SEALED ORDERS 
 
 BY 
 
 ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE GATES AJAR," " THE STORY OF AVIS," 
 ETC., ETC. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY. 
 Btoemfce 
 
 1879. 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1879, 
 BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
 
 ELECTROTYPE!) AND PRINTED BY 
 II. 0. HOUGIITON AND COMPANY. 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 TO . 
 
 HOLD them, Dear, these gathered pages, 
 
 Fugitives reclaimed and ordered 
 
 Faltering on a doubtful errand, 
 
 Seeking to renew old friendships 
 
 Saddest of all human venture, 
 
 Gladdest of all human welcome. 
 
 Hold us ; hold the sent and sender; 
 
 Touch us, for your hands are gentle. 
 
 When the eager lip is silent, 
 
 When the message is unspoken 
 
 That the heart of health would render, 
 
 And the years wait for their meaning, 
 
 And the hands of life are folded; 
 
 Turn we to the tried affections, 
 
 To the faithful of the faithful 
 
 That we number counting golden 
 
 Rings upon the bridal finger 
 
 Of the soul .... 
 
 Turn we to the truest loving, 
 
 And the tenderest reproving, 
 
 And the cheerfulest inspiring, 
 
 And the loyalest upholding 
 
 That the faith of friend has offered 
 
 To the tale or to the teller; 
 
 . . . . Turn we, Dear, to you! 
 
 Hold us, for your heart is gentle. 
 
 M504966 
 
NOTE. 
 
 MANY of these stories are reprinted from Harper s Monthly, 
 the New York Independent, Scribner s Monthly, and the At 
 lantic Monthly. 
 
 E. S. P. 
 
 EASTERN POINT, GLOUCESTER, August, 1879. 
 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SEALED ORDERS . . . . . . 1 
 
 OLD MOTHER GOOSE ......... 27 
 
 THE LADY OF SHALOTT 48 
 
 THE TRUE STORY or GUENEVER 65 
 
 DOHERTY- . . . . .81 
 
 THE VOYAGE OP THE " AMERICA " . . . . . 92 
 
 WRECKED IN PORT . . . . - . . . 114 
 
 RUNNING THE RISK . . . . . . 129 
 
 LONG, LONG AGO . . . . . . . . .154 
 
 SINCE I DIED . . . . . ... 168 
 
 A WOMAN S PULPIT . . 176 
 
 NUMBER 13 .. . . 201 
 
 Two HUNDRED AND Two 227 
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD 253 
 
 SAINT CALIGULA 281 
 
 Miss MILDRED S FRIEND 296 
 
 NEBLITT . -322 
 
SEALED ORDERS. 
 
 I SUPPOSE there are folks that see the reasons of things. 
 But I was never one of them. Made so, perhaps. Made 
 to take life out in that way. But I don t know. It isn t 
 easy to say. Nor it has n t been easy to take ; not very. 
 
 In a measure I don t mind talking to you, Tom Brown. 
 It s with humans as it is with other cattle out in these here 
 great solitudes, they herd together close for company. It 
 seems such a lonesome thing to live. Don t it ever strike 
 you, Tom, as a lonesome thing to be alive ? Since we Ve 
 took to this dig-out I ve felt it particularly keen. It s this 
 ugly cough that s catched me, in part, maybe. 
 
 I feel sick most all the time. A man s apt to be lone 
 like when he s sickly. I ve been well off, too, compara 
 tively, since you and I have messed together. I m free to 
 say I d like you better if your language was n t rough, odd 
 times, as I ve often told you. I suppose your heart s got 
 a rough side to t, or the words would n t roughen out o t ; 
 but ye ve never turned it onto me, if there is. I don t 
 like roughness, like a woman, may be. That set I got 
 into up to Downer s shaft called me the old woman, some 
 times. I did n t stay at Downer s a great while. I had n t 
 any luck there. The only stone I sighted was too hard for 
 me to crack. I sold it to Jeb Pekins for ten dollars on his 
 note of hand. 
 
 I spoke to you, didn t I, about the reasons of things 
 and the difference in folks? Now I began to the very b e- 
 1 
 
2 SEALED OEDERS. 
 
 ginning the way I ve kept up since. I was the youngest of 
 seven, born onto a three-acre farm and a Connecticut stock? 
 You know the Connecticut stock ? Slow, and full of medi 
 tations before they do a thing; when the crop fails, sit 
 round the tobacco barns and talk it over ; sit up straight in 
 meetin ; have a serious manner, like revivals, on the price 
 of corn and school-books ; not a spry stock ; sleepy, I think, 
 like the great river-flats, and as hard to cultivate. The sev 
 enth child comes hard in Connecticut. I come hard, very. 
 Five years between me and Abi thar, the next boy. I 
 was n t expected nor looked for, and there d been a drought, 
 and the season was dull in every particular. I ve heard 
 tell how my mother cried, and father said, says he : 
 
 " I ve edicated four " (there were six, but two were girls) 
 "I ve edicated four, and this one must rough it best he 
 can." 
 
 " I can t afford him," says father, shaking his head at the 
 cradle (I ve heard tell). " He must shift for himself, poor 
 creetur ! I never thought it possible," says father, " that 
 I could have another boy." 
 
 I was christened Finis. It s a foreign word, and means 
 " the end." Father got it of Abi thar and took a notion to it. 
 Abi thar was put to his book quite young, and he studied 
 all the foreign tongues. I used to cry sometimes nights to 
 think I d got it. I did n t know any other boy with such 
 a name. But I ve got used to it now. The boys took a 
 shine to it out here. Peterson asked me if it was French 
 or Hebrew. 
 
 I m not an imagining man, Tom Brown, nor given to 
 notions and fancies and imaginations, I don t think ; but 
 that took hold of me from the very start, somehow or 
 Another, that I was n t wanted nor desired to be at all. I 
 used to think about it when I was a youngster a sight. I 
 had n t no chance to forget it. Mother, she made me re 
 member it ; if it was n t for anything else, for the way she 
 
SEALED ORDEKS. 3 
 
 sat and cried in patching up my little close. None of the 
 other boys were ever patched, up so much. Father used 
 to talk a sight to me about how much I cost, and that he 
 was poor, and that I must earn my own way, young and 
 early. The boys and the girls, they made me feel it in a 
 sight of curious ways. I think I was a sort of willing lit 
 tle cheersome chap, but I used to wonder how these boys 
 and girls could find so many chores and arrants to be done. 
 Children take a trick of things up from their elders mighty 
 fast. 
 
 The most I remember of our folks is what dreadful sav 
 ing folks they were. And when Connecticut folks set out 
 to save, it s a -savin sight, I tell you, Tom. Sometimes I 
 had a wonder how they ever could have done it if it had n t 
 been for me. If father wanted to save seventy -five cents 
 on a man s hire, he put me at it, mowing, berrying, 
 weeding, tending caows. I drove a plow before I was up to 
 that little lad of Peterson s shoulders, that he brought down 
 
 ^ 
 
 here last Christmas, maybe you remember. A likely lit 
 tle lad. I was glad to know Peterson schooled him a little. 
 I was glad to see him on a Christmas time. But when I 
 patted his head he shied off. Children don t take to me. 
 Maybe I don t understand their ways. I lived so different 
 when I was a little child. I don t see a little chap brought 
 up just as I was very often. 
 
 It was just so with all of em ; don t you see ? If mother 
 felt tuckered out, and she generally did (most Connecticut 
 women folks are tuckered out) if mother felt a little 
 peaked, she had me in to do the housework. She learned 
 me to sweep, and putter round, and wash the dishes, like a 
 girl. That s how I came to know when you put too much 
 salaratus in your johnny-cake, and my flapjack receipt I 
 got from her, sitting on a stool and turning of em over, and 
 trying not to let the tears fall in, for I d picked up a little 
 old picture-book of Abi thar s, that I d set my heart on try- 
 
4 SEALED ORDERS. 
 
 ing to make the pictures out. I was eight years old, and 
 I d never been to school, when she took the notion to have 
 me turn the flapjacks. 
 
 There was one of the girls that never tried to save any 
 thing out of me. That was the second one Susan. Susan 
 come next to Abi thar. She was six years older than me. 
 She had a soft way with her, Susan had ; lightish eyes and 
 hair like Peterson s little lad. She used to come into my 
 loft. I slept in the loft. She come up nights and tucked 
 me up. Seems to me she used to kiss me. There did n t 
 a great many folks kiss me. It was Susan that learned me 
 to say my prayers. One day, I know, says she to me : 
 
 " Finis, would you like to go to school ? " 
 
 For I d never been. I said I was afraid they could n t 
 afford to send me to school. The school-books cost so 
 much, and who would turn the flapjacks ? But Susan said 
 it was time I went, and said she d turn the flapjacks. She 
 said I was to go some time or other, and that it was quite 
 high time. So, when the winter term set in and work was 
 dull, she says one day, again : 
 
 " Finis, you re to go to school to-morrow." 
 
 I said she was very kind, and I wanted to kiss her ; but 
 I did n t like to ask. But she kissed me twice ; she did n t 
 wait for me to ask. We were sitting out on the chopping- 
 block, behind the little hickory woodpile. It was a little 
 pile, but tough ; it had taken me a great while to finish that 
 pile. Susan used to come out sometimes when they were 
 baking cookies, with a hot one, and lay it on the block and 
 run. So then I went to school, and I staid two months. 
 
 Eh ? Yes, that was all. I never went to school only 
 those two months. The other boys ? I told you the other 
 boys all went. They did n t try to save out of the other 
 boys. One of my brothers has written a book. I saw it 
 in a newspaper the other day, and that it had sold three 
 thousand copies. I d like to see the book. I sent for it to 
 
SEALED ORDERS. 5 
 
 the Crossings, but I don t look to get it. I sent a dollar 
 bill by Pekins, when he was here, to get it with. 
 
 So I went to school two months. When my time was 
 up, Susan says to me, one night, says she : 
 
 " You re not to go to school again, Finis, after this." 
 
 I says : " Not any more at all ? " 
 
 For I loved my book. I don t think I ever was so com 
 fortable in my mind as I was when I was at my book those 
 two months. I d well-nigh forgotten that I was the last of 
 seven, and could n t be wanted nor desired nor afforded, till 
 Susan spoke. 
 
 Says Susan : " No. Never again." And I saw two tears 
 roll out of Susan s eyes. So, when I saw the tears, I says : 
 
 " Well, never mind, Susan." For I could n t bear to 
 make her cry for me. I had n t ever seen anybody cry for 
 me before, only mother, when she mended up my little 
 close, far back as I could remember. So I said : 
 
 " Never mind, Susan," and sat up straight, as if I did n t 
 and I should n t mind. 
 
 " You re to be put to work," says Susan. " They can t 
 afford to keep you at your book." 
 
 Says I : u Susan, do I cost a great deal ? " 
 
 Says Susan, after a minute : " I don t know, my dear." 
 
 Then says I : " Susan, do I cost so much more than the 
 other boys ? " 
 
 But Susan only said she did n t know, and cried a little 
 more. Then says I, once more : " Susan, do you think if 
 father d set as much by me as he does by the other boys 
 that I d have cost him so much more ? " 
 
 But Susan says : " My dear ! my dear ! I don t know 
 anything about it ! " 
 
 Then says I (I remember plain enough, I says) : " No 
 body sets as much by me as they do by the other boys, Su 
 san." 
 
 I had a kind of drawling, slow way of talking when ] 
 
6 SEALED ORDERS. 
 
 was a little chap, not unlike my manners now. I can hear 
 myself just how I brought it out. 
 
 " I set more by you," says Susan, " than I do by all the 
 boys." 
 
 And we never says anything more about it or about an 
 education from that day. And I was put to work the next 
 week come a Monday morning. I was ten years old. I ve 
 often thought of it how Susan said she set so much by me. 
 Susan was the only living creetur that ever set by me to 
 that extent. And she died next June. She had the gal- 
 lopin consumption and died in twenty days. They forgot 
 to call me in when she was dyin<j, for I was out drawino- 
 
 t/ Z5? O 
 
 water for the caows. All the other boys were there. It 
 was at sunset of a June day. When I come in to wash up 
 and go up and see her, Abi thar come down and told me 
 she was dead. 
 
 They buried her over to the first church buryin ground. 
 I was very lonesome after Susan died. 
 
 Then I had a puppy. I think it was after Susan died 
 that I had that puppy. It was a measly little black-and- 
 tan puppy, that had her leg run over by a hay-cart. I took 
 it and nursed it up. I named her Susan. But I called her 
 Sue, for I was n t sure if it was proper. I never called her 
 so when folks were round. I set a sight by that puppy ; 
 took her up to sleep foot of my bed nights. She was civil 
 enough to the other boys, but she set the world by me ; 
 followed me round my work ; would n t eat out of nobody 
 else s hands, that puppy would n t, if she were half starved. 
 She went hungry, too, sometimes. 
 
 She was a large dog for a black-and-tan ; and father said 
 she eat too much and he could n t afford to keep her. So 
 he had her killed. 
 
 Then there was a little chap I knew at school I took a 
 fancy to. His name was Reuben Ross. He was old Dr. 
 Ross s boy. He was a lively little chap, with black eyes 
 
SEALED ORDERS. 7 
 
 and a busy way. I liked him. But his father could afford 
 to have him ; so he went to school, and through the High, 
 and after that to another schot)!. So he kind of grew away, 
 and got ashamed of me, I guess. I never liked another little 
 chap so well. 
 
 Did ye ever chance to see a ship s crew weighing anchor 
 under sealed orders? No? Well, I never did but once. 
 It s a curious sight and it gives a man a curious feeling. 
 He is n t likely to feel so helpless and so ignorant and so 
 hopeless in any other way I know of, nor so down-hearted 
 either. I never saw the sight but once. The feelings it 
 give me stuck like plaster after it. I don t know as I ve 
 got over em yet. I saw my brother Abi thar set off in 
 that way once. Didn t know where he was going. Didn t 
 none of us know. It s a long story. His young wife stood 
 by on the wharf. I had to take her home after the boat 
 hove out of sight. My brother Abi thar married a beauti 
 ful wife. 
 
 Did I mention a little girl that our folks took into the 
 house after Susan died ? For they set a store by Susan. 
 She didn t cost a great deal. And she had such pretty 
 ways. They were very lonesome, and they took this little 
 girl. 
 
 They took her to help about the house at first. She was 
 a sort of cousin, old Cousin Dorothy s daughter s daugh 
 ter ; and Cousin Dorothy could n t do for her, for she was 
 paralicious and the child s parents both were dead. So our 
 folks took her as a sort of charity and to help save about 
 the housework, and for being lonesome, as I said. For my 
 other sister, she d married by that time, and set up house 
 keeping over at East Abington. Her husband was a tin 
 smith, and mother had n t anybody to help about the house ; 
 for they put me to farm-work then continual. But when 
 they d got her they took a surprising notion to that little 
 girl. Her name was Carle. But Cousin Dorothy called 
 her Charlotte always. 
 
8 SEALED OKDEES. 
 
 I ve got a picture, somewheres, of that little girl. She 
 went over to the dagerrotype saloon with Abi thar and me, 
 one Saturday afternoon, and had her likeness taken. Abi 
 thar paid for the likeness. Father paid him for his work 
 vacations round the place. Abi thar always had a little 
 money. Father didn t give me any time, not a half day 
 
 t. I was twenty-one before I had my time. But when 
 Abi thar went to sea he left the likeness. So I got it. I d 
 show it to you, Tom Brown, if your language wasn t some 
 times rough. 
 
 It s a singular thing to me, the way a man s heart will 
 grow around a little girl. Carle was very good to me. She 
 was a merry creetur , always laughin out about the house. 
 She turned her head one side, this way, saucy, like a robin s. 
 
 1 ve seen that little creetur go and perch upon the arm of 
 father s chair, no more afraid than I be of you this very 
 minute. I ve stood in the back door peeping in and seen 
 her time again. I never dared to touch my father s chair. 
 If him and I were in heaven together this living day, and 
 God A mighty bade me, I don t think I d darst touch 
 my father s chair. Couldn t get over the feeling, you 
 know. When he lay a-dying, I d rather the doctor d touch 
 him. But Carle didn t mind. Carle never minded any 
 body. 
 
 As nigh as I can remember, I was seventeen years old, 
 when one night I came upon two folks sitting together be 
 hind the currant bushes, as I was driving home the caows. 
 I came on them sudden, and Carle was one. Carle was six 
 teen then, a year younger than me. It was before she had 
 begun to pale down and her cheeks were round. My brother 
 Abi thar was the other. Abi thar had his arm round her. 
 He was dressed up in his college close and his wristbands 
 were clean. They were picking the currants together. The 
 color of the currants and the color of Carle s cheeks was 
 much of a piece. They did n t hear me nor see me. I was 
 
SEALED ORDEIIS. 9 
 
 in my working close. I was dirty and grimy and had the 
 caows to watch ; so I turned off and went roun behind the 
 chicken-house. I did n t speak to them at all. But when 
 the chores were done I washed up and went off into the 
 cranberry patch, and set there alone. I think I must have 
 set there half the night. I m a slow-thinking person, may 
 be : just as I am slow of speech. It took me half the night 
 to think out the thoughts that came to me in the cranberry 
 patch. It \vas a starlight night. 
 
 It seems to me, Tom Brown, that there s something dread 
 ful in it when a man finds out that he d like to take a par 
 ticular woman to be his wife. I ve often wondered if it s 
 the same thing to a woman when she likes a man, only 
 that it s a disrespectful sort of thing, to my mind, to specu 
 late on the ways of women folks. To be sure, I was only 
 seventeen years old ; but I never was like other boys. Ev 
 erything come so dear and high in my time. I remember 
 thinking in the cranberry pasture that Carle come just as 
 dear as all things else to me. And yet she always liked me, 
 in her saucy way. I ve often plagued myself with wonder 
 ing, if I d worn college close and clean wristbands, like Abi - 
 thar s, how it would have been. Girls mind such things. I 
 was an awkward, gawky lad, and always round the barn. 
 
 Not long after I went up to father on a Sunday night, 
 and asked him would he give me my time a half of every 
 year. I had got God knows what notions! in my head, 
 Tom Brown. I would have schooled, and earned, and 
 fought for her like a man. I was such a big fellow, and 
 Abi thar was a measly, spare-ribbed chap. , If I could have 
 fought him on hoeing and spading, or on the number of 
 swathes cut on a July day, or on breaking an ugly colt, or 
 on splitting knotty hickory, or any downright thing, I d 
 have won her at once and a dozen times again. But this 
 book-learning, Tom ! It s what you can t explain nor get 
 hold of. Why, it sets one man up above another so, and 
 
10 SEALED ORDERS. 
 
 gives him such a start, as wide as ever Heaven started 
 off from Hell. 
 
 So, when I says, again : " Father, I d like to go to school. 
 I ve got a particular reason for wanting to go to school 
 again," and he says : " And I ve got. a particular reason 
 for wanting you at home. Have you locked the barn-doors 
 up to-night ? " that way, short, and no more to be said about 
 it, I give it up and I give up beat. 
 
 It was four years till I was twenty-one. Tt would have 
 been a long time for a little girl to wait for a fellow that 
 had never been to district but two months in his life. 
 
 So Carle married Abi thar. She married him on the 
 twentieth day of August, the year she was eighteen. It 
 was the year Abi thar come from college, to take a school to 
 teach at the "West Parish. It seemed to me Abi thar never 
 had such a sickly, spindling look as he did when they stood 
 up to be married in our front parlor. I could have knocked 
 him down with the tag of my shoe-string. And they paid 
 six hundred dollars a year to that make-up of a man for 
 teachin school. Father give me fifty cents to make myself 
 fine for the wedding. I got a new cravat and a shirt-pin, 
 and had five cents left. I gave a jerk while the minister 
 was praying, and the coppers rattled in my pocket. I looked 
 at Carle. She stood up very shy, clinging to Abi thar s 
 lean arm. I thought of a little robin in a cage. I thought 
 of a little flower planted in a strange country. I thought 
 of a little star I d seen shooting away over my head the 
 night I set in the cranberry patch. I thought of a medley 
 of strange things. Them pennies rattled and rolled in my 
 pocket like mad. But I kept my eye on her. I says to 
 myself : " You re like everything else. You cost too much 
 for me." 
 
 And so I got through that. It always seems to me the 
 most peculiar place to pray at, weddings. 
 
 I said much the same to her afterward. The other boys 
 
SEALED ORDERS. 11 
 
 kissed her, being brothers. Hey ? No, sir. I did not kiss 
 her. She was my brother s wife ; not mine. I never kissed 
 her in all my life. 
 
 But I says to her what I says to myself, low, under 
 breath : " You cost too much for me, Carle. Everything 
 always has." And I blessed her, and never looked to see 
 if she understood the meaning of my words. But I blessed 
 her, Tom. I ve always blessed her. And I 11 bless her 
 till I die ; and if so be that I get to a place where blessings 
 thrive, I 11 bless her till she d die for joy if another bless 
 ing touched her life. 
 
 I 11 not talk any more to-night. Tom Brown. I m very 
 much troubled with this cough, and my breath comes a mite 
 hard. What ? Aye, yes, if you like. The rest another 
 time. You ve sat very gentle, like a woman, while I ve 
 talked. 
 
 I don t know what there is about being sickly that sets a 
 man to chattering and complaining like a whip-poor-will. 
 Perhaps that s the way that women come to be such 
 talkers. She never talked overmuch, if I remember. But 
 she was n t sickly then. 
 
 I d got so far as the wedding, last night, Carle s wed 
 ding. Her first wedding, you understand. She and Abi - 
 thar settled down at home. They did n t go away, only 
 a trip one Monday to the county fair. 
 
 I d have given my soul those days if I could have got off 
 the place. But I was n t twenty -one, and father never let 
 me go anywhere without permission. So I staid along. 
 But I wandered out of evenings, and took to low company, 
 and a groggery there was back in the pasture-road behind 
 our house. So father found me drunk one night on the 
 hickory w r oodpile. He d never had a boy drunk before. 
 There was Abi thar, and Jim, and Hazrow. Jim was a 
 church -member and a justice of the peace, studied law. 
 
12 SEALED ORDERS. 
 
 Hazrow was a parson. No, Ilazrow died. That was it. 
 I most forget. He would have been a parson, if he hadn t 
 died. It was Jim that wrote the book. So, when father 
 found me on the woodpile he sent me off to the button fac 
 tory. But he took my wages till I was twenty-one. 
 
 It was when I was at the button factory that they sent 
 for me to come to see Abi thar off. He was broken down 
 with teaching, and measlier than ever. The doctor the 
 old doctor, not the young one sent him on a voy-age. 
 That was the voy-age I spoke to you about. It was a gov 
 ernment vessel, bound on government business. Abi thar, 
 he d studied navigation out of books ; but it s my opinion 
 he knew no more about it than you may say you know of 
 heaven out of Revelations. But they got him in, between 
 em, somehow, second mate. He took a little trip to New 
 Orleans once, before he went to college. But they weighed 
 under sealed orders, as I told you. The cap n knew where 
 they was bound ; not another soul on board. They knew 
 they were booked for a year, and nothing else besides. 
 But the old doctor thought he d better go. So we went 
 down to New York city to see em off, Carle and Abi thar 
 and I. It cost a great deal to send me, but Abi thar paid 
 my expenses. He wanted me to look after Carle and the 
 baby. And father was sciatiky, and could n t go. I didn t 
 know Carle had a baby till I got home. 
 
 It was a pleasant day that Abi thar sailed, one of these 
 blue and yellow days, you know, when a sense of the sun 
 and the sky fills your mind beyond other things. But the 
 men s faces wore a still look mostly, and uneasy, as they 
 boarded. Bi thar s looked that way, very pale about the 
 mouth at times. We all had this odd feeling, like a funeral. 
 It seemed a singular thing to set out into such a mighty 
 spot as this round world and never to suspicion on what 
 corner or what angle o t you might be ordered to set your 
 foot, nor into what waves and waters, nor acrosst what rooks. 
 
SEALED ORDEES. 
 
 and reefs, and storms, and God Almighty s perils that He s 
 prepared for them that sail the sea in ships. I don t think 
 we d none of us understood how it would seem till we got 
 upon them wharfs. Dirty wharfs. A dirty place, New 
 York city. I could n t find a spot for Carle to set her 
 clean, soft foot upon. 
 
 The crew s folks come down to see em off. There was 
 one old widder lady there, crying and taking on. She 
 begged the cap n to tell her where her boy was going ; she 
 would n t tell nobody, she said. The cap n had to have her 
 put off the boat (for she d got on), she bothered so. There 
 was a young woman there with her young man, and wives 
 and young ones abundant. I can t forget it to this day 
 how they took on. 
 
 Abi thar did a curious thing that day. He come back 
 after he d boarded, and come up to me and grabbed my 
 hand. Says he: " Good-by, Finis, good-by." I says, 
 " Good-by," and wondered what he meant, for he d taken 
 leave of me before. But he only says, " Good-by, Finis," 
 and looked and hesitated on himself and made as if he 
 would say more, and said, says he : " If I never should 
 come back " 
 
 But then the cap n called an order out, and he left it 
 so. " If I never should come back," says he, and says no 
 more. I ve often wondered what he meant to say. 
 
 I stood by Carle upon the dirty wharf till Abi thar d 
 sailed away quite out of sight. The baby, he cried the 
 whole time, at the top of his lungs. I held him, for the 
 mother did n t take notice of him. I was afraid she d let 
 him drop. She sat upon a lemon box I d overturned for 
 her, and watched the ship. Abi thar hung one of his best 
 white silk handkerchiefs out to her as was agreed. I looked 
 at the handkerchief. I thought I would n t look at Carle. 
 But she put her little hand upon my arm and leaned to look. 
 It seemed to me, standing there alone with her, us three 
 
14 SEALED ORDERS. 
 
 Carle s baby in my arms, and Carle leaning gentle that way 
 up against me, and the ship sailing like the Devil out to sea 
 that a cry came out of my heart louder than any cry 
 folks cried that day about me. 
 
 It belongs to those things, Tom, that a man can t well 
 explain, even when he s sickly ; but it was like this : " That 
 boat s crew think they re doing a great and cruel thing. I 
 know a greater and a crueler. It s when a soul sails from 
 that great port where the A mighty anchors unborn babes, 
 and weighs under sealed orders from his very hand into this 
 here great, mysterious world. It s when all things that hap 
 pen to you from your borning to your dying are as dark as 
 them orders and as unbeknown. It s when the cargo that 
 you carry and the purpose that you serve are like the very 
 name you re known by to you, foreign tongues. It s to 
 be disapp inted without comfort, and to suffer without rea 
 son, and to labor for no end, and to live to no purpose, and 
 to die as you have lived, and none to mourn you." 
 
 That would be some comfort now. I remember thinking 
 so when Abi thar s wife and baby stood crying after him 
 beside me on the wharf. It s a singular state of things in 
 the mysterious higher politics that govern human life when 
 a man so covets the fall of one little tear out of one woman s 
 eye that he d sell his soul and body if it would fall for him. 
 But I said nothing to Carle, and I took her and the baby 
 home to live till Abi thar came back. It was a pretty baby, 
 but it was afraid of me. 
 
 I came of age that year. He took my last quarter s 
 wages, and sent me out into the world. Eh ? Yes, with 
 out a dollar, unschooled, untrained, a great, helpless, 
 gawky fellow, twenty-one years old. But I did n t look 
 for any better luck. It was what I d counted on. And I 
 enjoyed it. It was something not to have to ask him for 
 leave to go up to meetin on a Wednesday night. So I 
 went back to the button factory, and I knuckled down to 
 work. 
 
SEALED ORDERS. 15 
 
 Did I mention that Ross had settled in our place per 
 manent, Reuben Ross ? He followed his father s busi 
 ness, and went in with the old doctor in the office. That 
 was the little chap I took a notion to at the District, you 
 remember. I never got over the notion, maybe. I never 
 wished Reuben any ill, not on any occasion since. He s 
 much as he was when he was a little chap ; good-looking, 
 Reuben is, and his clothes set well. 
 
 I don t know how it come about ; but when I d pulled 
 along in the factory awhile, tough work, factory work ; 
 measly men, like Abi thar, give out on it, when I M 
 pudged along awhile, I invented a button, and made money. 
 You wouldn t think it, would ye? Folks all said it was 
 queer ; did n t think me up to that sort of thing. I did n t 
 myself till I d done it. It was a covered button, with a 
 flat eye. I molded the stuff to the mold, to begin with ; 
 wove it so. Simple, you see, but a new process. That but 
 ton took mightily. I got it patented, and I got into the 
 firm. But I must have got turned round. It seems to me, 
 it was after the report come about Abi thar that I made the 
 button. It must have been, come to think o t. He was 
 only booked for a year, and it was n t till the third year 
 into the factory that I made the button, and I -d only been 
 in one when Abi thar sailed. Besides, mother died the 
 year I made the button. 
 
 I used to go home in those days occasional on a Saturday 
 night. Carle and the baby were living along with the old 
 folks. Carle worked about the house. She had a very 
 handsome baby. 
 
 She was always glad to see me home. Sometimes she 
 said so. I did little chores about for her, for father was 
 so sciatiky and let things run. I saw that the fires were 
 laid, and wood and water plenty, and that. Sometimes she 
 put her little hands upon my arms, leaning gently, as she 
 did upon the wharf, to thank me. She had a very grateful, 
 
16 SEALED ORDERS. 
 
 gentle manner, more gentle than when she was a little 
 girl. Whenever she did so, I used to see the dirty wharf, 
 and the bine and yellow morning, and the ship sailing like 
 the Devil out to sea, sudden, like a picture. Then some 
 times my heart sailed like a devil after it, into a strange and 
 foreign land of things and thoughts. She seemed so help 
 less and so lonesome, and so kind to me. But I don t think 
 I had a wicked heart, Tom Brown. She was my brother s 
 wife ; not mine. Though I won t say that I understand it, 
 to this day. It s my opinion it would n t have made half 
 the difference to Providence, nor to Abi thar, that it did to 
 me, if Providence had portioned her to me. But it s al 
 ways been like that. Betwixt her and me Heaven holds 
 his great Sealed Orders up forever. 
 
 She was leaning on my arm that way when the report 
 come in about Abi thar. Jim brought it in. He hurried 
 in, and said : " Abi thar s dead. He died of cholera." He 
 had n t seen her, that I was not alone ; and he looked 
 shot when that awful, echoing, deadly sound a woman 
 makes when she s shrieking for the man she chose, sounded 
 through the sitting-room and out into the house. She 
 shrieked as if she d shriek her soul out after him before 
 she dropped. But man alive ! she dropped into my arms. 
 
 I d never touched her by any chance before, only her 
 little hand. And she was my brother s wife no longer. I 
 told you my soul sailed sometimes like the Devil out to sea. 
 That moment, man, I felt as if I d struck a sea without 
 a shore, and as if in all my nature was no rudder, nor no 
 compass, nor no chart ; no nater al feeling that a brother 
 bears a brother, no power of mourning for my flesh and 
 blood, no power for any feeling but the feeling that a man 
 bears a woman when he s chose and been denied her. " My 
 brother is dead ! " says I. " She s no more my brother s 
 wife ! " 
 
 I laid her softly on the sofy. Then Jim come up. 
 
SEALED ORDERS. 17 
 
 " It s too bad," says he, " too mortal bad to scare her so. 
 And there s no proof, either, certain. They brought home 
 the report, believing. They were booked for Shanghai. 
 Abi thar seemed very weakly, and he went ashore, the 
 cap n writes, to rest on terry Jirma" (Jim talked in foreign 
 languages a great deal then) ; " and when the time was up he 
 failed to come*. They searched and inquired as they could. 
 But the pestilence was raging like hell-fire. The natives 
 they lay dead before your eyes upon the sands. They 
 darsen t stay. They weighed and sailed without him." 
 
 Perhaps you can put it to yourself, mess-mate, the posi 
 tion I was in. Not a pleasant nor a safe one, to my mind. 
 
 Times I had a ridic lous angry feeling with my brother 
 for the uncertain manner that he d disappeared. Like 
 this : Abi thar s such a weakly chap he can t even die out 
 right, like other folks ! 
 
 Times I had a deep and dangerous feeling : that I owed 
 no longer any dues to him or her, and that I d got rights 
 of iny own to get her if I could, before and above all others 
 on God s earth ; and that my chance had come, and the 
 more fool I not to take it, like a man. 
 
 Other times I went about for weeks together, saying over 
 to myself : " It was not proved. Nothing has been proved. 
 They only sailed without him," as you d say your cate 
 chism at Sunday-school. Hey? Never been to Sunday- 
 school ? Everybody goes to Sunday-school in Connecticut. 
 
 No, we heard nothing definite from Abi thar, not then. 
 It would have been too good luck for me if I d heard de 
 cided then. 
 
 I hate to see a woman in a widder s cap. Carle took hers 
 off in a few months time, to please me. She did many little 
 things to please me. She grew kind and gentle in her 
 trouble, far beyond her wont ; leaned on me for help and 
 company in many ways ; begged me to come often home ; 
 
18 SEALED ORDERS. 
 
 said she missed me ; said the baby d learned to watch for 
 me of a Saturday night. 
 
 Times I think I might have learned her to love me then. 
 It come over me once or twice that first year, like to take 
 my breath away. . 
 
 Why did n t I marry her ? Well, I can t answer you, 
 Tom Brown. I never set up to be a pious man ; but I 
 don t think I ve got a wicked heart. I could n t someways 
 could n t speak. I waited patient as I could. I went 
 home of a Saturday, to draw a sight of her sweet eyes into 
 my soul and her little way of smiling up. I lived on that 
 till come another week. I says : " It was never proved. 
 I 11 wait awhile ; I 11 wait a little longer ; we shall hear." 
 But why did n t I take her while I could ? Why did n t 
 angel nor devil whisper me a hint ? Why did n t the voice 
 of my brother s blood cry unto me from the ground to bid 
 me try my honest chance ? Why ? Angel or devil may 
 answer you them inquiries ; it s what I can t do. Sealed, 
 Tom ; sealed. 
 
 This was the way things went. She was left quite desti 
 tute, you might say ; for Abi thar run in debt to take the 
 voy-age, and nothing of his own to leave her. So I made 
 her comfortable, and the little fellow, as I knew how. I 
 was making money fast in those days. Not that I gave it 
 coarse, outright to her. I put it into father s hands, after 
 mother died, and he paid it over to her unbeknown. I 
 guess she thought it was her husband s. Abi thar, he had 
 insured his life for a thousand dollars ; but of course they 
 disputed the policy till proof came in. But I guess she 
 thought it was the life insurance. Father told her it be 
 longed to her, and she took it quiet, askin no questions. 
 She didn t know about money matters ; women don t, you 
 know. 
 
 So I come and went and waited patient, and was a hap 
 pier man, Tom Brown, those days than I m like to be 
 
SEALED ORDERS. 19 
 
 again. It gave me a patient, happy feeling that I d got to 
 wait. First time in my life that I did n t fret and ask so 
 many saucy questions of the A mighty. I felt a desire in 
 me to sweep my soul out clear of unbecoming thoughts, 
 against the day when I might ask her honest for her honest 
 love. It s such a clean and wholesome thing, Tom, when 
 a man has set his soul on a particular woman to be his wife. 
 
 Sometimes of a Saturday night, coming home, to see her 
 standing in the door, I thought that she might come smiling 
 up and say : " There s news at last. Abi thar is a living 
 man, and I m your brother s wife." But it never hap 
 pened. And so things went along, and one day father 
 died. The sciatiky struck to his heart, they said. 
 
 Maybe the old gentleman softened in his mind a little 
 toward me. Maybe he found he could n t afford to go to 
 t other world without some thought to wish me well. I 
 don t know as to that ; but he willed the farm to me to 
 me and Carle. Maybe he thought things would take a turn 
 that way. He was a very knowing old gentleman, father, 
 though so saving. So I took care of him, and made him 
 comfortable till he died. I don t want you to think I lay 
 up no grudge against father. So he died; and Jim and 
 Mary Ann, she that married the tinsmith, they had 
 the rest of the property, what there was o t. Mary Ann 
 came over and stayed awhile with Carle, after the old 
 gentleman died. Carle was ailing in those days, and the 
 baby too. I sent for the doctor for her. I told him to 
 send his bill to me. The old doctor was growing a mite 
 dull at his trade, folks said. I meant her to have the best 
 she could. I d no objection to doing Reuben a good turn, 
 neither. So I called the young one to the baby, to give 
 him a trial. Carle liked him ; so he doctored in our house 
 considerable that winter. 
 
 Eh ? Yes, I d begun to think myself in those days that 
 Abi thar must be dead ; for we heard nothin , not a word 
 
20 SEALED ORDERS. 
 
 nor sign. But I says : " I 11 wait a little longer, patient." 
 So I never spoke to her. She seemed very patient, too. 
 And the young doctor did her a sight of good. Her cheeks 
 colored up, and she looked ten years younger. I don t 
 know as he did the baby so much good as he did her. Some 
 folks liked him, some did n t. It s a slow business, doctor 
 ing. The old doctor never laid up nothing of any account, 
 and only her and one child either. Reuben had to help 
 along the old folks, I suspicion. I felt very grateful to 
 Reuben for doctoring up Carle, and when I paid the bill I 
 told him so. He colored up at the time ; but whether it 
 was for the words, or whether it was for the money, I 
 could n t say. 
 
 You re right, Tom. I believe you re right. But, if I 
 was a blinded fool, I was an honest one. I meant to do 
 the fair thing both by her and by them that might come 
 after us, and by Heaven above us both. I was away from 
 home a great deal, too, you see. 
 
 But I come home one Saturday night, and I think I 
 should have spoke. At least, I might have spoke and no 
 sin done, though we waited patient for the rest for a fur 
 ther time. She had a blue ribbon on that night over her 
 black dress, blue, or purple maybe ; I don t know ; a sort 
 of Chiny color, such as I ve seen on cups and saucers. I 
 thought to myself : " She thinks there 11 be no more news. 
 In her clean woman s heart she s my brother s wife no 
 more." 
 
 I was right there, Tom, quite. She was n t Abi thar s 
 wife. And she was n t mine. 
 
 It was the young doctor, Reuben Ross. She spoke up 
 that very night and told me. She spoke before I spoke, 
 thank God! I never spoke to Carle. She never knew. 
 It was much as the money came to use an unworthy 
 figger that my love came into her lot in life. If there s 
 a Father of us all, He took it, as the old gentleman took the 
 
SEALED ORDERS. 21 
 
 other, and gave it to her unbeknown. If it blessed her in 
 any fashion, she took it quiet, askin no questions, as if it 
 had been her rightful own. It would have worried her ii 
 she had known. 
 
 She told me all there was to tell, as how she thought 
 Abi thar was surely dead ; and Reuben thought so too, she 
 said : and Reuben was so kind, and she was very fond of 
 him. But if they could ever think of one another Heaven 
 knows, she said, for he had others to look after and he was 
 very poor. She cried at that. We sat alone in the sitting- 
 room. She put her face down on my knee, the way a child 
 does, and put up her little hands, and cried as if her heart 
 would break. 
 
 Says I : " Carle, do you love Reuben very much ? " 
 
 " Very much," she says. 
 
 Says I : " More than my brother, Abi thar, Carle ? " 
 
 She hid her face away from me. She was fond of 
 Abi thar, she said, and sobbed out hard ; but she was very, 
 very fond of Dr. Ross. In all her life, she said, she had 
 never loved anybody quite as dearly as she always should 
 love Dr. Ross. Did I care ? she says. Was I angry ? Did 
 I mind ? She thought I was fond of Reuben, too. 
 
 That s about the end, Tom. What s left to tell is of 
 small account and not interesting to a third party. If 
 you 11 let a whiff of air in (when I m rested a spell), I 11 
 finish up. 
 
 What s that you said ? A great deed to do ? I don t 
 know. It never struck me so. Uncommon ? Well, maybe. 
 I never thought of it in that way. It was the only thing 
 left for me to do. I had no choice, as I view it, messmate. 
 
 It all lays just here. She was n t meant for me. That 
 was plain enough by that time. And you see her heart was 
 set on the young doctor ; and where the heart is, Scripter 
 runs, is the treasure. If I could hold her happiness out in 
 
22 SEALED ORDERS. 
 
 my two hands and say, Take it ! what choice had I, man ? 
 Carle s treasure ! I overheard her calling of him that, one 
 evening in the sitting-room. It ought to be a costly thing 
 a woman s treasure. A thing that I could n t afford, you 
 see not with all my money. So I made up my mind to 
 give her the money, and that s how I come to do it. No, 
 I ve never repented nor regretted it. It s a great comfort 
 to me, since my cough come on, that I had it in my power 
 to make her happy. I think she must be happy. I meant 
 she should. 
 
 I don t see why you should take on so about it. 1 1 
 seems to me the most natural thing in the world. I could n t 
 stay nigh her any longer. I d been too near heaven to 
 stay in hell of my own free will and choice. I was some 
 how tired, too, those days ; wanted to be by myself. I ve 
 been tired mostly ever since. I did n t want the money. 
 What use had I for the money ? So I made the will. I 
 willed it to Carle, and to Abi thar s baby after her. Then 
 I tore up that will, and made another. I would n t restrict 
 nor bind her. There might be other children, and a 
 mother s heart don t see the difference, maybe ; a child s a 
 child. And if she leaves it to Reuben, I don t know as I 
 care. She should n t be limited and fixed. As there s no 
 limit nor end to the love I bear her, so there shall be none 
 in the money I leave her. That s my feeling. So I left 
 the money. It s her unincumbered own. 
 
 There was only one way to do it. Of course, you ve hit 
 it. I planned a great deal how I d do it. I managed very 
 quiet, and closed up at the factory, without making much 
 ado, and took out a little from the bank for my expenses 
 and to start the world anew, and put the will in the sitting- 
 room, in one of the Chiny vases on the mantel-shelf, where 
 Carle dusted every morning and would be sure to find it ; 
 and so I got myself ready and says good-by to no one. 
 
 No, I never said good-by to her. I darsen t trust my- 
 
SEALED OJIDEBS. 23 
 
 self. When I d got all ready, I went down into the sitting- 
 room and stood awhile by the fire (it was a January night) 
 and watched her in and out. She was putting the supper 
 things away. She had on that little Chiny-colored ribbon 
 that I spoke of. The baby toddled after, tugging at her 
 close. 
 
 I wanted to have set a little while along with her, alone- 
 I d rather hoped nobody would come in. I should n t have 
 said anything to startle or to grieve her ; but I d like to have 
 had a quiet spell alone with her, and heard her talk of little 
 things arid seen her kiss the baby. But when she got the 
 dishes done, Reuben came in himself. 
 
 So by and by I put the baby down from off my lap, where 
 I had taken him. I d learned him not to be very much 
 afraid of me, although a little shy, and looking sidewise out 
 of his eyes, this way. He had his mother s eyes. So I put 
 the baby down, and I kissed him. He cried when I kissed 
 him. Says I to the baby : " Tell your mother, God s bless 
 ing fall on her and hers forevermore ! Tell her, Bub," 
 says I. For he could talk in a fashion of his own ; his 
 mother understood him. Bub listened sharp a minute ; then 
 he burst out crying, and his mother had to hush him up. 
 I Ve wondered sometimes if the little fellow told her any 
 jumbled thing when morning came. 
 
 When morning come, you see, I was n t there. I made 
 off while the baby cried. Twice I got to the road and come 
 back. Twice I stood and looked in at the sitting-room win 
 dow from the outside, in the bitter cold. It was biting 
 cold. The snow blew up and froze against the pane. I 
 could see her dimly, as if it had been a haze before my eyes. 
 She set by the fire, on a little cricket at his feet. The baby 
 had rolled off in the old patched sofy, fast asleep. Reuben 
 set there, and he had a grave look. Now and then she 
 cried, and now and then she smiled up, as I had seen her 
 smiling up at me. * I could see how anxious and perplexed 
 
24 SEALED ORDERS. 
 
 they were about their love and lot, poor tilings ! I could n t 
 bear to see her cry. Reuben couldn t either. Last time I 
 looked in, he put his arm down and drew her up and kissed 
 her, and he touched the little ribbon that she wore, and 
 seemed to say how sweet a look she had in it, and seemed 
 to say a thousand things that no man else had any right to 
 hear. 
 
 After that I went away. I went down to the river, across 
 the fields. There was a stretch where the current had n t 
 froze, being swift and deadly. So I threw my hat in, and 
 the coat I d worn that day, and a handkerchief, and so on, 
 and left em there. 
 
 It did come to me, standing looking down in the bit 
 ter winter night, to throw myself in after em. But I m a 
 plain, slow man, and desperate deeds don t come easy to 
 me. And the water looked very cold, so I come away. 
 
 I come away, and I come out here by degrees, and took 
 to mining, and after di monds, as you know. I like a 
 downright digging work like that. I have n t made much, 
 on account of the cough : but I ve managed to get along. 
 I ve never gone hungry, and not very often cold. And I 
 like to think she s happy. I do very well. 
 
 I saw my own death, from drowning, in the papers, on 
 the way out here, with full particulars. So I knew that that 
 was safely settled. And I took a name, a good name, I 
 thought, Carl Carl. It reminds me more or less of her. 
 And a man don t need but one out in these parts ; gets nick 
 names enough to serve any dead man s purpose, like my 
 self. 
 
