2. Morning talk about Lincoln= Get from the children what they know about Lincoln. Add to this until they know something of his life, laying emphasis on his kindness, obedience, thoughtfulness, bravery. Hint as to how these much admired qualities may be used by little children =3. Table Work= Gift period Make soldier hats from squares of newspaper. Build Lincoln log house =4. Games= (a) "Soldier Boy, where are you going?" (b) Parade for Lincoln's Birthday Choice by children of best kindergarten soldiers to carry the flags in parade; use drum =5. Table Work= Occupation period Make crayoneine frame around picture of Lincoln Take picture home =6. Sing "America," at least one verse= GETTYSBURG SPEECH Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate--we cannot consecrate--we cannot hallow--this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that the government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. _Abraham Lincoln_ SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS [Lincoln's ideas respecting the injustice of the principles of slavery and the honesty of purpose in waging the Civil War are set forth in the Second Inaugural Speech. This passage is probably the most beautiful, the most chaste, the most profound, the grandest, ever uttered by an American.] Fellow-countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this, four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it; all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came. The prayer of both could not be answered--those of neither have been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may soon pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and for his orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations. _Abraham Lincoln_ ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY The following autobiography was written by Mr. Lincoln's own hand at the request J. W. Fell, of Springfield, Illinois, December 20, 1859. In the note which accompanied it the writer says: "Herewith is a little sketch, as you requested. There is not much of it, for the reason, I suppose, that there is not much of me." I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families--second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams County, and others in Mason County, Illinois. My paternal grand-father, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky, about 1781 or 1782, where, a year or two later, he was killed by Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest. His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County, Pennsylvania. An effort to identify them with the New England family of the same name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity of Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and the like. My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age, and grew up literally without any education. He removed from Kentucky to what is now Spencer County, Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our new home about the time the state came into the Union. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond readin', writin' and cipherin' to the rule of three. If a straggler, supposed to understand Latin, happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three, but that was all. I have not been to school since. The little advance I now have upon this store of education I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity. I was raised to farm work, at which I continued till I was twenty-two. At twenty-one I came to Illinois, and passed the first year in Macon County. Then I got to New Salem, at that time in Sangamon, now Menard County, where I remained a year as a sort of clerk in a store. Then came the Black Hawk War, and I was elected a captain of volunteers--a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since. I went into the campaign, was elected, ran for the Legislature the same year (1832), and was beaten--the only time I have ever been beaten by the people. The next and three succeeding biennial elections I was elected to the Legislature. I was not a candidate afterward. During the legislative period I had studied law, and removed to Springfield, to practice it. In 1846 I was elected to the Lower House of Congress. Was not a candidate for reelection. From 1849 to 1854, both inclusive, practiced law more assiduously than ever before. Always a Whig in politics, and generally on the Whig electoral ticket, making active canvasses. I was losing interest in politics when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known. If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be said I am in height six feet four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing, on an average, one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes--no other marks or brands recollected. THE BIXBY LETTER Executive Mansion, Washington, November 21, 1864 Dear Madam: I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they have died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. Yours, very sincerely and respectfully Abraham Lincoln To Mrs. Bixby Boston, Massachusetts SAYINGS FROM LINCOLN'S SPEECHES Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it. I intend no modification of my oft-expressed wish that all men everywhere should be free. A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I take the official oath today with no mental reservation and with no purpose to construe the constitution by any hypercritical rules. You can have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government; while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect and defend" it. The mystic chords of memory stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. In giving freedom to the slaves we assure freedom to the free--honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. Do not swap horses in the middle of the stream. You can fool part of the people all of the time, and all of the people part of the time; but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday. The leading rule for the man of every calling is diligence; never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. I never let an idea escape, but write it on a piece of paper and put it in a drawer. In this way I sometimes save my best thoughts on a subject. Wealth is a superfluity of what we do not need. Come what will, I will keep faith with friend and foe. Faith in God is indispensable to successful statesmanship. God bless my mother; all I am or hope to be I owe to her. I will study and get ready and maybe my chance will come. Be sure you put your feet in the right place and then stand firm. And having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear and with manly hearts. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. It is all in that one word--thorough. Let us strive on to finish the work we are in. When you can't remove an obstacle plow around it. The way for a young man to rise is to improve every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him. To add brightness to the sun or glory to the name of Washington is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe pronounce the name and in its naked deathless splendor leave it shining on. O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring. But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills; For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding; For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning. Here, Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck, You've fallen cold and dead. My Captain does not answer; his lips are pale and still; My father does not feel my arm; he has no pulse nor will. The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done; From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won. Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. _Walt Whitman_ THE UNFINISHED WORK The crowd was gone, and to the side Of Borglum's Lincoln, deep in awe, I crept. It seemed a mighty tide Within those aching eyes I saw. "Great heart," I said, "why grieve alway? The battle's ended, and the shout Shall ring forever and a day-- Why sorrow yet, or darkly doubt?" "Freedom," I plead, "so nobly won For all mankind, and equal right, Shall with the ages travel on Till time shall cease, and day be night." No answer--then; but up the slope With broken gait, and hands in clench, A toiler came, bereft of hope, And sank beside him on the bench. _Joseph Fulford Folsom_ ACROSTIC (Written by a fifth grade child) L is for Lincoln, brave and true I is for the Iron nerve which helped him through N is for Nation whose tongue sings his praise C is for Colors on his birthday we raise O is for Oration or speech he gave L is for Liberty given the slave N is his Name which ever we'll save [Illustration: Statue of Lincoln by Gutzon Borglum In front of Court House, Newark] THE BOY THAT HUNGERED FOR KNOWLEDGE In his eagerness to acquire knowledge, young Lincoln had borrowed of Mr. Crawford, a neighboring farmer, a copy of Weems' Life of Washington--the only one known to be in existence in that section of the country. Before he had finished reading the book, it had been left, by a not unnatural oversight, in a window. Meantime, a rain storm came on, and the book was so thoroughly wet as to make it nearly worthless. This mishap caused him much pain; but he went, in all honesty, to Mr. Crawford with the ruined book, explained the calamity that had happened through his neglect, and offered, not having sufficient money, to "work out" the value of the book. "Well, Abe," said Mr. Crawford, after due deliberation, "as it's you, I won't be hard on you. Just come over and pull fodder for me for two days, and we will call our accounts even." The offer was readily accepted, and the engagement literally fulfilled. As a boy, no less than since, Abraham Lincoln had an honorable conscientiousness, integrity, industry, and an ardent love of knowledge. ABE LINCOLN'S HONESTY Lincoln could not rest for an instant under the consciousness that he had, even unwittingly, defrauded anybody. On one occasion, while clerking in Offutt's store, at New Salem, Illinois, he sold a woman a little bill of goods, amounting in value by the reckoning, to two dollars six and a quarter cents. He received the money, and the woman went away. On adding the items of the bill again, to make sure of its correctness, he found that, he had taken six and a quarter cents too much. It was night and closing and locking the store, he started out on foot, a distance of two or three miles, for the house of his defrauded customer, and, delivering over to her the sum whose possession had so much troubled him, went home satisfied. On another occasion, just as he was closing the store for the night, a woman entered, and asked for a half pound of tea. The tea was weighed out and paid for, and the store was left for the night. The next morning, Lincoln entered to begin the duties of the day, when he discovered a four-ounce weight on the scales. He saw at once that he had made a mistake, and, shutting the store, he took a long walk before breakfast to deliver the remainder of the tea. These are very humble incidents, but they illustrate the man's perfect conscientiousness--his sensitive honesty--better perhaps than they would if they were of greater moment. YOUNG LINCOLN'S KINDNESS OF HEART An instance of young Lincoln's practical humanity at an early period of his life is recorded, as follows: One evening, while returning from a "raising" in his wide neighborhood, with a number of companions, he discovered a straying horse, with saddle and bridle upon him. The horse was recognized as belonging to a man who was accustomed to excess in drink, and it was suspected at once that the owner was not far off. A short search only was necessary to confirm the suspicions of the young men. The poor drunkard was found in a perfectly helpless condition, upon the chilly ground. Abraham's companions urged the cowardly policy of leaving him to his fate, but young Lincoln would not hear to the proposition. At his request, the miserable sot was lifted to his shoulders, and he actually carried him eighty rods to the nearest house. Sending word to his father that he should not be back that night, with the reason for his absence, he attended and nursed the man until the morning, and had the pleasure of believing that he had saved his life. A BIT OF HUMOR FROM THE BUSY LIFE OF LINCOLN Two persons who had been arguing with each other how long a man's legs should be in proportion to his body, stepped into Lincoln's office and asked him to settle the dispute. To them he replied: "After much thought and consideration, not to mention mental worry and anxiety, it is my opinion, all side issues being swept aside, that a man's lower limbs, in order to preserve harmony of proportion, should be at least long enough to reach from his body to the ground." HOW LINCOLN AND JUDGE B. ... SWAPPED HORSES When Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer in Illinois, he and a certain judge once got to bantering each other about trading horses, and it was agreed that the next morning at nine o'clock they should make a trade, the horses to be unseen up to that hour, and no backing out, under a forfeiture of $25. At the hour appointed the Judge came up, leading the sorriest-looking specimen of a horse ever seen in those parts. In a few minutes Mr. Lincoln was seen approaching with a wooden sawhorse upon his shoulders. Great were the shouts and the laughter of the crowd, and both were greatly increased when Mr. Lincoln, on surveying the Judge's animal, set down his sawhorse, and exclaimed: "Well, Judge, this is the first time I ever got the worst of it in a horse trade." The following paragraphs are quoted from a small pamphlet of Mr. Judd Stewart of Plainfield, New Jersey, entitled "Suggestions for a Text Book for Students of English." Mr. Stewart is a profound student of Lincoln, and without doubt has the largest private collection of Lincolnia in the United States. It was recently suggested to me by a lieutenant in the navy, a graduate of Annapolis, that in teaching English the writings and speeches of Lincoln would be a very proper text-book. This appeals to me most forcefully because all school children know who Lincoln was, know something of his Gettysburg Address, know him as the Emancipator of the Slaves and probably a majority of them admire him. Therefore, it seems to me that a text-book based upon, or rather made up from Lincoln's speeches and letters would be of great interest to the majority of children, and by having such a text-book they would learn history and good expressive English at the same time and in a most interesting way. The suggested text-book would consist of: The House Divided Against Itself Speech, in 1858; The First Debate with Douglas Speech in 1858; The Cooper Institute Speech, 1860; The First Inaugural, 1861; The First Message to Congress, 1861; The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863; The Gettysburg Address, 1863; The Letter to Mrs. Bixby, 1864; The Second Inaugural, 1865. Lincoln spent 49 years of his life in preparation, six years in the accomplishment of his work. The study of his life is commended and commends itself to all thinking people. Why should we not teach his thoughts, his modes of speech, his simplicity of expression to those who with their children and descendants for ages will remember Abraham Lincoln, the Emancipator, the Martyr, the Greatest American? Attention should be given to the great statue of Lincoln before the Court House in Newark, New Jersey. It presents our most admired statesman seated on a bench absorbed in thought. The statue is a wonderful work of art. From every angle it is unique, beautiful, and a masterpiece. At all times of day passersby may see the children of the city sitting in his arm, lovingly admiring the fatherly face. On his knees and on the bench they gather, children of all races, rejoicing in the freedom which he gave to mankind. The statue was conceived and made by the Sculptor Gutzon Borglum, for Amos H. VanHorn, the donor. It was presented to the Lincoln Post on May 30, 1911, by Chancellor Mahlon Pitney. Colonel Theodore Roosevelt received it in behalf of the Post, and Mayor Husaling made the speech of acceptance. Pass on, thou that hast overcome. Your sorrows, O people, are his peace. Your bells and bands and muffled drums sound triumph in his ear. Wail and weep here; God made it echo joy and triumph there. Pass on. Four years ago, O Illinois, we took from your midst an untried man, and from amongst the people. We return him to you a mighty conqueror. Not thine any more, but the Nation's; not ours, but the world's. Give him place, O ye prairies. In the midst of this great continent his dust shall rest, a sacred treasure to myriads who shall pilgrim to that shrine to kindle anew their zeal and patriotism. Ye winds that move over the mighty places of the West, chant his requiem. Ye people, behold a martyr whose blood as so many articulate words, pleads for fidelity, for law, for liberty. _Henry Ward Beecher_ BIBLIOGRAPHY See Bibliography at end of monograph. WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY February 22 It was almost unconsciously that men learned to cling to Washington with a trust and faith such as few other men have won, and to regard him with a reverence which still hushes us in presence of his memory. _Green_ WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY HENRY W. FOSTER, SUPERVISING PRINCIPAL, SOUTH ORANGE February is the greatest month for the teaching of patriotism. The national heroes, Washington and Lincoln, whose birthdays we celebrate, give distinction to two of its days. The time falls happily in midyear, when pupils and teachers alike need inspiration for a new period of sustained effort requiring determination and vigor. It has been shown very clearly that through its schools a nation can be trained in ideals which will govern national life and conduct. Neither Washington nor Lincoln, however, owed his heroic quality to schools; but they did owe it to the very same ideals for which our schools stand. Indeed, their greatest service to mankind is the fact that they incarnated those ideals. It is not so easy to venerate abstract principles and to submit one's life to them as it is to imitate great personalities whose deeds have embodied those principles. Because we love our national heroes and venerate them personally, they still live and work through us. The principles of democracy are established eternally in their deeds and in ours. The child who writes an appreciation of Washington, or recites from his addresses, or renders a poem commemorating him, or dramatizes something from his life, enters into his spirit, and in the child Washington lives again. The Declaration of Independence asserts the lofty principle of equality in liberty. All men are created free, and equal in the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is a declaration of rights, not of duties. Each person has a right to _his_ life, _his_ liberty, the pursuit of _his_ happiness. The deeds of Washington embodied not only these principles, but emphasized the duty of service. In our time our country has fully justified a new statement of political faith, which Washington lived. All men are born equal in the right to opportunity--each to make the best of himself--so that he may render the best service. Think not of the reward! On the whole, service is requited according to its worth. Too many want to do what they can't do, and won't do what they can do! It may be pride, or it may be looking for an undeserved reward. The school should train for service, and teach self-respect in doing the best that one can in the thing for which he is best fitted. Washington sought no reward; but he commands the undying veneration, not only of his countrymen, but of all mankind. Speaking of the retirement of Washington, at a time when party spirit against the policy of the great founder and preserver of the Republic was calculated to arouse bitterness in a less noble man, Knight, in his "History of England," says: "Had his nature been different, had his ambition been less under the control of his virtue, he might have taken up his sword and, sweeping away his enemy, have raised himself to supreme power upon the ruins of his country's liberty. He retired to his estate at Mount Vernon to pass the rest of his days as a private citizen.... Washington's scheme of glory was realized. He had been a ruler of free men, ruling by the power of law. He laid down his authority when he had done the work to which he was called, most happy in this, that ambitions of a selfish order could never be justified by his example." Washington's point of view as a ruler of men was unique at that period in the world's history. We need to teach from the life of Washington that same respect for English ideals of government which he maintained and defended, even by revolting against the English king. Too many of our people have grown up in hatred of England, through the story of the Revolution and the War of 1812, and the unfortunate attitude of aristocratic England in our Civil War. How does England, the heart and brain of England, regard us? If we know that she sympathizes with our ideals and her heart has been with us all the time, shall we not feel safe with her, and find in Englishmen brothers with whom we may work for the good of the world? English historians have an appreciation of Washington which we cannot surpass. Writing English history for the instruction of English boys and girls, and men and women, they justify our Revolution and laud our national hero as a world hero. No American orator has ever magnified Washington in more laudatory terms than are to be found in Green's "History of England." Green says: "Washington more than any of his fellow colonists represented the clinging of the Virginia land owner to the Mother Country, and his acceptance of the command proved that even the most moderate of them had no hope now save in arms." [Illustration: Stuart's Washington Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.] For the future we shall need a better understanding of our English brothers. This cannot better be attained than by knowing well that our ideals are held in the same regard by them as by ourselves. There was one man who was the chief instrument in the hands of Providence for conducting the war, by his energy, prudence, and constancy, to that triumphant assertion of Independence which has built up the great North American republic. To Washington the historian naturally turns, as to the grandest object of contemplation, when he laid aside his victorious sword--that sword which, with those he had worn in his earlier career, he bequeathed to his nephews with words characteristic of his nobleness: "These swords are accompanied with an injunction not to unsheathe them for the purpose of shedding blood, except it be for self-defence, or in defence of their Country and its rights, and in the latter case to keep them unsheathed, and prefer falling with them in their hands to the relinquishment thereof." The United Colonies in America had such a man as Washington to control the destinies of our country in the making. The new nation had such a man for a leader during the early years of trial and promise. The nation today has the records, accomplishments and deeds of the national hero, Washington, to ever honor, venerate and imitate. The school children of the great state of New Jersey should be happy to learn from the life of this great man lessons of service, respect for law and order, truthfulness and patriotism. QUOTATIONS According to Captain Mercer, the following describes Washington when he took his seat in the House of Burgesses in 1759: "He is as straight as an Indian, measuring six feet two inches in his stockings, and weighing one hundred and seventy-five pounds. His head is well shaped, though not large, and is gracefully poised on a superb neck, with a large, and straight rather than prominent nose; blue-gray penetrating eyes, which are widely separated and overhung by heavy brows. A pleasing, benevolent, though commanding countenance, dark-brown hair, features regular and placid, with all the muscles under control, with a large mouth, generally firmly closed." Houdon's bust accords with this description. * * * * * To the man of all men for whom his manly heart felt most tenderness, to Lafayette, it is that he wrote the beautiful letter of February 1, 1784, unaware that his rest was only temporary, and that he was to become the first President of the country he had given life to: "At length, my dear marquis, I am become a private citizen on the banks of the Potomac, and under the shadow of my own vine and my own fig-tree, free from the bustle of a camp and the busy scenes of public life, I am solacing myself with those tranquil enjoyments of which the soldier who is ever in pursuit of fame, the statesman whose watchful days and sleepless nights are spent in devising schemes to promote the welfare of his own, perhaps the ruin of other countries, as if the globe was insufficient for us all ... can have very little conception. I have not only retired from all public employments, but I am retiring within myself, and shall be able to view the solitary walk of private life with heart-felt satisfaction. Envious of none, I am determined to be pleased with all; and this, my dear friend, being the order for my march, I will move gently down the stream of life until I sleep with my fathers." _J. J. Jusserand_ Among these men whose union in purpose and action made the strength and stability of the republic, Washington was first, not only in the largeness of his nature, the loftiness of his desires, and the vigor of his will, but also in that representative quality which makes a man able to stand as the true hero of a great people. He had an instinctive power to divine, amid the confusions of rival interests and the cries of factional strife, the new aims and hopes, the vital needs and aspirations, which were the common inspiration of the people's cause and the creative forces of the American nation. The power to understand this, the faith to believe in it, and the unselfish courage to live for it, was the central factor of Washington's life, the heart and fountain of his splendid Americanism. _Henry van Dyke_ "How did George Washington look?" asked Nell; "What was he like? Won't you please to tell?" Thus I answered: "A courtly man, Wearing his honors as heroes can. Erect and tall, with his six feet two; Knee-breeches, buckles, frills and queue; Powdered brown hair; blue eyes, far apart; Strong-limbed and fearless, with gentle heart; Gracious in manner toward every one-- Such, my Nellie, was Washington." Washington one day came across a small band of soldiers working very hard at raising some military works, under command of a pompous little officer, who was issuing his orders in a peremptory style indeed. Washington, seeing the very arduous task of the men, dismounted from his horse, lent a helping hand, perspiring freely, till the weight at which they were working was raised. Then, turning to the officer, he inquired why he, too, had not helped, and received the indignant reply: "Don't you know I'm the corporal?" "Ah, well," said Washington, "next time your men are raising so heavy a weight, send for your commander-in-chief." And he strode off, leaving the corporal dumbfounded. An American sailor landing in England shortly after the close of the War of the Revolution took a first-class seat in a stage coach, but was told to get out, as such seats were reserved for gentlemen. "I am a gentleman," said the sailor. "Who made gentlemen out of fellows like you?" asked the coach guard. "George Washington," said the sailor; and he kept his seat. * * * * * No nobler figure ever stood in the forefront of a nation's life. Washington was grave and courteous in address; his manners were simple and unpretending, his silence and the serene calmness of his temper spoke of a perfect self-mastery; but there was little in his outer bearing to reveal the grandeur of soul which lifts his figure, with all the simple majesty of an ancient statue, out of the smaller passions, the meaner impulses of the world around him. What recommended him for command was simply his weight among his fellow landowners of Virginia, and the experience of war which he had gained by service in border contests with the French and the Indians, as well as in Braddock's luckless expedition against Fort Duquesne. It was only as the weary fight went on that the colonists learned little by little the greatness of their leader, his clear judgment, his heroic endurance, his silence under difficulties, his calmness in the hour of danger or defeat, the patience with which he waited, the quickness and hardness with which he struck, the lofty and serene sense of duty that never swerved from its task through resentment or jealousy, that never through war or peace felt the touch of a meaner ambition, that knew no aim save that of guarding the freedom of his fellow countrymen, and no personal longing save that of returning to his own fireside when their freedom was secured. It was almost unconsciously that men learned to cling to Washington with a trust and faith such as few other men have won, and to regard him with a reverence which still hushes us in presence of his memory. Even America hardly recognized his real greatness till death set its seal on "the man first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellow countrymen." _J. R. Green_ Washington is the mightiest name on earth, long since mightiest in the cause of civil liberty, still mightiest in moral reformation. On that name a eulogy is expected. It cannot be. To add brightness to the sun or glory to the name of Washington is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe pronounce the name, and in its naked, deathless splendor leave it shining on. _Abraham Lincoln_ LIFE OF WASHINGTON[E] [E] Reprinted by permission from "The Book of Holidays," by J. W. McSpadden. Copyright 1917 by Thomas Y. Crowell Company. The story of George Washington's life has been often told, but it is worth repeating. It was an active, busy life from his earliest days, beginning as it did away back in Colonial times when the country was wild and unsettled. Washington was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, in 1732. There is no reliable record of his early education, but it has been supposed that the first school he ever attended was a little old field school kept by one of his father's tenants, named Hobby, who was both sexton and schoolmaster. Even at this early age George was fond of playing at war. He used to divide his playmates into parties and armies. One of them was called the French and the other American. A big boy named William Bustle commanded the French, and George commanded the Americans. Every day, with cornstalks for muskets and gourds for drums, the two armies would turn out and march and fight. George was not remarkable as a scholar, but he had a liking for mathematics. He was of a more serious turn of mind than most boys of his age. His last two years at school were devoted to engineering, geometry, trigonometry, and surveying, and at sixteen years of age he was appointed a public surveyor. His new employment brought him a handsome salary, and well it might; for it took him into the perils and hardships of the wilderness, often meeting savage chieftains, or fording swollen streams, climbing rugged mountains, breasting furious storms, wading through snowdrifts, sleeping in the open air, and living upon the coarse food of hunters and of Indians. But everywhere he gained the admiration of the backwoodsmen and the Indians by his manly bearing and his wonderful endurance. In the year 1751 the frontiers of the colony of Virginia were constantly being attacked by the French and the Indians, so it was decided to divide the colony into military districts under a major; and when he was but nineteen, George Washington received one of these appointments. Two years later he was sent to the French, who were becoming threatening, to find out their intentions and to warn them against invading Virginian territory. This important mission made it necessary for him to journey six hundred miles through the wilderness; but he carried out his instructions successfully, and traveled the whole distance without an escort.... In 1755 George Washington served under the British officer, General Braddock, showing great bravery under fire at the battle of Monongahela, against the French and Indians, which would probably not have been lost if the general had taken Washington's advice. In 1759 Washington married a widow named Martha Custis, with two children, John and Martha Parke Custis. He was a great favorite with the two youngsters, and used to order toys, dolls, and gingerbreads for them from London. Mrs. Custis had a large estate and so had Washington, and the management cf them took up all of his time. When the disputes between England and the American colonies were at their height, in 1774, he became a member of the First Continental Congress, and the following year was chosen by that body Commander-in-Chief of the Continental army. For this position his training and his surveying experiences had thoroughly fitted him. He took command of the troops at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on July 3, 1775; but it was a poor army that he found under him. It was in want of arms, ammunition, and general equipment. Washington, however, kept it together with patience and skill during the trying years of the Revolution. The war lasted six years and ended with the surrender of the British commander, Cornwallis, at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781. During all this time Washington had had to contend with the greatest difficulties. The troops were poorly paid or equipped; often there were disputes among the officers, and Congress did not know the army's needs; but the General always kept the confidence of his men until victory was assured.... In 1783 Washington bade farewell to his army, and for the next six years lived the simple life of a country gentleman on his estate at Mount Vernon, attending to the affairs of his homestead and property. In 1789 he was again called from private life, to become first president of the United States. Congress was sitting at New York, for which city he started, in April. He disliked fuss and ceremony, but the people could not be restrained from showing their love and admiration. His progress through New Jersey was amid constant cheering, ringing of bells, and the booming of cannon. At Elizabethtown he embarked on a splendid barge, followed by other barges and boats, making a long water procession up the Bay of New York, the ships in the harbor being decorated with colors, and firing salutes as it passed. The inauguration took place on April 30, 1789, at the old City Hall, in Wall Street, Broad Street being crowded with thousands of people as far as the eye could reach. In 1793, he was re-elected for a second term of four years, after which he bade farewell to the people and retired into private life. On the 12th of December, 1799, he caught a severe cold in making the round of his plantations and died two days later, in his sixty-eighth year. In number of years he had not lived a long life, but how much was crowded into it! Most of the portraits of Washington show him as a serious-looking gentleman in a wig, and the earliest biographies of him would lead us to believe that he was always on his dignity. But our first president was, in fact, a very genial man, with a hearty laugh, who enjoyed going to the theater, was fond of fox-hunting and was a thorough sportsman, and, as he himself admitted, had a hot temper. Towards young people and children he was always very gracious and kind.... Like Lincoln, Washington was very athletic. Both of our two great presidents were tall men: Washington was six feet two inches; Lincoln was six feet four. When he first visited the Natural Bridge, in Virginia, Washington threw a stone to the top, a distance of about two hundred feet, and, climbing the rocks, carved his name far above all others.... In all the positions which he was called upon to fill, in his remarkable life, whether as host at his home, as surveyor, as general, or as president, Washington showed the same desire to give the best that was in him for his people, his country, and for humanity at large. He endeared himself to the lowly and he gained the admiration of the great. He was never influenced by mean motives, and those who were under him loved him. Thus it was that among Americans he came to be regarded as "First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen;" and when his death became known on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the armies of Napoleon in France, and the fleet of Great Britain, his former enemy, did homage to his memory. Washington's birthday was celebrated even during his lifetime, and he had the satisfaction of receiving the congratulations of his fellow-citizens many times upon the return of this day, frequently being a guest at banquets given in honor of the occasion. In fact, after the Revolution, Washington's birthday practically took the place of the birthday of the various crowned heads of Great Britain, which had always been celebrated with enthusiasm during colonial times. When independence was established, all these royal birthdays were cast aside, and the birthday of Washington naturally became one of the most widely celebrated of American holidays.... Let us not forget what we owe to Washington, or make him merely a name--an excuse for a holiday. Let us remember him as a real, flesh and blood man--one of the greatest known to history. He gave us a nation to make it immortal; He laid down for Freedom the sword that he drew; And his faith leads us on through the uplifting portal Of the glories of peace and our destinies new. _J. Walker McSpadden_ SELECTIONS FROM THE RULES OF CIVILITY (_Copied by Washington at the age of fourteen from an old translation of a French book of 1595._) Show not yourself glad at the misfortune of another, though he were your enemy. When you see a crime punished you may be inwardly pleased; but always show pity to the suffering offender. Superfluous compliments and all affectation of ceremony are to be avoided; yet, where due, they are not to be neglected. When a man does all he can, though it succeed not well, blame not him that did it. Be not hasty to believe flying reports to the disparagement of any. In your apparel be modest, and endeavor to accommodate Nature, rather than to procure admiration; keep to the fashion of your equals. Associate yourself with men of good quality, if you esteem your own reputation; for 'tis better to be alone than in bad company. Speak not injurious words neither in jest nor in earnest; scoff at none, although they give occasion. Gaze not at the marks or blemishes of others, and ask not how they came. What you may speak in secret to your friend, deliver not before others. Nothing but harmony, honest industry, and frugality are necessary to make us a great people. First impressions are generally the most lasting. It is therefore absolutely necessary, if you mean to make any figure upon the stage, that you should take the first steps right. There is a destiny which has the control of our actions not to be resisted by the strongest efforts of Human Nature. Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distresses of everyone, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse; remembering always the widow's mite, but that it is not everyone who asketh that deserveth charity; all, however, are worthy the inquiry, or the deserving may suffer. I consider storms and victory under the direction of a wise Providence, who no doubt directs them for the best purposes, and to bring round the greatest degree of happiness to the greatest number. Happiness depends more upon the internal frame of a person's mind, than on the externals in the world. To constitute a dispute there must be two parties. To understand it well, both parties and all the circumstances must be fully heard; and to accommodate differences, temper and mutual forbearance are requisite. Idleness is disreputable under any circumstances; productive of no good, even when unaccompanied by vicious habits. It is not uncommon in prosperous gales to forget that adverse winds blow. Economy in all things is as commendable in the manager, as it is beneficial and desirable to the employer. It is unfortunate when men cannot or will not see danger at a distance; or seeing it, are undetermined in the means which are necessary to avert or keep it afar off. Every man who is in the vigor of life ought to serve his country in whatever line it requires, and he is fit for. Rise early, that by habit it may become familiar, agreeable, healthy, and profitable. It may, for a while, be irksome to do this, but that will wear off; and the practice will produce a rich harvest forever thereafter, whether in public or in private walks of life. SAID BY WASHINGTON To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace. There is a rank due to the United States among nations which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained. The very idea of the power and right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government. If there was the same propensity in mankind for investigating the motives, as there is for censuring the conduct, of public characters, it would be found that the censure so freely bestowed is oftentimes unmerited and uncharitable. Where is the man to be found who wishes to remain indebted for the defense of his own person and property to the exertions, the bravery, and the blood of others, without making one generous effort to repay the debt of honor and gratitude? There is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity. Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake. The name American must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism. To the efficacy and permanency of your union a government for the whole is indispensable. Every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest should be indignantly frowned upon. Let us impart all the blessings we possess, or ask for ourselves, to the whole family of mankind. Let us erect a standard to which the wise and honest may repair. 'Tis substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. It is incumbent upon every person of every description to contribute to his country's welfare. It would be repugnant to the vital principles of our government virtually to exclude from public trusts, talents and virtue, unless accompanied by wealth. Give such encouragements to our own navigation as will render our commerce less dependent on foreign bottoms. I have never made an appointment from a desire to serve a friend or relative. Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, conscience. WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL TO THE ARMY (_Dated at Rocky Hill, near Princeton, New Jersey, November 2, 1783_) It is universally acknowledged that the enlarged prospects of happiness, opened by the confirmation of our independence and sovereignty, almost exceed the power of description. And shall not the brave men who have contributed so essentially to these inestimable acquisitions, retiring victorious from the field of war to the field of agriculture, participate in all the blessings which have been obtained? In such a republic, who will exclude them from the rights of citizens and the fruits of their labor? To those hardy soldiers who are actuated by the spirit of adventure, the fisheries will afford ample and profitable employment; and the extensive and fertile regions of the West will yield a most happy asylum to those who, fond of domestic enjoyment, are seeking personal independence. Little is now wanting to enable the soldier to change the military character into that of a citizen but that steady and decent behavior which has distinguished not only the army under this immediate command, but the different detachments and separate armies through the course of the war. To the various branches of the army the General takes this last and solemn opportunity of professing his inviolable attachment and friendship. He can only again offer in their behalf his recommendations to their grateful country and his prayers to the God of armies. May ample justice be done them here, and may favors, both here and hereafter, attend those who, under the divine auspices, have secured innumerable blessings for others! With these wishes and this benediction the commander-in-chief is about to retire from service. The curtain of separation will soon be drawn, and the military scene to him will be closed forever! WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS (_To the People of the United States--September 17, 1796_) Friends and Fellow-Citizens: The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the executive Government of the United States being not far distant, and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must be employed in designating the person who is to be clothed with that important trust it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprise you of the resolution I have formed, to decline being considered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made.... [Illustration: Statue of Washington at West Point Presented to the United States Military Academy by a Veteran of the Civil War Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.] In looking forward to the moment which is intended to terminate the career of my public life my feelings do not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude which I owe to my beloved country for the many honors it has conferred upon me; still more for the steadfast confidence with which it has supported me, and for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my inviolable attachment, by services faithful and persevering, though in usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our country from these services, let it always be remembered to your praise, and as an instructive example in our annals, that under circumstances in which the passions, agitated in every direction, were liable to mislead, amidst appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging, in situations in which not unfrequently want of success has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts, and a guarantee of the plans by which they were effected. Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete, by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing, as will acquire for them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection and adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it. Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger, natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments, which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all important to the permanency of your felicity as a People. Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment. The unity of government, which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that from different causes and from different quarters much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it, accustoming yourself to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can, in any event, be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts. For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name 'American,' which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings, and successes. But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole.... To the efficacy and permanency of your union a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay by the adoption of a constitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate union and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers uniting security with energy and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government. All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give an artificial and extraordinary force: to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests.... Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular opposition to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretext. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of government as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, that, for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprise of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.... Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.... Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened. As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is necessary that the public opinion should cooperate.... Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. TRIBUTES The life of our Washington cannot suffer by a comparison with those of other countries who have been most celebrated and exalted by fame. The attributes and decorations of royalty could have only served to eclipse the majesty of those virtues which made him, from being a modest citizen, a more resplendent luminary. Malice could never blast his honor, and envy made him a single exception to her universal rule. For himself he had lived enough to life and to glory. For his fellow-citizens, if their prayers could have been answered, he would have been immortal. His example is complete, and it will teach wisdom and virtue to magistrates, citizens, and men, not only in the present age, but in future generations, as long as our history shall be read. _John Adams_ Washington stands alone and unapproachable like a snow peak rising above its fellows into the clear air of morning, with a dignity, constancy, and purity which have made him the ideal type of civic virtue to succeeding generations. _James Bryce_ First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen, he was second to none in the humble and endearing scenes of private life, pious, just, humane, temperate, and sincere, uniform, dignified, and commanding, his example was as edifying to all around him, as were the effects of that example lasting. _Henry Lee_ Others of our great men have been appreciated--many admired by all. But him we love. Him we all love. About and around him we call up no dissentient and discordant and dissatisfied elements, no sectional prejudice nor bias, no party, no creed, no dogma of politics. None of these shall assail him. When the storm of battle blows darkest and rages highest, the memory of Washington shall nerve every American arm and cheer every American heart. It shall relume that Promethean fire, that sublime flame of patriotism, that devoted love of country, which his words have commended, which his example has consecrated. _Rufus Choate_ Let a man fasten himself to some great idea, some large truth, some noble cause, even in the affairs of this world, and it will send him forward with energy, with steadfastness, with confidence. This is what Emerson meant when he said: "Hitch your wagon to a star." These are the potent, the commanding, the enduring men--in our own history, men like Washington and Lincoln. They may fail, they may be defeated, they may perish; but onward moves the cause, and their souls go marching on with it, for they are part of it, they have believed in it. _Henry van Dyke_ Brave without temerity, laborious without ambition, generous without prodigality, noble without pride, virtuous without severity--Washington seems always to have confined himself within those limits where the virtues, by clothing themselves in more lively but more changeable and doubtful colors, may be mistaken for faults. Inspiring respect, he inspires confidence, and his smile is always the smile of benevolence. _Marquis Chastelleux_ Great without pomp, without ambition brave, Proud, not to conquer fellow-men, but save; Friend to the weak, a foe to none but those Who plan their greatness on their brethren's woes; Aw'd by no titles--undefil'd by lust-- Free without faction--obstinately just; Warm'd by religion's sacred, genuine ray, That points to future bliss the unerring way; Yet ne'er control'd by superstition's laws, That worst of tyrants in the noblest cause. _From a London Newspaper_ BIBLIOGRAPHY See Bibliography at end of monograph. ARBOR DAY Second Friday in April TREES I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree; A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth's sweet flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in summer wear A nest of robins in her hair; Upon whose bosom snow has lain, Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree. _Joyce Kilmer_ ARBOR DAY FOREWORD IN PAMPHLET ON ARBOR DAY ISSUED IN 1913 The following are the provisions of the statutes of the State concerning the observance of Arbor Day: The day in each year known as Arbor Day shall be suitably observed in the public schools. The Commissioner of Education shall from time to time prepare and issue to schools such circulars of information, advice and instruction with reference to the day as he may deem necessary. For the purpose of encouraging the planting of shade and forest trees, the second Friday of April in each year is hereby designated as a day for the general observance of such purpose, and to be known as Arbor Day. On said day appropriate exercises shall be introduced in all the schools of the State, and it shall be the duty of the several county and city superintendents to prepare a program of exercises for that day in all the schools under their respective jurisdiction. You will notice that Arbor Day now occurs on the second Friday of April, the Legislature of 1912 having changed the date. It is believed that Arbor Day may not only be devoted to the consideration of the value of trees and forests, including, of course, the planting of trees and shrubs, but that it may also be used to direct attention to birds and their protection, to the importance of the school garden, and to other related matters. The conservation of some of our natural resources might well be considered as the broad theme of the day, the main emphasis, however, being placed on trees. Much of the contents of this pamphlet will afford suggestive material for the use of teachers at any appropriate time. The general information given may be of help to many teachers throughout the spring months. The discussions of the various subjects presented may afford valuable reading material in the grammar schools. The main purpose of the pamphlet is to give an impetus to the movement for a greater interest in our natural resources, and the movement for a greater appreciation of the opportunities offered by rural or semi-rural life. It is hoped that the suggestions made are such as may appeal to the interests of children. It is hoped that Arbor Day may be a profitable one to the pupils in the schools. It is further hoped that the influence of the contents of the pamphlet may not be confined to any one day, but may be extended to many days of the school year. Calvin N. Kendall _Commissioner of Education_ LETTER ISSUED TO SCHOOL OFFICIALS IN 1919 Arbor Day will occur this year on Friday, April 11. An announcement concerning it may be found in the March number of the Education Bulletin. It has been happily suggested by Secretary Houston of the Department of Agriculture at Washington that the day be observed in part this year by planting trees upon our roadways, in our yards, and in our pleasure places, each tree being named for a soldier who has fallen in the late War. Such trees would be appropriate memorials to these soldiers. I suggest that this particular year there be wide-spread planting of trees dedicated to those whose lives have been sacrificed in the War. The planting of the trees should be marked with some appropriate exercises and these exercises should take on more than a school significance. The whole community should be invited by the school to take part. I trust there may be a generous response on the part of the schools of New Jersey to this idea. Calvin N. Kendall _Commissioner of Education_ TREES AND FORESTS ALFRED GASKILL, STATE FORESTER Save What We Have, Let Planting Come After When the farmers of Nebraska, led by J. Sterling Morton, established Arbor Day in 1872, they sought the threefold blessing that trees always give--shade from the summer sun, shelter from winter winds, and wood. These men found the broad prairies of the Middle West practically treeless and they soon discovered that unless nature's fault was remedied the homes they hoped to make could be neither pleasant, nor secure, nor successful. In New Jersey, as in all parts of the East, conditions were and are different. The whole state was originally unbroken forest, and the task of the pioneers was to make room for fields and settlements. Nearly half our area (46 per cent) is still forest, though the greater part has been reduced to a woefully poor condition. Thus if _our_ festival is to serve _our_ needs, we will celebrate Arbor Day in such, a way that we shall learn to improve the forests we have rather than seek to make more; to protect and care for the trees we have as well as to plant more; to get rid of false impressions and broaden our understanding of the relations between tree life and human society. New Jersey cannot spare more land for forests. She now has upwards of two million acres, and if we apply the rule that a state with 30 per cent of her area in forests is well off, we shall reduce the total to about a million and a half acres. But this will adjust itself; our present concern is to stop the waste of our forest resources and bring them to serve one of the most highly organized communities in the nation. With respect to trees, as distinguished from forests, this intensive life and concentrated population make it imperative that cities and towns be provided with parks and as much street shade as possible. Thus there are two ample fields for study and work, the one dealing with trees and their social bearings, the other with forests and their economic relations. The art of caring for _trees_ is called arboriculture, and one who devotes himself to it an arborist. The art of producing and developing tree communities, or _forests_, is silviculture or forestry. HOW TREES LIVE AND GROW The intimate study of trees is full of interest. The sap, consisting of raw food material gathered by the root hairs from the soil, courses upward, through the newer wood cells of trunk and branch, to the leaves; there, under the action of sunlight, it is assimilated with carbon dioxide, and, so prepared as tree food, passes downward through the newer bark. Thus, the process never entirely suspended, even in winter, but varying in vigor with the seasons, the tree grows in stature by producing new shoots each year. No part of a tree that has concluded a season's growth is ever elongated, but remains fixed, and length is added to its terminal by the development of new buds. This is why a branch always remains at the height at which it started. On account of this fact the age of a tree or branch may be determined by counting back from the terminal one year for each section of development. On most deciduous trees this is hard to follow for more than a few years, but on the evergreens, which produce their branches in whorls, it is easy. On the other hand, diameter growth may continue indefinitely and is exhibited on any cross-section in a series of annual rings. A count of these rings will give the age of the tree at that point. Other interesting things to know are the means by which trees support themselves upright, even in severe storms; how they support the weight of heavy branches; and how the various species differ in the form, color, texture of their bark. Then the flowers and fruits. Few people know that the early spring awakening of the silver maple is marked by the appearance of its flowers weeks before the leaves come out, or that pines and oaks have flowers at all. And so with the fruits: willows produce catkins; chestnuts, burs; elms, samaras; spruce, cones. KNOWING THE TREES And then one who is fond of trees will not be satisfied until he can recognize and name at least the commoner kinds. This is field work for many seasons, for the variations as well as the fixed characters must be observed, and there are at least a hundred species to be found in New Jersey. The student will soon want a handbook like Collins and Preston's "Key to Trees," but without that he will distinguish the two great groups--evergreen and deciduous. The evergreens are also called conifers because the fruit of most of them is a cone. Almost all are ornamental but none is suitable for the street. Their wood is commonly called soft, though that of many species is quite hard, and forms the great bulk of coarse lumber used for building, etc. Deciduous trees are so called because their leaves fall at the beginning of winter. There are many more kinds or species of these than of evergreens and their forms and characters are more varied. A few have recognized values as shade trees; many more are interesting or attractive in the park or on the lawn; others are never found outside the forest. By way of contrast with that of the conifers, the wood of deciduous trees is called hard, though many kinds are quite soft, and the trees themselves hardwoods. Hardwood lumber is often very beautiful, and is used for many purposes besides furniture, but the world could better get along without it than without soft woods. SHADE TREES One is attracted to a noble oak, a graceful hemlock, a beautifully colored maple, and wants to live with it and its kind. This desire deserves to be satisfied, and can be satisfied by encouraging the planting of trees where they will reduce the glare and heat of city streets; on lawns and in parks they are more at home and can be treated so that the beauty of individuals and the values of groups or masses can be brought out. Especially should they find place upon every school ground so that the attention of the children may be constantly drawn to these hungry, thirsty, breakable, burnable, beautiful friends of man. The kinds of trees that may be planted upon a city street are few, for the life is so hard that only the hardiest can stand it. If we name Norway Maple, Ginkgo, Sycamore, White Elm, Red Oak, the list of the best is exhausted. Others may often be planted where conditions are favorable, and for lawns and parks the list of availables is almost endless, but in any case the wisest course is to avoid novelties and get some one who is experienced to do the planting. But more important than to plant a tree is to protect and develop one already in the right place. This applies especially to trees beside country roads. A newly planted tree has a precarious hold on life for several years, whereas an old one has survived many dangers. Let, therefore, the care of the trees that are found in place be the first concern. Guard them from all that may increase their infirmities, keep in check the insects that seek to destroy them, have their wounds attended to and their branches pruned where necessary. This is work for one who knows how, not for the butcher who "tops" a tree "to make it grow"; or for the "tree doctor" who uses cement without knowing whether it will do good or do harm. Reputable men can be found to do any work of this kind. Under wise direction there should be no hesitation about cutting down a tree that is in the way. In many places houses and streets are too much shaded. The fundamental idea to be grasped is that every tree is an organism; in one view an individual, in another a community. We must satisfy at least its strongest requirements or it cannot live. To the extent that all are satisfied is the tree healthy and vigorous. FORESTS As with trees so with the tree communities called forests. Our duty in New Jersey is to improve the forests we have rather than to concern ourselves about getting more. Of course, waste land may be redeemed by planting with trees, but where there is a remnant of the old forest, nature can be trusted to bring another if she is given a fair chance. The forest secured in this way may not yield so much lumber as one that was planted, and it will not satisfy a forester, but it will answer our most immediate needs, and can be secured more quickly than any other. And again, as with trees, let no one fear to have a forest cut off when its time comes. Forest trees were made for use and if they are not used as they mature, nature will get rid of them by decay. That this must be so will appear when one observes that in any piece of native woods room is made for young trees by the fall of old ones that have lived their term. WHY FORESTS ARE GOOD Nature clothed most of the habitable earth with forests of one kind or another and evidently meant that they should serve mankind. This they do by furnishing wood for shelter and for warmth (seven-eighths of the people of the world still use wood for fuel), by providing grateful shade in summer and protection from cold winds in winter, by preventing the soil on steep hillsides from being lost by erosion, by regulating the flow of streams. The contention that forests cause rainfall, or materially influence the climate of a country, is not established. The weight of evidence indicates that forests thrive in proportion to the rainfall rather than that the rain falls in proportion to the extent of forests. And in respect to stream flow we must distinguish between a mountainous or hilly country and a country that is flat; and whether the rain commonly falls in brief, heavy storms or in frequent gentle showers. For instance, we can say with assurance that in North Jersey a forested watershed will discharge a purer, more regular stream than one that is unforested, while in South Jersey the influence of the forest upon the streams is negligible. THE FORESTS OF NEW JERSEY As the climate of New Jersey is much the same in all parts, the character of our forests is determined chiefly by soil conditions. Fortunately we have a great diversity, and between the northern and southern sections, strong contrasts. The line separating these sections is nowhere sharply defined but is commonly assumed to run more or less irregularly from Long Branch to Salem. The forests of North Jersey, supported by soils of considerable fertility, are almost universally of the mixed hardwood type common to the greater part of the central United States east of the Mississippi River. That is, they are composed of a variety of deciduous trees in which are many oaks, chestnut, beech, several maples, ashes, hickories, elms, birches, etc. As exceptions or variants to the type are swampy areas in which black spruce and hemlock are dominant, and sterile mountain crests bearing the pitch pine and scrub oak of the poorest South Jersey sands. This kind of forest, in which each species occupies the position to which it is best adapted, and from which therefore all competitors are excluded, is considered by ecologists the most highly developed vegetable society. And about and among these forests is the most fully developed human society--villages, towns and cities. Practically all these forests have been several times cut over and many times burned. Individual trees about settlements are often noble and imposing, and occasional groves of fine trees are found, but the forest is only a reminder of what it was--and a promise of what it may be. In South Jersey the contrast with North Jersey is emphasized in every way. Instead of hills and valleys the land is level or gently rolling. Near the Delaware and at numerous points in the interior are fertile soils and thriving communities, but much of the territory is characterized by sand and forests of pine, with an undergrowth of scrub oak, often covering hundreds of thousands of acres. This condition justifies the common name of the region "The Pines," though variations in soil frequently give rise to considerable areas of tree oaks, and swamps of white cedar border many of the streams. On the sandy land profitable agriculture is full of uncertainties; but forestry is not, for there the pitch pine, though burned almost to extinction by the fires that for years swept annually across the level reaches, persists and wherever given a few years' immunity from fire, sends up its arms of living green. Here is the great forest area of the state; one of those tracts fitted by nature to maintain trees of a single kind, or single class. These "pure" forests, so called in contrast to the mixed forests of richer regions, are found in the southern states, in the far North and in the Rocky Mountains. They are easily developed, easily logged, and always will be, as they now are, the chief source of the world's lumber supply. FIRE The key to the forest problem in New Jersey, as in every state, is the control of fire. A few years ago it was an undenied fact that more forest was destroyed by fire every year than by the ax. Burning the forest to make plow-land was justifiable when trees were an encumbrance, but the practice got us into bad habits. From being a servant, fire became a master. Without fires, we in New Jersey can and will have all the forest we need; with fires, that which is bad becomes worse. The lesson for Arbor Day, and for every day, therefore, is to urge and require that no forest shall be burned. It is good fun to sit about a camp-fire, yet the danger that the fire will escape and do harm is great. Even a surface-fire that apparently burns only dry leaves, and is often set for that purpose, will kill the young trees that are just starting on the struggle for life. Fortunately New Jersey is getting her fires under control. Firewardens are located wherever there are forests; their duty is to prevent fires by every means possible, and if a fire is started they must summon men to put it out. The forests are already responding to this protection and proving their ability to take care of themselves when relieved of the frightful handicap that has been upon them for generations. PRACTICAL FORESTRY Though fire control will make a forest where conditions are favorable as here, the skill of a forester is needed to make it a good and a productive forest. Here is applied a knowledge that is more intimate than that which serves to recognize a tree or to provide for its physical well-being. The successful forester must be a practical scientist in many departments; must have executive ability and be a capable business man. All who cannot meet these requirements should be discouraged from seeking to make forestry their profession. PARKS Every urban community needs parks where those who live in close quarters can find fresh air. And a state with many cities must make it possible for the people to get into the open--not for an hour only, but for days and weeks. New Jersey can do this in the woodlands that are so near to most of the large cities. It is not always necessary that the state take title to the land; few owners object to reasonable use and almost all would gladly remove every restriction if they were assured that the privilege would not be abused. The timber forests of continental Europe are universally used as great public parks. Good roads make all parts accessible and the tourists are so accustomed to behave themselves that no serious harm is done. We can have ample parks of this kind at no more cost than assuring the owners' material interests. STATE AID The state of New Jersey is prepared to help its citizens in any interest connected with the soil. The State Forester, Trenton, will advise individuals or communities regarding the care of shade trees and the planting or management of forests. The Agricultural Experiment Station, New Brunswick, and the Department of Agriculture, Trenton, will afford similar assistance upon any subject connected with farms, orchards or gardens. Anyone who wants to know about any of these subjects has the right to ask questions and to seek advice. ARBOR DAY MAY BE OBSERVED BY PLANTING A HAMILTON GROVE CHARLES A. PHILHOWER, SUPERVISING PRINCIPAL, WESTFIELD The following fitting observance of Arbor Day, commemorating an historic incident in the life of Alexander Hamilton, was conducted in Mindowaskin Park, Westfield, April 12, 1918. The program took its origin from the following narrative: Alexander Hamilton, in the year 1801, planted a grove of thirteen trees at his home, "Hamilton Grange," 143d Street, west of Convent Avenue, New York City. The trees were the liquidambar styraciflua, sweet or red gum, and were sent from the South. Each one of the thirteen trees was named for one of the thirteen original colonies. The group of trees was later known as the "Hamilton Grove." Martha Washington became greatly interested both in its upkeep and in its preservation. The program was as follows. * * * * * The schools marched to the park with flags and assembled en masse. As the flag was raised, the Star Spangled Banner was sung, a cornetist leading. Address by Honorable Arthur N. Pierson. Song, "Over There." Planting of trees: Each of the thirteen grades, from the kindergarten through the twelfth grade, planted a tree. As the trees for the states were planted the following passages were read. When the New Jersey tree was planted the whole audience joined in the response. Massachusetts This tree we plant as a memorial to the great state of Massachusetts, noted for its patriots and its learning. As thy emblem, the pine tree, points to heaven, may thy ideals lead us on. New Hampshire Land of the Great Stone Face, look over these United States of ours with a watchfulness that will keep us true and steadfast in the cause of democracy. Rhode Island Grow, thou tree of life, as the spirit of religious liberty has grown in this broad land of ours. Connecticut As the famous Charter Oak kept thy government free and unmolested, so may the branches of this tree perpetuate to the world the constitution under which we as a nation live. New York The towering buildings of thy metropolis cry as they mount heavenward "Excelsior." May thy slogan be the slogan of our nation. New Jersey Proud are we of this the "Garden State of the Union." We love thee and the great Union of which thou art a part. For thee and our country we live and serve. Pennsylvania Live to the memory of thy founder, William Penn, father of peace and justice. This boon we would give to the world. Maryland Song--"Maryland, My Maryland." Delaware Long live the memory of this first state of the Union. May we show to the world, "In Union there is Strength." Virginia Home of the father of Our Country, to thee we dedicate this tree. Washington, give us that courage that held thee to the great cause of freedom. North Carolina The cypress tall and majestic is the tree of this state. Majestic may this country of ours stand among the nations of the world. South Carolina Like the palmetto which bends its branches over all who come to its shade, spread to all the benediction of life and liberty. Georgia Refuge of the oppressed. May the charity of thy founders characterize us as a nation. Song, "America." A record of the plantings was filed in the school. On each succeeding Arbor Day each class which planted a tree will see whether its tree is growing. Should the tree perchance have died, another will be planted in its place. Other trees than the sweet gum may be used in some localities with greater certainty of thriving. SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS K. C. DAVIS, FORMERLY OF STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, NEW BRUNSWICK As the season of planting is upon us and all nature is preparing to show her most gorgeous dress, we should interest the pupil in ways of beautifying the school. There is not a school in the land that cannot be made better, and many of them may be improved very much. The pupils will take a great interest in the matter if they receive a little encouragement and leadership on the part of their teachers. Beautify the school grounds. A woven wire trellis supporting a thrifty vine would be a splendid screen for unsightly outbuildings. Shrubs about the foundations of the school building, in the angles of walks, and in natural clumps in the corners of the grounds would add beauty to the school surroundings. A few plots not used for play nor for garden may be grassed. Never scatter the trees or shrubs openly about the lawn area. Better mass the shrubs in natural clumps in angles or foundations, walks and borders. Use the trees along boundary and division lines. Native trees and shrubs are always preferable to imported or exotic kinds. PLANNING FOR ARBOR DAY Arbor Day plans should be begun early and should include a number of lines of preparatory work. Send for the bulletins first. Draw plans of the grounds, measuring the lines and distances to make it somewhat accurate. If a class is assigned to this task the best map may be framed for the future use of the school. A passepartout binding, at least, may be used. This map may show the plan of planting for several years if there is more to be planted than can be done this year. The walks, buildings, clumps of shrubs, trees, school garden, playgrounds, etc., should all be shown. This work may be done by arithmetic or geography classes. The arithmetic class may also find suitable dimensions for the corn-contest plots. Have the reading classes read about birds, gardening, trees, lawns, weeds, etc. Use the newer words in spelling exercises. Let boys and girls both make bird-houses at home. These may be ready to put up on Arbor Day. The corn testing and seed study should begin at once. Trees, shrubs and seeds that are to be planted on Arbor Day, or soon after, should be ready in advance. The roots of trees and shrubs must be temporarily covered with soil to prevent drying out. Some exercises in root grafting of apples may be carried out as described in two of the bulletins, 113 and 408. Tools to be used in the planting of school grounds may be brought by pupils from their homes; the list available for the purpose should be made in advance. Divide the students into suitable groups for the work, so that each will know his part. Invite parents and home folks to the work of Arbor Day, and make it a community exercise. The men may come in the morning to work, and the women may come with lunch baskets at noon, both staying until the exercises are over. Plan to have some one take pictures of the children and patrons while the improvement work is going on. Do not forget to have some manure and good soil hauled in advance. SUGGESTIVE PROGRAMS I 1. Remarks by the teacher or a member of the school board on the value of teaching the useful and beautiful as well as the classical and historical. 2. Have five pupils stand together. The first pupil will read from this pamphlet or tell in his own way why we should all know more about trees; the second about insects; the third about weeds; the fourth about birds; and the fifth about corn. 3. Have five girls stand and each tell a few things about some useful bird. 4. Have a boy who has made a bird box tell how bird boxes are a protection to young birds, and how he made his. 5. Have a boy tell of some ways of destroying English sparrows, learned from U. S. Farmers' Bulletin 383. 6. Another boy should tell how to distinguish English sparrows from other sparrows and common birds. 7. Have some of the best tree planters tell how to plant a tree--preparation of soil, roots, pruning and actual planting. _Note._ In any or all of these exercises pupils may get the subject matter from this pamphlet and from bulletins referred to in it. They may make note on paper of what they wish to say and speak from these notes. If the time for preparation be very short the points may be copied and read directly. Let each exercise be very short. II 1. Announcement of outlines of contests in school or home gardening, corn growing, or other work the school may be planning, and the premiums offered for the contests and exhibits next fall. 2. Some pupils may tell of several benefits of trees and forests, or five pupils may stand together and each tell of one important benefit. 3. Have a pupil describe how to test seed corn by the individual ear method. 4. Have two pupils tell of the two types of insect moths, each telling how to control such insects. 5. Have a boy tell of three or four things necessary to improve the home lawn. (See U. S. Bulletin 248) 6. Have three pupils stand and each take one part (_a_) Use of vines to beautify the grounds at school or home, naming some vines to use in certain places (_b_) Use of trees in same way (_c_) Use of shrubs in same way THE VALUE OF OUR FORESTS Few people ever think of a forest as a place to store water. Who would think that "the woods" hold water as well as a mill pond or a reservoir! But they do, although we cannot see the water they hold, except, perhaps, as a pool here and there; and yet this is one of the most important functions that a forest can perform. All of us have noticed in walking through the woods how soft and springy the ground is. A thick carpet of leaves, twigs, and decayed wood covers the earth, sometimes to a depth of several feet. It is very porous, and it absorbs water like a sponge. When storms come and rain falls in torrents, it does not beat directly upon the ground under the trees because the raindrops first strike the leaves and branches above. The water then trickles gently down and soaks into the leafy carpet. If the forest is extensive a very large quantity of water is absorbed--enough to prevent floods except in extraordinarily long periods of rain. Gradually through the weeks and months that follow the absorbed water oozes out of low places as "springs," and it dashes merrily away in little brooks that continue to form creeks and rivers which flow peacefully and steadily out to sea. If there are no trees, no leaves to break the beating rain, no spongy mold to hold the water when it falls, no matted roots to prevent washing, the big raindrops spatter upon the earth and quickly form rushing streams that wash the ground into gulleys. The bare earth absorbs some water, to be sure, but far less than the humus of the forest. If the rains are continued the rivers are soon filled beyond the capacity of their banks and they spread over the neighboring valleys, carrying devastation with them. After the heavy rains cease, the flood waters subside as suddenly as they had arisen and the streams dwindle to insignificance, sometimes completely drying up in a long, hot summer. Thus it is that forests act as great reservoirs and aid in preventing disastrous floods and in maintaining the flow of streams at a rate that is nearly uniform all the year round. Now let us see what use is made of the trees. The greatest of all is for firewood; but this is largely the decaying or faulty trees from the farmer's woodlot, the waste product of a lumber region, or from land that is cleared for cultivation. It is said that about 100,000,000 cords are used annually. The greater part of the salable timber, however, is sawed into lumber, which is used in a variety of ways. The first and greatest use of lumber is for building houses, barns, sheds, outbuildings and fences. Next comes furniture of all kinds--chairs, tables, beds, and all other house, office, and school furniture; musical instruments; vehicles of all kinds--wagons, carriages, buggies, and parts of automobiles; agricultural implements--plows, harrows, harvesters, thrashing machines, and other farm implements. Car building is another great use for lumber--freight cars, passenger cars, and trolley cars. Other important uses for timber are as cross-ties, poles for telegraph and telephone lines, and "shoring" or supports in mines. Even more trees are used in the manufacture of paper than for these purposes. Then there are various small articles used in the home, such as spools, butter dishes, fruit crates, baskets, boxes, all kinds of tools, toys, picture frames, matches, pencils, clothes pins, toothpicks, etc. These are little things, but so many of them are used that they consume a great deal of wood. Next we derive tannic acid for tanning leather, turpentine and rosin, maple sugar, and many extracts used in making medicines. So valuable are the forests that the whole nation is interested in preserving them. No one is benefited more by them than the farmer, and no one should be more interested in them.--_U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin, "Agriculture and Rural Life Day"_ BIRDS "The Study of Birds and Bird Life in the Schools of New Jersey," by Dr. Robert G. Leavitt, of the Trenton State Normal School, published by this Department, should be consulted. BIBLIOGRAPHY See Bibliography at end of monograph. MEMORIAL DAY May 30 THE SLEEP OF THE BRAVE How sleep the brave, who sink to rest By all their country's wishes blessed! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallowed mold, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. By fairy hands their knell is rung; By forms unseen their dirge is sung; There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay; And Freedom shall awhile repair, To dwell a weeping hermit there! _William Collins_ MEMORIAL DAY GEORGE C. BAKER, SUPERVISING PRINCIPAL, MOORESTOWN SUGGESTIVE PROGRAM Flag Salute Song--"Battle Hymn of the Republic" Story of Memorial Day Stories from the battle-fields of 1861 and 1918, told by larger pupils, adult members of the community, or soldiers "The Blue and the Gray" Song--"Keep the Home Fires Burning" "The Gettysburg Address" "In Flanders Fields" Song--"America" or "The Star Spangled Banner" Preparatory to the making and carrying out of a Memorial Day program, the teacher, a group of pupils or some wide-awake member of the community should talk about the sacrifices made by the soldiers of our country during the different wars in which we have been engaged; what great principles they have fought for, and why we should honor their memory in the public schools of our land. Throughout the preparation and the execution of the program there should be a consciousness of the debt we owe to those who have fought and died for freedom's cause. The simplest program prepared in this spirit will be of lasting value to the children of the school and to the members of the community in which the exercises are held. Pupils and teachers should talk over fully the kind of program to be given. Much responsibility should be placed upon the pupils for the making of the program. They should make all "projects" necessary for the carrying out of the program, and should invite all patrons and friends in the community. The exercises should be a service truly commemorating the honored dead of our land. ORIGIN OF MEMORIAL DAY The observance of May 30 as Memorial Day had its official origin in an order issued in 1868 by General John A. Logan, then commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic. General Logan often said afterward that the issuing of that order was the proudest act of his life. The strewing of flowers upon graves is old in some countries. It is said that the first decoration of graves of soldiers of the Civil War was done on April 13, 1862, by two little girls, daughters of a Michigan chaplain. They had been out gathering wild flowers, and, returning, came across a rough, unmarked mound which covered some northern boy. One of the girls said: "Oh, let's put our flowers on this grave! He was a soldier boy." They knelt down and made garlands of flowers on that grave. This grave was in Virginia, not far from Mount Vernon. The next day they interested their family and friends in a plan to decorate all the graves, and the plan was carried out. Each year afterward, in May, they did the same wherever they happened to be. Others saw them and followed their example. The later date of May 30 was chosen by General Logan so that flowers could be had in all the northern states. From decorating the graves of soldiers the custom has extended to the graves of all who have relatives or friends to remember them. In time the soldiers will be forgotten, but the custom of decorating graves with flowers will doubtless continue for many generations to come. The spirit which prompts it is a noble one, which should ever be cherished. Two years after the close of the Civil War the _New York Tribune_ printed a paragraph simply stating that "the women of Columbus, Mississippi, have shown themselves impartial in their offerings made to the memory of the dead. They strewed flowers alike on the graves of the Confederate and of the National soldiers." Whereupon the North thrilled with tenderness and Francis Miles Finch was inspired to write his moving lyric "The Blue and the Gray," which has become the credo of the Festival. In a famous address, Chauncey M. Depew related the occurrence with felicity: "When the war was over in the South, where under warmer skies and with more poetic temperaments symbols and emblems are better understood than in the practical North, the widows, mothers, and the children of the Confederate dead went out and strewed their graves with flowers; at many places the women scattered them impartially also over the unknown and unmarked resting-places of the Union soldiers. As the news of this touching tribute flashed over the North it roused, as nothing else could have done, national amity and love and allayed sectional animosity and passion. Thus out of sorrows common alike to North and South comes this beautiful custom." The incident, however, produced no practical results until in May, 1868, Adjutant-General N. P. Chipman suggested to National Commander John A. Logan, of the Grand Army of the Republic, that their organization inaugurate the custom of spreading flowers on the graves of the Union soldiers at some uniform time. General Logan immediately issued an order naming the 30th day of May, 1868, "for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, or hamlet churchyard in the land.... It is the purpose of the commander-in-chief to inaugurate this observance with the hope that it will be kept up from year to year while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of the departed." The idea spread rapidly. Legislature after legislature enacted it into law until the holiday has become a legal one in all states. In some of the southern states an earlier date is usually chosen. THE REVEILLE[F] [F] Used by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers. Hark! I hear the tramp of thousands And of armed men the hum; Lo! a nation's hosts have gathered Round the quick alarming drum-- Saying "Come, Freeman, come! Ere your heritage be wasted," said the quick alarming drum. "Let me of my heart take counsel: War is not of life the sum; Who shall stay and reap the harvest When the autumn days shall come?" But the drum Echoed "Come! Death shall reap the braver harvest," said the solemn-sounding drum. "But when won the coming battle, What of profit springs therefrom? What if conquest, subjugation, Even greater ills become?" But the drum Answered, "Come! You must do the sum to prove it," said the Yankee answering drum. "What if, 'mid the cannon's thunder, Whistling shot and bursting bomb, When my brothers fall around me, Should my heart grow cold and numb?" But the drum Answered "Come! Better there in death united than in life a recreant--Come!" Thus they answered--hoping, fearing, Some in faith and doubting some, Till a trumpet-voice, proclaiming, Said, "My chosen people, come!" Then the drum, Lo! was dumb, For the great heart of the nation, throbbing, answered, "Lord, we come!" _Bret Harte_ THE BLUE AND THE GRAY By the flow of the inland river, Whence the fleets of iron have fled, Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver, Asleep are the ranks of the dead: Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment-day; Under the one, the Blue, Under the other, the Gray. These in the robings of glory, Those in the gloom of defeat, All with the battle-blood gory, In the dusk of eternity meet: Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment-day; Under the laurel, the Blue, Under the willow, the Gray. From the silence of sorrowful hours The desolate mourners go, Lovingly laden with flowers Alike for the friend and the foe: Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment-day; Under the roses, the Blue, Under the lilies, the Gray. So with an equal splendor, The morning sun-rays fall, With a touch impartially tender, On the blossoms blooming for all: Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment-day; Broidered with gold, the Blue, Mellowed with gold, the Gray. So, when the summer calleth, On forest and field of grain, With an equal murmur falleth The cooling drip of the rain: Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment-day; Wet with the rain, the Blue, Wet with the rain, the Gray. Sadly, but not with upbraiding, The generous deed was done; In the storm of the years that are fading No braver battle was won: Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment-day; Under the blossoms, the Blue, Under the garlands, the Gray. No more shall the war cry sever, Or the winding rivers be red; They banish our anger forever When they laurel the graves of our dead! Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment-day; Love and tears for the Blue, Tears and love for the Gray. _Francis Miles Finch_ RECESSIONAL God of our fathers, known of old-- Lord of our far-flung battle line-- Beneath whose awful hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine-- Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget--lest we forget! The tumult and the shouting dies, The captains and the kings depart; Still stands thine ancient sacrifice-- An humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget--lest we forget! Far-called, our navies melt away; On dune and headland sinks the fire. Lo! all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! Judge of the nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget--lest we forget! If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe, Such boasting as the Gentiles use Or lesser breeds without the law-- Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget--lest we forget! For heathen heart that puts her trust In reeking tube and iron shard, All valiant dust that builds on dust, And guarding calls not Thee to guard, For frantic boasts and foolish word, Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord! Amen. _Rudyard Kipling_ BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword; His truth is marching on. Glory! glory! Hallelujah! Glory! glory! Hallelujah! Glory! glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on. I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps; They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps. His day is marching on. He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat; Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on. In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me; As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on. _Julia Ward Howe_ We have scattered our floral tributes today over the graves of the patriotic dead. These frail mementos of affection will soon wither, but let not the memory of these martyrs fail to inspire in us a purer, holier life! The roll-call brings to mind their faces and their deeds. They were faithful to the end. The weary march, the bivouac, the battle are still remembered by the survivors. But your line, comrades, is growing slenderer every year. One by one you will drop out of the ranks, and other hands may ere long strew your grave with flowers as you have done today in yonder cemetery. When mustered in the last grand review, with all the veterans and heroes of earth, may each receive with jubilant heart the Great Commander's admiring tribute "Well done!" and become with Him partaker of a felicity that is enduring and triumphant! _E. P. Thwing_ Of all the martial virtues, the one which is perhaps most characteristic of the truly brave is the virtue of magnanimity. That sentiment, immortalized by Scott in his musical and martial verse, will associate for all time the name of Scotland's king with those of the great spirits of the past. How grand the exhibitions of the same generous impulses that characterize this memorable battle-field! My fellow-countrymen of the North, if I may be permitted to speak for those whom I represent, let me assure you that in the profoundest depths of their nature, they reciprocate that generosity with all the manliness and sincerity of which they are capable. In token of that sincerity they join in consecrating, for annual patriotic pilgrimage, these historic heights, which drank such copious draughts of American blood, poured so freely in discharge of duty, as each conceived it--a Mecca for the North, which so grandly defended, a Mecca for the South, which so bravely and persistently stormed it. We join you in setting apart this land as an enduring monument of peace, brotherhood, and perpetual union. I repeat the thought with emphasis, with singleness of heart and of purpose, in the name of a common country, and of universal liberty; and by the blood of our fallen brothers, we unite in the solemn consecration of these hallowed hills, as a holy, eternal pledge of fidelity to the life, freedom, and unity of this cherished Republic. _John B. Gordon_ From "Gettysburg: A Mecca for the Blue and the Gray" Our fathers ordained that in this Republic there should be no distinctions; but human nature is stronger than laws and nothing can prevent this people from showing honor to all who have deserved well of the country. Every man who has borne arms with credit has earned and is sure to receive a special measure of regard. And it is our peculiar privilege to remember that our armies and navies, regular and volunteer, have always been worthy of esteem ... the Grand Army of the Republic--soldiers and citizens whom the Republic delights to honor. _John Hay_ Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations, that we have forgotten, as a people, the cost of a free and undivided Republic. _John A. Logan_ We honor our heroic and patriotic dead by being true men, as true men by faithfully fighting the battles of our day as they fought the battles of their day. _David Gregg_ AFTER THE GREAT COMPANIONS! The race has not run out. We are still men, and worthy of our fathers. That is what Memorial Day 1919 says to us. Not in pride nor vain boasting but in fearful and solemn humility we speak, for it is our dead that prompt us. They, our kin and blood, were not afraid to die. When the Destroyer came, the obscene Dragon, with breath of poison gas, eyes of hell fire, and teeth of steel, they did not shrink, our brothers, but played the man, and struck, and dying struck again, and flung their shredded bodies into the breach, and "filled the gap up with our English dead." We are of such. We put our arms around our dead, and hold them proudly up to God, and glory before all men that this is our breed. The lies of the Accuser are disproved. His slanders fall from us. We are not slaves of greed, money grubbers, soft and lily-livered. We know how to suffer and to die. We, too, can follow the gleam. O Greeks of Marathon, room for us! Through Chateau Thierry and the wood of Argonne we have come up to stand by your side, and dare to call you Brothers. You Five Hundred of Balaklava, meet these boys from Kansas and New York, who also rode blithely into the valley of death. They are your kind. You men of Bunker Hill, of Gettysburg and of San Juan, place! place for these, our neighbors' sons, our friends and playmates! For them also the laurel, and the royal requiem! For them the Cross of Honor, and the Divine Halo! They are ours! Ours! Dear God, we will be worthy of them. Thus cries the poet of America: "Allons! After the great Companions, and to belong to them! "Allons! through struggles and wars! "Have the past struggles succeeded? "What has succeeded? yourself? your nation? Nature? "Now understand me well--it is provided in the essence of things that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary. "Allons! the road is before us!" _Dr. Frank Crane_ THE SERVICE FLAG The service flag is not an official flag of the United States Government. The idea was, so far as we are advised, an entirely novel one, the credit for the conception of which appears to be due to R. L. Queisser, of Cleveland, Ohio, who designed and patented the present flag. It has, however, taken such firm root in popular sentiment and has been of such beneficial influence that it is officially recognized, and everyone who is entitled to fly it is encouraged and urged to do so. Mr. Queisser was formerly captain of the machine gun company, 5th Ohio Infantry (now 145th United States Infantry), from which he was retired because of an accident. He thus states the origin of the flag: "Shortly after April 6, 1917, when war with Germany was declared, the thought came to me that both of my sons, who were still officers in the guard, would again be called out, and I wondered if I could not evolve some sign or symbol by which it might be known that they were away in their country's service, and one which would be to their mother a visible sign of the sacrifice her sons were making. The inspiration of the service flag came to me in that manner." _Official U. S. Bulletin_ THE SERVICE FLAG A field of gleaming white, A border ruby red, And a blazing star That is seen afar As it flutters overhead. From the window of a cot, From the mansion on the hill, Sends that banner fair, Beyond compare, Its loyal message still. "A man beloved and dear, O land, I've given to you. He has gone to fight On the side of right; To Old Glory he'll be true!" It floats from learning's halls, And within the busy mart, Where its crowded stars Form growing bars To rejoice the drooping heart. Each star stands for a life, To the nation gladly given, For an answered prayer To those "over there," Though a mother's heart be riven. We pass with kindling eye Beneath your colors true; A nation's love, A nation's hope Are bound in the heart of you! _Josephine M. Fabricant_ I HAVE A SON[G] [G] Reprinted from the Saturday Evening Post, Philadelphia. Copyrighted 1917 by the Curtis Publishing Company, Philadelphia. I have a son who goes to France Tomorrow. I have clasped his hand-- Most men will understand-- And wished him, smiling, lucky chance in France. My son! At last the house is still-- Just the dog and I in the garden--dark-- Stars and my pipe's red spark-- The house his young heart used to fill Is still. He said one day, "I've got to go To France--Dad, you know how I feel!" I knew. Like sun and steel And morning. "Yes," I said, "I know You'll go." I'd waited just to hear him speak Like that. God, what if I had had Another sort of lad, Something too soft and meek and weak To speak! And yet! He could not guess the blow He'd struck. Why, he's my only son! And we had just begun To be dear friends. But I dared not show The blow. But now--tonight-- No, no; it's right; I never had a righter thing To bear. And men must fling Themselves away in the grieving sight Of right. A handsome boy--but I, who knew His spirit--well, they cannot mar The cleanness of a star That'll shine to me, always and true, Who knew. I've given him. Yes; and had I more, I'd give them too--for there's a love That asking, asks above The human measure of our store-- And more. Yes; it hurts! Here in the dark, alone-- No one to see my wet old eyes-- I'll watch the morning rise-- And only God shall hear my groan Alone. I have a son who goes to France Tomorrow. I have clasped his hand-- Most men will understand-- And wished him, smiling, lucky chance In France. _Emory Pottle_ IN FLANDERS FIELDS[H] [H] From "In Flanders Fields," by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, courtesy of G. P. Putnam's Sons, publishers. In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly, Scarce heard amidst the guns below. We are the dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved; and now we lie In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe! To you from failing hands we throw The torch. Be yours to hold it high! If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields. _John McCrae_ AMERICA'S ANSWER Rest ye in peace, ye Flanders dead. The fight that ye so bravely led We've taken up. And we will keep True faith with you who lie asleep, With each a cross to mark his bed, And poppies blowing overhead, Where once his own life blood ran red. So let your rest be sweet and deep In Flanders fields. Fear not that ye have died for naught. The torch ye threw to us we caught. Ten million hands will hold it high, And freedom's light shall never die! We've learned the lesson that ye taught In Flanders fields. _R. W. Lillard_ AMERICAN SENTIMENTS It is a fearful thing to lead this great, peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts--for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other. _Woodrow Wilson_ We came into this war for ourselves. It is a war to save America, to preserve self-respect, to justify our right to live as we have lived, not as some one else wishes us to live. It is more precious that this America shall live than that we Americans should live. _Franklin K. Lane_ No nation has a right to its freedom if it is unwilling to fight for the freedom of others, and for its own. The cost of war is not to be measured in money. It is in the slow paid price of the human heart--in the blood drops, one by one. _Charles C. Gordon_ BIBLIOGRAPHY See Bibliography at end of monograph. FLAG DAY June 14 THE STARS AND STRIPES It is not a painted rag. It is a whole national history. It is the Constitution. It is the Government. It is the free people that stand in the Government, on the Constitution. _Henry Ward Beecher_ FLAG DAY HANNAH H. CHEW, PRINCIPAL CULVER SCHOOL, MILLVILLE The great war has brought more forcibly to us a realization of the necessity for training the youth of our land to a greater respect for, and a fuller knowledge of our national emblem. Wherever the flag floats, children must be taught to love it and to respect its significance. New Jersey long ago required that the flag be displayed on school buildings, and the flag salute be given daily, but no statute can make certain that the spirit of the law is emphasized. The teachers of the children of the state bear the responsibility of training for patriotism, and the future of democracy depends upon the patriotic ideals nurtured in the public schools. We shall have more patriotic observances than formerly and one of those which we shall celebrate with more interest will be Flag Day. The date authorized to be observed as Flag Day comes so near the close of the school year that it may well be used as a special occasion on which pupil and parent join in paying tribute to our national emblem. Flag Day can be made the occasion of raising a new flag, or of taking a collection to provide silk flags or a patriotic picture for the classrooms, thus giving parents an opportunity to contribute to the patriotism of the school. If a new flag is to be presented to the school, Flag Day will be a most appropriate time to receive it, and exercises can be conducted partly or altogether out-of-doors. On the playground all pupils can take part in marches and drills suitable to their grades. In order to have the best effects, some uniformity of costume is best. Any movements uniformly done in mass are pleasing, and teachers can adapt marching figures to their own playground with good effect. The purpose of the teacher of the primary grades should be to awaken love and reverence for the flag and to instill loyalty into the minds and hearts of the children. In the higher grades children should not only be trained to show love and respect for the flag, but should understand their duty toward their country. They should study the flag, its history, its significance, its various forms and uses, the correct ways of displaying it, and the proper manner of raising and lowering it. The flag of our state should also be taught, together with its history. It is a part of our school law that the flag salute shall be a part of the daily program. It is the duty of the teacher to interpret the meaning and the spirit of the salute to the pupils, not neglecting the correct pronunciation of the words. The salute should never be carelessly repeated, but should be given in a serious manner, and only after children have been called to standing position. In the making of a program, attention should be given to current events. The best of the popular songs may be sung. (Be sure they are the best.) Current literature will furnish some prose and poetry suitable for the occasion. A real, present-day note should always be sounded. The same program should not be used year after year, but the material should be selected anew each time, though some repetition in the use of standard recitations and national songs is to be expected. A scrap-book kept for suitable material will be a valuable aid to the teacher. Such a scrap-book can be made by using large envelops, fastening them at the bottom within a cardboard cover, and labelling each envelop according to its contents. As additions are made to the songs, poems, programs, etc., a catalog of the contents can be kept on the outside of the envelop. It will be best to mount recitations on heavy paper in order to preserve them longer. SUGGESTIVE PROGRAMS PRIMARY GRADES Opening remarks by teacher in charge Singing by school, "America" Recitation, "Our Flag" (by May Howlister), First grade pupil Recitation, "Your Flag and my Flag" (by Wilbur D. Nesbit), Fourth grade pupil Song, "Our Country's Flag" (by Florence L. Dresser) Flag Drill, All pupils Presentation of new flag, Member of Parent-Teacher Association Flag Salute, Entire audience: "I pledge allegiance to my flag, and to the Republic for which it stands; one Nation, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all" Song, "The Star Spangled Banner" GRAMMAR GRADES Remarks by teacher or pupil in charge Song, "The Star Spangled Banner," School, led by school orchestra Oration, "Flag Day Address" (by President Wilson), Eighth grade boy Recitation, "The Name of Old Glory" (by James Whitcomb Riley) Song, "The Unfurling of the Flag" (by Clara Endicott Sears) "Why we should love the Flag" (Best original speech by grade pupil) Recitation, "Old Flag" (by Hubbard Parker) Song, "We'll Keep Old Glory Flying" (by Carleton S. Montanye) Flag drill and grand march, All pupils of grades 5, 6, 7, 8 Presentation of new flag by father of pupil Flag Raising Flag Salute: "I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which it stands; one Nation, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all" Song, "America" BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN FLAG On the 2d of July, 1776, the American Congress resolved "that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; and that all political connection between us and the states of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." On the 4th of July a Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Congress, and sent out under its authority, to announce to all other nations that the United States of America claimed a place among them. On this 4th of July the nation was born. Its flag, the visible symbol of its power, was not adopted till 1777. On the 14th of June, 1777, Congress resolved "that the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation." The national flag--_our_ national flag--grew in the most direct way out of the banners that had waved over the colonists. The flag of the United Colonies had thirteen stripes, one for each colony, and the stripes were alternate red and white. This part of the old flag remained unchanged in the new one. Each colony retained its stripe. The flag of the colonies, in its union, had displayed the king's colors. There was now no longer a king in America, but a new Union had arisen--a Union of Thirteen States--no longer a Union of kingdoms. The union of the old flag had been the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew conjoined on a blue field. The new union was a circle of silver stars in a blue sky--"a new constellation." The flag of the United States was derived from the flag of the United Colonies in the simplest and most natural manner. The old flag had expressed the hopes and aspirations of thirteen colonies which had united in order to secure justice from their king and fellow-countrymen in England. The new flag expressed the determined resolve of the same thirteen colonies--now become sovereign states--to form a permanent Union, and to take their place among the nations of the world. They were no longer Englishmen; they were Americans. Many suggestions have been made to account for the appearance of stars or of stripes in the new flag. It seems unnecessary to seek for any explanation other than the one that has just been given. The old flag of the United Colonies expressed the feelings and aspirations of the revolted English colonists. They were willing to remain as subjects of the English king, but they had united to secure justice. The new flag expressed their firm resolve to throw off the yoke of England and to become a new nation. The symbols of each flag exactly expressed the feeling of the men who bore it. There is a resemblance between the colors and symbols of the new flag and the symbols borne on the coat of arms of General Washington that is worthy of remark. General Washington was a descendant of an English family, and his ancestors bore a coat of arms that he himself used as a seal, and for a book-plate. It has been supposed that the stars of the American flag were suggested by the three stars of this coat of arms, and this is not impossible. General Washington was in Philadelphia in June, 1777, and he is said to have engaged Mrs. John Ross, at that time, to make the first flag, though this is not absolutely certain. However this may be, it is known that the American flag of thirteen stars and of thirteen stripes was displayed at the siege of Fort Stanwix in August, 1777; at the battle of Brandywine on September 11; at Germantown on the 4th of October; at the surrender of the British under General Burgoyne on October 17. The flag had been adopted in June of the same year. The vessels of the American navy flew this flag on the high seas, and their victories made it respected everywhere.... The treaty of peace between England and the United States was signed (at Paris, France) on September 3, 1783. This was the acknowledgment of Great Britain of the independence of her former colonies; and the other nations of Europe stood by consenting. Our flag was admitted, at that time, on equal terms with the standards of ancient kingdoms and states, to the company of the banners of the world.... In April, 1818, the Congress passed "An Act to Establish the Flag of the United States": "Section I. _Be it enacted, etc._, That from and after the fourth day of July next, the flag of the United States be thirteen horizontal stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union have twenty stars, white in a blue field. "Section II. _And be it further enacted_, That on the admission of every new state into the union, one star be added to the union of the flag; and that such addition shall take effect on the fourth of July next succeeding such admission. _Approved_, April 4, 1818." No changes (other than the addition of new stars) have been made in the national flag since 1818. The stars have been added, one by one, until in 1898 there are forty-five in all. Every state has its star; each of the original thirteen states has its stripe. So long as the United States exists the flag will remain in its present form, except that new stars will be displayed as the new states come in. It will forever exhibit the origin of the nation from the thirteen colonies, and its growth into a Union of sovereign states. _Edward S. Holden_ MAKERS OF THE FLAG This morning, as I passed into the Land Office, The Flag dropped me a most cordial salutation, and from its rippling folds I heard it say: "Good-morning, Mr. Flag-Maker." "I beg your pardon, Old Glory," I said, "aren't you mistaken? I am not the President of the United States, nor a member of Congress, nor even a general in the army. I am only a Government clerk." "I greet you again, Mr. Flag-Maker," replied the gay voice. "I know you well. You are the man who worked in the swelter of yesterday straightening out the tangle of that farmer's homestead in Idaho, or perhaps you found the mistake in that Indian contract in Oklahoma, or helped to clear that patent for the hopeful inventor in New York, or pushed the opening of that new ditch in Colorado, or made that mine in Illinois more safe, or brought relief to the old soldier in Wyoming. No matter; whichever one of these beneficent individuals you may happen to be, I give you greeting, Mr. Flag-Maker." I was about to pass on, when the Flag stopped me with these words: "Yesterday the President spoke a word that made happier the future of ten million peons in Mexico; but that act looms no larger on the flag than the struggle which the boy in Georgia is making to win the Corn Club prize this summer. "Yesterday the Congress spoke a word which will open the door of Alaska; but a mother in Michigan worked from sunrise until far into the night, to give her boy an education. She, too, is making the flag. "Yesterday we made a new law to prevent financial panics, and yesterday, maybe, a school teacher in Ohio taught his first letters to a boy who will one day write a song that will give cheer to the millions of our race. We are all making the flag." "But," I said impatiently, "these people were only working!" Then came a great shout from The Flag: "The work that we do is the making of the flag. "I am not the flag; not at all. I am but its shadow. "I am whatever you make me, nothing more. "I am your belief in yourself, your dream of what a people may become. "I live a changing life, a life of moods and passions, of heartbreaks and tired muscles. "Sometimes I am strong with pride, when men do an honest work, fitting the rails together truly. "Sometimes I droop, for then purpose has gone from me, and cynically I play the coward. "Sometimes I am loud, garish, and full of that ego that blasts judgment. "But always I am all that you hope to be, and have the courage to try for. "I am song and fear, struggle and panic, and ennobling hope. "I am the day's work of the weakest man, and the largest dream of the most daring. "I am the Constitution and the courts, statutes and the statute makers, soldier and dreadnaught, drayman and street sweep, cook, counselor, and clerk. "I am the battle of yesterday, and the mistake of tomorrow. "I am the mystery of the men who do without knowing why. "I am the clutch of an idea, and the reasoned purpose of resolution. "I am no more than what you believe me to be and I am all that you believe I can be. "I am what you make me, nothing more. "I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam of color, a symbol of yourself, the pictured suggestion of that big thing which makes this nation. My stars and my stripes are your dream and your labors. They are bright with cheer, brilliant with courage, firm with faith, because you have made them so out of your hearts. For you are the makers of the flag and it is well that you glory in the making." _Franklin K. Lane_ THE NAME OF OLD GLORY[I] [I] From the Biographical Edition of the Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley, copyright 1913. Used by special permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company. Old Glory! say, who, By the ships and the crew, And the long, blended ranks of the gray and the blue-- Who gave you, Old Glory, the name that you bear With such pride everywhere As you cast yourself free to the rapturous air And leap out full-length, as we're wanting you to?-- Who gave you that name, with the ring of the same, And the honor and fame so becoming to you?-- Your stripes stroked in ripples of white and of red, With your stars at their glittering best overhead-- By day or by night Their delightfulest light Laughing down from their little square heaven of blue!-- Who gave you the name of Old Glory?--say, who-- Who gave you the name of Old Glory? The old banner lifted, and faltering then In vague lisps and whispers fell silent again. Old Glory--speak out!--we are asking about How you happened to "favor" a name, so to say, That sounds so familiar and careless and gay As we cheer it and shout in our wild breezy way-- We--the crowd, every man of us, calling you that-- We--Tom, Dick and Harry--each swinging his hat And hurrahing "Old Glory!" like you were our kin, When--Lord!--we all know we're as common as sin! And yet it just seems like you humor us all And waft us your thanks, as we hail you and fall Into line, with you over us, waving us on Where our glorified, sanctified betters have gone-- And this is the reason we're wanting to know-- (And we're wanting it so-- Where our own fathers went we are willing to go)-- Who gave you the name of Old Glory--O-ho!-- Who gave you the name of Old Glory? The old flag unfurled with a billowy thrill For an instant, then wistfully sighed and was still. Old Glory: the story we're wanting to hear Is what the plain facts of your christening were-- For your name--just to hear it, Repeat it, and cheer it, 's tang to the spirit As salt as a tear;-- And seeing you fly, and the boys marching by, There's a shout in the throat and a blur in the eye And an aching to live for you always--or die, If dying, we still keep you waving on high. And so, by our love For you, floating above, And the scars of all wars and the sorrows thereof, Who gave you the name of Old Glory, and why Are we thrilled at the name of Old Glory? Then the old banner leaped, like a sail in the blast, And fluttered an audible answer at last. And it spake, with a shake of the voice, and it said: By the driven snow-white and the living blood-red Of my bars, and their heaven of stars overhead-- By the symbol conjoined of them all, skyward cast, As I float from the steeple, or flap at the mast, Or droop o'er the sod where the long grasses nod-- My name is as old as the glory of God. ... So I came by the name of Old Glory. _James Whitcomb Riley_ WE'LL KEEP OLD GLORY FLYING _Song_ We'll keep Old Glory flying fair, No matter where we are; We'll let the breeze caress each stripe And proudly kiss each star. 'Twill never know the despot's heel, This Banner of the Free. We'll keep Old Glory flying high, For Home and Liberty! No matter where we go, or when, No matter where we go, Our starry flag in grandeur proud, To us the way will show. On foreign shores, afar from home, We'll carry it on high, And let the foeman know its might-- To honor it or die. _Carleton S. Montanye_ OUR COUNTRY'S FLAG _Song_ Beneath our country's flag today, We stand a children's band, And to it now in loyalty We pledge each heart and hand. We love its colors as they wave Beneath these summer skies, The flag our fathers fought to save Is sacred in our eyes. Our country's flag, the dear old flag, To it, ev'ry heart beats true! We will follow far each gleaming star, Our own red, white and blue. 'Neath each clust'ring fold, as in days of old, It will gather those oppressed, And secure from harm and from all alarm, It will bid them safely rest. To its slightest call, we will rally all; Ev'ry pledge it makes to keep; And it leads us forth over lands afar, O'er the ocean's blue so deep. _Florence L. Dresser_ OLD FLAG What shall I say to you, Old Flag? You are so grand in every fold, So linked with mighty deeds of old, So steeped in blood where heroes fell, So torn and pierced by shot and shell, So calm, so still, so firm, so true, My throat swells at the sight of you, Old Flag. What of the men who lifted you, Old Flag, Upon the top of Bunker Hill? 'Mid shock and roar and crash and scream, Who crossed the Delaware's frozen stream, Who starved, who fought, who bled, who died, That you might float in glorious pride, Old Flag? What of the women brave and true, Old Flag, Who, while the cannon thundered wild, Sent forth a husband, lover, child, Who labored in the field by day, Who, all the night long, knelt to pray, And thought that God great mercy gave, If only freely you might wave, Old Flag? What is your mission now, Old Flag? What but to set all people free, To rid the world of misery, To guard the right, avenge the wrong, And gather in one joyful throng Beneath your folds in close embrace All burdened ones of every race, Old Flag. Right nobly do you lead the way, Old Flag. Your stars shine out for liberty, Your white stripes stand for purity, Your crimson claims that courage high For Honor's sake to fight and die. Lead on against the alien shore! We'll follow you e'en to Death's door, Old Flag! _Hubbard Parker_ THE UNFURLING OF THE FLAG _Song_ There's a streak across the skyline That is gleaming in the sun, Watchers from the lighthouse towers Signalled it to foreign Powers Just as daylight had begun, Message thrilling, Hopes fulfilling To those fighting o'er the seas. "It's the flag we've named Old Glory That's unfurling to the breeze." Can you see the flashing emblem Of our Country's high ideal? Keep your lifted eyes upon it And draw joy and courage from it, For it stands for what is real, Freedom's calling To the falling From oppression's hard decrees. It's the flag we've named Old Glory You see floating in the breeze. Glorious flag we raise so proudly, Stars and stripes, red, white and blue, You have been the inspiration Of an ever growing nation Such as this world never knew. Peace and Justice, Freedom, Progress, Are the blessings we can seize When the flag we call Old Glory Is unfurling to the breeze. When the cry of battling nations Reaches us across the space Of the wild tumultuous ocean, Hearts are stirred with deep emotion For the saving of the race! Peace foregoing, Aid bestowing, First we drop on bended knees, Then with shouts our grand Old Glory We set flaunting to the breeze! _Clara Endicott Sears_ YOUR FLAG AND MY FLAG Your flag and my flag, And how it flies today In your land and my land And half a world away! Rose-red and blood-red The stripes forever gleam; Snow-white and soul-white-- The good forefathers' dream; Sky-blue and true blue, with stars to gleam aright-- The gloried guidon of the day; a shelter through the night. Your flag and my flag! And, oh, how much it holds-- Your land and my land-- Secure within its folds! Your heart and my heart Beat quicker at the sight; Sun-kissed and wind-tossed-- Red and blue and white. The one flag--the great flag--the flag for me and you-- Glorified all else beside--the red and white and blue! Your flag and my flag! To every star and stripe The drums beat as hearts beat And fifers shrilly pipe! Your flag and my flag-- A blessing in the sky; Your hope and my hope-- It never hid a lie! Home land and far land and half the world around, Old Glory hears our glad salute and ripples to the sound! _Wilbur D. Nesbit_ OUR FLAG There are many flags in many lands, There are flags of every hue, But there is no flag in any land Like our own Red, White, and Blue. Then "Hurrah for the flag!" our country's flag, Its stripes and white stars, too; There is no flag in any land Like our own Red, White, and Blue. _Mary Howlister_ This flag, which we honor and under which we serve, is the emblem of our unity, our power, our thought and purpose as a nation. It has no other character than that which we give it from generation to generation. The choices are ours. It floats in majestic silence above the hosts that execute those choices, whether in peace or in war. And yet, though silent, it speaks to us--speaks to us of the past, of the men and women who went before us, and of the records they wrote upon it. We celebrate the day of its birth; and from its birth until now it has witnessed a great history, has floated on high the symbol of great events, of a great plan of life worked out by a great people. We are about to carry it into battle, to lift it where it will draw the fire of our enemies. We are about to bid thousands, hundreds of thousands, it may be millions, of our men--the young, the strong, the capable men of the nation--to go forth and die beneath it on fields of blood far away.... Woe be to the man, or group of men, that seeks to stand in our way in this day of high resolution, when every principle we hold dearest is to be vindicated and made secure for the salvation of the nations. We are ready to plead at the bar of history, and our flag shall wear a new luster. Once more we shall make good with our lives and fortunes the great faith to which we were born, and a new glory shall shine in the face of our people. _Woodrow Wilson_ From Flag Day Address, June 14, 1917 STORY OF THE "STAR SPANGLED BANNER" In the War of 1812, when an attack was being made upon Fort McHenry, Mr. Key and his friend were on board an American vessel just in sight of the enemy's fleet and the flag of Fort McHenry. They remained on board all through the night, holding their breath at every shell that went careering over among their countrymen in the fort, and every moment expecting an explosion. Suddenly the firing ceased, and as they had no connection with the enemy's ships they could not find out whether the fort had been abandoned, or the siege given up. For the remainder of the night they paced to and fro upon the deck in terrible anxiety, longing for the return of the day, and looking every few moments at their watches to see how long they must wait for it. Light came at last, and they could see that our flag was still there. At length they were told that the attack had failed and that the British were re-embarking. The words of the "Star Spangled Banner" were written by Mr. Key, as he walked the deck in the darkness and suspense. In less than an hour after it went into the printer's hands it was all over town, was hailed with joy, and at once took its place among our national pieces. Ferdinand Durag, an actor, saw it, and catching up a volume of flute music, he whistled tune after tune; at length, he chanced upon one called "Anacreon in Heaven," and as note after note fell from his lips, he cried, "Boys, I've hit it!" Then, taking up the words, there rang out for the first time the "Song of the Star Spangled Banner." How the men shouted and clapped! The actor sang it in public. It was caught up in camps, sung around bivouac fires, and whistled in the streets. When peace was declared and the people scattered to their homes, it was sung around thousands of firesides. THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream; 'Tis the star-spangled banner; oh, long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved homes and the war's desolation, Blest with victory and peace, may the Heav'n-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: "In God is our trust!" And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. _Francis Scott Key_ * * * * * A man came from Europe to this country, and went to Cuba in 1867. He was arrested as a spy, court-martialed and condemned to be shot. He sent for the American and English consuls, and proved to them that he was not a spy. They went to one of the Spanish officers and said, "This man you have condemned to be shot is an innocent man." The Spanish officer said, "The man has been legally tried by our laws and condemned, and the law must take its course and the man must die." The next morning the man was led out; the grave was already dug for him, the black cap was put on him, the soldiers were there ready to receive the order "Fire," and in a few moments the man would be shot and put in that grave. Then the American consul took the American flag and wrapped it around the prisoner, and the English consul took the English flag and wrapped it around him, and they said to those soldiers, "Fire on those flags if you dare!" Not a man dared. Why? _There were two great governments behind those flags._ Let us love our flag, because behind it is "the greatest of the best and the best of the great of all governments." * * * * * I have told the story of the making of an American. There remains to tell how I found out that he was made and finished at last. It was when I went back to see my mother once more and, wandering about the country of my childhood's memories, had come to the city of Elsinore There I fell ill of a fever and lay many weeks in the house of a friend upon the shore of the beautiful Oeresund. One day when the fever had left me they rolled my bed into a room overlooking the sea. The sunlight danced upon the waves, and the distant mountains of Sweden were blue against the horizon. Ships passed under full sail up and down the great waterway of the nations. But the sunshine and the peaceful day bore no message to me. I lay moodily picking at the coverlet, sick and discouraged and sore--I hardly knew why myself. Until all at once there sailed past, close in shore, a ship flying at the top the flag of freedom, blown out on the breeze till every star in it shone bright and clear. That moment I knew. Gone were illness, discouragement and gloom! Forgotten weakness and suffering, the cautions of doctor and nurse. I sat up in bed and shouted, laughed and cried by turns, waving my handkerchief to the flag out there. They thought I had lost my head, but I told them no, thank God! I had found it, and my heart, too, at last. I knew then it was my flag; that my children's home was mine, indeed; that I also had become an American in truth. And I thanked God, and, like unto the man sick of the palsy, arose from my bed and went home, healed. _Jacob A. Riis_ From "The Making of an American" THE FLAG GOES BY Hats off! Along the street there comes A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums, A flash of color beneath the sky: Hats off! The flag is passing by! Blue and crimson and white it shines, Over the steel-tipped, ordered lines. Hats off! The colors before us fly; But more than the flag is passing by. Sea-fights and land-fights, grim and great, Fought to make and to save the State: Weary marches and sinking ships; Cheers of victory on dying lips; Days of plenty and years of peace; March of a strong land's swift increase; Equal justice, right and law, Stately honor and reverend awe; Sign of a nation, great and strong To ward her people from foreign wrong; Pride and glory and honor--all Live in the colors to stand or fall. Hats off! Along the street there comes A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums; And loyal hearts are beating high: Hats off! The flag is passing by! _Henry Holcomb Bennett_ RULES FOR FLAG ETIQUETTE In no case should the flag be permitted to touch the ground, nor should it be marred by advertisements, nor desecrated on the stage. For indoor decorations the flag should only be used as a drapery; it should not be used to cover a bench or table, or where anything can be placed upon the flag. No words, figures, pictures or marks of any kind should be placed upon the flag. When our national flag and state or other flags fly together, or are used in decoration, our national flag should be on the right. Whenever possible the flag should always be allowed to fly in the breeze from a staff or mast, but if it should be necessary to fasten it to the side of a building or platform, it should hang with the blue field at the upper left hand corner. If hung where it can be seen from both sides, the blue field should be toward the east or north. The correct salute to the flag as required by the regulations of the United States army is: Standing at attention, raise the right hand to the forehead over the right eye, palm downward, fingers extended and close together, arm at an angle of forty-five degrees. Move hand outward about a foot, with a quick motion, then drop it to the side. The oath of allegiance to the flag, adopted by the N. S. D. A. R., and by our military schools, the Boy Scouts and other organizations, and which should be taught in all our public schools is: "I pledge allegiance to my flag, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." When the colors are passing on parade or in review, the spectator should, if a man or boy, stand at attention and uncover. When the "Star Spangled Banner" is played, all present should rise and stand at attention until the ending. When the flag is displayed at half mast, for mourning, it is lowered to that position from the top of the staff. It is afterward hoisted to the top before it is finally lowered. When the flag is flown at half staff as a sign of mourning it should be hoisted to full staff at the conclusion of the funeral. When used on a bier or casket at a funeral, the stars should be placed at the head. Our most important holidays (when the flag should be displayed at full staff) are: Lincoln's Birthday, February 12; Washington's Birthday, February 22; Arbor Day; Memorial Day, May 30; Flag Day, June 14; Independence Day, July 4; Columbus Day, October 12; Thanksgiving Day, and State Day. The flag should not be hoisted before sunrise or allowed to remain up after sunset. At "retreat," sunset, civilian spectators should stand at "attention" and the men should remove their hats during the playing of the "Star Spangled Banner." Military spectators are required by regulation to stand at "attention" and give the military salute. When the national colors are passing on parade, or in review, spectators should, if walking, halt, and if sitting, rise and stand at attention, the men removing their hats. BIBLIOGRAPHY See Bibliography at end of monograph. BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY KATHARINE B. ROGERS, REFERENCE LIBRARIAN, STATE LIBRARY HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS IN GENERAL =Armstrong, W. C.= Patriotic poems of New Jersey. New Jersey Society Sons of the American Revolution =Bacon, Corinne=, _comp._ One thousand good books for children. Wilson[J] [J] This bibliography contains references to books and parts of books for the different holidays. =Bates, E. W. & Orr, W.= Pageants and pageantry. Ginn =Bemis, K. I., Holtz, M. S. & Smith, H. L.= Patriotic reader. Houghton =Broadhurst, Jean & Rhodes, Clara L.= Verse for patriots. Lippincott =Chambers, R.= Book of days. Lippincott =Chubb, Percival.= Festivals and plays. Harper =Craig, Mrs. A. A.= The dramatic festival. Putnam =Davis, H. C.= _ed._ Three minute declamations for college men. Hinds =Davis, H. C.= _ed._ Three minute readings for college girls. Hinds =Deems, E. M.= Holy-days and holidays. Funk =Dynes, S. A.= Socializing the child. Silver Burdette (Chapters VII and VIII for teachers' reading) =Horsford, I. M.= Stories of our holidays. Silver Burdette =Mackay, C. D.= How to produce children's plays. Holt =Mackay, C. D.= Patriotic plays and pageants. Holt =Mackay, C. D.= Plays of the pioneers. Harper =McSpadden, J. W.= Book of holidays. Crowell =Needham, M. M.= Folk festivals. Huebsch =Olcott, F. J.= _ed._ Good stories for great holidays. Moffat =One= hundred and one famous poems. Cable =Patten, H. P.= The year's festivals. Estes =Paulsson, Emilie.= Holidays songs and everyday songs and games. Milton Bradley Co. =Rice, S. S.= Holiday selections. Penn =Schauffler, R. H.= _ed._ Our American holiday series. Moffat Separate volumes on Arbor Day, Flag Day, Lincoln's Birthday, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, Washington's Birthday =Stevenson, B. E.= Days and deeds. Baker & Taylor =Stevenson, B. E.= Home book of verse. Holt =Thorp, J. & Kimball, R.= Patriotic pageants of today. Holt =Watkins, D. E. & Williams, R. E.= The forum of democracy. Allyn OPENING EXERCISES =McNaught, M. S.= Training in courtesy. (U. S. Bureau of Education bulletin no. 59, 1917) COLUMBUS DAY =Brooks, E. S.= The true story of Christopher Columbus. Lothrop =Colombo, Fernando.= The discovery of America; from the Life of Columbus by his son. (Old South Leaflets, vol. 2, no. 29) =Fiske, John.= The discovery of America. 2 vols. Houghton =Irving, Washington.= Columbus; his life and voyages. (Heroes of the Nation Series) =Mackie, C. P.= With the Admiral of the ocean sea; a narrative of the first voyage to the western world, drawn mainly from the diary of Columbus. McClurg =Moores, C. W.= Life of Christopher Columbus for boys and girls. Houghton =Seelye, Mrs. E. E.= The story of Columbus. Appleton =Trenton State Normal School--Junior Class.= Columbus Day; a dramatic festival. (Manuscript at Trenton State Normal School Library) =Winsor, Justin.= Christopher Columbus, and how he received and imparted the spirit of discovery. Houghton THANKSGIVING DAY =Kellogg, A. M.= How to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas. Penn =Schauffler, R. H.= _ed._ Thanksgiving. Moffat =Schell, S.= Thanksgiving celebrations. Werner. =Sindelar, J. C.= Thanksgiving entertainments. Flanagan. =Trenton State Normal School.= Thanksgiving Day. Crowell Publishing Co. (Woman's Home Companion) LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY =Andrews, Mary R. S.= The perfect tribute. Scribner =Arnold, I. N.= Life of Abraham Lincoln. McClurg =Baldwin, James.= Four great Americans, Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln. American Book Co. =Brooks, E. S.= The true story of Abraham Lincoln. Lothrop =Brooks, Noah.= Abraham Lincoln, and the downfall of American slavery. Putnam =Coffin, C. C.= Abraham Lincoln. Harper =Gordy, W. F.= Abraham Lincoln. Scribner =Hill, F. T.= Lincoln, the lawyer. Houghton =MacKaye, Percy.= Lincoln centenary ode. Macmillan =Moores, C. W.= Life of Abraham Lincoln for boys and girls. Houghton =Morgan, James.= Abraham Lincoln, the boy and the man. Macmillan =Morse, J. T.= Abraham Lincoln. 2 vols. Houghton =Nicolay, J. G.= Boy's life of Abraham Lincoln. Century =Nicolay, J. G.= Short life of Abraham Lincoln. Century =Nicolay, J. G. & Hay, John.= Abraham Lincoln. 10 vols. Century =Nicolay, J. G. & Hay, John.= Complete works of Abraham Lincoln. 2 vols. Century =Putnam, M. L.= Children's life of Abraham Lincoln. McClurg =Robinson, L. E.= Abraham Lincoln as a man of letters. Reilly =Rothschild, Alonzo.= Lincoln, master of men. Lane =Schauffler, R. H.= _ed._ Lincoln's Birthday. Moffat =Schurz, Carl.= Abraham Lincoln. Houghton =Selby, Paul.= Anecdotal Lincoln. Thompson =Tarbell, I. M.= Life of Abraham Lincoln. 2 vols. Doubleday =Whipple, Wayne.= The story-life of Lincoln. Winston WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY =Brooks, E. S.= The true story of George Washington. Lothrop =Carrington, H. B.= Washington, the soldier. Scribner =Ford, P. L.= The true George Washington. Lippincott =Ford, W. C.= George Washington. Small =Hapgood, Norman.= George Washington. Macmillan =Haworth, P. L.= George Washington: farmer. Bobbs-Merrill =Headley, J. T.= Washington and his generals. Scribner =Hill, F. T.= On the trail of Washington. Appleton =Irving, Washington.= Life of George Washington. 8 vols. Putnam =Irving, Washington.= Washington and his country. ("Life" abridged for schools) Ginn =Kellogg, A. M.= How to celebrate Washington's Birthday. Penn =Lodge, H. C.= George Washington. 2 vols. Houghton =MacKaye, Percy.= Washington, the man who made us. Knopf =Schauffler, R. H.= _ed._ Washington's birthday. Moffat =Scudder, H. E.= George Washington. Houghton =Seawell, M. E.= Virginia cavalier. Harper =Seelye, Mrs. E. E.= Story of Washington. Appleton =Sindelar, J. C.= Washington day entertainments. Flanagan. =Trent, W. P.= Southern statesmen of the old régime. Crowell =van Dyke, Henry.= Americanism of Washington. Harper =Whipple, Wayne.= Story-life of Washington. 2 vols. Winston ARBOR DAY =Revell, E. I.= Arbor Day exercises for the schoolroom. Educational Publishing Co. =Schauffler, R. H.= _ed._ Arbor Day. Moffat =Skinner, C. R.= Arbor Day manual. Bardeen MEMORIAL DAY =Andrews, M. P.= The American's creed and its meaning. Doubleday =Hale, E. E.= The man without a country =Revell, E. I.= Memorial Day exercises for the schoolroom. Educational Publishing Co. =Schauffler, R. H.= _ed._ Memorial Day. Moffat =United States Committee on Public Information.= Battle line of democracy FLAG DAY =Canby, George & Balderston, Lloyd.= Evolution of the American flag. Ferris & Leach =Harrison, P. D.= The stars and stripes and other American flags. Little, Brown & Co. =Holden, E. S.= Our country's flag and the flags of foreign countries. Appleton =Ide, E. K.= History and significance of the American flag. (Published by the author) =National Geographic Magazine.= Flag number, October 1917 =Preble, G. H.= History of the flag of the United States of America, and other national flags. Williams =Schauffler, R. H.= _ed._ Flag Day. Moffat =Schell, Stanley.= Flag Day program. Werner =Stewart, C. W.= The stars and stripes. Boylston Publishing Co. =Tappan, E. M.= Little book of the flag. Houghton =U. S. Navy Department.= Flags of the maritime nations INDEX Adams, John, 107 Address to America, Walt Whitman, 54 After the great companions, Frank Crane, 134 America, William Cullen Bryant, 55 America's answer, R. W. Lillard, 138 Arbor Day, 109-24 Babcock, Maltbie D., 23 Bailey, 22 Baker, George C., 125 Battle hymn of the republic, Julia Ward Howe, 132 Beecher, Henry Ward, 88, 142 Bennett, Henry Holcomb, 156 Bibliography, Katharine B. Rogers, 159-64 Bixby letter, Abraham Lincoln, 82 Blue and the Gray, The, Francis Miles Finch, 130 Boy Columbus, The, 44 Boy that hungered for knowledge, The, 86 Bridges, Madeline S., 22 Bryant, William Cullen, 55 Bryce, James, 107 Butterworth, Hezekiah, 49 Campbell, Mary R., 40 Cat and his servant, The, Alice Lewis, 31 Chastelleux, Marquis, 108 Chew, Hannah H., 141-58 Choate, Rufus, 107 Civility, selections from rules of, 99 Collins, William, 126 Columbus, Christopher, A dreamer they called him, 42 Columbus and the egg, 45 Columbus dared to cross the sea, 41 Columbus sailed over waters blue, 36 Columbus was a sailor bold, 39 Crowning Columbus, 37 Discovery Day, 41 I'll wave my flag for Discovery Day, 38 My beautiful flag, 38 My little ship, 38 We are jolly little sailors, 36 What we can do, 37 Columbus, Joaquin Miller, 52 Columbus Day, Fitchburg (Massachusetts) Normal School, 45; J. Cayce Morrison, 33-57 Columbus game, 38 Columbus play, Mary R. Campbell, 40 Cotton, history of, Bessie O'Hagen, 28 Courtesy is to do and say, 22 Crane, Frank, 134 Davis, K. C., 121 Depew, Chauncey Mitchell, 50 Discovery Day, 41 Discovery of America, Washington Irving, 49 Dresser, Florence L., 150 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 54, 60 Fabricant, Josephine M., 135 Farber, Florence L., 24 Finch, Francis Miles, 130 Fitchburg (Massachusetts) Normal School, 45 Flag, American, brief history of, Edward S. Holden, 145 Flag, story about, 155 Flag Day, Hannah H. Chew, 141-58 Flag etiquette, rules for, 157 Flag goes by, Henry Holcomb Bennett, 156 Flag of Spain, 42 Folsom, Joseph Fulford, 84 Forests, value of, U. S. Bureau of Education, 123 Foster, Henry W., 89 Froude, James Anthony, 23 Gaskill, Alfred, 112 Gettysburg Speech, Abraham Lincoln, 79 Gordon, Charles C., 139 Gordon, John B., 133 Green, J. R., 90, 96 Gregg, David, 134 Guitteau, William Backus, 56 Hale, Edward Everett, 50 Hamilton grove, planting of, Charles A. Philhower, 119 Harte, Bret, 129 Haver, Jennie, 13 Hay, John, 134 Hazard, Caroline, 56 Holden, Edward S., 145 Houghton, George W. W., 53 Howe, Julia Ward, 132 Howlister, Mary, 153 I have a son, Emory Pottle, 136 If you have faith, 23 Immortal morn, Hezekiah Butterworth, 49 In Flanders Fields, John McCrae, 138 Irving, Washington, 49, 53 Jusserand, J. J., 94 Kendall, C. N., 7, 9, 111, 112 Key, Francis Scott, 155 Kilmer, Joyce, 110 Kindness is catching, 23 Kipling, Rudyard, 131 Lane, Franklin K., 139, 147 Lee, Henry, 107 Lewis, Alice, 31 Lillard, R. W., 138 Lincoln, Abraham, 79, 82, 96 Lincoln, Acrostic, 84 Lincoln and Judge B. ... swap horses, 87 Lincoln's autobiography, 81 Lincoln's Birthday, Charles A. Philhower, 69-88 Lincoln's honesty, 86 Lincoln's humor, 87 Lincoln's kindness of heart, 86 Lincoln's speeches, sayings from, 82 Logan, John A., 134 London Newspaper, 108 Lossing, Benson J., 52 Lowell, James Russell, 34 McCrae, John, 138 McSpadden, J. Walker, 97 Makers of the flag, Franklin K. Lane, 147 Memorial Day, George C. Baker, 125-39 Miller, Joaquin, 52 Montanye, Carleton S., 150 Morning exercises, Florence L. Farber, 24; Jennie Haver, 13 Morrison, J. Cayce, 33 Name of Old Glory, James Whitcomb Riley, 148 Nesbit, Wilbur D., 153 O Captain, my Captain, Walt Whitman, 83 O'Hagen, Bessie, 28 Old Flag, Hubbard Parker, 151 On a portrait of Columbus, George Edward Woodberry, 54 Opening exercises, 11-32; ---- Louis H. Burch, 13 Our country's flag, Florence L. Dresser, 150 Our flag, Mary Howlister, 153 Our national ideals, William Backus Gitteau, 56 Parker, Hubbard, 151 Philhower, Charles A., 69, 119 Pottle, Emory, 136 Recessional, Rudyard Kipling, 131 Reveille, The, Bret Harte, 129 Riis, Jacob A., 156 Riley, James Whitcomb, 148 Rogers, Katharine B., 159 Sailor, story of, 96 Sears, Clara Endicott, 152 Second inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln, 79 Service flag, The, Josephine M. Fabricant, 135 Service flag, The, U. S. Bulletin, 135 Shaffer, Roy L., 59-67 Shakespeare, William, 12 Sleep of the brave, The, William Collins, 126 Smith, Laura Rountree, 38, 39 Somebody did a golden deed, 22 Star spangled banner, Francis Scott Key, 155 "Star spangled banner," story of, 154 Stars and Stripes, Henry Ward Beecher, 142 Stelzle, Charles, 57 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 23 Stewart, Judd, 87 Suggestions to teachers, K. C. Davis, 121 Thanksgiving Day, Roy L. Shaffer, 59-67 Thayer, Louis E., 22 There's so much bad, 23 Thing to do is hope, The, 23 Thompson, James, 23 Thwing, E. P., 133 Trees, Joyce Kilmer, 110 Trees and forests, Alfred Gaskill, 112 Truth is honest, 22 U. S. Bureau of Education, 123 Unfinished work, Joseph Fulford Folsom, 84 Unfurling of the flag, The, Clara Endicott Sears, 152 van Dyke, Henry, 95, 108 Washington, Abraham Lincoln, 96 Washington, George, life of, J. Walker McSpadden, 97 How did George Washington look, 95 Lend a hand, 95 Washington as he looked, 94 Washington's Birthday, Henry W. Foster, 89-108 Washington's Farewell address, 102 Washington's Farewell to the army, 102 Washington's sayings, 101 We thank Thee, Ralph Waldo Emerson, 60 We'll keep Old Glory flying, Carleton S. Montanye, 150 Western land, The, Caroline Hazard, 56 Whitman, Walt, 54, 83 Wilson, James Grant, 52 Wilson, Woodrow, 139, 154 Wise old owl, A, 23 Woodberry, George Edward, 54 Woodbury, Ida Vose, 70 Wordsworth, William, 23 Your flag and my flag, Wilbur D. Nesbit, 153 * * * * * 
37834	----	AUTHORS AND WRITERS ASSOCIATED WITH MORRISTOWN WITH A CHAPTER ON HISTORIC MORRISTOWN BY JULIA KEESE COLLES 1893 VOGT BROS. MORRISTOWN, N. J. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1893, by JULIA KEESE COLLES of Morristown, New Jersey, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. [Illustration: Painted by CHARLES WETMORE. 1815. Owned by HON. AUG. W. CUTLER. OLD MORRISTOWN. Pen and ink sketch by Miss S. Howell, from original painting.] _DEDICATION._ TO THE MEN AND WOMEN, OF EARLY AND OF LATER YEARS, WHO HAVE SCATTERED THEIR PEARLS OF BEAUTY AND OF WISDOM ALONG THE DUSTY PATHS OF OUR HISTORIC CITY, THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED WITH AFFECTIONATE ADMIRATION BY THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. This long-promised volume, the first of its kind, so far as known, ever given to the world, is now offered to the public. It is the result of a lecture given about three and a half years ago, which was repeated by request, and finally promised for publication, with the endorsement of one hundred and fifty subscribers. No effort has been spared to have every statement in the book accurate; nor has any name been omitted which has presented a title to notice, in spite of the fact that the number of "Authors and Writers," has nearly doubled since the work of publication was undertaken. Any suggestion or criticism, however, will be gladly received by the author, as having a bearing on possible future work in this direction. Morristown, New Jersey, February, 1893. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PREFACE. POEM--MORRISTOWN. HISTORIC MORRISTOWN. GEORGE WASHINGTON. POETS-- PAGE. WM. AND STEPHEN V. R. PATERSON 33 MRS. ELIZABETH CLEMENTINE KINNEY 40 ALEXANDER NELSON EASTON 42 FRANCIS BRET HARTE 45 MRS. M. VIRGINIA DONAGHE MCCLURG 48 CHARLTON T. LEWIS, LL. D. 54 MISS EMMA F. R. CAMPBELL 58 MRS. ADELAIDE S. BUCKLEY 63 REV. OLIVER CRANE, D. D., LL. D. 63 REV. J. LEONARD CORNING, D. D. 68 MRS. MARY LEE DEMAREST 69 HON. ANTHONY Q. KEASBEY 72 MAJOR LINDLEY HOFFMAN MILLER 76 MISS HENRIETTA HOWARD HOLDICH 79 WILLIAM TUCKEY MEREDITH 81 MISS HANNAH MORE JOHNSON 84 MISS MARGARET H. GARRARD 87 MISS JULIA E. DODGE 89 CHARLES D. PLATT 90 MRS. JULIA R. CUTLER 96 MISS FRANCES BELL COURSEN 99 MISS ISABEL STONE 100 REV. G. DOUGLASS BREWERTON 102 MRS. ALICE D. ABELL 104 GEORGE WETMORE COLLES, JR. 105 HYMNODIST-- JOHN R. RUNYON 107 NOVELISTS AND STORY WRITERS-- FRANCIS RICHARD STOCKTON 109 FRANCIS BRET HARTE 118 MISS HENRIETTA HOWARD HOLDICH 131 MRS. MIRIAM COLES HARRIS 141 MISS MARIA MCINTOSH 146 MRS. MARIA MCINTOSH COX 149 DAVID YOUNG 155 MRS. NATHANIEL CONKLIN 165 MRS. CATHARINE L. BURNHAM 171 HON. JOHN WHITEHEAD 179 MRS. GEORGEANNA HUYLER DUER 181 MADAME DE MEISSNER 186 MISS ISABEL STONE 188 AUGUSTUS WOOD 193 CHARLES P. SHERMAN 193 MISS HELEN M. GRAHAM 193 OTHER NOVELISTS AND STORY WRITERS 195 TRANSLATORS-- MRS. ADELAIDE S. BUCKLEY 197 MISS MARGARET H. GARRARD 202 OTHER TRANSLATORS 203 LEXICOGRAPHER-- CHARLTON T. LEWIS, LL. D. 205 HISTORIANS AND ESSAYISTS-- WILLIAM CHERRY, ANCIENT CHRONICLER 207 REV. JOSEPH F. TUTTLE, D. D. 209 HON. EDMUND D. HALSEY 215 HON. JOHN WHITEHEAD 218 BAYARD TUCKERMAN 221 LOYAL FARRAGUT 227 JOSIAH COLLINS PUMPELLY 229 MISS HANNAH MORE JOHNSON 233 MRS. JULIA MCNAIR WRIGHT 237 MRS. EDWINA L. KEASBEY 239 MRS. MARIAN E. STOCKTON 243 TRAVELS AND PERSONAL REMINISCENCES-- MARQUIS DE CHASTELLUX 247 REV. JOHN L. STEPHENS 254 HON. CHARLES S. WASHBURNE 255 GENERAL JOSEPH WARREN REVERE 257 HENRY DAY 260 THEOLOGIANS-- REV. TIMOTHY JOHNES, D. D. 264 REV. JAMES RICHARDS, D. D. 270 REV. ALBERT BARNES 271 REV. SAMUEL WHELPLEY 275 STEVENS JONES LEWIS 278 REV. RUFUS SMITH GREEN, D. D. 279 REV. WM. DURANT 282 REV. J. MACNAUGHTAN, D. D. 286 REV. C. DEWITT BRIDGMAN 291 REV. J. T. CRANE, D. D. 293 REV. H. A. BUTTZ, D. D., LL. D. 296 REV. J. K. BURR, D. D. 297 REV. J. E. ADAMS 299 REV. JAMES M. BUCKLEY, D. D., LL. D. 300 REV. JAMES M. FREEMAN, D. D. 308 REV. KINSLEY TWINING, D. D., LL. D. 310 REV. THEODORE L. CUYLER, D. D. 314 RT. REV. WM. INGRAHAM KIP, D. D., LL. D. 319 REV. WILLIAM STAUNTON, D. D. 323 REV. ARTHUR MITCHELL, D. D. 327 REV. CHARLES E. KNOX, D. D. 332 REV. ALBERT ERDMAN, D. D. 334 REV. JOSEPH M. FLYNN, R. D. 337 REV. GEORGE H. CHADWELL 338 REV. WILLIAM M. HUGHES, S. T. D. 345 PUBLIC SPEAKERS AND LAWYERS-- HON. JACOB W. MILLER 351 HON. WILLIAM BURNET KINNEY 355 HON. THEODORE F. RANDOLPH 358 HON. EDWARD W. WHELPLEY 360 HON. JACOB VANATTA 362 HON. GEORGE T. WERTS 364 JOSEPH F. RANDOLPH 365 EDWARD Q. KEASBEY 367 SCIENTISTS-- SAMUEL F. B. MORSE, LL. D. 368 ALFRED VAIL 371 WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER, LL. D. 376 ELWYN WALLER, PH. D. 380 GEORGE W. MAYNARD, PH. D. 382 EMORY MCCLINTOCK, LL. D. 383 ANDREW F. WEST, LL. D. 384 SEÑOR JOSÉ GROS 386 MEDICAL AUTHORS AND WRITERS-- CONDICT W. CUTLER, M. S., M. D. 388 PHANET C. BARKER, M. D. 390 HORACE A. BUTTOLPH, M. D., LL. D. 392 AUTHORS AND WRITERS ON ART-- THOMAS NAST 395 REV. JARED BRADLEY FLAGG, D. D. 398 REV. J. LEONARD CORNING, D. D. 400 GEORGE HERBERT MCCORD, A. N. A. 401 DRAMATIST-- WILLIAM G. VAN TASSEL SUTPHEN 403 ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE. FRONTISPIECE--OLD MORRISTOWN. ORIGINAL FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 1738, 17 OLD ARNOLD TAVERN, 25 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 97 WASHINGTON HEADQUARTERS, 209 PLAN OF FORT NONSENSE, 305 SPEEDWELL IRON WORKS, 369 OLD FACTORY AT SPEEDWELL, 377 POEM. BY WILLIAM PATERSON. MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY. These are the winter quarters, this is where The Patriot Chieftain with his army lay, When frosty winds swept down and chilled the air, And long, cold nights closed out the shorter day. The bell still rings within the white church spire, Rising toward heaven upon the village green, Whose chimes then called the people, pastor, choir, To praise and pray each Sabbath morn and e'en. And there with them, the Christian soldier sealed The common covenant which a dying Lord, To those who broke bread with him last revealed, And bade them ever thus His love record. A country hamlet then, nor did it lose Its rural charms and beauties for long years; The stranger would its quiet glories choose, Far from the toils and strifes of daily cares. The people, too, were simple in their ways, And dwelt contented in their humble sphere, The morning and the evening of their days, Passing the same with every closing year. There were the Deacons, solemn, sober, staid, Beneath the pulpit each Communion Sunday, They never smiled, but sung there psalms and prayed; And then made whiskey at the still on Monday. Perhaps you smile just here, I only say, Men did not deem it then a heinous crime; Such was the common custom of the day, As those can tell who recollect the time. For further proof of this, look up the tract Of Deacon Giles and his distillery, Where you will find that for this very fact, He was set up high in the pillory. Young life for me began its early spring, Here in the freshness of the Mountain air, When nature seemed in fullest tune to sing, And all the world was beautiful and fair. And Death--Who stays to think of him, till age Comes stealing on with sure and silent tread? Nor even then can he the thoughts engage, Till his cold fingers touch the dying bed. He called one then in withered leaf and sere, And sent a warning, so wiseacres said, By causing apple blossoms to appear In winter, and the old man soon was dead. The Guinea Chieftain too, a century old, Born a young Prince beneath his native sky, Who with his banjo sang rare tales of gold-- I saw him strive and struggle, gasp and die. A child was brought one evening, lived, and died, Almost before its eyes beheld the day; The infant and the old men, side by side, Were in the quiet churchyard laid away. I learned of Life and Death, but know no more Of their mysterious secrets now than then; No sesame can open wide the door, That veils those mysteries from the light of men. Upon the summit of the rock-bound hill That looks down on the lowland plains afar, Are seen the outlines of the earthworks still Remaining there, rude vestiges of war. That was a day to be remembered long, When crowds were gathered on the village green, To welcome with warm hearts and floral song, Him who a friend in war's dark hour had been. And not while nature's suns shall pour their light, Will Freedom's sons that honored name forget, Nor cease to, until worlds shall pass from sight, Keep green the memory of Lafayette. Hark, on the air tolls out the passing bell, Fourscore and ten and yet again fourscore; Tread lightly now, it is the parting knell For two great spirits gone out evermore. Together they had lived, together died As Freedom's Bell rang in her natal day, And what than this could be more mete beside That twinned in death, their souls should pass away? There comes a memory of the bugle horn, Winding a blast, as with their daily load, The prancing coach-steeds dashed out in the morn To run the toll-gates of the turnpike road. Behold the change? now brakes are whistled down, And screaming engines wake the Mountain air; There is no longer, as of old, a Town Committee, but a Council and a Mayor. Go where the lake sleeps in the summer night, Kissed by the winds that on its bosom play, When the round moon sends down her fullest light, And evening glories in soft splendor lay. And you can almost fancy then that over, The moonlit mirror of the tranquil tide, You see the water spirits rise and hover, And on the sheen in laughing lightness glide. And I have seen those waters as they flow, Down on their course past bridge and wheel and mill, Where we as boys would "in-a-swimming go;" Do the boys swim in "Sunnygony" still? Oh, fellow scholar who along with me Learned the first rudiments of ball and book Within the grounds of the Academy, In vain for that old landmark now you look. Gone with the Master, yet a memory lingers, And will forever consecrate the spot, Nor can the power of Time's effacing fingers, While life shall last, the recollection blot. Teacher and pupils, few remain, and they Far on in years, lean on a slender staff; The school-house, all you see of that to-day Is shown you there upon its photograph. Change is on all things, and I see it here; Land that then grew the turnip and "potater," Now blooms in flowers and costs exceeding dear, Bringing some thousand dollars by the acre! And villas crown the rising hill-tops round, And stately mansions stand adorned with art, And liveried coaches roll with rumbling sound Where once jogged on the wagon-wheel and cart. Hail to the future, ages come and go, And men are borne upon the sweeping tide; Wave follows wave in ever ceaseless flow, The present stays not by the dweller's side. I stand to-day far down the farthest slope, And up the lengthened pathway turn and look, Where on the summit once stood Youth and Hope, Now soon to turn the last leaf of the Book. And I am glad that while there come to me These fragrant memories of life's early scene, That still in robes of purest white I see The Church Spire rising on the village green. HISTORIC MORRISTOWN. Throughout our country, there is no spot more identified with the story of the Revolution, and the personality of Washington, than Morristown. Nestled among its five ranges of hills, its impregnable position no doubt first attracted the attention of the commander-in-chief and that of his trusted quartermaster, General Nathaniel Greene. Besides, the enthusiastic patriotism of the men and women of this part of New Jersey was noted far and wide, and the powder-mill of Col. Jacob Ford, Jr., on the Whippany river, where "good merchantable powder," was in course of manufacture,--some of which had probably already been tested at Trenton, Princeton and elsewhere,--was also among the attractions. It was on December 20th, 1776, that Washington wrote to the President of Congress: "I have directed the three regiments from Ticonderoga, to halt at Morristown, in Jersey (where I understand about eight hundred Militia have collected) in order to inspirit the inhabitants and as far as possible to cover that part of the country." (Quoted by Rev. Dr. Tuttle in his paper on "Washington in Morris County," in the Historical Magazine for June 1871.) These were regiments from New England. The British, who were always trying to gain "the pass of the mountains," had made an attempt on the 14th of December, but had been repulsed by Col. Jacob Ford, Jr., with his militia, at Springfield. At this time the village numbered about 250 inhabitants with a populous community of thriving farmers surrounding it. To the north of the town were the estates of the Hathaway and Johnes families; to the east, those of the Fords, who had just erected the building now known as the Headquarters; to the south, those of General John Doughty and to the west, those of Silas Condict and his brothers. Morris county was settled "about 1710," by families of New England ancestry, who were attracted by the iron ore in the mountains round about and who came from Newark and Elizabethtown. The Indian name for the country round, seems to have been "Rockciticus" as late as the arrival of Pastor Johnes in 1742, according to the traditions in his family. The original name of the settlement of Morristown was West Hanover, and in court records this name is found as late as 1738. It was also called New Hanover. The present name was adopted when the county court held its first meeting here at the house of Col. Jacob Ford, on March 25th, 1740. The town was named for the county and the county was named for Governor Lewis Morris, who was Governor of New Jersey from 1738 to 1746. Evidently this was to be the county town of Morris County. At the time of the Revolution the church, the "Court House and Jail" and the Arnold Tavern were the most important buildings. The Magazine also, a temporary structure, stood on South street, near the "Green". To it casks of powder were constantly taken and sometimes casks of _sand_ to deceive the spies who were always hanging about. The "Court House and Jail" was famous as the common prison of Tories caught in Morris and the adjoining counties. It was built in 1755 and stood on the northwest corner of the village "Green" as shown in the picture of Old Morristown. It was a plain wooden structure with a cupola and bell. Its sides and roof were shingled. One of the illustrations of this book is of the Arnold Tavern, as it appeared in Washington's time. The picture is from a pen-and-ink sketch by Miss S. Howell, made originally and recently for the Washington Association of N. J., under careful direction from study of the time, by one of its members. Taverns were dotted all about the country in those days and most of the public meetings were held in their spacious rooms. Whether it was this fact or because of certain qualities possessed by the early proprietors of taverns, we find that many of them eventually became the most eminent men of the community. The erection of the First Church building was begun in 1738 and finished in 1740, although the organization had existed from 1733. The first pastor, Rev. Timothy Johnes found it ready for his reception on his arrival in 1742 and for his installation, the following year. We are indebted to our young artist, Miss Emma H. Van Pelt, for a painting of this early church, from the only outline that remains to us, and to Miss S. Howell, for the pen-and-ink sketch, from the painting, for this book. This outline was embroidered upon a sampler owned by Miss Martha Emmell, and, according to family history, is a faithful representation of the building and the only suggestion other than traditional of Morristown's first place of worship. Miss Van Pelt's picture of the old church also follows in all respects her own, and the study of others, from the ancient records of the time. The structure stood about a rod east of the present building, facing upon Morris street and was always known as the "Meetin' House." It was originally of a somewhat plain and barn-like exterior, nearly square, with shingled sides, and windows let into the sloping roof. It was twice altered. In 1764, it was enlarged and two other entrances, besides the main entrance, were provided. A steeple also was erected in which was hung the bell in use at the present time. This bell was a gift, according to traditional history from the King of Great Britain to the church at Morristown. It had upon it the impress of the British crown and the name of the makers, "Lister & Pack, of London _fecit_." It was re-cast about thirty years ago. This early church and the Baptist church, which stood on the site occupied by the one quite recently removed, (because of the fine new building in course of erection), have honorable record for unselfish devotion to the cause of the patriots. Both buildings were nobly given up for the use of the soldiers, suffering with small-pox, in the terrible winter of 1777. Washington first came to Morristown, with his staff and army, three days after the battle of Princeton, on January 7th, 1777, and remained until May of that year. He made his Headquarters at the Arnold Tavern, then kept by Colonel Jacob Arnold, a famous officer of the "Light Horse Guards", whose grandsons are now residents of Morristown. This historic building stood on the west side of the Green, where now, a large brick building, "The Arnold", has been erected on its site. The old building with its many associations was about to be destroyed, when it was rescued, at the suggestion of the author of this book, and restored upon its present site on the Colles estate, on Mt. Kemble avenue, the old Baskingridge road of the Revolution. It has recently been purchased and occupied for a hospital by the All Souls' Hospital Association. Though extended and enlarged, it is still the same building and retains many of the distinctive features which characterized it when the residence of Washington. Here is still the bedroom which Washington occupied, the parlor, the dining-room and the ball-room where he received his generals, Greene, Knox, Schuyler, Gates, Lee, de Kalb, Steuben, Wayne, Winds, Putnam, Sullivan and others, besides distinguished visitors from abroad, all of whom met here continually during the winter of 1777. One of these visitors and one of our authors, the Marquis de Chastellux, gives an interesting account of his experience and impressions. In one of the bedrooms of this old house, has been seen within a few years, between the floor and the ceiling below, a long case for guns, above which was painted on the floor, in very large squares, covering the entire opening, a checkerboard about which, in an emergency, evidently the soldiers expected to sit and so conceal from the enemy the trap door of their arsenal. About this ancient building many traditions linger and from it have gone forth Washington's commands and some of his most important letters. The road taken by Washington and his army, on coming first to Morristown, was, according to Dr. Tuttle, "through Pluckamin, Baskingridge, New Vernon, thence by a grist mill near Green Village, around the corner and thence along the road leading from Green Village to Morristown and over the ground which had been selected for an encampment in the valley bearing the beautiful Indian name of Lowantica, now called Spring Valley." It was here that the terrible scourge of small-pox broke out among the soldiers. One cannot but wonder continually at Washington's courage and serenity in the midst of such overwhelming difficulties. He had hardly entered his winter home, in the Arnold Tavern, when the loss was announced to him of the brave and noble Col. Jacob Ford, Jr., his right-hand man, upon whom he had depended. He was buried, by Washington's orders, with the honors of war, and the description of that funeral cortege is one of the most picturesque pages out of traditional history. Then came the alarm about small-pox, the first death occurring on the same day as Col. Ford's funeral. Washington himself was taken ill, says tradition, with quinsy sore throat, and great fears were felt for his life. It is interesting to know that being asked who should succeed him in command of the army, should he not recover, he at once pointed to Gen. Nathaniel Greene. It was during this time of residence at the Arnold Tavern, that Washington joined Pastor Johnes and his people in their semi-annual communion after receiving the good pastor's assurance: "Ours is not the Presbyterian table, but the Lord's table, and we give the Lord's invitation to all his followers of whatever name." This is said to be the only occasion in his public career, when it is certainly known that Washington partook of the Sacrament. The hollow is still shown behind the house of Pastor Johnes, on Morris street, (purchased Feb. 3rd, 1893, of Mrs. Eugene Ayers, for the Morristown Memorial Hospital,) where a grove of trees then stood, when this historic event took place in the open air, while the church building was taken up with the soldiers sick of small-pox. Of this fact, in addition to the confirmation of Rev. Timothy Johnes's granddaughter, now living, Mrs. Kirtland, we have the following from Mr. Frederick G. Burnham, who says, (Oct 12th, 1892); "My Aunt, Huldah Lindsley, sister of Judge Silas Condict, and born in Morristown, gave me, in the most distinct and definite manner an account of General Washington's having communed with the Presbyterian Church on the occasion of the encampment in Morristown. My aunt told me that the congregation sat out of doors, even in the winter, but were shielded from the severe winds by surrounding high ground, that benches were placed in a circular position, that the pastor occupied a central point and that it was in this out-of-door place, muffled in their thickest clothing and many of them warmed by foot-stoves and other arrangements for keeping the feet warm, with nothing overhead but the wintry sky, that the congregation, among them General Washington, partook of the Lord's Supper." Early in December 1779, came Washington once more, with his army, to Morristown, and remained until the following June, the guest of Mrs. Theodosia Ford, widow of the gallant Col. Jacob Ford, Jr., at her home now known as the "Headquarters." The story of the purchase and preservation of this building for the state and country, by the Washington Association of New Jersey, is given farther on. "It is still," says the orator of Fort Nonsense (the Rev. Dr. Buckley), "the most charming residence which Morristown contains and historically inferior only in interest to Mount Vernon and far superior to it in beauty of location and surrounding scenery." Among the treasures of the Headquarters is the original Commission to Washington, as Commander-in-chief of the Army. At the opening ceremonial of the Washington Headquarters on July 5th, 1875, Governor Theodore F. Randolph, in an eloquent address, said as follows: "Under this roof have been gathered more characters known to the Military history of our Revolution than under any other roof in America. Here the eloquent and brilliant Alexander Hamilton lived during the long winter of 1779-'80 and here he met and courted the lady he afterwards married--the daughter of General Schuyler. Here too was Greene--splendid fighting Quaker as he was--and the great artillery officer, Knox, the stern Steuben, the polished Kosciusko, the brave Schuyler, gallant Light-horse Harry Lee, old Israel Putnam, "Mad Anthony" Wayne, and, last to be named of all, that brave soldier, but rank traitor--Benedict Arnold." Many authenticated stories are extant of Washington, himself, and of the other distinguished inmates of the Headquarters during this memorable winter. Of the women of Morris County too, and the country round, many historic tales are told. If possible, they seem to have been even more patriotic than the men, whom, on several occasions, they upheld when wavering with doubt or fear. They had knitting and sewing circles for the soldiers in camp upon the Wicke Farm. These were presided over by Mrs. Ralph Smith, on Smith's Hummock, by Mrs. Anna Kitchell at Whippany, and by Mrs. Counselor Condict and Mrs. Parson Johnes, in Morristown. In all this sympathetic work, Martha Washington led, and we hear of her that after coming through Trenton on December 28th, in a raging snow storm, to spend New Year's Day in the Ford Mansion, some of the grand ladies of the town came to call upon her, dressed in their most elegant silks and ruffles, and "so", says one of them, "we were introduced to her ladyship, and don't you think we found her with a _speckled homespun apron on, and engaged in knitting a stocking_? She received us very handsomely and then again resumed her knitting. In the course of the conversation, she said, very kindly to us, whilst she made her needles fly, that 'American ladies should be patterns of industry to their country-women * * * * we must become independent of England by doing without these articles which we can make ourselves. Whilst our husbands and brothers are examples of patriotism, we must be examples of industry'. 'I do declare,' said one of the ladies afterwards, 'I never felt so ashamed and rebuked in my life!'" (Rev. Dr. Tuttle.) The "Assembly Balls," a subscription entertainment, no doubt arranged to keep up the spirits of the army officers, were held that winter at the O'Hara Tavern, says Dr. Tuttle, a house facing the Green and on or adjoining the lot where now stands Washington Hall,--and probably also at the Arnold Tavern. In the meadow, in front of the headquarters, Washington's body-guard was encamped, originally a select troop of about one hundred Virginians. [Illustration: Painted by MISS EMMA H. VAN PELT. From Pen and Ink Sketch by MISS S. HOWELL. ORIGINAL FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 1738.] Martha Washington was a fine horsewoman and the General a superb horseman, as are all Virginians of the present day. Many were the rides they took together over the country, one of the most frequent, being to a certain elevation on the Short Hills, from which the General with his glass could see every movement of the enemy. Here was stationed the giant alarm-gun, an eighteen-pounder, and here was the main centre of the system of beacon-lights on the hills around. From this point can be seen the entire sea-board in the vicinity of New York City, which was of great importance when it was not known whether Howe would move towards West Point or Philadelphia. There is also a view of the entire region west of the mountain, "to the crown of the hills which lie back of Morristown, and extending to Baskingridge, Pluckamin and the hills in the vicinity of Middlebrook on the South, and over to Whippany, Montville, Pompton, Ringwood, and, across the State-line among the mountains of Orange County, N. Y., on the north." On our road to Madison, we may call up in imagination, the vision, which in those days was no unusual sight, says Dr. Tuttle, of "Washington and his accomplished lady, mounted on bay horses and accompanied by their faithful mulatto, 'Bill,' and fifty or sixty mounted Life-guards, passing on their way to or from their quarters in Morristown." At these times "the 'star spangled banner' was sure to float from the village liberty-pole, while our ancestors congregated along the highway where he was to pass and around the village inn, to do honor to the man to whose fidelity and martial skill all eyes were turned for the salvation of our country." Sometimes this cavalcade would pass along the Baskingridge Road, (now Mt. Kemble Avenue), perhaps stop at General Doughty's house, or, galloping on, stop at the Kemble mansion, (afterwards the Hoyt residence and now that of Mr. McAlpin), four miles from town, or turning the corner up Kemble Hill to the Wicke farm, and Fort Hill, to view the soldiers' encampment, they would clatter back again, down the precipitous Jockey Hollow road, past the Hospital-field, or burial place of the soldiers, stopping at the Headquarters of General Knox, off the Mendham road, about two miles from town, for Mrs. Knox and Mrs. Washington were close friends. Returning, they might slacken rein at the house of Pastor Johnes, (Mrs. Eugene Ayers') on Morris Street, where a ring still remains at the side of the piazza, to which Washington's horse was tied, under an elm tree's shade; or, they would stop at Quartermaster Lewis's (Mr. Wm. L. King's) where they would find Lafayette, after his return from France, if he happened to be in Morristown,--then at Dr. Jabez Campfield's house, on Morris Street, the east corner of Oliphant Lane,--the Headquarters of General Schuyler. Again the General, with his Life-guards, would set out to attend some appointed meeting of the "Council of Safety" at the house of its president, Silas Condict. This was about a mile out on the Sussex Turnpike, where the house still stands, on the west side of the old cross-road leading from that turnpike to Brant's paper-mill. Here he would meet the high-minded and dauntless Governor Livingston and perhaps his son-in-law, Judge Symmes, who lived near by, and whom the Governor frequently visited; all were men whose lives were sought for, by the British. Nearly all these homes are standing now and representatives of these families remain with us. Stories and traditions also relating to these homes and people have come down to us. Silas Condict, the bold, the brave, the honored patriot, member of the Provincial Legislature and of the Continental Congress besides filling other high places of trust, is represented by his great-grandson, Hon. Aug. W. Cutler, who now occupies the second house this ancestor built. General John Doughty's interesting old house, with its curious interior, and many a secret closet, stands as of old, on Mt. Kemble Avenue, at the head of Colles Avenue. "He might be called," says Mr. Wm. L. King, "the most distinguished resident of Morristown, at whose house Washington was a frequent visitor and no doubt often dined." He is represented by a great-nephew, Mr. Thomas W. Ogden, who has written an important paper on General Doughty, for the Washington Association, which is published by them. General Doughty was the third in command of the American Army, and succeeded General Knox. A descendant of General Knox is with us,--Mr. Reuben Knox, of Western Avenue. General Schuyler's Headquarters has a romantic interest as the scene of the courtship between Miss Elizabeth Schuyler and Alexander Hamilton. Of Pastor Johnes descendants, three generations are now with us to some of whom we have referred in the sketch of this distinguished man. Out on the Wicke farm, stands the house as it was in those old days when Tempe Wicke took her famous ride ahead of the pursuing soldiers and saved her favorite horse by concealing him for three weeks in the guest chamber, until every man of the army had gone to fight his country's battles on the banks of the Hudson. This house is near Fort Hill from which is the magnificent view which embraces Schooley's Mountain to the westward and a line of broken highlands to the South, among which is the town of Baskingridge where General Lee was captured. On the northern slope of this hill, as late as 1854, 66 fireplaces of the encampment were counted in regular rows and in a small space were found 196 hut chimneys. Going up a long, high street, not far from the Park, gradually ascending over rocks, and rough winding pathways, we come upon an open plateau on which is "Fort Nonsense," so named, on leaving it, by Washington, says tradition, because the soldiers had here been employed in constructing an octagonal earthwork, only to occupy them and to keep them from that idleness which was certain to breed discontent when added to their poverty, poor shelter, hopelessness, and homelessness. Here, on a bright afternoon of April, 1888, a monument to commemorate the site, was unveiled with appropriate ceremonies by the Washington Association. Long will be remembered the strange and startling effect upon those who sat waiting, as the procession drew near at a quickstep, up the hill, and led by the Fairchild Continental Drum Corps, in characteristic dress. Nearer and nearer came the tramp of many feet, to the sound of fife and drum playing Yankee Doodle, and, as they emerged from the trees upon the hill, it seemed as if Time's clock had been turned back more than a hundred years. Standing upon the stone, the orator of the occasion, Rev. Dr. Buckley, made a memorable address, in the course of which he mentioned that this monument, though small, is higher, measured from the level of the sea, than the great Washington Monument, which is declared to be the wonder of the world. The plan of the Fort, drawn by Major J. P. Farley, U. S. A., is now at the Headquarters and the illustration in this volume, is given from an engraving of the Messrs. Vogt, by their kind permission. Probably no Author will again record the presence of the second "First Church", which has measured its hundred years and more, in its old familiar place upon the Park. Soon it will be replaced by a modern structure. In October, 1891, prolonged and interesting services were held to celebrate the centennial of its erection. Closely involved with all the history of Morristown, the influences of this old church are felt and shown all through this book. The picture we give of it and the Soldiers' Monument, is as we look upon both to-day. (For the use of the engraving, we are again indebted to the Messrs. Vogt). Sorrowfully, we note the passing of the old church building and number it among the things we would not lose, but which soon shall be no more. Behind it, is the old historic cemetery, where have been laid to rest the forms of many of the patriots and honored dead of the century gone by. The "Old Academy" was an outcome of the First Church organization, and its early history is recorded in the "Trustees Book," of the church. Its centennial was observed on February 13th, 1891, on which occasion, among others, Hon. John Whitehead, of Morristown, and Judge William Paterson, of Perth Amboy, told its story, and the "Old Bell", placed upon the stage, was rung by Mr. Edward Pierson, who attended the Academy in 1820. In 1825, Lafayette came again, from France, to revisit the scenes of the Revolution. It was on July 14th, about six o'clock in the evening, that coming from Paterson, he arrived at Morristown. The Morris Brigade under General Darcy was paraded on the Green and the firing of cannon and ringing of church bells announced his coming. General Doughty was Grand Marshal of the day and an eloquent address was made, in behalf of the town, by Hon. Lewis Condict. Lafayette dined at the Ogden House, the home of Jonathan Ogden, a large brick building corner of Market street and the Green (shown in the picture). He attended a ball given in his honor, at the Sansay House (now Mrs. Revere's, on DeHart street), and stayed over night with Mr. James Wood, in the white house, corner of South and Pine streets. Two of Morristown's citizens have given their reminiscences of this event to the author of this book, as follows: Mr. Edward Pierson, January 10th, 1893, says: "I remember well each member of the Committee who received Lafayette, but two. I remember very well the visit of General Lafayette to Morristown, in the year 1825. There was a delegation went from Morristown, in carriages and on horseback, to meet him beyond Morristown and escort him here. They came in by the Morris street road, past the Washington Headquarters. At that time there was only one small house on the north side of the street, below the present Manse of the First Church to the foot of the hill. The ground sloped from the graveyard to the street and was filled with people to see the procession come in. A reception was given and Lafayette was taken to the James Wood house (white house on the east corner of Pine and South streets, opposite my residence), to spend the night. I well remember the next morning seeing them start off with the General and his party in a four-horse carriage." Mr. A. H. Condict, well-known as a resident of Morristown, writes from Mansfield, Ohio, (January 12th, 1893): "My eldest sister has related to me that when I was about a year old, General Lafayette was given a public reception at Morristown, in an elegant brick building then standing on the corner of the Park and Market street; that suitable addresses were made on the occasion and that while he was being observed by the great crowd of people, she held me up and that I looked at him. This would fix the time in the Summer of 1825, which corresponds with my notes gathered from the various histories." Morristown has always been a centre, not only geographically, but a centre of influence from the time when it received its name. We have seen how, midway between West Point and Philadelphia, with roads radiating in every direction and with high hills well fitted for beacon-lights and commanding far-reaching views, Washington soon discovered it was the point for him to select for watching the movements of Lord Howe in New York, who might at any moment start up the Hudson for West Point, or Southwards, for Philadelphia. [Illustration: THE ORIGINAL ARNOLD TAVERN. FROM PEN AND INK SKETCH BY MISS S. HOWELL.] In the early religious movements of the country, Morristown was conspicuous, having among its theologians some of the most brilliant thinkers of the period. Recently we find, in the published minutes of the Synod of New Jersey, Oct. 1892, the significant fact recorded that after the division of the Presbytery of New York, into that of New York and of New Jersey, the "Presbytery of Jersey at its first meeting in Morristown, April 24th, 1810, did appoint supplies for fourteen Sabbaths from May to September, to the pulpit of the vacant Brick Church in the City of New York". One of the first Sunday Schools, if not the first,--in New Jersey was started here, by Mrs. Charlotte Ford Condict of Littleton, the grandmother of Henry Vail Condict, now a resident of Morristown, and this was said to be the beginning of the great revival under Albert Barnes. In a scientific direction, Morristown was the cradle of perhaps the greatest invention of the age, the electric telegraph. Also at the Speedwell Iron Works were manufactured the first tires, axles and cranks of American locomotives and a part of the machinery of the "Savannah," the first steamship that crossed the ocean. Morristown also reflected the superstitions of the period; the people largely believed in witchcraft in those early days, and here was enacted, for about a year, the most remarkable ghostly drama that was ever published to the world, or influenced the best citizens of a community. The story of the Morristown Ghost will go down to future ages. For philanthropy, from Revolutionary times, Morristown has been famed, since Martha set the example of knitting the stockings for the needy soldiers and good Hannah Thompson voiced the hearts of her sisters round about, when she gave food to a starving company of them, saying: "Eat all you want; you are engaged in a good cause, and we are willing to share with you what we have as long as it lasts." This old centre of patriotism and Revolutionary enthusiasm has radiated philanthropic movements which influence not only the conditions of the whole State but the welfare of humanity. Here was commenced that voluntary work of the State Charities Aid Association, which considers, and practically carries out, through its counselors, measures for reform among the pauper and criminal classes in the State institutions, and out of them, and which will undoubtedly influence for good all future generations. This work is on much the same plan that was originally thought out and organized by Miss Louisa Lee Schuyler, of New York, the great-granddaughter of General Philip Schuyler whose noble devotion to his Commander-in-chief is memorable during those days in Morristown. So we see how the old life of the Revolutionary period connects itself with the new life of progression. The principles then so nobly maintained take new forms in new projects. Everywhere, we find the old and the new combined, for even the streets bear the names, with those of Schuyler, Hamilton and Washington, of Farragut and McCullough. In the Park there stands a granite shaft surmounted by a full length figure of a Morris County Volunteer, commemorating the lives of the noble men who fell in those hard-won fields, fighting to preserve the nationality which had been secured by their forefathers. Everything is significant of either noble deeds in the past or of honored names of later day and of private citizens whose personal influence has added moral dignity to this City of many associations. George Washington. Among the first notable writings associated with Morristown are the letters of Washington written from the old Arnold Tavern, and from the Ford Mansion, during the two memorable winters of 1777 and of 1779-'80. These noble letters are acknowledged on all sides to have been supremely efficient in promoting our national independence, filled as they are with the personality of Washington himself. They are very numerous. Many of them are published; some are in our "Headquarters", and many still are scattered over the Country, in the possession of individuals. All are interesting and none appear to reveal what we would wish had not been known, as in the case of so many other published letters. Of the man himself, our authors speak, here and there, throughout this volume. It is certain that no name, no face or character is more familiar to us than that of Washington, and no name in history has received a greater tribute than to be called, as he was, by the nation, at the end of his very difficult career, the "Father of his Country." Here is Lafayette's first impression, as he attends a dinner in Philadelphia, given by Congress in honor of the Commander-in-Chief. He says: "Although surrounded by officers and citizens, Washington was to be recognized at once by the majesty of his countenance and his figure." And this is Lafayette's tribute to Washington, when the two men have parted: "As a private soldier, he would have been the bravest; as an obscure citizen, all his neighbors would have respected him. With a heart as just as his mind he always judged himself as he judged circumstances. In creating him expressly for this revolution, Nature did honor to herself; and to show the perfection of her work, she placed him in such a position that each quality must have failed, had it not been sustained by all the others." (Quoted by Bayard Tuckerman in his "Life of Lafayette.") In the portrait of Washington which Chastellux gives us, occur these words: "His strongest characteristic is the perfect union which reigns between the physical and moral qualities which compose the individual, one alone will enable you to judge of all the rest. If you are presented with medals of Cæsar, Trajan or Alexander, on examining their features, you will still be led to ask what was their stature and the form of their persons; but if you discover, in a heap of ruins, the head or the limb of an antique Apollo, be not anxious about the other parts, but rest assured that they all were conformable to those of a God. * * * This will be said of Washington, '_At the end of a long civil war, he had nothing with which he could reproach himself._'" Thatcher, in his Military Journal, speaks of Washington as he appeared at a great entertainment given by General Knox, in celebration of the alliance with France: "His tall, noble stature and just proportions, his fine, cheerful countenance, simple and modest deportment, are all calculated to interest every beholder in his favor and to command veneration and respect. He is feared even when silent and beloved even while we are unconscious of the motive." The first French minister, M. Gerard, tells us, referring to Washington: "It is impossible for me briefly to communicate the fund of intelligence which I have derived from him. I will now say only that I have formed as high an opinion of the powers of his mind, his moderation, patriotism and of his virtues, as I had before from common report conceived of his military talents, and of the incalculable services he had rendered to his country." (Quoted by A. D. Mellick in his "Story of an Old Farm.") We see the General in his evening dress of "black velvet, with knee and shoe buckles and a steel rapier; his hair thickly powdered, drawn back from his forehead and gathered in a black silk bag adorned with a rosette" walking gracefully and with dignity through the figures of a quadrille. We see him devoted to his wife and courteous to every woman, high and low. Greene writes from the Headquarters: "Mrs. Washington is extremely fond of the General and he of her; they are happy in each other." We see him, with his tender sympathy among the soldiers and so find the key to the wonderful devotion of the soldiers to their chief, and his influence over them. As an old soldier tells the story to the Rev. O. L. Kirtland: "There was a time when all our rations were but a single _gill of wheat_ a day. Washington used to come round and look into our tents, and he looked so kind and he said so tenderly. 