 There s only one thing I d like, that I know of now. 
 I d like to hear if she is happy. I d like to hear just how 
 happy she is. I know when she was married. I saw that 
 in the papers. And the news they got from Abi thar ; that 
 came, nigh as I can judge, the week before. The body was 
 identified by some papers that a native kept and swam to 
 
SEALED ORDERS. 25 
 
 meet an American cap n with for a suitable sum of money. 
 The creetur took care of him in his last hours, and secreted 
 the letters, against a chance to make a little something. So 
 the cap n took em to the American consul, and it all come 
 out. That s it, if I have it straight. I don t feel very 
 clear of anything to-night. Seems as if I should choke to 
 death, odd minutes. 
 
 Tom Brown, come here ! I must be dressed and take a 
 journey. Come here ! I ve had a letter. The mail-stage 
 brought it three weeks ago. Peterson got it for me at the 
 Crossings. How long since it was written ? Let me see. 
 It s six weeks old to-day. 
 
 I don t know how she found out. I did n t understand. 
 But she wants me, Tom. She s sent for me. Why don t 
 you hurry, man, and help me dress ? Peterson wrote her ? 
 How did Peterson know ? I talked to the lad on Christmas 
 night? But the lad was asleep, and his father, too. I 
 could n t have said much to the lad. Talked in my sleep, 
 eh ? I don t know ; not apt to. Never mind, I can t stop 
 to talk. Have you read the letter ? I 11 read it to you, 
 again. No, I won t stop for that. They ve found me out, 
 she says. They need me, Tom. Money don t make up 
 for me, Tom. Sick and in trouble, and the money costs too 
 much in losing me. Reuben is sick, you see ; may die. 
 Frets after me. She s fretting, too. She s in trouble 
 my poor, poor Carle ! I can help her. Get me up. 
 
 Man alive ! what do you stand staring there so at ? I 
 don t see what you re sniffling over, like a woman. Can t 
 take the journey ? Can t get out of this cursed frozen 
 hole alive ? Can t get to her ? Why, she s sent for me ! 
 You re crazy, Tom ! Give me my close. We 11 see. 
 
 Tell her, Tom, I did my best. Tell her I tried to go. 
 Be sure you make her understand that I tried to go to her. 
 
26 SEALED ORDERS. 
 
 And how the bleeding struck me when I got my close half 
 on. I would n t tell her that, but that she should be sure to 
 understand I tried to go. 
 
 I can t see why it should have been like this. It s a great 
 while since I ve seen her face. And she sent for me ! I 
 should have rather obeyed her orders than these others, just 
 this once. Tell her I hoped she had been happy ; and 
 that I loved her dearly, Tom, and meant she should be ; and 
 that I did very well out here and wanted nothing. I don t 
 know (to look at it) as I ve ever really wanted anything 
 but her. That s the worst to understand, maybe, of all, 
 that one straight thing, why one human creetur is made 
 to love another human creetur as I ve loved her, in this 
 singularly conducted world. 
 
 So I ve got my Sealed Orders for the last time, Tom ; 
 and I m setting out to foreign lands as helpless and as igno 
 rant as any man can own himself to be. 
 
 There are some words I knew at Sunday-school in Con 
 necticut. I learned, the chapter, but I most forget : 
 
 " And I saw a book written within and on the back side, 
 sealed with seven seals. 
 
 " Who is worthy to open the book and to loose the seals 
 thereof ? 
 
 " And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the 
 earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon. 
 And I beheld, and lo ! . . . . a Lamb, as it had been slain. 
 .... And he came and took the book." 
 
 Why, there s Susan! I m glad to see you, Susan. Go 
 to school? I d like to go to school. But I don t know 
 about going in my heavenly Father s house. Can He afford 
 it, Susan, do you think ? If you re sure He can, I 11 try 
 not to cost him more than His other boys, if I can help it. 
 Shall I begin to-night ? 
 
OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 
 
 WHEN Thamre consented to sing for the citizens of Hav 
 ermash, last year, nobody was more surprised than the citi 
 zens of Havermash themselves. 
 
 It was characteristic of Havermash to have attempted it. 
 Nothing is too good for Havermashers. Were St. Cecilia 
 prima donna for a season, it would appear to them quite 
 natural to seek her services. Have they not a brown-stone 
 post-office and a senator, a street railway and a county jail, 
 a local newspaper, an author (the public need scarcely be 
 reminded of the " Havermash Hand-Organ : a Tale of Love 
 and Poverty "), and a shoe and leather trade ? Transcend 
 ing all, is not their city charter two years old ? 
 
 When the Happy Home Handel Association, headed by 
 little Joe Havermash (grandson of the original shoe and 
 leather man, whose wooden cobbler s shop occupied the site 
 of the present post-office in 1793), took upon itself the 
 performance of an " oratorio " last Christmas eve, " We 
 will have Thamre," said Joe, serenely. 
 
 Still, when Joe came home from Boston, breathless and ra 
 diant, one night early in the season, with Thamre s tiny con 
 tract (she wrote it on a card, he said, with her glove on, just 
 in going out, and the card was as sweet now see ! as the 
 glove, and the glove had just the smell of one English vi 
 olet, no more) to sing in the stone post-office at eight o clock 
 on Christmas eve, on such and such conditions (simple 
 enough), and for such and such remuneration, that was the 
 
28 OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 
 
 astonishing part of it, even Havermash was off its guard 
 enough to be surprised. 
 
 " She 11 come," said Joe. " I supposed she would. I 
 meant she should. But the terms are astounding. I was 
 prepared to offer her twice that. I d pay a big slice of it 
 out of my own pocket to get her here. There s no trouble 
 about terms. Did you see what Max offered her? Do 
 you know what she s getting a night in New York ? Do 
 you know what she asked us ? Five hundred dollars, sir ! 
 Only five hundred dollars. Think of it, sir ! But the con 
 ditions are the most curious thing. She scorns to take so 
 little, maybe. I don t know. All I know is, every dollar 
 of it is to go to old women who have n t lived as they d 
 ought to in this town. For the relief of the aged women 
 of Havermash, who, having in their youth led questionable 
 lives, are left friendless, needy, and perhaps repentant in 
 their declining years. That s the wording of the agree 
 ment. I signed it myself in her little red morocco note 
 book. Most curious thing all round ! It s my opinion, 
 sir, it takes a woman to get up an uncommon piece of work 
 like that." 
 
 Last Christmas eve fell in Havermash wild and windy. 
 The gusts fought furiously with each other at corners, and 
 under fences, and over the bleak spaces in which the new 
 little city abounded, and through which it straggled pain 
 fully away into the open country. Where the snow lay, it 
 lay in tints of dead, sharp blue, cold as steel beneath the 
 chilly light ; where it was blown away, the dust flew fine 
 and hard like powder. Overhead, too, there hung only 
 shades of steel. One long, low line of corrosive red, how 
 ever, had eaten its way through against the western hill- 
 country, and looked like rust or blood upon a mighty coat 
 of mail. 
 
 So, at least, Miss Thamre fancied, shivering a little in 
 
OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 29 
 
 her folded furs, as she watched from the car window the 
 swooping of the night upon the bleak, outlying lands and 
 approaching twinkle of the town. 
 
 It was a cheerless night for the prima donna to be in 
 Havermash. Joe had been saying so all day. She thought 
 so, it would seem, when he handed her from the cars. She 
 scarcely spoke to him, nodding only, looking hither and 
 thither about her, through the shriek and smoke, with that 
 keen, baffling glance of hers, which all the world so well 
 remembers. Joe felt rather proud of this. He knew what 
 the eccentricities of genius were ; was glad of a chance to 
 show himself at ease with them. Had she bidden him stand 
 on his head while she found her trunk, or sit on a barrel in 
 the draught and wait for her to compose an aria, he would 
 have obeyed her sweetly, thinking all the while how it 
 would sound, told to his grandchildren on winter nights. 
 
 Half Havermash was at the station. All Havermash re 
 members that. It was with difficulty that Joe could get 
 her to her carriage quietly, as befitted, to his fancy, the 
 conduct of a lady s welcome. 
 
 " I did not expect to see so rfiany people," said Miss 
 Thamre, in her pretty, accented, appealing way. " What 
 are they here for ? " 
 
 " I m sure I don t know," said Joe, with a puzzled air, 
 " unless they re here to see me." 
 
 This amused the lady, and she laughed, a little genial 
 laugh, which bubbled over to the ears of the people pressing 
 nearest to her in the crowd. 
 
 " She laughs as well as she sings," said a member of the 
 Happy Home Handel Association. 
 
 " She has the eye of a gazelle and the smile of a Sphinx," 
 said the Author, and took out his note-book to " do " her 
 for a religious weekly. 
 
 " She travels alone," said a mother of four daughters. 
 (She had, indeed, come to Havermash quite alone, with 
 neither chaperone nor maid.) 
 
30 OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 
 
 " She can wear silver seal and not look green," paid a 
 brunette, in black and garnet. 
 
 " She sees everything within a mile of her," said Joe to 
 himself, as he held the hem of her dress back reverently 
 from the carriage-wheels. 
 
 It would seem that she saw far and distinctly, for half 
 within her carriage door she paused and said abruptly : 
 
 " What is that ? Let me see what that is ! " 
 
 An old woman was pushing her way through the reluc 
 tant crowd ; a very miserable old woman, splashed with 
 mud. She had a blanket shawl over her head, and her 
 unhealthy yellow gray hair blew out from under it, over 
 her face before the wind. 
 
 A crowd of villainous urchins followed, pelting her with 
 slush and snow, and volleys of that shrill, coarse boys cry 
 (one of the most pitiful sounds on earth) by which the pres 
 ence of a sacred mystery or a sorrowful sin is indicated, not 
 alone in Havermash. 
 
 "Old Mother Goose! Old Mother Goose! Hi, yi! 
 there! Mother Goosey s out buyin Christmas stockins 
 for her dar-ter ! Old Mother Goo-oo-ose ! " 
 
 Everybody knew how old Mother Goose hated the boys 
 (and with good reason, poor soul !) ; but nobody had ever 
 seen her offer them violence before that night. 
 
 In a minute she had grown suddenly livid and awful to 
 see, rearing her lank figure to its full height against the 
 steel and blood-colored background of the sky, where a 
 sudden gap in the crowd had left her alone. 
 
 " You stop that ! " she fiercely cried ; and dealt a few 
 bad blows to right and left before she was interfered with. 
 
 Annoyed beyond measure, Joe entreated Miss Thamre to 
 let him take her from the scene. She hesitated, lingered, 
 turned after a moment s thought, and sank upon the carriage 
 seat. 
 
 " You did not tell me who it was," she said imperiously ; 
 
OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 31 
 
 " I asked you. I like to be answered when I ask a ques 
 tion. I never saw such a miserable old woman ! " 
 
 " One of your prospective beneficiaries, madam," said 
 Joe, humbly. " A wretched old creature. The boys call 
 her Old Mother Goose. Do not distress yourself about 
 her. It is no sight for you." 
 
 " You say the boys call her I never heard such a poor, 
 sad name ! Has she no other name, Mr. Havermash ? Oh ! 
 there she is again." 
 
 A sudden turn of the carriage had brought them sharply 
 upon the miserable sight once more. Old Mother Goose 
 was sitting stupidly in the slush beside the hack-stands. 
 Her shawl was off, and her gray hair had fallen raggedly 
 upon her shoulders ; her teeth chattered with chill and 
 rage ; there were drops of blood about her on the snow ; a 
 few of the more undaunted spirits among the boys still hov 
 ered near her, avenging themselves for their recent defeat 
 by furtive attempts to purloin her drabbled shawl ; and a 
 savage expression of his country s intention to preserve vir 
 tuous order, in the garb of the police, stood threatening 
 poor Old Mother Goose with the terrors of the law. 
 
 It was a sorry sight. A sorry sight Miss Thamre seemed 
 to find it. She leaned forward to the window. Joe could 
 not prevent her ; she would see it all. The silver shine of 
 her fur wrappings glittered through the dusk, as she moved; 
 one tiny gloved and fur-bound hand hung over the window s 
 edge ; a faint sweetness, like the soul of an English violet, 
 stirred as she stirred, and stole out upon the frosty air. 
 
 " There ! " cried the old woman, mouthing a hideous 
 oath, " there s the lady ! I 11 see her yet, in spite of ye ! " 
 
 Old Mother Goose staggered up from the mud, staring 
 dully ; but the silver-gray picture framed in the carriage 
 window flashed by her in an instant. For an instant only 
 the two women looked each other in the eye. 
 
 Miss Thamre turned white about the chin. Her hand 
 
32 OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 
 
 rose to her eyes instinctively, covered them, and fell. It 
 must have been such a miserable contrasting of life s 
 chances to her young and happy fancy ! 
 
 " I ve seen enough," she said. " Never mind ! " 
 
 " Her name," said Joe, thinking to divert her from the 
 immediate disturbance of the sight, " is Peg, I believe, 
 Peg Mathers. You see the boys got it Old Mathers, then 
 Old Mother, so Old Mother Goose, I suppose ; and quite 
 ingenious, too, I think, poor creature ! " 
 
 Miss Thamre made no reply. Quite weary of the sub 
 ject, she wrapped herself back into the carriage corner, and, 
 asking only how long a ride it was, drew a little silver veil 
 she wore across her face and said no more. Quite weary 
 still she seemed when Joe gave her his arm at the hotel 
 steps (she had refused to accept his or any other private 
 hospitality in the place) ; and very wearily she gave him 
 to understand that she preferred to be alone till the hour 
 of her appearance before the Havermash public should 
 arrive. 
 
 Joe stumbled upon Old Mother Goose again, in running 
 briskly down the hotel steps. 
 
 She was wandering in a maudlin, aimless way up and 
 down the sidewalk at the building s front. Her shawl was 
 gone, and her gray head was bare to the wind, which was 
 now as sharp as high. 
 
 " What ! you again ? " said Joe. " What are you doing 
 here, Peg ? I was ashamed of you to-night, Peg ! The 
 people had come out to see a famous lady, and you must 
 get to fighting with the boys and frighten her. You dis 
 graced the town. Better go home, or you 11 be in more 
 mischief. Come ! " 
 
 " I m out hunting for my shawl, Mr. Havermash," said 
 the old woman, after a moment s sly hesitation. " I ve lost 
 my shawl. Them boys took it, curse on em ! I d go to 
 see the famous lady, if I had my shawl." 
 
OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 83 
 
 " Better go home ; better go home ! " repeated Joe. 
 " She does n t want to see you, Peg." 
 
 " Don t she, Mr. Havermash ? " 
 
 Old Mother Goose laughed (or did she cry ? She was 
 always doing one or the other. What did it matter which?), 
 nodding upward at the windows of the prima donna s par 
 lors, where against the drawn shades a slight, tall shadow 
 passed and repassed now and them, faintly, like a figure in 
 a dream. 
 
 " Don t she ? Well, I don t know as she does. How 
 warm she looks ! She must be warm in them fur tippets 
 that she wears ; don t you think she must ? I like to see a 
 famous lady well as other folks, when I have my shawl. 
 Mr. Havermash ! " 
 
 " Well, well, well ! " Joe stopped impatiently in hurry 
 ing away. 
 
 "Would you rather I d go home and say my prayers 
 than fight the boys ? I hate the boys ! " 
 
 " Prayers, Peg ? Do you say your prayers ? What 
 prayers do you say, Peg ? Come ! " 
 
 Mr. Havermash lingered, entertained in his own despite 
 thinking he would tell Miss Thamre this ; it might amuse 
 her. 
 
 U I say my prayers," said Old Mother Goose, beating her 
 white hair back from her face at a blow, as if she could 
 give it pain. "I ve said em this many years. I say: 
 When the Devil forgets the world, may God remind him 
 of the boys ! I don t feel so about girls, Mr. Havermash. 
 Maybe, if I had n t had one once myself, I should. Mj 
 girl ran away from me. She ran away on a Christmas 
 eve, thirteen years ago. Did ye ever see my girl ? Mr. 
 Havermash ! " 
 
 But Joe was gone. He looked back once in running up 
 the street (he was late to supper now ; his wife waited to 
 know if Miss Thamre would receive a call from her, and 
 
34 OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 
 
 would scold a bit, women will, it can t be helped), he 
 looked back across his shoulder, and saw that Old Mother 
 Goose was still hunting for her shawl beneath the glitter 
 ing, curtained windows, where a shadow passed and re- 
 passed, high above her head, like the shadow of a figure in 
 a dream. 
 
 Thamre took no supper. It was six o clock when she 
 entered into her parlors and shut her doors about her. It 
 was five minutes before eight when Mr. Havermash called 
 to conduct her to the concert hall in the second story of the 
 brown-stone post-office. It is quite evident, I think, that, 
 in all the passage of the somewhat remarkable drama into 
 which her appearance in Havermash resolved itself, no act 
 can have equaled in intensity that comprised within those 
 two solitary hours. Yet positively all that is known of it, 
 even at this distant day, is that Miss Thamre took no sup 
 per. Every boarder in the hotel knew that in half an hour. 
 Loiterers and lion-hunters beneath the windows where the 
 nervous shadow passed picked it up, as loiterers and lion- 
 hunters will. Even Old Mother Goose knew it coming 
 in to ask the hotel clerk if he had seen her shawl, and being 
 for her trouble roughly shown the door. 
 
 Miss Thamre, curtained and locked in Havermash s grand 
 suite of rooms (of which the town is not unjustly proud, it 
 may be said ; in which the senator is always accommodated 
 on election days ; in which a Harvard professor and a Bos 
 ton alderman have been known to spend a night ; in which 
 the President himself once took a private lunch, in travel 
 ing to the mountains), spent, we say, two hours alone. 
 In alt her life, perhaps, the lady never spent two hours less 
 alone. For a year the public fancy has been a self-invited 
 guest at the threshold of those hours. It is with reluc 
 tance that one s most reverent imagination follows the gen 
 eral curiosity across their sacred edge ; and yet it is with 
 
OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 35 
 
 something of the same inner propulsion which forces a 
 dreamer on the seashore to keep the eyes upon the strug 
 gles of a little gala-boat wrecked by a mortal leak in calm 
 waters on a sunny day. 
 
 One sees, in spite of one s self, the lady s soft small hands 
 close violently on the turning key ; the silver furs shine un 
 der the chandeliers as they fall, tossed hither and hither, 
 to the floor ; the little veil torn from the fine, refined, sweet 
 face ; the setness of the features and that pallor of hers 
 about the chin. 
 
 One knows that she will pace just so across the long, un- 
 homelike splendor of the gaudy rooms ; that she will fold 
 her hands behind her, one into the other knotted fast ; 
 that she will lift them now and then, and rub them fiercely, 
 as if she found them in a deathly chill ; that her hair will 
 fall, perhaps, in her sharp, regardless motions, and hang 
 about her face ; that her head is bent ; and that her eyes 
 will follow that great green tulip on the Brussels car 
 pet, from pattern to pattern, patiently, seeing only that, as 
 the shadow of her on the curtain passes and repasses, telling 
 only what a shadow can. 
 
 One listens, as she listens to the voices of the people 
 passing on the pavement far below ; one wonders, as she 
 wonders what they say ; if they speak of her, if they would 
 speak of her to-morrow; and what it would happen they 
 would say, should to-morrow bring forth what to-morrow 
 might. 
 
 One hears, for she must hear, a Christmas carol chanted 
 flatly by some young people in the street ; the bustle of a 
 hundred Christmas seekers coming homeward, with laden 
 arms arid empty pockets, from the little shops ; one notices 
 that she draws the shade, to see if holly is hanging in the 
 windows, as it used to hang in Havermash, all up and down 
 the street, by five o clock, and if she remembers how 
 many times she has stolen out away in her clean hood, 
 
36 OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 
 
 with some care that no one else need follow, shaming her, 
 to see the holly herself and hear the carols sung, like hap 
 pier little girls how can one but seem to remember too ? 
 And when the church-bells ring out for Christmas prayers, 
 melting through the obdurate mail of the welded clouds, 
 till they seem to melt a star through, as still and clear as 
 God s voice melting through a wrung, defiant heart, if her 
 set face quivers a little, can one prevent one s own from 
 quivering as well ? 
 
 Perhaps the church-bells ring in a vision with them, to 
 the barred and curtained glitter of Miss Thamre s rooms. 
 Perhaps, by sheer contrast, her fancy finds the wretched 
 creature whom she saw to-day, seated with the mud and 
 blood about her, shut in from all the world with her, they 
 two alone together in the dreadful, shining place. 
 
 Perhaps she seems to herself to escape it, fleeing with 
 her eyes to the dimmest corner of the room. Perhaps she 
 forces herself to face it, turning sharply back, and lifting 
 her head superbly, as Thamre can (the shadow on the cur 
 tain lifts its head just so, as a passer in the street can see). 
 Perhaps she reasons with it, hotly, on this wise, as she 
 walks : 
 
 " I did not think, in coming to Havermash, you would 
 strike across my way like this ! " 
 
 " Heaven knows what restless fancy forced me here, 
 Would to Heaven I had never come ! " 
 
 " For thirteen years I have wondered what it would be 
 like to look upon your face again. How could I know it 
 would be like what it is, so miserable, so neglected, so 
 alone ! " 
 
 Perhaps she argues sternly, now and then : 
 
 " I have never left you to suffer, at the worst. You can 
 not starve. The first ten-dollar bill I ever earned I sent to 
 you. If you are too imbecile to watch the post, am I to 
 blame ? If you will have opium or rum for it, am I to 
 
OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 37 
 
 blame ? I ve done my duty by your shameful motherhood, 
 if ever wretched daughter did ! What would you have, 
 what will you have besides ? " 
 
 Perhaps she droops and pleads at moments like a little 
 child : - 
 
 " I have fought so hard, mother, for my name and fame ! 
 You gave me such a load of shame and ignorance and 
 squalor to shake off! It has been such a long and bitter 
 work ! Let me be for a little while now, mother, do ! 
 Sometime before you die I 11 search you out ; but not just 
 yet just yet ! " 
 
 Perhaps she falls to sobbing, as women will. Perhaps 
 she flings her beautiful arms out, and slides with her face 
 upon the stifling scarlet cushions of a little sofa, where she 
 tossed her veil. Perhaps, in kneeling there, the bleeding, 
 gray-haired figure stalks her by, and the quieter compan 
 ionship of a troop of passive and exhausted thoughts will 
 occupy her place. 
 
 It may be that she will think about a certain Christ 
 mas eve, windy and wild like this, and with a sky of steel 
 and red almost like this. She thought of it in seeing the 
 sunset from the window of the cars, remembering how a 
 streak of red light crept into the attic corner, to help her 
 while she packed a little bundle of her ragged clothes, thir 
 teen years ago to-night. 
 
 It may be that she remembers counting the holly wreaths 
 to keep her wits together as she fled, guiltily and sobbing for 
 terror at the thing that she was doing, through the happy 
 little town ; that she saw crosses of myrtle and tuberoses in 
 Mr. Havermash s drawing-room windows as she went by, 
 and how grand they looked ; and that a butcher s wife she 
 knew was hanging blue tissue-paper roses in her sitting- 
 room as she climbed the depot steps. She can even recall 
 the butcher s name, Jack Hash, Mrs. Jack Hash ; as 
 well as a hot and hungry wonder that filled the soul of the 
 
38 OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 
 
 desolate child that night, whether she should ever live to be 
 as safe and clean and respectable as Mrs. Jack Hash, and 
 how she would garland her sitting-room with blue tissue- 
 roses on Christmas, if she did ! 
 
 It may be that her fancy, being wearied, dwells more 
 minutely upon the half comical, wholly pathetic irrelevance 
 of these things than upon the swift and feverish history of 
 the crowded interval between their occurrence and the fact 
 that Helene Thamre is kneeling in the Havermash hotel 
 parlor, to-night, fighting all the devils that can haunt a beau 
 tiful and gifted woman s soul for her poor, old, shameful 
 mother s sake. 
 
 Her battles for bread in factories and workshops, when 
 first she cast herself, a little girl of fifteen bitter winters, 
 upon the perilous chances of the world ; worse contests, 
 such as the outcast child of old Peg Mathers might not 
 escape, being unfriended and despairing as the child had 
 been ; her desperate taxation of her only power, at last, 
 the voice which Heaven gave her, pure and sweet as its 
 own summer mornings ; the songs which she sang at street- 
 corners before the twilight fell ; the windows of happy 
 people under which she chanted mournfully ; the first solo 
 which they gave her at a mission school into which she 
 chanced ; the friends who heard it, and into whose hearts 
 God put it to stretch down their hands and draw her 
 straightway into Paradise ; her studies and struggles since 
 in foreign lands ; the death of the master who had trained 
 her, and the falling of his great mantle upon her bewil 
 dered name, these details, perhaps, float but mistily before 
 her mind. 
 
 Sharp, distinct, pursuing, cruel, a single question begins 
 to imprison her tortured thoughts, it took shapes as vague 
 as smoke, clouds, fogs, dreams, at first ; it looms as clear-cut 
 and gigantic as a pyramid before her now. 
 
 If all the world should know next year, next week, to 
 morrow, at once and forever, what she knows ? 
 
OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 39 
 
 If Ilavermash should learn, suppose, to-night, that little 
 Nell Mathers, the unfathered and forgotten child of the 
 creature at whose gray hairs the boys hoot on the streets, is 
 all there is of Helene Thamre (the very letters of the 
 shameful name transposed to make the beautiful, false im 
 age), what would Havermash, falling at her feet this instant, 
 do the next ? 
 
 Perhaps to the woman s inner sense neither Havermash 
 nor the world may matter much, indeed. She has kept, 
 through deadly peril, soul and body pure as light. Not a 
 sheltered wife, singing " Greenville " to her babies, vacant of 
 ambitions and innocent of noisier powers, can show a hand 
 or heart or name more spotless than her own. And now to 
 dye them deep in the old, old, hateful shame ! One must 
 have been little Nell Mathers and have become Thamre, I 
 fancy, to measure this recoil. 
 
 Perhaps it seems to her more monstrous and impos 
 sible as the thought grows more familiar to her. Perhaps 
 a certain hardness begins to creep across the pallor of her 
 face ; or it may be only that she has wound her fallen hair 
 back from it, and exposed the carved exactness and com 
 posure of her features. It may be that she will argue to 
 herself again, forgetting that the gray-haired vision left her 
 long ago : 
 
 " I could never make you happy, if I did. It would al 
 ways, always be a curse to both of us. What have you ever 
 done for me, that you should demand a r.ight so cruel ? You 
 have no right, I say ; you have no right ! " 
 
 "And, if you speak, indeed, why, who believes you? 
 What can your ravings do against Thamre s denial, poor old 
 mother ! " 
 
 Perhaps she muses, half aloud : " You need a shawl, I 
 see. You shall have a bright, warm shawl on Christmas 
 Day. It is better for you than a daughter. Oh ! a thousand 
 times ! " 
 
40 OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 
 
 Perhaps she laughs as Thamre does not often laugh - 
 most bitterly ; and that Joe Havermash, knocking at her 
 door, hears, or thinks he hears, the sound, before she flashes 
 on him, tall, serene, resplendent, in full dress and full spirit 
 for the evening. 
 
 The Happy Home Handel Association were satisfied with 
 the reception given by Havermash to their rendering of the 
 oratorio of the Messiah last Christmas eve. On settees, in 
 the aisles, on the window-sills, in the corridors, on the stairs, 
 Havermash overflowed the brown-stone post-office. 
 
 Since the incorporation of the city (which is the Chris 
 tian era of Havermash, and from which everything dates 
 accordingly) nothing approaching such an audience had 
 been collected for the most popular of purposes. Even 
 Signor Blitz could not have eaten swords or played base 
 ball with uncracked eggs before a quarter of the spectators ; 
 and the New England philosopher, it is well known, reads 
 his lectures in Havermash to three hundred people. 
 
 In this triumph the Happy Home Handel Association felt 
 compelled to own that Thamre had her share, which for 
 the H. H. H. A. was owning a great deal. When little 
 Joe bowed the prima donna upon the somewhat uncertain 
 (green cambric) stage, the East Havermash " orchestra " 
 led off in a burst of applause, which threatened to shake 
 the post-office to its foundation stone, and which fired even 
 the leader s dignity of Joe s rotund person to ill-concealed 
 enthusiasm. Even Mrs. Joe, gorgeous upon the front set 
 tee, in the opera dress that (it was well known) she wore 
 in Boston, despite the ache of a secret chagrin that Miss 
 Thamre had received no callers, reflected the general pride 
 and pleasure to the very links of her great gold necklace 
 and the tiniest wrinkle of her rose-colored gloves. Even 
 Mrs. Jack Hash, on her camp-stool, by the second left, 
 though disposed by nature and training to be critical of 
 
OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 41 
 
 anything headed by a Havermash, applauded softly with 
 the feathered tip of her silver-paper fan upon the frill of 
 her brown poplin upper skirt. Never had there been any 
 thing like it known in Havermash. 
 
 Like a bird, like a snow-flake, like a moonbeam, like a 
 fancy, like nothing that the brown-stone post-office was ac 
 customed to, Thamre stole upon the stage. She stood for 
 an instant poised, fluttering, as if half her mind were made 
 to fly, then fell into her unapproachable repose, and at her 
 leisure looked the great audience over, shooting it here and 
 there with her nervous glance. 
 
 The packed house drew and held its breath. Women 
 thought swiftly : Silver-gray satin, up to the throat and 
 down to the hands. No jewelry, and a live white lily on 
 her wrist ! Young men saw her through a mist, and half 
 turned their eyes away, as if they had seen a Madonna 
 folded in a morning cloud. Reporters pondered, twirling a 
 moustache end, pencil held suspended: Such severity is 
 the superbest affectation, my lady ! but it tells, as straight 
 as a carrier-dove. Before she- had opened her lips, Thamre 
 had conquered Havermash. 
 
 Conscious of this in an instant s flash, Thamre grew un 
 conscious of it in another. For an instant every detail in 
 her house was in her grasp, even to Mrs. Jack Hash on the 
 camp-stool and the critical attitude of the silver-paper fan ; 
 even to old Mother Goose, half fading into the shadow of 
 the distance, quarreling with a doorkeeper about her ticket. 
 The next she cast her audience from her like a racer cast 
 ing his cloak to the wind. Pier face settled ; her wonderful 
 eyes dilated ; the hand with the lily on it closed over the 
 other like a seal ; the soul of the music entered into her, 
 incorporate. She grew as sacred as her theme. 
 
 " That little country house," said a critic present, who 
 had heard her before her best houses in the great world, 
 " was on the knees of its heart that night. She never sung 
 
42 OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 
 
 like that before, nor ever will again ; nor any other artist, 
 it is my belief. She minded the jerks, of that orchestra and 
 the flats of the Havermash prime donne no more than she 
 did the whistling of the wind about the post-office windows. 
 She rendered the text like an angel sent from heaven for 
 the purpose. When she lifted that hand with the flower on 
 it (she did it only in the chorus, Surely, he hath borne our 
 griefs, and in the tenor, Behold, and see, and at one other 
 time) I could think of nothing but 
 
 In the beaut} of the lilies 
 Christ was born across the sea. 
 
 Couldn t get it out of my head. I meant she should have 
 been encored, when it was all over, to give us that itself ; but 
 for what happened, you know." 
 
 Did I say she grew as sacred as her theme ? It might 
 almost be said that its holy Personality environed and en 
 veloped her. Reverent souls that listened to her that well- 
 remembered night felt as if the Man of Sorrows confided to 
 her the burden of his heart, as if he stooped to acquaint 
 her with his grief, as if the travail of his soul fell upon her, 
 and that with his satisfaction she was satisfied. 
 
 The sacred drama was unfolding to its solemn close, the 
 wildness of the wind without was hushed, the Christmas 
 stars were out, when Thamre glided into her last solo, 
 that palpitating, proud, triumphant thing, in which the soul 
 of Divine Love avenges itself against the ingenuity of 
 human despair : 
 
 "If God be for us, who can be against us? 
 Who can be against us ? 
 Who shall lay anything to the charge 
 Of God s elect? 
 It is God that justifieth. 
 Who is he that condemneth ? 
 It is Christ that died." 
 
 It was at this point that the interruption came. 
 
OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 43 
 
 Shrill and sharp into the thrill of the singer s liquid, cling 
 ing notes a quick cry cut : 
 
 " Let me see her ! Let me touch her ! I can t abear it 
 any longer ! Let me see my girl ! " and, forcing her way 
 like a stream of lava through the packed and startled aisles, 
 hot, wild, pallid, and horrible, Old Mother Goose leaped, 
 before a hand could stay her, on the stage. 
 
 " I can t stand it any longer, Nell ! It seems to craze 
 my head ! I knew you from the time I heard you laughing 
 to the depot. I did n t mean to shame ye before so many 
 folks, and I tried to find my shawl. They said you wouldn t 
 want to see your poor old mother, Nelly dear. But I can t 
 abear to hear you sing. Nell, why, Nell, you stand up like 
 the Almighty Dead to do it ! " 
 
 The shock of the shrill words and their cessation brought 
 the house to its feet. Then came the uproar. 
 
 " Shame ! " " Police ! " " Order ! " " Take her out ! " 
 " Arrest the hag ! " " Protect the lady ! " And after that 
 the astonishment and the silence of death. 
 
 High above the wavering, peering mass, clear to the ap 
 prehension of every eye in the house, appeared a lily-bound, 
 authoritative hand. It motioned once and dropped as the 
 snow drops over a grave. 
 
 By those who sat nearest her it was said that the flower 
 trembled on the lady s wrist a little ; for the rest, she stood 
 sculptured like a statue, towering about the piteous figure 
 at her feet. Her voice, when she spoke, for she spoke in 
 the passing of a thought, rang out to the remotest corner 
 of the galleries, slipping even then, however, into Thamre s 
 girlish, uneven tones. 
 
 " If you please, do not disturb the woman at this moment. 
 She is a very old woman. Let us hear what she has to say. 
 Her hair is gray. Let us not be rough or hasty till we have 
 thought of what she says." 
 
 Old Mother Goose rose from the floor, where she had 
 
44 OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 
 
 fallen, half -abashed, perhaps half -dazed at that which she 
 had done. 
 
 " I ve got nothing more to say." She fumbled foolishly 
 in the air to wrap the shawl which she had lost about her 
 lean and tattered shoulders. " I ve said as this famous lady 
 is my daughter, that was Nell Mathers, and remembered by 
 many folks in Havermash thirteen year ago. I would n t 
 have shamed her quite so much if I d only found my shawl. 
 It s cold, too, without a shawl. I 11 go out now, and you 
 can sing your piece through, Nelly, without the plague of 
 me. I wouldn t have told on you, I think, but for the 
 music and the crazy feeling that I had. It s most too 
 bad, Nelly, to spofl the piece. I 11 go right out." 
 
 She turned, stepped off, and staggered feebly, turning her 
 bleared eyes back to feast upon the silent, shining figure, 
 on whose wrist the lily glittered cruelly, as only lilies can. 
 
 " What a pretty sating gown you ve got, my dear ! " she 
 said. 
 
 Mr. Havermash could bear it no longer. He took Old 
 Mother Goose by the sleeve, hurrying up, saying : " Come, 
 come ! " 
 
 " The woman is drunk, Miss Thamre. She shall not be 
 allowed to insult you any more like this. In the kindness 
 of your heart, you make a mistake, I think, if you will 
 pardon me. See ! she is quite beside herself. Something 
 is due to the audience. This disturbance should not con 
 tinue. Come, Peg, come ! " 
 
 But Thamre shook her head. She had grown now deadly 
 pale, at least so Joe thought, letting go the woman s arm, 
 his own face changing color sharply, the baton in his fat, 
 white-gloved hand beginning to shake. 
 
 " If you please, Mr. Havermash, I should like to know 
 the people will pardon me a moment, I am sure I should 
 like to know if this poor old creature has anything more to 
 say." 
 
OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 45 
 
 "Nothing more," said Old Mother Goose, shaking her 
 gray head, " but this, maybe, Nelly dear. I says to myself, 
 when I sits and hears you singing, I says, when you sang 
 them words : If God be for me, my girl won t be against 
 me ! My girl can t be against me ! over and over with 
 the music, Nelly, so I did ! If God be for me, how can my 
 girl be against me ? " 
 
 It was said that, when Helene Thamre stretched down 
 her lily-guarded hand, and, lifting the lean, uncleanly fingers 
 of Old Mother Goose, pressed them, after a moment s 
 thought, gently and slowly to her heart, she heard the sud 
 den break of sobs in the breathless house ; and, pausing to 
 listen to the sound, flushed fitfully like a child surprised, 
 and smiled. 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen," her great eyes stabbed the 
 audience through and through ; she lifted the old woman s 
 hand, that all might see, "I am sorry that your enter 
 tainment should be disturbed. If you will excuse me, I 
 will leave you now, and take my mother home." 
 
 Home ? What home was there for Old Mother Goose 
 and her outcast child in Thamre s hotel parlors, on that or 
 any other night ? What home was there for Thamre in 
 the God-forsaken cellar whence the woman of the town had 
 crawled ? Apparently, the lady had not thought of this. 
 Joe found her standing serenely as an angel when he caine 
 into the stifling little green room. She was still smiling. 
 She had buttoned her silver furs about the old woman s 
 shrunken throat. 
 
 " This will be warmer than your shawl, mother, don t 
 you see ? " he heard her say. " The boys shall never 
 bother you in this, poor old mother ! There ! " 
 
 Mrs. Havermash came with her husband. The Boston 
 opera-cloak was in disorder ; her rose-colored gloves were 
 wet and spotted. 
 
 " Miss Thamre," said Joe, " may I make you acquainted 
 
46 OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 
 
 with my wife ? We would not urge upon you again the 
 acceptance of a hospitality which has been already so de 
 cidedly refused ; but perhaps, considering the state of your 
 mother s health, we can make you more comfortable now 
 at our home than you can be elsewhere. If you will do 
 Mrs. Havermash and myself the favor to return with us 
 and her in our own carriage to-night " 
 
 Joe s grandfather, as has been said, cobbled shoes in a 
 wooden shop ; and even Mrs. Joe to-day will drink with her 
 spoon in her tea-cup, you will notice, if you chance to sit 
 beside her at a supper. But show me bluer blood, if it 
 please you, than shall flow in the veins of him and his, to 
 preserve the existence of this most cultivated instinct and 
 the memory of this most knightly deed. 
 
 All the world knows how Thamre suddenly and mysteri 
 ously disappeared a year ago from public and professional 
 life. All the world has mourned, wondered, gossiped, 
 caught at the wings of rumors, lost them, and so mourned 
 again at this event. 
 
 All the world does not know with what a curious develop 
 ment of pride in and loyalty to the personality of little Nell 
 Mathers, Havermash has struggled, till struggle has become 
 useless, to enforce a reticence upon the subject of Thamre s 
 movements and their motives. 
 
 To a few friends, familiar with her private history for the 
 past year, its results have seemed to crown its cost, I think. 
 At least, she herself, having proved them so, has contrived 
 to radiate upon us the light of her own content. 
 
 " You do not know the life," she said, at the outset, shak 
 ing her beautiful, determined head, " if you would ask me 
 to return to it while my mother lives. Even my name will 
 not bear the scorch of hers. The world is so hard on 
 women ! Do not urge me. Let me take my way. Per 
 haps God and I together can make her poor old hand as 
 white as yours or mine before she dies." 
 
OLD MOTHER GOOSE. 47 
 
 Perhaps they did. It is known that when Old Mother 
 Goose lay dying in her daughter s quiet house in Haver- 
 mash, one frosty night, not many weeks ago, and after she 
 had fallen, as they thought, past speech or recognition, she 
 raised herself upon her pillow, and, stretching her hands, said 
 slowly : 
 
 " Nell ! why, Nell ! It is Christ that died ! If my girl 
 was for me, Nell, could He be against me, do you think ? " 
 
 And further it is only known that Thamre will sing this 
 season in the oratorio of the Messiah on Christmas eve. 
 
THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 
 
 IT is not generally known that the Lady of Shalott lived 
 last summer in an attic, at the east end of South Street. 
 
 The wee-est, thinnest, whitest little lady ! And yet the 
 brightest, stillest, and ah, such a smiling little lady ! 
 
 If you had held her up by the window for she could 
 not hold up herself she would have hung like a porcelain 
 transparency in your hands. And if you had said, laying 
 her gently down, and giving the tears a smart dash, that 
 they should not fall on her lifted face, " Poor child ! " the 
 Lady of Shalott would have said, " Oh, don t ! " and smiled. 
 And you would have smiled yourself, for very surprise that 
 she should outdo you ; and between the two there would 
 have been so much smiling done that one would have fairly 
 thought that it was a delightful thing to live last summer in 
 an attic at the east end of South Street. 
 
 This, perhaps, was the more natural in the Lady of Sha 
 lott because she had never lived anywhere else. 
 
 When the Lady of Shalott was five years old, her mother 
 threw her down-stairs one day, by mistake, instead of the 
 whisky-jug. 
 
 This is a fact which I think Mr. Tennyson has omitted to 
 mention in his poem. 
 
 They picked the Lady of Shalott up and put her on the 
 bed ; and there she lay from that day until last summer, 
 unless, as I said, somebody had occasion to use her for a 
 transparency. 
 
THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 49 
 
 The mother and the jug both went down the stairs to 
 gether a few years after, and never came up at all ; and 
 that was a great convenience, for the Lady of Shalott s 
 palace in the attic was not large, and they took up much 
 unnecessary room. 
 
 Since that the Lady of Shalott had lived with her sister, 
 Sary Jane. 
 
 Sary Jane made nankeen vests, at sixteen and three-quar 
 ter cents a dozen. 
 
 Sary Jane had red hair, and crooked shoulders, and a 
 voice so much like the snap of a rat-trap which she some 
 times set on the stairs, that the Lady of Shalott could sel 
 dom tell which was which until she had thought about it a 
 little while. When there was a rat caught, she was apt to 
 ask, " What ? " and when Sary Jane spoke she more, often 
 than not said, " There s another ! " 
 
 Her crooked shoulders Sary Jane had acquired from sit 
 ting under the eaves of the palace to sew. That physiolog 
 ical problem was simple. There was not room enough 
 under the eaves to sit straight. 
 
 Sary Jane s red hair was the result of sitting in the sun 
 on July noons under those eaves, to see to thread her needle. 
 There was no question about that. The Lady of Shalott 
 had settled it in her own mind, past dispute. Sary Jane s 
 hair had been what was it ? brown ? once. Sary Jane 
 was slowly taking fire. Who would not, to sit in the sun 
 in that palace ? The only matter of surprise to the Lady 
 of Shalott was that the palace itself did not smoke. Some 
 times, when Sary Jane hit the rafters, she was sure that 
 she saw sparks. 
 
 As for Sary Jane s voice, when one knew that she made 
 nankeen vests at sixteen and three-quarter cents a dozen, 
 that was a matter of no surprise. It never surprised the 
 Lady of Shalott. 
 
50 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 
 
 But Sary Jane was very cross ; there was no denying that ; 
 very cross. 
 
 And the palace. Let me tell you about the palace. It 
 measured just twelve by nine feet. It would have been 
 seven feet post if there had been a post in the middle of 
 it. From the centre it sloped away to the windows, where 
 Sary Jane had just room enough to sit crooked under the 
 eaves at work. There were two windows and a loose scuttle 
 to the palace. The scuttle let in the snow in winter and 
 the sun in summer, and the rain and wind at all times. It 
 was quite a diversion to the Lady of Shalott to see how 
 many different ways of doing a disagreeable thing seemed 
 to be practicable to that scuttle. Besides the bed on which 
 the Lady of Shalott lay, there was a stove in the palace, 
 two chairs, a very ragged rag-mat, a shelf, with two notched 
 cups arid plates upon it, one pewter teaspoon, and a look 
 ing-glass. On washing-days Sary Jane climbed upon the 
 chair and hung her clothes out through the scuttle on the 
 roof ; or else she ran a little rope from one of the windows 
 to the other for a drying- rope. It would have been more 
 exact to have said on washing-nights ; for Sary Jane always 
 did her washing after dark. The reason was evident. If 
 the rest of us were in the habit of wearing all the clothes 
 we had, like Sary Jane, I have little doubt that we should 
 do the same. 
 
 I should mention that there was no sink in the Lady of 
 Shalott s palace ; no water. There was a dirty hydrant in 
 the yard, four flights below, which supplied the Lady of 
 Shalott and all her neighbors. The Lady of Shalott kept 
 her coal under the bed ; her flour, a pound at a time, in a 
 paper parcel, on the shelf, with the teacups and the pewter 
 spoon. If she had anything else to keep, it went out 
 through the palace scuttle and lay on the roof. The Lady 
 of Shalott s palace opened directly upon a precipice. The 
 lessor of the house called it a flight of stairs. When Sary 
 
THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 51 
 
 Jane went up and down, she went sideways to preserve her 
 balance. There were no banisters to the precipice. The 
 entry was dark. Some dozen or twenty of the Lady of 
 Shalott s neighbors patronized the precipice, and about once 
 a week a baby patronized the rat-trap, instead. Once, 
 when there was a fire-alarm, the precipice was very service 
 able. Four women and an old man went over. With one 
 exception (she was eighteen, and could bear a broken 
 collar-bone), they will riot, I am informed, go over again. 
 
 The Lady of Shalott paid one dollar a week for the rent 
 of her palace. 
 
 But then there was a looking-glass in the palace. I 
 think I noticed it. It hung on the slope of the rafters, just 
 opposite the Lady of Shalott s window, for she considered 
 that her window at which Sary Jane did not make nankeen 
 vests at sixteen and three-quarter cents a dozen. 
 
 Now, because the looking-glass was opposite the window 
 at which Sary Jane did not make vests, and because the 
 rafters sloped, and because the bed lay almost between the 
 looking-glass and the window, the Lady of Shalott was 
 happy. And because, to the patient heart that is a seeker 
 after happiness " the little more, and how much it is ! " 
 (and the little less, what worlds away !) the Lady of Shalott 
 was proud as well as happy. The looking-glass measured 
 in inches ten by six. I think that the Lady of Shalott 
 would have experienced rather a touch of mortification than 
 of envy if she had known that there was a mirror in a 
 house just around the corner measuring almost as many 
 feet. But that was one of the advantages of being the 
 Lady of Shalott. She never parsed life in the comparative 
 degree. 
 
 I suppose that one must go through a process of educa 
 tion to understand what comfort there may be in a ten by 
 six inch looking-glass. All the world came for the Lady 
 of Shalott into her little looking-glass, the joy of it, the 
 
52 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 
 
 anguish of it, the hope and fear of it, the health and hurt, 
 ten by six inches of it exactly. 
 
 " It is next best to not having been thrown down-stairs 
 yourself ! " said the Lady of Shalott. 
 
 To tell the truth, it sometimes occurred to her that there 
 was a monotony about the world. A garret window like her 
 own, for instance, would fill her sight if she did not tip the 
 glass a little. Children sat in it, and did not play. They 
 made lean faces at her. They were locked in for the day, 
 and were hungry. She could not help knowing how hun 
 gry they were, and so tipped the glass. Then there was 
 the trap-door in the sidewalk. She became occasionally 
 tired of that trap-door. Seven people lived under the side 
 walk ; and when they lifted and slammed the trap, coming 
 in and out, they reminded her of something which Sary 
 Jane bought her once, when she was a very little child, at 
 Christmas time, long ago, when rents were cheaper and 
 flour low. It was a monkey, with whiskers and a calico 
 jacket, who jumped out of a box when the cover was 
 lifted ; and then you crushed him down and hasped him in. 
 Sometimes she wished that she had never had that mon 
 key, he was so much like the people coming out of the 
 sidewalk. 
 
 In fact, there was a monotony about all the people in the 
 Lady of Shalott s looking-glass. If their faces were not 
 dirty, their hands were. If they had hats they went with 
 out shoes. If they did not sit in the sun with their heads on 
 their knees, they lay in the mud with their heads on a jug. 
 
 ** Their faces look blue ! " she said to Sary Jane. 
 
 " No wonder ! " snapped Sary Jane. 
 
 " Why ? " asked the Lady of Shalott. 
 
 " Wonder is we ain t all dead ! " barked Sary Jane. 
 
 " But we ain t, you know," said the Lady of Shalott, 
 after some thought. 
 
 The people in the Lady of Shalott s glass died, however, 
 
THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 53 
 
 sometimes, often in the summer ; more often last summer, 
 when the attic smoked continually, and she mistook Sary 
 Jane s voice for the rat-trap every day. 
 
 The people were jostled into pine boxes (in the glass), 
 and carried away (in the glass) by twilight, in a cart. Three 
 of the monkeys from the spring-box in the sidewalk went, 
 in one week, out into foul, purple twilight, away from the 
 looking-glass, in carts. 
 
 " I m glad of that, poor things ! " said the Lady of Sha- 
 lott, for she had always felt a kind of sorrow for the mon 
 keys. Principally, I think, because they had no glass. 
 
 A^hen the monkeys had gone, the sickly twilight folded 
 itself up, over the spring-box, into great feathers, like the 
 feathers of a wing. That was pleasant. The Lady of 
 Shalott could almost put out her fingers and stroke it, it 
 hung so near, and was so clear, and brought such a peace- 
 fulness into the looking-glass. 
 
 " Sary Jane, dear, it s very pleasant," said the Lady of 
 Shalott. Sary Jane said, it was very dangerous, the Lord 
 knew, and bit her threads off. 
 
 " And Sary Jane, dear ! " added the Lady of Shalott, " I 
 see so many other pleasant things." 
 
 " The more fool you ! " said Sary Jane. 
 
 But she wondered about it that day over her tenth nan 
 keen vest. What, for example, could the Lady of Shalott 
 
 see 
 
 " Waves ! " said the Lady of Shalott, suddenly, as if she 
 had been asked the question. Sary Jane jumped. She 
 said, " Nonsense ! " For the Lady of Shalott had only seen 
 the little wash-tub full of dingy water on Sunday nights, 
 and the dirty little hydrant (in the glass) spouting dingy 
 jets. She would not have known a wave if she had seen 
 it. 
 
 " But I see waves," said the Lady of Shalott. She felt 
 sure of it. They ran up and down across the glass. They 
 
54 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 
 
 had green faces and gray hair. They threw Lack their 
 hands, like cool people resting, and it seemed unaccountable, 
 at the east end of South Street last summer, that anything, 
 anywhere, if only a wave in a looking-glass, could be cool 
 or at rest. Besides this, they kept their faces clean. 
 Therefore the Lady of Shalott took pleasure in watching 
 them run up and down across the glass. That a thing 
 could be clean, and green, and white, was only less a won 
 der than cool and rest last summer in South Street. 
 
 " Sary Jane, dear," said the Lady of Shalott, one day, 
 " how hot is it up here ? " 
 
 " Hot as Hell ! " said Sary Jane. 
 
 " I thought it was a little warm," said the Lady of Sha 
 lott. " Sary Jane, dear ? Is n t the ya-rd down there a little 
 
 dirty ? " 
 
 Sary Jane put down her needles and looked out of the 
 blazing, blindless window. It had always been a subject 
 of satisfaction, to Sary Jane somewhere down below her 
 lean shoulders and in the very teeth of the rat-trap, that the 
 Lady of Shalott could not see out of that window. So she 
 winked at the window, as if she would caution it to hold its 
 burning tongue, arid said never a word. 
 
 " Sary Jane, dear," said the Lady of Shalott, once more, 
 " had you ever thought that perhaps I was a little weaker 
 
 than I was once ? " 
 
 " T guess you can stand it if I can ! " said the rat-trap. 
 
 " Oh, yes, dear," said the Lady of Shalott. " I can stand 
 it if you can." 
 
 " Well, then ! " said Sary Jane. But she sat and winked 
 at the bald window, and the window held its burning tongue. 
 
 It grew hot in South Street. It grew very hot in South 
 Street. The lean children, in the attic opposite, fell sick, 
 and sat no longer in the window making faces, in the Lady 
 of Shalott s glass. 
 
 Two more monkeys from the spring-box were carried 
 
THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 55 
 
 away one ugly twilight in a cart. The purple wing that 
 hung over the spring-box lifted to let them pass ; and then 
 fell, as if it had brushed them away. 
 
 " It has such a soft color ! " said the Lady of Shalott, 
 smiling. 
 
 " So has nightshade ! " said Sary Jane. 
 
 One day a beautiful thing happened. One can scarcely 
 understand how a beautiful thing could happen at the east 
 end of South Street. The Lady of Shalott herself did not 
 entirely understand. 
 
 " It is all the glass," she said. 
 
 She was lying very still when she said it. She had folded 
 her hands, which were hot, to keep them quiet, too. She 
 had closed her eyes, which ached, to close away the glare of 
 the noon. At once she opened them, and said : 
 
 " It is the glass." 
 
 Sary Jane stood in the glass. Now Sary Jane, she well 
 knew, was not in the room that noon. She had gone out 
 to see what she could find for dinner. She had five cents 
 to spend on dinner. Yet Sary Jane stood in the glass. And 
 in the glass, ah ! what a beautiful thing ! 
 
 " Flowers ! " cried the Lady of Shalott aloud. But she 
 had never seen flowers. But neither had she seen waves. 
 So she said, " They come as the waves come ; " and knew 
 them, and lay smiling. Ah ! what a beautiful, beautiful 
 thing ! 
 
 Sary Jane s hair was fiery and tumbled (in the glass), as 
 if she had walked fast and far. Sary Jane (in the glass) 
 was winking, as she had winked at the blazing window ; as 
 if she said to what she held in her arms, Don t tell ! And 
 in her arms (in the glass), where the waves were oh! 
 beautiful, beautiful ! The Lady of Shalott lay whispering : 
 " Beautiful, beautiful ! " She did not know what else to do. 
 She dared not stir. Sary Jane s lean arms (in the glass) 
 were full of silver bells ; they hung out of a soft green 
 
56 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 
 
 shadow, like a church tower ; they nodded to and fro : when 
 they shook, they shook out sweetness. 
 
 " Will they ring ? " asked the Lady of Shalott of the lit 
 tle glass. 
 
 I doubt, in my own inind, if you or I, being in South 
 Street, and seeing a lily of the valley (in a ten by six inch 
 looking-glass) for the. very first time, would have asked so 
 sensible a question. 
 
 " Try em and see," said the looking-glass. Was it the 
 looking-glass? Or the rat-trap ? Or was it 
 
 Oh, the beautiful thing ! That the glass should have 
 nothing to do with it, after all ! That Sary Jane, in flesh 
 and blood, and tumbled hair, and trembling, lean arms, 
 should stand and shake an armful of church towers and sil 
 ver bells down into the Lady of Shalott s little puzzled face 
 and burning hands ! 
 
 And that the Lady of Shalott should think that she must 
 have got into the glass herself, by a blunder, as the only 
 explanation possible of such a beautiful thing ! 
 
 " No, it is n t glass-dreams," said Sary Jane, winking at 
 the church towers, where they made a solemn green shadow 
 against the Lady of Shalott s poor cheek. " Smell em, and 
 see ! You can_ most stand the yard with them round. Smell 
 em and see ! It ain t the glass ; it s the Flower Charity." 
 
 " The what ? " asked the Lady of Shalott, slowly. . 
 
 " The Flower Charity. Heaven bless it ! " 
 
 " Heaven bless it ! " said the Lady of Shalott. But she 
 said nothing more. 
 
 She laid her cheek over into the shadow of the leaves. 
 " And there 11 be more," said Sary Jane, hunting for her 
 wax. " There 11 be more, whenever I can call for em 
 bless it ! " 
 
 " Heaven bless it! " said the Lady of Shalott again. 
 
 " But I only got a lemon for dinner," said Sary Jane. 
 
 " Heaven bless it ! " said the Lady of Shalott, with her 
 
THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 57 
 
 face hidden under the leaves. But I don t think that she 
 meant the lemon, though Sary Jane did. 
 
 " They do ring," said the Lady of Shalott, by and by. 
 She drew the tip of her thin fingers across the tip of the 
 tiny bells. " I thought they would." 
 
 " Humph ! " said Sary Jane, squeezing her lemon under 
 her work-box. " I never see your beat for glass-dreams. 
 What do they say ? Come, now ! " 
 
 Now the Lady of Shalott knew very well what they said. 
 Very well ! But she only drew the tips of her poor fingers 
 over the tips of the silver bells. Never mind ! It was not 
 necessary to tell Sary Jane. 
 
 But it grew hot in South Street. It grew very hot in 
 South Street. Even the Flower Charity (bless it !) could 
 not sweeten the dreadf ulness of that yard. Even the pur 
 ple wing above the spring-box fell heavily upon the Lady 
 of Shalott s strained eyes, across the glass. Even the gray- 
 haired waves ceased running up and down and throwing 
 back their hands before her ; they sat still, in heaps upon a 
 blistering beach, and gasped for breath. The Lady of 
 Shalott herself gasped sometimes, in watching them. 
 
 One day she said : " There s a man in them." 
 
 " A what in which ? " buzzed Sary Jane. " Oh ! There s 
 a man across the yard, I suppose you mean. Among them 
 young ones, yonder. I wish he d stop em throwing stones, 
 plague on em ! See him, don t you ? " 
 
 " I don t see the children," said the Lady of Shalott, a 
 little troubled. Her glass had shown her so many things 
 strangely since the days grew hot. " But I see a man, and 
 he walks upon the waves. See, see ! " 
 
 The Lady of Shalott tried to pull herself up on the 
 elbow of her calico night-dress, to see. 
 
 " That s one of them Hospital doctors," said Sary Jane, 
 looking out of the blazing window. " I Ve seen him round 
 before. Don t know what business he s got down here ; 
 
53 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 
 
 but I ve seen him. He s talkin to them boys now, about 
 the stones. There ! He d better ! If they don t look out, 
 they 11 hit " 
 
 " Oh the glass f the glass ! " 
 
 The Hospital Doctor stood still ; so did Sary Jane, half 
 risen from her chair ; so did the very South Street boys, 
 gaping in the "gutter, with their hands full of stones, 
 such a cry rang out from the palace window. 
 
 " Oh, the glass f the glass ! the glass ! " 
 
 In a twinkling the South Street boys were at the mercy 
 of the South Street police ; and the Hospital Doctor, bound 
 ing over a beachful of shattered, scattered waves, stood, out 
 of breath, beside the Lady of Shalott s bed. 
 
 " Oh the little less and what worlds away." 
 
 The Lady of Shalott lay quite still in her brown calico 
 night-gown [I cannot learn, by the way, that Bulfinch s 
 studious and in general trustworthy researches have put 
 him in possession of this point. Indeed, I feel justified in 
 asserting that Mr. Bulfinch never so much as intimated 
 
 O 
 
 that the Lady of Shalott wore a brown calico night-dress] 
 the Lady of Shalott lay quite still, and her lips turned 
 blue. 
 
 "Are you very much hurt? Where were you struck? 
 I heard the cry, and came. Can you tell me where the 
 blow was ? " 
 
 But then the Doctor saw the glass, broken and blown in 
 a thousand glittering sparks across the palace floor : and 
 then the Lady of Shalott gave him a little blue smile. 
 
 " It s not me. Never mind, I wish it was. I d rather 
 it was me than the glass. Oh, my glass ! My glass ! But 
 never mind. I suppose there 11 be some other pleasant 
 thing." 
 
 " Were you so fond of the glass ? " asked the Doctor, 
 taking one of the two chairs that Sary Jane brought him, 
 and looking sorrowfully about the room. What other 
 
THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 59 
 
 " pleasant thing " could even the Lady of Shalott discover 
 in that room last summer, at the east end of South Street ? 
 
 " How long have you lain here ? " asked the sorrowful 
 Doctor, suddenly. 
 
 " Since I can remember, sir," said the Lady of Shalott, 
 with that blue smile. " But then I have always had my 
 glass." 
 
 " Ah ! " said the Doctor, " the Lady of Shalott ! " 
 
 " Sir ? " said the Lady of Shalott. 
 
 " Where is the pain ? " asked the Doctor, gently, with 
 his finger on the Lady of Shalott s pulse. 
 
 The Lady of Shalott touched the shoulders of her brown 
 calico night-dress, smiling. 
 
 " And what did you see in your glass ? " asked the Doc 
 tor, once more, stooping to examine " the pain." 
 
 The Lady of Shalott tried to tell him, but felt confused. 
 So she only said that there were waves and a purple wing, 
 and that they were broken now, and lay upon the floor. 
 
 " Purple wings ? " asked the Doctor. 
 
 " Over the sidewalk," nodded the Lady of Shalott. " It 
 comes up at night." 
 
 " Oh ! " said the Doctor, " the malaria. No wonder ! " 
 
 " And what about the waves ? " asked the Doctor, talk 
 ing while he touched and tried the little brown calico shoul 
 ders. " I have a little girl of my own down by the waves 
 this summer. She I suppose she is no older than you ! " 
 
 " I am seventeen, sir," said the Lady of Shalott. " Do 
 they have green faces and white hair ? Does she see them 
 run up and down ? I never saw any waves, sir, but those 
 in my glass. I am very glad to know that your little girl 
 is by the waves." 
 
 " Where you ought to be," said the Doctor, half under 
 his breath. " It is cruel, cruel ! " 
 
 " What is cruel ? " asked the Lady of Shalott, looking up 
 into the Doctor s face. 
 
60 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 
 
 The little brown calico night-dress swam suddenly before 
 the Doctor s eyes. He got up and walked across the room. 
 As he walked he stepped upon the pieces of the broken 
 glass. 
 
 " Oh, don t ! " cried the Lady of Shalott. But then she 
 thought that perhaps she had hurt the Doctor s feelings ; so 
 she smiled, and said, " Never mind." 
 
 " Her case could be cured," said the Doctor, still under 
 his breath, to Sary Jane. " The case could be cured yet. 
 It is cruel ! " 
 
 " Sir," said Sary Jane, she lifted her sharp face sharply 
 out of billows of nankeen vests, "it may be because I 
 make vests at sixteen and three-quarter cents a dozen, sir : 
 but I say before God there s something cruel somewhere. 
 Look at her. Look at me. Look at them stairs. Just 
 see that scuttle, will you ? Just feel the sun in t these 
 windows. Look at the rent we pay for this er,e oven. 
 What do you s pose the merkiry is up here ? Look at them 
 pisen fogs arisin out over the sidewalk. Look at the dead 
 as have died in the Devil in this street this week. Then 
 look out here ! " 
 
 Sary Jane drew the Doctor to the blazing, blindless win 
 dow, out of which the Lady of Shalott had never looked. 
 
 " Now talk of curin her ! " said Sary Jane. 
 
 The Doctor turned away from the window, with a sudden 
 white face. 
 
 " The Board of Health " 
 
 " Don t talk to me about the Board of Health ! " said Sary 
 Jane. 
 
 " I 11 talk to them" said the Doctor. " I did not know 
 matters were so bad. They shall be attended to directly. 
 To-morrow I leave town " He stopped, looking down at 
 the Lady of Shalott, thinking of the little lady by the waves, 
 whom he would see to-morrow, hardly knowing what to say. 
 " But something shall be done at once. Meantime, there s 
 the Hospital." 
 
THE LADY OF S1IALOTT. 61 
 
 " She tried Ilorspital long ago," said Sary Jane. " They 
 said they could n t do nothing. What s the use ? Don t 
 bother her. Let her be." 
 
 " Yes, let me be," said the Lady of Shalott, faintly. 
 " The glass is broken." 
 
 " But something must be done!" urged the Doctor, hur 
 rying away. " I will attend to the matter directly, di 
 rectly." 
 
 He spoke in a busy doctor s busy way. Undoubtedly he 
 thought that he should attend to the mafter directly. 
 
 "You have flowers here, I see." Pie lifted, in hurrying 
 away, a spray of lilies that lay upon the bed, freshly sent to 
 the Lady of Shalott that morning. 
 
 " They ring," said the Lady of Shalott, softly. " Can 
 you hear ? Bless it ! Bless it ! Ah, yes, they 
 ring ! " 
 
 " Bless what ? " asked the Doctor, half out of the door. 
 
 " The Flower Charity," said the Lady of Shalott. 
 
 "Amen!" said the Doctor. "But I ll attend to it di 
 rectly." And he was quite out of the door, and the door 
 was shut. 
 
 " Sary Jane, dear ? " said the Lady of Shalott, a few min 
 utes after. 
 
 " Well ! " said Sary Jane. 
 
 " The glass is broken," said the Lady of Shalott. 
 
 " Should think I might know that ! " said Sary Jane, who 
 was down upon her knees sweeping shining pieces away 
 into a pasteboard dust-pan. 
 
 " Sary Jane, dear ? " said the Lady of Shalott again. 
 
 " Dear, dear ! " echoed Sary Jane, tossing purple feathers 
 out of the window and seeming, to the eyes of the Lady 
 of Shalott, to have the spray of green waves upon her hands. 
 " There they go ! " 
 
 " Yes, there they go," said the Lady of Shalott. But 
 she said no more till night. 
 
62 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 
 
 It was a hot night for South Street. It was a very 
 hot night for even South Street. The lean children in the 
 attic opposite cried savagely, like lean cubs. The monkeys 
 from the spring-box came out and sat upon -the lid for air. 
 Dirty people lay around the dirty hydrant; and the pur 
 ple wing stretched itself a little in a quiet way to cover 
 them. 
 
 " Sary Jane, dear ? " said the Lady of Shalott, at night. 
 " The glass is broken. And, Sary Jane, dear, I am afraid 
 I can t stand it as well as you can." 
 
 Sary Jane gave the Lady of Shalott a sharp look, and 
 put away her nankeen vests. She came to the bed. 
 
 " It is n t time to stop sewing, is it ? " asked the Lady of 
 Shalott, in faint surprise. Sary Jane only said t 
 
 " Nonsense ! That man will be back again yet. He 11 
 look after ye, maybe. Nonsense ! " 
 
 " Yes," said the Lady of Shalott, " he will come back 
 again. But my glass is broken." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said Sary Jane. But she did not go back 
 to her sewing. She sat down on the edge of the bed, by 
 the Lady of Shalott ; and it grew dark. 
 
 " Perhaps they 11 do something about the yards ; who 
 knows ? " said Sary Jane. 
 
 " But my glass is broken," said the Lady of Shalott. 
 
 " Sary Jane, dear ! " said the Lady of Shalott. u He is 
 walking on the waves." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said Sary Jane. For it was quite, quite 
 dark. 
 
 " Sary Jane, dear ! " said the Lady of Shalott. " Not 
 that man. But there is a Man, and he is walking on the 
 waves." 
 
 The Lady of Shalott raised herself upon her calico night 
 dress sleeve. She looked at the wall where the ten by six 
 inch looking-glass had hung. 
 
 " Sary Jane, dear ! " said the Lady of Shalott. " I am 
 
THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 0-3 
 
 glad that girl is down by the waves. I am very glad. But 
 the glass is broken." 
 
 Two days after, the Board of Health at the foot of the 
 precipice which the lessor called a flight of stairs, which 
 led into the Lady of Shalott s palace, were met and stopped 
 by another board. 
 
 " This one s got the right of way, gentlemen ! " said 
 something at the brink of the precipice, which sounded so 
 much like a rat-trap that the Board of Health looked down 
 by instinct at its individual and collective feet, to see if they 
 were in danger, and dared not by instinct stir a step. 
 
 The board which had the right of way was a pine board, 
 and the Lady of Shalott lay on it, in her brown calico night 
 dress, with Sary Jane s old shawl across her feet. The 
 Flower Charity (Heaven bless it !) had half-covered the 
 old shawl with silver bells, and solemn green shadows, like 
 the shadows of church towers. And it was a comfort to 
 Sary Jane to know that these were the only bells which 
 tolled for the Lady of Shalott, and that no other church 
 shadow fell upon her burial. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the Hospital Doctor, " we re too late, 
 I see. But you d better go on." 
 
 The gentlemen of the Board of Health went on ; and the 
 Lady of Shalott went on. 
 
 The Lady of Shalott went out into the cart that had car 
 ried away the monkeys from the spring-box, and the pur 
 ple wing lifted to let her pass ; then fell again, as if it had 
 brushed her away. 
 
 The Board of Health went up the precipice, and stood 
 by the window out of which the Lady of Shalott had never 
 looked. 
 
 They sent orders to the scavenger, and orders to the 
 Water Board, and how many other orders nobody knows ; 
 
64 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 
 
 and they sprinkled themselves with camphor, and they went 
 their ways. 
 
 And the board that had the Right of Way went its way, 
 too. And Sary Jane folded up the shawl, which she could 
 not afford to lose, and came home, and made nankeen vests 
 at sixteen and three-quarter cents a dozen in the window 
 out of which the Lady of Shalott had never looked. 
 
THE TRUE STORY OF GUENEVER. 
 
 IN all the wide, dead, old world of story, there is to 
 me no wraith more piteously pursuant than the wraith of 
 Guenever. No other voice has in it the ring of sweet har 
 monies so intricately bejangled ; no other face turns to us 
 eyes of such luminous entreaty from slow descents of de 
 spair; no other figure, majestic though in ruins, carries 
 through every strained muscle and tense nerve and full 
 artery so magnetic a consciousness of the deeps of its de 
 served humiliation and the height of its lost privilege. One 
 pauses as before an awful problem, before the nature of this 
 miserable lady. A nature wrought, it is plain, of the finer 
 tissues, since it not only won but returned the love of the 
 blameless king. One follows her young years with bated 
 breath. We see a delicate, high-strung, impulsive creature, 
 a trifle mismated to a faultless, unimpulsive man. We 
 shudder to discover in her, before she discovers it for or in 
 herself, that, having given herself to Arthur, she yet has 
 not given all ; that there arises now another self, an exist 
 ence hitherto unknown, unsuspected, a character groping, 
 unstable, unable, a wandering wind, a mist of darkness, a 
 chaos, over which Arthur has no empire, of which he has 
 no comprehension, and of which she whether of Nature or 
 of training who shall judge? has long since discrowned 
 herself the Queen. Guenever is unbalanced, crude, prime 
 val woman. She must be at once passionately wooed and 
 peremptorily ruled ; and in wooing or in ruling there must 
 
66 THE TRUE STORY OF GUENEVER. 
 
 be no despondencies or declines. There are no soundings 
 to be found in her capacities of loving, as long as the 
 mariner cares to go on striking for them. At his peril let 
 him hold his plummet lightly or weary of the sweet toil 
 taken in the measure of it ; at his peril, and at hers. 
 
 To Arthur love is a state, not a process ; an atmosphere, 
 not a study ; an assurance, not a hope ; a fact, not an ideal. 
 He is serene, reflective, a statesman. The Queen is intense, 
 ill-educated, idle. Undreamed of by the one, unsuspected 
 by the other, they grow apart. Ungoverned, how shall 
 Guenever govern herself ? Misinterpreted, value herself ? 
 Far upon the sunlit moor, a speck against the pure hori 
 zon, Launcelot rides, silent, subtle, swift, as Fate rides 
 ever 
 
 Poor Guenever ! After all, poor Guenever ! Song and 
 story, life and death are so cruel to a woman. To Laun 
 celot, repentant, is given in later life the best thing left 
 upon earth for a penitent man a spotless son. To Laun 
 celot is reserved the aureola of that blessed fatherhood from 
 which sprang the finder of the Holy Grael, " pure in thought 
 and word and deed." To Guenever is given the convent 
 and solitary expiation ; to Guenever disgrace, exile, and 
 despair. Prone upon the convent floor, our fancy leaves 
 her, kissing Arthur s kingly and forgiving, but departing 
 feet, half dead for joy because he bids her hope that in 
 some other world in which she has not sinned those 
 spotless feet may yet return to her, her true and stronger 
 soul return to him ; but neither in this world never in 
 this. Poor soul ! Erring, weak, unclean ; but for that, 
 and that, and that, poor soul ! poor soul ! I can never bear 
 to leave her there upon the convent floor. I rebel against 
 the story. I am sure the half of it was never told us. It 
 must be that Arthur went back some autumn day and 
 brought her gravely home. It must be that penitence and 
 patience and acquired purity shall sometime win the respect 
 
THE TRUE STOKY OF GUENEVEK. 67 
 
 and confidence of men, as they receive the respect and con 
 fidence of God. It must be that at some distant but ap 
 proaching day something of the tenderness of divine stain- 
 lessness shall creep into the instinct of human imperfection, 
 and a repentant sinner become to human estimates an object 
 sorrowful, appalling, but appealing, sacred, and sweet. 
 
 Who can capture the where, the how, the wherefore of a 
 train of fancy ? Was it because I thought of Guenever that 
 I heard the story ? Or because I heard the story that I 
 thought of Guenever ? My washwoman told it, coming in 
 that bitter day at twilight and sitting by the open fire, as I 
 had bidden her, for rest and warmth. What should she 
 know of the Bulfinch and Ellis and Tennyson and Dunlop, 
 that had fallen from my lap upon the cricket at her feet, 
 that she should sit, with hands across her draggled knees, 
 and tell me such a story ? Or were Dunlop and the rest 
 untouched upon the library shelves till after she had told 
 it ? Whether the legend drew me to the fact, or the fact 
 impelled me to the legend ? Indeed, why should I know ? 
 It is enough that I heard the story. She told it in her way. 
 I, for lack of her fine, realistic manner, must tell it in my 
 own. 
 
 Queen Guenever had the toothache. Few people can 
 look pretty with the toothache. The cheeks of royalty it 
 self will swell, and princely eyelids redden, and queenly 
 lips assume contours as unocsthetic as the kitchen-maids , 
 beneath affliction so plebeian. But Guenever looked 
 pretty. 
 
 She abandoned herself to misery, to begin with, in such 
 royal fashion. And, by the way, we may notice that 
 in nothing does blood " tell " more sharply than in the en 
 durance of suffering. There is a vague monotony in the 
 processes of wearing pleasure. Happy people are very 
 much alike. In the great republic of joy we find tremen- 
 
68 THE TRUE STORY OF GUENEVER. 
 
 dous and humiliating levels. When we lift our heads to bear 
 the great crown of pain, all the " points " of the soul begin 
 to make themselves manifest at once. 
 
 Guenever yielded herself to this vulgar agony with a 
 beautiful protest. She had protested, indeed, all winter, for 
 that tooth had ached all winter ; had never even told her 
 husband of it till yesterday. She had flung herself upon 
 the little crocheted cricket by the sitting-room fire, with her 
 slender, tightly-sleeved arm upon the chintz-covered rock 
 ing-chair, and her erect, firm head upon her arm. Into the 
 palm of the other hand the offending cheek crept, like a 
 bird into its nest ; with a caressing, nestling movement, as 
 if that tiny hand of hers were the only object in the world 
 to which Guenever did not scorn to say how sorry she was 
 for herself. The color of her cheeks was high but fine. 
 Her eyes Guenever, as we all know, had brown eyes, 
 more soft than dark were as dry as they were iridescent. 
 Other women might cry for the toothache ! All the curves 
 of the exhausted attitude she had chosen had in them the 
 bewitching defiance of a hard surrender to a power stronger 
 than herself, with which certain women meet every alien 
 influence, from a needle-prick to a heartbreak. She wore 
 a white apron and a white ribbon against a dress of a soft 
 dark brown color ; and the chintz of the happy chair, whose 
 stiff old elbows held her beautiful outline, was of black and 
 gold, with birds of paradise in the pattern. There was a 
 stove, with little sliding doors, in Guenever s sitting-room. 
 Arthur thought it did not use so very much more wood to 
 open the doors, and was far healthier. Secretly he liked 
 to see Guenever in the bird-of-paradise chair, with the 
 moody firelight upon her ; but he had never said so it 
 was not Arthur s " way." Launcelot, now, for instance 
 had said something to that effect several times. 
 
 Launcelot, as all scholars of romantic fiction know, was 
 the young bricklayer to whom Arthur and Guenever had 
 
THE TRUE STORY OF GUENEVER. 69 
 
 rented the spare room when the hard times came on, a 
 good-natured, inoffensive lodger as one could ask for, and 
 quite an addition, now and then, before the little sliding 
 doors of the open stove, on a sober evening, when she and 
 Arthur were dull, as Guenever had said. To tell the truth, 
 Arthur was often dull of late, what with being out of work 
 so much, and the foot he lamed with a rusty nail. King 
 Arthur, it is unnecessary to add, was a master carpenter. 
 
 King Arthur came limping in that evening, and found 
 the beautiful, protesting, yielding figure in the black and 
 golden chair. The Queen did not turn as he came in: 
 One gets so used to one s husband ! And the heavy, uneven 
 step he left upon the floor jarred upon her aching nerves. 
 Launcelot, when he had come, about an hour since, to in 
 quire how she was, had bounded down the stairs as merrily 
 as a school-boy, as lightly as a hare, and turned his knightly 
 feet a-tip-toe as he crossed the room to say how sorry he 
 felt for her ; to stand beside her in the moody light, to gaze 
 intently down upon her, then to ask why Arthur was not 
 yet at home ; to wonder were she lonely ; to say he liked 
 the ribbon at her throat ; to say he liked a hundred things ; 
 to say it quite unmanned him when he saw her suffer ; to 
 start as if he would say more to her, and turn as if he would 
 have touched her, and fly as if he dared not, and out into 
 the contending, mad March night. For the wind blew that 
 night ! To the last night of her life Queen Guenever will 
 not forget the way it blew ! 
 
 " Take some Drops," said Arthur. What a tiresome 
 manner Arthur had of putting things ! Some Drops, indeed ! 
 There was nothing Guenever wanted to take. She wanted, 
 in fact, to be taken ; to be caught and gathered to her 
 husband s safe, broad breast ; to be held against his faithful 
 heart ; to be fondled and crooned over and cuddled. She 
 would have her aching head imprisoned in his healthy 
 hands. And if he should think to kiss the agonizing cheek, 
 
70 THE TRUE STORY OF GUENEVER. 
 
 as she would kiss a woman s cheek if she loved her and 
 she had the toothache ? But Arthur never thought ! Men 
 were so dull at things. Only women knew how to take 
 care of one another. Only women knew the infinite fine 
 languages of love. A man was tender when he thought of 
 it, in a blunt, broad way. 
 
 There might be men One judged somewhat from 
 voices ; and a tender voice Heaven forgive her ! Though 
 he spoke with the tongues of all angels, and the music of all 
 spheres, and the tenderness of all loves, what was any man s 
 mortal voice to her a queen, the wife of Arthur, blame 
 less king of men ? 
 
 The wife of Arthur started from the old chair whereon 
 the birds of paradise seemed in the uneven firelight to be 
 fluttering to and fro. The color on her cheeks had deep 
 ened painfully, and she lifted her crowned head with a 
 haughty motion towards her husband s face. 
 
 " I m sure I d try the Drops," repeated Arthur. 
 
 " I 11 have it out ! " snapped Guenever. " I don t be 
 lieve a word of its being neuralgia. I 11 have them all out, 
 despite him ! " 
 
 Guenever referred to the court dentist. 
 
 " I 11 have them out and make a fright of myself once 
 for all, and go mumbling round. I doubt if anybody 
 would find it made any difference to anybody how any 
 body looked." 
 
 It cannot be denied that there was a certain remote vague 
 ness in this remark. King Arthur, who was of a metaphys 
 ical temperament, sighed. He was sorry for the Queen 
 so sorry that he went and set the supper-table, to save her 
 from the draughts that lurked even in the royal pantry that 
 mad March night. He loved the Queen so much that he 
 would have been a happy man to sit in the bird-of-paradise 
 rocking-chair and kiss that aching, sweet cheek of hers till 
 supper-time to-morrow, if that would help her. But he 
 
THE TKUE STOKY OF GUENEVEK. 71 
 
 supposed, if she had the toothache, she would n t want to 
 be touched. He knew he should n t. So, not knowing 
 what else to do, he just limped royally about and got the 
 supper, like a dear old dull king as he was. 
 
 If Queen Guenever appreciated this little kingly atten 
 tion, who can say ? She yielded herself with a heavy sigh 
 once more to the arms of the chintz rocking-chair, and 
 ached in silence. Her face throbbed in time to the pulses 
 of the wind. What a wind it was ! It seemed to come 
 from immense and awful distances, gathering slow forces 
 as it fled, but fleeing with a compressed, rebellious roar, like 
 quick blood chained within the tissues of a mighty artery, 
 beating to and fro as it rushed to fill the heart of the black 
 and lawless night. 
 
 It throbbed so resoundingly against the palace windows 
 that the steps of Launcelot, blending with it, did not strike 
 the Queen s ears till he stood beside her, in the firelight. 
 Arthur, setting the supper-table, had heard the knightly 
 knock, and bidden their friend and lodger enter (as King 
 Arthur bade him always) with radiant, guileless eyes. 
 
 Sir Launcelot had a little bottle in his hand. He had 
 been to the druggist s. There was a druggist to the king 
 just around the corner from the palace. 
 
 " It s laudanum," said Launcelot. " I got it for your 
 tooth. I wish you d try it. I could n t bear to see you 
 suffer." 
 
 " I m half afraid to have Guenever take laudanum," said 
 Arthur, coming up. " It takes such a mite of anything to 
 influence my wife. The doctor says it is her nerves. I 
 know he would n t give her laudanum when her arm was 
 hurt. But it s just as good in you, Sir Launcelot." 
 
 Guenever thought it very good in him. She lifted her 
 flushed and throbbing face to tell him so; but, in point of 
 fact, she told him nothing. For something in Sir Launce- 
 lot s eyes, the wife of Arthur could not speak. 
 
72 THE TRUE STOEY OF GUENEVER. 
 
 She motioned him to put the bottle on the shelf, and 
 signified by a slight gesture peculiar to. herself a little 
 motion of the shoulders, as tender as it was imperious her 
 will that he should leave her. 
 
 Now Launcelot, we see, was plainly sorry for Guenever. 
 Wa^ it then a flitting tenderer than sorrow that she had seen 
 within his knightly eyes ? Only Guenever will ever know ; 
 for Arthur, on his knees upon the crocheted cricket before 
 the palace fire, was toasting graham bread. 
 
 Guenever, on her knees before the rocking-chair, sat very 
 still. Her soft brown eyes, wide open, almost touched the 
 cool, smooth chintz where the birds of paradise were flying 
 on a pall-black sky. It seemed to her strained vision, sit 
 ting so, that the birds flew from her as she looker! at them, 
 and vanished ; and that the black sky alone was left. The 
 eyes that watched the golden birds departing were fair and 
 still, like the eyes of children just awake. It was a child s 
 mouth, as innocent and fair, that Guenever lifted just that 
 minute suddenly to Arthur, with a quick, unqueenly, ap 
 pealing smile. 
 
 " Kiss me, dear ? " said Guenever, somewhat disconnect 
 edly. 
 
 " Why, yes ! " said Arthur. 
 
 He was n t able to follow the train of thought exactly. 
 It was never clear to him why Guenever should want to be 
 kissed precisely in the middle of a slice of toast. And the 
 graham bread was burned. But he kissed the Queen, and 
 they had supper ; and he eat the burnt slice himself, and 
 said nothing about it. That, too, was one of Arthur s 
 " ways." 
 
 " Only," said Guenever, as the King contentedly finished 
 the last black crust, " I wish the wind would stop." 
 
 " What s the trouble with the wind ? " asked Arthur. 
 " I thought it was well enough." 
 
 " It must be well enough," said the Queen, and she shook 
 
THE TRUE STORY OF GUENEVER. 73 
 
 her little wliite fist at the window. "It shall be well 
 enough ! " 
 
 For the pulse of the wind ran wildly against the palace 
 as Guenever was speaking, and throbbed and bounded and 
 beat, as if the heart of the March night would break. 
 
 All this was long, long, long ago. How long Guenever 
 can never tell. Days, weeks, months, few or many, swift 
 L or slow, of that she cannot answer. Passion takes no 
 count of time ; peril marks no hours or minutes ; wrong 
 makes its own calendar ; and misery has solar systems pe 
 culiar to itself. It seemed to her years, it seemed to her 
 days, according to her tossed, tormented mood. 
 
 It is in the nature of all passionate and uncontrolled 
 emotion to prey upon and weaken the forces of reflective 
 power, as much as it is in the nature of controlled emotion 
 to strengthen them. Guenever found in herself a marked 
 instance of this law. It seemed to her sometimes that she 
 knew as little of her own story as she did of that of any err 
 ing soul at the world s width from her. It seemed to her 
 that her very memory had yielded in the living of it, like 
 the memory of a person in whose brain insidious disease 
 had begun to fasten itself. So subtle and so sure had been 
 the disease which gnawed at the Queen s heart, that she 
 discovered with a helpless terror not unlike that one 
 might feel in whom a cancerous process had been long 
 and undetected working that her whole nature was lower- 
 ing its tone in sympathy with her special weakness. She 
 seemed suddenly to have become, or to feel herself become, 
 a poisoned thing. 
 
 We may wonder, does not the sense of guilt not the 
 sensitiveness to, but the sense of guilt come often as a 
 sharp and sudden experience ? Queen Guenever, at least, 
 felt stunned by it. Distinctly, as if it and she were alone 
 in the universe, she could mark the awful moment when it 
 
74 THE TRUE STORY OP GUENEVER. 
 
 came to her. Vivid as a blood-red rocket shot against her 
 stormy sky, that moment whirred and glared before her. 
 
 It was a fierce and windy night, like that in which she 
 had the toothache, when she and the King had eaten such 
 a happy supper of burnt toast (for hers was burnt, too, al 
 though she would n t have said so for the world, since the 
 King had got so tired and warm about it). How happy 
 they had been that night ! Sir Launcelot did not come 
 again after supper, dimly feeling, despite the laudanum, 
 that the Queen had dismissed him for the evening. She 
 and Arthur had the evening to themselves. It was the first 
 evening they had been alone together for a long time. 
 Arthur sat in the chintz rocking-chair. He held her in his 
 lap. He comforted her poor cheek with his huge, warm 
 hand. His shining, kingly eyes looked down on her like 
 stars from Heaven. He said : 
 
 " If it was n t for your tooth, little woman, how happy 
 we would be." 
 
 And Guenever had laughed and said : " What s a tooth 
 ache ? I m content, if you are." And then they laughed 
 together, and the golden birds upon the old chair had seemed 
 to flit and sing before her ; and brighter and sweeter, as 
 they watched her, glimmered Arthur s guileless eyes. 
 
 The stars, were fallen now ; the heavens were black ; the 
 birds of paradise had flown ; the wind was abroad mightily 
 and cold ; there was snow upon the ground ; and she and 
 Launcelot were fleeing through it and weeping as they 
 fled. 
 
 Guenever, at least, was weeping. All the confusion of 
 the miserable states and processes which had led her to this 
 hour had cleared away, murky clouds from a lurid sky. 
 Suddenly, by a revelation awful as some that might shock 
 a soul upon the day of doom, she knew that she was no 
 longer a bewildered or a pitiable, but an evil creature. 
 
 A gossip in the street, an old neighbor who used to bor- 
 
THE TRUE STORY OF GUENEVER. 75 
 
 row eggs of her, had spoken in her hearing, as she and 
 Launcelot passed swiftly through the dark, unrecognized, 
 at the corner of the Palace Court, and had said: 
 
 " Guenever has fled with Launcelot. The Queen has 
 left the King. All the world will know it by to-morrow." 
 
 These words fell upon the Queen s ear distinctly. They 
 tolled after her through the bitter air. She fled a few 
 steps, and stopped. 
 
 " Launcelot ! " she cried, " what have we done ? Why 
 are we here? Let me go home! Oh! what have I 
 done ? " 
 
 She threw out her arms with that tender, imperious gest 
 ure of hers more imperious than tender now which 
 Launcelot knew so well. 
 
 Strange ! Oh ! strange and horrible ! How came it to 
 be thus with her ? How came she to be alone with Launce 
 lot in the blinding night? The Queen fled from the King ? 
 Guenever false to Arthur? 
 
 Guenever, pausing in the cruel storm, looked backward 
 at her footsteps in the falling snow. Her look was fixed 
 and frightened as a child s. Her memory seemed to her like 
 snow of all that must have led her to this hour. 
 
 She knew not what had brought her hither, nor the way 
 by which she came. She was a creature awakened from a 
 moral catalepsy. With the blessed impulse of the Prodigal, 
 old as Earth s error, sweet as Heaven s forgiveness, she 
 turned and cried : " I repent ! I repent ! I will go home to 
 my husband, before it is too late ! " 
 
 " It is too late ! " said a bitter voice beside her. " It is too 
 late already for repentance, Guenever." 
 
 Was it Launcelot who spoke, or the deadly wind that 
 shrieked in passing her ? Guenever could never say. A 
 sickening terror took possession of her. She felt her very 
 heart grow cold, as she stood and watched her foot-prints, 
 on which the snow was falling wild and fast. 
 
76 THE TRUE STORY OF GUENEVER. 
 
 It was a desolate spot in which she and Launcelot stood. 
 They had left the safe, sweet signs of holy human lives and 
 loves behind them. They were quite alone. A wide and 
 windy moor stretched from them to a forest, on which a 
 horror of great darkness seemed to hang. Behind them, in 
 the deserted distance, gleamed the palace lights. Within 
 these the Queen saw, or fancied that she saw, the shadow 
 of the King, moving sadly to and fro, against the drawn 
 curtain, from behind which the birds of paradise had fled 
 forever. 
 
 From palace to wilderness her footsteps lay black in the 
 falling snow. As she gazed, the increasing storm drifted, 
 and here and there they blurred and whitened over and 
 were lost to sight. 
 
 So she, too, would whiten over her erring way. Man was 
 not more merciless than Nature. 
 
 " I will retrace them all ! " cried Guenever. 
 
 " You can never retrace the first of them." said again 
 bitterly beside her Launcelot or the deathly wind. " Man 
 is more merciless than Nature. There is no way back for 
 you to the palace steps. In all the kingdom, there is no 
 soul to bid you welcome, should you dare return. The 
 Queen can never come to her throne again." 
 
 " I seek no throne ! " wailed Guenever. " I ask for no 
 crown ! All I want is to go back and to be clean. I 11 
 crawl on my knees to the palace, if I may be clean." 
 
 But again said sneeringly to her that voice, which was 
 either of Launcelot or of the wind : 
 
 " Too late ! too late ! too late ! You can never be clean ! 
 You can never be clean ! " 
 
 " Launcelot," said Guenever, rallying sharply and mak 
 ing, as it seemed, a mighty effort to collect control over the 
 emotion which was mastering her, " Launcelot, there is 
 some mistake about this. I never meant to do wrong. I 
 never said I would leave the King. There is some mistake. 
 