'Men, can you bear it?' 'Yes, General, yes we can,' was the reply; 'if you wish us to act give us the word and we are ready!'" Many were the letters he wrote in their behalf to Congress, who neglected them, and to Lord Howe in New York, because of his cruelty to the prisoners in his power. Another key we have to his calm and self-reliant bearing, even in his darkest hours, so that, says Tuttle, "there seemed to be something about this man, which inspired his enemies, even when victorious, with dread." It is expressed in a letter of Washington when heartsick at the round of misfortunes at the outset of the Revolution, and after the capture of Fort Washington by the enemy. He writes: "It almost overcomes me to reflect that a brother's sword has been sheathed in a brother's breast and that the once happy and peaceful plains of America are either to be drenched in blood or inhabited with slaves. Sad alternative! But can a virtuous man hesitate in his choice?" (Quoted by Dr. Tuttle from Sparks.) A touching letter is written on the 8th of January, 1780, from the Ford Mansion, to the Morris County authorities, about the hungry, destitute soldiers, to which he receives at once so warm and generous a response that he writes again: "The exertions of the magistrates and inhabitants of the State were great and cheerful for our relief." (Quoted by Dr. Tuttle from Sparks.) Though a warm Episcopalian, his broad Christian feeling is shown when he says: "Being no bigot, myself, I am disposed to indulge the professors of Christianity in the Church with that road to heaven which to them shall seem the most direct, the plainest and easiest and least liable to objections." (Dr. Tuttle, quoted from Sparks.) And again, in reply to the Address of the Clergy of different denominations, in and about Philadelphia; "Believing as I do, that _Religion_ and _Morality are the essential_ pillars of society, I view with unspeakable pleasure, that harmony and brotherly love which characterize the clergy of different denominations, as well in this, as in other parts of the United States, exhibiting to the world a new and interesting spectacle, at once the pride of our Country and the surest basis of universal harmony." (Quoted by Dr. Tuttle from Dr. Green's Autobiography.) What man, after arriving at such a height of power and influence over men, has been able to take up, with content again, his life of a country gentleman? Wonderfully appropriate were the last words that fell from his lips: "It is well." Of Washington it may be said as of no other, in the words of Henry Lee, in his Eulogy of December 26th, 1799: "To the memory of the man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." POETS. William and Stephen V. R. Paterson. A curious circumstance surrounds the poetic work of the two Paterson brothers--William and Stephen Van Rensselaer Paterson--and gives it a unique interest apart from its especial merits. The survivor of the two brothers says, in the short and highly interesting introduction to their poems, published in 1882 and called "Poems of Twin Graduates of the College of New Jersey": "The title explains itself, and shows that the writers were born under the sign of the Gemini. They lived under that sign for rising fifty years, when one was taken and the other left. Two of us came into existence within the same hour of time, and passing through the early part of education together, entered the world-life as twin graduates of the collegiate institution bearing the name of the State of which they were natives. This dual species of psychology was something of a curiosity because outside of common experience. Pleasure and pain seemed to flow like electric currents from the same battery. In a certain sense, we could feel at once, and think at once and act at once. It is problematical whether this proceeded from a real elective affinity, or was mechanical. It was most marked, however, at first, and particularly in the beginning or rudiments of learning. Both then went along exactly at the same rate, and one never was in advance of the other. Both always worked and played together, and whichever discovered something new, would communicate it in an untranslatable language to his companion. "This dual character, to a greater or less extent, pervaded the joint lives of the writers of these pieces. Not that the similarity extended to the business or pursuits, the tastes or habits of life, for in many respects they were different and apart as those bearing a single relation. Still the influence of the mystic tie, whatever it was or may have been, remained till nature loosed, as it had woven, the bond." Although Judge William Paterson was born in Perth Amboy and now resides there, his associations with Morristown, as related in a letter under his signature, are those of early boyhood passed on the farm, now occupied by Mrs. Howland. "Morristown was then but a village hamlet," he says, and "the old Academy and the Meeting House on the village green were the only places in which services were held." Still, we gather, that at Morristown, the two poets received their "scholastic and agricultural training." Here, too, was laid the foundation of their "political and religious faith," the latter under the administration of Albert Barnes, and, what may be a noted event in their lives, they heard Mr. Barnes preach the sermon on the "Way of Salvation," which caused the division of the Presbyterian Church. Judge Paterson is a graduate of Princeton, which is in a double sense his Alma Mater, inasmuch as members of his family were among the first graduates, soon after the removal of the College from Newark and "when that village, then a hamlet amid the primeval forests had become the permanent site for the Academy incorporated by royal charter." Various positions of importance in the community have been held by Judge Paterson. In 1882, he was made Lay Judge of the Court of Errors and Appeals of the State; he was also Mayor of Newark for ten years, at different times from 1846 to 1878, filling important and non-important municipal and county offices. Thus his work has been mostly legal and political, save, when he has made dashes into the more purely literary fields, rather, perhaps, through inspiration and for recreation from the dry details of practical work. More than once has Judge Paterson told to amused and interested audiences in Morristown his recollections of boyhood and youth spent here. Notably, many remember his recent graphic address on the occasion of the Centennial of the Morristown Academy. In 1888, our author published a valuable "Biography of the Class of 1835 of Princeton College," the class in which he graduated. The "Poems" were published in 1882. Looking through the latter volume, which contains many treasures, we wonder how, many of the poems--written as they were under the influence of a higher inspiration than ordinary rhythmic influences--should not earlier have found their way, in book form, from the writer's secret drawers to the readers of the outside world. Many of these poems are connected with experiences and memories of Academic days in Princeton and, among them all we would mention "The Close of the Centennial;" "Living on a Farm," which refers to Mrs. Howland's farm, long the poet's home in boyhood; "14th February, 1877;" "The Hickory Tree," and "Polly," in which the writer has caught wonderfully the bright, playful spirit of the child. The poem "Morristown," a pictorial reminiscence, we have selected to open this book. Quite recently, (in September, 1892) has been published and bound in true orange color, _An Address_, read before the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, on February 12th, 1892, on the life and public services of _William Paterson_, his honored grandfather, who was "Attorney-General of New Jersey during the Revolution, a framer of the Federal Constitution, Senator of the United States from New Jersey, Governor of that State, and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States at the time of his death, September 9th, 1806." "He was the first Alumnus of Princeton," says the writer, "who was tendered a place in the Cabinet or on the Federal Judiciary, the Attorney-General, the first one being William Bradford, also an Alumnus, a classmate of Madison, and Collegemate of Burr, then not constituting part of the Executive household." "He began the study of legal science and practice under the instruction of Richard Stockton, who was an Alumnus of the first Class that went forth from the College of New Jersey, then located in Newark, and who, though young, comparatively, was rising fast to the forefront of his profession, and, afterward, to become of renowned judicial and revolutionary fame." The publication is full of interest, graphic description and notice of men and events of the period. Here is a letter to Aaron Burr, between whom while a student in the College at Princeton, and Mr. Paterson, then established in the practice of his profession, had sprung up a strong friendship which continued during life: "Princeton, January 17th, 1772. DEAR BURR: I am just ready to leave and therefore cannot wait for you. Be pleased to accept of the enclosed notes on _dancing_. If you pitch upon it as the subject of your next discourse, they may furnish you with a few hints, and enable you to compose with greater facility and despatch. To do you any little service in my power, will afford me great satisfaction, and I hope you will take the liberty--it is nothing more, my dear Burr, than the freedom of a friend--to call upon me whenever you may think I can. Bear with me when I say, _that you cannot speak too slow_. Every word should be pronounced distinctly; one should not be sounded so highly as to drown another. To see you shine as a speaker, would give great pleasure to your friends in general and to me in particular. You certainly are capable of making a good speaker. "Dear Burr, adieu. WM. PATERSON." The writer pays a beautiful tribute to Ireland, the land of his ancestors: "Irish Nationality," he says, "is no empty dream; it goes back more than two thousand years, is as old as Christianity, and is attested by the existence of towers and monuments, giving evidence of greater antiquity than is to be found in the annals of any other country in all Europe. For centuries, Ireland sent missionaries of learning throughout the continent to herald the advent of civilization and stay the advance of barbarism, and her story is one running over with great deeds and glorious memories, with associations of poetry and art and bards, and a civilization, ante-dating that of almost any other Christian community. It cannot be claimed that the rude exploits of her early inhabitants are classic in story or in song. They acquired no territory; their island domain is but a speck of green verdure amid the waste of ocean waters, and the flash of an electric light, located on the hills where stood the ancient psaltery, could be sent throughout its length and breadth. They conquered no worlds. No manifest destiny led them to seek for wealth, applause or gain, beyond the limits of their narrow bounds. They did not so much as pass over the seas that wash their either shore. But yet in the absence of all the achievements that can gratify ambition, with no record of pomp or pageantry or power, her people bear a character more like a dream of fancy than a thing of real life, and to-day they stand as remnants of national greatness, though you may look in vain in their annals or traditions for any evidence of usurpation or of subjugation by sceptre or by sword." Mrs. Elizabeth Clementine Kinney. Mrs. Kinney, the mother of the poet, Edmund Clarence Stedman, and daughter of David L. Dodge of New York city, was for several years a resident of Morristown, and will long be remembered with interest and affection by her many friends. Her husband, Mr. William Burnet Kinney, not only resided here in later years, but was born at Speedwell, then a suburb of Morristown, and passed a part of his early boyhood there. To him we shall refer, in the grouping of _Editors and Orators_. Mr. Kinney was a brilliant literary man and about this home in Morristown unusual talent and genius naturally grouped themselves. To it came and went the poet Stedman: in the group, we find two gifted women, daughters of Mrs. Kinney, and later on, the same genius developing itself in the son of one of these, the boy Easton, of the third generation. Mrs. Kinney published in 1855, "Felicita, a Metrical Romance;" a volume of "Poems" in 1867; and, a few years later, a stirring drama, a tragedy in blank verse, entitled "Bianco Cappello." This tragedy is founded upon Italian history and was written during her residence abroad in 1873. While abroad, Mrs. Kinney's letters to _The Newark Daily Advertiser_ gave her a wide reputation and were largely re-copied in London and Edinburgh journals from copies in the New York papers. Among the "Poems," the one "To an Italian Beggar Boy" is perhaps most highly spoken of and has been chosen by Mr. Stedman to represent his mother in the "Library of American Literature." A favorite also is the "Ode to the Sea." Both pieces are strong and dramatic. The poem on "The Flowers" has been translated into three languages. It opens: "Where'er earth's soil is by the feet Of unseen angels trod, The joyous flowers spring up to greet These messengers of God." Mrs. Kinney's sonnets are peculiarly good. Her sonnet on "Moonlight in Italy," which we give to represent her, was written at ten o'clock at night in Italy by moonlight, and has been much praised. Mr. Kingston James, the English translator of Tasso, repeated it once at a dinner table, as a sample of "in what consisted a true sonnet." MOONLIGHT IN ITALY. There's not a breath the dewy leaves to stir; There's not a cloud to spot the sapphire sky; All nature seems a silent worshipper: While saintly Dian, with great, argent eye, Looks down as lucid from the depths on high, As she to earth were Heaven's interpreter: Each twinkling little star shrinks back, too shy Its lesser glory to obtrude by her Who fills the concave and the world with light; And ah! the human spirit must unite In such a harmony of silent lays, Or be the only discord in this night, Which seems to pause for vocal lips to raise The sense of worship into uttered praise. Alexander Nelson Easton. In the third generation in the line of Mrs. Kinney, appears a boy, now seventeen years of age, of unusual promise as a poet--Alexander Nelson Easton, grandson of William Burnet and Elizabeth C. Kinney. He has written and published several poems. He took the $50 prize offered by the _Mail and Express_ for the best poem on a Revolutionary incident, written by a child of about twelve years. It was entitled "Mad Anthony's Charge." Young Easton was born in Morristown, and spent his early years in this place, in the house on the corner of Macculloch Avenue and Perry Street, belonging to Mrs. Brinley. He began to write at eight years when a little prose piece called "The Council of the Stars," found its way into print, out in California. His next was in verse, written at ten years on "The Oak." That was also published and copied. A "Ballad" followed "A Scottish Battle Song," written in dialect, which was published also. Then came the prize poem, "Mad Anthony's Charge," above referred to. He has composed two stories since, one of which, "Ben's Christmas Present," has been accepted by the New York _World_ and is to appear with a sketch of this young writer, in their Christmas number. At twelve years, he wrote a monody on "The Burial of Brian Boru," which is given below. The literary efforts of Easton, so far, have been spontaneous and spasmodic, but contain certain promise for the future. After studying for some time at the Morristown Academy, Easton went as a student to the Bordentown Military Institute from which he has graduated and has now passed on to Princeton College. At Bordentown he won golden opinions, and gave the prize essay at the June Commencement. This was an oration of considerable importance on "The Value of Sacrifice," but withal his gifts are essentially poetic. THE BURIAL OF BRIAN BORU. Slowly around the new-made grave Gathers the mourner throng; Women and children, chieftains brave, Numb'ring their hundreds strong. Glitter beneath the sun's bright ray Helmet and axe and spear; Sadness and sorrow reign to-day, Dark is the land and drear! Yesterday leading his men to fight, Now lies he beneath their feet, Clad in his armor, strong and bright, 'Tis his only winding sheet. Close to his grave stand his warriors grim, Bravest and best of his reign; They, who through danger have oft followed him, Mourn the wild "Scourge of the Dane." Look! from the throng with martial stride Steps an old chief of his clan, Pauses and halts at the deep grave's side, Halts as but warriors can. White is the hair beneath his cap, Withered the hand he holds on high; Standing, beside the open gap, Speaks he without a pause or sigh. "_Brian Boru_ the brave! _Brian Boru_ the bold! Lay we thee in thy grave; Deep is it, dark and cold. Bravest of ev'ry chief Erin has ever known; Hurling the foes in grief, Fiercest of Danes o'erthrown. Youth and old age alike Found thee in war array; Wielding the sword and pike, E'er in the thick o' the fray! Erin is freed and blest, Freed by thy mighty arm; Well hast thou earned thy rest, Take it! secure from harm. Friend of our hearts! Our king! Generous, kind and true! Out let our praises fling-- Shout we for _Brian Boru_." Bursts the wild song from a thousand throats, Sounding through wood and plain, While the mountains echo the dying notes, Ringing them out again. Francis Bret Harte. As a poet, we represent Bret Harte by his "Plain Language from Truthful James," better known as "The Heathen Chinee." The main reference to his writings follows, in the next classification of _Novelists and Story Writers_. PLAIN LANGUAGE FROM TRUTHFUL JAMES, BETTER KNOWN AS "THE HEATHEN CHINEE." TABLE MOUNTAIN, 1870. Which I wish to remark,-- And my language is plain,-- That for ways that are dark, And for tricks that are vain, The heathen Chinee is peculiar. Which the same I would rise to explain. Ah Sin was his name; And I shall not deny In regard to the same What that name might imply, But his smile it was pensive and child-like, As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye. It was August the third; And quite soft was the skies; Which it might be inferred That Ah Sin was likewise; Yet he played it that day upon William And me in a way I despise. Which we had a small game, And Ah Sin took a hand: It was Euchre. The same He did not understand; But he smiled as he sat by the table, With the smile that was child-like and bland. Yet the cards they were stocked In a way that I grieve, And my feelings were shocked At the state of Nye's sleeve: Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers, And the same with intent to deceive. But the hands that were played By that heathen Chinee, And the points that he made, Were quite frightful to see,-- Till at last he put down a right bower, Which the same Nye had dealt unto me. Then I looked up at Nye, And he gazed upon me; And he rose with a sigh, And said, "Can this be? We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor,"-- And he went for that heathen Chinee. In the scene that ensued I did not take a hand, But the floor it was strewed Like the leaves on the strand With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding, In the game "he did not understand." In his sleeves, which were long, He had twenty-four packs,-- Which was coming it strong, Yet I state but the facts; And we found on his nails, which were taper, What is frequent in tapers--that's wax. Which is why I remark, And my language is plain, That for ways that are dark, And for tricks that are vain, The heathen Chinee is peculiar,-- Which the same I am free to maintain. Mrs. M. Virginia Donaghe McClurg. Mrs. McClurg, the niece of our honored townsman, Mr. Wm. L. King, is better known to us by her maiden name of M. Virginia Donaghe. Although endowed with varied gifts, having been editor, newspaper correspondent, story-writer, biographer and local historian, her talent is essentially poetic, therefore we place her among our poets. A proud moment of Mrs. McClurg's life was, when a child, she received four dollars and a half from _Hearth and Home_ for a story called "How did it Happen," written in the garret, the author tells us, without the knowledge of any one. Next, were written occasional letters and verses and short stories for the New York _Graphic_, including some burlesque correspondence for a number of papers, one of which was the _Richmond State_. The writer then went to Colorado for her health and accepted the position of editor on the _Daily Republic_ of Colorado Springs, for three years. She wrote a political leader for the paper every day. It happened that many distinguished men died during those years, and she did in consequence biographical work. She also wrote book reviews, dramatic and musical reviews, condensed the state news every day from all the papers of the state and edited the Associated Press dispatches. In addition, all proofs were brought to her for final reading. For the first year she had private pupils and broke down with brain fever. In 1885, she went into the Indian country to explore the cliff-dwellings of Mancos Cañon, in the reservation of the Southern Utes. They were only known through meagre accounts in the official government reports, and Miss Donaghe was the first woman who ever visited them, so far as known. On this occasion, she had an escort of United States troops and spent a few days there. She however made a second visit, fully provided for a month's trip, the result of which was a series of archæological sketches contributed to a prominent paper, the _Great Divide_, under the title of "Cliff-Climbing in Colorado." These ten papers gave to Miss Donaghe a reputation in the west as an archæologist. The following year she published, in the _Century_, one of the best of her sonnets, "The Questioner of the Sphinx," afterwards contained in her book, "Seven Sonnets of Sculpture." The same year she published her first book, "Picturesque Colorado," also a popular sonnet called "The Mountain of the Holy Cross." The Colorado mountain of the Holy Cross has crevices filled with snow which represent always on its side a cross. The little sand lily of Colorado blossoms at the edges of the highways in the dust, in the Spring, and looks like our star of Bethlehem. Of these sand lilies an artist friend made a picture which harmonized with the sonnet referred to. These were published together as an Easter card and a large edition sold. The sonnet begins; "In long forgotten Springs, where He who taught Amid the olive groves of Syrian hills,"-- And ends: "The lilies bloom upon the prairie wide A stainless cross is reared by nature's hand, And plain and height alike keep Easter-tide." In 1887, the _Century_ published a "Sonnet on Helen Hunt's Grave," with a picture of the grave. About this time Miss Donaghe was writing a series of letters which were published in a Southern newspaper, _The Valley Virginian_, and were widely copied. These were on Utah, when the Mormon hierarchy was in its power. Then appeared a book on "Picturesque Utah," making one of a group with "Picturesque Colorado" and "Colorado Favorites." The last is made up of six poems on Colorado flowers, illustrated by water colors of the blossoms, by Alice Stewart, and was the first book published. The author was married to Mr. Gilbert McClurg of Chicago, one of the family of the publishing house of that name, in Morristown, on June 13th, 1889. Since then Mrs. McClurg has been both editor and newspaper correspondent, and, within the last two years, a valuable assistant to her husband in the preparation of his department of the official history of Colorado, which included several county histories. In the _Cosmopolitan_ of June, 1891, a sonnet appeared, "The Life Mask," and was reprinted in the _Review of Reviews_. Two of Mrs. McClurg's songs were set to music by Albert C. Pierson in the summer of 1890; "Lithe Stands my Lady"; "Je Reste et Tu T'en Vas"; the latter with a French refrain, the rest in English. The last poem of Mrs. McClurg was published in the _Banner_, of Morristown, Dec. 24th, 1891, written to Mr. William L. King on his 85th Thanksgiving Day, and based on the Oriental salutation, "O King! Live forever". Among the writings of Mrs. McClurg are also two articles on the Washington Headquarters of Morristown; being "quotations, comments and descriptions on two Order Books of the Revolution, daily records of life in camp and at Headquarters, in the year 1780." A passage from this is given in the opening chapter of this book. The "Seven Sonnets of Sculpture" came out in 1889 and 1890. This book was widely and favorably noticed by some of the largest and most important journals. Says the writer in the Chicago _Daily News_: "It was a happy inspiration that led Mrs. McClurg to the idea realized in the publication of her latest volume 'Seven Sonnets of Sculpture'. The work is artistic from cover to cover, but the conception of equipping each one of the stanzas it contains with a photograph of the piece of sculpture which suggested it, was unique. * * To translate a work of art from its original form to another, to find the hidden sense of a conception imbedded in stone and revive it in words, to endue marble with speech, is in its nature a delicate task and one that demands the keenest of perceptions and sensibilities." The author says, in her dedication that seven was a Hebrew symbol of perfection. The sonnet we select from these, to represent Mrs. McClurg, is "The Questioner of the Sphinx". This sonnet was written from the impression received from Elihu Vedder's engraving of the Sphinx and the artist expressed in a letter to the author, his appreciation of the fidelity of the interpretation in verse of his picture. His criticism is perhaps the best that could be given. "I think it," he wrote, "good and strong and shall treasure it among the few good things that have been suggested by my work. My idea in the Sphinx was the hopelessness of man before the cold immutable laws of nature. Could the Sphinx speak, I am sure its words would be, 'look within,' for to his working brain and beating heart man must look for the solution of the great problem." THE QUESTIONER OF THE SPHINX. (SUGGESTED BY ELIHU VEDDER'S PICTURE.) Behold me! with swift foot across the land, While desert winds are sleeping, I am come To wrest a secret from thee; O thou, dumb, And careless of my puny lip's command. Cold orbs! _mine_ eyes a weary world have scanned, Slow ear! in _mine_ rings ever a vexed hum Of sobs and strife. Of joy mine earthly sum Is buried as thy form in burning sand. The wisdom of the nations thou has heard; The circling courses of the stars hast known. Awake! Thrill! By my feverish presence stirred, Open thy lips to still my human moan, Breathe forth one glorious and mysterious word, Though I should stand, in turn, transfixed,--a stone! Charlton T. Lewis, L.L. D. A sketch of Dr. Lewis will be found under the grouping of _Lexicographer_. The poem from which we select (reluctantly we take a part instead of the whole, for lack of space), is an embodiment of the story taken from Theodoret. The poet has found in the beautiful tradition, meagre though it is, a lovely theme for his divine song of spiritual love and Christian martyrdom. The following is the translation of the Greek passage which heads the poem: "A certain Telemachus embraced the self-sacrificing life of a monk, and, to carry out this plan, went to Rome, where he arrived during the abominable shows of gladiators. He went down into the arena, and strove to stop the conflicts of the armed combatants. But the spectators of the bloody games were indignant, and the gladiators themselves, full of the spirit of battle, slew the apostle of peace. When the great Emperor learned the facts he enrolled Telemachus in the noble army of martyrs, and put an end to the murderous shows." _Theodoret. Eccl. Hist. v. 26._ The scene is Rome,--the place the Coliseum. It is the time of the games. There are the crowds of eager people; the Emperor Honorius; the horrible Stilicho. Lowly and beautiful in his great love for Christ, Telemachus follows onward to the Coliseum to meet his sorrowful fate; holding in his voice the power that "stilled the fire and dulled the sword and stopped the crushing wine-press." He followed, silently, consecrated and alone, to "do the will of God." TELEMACHUS. I mused on Claudian's tinseled eulogies, And turned to seek in other dusty tomes, Through the wild waste of those degenerate days, Some living word, some utterance of the heart; Till as when one lone peak of Jura flames With sudden sunbeams breaking through the mist, So from the dull page of Theodoret A flash of splendor rends the clouds of life, And bares to view the awful throne of love. The bishop's tale is meagre, but as leaven, It works in thoughts that rise and fill the soul. *....*....*....*....* He felt the soil, long drenched with martyr's blood, Send healing through his feet to all his frame. He drank the air that trembled with the joys Of opening Paradise, and bared his soul To spirits whispering, "Come with us to-day!" The longings of his life were satisfied, He stood at last in Rome, Christ's Capital, The gate of heaven and not the mouth of hell. Suddenly, rudely, comes disastrous change. He starts and gazes, as the glory of the saints Fades round him and the angel songs are stilled: A world of hatred hides the throne of love; Hell opens in the gleam of myriad eyes Hungry for slaughter, in a hush that tells How in each heart a tiger pants for blood. Into the vast arena files a band Of Goths, the prisoners of Pollentia,-- Freemen, the dread of Rome, but yesterday, Now doomed as slaves to wield those terrible arms In mutual murder, kill and die, amid The exultation of their nation's foes. Pausing before the throne, with well-taught lips They utter words they know not; but Rome hears; "Cæsar, we greet thee who are now to die!" Then part and line the lists; the trumpet blares For the onset, sword and javelin gleam, and all Is clash of smitten shields and glitter of arms. Without the tumult, one of mighty limb And towering frame stands moveless; never yet A nobler captive had made sport for Rome. Throngs watch that eye of Mars, Apollo's grace, The thews of Hercules, in cruel hope That ten may fall before him ere he falls. They bid him charge; he moves not; shield and sword Sink to his feet; his eyes are filled with light That is not of the battle. Three draw near Whose valor or despair has cut a path Through the thick mass of combat, and their swords, Reeking with carnage, seek a victim new The glory of whose death may win them grace With that fierce multitude. Telemachus Gazes, and half the horror turns to joy As the fair Goth undaunted bares his breast Before the butchers, and awaits the blow With peaceful brow, a firm and tender lip Quivering as with a breath of inward prayer, And hands that move as mindful of the cross. And with a mighty cry, "Christ! he is thine! He is my brother! Help!" The monk leaps forth, Gathers in hands unarmed the points of steel, Throws back the startled warriors, and commands, "In Christ's name, hold! Ye people of Rome give ear! God will have mercy and not sacrifice. He who was silent, scourged at Pilate's bar, And smitten again in those he died to save, Is silent now in his great oracles. The throne of Constantine and Peter's chair, Speaks thus through me:--'In Rome, my capital, Let love be Lord, and close the mouth of hell. I will have mercy and not sacrifice.'" The slaughter paused, he ceased, and all was still, But baffled myriads with their cruel thumbs Point earthward, and the bloody three advance: Their swords meet in his heart. Honorius Cries "Save,"--too late, he is already safe,-- And turns, with tears like Peter's, to proclaim, The festival dissolved: nor from that hour Ever again did Rome, Christ's capital, Make holiday with blood, but hand in hand The throne of Constantine and Peter's chair Honored the martyr--Saint Telemachus, And love was Lord and closed the mouth of hell. Miss Emma F. R. Campbell. In our midst is a quiet, gentle woman who passes in and out among us without noise or ostentation. Yet upon her has fallen the great honor of being the author of an immortal hymn. In the _Canada Presbyterian_ of Feb. 9th, 1887, appeared an article entitled "A Great Modern Hymn." Also, it is said, that in a volume soon to be published on "The Great Hymns of the Church" will appear a paper on "Jesus of Nazareth Passeth By." From the first named, we cannot do better than quote: "Among all the hymns used in recent revivals of religion, none has been more honored and owned by God, than this--none so often called for, none so inspiring, none bearing so many seals of the divine approval. This is the testimony of the great evangelist of these days, Mr. Moody, and this testimony will surprise no one who has ever heard it sung by his companion in the ministry, Mr. Sankey, who, under God, has done so much to send forth light and truth into dark minds and break up the fountains of the great deep, amid the masses of godless men. * * * * * "As to the origin of the hymn--the circumstances of its birth--we have to invite the reader to go back some twenty-three years, to the Spring of 1864--to a great season of religious awakening in the city of Newark, N. J. The streets were crowded from day to day and the largest churches were too small to contain the growing numbers. Among those most deeply moved by the impressive scenes and services was a young girl, a Sabbath School teacher, one who for the first time realized the powers of the world to come, and the grandness of the great salvation. As descriptive of what was passing around her but with no desire for publicity, still, with the great desire of reaching some soul unsaved, especially among her youthful charge, she wrote the lines beginning with, 'What means this eager, anxious throng?'" The hymn was first published under the signature "Eta", the author having sometimes appended to her writings the Greek letter, using that character instead of her English name. We quote again from the same source: "Soon it rose into popularity and it is spreading still, not only in the English language, but in other languages--even the languages of India--(think of a recent account of an assembly of 500 Hindus enthusiastically using this hymn in the Mahrati and the Syrian children singing it in their own vernacular)--as the author thinks of all these things, she can only say with a thankful and an adoring heart: 'It is the Lord's doing and it is marvellous in mine eyes!'" Miss Campbell has also written many other poems of beauty and articles in prose, which however, are all so eclipsed by this "Great Hymn" that perhaps they are not known or noticed as they otherwise would be. One in particular, we would mention, "A New Year Thought," published December, 1888. Miss Campbell belongs also in the group of _Novelists_, _Story-Writers_, _and Moralists_. She has written a number of books for the young, among which are "Green Pastures for Christ's Little Ones"; "Paul Preston"; "Better than Rubies"; and "Toward the Mark". Miss Campbell wrote by request, at the time of the Centennial Celebration of the First Presbyterian Church in October, 1891, a beautiful hymn for the occasion which was read by Mr. James Duryee Stevenson. "JESUS OF NAZARETH PASSETH BY." What means this eager, anxious throng, Pressing our busy streets along, These wondrous gatherings day by day, What means this strange commotion, pray? Voices in accents hushed reply "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by?" E'en children feel the potent spell, And haste their new-found joy to tell; In crowds they to the place repair Where Christians daily bow in prayer, Hosannas mingle with the cry "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by!" Who is this Jesus? Why should He The city move so mightily? A passing stranger, has He skill To charm the multitude at will? Again the stirring tones reply "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by!" Jesus! 'tis He who once below Man's pathway trod mid pain and woe: And burdened hearts where'er He came Brought out their sick and deaf and lame. Blind men rejoiced to hear the cry "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by!" Again He comes, from place to place His holy footprints we can trace. He passes at _our_ threshold--nay He enters,--condescends to stay! Shall we not gladly raise the cry-- "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by!" Bring out your sick and blind and lame, 'Tis to restore them Jesus came. Compassion infinite you'll find, With boundless power in Him combined. Come quickly while salvation's nigh, "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by!" Ye sin-sick souls who feel your need, He comes to you, a friend indeed. Rise from your weary, wakeful couch. Haste to secure His healing touch; No longer sadly wait and sigh.-- "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by!" Ho all ye heavy-laden, come! Here pardon, comfort, rest, a home Lost wanderer from a Father's face, Return, accept his proffered grace. Ye tempted, there's a refuge nigh Jesus of Nazareth passeth by! Ye who are buried in the grave Of sin, His power alone can save. His voice can bid your dead souls live, True spirit-life and freedom give. Awake! arise! for strength apply, Jesus of Nazareth passeth by! But if this call you still refuse And dare such wondrous love abuse, Soon will He sadly from you turn Your bitter prayer in justice spurn. "Too late! too late!" will be your cry, "Jesus of Nazareth has passed by!" Mrs. Adelaide S. Buckley. Mrs. Buckley will appear again among _Translators_. The following verses were inspired by a painting of Cornelia and the Gracchi: Purest pearls from the sea, Diamonds outshining the sun, Sapphires which vie with heaven, With pride to Cornelia are shown. Clasping her dark-eyed boys, Fairer could be no other, "These my jewels are" Said the noble Roman mother. Rev. Oliver Crane, D. D., LL. D. Before coming to Morristown, in 1871, Dr. Crane's life had been a very active one, including extensive traveling in Turkey, Europe, Egypt and Palestine. Twice he had been a missionary in Turkey acquiring the Turkish language and doing efficient work there, first for five years, then for three. In the seven years interval of his return he accepted two pastorates in this country. On coming to Morristown, having resigned his ministerial charge at Carbondale, Pennsylvania, he devoted himself mainly to literary work, and with General H. B. Carrington wrote the "Battles of the Revolution" which has since become a standard work. Nine years later as secretary of his college class, he prepared an exhaustive biographical record of every member of the class. The book was a pioneer in this class of publications. In 1888, he published his translation of Virgil's Æneid and the following year a small volume of poems entitled "Minto and Other Poems", in which the "Rock of the Passaic Falls" is conspicuous as relating to Washington and Lafayette "who," says the poet, "visited together these Falls while their troops were stationed at Totawa (as the spot was then called) in the Winter of 1780. The initials G. W. are still to be seen cut in the rock below the cataract." The _Translation of Virgil's Æneid_, "literally, line by line into English Dactyllic Hexameter," is Dr. Crane's great work and has absorbed much of his time for years. It is a singular fact that, although for more than four hundred years the learned have been giving to the English reader, through the press, specimen translations of this old classic, this is the first complete version in the original measure. In the very interesting preface, Dr. Crane gives a careful review of the translations of Virgil, noticing the singular and severe prejudice that has always debarred any desire to render this classic in the metre of the original, and discussing the advantage of translating in the style of verse chosen by the author himself. In fact, he tells us, Longfellow had, from his own admirable translations, become thoroughly convinced of its utility, if not of its indispensability in giving the classic epics a fitting setting in English. The following is an extract taken from Book X., lines 814 to 842 of Dr. Crane's literal English translation of _Virgil's Æneid_, which describes the hand to hand contest of Æneas with the youth Lausus, who insists upon fighting Æneas in opposition to his father's wishes and in the face of every effort made by Æneas to avoid the conflict: TRANSLATION OF VIRGIL'S ÆNEID. BOOK X, LINES 814 TO 842. The destinies now are for Lausus the last threads Gathering in; for Æneas his powerful scimitar ruthless 815 Drives through the midst of the youth, and buries it wholly within him, Right through the menacer's targe, and his delicate armor, the keen blade Passed through the tunic his mother had woven in tissue of gold thread For him, and blood filled all of his bosom; then life on the breezes Mournful withdrew to the shades, and abandoned his body untimely. 820 But as the son of Anchises in truth on the visage and features Gazed of the dying--the features, becoming amazingly pallid-- Pitying deeply he sighed and instinctively tendered his right hand, Fresh as the image recurred to his mind of regard for a father: "What to thee now, O pitiable boy, for these laudable efforts, 825 What shall the pious Æneas, befitting such nobleness render? Keep it--thine armor, in which thou rejoicest, and I to thy parents' Shades and their ashes, if this could be any requital, remit thee; Yet thou in this, though unlucky, canst solace thy sorrowful exit, That by the hand of the mighty Æneas thou fallest." Abruptly 830 Chides he his faltering comrades, as gently from earth he uplifts him, Soiling his ringlets with blood, that were combed in the comeliest fashion. Meanwhile, his father was down by the wave of the stream of the Tiber Staunching his wound with its waters, and resting his body, reclining Close by the trunk of a tree. At a distance his coppery helmet 825 Hangs on its boughs, and at rest on the sod is his cumbersome armor: Standing around are his warriors chosen; he sickly and panting Eases his neck, as his out-combed beard streamed down on his bosom; Often he asks after Lausus, and many a messenger sends he Back to recall him, and bear him his sorrowful parent's injunctions: 840 But on his armor his comrades were weepingly bearing the lifeless Lausus away--a hero o'ercome by the wound of a hero. Rev. J. Leonard Corning, D. D. Dr. Corning, who, with his family, was for some years a resident of Morristown and is now abroad, is represented later in the volume, among the writers on Art. We give here his beautiful poem, "The Ideal". THE IDEAL. Awake, asleep, in dreams, amid the din of mortal striving, I feel thee ever near, vision of fancy's sweet contriving: The setting sun and twilight glow Thou art the music sweet and low. When on the sands, at dead of night, Dark waves are breaking in their might, While, through the billowy crests, the wild winds roar, Thou art the gull who over all dost soar. Amid the storm and lightning flash, The pelting rain and thunder crash, When faces blanch, and none can will, Thou, heavenly bow, art faithful still. 'Tis not the kiss, the touch, the sigh, That bringeth love from earth to sky; For motions strange about the heart Reveal the inner nature of thy part. Mrs. Mary Lee Demarest. Mrs. Augustus W. Cutler has kindly given us the following monograph: "In a Memorial of the late Mrs. Mary Lee Demarest occurs the following passage: 'For two hundred and fifty years, the English readers of the Bible were obliged to content themselves with the phrase, 'They seek a country'. It was not the whole thought. It was reserved for a corps of learned revisers to light upon the happy phrase, 'They are seeking a country of their own'.' But a score of years before the wise grammarians reached this line, a youthful poetess, seeing and greeting the Heavenly promise from afar, wrote simply and sweetly: "'I'll ne'er be fu' content, until mine een do see The shining gates o' Heaven, an' _my ain countree_'. "This youthful poetess was Mary Lee, afterwards Mrs. T. F. C. Demarest. "Before her marriage, in 1870, she spent several years in Morristown and became identified with the place and its interests; and there are many persons living here who remember her sweet face and gentle ways. "A taste for the Scotch dialect is said to have been acquired from an old Scotch nurse who lived a long time in the family, when the children were young. The girl caught it so completely, that when deeply moved, she was wont to drop into it, for the more vigorous expression of her feelings. 'Somehow', said she, 'the Scotch is more homely, less formal to me'. Thus, in the poem alluded to, could the thoughts contained in it, have been expressed as beautifully and tenderly in the mother tongue? "Again, there is a little poem in the same dialect, entitled 'My Mither', which appeals to every heart. "Though many of her poems and prose writings are of a devotional character, yet she had a keen sense also of the humorous side of life as the verses entitled 'Allen Graeme', will testify. "Mrs. Demarest traveled extensively throughout our own country, and also abroad. Two volumes of her writings have been published--one entitled 'Gathered Writings', a collection of short stories, fragments of foreign travel and reflections". MY AIN COUNTREE. I am far frae my hame, an' I'm weary afterwhiles, For the langed-for hame-bringing an' my Father's welcome smiles; I'll ne'er be fu' content, until mine een do see, The shining gates o' heaven an' my ain countree. The earth is fleck'd wi' flowers, mony tinted fresh and gay, The birdies warble blithely, for my Father made them sae; But these sights an' these soun's will as naething be to me, When I hear the angels singing in my ain countree. I've His gude word o' promise that some gladsome day, the King To his ain royal palace His banished hame will bring; Wi' een an' wi' hearts running owre, we shall see The King in His beauty, in our ain countree; My sins hae been mony, an' my sorrows hae been sair, But there they'll never vex me, nor be remembered mair; His bluid has made me white--His hand shall dry mine e'e, When he brings me hame at last, to mine ain countree. Sae little noo I ken, o' yon blessed, bonnie place, I ainly ken its Hame, whaur we shall see His face; It wud surely be eneuch forever mair to be In the glory o' His presence in our ain countree. Like a bairn to its mither, a wee birdie to its nest, I wad fain be ganging noo, unto my Saviour's breast, For he gathers in His bosom witless, worthless lambs like me, An' carries them Himsel', to His ain countree. He's faithfu' that has promised, He'll surely come again, He'll keep his tryst wi' me, at what hour I dinna ken; But he bids me still to wait, an' ready aye to be To gang at ony moment to my ain countree. So I'm watching aye, and singing o' my hame as I wait, For the soun'ing o' His footfa' this side the gowden gate, God gie His grace to ilk ane wha' listens noo to me, That we a' may gang in gladness to our ain countree. Hon. Anthony Q. Keasbey. We cannot do better than quote the words of Dr. Thomas Dunn English, the well-known author of "Ben Bolt", now living in Newark, N. J.,--with regard to Mr. Keasbey. "Here, in Newark", says he, "we have a lawyer of distinction, Anthony Q. Keasbey, who occasionally throws off some polished verses, as he excuses them, by way of 'safety plugs for high mental pressure,' and these are always smooth and scholarly. They are mostly privately printed for the amusement of the poet and a few chosen friends. One of these, however, has such a vein of tenderness and so much heart music that it deserves to become public property and to remain as much the favorite with others as it is with me." The poem referred to is, "My Wife's Crutches." "Unquestionably", continues Dr. English, "Mr. Keasbey stands well in his profession, and for years, under several Federal administrations, filled the office of United States District Attorney with credit to himself and advantage to the public; but this little tender poem does more honor to his intellect than his legal acquirements, however eminent they may be, and gives him a still stronger claim to the regard of his many friends." Among Mr. Keasbey's published collected poems are "Palm Sunday", of which Mr. Stedman once said he had put it away among some fine hymns; also "May", published in England and set to music by Faustina Hodges. These verses were inspired by the falling of the cherry blossoms on the grave of little May, and are most sweet and touching. One of the best is "The Dirge for Old St. Stephen's", written while they were demolishing the church built on Mr. Keasbey's ground, where now a "mart and home" have taken its place as was anticipated by the poet. Mr. Keasbey has published numberless papers in prominent journals and magazines. Some of these are to be collected and published in book form. His address on "The Sun: How Man has Regarded it in Different Ages", is well worthy of preservation in more permanent form than that in which it appears at present; also "The Sale of East New Jersey at Auction", an address delivered February 1st, 1862, before the New Jersey Historical Society at Trenton, on the Bi-Centennial of the Sale. This is full of interesting information, told in a charming way and is valuable for reference. The paper on "The Sun", was inspired by Mr. Keasbey's reading with great interest, the papers of Professor Norman Lockyer, the great astronomer, describing his researches into the constitution of the sun, through the medium of the spectroscope and the photograph. Mr. Keasbey had been interested in observing the extent to which modern science had reached with respect to the actual condition of the sun and the materials of which it is composed. This led him to the thoughts of how very recent had been any such attempts to understand its true nature and, from that reflection, he was led to consider, as a subject of a paper, how human eyes in all ages have looked upon the sun and in what manner they have regarded it. This published address was delivered before the Brooklyn Historical Society, a brilliant audience present, and Rev. Dr. Storrs, presiding. A book on Florida, "From the Hudson to the St. John's", describing a month's journey to Florida and the St. John's River was published in 1875; also, more recently, a small book on "Isthmus Transit by Chiriqui and Golfo Dulce", with a view of describing the Chiriqui mountain rib or back bone of Darien and all the executive and legislative action, with respect to the region between Panama and Nicaragua, with reference to railroad communication across the isthmus from the harbor of Chiriqui on the coast to the Pacific. In the _Hospital Review_, of July, 1882, is a very striking and powerful paper on the "Tragedy of the Lena Delta", where De Long and his companions so heroically met their fate in the Arctic snows. Below is the favorite of Dr. English among the Poems: MY WIFE'S CRUTCHES. Ye solemn, gaunt, ungainly crutches, That serve her frame such slippery tricks, Were you within my lawful clutches, I'd fling you back in River Styx. Ye grew beside the Boat of Charon, In murky fens of Stygian gloom, Nor ever, like the rod of Aaron, Shall your grim spindles burst in bloom. Your reeds were tuned for groans rheumatic, And croaking sighs from gouty man; Nor e'er shall thrill with tones ecstatic, As did the pipes of ancient Pan. Avaunt you, then, ye helpers dismal! Offend my eyes and ears no more; Go stalking back to realms abysmal And guide the ghosts on Lethe's shore. But see! while yet my words upbraid them, Her crutches bud with blossoms fair, And Patience, Love and Faith have made them Than Aaron's rod, more rich and rare. And hark! from out their hollows slender, No dismal groans or sighs proceed,-- But tones of joy more sweet and tender Than swelled from Pan's enchanted reed. Then stay! your use her worth discloses, Your ghastly frames her worth transmutes, From withered sticks, to stems of roses-- From creaking reeds, to magic flutes. Major Lindley Hoffman Miller. Major Miller, a brother of our well-known townsman, Henry W. Miller, was among the first of the 7th Regiment of New York City, who answered the call of the government to march to Washington for the protection of the Capitol. He served in that regiment through the riots in New York, and afterwards joined a Colored Regiment and was promoted to the rank of Major. He served in this position at Memphis and elsewhere through the South. In this campaign he lost his health and came home to die. He died in June, 1864, and was laid in old St. Peter's churchyard. Mr. Miller was a man of brilliant mind and unusual genius. His fugitive poems are very beautiful. They were published in various journals of the time, and one we will add to this short sketch of his brief but valuable life, "The Skater's Song", full of spirit and dash, and gay with the heart of youth. THE SKATER'S SONG, BY MOONLIGHT! Come away, from your blazing hearths! Come away, in the gleaming night, Where the radiant sky is peering down With a million eyes of light! Heigho! for the glancing ice, For the realm of the old Frost King! We'll shake the chain of the bounding stream Till all its fetters ring! Then away! my boys, away! Far over the ice we'll sweep, And wake the slumbering echo's voice From the gloom of its winter sleep! Come away, from your cheerless books! Come away, in the clear, cold air! And read in the deeps of the starry night God's endless volume there. Ho! now we're flashing along, At the snow-flake's drifting rate! Did ever anything stir the pulse Like a glimmering moonlight skate? Then away! my boys, away! Far over the ice we'll sweep, And wake the slumbering echo's voice From the gloom of its winter sleep! Come away, from the ball-room's glare! Come away, to a merrier dance,-- To a hall, whose floor is the flashing ice, Whose light is the stars' pure glance! Now we're watching the moon in her dreams, Now we dash at our speed again; While the stream groans under the icy links Which the frost has forged for his chain! Then away! my boys, away! Far over the ice we'll sweep, And wake the slumbering echo's voice From the gloom of its winter sleep! Come away, each lady fair! Come, add to the magical sight! And mingle the silvery tones of your words With the echoing "voices of night"! Heigho! for the frozen plain! Here's a glancing mirror, I ween, Reflecting all the beautiful forms That move in our fairy-like scene. Away! my lady, away! Far over the ice we'll sweep, And wake the slumbering echo's voice From the gloom of its winter sleep! Come away, from your sorrow and grief, All you that are gloomy and sad! Unwrinkle your brows to the whistling wind, Till your hearts grow merry and glad! Ho! Hark! how the laughter in peals, Is shaking the tides of the air, And shouting aloud to drown with its joy The muttering murmurs of care! Then away! my boys, away! Far over the ice we'll sweep, And wake the slumbering echo's voice From the gloom of its winter sleep! Come, one and all, then, away! Come, cheerily join in our song, And mingle with music the ring of the steel, Keep in time, as we're sweeping along! Heigho! for the throne of the Frost! We'll frighten the phantoms of night, And serenade, far under the depths, The river's listening sprite! Then away! my boys, away! Far over the ice we'll sweep, And wake the slumbering echo's voice From the gloom of its winter sleep! Miss Henrietta Howard Holdich. Miss Holdich, poetess and story-writer, has been a resident of Morristown, since 1878, and has written at various periods since she was seventeen years of age. Her poems, stories, and other writings have appeared from time to time in _Harper's Magazine_ and other important publications. We would like to give Miss Holdich's beautiful and thoughtful poem, "In Holy Ground", suggested by a Russian Legend, but, as we give her Centennial story entire, our space does not allow. She is represented, instead, by a few lovely lines written for a golden wedding and sent to the happy pair with a basket of flowers and fruit. LINES WRITTEN FOR A GOLDEN WEDDING. Orange buds a maiden wears On the blissful wedding morn; Snowy buds on golden hair Tell of love and faith new born. Ripened now the perfect fruit, Fifty sunny years have passed; Golden fruit on snowy hair Tells of love and faith that last. William Tuckey Meredith. Mr. Meredith, a Philadelphian by birth, and also a banker in New York City, is also one of our summer residents, his main interest in Morristown coming, as he says, from the fact that his grandmother was a Morristown Ogden. He served as an officer in the United States Navy with Farragut at the battle of Mobile Bay and was afterwards his secretary. Mr. Meredith is perhaps best known by his spirited poem, entitled "Farragut", which appeared in _The Century_, in 1890, and heads the group of "Various Poems" in Stedman and Hutchinson's Library of American Literature. Besides this, Mr. Meredith has written for _The New York Times_ and other journals and publications at various times. He wrote for _The Century_ a War article on "Farragut's Capture of New Orleans", which may be found in Volume IV of the published series. A novel appeared with his name, in 1890, entitled "Not of Her Father's Race", in which the "Fox Hunt" is, the author tells us, a study of a bag chase in which he took part some years ago near Morristown, although he has laid the scene in Newport. We give the poem, "Farragut". FARRAGUT. MOBILE BAY, 5 AUGUST, 1864. Farragut, Farragut, Old Heart of Oak, Daring Dave Farragut, Thunderbolt stroke, Watches the hoary mist Lift from the bay, Till his flag, glory-kissed, Greets the young day. Far, by gray Morgan's walls, Looms the black fleet. Hark, deck to rampart calls With the drum's beat! Buoy your chains overboard, While the steam hums; Men! to the battlement, Farragut comes. See, as the hurricane Hurtles in wrath Squadrons of cloud amain Back from its path! Back to the parapet, To the guns' lips, Thunderbolt Farragut Hurls the black ships. Now through the battle's roar Clear the boy sings, "By the mark fathoms four," While his lead swings. Steady the wheelmen five "Nor' by East keep her," "Steady" but two alive: How the shells sweep her! Lashed to the mast that sways Over red decks, Over the flame that plays Round the torn wrecks, Over the dying lips Framed for a cheer, Farragut leads his ships, Guides the line clear. On by heights cannon-browed, While the spars quiver; Onward still flames the cloud Where the hulks shiver. See, yon fort's star is set, Storm and fire past. Cheer him, lads--Farragut, Lashed to the mast! Oh! while Atlantic's breast Bears a white sail, While the Gulf's towering crest Tops a green vale; Men thy bold deeds shall tell, Old Heart of Oak, Daring Dave Farragut Thunderbolt stroke! Hannah More Johnson. Miss Johnson, the niece of Mr. J. Henry Johnson, one of Morristown's old residents, and the last preceptor of the old Academy, will be found again among "Historians". She has written and published a large number of poems, besides, and from them we select the following: THE CHRISTMAS TREE. Shall I tell you a story of Christmas time? Of what Nellie found by her Christmas tree? If I tell it at all, it must be in rhyme For it seems like a song to Nellie and me That ripples along to a breezy tune, Like a brook that sings through the woods in June; And yet it was dark November weather When song and story began together. "Papa", said Nellie, with wistful tone, "When God sends little children here, Do beautiful angels flutter down As once when they brought our Saviour dear? Don't they sing in the sky, where we can't see And listen up there to Harry and me? 'Cause I prayed last night for the bestest things Heavenly Father sends us, and Harry said I might ask for a sister who hadn't wings A dear little sister to sleep in my bed; For my other one went away, you know, To sing with the angels long ago, And I want another to stay with me A dear little sister like Daisy Lee. So high, Papa! Look, don't you see? Just up to my chin. Heavenly Father knows 'Bout her dress and her shoes and her curly hair 'Cause I told him all, and so I s'pose The first little sister He has to spare He'll send her down here, oh won't she be A dear little sister for Harry and me!" "Yes, my Nellie", her father said, One gentle hand on the curly head With tender caress and whispered word Too low for her ear, 'though a Bright-one heard And passed it up, meet signal given From love on earth to love in heaven; "Yes, my Nellie, wait and see! We are all in our Heavenly Father's care And He'll send what is best for you and me When we look to Him with a loving prayer". The days passed on. 'Twas that happy time When bells ring out with their Christmas chime; There were people at work all over the land Busy for Santa Claus, heart and hand, And some in cabin and work-shop dim Who wouldn't have work if it wasn't for him; And Harry and Nellie?--There were none In that Christmas time had a gayer tree. Papa was at work at early dawn And the children all tip-toe to see; But the dark December day wore on E'er the door was opened noiselessly, And the light streamed out in the dusky hall From a beautiful cedar bright and tall. Starry tapers were gleaming there, Toy and trumpet and banner fair, The topmost flag on the ceiling bore While the laden branches swept the floor; While gay little Rover frisking in, Led the children in frolic and din As they spied each treasure and in their glee Shouted with joy round the Christmas tree, While Papa stood back in a corner to see. "Oh! Harry", said Nellie, "I do declare Here's a basket for me!" She opened the lid And pulled back the blanket folded there And what d'ye think was safely hid But a dear live baby so fast asleep That it never waked up with the children's shout Till Nellie asked, "is it ours to keep?" And kissed its hand as she stood in doubt. "Of course," said Harry, "don't angels know When God has told them which way to go? That's our little sister we wanted so!" "Little sister", said Nellie, "I'm very glad, I know you're the best Heavenly Father had And now you're ours and you're going to stay 'Cause the angels have left you and gone away". "No, my Nellie", a voice replied, As Papa drew near to Nellie's side, "Let us pray they may watch over this little one Day by day, till life is done, That she may be glad through eternity She was ever left 'neath our Christmas tree". Miss Margaret H. Garrard. Our gifted young townswoman, Miss Garrard, who has often entertained us with her rare dramatic talent, has contributed, for a number of years, articles in prose and verse to well-known magazines and journals, notably to _Lippincott's Magazine_ and _Life_. In _Lippincott_ for June, 1890, we find a very pretty poem embodying a clever thought and entitled "A Coquette's Motto". In a previous number appears "A Trip to Tophet", which is a sparkling and graphic description of a descent into a silver-mine at Virginia City, California. In it occurs the following picture of the visitor's surroundings: "The next few minutes will always be a haunting memory to me. The long, dark passages, the burning atmosphere, the scattered lights, the weird figures of the miners appearing, only to vanish the next moment in the surrounding gloom, all recur like some infernal dream". We select to represent Miss Garrard, the first poem she published in _Life_: THE PLAQUE DE LIMOGES. You hang upon her boudoir wall, Plaque de Limoges! She prizes you above them all Plaque de Limoges! Yet do your blossoms never move, Although she looks on them with love, And treasures your hard buds above The gathered bloom of field and grove, Insensate, cold Limoges! Brilliant in hue your every flower, Plaque de Limoges! Copied from some French maiden's bower, Plaque de Limoges! But still you let my lady stand-- The fairest lady in the land-- Caressing you with her soft hand, Nor breathe, nor stir at her command, Cold-hearted clay--Limoges! Would that I in your place might be, Plaque de Limoges! That she might stand and gaze on me, Plaque de Limoges! I'd live in love a little space, Then--fling my flowers from their place, At her dear feet to sue for grace, Until she'd raise them to her face, Happy, but crushed Limoges! Miss Julia E. Dodge. Though Miss Dodge finds her place naturally and kindly in the society of our poets, all readers of _The Century_ will remember a charming prose paper of hers called "An Island of the Sea", beautifully illustrated by Thomas Moran and published in 1877. Before and since that time, her pen has not been idle, for short, prose articles have been scattered here and there, in various periodicals, and it is difficult to select from the number of thoughtful and delicate poems now before us, one to represent her. The poem, "A Legend of St. Sophia in 1453", is full of spirit and fire. It was written in 1878, when the advance of the Russian forces towards Constantinople seemed to point to the fulfillment of ancient prophecy and the restoration of Christian dominion over the stronghold of Islam. The poem entitled "Satisfied" was first published in _The Churchman_ and afterwards placed, without the author's knowledge, in a collection called "The Palace of the King", published by Randolph & Co. Among the other poems are: "Our Daily Bread", "Spring Song", "Telling Fortunes", "September Memories", and "To a Night-Blooming Cereus", which last we give principally because, besides being a beautiful expression of a beautiful thought, it was written under the inspiration of a flower sent to the writer from an ancient plant in a Morristown conservatory. TO A NIGHT-BLOOMING CEREUS. O fleeting wonder, glory of a night, Only less evanescent than the gleam That marks the lightning's track, or some swift dream That comes and, vanishing, eludes our sight! How canst thou be content, thy whole rich stream Of life to lavish on this hour's delight, And perish ere one morning's praise requite Thy gift of peerless splendor? It doth seem Thou art a type of that pure steadfast heart Which hath no wish but to perform His will Who called it into being, no desire But to be fair for Him; no other part Doth choose, but here its fragrance to distil For one brief moment ere He bid "Come higher"! Charles D. Platt. Mr. Platt, the faithful principal of our Morris Academy, has of late, "at odd moments and in vacations," as he says, written verses of local reference and others, upon various subjects, which have been published in our local papers and elsewhere. Born at Elizabeth, N. J., Mr. Platt lived there until 1883. He was graduated at Williams' College in 1877, taught in the Rev. J. F. Pingry's School in Elizabeth for six years, came to Morristown and took charge of the Morris Academy in 1883, and has retained that position to the present time. Among the poems which refer to local interests are "Fort Nonsense," which we give in the opening chapter on "Historic Morristown"; "The Old First Church"; "The Lyceum" and "The Washington Headquarters", which last will follow this short sketch, as embodying so much that is interesting of that historic building and its surroundings. Other of the poems might, perhaps, for some special qualities, better represent Mr. Platt than this; there is the excellent and gay little parody, which we would like to give, of "That Old Latin Grammar". "The Wild Lily" is charming. Then there are "Memorial Day"; "Easter Song"; "Modern Progress"; "A Myth"; and "John Greenleaf Whittier", the last written and published upon the occasion of the poet's death September 16th, 1892. Besides these, there are the "Ballades of the Holidays" which form a series by themselves, dealing in part with the subject of popular maxims, and including poems for Christmas, New Year's Day, Discovery Day and other holidays. We give THE WASHINGTON HEADQUARTERS, MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY. What mean these cannon standing here, These staring, muzzled dogs of war? Heedless and mute, they cause no fear, Like lions caged, forbid to roar. _This_ gun[A] was made when good Queen Anne Ruled upon Merry England's throne; Captured by valiant Jerseymen Ere George the Third our rights would own. "Old Nat",[B] the little cur on wheels, Protector of our sister city, Was kept to bite the British heels, A yelping terror, bold and gritty. _That_ savage beast, the old "Crown Prince",[C] A British bull-dog, glum, thick-set, At Springfield's fight was made to wince, And now we keep him for a pet. Upon this grassy knoll they stand, A venerable, peaceful pack; Their throats once tuned to music grand, And stained with gore their muzzles black. But come, that portal swinging free, A welcome offers, as of yore, When, sheltered 'neath this old roof-tree, Our patriot-chieftain trod this floor. And with him in that trying day Was gathered here a glorious band; This house received more chiefs, they say, Than any other in our land.[D] Hither magnanimous Schuyler came, And stern Steuben from o'er the water; Here Hamilton, of brilliant fame, Once met and courted Schuyler's daughter. And Knox, who leads the gunner-tribes, Whose shot the trembling foeman riddles, A roaring chief,[E] his cash subscribes To pay the mirth-inspiring fiddles.[F] The "fighting Quaker", General Greene, Helped Knox to foot the fiddlers' bill; And here the intrepid "Put." was seen, And Arnold--black his memory still. And Kosciusko, scorning fear, Beside him noble Lafayette; And gallant "Light Horse Harry" here His kindly chief for counsel met. "Mad Antony" was here a guest,-- Madly he charged, but shrewdly planned; And many another in whose breast Was faithful counsel for our land. Among these worthies was a dame Of mingled dignity and grace; Linked with the warrior-statesman's fame Is Martha's comely, smiling face. But look around, to right to left; Pass through these rooms, once Martha's pride, The dining hall of guests bereft, The kitchen with its fire-place wide. See the huge logs, the swinging crane, The Old Man's seat by chimney ingle, The pots and kettles, all the train Of brass and pewter, here they mingle. In the large hall above, behold The flags, the eagle poised for flight: While sabres, bayonets, flint-locks old, Tell of the struggle, and the fight. Old faded letters bear the seal Of men who battled for a stamp; A cradle and a spinning-wheel Bespeak the home behind the camp. Apartments opening from the hall Show chairs and desks of quaint old style, And curious pictures on the wall Provoke a reverential smile. Musing, we loiter in each room And linger with our vanished sires; We hear the deep, far-echoing boom That spoke of old in flashing fires. But deepening shadows bid us go, The western sun is sinking fast; We take our leave with footsteps slow, Farewell, ye treasures of the past. A century and more has gone, Since these old relics saw their day; That day was but the opening dawn Of one that has not passed away. Our banner is no worthless rag, With patriot pride hearts still beat high; And there, above, still waves the flag For which our fathers dared to die. [Footnote A: Inscription on this Cannon:-- Gun made in Queen Anne's time. Captured with a British vessel by a party of Jerseymen in the year 1780, near Perth Amboy. Presented by the township of Woodbridge, New Jersey, in 1874.] [Footnote B: Inscription on "Old Nat:"-- This cannon was furnished Capt. Nathaniel Camp by Gen. George Washington for the protection of Newark N. J. against the British. Presented to the Association by Mr. Bruen H. Camp, of Newark, N. J.] [Footnote C: The inscription upon it is as follows:-- The "Crown Prince Gun." Captured from the British at Springfield. Used as an alarm gun at Short Hills to end of Revolutionary War. Given in charge by General Benoni Hathaway to Colonel Wm. Brittin on the last training at Morristown, and by his son, Wm. Jackson Brittin, with the consent of the public authorities, presented to the Association in the year 1890.] [Footnote D: The list of officers of the Revolutionary army mentioned in the poem is taken from a printed placard which hangs in the hall of the Headquarters.] [Footnote E: Knox is called a roaring chief because when crossing the Delaware with Washington his "stentorian lungs" did good service in keeping the army together.] [Footnote F: The reference to the fiddlers is based upon an old subscription paper for defraying the expenses of a "Dancing Assembly," signed by several persons, among them Nathaniel Greene and H. Knox, each $400, PAID. This paper may be seen in the collection made by Mrs. J. W. Roberts.] Mrs. Julia R. Cutler. Mrs. Cutler's graceful pen has already contributed to this volume the sketch of Mrs. Mary Lee Demarest and also another to follow of Mrs. Julia McNair Wright. Her pen has been busy at occasional intervals from girlhood, when as a school-girl her essays were, as a rule, selected and read aloud in the chapel, on Friday afternoons, and a poem securing the gold medal crowned the success. Living since her marriage, in the old historic house of Mr. Cutler's great-grandfather, the Hon. Silas Condict, fearless patriot of the Revolution, and President of the Council of Safety during the whole of that period that "tried men's souls", it is little wonder that the traditions of '76 clinging about the spot should nurture and develop the poetic spirit of the girl. It was in 1799, after Mr. Condict's return from Congress that he built the present house familiar to us all, but the old house stands near by, full of the most interesting stories and traditions of revolutionary days. Mrs. Cutler has written many articles, often by request, for papers or magazines, and verses prompted by circumstances or surroundings, or composed when strongly impressed upon an especial subject. [Illustration: FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 1791, SESSION HOUSE AND MANSE. MORRIS COUNTY SOLDIER'S MONUMENT, 1871.] Before us lies a lovely poem of childhood, entitled "Childish Faith", founded on fact, but we select from the many poems of Mrs. Cutler, the Centennial Poem given below and written on the occasion of the Centennial of the old First Church. CENTENNIAL FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. The moon shines brightly down, o'er hill and dale As it shone down, One Hundred years ago, On these same scenes. The stars look down from Heaven As they did then, as calm, serene, and bright-- Fit emblems of the God, who changes not. Only in him can we find sure repose 'Mid change, decay and death, who is the same To-day as yesterday, forevermore. Through the clear air peal forth the silvery notes, Of thy old Bell, thou venerable pile, Thou dear old Church, whose birthday rare, We come to celebrate with tender love. One Hundred years! How long; and yet, how short When counted with the centuries of the past That help to make the ages of the world: How long when measured by our daily cares, The joys, the sorrows that these years have brought To us and ours. "Our fathers, where are they?" The men of strength, one hundred years ago, As full of courage, purpose, will, as we, Have gone to join the "innumerable throng" That worship in the Father's House above. Their children, girls and boys, like the fair flowers, Have blossomed, faded, and then passed away, Leaving their children and grandchildren, too, To fill their places, take their part in life. How oft, dear Church, these walls have heard the vows That bound two hearts in one. How oft the tread Of those that bore the sainted dead to rest. How oft the voices, soft and low, of those Who, trusting in a covenant-keeping God Gave here their little ones to God. A faith Which He has blessed, as thou canst truly tell, In generations past, and will in days to come. How many servants of the most high God, Beneath thy roof have uttered words divine, Taught by the Spirit, leading souls to Christ And reaping, even here, their great reward. Many of these have entered into rest Such as remains for those who love the Lord. Others to-day, have gathered here to tell What God has done in years gone by, and bear Glad testimony to the truth, that in this place His name has honored been.--'Tis sad to say Farewell. But 'tis decreed, that thou must go. Time levels all; and it will lay thee low. But o'er thy dust full many a tear shall fall, And many a prayer ascend, that the true God, Our Father's God, will, with their children dwell, And that the stately pile which soon shall rise, Where now, thou art, a monument shall be Of generations past, recording all The truth and mercies of a loving God. Oct. 14th, 1891. Miss Frances Bell Coursen. The rhythmic, airy verses of Miss Coursen, full of the spirit of trees, flowers, the clouds, the winds and the insinuating and lovely sounds of nature, charm us into writing the author down as one of Morristown's young poets. The verses have attractive titles which in themselves suggest to us musical thoughts, such as "To the Winds in January"; "June Roses"; "In the Fields"; and "What the Katydids Say". We quote the latter for its bright beauty. WHAT THE KATYDIDS SAY. "Katy did it!" "Katy didn't!" Doesn't Katy wish she had? "Katy did!" that sounds so pleasant, "Katy didn't" sounds so bad. Katy didn't--lazy Katy, Didn't do her lessons well? Didn't set her stitches nicely? Didn't do what? Who can tell? But the livelong autumn evening Sounds from every bush and tree, So that all the world can hear it, "Katy didn't" oh dear me! Who would like to hear forever Of the things they hadn't done In shrill chorus, sounding nightly, From the setting of the sun. But again, who wouldn't like it If they every night could hear, "Yes she did it, Katy did it", Sounding for them loud and clear? So if you've an "awful lesson", Or "a horrid seam to sew", Just you stop and think a minute, Don't decide to "let it go". In the evening, if you listen, All the Katydids will say "Yes she did it, did it, did it!" Or, "she didn't". Now which way? Miss Isabel Stone. Miss Stone, long a resident of Morristown, has published many poems in prominent journals and magazines, also stories, but always under an assumed name. She will take a place in another group, that of _Novelists and Story-Writers_. She is represented here by her poem on "Easter Thoughts". EASTER THOUGHTS. Sometimes within our hearts, the good lies dead, Slain by untoward circumstances, or by our own free will, And through the world we walk with bowèd head; Or with our senses blinded to our choice, Thinking that "good is evil--evil good;" Or, with determined pride to still the voice That whispers of a "Resurrection morn." This is that morn--the resurrection hour Of all the good that has within us died, The hour to throw aside with passionate force The cruel bonds of wrong and blindness--pride-- And rise unto a level high of power, Of strength--of purity--while those we love rejoice With "clouds of angel witnesses" above, And all the dear ones, who before have gone. And we ascend, in the triumphant joy And peace, and rapture of a changèd self That now transfigured stands--no more the toy Of circumstance--or pride, or sin, to blight-- Until we reach sublimest heights-- And stand erect, eyes fixed upon the Right-- Strong in the strength that wills all wrong to still, Will--pointing upwards to th' ascended Lord, Bless, aye, thrice bless, this fair, sweet Easter Dawn. Rev. G. Douglass Brewerton. The Rev. Mr. Brewerton was pastor of the Baptist Church in Morristown in 1861, and during the early years of our Civil War. He was very patriotic and public-spirited and founded a Company of boy Zouaves in the town, which is well remembered, for at that time the war-spirit was the order of the day. He wrote a number of poems which were published in the Morristown papers and others. Of these, the following is one, published January 30, 1861. OUR SOLDIERS WITH OUR SAILORS STAND. A NATIONAL SONG RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO THE VOLUNTEERS OF BOTH SERVICES, BY ONE WHO ONCE WORE THE UNIFORM OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. Our soldiers with our sailors stand, A bulwark firm and true, To guard the banner of our land, The Red, the White, the Blue. The forts that frown along the coast, The ramparts on the steep, Are held by men who never boast, But true allegiance keep. While still in thunder tones shall speak Our giants on the tide, Rebuking those who madly seek To tame the eagle's pride. While breezes blow or sounding sea Be whitened by a sail, The banner of the brave and true Shall float, nor fear the gale. While Ironsides commands the fleet, Shall patriot vows be heard, Where pennants fly or war drums beat, True to their oaths and word. Then back, ye traitors! back, for shame! Nor dare to touch a fold; We'll guard it till the sunshine wane And stars of night grow old. Thus ever may that flag unrent At peak and staff be borne, Nor e'er from mast or battlement By traitor hands be torn. Mrs. Alice D. Abell. Mrs. Abell has for several years contributed poems and articles to various papers and magazines. From the poems we select the following, which was copied in a Southern paper as well as in two others, from _The New York Magazine_ in which it first appeared: BEHIND THE MASK. Behind the mask--the smiling face Is often full of woe, And sorrow treads a restless pace Where wealth and beauty go. Behind the mask--who knows the care That grim and silent rests, And all the burdens each may bear Within the secret breast? Behind the mask--who knows the tears That from the heart arise, And in the weary flight of years How many pass with sighs? Behind the mask--who knows the strain That each life may endure, And all its grief and countless pain That wealth can never cure? Behind the mask--we never know How many troubles hide, And with the world and fashion show Some spectre walks beside. Behind the mask--some future day, When all shall be made plain; Our burdens then will pass away And count for each his gain. George Wetmore Colles, Jr. The following is by one of the young writers of Morristown, written at Yale University and published in the _Yale Courant_ of February, 1891: TO A MOUNTAIN CASCADE. To him who, wearied in the noontide glare, Seeks cool refreshment in thy quiet shade, In all thy beauteous rainbow tints arrayed, How sweet! O dashing brook, thy waters are! Sure, such a glen fair Dian with her train Chose to disport in, when Actæon bold That sight with mortal eyes dared to behold Which mortals may not see and life retain. To such a glen I, too, at noonday creep, Leaving the dusty road and haunts of men, To quaff thy purling, sparkling ripples; then To plunge within thy clear, cold basin deep. Alone in Nature's lap (this mossy sod) I lie; feel her sweet breath upon me blow; Hear her melodious woodland voice, and know Her passing love, the eternal love of God! HYMNODIST. John R. Runyon. Our fellow townsman of old New Jersey name, whose enthusiastic love for music, and especially for church music, is well known, has manifested his interest in this direction by compiling a collection of hymns known as "Songs of Praise. A Selection of Standard Hymns and Tunes". It is published by Anson D. F. Randolph & Company, and "meets", says the compiler, "a universally acknowledged want for a collection of Hymns to be used in Sunday Schools and Social Meetings". Says Charles H. Morse in _The Christian Union_ of August 20th, 1892: "If music is a pattern and type of Heaven, then, indeed, are those whose mission is to provide the music for our worship burdened with a weight of responsibility and called to a blessed ministry second only to that of the pastor who stands at the desk to speak the words of Life". To compile from various sources a collection of hymns acceptable to varied classes of minds, requires much discernment, great care and large range of knowledge on the subject, as well as a comprehension of what is needed which comes from long and wide experience, study and observation, in addition to natural genius. NOVELISTS AND STORY-WRITERS. Francis Richard Stockton. Although born in Philadelphia, Mr. Stockton belongs to an old and distinguished New Jersey family, and he has, after many wanderings, at last selected his home in the State of his ancestors. Within a few years he has purchased and fitted up a quaint and attractive mansion in the suburbs of Morristown, overlooking the beautiful Loantika Valley, where in the Revolutionary days the tents of the suffering patriots were pitched or their log huts constructed for the bitter winter. Beyond the long and narrow valley, the homes of prominent residents of Morristown appear on the Western limiting range of hills, and are charmingly picturesque. This home Mr. Stockton has named "The Holt" and his legend, taken from Turberville, an old English poet, is painted over the fire-place in his Study which is over the Library on the South corner of the House: "Yee that frequent the hilles and highest holtes of all, Assist me with your skilful quilles and listen when I call." Mr. Stockton and Richard Stockton, the signer of the Declaration of Independence, are descended from the same ancestor, Richard Stockton, who came from England in 1680 and settled in Burlington County, New Jersey. Much fine and interesting criticism from various directions, has been called out by Mr. Stockton's works. Edmund Gosse, the well-known Professor of Literature in England, said just before leaving our shores: "I think Mr. Stockton one of the most remarkable writers in this country. I think his originality, his extraordinary fantastic genius, has not been appreciated at all. People talk about him as if he were an ordinary purveyor of comicality. I do not want to leave this country without giving my _personal tribute_, if that is worth anything, to his genius." "More than half of Mr. Stockton's readers, without doubt", says another critic, "think of him merely as the daintiest of humorists; as a writer whose work is entertaining in an unusual degree, rather than weighed in a critical scale, or considered seriously as a part of the literary _expression_ of his time". It is acknowledged that Americans are masters, at the present day, of the art of writing short stories and these, as a rule, are like the French, distinctly realistic. In this art Mr. Stockton excels. Among his short stories, "The Bee Man of Orn" and "The Griffin and the Minor Canon" represent his power of fancy. "The Hunting Expedition" in "Prince Hassak's March" is particularly jolly, and in "The Stories of the Three Burglars", we find a specimen of his realistic treatment. In the last, he makes the young house-breaker, who is an educated man, say: "I have made it a rule never to describe anything I have not personally seen and experienced. It is the only way, otherwise we can not give people credit for their virtues or judge them properly for their faults." Upon this, Aunt Martha exclaims: "I think that the study of realism may be carried a great deal too far. I do not think there is the slightest necessity for people to know anything about burglars." And later she says, referring to this one of the three: "I have no doubt, before he fell into his wicked ways, he was a very good writer and might have become a novelist or a magazine author, but his case is a sad proof that the study of realism is carried too far." No critic seems to have observed or noticed the very remarkable manner in which Mr. Stockton renders the negro dialect on the printed page. In this respect he quite surpasses Uncle Remus or any other writer of negro folk-lore. He spells the words in such a way as to give the sense and sound to ears unaccustomed to negro talk as well as to those accustomed to it. This we especially realize in "The Late Mrs. Null". But besides the qualities we have noticed in Mr. Stockton's writings, there is a subtle fragrance of purity that exhales from one and all, which is in contrast to much of the novel-writing and story-telling of the present day. We have reason to welcome warmly to our homes and to our firesides, one who, by his pure fun and drollery, can charm us so completely as to make us forget, for a time, the serious problems and questions which agitate and confront the thinking men and women of this generation. So varied and voluminous are the writings of Mr. Stockton, they may be grouped as _Juveniles_, _Novels_, _Novelettes_ and _Collected Short Stories_. Besides, there are magazine stories constantly appearing, and still to be collected. Most prominent among the volumes are "The Lady or The Tiger?"; "Rudder Grange" and its sequel, "The Rudder Grangers Abroad"; "The Late Mrs. Null"; "The Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine"; "The Hundredth Man"; "The Great War Syndicate"; "Ardis Claverden"; "Stories of the Three Burglars"; "The House of Martha" and "The Squirrel Inn". After considering what Mr. Stockton has accomplished and the place which by his genius and industry he has made for himself in Literature, we do not find it remarkable that in July, 1890, he was elected by the readers of _The Critic_ into the ranks of the _Forty Immortals_. We give to represent Mr. Stockton, an extract from his novel of "Ardis Claverden", containing one of those clever conversations so characteristic of the author, and success in which marks a high order of dramatic genius, in making characters express to the listener or reader their own individuality through familiar talk. EXTRACT FROM "ARDIS CLAVERDEN." Mr. and Mrs. Chiverly were artists. * * * * * The trouble with Harry Chiverly was that he had nothing in himself which he could put into his work. He could copy what he could see, but if he could not see what he wanted to paint, he had no mental power which would bring that thing before him, or to transform what he saw into what it ought to be. * * * * * The trouble with Mrs. Chiverly was that she did not know how to paint. With her there was no lack of artistic imagination. Her brain was full of pictures, which, if they could have been transferred to the brain of her husband, who did know how to paint, would have brought fame and fortune. At one end of her brush was artistic talent, almost genius; at the other was a pigment mixed with oil. But the one never ran down to the other. The handle of the brush was a non-conductor. We pass on to a scene in the studio. An elderly man enters, a stranger, to examine pictures, and stops before Mr. Chiverly's recently finished canvass. "Madam," said he, "can you tell me where the scene of this picture is laid? It reminds me somewhat of the North and somewhat of the South, and I am not sure that it does not contain suggestions of the East and the West." "Yes," thought Ardis at her easel, "and of the North-east, and the Sou-sou'-west, and all the other points of the compass." Mrs. Chiverly left her seat and approached the visitor. She was a little piqued at his remark. "Some pictures have a meaning," she said, "which is not apparent to every one at first sight." "You are correct, madam," said the visitor. "This painting, for instance," continued Mrs. Chiverly, "represents the seven ages of trees." And then with as much readiness as Jacques detailed the seven ages of man to the duke, she pointed out in the trees of the picture the counterparts of these ages. "Madam," said the visitor, "you delight me. I admit that I utterly failed to see the point of this picture; but now that I am aware of its meaning I understand its apparent incongruities. Meaning despises locality." "You are right," said Mrs. Chiverly, earnestly. "Meaning is above everything." "Madam," said the gentleman, his eyes still fixed upon the canvass, "as a student of Shakespeare, as well as a collector, in a small way, of works of art, I desire to have this picture, provided its price is not beyond my means." Mrs. Chiverly gazed at him in an uncertain way. She did not seem to take in the import of his remark. From her easel Ardis now named the price which Mr. Chiverly had fixed upon for the picture. He never finished a painting without stating very emphatically what he intended to ask for it. "That is reasonable," said the gentleman, "and you may consider the picture mine." And he handed Mrs. Chiverly his card. Then, imbued with a new interest in the studio, he walked about looking at others of the pictures. "This little study," said he, "seems to me as if it ought to have a significance, but I declare I am again at fault." "Yes," said Mrs. Chiverly, "it ought to have a significance. In fact there is a significance connected with it. I could easily tell you what it is, but if you were afterwards to look at the picture you would see no such meaning in it." "Perhaps this is one of your husband's earlier works" said the gentleman, "in which he was not able to express his inspirations." "It is not one of my husband's works," said Mrs. Chiverly; "it is mine." * * * * * The moment that the gentleman had departed Ardis flew to Mrs. Chiverly and threw her arms around her neck. "Now my dearest," she exclaimed, "you know your vocation in life. You must put meanings to Mr. Chiverly's pictures." When the head of the house returned he was, of course, delighted to find that his painting had been sold. "That is the way with us!" he cried, "we have spasms of prosperity. One of our works is bought, and up we go. Let us so live that while we are up we shall not remember that we have ever been down. And now my dear, if you will give me the card of that exceptional appreciator of high art, I will write his bill and receipt instantly, so that if he should again happen to come while I am out there may be nothing in the way of an immediate settlement." Mrs. Chiverly stood by him as he sat at the desk. "You must call the picture," she said, "'The Seven Ages of Trees.'" "Nonsense!" exclaimed Mr. Chiverly, turning suddenly and gazing with astonishment at his wife. "That will do for a bit of pleasantry, but the title of the picture is 'A Scene on the Upper Mississippi.' You don't want to deceive the man, do you?" "No, I do not," said Mrs. Chiverly, "and that is one reason why I did not give it your title. It is a capitally painted picture, and as a woodland 'Seven Ages' it is simply perfect. That was what it sold for; and for that and nothing else will the money be paid." Mr. Chiverly looked at her for a moment longer, and then bursting into a laugh he returned to his desk. "You have touched me to the quick," he said. "Money has given title before and it shall do so now. There is the receipted bill!" he cried, pushing back his chair. Francis Bret Harte. Bret Harte, so far as we can discover, has written the only story of Revolutionary times in Morristown, and the only story of those times in New Jersey except Miss Holdich, who follows, and James Fenimore Cooper, whose "Water Witch" is located about the Highlands of New Jersey. By a passage from his story of "Thankful Blossom" we shall represent him at the close of this sketch. Between 1873 and 1876 Bret Harte lived in Morristown, in several locations: in the picturesque old Revere place on the Mendham Road, the very home for a Novelist, now owned and occupied by Mr. Charles G. Foster; in the Whatnong House for one summer, near which are located old farms, which seem to us to have many features of the "Blossom Farm" and to which we shall refer; in the Logan Cottage on Western Avenue and in the house on Elm Street now owned and occupied by Mr. Joseph F. Randolph. The steps by which Bret Harte climbed to the eminence that he now occupies, are full of romantic interest. Left early by his father, who was a Professor in an Albany Seminary and a man of culture, to struggle with little means, the boy, at fifteen, had only an ordinary education and went in 1854, with his mother, to California. He opened a school in Sonora, walking to that place from San Francisco. Fortune did not favor him either in this undertaking or in that of mining, to which, like all young Californians in that day, he resorted as a means to live. He then entered a printing office as compositor and began his literary career by composing his first articles in type while working at the case. Here he had editorial experiences which ended abruptly in consequence of the want of sympathy in the miners with his articles. He returned to San Francisco and became compositor in the office of _The Golden Era_. His three years experience among the miners served him in good stead and his clever sketches describing those vivid scenes, soon placed him in the regular corps of writers for the paper. _The Californian_, a literary weekly, then engaged Harte as associate manager and, in this short-lived paper appeared the "Condensed Novels" in which Dickens' "Christmas Stories", Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre", Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables", and other prominent and familiar writings of distinguished authors are most cleverly taken off. These have amused and delighted the reading world since their first appearance. During the next six years, he filled the office of Secretary of the United States Branch Mint, and also wrote for California journals, many of his important poems, among them, "John Burns of Gettysburg", and "The Society upon the Stanislau", which attracted wide attention by their originality and peculiar flavor of the "Wild West". In July, 1868, Harte organized, and became the editor of, what is now a very successful journal, _The Overland Monthly_. For this journal he wrote many of his most characteristic stories and poems and introduced into its pages, "The Luck of Roaring Camp"; "The Outcasts of Poker Flat", and others having that peculiar pseudo-dialect of Western mining life of which he was the pioneer writer. He had now taken a great step towards high and artistic work. At this point his reputation was established. As for Revolutionary New Jersey poems, abundant as the material is for inspiration, Bret Harte's "Caldwell of Springfield" seems to be one of very few. At the luncheon of the Daughters of the American Revolution held in May of 1892, a prominent member of the Association recited "Parson Caldwell" and mentioned, that strange to say, it was as far as she had been able to ascertain, the only poem on Revolutionary times in New Jersey that had ever been written, though she had searched thoroughly. In addition to this, we find only, besides the two poems of Mr. Charles D. Platt, given in this volume, (and others of his referred to) one or two of the sort in a volume published years ago, privately, by Dr. Thomas Ward, of New York (a great uncle of Mrs. Luther Kountze). Very few copies of his poems were printed and all were given to his friends, not sold. We must not forget the very beautiful poem of "Alice of Monmouth", by Edmund Clarence Stedman, and also, perhaps, might be included his spirited "Aaron Burr's Wooing". There was also an early writer, Philip Freneau, of Monmouth County, who lived in Colonial and Revolutionary times, and wrote some quaint and charming poems of that period. If there are any others we would be glad to be informed. In this book, "Plain Language From Truthful James", better known as "The Heathen Chinee", represents Mr. Harte among the poets, in our group of writers, for the reason that it is so widely known as a satire upon the popular prejudices against the Chinese, who were at that time pursued with hue and cry of being shiftless and weak-minded. From 1868, Harte became a regular contributor to the _Atlantic Monthly_ and he also entered the lecture field. It was during this period that he lived in Morristown. In 1878 he went to Crefeld, Germany, as United States Consul, and here began his life abroad. Two years later he went, as Consul, to Glasgow, Scotland, since which time he has remained abroad, engaged in literary pursuits. The Contributor's Club, of the _Atlantic Monthly_, gives a curious little paper on "The Value of a Name", in which the writer insists that Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Dante Rossetti and others owe a part of their success, at least, to the phonic value of their names. He says that "much time and thought are spent in selecting a name for a play or novel, for it is known that success is largely dependent on it" and he therefore censures parents who are "so strangely careless and unscientific in giving names to their children." Bret Harte's publications include besides "Condensed Novels", "Thankful Blossom", and others already mentioned, several volumes of Poems issued at different periods: among them are "Songs of the Sierras" and "Echoes of the Foot Hills". Then there are "Tales of the Argonauts and Other Stories"; "Drift from Two Shores"; "Twins of Table Mountain"; "Flip and Found at Blazing Star"; "On the Frontier"; "Snow Bound at Eagle's"; "Maruja, a Novel"; "The Queen of the Pirate Isle", for children; "A Phyllis of the Sierras"; "A Waif of the Plains" and many others, besides his collected works in five volumes published in 1882. Writing to Bret Harte in London, for certain information about the story of "Thankful Blossom", the author of this volume received the following reply: 15 UPPER HAMILTON TERRACE, N. W., 31st May, '90. _Dear Madam:_ In reply to your favor of the 14th inst., I fear I must begin by saying that the story of "Thankful Blossom", although inspired and suggested by my residence at Morristown at different periods was not _written_ at that place, but in another part of New Jersey. The "Blossom Farm" was a study of two or three old farm houses in the vicinity, but was not an existing fact so far as I know. But the description of Washington's Head-Quarters was a study of the actual house, supplemented by such changes as were necessary for the epoch I described, and which I gathered from the State Records. The portraits of Washington and his military family at the Head-Quarters were drawn from Spark's "Life of Washington" and the best chronicles of the time. The episode of the Spanish Envoy is also historically substantiated, and the same may be said of the incidents of the disaffection of the "Connecticut Contingent." Although the heroine, "Thankful Blossom", as a _character_ is purely imaginary, the _name_ is an actual one, and was borne by a (chronologically) remote maternal relation of mine, whose Bible with the written legend, "Thankful Blossom, her book", is still in possession of a member of the family. The contour of scenery and the characteristics of climate have, I believe, changed but little since I knew them between 1873 and 1876 and "Thankful Blossom" gazed at them from the Baskingridge Road in 1779. I remain, dear madam, Yours very sincerely, BRET HARTE. Two of the farms from which Bret Harte _may_ have drawn the inspiration for the surroundings of his story, may be seen on the Washington Valley road as you turn to the right from the road to Mendham. Turning again to the left,--before you come to the junction of the road which crosses at right angles to the Whatnong House, where Mr. Harte passed a summer,--you come upon the Carey Farm, the house built by the grandfather of the present occupants. There you see the stone wall,--crumbling now,--over which the bewitching Mistress Thankful talked and clasped hands with Captain Allen Brewster of the Connecticut Contingent. The elm-tree, upon whose bark was inscribed "the effigy of a heart, divers initials and the legend 'Thine Forever'", has been lately cut down and the trunk decorated with growing plants and flowers. We see the black range of the Orange Hills over which the moon slowly lifted herself as the Captain waited for his love, "looking at him, blushing a little, as if the appointment were her own". We see also the faintly-lit field beyond,--the same field in which, further on in the story after Brewster's treachery, Major Van Zandt and Mistress Thankful picked the violets together and doing so, revealed their hearts' love to one another on that 3rd of May, 1780. The orchard is there, still bearing apples, but the "porch" and the "mossy eaves" evidently belong to the next farm house, which we find exactly on the corner at the junction of the two roads. It is the old Beach farm. The original house has a brick addition, with the inscription among the bricks, "1812". It is on the wooden part built earlier and evidently an ancient structure, that we see the "porch and eaves". We select from "Thankful Blossom" the very fine pen portrait of Washington and his military family at the Headquarters. THANKFUL BLOSSOM. _A Romance of the Jerseys, 1779._ CHAPTER III. The rising wind, which had ridden much faster than Mistress Thankful, had increased to a gale by the time it reached Morristown. It swept through the leafless maples, and rattled the dry bones of the elms. It whistled through the quiet Presbyterian churchyard, as if trying to arouse the sleepers it had known in days gone by. It shook the blank, lustreless windows of the Assembly Rooms over the Freemason's Tavern, and wrought in their gusty curtains moving shadows of those amply petticoated dames and tightly hosed cavaliers who had swung in "Sir Roger," or jigged in "Money Musk," the night before. But I fancy it was around the isolated "Ford Mansion," better known as the "Headquarters," that the wind wreaked its grotesque rage. It howled under its scant eaves, it sang under its bleak porch, it tweaked the peak of its front gable, it whistled through every chink and cranny of its square, solid, unpicturesque structure. Situated on a hillside that descended rapidly to the Whippany River, every summer zephyr that whispered through the porches of the Morristown farm houses charged as a stiff breeze upon the swinging half doors and windows of the "Ford Mansion"; every wintry wind became a gale that threatened its security. The sentinel who paced before its front porch knew from experience when to linger under its lee, and adjust his threadbare outer coat to the bitter North wind. Within the house something of this cheerlessness prevailed. It had an ascetic gloom, which the scant fire-light of the reception room, and the dying embers on the dining room hearth, failed to dissipate. The central hall was broad, and furnished plainly with a few rush-bottomed chairs, on one of which half dozed a black body-servant of the commander-in-chief. Two officers in the dining-room, drawn close by the chimney corner, chatted in undertones, as if mindful that the door of the drawing-room was open, and their voices might break in upon its sacred privacy. The swinging light in the hall partly illuminated it, or rather glanced gloomily from the black polished furniture, the lustreless chairs, the quaint cabinet, the silent spinet, the skeleton-legged centre-table, and finally upon the motionless figure of a man seated by the fire. It was a figure since so well known to the civilized world, since so celebrated in print and painting, as to need no description here. Its rare combination of gentle dignity with profound force, of a set resoluteness of purpose with a philosophical patience, have been so frequently delivered to a people not particularly remarkable for these qualities, that I fear it has too often provoked a spirit of playful aggression, in which the deeper underlying meaning was forgotten. So let me add that in manner, physical equipoise, and even in the mere details of dress, this figure indicated a certain aristocratic exclusiveness. It was the presentment of a king,--a king who by the irony of circumstances was just then waging war against all kingship; a ruler of men, who just then was fighting for the right of these men to govern themselves, but whom by his own inherent right he dominated. From the crown of his powdered head to the silver buckle of his shoe he was so royal that it was not strange his brother George of England and Hanover--ruling by accident, otherwise impiously known as the "grace of God"--could find no better way of resisting his power than by calling him "Mr. Washington." The sound of horses' hoofs, the formal challenge of sentry, the grave questioning of the officer of the guard, followed by footsteps upon the porch, did not apparently disturb his meditation. Nor did the opening of the outer door and a charge of cold air into the hall that invaded even the privacy of the reception room, and brightened the dying embers on the hearth, stir his calm pre-occupation. But an instant later there was the distinct rustle of a feminine skirt in the hall, a hurried whispering of men's voices, and then the sudden apparition of a smooth, fresh-faced young officer over the shoulder of the unconscious figure. "I beg your pardon, general," said the officer doubtingly, "but"---- "You are not intruding, Colonel Hamilton," said the general quietly. "There is a young lady without who wishes an audience of your Excellency. 'Tis Mistress Thankful Blossom,--the daughter of Abner Blossom, charged with treasonous practice and favoring the enemy, now in the guard-house at Morristown." "Thankful Blossom?" repeated the general interrogatively. "Your Excellency doubtless remembers a little provincial beauty and a famous toast of the countryside--the Cressida of our Morristown epic, who led our gallant Connecticut Captain astray"---- "You have the advantages, besides the better memory of a younger man, colonel," said Washington, with a playful smile that slightly reddened the cheek of his aide-de-camp. "Yet I think I _have_ heard of this phenomenon. By all means, admit her--and her escort." "She is alone, general," responded the subordinate. "Then the more reason why we should be polite," returned Washington, for the first time altering his easy posture, rising to his feet, and lightly clasping his ruffled hands before him. "We must not keep her waiting. Give her access, my dear colonel, at once; and even as she came,--alone." The aide-de-camp bowed and withdrew. In another moment the half opened door swung wide to Mistress Thankful Blossom. She was so beautiful in her simple riding-dress, so quaint and original in that very beauty, and, above all, so teeming with a certain vital earnestness of purpose just positive and audacious enough to set off that beauty, that the grave gentleman before her did not content himself with the usual formal inclination of courtesy, but actually advanced, and, taking her cold little hand in his, graciously led her to the chair he had just vacated. "Even if your name were not known to me, Mistress Thankful," said the commander-in-chief, looking down upon her with grave politeness, "nature has, methinks, spared you the necessity of any introduction to the courtesy of a gentleman. But how can I especially serve you?" Miss Henrietta Howard Holdich. It is a curious fact that although New Jersey was the theatre of some of the most stirring scenes of the Revolution, only two stories seem to have been written, founded on the events of those times, if we except the "Water Witch", by J. Fenimore Cooper, in which we find the location of Alderman Van Beverout's house, the villa of the "Lust in Rust" to be on the Atlantic Highlands, between the Shrewsbury river and the sea. This spot is pointed out to-day and was associated with the smugglers of that period. The other two stories are "Thankful Blossom", by Bret Harte, and "Hannah Arnett's Faith", a Centennial Story, by Miss Holdich, which latter, as a singular history attaches to it, we shall give at length. Miss Holdich was born at Middletown, Conn., but left there too young to remember much about it and she lived in New York until 1878 when she came to Morristown. When she was not quite two years of age her mother discovered she could read and since she was seventeen, she has written for various well-known papers and periodicals, more children's stories than anything else, she tells us, but also a good many stories for _Harpers' Magazine_ and _Bazar_,--also poems, by one of which she is represented in our group of poets. "Hannah Arnett's Faith" is a true story of the author's great grandmother, familiar to all the family from infancy; In 1876 Miss Holdich published it, as a Centennial story, in _The New York Observer_. In 1890, a lady of Washington published it as her own in _The Washington Post_, (she asserts that she did not intend it as a plagiarism but used it merely as a historical incident). The story was recognized and letters written to, and published in, _The Post_, giving Miss Holdich's name, as the true author. However, this publication of the story led to a curious result, and gave the story a wide celebrity. In a published statement, Miss Mary Desha (one of the Vice Presidents of the D. A. R.) announces that "the Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution sprang from this story". "On July 21st", Miss Desha says, after the publication of the story in _The Washington Post_, accompanied by an appeal for a woman's organization to commemorate events of the Revolution in which women had bravely borne their part,--"a letter from William O. McDowell of New Jersey, was published, in which he said that he was the great-grandson of Hannah Arnett and called on the women of America to form a society of their own, since they had been excluded from the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution at a meeting held in Louisville, Kentucky, April 30th, 1890". Miss Holdich soon after this was urgently requested to become Regent of the Morristown Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, which position she accepted and holds to-day. HANNAH ARNETT'S FAITH. _A Centennial Story._ 1776-1876. The days were at their darkest and the hearts of our grandfathers were weighed down with doubt and despondency. Defeat had followed defeat for the American troops, until the army had become demoralized and discouragement had well-nigh become despair. Lord Cornwallis, after his victory at Fort Lee, had marched his army to Elizabethtown (Dec. 1776) where they were now encamped. On the 30th of November the brothers Howe had issued their celebrated proclamation, which offered protection to all who within sixty days should declare themselves peaceable British subjects and bind themselves neither to take up arms against their Sovereign, nor to encourage others to do so. It was to discuss the advisability of accepting this offered protection that a group of men had met in one of the large old houses of which Elizabethtown was, at that time, full. We are apt to think of those old times as days of unmitigated loyalty and courage; of our ancestors as unfaltering heroes, swerving never in the darkest hours from the narrow and thorny path which conscience bade them tread. Yet human nature is human nature in all ages, and if at times the "old fashioned fire" burned low even in manly hearts, and profound discouragement palsied for a time the most ardent courage, what are we that we should wonder at or condemn them? Of this period Dr. Ashbel Green wrote: "I heard a man of some shrewdness once say that when the British troops over-ran the State of New Jersey, in the closing part of the year 1776, the whole population could have been bought for eighteen-pence a head." The debate was long and grave. Some were for accepting the offered terms at once; others hung back a little, but all had at length agreed that it was the only thing to be done. Hope, courage, loyalty, faith, honor--all seemed swept away upon the great flood of panic which had overspread the land. There was one listener, however, of whom the eager disputants were ignorant, one to whose heart their wise reasoning was very far from carrying conviction. Mrs. Arnett, the wife of the host, was in the next room, and the sound of the debate had reached her where she sat. She had listened in silence, until, carried away by her feelings, she could bear no more, and springing to her feet she pushed open the parlor door and confronted the assembled group. Can you fancy the scene? A large low room, with the dark, heavily carved furniture of the period, dimly lighted by the tall wax candles and the wood fires which blazed in the huge fire place. Around the table, the group of men--pallid, gloomy, dejected, disheartened. In the doorway the figure of the woman, in the antique costume with which, in those latter days, we have become so familiar. Can you not fancy the proud poise of her head, the indignant light of her blue eyes, the crisp, clear tones of her voice, the majesty and defiance and scorn which clothed her as a garment? The men all started up at her entrance; the sight of a ghost could hardly have caused more perturbation than did that of this little woman. Her husband advanced hastily. She had no business here; a woman should know her place and keep it. Questions of politics and political expediency were not for them; but he would shield her as far as possible, and point out the impropriety of her conduct afterwards, when they should be alone. So he went quickly up to her with a warning whisper: "Hannah! Hannah! this is no place for you. We do not want you here just now;" and would have taken her hand to lead her from the room. She was a docile little woman and obeyed his wishes in general without a word: but now it seemed as if she scarcely saw him, as with one hand she pushed him gently back and turned to the startled group. "Have you made your decision, gentlemen?" she asked. "Have you chosen the part of men or of traitors?" It was putting the question too broadly,--so like a woman, seeing only the bare, ugly facts, and quite forgetting the delicate drapery which was intended to veil them. It was an awkward position to put them in, and they stammered and bungled over their answer, as men in a false position will. The reply came at last, mingled with explanations and excuses and apologies. "Quite hopeless; absurd for a starving, half-clothed, undisciplined army like ours to attempt to compete with a country like England's unlimited resources. Repulsed everywhere--ruined; throwing away life and fortune for a shadow;"--you know the old arguments with which men try to prop a staggering conscience. Mrs. Arnett listened in silence until the last abject word was spoken. Then she inquired simply: "But what if we should live, after all?" The men looked at each other, but no one spoke. "Hannah! Hannah!" urged her husband. "Do you not see that these are no questions for you? We are discussing what is best for us, for you, for all. Women have no share in these topics. Go to your spinning-wheel and leave us to settle affairs. My good little wife, you are making yourself ridiculous. Do not expose yourself in this way before our friends." His words passed her ear like the idle wind; not even the quiver of an eyelash showed that she heard them. "Can you not tell me?" she said in the same strangely quiet voice. "If, after all, God does not let the right perish,--if America should win in the conflict, after you have thrown yourself upon British clemency, where will you be then?" "Then?" spoke one hesitating voice. "Why, then, if it ever _could_ be, we should be ruined. We must leave the country forever. But it is absurd to think of such a thing. The struggle is an utterly hopeless one. We have no men, no money, no arms, no food and England has everything." "No," said Mrs. Arnett; "you have forgotten one thing which England has not and which we have--one thing which outweighs all England's treasures, and that is the Right. God is on our side, and every volley from our muskets is an echo of His voice. We are poor and weak and few; but God is fighting for us. We entered into this struggle with pure hearts and prayerful lips. We had counted the cost and were willing to pay the price, were it our heart's blood. And now--now, because for a time the day is going against us, you would give up all and sneak back, like cravens, to kiss the feet that have trampled upon us! And you call yourselves men--the sons of those who gave up home and fortune and fatherland to make for themselves and for dear liberty a resting-place in the wilderness? Oh, shame upon you, cowards!" Her words had rushed out in a fiery flood, which her husband had vainly striven to check. I do not know how Mrs. Arnett looked, but I fancy her a little fair woman, with kindly blue eyes and delicate features,--a tender and loving little soul, whose scornful, blazing words must have seemed to her amazed hearers like the inspired fury of a pythoness. Are we not all prophets at times--prophets of good or evil, according to our bent, and with more power than we ourselves suspect to work out the fulfillment of our own prophecies? Who shall say how far this fragile woman aided to stay the wave of desolation which was spreading over the land? "Gentlemen," said good Mr. Arnett uneasily, "I beg you to excuse this most unseemly interruption to our council. My wife is beside herself I think. You all know her and know that it is not her wont to meddle with politics, or to brawl and bluster. To-morrow she will see her folly, but now I pray your patience." Already her words had begun to stir the slumbering manhood in the bosoms of those who heard her. Enthusiasm makes its own fitting times. No one replied; each felt too keenly his own pettiness, in the light cast upon them by this woman's brave words. "Take your protection, if you will," she went on, after waiting in vain for a reply. "Proclaim yourselves traitors and cowards, false to your country and your God, but horrible will be the judgment you will bring upon your heads and the heads of those that love you. I tell you that England will never conquer. I know it and feel it in every fibre of my heart. Has God led us so far to desert us now? Will He, who led our fathers across the stormy winter sea, forsake their children who have put their trust in Him? For me, I stay with my country, and my hand shall never touch the hand, nor my heart cleave to the heart of him who shames her." She flashed upon her husband a gaze which dazzled him like sudden lightning. "Isaac, we have lived together for twenty years, and for all of them I have been a true and loving wife to you. But I am the child of God and of my country, and if you do this shameful thing, I will never again own you for my husband." "My dear wife!" cried the husband aghast, "you do not know what you are saying. Leave me, for such a thing as this?" "For such a thing as this?" she cried scornfully. "What greater cause could there be? I married a good man and true, a faithful friend and a loyal Christian gentleman, and it needs no divorce to sever me from a traitor and a coward. If you take your protection you lose your wife, and I--I lose my husband and my home!" With the last words the thrilling voice broke suddenly with a pathetic fall and a film crept over the proud blue eyes. Perhaps this little touch of womanly weakness moved her hearers as deeply as her brave, scornful words. They were not all cowards at heart, only touched by the dread finger of panic, which, now and then, will paralyze the bravest. Some had struggled long against it and only half yielded at last. And some there were to whom old traditions had never quite lost their power, whose superstitious consciences had never become quite reconciled to the stigma of _Rebel_, though reason and judgment both told them that, borne for the cause for which they bore it, it was a title of nobility. The words of the little woman had gone straight to each heart, be its main-spring what it might. Gradually the drooping heads were raised and the eyes grew bright with manliness and resolution. Before they left the house that night, they had sworn a solemn oath to stand by the cause they had adopted and the land of their birth, through good or evil, and to spurn the offers of their tyrants and foes as the deadliest insults. Some of the names of those who met in that secret council were known afterwards among those who fought their country's battles most nobly, who died upon the field of honor, or rejoiced with pure hearts when the day of triumph came at last. The name of the little woman figured on no heroic roll, but was she the less a heroine? This story is a true one, and, in this Centennial year, when every crumb of information in regard to those old days of struggle and heroism is eagerly gathered up, it may not be without interest. Mrs. Miriam Coles Harris. Mrs. Harris was well known during her stay in Morristown and is remembered as a charming woman. "In Morristown", she writes, she found "restoration to health, many friends, and much enjoyment",--adding "I think I shall always love the place". Mrs. Harris has been a voluminous writer of stories and novels. Her first work, "Rutledge", published without her name, excited immediate and wide attention and established her reputation. Since then, she has given to the world, among others, the following volumes: "Louie's Last Term at St. Mary's"; "The Sutherlands"; "Frank Warrington"; "St. Philip's"; "Round-hearts" (for children); "Richard Vandermarck"; "A Perfect Adonis"; "Missy"; "Happy-go-Lucky"; "Phoebe"; "A Rosary For Lent" and "Dear Feast of Lent". The selection given to represent Mrs. Harris in Stedman and Hutchinson's "Library of American Literature" is a chapter from her novel, "Missy". An appropriate selection for this volume would be an extract from her chapter on "Marrowfat" (Morristown) in her novel, "Phoebe", published in 1884. The two principal characters of the book, Barry and Phoebe, lately married, are described in Marrowfat, going to church on Sunday morning: EXTRACT FROM "PHOEBE." They were rather late; that is, the bell had stopped ringing, and the pews were all filled, and the clergyman was just entering from the sacristy, when they reached the door. It was an old stone church, with many vines about it, greensward and fine trees. * * The organist was playing a low and unobtrusive strain; the clergyman, having just entered, was on his knees, where unfortunately, the congregation had not followed him. They were all ready to criticise the young people who now walked down the silent aisle; very far down, too, they were obliged to walk. It was the one moment in the week when they would be most conspicuous. * * Barry looked a greater swell than ever, and his wife was so much handsomer than anybody else in Marrowfat that it was simple nonsense to talk of ignoring the past. If one did not want to be walked over by these young persons they must be put down; self preservation joined hands with virtuous indignation; to cancel the past would be to sacrifice the future. Scarce a mother in Marrowfat but felt a bitter sense of injury as she thought of Barry. Not only had he set the worst possible example to her sons, but he had overlooked the charms of her daughters; not only had he outraged public opinion, but he had disappointed private hopes. Society should hold him to a strict account; Marrowfat was not to be trifled with when it came to matters of principle. It was an old town, with ante-Revolutionary traditions; there was no mushroom crop allowed to spring up about it. New people were permitted but only on approbation of the old. It was not the thing to be very rich in Marrowfat, it was only tolerated; it was the thing to be a little cultivated, a little clever, very well born, and very loyal to Marrowfat. It was not exactly provincial; it was too near the great city and too much mixed up with it to be that; but it was very local and it had its own traditions in an unusual degree. That people grew a little narrow and very much interested in the affairs of the town, after living there awhile, was not to be wondered at. It is always the result of suburban life, and one finds it difficult to judge, between having one's nature green like a lane, even if narrow, or hard and broad like a city pavement, out of which all the greenness has been trampled and all the narrowness thrown down. The climate of the place was dry and pure; it was the fashion for the city doctors to send their patients there; and many who came to cough, remained to build. The scenery was lovely; you looked down pretty streets and saw blue hills beyond; the sidewalks were paved and the town was lit by gas, but the pavements led you past charming homes to bits of view that reminded you of Switzerland, and the inoffensive lamp-posts were hidden under great trees by day, and by night you only thought how glad you were to see them. The drives were endless, the roads good; there were livery-stables, hotels, skilled confectioners, shops of all kinds, a library, a pretty little theatre, churches of every shade of faith, schools of every degree of pretension; lectures in winter, concerts in summer, occasional plays all the year; two or three local journals, the morning papers from the city at your breakfast table; fast trains, telegraphs, telephones, all the modern amenities of life under your very hand; and yet it was the country, and there were peaceful hills and deep woods, and the nights were as still as Paradise. Can it be wondered at that, like St. Peter's at Rome, it had an atmosphere of its own, and defied the outer changes of the temperature? Marrowfat certainly was a law unto itself. Why certain people were great people, in its view, it would be difficult to say. Why the telegraphs, and the telephones, and the fashionable invalids from the city and the rich people who bought and built in its neighborhood, did not change its standards of value one can only guess. But it had a stout moral sentiment of its own; it had resisted innovations and done what seemed it good for a long while; and when you have made a good moral sentiment the fashion, or the fact by long use, you have done a good thing. Marrowfat never tolerated married flirtations, looked askance on extremes in dress or entertainment, dealt severely with the faults of youth. All these things existed more or less within its borders, of course, but they were evil doings and not approved doings. In a certain sense, Marrowfat was the most charitable town in the world; in another the most uncharitable. If you were to have any misfortune befall you, Marrowfat was the place to go to have it in; if you lost your money, if you broke your back, if your children died, if your house burned down, Marrowfat swathed you in flowers, bathed you in sympathy, took you out to drive, came and read to you, if need were took up subscriptions for you. But if you did anything disgraceful or discreditable, it is safe to say you would better have done it in any other place. Miss Maria McIntosh. Miss McIntosh was born in the little village of Sunbury, Georgia, in 1804. She was educated by an old Oxford tutor who was teacher and pastor combined and she led the class of boys with whom she studied. After her mother's death, (her father had died in her infancy), she came to the north, wholly for the purpose of studying and improving herself. Her first stories were for children. Then appeared two very successful tales for youth; "Conquest and Self-Conquest," and "Praise and Principle". "To Seem and To Be"; "Charms and Counter-Charms", and their successors followed on during a period of twenty years. Several of her books were translated into both French and German and all were widely read abroad, but the joy in her work lay in the rich harvest for good which was constantly made known to her. In the year before her death, many letters came to her from women then married and heads of families, thanking her for first impulses to better things arising from her words. Not long ago, Marion Harland, (Mrs. Terhune), wrote to a dear friend of this author, that she owed to Miss McIntosh the strongest influences of her young life and those which had determined its bent and development. Miss McIntosh was intensely interested in the maintenance of Republican simplicity and purity of morals and wrote a strong address, which was widely circulated, to the "Women of America" which led to a correspondence with the then Duchess of Sutherland and other English women who were interested in the elevation of women and of the family life. She died in Morristown, at the residence of her devoted niece and namesake, Mrs. James Farley Cox, and soothed by her loving ministrations,--after a protracted illness, lasting over a year. Mrs. Cox tells us, "she loved Morristown and said amidst great pain, that her last year, was, despite all, the happiest of her life". "Lofty and Lowly"; "Charms and Counter-Charms", and "To Seem and To Be", are all alike noble books. Miss McIntosh seems a woman of strong creative powers, with a delicacy of feeling and a fine touch of womanliness, united to a certain delicate perception of character. She did not write from what we now so grandly call _types_, or, for the sake of displaying a surgical dissection of character; but her books are groupings of individuals as real as those we meet in daily life. There are no strained situations, no fanciful make-ups, and no unnatural poses. There are the lovely Alice Montrose with a strangely beautiful blending of delicate refinement and womanly strength, rising to meet every requirement of her varied life; Mr. Gaston, the New England merchant; Richard Grahame the hero of "Lofty and Lowly", with some telling contrasts in the way of villians and weaker characters. Beside this, Miss McIntosh has a strong sympathy for nature and all through her stories she stops, as it were to show us the flowering fields and summer skies and as she draws us to her, we feel the beatings of her own warm human heart going out as it does to the young and inexperienced. Again, Miss McIntosh gives in her stories faithful representations of life both north and south, before the war, forty years ago. These pictures are of peculiar value as few books preserve pictorial records of that condition of life now passed away forever. She had a power in massing details and binding them by a thread of common interest and common action. She seemed in her writings, like one who had been spiritually "lifted higher" and like all such spirits she could not but draw others after her. Her books in past years have had wide and lasting influence and it is a pity they could not now be substituted for much of the miserable literature which only pleases a passing hour or teaches false views of life. Mrs. Maria McIntosh Cox. Mrs. Cox, long a resident of Morristown, was named for the dear aunt to whom the preceding sketch relates, and, as is often the case with namesakes for some unexplained reason, the mantle of Miss McIntosh's genius fell upon her. From girlhood, Mrs. Cox has written for various papers and magazines. Some years ago, the Appletons published a little volume of hers for very young children, called "A year with Maggie and Emma", which was afterwards translated into French. "Raymond Kershaw", published in 1888, is a volume of larger size. To this we shall refer later. In March, 1890, _The Youth's Companion_ published a short story founded on an adventure of the author's father with Lafitte, the famous pirate. It was entitled "A Brave Middy", and won a prize of $500, in a contest of similar tales. In the current numbers of _Wide Awake_ from December to June 1891-'92 appeared a story of ten chapters called "Jack Brereton's Three Months' Service", which, in August, 1892, was brought out in book form by D. Lothrop & Co., Boston. The idea most prominent in this story, the "motif", is the reflex action of a soldier's enlistment on his deserted family. "I chanced", says the author, "to thoroughly see and know what sudden _three months'_ calls entailed on the volunteer and those who fought the battle out at home, and I enjoyed telling what is, in spirit and in most details, a true story, though not as connected with such people as the story describes". "Brave Ben Broughton", written by request for the McClure Syndicate, and a Folk Lore story are the latest from the pen of Mrs. Cox. "Raymond Kershaw; a Story of Deserved Success", was published by Roberts Brothers in 1888. The story is a touching one commencing in pathos and ending in heroism; a lesson to every boy and girl who, plunged suddenly and unexpectedly into difficulty, have to face the hard realities of life. There is an extremely fine passage in this book. Winthrop, the author of "John Brent", could not have done it better. It is the description of a maddened bull, "Meadow King", which Paul Potter might have painted. It needs no comment. Spirited and full of life, every actor in the scene performs his or her part with a truthfulness which is wonderful. Many a more voluminous writer than Mrs. Cox has done far less superior work than this truly great scene exhibits in its dramatic attitudes. EXTRACT FROM "RAYMOND KERSHAW." After country fashion, every farmer for miles around came to look at "Kershaw's new bull". Without mistake they saw a royal animal. Without a spot to mar his jet-black coat, through which the great veins were visible like netted cords, his small, strong, sinewy legs, all muscle and bone, carried his heavy body as lightly as if he were a horse, and his flanks and shoulders, when James pushed up his supple skin with his hand, felt as if he wore a velvet coat over an iron frame; his neck, not too short for grace, was still very heavy and muscular, with wrinkles like necklaces encircling it, and his fiery eyes glowed, far apart, under his tight-curled poll, from which those mischievous horns, sharp, long and slightly out-curving, stood in beautiful harmony with the whole outline; and his great lashing tail, with its tasselated end, completed his perfections. All went well for a fortnight, after which, on a hot Sunday morning all drove off to church leaving Mrs. Kershaw and Mary at home together. (Mrs. Kershaw, the sweet and tenderly-loved invalid mother, was half-lying in her chair and Mary sat, Bible in hand, on the first step of the piazza near her, when) Suddenly a roar struck upon their ears with horror; and, filled with one of those blind accesses of rage to which his race is so strangely subject, tearing, bellowing along, up the hillside came Meadow King. As he halted for a breath behind the fence, he was like one's night-dreams of such a creature,--an ideal of pure brute force and wrath. His head tossed high, he gave a prolonged bellow, and leaped the high bars without an effort. Mary rose without a word, and laying her Bible on Mrs. Kershaw's lap, stood white as the dead to watch him; destroying the delicate things in his way, he ran madly towards the sheds. Mary gave silent thanks that he had not taken to the road. The high gates of the cow-yards stood wide open, and through them he rushed. "Miss Kershaw, I've got to shut them gates!" said Mary. "Oh, don't think of it, Mary!" said Mrs. Kershaw, her hands clasped and trembling. "Are you not afraid?" "Skeered!" said Mary,--"I'm skeered out of my life; _but them gates has got to be shut!_" Down in the yard the voice kept up its dreadful din. Mary rushed down the steps like a flash, and as suddenly back again. "Miss Kershaw, would you mind just kissing me _once_?" A quick warm touch on her pale lips, and she was gone; it was all in the space of a long breath. * * Her way was down a slight inclination and her swift, light feet carried her with incredible speed. One terrified glance at the open gate showed her the enemy lashing himself at the farther end of the enclosure, with the scattered dust and leaves rising about him as he pawed the ground. The gates were heavy and wide apart; the right-hand leaf swung shut, and then, darting across the opening, she pushed the left forward and clasped it, and springing up drew down the heavy cross-bar, and the gates were shut! * * "He's in, Miss Kershaw," said Mary, "but the worst is to come! How under the sun can they ketch him? Can you keep still if I go up the road and watch for 'em? They're most sure to drive in by the farm-yard gate if they come Chester way, and if they come upon him unbeknownst, Heaven help 'em!" "Go Mary, _go_; don't think about me at all," said Mrs. Kershaw. * * * "Not until you are in your chair, and promise to stay there, ma'am," said Mary. "Young Doctor's got trouble enough on his hands without your bein' hurt. If you hear Meadow King tearing the gates down, and me a-screechin' my life out, don't you stir!" (Mary goes to warn them and stops their entrance. James the farmer takes command. Raymond carries an axe and Bob a stick. They open the gates Mary had closed. The brute rushes forward. At this moment James with a rope he had carried, undertakes to lasso the bull but misses and falls back, facing the foe but pinioned in the angle of a beam and the side-wall; one of the mad King's horns imbedded in the beam, the other projecting in terrible proximity, while the unspeakably angry, brutal face of the beast is only a few inches from his chest. At this moment, Ray seized his axe.) His hat had fallen off and his face was stern and ghastly white as he watched like a lion his gigantic prey; until coming with long powerful steps close enough to strike, he gave an agonizing look of dread at James, and then brought down one tremendous crashing blow, straight, strong and true, between those cruel horns, and the Meadow King sank like a loosened rock upon the floor, pulling his head loose by his own weight. David Young. "Why, as to that, said the engineer, Ghosts ain't things we are apt to fear, Spirits don't fool with levers much, And throttle-valves don't take to such; And as for Jim,-- What happened to him Was one-half fact and t'other half whim!" --_Bret Harte._ David Young is principally known as the reviser and publisher of "The Morristown Ghost" in 1826, but he was also the compiler of the well-known "Farmer's Almanac", published first in 1834, and he wrote a poem of thirty-four pages in two parts, entitled "The Contrast". The original volume of "The Morristown Ghost" was published in 1792, by whom, it is not certainly known. It gave the names of the "Society of eight", their places of meeting, and all the proceedings of the Society. The copies were bought up and destroyed, says tradition, by the son of one of its members, one lone volume not being obtainable, but this cannot be distinctly traced at present. There was published in 1876, by the Messrs. L. A. and B. H. Vogt, a fac-simile copy of the original history of "The Morristown Ghost" without the names of the original members, "with an appendix compiled from the county records". The following is the title page: "The Morristown Ghost; an Account of the Beginning, Transactions and Discovery of Ransford Rogers, who seduced many by pretended Hobgoblins and Apparitions and thereby extorted Money from their pockets. In the County of Morris and State of New Jersey, in the Year 1788. Printed for every purchaser--1792". In the copy of 1826, the title page is as follows: "The Wonderful History of the Morristown Ghost; thoroughly and carefully revised. By David Young, Newark. Published by Benjamin Olds, for the author. I. C. Totten, Printer, 1826." The author tells us in his preface he has "very scrupulously followed the sense of the original." He continues: "The truth of this history will not, I presume, be called in question by the inhabitants of Morris and the adjacent counties. The facts are still fresh in the memories of many among us; and some survive still who bore an active part in the scenes herein recorded." He continues: "For the further satisfaction of the distant reader, on this point, I would inform him that I am myself a native of the County of Morris; that I was seven years and seven months old when Rogers first emigrated to this county; and that I well remember hearing people talk of these affairs during their progress. Every reader may rest assured that if the truth of this narrative had been doubtful, I should have taken no pains to rescue it from oblivion." There seems to have been also another intermediate publication. From an ancient copy of this curious story, found in an old, discolored volume in our Morristown library, in which are compiled papers on various subjects, (among them a "Review on Spiritual Manifestations"), we copy the title page: "The Morristown Ghost, or Yankee Trick, being a True, Interesting and Strange Narrative. This circumstance has excited considerable laughter and no small degree of surprize. Printed for purchasers, 1814." The man who conducted the plot was Ransford Rogers, of Connecticut. He was a plausible man who had the power of inspiring confidence, and though somewhat illiterate, was ambitious to be thought learned and pretended, it is said, to possess deep knowledge of "chymistry" and the power to dispel good and evil spirits. It will be remembered that Washington Irving remarks, in his description of the family portrait gallery, of Bracebridge Hall at twilight, when he almost hears the rustling of the brocade dresses of the ladies of the manor as they step out from their frames,--"There is an element of superstition in the human mind". It seems there had long been a conviction prevailing that large sums of money had been buried during the Revolutionary War by tories and others in Schooley's Mountain, near by. There also seemed to be something of the New England belief in witchcraft throughout the community. Says the Preface of the early volume; "It is obvious to all who are acquainted with the county of Morris, that the capricious notions of witchcraft have engaged the attention of many of its inhabitants for a number of years and the existence of witches is adopted by the generality of the people." And we read on page 213 of the "Combined Registers of the First Presbyterian Church," a record as follows: "Dr. John Johnes' servant Pompey, d. 17 July, 1833, aet. 81; frightened to death by ghosts." To obtain the treasure of Schooley's Mountain, then, was the occasion of the occurrences related in this story. Two gentlemen who had long been in search of mines, taking a tour through the country in 1788, "providentially," says David Young, fell in with Rogers at Smith's Clove, and discovered him to be the man they were in search of, and one who could "reveal the secret things of darkness," for they, too, were "covetous of the supposed treasure of Schooley's Mountain." A society was organized by Ransford which at first numbered "about eight" but afterwards was increased to about forty. His first object was to convince them of the existence of the hidden treasure lying dormant in the earth at Schooley's Mountain. It seems repeated efforts had before been made to obtain the treasure, but all had proved abortive, for whenever they attempted to break the ground, it was said, "there would many hobgoblins and apparitions appear which in a short time obliged them to evacuate the place". Rogers called a meeting of the eight and "communicated to them the solemnity of the business and the intricacy of the undertaking and the fact that there had been several persons murdered and buried with the money in order to retain it in the earth. He likewise informed them that those spirits must be raised and conversed with before the money could be obtained. He declared he could by his art and power raise these apparitions and that the whole company might hear him converse with them and satisfy themselves there was no deception. This was received with belief and admiration by the whole company without ever investigating whether it was probable or possible. This meeting therefore terminated with great assurance, they all being confident of the abilities, knowledge and powers of Rogers". To confirm the illusion of his supernatural power, Rogers had made chemical compositions of various kinds, of which, "some, by being buried in the earth for many hours, would break and cause great explosions which appeared dismal in the night and would cause great timidity. The company were all anxious to proceed and much elevated with such uncommon curiosities". A night was therefore appointed for the whole company to convene. The scene which the author proceeds to describe is worthy of Washington Irving in his "Legends of Sleepy Hollow", (see page 25 Young's edition, 1826). The night was dark and the circle "illumined only by candles caused a ghastly, melancholy, direful gloom through the woods". The company marched round and round in (concentric) circles as directed, "with great decorum" until suddenly shocked by "a most impetuous explosion from the earth a short distance from them". Flames rose to a considerable height, "illuminating the circumambient atmosphere and presenting to the eye many dreadful objects, from the supposed haunted grove, which were again instantaneously involved in obscurity". Ghosts made their appearance and hideous groans were heard. These were invisible to the rest of the company but conversed with Rogers in their hearing and told of the vast treasures in their possession which they would not resign except under certain conditions, one of which was "every man must deliver to the spirits twelve pounds in money". The procession continued 'till three o'clock in the morning, and "the whole company looked up to Rogers for protection from the raging spirits. This was in the month of November 1788". It will be noticed that the money required had to be advanced in "nothing but silver or gold" for which the paper money circulated in New Jersey could only be exchanged at twenty-five per cent. discount. Yet there was a sort of emulation among them, "who should be the first in delivering the money to the spirits." A frequent place of meeting for this company was what is now known as the Hathaway house on Flagler street, the first house on the left after entering Flagler street from Speedwell avenue. A little distance back of this house may be seen the stump of a tree beneath which tree, it is said, the money was left for the spirits. Another field used for the midnight marches is behind the Aber house on the Piersonville Road, and still another on the road between Piersonville and Rogers' school house, the location of which is known. Other localities are also known, by old residents, of the events recorded in this story. Mt. Kemble avenue has often been the actual scene of ghostly flittings to and fro as well as of the famous imaginary ride to the Headquarters of "Thankful Blossom". Rogers was in the habit of wrapping himself up in a sheet, going to the house of a certain gentleman in the night, and calling him up by rapping at the doors and windows, and conversing in such sleek disguise that the gentleman thought he was a spirit; ending his conversation also with the words: "I am the spirit of a just man, and am sent to give you information how to proceed, and to put the conducting of it into your hands; I will be ever with you, and give you directions when you go amiss; therefore fear not, but go to Rogers and inform him of your interview with me. Fear not I am ever with you". It must be remembered that this company, at the first, was composed of the best and most highly honored citizens of Morristown, also that toward the last, "the numbers increased daily of aged, abstemious, (at first material spirits were freely used at the nightly meetings) honest, judicious, simple church members." What led finally to the discovery of the plot, was, that it was ordained, "a paper of sacred powder, said to be some of the dust of the bodies of the spirits, was to be kept by every member, and to be preserved inviolate. One of the aged members, having occasion to leave home for a short time on some emergency, through forgetfulness left his paper in one of his pockets at home. His wife happened to find it, and out of curiosity, broke it open; but, perceiving the contents, she feared to touch it, lest peradventure it should have some connection with witchcraft. She went immediately to Rev. Mr. ----, the pious clergyman of the congregation for his advice on the subject; who, not knowing its composition, was unwilling to touch it, lest it might have some operation upon him, and knew not what advice to give her. Her husband returning declared she had ruined him forever by breaking open that paper, which increased her anxiety to know its contents. Upon her promising not to divulge anything, he then related to her the whole of their proceedings, whereupon she declared they were serving the devil and it was her duty notwithstanding her promise to put an end to such proceedings. Great disturbance was thereby caused in the company." It was at the house of one of the members, which is now standing, that Rogers was discovered in the following manner, as the story is told. Rogers, taking his sheet with him, rode, on a certain evening to this house, for the purpose of conversing with the gentleman, as a spirit. Having drank too freely he committed several blunders in his conversation, and was not so careful as usual about the ghostly costume. The good wife, whose suspicions had been aroused, managed to peep and listen during the interview, and after the ghost had left the house she remarked to her husband, says tradition: "My dear, do spirits wear shoe buckles? Those were very like Ransford Rogers' buckles". Rogers' foot-tracks were followed to the fence where his horse was tied, and the tracks of his horse to the house where he lived and hence to another house where he was found. He was apprehended and committed to prison, where he asserted his innocence so persistently that "in a few days he was bailed out", says our author, "by a gentleman, whom I shall call by the name of Compassion." A second time he was apprehended, when "he acknowledged his faults and confessed" the whole matter. He, however, "absconded, and under the auspices of Fortune saved himself by flight from the malice of a host." So ends the, perhaps, most famous historic ghost story of modern times. Mrs. Nathaniel Conklin. (JENNIE M. DRINKWATER.) Mrs. Conklin has been a voluminous writer of novels and stories, published by Robert Carter & Brothers and by the Presbyterian Board. Before her marriage she was widely known as Miss Jennie M. Drinkwater, and her latest book, "Dorothy's Islands," published in Boston, August, 1892, bears that name of authorship. She has written for many papers and magazines, besides the books she has published, and of these there are twenty and more. Among them are "Tessa Wadsworth's Discipline", a love story of high order and well told; "Rue's Helps", for boys and girls, and "Electa", in which we find a certain quality of naturalness in the people, and the scenes described,--a literary quality which is prominent in Mrs. Conklin's works. "They introduce the reader", says a critic, "to agreeable people, provide an atmosphere which is tonic and healthful and enlist interest in every page." Then there are "The Story of Hannah Marigold"; "Wildwood"; "The Fairfax Girls"; "From Flax to Linen" and "David Strong's Errand", besides others, and the last one published to which we have referred, and from which we shall quote. Several years ago, Mrs. Conklin being out of health, had her attention called to the special needs of invalids for sympathy from the active world about them, and organized a society, now world-wide and well-known, called the "Shut-In Society". It is an organization of invalids throughout the country, and now extending beyond it, who cheer each other with correspondence, send letters to prisoners in jails and sufferers in hospitals, and do other good work. Nine-tenths of its membership never see each other, but they help make each other's lives to be as cheery as possible in affliction. The amount of comfort and consolation carried by this organization to many a bed-ridden or helpless invalid, is beyond description, and the good that goes out also from those quiet chambers of sickness to the souls who seek them, mostly by _letter_, is greater than would be easily imagined. Mrs. Conklin was president of the Society for four years from its organization in 1885, and it now numbers several thousand members. We quote from "Dorothy's Islands", Mrs. Conklin's latest book. Dorothy was a child taken from a New York orphan asylum and adopted by a lighthouse keeper and his wife. She grows up supposing them to be her own father and mother, but the mother and child are antagonistic, and it is impossible for them to attract one another. This peculiarity of nature is very well given in the first chapter. EXTRACT FROM "DOROTHY'S ISLANDS." "When I grow up," said Dorothy "I am going to find an island all green and beautiful in winter as well as in summer. All around it the sand will be as golden as sunshine, and the houses--the happy houses--will be hidden away in green things, and flowers of yellow and scarlet and white. And then, father, after I find it, I will come and get you, and we will sing, and learn poems, and do lovely things all day long." "You are going to do wonderful things when you grow up," replied the amused, tender voice overhead. "Don't all grown-up people do wonderful things?" questioned child Dorothy. "I never did," answered the voice, not now either tender or amused. "No, you never _did_," broke in a woman's voice with harsh force. "I think father does _beautiful_ things," said Dorothy in her warm voice. "He brought the sea-bird home to me, and we loved it so, but you threw it off with its wounded wing." "Let nature take care of her own things," responded the voice that had nothing of love in its quality. "I'm nature's thing," Dorothy laughed; "father said so to-day. He said I was made out of nature and poetry." "It's he who puts the poetry in you; some day I'll send those poetry books adrift, and then you will both find something practical in your finger ends." The child looked at the chubby ends of her brown fingers. Her nine-year-old hands, under her mother's sharp teaching, had learned to do many practical things. The only "practical thing" she loathed--and that was her own name for it--was mending Cousin Jack's pea-jacket. One room in the lighthouse was packed with boxes containing her father's books. The "poetry box" was the only one that had been opened since their stay on the island. "It was one of your father's beautiful things to strand us on this desert island. I told him I wouldn't come." "But you _did_," said the child. "It's the last time he will have his own way," remarked the woman, with the heavy frown that marred her handsome face. "Oh, don't say that!" cried Dorothy distressed. "I never like your way." "You have got to like my way some day, miss, or it will be the worse for one of us. Don't hang any longer around your father; poetry enough has oozed out of him to spoil you already; go and pick those beans over, and put them in soak for to-morrow--a quart, mind you, and pick them over clean." * * * * * She liked to pick beans when her father sat near reading aloud to her. He had promised to read to-night "How the water comes down from Lodore," but she knew her mother's mood too well to hope for such a pleasure to-night. When her mother was cross, she wasn't willing for anybody to have anything. But she couldn't take away what she had learned of it; the child hugged herself with the thought repeating gleefully:-- "Then first came one daughter, And then came another, To second and third The request of their brother, And to hear how the water Comes down at Lodore, With its rush and its roar--" "Dorothy, stop!" commanded her mother. "That muttering makes me wild. It sounds like a lunatic." Dorothy's mouth shut itself tight; the flash of defiance from the big brown eyes her mother missed; her father's observant eyes noted it. There was always a sigh in his heart for Dorothy, for her naughtiness, and for the misery she was growing up to. The misery was as inevitable as the growing up. Once in his agony he had prayed the good Father to take the child before her heart was rent, or his own. After the gleeful music ceased the chubby fingers moved wearily, the brown head drooped; there were tears as well as sleep in the eyes that seemed made to hold nothing but sunshine. (Dorothy is in bed for the night.) "Will you keep the door open so I can hear voices?" pleaded Dorothy. "Why child, what ails you?" said the mother. "The wind ails me, and it is so black, black, black out over the water. When I find my island there shall be sunshine on the sea." "But night _has_ to come." "Perhaps there will be stars there," said hopeful Dorothy. "You may learn a Bible verse to-morrow,--'There shall be no night there.'" "I'll say it now: 'There shall be no night there.' Where _is_ 'there'?" But her mother had left her to her new Bible verse and the candle-light; and Dorothy went to sleep, hoping "there" did not mean heaven, for then what _would_ she do when she was sleepy? Mrs. Catharine L. Burnham. A valuable contributor to the literature for children and young people, is Mrs. Burnham. Her volume of "Bible Stories in Words of One Syllable", has been of great use and influence and has no doubt led to the writing of other historical narratives in the same manner. Count Tolstoi gives a most interesting account of his own experience in the use of the Bible in teaching children. He says "I tried reading the Bible to them", speaking of the children in his peasant's school, "and it took complete possession of them. They grew to love the book, love study and love me. For the purpose of opening a new world to a pupil and of making him love knowledge before he has knowledge, there is no book like the Bible." Mrs. Burnham has also written a number of children's story-books which have been warmly received and still continue to please and benefit the young. Among them are "Ernest"; "The Story of Maggie" and the three volumes of the "Can and Can't Series"; "I Can"; "I Can't", and "I'll Try". "Ernest" is quite a wonderful little book and has done much good among a large class of children. Mr. A. D. F. Randolph, the New York publisher, who took it through several editions, gave it high praise to a friend just before the last edition, about three years ago, and Rev. Dr. Tyng the elder, late of St. George's Church, New York, gave it also very high praise. We do not always fully realize that a peculiar talent is required for this department in literature. In talking, some years ago, with a young man who has now become an important editor in New York, he said: "It is my greatest ambition to be a good and interesting author of children's books; not only because it requires the best writing and the best thought, but because no literature has a more extended influence and involves higher responsibilities." In addition to these volumes, Mrs. Burnham has for many years, been an occasional contributor to the _Churchman_, _Christian Union_ and other important papers. The following extract is selected: EXTRACT FROM "I'LL TRY." CHAPTER VIII. _Society._ "Our Daisy is a singular girl," said Mrs. Bell to her husband the evening after Mrs. Lane's party, as they sat alone over the library fire, after all the young people had retired, and fell to talking about their children, as parents will. "Is she? I think most parents would be glad to have a daughter as 'singular.'" "Yes, I knew you would say that; and I appreciate her as highly as you do; but nevertheless, sometimes I am puzzled to know what to do with her. If she gets an idea into that quiet little head of hers, it is hard to modify it." "Well, what is it now?" "It's just this. I don't believe she will ever be willing to go out anywhere, or even have company at home. I proposed to her to-day that we should have a little company next week, and she looked absolutely pained, and said, 'O, mamma, if we could get along without it, I should be so glad--unless you wish it very much. Or, perhaps, I could stay up stairs.' I was quite provoked for the moment, and said, 'No, indeed, you couldn't. I should insist on your entertaining our friends.' And then she was so sorry she had offended me. She is so good and conscientious, that I can't bear to thwart her; and yet I am sure it will not be good for her to shut herself up entirely." "Oh, well dear," said Mr. Bell, who had the most utter confidence in his wife's ability to train her children, as he might well have, "she will get over it in time. Let her go out a little and she will soon learn to like it." "No, I am afraid not. Everything she does is done on principle, and unless I can make society a matter of principle, I am afraid she will never enter into it at all, her diffidence makes it a positive pain to her to meet strangers." "Well, get a principle into it, then, somehow," said Mr. Bell. "You can manage it; you understand all these matters. I am sure Daisy is just like you in requiring a principle for everything." "She is not a bit like me," said Mrs. Bell; but she could not help smiling nevertheless, and the conversation turned to something else. But the mother, who was in real difficulty about this matter, carried her perplexities where she always did, to the throne of grace, and there obtained light to show her how to act. She knew that nothing in her children's lives was unimportant in the eyes of the Heavenly Father, and prayed for wisdom to guide her young daughter aright at this important time of her life. The next time that Daisy brought her work basket to her mother's room, for a "good quiet sit-down," as she expressed it, Mrs. Bell resolved to open the subject that was on her mind; but the young girl anticipated her design by saying, "Now, mamma, before we begin the second volume of our Macauley (how tempting it looks and what lovely readings we will have!) I want to ask you something." "Well, dear?" "I know I troubled you yesterday when you spoke about having company, dear mamma. I was so sorry afterwards; but if you knew how I dread it, I don't think you would blame me. I have been thinking about it a great deal since, and now I want to ask you a question and get one of your real good answers--a _settling_ answer, mamma. Do you think it is _my duty_ to go into company? Now begin, please, and tell me all about it;" and Daisy took up her work and assumed the attitude of a listener, as though she had referred her question to an oracle, and was waiting for a response. The mother smiled a happy and gratified smile before she answered. It was very pleasant to her to see how her sweet daughter deferred to her opinion; and kissing the fair cheek she said: "I can't answer you in one word, darling. What do you mean by 'going into company?' Of course you know that I have no desire to see you absorbed in a round of parties, or even going often to companies." "Oh, I know that, mamma; I mean quiet parties, such as you and papa go to; reading and talking parties, and big sewing societies and musicals." "You mean going anywhere out of your own family?" "Yes'm, that is just it. I am so happy at home. I have plenty to do, and all I want to enjoy. With you and papa and Nelly and our pet Lucy, and the boys coming home Sundays, what could one wish for more? I am perfectly happy, mamma." "And would you never care to make acquaintances, then--to make and receive calls?" "Oh, no'm. I dislike calls of all things, except, of course, to go and see Mrs. Lane, for she asked me to come and see her, mamma, and to go over to Fanny's to play duets, and to a few other places." "You are a singular girl, Daisy." "I know I am," said Daisy, earnestly, dropping her work, "and that's the very reason why I think it's just as well for me to stay at home. Now, last night, I'm sure there wasn't a girl there thought of such a thing as being frightened; except me; but I didn't really enjoy the last part very much; it was so disagreeable being among so many strangers; and even during the reading, I wished myself back in our old composition room, where I could hear Mrs. Lane without being dressed up, and being surrounded by girls dressed even more than I was." "And would you like, then, always to live retired at home?" "Indeed I should, mamma! and I can't see why I may not. We are told not to love the world," said Daisy in a lower tone. "Why is it not better to keep out of it entirely?" "I will tell you, darling, why it is not," said Mrs. Bell, seriously. "Because our Master did not do so, and we cannot follow His example perfectly, if we do." "Was it not the poor and sick that He visited, mamma, chiefly?" "Yes, dear, and so it should be with us; but He visited, too, the rich and the high. He seems to have gone wherever His presence was desired, to make that presence felt by all classes of people, and we ought to imitate Him in this as in all other things." "Do you think we can do that?" "Yes, I think we can in some measure. At any rate, I am sure we ought to try. Suppose, Daisy, that every one adopted your rule--that every house was a castle, and no one in it cared for anybody outside. What a selfish world this would be! Our Christian love would be limited to our own family." "But I would visit the poor, mamma." "Yes, and that is by far the most important. But, dear, you have gifts of mind and heart and education that enable you to do good in other ways than in ministering to the poor and the ignorant. There are other hearts to reach, over whom you can have even greater influence, because they sympathize more entirely with you. You can show forth the love of Christ, and set a Christian example in your own sphere, darling, where you were born and brought up, and it would be wrong for my daughter to hide the talents God has given her under a bushel, and not to care for anyone or anything outside of these four walls." Daisy had left her seat and taken her favorite place at her mother's feet, and now looking up into her face, she said, earnestly, "You are right, mamma, as you always are. But poor me! I would rather face an army, it seems to me, than a roomful of people. I know what you are going to say--all the more my duty--and I shall try with all my might." "My darling, in every roomful of people there are some whom you can cheer and please; and even Christ pleased not Himself. Think of that, and it will give you strength to overcome your timidity. You can serve your Master in some way, be sure of it. And you can learn much from others. You would not develop all round, but would be a one-sided character, if you had only books and your own family for companions." "Mamma, let us have the company. I am ashamed that I have been so cowardly. You shall see how hard I will try." Hon. John Whitehead. Our grave and reverend scholar and historian, taking his place later among _Historians_, has surprised and delighted us all by appearing suddenly in a new character, writing a very lively, graphic, and, of course, instructive story for boys; "A Fishing Trip to Barnegat", which we find in the _St. Nicholas_ for August, 1892. The following is an extract: FROM "A FISHING TRIP TO BARNEGAT." "Now this fish of yours, Jack," said the uncle, "is not only called the toad-fish and the oyster-fish, but, sometimes, the grunting toad-fish. There are species of it found all over the world, but this is the regular American toad-fish. "This fish of mine is called the weakfish. Notice its beautiful colors, brownish blue on its back, with irregular brown spots, the sides silvery, and the belly white. It grows from one to three feet long and is a very sharp biter. When one takes the hook, there is no difficulty in knowing when to pull in. Why it is called the weakfish, I do not know, unless because when it has been out of the water its flesh softens and soon becomes unfit for food. When eaten soon after it is caught, it is very good." Just as Uncle John finished his little lecture, an exclamation from Will, who had baited with a piece of the crab, and dropped his line into the water, attracted their attention. Not quite so impetuous as Jack, he landed his prize more carefully, and stood looking at it with wonder, hardly knowing what to say. At last he called out: "Well, what have I caught?" It was a beautiful fish, though entirely different from Uncle John's. It had a small head and the funniest little tail that ever was seen. Its back was of a bright, brown color, but its belly was almost pure white; it was quite round and flat, with a rough skin. "Turn him over on his back, and rub him gently," said the captain. "Do it softly, and watch him." Will complied and gently rubbed him. Immediately the fish began swelling and as Will continued the rubbing it grew larger and larger until Will feared that the fish would burst its little body. "Well," he said, "I never saw anything like that, Captain! Do tell me what this is." "This we call, here in Barnegat, the balloon-fish. It is elsewhere called the puffer, swell-fish, and globe-fish. One kind is called the sea-porcupine, because of its being covered with short, sharp spines. It is of no value for food." Jack thought his time had come to catch another prodigy, and when his hook had been re-baited by the skipper, he dropped his line into the water, and was soon rewarded by another bite. Using more caution this time, he landed his fish securely on deck instead of over the sail, and exclaimed: "Wonders will never cease! I don't know what I've got now, but I suppose that Captain John can tell!" Mrs. John King Duer. Mrs. Duer, whose family as well as herself has long been associated with Morristown, has published, in Morristown, in 1880, a short story entitled "The Robbers of the Woods, by Grandmother". It is a pretty, fascinating tale for children, in which the winsome innocence of two loving boys charm away all the cruelty of the "Robbers of the Woods". It is only thirty minutes reading and yet the story leaves after it an impression of the tender beauty of childhood. The following extract is expressive both of the touching pathos and of a certain nicety of description which belongs pre-eminently to Mrs. Duer. FROM "THE ROBBERS OF THE WOODS." The sun was up and the room quite light when Carl opened his eyes at the touch of a hand on his shoulder. "It is daylight now my little man and we must be getting you on your way home ere long, but first come and get some breakfast." The boys were soon dressed, and after saying a short prayer in which they thanked God for his goodness in making the robbers so kind to them, they opened the door and found themselves again in the hall and with a substantial meal before them. Having eaten enough and all being ready, the man who found them in the woods now came near, and putting his large brown hand gently on Carl's arm, he said, "My boys, before I can open that door you must let me tie a cloth over your eyes, and consent to let it be there till we tell you to take it off. No harm shall come to you, for I myself am going to take you through the woods and not leave you till I put you on the road that leads to your mother's door." When Eddie first heard that his eyes were to be blindfolded, he began to cry and clung tightly to his brother, fearing to look about him "lest one of the robbers should be there to cut my poor little head off," as he whispered to Carl. But when Carl said, "Eddie, you must be good and believe what these men say. They are not going to harm us and we are going straight home to mother. See I will put the bandage on your eyes myself, and will sit close to you and hold your hand all the time." He then tied a clean handkerchief, which the man gave him, close over Eddie's eyes and allowed the man to do the same to him. They then were led out of the hall. They heard the heavy door close after them, and felt the cool, morning air blow over their faces, then the boys knew they were outside the stone wall. Soon they were lifted up, and put in a wagon, and a man's voice close to them said: "Boys, I am going to put your little cart in the wagon too, so that you may get it home safely." When all was ready, the wagon began to move away, and as they drove off, they heard the voices of the robbers calling after them, "good-bye, brave boys, we wish you good luck." Little Eddie sat quite still beside Carl; as they drove away he held tight fast to his brother, and neither of them spoke a word. They were astonished at all they had seen and heard, while they were in the robbers' castle, and now they were once more in the free and open woods, they could not do as they pleased, but sat with their eyes bound up, not knowing where they were going. Carl did not doubt the words of the men who told him that no harm should come to him, but at times he had to comfort and assure poor little Eddie, for he sat trembling with fear. After they had driven several miles, and the man who was with them had answered their questions as to how far they were from home now, the wagon stopped and the man got out saying, "Now boys, you are on the road that leads direct to your home and I am going to leave you very soon, but before I go you must promise me not to untie the bandage from your eyes, till you hear a long whistle, which will blow from my horn, after leaving you; you will then undo the bandage, and find something beside you to take to your mother." Saying this, the man took the boys from the wagon, and setting them carefully down, he lifted their cart out also and shaking hands with the still astonished boys, and wishing them good-bye, he sprang into the wagon and they heard him drive rapidly along the road. They sat for some time very quiet, until the loud, long whistle from a distant horn told them the time of their captivity was at an end, and hastily tearing off the bandage from their eyes they looked eagerly around on all sides. Not a vestige of the wagon could be seen. It had been turned just at the spot where they had been left, and whether it went back the same way, or took another road, they never knew. But what was their surprise, when they turned to look for their own little cart, to see beside it a pile of wood cut just so as to fit in, and on top of the pile a package containing many pieces of money in bright shining gold. This was the present they were told to "take back to their mother." Carl's heart gave a great bound of joy, for he knew how sorely his dear mother needed help, and he knew now that these men were her friends, and would never harm them. They had scarcely recovered from their surprise, and had just begun to load the little cart with the well-cut wood, when sounds of voices were heard, and the boys could distinctly hear their own names called. They knew it was the neighbors who were out searching for them, and soon saw them coming out in the open space where they stood. * * * * * The neighbors were heartily glad to find the boys safe and well, and surprised at the wonderful things they had to tell of all that had befallen them. Madame de Meisner. Many Morristonians will remember well Miss Sophie Radford, first as a little girl, living in the old Doughty House on Mt. Kemble avenue, then owned and occupied by her grandfather, Mr. Joseph Lovell, who purchased it of the Doughty estate and lived in it for a long period of time. Afterwards, Miss Radford is recalled as a charming girl and a belle in Washington Society, whence her father, Rear Admiral Radford, U. S. N., went from here, and where she met and married the handsome and elegant Secretary of the Russian Legation, M. de Meisner. Their marriage was performed first in the Episcopal church and afterwards with the ceremony of the Greek church, at her father's house, it being a law of Russia, with regard to every officer of the Empire, that the marriage ceremony of the Greek church shall be always used, a law like "that of the Medes and Persians, that altereth not". Both M. and Mme. de Meisner were in Morristown a few years ago and met many friends. It is since then, that they went to Russia and there, after a delightful reception and experience, Mme. de Meisner was inspired with the idea of writing "The Terrace of Mon Désir". It was published in the fall of 1886, by Cuppies, Upham & Co., of Boston. A curious fact about this book is that it was Mme. de Meisner's first appearance in the field of literature and she had never before contributed even the briefest article to the press. "The Terrace of Mon Désir" is a pretty love story, gracefully written. The opening scenes are laid in Peterhoff, near St. Petersburg, and where is the summer residence of the Czar. The author thus finds an opportunity of describing a charming social life among the higher classes, with which, though an American girl, but married to a Russian, she seems to be and is perfectly at home, having it is evident taken kindly to the new and interesting situations of her adopted country. The characters are delightfully and simply natural and the combinations are vivacious and sparkling, by which quality American women are distinguished, and in which characteristic foreigners find an indescribable charm. Mme. de Meisner herself has a bright animation in conversation. Some authors talk well only on paper, but to this observation the author of "The Terrace of Mon Désir" is a marked exception, as all those who know her graceful, easy flow of language will recognize. The continuity of the story forbids an extract. Miss Isabel Stone. Miss Stone who has long lived and moved in our society, has written, beside the poem already given, many bright papers and stories for children which have been published in various magazines and journals, among them _The Observer_; _Life_; _Little Ones in the Nursery_, edited by Oliver Optic; _The Press_, of Philadelphia; _The Troy Press_ and _The Christian Weekly_. These stories and other writings were published under an assumed name. In 1885, she published a very clever booklet entitled Who Was Old Mother Hubbard? A Modern Sermon from the _Portsmouth_ (Eng.) _Monitor_ and a Refutation by an M. M. C., New York; G. P. Putnam Sons. This booklet had a very large sale and went through several editions. The story of this publication is interesting. "The Modern Sermon" appeared anonymously, first in one of our prominent magazines. It was written in England and traced to its origin. This was read at a meeting of the Mediæval Club, (a literary club of some celebrity in Morristown), at the house of Mr. John Wood, one of its members. Miss Stone was at once inspired to write the "Refutation"; which was read at her own house by Mr. John Wood, arrayed in characteristic costume for the occasion. (For the benefit of those who may not know him, we may add that Mr. John Wood is one of Morristown's best readers and amateur actors.) We give the "Refutation" which is a clever dissection of the subject. As "A Modern Sermon illustrates the method upon which some Parsons Construct their Discourses", so "A Refutation" appears "in the Combative, Lucid and Argumentative Style of Some Others". REFUTATION. MY DEAR HEARERS: It is my purpose this evening to give to you the result of many hours of thought and consultation of various authors regarding the subject to which our attention has been lately called. While I hesitate to engage in the controversial spirit of the day, I feel it my duty to expound to you the truth and to unmask any heresy that may be gaining ground. The discourse to which I allude was upon the text,-- "Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard, To get her poor dog a bone; But when she got there the cupboard was bare, And so the poor dog got none." I propose to prove to you this evening that all its arguments were founded on false premises; that the _whole picture_ drawn of the subject of our text--viz., old Mother Hubbard--was diametrically the reverse of the reality; in short, to give _a complete refutation of the text_ to all those who listened to those first erroneous statements. _Firstly_, Old Mother Hubbard was _not_ a widow. I am at a loss to understand why our learned brother should so have drawn upon his imagination as to represent her as such, when, as I shall endeavor to set before you _conclusively_ this evening, it is _distinctly_ stated in the text that she was the wife of an _ogre_! My friends, in those days _men_ and _husbands_ were designated by the term "poor dog;" and, indeed, the lightest scholar knows that the term has descended to the present day and is often appropriated by a man himself under certain existing circumstances. Now, that this "poor dog" of a husband was an ogre is abundantly proved by the fact that Mother Hubbard provided for him bones. Yes! bones! my friends; but--_they_--_were_--_human_--bones! Deep research has convinced me of this fact. I find that in those days ogres did not catch and kill their own meat, as is commonly supposed. They were but human, my friends, and, like the rest of humanity, preferred rather to purchase labor than perform it. They, therefore, employed their own individual butchers; but, with rare wisdom, they chose some carnivorous animal to supply their table. In proof of this, we come, _Secondly_, to the word cupboard, as mentioned in the text,-- "Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard, To get her poor dog a bone." This word cupboard is in our present version misspelt, owing to some fault in copying from the original, and thus is rendered c-u-p-b-o-a-r-d; but the word properly should be spelt c-u-b-b-e-d. This is a compound word, derived from cub--a young bear--and bed, or deposit, as we speak of the bed of a river. This was a _bone_ deposit--a place where the ogre's food was deposited by the cub. A young cub was a less expensive butcher than a bear, as nowadays labor is cheaper from the young aspirant than from the assured professional. Therefore they were the usual employees. But this ogre, though evidently in the habit of employing a cub in this department, had now become dissatisfied and procured the more satisfactory service of an old bear; for, if you will carefully examine the text, you will see that the meaning is _obvious_, for, as though to insure all its readers from misunderstanding, you will see that it is _distinctly_ stated that-- "The cub-bed was _bear_." Now we come _Thirdly_ to the word "none." "And so the poor dog got none." This word in the original stands for two things--first, n-o-n-e, meaning nothing, which was the heretical sense deducted by my opponent, and the other and correct sense being n-u-n--a woman with black veil, generally of tender years; and Mother Hubbard, who intended to supply her lord's table with one small bone, found that instead the bear had secured the bones of a _whole nun_! _Fourthly_ and lastly, it is clear from the words "poor dog," that the ogre was poor, but _not_ Mother Hubbard. No, my hearers, _evidently_ she was _rich_, evidently _she_ held the purse-strings, and the ogre had stealthily supplied his table with a luxury, and his house with a steward, for which he individually was incapable of providing the means. This is _clearly_ the fact from the words of the text, for you will notice that it was _when_ she got there--not _before_, but _when_ she got there, that she found the change that had been made in the household arrangements. And then, doubtless, ensued a scene such as some "poor dogs" nowadays understand only too well! And now, my friends, we come to the moral. It is _not_ to beware of widows as my opponent tried to prove, but for you, my hearers, on one hand, to beware of marrying a poor but extravagant dog, and you, on the other, to beware of marrying a rich but penurious wife. Augustus Wood. Charles P. Sherman. Miss Helen M. Graham. It is scarcely necessary to state the fact that Mr. Augustus Wood is a native of Morristown, belonging as he does to a very old and well-known family, or that he is the author of a little volume entitled "Cupid on Crutches". This is a summer story of life at Narragansett Pier and makes one of a group of light novels which we will give in succession. "A BACHELOR'S WEDDING TRIP." BY "HIMSELF." "Himself" we recognize as Mr. Charles Sherman, then a bachelor, who cleverly dedicates the book in these words: "To the Unmarried: as Instance of the Bliss which may be Theirs, and to the Married, as Reminiscent of THE trip, These Threaded Sketches are Fraternally Dedicated by the Author". The third of the group is GUY HERNDON OR "A TALE OF GETTYSBURG." BY "ELAYNE." Elayne, we know, is Miss Helen M. Graham, one of Morristown's Society girls who spends much of her time in New York. This "Tale of Gettysburg" is the first venture of Miss Graham into the field of literature. Her choice of subject indicates that she is in touch with the growing realization among our novelists of how wide and fruitful a field is presented to them in the events of our civil war. The few graphic pictures already given by them of the social and other conditions of those stirring times, will be more and more valued by the present generation, and by those to come, as the years go on. Other Novelists and Story Writers. Among the poets, we have already mentioned as writers also of stories, many of them for children and young people,-- _Mrs. M. Virginia Donaghe McClurg_, _Miss Emma F. R. Campbell_, _Miss Hannah More Johnson_, And _Mr. William T. Meredith_, the last being the author of a summer novel, "Not of Her Father's Race". _Rev. James M. Freeman, D. D._, who, in addition to his editorial work and more serious writing, has published more than thirty small juvenile works, written under the name of "Robin Ranger", and which are all very great favorites with children, and _Mrs. Julia McNair Wright_, who, besides her many volumes on many subjects, has written novels, among them, "A Wife Hard Won," published by Lippincott, and a large number of stories for young people, found in many Sunday School libraries, as well as stories on the subject of Temperance, which are found in the collected libraries of Temperance societies. TRANSLATORS. Mrs. Adelaide S. Buckley. Mrs. Buckley, who has already been numbered among our _Poets_, has translated a German story called "Sought and Found" from the original work of Golo Raimund, which has passed to its second edition. The translator says, in her four line preface, "This romance was translated because of its rare simplicity and beauty, and is published that those who have not seen it in the original may enjoy it also." One never takes up these charming little German stories without exclaiming, no other country-people ever write in the same sweet, simple way! The reason is evident to those who have lived among Germans and experienced their unaffected hospitality. There is a peculiar simplicity of home life even among the nobility. A friend says: "I so well remember now, a lovely morning visit, in particular, to a little, gentle German lady in her beautiful drawing-room which contained the treasures of centuries. No one, I am sure, could have helped being struck by her gentle simplicity and unaffected courtesy. She came in dressed in the plainest of black dresses, a white apron tied around her waist, and on her head the simplest of morning caps. But her sweet German language,--how beautiful it seemed, as in the low, musical voice which bespoke her breeding, she talked of her own German poets; of Walther von der Vogelweide and the great Goethe and Schiller, of Auerbach and Richter and modern story writers." Afterwards, in speaking of the charm and beauty of such simplicity, the friend added, "Yes, and she belongs to one of the oldest noble, hereditary families of Germany, and carries the sixteen quarterings upon the family shield, which, to those who understand German heraldry, means the longest unmixed German descent. We could not help contrasting such quiet manners with many of the artificial assumptions and the aggressive boldness found that winter in Dresden." Therefore we always hail with pleasure translations of these stories of German life among all classes. Though to translate requires no creative power, translating is in some respects more difficult than creating, for the reason that to translate demands a quick comprehension and intuitive discernment of the spirit of a foreign language, of the conception of the writer and of the national life which the language embodies. And we must remember that it is in the power of interpretation that woman especially excels. This little story is essentially well rendered, with the animation and vivacity of the original, and it has great merit in preserving its German spirit, that sentiment which is so marked and so unlike any other people. What Dr. Johnson said of translation had a ring of truth as had all his mighty utterances, namely: "Philosophy and science may be translated perfectly and history, so far as it does not reach oratory, but poetry can never be translated without losing its most essential qualities." It would seem then that to know the poetry of a people one must read it in the original language, which every one surely cannot do. Mrs. Buckley however, recognizing this subtle quality of the poetry of a language, has left the little verses of the story untouched, wisely giving the translation at the bottom of the page. A very lovely translation it is however and after a short passage from the book, "Sought and Found", we shall give another poetic translation of the poem "Im Arm der Liebe", by Georg Scheurlin. The following is a short passage from the story: EXTRACT FROM "SOUGHT AND FOUND." TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF GOLO RAIMUND. Upon the table lay Veronica's picture, which in the meantime had been sent. The flowers, painted by her hand, appeared to him like a friendly greeting. He took it up and regarded it a long time; then, followed a sudden inspiration, he wrote upon the back: (Here follows the German verse, the translation below:) Thy merry jest is gentle as the May, Thy tender heart a lily of the dell; Fragrant as the rose thy inmost soul, Thy wondrous song a sweet-toned bell. As in sport he subscribed his name; and then, as this homage, which had so long existed in his heart, suddenly expressed in words, stood before him, black upon white it was to him as if another had opened his eyes and he must guard the newly discovered secret. He placed the picture in a portfolio, in order to lock it in his writing-desk, and his eye fell upon the journal which had so singularly come into his hands. He laid the portfolio beside it. Did they not belong together? Did not the mysterious author resemble Veronica? Like a revelation it flashed over him and so powerfully affected his imagination that the blood mounted hotly to his temples, and, in spite of the severe cold, he threw open the window that he might have more air. "If it were she!" thought he; restlessly striding up and down, and yet exultant that he had now found a trace which could be followed. THE ARM OF LOVE. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF GEORG SCHEURLIN. A young wife sits by a cradle nest, Her fair boy smiling on her breast; In the quiet room draws on the night, And she rocks and sings by the soft lamplight; On mother bosom the rest is deep; In the arm of love--so fall asleep. In the cool vale, 'neath sunny sky, We sit alone, my own and I; A song of joy wells in my breast, Ah, heart to heart, how sweet the rest! The brooklets ripple, the breezes sweep; In the arm of love--so fall asleep. From the churchyard tolls the solemn bell, For the pilgrim has finished his journey well; Here lays he down the staff, long pressed; In the bosom of earth, how calm the rest! Above the casket the earth they heap; In the arm of love--so fall asleep. Miss Margaret N. Garrard. It must be a poet who shall translate a poet and so naturally we find Miss Garrard as well as Mrs. Buckley, already in our group of "Poets". The difficulty of reproducing well, in metrical forms, thoughts from the poetry of another language, is so great, that we give with pride the translation of Miss Garrard of one of Goethe's sweet wild-wood songs, in which he excelled. THE BROOK. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF GOETHE. Little brook, where wild flowers drink, Rushing past me, swift and clear-- Thoughtful stand I on the brink-- "Where's thy home? Whence com'st thou here?" I come from out the rock's dark gloom, My way lies o'er the flower-strewn plain; And in my bosom there is room To mirror heaven's sweet face again. Pain, sorrow, trouble have I none; I wander onward, blithe and free-- He who has called me from the stone Will to the end my guardian be. Other Translators. _Hon. John Whitehead_ has translated considerably from the French and German, having used these translations in several of his writings, but individually they have not been published. He aided in translating the "History of the War of the Rebellion in North Western Virginia", which was written in German by Major F. J. Mangold, of the Prussian Army. The book was a monograph published by Major Mangold in Germany, but never published here. This translation was largely used by Judge Whitehead in his published articles on "The Fitz John Porter Case." _Miss Karch_, a German lady long a resident of Morristown, was also a translator, but it has not been possible to procure the details of her work. It is nine years since Miss Karch returned to Heilbronn, Germany, where she is now living. For the fifteen years preceding her return, she had been a resident of Morristown as a teacher of the German and French languages. Says a friend: "She was a conscientious, accomplished and true woman, intensely loyal as a true German, self-sacrificing, patient and kindly generous in bestowing her softening and refining influences, upon those who needed them." LEXICOGRAPHER. Charlton T. Lewis, LL. D. The great work of Dr. Lewis is his Latin Dictionary, published in 1879, as "Lewis and Short's Revision of Andrew's Freund". This is recognized as the most useful and convenient modern Latin-English Lexicon. Quite recently Dr. Lewis has brought out a Latin Dictionary for _schools_, which is not an abridgement of the larger work, but an original work on a definite plan of its own. "It has the prestige", says a critic, "of having been accepted in advance by the Clarendon Press of Oxford, and adopted among their publications in place of a similar lexicon projected and begun by themselves. Thus it may be said to be published in England under the official patronage of the University of Oxford". Dr. Lewis also published in 1886 "A History of Germany From the Earliest Times". He ranks among the first Greek scholars of the country, having been for many years a member of the well-known Greek Club of New York, of which the late Rev. Howard Crosby D. D. was pioneer and president. He also ranks high as a Shakesperian scholar and critic, and as a poet. From his poem of "Telemachus", some lines are transcribed among the poetical selections of this book. Dr. Lewis has made a profound study of the subject of prison reform and has been, and is, an active worker in that direction, in the New York Prison Association, being on the Executive Board of that Association. In Stedman and Hutchinson's "Library of American Literature", Dr. Lewis is represented by a paper on the "Influence of Civilization on Duration of Life". HISTORIANS AND ESSAYISTS. William Cherry. ANCIENT CHRONICLER. William Cherry is a veritable "Old Mortality", judging from a unique volume found in the Morristown Library. This ancient sexton of the First Presbyterian Church, was a true wanderer among graves. It is said by those who remember, or who had it from their fathers, that the old house adjoining the Lyceum Building is the one in which Mr. Cherry lived and no doubt reflected on the uncertainty of life, while he compiled his melancholy record. The following is the title of the old volume published by him and printed by Jacob Mann in the year 1806: "Bill of Mortality: Being a Register of all the Deaths, which have occurred in the Presbyterian and Baptist Congregations of Morristown, New Jersey; For Thirty-Eight Years Past, Containing (with but few exceptions) the Cause of every Disease. This Register, for the First Twenty-Two Years, was kept by the Rev. Dr. Johnes, since which Time, by _William Cherry_, the Present Sexton of the Presbyterian Church at Morris-Town". "Time brushes off our lives with sweeping wings."--_Hervey._ Some of the causes of disease given are as follows: "Decay of Nature"; "Teething"; "Old Age"; "A Swelling"; "Mortification"; "Sudden"; "Phrenzy"; "Casual"; "Poisoned by Night-Shade Berries"; "Lingering Decay", &c. We find no mention of "Heart Failure". This curious and valuable volume needs no further comment. [Illustration: THE WASHINGTON HEADQUARTERS. FROM GARDEN AND FOREST. Copyright 1892, by the GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO.] Rev. Joseph F. Tuttle, D. D. To the Rev. Joseph F. Tuttle, D. D. we are indebted for the invaluable chronicles of events, of the life of the people, and of Washington and his army in Morristown during the Revolutionary period. Apparently, all this interesting story, in its details, would have been lost to us, except for his indefatigable zeal in collecting from the lips of living men and women, the eye-witnesses of what he relates, or from their immediate descendants, the story he gives us with such pictorial charm and beauty, warm from his own imaginary dwelling in the period of which he writes. For the following sketch of this author we are indebted to the historian who follows, the Hon. Edmund D. Halsey. Rev. Joseph F. Tuttle, D. D., son of Rev. Jacob and Elizabeth Ward Tuttle, was born at Bloomfield, N. J., March 12th, 1818. Fitted for college principally at Newark Academy, he graduated at Marietta College with first honors of his class in 1841. He entered Lane Seminary and was licensed to preach in 1844. In 1847 he was called to pastorate of church at Rockaway, N. J., as associate to his aged father-in-law, Rev. Dr. Barnabas King. He left Rockaway to accept the Presidency of Wabash College in 1862, and, after thirty years in that position, resigned in 1892. During his fifteen years in this county he was a most voluminous and acceptable writer for the press--writing for the _Observer_, _Evangelist_, _Tribune_ and other papers. But he is principally remembered more for his work as a local historian. He wrote, "The Early History of Morris County"; "Biographical Sketch of Gen. Winds"; "Washington in Morris County"; "History of the Presbyterian Church at Rockaway"; "Life of William Tuttle"; "Revolutionary Fragments", (a series of articles published in _The Newark Sentinel of Freedom_); "Early History of Presbyterianism in Morris County", and other shorter articles. At the time his Revolutionary articles were published there were still men living who had personal knowledge of the events of that era and he gathered an immense amount of material which but for him would have been lost. The following from the pen of Dr. Tuttle appeared in _The Newark Daily Advertiser_ of April, 1883: A FINE RELIC AND A FINE POEM. Thirty years ago and more my surplus energy was devoted to the innocent delights of hunting up places, people, facts and traditions associated with the American Revolution as preserved in Morris County. Some very charming rides were taken to Pompton, Mendham, Baskingridge, Spring Valley, Kimball Mountain, Singack, and other places. My rides made me certain that Morris County is both rich in beautiful scenery and historic associations. The results of these rides appeared in a series of "Revolutionary Fragments" printed in the _Advertiser_, as also in some elaborate papers before the Historical Society. One day I visited the Ford Mansion, and met that polished and elegant gentleman, the late Henry A. Ford, Esq., then its proprietor. He was the son of Judge Gabriel H. Ford, grandson of Colonel Jacob Ford, Jr., whose widow was the hostess of Washington, the Winter of 1779-80, great-grandson of Colonel Jacob Ford, Sr., who built the "Ford Mansion," and great-great-grandson of John Ford, of Hunterdon County, whose wife was Elizabeth who was brought to Philadelphia from Axford, England, when she was a child a year old. Her father was drowned by falling from the plank on which he was walking from the ship to the shore. Philadelphia then had but one house in it. Mrs. Ford's second husband was Lindsley, and "the widow Elizabeth Lindsley died at the house of her son, Col. Jacob Ford, Sr., April 21, 1772, aged ninety-one years and one month," and so the courtly master of the "Ford Mansion," when I called to visit it, was of the fifth generation from the child-emigrant, whose father was drowned in the Delaware, in 1682. The pleasure of the visit was greatly enhanced by the attentions of Miss Louisa, daughter of the gentleman named. She afterward became the wife of Judge Ogden of Paterson. The father and daughter with delightful courtesy took me over the famous house and associated in my memory the rooms and halls, and even the antique furniture with the family's most illustrious guest. I was especially interested in the old mirror that had hung in Washington's bedroom. Miss Ford produced a poem on that mirror, written, I think, by an aunt, and at my request she read it. She was a charming reader and promised me a copy. Under date of Paterson, October 31st, 1856, Mrs. Ogden was kind enough to send me the promised copy with a note apologizing for the delay and adding: "I think, however, you will find the poetry has not spoiled by keeping." I have not ceased to be thankful that my first visit to the Ford Mansion was so pleasantly associated with the attentions of the father and daughter, both of whom have since died. The mirror is a fine relic still to be seen with other elegant old furniture, belonging to the Ford family, at the "Washington Quarters" at Morristown, and I am sure all will regard the poem which pleased me so much thirty years ago as "one that has not spoiled by keeping." ON AN OLD MIRROR USED BY WASHINGTON AT HIS HEADQUARTERS IN MORRISTOWN. Old Mirror! speak and tell us whence Thou comest, and then, who brought thee thence. Did dear old England give thee birth? Or merry France, the land of mirth? In vain another should we seek At all like thee--thou thing antique. Of the old mansion thou seem'st part; Indeed, to me, its very heart; For in thy face, though dimmed with age, I read my country's brightest page. Five generations, all have passed, And yet, old Mirror, thou dost last; The young, the old, the good, the bad, The gay, the gifted and the sad Are gone; their hopes, their sighs, their fears Are buried deep with smiles and tears. Then speak; old Mirror! thou hast seen Full many a noble form, I ween; Full many a soldier, tall and brave, Now lying in a nameless grave; Full many a fairy form and bright Hath flitted by when hearts were light; Full many a bride--whose short life seemed Too happy to be even dreamed; Full many a lord and titled dame, Bearing full many an honored name; And tell us, Mirror, how they dressed-- Those stately dames, when in their best? If robes and sacques the damsels wore, And sweeping skirts in days of yore? But tell us, too, for we _must_ hear Of _him_ whom all the world revere. Thou sawest him when the times so dark Had made upon his brow their mark; Those fearful times, those dreary days, When all seemed but a tangled maze; His noble army, worn with toils, Giving their life blood to the soils. Disease and famine brooding o'er, His country's foe e'en at his door; But ever saw him noble, brave, Seeking her freedom or his grave. His was the heart that never quailed; His was the arm that never failed! Old Mirror! thou hast seen what we Would barter all most dear to see; The great, the good, the _noblest_ one; Our own _immortal Washington_! Well may we gaze--for now in thee Relies of the great past we see, Well may we gaze--for ne'er again, Old Mirror, shall we see such men; And when we too have lived our day, Like those before us passed away, Still, valued Mirror, may'st thou last To tell our children of the past; Still thy dimmed face, thy tarnished frame Thy honored house and time proclaim; And ne'er may sacrilegious hand, While Freedom claims this as her land One stone or pebble rashly throw To lay thee, honored Mirror, low. Y. F. Hon. Edmund D. Halsey. Mr. Halsey, historian, biographer, as well as lawyer, has published our most valuable "History of Morris County", and is considered an authority upon that subject, his accuracy being unquestioned. By his sterling integrity and superior intellectual ability, he has, in the practice of his profession, gained the entire confidence of the community in which, as a lawyer, he has passed the greater part of his life. Included in his literary work are "Personal Sketches" of Governor Mahlon Dickerson, Colonel Joseph Jackson, and others; "The Revolutionary Army in Morris County in 1779-'80"; and a brief sketch of the Washington Headquarters entitled "History of the Washington Association of New Jersey", published in Morristown in 1891. Mr. Halsey also assisted Mr. William O. Wheeler in the publication of a book of unique interest and of unusual value, especially to genealogists and antiquarians, the title of which reads "Inscriptions on Tombstones and Monuments in the Burying Grounds of the First Presbyterian Church and St. John's Church at Elizabeth, New Jersey". Mr. Halsey is a prominent member of the "Historical Society of New Jersey", as well as of the "Washington Association of New Jersey". We quote from his "History of the Washington Association" the following "brief history of the title of the property". FROM "HISTORY OF THE WASHINGTON ASSOCIATION OF NEW JERSEY." Colonel Jacob Ford, Senior--prominent as a merchant, iron manufacturer, and land owner, who was president Judge of the County Court from the formation of the County in 1740 until his death in 1777, and who presided over the meeting, June 27, 1774, which appointed the first "Committee of Correspondence"--conveyed the tract of 200 acres surrounding the house to his son, Jacob Ford, junior, March 24, 1762. In 1768 he conveyed to him the Mount Hope mines and meadows where the son built the stone mansion still standing. In 1773 Jacob Ford, junior, rented this Mount Hope property for fifty years to John Jacob Faesch and David Wrisbery, and these men proceeded to build the furnace afterward useful to the patriot army in supplying it with cannon and cannon-balls. Colonel Jacob Ford, junior, after making this lease returned to Morristown, and, probably with his father's aid, began at once the erection of these Headquarters, and had just completed the building when the war broke out. He was made Colonel of the Eastern Battalion of the Morris County Militia and was detailed to cover Washington's retreat across New Jersey in the "mud rounds" of 1776--a service accomplished with honor and success. In this or in similar service, Colonel Ford contracted pneumonia, of which he died January 10, 1777, and was buried with military honors by order of Washington. He left a widow, Theodosia Ford, and five young children. She was the daughter of Rev. Timothy Johnes, whose pastorate of the First church extended from 1742 to 1794, and who is said to have administered the Communion to Washington. This lady in 1779-80 offered to Washington the hospitality of her house, and here was his Headquarters from about December 1, 1779 to June 1780. In 1805, Judge Gabriel H. Ford, one of the sons of Colonel Jacob, purchased his brothers' and sister's interest in the property and made it his home until his death in 1849. By his will dated January 27, 1848, Gabriel H. Ford, devised this, his homestead to his son, Henry A. Ford, who continued to occupy it until his death, which occurred April 22, 1872. From the heirs of Henry A. Ford title was derived to the four gentlemen who organized the Association, namely: Governor Theodore F. Randolph, Hon. George A. Halsey, General N. N. Halsted, and William Van Vleck Lidgerwood, Esq. Hon. John Whitehead. BIOGRAPHER AND HISTORIAN. Of Mr. Whitehead's new departure into the field of romance, we have already spoken and a portion of his story "A Fishing Trip to Barnegat", is given to represent him among "Novelists and Story Writers". His literary work of many years covers a variety of departments in literature. In the _Northern Monthly Magazine_ which began some years ago, as a periodical of high order we find running through several numbers a "History of the English Language", contributed by Mr. Whitehead, in which he starts from a true and philosophic premise. It is this: "It would be difficult to separate any one creation from the whole universe and pronounce that it is not subject to law." The reader discovers that these magazine articles contain the germs of all that has been written in many exhaustive works on the philosophy and growth of language. For a number of years, Mr. Whitehead was editor of _The Record_, a small sheet opened by the First Presbyterian Church of Morristown, the value of which historically increases with each year. For this, he wrote largely, sketches of prominent men of Revolutionary times and of others connected with the congregation of the church. Some important papers were contributed by him to the local press, including "A Review of Fitz John Porter's Case", in the Morristown _Banner_, also "Sketches of Morris County Lawyers". A series of "Sketches" was also published in the _Newark Sunday Call_, entitled "Newark Aforetime", referring to Newark and Newark people, fifty years ago. Many of Mr. Whitehead's speeches and addresses have been published, among them, those given at the Centennial Celebration of the First Presbyterian Church of Morristown; at the Centennial Celebration of the Presbyterian Church at Springfield, N. J.; two or three addresses before the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, and an address delivered two or three years ago before the Washington Association of N. J. Of the latter Association, Mr. Whitehead is an honored member as well as of the Historical Society of New Jersey. In the course of his study and writing, we have already mentioned among "Translators," Mr. Whitehead has made several valuable translations from German and French authors. We must not overlook one principal labor which is far more herculean than we, who are so greatly benefited by it, perhaps fully comprehend, namely, the Catalogue, in two volumes, of the Library, in which Morristown justly takes so much pride. This was a voluntary work. Mr. Whitehead is now engaged on a "History of Morris County", to form one chapter in a new illustrated "History of New Jersey," to be published by Colonel U. S. Sharp. He has also in preparation the "History of the First Presbyterian Church" of Morristown, in which will appear the interesting proceedings of the Centennial exercises, recently held there. A series of fine articles on "The Supreme Court of New Jersey" are now appearing in _The Green Bag_ of Boston. This _Green Bag_ is a magazine published in the interests of the legal fraternity, as from its significant name we see, and this magazine is the nearest approach so far made by Americans towards the traditional appendage of the English barrister, everywhere seen over the border in Canada, by which, it is well known, he is always accompanied when he goes to court and while he remains there in attendance. This bag contains his briefs, papers and other impedimenta connected with trials. It is not surprising, but it is touching, to find Boston holding on to this last hope of accomplishing that for which so many frantic efforts have been made in this country, only to meet with failure. The last article in this magazine, of the series on "The Supreme Court of New Jersey", is delightful in expression and in form; it has a fine large type, is illustrated with well-executed portraits of the judges, in group and singly, and is altogether most attractive and interesting. Bayard Tuckerman. Mr. Tuckerman, who resided for some time in Morristown, and whose ancestry is associated with artistic and literary taste and genius, is the author of "The Life of General Lafayette", published in 1889, during his residence in Morristown, and, a copy of which was presented by the author, in person, to the Morristown Library. Before this, he published a "History of English Prose Fiction", in 1882, and after it, in 1889 again, he edited "The Diary of Philip Hone". This author is now engaged on another book, to be published in the spring in the "Makers of America" series, with the title of "Peter Stuyvesant". "The Diary of Philip Hone" is a charming book, especially to those familiar with old New York. The editorship of any life requires a talent for selection and a gift for combining and drawing together much desultory matter, but when we consider that the two volumes, into which Mr. Tuckerman compressed his material were less than one-fourth the original diary, which fills twenty-eight quarto manuscript volumes, the herculean task is at once apparent. A critic in one of the popular journals says of it: "As a rule the diary needs little interpretation and it may be welcomed as an agreeable, gossipy contribution to civic annals, and as a pleasant record of a citizen of some distinction, parts and usefulness in his generation". In the "Life of General Lafayette", Mr. Tuckerman has evinced his superior love of industrious, conscientious study. The book is acknowledged to be essentially truthful and exceptionally just above anything ever written of Lafayette. It has been truly said of Mr. Tuckerman that "he tells the story of Lafayette's life in such a way that the interest increases as it proceeds" and that "he shows his skill as a biographer in this as in making both the narrative itself and his own criticism of the subject heighten our sympathy". He has not allowed himself to be turned from the actual statement of fact by that peculiar sentiment of the romantic side of Lafayette's career which has more or less colored the opinions of so many other biographers. Mr. Tuckerman himself says that "Lafayette's name has suffered more from the admiration of his friends than from the detraction of his enemies." FROM THE "LIFE OF GENERAL LAFAYETTE." The visit to America was supplemented in the following summer of 1785 by a journey through Germany and Austria. * * * * * Many distinguished officers were met. At one camp, as he (Lafayette) wrote to Washington, he found Lord Cornwallis, Colonels England, Abercrombie, and Musgrave; "on our side" Colonel Smith, Generals Duportail and Gouvion; "and we often remarked, Smith and I, that if we had been unfortunate in our struggle, we would have cut a poor figure there." Again; Writing from Valley Forge to the Comte de Broglie, he gave a sad picture of the poverty and sufferings of the army. "Everything here", he said, "combines to inspire disgust. At the smallest sign from you I shall return home". But the misery of Valley Forge never abated one jot of Lafayette's enthusiasm. The privations which he saw and shared only made him put his hand the more often into his own pocket, and redouble his efforts to obtain aid from the treasury of France. * * * * * To Lafayette, the happiest portion of this voyage to America was the time passed in the company of Washington. Hastening from New York immediately on his arrival, he allowed himself to be delayed only at Philadelphia. "There is no rest for me," he wrote thence to Washington, "until I go to Mt. Vernon. I long for the pleasure to embrace you, my dear general; in a few days I shall be at Mt. Vernon, and I do already feel delighted with so charming a prospect." Two weeks of a proud pleasure were then passed in the society of the man who was always to remain his beau ideal. To walk about the beautiful grounds of Mt. Vernon with its honored master, discussing his agricultural plans; to sit with him in his library, and listen to his hopes regarding the nation for which he had done so much, were honors which Lafayette fully appreciated. He has left on record the feelings of admiration with which he saw the man who had so long led a great people in a great struggle retire to private life, with no thought other than satisfaction at duty performed. And it was a legitimate source of pride to himself that he had enlisted under his standard before fortune had smiled upon it, and had worked with all his heart to crown it with victory. The two men thoroughly knew each other. The words of Lafayette will be found, in this volume, in the paper on "George Washington." * * * * * He (Washington) responded to Lafayette's demonstrative regard by a sincere paternal affection. Later in the summer, Lafayette met Washington again, and visited in his company some of the scenes of the late war. When the time for parting had come, Washington accompanied his guest as far as Annapolis in his carriage. There the two friends separated, not to meet again. On his return to Mt. Vernon, Washington added to his words of farewell, a letter in which occur the following passages; "In the moment of our separation, upon the road as I travelled, and every hour since, I have felt all that love, respect, and attachment for you, with which length of years, close connection and your merits have inspired me. I often asked myself, as our carriages separated, whether that was the last sight I ever should have of you, and though I wished to say no, my fears answered yes. I called to mind the days of my youth, and found they had long since fled, to return no more; that I was now descending the hill I had been fifty-two years climbing, and that, though I was blest with a good constitution, I was of a short-lived family, and might soon expect to be entombed in the mansion of my fathers. These thoughts darkened the shades and gave a gloom to the picture, and consequently to my prospect of seeing you again. But I will not repine; I have had my day. * * * * It is unnecessary, I persuade myself, to repeat to you, my dear Marquis, the sincerity of my regards and friendship; nor have I words which could express my affection for you, were I to attempt it. My fervent prayers are offered for your safe and pleasant passage, happy meeting with Madame de Lafayette and family, and the completion of every wish of your heart." To these words Lafayette replied from on board the "Nymphe," on the eve of his departure for France: "Adieu, adieu, my dear general. It is with inexpressible pain that I feel I am going to be severed from you by the Atlantic. Everything that admiration, respect, gratitude, friendship, and filial love can inspire is combined in my affectionate heart to devote me most tenderly to you. In your friendship I find a delight which words cannot express. Adieu, my dear general. It is not without emotion that I write this word, although I know I shall soon visit you again. Be attentive to your health. Let me hear from you every month. Adieu, adieu." Loyall Farragut. BIOGRAPHER. With Morristown is associated the beautiful memoir of our great Admiral, in honor of whom one of the streets of our city is named. In the old house now removed from its original position to the end of Farragut Place, this honored commander once visited for several days, walking over the ground now occupied by the houses of many families, delighted as a boy with everything in nature; noticing and observing the smallest detail of what was going on around him and interesting himself equally in the humblest individual who crossed his path and in the most distinguished visitor who asked to be presented. The "Life of David Glasgow Farragut" was written according to the admiral's expressed wish, by his only son, Loyall Farragut, who for a short time had, in Morristown, his summer home, and who presented to the Morristown Library a copy of his book. The Farraguts came from the island of Minorca, where the name is now extinct. In the volume referred to, we find these words: "George Farragut, father of the admiral was sent to school at Barcelona, but was seized with the spirit of adventure, and emigrated to America at an early age. He arrived in 1776, promptly sided with the colonists, and served gallantly in the struggle for independence, as also in the war of 1812. It is said that he saved the life of Colonel Washington in the battle of Cowpens." In reading this volume one is transported to the times and scenes described, and everywhere is felt the grandeur, beauty and simplicity of character of this truly great and lovable man. In the touching letter to his devoted wife, on the eve of the great battle, is seen, as an example to all men of future generations, the realization of a man's fidelity to the woman of his choice, even in the moment of greatest extremity, and the possibility of the tenderest heart existing side by side with the daring courage of one of the bravest men the world has ever seen. Wonderfully stirring are the descriptions given of the river fight on the Mississippi and of the battle of Mobile Bay, after which Admiral Farragut received from Secretary Welles the following congratulatory letter: "In the success which has attended your operations, you have illustrated the efficiency and irresistible power of a naval force led by a bold and vigorous mind and the insufficiency of any batteries to prevent the passage of a fleet thus led and commanded. You have, first on the Mississippi and recently in the bay of Mobile, demonstrated what had previously been doubted,--the ability of naval vessels, properly manned and commanded, to set at defiance the best constructed and most heavily armed fortifications. In these successive victories, you have encountered great risks, but the results have vindicated the wisdom of your policy and the daring valor of our officers and seamen." Josiah Collins Pumpelly. Mr. Pumpelly, long a resident of Morristown, claims our attention as a writer, rather than an author, as he has not been a publisher of books, beyond a collection of three Addresses in pamphlet form entitled "Our French Allies in the Revolution and Other Addresses". Several sketches entitled "Reminiscences of Colonial Days", and others of the same character, all involve considerable research and add to our literary possessions in connection with historic Morristown. His "Address on Washington", delivered before the Washington Association of New Jersey, at the Morristown Headquarters, February 22, 1888, was published by the Association, and has long been for sale there. Of this, the writer says, "I rejoice that even in this slight way, I can be of service to an Association whose faithful care of this home of Washington in the trying winter of 1779 and '80 deserves the lasting gratitude of every loyal Jerseyman." In closing this address, Mr. Pumpelly said, quoting from our favorite historian, Rev. Dr. Tuttle, "each old parish in our County had its heroes, and each old church was a shrine at which brave men and women bowed in God's fear, consecrating their all to their country." Mr. Pumpelly adds: "So instead of referring our children to Greek and Roman patriots, we have but to call up for them the names of our own men and women, who have here amid the hills of Morris, wrought out for us this heritage, so much grander, so much nobler than they themselves ever dreamed." This address is now bound in a larger pamphlet with "Our French Allies", to which we have referred and which was read before the New Jersey Historical Society, at Trenton, January 22d, 1889 and "Fort Stanwix and Battle of Oriskany", an address delivered before the Society of the Sons of the Revolution, in New York City, Dec. 3, 1888. There was an important paper read by Mr. Pumpelly before the New Jersey Society of the Sons of the Revolution, on June 10th, 1889, and by them adopted in their meeting of that date, and afterwards published, on "The Birthplace of our Immortal Washington and the Grave of his Illustrious Mother, shall they not be Sacredly Preserved?" Another address followed on "Joseph Warren" before the Massachusetts Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, on April 18th, 1890, on the occasion of the 114th Anniversary of the Battle of Lexington. He was then President of the New Jersey Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. A paper was read by request on "Mahlon Dickerson, Industrial Pioneer and old time Patriot," on January 27, 1891, before the New Jersey Historical Society. Mr. Pumpelly has also given much time and literary effort in philanthropic and sanitary directions. Many articles have appeared from time to time from his pen in behalf of reforms in the treatment of our dependent, delinquent, and defective classes, all tending to social economic improvement and, at one time, assisting materially the advance of the State Charities Aid Association of New Jersey of which he was for several years an active member. His attention is now being turned to the story of the Huguenots in this country. He is just completing a quite exhaustive paper upon the Huguenots in New Jersey, which is to be given by request before the Genealogical Society of New York, in January 1893, after which the subject is to be prepared by him for use in a school text-book. In _The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record_, of April 1892, is "A Short Sketch of the Character and Life of John Paul Jones", written in a most interesting and delightful manner and given before the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, January 8, 1892. We quote from WHAT DOES THE CAUSE OF HUMAN FREEDOM OWE TO THE HUGUENOT? In looking back over the milestones which mark in history the relapse and advance, the failure and the successes, of the principles of civilization, we note that at a certain period it was the Teutonic Nations which broke loose from Rome and the Latin Nations who adhered to the Pope. Also, that in France, opposition to Rome was early and considerable. Thus the Waldenses, Albigenses, and Lefevre and his colleagues were Huguenots and lovers of human freedom before the name itself was known--Calvinists before Calvin, Lutherans before Luther, Wiclyfites before Wiclyf. That great movement for the liberty of conscience and personal freedom, civil and religious, was not in France an importation, for God had deposited the first principles of the work in a few brave hearts of Picardy and Dauphiny before it had begun in any other country of the globe. Not to Switzerland nor to Germany belongs the honor of having been first in the work, but to France and the Huguenot. It was the voice of Lefevre, of Etaples, France, a man of great nobility of soul as well as genius of mind, which was to give the signal of the rising of this morning star of liberty. He it was who taught Farel, the great French reformer and "master-builder" with Luther. Hannah More Johnson. Miss Johnson's poem, "The Christmas Tree", has taken its place in our Poet's corner. She is also mentioned among _Novelists and Story-Writers_ for her well-known stories of "Lost Willie"; "Ella Dutton"; "Snow Drifts"; "Signal Lights", and "First the Blade" published by A. D. F. Randolph and by the Presbyterian Board. But perhaps her most important work is "Mexico, Past and Present", an excellent and charmingly written history of Mexico, a book of interest and importance, with sixty three maps and illustrations, treating not only the history, but the present condition and prospects of that country. This work is found in many libraries, and places Miss Johnson among our _Historians_. Miss Johnson is the daughter of Mr. Jacob Johnson and niece of our townsman, Mr. J. Henry Johnson, who was the last preceptor of the old Morris Academy. Though long a resident of Morristown, she now makes her home in Philadelphia where she is editor of a Missionary Publication. "I first thought of myself as a writer", says Miss Johnson, "when I saw my name for the first time in print and nearly fainted with fright. I have never recovered from that shock and not until I had had more than one collision with publishers have I consented to give my name to articles." Last September (1892) "Bible Lights in Mission Paths" was published: "The long interval between my first and my last book," says the author, "was filled with what seems to me the true work of my life." And it is curious how this work of life came to her quite unsought and unexpectedly. Let us hear it in her own words. "About twelve years ago," she tells us, "a relative became proprietor of a small religious weekly in Philadelphia, _The Presbyterian Journal_. I had the entire charge of the missionary department. Shortly afterward, the Presbyterian Alliance met in our city and the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, (of which I was and still am a Director), held in connection with that great convocation in the Academy of Music, an all-day meeting in one of the churches. Presbyterian women were there from every quarter of the world beside others from sister churches. At noon as I sat, talking over the programme for the afternoon with Mrs. A----, she said regretfully, 'I am afraid that we shall not be able to get these women to speak loud enough to be heard all over this great church. It would be delightful if we could have a full report.' 'I think I could get one up, Mrs. A----,' said I. 'I have been taking notes of the speeches all the morning and this afternoon we are to have written reports and papers.' 'I can get them all for you,' she said quickly. That night I went home laden with documents, three-fourths of them from the Old World. The _Journal_ publishers offered to send out an extra and send it to any address I gave. Within a week, this extra was mailed to every mission station throughout the world, which had been in any way represented at this woman's meeting or mentioned in its reports. Ever since that busy, busy week with French, English, Scotch, German, Italian, Belgian and Irish women, I have been a constant reporter of Missionary meetings. This led to a series of articles for Monthly Concerts, proposed for the use of pastors and other leaders of missionary meetings. Twelve articles a year for about four years, each one of which had cost months of research and study, I had time for nothing else. It was weary work. All roads led to Rome and I couldn't pick up a book or a daily that didn't give me an item or a suggestion. The nameless writer was generally supposed to be some Doctor of Divinity shelved with a sore throat or other ministerial disability. I remember one time when a carefully prepared article (of mine) on Siam appeared in _The Gospel of all Lands_, credited to _The London Missionary News_. It had been taken from the magazine in which it was first published, profusely illustrated and sent out as an English production." Besides this Miss Johnson has furnished monthly articles for various papers and occasional poems, for magazines. Thus we see her very busy life has been fruitful of unusual results. Mrs. Julia McNair Wright. Mrs. Wright has already been mentioned among _Novelists and Story-Writers_. For the following graphic sketch, we are indebted to one of our writers, Mrs. Julia R. Cutler. "One of the authors whose sojourn in our 'beautiful little town', as she calls it, was of a comparatively brief period, from 1881-'83, but whose writings, as showing deep research in many fields of thought, both scientific and historical, entitle her to more than a brief mention, is Mrs. Julia McNair Wright. "Her husband, the Rev. Dr. William J. Wright, is President of and, Professor of Metaphysics, in a Western College. Much of Mrs. Wright's time is spent in visiting different large cities, at home and abroad, where she can have access to libraries and gain information on various subjects connected with her books. "While in Morristown, she wrote, at the request of the Presbyterian Board of Publication, her book on "The Alaskans" and also a short work on the religious life, called "Mr. Standfast's Journey", besides preparing for the press a book entitled "Bricks from Babel", which she had previously written while visiting London and the British museum. The Rev. Joseph Cook fully endorses this book, and calls it 'a most admirable compendium of ethnography.' A set of religious biographies were, also, about this time, published in Arabic. "These works written and prepared for the press while she was occupying her quiet cottage home on Morris Plains, would alone have entitled her to a prominent place among the authors of whom Morristown has reason to be proud. But these are but a small portion of her literary labors. Judging from the number of books which appear over her signature, she must indeed be gifted with the 'pen of a ready writer.' "Among the more prominent works are 'The Early Church in Britain'; 'The Complete Home', of which over one hundred thousand copies have been sold; 'Saints and Sinners of the Bible'; 'Almost a Nun'; 'The Priest and Nun'; 'A Wife Hard Won', a novel published by Lippincott; 'The Making of Rasmus'; 'Rasmus a Made Man'; and 'Rag Fair and May Fair'. The last deals with social questions in England, and is being re-published in London, as indeed a number of her other books have been, as well as translated into the French language. "Mrs. Wright's latest work, completed during a recent visit to the British museum, is a Series of Readers on Natural Science, called 'Nature Readers, Seaside and Wayside', which are having a large run in this country, in England and in Canada and which are a new invention in school books. They have been more warmly received than any books for our schools, for the past twenty-five years. "Very few persons have the talent of dealing with so many subjects and doing it so well. Even the Temperance cause owes much to Mrs. Wright, as its earnest advocate, and many of her thrilling stories on this subject have touched the hearts and inspired the actions of those who have read them. Nor has she, amid her multitude of duties, forgotten the young, as the large number of volumes on the shelves of our Sabbath School libraries, bearing her name can testify. "May the pen Mrs. Wright has so wisely and deftly used, in the cause of education and humanity, long continue through her skillful hand, to trace its characters upon the hearts and minds of those with whom it comes in contact!" Mrs. Edwina L. Keasbey. Though Mrs. Keasbey has published a most attractive and useful book, full of practical thoughts idealized, yet we place her and Mrs. Stockton in this grouping for the reason that a large part of her writing was of this character, on the whole. Much of it was graphically descriptive of scenes in foreign lands and at home, usually accompanied with reflections which indicate the _Essay_ character. Like others of our writers, there is a variety in her writing and choice of subjects which makes it somewhat difficult to place her with exactness. Most of Mrs. Keasbey's writing was originally done for _The Hospital Review_, a paper edited by her, during eleven years, for the St. Barnabas Hospital, which was founded largely through her efforts and influence and was a work to which she devoted her life. For this was written a series of papers entitled "A Lame Woman's Tramp through some Alpine Passes", and "Bits of English Scenery Sketched by a Lame Hand", among which is a fine and vivid picture of the first sight of Durham Cathedral. So, for this _Hospital Review_ were originally written the papers now collected and bound in one of the prettiest little volumes one could desire, convenient in size, artistic in design and with clear, large type and broad margins. This is entitled "The Culture of the Cradle". In the education of children, Mrs. Keasbey has found the key and basis of all true and reasonable training, in the development of the child's individuality. The object of this book is to suggest the meaning and purpose of true culture and to show how it must begin with the cradle and, says the author, "to give some suggestions and leaves from experience that may be of use to those who are striving to begin, in the right way, the education of their children." The book, published in 1886, has had a large sale and the entire proceeds have been devoted to the Hospital of St. Barnabas, which the author so much loved. Mrs. Keasbey was the eldest daughter of the Hon. J. W. Miller, and she inherited well her intense love of good works from her honored mother, who was so long identified with Morristown's philanthropic and charitable work. She was born in the old Macculloch mansion on Macculloch Avenue and lived there till her marriage in 1854, after which her literary qualities and rare executive abilities went to adorn the city of Newark where she will be tenderly remembered, and where her works live after her. FROM "THE CULTURE OF THE CRADLE." As I sit by my window on this beautiful spring day, preparing my article upon "The Nurture of Infants," a pair of little birds are building their nest in the vine that grows about my piazza, so I take my text from them. How busy they are, how absorbed in their work! The whole world contains for them no other point of interest, but only this little crotch in the vine which they have chosen to build their cradle in for their future little ones. We may be quite sure that it is the best spot in the whole vine, not too shady or too sunny, just happily out of the reach of cruel cat or mischievous boys, and then the cradle will be so perfect, strong enough to resist the winds that shake the vine, and covered enough to withstand the spring rains, and warm enough to shelter the little ones as they crack the shell; and so comfortable with its soft padding of cotton and down to cherish and protect the little tender bodies when they come into this cold world. I think it is nearly finished to-day, for the little mother has settled herself down into it and nestled herself in it and picked off her own soft down, and stuffed it in with the cotton that she had lined the nest with. She looks so satisfied and content, as if she would say, "it is quite ready now for my little darlings." With this little mother there is no word of complaint or selfish murmur though she is going to sit in that nest for many a long day and dark night, through storm and sunshine, until the little ones come forth from their eggs to gladden her heart and repay her care and work of preparation. Can we mothers have a better teacher or a wiser example than this little bird, whose lessons in motherhood have come to her direct from her Creator? Mrs. Marian E. Stockton. As to Mrs. Stockton's charming pen, we must reluctantly refrain from noticing her many essays and writings in various directions, principally prepared at the request of literary societies and other organizations,--always read by some one else, owing to the writer's great dislike for coming into public notice, and always published, and sent about, by the Society or group of people for whom they were written. The title of this book compels us, however, to mention this gifted woman's name, and we give below an extract from one delightful paper, written as usual by request for an important occasion, read by a distinguished literary woman, and as usual published. FROM "HOME AND SOCIETY." It may help to a proper understanding of the line of thought followed in this paper if I state in the beginning that it is, chiefly, an attempt to get a definite answer to the question so often asked: What is Society? It is an effort to arrive at a conclusion which the majority of American women may be willing to accept. Otherwise we shall find ourselves so beset with perplexities that we shall not be able to get anything out of our subject. For most persons have very vague ideas regarding society, and would find it difficult to express them. I have tried to get at the ideas of a few persons who might be supposed to know, with but small result. One says: "It is a limited company of persons of wealth and leisure who give up their time chiefly to entertainments and pleasure." This view of the subject suggests the familiar advertisements of a certain soap, reversing the sign; for taking out the pure article--_i. e._, the persons composing this society--we would have 99 44-100 of the people of the United States with no society at all. _So very little_ of the pure article will, I think, scarcely suffice to float this definition. Another says: "It is a collection of the best people in a city or neighborhood who give a tone to the place." This is better, but calls forth other questions. Whom do you mean by the "best people"? What is "tone"? What sort of "tone" do they give? New York, New Orleans, and Poker Flat would give widely different answers to these questions. Another defines it as "a number, large or small, of cultured people." This conveys a charming idea to the mind, but it is too limited, for we are considering to-day society in its broadest as well as its best aspects; and, surely, we would none of us be willing to deny to good-hearted, honest, decent people, the pleasure of forming a society of their own kind, and enjoying it in a rational--if uncultured--fashion. We want to-day to get hold of a comprehensive idea of society. Last summer, at a fashionable resort, I heard some New York ladies speaking, with admiration, of another lady in the hotel, and one exclaimed: "What a pity she is not in Society!" To this they all agreed, and another kindly asked: "Can't we do something to help her to know people?" As I knew this lady, and was aware of the fact that, when she returned to the city at the beginning of every season, she sent out cards to six hundred people, I was much surprised; for, if visiting and being visited by six hundred people is not being "in society", I do not know what is. Therefore, I could only infer that she was not in their special coterie. A very intelligent woman once told me frankly, that she could not imagine anything that could be called society outside the City of New York. Again I was told, some time ago, by a literary lady who was then residing in this city (but who is not here now): "Literary people are not recognized in New York society." I use her own words and they puzzled me. Soon after, there chanced to fall in my way a description of New York life by a Frenchman who had been entertained by all sorts of people. He stated that the most charming society in this city is the literary society, and he proceeded to paint it in glowing colors. Between the literary lady on one side and Max O'Rell on the other, I gave up that conundrum. These few examples of misconceptions and wrong-headedness in regard to what society really is will suffice to show how necessary it is to get a clear and comprehensive definition for it. To get this we must disentangle ourselves from all these figments, go back, and enter through the gate which naturally leads into society. TRAVELS AND PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. Marquis de Chastellux. The Marquis de Chastellux, counted in France a clever historian, is considered by us as a traveler, for he was one of the earliest French travelers in North America and, on his return to France, published a book entitled "Travels in North America in the years 1780, 1781 and 1782, by the Marquis de Chastellux, one of the Forty Members of the French Academy, and Major General in the French Army, serving under the Count de Rochambeau." This book was published in 1787 in London. In it we find the most graphic descriptions of the soldiers and officers of the Revolution, of West Point in its character of a military outpost; of the road between it and Morristown; of the beauty and grandeur of the Hudson River, as it burst for the first time upon his vision; of several interviews, visits and dinners with Washington and Lafayette, always giving his impressions in a unique and original way and with a sprinkle of humor which keeps a continuous smile upon the lips of the reader as he progresses in this remarkable narrative. It is really most difficult to choose from this fascinating book, for the short space we can allow. In speaking of his arrival here he refers to the _Arnold Tavern_, which may still be seen, removed from its original location but restored with great care, (though enlarged), and is now standing on Mt. Kemble Avenue, the old "Baskingridge Road" of the Revolution. He says: "I intended stopping at Morris Town only to bait my horses, for it was only half past two, but on entering the inn of Mr. Arnold, I saw a dining room adorned with looking glasses and handsome mahogany furniture and a table spread for twelve persons. I learnt that all this preparation was for me and what affected me more nearly was to see a dinner corresponding with the appearances, ready to serve up. I was indebted for this to the goodness of General Washington and the precautions of Colonel Moyland who had sent before to acquaint them with my arrival. It would have been very ungenerous to have accepted this dinner at the expenses of Mr. Arnold who is an honest man and a good Whig and who has not a particle in common with Benedict Arnold; it would have been still more awkward to have paid for the banquet without eating it. I therefore instantly determined to dine and sleep in this comfortable inn. The Vicomte de Noailles, the Comte de Damas, &c., were expected to make up the dozen." Chastellux apparently came as a passing traveler and seems to have been induced to prolong his stay and during that time gives us very graphic and interesting glimpses, to which we have referred, of the General and his officers, dinners at which he was present, reviews of troops, the army itself and its condition, with passing reflections about the country and the manners and customs of the time. Among the latter remarks, he observes: "Here, as in England, by _gentleman_ is understood a person possessing a considerable _freehold_, or land of his own." Of the officers, he says: "I must observe on this occasion the General Officers of the American Army have a very military and a very becoming carriage; that even all the officers, whose characters were brought into public view, unite much politeness to a great deal of capacity; that the headquarters of this army, in short, neither present the image of want nor inexperience. When one sees the battalion of the General's Guards encamped within the precincts of his house; nine waggons, destined to carry his baggage, ranged in his court; a great number of grooms taking care of very fine horses belonging to the General Officers and their Aides de Camp; when one observes the perfect order that reigns within these precincts, where the guards are exactly stationed, and where the drums beat an alarm, and a particular retreat, one is tempted to apply to the Americans what Pyrrhus said of the Romans: _Truly these people have nothing barbarous in their discipline._" Of his coming to Morristown, he says: "I pursued my journey, sometimes through fine woods at others through well cultivated lands and villages inhabited by Dutch families. One of these villages, which forms a little township bears the beautiful name of _Troy_. Here the country is more open and continues so to _Morris-Town_. This town celebrated by the winter quarters of 1779, is about three and twenty miles from Peakness, the name of the headquarters from whence I came: It is situated on a height, at the foot of which runs the rivulet called Vipenny River; the houses are handsome and well built, there are about sixty or eighty round the meeting-house." The Marquis tells of his reception at the Camp of Lafayette and, in giving us his picture, he gives us also what is of value to us in this day,--a Frenchman's impression of Lafayette in America: "Whilst they were making this slight repast, I went to see the Camp of the _Marquis_, it is thus they call M. de La Fayette: the English language being fond of abridgments and titles uncommon in America." Here, our eye is attracted to a note of the Translator, (an Englishman residing in America,)--who says, with much more besides: "It is impossible to paint the esteem and affection with which this French nobleman is regarded in America. It is to be surpassed only by the love of their illustrious chief." "The rain appearing to cease," continues the Marquis, "or inclined to cease for a moment, we availed ourselves of the opportunity to follow his Excellency to the Camp of the Marquis; we found all his troops in order of battle, on the heights on the left, and himself at their head; expressing by his air and countenance, that he was happier in receiving me there, than at his estate in Auvergne. The confidence and attachment of the troops, are for him invaluable possessions, well acquired riches, of which no body can deprive him; but what, in my opinion, is still more flattering for a young man of his age, is the influence, the consideration he has acquired amongst the political, as well as the military order; I do not fear contradictions when I say that private letters from him have frequently produced more effect on some states than the strongest exhortations of the Congress. On seeing him one is at a loss which most to admire, that so young a man as he should have given such eminent proofs of talents, or that a man so tried, should give hopes of so long a career of glory." His impression of the Hudson at West Point, will interest us all: "I continued my journey in the woods, in a road hemmed in on both sides by very steep hills which seemed admirably adapted for the dwelling of bears, and where, in fact, they often make their appearance in Winter. We availed ourselves at length of a less difficult part of these mountains to turn to the westward and approach the river but which is still invisible. Descending them slowly, at the turning of the road, my eyes were struck with the most magnificent picture I had ever beheld. It was a view of the North River, running in a deep channel, formed by the mountains, through which, in former ages it had forced its passage. The fort of West Point and the formidable batteries which defend it fix the attention on the Western bank, but on lifting your eyes, you behold on every side lofty summits, thick set with redoubts and batteries." One more passage we must give in this day of Morristown's horsemanship; in this year of '92 when all young Morristown is jumping fences and ditches in pursuit of the fox or the fox's representative. It is Chastellux's reference to Washington's horsemanship: "The weather being fair, on the 26th I got on horseback, after breakfasting with the General. He was so attentive as to give me the horse he rode on the day of my arrival, which I had greatly commended; I found him as good as he is handsome; but above all perfectly well broke, and well trained, having a good mouth, easy in hand, and stopping short in a gallop without bearing the bit. I mention these minute particulars, because it is the General himself who breaks all his own horses; and he is a very excellent and bold horseman, leaping the highest fences, and going extremely quick, without standing upon his stirrups, bearing on the bridle, or letting his horse run wild; circumstances which our young men look upon as so essential a part of English horsemanship, that they would rather break a leg or an arm than renounce them." John L. Stephens. Over fifty years ago, a traveler in Central America, Mr. John L. Stephens, records a curious and interesting allusion to Morristown, which we give below, from one of his two volumes of "Incidents of Travel in Central America and Yucatan"; 12th Edition; published in 1856. He says: "In the midst of the war rumours, the next day, which was Sunday, was one of the most quiet I passed in Central America. It was at the hacienda of Dr. Drivon, about a league from Zonzonate. This was one of the finest haciendas in the country. The doctor had imported a large sugar mill, which was not yet set up, and was preparing to manufacture sugar upon a larger scale than any other planter in the country. He was from the island of St. Lucie and, before settling in this out-of-the-way place, had travelled extensively in Europe and the West India Islands and knew America from Halifax to Cape Horn, but surprised me by saying that he looked forward to a cottage in Morristown, New Jersey, as the consummation of his wishes." Hon. Charles S. Washburn. Mr. Washburn who lived for several years in Morristown, was the brother of our late Minister to France. His most popular work is "The History of Paraguay," in two volumes, written while he was Commissioner and Minister Resident of the United States at Asuncion from 1861 to 1868. The writer may truly add on his title page, "Reminiscences of Diplomacy under Difficulties." As is well known, Mr. Washburn was minister to Paraguay under Lopez, one of the three most noted tyrants of South America, whose character is admirably brought out in this history of the country. His description of Lopez is most graphic. The work is so exhaustive that we get up from it with a feeling, "We know Paraguay". Besides this "History of Paraguay", Mr. Washburn has also written "Gomery of Montgomery", in two volumes and "Political Evolution from Poverty to Competence". At the close of the first volume, we find a masterly summing up of the singular character of Lopez, in these words: "Previous to the death of Lopez, history furnishes no example of a tyrant so despicable and cruel that at his fall he left no friend among his own people; no apologist or defender, no follower or participant of his infamies, to utter one word in palliation of his crimes; no one to regret his death, or who cherished the least spark of love for his person or his memory; no one to utter a prayer for the repose of his soul. In this respect, Lopez had surpassed all tyrants who ever lived. No sooner was he dead, than all alike, the officer high in command, the subaltern who applied the torture, the soldier who passively obeyed, the mother who bore him, and the sisters who once loved him, all joined in denouncing him as an unparalleled monster; and of the whole Paraguayan nation there is perhaps not one of the survivors who does not curse his name, and ascribe to his folly, selfishness, ambition and cruelty all the evils that his unhappy country has suffered. Not a family remains which does not charge him with having destroyed the larger part of its members and reduced the survivors to misery and want. Of all those who were within reach of his death-dealing hand during the last years of his power, there are but two persons living to say a word in mitigation of the judgment pronounced against him by his countrymen and country-women." General Joseph Warren Revere. The late General Revere, one of Morristown's old and well-known residents, wrote, at the close of his military and naval career, a graphic and interesting book of travels entitled "Keel and Saddle; a Retrospect of Forty Years of Military and Naval Service"; published in 1872 by James R. Osgood of Boston. Another book appeared later, called "A Tour of Duty in California." General Revere tells us in "Keel and Saddle" that he entered the United States Navy at the age of fourteen years as a midshipman and, after a short term spent at the Naval School at the New York Navy Yard, he sailed on his first cruise to the Pacific Ocean on board the frigate "Guerrière", "bearing the pennant of Com. Charles C. B. Thompson, in the summer of the year 1828." For three years he served in the Pacific Squadron. After cruising in many waters and experiencing the various vicissitudes of naval life, in 1832 he passed his examination for lieutenant and sailed in the frigate "Constitution" for France. During this Mediterranean cruise, when he made his first visit to Rome, he saw Madame Letitia, mother of the first Napoleon, by whom he was received with a small party of American officers. We shall give this scene as he describes it. In this book, "Keel and Saddle", (page 140) occurs a very fine description of a great oceanic disturbance known to mariners in Southern seas as a "comber", or great wave. Suddenly encountered, it causes the destruction of many vessels. Of Madame Letitia, in 1832 he writes as follows: "Madame Mère or Madame Letitia, as she was usually called, being requested to grant an interview to a small party of American officers, of which I was one, graciously assented, and fixed a day for the reception at the palace she occupied. "Repairing thither at the hour appointed, after a short detention in a spacious ante-chamber, we were ushered into one of those lofty saloons common to Italian palaces, handsomely, not gorgeously furnished, and opening by spacious windows into a beautiful garden. There, with her back towards the subdued light from the windows, we saw an elderly lady reclining on a sofa, in a graceful attitude of repose. She was attended by three ladies, who all remained standing during our visit. In the recess of one of the windows, on a tall pedestal of antique marble, stood a magnificent bust of the emperor; while upon the walls of the saloon, in elegant frames, were hung the portraits of her children, all of whom had been kings and queens--of royal rank though not of royal lineage. Madame Letitia received us with perfect courtesy, without rising from her reclining position; motioning us gracefully to seats with a polite gesture of a hand and arm still of noble contour and dazzling whiteness. It was easy to see where the emperor got his small white hands, of which he was so vain, as we are told; while the classic regularity of his well-known features was clearly traceable in the lineaments of the lady before us. Her head was covered with a cap of lace; and her somewhat haughty but expressive face, beaming with intelligence, was framed in clustering curls _a l'antique_. Her eyes were brilliant, large and piercing, (I think they could hardly have been more so in her youth); and the lines of her mouth and chin gave an expression of firmness, courage and determination to a fine physiognomy perfectly in character with the historical antecedents and attributes of Letitia Ramolini. Of the rest of her dress, we saw but little; her bust being covered by a lace handkerchief crossed over the bosom, and her dark silk robe partially concealed by a superb cashmere shawl thrown over the lower part of her person. She opened the conversation by making some complimentary remark about our country; asking after her son Joseph, who resided then at Bordentown, N. J.; and seemed pleased at receiving news of him from one of our party, who had seen him not long before. She asked this officer whether the King (_le roi d'Espagne_) still resembled the portrait in her possession which was a very fine one; and upon our asking permission to examine the bust of the emperor, the greatest of her sons, told us that it was considered a fine work of art, it being, indeed, from the chisel of Canova; adding, I fancied with a little sigh of melancholy, 'Il resemble beaucoup a l'empereur.' After some further commonplaces, she signified in the most delicate and dignified manner, more by looks than by words, addressed to the ladies of our party, referring to her rather weak state of health, that the interview should terminate; and, having made our obeisance, we left her." Henry Day. In 1874, an interesting volume of travels appeared, entitled "A Lawyer Abroad. What to See and How to See: by Henry Day, of the Bar of New York." Mr. Day's house "On the Hill", with its superb view, is occupied only in summer; but year after year, with the birds and the spring sunshine, he returns to us from his home in New York, so he is thoroughly associated with Morristown. His book, unlike a large majority of "Travels" is not merely a "Tourist's Guide" or a series of descriptive sketches hung together by commonplace reflections, and interlarded with meaningless drawing-room or roadside dialogue. Evidently, it is written with a high purpose and it is rich in valuable information concerning men and things, as if the writer himself were in living touch with the best interests of humanity whether found in the cities of Egypt, among the learned and polished minds of Edinburgh or in the Wynds of Glasgow, of which he so graphically says: "They are now long filthy, airless lanes, packed with buildings on each side and each building packed with human beings; and, geographically as well as morally they receive the drainage of all the surrounding city of Glasgow." Here it was in the old Tron Church that Dr. Chalmers did his finest preaching and his most effective practical work. Mr. Day has an evident loving sympathy with the great Scotch preacher, quite apart from the intellectual qualities of his gigantic mind. In these few condensed pages, Mr. Day has given us a more compact idea of Dr. Chalmer's work than may be found in many elaborated chapters of his life. The chapter upon "The Lawyers and Judges of England" is one of exceptional interest to those in the profession, as well as to those out of it, and this is one unique quality of the book--that we have given to us the impressions of a traveler from a lawyer's standpoint, not only in England, but in Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Greece, Turkey, Egypt and the Holy Land. And, not only from a lawyer's standpoint does he see the world, but evidently from the standpoint of a man of high general culture whose spiritual and religious sentiments and principles enlighten and illuminate his understanding. In the chapter on "The Early Life of Great Men", speaking of Edinburgh, he says: "Everything gives you the feeling that you are among the most learned and polished minds of the present and past generations. It is not business or wealth that has given to Edinburgh its prominence. It is learning; it is its great men." One of Mr. Day's finest descriptions is found in his chapter on the Nile. In 1877 this author published, through Putnams' Sons, a book having the title "From the Pyrenees to the Pillars of Hercules", giving sketches of scenery, art and life in Spain. Mr. Day has also written a good deal for a few years past for publication in the _New York Evangelist_ on the great questions now agitating the Presbyterian church, namely, the revision of its creed called "The Confession of Faith" and also on the Briggs case and the Union Theological Seminary case. Mr. Day wisely says; "this newspaper writing can hardly be called authorship although the articles are more important than the books." THEOLOGIANS. Rev. Timothy Johnes, D. D. Of the historic characters of Morristown, none are more prominent than the Rev. Dr. Johnes, who began his pastorate in the old Meeting House of Morristown which was probably reared before his coming. His labors began August 13th, 1742. He was ordained and installed February 9th, 1743, and continued pastor through the scenes of the Revolution till his death in 1791. He was the friend of Washington and supported him effectually in many of the measures he adopted in which his strong influence with the community was of great weight and value. It was the daughter of Rev. Dr. Johnes, Theodosia, who married Col. Jacob Ford, jr., who lived at what is now known as the Washington Headquarters and offered the hospitality of her mansion to Washington during his second winter at Morristown. He also offered the Presbyterian church building for hospital use during the terrible scourge of small-pox,--himself acting as chief nurse to the soldiers,--and, with his congregation, worshipped for many months in the open air, on a spot still shown behind his house, on Morris street, which is standing to-day, and now owned and occupied by Mrs. Eugene Ayers. It was on this spot, in a natural basin which the congregation occupied as being somewhat sheltered from the bitter winds of winter, and which may still be seen, that good Pastor Johnes administered the Communion to Washington. "This was the only time," says Rev. Dr. Green, in his "Morristown" in the "History of Morris County", after his entrance upon his public career, that Washington is certainly known to have partaken of the Lord's Supper. In _The Record_ for June and August, 1880, we find a full account of this historic incident. As the Communion time drew near, Washington sought good Pastor Johnes, we are told, and inquired of him, if membership of the Presbyterian church was required "As a term of admission to the ordinance." To this the doctor replied, "ours is not the Presbyterian table, but the Lord's table, and we hence give the Lord's invitation to all his followers of whatever name." "On the following Sabbath," says Dr. Green, "in the cold air, the General was present with the congregation, assembled in the orchard in the rear of the parsonage", on the spot before referred to, "and joined with them in the solemn service of Communion." In the family of good Pastor Johnes, a granddaughter of whom, Mrs. O. L. Kirtland, is with us still, the last of a large number of brothers and sisters, it has been known for generations that they originated in Wales. We have from Mrs. Kirtland's granddaughter the following interesting record: "Rev. Timothy Johnes came to Morristown, N. J., from Southampton about 1742. His great-great-grandfather, Richard Johnes, of Somerset, Eng., descended from a younger branch of the Johnes of Dolancotlie in Caemarthenshire, Wales, came over and settled in Charleston, Mass., in 1630, was made constable, and had 'Mr.' before his name, an honor in those days. He went to live at Southampton, L. I., in 1644, and he and his descendants held important positions there for nearly two hundred years. Burke's _Landed Gentry_ states that the Johnes were descended from Urien Reged, one of King Arthur's Knights, and who built the Castle Caer Caenin, and traced descent back to Godebog, King of Britain. But accurate record must begin at a later date, when William Johnes, in the reign of Elizabeth, was Commander on the 'Crane' and killed in a battle against the Spanish Armada." Rev. Timothy Johnes, D. D., was the great-great-grandson of the first Johnes who arrived in this country. Rev. Timothy graduated at Yale in 1737; was born in 1717 and died in 1794. He received many ordination calls while at Southampton, Long Island, and was perplexed as to which one to accept, so "he referred the matter, says the great-great-granddaughter before referred to," to Providence, deciding to accept the next one made. He had not risen from his knees more than twenty minutes, when two old men came to his house and asked him to become pastor of a small congregation that had collected at Morristown, then called by the Indian tongue Rockciticus. When nearly here, after traveling long in the forest, he inquired of his guides: "Where is Rockciticus?" "Here and there and every where," was the reply, and so it was, scattered through the woods. Of Dr. Johnes' children,--Theodosia, as we have stated, was the hostess of Washington at the Ford mansion, her home, and now the Washington Headquarters. Anna, the eldest daughter, married Joseph Lewis and is the ancestress of one of our distinguished authors, the Rev. Theodore Ledyard Cuyler, D. D. The daughter of this Anna Lewis, married Charles Morrell and they occupied the house of Mr. Wm. L. King on Morris St., and there entertained Lafayette as their guest in the winter of '79 and '80. Their daughter, Louisa married Ledyard Cuyler and they had a son, Theodore Ledyard Cuyler, well-known to us and to all the world. Mary Anna, a grand daughter, married Mr. Williams, of Newburg, and others of the family followed there. They pronounce the name _John_-es, giving up the long _o_ (Jones), of the old Doctor's sounding of the name. A grandson, Frank, went west and had a large family who are more or less distinguished in Decatur, Illinois. They omit the _e_ in the name and call themselves Johns. It is only in Morristown that the family retain the original spelling of Johnes and pronunciation of _Jones_. The son of the old Doctor, William, remained in the old house, and there brought up a large family of whom the above two, named, were members, also Mrs. Kirtland, who is still with us, with her daughter and grandchildren, and Mrs. Alfred Canfield, who long lived among us but has passed away. One of the old Doctor's sons was named, as we might expect, George Washington and was the grandfather of Mrs. Theodore Little, and built the old house on the hill near our beautiful Evergreen Cemetery. This house was built soon after Washington's occupation of Morristown, and the large place including the ancient house has lately been sold and will soon be laid out in streets and lots, as the demand comes from the increasing population of our city. Fortunate are we to have so many of the old land-marks left to us! Mrs. Woodruff, the step-mother, honored and beloved, of Mrs. Whelpley Dodge, was also a daughter of old Doctor Johnes. Another son of the old Doctor was Dr. John B. Johnes, who built the house with columns opposite the old place, still standing, and there he lived and died, high in his profession, greatly honored and beloved. His daughter Margaret, was the step-mother of another of our distinguished men and writers, the Rev. Arthur Mitchell, D. D. And so we find this ancient family from Wales, the land of the poetic Celts, and many of whom are yet living in that corner of the world from which these came, still sending on their influence and maintaining their high standard of principle and honor, which characterized good Pastor Johnes, during the fifty-four years of his ministry in Morristown. Rev. James Richards, D. D. The Rev. Dr. Richards, who was settled as the third pastor over the First Church of Morristown, May 1st, 1795, was a theological author, many of whose sermons and other writings are published, and later, he was professor of theology in the Auburn theological seminary. Dr. Richards, like Dr. Johnes, was of Welsh descent. His salary was $440, in quarterly payments, the use of the parsonage, and firewood. To supplement this income, resort was had to a "wood-frolick", which was, we are told, a great event in the parish and to which the men brought the minister's years' supply of fuel and for which the ladies prepared a supper. The "spinning visit" was another feature of his pastorate, on which occasion were brought various amounts of "linen thread, yard and cloth". The thread brought, being not always of the same texture and size, it was often a puzzle indeed to the weaver to "make the cloth and finish it alike". At last the meagreness of this pastor's salary proved so great a perplexity, especially as his expenses were increasing with his growing family, that he gave up the problem, and went to Newark, N. J., accepting a call from the First Presbyterian Church there, from which, after fifteen years, he went as professor of theology to the Auburn Seminary, where he remained until his death in 1843. Rev. Albert Barnes. Fifth in order of these early divines of the Morristown's First Church, is the Rev. Albert Barnes. He occupied this pastorate from 1825 to June 1830. It was here that he preached, in 1829, that remarkable sermon, "The Way of Salvation", which was the entering wedge that prepared the way for the unfortunate division among the Presbyterians into the two schools Old and New, which division and the names attached to each side, it may gladly be said, came to an end by a happy union of the two branches, a few years ago. The Rev. Albert Barnes was also a pioneer of the Temperance movement in Morristown and his eloquence and influence in this cause resulted in the closing of several distilleries. From Morristown he was called to Philadelphia, where he passed through his severest trials. It is needless to mention that he was a voluminous writer and that he has made a world-wide reputation by his valuable "Notes on the Gospels", so well-known to all Biblical scholars. Rev. Mr. Henderson of London says: "I consider Barnes 'Notes on the New Testament' to be one of the most valuable boons bestowed in these latter days upon the Church of Christ." And the Rev. David King of Glasgow says: "The primary design of the Rev. Albert Barnes' books is to furnish Sunday School teachers with plain and simple explanations of common difficulties." We are impressed with the rare modesty of so eminent a writer and distinguished divine when he read that the Rev. Albert Barnes several times refused the title of "D. D.", from conscientious motives. Among the celebrated sermons and addresses published by this author was one very powerful sermon on "The Sovereignty of God", and also an "Address delivered July 4th, 1827," at the Presbyterian church, Morristown. In the "Advertisement" or preface, to the former, the author says in pungent words: "It was written during the haste of a weekly preparation for the Sabbath and is not supposed to contain anything new on the subject. * * * The only wonder is that it (the very plain doctrine of the Bible) should ever have been called in question or disputed--or that in a world where man's life and peace and hopes, all depend on the truth that GOD REIGNS, such a doctrine _should have ever needed any demonstration_." The condition of Morristown when Mr. Barnes came into the pastorate, in respect of intemperance was almost beyond the power of imagination, serious, as the evil seems to us at the present day. He found "drinking customs in vogue and distilleries dotted all over the parish." Fearlessly he set himself to stem this evil, which indeed he did succeed in arresting to a large extent. His "Essays on Temperance" are marvellous productions, as full of fire and energy and the power of conviction to-day as when first issued from the press, and these addresses were so powerful in their effect on the community that "soon," says our historian, Rev. Dr. Green, "seventeen (of the 19) distilleries were closed and not long after his departure, the fires of the other two went out." In the course of one of his arguments, he says: "There are many, flitting in pleasure at an imagined rather than a real distance, who may be saved from entering the place of the wretched dying, and of the horrid dead. Here I wish to take my stand. I wish to tell the mode in which men become abandoned. In the language of a far better moralist and reprover than I am (Dr. Lyman Beecher), I wish to lay down a chart of this way to destruction, and to rear a monument of warning upon every spot where a wayfaring man has been ensnared and destroyed. "I commence with the position that no man probably ever became designedly a drunkard. I mean that no man ever sat down coolly and looked at the redness of eyes, the haggardness of aspect, the weakness of limbs, the nausea of stomach, the profaneness and obscenity and babbling of a drunkard and deliberately desired all these. I shall be slow to believe that it is in human nature to wish to plunge into all this wretchedness. Why is it then that men become drunkards? I answer it is because the vice steals on them silently. It fastens on them unawares, and they find themselves wallowing in all this corruption, before they think of danger." The power and beauty of Mr. Barnes' most celebrated sermon on "The Way of Salvation", impresses the reader, from page to page. Towards the close, he says: FROM "THE PLAN OF SALVATION." "The scheme of salvation, I regard, as offered to the _world_, as free as the light of heaven, or the rains that burst on the mountains, or the full swelling of broad rivers and streams, or the heavings of the deep. And though millions do not receive it--though in regard to them the benefits of the plan are lost, and to them, in a certain sense, the plan may be said to be in vain, yet I see in this the hand of the same God that pours the rays of noonday on barren sands and genial showers on desert rocks, and gives life, bubbling springs and flowers, where no man is in _our_ eyes, yet not to _His, in vain_. So is the offer of eternal life, to every man here, to every man everywhere, sincere and full--an offer that though it may produce no emotions in the sinner's bosom _here_, would send a thrill of joy through all the panting bosoms of the suffering damned." Rev. Samuel Whelpley. Rev. Mr. Whelpley became Principal of the Morristown Academy in 1797 and remained until 1805. He came from New England and was originally a Baptist, but in Morristown he gave up the plan which he had cherished of becoming a Baptist minister and united with the Presbyterian church. In 1803, he gave his reasons for this change of views, publicly, in a "Discourse delivered in the First Church" and published. His "Historical Compend" is one of his important works. It contains, "A brief survey of the great line of history from the earliest time to the present day, together with a general view of the world with respect to Civilization, Religion and Government, and a brief dissertation on the importance of historical knowledge." This was issued in two volumes "By Samuel Whelpley, A. M., Principal of Morris Academy" and was printed by Henry P. Russell and dedicated to Rev. Samuel Miller, D. D. This author was not, by-the-way, the father of Chief Justice Whelpley, of Morristown, who also is noticed in this book, but was the cousin of his father, Dr. William A. Whelpley, a practicing physician here. "Lectures on Ancient History, together with an allegory of Genius and Taste" was another of Mr. Whelpley's books. Among his works, perhaps the most celebrated was, and is, "The Triangle", a theological work which is "A Series of numbers upon Three Theological Points, enforced from Various Pulpits in the City of New York." This was published in 1817, and a new edition in 1832. In this work, says Hon. Edmund D. Halsey, the leaders and views of what was long afterward known as the Old School Theology were keenly criticised and ridiculed. The book caused a great sensation in its day and did not a little toward hastening the division in the Presbyterian Church into Old and New School. This book was published without his name, by "Investigator". In it the author says: FROM "THE TRIANGLE." "You shall hear it inculcated from Sabbath to Sabbath in many of our churches, and swallowed down, as a sweet morsel, by many a gaping mouth, that a man ought to feel himself actually guilty of a sin committed six thousand years before he was born; nay, that prior to all consideration of his own moral conduct, _he ought to feel himself deserving of eternal damnation for the first sin of Adam_. * * * No such doctrine is taught in the Scriptures, or can impose itself on any rational mind, which is not trammeled by education, dazzled by interest, warped by prejudice and bewildered by theory. This is one corner of the triangle above mentioned. "This doctrine perpetually urged, and the subsequent strain of teaching usually attached to it, will not fail to drive the incautious mind to secret and practical, or open infidelity. An attempt to force such monstrous absurdities on the human understanding, will be followed by the worst effects. A man who finds himself condemned for that of which he is not guilty will feel little regret for his real transgressions. "I shall not apply these remarks to the purpose I had in view, till I have considered some other points of a similar character;--or, if I may resort to the metaphor alluded to, till I have pointed out the other two angles of the triangle." Stevens Jones Lewis. Mr. Lewis was a grandson of Rev. Dr. Timothy Johnes and great uncle of the Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, D. D. He was a theologian whose writings made a ripple in the orthodox stream of thought, and was disciplined in the First church for his doctrines. He published two pamphlets in justification of his peculiar views. The first was on "The Moral Creation the peculiar work of Christ. A very different thing from that of the Physical Creation which is the exclusive work of God", printed in Morristown by L. B. Hull, in 1838. Also there was one entitled "Showing the manner in which they do things in the Presbyterian church in the Nineteenth Century". "For the rulers had agreed already that if any man did confess that Jesus was Christ ('was Christ, not God Almighty'), he should be put out of the synagogue." "Morristown, N. J., Printed for the author, 1837." Rev. Rufus Smith Green, D. D. The Rev. Dr. Green, so much esteemed by the people of all denominations in Morristown, has a claim to honorable mention among our authors, having written largely and to good purpose. His "History of Morristown," a division of the book entitled the "History of Morris County", published by Munsell & Co., New York, in 1882, is a valuable contribution to our literature, combining in delightful form, a large amount of information from many sources, which has cost the writer much labor. As a book of reference it is in constant demand in the "Morristown Library" now, and one of the books which is not allowed long to remain out, for that reason. This fact carries its own weight without further comment. Dr. Green succeeded the Rev. John Abbott French in June, 1877, to the pastorate of the First Presbyterian Church of Morristown, and remained until 1881, when he accepted the charge of the Lafayette St. Presbyterian Church of Buffalo, N. Y., and removed to that city. After his graduation at Hamilton College, N. Y., in 1867, Dr. Green went abroad and was a student in the Berlin University during 1869 and '70. During this period he gained complete command of the German language, which has been vastly helpful to him in his writing as well as, in many instances, in his pastoral work. He was graduated from the Auburn Theological Seminary in 1873. He then accepted a charge at Westfield, N. Y., and in 1877 came to Morristown. During his Morristown pastorate, he began the publication of _The Record_, a monthly periodical devoted to historical matter connected with the First Church in particular, but also with Morristown generally and Morris County as well,--the First Church, in its history, striking it roots deep, and radiating in many directions. This was continued for the years 1880 and 1881, 24 numbers. Rev. Wm. Durant, Dr. Green's successor in the pastorate of the First Church, resumed the work in January 1883, and continued its publication until January 1886. It is an invaluable contribution to the early history of the town and county. Another of Dr. Green's publications is "Both Sides, or Jonathan and Absalom", published in 1888 by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia. This is a volume of sermons to young men, the aim of which can be seen from the preface which we quote entire: "It would be difficult to find two characters better fitted than those of Jonathan and Absalom to give young men right views of life--the one, in its nobleness and beauty, an inspiration; the other, in its vanity and wicked self-seeking, an awful warning. The two present both sides of the picture, and from opposite points of view teach the same lessons never more important than at the present time. It has been the author's purpose to enforce these lessons rather than to write a biography. May they guide many a reader to the choice of the right side!" In writing of the friendship of Jonathan and David the author says: "The praises of Friendship have been sung by poets of all ages,--orator's have made it a theme for their eloquence,--philosophers have written treatises upon it,--historians have described its all too rare manifestations. No stories from the far off Past are more charming than those which tell of Damon and Pythias,--of Orestes and Pylades--of Nisus and Euryalus--but better and more inspiring than philosophic treatise or historic description, more beautiful even than song of poet, is the Friendship of which the text speaks,--the love of Jonathan for David. It is one of the world's ideal pictures, all the more prized, because it is not only ideal but real. It was the Divine love which made the earthly friendship so pure and beautiful." For _Our Church at Work_, a monthly periodical of many years' standing connected with the Lafayette Street church, of Buffalo, Dr. Green has largely written. An important pamphlet on "The Revised New Testament" was published in 1881, by the _Banner_ Printing Office, of Morristown, and, in addition to these, fugitive sermons, and numerous articles for newspapers and periodicals have passed from his pen to print. When Dr. Green left Morristown, this was the tribute given him at the final service in the old church where hundreds of people were turned away for want of room. These were the words of the speaker on that occasion: "Dr. Green came to a united people; he has at all times presided over a united people and he leaves a united people." Rev. William Durant. Rev. Wm. Durant followed the Rev. Dr. Green in his ministry in the First Presbyterian Church in Morristown, May 11th, 1883, remaining in this charge until May, 1887, when he resigned, to accept the call of the Boundary Avenue Church, Baltimore, Md. He took up also, with Hon. John Whitehead as editor, at first, the onerous though very interesting work of _The Record_, which labor both he and Rev. Dr. Green as well as Mr. Whitehead, gave "as a free will offering to the church and the community". Rev. Mr. Durant was born in Albany, N. Y., and prepared for college at the Albany Academy. He then travelled a year in Europe, studied theology at Princeton and was graduated from that college in 1872. The same year he took charge of the First Presbyterian Church in Milwaukee, for the summer only, after which he traveled through the west, and was then ordained to the ministry, in Albany, and installed pastor of the Sixth Presbyterian Church of that city, from which, in 1883, he came to Morristown, as we have said. While in Albany he edited "Church Polity", a selection of articles contributed by the Rev. Charles Hodge, D. D., to the _Princeton Review_; Scribner's Sons, publishers. Afterwards, in Morristown, he published a "History of the First Presbyterian Church, Morristown," with genealogical data for 13,000 names on its registers; a part of this only has been published. "A Letter from One in Heaven; An Allegory", is a booklet of singular interest as the title would suggest. One or two short stories of his have been published among numerous contributions to religious papers on subjects of ecclesiology and practical religion, also a score or more of sermons in pamphlet form. He is at present preparing, for publication, a "Durant Genealogy", to include all now in this country of the name and descent. This was begun in the fall of 1886. In the opening number of _The Record_ for January 1883, after the suspension of the publication for two years, we print the following paper of "Congratulations" from Rev. Wm. Durant, which as it concerns the spirit of Morristown, we give in full: "CONGRATULATIONS", ON THE REVIVAL OF "THE RECORD". The season is propitious. _The Record_ awakes from a long nap--not as long as Rip Van Winkle's--to greet its readers with a Happy New Year. But where is the suggestion of those garments all tattered and torn? We mistake. It is not Rip Van Winkle, but the Sleeping Beauty who comes to us, by fairy enchantment, decked in the latest fashion. Sleep has given her new attractions. Happy we who may receive her visits with the changing moons, and scan her treasures new and old. Her bright look shows a quick glance to catch flashes of present interest. And there is depth, too, a far offness about her glance. Its gleam of the present is the shimmer that lies on the surface of a deep well of memory. What stories she can tell us of the past! Though so youthful her appearance, she romped with our grandmothers and made lint for the hospital and blankets for the camps, that winter Washington was here, when his bare-foot soldiers shivered in the snows on Mount Kemble or lay dying by scores in the old First Church. Yes, she was a girl of comely parts, albeit of temper to enjoy a tiff with her good mother of Hanover, when our city was a frontier settlement, full only of log cabins and primitive hardships in the struggle against wild nature. For a maiden still, and one who has seen so many summers, marvelous is her cheery, youthful look. Ponce de Leon made the mistake of his life when he sought his enchanted fountain in Florida instead of where Morristown was to be. It is not on the Green, for the aqueduct folks now hold the title. From lips still ruddy with youth, is it not delicious to hear the gossip of olden time! And our maiden knows it all, for she was present at all the baptisms, danced at all the weddings, thrilled with heavenly joy when our ancestors confessed the Son of Man before the high pulpit, and stood with tears in her eyes when one after another they were laid in the graves behind. Their names are still on her tongues' end, and it is with loving recollection that she tells of the long lists like the one she brings this month. But her gossip is not all of names. What she will tell of events and progress, of the unwritten history that has given character to families, to State or Nation, there is no need of predicting, we have only to welcome her at our fireside and listen while she speaks. Rev. J. Macnaughtan, D. D. Dr. Macnaughtan, present pastor of the First Presbyterian Church and successor of Rev. Wm. Durant, a profound scholar and thinker and most interesting writer, has not entered largely into the world of letters as an author or a publisher of his writings. Some papers of his, and some articles have, however, been published from time to time and a sermon now and then, notably, within two years, one on "Revision: Its Spirit and Aims", and the Centennial Sermon that was delivered on Sunday, October 11th, 1891, on the memorable occasion of the Centennial of the erection of the present First Church building. This sermon was published in the _Banner_, of Morristown, and is to appear again, with all the interesting addresses and sketches, given on that day and on the following days of the celebration,--in the book which Mr. Whitehead is preparing on "The History of the First Presbyterian Church". Dr. Macnaughtan's pastorate will always be associated with this time of historic retrospection and also with the passing away of the old building and the introduction of the new. Of this old building, endeared to many of Morristown's people, this book will probably be the last to make mention while it stands. An old-time resident touchingly says of the coming event: "There have been great changes within my remembrance (in Morristown). I was born in 1813 and have always lived where I do now. My memory goes back to the time when there were only two churches in the town; the First Presbyterian and the Baptist. The latter is now being removed for other purposes, and our old church, that has stood through its 100 years, will soon be removed, to make place for a new one. I was in hopes it would remain during my days, but the younger generation wants something new, more in the present style." FROM THE "CENTENNIAL SERMON." Ask now of the days that are past. --_Deuteronomy 4:32._ One hundred years ago on the 20th of last September (1891), a very stirring and animated scene could have been witnessed on this spot where we are so quietly assembled this morning for our Sabbath worship. On the morning of that day, some 200 men were assembled here, with the implements of their calling, and the task of erecting this now venerable structure was begun. The willing hands of trained mechanics and others, under the direction of Major Joseph Lindsley and Gilbert Allen, both elders of the church, lifted aloft these timbers, and the work of creating this sanctuary was begun. When one inspects the timbers forming the frame of this structure, great masses of hewn oak, and enough of it to build two structures of the size of this edifice, as such buildings are now erected, one sees how necessary it was that so great a force of men should be on hand. One can well believe that the animation of the scene was only equalled by the excited emotions of the people, in whose behalf the building was being erected. The task begun was a gigantic one for that time. The plans contemplated the erection of a structure which, "for strength, solidity and symmetry of proportion," should "not be excelled by any wooden building of that day in New Jersey." But it was not alone the generosity of the plan of the structure that made it a gigantic enterprise, but the material circumstances of the people who had undertaken the work. The men of a hundred years ago were rich for the most part only in faith and self-sacrifice. But looking at this house as it stands to-day, and remembering the generations who under this roof have been reproved, guided, comforted, and pointed to the supreme ends of being, who shall say that they who are rich only in faith and self-sacrifice are poor? Out of their material poverty our fathers builded this house through which for a century God has been sending to our homes and into our lives the rich messages of his grace and salvation--where from week to week our souls have been fronted with the invisible and eternal, and where by psalm and hymn, and the solemn words of God's grand Book, and the faithful preaching of a long line of devoted and consecrated men, we have been reminded of the seriousness and awfulness of life, of the sublime meanings of existence, and the grand ends which it is capable of conserving; where multitudes have confessed a Saviour found, and have consecrated their souls to their new found Lord; where doubts have been dispelled, where sorrow has been assuaged, where grief has found its antidote and the burdened heart has found relief; where thought has been lifted to new heights of outlook, and the heart has been enriched with conceptions of God and duty that have given a new grandeur to existence, where the low horizons of time have been lifted and pushed outward, till the soul has felt the thrill of a present eternity. Our heritage has indeed been great in the possession of this old white Meeting-House. (Several points Dr. Macnaughtan makes as follows): In scanning the life that has been lived here during the last hundred years, I find it, first of all, to have been _a consistent life_. It is a life that has been true to the great principles of religious truth for which the name of Presbyterian stands. * * I find, in the second place, that the life that has been lived here has been _an evangelistic life_. * * In the third place, it has been an _expansive life_. * * * * Here has been nourished the mother hive from which has gone forth, to the several churches in the neighborhood, the men and women who have made these churches what they are to-day. * * * In the fourth place, it has been _a beneficent life_. The voices that have rung out from this place have but one accent--Righteousness. Rev. C. DeWitt Bridgman. The Baptist Church is the second of our Morristown churches in point of age. It was formed August 11, 1752. It was the Rev. Reune Runyon who was its pastor during those terrible days of the Revolution, when the scourge of small pox prevailed. All honor to him, for a "brave man and true", as says our historian, "loyal to his country as well as faithful to his God." He, with good Parson Johnes, upheld the arm of Washington and both offered, for their congregations, their church buildings, to shelter the poor, suffering soldiers, in their conflict with the dread disease. This constancy is all the more creditable when we consider that two of his immediate predecessors had already fallen victims to the disease, each, after a very short pastorate. Rev. C. DeWitt Bridgman claims our attention as a writer. A friend writing of the Rev. Mr. Bridgman, at the present time, says: "The Baptist Church at Morristown was the first pastorate of the Rev. C. DeWitt Bridgman and I think was filled to the entire satisfaction of his friends and admirers who were and _are_ many. His brilliant oratory and rare gifts as an eloquent, scholarly and polished speaker are well-known. A life-long friend of my family, I dwell on the lovable and loyal characteristics which have made him dear to us." In a letter received by the author of this book, from the Rev. Mr. Bridgman, we find a little retrospect which is interesting. "I went to Morristown," he says, "immediately after graduating from the Baptist Theological Seminary, in Rochester, in 1857. The Baptist Church had a membership of about 130, all but five or six of them living outside the village. The House of Worship was small and uncomfortable, but at once was modernized and enlarged, and the congregation soon after grew to the measure of its capacity. As I was then but 22 years old, the success was in some measure due, I must believe, to the sympathy which the young men of the village had for one with their ardor. However that may be, the church, for the first time, seemed to be recognized as in touch with the life of the village, and it was the opening of a new chapter in the history of the church." Rev. Mr. Bridgman made the oration at the 4th of July county celebration, soon after his arrival, in the First Presbyterian church. For two and a half years, he remained in this charge when he removed to Jamaica Plain, Mass. Subsequently he was pastor for fifteen years, of Emmanuel Baptist church, Albany, then for thirteen years of the Madison Avenue church in New York, when he entered the Episcopal church and became rector of "Holy Trinity," on Lenox avenue and 122nd St., New York, a position which he still occupies. Articles from this writer's pen have appeared from time to time during this long career, in the religious press, besides occasional sermons of power and impressiveness. In the letter above referred to, Mr. Bridgman says he remembers very pleasantly many acquaintances among those not connected with his church as well as those in its membership and "it will be a great pleasure," he adds, "to recall the old faces and the old days, over the pages of your book, when it shall have been issued." _Rev. G. D. Brewerton_, who is already among our Poets, followed the Rev. Mr. Bridgman, in 1861, for a short pastorate. Rev. J. T. Crane, D. D. The Methodist Episcopal church was the third in order among our local churches and was organized in 1826. Among the many pastors of this church, the Rev. Dr. Crane demands our notice as an author. It was he who laid the corner-stone, while pastor in 1866, of the third church building, a superb structure, which is mostly the generous gift of the Hon. George T. Cobb, who gave to it $100,000. We find in our Morristown library, an interesting and valuable volume entitled "Arts of Intoxication; the Aim and the Results." By Rev. J. T. Crane, D. D., author of "Popular Amusements", "The Right Way", &c. This author was a voluminous writer, and recognized as one of the ablest in the Conference. This book was published in 1870 and in it the author says: "The great problem of the times is, 'What shall be done to stay the ravages of intoxication?' The evil pervades every grade of civilization as well as all depths of barbarism, the degree of its prevalence in any locality being determined apparently more by the facilities for indulgence than by climate, race or religion. "In heathen China the opium vice is working death. On the eastern slopes of the Andes, the poor remnants of once powerful nations are enslaved by the coca-leaf, and the thorn-apple, and thus are fixed in their fallen estate. In Europe and America the nations who claim to be the leaders of human progress are fearfully addicted to narcotic indulgences which not only impose crushing burdens upon them, wasting the products of their industry and increasing every element of evil among them, but render even their friendship dangerous to the savage tribes among whom their commerce reaches. Italy, France, Germany, England and the United States are laboring beneath a mountain weight of crime, poverty, suffering and wrong of every description, and no nation on either continent is fully awake to the peril of the hour. Questions of infinitely less moment create political crises, make wars, and overthrow dynasties." Then, Dr. Crane proceeds to show that the "Art of Intoxication" is not a device of modern times, and quotes from the Odyssey, in illustration; he discusses the mystery of it and notices the mutual dependence of the body and spirit upon one another. He tells the story of the coca-leaf, thorn-apple and the betel-nut, also of tobacco and treats of the tobacco habit and the question generally; of the hemp intoxicant and the opium habit and, finally, of alcohol,--its production, its delusions, its real effect, the hereditary effect, the wrong of indulgence, the folly of beginning, the strength of the enemy, the damage done and remedial measures. It is the most picturesque and attractive little book on the subject that we have seen. Rev. Henry Anson Buttz, D. D., LL. D. Rev. Dr. Buttz, President of Drew Theological Seminary, ministered in the Methodist Episcopal Church in Morristown from 1868 to 1870. While preaching in Morristown he was elected Adjunct Professor of Greek in Drew Theological Seminary, filling the George T. Cobb professorship. This chair he occupied until December 7, 1880, when he was unanimously elected to succeed Bishop Hurst. He received the degree of A. M. in 1861 from Princeton College and in 1864 from Wesleyan University, and that of D. D. from Princeton in 1875. Dr. Buttz is without doubt one of the most distinguished men of the Methodist Episcopal Church. His preaching, always without notes, is impressive and of the style usually designated as expository. His contributions to English literature have been to a large extent, fugitive articles on many subjects in various church periodicals, but his greatest published work is probably a Greek text book, "The Epistle to the Romans", which is regarded by scholars as one of the most accurate and critical guides to the study of that letter of St. Paul. It is announced by him that all the New Testament Epistles are to be published on the same plan. "The entire work, when completed," says a writer in the Mt. Tabor _Record_, "will be a valuable contribution to Biblical literature, and an enduring monument to the genius and research of the author." Rev. Jonathan K. Burr, D. D. Rev. Dr. Burr, one of the most distinguished divines of the Methodist Episcopal church, was stationed at Morristown in 1870-2. He was born in Middletown, Conn., on Sept. 21st, 1825; was graduated at Wesleyan University in 1845; studied in Union Theological Seminary in New York city in 1846; in 1847 he entered the ministry, occupying some of the most important pulpits within the Newark Conference of the M. E. Church. He was also professor of Hebrew and Exegetical Theology in Drew Theological Seminary, while pastor of Central church, Newark, N. J. He was author of the Commentary on the Book of Job, in the Whedon series, and a member of the Committee of Revision of the New Testament. He received the degree of D. D. from Wesleyan in 1872; also, in that year, he was delegate to the General Conference of the M. E. church. For many years he was a trustee of the Wesleyan University and also of Hackettstown Seminary. He wrote the articles upon Incarnation and Krishna in McClintock and Strong's Biblical Cyclopædia and also made occasional contributions to the religious journals. In 1879 his health failed and he was obliged to retire from the ministry. His death followed on April 24th, 1882. From his "Commentary on the Book of Job" we take the following paragraph out of an Excursus on the passage, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," &c.: FROM "COMMENTARY ON THE BOOK OF JOB." In the earlier ages truth was given in fragments. It was isolated, succinct, compressed, not unlike the utterances of oracles. The reader will be reminded of the gospel given in the garden, the prediction by Enoch of a judgment to come, the promise of Shiloh and the prophecies through the Gentile Balaam. They, who thus became agents for the transmission of divine truth, may have failed to comprehend it in all its bearings, but the truth is on that account none the less rich and comprehensive. In the living God who shall stand upon the dust, Job may not have seen Christ in the fulness of the atonement; nor in the view of God "from the flesh", have grasped the glories of the resurrection morn; but the essential features of these two cardinal doctrines of Scripture are these, identical with those we now see in greater completeness; even as the outlines of a landscape, however incompletely sketched, are still one with those of the rich and perfected picture. Rev. J. E. Adams. Rev. Mr. Adams, the present pastor of the Morristown Methodist Episcopal Church, entered upon this charge in May, 1889, succeeding the Rev. Oliver A. Brown, D. D. He was transferred, by Bishop Merrill, from the Genesee Conference to the Newark Conference for that purpose, the church having invited him and he having accepted a few months previously. He came directly from the First Methodist Church of Rochester, N. Y., to Morristown. Dr. Adams is a clever and thoughtful writer. He says himself: "I have done nothing in authorship that is worthy of record. I have only written newspaper and magazine articles occasionally and published a few special sermons. I am fond of writing and have planned quite largely for literary work, including several books, but very exacting parish work has thus far delayed execution." Some of his sermons published are as follows: "St. Paul's Veracity in Christian Profession Sustained by an Infallible Test. Text: Romans 1:16. Published in New Brunswick, N. J., 1877." "The Final Verdict in a Famous Case. A Bible Sermon Preached Before the Monmouth County Bible Society, and published by that Society in 1883." "The Golden Rule. A Discussion of Christ's Words in Matthew 7:12, in the First Methodist Episcopal Church, Rochester, N. Y. Published in Rochester, 1886." "Human Progress as a Ground of Thanksgiving. A Thanksgiving Sermon, Preached in Morristown, N. J., 1889, and published by request." Rev. James Munroe Buckley, D.D., LL. D. At this point, three theologians and editors present themselves, not occupying definite pulpits, but often taking a place in one or another, as opportunity for usefulness occurs. These are the Rev. James M. Buckley, D. D. and the Rev. James M. Freeman, D. D., of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Rev. Kinsley Twining, D. D., of the Congregational. Of the genius of Dr. Buckley, it may be said, it is so all-embracing that it would be difficult to tell what he is not, in distinctive literary capacity. First of all certainly, he is a theologian, then editor, orator, scientist, traveler and so on among our classifications. One is led to apply to him the familiar saying that "he who does one thing well, can do all things well." It is pleasant to note that a man of such keen observation and well balanced judgment as Dr. Buckley, after extensive travel in our own country and abroad can state, as many of us have heard him, that, of all the beautiful spots he has seen in one country and another, none is so beautiful, so attractive and so desirable, in every respect, as Morristown. Dr. Buckley is a true Jerseyman, for he was born in Rahway, N. J., and educated at Pennington, N. J. Seminary. He studied theology, after one year at Wesleyan University, at Exeter, N. H., and joined the New Hampshire Methodist Episcopal Conference on trial, being stationed at Dover in that state. In 1864 he went to Detroit and in 1866 to Brooklyn, N. Y. In 1881, he was elected to the Methodist Ecumenical Conference in London and also in that year was elected editor of the New York _Christian Advocate_, which position he has held to the present time. The degree of D. D. was conferred upon him by Wesleyan University in 1872 and LL. D. by Emory and Henry College, Virginia. As a traveler, Dr. Buckley is represented by his work on "The Midnight Sun and the Tsar and the Nihilist" being a book of "Adventures and Observations in Norway, Sweden and Russia". This book is full as we might expect of information communicated in the most entertaining manner, full of very graphic descriptions, original comments, spices of humor, with a clever analysis of the people and conditions of life around the author--all of which characteristics give us a feeling that we are making with him this tour of observation. In the chapters on "St. Petersburg" and "Holy Moscow", we see these qualities especially evidenced. Here is a short paragraph quite representative of the author, who is writing of the Cathedral of the Assumption, Moscow, an immense building in the Byzantine style of architecture, in which a service of the Greek church is going on: "The monks sang magnificently, but there was not a face among them that exhibited anything but the most profound indifference. Some of the young monks fixed their eyes upon the ladies who accompanied me from the hotel, and kept them there even while they were singing the prayers, which they appeared to repeat like parrots, without any internal consciousness or recognition of the meaning of the words, but in most melodious tones." Again, the author visits a Tartar Mosque where he and his party are told "with oriental courtesy, that they may be permitted to remain outside the door, looking in, while the service progresses: "Here," he says, "I was brought for the first time in direct contact with that extraordinary system of religion which, without an idol, an image, or a picture, holds one hundred and seventy million of the human race in absolute subjection, and whose power, after the lapse of twelve hundred years, is as great as at the beginning." Of the summoning of the people to prayers from the minaret, he writes: "Dr. J. H. Vincent for many years employed at Chatauqua the late A. O. Van Lennep, who went upon the summit of a house at evening time, dressed in the Turkish costume, and called the people to prayer. "I supposed when I heard him that he was over-doing the matter as respects the excruciating tones and variations of voice which he employed, or else he had an extraordinary qualification for making hideous sounds, whereby he out-Turked the Turks, and sometimes considered whether Dr. Vincent did not deserve to be expostulated with for allowing such frightful noises to clash with the ordinary sweet accords of Chatauqua. Worthy Mr. Van Lennep will never appear there again, but I am able to vindicate him from such unworthy suspicion as I cherished. He did his best to produce the worst sounds he could, but his worst was not bad enough to equal the reality. With his hands on his ears, the Mohammedan priest of the great mosque of Moscow emitted, for the space of seven minutes or thereabouts, a series of tones for which I could find no analogy in anything I had ever heard of the human voice. There seemed occasionally a resemblance to the smothered cries of a cat in an ash-hole; again to the mournful wail of a hound tied behind a barn; and again to the distant echo of a tin horn on a canal-boat in a section where the canal cuts between the mountains. The reader may think this extravagant, but it is not, and he will ascertain if ever he hears the like." Dr. Buckley's published writings are, besides his great work as editor of _The Christian Advocate_, in editorials and in many directions,--and besides the book we have already mentioned, "The Midnight Sun, the Tsar and the Nihilist"; "Oats versus Wild Oats"; "Christians and the Theatre"; "Supposed Miracles", and "Faith Healing, Christian Science, and Kindred Phenomena", published quite recently (in October, 1892). Among magazine articles, may be especially mentioned "Two Weeks in the Yosemite", and in pamphlet form have appeared some letters worthy of mention, about "A Hereditary Consumptive's Successful Battle for Life". [Illustration: PLAN OF FORT NONSENSE. FROM PEN AND INK SKETCH BY MAJOR J. P. FARLEY, U. S. A.] As a philanthropist, Dr. Buckley is widely interested in all questions concerning humanity, and he responds continually with his time and thought to the appeals made to him from one direction and another. Our own State Charities Aid Association of New Jersey owes much to Dr. Buckley for his warm and earnest co-operation in its early struggles in Morristown for existence, and in its work, since then. As an orator, all who have heard Dr. Buckley feel that he has what is called the magnetic power of controlling and carrying with him his audience, and a remarkable capacity for mastering widely different subjects. The beautiful spring day (April 27, 1888), will long be remembered, when the people of Morristown had the opportunity of hearing his eloquent address at the unveiling of the Soldiers Monument on Fort Nonsense. In Dr. Buckley's last book on "Faith Healing; Christian Science and Kindred Phenomena," published by the Century Company, quite lately, (October, 1892), the subjects of Astrology, Coincidences, Divinations, Dreams, Nightmares and Somnambulism, Presentiments, Visions, Apparitions and Witchcraft are treated. Papers have been contributed by him on these subjects at intervals for six years with reference to this book, but the contents of the latter are not identical, _i. e._ they have been improved and added to. From this we give the following extract: EXTRACT FROM "FAITH HEALING, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND KINDRED PHENOMENA." The relation of the Mind Cure movement to ordinary medical practice is important. It emphasizes what the most philosophical physicians of all schools have always deemed of the first importance, though many have neglected it. It teaches that medicine is but occasionally necessary. It hastens the time when patients of discrimination will rather pay more for advice how to live and for frank declarations that they do not need medicine, than for drugs. It promotes general reliance upon those processes which go on equally in health and disease. But these ethereal practitioners have no new force to offer; there is no causal connection between their cures and their theories. _What_ they believe has practically nothing to do with their success. If a new school were to arise claiming to heal diseases without drugs or hygiene or prayer, by the hypothetical odylic force invented by Baron Reichenbach, the effect would be the same, if the practice were the same. Recoveries as remarkable have been occurring through all the ages, as the results of mental states and nature's own powers. * * * * * The verdict of mankind excepting minds prone to vagaries on the border-land of insanity, will be that pronounced by Ecclesiasticus more than two thousand years ago: "THE LORD HATH CREATED MEDICINES OUT OF THE EARTH; AND HE THAT IS WISE WILL NOT ABHOR THEM. MY SON, IN THY SICKNESS BE NOT NEGLIGENT; BUT PRAY UNTO THE LORD AND HE WILL MAKE THEE WHOLE. LEAVE OFF FROM SIN AND ORDER THY HANDS ARIGHT, AND CLEANSE THY BREAST FROM ALL WICKEDNESS. THEN GIVE PLACE TO THE PHYSICIAN, FOR THE LORD HATH CREATED HIM; LET HIM NOT GO FROM THEE, FOR THOU HAST NEED OF HIM. THERE IS A TIME WHEN IN THEIR HANDS THERE IS GOOD SUCCESS. FOR THEY ALSO SHALL PRAY UNTO THE LORD, THAT HE WOULD PROSPER THAT WHICH THEY GIVE FOR EASE AND TO PROLONG LIFE." Rev. James M. Freeman, D. D. Dr. Freeman is the second of the trio of theologians and editors, whose homes are in Morristown. For the last twenty years, he has been associate editor of "Sunday School Books and Periodicals and of Tracts" of the Methodist Episcopal Church. His Biblical studies are well known. His "Hand-Book of Bible Manners and Customs" was compiled with great care after years of research and published in 1877. This "Hand-Book" has been invaluable to Bible students and in it a large amount of information is given in small space, and in an interesting and entertaining manner. Another important volume is "A Short History of the English Bible". Both these works are in the Morristown Library, presented by the author. Many years ago, Dr. Freeman published, under the name of Robin Ranger, some charming story-books "for the little ones", in sets of ten tiny volumes. This work has placed him already in our group of _Story-Writers_. Besides these, there are two Chautauqua Textbooks, viz., "The Book of Books" and "Manners and Customs of Bible Times", also "The Use of Illustration in Sunday School Teaching". The "Hand-Book of Bible Manners and Customs", in particular, and the "Short History of the English Bible" are books which one can not look into without desiring to own. In the former, the author says in his short but admirable preface: "Though the Bible is adapted to all nations, it is in many respects an Oriental book. It represents the modes of thought and the peculiar customs of a people who, in their habits, widely differ from us. One who lived among them for many years has graphically said: 'Modes, customs, usages, all that you can set down to the score of the national, the social, or the conventional, are precisely as different from yours as the east is different from the west. They sit when you stand; they lie when you sit; they do to the head what you do to the feet; they use fire when you use water; you shave the beard, they shave the head; you move the hat, they touch the breast; you use the lips in salutation, they touch the forehead and the cheek; your house looks outwards, their house looks inwards; you go _out_ to take a walk, they go _up_ to enjoy the fresh air; you drain your land, they sigh for water; you bring your daughters out, they keep their wives and daughters in; your ladies go barefaced through the streets, their ladies are always covered'. "The Oriental customs of to-day are, mainly, the same as those of ancient times. It is said by a recent writer that 'the Classical world has passed away. We must reproduce it if we wish to see it as it was.' While this fact must be remembered in the interpretation of some New Testament passages, it is nevertheless true that many ancient customs still exist in their primitive integrity. If a knowledge of Oriental customs is essential to a right understanding of numerous Scripture passages, it is a cause of rejoicing that these customs are so stereotyped in their character that we have but to visit the Bible lands of the present day to see the modes of life of patriarchal times." Therefore, the author undertakes and undertakes with remarkable success, to illustrate the Bible by an explanation of the Oriental customs to which it refers. Rev. Kinsley Twining, D. D., LL. D. Rev. Dr. Twining, up to 1879, devoted his time and attention entirely to the ministry and charge of two large city Congregational churches, one in Providence, R. I. While in the latter city, he published a book of "Hymns and Tunes", for his church there, which was acceptable and popular among the people, and contributed largely to develop the hearty congregational singing for which end it was compiled. While in this charge, he was for some time abroad, and mingled considerably in the literary life of Germany, and also in the musical life of that country. Hence, he is a fine theorist in music. Since 1879 he has been literary editor of _The Independent_, and during these years he has written enough valuable editorials and reviews to fill many books. Many of his lectures, addresses, essays and other writings have appeared in magazines and other publications, notably a charming description of an "Ascent of Monte Rosa" in the _American Journal of Science and Arts_, of May, 1862. We find in a book entitled "Boston Lectures, 1872", a chapter given to one on "The Evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, by Rev. Kinsley Twining, Cambridge, Mass.", in which the argument is, as might be expected, keen and clear. One of his more recent published papers was read by him at one of the Literary Reunions at Mr. Bowen's in Brooklyn, N. Y., and attracted much attention. It has since been given in Morristown: subject, "The Wends, or a Queer People Surviving in Prussia". Dr. Twining has made a special study of Shakespeare and holds a high rank as a Shakesperian critic and scholar. With regard to editorial work, it may be said an editor has a maximum of influence, the minimum of recognition,--for nobody knows who does it. It is certain that powerful editorials sometimes turn the tide of public opinion or actually establish certain results which affect the progress of the world, and at least make a mark in the world's advance. Who, indeed, can compute or measure the power of the press at the present day? We choose for Dr. Twining, some paragraphs from his editorial which has already acquired some celebrity in _The Independent_ of Sept. 15, 1892, on John Greenleaf Whittier. The death of the poet occurred on the 7th of the same September and he had been one of the earliest and most regular contributors to that paper since 1851. FROM EDITORIAL ON JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. It has been said that every man of genius makes a class distinct by himself, out of relation and out of comparison with everybody else. At all events poets do, the first born in the progeny of genius; and of none of them is this truer than of the four great American poets, Bryant, Longfellow, Lowell and Whittier. In what order of merit they stand in their great poetic square, the distinct individuality of genius bestowed on each makes it needless to inquire. They have been our lights for half a century, and now that they have taken their permanent place in the galaxy of song, will continue to shine there, to use the phrase which Whittier himself invented for Dr. Bowditch's sun-dial, as long as there is need of their "light above" in our "shade below." * * * * * Whittier is the ballad-master and legend singer of the American people. Had he known the South and the West as he knew New England, he would have sung their legends as he has sung those of New England. The meaning of all this is that he is the minstrel of our people. This he has been, and this he will remain. Whether it is in the solemn wrath of the great ballad, "Skipper Ireson's Ride," one of the greatest in modern literature, in the high patriotic strain of "Barbara Frietchie," in the pathos of "The Swan Song," of "Father Avery," "The Witch's Daughter," or in the grim humor of "The Double-Headed Snake of Newberry." "One in body and two in will," it matters little what the subject is, or from whence it comes, the poem has in it some reflection of the common humanity, and as such speaks and will speak to the hearts of men. It has been the fashion to write of Victor Hugo as the poet of democratic humanity. We shall not dispute his claim. There is a certain epic grandeur in his work which entitles him to a seat alone. But to those who believe the world is moving toward a democracy whose ideals are the realization of the Sermon on the Mount, whose essence is ethical, and whose laws are gentleness, usefulness and love, Greenleaf Whittier will be the true democratic poet whose heart beats most nearly with the pulses of the democratic age, and who best represents the principles which are to give it permanence. Rev. Theodore Ledyard Cuyler, D. D. The Rev. Dr. Cuyler should immediately follow the group of editors and theologians, as he has been a regular writer for the religious press, as well as for the secular, for many years. To the former he has contributed more than 3,000 articles, many of which have been re-published and translated into foreign languages. In reply to a request for certain information, Dr. Cuyler, in a letter dated from Brooklyn, January 13, 1890, and written "in a sick room, where he was laid up with the 'Grip'", a disease of the present day which we hope may become historic,--replies to the author of this book as follows: "Probably no American author has a _longer_ association with Morristown than I have; for my ancestors have laid in its church-yards for more than a century. "My great-great-grandfather, Rev. Dr. Timothy Johnes, preached in the 1st Presbyterian Church for 50 years and administered the Communion to General Washington. "My great-grandfather, Mr. Joseph Lewis, was a prominent citizen of Morristown and an active friend and counsellor of Washington. "My grandmother, Anna B. Lewis, was born in Morristown. "My mother, Louisa F. Morrell, was also born in Morristown (in 1802) in the old family "Lewis Mansion" in which Mr. William L. King now lives. "I was at school in Morristown in 1835 and it was my favorite place for visits for _many, many_ years. I have often preached or spoken there. "The man most familiar with my literary work is Dr. J. M. Buckley, the editor of the _Christian Advocate_--who now resides in Morristown." This letter was signed with his name, as "Pastor of Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church." Less than a month later he announced to his astonished congregation, his intention of resigning his charge among them on the first Sabbath of the following April, when it would be exactly thirty years since he came to a small band of 140 members, which then composed his flock. At the close of his remarks on that occasion he said: "It only remains for me to say that after forty-four years of uninterrupted ministerial labors it is but reasonable to ask for some relief from a strain that may soon become too heavy for me to bear." During the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his pastorate, in 1885, he told his congregation that during that time he had preached over 2,300 discourses, had made over 1,000 addresses, officiated at about 600 marriages, baptized 800 children, received into the church 3,700 members, of whom about 1,600 were converts, and had lost but one Sunday for sickness. Probably few men are more widely known for their literary and oratorical powers and extended usefulness both in the pulpit and out of it. Few, if any, have accomplished more in the same number of years or made a wider circle of warm and earnest friends both at home and abroad. Among the latter is the Hon. Wm. E. Gladstone, and was, the late John Bright. In his sermons and addresses, the personality of Dr. Cuyler is so marked that to hear him once is to remember him always. In England he has been especially popular as a preacher and temperance advocate. The latter cause he has espoused most warmly during his entire life. Dr. Cuyler was born in the beautiful village of Aurora, N. Y., upon Cayuga Lake, of which his great-grandfather, General Benjamin Ledyard, was the founder. He was graduated at Princeton in 1841, and at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1846. Two years later, he was ordained into the Presbyterian Ministry, and was installed pastor of the Third Presbyterian Church of Trenton, N. J., then of the Market St. Reformed Dutch Church of New York City, and in April 1860, of the Brooklyn Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church. Among the author's books are the following, nearly all of which have been reprinted in London and have a very wide circulation in Great Britain. Five or six of them have been translated into Dutch and Swedish: "Stray Arrows", "The Cedar Christian", "The Empty Crib", a small book published many years ago after the death of one of his children and full of solace and consolation to the hearts of sorrowing parents; "Heart Life"; "Thought Hives"; "From the Nile to Norway"; "God's Light on Dark Clouds"; "Wayside Springs", and "Eight to the Point," of the "Spare Minute Series". Dr. Cuyler himself says that he considered his _chief_ literary work to have been the preparation of over 3,000 articles for the leading religious papers of America. There might be added to this the publication of a large number of short and popular tracts. Here again we find, as in several instances before recorded in this book, a man of long experience and good judgment placing in the highest rank of writings, useful to mankind, those done for the religious or secular newspapers. We give a short passage FROM, "GOD'S LIGHT ON DARK CLOUDS." There is only one practical remedy for this deadly sin of anxiety, and that is to _take short views_. Faith is content to live "from hand to mouth," enjoying each blessing from God as it comes. This perverse spirit of worry runs off and gathers some anticipated troubles and throws them into the cup of mercies and turns them to vinegar. A bereaved parent sits down by the new-made grave of a beloved child and sorrowfully says to herself, "Well, I have only one more left, and one of these days he may go off to live in a home of his own, or he may be taken away; and if he dies, my house will be desolate and my heart utterly broken." Now who gave that weeping mother permission to use that word "if"? Is not her trial sore enough now without overloading it with an imaginary trial? And if her strength breaks down, it will be simply because she is not satisfied with letting God afflict her; she tortures herself with imagined afflictions of her own. If she would but take a short view, she would see a living child yet spared to her, to be loved and enjoyed and lived for. Then, instead of having two sorrows, she would have one great possession to set over against a great loss; her duty to the living would be not only a relief to her anguish, but the best tribute she could pay to the departed. Rt. Rev. Wm. Ingraham Kip, D.D., LL.D. Bishop Kip, since 1853, Bishop of California, was called to old St. Peter's Church, Morristown, immediately after his taking orders in 1835. "The first time the service of the Protestant Episcopal Church was used in Morristown, so far as known," says our historian, "was in the Summer of 1812. At that time Bishop Hobart of New York was visiting Mr. Rogers at Morristown, and by invitation of the officers of the First Presbyterian Church, he officiated one Sunday in their church, preaching and using the Episcopal service." For two years, 1820 and '21, the service was held on Sundays, at the house of George P. McCulloch, and finally on Dec. 4th, 1828, the church building was consecrated which has stood until quite recently. Now a superb stone edifice covers the ground of the old church. In the ancestry of Bishop Kip we have a link with the far off story of France, for he is descended from Ruloff de Kype of the 16th Century, who was a native of Brittany and warmly espoused the part of the Guises in the French civil war between Protestants and Papists. After the downfall of his party, this Ruloff fled to the Low Countries; his son Ruloff became a Protestant and settled in Amsterdam and _his_ son Henry made one of the Company which organized in 1588 to explore a northeast passage to the Indies. He came with his family, to America in 1635, but returned to Holland leaving here his two sons Henry and Isaac. Henry was a member of the first popular assembly in New Netherlands and Isaac owned the property upon which now stands the City Hall Park of New York. In 1831, the young William Ingraham, was graduated at Yale College and after first studying law and then divinity was admitted to orders and at once became the third rector of St. Peter's, at Morristown, remaining from July 13th, 1835, until November of the following year. Columbia bestowed upon him in 1847, the degree of S. T. D. Between the rectorship of St. Peter's and the bishopric of California, he served as assistant at Grace Church, New York, and was rector of St. Paul's, at Albany. Bishop Kip has published a large number of books, many of which have gone through several editions. In addition he has written largely for the _Church Review_ and the _Churchman_ and several periodicals. Among his books are "The Unnoticed Things of Scripture", (1868); "The Early Jesuit Missions" (2 Vols., 6 editions, 1846); "Catacombs of Rome", (8 editions, 1853); "Double Witness of the Church", (27 editions, 1845); Lenten "Fast", (15 editions, 1845); the last two were published in both England and America as was also "Christmas Holydays in Rome", (1846). Besides these are "Early Conflicts of Christianity", (6 editions); "Church of the Apostles"; "Olden Times in New York"; "Early Days of My Episcopate", (1892). EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE OF THE "EARLY JESUIT MISSIONS." There is no page of our country's history more touching and romantic than that which records the labors and sufferings of the Jesuit Missionaries. In these western wilds they were the earliest pioneers of civilization and faith. The wild hunter or the adventurous traveler, who, penetrating the forests, came to new and strange tribes, often found that years before, the disciples of Loyola had preceded him in that wilderness. Traditions of the "Black-robes" still lingered among the Indians. On some moss-grown tree, they pointed out the traces of their work, and in wonder he deciphered, carved side by side on its trunk, the emblem of our salvation and the lilies of the Bourbons. Amid the snows of Hudson's Bay--among the woody islands and beautiful inlets of the St. Lawrence--by the council fires of the Hurons and the Algonquins--at the sources of the Mississippi, where first of the white men, their eyes looked upon the Falls of St. Anthony, and then traced down the course of the bounding river, as it rushed onward to earn its title of "Father of Waters"--on the vast prairies of Illinois and Missouri--among the blue hills which hem in the salubrious dwellings of the Cherokees--and in the thick canebrakes of Louisiana--everywhere were found the members of the Society of Jesus. Marquette, Joliet, Brebeuf, Jogues, Lallemand, Rasles and Marest,--are the names which the West should ever hold in remembrance. But it was only by suffering and trial that these early labours won their triumphs. Many of them too were men who had stood high in camps and courts, and could contrast their desolate state in the solitary wigwam with the refinement and affluence which had waited on their early years. But now, all these were gone. Home--the love of kindred--the golden ties of relationship--all were to be forgotten by these stern and high-wrought men, and they were often to go forth into the wilderness, without an adviser on their way, save their God. Through long and sorrowful years, they were obliged to "sow in tears" before they could "reap in joy." Rev. William Staunton, D. D. With this author, the fifth rector of old St. Peter's Church, in Morristown, we go back in association to the ancient city of Chester, England, where he was born and where his grandfather on his mother's side was a leading dissenting minister and the founder of Queen's Street Chapel, Chester. His father, an intellectual man and well read in Calvinistic theology, also affiliated with the Independents, but was often led by his fine musical taste to attend with his son the services of the Cathedral. It was in this Cathedral of Chester, which is noted for the beauty and majesty with which the Church's ritual is rendered,--that the boy acquired that love of music which placed him in after life in the front rank of church musicians. One who knew him well has said of him in this respect: "This knowledge of music was profound and comprehensive. He was not simply a musical critic or a composer of hymn tunes and chants, but he had followed out through all its intricacies the science of music. So well known was he for his learning and taste in this department that it was a common thing for professional musicians of distinction to go to him for advice and to submit their compositions to him, before publication. Much of his own music has been published. But his musical accomplishments are best attested by the work which he did as associate editor of Johnson's Encyclopedia." He was in particular, the musical editor of this work and wrote nearly all of the articles relating to music in it. He was also a prolific writer for church reviews and other periodicals. Among his publications in book form are: "A Dictionary of the Church", (1839); "An Ecclesiastical Dictionary", (1861); "The Catechist's Manual", a series of Sunday School instruction books; "Songs and Prayers"; "Book of Common Prayer"; "A Church Chant Book", and "Episodes of Clerical and Parochial Life". Dr. Staunton came with his father and the family, when fifteen years of age, to Pittsburg, Pa. He was closely associated with the Rev. Mr. Hopkins, afterward the Bishop of Vermont. His first ministerial charge was that of Zion Church, Palmyra, N. Y., and it was in 1840 he accepted the rectorship of St. Peter's Church, Morristown, which position he held for seven years. He then organized in Brooklyn, N. Y., a much needed parish, which he named St. Peter's after the parish he had just relinquished. "Dr. Staunton," says the present rector of St. Peter's, the Rev. Robert N. Merritt, D. D., who took up the work of the parish in 1853, and to whose untiring exertions, the parish and the people of Morristown are largely indebted for the erection of the massive and beautiful stone structure that stands on the site of the church of Dr. Staunton's time,--"Dr. Staunton was no ordinary man, though he never obtained the position in the church to which his abilities entitled him. Besides being above the average clergyman in theological attainments, he was a scientific musician, a good mechanic, well read in general literature, and so close an observer of the events of his time that much information was always to be gained from him. His retiring nature and great modesty kept him in the back ground." The following interesting reminiscence comes to us, in a letter, from one of the boys who was under his ministration when rector for seven years of old St. Peter's. "I remember", says this parishioner, "Dr. Staunton very distinctly and with much affection as well as regard and gratitude, for the training I had from him in the doctrines and ordinances of the church. He was for those days a very advanced churchman, being among the first to yield to the influence the Oxford movement was exercising and to adopt the advance it inaugurated in the ritual and service of the liturgy informing strictly however himself and teaching his people to recognize the authority of the rubrics. He maintained this, I think, till his death, and was ranked then as a conservative rather than a high churchman, though when he was here, the same attitude made him to be thought by some as almost dangerously ultra. "He was not eloquent nor what might be called an attractive preacher, but wrote well and accomplished a great deal as a careful and impressive teacher of sound doctrine and Christian morality. "Dr. Staunton was an accomplished scholar in scientific as well as ecclesiastical learning, was skilled as a draughtsman and designed, I remember, the screen of old St. Peter's when the chancel stood at the South street end; and it was wonderfully good and effective of its kind. He was also a trained musician, and at one time instructed a class of young ladies in thorough-bass, among them being the two Misses Wetmore, my eldest sister, and others, and, in addition to this, he made the choir while he was here, both in the music used and its efficiency, a vast improvement upon what it had been. He was a tall man, fully six feet, of a severe countenance and rather austere manner, leading him to be thought sometimes cold and unsympathetic, though really he was most kind and considerate, and in all respects a devoted and watchful pastor. He published, I think, a church dictionary later in life which is still a standard book and authority. "These are my impressions of Dr. Staunton received principally as a very young boy, though confirmed by an acquaintance continued till his death, and I retain the most sincere gratitude for the abiding faith in the sound doctrine of the Episcopal Church which he, after my mother, so trained me in that I have accepted them ever since as impregnable; and for this I am sure there are many others of his pupils and parishioners besides myself to 'call him blessed.'" Rev. Arthur Mitchell, D. D. Rev. Dr. Mitchell was the third pastor of the South Street Presbyterian Church, which was the fifth, says our historian, "in our galaxy of churches." The time of his ministration, during which the church was greatly enlarged, both internally and externally, was from 1861 to 1868. Dr. Mitchell is the son of Matthew and Susan Swain Mitchell, and was born in Hudson, N. Y. He was graduated at Williams College in 1853, was tutor in Lafayette College, Pa., for one year, and then traveled for a year in Europe and the East. Returning he entered the Union Theological Seminary of New York City and was graduated from there in 1859. In this year he accepted the charge of the Third Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Va., and in Oct. 1861, he became pastor of what was then called, the "Second Presbyterian Church" in Morristown. The first Presbyterian Church of Chicago, Ill., claimed him in 1868 and in 1880 the First Presbyterian Church of Cleveland, Ohio. In 1884, Dr. Mitchell became Secretary of the Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church to which position he had been called fifteen years before, but had felt constrained to decline. This important office, which from his intense and life-long interest in the great cause of Christian missions to the heathen world, he was remarkably qualified to fill, he has held to the present time. In all his ministrations, in each individual church which he has served, he has succeeded in imparting his own love of, and interest in, Foreign Missions and his position as Secretary of this department of the church organization has enabled him to stimulate the great congregations and masses of individuals throughout the denomination. Dr. Mitchell's eloquence in the pulpit and on the platform, is so well-known that it seems hardly worth while to refer to it. Mastering his subject completely as he does, he has the rare power of condensing clearly and giving out his thoughts in language and in tones of voice which hold and attract his audience to the end. He has published no books, only sermons and addresses in pamphlet form and innumerable articles in magazines and newspapers. To the great value of this sort of literary work, several of our distinguished authors have already testified. In the _Church at Home and Abroad_, we find the most exhaustive articles from Dr. Mitchell's pen, on the missions and conditions of the various countries of the earth which he has also recently visited in a trip around the world. These are all written from so large a standpoint that they are about as interesting to the general reader as to the specialist. In the publication, the "Concert of Prayer" many of these valuable papers are found and a considerable number of his addresses, articles, &c., are bound among those of other writers, in large volumes. In the next generation we find a writer also, in Dr. Mitchell's daughter, Alice, who does not desire mention for the reason that her writings are so fragmentary and scattered. Nevertheless, her literary work has been considerable and cannot be easily measured or described. One who knows her well, says: "Not many ladies are better read in missionary annals." In an article of hers, of great interest, published in the _Concert of Prayer for Church Work Abroad_, and entitled "The Martyrs of Mexico," we come upon the story of the Rev. John L. Stephens, previously mentioned in this book among "Travels", &c., and who, Miss Mitchell tells us, was one of the earliest missionaries of the Congregational church to Mexico. We have already mentioned that Mr. Matthew Mitchell, the father of our writer, lived in Morristown for many years and married for his second wife, Miss Margaret, the daughter of the good Doctor John Johnes, and the granddaughter of the good Pastor Johnes. We give a short passage from the opening of Dr. Mitchell's Memorial Sermon on James A. Garfield, delivered in the First Presbyterian Church of Cleveland, Ohio, on Sunday, Sept. 25, 1881, and published by a number of prominent men who requested the privilege: FROM THE "MEMORIAL SERMON" ON JAMES A. GARFIELD. We share, my friends, to-day, the greatest grief America has ever known. It is no exaggeration to say that no one stroke of Providence has ever spread throughout all our land such poignant and universal pain, or has been so widely felt as a shock and a sorrow in every portion of the earth. I am not using words without care. I do not forget those dreadful days of April, sixteen years ago, when the slow procession passed from State to State, bearing the remains of the beloved Lincoln to the tomb. But there was one whole section of our land, it will be remembered, which had never acknowledged him as their ruler, and had never viewed him alas! except as their foe. Innumerable noble hearts there discussed the crime that laid him low; but although they abhorred the assassin's crime, around his victim their sentiments of confidence and admiration and loyalty had never been gathered. I do not forget the horror which smote the nation when Hamilton fell, the universal pall of sorrow of which our fathers tell us,--the metropolis of the country draped in black, the vast and solemn cortège, which amidst weeping throngs, followed Hamilton through its chief avenue to the grave. And as one heart, the hearts of Americans mourned for Washington. There were friends of liberty who wept with them in every part of the world. But liberty itself had not then so many friends on earth as now. By one great nation Washington was held to have drawn a rebel sword. And against another, our earlier ally, he had unsheathed it and stood prepared for war. And even by the countrymen of Washington it could not be forgotten that he had nearly fulfilled the allotted years of man. His work was done. His years of war had won for his country the full liberty she sought. His eight glorious years of Presidential life had organized the Government, established its relations to foreign powers and made its bulwarks strong. At his death it was even said that he had "deliberately dispelled the enchantment of his own great name;" with wonderful unselfishness he himself placed the helm in other hands, looked on for a time at the prosperity which he had taught others to supply, and "convinced his country that she depended less on him than either her enemies or her friends believed." And then he died in the peaceful retirement of his home. It was the death of a venerated father whose work was done. Rev. Charles E. Knox, D. D. For six or eight months in the midst of the Rev. Arthur Mitchell's pastorate, a distinguished scholar of the Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Charles E. Knox, D. D., filled Dr. Mitchell's place as pastor of the South Street Church, Morristown, while the latter was absent in Europe and Palestine. This period was from September 1863 to May 1864. When Dr. Mitchell resigned in 1868, the present pastor, Rev. Dr. Erdman, was called at Dr. Knox's suggestion. From 1864 to 1873, Dr. Knox was pastor of the church at Bloomfield, N. J., and since that time has been President of the German Theological School of Newark, which is located in Bloomfield. Dr. Knox says, in writing of his sojourn in Morristown: "I had a happy time with the good South street people and have retained always the liveliest interest in all that belongs to them." "A Year with St. Paul" had just been published when the charge of this South Street Church was undertaken. It has since been translated into Arabic at Beirut, Syria. "It is in good part," says the author, "a compilation and condensation of Conybeare and Howson's Life and Epistles of St. Paul", (then in two large and expensive volumes), with some original matter. It has a chapter for every Sunday of the year. Dr. Knox began in Morristown a series of "Graduated Sunday School Text Books,"--Primary Year, Second Year, Third Year, Fourth Year and Senior Year. This was an introduction of the secular graded system into Sunday School Teaching. It introduced the Quarterly Review which has since been followed. "David the King," a life of David with section maps inserted in the page and a location of the Psalms in his life, was published later at Bloomfield. Rev. Albert Erdman, D. D. The Rev. Dr. Erdman is entitled to honorable mention among Morristown writers. He has been the faithful pastor of the South Street Presbyterian Church since May 1869, following the Rev. Arthur Mitchell, D. D. It was during his ministry that in 1877, the church edifice was totally consumed by fire, and the beautiful new building located on its site, in the late Byzantine style. It is said by one who knows and appreciates Dr. Erdman's work that "few men read more or digest better their reading." For several years, he has prepared "Notes on the International Sunday School Lessons", for a monthly periodical published in Toronto, Canada. A number of sermons have been published by request, among them the "Sermon on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the South Street Presbyterian Church". Addresses on "Prophetic and other Bible Studies" have been printed in Annual Reports of the Bible Conference at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, and, besides these, many fugitive newspaper articles of value and importance. Dr. Erdman has been largely interested in the general welfare, and especially the philanthropies, of the town, outside of his immediate church, and by this public spirit, earnestly and fearlessly manifested, in many instances, he has no doubt greatly extended his sphere of influence. He has been a warm supporter of, and has given much time and personal attention to the establishment of the Morris County Charities Aid Association and of the State Association which followed, carefully studying the questions of pauper and criminal reform for which purpose this organization exists. In the Semi-Centennial Sermon we find the following remarkable record: EXTRACT FROM THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL SERMON ON THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CHURCH'S ORGANIZATION. I must note the unique fact that the history of these fifty years of Church life is the history of uninterrupted prosperity. Even that which seemed at the time to be against us--the destruction by fire of the former house of worship--proved to be, as are all the Lord's afflictions, a blessing in disguise; for the history of the church since is that of continued and ever-increasing prosperity, if growing numbers and enlarged usefulness be criterion of success. A spirit of harmony and goodwill mark its whole course, and it is, therefore, with unmingled pleasure and gratitude to God, we may recall the past. No roots of bitterness and strife to be covered up, no rocks of offense to be carefully avoided! * * * * * How the memories of the past throng around us--the saintly lives of fathers and mothers, the godly service and earnest prayers of pastors and people, the fervent appeals from pulpit and teacher's chair,--surely it would seem there could be no valid reason why any should be still unsaved or unwilling to take up the duties of Christian service. Finally, as we here recall the story of the past and rejoice in the prosperity of the present, and while we look forward to still larger service and blessing in the days to come, let us, with a deep sense of our unworthiness and dependence, say, with the Psalmist: "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us; but unto Thy name be all glory." Rev. Joseph M. Flynn, R. D. The Roman Catholic Church in Morristown erected its first building in 1847. It was a small wooden structure, with seating capacity for about 300 people and is now used by the parish school. It was in 1871 that the first priest in full charge, Rev. James Sheeran, was stationed here, and at his death in 1881, the Rev. Joseph M. Flynn succeeded, who has continued in charge of the parish to the present time. He was named "Dean of the Catholics in Morris and Sussex Counties" about six years ago. This author has recently published a book, (Morristown, N. J., 1892), "The Story of a Parish" from the first chapter of which we quote. Also he has written some magazine articles and a brochure on "Lent and How to Spend it." He is now preparing for publication a volume of short sermons. "The Story of a Parish" is the story of the foundation and development of this parish of the Church of the Assumption, in Morristown. In the opening chapter, the author says: "We know that Raphael, Bramante, and Michel Angelo threw into St. Peter's the very heart and soul of their inspiration, to erect to the living God such a temple as the eye of man had never gazed upon. "But there are other monuments which thrill no less the beholder, and the names of their creators sleep in an impenetrable obscurity. The cross-crowned fane, lifting to the highest heaven the sign of man's redemption, may tell us neither of him whose genius conceived nor of the toilers whose strong arm and cunning eye, in the burning heats of Summer, or in the chilling blasts of Winter, unfolded to the wondering crowds who daily watched their labors, step by step, inch by inch, the beauties whose finished product Time has preserved to us in many a shire of Britain; by the glistening lakes and verdant vales of Erin; in sunny Italy, in fair France, and in the hallowed soil bathed by our own Potomac. To the humble laborer who dug the trenches, to the artist whose chisel carved foliage or cusp or capital, a share in our grateful memory is due." Rev. George Harris Chadwell. The group of people who originated the idea of forming a second Episcopal Church in Morristown, perfected their plans in 1852. The following year the church building was erected. The first rector, Rev. J. H. Tyng, assumed his duties in September, 1852. The Rev. W. G. Sumner accepted a call to the parish in 1870. As he is now Professor of Political Economy at Yale University--he will come, with his specialty, into a later group. In 1880, Rev. George H. Chadwell became rector of the parish, coming from Brooklyn where he had been assistant to the Rev. Charles Hall, D. D., rector of Trinity Church of that City. Mr. Chadwell courageously undertook the removal of the church edifice from the spot where it had stood since 1854, on the corner of Morris and Pine streets, to its present site on South street, on which occasion he delivered one of his important "Addresses" which was published and largely distributed. He lived to see his aim accomplished and not long after gave, in the church again, on what proved to be the last Sunday of his life, a sermon, which was also published under the title of "A Farewell Discourse." Mr. Chadwell also published a monthly paper during his rectorship, called _The Rector's Assistant_, and wrote in other directions. In the "Address on the Occasion of the Re-opening of the Edifice for Divine service," August 22, 1886, we find a reference to the interesting history of the land on which the building now stands, and its association with many of the old families of Morristown, as follows: "Originally the ground we are now occupying belonged to the first Presbyterian Church, which at that date constituted the only religious society in the town, and owned all the land on the east side of South street as far down as Pine street. This plot of ours formed a part of what was designated the parsonage lot. The first sale of it took place in November of 1795, the same year the white church on the Green was dedicated and opened for Divine worship. The consideration was one hundred and twenty pounds, money worth about $300 in the currency of the United States. The Trustees whose names appear in the deed are Silas Condict, Benjamin Lindsley, Jonathan Ford, John Mills, Richard Johnson, Jonathan Ogden and Benjamin Pierson--names which are still represented in our community. The purchaser was the Rev. James Richards. This gentleman was at the time the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, being the third in succession to that office. His ministry covered a period of fourteen years and was remarkably successful. * * * * * "On his departure from Morristown Dr. Richards sold the property we are now describing. The price realized was $4,000. From which I infer that there had been erected upon it the house which we propose to convert into a rectory. Otherwise I can not account for so great an increase in the value of the land as took place. * * * The new owner proved to be the Rev. Samuel Fisher, the successor of Dr Richards in the pastorate of the church. Mr. Fisher was the son of Jonathan Fisher, a native of this town. * * * In 1813, under his auspices, the Female Charitable Society of Morristown, our most venerable eleemosynary institution, was founded, Mr. Fisher's wife being elected to the honored position of its first President. * * * It was somewhere about this time that Mrs. Wetmore, the widow of a British officer, opened on this site a private school for girls." (Mrs. Wetmore was the mother of Mrs. James Colles who long lived, in summer, upon the large estate now opened to the city, in streets and avenues, and largely built upon. She was also the mother of Charles Wetmore, the artist who painted the picture of "Old Morristown," in 1815, now in possession of Hon. Augustus W. Cutler, to whose courtesy we are indebted for the privilege of having made from it the fine pen and ink sketch of Miss Suzy Howell, for the frontispiece of this book.) "From 1814 to 1829, our property passed through the hands successively of Israel Canfield, James Wood and Silas Condict. During this period, or rather a portion of it, one of New Jersey's most promising lawyers resided on this spot. I refer to Mr. William Miller, an older brother of our late United States Senator, the Hon. J. W. Miller. * * * A citizen of Morristown who was personally acquainted with him has lately written me: 'The noble character and the brilliant career of this young lawyer, which were cut short by his untimely death, are still remembered with lively interest by some of our oldest inhabitants.' "In 1829 the property again changed hands, the purchaser being Miss Mary Louisa Mann. Her father was the editor of _The Morris County Gazette_ afterwards known as _The Genius of Liberty_, and of _The Palladium of Liberty_, the first newspapers issued in Morristown. He also published in 1805 an edition of the Holy Scriptures, which gained considerable notoriety as 'The Armenian Bible,' from the error occurring in Heb. vi:4, 'For it is possible for those who have once been enlightened ... if they shall fall away to renew them again unto repentance.' Miss Mann, now Mrs. Lippincott, of Succasunna, together with her sister, Miss Sarah, put up the building which is to serve us hereafter as a Sunday School room and church parlor. It was erected to meet the wants of a female seminary established by them in 1822, and which had grown under their efficient management so popular that its advantages were sought by pupils from all quarters. Since the close of the school the buildings occupied by it have been used as a boarding house. As such their hospitality has been enjoyed by numbers whose names are familiar to us in connection with important features of our national existence, finance, war and art. I mention in particular the Belmonts, the Perrys, the Rogers, the Enningers. And here in the front parlor of this same boarding house in the summer of 1851, when it had been determined to found a new parish, the first meeting of its originators was held. 'In that room,' to quote the language of one present on the occasion, 'the infant Church was christened The Church of the Redeemer, and from that day it lived; very feebly at first, not a very strong child, but tenderly nurtured, always slowly gaining, until now, after thirty-four years, it promises to grow in strength and to have a powerful future.' Our immediate predecessor in the title to the land was Mr. George W. King, who acquired it in 1854 for the sum of $8,000." Of the character of the church, Rev. Mr. Chadwell says: "This Church then, I may observe, has always been conservative in its character. Those who founded it gave to it this tone. They were men opposed in mind and temperament to that mediaeval type of theology which had begun to prevail in their day, and which has since become popular in various quarters. They were out of sympathy with the movement which was then aiming, and which has since succeeded in undoing much the reforming divines of the sixteenth century accomplished. They were averse, for example, to everything that savors of sacerdotalism--to the doctrines which convert the ambassador of Christ into a sacrificing priest, the communion table into a veritable altar, and the eucharist into a sacrifice and constant miracle. Elaborate rites and ceremonies, in which some find a delight, and perhaps a help, were distasteful to them. They felt themselves unable to derive edification from these sources. On the other hand, they were in harmony with what may be denominated the protestant tendencies of our Communion. Of the name itself of protestant they had not learned to be ashamed. They believed in the principles of the great Reformation of three centuries ago. They did not judge its promoters deluded men, nor pronounce them to have 'died for a cause not worth dying for.' They honored them as God-enlightened, and venerated them as heroes and martyrs. The changes these effected in dogma and in ritual they regarded not as mistakes, but as advances in the right direction--from error towards truth. They looked to Christ as their only priest, to His cross as their only altar and to his death thereon as the only atonement for their sin. They loved simplicity of worship and cultivated it in their public devotions. In fine, they were content and best satisfied with that plain system of teaching and practice which the Prayer Book as we have it now seems most naturally to favor. At least this is the impression of these men which I have received from reading the record and memorials of themselves they have left behind. So when they organized this parish it was along these lines which I have indicated. And from its inception to the present moment it has retained, with perhaps some unessential modifications, the stamp they gave it." Rev. William M. Hughes, S. T. D. The Rev. Dr. Hughes, who succeeded the Rev. George H. Chadwell, in 1887, as rector of the Church of the Redeemer should have followed our little group--within this group--of editors and theologians, except that he has present charge of a parish, which they have not. He was officially on the editorial staff and in the editorial department of _The Churchman_ during 1887 and 1888, and has written for editorial and other departments both before and since. For _The Church Journal_ also, as well as other, and secular papers, he has written articles and editorials on various topics, from time to time. Dr. Hughes was born at Little Falls, New York, and losing both parents early in life, removed to Frankfort, Kentucky, among his mother's relatives. From boarding-school in Ohio, he entered Kenyon College, Class of '71. At the end of Freshman year he went to Hobart College and was graduated there at the head of his class in 1871. During 1871-'72, he studied in Berlin, Germany, and was graduated in 1875 from the General Theological Seminary, New York. The same year he became rector of St. John's Church, Buffalo, N. Y., one of the most important parishes of the diocese of Western New York. This charge he resigned in 1883, to accept a position of honor to which he had been unanimously elected, in Hobart College, Geneva, N. Y.,--namely, the Chaplaincy of the College and Professorship of "Philosophy and Christian Evidences," the latter department having been hitherto held by the President of the College. It was with great regret, that the people of Buffalo as well as the people of St. John's parish, parted with both Dr. and Mrs. Hughes, if we may judge from all that was expressed in the press on the occasion of their departure. "Here," says one writer, "they will be missed, not only by those with whom they were closely associated in church or neighborhood relationship, but more especially by the sick, the humble, the troubled, and the needy, for whose consolation and comfort they have so unselfishly labored, in many parts of the city, during the last seven years. A thousand blessings follow them." In 1887, Dr. Hughes became an associate editor of _The Churchman_ and Rector of the Church of the Redeemer, Morristown. He is a member of the Executive Council of the Church Temperance Society and Corresponding Secretary of the _University Board of Regents_ and originator of the scheme. Among Dr. Hughes' writings is an important brochure on Boys' Guilds, published under the auspices of the Church Temperance Society, and entitled "Hints for the Formation of Bands of Young Crusaders." In this he discusses "one of the most practical questions before the Church, and the one which the busy rector often asks in sheer bewilderment, if not despair: 'What shall be done with the boys of the Church, from the ages of ten to seventeen?'" He also offers the solution in a plan of organization for one, among many works, which may interest and occupy them, thus training them as the boys of the Church to become the men of the Church. In the _Magazine of Christian Literature_ for September 1892, we find the leading article to be from the pen of Dr. Hughes, on "The Convergence of Darwinism and the Bible." "The conclusions here reached," the author tells us, "have been subjected, during the past eight years, to efficient criticism and repeated examinations." It is proposed that these articles shall continue and finally appear in book form. Of this article, a prominent clergyman of the Church, whose opinion weighs for much, and whose words we have asked the privilege of giving, writes Rev. Dr. Hughes, as follows: "I am deeply moved in recognizing the penetration, the sublimity and sweetness of your essay in the September number of the _Magazine of Christian Literature_. I trust No. 1. is prophetic of future numbers. "You have made a great discovery and you disclose it with great power and beauty. How wonderful is this converging witness of Nature and the Spirit, Faith and Science to the approaching Day of the Son of Man. No question, the Day is swiftly coming. Its light is on the hills. The many signs of His approach and His appearing seem to fill the air and make the spirit tremble with holy fear and gladness. The Lord hasten the Day. Let us prepare ourselves with joy to greet Him. Meantime, we may greet one another in the full assurance of faith, as I you, brother, by these presents." * * * * * From a Paper in _The Magazine of Christian Literature_ of September 1892, on-- "THE CONVERGENCE OF DARWINISM AND THE BIBLE CONCERNING MAN AND THE SUPREME BEING." Science and religion are in reality dealing with the same phenomena. Immense human and personal interests are involved in them. Neither can be discussed in the absolutely "dry light" of sheer intellectuality. Consequences of immense import to the individual character, to the social well-being, and to eternal hopes flow directly from each. If, by scientific methods, which are plainly sound, conclusions are reached that are directly at variance with the religious faith of the vast majority, both a social and an intellectual as well as an ethical revolution is threatening. Or if by religious methods traditions are established which deny room to the conclusions of progressive human thought, religion inevitably invites scepticism, the casting off of all traditions, and the unfortunate disclaim of that which is forever true in faith. There are not a few of us to whom our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is dearer far than the most acute thinker in the domain of human speculation or the profoundest student of the world as it is. If it come to an attack or a logical denial of that which He is and teaches, we do not hesitate to make a personal matter of it. If Darwinism, _e. g._, as a system of ultimate postulates demands that we yield up the Lord of Life to be crucified afresh by the powers of the world, Darwinism, as such, will get no quarter. Getting no quarter, it will give none, and it becomes an internecine strife that knows no truce and admits no peace until the one or the other lies dead on the field of contest. But if, as a matter of fact, such a conflict is really illogical, hasty, and essentially inimical to both modern science, and to the Christian faith, then much is gained not only for peace, but still more for truth. It is the direct object of this article to demonstrate, so far as demonstration is possible, that the theory of Darwin, instead of antagonizing, tends irresistibly to affirm the most fundamental truths of the Bible as commonly held by the so-called orthodox Christian world. Nay, more, not only to affirm, but to give them greater power. PUBLIC SPEAKERS AND LAWYERS. At this point, we must confess to a sensation of being overwhelmed with an embarrassment of riches, for what shall we do with the distinguished men who follow, and bring our little book within its covers? That we may have no more continuous extracts from their works, reluctantly we find ourselves compelled to realize. Hon. Jacob W. Miller. We are indebted to Edward Q. Keasbey, Esq., grandson of Mr. Miller, for the facts and data of the following brief sketch. The Hon. Jacob W. Miller was born in November, 1800, in German Valley, Morris County, N. J. He studied law in Morristown with his brother, William W. Miller from 1818 to 1823, when he was licensed to practice as attorney. He was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court as counsellor in 1826 and in 1837 he was called to the degree of Sergeant at Law and he was one of the last to whom the degree was given. He had a large practice in Morristown and was one of the leading advocates at the circuit in Sussex and Warren as well as Morris Counties. Mr. Elmer in his reminiscences says: "He was distinguished not only as a fervent and impressive speaker, but for patient industry, faithfulness and tact. He was distinguished also for that sound common sense which is above all other sense, and was, by its exhibition in public and private, a man of great personal influence." In 1838 he was elected a member of the Council, as the State Senate was then called, and in 1840, he was elected by the Whig party to the Senate of the United States. He was elected again in 1846, and remained in the Senate until 1852. He did not speak very often, but when he spoke it was after a careful study of the subject and his words carried the greater weight. He spoke with wisdom and eloquence. A large number of these speeches are published in scattered pamphlets or in volumes among others. They have never been collected. One of the earliest of these important speeches was on the resolutions of the day in favor of a protective tariff. On May 23, 1844, Mr. Miller delivered a speech against the treaty for annexing Texas to the United States. The objections to the treaty as stated by him, are of considerable interest in the present day. He opposed the annexation on the ground that it was using the National Government to give an advantage to the Slave States. "Slavery," he said was "a matter to be regulated and controlled by the States, and neither to be interfered with nor extended by the National Government. New Jersey had abolished slavery herself and did not ask any territory into which to send her slaves." On Feb'y 21, 1850, he spoke upon the "Proposition to Compromise the Slavery Question" and in favor of the admission of California into the Union. Among others of his speeches, were those "On the Exploration of the Interior of Africa and in favor of the Independence of Liberia", delivered in the Senate of the United States, March 1853; "In Defence of the American Doctrine of Non-Intervention", delivered in the Senate of the U. S. Feb. 26, 1852; "On the Mexican War and the Mode of Bringing it to a Speedy and Favorable Conclusion", Feb. 2, 1847; "On the Ten Regiments Bill", Feb. 8, 1848, against the prosecution of the Mexican War. Mr. Miller worked and spoke earnestly in favor of "Establishing and Encouraging an American Line of Steamers". On April 22, 1852, he delivered a carefully prepared speech in favor of sustaining the Collins line of Mail Steamers, and advocated the policy of a subsidy for carrying the mails, which was successful then and has now again been adopted, already resulting in the restoration of the American flag to the transatlantic steamers. Besides these speeches in the Senate, Mr. Miller delivered a good many addresses and orations. Among these was an oration delivered in Morristown on the Fourth of July, 1851. Even then he foreboded the attempt to break up the Union and, speaking of Secession as rebellion, he maintained the power of the Nation under the Constitution to defend the Union. Several addresses were delivered before historical societies and some in the direction of the agricultural interests of the country. Before the New Jersey Historical Society in Trenton, he spoke of "The Iron State, Its Natural Position, Power and Wealth", Jan. 19, 1854. Before the Bristol Agricultural Society at New Bedford, Mass., Sept. 28, 1854, he spoke on "American Agriculture; its Development and Influence at Home and Abroad". Hon. William Burnet Kinney. Mr. Kinney, whose wife, Elizabeth C. Kinney and whose grandson, Alexander Nelson Easton, have already been represented among our poets, may be claimed by Morristown, for his associations of boyhood and of many years in later life. A man of unusual culture, no one who knew him could forget the charm of his courtly manners and delightful conversation. He founded _The Newark Daily Advertiser_, in 1833. It was then the only daily newspaper in the State, and uniting with it _The Sentinel of Freedom_, a long established weekly paper, he gave to the journal a tone so high that it was said of him, "his literary criticisms, contained in it, had more influence upon the opinions of literary men than those of any other journalist of the time." He was fortunate in having an accomplished son, Thomas T. Kinney, Esq., of Newark, N. J., to follow in his footsteps and continue the editorial work he had begun in this leading New Jersey paper. From Mr. Thomas T. Kinney we have a few words of reminiscence written in reply to the question of a friend as to what his father's early associations with Morristown might have been. "My father," he says, "was born at Speedwell, Morris County (in the edge of Morristown). I think it was in the house afterwards owned and occupied by the late Judge Vail, and the same in which his son Alfred lived. He invented the telegraph alphabet of dots and lines, which made Morse's system practicable, and it is still used. "Speedwell is on a stream upon which there were mill-sites, owned and worked by my father's ancestry and there is a tradition in the family that his uncle in trying to save a mill during a freshet lost his life and the body was afterwards found through a dream by another member of the family. The lake at Speedwell was a picturesque spot and Sully, the artist, painted his great picture of the 'Lady of the Lake' there, the subject being Lucretia Parsons, a beautiful girl whose family came from the West Indies and settled in the neighborhood. Lucretia married a Mr. Charles King who lived at the Park House in Newark and had the original sketch from which Sully painted the head in the picture. My father was intimate in the family and I think that some of his ancestry rest in the burial ground of the old Presbyterian Church at Morristown,--from all of which we may infer that many of his youthful days were passed there." Mr. Kinney studied under Mr. Whelpley, author of "The Triangle", and subsequently studied under Joseph C. Hornblower, of Newark. In 1820 he began his editorial life in Newark, which he continued with slight interruption until his appointment in 1851, as United States Minister to Sardinia. "In this position of honor," it is said, "he represented his country with rare ability." With Count Cavour and other men of eminence in Sardinia, he discussed the movement for the unification of Italy. For important services rendered to Great Britain, Lord Palmerston sent him a special despatch of acknowledgment and by his own foresight, judgment and prompt action in the case of the exiled Kossuth, he saved the United States from enlisting in a foreign complication. During his life abroad, at the expiration of his term of office as Minister to Sardinia, while residing in Florence, Mr. Kinney became deeply interested in the romantic history of the Medici family. He began a historical work on this subject, to be entitled, "The History of Tuscany", which promised to be of great importance, but although carried far on to completion, it was not finished when his life ended. In Florence Mr. and Mrs. Kinney were constantly in the society of the Brownings, the Trollopes and others of literary distinction. Mr. Kinney, besides his editorial writing, delivered, by request, a number of important orations which were published. The last of these, "On the Bi-Centennial of the Settlement of Newark", and delivered on the occasion of that celebration, we find in a volume published in 1866, entitled "Collections of the New Jersey Historical Society". Hon. Theodore F. Randolph Theodore F. Randolph was born in New Brunswick June 24, 1826. His father, James F. Randolph, for thirty-six years publisher and editor of _The Fredonian_, was of Revolutionary stock, belonging to the Virginia family, and for eight years represented the Whig Party in Congress. The son received a liberal education and was admitted to the bar in 1848. He frequently contributed articles to his father's paper when still a youth. In 1850 he took up his residence in Hudson County, where he resided twelve years and until he removed to Morristown. In 1852 he married a daughter of Hon. W. B. Coleman, of Kentucky, and a granddaughter of Chief Justice Marshall. In 1860 he with others of the American party formed a coalition with the Democrats to whom he ever after adhered. In 1861 he was elected to the State Senate for unexpired term and in the following year he was re-elected and served till 1865. In 1867, he was made President of the Morris and Essex Railroad and continued to act as such until the lease was made to the Delaware and Lackawanna Company. In 1868, he was elected Governor of the State and proved a most able and independent Chief Magistrate. In January, 1875, he was elected to the United States Senate in which he served a full term of six years. In 1873 he was one of the four who formed and carried out the design of making the Washington Headquarters "a historic place". His sudden death on the seventh day of November, 1883, shocked the whole community in whose affections he filled so large a place. Gov. Randolph was a man of most genial manner, honorable in all his business transactions and most liberal-minded and fearless as a legislator. Says one who knew him intimately: "He filled well all the duties to which his fellow-citizens called him." But it is as a writer that his name appears here. His messages to the Legislature while Governor and his speeches in the United States Senate are known of all and bear the impress of his character. These are scattered through numerous public documents and have never yet been collected in book form. His many contributions to the press were mostly political. In 1871, he pronounced an oration at the dedication of the Soldiers' Monument on our public square, which was published in our County papers, and on July 5, 1875, at the celebration of the National holiday at Headquarters, he made the eloquent address, which is the best specimen of his skill. This address is given, entire, in Hon. Edmund D. Halsey's "History of the Washington Association of New Jersey". Hon. Edward W. Whelpley. Chief Justice Whelpley, by the high order of his judicial qualities rose rapidly from the Bar to the Bench. He was the only son of Dr. William A. Whelpley, a native of New England and a practicing physician in Morristown. Dr. Whelpley was a cousin of the Rev. Samuel Whelpley who wrote "The Triangle". The mother of Judge Whelpley was a daughter of General John Dodd of Bloomfield, N. J., and a sister of the distinguished Amzi Dodd, Prosecutor of Morris County. He was graduated, at Princeton, with distinction, at the early age of sixteen; studied law with his uncle, Amzi Dodd and began its practice in Newark, N. J. In 1841 he removed to Morristown and became a partner of the late Hon. J. W. Miller. He was first appointed to the position of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and in a few years became Chief Justice. The late Attorney-General Frelinghuysen said of him: "Chief Justice Whelpley's most marked attributes of character were intellectual. The vigorous thinking powers of his mother's family were clearly manifest in him. No one could have known his uncle, Amzi Dodd, without being struck with the marked resemblance between them. The Chief Justice was well read in his profession, familiar with books, and yet he was a thinker rather than a servile follower of precedent. He was a first class lawyer. He sought out and founded himself on principles. He did not stick to the mere bark of a subject. He had confidence in his conclusions and he had a right to have it, for they logically rested upon fundamental truths. But while his intellectual characteristics were most marked, he had admirable moral traits. He felt the responsibilities of life and met them. He was no trifler. He had integrity, which, at the bar and on the bench, was beyond all suspicion". And Courtlandt Parker, his intimate and life-long friend said of him: "Intellectually, his qualities were rare. He was made for a Judge. Judicial position was his great aim and desire, and when he attained it, his whole mind was devoted to its duties; they were enjoyment to him; he felt his strength, and was determined not merely to be a judge, but such a judge as would honor his exaltation, and exercise eminently that high usefulness which belongs to that office". Chief Justice Whelpley may be justly ranked among important writers of the legal profession. His legal opinions found in the Law Reports are characterized by strength, independence and knowledge of the principles of law. Hon. Jacob Vanatta. In a city so honored in the number of its distinguished legal minds, it need not be a surprise to find such a man as Jacob Vanatta, but of only a few can it be said as was truly remarked of him: "His practice grew until, at the time of his death, it was probably the largest in the State. His reputation advanced with his practice, and for years he stood at the head of the New Jersey Bar, as an able, faithful, conscientious and untiring advocate and counsel. He may be truly called one of the greatest of corporation lawyers. He was for years the regular Counsel of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company, of the Central Railroad Company, and more or less of many other corporations, and his engagements have carried him frequently before the highest Courts of New York, Pennsylvania and of the United States Supreme Court". The Rev. Rufus S. Green, D. D., said, in his beautiful funeral discourse: "Mr. Vanatta died at the age of fifty-four--an old man worn out by overwork". "Be warned", he continues, "by the sad example of him whom to-day you sincerely mourn of an exhausted brain and prematurely enfeebled body. Take needed rest, cessation from labor, and frequent holidays". The character of Mr. Vanatta's talent was wholly different from that of Judge Whelpley. The one rose brilliantly and suddenly, driven out by the force of an inborn genius, the other attained to what he was through untiring industry and plodding labor. "More than any man I have ever known, from his clerkship to his death", says Mr. Theodore Little, into whose office Mr. Vanatta entered a student in the year 1845, "he seemed to have engraved on his very heart the motto, '_Perseverantia vincit omnia_,' and in that sign he conquered and achieved his success". Mr. Vanatta's published writings are mostly articles on political questions and many speeches and addresses, which were often reprinted. One of these in particular, made a profound impression. It was delivered at Rahway, when our civil war was threatening, and contained a strong argument and appeal for the Union. Hon. George T. Werts. Our present Governor of New Jersey, Hon. George T. Werts, was born at Hackettstown, N. J., March 24th, 1846, and was admitted to the bar in 1867. He was Recorder of Morristown from May 1883 to 1885, and was elected Mayor in May 1886, again in 1888 and in 1890. During the session of the State Senate in 1889, he served as President of the Senate, and was re-elected Senator in the same year. During his time as Senator, he served on many of the most important Committees and the new Ballot Reform Law and the new License Law were both drafted by him; laws which embrace, perhaps, the most radical change of any recently enacted. While Mayor of Morristown some of the most important ordinances of the city were of his drafting; indeed while Mayor, he paid particular attention to every ordinance drafted. Early in 1892 he was appointed Judge of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, resigning the offices of State Senator and Mayor of Morristown to accept this honor, and he resigned the position of Judge to accept that of Governor, to which office he was elected in November, 1892. Many speeches and addresses of Governor Werts have been published in the metropolitan and State papers, and in pamphlet form. Several are scattered through large volumes containing the speeches and addresses of others. These are mostly political, but some are on other subjects, and have been delivered before juries and at reunions, in the Senate, and on other occasions. Among these published papers are also opinions and decisions while Judge of the Supreme Court. Joseph Fitz Randolph. Mr. Randolph has issued a valuable work, known to us as "Jarman on Wills", 1881 and 1882, being the fifth American edition by Mr. Randolph and Mr. William Talcott. This work adds a third volume to a famous two-volume English book. In 1888, was issued "Randolph on Commercial Paper", which work is of three volumes and contains 3,300 pages on bills, notes, &c., and is considered by the legal profession to be quite exhaustive of the subject. "These", says the author, "are legal monsters into which lawyers dig and delve and which settle knotty questions no doubt, but which probably will not be thoroughly investigated by women, until Fashion or Famine shall drive them into the legal profession". Again we may quote the author's words, when he says in his usual happy vein of humor, about all his important legal productions, that "they are a necessary nuisance to the maker's friends and the unwilling buyers, that there is no end of making many such, and that they might be written down in line, on a heavy page with some of his brother writers on other abstruse subjects and set in a minor key". Edward Q. Keasbey. In one of the large New York dailies of August 1892, we read the following: "Mr. Keasbey, the well known New Jersey lawyer, has some hundred pages on 'Electric Wires in Streets and Highways,' a new subject of growing importance." This refers to a law book published by Mr. Keasbey entitled "The Law of Electric Wires in streets and Highways", Callaghan and Co., Chicago. Mr. Keasbey has also edited _The New Jersey Law Journal_ since 1879 and _The Hospital Review_ since 1888. SCIENTISTS. Samuel Finley Breese Morse, LL. D. Nothing could be more romantic than the story of the Telegraph, the practical application of which began in Morristown, for it is morally certain that without the enthusiastic confidence in its success generously manifested by Alfred Vail, the young inventor, and his father Judge Stephen Vail, who freely contributed of his means to the experiments of Professor Morse, this great gift to the world would have been indefinitely delayed. [Illustration: SPEEDWELL IRON WORKS, AS REPRESENTED ON AN ANCIENT INVOICE.] Morse was poor. He had exhausted his means by the necessary time and thought given to the development of his conception, when the value of this work was realized by these two men. It was as an artist, that Morse went first to Speedwell, on October 29, 1837, to observe the progress of his new machinery which was being prepared there at the Speedwell Iron Works belonging to Judge Vail, by Alfred Vail and his assistant, William Baxter. Morse had accepted a commission, doubtless given him as a means of relieving his pecuniary stress, to paint the portraits of several members of Judge Vail's household. It will be remembered, that besides his great invention, Professor Morse was an artist of considerable reputation, as well as an author. In his youth, it is said, he was more strongly marked by his fondness for art than for science. He was a pupil of Washington Allston, a member of the Royal Academy, and studied with Benjamin West. He painted the portraits of many distinguished men, among them the then President of the United States, James Monroe, for the city of Charleston; and, later, Fitz Greene Halleck and Chancellor Kent, now in the Astor Library, and the full length portrait of Lafayette for the city of New York. He was one of the founders and was first President of the National Academy of Design, and it was on his return from the pursuit of his renewed study of art abroad that he met with the remarkable experience which turned his attention from art to invention and gave him his life work. In a letter written to Alfred Vail by Professor Morse, and given in Mr. Vail's book on "The American Electro-Magnetic Telegraph", (page 153), we find the following account: "In 1826, the lectures before the New York Atheneum, of Dr. J. F. Dana, who was my particular friend, gave to me the first knowledge ever possessed of electro magnetism, and some of the properties of the electro magnet; a knowledge which I made available in 1832, as the basis of my own plan of an electro telegraph. I claim to be the original suggestor and inventor of the electric magnetic telegraph, on the 19th of October, 1832, on board the packet ship Sully, on my voyage from France to the United States and, consequently, the inventor of the first really _practicable telegraph on the electric principle_. The plan then conceived and drawn out in all its essential characteristics, is the one now in successful operation." Professor Morse had more honors and medals than perhaps any American living. He belonged to a distinguished literary family. His two brothers founded _The New York Observer_ in 1823. This is now the oldest weekly in New York and the oldest religious paper in the State. As an author, he wielded the pen of a ready writer. He not only published controversial pamphlets concerning the telegraph, but contributed articles and poems to many magazines and edited the works of Lucretia Maria Davidson, accompanying them by a personal memoir. He published in 1835, a book entitled, "Foreign Conspiracy against the Liberties of the United States; Imminent Dangers to the Free Institutions of the United States through Foreign Immigration and the Present State of the Naturalization Laws, by an American". Later were published "Confessions of a French Catholic Priest, to which are added Warnings to the People of the United States, by the Same Author", (edited and published with an introduction, 1837), and "Our Liberties Defended, the Question Discussed, is the Protestant or Papal System most favorable to Civil and Religious Liberty". Alfred Vail. To Alfred Vail belongs a place of honor, as the author of a valuable book on "The American Electro-Magnetic Telegraph", and a place of honor, also, as having been the man to perceive, at a critical moment, the importance to the world of the great invention of Professor Morse. He was among the spectators who witnessed the first operation of the electro-magnetic telegraph at the New York University and saw then, for the first time, the apparatus. Of this occasion he writes as follows: "I was struck with the rude machine, containing, as I believed, the germ of what was destined to produce great changes in the condition and relations of mankind." Again, he says, "I rejoiced to carry out the plans of Professor Morse. I promised him assistance, provided he would admit me to a share of the invention,--to which proposition he assented. I returned to my rooms, locked my door, threw myself upon the bed and gave myself up to the reflections upon the mighty results which were certain to follow the introduction of this new agent in serving the wants of the world". With this intense conviction, young Vail communicated his enthusiasm to his father, Judge Stephen Vail, who owned the Speedwell Iron Works and who generously supplied the means by which the plans for the electric telegraph were put into successful operation. It is an interesting fact that these same Speedwell Iron Works are variously connected with the history of the country, for "here was forged the shaft of the _Savannah_, the first steamship that crossed the Atlantic and here were manufactured the tires, axles and cranks of the first American locomotives." In _The Century_ for April 1888, is a most interesting article, entitled "The American Inventors of the Telegraph, with Special Reference to the Services of Alfred Vail". This is exhaustive of the subject, was written by Franklin Leonard Pope, and was supervised by Mrs. Alfred Vail, as she tells us, and the statements fortified by documents, correspondence and designs. To _The Century_ editors and to Mr. James Cummings Vail, of Morris Plains, son of Alfred Vail, we are indebted for the use of the plate of the Speedwell Iron Works, redrawn from an ancient invoice, the age of which is not known. The illustration of the "Factory" in which the first successful trial and, afterwards, the first public exhibition, of the electric telegraph took place, is from a photograph of the building as it stands at the present day, on the lot in which stands the homestead house, now occupied by Mrs. Lidgerwood. "I have always understood", says Mr. J. C. Vail, (Jan'y 5, 1893), "that the room in which my father and Baxter (his young assistant) worked and called the 'work shop', was in an old stone building within the Iron Works enclosure, between the bridge and Morristown and is still standing, and is the only stone building within that enclosure." Of these buildings and associations, Mrs. John H. Lidgerwood, the granddaughter of Judge Vail, now living on the place, at Speedwell, writes as follows, Dec. 12, 1892: "My grandfather makes but three entries in his diary: "'1838, January 6th. Dr. Gale came this morning. They (Prof. Morse, Alfred Vail, and the Dr.) have worked the Tellegraph in the Factory this evening for the first time.' "'10th. Mr. Morse and Alfred are working and showing the Tellegraph.' "'11th. A hundred came to see the Tellegraph work.' "The old house", continues Mrs. Lidgerwood, "in which my grandfather then lived, still remains near the foot of the hill nearest the town. The interior has been entirely changed and I never knew the room occupied by Professor Morse. "The shop, in which the machine was constructed, and which was called the 'work shop', has also been rebuilt. Its four walls are all that are left of the original building. The floor of that room was taken away to make a one story building and the windows were put in the roof. It is now entirely vacant and stands on the side of the dam opposite the saw mill, the gable end of the old shop facing the road. One end of the foundation was partly torn away by the freshet that destroyed the old bridge. The experiments were made in a building called 'The Factory', which is at the foot of our lawn. It was built for a Cotton Factory, but only used for making buttons, owing, I believe, to some fault in its construction. "My grandfather has told me frequently that the machine was placed on the first floor, and about three miles of copper wire, insulated by being wound with cotton yarn, was wound around the walls of the second story. There are some hooks still in the side walls but I do not know if they are the same. I have still a small portion of the original wire used in the experiments. I do not know the age of any of these buildings. The works were probably here long before the Revolution. I have heard my grandfather say there was a forge here at that time." The machine used on the occasion to which Judge Vail refers in his diary, and on which he himself had sent the first message of all, "a patient waiter is no loser," is now loaned by the family to the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D. C. From the time the first telegraphic message was sent by Alfred Vail from the "Factory" at Speedwell and received by Professor Morse two miles away, and the next experiment when Morse and Vail operated with complete success through ten miles of space,--to the final triumph at Washington, many and great were the perils and moments of anguish through which the inventors passed. It was on the 24th of May, 1844, when the supreme test of the telegraph was made at Washington and the message was sent to Mr. Vail in Baltimore, in the words selected by Miss Annie G. Ellsworth and taken from Numbers xxiii: 23, "What hath God wrought." During these years Alfred Vail, it is claimed, had "not only become a full partner in the ownership of the invention, but had supplied the entire resources and facilities for obtaining patents and for constructing the apparatus for exhibition at Washington; and more than this, he had introduced essential improvements not only in the mechanism, but in the fundamental principles of the telegraph." Vail felt that Morse had not acknowledged, as he expected, his (Vail's) part in the invention or fully recognized his rights of partnership. Of this, the Hon. Amos Kendall, the friend and associate of both, has said: "If justice is done, the name of Alfred Vail will forever stand associated with that of Samuel F. B. Morse in the history and introduction into public use of the electro-magnetic telegraph." Mr. Vail's book, which has place in most of the prominent libraries of Europe and America, was published in 1845 and is entitled "The American Electro-Magnetic Telegraph with the Reports of Congress and a description of all Telegraphs known, employing Electricity or Galvinism". It is illustrated by eighty-one wood engravings. [Illustration: FACTORY AT SPEEDWELL. IN WHICH THE FIRST EXHIBITION OF THE ELECTRO-MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH TOOK PLACE.] William Graham Sumner, LL. D. Professor Sumner is a New Jersey man, born at Paterson. He inherited from his father, Thomas Sumner, who came to this country from England in 1836, several important qualities which those who know the son will recognize. Thomas Sumner, we are told, was a man of the strictest integrity, of indefatigable industry, of sturdy common sense and possessing the courage of his convictions. Two of Professor Sumner's early teachers in Hartford, one of them Mr. S. M. Capron, in the classical department, had also great influence upon his character. He was graduated from Yale College in 1863. In the summer of that year, he went abroad, studied French and Hebrew in Geneva, after which he spent two years at the University of Göttingen, in the study of ancient languages, history, especially church history, and biblical science. Here, he tells us, he was "taught rigorous and pitiless methods of investigation and deduction. Their analysis was their strong point. Their negative attitude toward the poetic element, their indifference to sentiment, even religious sentiment, was a fault, seeing that they studied the Bible as a religious book and not for philology and history only; but their method of study was nobly scientific, and was worthy to rank, both for its results and its discipline, with the best of the natural science methods." Mr. Sumner went to Oxford in 1866, with the intention and desire of reading English literature on the same subjects which he had pursued at Göttingen. "I expected," he says, "to find it rich and independent. I found that it consisted of second-hand adaptation of what I had just been studying." Returning to this country, while tutor in Yale College, in 1866, Mr. Sumner published a translation of Lange's "Commentary on Second Kings". In 1867, he was ordained deacon in the Protestant Episcopal Church, and two years later, he received full ordination in New York and became assistant to Rev. Dr. Washburn at Calvary Church, New York, under whom he was made editor of a broad church paper. In September, 1870, he became rector of the Church of the Redeemer at Morristown, N. J., from which event he claims our attention as an author. With regard to the course of his young ministry in this parish he says; "When I came to write sermons, I found to what a degree my interest lay in topics of social science and political economy. There was then no public interest in the currency and only a little in the tariff. I thought that these were matters of the most urgent importance, which threatened all the interests, moral, social and economic, of the nation, and I was young enough to believe that they would all be settled in the next four or five years. It was not possible to preach about them, but I got so near to it that I was detected sometimes, as, for instance, when a New Jersey banker came to me, as I came down from the pulpit, and said: 'There was a great deal of political economy in that sermon.'" In September, 1872, Mr. Sumner accepted the chair of Political and Social Science at Yale College, in which he has so highly distinguished himself. Of this he says: "I had always been very fond of teaching and knew that the best work I could ever do in the world would be in that profession; also that I ought to be in an academical career. I had seen two or three cases of men who, in that career, would have achieved distinguished usefulness, but who were wasted in the parish and pulpit". In 1884, Prof. Sumner received the degree of LL. D. from the University of Tennessee. A distinguished American economist well acquainted with Prof. Sumner's work has given to a writer from whom we quote, the following estimate of his method and of his position and influence as a public teacher: "For exact and comprehensive knowledge Prof. Sumner is entitled to take the first place in the ranks of American economists; and as a teacher he has no superior. His leading mental characteristic he has himself well stated in describing the characteristics of his former teachers at Göttingen; namely, as 'bent on seeking a clear and comprehensive conception of the matter "or truth" under study, without regard to any consequences whatever,' and further, when in his own mind Prof. Sumner is fully satisfied as to what the truth is, he has no hesitation in boldly declaring it, on every fitting occasion, without regard to consequences. If the theory is a 'spade', he calls it a spade, and not an implement of husbandry." Professor Sumner has published, besides Lange's "Commentary on the Second Book of Kings", the "History of American Currency"; "Lectures on the History of Protection in the United States"; "Life of Andrew Jackson", in the American Statesmen Series; "What Social Classes Owe to Each Other"; "Economic Problems"; "Essays on Political and Social Science"; "Protectionism"; "Alexander Hamilton", in the Makers of America Series, (1890); "The Financier (Robert Morris) and the Finances of the American Revolution", (1891); besides a large number of magazine articles on the same line of subjects. Elwyn Waller, Ph. D. Three writers now present themselves, each of whom is distinguished in his department, one of Chemistry, one of Mining and Metallurgy, and one of Mathematics. The Author's Club would exclude these brilliant men from recognition, but here the clause of our title, "and Writers", saves us. Prof. Waller amusingly expresses the position when he says, "I supposed that reference in your book would be made to those who had achieved more or less distinction in what has sometimes been termed 'polite literature.' While I am not ready to admit that the literature of my profession (chemistry) is 'impolite', it probably is too technical to come within the scope of your work." Like many of our residents, Dr. Waller's time is divided between New York and Morristown, being Professor of Analytical Chemistry at Columbia School of Mines, New York. He has written much of value; innumerable pamphlets and articles for various magazines, for chemical periodicals and Sanitary Reports and for journals far and wide, both technical and general in character, among which are _The Century_ and _The Engineering and Mining Journal_. He has written certain articles for Johnson's Encyclopædia, and has edited articles in other books all of which are to be reckoned as technical, but valuable contributions to current chemical literature. He has completed a book on "Quantitative Chemical Analysis", from the MSS. of one of his Colleagues, which was left unfinished in 1879 and he is now engaged in revising and practically re-writing the same work. Besides, he has written gossipy letters for _The Evening Post_, and _The Evening Mail_, of New York, from various far-off islands and inland points, where he has usually made one of a scientific party. One series of letters was written while a member of the U. S. St. Domingo Expedition. George W. Maynard, Ph. D. Another scientific man, ranking high in his department of Mining and Engineering, is Professor George W. Maynard, who is just now principally engaged in Colorado, passing back and forth between that State and his home in Morristown. He has had extensive travels over our own country and continent, and abroad. He is a close observer and many of us are familiar with his graphic descriptions of the scenes which he has witnessed, notably in Mexico, also with the illustrated lectures on these and other subjects, which he has generously given from time to time. Professor Maynard is a graduate of Columbia College, New York, and was Demonstrator in Chemistry in that College for a year. He then studied abroad at Göttingen, Clousthal and Berlin, and was for four years Professor of Mining and Metallurgy in the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, of Troy, N. Y. His published writings, which have mostly been of a technical character, have appeared in various technical journals and in the "Transactions of the American Institute of Mining Engineers", and in _The Journal_ of the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain. Of the above mentioned societies, he is an active member and also of the New York Academy of Sciences. Emory McClintock, LL. D. The third of our group of specialists is Dr. Emory McClintock, whom one of his brother scientists warns us we should "not forget to mention as he is one of the most eminent mathematicians in the United States". As associated with Morristown, in his beautiful home on Kemble Hill, high overlooking the Lowantica valley and scenes full of memories of the Revolution, we claim him with pride, in spite of his saying that his writings have all been records of scientific researches and not literary in any sense and that he has never written a book, big or little, nor even a magazine article. It remains, that his many writings are of great value as published in pamphlet form or in periodicals of technical character, such as _The Bulletin of the New York Mathematical Society_, which is "A Historical and Critical Review of Mathematical Science"; or, _The American Journal of Mathematics_ from which a large pamphlet is reprinted on _The Analysis of Quintic Equations_, or, in the direction of his art or specialty as a life insurance actuary, where appears, among other writings, a large pamphlet on _The Effects of Selection_--being "An Actuarial Essay," in which we find very interesting matter for the general reader. Andrew F. West, LL. D. Professor West, of Princeton College, is well remembered as a resident of Morristown for two years, (1881-1883). He was at that time, the predecessor of Mr. Charles D. Platt, at the Morris Academy, and mingled largely in the literary, social and musical circles of the city. He, like Dr. McClintock, is a Pennsylvanian, and was born at Pittsburg. Since Mr. West accepted a professorship at Princeton College, which was the occasion of his leaving Morristown, he has written largely on classical and medieval subjects. His last book, just published, by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1892, is entitled "Alcuin and the Rise of the Christian Schools." It appears in the Series of "The Great Educators", edited by Nicholas Murray Butler. It is a volume of 205 pages, and contains a sketch of Alcuin at York and at Tours, also treating of his educational writings, his character, his pupils, and his later influence. Various literary, philological and educational articles in reviews have been contributed by Professor West, and two books additional to the one mentioned, have been published by him. These are, "The Andria and Heauton Timorumenos, of Terence," edited with introduction and notes, and published by Harper and Brothers (1888); and "The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury," edited from the manuscripts, translated and annotated. The latter is in three volumes: I., The Latin Text; II., The English Version; III., Introduction and Notes Printed by Theodore De Vienne for the Grolier Club of New York, (1889). José Gros. From the shores of Spain, has come to us one of our advanced thinkers and writers, Señor José Gros. He is a disciple of Henry George and, on one occasion, introduced that distinguished man to a Morristown audience, in our Lyceum Hall, giving, to a large number of people assembled, the opportunity of listening to his own exposition of the views about which so wide and warm a controversy has raged. Señor Gros was born and educated in Spain. He has traveled extensively through Italy, France, Germany, England, and a portion of our own country, finally taking a position in a commercial house in New York, in 1859, in which he remained until 1870, when he retired to Morristown. Since then, in his own words, he has "dedicated most of his time to the study of history and science, more especially social science," for which he has been writing articles for western magazines and journals and also for one or more of our local papers. In the _Locomotive Firemen's Magazine_, of Terre Haute, Indiana, a large number of these articles have appeared. They go with this magazine to all the States and Territories of the Union, to parts of Canada and Mexico, and they are connected with over 500 Labor Clubs. The subject of one series of these papers is "Civilization With its Problems". Other subjects are, "The Struggle for Existence"; "Confusion in Economic Thought"; "Governments by Statics or Dynamics"; "Congested Civilizations"; "Social Skepticism", and a series on "To-day's Problems". In all his arguments, Señor Gros considers as vital to advance in Social Science the principles of the Christian religion. "No system," he says, "can save us from disasters without clear perceptions of duty on what I call 'Christian citizenship.'" MEDICAL AUTHORS AND WRITERS. Condict W. Cutler, M. S., M. D. Dr. Cutler claims through his father, the Hon. Augustus W. Cutler, as ancestor, the Hon. Silas Condict, one of the most renowned patriots of the Revolution, and his childhood and boyhood was spent in the house which was built, in 1799, by this great-great-grandfather and occupied by him. It has been owned and occupied since then, and is now, by Hon. Augustus W. Cutler. The old house, in which Silas Condict previously lived, is still standing about a mile west of the present Cutler residence. Many historic incidents and traditions cluster about this place. Dr. Cutler has done credit to this ancestor's memory in his exceptionally successful career. A member of many societies, and associate editor of _The New York Epitome of Medicine_, he has written largely for journals and magazines, besides publishing three books, which are entitled "Differential Medical Diagnosis"; "Differential Diagnosis of the Diseases of the Skin", and "Essentials of Physics and Chemistry." These, say the medical and surgical critics, are prepared with care and thoroughness and show a wise use of standard text-books and the exercise of critical judgment guided by practical experience. Many may think that the books belonging to Materia Medica, being of technical character, do not come directly within our province, but we may say _everything_ in the line of authorship is within our broad range, and we are glad to say emphatically that nothing, not even theological questions, concern mankind more deeply than just this great question upon which Dr. Cutler has expended so much thought and labor and which too is the result of his experience as a medical man,--namely, the Differential Diagnosis of Disease. When we take into consideration the fact, that no disease can be successfully treated until it is _known_ and as it cannot be known without being properly diagnosed, and as successful diagnoses depend upon just such principles and relations as Dr. Cutler demonstrates, we can see the value of the work even though we may not belong to the medical fraternity. More than all, we can see the benefit which such a work confers upon mankind at large and not alone upon the healers of diseased and afflicted humanity. Let any one go into the houses of the poor; the streets and the alleys, and into the overflowing hospitals and witness the immensity of the evil of that terrible phase of disease, "The Skin Diseases" of which Dr. Cutler treats, and he will realize what earnest thanks we owe to a man whose life work is to devote his time and brains to the alleviation of this type of human suffering. Phanet C. Barker, M. D. Dr. Barker, of Morristown, has for twenty-five years past written more or less, from time to time, for medical journals published in New York and Philadelphia. The majority of these contributions have been of a practical character and consequently rather brief. Some of them have been formal studies of practical questions, such as "The Vaccination Question", questions connected with Sanitary Science, &c. Of the latter, one we would mention in particular, entitled, "The Germ Theory of Disease and its Relations to Sanitation". In this the writer tells us: "The germ theory of disease is destined to hold a place in literature as the romance of medicine, and if it stands the test of time, and the scrutiny which is certain to be bestowed upon it, the theory will mark an epoch for all time to come. The present century has been distinguished in many and various ways, which need not be alluded to in this connection. Among the discoveries and improvements of the age, Sanitary Science occupies an important, a commanding position, that can hardly be exaggerated. Indeed it has contributed more to civilization and to the well-being of the human race than steam, electricity or any other scientific or economic discovery." Then the writer refers to the condition of Englishmen who lived in the fourteenth century, and traces the ravages of the Black Death to the people's mode of living. He sketches the epidemics that have prevailed in the world at various periods, and asserts that even "chronology has been changed and the fate of great and powerful peoples like those of Athens, of Rome and of Florence, has been sealed by the direct or indirect effects of what we now term preventible diseases." Such contributions as Dr. Barker has made to general literature have had relation to economic questions generally, although the preparation of a few papers on "Popular Astronomy", "Meteorological Observations" and "Fishing in Remote Canadian Waters" have served, as he says, "to rest and refresh his mind, when harassed by anxieties incident to the practice of his profession." These papers have been published,--the former in New York City or in our local papers, and the latter in _The Forest and Stream_. One of the pamphlet publications on popular astronomy is unusually attractive and is entitled "The Stars and the Earth". Horace A. Buttolph, M. D., LL. D. Dr. Buttolph, whose professional life, as connected with the care and treatment of the insane in three large institutions, in New York and New Jersey, covering a period of forty-two years, although devoted so exclusively to administrative, professional and personal details, that little time was left to engage in writing for the press, beyond the preparation of the usual annual Reports of such institutions, has, nevertheless turned that little time to good account. The State Asylum for the Insane at Morristown was under the superintendence of Dr. Buttolph from its opening in August 1876 to the last day of the year 1884, when he tendered his resignation. Previous to this he had been in charge of the Trenton Asylum from May 1848 to April 1876, making a period of unbroken service in New Jersey of more than thirty-seven years, during which time these buildings were organized on his plan, and that of Morris Plains, with its extensive machinery, was mostly planned by him. One specialty in the line of machinery in both institutions, in use for many years,--that of making aerated or unfermented bread, which is most cleanly, healthful and economical, is probably not in use in any institution in the world, outside of New Jersey. Dr. Buttolph was born in Dutchess County, N. Y., and was graduated from the Berkshire Medical Institution at Pittsfield, Mass., in 1835. Having been early attracted to the study of insanity, he made it a specialty and accepted a position in the new State Lunatic Asylum, at Utica, N. Y., in 1843. This he retained until 1847 when he went as Medical Superintendent to the State Lunatic Asylum near Trenton, N. J. During the previous year, while still attached to the Utica Asylum, he went abroad to study the architecture and management of other institutions and visited thirty or more of the principal asylums in Great Britain, France and Germany. At this time very few institutions for the insane had been established in this country and all sorts of problems had to be worked out. Dr. Buttolph soon came to be a very high authority and, in that recognized capacity, he was chosen to direct the Asylum at Morris Plains, which is the largest in the United States and one of the best equipped in the world. It was a matter of very great regret to his large circle of friends in Morristown, and out of it, when he found it impossible to remain longer in the charge he had filled so faithfully and well. Dr. Buttolph's writings have been on insanity or mental derangement; also on the organization and management of hospitals for the insane; the classification of the insane with special reference to the most natural and satisfactory method of their treatment, etc. These writings have been published in many magazines and journals, and a large number in pamphlet form. Also addresses, delivered on important occasions or before societies, have been published in pamphlet form. Of these, one is widely-known, given before the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane, at Saratoga, N. Y., June 17, 1885, on "The Physiology of the Brain and its Relations in Health and Disease to the Faculties of the Mind." AUTHORS AND WRITERS ON ART. Thomas Nast. Mr. Nast, who has for so long been identified with Morristown, may be designated both as artist and bookmaker. In the true sense of the term, author, he may then be fairly presented, as probably no living man has wielded a greater influence through his power of expression. Many readers of this sketch will remember the consternation that prevailed upon the revelation of the Tweed Ring scandals and at the question of Tweed himself as he defied the City of New York,--"What are you going to do about it?" They will remember how Mr. Nast with wonderful courage and grasp of the situation, came to the front and at great personal risk to himself and family, threw with steady aim, the stone which killed that Goliath of Gath and put to rout the Philistines. They will remember Tweed's exclamation: "I can stand anything but those pictures!" Mr. Nast, then, is a hero in our history, and the fact cannot be forgotten. When the Washington Headquarters was first purchased from the Ford family, the original owners, by a few gentlemen who organized the Washington Association to preserve the historic building and grounds, for a national possession, many will remember how Mr. Nast entered into the spirit of the Centennial Celebration there in 1875, when so many of the prominent men and women of Morristown took part, wearing the dress of the Revolution and working hard to accomplish the end of fitting up the building by the proceeds of the entertainment. All were astonished by the result in sales of tickets, collation, and little hatchets, of between eleven and twelve hundred dollars in one single afternoon and evening; so much, that the amount was divided between the Headquarters and the "Library" of Morristown, then in its beginning. Mr. Nast had much to do with this success. He worked early and late at the decorations and filled one of the largest rooms with his immense and humorous cartoons of scenes in the Revolution and the stories of George Washington. The book published by Mr. Nast is now in our library, "Miss Columbia's Public School", and is a clever satire on the Northern and Southern boy and the general condition of Miss Columbia's pupils in the time of our Civil War. It was issued in 1871. Another charming publication of Mr. Nast was brought out by the Harper Brothers for Christmas, 1889, under the title of "Thomas Nast's Christmas Drawings for the Human Race". Of this says one of the critics of the time: "His Santa Claus, jolly vagabond that he is, seems to radiate a warmth more genial than tropic airs, and a gayety that overbears the sadness of experience. 'What a mug' does he show us on the title page; so kindly, so roguish, so venerable, so comical, so shrewd, so pugnaciously cheerful! How seriously he takes himself, and yet what a wink in those twinkling eyes, as who should say, 'Confidentially, of course, we admit the fraud, but mum's the word where the children are concerned!'" Thomas Nast came from Bavaria, with his father, at the age of six, and at fourteen was a pupil for a few months of Theodore Kaufmann, soon after beginning his career, as draughtsman on an illustrated paper. In 1860, as special artist for a New York weekly paper, he went abroad and while there, followed Garibaldi in Italy, making sketches for London, Paris and New York illustrated papers. His war sketches appeared in _Harper's Weekly_ on his return in 1862. The political condition of national affairs gave him opportunity for manifesting his peculiar gift for representing in condensed form, a powerful thought. His first political caricature established his reputation. It was an allegorical design which gave a powerful blow to the peace party. Besides the _Harper's Weekly_ sketches, Mr. Nast has contributed to other papers and has illustrated books in addition to those mentioned, in particular Petroleum V. Nasby's book. For many years, he brought out "Nast's Illustrated Almanac". In the principal cities of the United States, Mr. Nast has lectured, illustrating his lectures with rapidly executed caricature sketches, in black and white, and in colored crayons. It is said by a contemporary writer that "in the particular line of pictorial satire, Thomas Nast stands in the foremost rank." Rev. Jared Bradley Flagg, D. D. The Rev. Dr. Flagg, recently a resident of Morristown, has just published a delightful and important book on the "Life and Letters of Washington Allston", Scribner's Sons, November, 1892. It is illustrated by reproductions from Allston's paintings. Many remember the very striking full length portraits of Wm. H. Vanderbilt, Mr. Evarts and others, which were shown in Dr. Flagg's gallery in Morristown, on the occasion of a reception given at his residence here, a few years ago. In addition to the book above mentioned, Dr. Flagg has written a great deal as a clergyman. He belongs to an artistic family, of New Haven, Conn. His brother, George, was considered in his youth a prodigy and his pictures and portraits attained celebrity. His style resembles the Venetian School, like that of his uncle, Washington Allston, with whom he studied. Dr. Flagg studied with both his brother and his uncle, and began as an artist at an early age, painting professionally and earning a living at sixteen. At twenty, "his love of letters, and fear of Hell," as he says, led him to connect himself with Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., and to study for the church. After an active ministry of ten years, during eight of which he was rector of Grace Church, Brooklyn Heights, his health broke down, and he devoted what strength he had left to artistic and literary pursuits, in which he is still engaged and in which, he tells us, he finds increasing interest with declining years. Rev. J. Leonard Corning, D. D. Dr. Corning has already been represented, in our group of poets. He has passed much of his life abroad and has made a special study of art, upon which he is an authority. He was for several years a regular contributor to _The Independent_ and _The Christian Union_ on art subjects, and wrote for _The Manhattan Magazine_, a series of articles, among them, on the "Luther Monument at Worms", "William Lübke" and "Women Artists of the Olden Time". The fruits of his art study have largely been put into the form of popular lectures, which he has delivered in many of the large American cities. It is remembered that some years ago, during his residence in Morristown, Dr. Corning gave a series of art lectures with illustrations, for the benefit of the Morristown Library. The proceeds were devoted to the purchase of books on art and the volumes thus added were selected by Dr. Corning. In this way, the library is indebted to him for very valuable additions. George Herbert McCord, A. N. A. Mr. McCord, of the National Academy, is best known to us as an artist, bringing before us, with his magic brush, historic scenes of England, picturesque views of Canada, on the St. Lawrence and elsewhere, and many of our own country, among them spots of beauty about Morristown, which other eyes perhaps have not discovered until shown to them by him. But, he is also an art critic and one of those writers of out of door life, who find, like Hamerton, both rest and recreation among the scenes which he transfers to his canvas. Often he contributes to our papers and magazines current news from the art world to which he so essentially belongs. Sometimes, in his contributions to _The Richfield News_, for which he writes, he gives us a bit of word painting that is scarcely less poetic than the creations of his canvas. More than all, Mr. McCord is not a croaker. He never comes before us with that chronic wail of the neglect of American art. On the contrary, he tells us cheerfully that the most prominent dealers in foreign art productions are buying and selling works of American art. We like such cheerful summer writers, bringing bright visions of the future to our world of art. Mr. McCord's beautiful picture, "The Old Mill Race", transfers to canvas a scene on the Whippany River. It also makes a fine addition to a little collection of "Choice Bits in Etching", published by Mr. Ritchie. DRAMATIST William G. Van Tassel Sutphen. Mr. Sutphen, who is now permanently engaged in journalism, is no less a successful dramatist and, from the first, has shown those most attractive and rare qualities which are essentially requisite to reach dramatic success. A list of his more important published works will show that he is no idler, and includes several bright clever farces contributed to _Harper's Bazar_, among them, "The Reporter"; "Hearing is Believing"; "Sharp Practice", and "A Soul Above Skittles". Not long ago appeared a romantic opera entitled "Mary Phillipse; An Historical and Musical Picture, in Four Scenes." This is founded on certain events in the history of the city of Yonkers, Westchester County, New York, between the years 1760 and 1776. It was set to music by George F. Le Jeune, and produced with marked success, June 30, 1892, at Yonkers and on succeeding dates. "Hearing is Believing" was performed twice in Morristown in the same winter. Mr. Sutphen has only lately published in the July number of _Scribner's Magazine_ (1892), a poem entitled "To Trojan Helen" and containing some fine verses. This is worthy of high place in Mr. Sutphen's intellectual work. Another poem of merit, "Insciens", appeared also in _Scribner's Magazine_. In addition to these, miscellaneous verses and sketches have been contributed to _Puck_, _Life_, _Time_ and other periodicals, and in most cases, anonymously. For the past eight years, Mr. Sutphen has had charge of the weekly edition of _The New York World_. While at Princeton College he was one of the editors of the _Nassau Literary Magazine_, and one of the founders and first editor of the _Princeton Tiger_, an illustrated weekly, modeled on the _Harvard Lampoon_. "Condensed Dramas" and "Latterday Lyrics" should also be mentioned, a series of light sketches and verses contributed to _Time_ during the existence of that periodical. It is, however, by his dramatic talent, that we wish to represent Mr. Sutphen, and for this reason we expected and would be glad to give in full, were it possible, "The Guillotine; a Condensed Drama", which first appeared in _The Argonaut_, a San Francisco Journal. This is an extremely clever and witty comedy, perhaps the best of his dramatic writings, to which an extract will hardly do justice. We are thankful to Mr. Sutphen for contributing a little of the laughter element to the condensed mass, included in this volume, of theology, history, philosophy, poetry, romance, mathematics, medicine, art and science. EXTRACT FROM "THE GUILLOTINE." _Scene: The Public Square in a French Town. In the centre of the square is seen a guillotine. Enter venerable gentleman of scientific aspect reading a newspaper._ (In the first scene the professor, finding himself alone with the guillotine and seeing a notice of an execution to take place three hours later, is impelled to examine the instrument. He adjusts the axe and works the spring until he masters the mechanism, and finds the spring on the right releases the knife, spring on the left, the head. Finally he decides to put his own head on the block to try the sensation. Horrible! he cannot remember which is his right hand and which his left. While in this position, a party of tourists come along, armed with Baedekers and accompanied by a guide.) GUIDE (_gesticulating_)--Zare, ladies and gentlemans. Ze cathedral! Ah! ciel! Look at him. Magnifique! (_Chorus of "ahs" from tourists and general opening of Baedekers._) GUIDE--Ze clock-tower ees of a colossity excessive. It elevates himself three hundred and eighty-six feet. (_Immense enthusiasm._) At ze terminality of ze wall statue ze great Charlemagne. Superbe! Chuck-a-block to him, Dagobert, Clovis and Voila! (_Catching hold of elderly tourist._) Le bon Louis. (_The tourists take notes with painful accuracy and minuteness._) ELDERLY TOURIST--Very interesting. Rose, my child, have you got all that down. How old is the cathedral, guide? GUIDE--It has seven hundred and feefty-six years. SPINSTER AUNT (_Severely_)--Baedeker says seven hundred and fifty-five. GUIDE (_politely_)--It ees hees one mistake. (_An exclamation from Rose. Everybody turns._) ROSE (_pointing to guillotine_)--Oh, do look there! SPINSTER AUNT--It looks as though an execution were in progress. Baedeker says-- ELDERLY TOURIST (_eagerly_)--Is it really so, guide? GUIDE (_indifferently_)--Yes, but zare ees no fee and zarefore no objection in seeing it. It ees modern--vat you call him--cheap-John. We will now upon ze clock-tower upheave ourselves. Zare are two hundred and one steps. ELDERLY TOURIST--But we want to see the execution. GUIDE--You enjoy ze ferocity? Bah! you shall have him. For one franc zare ees to see picture S. Sebastian--ver' fine, all shot full wiz burning arrows. ELDERLY TOURIST--Never mind, we will wait. Do you think, guide, I would have time to go back and get my wife? I am sure she would enjoy it! 
17793	----	The Debtor A Novel By Mary E. Wilkins Freeman Author of "The Portion of Labor" "Jerome" "A New England Nun" Etc. Illustrations by W. D. Stevens New York and London Harper & Brothers Publishers 1905 To Annie Fields Alden and Harriet Alden Chapter I Banbridge lies near enough to the great City to perceive after nightfall, along the southern horizon, the amalgamated glow of its multitudinous eyes of electric fire. In the daytime the smoke of its mighty breathing, in its race of progress and civilization, darkens the southern sky. The trains of great railroad systems speed between Banbridge and the City. Half the male population of Banbridge and a goodly proportion of the female have for years wrestled for their daily bread in the City, which the little village has long echoed, more or less feebly, though still quite accurately, with its own particular little suburban note. Banbridge had its own "season," beginning shortly after Thanksgiving, and warming gradually until about two weeks before Lent, when it reached its high-water mark. All winter long there were luncheons and teas and dances. There was a whist club, and a flourishing woman's club, of course. It was the women who were thrown with the most entirety upon the provincial resources. But they were a resolved set, and they kept up the gait of progress of their sex with a good deal of success. They improved their minds and their bodies, having even a physical-culture club and a teacher coming weekly from the City. That there were links and a golf club goes without saying. It was spring, and golf had recommenced for some little time. Mrs. Henry Lee and Mrs. William Van Dorn passed the links that afternoon. The two ladies were being driven about Banbridge by Samson Rawdy, the best liveryman in Banbridge, in his best coach, with his two best horses. The horses, indeed, two fat bays, were considered as rather sacred to fashionable calls, as was the coach, quite a resplendent affair, with very few worn places in the cloth lining. Banbridge ladies never walked to make fashionable calls. They had a coach even for calls within a radius of a quarter of a mile, where they could easily have walked, and did walk on any other occasion. It would have shocked the whole village if a Banbridge woman had gone out in her best array, with her card-case, making calls on foot. Therefore, in this respect the ladies who were better off in this world's goods often displayed a friendly regard for those who could ill afford the necessary expense of state calls. Often one would invite another to call with her, defraying all the expenses of the trip, and Mrs. Van Dorn had so invited Mrs. Lee to-day. Mrs. Lee, who was a small, elderly woman, was full of deprecating gratitude and a sense of obligation which made it appear incumbent upon her not to differ with her companion in any opinion which she might advance, and, as a rule, to give her the initiative in conversation during their calls, and the precedence in entry and retreat. Mrs. Van Dorn was as small as her companion, but with a confidence of manner which seemed to push her forward in the field of vision farther than her size warranted. She was also highly corseted, and much trimmed over her shoulders, which gave an effect of superior size and weight; her face, too, was very full and rosy, while the other's was narrow and pinched at the chin and delicately transparent. Mrs. Van Dorn sat quite erect on the very edge of the seat, and so did Mrs. Lee. Each held her card-case in her two hands encased in nicely cleaned, white kid gloves. Each wore her best gown and her best bonnet. The coach was full of black velvet streamers, and lace frills and silken lights over precise knees, and the nodding of flowers and feathers. There was, moreover, in the carriage a strong odor of Russian violet, which diffused itself around both the ladies. Russian violet was the calling perfume in vogue in Banbridge. It nearly overcame the more legitimate fragrance of the spring day which floated in through the open windows of the coach. It was a wonderful day in May. The cherry-trees were in full bloom, and tremulous with the winged jostling of bees, and the ladies inhaled the sweetness intermingled with their own Russian violet in a bouquet of fragrance. It was warm, but there was the life of youth in the air; one felt the bound of the pulse of the spring, not its lassitude of passive yielding to the forces of growth. The yards of the village homes, or the grounds, as they were commonly designated, were gay with the earlier flowering shrubs, almond and bridal wreath and Japanese quince. The deep scarlet of the quince-bushes was evident a long distance ahead, like floral torches. Constantly tiny wings flashed in and out the field of vision with insistences of sweet flutings. The day was at once redolent and vociferous. "It is a beautiful day," said Mrs. Van Dorn. "Yes, it is beautiful," echoed Mrs. Lee, with fervor. Her faded blue eyes, under the net-work of ingratiating wrinkles, looked aside, from self-consciousness, out of the coach window at a velvet lawn with a cherry-tree and a dark fir side by side, and a Japanese quince in the foreground. After passing the house, both ladies began pluming themselves, carefully rubbing on their white gloves and asking each other if their bonnets were on straight. "Your bonnet is so pretty," said Mrs. Lee, admiringly. "It's a bonnet I have had two years, with a little bunch of violets and new strings," said Mrs. Van Dorn, with conscious virtue. "It looks as if it had just come out of the store," said Mrs. Lee. She was vainly conscious of her own headgear, which was quite new that spring, and distinctly prettier than the other woman's. She hoped that Mrs. Van Dorn would remark upon its beauty, but she did not. Mrs. Van Dorn was a good woman, but she had her limitations when it came to admiring in another something that she had not herself. Mrs. Lee's superior bonnet had been a jarring note for her all the way. She felt in her inmost soul, though she would have been loath to admit the fact to herself, that a woman whom she had invited to make calls with her at her expense had really no right to wear a finer bonnet--that it was, to say the least, indelicate and tactless. Therefore she remarked, rather dryly, upon the beauty of a new pansy-bed beside the drive into which they now turned. The bed looked like a bit of fairy carpet in royal purples and gold. "I call that beautiful," said Mrs. Van Dorn, with a slight emphasis on the that, as if bonnets were nothing; and Mrs. Lee appreciated her meaning. "Yes, it is lovely," she said, meekly, as they rolled past and quite up to the front-door of the house upon whose mistress they were about to call. "I wonder if Mrs. Morris is at home," said Mrs. Van Dorn, as she got a card from her case. "I think it is doubtful, it is such a lovely day," said Mrs. Lee, also taking out a card. Samson Rawdy threw open the coach door with a flourish and assisted the ladies to alight. He had a sensation of distinct reverence as the odor of Russian violet came into his nostrils. "When them ladies go out makin' fashionable calls they have the best perfumery I ever seen," he was fond of remarking to his wife. Sometimes he insisted upon her going out to the stable and sniffing in the coach by way of evidence, and she would sniff admiringly and unenviously. She knew her place. The social status of every one in Banbridge was defined quite clearly. Those who were in society wore their honors easily and unquestioned, and those who were not went their uncomplaining ways in their own humble spheres. Mrs. Van Dorn and Mrs. Henry Lee, gathering up their silken raiment genteelly, holding their visiting-cards daintily, went up the front-door steps, and Mrs. Lee, taking that duty upon herself, since she was Mrs. Van Dorn's guest, pulled the door-bell, having first folded her handkerchief around her white glove. "It takes so little to soil white gloves," said she, "and I think it is considerable trouble to send them in and out to be cleaned." "I clean mine with gasolene myself," said Mrs. Van Dorn, with the superiority of a woman who has no need for such economies, yet practises them, over a woman who has need but does not. "I never had much luck cleaning them myself," said Mrs. Lee, apologetically. "It is a knack," admitted Mrs. Van Dorn. Then they waited in silence, listening for an approaching footstep. "If she isn't at home," whispered Mrs. Van Dorn, "We can make another call before the two hours are up." Mr. Rawdy was hired by the hour. "Yes, we can," assented Mrs. Lee. Then they waited, and neither spoke. Mrs. Lee had occasion to sneeze, but she pinched her nose energetically and repressed it. Suddenly both straightened themselves and held their cards in readiness. "How does my bonnet look?" whispered Mrs. Lee. Mrs. Van Dorn paid no attention, for then the door was opened and Mrs. Morris's maid appeared, with cap awry and her white apron over a blue-checked gingham which was plainly in evidence at the sides. The ladies gave her their cards, and followed her into the best parlor, which was commonly designated in Banbridge as the reception-room. The best parlor was furnished with a sort of luxurious severity. There were a few pieces of staid old furniture of a much earlier period than the others, but they were rather in the background in the gloomy corners, and the new pieces were thrust firmly forward into greater evidence. Mrs. Van Dorn sat down on the corner of a fine velvet divan, and Mrs. Lee near her on the edge of a gold chair. Then they waited, while the maid retired with their cards. "It's a pretty room, isn't it?" whispered Mrs. Lee, looking about. "Beautiful." "She kept a few pieces of the old furniture that she had in her old house when this new one was built, didn't she?" "Yes. I suppose she didn't feel as if she could buy all new." The ladies studied all the furnishings of the room, keeping their faces in readiness to assume their calling expression at an instant's notice when the hostess should appear. "Did she have those vases on the mantel-shelf in the old house?" whispered Mrs. Lee, after a while; but Mrs. Van Dorn made a warning gesture, and instantly both ladies straightened themselves and looked pleasantly expectant, and Mrs. Morris appeared. She was a short and florid woman, and her face was flushed a deep rose; beads of perspiration glistened on her forehead, her black hair clung to it in wet strands. In her expression polite greeting and irritation and intense discomfort struggled for mastery. She had been house-cleaning when the door-bell rang, and had hastened into her black skirt and black-and-white silk blouse. The blouse was buttoned wrong, and it did not meet the skirt in the back; and she had quite overlooked her neckgear, but of that she was pleasantly unconscious, also of the fact that there was a large black smooch beside her nose, giving her both a rakish and a sinister air. "I am so glad to find you in," said Mrs. Van Dorn. "I was telling Mrs. Van Dorn that I was so afraid you would be out, it is such a lovely day," said Mrs. Lee. "I am so glad I was in," responded Mrs. Morris, with effusion. "I should have been so disappointed to miss your call." Then the ladies seated themselves, and the conversation went on. Overhead the maid could be heard heavily tramping. The carpet of that room was up, and the mistress and maid had planned to replace it before night; but the mistress held fast to her effusive air of welcome. It had never been fashionable or even allowable not to be at home when one was at home in Banbridge. When Banbridge ladies went abroad calling, in the coach, much was exacted. Mrs. Morris could never have held up her social head again had she fibbed, or bidden the maid fib--that is, if it had been discovered. "How lovely your house is, Mrs. Morris!" said Mrs. Van Dorn, affably. The Morris house was only a year old, and had not yet been nearly exhausted as a topic of polite conversation. "Thank you," said Mrs. Morris. "Of course there are things about the furnishings, but one cannot do everything in a minute." "Now, my dear Mrs. Morris," said Mrs. Lee, "I think everything is sweet." Mrs. Lee said sweet with an effect as if she stamped hard to emphasize it. She made it long and extremely sibilant. Mrs. Lee always said sweet after that fashion. "Oh, of course you would rather have all your furniture new, than part new and part old," said Mrs. Van Dorn; "but, as you say, you can't do everything at once." Mrs. Van Dorn was inclined at times to be pugnaciously truthful, when she heard any one else lie. Her hostess looked uneasily at an old red velvet sofa in a dark corner, which was not so dark that a worn place along the front edge did not seem to glare at her. Nobody by any chance sat on that sofa and looked at the resplendent new one. They always sat on the new and faced the old. Mrs. Morris began absently calculating, while the conversation went on to other topics, if she could possibly manage a new sofa before summer. Mrs. Lee asked if she knew if the new people in the Ranger place, "Willow Lake," were very rich? She said she had heard they were almost millionaires. "Yes," said Mrs. Morris. "Very rich indeed. Mr. Morris says he thinks they must be, from everything he hears." "Of course it does not matter in one way or another whether they are rich or not," said Mrs. Lee. "Well, I don't know," said Mrs. Van Dorn. "Of course nobody is going to say that money is everything, and of course everybody knows that good character is worth more than anything else, and yet I do feel as if folks with money can do so much if they have the will." "I think that these new people are very generous with their money," said Mrs. Morris. "I heard they about supported the church in Hillfield, New York, where they used to live, and Captain Carroll has joined the Village Improvement Society, and he says he is very much averse to trading with any but the local tradesmen." "What is he captain of?" inquired Mrs. Lee, who had at times a fashion of putting a question in a most fatuously simple and childish manner. "Oh, I don't suppose he is really captain of anything now," replied Mrs. Morris. "I don't know how he happened to be captain, but I suppose he must have been a captain in the regular army." "I suppose he hasn't any business, he is so very rich?" "Oh yes; he has something in the City. I dare say he does not do very much at it, but I presume he is an active man and does not want to be idle." "Why didn't he stay in the army, then?" asked Mrs. Lee, clasping her small white kid hands and puckering her face inquiringly. "I don't know. Perhaps that was too hard, or took him away too far. I suppose some of those army posts are pretty desolate places to live in, and perhaps his wife was afraid of the Indians." "He's got a wife and family, I hear," said Mrs. Van Dorn. Both calling ladies were leaning farther and farther towards Mrs. Morris with an absorption of delight. It was as if the three had their heads together over a honey-pot. "Mr. Lee said he heard they had a fine turnout," said Mrs. Lee. "Mrs. Peel told me that Mr. Peel said the horses never cost less than a thousand," said Mrs. Van Dorn. "A thousand!" repeated Mrs. Morris. "Mr. Morris said horses like those were never bought under twenty-five hundred, and Mr. Morris is a pretty good judge of horse-flesh." "Mr. Van Dorn said Dr. Jerrolds told him that Captain Carroll told him he expected to keep an automobile, and was afraid the Ranger stable wouldn't be large enough," said Mrs. Van Dorn. "So I heard," said Mrs. Lee. "I hear he pays a very large rent to Mr. Ranger--the largest rent he has ever got for that house," said Mrs. Morris. "Well, I hear he pays fifty dollars a month." "Why, he never got more than forty before!" said Mrs. Lee. "That is, I don't believe he ever did." "I know he didn't," said Mrs. Morris, positively. "Well, it is a handsome place," said Mrs. Lee. "Yes, it is, but these new people aren't satisfied. They must have been used to pretty grand things where they came from. They want the stable enlarged, as I said before, and a box-stall. Mr. Carroll owns a famous trotter that he hasn't brought here yet, because he is afraid the stable isn't warm enough. I heard he wanted steam-heat out there, and a room finished for the coachman, and hard-wood floors all over the house. They say he has two five-thousand-dollar rugs." "The house is let furnished, I thought," said Mrs. Van Dorn. "Yes, it is, and the furniture is still there. The Carrolls don't want to bring on many of their own things till they are sure the house is in better order. I heard they talk of buying it." "Do you know how much--" inquired Mrs. Van Dorn, breathlessly, while Mrs. Lee leaned nearer, her eyes protruding, her small thin mouth open, and her white kid fingers interlacing. "Well, I heard fifteen thousand." Both callers gasped. "Well, it is a great thing for Banbridge to have such people come here and buy real estate and settle, if they are the right sort," said Mrs. Van Dorn, rising to go; and Mrs. Lee followed her example, with a murmur of assent to the remark. "Must you go?" said Mrs. Morris, with an undertone of joy, thinking of her carpet up-stairs, and rising with thinly veiled alacrity. "Have you called?" asked Mrs. Van Dorn, moving towards the door, and gathering up her skirts delicately with her white kid fingers, preparatory to going down the steps. Mrs. Lee followed, also gathering up her skirts. "No, I have not yet," replied Mrs. Morris, preceding them to the door and opening it for them, "but I intend to do so very soon. I have been pretty busy house-cleaning since they came, and that is only two weeks ago, but I am going to call." "I think it is one's duty to call on new-comers, with a view to their church-going, if nothing else," said Mrs. Van Dorn, with a virtuous air. "So do I," said Mrs. Lee. "Good-afternoon," said Mrs. Van Dorn. "What a beautiful day it is!" Both ladies bade Mrs. Morris good-afternoon and she returned the salutation with unction. Both ladies looked fascinatedly to the last at the black smooch on her cheek as they backed out. "I thought I should burst right out laughing every time I looked at her, in spite of myself," whispered Mrs. Lee, as they passed down the walk. "So did I." "And no collar on!" "Yes. She must have been house-cleaning." "Yes. Well, I don't want to say disagreeable things, but really it doesn't seem to me that I would have been house-cleaning such an afternoon as this, when people were likely to be out calling." "Well, I know I would not," said Mrs. Van Dorn, decidedly. "I should have done what I could in the morning, and left what I couldn't do till next day." "So should I." Samson Rawdy stood at the coach-door, and both ladies stepped in. Then he stood waiting expectantly for orders. The ladies looked at each other. "Where shall we go next?" asked Mrs. Lee. "Well, I don't know," said Mrs. Van Dorn, hesitatingly. "We were going to Mrs. Fairfield's next, but I am afraid there won't be time if--" "It really seems to me that we ought to go to call on those new people," said Mrs. Lee. "Well, I think so too. I suppose there would be time if Mrs. Fairfield wasn't at home, and it is such a lovely day I doubt if she is, and it is on the way to the Carrolls'." She spoke with sudden decision to Samson Rawdy. "Drive to Mr. Andrew Fairfield's, and as fast as you can, please." Then she and Mrs. Lee leaned back as the coach whirled out of the Morris grounds. It was only a short time before they wound swiftly around the small curve of drive before the Fairfield house. "There is no need of both of us getting out," said Mrs. Van Dorn. Mrs. Van Dorn alighted and went swiftly with a tiptoeing effect upon the piazza-steps. She was seen to touch the bell. She waited a short space, and then she did not touch it again. She tucked the cards under the door-step, and hurried back to the carriage. "I knew she wasn't at home," said she, in a whisper, "it is such a lovely day." She turned to Samson Rawdy, who stood holding open the coach-door. "Now you may drive to those new people who have moved into the Ranger place," said she, "Mrs. Carroll's." Chapter II There are days in spring wherein advance seems as passive as is the progress of a log down the race of a spring freshet. Then there are other days wherein it seems that every mote must feel to the full its sentient life, and its swelling towards development or fulfilment. On a day like the latter, everything and everybody bestirs. The dust motes spin in whirling columns, the gnats dance for their lives their dance of death before the wayfarer. The gardeners and the grave-diggers turn up the earth with energy, making the clods fly like water. The rich play, or work that they may play, as do the poor. Everybody is up and wide awake and doing. The earth and the habitations thereof are rubbed, cleaned, and swept, or skylarked over; the boy plays with his marbles on the sidewalk or whoops over the fields; the housewives fling wide open their house windows, and the dust of the winter flies out like smoke; the tradesmen set out their new wares to public view, the bees make honey, the birds repeat their world-old nesting songs, the cocks crow straight through the day; nothing stops till the sun sets, and even then it is hard for such an ardent clock of life to quite run down. It was that spirit of unrest which had sent the two ladies out making calls. There was not one where, if the womenkind were at home at all and not afield, but they had been possessed of the spring activity, until they reached the Ranger place, where the new-comers to Banbridge lived. The Ranger place was, in some respects the most imposing house in Banbridge. It stood well back from the road, in grounds which deserved the name. They were extensive, dotted with stately groups of spruces and pines, and there was in the rear of the house a pond with a rustic bridge, fringed with willows, which gave the place its name, "Willow Lake." The house had formerly been owned by two maiden women with much sentiment, the sisters of the present owner. The place was "Willow Lake." The pond was the "Willow Mere," in defiance of the name of the place. The little rustic bridge was the "Bridge of Sighs," for some obscure reason, perhaps buried in the sentimental past of the sisters. And the little hollow which was profusely sprinkled with violets in the spring was "Idlewild." It was in "Idlewild" that the new family, perverse to the spirit of the day, idled when the callers drove up the road in the best coach. There was in the little violet-sprinkled hollow a small building with many peaks as to its roof, and diamond-paned windows which had been fitted out with colored glass in a hideous checker-work of orange and crimson and blue, which the departed sisters had called, none but themselves knew why, "The Temple." On the south side grew a rose-bush of the kind which flourished most easily in the village, taking most kindly to the soil. It was an ordinary kind of rose. The sisters had called it an eglantine, but it was not an eglantine. They had been very fond, when the weather permitted, of sitting in this edifice with their work. The place was fitted up with a rustic table and two quite uncomfortable rustic chairs, particularly uncomfortable for the sisters, who were of a thin habit of body. When James Ranger, who was himself not a man of sentiment, showed the new aspirant for the renting of the place this fantastic building, he spoke of it with a species of apology. "My sisters had this built," said he, "and it cost considerable," for he did not wish to disparage the money value of anything. When the family were established in their new home, one of the first things which they did--they signifying Mrs. Carroll, Miss Anna Carroll, the daughters Miss Ina and Miss Charlotte Carroll, and the son Edward Carroll, called Eddy by the family--was to march in a body upon the little "Temple," and, armed with stones, proceed with shouts of merriment to smash out every spear of the crimson and orange and blue glass in the windows. They then demolished the rustic furniture and made of that a noble bonfire. Mrs. Carroll had indeed wondered, between fits of laughter, in her sweet drawl, if they ought to destroy the furniture, as it could not be said, strictly speaking, to belong to them to destroy, but she was promptly vetoed by all the others in merry chorus. "They are too hideous to live," said Ina; "they ought to be burned. It is our plain duty to burn them." Therefore they burned them, and brought out some of the parlor chairs to replace them. Then Eddy was sent to Rosenstein's, the village dry-goods store of Banbridge, for yards of green mosquito netting, which, the Carroll credit being newly established with a blare of trumpets, he purchased. Then they had tacked up the green mosquito netting over the window and door gaps, for they had forcibly wrenched the ornate door from its hinges and added it to the bonfire, and the temple of the Muses stood in a film of gently undulating green under the green willows, and was rather a thing of beauty. The Carrolls loved to pass away the time in that retreat veiled with cloudy green, through which they could see the dull glimmer of the pond, like an old shield of silver, reflecting the waving garlands of the willows, which at that time of year were as beautiful as trees of heaven, having effects of waving lines of liquid green light, and the charming violet-blue turf around them. The afternoon of the call all the female members of the Carroll family were out there. Captain Carroll was in the City, and Eddy, who, being a boy, was more susceptible to the lash of atmospheric influence, had gone fishing. "I wonder why Eddy likes to go fishing," said Mrs. Carroll, in her sweet drawl. "Eddy never caught anything." "You don't have a very high opinion of your son's powers as a fisherman, Amy," said Ina, and they all laughed. The Carrolls were an easy-to-laugh family, and always seemed to find delicious humor in one another's remarks. "Amy never thinks any of us can catch anything," said Charlotte, the younger daughter, and they all laughed again. Mrs. Carroll was always Amy in her family. Never did one of her children address her as a parent. They were a charming group in the little, green, gloomy place, each with the strongest possible family likeness to the others. They were as much alike as the roses on one bush; all were, although not tall, long, and slim of body, and childishly round of face, with delicate coloring; all had pathetic dark eyes and soft lengths of dark hair. Mrs. Carroll and her husband's sister, although not nearly related (Mrs. Carroll had married her many-times-removed cousin), resembled each other as if they had been sisters of one family, and the children resembled their mother. The only difference among any of them was a slight difference of expression that existed mostly in the youngest girl, Charlotte. There were occasions when Charlotte Carroll's expression of soft and pathetic wistfulness and pleading could change to an expression of defiance, almost fierceness. Her mother often told her that she resembled in disposition her paternal grandmother, who had been a woman of high temper, albeit a great beauty. "Charlotte, dear, you are just like your grandmother, dear Arthur's mother, who was the worst-tempered and loveliest woman in Kentucky," Mrs. Carroll often remarked. She scarcely sounded the _t_ in Kentucky, since she also was of the South, where the languid air tends to produce elisions. The Carrolls came originally from Kentucky, and had lived there until after the births of the two daughters. When they were scarcely more than infants, Arthur Carroll had experienced the petty and individual, but none the less real, cataclysm of experience which comes to most men sooner or later. It is the earthquake of a unit, infinitesimal, but entirely complete of its kind, and possibly as far-reaching in its thread of consequences. Arthur Carroll had had his palmy days, when he was working with great profits, and, as he believed, with entire righteousness and regard to his fellow-men, a coal-mine in the Kentucky mountains. He had inherited it from his father, as the larger part of his patrimony. When most of the property had been dissipated, at the time of the civil war, the elder Carroll, who was broken by years and reverses, used often to speak of this unimproved property of his, to his son Arthur, who was a young boy at the time. Anna, who was a mere baby, was the only other child. "When you are a man, Arthur," he was fond of remarking--"when you are a man, you must hire some money, sell what little is left here, if necessary, and work that coal-mine. I always meant to do it myself, and reckon I should have, if that damned war had not taken the money and the strength out of the old man. But when you are a man, Arthur, you must work that mine, and you must build up what the war has torn down. You can buy back and restore, Arthur, and if the South should get back her rights by that time, as she may, why, then, you can stock up the old place again, and go on as your father did." The old man, who was gouty and full of weary chills of body and mind, used to sit in the sun and dream, to his faint solace, until Arthur was a grown man and through college, and Anna a young girl at school near by. The little that had been left, with the bare exception of the home estate, the plantation, and the mine, had been sold to pay for Arthur's education. Arthur had been out of college only one summer when his father died. His mother, whose proud spirit had fretted the flesh from her bones and drunk up her very blood with futile rage and repining, had died during the war. Then Arthur, who had control of everything, as his sister's guardian, set to work to carry out his father's cherished dream with regard to the coal-mine. He sold every foot of the estate to a neighboring planter, an old friend of his father's, at a sacrifice, with a condition attached that he should have the option of buying it back for cash, at an advanced price, at the end of five years. The purchaser, who was a shrewd sort, of Scotch descent, curiously grafted on to an impetuous, hot-blooded Southern growth, looked at the slim young fellow with his expression of ingenuous almost fatuous confidence in his leading-strings of fate, and considered that he was safe enough and had made a good bargain. He too had suffered from the war, in more ways than one. He had come out of the strife shorn in his fleece of worldly wealth and mutilated as to his body. He limped stiffly on a wooden leg, and his fine buildings had gone up in fire and smoke. But during the years since the war he had retrieved his fortunes. People said he was worth more than before; everything he had handled had prospered. He was one of those men whose very touch seems to multiply possessions. He was a much younger man than Arthur's father, and robust at the time of his death. He explained to Arthur that he was doing him an incalculable service in purchasing his patrimonial estate, when he announced his decision so to do, after taking several weeks to conceal his alacrity. "It is not everybodee would take a propertee, with such a condeetion attached, Arthur, boy," he said. He had at times a touch of the Scotch in his accent. His father had been straight from the old country when he married the planter's daughter. "Not everybodee, with such a condeetion," he repeated, and the boy innocently believed him. He had been used, ever since he was a child and could remember anything, to seeing a good deal of the man. The Southern wife had died early and the man had been lonely and given to frequent friendly meetings with Mr. Carroll, who had valued him. "He's the right sort, Arthur," he had often told the boy; "you can depend on him. He has given his gold and his flesh and blood for the South, although he came on one side of another race and might have sided against us. He's the right sort." So the Scotch-Southern planter had been one of the bearers at the old Carroll's funeral, and the son, when he had formulated his business schemes, had gone to this friend with them, and with his proposal for the sale of the Carroll property. The boy, who was honorable to the finish, had been loath to ask, in the then reduced state of the property, for a loan on mortgage to the extent which he would require; therefore he proposed this conditional sale as offering rather better, or at least more evident, security, and he regarded it in his own mind as practically amounting to the same thing. He was as sure of his being able to purchase back his own, should he secure the necessary funds, as he would have been of paying up the mortgage. The advance price would about twice cover the interest at a goodly rate, had the affair been conducted on the mortgage basis. Arthur himself had proposed that, and "I will of course pay for any improvements you may have made in the mean time," he said. There was nothing in the least mean or ungenerous about Arthur Carroll. He meant, on the whole, rather more squarely to his fellow-men than to himself. Then with the money obtained from the sale of his patrimony he went to work on his coal-mine. A very trifle of a beginning had been made on it before the war, so he had not actually to break the first ground. The previous owner had died bankrupt from lack of capital, and his minor daughter had inherited it. It was from the minor daughter that the elder Carroll had purchased it, partly with a view to assisting the child, who had been left penniless except for the mine, at the death of her father, who was of a distant branch of Carroll's own family. With the proceeds of the sale the girl was supported and educated; then she lost the remainder through the dishonesty of her guardian. That was the year after young Carroll began to work the mine. Then he married her. She was a beautiful girl, and helpless as a flower. He married her without a cent to support her except the old coal-mine, and he worked as hard and bravely as a man could. And he prospered, to the utter amazement of everybody who watched him, and who had prophesied failure from the start. In four years he was looked upon with respect. People said he was fast getting rich. He went to the man who had bought the Carroll place, at the end of the four years, with the money in his hand and proposed purchasing it. He had not a doubt, such was his trust in the friendliness of the man, that he would gladly consent and pat him on the back with fatherly affection for his success; but, to his amazement, he was refused, although still under the guise of the purest philanthropy. "No, Arthur, boy," he said. "It is best for you to keep the money in your business awhile longer. It will not do, in a big undertaking like a mine, for you to be creepled. No, Arthur, boy, wait until the next year is up. It is for your good." In vain Arthur offered an advance upon the original advance price. "No, Arthur, boy," he repeated. "No, Arthur, boy," he continued to repeat. "It is not wise for you to be creepled in your business." Arthur protested that he would not be crippled, but with no avail. He went away disappointed, and yet with his faith unshaken. He did not know what transpired later on, that negotiations which would materially enhance the value of the property were being carried on with a railroad by the planter, who was himself one of the railroad directors. About six months after Arthur's attempt to purchase back his ancestral acres, and while he was at high tide of a small prosperity, this same man came to him with a proposal for him to furnish on contract a large quantity of coal to this same railroad. Arthur jumped at the chance. The contract was drawn up by a lawyer in the nearest town and signed. Arthur, trusting blindly to the honesty and good-will of everybody, had hurried for his train without seeing more than that the stipulated rates had been properly mentioned in the contract. His wife was ill; in fact, Charlotte was only a few days old, and he was anxious and eager to be home. There had been no strikes at that period in that vicinity, and indeed comparatively few in the whole country. Arthur would almost as soon have thought of guarding in his contract against an earthquake; but the strike clause was left out, and there was a strike. In consequence he was unable to fill the contract without ruin, and he was therefore ruined. In the end the old friend of his father, who had purchased his patrimony, remained in undisputed possession of it, with an additional value of several thousands from the passage of the railroad through one end of the plantation, and had, besides, the mine. Arthur had sold the mine at a nominal price to pay his debts, to a third party who represented this man. He had been left actually penniless with a wife and two babies to support, but as his pocket became empty his very soul had seemed to become full to overflowing with the rage and bitterness of his worldly experience. He had learned that the man whom he had trusted had instigated the strike; he learned about the railroad deal. One night he went to his plantation with a shot-gun. He approached the house which had formerly been his own home, where the man was living then. He fully intended to shoot him. He had not a doubt but he should do it, and he had always considered that he should have carried out his purpose had not an old horse which the man had purchased with the estate, and which was loose on the lawn, from some reason or other, whinnied eagerly, and sidled up to him, and thrust her nose over his shoulder. He had been used, when a boy, to feed her sugar, and she remembered. Arthur went away through the soft Southern moonlight without shooting the man. Somehow it was because of the horse, and he never knew why it was. The old childish innocence and happiness seemed to flood over him in a light of spirit which dimmed the moonlight and swept away the will for murder from his soul. But the bitterness and the hate of the man who had wronged him never left him. The next day he went North, and the man in possession breathed more easily, for he had had secret misgivings. "You had better look out," another man had said to him. "You have trodden on the toes of a tiger when you have trodden on the toes of a Carroll. Sooner or later you will have to pay for it." No one in the little Kentucky village knew what had become of Arthur Carroll for some time, with the exception of an aunt of Mrs. Carroll's, who was possessed of some property and who lived there. She knew, but she told nothing, probably because she had a fierce pride of family. After years the Carroll girls, Ina and Charlotte, had come back to their father's birthplace and attended a small school some three miles distant from the village, a select young ladies' establishment at which their mother had been educated, and they had visited rather often at their great-aunt Catherine's. After they had finished school, the great-aunt had paid the bills, although nobody knew it, not even the elderly sisters who kept the school, since the aunt lied and stated that Captain Carroll had sent the money. Arthur Carroll was called captain then, and nobody knew why, least of all Carroll himself. Suddenly he had been called captain, and after making a disclaimer or two at first, he had let it go; it was a minor dishonesty, and forced upon him in a measure. The old aunt calmly stated that he had joined the army, been rapidly promoted, and had resigned. People laughed a little, but not to her face. Besides, she had stated that Arthur was a very rich man, and much thought of among the Yankees, and nobody was in a position to disprove that. Certainly when the feminine Carrolls visited in the old place, their appearance carried out the theory of riches. They were very well dressed, and they looked well fed, with that placid, assured air which usually comes only from the sense of possession. The feminine Carrolls had been speaking of this old aunt that spring day as they sat idly in the little green-curtained temple beside the pond. They had indulged in a few low, utterly gentle, and unmalicious laughs of reminiscence at some of her eccentricities; then they had agreed that she was a good old soul, and said no more of her, but gazed with languorous delight at the spring scene misty with green and rose and gold like the smoke of some celestial fire. Through the emerald dazzle of the trailing willow-boughs could be seen a small, blooming apple-tree, and a bush full of yellow flowers. Miss Anna Carroll and Ina held books in their laps, but they never looked in them. They were all very well dressed and they wore quite a number of fine jewels on their hands and at their necks, particularly Mrs. Carroll. Her stones, though only of the semi-precious kind, were very beautiful, amethysts which had belonged to a many-times-removed creole grandmother of hers, and the workmanship of whose fine setting dated back to France, and there was a tradition of royal ownership. Mrs. Carroll had a bracelet, a ring, a brooch, and a necklace. The stones, although deeply tinted, showed pink now instead of purple. In fact, they seemed to match the soft, rose-tinted India silk which she wore. "Amy's amethysts match colors like chamellons," said Ina. "Look how pink they are." "Lovely," said Charlotte, gazing admiringly. "The next time I go to a dance, you promised I should wear the necklace, Amy, dear." "You will not go to a dance for a long time in Banbridge, sweet, I fear," said Mrs. Carroll, with loving commiseration. "Somebody will call soon, and we shall be asked to something," said Charlotte, with conviction. "Nobody has called yet," Ina said. "We have only been here three weeks," said Miss Anna Carroll, who was a beautiful woman, and, but for a certain stateliness of carriage, might have seemed but little older than her elder niece. "Somebody may be calling this afternoon," said Ina, "and the maid has gone out, and we should not know they called." "Oh, let them leave their cards," said Mrs. Carroll, easily. "That is the only way to receive calls, and make them. If one could only know when people would be out, but not have them know you knew, always--that would be lovely--and if one only knew when they were coming, so one could always be out--that would be lovelier still." Mrs. Carroll had a disjointed way of speaking when she essayed a long speech, that had almost an infantile effect. "Amy, how very ungracious of you, dear," said Miss Anna Carroll. "You know you always love people when you really do meet them." "Oh yes," replied Amy, "I know I love them." Meantime, Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Van Dorn were ringing the door-bell of the Carroll house. They rang the bell and waited, and nobody came. "Did you ring the bell?" asked Mrs. Van Dorn, anxiously. "I thought I did. I pressed the button very hard." "I didn't hear it. I think you had better ring again." Mrs. Lee obediently pressed the bell again, and then both ladies heard distinctly the far-away tinkle in the depths of the house. "I heard that," said Mrs. Lee. "Yes, so did I. It rang that time." Then the ladies waited again. "Suppose you ring again," said Mrs. Van Dorn, and Mrs. Lee rang again. Then they waited again, straining their ears for the slightest sound in the house. "I am afraid they are out," said Mrs. Van Dorn. "So am I. It is such a lovely afternoon." Mrs. Van Dorn, after they had waited a short time, put out her hand with a decisive motion, and rang the bell yet again. "I'm going to make sure they are not at home," said she, "for I don't know when I shall get out calling again, and I always feel as if it was my duty to call on new-comers in the village pretty soon after they move in." Then they waited again, but no one came. Once Mrs. Lee started and said she was sure she heard some one coming, but it was only the rumble of a train at a station two miles away. "Shall we leave our cards?" said Mrs. Lee. "I don't suppose there is much use in waiting any longer, or ringing again." Mrs. Van Dorn, who had been staring intently at the door, looked quickly at her companion with a curious expression. Her face had flushed. "What is it?" asked Mrs. Lee. "You don't suppose any one is in there and not coming to the door?" Mrs. Lee had a somewhat suspicious nature. "No; I don't think there is a soul in that house, but--" "But what?" "Nothing, only--" "Only what?" "Why, don't you see what they have done?" "I am afraid I don't quite know what you mean," Mrs. Lee returned, in a puzzled way. It was quite evident that Mrs. Van Dorn wished her to grasp something which her own mind had mastered, that she wished it without further explanation, and Mrs. Lee felt bewilderedly apologetic that she could not comply. "Don't you see that they have gone off and left the front door unlocked?" said Mrs. Van Dorn, with inflections of embarrassment, eagerness, and impatience. If she and Mrs. Lee had been, as of yore, school-children together, she would certainly have said, "You ninny!" to finish. "Why!" returned Mrs. Lee, with a sort of gasp. She saw then that the front door was not only unlocked, but slightly ajar. "Do you suppose they really are not at home?" she whispered. "Of course they are not at home." "Would they go away and leave the front door unlocked?" "They have." "They might be in the back part of the house, and not have heard the bell," Mrs. Lee said, with a curious tone, as if she replied to some unspoken suggestion. "I know this house as well as I do my own. You know how much I used to be here when the Ranger girls were alive. There is not a room in this house where anybody with ears can't hear the bell." Still, Mrs. Van Dorn spoke in that curiously ashamed and indignant voice. Mrs. Lee contradicted her no further. "Well, I suppose you must be right," said she. "There can't be anybody at home; but it is strange they went off and did not even shut the front door." "I don't know what the Ranger girls would have said, if they knew it. They would have had a fit at the bare idea of going away for ever so short a time, and leaving the house and furniture alone and the door unlocked." "Their furniture is here now, I suppose?" "Yes, I suppose so--some of it, anyway, but I don't know how much furniture these people bought, of course." "Mr. Lee said he heard they had such magnificent things." "I heard so, but you hear a good deal that isn't so in Banbridge!" "That is true. I suppose you knew the house and the Ranger girls' furniture so well that you could tell at a glance what was new and what wasn't?" "Yes, I could." As with one impulse both women turned and peered through a green maze of trees and bushes at Samson Rawdy, several yards distant. "Can you see him?" whispered Mrs. Lee. "Yes. I think he's asleep. He is sitting with his head all bent over." "He is--not--looking?" "No." Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Van Dorn regarded each other. Both looked at once ashamed and defiant before the other, then into each pair of eyes leaped a light of guilty understanding and perfect sympathy. There are some natures for whom curiosity is one of the master passions, and the desire for knowledge of the affairs of others can become a lust, and Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Van Dorn were of the number. Mrs. Van Dorn gave her head in her best calling-bonnet a toss, and the violets, which were none too securely fastened, nodded loosely; then she thrust her chin forward, she sniffed like a hunting-hound on the scent, pushed open the front-door, and entered, with Mrs. Lee following. As Mrs. Van Dorn entered, the violets on her bonnet became quite detached and fell softly to the floor of the porch, but neither of the ladies noticed. Mrs. Lee, in particular, had led a monotonous life, and she had a small but intense spirit which could have weathered extremes. Now her faculties seemed to give a leap; she was afraid, but there was distinct rapture in her fear. She had not been so actively happy since she was a child and had been left at home with the measles one Sunday when the rest of the family had gone to church, and she had run away and gone wading in the brook, at the imminent risk not only of condign punishment, but of the measles striking in. She felt now just as then, as if something terrible and mysterious were striking in, and she fairly smacked her soul over it. Mrs. Lee no longer shrank; she stood up straight; she also thrust her chin forward; her nose sharpened, her blue eyes contracted under her light brows. She even forgot her role of obligation, and did not give Mrs. Van Dorn the precedence; she actually pushed before her. Mrs. Van Dorn had closed the front door very softly, and they stood in a long, narrow hall, with an obsolete tapestry carpet, and large-figured gold and white paper revealing its gleaming scrolls in stray patches of light. Mrs. Lee went close to an old-fashioned black-walnut hat-tree, the one article of furniture besides a chair in the hall. "Was this theirs?" she whispered to Mrs. Van Dorn. Mrs. Van Dorn nodded. Mrs. Lee deliberately removed the nice white kid glove from her right hand, and extending one small taper forefinger, rubbed it over the surface of the black-walnut tree; then she pointed meaningly at the piece of furniture, which plainly, even in the half-light, disclosed an unhousewifely streak. She also showed the dusty forefinger to the other lady, and they both nodded with intense enjoyment. Then Mrs. Lee folded her silk skirts tightly around her and lifted them high above her starched white petticoat lest she contaminate them in such an untidy house; Mrs. Van Dorn followed her example, and they tiptoed into the double parlors. They were furnished, for the most part, with the pieces dating back to the building of the house, in one of the ugliest eras of the country, both in architecture and furniture. The ceilings in these rather small square rooms were so lofty that one was giddy with staring at the elaborate cornices and the plaster centrepieces. The mantels were all of massively carved marble, the windows were few and narrow, the doors multitudinous, and lofty enough for giants. The parlor floor was carpeted with tapestry in enormous designs of crimson roses, in deliriums of arabesques, though there were a few very good Eastern rugs. The furniture was black-walnut, upholstered in crimson plush; the tables had marble tops; the hangings were lace under heavily fringed crimson lambrequins dependent from massive gilt mouldings. There were a bronze clock and a whatnot and a few gilt-framed oil-paintings of the conventional landscape type, contemporary with the furniture in American best parlors. Still, there were a few things in the room which directly excited comment on the part of the visitors. Mrs. Lee pointed at some bronzes on the shelf. "Those are theirs, aren't they?" said she. "Yes, the Ranger girls had some very handsome Royal Worcester vases. I guess James Ranger saw to it that those weren't left here." Mrs. Van Dorn eyed the bronzes with outward respect, but she did not admire them. Banbridge ladies, as a rule, unless they posed, did not admire bronzes. She also viewed with some disapproval a number of exquisite little Chinese ivory carvings on the whatnot. "Those are theirs," said she. "The Ranger girls had some handsome bound books and a silver card-receiver, and a bust of Clytie on top of the whatnot. I suppose these are very expensive; I have always heard so. I never priced any, but it always seemed to me that they hardly showed the money." "I suppose they have afternoon tea," said Mrs. Lee, regarding a charming little inlaid tea-table, decked with Dresden. "Perhaps so," replied Mrs. Van Dorn, doubtfully. "But I have noticed that when tea-tables are so handsome, folks don't use them. They are more for show. That cloth is beautiful." "There is a tea-stain on it," declared Mrs. Lee, pointing triumphantly. "That is so," assented Mrs. Van Dorn. "They must use it." She looked hard at the stain on the tea-cloth. "It's a pity to get tea on such a cloth as that," said she. "It will never come out." "Oh, I don't believe that will trouble them much," said Mrs. Lee, with soft maliciousness. She indicated with the pointed toe of her best calling-shoe, a hole in the corner of the resplendent Eastern rug. "Oh," returned Mrs. Van Dorn. "I know it is considered desirable to have these Oriental things worn," said Mrs. Lee, "but there is no sense in letting an expensive rug like this wear out, and no good house-keeper would." "Well, I agree with you," said Mrs. Van Dorn. Presently they passed on to the other rooms. They made a long halt in the dining-room. "That must be their solid silver," said Mrs. Van Dorn, regarding rather an ostentatious display on the sideboard. "The idea of going away and leaving all that silver, and the doors unlocked!" said Mrs. Lee. "Evidently they are people so accustomed to rich things that they don't think of such risks," said Mrs. Van Dorn, with a curious effect of smacking her lips over possessions of her own, instead of her neighbors. She in reality spoke from the heights of a small but solid silver service, and a noble supply of spoons, and Mrs. Lee knew it. "I suppose they must have perfectly beautiful table-linen," remarked Mrs. Lee, with a wistful glance at the sideboard-drawers. "Yes, I suppose so," assented Mrs. Van Dorn, with a half-sigh. Her eyes also on the closed drawers of the sideboard, were melancholy, but there was a line which neither woman could pass. They could pry about another woman's house in her absence, but they shrank from opening her drawers and investigating her closets. They respected all that was covered from plain sight. Up-stairs it was the same. Things were strewn about rather carelessly, therefore they saw more than they would otherwise have done, but the closet-doors and the bureau-drawers happened to be closed, and those were inviolate. "If all their clothes are as nice as these, they must have wardrobes nicer than any ever seen in Banbridge," said Mrs. Lee, fingering delicately a lace-trimmed petticoat flung over a chair in one of the bedrooms. "This is real lace, don't you think so, Mrs. Van Dorn?" "I don't think. I know," replied Mrs. Van Dorn. "They must have elegant wardrobes, and they must be very wealthy people. They--" Suddenly Mrs. Van Dorn cut her remarks short. She turned quite pale and clutched at her companion's silk-clad arm. "Hush!" she whispered. "What was that?" Mrs. Lee, herself ashy white, looked at her. Both had distinctly heard a noise. Now they heard it again. The sound was that of footsteps, evidently those of a man, in the lower hall. "What shall we do? Oh, what shall we do?" said Mrs. Lee, in a thin whisper. She trembled so that she could scarcely stand. Mrs. Van Dorn, trying to speak, only chattered. She clutched Mrs. Lee harder. "Is there a back staircase? Oh, is there?" whispered Mrs. Lee. "Is there?" The odor of a cigar stole softly through the house. "I can smell his cigar," whispered Mrs. Lee, in an agony. Mrs. Van Dorn pulled herself together. She nodded, and began pulling Mrs. Lee towards the door. "Oh," panted Mrs. Lee, "anything except being caught up-stairs in their bedrooms! They might think--anything." "Hurry!" hissed Mrs. Van Dorn. They could hear the footsteps very distinctly, and the cigar-smoke made them want to cough. Holding their silk skirts like twisted ropes around them so they should not rustle, still clinging closely one to the other, the two women began slowly moving, inch by inch, through the upper hall, towards the back stairs. These they descended in safety, and emerged on the lower hall. They were looking for a rear door, with the view of a stealthy egress and a skirting of the bushes on the lawn unobserved until they should gain the shelter of the carriage, when there was a movement at their backs, and a voice observed, "Good-afternoon, ladies," and they turned, and there was Captain Arthur Carroll. He was a man possibly well over forty, possibly older than that, but his face was as smooth as a boy's, and he was a man of great stature, with nevertheless a boyish cant to his shoulders. Captain Arthur Carroll was a very handsome man, with a viking sort of beauty. He was faultlessly dressed in one of the lightest of spring suits and a fancy waistcoat, and he held quite gracefully the knot of violets which had fallen from Mrs. Van Dorn's bonnet. The two stood before him, gasping, coloring, trembling. For both of them it was horrible. All their lives they had been women who had held up their heads high in point of respectability and more. None was above them in Banbridge, no shame of wrong-doing or folly had ever been known by either of them, and now both their finely bonneted heads were in the dust. They stood before this handsome, courteously smiling gentleman and were conscious of a very nakedness of spirit. Their lust of curiosity was laid bare, they were caught in the act. Mrs. Van Dorn opened her mouth, she tried to speak, but she only made a strange, croaking sound. Her face was now flaming. But Mrs. Lee was pale, and she stood rather unsteadily. Arthur Carroll at first looked merely bewildered. "Aren't the ladies at home?" said he. "Have you seen the ladies?" He glanced at Mrs. Van Dorn's deflowered bonnet, and extended the bunch of violets. "Yours, I think," he said. Mrs. Van Dorn took them with an idiotic expression, and he asked again if they had seen the ladies. The spectacle of two elderly, well-dressed females of Banbridge quaking before him in this wise, and of their sudden appearance in his house, was a mystery too great to be grasped at once even by a clever man, and he was certainly a clever man. So he stared for a second, while the two remained standing before him, holding their card-cases in their shaking, white-gloved fingers, and Mrs. Van Dorn with the violets; then suddenly an expression of the most delighted comprehension and amusement overspread his face. "Oh," he said, politely, with a great flourish, as it were of deference, "the ladies are not in. They will be exceedingly sorry to have missed your call. But will you not come in and sit down?" Mrs. Van Dorn gained voice enough to gasp that she thought they must go. Captain Carroll stood back, and the two women, pressing closely together, tottered through the hall towards the front door. Captain Carroll followed, beaming with delighted malice. "I hope you will call again, when the ladies are home," he said to Mrs. Van Dorn, whom he recognized as the leader. She made an inarticulate attempt at "Thank you." She was making for the door, like a scared hare to the entrance of its cover. "But I have not your names, ladies, that I may inform Mrs. Carroll who has called?" said Captain Carroll, in his stingingly polite voice. Both women looked over their shrinking shoulders at him at that. Suddenly the hideous consequences of it all, the afterclap, sounded in their ears. That was the end of their fair fame in Banbridge, in their world. Life for them was over. Their faces, good, motherly, elderly village faces, after all, were pitiful; the shame in them was a shame to see, so ignominious was it. They stood convicted of such a mean fault, that the shame was the meaner also. Suddenly Mr. Carroll's face changed. It became broadly comprehensive, so generously lenient that it was fairly grand. A certain gentleness also was evident, his voice was kind. "Never mind, ladies," said Arthur Carroll. "There is really very little use in your telling me your names, because my memory is so bad. I remember neither names nor faces. If I should meet you on the street, and should fail to recognize you on that account, I trust that you will pardon me. And--" said Captain Carroll, "on that account, I will not say anything about your call to the ladies of my family; I should be sure to get it all wrong. We will wait, and trust that you will find them at home the next time you call. Good-afternoon, ladies." Captain Carroll had further mercy. He allowed the ladies to leave the house unattended and to dive desperately into the waiting coach. "Home at once," Mrs. Van Dorn cried, hoarsely, to Samson Rawdy, waking from his nap in some bewilderment. Captain Carroll was standing on the porch with a compound look of kindest pity and mirth on his face when the Carroll ladies came strolling round that way from the pond. He kissed them all, as was his wont; then he laughed out inconsequently. "What are you laughing at, dear?" asked Amy. "At my thoughts, sweetheart." "What are your thoughts, daddy?" asked Charlotte. "Thoughts I shall never tell anybody, honey," he replied, with another laugh. And Captain Arthur Carroll never did tell. Chapter III History often repeats itself where one would least expect it, and the world-old tide of human nature has a way of finding world-old channels. Therefore it happened in Banbridge, as in ancient times, that there was a learned barber, or perhaps, to be more strictly accurate, a barber who thought that he was learned. He would have been entirely ready, had his customers coincided with his views, to have given his striped pole its old signification of the ribbon bandage which bound the arm of a patient after bleeding, and added surgery to his hair-cutting and his beard-shaving. John Flynn had the courage of utter conviction as to his own ability to master all undertakings at which he chose to tilt. An aspiration once conceived, he never parted with, but held to it as a part of his life. Non-realization made not the slightest difference. His sense of time as a portion of eternity never left him, and therefore his patience under tardy fulfilment of his desires never faltered. Some ten years before, he decided that he would at some earlier or later date become mayor of Banbridge, and his decision was still impregnable. After every new election of another candidate, he begged his patrons for their votes another time, and was not in the least disturbed nor daunted that they had failed in their former promises. Flynn's good-nature was as unfaltering as his self-esteem, perhaps because of his self-esteem. He only smiled with fatuous superiority when from time to time, after the elections, his patrons would chaff him about his failure to secure the mayoralty. They did so with more effect since there were always among the horse-players on such occasions a few who would cast votes for the barber, esteeming it as a choice and perennial joke, and his reading his name among the unsuccessful candidates served to foster his delusion and keep Flynn's ambition alive. One Sunday, shortly after the Carrolls had moved to Banbridge, John Flynn was shaving Jacob Rosenstein, who kept the principal dry-goods store of the village, and a number of men were sitting and lounging about, waiting their turns. Flynn's shop was on the main street in the centre of the business district--his shop, or his "Tonsorial Parlor," as his sign had it. It was quite an ornate establishment. There was a lace lambrequin in the show-window, a palm in each corner, between which stood a tank of gold-fish, and below the lace lambrequin swung a gilt cage containing an incessantly hopping, though silent, yellow canary. Flynn was intensely proud and fond of the establishment, and was insulted if it was alluded to as a barber-shop. He himself never even thought of it, much less spoke of it, as such. "Well, I must be going to the 'Parlor,'" he would say when setting out to business. He was unmarried, and lived in a boarding-house. As Flynn shaved Rosenstein, who was naturally speechless, his landlady's husband, Billy Amidon, was talking a good deal. Amidon was always shaved for nothing, in consideration of the fact that his wife supported him with board money, and the barber had an undefined conviction that it was mean to take it back after he had just paid it. Amidon was a notorious talker, and was called a very "dry sort of man," which, in the village vernacular, signified that he was esteemed a wit. "Well," he said to another man, who was leaning with a relaxation of all his muscles against the little strip of counter, which contained a modest assortment of hair-oils and shaving-brushes and soaps which nobody was ever seen to buy--"well, John has lost ten pounds since the election, Tappan." Tappan ran a milk-route between Banbridge and Ardmoor, a little farming-place six miles out. Tappan was an Ardmoor man. His milk-wagon stood in front of the "Tonsorial Parlor." He had a drink of beer at Frank Steinbach's saloon next door, and now was waiting for his Sunday shave before going home. His milk-peddling was over for the day. He was a hard-working-man, and had been on the road since four o'clock. He had a heavy look about his eyes, and he greeted Amidon's facetiousness with a weary and surly hitch. "Has he?" he replied, indifferently. But a very young, very small man, sitting in one of the "Parlor" arm-chairs, laughed like a child, with intense enjoyment. "Yep," he said, "I've noticed that. As much as ten pounds has went since election, sure." "Shet up," replied Flynn, carefully scraping his patron's face. He said "Shet up" with an expression of foolish pride. The postmaster of Banbridge, who was sitting somewhat aloof and held himself with a constraint of exclusiveness (he was new to his office and had not yet lost the taste of its dignity), laughed. "Let me see, how many votes did you have this year, John?" he asked, condescendingly. "Five," replied John, with open exultation. "Now, John, why didn't you get more than that, I'd like to know?" Flynn laughed knowingly. "Oh," he said, "it's the old story--not money enough." "But a lot promised they'd vote for you, didn't they, John?" persisted the postmaster, Sigsbee Ray, with a wink of humorous confidence at the others. "Yep, but damme, who expects anybody to keep an election promise if he ain't paid for it? I ain't unreasonable. What's elections for? You wait." "Haven't you given up yet, John?" "Well, I guess not. You wait." "Say, John," interposed Amidon, "how much did you pay them five what voted for you this year, hey?" Flynn looked up from Rosenstein's belathered face with a burst of simple triumph. "I didn't pay any of them a penny," said he. "There is damn fools everywhere, and you wait," said he, "an' see ef there ain't more come to light next time. I'll fetch it yet, along of the fools, an' ef I can raise a leetle money, an' I begin to see my way clear to that." "How's that?" John was asked by the small young man. "I'm layin' low 'bout that," replied John, mysteriously. "Now, John," said the postmaster, "you wouldn't lay low if there was a good chance to make some money, and not give us poor devils a chance?" The postmaster spoke consciously. He expected what came, the buzz of remonstrance at his classing himself in his new office with poor devils. "You'd better talk about poor devils," growled the milkman, Tappan. "You'd better talk. Huh! here you be, don't hev to git to work till eight o'clock, an' quittin' at eight nights, and fifteen hundred a year. You'd better talk, Mr. Ray. If you was a man gittin' up at three of a winter's mornin', and settin' out with a milk-route at four, an' makin' 'bout half a penny a quart, an' cussed at that 'cause it ain't all cream--if you was as dead tired as I be this minute you might talk." "Well, I'm willing to allow that I am not as hard pushed as you are," said the postmaster, with magnanimous humility. "You'd better. Poor devils, huh! I guess I know what poor devils be, and the hell they're in. Bet your life I do. Huh!" "I'm a poor devil 'nough myself, when it comes to that," said Amidon, "but I reckon you kin speak for yourself when it comes to talkin' about bein' in hell, Tappan. Fur's I'm concerned, I'm findin' this a purty comfertable sort of place." Amidon was a tall man, and he stretched his length luxuriously as he spoke. Tappan eyed him malignantly. He was not a pleasant-tempered man, and now he was both weary and impatient of waiting for his turn with the barber. "I should think any man might be comfortable, ef he had a wife takin' boarders to support him, but mebbe if she was to be asked to tell the truth, she'd tell a different story," he said. Tappan spoke in a tone of facetious rage, and the others laughed, all except the barber. He had a curious respect for his landlady's husband. "Ef a lady has the undisposition to let her husband subside on her bounty, it is between them twain. Who God has joined together, let no man set asunder," said he, bombastically, and even the surly milkman, and Rosenstein under his manipulating razor, when a laugh was dangerous, laughed. John Flynn, when he waxed didactic, and made use of large words and phrases, was the comic column of Banbridge. Amidon, thus defended, chuckled also, albeit rather foolishly, and slouched to the door. "Guess I'll drop up and git the Sunday paper. I'll be in later on, John," he mumbled. He had the grace to be somewhat ashamed both by the attack and by the defence, and was for edging out, but stopped on the threshold of the door, arrested by something which the small man said. "Talkin' about poor devils, there's one man in Banbridge ain't no poor devil. S'pose you know we've got a J. P. Morgan right amongst us?" "Who?" asked the postmaster; and Amidon, directly now the conversation was thoroughly shifted from himself, returned to his former place. "I know who he means," said he, importantly. "Oh, it's the man what's rented the Ranger place. They say he's a millionaire." The milkman straightened himself interestedly. "I rather guess he is," said he. "They take two quarts of cream every morning, and three quarts of milk." "Lord!" said the barber, gaping over his patron's head. "Lord!" Although very short and slight, the barber had a large face, simple, amiable with a smirk of conceit as to the lower part; his forehead was very large and round, as was his head, and his blue eyes were very placid, even beautiful. The barber never laughed. "Two quarts of cream!" said the small man. "Whew!" "He must be rich if he takes all that cream," said the postmaster. "A half a pint a day about breaks me, but my wife must have it for her coffee." Rosenstein had so far got his freedom of speech, for the barber had never ceased operation to speak, though rather guardedly. "He must be rich," he said. "Any man in Banbridge that buys as much as he does from a store in the place, an' wants his bills regular every Saturday night, has got somethin'." "Has he paid 'em?" asked the postmaster. "All except the last one, an' that he didn't pay because I couldn't cash a check for five hundred and give him the balance. 'Lord, sir,' says I, 'ef you want a check of that value cashed, you'll have to go to John Wanamaker. That's as much as I take in Banbridge in a whole year.' 'Well, mebbe you'll do better this year,' says he, laughing, and goes out. He's a fine-spoken man, an' it was a lucky day for Banbridge when he come here." "He don't buy many postage-stamps," said the postmaster, thoughtfully, "but he asked me if I should be able to let him have as much as ten dollars' worth at a time, ef he wanted 'em, an' I said I should, an' I've just ordered in more. An' he has a big mail." The barber had been opening his mouth and catching his breath preparatory to speaking and saying more than any of them. Now he spoke: "That man's wuth a mighty lot of money now," said he, "but what he's wuth now ain't nothin' to what he's goin' to be wuth some day." "What do you mean, John?" asked Amidon, patronizingly. "Well, now, I'll tell you what I mean. That man, it's Cap. Carroll what's just arraigned to Banbridge that you're all talkin' about, ain't it?" "Yes. Go ahead." "Well, now, Cap. Carroll is agoin' to be one of them great clapatalists, ef he ain't now," he said. "How?" "Well, he got holt of some stock that's goin' to bust the market and turn Wall Street into a mill-stream in less than a year, ef it keeps on as it has went so fur." "What is it?" asked the small man. The milkman sighed wearily. "Oh, slow up yer jaw, and gimme a chance sometime," he growled. "I want to git home an' git my breakfast. I'm hungry." Flynn began hurriedly finishing off Rosenstein, talking with no less eagerness as he did so. "Well, it's Bonaflora mining-stock, ef you want to know," he said, importantly. "Where is it?" asked the postmaster, with a peculiar smile. "Out West somewhere. It ain't but fifty cents a share, an' it's goin' up like a skyrocket, an' there's others. There's a new railroad out there, an' other mines, an' a new invention for makin' fuel out of coal-dust, an' some other things." "Is Captain Carroll the president of them?" asked the small man, with an impressed air. He was very young, and eager-looking, and very shabby. He grubbed on a tiny ancestral farm, for a living for himself and wife and four children, young as he was. He had never had enough to eat, at least of proper food. He did not come to the "Tonsorial Parlor" to be shaved, for he hacked away at his innocent cheeks at home with his deceased father's old razor, but he loved a little gossip. In fact, John Flynn's barber-shop was his one dissipation. Sometimes he looked longingly at a beer-saloon, but he had no money, unless he starved Minna and the children, and for that he was too good and too timid. His Minna was a stout German girl, twice his size, and she ruled him with a rod of iron. She did not approve of the barber-shop, and so the pleasure had something of the zest of a forbidden one. Every Sunday he was at his wit's end, which was easily reached, to invent a suitable excuse for his absence. To-day it had been to see if Mrs. Amidon did not want to buy some apples. Some of their last winter's store had been miraculously preserved, and Minna saw the way to a few pennies thereby. He could quite openly say that he had been to the barber-shop to-day, having seen Amidon there, therefore he was quite easy in his mind, and leaned back in his chair with perfect content. One of the children at home cried all the time. A yawning mouth of wrath at existence was about all he ever saw of that particular baby, and Minna almost always scolded, and this was a haven of peace to little Willy Eddy. Here he felt like a man among men; at home he felt like nothing at all among women. The children were all girls. Sometimes he wondered if a boy-baby might not have been a refuge. He was not very clean; his hands were still stained with picking over potatoes the day before; his shoulders in their rusty coat had a distinct hunch; but he was radiantly happy talking of the rich Captain Carroll. He seemed to taste the honey of the other man's riches and importance in his own mouth. Willy Eddy did not know the meaning of envy. He had such a fund of sympathetic imagination that he possessed the fair possessions of others like a child with fairy tales. "Is he president of all of them?" asked little Willy Eddy, with gusto, and looked as if he himself held them all in his meagre potato-stained hands. "No," replied the barber, with importance--"no, he's more than a president. A president is nothin' except a figger-head. I don't care what he's president of, whether it is of this great country or of railroads or what not. They could git along without the president, but they can't without this gentleman. He's the promoter." "Oh!" said the small man. The milkman sighed wrathfully again. "Oh, hang it all!" he said. "I've seed promoters. It's mostly their own pockets they promote." "Well, I don't know," said the postmaster, as one with authority. "I don't know. Captain Carroll was in the office the other day, and we had a little talk, and it struck me that some of the ventures he is interested in were quite promising. And it is different with a man of his wealth. When a poor man takes up anything of the kind, you can suspect, but this is different. He said to me that he had no occasion, so far as the money was concerned, to turn his finger over for any of them or to open his mouth concerning them. He said he would not be afraid to stake every dollar he had in the world on them if it was necessary." Flynn had daintily anointed Rosenstein's shaven face with witch-hazel and was now dusting it with powder. Tappan was slouching towards the chair. "Have you bought some of the stock?" the barber asked, abruptly, of the postmaster, who smiled mysteriously and hedged. "Well, maybe I have, and maybe again I haven't," said he. "Have you, John?" "Not yet," replied the barber. "I am deflecting upon the matter. It requires considerable loggitation when a man has penuriously saved a circumscribed sum from the sweat of his brow." "That's so. Don't be rash, John," said Amidon. It was not especially funny, but since Amidon intended it to be, they all obligingly laughed, except Tappan, who set himself with a grunt in the chair and had the white sheet of which Rosenstein had been denuded tied around his neck. Rosenstein, who was a lean man, with a much-lined face, cast a glance at himself in the looking-glass, and heaved an odd sigh as he turned away to get his hat. "You don't seem to be much stuck on your looks, old man," remarked Amidon. Rosenstein cast a perfectly good-humored but rather melancholy look at Amidon. "No; I never was," he replied, soberly. "Can't remember when I wouldn't have preferred to meet some other fellow in the looking-glass. It's such an awful thing, the intimacy with himself that's forced on a man when he comes into this world." "That's so," assented Amidon, rather stupidly, but he was not to be abashed with the other man's metaphysics. Rosenstein did credit to his German ancestry at times, and was then in deep waters for his village acquaintances. "Who would you ruther meet in the lookin'-glass than yerself?" pursued Amidon. "Not you," replied Rosenstein, with unexpected repartee, and was going out amid a chorus of glee at Amidon's discomfiture when another man darkened the doorway, and the storekeeper fell back as Captain Carroll entered amid a sullen silence. The postmaster rose, and in a second the small man and Amidon followed his example. Carroll greeted them all with a cordiality which had in it a certain implication of admiring confidence. Not a man there but felt at once that this new-comer had a most flattering recognition of himself in particular, to the exclusion of all the others. It was odd how he contrived to produce this impression, but produce it he did. It was Arthur Carroll's great charm, the great secret of a remarkable influence over his fellow-men. He appealed with consummate skill to the selfish side of every one with whom he came in contact, he exalted him in his own eyes far above the masses with whom he was surrounded, by who could tell what subtle alchemy. Each man preened unconsciously his panoply of spiritual pride under this other man's gentle, courteous eyes. Even Rosenstein straightened himself. And besides, this was the respectful admiration which the man himself excited, by reason of his fine appearance and address, his good looks, his irreproachable clothes, and his reputed wealth. Arthur Carroll made an entrance into the "Tonsorial Parlor." Moreover, the other men could see out in front of the establishment, the coach, the coachman in livery--the first livery on record as actually resident in Banbridge; liveries had passed through, but never before tarried--the fretting steeds with their glittering equipment. Around the coach had already gathered several small boys, huddled together, and transfixed with awe too deep for impudence. Carroll, having greeted the men, said good-morning urbanely to the barber, who had ceased lathering Tappan and was looking at him indeterminately. It seemed dreadful to him that this great man should have to wait for the milkman. The barber was a conservative to the core, and would speak of the laboring-classes and tradesmen as if he himself were on the other side of the highway from birth. Tappan himself, who, as said before, was naturally surly, was also a dissenter on principle, and had an enlarged sense of injury, had qualms at keeping waiting a man who patronized him to the extent of two quarts of cream and three quarts of milk daily. It was like quarrelling with his bread-and-butter, as he put it, when alluding to the affair later on. "I ain't goin' through the world seein' no men as is better 'n I be," he said, "but there's jest this much about it, I ain't a fool, an' I know enough to open the door when a man wants to walk through to pay me some money. Ef Carroll hadn't been takin' that much cream and milk, I'd set there in that barber's-chair ef I'd had a year's beard to shave, an' I'd kept him waitin', and enjoyed it, but, as it was, I did what I did." What Tappan did was to wave back Flynn's lathering-hand, and to say, rather splutteringly, that he would wait, "ef Captain Carroll was in a hurry." But Captain Carroll was in no hurry, it seemed, and, moreover, gave the impression that if he had been about to catch a railroad train to keep an important business engagement, he would not have dreamed of thrusting himself in before the milkman with his milk all delivered. He, moreover, gave the impression that he considered the milkman a polished gentleman for his handsome offer, and all this without saying so much. Captain Carroll seated himself, and completed the impression by tendering everybody cigars. Then the "Tonsorial Parlor" and its patrons waiting for a Sunday-morning shave became a truly genteel function. Willy Eddy, who was dreamily imaginative, and read the Sunday papers when his Minna gave him a chance and did not chide him for the waste of money, remembered things he had read about the swagger New York clubs. He smoked away and made-believe he was a clubman, and enjoyed himself artlessly. The sun got farther around and the south window was a sheet of burning radiance. It became rather too warm, and on Carroll making a motion to move his chair into the shade, every other man moved into the sunshine, and sat sweltering and smoking in a fatuous vainglory. The canary bird hopped faster and faster. The gold-fishes swam with a larger school of bright reflections. A bumblebee flew in the open window and buzzed dangerously near the hero's head. Willy Eddy rose and, ostentatiously, at his own risk, drove the intruder away, and was gratefully thanked. Truly hero-worship, while it is often foolish and fool-making, is not the worst sentiment of mankind. When the great man made a move to order his coachman to take the wonderful rig away, and drive, because the horses were restive and needed exercise, and he himself--the delicate humor of the thing--also needed exercise and would walk home, Amidon sped in his service as he had never sped in the service of the long-suffering wife, at that moment struggling painfully with the Sunday dinner, and bringing wood from the shed to replenish the fire. Carroll did not need to lead up to his mining and other interests. The subject was broached at once by the others. The postmaster opened it. He spoke with less humility than the others, as being more on a footing of equality. "Well, captain, heard lately from the Boniflora?" he asked, knowingly. And Carroll replied that he had received a letter from the manager the night before which gave most encouraging information concerning the prospects. "Anything of the United Fuel?" continued the postmaster. "Large block just sold, at an advance of six and three-eighths," replied Carroll, blowing the smoke from his mouth. Carroll inspired confidence by the very quietness and lack of enthusiasm with which he spoke of his enterprises. All his listeners thought privately that he was in no way anxious to sell his stock, after all. Perhaps, moreover, he did not intend to sell any but large blocks. Little Willy Eddy ventured to ask for information on the latter point. "Mebbe you don't keer nothin' about sellin' of it unless it is in big lumps?" he queried, timidly. He was thinking of a matter of $250 which his father had saved from pension-money, and was still in the savings-bank. Carroll replied (but with the greatest indifference) that they often sold stock in very small blocks, and the confidence of them waxed apace. Amidon thought of a little money which his wife had saved from her boarders, and the barber immediately resolved to invest every cent he had in the United Fuel. Such was Captain Carroll's graciousness and urbanity that he idled away an hour in the barber-shop, and the other men melted away, although reluctantly, from an atmosphere of such effulgence. The milkman's hollow stomach drove him home for his breakfast. Little Willy Eddy thought uneasily of his Minna, and took his departure. The postmaster had a Sunday mail to sort. And Amidon went out to get a drink of beer; Carroll's cigar had dried his throat. Carroll was shaven last, and Flynn did his best by him, even unto a new jar of cold cream, double the quantity of witch-hazel, and a waste of powder. Then after he had carefully adjusted his hat, and was at last about to go, Flynn stopped him. "Beg your pardon, sir," said he, "but--" "But what?" said Carroll, rather kindly. The barber's lip was actually quivering. The magnitude and importance of what he was about to propose almost affected his weakly emotional nature to tears. He finally made out to say, while tears were actually rolling down his cheeks under Carroll's puzzled regard, that he had $1000 which he had saved, and he would like to invest every penny of it in United Fuel. And before Carroll knew what he was at, he had actually produced $1000 in a bulky roll of much-befingered notes, from some hiding-place, and was waving them before Carroll's eyes. "Here," said he, "here is the money. You may as well take it now. You can get the securities in New York to-morrow, and bring them out on the train. Here is the money. Take it." Arthur Carroll did not move to take the money. He stood looking at the excited man with a curious expression. In fact, his face seemed to reflect the emotion of the barber's. His voice was a trifle husky. "Is that all you have saved?" he asked. "Every dollar," replied the barber, continuing to wave and thrust the bills, but he raised an edge of his apron to his eyes, overflowing with the stupendousness of it. "Every dollar. I might have saved more, but I've been laid up winters considerable with grippe, and folks don't like to be shaved by a grippy barber. Dunno's I blame 'em. I've had to hire, and hirin' comes high. I've had considerable to do for a widder with four children, too--she's my brother's widder--an', take it all together, I 'ain't been able to save another dollar. But that don't make no odds, as long as I'm going to double it in that stock of yourn. Take it." Carroll backed away almost sternly. "I don't want your money," he said. The barber stood aghast. Captain Carroll had actually a look of offence. "I hope as I hain't done nothin' that ain't reg'lar," he stammered. Captain Carroll stepped close to him. He laid one white long-fingered hand on the barber's white jacket-sleeve. He whispered with slyest confidence, although no one was within hearing: "You keep that money a little while longer," he whispered. "I wouldn't say it to every man, but I will to you. There's going to be a lawsuit, and the stock may drop a point or two. It won't drop much, and it will recover more than it loses, but then is the time to buy, especially when you want a big block, and--I'll let you know." "Thank you, thank you," said the barber, restoring the bills to a greasy old pocket-book. He was faint with gratitude. "All right," he said, and he nodded and winked with intensest comprehension. "All right. You let me know." "Yes, I'll let you know when it is best to invest," repeated Carroll. He turned on the threshold. "See here," he said, "if I were you, I'd put that money in a bank. I wouldn't keep it here." "Oh, nobody knows it's here, except you, and you are safe, I ruther guess." The barber laughed like a child. Carroll went out and passed up the street. He heard from the Episcopal church the sound of singing. Finally he left it behind. He was passing along a short extent where there were no houses. On one side there was a waste tract of land, and on the other a stretch of private grounds. The private grounds were bordered by a budding hedge, the waste lot bristled with strong young weeds. Carroll, as he swung along with his stately carriage of the head and shoulders, took out his pocket-book. It was an important-looking affair, the size of bank-notes. He opened it. There was not a vestige of money within. He laughed a little softly to himself, and replaced it. He lived on a street which diverged at right angles from the main street. Just as he was about turning the corner, a runabout in which were seated two men passed him. It stopped, and the men turned and looked back at him. Then before Carroll turned the corner, one hailed him: "Hullo!" he said. "Hullo!" returned Carroll, and stood waiting while the man swung his trap round with cautious hisses--he drove a high-stepping mare. "Are you a man by the name of Carroll?" said he, holding the fretting mare tightly, and seesawing the lines, as she tried to dart first one way, then the other. Carroll nodded. "Well, look a-here," said the man, "I heerd you wanted to buy some hosses." "You heard rightly," said Carroll. "Wall, I've got a pair that can't be beat. Kentucky bred, four-year-old, sound as a whip. Not an out." "Are you a trader?" "Yep. Hed them hosses in last week. New-Yorker jest sent for 'em, then he died sudden, and his heirs threw 'em on the market at a sacrifice." Carroll looked at the men, and they looked at him. The two men in the runabout resembled each other, and were evidently brothers. Carroll's eyes on the men were sharp, so were theirs on him. Carroll's eyes were looking for knavery, and the men's were looking for suspicion of knavery. "How much?" asked Carroll, finally. The men looked at each other. One made a motion with his lips; the other nodded. "Fifteen hundred," said the first speaker, "and damned cheap." "Well, you can bring them around, and I'll look at them," said Carroll. "Any night after seven." Carroll walked on, turning up the road which led to his own house, and the men whirled about again and then drove on, the mare breaking into a gallop. Chapter IV In Banbridge no one in trade was considered in polite society, with one exception. The exception was Randolph Anderson. Anderson had studied for the law. He had set up his office over the post-office, hung out his innocent and appealing little sign, and sat in his new office-chair beside his new desk, surrounded by the majesty of the lettered law, arranged in shelves in alphabetical order, for several years, during which his affairs were constantly on a descending scale. Then at last came a year when scarcely one client had darkened his doors except Tappan, who wanted to sue a delinquent customer and attach some of his personal property. After ascertaining that the personal property had been cannily transferred to the debtor's wife, he had told Anderson, upon the presentation of a modest bill, that he was a fraud and he could have done better himself. Beside this backward stroke of business, Anderson had that year a will to draw up, for which he was never paid, and had married a couple who had reimbursed him in farm produce. At the expiration of that year the lawyer, having to all intents and purposes been given up by the law, gave it up in his turn. Every cent of the money which he had inherited from his father had been expended. Nothing remained except his mother's small property, which barely sufficed to support her. Anderson then borrowed money from his uncle, who was well-to-do, giving him his note for three years, rented a store on Main Street, purchased a stock of groceries, and went into trade. His course made quite a sensation. He was the first Anderson in the memory of Banbridge, where the name was an old one, to be outside the genteel pale of a profession. His father had been a physician, his grandfather a clergyman. "If my son had studied medicine instead of law, he could have at least subsisted upon the proceeds of his profession," his mother said, with the gentle and dignified dissent which was her attitude with regard to her son's startling move. "People are simply obliged by the laws of the flesh to go through measles and whooping-coughs and mumps, and they have to be born and die, and when they get in the way of microbes they have to be ill and they have to call in a physician, and some few of them pay him, so he can manage at least to live. Of course law is different. If people haven't any money they can forego quarrels, unless they are forced upon them. Quarrels are luxuries. It really began to seem to me that all the opportunity for a lawyer in Banbridge was in the simple line of suing some one for debt, and there is always that way, which does seem to me rather dishonest, of putting the property out of one's hands." There was undoubtedly much truth in what Mrs. Sylvia Anderson said. She was a shrewd old woman, with such a softly feminine manner that she misled people into thinking the contrary. Banbridge folk rather pitied Randolph Anderson for having such a sweetly helpless and incapable mother, albeit very pretty and very much of a lady. Mrs. Anderson was a large woman, but delicately articulated, with small hands, and such tiny feet that she toppled a little when she walked. Her complexion was like a child's, and she fluffed her thick white locks over her ears and swathed her throat high in soft laces, concealing all the aged lines in face and figure with innocent feminine arts. Randolph adored his mother. He had never cared for any other woman. He had sat at his mother's little feet all his life, although he had at times his own masculine way, as in the matter of the deserting of his profession for trade. He had remained firm, although his mother had said much against it. "Frankly, I do not approve of it, dear," she said. "I agree, but I do not approve. I do not like it, that you should desert the trodden path of your forebears. It is not so much that I am proud, but I am conservative. I believe there is a certain harmony between the man and the road his race have travelled. I believe he is a very sorry figure on another, especially if it be on a lower level." "I don't think it is a question of level," said Randolph. "A road is simply a question of progress." "Well, perhaps," said his mother, "but in that case the state of things is the same. A grocer would cut a sorry figure on your road, even if it ran parallel towards the same goal, and a lawyer would cut a sorry figure on a grocer's. Frankly, dear, I really doubt if you will make a good grocer." Randolph laughed. "At least I hope I can earn our bread-and-butter," he said. Then he went on seriously. "It is just here," he said--"you and I are not sordid. Neither of us cares about money for itself, but here we are on this earth, with that existence which has its money price, and obligations imposed upon us. We cannot shirk it. We must live, and in order to live we must have a certain amount of money. Now all we have in this world for material goods is this old house and your little pittance. We have not a cent besides. If we were to try living on that, it would not last out your lifetime. If it would, I should not combat your prejudices, but we could lie on our oars and eat up the old place, and later on I would hustle for myself. But it will not. Now, I have demonstrated that I cannot earn anything by my profession. I have tried it faithfully and well. Last year I did not earn enough to pay my office rent. I never shall in Banbridge, and there is no sense whatever in my striking out in a new place with no prestige and no money. You and I simply want enough to live on, enough money to buy the wherewithal to keep the flame of life comfortably burning, and I can think of no other way than this grocery business. People must eat. You are certainly sure of earning something, if you offer people something they want. In my profession there is nothing that they do want." "But your education," said his mother. She thought of the rows of law-books of whose contents she fondly believed her son a master. "Oh, that is mine still," said Randolph, "but other people don't want it. There is no use, mother, in evading the question. We live in an age of market values. We must consider them. Butter and cheese have a sure market value, and the knowledge of the law in my head has not. Nobody wants it enough to pay anything for it, to give us a moneyed equivalent wherewith we may buy the things we need. Therefore, if nobody wants that, we must offer them something else. When it comes to the rights of our fellow-men to spend their own money as they choose, that is inalienable. It is about the most firmly established right in the country. No; people cannot be coerced into buying my little store of knowledge, therefore I will try them with my little store of butter and cheese and eggs and molasses." Randolph Anderson laughed. Aside from regard for his mother's feelings, he had not the slightest scruple against his business venture. On the contrary, it rather amused him. He must have had a latent taste for business, for he quite enjoyed studying the markets and purchasing his stock in trade. He purchased wisely, too. He offered a choice stock of goods, or, rather, his two salesmen did. He himself did not sell much over his own counters, except in the case of a great rush of business. But it was not from the least sensation of superiority. It was merely because of a distrust of his own ability to acquit himself well in such a totally different branch of industry. Anderson was cast on unusually simple and ingenuous lines. Nobody would have believed it, but he was actually somewhat modest and shy before his own clerks, and realized sensitively his own lack of experience. So he had a way of subsiding when customers appeared, and retreating to his office in the rear of the building. He spent most of his time in this office. It was a very pleasant one, overlooking the river, on which steamboats and canal-boats travelled to the city. From Anderson's office the bank of red clay soil sloped to the water's edge. He could see the gleam of the current through the shag of young trees which found root in the unpromising soil. Now and then the tall mast of a sailing-vessel glided by, now the smoke-stack of a steamer. Often the quiet was broken by the panting breath of a tug. Often into his field of vision flapped the wet clothes from the line strung along the deck of a canal-boat. The canal ran along beside the regular current of the river, separated from it by a narrow tow-path. Farther down, the great railroad bridge crossed the stream, and at all hours he could catch the swift glisten of the train-windows as they shot past. Anderson's office was about twelve by fourteen, and lined with shelves on two sides. On these he had books, not law-books. Those he had relegated to the library at home. He had probably in the depths of his consciousness a sensation of melancholy at the contemplation of those reminders of his balked career. No man, no matter how gracefully he may yield to it, cares to contemplate failures. He had filled these shelves with books of which he was fond, for daily reading. They were most of them old. He had little money with which to purchase new ones. He had been forced to rely upon those which his father and grandfather had accumulated. There were, however, a few recent and quite valuable books which he had acquired since his venture in trade, upon entomology, especially books upon butterflies. Since his retreat from the law he had developed suddenly, perhaps by the force of contrast, or the opposite swing of the pendulum, an overwhelming taste for those airy flowers of animated life. The two walls of the office not occupied with books were hung with framed specimens. He had also under the riverward window a little table equipped with the necessary paraphernalia for mounting them. Many a sunny day in the season he spent in the fields on this gentle hunt. There was a broad sill to the window, and upon it stood a box filled with green plants. When the season was enough advanced and the window always open, the trailing vines rooted in the box hung far down outside, and the women on the passing canal-boats looked up at them. The window-ledge was wide enough, moreover, for an old red cushion upon which slept in the sun when he was not afield for love or war or prey, a great cat striped like a tiger, with fierce green eyes, and a mighty purr of comfort, and a rounding back of affection for Anderson's legs when he talked to him. Anderson had two comfortable old chairs in his office, and a goodly assortment of pipes, for he was a great smoker. He made tobacco a part of his grocery business, and had a strong sense of comfort in reflecting upon the unlimited supply. He had been forced, in the last days of his law-practice, to stint himself even in this creature comfort. On the whole, he was much happier when fairly established in trade than he had ever been before. He was so absorbed in his business (all the details of which he mastered), in his books, and his butterflies, that he saw very little of the people, and knew very little of what was going on in Banbridge, except through his mother. Mrs. Anderson, in spite of her years, and a certain lack of strength which had always hampered her, was quite prominent in Banbridge society. She was one of the old women whom young girls adore, even when the adoration is not increased by the existence of a marriageable son. Sometimes the old lady would regard an unmarried female-caller with a soft suspicion of ulterior motives, but she never whispered them to her son. Sylvia Anderson had a lovely, fine delicacy where the foibles of her own sex were concerned. She was so essentially feminine herself that she was never quite rid of her maiden sense of alienation even with her son. She would have been much happier with a daughter, although she was very fond of her son. One afternoon in May, a short time after Mrs. Van Dorn and Mrs. Lee had made their circuit of calls which had included her, some other ladies were making the rounds in the calling-coach, which drew up before her door. There were three ladies, two of them unmarried. They were an elder aunt, her young unmarried niece, and a married lady who had been the girl friend of the aunt. They made a long call, and Mrs. Anderson entertained them with tea in her pink-and-gold china cups, with cream in the little family silver cream-jug, and with slices of pound-cake. It was an old custom of Mrs. Anderson's which she had copied all through her married life from Madam Anderson, Randolph's grandmother, the widow of old Dr. Anderson, the clergyman. "I always make it a custom, my dear, to keep pound-cake on hand, and have some of the best green tea in the caddy, and then when callers come of an afternoon I can offer them some refreshment," she had said when her son's wife first came to live with her. So Mrs. Anderson had antedated the modern fashion in Banbridge, but she did not keep a little, ornate tea-table in her parlor. The cake and tea were brought in by the one maid on a tray covered with a polka-dotted damask. This afternoon the callers had their cake and tea, and lingered long afterwards. Now and then Mrs. Anderson glanced imperceptibly at the window, thinking her son might pass. She regarded the unmarried aunt and the young niece with asides of reflection even while she talked to them. The niece was not pretty, but her bloom of youth under the roses of her spring hat was ravishing. The aunt had never been pretty; and, moreover, her bloom had gone, but she was well dressed, and her thin figure was full of grace. She sat in her chair with delicate erectness, the folds of her gray gown was disposed over her supple length of limb with charming effect. She also had a sort of eager, almost appealing amiability. It was as if she said: "Yes, I know I am no longer young. I am not fair to see, but indeed I mean well by you. I would do much for you. I even love you. Cannot you love me for that?" and that was softly compelling. Mrs. Anderson reflected that a man might easily admire either of these women. Her manner, in spite of herself, cooled towards them. She did not think of the third woman, who was married, except to ply her with cake and tea and inquire for her husband and children. The woman, after she had finished her cake and tea, sat sunken in her corsets, under her loosely fitting black silk, and looked stupidly amiable. She rose with a slight sigh of relief when at last the others made a motion to go. She thought of her supper at home, and the children long out of school. It was past supper-time for Banbridge. The sun was quite low. An hour ago a little herd of cows had pelted by in a cloud of dust, with great udders swinging perilously, going home to be milked. "That Flannigan boy always runs those cows home," said the aunt, disapprovingly, as she passed the window. "I have always heard it was bad for the milk," assented Mrs. Anderson. Now that her callers were on the move, Mrs. Anderson was exceedingly cordial. She said something further about the quality of the cream obtained from the cows, and the aunt said yes, it was very good, although so dear. The old lady kissed both the aunt and the niece when they at last went out of the door, and said she was so glad that she was at home, and begged them to come again. She stood in the door watching them get into the coach. The young girl's face in the window, with her beflowered hat, a rose crowned with roses, in the dark setting of the window, was beautiful. Even the aunt's face, older and more colorless, except for an unlovely flush of excitement, was pathetically compelling and charmed. Mrs. Anderson, filling up the doorway with her stately bulk, swept around by her soft black draperies, her fair old face rising from a foam of lace, and delicately capped with lace, on which was a knot of palest lavender, stood in a frame of luxuriant Virginia-creeper, and smiled and nodded graciously to her departing guests, while wondering if they would meet her son coming home. After that followed a reflection as to the undesirability of either of them as a possible daughter-in-law. Just as she was turning to enter the house, after the coach had rolled out of sight, she saw her son coming down the street under the green shade of the maples which bordered it. The mother went toddling on her tiny feet down the steps to the gate to meet her son. The house stood quite close to the road; indeed, only a little bricked-path separated it from the sidewalk. All the ground was at the sides and back. The house was a square old affair with a row of half-windows in the third-story, or attic, and considerable good old panel-work and ornamentation about it. On the right side of the house was a large old flower-garden, now just beginning to assert itself anew; on the left were the stable and some out-buildings, with a grassy oval of lawn in the centre of a sweep of drive; in the rear was a kitchen-garden and a field rising to the railroad, for railroads circled all Banbridge in their vises of iron arms. A station was only a short distance farther up this same street. As Mrs. Anderson stood waiting and her son was advancing down the street a train from the city rumbled past. When Randolph had come up, and they had both entered the house, a carriage passed swiftly and both saw it from the parlor window. "Do you know who's carriage that is?" asked Mrs. Anderson. "It is something new in Banbridge, isn't it?" "It belongs to those new people who have moved into the Ranger place," replied Randolph. He wore a light business-suit which suited him, and he looked like a gentleman, as much so as when he had come from a law-office instead of a grocery-store. Indeed, he had been much shabbier in the law-office and had not held his head so high. In the law-office he had constantly been confronted with the possibility of debt. Here he was free from it. He had been smoking, as usual, and there was about his garments an odor of mingled coffee and tobacco. He had been selling coffee, and grinding some. One of his two salesmen was ill, and that was why he was so late. The new carriage rolled silently on its rubber tires along the macadamized road; the high black polish and plate-glass flashed in the sunlight, the coachman in livery sat proudly erect and held his whip stylishly, the sleek horses pranced, seeming scarcely to touch the road with their dainty hoofs. "Those are fine horses," said Randolph. "Yes," assented his mother. "They must be very wealthy people, I suppose." "It looks so," replied Randolph. His mother, still staring out of the window, started. "Why," she said, "the coachman is turning around!" "Perhaps he has forgotten something at the station," said Randolph. "Why, it is stopping here!" cried Mrs. Anderson, wonderingly. The carriage indeed stopped just before the Anderson gate, and remained there perfectly still. The coachman gazed intently at the house, but made no motion to get down. At a window was seen a gentleman's face; past him the fresh face of a girl, also gazing. Randolph looked out, and the gentleman in the carriage made an imperious beckoning motion. "Why, he is beckoning you!" said Mrs. Anderson, amazedly and indignantly. Anderson moved towards the door. "You are not going out when you are beckoned to in that way?" cried his mother. Anderson laughed. "You forget, mother," he said, "that a grocer is at the beck and call of his patrons." "I am ashamed of you!" she said, hotly, her fair old face flushing, "to have no more pride--" Anderson laughed again. "I am too proud to have pride," he said, and went out of the room. He went leisurely down the steps, and crossed the little brick walk to the gate, and then approached the carriage. The gentleman inside, with what seemed an unpremeditated movement, raised his hat. Randolph bowed. Carroll smiled in the gentle, admiring way which he had. "Perhaps I have made a mistake," he said, "but I was directed here. I was told that Anderson, who keeps the grocery, lives here." "I am Anderson," replied Randolph, with dignity and a certain high scorn, and purposely leaving off the Mr. from his name. Arthur Carroll no longer smiled, but his voice had a certain urbanity, although it rang imperiously. "Now, see here," he said. "I want to know why you did not do as I left instructions at your shop?" "To what do you refer?" inquired Anderson, quietly. "I want to know why you did not send in your bill last Saturday night, as I ordered." Carroll's voice was so loud that Mrs. Anderson, in the house, heard him distinctly through the open windows. "I did not know that you had so ordered," replied Anderson, still quietly, with a slight emphasis on the ordered. He looked slightly amused. "Well, I did. I told your clerk to be sure to send in my bills promptly every Saturday morning. I wish to settle weekly." "The mistake was doubtless due to the fact that my clerk has been at home ill for the last three days," said Anderson. "This is the first time I have heard of your order." "Well," said Carroll, "send it in at once now, and don't let it happen again." Although the tone was harsh and the words were imperious, still they were not insolent. There was even an effect of _camaraderie_ about them. At the last he flashed a quick smile at Anderson, which Anderson returned. He was dimly conscious all the time of Charlotte's very pretty face past her father's, peeping around his gray shoulder with a large-eyed, rather puzzled expression. Carroll nodded slightly after the smile, and told the coachman to go on, and the horses sprang forward after a delicate toss of their curving forelegs. Randolph re-entered the house, and his mother, who was waiting, faced him with soft indignation. "I must say, my son, that I am surprised that you submit to being addressed in such a fashion as that," she said, her blue eyes darkening at him. Randolph laughed again. "There was no real insolence about it, after all, mother," he replied. "It sounded so," said she. "That was because you could not see his face," said Randolph. "He looked very amiable." "He was angry because he did not get his bill Saturday?" said Mrs. Anderson, interrogatively. "Yes. He must have given the order to Sam Riggs the day before he went home ill, I suppose." "He must be a very wealthy man," said Mrs. Anderson. "It is rather good of him to be so anxious to pay his bill every week." "Yes, it is a very laudable desire," said Randolph. "I only hope his ability may equal it." His mother looked at him with quick surprise. "Why, you surely don't think--" she said. "I think nothing. The man is all right, so far as I know. He seems a gentleman, and if he is well off he is a very desirable acquisition to Banbridge." "Who was that with him in the coach?" asked Mrs. Anderson. "One of his daughters, I should judge. I hear he has two." "Pretty?" "Well, I hardly know. Have you had any callers?" "Yes. I suppose you met them. They made a very long call." "You mean the Egglestons?" "Yes, Miss Josie and little Agnes Eggleston and Mrs. Monroe. They stayed here over an hour. I thought you would meet them." "Yes, I met them just as I turned from Main Street," replied Randolph, soberly, but he was inwardly amused. He understood his mother. But there was something which he did not tell her concerning his experience with the new-comers, the Carrolls. Shortly, she went out to give some directions about tea, and Randolph, sitting beside a window in the parlor with an evening paper, drew from his pocket a letter just received in the mail, and examined it again. It was from a city bank, and it contained a repudiated check for ten dollars, made out by Captain Arthur Carroll, and which Anderson had cashed a few days previous at the request of the pretty young girl in the carriage, who to-night had sat there looking at him and did not speak, either because she had forgotten his face as he did her the little favor, or because he was so far away from her social scale that she was innocently unaware of any necessity for it. Chapter V Randolph Anderson had a large contempt for money used otherwise than for its material ends. A dollar never meant anything to him except its equivalent in the filling of a need. Generosity and the impulse of giving were in his blood, yet it had gone hard several times with people who had tried to overreach him even to a trifling extent. But now he submitted without a word to losing ten dollars through cashing Arthur Carroll's worthless check. He himself was rather bewildered at his tame submission. One thing was certain, although it seemed paradoxical; if he had not had suspicions as to Arthur Carroll's perfect trustworthiness, he would at once have gone to him with the check. "I dare say he overdrew his account without knowing it, as many an honest man does," he reasoned, when trying to apologize to himself for his unbusiness-like conduct, but always he knew subconsciously that if he had been perfectly sure of that view of it he would not have hesitated to put it to the proof. For some reason, probably unconfessed rather than actually hidden from himself, he shrank from a possible discovery to Arthur Carroll's discredit. When a man of Randolph Anderson's kind replies to a question concerning the beauty of a young girl that he does not know, the assumption is warranted that he has given the matter consideration. A man usually leaps to a decision of that kind, and if he has no ulterior motive for concealment, he would as lief proclaim it to the house-tops. Usually Randolph Anderson would no more have hesitated about giving his opinion as to a girl's looks than he would have hesitated about giving his candid opinion of the weather. For the most part a woman's face had about as much effect upon his emotional nature as the face of a day. He saw that it was rosy or gray, smiling and sunny, or frowning or rainy, then he looked unmovedly at the retreating backs of both. It was all the same thing. Anderson was a man who dealt mostly with actualities where his emotions were concerned. With some, love-dreams grow and develop with their growth and development; with some not. The latter had been true with Randolph Anderson. Then, too, he was scarcely self-centred and egotistical enough for genuine air-castles of any kind. To build an air-castle, one's own personality must be the central prop and pillar, for even anything as unsubstantial as an air-castle has its building law. One must rear around something, or the structure can never rise above the horizon of the future. Anderson had stored his mind with the poetic facts of the world rather than projected his poetic fancies into the facts of the world. He saw things largely as they were, with no inflorescence of rainbows where there was none; but there are actual rainbows, and even auroras, so that the man who does not dream has compensations and a less chance of disillusion. Of course Anderson had thought of marriage; he could scarcely have done otherwise; but he had thought of it as an abstract condition pertaining to himself only in a general way as it pertains to all mankind. He had never seen himself plainly enough in his fancy as a lover and husband to have a pang of regret or longing. He had been really contented as he was. He had a powerful mind, and the exercising of that held in restraint the purely physical which might have precipitated matters. Some men advance, the soul pushing the body with more or less effort; some with the soul first, trailing the body; some in unison, and these are they who make the best progress as to the real advancement. Anderson moved, on the whole, in the last way. He was a very healthy man, mind and body, and with rather unusual advantages in point of looks. This last he realized in one way but not in another. He knew it on general principles; he recognized the fact as he recognized the fact of his hands and feet; but what he actually saw in the looking-glass was not so much the physical fact of himself as the spiritual problem with its two known quantities of need and circumstance, and its great unknown third which took hold of eternity. Anderson, although not in a sense religious, had a religious trend of thought. He went every Sunday with his mother to the Presbyterian church where his grandfather had preached to an earlier generation. On the Sunday after his encounter with Arthur Carroll with reference to the bill, he went to church as usual with his mother. Mrs. Anderson was a picture of a Sunday, in a rich lavender silk and a magnificent though old-fashioned lace shawl which floated from her shoulder in a fairy net-work of black roses. She would never wear plain black like most women of her age. She was one of the blue-eyed women who looks well in lavender. Her blue eyes, now looking at her son from under the rich purples and lavenders of the velvet pansies on her bonnet, got an indeterminate color like myrtle blossoms. A deeper pink also showed on her cheeks because of the color of her gown. "Mother, you are just such a mixture of color as that lilac-bush," said her son, irrelevantly, looking from her to a great lilac-bush in the corner of the yard they were passing. It was tipped with rose on the delicate ends of its blooming racemes, which shaded to blue at the bases. "Did you see those new people in church to-day?" said she. "Yes, I think I did," replied Randolph. "They sat just in front of the Egglestons, didn't they?" "Yes," said his mother, "they did sit there. There is quite a large family. The ladies are all very nice-looking, too, and they all look alike. If they are going to church, such a family as that, and so well off, they will be quite an acquisition to Banbridge." "Yes," said Randolph. He spoke absently, and he looked absently at a great wistaria which draped with pendulous purple blooms the veranda of a house which they were just passing. It arrested his eyes as with a loud chord of color, but his mind did not grasp it at all. Afterwards he could not have said he had seen it. As is often the case, while his eyes actually saw one thing, his consciousness saw another. Great, purple, pendulous flowers filled his bodily vision, and the head and shoulders of a young girl above a church pew his mental outlook. Had he seen the Carrolls in church--had he, indeed? Had he seen anything besides them, or rather besides one of them? Had he not, the moment she came up the aisle and entered the pew, seen her with a very clutch of vision? He could not have described one article of her dress, and yet it was complete in his thought. She had worn a soft silk of a dull-red shade, with a frill of cream lace about the shoulders, and there were pink roses under the brim of her dull-red hat, and under the roses was her face, shaded softly with a great puff of her dark hair. And her dark eyes under the dark hair had in them the very light of morning dew, which sparkled back both this world and heaven itself into the eyes of the looker, all reflected in tiny crystal spheres. Suddenly the man gazing across the church had seen in this girl's face all there was of earth and the overhang of heaven; he had seen the present and the future. It is through the face of another human being that one gets the furthest reach of human vision, and that furthest reach had now come for the first time to Randolph Anderson. All at once a quiver ran through his entire consciousness from this elongated vision, and he realized sight to its uttermost. Yet it did not dawn on him that he was in love with this girl. He would have laughed at the idea. He had seen her only twice; he had spoken to her only once. He knew nothing of her except that she had given him a worthless check to cash. Love could not come to him in this wise, and it had not, in fact. He had only attained to the comprehension of love. He had gotten faith, he had seen the present world and the world to come in the light of it, but not as yet his own soul. Yet always he saw the girl's head under the pink roses under the brim of the dark-red hat. It was evidently a favorite headgear of hers. She had worn it with a white dress when she had come to the store to get the check cashed. But he had not seen her so fully then. His little doubt and bewilderment over the check had clouded his vision. Now, since he had seen her in the church-pew, his last thrifty scruple as to ignoring the matter of the check left him. He felt that he could not put his doubt of her father to the proof. Suppose that the account had not been carelessly overdrawn-- Suppose-- He never for one instant suspected the girl. As soon suspect a rosebud of foregoing its own sweet personality, and of being in reality something else, say a stinging nettle. The girl carried her patent royal of youth and innocence on her face. He made up his mind to say nothing about the check, to lose the ten dollars, and, since dollars were so far from plenty with him, to sacrifice some luxury for the luxury of the loss. He made up his mind that he could very well do without the book with colored plates of South American butterflies which he had thought of purchasing. Much better live without that than rub the bloom off a better than butterfly's wing. Better anything than disturb that look of innocent ignorance on that girl's little face. Chapter VI It was the next day that Randolph Anderson, on his way home at noon, saw ahead of him, just as he turned the corner from Main to Elm street, where his own house was, a knot of boys engaged in what he at first thought was a fight or its preliminaries. There was a great clamor, too. In the boughs of a maple in the near-by yard were two robins wrangling; underneath were the boys. The air was full of the sweet jangle of birds and boyish trebles, for all the boys were young. Anderson, as he came up, glanced indifferently at the turbulent group and saw one boy who seemed to be the centre of contention. He was backed up against the fence, an ornate iron affair backed by a thick hedge, the green leaves of which pricked through the slender iron uprights. In front of this green, iron-grated wall, which was higher than his head, for he was a little fellow, stood a boy, who Anderson saw at a glance was the same one whom he had seen with the Carrolls in church the day before. His hair was rather long and a toss of dark curls. His face was as tenderly pretty as his sister's, whom he strongly resembled, although he was somewhat fairer of complexion. But it was full of the utmost bravado of rage and defiance, and his two small hands were clinched, until the knuckles whitened, in the faces of the little crowd who confronted him. The color had not left his face, for his cheeks burned like roses, but his pretty mouth was hard set and his black eyes blazed. The boys danced and made threatening feints at him. They called out confused taunts and demands whose purport Anderson at first did not comprehend, but the boy never swerved. When one of his tormentors came nearer, out swung the little white fist at him, and the other invariably dodged. Anderson's curiosity grew. He went closer. Amidon and Ray, the postmaster, on his way home to his dinner, also joined him, and the little barber, smelling strongly of scented soap and witch-hazel. They stood listening interestedly. "Most too many against one," remarked the postmaster. "He don't look scared," said Amidon. "He's Southern, and he's got grit. He's backed up there like the whole Confederacy." A kindly look overspread the sleek, conceited face of the man. His forebears were from Alabama. His father had been a small white slave-owner who had drifted North, in a state of petty ruin after the war, and there Amidon, who had been a child at the time, had grown up and married the thrifty woman who supported him. The wrangle increased, the boys danced more energetically, the small fists of the boy at bay were on closer guard. "Hi, there!" sung out Amidon. "Look at here; there's too many of ye. Look out ye don't git into no mischief, now." "Hullo, boys! what's the trouble?" shouted the postmaster, in a voice of authority. He was used to running these same boys out of his office when they became too boisterous during the distribution of the mails, making precipitate dashes from the inner sanctum of the United States government. They were accustomed to the sound of his important shout, and a few eyes rolled over shoulder at him. But they soon plunged again into their little whirlpool of excitement, for they were quick-witted and not slow to reason that they were now on the king's highway where they had as much right as the postmaster, and could not be coerced under his authority. "What is it all about?" the postmaster called, loudly, above the hubbub, to Anderson. Anderson shook his head. He was listening to the fusillade of taunting, threatening yells, with his forehead knitted. Then all at once he understood. Over and over, with every pitch possible to the boyish threats, the cry intermingling and crossing until all the vowels and consonants overlapped, the boys repeated: "Yerlie--yerlie--yerlie--" They clipped the reproach short; they elongated it into a sliding thrill. From one boy, larger than the others, and whose voice was changing, came at intervals the demand, in a hoarse, cracking treble, with sudden descents into gulfs of bass: "Take it ba-ck! Take it ba-ck!" Always in response to that demand of the large boy, who was always the one who danced closest to the boy at bay, came the reply, in a voice like a bird's, "Die first--die first." After a most energetic dash of this large boy, Anderson stepped up and caught him by the shoulder on his retreat from the determined little fist. He knew the large boy; he was a nephew of Henry Lee, whose wife had invaded the Carroll house in the absence of the family. "See here, Harry," said Anderson, "what is this about, eh?" The large boy, who, in spite of his size, was a youngster, looked at once terrifiedly and pugnaciously into his face, and beginning with a whimper of excuse to Anderson, ended with a snarl of wrath for the other boy. "He tells lies, he does. He tells lies. Ya-h!" The boy danced at the other even under Anderson's restraining hand on his shoulder. "Yerlie--yerlie! Ya-h!" he yelled, and all the others joined in. The chorus was deafening. Anderson's hand on the boy's shoulder tightened. He shook him violently. The boy's cap fell off, and his shock of fair hair waved. He rolled eyes of terrified wonder at his captor. "What, wha-at?--" he stammered. "You lemme be. You-- Wha-at?" "I'll tell you what, you big bully, you," said Anderson, sternly. "That boy there is one to a dozen, and he's the smallest of the lot--he's half your size. Now, what in thunder are you all about, badgering that little chap so?" A sudden silence prevailed. They all stood looking from under lowered eyebrows at the group of watching men; their small shoulders under their little school-jackets were seen to droop; scarcely a boy but shuffled his right leg, while their hands, which had been gyrating fists, unclinched and twitched at their sides. But the boy did not relax for a second his expression of leaping, bounding rage, of a savage young soul in a feeble body. Now he included Anderson and the other men. He held his head with the haughtiness of a prince. He seemed to question them with silent wrath. "Who are you who dare to come here and interfere in my quarrel?" he seemed to say. "I was sufficient unto myself. I needed none of your protection. What if I was one to a dozen? Look at _me!