THE TRUE STORY OF GUENEVEK. 77 
 
 Perhaps I have been dreaming or have been ill. Let me 
 go home at once to the King ! " 
 
 " There is no mistake," said once more the voice, which 
 seemed neither of Launcelot nor of the wind, but yet akin 
 to both ; " and you are not dreaming and you can never re 
 turn to the King. The thing that is done is done. Sorrow 
 and longing are dead to help you. Agony and repentance 
 are feeble friends. Neither man nor Nature can wash away 
 a stain." 
 
 " God is more merciful ! " cried Guenever, in the tense, 
 .shrill voice of agony, stung beyond endurance. It seemed 
 to her that nature could bear no more. It seemed to her 
 that she had never before this moment received so much as 
 an intellectual perception of the guiltiness of guilt. Now 
 mind and heart, sotil and body throbbed with the throes 
 of it. She quivered, she struggled, she rebelled with the ac 
 cumulated fervors and horrors of years of innocence. But 
 it seemed to her as if the soil of sin eat into her like caus 
 tic, before whose effects the most compassionate or skillful 
 surgeon is powerless. She writhed with her recoil from it. 
 She shrank from it with terror proportioned to her sense of 
 helplessness and stain. 
 
 " They who are only afflicted know nothing of misery ! " 
 moaned Guenever. " There is no misery but guilt ! " 
 
 She flung herself down in the storm upon the snow. 
 
 " God loves ! " cried Guenever. " Christ died ! I will be 
 clean ! " 
 
 It seemed then suddenly to the kneeling woman, that He 
 whose body and blood were broke n for tempted souls ap 
 peared to seek her out across the desolated moor. The Man 
 whose stainless lips were first to touch the cup of the Holy 
 Grael, which all poor souls should after Him go seeking up 
 and down upon the earth, stood in the pure white snow, 
 and, smiling, spoke to her. 
 
 " Though your sins" he said, " are scarlet, they shall be 
 white." 
 
78 THE TRUE STORY OF GUENEVER. 
 
 He pointed, as he spoke, across the distance ; past the 
 safe, sweet homes of men and women, toward the palace 
 gates. It seemed to Guenever that he spoke again and 
 said : 
 
 " Return ! " 
 
 " Through those black footsteps ? " sobbed the Queen. 
 
 But when she looked again, behold ! each black and bit 
 ter trace was gone. Smooth across them all, fair, pure, 
 still, reposed the stainless snow. She could not find them, 
 though she would. They were blotted out by Nature, as 
 they were forgiven of God. Alas ! alas ! if man were but 
 half as compassionate or kind. If Arthur 
 
 She groveled on the ground where the sacred Feet had 
 stood, which now were vanished from her. Wretched 
 woman that she was ! Who should deliver her from this 
 bondage to her life s great holy love? If Arthur would 
 but open the door for her in the fair distance, where the 
 palace windows shone ; if he would take a single step to 
 ward her where she kneeled within the wilderness ; if he 
 would but loiter toward her where that Other had run 
 swiftly, and speak one word of quiet to her where He had 
 sung her songs of joy ! But the palace door was shut. 
 The King took no step toward the wilderness. The King 
 was mute as death and cold as his own white soul. On 
 Arthur s throne was never more a place for Guenever. 
 
 Guenever, in the desert, stretched her arms out blindly 
 across the blotted footprints to the palace lights. 
 
 Oh ! Arthur. Oh ! Arthur, Arthur, Arthur 
 
 " Why, Pussy ! " said Arthur. " What s the matter ? " 
 
 However unqueenly, Pussy was one of the royal pet 
 names. 
 
 " My little woman ! Guenever ! My darling ! Why do 
 you call me so ? " 
 
 Why did she call him indeed ? Why call for anything : 
 
THE TRUE STORY OF GUENEVER. 79 
 
 Why ask or need or long ? In his great arms he held her. 
 To his true breast he folded her. Safe in his love he shel 
 tered her. From heaven the stars of his eyes looked 
 down on her. As those may look who wake in heaven, 
 whose anguished soul had thought to wake in hell, looked 
 Guenever. She was his honored wife. There was no 
 Launcelot, no wilderness. The soul which the King had 
 crowned with his royal love was clean, was clean, was 
 clean ! 
 
 She hid her scarlet face upon his honest heart and seemed 
 to mutter something about " dreams." It was all that she 
 could say. There are dreams that are epochs in life. 
 
 " But it was n t a dream, you see," said Arthur. " We ve 
 had a scare over you, Guenever. You took the laudanum, 
 after all." 
 
 " Launcelot s laudanum ! Indeed, no ! I took the drops, 
 as I told you, Arthur." 
 
 " The bottles stood together on the shelf, and you made 
 the blunder," said Arthur, anxiously. " We think you 
 must have taken a tremendous dose. I ve sent Launcelot 
 for the Doctor. And Nabby Joiies, she was in to borrow 
 eggs, and she said a little camphire would be good for you. 
 She just went home to get it. But I ve been frightened 
 about you, Guenever," said Arthur. Arthur spoke in his 
 own grave and repressed manner. But he was very pale. 
 His lips, as the Queen crept, sobbing, up to touch them, 
 trembled. 
 
 " Well, well," he said, " we won t talk about it now." 
 Guenever did not want to talk. She wished Nabby Jones 
 would stay away, with her camphire. She wished Launce 
 lot would never come. Upon her husband s heart she 
 lay. Within her husband s eyes the safe, home lire-light 
 shone. Across the old chintz chair the birds of paradise 
 were fluttering like birds gone wild with joy. 
 
80 THE TRUE STORY OF GUENEVER. 
 
 Without, the wind had lulled, the storm had ceased, and 
 through the crevices in the windows had sifted tiny drifts 
 of cool, clean snow. 
 
 And this, know all men henceforth by these presents, is 
 the true story of Guenever the Queen. 
 
DOHERTY. 
 
 IF you want to see the inside of a station, you d ought to 
 have been here last night. It is n t often, ma am, there is a 
 night that would be suitable for you. I don t think there s 
 been half a dozen this winter that I d want you round if 
 you was my daughter or my sister begging your pardon, 
 ma am, as the best way I can put it to you to express my 
 meaning and the feeling that a man has about such things. 
 
 Ladies drop in of an errand now and then you ain t 
 the first. Curious errands, too. One, she wanted to circu 
 late a total abstinence pledge ; and another, she offered to 
 pay the salary of a chaplain. She brought a specimen with 
 her. Most I remember of him is what a little chap he was. 
 Then I remember three coming in a squad to teach the 
 women how to darn stockings. And one but she was 
 young she brought a package of tracts, on pink paper. 
 Then we ve had em bring sandwiches, and hymn-books, 
 and laylocks, and other singular things. 
 
 Most of em that drop in have that way about em as 
 though the officers were a-locking these folks up here for 
 their own personal gratification. Can t seem to get it into 
 their heads ! I always like to be polite to ladies, too, my 
 self. Then, another thing. They re bent on it, these 
 creeturs ain t past making over. Want to give em old 
 clothes and get em work ; set em up in little shops, and 
 that. Shops ! There is n t a man here once a month that 
 would set under a roof, if you d give him a salary for it. 
 
82 DOHERTY. 
 
 Why, once we used to give em soup. That was last 
 winter. It did n t work. We don t do it now. But the 
 city had a soup-day here one while, and a fish firm down 
 on Atlantic Wharf said we might have their heads. So we 
 told the men, if they d go down and get the heads it would 
 make their soup so much the richer. Don t you see ? Now 
 we could n t get a man-jack of em to stir. Not one. 
 They d rather go without than take the trouble. They re 
 all so. All of a piece. And the women well, the wo 
 men 
 
 Upon my word, I wish you had been here last night. I ve 
 been Lieutenant in this station for twelve years, and I don t 
 think I ever felt as I did last night. It s puckery kind of 
 work this like taking alum on your tongue. After a year 
 or so a man feels himself wizzling and toughening up in his 
 feelings. Can t afford to have feelings down here, more n 
 you can afford to stand round a burning house in cotton 
 clothes. It only scorches you and don t make any odds to 
 the house. 
 
 Ever see our books ? No ? Well just you look here, if 
 you please. Just count those pages. Will you ? From there 
 to there. We took in all those in December. In the month 
 of December, 1876, we had in this one station two thousand 
 two hundred and fifty-two men and women. Of course, 
 there s the usual share of arrests. There s Mahoney, and 
 Jones, and Sullivan, and Pete Cartwright, and Julia Hen 
 derson right under my finger, all arrests. All drunk. But 
 most of em are vagrancies in the winter time. You see it 
 was pretty cold last December, especially nights. And 
 then we re careful about our officers. Don t allow kicking, 
 and no more swearing at em than circumstances require. 
 These creeturs get such things round among themselves. 
 They have a fancy for this station, maybe. I don t know 
 how that is. We mean to be humane on this corps. That s 
 our theory. Some of our officers have a very gentlemanly 
 
DOHERTY. 83 
 
 way. Not that we think it makes much difference. I tell 
 you, madam (you may better understand it at the outset), I 
 don t know what your intentions are, of course but ladies 
 come with so many charitable and curious designs which 
 it seems a pity to disappoint ; but I tell you the folks 
 that get into these places are a hopeless lot. They re folks 
 without a chance. Most of us have a chance, I reckon, in 
 this world, some time or nuther ; even them poor devils. But 
 by the time they get here their chance is as dead as John 
 Brown s body. I don t say there s never an exception. 
 Now, there was that creetur last night. Maybe if some 
 body d taken her in hand several years ago if a lady with 
 the way you seem to have (I hope you 11 excuse me, 
 ma am, but there is a difference in a lady s way, such as I 
 think you d have to be a man and do a pretty rough man s 
 work, like mine, for instance, to understand so clearly as 
 you might). I wished last night, I will confess, that there d 
 been a lady here. It did occur to me to go home for my 
 wife. But I never bring my wife into the station-house. 
 
 Here s the entry one of the last ones I mean. See ! 
 
 " D : Doherty, Ellen. February 20th, 1877. Va 
 grancy" When I get time, I m going to count up how 
 often that woman s name has been on these books. But it 
 would take a good deal of time. It s some years. 
 
 I remember very well the first time she came. Don t 
 know how I happen to. There s such a lot of young girls. 
 And pretty ones, too. This one was more than commonly 
 good-looking an Irish girl. She had a dark style and 
 was paler than most of em. I think it must have been five 
 years ago. It was the first time she d ever been arrested. 
 She took on dreadfully about it. She hadn t begun to 
 drink then. And what she was taken up for had never 
 happened before. It was the first time, she said. Some- 
 ways, I remember, I believed her. Seemed as if she d 
 break her heart. Had n t any folks, she said. Her n were 
 
84 DOHERTY. 
 
 dead. She cooped up in a little heap in the corner, on the 
 floor, that night, and sat crying all the night. It was n t till 
 nigh morning that the other women could get a word out of 
 her. If I remember straight, we had an uncommonly rough 
 lot of women-folks on that night. I would n t have put her 
 in among em : but there s no other way. I never get quite 
 used to that shutting up a young thing with an old one. 
 
 Well, so she was sent to the House for thirty days ; and 
 by and by she was back again. She came of her own ac 
 cord that time. Said she couldn t get anything to do. 
 Seems to me she said she wanted honest work. They do 
 say it once in a while. And it was a pretty cold night. She 
 came for a place to sleep. 
 
 So after that we got pretty well used to her ; but mostly 
 after she begun to drink, and alter, like the rest. It don t 
 take long. Their own mothers would n t know em mostly 
 in three years or so ; less, maybe, as it happens. 
 
 Well, yes. Our rule is : come a fortnight and you go. 
 When one comes steady for two weeks every night, then it 
 is a case of vagrancy and we can send em to the alms- 
 house. But Doherty, she was pretty careful. She grew 
 smart as she grew worse. If she got taken up, it was n t 
 for a long pull. Never knew her in the House at the 
 longest more than three months at a time. And when she 
 come to lodge, she steered pretty clear of the law com 
 ing for a few nights, you see, and then off again on her 
 own ways. They re more afraid of the almshouse then they 
 are of hell, these folks. 
 
 So she got to be a pretty old customer always come 
 to this station. I don t know but that was my fault. Once 
 I give her a pair of my wife s shoes. It was one Janu 
 ary morning, twelve below zero. She had n t any stock 
 ings, only a pair of old rubbers, and her bare feet came 
 through onto the pavement, and it was pretty icy. I sup 
 pose I might have lost my place for it. Eh ! Cap n ? But 
 I don t think Doherty ever told of me. 
 
DOHERTY. 85 
 
 So you see, ma am, we ve all got kind of dependent on 
 her. Should have missed the creetur, I dare say, if she 
 had n t come. You get so used to the same thing, you know, 
 much as you do to your temper or your whiskers. She d 
 come in, and I d say : " Well, Doherty, back again ? " 
 And generally I went down myself to see her in the cell. 
 Sometimes I do, with the old hands. She grew to be a 
 pretty tough case, Doherty did. And yet there was always 
 something I liked about Doherty. 
 
 You see she used to sing. Sometimes they do. And 
 once or twice I ve had a chap here who could draw por 
 traits of the rest. Scrawl the walls all over, if he was n t 
 watched. One of the worst cases we ever had on these 
 books, his name was Gaffrey Peter Gaffrey. Killed an 
 officer, finally, with a horse-shoe. He used to talk Latin 
 when he was drunk, and some other language. I thought 
 it was Dutch : but the chief heard him, and said he guessed 
 it was Greek. The fellow used to get the rest all ranged 
 round like an audience, and then go at it. But generally 
 they talk religion. It s more popular. 
 
 This Doherty that I speak of, she had a beautiful voice. 
 I m something of a judge of music. My wife sings in a 
 choir in a Baptist church. There was a lady happened here 
 once wanted to get some scholars for her Bible-class, she 
 said ; and she heard Doherty sing. It was on one of her 
 sprees. I would n t have had a lady heard Doherty sing 
 that night, if I d been in time to stop it. None of the men 
 are often quite like that. This lady, she grew so faint we 
 had to carry her away. She did n t come again. It was 
 early six o clock in the morning, too and she d come 
 all the way from the West End to see the women before 
 they were let out. We let them go at six o clock. They 
 don t get in very thick till toward midnight. By one o clock 
 we re pretty full. 
 
 Time and again I Ve set up here looking over the books 
 
50 DOHERTY. 
 
 at dead of night, alone along with an officer or so, and heard 
 the call go up from a man somewhere down below : 
 
 " Doherty ! Sing us to sleep, Doherty ! Sing us to 
 sleep ! " 
 
 And then Doherty from the women s cell would hear 
 them, through the wall, and she d begin. And the fight 
 ing and the swearing and all the horrid noise would quiet 
 down ; and, true enough, I think they slept. I had a New 
 foundland dog that went to sleep when my wife played the 
 cabinet organ. Sometimes that woman would sing enough 
 to make your flesh creep. She d lost all her looks by that 
 time. But she never sang so when she was sober. And 
 sometimes she d strike up a pretty thing, as clean and sweet 
 as the hush-a-by my own baby hears, ma am, from my own 
 wife s lips. Sometimes she sang " Auld Lang Syne " or 
 " Home, Sweet Home ; " and once that woman picked up a 
 song called the "Three Fishers." Maybe you know it. 
 You could hear her all over this great building : 
 
 " For men must work, and women must weep, 
 And women must weep." 
 
 " Don t you ever sing any hymns, Doherty ? " I says to 
 her one night more to see what she would say, you know. 
 But she looked at me and made no answer, and passed on. 
 Doherty never quite lost her ways, like other women, when 
 she was herself. Sometimes she was quite manageable and 
 gentle in her ways. That night she did n t sing at all. 
 The men kept it up, off and on, all night : " Is Doherty in 
 to-night ? " " Has n t Doherty come ? " " Sing us to sleep, 
 Doherty ! Sing us to sleep ! " 
 
 But she would n t open her lips ; and when morning 
 came it was a snowy morning and I let her out, she 
 tugged a little, this way, on my sleeve, as she went out, and 
 said : " Good-by, Lieutenant," like a lady. She did n t 
 show herself again for a long while after that. 
 
 This winter she s come pretty often. In December she 
 
DOHERTY. 87 
 
 come nigh her fortnight s term ; but she cleared out just in 
 time. Then again this month. It s been a pretty cold win 
 ter, and the woman seemed sickly. I felt sorry for her. 
 She d grown unpleasant looking, and she coughed. I don t 
 think she had any place of her own this season, anywhere. 
 We could n t find out. The Cap n and I both felt a kind 
 of interest, you see, she d been on our books so long. It 
 was only natural. But I do assure you, ma am, there is 
 nothing to be done for such a case. Nothing whatever. I 
 would n t look like that, if I was you. You can t help it. 
 Him that permits em, He strikes em off our books, now 
 and then, into his, madam ; and best for Him and them and 
 us, I take it, when it happens. 
 
 Now, last night, the 23d of February, that woman, she d 
 just made out her fourteenth night consecutive ; and I had 
 it planned to send her to Tewksbury to-day. She (T be 
 warm in the poor-house, at least, and sure of her rations. 
 Cap n and I both felt glad of it when we saw her stagger 
 in. He said : " We ve got her this time." And I said : 
 " Here again, Doherty ? " 
 
 I went up to speak to her, for I felt a little sorry, too, 
 knowing it was the last time. For you could n t understand 
 how familiar their faces grow, nor the kind of feeling that 
 an officer gets about them, now and then. 
 
 There is the entry just as I put it down, after so many 
 times. 
 
 "No. 31 (she came in rather early) No. 31. D: 
 Doherty, Ellen. Vagrancy. Sick." For we saw at once 
 that she was pretty sick. She d been beating about in the 
 storm. The snow was all over her. I noticed she had on 
 a clean calico dress. She stood just w r here you re stand 
 ing, ma am, while I made the entry. It took the snow 
 some time to melt, for it had sleeted some. She looked 
 almost as if she was in a white dress, she was so covered. 
 She had her hair done up neat, too. 
 
88 DOHERTY. 
 
 I thought I d go and see her in the cell myself. So I 
 went down. She walked very slow and seemed weak. 
 " Tired, Doherty ? " said I. 
 
 " Lieutenant," said she, " folks used to call me Nell. 
 Nobody called me Doherty till I begun to come to the po 
 lice-station. I don t think anybody called me that till I d 
 been into the House," says she. 
 
 Then 1 said, for I thought I d pacify her, if I could: 
 " Are you sick to-night, Nell ? " 
 
 "Oh, my God!" says she just like that. Then she 
 threw up her arms over her head, and began to sob and take 
 on. But she did n t swear. She felt too sick, I take it. So 
 we put her in with the rest, and she got into the corner and 
 sat crying. 
 
 It was not till toward midnight that she begun. They 
 did n t get well in and quieted before that. But every now 
 and then the men would call : " Sing us to sleep, Doherty ! 
 Where is Doherty ? Doherty ! Sing us to sleep ! " 
 
 The storm set in hard toward midnight. It beats heavily 
 here upon the office windows, as you see, ma am ; and we 
 get a pretty clean sweep of the wind, on account of the street 
 running to the wharves. I sent down once to ask how Do 
 herty seemed : but the officer reported that she was quiet, 
 and he wished the rest were. They d all set in, men and 
 women, he said, in concert, a-crying out : " Sing us to sleep, 
 Doherty ! " 
 
 Pretty soon she began. I could hear her plain above the 
 roaring of the storm. She began Doherty began that 
 that poor miserable creetur she that had once 
 been a woman like other womanfolks excuse me, ma am ; 
 but she s been on our books a good many years. And I ve 
 heard her sing such things ! I never looked to be taken by 
 surprise, as Doherty took me. You re not surprised very 
 easy, in such a place as this, at anything your fellow-sinners 
 do. 
 
DOHEKTY. 89 
 
 But about midnight, when the storm was at its thick and 
 the cells were growing still, Doherty, she sat up and began 
 to sing a hymn. She sang : 
 
 " Shall we gather at the river? " 
 
 My boy sings that at Sunday-school, and my wife, she 
 strikes it up the iirst thing on the cabinet organ every Sun 
 day night. Doherty sang it all through : 
 
 " At the margin of the river, 
 
 Washing up its silver spray, 
 
 We shall walk and worship ever, 
 
 All the happy, golden day." 
 
 Those are the words. I thought perhaps you would n t 
 know them. Folks sing them a great deal in the Baptist 
 church. 
 
 Before you could have cocked a pistol it was as quiet as 
 the grave all through this place. The officers looked at one 
 another. All the men waked up. The women, they got 
 together in a heap about her. The Cap n said to me : 
 Doherty s singing hymn-tunes I " I said I thought we d go 
 down and see ; and down we went. 
 
 When we looked in at the grating, I wish, ma am, you 
 could have seen those men ragged, rough, red, drunk. 
 Some of em taken in awful crimes. No, I don t wish you 
 had seen them. But there they set, as silent as a row of 
 angels on the judgment day, a-listening to hear that woman 
 sing. One and another, they said : " Hush ! Hush ! " 
 And one fellow said : " I used to sing that song myself." 
 He was up for assault and battery. Badly beaten, too, 
 himself, about the face. He crept along the wall, I noticed, 
 on his knees, to get where he could hear her better. When 
 she stopped, he hollered out : 
 
 " Give us some more, Doherty ! " 
 
 And the rest said : 
 
 " Doherty, give us another psalm-tune ! " 
 
 But one of the women said : 
 
90 DOHERTY. 
 
 " Come, Nell ! Sing us to sleep with the hymns." 
 
 So then she began again ; and she gave it to em, one 
 upon another, fast and clear. Heaven knows where the 
 creetur learned em. At some Protestant Sunday-school, 
 maybe, where she d wandered in at holidays. They go a 
 good deal, on account of the Christmas presents. 
 
 We all got round her there the men inside and the offi 
 cers without and listened for awhile. I don t think I 
 ever heard her sing so in all my life. Doherty had a fine 
 voice, and no mistake. If she d been respectably born, 
 she d have been a great singer, that woman, I take it ; and 
 folks would have been running to the opera and to concert 
 halls to hear her. 
 
 So there she sat and sung. She set up in one corner, 
 with her chin upon her hands and noticed nobody ; but 
 stared straight on before her. She sang " Nearer, my God, 
 to Thee," and " Depths of Mercy ; " and she sung " I heard 
 the voice of Jesus say," and " Love at Home," and all those. 
 And all the men and all the women listened. And I saw 
 the Cap n draw his hand acrost his eyes. And I 11 own it 
 was too much for me. I will, indeed. 
 
 To see her there, letting out those holy words so trust 
 fully, as you might say, ma am, as if she had as much right 
 to em as anybody that poor wretched Madam, it 
 was enough to break your heart to hear her. I could n t 
 help remembering how pretty she had been and young, and 
 how she took on the first night she ever come to us. 
 
 Pretty soon I come away up-stairs for she unmanned 
 me so, before the men ; and I set down here and had it out 
 alone. But while I was setting here I heard a lull, and one 
 of the Irish boys called out : 
 
 " Give us the one more, Doherty ! Then ye can take 
 yer sleep yerself ! " 
 
 And then, ma am, she began, quite low and in a faint 
 voice, and very sweet, and she sung : 
 "Jesus, Lover of my soul." 
 
DOHERTY. 91 
 
 She sung it this way, singing louder now and then : 
 
 " Let me to Thy bosom fly, 
 
 While the billows near me roll 
 
 Hide me, O Thou Saviour, hide," 
 
 and in the midst of the verse she stopped. The men called 
 to her, and the women ; and the Cap n said : 
 
 " Give us the rest, Nell ! " 
 
 I was rather glad he called her Nell just then ; for when 
 we got in, wondering what it all meant, and hushing up the 
 women, ma am, as best we could, we found her lying turned 
 a little on her side, with her face against the wall, quite 
 dead. 
 
 It does n t happen so often, ma am, that we ever get quite 
 toughened to it. And being a woman makes it ar little dif 
 ferent. I wish you d seen her. Upon my soul, I do. I 
 wish some woman had been there of a different sort from 
 them about her. We don t often have a prettier nor a more 
 modest and more gentle creetur than Doherty was the first 
 night we ever saw her here. I wish you could have heard 
 her sing the hymns. 
 
THE VOYAGE OF THE "AMERICA. 3 
 
 IT seems as wild as Constaunce, as eerie as Undine, as far 
 as Morte d Arthur, as big as Robinson Crusoe, as hard as 
 Jonah. 
 
 I sit upon the jutting lava rocks of Eastern Point, and 
 say it seems impossible. 
 
 Lazily upon the rich and tortured hues which the beating 
 water and the bursting fire opened for my pleasure ages 
 ago, falls the liquid August sunlight, as only Gloucester sun 
 light falls, I think, the wide world over. Through it, the 
 harbor widens, gladdens, to the sea. The tide beats at my 
 feet, a mighty pulse, slow, even, healthy, and serene. Scant 
 weeds of umber shades and emerald, with now and then a 
 dash of carmine, are sucked in by the olive-green barnacles, 
 or wash idly past me through the lava gorge. The near 
 waves curve and break in quiet colors ; across the harbor s 
 width they deepen and purple, if one can place the eyes, be 
 neath the blaze of the climbing sun, upon them. A shred 
 or two of foam, curling lightly against the cliffs of the west 
 ern shore, whispers that far across the broad arm of the 
 Point the sleeping east wind has reared his head to look 
 the harbor over. Beneath the bright shade of many-hued 
 sun-umbrellas the dories of the pleasure-people tilt daintily. 
 At the distance nearly of two miles the harbor s width 
 I can see the glitter of the cunners caught sharply from the 
 purple water : as well as the lithe, light drawing of a lady s 
 hand over the boat s side against the idle tide. All along 
 
THE VOYAGE OF THE " AMERICA." 93 
 
 the lee shore from the little reef, Black Bess, to the busy 
 town, the buoys of the mackerel nets bob sleepily ; in and 
 out among them, with the look of men who have toiled all 
 night and taken nothing, glide the mackerel fishers, peace 
 ful and poor. The channel, where the wind has freshened 
 now, is full. The lumber-schooner is there from Machias, 
 the coal-bark bound for Boston, the fishing-sloop headed to 
 the Banks. The water-boat trips up and down on a supply 
 tour. A revenue cutter steams in and out importantly. 
 The Government lighter struts by. A flock of little pleas 
 ure sails fly past the New York school-ship, peering up at 
 her like curious canaries at a solemn watch-clog. A sombre 
 old pilot-boat, indifferent to all the world, puts in to get 
 her dinner after her morning s work, and the heavily- 
 weighted salt-sloops tack to clear the Boston steamer turn 
 ing Norman s Woe. 
 
 Arid Norman s Woe, the fair, the cruel, the Woe of 
 song and history, can it ever have been a terror ? Now 
 it is a trance. Behind it the blended greens of the rich in 
 habited shore close up softly ; upon it the full light falls ; 
 the jagged teeth of the bared rock round smoothly in the 
 pleasant air ; the colors known to artists as orange chrome 
 and yellow ochre and burnt Sienna caress each other, to 
 make the reef a warm and gentle thing. 
 
 Beyond it stirs the busy sea. The day falls so fair that 
 half the commerce of the Massachusetts coast seems to be 
 alive upon its happy heart. The sails swarm like silver 
 bees. The black hulls start sharply from the water-line, 
 and look round and full like embossed designs against the 
 delicate sky. It is one of the silver days, dear to the hearts 
 of dwellers by the shore, when every detail in the distance 
 is magnified and sharp. I can see the thin, fine line of de 
 parting mast-heads, far, far, far, till they dip and utterly 
 melt. Half-way Rock half-way to Boston from my lava 
 gorge rises clear-cut and vivid to the unaided eye, as if 
 
94 THE VOYAGE OF THE "AMERICA." 
 
 brought wthin arm s-length by a powerful glass. And 
 there the curved arm of the Salem shore stretches out, and 
 Marblehead turns her fair neck toward us : in the faint, vio 
 let tinge of the outlines I can see pale specks where houses 
 cluster thickly. 
 
 Beyond them all, across the flutter of uncounted sails, 
 which fly, which glide, which creep, which pass and repass, 
 wind and interwind, which dare me to number them and 
 defy me to escape them, dim as a dream and fair as a 
 fancy, I can distinctly see the long, low, gray outline of 
 Cape Cod. 
 
 Cape Cod ? I will take the " Sandpiper " and row over 
 there after dinner. Nothing were easier. 
 
 I say as much to the Ancient Mariner who sits below me 
 in the lava gorge, bracing his foot against the death of half 
 a hundred green and golden snails, engaged, as Mr. Cole 
 ridge, you remember, tells us, in the honorable, if prosaic, 
 occupation of cleaning cod. The Ancient Mariner is of a 
 literal turn of mind, and, to my innocent, metaphysical at 
 tempt to " conceive the inconceivable," superciliously and 
 succinctly makes answer : 
 
 " Think so ! " 
 
 And indeed, after some moments of reflection, the bold 
 idea seems so to work upon his feelings that he turns slowly 
 around, as far as he ever allows himself to turn around 
 when honoring me with his society, for he considers it a 
 point of gallantry that he keep his busy shoulder broad 
 across the range of vision which interposes between the 
 cod and me; and for. that knightly instinct, may all the 
 cod in Gloucester harbor take it as a pleasure-trip to come 
 into his net and be cleaned ! He turns slowly, half-way 
 round, and articulates distinctly : 
 
 Think so ! Cape Cod ! The < Sandpeep ! " 
 
 No language can express the immense atmospheric press 
 ure of scorn to the square inch of accent contained in this 
 
THE VOYAGE OP THE " AMERICA." 95 
 
 irreverent remark. I catch my breath with horror. The 
 " Sandpiper " the dignified, the delicate, the dear ; the 
 " Sandpiper " that skims the glowing bay, now to the meas 
 ure of Celia Thaxter s poem, now to the beat of swift and 
 tiny wings above my head now to the throb of the rower s 
 own unspoken and unspeakable fancies my boat the 
 " Sand-peep " / 
 
 It may be that my breathless silence penetrates the su 
 perb superiority below me with a dim sense of desire to 
 make amends for an uncomprehended but palpable injury ; 
 for, after a certain pause, in the serene, slow voice peculiar, 
 I believe, to an old salt about to spin an intricate sea-yarn, 
 there float to me the words : 
 
 " Did ye ever hear about the schooner America ? " 
 In an instant I forgive him. He might have called it, 
 as the reporter did, the " Sand-scraper " I could have 
 forgiven that, yea, unto seventy times seven. I clamber 
 into the softest corner of the lava gorge ; I court the ten- 
 derest embrace of my Himalaya shawl ; I fix my eyes upon 
 the violet horizon and the silver sea. The Ancient Mari 
 ner, sitting still, impervious, between his honorable occupa 
 tion and my own, gestureless, unimpassioned, half -hidden, 
 tells the tale with the serenity and insistence of an old 
 Greek chorus ; and between the pauses of his unvaried voice 
 the rising tide beats restlessly. 
 
 " Wai, I 11 tell you about that if you d like to hear. 
 Times I ve sat in the chimbly corner and heerd my grand 
 father tell it, ain t skerce. You see my grandfather was one 
 of em. We used to consider it a great honor in our days, 
 folks did, to be one of that there crew. True? It s true 
 as Bible. And I m an old-fashioned man that believes in 
 Bible. Mebbe because I was brought up to, and it s handy 
 coming by your religion in the course of natur , as it is by 
 your eyebrows or your way of walking. Then, mebbe it s 
 
96 THE VOYAGE OF THE 
 
 the way a man s made up. Some folks take to religion, 
 and some folks take to shoes, and it may be fishing, or, 
 perhaps, it s rum. My grandfather was a pious man. 
 
 " It was nigh a hundred years ago ; in Anne Dominoes 
 1779, as my grandfather used to say, that the schooner 
 America weighed anchor from this port bound for the 
 West Indies on a trading voyage. 
 
 " There was five in the crew, and my grandfather he was 
 one. They were Gloucester boys, as I remember, grow d 
 up around here. And Cap n Elwell, everybody knew 
 him ; he was postmaster. They sailed the last of July, 
 1779. 
 
 " We sailed the last of July, says my grandfather, 
 seventeen hundred and seventy-nine, says he, and if I ve 
 heerd him say it once I ve heerd it fifty times. I was a 
 little shaver. I used to sit on stormy nights and hear him 
 talk. The only thing I ever had against my grandfather was 
 the time he took to steer through family prayers. I whit 
 tled out a dory rudder once before he got through praying. 
 But when it come to yarns, you could n t find his beat. And 
 that s what perplexes me. Why, if a man can tell a good 
 yarn to folks, can t he tell a good one to the Lord ? For 
 that a prayer s no more nor less than that, to my mind a 
 mighty yarn so big you believe it when you re telling it 
 because you can t help yourself, and other folks believe it 
 when they listen because they can t help theirselves. Eh ? 
 Well, I don t know ; that s the way it seems to me. 
 
 " There was one chap among the boys booked for that 
 voyage in the America that I must mention. The boys 
 they called him Bub. He was a youngish fellow the 
 youngest of the lot. And I ve heerd tell he was palish in 
 his make, and slight, sort o like a girl ; and how he had a 
 pretty face, and that his hair curled. Light hair, grand 
 father said, and blue eyes. I can remember once his sit 
 ting up against the kitchen boiler and saying how that fel 
 
THE VOYAGE OF THE " AMERICA." 97 
 
 low s eyes remembered him of a little sister that I had 
 about that time. But her name was Dorothy, and she died 
 of scarlet fever. 
 
 " Now, you see, this young chap that they called Bub, 
 he d just got married. Barely nineteen, says grandfather, 
 was that boy, and married to a little girl mebbe a year the 
 less. And the cutting thing about it was these poor young 
 things had n t been married not more than six weeks when 
 the America set sail. 
 
 " I don t know if folks took things a hundred years ago 
 as they might take em now. Suppose so. Don t you ? 
 Seems somehow as if they was made of different dough. 
 Now, I ve seen women, and women, and the way wives 
 take on, you know, when their men set sail from Glouces 
 ter harbor. Fishing folks are used to that. Them that go 
 down to the sea in ships get used to bitter things. It ain t 
 so much taking your life in your hands, as other matters 
 that are wuth more than life to you to think on and re 
 member of. If you Ve married a good woman and set any 
 thing by her, and she set anything by you, a man takes her 
 eyes along with him as they looked with tears in em ; and 
 her hands along, as they felt when they got around his neck ; 
 and her voice, the sound it had, when it choked in trying to 
 say good-by that morning ; and the look of the baby in 
 her arms as she stood ag in the door. 
 
 " Women-folks are plenty, but they re skerce in their 
 ways. One don t do things like another. You 11 never 
 find two fish jump on the hook in the same manner, not if 
 you fish to the next Centennial. I ve seen a little measly 
 cunner make fuss enough as it hed been the sea-sarpeut ; and 
 I ve seen a two-pound mackerel slip int the dory polite 
 and easy, as if he d only come to dun you for a little bill. 
 
 " Some women they take on like to make you deef. 
 Screech. Have highsterics. Some they follow him to the 
 wharf and stand sobbin , sort of quiet. There s others that 
 7 
 
98 THE VOYAGE OF THE 
 
 stay to home, and what they says and what they suffers no 
 man knows but him that they belong to. That s the way 
 my wife always done. Never a messmate of mine saw that 
 woman cry Once I saw a woman at the laundry over 
 there, doing clothes among a lot of folks, and a man steps 
 up and says to her before them all and if I d been nigh 
 enough seems I should have knocked him down and says 
 he : < Your husband s drowned, and your son Tom. Like 
 that ! "Wai, she just put her apron over her head, that 
 woman did, threw it across without a word, and she dropped 
 her irons, and she put and run. She run right through us 
 all, and up the streets, and straight for home. And in she 
 went and shut the door, and let no one come after. 
 
 " Nigh as I can make out, this young fellow s wife I m 
 talkin of was some like that. Folks say she was a pretty 
 creetur, with that look some women have when they re just 
 married : as happy as an angel, and as scarey as a little 
 bird I ve seen em ; shy of everybody but him ; and think 
 themselves too well off to care if ever they speak to other 
 folks again. I like to see a woman have that look. It 
 wears off quick enough. So does the shine on a fancy bait ; 
 but all the same you want your bait to shine ; you don t go 
 trading for a dull one, if only of respect to the feelings oi 
 the fish. 
 
 " Now, of all the p ints that have been forgotten in that 
 affair, it s never been disputed to my knowledge what the 
 name was of that poor young woman. Cur ous, ain t it ? 
 Her name was Annie. I ve seen men sit and wrangle over 
 bigger matters in the story, as how the wind was on a cer 
 tain day, or who it was that picked them up, and so on ; 
 but I never heerd one yet deny that the young woman s 
 name was Annie. 
 
 " You see they was mostly older and settled down ; used 
 to their wives by that time. And then it turned out so with 
 Bub. The chap was musical too, I Ve heerd tell, and folks 
 
99 
 
 had it, that he called her Annie Laurie. I suppose you ve 
 heerd a song called i Annie Laurie ? Eh? Didn t sing 
 Annie Laurie those days as they sing it these n ? I don t 
 know. All I know is what folks said. 
 
 " It was a blazing hot July, I ve heerd, the July the 
 j < America set sail. Night before they was to sail, it was 
 dead still, and hot like to weaken you to rags. My grand 
 father he was out a little late, to get a sou -wester that 
 he d ordered in a little old shop that used to stand over 
 | there beyond Davis s Fish Dinners tore down long ago. 
 His house, you see, was there about there, acrost Front 
 Street : and them two young things, they lived in a little 
 alley, long since made away with, and he had to pass their 
 house in going home. And because they was so young, 
 and because of what come after, I suppose, he said, says he, 
 i* I shall never forget to the day I die, says he, the sight 
 I saw in walking by poor Bub s , says he. 
 
 " It was so hot, he says, that the curtain was rolled up, 
 and they d set the light off in an inner room, thinking, 
 mebbe, that no one would see. Or mebbe, in their love 
 and misery, they didn t think at all. But the light shone 
 through acrost, and there they sat, he says, half indistinct, 
 ,like shadows, in one another s arms. 
 
 " He thought she must have had some wrapping-gown 
 ;on, he said, of a light color and thin, because it was so hot ; 
 but not considering it quite proper to reflect upon, and half 
 ! ashamed to have looked in, although not meaning to, he 
 : could n t say. But the poor young woman she sat in her 
 husband s lap, and Bub, poor fellow ! was brushing of her 
 hair. She had long yellow hair, folks say, most to her feet. 
 So there sits poor Bub, brushing of it for her, and just as 
 grandfather went by, she put up her little hand the way 
 a woman has, you know against her husband s cheek. 
 
 " To the day he died, my grandfather never mentioned 
 that outside the family. It seemed a wickedness, he said. 
 
100 THE VOYAGE OF THE "AMERICA." 
 
 He jammed his hat acrost his eyes, and hurried home to his 
 own folks. It was an old story to him and grandmother, 
 he said. 
 
 " But, says he, * I felt as I d have taken a five year 
 voyage, says he, if them two young things, just six weeks 
 married, could have been let alone a little longer. They 
 was living, says my grandfather very solemn, what never 
 comes but once to no one. They d ought to have been let 
 be. That kind of thing s too skerce in this world to be 
 easy spoiled. God pity us ! says grandfather. 
 
 " Wai, so the next morning down the crew come, when 
 the tide made, to the old wharf rotted away, that wharf 
 did, fifty years ago where the America lay at anchor. 
 And the young man that they called Bub was among em 
 pale as one twelve hours dead, folks said ; and about as still. 
 But he spoke no word to nobody. 
 
 " The boys said she seemed to have said good-by within 
 the door ; and when she d let him go, repented of it or 
 found it more than she could bear. And how she follered 
 after him a step or two but he, never knowing, did n t 
 turn. And when she saw the boys, and folks about, she 
 stood a minute looking scared and undecided; and then 
 they say she turned and ran and never spoke ; arid that 
 he never knew, for no one had the heart to tell him. And 
 as she ran, she flung her hands above her head, and that 
 long hair she had fell down and floated out, I ve heerd. 
 But she never spoke nor cried. And Bub walked on ; and 
 the boys they looked the other way. 
 
 " They had a likely voyage, I ve always understood, and 
 made their port in safety, although in war times, and feel 
 ing, I suppose, a little nervous all the while. I forget the 
 place. They took in a cargo of cocoa and rum. 1779, you 
 know, was in the Revolutionary War. I had a great-uncle 
 that was killed in Stony Point that year. 
 
 " Wai, the l America she sailed for home on the 25th 
 
THE VOYAGE OF THE "AMERICA." 101 
 
 of November. Cap n Elwell, he calculated to be home, 
 some folks said, by New Year s, some by Christinas ; but 
 that seems to me onreliable, though the facts come nigh 
 enough to it. They sailed in particular good spirits. Sail 
 ors are like horses headed for home. Seems as if they d 
 
 ! take the A mighty s wind and weather like bits between 
 
 j their teeth, to get there. 
 
 " In particular, I Ve heerd tell it was so with the young 
 chap that they called Bub. On the out voyage he d moped 
 
 i like a molting chicken ; said nothing to nobody ; never com- 
 
 , plained nor fretted ; just moped. He hung round grand 
 father a good deal, who was civil to him, I guess, being 
 sorry for the lad. Once he drew him on to talk about her, 
 of a quiet evening, w r hen they were on watch together ; and 
 he told him how he d find, when he got back, the comfort 
 that she d taken in counting of the days, and how women 
 he had known grew quiet after a while, and contented like, 
 and how the first voyage was the worst 1 , and what grand 
 mother said to him when he come back, and things like 
 that. I guess he chirked the creetur up. 
 
 " From the hour they weighed anchor for home, folks 
 say, you never saw another like him. It seemed as if the 
 America was n t big enough to hold him. He said noth 
 ing to nobody, even then only he began to sing. They 
 say he had a beautiful voice. Of nights, the boys set out 
 on deck to hear him. 
 
 " About half seas home, the America she entered on a 
 run of foul weather. There was fogs, and there was. head- 
 winds, and there was some rain and sleet. And there come 
 a spell, turned cold as a woman when her fancy s set ag in 
 you a chilling, crawlin , creepin , offish sort of cold, that 
 of all things is most on pleasant when on sea or land. 
 
 " Howsomever, they made good fight against it, though 
 discouraged, till they sighted Cape Ann. Then come up 
 an awful storm. 
 
102 THE VOYAGE OF THE "AMERICA." 
 
 " There s a hymn I ve heerd my boys sing to Sunday- 
 school. They sing it in this way : 
 
 " Safe, safe to home ! 
 No more to roam ; 
 Safe, safe to home ! 
 
 " I tell you, now, it takes a sailor to sing the sense into 
 them words. Ther s no other callin that I know of where 
 the nigher you come to home the bigger your danger. 
 Most folks when they re going anywhere feel safer nigher 
 that they come to it. At sea it s different. The very 
 rocks you played acrost when you was a baby, the old reefs 
 and beaches and cliffs you know by inches and love like 
 brothers, they 11 turn on you and gore you to death of 
 a dark night, as if they d been bounding bulls gone mad. 
 And the waves you ve learned to swim in, and plashed 
 about and paddled in, and coaxed your father s heavy dory 
 through when your hands wasn t big enough to hold an 
 oar, those waves will turn ag in you, as if you d been 
 their deadly foe, and toss you up as if you was a splinter, 
 and grind you to pieces on the cliff, five rods, mebbe, from 
 your own front door, with your children s shadows on the 
 window-curtain before your eyes. 
 
 " There s an old proverb we used to have round Glouces 
 ter : A sailor s never got home till he s had his dinner, 
 meaning, I take it, that same idea. 
 
 " Wai, you see, when the America was hove just off 
 Cape Ann, then come up this storm I speak of. They was 
 within a few hours sail of home. They d had east sou - 
 east winds, and a fine, drivin snow-storm, squally and ill- 
 tempered. That was about the first of January, most folks 
 say. My grandfather he said it was the 27th of December, 
 two days after Christmas, by his reckoning. That was olF 
 over the P int in that direction. Grandfather was trying 
 to tie a reefpoint, with his fingers nigh frozen to t, and the 
 bitter wind a-blinding him. All at once there conies a 
 
THE VOYAGE OF THE "AMERICA." 108 
 
 dead shift. The wind she veered to the nor ard at one 
 awful bound, like a great leopard, and struck him like to 
 strike him down. Through the noise he hears Cap n El- 
 well shouting out his orders like a man gone mad ; but 
 whether it was that they did n t understand, or whether be 
 cause so many of the crew had froze their fingers, I can t 
 say. Anyhow, it all went ag in them, and scoot they went 
 under full canvas, headed out to sea before that dead north 
 wind. 
 
 " Wai, by the time they d furled and come to their wits 
 again, and strove to look about em, and crawled up gaspin. 
 from the deck where the wind had hammered of em down 
 as flat as dead, they made a horrible discovery, for when 
 the blow was lightened more or less, the America she 
 began to flop hither and yon in that manner that you 
 would n t think much of if you did n t understand it ; but 
 if you was a seafaring man your heart would stand still to 
 see. 
 
 " What, in Death s name ! cries Cap n Elwell, turning 
 pale, I ve heerd, for the first time upon the voyage, has 
 happened to the rudder? 
 
 " Then up steps one of the boys, him that had the 
 helm and tells him, short, like this : 
 
 " ( Sir ! we ve lost our rudder. That s what s happened/ 
 
 " Wai, there s disarsters and disarsters, and some are as 
 much wuss than others as the small-pox is wuss than the 
 chicken. I ve been to sea a good part of my life. I ve 
 been wrecked four times. I ve been in Death s jaws till 
 I could feel em crunch upon me times again, and I give 
 it as my personal opinion, I d ruther lose my mainmast, 
 or I d ruther run aground, or I d be stove in aft, or 
 I d take my chances most anyhow, before I d lose my 
 rudder. 
 
 " Wai, the America she lost her n, and there they was. 
 It was the fust of January, 1780. Cold. Cold as the eter- 
 
104 THE VOYAGE OF THE "AMERICA." 
 
 nal grave. On an almost onsailed sea. Five poor freezin 
 fellows by themselves. Almost in sight of home, too. 
 
 " There they was. No more power to manage her than 
 if they d been five young ones put to sea in a wash-tub. 
 Just about as if you and the Sand-peep was to put out 
 here int the harbor and leave your oars to home. 
 
 " I ve heerd my grandfather sit and tell how she be 
 haved. Possessed as if she d been a human creetur. Fust 
 she d start and put like mad for sea, head down and keel 
 up, as she d scour the ocean over. Then again she d back, 
 and go for home, like to dash herself ag in the coast just for 
 temper. Then she d change her mind, and seem to draw 
 herself up and step along, stately, like a lady out on a pleas 
 ure-trip, and minding her own business. Then mebbe she d 
 strike chop-seas, and just set there waddlin like a mighty, 
 helpless, dull old duck. Then more like she d take the no 
 tion and make for the nighest breakers like a bee. 
 
 " Hey ? No. I never read about her. Constaunce, did 
 you say, they called her ? I had a second cousin of that 
 name. Put aboard without a rudder on the Mediterranean ? 
 Lived five year ? We all. I don t know. That s a big 
 ger yarn than mine. Did you have it from any of the 
 lady s relations ? 
 
 " If you re acquainted with any folks that tell a yarn like 
 that, you 11 take it easy about the America. Most folks 
 don t. I ve seen men sit and tell my grandfather and Cap n 
 Elwell to their face they lied. 
 
 " You see Cape Cod yonder that grayish streak. Can t 
 see it every day. Wai, it was the fust of January when 
 the America lost her rudder. It was the fust of August 
 when she was picked up. As true as St. John wrote the 
 Gospel before he lost his head, that there schooner drifted 
 about in these waters mostly somewhere between Cape Ann 
 and Cape Cod. from January until August next. And of all 
 the souls aboard her, only one but I ll tell you about 
 him presently. 
 
105 
 
 " No ; in all that while no living sail come nigh em. 
 That shows, I take it, how onsailed the waters were in 
 them days. Though what with the war and trade, I could 
 never understand it only on the ground of luck. They d 
 got the Devil s luck. 
 
 " First month, they could n t none of em understand 
 how bad the position was. Expected to be picked up, I 
 suppose. Or thought they d run the chance of wreck, and 
 come out uppermost. And then their provisions held. 
 
 " But it come to be February, and there they was ; and 
 March, and there they was ; and it wore to be April, and 
 it settled to be May ; and then it come June, and July. 
 
 * About along spring-time the provisions they began to 
 give out. Then, I take it, their sufferings began. So they 
 took the cocoa and they boiled it down, and lived on it, 
 with the rum. But they suffered most for water. I take 
 it, what those men did n t know of misery ain t much worth 
 knowing. 
 
 " When the fuel give out, they tore out the inside of the 
 boat. When they were picked up, I Ve heerd the inside 
 was most gone, scooped out, bare timber enough left to 
 hold her together. 
 
 " When you come to think of it, how all that time the 
 schooner was drivin up and down like a dead cops at the 
 mercy of the wind and tide, it seems to me it must have 
 give them a feeling enough to make a man go mad. It 
 gives me a sensation to the brain to think on t sometimes 
 safe at home. I ve seen my grandfather after all those 
 years set in our setting-room and tell, with the tears a- 
 streaming down his cheeks, to remember of the suffering 
 that they had. 
 
 " Once, I Ve heerd, one April day, there d been a fog, 
 and it lifted sudden, peeling off with a nor -wester, and the 
 men were lying round upon the ruined deck they say 
 they used to spend their time that way mostly, lyin in the 
 
106 THE VOYAGE OF THE 
 
 sun or rain, stupid like a sleepy dog and all at once there 
 come an awful-cry among em. It was the young man Bub. 
 He was standing in the bows with his hands above his eyes 
 to look. 
 
 "And all the boys crawled up to see. And there was 
 Gloucester shores before ein, far and looking peaceful like, 
 and blessed as you might think heaven would look to souls 
 in hell. But the wind it shifted, and the tide set out shortly 
 after. And when the night-fall come, they had drifted out 
 of sight again. 
 
 " From that hour, folks say, the poor lad kind of bat 
 tened out. He could n t eat the cocoa as the rest did, and 
 the rum it disagreed with him, and the drought fell on in 
 June, and the heat come. He crawled into a little corner 
 forward that he took a fancy to, and set this way, with his 
 hands about his knees, and his eyes kind of staring from his 
 head. Times they tried to talk to him, but nothing could 
 they get. Only now and then he talked a jumble in a 
 gentle way, but mostly all they could make of it was the 
 poor young woman s name. 
 
 " Annie ? Annie ? softly over like that, as he was ask 
 ing her a question. * Annie ? he d say, says grandfather. 
 Nigh as I can make out, I think the heat must have gone 
 harder by em than the cold. 
 
 " The blazin of the sky above your head, says grand 
 father, and the deck blisterin in little blisters, and feeling 
 along with the tips of your fingers beside you, as you lay 
 with your head upon your arms, to count em, not hav 
 ing other thoughts, and seeing the sky take on cur ous 
 colors, as green and purple, and seem to break up in flying 
 solid bits, and spin before you, as you d see it in a mighty 
 dark kaleidoscope, and the gnawing like a thousand claws 
 throughout your vitals, and the loathing of the cocoa, and 
 the cur ous way in which you d feel, as you had n t eaten 
 anything for swallowing of it. And how, when you was 
 
THE VOYAGE OF THE " AMERICA." 107 
 
 lying there a-tossing up and down, crazy mebbe (for some 
 of em was crazy as a loon, or dead drunk -like with the 
 miserable rum), a starving, thirsting, sickening, dying, and 
 deserted creetur, sudden you d seem to see the supper- 
 table spread to home, and a piece of ice melting slowly at 
 the edges down into the water-pitcher ; and a bit of bacon 
 mebbe, and the kind of muffins that your wife made best, 
 and her pouring of the coffee out, and the children teasing 
 you for scraps and tastes, and of having had so much, you 
 stopped to feed the kitten with the gristle. And then its 
 coming to you all at once how fat that kitten was, and well- 
 to-do, and your own folks feeding her while you was starv 
 ing. I can understand, says my grandfather, forever 
 after how the fellow felt in Scripter, when he said the 
 servants in his father s house had bread enough, and some 
 to spare. It was a very* natural state of mind, says grand 
 father. 
 
 " One chap, he says, was mostly troubled to know who 
 his wife would marry after he was dead. They was a fel 
 low he d been jealous of, and it bothered him. It was a 
 second wife, too. 
 
 " I don t know how it was about the fishing. Whether it 
 was lines they lacked or luck. Nigh as I can remember, it 
 was both, but there was a net, and they got a mortal few. 
 
 "About the middle of July, there happened a cur ous 
 thing. The cocoa was gone. The day was hellish hot. 
 They was perishing for water and for food. Then up the 
 Cap n rises slow and solemn, like a ghost among a crew of 
 ghosts, and, says he : Let us pray. 
 
 " I can t say if it had just occurred to him, or if he d 
 ever said the same before. All I know is, how he said : 
 Let us pray, says Cap n Elwell. Well, they say the 
 poor creeturs crawled ont their knees, such as had the 
 power left, and all began to say their prayers in turns, like 
 children, beginning with the Cap n, and so down. And one, 
 
108 THE VOYAGE OF THE "AMERICA." 
 
 he said, * Our Father/ and some they prayed a regl ar 
 meetin prayer, and one said, Now I lay me, till it come 
 to Bub. 
 
 u The poor lad lay upon the fore quarter-deck, all coiled 
 up like a cable, and panted for his breath. One of the boys 
 he nudged him. 
 
 " Come, Bub, says he, it s your turn. Everybody s 
 tried his hand but you. 
 
 " And you would n t believe it, but up that creetur got, 
 and kneeled onsteady, and rolled his great blue eyes upon 
 em, and folded his hands together and his hands was 
 that worn you could see through em and then he lifted 
 up his head and began to sing. And the words he sung was 
 the words of * Annie Laurie. 
 
 " No man, I ve heerd say, who saw that sight, forgot it 
 to the day he died. 
 
 " Sang poor Bub : 
 
 " Her face is aye the fairest 
 
 That e er the sun shone on. 
 
 And she s a the world to me, 
 
 She s a the world to me ! 
 
 " They say you could have heard him a full mile acrost 
 the blazin , awful waters, singing there among them kneel 
 ing men, 
 
 " She s a the WORLD to me ! 
 
 " Him that made the heart of man to cling to woman, 
 so deep and so mysterious, He knows ; and Him that made 
 the heart of man to turn to Him so weakly and so help 
 less, He may judge. The feelin s that a clean-natured 
 young man will bear to his wedded wife ain t so far removed 
 from a pious spirit, to my thinking. But, as for poor Bub s 
 prayer, I ain t a judge, nor wishing to be one. I can t say 
 what all that had to do with the fish. Folks have their 
 personal opinions about that fish, as about most things that 
 come up. All I know is, and this is a living fact, that very 
 
THE VOYAGE OF THE "AMERICA." 109 
 
 mortal evening, as they floated, sickening unto death, upon 
 the horrid calm that fell upon the sea, there jumps an 
 enormous fellow from the water clean out and up, 
 and over, and on deck among them. And they fell upon 
 him like wild creeturs, not waiting to cook the flesh, but 
 eating of it raw. And they feasted on him many days, and 
 he kept them from starvation, I never heerd a doubt ex 
 pressed. But Cap n Elwell, I ve been told, he thought it 
 was the prayers. There was a shower come up that even 
 ing, too, and the men they saved a little water, and got poor 
 Bub to drink it. I never could get my grandfather nor any 
 one of em I knew, to talk much of what took place upon 
 the America, after that. Up to that p int, he d talk and 
 talk. But there he stuck. I take it the sufferings they suf 
 fered from that time to the rescue was of those things that 
 no mortal man can jabber of. It s much with misery as it 
 is with happiness, I think. About so far, you re glad of 
 company, and you like to cry a sort of boat ahoy ! to other 
 folks joys or sorrows ; but there you stop ; you draw in, 
 and hold your tongue and keep your counsel. Other folks 
 don t matter. 
 
 " Most I know is how they d drifted someway nigh 
 Long Island when they was taken off. It was the second 
 day of August, 1780. The boat that sighted them was 
 bound from Dartmouth, over to England, to New York 
 City. Seems to me, her Cap n s name was Neal. At any 
 rate, she set eyes on the America, driftin helpless up and 
 down ; and those men, like dead men, setting on the deck ; 
 and whether they made signals I don t know, but my im 
 pression is, they d lost the strength to use their voice. 
 But, Neal, he lowered his boat, and he went to see. And 
 there they was before him. And he took em off, and 
 brought em home. 
 
 " And all the town turned out to greet them when they 
 come. Some folks I ve heerd they shouted, but others 
 
110 THE VOYAGE OF THE " AMEEICA." 
 
 stood and sobbed to see em. And mostly, I think, they 
 took em to their wives and children, and never stopped to 
 ask no questions, but shut the door and went about their 
 business. 
 
 " Years and years, when I was a little chap, I ve seen 
 those men about our town. Folks looked on em as folks 
 may have looked, I often think, on the fellows that come 
 out of the tombs when Christ was crucified, and walked and 
 talked among the livin . I used to have a feeling, as I was 
 afraid of em, and must speak softly, for fear I d wake em 
 up. And Cap n Elwell, he lived to be ninety being 
 postmaster and his wife very nigh the same. 
 
 " No ; I was coming to that. I always hate to, when I 
 tell the story. But gospel s gospel, and gospel-true you 
 can t manufacture nor make over, no more n you can the 
 light of sunrise, or a salt east wind. 
 
 " Of all them men on the America, six months tossing 
 on the tides, and starved, and crazed, and tortured, as they 
 was, one only died. They all come back but just that one. 
 And he was the poor young lad that they called Bub. 
 
 " Now, there s a singular thing about that p int. The 
 men that come home you never could get them to tell of 
 that poor young creetur s last hours. Of the time and 
 manner of his death, no man would speak. Some say it 
 was too dreadful to be talked of, that he suffered so, and 
 raved about his wife enough to break the hearts of them 
 that heard. Some say he got delirious and jumped into the 
 water. Others have it that he just wasted on and pined 
 away, and that he lay and begged for water, and there was 
 a little in a dipper, but that the boys were stupefied, as you 
 might say, and out of their own heads, and nobody noticed 
 it to give it him. And others say another thing. 
 
 " One night I come home and found my grandfather there, 
 I can remember just as plain, setting on the settle by the 
 fire-place. 
 
THE VOYAGE OF THE "AMERICA." Ill 
 
 " * Grandfather, says I, walking up and setting down and 
 opening of my jack-knife, I remember, while I asked the 
 question : Grandfather, what become of Bub ? 
 
 " i Bub died, says the old man, short enough ; we ve 
 talked enough of Bub. 
 
 " Wai, says I, what I want to know is, you did n t draw 
 for him ? 
 
 " WHAT ? roars the old man, turning on me, like to 
 knock me over. 
 
 " Folks say, says I, how the men on the " America " 
 drawed lots when they was starving, to eat each other up ; 
 and I heerd say the lot fell on Bub. I said I knew better 
 than that, says I, and so I thought I d ask. You did n t 
 eat him, did you, grandfather ? says I, as innocent as that. 
 
 " I remember I was whittling a thole-pin with my jack- 
 knife, and I remember how I whittled it all round smooth, 
 before that old man spoke or stirred. Then, up he come, 
 and shook me till the breath was nigh out of my impudent 
 little body, and glares down at me, till I m frightened so I 
 begin to cry. 
 
 " If ever I catch you listening to such damned stuff 
 again, says grandfather, I 11 have your father flog you till 
 he s like to break every bone you ve got ! Although he 
 \\~SiS a pious man, my grandfather did say, damned stuff. 
 And, after that, he was n t pacified with me for a year to 
 come. 
 
 " In all that miserable story, now, there s one thing I 
 like to think of. The poor young woman never lived to 
 know. Whether it was the oncertainty and distress but 
 something went wrong with her, everybody agrees on that ; 
 and she and her baby, they both died before the boys come 
 home without him. There used to be an old nurse, a very 
 old creetur, about town, that folks said took care of her, and 
 told about it ; and how, at the very last, she set erect in bed, 
 with all that hair of hers about her, and says, quite gentle 
 and happy in. her mind : 
 
112 THE VOYAGE OF THE "AMERICA." 
 
 " My husband s coming home to-night, says she ; and 
 up she raised her arms and moved one hand about, though 
 feeble, as she was patting some one on the cheek, acrost the 
 empty pillow ; and so died. 
 
 " Wai, I ve talked a powerful while. It s getting hot. 
 Have dinner about this time, at your house, don t ye ? If 
 you did n t, I was going to say there s a lady that I know, 
 can give you information of the America ; she s got a 
 copy of the records. They ve got the records over to 
 Squam, and, if you find yourself so minded, I 11 take the 
 Sand-peep some time when it s cooler, and row you up to 
 see them. No trouble. Just as lieves. She s a pretty 
 plaything, and you keep her clean. I would n t have you 
 think I d hurt your f eelin s and meant a disrespect to-ward 
 the Sand-peep. " 
 
 The Ancient Mariner s tale, I am well convinced, is, for 
 the most part, history ; and it is proper for me to add that 
 I owe to the kindness of " the lady that he knew," and 
 to that of a writer of Cape Ann, who, some time since, I 
 am told, published in a local paper a fictitious version of 
 these facts, an exact copy of the records upon which the 
 popular faith in the story leans. 
 
 These are the old parish records of Annisquam, and were 
 kept by one Rev. Obadiah Parsons ; upon whose authority 
 we have the following facts : 
 
 " The schooner America, Capt. Isaac Elwell, sailed 
 from Gloucester, the last of July, 1779, for the West Indies, 
 which she left Nov. 25, bound for this town. She met with 
 remarkably severe weather off this coast, and about ye first 
 of Jan., 1780, when within a few hours sail of Cape Ann, 
 ye wind suddenly put into ye north-west, he lost ye vessel s 
 rudder and was drove off ye coast again, and driven hither 
 and thither on the ocean till ye second day of August last, 
 when they were taken off ye wreck by Capt. Henry Neal, 
 
THE VOYAGE OF THE "AMERICA." 113 
 
 of N. York, on his passage from Dartmouth, Eng., to N. Y. 
 Who, when near Long Island, Aug. 10th, gave a boat to 
 Capt. Elwell, in which he and the survivors of his crew, 
 viz. ; John Woodward, Sam el Edmundston, Jacob Saney, 
 and Nath el Allen came alongshore and arrived at Cape 
 Ann, Aug. 26, 1780. Many were ye hardships Capt. Elwell 
 and his crew endured for six months and seventeen days ; 
 they had no bread nor meat to eat ; they lived on parched 
 cocoa and N. England rum burned down, and sometimes 
 they ate fishes raw ; in their greatest extremity, a large fish 
 providentially leaped on ye vessel s deck, which served them 
 for several days. They were frequently in great distress 
 for want of water." 
 
 8 
 
WRECKED IN PORT. 
 
 I NEVER set out here to the mouth of the harbor, an 
 chored or becalmed (your line s taut, sir !), or similarly or 
 otherwise at my leisure to take a fair squint inwards at the 
 town, but I wonder what it may be like to go stark, staring 
 mad. 
 
 If you 11 haul in a mite faster now, it 11 be better for 
 you, and just as well for the fish. 
 
 That s about it. 
 
 I ve noticed it about our cod, they know when I take 
 gentlemen out, as well as I know myself. They 11 take ad 
 vantage of you, if they can, most any day. Maybe it r s a 
 professional preference, or a political, I m sure I could n t 
 say. I d be willing to grant a Gloucester cod his choice of 
 either, and then admit that he might have a mixed motive 
 to bottom of it. It s natural enough, brought up as they 
 are from infancy on the Fishery Question, with views more 
 or less decided and distinct. 
 
 A little blue you are about the mouth, sir. I d lay down 
 if I was you. It s better for you, and quite as well for 
 the fish, as I said before, and I m used to it, bless you ! 
 When it is too rough for a gentleman outside, and it very 
 often is, I always say : " Just lay down and take it easy, 
 and leave the cod to me." He takes as many pound home 
 to his wife come night, I reckon, and nobody the wiser for 
 it, and who 11 ask questions ? Not me, nor yet the cod. 
 How does that go ? There ! When there s a mite less 
 embarrassment between yourself, sir, and your stomach, I 11 
 
WRECKED IN POET. 115 
 
 explain to you the feeling I had occasion to mention about 
 the harbor mouth, and looking inwards at the town. 
 
 Well and yet it ain t so easy to explain. Most things 
 ain t. I ve told it times enough, and yet not the whole of 
 it either. There are folks, you know, you can talk to, and 
 again there are folks you can t. There are boarders in the 
 little hall chamber, not to mention names, I would n t tell 
 Jib Hancko s story to, not for a week s board outright ; but 
 a pleasant way, sir, and an honest, as between man and 
 man, and no complaining of the coffee, and not staving the 
 dories in regardless because they ain t your own, and a kind 
 of forethought for the cabbages if the garden lays between 
 you and the bathing-house, why, that s a differ ent thing. 
 
 You 11 remember of hearing of the great gale of 1839 ? 
 No ! You don t say ! It s a surprising thing to me how 
 ignorant folks are in the country. There are some smart 
 men come from the country, too. 
 
 We were booked for Boston when the great gale of 39 
 came up. It was the last voyage I took to Boston. Fact 
 is, I may as well own it was the last voyage I took anywhere. 
 I was n t born with a reef-knot between my fingers, never 
 boarded a fishing-smack that I did n t feel I d as lief s be 
 boarding my coffin, and that gale made a landlubber of me 
 once for all. 
 
 We cleared from Wiscasset, along about the first week, 
 if I recollect, the first week of December, in the schooner 
 Pansie, with a cargo of lath and piles. We had about fifty 
 thousand feet of lath aboard. Griggs was our cap n. He 
 belonged in Wiscasset. He had his mother aboard. She 
 was an old lady, over seventy year old. He was taking her 
 to Boston to spend the winter with her daughter. 
 
 " The old lady enjoys it, having these fair blows," says 
 he one day to Hancko, standing aft. " She is n t much of 
 a sailor." 
 
 " Did you ever see a woman that was ? " asked Hancko. 
 Jib Hancko was mate. 
 
116 WRECKED IN POET. 
 
 " Well, I don t know," says the cap n. 
 
 " /have," says I. And so I had. But she was n t aboard 
 the Pansie that trip, thank heaven ! and it was n t necessary 
 to specify where she was, as I remarked to Jib when he 
 made the inquiry. She went to the Banks with me once 
 along with her father, who was skipper of the smack. You 
 would n t believe, to see her turning over a griddle-cake or 
 a cruller now, what a sailor she was. She hauled a catch 
 as big as mine right along any day ; the only thing she 
 failed up on was stripping of the mackerel. Tt was while 
 I was to work stripping of the mackerel, to spare her tender 
 eyes, that I first began to think of her. She was down to 
 Calais, visiting a cousin of hers, when I took that trip to 
 Boston. 
 
 The skipper s mother was a kind of cute old lady to see 
 round. She sat on deck most every day, mending up 
 Griggs s shirts. She set the world by Griggs. She used 
 to stop me most every time I happened round, and say : 
 
 " My son s taking me to Boston to spend the winter with 
 my daughter. He said it should n t cost me nothing. My 
 daughter s children have got the whooping-cough, and she 
 thought she d like to have me come." 
 
 Then the next time I came along she had it over : " My 
 son s taking me to Boston. He said it should n t cost me 
 nothing. My daughter s children have got the whooping- 
 cough " just the same. 
 
 Some of the boys laughed at the old lady ; but I could n t 
 some way ; she looked so cute, sitting up there on deck, 
 mending Griggs s shirts. 
 
 Jib Hancko used to play backgammon with her (not that 
 the old woman could play backgammon more n a monk-fish, 
 but she thought she could, and that amounted to the same 
 thing, as it does with most of us in most things), and find 
 her knitting-needles for her, and set her up easy with her 
 shawls in the sunny spots among the piles. 
 
WRECKED IN PORT. 117 
 
 Jib set almost as much by the skipper as the old lady did 
 herself. He and Griggs had run this coast together, master 
 and mate, some half a dozen years ; they always were agree 
 able to one another s women-folks ; at least Griggs would 
 have been, no doubt, but Jib had n t any himself not a 
 living woman. He courted a girl once down our way, up to 
 Squam ; she was washed off the rocks at Little Good Har 
 bor, at a picnic, one day ; I never heard of any other. Be 
 fore the trip was over, I was glad of it, too. I Ve heard 
 that s where Griggs got the name of that schooner, but I 
 can t say. All I know is, that was the given name of the 
 young woman Pansie ; and she was painted about the 
 time of the funeral. Griggs was a polite fellow about such 
 things. 
 
 I don t believe you 11 ever see a nicer day, sir, this side of 
 heaven, than I saw aboard the Pansie on Saturday, the 14th 
 of December, 1839. It blew from sou -sou -west as softly as 
 a woman singing to a baby. There were clouds, a few of 
 them, of color like mother-of-pearl, curling at the edges like 
 a shell, and the noon warmed up warm as a May-day over 
 head. Some of the boys went in for a swim, it looked so 
 warm. The old lady sat on deck without her extra shawls, 
 and the skipper was afraid she d take cold. 
 
 " You 11 be in Boston to-morrow, God willing, mother," 
 says the skipper (the skipper was a pious man at times, a 
 Methodist), " and I d be sorry to take you in all hoarsed 
 up ; Keziah would think I had n t taken good care of you." 
 
 Upon this the old lady pipes up again : 
 
 " My son will take me into Boston to-morrow. Keziah s 
 children have got the whooping-cough, and she thought 
 she d like to see me ! " 
 
 I noticed Griggs putting on her shawl for her, and put 
 ting on her shawl for her, half the afternoon ; the old lady 
 dropped it off, and dropped it off ; finally, Jib Hancko got 
 a little shingle-nail and pinned it together for her through 
 the fringe. 
 
118 WRECKED IN POET. 
 
 It was on towards five o clock that I saw the mate stand 
 talking in a confidential way alone in the stern with the 
 skipper. Except when under orders, he was on very confi 
 dential terms with Griggs. He nods, and Griggs nods, and 
 Hancko points to the sou -east, and the skipper nods again, 
 and walks the deck a bit, and stops to ask the old lady how 
 she feels, and back again to the mate ; but I could n t make 
 head nor tail of them until six o clock, when we got an or 
 der to tack and put into Gloucester over night. 
 
 The captain did n t like the looks of the sou -east ; thought 
 there was an ugliness, more or less, in it; may be there was 
 mischief ahead, and may be there was n t : having his mother 
 aboard, he thought he d be on the safe side ; any way, there 
 was the order : Into Gloucester over night. 
 
 We got it round among us, by degrees, as we rounded 
 Eastern Point it s never any nonsense rounding Eastern 
 Point and sulky enough we were about it, too. One of 
 the lads had a young one with the croup in Boston, he d 
 counted on seeing by Sunday night. Couple of em had tick 
 ets to a dance in a Mariner s Tavern. Most of em wanted 
 liquor. One of em his name was Ben Bumper said : 
 
 " Curse the old lady ! " 
 
 Next minute he lay on deck for it, flat as a griddle-cake. 
 He did n t count on the mate s being round when he made 
 the observation. 
 
 Jib Hancko was a little man with .a squint eye : but when 
 his blood was up he looked more like a likeness I ve seen 
 of Giant Despair, in a book called the Pilgrim s Progress, 
 than any other man alive I ever come across. 
 
 Well, so we put into port, and anchored just about 
 there ; no, a little further to your right ; just beyond that 
 red buoy where you see the very young gentleman s dory 
 tied to fish, and the young lady in the red jacket screeching 
 at the bait. 
 
 That was about half-past six. It had freshened up a lit- 
 
WRECKED IN PORT. 119 
 
 tie, but no more than you d expect of any high-spirited De 
 cember evening. Half a dozen of the lads wanted to put 
 over into Fresh Water Cove for a lark ; but Griggs was ob 
 stinate as a mule ; he kept all hands aboard, and mad as 
 hornets. 
 
 We had neighbors plenty by nine o clock, but none too 
 many. There s always shipping enough runs in for a 
 night s lodging to Gloucester ; always was, even in those 
 days. Griggs brought the old lady up to see the lights of 
 the Harbor by which we meant the town there, same as 
 we mean it now and the twinkle of the shipping, red as 
 blood and green as grass, to starboard and to port, while 
 sailing in ; and the pale flame-color of the lanterns swinging 
 on the anchored craft. 
 
 But the old lady said she d rather her son would take her 
 into Boston, and she was afraid her daughter s children 
 would sit up late for her, and that was very bad for children 
 with the whooping-cough. 
 
 It was about midnight that the blow stood up about 
 midnight between the Saturday and the Sunday of the four 
 teenth and the fifteenth days of December, 1839. 
 
 From that hour until Tuesday morning there was no rest 
 in the heaven above, nor the earth beneath, nor the waters 
 under the earth, for the soul nor for the body of any of 
 them that go out in ships and down into the sea along this 
 Massachusetts coast ; and though I say it that should n t, 
 being a good citizen, and voting the straight Republican 
 ticket year in and out, it s the awfulest, cruelest, coldest 
 coast I ever trusted to the mercy of, or the honor of, or the 
 fellow-feeling of, from the time I first set foot on shipboard 
 to this day. 
 
 If you look over the Eastern Light there you 11 see how 
 it must have struck that sheer wall of rock on the Fresh 
 Water side. 
 
 It struck as straight as an arrow from the sou -east. 
 
120 WRECKED IN PORT. 
 
 And as sharp. It was more the sharpness than the heft at 
 the beginning. It snowed a little, too, in a sleety way ; 
 that s the worry of a gale. I d rather it would rain a 
 deluge. 
 
 Howsoever, being at anchor, and in port, we thought no 
 more of it than to own the skipper knew his business as well 
 as we did, and chaff Ben Bumper on that little remark of 
 his concerning the old lady, at spare minutes, until the 
 morning. 
 
 All the solemn, roaring, blinding night, the ships came 
 scudding in from open sea for shelter. I watched them, 
 being aloft, with a serious feeling in my mind I could n t 
 have found reasons to explain. They were so still about it, 
 and so many ; it occurred to my thoughts towards morning 
 that they were unusual many, and the blood-red lanterns 
 that have struck your fancy so, sir, smoking off the rocks 
 by my house of a quiet evening, gave me a notion that was 
 most surprising, about wounded creatures that the rocks had 
 gored. 
 
 When the Sunday morning lifted, the masts were thick 
 as mosquitoes at a lighted window, all up and down the 
 harbor. The sky was dull as death. Off over the Point, 
 along by Niles s trees there, a little palish streak lay, of 
 a sort of salmon color, and with an unpleasant twitch across 
 it, like a winking man. On account of the swinging of the 
 schooner, and the swinging of our neighbors, and the slope 
 of the swell before the eyes, all Gloucester shores seemed 
 waltzing in a horrid waltz ; and what was curious about it, 
 was to see them waltzing to the time beat by the Sunday 
 church-bells. They rang at half-past nine at the Harbor, 
 and I could see folks, like specks, stir through the icy spray 
 to go to meeting. I could n t help wondering that morning 
 if any of them said their prayers for folks at sea. Not that 
 we looked for any mischief at that hour, and who ever 
 thought to pray for folks in port ? 
 
WRECKED IN PORT. 121 
 
 It blew all the morning and it blew all the afternoon. 
 
 The skipper came up about dinner-time, and says to the 
 mate : 
 
 u I wish I had the old lady ashore to-day." 
 
 But we could have got to China as easy as we could 
 have got ashore some three or four boats -lengths 
 on to the awful rocks nigh Fresh Water Cove, that Sunday 
 noon. 
 
 Yes, sir, it looks still enough over there now, and green 
 and soft, and kindly to the eye ; and the foam against the 
 rocks falls and rises in a pleasant manner, much like the 
 muslin curtain, I often think, that hangs in our big parlor- 
 window. See how Half-way Rock looms to-day ? And 
 the purple color that hangs on Norman s Woe ? You should 
 have walked up and down Niles s beach and looked at Nor 
 man s Woe on that Sunday noon, the 15th of December, 
 1839. They said it looked like the mouth of the Bottom 
 less Pit ; and that the spray rolled up like smoke. 
 
 By two o clock they d begun to go ashore. A brig and 
 two schooners broke there in the Sunday daylight before 
 our eyes. One smashed to splinters just above us here. 
 She was from Mount Desert ; I forget the name. An old 
 man and his three boys went down. I could see them 
 dropping off like flies. You see the rigging froze so, and 
 everything you touched glazed over and slipped up. It 
 blew all the afternoon, and it blew all the evening. 
 
 A little to the fore of midnight, the skipper sent Hancko 
 below after the old lady. Jib brought her up, and they tied 
 her to the mainmast with a tippet she was knitting for her 
 daughter s children, and almost broke her heart. Griggs 
 would have her on deck, and handy. Heaven nor earth 
 could n t tell, he said, what would come next. 
 
 " Good God ! " says he, " if this goes on, we shall go 
 down at anchor like a baby s raft ! " 
 
 To say that that two-hundred-and-fif ty-tonner just swashed, 
 
122 WRECKED IN PORT. 
 
 sir, like the chips you re throwing in this minute, ain t to 
 say anything about it. To say that we could n t tell one 
 minute from another, whether we stood on our keel or our 
 mainmast, ain t to give you an idea. To say how the gale 
 put arms under us, and .clutched us in, and then stepped 
 back an awful step or two, over Eastern Point, and down 
 with its head, and bunted at us, and up with its shoulders 
 and h isted us along, dead against the rock, ain t to express 
 nor to imply it. 
 
 To say that at midnight of that Sunday night all hell 
 opened under Gloucester Harbor, is to draw upon your im 
 agination, sir ; but it s the best I can do. 
 
 Five minutes after twelve, the cry came up : 
 
 " We ve slipped our anchor ! " 
 
 Five minutes more, and we were on the rocks. 
 
 " If we don t swamp before we ve time to break," cries 
 the skipper, " there s chance for a rope. Volunteers for a 
 rope, my lads ! " 
 
 For folks were upon shore from the village, and cries 
 came up, and every time the sound cut through the thunder, 
 the Pansie leaped as if she would answer to it, and rammed 
 herself between the teeth of the breakers like a wedge. 
 
 We looked at one another, but no man stirred. 
 
 Said Ben Bumper, " Curse a rope ! " 
 
 Said Jib Hancko, slowly, " I guess I 11 go." 
 
 But the skipper turned round on him says he : 
 
 " I d go myself if it was n t for the old lady. Anyhow, 
 I won t send you Jib. Who 11 hold ont the old lady if I 
 don t get acrost ? " 
 
 " I 11 hold ont the old lady," said Jib Hancko, slow as 
 ever ; " but I d rather go myself, Cap n Griggs." 
 
 " Hold your tongue ! " roars Griggs through the bellow 
 of the blast. " I won t send you if nobody goes, Jib 
 Hancko ! If I don t get acrost, you hold ont the old lady, 
 will you, Jib?" 
 
WRECKED IN PORT. 123 
 
 " Ay, ay, sir," says Jib. 
 
 " And if I do get acrost, you 11 hold out the old lady, 
 will you, Jib? She s to come over first, you understand 
 do you, Jib ? " 
 
 " Ay, ay, sir," says Jib. 
 
 With that, the skipper steps up and kisses the old lady, 
 before us all, once on one cheek, and once on the other. 
 
 " Good-by, mother ! " says he. 
 
 But the old lady only wrung her hands and said they d 
 spoiled Charles Henry s tippet, and she was very cold. 
 
 Well, so Griggs set off with the rope. It was an ugly 
 job. Twice we thought he d gone, and three times we 
 thought he d gone, and once the mate struck his two fists 
 together so the blood come from his knuckles. 
 
 " The rope s parted ! " says he. 
 
 But next minute through the hellish noise we heard the 
 skipper s voice, and saw, through the thin and broken shine 
 of lanterns that folks held on shore, that the rope lay over, 
 safe and sound. 
 
 Now, would you believe it, sir, that after that, that old 
 creature would n t budge an inch ? I declare, it makes me 
 feel bad to think of it, to this day. 
 
 " Come, mother ? " says Jib Hancko, hurrying her up in 
 a gentle way, for we were terribly strained and mangled, 
 and no time to lose. But she sat and wrung her hands, and 
 wrung her hands quite crazed by fright and cold, and 
 crying out : 
 
 " My son s carrying me to Boston to spend the winter 
 with my daughter ! He said it should n t cost me nothing ! 
 My daughter s children have got the whooping-cough ! " 
 
 Do our best, we could n t stir her, hide nor hair. 
 
 " Lord A mighty ! " said Jib Hancko. But after that he 
 held his tongue. He went and sat down by the old lady, and 
 untied the tippet from her, and put his arms around, her. 
 The cargo leaped and struck at them, in plunging over. I 
 
124 WHECKED IN POET. 
 
 saw blood upon his head and face. lie wiped it off with his 
 lee elbow, so the old lady should n t see it. He sat crouched 
 up a little to keep the timber off from her, I take it, with his 
 head and shoulders out so. 
 
 Well, we went and left them, sir. What else could we 
 do ? Ben Bumper was the first. Half-way over he cried 
 out and dropped. What he did we never knew whether 
 he was struck, or slipped, or froze, or what it was. Some 
 of the lads said it was for damning the old lady. But I 
 don t know. All I know is he just cried out and dropped. 
 Yes, we left em, him and the old lady, sitting side by side. 
 I felt as mean as Lucifer. I called out good-by to him, and 
 how mean I felt. But the blast blew his answer the other 
 way. 
 
 I saw his lips move, but I lost the words. I heard the 
 old lady, though, as I swung off. You could have heard her 
 in purgatory, if you d been so far. She piped up like a 
 weasel : 
 
 " My son s carrying me to Boston ! He said it shouldn t 
 cost me nothing " 
 
 I heard her until I got ashore. Griggs did n t. himself. 
 He was chilled or frozen, or something of that kind, and in 
 a kind of faint, they said. I was mighty glad of it, I must 
 say. The old creeture did pipe up so ! We stood on the 
 rocks and watched them, well as we could see them through 
 the beating of the blow. I had a feeling as if my eyes were 
 beaten in my head. I put both hands up to hold em. 
 I saw Hancko trying to tie a life-preserver on to the old 
 lady. The other boys did n t. But I did. He tried to tie 
 it on, and she sat and wrung her hands. I don t suppose I 
 heard her, but I d have sworn I did, a-piping up : 
 
 "He said it shouldn t cost me nothing ! " 
 
 Hancko stood up. I saw that. He stood looking straight 
 ahead. I thought he had a grand look, being at a distance 
 where you missed the squinting of his eye. And he stood 
 
WRECKED IN POET. 125 
 
 so tall, sir, on that wreck, as tall as I stand to-day, which 
 is six foot three in my stockings. 
 
 I suppose when a man s courting his wife he thinks more 
 of such things quite natural ; but I could n t help thinking, 
 when I saw Jib Hancko standing there, of that young 
 woman down to Squam. If she d been down to Calais vis 
 iting a cousin now, it would have seemed a pity. And I 
 wondered if he thought of it, how he and the Pansie were 
 going down together by themselves. 
 
 Next minute there come the awfulest, longest, horridest 
 cry I ever listened to on land or sea. Whether it was the 
 old lady as she struck water, or whether it was the skipper 
 coming to and seeing the Pansie s head-light out, or whether 
 it was the devils below or the angels above, I could n t tell 
 you to this day. 
 
 I don t think you could understand, sir, unless you d 
 been through it yourself, what a feeling it gives a man to 
 full and slip, slip and fall, clutch and cling, and drop plumb 
 down a wall of rock like that all ice beneath you and 
 about you and squeeze your feet into a little ledge you 
 know of, and jam your fingers into a little crack above your 
 head, to save a human creeture if so be it washes up against 
 you, and see the lath and piles come thundering in. To see 
 em rear and strike, and topple over, and splinter up like 
 tea-cups, and suck under, and slip off. To hear the noise 
 they made in hitting, and to mistake em for human legs 
 and arms, and grab at them, and lose your balance, and 
 duck your head as they come crashing up. Nor yet to dodge 
 a bundle of lath carried shoulders over on one awful wave, 
 and find you d dodged a human body, sir, and it was bang 
 ing up against the cliff like sea-weed, before your very eyes. 
 
 Well, I dodged him just that way ; then I sprang on him, 
 then I lost him ; then I had him, I could n t tell you how 
 by the hair, by the leg, by the collar, all ways, no ways : 
 he was very slippery. It was a very slippery feeling I had, 
 what with him and the ice. 
 
126 WRECKED IN POET. 
 
 Yes. Oh, yes ! They got us up. I was n t much hurt 
 myself. I don t know how it happened about Hancko. 
 He lay such a dead weight, I suppose. 
 
 There was a hole there in the rock. You could see it if 
 we were nigh enough. None too big for a man s body. 
 They had to pull him through. Twice they had him, and 
 he slipped. He was awfully jammed. 
 
 Well, the Monday morning came at last. I had a feeling 
 all the night as if the sun would never rise again. But 
 Monday morning come like other Monday mornings, and 
 folks hung out their washing all along the shore. 
 
 But it was the awfulest Monday morning, sir, that ever 
 Gloucester knew. All the shore, from Pavilion Beach there 
 to Norman s Woe, was covered with wreck washed up like 
 pebbles on the beach. All up and down the harbor ruins 
 of boats lay rocking in the wind. Some went to shore as 
 we did, and cracked on the rocks, dead weight ; some got 
 speared in the breakers ; some drifted off to sea ; many of 
 em just went down at their anchors, with the lights of the 
 town in their faces, or swamped before striking the rocks. 
 Fifty craft went to pieces in that harbor, and fifty men, some 
 folks said, went to the bottom before the blow was over. 
 
 The harbor lay a solid sheet of foam that day, from end 
 to end. From its having such a white and shining look it 
 made me think about the Sea of Glass we read of, sir. I 
 thought of it when I saw them drag the bodies up, and the 
 poor fellows faces turned up on the snow. Arid I won 
 dered if their ghosts were walking up and down the chan 
 nel in the winter morning, playing harps. It seemed such 
 freezing work. All along the coast, and in Boston Bay, 
 and off Cape Cod, it was an awful blow. But Gloucester 
 got the knuckles of it. 
 
 The old lady come ashore that morning. We hauled her 
 up and carried her into a little shed there was about there, 
 and covered her over with a bed-quilt before the skipper saw 
 her. 
 
WRECKED IN PORT. 127 
 
 We never found Ben Bumper. 
 
 The mate come to about dawn ; that is to say, as much 
 as Jib Hancko will ever come to, this side of the place 
 where the young woman from Squam has gone to (for 
 which, if I d been a pious man, I should have thanked the 
 God of Sea and Shore). It wouldn t have been a pleasant 
 job for her riding over in the wind four miles that morning, 
 to see the cuts he had about the head, and the look. 
 
 You see the jam was all about the head. We warmed 
 him up, and rubbed him up, and cheered him up, and Griggs 
 paid the doctor seventy-five cents for feeling of his pulse ; 
 but it was no mortal use. He sat as crazy as a loon in the 
 kitchen of the house we took him to, chattering about that 
 old lady, and saying how he d held on, until I wished for 
 one, he d gone to the bottom with her himself. It seemed 
 to me that would have been an arrangement much more 
 agreeable to the young woman from Squam if she has 
 her preferences in her existing residence than the present. 
 
 Not but what Griggs has paid his board quite regularly, 
 and been to inquire about him at the asylum twice a year, 
 then and ever since. And he s peaceable, too, and very 
 happy in his mind, they say, and spends his time in whit 
 tling little figure-heads for ships, with the name of Pansie 
 underneath, in purple ink, done with a fine steel pen. 
 
 We did n t mean him to get into that shed that morning, 
 but he got in somehow ; took us all by surprise, and at our 
 wit s end for him. 
 
 It was a dreadfully bleak little open shed, and the old 
 lady looked uncommonly cold, even considering the circum 
 stances. Griggs was sitting by her with his hat jammed on 
 his eyes. Two or three of us were about, standing in the 
 door. 
 
 Hancko walks in with his head in its bandages, white and 
 bloody, straight to Griggs. 
 
 "Well, Griggs," says he, "I held ont the old lady." 
 
128 WKECKED IN POET. 
 
 " So you did, Jib," says Griggs, staring. 
 
 " I m glad she looks so comfortable," says Jib, smiling 
 round the shed. " But I think you d better take her where 
 it s a little warmer, Cap n, when she can be moved. I told 
 you I d hold on, Griggs ! " 
 
 Folks say he sits saying that now, to this very day, * I 
 held on, Cap n Griggs ! I told you I d hold on ! " over 
 and over to himself, and always smiling round. 
 
 Sometimes, when I m lying off here at the harbor s 
 throat on a quiet day, I wonder whether it is n t better to be 
 Jib Hancko in a mad-house holding on and smiling 
 round, than it is to be me or you, sir, or the most of folks 
 that I m acquainted with. When I m out here by myself, 
 with the great sea calm below me, and the great sky still 
 above me, I sometimes think it is, sir ; I think it is with all 
 my heart. But when I get home to my wife and sit down 
 of an evening, I ain t so sure, and so it goes. 
 
RUNNING THE RISK. 
 
 " THERE ! Is the pillow put to suit you ? Let me draw 
 the shoulder-robe a little closer to your chin. This is cold 
 for Florida. The room is chilly as a capricious heart. Not 
 a little blaze ? You never would have a fire, you know, 
 Jane. The same old girl to sit freezing at forty as at 
 seventeen ! It was always I who got the old air-tight red 
 hot. And do you remember how Madame shook me the 
 day I set the music-room on fire ? 
 
 " Let me take your hair down, while I talk. Like to 
 have it brushed as well as ever, don t you? Your hair 
 is beautiful as ever, Jane. I like it better to be shining 
 gray than shining black ; but it always shines. And how 
 large and still your eyes are, looking through it at me while 
 I speak. Stiller eyes than mine, dear, in spite of all. 
 
 " Jane Beranger ! When you got my letter five years 
 ago last May you got that letter I wonder what you 
 thought ? 
 
 " If I could have seen your eyes when you got it, per 
 haps but ah, well, well ! You were in Constantinople, 
 teaching little heathen something. I forget what. What 
 was it, Jane ? And I was attending Shakespeare Clubs at 
 home. And it s all just as well now, and better too. 
 
 " Speaking of the Shakespeare Clubs that was prin 
 cipally the matter. Never join a Shakespeare Club, Jane, 
 for any other reason than the ice-cream or charades. If 
 you want literary companionship, keep away. 
 