_" His little hands did not for a second unclinch. He was really very young, probably no more than ten. He was scarcely past his babyhood, but he was fairly impressive, not the slightest maturity of mind, but of spirit. He could never take a fiercer stand against odds than now if he lived to be a hundred. Anderson approached him, in spite of himself, with a certain respect. "What is the matter, young man?" he inquired, gravely. The boy regarded him with silent resentment and scorn; he did not deign an answer. But the big boy replied for him promptly: "He--he said his father kept a tame elephant when they lived in New York State, and he--he used to ride him--" He spoke in a tone of aggrieved virtue, and regarded the other with a scowl. The men guffawed, and after a second the boys also. Then a little fellow behind the ringleader offered additional testimony. "He said he used to get up a private circus once a week, every Saturday, and charge ten cents a head, and made ten dollars a week," he said. Then his voice of angry accusation ended in a chuckle. Anderson kept his face quite grave, but all the others joined in the chorus of merriment. The little fellow backed against the iron fence gave an incredulous start at the sound of the laughter, then the red roses faded out on his smooth cheeks and he went quite white. The laughter stung his very soul as no recrimination could have done. He suffered tortures of mortified pride. His fists were still clinched, but his proud lip quivered a little. He looked very young--a baby. Anderson stepped to his aid. He raised his voice. "Now, look here, boys," he said. But he made no headway against the hilarity, which swelled higher and higher. The crowd increased. Several more men and boys were on the outskirts. An ally pressed through the crowd to Anderson's side. "Now, boys," he proclaimed, and for a moment his thin squeak weighted with importance gained a hearing--"now, boys," said the barber, "this little feller's father is an extinguished new denizen of Banbridge, and you ain't treatin' of him with proper disrespect. Now--" But then his voice was drowned in a wilder outburst than ever. The little crowd of men and boys went fairly mad with hysterical joy of mirth, as an American crowd will when once overcome by the humor of the situation in the midst of their stress of life. They now laughed at the little barber and the boy. The old familiar butt had joined forces with the new ones. "They have formed a trust," said Amidon, deserting his partisanship, now that it had assumed this phase of harmless jocularity. But the boy at bay, as the laughter at his expense increased, was fairly frantic. He lost what he had hitherto retained, his self-possession. "I tell you I did!" he suddenly screamed out, in a sweet screech, like an angry bird, which commanded the ears of the crowd from its strangeness. "I tell you I did have an elephant, I did ride him, and I did have a circus every Saturday afternoon, so there!" The "so there" was tremendous. The words vanished in the sound. The boyish expression denoting triumphant climax became individual, the language of one soul. He fired the words at them all like a charge of shot. There was a pause of a second, then the laughter and mocking were recommencing. But Anderson took advantage of the lull. "See here, boys," he shouted, "there's been enough of this. What is it to you whether he had a dozen elephants and rode them all at once, and had a circus every day in the week with a dozen tame bears thrown in? Clear out and go home and get your dinners. Clear out! Vamoose! Scatter!" His tone was at once angry and appealing. It implied authority and comradeship. Anderson had given great promise as a speaker during his college course. He was a man who, if he exerted himself, could gauge the temper of a mob. The men on the outskirts began moving away easily; the boys followed their example. The little barber took the boy familiarly by the arm. "Now, you look at here," said he. "Don't you hev them chaps a-pesterin' of you no more, an' ef they do, you jest streak right into my parlor an' I'll take care of ye. See?" The boy twitched his arm away and eyed the barber witheringly. "I don't want anything to do with you nor your old barber-shop," said he. "You had better run along, John," said Anderson to the barber, who was staring amazedly, although the complacent smirk upon his face was undiminished. "I guess he's a child kinder given to speakin' at tandem," he said, as he complied with Anderson's advice. The boy turned at once to the man. "What business had that barber telling me to go into his old barber-shop?" demanded he. "I ain't afraid of all the boys in this one-horse town." "Of course not," said Anderson. "I did have an elephant when I lived in Hillfield, and I did ride him, and I did have circuses every Saturday," said the boy, with challenge. Anderson said nothing. "At least--" said the child, in a modified tone. Anderson looked at him with an air of polite waiting. The boy's roses bloomed again. "At least--" he faltered, "at least--" A maid rang a dinner-bell frantically in the doorway of the house near which they were standing. Anderson glanced at her, then back at the boy. "At least--" said the boy, with a blurt of confidence which yielded nothing, but implied the recognition of a friend and understander in the man--"at--least I used to make believe I had an elephant when I lived in Hillfield." "Yes?" said Anderson. He made a movement to go, and the boy still kept at his side. "And--" he added, but still with no tone of apology or confession, "I might have had an elephant." "Yes," said Anderson, "you might have." "And they did not know but what I might," said the boy, angrily. Anderson nodded judicially. "That's so, I suppose; only elephants are not very common as setter dogs for a boy to have around these parts." "It was a setter dog," said the boy, with a burst of innocence and admiration. "How did you know?" "Oh, I guessed." "You must be real smart," said the boy. "My father said he thought you were, and somehow had got stranded in a grocery store. Did you?" "Yes, I did," replied Anderson. Anderson was now walking quite briskly towards home and dinner, and the boy was trotting by his side, with seemingly no thought of parting. They proceeded in silence for a few steps; then the boy spoke again. "I began with the setter dog," said he. "His name was Archie, and he used to jump over the roof of a part of our house as high as"--he looked about and pointed conclusively at the ell of a house across the street--"as high as that," he said, with one small pink finger indicating unwaveringly. "That must have been quite a jump," remarked Anderson, and his voice betrayed nothing. "That setter was an awful jumper," said the little boy. "He died last winter. My sisters cried, but I didn't." His voice trembled a little. "He must have been a fine dog," said Anderson. "Yes, sir, he could jump. I think that piece of our house he used to jump over was higher than that," said the boy, reflectively, with the loving tone of a panegyrist who would heap more and more honors and flowers upon a dear departed. "A big jump," said Anderson. "Yes, sir, he was an awful jumper. Those boys they said I lied. First they said he couldn't do it, then they said I didn't have any dog, and then I--" "And then you said you had the elephant?" "Yes, sir. Say, you ain't going to tell 'em what I've told you?" "You better believe I'm not. But I tell you one thing--next time, if you'll take my advice, you had better stick to the setter dog and let elephants alone." "Maybe it would be better," said the boy. Then he added, with a curious sort of naive slyness, "But I haven't said I didn't have any elephant." "That's so," said Anderson. Suddenly, as the two walked along, the man felt a hard, hot little hand slide into his. "I guess you must be an awful smart man," said the boy. "What is your name?" said Anderson, in lieu of a disclaimer, which somehow he felt would seem to savor of mock modesty in the face of this youthful enthusiasm. "Why, don't you know?" asked the boy, in some wonder. "I thought everybody knew who we were. I am Captain Carroll's son. My name is Eddy Carroll." "I knew you were Captain Carroll's son, but I did not know your first name." "I knew you," said the boy. "I saw you out in the field catching butterflies." "Where were you?" "Oh, I was fishing. I was under those willows by the brook. I kept pretty still, and you didn't see me. Have to lay low while you're fishing, you know." "Of course," said Anderson. "I didn't catch anything. I don't believe fish are very thick in the brooks around here. I used to catch great big fellers when I lived in Hillfield. One day--" "When do you have your dinner at home?" broke in Anderson. "'Most any time. Say, Mr. Anderson, what are you going to have for dinner?" Anderson happened to know quite well what he was going to have for dinner, because he had himself ordered it on the way to the store that morning. He answered at once: "Roast lamb and green pease and new potatoes," said he. "Oh!" said the boy, with unmistakable emphasis. "And I am quite sure there is going to be a cherry-dumpling for dessert," said Anderson, reflectively. "I like all those things," stated the boy, with emphasis that was pathetic. The man stopped and looked down at the boy. "Now, see here, my friend," said he. "Honest, now, no dodging. Never mind if you do like things. Honest--you can't cheat me, you know--" The boy looked back at him with eyes of profound simplicity and faith. "I know it," he replied. "Well, then, now you tell me, honest, if you do stay and have dinner with me won't your folks, your mother and your sisters, worry?" The boy's face, which had been rather anxious, cleared at once. "Oh no, sir!" he replied. "Amy never worries, and Ina and Charlotte won't." "Who is Amy?" "Amy? Why, Amy is my mother, of course." "And you are sure she won't worry?" "Oh no, sir." The boy fairly laughed at the idea. His honesty in this at least seemed unmistakable. "Well, then," said Anderson, "come along and have dinner with me." The boy fairly leaped with delight as, still clinging to the man's hand, he passed up the little walk to the Anderson house. He could smell the roast lamb and the green pease. Chapter VII Arthur Carroll went on business to the City every morning. He brought up to the station in the smart trap, the liveried coachman, with the mute majesty of his kind, throned upon the front seat. Sometimes one of Carroll's daughters, as delicately gay as a flower in her light daintiness of summer attire, was with him. Often the boy, with his outlook of innocent impudence, sat beside the coachman. Carroll himself was always irreproachably clad in the very latest of the prevailing style. Had he not been such a masterly figure of a man, he would have been open to the charge of dandyism. He was always gloved; he even wore a flower in the lapel of his gray coat. He carried always, whatever the state of the weather, an eminent umbrella with a carved-ivory handle. He equipped himself with as many newspapers from the stand as would an editor of a daily paper. The other men drew conclusions that it was highly necessary for him to study the state of the market and glean the truth from the various reports. One morning Henry Lee was also journeying to the City on the eight-o'clock train. He held a $2500 position in a publisher's office, and felt himself as good as any man in Banbridge, with the possible exception of this new-comer, and he accosted him with regard to his sheaf of newspapers. "Going to have all the news there is?" he inquired, jocularly. Carroll looked up and smiled and nodded. "Well, yes," he replied. "I find this my only way--read them all and strike an average. There is generally a kernel of truth in each." "That's so," said Lee. Carroll glanced speculatively at the ostentatiously squared shoulders of the other man as he passed through the car. When the train reached Jersey City, Carroll, leaving his newspapers fluttering about the seat he had occupied, passed off the train and walked with his air of careless purpose along the platform. "This road is a pretty poorly conducted concern," said a voice behind him, and Lee came up hurriedly and joined him. "Yes," replied Carroll, tentatively. His was not the order of mind which could realize its own aggrandizement by wholesale criticism of a great railroad system for the sake of criticism, and, moreover, he had a certain pride and self-respect about maintaining the majesty of that which he must continue to patronize for his own ends. "Yes," said Lee, moving, as he spoke, with a sort of accelerated motion like a strut. He was a much shorter man than Carroll, and he made futile hops to get into step with him as they proceeded. "Yes, sir, every train through the twenty-four hours is late on this road." Carroll laughed. "I confess that rather suits me, on the whole. I am usually late myself." They walked together to the ferry-slip, and the boat was just going out. "Always lose this boat," grumbled Lee, importantly. Carroll looked at his watch, then replaced it silently. "Going to miss an appointment?" questioned Lee. "No, think not. These boats sail pretty often." "I wish the train-service was as good," said Lee. The two men stood together until the next boat came in, then boarded it, and took seats outside, as it was a fine day. They separated a couple of blocks from the pier. Lee was obliged to take an up-town Elevated. "I suppose you don't go my way?" he said to Carroll, wistfully. "No," said Carroll, smiling and shaking the ashes from his cigar. Both men had smoked all the way across--Carroll's cigars. "And I tell you they were the real thing," Lee told his admiring wife that night. "Cost fifteen cents apiece, if they cost a penny; no cheap cigars for him, I can tell you." Carroll said good-morning out of his atmosphere of fragrant smoke, and Lee, with a parting wave of the hand, began his climb of the Elevated stairs. He cast a backward look at Carroll's broad, gray shoulders swinging up the street. Even a momentary glimpse was enough to get a strong impression of the superiority of the man among the crowd of ordinary men hastening to their offices. "I wonder where he is going? I wonder where his office is?" Lee said to himself, accelerating his pace a little as the station began to quiver with an approaching train. What Lee asked himself many another man in Banbridge asked, but no one knew. No one dared to put the question directly to Carroll himself. Arthur Carroll had never been a man who opened wide all the doors of his secrets of life to all his friends and acquaintances. Some had one entrance, some another, and it is probable that he always reserved ways of entrance and egress unknown to any except himself. At the very time that he evaded the solicitude of Banbridge with regard to his haunts in the City he was more than open, even ostentatious concerning them to some parties in the City itself, but he was silent regarding Banbridge. It may have been for the reason that he did not for the present wish to mix the City and Banbridge, that he wished to preserve mysteries concerning himself in the regard of both. It is certain that nobody in his office, where he roused considerable speculation even among a more engrossed and less inquisitive class, knew where he lived. The office had not heard of Banbridge; Banbridge had heard of the office, but knew nothing about it. The office, in a way, was not nearly as wise as Banbridge, for it knew nothing whatever of his family affairs. There was therein much speculation and, more than that, heart-burning as to whether Captain Carroll was or was not married. In the inner office, whence issued a mad tick of type-writers all through business hours, were two girls, one quite young and very pretty, the other also young, but not so pretty, both working for very small returns. There was also a book-keeper, a middle-aged man, and vibrating from the inner to the outer office was a young fellow with an innocent, high forehead and an eager, anxious outlook of brown eyes and a fashion of seeming to hang suspended on springs of readiness for motion when an order should come. This young fellow, who sped in and out with that alacrity at the word of command, who hastened on errands with such impetus that he inspired alarm among the imaginative, had acquired a curious springiness about his hips that almost gave the effect of dislocation. He winked very fast, having gotten a nervous trick. He hurried ceaselessly. He had upon him the profound conviction of not time enough and the need of haste. He was in love with the prettier of the stenographers, and his heart was torn when he heard the surmises as to his employer's married or single estate. He used to watch Carroll when he left the office at night, and satisfied himself that he turned towards Sixth Avenue, and then he satisfied himself no more. Carroll plunged into mystery at night as he did for Banbridge in the morning. It was borne in upon the clerk who had an opulent imagination that Carroll was a great swell and went every night to one of the swellest of the up-town clubs, where he resided in luxury and the most genteel and lordly dissipation. He had, at the same time, a jealousy of and a profound pride in Carroll. Carroll himself had a sort of kindly scorn of him, and treated him very well. He was not of the description of weak character who antagonized him. As for the girls in the inner office, Carroll only recognized them there. Seen on the street, away from the environment, he would simply not have dreamed he had ever seen them. He knew them only in their frames. As for the middle-aged man at the book-keeper's desk, he disturbed him in a way that he would not admit to himself. He spoke to him rather curtly. If he could avoid speaking to him he did so. He had a way of sending directions to the book-keeper by the young man. The book-keeper, if he also surmised Carroll's private life, gave no sign, although he had ample time. He sat at his desk faithfully from eight o'clock until half-past four, but the work which he had to do was somewhat amazing to a mind which stopped to reason. Sometimes even this man, who understood the world in general as a place to be painfully clambered and tramped and even crawled over, to the accomplishment of the ulterior end of remaining upon it at all, and who paid very little attention to other people's affairs, except as they directly concerned the tragic pettiness of his own, wondered a little at the nature of the accounts which he faithfully kept. This book-keeper, whose name was William Allbright, lived in Harlem, so far up that it seemed fairly in the country, and on the second floor of a small, ancient building which, indeed, belonged to the period when Harlem was country and which remained between two modern apartment houses. The book-keeper had a half-right in a little green backyard, wherein flourished with considerable energy an aged cherry-tree, from which the tenants always fondly hoped for cherries. The cherries never materialized, but the hope was something. The book-keeper's elder sister, who kept house for him, was fond of gazing at the cherry-tree, with its scanty spread of white blossoms, and dreaming of cherries. She was the fonder because she had almost no dreams left. It is rather sad that even dreams go, as well as actualities. However, the sister seemed not to mind so very much. Very little, except the pleasure which she took in watching the cherry-tree, gave evidence that she lamented anything that she had lost or merely missed in life. In general she had an air of such utter placidity and acquiescence that it almost amounted to numbness. The book-keeper at this time of year scratched away every evening with a hoe and trowel in his half of the backyard, where he was making a tiny garden-patch. The garden represented to him, as the tree did to his sister, his one ladder by which his earthly dreams might climb higher. One night he came home and there were three green spears of corn piercing the mould, and he fairly chuckled. "The corn has come up," said he. "So it has," said his sister. A widow woman and her son, who worked in one of the great retail stores, lived down-stairs in the building. The young man, rather consequential but interested, strolled out in the backyard and surveyed the corn. The widow, who was consumptive, thrust her head and shoulders, muffled in a white shawl, out of her kitchen window into the soft spring air. "So the corn has come up," said the son, throwing himself back on his heels with a lordly air. The mother smiled dimly at the green spears from between the woolly swaths of her shawl. She coughed, and pulled the white fleece closely over her mouth and nose. Then only her eyes were visible, which looked young as they gazed at the green spears of corn. The book-keeper nodded his elderly, distinctly commonplace, and unimportant head with the motion of a conqueror who marshals armies. After all, it is something for a man to be able to call into life, even if under the force which includes him also, the new life of the spring. It is a power like that of a child in leading-strings, but still power. After the mother and son had gone away and he and his sister were still out in the cool, and the great evening star had come out and it was too dark to work any longer, for the first time he said something about the queer accounts in his books in Captain Carroll's office. "I suppose it is all right," he said, leaning a second on his hoe and staring up at the star, "but sometimes my books and the accounts I keep look rather--strange to me." "He pays you regularly, doesn't he?" inquired the sister. The question of pay could sting her from her numbness. Once there had been a period, years ago, before Carroll's advent, of no pay. "Oh yes," replied the brother. "He pays me. He has never been more than a week behind. Captain Carroll seems like a very smart man. I wonder where he lives. I don't believe anybody in the office knows. He went away very early this afternoon. I don't know whether he lives in the City or in the country. I thought maybe if he did live in the country he wanted to get home and go driving or something." It had been as the book-keeper surmised. Carroll had gone early to his home in the country with the idea of a drive. But when he reached home he found a state of affairs which precluded the drive. It seemed that young Eddy Carroll was given to romancing in more respects than one, and had not told the truth to Anderson when he had been asked if his family would feel anxious at his non-return to dinner. Eddy knew quite well that they would be anxious. In spite of a certain temperamental aversion to worry, the boy's mother and sisters were wont to become quite actively agitated if he failed to appear at expected times and seasons. Eddy Carroll, in the course of a short life, had contrived to find the hard side of many little difficulties. He had gotten into divers forms of mischief; he had met with many accidents. He had been almost drowned; he had broken an arm; he had been hit in the forehead by a stone thrown by another boy. When Arthur Carroll reached home that afternoon he found his wife in hysterical tears, his sister trying to comfort her, and the two daughters and the maid were scouring the town in search of the boy. School was out, and he had still not come home. Carroll heard the news before he reached home, from the coachman who met him at the station. "Mr. Eddy did not come home this noon," said the man, with much deference. He was full of awe at his employer, being a simple sort, and this was his second place, his first having been with the salt of the earth who made no such show as Carroll. He reasoned that virtue and appearances must increase according to the same ratio. "Mrs. Carroll sent me to the school this noon," said the man, further, "and the ladies are very much worried. The young ladies and Marie are out trying to find him." Marie was the maid, a Hungarian girl. "Well, drive home as fast as you can," said Carroll, with a sigh. He reflected that his drive was spoiled; he also reflected that when the boy was found he should be punished. Yet he did not look out of temper, and, in fact, was not. It was in reality almost an impossibility for Arthur Carroll to be out of temper with one of his own family. When Carroll reached home his wife came running down the stairs in a long, white tea-gown, and flung her arms around his neck. "Oh, Arthur!" she sobbed out. "What do you think has happened? What do you think?" Carroll raised his wife's lovely face, all flushed and panting with grief and terror like a child's, and kissed it softly. "Nothing, Amy; nothing, dear," he said. "Don't, my darling. You will make yourself ill. Nothing has happened." His sister Anna's voice, clear and strained, came from the top of the stairs. She stood there, holding an unbuttoned dressing-sack tightly across her bosom. The day was warm and neither of the ladies had dressed. "But, Arthur, he has not been home since morning," said Anna Carroll, "and Martin has been to the school-house, and the master says that Eddy did not return at all after the noon intermission, and he did not come home to dinner, after all." "Yes, he did not come home to dinner," said Mrs. Carroll; "and the butcher did send the roast of veal, after all. I was afraid he would not, because he had not been paid for so long, and I thought Eddy would come home so hungry. But the butcher did send it, but Eddy did not come. He cannot have had a thing to eat since morning, and all he had for breakfast were rolls and coffee. Thee egg-woman would not leave any more eggs, she said, until she was paid for the last two lots, and--" Carroll pulled out a wallet and handed a roll of notes, not to his wife, but to his sister Anna, who came half-way down the stairs and reached down a long, slender white arm for it. "There," said he, "pay up the butcher and the egg-woman to-morrow. At least--" "I understand," said Anna, nodding. "What do you care whether the butcher or the egg-woman are paid or not, when all the boy we've got is lost?" asked Mrs. Carroll, looking up into her husband's face with the tears rolling over her cheeks. "That's so," said Anna, and she gave the roll of notes a toss away from her with a passionate gesture. "Arthur, where do you suppose he is?" The notes fell over the banisters into the hall below. Carroll watched them touch the floor as he answered, "My dear sister, I don't know, but boys have played truant before, and survived it; and I have strong hopes of our dear boy." Carroll's voice, though droll, was exceedingly soft and soothing. He put an arm again around his wife, drew her close to him, and pressed her head against his shoulder. "Dear, you will be ill," he said. "The boy is all right." "I am sure this time he is shot," moaned Mrs. Carroll. "My dear Amy!" "Now, Arthur, you can laugh," said his sister, coming down the stairs, the embroidered ruffles of her white cambric skirt fluttering around her slender ankles in pink silk stockings, and her little feet thrust into French-heeled slippers, one of which had an enormous bow and buckle, the other nothing at all. "You may laugh," said Anna Carroll, in a sweet, challenging voice, "but why is it so unlikely? Eddy Carroll has had everything but shooting happen to him." "Yes, he has been everything except shot," moaned Mrs. Carroll. "My dearest dear, don't worry over such a thing as that!" "But, Arthur," pleaded Mrs. Carroll, "what else is there left for us to worry about?" Carroll's mouth twitched a little, but he looked and spoke quite gravely. "Well," he said, "I am going now, and I shall find the boy and bring him home safe and sound, and-- Amy, darling, have you eaten anything?" "Oh, Arthur," cried his wife, reproachfully, "do you think I could eat when Eddy did not come home to dinner, and always something dreadful has happened other times when he has not come? Eddy has never stayed away just for mischief, and then come home as good as ever. Something has always happened which has been the reason." "Well, perhaps he has stayed away for mischief alone, and that is what has happened now instead of the shooting," said Carroll. "Arthur, if--if he has, you surely will not--" "Arthur, you will not punish that boy if he does come home again safe and sound?" cried his sister. Carroll laughed. "Have either of you eaten anything?" he asked. "Of course not," replied his sister, indignantly. "How could we, dear?" said his wife. "I had thought I was quite hungry, and when the butcher sent the roast, after all--" "Perhaps I had better wait and not pay him until he does not send anything," murmured Anna Carroll, as if to herself. "And when the roast did come, I was glad, but, after all, I could not touch it." "Well, you must both eat to-night to make up for it," said Carroll. "I had thought you would as soon have it cold for dinner to-night," said Mrs. Carroll, in her soft, complaining voice. "We would not have planned it for our noon lunch, but we were afraid to ask the butcher for chops, too, and as long as there were no eggs for breakfast, we felt the need of something substantial; but, of course, when that darling boy did not come, and we had reason to think he was shot, we could not--" Mrs. Carroll leaned weepingly against her husband, but he put her from him gently. "Now, Amy, dearest," said he, "I am going to find Eddy and bring him home, and--you say Marie has gone to hunt for him?" "Yes, she went in one direction, and Ina and Charlotte in others," said Anna Carroll. "Well," said Carroll, "I will send Marie home at once, and I wish you would see that she prepares an early dinner, and then we can go for a drive afterwards." "Eddy can go, too," said Mrs. Carroll, quite joyously. "No, Amy," said Carroll, "he will most certainly not go to drive with us. There are times when you girls must leave the boy to me, and this is one of them." He stopped and kissed his wife's appealing face, and went out. Then the carriage rolled swiftly round the curve of drive. "He will whip him," said Anna to Mrs. Carroll, who looked at her with a certain defiance. "Well," said she, "if he does, I suppose it will be for his good. A man, of course, knows how to manage a boy better than a woman, because he has been a boy himself. You know you and I never were boys, Anna." "I know that, Amy," said Anna, quite seriously, "and I am willing to admit that a man may know better how to deal with a boy than a woman does, but I must confess that when I think of Arthur punishing Eddy for the faults he may have--" "May have what?" demanded Mrs. Carroll, quite sharply for her. "May have inherited from Arthur," declared Anna, boldly, with soft eyes of challenge upon her sister-in-law. "Eddy has no faults worth mentioning," responded Mrs. Carroll, seeming to enlarge with a sort of fluffy fury like an angry bird; "and the idea of your saying he inherits them from his father. You know as well as I do, Anna, what Arthur is." "I knew Arthur before you ever did," said Anna, apologetically. "Don't get excited, dear." "I am not excited, but I do wonder at your speaking after such a fashion when we don't know what may have happened to the dear boy. Of course Arthur will not punish him if he is shot or anything." "Of course not." "And if he is not shot, and Arthur should punish him, of course it will be all right." "Yes, I suppose it will, Amy," said Anna Carroll. "Arthur feels so sure that nothing has happened to him that I begin to think so myself," said Mrs. Carroll, beginning to ascend the stairs with a languid grace. "Yes, he has encouraged me," assented Anna. "I suppose we had better dress now." "Yes, if we are going to drive directly after dinner. I'll put on my cream foulard, it is so warm. I suppose we have, perhaps, worried a little more than was necessary." "I dare say," said Anna, trailing her white frills and laces before her sister the length of the upper hall. "I think I'll wear my blue embroidered linen." "You said the bill for that came yesterday?" "No, six weeks ago; certainly six weeks ago. You know I had it made very early. Oh yes, the second or third bill did come yesterday. I have had so many, I get mixed over those bills." "Well, it is a right pretty gown, and I would wear it if I were you," said Mrs. Carroll. Chapter VIII Shortly after Captain Carroll started upon his search for his missing son, Randolph Anderson, sitting peacefully in his back office, by the riverward window, was rudely interrupted. He was mounting some new specimens. Before him the great tiger cat lay blissfully on his red cushion. He was not asleep, but was purring loudly in what resembled a human day-dream. His claws luxuriously pricked through the velvet of his paws, which were extended in such a way that he might have served as a model for a bas-relief of a cat running a race. Now and then the tip of his tail curled and uncurled with an indescribable effect of sensuousness. The green things in the window-box had grown luxuriantly, and now and then trailing vines tossed up past the window in the infrequent puffs of wind. The afternoon was very warm. The temperature had risen rapidly since noon. Down below the wide window ran the river, unseen except for a subtle, scarcely perceptible glow of the brilliant sunlight upon the water. It was a rather muddy stream, but at certain times it caught the sunlight and tossed it back as from the facets of brown jewels. The murmur of the river was plainly audible in the room. It was very loud, for the stream's current was still high with the spring rains. The rustle of the trees which grew on the river-bank was also discernible, and might have been the rustle of the garments of nymphs tossed about their supple limbs by the warm breeze. In fact, a like fancy occurred to Anderson as he sat there mounting his butterflies. "I don't wonder those old Greeks had their tales about nymphs closeted in trees," he thought, for the rustle of the green boughs had suggested the rustle of women's draperies. Then he remembered how Charlotte Carroll's skirts had rustled as she went out of the store that last afternoon when he had spoken to her. There was a soft crispness of ruffling lawns and laces, a most delicate sound, a maidenly sound which had not been unlike the sound of the young leaves of the willows overfolding and interlacing with one another when the soft breeze swelled high. Now and then all the afternoon came a slow, soft wave of warm wind out of the west, and all sounds deepened before it, even the purring song of the cat seemed to increase, and possibly did, from the unconscious assertion of his own voice in the peaceful and somnolent chorus of nature. It was only spring as yet, but the effect was as of a long summer afternoon. Anderson, who was always keenly sensitive to all phases of nature and all atmospheric conditions, was affected by it. He realized himself sunken in drowsy, unspeculative contentment. Even the strange, emotional unrest and effervescence, which had been more or less over him since he had seen Charlotte Carroll, was in abeyance. After all, he was not a passionate man, and he was not very young. The young girl seemed to become merely a part of the gracious harmony which was lulling his soul and his senses to content and peace. He was conscious of wondering what a man could want more than he had, as if he had suspected himself of guilt in that direction. Then, suddenly, pell-mell into the office, starling the great cat to that extent that he sprang from his red cushion on the window-ledge, and slunk, flattening his long body against the floor, under the table, came the boy Eddy Carroll. The boy stood staring at him rather shamefacedly, though every muscle in his small body seemed on a twitch with the restrained impulse of flight. "Well," said Anderson, finally, "what's the trouble, sir?" Then the boy found his tongue. He came close to the man. "Say," he said, in a hoarse whisper, "jest let a feller stay in here a minute, will you?" Anderson nodded readily. He understood, or thought he did. He immediately jumped to the conclusion that the teasing boys were at work again. He felt a little astonished at this headlong flight to cover of the boy who had so manfully stood at bay a few hours before. However, he was a little fellow, and there had been a good many of his opponents. He felt a pleasant thrill of fatherliness and protection. He looked kindly into the little, pink-flushed face. "Very well, my son," said he. "Stay as long as you like. Take a seat." The boy sat down. His legs were too short for his feet to touch the floor, so he swung them. He gazed ingratiatingly at Anderson, and now and then cast an apprehensive glance towards the door of the office. Anderson continued mounting his butterflies, and paid no attention to him, and the boy seemed to respect his silence. Presently the great cat emerged quite boldly from his refuge under the table, crouched, calculated the distance, and leaped softly back to his red cushion. The boy hitched his chair nearer, and began stroking the cat gently and lovingly with his little boy-hand, hardened with climbing and playing. The cat stretched himself luxuriously, pricked his claws in and out, shut his eyes, and purred again quite loudly. Again the little room sang with the song of the river, the wind in the trees, and the cat's somnolent note. The afternoon light rippled full of green reflections through the room. The boy's small head appeared in it like a flower. He smiled tenderly at the cat. Anderson, glancing at him over his butterflies, thought what an angelic aspect he had. He looked a darling of a boy. The boy, stroking the cat, met the man's kindly approving eyes, and he smiled a smile of utter confidence and trust, which conveyed delicious flattery. Then suddenly the hand stroking the cat desisted and made a dive into a small jacket-pocket and emerged with a treasure. It was a great butterfly, much dilapidated as to its gorgeous wings, but the boy looked gloatingly from it to the man. "I got it for you," he whispered, with another glance at the office door. Anderson recognized, with the dismay of a collector, a fine specimen, which he had sought in vain, made utterly worthless by ruthless handling, but he controlled himself. "Thank you," he said, and took the poor, despoiled beauty and laid it carefully on the table. "It got broke a little, somehow," remarked the boy; "it's wings are awful brittle." "Yes, they are," assented Anderson. "I had to chase it quite a spell," said the boy, with an evident desire not to have his efforts underestimated. "Yes, I don't doubt it," replied Anderson, with gratitude well simulated. "It seemed rather a pity to kill such a pretty butterfly as that," remarked the boy, unexpectedly, "but I thought you'd like it." "Yes, I like to have a nice collection of butterflies," replied Anderson, with a faint inflection of apology. In reality, the butterflies' side of it had failed to occur to him before, and he felt that an appeal to science in such a case was rather feeble. Then the boy helped him out. "Well," said he, "I do suppose that a butterfly don't live very long, anyhow; he has to die pretty soon, and it's better for human beings to have him stuck on a pin and put where they can see how handsome he is, rather than have him stay out in the fields, where the rain would soak him into the ground, and that would be the end of him. I suppose it is better to save anything that's pretty, somehow, even if the thing don't like it himself." "Perhaps you are right," replied Anderson, regarding the boy with some wonder. "Maybe he didn't mind dying 'cause I caught him any more than just dying himself," said Eddy. "Maybe not." "Anyhow, he's dead," said the boy. He watched Anderson carefully as he manipulated the insect. "I'm sorry his wing got broken," he said. "I wonder why God makes butterflies' wings so awful brittle that they can't be caught without spoiling 'em. The other wing ain't hurt much, anyhow." A sudden thought struck Anderson. "Why, when did you get this butterfly?" he asked. The boy flushed vividly. He gave a sorrowful, obstinate glance at the man, as much as to say, "I am sad that you should force me into such a course, but I must be firm." Then he looked away, staring out of the window at the tree-tops tossing against the brilliant blue of the sky, and made no reply. Anderson made a swift calculation. He glanced at a clock on the wall. "Where did you get this butterfly?" he inquired, harmlessly, and the boy fell into the net. "In that field just beyond the oak grove on the road to New Sanderson," he replied, with entire innocence. Anderson surveyed him sharply. "When is afternoon school out?" asked Anderson. "At four o'clock," replied the boy, with such unsuspicion that the man's conscience smote him. It was too easy. "Well," said Anderson, slowly. He did not look at the boy, but went on straightening the mangled wing of the butterfly which he had offered on his shrine. "Well," he said, "how did you get time to go to that field and catch this butterfly? You say it took a long time, and that field is a good twenty minutes' run from here, and it is a quarter of five now." The boy kicked his feet against the rounds of his chair and made no reply. His forehead was scowling, his mouth set. "How?" repeated Anderson. Then the boy turned on the man. He slid out of his chair; he spoke loudly. He forgot to glance at the door. "Ain't you smart?" he cried, with scorn, and still with an air of slighted affection which appealed. "Ain't you smart to catch a feller that way? You're mean, if you are a man, after I've got you that big butterfly, too, to turn on a feller that way." Anderson actually felt ashamed of himself. "Now, see here, my boy," he said, "I'm grateful to you so far as that goes." "I didn't run away from school," declared Eddy Carroll, looking straight at Anderson, who fairly gasped. He had seen people lie before, but somehow this was actually dazzling. He was conscious of fairly blinking before the direct gaze of innocence of this lying little boy. And then his elderly and reliable clerk appeared in the office door, glanced at Eddy, whom he did not know, and informed Anderson, in a slightly impressed tone, that Captain Carroll was in the store and would like to speak to him. Anderson glanced again at his young visitor, who had got, in a second, a look of pale consternation. He went out into the store at once, and was greeted by Carroll with the inquiry as to whether or not he had seen his son. "My boy has not been seen since he started for school this morning," said Carroll. "I came here because another little boy, one of my son's small school-fellows, who has succeeded in treading the paths of virtue and obedience, volunteered the information, without the slightest imputation of any guilty conspiracy on your part, that you had been seen leading my son home to your residence to dinner," said Carroll. "Your son made friends with me on his way from school this noon," said Anderson, simply, "and upon his evident desire to dine with me I invited him, being assured by him that his so doing would not occasion the slightest uneasiness at home as to his whereabouts." Anderson was indignant at something in the other man's tone, and was careful not to introduce in his tone the slightest inflection of apology. He made the statement, and was about to add that the boy was at that moment in his office, when Carroll interrupted. "I regret to say that my son has not the slightest idea of what is meant by telling the truth. He never had," he stated, smilingly, "especially when his own desires lead him to falsehood. In those cases he lies to himself so successfully that he tells in effect the truth to other people. He, in that sense, told the truth to you, but the truth was not as he stated, for the ladies have been in a really pitiable state of anxiety." "He is in my office now," said Anderson, coldly, pointing to the door and beginning to move towards it. "I suspected the boy was in there," said Carroll, and his tones changed, as did his face. All the urbanity and the smile vanished. He followed Anderson with a nervous stride. Both men entered the little office, but the boy was gone. Both stood gazing about the little space. It was absolutely impossible for anybody to be concealed there. There was no available hiding-place except under the table, and the cat occupied that, and his eyes shone out of the gloom like green jewels. "I don't see him," said Carroll. Then Anderson turned upon him. "Sir," he said, with a kind of slow heat, "I am at a loss as to what to attribute your tone and manner. If you doubt--" "Not at all, my dear sir," replied Carroll, with a wave of the hand. "But I am told that my son is in here, and when, on entering, I do not see him, I am naturally somewhat surprised." "Your son was certainly in this room when I left it a moment ago, and that is all I know about it," said Anderson. "And I will add that your son's visit was entirely unsolicited--" "My dear sir," interrupted Carroll again, "I assure you that I do not for a moment conceive the possibility of anything else. But the fact remains that I am told he is here--" "He was here," said Anderson, looking about with an impatient and bewildered scowl. "He could not have gone out through the store while we were there," said Carroll, in a puzzled tone. "I do not see how he could have done so unobserved, certainly." "The window," said Carroll, taking a step towards it. "Thirty feet from the ground; sheer wall and rocks below. He could not have gone out there without wings." "He has no wings, and I very much fear he never will have any at this rate," said Carroll, moving out. "Well, Mr. Anderson, I regret that my son should have annoyed you." "He has not annoyed me in the least," Anderson replied, shortly. "I only regret that his peculiar method of telling the truth should have led me unwittingly to occasion your wife and daughters so much anxiety, and I trust that you will soon trace him." "Oh yes, he will turn up all right," said Carroll, easily. "If he was in your office a moment ago, he cannot be far off." There was the faintest suggestion of emphasis upon the "if." Anderson spoke to the elderly clerk, who had been leaning against the shelves ranged with packages of cereal, surmounted by a flaming row of picture advertisements, regarding them and listening with a curious abstraction, which almost gave the impression of stupidity. This man had lived boy and man in one groove of the grocer business, until he needed prodding to shift him momentarily into any other. In reality he managed most of the details of the selling. He heard what the two men said, and at the same time was considering that he was to send the wagon round the first thing in the morning with pease to the postmaster's, and a new barrel of sugar to the Amidons, and he was calculating the price of sugar at the slight recent rise. "Mr. Price," said Anderson to him, "may I ask that you will tell this gentleman if a little boy went into my office a short time ago?" The clerk looked blankly at Anderson, who patiently repeated his question. "A little boy," repeated the clerk. "Yes," said Anderson. Price gazed reflectively and in something of a troubled fashion at Anderson, then at Carroll. His mind was in the throes of displacing a barrel of sugar and a half-peck of pease by a little boy. Then his face brightened. He spoke quickly and decidedly. "Yes," said he, "just before this gentleman came in, a little boy, running, yes." "You did not see him come out while we were talking?" asked Anderson. "No, oh no." Carroll asked no further and left, with a good-day to Anderson, who scarcely returned it. He jumped into his carriage, and the swift tap of the horse's feet died away on the macadam. "Sugar ought to bring about two cents on a pound more," said the clerk to Anderson, returning to the office, and then he stopped short as Anderson started staring at an enormous advertisement picture which was stationed, partly for business reasons, partly for ornament, in a corner near the office door. It was a figure of a gayly dressed damsel, nearly life-size, and was supposed by its blooming appearance to settle finally the merit of a new health food. The other clerk, who was a young fellow, hardly more than a boy, had placed it there. He had reached the first fever-stage of admiration of the other sex, and this gaudy beauty had resembled in his eyes a fair damsel of Banbridge whom he secretly adored. Therefore he had ensconced it carefully in the corner near the office door, and often glanced at it with reverent and sheepish eyes of delight. Anderson never paid any attention to the thing, but now for some reason he glanced at it in passing, and to his astonishment it moved. He made one stride towards it, and thrust it aside, and behind it stood the boy, with a face of impudent innocence. Anderson stood looking at him for a second. The boy's eyes did not fall, but his expression changed. "So you ran away from your father and hid from him?" Anderson observed, with a subtle emphasis of scorn. "So you are afraid?" The boy's face flashed into red, his eyes blazed. "You bet I ain't," he declared. "Looks very much like it," said Anderson, coolly. "You let me go," shouted the boy, and pushed rudely past Anderson and raced out of the store. Anderson and the old clerk looked at each other across the great advertisement which had fallen face downward on the floor. "Must have come in from the office whilst our back was turned, and slipped in behind that picture," said the clerk, slowly. Anderson nodded. "He is a queer feller," said the clerk, further. "He certainly is," agreed Anderson. "As queer as ever I seen. Guess his father 'll give it to him when he gits home." "Well, he deserves it," replied Anderson, and added, in the silence of his mind, "and his father deserves it, too," and imagined vaguely to himself a chastening providence for the eternal good of the father even as the father might be for the eternal good of his son. The man's fancy was always more or less in leash to his early training. Just then the younger clerk, Sam Riggs, commonly called Sammy, entered, and espying at once with jealous eyes the fallen state of his idol in the corner, took the first opportunity to pick her up and straighten her to her former position. Chapter IX Little Eddy Carroll, running on his slim legs like a hound, raced down the homeward road, and came in sight of his father's carriage just before it turned the corner. Carroll had stopped once on the way, and so the boy overtook him. When Carroll stopped to make an inquiry, he caught a glimpse of the small, flying figure in the rear; in fact, the man to whom he spoke pointed this out. "Why, there's your boy, now, Cap'n Carroll," he said, "runnin' as fast after you as you be after him." The man was an old fellow of a facetious turn of mind who had done some work on Carroll's garden. Carroll, after that one rapid, comprehensive glance, said not another word. He nodded curtly and sprang into the carriage; but the old man, pressing close to the wheel, so that it could not move without throwing him, said something in a half-whisper, as if he were ashamed of it. "Certainly, certainly, very soon," replied Carroll, with some impatience. "I need it pooty bad," the old man said, abashedly. "Very soon, I tell you," repeated Carroll. "I cannot stop now." The old man fell back, with a pull at his ancient cap. He trembled a little nervously, his face was flushed, but he glanced back with a grin at Eddy racing to catch up. "Drive on, Martin," Carroll said to the coachman. The old gardener waited until Eddy came alongside, then he called out to him. "Hi!" he said, "better hurry up. Guess your pa is goin' to have a reckonin' with ye." "You shut up!" cried the boy, breathlessly, racing past. When finally he reached the carriage, he promptly caught hold of the rear, doubled up his legs, and hung on until it rolled into the grounds of the Carroll place and drew up in the semicircle opposite the front-door. Then he dropped lightly to the ground and ran around to the front of the carriage as his father got out. Eddy without a word stood before his father, who towered over him grandly, confronting him with a really majestic reproach, not untinctured with love. The man's handsome face was quite pale; he did not look so angry as severe and unhappy, but the boy knew well enough what the expression boded. He had seen it before. He looked back at his father, and his small, pink-and-white face never quivered, and his black eyes never fell. "Well?" said Carroll. "Where have you been?" asked Carroll. The anxious faces of the boy's mother and his aunt became visible at a front window, a flutter of white skirts appeared at the entrance of the grounds. The girls were returning from their search. "Answer me," commanded Carroll. "Teacher sent me on an errand," he replied then, with a kind of doggedness. "The truth," said Carroll. "I went out catching butterflies, after I had dined with Mr. Anderson and his mother." "You dined with Mr. Anderson and his mother?" "Yes, sir. You needn't think he was to blame. He wasn't. I made him ask me." "I understand. Then you did not go to school this afternoon, but out in the field?" "Yes, sir." Carroll eyed sharply the boy's right-hand pocket, which bulged enormously. The girls had by this time come up and stood behind Eddy, holding to each other, their pretty faces pale and concerned. "What is that in your pocket?" asked Carroll. "Marbles." "Let me see the marbles." "It ain't marbles, it's candy." "Where did you get it?" "Mr. Anderson gave it to me." Carroll continued to look his son squarely in the eyes. "I stole it when they wasn't looking," said the boy; "there was a glass jar--" "Go into the house and up to your own room," said Carroll. The boy turned as squarely about-face as a soldier at the word of command, and marched before his father into the house. The four women, the two at the window, the two on the lawn, watched them go without a word. Ina, the elder of the two girls, put her handkerchief to her eyes and began to cry softly. Charlotte put her arm around her and drew her towards the door. "Don't, Ina," she whispered, "don't, darling." "Papa will whip him very hard," sobbed Ina. "It seems to me I cannot bear it, he is such a little boy." "Papa ought to whip him," said Charlotte, quite firmly, although she herself was winking back the tears. "He will whip him so hard," sobbed Ina. "I quite gave up when papa found the candy. Stealing is what he never will forgive him for, you know." "Yes, I know. Don't let poor Amy see you cry, Ina." "Wait a minute before we go in. You remember that the time papa whipped me, the only time he ever did, when--" "Yes, I remember. You never did again, honey." "Yes, it cured me, but I fear it will not cure Eddy. A boy is different." "Stop crying, Ina dear, before we go in." "Yes--I--will. Are my eyes very red?" "No; Amy will not notice it if you keep your eyes turned away." But Mrs. Carroll turned sharply upon Ina the moment she saw her. The two elder ladies had left the parlor and retreated to a small apartment on the right of the hall, called the den, and fitted up with some Eastern hangings and a divan. Upon this divan Anna Carroll had thrown herself, and lay quite still upon her back, her slender length extended, staring out of the window directly opposite at the spread of a great oak just lately putting forth its leaves. Mrs. Carroll was standing beside her, and she looked at the two girls entering with a hard expression in her usually soft eyes. "Why have you been crying?" she asked, directly, of Ina. Her hair was in disorder, as if she had thrust her fingers through it. It was pushed far off from her temples, making her look much older. Red spots blazed on her cheeks, her mouth widened in a curious, tense smile. "Why have you been crying?" she demanded again when Ina did not reply at once to her question. "Because papa is going to whip Eddy," Ina said then, with directness, "and I know he will whip him very hard, because he has been stealing." "Well, what is that to cry about?" asked Mrs. Carroll, ruffling with indignation. "Don't you think the boy's father knows what is best for his own son? He won't hurt him any more than he ought to be hurt." "I only hope he will hurt himself as much as he ought to be hurt," muttered Anna Carroll on the divan. Mrs. Carroll gave her sister-in-law one look, then swept out of the room. The tail of her rose-colored silk curled around the door-sill, and she was gone. She passed through the hall, and out of the front-door to the lawn, whence she strolled around the house, keeping on the side farthest from the room occupied by her son. "Hark!" whispered Ina, a moment after her mother had gone. They all listened, and a swishing sound was distinctly audible. It was the sound of regular, carefully measured blows. "Amy went out so she should not hear," whispered Ina. "Oh, Dear!" "It is harder for her than for anybody else because she has to uphold Arthur for doing what she knows is wrong," said Anna Carroll on the divan. She spoke as if to herself, pressing her hands to her ears. "Papa is doing just right," cried Charlotte, indignantly. "How dare you speak so about papa, Anna?" "There is no use in speaking at all," said Anna, wearily. "There never was. I am tired of this life and everything connected with it." Ina was weeping again convulsively. She also had put her hands to her ears, and her piteous little wet, quivering face was revealed. "There is no need of either of you stopping up your ears," said Charlotte. "You won't hear anything except the--blows. Eddy never makes a whimper. You know that." She spoke with a certain pride. She felt in her heart that a whimper from her little brother would be more than she herself could bear, and would also be more culpable than the offence for which he was being chastised. She said that her brother never whimpered, and yet she listened with a little fear that he might. But she need have had no apprehension. Up in his bedroom, standing before his father in his little thin linen blouse, for he had pulled off his jacket without being told, directly when he had first entered the room, the little boy endured the storm of blows, not only without a whimper, but without a quiver. Eddy stood quite erect. His pretty face was white, his little hands hanging at his sides were clinched tightly, but he made not one sound or motion which betrayed pain or fear. He was counting the blows as they fell. He knew how many to expect. There were so many for running away and playing truant, and so many for lying, more for stealing, so many for all three. This time it was all three. Eddy counted while his father laid on the blows as regularly as a machine. When at last he stopped, Eddy did not move. He spoke without moving his head. "There are two more, papa," he said. "You have stopped too soon." Carroll's face contracted, but he gave the two additional blows. "Now undress yourself and go to bed," he told the boy, in an even tone. "I will have some bread and milk sent up for your supper. To-morrow morning you will take that candy back to the store, and tell the man you stole it, and ask his pardon." "Yes, sir," said Eddy. He at once began unfastening his little blouse preparatory to retiring. Carroll went out of the room and closed the door behind him. His sister met him at the head of the stairs and accosted him in a sort of fury. "Arthur Carroll," said she, tersely, "I wish you would tell me one thing. Did you whip that child for his faults or your own?" Carroll looked at her. He was very pale, and his face seemed to have lengthened out and aged. "For both, Anna," he replied. "What right have you to punish him for your faults, I should like to know?" "The right of the man who gave them to him." "You have the right to punish him for your faults--_your_ faults?" "I could kill him for my faults, if necessary." "Who is going to punish you for your faults? Tell me that, Arthur Carroll." "The Lord Almighty in His own good time," replied Carroll, and passed her and went down-stairs. Chapter X The next morning, just before nine o'clock, Anderson was sitting in his office, reading the morning paper. The wind had changed in the night and was blowing from the northwest. The atmosphere was full of a wonderful clearness and freshness. Anderson was conscious of exhilaration. Life assumed a new aspect. New ambitions pressed upon his fancy, new joys seemed to crowd upon his straining vision in culminating vistas of the future. Without fairly admitting it to himself, it had seemed to him as if he had already in a great measure exhausted the possibilities of his own life, as if he had begun to see the bare threads of the warp, as if he had worn out the first glory of the pattern design. Now it was suddenly all different. It looked to him as if he had scarcely begun to live, as if he had not had his first taste of existence. He felt himself a youth. His senses were sharpened, and he got a keen delight from them, which stimulated his spirit like wine. He perceived for the first time a perfume from the green plants in his window-box, which seemed to grow before his eyes and give an odor like the breath of a runner. He heard whole flocks of birds in the sky outside. He distinguished quite clearly one bird-song which he had never heard before. His newspaper rustled with astonishing loudness when he turned the pages, his cigar tasted to an extreme which he had never before noticed. The leaves of the plants and the tree-boughs outside cut the air crisply. His window-shade rattled so loudly that he could not believe it was simply that. A great onslaught of the splendid wind filled the room, and everything waved and sprang as if gaining life. Then suddenly, without the slightest warning, came a shower of the confection known as molasses-peppermints through the door of the office. They are a small, hard candy, and being thrown with vicious emphasis, they rattled upon the bare floor like bullets. One even hit Anderson stingingly upon the cheek. He sprang to his feet and looked out. Nothing was to be seen except the young clerk, standing, gaping and half frightened, yet with a lurking grin. Anderson regarded him with amazement. An idea that he had gone mad flashed through his mind. "What did you do that for, Sam?" he demanded. "I didn't do it." "Who did?" "That kid that was in here last night. That Carroll boy. He run in here and flung that candy, and out again, before I could more 'n' see him. Didn't know what were comin'." Anderson returned to his office, and as he crossed the threshold heard a duet of laughter from Sam and the older clerk. His feet crushed some of the candy as he resumed his seat. He took up his newspaper, but before he had fairly commenced to read he heard the imperious sound of a girl's voice outside, a quick step, and a dragging one. "Come right along!" the girl's voice ordered. "You lemme be!" came a sulky boy's voice in response. "Not another word!" said the girl's. "Come right along!" Anderson looked up. Charlotte Carroll was entering, dragging her unwilling little brother after her. "Come," said she again. She did not seem to regard Anderson at all. She held her brother's arm with a firm grip of her little, nervous white hand. "Now," said she to him, "you pick up every one of those molasses-peppermint drops, every single one." The boy wriggled defiantly, but she held to him with wonderful strength. "Right away," she repeated, "every single one." "Let me go, then," growled the boy, angrily. "How can I pick them up when you are holding me this way?" The girl with a swift motion swung to the office door in the faces of the two clerks, the grinning roundness of the younger, and the half-abstracted bewilderment of the elder. Then she placed her back against it, and took her hand from her brother's arm. "Now, then, pick them up, every one," said she. Without another word the boy got down on his hands and knees and began gathering up the scattered sweets. Anderson had risen to his feet, and stood looking on with a dazed and helpless feeling. Now he spoke, and he realized that his voice sounded weak. "Really, Miss Carroll," he said, "I beg-- It is of no consequence--" Then he stopped. He did not know what it was all about; he had only a faint idea of not putting any one to the trouble to pick up the debris on his office floor. Charlotte regarded him as sternly as she had her brother. "Yes, it is of consequence. Papa told him to bring them back and apologize." Anderson stared at her, bewildered, while the little boy crawled like a nervous spider around his feet. "Why bring them back to me?" he queried. For the moment the ex-lawyer forgot that molasses-peppermint balls yielded a part of his revenue, and were offered by him to the public from a glass jar on his shelf. He cast about in his mind as to what he could possibly have to do with those small, hard, brown lollipops rolling about on his office floor. "You had them in a glass jar," said Charlotte, in an accusing voice, "right in his way, and--when he came home last night he had them in his pocket, and--papa whipped him very hard. He always does when-- My brother is never allowed to take anything that does not belong to him, however unimportant," she concluded, proudly. Anderson continued to look at her in a sort of daze. "No," she added, severely, "he is not. No matter if he is so young, no more than a child, and a child is very fond of sweets, and--they were left right in his way." Anderson looked at her with the vague idea floating through his mind that he owed this sweet, reproachful creature an abject pardon for keeping his molasses-peppermint balls in a glass jar on his own shelf and not locking them away from the lustful eyes of small boys. "Papa told Eddy that he must bring them back this morning and ask your pardon," said Charlotte, "and when he came running out of the store I suspected what he had done; and when I found out, I made him come back. Pick up every one, Eddy." "Here is one he stepped on his own self and smashed all to nothing," said Eddy, in an aggrieved tone. "I can't pick that up, anyhow." "Pick up what you can of it, and put it in the paper bag." "I shouldn't think he could sell this to anybody without cheating them," remarked Eddy, in a lofty tone, in spite of his abject position. "Never you mind what he does with it. You pick up every single speck," ordered the girl; and the boy scraped the floor with his sharp finger-nails, and crammed the candy and dust into a small paper bag. The girl stood watchfully over him; not the smallest particle escaped her eyes. "There's some more over there," said she, sharply, when the boy was about to rise; and Eddy loped like some small animal on all-fours towards a tiny heap of crushed peppermint-drops. "He must have stepped on this, too," he muttered, with a reproachful glare at Anderson, who had never in his life felt so at a loss. He was divided between consternation and an almost paralyzing sense of the ridiculous. He was conscious that a laugh would be regarded as an insult by this very angry and earnest young girl. But at last Eddy tendered him the bag with the rescued peppermint-drops. "I shouldn't think you would ask more than half-price for candy like this, anyway," said Eddy, admonishingly, and that was too much for the man. He shouted with laughter; not even Charlotte's face, which suddenly flushed with wrath, could sober him. She looked at him a moment while he laughed, and her face of severe judgment and anger intensified. "Very well," said she, "if you see anything funny about this, I am glad, Mr. Anderson." But the boy, who had viewed with doubt and suspicion this abrupt change of aspect on the part of the man, suddenly grinned in response; his black eyes twinkled charmingly with delight and fun. "Say, _you're_ all right," he said to Anderson, with a confidential nod. "Eddy!" cried Charlotte. "Now, Charlotte, you don't see how funny it is, because you are a girl," said Eddy, soothingly, and he continued to grin at the man, half-elfishly, half-innocently. He looked very small and young. The girl caught hold of his arm. "Come away immediately," she said, in a choking voice. "Immediately." "It's just like a girl to act that way about my going, as if I wanted to come myself at all," said the boy, following his sister's pulling hand, and still grinning understandingly at Anderson over his shoulder. Charlotte turned in the doorway and looked majestically at Anderson. "I thought, when I obliged my brother to return here and pick up the candy, that I was dealing with a gentleman," said she. "Otherwise I might not have considered it necessary." Even then Anderson could scarcely restrain his laughter, although he was conscious that he was mortally offending her. He managed to gasp out something about his surprise and the triviality of the whole affair of the candy. "I regret that you should consider the taking anything without leave, however worthless, as trivial," said she. "I have not been so brought up, and neither has my brother." She said this with an indescribable air of offended rectitude. She regarded him like a small, incarnate truth and honesty. Then she turned, and her brother was following with a reluctant backward pull at her leading hand, when suddenly he burst forth with a shout of malicious glee. "Say, you are making me go away, when I haven't given him back his old candy, after all! He didn't take it." Charlotte promptly caught the paper bag from her brother's hand, advanced upon Anderson, and thrust it in his face as if it had been a hostile weapon. Anderson took it perforce. "Here is your property," said she, proudly, but she seemed almost as childish as her brother. "I ain't said any apology, either," said Eddy. "The coming here and returning it is apology enough," said Anderson. He looked foolishly at the ridiculous paper bag, sticky with lollipops. For the first time he felt distinctly ashamed of his business. It seemed to him, as he realized its concentration upon the petty details of existence, its strenuous dwelling upon the small, inane sweets and absurdities of daily life which ought to be scattered with a free hand, not made subjects of trade and barter, to be entirely below a gentleman. He gave the paper bag an impatient toss out of the open window over the back of the sleeping cat, which started a little, then stretched himself luxuriously and slept again. "There, he's thrown it out of the window!" proclaimed Eddy. He looked accusingly at Charlotte. "I might just as well have kept it as had it thrown out of the window," said he. "What good is it to anybody now, I'd like to know?" "Never mind what he has done with it," said Charlotte. "Come at once." "Papa told me I must apologize. He will ask me if I did." "Apologize, then. Be quick." "It is not--" began Anderson, who was sober enough now, and becoming more and more annoyed, but Charlotte interrupted him. "Eddy!" said she. "I am very sorry I took your candy," piped Eddy, in a loud, declamatory voice which was not the tone of humble repentance. The boy, as he spoke, eyed the man with defiance. It was as if he blamed him, for some occult reason, for having his own property stolen. The child's face became, under the forced humiliation of the apology, revolutionary, anarchistic, rebellious. He might have been the representative, the walking delegate, of some small cult of rebels against the established order of regard for the property-rights of others. The sinner, the covetous one of another's sweets, became the accuser. Just as he was going out of the door, following the pink flutter of his sister's muslin gown, he turned and spoke his whole mind. "You had a whole big glass jar of them, anyhow," said he, "and I didn't have a single one. You might have given me some, and then I shouldn't have stolen them. It's your own fault. You ought not to have things that anybody else wants, when they haven't got money to pay for them. It's a good deal wickeder than stealing. It was your own fault." But Eddy had then to deal with his sister. She towered over him, pinker than her pink muslin. The ruffles seemed agitated all over her slender, girlish figure, like the plumage of an angry bird. She caught her small brother by the shoulders, and shook him violently, until the dark hair which he wore rather long waved and his whole head wagged. "Eddy Carroll," she cried, "aren't you ashamed of yourself? Oh, aren't you ashamed of yourself? Begging, yes, _begging_ for candy! If you want candy, you will buy it. You will not beg it nor take it without permission. If you cannot buy it, you will go without, if you are a brother of mine." The boy for the first time quailed somewhat. He looked at her, and raised a hand childishly as if to ward off something. "I didn't ask, Charlotte," he half whimpered. "If he was to offer me any now, I would not take it. I would just fling it in his face. I would, Charlotte; I would, honest." "I heard you," said Charlotte. "I didn't ask him. I said if he had given me a little of that candy, I wouldn't have been obliged to take any. I said--" "I heard what you said. Now you must come at once." Anderson said good-morning rather feebly. Charlotte made a distant inclination of her head in response, and they were gone, but he heard Eddy cry out, in a tone of reproachful glee: "There! you've made me late at school, Charlotte. Look at that clock; it's after nine. You've made me late at school with all that fussing over a few old peppermint-drops." Chapter XI Anderson, after they were gone, sat staring out of the window at the green spray of the spring boughs. His mouth was twitching, but his forehead was contracted. This problem of feminity and childhood which he had confronted was too much for him. The boy did not perplex him quite so much--he did not think so much about him--but the girl, the pure and sweet unreason of her proceedings, was beyond his mental grasp. The attitude of reproach which this delicate and altogether lovely young blossom of a thing had adopted towards him filled him with dismay and a ludicrous sense of guilt. He had a keen sense of the unreason and contrariness of her whole attitude, but he had no contempt towards her on account of it. He felt as if he were facing some new system of things, some higher order of creature for whom unreason was the finest reason. He bowed before the pure, unordered, untempered feminine, and his masculine mind reeled. And all the time, deeper within himself than he had ever reached with the furthest finger of his emotions, whether for pain or joy, he felt this tenderness, which was like the quickening of another soul, so alive was it. He felt the wonder and mystery of the awakening of love in his heart, this reaching out with all the best of him for the protection and happiness of another than himself. He saw before him, with no dimming because of absence, the girl's little, innocent, fair face, and such a tenderness for her was over him that he felt as if he actually clasped her and enfolded her, but only for her protection and good, never for himself. "The little thing," he thought over and over--"the little, innocent, beautiful thing! What kind of a place is she in, among what kind of people? What does this all mean?" Suspicions which had been in his mind all the time had developed. He had had proof in divers ways. He said to himself, "That man is a scoundrel, a common swindler, if I know one when I see him." But suspicions as to the girl had never for one minute dwelt in his furthest fancy. He had thought speculatively of the possible complicity of the other women of the household, but never of hers. They were all very constant in their church attendance; indeed, Carroll had given quite a sum towards the Sunday-school library, and he had even heard suggestions as to the advisability of making him superintendent and displacing the present incumbent, who was superannuated. Sometimes in church Anderson had glanced keenly from under the quiet droop of languid lids at the Carrolls sitting in their gay fluff and flutter of silks and muslins and laces, and wondered, especially concerning Mrs. Carroll and her sister-in-law. It seemed almost inconceivable that they were ignorant, and if not, how entirely innocent! And then the expressions of their pretty, childish faces disarmed him as they sat there, their dark, graceful heads drooping before the divine teaching with gentle acquiescence like a row of flowers. But there was something about the fearless lift to Charlotte's head and the clear regard of her dark eyes which separated her from the others. She bloomed by herself, individual, marked by her own characteristics. He thought of her passionate assertion of the principles of her home training with pity and worshipful admiration. It was innocence incarnate pleading for guilt which she believed like herself, because of the blinding power of her own light. "She thinks them all like herself," he said to himself. "She reasons from her knowledge of herself." Then reflecting how Carroll had undoubtedly sent his son to return his pilfered sweets, he began to wonder if he could possibly have been mistaken in his estimate of the man's character, if he had reasoned from wrong premises, and from that circumstantial evidence which his experience as a lawyer should have led him to distrust. Suddenly a shadow flung out across the office floor and a man stood in the doorway. He was tall and elderly, with a shag of gray beard and a shining dome of forehead over a nervous, blue-eyed face. He was the druggist, Andrew Drew, who had his little pharmacy on the opposite side of the street, a little below Anderson's grocery. He united with his drug business a local and long-distance telephone and the Western Union telegraph-office, and he rented and sold commutation-books of railroad tickets to the City. "Good-day," he said. Then, before Anderson could respond, he plunged at once into the subject on his mind, a subject that was wrinkling his forehead. However, he first closed the office door and glanced around furtively. "See here," he whispered, mysteriously; "you know those new folks, the Carrolls?" With a motion of his lank shoulder he indicated the direction of the Carroll house. Anderson's expression changed subtly. He nodded. "Well, what I want to know is--what do you think of him?" "I don't quite understand what you mean," Anderson replied, stiffly. "Well, I mean-- Well, what I mean is just this"--the druggist made a nervous, imperative gesture with a long forefinger--"this, if you want to know--is he _good?_" "You mean?" "Yes, is he good?" "He has paid his bills here," Anderson said. He offered the other man a chair, which was declined with a shake of the head. "No, thank you, can't stop. I've left my little boy in the store all alone. So he has paid you?" "Yes, he has paid his bills here," Anderson replied, with a guilty sense of evasion, remembering the check. "Well, maybe he is all right. I'll tell you, if you won't speak of it. Of course he may be all right; and I don't want to quarrel with a good customer. All there is--he came rushing in three weeks ago to-day and said he was late for the train, and he had used up his commutation and had come off without his pocket-book, and of course could not get credit at the station office, and if I had a book he would take it and write me a check. While he was talking he was scratching a check on a New York bank like lightning. He made a mistake and drew it for ten dollars too much; and I hadn't a full book anyway, only one with thirty-five tickets in it, and I let him have that and gave him the difference in cash--fifteen dollars and forty-two cents. And--well--the long and short of it is, the check came back from the bank, no good." "Did you tell him?" "Haven't seen him since. I went to his house twice, but he wasn't home. I tried to catch him at the station, but he has been going on different trains lately; and once when I got a glimpse of him the train was in and he had just time to swing on and I couldn't stop him then, of course. Then I dropped him a line, and got a mighty smooth note back. He said there was a mistake; he was very sorry; he would explain at once and settle; and that's over a week ago, and--" "Probably he will settle it, if he said so," said Anderson, with the memory of the little boy who had been sent to return the stolen candy in his mind. "Well, I hope he will, but--" The druggist hesitated. Then he went on: "There is something else, to tell the truth. One of his girls came in just now and asked me to cash a check for twenty-five dollars--her father's check, but on another bank--and--I refused." Anderson flushed. A great gust of wind made the window rattle, and he pulled it down with an irritated jerk. "Do you think I did right?" asked the druggist, who had a nervous appeal of manner. "Maybe the check was good. I hated to refuse, of course. I said I was short of ready money. I don't think she suspected anything. She is a nice-spoken girl. I don't suppose she knew if the check wasn't good." "Any man who thinks so ought to be kicked," declared Anderson, with sudden fury, and the other man started. "I told you I didn't think so," he retorted, eying him with some wonder and a little timidity. "But I declare I didn't know what to do. There was that other check not accounted for yet; and I can't afford to lose any more, and that's a fact. Then you think I ought to have cashed it?" Anderson's face twitched a little. Then he said, as if it were wrung out of him, "On general principles, I should not call it good business to repeat a transaction of that kind until the first was made right." The druggist looked relieved. "Well, I am glad to hear you say so. I hated to--" "But Captain Carroll may be as good pay in the end as I am," interrupted Anderson. "He seems to me to have good principles about things of that kind." "Well, I'll cash the next check," said Drew, with a laugh. "I must go back, for I left my little boy alone in the store." The druggist had scarcely gone before the old clerk came to the office door. "That young lady who was here a little while ago wants to speak to you, Mr. Anderson," he said, with an odd look. "I will come out directly," replied Anderson, and passed out into the store, where Charlotte Carroll stood waiting with a heightened color on her cheeks and a look of mingled appeal and annoyance in her eyes. "I beg your pardon," she said, "but can you cash a check for me for twenty-five dollars? It will be a great favor." "Certainly," replied Anderson, without the slightest hesitation. He was conscious that both clerks, the man and the boy, were watching him with furtive curiosity, and he was aware that Carroll's unreliability in the matter of his drafts had become widely known. He passed around the counter to the money-drawer. "Money seems to be very scarce in Banbridge this morning," remarked Charlotte, in a sweet, slightly petulant voice. She was both angry and ashamed that she had been forced to apply to Anderson to cash the check. "I have been everywhere, and nobody had as much as twenty-five dollars," she added. Anderson heard a very faint chuckle, immediately covered by a cough, from Sam Riggs. He began counting out the notes, being conscious that the man and the boy were regarding each other with meaning, that the boy's elbow dug the man's ribs. He handed the money to Charlotte with a courteous bow, and she gave him in return the check, which was payable to her mother, and which had been indorsed by her. "Thank you very much indeed," she said, but still in a piqued rather than very grateful voice. She really had no suspicion that any particular gratitude was called for towards any one who cashed one of her father's checks. "You are quite welcome," Anderson replied. "It is a great inconvenience not having a bank in Banbridge," she remarked, accusingly, as she went out of the door with a slight nod of her pretty head. Then suddenly she turned and looked back. "I am very much obliged," she said, in an entirely different voice. Her natural gentleness and courtesy had all at once reasserted themselves. "I trust I have not inconvenienced you," she added, very sweetly. "I would have waited until papa came home to-night and got him to cash the check. He was a little short this morning, and had to use some money before he could go to the bank, but my sister and I are very anxious to take the eleven-thirty train to New York, and we had only a dollar and six cents between us." She laughed as she said the last, and Anderson echoed her. "That is not a very large amount, certainly, to equip two ladies to visit the shopping district," he said. "I am very glad to accommodate you, and it is not the slightest inconvenience, I assure you." "Well, I am very much obliged, very much," she repeated, with a pretty smile and nod, and she was gone with a little fluttering hop like a bird down the steps. "He's got stuck," the boy motioned with his lips to the old clerk as Anderson re-entered the office, and the man nodded in assent. Neither of them ventured to express the opinion to Anderson. Both stood in a certain awe of him. The former lawyer still held familiarity somewhat at bay. However, there followed a whispered consultation between the two clerks, and both chuckled, and finally Sam Riggs advanced with bravado to the office door. "Mr. Anderson," he said, with mischief in his tone, and Anderson turned and looked at him inquiringly. "Oh, it is nothing, not worth speaking of, I suppose," said Sammy Riggs, "but that kid, the Carroll boy, swiped an apple off that basket beside the door when he went out with his sister. I saw him." Chapter XII Anderson was in the state of mind of a man who dreams and is quite aware all the time that he is dreaming. He deliberately indulged himself in this habit of mind. "When I am ready, I shall put all this away," he continually assured his inner consciousness. Then into the delicious charm of his air-castle he leaped again, mind and body. In those days he grew perceptibly younger. The fire of youth lit his eyes. He fed on the stimulants of sweet dreams, and for the time they nourished as well as exhilarated. Everybody whom he met told him how well he looked and that he was growing younger every day. He was shrewd enough to understand fully the fact that they considered him far from youth, or they would not have thus expressed themselves, but the triumph which he felt when he saw himself in his looking-glass, and in his own realization of himself, caused him to laugh at the innuendo. He felt that he _was_ young, as young as man could wish to be. He, as before said, had never been vain, but mortal man could not have helped exultation at the sight of that victorious visage of himself looking back at him. He did not admit it to himself, but he took more pains with his dress, although he had always been rather punctilious in that direction. All unknown to himself, and, had he known it, the knowledge would have aroused in him rebellion and shame, he was carrying out the instinct of the love-smitten male of all species. In lieu of the gorgeous feathers he put on a new coat and tie, he trimmed his mustache carefully. He smoothed and lighted his face with the beauty of joy and hope and of pleasant dreams. But there was, since he was a man at the head of creation, something more subtle and noble in his preening. In those days he became curiously careful--although, being naturally clean-hearted, he had little need for care--of his very thoughts. Naturally fastidious in his soul habits, he became even more so. The very books he read were, although he was unconscious of it, such as contributed to his spiritual adornment, to fit himself for his constant dwelling in his country of dreams. Certain people he avoided, certain he courted. One woman, who was innately coarse, although her life had hedged her in safely from impropriety, was calling upon his mother one afternoon about this time. She was the wife of the old Presbyterian clergyman, Dr. Gregg. She was a small, solidly built woman, in late middle life, tightly hooked up in black silk as to her body, and as to her soul by the prescribed boundaries of her position in life. Anderson, returning rather earlier than usual, found her with his mother, and retreated with actual rudeness, the woman became all at once so repellent to him. "My son gets very tired," Mrs. Anderson said, softly, as she passed the pound-cake again to her caller. "Quite often, when he comes in, he goes by himself and has a quiet smoke before he says much even to me." Mrs. Gregg was eating the pound-cake with such extreme relish that Mrs. Anderson, who was herself fastidious, looked away, and as she did so heard distinctly a smack of the other woman's lips. "He grows handsomer and younger every time I see him," remarked Mrs. Gregg when she had swallowed her mouthful of cake and before she took another. Mrs. Anderson repeated the caller's compliment to her son later on when the two were at the supper-table. "Yes, she paid you a great compliment," said she; "but, dear, why did you run out in that way? It was almost rude, and she the minister's wife, too." "I don't see how Dr. Gregg keeps up his necessary quota of saving grace, living with her," said Anderson. "Why, my dear, I think she is a good woman." "She is a bottled-up vessel of wrath," said Anderson. "My son, I never heard you speak so before, and about a lady, too." Anderson fairly blushed before his mother's mild eyes of surprise. "Mother, you are right," he said, penitently. "I ought to be ashamed of myself, and I am. I know I was rude, but I did not feel like seeing her to-day. Of course she is a good woman." Mrs. Anderson looked a little reflective. Now that her son had taken a proper attitude with regard to her sister-woman, she began to feel a little critical license herself. "I will admit that she has little mannerisms which are not exactly agreeable and must grate on Dr. Gregg," said she. As she spoke she seemed to hear again the smacking of the lips over the pound-cake. Then she looked scrutinizingly at her son. "But," she said, "I do believe she was right, Randolph, about your looks." "Nonsense," said Randolph, laughing. It was a warm night. After supper they both went out on the front porch. Mrs. Anderson sat gazing at her son from between the folds of a little, white lace kerchief which she wore over her head, to guard against possible dampness. "Randolph," said she, after a while. "What is it, mother, dear?" "Do you feel well?" "Of course I feel well. Why?" "You look too well to be natural," said she, slowly. "Mother, what an absurdity!" "It is so," said she. "I had not noticed it until Mrs. Gregg spoke, but I see it now. I don't know where my eyes have been. You look too well." Randolph laughed. "Now, mother, don't you think that sounds foolish?" Mrs. Anderson continued to regard him with an expression of maternal love and severity, which pierced externals more keenly than an X-ray. "No," said she, "I do not think it is foolish. You look too well to be natural. You look this minute as young in your face as you did when I had you in petticoats." Randolph laughed loudly at that, but his mother was quite earnest. She was not satisfied, and continued arguing the matter until she became afraid of the increasing dampness and went into the house, and the son drew a breath of relief. The mother little dreamed, with all her astuteness, of what was really transpiring. She did not know that when she had seated herself beside her son on the porch she had displaced with her gentle, elderly materiality the sweetest phantom of a beloved young girl. She did not know that when she entered the house the delicate, evanescent thing returned swifter than thought itself, and filled with the sweet presence that vacuum in her son's heart which she herself had never filled, and nestled there through a delicious hour of the summer night. She did not dream, as she sat by the window, staring out drowsily into the soft shadows and heard no murmur from her son on the porch, that in reality the silence of his soul was broken by words and tones which she had never heard from his lips, although she had brought him into the world. Anderson never admitted to himself the possibility of his dreams coming true. While his self-respect never wavered, while he viewed himself with no unworthy disparagement, he still saw himself as he was: verging towards middle age, unsuccessful according to the standard of the world. He was one of those inglorious failures, a man who has failed to follow out his chosen course of life. He was one who had turned back, overcome confessedly by odds. He told himself proudly and simply that his earning of money was, to one simple and honest end--the prolonging of existence on the earth for the good of one's fellow-beings, and one's own growth; that he was attaining that end more completely in his little grocery store than he had ever done in his law-office. Yet always he saw himself, in a measure, as others saw him, and the humility of his position in the eyes of the world asserted itself. While he felt not the slightest bend in the erectness of his own soul because of it, while it even amused him, he never forgot the supercilious courtesy of the girls' father towards him. He recognized, even while feeling himself on superior heights, the downward vision of the man who robbed him. It was true that he paid scorn for scorn, but he was forced to take as well as give. He also was not in the slightest doubt as to Charlotte's own attitude towards him. He understood to the full the signification of the word grocer for her. He was, to her mind, hardly a man at all, rather a mechanical dispenser of butter and eggs for the needs of a superior race. But he understood also the childish innocence and involuntariness of this view of hers. He recognized even the ludicrousness of the situation which perverted tragedy to comedy, almost Cyrano fashion. He compared himself to Cyrano. "As well consider the possibility of marriage with a girl of her training, even although it is on a false basis, with a monstrosity of nose on my face, as with the legend of retail grocery across my scutcheon," he told himself. He even laughed over it. Therefore, being of a turn of mind which can rear for itself airy towers of delight over the values of insufficiency of life, and having an access of spirituality which enabled him to get a certain reality from them, he dreamed on, and let his new love irradiate his own life, like a man carrying a lantern on a dark path. There are those that are born to sunlit paths, and there are those whom a beneficient Providence has supplied with lanterns of compensation, and the latter are not always the unhappier nor the less progressive. Never admitting to himself the possibility of the actual presence of the girl in the house as his wife, he yet peopled the rooms with her. He rose up in spirit before her entering a door. There were especial nooks wherein his fancy could project her with such illusion that his heart would leap as if at the actual sight of her. In particular was there one window in the sitting-room which, being in a little projection of the house, overlooked a special little view of its own. From this window between the folds of the muslin curtains could be seen a file of blooming hollyhocks. Behind them a grassy expanse arose with a long ascent, and the rosette--like blossoms of pink and pale-gold, with gray-green bosses of leaves, lay against the green field like the design on a shield. In this window was an old-fashioned rocking-chair cushioned softly with faded, rose-patterned chintz, and before it stood always a small footstool covered with dim-brown canvas on which was a wreath of roses done in cross-stitch by his mother in her girlhood. Anderson loved to see Charlotte sitting in this chair with her feet on the footstool, her pretty head leaning back against the faded roses of the chintz, the delicate curve of her cheek towards him, as she swayed gently back and forth and seemed to gaze peacefully out of the window at the hollyhocks blooming against the green hill. It was characteristic of the man's dreams that the girl's face in them was turned a little from him. She never saw him when he entered, she never broke the sweet silence of her own dreams within dreams, for him, and he never, even in dreams, touched the soft curve of that averted cheek, or even one of the little hands lying as lightly as flowers in her muslin lap. Anderson, the commonplace man in the grocery business, in the commonplace present, dreamed as reverently and spiritually of the lady of his love as Dante of his Beatrice, or Petrarch of his Laura. He would go down to the grave with his songs all unsung; but the man was a poet, as are all who worship the god, and not the likeness of themselves in him. As Anderson sat on the porch that summer night, to his fancy Charlotte Carroll sat on the step above him. Without fairly looking he could see the sweep of her white draperies and the mild fairness, producing the effect of luminosity, of her face in the dusk. Then suddenly Charlotte herself dispelled the illusion. She passed by with her sister Ina and a young man. Anderson heard the low, sweet babble of girls' tongues and a hearty, boyish laugh before they came opposite the porch. He knew at once that Charlotte was one of the girls. He could not see them very plainly when they passed, for the moon had not yet risen and the shadows of the trees were dense. He had glimpses of pale contours and ruffling white draperies floating around the young man, who walked on the outside. He towered above them both with stately tenderness. He was smoking, and Anderson noted that with a throb of anger. He had an old-fashioned conviction that a man should not smoke when walking with ladies. He was sitting perfectly motionless when they came alongside, and all at once one of the girls, Ina, the eldest, perceived him, and started violently with an exclamation. All three laughed, and the young man said, raising his hat, "Good-evening, Mr. Anderson." Anderson returned the salutation. He thought, but was not quite sure, that Charlotte nodded. He heard, quite distinctly, Ina remark, when they were scarcely past, in a voice of girlish scorn and merry ridicule: "Is the grocer a friend of yours, Mr. Eastman?" Anderson was sure that he heard a "Hush! he will hear you!" from Charlotte, before young Frank Eastman replied, like a man: "Yes, every time, Miss Carroll, if he will do me the honor to let me call him one. Mr. Anderson is a mighty fine gentleman." The girl's voice said something in response with a slightly abashed but still jibing inflection, but Anderson could not catch it. They passed out of sight, the cigar-smoke lingering in their wake. Anderson inhaled it with no longer any feeling of disapprobation. He slowly lit a cigar himself, and smoked and meditated. The presence on the step above him was for the time dispelled by her own materiality. The dream eluded the substance. Anderson thought of the young man who had walked past with a curious feeling of something akin to gratitude. "Frank Eastman is a fine young fellow," he thought. He had known him ever since he had been a child. He had been one of the boys whom everybody knew and liked. He had grown up a village favorite. The thought flashed through Anderson's mind that here was a possible husband for Charlotte, and probably a good husband. "He is an only son," he told himself; "he will have a little money. He is as good as and better than young men average, and he is charming, a man to attract any girl." Anderson, when he had finished his cigar and one more, and had gone into the house to read a little before going to bed, quite decided that Charlotte Carroll was to marry young Frank Eastman. He walked remorselessly over the step where his fancy had placed her, and when he glanced at her pretty little nook in the sitting-room, as he passed through with his lamp and his book, it was vacant. Anderson felt a rigid acquiescence, and read his book with interest until after midnight. In the mean time Charlotte, her sister Ina, and young Eastman sauntered slowly along through the shadowy streets of Banbridge. The girls held up their white gowns over their lace petticoats. They wore no hats, and their pretty, soft, dark locks floated like mist around their faces. The young man pressed Ina's arm as closely and lovingly as he dared. He was yet young enough and innocent enough to be in his heart of hearts as afraid of a girl as, when a child, he had been afraid of his mother. He thought Ina Carroll something wonderful; Charlotte he scarcely thought of at all except with vague approbation because she was Ina's sister. He took the girls into Andrew Drew's drug store for ice-cream soda. He watched, with happy proprietorship, the girls dally daintily with the long spoons in the sweet, cold mixture. Seen in the electric light of the store, they had a bewildering and fairly dazzling splendor of youth and bloom. Their faces, freshened to exquisite tints by the damp night air, shone forth from the floating film of dark hair with the unquestioning delight of the passing moment. There was in these young faces at the moment no shadow of the past or future. They were pure light. Young Eastman, eating his ice-cream, looked over his glass at Ina Carroll and realized the dazzle of her in his soul. She felt his look and smiled at him pleasantly, yet with a certain gay defiance. Charlotte caught both looks. She stirred her ice-cream briskly into the liquid and drank it. "Come, honey," she said to Ina. "It is time to go home." A man stood near the door as they passed and raised his hat eagerly. "Who is that man?" Ina said to young Eastman when they were on the sidewalk. "His name is Lee." When the party had gone out, Lee turned with his self-conscious, consequential air. Ray, the postmaster, was standing at the counter. Little Willy Eddy also was there. He lingered about the soda-fountain. Nobody knew how badly he wanted a drink of soda. He was like a child about it, but he was afraid lest his Minna should call him to account for the five cents. "Pretty fine-looking girls," observed Lee to Ray and Drew. "Yes," assented Ray. "You know them?" "Well, no, not directly, but Captain Carroll and I are quite intimate in a business way." The druggist looked up eagerly. "You think he is good?" he asked. "I have heard some queer things lately," said the postmaster. Lee faced them both. "Good?" he cried. "Good? Arthur Carroll good? Why, I'd be willing to risk every dollar I have in the world, or ever hope to have. He's the smartest business man I ever saw in my life. I tell you he's A No. 1. He's got a business head equal to any on the Street, I don't care who it is. Well, all I have to say, _I_ am not afraid of him! No, sir!" "I heard he had some pretty promising stock to sell," said the postmaster. "Promising? No, it is not promising! Promising is not the word for it. It is sure, dead sure." Little Willy Eddy drew very near. "What is it selling at?" asked Ray. "One dollar and sixty cents," replied Lee, with an intonation of pride and triumph. "Cheap enough," said Ray. "Yes, sir, one dollar and sixty cents, and it will be up to five in six months and paying dividends, and up to fifty, with ten-per-cent. dividends, in a year and a half." Little Willy Eddy had in the savings-bank a little money. Before he left he had arranged with Henry Lee to invest it through his influence with the great man, Carroll, and say nothing about it to any one outside. Willy hoped fondly that his Minna might know nothing about it until he should surprise her with the proceeds of his great venture. Then Willy Eddy marched boldly upon the soda-fountain. "Give me a chocolate ice-cream soda," he said, like a man. Chapter XIII Three days later, at dinner, Charlotte Carroll said something about the difficulty she had had about getting the check cashed. "It is the queerest thing," said she, in a lull of the conversation, pausing with her soup-spoon lifted, "how very difficult it is to get a check for even a small amount cashed in Banbridge." Carroll's spoon clattered against his plate. "What do you mean?" he asked, sharply. Charlotte looked at him surprised. "Why, nothing," said she, "only I went to every store in town to get your check for twenty-five dollars cashed, and then I had to go to Anderson's finally. I should think they must be very poor here. Are they, papa?" Carroll went on with his soup. "Who gave you the check to cash?" he said, in a low voice. "Aunt Anna," replied Charlotte. "Why?" Anna spoke quite eagerly, and it seemed apologetically. "Arthur," said she, "the girls were very anxious to go to the City." "Yes," said Ina, "I really had to go that day. I wanted to get that silk. I had that charged; there wasn't money enough; but it has not come yet. I don't see where it is." "I let Charlotte take the check," Anna Carroll said again, still with an air of nervous apology, "but I saw no reason why-- I thought--" "You thought what?" said Carroll. His voice was exceedingly low and gentle, but Anna Carroll started. "Nothing," said she, hastily. "Nothing, Arthur." "Well, I just went everywhere with it," Charlotte said again; "then I had to go to Anderson, after all. I just hated to. I don't like him. He laughed when Eddy and I went there to take back the candy." "He laughed because we took it back--a little thing like that," said Eddy. Carroll looked at him, and the boy cast his eyes down and took a spoonful of soup with an abashed air. "He was the only one in Banbridge that seemed to have as much as twenty-five dollars in his money-drawer," said Charlotte. "I began to think that Ina and I should have to give up going to New York." "Don't take any more checks around the shops here to cash, honey," said Carroll. "Come to me; I'll fix it up some way. Amy, dear, are you all ready for the drive?" "Yes, dear," said Mrs. Carroll. She looked unusually pretty that night in a mauve gown of some thin, soft, wool material, with her old amethysts. Even her dark hair seemed to get amethystine shadows, and her eyes, too. Carroll regarded her admiringly. "Amy, darling, you do get lovelier every day," he said. The others laughed and echoed him with fond merriment. "Doesn't she?" said Ina. "Amy's the prettiest girl in this old town," said Eddy, and all the Carrolls laughed like children. "Well, I'm glad you all admire me so much," Mrs. Carroll said, in her sweet drawl, "because--" "Because what, honey?" said Carroll. The boy and the two girls looked inquiringly, but Anna Carroll smiled with slightly vexed knowledge. "Well," said Mrs. Carroll, "you must all look at me in my purple gown and get all the comfort you can out of it; you must nourish yourselves through your aesthetic sense, because this soup is all you will get for dinner, except dessert. There is a little dessert." Poor little Eddy Carroll made a slight, half-smothered exclamation. "Oh, shucks!" he said, then he laughed with the others. None of them looked surprised. They all laughed, though somewhat ruefully. "Anna came this forenoon and asked me what she should do," Mrs. Carroll said, in her soft tone of childlike glee, as if she really enjoyed the situation. "Poor Anna looked annoyed. This country air makes Anna hungry. Now, as for me, I am not hungry at all. If I can have fruit and salad I am quite satisfied. It is so fortunate that we have those raspberries and those early pears. Those little pears are quite delicious, and they are nourishing, I am sure. And then it is providential that we have lettuce in our own garden. And the grocer did not object in the least to letting last week's bill run and letting us have olive-oil and vinegar. I have plenty, so I can regard it all quite cheerfully; but Anna, poor darling, is hungry like a pussy-cat for real, solid meat. Well, Anna comes, face so long"--Mrs. Carroll drew down her lovely face, to a chorus of admiring laughter, Anna Carroll herself joining. Mrs. Carroll continued. "Yes, so long," and made her face long again by way of encore. "And I said, 'Why, Anna, honey, what is the matter?' 'Amy,' said she, 'this is serious, very serious. Why, neither the butcher nor the egg-man will trust us. We have only money enough to part pay one of them, just to keep them going,' says she, 'and what shall I do, Amy?' 'It's either to go without meat or eggs,' says I. 'Yes, Amy, honey,' says she. 'And you can't pay them each a little?' says I, 'for I am real wise about that way of doing, you know.'" Mrs. Carroll said the last with the air of a precocious child; she looked askance for admiration as she said it, and laughed herself with the others. "'No,' says poor Anna--'no, Amy, there is not enough money for two littles, only enough for one little. What shall we do, Amy?' 'Well,' says Amy, 'we had chops for lunch.' 'Those aren't paid for, and that is the reason we can't have beef for dinner,' says Anna. 'Well,' says Amy, 'we had those chops, didn't we? And the butcher can't alter that, anyway; and we are all nourished by those chops, and dear Arthur has had his good luncheon in the City, and there is soup-stock in the house, and things to make one of those delicious raspberry-puddings, and we cannot starve, we poor but honest Carrolls, on those things; and eggs are cheaper, are they not, honey, dear?' 'Yes,' says Anna, with that sort of groan she has when her mind is on economy--'yes, Amy, dear.' 'And,' says I, 'Arthur always wants his eggs for breakfast, and he does not like cold meat in the morning, and if he went to business without his eggs, and there was an accident on his empty stomach, only think how we would feel, Anna. So we will have,' says Amy, 'soup and pudding for dinner, and eggs for breakfast, and we will part pay the egg-man and not the butcher.' And then Amy puts on her new gown and does all she can for her family, to make up for the lack of the roast." "Did you say it was raspberry-pudding, Amy?" asked Eddy, anxiously. "Yes, honey, with plenty of sauce, and you may have some twice if you want it." "Ring the bell, dear," said Carroll. "You don't mind, Arthur, do you?" Mrs. Carroll asked, with a confident look at him. Carroll smiled. "No, darling, only I hope none of you are really going hungry." They all laughed at him. "Soup and pudding are all one ought to eat in such hot weather," Charlotte said, conclusively. She even jumped up, ran to her father, and threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, to reassure him. "You darling papa," she whispered in his ear, and when he looked at her tears shone in her beautiful eyes. Carroll's own face turned strangely sober for a second, then he laughed. "Run back to your seat and get your pudding, sweetheart," he said, with a loving push, as the maid entered. People thought it rather singular that the Carrolls should have but one maid, but there were reasons. Carroll himself, when he first organized his Banbridge establishment, had expressed some dissent as to the solitary servant. "Why not have more?" he asked, but Anna Carroll was unusually decided in her response. "Amy and I have been talking it over, Arthur," said she, "and we have decided that we would prefer only Marie." "Why, Anna?" Carroll had asked, with a frown. "Now, Arthur, dear, don't look cross," his wife had cried. "It is only that when the truce is over with the butcher and baker--and after a while the truce always is over, you know, you poor, dear boy, ever since you--ever since you were so badly treated about your business, you know, and when the butcher and the baker turn on us, Anna and I have decided it would be better not to have a trust in the kitchen. You know there has always been a trust in the kitchen, and two or even three maids saying they will not make bread and roast and wash the dishes, and having a council of war on the back stoop with the baker and grocer, are so much worse than one maid, don't you know, precious?" "The long and the short of it is, Arthur," Anna Carroll said, quite bluntly, "it is much less wearing to get on with one maid who has not had her wages, and much easier to induce her to remain or forfeit all hope of ever receiving them, than with more than one." Only the one maid was engaged, and now Anna's prophecy had come to pass, and she was remaining for the sake of her unpaid wages. She was a young girl, and pretty for one of her sisterhood, who perpetuate, as a rule, the hard and strenuous lineaments and forms held to hard labor, until they have attained a squat solidity of ungraceful muscle. This little Hungarian Marie was still not overdeveloped muscularly, although one saw her hands with a certain shock after her little, smiling face, which still smiled, despite her wrongs. Nothing could exceed the sweetness of the girl's disposition, although she came of a fierce peasant line, quick to resort to the knife as a redresser of injuries, and quick to perceive injuries. Marie still danced assiduously about her tasks, which were manifold, for not one of the Carroll women had the slightest idea of any accountability in the matter of household labor. It never occurred to one of them to make her bed, or even hang up her dress, but, instead, to wonder why Marie did not do it. However, if Marie really had an ill day, or, as sometimes happened, was up all night at a ball, they never rebelled or spoke an impatient word. The beds simply remained unmade and the dresses where they had fallen. The ladies always had a kindly, ever-caressing smile or word for little Marie. They were actually, in a way, fond of her, as people are fond of a pretty little domestic beast of burden, and Marie herself adored them. She loved them from afar, and one of her great reasons for wishing to stay for her wages was to buy some finery after the fashion of Charlotte's and Ina's. Marie had not asked for her wages many times, and never of Captain Carroll, but to-night she took courage. There was a ball that week, Thursday, and her poor, little, cheap muslin of last season was bedraggled and faded until it was no longer wearable. Marie waylaid Captain Carroll as he was returning from the stable, whither he had been to see a lame foot of one of the horses. Marie stood in her kitchen door, around which was growing lustily a wild cucumber-vine. She put her two coarse hands on her hips, which were large with the full gathers of her cotton skirt. Around her neck was one of the garish-colored kerchiefs which had come with her from her own country. It was an ugly thing, but gave a picturesque bit of color to her otherwise dingy garb. "Mr. Captain," said Marie, in a very small, sweet, almost infantile voice. It was frightened, yet with a certain coquetry in it. This small Hungarian girl had met with very few looks and words in her whole life which were not admiring. In spite of her poor estate she had the power of the eternal feminine, and she used it knowingly, but quite artlessly. She knew exactly how to speak to her "Mr. Captain," in such a way that a smile in response would be inevitable. Carroll stopped. "Well, Marie?" he said, and he smiled down into the little face precisely after the manner of her calculation. "Mr. Captain," said she again, and again came the feeler after a smile, the expression of droll sweetness and appeal which forced it. "Well, Marie," said Carroll, "what is it? What do you want?" Marie went straight to the point. "Mine vages," said she, and a bit of the coquetry faded, and her small smile waxed rather piteous. She wanted that new dress for the ball sadly. Carroll's face changed; he compressed his mouth. Marie shrank a little with frightened eyes on his face. "How much is it, Marie?" asked Carroll. "Tree mont vage, Mr. Captain," answered Marie, eagerly, "I haf not had." Carroll took out his pocket-book and gave her a ten-dollar note. Marie reached out for it eagerly, but her face fell a little. "It is tree mont, Mr. Captain," she ventured. "That is all I can spare to-night, Marie," said Carroll, quite sternly. "That will have to answer to-night." Marie smiled again, eying him timidly. "Yes, it will my dress get for the ball, Mr. Captain." Marie stood framed in her wild cucumber-vine, regarding the captain with her pretty ingratiation, but not another smile she got. Carroll strolled around to the front of the house, and in a second the carriage rolled around from the stable. Marie nodded to the coachman; there was never a man of her acquaintance but she had a pretty, artless salutation always ready for him. She shook her ten-dollar note triumphantly at him, and laughed with delight. "Got money," said she. Marie had a way of ending up her words, especially those ending in y, as if she finished them up with a kiss. She pursed up her lips, and gave a most fascinating little nip to her vowels, which, as a rule, she sounded short. "Money," said she again, and the ten-dollar note fluttered like a green leaf from between the large thumb and forefinger of her coarse right hand. The coachman laughed back in sympathy. He was still smiling when he drove up beside his employer at the front-door. He leaned from his seat just as the flutter of the ladies' dresses appeared at the front-door, and said something to Carroll, with a look of pleased expectation. That money in Marie's hand had cheered him on his own account. Carroll looked at him gently imperturbable. "I am sorry, Martin. I shall be obliged to ask you to wait a few days," he said, with the utmost courtesy. The man's honest, confident face fell. "You said--" he began. "What did I say?" Carroll asked, calmly. "You said you would let me have some to-night." "Yes, I remember," Carroll said, "but I have had an unexpected demand since I returned from the City, and it has taken every cent of ready money. I must ask you to wait a few days longer. You are not in serious need of anything, Martin?" "No, sir," said the man, hesitatingly. "I was going to say that if you were needing any little thing you might make use of my credit," said Carroll. As the ladies, Mrs. Carroll and Miss Carroll, came up to the carriage, Carroll thrust his hand in his pocket and drew forth a couple of cigars, which he handed to the coachman with a winning expression. "Here are a couple of cigars for you, Martin," he said. "Thank you, sir," replied the coachman. He put the cigars in his pocket and took up the lines. As he drove down the drive and along the shady Banbridge road he was wondering hard if Marie had got the money which Carroll had intended to pay him. He did not mind so much if she had it. Marie was Hungarian, and Martin had not much use for outlandish folk on general principles, but he had a sneaking admiration for little Marie. "Now she can go to her ball," thought he. Marie said the word as if it had one l and a short a--bal. Martin smiled inwardly at the recollection, though he did not allow his face of important dignity to relax. He thought, further, that, after all, he need not worry about his own pay. Carroll had paid Marie and would pay him. He thought comfortably of the cigars, which were sure to be good. His original respect and admiration for his employer swelled high in his heart. He felt quite happy driving his high-stepping horses over the good road. The conversation of the ladies at his back, and of Carroll at his side, passed his ears, trained not to hear, as unintelligibly as the babble of the birds. Martin had no curiosity. While their elders were driving, the Carroll sisters and the brother were all out on the front porch. Ina was rocking in a rattan chair, Charlotte sat on the highest step of the porch leaning against a fluted white pillar, the boy sprawled miserably on the lowest step. "It's awful dull," he complained. Charlotte looked down at him commiseratingly from her semicircle of white muslin flounces. "I'll play ball with you awhile, Eddy, dear," said she. The boy sniffed. "Don't want to play ball with a girl," he replied. Charlotte said nothing. Eddy twitched with his face averted. Then suddenly he looked up at his sister. "Charlotte, I love to play ball with you," said he, sweetly, "only, you see, I can't pitch hard enough, your hands are so awful soft, and I feel like I could pitch awful hard to-night." "Well, I tell you what you may do, dear," said Ina. "What?" "Go down to the post-office and get the last mail." Eddy started up with alacrity. "All right," said he. "And you may run up-stairs to my room," said Charlotte, "and hunt round till you find my purse, and get out ten cents and buy yourself an ice-cream." Eddy was up and out with a whoop. "Are you expecting a letter, honey?" asked Charlotte of her sister. Ina laughed evasively. "I thought Eddy would like to go," said she. "Now, Ina, I know whom you are expecting a letter from; you can't cheat me." Ina laughed rather foolishly; her face was pink. Charlotte continued to regard her with a curious expression. It was at once sad, awed, and withal confused, in sympathy with the other girl. "Ina," said she. "Well, honey?" "I think you ought to tell me, your own sister, if you are--" "What--" "Ina, I really think--" "Oh, hush, dear!" Ina whispered. "Here comes Mr. Eastman." Young Frank Eastman, in his light summer clothes, came jauntily around the curve of the drive, his straw hat in hand, and the sisters fluttered to their feet to greet him. Then Eddy reappeared with the dime securely clutched, and inquired anxiously of Charlotte if she cared whether he bought soda or candy with it. Young Eastman ran after him down the walk and had a whispered conference. When the boy returned, which was speedily, he had a letter for his sister Ina and a box of the most extravagant candy which Banbridge afforded. The young people sat chatting and laughing and nibbling sweets until nearly ten o'clock. Then young Eastman took his leave. He was rather desirous to be gone before Captain Carroll returned. Although Carroll always treated him with the most punctilious courtesy, even going out of his way to speak to him, the young man always felt a curious discomfort, as if he realized some covert disapprobation on the elder's part. "They are late," Ina said, after the caller's light coat had disappeared behind the shrubbery. "I suppose they waited for the moon to rise," Charlotte replied. "You know Amy dearly loves to drive by moonlight." "Well, let's go to bed, and not wait," Ina said, with a yawn. "I'm so sleepy." She had sat with her letter unopened in her lap all evening. "All right," assented Charlotte. "I'm going to sit here till they come," said Eddy. "Very well," said Charlotte, "but mind you don't stir off the porch." The two girls went up to their own rooms. They occupied adjoining ones. Charlotte slept in a small room out of the larger one which was Ina's. Charlotte came in from her room brushing out her hair, and Ina was reading her letter. She looked up with a blushing confusion and crumpled the paper involuntarily. "Oh, you needn't start so," said Charlotte. "I know whom the letter is from. It's that old Major Arms." "He is not old. He is no older than papa, and you don't call him old," Ina retorted, resentfully. "I don't call him old for a father, but I would for--" "Well, he isn't a--yet." "Ina, you ought to tell me." "Well, I'm going to marry Major Arms, so there!" "Oh, Ina!" The two girls stood staring at each other for a moment, then they ran to each other. "Oh, Charlotte! oh, Charlotte!" sobbed Ina, convulsively. "Oh, Ina! oh, honey!" "I'm going to, Charlotte. Oh, I am going to!" "Ina, do you, do you--" "What?" "Love that old Major Arms?" Charlotte spoke out, in a tone of almost horror. "I don't know. Oh, I don't know," sobbed Ina. "Ina, you don't love--Mr. Eastman better?" "No, I don't," replied Ina, in a tone of utter conviction. "Charlotte, do you know what would happen if I married Mr. Eastman? Do you?" "No, I don't." "All my life long I would be at war with the butcher and baker, just as--just as we always are." "Ina Carroll, you aren't getting married just for that? Oh, that is dreadful!" "No, I am not," said Ina. "You call Major Arms old, and you don't see--you don't see how a girl can ever fall in love with him, but--I think he's splendid. Yes, I do. You can laugh, Charlotte, but I do. And it is a good deal to marry a man you can honestly say you think is splendid! But you can do a thing, for a very good, even a noble reason, and all the time know there is another reason not quite so noble, that you can't help but take some comfort in. And that is the way I do with this. Charlotte, poor papa does just the best he can, and there never was a man like him; Major Arms isn't anything in comparison with papa. I never thought he was, but there is one thing I am very tired of in this world, and I can't help thinking with a good deal of pleasure that when I am married I will be free from it." "What is that, honey?" The two girls had sat down on Ina's window-seat, and were nestling close together, with their arms around each other's waist, and the two streams of dark hair intermingling. "I am heartily tired," said Ina, in a tone of impatient scorn, "of this everlasting annoyance to which we are subjected from the people who want us to pay them money for the necessaries of life. We must have a certain amount of things in order to live at all, and if people must have the money for them, I want them to have it, and not have to endure such continual persecution." "Ina," said Charlotte, in a piteous, low voice, "do you think papa is very poor?" "Yes, honey, I am afraid he is very poor." Charlotte began to weep softly against her sister's shoulder. "Don't cry, honey," soothed Ina. "You can come and stay with me a great deal, you know." "Ina Carroll, do you think I would leave papa?" demanded Charlotte, suddenly erect. "Do you think--I would? You can, if you want to, but I will not." "It costs something to support us, dear," said Ina. "Don't be angry, precious." "I will never have another new dress in all my life," said Charlotte. "I won't eat anything. I tell you I never will leave papa, Ina Carroll." Chapter XIV It was about a week later when Anderson, going into the drug store one evening, found young Eastman in the line in front of the soda-fountain. A girl in white was with him, and Anderson thought at first glance that she was Charlotte Carroll, as a matter of course--he had so accustomed himself to think of the two in union by this time. Then he looked again and saw that the girl was much larger and fair-haired, and recognized her as Bessy Van Dorn, William Van Dorn's daughter. The girl's semi-German parentage showed in her complexion and high-bosomed, matronly figure, although she was so young. She had a large but charming face, full of the sweetest placidity; her eyes, as blue as the sky, looked out upon the world with amiable assent to all its conditions. It required no acuteness to predict this as an ideal spouse for a man of a nervous and irritable temperament; that there was in her nature that which could supply cushioned fulnesses to all the exactions of his. She sat on a high stool and sipped her ice-cream soda with simple absorption in the pleasant sensation. She paid no attention whatever to her escort beside her, who took his soda with his eyes fixed on her. Her chin overlapping in pink curves like a rose, was sunken in the lace at her neck as she sipped. She did not sit straight, but rested in her corsets with an awkward lassitude of enjoyment. It was a very warm night, but she paid no attention to that. She was without a hat, and the beads of perspiration stood all over her pink forehead, and her thin white muslin clung to her plump neck and arms. There was something almost indecent about the girl's enjoyment of her soda. Hardly a man in the shop but was watching her. Anderson gazed at her also, but with covert disgust and a resentment which was absurd. He scowled at the young fellow with her. He felt like a father whose daughter has been flouted by the man of her choice. "What the devil does the boy mean, taking soda here with that Van Dorn girl?" he asked himself. He felt like a reckoning with him, and chafed at the impossibility of it. When the couple rose to go Anderson met the young man's salutation with such a surly response and such a stern glance that he fairly started. The men stared as the two went out, their shoulders touching as they passed through the door. The girl was round-shouldered from careless standing, but she moved with a palpitating grace of yielding, and the smooth, fair braids which bound her head shone like silver. "Guess that's a go," a man said, with a chuckle; "a narrower door would have suited them just as well." "Mighty good-looking girl," said Amidon. "Healthy girl," said another. "If more young fellows had the horse-sense to marry girls like that, I'd give up medicine and go on a ranch." The Banbridge doctor said that. He was rather young, and had been in the village about five years. He had taken the practice of an old physician, a distant relative who had died six months before. Dr. Wilson was called a remarkably able man in his profession. He had been having several prescriptions filled, and kept several waiting. He was a large man with a coarsely handsome physique and a brutal humor with women. He was not liked personally, but the people rather bragged about their great physician and were proud when he was called to the towns round about. "There's no getting Dr. Wilson, for a certainty, he has such an enormous practice!" they said, with pride. "That girl is as handsome and healthy as an Alderney cow," he added, now, and the men laughed. "She's a stunner," said Amidon. Anderson went out abruptly without waiting to make his purchase. He felt as repelled as only a man of his temperament can feel. No woman could equal his sense of utter disgust, first with the quite innocent girl herself, next with the young physician for his insistence upon the subject. His wrath against young Eastman, his unreasoning and ridiculous wrath, swelled high as he dwelt upon the outrage of his desertion of a girl like his little Charlotte, that little creature of fire and dew, for this full-blown rose of a woman--the outrage to her and to himself. When he got home, his mother inquired anxiously what the matter was. "Nothing, dear," he replied, brusquely. "You look as if something worried you," said she. She had been taking a little evening toddle on her tiny, slippered feet out in the old-fashioned flower-garden beside the house, and she had a little bunch of sweet herbs, which she dearly loved, in her hand. She fastened a sprig of thyme in his coat as she stood talking to him, and the insistent odor seemed as real as a presence when he breathed. "nothing has gone wrong with your business, has there?" she inquired, lovingly. "No, mother," he replied, and moved away from her gently, with the fragrance of the thyme strong in his consciousness. His mother put her sweet nosegay in water. Then she went to bed, and Anderson sat on the stoop. Young Eastman and the Van Dorn girl passed after he sat there, and he thought with a loving passion of protection of poor little Charlotte alone at home. "I'll warrant the poor child is watching for that good-for-nothing scoundrel this minute," he told himself. He would have liked to knock young Eastman down; it would have delighted his soul to kick him; he would have given a good deal to have had him at the top of the steps. The weather was intensely warm. He heard his mother fling her bedroom blinds wide open to catch all the air. The sky was clear, but all along the northwest horizon was a play of lightning from a far-distant storm. Anderson lit another cigar. The night seemed to grow more and more oppressive. When a breath of wind came, it was like a hot breath of some fierce sentiency. A disagreeable odor from something was also borne upon it. The odors of the flowers seemed in abeyance. The play of blue-and-rosy light along the northwest horizon continued. Anderson got a certain pleasure from watching it. Nature's spectacularity diverted him, as if he had been a child, from his own affairs, which seemed to give him a dull pain. Between the flashes he asked himself why. "It is just right," he told himself; "just what I desired. Why do I feel this way?" Presently he decided with self-deception that it was because of the recent scene in the drug store. He remembered quite distinctly the young man's gaze at the stout, blue-eyed girl. "What right had the fellow to look at another girl after that fashion?" he said to himself. Then it struck him suddenly as being perhaps impossible for him ever to look at Charlotte in just that fashion. He thought with a thrill of indignant pride that there was a maiden who would have the best of love as her right. Then sitting there he heard a quick tread and a trill of whistle as meaningless as that of a robin, and young Eastman himself came alongside. He stopped before the gate. "Hullo!" he said, suddenly. "Hullo!" responded Anderson. "Got a match?" said Eastman. "Sure." Eastman sprang up the steps until he came in reach of Anderson's proffered handful of matches. "Hotter 'n blazes," he remarked, as he scratched a match on his trousers leg. "Hottest night of the season so far, I think," responded Anderson. "I'm about beat out with it," said Eastman, lighting his cigar with no difficulty in the dead atmosphere. He threw himself sprawling on the step at Anderson's feet, without any invitation. "Whew!" he sighed. "It 'll be hotter than hades in the City to-morrow," he remarked, after a moment's silence. Anderson muttered an assent. He was considering as nervously as a woman whether he should say anything to this boy. While he was hesitating, young Eastman himself led up to it. "Saw you in the drug store just now," he remarked. "Yes; you were with--" "Bessy Van Dorn--yes. Pretty girl?" Eastman spoke with the insufferable air of patronizing criticism of extreme masculine youth towards the opposite sex. "Very," replied Anderson, dryly. The young fellow gave a furious puff at his cigar. The smoke came full in Anderson's face. "Passed here the other evening with two other young ladies while you were sitting here," young Eastman remarked, in a curious tone. It was full of pain, but it had a reckless, devil-may-care defiance in it also. "Yes," said Anderson, "I think you did. About a week ago, wasn't it?" "Week ago yesterday. Well, I suppose you've heard the news. It's all over town." "You mean--" "She's engaged." Anderson felt bewildered. "Yes?" he replied, questioningly. "She's engaged," the young fellow repeated, with a sobbing sigh, which he ended in a laugh. "They all do it, sir." Anderson was too puzzled to say anything. "Suppose you've heard about the man?" said Eastman, in a nonchalant voice. He inhaled the smoke from his cigar with an air of abstract enjoyment. Anderson unassumedly stared at him. "Why, I thought it was--" "Who?" asked the young fellow, eagerly. Anderson hesitated. "Who did you think it was?" Eastman persisted. He had a pitiful wistfulness in his face upturned to the older man. It became quite evident that he had a desire to hear himself named as the accepted suitor. "Why, I thought that you were the man!" Anderson answered. "Everybody thought so, I guess," the young fellow said, with an absurd and childlike pride in the semblance in the midst of his grief over the reality. "But--" He hesitated, and Anderson waited, looking above at the play of lightning in the sky and smoking. "She's gone and got engaged to a man old enough to be her father. Lord! I guess he's older than her father--old enough to be her grandfather!" cried the young fellow, with a burst of grief and rage and shame. "Yes, sir, old enough to be her grandfather," he repeated. His voice shook. His cigar had gone out. He struck a match and the head flew off. He swore softly and struck another. Sometimes a match refusing to ignite changes mourning to wrath and rebellion. The third match broke short in two and the burning head flew down on the sidewalk. "Wish I had hold of the man that made 'em," young Eastman said, viciously; and in the same breath: "What can the girl be thinking of, that she flings herself away like that? Hang it all, is a woman a devil or a fool?" Anderson removed his cigar long enough to ask a question, then replaced it. "Who is the man?" he inquired, in a slow, odd voice. "Oh, he is an old army officer, a major--Major Arms, I believe his name is. He's somebody they've known a long time. He lives in Kentucky, I believe, in the same place where the Carrolls used to live and where she went to school. Oh, it's a good match. They're just tickled to death over it. Her sister feels rather bad, I guess, but, Lord! she'd do the same thing herself, if she got the chance. They're all alike." The boy said the last with a cynical bitterness beyond his years. He sneered effectively. He crossed one leg over the other and puffed his relighted cigar. The last match had ignited. Anderson said nothing. He was accommodating his ideas to the change of situation. Presently young Eastman spoke again. "Well," he said, in a tone of wretched conceit, "girls are as thick as flowers, after all, and a lot alike. Bessy Van Dorn is a beauty, isn't she?" "I don't think she's much like the other," said Anderson, shortly. "She's full as pretty." Anderson made no reply. "I don't believe Bessy would go and marry a man old enough to be her grandfather," said the boy, with a burst of piteous challenge. Then suddenly he tossed his cigar into the street and flung up his hands to his head with a despairing gesture. "Oh, my God!" he groaned. "Be a man," Anderson said, in a kind voice. "I am a man, ain't I? What do you suppose I care about it? I don't want to marry and settle down yet, anyway. I like to fool with the girls, but as for anything else-- I am a--man. If you think I am broken up over this, if anybody thinks I am-- Lord--" The young fellow rose and squared his shoulders. He looked down at Anderson. "There's one thing I want to say," he added. "I don't want you to think--I don't want to give the impression that she--that she has been flirting, or anything like that. She hasn't. Of course she might have been a little franker, I will admit that, for I have been there a good deal, but I don't suppose she thought it was anything serious, and it wasn't. She was right. But she did not flirt. Those girls are not that sort. Great Scott! I should like to see a man venture on any little familiarities with them--holding hands, or a kiss, or anything. They respect themselves, those girls do. They have been brought up better than the Banbridge girls. Oh no, she hasn't treated me badly or anything, and of course I don't care a damn about her getting married, only I'll be hanged if I like, on general principles, to see a pretty young girl throwing herself away on a man old enough to be her father. It's wrong--it's indecent, you know." Again the boy's voice seemed bursting with wrath and grief and shame. Anderson rose, went into the house, and was out again in a few seconds. He had a cigar-box in his hand. "Try one of these," he said. "It's a brand new to me, and I think it fine. I think you'll agree with me." "Thanks," said Eastman, with a sound in his voice like a heart-broken child's. He almost sobbed, but he took the cigar gratefully. "Well, I must be going," he said. "Mother 'll wonder where I am. It was too deuced hot to go to bed, so I've been strolling around. But I've got to turn in sometime. These nights are too hot to sleep, anyhow." "Yes, they are pretty tough," said Anderson. "Wish we could have a shower." "So do I. Say, this cigar is a dandy." "I thought you'd like it. Of course it isn't a cigar that everybody would like. It requires some taste, perhaps a cultivated taste." "Yes, that's so," replied the boy, with a pleased air. "I guess it does. I shouldn't say every man would appreciate this." "Have another," said Anderson, and he pressed a couple into the hot young hand, which was greedily reached out for a little solace for its owner's wounded heart and self-love. "Thanks. I suppose I have quite a good taste for a good cigar. I don't believe it would be very easy to palm off a cheap grade on me. Good-night, Mr. Anderson." "Good-night," said Anderson, and was conscious of pity and amusement as the boy went away and his footsteps died out of hearing. As for himself, he was in much the same case as before, only the time had evidently arrived for him to dismiss his dreams and the lady of them. He did not think so hardly of her for being willing to marry the older man as the disappointed young man did. He considered himself as comparatively old, and he had a feeling of sympathy for the other old fellow who doubtless loved her. He was prepared to think that she had done a wiser thing than to engage herself to young Eastman, especially if the man was rich enough to take care of her. The position would be good, too. He thought generously of that consideration, although it touched him in his tenderest spot of vanity. "She will do well to marry an ex-army officer," he thought. "She will have the entree to any society." Presently he arose and went up-stairs to bed. He passed roughly by the nook where he had so often fancied her sitting, and closed, as it were, the door of his fancy against her with a bang. He set a lamp on a table at the head of his bed and read his political economy until dawn. It was, in fact, too hot for any nervous person to sleep. Now and then his thoughts wandered, the incessant drone of the night insects outside seemed to distract his attention from his book like some persistent clamor of nature recalling him to his leading-strings in which she had held him from the first. But resolutely he turned again to his book. At dawn he fell asleep, and woke an hour later to another steaming day. Chapter XV "I think we shall have thunder-showers to-day," Mrs. Anderson remarked, as she poured the coffee at the breakfast-table. Even this old gentlewoman, carefully attired in her dainty white lawn wrapper, had that slightly dissipated, bewildered, and rancorous air that extreme heat is apt to impart to the finest-grained of us. Her fair old face had a glossy flush, her white hair, which usually puffed with a soft wave over her temples, was stringy. She allowed her wrapper to remain open at the neck, exposing her old throat, and dispensed with her usual swathing of lace. She confessed that she had not been able to sleep at all; still she kept her trust in Providence, and would scarcely admit to discomfort. "I am sure there will be showers, and cool the air," she said, with her sweet optimism. As she spoke she fanned herself with the great palm-leaf fan with a green bow on the stem, which she was never without during this weather. "It is certainly very warm so early in the season. One must feel it a little, but it is always so delightful after a shower that it compensates." "You are showing a lovely Christian spirit, mother," Anderson returned, smiling at her with fond amusement, "but don't be hypocritical." "My son, what do you mean?" "Mother, dear, you don't really like this weather. You only pretend to because man did not make it." "Randolph!" "Only think how you would growl if the mayor and aldermen, or even the president, made this weather!" "My son, they did not," Mrs. Anderson responded, solemnly. "No, and that settles it, I suppose. If they did, you would say at once they ought to be forced to resign from their offices. Now, mother, be resigned all you like, but don't be pleased, for you can't cheat the Providence that made this beastly heat, and must know perfectly well how beastly it is, better than you or I do, and won't think any more of us for any pretence in the matter." "You shock me, dear. And, besides, I did not say that I liked it. I said I liked the weather after a shower. You look pale this morning, dear, and you don't talk quite like yourself. I do wish you would take an umbrella when you go to the office to-day. It is so very warm." Mrs. Anderson had a chronic fear of sunstroke. When Randolph went away without his umbrella, as he usually did, being, dearly as he loved his mother, impervious to some of her feminine demands, she watched him, standing in the doorway and shaking her head with a dubious air. That noon she was quite contented, for he did actually carry his umbrella. The sky in the northwest was threatening, although the sun still shone fiercely in the south. She herself sat on the doorstep in the shade, and fairly panted like a corpulent old dog. Her mouth was open and her tongue even lolled a little. She was, in reality, suffering frightfully. She had both flesh and nerves, and, given these two adverse conditions to endurance, and the mercury ninety in the shade, there is torture although the spirit is strong. Although the sky was threatening all the afternoon, it was not until four o'clock that the northwest sky grew distinctly ominous and the rumble of the thunder was audible. Then Mrs. Anderson called her maid, and they proceeded to close tightly all the windows against the rising wind. "It is very dangerous indeed to have a draught in the house in a thunder-shower," Mrs. Anderson always said while closing them. Then she hurriedly divested herself of the white lawn wrapper which she had worn all day, and put on her black summer silk gown, with a wrap and a bonnet and an umbrella at hand. Mrs. Anderson was not afraid of a thunder-shower in the ordinary sense, but her imagination never failed her. Therefore she was always dressed, in case the worst should happen and she be forced to flee from a stricken house. She also had her small and portable treasures ready at hand. Then she sat down in the middle of the sitting-room well out of range of the chimney, and prayed for her own and her son's safety, and incidentally for the safety of the maid, who was in the adjoining room with the door open, and for the house and her son's store. She always did thus in a thunder-shower, but she never told any one this innocent childish secret of an innocent old soul. She thought with a sort of undercurrent of faithlessness of the great draught in her son's store if the large front doors and the office door were both open, as there was a strong probability of their being. She thought uneasily that her son might be that very moment in that draught, as indeed he was. He stood in the strong current of fresh storm-air, with its pungent odors, more like revelations than odors, of things which had been in abeyance for some time past in the drought. The smell of the wet green things was like a paean of joy. It was a call of renewed life out of concealed places of fainting and hiding. There were scents of flowers and fruits, and another strange odor, like the smell of battle, from all the ferment on the earth which had precipitated the storm. It was quite a severe thunder-shower. The rain had held off for a fierce prelude, then it came in solid cataracts. Then it was that Charlotte Carroll rushed into the store. She was dripping, beaten like a flower, by the force of the liquid flail of the storm. She had pulled off the rose-wreathed hat which was dear to her heart, and she had it under her dress skirt, which she held up over her lace-trimmed petticoat modestly, with as little revelation as might be. Her dark head glistened with the rain. Anderson stepped forward quickly. "Pray come into the office, Miss Carroll," he said. But she remained standing in front of the door, having removed her hat furtively from its shelter. "No, thank you," said she, "I would rather stay here. I like to watch it." Anderson fetched a chair from his office, but she thanked him and said that she preferred standing. "I thought I had time to get to Madame Griggs's on the other side of the street," said she, "but all at once it came down." Anderson felt her ungraciousness, but she herself did not seem to realize it at all. Presently she gave a little sidewise smile at him, and comprehended in the smile the old clerk and the boy who hovered near. "It is a fine shower," said she, with a kind of confidential glee. As she spoke she looked out at the snarl of rain shot with lances of electric fire, and there was a curious elation, almost like intoxication, in her expression. She was in a fine spiritual excitement. "Yes," said Anderson. "We needed rain." Just then the world seemed swimming in blue light and there was a terrific crash. Anderson, who never thought of any personal fear in a tempest, looked rather apprehensively at the girl. He recalled his mother's fear of draughts. "Perhaps you had better move back a little; that was quite near," he said. Somehow the little fears and precautions which he scorned for himself seemed to apply quite reasonably to this little, tender, pretty creature with the lightning playing around her and the thunder breaking over her defenceless head. Charlotte laughed. "Oh, I am not afraid," said she. Then she added, quite innocently, with more of personal appeal than she had ever used towards him, "Are you?" "No," said Anderson. "I like it," said she, staring out at the swaying, brandishing maples, and the street which ran like a river, with now and then a boiling pool. "I am afraid you are wet," said Anderson. "Yes," said she, "but that is nothing. My dress won't hurt. It is just white lawn, you know. All that would be hurt is my hat, and that is hardly damp. I took it off." She held it up carefully on one hand, and gazed solicitously at it. "It is my best hat," said she, simply. "No, I don't think it is hurt at all." She looked sharply towards the counter. "The counter is clean, isn't it?" said she. "I might lay my hat there. I don't want to put it on until my hair gets dry." The old clerk smiled covertly, the boy grinned at her in a fascinated way. Anderson regarded her with worshipful amazement. This little, artless revelation of the innermost vanity of a woman's heart touched him. It was to him inconceivable that she should so care for the welfare of that flower-bedecked oval of straw, and yet he thought it adorable of her to care. He stared at the hat as if it had been a halo, then he turned and looked anxiously at the counter. "Get a sheet of clean paper," he ordered the boy, and frowned at him for his grin. The boy obeyed solemnly. "I think that will not soil your hat," Anderson said, when the preparations were complete. "Oh, thank you," she said, and handed him the hat. Anderson touched it gingerly as if it were alive, and placed it upside down on the clean sheet of paper. "The other way up, please," said she, and Anderson changed it in alarm. "I hope I have not injured it," he said. She was laughing openly at him. "No," she replied, "but you put it right on the roses. Men don't know how to handle girls' hats, do they?" "No; I fear they don't," replied Anderson. He remained leaning against the counter near the door; the old clerk lounged against the next one, on the end of which Sam Riggs was perched. Charlotte remained standing in the doorway, leaning slightly against the post, and they all watched the storm, which was fast reaching its height. The flashes of lightning were more frequent, the crashes of thunder followed fast, sound overlapping sight. The rain became a flood. The girl watched, with the intense, self-forgetful delight of a child, the plash of the great blobs of rain on the macadamized road outside. They came to look to her exactly like little figures chasing one another in an unintermittent race of annihilation. She smiled, watching them. Anderson, looking from the rain to her, saw the smile, and thought with a little pang that she was probably thinking of her own happiness when she smiled to herself like that. He kept his eyes fixed upon her for a moment, her glistening dark head, her smooth cheek, her smiling mouth, her shoulders faintly pink through her thin white gown, which, being wet, clung to them. Charlotte's shoulders were thin, but the hollowing curve from the throat to the arm was ravishing. Anderson's face hardened a little. He looked away again at the rain. All at once Charlotte glanced up from the dancing flight of the rain-drops on the road, and laughed. "Why," she cried, "there is Ina! There is my sister!" Anderson looked, and in a second-story window opposite was a girl's head in a violet-trimmed hat. She was smiling and nodding. Charlotte waved her hand to her. "I'll be over as soon as it holds up a little," she cried out. "Did you get wet?" The girl in the window hollowed a slim hand over an ear. "Did you get caught in the shower? Did you get wet?" called Charlotte. The girl in the window shook her head gayly. "She didn't," Charlotte said, with an absurd but charming confidence to Anderson; "but, anyway, she didn't have on her very best hat." "I am very glad," Anderson replied, politely. He read a sign fastened beneath the window which framed the girl's head--"Madame Estelle Griggs, Modiste." He reflected that she was the Banbridge dressmaker, and that Charlotte was probably having her trousseau made there, which was a deduction that only a masculine mind of vivid imagination could have evolved. Charlotte was gazing eagerly across at her sister. "It does not rain nearly so hard now," said she. "I think I might venture." She looked irresolutely at her hat on the counter. "I can let you have an umbrella," said Anderson. "Thank you," said Charlotte, "but my hair is still so wet, and my hat is lined with pink chiffon, you know." "Yes," said Anderson, respectfully. He did not know what pink chiffon was, but he understood that water would injure it. "If I might leave my hat here," said Charlotte, "until I come back--" "Certainly," replied Anderson. "Then I think I can go now. No, thank you; I won't take the umbrella. I am about as wet as I can be now, and, besides, I like to feel the rain on my shoulders." With a careful but wary gathering up of her white skirts, with chary disclosures of lace and embroidery and little skipping shoes, she was gone in a snowy whirl through the mist across the street. She seemed to fly over the puddles. The girl's head disappeared from the opposite window and Anderson heard quite distinctly the outburst of laughter and explanation. "You had better get a sheet of tissue-paper and put it over that," he said to Sam Riggs, and he pointed at Charlotte's hat on the counter. Then he went back to his office and wrote some letters. He resolved that he would not see Charlotte when she returned for her hat. Presently the sun shone into the office, and a new light seemed to come from the rain-drenched branches outside the window. Anderson continued to write, feeling all the time unhappiness heavy in his heart. He also had a sense of injury which was foreign to him. He was distinctly aware that he had an unfair allotment of the good things of life. Yet there was a question dinning through his consciousness: "Why should I have so little?" Then the world-old query considering personal responsibility for misery swept over him. "What have I done?" he asked himself, and answered himself, with a fierce challenge of truth, that he had done nothing. Then the habit of his life of patience, which was at the same time a habit of bravery, asserted itself. He wrote his letters carefully and closed his ears to the questions. It was about half an hour later, and he was thinking about going home, when Sam Riggs came to the office door and informed him that Mrs. Griggs wanted to see him. Mrs. Griggs was Madame nowhere except on her sign and in the mouths of a few genteel patrons who considered that Madame had a more fashionable sound than Mrs. "Ask her to come in here," Anderson said, and directly the dressmaker appeared. She was a tiny, thin, nervous creature with restless, veinous little hands, and a long, thin neck upon which her small frizzled head vibrated constantly like the head of a bird. Anderson knew her very well. Back in his childhood they had been schoolmates. He remembered distinctly little Stella Mixter. She had been a sharp, meagre, but rather pretty little girl, with light curls, and was always dressed in blue. She wore blue now, for that matter--blue muslin, ornate with lace and ribbons. She had had a sad and hard life, but her spirit still asserted itself. Her husband had deserted her; she had lost her one child; she worked like a galley-slave, but she still frizzed her hair carefully, and never neglected her own costume even in her greatest rush of business, and that in a dressmaker showed deathless ambition and self-respect. Anderson greeted her and offered her a chair. She seated herself with a conscious elegance, and disposed gracefully around her thin knees her blue muslin flounces. There was a slight coquetry in her manner, although she was evidently anxious about something. She looked around and spoke in a low voice. "I want to ask you something," she said, in a whisper. "Certainly," said Anderson. "You used to be a lawyer, and I don't suppose you have forgotten all your law, if you are in the grocery business now." There was about the woman the very naivete of commonplacedness and offence. Anderson smiled. "I trust not, Mrs. Griggs," he replied. "Well"--she lowered her voice still more--"I wanted to ask you-- I've got a big job of work for--that Carroll girl that's going to be married, and I've heard something that made me kind of uneasy. What I want to know is, do you s'pose I'm likely to get my pay?" "I know nothing whatever about the family's financial standing," Anderson replied, after a slight pause. He spoke constrainedly, and did not look at his questioner. "You don't know whether I'm likely to get my pay or not?" Anderson looked at her then, the little, nervous, overworked, almost desperate creature, fighting like a little animal in her bay of life against the odds which would drive her from it, and he felt in a horrible perplexity. He felt also profane. Why could not he be left out of this? he inquired, with concealed emphasis. Finally he said that he would rather not advise in a case about which he knew so little. "I'm willing to pay," said the dressmaker, with her artless vulgarity. "It is not that," Anderson said, quickly, with some asperity. "I don't know," said the dressmaker, innocently deepening the offence, "but what you didn't feel as if you could give law-advice for nothin', even if you had quit the law. I s'pose it cost you a good deal to learn the law, and I know you didn't git your money back." She spoke with the kindest sympathy. "That has nothing to do with it," Anderson repeated, with an inflection of irritated patience. "I cannot give any advice because I know nothing whatever about the matter." "Can't you find out?" "That belongs to the business which I have given up." "Well, I s'pose it does," admitted Madame Griggs, with a sigh. "I wouldn't have bothered you if I hadn't been at my wit's end." "I am willing to do anything in my power--" began Anderson, with a softened glance at the absurdly pathetic little figure, "but--" "Then you think I had better not trust them?" "No; I said--" "You think I had better send her word I've changed my mind, and can't do her work?" Anderson winced. "No; I did not say so," he replied, vehemently. "I merely said that you must settle--" "Then you think I had better keep on with it?" "If you think best," said Anderson, emphatically. "Really, Mrs. Griggs, I cannot settle this matter for you. You often trust people in your business. You must decide yourself." The dressmaker arose. "Well, I guess it's all right," said she. "She's a lovely girl, and so are they all. Her mother seems sort of childish, but she's real sweet-spoken. I guess it's all right, but I'd heard some things, and I thought I would ask you what you thought. I thought it wouldn't do any harm. Now I feel a good deal easier about it. Good-afternoon. What a tempest we've had!" "Yes," said Anderson. "Good-afternoon." He was conscious of a mental giddiness as he regarded her. "We needed it, and I do think it has cooled the air a little. I'm very much obliged. I don't suppose there is any use in my offering to pay you, now you're in the grocery business?" "Certainly not. I have done nothing to admit of any question of payment," replied Anderson, curtly. "Well, I s'pose you throw it in along with the butter and eggs," said Madame Griggs, with a return of her slight coquetry. "By-the-way, I wish you'd send over five pounds of that best butter. Good-afternoon." "Good-afternoon." The dressmaker turned in the doorway and looked back. "I'm so glad to have my mind settled about it," she said, with a pathos which overcame her absurdity and vulgarity. "I do work awful hard, and it doesn't seem as if I could lose my money." She appeared suddenly tragic in her cheap muslin and her frizzes. She looked old and her features sharpened out rigidly. Anderson, looking after her, felt both bewilderment and compunction. He thought for a moment of going after her and saying something further; then he heard a flutter and a quick sweet voice, and he knew that Charlotte had come for her hat. He heard her say: "Where? Oh, I see; all covered up so nicely. Thank you. I did not come before, because the trees were dripping. Thank you." Then there was a silence. Anderson got his hat and went out through the store. The old clerk was fussing over some packages on the counter. "That young lady came for her hat," he remarked. "Did she?" "Yes. She's a pretty-spoken girl. Her sister's goin' to git married before long, I hear." Anderson stopped and stared at him. "No; this is the one." "No; her sister. I had it straight." Anderson went out. Everything was wonderful outside. The world was purified of dust and tarnish as a soul of sin. The worn prosaicness of nature was adorned as with jewels. Everything glittered; a thousand rainbows seemed to hang on the drenched trees. New blossoms looked out like new eyes of rapture; every leaf had a high-light of joy. Anderson drew a long breath. The air was alive with the breath of the sea from which the fresh wind blew. He walked home with a quick step like a boy. He was smiling, and fast to his breast, like a beloved child, he clasped his dream again. Chapter XVI There had been considerable discussion among the ladies of the Carroll family with regard to the necessary finery for Ina's bridal. "It is all very well to talk about Ina's being married in four weeks," said Anna Carroll to her sister-in-law, one afternoon directly after the affair had been settled. "If a girl gets married, she has to have new clothes, of course--a trousseau." "Why, yes, of course! How could she be married if she didn't have a trousseau? I had a very pretty trousseau, and so would you if you had been married, Anna, dear." Anna laughed, a trifle bitterly. "Good Lord," said she, "if I had to think of a trousseau for myself, I should be a maniac! The trousseau would at any time have seemed a much more difficult matter than the bridegroom." "Yes, I know you have had a great many very good chances," assented Mrs. Carroll, "and it would have seemed most of the time much easier to have just managed the husband part of it than the new clothes, because one doesn't have to pay cash or have good credit for a husband, and one does for clothes." "Well," said Anna Carroll, "that is the trouble about Ina. It was easy enough for her to get the husband. Major Arms has always had his eye on her ever since she was in short dresses; but what isn't at all easy is the new clothes." "I don't see why, dear." "Well, how is it to be managed, if you will be so good as to inform me, Amy?" "How? Why, just go to the dressmaker's and order them, of course." "What dressmaker's, dear?" "Well, I think that last New York dressmaker is the best. She really has imagination like a French dressmaker. She doesn't copy; she creates. She is really quite an artist." "Madame Potoffsky, you mean?" "Yes, dear. The dressmaker whose husband they say was a descendant of the Polish patriot. They say she herself is descended from a Russian princess who eloped with the Polish patriot, and I can believe it. There is something very unusual about her. She always makes me a little bit nervous, because one does get to associating Russians, especially those that run away with patriots, with bombs and things of that kind, but she is a wonderful dressmaker. I certainly think it would be wise to patronize her for Ina's trousseau, Anna." Anna laughed, and rather bitterly, again. "Well, dear, I have my doubts about our ability to patronize her," she said, "and, granting that we could, you might in reality encounter the bomb as penalty." "Anna, dear, what--" "Amy, don't you know that Madame Potoffsky simply will not give us any further credit?" "Oh, Anna, do you think so?" "I know. Amy, only think of the things we owe her for now--my linen, my pongee, my canvas, your two foulards, Ina's muslin, Charlotte's etamine! It is impossible." "Oh, dear! Do we owe her for all those?" "We do." "Well, then, I fear you are right, Anna," Mrs. Carroll said, ruefully. The two women continued to look at each other. Mrs. Carroll had a curious round-eyed face of consternation, like a baby; Anna looked, on the contrary, older than usual. Her features seemed quite sharpened out by thought. "What do you think we can do, Anna?" asked Mrs. Carroll, at length. "Do you suppose if we told Madame Potoffsky just how it was, how dear Ina was going to be married, and how interested we all were in having her look nice and have pretty things that she would--" "No, I don't think so," Anna said, shortly. "What does Madame Potoffsky care about Ina and her getting married, except for what she makes out of it?" "But, Anna, she is very rich. Everybody says so. She has a beautiful house, and a country-house, and keeps a carriage to go to her shop in." "Well, what of that?" "I thought the Russians believed that rich people ought to do things for people who were not rich, or else be blown up with bombs." "Don't be silly, Amy, darling." "I am quite in earnest, Anna, I really thought so." "Well, you thought wrong then, dear. There is no reason in the world why a dressmaker, if she is as rich as a Vanderbilt, should make Ina's wedding-clothes for nothing, and she won't." "Well, I suppose you are right, Anna, but what is to be done? How about Miss Sargent? She was very good." "Miss Sargent, Amy _dear!_" "Do we own her much, Anna?" "Owe her much? We owe her everything!" "Madame Rogers?" "Madame Rogers! The last time I asked her to do anything she insulted me. She told me to my face she did not work for dead-beats." "She was a very vulgar woman, Anna. I don't think I would patronize her under any circumstances." "No, I would not either, dear. But that finishes the New York dressmakers." "How about the Hillfield one?" "Amy!" "Well, I suppose you are right; but what--" "We shall have to go to a dressmaker in Banbridge. We have never had any work done here, and there can be no difficulty about it." "But, Anna, how can we have her married with a trousseau made in Banbridge?" "It is either that or no trousseau at all." Mrs. Carroll seldom wept, but she actually shed a few tears over the prospect of a shabbily made trousseau for Ina. "And she will go in the best society in Kentucky, too," she said, pitifully. "They'll attribute it all to the lack of taste in the North," Anna said. Ina herself made no objection whatever to employing the Banbridge dressmaker; in fact, she seemed to have little interest in her clothes at first. After a while she became rather feverishly excited over them. "I have always wondered why girls cared so much about their wedding-clothes," she told her sister after two weeks, when the preparations were well under way, "but now I know." "Why?" asked Charlotte. The two were coming home from the dressmaker's, where Ina had been trying on gowns for an hour. It was late in the afternoon and nearly time for Captain Carroll's train. "Why?" repeated Charlotte, when Ina did not answer at once. "In order to keep from thinking so much about the marriage itself," said Ina, tersely. She did not look at her sister, but kept her eyes fixed on the road ahead of her. Charlotte, however, almost stopped. "Ina," said she, in a distressed tone--"Ina, dear, you don't feel like that?" "Why not?" inquired Ina, defiantly. "Oh, Ina, you ought not to get married if you feel like that!" "Why not? All girls feel like that when they are going to be married. They must." "Oh, Ina, I know they don't!" "How do you know? You were never going to get married." That argument was rather too much for Charlotte, but she continued to gaze at her sister with a shocked and doubtful air as they walked along the shady sidewalk towards home. "I am almost sure it isn't right for a girl to feel so, anyhow," she said, persistently. "Yes, it is, too," Ina said, laughing easily. "Charlotte, honey, I really think my things are going to do very well. I really think so. That tan canvas is a beauty, and so is the red foulard. She is really a very good dressmaker." "I think so too, dear," Charlotte agreed. "I like the wedding-gown, too." "Yes, so do I; it is very pretty, though that does not so much matter." "Why, Ina Carroll!" Ina laughed mischievously. "Now I have shocked you, dear. Of course it matters in one way, but I shall never wear it again after the ceremony; and you know I don't care much about the Banbridge people, and they will be the only ones to see me in it, and only that once." "But, Ina, he--your--Major Arms." Ina laughed again. "Oh, well, he thinks me perfectly beautiful anyway," said she, in the tone of one to whom love was as dross because of the superabundance of it. "Ina," said Charlotte, with a solemn and timidly reflective air, "I don't believe you think half as much of him as you would if he didn't think so much of you." "Yes, I do think just as much," said Ina, "but things always seem worth rather more when they are in a showcase and marked more than one can ever pay." Then she started, and exclaimed: "Good gracious, there he is now!" She flushed all over her face and neck; then she turned pale and cast a half-wild look around her as if she wanted to run somewhere. Indeed, at that moment the Carroll carriage drew up beside them, and on the back seat sat Captain Carroll and a very handsome man apparently about his own age, although at first glance he looked older because of snow-white hair and mustache. He was as tall as Carroll, and thinner, and less punctiliously attired, although he wore his somewhat slouching clothes with a certain careless assurance of being the master of them which Carroll, with all his elegance, did not excel. "Here we are!" called Carroll. He was smiling, although he had a slightly worried look. The other man's black eyes were fixed with a sort of tender hunger on Ina, who hung back a little as she and Charlotte approached the carriage. It was actually Charlotte who shook hands first with Major Arms, although she tried to give her sister precedence. Ina blushed a good deal, and smiled rather tremulously when her turn came and her little hand was enveloped in the man's eager one. "I--didn't know--I didn't--" she stammered. "No, you didn't, did ye, honey?" said the major, in the broadest of Southern drawls. "No, ye didn't. The old fellow thought he'd surprise ye, honey." The man's face and voice were as frankly expressive of delighted love as a boy's. "Arthur," said he, "over with ye to the front seat and let me have my sweetheart in here with me. I want my arms around her. Not another minute can I wait. Over with ye, boy!" Carroll threw open the carriage door and sprang out. "Jump in, Ina," he said, and placed a hand under his daughter's arm. She gave a smiling and not altogether unhappy, but still piteous, look at him, and hung back slightly. "Jump in, dear," he said, again; and Ina was in the carriage, and there was a sweep of a long gray-clad arm around her and the sound of kisses. "Now, Charlotte," said Carroll, "get in the front seat. I will walk the rest of the way." "No, papa," Charlotte replied, "I will walk with you. I would rather." So the carriage rolled on, and Charlotte and Carroll followed on foot. "Did you expect him, papa?" asked Charlotte. "No, honey. The first thing I knew he came up to me on the ferry. He came on this morning; he has been in New York all day. I guess he wanted to buy something for Ina." "Her ring?" asked Charlotte, in a slightly awed tone. "Very likely." "Papa, is Major Arms rich?" asked Charlotte. "Quite, I think, dear. I don't know how much he has in reality, but he has his pay from the government--he is on the retired list--and he owns considerable property. He has enough and to spare, there is no doubt about that." "So if Ina has things and people trouble her for payment she can pay them," remarked Charlotte, thoughtfully. "Yes," said Carroll, shortly. He quickened his pace, and Charlotte made a little run to get into step again. "That will be very nice," said she. "Do you think he will be good to her, papa?" "Sure as I am of anything in this world, dear." "It would be dreadful if he wasn't. Whatever else Ina or any of us haven't had, we've always had that. We've always lived with folks that loved us and were good to us. That would kill Ina and me quickest of anything, papa." "He will be good to her, dear," said Carroll, pleasantly. He looked down at Charlotte and laughed. "It's all right, baby," he said. "She's got one man in a thousand--one worth a thousand of your old dad." "No, she hasn't," said Charlotte, with indignation. She caught her father's arm and clung to it lovingly. "There is nobody in the world so good as you," said she, with fervor. "I wouldn't leave you for any man in the world, papa." "You wait," Carroll said, laughing. "Papa, you don't wish I were going to be married too? You don't want me to go away like Ina?" Charlotte demanded, with a sudden grieved catch in her voice. "I never want you to go, darling," Carroll replied, and he looked down with adoration at the little face whose whole meaning seemed one of innocent love for and belief in him. He realized the same terror at the mere fancy of losing this artless and unquestioning devotion as one might feel at the fancy of losing his only prop from the edge of a precipice. The man really had for an instant a glimpse of a sheer descent in his own nature which might be ever before his sickened vision if this one little faith and ignorance were removed. In a curious fashion a man sometimes holds an innocent love between himself and himself, and Carroll so held Charlotte's. "I will never leave you for any other man. I don't care who he is," Charlotte reiterated, and this time her father let her assertion go unchallenged. He pressed the little, clinging hand on his arm closer. Charlotte looked at him as she might have looked at a king as he walked along in his stately fashion. She was unutterably proud of him. The carriage had reached the house some time before they arrived. The man was just driving round to the stable when they came up to the front door. The guest and Ina were nowhere to be seen, but on the porch stood Mrs. Carroll and Anna. They were both laughing, but Anna looked worried in spite of her laugh. "What do you think, Arthur," whispered Mrs. Carroll, with a cautious glance towards a chamber window. "Here he has come, the son-in-law, and there is no meat again for dinner." Mrs. Carroll burst into a peal of laughter. "I don't see much to laugh at," said Anna, but she laughed a little. Carroll made a step to the side of the porch and called to the coachman. "Martin," he called, "don't take the horse out. Come back here. We must send for something," he declared, a little brusquely for him. "It is all very well to send, Arthur," said Mrs. Carroll, "but the butcher won't let us have it if we do send." "It is no use, Arthur," Anna Carroll said. "We cannot get a thing for this man's dinner, and not only to-day, but to-morrow and while he stays, unless we pay cash." Carroll turned to the coachman, who had just come alongside. "Martin," he said, "you will have to drive to New Sanderson before dinner. We cannot get the meat which Mrs. Carroll wishes, and you will have to drive over there. Go to that large market on Main Street and tell them that I want the best cut of porterhouse with the tenderloin that he has. Tell him it is for Captain Carroll of Banbridge. And I want you to get also a roast of lamb for to-morrow." "Yes, sir," said the coachman. He gathered up the lines, but sat looking hesitatingly at his employer. "What are you waiting for?" asked Carroll. "Drive as fast as you can. We are late as it is." "Shall I pay, sir?" asked the man, timidly, in a low voice. Carroll took out his pocket-book, then replaced it. "No, not to-night," he said, easily. "Tell him it is for Captain Carroll of Banbridge." The man still looked doubtful and a trifle alarmed, but he touched his hat and drove out of the grounds. Carroll turned and saw his wife and sister staring at him. "Oh, Arthur, dear, do you think the butcher will let him have it?" whispered Mrs. Carroll. "Yes, honey," said Carroll. "If he shouldn't--" "Don't worry; he will." "It is one of your coups, isn't it, Arthur?" said Anna, sarcastically, but rather admiringly. She and Mrs. Carroll both laughed. "We have never bought any meat in New Sanderson, so maybe Martin can get it," Mrs. Carroll said, as she seated herself in one of the large willow-rockers on the porch. Dinner was very late that night at the Carrolls'. Even with a fast horse, driving to New Sanderson and back consumed some time, but Martin finally returned triumphant. When he drove into the yard it was dusk and the family and the guest were all seated on the porch. There was a steady babble of talk and laughter on the part of the ladies, who were nervously intent on concealing, or at least softening, the fact that dinner was so late that Major Arms might well be excused for judging that there was to be no dinner at all. Once, Ina had whispered to Charlotte, when the conversation among the others swelled high: "What is the matter? Do you know?" "Hush! Poor papa had to send to New Sanderson for meat," whispered Charlotte. Ina made a face of consternation; Charlotte looked sadly troubled. "I'm afraid he is awfully hungry," whispered Ina. "I pity him." "I pity papa," whispered Charlotte. She kept glancing at her father with loving sympathy and understanding as the time went on. His face was quite undisturbed, but Charlotte saw beneath the calm. When at last she heard the carriage-wheels her heart leaped and she turned pale. Then she dared not look at her father. Suppose Martin should not have been successful. The eyes of all the family except Carroll himself, who was talking about the tariff and politely supporting the government against a hot-headed rebellion on the part of the ex-army officer, were on him. Not an inflection in his voice changed when Martin drove past the porch, but the others, even Eddy, who was seated at his sister's feet on the porch-step, eyed the arrival with undisguised eagerness. A brown-paper parcel was distinctly visible on the seat beside Martin. "Thank God!" Mrs. Carroll whispered, under her breath to her sister. "He's got it." Eddy gave vent to a small whoop of delight which he immediately suppressed with a scared glance at his father. However, he could not refrain from sniffing audibly with rapture when the first fragrance of the broiling beefsteak spread through the house to the porch. Mrs. Carroll giggled, and so did Ina, but Charlotte looked severely at her brother. "After all, though, the excessive tax on articles purchased by travellers abroad and brought to this country serves as a legitimate balance-wheel," said Carroll, coolly. One would not have thought that he was in the least conscious of what was going on around him. "It is mostly the very wealthy who go abroad and purchase articles of foreign manufacture," he added, gently, "and it serves to even up things a little for those who cannot go. It marks a notch higher on the equality of possessions." "Equality of fiddlesticks!" said the other man. "What the devil do the masses of the poor in this country care about the foreign works of art, anyhow? They don't want 'em. And what is going to compensate this country for not possessing works of art which it will never produce here, and which would tend to the liberal education of its citizens?" "Not many of its citizens in the broader sense would ever see those works of art when they were here and shrined in the drawing-rooms of the millionaires," said Carroll, smiling; "and as far as that goes, the millionaires have them, anyhow. They are not stopped by the tariff." "Yes, they are, too, more than you think," declared the major; "and not the millionaires alone are defrauded. Suppose I go over now, as I may do"--he cast a glance at Ina--"as I may do, I say. Now there are things over there that I want in my home--things that are not to be had for love nor money in this country. Nothing of the sort is or ever will be manufactured here. I am doing nothing whatever to injure home industries if I bring them over. On the contrary, I am benefiting the country by bringing to it articles which are, in a way, an education which may serve as a stimulus to the growth of art here. I enable those who can never go abroad, and to whom they will be otherwise forever unknown, an opportunity to become acquainted with them. But I have to leave them over there because I cannot afford to pay this government for the privilege of spending my own money and gratifying my own taste." Anna Carroll, to cover her absorption in the beefsteak and the dinner, joined in the conversation with feminine daring of conclusion. "I suppose," said she, with a kind of soft sarcasm, "that the government would not need to charge so much for its citizens' privilege of buying little foreign vases and mosaics and breastpins and little Paris frills if it did not conduct so many humanitarian wars." "The humanitarian wars are all right, all right," said the major, hastily; "so far as that goes, all right." "I suppose," said Mrs. Carroll, "that it would cost so much to bring home gowns from Paris that no one can do it unless they have a great deal of money. I understand that it costs more than it did." "Yes," replied the major, "and this government can't see or won't see that even in the matter of women's clothes it would pay in the end to bring over every frill and tuck free of duty until our dressmakers here had caught on to their tricks. Then we could pay them back in their own coin. But, no; and the consequence is that we shall be dependent on France for our best clothes for generations more." "It does seem such a pity," said Mrs. Carroll. "It would be so nice to have Ina's things made in Paris if it didn't cost anything to get them over here--wouldn't it?" "I would just as soon have my dresses made in Banbridge," said Ina. "Madame Griggs is as good as a French dressmaker." "She is fine," said Charlotte. Ina blushed as the major looked at her with a look that penetrated the dusk. Very soon Marie appeared in the doorway, and they went into dinner. "How lucky it is that Anderson does not object to trusting us and we can have canned soup and pease," whispered Mrs. Carroll to Anna. It was a very good dinner at last, and the guest was evidently hungry, for he did justice to it. There were no apologies for the delay. Carroll did not believe in apologies for such things. There was a salad from their own garden, and a dessert of apple-pudding from an early apple-tree in the grounds. The coffee was good, too. There was no lack of anything which could be purchased at the grocery. "That grocer must be a very decent sort of man as grocers go," Mrs. Carroll was fond of remarking in those days. "I really don't know what we should do if it were not for him." After dinner was over it was nearly nine o'clock; Carroll and Major Arms walked up and down the road before the house, smoking, leaving the ladies on the porch. The ex-army officer had something which he wished to discuss with his prospective father-in-law. He opened upon the subject when they had gone a piece down the flagged sidewalk and turned towards the house. "What kind of arrangements have the ladies planned with regard to"--he hesitated and stammered a bit boyishly, for this was his first matrimonial venture, and he felt embarrassed, veteran in other respects as he was--"to the--ceremony?" he finished up. Ceremony did not have the personal sound that marriage did. Carroll looked at him, smiling. "It is quite a venture for you, old fellow, isn't it?" he said, laughingly, and yet his voice sounded exceedingly kind and touched. "Not with that child, Arthur," replied the other man, simply. "Well, Ina is a good girl," assented Carroll. "Both of them are good girls. She will make you a good wife." "Nobody knows how sure I am of it, and nobody knows how I have looked forward to this for years," said the other, fervently. "I could not wish anything better for my girl," said Carroll, gently and soberly. "What about the matter of the--ceremony?" asked Arms, returning to the first subject. "I think they have decided that they would prefer the wedding in the church, and a little reception at the house afterwards. Of course we are comparatively strangers in Banbridge, but there are people one can always ask to a function of the sort, and I think Ina--" "Arthur, there is something I would like to propose." "What, old fellow?" Major Arms hesitated. Carroll waited, smoking as he sauntered along. The other man held his cigar, which had gone out, in his mouth; evidently he was nervous about his proposition. Finally he blurted it out with the sharpness of a pistol-shot. "Arthur, I want to defray the expenses of the wedding," he said. Carroll removed his cigar. "See you damned first," said he, coolly, but with emphasis, and then replaced it. Major Arms turned furiously towards him, but he restrained himself. "Why?" he said, with forced calm. "Because if I cannot pay my daughter's bridal expenses she never marries you nor any other man," said Carroll. Then the Major blazed out. He stopped short and moved before Carroll on the sidewalk. "If," said he--"if--you think I marry your daughter if her father goes in debt for the wedding expenses, you are mistaken." Carroll said nothing. He stood as if stunned. The other went on with a burst of furious truth: "See here, Arthur Carroll," said he, "I like you, and you know how I feel about your girl. She is the one thing I have wanted for my happiness all my life, and I know I can take care of her and make her happy; and I like you in spite of--in spite of your outs. I'm ashamed of myself for liking you, but I do; but you needn't think I don't see you, that I don't know you, because I do. I knew when you went to the dogs after you failed in your mine, just as well as you did yourself. You went to the dogs, and you've been at the dogs' ever since; you're there now, and you've dragged your family with you so far as they're the sort to be dragged. They aren't, altogether, lucky for them; the girls especially aren't, at least not so far. Lord knows when it would come to them. But I'm going to take Ina away from the dogs, out of sound of a yelp even of 'em; and, as for me, I'll be hanged if you get me there! I know you for just what you are. I know you've prowled and preyed like a coyote ever since you were preyed on yourself. I know you, but I love Ina. But I tell you one thing, Arthur Carroll, now you can take your choice. Either you let me pay the wedding expenses or you give up the wedding." "Ina," began Carroll, in a curious, helpless fashion, "she has set her heart on the wedding--her--dress and everything." "I can't help that," said Arms, sternly. "This is of more importance even than her pleasure. Take your choice. Let me pay or let us be married in the quietest manner possible." "I consent to the latter," Carroll said, still in that beaten tone. He seemed to shrink in stature, standing before the other man's uprear of imperious will. "All right," said Major Arms. The two walked on in silence for a moment. Arms relit his cigar. Suddenly Carroll spoke. "No, I will not, either," he said, abruptly. "Will not what?" "I will not consent to the quiet wedding. Ina shall not be disappointed. This means too much to a girl. Good God! it is the one occasion of a woman's life, and women are children always. It is cruelty to children." "Then I pay," Arms said. "No, I pay," said Carroll. "You pay?" "I pay," Carroll repeated, doggedly. "How?" "Never mind how. I tell you I give you my word of honor I pay every dollar of those expenses the day after the wedding." "You will rob Peter to pay Paul, then," declared Major Arms, incredulously and wrathfully. Carroll laughed in a hard fashion. "I would kill Peter, besides robbing him, if it was necessary," he said. "If you think I'll have that way out of it--" "I tell you I will pay those expenses, every dollar, the next day, and Ina shall have her little festival. What more do you want?" demanded Carroll. "See here, Arms, you will take care of the girl better than I can. I am at the dogs fast enough, and the dogs' is not a desirable locality in which to see one's family. You can take care of Ina, and God knows I want you to have her, but have her you shall not unless you can show some lingering confidence in her father. Even at the dogs' a man may have a little pride left. Either we have the wedding as it is planned, and you trust me to settle the bills for it, or you can give up my daughter." Arms stood silent, looking at Carroll. "Very well," he said, finally. "All right, then," said Carroll. Arms remained staring at Carroll with a curious, puzzled expression. "Good God! Arthur, how do you ever stand it living this sort of life?" he cried, suddenly. "I have to stand it," replied Carroll. "As well ask a shot fired from a cannon how it likes being hurled through the air. I was fired into this." "You ought to have had some power of resistance, some will of your own." "There are forces for every living man for which he has no power of resistance. Mine hit me." "If ever there was a damned, smooth-tongued scoundrel--" said Arms, retrospectively. "Where is he?" Carroll asked, and his voice sounded strange. "There." "How is he?" "Prospering like the wicked in the psalms. There was one respect in which you showed will and self-control, Arthur--that you didn't shoot him!" "I was a fool," said Carroll. "He wasn't worth hanging for," said the major, shortly. "I'd hang five times over if I could get even with him," said Carroll. "I don't wonder you feel so." "Feel so! You asked me just now how I stood this sort of life. I believe my hate for that man keeps me up like a stimulant. I believe it keeps me up when I see other poor devils that I--" Suddenly Arms reached out his hand and grasped Carroll's. "Good God! old fellow, I'm sorry for you!" he said. "You are too good for the dogs." "Yes, I know I am," said Carroll, calmly. The two men returned to the house and sat on the porch with the ladies. About half-past ten Anna Carroll said good-night, then Mrs. Carroll. Then Charlotte rose, and Ina also followed her up-stairs. "Ina," cried Charlotte, in a sort of angry embarrassment, when they had reached her chamber, "you've got to go back; indeed you have." "I suppose I ought." Ina was blushing furiously, her lip quivered. She was twisting a ring on her engagement-finger. "You have even kept the stone side in, so nobody could see that beautiful ring he brought you. You are mean--mean!" said Charlotte. "You just imagine that," said Ina, feebly. As she spoke she held up her hand, and a great diamond flashed rose and green and white. "No, I don't imagine it. I have not seen it once like that. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You must go straight back down-stairs. People when they are engaged always sit up alone together. You are not doing right coming up here with me." "What are you scolding me for? Who said I was not going back?" returned Ina, with resentful shame. "You know you were not." "I was." "Well, good-night, honey," said Charlotte, in a softer tone. "Good-night." Charlotte kissed her sister, and saw her leave the room and go down to her lover with a curious mixture of pity and awe and wrath and wistful affection. It almost seemed to her that Ina was happy, although afraid and ashamed to be, and it made her seem like a stranger to the maiden ignorance of her own heart. Chapter XVII There was a good deal of talk in Banbridge when Ina Carroll's wedding-invitations were out. There were not many issued. When it came to making out the list, the number of persons who, from what the family considered as a reasonable point of view, were possible, was exceedingly small. "Of course we cannot ask such and such a one," Mrs. Carroll would say, and the others would acquiesce simply, with no thought of the possibility of anything else. "There's that young man who goes on the train every morning with papa," said Charlotte. "His name is Veazie--Francis Veazie. He has called here. They live on Elm Street. His father is that nice-looking old gentleman who walks past here every day, on his way to the mail, a little lame." "Charlotte, dear," said Ina, "don't you remember that somebody told us that that young man was a floor-walker in one of the department stores?" "Oh, sure enough," said Charlotte, "I do remember, dear." "There are really very few indeed in a place like Banbridge whom it is possible to invite to a wedding," said Mrs. Carroll. Banbridge itself shared her opinion. Those who were bidden to the wedding acquiesced in their selectedness and worthiness; those who were not bidden, with a very few exceptions of unduly aspiring souls, acquiesced calmly in their own ineligibility. Banbridge, for a village in the heart of a republic, had a curious rigidity of establishment and content as to its social conditions. For the most part those who were not invited would have been embarrassed and even suspicious at receiving invitations. But they talked. In that they showed their inalienable republican freedom. They moved along as unquestioningly as European peasants, in their grooves, but their tongues soared. In speech, as is the way with an American, they held nothing sacred, not even the institutions which they propped, not even themselves. They might remain unquestioningly, even preferredly, outside the doors of superiority, but out there they raised a clamor of self-assertion. Their tongues wagged with prodigious activity utterly unleashed. In the days before Ina Carroll's wedding all Banbridge seethed and boiled like a pot with gossip, and gossip full of malice and sneer, and a good deal of righteous indignation. Anderson heard much of it. Neither he nor his mother was asked to the wedding. The Carrolls had not even considered the possibility of such a thing. Mrs. Anderson spoke of it one evening at tea. "I hear they are going to have quite a wedding at those new people's," said she; "a wedding in the church, and reception afterwards at the house. Miss Josie Eggleston and Agnes and Mrs. Monroe were in here this afternoon, and they were speaking about it. They said the young lady was having her trousseau made at Mrs. Griggs's, and everybody thought it rather singular. They are going to the wedding and reception. They inquired if we were going, and I said that we had not been invited, that we had not called. I have been intending to call ever since they came, but now, of course, it is out of the question until after the wedding." Mrs. Anderson spoke with a slight regret. A mild curiosity was a marked trait of hers. "I suppose we could go to the church even if we had no invitation; I suppose many will do that," she said, a little wistfully, after a pause. "Do you think it wise, without an invitation?" asked Anderson, rather amusedly. "Why, I don't know, really, dear, that it could do any harm--that is, lower one's dignity at all. Of course it is not as if we had called. If we had called and then received no invitation, the slight would have been marked. But of course we were not invited simply because we had not called--" "Still, I think I should rather not go, under the circumstances, mother," Anderson said, quietly. "Well, perhaps you are right, dear," said his mother. "It seems to me that you may be a trifle too punctilious; still, it is best to err on the safe side, and, after all, these are new people; we know very little about them, after all." Nothing was further from Mrs. Anderson than the surmise that, even had she called, no invitation would have come from these unknown new people to the village grocer and his mother. Mrs. Anderson, even with her secret and persistent dissent to her son's giving up his profession and adopting trade, never dreamed of any possible loss of social prestige. She considered herself and her son established in their family traditions beyond possibility of shaking by such minor matters. Anderson did not enlighten her. "Mrs. Monroe said that she had heard that the Carrolls were owing a good deal," said she, presently. "She said she heard that Blumenfeldt said he must have cash for the flowers for the decorations. They have ordered a great many palms and things. She said she heard that Captain Carroll told him that the money would be forthcoming, and scared him out of his wits, he was so high and mighty, and the florist just gave right in and said he should have all he wanted. She said Mr. Monroe was in there and heard it. I hope Mrs. Griggs will get her pay. They don't owe you, I hope, dear?" "Don't worry about me, mother?" Randolph replied, smiling. However, she had placed a finger upon a daily perplexity of his. The Carrolls indeed owed him, and every day the debt was increasing. He felt that his old clerk regarded him with wonder at every fresh entry on the books. That very day he had come into the office to inform him, in a hushed voice, that the Carrolls had sent for a pail of lard and a box of butter, besides a bag of flour, and to inquire what he should do about supplying them. "The girl hasn't brought any money," said he, further, in an ominous whisper. Anderson, glancing out, saw the small, sturdy, and smiling face of the Hungarian girl employed by the Carrolls. She was gazing straight through at him in the office with a shrewd expression in her untutored black eyes. "Send the order," Anderson replied, in a low voice. "But," began the clerk. "It's all right," said Anderson. He dipped his pen in the ink and went on with the letter he was writing. The clerk retreated with a long, anxious, wondering look, which the other man felt. The Hungarian girl plodded smiling forth with the promise to have the groceries sent at once. Stepping flat-footedly and heavily through the door, she caught her cotton skirt on a nail, and, lo! a rent. The boy, who was a gallant soul for all femininity in need, hurried to her aid with some pins gathered from the lapel of his gingham coat. Little Marie, with a coquettish shake of her head and a blush and smile began repairing the damage. "It is the cloth that is easy broke," explained she, when she lifted her suffused but still smiling face, "and I a new one will have when I haf my money, my vage." With that Marie was gone, her poor gown scalloping around her heavy, backward heels, her smiling glance of artless coquetry over her shoulder to the last, and the boy and the old clerk looked at each other. The boy whistled. Just then the delivery-wagon drove up in front of the store. The driver, who was a young fellow in the first stages of pulmonary consumption, got down with weakly alacrity from the seat and came in to get the new orders. He coughed as he entered, but he looked radiant. He was driving the delivery-wagon in the hope of recovering his health by out-of-door life, and he was, or flattered himself that he was, perceptibly gaining. "Where's the next delivery?" he inquired, hoarsely. "Wait a minute," said the old clerk, and again invaded the office. "They 'ain't paid their hired girl," he said, in a whisper. "Had we better--" "Better what?" said Anderson, impatiently, though he looked confused. "Better send them things to the Carrolls'?" "Didn't I tell you? What--" "Oh, all right, sir," said the clerk, and retreated hastily. At times he had an awe of his employer. "Goin' to take all that truck to the Carrolls'?" inquired the consumptive deliverer. "Yep," replied the boy, lugging out the flour-bag. "Credit," whispered the man. The boy nodded. The man essayed a whistle, but he coughed. "Well, it's none of my funeral," he declared, when he got his breath, "but I hear he's a dead-beat. I s'pose he knows what he is about." "If he don't, nobody is goin' to tell him, you bet," said the boy, succinctly. "Well, it's none of my funeral," said the man, and he coughed again, and gathered up the reins, and drove away in a cloud of dust down the street. It had not rained for two weeks and the roads gave evidence of it. Anderson, back in his office, heard the sound of the retreating wheels with a feeling of annoyance, even scorn of himself for his gullibility, and his stress upon the financial part of the affair. He was losing a good deal of money, and he did not wish to do so. "I am a fool," he told himself, with that voice of mentality which sounds the loudest, to the consciousness, of any voice on earth. He frowned, then he laughed a little, and began mounting a fine new butterfly specimen. "Other men marry and spend their hard earnings in that way, on love," said he. "Why should I not spend mine after this fashion if I choose?" That noon, as he passed out of the store on his way home to dinner, Ina and Charlotte came out of the dressmaker's opposite. They looked flushed and happily excited. Charlotte carried a large parcel. They rushed past without seeing him at all, as he gained the opposite sidewalk. He walked along, grave and self-possessed. Nobody seeing him would have dreamed of his inward perturbation, that spiritual alienation as secret as the processes of the body. Nobody could have suspected how his fond thought and yearning followed one of those small, hurrying, girlish figures. In a way the man, even with his frustrated aims in the progress of life, was so superior to the little, unconscious feminine thing whose chief assets of life were her youth and innocence, and even those of slight weight against the man's age and innocence, that it seemed a pity. It was not a case of pearls before swine, but seemingly rather of pearls before canary-birds or butterflies, which would not defile them, but flutter over them unheedingly. However, it may be better to cast away one's pearls of love before anything, rather than keep them. Anderson, walking along home to his dinner in the summer noon, loving foolishly and unreasonably this young girl who would never, probably, place the slightest value on his love, was not actively unhappy. After he had turned the corner of the street on which his house stood he heard the whistle of the noon-train, and soon the carriages from the station came whirling in sight. Samson Rawdy came first, driving a victoria in which sat the gentleman who had been pointed out to him as Ina Carroll's _fiance_. He glanced at him approvingly, and the thought even was in his mind that had this stranger been going to marry Charlotte, instead of her sister, he could have had nothing to say against his appearance. Suddenly, Major Arms in the victoria looked full at him and bowed, raising his hat in his soldierly fashion. Anderson was surprised, but returned the salutation promptly. "Who was that gentleman bowing to you?" his mother asked, as he went up the front steps. She was standing on the porch in her muslin morning panoply. "He is the gentleman who is to marry the eldest daughter of Captain Carroll," replied Anderson. "Do you know him?" "No." "He bowed." "I suppose he thought he recognized me." "He looks old enough to be her grandfather, but he looks like a fine man. I hope she will make him a good wife. It is a risk for a man of his age, marrying a little young thing. I wonder why Samson Rawdy was bringing him from the station. Strange the Carroll carriage didn't meet him, wasn't it?" "Perhaps they were not expecting him," replied Randolph, which was true. The carriage occupied by Major Arms and Samson Rawdy overtook Ina and Charlotte before they had walked far, in front of Drake's drug-store. They had stopped in there for soda, in fact, and were just coming out. "Why, there's Major Arms!" cried Charlotte, so loudly that some lounging men in the drug-store heard her. Drake, Amidon, and the postmaster, who had just stopped, stood in the doorway, with no attempt to disguise their interest, and watched Major Arms spring out of the carriage like a boy, kiss his sweetheart, utterly unmindful of their observance, then assist the sisters to the back seat, and spring to the front himself. "Pretty spry for an old boy," remarked the postmaster as the carriage rolled away. "Oh, he's Southern," returned Amidon, easily. "That is why. Catch a Yankee his age with joints as limber. The cold winters here stiffen folk up quick after they get middle-aged." "You don't seem very stiff in the joints," said Drake, jocularly. "Guess you are near as old as that man." "I'm a right smart stiffer than I'd been ef I'd stayed South," replied Amidon. Then the postmaster wondered, as Mrs. Anderson had done, why Major Arms was driving up with Samson Rawdy rather than in the Carroll carriage, and the others opined, as Randolph had done, that they had not expected him. "I don't see, for my part, what they get to feed him on when he comes," said Amidon, wisely. The postmaster and Drake looked at him with expressions like hunting-dogs, although a certain wisdom as to his meaning was evident in both faces. "I suppose it's getting harder and harder for them to get credit," said Drake. "Harder," returned Amidon. "I guess it is. I had it from Strauss this morning, that he wouldn't let them have a pound of beef without cash, and I know that Abbot stopped giving them anything some time ago." "How do they manage, then?" asked the postmaster. "Strauss says sometimes they send a little money and get a little, the rest of the time he guesses they go without; live on garden-sauce--they've got a little garden, you know, or grocery stuff." "Can they get trusted at the grocer's?" "Ingram won't trust 'em, but Anderson lets 'em have all they want, they say." "S'pose he knows what he's about." "Lawyers generally do," said Drake. "He wasn't much of a lawyer, anyhow," said Amidon. "That's so. He didn't set the river afire," remarked the postmaster. "I don't believe, if Anderson trusts him, but he knows what he is about," said the druggist. "I guess he knows he's goin' to get his pay." "Mebbe some of those fine securities of his will come up sometime," Amidon said. "I heard they'd been slumpin' lately. Guess there's some Banbridge folks got hit pretty bad, too." "Who?" asked Drake, eagerly. "I heard Lee was in it, for one, and I guess there's others. I must light out of this. It's dinner-time. Where's that arrow-root? My wife's got to make arrow-root gruel for old Mrs. Joy. She's dreadful poorly. Oh, there it is!" Amidon started, and the postmaster also. In the doorway Amidon paused. "Suppose you knew Carroll was away?" he said. "No," said Drake. "Yes, he's been gone a week; ain't coming home till the day before the wedding. Their girl told ours. We've got a Hungarian, too, you know. Carroll's girl can't get any pay. It's a dam'ed shame." "Why don't she leave?" "Afraid she'll lose it all, if she does. Same way with the coachman." "Where's Carroll gone?" asked the postmaster. "Don't know. The girl said he'd gone to Chicago on business." "Guess he'll want to go farther than Chicago on business if he don't look out, before long. I don't see how he's goin' to have the weddin', anyway. I don't believe anybody 'll trust him here, and, unless I miss my guess, he won't find it very easy anywhere else." "They say the man the girl's goin' to marry is rich. Maybe he'll foot the bills," said Drake. "Mebbe he is," assented Amidon. Then he went out in earnest, and the postmaster with him. "Look at here," said Amidon, mysteriously, as the two men separated on the next corner. "I'll tell you something, if you want to know." "What?" "I believe Drake trusts those Carrolls a little." Chapter XVIII There was in Banbridge, at this date, almost universal distrust of Carroll, but very little of it was expressed, for the reason, common to the greater proportion of humanity: the victims in proclaiming their distrust would have proclaimed at the same time their victimization. It was quite safe to assume that the open detractors of Carroll had not been duped by him; it was also quite safe to assume that many of those who either remained silent or declared their belief in him had suffered more or less. The latter were those who made it possible for the Carrolls to remain in Banbridge at all. There were many who had a lingering hope of securing something in the end, who did not wish Carroll to depart, and who were even uneasy at his absence, although the fact of his family remaining and of the wedding preparations for his daughter going on seemed sufficient to allay suspicions. It is generally true that partisanship, even of the few, counts for more than disparagement of the many, with all right-intentioned people who have a reasonable amount of love for their fellow-men. Somehow partisanship, up to a certain limit, beyond which the partisan appears a fool to all who listen to him, seems to give credit to the believer in it. At all events, while the number of Arthur Carroll's detractors was greatly in advance of his adherents, the moral atmosphere of Banbridge, while lowering, was still very far from cyclonic for him. He got little credit, yet still friendly, admiring, and even obsequious recognition. The invitations to his daughter's wedding had been eagerly accepted. The speculations as to whether the bills would be paid or not added to the interest. In those days the florist and the dressmaker were quite local celebrities. They looked anxious, yet rather pleasantly self-conscious. The dressmaker bragged by day and lay awake by night. Every time the florist felt uneasy, he slipped across to the nearest saloon and got a drink of beer. After that, when asked if he did not feel afraid he would lose money through the Carroll wedding, he said something about the general esteem in which people should be held who patronized local industries, in his thick German-English, grinned, and shambled back, his fat hips shaking like a woman's, to his hot-houses, and pottered around his geraniums and decorative palms. On the Sunday morning before the wedding there were an unusual number of men in the barber-shop--old Eastman, Frank's father, who generally shaved himself, besides Amidon, Drake, the postmaster, Tappan the milkman, and a number of others. Amidon was in the chair, and spoke whenever it did not seem too hazardous. He had just had his hair cut also, as a delicate concession to the barber on the part of a free customer on a busy morning, and his rather large head glistened like a silver ball. "Reckon Carroll must have gone out West promotin' to raise a little wind for the weddin'," he said. "I haven't seed him, and I atropined he had not come back yet," remarked the barber. Lee looked up from his Sunday paper--all the men except young Willy Eddy were provided with Sunday papers; he waited patiently for a spare page finished and thrown aside by another. Besides the odors of soap and perfumed oils and bay-rum and tobacco-smoke, that filled the little place, was the redolence of fresh newspapers, staring with violent head-lines, and as full of rustle as a forest. Lee looked up from his paper, and gave his head a curious, consequential toss. He had been shaved himself, and his little tuft of yellow beard was trimmed to a nicety. He looked sleek and well-dressed, and he had always his indefinable air of straining himself furtively upon tiptoe to reach some unattainable height. Lee's consequentiality had something painful about it at times. "I guess Captain Carroll hadn't any need to go out West promoting. I rather think he can find all the business he wants right here," he said. Tappan the milkman, bearded and grim, looked up from an article on the coal strike. "Guess he _can_ find about fools enough right here to work on, that's right," said he, and there was a laugh. Lee's small blond face colored furiously; his voice was shrill in response. "Perhaps those he doesn't work, as you call it, are bigger fools than those he does," said he. "Say," said the milkman, with a snarling sort of humor. He fastened brutally twinkling eyes on Lee. Everybody waited; the little barber held the razor poised over Amidon's chin. "When do your next dividends come in?" he inquired. Lee gave an angry sniff, and flirted up his paper before his face. "Why don't ye say?" pressed Tappan, with a hard wink at the others. "I don't know that it is any of your business," replied Lee. "Ask when the millennium's comin'," said Amidon, in the chair. "I wish I was as sure of the millennium as I am of those dividends," declared Lee, brought to bay. "Glad you've got faith in that dead-beat. He's owin' me for fifteen dollars' worth of milk-tickets, and I can't get a dam'ed penny of it," said Tappan. He gave the sheet of paper he held a vicious crumple and flung it to the floor, whence little Willy Eddy timidly and softly gathered it up. "Gettin' up at four o'clock in the mornin'," continued the milkman, in a cursing voice, "an' milkin' a lot of dam'ed old kickin' cows, and gittin' on the road half-dead with sleep, to make a present to whelps like him, goin' to the City dressed up like Morgan hisself, ridin' to the station in a carriage he 'ain't paid for, with a man drivin' that can't git a cent out of him. Talk about coal strikes! Lord! I could give them miners points. Strikin' for eight hours a day! Lord! what's that? Here I've got to go home an' hay, if it _is_ Sunday, to git enough for them dam'ed cows to eat in the winter! Eight hours! Hm! I work eighteen an' I 'ain't got anybody over me to strike again', 'cept the Almighty, an' I ruther guess He wouldn't make much account of it. Guess he'd starve me out ef I quit work, and not make much bones of it. I _can_ stop peddlin' milk to sech as Carroll, but the milk sours, an' hanged if I know who suffers most. Here's my wife been makin' dam'ed little pot-cheeses out of the sour milk as 'tis, and sellin' 'em for two cents apiece. They're hangin' all over the bushes tied up in little rags. She's got to work all day to-day makin' butter to save the cream, and then I s'pose I've got to hustle round and find somebody to give the butter to. Carroll ain't the only one. I wish they all had to work as hard as I do one day for the things they git for nothin', the whole bilin' lot of 'em. He's the worst, though. What business did he have settlin' down on us here in Banbridge, I'd like to know? If he'd got to steal to feather his nest, why didn't he go to some other place, confound him?" The milkman's voice and manner were malignant. The barber looked at him with some apprehension, but he spoke, still holding his razor aloft. "Now I rather guess you are jumpin' at exclusions too hasty, Mr. Tappan," said he, in an anxiously pacific voice. "I don't know about them dividends Mr. Lee's talkin' about. Captain Carroll, he gave me a little dip." The barber winked about mysteriously. "He told me he'd tell me when to come in, and he ain't told me yet, but I ain't no disprehension, but he's all right. Captain Carroll is a gentleman, he is." Flynn's voice fairly quivered with affectionate championship. There were tears in his foolish eyes. He bent over Amidon's face, which grinned up at him cautiously through the lather. "Let him pay me them milk-tickets, then, if he's all right," Tappan said, viciously. "He will when he's disembarrassed and his adventures are on a dividend-paying adipoise," said the barber, in a tearful voice. "I think he is all right," said the druggist. Then little Willy Eddy added his pipe. He had been covertly smoothing out Tappan's crumpled newspaper. "He's real nice-spoken," said he. "I guess he will come right in time." Tappan turned on him and snatched back his newspaper. "Here, I ain't done with that," he said; "I've got to take it home to my wife." Then he added, "For God's sake, you little fool, he ain't been swipin' anything from you, has he?" Then the barber arose to the situation. He advanced, razor in hand. He strode up to the milkman and stood dramatically before him, arm raised and head thrown back. "Now, look at here," he proclaimed, in a high falsetto, "I ain't agoin' to hear no asparagusment of my friends, not here in this tonsorial parlor. No, sir!" There was something at once touching, noble, and absurd about the demonstration. The others chuckled, then sobered, and watched. Tappan stared at him a second incredulously. Then he grinned, showing his teeth like a dog. "Lord! then that jailbird is one of your friends, is he?" he said. He had just lit his pipe. He puffed at it, and deliberately blew the smoke into the little barber's face. Flynn bent over towards him with a sudden motion, and his mild, consequential face in the cloud of smoke changed into something terrible, from its very absurdity. His blue eyes glittered greenly; he lifted the razor and cut the air with it close to the other man's face. Tappan heard the hiss of it, and drew back involuntarily, his expression changing. "What the devil are you up to?" he growled, with wary eyes on the other's face. The barber continued to hold the razor like a bayonet in rest, fixed within an inch of the other's nose. "I'm up to kickin' you out of my parlor if you don't stop speakin' individuously disregardin' my friends," said he, with an emphasis which was ridiculous and yet impressive. The other men chuckled again, then grew grave. "Come back here and finish up my job, John," Amidon called out; yet he watched him warily. "Here, put up that razor!" the postmaster called out. "I'll put it up when you stop speakin' mellifluously of my friends," declared the barber. "There ain't nobody in this parlor goin' to speak a word against Captain Carroll if I'm in hearin'; there ain't an honester man in this town." The barber's back was towards the door. Suddenly Tappan's eyes stared past him, his grin widened inexplicably. Flynn became aware of a pregnant silence throughout the shop. He turned, following Tappan's gaze, and Arthur Carroll stood there. He had entered silently and had heard all the last of the discussion. Every face in the shop was turned towards him; he stood looking at them with the curious expression of a man taken completely off guard. All the serene force and courtesy which usually masked his innermost emotions had, as it were, slipped off; for a flash he stood revealed, soul-naked, for any one who could see. None there could fully see, although every man looked, sharpened with curiosity and suspicion. Carroll was white and haggard, unsmiling, despairing, even pathetic; his eyes actually looked suffused. Then in a flash it was over, and Arthur Carroll in his usual guise stood before them--it was like one of those metamorphoses of which one reads in fairy tales. Carroll stood there smiling, stately, gracefully, even confidentially condescending. It was as if he appealed to their sense of humor, that he, Carroll, stood among them addressing them as their equals. "Good-day, gentleman," he said, and came forward. Little Willy Eddy sprang up with a frightened look and gave him his chair, murmuring in response to Carroll's deprecating thanks that he was just going; but he did not go. He remained in the doorway staring. He had a vague idea of some judgment descending upon them all from this great man whom they had been slandering. "Well, how are you, captain?" said Lee, speaking with an air of defiant importance. It became evident that what had gone before was to be ignored by everybody except Tappan, who suddenly rose and went out, muttering something which nobody heard. Then the lash of a whip was heard outside, a "g'lang," with the impetus of an oath, and a milk wagon clattered down the street. Carroll replied to Lee, urbanely: "Fine," he said, "fine. How are you, Mr. Lee?" "Seems to me you are not looking quite up to the mark," Lee remarked, surveying him with friendly solicitude. The little barber had returned to Amidon in the chair, and was carefully scraping his cheek with the razor. "Then my looks belie me," Carroll replied, smiling. He offered a cigar to Lee and to the druggist, who sat next on the other side. "Been out of town?" asked the druggist. "Yes," replied Carroll. Drake looked at him hesitatingly, but Amidon, speaking stiffly and cautiously, put the question directly: "Where you been, cap'n?" "A little journey on business," Carroll answered, easily, lighting his cigar. "When did you get home?" asked Amidon. "This morning." "You certainly look as if you had lost flesh," said Lee, with obsequious solicitude. "Well, it is a hard journey to Chicago--quite a hard journey," remarked the druggist, with cunning. "Not on the fast train," said Carroll. "So you went on the flyer?" said the postmaster. Carroll was having some difficulty in lighting his cigar, and did not reply. "Did you go on the flyer?" persisted the postmaster. "No, I did not," replied Carroll, with unmistakable curtness. The postmaster hemmed to conceal embarrassment. He had been shaved and had only lingered for a bit of gossip, and now the church-bells began to ring, and he was going to church, as were also Lee, the druggist, and most of the others. They rose and lounged out, one after another; little Willy Eddy followed them. Flynn finished shaving Amidon, who also left, and finally he was left alone in the shop with Carroll, who arose and approached the chair. "Sorry to keep you waitin', Captain Carroll," said Flynn, preparing a lather with enthusiasm. "The day is before me," said Carroll, as he seated himself. "I hope," said Flynn, beating away his hand in a bowl of mounting rainbow bubbles--"I hope that--that--your feelings were not hurt at--at--our eavesdropping." "At what?" asked Carroll, kindly and soberly. "At our eavesdropping," reported the barber, with a worshipful and agitated glance at him. "Oh!" answered Carroll, but he did not smile. "No," he said, "my feelings were not hurt." He looked at the small man who was the butt of the town, and his expression was almost caressing. Flynn continued to beat away at the lather, and the rainbow bubbles curled over the edge of the bowl. "You said that you would devise me when the time had come for me to invest that money," he said, diffidently, and yet with a noble air of confidence and loyalty. "It hasn't come yet," Carroll replied. Chapter XIX As Ina Carroll's wedding-day drew nearer, the excitement in Banbridge increased. It was known that the services of a New York caterer had been engaged. Blumenfeldt was decorating the church, Samson Rawdy was furbishing up all his vehicles and had hired supplementary ones from New Sanderson. "No girl has ever went from this town as that Carroll girl will," he told his wife, who assisted him to clean the carriage cushions. "I s'pose the folks will dress a good deal," said she, brushing assiduously. "You bet," said her husband. "Well, they won't get no dirt on their fine duds off _your_ carriage-seats," said she. She was large and perspiring, but full of the content of righteous zeal. She and Samson Rawdy thoroughly enjoyed the occasion, and he was, moreover, quite free from any money anxiety regarding it. At first he had been considerably exercised. He had come home and conferred with his wife, who was the business balance-wheel of the family. "Carroll has been speakin' to me about providin' carriages for his daughter's weddin', an' I dunno about it," said he. "How many does he want?" inquired his wife. He had sunk on his doorstep on coming home at dusk, and sat with speculative eyes on the pale western sky, while his wife sat judicially, quite filling with her heated bulk a large rocking-chair, placed for greater coolness in front of the step, in the middle of the slate walk. "He wants all mine and all I can hire in New Sanderson," replied Rawdy. "Lord!" ejaculated his wife. "All them?" "All them," replied Rawdy, moodily triumphant. "Well," said his wife, "that ain't the point." "No, it ain't," agreed Rawdy. "The point is," said she, "is he agoin' to or ain't he agoin' to pay." "That's so," said Rawdy. "He's a-owin' everybody, ain't he?" said the wife. "Pooty near, I guess." "Well, you ain't goin' to let one of your cerridges go, let alone hirin', unless he pays ahead." "Lord! Dilly, how'm I goin' to ask him?" protested Rawdy. "How? Why, the way anybody would ask him. 'Ain't you got a tongue in your head?" demanded she. "You dunno what a man he is. I asked him the other night when I drove him up, and it wa'n't a job I liked, I can tell you." "Did he pay you?" "Paid me some of it." "He's owin' you now, ain't he?" "Well, he ain't owin' much, only the few times their cerridge 'ain't been down. It ain't much, Dilly." "But it's something." "Yes; everythin' that ain't nothin' is somethin', I s'pose." "And now you're goin' right on an' lettin' him have all your cerridges, and you'll be wantin' me to help clean the seats, too, I'll warrant, and you're agoin' to hire into the bargain, with him owin' you and owin' everybody else in town." "Now, Dilly, I didn't say I was agoin' to," protested Rawdy. "An' me needin' a new dress, and 'ain't had one to my back for two years, and them Carroll women in a different one every time they appear out, and the girl having enough clothes for a Vanderbilt. I guess Stella Griggs will rue the day. She's a fool, and always was. If you can afford to give that man money you can afford to get me a new dress. I'd go to the weddin'--it's free, in the church--if I had anything decent to wear." "Now, Dilly, what can I do? I leave it to you," asked Samson Rawdy, with confessed helplessness. "Do?" said she. "Why, tell him he's got to pay ahead or he can't have the cerridges. If you're afraid to, I'll ask him. I ain't afraid." "Lord! I ain't afraid, Dilly," said Rawdy. "You'd better clean up, after supper, an' go up there and tell him," said Dilly Rawdy, mercilessly. In the end Rawdy obeyed, having shaved and washed, and set forth. When he returned he was jubilant. "He's a gentleman, I don't care what they say," said he, "and he treated me like a gentleman. Gave me a cigar, and asked me to sit down. He was smokin', himself, out on the porch. The women folks were in the house. "Did he pay you?" asked Mrs. Rawdy. Then Rawdy shook a fat roll of bills in her face. "Look at here," said he. "The whole of it?" "Every darned mill; my cerridges and the New Sanderson ones, too." "Well, now, ain't you glad you did the way I told you to?" "Lord! he'd paid me, anyway," declared Rawdy. "He's a gentleman. Women are always dreadful scart." "It's a pity men wasn't a little scarter sometimes," said his wife. Rawdy, grinning, tossed a bill to her. "Wa'n't you sayin' you wanted a dress?" said he. "I ruther guess I do. I 'ain't had one for two years." "I guess I'd better git a silk hat to wear. I suppose I shall have to drive some of the Carrolls' folks," said Rawdy, with a timid look at his wife. A silk hat had always been his ambition, but she had always frowned upon it. "Well, I would," said she, cordially. Samson Rawdy told everybody how Carroll had paid him in advance--"every cent, sir; and he didn't believe, for his part, half the stories that were told about him. He guessed that he paid, in the long run, as well as anybody in Banbridge. Carroll wa'n't the only one that hadn't paid him, not by a long-shot. He guessed some of them that talked about Carroll had better look to home. He called Carroll a gentleman, and any time when anything happened that his carriage wa'n't on hand when the train come in, he was ready an' willin' to drive him up, or any of his folks, an' if they didn't have a quarter handy right on the spot, he wa'n't goin' to lay awake sweatin' over it." Rawdy's testimony prevented Blumenfeldt, the florist, from asking for his pay in advance, as he had intended. He and his son and daughter, who assisted him in his business, decorated the church and the Carroll house, and wagons laden with palms and flowers were constantly on the road. Tuesday, the day before the wedding, was unusually warm. Banbridge had an air of festive weariness. Everybody who passed the church stopped and stared at the open doors and the wilting grass leaves strewn about. Elsa Blumenfeldt, in a blue shirt-waist and black skirt, with the tightest of fair braids packed above a round, pink face, with eyes so blue they looked opaque, tied and wove garlands with the stolid radiance of her kind. Her brother Franz worked as she did. Only the father Blumenfeldt, who was of a more nervous strain, flew about in excitement, his fat form full of vibrations, his fat face blazing, contorting with frantic energy. "It iss ein goot yob," he repeated, constantly--"ein goot yob." Not a doubt was left. When he came in contact with Carroll he bowed to the ground; he was full of eager protestations, of almost hysterical assertions. All day long he was in incessant and fruitless motion, buzzing, as it were, over his task, conserving force only in the heat of his own spirit, not in the performance of the work. Meanwhile the son and daughter, dogged, undiverted, wrought with good results, weaving many a pretty floral fancy with their fat fingers. Eddy Carroll had taken it upon himself to guard the church doors and prevent people from viewing the splendors before the appointed time. All the morning he had waged war with sundry of his small associates, who were restrained from forcible entry only by the fear of the Blumenfeldt family. "Mr. Blumenfeldt says he'll run anybody out who goes in, and kick 'em head over heels all the way down the aisle and down the steps," Eddy declared, mendaciously, to everybody, even his elders. "I think you are telling a lie, little boy," said Mrs. Samson Rawdy, who had come with a timid female friend on a tour of inspection. Mrs. Rawdy, in virtue of her husband's employment, felt a sort of proprietorship in the occasion. "There won't be a mite of trouble about our goin' in to see the church," she told the friend, who was a humble soul. But Mrs. Rawdy reckoned without Eddy Carroll. When she told him that he was telling a lie, he smiled sweetly at her. "You're telling a lie yourself, missis," said he. Mrs. Rawdy essayed to push past him, but as he stood directly in the door, and she was unable, on account of her stout habit of body, to pass him, and hardly ventured to forcibly remove him, she desisted. "You are a sassy little boy," said she, "and if your sister is as sassy as her brother, I pity the man that's goin' to marry her." In reply Eddy made up an impish face at her as she retreated. Then he entered the church himself to inspect progress, returning immediately to take up his position of sentry again. About noon Anderson passed on his way to the post-office, and nodded. "You can't come in," the boy called out. "All right," Anderson responded. But then Eddy made a flying leap from the church door and caught hold of his arm. "Say, you can, if you won't tell anybody about it," he whispered, as if the curious village was within ear-shot. "I am afraid I cannot stop now, thank you," Anderson replied, smiling. "You ain't mad, are you?" Anderson assured him that he was not. "They didn't tell me to keep folks out," Eddy explained, "but I made up my mind I didn't want everybody seeing it till it was done. It's going to be a stunner, I can tell you. There's palms and pots of flowers, and yards and yards of white and green ribbon tied in bows, and the pews are all tied round with evergreen boughs, and to-morrow the smilax is going up. I tell you, it's fine." "It must be," said Anderson. He strove to move on, but could not break free from the boy's little, clinging hand. "Just come up the steps and peek in," pleaded Eddy. So Anderson yielded weakly and let himself be pulled up the steps to the entrance of the church. "Ain't it handsome?" asked Eddy, triumphantly. "Very," replied Anderson. "Say," said Eddy, "was it as handsome when you were married yourself?" "I never was married," replied Anderson, laughing. "You weren't?" said Eddy, staring at him. "Why, I thought you were a widow man." "No," said Anderson. "Well, why were you never married?" asked Eddy, sharply. "Oh, for a good many reasons which I have never formulated sufficiently to give," replied Anderson. "I hate big words," said Eddy, "and I didn't think you would do it. It's mean." "So it is," said Anderson, with a kindly look at him. "Well, all I meant was I couldn't give my reasons without thinking it over." "Perhaps you'll tell me when you get them thought over," said Eddy, accepting the apology generously. "Perhaps." Anderson turned to go, after saying again that the church was very handsomely decorated, and Eddy still kept at his side. "You didn't stay not married because you couldn't get a girl to marry you, anyhow, I know that," said he, "because you are an awful handsome man. You are better-looking than major Arms. I should think Ina would a heap rather have married you." "Thank you," said Anderson. "You are going to the wedding, aren't you?" asked Eddy. "No, I think not." "Why not?" "I am very busy." "Why, you don't keep your store open Wednesday evening?" asked Eddy, regarding him sharply. "I have letters to write," replied Anderson. "Oh, shucks! let the letters go!" cried the boy. "There's going to be stacks of fun, and lots of things to eat. There's chicken salad and lobster, and sandwiches, and ice-cream and cake, and coffee and cake, and--" The boy hesitated; then he spoke again in a whisper of triumph that had its meaning of pathos: "They are all paid for. I know, for I heard papa tell Major Arms. The carriages are paid for, too, and the florist is going to be paid." "That's good," said Anderson. "Yes, sir, so the things are sure to be there. They won't back out at the last minute, as they do sometimes. Awful mean, too. Say, you'd better come. Your mother can come, too. She likes ice-cream, don't she?" Anderson said that he believed she did. "Well, she'll be sure to get all she can eat," said Eddy. "Tell her to come. I like your mother." He clung closely to the man's arm and walked along the street with him, forgetting his post as guardian of the church. "You'll come, won't you?" he said. "No. I shall be too busy, my son," said Anderson, smiling; and finally Eddy retreated dissatisfied. When he went home an hour later he burst into the house with a question. "Say," he asked Charlotte, "I want to know if Mr. Anderson and his mother were asked to the wedding." Charlotte was hurrying through the hall with white and green ribbons flying around her, en route to trim the bay-window where the bridal couple were to stand to receive the guests. "Oh, Eddy, dear," she cried, "I can't stop now; indeed I can't. I don't know who was invited and who not." "But, Charlotte," Eddy persisted, "I want to know particularly. Please tell me, honey." Then Charlotte stopped and looked back over her great snarl of white and green ribbon. "Who did you say, dear?" she asked. "Hurry! I can't stop." "Mr. Anderson," repeated Eddy. "Mr. Anderson and his mother." "Mr. Anderson and his mother?" repeated Charlotte, vaguely, and just then Anna Carroll came with a little table which was to support a bowl of roses in the bay-window. "Mr. Anderson," said Eddy again. "I don't know who you mean, Eddy, dear," said Charlotte. "Why, yes, you do, Charlotte, Mr. Anderson and his mother." "What is it?" asked Anna Carroll. "Eddy, you must not stop us for anything. We are too busy." "You might just tell me if they are asked to the wedding," said Eddy, in an aggrieved tone. "That won't take a minute. Mr. Anderson. He keeps store." "Gracious!" cried Anna Carroll. "The child means the grocer! No, dear, he isn't asked." "Why, I never thought!" said Charlotte. "No, dear, he isn't asked." "Why not?" asked Eddy. "We couldn't ask everybody, honey," replied Anna. "Now you must not hinder us another minute." But Eddy danced persistently before them, barring their progress. "He isn't everybody," he said. "He's the nicest man in this town. Why didn't you ask him? Didn't you think he was nice enough, I'd like to know?" "Of course he is nice, dear," said Charlotte; "very nice." She flushed a little. "Why didn't you ask him, then?" demanded Eddy. "I call it mean." Anna took Eddy by his small shoulders and set him aside. "Eddy," she said, sternly, "not another word. We could not ask the grocer to your sister's wedding. Now, don't say another word about it. Your sister and I are too busy to bother with you." "I don't see why you won't ask him because he's a grocer," Eddy called, indignantly, after her. "He's the nicest man here, and he always lets us have things, whether we pay him or not. I have heard you say so. I think you are awful mean to take his groceries, and eat 'em, and use them for Ina's wedding, and then not ask him, just because he is a grocer." Anna's laughter floated back, and the boy wondered angrily what she was laughing at. Then he went by himself about righting wrongs. He hunted about until he found on his mother's desk some left-over wedding-cards, and he sent invitations to both the wedding and reception to Randolph Anderson and his mother, which were received that night. Randolph carried them home, and his mother examined them with considerable satisfaction. "We might go to the ceremony," said she, with doubtful eyes on her son's face. "I really think we had better not, mother." "You think we had better not, simply to the ceremony? Of course I admit that we could not go to the reception at the house, since we have not called, but the ceremony?" "I think we had better not; this very late invitation--" "Oh, Randolph, that is easily accounted for. It is so easy to overlook an invitation." But Randolph persisted in his dissent to the proposition to attend. He was quite sure how the invitation had happened to come at all, and later on in the day he was confirmed in his opinion when Eddy Carroll made a rush into his office and inquired, breathlessly, if he had received his invitation and if he was coming. "Because I found out you hadn't been asked, and I told them it was mean, and I sent you one myself," said he, with generous indignation. Anderson finally compromised by going with him to the church and viewing the completed decorations. He also presented him with a package of candy from his glass jars when he followed him back to the store. "Say, you are a brick," Eddy assured him. "When I am a man I am going to keep a grocery store. I'd a great deal rather do that than have a business like papa's. If you have the things yourself in your own store, you don't have to owe anybody for them. Good-bye. If you should get those letters done, you come, and your mother, and I'll look out you have everything you want; and I'll save seats in the pew where I sit, too." "Thank you," said Anderson, and was conscious of an exceedingly warm feeling for the child flying out of the store with his package of sweets under his arm. Chapter XX Carroll had arrived home very unexpectedly that Sunday morning. The family were at the breakfast-table. As a usual thing, Sunday-morning breakfast at the Carrolls' was a desultory and uncertain ceremony, but when Major Arms was there it was promptly on the table at eight o'clock. He had not yet, in the relaxation of civilian life, gotten over the regular habits acquired in the army. "It isn't hard you'll find the old man on you, sweetheart," he told Ina, "but there's one thing he's got to have, and that is his breakfast, and a good old Southern one, with plenty to eat, at eight o'clock, or you'll find him as cross as a bear all day to pay for it." Ina laughed and blushed, and sprinkled the sugar on her cereal. "Ina will not mind," said Mrs. Carroll. "She and Charlotte have never been sleepy-heads." Eddy glanced resentfully at his mother. He was a little jealous in these days. He had never felt himself so distinctly in the background as during these preparations for his sister's wedding. "I am not a sleepy-head, either, Amy," said he. "It is a pity you are not," said she, and everybody laughed. "Eddy is always awake before anybody in the house," said Ina, "and prowling around and sniffing for breakfast." "And you bet there is precious little breakfast to sniff lately, unless we have company," said Eddy, still in his resentful little pipe; and for a second there was silence. Then Mrs. Carroll laughed, not a laugh of embarrassment, but a delightful, spontaneous peal, and the others, even Major Arms, who had looked solemnly nonplussed, joined her. Eddy ate his cereal with a sly eye of delight upon the mirthful faces. "Yes," said he, further. "I wish you'd stay here all the time, Major Arms, and stay engaged to Ina instead of marrying her; then all the rest of us would have enough to eat. We always have plenty when you are here." He looked around for further applause, but he did not get it. Charlotte gave him a sharp poke in the side to institute silence. "What are you poking me for, Charlotte?" he asked, aggrievedly. She paid no attention to him. "Don't you think it is strange we don't hear from papa?" said Charlotte. Major Arms stared at her. "Do you mean to say you have not heard from him since he went away?" he asked. "Not a word," replied Mrs. Carroll, cheerfully. "I am a little uneasy about papa," said Ina, but she went on eating her breakfast quite composedly. "I should be if I had ever known him to fail to take care of himself," said Mrs. Carroll. "It's the other folks that had better look out," remarked Eddy, with perfect innocence, though would-be wit. He looked about for applause. Arms's eyes twinkled, but he bent over his plate solemnly. "Eddy, you are talking altogether too much," Anna Carroll said. "You are unusually silly this morning, Eddy," said Charlotte. "There is no point in such a remark as that." "You said Arthur had gone to Chicago?" Arms said to Mrs. Carroll. "Well, the funny part of it is, we don't exactly know whether he has or not," replied Mrs. Carroll, "but we judge so. Arthur had been talking about going to Chicago. He had spoken about the possibility of his having to go for some time, and all of a sudden that morning came a telegram from New York saying that he was called away on business." "Amy, of course he went to Chicago," Anna Carroll said, quickly. "You know there is no doubt of it. He said he might have to go there on business, and he had carried a dress-suit case in to the office, to have it ready, and he had given you the Chicago hotel address." "Yes, so he did, Anna," assented Mrs. Carroll. "I suppose he must have gone to Chicago." "You have written him there, I suppose?" said Arms, who was evidently perturbed. "Oh yes," replied Mrs. Carroll, easily, "I have written three times." "Did you put a return address on the corner of the envelope in case he was not there?" "Oh no! I never do. I thought only business men did that." "Amy doesn't even date her letters," said Ina. "I never can remember the date," said Mrs. Carroll, "and I never can remember whether it is Banbridge or Banridge, so I never write the name of the place, either." "And she always signs her name just Amy," said Charlotte. "Yes, I do, of course," said Mrs. Carroll, smiling. Arms turned to Anna Carroll. "You have not felt concerned?" said he to her. "Not in the least," she replied, calmly. "I have no doubt that he has gone to Chicago, and possibly his business has taken him farther still. I think nothing whatever of not hearing from him. Arthur, with all of his considerateness in other respects, has always been singularly remiss as to letters." "Yes, he has, even before we were married," agreed Mrs. Carroll. "Not hearing from Arthur was never anything to worry about." "And I think with Amy that Arthur Carroll is perfectly well able to take care of himself," said Anna, further, with her slight inflection of sarcasm. "I understood that he was going to Chicago, from something he said to me some time ago," Arms said, thoughtfully. "Of course he has gone there," Anna Carroll said again, with a sharp impatience. And then there was a whirring flash of steel past the window, and the fiercely hitching curve of a boy's back. "It's Jim Leech on his wheel, and he's got a telegram," proclaimed Eddy, and made a dash for the door. There was a little ripple of excitement. Charlotte jumped up and followed Eddy, but he re-entered the room dancing aloof with the telegram. In spite of her efforts to reach it, he succeeded in tearing it open. Charlotte was almost crying and quite pale. "Eddy," she pleaded, "please give it to me--please." "Eddy, bring that telegram here," commanded his aunt, half rising from her seat. "It is only from Arthur, saying he is coming, of course," said Mrs. Carroll, calmly sipping her coffee. "Arthur always telegraphs when he has been away anywhere and is coming home." "Eddy!" said Charlotte. But Eddy essayed reading the telegram with an effect of being in the air, such was his defensive agility. "He's coming, I guess," he said. "I don't think anything very bad has happened. I don't think it's an accident or anything, but the writing is awful. I should think that telegraph man would be ashamed to write like that." "Eddy, bring that telegram to me," said Anna; "bring it at once." And the boy finally obeyed. Anna read the telegram and her nervous forehead relaxed. "It is all right," said she; then she read the message aloud. It was dated New York, the night before: "Am in New York. Shall take the first train home in the morning." "He sent it last night at eight o'clock, and we have only just got it," said Ina. "He is all right," repeated Anna. "Of course he is all right," said Mrs. Carroll. "Why doesn't Marie bring in the eggs? We have all finished the cereal?" "Eggs! Golly!" cried Eddy, slipping into his chair. "Why, it must be time for him now!" Charlotte said, suddenly. Arms looked at his watch. "Yes, it is," he agreed. It was not long before Samson Rawdy drove into the grounds, and everybody sprang up at the sound of the wheels. "There's papa!" cried Eddy, and led the way to the door, slipping out before the others. Carroll was engaged in a discussion with the driver. He nodded his head in a smiling aside in response to the chorus of welcome from the porch, and went on conferring with the liveryman, who was speaking in a low, inaudible voice, but gesticulating earnestly. Presently Carroll drew out his pocket-book and gave him some money. "My!" said Eddy, in a tone of awe, "papa's paying him some money." Still the man, Samson Rawdy, did not seem quite satisfied. Something was quite audible here about the rest of the bill, but finally he smiled in response to Carroll's low, even reply, raised his hat, sprang into his carriage, and turned round in a neat circle while Carroll came up the steps. "Arthur, dear, where have you been?" asked his wife, folding soft, silken arms around his neck and putting up her smiling face for his kiss. "We have not heard a word from you since you went away." "You got my telegram?" replied Carroll, interrogatively, kissing her, and passing on to his daughters. Eddy, meantime, was clinging to one of his father's hands and making little leaps upon him like a pet dog. "Yes," cried everybody together, "the telegram just came--just a minute ago." Anna had kissed her brother, then stepped quietly into the house. The others moved slowly after her. "How are you, old man?" Carroll asked Major Arms. "First rate," replied Arms, grasping the proffered hand, yet in a somewhat constrained fashion. "Why didn't you write, Arthur dear?" Mrs. Carroll asked, yet not in the least complainingly or reproachfully. On the contrary, she was smiling at him with the sweetest unreserve of welcome as she entered the dining-room by his side. "Breakfast is getting cold, papa," said Charlotte. "Come right in." "We have got a bully breakfast. No end to eat," said Eddy, as he danced at his father's heels. Carroll need not have answered his wife's question then, for her attention was diverted from it, but he did. "I was very busy, dear," he said, rather gravely. "You were no less in mind. In fact, I never had you all any more in mind." "You must have had a hard night's journey, papa," Charlotte said, as they all sat down at the table, and Marie brought in the eggs. "Yes, I had a very hard night," Carroll replied, still with a curious gravity. Charlotte regarded him anxiously. "Why, papa," she said, "aren't you well?" "Very well indeed, honey," Carroll replied, and he smiled then. The others looked at him. "Why, papa, you _do_ look sick!" cried Ina. "Arthur, dear, you look as if you had been ill a month, and I never noticed it till now, I was so glad to see you," cried Mrs. Carroll. Suddenly she jumped from her seat and passed behind her husband's chair and drew his head to her shoulder. "Arthur, dearest, are you ill?" "No, I am not, sweetheart." "But, Arthur, you have lost twenty pounds!" "Nonsense, dear!" "Haven't you had anything to eat, papa?" Eddy asked, with sharp sidewise eyes on his father. Then Anna Carroll spoke. "Can't you see that Arthur wants his breakfast?" said she, and in her tone was a certain impatience and pity for her brother. Major Arms, however, was not a man to take a hint. He also was scrutinizing Carroll. "Arthur," he suddenly exclaimed, "what on earth is the matter, lad? You do look pretty well knocked up." Carroll loosened his wife's arm and gave her an exceedingly gentle push. He laughed constrainedly at the same time. "Anna is about right," he said. "I am starved. Wait until I have eaten my breakfast before you pass judgment on my appearance." "Haven't you eaten anything since you left Chicago, papa?" asked Ina. "Never mind, dear," he replied, in an odd, curt tone, and she looked a little grieved. "Did you come on the flyer, papa?" asked Eddy. "What are you nudging me for, Charlotte?" "Papa doesn't want any more questions asked. He wants his breakfast," said Charlotte. "No, I did not come on the flyer," Carroll answered, in the same curt tone. Then for a moment there was silence, and Carroll ate his breakfast. It was Major Arms who broke the silence. "You got in last night," he said, with scarcely an inflection of interrogation. But Carroll replied, "I was in the hotel at midnight." "We have been frightfully busy since you left, Arthur dear," said Mrs. Carroll. "It is a tremendous undertaking to make a wedding." "How do the preparations go on?" asked Carroll, while Ina bent over her plate with a half-annoyed, half-pleased expression. "Very well," replied Mrs. Carroll. "Ina's things are lovely, and the dressmaker is so pleased that we gave her the trousseau. It will be a lovely wedding." "Where have you been all the week?" Carroll asked of Arms, who was gazing with an utter openness of honest delight at Ina. "Here some of the time, and in New York. I had to run up to Albany on business for two days. I got home Wednesday night too late to come out here, and I went into Proctor's roof-garden to see the vaudeville show." "Did you?" remarked Carroll, in an even voice. He sugared his cereal more plentifully. "Yes. I had the time on my hands. It was a warm night and I did not feel like turning in, and I was trailing about and the lights attracted me. And, by Jove! I was glad I went in, for I saw something that carried me back--well, I won't say how many years, for I'm trying to be as much of a boy as I can for this little girl here--but, by Jove! it did carry me back, though." "What was it?" asked Charlotte. "Well, dear, it was nothing except a dance by a nigger. Maybe you wouldn't have thought so much of it. I don't know, though; it did bring down the house. He was called back I don't know how many times. It was like a dance an old fellow on my father's plantation used to dance before the war. Arthur, you must have seen old Uncle Noah dance that. Why, now I think of it, you used to dance it yourself when you were a boy, and sing for the music just the way he did. Don't you remember?" Carroll nodded laughingly, and went on eating. "Used to--I guess you did! I remember your dancing that at Bud Hamilton's when Bud came of age. Old Noah must have been gone then. It was after the war." "Oh, papa," cried Eddy, in a rapture, "do dance it sometime, won't you?" "I'll tell you what we will all do," cried Major Arms, with enthusiasm, "we'll all go to the City to-morrow night, and we'll see that dance. I tell you it's worth it. It's a queer thing, utterly unlike anything I have ever seen. It is a sort of cross between a cake-walk and an Indian war-dance. Jove! how it carried me back!" Arms began to hum. "That's it, pretty near, isn't it, Arthur?" he asked. "Quite near, I should say," replied Carroll. "Oh, papa, won't you sing and dance it after breakfast?" cried Eddy. "Now, hush up, my son," said Arms. "Your father has the dignity of his position to support. A gentleman doesn't dance nigger dances when he is grown up and the head of a family. It's all very well when he is a boy. But we'll all go to New York to-morrow night and we'll see that dance." "There is a great deal to do," Anna Carroll remarked. "Nonsense!" said the major. "There's time enough. Where are the Sunday papers? I'll see if it is on to-morrow. Have they come yet?" "I am going down to get shaved, and I will bring them up," Carroll said. "Don't they bring them to the door in Banbridge?" asked Arms, wonderingly. "They used when we first came here," said Eddy. "I guess--" Then he stopped in obedience to a look from his aunt. "I will bring them when I come home," repeated Carroll. "Well, we'll all go in to-morrow night, and we'll see that dance," said the major. But when Carroll, on his return from the barber's shop, brought the papers, Major Arms discovered, much to his disappointment, that that particular attraction had been removed from the roof-garden. There was a long and flattering encomium of the song and dance which upheld him in his enthusiasm. "Yes, it was a big thing; you can understand by what it says here," said he, "I was right. I'm mighty sorry it's off." Chapter XXI Anderson on Wednesday evening sat on the porch and saw the people stream by to the wedding. Mrs. Anderson, although it was a very pleasant and warm evening, did not come outside, but sat by the parlor window, well-screened by the folds of the old damask curtain. The wedding was at eight, and by quarter-past seven the people began to pass; by half-past seven the street was quite full of them. It seemed as if all Banbridge was gathering. A church wedding was quite an unusual festivity in the town, and, besides, there had always been so much curiosity with regard to the Carrolls that interest was doubled in this case. His mother called to him softly from the parlor. "There are a great many going, aren't they?" said she. "Yes, mother," replied Anderson. He distinctly heard a soft sigh from the window, and his heart smote him a little. He realized dimly that a matter like this might seem important to a woman. Presently he heard a soft flop of draperies, and his mother stood large and white and mild behind him. "They are nearly all gone who are going, I think?" said she, interrogatively. Anderson looked at his watch, holding it towards the light of the moon, which was just coming above the horizon. The daylight had paled with suddenness like a lamp burning low from lack of oil. "Yes; they must be all gone now," said he. "It is eight o'clock." He rose and placed a chair for his mother, and she settled into it. "I thought I would not come out here while the people were passing," said she. "I have my _matinee_ on, and I am never quite sure that it is dress enough for the porch." Anderson looked at the lacy, beribboned thing which his mother wore over her black silk skirt, and said it was very pretty. "Yes, it is," said she, "but I am never sure that it is just the thing to be out of my own room in. I suppose the dresses to-night will be very pretty. Miss Carroll ought to make a lovely bride. She is a very pretty girl, and so is her sister. I dare say their dresses will be prettier than anything of the kind ever seen in Banbridge." There was an indescribable wistfulness in Mrs. Anderson's voice. Large and rather majestic woman that she was, she spoke like a disappointed child, and her son looked at her with wonder. "I don't understand how a woman can care so much about seeing pretty dresses," he said, not unkindly, but with a slight inflection of amused scorn. "No," said his mother, "I don't suppose you can, dear. I don't suppose any man can." And it was as if she regarded him from feminine heights. At that moment the longing, never quite stilled in her breast, for a daughter, a child of her own kind, who would have understood her, who would have gone with her to this wedding, and been to the full as disappointed as she was to have missed it, was strong upon her. She was very fond of her son, but at the moment she saw him with alien eyes. "No, dear, I don't suppose you can understand," she repeated; "you are a man." "If you had really cared so much, mother--if I had understood," he said, gently, "you might have gone. You could have gone with the Egglestons." "There was no reason why we could not have gone by ourselves," said she, "and sat with the invited guests, where we could have seen everything nicely, since we had an invitation." Anderson opened his mouth to tell his mother of the true source of the invitation; then he hesitated. He had a theory that it was foolish, in view of the large alloy of bitterness in the world, to destroy the slightest element of sweet by a word. It was quite evident that his mother, for some occult reason, took pleasure in the invitation. Why destroy it? So he repeated that she might have gone, had she cared so much; and feeling that he was showing a needless humility in his own scruples, he added that he would have gone with her. Then his mother declared that she did not, after all, really care, that it was a warm night and she would have been obliged to dress, and after fanning herself a little while, went in the house and to bed, leaving him marvelling at the ways of women. The problem as to whether his mother had really wished very much to go to the wedding and whether he had been selfish and foolish in opposing her wish or not, rather agitated him for some minutes. Then he gave it up, and relegated women to a place with the fourth dimension on the shelf of his understanding. The moon was now fairly aloft, sailing triumphant in a fleet of pale gold and rosy clouds. The night was very hot, the night insects were shrieking in their persistent dissonances all over the street. Shadows waved and trembled over the field of silver radiance cast by the moon. No one passed. He could not see a window-light in any of the houses. Everybody had gone to the wedding, and the place was like a deserted village. Anderson felt unutterably lonely. He felt outside of all the happy doors and windows of life. Discontent was not his failing, but all at once the evil spirit swept over him. He seemed to realize that instead of moving in the broad highway trod by humanity he was on his own little side-path to the tomb, and injury and anger seized him. He thought of the man who was being married so short a distance away, and envy in a general sense, with no reference even to Charlotte, swept over him. He had never been disturbed in very great measure with longing for the happiness that the other man was laying hold of, but even that fact served to augment his sense of injury and resentment. He felt that it was due to circumstances, in a very large degree to the inevitable decrees of his fate, that he had not had the longing, and not to any inherent lack of his own nature. He felt that he had had a double loss in both the hunger and the satisfaction of it, and now, after all, had come at last this absurd and hopeless affection which had lately possessed him. To-night the affection, instead of seeming to warm the heart of a nobly patient and reasonable man, seemed to sting it. Suddenly out of the hot murk of the night came a little puff of cool wind, and borne on it a faint strain of music. Anderson listened. The music came again. "It cannot be possible that the wedding is just about to begin," he thought, "not at this hour." But that was quite possible with the Carrolls, who, with the exception of the head of the family, had never been on time in their lives. It was nearly nine o'clock, and the guests had been sitting in a subdued impatience amid the wilting flowers and greens in the church, and the minister had been trying to keep in a benedictory frame of mind in a stuffy little retiring-room, and now the wedding-party were just entering the church. A sudden impulse seized Anderson. He stole inside the house, and looked and listened in the hall. Everything was dark up-stairs, and silent. Mrs. Anderson always fell asleep like a baby immediately upon going to bed. Anderson got his hat from the hall-tree, and went out, closing the door with its spring-lock very cautiously. Then he slipped around the house and listened. He could hear a soft, cooing murmur of voices from the back stoop. The servant, as usual, was keeping tryst there with her lover. He walked a little farther and came upon their consolidated shadow of love under the wild-cucumber vine which wreathed over the trellis-hood of the door. The girl gave a little shriek and a giggle, the man, partly pushed, partly of his own volition, started away from her and stood up with an incoherent growl of greeting. "Good-evening," said Anderson. "Jane, I am going out, and my mother has gone up-stairs. If you will be kind enough to have a little attention in case she should ring." Anderson had fixed an electric bell in his mother's room, which communicated with the kitchen. "Yes, sir," said the girl, with a sound between a gasp and a giggle. "I have locked the front-door," said Anderson. "Yes, sir," said the girl, again. Anderson went around the house, and the sound of an embarrassed and happy laugh floated after him. He felt again the sense of injury and resentment, as if he were shut even out of places where he would not care to be, even out of the humblest joys of life, out of the kitchens as well as the palaces. Anderson strolled down the deserted street and turned the corner on to Main Street. Then he strolled on until he reached the church. It was brilliantly lighted. Peering people stood in the entrance and the sidewalk before it was crowded. There was a line of carriages in waiting. But everything was still except for the unintermittent voices of the night, which continued like the tick of a clock measuring off eternity, undisturbed by anything around it. From the church itself a silence which could be sensed seemed to roll, eclipsing the diapason of an organ. Not a word of the minister's voice was audible at that distance. Instead was that tremendous silence and hush. Anderson wondered what that pretty, ignorant little girl in there was, to dare to tamper with this ancient force of the earth? Would it not crush her? If the man loved her would he not, after all, have simply tried to see to it that the fair little butterfly of a thing had always her flowers to hang over: the little sweets of existence, the hats and frocks and ribbons which she loved, and then have gone away and left her? A great pity for the bride came over him, and then a flood of yearning tenderness for the other girl, greater than he had ever known. In his awe and wonder at what was going on all his own rebellion and unhappiness were gone. He felt only that yearning for, and terror for, that little, tender soul that he loved, exposed to all the terrible and ancient solemn might of existence, which the centuries had rolled up until her time came. He longed to shield her not only from sorrow, but from joy. He took off his hat and stood back in the shadow of a door on the opposite sidewalk. It seemed to him that the ceremony would never end. It was, in fact, unusually long, for the Banbridge minister had much to say for the edification of the bridal pair, and for his own aggrandizement. But at last the triumphant peal of the organ burst forth, and the church swarmed like a hive. People began to stir. All the heads turned. The rustle of silk was quite audible from outside, also a gathering sibilance of whispers and rustling stir of curious humanity, exactly like the swarming impetus of a hive. Fans fluttered like butterflies over all this agitation of heaving shoulders and turning heads in the church. Outside, the people standing about the steps and on the sidewalk separated hurriedly and formed an aisle of gaping curiosity. A carriage streaming with white ribbons rolled up, the others fell into line. Anderson could see Samson Rawdy on the white-ribboned wedding-coach, sitting in majesty. He was paid well in advance; his wife, complacent and beaming in her new silk waist, was in the church. The contemplation of the new marriage had brought a wave of analogous happiness and fresh love for her over his soul. He was as happy with his own measure of happiness as any one there. Every happiness as well as every sorrow is a source of centrifugal attraction. Anderson, watching, saw presently, the bridal party emerge from the church. To his fancy, which naturally looked for similes to his beloved pursuits of life, he saw the bride like a white moth of the night, her misty veil, pendant from her head to her feet, carrying out the pale, slanting evanescence of the moth's wings. She moved with a slight wavering motion suggestive of the flight of the vague winged thing which flits from darkness to darkness when it does not perish in the candle beams. This moth, to Anderson, was doing the latter, fluttering possibly to her death, in the light of that awful primaeval force of love upon which the continuance of creation hangs. Again, a great pity for her overwhelmed him, and a very fierceness of protection seized him at the sight of Charlotte following her sister in her bridesmaid's attire of filmy white over rose, with pink roses in her hair. Anderson stood where he could see the faces of the bridal party quite plainly in the glare of the electric light. Charlotte, he saw, with emotion, had an awed, intensely sober expression on her charming face, but the bride's, set in the white mist of her thrown-back veil, was smiling lightly. He saw Arms bend over and whisper to her, and she laughed outright with girlish gayety. Anderson wondered what he said. Arms had smiled, yet his face was evidently moved. What he had said was simple enough: "Fighting Indians is nothing to getting married, honey." Ina laughed, but her husband's lips quivered a little. She herself realized a curious self-possession greater than she had ever realized in her whole life. It is possible that the world is so old and so many women have married in it that a heredity of self-control supports them in the midst of an occasion which has quickened their pulses in anticipation during their whole lives. But the bridegroom was not so supported. He was manifestly agitated and nervous, especially during the reception which followed the ceremony. He stood with forced amiability responding to the stilted congratulations and gazing with wondering admiration at his bride, whose manner was the perfection of grace. "Lord, old man!" he whispered once to Carroll, "this part of it is a farce for an old fellow like me, standing in a blooming bower, being patted on the head like a little poodle-dog." Carroll laughed. "She likes it, now," whispered Arms, with a fond, proud glance at Ina. "Women all do," responded Carroll. "Well, I'd stand here a week if she wanted to, bless her," Arms whispered back, and turned with a successful grimace to acknowledge Mrs. Van Dorn's carefully worded congratulations. As she turned away she met Carroll's eyes, and a burning blush overspread her face to her pompadour crest surmounting her large, middle-aged face. She suddenly recalled, with painful acuteness, the only other occasion on which she had been in the house; but Carroll's manner was perfect, there was in his eyes no recollection whatever. Mrs. Carroll was lovely in pale-mauve crape embroidered with violets, a relic of past splendors, remodelled for the occasion in spite of doubts on her part, and her beautiful old amethysts. Anna had urged it. "I shall wear my cream lace, which no one here has ever seen, and I think, Amy, you had better wear that embroidered mauve crape," she said. "But, Anna," said Mrs. Carroll, "doesn't it seem as if Ina's mother ought not to wear an old gown at the dear child's wedding? I would as lief, as far as I am concerned, but is it doing the right thing?" "Why not?" asked Anna, rather tartly. Lately her temper was growing a little uncertain. Sometimes she felt as if she had been beset all her life by swarms of gnats. "No one here has ever seen the dress," said she. "And what in the world could you have prettier, if you were to get a new one?" "Oh, this Banbridge dressmaker is really making charming things," said Mrs. Carroll, rather eagerly. She had a childish fondness for new clothes. "She would make me a beautiful dress, so far as that goes, Anna, dear." "She has all she can do with Ina's things." "I reckon she could squeeze in one for me, Anna. Don't you think so?" "Then there is the extra expense," said Anna. "But she does not hesitate in the least to trust us," said Mrs. Carroll. "But maybe you are right, Anna. That embroidered mauve is lovely, and perfectly fresh, and it is very warm to fuss over another, and then my amethysts look charming with that." Therefore, Mrs. Carroll wore the mauve and the amethysts, and was by many considered handsomer than either of her daughters. There had been some discussion about giving the amethysts to Ina for a wedding-gift, but finally a set of wonderful carved corals, which she had always loved and never been allowed to wear, were decided upon. Anna had given a pearl brooch, which had come down from her paternal grandmother, and Carroll had presented her with a large and evidently valuable pearl ring which had excited some wonder in the family. "Why, Arthur, where did you get it?" his wife had cried, involuntarily; and he had laughed and refused to tell her. Ina herself, while she received the ring with the greatest delight, was secretly a little troubled. "I am afraid poor papa ought not to have given me such a present as this," she said to Charlotte, when the two girls were in their room that night. As she spoke she was holding the pearl to the lamp-light and watching the beautiful pink lights. It was a tinted pearl. "It is a little different, because you are going away, and papa will never buy you things again," said Charlotte. "I should not worry, dear." For the few days before her marriage, Charlotte had gotten a habit of treating her sister with the most painstaking consideration for her nerves and her feelings, as if she were an invalid. She was herself greatly troubled at the thought that her father had overtasked his resources to purchase such a valuable thing, but she would not for worlds have intimated such a thing to Ina. "Well, I do worry," said Ina. "I cannot help it. It was too much for poor papa to do." She even shed a few tears over the pearl, and Charlotte kissed and coddled her a good deal for comfort. "It is such a beauty, dear," she said. "Look at it and take comfort in it, darling." "Yes, it is a beauty," sobbed Ina. "I never saw such a pearl except that one of poor papa's, the one he has in his scarf-pin that belonged to that friend of his who died, you know." "Yes, dear," said Charlotte, "I know. It is another just such a beauty. Don't cry any more, honey. Think how happy you are to have it." But Charlotte herself, after she had gone to bed in her own little room, had sobbed very softly lest her sister should hear her, until Ina was asleep. Her sister's remarks had brought a suspicion to her own mind. "Poor papa!" she kept whispering softly, to herself. "Poor papa!" It seemed to her that her heart was breaking with understanding of and pity for her father. Charlotte's own gift to Ina had been some pieces of embroidery. She was the only one in the family who excelled in any kind of handicraft. "Ina will like this better than anything," she had told her aunt Anna, "and then it will not tax poor papa, either. It will cost nothing." Her aunt had looked at her a minute, then suddenly thrown her arms around her and kissed her. "Charlotte, you little honey, you are the best of the lot!" she had said. Charlotte herself, the night of the wedding, was looking rather pale and serious. Many observed that she was the least good-looking of the family. Several Banbridge young men essayed to make themselves agreeable to her, but she did not know it. She was very busy. Besides their one maid there were the waiters sent by the caterer, and Eddy was exceedingly troublesome. He was a nervous boy, and unless directly under his father's eye, almost beyond restraint when impressed, as he was then, with an exaggerated sense of his own importance. His activities took especially the form of indiscriminate and superfluous helping the guests to refreshments, until the waiters waxed fairly murderous, and one of them even appealed to Anna Carroll, intimating in Eddy's hearing that unless the young gentleman left matters to them the supply of salad would run short. "Why didn't we have more, then?" inquired Eddy, quite audibly, to the delight of all within ear-shot. "I thought we were going to have plenty for everybody this time." "Eddy dear," whispered Charlotte, taking his little arm, "come with me into the hall and help me put back some roses that have fallen out of the big vase. I am afraid I shall get some water on my gown if I touch them, and I noticed just now that some one had brushed against them and jostled some out." "Charlotte, why didn't we have salad enough?" persisted Eddy, as he followed his sister, pulling back a little at her leading hand. "Hush, dear; we have enough, only you had better leave it to the waiters, you know." "Everybody has taken it that I have passed it to," said Eddy. "I have given that gentleman over there four plates heaped up." "Oh, hush, Eddy dear!" whispered Charlotte, in an agony. By this time they were in the hall, and Eddy, still full of grievances, was picking up the scattered roses. "I suppose there won't be enough salad for my friend and his mother when they come," said he, further. "Who are your friend and his mother, darling?" "Mr. Anderson and his mother," declared Eddy, promptly. "He is the best man in this town, and so is his mother." "Mr. Anderson, dear?" "Yes. You know who I mean. You ought to know. He always lets us have all we want out of his store. He and his mother are the nicest people in this town except us." Charlotte looked at her little brother and her face flushed softly. "But, dear," she whispered, "they did not have any invitations to the reception." "Yes, they did," declared Eddy, triumphantly. "Why, who sent them?" "I did," said Eddy. Charlotte regarded her little brother with a curious expression. It was amused, and yet strangely puzzled, but more as if the puzzle were in her own mind than elsewhere. It was as if she were trying to remember something. "Don't you think he is a nice man?" asked Eddy, looking sharply at her. "Yes, dear, I think so. I don't know anything to the contrary." "Don't you think he is handsome?" Suddenly Charlotte saw Anderson's face in her thoughts for the first time very plainly. "Yes," she said, "of course. Let us go in the other room, Eddy, and see if Amy doesn't want anything." She led Eddy forcibly into the parlor. "It is so late, I am afraid he won't come," the little boy said, disappointedly, when the clock on the mantel struck eleven just as they entered. It was not long after that when the company began to disperse. The bride and groom were to take a midnight-train, and the bride and her sister stole away up-stairs for the changing of the bridal for the travelling costume. Charlotte unfastened her sister's wedding-gown, and she was striving her best to keep the tears back. Ina, on the contrary, was gayer than usual. "It is very odd," said she, as Charlotte hooked the collar of her gray travelling-gown, "how a girl looks forward to getting married, all her life, and thinks more of it than anything else, and how, after all, it is nothing at all. You can remember that I said so, Charlotte, when you come to get married. You needn't dread it as if it were some tremendous undertaking. It isn't, you know." "You speak exactly as if you had died, and were telling me not to dread dying," said Charlotte. She laughed, and the laugh was almost a sob. "What an idea!" cried Ina, laughing. "Of course I am very sad at leaving home and you all, you darling, but the getting married is not so much, after all. You will find that I am right." "I shall never get married," said Charlotte. "Nonsense, honey! 'Deed you will." "No, I shall not. I shall stay with papa." "Yes, you will. Say, honey, Robert"--Ina said Robert quite easily and prettily now--"Robert has a stunning cousin, young enough to be his son. His name is Floyd--Floyd Arms. Isn't that a dear name? And his father has just died, and he has the next place to ours." "Don't be foolish, dear." "Robert says he is a fine fellow." "I know all about him. I have seen Floyd Arms," said Charlotte, rather contemptuously. "Oh, so you have! He was home that last time you were in Acton, wasn't he? You spoke of him when you came home." "Yes, the last term I was at school," said Charlotte. "Let me pin your veil, sweetheart." "Don't you think he was handsome?" "No, I don't, not so very," said Charlotte. "Oh, Charlotte, where did you ever see a handsomer man, unless it was papa or Robert?" "I have seen much handsomer men," declared Charlotte, firmly, as she carefully pinned her sister's veil. "Well, I would like to know where? Not in this town?" "Yes, in this town." "Who?" "Mr. Anderson." "The grocer?" "Yes," said Charlotte, defiantly. The veil was pinned, and Ina turned and looked at her, a rosy vision behind a film of gray lace. "You look lovely," said Charlotte, who had a soft pink in her cheeks. "I think this hat is a beauty," said Ina. "Wasn't it lucky that New Sanderson milliner was so very good, and did not object to giving credit? Why, Mr. Anderson is the grocer! That is the man you mean, isn't it, honey?" "Yes," replied Charlotte, still with defiance. "Oh, well, that doesn't count," said Ina, turning for a last view of herself in the glass. "This dress fits beautifully." "I don't see what that has to do with it," said Charlotte, as they left the room. She felt, even in the midst of parting, and without knowing why, a little indignation with her sister. On the threshold, Ina paused suddenly and flung her arms around the other girl. "Oh, honey," she said, with a half-sob--"oh, honey, how can we talk of who is handsome and who isn't, whether he is the butcher, the baker, or the candlestick-maker, when, when--" The two clung together for a minute, then Charlotte put her sister gently away. "You will muss your veil, dearest," said she, "and it is almost time to go, and Amy and papa will want the last of you." That night, after the bridal pair had departed and everybody else had gone to bed, Anna Carroll and her brother had a little conference in the parlor amid the debris of the wedding splendor. The flowers and greens were drooping, the room and the whole house had that peculiar phase of squalidness which comes alone from the ragged ends of festivities; the floors were strewn with rice and rose leaves and crumbs from the feast; plates and cups and saucers or fragments stood about everywhere; the chairs and the tables were in confusion. Anna, who had been locking up the silver for the night, had come into the parlor, and found her brother standing in a curious, absent-minded fashion in the middle of the floor. "Why, Arthur!" said she. "I thought you had gone to bed." "I am going," said he, but he made no move. Anna looked at him, and her expression was weary and a little bitter. "Well, it is over," said she. Carroll nodded. "Yes," he said, with a half-suppressed sigh. Anna glanced around the room. "This house is a sight for one maid to wrestle with," said she; and her brother, beyond a glance of the utmost indifference around the chaotic room, did not seem to notice her remark at all. However, that she did not resent. Indeed, she herself was so far from taking the matter to heart that she laughed a little as she continued to survey the ruins. "Well, it went off well; it was a pretty wedding," said she, with a certain tone of pleasure. Carroll turned to her quite eagerly. "You think Ina was pleased?" he said. "It was all as she wished it to be?" "What could a girl have wished more?" cried Anna. "Everything was charming, just as it should be. All I think about is--" "What?" asked her brother. "We have danced," said Anna. "What I want to know is, is the piper to be paid, or shall we have to dance to another tune by way of reprisal." "The piper is paid," replied Carroll, shortly. He turned to go, but his sister stepped in front of him. "How?" she said. Carroll looked down at her. "Yes, you are quite right, Arthur," said she. "I am afraid. You are, or may reasonably be, rather a desperate man. You have never taken quite kindly to straits. If the piper is paid, I want to know how, for my own peace of mind. By the piper I mean the creditors for all this"--she glanced around the room--"the wedding flowers and feast and carriages." "I earned enough honestly," replied Carroll. He had a strangely straightforward, almost boyish way of meeting her sharp gaze. "How?" "You had better not press the matter, Anna." "I do. I am afraid." She responded to his look with a certain bitter, sarcastic insistence. "I have reason to be," said she. "You know I have, Arthur Carroll. We are all on the edge of a precipice, but I, for one, do not intend to let you drag me over, and I do not intend that Amy and the children shall go, either, if I can help it. I want to know where you got the money to pay for the wedding expenses, and I want to know where you got that pearl ring you gave Ina. It never cost a cent under three hundred dollars." Carroll, looking at her, smiled a little sadly. "It was then," said she, "Hart Lee's pearl that he left you when he died--your scarf-pin." Carroll smiled. Anna's face changed a little. "I noticed that you had not worn it lately," said she. "Sooner or later it would have been the child's. It might as well be sooner," said Carroll, with a slightly annoyed air. "Eddy should have had it," Anna said, with a jealous air. "That child?" "When he was older, of course." "That is a long way ahead," said Carroll. He moved to go, but again Anna stood before him. "Arthur," said she, solemnly, "I am living with you and doing all I am able. I am giving my strength for you and yours. You know that as well as I do. You know upon whom the brunt here falls. I do not complain. The one who has the best strength should bear the burden, and I have the strength, such as it is. None of us Carrolls need brag of strength, God knows. But I want to know how you came by that money. Yes, I suspect, and I am not ashamed. I have a right to suspect. How did you get that money?" "I sang and danced for it in a music-hall, blackened up as a negro," said Arthur Carroll. "Then that was you, Arthur!" gasped Anna. "Yes. It was the one thing I could do to get that money honestly and pay the bills, and I did it. I would not let Arms pay." "I should think not," cried Anna. "We have not fallen quite so low as that yet. But you--" "Yes, I," said Carroll. "Now let us go to bed, Anna." Anna stood aside, but as her brother turned to pass her she suddenly put up her arms, and as he stooped she kissed him. He felt her cheek wet against his. "Good-night, Arthur," she said, and all the bitterness was gone from her voice. Chapter XXII It was a week to a day after the wedding, and Anderson had been to the office for the morning mail, and was just returning to the store when a watching face at a window of Madame Griggs's dress-making establishment opposite suddenly disappeared, and when Anderson was mounting the steps of the store piazza he heard a panting breath and rattle of starched petticoats, and turned to see the dress-maker. "Good-morning," she gasped. "Good-morning, Mrs. Griggs," returned Anderson. "Can I see you jest a minute on business? I have been watching for you to come back from the office. I want to buy a melon, if it ain't too dear, before I go, but I want to see you jest a minute in the office first, if you ain't too busy." "Certainly. Come right in," responded Anderson; but his heart sank, for he divined her errand. The dress-maker followed him into the office with a nervous teeter and a loud rattle of starched cottons. That morning she was clad in blue gingham trimmed profusely with white lace, and her face looked infinitesimal and meagre in the midst of her puffs of blond frizzes. "I should think that woman was dressed in paper bags by the noise she makes," Sam Riggs remarked to the old clerk when the office door had closed behind her. "I should think it would kinder take her mind off things she starts out to do," remarked Price. The rattle of the oscillating petticoats had distracted his own mind from a nice calculation as to the amount of a bill for a fractional amount of citron at a fractional increase in the market-price. The old clerk was about to send a cost slip with some goods to be delivered to a cash customer. "Yep," responded Sam Riggs. "I should think she'd git rattled with sech a rattlin' of her petticoats." The boy regarded this as so supernaturally smart that he actually blushed with modest appreciation of his own wit, and tears sprang to his eyes when he laughed. But when he glanced at his fellow-clerk, Price was calculating the cost of the citron, and did not seem to have noticed anything unusual in the speech. Riggs, who was easily taken down, felt immediately humiliated, and doubtful of his own humor, and changed the subject. "Say," he whispered, jerking his index-finger towards the office door, "you don't suppose she is settin' her cap at the boss, do you?" "Well, I guess she'd have to take it out in settin'," replied the old clerk, in scorn. He had now the price of the citron fixed in his head, and he trotted to the standing desk at the end of the counter to enter it. "I guess so, too," said Riggs. "Guess she'd have to starch her cap stiffer than her petticoats before she'd catch him." Again Riggs thought he must be funny, but, when the other clerk did not laugh, concluded he must have been mistaken. The conference in the office was short, and Price had hardly gotten the slip made out when Madame Griggs emerged. Indeed, she had not accepted Anderson's proffer of a chair. "No," said she, "I can't set down. I 'ain't got but a minute. Two of my girls is went on their vacation, an' I 'ain't got nobody but Bessie Starley, an' I've promised Mis' Rawdy she should have her new silk skirt before Sunday to wear to Coney Island. Mr. Rawdy has made so much on hiring his carriages for the weddin' that he has bought his wife a new black silk dress, an' now he is goin' to take her to Coney Island Sunday, and hire the Liscom boy to take his place drivin'. Now what I come in here for was--" Madame Griggs lowered her voice; she drew nearer Anderson, and her anxious whisper whistled in his ear. "What I want to know is," said she, "here's Mr. Rawdy, an' I hear the caterer, were paid in advance, an' Blumenfeldt was paid the day after the weddin', an' I ain't, an' I wonder if I'm goin' to be." "Have you sent in your bill yet?" inquired Anderson. "No, I 'ain't, but Captain Carroll asked Blumenfeldt for his bill an' he paid the others in advance, an' he 'ain't asked for my bill." "I do not see why you distress yourself until you have sent in your bill," Anderson said, rather coldly. "Now, don't you think so?" "I certainly do not." "Well," said she, "to tell the truth, I kinder hated to send it too quick. I hated to have it look as if I was scart. It's a pretty big bill, too, an' they seem like real ladies, an' the sister, the one that ain't married, is as nice a girl as I ever see--nicer than the other one, accordin' to my way of thinkin'. She ain't stuck up a mite. The rest of them don't mean to be stuck up, but they be without knowin' it. Guess they was brought up so; but Charlotte ain't. Well, I kinder hated, as I say, to send that bill, especially as it is a pretty big one. I made everything as reasonable as I could, but she had a good many things, an' Charlotte had her bridesmaid's dress, too, an' it's mounted up to considerable, an' I hated to have 'em think I was dreadful scart. I 'ain't never been in the habit of sendin' in a bill to nobody, not for some weeks after the things was did, an' I didn't like to this time. But I says to myself, as long as there had been so much talk round 'mongst folks about the Carrolls not payin' their bills, I'd wait a week an' then I'd send it in. Now it's jest a week ago to-day since the weddin', an' there ain't a word. I thought mebbe they'd ask for the bill the way they did with Blumenfeldt, an' now I want to know if you think I had better send the bill or wait a little while longer." Anderson replied that he thought it would do no harm, that he did not like to advise in such a case. The dress-maker eyed him sharply and with a certain resentment. "Now, I want to know," said she. "I want you to speak right out and tell me, if you think I'm imposin'." "I don't quite understand what you mean," Anderson replied, in bewilderment. He was horribly annoyed and perplexed, but his manner was kind, for the memory of poor little Stella Mixter with her shower of blond curls was strong upon him, and there was something harrowingly pathetic about the combination of little, veinous hands twitching nervously in the folds of the blue gingham, the painstaking frizzes, the pale, screwed little face, and the illogical feminine brain. But the dress-maker's next remark almost dispelled the pathos. "I want you to tell me right out," said she, "if it would make any difference if I paid you. Of course I know you've given up law, an' I 'ain't thought of offerin' you pay for advice. I've traded all I can in your store, though I always think you are a little dearer, and I didn't know but you'd think that made it all right; but--" "I do think it is all right," Anderson returned, quickly, "I assure you, Mrs. Griggs, and I have never dreamed of such a thing as your paying me. Indeed, I have given you no advice which I should have felt justified in sending in a bill for, if I were practising my profession." "Well, I didn't think you had told me anything worth much," said Madame Griggs, "but I know how lawyers tuck on for nothin', and I didn't know but you might feel--" "I certainly do not," said Anderson. "Well," said Madame Griggs, "I am very much obliged to you. I'll send the bill a week from to-day, and I feel a great deal better about it. I don't have nobody to ask, and sometimes I feel as if I didn't have a friend or a brother to ask whether I'd better do anything or not, I should give up. I'm very much obliged, Mr. Anderson." "You are very welcome to anything I have done," replied Anderson, looking at her with a dismay of bewilderment. It was as if he had witnessed some mental inversion which affected his own brain. Anderson always pitied Madame Griggs, but never, after his conferences with her concerning the Carrolls, did he in his heart of hearts blame her husband for running away. Madame Griggs's coquettish manner developed on the threshold of the office. She smirked until her little, delicate-skinned face was a net-work mask, and all the muscles quivered to the sight through the transparent covering. She moved her thin, crooked elbows with a flapping motion like wings as she smirked and thanked him again. "I should think you'd like the grocery business a heap better than law," said she, amiably, as she went out. "Oh, I want to get a melon if they ain't too dear." She evidently expected Anderson himself to wait upon her, and was a little taken aback that he did not follow her. She lingered for a long time haggling with Price, with a watchful eye on the office door, and finally departed without purchasing. Shortly after she had gone, Sam Riggs came for Anderson to inspect some vegetables which had been brought in by a farmer. "He's got some fine potatoes," said he, "but he wants too much for 'em, Price thinks. He's got cabbages, too, and them's too high. Guess you had better look at 'em yourself, Price says." So Anderson went out to interview the farmer, sparsely bearded, lank, and long-necked and seamy-skinned, his face ineffectual yet shrewd, a poor white of the South strung on wiry nerves, instead of lax muscles, the outcome of the New Jersey soil. He shuffled determinedly in his great boots, heavy with red shale, standing guard over his fine vegetables. He nodded phlegmatically at Anderson. He never smiled. Occasionally his long facial muscles relaxed, but they never widened. He was indefinably serious by nature, yet not melancholy, and absolutely acquiescent in his life conditions. The farmer of New Jersey is not of the stuff which breeds anarchy. He is rooted fast to his red-clinging native soil, which has taken hold of his spirit. He is tenacious, but not revolutionary. He was as adamant on the prices of his vegetables, and finally Anderson purchased at his terms. "You got stuck," Price said, after the farmer, in his rusty wagon, drawn by a horse which was rather a fine animal, had disappeared down the street. "Well, I don't know," Anderson replied. "His vegetables are pretty fine." "Folks won't pay the prices you ought to ask to make a penny on it." "Oh, I am not so sure of that. People want a good article, and very few raise potatoes or cabbages or even turnips in their own gardens." "Ingram is selling potatoes two cents less than you, and I rather think turnips, too." "Not these turnips." "No, guess not. He has his from another man, but they look pretty good, and half the folks don't know the dif." "Well," Anderson replied, "sell them for less, if you have to, rather than keep them. Selling a superfine article for no profit is sometimes the best and cheapest advertisement in the world." Anderson stood a while observing the display of vegetables and fruit piled on the sidewalk before his store and in the store window. He took a certain honest pleasure of proprietorship, and also an artistic delight in it. He observed the great green cabbages, like enormous roses, the turnips, like ivory carvings veined with purplish rose towards their roots, the smooth russet of the potatoes. There were also baskets of fine grapes, the tender pink bloom of Delawares, and the pale emerald of Niagaras, with the plummy gloss of Concords. There were enormous green spheres of watermelons, baskets of superb peaches, each with a high light of rose like a pearl, and piles of bartlett and seckel pears. There was something about all this magnificent plenty of the fruits of the earth which was impressive. It was to an ardent fancy as if Flora and Pomona had been that way with their horns of plenty. The sordid question of market value, however, was distinctly irritating, and yet it was justly so. Why should not a man sell the fruits of the earth for dollars and cents with artistic and honorable dignity as anything else? All commodities for the needs of mankind are marketable, are the instruments of traffic, whether they be groceries or books, boots and shoes, dishes or furniture, or pictures; whether they be songs or sermons or corn plasters or shaving-soap; whether they be food for the mind or the body. What difference did it make which was dispensed? It was all a question of need and supply. The minister preached his sermons for the welfare of the soul; the Jew hawked his second-hand garments; everything was interwoven. One must eat to live, to hear sermons, to hear songs, to love, to think, to read. One must be clothed to tread the earth among his fellows. There was need, and one supplied one need, one another. All need was dignified by the man who possessed, all supply was dignified if one looked at it in the right way. There was a certain dignity even about his own need of two cents more on those turnips, which were actually as beautiful as an ivory carving. Anderson finally returned to his office, feeling a little impatient with himself that, in spite of his own perfect contentment with his business, he should now and then essay to justify himself in his contentment, as he undoubtedly did. It was like a violinist screwing his instrument up to concert-pitch, below which it would drop from day to day. Anderson had not been long in his office before he heard a quick patter of feet outside, the peculiar clapping sound of swift toes, which none but a child's feet can produce, and Eddy Carroll entered. The door was ajar, and he pushed it open and ran in with no ceremony. He was well in the room before he apparently remembered something. He stopped short, ran back to the door, and knocked. Anderson chuckled. "Come in," he said, in a loud tone, as if the door was closed. Then Eddy came forward with some dignity. "I remembered after I got in that I ought to have knocked," said he. "I hope you'll excuse me." "Certainly," said Anderson. "Won't you have a seat?" Eddy sat down and swung his feet, kicking the round of the chair, with his eyes fastened on Anderson, who was seated in the other chair, smoking. "How old were you when you began to smoke?" the boy inquired, suddenly. "Very much older than you are," replied Anderson. Eddy sighed. "Is it very nice to smoke?" said he. Anderson was conscious that he was distinctly at a loss for a reply, and felt like a defaulting Sunday-school teacher as he cast about for one. "Is it?" said Eddy again. "Different people look at it differently," said Anderson, "and the best way is for you to wait until you are a man and decide for yourself." "Is it nicer to be a man than it was to be a boy?" inquired Eddy. "That, also, is a matter of opinion," said Anderson. "You can do lots of things that a boy can't," said Eddy. "You can smoke, and you can keep store, and have all the candy you want." Eddy cast an innocent glance towards the office door as he spoke. "Sam!" called Anderson; and when the young clerk's grinning face appeared at the door, "Will you bring some of those peppermint-drops here for this young man." "I'd rather have chocolates, if you can't sell 'em any better than the peppermint-drops," Eddy said, quickly. When Sam reappeared with chocolates in a little paper bag, Eddy was blissful. He ate and swung his feet. "These are bully," said he. "I should think as long as you can have all the chocolates you want, you'd rather eat those than smoke a pipe." "It is a matter of taste," replied Anderson. "I'm always going to eat chocolates instead of smoking," said Eddy. "He gave me a lot. Say, I don't see how a boy can steal candy, do you?" "No. It is very wrong," said Anderson. "You bet 'tis. I knew a boy in New York State, where we used to live before we came here, that stole candy 'most every day, and he used to bring it to school and give the other boys. He used to give me much as a pound a day. Some days he used to give me much as five pounds." Then Eddy Carroll, after delivering himself of this statement, could not get his young, black eyes away from the fixed regard of the man's keen, blue ones, and he began to wriggle as to his body, with his eyes held firm by that unswerving gaze. "What you looking at me that way for?" he stammered. "I don't think you're very polite." "How much candy did that boy give you every day?" asked Anderson. Eddy wriggled. "Well, maybe he didn't give me more 'n half a pound," he muttered. "How much?" "Well, maybe it wasn't more 'n a quarter. I don't know." "How much?" persisted Anderson. "Well, maybe it might have been three pieces; it was a good many years ago. A fellow can't remember everything." "How much?" asked Anderson, pitilessly. "One piece." "How much?" "Well, maybe it wasn't any at all," Eddy burst out, in desperation, "but I don't see what odds it makes. I call it an awful fuss about a little mite of candy, for my part." "Now about that boy?" inquired Anderson. "Oh, shucks, there wasn't any boy, I s'pose." Eddy gazed resentfully and admiringly at the man. "Say," he said, without the slightest sarcasm, rather with affection and perfect seriousness, "you are awful smart, ain't you?" Anderson modestly murmured a disclaimer of any especial smartness. "Yes, you are awful smart," declared Eddy. "Is it because you used to be a lawyer that you are so smart?" "The law may make a difference in a man's skill for finding out the truth," admitted Anderson. "Say," said the boy, "I've been thinking all along that when I was a man I would rather be a grocer than anything else, but I don't know but I'd rather be a lawyer, after all. It would be so nice to be able to find out when folks were not telling the truth, and trying to hide when they had been stealing and doing bad things. 'No, you don't,' I'd say; 'no, you don't, mister. I see right through you.' I rather think I'd like that better. Say?" "What is it?" asked Anderson. "Why didn't you come to the wedding? I saved a lot of things for you." "I told you I thought I should not be able to come. I was very much obliged for the invitation," said Anderson, apologetically. "I looked for you till eleven o'clock. You ought to have come, after I took all that trouble to get an invitation for you. I don't think you were very polite." "I am very sorry," murmured Anderson. "I think you ought to be. You don't know what you missed. Ina looked awful pretty, but Charlotte looked prettier, if she wasn't the bride. Don't you think Charlotte is an awful pretty girl?" "Very," replied Anderson, smiling. "You'd better. I heard her say she thought you was an awful handsome man, the handsomest man in this town. Say, I think Charlotte would like to get married, now Ina is married. I guess she feels kind of slighted. Why don't you marry Charlotte?" "Wouldn't you like some of those molasses-peppermints, now you have finished the chocolates?" asked Anderson. "No, I guess not, thank you. I don't feel very well this morning. Say, why don't you? She's an awful nice girl--honest. And maybe I would come and live with you. I would part of the time, anyway, and I would help in the store." "You had better run out and ask Sam to give you some peppermints," repeated Anderson, desperately. "No, thank you. I'm real obliged, but I guess I don't feel like it now. But I tell you what I had a good deal rather have?" "What is that?" "What are you going to have for dinner?" "Now, see here, my son," said Anderson, laughing. "We are going to have a fine dinner, and I should be exceedingly glad to have you as my guest, but this time there must be no dining with me without your mother's knowledge." "Oh, Amy won't care." "Nevertheless, you must go home and obtain permission before I take you home with me," said Anderson, firmly. "I don't think you are very polite," said Eddy; but it ended in his presently saying that, well, then, he would go home and ask permission; but it was not of the slightest use. "They would all want me to stay, if they thought anything of me. I know Amy would. Amy said this morning I was the worst off of them all, because I had such a misfortunate appetite." The boy's ingenuous eyes met the man's fixed upon him with a mixture of amusement and compassion. "You see," added Eddy, simply, "all the things left over from the wedding, the caterers let us have; papa said not to ask him, and Amy wouldn't, but Aunt Anna did, and there was a lot, though folks ate so much. There was one gentleman ate ten plates of salad--yes, he did. I saw him. He was the doctor, so I suppose he wasn't ill afterwards. But there was a lot left. Of course the ice-cream melted, but it was nice to drink afterwards, and there was a lot of salad and cake and rolls. The cakes and rolls lasted longest. I got pretty tired of them. But now those are all gone, and the butcher won't let us have any more meat, though he trusted us two days after the wedding, because he heard papa paid the florist and the liveryman, but now he has stopped again. Of course we have things from here, but you don't keep meat. Why don't you keep meat?" The absurd pathos of the whole was almost too much for Anderson. He rose and went to the window and looked out as he replied that it was not unusual for a grocer to include meat in his stock of trade. "I know it isn't," said Eddy, "but it would be so nice for us if you did, and all the poor people the butcher wouldn't trust. Did you ever get real hungry, and have nothing except crackers and little gingersnaps and such things?" "No, I don't know that I ever did." "Well, it is awful," said Eddy, with emphasis. He started up. "Well," he said, "I'm going to run right home and ask Amy. She'll let me come. What did you say you were going to have for dinner?" "Roast beef," replied Anderson. "Goody!" cried the boy, and was off. Anderson, left alone, sat down and thought disturbedly. The utter futility of any efforts to assist such a family was undeniable. Nothing could be done. For a vivid instant he had an idea of rushing to the market and setting up surreptitiously a term of credit for the Carrolls, by paying their bills himself, but the absurdity of the scheme overcame him. The ridiculousness of his actually feeding this whole family because of his weakness in giving credit when not another merchant in the town would do so struck him forcibly. Yet what else could he do? He had done a foolish thing in allowing his thoughts and imaginations which were not those of a youth, and were susceptible of control had he made the effort, to dwell upon this girl, who had never even thought of him in the same light. It was romance gone mad. He, an older man who had passed beyond the period when dreams are a part of the physical growth, and unrestrainable, had indulged himself in dreams, and now he must pay in foolish realities. He thought uneasily what a laughing-stock he would become if by any means the fact of his continued credit to this non-paying family were to become known, and he saw no earthly reason why it should not become known. However, no one could possibly suspect the reason for his unbusiness-like credulity. It was simply impossible that it should enter into any one's head to suspect him of a passion for that little Carroll girl, as they would express her. If he had been extending sentimental credit to the Egglestons, people might have been quick to discover the reason in a lurking and extremely suitable affection for one of them, but this was out of the question. However, Anderson had not a very long time for his reflections, for Eddy Carroll was back, beaming. "Yes, Amy says I can come," he announced. "That is good," Anderson replied, hospitably, but he eyed him sharply. "You went very quickly," said he. "Got a ride on the ice wagon," said he. "The ice-man is a good feller. I asked him why he had stopped bringing us ice, and he said if he was running the business, instead of jest carting for the boss, he'd give us all the ice we wanted for nothing. He was going up past our house, and when we got there he gave me a big chunk of ice, and I went and got Marie, and we lugged it into the kitchen together. Lucky Aunt Anna or Charlotte didn't see me." "Why?" asked Anderson. "Oh, nothing, only they wouldn't have let me take it. Say, Marie was crying. Her eyes looked as red as a rabbit's. I asked her what the matter was, and she said she hadn't been paid her wages. Say, isn't it too bad everybody makes such a fuss about being paid. It worries Aunt Anna and Charlotte awfully. Women are dreadful worriers, ain't they?" "Perhaps they are," replied Anderson, and got out a book with colored plates of South American butterflies. "I think you will like to look at these pictures," said he. "I have some letters to write." "All right," said Eddy, and spread his little knees to form a place for the big book. "I am glad I wasn't a girl," he said, in pursuance of his train of thought. "Golly, what a whopper butterfly!" "Yes, that is a big fellow," said Anderson. "I caught one once twice as big as that in a place where we used to live." "Don't talk any more, son," said Anderson. "All right," returned Eddy, generously, and turned the pages in silence. It was nearly noon when Sam Riggs came to the office door to announce Charlotte; but she followed closely behind, and saw her brother over the butterfly-book. She was so surprised that she scarcely greeted Anderson. "Why, Eddy Carroll, you here?" said she. "Yes, Charlotte," replied Eddy, with a curious meekness. "How long have you been here, dear?" "Oh, quite a while, Charlotte. Mr. Anderson has given me this beautiful book to look at. It's full of butterflies." "That is very kind," said Charlotte. "You must be very careful." "Yes, I am," replied Eddy. "I ate up the candy before I touched it. Mr. Anderson gave me some bully candy, Charlotte." "That was kind," Charlotte replied, smiling a little uneasily, Anderson thought. Then she turned to him. She had been all the time fumbling with a dainty little green purse, and Anderson saw, with a comical dismay, a check appear. She held it fluttering between a rosy thumb and finger in his direction. "Mr. Anderson, I brought in this check," she began, a little hesitatingly, "and--" "You would like it cashed?" asked Anderson. "No, not this time," said she. "Papa left it this morning for my mother, and I-- Mr. Anderson, I know we are owing you, and this is a check for twenty-five dollars, and I should like to pay it to you for your bill." At the last Charlotte's hesitation vanished. She spoke with pride and dignity. In reality the child felt that she was doing a meritorious and noble thing. She was taking money which had been left to spend, to pay a bill. Moreover, she had not the slightest idea that the twenty-five dollars did not discharge the whole of the indebtedness to Anderson. She had quite a little dispute with her mother to obtain possession of it for that purpose. "I think you are very foolish, dear," Mrs. Carroll had said. "You might get Mr. Anderson to cash it, and then go to New York and get yourself a new hat. You really need a new hat, Charlotte." "I would rather pay that bill," Charlotte replied. "But I don't see why, dear. It would really be much wiser to pay the butcher's bill, and then we could have some meat for dinner. All we have is eggs. Don't you think Charlotte is very foolish, Anna?" "I have nothing to say," replied Anna Carroll. "Why not, Anna? You act very singularly lately, dear." "I want Charlotte to do as she thinks best, and as you think best, Amy," replied Anna Carroll, who was looking unusually worn, in fact ill, that morning. "I think Charlotte had much better get the check cashed and go to New York and buy herself a new hat," said Mrs. Carroll. "No, I don't need a new hat," said Charlotte, and it ended in her going with the check to Anderson to pay his bill. In spite of his annoyance, the utter absurdity of the whole thing was too much for Anderson. He had little doubt that the check was no more valuable than its predecessors, and now in addition this was supposed to liquidate a bill of several times the amount which it was supposed to represent. But his mind was quickly made up. Rather than have brought a cloud over the happy, proud face of that girl, he would have sacrificed much more. He cast a glance around. Luckily Price, the elder clerk, was engaged in the front of the store, and Riggs was assisting the man who delivered the goods to carry some parcels to the wagon. Therefore no one witnessed this folly. "Thank you, Miss Carroll," he said, pleasantly, and took the check from the hand which trembled a little. Charlotte was pale that morning. It was quite true that she had not sufficient nourishing food for several days. But she was very proud and happy now, and she looked at Anderson as he received the check with a different expression from any which her face had hitherto worn for him. In fact, for the first time, although she was in reality simple and humble enough, she realized him on a footing with herself. And she could not have told what had led to this reversion of her feelings, nor would it have been easy for any one to have told. The forces which stir human emotions to one or another end are as mysterious often as are the sources of the winds which blow as they list. The check was indorsed by Anna Carroll, to whom it had been made payable. She had taken it from her brother that morning with a fierce nip of thumb and finger, as if she were a mind to tear it in two. She had no idea that it was of any value, but, in fact, at the moment of her receiving it the money was in the bank. Before Anderson had sent it in the account was again overdrawn. Arthur Carroll was getting in exceedingly deep waters, to which his previous ventures had been as shallows. Charlotte smiled at Anderson as he took the check. She did not think of a receipt, and Anderson did not carry the matter to the farcial extent of giving her one. He put the check in his pocket-book and inquired whether she had any orders to give, and she did order some crackers, cheese, and eggs, which he called to Riggs to carry to the delivery wagon. After that was settled, Charlotte turned again to Eddy. "When are you coming home, dear?" said she. "Pretty soon," replied Eddy, with an uneasy hitch. Anderson, who had had his suspicions, spoke. "I have invited your brother to dine with me, and he has been home to ask permission, he tells me," said Anderson, and Eddy cast a bitterly reproachful glance at him, as if he had been betrayed by an accomplice. "Did you go home to ask permission, Eddy?" asked Charlotte, gravely. Eddy nodded and hitched. "Whom did you ask?" Eddy hesitated. He was casting about in his mind for the lie likely to succeed. "Whom?" repeated Charlotte. "Amy." "Amy just asked me if I knew where you were," said Charlotte, pitilessly. Eddy looked intently at his butterfly-book. "This is a whopper," said he. "Come, Eddy," said Charlotte. "This is the biggest one of all," said Eddy. "Eddy," said Charlotte. Eddy looked up. "I'm going to dinner with Mr. Anderson," said he. "Aunt Anna said I might." "You said Amy said you might," said Charlotte. "Eddy Carroll, don't you say another word. Come right home with me." Then suddenly the boy broke down. All his bravado vanished. He looked from her to Anderson and back again with a white, convulsed little face. Eddy was a slight little fellow, and his poor shoulders in their linen blouse heaved. Then he wept like a baby. "I--want to--go," he wailed. "Charlotte, I want to--g-o. He is going to have--roast beef for dinner, and I--am hungry." Charlotte turned whiter than Eddy. She marched up to her brother. She did not look at Anderson. "Begging!" said she. "Begging! What if you are hungry? What of it? What is that? Hunger is nothing. And then you have no reason to be hungry. There is plenty in the house to eat--plenty!" She glanced with angry pride at Anderson, as if he were to blame for having heard all this. "Plenty!" she repeated, defiantly. "Plenty of old cake left over from Ina's wedding, and dry old crackers, and not enough eggs to go round," returned Eddy. "I am hungry. I am, Charlotte. All I have had since yesterday noon is five crackers and three pickles and one egg and a piece of chocolate cake as hard as a brick, besides one little, round, dry cake with one almond on top in the middle. I'm real hungry, Charlotte. Please let me go!" Anderson quietly went out of the office. He passed through the store door, and stood there when presently Charlotte and Eddy passed him. "Good-morning," said Charlotte, in a choked voice. Eddy looked at him and sniffled, then he flung out, angrily, "What you going to take to our house?" he demanded of the consumptive man gathering up the reins of the delivery-wagon. "Hush!" said Charlotte. "I won't hush," said Eddy. "I'm hungry. What are you taking up to our house? Say!" "Some crackers and cheese and eggs," replied the man, wonderingly. "Crackers and cheese and old store eggs!" cried Eddy, with a howl of woe, and Charlotte dragged him forcibly away. "What ails that kid?" Riggs asked of the man in the wagon. "I believe them folks are half starved," replied the man. Riggs glanced cautiously around, but Anderson had returned to his office. "I don't believe anybody in town but us trusts 'em," said he, in a whisper. "Well, I'm sorry for his folks, but he'd ought to be strung up," said the man. "Why in thunder don't he go to work. I guess if he was coughin' as bad as I be at night, an' had to work, he might know a little something about it. I ain't in debt, though, not a dollar." Chapter XXIII When a strong normal character which has consciously made wrong moves, averse to the established order of things, and so become a force of negation, comes into contact with weaker or undeveloped natures, it sometimes produces in them an actual change of moral fibre, and they become abnormal. Instead of a right quantity on the wrong track, they are a wrong quantity, and exactly in accordance with their environments. In the case of the Carroll family, Arthur Carroll, who was in himself of a perfect and unassailable balance as to the right estimate of things, and the weighing of cause and effect, who had never in his whole life taken a step blindfold by any imperfection of spiritual vision, who had never for his own solace lost his own sense of responsibility for his lapses, had made his family, in a great measure, irresponsible for the same faults. Except in the possible case of Charlotte, all of them had a certain measure of perverted moral sense in the direction in which Carroll had consciously and unpervertedly failed. Anna Carroll, it is true, had her eyes more or less open, and she had much strength of character; still it was a feminine strength, and even she did not look at affairs as she might have done had she not been under the influence of her brother for years. While she at times waxed bitter over the state of affairs, it was more because of the constant irritation to her own pride, and her impatience at the restraints of an alien and dishonest existence, than from any moral scruples. Even Charlotte herself was scarcely clear-visioned concerning the family taint. The word debt had not to her its full meaning; the inalienable rights of others faded her comprehension when measured beside her own right of existence and of the comforts and delights of existence. Even to her a new hat or a comfortable meal was something of more importance than the need of the vender thereof for reimbursement. The value to herself was the first value, her birthright, indeed, which if others held they must needs yield up to her without money and without price, if her purse happened to be empty. Her compunction and sudden awakening of responsibility in the case of Randolph Anderson were due to an entirely different influence from any which had hitherto come into her life. Charlotte, although she was past the very first of young girlhood, being twenty, was curiously undeveloped emotionally. She had never had any lovers, and the fault had been her own, from a strange persistence of childhood in her temperament. She had not attracted, from her own utter lack of responsiveness. She was like an instrument which will not respond to the touch on certain notes, and presently the player wearies. She was a girl of strong and jealous affections, but the electric circuits in her nature were not yet established. Then, also, she had not been a child who had made herself the heroine of her own dreams, and that had hindered her emotional development. "Charlotte," one of her school-mates, had asked her once, "do you ever amuse yourself by imagining that you have a lover?" Charlotte had stared at the girl, a beautiful, early matured, innocently shameless creature. "No," said she. "I don't understand what you mean, Rosamond." "The next moonlight night," said the girl, "Imagine that you have a lover." "What if I did?" "It would make you very happy, almost as happy as if you had a real one," said the girl, who was only a child in years, though, on account of her size, she had been put into long dresses. She had far outstripped the boys of her own age, who were rather shy of her. Charlotte, who was still in short dresses, looked at her, full of scorn and a mysterious shame. "I don't want any lover at all," declared she. "I don't want an imaginary one, or a real one, either. I've got my papa, and that's all I want." At that time Charlotte still clung to her doll, and the doll was in her mind, but she did not say doll to the other girl. "Well, I don't care," said the other girl, defiantly. "You will sometime." "I sha'n't, either," declared Charlotte. "I never shall be so silly, Rosamond Lane." "You will, too." "I never will. You needn't think because you are so awful silly everybody else is." "I ain't any sillier than anybody else, and you'll be just as silly yourself, so now," said Rosamond. After that, when Charlotte saw the child sitting sunken in a reverie with the color deepening on her cheeks, her lips pouting, and her eyes misty, she would pass indignantly. She remembered her in after years with contempt. She spoke of her to Ina as the silliest girl she had ever known. Now the child's words of prophecy, spoken from the oldest reasoning in the world, that of established sequence and precedent, did not recur to Charlotte, but she was fulfilling them. Ina's marriage and perhaps the natural principle of growth had brought about a change in her. Charlotte had sat by herself and thought a good deal after Ina had gone, and naturally she thought of the possibility of her own marriage. Ina had married; of course she might. But her emotions were very much in abeyance to her affections, and the conditions came before the dreams were possible. "I shall never marry anybody who will take me far away from papa!" said Charlotte. "Perhaps I shall be less of a burden to poor papa if I am married, but I shall never go far away." It followed in Charlotte's reasoning that it must be a man in Banbridge. There had been no talk of their leaving the place. Of course she knew that their stay in one locality was usually short, but here they were now, and it must be a man in Banbridge. She thought of a number of the crudely harmless young men of the village; there were one or two not so crude, but not so harmless, who held her thoughts a little longer, but she decided that she did not want any of them, even if they should want her. Then again the face of Randolph Anderson flashed out before her eyes as it had done before. Charlotte, with her inborn convictions, laughed at herself, but the face remained. "There isn't another man in this town to compare with him," she said to herself, "and he is a gentleman, too." Then she fell to remembering every word he had ever said to her, and all the expressions his face had ever taken on with regard to her, and she found that she could recall them all. Then she reflected how he had trusted them, and had never failed to fill their orders, when all the other tradesmen in Banbridge had refused, and that they must be owing him. "I shouldn't wonder if we were owing him nearly twenty-five dollars," Charlotte said to herself, and for the first time a thrill of shame and remorse at the consideration of debt was over her. She had heard his story. "There he had to give up his law practice because he could not make a living, and go into the grocery business, and here we are taking his goods and not paying him," thought she. "It is too bad." A feeling of indignation at herself and her family, and of pity for Anderson came over her. She made up her mind that she would ask her father for money to pay that bill at least. "The butcher can wait, and so can all the others," she thought, "but Mr. Anderson ought to be paid." Besides the pity came a faint realization of the other side of the creditor's point of view. "Mr. Anderson must look down upon us for taking his property and not paying our bills," she thought. She knew that some of the wedding bills had been paid, and that led her to think that her father might have more money than usual, but she overheard some conversation which passed between Carroll and his sister on the morning when he gave her the check. "Now about that?" Anna had asked, evidently referring to some bill. "I tell you I can't, Anna," Carroll replied. "I used the money as it came on those bills for the wedding. There is very little left." Then he had hurriedly scrawled the check, which she took in spite of her incredulousness of its worth. Therefore Charlotte, when the check had been offered her for a new hat, for Anna had carelessly passed it over to her sister-in-law, had eagerly taken it to pay Anderson. "I paid the grocery bill," Charlotte told her aunt when she returned. Anna was in her own room, engaged in an unusual task. She was setting things to rights, and hanging her clothes regularly in her closet, and packing her bureau drawers. Charlotte looked at her in astonishment after she had made the statement concerning the grocery bill. "What are you doing, Anna?" said she. Anna looked up from a snarl of lace and ribbons and gloves in a bureau drawer. "I am putting things in order," said she. Then Mrs. Carroll crossed the hall from her opposite room, and entered, trailing a soft, pink, China-silk dressing-gown. She sank into a chair with a swirl of lace ruffles and viewed her sister-in-law with a comical air of childish dismay. "Don't you feel well, Anna, dear?" asked she. "Yes. Why?" replied Anna Carroll, folding a yard of blue ribbon. "Nothing, only I have always heard that if a person does something she has never done before, something at variance with her character, it is a very bad sign, and I never knew you to put things in order before, Anna, dear." "Order is not at variance with my character," said Anna. "It is one of my fundamental principles." "You never carried it out," said Mrs. Carroll. "You know you never did, Anna. Your bureau drawers have always looked like a sort of chaos of civilization, just like mine. You know you never carried out the principle, Anna, dear." "A principle ceases to be one when it is carried out," said Anna. "Then you don't think you are going to die because you are folding that ribbon, honey?" Anna took up some yellow ribbon. "There is much more need to worry about Charlotte," said she, in the slightly bitter, sarcastic tone which had grown upon her lately. Mrs. Carroll looked at Charlotte, who had removed her hat and was pinning up her hair at a little glass in a Florentine frame which hung between the windows. The girl's face, reflected in the glass, flushed softly, and was seen like a blushing picture in the fanciful frame, although she did not turn her head, and made no rejoinder to her aunt's remark. "What has Charlotte been doing?" asked Mrs. Carroll. "She has been doing the last thing which any Carroll in his or her senses is ever supposed to do," replied Anna, in the same tone, as she folded her yellow ribbon. "What do you mean, Anna, dear?" "She has been paying a bill before the credit was exhausted. That is sheer insanity in a Carroll. If there is anything in the old Scotch superstition, she is fey, if ever anybody was." "What bill?" asked Mrs. Carroll. "Mr. Anderson's," replied Charlotte, faintly, still without turning from the glass which reflected her charming pink face in its gilt, scrolled frame. "Mr. Anderson's?" "The grocer's bill," said Charlotte. "Oh! I did not know what his name was," said Mrs. Carroll. "He probably is well acquainted with ours, on his books," said Anna. Mrs. Carroll looked in a puzzled way from her to Charlotte, who had turned with a little air of defiance. "Had he refused to let us have any more groceries?" said she. "No," said Charlotte. "I told you he had not," said Anna, shaking out a lace handkerchief, which diffused an odor of violet through the room. "Then why did you pay him, honey?" asked Mrs. Carroll, wonderingly, of Charlotte. "I paid him just because he had trusted us," said she, in a voice which rang out clearly with the brave honesty of youth. Suddenly she looked from her mother to her aunt with accusing eyes. "I don't believe it is right to go on forever buying things and never paying for them, just because a gentleman is kind enough to let you," said she. "I thought you said it was the grocer, Charlotte, honey," said Mrs. Carroll, helplessly. "He is a gentleman, if he is a grocer," said Charlotte, and her cheek blazed. Anna Carroll looked sharply at her from her drawer, then went on folding the handkerchief. "He is a lawyer, and as well-educated as papa," Charlotte said, further, in her clear, brave voice, and she returned her aunt's look unflinchingly, although her cheeks continued to blush. Mrs. Carroll still looked bewildered. "How much did you pay him, Charlotte, dear?" she asked. "Twenty-five dollars." "The whole of the check Arthur gave you?" "Yes, Amy." "But you might have bought yourself a hat, honey, and you did need one. I can't quite understand why you paid the grocer, when he had not refused to let us have more groceries, and you might have bought a hat." Anna, packing the drawer, began to laugh, and Charlotte, after frowning a second, laughed also. "My hat with the roses looks very nice yet, Amy, dear," said she, sweetly and consolingly. "But it is getting so late for roses," Mrs. Carroll returned. "The milliner in New York where Ina got her hats has been paid; maybe she will trust Charlotte for a hat. Don't worry, Amy," said Anna, coolly. Mrs. Carroll brightened up. "Sure enough, Anna," said she. "She was paid because she wouldn't trust us, and maybe now she will be willing to again. I will go in to-morrow, and I think I can get a hat for myself." "I saw the dress-maker looking out of the window," said Charlotte. "She did very well," said Mrs. Carroll. "I suppose there is no money to pay her?" said Charlotte. "No, honey, I suppose not, but dear Ina has the dresses and you have your new one." "That makes me think. I think her bill is on the table. It came two or three days ago. I haven't opened it, because it looked like a bill. Eddy brought it in when I was in here. Yes, there it is." Charlotte, near the table, took up the envelope and opened it. "It is only one hundred and fifty-eight dollars," said she. "That is very cheap for so many pretty dresses," said Mrs. Carroll, "but I suppose it is all clear profit. I should think dress-makers would get rich very easily." That night Charlotte was the last to go to her room--that is, the last except her father. He was still smoking in the little room on the left of the hall. They had been playing whist in there; then they had had some sherry and crackers and olives. Major Arms had sent out a case of sherry before the wedding, and it was not all gone. Now Carroll was smoking a last cigar before retiring, and the others except Charlotte had gone. She lingered after she had kissed her father good-night. "Papa," said she, tentatively. She looked very slim and young in her little white muslin frock, with her pretty hair braided in her neck. "Well, sweetheart, what is it?" asked Carroll, with a tender look of admiration. Charlotte hesitated. Then she spoke with such desire not to offend that her voice rang harsh. "Papa," said she, "do you think--" "Think what, honey?" "Do you think you can pay the dress-maker's bill?" "Pretty soon, dear," said Carroll, his face changing. "To-morrow?" "I am afraid not to-morrow, Charlotte." "She worked very hard over those dresses, and she bought the things, and it is quite a while. I think she ought to be paid, papa." "Pretty soon, dear," said Carroll again. Charlotte turned without another word and went out of the room. Her silence and her retreat were full of innocent condemnation. Carroll smoked, his face set and tense. Then there was a flutter and Charlotte was back. She did not speak this time, but she ran to her father, threw her slight arms around his neck, and kissed him, and it was the kiss of love which follows the judgment of love. Then she was gone again. Carroll removed his cigar and sat staring straight ahead for a moment. Then he gave the cigar a fling into a brass bowl and put his head on his arms on the table. Chapter XXIV Charlotte, before her sister was married, had been in the habit of taking long walks with her. Now she went alone. The elder women of the family never walked when they could avoid doing so. Mrs. Carroll was, in consequence, putting on a soft roundness of flesh like a baby, and was daily becoming a creature of more curves and dimples. Anna did not gain flesh, but she moved more languidly, and her languor of movement was at curious odds with the subdued eagerness of her eyes. In these days Anna Carroll was not well; her nerves were giving way. She slept little and ate little. "You are losing your appetite, Anna, dear," Mrs. Carroll said once at the dinner-table. "A fortunate thing, perhaps," retorted Anna, with her little, veiled sting of manner, and at that Carroll rose abruptly and left the table. "What is the matter, Arthur?" his wife called after him. "I don't see what ails Arthur lately," she said, with a soft tone of complaint, when the door had closed behind him and he had made no response. Charlotte adored her Aunt Anna, and seldom took any exception to anything which she said or did, but then she turned upon her. "Poor papa is hurt by what Aunt Anna said," she declared, severely, "and I don't wonder. Here he cannot afford to buy as much to eat as he would like, and hasn't enough to pay the butcher, and Aunt Anna says things like that. I don't wonder he is hurt. It is cruel." Tears flashed into Charlotte's eyes. She looked accusingly at her aunt, who laughed. "I think as much of your father as you do," said she, "and I know him better. Don't fret, honey." "Your aunt is ill, dear," said Mrs. Carroll, who always veered to the side of the attacked party, and who, moreover, seldom grasped sarcasm, "and besides, sweetheart," she added, "I don't see what she said that could have hurt Arthur's feelings." Just then Carroll passed the window towards the stable. "There," she cried, triumphantly, "he is just going around to order the carriage. He had finished his luncheon. He never did care much for that kind of pudding. You are making too much of it, Charlotte, dear." "No, I am not," said Charlotte, firmly. "Papa did not like the way Anna spoke; he was hurt. It was cruel." She got up and left the table also, and a soft sob was heard as she closed the dining-room door behind her. "That dear child is so sensitive and nervous, and she thinks so much of Arthur," Mrs. Carroll said. "Give me the pudding sauce, Marie." Eddy, who had been busily eating his pudding, looked up from his empty plate. "Aunt Anna did mean it was fortunate she had lost her appetite, because there wasn't enough to eat," he declared, in his sweet treble. "You ain't very sharp, Amy. She did mean that, and that was the reason papa went out. But it was true, too. There isn't enough to eat. I haven't had near enough pudding, and it is all gone. The dish is scraped. There is none left for Marie and Martin, either." "I want no pudding," said Marie, unexpectedly, from behind Mrs. Carroll's chair. She spoke with a certain sullenness, and her eyes were red. She had a large, worn place in the sleeve of her white shirt-waist, and she was given to lifting her arm and surveying it with an air of covert injury and indignation. "The omelet is all gone, too," said Eddy. "Marie and Martin haven't got anything to eat." "Oh, hush, dear!" said Mrs. Carroll. "Marie can cook another omelet." The Hungarian girl opened her mouth as if to speak, then she shut it again. An indescribable expression was on her pretty, peasant face, the face of a down-trodden race, who yet retained in spirit a spark of rebellion and resentment. Marie, in her ragged blouse, with her countenance of inscrutable silence, standing behind her mistress's chair, surveying the denuded table, was the embodiment of a folk-lore song. She had been in America only a year and a half, and the Lord only knew what she had expected in that land of promise, and what bright visions had been dispelled, and how roughly she had been forced back upon her old point of view of the world. The girl was actually hungry. She had no money; her clothes were worn. Her naive coquetry of expression had quite faded from her face. Her cheek-bones showed high, her mouth was wide and set, her eyes fixed with a sort of stolid and despairing acquiescence. The salient points of the Slav were to the surface, the little wings of her hope and youth folded away. She had fallen in love, moreover, and been prevented from attending a wedding-feast where she would have met him that day, on account of a lack of money for a new waist, and car fare. She knew another girl who was gay in a new gown, and at whom the desired one had often looked with wavering eyes. Her heart was broken as she stood there. She was one of the weariest of the wheels within wheels of Arthur Carroll's miserable system of life. "I don't believe there are any more eggs to make an omelet," said Eddy. "The grocer still trusts us," said Mrs. Carroll; "besides, he has been paid. Eddy, dear, you must not speak so to your aunt. Run out, if you have finished your luncheon, and ask your father when he is going to drive." Carroll had not gone, as usual, to the City that day. Mrs. Carroll and Anna rose from the table and went into the den on the left of the hall. "You must not mind the children speaking so, Anna, dear," Mrs. Carroll said. "They would fly at me just the same if they thought I had said anything to hurt Arthur." "I don't mind, Amy," Anna replied, dully. She threw herself upon the divan with its Oriental rug, lying flat on her back, with her hands under her head and her eyes fixed upon a golden maple bough which waved past the window opposite. She looked very ill. She was quite pale, and her eyes had a strange, earnest depth in dark hollows. Mrs. Carroll looked a little more serious than was her wont as she sat in the willow rocker and swayed slowly back and forth. "I suppose," she said, after a pause, "that it will end in our moving away from Banbridge." "I suppose so," Anna replied, listlessly. "You don't mind going, do you, Anna, dear?" "I mind nothing," Anna Carroll said. "I am past minding." Mrs. Carroll looked at her with a bewildered sympathy. "Why, Anna, dear, what is the matter?" she said. "Nothing, Amy." "You are feeling ill, aren't you?" "Perhaps so, a little. It is nothing worth talking about." "Are you troubled about anything, honey?" Anna did not reply. "I can't imagine what you have to trouble you, Anna. Everything is as it has been for a long time. When we move away from Banbridge there will be more for a while. I can't see anything to worry about." "For God's sake, keep your eyes shut, then, Amy, as long as you can," cried Anna, suddenly, with a tone which the other woman had never heard before. She gazed at her sister-in-law a minute, and her expression of childish sweetness and contentment changed. Tears came in her eyes, her mouth quivered. "I don't know what you mean, Anna," she said, pitifully, like a puzzled child. Anna sprang up from the divan and went over to her and kissed her and laughed. "I mean nothing, dear," she said. "There is no more to worry about now than there has been all along. People get on somehow. We are in the world, and we have our right here, and if we knock over a few people to keep our footholds, I don't know that we are to blame. It is nothing, Amy. I have felt wretched for a few days, and it has affected my spirits. Don't mind anything I have said. We shall leave Banbridge before long, and, as you say, we shall get on better." Mrs. Carroll gave two or three little whimpers on her sister-in-law's shoulder, then she smiled up at her. "I guess it is because you don't feel well that you are looking on the dark side of things so," said she. "You will feel better to go out and have a drive." "Perhaps I shall," replied Anna. "We shall go for a long drive. There will be plenty of time, it is so early. How lovely it would be if we had our automobile, wouldn't it, Anna? Then we could go any distance. Wouldn't it be lovely?" "Very," replied Anna. Then Eddy burst into the room. "Say, Amy," he cried, "there's a great circus out in the stable. Papa and Martin are having a scrap." "Eddy, dear," cried Mrs. Carroll, "you must not say scrap." "A shindy, then. What difference does it make? Martin he won't harness, because he hasn't been paid. He just sits on a chair in the door and whittles a stick, and don't say anything, and he won't harness." "We have simply got to have an automobile," said Mrs. Carroll. "How do you know it is because he hasn't been paid, Eddy?" asked Anna. "Because he said so; before he wouldn't say anything, and began whittling. Papa stands there talking to him, but it don't make any difference." "With an automobile it wouldn't make any difference," said Mrs. Carroll. "An automobile doesn't have to be harnessed. I don't see why Arthur doesn't get one." Anna Carroll sat down on the nearest chair and laughed hysterically. Mrs. Carroll stared at her. "What are you laughing at, Anna?" said she, with a little tone of injury. "I don't see anything very funny. It is a lovely day, and I wanted to go to drive, and it would do you good. I don't see why people act so because they are not paid. I didn't think it of Martin." "I'll go out and see if he has stirred yet," cried Eddy, and was off, with a countenance expressive of the keenest enjoyment of the situation. Out in the stable, beside the great door through which was a view of the early autumn landscape--a cluster of golden trailing elms, with one rosy maple on a green lawn intersected by the broad sweep of drive--sat the man in a chair, and whittled with a face as imperturbable as fate. Carroll stood beside him, talking in a low tone. He was quite pale. Suddenly, just as the boy arrived, the man spoke. "Why in thunder, sir," said he, with a certain respect in spite of the insolence of the words--"why in thunder don't you haul in, shut up shop, sell out, pay your debts, and go it small?" "Perhaps I will," Carroll replied, in a tone of rage. His face flushed, he raised his right arm as if with an impulse to strike the other man, then he let it drop. "Sell the horses, papa?" cried Eddy, at his elbow, with a tone of dismay. Carroll turned and saw the boy. "Go into the house; this is nothing that concerns you," he said, sternly. "Are the horses paid for, papa?" asked Eddy. "I believe they ain't," said the man in the chair, with a curious ruminating impudence. Carroll towered over him with an expression of ignoble majesty. But Eddy had made a dart into a stall, and the tramp of iron hoofs was suddenly heard. "I can harness as well as he can," a small voice cried. Then Martin rose. "I'll harness," he said, sullenly. "You'll get hurt"--to the boy. "She don't like children round her." He took hold of the boy's small shoulders and pushed him away from the restive horse, and grasped the bridle. Carroll strode out of the stable. "Say," said Eddy, to the man. "Well, what? I've got to have my pay. I've worked here long enough for nothin'." "When I'm a man I'll pay you," said Eddy, with dignity and severity. "You must not speak to papa that way again, Martin." Martin looked from the tall horse to the small boy, and began to laugh. "I'll pay you with interest," repeated the boy, and the man laughed again. "Much obleeged," said he. "I don't see, now, why you need to worry just because papa hasn't paid you," said Eddy, and walked out of the stable with a gait exactly like his father. The man threw the harness over the horse and whistled. "He's harnessing," Eddy proclaimed when he went in. His mother was pinning on her veil before the mirror over the hall settle. Anna was just coming down-stairs in a long, red coat, with a black feather curling against her black hair under her hat. "Where is Charlotte?" asked Mrs. Carroll. "She has gone off to walk," said Eddy. "Well," said Mrs. Carroll, "you must go after her and walk with her, Eddy." "I don't want to, Amy," said Eddy. "I want to go to drive." Then Carroll came down-stairs and repeated his wife's orders. "Yes, Eddy, you must go to walk with your sister. I don't wish her to go alone," said he peremptorily. He still looked pale; he had grown thin during the last month. "I don't see why Charlotte don't get married, too, and have her husband to go with her," said Eddy, as he went out of the door. "Tagging round after a girl all the time! It ain't fair." "Eddy!" called Carroll, in a stern voice; but the boy had suddenly accelerated his pace with his last words, and was a flying streak at the end of the drive. "Where 'm I goin' to find her?" he complained to himself. He hung about a little until he saw the carriage emerge from the grounds and turn in the other direction, then he went straight down to the main street. Just as he turned the corner he met a small woman, carefully dressed and frizzed, who stopped him. "Is your mother at home, little boy?" she asked, in a nervous voice. There were red spots on her thin cheeks; she was manifestly trembling. The boy eyed her with a supercilious scorn and pity. He characterized her in his own mind of extreme youth and brutal truth as an ugly old woman, and yet he noted the trembling and felt like reassuring her. He took off his little cap. "No, ma'am," said he. "Amy has gone to drive." "I wanted to see your mother," said the woman, wonderingly. "Amy is my mother," replied the boy. "Oh!" said the woman. "They have all gone," said Eddy. "Then I shall have to call another time," said the woman, with a mixture of ingratiation and despair. The boy eyed her sharply. "Say," he said, "are you the dressmaker that made my sister Ina's clothes for her to be married?" "Yes, I be," replied Madame Griggs. "Then," said Eddy, "I can tell you one thing, there isn't any use for you to go to my house now to get any money. I suppose you haven't been paid." "No, I haven't," said Madame Griggs. Then she loosened the flood-gates of her grievance upon the boy. "No, I haven't been paid," said she, "and I've worked like a dog, and I'm owing for the things I bought in New York, and I'm owing my girls, and if I don't get paid before long, I'm ruined, and that's all there is to it. I 'ain't been paid, and it's a month since your sister was married, and they'll send out to collect the bills from the stores, if I don't pay them. It's a cruel thing, and I don't care if I do say it." The woman was flouncing along the street beside the boy, and she spoke in a loud, shrill voice. "It's a cruel thing," she repeated. "If I couldn't pay for my wedding fix I'd never get married, before I'd go and cheat a poor dress-maker. She'd ought to be ashamed of herself, and so had all your folks. I don't care if I do say it. They are nuthin' but a pack of swindlers, that's what they be." Suddenly the boy danced in front of the furious little woman, and stood there, barring her progress. "They ain't!" said he. "They be." "They ain't! You can't pay folks if you 'ain't got any money." "You needn't have the things, then," sniffed Madame Griggs. "My sister had to have the things to get married, didn't she? A girl can't get married without the clothes." "Let her pay for 'em, then." "I'll tell you what to do!" cried Eddy, looking at her with a sudden inspiration. "You are in debt, ain't you?" "Yes, I be," replied Madame Griggs, hopping nervously along by the boy's side, poor little dressmaker, aping French gentility, holding her skirts high, with a disclosure of a papery silk petticoat and a meagre ankle. Even in her distress she felt of her frizzes to see if they were in order after a breeze had struck her in the sharp, eager face. "Yes, I be." "Well," said the boy, delightedly, "I can tell you just what to do, you know." "What, I'd like to know?" Madame Griggs said, in a snapping tone. "Move away from Banbridge," said the boy. "What for, I'd like to know?" "Why, then, don't you see," explained Eddy Carroll, "you would get away from the folks that you owe, and other folks that you didn't owe would trust you for things. You'd get along fine. That's the way we always do." "Well, I never!" said Madame Griggs. Then she turned on him with sudden fury. "So that's what your folks are goin' to do, be they?" said she. "Go off and leave me without payin' my bill! That's the dodge, is it?" Eddy was immediately on the alert. He was young and innocent, but he had a certain sharpness. He was quite well aware that a knowledge on the part of the creditors of his family's flittings was not desirable. "I 'ain't heard them say a word about moving away from Banbridge," declared he. "What you getting so mad about, Missis?" "I guess I've got some reason to be mad, if that's your folks' game. The way I've worked, slavin' all them hot days and nights on your sister's wedding fix. I guess--" "We ain't going to move away from Banbridge as long as we live, for all I know," said Eddy, looking at the bundle of feminine nerves beside him with a mixture of terror and scorn. "You don't need to holler so, Missis." "I don't care how loud I holler, I can tell you that." "We ain't going to move; and if we did, I don't see why you couldn't. I was just telling you what you could do, if you owed folks and didn't have any money to pay 'em, and you turn on a feller that way. I'm going to tell my sister and mother, and they won't have you make any more dresses for 'em." With that Eddy Carroll made a dart into Anderson's grocery store, which he had reached by that time. The dressmaker remained standing on the sidewalk, staring after him. She looked breathless; red spots were on her thin cheeks. Eddy went straight through the store to the office. The door stood open, and the little place was empty except for the cat, which cast a lazy glance at him from under a half-closed lid, stretched, displaying his claws, and began to purr loudly. Eddy went over to the cat and took him up in his arms and carried him out into the main store, where William Price stood behind the counter. He was alone in the store. "Say," said Eddy, "where's Mr. Anderson?" "He's gone out," replied the clerk, with a kind look at the boy. He had lost one of his own years ago, and Eddy, in spite of his innocent superciliousness, appealed to him. "Where?" asked Eddy. The cat wriggled in his arms and jumped down. Then he rolled over ingratiatingly at his feet. Eddy stooped down and rubbed the shining, furry stomach. "He took the net he catches butterflies with," replied the old clerk, "and I guess he's gone to walk in the fields somewhere." "I should think it was pretty late for butterflies," said Eddy. He straightened himself and looked very hard at the glass jar of molasses-balls on the shelf behind the clerk. "There might be a stray one," said William Price. "It's a warm day." "Shucks!" said Eddy. "Say, how much are those a pound?" The clerk glanced around at the jar of molasses-balls. "Twenty-five cents," replied he. "Guess I'll take a pound," said Eddy. "I 'ain't got any money with me, but I'll pay you the next time I come in." The old clerk's common face turned suddenly grave, and acquired thereby a certain distinction. He turned about, took off the cover of the glass jar, and gathered up a handful of the molasses-balls and put them in a little paper bag. Then he came forth from behind the counter and approached the boy. He thrust the paper bag into a little grasping hand, then he took hold of the small shoulders and looked down at him steadily. The blue eyes in the ordinary face of an ordinary man, unfitted for any work in life except that of an underling, were full of affection and reproof. Eddy looked into them, then he hitched uneasily. "What you doing so for?" said he; then he looked into the eyes again and was still. "It's jest this," said William Price. "Here's a little bag of them molasses-balls, I'll give 'em to ye; but don't you never, as long as you live, buy anything you 'ain't either got the money to pay for in your fist, ready, or know jest where it's comin' from. It's stealin', and it's the wust kind of stealin', 'cause it ain't out an' out. I had a boy once about your size." "Where's he now?" asked Eddy, in a half-resentful, half-wondering fashion. "He's dead; died years ago of scarlet-fever, and I'd a good deal rather have it so, much as I thought of him--as much as your father thinks of you--than to have him grow up and steal and cheat folks." "Didn't he ever take anything that didn't belong to him?" asked Eddy. "Never. I guess he didn't. John wasn't that kind of a boy. I'd have trusted him with anythin'." "Then he must have gone to heaven, I suppose," said Eddy. He looked soberly into the old clerk's eyes. "Thank you for the molasses-balls," he said. "I meant to pay for 'em, but I don't know just when I'd have the money, so I guess it's better for you to give them to me. Mr. Anderson won't mind, will he?" "No, he won't, for I shall put fives cents into the cash-drawer for them," replied the old clerk, with dignity. "I wouldn't want to have you take anything that Mr. Anderson wouldn't like," said Eddy. "I shouldn't," replied the old clerk, going back to his place behind the counter, as a woman entered the store. Eddy looked back as he went out, with a very sweet expression. "The first five-cent piece I get I'll pay you," he said. He had popped a molasses-ball into his mouth, and his utterance was somewhat impeded. "I thank you very much, indeed," he said, "and I'm sorry your boy died." "Have you just lost a boy?" asked the woman at the counter. "Twenty years ago," replied the clerk. "Land!" said the woman. She looked at him, then she turned and looked after Eddy, who was visible on the sidewalk talking with Madame Griggs, and her face showed her mind. Madame Griggs had waited on the sidewalk until Eddy came out of the store. Now she seized him by the arm, which he promptly jerked away from her. "When will your folks be home? That's what I want to know!" said she, sharply. "They'll be home to-night, I guess," replied Eddy. "Then I'll be up after supper," said Madame Griggs. "All right," said Eddy. "You tell 'em I'm comin'. I've got to see your ma and your pa." "Yes, ma'am," replied Eddy. He raised his little cap as the dressmaker flirted away, then he started on a run down the street, sucking a molasses-ball, which is a staying sweet, and soon he left the travelled road and was hastening far afield. Chapter XXV It was September, but a very warm day. Charlotte had walked along the highway for some distance; then when she came to a considerable grove of oak-trees, she hesitated a moment, and finally left the road, entered the grove, and sat down on a rock at only a little distance from the road, yet out of sight of it. She was quite effectually screened by the trees and some undergrowth. Here and there the oaks showed shades of russet-and-gold and deep crimson; the leaves had not fallen. In the sunlit spaces between the trees grew clumps of blue asters. She saw a squirrel sitting quite motionless on a bough over her head, with bright eyes of inquisitive fear upon her. She felt a sense of delight, and withal a slight tinge of loneliness and risk. There was no doubt that it was not altogether wise, perhaps not safe, for a girl to leave the highway, or even to walk upon it if it were not thickly bordered by dwellings, in this state. Charlotte was fearless, yet her imagination was a lively one. She looked about her with keen enjoyment, yet there was a sharp wariness in her glance akin to that of the squirrel. When she heard on the road the rattle of wheels, and caught the flash of revolving spokes in the sun, she had a sensation of relief. There was not a house in sight, except far to the left, where she could just discern the slant of a barn roof through the trees. Everything was very still. While there was no wind, it was cool in the shade, though hot in the sunlight. She pulled her jacket over her shoulders. She leaned against a tree and remained perfectly quiet. She had on a muslin gown of an indeterminate green color, and it shaded perfectly into the coloring of the tree-trunk, which was slightly mossy. Her dark head, too, was almost indistinguishable against the tree, which at that height was nearly black. In fact, she became almost invisible from that most curious system of concealment in the world, that of assimilation with nature. She was gathered so closely into the arms of the great mother that she seemed one with her. And she was not alone in the shelter of those mighty arms; there was the squirrel, as indistinguishable as she. And there was another. Charlotte with her bright, wary eyes, and the little animal with his, in the tree, became aware of another sentient thing besides themselves. Possibly the squirrel had been aware of it all the time. Suddenly the girl looked downward at her right and saw within a stone's-throw a man asleep. He was dressed in an ancient, greenish-brown suit, and was practically invisible. His arm was thrown over his weather-beaten face and he was sleeping soundly, lying in a position as grotesquely distorted as some old tree-root. He was, in fact, distorted by the storms of life within and without. He was evidently a tramp, and possibly worse. His sleeping face could be read like a page of evil lore. When Charlotte perceived him she turned pale and her heart seemed to stop. Her first impulse was to rise and make a mad rush for the road. Then she became afraid to do that. The road was lonely. She heard no sound of wheels thereon. It was true that she had entered the grove and seated herself without awakening the man; he might quite possibly be in a drunken sleep, difficult to disturb, but she might not be so fortunate a second time. Her slightest motion might awaken him now. So she sat perfectly still; she did not move a finger; it seemed to her she did not breathe. When a slight breeze rustled the tree-boughs over her head, and ruffled the skirt of her dress, her terror made her sick. When the breeze struck him, the sleeping tramp made an uneasy motion, and she felt overwhelmed. Soon, however, he began to breathe heavily. Before his breathing had been inaudible. He was evidently quite soundly asleep, yet if a breeze could disturb him, what might not her rise and flight do? It seemed to her that she must remain there forever. But the time would come when that sleeping terror would awake, whether she disturbed him or not, when that distorted caricature of man, as grotesque as a gargoyle on the temple of life, would stretch those twisted legs and arms, and open his eyes and see her; and then? She became sure, the longer she looked, that this was not one of the harmless wanderers over the earth, one of the Ishmaels, whose hand is turned only against himself. The great dark, bloated face had a meaning that could not be mistaken even by eyes for whom its meaning was written in a strange language. Innocence read guilt by a strange insight of heredity which came to her from the old beginning of things. She dared not stir. She felt petrified. She realized that her one hope was in the passing of some one on the road. She made up her mind that if she heard wheels she would risk everything. She would spring up and run for her life and scream. Then she wondered how loudly she could scream. Charlotte was not one of the screaming kind of girls who lifts up her voice of panic at everything. She tried to remember if she had ever screamed, and how loudly. She kept her ears strained for the sound of wheels, her eyes on the sleeping tramp. She dared not look away from him. Even the squirrel remained motionless, with his round eyes of wariness fixed. It was as if he too were afraid to stir. He retained his attitude of alert grace, sitting erect on his little haunches, an acorn in his paws, his bushy tail arching over his back like a plume. Then slowly the man opened his eyes with a dazed expression, at first a blur of consciousness. Then gradually the recognition of himself, of his surroundings, of his life, came into them, and that self-knowledge was unmistakable. There was no doubt about the man with his twisted limbs and his twisted soul. He lay quite still a while longer, staring. Charlotte, with her eyes upon him, and the squirrel with his eyes upon him, never stirred. Charlotte heard her heart beat, and wished for some way to stifle it, but that she could not do. It seemed to her that the beating of her heart was like a drum, as if it could be heard through all the grove. She realized that she could not hear the sound of passing wheels on the road, because of this terrible beating of her heart. It seemed inevitable that the man would hear it. She felt then that she should take her one little chance, that she should scream on the possibility of some one passing on the road, and run, but she realized the futility of it. Before she could move a step the man would be upon her. She felt, moreover, paralyzed. She remained as perfectly motionless as the tree against which she leaned, with her eyes full of utmost terror and horror upon the waking man. He still looked straight ahead, and his eyes were still retrospective, fixed inward rather than outward. He still saw only himself and his own concerns. Then he yawned audibly and spoke. "Damn it all!" he said, in a curious voice, of rather passive rage. It was the voice of one at variance with all creation, his hand against every man and every man against him, and yet the zest of rebellion was not in it. In fact, the man had been so long at odds with life that a certain indifference was upon him. He had become sullen. As he lay there he thrust a hand in his pocket, and again he spoke his oath against all outside, against all creation. He had thought absently that he might find a dime for a drink. Now that he had waked, he was thirsty, but there was none. Then he yawned, stretched out his stiff, twisted limbs with a sort of muffled groan, rested his weight upon one elbow, and shambled up as awkwardly as a camel. The girl sat still in the clutch of her awful fear. She no longer heard her heart beat. She was casting about in her mind for a weapon. A great impulse of fight was stirring in her. She felt suddenly that her little fingers were like steel. She felt that she should kill that man if he touched her. The fear never let go its clutch on her heart, but a fierceness as of any wild thing at bay was over her. She realized that in another minute, when he should see her, she would gather herself up, and spring, spring as she had read of a tarantula springing; that she would be first before the man, that she would kill him. Something which was almost insanity was firing her brain. The man, when he had stood up, it seemed to Charlotte, looked directly at her. She was always sure that he did. But if he did, it was with unseeing eyes. His brain did not compass the image of her sitting there, leaning against the tree, a creature of incarnate terror and insane fury. He seemed to keep his eyes fixed upon her for a full second. Charlotte's nerves and muscles were tense with the restrained impulse to spring. Then he slowly shuffled away. As he passed, the squirrel slid like swiftness itself down the tree, and across an open space to another. The girl sank limply upon herself in a dead faint, and the tramp gained the road and trudged sullenly on towards Ludbury. When Charlotte came to herself she was still sitting there limply. She could not realize all at once what had happened. Then she remembered. She looked at the place where the tramp had lain, and so forcibly did her terrified fancy project images that it was difficult to convince herself that he was really gone. She seemed to still see that gross thing lying there. Then she remembered distinctly that he had gone. She got up, but she could scarcely stand. She had never fainted before, and she wondered at her own sensations. "What ails me?" she thought. She strained her eyes around, but there was no sign of the terrible man. She was quite sure that he had gone, and yet how could she be sure? He might have gone out to the road and be sitting beside it. A vivid recollection of tramps sitting beside that very road, as she had been driving past, came over her. She became quite positive that he was out on the road, and a terror of the road was over her. She looked behind her, and the sunny gleam of an open field came through the trees. The field was shaggy with blue asters and golden-rod gone to seed, and white tufts of immortelles. Charlotte stared through the trees at the field, and suddenly a man crossed the little sunny opening. A great joy swept over her; he was Randolph Anderson. Now she was sure that she was safe. She stumbled again to her feet, and ran weakly out of the oak grove. There was a low fence between the grove and the field, and when she reached that she stopped. She felt this to be insurmountable for her trembling limbs. "Oh, dear!" she said, aloud, and although the man was holding his butterfly-net cautiously over the top of a clump of asters so far away that it did not seem possible that he could hear her, he immediately looked up. Then he hastened towards her. As he drew near a look of concern deepened on his face. He had had an inkling at the first glimpse of her that something was wrong. He reached the fence and stood looking at her on the other side. "I am afraid I can't get over," Charlotte said, faintly. She never knew quite how she was over, lifted in some fashion, and Anderson stood close to her, looking at her with his face as white as hers. "What is it?" he asked. "Are you ill, Miss Carroll? What is it?" "I have been frightened," said she. Without quite knowing what she did, she caught hold of his arm and clung to him tightly. "What frightened you?" asked Anderson, fairly trembling himself and looking down at her. "There was a man asleep in the grove, in there," explained Charlotte, falteringly--she still felt faint and strange--"and--and--I sat down there, and did not see him, and then he--he woke up and--" Anderson seized her arm in a fierce clutch. "What?" he cried. "Where is he? What? For God's sake!" "He went away out in the road and did not seem to see--me. I sat still," said Charlotte. Then she was very faint again, for he, too, frightened her a little. Anderson caught her, supporting her, while he tore off his coat. Then he half carried her over to a ledge of rocks cropping out of the furzy gold-and-blue undergrowth, and sat down beside her there. Charlotte sat weakly where she was placed. She was deadly white and trembling. Anderson hesitated a moment, then he put an arm around her, removed her hat, and drew her head down on his shoulder. "Now keep quiet a little while until you are better," he said. "You are perfectly safe now. You say the man did not see you?" Charlotte shook her head against his shoulder. She closed her eyes; she was really very near a complete swoon, and scarcely knew where she was or what was happening; only a vague sense of another will thrust under her sinking spirit for a support was over her. As for the man, he looked down at the little, pale face, with the dark lashes sweeping the soft cheeks, at the mouth still trembling to a sob of terror and grief, and a mighty wave of emotion was over him. He realized that he held in his arms not only the girl whom he loved, towards whom his whole being went out in protection and tenderness, but himself, his whole future, even in some subtle sense his past. He was like one on some height of the spirit, from which he overlooked all that was, all that had gone before, and all that would come. He was on the Delectable Mountain. Within himself he comprehended the widest vision of earth, that which is given through love. The man's face, looking at the woman's on his shoulder, became transfigured. It was full of uttermost tenderness, of protection as perfect as that of a father for his child. His heart, as he looked at her, was at once that of a lover and a father. He unconsciously held her closer, and bent his face down over hers softly, as if she had been indeed a child. "Poor little soul!" he whispered, and his lips almost touched her cheek. Then a wave of color came over the girl's face. "I am better," she said, and raised herself abruptly. Anderson drew back and removed his arm. He feared she was offended, and perhaps afraid of him. But she looked piteously up in his face, and, to his dismay, began to cry. Her nerves were completely unstrung. She was not a strong girl, and she had, in fact, been through a period of mental torture which might have befitted the Inquisition. She could still see the man's evil face; her brain seemed stamped with the sight; terror had mastered her. She was for the time being scarcely sane. The terrible imagination of ill which had possessed her, as she sat there gazing at the sleeping terror, still held her in sway. She was not naturally hysterical, but now hysterics threatened her. Anderson put his arm around her again and drew her head to his shoulder. "You must not mind," he said, in a grave, authoritative voice. "You are ill and frightened. You must not mind. Keep your head on my shoulder until you feel better. You are quite safe now." Anderson's voice was rather admonishing than caressing. Charlotte sobbed wildly against his shoulder, and clung to him with her little, nervous hands. Anderson sat looking down at her gravely. "Is your mother at home?" he asked, presently. "No," sobbed Charlotte; "they have all gone to drive." "Nobody in the house?" "Only Marie." Anderson reflected. He was much nearer his own home than hers, and there was a short-cut across the field; they would not need to strike the road at all. He rose, with a sudden resolution, and raised the weeping girl to her feet. "Come," said he, in the same authoritative voice, and Charlotte stumbled blindly along, his arm still around her. She had an under-consciousness that she was ashamed of herself for showing so little bravery, that she wondered what this man would think of her, but her self-control was gone, because of the too tense strain which had been put upon it. It was like a spring too tightly compressed, suddenly released; the vibrations of her nerves seemed endless. She tried to hush her sobs as she was hurried along, and succeeded in some measure, but she was still utterly incapable of her usual mental balance. Once she started, and clutched Anderson's arm with a gasp of fear. "Look, look!" she whispered. "What is it?" he asked, soothingly. "The man is there. See him?" "There is nothing there, child," he said, and hurried her over the place where her distorted vision had seen again the object of her terror, in his twisted sleep in the grass. Anderson began to be seriously alarmed about the girl. He did not know what consequences might come from such a severe mental strain upon such a nervous temperament. He hurried as fast as he dared, almost carrying her at times, and finally they emerged upon the garden at the right of his own house. The flowers were thinning out fast, but the place was still gay with marigolds and other late blossoms. As he passed the kitchen door he was aware of the maid's gaping face of stupid surprise, and he called out curtly to her: "Is my mother in the house?" "Yes, sir. She's in the sitting-room," replied the maid, with round eyes of curiosity upon the pair. Charlotte was making a desperate effort to walk by herself, to recover herself, but Anderson was still almost carrying her bodily. She wondered dimly at the strange trembling of her limbs, at the way the bright orange and red of the marigolds and nasturtiums swam before her eyes, and once again she saw quite distinctly the evil face of the man peer out at her from among them; but this time she said nothing, for her subconsciousness of delusion was growing stronger. Anderson went around to the front of the house, and his mother's wondering face gazed from a window, then quickly disappeared. When he reached the door she was there, filling it up with her large figure in its voluminous white draperies. "What--" she began, but Randolph interrupted her. "Mother, this is Miss Carroll," he said. "She is not hurt, but she has had a terrible fright and shock. Her people are all away from home, and I brought her here; it was nearer. I want her to have some wine, and rest, and get over it before she goes home." Mrs. Anderson hesitated one second. It was a pause for the gathering together of wits suddenly summoned for new and surprising emergencies; then she rose to the occasion. She had her faults and her weaknesses, but she was one of the women in whom the maternal instinct is a power, and this girl appealed to it. She stretched forth her white-clad arms, and she drew her away almost forcibly from her son. "You poor child!" said she, in a voice which harked back to her son's babyhood. "Come right in. You go and get a glass of that port-wine," said she to Randolph, and she gave him a little push. She enveloped and pervaded the girl in a voluminous embrace. Charlotte felt the soft panting of a mother's bosom under her head as she was led into the house. "You poor, blessed child," a soft voice cooed in her ear, a soft voice and yet a voice of strength. Charlotte's own mother had never been in the fullest sense a mother to her; a large part of the spiritual element of maternity had been lacking; but here was a woman who could mother a race, if once her heart of maternal love was awakened. Charlotte was not led; that did not seem to be the action. She felt as if she were borne along by sustaining wings spread under her weakness into a large, cool bedroom opening out of the sitting-room. Then her dress was taken off, in what wise she scarcely knew; she was enrobed in one of Mrs. Anderson's large, white wrappers, and was laid tenderly in a white bed, where presently she was sipping a glass of port-wine, with Mrs. Anderson sitting behind her and supporting her head. "No, you can't come in, Randolph," she heard her say to her son, and her voice sounded almost angry. After Charlotte had swallowed the wine, she lay back on the pillow, and she heard Mrs. Anderson talking softly to her in a sort of delicious dream, caused partly by the wine, which had mounted at once to her head, and partly by the sense of powerful protection and perfect peace and safety. "Poor lamb!" Mrs. Anderson said, and her voice sounded like the song of a mother bird. "Poor lamb; poor, blessed child! It was a shame she was so frightened, but she is safe now. Now go to sleep if you can, dear child; it will do you good." Charlotte smiled helplessly and gratefully, and after a happy stare around the room, with its scroll-work of green on the walls, reflecting green gloom from closed blinds, and another look of childish wonder into the loving eyes bent over her, she closed her own. Presently Mrs. Anderson tiptoed out into the sitting-room, where Randolph was waiting, standing bolt-upright in the middle of the room staring at the bedroom door. She beckoned him across the hall into the opposite room, the parlor. The parlor had a musty smell which was not unpleasant; in fact, slightly aromatic. There were wooden shutters which were tightly closed, all except one, through an opening in which a sunbeam came and transversed the room in a shaft of glittering motes. "What scared her so?" demanded Mrs. Anderson. She had upon her a new authority. Anderson felt as if he had reverted to his childhood. He explained. "Well," said his mother, "the poor child has had an awful shock, and she is lucky if she isn't down sick with a fever. I don't like to see anybody look the way she did. But I'm thankful the man didn't see her." "He might have been harmless enough," said Anderson. Mrs. Anderson sniffed. "I don't see many harmless-looking ones round here," said she. "An awful-looking tramp came to the door this morning. I shouldn't wonder if it was the same one. I guess she will be all right now. She looked quieted down, but she had an awful shock, poor child." "I wonder when I ought to take her home," said Anderson. "Not for two hours," said his mother, decidedly. "She is going to stay here till she gets rested and is a little over it." "Perhaps she had better," said Anderson; "her folks may have gone on a long drive, too." "Did you know her before?" asked his mother, suddenly, and a sharp expression came into her soft, blue eyes. "I have seen her in the store," replied Anderson, and he was conscious of coloring. "She knew you, then?" said his mother. "Yes. She was in the store this morning." "It was lucky you were there." "Oh, as for that, she was in no danger," said Anderson, coolly. "The tramp had gone." "If you hadn't been there, I believe that poor little thing would have fainted dead away and lain there, nobody knows how long. It doesn't do anybody any good to get such a fright, and she is a thin, delicate little thing." "Yes, she had quite a fright," said Anderson, walking over to the window with the defective shutter. "This shutter must be fixed," said he. "I think she is prettier than the one that got married, but it is a pity she belongs to such a family," said Mrs. Anderson. "Mrs. Ferguson was just in here, and she says it is awful, that they are owing everybody." "That is not the girl's fault," Anderson rejoined, with sudden fire. "No, I suppose not," said Mrs. Anderson, with an anxious look at him. "Only, if she hasn't been taught to think it doesn't matter if debts are not paid." "Well, I don't think that poor child is to be blamed," Anderson said. "Do they owe you?" "She came in and paid me this morning." "Oh, I'm glad of that!" said his mother, and Anderson was conscious of intense guilt at his deception. Somehow half a lie had always seemed to him more ignoble than a whole one, and he had told a half one. He turned to leave the room, when there came a loud peal of the door-bell. "Oh, dear, that will wake her up!" said his mother. Anderson strode past her to the door, and there stood Eddy Carroll. He was breathless from running, and his pretty face was a uniform rose. "Say," he panted, "is my sister in here?" "Hush!" said Anderson. "Yes, she is." "I chased you all the way," said Eddy, "but I tumbled down and hurt my knee on an old stone, and then I couldn't catch up." Indeed, the left knee of Eddy's little knickerbockers showed a rub and a red stain. "Where's Charlotte?" "She is lying down. She was frightened, and I brought her here, and she has had some wine and is lying down." "What frightened her, I'd like to know? First thing I saw you were lugging her off across the field. What frightened her?" Anderson explained. Eddy sniffed with utmost scorn. "Just like a girl," said he, "to get scared of a man that was fast asleep, and wouldn't have hurt her, anyway. Just like a girl. Say, you'd better keep her awhile." "We are going to," said Mrs. Anderson. "If she stays to supper, I might stay too, and then I could go home with her, and save you the trouble," said Eddy to Anderson. Chapter XXVI There had been a mutter as of coming storm in Wall Street for several weeks, and this had culminated in a small, and probably a sham, tempest, with more stage thunder and lightning than any real. However, it was on that very account just the sort of cataclysm to overwhelm phantom and illusory ships of fortune like Arthur Carrolls. That week he acknowledged to himself that his career in the City was over, that it was high time for him to shut up his office and to shake the dust of the City from his feet, for fear of worse to come. Arthur Carroll had a certain method in madness, a certain caution in the midst of recklessness, and he had also a considerable knowledge of law, and had essayed to keep within it. However, there were complications and quibbles, and nobody knew what might happen, so he retreated in as good order as possible, and even essayed to guard as well as might be his retreat. He told the pretty stenographers, with more urbanity than usual, and even smiling at the prettier one, as if the fact of her roselike face did not altogether escape him, that he was feeling the need of a vacation and would close the office for a couple of weeks. At the end of that period they might report. Carroll owed both of these girls; both remembered that fact; both reflected on the possibility of their services being no longer required, but such was the unconscious masculine charm of the man over their foolish and irresponsible feminity that they questioned nothing. Their eyes regarded him half-shyly, half-boldly under their crests of blond pompadours. The younger and prettier blushed sweetly, and laughed consciously, as if she saw herself in a mirror; the other's face deepened like a word under a strenuous pencil--the lines in it grew accentuated. Going down-stairs, the pretty girl nudged the other almost painfully in the side. "Say," she whispered, "did you see him stare at me. Eh?" The other girl drew away angrily. "I don't know as I did," she replied, in a curt tone. "He stared like everything. Say, I don't believe he's married." "I don't see what difference it makes to you whether he's married or not." "Sho! Guess I wouldn't be seen goin' with a married man. What do you take me for, Sadie Smith?" "Wait till there's any question of goin' before you worry. I would." "Maybe I sha'n't have to wait long," giggled the other. When she reached the sidewalk, she stood balancing herself airily, swinging her arms, keeping up a continuous flutter of motion like a bird, to keep warm, for the wind blew cold down Broadway. She was really radiant, vibrant with nerves and young blood, sparkling and dimpling, and bubbling over, as it were, with perfect satisfaction with herself and perfect assurance of what lay before her. The other stood rather soberly beside her. They were both waiting for a car up Broadway. The young man who was in love with the pretty one came clattering down the stairs. There had been something wrong with the elevator, and it was being repaired. He also had to wait for a car, and he joined the girls. He approached the pretty girl and timidly pressed his shoulder against hers in its trim, light jacket. She drew away from him with a sharp thrust of the elbow. "Go 'long," said she, forcibly. She laughed, but she was evidently in earnest. The young man was not much abashed. He stood regarding her, winking fast. "Say," he said, with a cautious glance around at the staircase, "s'pose the boss is goin' to quit?" Both girls turned and stared at him. The elder turned quite pale. "What do you mean, talking so?" said she, sharply. "Nothin', only I thought it was a kind of queer time of year for a man to take a vacation, a man as busy as the boss seems to be. And--it kind of entered my head--" "If anything entered your head, do, for goodness' sake, hang on to it," said the pretty girl, pertly. Then her car whirred over the crossing and ground to a standstill, and she sprang on it with a laugh at her own wit. "Good-night," she called back. The other two, waiting for another car, were left together. "You don't think Mr. Carroll means to give up business?" the girl said, in a guarded tone. "Lord, no! Why, he has so much business he can hardly stagger under it, and he must be making money. I was only joking." "I suppose he's good pay," the girl said, in a shamed tone. "Good pay? Of course he is. He don't keep right up to the mark--none of these lordly rich men like him do--but he's sure as Vanderbilt. I should smile if he wasn't." "I thought so," said the girl. "I didn't mean to say I had any doubt." "He's sure, only he's a big swell. That's always the way with these big swells. If he hadn't been such a swell, now, he'd have paid us all off before he took his vacation. But, bless you, money means so little to a chap like him that it don't enter into his head it can mean any more to anybody else." "It must be awful nice to have money enough so you can feel that way," remarked the girl, with a curious sigh. "That's so." The young man craned his neck forward to look at an approaching car, then he turned again to the girl. "Say," he whispered, pressing close to her in the hurrying throng, and speaking in her ear, "she's dead stuck on him, ain't she?" By two jerks, one of his right shoulder, one of his left, with corresponding jerks of his head, up the stairs and up Broadway, he indicated his employer and the girl who had just left on the car. "She's a fool," replied the girl, comprehensively. "Think she 'ain't got no show?" The girl sniffed. The young man laughed happily. "Well," he said, "I rather think he's married, myself, anyhow." "I don't think he's married," returned the girl, quickly. "I do. There's our car. Come along." The girl climbed after the young man on to the crowded platform of the car. She glanced back at the office window as the car rumbled heavily up Broadway, and it was a pathetic glance from a rather pathetic young face with a steady outlook upon a life of toil and petty needs. William Allbright had lingered behind the rest, and was in the office talking with Carroll, who was owing him a month's salary. Allbright, respectfully and apologetically, but with a considerable degree of firmness, had asked for it. "It is not quite convenient for me to pay you to-night, Mr. Allbright," Carroll replied, courteously. "I was expecting a considerable sum to-day, which would have enabled me to square off a number of other debts beside yours. You know that matter of Gates & Ormsbee?" "Yes, sir," replied Allbright, rather evasively. He had curious misgivings lately about this very Gates & Ormsbee, who figured in considerable transactions on his books. "Well," continued Carroll, rather impatiently, looking at his watch, "you know they failed to meet their note this morning, and that has shortened me with ready money." "How long do you expect to keep the office shut, sir?" inquired the clerk, respectfully, but still with a troubled air, and with serious eyes with the unswerving intentness of a child's upon Carroll's face. "About two weeks," answered Carroll. "I must have that much rest. I am overworked." It was, indeed, true that Carroll looked fagged and fairly ill. "And then you expect to resume business?" questioned Allbright, with a mild persistence. He still kept those keen, childlike eyes of his upon the other man's face. "What else would you understand from what I have already said?" said Carroll. He essayed to meet the other man's eyes, then he turned and looked out of the window, and at that minute the girl who had worked at the type-writer in the back office looked up at him from the crowded platform of the car with her small, intense face, whose intensity seemed to make it stand out from the others around her as from a blurred background of humanity. "May I ask you to kindly wait a moment, Mr. Allbright?" Carroll said, and went out hurriedly, leaving Allbright standing staring in amazement. There had been something in his employer's manner which he did not understand. He stood a second, then presently made free to take up a copy of the Wall Street edition of the Sun, and sit down to glance over the panic reports. It was not very long, however, before he heard Carroll approaching the door. Carroll entered quite naturally, and the unusual expression which had perplexed the clerk was gone from his face. His mind seemed to be principally disturbed by the trouble about the elevator. "It is an outrage," he said, in his fine voice, which was courteous even while pronouncing anathema. "The management of this block is not what it should be." Allbright had risen, and was standing beside the desk on which lay the Sun. "It hasn't been acting right for a week past," he said, referring to the elevator. "I know it hasn't, and there might have been an accident. It is an outrage. And they are taking twice as long to repair it as they should. I doubt if it is in working order by to-morrow." As he spoke, Carroll was taking out his pocket-book, which he opened, disclosing neatly folded bank-notes. "By-the-way, Mr. Allbright," he said, "I find I can settle my arrears with you to-night, after all. I happened to think of a party from whom I might procure a certain sum which was due me, and I did so." Allbright's face brightened. "I am very glad, sir," he said. "I was afraid of getting behind with the rent, and my sister has not been very well lately, and there is the doctor's bill." "I am very glad also," said Carroll. "I dislike exceedingly to allow these things to remain unpaid." As he spoke he was counting out the amount of Allbright's month's salary. He then closed the pocket-book with a deft motion, but not before the clerk had seen that it was nearly empty. He also saw something else before Carroll brought his light overcoat together over his chest. "It is really cold to-night," he said. "I am very much obliged to you, sir, for the money," Allbright said, putting the notes in his old pocket-book. Then he replied to Carroll's remark concerning the weather, that it was indeed cold, and he thought there would be a frost. "Yes, I think so," said Carroll. Then Allbright put on his own rather shabby, dark overcoat and his hat and took his leave. Much to his surprise, Carroll extended his hand, something which he had never done before. "Good-bye," he said. Allbright shook the extended hand, and felt a sudden, unexplained emotion. He returned the good-bye, and wished Mr. Carroll a pleasant vacation and restoration to health. "I am tired out and ill," Carroll admitted, in a weary voice, and his eyes, as they now met the other man's, were haggard. "There's two weeks' vacation," Allbright told his sister when he reached home that night, "and I don't know, but I'm afraid business ain't going just to suit Captain Carroll, and that's the reason for it." "Has he paid you?" asked his sister, quickly, and her placid forehead wrinkled. Her illness had made her irritable. "Yes," replied her brother. He looked at her meditatively. He was about to tell her something--that he was almost sure that Carroll had gone out and pawned his watch to pay him--then he desisted. He reflected that his sister was a woman, and would in all probability tell the woman down-stairs and her son about it, and that it would be none of their business whether he worked for a man who was honest enough, or hard up enough, to pawn his watch to pay him his month's salary or not. He was conscious of sentiments of loyalty both to himself and to Carroll. During the next two weeks he often strolled in the neighborhood of the office and stood looking up at the familiar windows. One day he saw some men carrying away a desk which looked familiar, but he was not sure. He hesitated about asking them from what office they had removed it until they had driven away and it was too late. He went up on the elevator and surveyed the office door, but it looked just as usual, with the old sign thereon. He tried it softly, but it was locked. When he reached the sidewalk he encountered Harrison Day, the young clerk. He did not see him at first, but a nervous touch on his arm arrested his attention, and then he saw the young man's face with its fast-winking eyes. "Say," said Harrison Day, "it's all right, ain't it?" "What's all right?" demanded Allbright, a trifle shortly, drawing away. He had never liked Harrison Day. "Oh, nothin', only it's ten days since he went, and I thought I'd look round to see how things were lookin'. You s'pose he's comin' back all right?" "I haven't any reason to think anything else." "Well, I thought I'd look around, and when I saw you I thought I'd ask what you thought. The girls are kind of uneasy--that is, Sadie is--May don't seem to fret much. Say!" "What?" "Did he pay you?" "Yes, he did." "Ain't he owin' you anything?" "No, he is not." The young man gave a whistle of relief. "Well, I s'pose he's all right," he said. "He 'ain't paid the rest of us up yet, but I s'pose it's safe enough." A faithful, even an affectionate look came into the other man's face. He remembered his suspicions about the watch, and reasoned from premises. "I have no more doubt of him than I have of myself," he replied. "You s'pose the business is goin' on just the same, then?" "Of course I do," Allbright replied, almost angrily. And then a man who had just emerged from the street door coming from the elevator accosted him. "Can you tell me anything about a man by the name of Carroll that's been running a sort of promoting business up in No. 233," he asked, and his face looked reddened unnaturally. The young man thought he had probably been drinking, but Allbright thought he looked angry. The young man replied before Allbright opened his mouth. "He's gone on a vacation," he said. "Queer time of year for a vacation," snapped the man, who was long and lean and full of nervous vibrations. "He was overworked," said Harrison Day. "Guess he overworked cheating me out of two thousand odd dollars," said the man, and both the others turned and stared at him. Then Allbright spoke. "That is a statement no man has any right to make about my employer unless he is in a position to prove it," he said. "That is so," said Harrison Day. He was a very small man, but he danced before the tall, lean one, who looked as if all his flesh might have resolved to muscle. The man looked contemptuously down at him and spoke to Allbright. "So he is your employer?" he said, in a sarcastic tone. "Yes, he is." "This young man's also, I presume." "Yes, he is," declared Day. But the man only heeded Allbright's response that he was. "Well," said the man, "may I ask a question?" "Yes, you may," said Day, pertly, "but it don't follow that we are goin' to answer it." "May I ask," said the man, addressing Allbright, "if Captain Carroll has paid you your salaries?" "He has paid me every dollar he owed me," replied Allbright, with emphasis, and his own face flushed. Then the man turned to Day. "Has he paid you?" he inquired. And Day, with no hesitation, lied. "Yes, sir, he has, every darned cent," he declared, "and I don't know what business it is of yours whether he has or not." "When is he coming back?" asked the man, of Allbright, not heeding Day. "Next Monday," replied Allbright, with confidence. "Where does he live?" asked the man. Then for the first time an expression of confusion came over the book-keeper's face, but Day arose to the occasion. "He lives in Orange," replied Day. "What street, and number?" "One hundred and sixty-three Water Street," replied Day. His eyes flashed. He was finding an unwholesome exhilaration in this inspirational lying. "Well," said the man, "I can tell you one thing, if your precious boss ain't in this office Monday morning by nine o'clock sharp, he'll see me at one hundred an sixty-three Water Street, Orange, New Jersey, and he'll hand over my two thousand odd dollars that he's swindled me out of, or I'll have the law on him." With that the man swung himself aboard a passing car, and Allbright and Day were left looking after him. "That feller had ought to have been knocked down," said Day. Allbright turned and looked at him gravely. "So, Captain Carroll lives in Orange?" he said. "He may, for all I know." "Then you don't know?" "Do you?" "No; I never have known exactly." "Well, I haven't, but I wasn't goin' to let on to that chap. And he may live jest where I said he did, for all I know. Say!" "What?" "You s'pose it is all right?" Allbright hesitated. His eyes fell on three gold balls suspended in the air over a door a little way down a cross street. "Yes," he said. "I believe that Captain Arthur Carroll will pay every man he owes every dollar he owes." "Well, I guess it's all right," said Day. "I'm goin' to take the girls to Madison Square Garden to-night. I'm pretty short of cash, but you may as well live while you do live. I wonder if the boss is married." "I don't know." "I guess he is," said Day, "and I guess he's all right and above board. Good-bye, Allbright. See you Monday." But Monday, when the two stenographers, the book-keeper, and the clerk met at the office, they found it still locked, and a sign "To let" upon the door. "Mr. Carroll gave up his office last Saturday," said the man in the elevator. "The janitor said so, and they have taken his safe out for rent. Guess he bust in the Wall Street shindy last week." Out on the sidewalk the four looked at one another. The pretty stenographer began to cry in a pocket-handkerchief edged with wide, cheap lace. "I call it a shame," she said, "and here I am owing for board, and--" "Don't cry, May," said Day, with a caressing gesture towards her in spite of the place. "I guess it will be all right. He has all our addresses, and we shall hear, and you won't have a mite of trouble getting another place." "I think I am justified in telling you all not to worry in the least, that you will be paid every dollar," said Allbright; but he looked perplexed and troubled. "It looks mighty black, his not sending us word he was going to close the office," said Day; and then appeared the tall, lean man who wanted his two thousand odd dollars. He did not notice them at all, but started to enter the office-building. "Come along quick before he comes back," whispered Day. He seized the astonished girls each by an arm and hustled them up the street, and Allbright, after a second's hesitation, followed them just as the irate man emerged from the door. Chapter XXVII Arthur Carroll, when he had started on his drive with his wife and sister that afternoon, was in one of those strenuous moods which seem to make one's whole being tick with the clock-work of destiny and cause everything else, all the environment, and the minor happenings of life, to appear utterly idle. Even when he talked, and apparently with earnestness, it was always with that realization of depths, which made his own voice ring empty and strange in his ears. He heard his wife and sister chatter with the sense of aloofness of the inhabitant of another planet; he thought even of the financial difficulties which harassed him, and had caused this very mood, with that same sense of aloofness. When Anna wondered where Charlotte had gone to walk, and Mrs. Carroll remarked on the possibility of their overtaking her, his mind made an actual effort to grasp that simple idea. He was running so deep, and with such awful swiftness, in his own groove of personal tragedy, that the daughter whom he loved, and had seen only a few moments ago, seemed almost left out of sight of his memory. However, all the while the usual trivialities of his life and the lives of those who belonged to him went on with the same regularity and reality as tragedy, and with as certain a trend to a catastrophe of joy or misery. On that day when Charlotte had her fright from the tramp, she remained at the Anderson's to supper. Eddy had also remained. When Charlotte had waked from her nap, he followed Anderson into the sitting-room, where was Charlotte in Mrs. Anderson's voluminous, white frilly wrapper, a slight young figure scalloped about by soft, white draperies, like a white flower, seated comfortably in the largest, easiest chair in the room. Mrs. Anderson was standing over her with another glass of wine, and a china plate containing two great squares of sponge-cake. "Do eat this and drink the wine, dear," she urged. "It is nearly an hour before supper now." "Then I really must go home, if it is so late," Charlotte cried. She made a weak effort to rise. She was still curiously faint when she essayed to move. "You are going to stay here and have supper, and after supper my son shall take you home. If you are not able to walk, we shall have a carriage." "I think I must go home, thank you," Charlotte repeated, in a sort of bewildered and grateful dismay. "If you think your mother will feel anxious, I will send and inform her where you are," said Mrs. Anderson, "but you must stay, my dear." There was about her a soft, but incontrovertible authority. It was all gentleness, like the overlap of feathers, but it was compelling. It was while Mrs. Anderson was insisting and the girl protesting that Anderson, with Eddy at his heels, had entered the room. "Why, Eddy dear, is that you?" cried Charlotte. Eddy stood before her and surveyed her with commiseration and a strong sense of personal grievance and reproach. "Yes, it's me," said he. "Papa told me to go to walk with you, and I didn't know which way you went, and I couldn't find out for a long time. Then I saw Mr. Anderson taking you here, and I ran, but I couldn't catch up. He's got awful long legs." Eddy looked accusingly at Anderson's legs. "It was too bad," said Charlotte. "You were awful silly to get so scared at nothing," Eddy pursued. "I saw that tramp. He looked to me like a real nice man. Girls are always imagining things. You'd better eat that cake, Charlotte. You look awful. That looks like real nice cake." "Bless your heart, you shall have some," Mrs. Anderson said, and Eddy accepted with alacrity the golden block of cake which was offered him. "Why, Eddy!" Charlotte said. "Now, Charlotte, you know we never have cake like this at home," Eddy said, biting into the cake. "Not since the egg-man won't trust us any more. I know this kind of cake takes lots of eggs. I heard Marie say so when Amy asked her to make it." Charlotte colored pitifully, and made another effort to rise. "Indeed, I think we must go now," said she. "Come, Eddy." Mrs. Anderson turned to her son for support. "I tell her she must not think of going until after tea," she