130 RUNNING THE RISK. 
 
 " Now / wanted literary companionship ; intellectual 
 stimulus ; interchange of original ideas ; spur to dormant 
 energies ; mutual improvement all that sort of thing. So 
 I went to the Shakespeare Club ; and, as I say, you were 
 in Constantinople. Jane, shut your eyes a minute, and see 
 it all again. Does it hurt you, dear, to go back into the 
 old days ? No ? I thought not. It cannot hurt you. And 
 it does n t hurt me now ; so don t mind me. Let us go back. 
 We must go straight through it all, if I am to tell my story. 
 Back to that bleak, bright, cruel winter morning when the 
 news came. I cannot see the sun shine on freezing snow 
 now not even now without turning a little sick and 
 chilly suddenly. 
 
 " It was like you to come to me, Jane ; even then. To 
 the end of my life I shall bless you for it. It was like you 
 to look as you did. It was like you to speak as you did. 
 Often and often, when I am sitting in the sunshine, singing 
 to my baby, suddenly I seem to hear you open the door, 
 and come up to me, and put your hands out across the 
 child s head, and say : Delight, there has been a. dreadful 
 accident upon the Valley Road upon the business train ; 
 and Robert is dead and Greyson is dying. It was like you 
 not to make it worse by one unnecessary word. It was 
 
 like you to forget yourself, my poor girl You re 
 
 right, Jane. We ve had enough of this. I ve got no more 
 to say. 
 
 " And it was like you, too, to go to Constantinople, after 
 little heathen ; and like me to go to the Shakespeare Club, 
 after literary companionship. And so one day you got my 
 letter, saying that I was going to marry Henry Davenport. 
 I went to the Shakespeare Club, as I tell you, for literary 
 companionship. Six years were over. 
 
 "Now, six years teaching little heathen in Constantinople 
 are not the same thing with six years at home, with my 
 Aunt Maria and the town library. And then I haven t 
 
RUNNING THE ETSK. 131 
 
 your eyes, nor your shining hair. Henry says my hair is 
 soft and fine ; but it does not shine. And he says my eyes 
 are never still ; and I suppose they never are. 
 
 " Now, in truth, you see, all the story lies in the fact 
 that Henry Davenport thoroughly loved me. There are all 
 kinds of love, you know. Though how should you know 
 in Constantinople ? Do missionaries ever have love-affairs, 
 Jane ? There s the first bit of the old mischief I ve seen 
 in your eyes yet. What was he, Jane ? A widower ? 
 And was he very black ? All the missionaries I know are 
 so very black. And did n t you flirt with him, Jane, one 
 bit ? Don t saints with shining hair and peaceful eyes ever 
 flirt a little ? What ! Not a widower ? < A dear friend ? 
 Jane Beranger ! And you did n t 
 
 " I give it up, Jane. I 11 tell my story without a spasm 
 of compunction. I 11 fling my happiness in your dear old 
 aggravating, peaceful face, without a twinge. 1 11 rub it up. 
 I 11 shine it up. I 11 make the most of it. I 11 wring your 
 prudent heart in the clinch of it as hard as my little Del 
 wrung the kitty in the washing-machine yesterday. Dear 
 friend ! very dear friend ! and not so very black, and not a 
 widower, and you did n t ! Jane, I m ashamed of you. 
 There ! 
 
 " There are, as I was saying, all sorts of love. Now, 
 Henry Davenport is not like any other man I ever knew. 
 He does n t know how to be selfish ; he never did. And 
 when his great, good heart took in that poor little selfish 
 girl, sitting in the corner at the Shakespeare Club, in her 
 black dress, he just took her in for once and for all ; for 
 better, for worse. It did n t matter to him what he got from 
 her. It was only what he gave to her. It did n t matter 
 whether she made him happy, if only he could make her less 
 unhappy. He asked nothing from her. He gave her all. 
 
 " I told him I was n t fit to make him happy, Jane. I 
 was as honest as I could be. I told him how I loved Grey- 
 
132 RUNNING THE RISK. 
 
 son always, just the same. We used to talk a great deal 
 about Grey son ; and he used to sit there and comfort me 
 for my poor boy s memory. You re right, Jane. I led 
 him an awful life. I don t know another man who would 
 have borne it. Heaven bless him ! 
 
 " And so it went on, and went on, for a year and a half 
 And so, because he was so patient with me and so gentle, 
 and because he always said, I can wait, so sadly. * You 
 will love me some day, little woman. I can wait ; and 
 because I was so lonely, and so glad to be cared for and 
 comforted ; and because I could n t get much comfort out of 
 Grey son, you will admit, Jane ; and partly because I was 
 selfish, and mostly because I was idle, I told Henry Daven 
 port, at last, that I would be his wife. 
 
 " To my dying day I shall never forget his face. We 
 were standing in the parlor, by the fire-place, one on each 
 side of the happy blaze. The lamps were not lighted, but 
 the light shot up like an agony or an ecstasy when I spoke, 
 and made the little space between us glorious ; and out of 
 the glory he stood and looked at me. To my last hour I can 
 never forget the sudden, sick sense that came to me that I 
 had done a good man a deadly wrong. 
 
 " I did n t think I was so tormented and buffeted and 
 desperate I had not thought how it could mean so much 
 to him. But when I had said the solemn words, and when 
 I saw his look, my heart misgave me and I cried out that I 
 was doing wrong ; that I could never, never make him 
 happy ; that, if he loved me so, I could not make him hap 
 py ; for that I loved him selfishly and smally, and that I 
 could not help it, and that I wished we had never gone 
 to the Shakespeare Club for literary companionship ; and 
 that it was all too bad, too bad ! 
 
 " And then, Jane well, I m ashamed to tell of it, even 
 now. I would n t have believed it of myself. I would n t 
 have my daughter do it. But I did. I just ran across the 
 
RUNNING THE BISK. 133 
 
 bright width of the little quivering fire, and put my arms 
 about his neck to say good-by, for I meant it to be good- 
 by ; and he d been very good to me, and I was very lonely. 
 And I don t know how it happened ; but I did n t get away 
 again exactly as I thought I should. 
 
 " < Why, child, said he, you love me ! 
 
 " So I thought about it, and I told him : No, I guessed 
 not much. 
 
 " < A little, yes, said he. 
 
 " ; A little bit, perhaps, said I. But Greyson 
 
 " He took my face between his hands and turned it 
 toward the light, just as you turned my tea-rose bud on its 
 stem, this morning, toward the sun. 
 
 " Delight, he said solemnly, if you love me enough to 
 be my wife, I am not afraid of Greyson. 
 
 " So I thought it over once again ; and when I had 
 thought it over I said : 
 
 " Must I keep it from you when I think of Greyson ? 
 
 " God forbid ! said he. 
 
 " And must I feel as if it were a thing to be buried up 
 between us that I loved Greyson, and a thing you re not 
 to know or be reminded of ? 
 
 " God forbid ! said he, again. 
 
 " And when I miss him, for I shall always miss him, 
 Henry, and when I mourn a little, for T shall always 
 mourn a little ; and when, though I don t mean it or want 
 it, I see his face, for I shall always see his face, must I 
 make believe I don t, because I married you ? 
 
 " God forbid ! said Henry Davenport, once more. De 
 light, only tell me about Greyson, and I am not afraid of 
 him. 
 
 " Well, I did n t seem to have anything to tell him about 
 Greyson just then, and so I went out, instead, and told Aunt 
 Maria what had happened, that very night, as if to make 
 it sure ; for I d as lief have been married as tell Aunt 
 
134 RUNNING THE RISK. 
 
 Maria. One was no worse than another. And she said 
 she was glad if I d done moping for Greyson Hardy ; and, 
 if Mr. Davenport stayed to supper, should she put on quince 
 or jam ? 
 
 " And so, dear for I thought the <sooner it was over 
 the better in three months I married Henry Davenport. 
 And we moved to Boston, after his father died, and took 
 a pretty house in Roxbury ; and he went into the shoe-and- 
 leather business, as I wrote you, with Mr. Jameson. You 
 remember David Jameson ? 
 
 " I thought the sooner the better, for I led him such a 
 life. Could n t help it, Jane. Could n t. Would do just 
 the same again. Yes, I would. He says those three months 
 well, no matter what Henry says about those three 
 months. 
 
 " There were weeks that I could n t bear him to touch 
 my hand ; and sometimes, when he came in, I could n t say 
 a word to him, from trying not to cry, and crying, and then 
 being ashamed of it, and then crying and crying again, as 
 if my heart would break. And then there would come days 
 that I was comforted and happy ; and I would tell him so. 
 And he would always tell me that, if I wished it, I was free 
 to go. But I could not wish it. Don t you see, Jane? 
 For, in spite of myself, I was as glad to be cared for as a 
 thirsty anemone is of a shower. 
 
 " I remember one day saying to him, laughing and cry 
 ing together : Henry, I wish you did n t want me to marry 
 you. I should like it so much better to be always engaged. 
 Girls are such glorious geese, Jane. Henry will never for 
 get that. When he wants to be just one shade more aggra 
 vating than usual and, take him at his best, he s the 
 worst tease on the American Continent then I have to 
 hear it over : Delight, I wish you did n t want me to marry 
 you. I should like it so much better to be always en 
 gaged. 
 
RUNNING THE RISK. 135 
 
 " A stronger woman than I, would n t have done it, Jane, 
 even then. A brave, well woman, with something else to 
 do (I had nothing else to do, Jane. You 11 own that. And 
 that s the trouble with girls), would never have drifted on 
 into such a wicked thing. 
 
 " Yes, Jane Beranger, I mean exactly that, in plain 
 English, out and out. For all everything has turned out 
 as it has, and for all I ve been blessed so much above any 
 thing that I ever could deserve, I maintain that when I 
 married Henry Davenport I did a wicked thing. And, for 
 all, and for all, and for all, rather than see my daughter 
 live to do that thing, I would wish her laid in her little 
 grave, this safe, sweet morning, before my eyes. 
 
 " I did not marry my husband because I loved him. I 
 married him because he loved me. And so I wronged my 
 self ; and so I wronged him. And so his great, good, pa 
 tient heart bore with me. Heaven bless him ! And so at 
 last it all came round. And I took off my dear boy s ring 
 from my finger only the night before my wedding-day, and I 
 cried over it as if my heart would break the whole night 
 long. 
 
 " Well, Jane, you need n t look so unhappy about it now. 
 I don t want your pity, thank you, now. And I wish that 
 black missionary were here, to hear my story. Yes, I do. 
 I d make it twice as pretty, if he were only here, to pay 
 you for that look. 
 
 " Jane, it is n t when people are new to each other that 
 they can guess whether they are meant for one another. 
 It is only when the soul you love has become an old story, 
 that you can guess whether it is for you a true story. 
 
 " Few women, I belreve, would have so little to discover 
 in a husband as I had to discover in mine ; and yet, Jane, 
 when I had been married three months, I was a wretched 
 woman. 
 
 " It was n t because he neglected me ; for he could not 
 
136 RUNNING THE RISK. 
 
 do that. My husband is not so made up. It was not be 
 cause he was cross. We had been married twice that time 
 before he ever spoke a quick word to me. It was just be 
 cause I did not love him. 
 
 " Love is a great idealizer, Jane. It lights up a charac 
 ter, and softens its outlines, and sweetens its shadows, and 
 makes it more a fancy than a fact. 
 
 " Now, make the best you may of it, married life is a 
 state where people must idealize each other to get along at 
 all. 
 
 " It is so vividly, continuously, terribly real ! 
 
 " Put yourself where you are morally certain to see the 
 worst and weakest side of a nature dear to you, and, if you 
 do not take with you a determination to believe in its best 
 and strongest to believe through wear and tear, thick and 
 thin, good or evil, life and death a fig for your happi 
 ness ! 
 
 " Marriage brings to the surface of character all the 
 smallness, all the selfishness, all the roughness, all the 
 meanness there is in it ; and, if people do not hold sweet, 
 serene, and steady as the rising sun, to faith in each other s 
 largeness, generousness, fineness, nobleness that ! for their 
 peace of mind ! 
 
 " Perhaps a woman feels these things a little differently. 
 I don t know. Marriage makes such unmixed prose of a 
 man ! His wife must make him poetry, if she would tolerate 
 him. Don t arch your beautiful eyebrows at me, Jane. 
 The words are none too strong. I m not romantic, you 
 know never was ; but that s the way it strikes me. And 
 what should you know about it ? Death is the falsest and 
 sweetest idealizer that we know. 
 
 " Now you see I did not love Henry Davenport, and so I 
 saw him all the wrong way. 
 
 " If he took a nap after dinner, when I was n t sleepy, I 
 sat and thought how ugly he looked. If he wanted to talk 
 
RUNNING THE BISK. 137 
 
 when I was sleepy, I thought how inconsiderate he was. 
 If he criticised the coffee, I wished I had n t been married. 
 Henry is never cross he does n t know how to be cross ; 
 never scolds, never sulks. But sometimes he would speak 
 quickly, being a nervous man. Then I thought my heart 
 would break. Once I remember he came home and found 
 me sitting in a draught, with an epidemic influenza ; and it 
 was when they were bothered about my lungs. He came 
 in, and just said : Delight, how could you be so careless ? 
 I can t understand it ! And I went off up-stairs in the 
 cold and cried an hour. 
 
 " I remember coming down that night, and finding him 
 sitting alone by the parlor-grate. He had a book in his 
 hand ; but he was not reading. He had laid his head back 
 against the chair and his eyes were shut. He looked so 
 tired that a woman might have loved him just for sorrow. 
 
 " I went up to him, and just put out my hand and touched 
 his forehead. I felt so sorry for him and for myself. 
 
 " I said : l Poor boy ! My poor boy ! 
 
 " Now I had never called him that before. It was not 
 he who had been my poor boy. And all his face changed, 
 as if I had let in sudden light upon it. And he turned and 
 caught me in his arms before I could think or breathe. 
 
 " But I got down from his lap presently, and crept away. 
 For I did not love him. It was only sorrow. And he was 
 my husband, and I thought our hearts would break. 
 
 " And so it went on, Jane, and went on. And how it 
 was, I cannot say ; and what it was, I cannot tell you. And 
 the forms my misery took, it seems a wickedness even to 
 remember now. And the most that I can say is : My 
 daughter shall never do it never, never, never ! 
 
 " Once, I remember, on a rainy evening, he came home 
 late. I stood at the window, watching him splash through 
 the little puddles of water on the garden-walk. He had 
 on. his rubber boots and that old cap, that makes him look 
 
138 RUNNING THE BISK. 
 
 so. lie stoops, you know, and is awkward as he walks. 
 Everything had gone wrong that day. The cook was sick ; 
 the furnace-fire had smoked ; I d had to get dinner ; I had 
 burned my hands ; my head ached ; and I had come across 
 some old letters in trying to fix up my bureau-drawers. 
 
 " My husband came up the walk, nodding to me, through 
 the rain. 
 
 " I don t know what it was, or why it was, or why it 
 should have come to me just then ; but I sat and looked 
 at him suddenly, as if I had never seen him before, and I 
 thought : I m tied to you for life ! 
 
 " My husband came in, and took off his wet things, then 
 into the parlor, stooping over my shoulder, as I sat by the 
 window, for the kiss he always sought and I always gave 
 when the day s work was over. I gave it partly because it 
 was my duty ; and partly because I had got into the way 
 of it there s nothing you won t do, you know, if you get 
 into the way of it ; and sometimes because I felt like it. 
 But at that moment I could not kiss him, and I drew back. 
 He turned white you know his way when he is much 
 moved white to the lips. He took his hands from off my 
 head, but very gently, Heaven bless him ! and came and sat 
 down opposite me in the little, low, cushioned window- 
 seat. We had such pretty cushioned window- seats in our 
 house at Roxbury ! He sat down, and took my hands in 
 both of his, and began to stroke them, still very gently, as 
 you would stroke an ailing child. But his voice, when he 
 spoke, was very grave, and in his grave, good face I saw a 
 look that I had never seen before. 
 
 " Delight, he said, * it has been all too bad ! We have 
 made a sad mistake. 
 
 "Now, if you will believe it, I didn t quite like that. 
 To be sure, it was just what I had been saying myself ; but 
 it was another thing for him to say it. I lifted up my head 
 and asked him what he meant. 
 
RUNNING THE RISK. 139 
 
 " I mean, said he, still very solemnly, that you and I 
 should never have married one another. It has all been 
 wrong. I thought I could make you happy, little woman. 
 It was all my blunder. I am very sorry. 
 
 " Now, still I did not like this I did not like it at all ; 
 but I did not know exactly what to say. So I told him 
 politely that he was no more to blame than I ; but that I 
 agreed with him that it was all too bad, and that I ought 
 never to have been his wife. 
 
 " I think so, too, said my husband, decidedly. No 
 woman ought to be the wife of a man she does not thor 
 oughly love. It is only thorough love, Delight, that can 
 make marriage tolerable. 
 
 " Tolerable ! Marriage tolerable ! I lifted my foolish, 
 frightened head a little higher. 
 
 " Sir, said I, if your marriage with me is only toler 
 able 
 
 " My husband seemed to start to speak ; but controlled 
 himself by a great effort, and sat for a moment perfectly 
 still, looking gravely at me across our clasped hands. It 
 was growing very dark around us ; but I could tell that ho 
 looked at me through the dark. 
 
 " I think we may have sat in that way for five minutes. 
 The rain came down on the windows hard and fast ; and 
 once a dead leaf flew against the pane ; and once a little 
 bird, storm-tossed and weak, brushed against the glass and 
 then dropped down. I wondered if Henry noticed these 
 little things ; but I could not tell. I noticed everything, 
 as you do at funerals or in death-rooms. I thought of the 
 old superstition about the spirits of the dead coming back 
 in little birds ; and I thought of Greyson. But he seemed 
 a great way off, and cold and thin and ghostly ; and my hus 
 band sat there so near me, and he had loved me so patiently 
 and well, I began to wish that I had loved him half as 
 patiently, or half as well. I began to wish that I had loved 
 
140 RUNNING THE BISK. 
 
 him as I loved Grey son, once and all and only. I had half 
 a thought to tell him so ; but, whether it was doubt or 
 pride, or whether because of what he said about our mar 
 riage being tolerable, I did not speak. And the little bird 
 fluttered away, chirping mournfully ; and it grew dark 
 and darker ; and presently my husband said : 
 
 " Well, Delight, we must make the best of it now. If 
 there is to be no happiness for you and me, we must make 
 each other as comfortable as we can. We unclasped hands 
 at that, and he rose and walked away. He did not kiss me 
 or speak again, and I sat on in the dark a long time alone. 
 
 " It might have been fancy, Jane ; but I fancied that my 
 husband began to change to me from that hour. It was not 
 that he neglected me or was unkind ; but there was a cer 
 tain difference in him, which I felt, as a sensitive person 
 feels the oncoming of a cold storm before the wind has 
 swung around, or the barometer risen. 
 
 " He was polite to me oh ! very polite. He never for 
 got to open the door for me ; or to fix the fire for me ; or 
 to run up-stairs for me, if somebody must run up ; or to 
 hand me the newspaper first ; or to tell me if the pudding 
 were to his liking ; or to cut the leaves of my magazine. 
 He remembered the book that I asked for from the Athe 
 naeum ; he shawled me carefully for a party ; he buttoned 
 my gloves and boots ; he helped me, as he used to help me, 
 hold the braids up while I did my hair. But by and by I 
 noticed that a certain little kiss a little silly kiss I used 
 to get while the front braid went up, was wanting ; and other 
 little silly things that happened when the gloves and boots 
 went on, were missing too ; and the book was left upon the 
 table, not upon my lap ; and the door was opened without 
 a smile ; and in this way and that, by little and little, I be 
 gun to understand a dreadful thing. 
 
 " I began to understand at last, Jane, that my husband s 
 love for me was wearing out. 
 
RUNNING THE BISK. 141 
 
 " Now, I had never thought of that. I had never thought 
 that such a thing could be. I had taken his love, as we take 
 God s sunshine, just as a settled, sure, and common thing 
 so settled and so sure that we never think to care about it ; 
 so common that we cannot prize it till it is gone. I had 
 played with it, neglected it, slighted it, hidden my selfish 
 face from it; and yet I had leaned on it, lived in it, 
 breathed it, and now I had lost it. That was the point, 
 Jane, where my true misery began. Of all the miserable 
 sides to my life, that was, of all, the most miserable that I 
 have ever known. 
 
 " At first it was my pride that was hurt. I would have 
 died before my husband should have known how I felt. I 
 put on my prettiest dresses and my prettiest smiles. I made 
 myself as lovely as I knew how. 
 
 " One time, I remember, I went to five parties in a week. 
 I went to everything. I was in and out, up and down. I 
 read, I walked, I drove, I sang. Henry said I was as rest 
 less as a northeast wind. 
 
 " He was troubled about it, I could see, for I was not very 
 well and I ought not to have done so. He asked me once 
 if I could not keep more quiet. But his tone was so polite 
 that I could have cried for grief and shame, and I ran up 
 and paced the attic for an hour. Jane, he almost killed me 
 with politeness in those days. 
 
 " Now, this was where things were, when the Fire came. 
 Yes, of course. To Boston people there has never been but 
 one fire in the world. I mean the fire of November, 1872, 
 November 9th. 
 
 " You know the shell of all that happened. It s the 
 kernel I am giving you. It s the things I could n t write in 
 letters to Constantinople. Though, perhaps, if I d known 
 about that black missionary But I did n t, don t you 
 see ? 
 
 " I was lying on my own bed, up-stairs, that evening, 
 
142 RUNNING THE RISK. 
 
 wondering why he did n t come home, and where the fire 
 was, for the bells had bothered me for an hour past. I 
 remember I lay alone a long time, for I was not well enough 
 to pace the attic. I think I must have been there till nine 
 o clock, wondering and worrying, before any message came. 
 
 " Jane, that was the prettiest room ! I believe the only 
 thing I have ever stopped to miss in Florida has been that 
 old bedroom of mine in our Roxbury house. It was fur 
 nished in the carmine shades, and there was peach tint on 
 the walls under carmine borders, and the open grate, and 
 the soft cannel fire. Henry used to say the room looked 
 like a great jewel, when he came in, cold and wet, on a" 
 winter s night. Our house was pretty enough all over ; but 
 I ve never minded the loss of anything since, but that room. 
 
 *^I was lying there, wretched enough, alone, when Aunt 
 Maria came up, to say that my husband would not be at 
 home that night. Aunt Maria was making me a visit just 
 then. My husband would not be at home, she said, till no 
 body knew just when. She was sorry to frighten me, in 
 my state of health ; but 
 
 " But what ? I sat up straight in bed and tossed the 
 eider-down shoulder-robe away like a savage, for I felt 
 choked. 
 
 " W well, said Aunt Maria, you ought to know bet 
 ter than to take on so, Delight ; and your husband said 
 particularly that I ought to break it to you gently. But 
 you know there is an awful fire ; and how can / help it if 
 his store s burned down, and he s got to stay out all night 
 to keep the bonds in his boots. At least, they say all the 
 business men are carrying bonds in their boots ; and I sup 
 pose you won t be beggars. Money 11 come from some 
 where. It always does come from somewhere, though 
 where to mercy out of ashes I don t see. But it s very un 
 fortunate for you, and I think, myself, Mr. Davenport might 
 just run home and see how you are. 
 
BUNNING THE KISK. 143 
 
 " Jane, for a minute my pretty red room whirled round 
 and round before my eyes, and seemed to deepen and flash, 
 and then break to pieces and roll away in little, gorgeous 
 sparkles, as a jewel would if struck and broken by a ham 
 mer s blow ; and for a minute I seemed to see my husband 
 (but I knew that it was only seeming) standing in the 
 shower of fading color, with a look he used to wear some 
 times, when we first were married ; and I seemed to cry out 
 to him (but I knew that it was only seeming) : Only look 
 like that again, and what can we care for this ? And then 
 the look, and the color, and the cry died out blackly. And 
 I suppose it was because I was not well, for I never fainted 
 before in my life or since. 
 
 " When I came to myself (for I was ill all night) it was 
 Sunday morning, and the fire-bells were still ringing. 
 
 " Aunt Maria was standing by me, with a scared face. I 
 asked her, sharply, if my husband had come home. Yes, 
 she said, he had come home. Where was he ? I must go 
 to him. How was he ? Was he very tired ? Why did he 
 not come to me ? Was he sick ? Aunt Maria ! Aunt 
 Maria ! WHAT has happened to my husband ? This min 
 ute ! Quick ! WHAT ? 
 
 " I d got up by that time and gone to the door. Feeble 
 as I was, I had got to the door, dragging and tripping in the 
 silly little eider quilt, as I staggered on. Aunt Maria came 
 and planted herself directly in my way, with the old look 
 she used to have when I started for the preserve-closet, and 
 she intercepted me. 
 
 " Delight Davenport, said she, i you just turn round 
 and go back to your bed quicker than you got off it ! 
 
 " I hesitated. 
 
 " * If you don t go this minute, I 11 lock you in, said 
 Aunt Maria. I knew the look and the tone. I went. I 
 did n t dare to do anything else. I went as if I had been 
 eight, instead of twenty-eight ; and Aunt Maria picked up 
 the eider quilt and tucked me in. 
 
144 RUNNING THE BISK. 
 
 " And now said she, since you ve done as you re bid, 
 and since there s never any cheating you, by fair means or 
 foul, that I know of, I may as well out with it first as last. 
 Your husband s store is burned to the ground, and that s the 
 long and short of that. And Boston is burning up, near 
 as I can make it, and one set of folks is as badly off as an 
 other. And that s all I know of that. And your husband 
 well, your husband 
 
 " She missed it that time, Jane. She should have been 
 quicker. She gave me too much time. I just gave that 
 eider quilt such a jerk, that the pretty, soft red silk went 
 tearing down the whole length, like a beautiful cobweb ; 
 and I was out of her hands and out of the room before the 
 old lady could speak or cry. 
 
 " I don t clearly remember to this day what room he was 
 in or how I got there. I only know that they had laid him 
 somewhere ; and that I found him ; and that when I saw 
 the blood, I thought he was dead. 
 
 " The stone had struck him in the face, across the fore 
 head, here, before it hit the chest. The blood came from 
 the little cut, but it gave him a dreadful look. You re 
 member he was trying to save a fireman, and how the poor 
 fellow had ventured too long and too far; and when the 
 building fell, he went down with it. Henry says to this day 
 he sees in his dreams, sometimes, that man throw up his 
 arms above his head and go toppling down and crashing in. 
 So he sprang to warn him ; was a little too late, too long, 
 too near. I don t know exactly how it was, but just like 
 him, Jane. Himself the last to think about himself. They 
 say a dozen men sprang to warn him back. Just like my 
 husband, Heaven bless him ! 
 
 " The stone had struck him in the left lung. One of 
 those great granite blocks that the Devonshire Street stores 
 were built of. Mr. Jameson managed to get to him ; and 
 they contrived to get him into a carriage and so home. They 
 said he spoke but once only on the way, and that he said : 
 
RUNNING THE RISK. 145 
 
 " Gentlemen, if you can get me into the house without 
 awaking my wife 
 
 " And so Aunt Maria came panting in, at last. And 
 there, she says, I sat, and which of us was the whiter, no 
 tongue could say. 
 
 " And his head on your lap, Delight, and your arms 
 about him, and you crying, crying on his face enough to put 
 out Boston fire ; and all those men there looking on. 
 
 " Jane, love comes in such exquisitely different ways to 
 differing souls. Sometimes it creeps slowly after you, like 
 your shadow, always dogging you, never ahead of you, 
 never abreast of you, only creeping along, a silent, sure, and 
 sombre thing, that you only turn to look at over your 
 shoulder, but never face nor understand. I ve seen people 
 whom love dogs just that way through a whole life long, 
 but never, never, overtakes and masters. Do you know, 
 Jane, to me, that is the saddest kind of life I know ? 
 
 " Now, I believe it might have been like that between 
 Henry and me. I might have gone on and gone on to my 
 dying day, never knowing what he was to me calling it 
 fondness, friendship, intellectual sympathy, loneliness, wifely 
 duty I don t know what not. I might have gone on like 
 that, until or unless something happened to wrench me round 
 and make me look my own heart in the face. 
 
 " It sometimes needs a sudden, solemn light let in upon a 
 lurking love to arrest the prisoner by the light of a great 
 pain, or a great peril, or even a great joy. Heaven must 
 strike flint against the nature to startle it into self-knowl 
 edge. And the light that I read my love for my own hus 
 band by was the great and terrible light of Boston Fire. 
 
 " All that day and the next night, while I hung over 
 him, thinking he would die, the smoke of the burning city 
 ascended like the smoke of torment. I looked out at it, 
 now and then, through the drawn curtains, in a dim, dazed 
 way, as a heart-broken woman does, thinking very little of 
 10 
 
146 RUNNING THE RISK. 
 
 all the misery of all the people ; but only of her own little 
 stinging share. It was only to me the smoke of my torment 
 ascending up forever and ever. 
 
 " For, as I tell you, Jane, by that awful light I read my 
 heart, at last. I knew, at last, that the love of my dead 
 lover had become a faint and ghostly thing beside the living 
 love of this living man. I knew, at last, that I cared for 
 life only that it might be lived for him, and feared death 
 only lest it should part me from him before I had had one 
 little chance to win back to me the patient heart which I 
 had lost. 
 
 " I stooped over him now and then, when he sank or 
 seemed to sink into the dreadful faints ; and it comforted 
 me a little when nobody was by to try to tell him how 
 I felt, though he could not hear me, just because he could 
 not hear. But all I could think to say was : Oh, my 
 dear ! my dear ! " 
 
 " There ! I might talk till morning at this rate ; and 
 Henry will soon come in, and wonder that I do not go to 
 meet him. And I know that Easter has given the baby the 
 sugar-bowl, for she has not. cried for twenty minutes. Take 
 out your watch and time me, Jane. I 11 talk ten minutes 
 more and stop. 
 
 " Two months to a day from the great November fire, on 
 January 9th, we started for Florida. We started for Flor 
 ida sick, poor, homesick, and alone ; and my baby was to 
 come in April. There are few places, as you said last night, 
 where you see sorrier sights than in traveling to Florida 
 the sick people, and the anxious people, and the people 
 worn with watching, and the people fighting death. But I 
 do not often see in the great hospital of this healing State 
 anybody that I feel more sorry for than I feel for our two 
 selves, in looking back. 
 
 " My husband got up from his injury a shattered, bank 
 rupt, dying man. If it had not been for the hurt, we might 
 
RUNNING THE RISK. 147 
 
 have pulled through the other ; might have set our heads 
 to the wind I in my way and he in his and built our 
 fortunes up again, like many another in that sad time. But 
 there was the hurt in the lung, and the cough. 
 
 " He came to me one day and stood behind my chair, and, 
 without looking or seeming to look at me, slowly said : 
 
 " Delight, Dr. Bowditch agrees with all the rest. He 
 orders me to Florida. 
 
 " Then we will go to Florida, Henry. 
 
 " It is thought best, it is, indeed, thought necessary, 
 that I should go at once. 
 
 " Then, said I, we will go at once. 
 
 " t And it may be, Delight, that, even if the experiment 
 succeeds, I must be exiled there for life. 
 
 " Worse things might happen, Henry. 
 
 " * True. You are right. But we have left (since the 
 fire) just five thousand dollars. Three of that is your own. 
 
 " Five thousand dollars will last a long time, said I. 
 
 " * And then ? said my husband. 
 
 " / II take care of the " then," said I. 
 
 " You? 
 
 "My husband came round in front of my chair and 
 smiled. Not as he used to smile ; but in a reticent, per 
 plexing way. 
 
 " I felt the blood rush to my face, as if I had been a girl 
 cherishing some romantic dream of self-sacrifice for a man 
 whose love she had not won. My husband looked at me 
 steadily for a moment, and then turned away. 
 
 "I drew myself up a little, I dare say, and gravely 
 said : 
 
 " I mean to say, Henry, that I am not afraid of the 
 future, and that, if my husband is no longer able to care for 
 me, it is my duty to care for him ; and that we will go to 
 Florida, if you please to trust me so far, and take what 
 comes. 
 
148 RUNNING THE RISK. 
 
 " He gravely thanked me for my courage and considera 
 tion ; said that trouble was teaching us both many lessons ; 
 said that he feared for my health, starting on this cruel 
 risk just now ; thanked me once again for my keen sense of 
 duty ; told me that I encouraged him somewhat ; and then 
 abruptly left me. 
 
 " And so, in January, with a dreary snow-storm darkening 
 down upon us, and Aunt Maria in hysterics at the depot, I 
 started for Florida, Jane, to fight for my husband s life and 
 love. 
 
 " The first three months I thought he would die, in spite 
 of me. We went to St. Augustine, and the salt air hurt 
 him. The next three months I thought / should die, in 
 spite of both of us. Things went wrong with me, and the 
 baby came too soon born the week after we went to 
 Jacksonville a little, miserable, ailing, heart-broken thing. 
 And she cried ! Oh, how that child did cry ! I think the 
 nights I lay there in our boarding-house at Jacksonville, too 
 weak to lift my arms, and watched her father walk the room 
 with her she was a heavy baby, and it made him cough 
 I think those nights were the deadliest, darkest hour be 
 fore the dawn. But there never was a minute, Jane, that 
 I gave up fighting for my husband s life and love. 
 
 " Nothing was said between us all this while of either 
 life or love. For one thing, we had too much else to do, 
 perhaps. Sometimes he sat and watched me with that sin 
 gularly reticent smile, and sometimes it would seem as if he 
 had words to say that he never said ; but he never spoke of 
 love, and what could a woman do ? Though my heart had 
 broken, I could not court my husband. 
 
 " It ended in our sending for Aunt Maria, after all. It 
 ended in Aunt Maria and the oranges. 
 
 " Henry came in one day, when I was getting better, and 
 said, in a careless way in that way of his he has when he 
 has thought a great deal about a thing and wants you to 
 
RUNNING THE RISK. 149 
 
 think he hasn t that he had just heard of a fine chance to 
 buy an orange-grove up the St. John s River ; and that, if 
 he were a well man, he d half a notion he should like the 
 business and could make it pay. 
 
 " You know how a thing strikes a woman sometimes, 
 Jane, like chain-lightning. All in a minute that struck me. 
 I asked my husband for the advertisement of the place, and 
 I took it away into the bedroom and shut myself up alone 
 with it and the baby, and thought it all over, and thought 
 it all through, and came back, and did n t say anything 
 about it then. But after supper I told him that I thought 
 we had better take the orange-grove and settle on the river. 
 
 " And who did you say would farm it ? asked Henry, 
 laughing. The baby ? 
 
 " Sir ! and I, laughing too, but fighting, as hard as a 
 woman could fight who had been kept awake by her baby 
 for six nights running, to keep back the tears. * Mr. Daven 
 port, / will farm the orange-grove ! 
 
 " It s amazing, Jane, the crazy things people will push 
 through to success when they re hard pressed. It is amaz 
 ing what you can do when you are fighting both for life and 
 love. 
 
 " Ridiculous as it looked at first, we did it. We took our 
 five thousand, what there was left of it, and bought the 
 place. And then we sent for Aunt Maria, and then we 
 went to work, and here we are. 
 
 " I always thought I had a genius for farming (my mother 
 was just so before me), and I took to it quicker than Henry 
 did. And when he was too feeble to work or think, I worked 
 and thought for two ; and when he was strong enough to be 
 about, we worked together, in the blessed, golden, healing 
 weather. And Aunt Maria kept things straight about the 
 house and child, when I was called away for it would 
 sometimes happen that I would be called to Jacksonville or 
 elsewhere oftener then than now, when Henry is a little 
 stronger and is so happy to think that he can go himself. 
 
150 EUNNING THE EISK. 
 
 " And, if Aunt Maria had n t died, and left us her little 
 moneys, poor old lady ! we should have got along ; only, I 
 dare say, with more worry for the future, which is some 
 thing, for the Lord has been partial to our oranges, Jane, 
 from first to last, and you want so "little in Florida, and last 
 year s fashions are just as good. 
 
 " But no, I won t ! You don t care a fig for the oranges 
 or any of that. What you want to know is, how people 
 make it up when they come to Florida to fight for life and 
 love, and when she w ill not court her husband, though her 
 heart should break. 
 
 " Jane, dear, it was after we had been in this place a year. 
 The holidays were coming on. The crop was in. The 
 splendid fruit lay in piles, like solid gold, waiting to be 
 boxed. I had been down to the little wharf, to see about 
 the packing ; and because I felt tired, and somehow sad 
 dened and disheartened, although the crop was in, I stole 
 away alone into the edge of the forest, beyond our place 
 just over there where you see the tall live-oak standing out 
 of the soft blue line that the great Florida wilderness makes 
 against the sky. 
 
 " I had thrown myself down full length into the scrub, 
 and flung my arms above my head to think. I had not had 
 much time to think, since we had been in Florida. But 
 now because the crop was in, and because all went well 
 with us, and because the holidays were coming on, and be 
 cause it would have been so natural to be happy in the holi 
 days, I threw my arms out, as people throw them out in 
 drowning, just to think. 
 
 " Jane, now you ve seen the Florida wilderness, you 
 know what the thing is like. Look at it from out this win- 
 
 c5 
 
 dow! See? The cruel, infinite thing ! 7" was in the Flor 
 ida wilderness. Lying there in the scrub, that day, this was 
 all that I could think. A lonely, comfortless woman, who 
 had thrown away the love of the dead, who had thrown 
 
BUNNING THE RISK. 151 
 
 away the love of the living, who had breathed a year of the 
 happy Florida weather into her hungry heart so near him, 
 j ane so near, yet as far from him as if the world s wide 
 width were sprung between us. I tell you, a solitary, an 
 exhausted woman ; but she would not court her husband if 
 she died. 
 
 " He must have been a little anxious about me, I suppose, 
 for I had been ailing and miserable despite myself ; and, 
 while I lay there, face down, among the wretched scrub, he 
 came quietly up arid sat down beside me. 
 
 " We shall get the last of the crop off by the next boat, 
 I think, after all, Delight/ he began, in his ordinary way. 
 But, suddenly seeing my face, he turned. 
 
 " < Crying ? Delight ! Why, Delight ! 
 
 " I wound my arms about the scrub savagely. I could 
 have choked to death rather than that he should have seen 
 me cry. I besought him to leave me and go home. I be 
 sought him not to speak to me or touch me. But it was 
 too late. It was so long since I had cried, and the dreadful 
 sobs tore out. 
 
 " Why, Delight ! he repeated. < Why, Delight ! And 
 could seem to say that one word only at first, over and 
 over again. Why, Delight, come here ! 
 
 " Come there ! I would have gone into the St. John s 
 River first, and so I told him. * Come there, sir, indeed ! 
 What do you think a woman s made of ? Oh ! go into the 
 house and talk with Aunt Maria about your orange crop, 
 and leave me and my wilderness to myself, sir ! 
 
 " The matter ? You don t know what s the matter ? 
 After all I ve done for you, you wish you could have made 
 me happy ? I don t want your gratitude, I thank you, sir. 
 So long since I ve kissed you or let you think and you 
 did n t know? You might have known. Anybody but a man 
 would know. Was I so easy to win, Henry Davenport, 
 when you were my lover, that you think I 11 come courting 
 you now you are my husband ? 
 
152 RUNNING THE KISK. 
 
 " I VI rather court a lover than a husband, any time. 
 
 " Come there ? Come there ? I tell you No I 
 
 " You did n t know ? Did n t understand ? 
 
 " And, if I did fling your love away, you did n t suppose 
 I wanted it back again soon as it was gone ? And you 
 did n t know I loved you, loved you, loved you all this 
 while ? 
 
 " -Then all I have to say, Henry Davenport, is : I thank 
 Heaven I was n t born a stupid man ! 
 
 " ; And you may go down to the wharf and count your 
 oranges. Yes, you may. And you might have loved me 
 all this while a little. Yes, you might, sir. I d never 
 have treated you so, if I d been a stupid, heartless man. 
 
 " i Come there, sir, indeed ! Not if I die in the Florida 
 wilderness. Not a living inch. 
 
 "Well, Jane, I stopped at last, breathless, hot, and 
 haughty, all tears and temper stopped and looked at him 
 across the little bush that had swept between us. His face 
 was very pale, but it shone like the shining holiday weather. 
 And suddenly a thought struck me, and things took on a 
 new color, and my heart beat for the minute with a hope as 
 wild and deep and as rich as the splendid Florida sky. 
 
 " My husband gently put aside the little bush and said 
 but did not ask me to come there, just then : 
 
 " Delight, I did not know. Upon my life, I did not 
 guess. Perhaps I have been wrong. I meant to do the 
 best thing. I thought if you thought I had grown weary of 
 you women are like other people, after all, even my lit 
 tle wife, Delight I thought if you thought I did not love 
 you perhaps But I could not tell 
 
 " WHAT, sir ? 
 
 " 1 1 did not mean to do wrong, I repeat, said my hus 
 band ; but he grew paler and paler as he spoke. Perhaps 
 it was not fair. But I was tortured and perplexed. Delight, 
 
IIUNNING THE BISK. 153 
 
 I love you, love you, have always loved you. There has 
 never been a minute Delight, if you won t come here, 
 look here ! 
 
 " Well, and so, you see, the little bush was pushed away, 
 and no, I did n t go there, Jane, not even then ; but I 
 was taken there forever. 
 
 " So we walked out of the Florida wilderness ; and out 
 into the deep-hearted, throbbing weather ; and out upon 
 the little wharf, to see the oranges. But we could not talk 
 of oranges ; and it was twilight when we got into the house, 
 and the perfect, purple Florida night was settling softly down 
 upon the world. 
 
 " The baby was asleep up-stairs, in our own room. Eas 
 ter had gone to get supper, and the room was still. My 
 husband came up, when I had been there for a little while 
 in the dark. And when he saw me kiss the child, he kissed 
 her too ; and when he saw that I got upon my knees, he 
 kneeled down too ; and above the baby s face we clasped 
 our hands and prayed." 
 
 " Easter ! Mr. Davenport come in ? 
 
 " Oh, Henry ! Are you there ? Down directly. I Ve 
 been trying to find out from Jane what the fashions were 
 in Constantinople." 
 
LONG, LONG AGO. 
 
 A TRUE STORY. 
 
 WHEN Rachel Fross promised to marry Azrael Graven, 
 the whole church militant rejoiced. 
 
 It was so long ago, that young people who thought of 
 marriage, considered first what the church militant would 
 think. 
 
 It was so long ago, that a young man preparing for the 
 Gospel ministry, was an object of peculiar veneration, and a 
 subject of exceptionally persistent prayer. 
 
 It was so long ago, that such a young man was held to 
 have sacrificed this world and the glory thereof, upon the 
 altar of his consecrated youth, and to have wrestled for 
 Heaven s blessing, as Jacob wrestled of old till daybreak, 
 with a hidden, smiling, favoring Lord. 
 
 It was so long ago, that such a young man expected, 
 sought, and found a life of much self-conquest and self-de 
 nial of poverty, of anxiety, of patience, of prayer, of 
 honor, of peace. 
 
 It was so long ago, that such a young man excited the 
 supernatural respect of women, and induced in them a de 
 votion resembling that in which a Claude, a Bossuet, a Sa 
 vonarola lived and moved and had their being, and were not, 
 for God took them. 
 
 It was so long ago, that the imagination of a, young woman 
 faltered before the conception of a loftier lot than that of 
 providing for the temporal and lower necessities of so ele 
 vated and dedicated a being. 
 
LONG, LONG AGO. 155 
 
 to. 
 
 It was so long ago, that when Azrael Graven asked Ra 
 chel Fross if she would join with him in the service to which 
 he had given his life ; if she would become his comforter 
 and assistant in the holy work ; if she thought that it would 
 insure her happiness to unite with him in the bonds of mat 
 rimony, which was of God and blessed by God, to this great 
 end it was so long ago, that Rachel felt as if the Archan 
 gel Michael had stepped from heaven to earth, because he 
 had need of her. 
 
 In fact, it was so long ago, that people went to church 
 with foot-stoves : and Azrael Graven was carrying Rachel s 
 foot-stove home for her, after the Thursday evening confer 
 ence meeting, when he brought the subject of Michael so 
 vividly to her mind. 
 
 "I had not thought," said Rachel, trembling visibly 
 " oh ! Mr. Graven, I had never thought of that ! " 
 
 " It has weighed upon my rnind," said the Angel Michael, 
 " for a long while, Rachel. It has seemed to me that the 
 Lord, for a long while, has been leading my thoughts in 
 this direction ; and I have allowed myself to hope that He 
 would lead yours in the same." 
 
 " But, oh ! Mr. Graven," trembled Rachel, once again, 
 " I am not good enough. I can never be good enough to 
 be a minister s wife. I never can, indeed ! " 
 
 Rachel Fross was a tall and stately woman, with pale 
 hair, heavy upon her forehead, and grave, great, reticent 
 eyes. She turned her head as she spoke, and looked up 
 ward at the Angel Michael (who was rather tall himself) 
 with a motion such as Memnon might have made in look 
 ing eastward for the first flush of dawn which should unbind 
 the marble of his lips. 
 
 It was not so long ago, but that the Reverend Mr. Graven 
 observed the motion and the look with keen-felt satisfaction, 
 albeit with a dull sense that they were both natural and ap 
 propriate. He shifted the foot-stove on his thin, long arm, 
 
156 LONG, LONG AGO. 
 
 
 
 and, gravely lifting Rachel s hand, pressed it gravely to his 
 lips. 
 
 " There is none that doeth good," he answered her ; " no, 
 not one. We can grow in grace together, Rachel." 
 
 " Ah ! well," said Rachel, softly, " I can try. I will try, 
 if you would like to have me, Mr. Graven." 
 
 " I have come to feel," said the Reverend Mr. Graven, 
 speaking slowly, and with some suppressed emotion upon 
 his thin, sickly, abstracted face, " that my work could not 
 be, could never be, rounded and complete without you, Ra 
 chel Fross." 
 
 Now, it was so long ago, that the atrocity of this love-scene 
 was perfectly simple and serious to its actors ; so long ago 
 that, in spite of it, Azrael Graven and Rachel Fross, join 
 ing hands across the foot-stove, set from that moment their 
 young feet in Eden, and heard the Lord of eternal Love 
 walking in the garden of their hearts that day. 
 
 In fact, it was so long ago, that a man s relative estimate 
 of himself and the woman whom he loved, might be simply 
 preposterous, and yet that he might love a woman very 
 much ; and that a woman might be so far glorified for this 
 life by the one fact, as never to discover the other, till death 
 had blurred it to a faint, untroubling shade. 
 
 At all events, it remains, that Rachel Fross eame home 
 from Thursday conference " promised " to Azrael Graven, 
 and that the fitness of this event was apparent at once and 
 forever to the church and society of Southampton, in which 
 devout, dead Deacon Fross had been a " pillar " for more 
 than thirty years ; and by which Azrael Graven was sup 
 ported in the Theological Seminary at Princeton, with faith, 
 hope, charity, and a quarterly allowance of one hundred 
 and five dollars and fifty cents. 
 
 A few grave calls, received in the sitting-room with her 
 mother knitting in the rocking chair beside the fire ; a few 
 grave walks in the broad winter day, up and down the 
 
LONG, LONG AGO. 157 
 
 drifted, watching streets ; a little grave discussion of the 
 revival and the freshets ; a little, strange, sweet chat of 
 common things, of a headache that he had, of a pud 
 ding that she made ; a little awed listening to his last new 
 sermon, and a little temper with her mother for suggesting 
 that he change his text ; some reading aloud in an evening 
 from Jeremy Taylor, or from Walter Scott ; a dignified kiss 
 or two left upon her forehead in the entry, with the door 
 open ; a timid suggestion that she mend his gloves, and a 
 half a night spent in darning them to a hair-line s wondrous 
 nicety ; a faint, sweet sense of household fellowship when 
 he "stopped to tea," and "led in prayer" thereafter; and 
 the perplexing presence of a shy, elusive pain at the thought 
 of what Southampton would be like to-morrow, when he had 
 gone, these things preceded Azrael Graven s return to 
 the Seminary to complete his senior year. 
 
 It was so long ago, that Rachel did not tell him she should 
 miss him ; did not say that she should mourn. They talked 
 of the neighbors, and the news the semi-weekly paper held ; 
 of the " Association," which would meet with Azrael s aunt, 
 across the street, next week ; of the prayer that Deacon Jud- 
 kin made on Sunday ; of the price of board in Princeton ; 
 of the best remedies for spring colds, and the flavor of sage- 
 tea. The young student had a heavy cold upon his lungs, 
 now some weeks old. 
 
 "You come of a sickly stock," said Rachel s mother. 
 " Your mother died at thirty, you remember; most of the 
 Hebbards I have known (I mean the women) have. Then 
 there was your poor father ! But your Grandfather Graven 
 they thought he never would die. It s a slender, switchy 
 stock, Mr. Graven ; may bend, may break. You should 
 take good care of yourself. It s a blood that owns good 
 care ; but rebels at a slight, always." 
 
 She was a Bradford herself Mrs. Fross ; came as 
 straight and stiff as her silhouette over the mantel-piece, 
 
158 LONG, LONG AGO. 
 
 from the Mayflower. She knew all about " blood " and 
 " stock " ; she could apportion to any family in town its 
 proper quantity and quality of inbred sin by legitimate in 
 heritance for such case made and provided. 
 
 Rachel stole out into the entry after Azrael Graven had 
 risen to take his leave that night, and waited for him by 
 herself. 
 
 k Thinking how long it would be before she saw his face 
 again, (how pale it looked, swimming before her tears 
 across the half -swung door !) the sparse limits of her happi 
 ness suddenly struck and chafed the Puritan girl. She fed 
 her love on such scanty fare ! She felt starved. A rapid, 
 unreasoning thought came to her that in some way she was 
 wronged and he. A hot flush ran to her temples, and 
 under her heavy, pale hair, while she stood there, half hear 
 ing her mother advising Mr. Graven to put on a mustard 
 paste. 
 
 When the young man came out to find his hat, Rachel 
 took a sudden step and shut the door ; then, finding herself 
 quite alone with him, looked once or twice about the dim, 
 still entry, threw her arms about his neck and kissed him 
 of her own accord. 
 
 " Oh ! " she said, " 1 love you ! " and fled, scarlet and 
 blinded, out of sight. 
 
 The young minister felt the world spin for an instant be 
 neath his steady, consecrated feet. He passed his hand once 
 or twice over his eyes, coughed, took his hat, and walked 
 bareheaded quite down the garden walk and out into the 
 chill, spring night. 
 
 Rachel had letters at due intervals. She returned them 
 at corresponding and punctilious distances. Mr. Graven 
 wrote of the tardy spring, of the size of his class, of the 
 somewhat chilly outlook of his northeast room, of the audi 
 ence which he had last Sabbath, of the great theological 
 professor s latest anecdote, of a prospect of " a call " in a 
 
LONG, LONG AGO. 159 
 
 seaboard village, of the difficulty which he found in preach 
 ing with his cold (which lingered still) in windy weather, of 
 some exercises of mind which he had experienced of late in 
 prayer. 
 
 Miss Fross wrote of Mr. Graven s cold, of the care that 
 he should take, of her pleasure at the prospect of the call, 
 of her fears that the coast would prove too severe a climate 
 for his health, of her mother and his aunt, of the " ex 
 change " which they had last week, of the seeds which she 
 had sown in her garden this year, of something which had 
 pleased her in "Doddridge" or in "Baxter," of Deacon 
 Judkin s fever, of a funeral or a wedding down the street, 
 of the pleasure which she had taken in his last letter, of the 
 anxiety once more which she felt about his health, and the 
 desire which she experienced (very timidly expressed) to 
 see his face again, and judge from it for herself exactly how 
 he was, and why that cold hung on so long, and if he were 
 not in need of rest. 
 
 Mr. Graven read Miss Fross s letters, sometimes twice, 
 with care and pleasure ; tied them neatly together with red 
 tape, and laid them away on file in a pigeon-hole of his 
 desk, with a volume of " Jewell s Sermons " laid upon them 
 to keep them quite safe and still. 
 
 Miss Fross read Mr. Graven s letters ah ! well, she 
 read the last one till the next one came. She wore them 
 out in her pocket ; she crumpled them with tears of joy ; 
 she folded them in her Bible, and locked the Bible into her 
 lower bureau-drawer. Once she pressed them hastily and 
 hotly to her lips ; but she was quite alone, and it was mid 
 night, and Azrael had written " Dear Rachel " in three 
 places in a note which came that day. 
 
 It was quite in the heart of the sultry summer that a let 
 ter came which Rachel carried to her mother. It was very 
 short, somewhat wearily written, and ran like this : 
 
160 LONG, LONG AGO. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND : 
 
 " I have excused myself from prayers this morning, for I 
 have had a restless night, with a racking and exhausting 
 cough. I must in some way have taken a heavy chill. I 
 shall be in better health, to-day, I think. The anniversary 
 exercises will occupy the last week of August, I understand. 
 I spoke with the senior professor this morning about my 
 essay, which is in preparation. I should like to be excused 
 from the exercises altogether, unless I find myself in better 
 health before vacation. I mentioned this to the professor 
 this morning. He remarked that he would consider what 
 was practicable and advisable in the case ; and inquired if 
 I studied much by candle-ilight, and if I had tried the reno 
 vating agencies of calomel. 
 
 " My lecture-bell rings. I will post this communication 
 in its incomplete condition, that you may feel acquainted 
 with my state, and be spared undue uneasiness. I shall im 
 prove rapidly with rest and change, I feel no doubt. You 
 will please to serve my respects to your mother, and believe 
 me to be " Always truly yours, 
 
 " AZRAEL GRAVEN." 
 
 Rachel s mother read this letter, folded it slowly, read it 
 again, and handed it back to her daughter. 
 
 " Well ? " asked Rachel, wondering why her mother did 
 not speak. 
 
 " Oh! he will do well enough if he comes home," said 
 Mrs. Fross. " He ought to come home. I think myself 
 he will, before long." 
 
 Mrs. Fross was busy putting a curtain up against the 
 parlor window. She spoke with her mouth full of tacks. 
 Rachel listened to her eagerly, but her voice was drawn 
 through her teeth and whistled over the tacks. It meant 
 nothing. Rachel made nothing of it, and went away. 
 
 Not a week therefrom, in the middle of a slow, lifeless 
 
LONG, LONG AGO. 161 
 
 morning, as Rachel stood in the kitchen, dreamily coaxing 
 a slow and lifeless bread-cake into being, her mother came 
 and called her into the parlor in a sudden way, bidding her 
 sit down and get cool for a little while. 
 
 " I m not very warm," said wondering Rachel. " I d 
 rather rest by and by, when the cake is done." 
 
 " But you d better rest now," said Mrs. Fross, nervously 
 walking around the room. 
 
 " You d better rest. The fact is, Mr. Graven came home 
 last night." 
 
 Rachel rose impetuously from the chair, where she sat 
 by the window, with her sleeves rolled up, and the sluggish 
 breeze striking faintly against her flushed cheeks and well 
 molded arms and disordered, beautiful hair. She rose im 
 petuously, but sat slowly down again. 
 
 " He came home with bleeding at the lungs ; and you 
 might as well know it first as last. And I ve got to tell 
 you ! " sobbed Mrs. Fross, sitting suddenly down herself, 
 with her back to her daughter. " And, Rachel " still with 
 her back to Rachel " if I were you, I d rather know this 
 minute that the doctor says it may be quick consumption, 
 and it may be that there s nothing in this world to do ; and 
 I d rather my own mother would tell me." 
 
 Rachel, in the sluggish breeze, her bared arms crossed 
 upon her calico cooking-apron, and her falling hair blown 
 about her face, sat for some moments perfectly still. Her 
 mother did not look at her. The wind rose a little restlessly, 
 and the bees in the front garden, feasting on the hearts of 
 the great crimson peonies, hummed so loudly that it seemed 
 as if all the world could hear them. 
 
 "I suppose," said Rachel s voice, at length, breaking 
 dully against the roystering, lawless sound, " that he is not 
 able to come and see me ? " 
 
 " Oh ! my dear," said her mother, " he cannot leave his 
 
 bed ! " 
 
 11 
 
162 LONG, LONG AGO. 
 
 " Then I will go to him," answered Hachel, simply. 
 
 She rose, and pulled her sleeves down and took her apron 
 off. 
 
 Mrs. Fross put her black hair-cloth chair against the wall. 
 She shut the door : she shook her grave, gray head. 
 
 " My daughter, you are troubled and not quite yourself, 
 or you would think it is not suitable ; it is not maidenly ; 
 you cannot offer Mr. Graven your services as a nurse, Ra 
 chel." 
 
 " He is to be my husband ! " Rachel cried. She felt her 
 brain whirl ; all the world grew dark ; in her mother s 
 pained, uneven but unrelenting voice all the world her 
 world, the grave, good, calm, virtuous world spoke out to 
 her. Clear through the humming of the crazy, blessed bees 
 among the peonies, the good people whom she knew, Mr. 
 Graven s stately friends, the blurred vision of the Seminary 
 at Princeton its awful self, and worse, ah ! worse than that, 
 Azrael s weak, fine voice came, cutting the two words out 
 and welding them around her : " Not maidenly." It seemed 
 to Rachel Fross that chains could not have held her from 
 her lover; but those two words fettered her fast to the 
 great brown rose in the parlor carpet which sprawled be 
 neath her feet. She looked down at it with a sudden hate 
 for the dull, false thing. Roses could not grow that color. 
 They never had ; they never would ! 
 
 Pier thought followed this fancy in a confused way. She 
 could not think about Azrael for a moment ; she could not 
 understand ; the idea slipped away from her. What did it 
 mean? 
 
 She wondered how long her mother had been talking, 
 when at last these words attracted her attention : 
 
 " And since he is not your husband, Rachel, and since it 
 is not becoming in a young lady to think of that, I do not see, 
 my dear, what can be done. If the Lord should will " 
 
 Rachel started and recoiled. She cotild not talk about 
 
LONG, LONG AGO. 163 
 
 the Lord s will. Of course, it was right, and great, and 
 o-ood ; but she could not talk about it then. 
 
 She walked drearily and dizzily away ; and, not knowing 
 what else to do, went back and finished her bread-cake by 
 herself. She noticed that she could not hear the bees among 
 the peonies at the kitchen window. 
 
 Her mother had spoken the truth. Rachel realized this 
 keenly enough as weeks dragged on. It would not have 
 been " maidenly." No one in Southampton would have 
 thought it so. Mr. Graven would not think it so. 
 
 At times a querulous hatred of the word sprang up in 
 Rachel s heart. If one were w^maidenly, would the earth 
 spin on her axis still ? What would it be like ? Would it 
 make so much difference after Azrael was dead ? 
 
 For Azrael must die. Rachel never questioned that. The 
 jets of hope that flashed about her when people brought her 
 news of feverish, bright changes in his failing strength ; the 
 cheerful messages he sent her by her mother - that he en 
 joyed the custards which she sent, that he had passed a 
 quiet night ; the confident, calm clinging which he held him 
 self to life, never touched the steady under-current of the 
 knowledge in her that Azrael would die. 
 
 It seems to those of us who have heard something of 
 Rachel Fross s history, in that summer, now so far behind 
 her troubled, strong young life, that the fiction would fore 
 ordain itself a suicide, which should make so audacious an 
 attempt upon the courtesy of our credence as is made by 
 this plain, true tale. 
 
 That Azrael Graven should have been suffered to die, 
 lying just across the street, the windows of his sick-room 
 in sight from Rachel s little chamber, without a sight of his 
 promised wife, seems to us a fact to smile at, till we find our 
 eyes have filled. 
 
 It seemed to Rachel hard. Yet the sternly-nurtured 
 woman accepted her lot with a certain calm. She felt it to 
 
164 LONG, LONG AGO. 
 
 be inherently inevitable. For the most part she did not 
 question it. 
 
 The Puritan blood in her veins ran with a powerful re 
 pression which was not unlike repose. 
 
 When she sat, at dead of night, shivering at her window, 
 to watch the sick-light burning and waning in Azrael s 
 room ; when she stretched her arms out to it in the black, 
 chill air, thinking weakly how Azrael s life was burning and 
 waning with the tiny spark ; when she went down into the 
 gray morning, waiting for a chance word of the dying man s 
 condition, watching for a stir about the house which held 
 him, shrinking when they said " He suffers," faint with 
 trying to thank God when they said " He rests," compelled 
 to exhaust the yearning of her exiled heart toward his in a 
 foolish jelly that she made him, in a pale, proper, useless 
 flower that she sent - she did not think that Fate had treated 
 her unkindly. She said, " It is the sovereign will of God." 
 Rachel had heard a great deal about the sovereignty of God : 
 not much about his tenderness. If his awful Presence held 
 a rich compassion for a woman who must be " maidenly," 
 for Southampton s sake, though Azrael lay dying, it was 
 a daring fancy ; He had many things to occupy his great 
 Eternal Thought. How could it be ? 
 
 Once her young life rebelled with all its might against 
 this Thought. 
 
 It was a rainy night and very dark. Azrael Graven had 
 been worse all day, in much distress and weakness. Her 
 mother had given her to understand this with some reluc 
 tance^ and set her some household task, Rachel thought, to 
 avoid any further comment on the fact. When this was 
 finished, Rachel slipped away, and out of the backdoor, 
 into the little dripping yard. She found the house too strait 
 for her. She could not breathe. She felt benumbed. The 
 ache in her heart ran, an actual pain, all up and down her 
 feverish young limbs. She threw her shawl over her head, 
 
LONG, LONG AGO. 165 
 
 gathered her dress-skirt wrong side out over her shoulders 
 (she could not afford to spoil it because Azrael was dying), 
 and so ran about for a little while in a purposeless, half- 
 blind way, to and fro over the wet chips and rubbish, with 
 the wind and rain upon her face. 
 
 Timidly and on tiptoe she wandered out, at last, into the 
 black, deserted street, and across to AzraeFs aunt s. The 
 sick-lamp was the only light the house held, and that burned 
 brightly, striking a slender, long shaft of gold across the 
 slatted fence and down upon the dripping grass and little 
 pools of water in the road. To Rachel, skulking like a 
 criminal in the shadow, it looked like the beautiful ladder 
 on which of old angels ascended and descended out of 
 heaven. Her heart climbed up its shining height with a 
 sudden, daring, wifely sense of right to turn the whole 
 world out, and minister to Azrael s meanest wants. She 
 felt shut out down there in the storm and dark like a 
 soul in hell. 
 
 A soul in hell or so to Rachel s excited and unnat 
 ural fancy it seemed just then flitted past her down the 
 street, while she stood crouching there beside the slatted 
 fence. The light of the golden ladder which climbed to 
 Azrael s room struck full upon its haggard face. Rachel 
 knew the face, and shrank ; she went to school with the 
 poor girl once. She was a gentle, pretty girl. When her 
 baby was born, the people that she lived with turned her 
 off. She had worked in a shop since that, and lived a decent 
 life enough, some said ; but no one spoke to her, and the 
 baby died. Rachel had sometimes wondered, in a shocked, 
 dim way, what life was like to her. 
 
 Now, as the vision of her flitted by, a throb of awful envy 
 bounded in Rachel s pure, young heart. This woman had 
 dared to sin for love s sake. While she 
 
 She fled with her head hanging, her hands before her 
 face, as if she had been a guilty woman ; fled from the 
 
166 LONG, LONG AGO. 
 
 shining ladder, where the angels would hot walk ; home, 
 and into a dark, still room, where she dropped upon her 
 knees. 
 
 It is said that when the early autumn chills came on, 
 upon a windless, moonlit night, a little after the village 
 clock struck three, Rachel Fross waked her mother, sleep 
 ing by her side, with an exceeding great and bitter cry : 
 
 " Mother," she said, " Azrael is dead ! " 
 
 Something* in that cry chilled all the placid, proper Brad 
 ford blood of Patience Fross. She sprang trembling up. 
 The room was lighted with a mellow light, like the opening 
 of flowers in the sun ; the shadows of a partly leafless tree 
 fell in and lay motionless on the bed. Rachel was standing 
 in the middle of the room, in her white night-dress, with 
 the moonlight on her, full and solemn. 
 
 " You are dreaming, Rachel." 
 
 Mrs. Fross, quite herself again, rose in the stately Brad 
 ford way, and drew her daughter back to bed. 
 
 " Mr. Graven was better this morning than he has been 
 for a week. You have been dreaming. Go to sleep, my 
 dear, and do not think about it. It annoys me. Why, Ra 
 chel ! Why, Rachel ! " 
 
 Rachel sat just where her mother had placed her, straight 
 and stiff in bed. Her eyes looked straight before her ; one 
 hand fell over the bed s edge. 
 
 " But, mother," she said, " Azrael is dead. Azrael has 
 just died." 
 
 She spoke very quietly then, and lay very quietly back 
 upon the pillow. 
 
 The words had scarcely left her lips before a slow, cold 
 horror, like a word, like a cry, like a struggle, like nothing 
 that the two women had ever heard in all their lives before, 
 filled the earth and sky. 
 
 It was the passing bell of the old town church. 
 
 When it had tolled twenty-nine times, Rachel turned her 
 
LONG, LONG AGO. 167 
 
 face wearily to the wall. Azrael Graven was twenty-nine 
 years old. 
 
 " But it may be some one else ! " cried her mother, 
 snatching at a hope. Rachel smiled, and said that it was 
 no one else. Azrael was dead. 
 
 " I told you, mother, that Azrael was dead." 
 
 In the morning a bit of crape hung from Azrael Graven s 
 sick-room window, which stood wide open to the piercing 
 wind. 
 
 About noon a little crumpled paper came to Rachel, with 
 two penciled words upon it, in the young minister s stiff 
 hand, very faintly put together : " Dear Rachel " That 
 was all. He had tried to write, they said ; but wandered. 
 He had spoken once or twice after the moon rose in the 
 night, and in a restless way looked round him. " Tell Ra 
 chel" - And again, " Tell Rachel"- But they could 
 not tell Rachel, for he said no more. 
 
 Rachel went to the funeral. She walked in the procession 
 among " the neighbors." The mourners, in their crape, 
 crisp grief, looked far off and small to her. She wore a blue 
 ribbon and her old plaid shawl. 
 
 Some one lingering in the road as the people scattered, 
 attracted her dull attention. It was the girl whom she saw 
 flitting by her in the rain when she was hiding by the fence 
 to watch the light in Azrael s room. The girl turned upon 
 her, as she passed, an awed and puzzled look. It changed 
 after an instant s thought, into an expression such as one 
 sees in the eyes of a dumb animal whose compassion is pow 
 erfully and ineffectually moved. 
 
 Rachel Fross did not die. Ah ! no ; not for twenty years. 
 Of her life or of her death one fact only has been, beyond 
 this, recorded. It is said that in her last hours she called 
 the watcher to her bedside, with a singularly pleasant 
 smile, and gently said : " I have had such a pleasant dream. 
 I thought that Mr. Graven and I were married, and that I 
 climbed a golden ladder to take care of him before he died." 
 
SINCE I DIED. 
 
 How very still you sit ! 
 
 If the shadow of an eyelash stirred upon your cheek ; if 
 that gray line about your mouth should snap its tension at 
 this quivering end ; if the pallor of your profile warmed a 
 little ; if that tiny muscle on your forehead, just at the left 
 eyebrow s curve, should start and twitch ; if you would but 
 grow a trifle restless, sitting there beneath my steady gaze ; 
 if you moved a finger of your folded hands ; if you should 
 turn and look behind your chair, or lift your face, half lin 
 gering and half longing, half loving and half loth, to pon 
 der on the annoyed and thwarted cry which the wind is 
 making, where I stand between it and yourself, against the 
 half-closed window Ah, there ! You sigh and stir, I 
 think. You lift your head. The little muscle is a captive 
 still ; the line about your mouth is tense and hard ; the 
 deepening hollow in your cheek has no warmer tint, I see, 
 than the great Doric column which the moonlight builds 
 against the wall. I lean against it ; I hold out my arms. 
 
 You lift your head and look me in the eye. 
 
 If a shudder crept across your figure ; if your arms, laid 
 out upon the table, leaped but once above your head ; if 
 you named my name ; if you held your breath with terror, 
 or sobbed aloud for love, or sprang, or cried 
 
 But you only lift your head and look me in the eye. 
 
 If I dared step near, or nearer ; if it were Permitted that 
 I should cross the current of your living breath ; if it were 
 Willed that I should feel the leap of human blood within 
 
SINCE I DIED. 169 
 
 your veins ; if I should touch your hands, your cheeks, 
 your lips ; if I dropped an arm as lightly as a snow-flake 
 round your shoulder 
 
 The fear which no heart has fathomed, the fate which no 
 fancy has faced, the riddle which no soul has read, steps be- 
 .tween your substance and my soul. 
 
 I drop my arms. I sink into the heart of the pillared 
 light upon the wall. I will not wonder what would happen 
 if my outline were defined upon it to your view. I will 
 not think of that which could be, would be, if I struck 
 across your vision, face to face. 
 
 Ah me, how still she sits ! With what a fixed, incurious 
 stare she looks me in the eye ! 
 
 The wind, now that I stand no longer between it and 
 yourself, comes enviously in. It lifts the curtain, and whirls 
 about the- room. It bruises the surface of the great pearled 
 pillar where I lean. I am caught within it. Speech and 
 language struggle over me. Mute articulations fill the air. 
 Tears and laughter, and the sounding of soft lips, and the 
 falling of low cries, possess me. Will she listen ? Will she 
 bend her head ? Will her lips part in recognition ? Is there 
 an alphabet between us ? Or have the winds of night a vo 
 cabulary to lift before her holden eyes ? 
 
 We sat many times together, and talked of this. Do you 
 remember, dear ? You held my hand. Tears that 1 could 
 not see, fell on it ; we sat by the great hall-window up-stairs, 
 where the maple shadow goes to sleep, face down across the 
 floor, upon a lighted night ; the old green curtain waved its 
 hands upon us like a mesmerist, I thought ; like a priest, 
 you said. 
 
 " When we are parted, you shall go," you said ; and 
 when I shook my head you smiled you always smiled 
 when you said that, but you said it always quite the same. 
 
 I think I hardly understood you then. Now that I hold 
 your eyes in mine, and you see me not ; now when I stretch 
 
170 SINCE I DIED. 
 
 my hand and you touch me not ; now that I cry your 
 name, and you hear it not, I comprehend you, tender 
 one ! A wisdom not of earth was in your words. " To 
 live, is dying; I will die. To die is life, and you shall 
 live." 
 
 Now when the fever turned, I thought of this. 
 
 That must have been ah ! how long ago ? I miss the 
 conception of that for which how long stands index. 
 
 Yet I perfectly remember that I perfectly understood it 
 to be at three o clock on a rainy Sunday morning that 1 
 died. Your little watch stood in its case of olive-wood upon 
 the table, and drops were on the window. I noticed both, 
 though you did not know it. I see the watch now, in your 
 pocket ; I cannot tell if the hands move, or only pulsate 
 like a heart-throb, to and fro ; they stand and point, mute 
 golden fingers, paralyzed and pleading, forever at ihe hour 
 of three. At this I wonder. 
 
 When first you said I "was sinking fast," the words 
 sounded as old and familiar as a nursery tale. I heard you 
 in the hall. The doctor had just left, and you went to 
 mother and took her face in your two arms, and laid your 
 hand across her mouth, as if it were she who had spoken. 
 She cried out and threw up her thin old hands ; but you 
 stood as still as Eternity. Then I thought again : " It is 
 she who dies ; I shall live." 
 
 So often and so anxiously we have talked of this thing 
 called death, that now that it is all over between us, I can 
 not understand why we found in it such a source of dis 
 tress. It bewilders me. I am often bewildered here. 
 Things and the fancies of things possess a relation which as 
 yet is new and strange to me. Here is a mystery. 
 
 Now, in truth, it seems a simple matter for me to tell you 
 how it has been with me since your lips last touched me, 
 and your arms held me to the vanishing air. 
 
 Oh, drawn, pale lips ! Nerveless, dropping arms ! I told 
 
SINCE I DIED. 171 
 
 you I would come. Did ever promise fail I spoke to you ? 
 " Come and show me Death," you said. I have come to 
 show you Death. I could show you the fairest sight and 
 sweetest, that ever blessed your eyes. Why, look ! Is it 
 not fair ? Am I terrible ? Do you shrink or shiver ? 
 Would you turn from me, or hide your strained, expectant 
 face ? 
 
 Would she ? Does she ? Will she ? - 
 
 Ah, how the room widened ! I could tell you that. It 
 grew great and luminous day by day. At night the walls 
 throbbed ; lights of rose ran round them, and blue fire, and 
 a tracery as of the shadows of little leaves. As the walls 
 expanded, the air fled. But I tried to tell you how little 
 pain I knew or feared. Your haggard face bent over me. 
 I could not speak ; when I would, I struggled, and you said 
 " She suffers ! " Dear, it was so very little ! 
 
 Listen, till I tell you how that night came on. The sun 
 fell, and the dew slid down. It seemed to me that it slid 
 into my heart, but still I felt no pain. Where the walls 
 pulsed and receded, the hills came in. Where the old bu 
 reau stood, above the glass, I saw a single mountain with a 
 face of fire, and purple hair. I tried to tell you this, but 
 you said : " She wanders." I laughed in my heart at that, 
 for it was such a blessed wandering ! As the night locked 
 the sun below the mountain s solemn, watching face, the 
 Gates of Space were lifted up before me ; the everlasting 
 doors of Matter swung for me upon their rusty hinges, and 
 the King of Glories entered in and out. All the kingdoms 
 of the earth, and the power of them, beckoned to me, across 
 the mist my failing senses made, ruins and roses, and the 
 brows of Jura and the singing of the Rhine ; a shaft of red 
 light on the Sphinx s smile, and caravans in sand-storms, 
 and an icy wind at sea, and gold in mines that no man 
 knew, and mothers sitting at their doors in valleys sing 
 ing babes to sleep, and women in dank cellars selling souls 
 
172 SINCE I DIED. 
 
 for bread, and the whir of wheels in giant factories, and a 
 single prayer somewhere- in a den of death, I could not 
 find it, though I searched, and the smoke of battle, and 
 broken music, and a sense of lilies alone beside a stream at 
 the rising of the sun and, at last, your face, dear, all 
 alone. 
 
 I discovered then, that the walls and roof of the room 
 had vanished quite. The night-wind blew in. The maple 
 in the yard almost brushed my cheek. Stars were about 
 me, and I thought the rain had stopped, yet seemed to hear 
 it, upon the seeming of a window which I could not find. 
 
 One thing only hung between me and immensity. It 
 was your single, awful, haggard face. I looked my last 
 into your eyes. Stronger than death, they held and claimed 
 my soul. I feebly raised my hand to find your own. More 
 cruel than the grave, your wild grasp chained me. Then I 
 struggled, and you cried out, and your face slipped, and I 
 stood free. 
 
 I stood upon the floor, beside the bed. That which had 
 been I, lay there at rest, but terrible, before me. You hid 
 your face, and I saw you slide upon your knees. I laid my 
 hand upon your head ; you did not stir ; I spoke to you : 
 " Dear, look around a minute ! " but you knelt quite still. 
 I walked to and fro about the room, and meeting my mother, 
 touched her on the elbow; she only said, "She s gonef" 
 and sobbed aloud. " I have not gone!" I cried; but she 
 sat sobbing on. 
 
 The walls of the room had settled now, and the ceiling 
 stood in its solid place. The window was shut, but the door 
 stood open. Suddenly I was restless, and I ran. 
 
 I brushed you in hurrying by, and hit the little light- 
 stand where the tumblers stood ; I looked to see if it would 
 fall, but it only shivered as if a breath of wind had struck 
 it once. 
 
 But I was restless, and I ran. In the hall I met the 
 
SINCE I DIED. 173 
 
 doctor. This amused me, and I stopped to think it over. 
 " Ah, Doctor," said I, " you need not trouble yourself to 
 go up. I m quite well to-night, you see." But he made 
 me no answer ; he gave me no glance ; he hung up his hat, 
 and laid his hand upon the banister against which I leaned, 
 and went ponderously up. 
 
 It was not until he had nearly reached the landing that 
 it occurred to me, still leaning on the banister, that his 
 heavy arm must have swept against and through me, where 
 I stood against the oaken moldings which he grasped. 
 
 I saw his feet fall on the stairs above me ; but they made 
 no sound which reached my ear. " You 11 not disturb me 
 now with your big boots, sir," said I, nodding; "never 
 fear ! " 
 
 But he disappeared from sight above me, and still I heard 
 no sound. 
 
 Now the doctor had left the front door unlatched. 
 
 As I touched it, it blew open wide, and solemnly. I 
 passed out and down the steps. I could see that it was 
 chilly, yet I felt no chill. Frost was on the grass, and in 
 the east a pallid streak, like the cheek of one who had 
 watched all night. The flowers in the little square plots 
 hung their heads and drew their shoulders up ; there was 
 a lonely, late lily which I broke and gathered to my heart, 
 where I breathed upon it, and it warmed and looked me 
 kindly in the eye. This, I remember, gave me pleasure. 
 I wandered in and out about the garden in the scattering 
 rain ; my feet left no trace upon the dripping grass, and 
 I saw with interest that the garment which I wore, gathered 
 no moisture and no cold. I sat musing for a while upon 
 the piazza, in the garden-chair, not caring to go in. It was 
 so many months since I had felt able to sit upon the piazza 
 in the open air. " By and by," I thought, I would go in 
 and up-stairs to see you once again. The curtains were 
 drawn from the parlor windows and I passed and repassed, 
 looking in. 
 
174 SINCE I DIED. 
 
 All this while the cheek of the east was warming, and 
 the air gathering faint heats and lights about me. I re 
 membered, presently, the old arbor at the garden-foot, 
 where, before I was sick, we sat so much together ; and 
 thinking, " She will be surprised to know that I have been 
 down alone," I was restless, and I ran again. 
 
 I meant to come back and see you, dear, once more. I 
 saw the lights in the room where I had lain sick, overhead ; 
 and your shadow on the curtain ; and I blessed it with all 
 the love of life and death, as I bounded by. 
 
 The air was thick with sweetness from the dying flowers. 
 The birds woke, and the zenith lighted, and the leap of 
 health was in my limbs. The old arbor held out its soft 
 arms to me but I was restless, and I ran. 
 
 The field opened before me, and meadows with broad 
 bosoms, and a river flashed before me like a scimitar, and 
 woods interlocked their hands to stay me but being rest 
 less, on I ran. 
 
 The house dwindled behind me ; and the light in my 
 sick-room, and your shadow on the curtain. But yet I was 
 restless, and I ran. 
 
 In the twinkling of an eye I fell into a solitary place. 
 Sand and rocks were in it, and a falling wind. I paused, 
 and knelt upon the sand, and mused a little in this place. 
 I mused of you, and life and death, and love and agony ; 
 but these had departed from me, as dim and distant as the 
 fainting wind. A sense of solemn expectation filled the 
 air. A tremor and a trouble wrapped my soul. 
 
 " I must be dead ! " I said aloud. I had no sooner spoken 
 than I learned that I was not alone. 
 
 The sun had risen, and on a ledge of ancient rock, 
 weather-stained and red, there had fallen over against me 
 the outline of a Presence lifted up against the sky ; and 
 turning suddenly, I saw .... 
 
 Lawful to utter, but utterance has fled ! Lawful to utter, 
 
SINCE I DIED. 175 
 
 but a greater than Law restrains me ! Am I blotted from 
 your desolate fixed eyes ? Lips that my mortal lips have 
 pressed, can you not quiver when I cry? Soul that my 
 eternal soul has loved, can you stand enveloped in my pres 
 ence, and not spring like a fountain to me ? Would you not 
 know how it has been with me since your perishable eyes 
 beheld my perished face ? What my eyes have seen, or my 
 ears have heard, or my heart conceived without you ? If 
 I have missed or mourned for you ? If I have watched or 
 longed for you ? Marked your solitary days and sleepless 
 nights, and tearless eyes, and monotonous slow echo of my 
 unanswering name ? Would you not know ? 
 
 " Alas ! would she ? Would she not ? My soul mis 
 gives me with a matchless, solitary fear. I am called, and 
 I slip from her. I arn beckoned, and I lose her. 
 
 Her face dims, and her folded, lonely hands fade from 
 my sight. 
 
 Time to tell her a guarded thing ! Time to whisper a 
 treasured word ! A moment to tell her that Death is dumb, 
 for Life is deaf! A moment to tell her 
 
A WOMAN S PULPIT. 
 
 I FELL to regretting to-day, for the first time in my life, 
 that I am an old maid ; for this reason : I have a very se 
 rious, long, religious story to tell, and a brisk matrimonial 
 quarrel would have been such a vivacious, succinct, and 
 secular means of introducing it. 
 
 But when I said, one day last winter, "I want some 
 change," it was only Madchen who suggested, " Wait for 
 specie payment." 
 
 And when I said, for I felt sentimental, and it was Sun 
 day too, " I will offer myself as a missionary in Boston," I 
 received no more discouraging reply than, " I think I see 
 you ! You d walk in and ask if anything could be done 
 for their souls to-day ? And if they said No, you d turn 
 around and come out ! " 
 
 And when I urged, " The country heathen requires less 
 courage ; I will offer myself in New Vealshire," I was met 
 by no louder lion than the insinuation, " Perhaps I meant 
 to turn Universalist, then ? " 
 
 " Madchen ! " said I, " you know better ! " 
 
 " Yes," said Madchen. 
 
 " And you know I could preach as well as anybody ! " 
 
 " Yes," said Madchen. 
 
 " Well ! " said I. 
 
 " Well ! " said Madchen. 
 
 So that was all that was said about it. For Madchen is 
 a woman and minds her own business. 
 
 It should be borne in mind, that I am a woman " myself, 
 
A WOMAN S PULPIT. 177 
 
 Mr. Copperfull," and that the following correspondence, 
 now for the first time given to the public, was accordingly 
 finished and filed, before Madchen ever saw or thought of 
 it. 
 
 This statement is not at all to the point of my purpose, 
 further than that it may have, as I suppose, some near or 
 remote bearings upon the business abilities by which, as 
 nearly as I can make out, is meant the power of holding 
 one s tongue of the coming woman, and that I am under 
 stress of oath never to allow an opportunity to escape me? 
 of strewing my garments in the way of her distant, royal 
 feet, 
 
 " To be sparing," as has been said, " of prefatory, that 
 is to say, of condemnatory remarking," I append at once 
 an accurate vellum copy of the valuable correspondence in 
 question. 
 
 HERCULES, February 28, 1 8 . 
 
 SECRETARY OF THE NEW VEALSHIRE HOME MISSION 
 ARY SOCIETY: 
 
 REVEREND AND DEAR SIR, I am desirous of occu 
 pying one of your vacant posts of ministerial service : place 
 and time entirely at your disposal. I am not a college 
 graduate, nor have I yet applied for license to preach. I 
 am, however, I believe, the possessor of a fair education, 
 and of some slight experience in usefulness of a kind akin 
 to that which I seek under your auspices, as well as of an 
 interest in the neglected portions of New England, which 
 ought to warrant me success in an attempt to serve their 
 religious welfare. 
 
 For confirmation of these statements I will refer you, if 
 you like, to the Rev. Dr. Dagon of Dagonsville, and to 
 Professor Tacitus of Sparta. 
 
 An answer at your earliest convenience, informing me if 
 12 
 
178 A WOMAN S PULPIT. 
 
 you are disposed to accept my services, and giving me 
 details of terms and times, will oblige, 
 
 Yours respectfully, J. W. BANGS. 
 
 HARMONY, N. V., March 5, 18. 
 
 J. W. BANGS, ESQ. : 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, Your lack of collegiate education is an 
 objection to your filling one of our stations, but not an in 
 surmountable one. I like your letter, and am inclined to 
 think favorably of the question of accepting your services. 
 I should probably send you among the Gray Hills, and in 
 March. We pay six dollars a week and " found." Will 
 this be satisfactory ? Let me hear from you again. 
 Truly yours, Z. Z. ZANGROW, 
 
 Sect. N. V. II. M. S. 
 
 P. S. I have been too busy as yet to pursue your rec 
 ommendations, but have no doubt that they are satisfac 
 tory. 
 
 HERCULES, March 9, 18 . 
 REV. DR. ZANGROW : 
 
 DEAR SIR, Yours of the 5th is at hand. Terms are 
 satisfactory. I neglected to mention in my last that I am 
 a woman. Yours truly, 
 
 JERUSHA W. BANGS. 
 
 HARMONY, N. V., March 9, 18-^-. 
 JERUSHA W. BANGS : 
 
 DEAR MADAM, You have played me an admirable 
 joke. Regret that I have no time to return it. 
 
 Yours very sincerely, Z. Z. ZANGROW, Sect. 
 
 HERCULES, March llth. 
 
 DEAR SIR, I was never more in earnest in my life. 
 Yours, J. W. BANGS. 
 
A WOMAN S PULPIT. 179 
 
 HARMONY, March 14th. 
 DEAR MADAM, I am sorry to hear it. Yours, 
 
 Z. Z. ZANGROW. 
 
 HEKCULES, March 15, 18 . 
 REV. DR. ZANGROW : 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, ^Aiter begging your pardon for en 
 croaching again upon your time and patience, permit me to 
 inquire if you are not conscious of some slight inconsist 
 ency in your recent correspondence with me? By your 
 own showing, I am individually and concretely qualified 
 for the business in question ; I am generally and abstractly 
 beyond its serious recognition. As an educated American 
 Christian, I am capable, by the word that goeth forth out of 
 my mouth, of ministering to the Vealshire Mountain soul. 
 As an educated American Christian woman, I am remanded 
 by the piano and the crochet-needle to the Hercules parlor 
 soul. 
 
 You will -* or you would, if it fell to your lot send 
 me under the feminine truce flag of " teacher " into Vir 
 ginia, to speak on Sabbath mornings to a promiscuous audi 
 ence of a thousand negroes : you forbid me to manage a 
 score of mountaineers. Mr. Spurgeon s famous lady par 
 ishioner may preach to a " Sabbath-school class " of seven 
 hundred men : you would deny her the scanty hearing of 
 your mission pulpits. 
 
 My dear sir, to crack a hard argument, you have, in the 
 words of Sir William the logical, " mistaken the associa 
 tions of thought for the connections of existence." If you 
 will appoint me a brief meeting at your own convenience 
 in your own office in Harmony, I shall not only be very 
 much in debt to your courtesy, but I shall convince you 
 that you ought to send me into New Vealshire. Meantime 
 I am sincerely yours, J. W BANGS. 
 
180 A WOMAN S PULPIT. 
 
 HARMONY, March 18, 18 . 
 
 MY DEAR Miss BANGS, You are probably aware 
 that, while it is not uncommon in the Universalist pulpit 
 to find the female preacher, she is a specimen of humanity 
 quite foreign to Orthodox ecclesiastical society. 
 
 I will confess to you, however (since you are determined 
 to have your own way), that I have expressed in our hur 
 ried correspondence rather a denominational and profes 
 sional than an individual opinion. 
 
 I can give you fifteen minutes on Tuesday next at twelve 
 o clock in my office, No. 41 Columbia Street. 
 
 It will at least give me pleasure to make your personal 
 acquaintance, whether I am able or not to gratify your en 
 thusiastic and somewhat eccentric request. I am, my dear 
 madam, cordially yours, Z. Z. ZANGROW, Sect. 
 
 I went, I saw, I conquered. I stayed fifteen minutes, 
 just. I talked twelve of them. The secretary sat and 
 drummed meditatively upon the table for the other three. 
 He was a thin man in a white cravat. Two or three other 
 thin men in white cravats came in as I was about to leave. 
 The secretary whispered to them ; they whispered to the 
 secretary : they and the secretary looked at me. Some 
 body shook his head : somebody else shook his head. The 
 secretary, drumming, smiled. Drumming and smiling, he 
 bowed me out, merely remarking that I should hear from 
 him in the course of a few days. 
 
 I have since acquired a vague suspicion, which did not 
 dawn at the time upon my broadest imagination, that the 
 secretary sent me into New Vealshire as a private, meta 
 physical speculation upon the woman question, and that the 
 New Vealshire Home Missionary Society would sooner have 
 sent me to heaven. 
 
 However that may be, I received from the secretary the 
 following : 
 
A WOMAN S PULPIT. 181 
 
 HARMONY, N. V., March 23, 18. 
 
 DEAR Miss BANGS, I propose to send you as soon as 
 possible to the town of Storm, New Vealshire, to occupy on 
 trial, for a few weeks, a small church long uuministered to, 
 nearly extinct. You will be met at the station by a person 
 of the name of Dobbins, with whom I shall make all neces 
 sary arrangements for your board and introduction. 
 When can you go ? 
 
 Yours, etc., Z. Z. ZANGROW, Sect. 
 
 HERCULES, March 24, 18 . 
 Mr DEAR DR. ZANGROW, I can go to-morrow. 
 
 Yours, etc., J. W. BANGS. 
 
 A telegram from the secretary, however, generously al 
 lowed me three days " to pack." If I had been less kindly 
 entreated at his hands, I should have had nothing to pack 
 but my wounded dignity. I always travel in a bag. Did 
 he expect me to preach out a Saratoga trunkful of flounces ? 
 I explosively demanded of Miidchen. 
 
 " lie is a man," said Miidchen, soothingly, " and he has n t 
 behaved in the least like one. Don t be hard upon him." 
 
 I relented so far as to pack a lace collar and an extra 
 paper of hairpins. Miidchen suggested my best bonnet. I 
 am sorry to say that I locked her out of the room. 
 
 For the benefit of any of my sex who may feel induced 
 to follow in my footsteps, I will here remark that I packed 
 one dress, Barnes on Matthew, Olshausen on something 
 else, a Tischendorff Testament, Madchen s little English 
 Bible, Jeremy Taylor (Selections), and my rubber boots. 
 Also, that my bag was of the large, square species, which 
 gapes from ear to ear. 
 
 " It is n t here," said Miidchen, patiently, as I locked the 
 valise. 
 
 " Madchen," said I, severely, " if you mean my Floren- 
 
182 A WOMAN S PULPIT. 
 
 tine, I am perfectly aware of it. I am going to preach in 
 black ties, always ! " 
 
 " Storm ! " said Madchen, concisely. As that was pre 
 cisely what I was doing, to the best of my abilities, I re 
 garded Madchen confusedly, till I saw the Pathfinder on her 
 knees, her elbows on the Pathfinder, and her chin in her 
 hands. 
 