said. "Then if she is not able to walk, we will get a carriage." Eddy removed the fast-diminishing square of cake from his mouth and regarded his sister with an expression of the most open ingenuousness. "Now, Charlotte, I'll tell you something," he said. "What, dear?" "You might just as well stay, and I'll tell you why. Papa and Amy and Anna won't be home until after seven." "Until after seven?" "No. They are going to Addison." "To Addison?" Addison was a large town some fifteen miles from Banbridge. "Yes; and they are going to get dinner there." "Eddy, are you sure?" "Yes, of course I am sure," replied Eddy, with the wide-open eyes of virtue upon his sister's face. "Amy told me to tell you." "Now, Eddy." Eddy took another bite of his cake. "I think you are pretty mean to speak that way. I never spoke to you so," he said. "When you say a thing is so, I never say 'Now, Charlotte!'" Eddy, having imitated his sister's doubtful tone exactly, took another bite of cake. "Well, if Amy really said so," Charlotte returned, and still with a faint accent of incredulity. It was very seldom that the Carrolls took the drive to Addison. However, it was an exceedingly pleasant day, and it did seem possible. "Well, she did," Eddy declared, stoutly; and there was in his declaration a slight trace of truth, for Mrs. Carroll had mentioned, on starting, that it was such a lovely day, that if they had got an earlier start they might have driven to Addison; and Anna had replied that it was too late now, for they would not get home in time for dinner if they went there. The rest Eddy had manufactured to serve his own small ends--which a stay at the Andersons' to tea, for which he had, remembering his dinner there, the pleasantest anticipations. "You had better stay, Charlotte," Eddy urged, furthermore, "for you do look awful pale, and as if you ought to have something nourishing to eat, and you know we won't get much home. The mutton all went this noon, and you know, unless papa got some in Addison, we wouldn't be likely to get any here. I heard Anna talking about the butcher only this morning. Papa hasn't been able to pay him for a very long time, you know, Charlotte." Then Charlotte raised herself hastily. "We must go home," she said, with a fierce emphasis; but the effort was too much. She sank back, and Mrs. Anderson sent her son for the camphor-bottle. "Now," said she to Anderson, "you had better take him out and show him the dog. I'll fix it up." She nodded assuringly towards the little pale face against the rose-patterned chintz. "Come along, son," said Anderson to the boy, and led him out in the garden. "You must not talk quite so much, young man," he said to him, when they were on their way to the dog-kennel, which was backed up against the terrace at the rear of the house, and before which stood chained fast a large dog with a bad reputation. "You had better not touch him," charged Anderson, as they approached. Then he repeated, "No, you must not talk quite so much." "Why not?" demanded Eddy. "He don't look very cross." "Because," said the man, "there are certain things in every family which it is better for a member of the family not to repeat outside his home." "What did I say?" asked Eddy, wonderingly. "He is wagging his tail. He shakes all over. He wouldn't do that unless his tail was wagging. I can't see his tail, but it must be wagging. What did I say?" "When it comes to the family's household affairs--" Anderson said. "Oh, you mean what I said about the butcher, huh? Oh, that don't do any harm. Everybody in Banbridge knows about those things. I don't see what difference that makes. Folks have to have things, don't they? I don't believe that dog would bite me. He is wagging just as hard as he can. Don't they?" "Yes, of course," agreed Anderson, "but--" "And if they don't have the money to pay for things, what are they going to do? You wouldn't want all us Carrolls to die, would you?" Anderson smiled, and stood between the boy and the kennel. "I ain't afraid of him," said Eddy. "You wouldn't, would you?" "Oh, of course not," replied Anderson. "I shouldn't think you would, especially Charlotte. Say, I think Charlotte is a real pretty girl, if she is my sister. Say, why can't I pat him?" "You had better not. He bit a boy about your size once." "Hm! I ain't afraid he'll bite me. Don't you think she is? I don't think you are very polite not to say right off." "Very pretty, indeed," replied Anderson, laughing. Then he spoke to the dog, a large mongrel with a masterly air, and an evident strain of good blood under his white and yellow hide. "How much did you pay for that dog?" inquired Eddy. "I didn't pay anything," replied Anderson. "Somebody left him in the street in front of my office when he was a puppy, or he strayed there. I never knew which." "So you took him in?" "Yes." "Do you always keep him shut up here?" "A great part of the time. Sometimes he stays in my store nights. He is a very good watch-dog." "You keep him shut up because he bit a boy?" "Most of the time. He is a little uncertain in his temper, I am afraid." "Didn't he bite any one but that one boy?" "No, not that I know of. But he has sprang at a good many people and frightened them, and I have either to keep him tied or shoot him." "He didn't kill the boy?" Anderson laughed. "Oh no! He was not very badly bitten." "Well, I know one thing," said Eddy, with conviction. "I would not like a nice dog like that shut up all his life because he had bitten me." Before Anderson knew what he was about to do, Eddy had made a spring, leaping up sideways in the air like a kitten, and was close to the dog. And the dog, upon whom there was no reliance to be placed, except in the case of Anderson himself, hardly stopping for a premonitory growl, had seized upon the boy's little arm. Having a strain of pure bulldog in him, it was considerable trouble to make him let go, and Anderson had to use a good deal of force at his collar and a thick stick. Eddy, meanwhile, made not a whimper, but kept his whitening lips close shut. Luckily he had on a thick jacket, although the day was so warm, and when Anderson drew away at last from the furious, straining animal, and examined the injured member, he found only a slight wound. The marks of the dog's teeth were plainly visible, and there were several breaks of the surface and a little blood, but it was certainly not alarming, and the animal's usual temper made it improbable that any ultra consequences need be feared. Eddy was trembling and very pale, but he still made not a whimper, as Anderson examined his arm. "Well, my son," said Anderson, who was as white as the boy, "I think there is not much harm done. But it is lucky you had on such a thick sleeve. I can tell you that." "That was because we have not paid the Chinaman, and he wouldn't send home my blouses this week. It was so warm I wanted to wear a blouse, but they were all at the Chinaman's." Eddy's teeth chattered as he spoke, his childish lips quivered, and tears were in his eyes. He continued to tremble violently, but he did not for a moment give way. He even shook off the protecting arm which Anderson placed around his little shoulders. "Come, we will go in the house and have this tied up," said Anderson. But Eddy rebelled. "I don't want a lot of women fussing over a little thing like this," said he, stoutly. "It isn't anything at all." "No, it is not very serious, but all the same it had better be tied up, and I have something I want to put on it. I tell you what we will do. We will go around the back way. I will take you in the kitchen door and up the backstairs to my room, and doctor it unknown to anybody." "I don't want Charlotte to know anything about it; she will be just silly enough to faint away again. Girls always do make such an awful fuss over nothing," said Eddy. "All right," said Anderson. "Come along, my boy." Anderson started, and the boy followed, but suddenly he stopped and ran back before Anderson dreamed what he was about. He stopped in front of the kennel, and danced on obviously trembling legs a dance of defiance before the frantic dog. Anderson grabbed him by the shoulders. "Come at once," he said, quite sternly. Eddy obeyed at once. "All right," he said. "I just wanted him to see I wasn't afraid of him, that was all." Eddy and Anderson entered the house through the kitchen door, ascended the backstairs noiselessly, and gained Anderson's room, where the wound was bound up after an application of a stinging remedy which the boy bore without flinching, although it was considerably more painful than the bite itself. He looked soberly down at his arm, now turning black and blue from the bruise of the dog's teeth, beside the inflamed spots where they had actually entered, while Anderson applied the violent remedy. "Well," he said, "I suppose I was to blame. I ought to have minded you." "Yes, I suppose you ought, my son," assented Anderson, continuing to handle the wound gently. "And I suppose that is an exclusive dog. He doesn't like everybody going right up to him. Say, I guess he is a pretty smart dog, but I guess I should rather be his master than anybody else. He never bit you, did he?" "No." "I should think he would be an awful nice watch-dog," said Eddy. Anderson bound the arm tightly and smoothly with a bandage. When the arm was finally dressed the jacket-sleeve could go over it, much to Eddy's satisfaction. "Say, this jacket ain't paid for," he said. "Isn't it lucky that the man where Amy bought it didn't know we didn't have much money to pay for things lately and trusted us. If I had on my old jacket, the sleeves were so short and tight, because I had outgrown it, you know, I'd been hurt a good deal worse, and it was lucky we hadn't paid the Chinaman, too. It was real-- What do you call it?" "I don't know what you mean?" said Anderson, smiling. "It was real-- Oh, shucks! you know. What is it folks say when they don't go on a railroad train, and there's an accident, and everybody that did go is killed. You know." "Oh, providential?" "Yes, it was real providential." "Suppose we go down." "All right. Say, you mind you don't say a word about this to your mother or Charlotte." "Yes, I promise." "Your mother is an awful nice lady," said Eddy, in a whisper, descending the stairs behind Anderson, "but I don't want her fussing over me as if I was a girl, 'cause I ain't." When the two entered the sitting-room, Charlotte started and looked at her brother. "Eddy Carroll, what is the matter?" she cried. "Nothing," declared the little boy, stoutly, but he manifestly tottered. "Why, the dear child is ill!" cried Mrs. Anderson. "Randolph, what has happened?" "Nothing!" cried Eddy, holding on to his consciousness like a hero. "Nothing; and I ain't a dear child." "It is nothing, mother," said Anderson, quickly coming to his rescue. Charlotte was eying wisely the knee of Eddy's knickerbockers. "Eddy Carroll," said she, with tender severity, "your knee must be paining you terribly." Eddy quickly grasped at the lesser evil. "It ain't worth talking about," he responded, stoutly. "I can see blood on your knee, dear. It must be bad to make you turn so pale as that." With a soft swoop like a mother hen, Mrs. Anderson descended upon the boy, who did not dare resist that gentle authority. She tenderly rolled up the leg of the little knickerbockers and examined the bruised, childish knee. Then she got some witch-hazel and bound it up. While she was doing so, Eddy gazed over her head at Anderson with the knowing and confidential twinkle which one man gives another when tolerant of womanly delusion. He even indulged in an apparently insane chuckle when Mrs. Anderson finished, and smoothed his little, dark head, and told him that now she was sure it would feel better. "Eddy," cried Charlotte, "what are you doing so for?" "Nothing," replied Eddy. "I was thinking how funny I looked when I tumbled down." But he rolled his eyes, comically around at Anderson. His arm was paining him frightfully, and it struck him as the most altogether exquisite joke that Mrs. Anderson should be treating his knee, which did not pain him at all, so sympathetically. Chapter XXVIII During the progress of the tea at the Andersons' Eddy kept furtively glancing at his sister with an expression which signified congratulation. "Ain't you glad you stayed?" the expression said, quite plainly. "Did you ever have such nice things to eat? And only think what a snippy meal we should have had at home!" Charlotte met the first of the glances with a covertly chiding look and an imperceptible shake of her head; then she refused to meet them, keeping her eyes away from her exultant brother. She herself was actually hungry, poor child, for the truth was that for the last few days it had been somewhat short commons at the Carrolls', and Charlotte was one of the sort who, under such circumstances, are seized with a sudden loss of appetite. She had really eaten very little for some hours, and now, in spite of a curious embarrassment and agitation, which under ordinary circumstances would have lessened her desire for food, she herself ate eagerly. The meal was both dainty and abundant. Mrs. Anderson had always prided herself upon the meals she set before guests. There was always in the house a store of sweets to be drawn from on such occasions, and while Anderson had been binding up Eddy's wound, the maid had been sent to the market for a chicken to supplement the beefsteak which had been intended for the family supper. So there was fried chicken and celery salad, and the most wonderful cream biscuits, and fruit and pound cake, and quince preserves--quarters of delectable, long-drawn-out flavor in a rosy jelly--and tea and thick cream and loaf-sugar in the old, solid service with its squat pieces finished with beading. Eddy gloated over it all openly. He fairly forgot his manners, for, after all, he was, although in a desultory sort of way, a well-bred boy. The Carrolls, as far as their manners went, were gentlefolk, and came of a long line of gentlefolk. But it happened that the china which had come to them from their forebears had for the most part been broken in the course of their wanderings from place to place, and in its place was an ornate and rather costly, and unpaid-for, set. Eddy now quite openly lifted the saucer of thin, pink-and-gold china, in which his teacup rested, and held it to the light. "Whew, ain't it thin?" he ejaculated. "Why, Eddy!" Charlotte cried, flushing with dismay. "I don't care. It is awful thin," persisted the boy. He held the saucer before his eyes. "I can see you through it; yes, I can," said he. But Mrs. Anderson, although her old-fashioned ideas of the decorous behavior due from children at table were somewhat offended, and she later told her son that it did seem to her that the boy must have been somewhat neglected, was yet very susceptible to flattery of those teacups, which had descended to her from her own mother, and which she had always regarded as superior to any of the Anderson family china, of which there was quite a store. So she merely smiled and remarked gently that the china was very old, and she believed quite rare, and it was, indeed, unusually thin, yet not a piece of the original set had been broken. "Why didn't we have china like this instead of that we have?" demanded Eddy of Charlotte. "Hush, dear," said Charlotte. "This china is so very old and valuable, you know, that not every one could--that we could not-- I believe we had some very pretty china in our family, but it all got broken," she added. "It didn't begin to be so pretty as this," said Eddy. "I remember it. The cups were like bowls, and there were black wreaths around them. There weren't any handles, either. I don't see why we couldn't have got some china as pretty as this. Suppose it was valuable. Why, I don't believe that we have now is paid for. What difference would it make?" Charlotte blushed so that Mrs. Anderson felt an impulse to draw the poor, little, troubled head upon her shoulder and tell her not to mind. "Let me give you some more of the quince preserve, dear," she said, in the softest voice; and Charlotte, who did not want it, passed her little glass dish to take advantage of the opportunity afforded her to cover her confusion. "What difference would it make, say, Charlotte?" persisted Eddy. "Hush, dear," said Charlotte, painfully. "Here, son, pass your plate for this chicken," said Anderson; and Eddy, with a shrewd glance of half-comprehension from one to the other, passed his plate and subsided, after a muttered remark that he didn't see why Charlotte minded. "Wasn't that a bully supper?" he whispered, pressing close to his sister when they entered the sitting-room after the meal was finished. "Hush, dear," she whispered back. "Ain't you glad you stayed? You wouldn't, if it hadn't been for me." Charlotte turned and looked at him sharply. Mrs. Anderson had lingered in the dining-room to give some directions to the maid, and Anderson had stepped out on the porch for a second's puff at a cigar. "Eddy Carroll," said she, in a whisper, "you didn't?" Eddy faced her defiantly. "Didn't what?" "You didn't tell a lie about that?" Eddy lowered his eyes, frowned, and scraped one foot in a way he had when embarrassed. "Amy did say something about it was such a pleasant day and Addison," he replied, doggedly. "But did she say they were really going there, and would not be back?" "Anna said if they went there they could not get back." "But did she say they were going? Tell me the truth, Eddy Carroll." Eddy scraped. "I see they did not," said Charlotte, severely. "Eddy, I don't know what papa will say." "I know," said Eddy, simply, with a curious mixture of ruefulness and defiance. Then he added: "If you want to be mean enough to tell on a feller, after he's been the means of your having such a supper as that (and you were hungry, too; you needn't say you wasn't; you ate an awful lot yourself), you can." "I am not going to tell unless I am asked, when I certainly shall not tell a lie," replied Charlotte; "but papa will find it out himself, I am afraid, Eddy." "I shouldn't wonder if he did," admitted Eddy. "And then, you know--" "Yes, I know; but I don't care. I have had that bully supper, anyhow. He can't alter that. And, say, Charlotte." "What?" asked Charlotte, severely. "I am ashamed of you, Eddy." "I don't see why papa don't get a store, like him"--he jerked an expressive shoulder towards the scent of the cigar smoke--"and then we could have things as good as they do." But then Charlotte turned on him with fierceness none the less intense, although necessarily subdued. "Eddy Carroll," she whispered, with a long-drawn sibilance, "to turn on your father, a man like papa! Eddy Carroll! Poor papa does the best he can, always, always." "I suppose he does," said Eddy, quite loudly. "My, Charlotte, you needn't act as if you were going to bite a feller. I've had enough of--" "What?" asked Charlotte. "Nothing," said Eddy. His arm was paining him quite severely. It had been quite an ordeal for him to manage his knife and fork at supper without betrayal. "What were you going to say?" persisted Charlotte. "Nothing," said Eddy, doggedly--"nothing at all. Don't act so fierce, Charlotte. It isn't lady-like. Amy never speaks so awful quick." Charlotte began putting on her hat, which had been left on the sitting-room table. "I am ashamed of you," she whispered again. "I was ashamed of you all tea-time." Eddy whistled in a mannish fashion. Charlotte continued adjusting her hat and smoothing her fluff of dark hair. Her face, in the mirror which hung between the two front windows, looked not so angry as sorrowful, and with a dewy softness in the pretty eyes, and a slight quiver about the soft mouth. Eddy glanced several times at this reflected face; then he stole, with a sudden, swift motion, up behind his sister, threw his arms around her neck, although it hurt him cruelly, and laid his boyish cheek against her soft, girlish one. "No, you need not think that will make up," whispered Charlotte. But she herself pressed her cheek tenderly against his, and then laughed softly. "Try not to do so again, dear," she said. "It mortified me, and it is not being a credit to papa. Think a little and try to remember how you have been brought up." "Charlotte," whispered Eddy, in the softest, most furtive of whispers, casting a glance over his shoulder. "What is it, dear?" "I suppose they"--he indicated by a motion of his shoulder his host and hostess--"are just as nice people as--we are--as the Carrolls." "Of course they are," replied Charlotte, hastily. She pushed Eddy away softly and began to fuss again with her hat. "We must go home right away," she said, "or they will worry." "There is no need of his going home with you, as long as I am here," said Eddy. "Of course not," replied Charlotte. But it seemed that Anderson himself had other views, and his mother also, for although a sudden and not altogether easy suspicion had come to her, she whispered aside to him that he must certainly accompany the two home. "It is quite dark already," she said, "and it is not fit for that child to go alone with nobody but that boy, after the fright she has had this afternoon. She is just in the condition now when a shadow might upset her. You really must go with her, Randolph." "I have no intention of doing anything else, mother," Randolph replied, laughing. He had been, indeed, taking his overcoat from the tree in the hall when his mother had come out to speak to him. Charlotte had said, on rising from the table, that she must go home at once. Mrs. Anderson enveloped the girl in her large, gentle, lavender-scented embrace, and received with pleasant disclaimers her assurances of obligations and thanks; then she stood in the window and, with a little misgiving, and a ready imagination for future trouble, watched them emerge from the little front yard and disappear down the street under the low-growing maple branches which were turning slowly, and flashed gold over their heads in electric lights. She reflected judicially that while Charlotte was undoubtedly a sweet girl, and very pretty, very pretty, indeed, and, while her own heart was drawn to her, yet she would make no sort of wife for her son. She remembered with a shudder Eddy's remarks at the table. "He is a pretty little boy, too," she thought, with a maternal thrill, remembering her own son at that age. When she returned to the dining-room to wash the pink-and-gold cups and saucers, in her little bowl of hot water on the end of the table, as was her custom when the best china had been used, the maid, who was clearing the table, and who had been encouraged to conversation from the lack of another woman in the house, and her mistress's habit of gentle garrulity, spoke upon the subject in her mind. "Them was them Carrolls that lives in the Ranger place, was they not?" said she. The maid was a curious product of the region, having somewhat anomalously graduated at a high-school in New Sanderson before entering service, and gotten a strange load of unassimilated knowledge, which was particularly exemplified in her English. She scorned contractions, but equally scorned possessives and legitimate tenses. She wrote a beautiful hand, using quite ambitious words, but she totally misinterpreted the meaning of these very words in current literature, particularly the cook-book. Her bread was as heavy with undigested facts as is the stomach of a dyspeptic with food, but she was, in a way, a good servant, very faithful, attached to Mrs. Anderson, and a guileless purveyor of gossip, which rendered her exceedingly entertaining. She sniffed meaningly now in response to Mrs. Anderson's affirmative with regard to the identity of the recent guests. "They did not fail to eat enough," said she, presently, packing up the plates and looking at her mistress, who was drying carefully a pink-and-gold cup on a soft towel. "Yes, they seemed to relish the food," responded Mrs. Anderson. The maid sniffed again, and her sniff meant the gratification of the cook who sees her work appreciated, and something else--an indulgent scorn. "Well, I guess there is reason enough for them relishing it," said she. Mrs. Anderson made a soft, interrogatory noise, all that was consistent with her dignity and her sense of honor as a recent hostess towards departed guests. The maid went on. "They do say," said she, "them as knows, that them Carrolls do not have enough to eat." Mrs. Anderson made a little exclamation expressive of horror and pity. "Yes, they do say so," the maid went on, solemnly. "They do say, them that knows, that them Carrolls be owing everybody in Banbridge, and have cheated folks that have trusted in them awful." "Well, I am sorry if it is so," said Mrs. Anderson, with a sigh, "but of course this young lady who was here to-night and her little brother can't be to blame in any way, Emma." The maid sniffed with a deprecating disagreement. "Mebbe they be not," said she. She was rather a pretty girl, in her late girlhood, thin and large-boned, with a bright color on her evident cheek-bones, and with small, sparkling, blue eyes. She was extremely neat and trim, moreover, in her personal habits, and to-night was quite gorgeously arrayed in a light silk waist and a nice black skirt. She was expecting her beau to take her to evening prayer-meeting. She was a very religious girl, and had reclaimed her beau, who had had a liking for the gin-mills previous to keeping company with her. "Of course they are not," said Mrs. Anderson, with some warmth of partisanship, remembering poor little Charlotte's pretty, anxious face and her tiny, soft, clinging hands. She glanced, as she spoke, at the maid's large, red-knuckled fingers with a mental comparison. The maid was fixed in her own rendering of English verbs, and had told her beau that her mistress did not speak just right, like most old folks. "Mebbe they be not," she said, with firm doubt. Then she added, "It would not hurt them Carroll ladies, that young lady, nor her mother, nor her aunt, if they was to take hold, and do the housework them own selves, instead of keeping a girl, who they do not never pay." "Oh, dear! Do you know that?" "Indeed I do know that! Ed, he told me. He had it straight from them Hungarians who live in the house back of his married sister's. The Carroll girl, she goes there, and she told them, and them told Ed's sister." "Perhaps she has had some of her wages. You don't mean she has not been paid at all?" Mrs. Anderson said. "I mean not at all," the maid said, firmly. "That girl that works for them Carrolls has not been paid, not at all." "Why does she remain there, then?" "She would have went a long time ago if she not been afraid, lest, if she had went, it would have come about that she would have lost all she was going to lose as well as that which she had lost before," replied the girl, and Mrs. Anderson, being accustomed to her method of expression, understood. "It is dreadful," she said. "They say he has about ruined a great many of the people in Banbridge who have trusted them," said the maid, with a sly, keen glance at her mistress. She had heard that Mr. Anderson was one of the losers, and she wondered. "They have paid my son promptly, I believe," said Mrs. Anderson, although a little reluctantly. She always disliked alluding to the store to her maid, much more so than towards her equals. But that the maid misunderstood. She often told her beau that Mrs. Anderson was not a bit set up nor proud-feeling, if her son _did_ have a store. Therefore, to-night she understood humility instead of pride from her mistress's tone, and looked at her admiringly as she daintily polished the delicate pink-and-gold cups. "I am very glad, indeed, that Mr. Randolph has not lost nothing through them," she replied. "No, he has not," Mrs. Anderson repeated. "I dare say it is all exaggerated. The young lady who was here to-night seems like a very sweet girl." Mrs. Anderson said that from a beautiful sense of loyalty and justice, while in her mind's eye she saw her beloved son walking along through the early night with the young lady on his arm, and perhaps falling desperately in love, even at this date, and beginning to think of matrimony with a member of a family about which such tales were told in Banbridge. But the harm had been done long before she had dreamed of it, and her son had been very much in love with the girl on his arm before he had scarcely known her by sight. Anderson that night felt in a sort of dream. He was for the first time practically alone with Charlotte, for Eddy accompanied them very much after the fashion of an extremely lively little dog. He ran ahead, he lagged behind, and made dashes ahead with wild whoops. He hid behind trees, and sprang out at them when they passed. He was frequently startlingly obvious, but could not be said to actually be with them. He had wondered frankly, before they started, as to why Anderson wished to accompany them at all. "I don't see why you want to go 'way up to our house when Charlotte has got me," he said. "Ain't you tired?" Something in Anderson's persistency seemed to strike him as significant, for he walked behind them quite soberly, with his eye upon their backs in a speculative fashion at first; then he seemed to be seized with wild excitement, and began frantic demonstrations to attract Anderson's attention. In reality the boy was jealous, although nobody dreamed of such a thing. "A man will never notice a feller when a pretty girl's around; and she ain't so very pretty, either," he said to himself. He regarded Anderson as his find, and was naturally indignant with Charlotte. So all the way home he darted and veered about them, in order to divert the man's mind from the girl to the faithful little boy, but with no avail. Once or twice Charlotte spoke reproachfully to him, and that was all. Anderson never spoke a word to him, and his grief and jealousy grew. Anderson, walking along the shadowy street with Charlotte's little hand in his arm, would have been oblivious to much more startling demonstrations than poor Eddy's. He was profoundly agitated, stirred to the depths, and for that very reason he acquitted himself with more dignity and quiet calm than usual. He held himself with such a tight rein that his soul ached, but he never relaxed his hold. He told himself that it would be monstrous if by a word or gesture, by a tone of the voice, he betrayed anything to this little, innocent, timid, frightened girl on his arm. He never dreamed of the remotest possibility of dreams on her part. The soul beside him, seemingly separated only by thin walls of flesh, was in reality separated by an abyss of the imagination. But every minute his heart seemed to encompass her more and more tenderly, seemed to enfold her, shielding her from itself with its own love. Now and then he looked down at her, and the sight of the little, pale, flower-like face turned towards his with a serious, guileless scrutiny, like a baby's, caused him to fairly tremble with his passion of protection and adoration. They talked very little. Charlotte, if the truth were told, in spite of the tender nursing she had received, was still feeling rather shaken, and she had also a curious sense of timid and excited happiness, which tied her tongue and wove her thoughts even into an incoherent dazzle. When Anderson spoke, it was very coolly, on quite indifferent topics, and Charlotte answered him in her soft, rather unsteady little voice, and then conversation lagged again. It was on Anderson's tongue to question her closely as to her entire recovery from her fright of the afternoon, but he did not even do that, being afraid to trust his voice. As they drew near the Carroll house, a doubt and perplexity which had been haunting Charlotte, assumed larger proportions, and Anderson himself had a thought also of the complication. Charlotte was wondering if she should ask him in. She was wondering what her mother and aunt would think. She knew what they would do, of course--that is, so far as their reception of the man who had befriended her, and whose mother had befriended her was concerned. They were gentlewomen. And she knew quite certainly about her father. But she wondered as to their real attitude, their mental attitude, and she wondered still more with regard to Anderson. Would he expect to be invited in? In what fashion did he read his own social status in the village. Anderson also was considering, during the last of the way, if he should enter the Carroll house and present his apologies and his mother's for having urged the fugitive members of the family to remain, and he wondered a good deal as to the desirable course for him to adopt, even supposing he were invited. While he had no consciousness whatever of any loss of prestige among people whom he had always known in the village, while, in fact, he never gave it a thought--yet he knew reasonably that outsiders might possibly look at matters differently, that his own unshaken estimate of himself, the estimate which was the same in a grocery-store as in a lawyer's office, might not be accepted. He recognized the fact with amusement rather than indignation, but he recognized it. He wondered how the girl would look at it all, whether she would ask him in to make the acquaintance of her family, and whether, if she did so he should accept. But Charlotte came to have no doubt whatever that she should ask him. Suddenly a great wave of loyalty towards this new friend came over her, loyalty and great courage. "Of course I shall ask him, when he has done all he has for me, he and his mother," she decided. "I shall, and I don't care what they think. I don't care. He is a gentleman, as much a gentleman as papa." Charlotte walked more erect, the pressure of her hand on Anderson's arm tightened a little unconsciously. When they reached the Carroll grounds she spoke very sweetly, and not at all hesitatingly. "You will come in and let my family thank you for your kindness to me, Mr. Anderson," she said. Anderson smiled down at her, and hesitated. "I do not require any thanks. What I have done was only a pleasure," he said. In his anxiety to control his voice, he overdid the matter, and made it exceedingly cool. "He means he would have done just the same for any other girl, and it is silly for me to think he needs to be thanked so much for it," thought Charlotte, like a flash. She was full of the hair-splitting fancies of young girlhood in their estimate of a man. Her heart sank, but she repeated, still sweetly, though now a little more formally: "Then please come in and meet my father and mother and aunt. I should like to have you know them, and I am sure it would be a great pleasure to them." "Thank you, Miss Carroll," Anderson said, slowly. Then, while he hesitated, came suddenly the sound of a shrill, vituperating voice from the house, a voice raised in a solo-like effect, the burden of which seemed both grief and rage, and contumely. Eddy, who had given one of his dashes ahead, when they reached the grounds, came flying back. "Say," he said, "there's an awful shindy in the house. The dressmaker is pitching into papa for all she is worth, and there are some other folks, but she's goin' it loudest; but they are all going it! Cracky! Hear 'em!" Indeed, at that second the solo became a chorus. The house seemed all clamorous with scolding voices. The door stood open, and the hall-light streamed out in the hall. "Marie, she's in there, too," said Eddy, in an odd sort of glee, "and Martin. They are all pitching into papa for their money, but he's enough for them." It became evident why the boy's voice was gleeful. He was pitting his father, with the most filial pride and confidence, against his creditors. Anderson held out his hand to Charlotte. "Good-night," he said, hastily, "and I hope you will feel no ill effects to-morrow from your fright." Then he was gone before Charlotte could say anything more. "It's an awful shindy," Eddy said, still in that tone of strange glee, to his sister. To his great amazement, she caught him suddenly by his arm, the hurt one, but he did not flinch. The girl began to cry. "Oh, Eddy!" she sobbed, pitifully. "Oh, Eddy dear!" "What are you crying for, Charlotte?" asked Eddy, giving his head a rough caressing duck against hers. "Papa's enough for them; you know that. He ain't a mite scared." Chapter XXIX Anderson, as he went away that night, had before his eyes Charlotte's little face, the intensity of which had seemed to make it fairly luminous in the dim light, as she had turned it towards him. There was in that face at once unreasoning and childish anger that he was there at all, and in a measure a witness of the distress and disgrace of herself and her family, and a piteous appeal for help--at once a forbidding and a beseeching. For Anderson, naturally, the forbidding seemed most in evidence as an impulse to action. He felt that he must withdraw immediately and save them all the additional mortification that he could. So he hurried away down the road, with the girl's face before his eyes, and the sound of the scolding voice in the house in his ears. The voice carried far. In spite of the wrath in it, it was a sweet, almost a singing, voice, high-pitched but sonorous. It was the voice of little Willy Eddy's German wife, and it came from a pair of strong lungs in a well-developed chest, and was actuated by a strong and indignant spirit. Arthur Carroll, listening to her, was conscious of an absurdly impersonal sentiment of something like admiration. The young woman was really in a manner superb. The occasion was trivial, even ignoble. Carroll felt contemptuous both for her and for himself, and yet she dignified it to a degree. Minna Eddy was built on a large scale; she was both muscular and stout. Her short, blue-woollen skirt, increasing with its fulness her firm hips, disclosed generously her sturdy feet and ankles, which had a certain beauty of fitness as pedestals of support for her great bulk of femininity. She had come out just as she had been about her household tasks, and her cotton blouse, of an incongruous green-figured pattern, was open at the neck, disclosing a meeting of curves in a roseate crease, and one sleeve, being badly worn, revealed a pink boss of elbow. Minna Eddy had a distinctly handsome face, so far as feature and color went. It was a harmonious combination of curves and dimples, all overspread with a deep bloom, as of milk and roses, and her fair hair was magnificent. She had a marvellous growth both for thickness and length, and it was plaited smoothly, covering the back of the head as with a mat. She had come out with a blue handkerchief tied over her head, but she had torn it off, and waved it like a flag of battle in one fat, muscular hand as she lifted on high her voice of musical wrath. She spoke good English, although naturally tinctured by the abuses of the country-side. She had come to America before she could talk at all, and all her training had been in the country. The only trace of her German descent was in the sounds of certain letters, especially _d_ and _v_. She said _t_ for _d_, and _f_ for _v_. Carroll noticed that as he noticed every detail. His senses seemed unnaturally acute, as possibly any animal's may be when at bay, and when the baiting has fairly begun. A little behind Minna Eddy, and at her right, stood her husband, with a face of utter discomfiture and terror. Now and then he reached out a small, twitching hand and made an ineffectual clutch at her elbow as she talked on. At times he rolled terrified and appealing eyes at Carroll. He seemed even to be begging for his partisanship, although the absurdity of that was obvious. "Oh, you other man," his eyes seemed to say, "see how terrible a woman can be! What can we do against such might as this?" The room was quite full of people, but Minna Eddy had the platform. "You, you, you!" she repeated before every paragraph of invective, like a prelude and refrain. "You, you, you!" and she fairly hurled the words at Carroll--"you, you, you! gettin' my man"--with a fierce backward lunge of her bare right elbow towards her husband, who shrank away, and a fierce backward roll of a blue eye--"gettin' my man to take all his money and spend it for no goot. You, you, you! When I haf need of it for shoes and stockings for the children, when I go with my dress in rags. You, you, you!" She went on and on, with a curious variety in the midst of monotony. The stream of her invective flowed on like a river with ever-new ripples. There was a species of fascination in it for the man who was the object of it, and there seemed to be also a compelling quality for the others in the room. There had been no preconcerted movement among Carroll's creditors, but a number of them had that evening descended upon him in a body. In the parlor were the little dressmaker; the druggist; the butcher; Tappan, the milkman; the two stenographers, and Harrison Day, the clerk, who had come on the seven-o'clock train from New York; two men with whom he had dealings in a horse-trade; an old man who had made the garden the previous spring; and another butcher who had driven over from New Sanderson. In the dining-room door stood Marie, the Hungarian maid, and behind her was the coachman. Carroll stood leaning against the corner of the mantel-piece; some of the others were defiantly yet deprecatingly seated, some were standing. Anna Carroll, quite pale, with an odd, fixed expression, stood near her brother. When Charlotte entered the house, she took up a position in the hall, leaning against the wall, near the door. She could hear every word, but she was quite out of sight. She leaned heavily against the wall, for her limbs trembled under her, and she could scarcely stand. Her aunt had looked around as she entered, and a question as to where she had been had shaped itself on her lips: then her look of inquiry and relief had died away in her expression of bitter concentration upon the matter in hand. She had been alarmed about Charlotte, as they had all been. Mrs. Carroll had called softly down the stairs to know if Charlotte had come, and the girl had answered, "Yes, Amy dear." "Where have you been, dear?" asked the soft voice, from an indistinct mass of floating white at the head of the stairs. "I'll tell you by-and-by, Amy dear." "I was alarmed about you," said the voice, "it was so late; about you and Eddy." "He has come, too." "Yes, I heard him." Then the voice added, quite distinctly petulant, "I have a headache, but it is so noisy I cannot get to sleep." Then there was a rustle of retreat, and Charlotte leaned against the wall, listening to the hushed turmoil surmounted by that voice of accusation in the parlor. Eddy stood full in the doorway, in a boyish, swaggering attitude, his hands on his hips, and bent slightly, with sharp eyes of intense enjoyment on Minna Eddy. Suddenly, Carroll turned and caught sight of him, and as if perforce the boy's eyes turned to meet his father's. Carroll did not speak, but he raised his hand and pointed to the hall with an upward motion for the stairs, and Eddy went, with a faint whimper of remonstrance. The scolding woman saw the little, retreating figure, and directly the torrent of her vituperation was turned into a new course. "You, you, you!" she proclaimed; "dressin' your boy up in fine clothes, while mine children have went in rags since you have came to Banbridge! You, you, you! gettin' all my man's money, and dressin' up your boy in clothes that I haf paid for! You, you, you!" But Minna Eddy had unwittingly furnished the right key-note for a whole chorus. Madame Griggs, who had been rocking jerkily in a small, red-plush chair which squeaked faintly, sprang up, and left it still rocking and squeaking. "Yes," said she, "yes, that is so. Look at the way the whole family dress, at other people's expense!" She was hysterical still, yet she had not lost her sense of the gentility of self-restraint. That would come later. Her face worked convulsively, red spots were on her thin cheeks, but there was still an ingratiating, somewhat servile, tone in her voice, and she looked scornfully at Minna Eddy. Then J. Rosenstein, who kept the principal dry-goods store in Banbridge, bore his testimony. His grievances were small, but none the less vital. His business dealings with the Carrolls had been limited to sundry spools of thread and kitchen towellings and buttons, but they were as lead in his estimate of wrong, although he had a grave, introspective expression, out of proportion to the seeming triviality of the matter in his mind. He held in one long hand a slip of paper, and eyed Carroll with dignified accusation. "This is the fifth bill I have made out," he remarked, and he raised his voice to the pitch of his brethren of the Bowery when they hawk in the street. "The fifth bill I have made out, and it is only for one dollar and fifty-three cents, and I am poor." His intellectual Semitic face took on an ignoble expression of one who squeezes justice to petty ends for his own deserts. His whine penetrated the rising chorus of the other voices, even of the butcher, who was a countryman of his own, and who said something with dolorous fervor about the bill for meat which had been running for six weeks, and not a dollar paid. He was of a more common sort, and rendered a trifle indifferent by a recent visit to a beer-saloon. He was also somewhat stupefied by an excess of flesh, as to the true exigencies of life in general. After he had spoken he coughed wheezily, settled his swelling bulk more comfortably in the red-velvet chair, and planted his wide-apart, elephantine legs more firmly on the floor, while he mentally appraised the Oriental rug beneath his feet, with a view to the possibility of his taking that in lieu of cash, and making a profitable bargain for its ultimate disposal with a cousin in trade in New York. Looking up, he caught Rosenstein's eyes just turning from a regard of the same rug, and the two men's thoughts met with a mental clash. Then the New Sanderson butcher, who was a great, handsome, blond man with a foam of yellow beard, German, but not Jew, strolled silently over to them, and with sharp eyes on the rug, conferred with the other two in low, eager whispers. From that time they paid little attention to what was going on around them. They talked, they gesticulated, they felt of the rug. Madame Griggs, settling her skirts genteelly, spoke again. "I guess my bill has been running fully as long as anybody's here," she said, in her small, shrill voice. She eyed the two stenographers as she spoke, with jealous suspicion. There was a certain smartness about their attire, and she suspected them of being City dress-makers. She also suspected the strange young man with them of being a City lawyer, whom they had brought with them to urge their claims. Madame Stella Griggs had a ready imagination. The two stenographers had not spoken at all. From time to time the prettier wept, softly, in her lace-edged handkerchief; the other looked pale and nervous. Whenever she looked at Carroll her mouth quivered. The young man sat still and winked furiously. He had discovered Carroll's address and informed the girls, and they had planned this descent upon their employer. Now they were there, they were frightened and intimidated and distressed. They were a gentle lot, of the sort that are born to be led. Their resentment and sense of injustice overwhelmed them with grief, rather than a desire for retaliation. They were in sore straits for their money, yet all would have walked again into the snare, and they regarded Carroll with the same awed admiration as of old. No one but felt commiseration for him, and trust in his ultimate payment of their wages. They regarded the other creditors with a sort of mild contempt. They felt themselves of another kind, especially from the Germans and Jews. When Willy Eddy's wife had declaimed, one stenographer had whispered to the other, "How vulgar!" and the other had responded with a nod and curl of a lip of scorn. They met Madame Griggs's hostile regard with icy stares. The less pretty girl said to the young man that she thought it was mean for a dressmaker to come there and hound folks like that, and he nodded, winking disapprovingly at poor Madame Griggs, who was just then cherishing the wild idea of consulting him for herself in his supposed capacity of a lawyer. The stenographer, turning from her remark to the clerk, met the laughing but impertinent gaze of one of the horse-trading men, and she turned her back upon him with an emphasis that provoked a chuckle from his companion. "Got it in the shoulder then, Bill," he remarked, quite audibly, and the other reddened and grinned foolishly. They were rough-looking men with a certain swagger of smartness. They regarded Carroll with a swearing emphasis, yet with a measure of reluctantly compelled admiration. "I'll be damned if he ain't the first that ever got the better of Jim Dickerson," one had said to the other, as they had driven up to the house that evening. "I'll be ---- damned if I see now how he got the better of me," the other rejoined, with a bewildered expression. As he spoke his mind revolved in the devious mesh of trap which he had set for Carroll, and realized the clean cutting of it by Carroll by the ruthless method of self-interest. Neither man had spoken besides a defiant response to Carroll's polite "Good-evening," when they had entered. They sat and watched and listened. Occasionally one raised a hand, and an enormous diamond glowed with a red light like a ruby. In the four-in-hand tie of the other a scarf-pin in the shape of a horse's head with diamond eyes caught the light with infinitesimal sparks of fire. Above it his clean-shaven, keen, blue-eyed face kept watch, sharply ready to strike anger as the diamonds struck light, and yet with a certain amusement. He had shown his teeth in a smile when Willy Eddy's wife pronounced her tirade. He did so again when she reopened, having regained her wind. When she spoke this time, she glared at Anna Carroll with a dazzling look of spite. "There ain't no red silk dresses for me to rig out in," said she, and she pointed straight at Anna's silken skirts. "No, there ain't, and there won't be, so long as my man's money goes to pay for _hers_." She said "hers" with a harder emphasis than if she said "yours." Anna never returned her vicious look, she never moved a muscle of her handsome face, nor changed color. She continued to stand beside her brother, with a curious expression of wide partisanship, and of regard for these people as objects of offence as a whole, rather than as individuals. "Folks can pretend to be deaf if they want to," said Minna Eddy, "but they hear, an' they'll hear more." "That was fifteen dollars beside the findings, and they amounted to twelve dollars and sixty-three cents more," said Madame Griggs, and this time she addressed the young man whom she took to be a lawyer. She met his nervous winks with a piteous smile of appealing confidence. She wondered if possibly he might not be willing to undertake her cause in connection with the other supposed dressmakers' at a reduced rate. Nobody paid the slightest attention when she spoke, Anna Carroll least of all. Suddenly, Henry Lee tiptoed into the room. He came in smiling and nervous. When he saw the assembled company he started, and gave an inquiring glance at Carroll, who regarded him in an absent-minded fashion, as if he hardly comprehended the fact of his entrance. It was the glance of a man whose mind is too crowded to admit of more. But Lee went close to him, bowing low to Anna, and extending his hand with urbanity, flustered, it is true, yet still with urbanity. "Good-evening, captain," he said, and even then, in sore distress of mind as he was, he looked about at the company for admiration for this proof of his intimacy with such a man. "Good-evening," Carroll said, mechanically, and he shook hands. Anna Carroll also said "Good-evening," and smiled automatically. "A fine evening," said Lee, but he got no rejoinder to that. He looked at the company, and his small, smug, fatuous face, which was somewhat pale and haggard, frowned with astonishment. Again he looked for information into Carroll's unanswering face. He looked at an empty chair near him; then he looked at Carroll and his sister standing, and did not seat himself. He also leaned against the mantel on the other corner from Carroll, and endeavored to assume an unconcerned air, as if it were quite the usual thing for him to drop into the house and encounter such a nondescript company. He looked across at the druggist and postmaster, and bowed with flourishing politeness. He said to Carroll, endeavoring to make his voice so unobtrusive that it would be unheard by the company, but with the non-success usual to a nervous and self-conscious man, that he had a word to say to him later on when he was at liberty, some matter of business which he wished to talk over with him. "Very well," Carroll replied. Then Lee followed up his remark, which had in a measure reassured him. "Got a cigar handy, captain?" said he. "I came off without one in my pocket." Carroll took out his cigar-case and extended it to Lee, who took a cigar, bit the end off, and scratched a match. Carroll handed the case mechanically to the postmaster and Drake, who were near. They refused, and he took one himself, as if he did not realize what he was doing, and lit it, his calm, impassively smiling face never changing. He might have been lighting a bomb instead of a cigar, for all the actual realization of the action which he had. He accepted a light from Lee, who had lit his first with trembling haste. At the first puff which he gave, at the first evidence of the fragrant aroma in the room, one turbulent spirit, which had hitherto remained under restraint, burst bounds and overwhelmed all besides. Even Minna Eddy, who was fast warming to a new outburst, even Madame Griggs, who had both hands pressed to her skinny throat because of a lump of emotion there, and whose sunken temples were beating to the sight under the shade of her protuberant frizzes, looked in a hush of wonder and alarm at this furious champion of his own wrongs. Even the two butchers and the dry-goods merchant looked away from the glowing Oriental web upon which they stood. The weeping stenographer sat with her damp little wad of lace-edged handkerchief in her hand and stared at him with her reddened eyes; the other held her flaccid purse, and looked at the speaker. Now and then she nudged violently the friend, who did not seem to notice it. Tappan, the milkman, arose to his feet. He had been sitting with a stiff sprawl in the corner of a small divan. He arose when the fragrance of that Havana cigar smote his nostrils like the odor of battle. He was in great boots stained with the red shale, for the roads outside Banbridge were heavy from a recent rain. He was collarless, his greasy coat hung loosely over his dingy flannel shirt. He was unshaven, and his face was at once grim and sardonic, bitter and raging. It was the face of an impotent revolutionist, who cursed his impotence, his lack of weapons, his wrong environments for his fierce spirit. He belonged in a country at war. He had the misfortune to be in a country at peace. He belonged in a field of labor wherein weapons and armed men, sown by the need of justice, sprang from the soil. He was in a bucolic pasture, with no appeal. He was a striker with nothing save fate against which to strike. He raged behind prison-bars of circumstance. Now, for once, was an enemy for his onslaught, although even here he was restricted. He was held in check by his ignoble need. He feared lest, in smiting with all the force at his command, the blow recoil upon himself. He feared lest he lose all where he might lose only part. But when he began to speak his caution left him. There was real fire in the grim, unshaven man; the honest fire of resentment against wrong, the spirit of self-defence against odds. He was big enough to disregard self-interest in his defence, and he was impressive. He sniffed as a preliminary to his speech, and there was in that sniff fury, sarcasm, and malignancy. Then he opened his mouth, and before the words came a laugh or the travesty of one. There was something menacing in his laugh. Then he spoke. "Cigar!" he said. "Have a cigar? Will you have a cigar? Oh yes, a cigar." His voice was murderously low and soft. He even lisped slightly. "A cigar," he repeated. "A cigar. Oh, Lord! If men like me git a hand of chewing-tobacco once a month, they think they are damned lucky. Cigar, Lord!" Then the soft was out of his voice. He cut his words short, or rather he seemed to hammer them down into the consciousness of his auditors. He turned upon the others. "Want to know how that good-for-nothin' liar an' thief gits them cigars?" he shouted. "Want to know? Well, I'll tell you. I give 'em to him, an' you did. How many of you can smoke cigars like them, hey? Smell 'em. Ten or fifteen cents apiece; mebbe more. We give 'em to him. Yes, sir, that's jest what we did. He took the money he owed us for milk and meat and dress-makin' an' other things to buy them cigars. You got up early an' worked late to pay for 'em; he didn't. I got up at half-past three o'clock in the mornin'--half-past three in the winter, when he was asleep in his bed, damn him. The time will come when he won't sleep more than some other folks. I got up at half-past three o'clock, and I snatched a mouthful of breakfast, fried cakes and merlasses, that he'd 'a' turned up his nose at. He had beefsteak an' eggs at our expense, he did, an' I had a cup of damned weak coffee, cause I was too honest or too big a fool, whichever you call it, to buy any coffee I couldn't pay for. He'd 'a' turned up his nose at sech coffee. An' I went without sugar in it, an' I went without milk, so's to give it to him, so's he could git cigars. And as for cream, cream, cream! Lord! Couldn't git enough cream to give him. He was always yellin' for cream. Cream! My wife an' me would no more of thought of our puttin' cream in our coffee than we'd thought of putting in five-dollar gold pieces to sweeten it. No, we saved the cream for him. My wife don't look so young and fat as his wife. His wife has been fed on our cream." Tappan looked hard at Anna Carroll, whom he evidently took for Carroll's wife. He took note of her dress. "My wife never had a silk gown," said he. "Lord! I guess she didn't! She had to git up as early as I did, an' wash milk-pans, so we could give milk to that man, an' he could save money on us to git his wife a silk gown. Lord! Jest look--" Then Madame Griggs spoke, her small, deprecatory snarl raised almost to hysterical pitch. She was catching the infection of this bigger resentment and sense of outraged justice. "He didn't save money to git his wife that silk gown with your milk money," said she, "for I made that gown, an' I got the material, an' I 'ain't been paid a cent. That was one of the gowns I made when Ina was married. That silk cost a dollar and a quarter a yard. I could have got it at ninety-eight cents at a bargain, but that wa'n't good enough for her. He didn't take your milk money for that. He didn't take any money to pay anybody for anything he could run in debt for, I can tell you that. He must have paid somebody that wouldn't wait an' wouldn't be cheated." "Must have been dealin' with a trust, then," said one of the horsemen, with a loud laugh. "Guess he's been cheatin' 'most everything else." "And that lady ain't his wife, neither," said Madame Griggs to Tappan. "That's his sister. I made another gown for his wife, a lighter shade, an' I 'ain't been paid for that, neither." Suddenly she burst into a hysterical wail. "Oh, dear!" she sobbed. "Oh, dear! Here I've worked early an' late. Here I've got up in the mornin' before light an' worked till most dawn, an' me none too strong, never was, and always havin' to scratch for myself, a poor, lone woman, an' here I am in debt, an' they sendin' out for the money; an' I've worked so hard to build up my business, an' tried to make things nice, an' please, an' here I've got to fail. Oh, dear!" Suddenly she made a weak rush across the room, her silk petticoat giving out a papery rustle, her frizzes vibrating like wire under her hat, crested with ostrich plumes. She danced up to Carroll and looked at him with indescribable piteousness of accusation. "Why couldn't you, if you had to cheat, cheat a man an' not a woman like me?" she demanded, in her high-pitched tremolo. Carroll took his cigar from his mouth and looked at her. His face was quite pale and rigid. Even Tappan stopped, watching the two. Madame Griggs held up, with almost a sublimity of accusation, her tiny, nervous, veinous hands. The fingers were long and the knuckles were slightly enlarged with strenuous pullings of needles and handling of scissors; the forefinger was calloused. "Look at my hands," said she. "See how thin they be. I've worked them 'most to the bone for your folks. I took a lot of pride in havin' your daughter look nice when she was married. If I was a man an' goin' to steal, I'd steal from somebody besides a woman with no more strength than I have, all alone in the world, and that's been knocked hard ever since she can remember." Then she brought a stiffly starched little handkerchief from the folds of a small purse, and she wept with a low, querulous wail like a baby. Standing before Carroll, "Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh--dear!" she wailed. Carroll laid a hand on her shaking shoulder. It felt to him like a vibrating bone, so meagre it was. He bent over her and said something that the others did not hear, but her wild rejoinder gave them the key. She was fairly desperate; all her obsequiousness had disappeared. She was burning with her wrongs; she even took a certain pleasure in letting herself loose. She shook her shoulder free from his touch. She turned on him, her tearful, convulsed face uncovered, her frizzes tossing, as bold and unrestrained in her wrath as was Minna Eddy, who came forward to her side as she spoke. "You needn't come wheedlin' around me," she cried. "I don't believe a word of it, not a word. I'll believe it when I see the color of your cash. You're dreadful soft-spoken, an' so is your wife an' your sister an' your daughters. Dreadful soft-spoken! Plenty of soft soap runnin' all over every time you open your mouth. I don't want soft soap. Soft soap won't buy me bread an' butter, nor pay my debts. Folks won't take any soft soap from me instead of money. They want dollars an' cents, an' that's what I want every time, dollars an' cents, an' not soft soap. Yes, it's dollars an'--cents--and not so-ft soa-p." Suddenly the dress-maker, borne high on a wave of hysteria, disclosing the innate coarseness which underlay all her veneer of harmless gentility and fine manners, raised a loud, shrill laugh, ending in a multitude of reverberations like a bell. There was about this unnatural metallic laughter something fairly blood-curdling in its disclosure of overstrained emotion. She laughed and laughed, while the room was silent except for that, and every eye was fixed upon her. Poor, little Estella Griggs, of all that accusing company of Arthur Carroll's petty creditors, had the floor. She laughed and laughed. She threw back her head. Her plumed hat was tilted rakishly one side; her frizzes tossed high above her forehead, revealing the meagre temples; her skinny throat seemed to elongate above her ribboned collar; her thin cheeks, folded into a multitude of lines by her distorting mirth, glowed with a hard red; her eyes gleamed with a glassy brilliance. Then, suddenly, that long, skinny throat seemed to swell visibly. She choked and gurgled, then came a wild burst of sobbing. Hysteria had reached its second stage. It was frightful. "Good God!" said one of the horsemen, under his breath. "That's so," said the other. "Let's git out of this." They elbowed their way out of the room. "See you again," one of them said, curtly, to Carroll as he passed. "See you to-morrow about that little affair of ours, an' by G--, you've got to pony up, you can take your oath on that, an' don't you forget it," whispered the other in Carroll's ear, with a fierce emphasis, and yet he half grinned with a masculine sympathy in this ultra crisis. "It's gitting too thick," said the other horseman. "See you to-morrow, and, by G--, you've got to do somethin' or there'll be trouble." Carroll nodded. He was ashy white. He had strong nerves, but he was delicately organized, man though he was, and with unusual self-control. He felt now a set of sensations verging on those displayed by the laughing, sobbing woman before him. He was conscious of an insane desire to join in that laugh, in those sobbing shrieks. His throat became constricted, his hands became as ice. The tragic absurdity of the situation filled him at once with a monstrous mirth and grief. The antitheses of emotion struggled together within him. He looked at the little, frantic creature before him, and opened his mouth to speak, but he said nothing. Anna Carroll caught his elbow. "Come away, Arthur," she whispered. She was trembling herself, but she had been braced to something of this kind from being a woman herself, and was not so intimidated. Carroll strove to speak again. Minna Eddy suddenly joined in her torrent of vituperation with the dress-maker's. She caught up the soft-soap idea with a peal of laughter more sustained than that of Madame Griggs, for she had a better poise of mentality, and her wrath was untempered with the grief and self-pity of a small, helpless woman who was fitted by nature for petting rather than for warfare. "Soft soap!" shouted Minna Eddy, while her small husband vainly clutched at her petticoats. "Soft soap! Lord! I makes my own soft soap. I has plenty to clean with. I don't want no soft soap. I want money." She laughed loud and long, a ringing, mocking peal. Madame Griggs's loud sobbing united with it. The dissonance of unnatural mirth and grief was ghastly. "Good God! Hear them!" whispered Sigsbee Ray to the druggist. "I'd rather owe fifty men than one woman," the druggist whispered back. Lee edged nearer the women and strove to speak. He had a purpose. Carroll, gazing at the women in a fascinated way, again opened his mouth in vain, and again Anna dragged backward at his arm. "For Heaven's sake, Arthur, come out of this," she whispered, and he yielded for the second. He let himself be impelled to the door, then suddenly he recovered himself and stepped forward with an accession of dignity and authority which carried weight even in the face of hysterical unreason. He raised his hand and spoke, and there was a hush. Madame Griggs and Minna Eddy remained quiet, like petrified furies, regarding the man's pale face of assertive will. "I beg you to be quiet a moment and listen to me," he said. "I can do nothing for any of you to-night, and, what is more, I will not do anything to-night. It is impossible for me to deal with you in such an unexpected fashion as this, in such numbers. I have not gone into bankruptcy; no meeting of my creditors had been called. I have and you have no legal representative here. Now I am going, and I advise you all to do likewise. I beg you to excuse me. I know you all, I know the amount of my indebtedness to you all, and I promise you all, if I live, the very last dollar I owe you shall be paid. You must, however, give me a little time, or nobody will get anything. I will communicate with you all later on. Nobody shall lose anything, I say. Now you must excuse me." "Look at him; he's sick," whispered the pretty stenographer to the other, whose soft, little sob of response alone broke the hush as Carroll went out with his sister at his side. Their shadows moved across the room as they ascended the stairs in the hall. The creditors, left alone, regarded one another in a hesitating fashion. The two women, Minna Eddy and Estella Griggs, remained quiet. Presently the two butchers and the dry-goods merchant, standing about the Oriental rug, quite a fine Bokhara, resumed their whispered colloquy regarding it, then they went out. Lee began talking to the druggist and the postmaster, with Willie Eddy at his elbow listening eagerly. "Carroll's sick," said Lee, with a curious effect of partisanship towards himself, as well as Carroll. "He's sick, and it is too bad. His nerves are a wreck." "Well, our nerves are becoming wrecks," the postmaster rejoined, dryly. "That's so," said the druggist, with a worried look. "I don't know but I'll have to mortgage my stock. I've lost more than I can afford in that United Fuel." "I don't like to own up I've been bit," said the postmaster, "but when it comes to being sick, and nerves being wrecks, there are others with full as much reason as Carroll." "He'll pay up every cent," said Lee, eagerly. "Maybe he will pay his debts," said the postmaster. "I am not going to say he won't. I suppose he means to. But when it comes to making things good, when he has simply led you by the nose into disastrous speculations, I don't know. Bigger men than Arthur Carroll don't do it." "That's so," said Drew. "It's one thing to pay your butcher's bill in the long run, and be above stealing goods off the counter, but a man can cheat his fellow-men in a stock trade and think pretty well of himself, and other folks think well of him." "That's so," said Sigsbee Ray. "I haven't any doubt that he will arrange that," said Lee. "And, for that matter, the United Fuel may look up yet. I had a prospectus--" "Prospectus be damned!" said the postmaster. He seldom used an oath, and his tongue made a vicious lurch over it. The druggist gave an enormous sigh. "Well, it won't come up to-night, and I've left my little boy alone in the store," said he. "I've got to be going." "So have I," said the postmaster. "My wife is alone." "My wife always stands up for Carroll," said Lee, trotting nervously after the other men as they left the room. "Says she guesses he will end up by paying his bills as well as other men that are blaming him." "Hope to God he will," said the postmaster. The clerk and the two stenographers from Carroll's office had been having their heads together over a time-table. They also slipped out after the three men. The elder one still sniffed softly in her handkerchief. The young man looked around at the stair up which Carroll had disappeared, and winked as he went out. There were left Carroll's coachman, the Hungarian girl, Madame Estella Griggs, Willy Eddy, and his wife. The coachman heard a noise of pounding in the stable and ran out. Marie remained in the doorway looking at the others with her piteous red eyes; Minna Eddy advanced towards her. "They owe you your wages, don't they?" said she, with no sympathy, but rather a menace. Little Marie shrank back. "Yis," said she, pursing her lips. "You're a fool!" said Minna Eddy. Marie smiled feebly at her. Minna Eddy stood glaring around the room. Her husband was at her elbow, watching her anxiously. "Come home now, Minna," he pleaded. But she stamped her foot suddenly. "I ain't goin' to stand it!" she declared. "I'm goin' to take what I can get, I be." Her eyes rested first upon one thing, then another, then she looked hard at the Oriental rug, which the three tradesmen had discussed. Then she swooped upon it and began gathering it up from the floor. "Oh, Minna! Oh, Minna!" gasped little Willy Eddy. "You lemme be," she said, fiercely. "I see'd them men lookin' at this. It ain't handsome, but it's worth good money. I heard something they said. I ain't goin' to lose all that money. I'm goin' to take what I can git, I be." "Minna, you--" "Lemme be." "It ain't accordin' to law, Minna." "What do you s'pose I care about the law?" She turned to Estella Griggs, who was watching her eagerly, with a gathering light of fierce greed in her eyes. "If you take my advice you'll help yourself to something while you have the chance," said she. "Oh, Minna, it's stealin'! You'll be liable--" "Liable to nothin'. Stealin'! If folks don't steal no more 'n I do, I'll risk 'em. I'm a-takin' my lawful pay, I be. If you take my advice, you'll take somethin', too." Minna Eddy moved from the room with the rug gathered up in a roll in her arms, but Marie had been gradually recovering herself. Now she came forward. "You must not take that; that iss not your rug," said she. "You must not take that." "Git out," said Minna Eddy. She thrust at the Hungarian with her rug-laden arms, but the little peasant was as strong as she. Marie caught hold of the rug and pulled; Minna also pulled. "You lemme go," said Minna, with a vicious voice, but lowered, for obvious reason. "You must not take that," said Marie. She was, however, rather fainter-hearted than the other woman. Minna suddenly got the mastery. The Hungarian almost tumbled backward. Minna, with the rug, was out of the room, her trembling, almost whimpering husband at her heels. Madame Griggs looked at Marie. Her distorted face was at once greedy, anguished, and cunning. She began to gasp softly. "Oh! Oh!" said she. "Oh!" Marie regarded her in wondering agitation. "Water! water! quick! Oh, get some water!" moaned Madame Griggs. "I am faint! Water!" She sank into a chair, her head fell back. She rolled her eyes at the terrified girl; she gasped feebly between her parted lips. Marie ran. Then up rose Madame Estella Griggs. She swept the tea-table of its little Dresden service and some small, silver spoons. She gathered them up in a little, lace-trimmed table-cover, and she fled with that booty and a sofa-pillow which she caught from the divan on her way out. When Marie returned she stood gaping with the glass of water. She was not over-shrewd, but she took in at once the situation. She understood that the second lady had fled like the first, with the teacups, the spoons, the table-cover, and the sofa-pillow. She stood looking desolately around the room, and her simple heart tasted its own bitterness. Chapter XXX Charlotte had followed her father and aunt up-stairs that night, starting up softly like a shadow from her place in the hall. She went silently behind them until they reached the open door of Anna's room; then her father turned and saw her. "You here, Charlotte?" he said. "Yes, papa," replied Charlotte, turning a pitiful but altogether stanch little face up to his. He put his arm around her, drew her head against his shoulder, tipped up her face, and kissed her. "Go to bed now, darling," he whispered. "Papa, I can't; I--" "There is nothing you can do, sweetheart; there is nothing for you to worry about. Papa will take care of you always, whatever happens. Go to bed now, and go to sleep, honey." "But, papa, I can't sleep. Let me stay and--" "No, dear. There is nothing you can do. It will only worry me to have you stay. Go to bed, and put all this out of your mind. It will all come right in the end." Carroll kissed Charlotte again, and put her gently from him, and she disappeared in her own room with a suppressed sob. "I am glad Ina is out of the way," Anna said, but with no bitterness. "So am I," Carroll agreed, simply. "I wish Charlotte had as good a man to look out for her," said Anna. Carroll straightened himself with quick pride. "I shall look out for her," he said. "You need not think I am quite out of the running yet, when it comes to looking out for my own flesh and blood." "No, of course you are not, Arthur. I did not mean to imply any such thing," Anna rejoined, hastily. "I was only-- Come into my room. Amy is fast asleep by this time, and if she is not she has a headache, and you might as well try to consult with an infant in arms as Amy with a headache. And something has to be done." "Yes, you are right, Anna," Carroll replied, with a heavy sigh. "Those people will all go when they get tired of waiting. There is no use in our bothering with them any more to-night. Come in." Anna led the way into her room, and closed the door. A lamp burned dimly on the dresser amid a confusion of laces and ribbons. The whole room looked in a soft foam of dainty disorder. Anna did not turn the light up. She stood looking at her brother in the half-light, and her face was at once angry and tender. "Well?" said she, with a sigh of desperate inquiry. "Well?" rejoined Carroll. "What next?" "The Lord knows!" "Something has to be done. We are up against a dead wall again. And for some reason it strikes me as a deader wall than ever before." Carroll nodded. "We cannot stay in Banbridge any longer?" Anna said, interrogatively. "We may have to," Carroll replied, curtly. "You mean?" "There may be a little difficulty about getting out. We could not leave the State, anyhow, and--" "And what? We can go somewhere else in the State, I suppose. I am not particularly in love with this section of the union, but it all makes little difference after one reaches a certain point." "Poor old girl!" said Carroll. Anna looked at him, and her eyes suffused and her mouth quivered. Then she smiled her usual smile of mocking courage, even bravado. "Oh, well," said she, "I have faced the situation and chewed my cud of experience for a good many years now, and I am used to it. I may even end up by tasting the sweet in the bitter." "You had as hard an experience in another line as I had. I don't know but it was harder." "No harder, I reckon," Anna replied, almost indifferently. "It was the same thing--the doll stuffed with sawdust, and all that; you with a friend, and I with a lover. Well, it is all over now." "It isn't; that is the worst of it," Carroll said, gloomily. "I don't see why." "A sequence is never over. There is even all eternity for it." "Well, the first of the sequence is over, anyhow. All we have to consider is the succeeding stages." "That is about enough." Anna laughed. "I agree with you there, dear. Well, I suppose the stage of the sequence for immediate consideration is the feasibility of emerging into the next stage. You think it is likely to be more difficult for the wandering tribe of Carroll to make their exodus with grace and dignity than usual?" "It rather looks that way now." "I suppose that promoting business, that business transacted in the New York office, got you into rather hotter waters than usual." Carroll nodded. "There _was_ an office, I suppose." Carroll nodded again, laughing a little. Anna laughed too. "One never knows," said she. "I suppose that was a delegation from the office, to-night, the two pretty girls and the winking young man." "Yes," said Carroll. Anna had flung herself into an easy-chair beside him. Carroll remained standing. She leaned her head back and crossed her hands behind her neck in a way she had. She was a thing of lithe grace in her soft red silk. The dim light obliterated all the worn lines in her face. Carroll regarded her even in the midst of the distressful stress of affairs with a look of admiration. It was an absent-minded regard, very much as a mourner might notice a stained-glass window in a church while a funeral was in progress. It was the side-light of grace on affliction involuntarily comprehended, from long training, by the exterior faculties. Carroll even said, half perfunctorily: "You look well to-night. That red gown suits you, honey." "The gown that that poor little beggar of a dress-maker is not paid for," said Anna. Carroll frowned. "I did not have enough for that," he said. "It was impossible. I paid the other bills." "All dressmakers have to be cheated," said Anna. "I never knew one that wasn't. I may as well reap the benefit of a universal law of cause and result, as some other woman." Her voice rang hard, but she looked up affectionately at her brother. Suddenly she reached out her hand, caught his, and kissed it. "There is one thing we Carrolls pay in full, and never run in debt for, and that is our affection for and belief in one another," said she. "We have our hearts full of one coin, anyway." "I suppose the world at large would prefer our pockets full of the coin of the realm," answered Carroll, but he looked fondly down at his sister. "I suppose so. If I had not worn this dress, I should send it back to that dressmaker." "But you have worn it." "Oh yes. Of course it is out of the question now. It is very pretty. Well, Arthur, if we go back far enough we are not responsible for this dress. We are responsible for none of the disasters which follow in our wake. That man down in Kentucky precipitated the whole thing. Arthur, you do look like a fiend whenever I mention that man!" "I feel like one," Carroll replied, coolly. "Well, that man was directly responsible for the whole wreck--the general wreck, I mean. My own wreck is an individual matter, and, after all, I never fairly lowered my sails for that especial gale. I never will own to it." "You were a brave girl, Anna." "But the other wreck, the whole wreck, that man of yours is responsible for. And we were not half a bad lot, Arthur." "Maybe not; but when the ship breaks up, it does not make so much difference what the timbers were, nor how she was built." "I suppose you are right. Well, what is to be done with the old masts and sails and things?" "I know what is to be done with a part of it." "What part of it?" "Well, to depart from similes, the female contingency." "The female contingency?" "Yes, and the juvenile. You and Amy and Charlotte and Eddy." "What do you mean, Arthur?" "You are going down to Kentucky to the old place, to spend the winter with Aunt Catherine." "Aunt Catherine wrote you?" "Yes." "When?" "I got the letter day before yesterday." "She invited us?" "Yes, honey." "Not you?" "There was no reason why she should invite me." "Aunt Catherine never had any feeling for you." "Perhaps she has had as much as I deserve. You know I have, to put it frankly, rather broken the record of an honorable family for--" "For what?" "For honor, dear." Then Anna broke out, passionately. "I don't care! I don't care!" she cried. "I don't care what she thinks; I don't care what anybody thinks! I don't care what you do or don't do, you are the best man that ever lived, Arthur." She began to weep suddenly, feeling blindly for her handkerchief. Carroll pulled her head against his shoulder. "Dear," he whispered, "don't; you must not, darling, you are worn out. You are not well." "Arthur, are you sure--are you sure that you have not rendered yourself liable? Arthur, are you sure that they cannot arrest you for anything you have done this time?" "Quite sure, Anna." "You have looked out for that?" "Yes." "They can't arrest you?" "No. Anna, you are nervous." "Martin was impudent yesterday, when you were out, about his pay. He talked about going to a lawyer." Carroll made an impatient movement. "If he does not stop coming to you about it--" "He is afraid of you. Then Maria came and cried. She says she has lost her lover, because she did not have decent clothes to wear." "Anna, they shall not trouble you again. Don't, dear. Why, I never knew you to fret so before!" "I never did. I never minded it all so much before. I think I am ill. There is a dull pain all the time in the back of my neck, and I do not sleep at all well. Then my mental attitude seems suddenly to have changed. I was capable of defiance always, of seeing the humor in the situation, even if it was such an oft-repeated joke, and such a mighty poor one; but now, even if I start with a glimpse of the funny side of it, suddenly I collapse, and all at once I am beaten." Carroll stroked her graceful, dark head. "There is nothing for it but you must go, honey." "Arthur, I will not. It may be better for the others, but as for me, I will not." "Yes, you will, Anna, honey." "Arthur Carroll!" "You must, dear. Frankly, Anna, you know how I shall feel about parting with you all, but it will be a load off my mind. If a man is not able to care for his own, it is better for him and for them that they should go where they will be cared for." "You need not speak in that way, Arthur. You have done all you could. All this would never have been if it had not been for us, and your wanting us to have everything. We have been a helpless lot. None of us have ever blamed you or complained, not even Amy, baby as she is." "I know it, dear, but it is better for you all to go." "You have done all you could, always," Anna repeated, in a curious, sullen fashion. "Well, we will leave that. If Aunt Catherine takes you all this winter, it will go hard if I do not pay her in some way later on; but the point is now, you must all go." Anna shook her head obstinately. Carroll bent down and kissed her. "Good-night, dear," he said. "Try to sleep." "I wonder if those people are all gone." "Yes, I think so. I heard Marie lock the door. Good-night." Anna rose and threw her arms around her brother's neck. "Whatever happens, you have got your old sister left," she said, with a soft sob. "Nobody is going to attach her for my debts," Carroll said, laughing, but stroking her head fondly. "No, she is not an available asset. I never will go, Arthur. The others may do as they think best. I will not go." "Not to-night, Anna, honey," Carroll said, as he went out of the room. Anna Carroll, left alone, rose languidly, unfastened her red silk gown, and let it fall in a rustling circle around her. She let down her soft, misty lengths of hair, in which was a slight shimmer of white, and brushed it. Standing before her dresser, using her ivory-backed brush with long, even strokes, her reflected face showed absolutely devoid of radiance. The light was out of it--the light of youth, and, more than the light of youth, the light of that which survives youth, even the soul itself. And yet there was in this face, so unexpectant and quiescent that it gave almost the effect of dulness, a great strength and charm which were the result of an enduring grace of attitude towards all the stresses of life. Anna Carroll carried about with her always, not for the furbishing of her hair nor the embellishment of her complexion, but for the maintenance of the grace and dignity of her bearing towards a hard and inscrutable fate, a species of mental looking-glass. She never for a minute lost sight of herself as reflected in it. She had not been a happy woman, but she had worn her unhappiness like a robe of state. She had had a most miserable love-affair in her late youth, but no one except her brother could have affirmed with any certainty that it had occasioned her a moment's pang. She was hopeless as regarded any happiness for herself in a strictly personal sense. She knew that her destiny as a woman had been unfulfilled, but she would rather have killed herself than pitied herself. She was as hard to herself and her own possible weakness as she was to anybody on earth, possibly harder. She cheated the dressmaker, she ate at the expense of others, as she would have cheated herself had she known how. It did not occur to her to go without anything which she could by any means get; not because she wanted it so keenly, as from another phase of the same feeling which had led Minna Eddy to appropriate the rug, and Estella Griggs the paraphernalia of the tea-table and the sofa-pillow. She had herself been duped in a larger sense; she was a creditor of Providence. She considered that she had a right to her hard wages of mere existence, when they came in her way, were they in the form of red silk gowns or anything else. She would admit no wrong in her brother, for the same reason, reserving only the right to condemn him at times on the boy's account. She began thinking about the boy as she went on with her preparations for bed. Her face lit up a little as she reflected upon the benefit it might be to Eddy to be in Kentucky. She thought of the dire possibility of serious complications for Arthur in this culminating crisis of his affairs. "Better for the child to be out of it," she said to herself, and that singular anger with Arthur for the sake of the boy, which was like anger with him for his own sake, came over her. She identified the two. She saw in Eddy the epitome of his father, the inheritor of his virtues and faults, and his retribution, his heir-at-large by the inscrutable and merciless law of heredity. "Yes, it is better for Eddy to be out of it," she repeated to herself, with the same reasoning that she might have used had she been proposing to separate her brother's better self from his worse. But she resolved more firmly that she would not go herself. She would urge the others' going, but she would remain. Chapter XXXI But in spite of Anna Carroll's resolve, she went to Kentucky with the others in two weeks' time. She had had quite a severe attack of illness after that night, and it had left her so weakened in body that she had not strength to stand against her brother's urging. Then, too, Mrs. Carroll had displayed an unexpected reluctance to leave. She had evinced a totally new phase of her character, as people who are unconquerable children always will when least expected to do so. Instead of clinging to her husband and declaring that she could not leave, with an underlying submission at hand, she straightened herself and said positively that she would not go. She was quite pale, her sweet face looked as firm as her husband's. "I am not going to leave you, Arthur," she said. "If your sister stays with you, your wife can. Your sister can go, and take Eddy, but your wife stays. I don't care what happens. I don't care if Marie and Martin do go. Marie is not cooking so well lately, anyway, and I never did like the way Martin went around corners. We can get new servants I shall like much better. I shall go into the City myself next week to the intelligence office. I am not afraid to go. I don't like to cross Broadway, but I can take a cab from the station. I will sit there in a row all day with those other women, until I get a good maid, if it is necessary. I don't care in the least if Marie and Martin do go. You can get another man who will turn the corners more carefully. And I don't mind because somebody took that rug--somebody--who was not paid. I think it was a very rude thing to do. I think when you take things that way it is no better than burglary, but I should not make any fuss about it. Let the woman have the rug. Although it does seem as if anybody had the rug, it ought to be that man we bought it of in Hillfield. You know he did not seem to like it at all, because he was not paid for it. But maybe he did not come by it honestly himself. He was a singular-looking man--a Syrian or Armenian or a Turk, and one never knows about people like that. I don't mind in the least; it is all right. And I don't care about the teacups and things. One of the cups was nicked, and I really like Sevres much better than Dresden. I should have got Sevres when I bought them, only the man who had the Sevres I wanted would not give us credit. We had no charge account there. I don't mind in the least; but I think that dressmaker was very impolite to take the things, because, of course, we shall never feel that we can conscientiously give her any more of our custom; and we have given her a great deal of work, with dear Ina's wedding and everything, more than anybody in Banbridge. No, I don't mind in the least about these things. I can rise above that when it is a question of my husband. And when you talk of having to leave Banbridge, that does not daunt me at all. On the whole, I would rather leave Banbridge. I should like to live a little nearer the City, and I should like more grounds, and a house with more conveniences. For one thing, we have no butler's pantry here, and that is really a great inconvenience. Take it altogether, the house, and the distance from New York, I shall not be at all sorry to move. And" (Mrs. Carroll's sweet face looked hard and set, her gently pouting mouth widened into a straight line; she had that uncanny expression of docile and yielding people when they assume a firm attitude), "I shall not go away and leave you, Arthur," she repeated; "Anna shall not stay here with you and I go to Aunt Catherine's. If any one stays, I stay. I am your wife, and I am the one to stay. I know my duty." "Amy, dear," said Carroll, "it will really make me happier to know that you are more comfortable and happy than I can make you this winter." "I shall not be comfortable and happy," said she. "No, Arthur, you need not pet me; I am quite in earnest. You treat me always as if I were a child. You do, and all the rest, even my own children. And I think myself that two-thirds of me is a child, but one-third is not, and now it is the one-third that is talking, and quite seriously. It is I who am going to stay with you, and not Anna." "Anna is not going to stay either, sweetheart," Carroll said. A quick change came over Mrs. Carroll's face. She looked inquiringly at her sister-in-law. "Anna said she would not go," she said. "She has thought better of it," Carroll said, quietly. "Yes, Amy, I am going," Anna said, wearily, "and I don't think you had better decide positively to-night whether you will go or not. Leave it until to-morrow." "But how could you get along without anybody to keep house for you all winter, Arthur?" asked Mrs. Carroll. "As thousands of men get along," Carroll replied. "I can take my meals at the inn, and somebody could be got to come by the day and see to the furnace and the house." "I suppose somebody could," Mrs. Carroll agreed, a frown of reflection on her smooth forehead. She wept piteously when it came to parting, two weeks later, but she went. They all started early in the morning. Carroll accompanied them to the station, and was well aware of an unusual number of persons being present to see the train start. He knew the reason: a rumor had gotten about that he as well as his family was to leave Banbridge and the State. He knew that if he had made a motion to get on the train, there might have been a scene, and he bade his family good-bye on the platform, before his covert audience of creditors. Lee was there, ostentatiously shaking hands with the ladies, but secretly watchful. Tappan was surlily attentive, leaving his milk-wagon tied in front of the station. Minna Eddy and Willy had driven down in their wagon from their little farm. Four children were huddled in behind. Minna had gotten out and stood on the platform. Willy sat on the seat holding the baby and the reins. There had been a thaw; the roads outside were heavy, and their old mule was harnessed up with their old horse. Willy had been somewhat afraid to come. "Suppose he should make a fuss about that," he said, pointing to the Bokhara rug which adorned their little sitting-room. "I ain't afraid of his making any fuss about that old mat," said Minna; "I guess he knows what he's about. It's him that's afraid, an' not me. An old mat that's worth about fifty cents! It ain't half so pretty as one that Frank Olsen's wife got in New Sanderson for four dollars and ninety-eight cents. I'm goin' to have some more of them things, an' he ain't goin' to git out of Banbridge, if I have to hang on to his coat-tails. You lemme go, Willy Eddy." Therefore they came, starting before daylight in the frosty morning. Carroll was conscious of them all, of the druggist and the postmaster; of the two horsemen with whom he had had a half-settlement, and who were now about to force the remainder; of the two butchers and the dry-goods merchant, who had been exceedingly nasty about the rug, and persisted in thinking that the Carrolls were responsible for its disappearance. They had now other chattels in view, and were only delayed from taking prompt measures by the uncertainty as to what belonged to Carroll, or to his wife, or to the owner of the house. There was also lurking around the corner of the station, but quite ready for immediate action should it be necessary, another man, who represented the arm of the local law. There was also Madame Estelle Griggs, and, curiously enough, the sight of that little, meagre-bedecked figure and that small, rasped, piteous face of nervous suspicion affected Carroll more forcibly than did any of the others. He was conscious of a sensation of actual fear as he caught sight of the waving plume, of the wiry frizzes, of the sharp, frost-reddened face, of those watchful, unhappy eyes. He realized that if she should make a scene there, if he should hear again that laugh and those wailing sobs, he could not answer for what he might do. There even flashed across his mind a mental picture of the on-rush of the train, and of a man hurling himself before it, to get for once and all out of sight and sound of the unspeakable, grotesque, unmanning shame of the thing. It was when he saw her that he resolved that he would not put his foot on the train, lest she might think he meant to go. However, she would probably have made no manifestation. She was herself in mortal terror of retribution because of the things which she had confiscated in payment of her debt. She had little of Minna Eddy's strength of confidence in her own proceedings. She had, however, consoled herself by the reflection that possibly nobody knew that she had taken them. She had hidden them away under her mattress, and slept uneasily on the edge of the bed, lest she break the cups and saucers. If it had not been so early in the morning, presumably too early for visitors from the City, she would not have dared show herself at the station. In these days she sewed behind closed doors, with her curtains down. She went to her customer's houses for tryings-on, instead of having her patrons come to her. She was always ready, working with her eyes at the parting of the curtains, to flee down a certain pair of outside back-stairs, and cut across the fields, should men be sent out from the City to collect money. Rosenstein's store was under her little apartment, and she knew she could trust him not to betray her. The dressmaker was in these days fairly tragic in appearance, with a small and undignified, but none the less real, tragedy. It was the despair of a small nature over small issues, but none the less despair. Carroll would have paid that bill first of all, had he had the money, but none but himself knew how little money he had. Had the aunt in Kentucky not sent the wherewithal for the railway fares, it was hard to be seen how the journey could have been taken at all. It had even occurred to Carroll that some jewelry must needs be sacrificed. He had made up his mind, in that case, that Anna would be the one to make the sacrifice. She had an old set of cameos from her grandmother, which he knew were valuable if taken to the right place. Anna had considered the matter, and would have spared him the suggestion had not the check come from the aunt to cover all the expenses of the trip, with even some to spare. With the extra, Mrs. Carroll insisted upon buying a new hat for Charlotte. Charlotte that morning showed little emotion. She was looking exceedingly pretty in the new hat and her little, blue travelling-gown. Madame Griggs eyed that and reflected that she had not made it herself, that it must have been a last winter's one, although it had kept well in style, and she wondered if the dressmaker who made it had been paid. Charlotte in parting from her father showed no emotion. He kissed her, and she turned away directly and entered the train. There was an odd expression on her face. She had not spoken a word all the morning except to whisper to Eddy to be still, when he remarked, loudly, on the number of people present at the station. "All this crowd isn't going, is it?" he demanded. "Hush!" Charlotte whispered, peremptorily, and he looked curiously at her. "What is the matter with you this morning, anyhow?" he inquired, loudly. Eddy had in a leash a small and violently squirming puppy, which had lately strayed to the Carroll place, and been found wagging and whining ingratiatingly around the stable. Eddy had adopted it, and even meditated riding in the baggage-car to relieve its loneliness should the conductor prove intractable concerning its remaining in the passenger-coach. Eddy, of the whole party of travellers, was the only one who presented an absolutely undisturbed and joyously expectant countenance. He had the innocent selfishness of childhood. He could still be single-eyed as to the future, and yet blameless. He loved his father, but had no pangs at parting, when the wonders of the journey and the new country were before him. His heart also delighted in the puppy, leaping and abortively barking at his side. He kissed his father good-bye as the train approached, and was following the others, with the little dog straining at his leash, when his onward progress was suddenly arrested, another grimy little hand tugged at the leash. "Say, what you goin' off with my dog for?" demanded the owner of the hand, another boy, somewhat older than Eddy, and one of his schoolmates. Eddy, belligerent at once, faced about. He caught up the wriggling puppy with such a quick motion that he was successful and wrenched the other boy's hand from the leash. "It isn't your dog. It's my dog. What you talking about?" he growled back. "You lie!" "Lie yourself!" "Gimme that dog!" "It's my dog!" "Where'd ye git it?" sneered the other, making clutches at the puppy. "My papa bought him for me in New York." "Hm! All the way your father could git a dog like that is to steal him. Your father 'ain't got no money. You stole him. You steal jest like your father. Gimme the dog." The claimant boy laid such insistent hands on the puppy, and Eddy so resisted, that the little animal yelped loudly. Carroll stepped up. His lips were ashy. This last idiotic episode was unnerving him more than all that had gone before. "Give that boy his dog," he commanded Eddy, sternly. Eddy clung more tightly to the little dog, and began to whimper. "But, papa--" "Do as I tell you." "He came to our stable, and he didn't have any collar on, and a dog without any collar on--" "Do as I tell you." But Eddy had found an unexpected ally. Anderson had come on the platform as the train approached. He was going on business to New Sanderson, and he had furtively collared the owner of the puppy, thrust something into his hand, whispered something, and given him a violent push. The boy fled. When Carroll turned, the boy who had been imperiously aggressive at his elbow was nowhere to be seen. Several of the by-standers were grinning. Anderson was moving along to be at the side of his car, as the train approached. It had all happened in a very few seconds. Eddy clung fast to the puppy. There was no time for anything, and the female Carrolls were pressing softly about for the last words. "I don't think the puppy belonged to that boy," Mrs. Carroll said. "He was just a little, stray dog." She had seen nothing of what Anderson had done, and neither had the others. There was manifestly nothing more to be done. It was an absurdity for Carroll to load himself up with that squirming puppy, when the ownership seemed so problematic. He bade them all good-bye again, and they got on the train. The women's pretty, wistfully smiling faces appeared at windows, also Eddy's, and the innocently wondering visage of the puppy. Anderson was in the smoking-car. As the train passed, Carroll saw his face at a window, and bowed, raising his hat half-mechanically. Anderson was conscious of a distinct sensation of pity for him, the more so that he was helpless and rebelliously depressed himself. He meditated upon the advisability of going into the other car, the Pullman, before the arrival of the train at New Sanderson, and bidding Charlotte farewell. He finally decided not to do so. He had no reason to think that she would care especially to have him, and while his self-respect, in spite of his perfect cognizance of the disadvantages of his position, was sufficient not to make him hesitate on that account, he had had a feeling against intruding upon the possible sadness of the ladies when making what they must recognize as a forced exit from their home under humiliating circumstances. It did not occur to him that they might possibly not feel so. Carroll, left on the platform while the train steamed out of sight, in its backward trail of smoke full of rainbow lights in the frosty air, turned to go home. He was going to walk. Martin had driven the family to the station, and had himself gotten on the rear car of the train. He was about seeking employment in New Sanderson. One of the horsemen had driven off with the rig; the other was waiting for a word with Carroll. The discussion was short, heated, and profane on one side; calm, low, and imperturbable on the other. "You'll have it in the end," Carroll said, as he turned to go. "The end has got to come pretty darned quick," the other retorted, jumping into his little trotting-gig and spinning off. The others of the crowd had melted away rather quickly. Minna Eddy had clambered into the wagon and gathered up the reins, while her husband retained the wailing baby. In truth, in spite of her bravado, she had some little doubts as to the wisdom of her confiscation of the rug. Madame Griggs, actuated by a similar doubt, also fluttered away swiftly down the street. The men also, upon making sure that Carroll was not intending to abscond, retreated. Carroll was quite alone when the horseman spun away in his gig, with its swift spokes flashing in blinding rings of light as he disappeared around the curve. It was one of those mornings in the fall when the air is so clear that the sunlight seems intensified. There had been a hard frost the night before, and a delicate rime was still over the ground, only melting in the sunniest spots. Only the oak leaves, a brownish-red shag mostly on the lower branches, were left on the trees. The door-yards were full of dried chrysanthemums, the windows gay with green-house plants. The air was full of the smell of smoke and coffee and frying things, for it was Banbridge's breakfast-hour. Men met Carroll on their way to the next train to the City, walking briskly with shoulders slightly shrugged before the keen wind. They bowed to him with a certain reserve. He met one young girl carrying a music-roll, who wore on her face an expression of joy so extreme that it gave the effect of a light. Carroll noticed it absently, this alien joy with which he had no concern. As the girl passed him, he perceived a strong odor of violet from her dainty attire, and it directly, although he was unaware of the connection, caused him to remember the episode of his discovering the two women, Mrs. Van Dorn and Mrs. Lee, spying out the secrets in his house. That same odor had smote his nostrils when he entered the door. He reviewed from that starting-point the succeeding stages of his stay in Banbridge, the whole miserable, ignominious descent from a fictitious prosperity to plain, evident disgrace and want. He was returning to his desolate house. Martin had gone, wretchedly and plainly incredulous of Carroll's promise to finally pay him every cent he owed him. Maria had packed her box, and tied two gay foreign handkerchiefs into bags to contain her ragged possessions. He was to be entirely alone. He could remain in the house probably only for a short time, until the owner should find a new tenant. He walked along with his head up, retaining his old stately carriage. As he turned the street corner on which his house stood, he saw a figure advancing, and his heart stood still. He thought he recognized Charlotte, incredible although it was, since he had just seen her depart on the train. But surely that was Charlotte approaching, although she carried strange parcels. The girl was just her height, she even seemed to walk like her, and she surely wore a dress of which Charlotte was very fond. It was of a dusky red color, the skirt hanging in soft pleats. The hat was also red with a white wing. There was fur on the coat, and Carroll could see the fluff of it over the girlish shoulders. He could see the stiff white gleam of the wing. Then he saw who it was--Marie, with a yellow handkerchief gathered into a bag in one hand, and a little kitten which she had cherished, in a paper bag in the other. The kitten's black head protruded, and it was mewing shrilly. Marie was radiant with smiles, and she wore Charlotte's dress. She had stolen up-stairs and viewed herself in the mirror in Mrs. Carroll's room, and she had hopes of herself in that costume even without any money in her pocket. She was dreaming her humble little love-dream again. She smiled up at Carroll in a charming fashion as they met. "Good-bye," said she, with her pretty little purse of the mouth. They had already had an interview concerning her wages that morning. Carroll said good-bye with a stiff motion of his mouth. He realized that Charlotte had given Marie her dress. Somehow the sight of Marie in that dress almost made a child of the man. Chapter XXXII Carroll, when he reached his house, went up to the front door, unlocked it, and entered. At once there smote upon his consciousness that strange shock of emptiness and loneliness which has the effect, for a sensitive soul entering a deserted house, of a menacing roar of sound. He went through the hall to the little smoking-room or den on the right, opposite the dining-room, and the first thing which he saw on the divan was Charlotte's little chinchilla muff which she had forgotten. He regarded it with the concern of a woman, reflecting that she would miss it; and he must send it to her, and was wondering vaguely about a suitable box, when he became aware of a noise of insistent knocking mounting in a gradual crescendo from propitiatory timidity to confidence. The knocking was on the kitchen door, and Carroll went hurriedly through the house. When he reached the door it was open, and a tramp was just entering, with head cautiously thrust forward. When he saw Carroll, the unshaven, surly face manifestly became dismayed. He turned to go, with a mutter which savored of appeal, excuse, and defiance, but Carroll viciously accelerated his exit with a thrust between the shoulders. "What the devil are you doing here?" demanded Carroll. The man, rolling surly yet intimidated eyes over his shoulder, after a staggering recovery from a fall, muttered something in an unintelligible _patois_, the grovelling, slurring whine of his kind. "Well, get out of this!" shouted Carroll. The man went, shuffling along with a degree of speed, lifting his clumsily shod feet with a sort of painful alacrity as if they were unduly heavy. His back, in its greenish-brown coat, was bent. He was not a very young man, although vigorous. Carroll stood looking at the inglorious exit of this Ishmael, and he was conscious of a feeling of exhilaration. He felt an agreeable tingling in his fists, which were still clinched. The using of them upon a legitimate antagonist in whose debt he was not, and never had been, acted like a tonic. Then suddenly something pathetic in that miserable retreating back struck the other man, who also had reason to turn his back on and retreat from his kind; a strange understanding came over him. He seemed to know exactly how that other man, slinking away from his door, felt. "Hullo, you!" he called out. The man apparently did not hear, or did not think the shout meant for him. He kept on. Carroll shouted again. "Hullo, you! Come back here!" Then the man turned, and his half-scared, half-defiant face fronted Carroll. He growled an inarticulate inquiry. "Come back here!" repeated Carroll. The tramp came slowly, suspiciously, one hand slyly lifted as one sees a wary animal with a paw ready for possible attack. "Wait here," said Carroll, indicating the stoop with a gesture, "and I will see if I can find something for you to eat." The man reached the door and paused, and remained standing, still with that wary lift of hand and foot in readiness for defence or flight, while Carroll rummaged in the pantry, which was a lean larder. At last he emerged with half a pie and a piece of cake. He extended them to the tramp, who viewed them critically and mumbled something about meat. "Take these and clear out, or leave them and clear out!" shouted Carroll, and again the sense of exhilaration was over him. The man took the proffered food and slunk rapidly out of the yard. Carroll laughed, and closed and bolted the kitchen door, which Marie had left unlocked. Then he returned to the den and sat down with the morning paper and a cigar. He skimmed over the contents, the rumors of wars, and cruelties, the Wall Street items, the burglaries, the fires, the defalcations, the suicides, the stresses of the world, creation old, enduring in their fluctuations and recurrences like the sea, beating with the same force upon the hearts of every new generation. Carroll, as he sat there idly smoking, fell to thinking abstractedly in that vein. He had a conception of a possible ocean of elemental emotion, of joy and passion, of crime and agony and greed, ever swelling and ebbing upon the shores of humanity. He had a mind of psychological cast, although it had been turned of a necessity into other channels. Finally he turned wholly to himself and his own difficulties, which had reached possibly the worst crisis of his life. He had never been in such a hard place as this. He had heretofore seen a loop-hole out, into another labyrinth in the end, it is true, still a way out. Now he saw none except one; that was into a fiery torture, and whether it was or was not the torture of beneficial sacrifice he could not tell. As he sat there his face grew older with the laboring of his mind over the track of his failures and over the certain difficulties of the future. He sat there all the morning. Noon came, but he did not think of food, although he had eaten little that morning. He lit another cigar and took up the paper again, and read an account of the suicide of a bank defaulter by shooting himself through the brain. He fell to thinking of suicide in his own case, as a means of egress from his own difficulties, but he thought idly, rather as a means of amusement, and not with the slightest seriousness. He had a well-balanced brain naturally, and maintained the balance even in the midst of misfortune. However, a balance, however perfect, indicates by its very name something which may be disturbed. He thought over, idly, various means of unlawful exit from the world, and applied them to his own case. He decided against the means employed by the desperate bank cashier; he decided against the fiery draught of acid swallowed by a love-distracted girl; he decided against the leap from a ferry-boat taken by an unknown man, whose body lay unidentified in the morgue; he decided against illuminating gas, which had released from the woes of life a man and his three children; he thought rather favorably of charcoal; he thought also rather favorably of morphine; he thought more favorably still of the opening of a vein, employed by fastidious old Romans who had enough of feast and gladiators and life generally and wished for a chance to leave the entertainment. All this was the merest idleness of suggestion, a species of rather ghastly amusement, it is true, but none the less amusement, of an unemployed and melancholy mind. But suddenly, something new and hitherto unexperienced was over him, a mood which he had never imagined, a possibility which he had never grasped. His brain, tried to the extreme by genuine misery, tried in addition by dangerous suggestion, lost its perfect poise for the time. A mighty hunger and thirst--a more than hunger and thirst--a ravening appetite, a passion beyond all passions which he had ever known, was upon him, had him in its clutches. He knew for the first time the most monstrous and irresistible passion of the race, the passion for release from mortal existence, the passion for death. At that moment he felt, and probably felt truly, that had he been in dire peril, he would not have lifted a finger in self-preservation. He turned his eyes inward upon himself with greed for his own life, for his own blood, and back of that was the ravening thirst for release from the world and the flesh and the miseries which appertained to them, as one suffocating might thirst for air. He realized suddenly himself, stifling and agonizing, behind a window which he had no need to wait for an overruling Providence to open, which was not too heavy for his own mortal strength, which he could open himself. He realized that whatever lay outside _was_ outside; it was air outside this air, misery outside this particular phase which was driving him mad. His imagination dwelling upon the different means of suicide, now became judicial. He thought seriously upon the drawbacks to one, the advantages of another. Then since the man was essentially unselfish and fond of his own flesh and blood, he began to reflect upon the horror of a confessed suicide to them. He began to study the feasibility of a suicide forever undiscovered. He began to plan how the thing might distress his family as little as possible. His cigar went out as he sat and studied. The furnace fire was low and the room grew cold. He never noticed it. He studied and studied the best means of suicide, the best means of concealing it, and all the time the greed for it was increasing until his veins seemed to run with a liquid fire of monstrous passion, the passion of a mortal man for his own immolation upon fate, and all the time that sense of intolerable suffocation by existence itself, by the air of the world, increased. He had now arrived at a state of mind where every new phase was produced by suggestion. He was, in a sense, hypnotized. Everything served to swing him this way or that, up or down. The sight of a little perfume-bottle on the table, a dainty glass thing traced over with silver, set him thinking eagerly of another little bottle, of glass with a silver stopper, his wife's vinaigrette which she was fond of using when her head ached. From that, the contemplation of inhaling aromatic salts, he went naturally enough to the inhaling of more potent things which assuage pain, and could assuage, if taken in sufficient quantities, the pain of life itself. He remembered the exaltation which he had experienced once when given chloroform for a slight operation. Directly the idea of repeating that blissful sensation seized upon him he was mad for it. To go out of life like that, to take that way of opening the window into eternity, into another phase of existence or into oblivion, what ecstasy! He remembered that when under the chloroform, a wonderful certainty, a comprehension, seemingly, of the true import of life and death and of the hereafter, had seized him. He remembered a tremendous assurance which he had received under the influence of the drug, of the ultimate joy beyond this present existence, of the ultimate end in bliss of all misery, of the tending of death to the fulness of life. He remembered a rapture beyond words, an enthusiasm of gratitude for such an immortal delight for the power which he had sometimes rebelled against and reviled for placing him in the scale of existence. He remembered how all his past troubles seemed as only stepping-stones to supernal heights, how he could have kissed them for thankfulness that he had been forced by an all-wise Providence over the agony of the ascent to such rapture. Immediately his thoughts centred upon chloroform. He looked across at the divan with its heaped-up pillows, and his mind, acting always from suggestion, became filled with the picture of his peaceful bed up-stairs, and himself lying thereon, oblivious to all his miserable cares and worries, passing out of reach of them on an ecstatic flight propelled by the force of the winged drug. He began to consider the possibility of obtaining chloroform. At once the instinct of secrecy asserted itself. He decided that he could not, under the circumstances, go into the drug-store in Banbridge and ask for a quantity of the drug sufficient for his purposes. He realized that to do so would be to incur suspicion. He doubted if he could maintain a perfectly unmoved countenance while asking for it. He felt that his face would bear evidence to his wild greed. He heard, as he sat there, the whistle, then the rumble of a heavy freight-train a quarter of a mile distant, and at once he thought of the feasibility of going to New York for the chloroform. He looked at his watch and reflected that he had lost the noon train. He also reflected as to the possible suspicion which he might awaken of going to join his family, and making his final exodus from the town and his creditors. He placed his watch in his pocket, and his eyes fell on the electric-light fixture, with a red silk shade over the bulb, and at once his mind conceived the idea of his going somewhere on the trolley-cars. He thought of going to New Sanderson; then dismissed that as not feasible. He knew too many people in that place, and had too many creditors. Then he thought of going to Port Willis, which was also connected with Banbridge by a trolley-line, and was about the same distance. Again he looked at his watch. It was nearly two o'clock. He wondered absently where the day had gone, that it was so late. He had not the least idea as to the times and seasons of the Port Willis trolley-cars, but he directly arose to make ready. As he did so he heard a distressful mew, and the black kitten which Marie had essayed to carry with her that morning made a leap to the window-sill. The little animal looked in, fixed his golden, jewel-like eyes on the man, and again uttered an appealing, accusatory wail. Then she rubbed her head with a pretty, caressing motion against the window-glass. She had evidently escaped from the Hungarian and sped home. Carroll opened the window, and the cat arched her back and purred, hesitating. Carroll waited patiently. Finally she stepped across the sill, and he closed the window. Then he called the cat into the kitchen, but he could find no milk for her, nothing except a tiny scrap of beefsteak. The cat followed him around the kitchen, slinking with her furry stomach sweeping the floor, and mewed loudly, with alert eyes of watchful fear, exactly as if she were in a strange place. The strangeness in the house intimidated her. She missed the wonted element of the human, and the very corners of her familiar kitchen looked strange to her. She would not even eat her meat, but ran under the table and wailed loudly, with wild eyes of terror on Carroll. He went out, shutting the door behind him, and her loud inquiring wail floated after him. Carroll brushed his overcoat and hat carefully, and put them on. He went out of the house and took the road to the trolley-line. It was still very cold, and the rime of the morning lay yet on the shaded places. In the road, in the full glare of the sun, were a few dark, damp places. The sky was very clear, with a brisk wind from the northwest. It was at Carroll's back and urged him along. He walked quite rapidly. He had a curious singleness of purpose, as unreasoning and unreflective as an animal in search of food. He was going to Port Willis for chloroform to satisfy a hunger keener than any animal's, to satisfy the keenest hunger of which man, body and soul together, is capable, a hunger keener than that of love or revenge, the hunger for the open beyond the suffocating fastnesses of life. He met several people whom he knew, and bowed perfunctorily. One or two turned and looked after him. Two ladies, starting on a round of calls, Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Van Dorn, again looked forth from the window of Samson Rawdy's best coach, and at the intent man hurrying along the sidewalk. "I wonder where's he going," Mrs. Lee said, in a hushed tone. She was just approaching a house where they meditated calling, and she was rubbing on her violet-scented white gloves. Mrs. Lee looked worn and considerably thinner than usual, and she was uncomfortably conscious of her last season's bonnet. "My bonnet doesn't look very well to make calls," she had remarked, when she entered the coach, hired, as usual, at her companion's expense. "It looks very well indeed," said Mrs. Van Dorn, in a covertly triumphant voice. She herself wore a most gorgeous new bonnet with a clump of winter roses crowning her gray pompadour. "It isn't the one you wore last winter, is it?" asked she. "Yes," admitted Mrs. Lee. "You don't mean it! I thought it was new," said Mrs. Van Dorn, lying comfortably. "No, it's my old bonnet. I thought maybe it would do a while longer," said Mrs. Lee, meekly. "I heard yesterday that a good many folks in Banbridge had been losing money through Captain Carroll," said Mrs. Van Dorn, with appositeness. Mrs. Lee colored. "Have they?" said she. "I heard so." "Who is that man coming?" said Mrs. Lee, quickly, striving to turn the conversation. Then she directly saw that the man was Carroll himself. "Why, it's Captain Carroll himself!" said Mrs. Van Dorn, and then Mrs. Lee wondered, in her small, hushed voice, where he was going. Samson Rawdy, driving, looked sharply at him. He even leaned far out from the seat after he had passed, and watched to make sure he did not take the road to the railroad station. Then he began, for the hundredth time mentally, calculating the amount that was still owing him. It was not much, only a matter of two dollars and some cents, but his mind dwelt upon it. "Seems to me he looked queer," Mrs. Lee remarked, thoughtfully, after Carroll had passed. "How do you mean?" "I don't know. There was something about the way he was walking made me think so. I suppose he doesn't know what way to turn." "Well, I don't pity him," said Mrs. Van Dorn, with subdued vindictiveness. "I don't see what a man is thinking of to come into a place and conduct himself as he has done. They say he is in debt everywhere, and has cheated everybody who didn't know any better than to be cheated." Mrs. Van Dorn spoke with point. She had heard on very good authority that Mrs. Lee's husband had lost heavily through his misplaced confidence in Carroll. Mr. Lee knew that she knew, but she stood up bravely for the maligned man hurrying towards the Port Willis trolley-car. "Well, I don't know," said she. "You can't always tell by what people say. It always seems to me that Banbridge folks are pretty ready to talk, anyway. We don't know how much temptation the poor man has had, and maybe he never meant to cheat anybody." "Never meant!" repeated Mrs. Van Dorn, sarcastically. "Why, that is the way he has been doing right along everywhere he has lived. Why, I had it straight from a lady I met who had visited in Hillfield, New York, where they used to live before they came here. Never meant!" "Maybe he didn't," persisted Mrs. Lee. She was a grateful soul, and, even if capable of small and petty acts, was of fine grain enough to bear no rancor towards the discoverer of them; but the other woman was built on a different plan. "I don't take any stock in him at all," she said, with a species of delight. She looked out of the small, rear window of the coach as she spoke. "He's going to Port Willis," she said. "He's getting in the trolley-car." Samson Rawdy also turned his head and saw with a strained side glance Carroll getting into the Port Willis trolley-car. Then he said: "G'lang!" to his horses, and they turned a corner with a fine sweep, while the ladies began getting their cards ready. "I wonder what he's going to Port Willis for," said Mrs. Van Dorn, reflectively and malignantly. "I suppose he's looking out for somebody to cheat over there." "Well, I pity him, poor man!" said Mrs. Lee. "If a man does cheat other folks, he can't do it without cheating himself worst of all, and it always turns out so in the end." As is often the way with a simple tongue, hers spoke more wisdom that it wot of. It was indeed quite true that poor Arthur Carroll, seating himself in the Port Willis trolley-car, had in the bitter end cheated himself worse than he had any of his creditors. He was more largely in his own debt than in that of any other man; he had, in reality, less of that of which he had cheated than had any of his victims. Hardly one of them all was in such sore straits as he, for in addition to his immediate personal necessities there was always the incubus of the debts. And he was starting forth upon this trip with the purpose in his overstrained, distorted brain of spending his last reserve, and incurring a debt to himself which should never be paid to all eternity. Carroll seated himself in the car, which was already quite well filled; there was not much time to spare before its scheduled departure. He found a corner seat empty, and settled himself into it with a bitter little sense of self-gratulation for at least that minor alleviation of the situation. The corner seat in a Port Willis trolley-car had distinct advantages aside from the physical comfort, owing to the frequent crowding and the uncertain nature of the component elements of the crowd. Carroll settled back in his corner and surveyed his fellow-passengers, waiting with a kind of stupid patience for the starting of the car. There was a curious look of indifference to remaining or going, on most of the faces, the natural result of the universality of travel in America, the being always on the road for all classes in order to cover the enormous distances in this great country between home and work or amusement. All excitement over the mere act of transit has passed; there is stolidity and acquiescence as to delays and speed, unless there are great interests at stake. As a rule, the people in the Port Willis trolley-car had not great interests at stake; they were generally not highly organized, nervously, and were to all appearances carried as woodenly from one point to another as were the seats of the car. That afternoon a German woman sat nearly opposite Carroll. She was well-dressed in a handsome black satin skirt, with an ornate, lace-trimmed waist showing between the folds of her seal cape. There were smart red velvet roses and a feather in her hat. She sat with her feet far apart, planted squarely to prevent her enormous slanting bulk from slipping on the high seat. Her great florid face, a blank of animal cognizance of existence, stared straight ahead, her triple chins were pressed obstinately into the fur collar of her cape. She was the wife of a prosperous saloon proprietor of Port Willis, which was a city of saloons. She had herself been nourished on beer, until her naturally strong will had become so heavy that it clogged her own purposes. Her absently set face had a bewildered scowl as if at some dimly comprehended opposition. Carroll surveyed her with a sort of irritated wonder. No mathematical problem could present for him difficulties as insuperable as this other human being, who, in a similar stress to his own, would think of beer instead of chloroform, and of sleep instead of death--indeed, for whom a similar stress could not exist, so cushioned was both soul and body with stupidity and flesh against the pricks and stabs of life. Beside Carroll sat, sprawling his ungainly sideways length over the seat, a lank countryman in top-boots red with the earth of the country roads. His face, lantern-jawed, of the Abraham Lincoln type, lacking the shrewd intelligence of the trained brain, was painfully apathetic. He had scarcely looked up when Carroll took his seat beside him. His lantern jaws worked furtively and incessantly with a rotary motion over his quid of tobacco, which he chewed with the humble and rudimentary comfort of an animal over its cud. He was half-starved on his poor country fare, and the tobacco furnished his stomach with imagination in lieu of solid food. Now and then he rose and slouched to the door, and returned. At the other end of the car, opposite, were two Hungarian women, short, squat, heavily oscillating as to hips, clad in full, short skirts, aprons, and gay handkerchiefs over strange faces, at once pitiful, stern, and intimidating. One of the women was distinctly handsome, with noble features closely framed by a snow-white kerchief. She had the expression of the pure and unrelenting asceticism of a nun, but four children nearly of an age were with her--one a baby in her arms, one asleep with heavy head on her shoulder, the other two, a boy and girl, sitting on the seat with their well-shod little feet sticking straight out, and their little Slav faces, softened by infancy, looked unsmilingly out of the opposite window. The baby in her lap was also strangely sullen and solemn, with an intensely repellent little face in a soft, white hood. The face of the baby looked like an epitome of weary, even vicious, heredity. He looked older than his mother. Now and then she bent, and her severe face took on an expression of majestic tenderness. She pressed her handsome face close to the little, elfish, even evil face of the child, and kissed it. Then the baby smiled a fatuous, toothless smile, and he also was transformed; his little glory of infancy seemed to illuminate the face marked with the labors and sins and degradation of his progenitors. The other Hungarian woman, who had with her one child, older than the baby, very large and heavy, caught it up and kissed it with fervor, and the child stared at her in return with a sort of patient wonder. Then the two women exchanged smiles of confidence. Carroll watched, remembering Amy with their children. She had been very charming with the children, and, after all, there was not such a difference as might appear at first. The thought flashed into Carroll's mind that here was a little, universal well-spring of human nature which was good to see, but the deadly pessimism and despair of his own mood made him straightway corrupt the spring with his own dark conclusions. "What is it all for?" he asked himself, bitterly. "Look at the handsome alien creature there, with four young around her, and the other with that unresponsive little brat. Any one of those children, from the looks of their faces, is capable, if left to its own unguided proclivities, of murdering the very parent who is now caressing him; any one of them is hardly capable of doing anything in life for his own good or happiness, or the good and happiness of the world, if left to himself, as he will be. What does either of those women know about training a child with those features, a child distorted from birth?" Beyond Carroll, on the same seat, sat two quite pretty young girls with smart hats, and protuberant pompadours over pink-and-white faces. They had loosened their coats, revealing coquettish neckwear. They sat with feet crossed, displaying embroidered petticoats, at which now and then the Hungarian women glanced with the hopeless admiration with which one might view crown jewels. The two girls covertly now and then reached forward their pretty heads and regarded Carroll with half-bold, half-innocent coquettishness, but he did not notice it. One whispered to the other how handsome he was, and did she know who he was. A rumble and jar became audible, and the New Sanderson car came up at right angles on the track on the other road. The two cars connected. Then passengers alighted from the New Sanderson car and entered the waiting one. There was a distinct stir of excitement as they entered, for it was evidently a bridal party. They were all Hungarians, and on their way to Port Willis for the ceremony. There were the prospective bride and groom and several friends of both sexes. They settled themselves in the car, the girls huddled close together, the young men by themselves. The bride was quite evident from the bridal whiteness of her hat, a pitiful cheap affair bedecked with thin white ribbon and a forlorn white plume; but although the bridegroom was as unmistakable, it was difficult to tell how. Carroll decided that it was because of the intensified melancholy and abjectness and shame of his expression. Not one of the young men, who numbered as many as the girls, but had it. They were all ignoble, contemptible, their faces above their paper collars and hideous ties stained with miserable imaginations. There was not a self-respecting face among them; but the girls were better. There was in their faces an innocent gayety like children. Instead of the painful, restrained grins of the young men, they giggled artlessly when their eyes met. They were innocently conscious of their flimsy and gaudy dresses of the cheapest lawn or muslin on that cold day, with a multitude of frills of cheap lace and bows of cheap ribbon, with bare hands adorned with blue or red stoned rings protruding from their poor jacket-sleeves. The bride, afraid of crushing her finery, had nothing over her shoulders in her thin white muslin except one of the gay Hungarian kerchiefs. It was of an exceedingly brilliant green color, a green greener than the grass of spring. Above it her homely, downcast face showed beneath the flapping white hat, which had a cluster of blue roses under the brim next the dark streaks of her coarse hair. The face of the bride was simple and rude in contour and line, the face of a peasant from a long line of peasants, and it was complex with the simple complexity of the simplest and most primal emotions, with love and joy and wonder, the half-fearful triumph of swift inertia, attained at last in the full element of life. The others were different; they were dimpling and laughing and jesting in their unintelligible guttural. Their faces knew nothing of the seriousness of the bride's. One of them was exceedingly pretty, with a beauty unusual in her race. Her high cheek-bones were covered with the softest rosy flesh, her wide mouth was outlined by curves. She wore her cheap muslin with an air, gathering up her petticoat, edged with the coarsest lace, daintily from the muddy floor, revealing her large feet in heavy shoes and white stockings. All the young men of the party except the prospective groom, who sat entirely wrapped in his atmosphere of grinning, shamefaced consciousness, glanced furtively at her from time to time. She was quite aware of their glances, but she never returned them. When a young man looked at her, she said something to one of the girls, and laughed prettily, striking another pose for admiration. She never, however, glanced at Carroll as did the two pretty girls beyond him on the same seat. She seemed to have no consciousness of any one in the car outside of those of her own race. Indeed, the whole party, travelling in a strange land, speaking their strange tongue, gave a curious impression of utter alienty. It was almost as if they lived apart in their own crystalline sphere of separation, as if they were as much diverse as inhabitants of Mars, and yet they were bound on a universal errand, which might have served to bring them into touch with the rest if anything could. Carroll gathered an uncanny impression that he might be himself invisible to these people, that, living in another element, they actually could not see or fairly sense anything outside. He looked from them to the two older women of the same race with their children, and again his pessimistic attitude, evolved from his own misery, set his mind in a bitterly interrogative attitude. He looked at the bride and the mistakenly happy mother caressing the evil-looking child, and a sickening disgust of the whole was over him. The car started, and proceeded at a terrific speed along the straight road. Carroll stared past the bulk of the German woman at the flying landscape. Since noon the sky had become clouded; it threatened snow if the wind should go down. The earth, which had been sodden with rain a few days before, the mud from which showed dried on the countryman's boots, was now frozen in a million wrinkles. The trees stood leafless, extending their rattling branches, the old corn-fields flickered with withered streamers; a man was mournfully spreading dung over a slope of field. His old horse stood between the shafts with drooping head. The man himself was old, and moved slowly and painfully. A white beard of unusual length blew over his right shoulder. Everything seemed aged and worn and weary, and full of knowledge, to its undoing. To Carroll, in this mood, even the bridal-party, even the children, seemed as old as age itself, puppets evolved from the ashes of ages, working out a creation-old plan of things. The car was very close and hot--in fact, the atmosphere was intolerable--but he felt chilly. He pulled his coat closer. Two young men, countrymen, who had entered from the New Sanderson car, and sat next the German woman, eyed him at the gesture, and their eyes fell with a sort of dull dissent upon his handsome coat. One said something to the other, and both laughed with boorish malice. Then one, after glancing at the conductor, whose back was turned as he talked to one of the pretty girls with pompadours, bent his head hastily to the floor. Then he scraped his foot, and looked aloft with an innocent and unconcerned expression. One of the pretty girls had observed him, and said something to the conductor, pointing to a printed placard over the man's head. The conductor looked at him, but the man did not notice. He gave his fare, when it was demanded, surlily. Then he bent his head again, when the conductor had turned again, scraped his foot, and gave a sharp glance at the same time at Carroll's long coat, which was almost within range. The German woman suddenly awoke to nervous life and pulled her satin skirt aside, with a look at the offender, to which he was impervious. Then the car stopped in response to a signal, and a tiny, evidently aged, woman with the activity of a child sprang on board. She had a large bag which she bore on one meagre little arm as if it had been a feather. Her wrinkled little face, rosily colored with the cold air, peeped alertly from under quite a fine, youthful hat trimmed with smart bows and a wing, but set crookedly on the head. Her sparse gray hair was strained tightly back from her thin temples and wound tightly at the back. Although she was undoubtedly old, her face could no more be called old than could that of a bird. She kept it in constant motion, bringing bright eyes to bear upon the different passengers. She did not travel very far. She stopped the car, springing alertly to her feet and pulling the bell-rope. Then she hopped off as spryly as a sparrow, on her thin ankles, moving with nervous haste. Then it was that Carroll noticed the boy for the first time, although he was seated directly opposite, and the child looked long and intently at the man. When the strange, agile old woman ran through the car, the boy looked across with a look of innocent fun at the man, and for the first time the two pairs of eyes met. It was not in Carroll, whatever his stress of mind, to meet a smile like that without response. He smiled back. Then the boy ducked his head with fervor, and off came his little cap, like a gentleman. He was a handsome little fellow, younger than Eddy by a year or two, fair-haired and blue-eyed, with a most innocent and infantile expression. He was rather poorly dressed, but he looked well cared for, and he had the confident and unhesitating regard of a child who is well-beloved. He had a little package of school-books under his arm. Carroll, after returning the child's smile, turned away. He did not look again, although he felt that the blue eyes with a look of insistent admiration were steadfastly upon his face. The country through which the car was now passing was of a strange, convulsive character. It was torn alike by nature and by man. Storms and winds had battered at the clayey soil, spade and shovel had upturned it. It was honey-combed and upheaved. There were roughly shelving hills overhung with coarse dry grass like an old man's beard, there were ragged chasms and gulfs, and all in raw reds and toneless browns and drabs, darkened constantly by the smoke which descended upon them from the chimneys of the great factories to the right. Over this raw red and toneless drab surface crawled, on narrow tracks, little wagons, drawn by plodding old horses, guided by plodding men. Beyond, the salt river gleamed with a keen brightness like steel. The sky above it was dull and brooding. The wind was going down. The whole landscape was desolate, and with a strange, ragged, ignominious desolation. The earth looked despoiled, insulted, dissected, as if her sacred inner parts were laid bare by these poor pygmies, the tools of a few capitalists grubbing at her vitals for the clay which meant dollars. In the most desolate part of this desolate country, the car was stopped, and two Syrians laden with heavy grips got on. These tall, darkly gaunt men, their sinister picturesqueness thinly disguised by their Western garb, these Orientals in the midst of the extremest phase of the New World, passed Carroll with grace, and seated themselves, with a weary air, and yet an air of ineffable lengths of time at command, suggestive of anything but weariness. There was actually, or so Carroll fancied, a faint odor of attar of rose and sandal-wood evident in the horribly close car. The men had in their grips rosaries, and Eastern stuffs or Eastern trinkets of the cheapest description. To Arthur Carroll, regarding them, the fancy occurred, as it had often occurred, of himself following a similar pursuit. He had revolved in his mind all possible schemes of money-making, of winning an honest living. All the more dignified methods, the methods apparently suited to himself, seemed out of his reach. He pictured himself laden with a heavy grip, with two of them, one painfully poised on the hip, the other dragging at the hand, going about the country, concealing his rage with abjectness and humility, striving to dispose of his small and worthless wares for money enough to keep the machinery going. "I believe I would make a very good peddler," he thought. Although his grace of address was involuntary, like any keenly intelligent and retrospective man, he could not avoid being aware of it. He felt that he could outstrip that saturnine Syrian in his own field. Looking away from them, his eyes met the little boy's, also returning from a sober, innocent contemplation of them, and the boy's eyes again smiled at him with an odd, confidential expression. So clearly wise and understanding was their direct regard, that it almost seemed as if the child guessed at the man's thoughts; but that was, of course, impossible. Carroll smiled at him again, and the little face blushed and dimpled like a girl's with admiration and grateful delight. He was a daintily built little boy, with nothing of Eddy's little dash of manner, but he was charming. The car reached Port Willis and proceeded along the principal street. Carroll suddenly reflected that he must soon get off; he would reach the end of the line. Again his errand loomed up before him. The necessity for immediate action removed the paralyzing effect which the very horror of it had had upon him for a time. Curiously enough, during the half-hour in the car he had held, as it were, a little truce with this fell appetite which had seized upon him. He had thought very little of it. The strange inertia of passivity in motion of the other passengers had seized upon him, but now was coming a period of wakening. The passengers began to drop off. The bridal-party went out chattering and laughing, the prospective bride with ugly red spots of agitation on her high cheek-bones, the pretty girl holding up her laced petticoats with the air of a princess. The stout German woman got off in front of her husband's saloon. The Syrians stopped in front of a store. Carroll rode through to the end of the line, and there was then nobody left except himself, the two pretty girls, and the little boy. The girls swept off before him, with a consciousness of their backs in his sight. Carroll got off, and, to his utter amazement, the little boy, pressing close to his heels, lifted a small voice. It was an exceedingly small and polite little voice, as sweet as a girl's, a thin treble. "Be you Eddy Carroll's father?" asked the little voice. Carroll looked down from his height at the small creature beside him. The little, upturned face looked very far down. The little cap was pushed back and the fair hair clung to the innocent forehead damply like a baby's. "Yes, my little man," said he, affably. "Who are you?" "I go to school with him," said the little boy. "Oh!" said Carroll. "Has he went?" further inquired the little boy, wistfully. He was a little scholar, but he had not learned as yet the practical application of English. It was "has gone" in the book and "has went" on the tongue. "Yes; this morning," replied Carroll. "I was in his classes," said the little voice. "Why, you are younger than he is!" said Carroll. "I guess I got my lessons better," admitted the little voice, but with no conceit, rather with a measure of apology. Carroll laughed. "You must have," said he. The boy had, undoubtedly, a rather intellectual head, a full forehead, and eyes full of thought and question. "You go to school in Banbridge?" said Carroll, walking along the street by the boy's side. "Yes. I live here. My papa is dead and my mother dressmakes." "Oh!" said Carroll. Suddenly, to his utter amazement, the small hand which was free from the books was slid into his, and he was walking up the street with the strange small boy clinging to his hand. Carroll was conscious of a feeling of grotesque amusement, of annoyance, and at the same time of pleasure and of exquisite flattery. There was, strangely enough, in the child, nothing which savored of the presuming or the forward. There was no more offence to be taken than if an exceedingly small, timidly ingratiating, and pretty dog had followed one. There was the same subtle compliment implied, that the dog and the child considered him a man desirable to be followed, a man to be trusted by such helplessness and ignorance and loving admiration. Carroll asked no more questions, but walked up the street with the boy clinging to his hand. He thought of Eddy, but the touch of this child was very different; the hand was softer, not so nervous. Carroll, walking up the street, became forgetful of the child, who remained silent, only glancing up at him now and then, timidly and delightedly and admiringly. It was, in fact, to the boy, almost as if he were walking hand in hand with a god. But to the man had returned in full force the abnormal passion which had sent him thither. He looked for a drug-store where he could buy chloroform. His mind was as set upon that one end as a hunting-dog's upon his quarry. He could not seem to grasp anything very intelligently but that one idea, which crowded out every other for the time. The two passed store after store, markets, beer-saloons, fruit-stalls, and dry-goods. There were several blocks before the first drug-store was reached. Carroll saw the red, green, and blue bottles in the windows, and turned towards the door. "Mr. Willard keeps this store; he's a nice man," volunteered the boy, in his sweet treble. Carroll looked down and smiled mechanically. "Is he?" he said. "Yes. My mamma makes Mis' Willard's dresses. She's real good pay." Carroll entered the store, the boy still keeping close hold of his hand. There was no one behind the counter, on which stood an ornate soda-fountain with the usual appliances for hot and cold beverages. A thought struck Carroll. He put his hand in his pocket and looked down at the boy. "Do you like chocolate?" he asked. The boy blushed and hung his head. "Do you?" persisted Carroll. "I didn't ask for any," the boy said, in an exceedingly shamefaced voice. Carroll laughed as a man came from the rear of the store and paused inquiringly behind the counter. "Give this little boy a cup of hot chocolate, and make it pretty sweet," he said. When the boy was seated, blissfully sipping his chocolate, Carroll asked calmly for his chloroform. The druggist himself gave it to him without any demur. There was that about Carroll's whole appearance which completely allayed suspicion. It seemed inconceivable that a man of such appearance, benevolently and genially treating a pretty little boy to a cup of chocolate, should be essaying to purchase poison for any nefarious purpose. The druggist put up the chloroform in a bottle marked poison in red letters, changed the bill which Carroll gave him in payment, and remarked that it was a cold day and looked like snow. The boy was hurrying to finish his chocolate, that he might follow again this object of his admiration, but Carroll caught sight of the Banbridge car coming up the street, after having made an unusually long wait at the terminus of the line. "Take your time, my boy. I have to go," he said, and hurried out to the car, leaving the boy staring wistfully after him with the chocolate sweet upon his tongue. Carroll, with his chloroform in his pocket, boarded the car, and speeded again over the road to Banbridge. The way home seemed to him like a dream. He was not conscious of much about him; his mind now seemed concentrated on that small bottle in his pocket. He noticed nobody in the car, but sat in his corner, with eyes fixed absently on the flying landscape. The conductor had to speak twice before he realized that he was asking for his fare. When the car reached the end of the line in Banbridge, he sat still for a few seconds before he collected himself enough to understand that the end of his journey was reached, and it was time for him to get off the car and walk home. Walking along the familiar way, his apathy began to fail and his nervous excitement returned. He began to realize everything, this hideous end to his failure of a life which was so rapidly approaching. He realized that he was walking alone to his deserted home, cold and cheerless, dark and silent. It was already dusk, the days were short and the sky heavily clouded. The raw wind from the northeast smote him hard in the face like a diffused flail of wrath. He thought of his wife and children and sister speeding along to their old home in the cheerful Pullman-car. He reflected that about this time they would be thinking of going to the dining-car for their dinner. He reflected that after the chloroform had done its work, they would be well cared for in Kentucky, much better off than they had ever been under his doubtful protection; that Eddy might grow up to be a better man than his father, that Charlotte would marry down there, that they would all be comfortable, and in the intense and abnormal self-centredness of the mood which was upon him, that mood which leads a man to escape from his own agony of life by the first exit, that awful hunger for the beyond of his own soul, he never gave a thought to the possible sufferings of his family, to their possible grief at the loss of him. He actually hugged himself with the contemplation of their comfort and happiness, which would follow upon his demise, as he hugged himself upon the prospective ecstasy and oblivion in the bottle in his pocket. He came in sight of his house, and a bright light shone in the dining-room window. He looked at it in bewilderment. His first thought was an unreasoning one that some of his creditors had in some unforeseen way taken possession. He went wearily around to the side door. There was a light also behind the drawn curtain of the kitchen. He opened the door and smelled broiling beefsteak and tea. Then Charlotte, warm and rosy, laughing and almost weeping at the same time, ran towards him with her arms held out. "I have come back, papa," said she. Chapter XXXIII For the first time in his life Arthur Carroll had a perfect sense of the staying power, of the impregnable support, of love and the natural ties of humanity. Charlotte's slender arms closed around his neck; she stood, half-weeping, half-laughing, leaning against him, but in reality he leaned against her, the soul of the man against the soul of the girl, and he got from it a strength which was stronger than life or death. He felt that it bent not one whit before his terrible weight of misery and perplexity. He was stayed. "I came back, papa," Charlotte repeated. She was herself a little terrified by what seemed to her a daring action; then, too, she dimly perceived something beneath the surface which made her tremble. She felt the despairing weight of the other soul against her own. She stood still, clinging to her father, saying in her little, quivering voice that she had come back, and he was quite still, until at last he made a little sound like a dry sob, and Charlotte straightened herself and took his hand firmly in her little, soft one. The girl became all in a second a woman, with the full-fledged instincts of one. She knew just what to do for a man in a moment of weakness. She towered, by virtue of the maternal instinct within her, high above her father in spiritual strength. "Papa, come into the house," said she, and her voice seemed no longer Charlotte's, but echoed from the man's far-off childhood. "Come into the house, papa," she said; "come." And Carroll followed her into the house, like a child, his hands clasped firmly and commandingly by the little, soft one of his daughter. Charlotte led her father into the dining-room, which was warm and light. There was a Franklin stove in there, and a bright fire burned in it. "The furnace fire had gone out, and I could not do anything with that, so I made a fire in this stove," Charlotte explained. "I made it burn very easily." She spoke with a childish pride. It was, in fact, the first time she had ever made a fire. "The fire in the kitchen-range was low, too," she said, "but I put some coal on and I poked it, and there is a beautiful bed of coals to cook the beefsteak." Then Charlotte caught herself up short. "Oh, the beefsteak will burn!" she cried, anxiously. "Do sit down, papa, and wait a minute. I must see to the beefsteak." With that Charlotte ran into the kitchen, and Carroll dropped into the nearest chair. He felt dazed and happy, with the happiness of a man waking to consciousness from an awful incubus of nightmare, and yet a deadly sense of guilt and shame was beginning to steal over him. That bottle of chloroform in his pocket stung his soul like the worm, which gnaweth the conscience unceasingly, of the Scriptures. He thought vaguely of removing it, of concealing it somewhere. He looked at the china-closet, the door of which stood ajar; he looked at the sideboard with its glitter of cut glass and silver; but reflected that Charlotte might directly go to either and discover it, and make inquiries. He kept it in his pocket. He heard Charlotte running about in the kitchen. He continued to smell the broiling beefsteak and tea, and also toast. He became conscious of a healthy hunger. He had eaten nothing since morning, and very little then. Then he gathered his faculties together enough to wonder how this had come about; how and why Charlotte had returned. But he sat still in the chair beside the Franklin stove. He gazed steadily into the red glow of the coals, and a strange dimness came over his vision. A species of counter-hypnotism seemed to overcome him. He had been in an abnormal state, superinduced by unhealthy suggestions of the imagination acting upon a mind ill at ease; now his natural state gradually asserted itself. His mind swung slowly back to its normal poise. When Charlotte entered, bearing a platter of beefsteak, he turned to her quite naturally. "How did it happen, darling?" he asked. Charlotte looked at him, and her face, which had been anxious and puzzled, lightened. She laughed. "I had my mind all made up, papa," she replied, in a triumphant little voice. "That you would come back?" "Yes, papa. I knew there was no use in saying I would not go. I knew if I did, Amy would directly declare that she would not go either, and I should spoil everything. So I decided that I would start with the rest, and come back." "How far did you go?" "I went to Lancaster. I did not mean to go so far. I meant to get off at New Sanderson, but I could not manage it. Amy wanted to play pinochle, and I could not get away. But when we got to Lancaster, we stopped awhile, and Amy was having a nap, and Anna was reading, and the train made a long stop, and Eddy and I got out, and I told Eddy what I was going to do, and gave him a little note. I had it all written before I started. I said in the note that I was coming back, that I did not want to go to Kentucky; that I was coming back and would stay with you a little while, and then we would both go to Kentucky and join the others. I said they were not to worry about me." "What did you tell Eddy?" "I told Eddy that you could not be left alone with nobody to cook for you, and he must get on the train and not make any fuss, and tell the others, and be a good boy, and he said he would. I saw him safely on the train." "How did you get here from Lancaster, child?" "I took the trolley," Charlotte said. "There is a trolley from Lancaster to New Sanderson, you know, papa." Charlotte did not explain that the trolley from Lancaster to New Sanderson was not running, and that she had walked six miles before connecting with the trolley to Banbridge. "I got the meat in New Sanderson," said she. "I got some other things, too. You will see. We have a beautiful supper, papa." Carroll looked at her, and she answered the question he was ashamed to ask. "Aunt Catherine sent me a little money," she said. "She sent me twenty-five dollars in a post-office order. She wrote me a letter and sent me the money for myself. She said the shops were not very good down there--you know they are not, papa--and I might like to buy some little things for myself in New York before coming. I said nothing about the money to Amy or the others, because I had this plan. I even let Amy take that extra money and buy me the hat. I was afraid I was mean, but I could not tell her I had the money, because I wanted to carry out this plan, and I did not see how I could get back or do anything unless I kept it, for I had no money at all before. I have written a letter to Aunt Catherine, and she will get it as soon as they get there. I don't think she will be angry; and if she is, I don't care." Charlotte's voice had a ring of charming defiance. She looked gayly at her father. "Come, papa," said she, "the beefsteak is hot. Sit right up, and I will bring in the tea and toast. There are some cakes, too, and a salad. I have got a beautiful supper, papa. I never cooked any beefsteak before, but just look how nice that is. Come, papa." Carroll obediently drew his chair up to the table. It was daintily set; there was even a little vase of flowers, rusty red chrysanthemums, in the centre on the embroidered centrepiece. Charlotte spoke of them when she brought in the tea and toast. "I suppose I was extravagant, papa," she said, "but I stopped at a florist's in New Sanderson and bought these. They did not cost much--only ten cents for all these." She took her seat opposite her father, and poured the tea. She put in the lumps of sugar daintily with the silver tongs. Her face was beaming; she was lovely; she was a darling. She looked over at her father as she extended his cup of tea, and there was not a trace of self-love in the little face; it was all love for and tender care of him. "Oh, I am so glad to be home!" she said, with a deep sigh. Carroll looked across at her with a sort of adoration and dependence which were painful, coming from a father towards a child. His face had lightened, but he still looked worn and pale and old. He was become more and more conscious of the chloroform in his pocket, and the shame and guilt of it. "Why did you come back, honey?" he asked. "I didn't want to go," Charlotte said, simply. "I wasn't happy going away and leaving you alone, papa. I want to stay here with you, and if you have to leave Banbridge I will go with you. I don't mind at all not having much to get along with. I can get along with very little." "You would have been more comfortable with the others, dear," said Carroll. He did not begin to eat his supper, but looked over it at the girl's face. "You are not eating anything, papa," said Charlotte. "Isn't the beefsteak cooked right?" "It is cooked beautifully, honey; just right. All is. I am glad to see you come back. You don't just know what it means to me, dear, but I am afraid--" Charlotte laughed gayly. "I am not," said she. "Talk about comfort--isn't this comfort? Please _do_ eat the beefsteak, papa." Carroll began obediently to eat his supper. When he had fairly begun he realized that he was nearly famished. In spite of his stress of mind, the needs of the flesh reasserted themselves. He could not remember anything tasting so good since his boyhood. He ate his beefsteak and potatoes and toast; then Charlotte brought forward with triumph a little dish of salad, and finally a charlotte-russe. "I got these at the baker's in New Sanderson," said she. She was dimpling with delight. She looked very young, and yet the man continued to have that sense of dependence upon her. She exulted openly over her supper, her cooking, and her return. "I don't know but I was very deceitful, papa," she said, but with glee rather than compunction. "Amy and Anna had no idea that I did not mean to go with them to Aunt Catherine's, and oh, papa, what do you think I did? What do you?" "What, dear?" "My trunk was packed with, with--some old sheets and blankets and newspapers--and all my clothes are hanging in my closet up-stairs." Charlotte laughed a long ring of laughter. "I knew I was deceitful," she said again, and laughed again. Carroll did not laugh. He was thinking of the Hungarian girl in Charlotte's red dress, but Charlotte thought he was sober on account of her deceit. "Do you think it was very wrong, papa?" she asked, with sudden seriousness, eying him wistfully. "I will write and tell Amy to-night all about it. I couldn't think of any other way to do, papa." "I met Marie as I was coming home from the station this morning," Carroll said, irrelevantly. Charlotte looked at him quickly, blushed, and raised her teacup. "I thought at first, though I knew it could not be, that I saw you coming," said he; "something about her dress--" "Papa," said Charlotte, setting down her cup, and she was half-crying--"papa, I had to. Marie was so shabby, and she said that her lover had deserted her because she was so poorly dressed; and though of course he could not be a very good man, nor very loyal to desert her for such a reason as that, yet those people are different, perhaps, and don't look at things as we do; and Marie has got another place; but--but she--didn't have any money, you know, and she didn't really have a dress fit to be seen, and that dress I gave her I did not need at all--I really did not, papa. I have plenty besides, and so I gave it to her, and my little Eton jacket, and I told her she would certainly have every cent we owed her, and she seemed very happy. She is going to a party to-night and will wear that dress. She thinks she will get her lover back. Those Hungarian men must be queer lovers. Marie said he would not marry her, anyway, until she had some money for her dowry, but she thinks she may be able to keep him until then with my red silk dress, and I told her she should certainly have it all in time." Charlotte's voice, in making the last statement, was full of pride and confidence without a trace of interrogation. "She shall if I live, dear," said Carroll. All at once there came over him, stimulated with food for heart and body, such a rush of the natural instinct for life as to completely possess him. It seemed to him that as a short time before he had hungered for death, he now hungered for life. Even the desire to live and pay that miserable little Hungarian servant-maid was a tremendous thing. The desire to live for the smallest virtues, ambitions, and pleasures of life was compelling force. "I have something beautiful for breakfast to-morrow morning, papa," said Charlotte, "and I know how to make coffee." And he felt that it was worth while living for to-morrow morning's breakfast alone. No doubt this state of mind, as abnormal in its way as the other had been, was largely due to physical causes, to the unprosaic quantity of food in a stomach which had been cheated of its needs for a number of days. The blood rushed through his veins with the added force of reaction, supplying his brain. He was not happier--that could scarcely be said--but he was swinging in the opposite direction. Whereas he had wanted to die, because of his misery and failures, he now wanted to live, to repair them, and the thought was dawning upon him, to take revenge because of them. In this mood the consideration of the bottle of chloroform in his pocket became more and more humiliating and condemning. The sight of the girl's innocent, triumphant, loving little face opposite overwhelmed him with a stinging consciousness of it all. He felt at one minute a terrible fear lest those clear young eyes of hers could penetrate his miserable secret, lest she should say, suddenly: "Papa, what did you go to Port Willis for? What have you in your pocket?" Charlotte went to bed early, after she had cleared away the table and washed the dishes, unwonted tasks for her, but which she performed with a delight intensified by a feeling of daring. "Papa, I have washed the dishes beautifully; I know I have," she said, and she looked at him for praise, her head on one side, her look half-whimsical, half-childishly earnest. "I don't see why it is at all hard work to be a maid," said she. "There are other things to do, dear, I suppose," Carroll said. "I think I could easily learn to do the other things," said she. "I don't quite know about the washing and ironing, and possibly the scrubbing and sweeping." Charlotte surveyed, as she spoke, her hands. She looked at the little, pink palms, made pinker and slightly wrinkled by the dish-water; she turned them and surveyed the backs with the slightly scalloping joints, and the thin-nailed fingers. She shook her head. "I don't know," said she, again. "I know," Carroll said, quickly. "Your father is going to take care of you, Charlotte. It has not yet come to that pass that he is quite helpless." Charlotte did not seem to notice his hurt, indignant tone. She went on reflectively. "It does seem," said she, "as if there were a great many ways of being crippled besides not having all your arms and legs; as if it were really being very much crippled if you are in a place where there is work to be done, and your hands are not rightly made for doing it. Now here I am, and I can't do Marie's work as well as Marie did it, because she was really born with hands for washing and ironing and scrubbing and sweeping, and I wasn't. A person is really crippled when she is born unfitted to do the things that come her way to be done, isn't she, papa?" "There is no question of your doing such things, Charlotte," Carroll said again, and Charlotte looked at him quickly. "Why, papa!" said she, and went up to him and kissed him. She rubbed her cheek caressingly against his, and his cheek felt wet. She realized that with a sort of terror. "Why, papa, I did not mean any harm!" she said. "I will get a servant for you to-morrow, Charlotte," he said, brokenly. "It has not yet come to pass that you have to do such work." He spoke brokenly. He did not trust himself to look at the girl, who was now looking at him intently and seriously. "Papa, listen to me," said she. "Really, there is no scrubbing nor sweeping nor washing nor ironing to be done here for quite a time. Marie has left the house in very good condition. There is enough money to pay for the laundry for some time, and as for the cooking, you can see that I shall love to do that. You know Aunt Catherine used to let me cook, that I always like to." Carroll made no reply. "Papa, you are not well; you are all worn out," Charlotte said. "Let us go into the den, and you smoke a cigar and I will read to you." Carroll shook his head. "No, dear, not to-night," he said. "We will have a game of cribbage." "No, dear, not to-night. You are tired, and you must go to bed. Take a book and go to bed and read. You are tired." "I am not very tired," said Charlotte, but therein she did not speak the entire truth. Her spirit was leaping with happy buoyancy, but she could scarcely stand on her feet, she was so fatigued with her unaccustomed labor and the excitement of it all. There was a ringing in her ears, and her eyelids felt stiff; she was also a little hoarse. "Will you go to bed, too, papa?" said she, anxiously. "I will go very soon, dear." "Won't you want anything else before you go?" "No, darling." Charlotte stood regarding him with the sweetest expression of protection and worshipful affection, and withal the naivete of a child pleased with herself and what she has done for the beloved one. "You _did_ have a good supper, didn't you, papa?" she asked. "A beautiful supper, sweetheart." "You never had a better?" "Never so good, never half so good," said Carroll, fervently, smiling down at her eager face. "You are glad I came back, aren't you, papa?" "Glad for my own sake, God knows, dear, but--" "There are no buts at all," Charlotte cried, laughing. "No buts at all. If you don't think I am happier and better off here with you than I would be rattling down to Kentucky on that old railroad, and I am always car-sick on a long journey, you know, papa." Charlotte lit a lamp and bade her father good-night. She kissed him and looked at him anxiously and with a little bewilderment. He had seated himself, and was smoking with an abstracted air, his eyes fixed on vacancy. "Now, papa, you will go to bed very soon yourself, won't you?" she urged. "You look sick, and I know you are tired out." "Very soon, honey," Carroll replied. After Charlotte had gotten into bed, and lay there with her lamp on a stand beside her and her book in hand, she listened more than she read. When in the course of half an hour she heard her father come up the stairs and enter his own room, she gave a sigh of relief. "Good-night, papa," she called out. "Good-night, dear," he responded. Then Charlotte fell asleep with her light burning and her book in her hand, and she did not hear her father go softly over the stairs a second time. As was said, his mind, in regaining its normal balance, had swung too far to the opposite direction. His desire to live, that possessed him, was as much too intense as his previous desire to die. He had for the time being another fixed idea, not as dangerous in a sense as the other, at least not to himself, but still dangerous. The miserable little bottle of chloroform became, in this second abnormal state of his mind, the key-note on which his strenuous thoughts harped. It seemed to him that that bottle with its red label of "Poison" was as horrible a thing to have as a blood-stained knife of murder. It was in a sense blood-stained. It bore the stigma of the self-murderer. It bore evidence to his hideous cowardice, his unspeakable crime of spirit. He felt that he must do away with that bottle; but how? After he was in his room, and the door locked, he took the bottle from its neat wrapper of pink paper and looked at it. It seemed like an absurdly easy thing to dispose of; but it did not, when he reflected, seem easy at all. It was not a thing to burn, or throw away. He thought of opening the window and giving it a fling; but what was to hinder some one finding it in the morning under the windows? The man actually sat down and gazed awhile at the small phial of death with utter helplessness and horror; and as he did so, the always smouldering wrath of his soul towards that man in Kentucky, that man who had wronged him, swelled to its height. He had always hated him, but his hate had never assumed such strength as this. He became conscious, as he had never been before, that that man was responsible for it all, even to the crowning horror and ignominy of that bottle. He reflected that no man of his name had ever, so far as he knew, stained it as he had done by his life; that no man of his name had ever so stained the record of his race by the contemplation of such a dastardly death. He felt, gazing at that bottle, every whit as guilty as if he had drained the contents, and he told himself that that man was responsible, that that man had murdered him in the worst and subtlest way in which murder can be done; he had caused him to do away with his own honor. He felt himself alive to his furthest fancy with hate and a desire for revenge. "I will live, and I will have the better of him yet," he muttered to himself. Every nerve tingled; his fingers clutched the bottle like hot wires--that bottle which that other man had caused him to buy, and which he could not get rid of, this palpable witness to his crime and disgrace. Finally he got up and threw up the window; then he put it down again. It did not seem to him, in his unreasoning state, that he could probably empty the chloroform out of the window without the slightest danger of detection, and then scrape the label from the bottle. It did not seem possible to him that Charlotte would not immediately perceive the fumes of the drug which would cry to her from the ground. Her room was next his own. He sat down again and gazed at the bottle with the absurd bewilderment of a drunken man. Then he tried stowing it away in a drawer of the dresser, behind a pile of shirts. He even, after doing that, began to undress, but that did not satisfy him. It seemed certain to him that Charlotte would find it in the morning, and say, "Why, papa, what is this bottle marked 'Poison' in your drawer?" At last he unlocked his door, opened it, and stole softly down-stairs. He unfastened the kitchen door, and went across the field and garden behind the house, to the little pond beside the rustic arbor, the little sentimental Idlewild of the original dwellers in the house. It was a dark, waving night. It still did not storm, and was warmer. It would probably rain before morning. The wind smote his face damply. He had come out in his shirt-sleeves. He moved slyly, like a thief; he felt like one, like a thief and a murderer--a self-murderer, and a murderer, in will, of the man who had caused him to commit the crime. He felt burning with hate as he slunk across the field, of hate of the man who had brought him to this, who had caused his financial and moral downfall. At that time, had the man been near, his life would have been worth nothing. Carroll thought, as he hurried on, holding fast to the bottle, how he could overthrow him, uncork the bottle and hold it to his face, that he might inhale the death he had meted out to him. It seemed to him like the merest instinct of self-defence. He stumbled now and then over the tangle of dry vines in the garden, among the corn-stalks. He went like a guilty thing, instead of moving with his usual confident state, the state of a gentleman from a long line of gentlemen. He had become alive to his own shame, his own ignominy, and he had turned at bay upon the one who had caused him, as he judged, to fall. When he reached the little pond, he paused and looked about him for a second. It was a desolate spot at that time of year and that hour. The little sheet of water gleamed dully like an obscured eye of life. The trees waved their slender arms over it. Something about the summer-house creaked as a damp wind blew on his face. He saw through the trees a faint gleam of light from a house window farther down the road. He heard a rustle in the undergrowth on his right, probably a stray cat or a bird. He stood there holding the bottle of chloroform and hating that man; then he raised his arm and flung the thing into the pond. There was a splash which sounded unnaturally loud, as if it could be heard a long distance. Then Carroll turned and went home across the field; the evidence of his guilt was hidden away out of sight, but the memory and consciousness of it was in his very soul and had become a part of him, and his hate of the man who had brought him to it stalked by his side like a demon across the fields. Chapter XXXIV The next morning Carroll looked ill, so ill that Charlotte regarded him with dismay as she sat opposite him at the breakfast-table. She was full of delight over her meal. She had gotten up early and made the fire and cooked the breakfast; in fact, Carroll had been awakened from the uneasy sleep into which he had fallen towards morning by the fragrance of the coffee. He opened his eyes, and it took him some time to adjust himself to his environment, so much had happened since the morning before. He awoke in the same room, in the same bed, but spiritual stresses had made him unfamiliar with himself. It took him some time to recall everything--the departure of his family, his journey to Port Willis, Charlotte's return, the chloroform--but that which required no time to return, which was like a vital flame in him from the first second of his consciousness, was his hatred of the man who had done him the wrong. As he lay there reflecting he became aware that he had always hated in just such measure as this, from the very first moment in which he had become aware of the wrong, only he had not himself fairly sensed the mighty power of the hate. He had not known that it so permeated his very soul, so filled it with unnatural fire. At last he arose and dressed and went down-stairs, and greeted Charlotte, radiant and triumphant, and seated himself opposite her at the table, when her face fell. "You are certainly ill, papa," said she. "No, dear," said Carroll. "I am not ill at all." This morning he tried to eat, to please her, for his appetite of the night before had gone. He was haggard and pale, and his eyes looked strained. "You look very ill," said Charlotte. "Let me call the doctor for you, papa, dear." Carroll laughed. "Nonsense," he said. "I am as well as ever I was. You make a baby of your old father, honey." "Have another chop, then," said Charlotte. And Carroll passed his plate for the chop, and ate it, although it fairly nauseated him. He looked at the child opposite as he ate, and she looked as beautiful as an angel, and as good as one to him. He thought how the little thing had come back to him, her unfortunate father, who had made such a muddle of his life, who had been able to do so little for her; how she had given up the certainty of a happy and comfortable home for uncertainty, and possibly privation, and the purest gratitude and love that was so intense possessed him. Looking at Charlotte, he almost forgot the hatred of the man who had brought this upon him, and then the hatred awoke to fiercer life because of the love. Then, all unconsciously, Charlotte herself, seemingly actuated by a species of mental telegraphy, spurred him on. "Papa," said she, viewing him with approbation as he ate his second chop, "is that man in Acton who treated you so dreadfully still living there?" Carroll's face contracted. "Yes, dear," he said. "If I had gone down there, and had seen that man, I should have been afraid of the way I would have felt when I saw him," said Charlotte. Her innocent girl's face took on an expression which was the echo of her father's. "I suppose he is prosperous," she said. "I think so, honey." "I feel wicked when I think of him," said Charlotte, still with the look which echoed her father's, "when I think of all he has made you suffer, papa." Carroll made no reply; the two looked at each other for a second. The girl's soft face became almost terrible. "I think if I were a man, and met him, and--had a pistol, I should kill him," she said, slowly. Carroll made an effort which fairly convulsed him. His face changed. He sprang up, went over to Charlotte, took hold of her head, bent it back, and kissed her. "For God's sake, honey, don't talk in that way!" he said. "All this is not for you to meddle with nor trouble your little head with." "Yes it is, if it troubles you, Papa." "I can manage my own troubles, and I don't want any little girl like you trying to take hold of the heavy end," Carroll said, and laughed quite naturally. "Then you must not look so ill, papa." "I am going to have another cup of coffee," Carroll said, and showed diplomacy. Charlotte delightedly poured out the coffee. "Isn't it very good coffee?" she said. "Delicious coffee." "I am going to get a beautiful dinner for you," Charlotte said. The second cup of coffee had reassured her. She began to think her father did not look so ill, after all. She was herself in a state of perfect content and happiness. She felt a sense of triumph, of daring, which exhilarated her. She adored her father, and how cleverly she had managed this coming back. How impossible she had made it for any one to gainsay her! After breakfast her father went out, telling her he should be home by noon, and she busied herself about the house. She was an absolute novice about such work, but she found in it a charm of novelty, and she developed a handiness which filled her with renewed triumph. She kept considering what would her father have done if she had not returned. "He would have had no supper when he came home last night," Charlotte said--"no supper, for he evidently was not going to the inn, and the fire was out. How dreadful it would have been for him!" She imagined perfectly her father's sensations of delighted surprise and relief when he espied her, to welcome him, when he felt the warmth of the fire, when he smelled the supper. The pure delight of a woman over the comfort which she gives a child or a man whom she loves was over her. She realized her father's comfort as she had never realized any of her own. She fairly danced about her work. She put the bedrooms in order, she washed the breakfast dishes. Then she meditated going down-town and buying a fish for dinner. Carroll was very fond of baked fish. About ten o'clock she had finished her work, and she put on her hat and coat and set forth. She ordered the fish, and paid for it. She gave the man a five-dollar note to change. He looked at it suspiciously. When she had gone out, he and two other men who were standing in the little market looked at one another. "Guess the world's comin' to an end," he said, laughing, "when they pay cash with five-dollar bills." "Sure it was a good one?" said one of the other men. "I thought all Carroll's family had went," said the third man. "Guess they didn't have enough money to take this one, and you can't beat the Pennsylvania Railroad nohow," said the fishman. Charlotte went on to the butcher's, bought and paid for some ham, then to Anderson's for eggs. The old clerk came forward as she entered, and answered her question about the eggs. "Do you want them charged?" he asked. "No, I will pay for them," replied Charlotte, and took her little purse, and just then Anderson, having heard her voice, looked incredulously out of his office, his morning paper in hand. Charlotte laid some money on the counter, and stepped forward at once. She saw with a sort of wonder, and an agitation within herself for which she could not account, that the man was deadly white, that he fairly trembled. "Good-morning, Mr. Anderson," she said. Anderson was a man of self-control, but he gazed down at her fairly speechless. He had been telling himself that she had gone as certainly out of his life as if she were dead, and here she was again. "I thought," he stammered, finally. Charlotte's face of innocent wonder and disturbance flushed. "No, I did not go, after all," she said, like a child. "That is, I started, but I went no farther than Lancaster. They thought I was going--they all did--but I could not leave papa alone, and so I came back." She was incoherent. Her own confusion deepened. She tried to look into the man's face, but her own eyes fell; her lips quivered. She was almost crying, but she did not know why. She turned to the counter, behind which stood the man with the package of eggs and the change. "Send that package," Anderson said, brusquely. "The wagon has gone." "Send it as soon as it comes back. There will be time enough." "I can manage if I don't have the eggs until noon," said Charlotte. The clerk turned to put away the parcel in readiness for the delivery-wagon, and again Anderson and the girl looked at each other. Anderson had caught up his hat with his newspaper as he came out of the office, and Charlotte looked at it. "Were you going out?" she asked, timidly, and yet the question seemed to imply a suggestion. She glanced towards the door. Anderson muttered something about an errand, and went out with her. They walked along the street together. Suddenly Charlotte looked up in his face and began confiding in him. She told the whole story. "You see, I couldn't leave papa," she concluded. Anderson looked down at her, and the look was unmistakable. Charlotte blushed and her face quivered. "Then you are going to stay here all winter?" he said, in a low voice. "Oh, no, I think not," she replied. "I think we shall go away." Anderson's face fell. She had spoken very eagerly, almost as if she were anxious to go. She made it worse. "I don't think I should have come back if it had not been for that," she said. "I did not see what poor papa could do all alone, trying to move. I don't think I should." "Yes," said Anderson, soberly. "Perhaps I should not have," said she. She did not look at him. She kept her eyes fixed on the frozen ground, but the man's face lighted. They kept on in a vague sort of fashion and had reached the post-office. They entered, and when Anderson had unlocked his box and taken out his mail, and Charlotte had gotten some letters which looked like bills for her father, he realized the he had no excuse to go any farther with her. He bade her good-morning, therefore. Charlotte said good-morning, and there was a little uncertainty and wistfulness in her look and voice. She was very unsophisticated, and she was wondering whether she should ask him to call, now her mother and aunt had gone. She resolved that she would ask her father. As for Anderson, he went back to the store in a sort of dream. He suddenly began to wonder if the impossible could be possible. At one moment he ridiculed himself for the absurdity of such an imagination, even, and then the imagination returned. He reflected that he would have had no such doubt if it had not been for his lack of success in his profession. He charged himself with a lack of self-respect that he should have doubts now. "After all, I am a man," he told himself. "I am as good as ever I was." Then he considered, and rightly, that it was not his own just estimate of himself which was to be taken into consideration in a case of this sort, but that of the people. He realized that a girl brought up as Charlotte Carroll had been might, knowing, as she must finally know, her own father to be little better than a common swindler, not even dream of the possibility of marrying a grocer. He had to pass his old office on his way home to dinner that noon, and he looked at it with more regret than he had ever done since leaving it. The school was out and the children were streaming along the street. The air was full of their chatter. Henry Edgecomb came up behind him with a good-morning. He looked worn and nervous. Anderson looked at him sharply after his greeting. "What is the matter?" he asked. "Nothing, only I am tired out," Edgecomb replied, wearily. "Sometimes I envy you." "Don't," said Anderson. "I do. This friction with new souls and temperaments is wearing my old one thin. I would rather sell butter and cheese." "Rather do anything than desert the battle-field you have chosen, because you are beaten," said Anderson, with sudden bitterness. "Nonsense! You are not beaten." "Yes, I am." "You have simply taken up new weapons." "Weights and balances," said Anderson, but his laugh was bitter. He left Edgecomb at the corner, and, going up his own street, reflected again. He began to wonder if possibly he would not have done better to have stuck to his profession; if he could not have left Banbridge and tried elsewhere--in the City. He wondered if he had shown energy and manly ambition, if he had not been poor-spirited. When he reached home his mother eyed him anxiously and asked if he were ill. "No," he said, "but I met Henry, and he looks wretchedly." "He hasn't enough to eat," Mrs. Anderson said. "Harriet does not give him enough to eat. It is a shame. If I were in his place I would get married." "He says he is tired out teaching. He talks about the friction of so many natures on his." "Of course there is a friction," said Mrs. Anderson, "but he could stand it if he had more to eat. Let us have a dinner next Sunday night; let us have a roast turkey and a pudding. We will have lunch at noon. Henry is very fond of turkey, and it is late enough to get good ones." "Shall we ask Harriet?" inquired Anderson, with a lurking mischief. His mother looked at him with quick suspicion. "You don't want her asked?" she said. "Why should she be asked? She never is." "I don't know but with an extra dinner--" "She has her mission," Mrs. Anderson said, with firmness. "You are eating nothing yourself, Randolph." Presently she looked at her son with an inscrutable expression. "Are the Carrolls all gone?" she asked. Anderson cut himself a bit of beefsteak carefully before replying. "Some of them, I believe," said he. "I heard Mrs. Carroll and her sister and daughter and the boy all went yesterday morning. Josie Eggleston came in about the Rainy Day Club meeting, this morning, and she told me." There was something so interrogative in his mother's tone that Anderson was obliged to say something. "They all went except the daughter, I believe," he said. "The girl who was here?" "Yes." "Then she didn't go?" "She went as far as Lancaster, but she came back?" "Came back?" "Yes. She didn't want to leave her father alone, and--under a cloud, as he seems to be, and she knew if she declared she was not going there would be opposition--that, in fact, her mother would not go." "I don't think much of her for going, anyway," said Mrs. Anderson. "Leaving her husband all alone. I don't care what he had done, he was her husband, and I dare say he cheated on her account, mostly. She ought not to have gone." "They wanted her to go; she is not very strong; and the sister is really ill," said Anderson, "and so the daughter planned it. She went as far as Lancaster, then she got off the train." "Why, I should think her mother would be crazy?" "She sent word back, a letter by Eddy. He got off the train with her; the train stopped there a few minutes." "Then she came back?" "Yes." "And she is going to stay with her father?" "Yes." "Oh!" said Mrs. Anderson. After dinner Anderson sat beside the sitting-room window with his noon mail, as was his custom, for a few minutes before returning to the store, and his mother came up behind him. She stroked his hair, which was thick and brown, and only a little gray on the temples. "She is a very pretty girl, and I think she is a dear child to come back and not leave her father alone," she said. Anderson did not look up, but he leaned his head caressingly towards his mother. "I have been thinking," said she. "I am a good deal older; she is only a little, young girl, and I am an old lady, and I have never called there. You know I never call on new people nowadays, but she must be very lonely, all alone there. I think I shall go up there and call on her some afternoon this week, if it is pleasant. I have some other calls I want to make on the way there, and I might as well." "I will order the coach for you any afternoon you say, mother," replied Anderson. Chapter XXXV It was the next day but one that Mrs. Anderson, arrayed in her best, seated in state in the Rawdy coach, was driven into the grounds of the Carroll house. Charlotte answered her ring. The elder woman's quick eye saw, with both pity and disapproval, that the girl was unsuitably arrayed for housework in a light cloth dress, which was necessarily stained and spotted. "She had on no apron," she told her son that night. "I don't suppose the poor child owns one, and of course she could not help getting her dress spotted. Her little hands were clean, though, and I think she tries hard. The parlor was all in a whirl of dust. She had just been sweeping, and flirting her broom as people always do who don't know how to sweep. The poor child's hair was white with dust, and I sat down in a heap of it, with my best black silk dress, but of course I wouldn't have seemed to notice it for anything. I brushed it off when I got in the carriage. I said, 'You are doing your work?' And she said, 'Yes, Mrs. Anderson.' She laughed, but she looked sort of pitiful. The poor little thing is tired. She isn't cut out for such work. I said her hands and arms didn't look as if she could sweep very easily, but she bristled right up and said she was very strong, very much stronger than she looked, and papa wanted to get a maid for her, but she preferred doing without one. She wanted the exercise. The way she said _preferred!_ I didn't try to pity her any more, for that. Randolph--" "What is it, mother?" "How much has that child seen of you?" "Not so very much, mother. Why?" "I think she thinks a great deal about you." "Nonsense, mother!" Anderson said. It was after tea that night, and the mother and son sat together in the sitting-room. They had a fire on the hearth, and it looked very pleasant. Mrs. Anderson had a fine white apron over her best black silk, and she sat one side of the table, knitting. Anderson was smoking and reading the evening paper on the other. He continued to smoke and apparently to read after his mother made that statement with regard to Charlotte. She looked at him and knew perfectly well that he was not comprehending anything he read. "She is a very sweet girl," she said, presently, in an inscrutable voice. "I don't like her family, and I must say I think her father, from what I hear, almost ought to be in prison, but I don't think that child is to blame." "Of course not," said Anderson. He turned his paper with an air of pretended abstraction. "She says she thinks her father will leave Banbridge before long," said Mrs. Anderson, further. Her son made no response. She sat thinking how, if Carroll did leave Banbridge and the rest of the family were in Kentucky, why, the girl could be judged separately; and if Randolph should fancy her--she was not at all sure that he did--of Charlotte she had not a doubt. She had never had a doubt of any woman's attitude of readiness to grasp the sceptre, if it were only held out by her son. And she herself was conscious of something which was almost infatuation for the girl. Something about her appealed to her. She had an almost fierce impulse of protection, of partisanship. Anderson himself had not the least realization of his mother's actual sentiments in the matter. It was the consequence in inconsequence of a woman, which a man can seldom grasp. From what he had known of his mother's character heretofore, a girl coming from such a family would have been the last one to appeal to her for a daughter-in-law. She had been plainly hostile to young women with much superior matrimonial assets. He had often surmised that she did not wish him to marry at all. He did not understand the possibility there is in some women's natures of themselves falling in love, both individually and vicariously, with the woman who loves their sons, or who is supposed to love their sons. "Captain Carroll came into the yard just as I drove out," said Mrs. Anderson. "He is a very fine-looking man. It is a pity." Then she added again, with an obscure accent of congratulation, "Well, if he goes away nobody need say anything more against him." Anderson reflected, without expressing it aloud, that it was doubtful if Carroll's exit was possible, and, if possible, would be conducive to silence from his creditors, but he apparently continued to read. "He is a very handsome man," said his mother again, "and he has the air of a gentleman. He bowed to me like a prince. He is a very fine-looking man, isn't he?" Before Anderson could reply the door-bell rang. "I wonder who it is," Mrs. Anderson said, in a hushed voice. "Somebody on business, probably," replied Anderson, rising. The maid had gone out. As he went into the front hall his mother rustled softly into the dining-room. She was always averse to being in the room when men came on business. Sometimes commercial travellers infringed upon Anderson's home hours, and she was always covertly indignant. She was constantly in a state of armed humility with regard to the details of business. She felt the incongruity of herself, the elderly gentlewoman in the soft, rich, black silk, with the scarf of real lace fastened with a brooch of real pearls at the throat, with the cap of real lace, with the knots of lavender ribbon, on her fluff of white curls, remaining in the room while the discussion as to the rates of tea and coffee or sugar or soap went on. So she slipped with her knitting-work into the dining-room, but she dropped her ball of white wool, which remained beside the chair which she had occupied in the sitting-room. She was knitting a white shawl. She sat beside the dining-table, and continued to knit, however, pulling furtively on the recreant ball, while her son ushered somebody into the sitting-room, asked him politely to be seated, and then closed the door. That prevented her from knitting anymore, as the wool was held taut. So she finally laid her work on the table and went out into the hall on her way up-stairs. The door leading from the hall into the sitting-room was closed, and she stopped and eyed curiously the hat and coat on the old-fashioned mahogany table in the hall. She stood looking at them from a distance of a few feet; then she wrapped her silk draperies closely around her and slid closer. She passed her hand over the fine texture of the coat, which was redolent of cigar smoke. She took up the hat. Then she spied the top card on the little china card-basket on the table, and took it up. It was Arthur Carroll's. She nodded her head, remained standing a moment listening to the inaudible murmur of conversation from the next room, then went up-stairs, to sit down in her old winged arm-chair, covered with a peacock-pattern chintz, and read until the visitor should be gone. She was fairly quivering with astonishment and curiosity. But she was no more astonished than her son had been when he had opened the front-door and seen Arthur Carroll standing there. He had almost doubted the evidence of his eyes, especially when Carroll had accepted his invitation to enter, and had removed his coat and hat and followed him into the sitting-room. "It is a cold night," Anderson said, feeling that he must say something. "Very, for the season," replied Carroll, "and I have not yet, in spite of my long residence North, grown sufficiently accustomed to the heated houses and unheated out-of-doors to keep my top-coat on inside, even if I remain only a few minutes." The sumptuous lining of the coat gleamed as he laid it on the hall-table; there was something unconquerable, sumptuous, genial, undaunted yet about the man. He had the courtesy of a prince, this poor American who had lived by the exercise of his sharper wits on his neighbor's dull ones, if report said rightly. And yet Anderson, as he sat opposite Carroll, and they were both smoking in a comrade-like fashion, doubted. There was something in the man's face which seemed to belie the theory that he was a calculating knave. His face was keen, but not cunning, and, moreover, there was a strange, almost boyish, sanguineness about it which brought Eddy forcibly to mind. It was the face of a man who might dupe himself as well as others, and do it with generous enthusiasm and self-trust. It was the face of a man who might have bitter awakenings, as well as his dupes, but who might take the same fatuous, happy leaps to disaster again. And yet there was a certain strength, even nobility, in the face, and it was distinctly lovable, and in no weak sense. He looked very like Eddy as he sat there, and, curiously enough, he spoke almost at once of him. "I believe you were a friend of my son, Mr. Anderson," he remarked, with his pleasant, compelling smile. Anderson smiled in response. "I believe I had that honor," he replied. Then he said something about his having gone, and how much his father must miss him. "He is a fine little fellow," he added, and was almost surprised at the expression of positive gratitude which came into Carroll's eyes in response. He spoke, however, with a kind of proud deprecation. "Oh, well, he is a boy yet, of course," he said, "but there is a man in him if fate doesn't put too many stumbling-blocks in his way." "There is such a thing," said Anderson. "Undoubtedly," said Carroll. "Moral hurdles for the strengthening of the spirit are all very well, but occasionally there is a spirit ruined by them." "I think you are right," said Anderson; "still, when the spirit does make the hurdles--" "Oh yes, it is a very superior sort, after that," said Carroll, laughing; "but when it doesn't-- Well, I hope the boy will have tasks proportioned to his strength, and I hope he will have a try at them all, anyhow." "He seems to me like a boy that would," Anderson said. "What do you think of making of him?" "I hardly know. It depends. His mother has always talked a good deal about Eddy's studying law, but I don't know. Somehow the law has always seemed to me the road of success for the few and a slippery maze to nowhere for the many." A sudden thought seemed to strike Carroll; he looked a little disturbed. "By-the-way," he said, "I forgot. You yourself--" Anderson smiled. "Yes, I studied law," said he. "And gave it up?" "Yes. I could not make a living with it." Carroll regarded the other man with a curious, wistful scrutiny. He looked more and more like Eddy. His next question was as full of naivete as if the boy himself had asked it, and yet the charming, almost courtly state of the man never for one instant failed. "And so," he said, "you tried selling butter and eggs instead of legal wisdom?" The question might have been insolent from its purport, but it was not. Anderson laughed. "Yes," he replied. "People must eat to live, but they can live without legal wisdom. I found butter and eggs were more salable." Carroll continued to regard him with that pathetic, wondering curiosity. "And you have never regretted the change?" he asked. "I don't say that, but, regret or not, I had to make it, and--I am not exactly sure that I do regret it." "But this--this new occupation of yours cannot be--precisely congenial." "That does not disturb me," Anderson said, a little impatiently. Carroll looked at him with understanding. "I see you feel as I do about that," he said. "It is rather proving one's self of the common to hold back too strenuously from it, and yet"--he hesitated a moment--"it takes courage, though," he said. Suddenly his eyes upon the other man became full of admiration. "My daughter tells me, or, rather, my son told me principally, that you are interested in entomology?" he said. "Oh, I dabble a little in it," Anderson replied, smiling. Carroll's eyes upon him continued to hold their wistful questioning, admiring expression. Anderson began to wonder what he had come for. He was puzzled by the whole affair. Carroll, too, seemed to present himself to him under a new guise. He wondered if his reverses had brought about the change. "I do not wish," said Carroll, "to display curiosity about affairs which do not concern me, and I trust you will pardon me and give me information, or not, as you choose; but may I ask how you happened, when you became convinced that you were not to make a success in law, why you chose your present business?" "I have not the slightest objection to answering," said Anderson, although he began to wonder if the other had called simply for the purpose of gratifying his curiosity about his affairs--"not the slightest. I simply tried to think of something which I should be sure to sell, because people would be sure to buy, and I thought of--butter and cheese. It all seems exceedingly simple to me, the principle of obtaining enough money wherewith to live and buy the necessaries of life. It is only to look about and possibly within and see what wares you can command, for which people will be willing to give their own earnings. It is all a question of supply and demand. First you must study the demand, and then your own power of supply. If you can interpret law like Rufus Choate, why, sell that; if you can edit like Horace Greeley, sell that; if you can act like Booth or sing like Patti, sell that; if you can dance like Carmencita, sell that. It all remains with you, what you can do, sing or dance, or sway a multitude, or sell butter and eggs; or possibly, rather, it remains with the public and what it decides you can do--that is better for one's vanity." "Decidedly," agreed Carroll, with an odd, reflective expression. "If the public want your song or your novel or your speech, they will buy it, or your dance, and if they don't they won't, and you cannot make them. You have to sell what the public want to buy, for you yourself are only a unit in a goodly number of millions." "And yet how extremely all-pervading that unit can feel sometimes," Carroll said, with a laugh. He was silent again, puffing at his cigar, and again Anderson, leaning back opposite and also smoking, wondered why he was there. Then Carroll removed his cigar and spoke. His voice was a little constrained, but he looked at Anderson full in the face. "Mr. Anderson," he said, "I want to know if you will kindly tell me how much I owe you, for I am one of the consumers of butter and eggs." Anderson continued to smoke a second before answering. "I cannot possibly tell you here, Mr. Carroll," he replied then. "Of course I know I should have written and asked for the bill," Carroll said, "but I knew some had been paid, and--you have been most kind, and--" Anderson waited. "In short," said Carroll, speaking quickly and brusquely, "I am under a cloud here, and--your mother called to see my daughter this afternoon, and I thought that possibly you would pardon me if I put it all on a little different basis." Carroll stopped, and again Anderson waited. He was becoming more and more puzzled. Then Carroll spoke quite to the point. "I could have sent for the bill which you have so generously not sent, which you have so generously allowed my poor, little daughter to think was settled," said he, "but if you had sent it I simply could not have paid it. I could have written you what I wished to say, but I thought I could say it better. I wish to say to you that I shall be obliged if you will let me know the extent of my indebtedness to you, and if you will accept my note for six months." "Very well," said Anderson, gravely. "If you will have the bill made out and sent me to-morrow, I will send you my note by return mail," said Carroll. "Very well, Mr. Carroll," replied Anderson. Carroll arose to go. "You have a pleasant home here, Mr. Anderson," he said, looking around the room with its air of old-fashioned comfort, even state. "It has always seemed pleasant to me," said Anderson. An odd, kindly feeling for Carroll overcame him. He extended his hand. "I am glad you called, Captain Carroll," he said. He hesitated a moment. Then he added: "You will necessarily be lonely with your family away. If you would come in again--" "I cannot leave my daughter alone much," Carroll answered, "but otherwise I should be glad to. Thank you." He looked at Anderson with evident hesitation. There was something apparently which he was about to say, but doubted the wisdom of saying it. "Your daughter is still with you?" Anderson said. "Yes." Then Anderson hesitated a second. Then he spoke. "Would you allow me to call upon your daughter, Captain Carroll?" he asked, bluntly. Carroll's face paled as he looked at him. "On my daughter?" "Yes. Captain Carroll, will you be seated again for a few minutes. I have something I would like to say to you." Anderson was pale, but his voice was quite firm. He had a strange sensation as of a man who had begun a dreaded leap, and felt that in reality the worst was over, that the landing could in no way equal the shock of the start. Carroll followed him back into the sitting-room and sat down. Anderson began at once with no preface. "I should like to marry your daughter, if she can love me well enough," he said, simply. "Does she know you at all, Mr. Anderson?" Carroll said, in a dazed sort of fashion. "She knows me a little. I have, of course, seen her in my store." "Yes." "And once, as you may remember, she came here." "Yes, when she had the fright from the tramp." "She cannot know me very well, I admit." "I don't see that you know her very well, either, for that matter." "I know her well enough," said Anderson. "I have no doubt as far as I am concerned. My only doubt is for her, not only whether she can care sufficiently for me, but whether, if she should care, it would be the best thing for her. I am much older than she. I can support her in comfort, but not in luxury, probably never in luxury; and you know my position, that I have been forced to abandon a profession which would give my wife a better social standing. You know all that; there is no need of my dwelling upon it." Anderson said that with an indescribable pride, and yet with a perfect acquiescence in the situation. He looked at Carroll, who remained quite pale, looking at him with an inscrutable expression of astonishment. Finally he smiled a little. "As they say in the comic column, this is so sudden, Mr. Anderson," he said. "I can well imagine so," Anderson replied, smiling in his turn. "It is rather sudden to me. Nothing was further from my intention than to say this to-night." Carroll looked at him soberly. "Mr. Anderson, it all depends upon the child," he said. "If Charlotte likes you, that is all there is to be said about it. You are a good man and you can take care of her. As far as the other goes, I have no right to say anything. Frankly, I should prefer that you had succeeded in your profession than in your present business, on her account." "So should I," said Anderson, gloomily. "But it is all for her to decide. Come and call, and let matters take their course. But--I shall say nothing to her about this. A girl like Charlotte is a sensitive thing. Call and see. As far as I am concerned--" Carroll paused a second. Then he rose and held out his hand. "I have no reason whatever to object to you as a husband for my daughter, and my son-in-law," he said. "Thank you," said Anderson. Carroll had gone out of the door, and Anderson was just about to close it after him, when he turned back. "By-the-way, Mr. Anderson," he said, and Anderson understood that he was about to say what had been on his mind before and he had refrained from expressing. "I want to inquire if you have any acquaintance with the large grocery house of Kidder & Ladd, in the City?" he asked. "A slight business acquaintance," replied Anderson, wonderingly. "I saw," said Carroll, in an odd, breathless sort of voice, "an advertisement for a--floor-walker in that house. I wondered, in the event of my applying for it, if you would be willing to give me a letter of introduction to one of the firm, if you were sufficiently acquainted." "Certainly," said Anderson, but he was aware that he almost gasped out the answer. "I saw the advertisement," said Carroll again. "I have to make some change in my business, and"--he essayed a laugh--"I have to think, as we have agreed is the thing to do, of some salable wares in my possession. It did occur to me that I might make a passable floor-walker. I have even thought of a drum-major, but there seems no vacancy in that line. If you would." "Certainly," said Anderson again. "Would you like it now?" "If it is not too much trouble." Anderson hastened to the old-fashioned secretary in the sitting-room and wrote a line of introduction on a card while Carroll waited. "Thank you," Carroll said, taking it and placing it carefully in his pocket-book. The two men shook hands again; Carroll went with his stately stride down the street. It was snowing a little. Anderson thought idly how he had not offered him an umbrella, as he saw the flakes driving past the electric light outside as he pulled down the window-curtains, but he was as yet too dazed to fully appreciate anything. He was dazed both by his own procedure and by that of the other man. It was as if two knights in a mock tourney had met, both riding at full speed. He had his own momentum and that of the other in the shock of meeting. His mother's door opened as he went up-stairs with his night-lamp, and her head in a white lace-trimmed cap, for she still clung to the night-gear of her early youth, peered out at him. "Who was it?" she asked, softly, as if the guest were still within hearing. "Captain Carroll." "Oh!" "He came on business." "He stayed quite awhile. You had a little call with him?" "Yes, mother." She still looked at him, her face, of gentle, wistful curiosity, dimly visible between the lace ruffles of her nightcap, in the door. "He spoke of your calling there this afternoon, and he seemed much pleased," Anderson said. "Did he?" "Yes." "Well, good-night, dear," said Mrs. Anderson, with an odd, half-troubled but rather enjoyable sigh. Her son kissed her, and she disappeared. She got back into bed, and put her lamp out. The electric light outside streamed into her room and brought back to her mind moonlight reveries of her early maidenhood. She remembered how she used, before she ever had a lover, to lie awake and dream of one. Then she fell to planning how, in the event of Randolph's marrying, the front chamber could be refurnished, and the furniture in that room put in the northwest chamber, which was sparsely furnished and little used except for storage purposes. Then the northwest room could be the guest-chamber, and Randolph's present room would answer very well for his books, and would be a study when the bed was taken down. She had the front chamber completely refurnished when she fell asleep, and besides had some exciting and entirely victorious feminine tilts with sundry women friends who had ventured to intimate that her son had made an odd matrimonial choice. It was quite a cold night, and she wondered if that child had sufficient clothing on her bed. She was in reality, in her own way, as much in love with the girl as her son. Chapter XXXVI Carroll, in the ensuing weeks, living alone with Charlotte, endured a species of mental and spiritual torture which might have been compared with the rack and wheel of the Inquisition. It seemed to Arthur Carroll in those days as if torture was as truly one of the elements incumbent upon man's existence as fire, water, or air. He got an uncanny fancy that if it ceased he would cease. He had all his life, except in violent stresses, that happy, contented-with-the-sweet-of-the-moment temperament popularly supposed to be a characteristic of the butterfly over the rose. But deprive the butterfly of the rose and he might easily become a more tragic thing than any in existence. Now Carroll was deprived of his rose, he could get absolutely none of the sweets out of existence from whence his own individuality manufactured its honey. Even Charlotte's presence became an additional torment to him, dearly as he loved her and as thoroughly as he realized what her coming back had done for him, from what it had saved him. She had given him the impetus which placed him back in his normal condition, but, back there, he suffered even more, as a man will suffer less under a surgical operation than when the influence of the anesthetics has ceased. There was absolutely no ready money in the house during those weeks except the sum which Charlotte's aunt had sent her, which was fast diminishing, and a few scattering dollars, or rather, pennies, which Carroll picked up in ways which almost unhinged his brain when he reflected upon them afterwards. Whatever he had done before, the man tried in those days every means to obtain an honest livelihood, except the one which he knew was always open, and from which he shrank with such repugnance that it seemed he could not even contemplate it and his mind retain his balance. In his uneasy sleep at night he often had a dream of that experience which had yielded him money, which might yield him money again. He saw before him the sea of faces, of the commonest American type, of the type whose praise and applause mean always a certain disparagement. He saw his own face, his proud, white face with the skin and lineaments of a proud family, stained into the likeness of a despised race; he heard his own tongue forsaking the pure English of his fathers for the soft thickness of the negro, roaring the absurd sentimental songs; he saw his own stately limbs contorted in the rollicking, barbaric dance--and awoke with a cold sweat over him. He knew all the time that that was all was left to him, but he snatched at everything. He could not obtain the floor-walker position of which he had spoken to Anderson. He thought that possibly his fine presence and urbane manner might recommend him for a place of that sort, but it was already filled. He went to several of the great department stores and inquired if there was a vacancy. He felt that the superintendents to whom he applied regarded his good points as he might have regarded the good points of a horse. One of them told him that if he would give his address, he would be given the preference whenever a vacancy occurred. Carroll knew that he was mentally appraised as a promising person to direct ladies to ribbon and muslin counters. He looked at another floor-walker strutting up and down the aisle, and felt sure that he could do better, and all this amused contempt for himself deepened and bored its way into his very soul. He always asked himself, with the demand of an unpitying judge, if he could not have done better for himself if he had begun at once; if he had not at the first failure drifted with no resistance, with the pleasant, easy, devil-may-careness which was in his nature along with the sterner stuff which was now upheaving and asserting itself, and taken what he could, how he could. He had not, after all, had an absolutely unhappy home, although it had been founded on the sands, and although that iron of hatred of the man who had done him the wrong had been always in his soul. The life he had led had been not one of active and voluntary preying upon his fellow-men; it had been only the life of one who must have the sweets of existence for himself and those he loved, and he had gotten them, even if the flowers and the fruit hung over the garden-walls of others. Now it suddenly seemed to him that he could no longer do it, as he had done, even if the owners of the fruit and flowers should be still unawares. Curiously enough, the old Pilgrim's Progress which he had read as a child was very forcibly in his mind in these days. He remembered the child that ate the fruit that hung over the wall, and how the gripes, in consequence, seized him. Something very like the conviction of sin was over the man, or, rather, a complete consciousness of himself and his deeds, which is, maybe, after all, the true meaning of the term. It was true that the self-knowledge had seemed to come, perforce, because it was temporarily out of his power to transgress farther; in other words, because he was completely found out; but all the same, the knowledge was there. He saw himself just as he was, had been--a great man goaded on always by the small, never-ceasing prick of hatred, with the sense of injury always stinging his soul, living as he chose, having all that he could procure, utterly careless whether at the expense and suffering of others or not. Now, for the first time, he began to adjust himself in the place of others, and the adjusting produced torment from the realization of their miseries, and worse torment from realization of his own contemptibility. It really seemed as if all positions which might have been in some keeping with the man and his antecedents were absolutely out of his reach. Not a night but he read the advertising columns until he was blind and dizzy. Every morning he went to New York and hunted. The first morning he had taken the train, he had actually to assure some of his watchful creditors that he was going to return. Then all day he wandered about the streets, making one of long lines of applicants for the vacant positions. One morning he found himself in the line with William Allbright. He recognized unmistakably the meek, bent back of the old clerk three ahead of him in the line. A book-keeper had been advertised for in a large wholesale house, and there were perhaps forty applicants all awaiting their turn. His first impulse, when he caught sight of his old clerk, was to leave the line himself; then the nobility which was struggling for life within him asserted itself and made him ashamed of his shame. He stood still with his head a little higher, and moved on with the slowly moving line of men which crawled towards the desk like a caterpillar. He saw Allbright turn away rejected with a feeling of pity; the old man looked dejected. Carroll reflected with a sensation of pride that at least he did not owe him. He himself was rejected promptly after he had owned to his age. The man four behind him was chosen. He was a very young man, scarcely more than a boy, unless his looks belied him. He was distinctly handsome, with the boy-doll style of beauty--curly, dark hair, rosy cheeks, and a small, very carefully tended mustache. He wore a very long and fashionable coat, and was evidently pleasantly conscious of its flop around his ankles. His handsome face wore an expression of pert triumph as he passed on into the inner office.... Carroll, who had lingered with an idle curiosity to ascertain who was the successful applicant, heard a voice so near his ear that it whistled. The voice was exceedingly bitter, even malignant. "That's the way it goes, these times; that's the way it always goes," said the voice. Carroll turned and gazed at the speaker, a man probably older than himself; if not, he looked older, since his hair was quite white and his carriage not so good. "The employers nowadays are a pack of fools, a pack of fools!" said the man. His long, rather handsome face, a face which should have been mild in its natural state was twisted into a thousand sardonic wrinkles. "A pack of fools!" he repeated. "Here they'll go and hire a little whippersnapper like that every time, instead of a man who has had experience and knows how to do the work, just because he's young. Young! What's that? You'd think what they wanted was a man to keep their books straight. I can keep books if I do say so, and that young snip can't. Lord! He was in Avin & Mann's with me. Why, I tell you he can't add up a column of figures three inches long straight, to save his neck. The books will be in a pretty state. I'll give him just ten days before they'll have to get an expert in to straighten out things. Hope they will; serve 'em right. Here I am, can't get a job to save my life, because my hair has turned and I've got a few more years over my head, and I can keep books better than I ever could in my life. Good Lord! You'd think it was what was inside a man's head they'd be after, instead of the outside." He looked at Carroll. "Guess I've got a little the advantage of you in age," he said, "but I suppose that's the matter why you were given the cold shoulder." "I shouldn't be surprised if you were right, sir," replied Carroll, rather apathetically. He was going through all this without the slightest hope, but only for the sake of feeling that he had done his utmost before he took up with the alternative which so dismayed his very soul. He himself looked old that morning. He had retained his youthful appearance much longer than men usually do, but as he had viewed his reflection in the glass that morning he had said to himself that he at last was showing his years. His hair had turned visibly gray in the last few weeks; lines had deepened; and not only that, but the youthful fire had given place to the apathy and weary resignation of age. "But you look as if you could do more and better work in an hour than that young bob-squirt could in a month," said the man at his side. "Very likely," replied Carroll, indifferently. "You don't seem to care much about it," the other man said. The two had gone out of the building, and were walking slowly down the street. "If they want young men, they do, I suppose," Carroll said. "Been trying long?" "Quite a time." "Well, the employers are a set of G. D. fools!" said the other man. An oath sounded horribly incongruous coming from his long, thin, benevolent mouth. "I don't see what you are going to do about it if they are," Carroll replied, still with that odd patience. It seemed to him as if he was getting a sort of fellow-feeling and intense personal knowledge of his fellow-beings, which united him to them with ties stronger than those of love. He felt as if he more than loved this rebellious wretch beside him, as if he were one with him, only possessed of that patience which gave him a certain power to aid him. "I suppose men have the right to employ whom they choose," said Carroll. "If they prefer young men who don't know how to do the work, to old men who do, I suppose they have a right to engage them. And they may have some show of reason for it. I don't see what can be done, anyway." "I'll tell you what has got to be done, sir, and how we can help ourselves," returned the other, with a ranting voice which made people turn and stare at him. "I'll tell you. We've got to form a union. There are unions for everything else. We have got to have a union of older men qualified to work, who are shouldered out of it by boys. Once that is done, we are all right. To-day in this country a man can't hire whom he pleases in most things. The unions have put it out of his power. The people have risen. We belong to a part of the people who haven't risen. Now we must rise. Let us form a union, I say. If they engage young men before us, there are ways of making them smart for it, the employers as well as the employes. I tell you that has got to be done." Suddenly the men heard a laugh behind them. It was a woman's laugh, shrill and not altogether pleasant--not the laugh of a young woman, but the woman who came up with and immediately began to speak looked quite young. She was undeniably pretty. Her blond pompadour drooped coquettishly over one eye, her cheeks were pink, her face smooth, her figure was really superb, and she was very well dressed, in a tailor-made gown, smart furs, and a hat evidently of the English-tailor make. "Excuse me," she said, with perfect assurance, and yet with nothing of offensive boldness, rather with an air of _camaraderie_, "but I heard you talking, you two, and I thought I would give you a few points. I don't know whether you know it or not, but I have recently secured the position of cashier there, in Adkins & Somers's." She motioned with one nicely gloved hand back towards the place they had just left. "I got it in preference to about a dozen young girls, too," she said, with triumph, "but I shouldn't have if--" She hesitated a minute. The color on her cheeks deepened under the floating veil, and there was, in consequence, a curious effect of two shades of rose on her cheeks. "See here," she said, walking along with them, "I don't know you two men from Adam, and I needn't take the trouble, and if you don't like it you can lump it, but I'm going to say something. I know I look young. I ain't fishing for a compliment. I know it. I've got a looking-glass in a good light, and I've got my eyes in my head, and, what's more, I'm spunky enough to own it to myself if I don't look young; but I ain't young. I ain't going to say how old I am, but I will say this much, I ain't young. I've been married twice and I've had three children. My first husband died, the second went off and left me. I've got a daughter fourteen years old I'm keeping in school. She ain't going into a department store, if I work my fingers to the bone." She said the last with a fierce air that made her for a second really look younger. "Well," she went on. "I'll tell you, too. I had a good place for a number of years, but the man died in September, and the man that took the business put his sister in my place. Then I was out of a job. I hadn't saved a cent, and I didn't know what I was going to do. Mildred--that's my daughter--is big of her age and good-looking, and she wanted to leave school and go to work, but I wouldn't let her. Well, I studied up all the advertisements and I tried, and I couldn't do a thing. Then I set my wits to work. I ain't one to give up in a hurry; I never was. As I said before, I didn't have much money, but I hire our little flat of a woman, and she's a good sort, and she's willing to wait, and a month ago I took every cent I could raise and I went through a course of treatment with a beauty-doctor. I had my hair (it was turned some) dyed, and I was massaged until I felt like a currant-bun, but I always had a good skin, and there was something to work on, and I took my figure in hand; that wasn't very bad, anyway, but I got new corsets, awful expensive ones, and had a tailor suit made. I had to raise some money on a little jewelry I had, but I made up my mind it was neck or nothing, and, sir, a month ago I got that place in Adkins & Somers's at a thousand a year. They are good men, too. You needn't think there's anything wrong." She looked at them with an expression as if she was ready to spring at the slightest intimation of distrust on their part. "It is only just that people think they want young help and they are going to have it. I've got the place and I'm in clover, and it's worth something looking so much better, though it don't make much difference to me. All I care about nowadays is my daughter." The two men looked at the woman, Carroll with a courteous sympathy, and the interest of an observer of human nature. She was of a pronounced American type, coarse, vulgar, strident-voiced, smart, with a shrewdly working brain and of an unimpeachable heart. She was generosity and honesty itself, as she looked at the two men in a similar strait to the one from which she had extricated herself. The other man, who had a bitter, possibly a dangerous strain developed by his misfortunes, laughed sardonically. "How long do you think you can keep it up?" said he. "Hm?" Had he been less worn and weary, and apparently even starved, his laugh and question would have evoked a sharper response. As it was, the woman replied with the utmost good-nature. "Any old time," said she. "Lord! I ain't setting up for a kid. I ain't fool enough to put on short skirts and pigtails, but I am setting up for a young lady, and I can keep it up, anyhow. Lord! I ain't so very old, anyhow. If I didn't look the way I do now, I couldn't get a position, because they'd put me down for a back-number; but I had something left for that beauty-doctor to work on." Then she gazed critically at the two men. "It wouldn't take much to make you into a regular dude," said she to Carroll. "You are dressed to beat the band as it is. Say!" She gave him a confidential wink. "Well?" said Carroll. "You are dressed most too well. It's all very well to look stylish, to look as if you had been earning twenty-five hundred a year, but, Lord! you look as if you had been getting ten! The bosses might be a little afraid of you. They might say they didn't see how a man could have dressed like you do, unless he had helped himself to some of the firm's cash. See? I don't mean any offence. You look to me like a real gentleman." "Thank you," replied Carroll. "If I was you I'd put on a pair of pants not quite so nicely creased, and I'd sell that overcoat and get a good-style ready-made one. Your chances would be a heap better--honest." "Thank you," said Carroll, again. He was conscious of amusement and a curious sense of a mental tonic from this loud-voiced, eagerly helpful female. "I'm right, you bet," said she. "But otherwise it wouldn't take much. You go and have a little something put on your hair, and have your face massaged a little, and if I was you I'd buy a red tie. You can get a dandy red tie at Steele & Esterbrook's for a quarter. That one you have on makes you look kinder pale. Then a red tie is younger. Say, I'll tell you, if you would only have your mustache trimmed, and wax the ends, it would make no end of difference." "What are you going to do when you are asked how old you are? Lie?" inquired the other man, in his bitter, sardonic voice. This time the woman regarded him with slight indignation. "Say," said she, "you'll never get a place if you don't act pleasanter. Places ain't to be got that way, I can tell you. You've got to act as if you'd eat nothin' but butter an' honey for a fortnight. If you feel mad, you'd better keep it in your insides." Then she answered his questions. "No, I ain't goin' to lie, and I ain't goin' to tell anybody else to lie," said she. "Lying ain't my style. But it ain't anybody's business how old you are, anyhow. I don't know what right a man that I go to get a place from has got to ask how old I be. All he has any right to know is whether I ain't too old to do my work. I don't lie; no, siree. All I say is, and kinder laugh, 'Well, call it twenty-five,' or you might call it thirty, and with some, again, you might call it thirty-two or three. That ain't lyin' if I know what lyin' is." As the woman spoke her face assumed precisely the mischievous, challenging smile with which she had replied to similar questions. Carroll laughed, and the other man also, although grudgingly. "Well," he said, "there's different ways of looking at a lie." "It wouldn't be any manner of use for you to say you wouldn't see twenty-eight again, no matter how much you got fixed up," the woman retorted. "But I guess you can get something, if it ain't quite so good. I have a gentleman friend who is over fifty and who said he was thirty-seven, and he got a dandy place last week. But I tell you you'll have to hustle more'n this other gentleman. You're bald, ain't you?" "I don't know what that has got to do with it," growled the man, and he tried to quicken his pace; but she kept up with him. "It's got a good deal to do with it," said she. "I know a place on Sixth Avenue where you can get an elegant front-piece that nobody could ever tell, for three dollars and forty-nine cents. Another gentleman friend of mine--he's a sort of relation of mine; my sister was his first wife--got one there. Yes, sir, you'll have to get one, and you'll have to get your face massaged and your eyebrows blacked, and, Lord! you'll have to have that beard shaved off and have a mustache, if you get anything at all. Lord! you look as if you'd come right out of the Old Testament. I don't see why you're wasting your time hanging around offices for, without you see to that, first of all. I should think your wife would tell you, but I suppose she's the same sort. Now as for you," she added, turning again to Carroll, "if you just get polished up a little bit--say, here's the card of my beauty-doctor" (she produced a card from an ornate wrist-bag)--"you'll look dandy." Suddenly the woman, with a quick good-bye, turned to cross Broadway, but her good-nature and sympathy had something fine and inexhaustible, for even then she turned back to look encouragingly upon the older, soured, bitter, ungrateful man with Carroll, and she said: "You go 'long with him, and I guess you'll get a place, too. Good-bye." With that she was gone, passing as straight as if she owned an unassailable right of way through the press of vehicles. Just as she gained the opposite sidewalk a fire-engine thundered up. "She had a close call from that," Carroll said. His face had altered. He still looked amused. "That woman couldn't get run over if she tried," said the other man. "There ain't nothing made in the country that can run over her. It's women like her that's keeping men out of the places that belong to them by right." "I am afraid there was some truth in her theory and her advice," Carroll said, laughing, and looking after the second engine clanging through the scattering crowd. "Well, I guess when I go to buying women's frizzes to wear to get a place, she'll know it," said the other man. "Good lord! if it's the outside of the head they want, why don't they get dummies and done with it? I tell you what is needed is a new union." Just at that moment they reached a restaurant from which came an odor of soup. Carroll turned to his companion. "I am going in here to get some lunch," he said. "I don't know what kind of a place it is, but if you will go with me, I shall take pleasure in--" But the man turned upon him fiercely. "I 'ain't got quite so low yet that I have to eat at another man's expense," he said. "You needn't think, because you wear a better coat than I do, that--" The man stopped and nodded his head, speechless, and went on, and was out of sight, but Carroll had seen tears in the angry eyes. He went into the restaurant, took a seat at a table, and ordered a bowl of tomato-soup. As he was sipping it he heard a voice pronounce his name, and, glancing up, saw two pretty girls and a young man at a near-by table. He recognized the young man as the one who had been lately in his employ. About the girls he was not so sure, but he thought they were the same who had come to Banbridge to plead for their payment. They all bowed to him, and he returned the salutation. They all had a severe and, at the same time, curious expression. One of the girls whispered to the other, and although the words were not audible, the sharp hiss reached Carroll's ears. "Wonder what he's doing in this place," she said. The other girl, the elder, craned her neck and observed what Carroll was eating. "He hasn't got anything but a bowl of tomato-soup," she replied. "S'pose he's goin' through the whole bill," said the young man. The three were themselves lunching frugally. One of the girls had also a bowl of tomato-soup, the other a large piece of squash-pie. The young man had a ham sandwich and a cup of coffee. Smoking was allowed in the place, and the atmosphere was thick with cigarette smoke, and a warm, greasy scent of boiling and frying. Carroll continued to eat his soup. The three at the other table had nearly finished their luncheons when he entered. Presently they rose and passed him. The young man stopped. He paled a little. His old awe of Carroll was over him. In spite of himself, the worshipful admiration he had had for the man still influenced him. The poor young fellow, whose very pertness and braggadocio were simple and childlike, really felt towards the older man who had been his employer much as a faithful retainer towards a feudal baron. His feeling towards him was something between love and an enormous mental worship. His little, ordinary soul seemed to flatten itself like an Oriental before his emperor when he spoke to Carroll sipping his bowl of tomato-soup in the cheap restaurant. He had, after all, that nobility of soul which altered circumstances could not affect. He was just as deferential as if Carroll had been seated at a table in Delmonico's, but the fact remained that he was about to ask him again for his money. He was horribly pressed. He had obtained another position in one of the department stores, which paid him very little, and he was in debt, while his clothes were in such a degree of shabbiness that they were fairly precarious. The very night before he had sat up until midnight mending a rent in his trousers, which he afterwards inked; and as for his overcoat, he always removed that with a sleight-of-hand lest its ragged lining become evident, and when ladies were about he put it on in an agony lest his arms catch in the rents. He had even meditated cutting out the lining altogether, although he had a cold. He was so in debt that he had stopped eating breakfast; and the leaving off of breakfast for other than hygienic reasons, and when it has not been preceded by a heavy dinner the night before, is not conducive to comfort. So he bent low over Carroll and asked him in a small voice of the most delicate consideration, if he could let him have a little on account. Carroll had turned quite white when he approached him, but his regard of him was unswerving. "It is impossible for me to-day, Mr. Day," he replied, "but I assure you that you shall have every cent in the end." The tears actually sprang into the young fellow's nervously winking eyes. "It would be a great accommodation," he said, in the same low tone. "You shall have every cent as soon as I can possibly manage it," Carroll repeated. "I have a position, but it does not pay me very much yet," said the young fellow, "and--and--I am owing considerable, and--I need some things." His involuntary shrug of his narrow shoulders in his poor coat spoke as loudly as words. Carroll was directly conscious in an odd, angry, contemptuous sort of fashion, and whether because of himself, or of that other man, or of an overruling Providence, he would have been puzzled to say, of his own outer garment of the finest cloth and most irreproachable make. "As soon as I can manage it, every cent," he repeated, almost mechanically, and took another sip of his soup. The young fellow's winking eyes, full of tears, were putting him to an ignominious torture. The two girls had stood close behind the young man, waiting their turns. Now the younger stepped forward, and she spoke quite audibly in her high-pitched voice. "Good-morning, Mr. Carroll," said she, with a strained pertness of manner. "Good-morning," Carroll returned, politely. He half arose from the table. The girl giggled nervously. Her pretty, even beautiful face, under her crest of blond hair and the scoop of a bright red hat, paled and flushed. "Oh, don't stop your luncheon," said she. "Go right on. I just wanted to ask if you could possibly--" "I am very sorry," Carroll replied, "but to-day it is impossible; but in the end you shall not lose one dollar." The girl pouted. Her beauty gave her some power of self-assertion, although in reality she was of an exceedingly mild and gentle sort. "That is very well," said she, "but how long do you think it will be before we get to the end, Mr. Carroll?" "I hope not very long," Carroll said, with a miserable patience. "It had better not be very long," said she, and suddenly her high voice pitched to tragedy. "If--if--I can't get another place that's decent for a girl to take," said she, "and if I don't get what's owing me before long, I shall either have to take one of them places or get a dose." She said the last word with an indescribably hideous significance. Her blue eyes seemed to blaze at Carroll. Then the other girl pressed closer. "You needn't talk that way," said she to the girl. "You know that I--" "I ain't goin' to live on you," returned the other girl, violently. People were beginning to look at the group. "Now, you know, May," said the other girl, "my room is plenty big enough for two, and I'm earning plenty to give you a bite till you get a place yourself, and you know you may get that place you went to see about yesterday." "No, I won't," said May. "It seems to me it's pretty hard lines that a poor girl can't get the money she's worked as hard for as I have." The other girl pushed herself in front of May and spoke to Carroll, and there was something womanly and beautiful in her face. "I have a real good place," she said, in a low voice, and she enunciated like a lady. "A real good place, and I'll look out for May till she gets one, and I can wait until you are able to pay me." "I will pay you all as soon as possible. I give you all my word I will pay you in the end," said Carroll. He seemed to see the three go out in a sort of dream. It did not really seem to him that it was he, Arthur Carroll, who was sitting there in that smoking, greasy atmosphere, before that table covered with a stained cloth, over which the waiter had ostentatiously spread a damp napkin, with that bowl of canned tomato-soup before him, and that thick cup of coffee, with those three unhappy young creditors, who had reviled and, worse than reviled, pitied him, passing out, with the open glances of amused curiosity fastened upon him on every side. "Guess that dude is down on his luck," he heard a young man at his left say. "Guess he put the money he'd ought to have paid that young lady with into his overcoat," his companion, a girl with a picture-hat, and a wide lace collar over her coat, responded. Carroll felt that he was overwhelmed, beaten, at bay before utter ignominy. The thought flashed across him, as he tried to swallow some more of the soup, that in some respects, if he had been a murderer or a great bank defaulter with detectives on his track, the situation would at least have been more endurable. The horrible pettiness of it all, constituted the maddening sting of it. While he was thinking this the girl they called May came flying back, her blond crest bobbing, her cheeks blazing. She looked like a beautiful and exceedingly vulgar little fury. She came close to Carroll, while the other girl's voice was heard at the door pleading with her to come back. "I won't come back till I have said my say, so there!" she called back. Then she addressed Carroll very loudly. She was transformed for the time. Hysteria had her in its clutch. She was half-fed, half-clothed, made desperate by repeated failures. There was also a love affair in the background. She was, in reality, not so very far removed from the carbolic-acid crisis. "I say," said she. "I say, you! You'd better look out! You'd better pony up pretty quickly or you'll get into trouble you don't count on. There was a man at the office that morning after you quit, and if he should happen to walk in here and see you, you'd have a policeman after you. You'd better look out!" Carroll felt his face flush hot. For the first time in his life he was conscious of being actually down. He realized the sensation of the under dog, and he realized his utter helplessness, his utter lack of defence against this small, pretty girl who was attacking him. Everybody in the place seemed listening. Some of the people at the farther tables came nearer, other's were craning their necks. The girl gave her head an indescribable toss, at once vicious, coquettish, and triumphant. Her blond crest tossed, the scoop of her red hat rocked. "I thought I'd just tell you," said she. Then she marched, holding her skirts tightly around her, with a disclosure of embroidered ruffles and the contour of pretty hips, and there was a shout of laughter in the place. Carroll pushed away his bowl of soup and turned to a grinning waiter near him. "My check," he said. "I ain't your waiter," replied the man, insolently. "Bring me my check for this soup and coffee," repeated Carroll, and the man started. There was something in his look and tone that commanded respect even in this absurdity. In reality, for the time, he was almost a madman. His fixed idea reasserted itself. At that moment, if it had been possible that his enemy, the man who had precipitated all this upon him, could have entered the room, there would have been murder done, and again for the moment his mind overlapped on the wrong side of life, and the desire for death was upon him. There was that in his face which hushed the laughter. "They had better not hound that man much farther," one man at the table on the right whispered to his companion, who nodded, with sharp eyes on Carroll's face. They were both newspaper-men. When Carroll had paid his bill and passed out, one of the men, young and clean-shaven, pressed close to his side. "Pardon me, sir," he said, "but if you would allow me to express my regrets and sympathy--" "No regrets nor sympathy are required, thank you, sir," replied Carroll. "If I could be of any assistance," persisted the man, who was short in his weekly column and not easily daunted. "No assistance is required, thank you, sir," replied Carroll. The man retreated, and rejoined his companion at the table. "Get anything out of him?" asked the other. "No, but I can make something out of him, I guess." "Poor devil!" said the other man. "It might have paid to shadow him," said the first man, thoughtfully. "I shouldn't wonder if he took a bee-line for a drug-store. He looked desperate." "Or perhaps the park. He looks like the sort that might have a pistol around somewhere." This man actually, after a second's reflection, left his luncheon and hastened after Carroll, but he did not find him. Carroll had recovered himself and had taken the Elevated up-town to answer another advertisement. That was one for a book-keeper, and there was also unsuccessful. Coming out, he stood on the corner, looking at his list. He had written down nearly every want in the advertising columns. Actually he had even thought of trying for a position as coachman. He certainly could drive and could care for horses, and he considered quite impartially that he might make a good appearance in a livery on a fashionable turn-out. He had left now on his list only two which he had not tried; one was for a superintendent to care for a certain public building, a small museum. He had really a somewhat better chance there, apparently, for he had at one time known one of the trustees quite well. For that very reason he had put it off until the last, for he dreaded meeting an old acquaintance, and, too, there was a chance, though not a very good one, that the acquaintance might work harm instead of advantage. Still, the trustee had been in Europe for several years past, and the chances were that he would know nothing derogatory to Carroll which would interfere with his obtaining the position. He reached the building, took the elevator to the floor on which was situated the offices, and, curiously enough, the first person he saw, on emerging from the elevator, was the man whom he knew, waiting to ascend. The man, whose name was Fowler, recognized him at once, and greeted him, but with constraint. Carroll immediately understood that in some unforeseen way the news which travels in circles in this small world had reached the other. He saw that he knew of his record during the last years. "I have not seen you for a number of years, Mr. Carroll," said Fowler. "No," replied Carroll, trying to speak coolly, "but that is easily accounted for; you have been abroad most of the time, living in London, have you not?" "Yes, for seven years," replied the other, "but now I am home in my native land to end my days." Fowler was quite an elderly man, and remarkably distinguished in appearance, clean-featured and white-haired--indeed, he had cut quite a considerable figure in certain circles on the other side. He was even taller than Carroll, and portly in spite of the sharpness of his features. "You are glad to be back in America?" Carroll said; he was almost forgetting, for the moment, the object of his visit to the place. He had years ago been on terms of social intimacy with this man. "If I were not I would not say so," replied Fowler, with a diplomatic smile. "I do not disparage my country nor give another the preference in my speech, until I deliberately take out naturalization papers elsewhere." Carroll smiled. "By-the-way," said Fowler, whose handsome face had hard lines which appeared from time to time from beneath his polished surface-urbanity, "I have not seen you for perhaps ten years, Mr. Carroll, but I heard from you in an out-of-the-way place--that is, if anything is out of the way in these days. It was in a little Arab village in Egypt. I was going down the Nile with a party, and something went wrong with the boat and we had to stop for repairs; and there I found--quartered in a most amazing studio which he had rigged up for himself out of a native hut and hung with things which looked to me like nightmares, and making studies of the native Egyptians--and I must say he seemed to be doing some fine work at last--Evan Dodge." Carroll understood then, perfectly, but he took it calmly. "I always felt that Dodge had genuine ability," he said. "He has the ability to strike twelve, but not to strike it often," said Fowler. "However, all his models in that place striking twelve made it easier for him. His work was good, and I think it will be heard from. He had some good tea, and a tea-kettle, and he made us a cup, and we talked over the home news, Dodge and I and two other gentlemen and three ladies of the party. You see, Dodge was comparatively fresh from home. He had only been quartered there about a month." "Yes," said Carroll. "He spoke of seeing you quite recently. He said he had had a studio the summer before in Hillfield, where I believe you were living at the time." Nothing could have excelled the smoothness and even sweetness of Fowler's tone and manner; nothing could have excelled the mercilessness of his blue eyes beneath rather heavy lids, and the lines of his fine mouth. "Yes, he did have a studio there," assented Carroll. "I believe that is quite a picturesque country about there." "Quite picturesque." "Well, Dodge did not make a mistake going so far afield, though, for, after all, his specialty is the human figure, and here it is only trees that are not altered in their contour by the fashions. Yes, he was doing some really fine work. There was one study of a child--" "He made one very good thing in Hillfield," said Carroll, "a view from the top of a sort of half-mountain there. I believe he sold it for a large price." "Well, I am glad of that," said Fowler. "Dodge has always been hampered in that way. Yes, he told me all the news, and especially mentioned having lived in the same village with you." "Yes," said Carroll, with the dignity of a dauntless spirit on the rack. "I hope your wife and family are well," said Fowler, further. "Quite well, thank you." "Let me see--you are living in New York now?" "No, I am at present in Banbridge." "Banbridge?" "In New Jersey." "Let me see--your family consists of your wife and a daughter and son?" "Two daughters and a son. One daughter married, last September, Major Arms." "Arms? Oh, I know him. A fine man." Fowler regarded Carroll with a slight show of respect. "But," he said, "I thought--Major Arms is nearly quite your age, is he not?" "He is much older than Ina, but she seemed very fond of him." "Well, she has a fine man for a husband," said Fowler, still with the air of respect. "Your son is quite a boy now?" "He is only ten." "Hardly more than a child." "My wife and son and my sister are at present in Kentucky with my wife's aunt, Miss Dunois; only my younger daughter is with me in Banbridge." "Catherine Dunois?" "Yes." "I used to know her very well. She was a beauty, with the spirit of a duchess." "The spirit still survives," said Carroll, smiling. "She must be quite old." "Nearly eighty." The elevator going up stopped in response to a signal from Fowler. He extended his hand. "Well, good-day," said Fowler. "I am glad we chanced to meet." "Well, it is a small world," replied Carroll, smiling. "The chances for meeting are much better than they would be, say, in Mars." "Much better, and for hearing, also. Good-day." "Good-day." Carroll saw the elevator with its open sides of filigree iron, ascending, and the expression upon Fowler's calm, handsome face, gazing backward at him, was unmistakable. It was even mocking. Carroll touched the electric button of one of the downward elevators, and was soon carried rapidly down to the street door. He felt, as he gained the street, that he would rather starve to death than ask a favor of Fowler. He did not ask for pity, or even sympathy, in his downfall, but he did ask for recognition of it as a common accident that might befall mankind, and a consequent passing by with at least the toleration of indifference from those not actively concerned in it; but in this man's face had been something like exultation, even gloating, Carroll thought to himself, as he went down the street, in the childish way that Eddy might have done, with a sort of wonder, reflecting that he never in his life, that he could remember, had done Fowler, even indirectly, a bad turn. He might easily have been totally indifferent to his misfortunes, to his failings, but why should they have pleased him? Carroll walked rapidly along the street until he reached Broadway again. It was a strange day; a sort of snow-fog was abroad. The air was dense and white. Now and then a mist of sleet fell, and the sidewalks were horribly treacherous. The children enjoyed it, and there were many boys and a few girls with tossing hair sliding along with cries of merriment. Carroll thought of Eddy as one little fellow, who did not look unlike him, fairly slid into his arms. "Look out, my boy," Carroll said, good-humoredly, keeping him from falling, and the little fellow raised his cap with a charming blush and a "Beg your pardon, sir." A miserable home-sickness for them came over Carroll as he passed on. He longed for the sight of his boy, or his wife and Anna. He had grown, in a manner, accustomed to Ina being away. There is something about marriage and the absence it causes that brings one into the state of acquiescence concerning death. But he longed for the others, and he thought of his poor little Charlotte at home all day, and her loneliness. He looked at his watch, and realized that he must hurry if he caught the train which would take him to Banbridge at six o'clock. He had one more place on his list, and that was far up-town. He crossed to the Elevated station and boarded the first up-town train. What he was about to do was, in a way, so monstrous, taking into consideration his antecedents, his bringing-up, and all his forebears, that it had to his mind the grotesqueness of a gargoyle on his house of life. He was now going to apply for the last position on his list, that of a coachman for a gentleman, presumably of wealth, in Harlem. The name was quite unknown to him. It was German. He thought to himself in all probability the owner was Jewish. This was absolutely his last venture. He chose this as he would choose anything in preference to the one which was always within reach. As the train sped along he fell to thinking of himself in this position for which he was about to apply. He imagined himself in livery sitting with a pair of sleek bays well in hand. He reflected that at least he could do his work well. He wondered idly about the questions he would be asked. He considered suddenly that he must have a reference for a place of this sort, and he tore a leaf out of his note-book, took out his stylo-graphic pen, and scribbled a reference, signing his own name. He reflected, as he did so, that it was odd that he, who had employed so many doubtful methods to gain financial ends, should feel an inward qualm at the proceeding. Still, he was somewhat amused at the thought that Mr. A. Baumstein might write to him at Banbridge, and he should in that case reply, repeating his own list of qualification for the place. He wondered if they would ask if he were married, if they would prefer him married, if he drank, if he would be forbidden to smoke in the stables. He considered all the questions which he should be likely to ask himself, in a similar case. He got a curious feeling as if he were having an experience like Alice in Wonderland, as if he were in reality going in at the back of his own experiences, gaining the further side of his moon. He began to be almost impatient to reach his station and see the outcome of it all. Strangely enough, he never reflected on the good advice which the young woman that morning had given him as to the undesirable gentility of his general appearance. He never considered that as a drawback. When he reached his station he got off the train, went down the stairs, crossed the avenue, and up a block to the next street. When he found the number of which he was in search he hesitated a second. He wondered at what door he should apply. It manifestly could not be the front door. He therefore went farther down the street and gained the one running parallel, by which means he could reach the rear entrance of the house. It had no basement entrance under the front door. It was a new building, and quite pretentious, the most pretentious of a new and pretentious block. He traversed the small back yard, bending his stately head under a grove of servants' clothes which were swinging whitely from a net-work of lines, and knocked on the door. His knock was answered by a woman, presumably a cook, and she looked like a Swede. Unaccountably to him, she started back with a look of alarm and nearly closed the door, and inquired in good English, with a little accent, what he wanted. Carroll raised his hat and explained. "I saw an advertisement for a coachman," he said, briefly, "and I have come to apply for the place if it is not already filled." To his utter amazement the door was closed violently in his face, and he distinctly heard the bolt shot. He was completely at a loss to account for such a proceeding. He remained standing, staring at the blank front of the door, and a light flashed across the room inside and caused him to look at the windows. The light had been carried into a room at the back, but he saw in the pale dimness of the kitchen a group of women and one boy, and they were all staring out at him. Then the boy started on a run across the room, and he heard a door slam. Carroll waited. He could not imagine what it was all about, and a feeling of desperation was coming over him. It seemed to him that he must find something to do, that he could not go home again. The position of coachman began to seem desirable to him. Charlotte need not know what he was doing; no one need know. He had resolved to give another name, and he would soon find another position. This would be a makeshift. In this he could at least keep himself to himself. He need associate with nothing except the horses, and they were likely to be thorough-breds. It would not, after all, be half so bad as some other things--guiding superb horses through the streets and waiting at doors for his employers. To his mind, a coachman--that is, a City coachman--wears always more or less of a mask of stiff attention to duty. He could hide behind this mask. In reality, Carroll was almost at the end of his strength. His pride had suddenly become a forgotten thing. He was wretchedly worn out, and, in fact, he was hungry, almost famished. He had eaten very little lately, and poor Charlotte, in truth, knew little about cookery. He, in reality, became for the time what in once sense he was impersonating. He became a coachman in dire need of a job. Therefore he waited. He reflected, while he waited, that if they did not hurry he would miss his train and Charlotte would worry. In case he secured the position she would certainly have to join the others in Kentucky; there would be no other way, for he would be obliged to remain in the City over night. All at once the door before him was swung violently open and a gentleman stood there. Carroll felt at once that he was Mr. A. Baumstein. "What do you want, sir?" inquired the gentleman, and his tone was distinctly hostile, although he looked like a well-bred man, and it seemed puzzling that he thus received an answer to his application. "I saw your advertisement, sir--" Carroll began. "My advertisement for what, pray?" repeated Mr. Baumstein. "For a coachman," replied Carroll, "and I thought if you had not already secured one--" "Clear out, or I will call a policeman!" thundered Mr. Baumstein, and again the door was slammed in his face. Carroll then understood. A gentleman who would have been presentable at the Waldorf-Astoria, at a gentleman's area door applying for a position as coachman, was highly suspicious. He understood readily how he would have looked at the matter had the cases been reversed. He made his way out of the little yard, dodging the fluttering banners of servants' clothes, and was conscious that his progress was anxiously watched by peering eyes at the windows. He reflected that undoubtedly that house would be doubly bolted and barred that night, and he would not be surprised if a special policeman were summoned, in view of the great probability that he was a gentleman burglar spying out the land before he descended upon it in search of the spoons and diamonds. Somehow the fancy tickled him to that extent that he felt almost as hysterical as a woman. He laughed aloud, and two men whom he met just then turned round and looked at him suspiciously. "Dopey, I guess," one said, audibly, to the other. It was now in Carroll's mind to gain the Elevated as soon as possible, and hurry down-town to his ferry and catch his train. He consulted his watch, and saw that he had just about time, if there were no delays. As he replaced his watch he remembered that he had, besides his railroad book, very little money, only a little silver. The helplessness of a cripple came over him. He recalled seeing a man who had lost both his legs shuffling along on the sidewalk, with the stumps bound with leather, carrying a little tray of lead-pencils which nobody seemed to buy. He felt like that cripple. A man living to-day in the heart of civilization, where money is in reality legs and wings and hands, is nothing more than a torso without it, he thought. He felt mutilated, unspeakably humiliated. It seemed more out of his ability to get any honest employment than it had ever done before. A number of laborers with their dinner-satchels, and their pickaxes over their shoulders, passed him. They looked at him, as they passed, with gloomy hostility. It was as if they accused him of having something which of a right belonged to them. He fell to wondering how he would figure in their ranks. He was no longer a very young man. However, his muscles were still good and supple; it really seemed to him that he might dig or pick away at rocks, as he had seen men doing in that apparently aimless and hopeless and never-ending fashion. He thought in such a case he should have to join the union, and he really wondered if they would admit him, if he pawned his clothes and should buy some poorer ones. He decided, passing himself before himself in mental review, that he might be treated by the leaders of a labor union very much as he had just been treated by Mr. Baumstein at his area door. He also decided that men like those who had just met him regard him with even worse suspicion and disfavor. He remembered stories he had read of gentlemen, of students, voluntarily joining the ranks of labor for the sake of information, but it seemed somehow impossible when it was attempted in earnest. Decidedly, his appearance was against him. He had the misfortune to look too much like a man who did not need to dig to easily obtain, in labor's parlance, a job to dig. Yet, while he thought of it, such was the man's desperation, his rage against his odds of life, that it seemed to him that a purely physical attack on the earth, to which he was fastened by some indissoluble laws of nature which he could not grasp, would be a welcome relief. He felt that with a heavy pick in his hand he could strike savagely at the concrete rock, the ribs of the earth, and almost enjoy himself. He felt that it would be like an attack, although a futile and antlike one, at creation itself. All this he thought idly, walking, even hurrying, along the slippery pavement through the pale, sleety mist. He walked as rapidly as he could, some of the time slipping, and recovering himself with a long slide. He came to a block of new stone houses, divided from another by a small space taken up by a little, old-fashioned, wooded structure that might have been with propriety in Banbridge. He noticed this, and the thought came to him that possibly it was the property of some ancient and opinionated mortal who was either holding it for higher prices or for the sake of some attachment or grudge. And just as he reached it he saw coming from the opposite direction his old book-keeper, William Allbright. Allbright, moving with a due regard to the dangerous state of the pavement, had still an alacrity of movement rather unusual to him. As he came nearer it was plain to see that his soberly outlined face, long and clean-shaven, was elated by something. He started when he recognized Carroll, and stopped. Carroll felt, meeting him a sensation of self-respect like a tonic. Here was at least one man to whom he owed nothing, whom he had not injured. He held out his hand. "How do you do, Mr. Allbright?" he said. "Quite well, thank you, Mr. Carroll," replied Allbright, then his delight, which makes a child of most men, could not be restrained. "I have just secured a very good position in a wholesale tea-house--Allen, Day & Co.," he said. "That is good," said Carroll, echoing the other's enthusiasm. He really felt a leap of joy in his soul because of the other's good-fortune. He felt that in some way he himself needed to be congratulated for his good-fortune, that he had been instrumental in securing it. His face lit up. "I am delighted, Mr. Allbright," he repeated. "Yes, it is a very good thing for me," said Allbright, simply. "I was beginning to get a little discouraged. I had saved a little, but I did not like to spend it all, and I have my sister to take care of." "I am very glad," Carroll said, still again. Allbright then looked at him with a little attention, pushing, as it were, his own self, intensified by joy, aside. "You are not looking very well, Mr. Carroll," he said, deferentially, and yet with a kindly concern. "I am very well," said Carroll. Then he pulled out his watch again, and Allbright noticed quickly that it was a dollar watch. He remembered his suspicion. "I must hurry if I am to get my train," said Carroll. "You live here, Mr. Allbright?" "Yes. I have lived here for twenty years." "Well, I am very glad to hear of your good-fortune. Good-day, Mr. Allbright." Carroll had not advanced three paces from Allbright before his feet glissaded on the thin glare of the pavement, he tried to recover himself, and came down heavily, striking his head; then he knew no more for some time. Chapter XXXVII Charlotte had expected her father home at a little after six o'clock that night. That was the train on which he usually arrived lately. She had not the least idea what he was doing in the City. She supposed he was in the office as he had been hitherto. She never inquired. With all the girl's love for her father, she had a decided respect. She was old-fashioned in her ways of never interfering or even asking for information concerning a man's business affairs. Charlotte went down to the station to meet her father, as she was fond of doing. She had her dinner all ready. It was pretty bad, but she was innocently unaware of it. In fact, she had much faith in it. She had a soup which resembled greatly a flour paste, and that was in its covered tureen on the range-shelf, keeping hot and growing thicker. She had cooked a cheap cut of beef from a recipe in the cook-book, and that was drying up by the side of the soup. Poor Charlotte had no procrastination, but rather the failing of "Haste makes waste" of the old proverb. She had her cheap cut of beef all cooked at three o'clock in the afternoon, and also the potatoes, and the accompanying turnips. Salad at that time of the year she could not encompass in any form, but she had a singular and shrunken pudding on the range-shelf beside the other things. She set the coffee-pot well back where it would only boil gently, and the table was really beautifully laid. The child's cheeks were feverishly flushed with the haste she had made and her pride in her achievements. She had swept and dusted a good deal that day, also, and all the books and bric-a-brac were in charming arrangement. She felt the honest delight of an artist as she looked about her house, and she said to herself that she was not at all tired. She also said that she was not at all hungry, even if she had only eaten a cracker for luncheon and little besides for breakfast. She realized a faintness at her stomach, and told herself that she must be getting indigestion. Her little stock of money was very nearly gone. She had even begun to have a very few things charged again at Anderson's. Sometimes her father brought home a little money, but she understood well enough that their financial circumstances were wellnigh desperate. However, she had an enormous faith in her father that went far to buoy her up. While she felt the most intense compassion for him that he should be so hard pressed, it never occurred to her that it could be due to any fault or lack of ability in him, and she had, in reality, no doubt whatever of his final recovery of their sinking fortunes. She wrote her mother that papa was going to the City every day, that they were getting on very well, and while they had not yet a maid, she thought it better to wait until they were perfectly satisfied before engaging one. The letters she had received at first from Mrs. Carroll had been childishly amazed and reproachful, although acquiescent. Her aunt had written her more seriously and with great affection. She told her to send for her at once if she needed her, and she would come. Charlotte, going down the street towards the station that night, expected a letter by the five-o'clock train. She reached the post-office, which was near the station, at a quarter before six, and she found, as she anticipated, letters. There were several for her father, which she thought, accusingly towards the writers, were bills. It was odd that Charlotte, while not really morally perverted, and while she admitted the right of people to be paid, did not admit the right of any one to annoy her father by presenting his bill. She looked at the letters, and, remembering the wretched expression on her father's face on receiving some the night before, it actually entered into her mind to tear these letters up and never let him see them at all. But she put them in her little bag, and opened her own letters and stood in the office to read them. The train was not due for fifteen minutes yet, and was very likely to be late. She had letters from her mother, Ina, and aunt. They all told of the life they were leading there, and expressed hope that she and her father were well, and there was a great deal of love. It was all the usual thing, for they wrote every day. There were also letters from them all for Carroll. The Carroll family, when absent from one another, were all good correspondents, with the exception of Carroll. There was even a little letter from Eddy, which had been missent, because he had spelled Banbridge like two words--Ban Bridge. Charlotte read her letters, smiling over them, standing aloof by the window. The post-office was fast thinning out. There had been the customary crowd there at the arrival of the mail--the pushing and shrieking children and the heavily shuffling loungers--all people who never by any possibility got any letters, but who found a certain excitement in frequenting the office at such times. Just as Charlotte finished her last letter and replaced it in the envelope, Anderson came in for his mail. He did not notice her, but went directly to his box, which had a lock, opened it, and took out a pile of letters. Charlotte stood looking at him. He looked very good and very handsome to her. She thought to herself how very much better-looking he was than Ina's husband. There was something about the manly squareness of his shoulders, as he stood with his back towards her, examining his letters, which made her tremble a little, she could not have told why. Suddenly he looked up and saw her, and she felt that the color flashed over her face, and was ashamed and angry. "Why should I do so?" she asked herself. She made a curt, stiff little bow in response to Anderson's greeting, and he passed her going out of the office with his letters. Then she felt distressed. "I need not have been rude because I was such a little idiot as to blush when a man looked at me," she told herself. "It was not his fault. He has always been lovely to us." She reviewed in her mind just her appearance when she had given him that stiff little bow, and she felt almost like crying with vexation. "Of course he does not care how I bow to him," she thought, and somehow that thought seemed to give her additional distress, "but, all the same, I should have been at least polite, for he is very much a gentleman. I think he is much better bred, and he certainly knows much more than Ina's husband, even if he does only keep a grocery store; but then army officers are not supposed to know much except how to fight." The heavy jar of a passing freight train made her look at the post-office clock, and with her usual promptness, although it was fully seven minutes before the train was due, even if it were on time, and she was only about one minute's walk from the station, she reflected that she must start at once if she were to meet her father. So she stowed away her letters in her little bag, and fairly ran across the icy slope between the office and the station. She saw, as she hurried along, a child tumble down, and watched him jump up and run off to make sure he was not hurt. When she reached the station she did not go in the waiting-room, which seemed close and stuffy, but remained out on the platform. The sun had set, but the western sky, which was visible from that point, was a clear expanse of rose and violet. Charlotte stood looking at it, and for a minute she was able to find that standing-point outside her own little life and affairs which exists for the soul. She did not think any more of the money troubles, of her bowing so stiffly to Mr. Anderson. She forgot not only her petty worries, but her petty triumphs and pleasures. She forgot even the exceeding becomingness of a new way in which she had dressed her hair. She forgot her coat, which she had herself trimmed with fur taken from an old one of her mother's, and in which her heart delighted. She forgot her supreme dinner warming on the range-shelf at home. She forgot the joy she would soon have in seeing her father alight from the train. The little, young, untrained creature saw and knew for the moment only the eternal that which was and is and shall be, and which the sunset symbolized. Her young face had a rapt expression looking at it. "Dandy sunset, ain't it?" said a voice at her ear. She looked and saw Bessy Van Dorn, her large, blooming face, rosy with the cold, smiling at her from under a mass of tossing black plumes on a picture-hat. The girl was really superb in a long, fur-lined coat. She had driven in a sleigh to the station, and she expected Frank Eastman on the train, and was, with the most innocent and ignorant boldness in the world, planning to drive him home, although she was not engaged to him and he was not expecting her. Her face, turning from the wonderful after-glow of the sunset to Charlotte's, had also something of the same rapt expression in spite of her words. "Yes, it is beautiful," replied Charlotte, but rather coldly. She was a friendly little soul, but she did not naturally care for girls of Bessy Van Dorn's particular type. She was herself too fine and small before such a mass of inflorescence. "It's cold," said Bessy Van Dorn, further, "but, land, I like it! Have you been sleigh-riding?" "No, I haven't," replied Charlotte. "Oh, I forgot," said Bessy. Charlotte knew what she had forgot--that the horses had gone for debt--and she reddened, but the other girl's voice was honest. "I'd like to take you sometime," said Bessy. "Thank you," said Charlotte. "I'd offer to take you home to-night," said Bessy, "but I've arranged to take somebody else." "Thank you. I could not go, anyway," said Charlotte. "I am down to meet my father." "Oh!" said Bessy. "Well, then you couldn't. A sleigh ain't quite wide enough for three, unless one of 'em is your best young man," she giggled. Charlotte felt ashamed. "My father is," she said, sternly. She fairly turned her back on Bessy Van Dorn, but she did not notice it, for the train was audible in the distance, and Bessy began calculating her distance from the car in which Frank Eastman usually rode, that she might be sure not to miss him. Charlotte stood on the platform, and also ran along by the side of the train scanning anxiously the men who alighted. To her great astonishment, her father was not among them. She could scarcely believe it when the train went slowly past the station and her father had not got off. Bessy Van Dorn, driving Frank Eastman in her sleigh, with the fringe of fur tails dangling over the back, looked around at Charlotte slowly retreating from the station. "Why, her father didn't come!" said she. "Whose father?" asked young Eastman. He looked admiringly and even lovingly at the girl, and yet in a slightly scornful and shamed fashion. He hated to think of what some of the men he knew would say about her meeting him at the station. "Why, that poor little Charlotte Carroll's!" said Bessy. "Say," she added, after a second's hesitation. "What?" asked young Eastman. "I've a good mind to ask her to ride. We're goin' her way. You don't mind?" "Not a bit," said young Eastman, but he did think uncomfortably of Ina's sister seeing him with Bessy Van Dorn. Bessie promptly stopped. They had not yet made the turn from the station to the main road, and Charlotte was just behind them. "Say," she called out, "get in here. I'll take you home--just as soon as not." "Thank you," replied Charlotte. "I have an errand. I am not going home just yet." "All right," replied Bessy, touching her horse. "I'd just as soon have taken you as not, if you'd been going home." "Thank you," Charlotte said, again. "I declare, she looked as if she was just ready to cry," said Bessy to Eastman, as they drove up the street. She was quite right. Charlotte was horribly frightened by her father's non-arrival on the train. He had never come on a later train than that since the others had gone. The thought of returning alone to her solitary home was more than she could bear. She remembered that there was another train a half-hour later, and she resolved to remain down for that. She thought that she would go to Mr. Anderson's store and purchase some cereal for breakfast, that she might have that charged. She was conscious, but she tried to stifle the consciousness, of a hope that Mr. Anderson would be there, and she might tell him that her father had not arrived on that train, and he would reassure her. But Mr. Anderson had naturally gone straight home from the post-office to supper. Charlotte ordered her cereal, and also a few eggs. Then she went back to the station. It was nearly twenty minutes before the train was due. She walked up and down the platform, which extended east and west. The new moon was just rising, a slender crescent of light, and off one upper horn burned a great star. It was a wonderful night, cold, with a calmness and hush of all the winds of heaven which was like the hush of peace itself. Charlotte noticed everything, the calm night and the crescent moon, but she came between herself and her own knowledge of it. Her mind was fixed upon the train and the terrible possibility that her father might not arrive on that. It seemed to her that if he did not arrive on that it was simply beyond bearing. The possibility was too terrible to be contemplated with reason, and yet she could not have told just why she was in such a panic of fear. A thousand things might happen to keep any business-man in the City later than he had expected. He had often been so kept while the others were home; but now she was alone, and she felt that he would certainly come unless something most serious had detained him. Charlotte had naturally a somewhat pessimistic turn of mind, and her imagination was active. She imagined many things; she even imagined the actual cause of Carroll's detention, among others, that he had slipped on the ice and injured himself. The falling of the boy on her way to the six-o'clock train had directly swerved her fancy in that direction. But she imagined everything. That was only one of many casualties. The train was a little late. She stood staring down the track at the unswerving signal-lights, watching for the head-light of the locomotive, and it seemed to her quite certain that there had been an accident on that train. A thought struck her, and she went into the waiting-room and asked the ticket-agent if the train was very late. The agent was quite a young man, and he looked at her with a covert masculine coquettishness as he replied, but she was oblivious of that. All she thought of was that, if there had been an accident on the line and the train was late on that account, he would surely be apt to know. Her heart was beating so fast that she trembled; but he said ten minutes, and said nothing about an accident, and she was reassured. She turned to go, after thanking him, and he volunteered further information. "There is a freight ahead delaying the train," he said. "Oh, thank you," replied Charlotte. Then she went out on the platform again and watched for the head-light of the locomotive, staring down the track past the twinkle of the signal-lights. Suddenly it flashed into sight far off, but she saw it. She waited. Soon she heard the train. A gateman crossed the tracks from the in-station, padlocking the gates carefully after him. A baggage-master drew a trunk to the edge of the platform. A few passengers came out of the waiting-room. Charlotte waited, and the train came majestically around the curve below the station. She moved along as it came up, keeping her eyes on the cars. She seemed to have eyes with facets like a cut diamond. It was really as if she saw all the car doors at once. But she moved with a strange stiffness, and could not feel her hands nor feet; her heart beat so fast and thick that it shook her like the pulse of an engine. She moved along, and she saw every passenger who alighted. Then the train steamed out of the station with slowly gathering speed, and her father had not come on it. Charlotte, when she actually realized the fact, the possibility of which had seemed incredible, gained a little strength. It was like the endurance of disaster which is sometimes more feasible than the contemplation of it. She thought at once what to do. In the event of her father having been delayed by some unforeseen business he would surely telegraph. She at once crossed the slope from the station and went to Andrew Drake's drug-store, where the telegraph-office was. She asked if a telegram had come for her, if one had been sent to the house. When the boy in charge answered no, she felt as if she had received a stunning blow. She had then no doubt whatever that something had happened to her father, some accident. The boy, who was young and pleasant-faced, watched her with a vague sympathy. In a moment she recovered herself. He might have sent a telegram which had not arrived. It might come any moment. The boy directly had the same thought. "The minute the telegram comes I'll get it up to you," he said, earnestly. "I expect Mr. Drake back every minute, and I can leave." "Thank you," said Charlotte. It was an hour and a half before the next train. She went out of the store and walked miserably along the street to her deserted home. Chapter XXXVIII There is, to a human being of Charlotte Carroll's type, something unutterably terrifying about entering, especially at nightfall, an entirely empty house. The worst of it is it does not seem to be empty. In reality, the emptiness of it is the last thing which is comprehended. It is full to overflowing with terrors, with spiritual entities which are much more palpable, when one is in a certain mood, than actual physical presences. Charlotte approaching the house, saw, first, glimmers of light on the windows, which were merely reflections ostensibly from the electric light in the street, not so ostensibly from other lights. "Oh, there is some one in there," Charlotte thought to herself, and again that horrible, pulsing, vibrating motion of her heart overcame her. "Who is there?" she asked herself. She remembered that terrible tramp whom she had seen asleep in the woods that day. He might have been riding on some freight-train which had stopped at Banbridge, and stolen across and entered the vacant house. She stood still, staring at the cold glimmers on the windows. Then gradually she became convinced that they were merely reflections which she saw. Aside from her imagination, Charlotte was not entirely devoid of a certain bravery, or, rather, of a certain reason which came to her rescue. "What a little goose I am!" she told herself. "Those are only reflections. They are the reflections of the light in the street." As she studied it more closely she saw that the light, being intercepted by the branches of the trees on the lawn, swaying in a light wind, produced some of the strange effects at the windows which had seemed like people moving back and forth in the rooms. Then all at once she saw another glimmer of light on the front window of her father's room which she could not account for at all. She moved in front of a long, fan-shaped ray cast by the electric light in the street, and, looking at the window, the reflection was still there. She could not account for that at all, unless it was produced by a light from a house window--which was probably the case. At all events, it disquieted her. Still, she overcame her disinclination to enter the house because of that. She reasoned from analogy. "All the other lights are reflections," she told herself, "and of course that must be." However, the main cause of her terror remained: the unfounded, world-old conviction of presences behind closed doors, the almost impossibility for a very imaginative person to conceive of an entirely empty room or house--that is, empty of sentient life. She had hidden the front-door key under the mat before the front door; she had lived long enough in the country to acquire that absurdly innocent habit. She groped for it, thought for a second, with a gasp of horror, that it was not there. Then she felt it with her gloved hand, fitted it in the lock, opened the door, and went in, and the inner darkness smote her like a hostile crowd. It was actually to the child as if she were passing through a thick group of mysterious, inimical things concealed by the darkness. It was as if she heard whispers of conspiracy; it was even as if she smelled odors of strange garments and bodies. Every sense in her was on the alert. She even tasted something bitter in her mouth. It was all absurd. She reiterated in her ears that it was all absurd, but she had now passed the point wherein reason can support. She had come through an unusually active imagination into the unknown quantities and sequences of life. She put out her hands and groped her way through the darkness of the hall, and the fear lest she should touch some one, some terrible thing, was as bad as the reality could have been. She knew best where to find matches in the dining-room, so she went through the hall, with a sort of mad rush in spite of her blindness, and she gained the dining-room and felt along the shelf for a little hammered-brass bowl where matches were usually kept. In it she felt only two. The mantel-shelf was the old-fashioned marble monstrosity, the perpetuation of a false taste in domestic architecture, but it was excellent as to its facilities for scratching matches. She rubbed one of the two matches under the shelf on the rough surface, but it did not ignite. It evidently was a half-burned match. She took the other. It seemed to her that if that failed her, if she had to grope about the kitchen for more in this thick blackness--for even the street-light did not reach this room--she should die. She rubbed the last match against the marble, and it blazed directly. She shielded it carefully with her hand from the door draught, and succeeded in lighting a candle in one of a pair of brass candlesticks which stood on the shelf. She then held the flaring light aloft and looked fearfully around the room. Everything was as usual, but, strangely enough, it did not reassure her. The solitariness continued to hold terrible possibilities for her as well as the darkness, and with the light also returned what had been for a few minutes in abeyance before her purely selfish fear, the anxiety over her father. She moved about the house with the candle, going from room to room. It seemed to her that she could not remain one minute if she did not do so. Every time before entering a room she felt sure that it was occupied. Every time after leaving it she felt sure that something unknown was left there. She went into the kitchen, and saw her miserable little dinner drying up in the shelf of the range, and then for the first time self-pity asserted itself. She sat down and sobbed and sobbed. "There, I got that nice dinner, that beautiful dinner," she said to herself, quite aloud in a pitiful wail like a baby's, "and perhaps poor papa will never even taste it. Oh dear! Oh dear!" She rocked herself back and forth in the kitchen-chair, weeping. She had set the candle on the table, and a draught of wind from some unknown quarter struck it and the strangest lights and shadows flared and flickered over the room and ceiling. Presently, Charlotte, looking at them, became diverted again from her grief. She looked about fearfully. Then she made a tremendous effort, rose, and lighted a lamp. With that the room was not so frightful, yet it was still not normal. The familiar homely articles of furniture assumed strange appearances. She saw something on the range, a little object which filled her with such unreasoning horror that it was almost sheer insanity. It was simply because she could not for the moment imagine what the little object, which had nothing in the least frightful about it, could be. Finally she rose and looked, and it was only a little iron spoon which she must have dropped there. She removed it, but still the horror was over her. She lifted the cover from the dish of meat, and again the tears came. "Poor papa! poor papa!" she said. Then she carried the lamp into the dining-room, and went into the parlor. She had made herself quite satisfied that there was in reality nothing menacing in the house except her own fears. She would sit beside one of the front windows in the parlor, in the dark, in order that she might not be seen, and she would watch for her father, and she would also watch for any one who might approach the house with any harmful intent. Charlotte curled herself up in a large chair beside the window which commanded the best view of the grounds and the drive. With the light of the young moon there was really no possibility that anything could approach unseen by her, unless by way of the fields from the back. But that she did not think of. Her mind became again concentrated upon her father and the possibility of either his return on the next train or a telegram explaining his absence. She knew that the next train from New York was due in Banbridge at a few minutes after eight. She had no time-table, but she remembered Major Arms arriving once, and she was quite certain that the train was due at eight-seventeen. It might, of course, be late. She reflected, with a sense of solid comfort, that the trains were rather more apt to be late than not. She need not give up hope of her father's arriving on this train until even nine o'clock, for besides the possibility of the lateness there was also that of his walking rather than taking a carriage from the station. In fact, he would probably walk, since he was still in Samson Rawdy's debt. She might allow at least twenty minutes for the walk from the station. She might allow more even than that. She sat at the window, and waited, peering out. There was a singular half-dusk rather than half-light from the new moon. The moon itself was not visible from where she sat, for the window faced north, but she could see over everything the sweet influence of it. There was no snow on the lawn, which was a dry crisp of frost-killed grass, as flat as if swept by a broom, and here and there were the faintest patches and mottles of silver from this moon, aside from a broad gleam of the garish light from the street-lamp. The bushes and trees showed lines of silver. The moon was so young that the stars were quite brilliant. Taking all the lights together--the electric light in the street, the new moon, and the stars--the lawn was quite visible, and even, because the leaves were now all gone from the trees, the road for quite a distance beyond. Charlotte had a considerable vista in which to watch for her father. The time passed incredibly in this watching. She had upon her such a fear and even premonition that he might not come, that the minutes passed with the horrible swiftness that they pass for a criminal awaiting execution. The first time she slipped out in the dining-room--with a last look at the lawn and road, to be sure that he would not be there in the mean time--to see what time it was by the clock on the shelf, she was amazed. It was already eight o'clock. She had not dreamed it was more than half-past seven. She crept back to her place by the parlor window, with the feeling that much of her time of reprieve had passed, and that she was so much the nearer the certainty of tribulation. Instead of impatience she had rather the desire to defer approaching disaster. While she watched, she had less and less hope that her father would come on that train, and yet she kept her heart alive by picturing her rapture when she should see his tall, dark figure enter the lawn path, when she should run and unlock and unbar the door and throw her arms around his neck. She made up her mind that she should not confess to him what a panic she had been in because of his non-arrival. She planned how she would run and set the dinner, in which she still believed, on the table, and how hungry he would be for it. She was quite sure that her poor father did not in these days provide himself with sumptuous lunches in the city. But all the time she reared these air-castles, she saw for a certainty the dark sky of her trouble through them. For some premonition, or a much modified form of prophecy, the rudimentary expression of a divine sense in reality exists. It existed in Charlotte watching for her father at the window, and yet so bound up was she in the probabilities and present sequences of things that she still watched. Now and then she made sure that she saw her father turn from the road into the lawn, but the figure, to her horror, would remain standing still in one place. It was simply a slender spruce which had seemed to start out of a corner of the night with a semblance of life. Now and then she actually did see a figure coming up the road, approaching the entrance to the lawn, and her heart leaped up with joy. She watched for it to enter, but that was the end. Whoever it was, it had passed the house and gone farther up the road. Those were the cruellest moments of any--the momentary revival of hope and then the dashing it to the ground. By-and-by her eyes, strained with such watching, began to actually deceive her. She saw, as she thought, shadows, approach and enter the house. Several times she ran to the door and opened it, and no one was there. After she had gone out in the dining-room and seen that it was eight-seventeen, the time when the train was due in Banbridge, she watched for the train. She knew that she could hear the rush of the train after it left the station; she could even catch a glimpse of the rosy fire of the locomotive through the trees, since the track was elevated. She therefore watched for that, but it was very late. That was unmistakably a great solace for her. She actually had a prayerful mood of thankfulness for the lateness of the train. It was that much longer that she need not give up hope. There was a few minutes that she felt quite easy. Suddenly she remembered how foolish she had been to watch for her father, anyway, before she heard the arrival of the train. She realized that her head was overstrained, her reason failing her. "How could papa come before the train?" she asked herself. But after a few minutes her fears reasserted themselves. She watched for something inimical to appear crossing the lawn instead of her father. And then she heard a train, and she felt faint, but in a second she became aware that it was a long freight. No passenger-train ever moved thus with the veritable chu-chu of the children, the heavy panting of two engines. Then after that she started again, for she heard a train, but it was as if she had been let fall by some wanton hand from a cruel height, for that train was clearly a fast express which did not stop at Banbridge. Then she heard a faint rumble of another freight on the Lehigh Valley road. Then at last came the train for which she had been looking, the train on which her father might come, the train on which he surely would come unless some terrible thing had happened. She heard distinctly, with her sharpened ears, the stop of the train at the station, the letting off of steam. She heard the engine-bell. She heard it resume its advance with slowly gathering motion. She saw a rosy flash of fire in the distance from the engine. Then she waited for carriage-wheels, or for the sight of her father coming up the road. It was quite soon that she heard carriage-wheels on the frozen ground, and she ran to the door and opened it, but the carriage passed. Samson Rawdy was taking home the next neighbor. "It will take papa considerably longer if he walks," she told herself, and she locked the door and returned to her station at the window. She saw again a dark figure approaching on the road outside, and she thought with a great throb of joy that he had surely come, but the figure did not enter the grounds. She allowed twenty-five minutes for him to walk from the station. She said to herself if, when twenty-five minutes had elapsed, he had not come, she should certainly know that he had not come on that train. She did not dare look at the clock, but after a while, when she did so, she found it was twenty-seven minutes after eight. Still that clock often gained. She ran out in the kitchen and looked at the clock there, but that had stopped at half-past seven. It was very seldom that anybody remembered to wind up the kitchen-clock since Marie went. Her own little watch was at the jeweller's in New Sanderson for repairs. She had nothing to depend on except the dining-room clock, which, to her great comfort, so often gained. She decided that she might wait until ten minutes of nine by that clock before she gave up hope, but the next time she went trembling out to look at it it was only three minutes before nine. Then it occurred to her that her father might easily have had an errand at one of the stores before coming home. The post-office would be closed; she had no hope for that, but he might have had some business. She thought that she might allow until half-past nine before she entirely gave up her father having come on the eight-seventeen train. It was then that she began running out on the lawn to the entrance of the drive to watch for him. She put a Roman blanket, which was kept on the divan in the den, over her head, and she continually ran out across the lawn, and stood close to a tree, staring down the road for some sign of her father. Curiously enough, she was not nearly so terrified out-of-doors as in the house. The strain of returning to that vacant house was much worse for her than going across the lawn in the lonely night. She watched and watched, and at last when she returned to the house and looked at the dining-room clock, it was half-past nine, and she completely gave up all hope of her father having come on that train. A species of stupor, of terror and anxiety, seemed to overcome her. She sat by the parlor window, still staring out from mere force of habit. She knew that the next and last train that night was not due until one-thirty, presumably nearly two o'clock. She knew that there was not the slightest chance of her father's coming until then, but her mind now centred on the telegram. It did seem as if there must be a telegram, at least. All at once a figure appeared in the road and swiftly turned into the drive. She thought at once that the boy in the drug-store was bringing the telegram; still, she resolved not to open the door until she was sure who it was. She peered closely from the window, and it was unmistakably the drug-store boy who emerged from the tree shadows and came up on the stoop. She ran to the door and unfastened it, not waiting for him to ring. She held out her trembling little hand for the telegram, but he kept his at his side. He looked at her, grinning half-sympathetically, half-sheepishly. He was an overgrown boy, perhaps three years younger than she, whom a pretty girl overwhelmed with an enormous self-consciousness and admiration. "Where is it?" asked Charlotte, impatiently. "I 'ain't got nothing'," said the boy. "Then why--" "I was going home from the store, and I thought I'd jest stop an' let you know there wa'n't no telegrams yet. It wa'n't much out of my way." Charlotte gasped. "I thought it might be a relief to your mind to know," said the boy. "I thought you might be watchin'. I saw your father didn't come on that other train. I was up at the station on an errand." "Thank you," said Charlotte, feebly. The boy lingered a second with bashful eyes on her face, then he said again that he thought he would just stop in and let her know. He was going down the path, and she was just closing the door, when he called back that she might have a telegram if her father sent it by the postal-telegraph system. "You won't get none from our place after now," he said, "for Mr. Drake won't bring up none so late; but if your father sends that way, you could get one, mebbe." "Thank you," replied Charlotte, and the boy went away. When Charlotte re-entered the house and locked the door, a loneliness which was like a positive chill struck over her. It was much worse now since she had been in communication with another human being. "If he had only been a girl I would have gone down on my knees to him to stay all night with me," she thought. She tried to think if there was anybody in Banbridge whom she could ask to stay with her, but she could think of none. She thought of Marie, but she did not even know where she was. There was no woman whom she could call upon. She resumed her seat beside the window. She did not dream of going to bed. She had now to watch for the possible postal telegram; it would not be time for the last train for hours yet. She had the telegraph-messenger and some possible marauder to watch for. She kept her eyes glued to the expanse of the lawn and small stretch of road visible between the leafless trees. Now and then a carriage passed; very seldom a walking shadow. She always started at the sight of these, thinking the telegram might be about to arrive. If the telegram should arrive she expected fully that it would be of some terrible import. A thought struck her, something that she might do. If her father was injured, if she were to be sent for from the City, she resolved that she would have everything in readiness for instant departure. There was a train which Banbridge flagged after the arrival of the last train from New York. She lit a lamp, went up-stairs, and packed a little travelling-bag with necessaries, and made some changes in her dress, and felt a certain relief in so doing. She had very little money, and a book with two or three railroad tickets. She felt that she could start at a moment's notice should the telegram arrive. All the time she was packing she was listening for the door-bell. It became quite firmly fixed in her mind what the telegram would be: that her father was terribly injured and had been carried to a hospital, that she should at once go to the hospital. It sometimes occurred to her that he might be even dead, but that idea did not so take hold on her fancy as the other. She left the lamp burning up-stairs, thinking suddenly that it would be well to have the house present the appearance of being well inhabited. She took her hat and coat and her little travelling-bag, and she went back to the place by the parlor window and stared out at the lawn again. It was growing very late. Soon it would be time for her to watch for the last train. It really seemed to the girl an incredible supposition of disaster that that train could pass by and her father not appear, and that in the face of her morbid and pessimistic conclusions. She was a mass of inconsistencies, of incoherencies. She at once despaired and hoped with a hope that was conviction. At last, when she saw by the clock that it only wanted a few minutes before the time when the last train was due, her spirits arose as if winged. She even went out in the kitchen and examined the wretched dinner to make sure it was still hot. She put more coal on the range. The house was growing very cold, and she knew that the furnace fire needed attention, but she absolutely dared not go down cellar alone at that time. They had very little coal, also, and had been in the habit of letting the furnace fire die down at night. She put on her coat when she returned from the kitchen, and sat again by the window. She felt now an absolute certainty that her father would arrive on this train. She felt that it was monstrous to assume that her father would not come home all night and leave her alone with no message. She felt even quite radiantly happy sitting there. She said to herself what a little goose she had been. Even a noise made by some coal falling in the kitchen-range failed to startle her. She now hoped that the train would not be late, and it was, in fact, very nearly on time. Then she watched for her father with not the slightest doubt that he would come. It had come to that pass that her credulity as to disaster had failed her. It was simply out of her power to credit the possibility of his not coming on this train when he had sent no telegram. She knew that there would be no carriage at the station at that hour, unless he had telegraphed for one from New York, and she questioned, in the state of their finances, if he would do that. She was therefore sure of seeing his figure appear, coming, with the stately stride which she knew so well, into view on the road below the lawn. She allowed twenty-five minutes for his appearance after she had seen the train pass. She knew nothing could detain him in the village at that time of night, and she was sure he would come within that time. She looked at the dining-room clock and found that she had, if she allowed that twenty-five minutes, just fifteen minutes to wait. She sat shrugged up in her little fur-trimmed coat, for the house was growing very cold, and stared intently at the pale glimmer of the road. After the twenty-five minutes had passed, she went out in the dining-room and looked at the clock. The time was more than passed; there was no doubt. Her father had not come. The panic seized her. She was now dashed from the heights of hope, and the shock was double. She realized that her father had not come, would not come that night; that she would probably have no telegram. She realized that she was all alone in the house. Now again unreasoning fear as well as the anxiety for her father seized her. Again the conviction of the awful population of the empty rooms was upon her. She sat down again by the window, and she tried to make her reasoning powers reassert themselves. "If anything comes this way, I shall see it in time, and I can run out the back door and across to the neighbors," she told herself. "If anything comes in the back way, I shall hear and have time to run out the front door; and I know there is nothing in the house." But she could not reassure herself, since what terrified her, and even temporarily unbalanced her, was fear itself. Fear multiplied, growing upon itself, spreading out new tentacles with every throb of her imagination, filling the whole house. All her life she had thought what a frightful thing it would be if ever she were left alone by herself in a house, all night; and now worse than that had come to pass, for she was not alone; the house was peopled by fear and the creatures of fear. She heard noises constantly that she could not account for, and she also saw things which she could not account for. Again the small and trivial, acutely stinging horror of some ordinary object in a new and awful guise possessed her. She was almost paralyzed at the sudden glimpse of something on the divan across the room. It was a long time before she could possibly totter to investigate, and ascertain it was one of her own gloves. But it did not strike her as at all funny. There was still something frightful to her about the glove. She went back to the window, and soon she distinctly heard a noise up-stairs, and then a shadow crossed the ceiling. A new horror seized her--a horror of herself. She felt that in another moment she might herself become a very part and substance of the fear that was oppressing her. She had an imagination of jumping up, of running about and screaming, of breaking something. Then with that clutch at life and reason which is life itself, which all dying and despairing things have at the last, she thought again that there must be somebody, somebody in the whole place to whom she could turn, somebody who would help her, who would pity her. She had heretofore only thought of the possibility of somebody who would come and stay with her; it now occurred to her that she herself might be the one to go, and that she might escape from this house of fear. It was suddenly to her as to a prisoner who realizes that all the time his prison doors have been unbarred. "What am I staying here for in this awful house by myself?" she suddenly thought. When that idea came to her, the idea of escape, the action of her mind became involuntary. There was only one to whom she could run for aid. She remembered so vividly that the experience seemed to repeat itself, her terror of the tramp in the woods, and how she had seen Anderson. She sprang up. It became sure to her that she must get away from that house, that she must not remain. The imaginative girl, whom anxiety and want of food had weakened, as well as fear, was fairly at the point of madness, or that hysteria which is the border-land of it. She distinctly heard herself laugh as she ran out of the room and out of the house. Her head was bare, but she did not think of that. She had on her coat which she had worn because of the coldness of the house. She fled across the lawn to the street. Once on the road, she was saner, she felt only the natural impulse of flight of any hunted thing. She fled down the road past the quiet village houses, in which the people slept in their beds. The electric lights were out, the moon was low. It was quite dark. Nobody except herself was abroad in the night. A great pity for herself, a pity that she might have felt for a little lonely child out by herself at night, when everybody else was safe in their homes, came over her. She sobbed as she ran; she even sobbed quite loudly. She did not feel so afraid, as wild for somebody to take her in and comfort her. She ran down the main street and turned up the one on which the Andersons lived. When she reached the house it was quite dark, except for a very faint glimmer in one of the upper front rooms. It was from the little night-lamp which Mrs. Anderson always kept burning. The sight of that light seemed to give Charlotte strength to get up the steps. She had run so weakly that all the way she had a thought of the terraces of steps leading to the Anderson house, if she could climb them. She went up the steps, and then she pressed hard the electric button on the door; she also raised the superfluous old brass knocker which Mrs. Anderson cherished because it was a relic from her husband's time; then she clanged that. Then she sank down on the step in front of the door. Chapter XXXIX Almost at once a light flashed from an upper window in response to Charlotte's knock and ring. Anderson himself had been in New York that night with Henry Edgecomb to the theatre. A celebrated play was on, in which a celebrated actress figured, and the two had taken one of their rather infrequent excursions. Consequently, Anderson had not been in the house more than an hour, and during that hour had been writing some letters which he wished to get off in the early mail. His room was at the back of the house, a long room extending nearly the whole width, consequently his own brightly shining light had not been visible to Charlotte coming up the street. As he was not undressed, he lost no time in opening his door and entering with his lamp the front hall. As he did so his mother's door opened, and her delicate, alarmed old face, frilled with white cambric, appeared. "Oh, who is it at this time of night, do you suppose, Randolph?" she whispered. "I don't know, mother dear; don't be frightened." But she came quite out in her white night draperies, which made her appear singularly massive. "Oh, do you suppose there are burglars in the store?" she said. "No. Don't worry, mother." "Do you suppose it is fire?" "No; there is no alarm." "Randolph, you won't open the door until you have asked who it is. Promise me." "It is nobody to be afraid of, mother." "Promise me." "It is probably Henry come back for something. Harriet may have locked him out, and he forgotten his night-key." That was actually what had flashed through Randolph's mind when he heard the knock and ring. "Well, I shouldn't wonder if it was," said Mrs. Anderson, in a relieved tone. "Go back to bed, mother, or you will catch your death of cold." "But you will ask?" "Yes, yes." Anderson hurried down-stairs, and in consideration of his mother's listening ears of alarm, he did call out, "Who is there?" at the same time unlocking the door. It was manifest to his masculine intelligence, unhampered by nerves, that no one with evil intent would thus strive to enter a house with a clang of knocker and peal of bell. He, therefore, having set the lamp on the hall-table, at once unlocked the door, and Charlotte pulled herself to her feet and her little, pretty, woe-begone face, in which was a new look for him and herself, confronted him. Anderson did not say a word. He somehow--he never remembered how--laid hold of the little thing, and she was in the house, in the sitting-room, and in his arms, clinging to him. "Papa didn't come. Papa didn't come home," she sobbed, but so softly that Mrs. Anderson, who was listening, did not hear. Anderson laid his cheek down against the girl's soft, wet one, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if he had been used to so doing ever since he could remember anything. There was no strangeness for either of them in it. He patted her poor little head, which felt cold from the frosty night air. "There, there, dear," he said. "He didn't come home," she repeated, piteously, against his breast, and it was almost as if she were accusing him because of it. "Poor little girl!" "Not on the last train. Papa didn't come on the last train, and--there was no telegram, and I--I was all alone in the house, and--and--I came." She sobbed convulsively. Anderson kissed her cheek softly, he continued to smooth the little, dark, damp head. "You did quite right," he whispered--"quite right, dear. You are safe now. Don't!" "Papa!" "Oh, some business detained him in the City." "What has happened to papa?" demanded Charlotte, in a shrill voice, and it was again as if she were unconsciously accusing Anderson. When a heart becomes confident of love, it is filled with wonder at any evil mischance permitted, and accuses love, even the love of God. "What has happened to papa? Where is he?" she demanded again. And it was then that Mrs. Anderson, unseen by either of them, stood in the doorway with an enormous purple-flowered wrapper surging over her nightgown. "Hush, dear!" whispered Anderson. "I am sure nothing has happened." "Why are you sure?" "If anything had happened I should have heard of it. I came out on the last train myself. If there had been an accident I should certainly have heard." "Would you?" "I surely should have. Don't, dear. Your father has just been detained by business." "Then why didn't papa telegraph?" "He did not get it in the office in season. The office closes at half-past eight," said Anderson, lying cheerfully. "Does it?" "Of course! There is nothing for you to worry about. Now I'll tell you what we will do. My mother is awake. I will speak to her, and you must go straight to bed, and go to sleep, and in the morning your father will be along on the first train. He must have been as much worried as you." "Poor papa," said Charlotte. "So you were all alone in the house, and you came down here all alone at this time," said Anderson, in a tone which his mother had never heard. But it was then that she spoke. "Didn't her father come home?" she asked. When the girl turned like a flash and saw her she seemed to realize for the first time that she had been, and was, doing something out of the wonted. A great, burning blush surged all over her. She shrank away from the man who held her. She cowered before the other woman. "No, papa didn't come," she stammered, "and--I didn't know what to do, and I came here." "You did quite right, you precious child," said Mrs. Anderson, suddenly, in a voice of the tenderest authority. She held out her arms and Charlotte fled to them. Mrs. Anderson looked over the girl's head at her son with the oddest and most inexplicable reproach. "You go up and see if the heat is turned on in that little room out of mine," she commanded, "and then you go into the kitchen and see if you can't find the milk, and set some on the stove to warm. You can pour a little hot water in it to hurry it. If the fire isn't good, open the dampers. And, Randolph, you get my hot-water bag out of my bed, and fill it from the tea-kettle--that water will be hotter than the bath-room, this time of night--and you bring it right up; be as quick as you can." Then all in the same breath she was comforting Charlotte. "Your father is all right, dear child. Don't you worry one mite--not one mite. I remember once, when I was a girl, my father didn't come home, and mother and I were almost crazy, and he came in laughing the next morning. He had lost his last train because there was a block on account of the ice. The river was frozen over. There is nothing for you to worry about. Now come right up-stairs and go to bed. There is a little room out of mine, as warm as toast, and you won't be a bit afraid. There you were all alone in that great house, you poor, blessed child." Charlotte sobbed, but now with a certain comfort. "I should have been so afraid, I should have lost my senses, all alone in a house at your age," said Mrs. Anderson, all the time gently impelling the girl along with her. "Of course there is nothing to be afraid of, but one imagines things; and you came here all alone at this time of the night!" "Yes," responded Charlotte, with a gasp of the intensest self-pity, sure of an echo. Randolph ran up-stairs before his mother and Charlotte and snatched the hot-water bottle out of his mother's bed, and was out the opposite door, which connected with the back stairs leading to the kitchen. As he went out he heard his mother say: "All that way alone this time of night, you poor, precious child!" and Charlotte's little, piteous, yet comforted sob in response, exactly as a hurt baby might respond to commiserations. He felt his own knees tremble as he went down-stairs, carrying the hot-water bottle, which had always struck him as a rather absurd article, to be regarded with the concessions which a man should make to the little, foolish devices for the comfort of a softer and slighter sex. He hunted up the milk in the ice-box, and warmed it with solicitude in a china cup, which, luckily, did not break. The fire was still very good, and the water in the tea-kettle quite boiling. It was not long before he knocked at his mother's door, bearing the water-bottle dangling on one wrist, and carrying the cup of milk. His mother opened the door just wide enough to receive the articles. "Is the milk hot?" she asked. Randolph meekly replied that it had almost boiled. "The water-bottle is hot, too," said his mother, in a satisfied tone. "She is undressed. I got one of my nightgowns for her, and it is quite warm in the little room. Now I am going to take this in to her, and make her drink the milk, and I hope she will get to sleep." "I hope she will," replied Randolph, in a sort of dazed fashion, and there was a foolish radiance over his face, and he did not meet his mother's eyes. "I'm coming into your room a minute, after I see to her," said his mother, and if the man had been a child the tone would have sounded ominous. "All right, mother," replied Anderson. He crossed the hall to his room lined with books, with the narrow couch. It hardly seemed like a bedroom, and indeed he spent much of his time, when not at the store, there. He resumed his seat in the well-worn easy-chair beside his hearth, upon which smouldered a fire, and waited. He still felt dazed. He had that doubt of his own identity which comes to us at times, and which is primeval under stress of a great surprise. The old nursery rhyme of the old woman who had her petticoats clipped and was not sure of herself, has a truth in it which dates from the beginning of things. Anderson, sitting precisely as he had been sitting before in the same chair by the same hearth--he had even taken up the same book in which he had thought to read a chapter after his letters were finished, before retiring--was as completely removed from his former state as if he had been translated into another planet. He looked around the long room, which had a dark, rich coloring from the backs of old books, and some dark red hangings, and even that had a curious appearance of unsubstantiality to him. Or was it substantiality. Suddenly it seemed to him that heretofore he had seen it all through a glass, and now with his natural eyes. He had attained a height a nature whence the prospect is untrammelled by imaginations and shows in the clear light of reality. He thought of the girl whom his mother was coddling, tucking into bed as if she were a baby, and such a wave of tenderness and protection came over him that he felt newly vivified by it. It was as if his very soul put forth arms and wings of love and defence. "The dear little girl!" he thought to himself--"the dear little girl!" The thought that she was safe under his roof, away from all fancied and real terror, filled him with such a joy that he could scarcely contain it. He imagined her nestling in that warm little bed out of his mother's room, and the satisfaction that he might have felt had she been his child instead of his sweetheart, filled him with pure delight. He tried to imagine her terrors, her young-girl terrors, alone in that house, her panic running alone through the night streets, and he even magnified it through inability to understand it. He said to himself that she might have almost gone mad, and again that sublime joy, that immense sense of the protection and tenderness of love, filled his soul, which seemed to put forth wings. Then the door opened and his mother entered softly, slipping through in her voluminous, purple-flowered draperies, with glimpses of white frills and large padding feet in purple-knitted slippers. She still wore her frilled nightcap, and her face confronted him from the white setting with a curious severity. Her hair was put up on crimping-pins, and her high forehead gave her a rather intellectual and stern appearance, and she looked much older. Randolph rose. "Sit down, mother," he said. "No; I am not going to stop a minute. I am going back to her. She seemed real quiet, and I think she'll go to sleep, but if she should wake up and find herself alone she might be frightened." Mrs. Anderson spoke as if of a baby in arms. "Yes, she might; she has had a terrible shock," Anderson said, in what he essayed to render a natural tone. "Terrible shock! I should think she had, poor child!" said Mrs. Anderson, and she seemed to reproach him. "It was a long way for her to come alone," said Anderson, as if he were trying to excuse himself. "I should think it was. It's a good mile, and that wasn't the worst of it. Worrying about her father, and all alone in the house! I was always scared to death alone in a house, and I know what it means." She still seemed reproachful. "She must have been frightened." "I should rather think she would have been." Suddenly his mother's face regarding his took on a different expression; it became shrewd and confidential. "Do you suppose her father has taken this way of--?" she said. "No," answered Randolph, emphatically. "You don't?" "No, I do not. I don't know the man very well, and I don't suppose his record is to be altogether justified, but, if I know anything, he would no more go voluntarily and leave that child alone all night to worry over him than I would." "Then you think something has happened to him?" "I am afraid so." "Do you think there has been an accident?" "I don't know, mother." His mother continued to look at him shrewdly. "Do you suppose he has got into any trouble?" she asked, bluntly. "I don't know, mother." Then Mrs. Anderson's face suddenly resumed its old, reproachful expression. "Well, I don't care if there has," said she. She whispered, but her voice was intense. "I don't care if there has. I don't care if he is in state-prison. That child has got to caring about you, and you ought to--" Anderson turned and looked at his mother, and her severe face softened and paled. He looked to her at that moment more like his father than himself. He was accusing her. "Mother, do you think, if she cares, that I would ever desert her, any more than father would have deserted you?" he demanded. It was her turn to excuse herself. "I know you are honorable, Randolph," she said, "but I saw when I came in, and I don't see how you have seen enough of her to have it happen; but I know girls, and I can see how she feels, and I didn't know but you might think if her father--" "What difference do you think her father makes to me, mother?" asked Anderson. Chapter XL When Carroll came to himself that night after his fall, his first conscious motion was for his dollar watch. He was in William Allbright's bed. There were only two sleeping-apartments in the little tenement. William was seated beside him, watching him with his faithful, serious face; there was also a physician, keenly observant, still closer to the injured man's head; and the sister, Allbright's sister, was visible in the next room, seated in a chair which commanded a good view of the bed. It was Allbright who had rescued Carroll from the station-house; for when he did not rise, the usual crowd, who directly attribute all failures to recover one's self from a manifestly inappropriate recumbent position, had collected, and several policemen were on the scene. "I know this gentleman," Allbright said, in his rather humble, still half-respectful, voice, which carried conviction. "I know this gentleman. I have been a book-keeper in his office. He slipped on the ice. I saw him fall. He is not drunk." One of the policemen, who had been long in the vicinity and knew Allbright, as from the heights of the law one might know an unimportant and unoffending citizen, responded. "All right," he said, laconically. "Hospital?" "Guess he's hurted pretty bad," remarked another policeman, who was a handsome athlete. "Hospital?" inquired the first, who was a man of few words, of Allbright. "I guess we'd better have him taken to my house. It's right here," replied Allbright. "Then we'll call in Dr. Wilson and see how much is the matter with him. Maybe he's only stunned. The hospital is apt to be a long siege, and if there isn't any need of it--" "His house is right here," said the first policeman to the second, with a stage aside. "All right," said the second. A boy pulled Allbright by the sleeve. "Say, I'll go for the doc," he cried, eagerly. He was enjoying the situation keenly. "Well," replied Allbright, "be quick about it. Tell him there's a man badly hurt at my house." The boy sped like a rocket, and three more with him. They all yelled as they ran. They were street gamins of the better class, and were both sympathetic and entertained. They lived in a tenement-house near Allbright, and knew him quite well by sight. Meantime the two policemen carried Carroll the short distance to William Allbright's house. He was quite unconscious, and it was an undertaking of considerable difficulty to carry him up the stairs, since the Allbrights lived in the second story. The clerk in the department store, and his mother, who lived on the first floor, came to their door in undress and offered their hospitality, but Mr. Allbright declined their aid. "No," he said. "I know him. It is Mr. Carroll. He had better be taken up to my rooms." When at last they laid the unconscious man on Allbright's bed, which his sister, pale, and yet with a collectedness under such surprising circumstances which spoke well for her, had opened, the policeman who was not an athlete, and was, in fact, too stout, wiped his forehead and said, "Gee." The other remained looking at the injured man soberly. "Guess he's hurted pretty bad," he remarked again. "You bet," said the first. "Gee!" Allbright's sister came with the camphor-bottle, which she kept in a sort of folk-lore fashion, as her mother had used to do in the country. Allbright brought the whiskey, of which he kept a small supply in the house in case of dire need, and stood over Carroll with that and a teaspoon, with a vague idea of trying to insinuate a few drops into his mouth. The two policemen clamped heavily down-stairs, agreeing that they would remain until the doctor came, and see if it was to be the hospital after all. "Guess he's hurted pretty bad," remarked the handsome policeman for the third time. The doctor came quickly, almost on a run. He lived within a block, and had not a large practice. He was attended by a large throng of boys, for the three had served as a nucleus for many more. He turned around to them with an imperative gesture as he entered the house door. "Now you scatter," said he. He was a fair man, but he had at once an appeal of good-fellowship and a certain force of character. Besides, there were the two policemen hovering near. The boys withdrew and remained watching in the dark shadows cast by an opposite house. In case the injured man was carried to the hospital, and the ambulance should come, they could not afford to miss that. They had not so many pleasures in life. The doctor mounted the stairs; he had been there before, for Allbright's sister was more or less of an invalid, and he at once abetted Allbright's purpose of the few drops of stimulant on the teaspoon, which the patient swallowed with a pathetic, gulping passiveness like a baby's. "He swallows all right," remarked Allbright's sister, in an agitated voice. She stood aloof, waving the camphor-bottle; her eyes were dilated, and her face had a pale, gaping look. "You go out in the other room and stay there," said the doctor to her, with the authority which a hysterical woman defers to and adores. Allbright's sister was a very good woman, but she had sometimes imagined, then directly driven the imagination from her with a spiritual scourge like a monk of old, what might have happened if the doctor were not already married. Carroll's forehead was dripping with camphor, and there was danger should he open his eyes. The doctor wiped the pale forehead gently and spoke to him. "Well, you had quite a hard fall, sir," he said, in a loud, cheerful voice, and directly Carroll answered, like a somnambulist: "Yes, quite a fall." Then he seemed to lapse again into unconsciousness. The doctor and Allbright remained working over him, but it was within fifteen minutes before the time when the last train for Banbridge was due to leave New York that he made the first absolutely conscious motion. "He is feeling for his watch," said Allbright, in an agitated whisper. His wits were sharpened with regard to Carroll's watch. Carroll's coat and vest had been removed, and were hanging over a chair. Allbright at once got the dollar watch from its pocket and carried it over to the sick man. "Here is your watch, Mr. Carroll," he said, and his voice was full of both respectful and tender inflections. A sob was distinctly heard from Allbright's sister out in the sitting-room. The woman from down-stairs, the department clerk's mother, was now with her. "He wants to see if his watch is safe, poor man," said she, in a tearful voice, and Allbright's sister whimpered again. "It's a wonder some of them kids didn't swipe it," said the down-stairs woman, and Allbright's sister was conscious of a distinct thrill of disgust in the midst of her excitement and pity. She was of a superior sort to the down-stairs woman, and she often told her brother she could not get used to folks using such language. Poor Carroll was looking dimly at his watch, and Allbright at once divined that he could not distinguish the time without his eye-glasses. He therefore leaned over him--his own spectacles were on his nose--and told him the time. "It's almost seventeen minutes past twelve, Mr. Carroll," he said. Carroll made a movement to rise, then subsided with a groan. "Where am I?" he inquired, feebly, with a bewildered stare around the strange room. Directly opposite him hung a large crayon portrait of Allbright's father, a handsome man with a reverend beard like a prophet, and his eyes became riveted upon that. "You are in my house, Mr. Carroll," said Allbright, with a tender, caressing motion of his hand towards him, like a woman. "You had a fall on the ice, Mr. Carroll," said the physician, in a tone of soothing explanation, "but you will soon be as good as new." "How far up-town?" inquired Carroll, still gazing at the portrait, which had an odd hardness of outline, and appeared almost as if carved out of wood. "You are at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street," replied Allbright. "You are at my house, Mr. Carroll. You fell right out here, and I had you carried in here." Carroll tried again to rise, and made a despairing gasp. "Oh, my God!" he said. "I have lost the last train out. There isn't time to get down to the ferry, and there is that poor child all alone there, and she won't know--" "You can send a telegram," suggested the doctor. "Now, Mr. Carroll, don't get excited." "She will be all right," said Allbright. "What is it?" asked the down-stairs woman, coming to the door. "His daughter is all alone in the house, I guess, and he's worried about her," explained Allbright. "There ain't nothin' goin' to eat her, if she is, is there?" inquired the down-stairs woman. "I'll run with a telegram," said Allbright, eagerly, to the doctor. But at that moment Carroll lapsed into unconsciousness. The excitement had been too much for him. He lay as if asleep. "Where does he live?" asked the doctor, of Allbright. "I don't know exactly. Somewhere out on the Pennsylvania Railroad." "You don't know?" repeated the doctor, with a faint accent of surprise. Allbright shook his head. "You were book-keeper in his office?" "Yes, but I haven't been there for some time. I never asked any questions." The doctor turned and looked at Carroll. Then he went out of the room, with Allbright following, and gave him some directions. He asked for a glass two-thirds full of water and poured some dark drops into it. "The minute he gets conscious again give him a spoonful of this," he said, "and you had better sit beside him and watch him." Then he turned to Allbright's sister, who was trembling from head to foot with a nervous chill. "You take a dose of that whiskey your brother gave him," he said, jerking his shoulder towards the inner room, "then go to bed, and don't worry your head about him." "Oh, doctor, he isn't going to die here?" "Die here? No, nor nowhere else for one while. There is nothing the matter with the man except he bumped his head rather too hard for comfort." "How long is he likely to be here on their hands?" inquired the down-stairs woman. "He will be able to go home in the morning, I think," said the doctor. "Oh, doctor, you aren't going to go away and leave us with a strange man as sick as he is?" asked Allbright's sister, hysterically. She shook so that she could scarcely speak. "You won't have to worry half so much over a strange man as you would over one you know," replied the doctor, jocosely, "and he is not very sick. He will be all right soon. Now you take some of your brother's medicine and go to bed, for I have six cases to visit to-night before I go home, and I don't want another." Allbright's sister bridled with an odd, inexplicable pride. She did not like to be a burden on her brother, nor make trouble, but there was a certain satisfaction in having the down-stairs woman, who, she had always suspected, rather made light of her ailments, hear for herself that she was undoubtedly delicate. Even the minor and apparently paradoxical pretensions of life are dear to their possessors in lieu of others. "Very well. I suppose I've got to mind the doctor," she replied, and even smiled foolishly and blushed. The doctor turned to Allbright. "I think he will be all right in the morning," he said; "a bit light-headed, of course, but all right. However, don't let him go home before noon, on your life. I will look in in the morning before he goes." And then he turned to Allbright's sister. "On second thought, I will let you make a good big bowl of that gruel of yours before you go to bed," he said; "then he can take it in the course of the night if he is able; and beat him up some eggs in the morning." "I'll make the gruel if she ain't able," said the down-stairs woman, in a tone vibrating between kindness and scorn. "Thank you. I am quite able to make it," said Allbright's sister, and she was full of small triumph and persistency. Yes, she would make the gruel, even if she was so very delicate that she ought to go at once to bed. It was quite evident that she thought that the down-stairs woman could not make gruel good enough for that man in there, anyway. "Well, I guess I'll go," said the down-stairs woman, "as long as I don't seem to be of any use. If there was anything I could do, I'd stay." And she went. "The idea of her coming up here and trying to find out what was going on!" Allbright's sister said to her brother as she was getting the meal ready for the gruel. "I never saw such a curious woman." "If we hadn't got so attached to the place we would move," said Allbright, who was leaving his patient momentarily, to change his shoes for slippers. "I know it," said the sister, "but I can't help feeling attached to the place, we have lived here so long; and there is that beautiful cherry-tree out in the yard, and everything." "That is so," said Allbright. "I am glad Mr. Carroll didn't have to be carried to a hospital." "I suppose he would have been if I had not happened to be right on the spot," said Allbright, reflectively, to his sister. "You think he'll be all right in the morning, don't you?" "Oh yes, the doctor said so!" Outside, the watching boys in the shadow of the church disappointedly vanished, cheated of their small and grewsome excitement, when they saw the doctor quietly walk towards his house and realized that there was to be no ambulance and no hospital. "Gee! I've had knocks harder 'n that, and never said nothin' about it," said one boy as he scurried away with the others towards his home in the high tenement-house. Chapter XLI It was quite early the next morning when Charlotte received the telegram that her father had had a fall on the ice, was not badly injured, and would be home on the noon train. Anderson had gone very early to the telegraph-office. It was being ticked off in Andrew Drake's drug-store when he inquired, and the boy viewed him with intense curiosity when he took the message, but did not dare ask any questions. Anderson hurried home with it to Charlotte, who was not yet up. Mrs. Anderson had insisted upon her having her breakfast in bed, and she had yielded readily. In fact, she was both too confused and too ashamed to see Anderson. She dreaded seeing him. She was as simple as a child, and she reasoned simply. "He held me in his arms and kissed me last night, the way Major Arms would have done with Ina," she told herself, "and of course I suppose I must be engaged to him; but I don't know what he must think of me for coming here the way I did. It was almost as if I asked him first." She wondered if Mrs. Anderson had seen. But Mrs. Anderson's manner to her was of such complete and caressing motherliness that she could not have much fear of her. In reality, the older woman, who had an active imagination, was slightly jealous, in view of future possibilities. "I wonder if they will think they ought to sit by themselves evenings," she reflected. She looked at the girl's slight grace in the bed, and the little, dark head sunken in the pillow, and she wondered how in the world the mother of a girl like that could stay one minute in Kentucky and leave her. "She must be a pretty woman!" she thought to herself. Already she hated the other mother-in-law, and she felt almost a maternal right to the girl. She recalled what she had seen the night before, and thrills of tender reminiscence came over her. "Randolph will make just such a good husband as his father," she thought to herself, and then she rather resented his superior right over the girl, as she might have done if it had not been a question of her own son, and Charlotte had been her own daughter. She loved her as she loved the daughter she had never had. She stroked her hair softly as it curled over the pillow. "You have such pretty hair, dear," she said, with positive pride. The little, flushed face looked up at her. Charlotte had just finished her breakfast. Anderson had brought the telegram and gone, and the two were alone. It was arranged that Charlotte was to get up in an hour, and that Mrs. Anderson was to go home with her in one of Samson Rawdy's coaches. "We will take my maid, and she can get the furnace fire started," she said, "and help about the dinner." "I had such a nice dinner all ready last night," Charlotte said, "and I am afraid it must be spoiled now." "Never mind. We will get another," said Mrs. Anderson. Both Anderson and his mother had succeeded in quieting Charlotte's lingering fears concerning her father. "He probably got stunned," Anderson said; "and he cannot be very bad or he would not be coming home on the noon train." He was talking to Charlotte from his mother's room, with the door ajar. There was something conclusive in Anderson's voice which reassured Charlotte. "My son would not say so unless he thought so," said Mrs. Anderson. "He never says a thing he does not mean." She spoke with a double meaning which Charlotte wholly missed. It had not occurred to her that Mr. Anderson would have taken her in his arms last night and kissed her and comforted her, if he had not been thoroughly in earnest and in love with her. She supposed, of course, he wished to marry her. All that troubled her was her own course in practically proposing to him. Presently, after she and Mrs. Anderson were alone together, she tried to say something about this to the other woman. "I don't know as I ought to have come here last night," she said, "but--" "Where else would you have gone?" inquired Mrs. Anderson. Charlotte looked up at her piteously. "I hope Mr. Anderson didn't think I--I--ought not to," she whispered, and she felt her cheeks blazing with shame. She did not know if Mrs. Anderson really knew, but she was as much ashamed. Mrs. Anderson stooped over her and laid her soft old cheek against the soft young one. "My precious child!" she whispered. "I could not help seeing last night, and this was just the place for you to come, for this is your home, or is going to be; isn't it, dear?" Charlotte put up her soft little arms around the other woman's neck, and began to cry softly. "Oh," she sobbed, "I don't want him to think that I--" "Hush, dear! He will think nothing he ought not to think," said Mrs. Anderson, who did not, in reality, know in the least what the girl was troubled about, but rather thought it possible that she might fear lest her son was not in earnest in his attentions, on her father's account. She did not imagine Charlotte's faith and pride in her father. "My son cares a great deal for you, dear child, or he would never have done as he did last night," she said, "and some day we are all going to be very happy." Charlotte continued to sob softly, but not altogether unhappily. "My son will make a very good husband," Mrs. Anderson said, with a slight inflection of pride. "He will make a good husband, just as his father did." "He is the best man I ever saw, except papa," cried Charlotte then, with a great gulp of blissful confession, and the two women wept in each other's arms. "I will try and make him a good wife," Charlotte whispered, softly. "Of course you will, you precious child." But suddenly Charlotte raised herself a little and looked at Mrs. Anderson with a troubled face. "But I can't leave papa all alone," she said, "and your son would not want to leave you." "Of course my son could not leave me," Mrs. Anderson said, quickly. "I could not leave papa all alone." "Well, we won't worry about that now, dear," Mrs. Anderson replied, although her forehead was slightly knitted. "Your mother and aunt will be back; some way will be opened. We will not worry about that now." Charlotte blushed painfully at the thought that she had been hasty about making preparations for the marriage, and had shocked Mrs. Anderson. "You don't think papa is very badly hurt?" she said. "Why, of course not, dear. Didn't you hear what Randolph said? He probably was stunned. It is so easy to get stunned from a fall on the ice. My husband got a bad fall once, one icy Sunday as we were coming home from the church. They had to carry him into Mr. John Bemis's house, and he did not come to for several hours. I thought he was killed. I never was so frightened except once when Randolph had the croup. But he got all over it. His head was a little sore, but that was all. I presume it was black and blue under his hair. Randolph's father had beautiful thick hair just like his. I dare say he was not hurt so badly, because of that. Your father has thick hair, hasn't he?" "Yes." "Well, I dare say he struck on his head, just as my husband did, and was stunned. I dare say that was just what happened. Of course he did not break any bones, or he would not be coming home on the noon train. I don't believe they would let him out from the hospital so soon as that, even if he had only broken his arm." "Oh, do you think they carried him to a hospital?" "They took him somewhere where he was taken care of, or he would not be coming home on the noon train," said Mrs. Anderson. "It is almost time for you to get up, and I want you to drink another cup of coffee. You came here without any hat, didn't you, poor child?" "Yes." "Well, I haven't got any hat, and you can't wear one of my bonnets, but I have a pretty white head-tie that you can wear; and nobody will see you in the closed carriage, anyway." "I am making so much trouble," said Charlotte. "You precious child!" said Mrs. Anderson; "when I think of you all alone in that house!" "It was dreadful," Charlotte said, with a shudder. "I suppose there was nothing at all to be afraid of, but I imagined all kinds of things." "The things people imagine are more to be afraid of than the things they see, sometimes," Mrs. Anderson said, wisely. "Now, I think perhaps you had better get up, dear, and you must drink another cup of coffee. I think there will be just about time enough for you to drink it and get dressed before the carriage comes." Mrs. Anderson took the pride in assisting the girl to dress that she had done in dressing her son when he was a child. She even noticed, with the tenderest commiseration instead of condemnation, that the lace on her undergarments was torn, and that there were buttons missing. "Poor dear child, she never had any decent training," she said to herself. She anticipated teaching Charlotte to take care of her clothes, as she might have done if she had been her own girl baby. "I guess her clothes won't look like this when I have had her awhile," she said to herself, eying furtively some torn lace on the girl's slender white shoulder. When they were at last driving through the streets of Banbridge, she felt unspeakably proud, and also a little defiant. "I suppose there are plenty of people who will say Randolph is a fool to marry a girl whose father has done the way hers has," she told herself, "but I don't care. There isn't a girl in Banbridge to compare with her. I don't care; they can say what they want to." She was so excited that she had put on her bonnet, which had a little jet aigrette on top, awry. After a while Charlotte timidly ventured to speak of it and straighten it, and the tenderest thrill of delight came over the older woman at the daughterly attention. She told Randolph that noon, after she had got home, that she was really surprised to see how well the poor child, with no training at all, had kept the house, and she said it, remembering quite distinctly a white shade of dust in full view on the parlor-table. "Her dinner was all dried up, of course," she said, "but I thought it looked as if it might have been quite nice when it was first cooked." Already Mrs. Anderson was becoming deceptive for the sake of the girl. She had carried a box of provisions to the house, and they had stopped at the fish-market and bought some oysters; and Mrs. Anderson had taught Charlotte how to make a stew, and retreated before it was quite time for Carroll to arrive. She felt in her heart of hearts that she could not see him yet. Even her love for the girl did not yet reconcile her to Carroll. Charlotte was so glad that her little purse was in her coat-pocket and that she had enough money to pay for the oysters. She felt that she could not have borne it had she been obliged to borrow money of Mrs. Anderson. She felt that it would reflect upon her father. Already she had an instinctive jealousy on her father's account. She loved Mrs. Anderson, but she felt vaguely that not enough was said, even there was not enough anxiety displayed, with regard to her father. She reflected with the fiercest loyalty that even although she did love Mr. Anderson, although she had let him kiss her, although at the mere memory thrills of delight overwhelmed her, she would not ever admit even to herself that he was any better than her father--her poor father who had been hurt and whom everybody was blaming and accusing. Directly after Mrs. Anderson and the maid had gone, she began making the oyster-stew. It would not be quite so good as if she had waited until her father had really arrived, and Mrs. Anderson had told her so, but Charlotte could not bear to wait. She wished him to have something nice and hot the minute he came in. The water boiled and she made the tea. Mrs. Anderson had said that the tea might be better for him than coffee, and she also made toast. Then she went again into the parlor to the window, as she had done the night before; but it was all so different now. She was so happy that she was confused by it. She had not been brought up, as one would say, religiously, although she had always gone to church, but now she realized a strange uplifting of her thoughts above the happiness itself, to a sense of God. She was conscious of a thankfulness which at once exalted and humbled her. She sat down beside the window and looked out, and everything, every dry spear of grass and every slender twig on the trees, was streaming like rainbows in the frosty air. It came to her what an unspeakable blessing it was that she had been allowed to come into a world where there were so many rainbows and so much happiness, and how nothing but more rainbows and happiness could come of these. That there was nothing whatever to dread in the future. And she thought how her father was coming home, and she thought of all her horrible imaginations of the night before as she might have thought of a legion of routed fiends. And soon Samson Rawdy drove her father into the grounds, and she ran to the door. She opened it and went to the carriage with her arms extended, but he got out himself, laughing. "Did you think I wanted help, honey?" he said, but though he laughed, he walked weakly and his face was very pale. He paid Samson Rawdy, who opened his mouth as if to say something, then looked at Carroll's pale face and changed his mind, getting rather stiffly up on his seat--he was growing stout--and driving away. "Oh, papa!" Charlotte said, slipping her arm through his and nestling close up to him as they went into the house. Carroll bent down and kissed her. "Papa's poor little girl!" he said. "It was mighty hard on her, wasn't it?" "Oh, papa, you are not hurt very badly?" "Not hurt at all, sweetheart. I, to put it simply, tumbled down on the ice and hit my head, and was so stunned that I did not come to myself until it was too late for the last train." "Oh, papa, where were you? Did they carry you to a hospital?" "No, dear. I was very near a man who used to keep my books before I gave up my office, and he had me carried to his house, which was near by, and he and his sister did everything for me, they and their doctor." "They must be such good people!" said Charlotte. "Such good people that I can never pay them," said Carroll, in an odd voice. They had entered the house and were going through the hall. "Not in other ways than money," he added, quickly. "I owe him nothing." It was the first time that Carroll had ever attempted to justify himself to his child, but at that moment the sting of thinking that she might suspect that he owed Allbright money was more than he could bear. When they were in the dining-room, Carroll turned and looked at Charlotte. "My poor little girl! What did you think, and what did you do?" said he. She threw her arms around his neck again and clung to him. "Oh, papa, when you didn't come, when the last train went by and you didn't come, I thought--" "Poor little sweetheart!" "I went down to the six-o'clock train, and then I waited for the next, and then I came home, and I watched, and the telegraph-boy came to tell me there was no telegram, and I had the dinner keeping warm on the back of the range; it was beefsteak cooked that way in the cook-book, and there was a pudding," said Charlotte, incoherently, and she began to weep against her father's shoulder. In reality, the girl's nerves were nearer the overstrained point now than they had been before. She was so glad to have her father home, she was so dazed by her new happiness, and there was something about her father's white face which frightened her in a subtle fashion. There was a changed meaning in it beside the sick look. "Poor little girl!" Carroll said again. "Did you have to stay here alone all night?" "No, papa. I stayed just as long as I could, and then I went out, and I ran--" "Where, dear?" "I ran to--" Carroll waited. Charlotte had turned her face as far away from him as she could as she leaned against him, but one ear was burning red. "I ran to the--Andersons'. You know Mr. Anderson, that time when I was so frightened by the tramp-- You know I stayed there to tea, that-- Mrs. Anderson was very kind," said Charlotte, in a stammering and incoherent voice. "Oh," said Carroll. Suddenly Charlotte raised her head, and she looked at him quite bravely, with an innocent confidence. "Papa," said she, "you needn't think I am ever going to leave you, not until Amy and the others come back, because I never will. You never will think so?" "No, darling," said Carroll. His face grew paler. "But," continued Charlotte, "when I went to the Andersons' last night, I rang the bell, and I pounded with the knocker, too, I was so frightened, and Mr. Anderson came right away. He had been to New York himself, to the theatre, and he had not been home long, and--" Carroll waited. "I am never going to leave you, papa," said Charlotte, "and I love you just as much. I love you just as much as I do--him, only, of course, it is different. You needn't think I don't. There is nobody like you. But he--if you don't mind, papa, I think I will marry Mr. Anderson sometime, the way Ina did Major Arms." Carroll did not speak for a moment. He continued looking at her with an expression made up of various emotions--trouble, relief, shame. "He is a very good man," said Charlotte, in a half-defensive tone. "He is the best man I ever saw, except you, papa." Carroll bent down and kissed her. "You are very sure you love him, are you, dear?" he said. "Why, papa, of course I am! I never could see how Ina could love Major Arms enough to marry him, but I can see how anybody could be glad to marry Mr. Anderson." "Then I am very glad, sweetheart," Carroll said, with a curious quietness, almost weariness. "His mother is lovely, too," said Charlotte. "That is nice, dear, for I suppose you will live with them." "When Amy and the others come back," said Charlotte. "I am not ever going to leave you, papa. You know it, don't you?" "Yes, sweetheart," said Carroll, still with the same curious, weary quiet. Charlotte looked at him anxiously. "Does your head ache now, papa?" she asked. "No, dear." "But you don't feel well. You are very pale." "I feel a little weak, that is all, dear." "You will feel better when you have had dinner. Mrs. Anderson came home with me, she and her maid, and she gave me some lovely thin slices of ham, and there is an oyster-stew, and some tea. Sit down, papa dear, and we will have dinner right away." Carroll made a superhuman effort to eat that dinner, but still the look whose strangeness rather than paleness puzzled Charlotte never left his face. She kept looking at him. "You won't go to New York again to-morrow, will you, papa?" said she. "No, dear. I don't think so." "I wish you wouldn't go again this week, papa. To-day is Thursday." "Perhaps I won't, dear." After dinner Carroll lay down on the divan in the den and Charlotte covered him up, and after a while he fell asleep; but even asleep, when she stole in to look at him, there was the same strange expression on his face. It was the face of a man whose mind is set irrevocably to an end. A martyr going to the stake might have had that same look, or even a criminal who was going to his doom with a sense of its being his just deserts, and with the bravery that befitted a man. That evening Anderson came to call, and Carroll answered the door-bell. He took him into the parlor, and spoke at once of the subject uppermost in the minds of both. "Charlotte has told me," Carroll said, simply. He extended his hand with a pathetic, deprecatory air. "You know what you are doing when you ask for my daughter's hand," he said. "You know she might have a parentage which would reflect more credit upon her." "I am quite satisfied," Anderson replied, in a low voice. All at once, looking at the other man, it struck him that he had never in his life pitied any one to such an extent, and that he pitied him all the more because Carroll seemed one to resent pity. "This much I will say--I can say it confidently now," said Carroll, "I shall meet all my indebtedness. You will have no reason to hesitate on that account," but he paused a moment. "I am driven to resorting to any honest method which I can find to enable me so to do," he continued. He made a slight emphasis upon the word honest. "I can understand that as fully, possibly, as any man," Anderson replied, gravely. Carroll looked at him. "Yes, so you can," he said--"so you can. Well, this much I will say for myself, Mr. Anderson. I am proud and glad to confide my daughter to your keeping. I am satisfied, and more than satisfied, with her choice." "Thank you," replied Anderson. He felt a constraint, even embarrassment, as if he had been a very young man. He was even conscious of blushing a little. "Sit down," said Carroll, placing a chair for him, and offering him a cigar. Then he went to call Charlotte. It was at that moment rather a hard experience for Charlotte that it was not her mother instead of her father who called her to go down and see her lover. She had thought, with a passion of yearning, of her mother who had done the same thing, and would understand, as she fluffed out her pretty hair around her face in front of the glass in her room. When her father called her she ran down, but instead of going at once into the parlor, where she knew her lover was waiting for her, she ran into the den. She felt sure that her father had retreated there. She found him there, as she had thought, and she flung her arms around his neck. "I am never going to leave you alone, you know, papa," she whispered. "Yes, dear." "Papa, come in there with me." Carroll laughed then. "Run along, honey," he said, and gave her a kiss, and pushed her softly out of the room. Chapter XLII Carroll, left alone, lighted another cigar from force of habit. It was one of the abominably cheap ones which he had been smoking lately when by himself. He never offered one to anybody else. But soon the cigar went out and he never noticed it. He sat in a deep-hollowed chair before a fireless hearth, and the strange expression upon his face deepened. It partook of at once exaltation and despair. He heard the soft murmur of voices from the parlor where the lovers were. He reflected that he should tell Anderson, before he married Charlotte, the purpose in his mind; that he owed it to him, since that purpose might quite reasonably cause a man to change his own plans with regard to marrying her. He decided that he would tell him that night before he left. But he felt that it would make no difference to a man of Anderson's type; that it was only for his own sake, the sake of his own honor, that it was necessary to tell him at all. Then he fell to thinking of what was before him, of the new life upon which he would enter the next Monday, and it was actually to this man of wrong courses but right instincts, this man born and bred of the best and as the best, as if he were contemplating the flames of the stake or the torture of the rack. He felt, in anticipation, his pride, his self-respect, stung as with fire and broken as upon the wheel. He was beset with the agonies of spiritual torture, which yet brought a certain solace in the triumph of endurance. He had at once the agony and the delight of the fighter, of the wrestler with the angel. What he had set himself to do for the sake of not only making good to others what they had lost through him, but what he had lost through himself, was unutterably terrible to him. But while his face was agonized, he yet threw back his head with the motion of the conqueror. And he owned to himself that the conquest was even greater because it was against such petty odds, because both the fight and the triumph savored of the ignoble, even of the ridiculous. It would be much easier to be a hero whom the multitude would applaud and worship than a hero whom the multitude would welcome with laughter. When comedy becomes tragedy, when the ignominious becomes victorious, he who brings it about becomes majestic in spite of fate itself. And yet withal the man sitting there listening to the soft murmur from the other room felt that his own life, so far as the happiness which, after all, makes life worth living for mortal weakness, was over. He thought of his wife and sister and children, who would be all safely sheltered, and, he hoped, even happy in time, although separated from him; and while his soul rejoiced over that, he yet could not help thinking of himself. Listening to the voices of the lovers in the parlor, he thought how he and Amy used to make love, and how it was all over, perhaps forever over. He smiled a little as he remembered how his Charlotte had asked him to go with her to meet her lover. Gentle and affectionate to his family as he was, Carroll was essentially masculine. He could not in the least understand how the girl felt. He felt a little anxious lest the child should not really love Anderson, because she hesitated, since he could see no other reason for her hesitation. However, when, about eleven o'clock, he heard the stir of approaching departure, and went hurriedly into the hall in order to intercept Anderson before he went, one glimpse of the girl's little face reassured him. She seemed to at once have grown older and younger. She was reflective, and fairly beaming with utmost anticipations. She looked at Anderson as he had never seen her look at any one. He had doubted a little about Ina; he had no doubt whatever about Charlotte. "She is in love with him, fast enough," he said to himself. He spoke to Anderson, and asked to have a word with him before he went. "Come back into the parlor a moment, if you please," he said. "I have a word to say to you." Anderson followed him into the room. He already had on his overcoat. Carroll stood close to him and spoke in a low voice. His face was ghastly when he had finished, but he looked proudly at the other man. "Now it is for you to say whether you will advance or retreat, for I think that, under the circumstances, nobody could say that you did not do the last with honor," he concluded. Anderson, who had also turned pale, stared at him a second, and his look was a question. "There is absolutely nothing else that I can do," replied Carroll, simply; "it is my only course." Anderson held out his hand. "I shall be proud to have your daughter for my wife," he said. "Remember she is not to know," Carroll said. "Do you think the ignorance preferable to the anxiety?" "I don't know. I cannot have her know. None of them shall know. I have trusted you," Carroll said, with a sort of agonized appeal. "I had, as a matter of honor, to tell you, but no one else," he continued, still in his voice which seemed strained to lowness. "I had to trust you." "You will never find your trust misplaced," replied Anderson, gravely, "but it will be hard for her." "You can comfort her," Carroll said, with a painful smile, in which was a slight jealousy, the feeling of a man outside all his loves of life. "When?" asked Anderson, in a whisper. "Monday." "She will, of course, come straight to my mother, and it can all be settled as soon as possible afterwards. There will be no occasion to wait." "Amy may wish to come," said Carroll, "and Anna." "Of course." The two men shook hands and went out in the hall. Carroll went back to the den, and left Charlotte, who was shyly waiting to have the last words with her lover. Pretty soon she came fluttering into the den. "You do like him, don't you, papa?" she asked, putting her arms around her father's neck. "Yes, dear." "But I am never going to leave you, papa, not for him nor anybody, not until Amy and the others come back." "You will never forget papa, anyway, will you, honey?" said Carroll, and his voice was piteous in spite of himself. "Forget you, papa? I guess not!" said Charlotte, "and I never will leave you." That was Thursday. The next afternoon Mrs. Anderson came and called on Charlotte. She was glad that Carroll was not at home. She shrank very much from meeting him. Carroll had not gone to New York, but had taken the trolley to New Sanderson. He also went into several of the Banbridge stores. The next Sunday morning, in the barber's shop, several men exhibited notes of hand with Carroll's signature. "I don't suppose it is worth the paper it is written on," said Rosenstein, with his melancholy accent, frowning intellectually over the slip of paper. "He gave the dressmaker one, too," said Amidon, "and she is tickled to death with it. The daughter had already asked her to take back a silk dress she had made for her, and she has sold it for something. The dressmaker thinks the note is as good as money." "I've got one of the blasted things, too," said the milkman, Tappan. "It's for forty dollars, and I'll sell out for ten cents." "I'd be willing to make my davyalfit that Captain Carroll's notes will be met when they are accentuated," said the little barber, in a trembling voice of partisanship, looking up from the man he was shaving; and everybody laughed. Lee, who was waiting his turn, spoke. "Captain Carroll says he will pay me the price I paid for the United Fuel stock, in a year's time," he said, proudly. "The stock has depreciated terribly, too. A pretty square man, I call him." "He's got more sides than you have, anyhow," growled Tappan, who was bristling like a pirate with his week's beard; and everybody laughed again, though they did not altogether know why. However the recipients of Carroll's notes doubted their soundness, they folded them carefully and put them in their pocketbooks. When Carroll took the eight-o'clock train to New York the next morning, several noticed it and thought it looked well for the payment of the notes. "Guess he's goin' to start another cheat," said the milkman, who had stopped at the saloon opposite Rosenstein's. "I seed him git on the eight-ten train." Charlotte had been told by her father that he was going to New York that morning, and she had risen early and prepared what she considered a wonderful breakfast for him. She was radiant. Anderson had called upon her the evening before. She had never been so happy. Her father seemed in very good spirits, but she wondered why he looked so badly. It was actually as if he had lost ten pounds since the night before. He was horribly haggard, but he talked and laughed in a manner rather unusual for him, as he ate his breakfast. Charlotte watched jealously that he should do that. When he took his second badly fried egg, she beamed, and he concealed his physical and mental nausea. When they were eating breakfast, much to Charlotte's amazement, the village express drove into the yard. "Why, there is the express, papa!" she said. "Yes, honey," replied Carroll, calmly. "I have a trunk I want to send to New York." "Oh, papa, you are not going away?" "Sending a trunk does not necessarily imply you are going yourself, honey. I have a trunk to send in connection with some business." "Oh!" said Charlotte, quite satisfied. Carroll rose from the table and showed the expressman the way to his room, and the trunk was brought down and carried away, and Charlotte asked no more questions and thought no more about it. Carroll walked to the station. When it was time for him to start, he went to Charlotte, who was clearing away the breakfast dishes, and held her in his arms and kissed her. "Good-bye, papa's blessing," he said, and in spite of himself his voice broke. The man had reached the limit of his strength. But Charlotte, who was neither curious nor suspicious, and was, besides, dazzled by her new happiness, only laughed. "Why, papa, I should think you were going away to stay a year!" said she. Carroll laughed too, but his laugh was piteous. He kissed her again. "Well, good-bye, honey," he said. Just as he was going out of the door he stopped, and said, as if it were a minor matter which he had nearly forgotten, "Oh, by-the-way, sweetheart, I want you, at exactly half-past nine, to go into the den and look in the third volume of the Dutch Republic, and see what you will find." Charlotte giggled. "A present!" said she. "I know it is a present, but what a funny place to put it in, papa, the third volume of the Dutch Republic." "At exactly half-past nine," said Carroll. He kissed her again and went away. Charlotte stood watching him go out of the yard. It came into her head that he must have had some very good luck, and had taken this funny way of making her a present of some money. Of course it could only be money which was to be hidden in such a place as a book. Poor Charlotte's imaginations were tainted by the lack of money. She could hardly imagine a pleasant surprise unconnected with money. She hurried about her household tasks, and at exactly half-past nine, for she was obedient as a child, she went into the den and got from the case the third volume of the Dutch Republic. In it she found an envelope. She thought that it contained money, but when she opened it and found a letter, suddenly her heart failed her. She sat down dizzily on the divan and read the letter. It was very short. It only told her that her father loved her and loved them all; that he was writing the others just what he was writing her; that he loved her, but he was forced to go away and leave her, and not even let her know where he was nor what he was doing--not for a long time, at least; but that she was not to worry, and she was to go at once to Mrs. Anderson, who would take care of her until she was married. Then he bade God bless her, and said he was her loving father. Charlotte sat with the letter in her lap, and the room looked dim to her. She heard the door-bell ring, but she did not seem to realize what it was, not even when it rang the second and the third time. But the front door had been left unlocked when Carroll went, and Anderson came in presently, and his mother was with him. Mrs. Anderson knew nothing except that Carroll had gone, and nobody was to know where, or why, but that there was nothing dishonorable about it, and Charlotte was to come to them. She was quite pale herself when she saw Charlotte sitting on the divan with the letter in her lap. "I have a letter from papa," Charlotte said, piteously, in a trembling voice. Then Anderson had her in his arms and was soothing and comforting her, and telling her he knew all about it. It was all right, and she was not to worry. Mrs. Anderson stood watching them. "Where are your coat and hat, child?" said she, presently. She, in reality, felt that she was the proper person to have comforted the girl, under such circumstances, and not a man who knew nothing about girls, nor how they would feel when deserted, in a measure, by a father. When they were in the carriage, she sat on the seat with Charlotte and kept her arm around her, and looked across almost defiantly at her son. "It is a terrible strain on the poor little thing, and if we are not careful she will be down with a fever," she told Randolph, privately, when they were home. He laughed. "Take care of her all you want to, mother," he said. After dinner he went up to the Carroll place. He had his instructions from Carroll what to do. Some of the creditors were partly satisfied with the things belonging to the Carrolls; some were taken to the Anderson house for Charlotte. As for Charlotte herself, she was, in reality, not so far from the fever which Mrs. Anderson had predicted. She adored her father. Every day she watched for a letter. At last Anderson told her as much as he could and not break his word to her father. "Your father is perfectly safe, dear," he said, "and he is earning a great deal of money." "What is he doing?" asked Charlotte, and her manner showed for the first time suspicion of her father. "Something perfectly honest, dear," Anderson replied, simply, "but he does not want you to know and he does not want the others to know. You just be contented and brave and make the best of it all." That was not long before they were married. It had seemed best to them all that they should not delay long. Mrs. Carroll did not come to the wedding, because Ina was ill. Anna knew as well as Anderson what her brother was doing. She had somehow comforted her sister-in-law without telling her anything, but she did not think it best to visit Banbridge. She had at times a feeling as if she herself were doing what her brother was, and the shame and pride together stung her in the same way. She wrote by every mail to Carroll, and posted it in another town, and nobody knew. In one of the letters she told him with an unconcealed glee that his old enemy, the man who had brought about all this, had had a shock of paralysis. "He will never speak again," she wrote. "He has become dead while he is alive. After all, the Lord is just." Carroll got that letter a few weeks after Charlotte was married. One Sunday night he made a trip to Banbridge. He was close-shaven; he had grown very thin; nobody would have recognized him, nobody did recognize him, although he met several Banbridge people whom he used to know on the train. It was after dark, but the winter sky was full of stars, which seemed very near as he took his way up the street towards the Anderson house. He walked slowly when he approached the house, and frequently cast a look behind him, as if he were afraid of being seen. When he reached the house he saw the curtains in the sitting-room were not drawn, and a warm glow of home seemed to shine forth into the wintry night. Carroll cautiously went up the steps, very softly. He went far enough to see the interior of the room, and he saw Charlotte and her husband sitting there. Mrs. Anderson was there also. She was reading the Bible, as befitted a Sunday night. Now and then she looked at Charlotte with a look of the utmost love and pride. Anderson, who was reading the paper, looked up, and the watching man saw him, and his eyes and Charlotte's met. The man watching knew that no anxiety about him seriously troubled her then, that she was entirely happy, and a feeling of sublime content and delight that it should be so, and he quite outside of it all, came over him. He went softly down the steps and along the street to the station, where he could get a train back to the City in a few moments. To his own amazement, he was quite happy, he was even more than happy. A species of exaltation possessed him. Even the thought of himself, Arthur Carroll, posing nightly as a buffoon before the City crowds, did not daunt him. He realized a kind of joyful acquiescence with even that. He felt a happy patience when he considered the time that might elapse before he could see his family again. He passed the butcher's shop, and reflected with delight that he should be able to meet the note which was due next day. He remembered happily that he had been able to send Charlotte a little sum of money for her _trousseau_, and that perhaps a part of it had bought the pretty, rose-colored dress which she was wearing that night. Still, all this did not altogether account for the wonderful happiness which seemed to fill him as with light. He hurried along the street frozen in ridges like a sea, and he remembered what Anna had written about the man who had wronged him, and all at once he understood what filled him with this exaltation of joy, and he understood that underneath all the petty dishonors of his life had been a worse dishonor which took hold of his very soul and precipitated all the rest, and that he was now rid of it. He had no sense of triumph over his enemy, no joy that the Lord had at last wreaked vengeance upon the man who had injured him; but he was filled with an exceeding pity, and a sense of forgiveness which he had never in his life felt before. He had never forgiven before; now he forgave. He remembered, going along the streets, the words of The Lord's Prayer, "Forgive my debts as I forgive my debtors," and his very heart leaped with the knowledge that forgiveness was due him because of his forgiveness of another, and that the debt of honor to God and his own soul was paid. THE END