 " It is n t here," repeated Madchen, " nor anything nearer 
 to it than Whirlwind. That s in the eastern part of Con 
 necticut." 
 
 I think the essentially feminine fancy will before this 
 have dwelt upon the fact that the secretary s letter was not, 
 to say the least of it, opulent in directions for reaching the 
 village of Storm. I do not think mine is an essentially 
 feminine fancy. I am sure this never had occurred to me. 
 
 When it comes to Railway Guides, I am not, nor did I 
 ever profess to be, strong-minded. When I trace, never so 
 patiently, the express to Kamtschatka, I am let out of the 
 Himalaya Saturday-night accommodation. If I aim at a 
 morning call in the Himalayas, I am morally sure to be 
 landed on the southern peak of Patagonia. Madchen, you 
 understand, would leave her card in the Himalayas, if she 
 had to make the mountains when she got there. 
 
 So, when Madchen closed the Pathfinder with a snap of 
 despair, I accepted her fiat without the wildest dream of 
 disputing it, simply remarking that perhaps the conductor 
 would know. 
 
 " Undoubtedly," said Madchen, with her scientific smile. 
 " Tell him you are going to see Mr. Bobbin of New Veal- 
 shire. He cannot fail to set you down at his backdoor." 
 
 He did, or nearly. If I cannot travel on paper, I can on 
 iron. Although in the Pathfinder s index I am bewildered, 
 routed, non est inventus, " a woman and an idiot," I can mas 
 ter the patois of brakemen and the hearts of conductors with 
 unerring ease. I am sure I don t know how I got to Storm, 
 
A WOMAN S PULPIT. 183 
 
 and when I got there I was sure I did n t know how I was 
 to get back again ; but the fact remains that I got there. I 
 repeat it with emphasis. I beg especially to call the mas 
 culine attention to it. I desire the future historian of 
 " Woman in the Sacred Desk," as he playfully skims the 
 surface of antiquated opposition to this then long-established 
 phase of civilization, to make a note of it, that there was a 
 woman, and she at the disadvantage of a pioneer, who got 
 there. 
 
 Before proceeding to a minute account of my clerical 
 history, I should like to observe, for the edification of the 
 curious as well as for the instruction of the imitative, that I 
 labored under the disadvantage of ministering to two sep 
 arate and distinct parishes, which it was as impossible to 
 reconcile as hot coals and parched corn. These were the 
 Parish Real and the Parish Ideal. At their first proximity 
 to each other, my ideal parish hopped in the corn-popper of 
 my startled imagination, and, as nearly as I can testify, con 
 tinued in active motion till the popper was full. 
 
 Let us, then, in the first place, briefly consider (you will 
 bear, I am sure, under the circumstances, with my " poro- 
 chial " style) 
 
 THE PARISH IDEAL. 
 
 It was " in the wilderness astray," but it abounded in fresh 
 meat and canned vegetables. Its inhabitants were heathen, 
 of a cultivated turn of mind. Its opportunities were in 
 finite, its demands delicately considerate ; its temper was 
 amiable, its experience infantine. It numbered a score or 
 so of souls, women and children for the most part ; with a 
 few delightful old men, whose white hairs would go down 
 in sorrow to the grave should they miss, in the afternoon 
 of life, the protecting shade of my ministrations. I collected 
 my flock in some rude tenement, a barn perhaps, or an 
 tiquated school-house, half exposed to the fury of the 
 elements, wholly picturesque and poetical. Among them, 
 
184 A WOMAN S PULPIT. 
 
 but not of them, at a little table, probably, with a tallow 
 candle, I sat and talked, as the brooks run, as the clouds fly, 
 as waves break ; smoothly, as befitted a kind of New Veal- 
 shire conversazione ; eloquently, as would Wesley, as would 
 Whitfield, as would Chalmers, Spurgeon, Beecher. 
 
 Royally, but modestly, I ruled their stormy hearts. (N. B. 
 No pun intended.) Their rude lives opened, paved with 
 golden glories, to my magic touch. Hearts, which mascu 
 line wooing would but have intrenched in their shells of 
 ignorance and sin, bowed, conquered, and chained to their 
 own well-being and the glory of God or their minister 
 by my woman s fingers. I lived among them as their idol, 
 and died for I would die in their service as their saint. 
 Miidchen might stay at home and make calls. For me, I 
 had found the arena worthy of my possibilities, and solely 
 created for my happiness. 
 
 I wish to say just here, that, according to the best infor 
 mation which I can command, there was nothing very un 
 common, certainly nothing particularly characteristic of my 
 sex, in this mental pas seul through which I tripped. I 
 suspect that I was no more interested in myself than and as 
 much interested in my parishioners, as most young clergy 
 men. The Gospel ministry is a very poor business invest 
 ment, but an excellent intellectual one. Your average 
 pastor must take care of his own horse, dress his daughter 
 in her rich relations cast-off clothing, and never be able to 
 buy the new Encyclopaedia, and this as well at the end of 
 twenty years as of two. But he bounds from his recitation- 
 room into a position of unquestioned and unquestionable 
 official authority and public importance in two months. No 
 other profession offers him this advantage. To be sure, no 
 other profession enfolds the tremendous struggles and tri 
 umphs, serving and crowning, of the Christian minister, a 
 struggle and service which no patent business motive can 
 
A WOMAN S PULPIT. 185 
 
 touch at arm s length ; a triumph and crown which it is im 
 possible to estimate by the tests of the bar, the bench, the 
 lecture-room. But as it is perfectly well known that this 
 book is never read on Sundays, and that the introduction 
 of any but u week-day holiness " into it would be the ruin 
 of it, I refrain from pursuing my subject in any of its finer, 
 inner lights, such as you can bear, you know, after church, 
 very comfortably ; and have only to bespeak your patience 
 for my delay in introducing you to 
 
 THE PAKISH REAL. 
 
 I arrived there on Saturday night, at the end of the day, 
 a ten miles stage-ride, and a final patch of crooked railway, 
 in a snow-storm. Somebody who lectures has somewhere 
 described the unique sensations of hunting in a railway sta 
 tion for a " committee " who never saw you, and whom you 
 never saw. He should tell you how I found Mr. Dobbins, 
 for I am sure I cannot. I found myself landed in a snow 
 drift I suppose there was a platform under it, but I never 
 got so far with three other women. The three women 
 had on waterproofs ; I had on a waterproof. There were 
 four men and a half, as nearly as I could judge, in slouched 
 hats, to be seen in or about the little crazy station. One 
 man, one of the whole ones, was a ticketed official of some 
 kind ; the other two were lounging against the station walls, 
 making a spittoon of my snow-drift; the half-man was 
 standing with his hands in his pockets. 
 
 " Was you lookin for anybody in partikkelar ? " said one 
 of the waterproofs, thoughtfully, or curiously, as I stood 
 dismally regarding the prospect. 
 
 " Thank you. Yes. Can you tell me if Mr. Do " 
 
 " obbins," said the half-man at this juncture. " Bangs ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " New parson ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
186 A WOMAN S PULPIT. 
 
 " That s the talk ! " said Mr. Dobbins. " Step right 
 round here, ma am ! " 
 
 " Right round here," brought us up against an old buggy 
 sleigh, and an old horse with patient ears. " Hold on a 
 spell," said Mr. Dobbins, " I 11 put ye in." 
 
 Now Mr. Dobbins was not, as I have intimated, a large 
 man. Whether he were actually a dwarf, or whether he 
 only got so far and stopped, I never satisfactorily discovered. 
 But at all events, I could have "put" Mr. Dobbins into 
 anything twice as comfortably as I could support the rever 
 sal of the process ; to say nothing of the fact that the ascent 
 of a sleigh is not at most a superhuman undertaking. How 
 ever not wishing to wound his feelings, I submitted to the 
 situation, and Mr. Dobbins handed me in and tucked me 
 up with consummate gallantry. I mention this circum 
 stance, not because I was prepared for, or expected, or de 
 manded, in my ministerial capacity, any peculiar deference 
 to my sex, but because it is indicative of the treatment 
 which, throughout my ministerial experience, I received. 
 
 " Comfortable?" asked Mr. Dobbins after a pause, as 
 we turned our faces eastward, towards a lonely landscape 
 of billowy gray and white, and in the jaws of the storm ; 
 " cause there s four miles and three quarters of this. 
 Tough for a lady." 
 
 I assured him that I was quite comfortable and that if 
 the weather were tough for a lady, I was too. 
 
 " You don t ! " said Mr. Dobbins. 
 
 Another pause followed, after which Mr. Dobbins deliv 
 ered himself of the following : 
 
 " Been at the trade long ? " 
 
 " Of preaching ? Not long." 
 
 " Didn t expect it, you know" (confidentially). "Not 
 such a young un. Never thought on t." 
 
 Not feeling called upon to make any reply to this, I made 
 none, and we braved in silence the great gulps of mountain 
 wind that well-nigh swept the buggy sleigh over. 
 
A WOMAN S PULPIT. 187 
 
 " Nor so good lookin , neither," said Mr. Dobbins, when 
 we had ridden perhaps half a mile. 
 
 This was discouraging, A vision of Madchen scientifi 
 cally smiling, of the Rev. Dr. Z. Z. Zangrow dubiously 
 drumming, of the New Vealshire Home Missionary Society 
 shaking its head, drifted distinctly by me, in the wild white 
 whirlpool over Mr. Dobbins s hat. 
 
 Were my professional prospects to be gnawed at the roots 
 by a dispensation of Providence for which I was, it would 
 be admitted by the most prejudiced, not in the least account 
 able ? Were the Universalist clergy women never young 
 and " good lookin ? " 
 
 I did not ask Mr. Dobbins the question, but his next 
 burst of eloquence struck athwart it thus : 
 
 " Had eni here in spots, ye see ; Spiritooalist and sech. 
 There s them as thinks t ain t scriptooral in women folks to 
 hev a hand in the business, noway. Then ag in there s 
 them as feels very like the chap whose wife took to beatin 
 of him ; It amuses her, and it don t hurt me. Howsomever 
 there s them as jest as lieves go to meetin as not when 
 there s nothin else goin on. Last one brought her baby, 
 and her husband he sat with his head ag in the door, and 
 held it." 
 
 To these consoling observations Mr. Dobbins added, I be 
 lieve, but two others in the course of our four miles and 
 three quarters drive ; these were equally cheering : 
 
 " S pose you know you re ticketed to Samphiry s?" 
 
 I was obliged to admit that I had never so much as 
 
 & 
 
 heard a rumor of the existence of Samphiry. 
 
 " Cousin of mine," explained Mr. Dobbins, " on the 
 mother s side. Children got the mumps down to her place. 
 Six on em." 
 
 It will be readily inferred that Mr. Dobbins dropped me 
 in the drifts about Samphiry s front door in a subdued state 
 of mind. Samphiry greeted me with a sad smile. She was 
 
188 A WOMAN S PULPIT. 
 
 a little yellow woman in a red calico apron. Six children, 
 in various picturesque stages of the disease which Mr. Dob 
 bins had specified, hung about her. 
 
 Law me, child ! " said Samphiry, when she had got me 
 in by the fire, taken my dripping hat and cloak, and turned 
 me full in the dying daylight and living firelight. " Why, 
 I don t believe you re two year older than Mary Ann ! " 
 
 Mary Ann, an overgrown child of perhaps seventeen, in 
 short dresses buttoned up behind, sat with her mouth open, 
 and looked at me during the expression of this encouraging 
 comparison. 
 
 I assumed my severest ministerial gravity and silence, but 
 my heart was sinking. 
 
 I had salt pork and barley bread for supper, and went to 
 bed in a room where the ice stood on my hair all night, 
 where I wrapped it around my throat as a preventive of 
 diphtheria. I was prepared for hardship, however, and bore 
 these little physical inconveniences bravely ; but when one 
 of Mary Ann s brothers, somewhere in the extremely small 
 editions, cried aloud from midnight to five A. M., and Sam 
 phiry apologized for the disturbance the next morning on 
 this wise, " Hope you was n t kept awake last night, I m 
 sure. They generally cry for a night or two before they 
 get through with it. If you d been a man-minister now, I 
 don t s pose I should have dared to undertake the keep of 
 you, with mumps in the house ; but it s so different with a 
 woman ; she s got so much more fellow-feeling for babies ; 
 I thought you would n t mind ! " I confess that my heart 
 dropped " deeper than did ever plummet sound." For about 
 ten minutes I would rather have been in Hercules making 
 calls than in New Vealshire preaching the Gospel. 
 
 I was aroused from this brief state of despair, however, 
 by the remembrance of my now near-approaching profes 
 sional duties ; and after a hot breakfast (of salt pork and 
 barley bread) I retired to my icy room to prepare my mind 
 appropriately for my morning s discourse. 
 
A WOMAN S PULPIT. 189 
 
 The storm had bent and broken since early dawn. The 
 sun and the snow winked blindly at each other. The great 
 hills lifted haughty heads out of wraps of ermine and 
 gold. Outlines in black and gray of awful fissures and 
 caverns gaped through the mass of wealthy color which 
 they held. Little, shy, soft clouds fled over these, fright 
 ened, one thought; now and then a row of ragged black 
 teeth snapped them up ; I could see them struggle and sink. 
 Which was the more relentless, the beauty or the power 
 of the sight, it were difficult choosing. But I, preparing to 
 preach my first sermon, and feeling in myself (I hope) the 
 stillness and smallness of the very valley of humiliation, 
 did not try to choose. I could only stand at my window 
 and softly say, " Before the mountains were brought forth, 
 THOU art." 
 
 I do not know whether Mary Ann heard me, but when 
 she appeared at that crisis with my " shaving-water," and 
 blushed scarlet, transfixed in the middle of the room, with 
 her mouth open, to beg pardon for the mistake, but " she d 
 got kinder used to it with the last minister, and never 
 thought till she opened the door and see my crinoline on 
 the chair ! " I continued, with a gentle enthusiasm : 
 
 " That is a grand sight, my dear, over there. It ought 
 to make one very good, I think, to live in the face of such 
 hills as those." 
 
 " I want to know ! " said Mary Ann, coming and gaping 
 over my shoulder. " Why, I get as used to em as I do to 
 washing-day ! " 
 
 I had decided upon extempore preaching as best adapted 
 to the needs of my probable audience, and, with my icy 
 hands in the warm " shaving-water " and my eyes on the 
 icy hills, was doing some rambling thinking about the 
 Lord s messages and messengers ; but wondering, through 
 my slicing of introduction, firstly, secondly, a, b, c, d, and 
 conclusion, if the rural tenement in which we should wor- 
 
190 A WOMAN S PULPIT. 
 
 ship possessed a dinner-bell, or a gong, or anything of that 
 sort, which could be used as summons to assemble, and if 
 it were not quite time to hear the sound, when Mary Ann 
 introduced herself upon the scene again, to signify that Mr. 
 Dobbins awaited my pleasure down-stairs. Somewhat con 
 fused by this sudden announcement, I seized my Bible and 
 my hat, and presented myself promptly but palpitating. 
 
 "Morning," said Mr. Dobbins, with a pleasant smile. 
 " Rested yet ? " 
 
 I thanked him, and was quite rested. 
 
 " You don t ! " said Mr. Dobbins. " Wai, you see I come 
 over to say that meetin s gin up for to-day." 
 
 " Given up ! " 
 
 " Wai, yes. Ye see there s such a heft of snow, and no 
 paths broke, and seein it was a gal as was goin to preach, 
 me and the other deacon we thought she d get her feet wet, 
 or suthin , and so we greed we wouldn t ring the bell ! 
 Thought ye d be glad to be let off, after travelin all day 
 yesterday, too ! " 
 
 I looked at Mr. Dobbins. Mr. Dobbins looked at me. 
 There was a pause. 
 
 " Will your paths be broken out by night ? " I asked, 
 with a terrible effort at self-control. 
 
 " Wai, yes. In spots ; yes ; middjin well." 
 
 " Will my audience be afraid of wetting their feet, after 
 the paths are broken ? " 
 
 " Bless you, no ! " said Mr. Dobbins, staring, " they re 
 used to V 
 
 " Then you will please to appoint an evening service, 
 and ring your bell at half past six precisely. I shall be 
 there, and shall preach, if there is no one but the sexton to 
 hear me. And next Sabbath you will oblige me by pro 
 ceeding with the regular services, whatever the weather, 
 without the least anxiety for my feet." 
 
 " If you was n t a minister, I should say you was spunky," 
 
A WOMAN S PULPIT. 191 
 
 said Mr Dobbins, thoughtfully. He regarded me for some 
 moments with disturbed interest, blindly suspicious that 
 somebody was offended, but whether pastor or parishioner 
 he could not make out. He was still undecided, when he 
 took to his hat, and I to my own reflections. 
 
 This incident vitally affected my programme foe the day. 
 It was harrowing, but it was stimulating. There was the 
 inspiration of the rack about it. The animus of the stake 
 was upon me. I could die, but I would not surrender. 
 I would gain the respect of my parishioners, whether 
 well, yes whether I gained their souls or not ; I am not 
 ashamed to say it now, partly because of the gnawing hun 
 ger for usefulness for usefulness sake, and for higher than 
 usefulness sake, which came to me afterwards, and which, 
 you remember, is all left out for the Sunday books, partly 
 because the acquisition of my people s respect was a neces 
 sary antecedent to that of their salvation. 
 
 So by help of a fire which I cajoled from Samphiry, and 
 the shaving-water which was warmer than the fire, I con 
 trived to employ the remainder of the Sabbath in putting 
 my first sermon upon paper. 
 
 The bell rang, as I had directed, at half past six. It -did 
 not occur to me at the time that it sounded less like a din 
 ner-gong than a church-bell of average size and respecta 
 bility. I and my sermon were both quite ready for it, and 
 I tramped off bravely (in my rubber boots), with Mary 
 Ann as my guide, through the drifted and drifting paths. 
 Once more, for the benefit of my sex, I may be permitted 
 to mention that I wore a very plain street suit of black, no 
 crimps, a white collar of linen, and a black tie ; and that I 
 retained my outside garment a loose sack in the pulpit. 
 
 " Here we are," said Mary Ann, as I floundered up half 
 blinded from the depths of a three-feet drift. Here we were 
 indeed. If Mary Ann had not been with me I should have 
 sat down in the drift, and no, I do not think I should 
 
192 A WOMAN S PULPIT. 
 
 have cried, but I should have gasped a little. Why I should 
 have been horribly unprepared for the sight of a commo 
 dious white church, with a steeple, and a belfry and stone 
 steps, and people going up the steps in the latest frill and 
 the stove-pipe hat, the reader who has ever tried to patron 
 ize an American seamstress, or give orders to an American 
 servant, or asked an American mechanic if he sees a news 
 paper, must explain. The citizens of Storm might be hea 
 then, but they were Yankees ; what more could be said ? 
 Sentence a Yankee into the Desert of Sahara for life, and 
 he would contrive means to live like " other folks." 
 
 However, I did not sit down in the drift, but went on, with 
 meeting-house and worshipers all in an unnatural light like 
 stereoscopic figures, and sat down in the pulpit; a course 
 of conduct which had at least one advantage it saved me 
 a cold. 
 
 Mr. Dobbins, it should be noted, met me at the church 
 door, and conducted me, with much respect, up the pulpit 
 stairs. When he left me, I removed my hat and intrenched 
 my beating heart behind a hymn-book. 
 
 It will be understood that, while I was not unpracticed in 
 Sabbath-school teaching, mission prayer-meeting exhortation, 
 " remarks " at sewing-schools, and other like avenues of re 
 ligious influence, of the kind considered suitable for my sex, 
 I had never engaged in anything which could be denomi 
 nated public speech ; and that, when the clear clang of the 
 bell hushed suddenly, and the pause on the faces of my au 
 dience there may have been forty of them warned me 
 that my hour had come, I was in no wise more ready to 
 meet it than any Miss A, B, or C, who would be content to 
 employ life in making sofa-pillows, but would be quite safe 
 from putting it to the outre purpose of making sermons. 
 
 So I got through my introductory exercises with a grim 
 desperation, and made haste to my sermon . Once with the 
 manuscript in my hands, I drew breath. Once having looked 
 
A WOMAN S PULPIT. 193 
 
 my audience fairly in the eye, I was prepared to conquer or 
 be conquered by it. There should be no half-way work 
 between us. So I held up my head and did my best. 
 
 The criticism of that sermon would be, I suspect, a choice 
 morning s work for any professor of homiletics in the coun 
 try. Its divisions were numerous and startling ; its intro 
 duction occurred just where I thought it would sound best, 
 and its conclusion was adjusted to the clock. I reasoned 
 of righteousness and judgment to come, in learned phrase. 
 Theology and metaphysics, exegesis and zoology, poetry 
 and botany, were impressed liberally into its pages. I 
 quoted Sir William Hamilton, Strauss, Aristotle, in liberal 
 allowance. I toyed with the names of Schleiermacher and 
 Copernicus. I played battledoor and shuttlecock with 
 " views " of Hegel and Hobbes. As nearly as I can rec 
 ollect, that sermon was a hash of literature in five syllables 
 with a seasoning of astronomy and Adam. 
 
 I had the satisfaction of knowing, when I read as mod 
 estly, reverently, and as much like an unanointed church- 
 member as I knew how, a biblical benediction, and sat down 
 again on the pulpit cushions, that if I had not preached the 
 Gospel, I had at least subdued the church-going population 
 of Storm. 
 
 Certain rough-looking fellows, upon whom I had had my 
 eye since they came in, there were several of them, grimy 
 and glum, with keen eyes ; men who read Tom Paine, you 
 would say, and had come in " to see the fun," while I 
 must admit that they neither wept nor prayed, left the 
 house in a respectful, stupid way that was encouraging. 
 
 " You gin it to us ! " said Mr. Dobbins, enthusiastically. 
 " Folks is all upsot about ye. That there was an eloquent 
 discourse, marm. Why, they don t see but ye know jest as 
 much as if ye was n t a woman ! " 
 
 And when I touched Mary Ann upon the shoulder to 
 bring her home, I found her sitting motionless, not quite 
 13 
 
194 A WOMAN S PULPIT. 
 
 strangled stiff. She had made such a cavern of her mouth, 
 during my impassioned peroration, that an irreligious boy 
 somewhere within good aim had snapped an India-rubber 
 ball into it, which had unfortunately stuck. 
 
 Before night, I had reason to feel assured from many 
 sources that I had " made a hit " in my corner of New 
 Vealshire. But before night I had locked myself into the 
 cool and dark, and said, as was said of the Charge of the 
 Six Hundred : " It is magnificent ; but it is not war ! " 
 
 But this is where the Sunday part of my story comes in 
 again, so it is of no consequence to us. Suffice it to say 
 that I immediately appointed a little prayer-meeting, very 
 much after the manner of the ideal service, for the follow 
 ing Wednesday night, in the school-house, with a table, and 
 a tallow candle, too. The night was clear, and the room 
 packed. The men who read Tom Paine were there. There 
 were some old people present who lived out of walking 
 distance of the church. There were a few young mothers 
 with very quiet children. I succeeded in partially ventilat 
 ing the room, and chanced on a couple of familiar hymns. 
 It needed only a quiet voice to fill and command the quiet 
 place. I felt very much like a woman, quite enough like a 
 lady, a little, I hope, like a Christian, too. Like the old 
 Greek sages, I " was not in haste to speak ; I said only that 
 which I had resolved to say." The people listened to me, 
 and prayed as if they felt the better for it. My meeting 
 was full of success and my heart of hope. 
 
 Arrived at this point in my narrative, I feel myself in 
 strong sympathy with the famous historian of Old Mother 
 Morey. For, when " my story s just begun," why, " now, 
 my story s done." 
 
 " Ce n est pas la victoire, mais le combat," which is as 
 sure to* make the best autobiography as to " make the hap 
 piness of noble hearts." 
 
 From the time of that little Wednesday-evening meeting 
 
A WOMAN S PULPIT. 195 
 
 my life in Storm was a triumph and a joy, in all the better 
 meanings of these words. My people respected me first and 
 loved me afterwards. I taught them a little, and they taught 
 me a great deal. I brightened a few weeks of their dulled, 
 drowsy, dejected life : they will gild years of mine. 
 
 I desire especially to record that all sense of personal 
 embarrassment and incongruity to the work rapidly left me. 
 My people at once never remembered and never forgot that 
 I was a woman. The rudest of the readers of the " Age 
 of Reason " tipped his hat to me, and read " Ecce Homo " 
 to gratify me, and after that, the Gospel of John to gratify 
 himself. 
 
 Every Sabbath morning I read a plain-spoken but care 
 fully written sermon, which cost me perhaps three days of 
 brain-labor. Every Sabbath afternoon I talked of this and 
 that, according to the weather and the audience. Every 
 Wednesday night I sat in the school-house, behind the little 
 table and the tallow candle, with the old people and the 
 young mothers, and the hush, and the familiar hymns, and 
 lines of hungry faces down before me that made my heart 
 ache at one look and bound at the next. It used to seem 
 to me that the mountains had rather starved than fed them. 
 They were pinched, compressed, shut-down faces. All their 
 possibilities and developments of evil were those of the 
 dwarf, not of the giant. They were like the poor Chinese 
 monsters, molded from birth in pitchers and vases ; all the 
 crevices and contortions of life they filled stupidly. Whether 
 it was because, as Mary Ann said, they " got as used to the 
 mountains as they did to washing-day," and the process of 
 blunting to one grandeur dulled them to all others, I can 
 only conjecture ; but of this my New Vealshire experience 
 convinced me : the temptations to evil of the city of Paris 
 will bear no comparison to those of the grandest solitude 
 that God ever made. It is in repression, not in extension, 
 that the danger of disease lies to an immortal life. No risks 
 
196 A WOMAN S PULPIT. 
 
 equal those of ignorance. Daniel Webster may or may not 
 escape the moral shipwrecks of life, but what chance has an 
 idiot beside him ? 
 
 " It s enough to make a man wish he d been born a 
 horse in a treadmill and done with it ! " said Happen to me 
 one day. Happen was a poor fellow on whom 1 made my 
 first " parish call " ; and I made a great many between Sun 
 day and Sunday. He lived five miles out of the village, at 
 the end of an inexpressible mountain road, in a gully which 
 lifted a pinched, purple face to the great Harmonia Range. 
 I made, with difficulty, a riding-skirt out of my waterproof, 
 and three miles an hour out of Mr. Dobbins s horse, and 
 got to him. 
 
 The road crawled up a hill into his little, low, brown 
 shanty, and there stopped. Here he had " farmed it, man 
 and boy," till the smoke of Virginia battles puffed over the 
 hills into his straightforward brown, young eyes. 
 
 " So I up and into it, marm, two years on t tough ; then 
 back again to my hoe and my wife and my baby, to say 
 nothing of the old lady, you see her through the door 
 there, bedridden this dozen year, and never a grain of 
 salt too much for our porridge, I can tell ye, when one day 
 I m out to cut and chop, ten mile deep in the furrest, 
 alon* too, and first I know I m hit and down with the 
 trunk of a great hickory lyin smash ! along this here leg. 
 
 " A day and a half before folks found me ; and another 
 half day before the nighest doctor could get over to East 
 Storm. Well ; I s pose he done his best by me, but mebbe 
 he did n t know no more how to set a leg nor you do. He 
 vowed there war n t no fracture there. Fracture ! It was 
 a jelly before his eyes. So he ties it up and leaves a tum 
 bler of suthin and goes off. So it mortified. So I ve ben 
 here ever sence, on this sofy. Likely to be here bless 
 you, yes. My wife she tends the farm and the baby and 
 the old lady and me. Sometimes we have two meals a day, 
 
A WOMAN S PULPIT. 197 
 
 and ag in we don t. When you come to think as your nigh- 
 est neighbor is five mile off, and that in winter-time why, 
 I can see, a lookin from my sofy, six feet of snow drifted 
 across that there road to town and nought but one woman 
 in gunshot of you able to stir for you if you starve why, 
 I feel sometimes, beggin your pardon, marm, I feel like Hell ! 
 There s summer-folks in their kerridges comes riding by, 
 to see them hills and kind enough some of em is, I 11 say 
 that for em and I hear em chatterin among themselves. 
 
 " * The grand sight ! says they. The damned sight ! 
 says I; "for -I lie on my sofy marm, and look over their 
 heads at things they never see lines and bars like over 
 Harmonia red-hot and criss-cross like prison grates. Which 
 comes mebbe of layin and lookin so long, and fanciful. 
 They say I d stand a chance to the hospital to New York 
 or Boston, mebbe. I hain t gin it up yet. I ve hopes to 
 go and try my luck some day. But I suppose it costs a 
 sight. And my wife, she s set her heart on the leg s com 
 ing to of itself, and so we hang along. Sometimes folks 
 send me down books and magazines and such like. I got 
 short o reading this winter and read the Bible through; 
 every word, from In the beginning to Amen. It s 
 quite a pretty little story-book, too. True ? I don t know 
 about that. Most stories set up to be true. I s pose if I 
 was a parson, and a woman into the bargain, I should think 
 so." 
 
 Among my other parochial discoveries I learned one day, 
 to my exceeding surprise, that Samphiry who had been 
 reticent on her family affairs was the widow of one of 
 my predecessors. She had married him when she was young 
 and pretty, and he was young and ambitious, " Fond of 
 his book, my dear," she said, as if she had been talking of 
 some dead child, " but slow in speech, like Moses of old. 
 " And three hundred and fifty dollars was tight living for a 
 family like ours. And his heart ran out, and his people, 
 
198 A WOMAN S PULPIT. 
 
 and maybe his sermons, too. So the salary kept a-dropping 
 off, twenty -five dollars at a time, and he couldn t take a 
 newspaper, besides selling the library mostly for doctor s 
 bills. And so he grew old and sick and took to farming 
 here, without the salary, and baptized babies and prayed 
 with sick folks free and willing, and never bore anybody a 
 grudge. So he died year before last, and half the valley 
 turned out to bury him. But that did n t help it any, and 
 I know you d never guess me to be a minister s widow, as 
 well as you do, my dear. I m all washed out and flattened 
 in. And I can t educate my children, one of them. If you 11 
 believe it, I don t know enough to tell when they talk bad 
 grammar half the time, and I d about as lieves they d eat 
 with their knives as not. If they get anything to eat, it s 
 all I ve got heart to care. I Ve got an aunt down in Mas 
 sachusetts, but it s such a piece of work to get there. So 
 I suppose we shall live and die here, and I don t know but 
 it s just as well." 
 
 What a life it was ! I felt so young, so crude, so blessed 
 and bewildered beside it, that I gave out that night, at 
 evening prayers, and asked Samphiry to " lead " for herself 
 and me. But I felt no older when she had done so. 
 
 I should not neglect to mention that I conducted several 
 funerals while I was in Storm. I did not know how, but I 
 knew how to be sorry, which seemed to answer the same 
 purpose ; at least they sought me out for the object from 
 far and near. On one occasion I was visited by a distant 
 neighbor, with the request that I would bury his wife. I 
 happened to know that the dead woman had been once a 
 member of the Methodist church in East Storm, whose pas 
 tor was alive, active, and a man. 
 
 " Would it not be more suitable," I therefore suggested, 
 " at least more agreeable to the feelings of Brother Hand, 
 if you were to ask him to conduct either the whole or apart 
 of the service ? " 
 
A WOMAN S PULPIT. 199 
 
 " Waal, ye see, marm," urged the widower, " the cops 
 was partikelar sot on hevin you, and as long as I promised 
 her afore she drawed her last that you should conduct the 
 business, I think we d better perceed without any reference 
 to Brother Hand. I ve been thinking of it over, and I 
 come to the conclusion that he could n t take offense on so 
 slight on occasion ! " 
 
 I had ministered " on trial " to the people of Storm, un 
 disturbed by Rev. Dr. Zangrow, who, I suspect, was in 
 private communication of some sort with Mr. Dobbins, for 
 a month, a month of pouting, spring weather, and long, 
 lazy walks for thinking, and brisk ones for doing ; of grow 
 ing quite fond of salt pork and barley bread ; of calling on 
 old bedridden women, and hunting up neglected girls, and 
 keeping one eye on my Tom Paine friends ; of preaching 
 and practicing, of hoping and doubting, of struggling and 
 succeeding, of finding my heart and hands and head as full 
 as life could hold ; of feeling that there was a place for me 
 in the earnest world, and that I was in my place ; of feel 
 ing that my womanhood and my work, like " righteousness 
 arid peace," had " kissed each other ; " of many other things 
 which I have promised not to mention here, when, one 
 day the stage brought me a letter which ran : 
 
 HERCULES, April 28, 18 . 
 MY DEAR, I have the measles. MADCHEN. 
 
 Did ever a woman try to do anything, that some of the 
 children did not have the measles ? 
 
 I felt that fate was stronger than I. I bowed my head 
 submissively, and packed my valise shockingly. Some of 
 the people came in a little knot that night to say good by. 
 The women cried and the men shook hands hard. It was 
 very pleasant and very heartbreaking. I felt a dismal fore 
 boding that, once iuthe clutches of Hercules and Madchen, 
 
200 A WOMAN S PULPIT. 
 
 I should never see their dull, dear faces again. I left my 
 sorrow and my Jeremy Taylor for Happen, and my rubber 
 boots for Samphiry ; I tucked the lace collar and the spare 
 paper of hairpins into Mary Ann s upper drawer. I beg 
 ged Mr. Dobbins s acceptance of Barnes on Matthew, with 
 the request that he would start a Sunday-school. 
 
 In the gray of the early morning the patient horse trot 
 ted me over, with lightened valise and heavy heart, to the 
 crazy station. When I turned my head for a farewell look 
 at my parish, the awful hills were crossed with Happen s 
 red-hot bars, and Mary Ann, with her mouth open, stood in 
 her mother s crumbling door. 
 
NUMBER 13. 
 
 MY DEAR, it s my opinion that if all folks that thought of 
 getting -married were compelled by state law to spend six 
 months with some respectable family, under the same roof, 
 before they did it, there would n t be more than one wed 
 ding sift through that sieve to where there s twenty now. 
 
 Since you asked me why I never got married, that s why. 
 Bless you, no ! I don t say you put it in so many words, 
 but that s what you ve been a-saying, every look and mo 
 tion and tone of you, since you sat here, turning your pretty 
 eyes about my room and over me, my dear, quite gentle and 
 uninquisitive, but full of a kind of wonder and a kind of 
 sadness too. I ve seen that look in young folks eyes times 
 and times. But it is n t often Number 13 sees such eyes as 
 yours, my dear, though there s been enough that was kind, 
 and enough that was sorrowful in it, for that matter, too. I 
 took a fancy to the look of you, I tell you plainly, the first 
 day you come three weeks ago come Thursday with 
 those half dozen lawn petticoats for a fine tuck, you remem 
 ber, and the insertin that was wore to be taken out from 
 above. I m set in my fancies, as I am in my ways. It is 
 n t everybody one feels a drawin to. You know you feel 
 a drawin in you sometimes to folks, when all the folds of 
 your heart seem gathered up toward them like fine gathers 
 so close you d hardly see to stroke em down. There s 
 folks I ve cut and basted this dozen year, and those I ve 
 done for by the fortnight, and even those I ve made and 
 finished, that I could n t set and talk to as I m going on to 
 
202 NUMBER 13. 
 
 you, my dear not for a steady engagement on their trus- 
 sows or their rnournin for a year to come; and if you 
 thought it was because you made it a dollar a day when I 
 was askin only eighty -five, I should be sorry ; and you did 
 it such a pretty way, how could I help it ? And when I 
 heard how Miss Jabez Smithson run on about you for 
 settin me up to ask more than your neighbors was able to 
 pay me, I d have I d have asked her one thirty-seven and 
 a half, my dear, if I could have got it. 
 
 Stand a mite this way, if you will, my dear, nigher to the 
 glass. There ! Will you have the walnut silk cut bias for 
 the shirr ? I cut one on the square for Miss Colonel 
 Adams s navy blue repellant. I 11 pin it up a scrap, and let 
 you see it for yourself so 3 
 
 You see, my dear, he was my cousin, and he come to our 
 house the winter mother was failin when we lived down 
 East in Franklin to help do for us, father being dead and 
 the boys gone. There was two boys, Ned and Li kim. Ned 
 was the one that died, I never did know what of. Our old 
 doctor said he had wind in his brain. My little brother 
 Li kim there ! I need n t keep you standin any longer in 
 the blazin light I always said that Li kim meant well, 
 my dear, and I always, always will, and I d rather not talk 
 about it just now ; but he got into bad company, poor little 
 chap ! and after father died he ran away. One night 
 I come home from the sewin circle, and I found his com 
 mon close and his little skates and things he d left in a 
 heap, and a little note atop to mother. And mother she 
 just threw up her arms and ran to meet me, screechin 
 through the entry ; and, my dear, it left her ravin wild 
 from that hour till she died. Forshe d had a fever, and 
 been a scrap weakly in her head since father s funeral. 
 
 But that does n t matter now, only it will explain some 
 things to you, and how my cousin Peter Doggett come to 
 live with us. And that does n t matter, only that when I got 
 
NUMBER 13. 203 
 
 through with that job, I did n t want him for a husband, 
 nor no man else. The ways they have with their boots, 
 my dear, and the smell of blacking, I don t like ; and the 
 pipes, and laying them against your clean mantel-piece after 
 you have dusted, and the bein so particular about the pud- 
 den sauce when you re wore with watching sick folks all 
 the night, and the sitting still and seeing you bring kindlen 
 and draw water, and the getting used to you, my dear, and 
 snapping of you up. And then the way of speaking to your 
 mother ! 
 
 My dear, when it all began, I was that fond of Peter 
 Doggett I d have carried kindlen, or bore with pipes, or 
 fussed with pudden sauces, or run my feet off for him to all 
 eternity, and thought myself well off. And when it all was 
 over, I would n t have lifted a winker, much less an eyelash 
 for him, come what mi^ht. For when we come to set down 
 
 O 
 
 day by day and meal by meal and worry by worry together, 
 then all the temper and all the selfishness and all the mean 
 ness there was in us come up. I don t know what he 
 thought of mine, my dear. Temper enough, the Lord 
 knows, but I couldn t have snapped him up, my dear, as he 
 did me ; and if I d spoke to his mother as he spoke one 
 afternoon to mine she very troublesome in the head that 
 day, poor old lady, and requirin all the patient love of son 
 and daughter both to keep her strong and still if I had, 
 I d have looked to be turned into a pillow of salt, like Lot s 
 poor wife, my dear, and kept a-standin in the settin -room 
 for a shame to the family forever after. So after that I 
 says to him, " Peter Doggett, we re never fitted to make 
 each other happy as married folks if we can t get along as 
 common folks." And so that was the end of that. And 
 mother died the next week, and Peter went home after the 
 funeral ; and so I was left to myself, my dear, for my aunt 
 Hannah, Peter s mother, was offended, very natural, and 
 there was no other of my blood in all the world. I would n t 
 
204 NUMBER 13. 
 
 have thought that meant much once. Young folks don t 
 understand such things. You ve no more idea, my pretty, 
 setting there with your great eyes, what the drawin of kith 
 and kin is like, when you re left to shift without it, than an 
 unhatched bobolink, and please God you never, never may ! 
 Nor I d no more idea till after the house was sold to pay off 
 old mortgages of father s, and I come to this place, my dear, 
 on the recommendation of a friend of mine, to take in, or 
 go out if desired, but much preferring to take in, and only 
 advertising to begin with, for plain sewing, on account of 
 a little weakness in my eyes. Her name was Susannah 
 Greenwich, and the first month I rented Number 13 she 
 was a comfort to me, my dear ; for she had the second rear? 
 and ran a Wheeler and Wilson, with a dreadful backache, 
 and I used to make a drop of tea for her of evenings, and I 
 got a new tea-pot big enough for two on purpose ; and that 
 was a pleasure you d never guess, my dear, unless you d 
 drunk out of the smallest size a while, and cried into it a 
 good deal of stormy nights alone. But Susannah Green 
 wich she got married. She married the first floor, that I 
 cured of the toothache ; and it was coming up after the 
 drops that he took the notion to her, when I d got her fixed 
 comfortable, with a Scotch plaid blanket shawl across the 
 chair, and that red cricket to her feet, and the mug a-steam- 
 ing in her hand ; for I had^n t any tea-cups at that time, and 
 the wash-stand mug has more comfort in it than you d think, 
 my dear, when tea-cups are out of the question for lack of 
 steady work. 
 
 Now I 11 tell you that this minute I never told Susannah 
 nor a living soul. He asked me first, the first floor did. 
 His name was Thrasher. But I would n t have a man 
 named Thrasher if he was first cousin to the Angel Gabriel. 
 And he took it very kind indeed, and made up to Susannah 
 that day come a fortnight, for he was in a taking for a home 
 as ever I saw ; and she moved her Wheeler and Wilson 
 
NUMBER 13. 205 
 
 away, and they went across the river to live, for he kept a 
 lard factory, and it was more convenient for the hogs. 
 
 It was n t till Susannah d gone that it all came over me, 
 my dear. Long as you have a cup of tea to make or a 
 toothache to cure for folks, it ain t so bad, but when you ve 
 settled down in a big houseful of those that you have n t the 
 right to lift a finger for, nor one of them the heart to do 
 for you, and all going their own ways, and living their own 
 lives, and sorrowin their own sorrows, and lockin their 
 souls against each other as they do their drawers and trunks, 
 and if you was to die in your bed of some lonesome night, 
 my dear, not a soul of em would know nor care until the 
 landlady noticed, maybe, by next evening that you didn t 
 make a noise about your room, and sent up the Loon to 
 see. I call her the Loon, my dear, for she s the cham 
 ber-maid and nigh as crazy ; besides, the color of her eyes 
 the same, if you noticed it upon the stairs. I ve lost my 
 collection of ideas, my dear, but I was going to say, it is 
 a way of living that folks can t dream nor guess at till 
 they ve lived it. It seems to me, as I set and think it over, 
 as if we had to live such large whiles in this world, my dear, 
 to understand the least, least little things ! 
 
 Hard ? Yes, my dear, I thought so then. When first I 
 knuckled to it down in Number 131 thought it was a little 
 hard. But, bless you ! that was before I knew what hard 
 ness was, or where the comfort of it was coming in. It s 
 like the soft side of a pine board, boardin is. There ! I 
 did n t mean that for a conundrum, but it s a pretty good 
 one ; don t you think so ? 
 
 Turn a scrap this way, while I pin the gore against the 
 loop. Yes. 
 
 Comfort ? I ve had enough of comfort in this scrimpy 
 little wee worn room, my dear, to warm a cold heart through 
 for forty harder lives than mine. No, I don t know as I 
 could tell you how it comes. Comfort is like sunshine of 
 
206 NUMBER 13. 
 
 an afternoon : you can t reason how it comes, but only know 
 the blessed comin , and set and curl up in it a-warmin 
 through and through, my dear. And it ain t so much then 
 as it is afterward that you know how warm you are. I ve 
 taken a surprising deal of pleasure in the course of my ex 
 perience in thinking how well off I was once, after it was 
 over. Some folks can t, I know. Eggs ain t speckled all 
 alike, nor there don t no two kittens in a batch run after 
 their tails with just the same degree of sperit. I ve seen 
 cats that would do it in a melancholy manner, as if they 
 were doing you a personal favor, and cats that would do it 
 in a superior manner, as if they d show the other cats how 
 much it was beneath em. There s cats and cats. 
 
 If you d rather set and wait for me to baste the kilt 
 platin together, I 11 try and tell you something about it ; 
 but it s a scrimpy story, like the room, my dear, and wee 
 and worn too, like the room. Everything s been scrimpy 
 in my life, my pretty, but the comfort. 
 
 After Susannah, it all began with Miss Major Crackle- 
 jaw, upon the same floor front. I d seen her going in and 
 out a little creetur with big eyes and stylish hair ; but 
 I d never taken notice to speak to most the folks, for the 
 third floor rear, with one window and a gas stove and do for 
 yourself, ain t just abreast of the full soots or front parlors 
 and board besides, you see. So, after Susannah Thrasher 
 went, I fought mostly shy of em, unless it was a little 
 plain sewing, and once or twice the week s mendin for Miss 
 M Henry Dumps (as true as you stand in your bustle, that 
 was her blessed name ! ) the first floor she was, with three 
 babies and a nurse with neuralgy twice a week in the frou- 
 ziest head I ever saw, that dropped the baby down the 
 steps if you 11 believe it, twice that winter. 
 
 And so, because I kept so mostly to myself, and because 
 Number 13 was cold, nay dear, when the gas was contrary, 
 and I had n t that chair in there made out of the barrel, with 
 
NUMBEK 13. 207 
 
 the patchwork cover poor Miss Flynn and Tommy Ilark- 
 ness, they gave me that chair, but I have n t come to them 
 yet nor the Turkey -red valance on the curtain, my dear : 
 and you can t guess the comfort there is in a mite of Tur 
 key red, nor how my poor dear Helen Goldenough looked 
 blushing in the day she knocked and said, Might she give 
 herself a great comfort by putting of it up ? And I had n t 
 got the tea-set then, nor that little shelf old Mr. Hopkinson 
 put up to hold the cups I bought next quarter, nor the 
 pretty shade across the gas, for your poor eyes, or the lace 
 and paper with the maple leaves between, sent by the attic 
 rear, my dear, with the sweetest poor face, and, oh ! she got 
 into such a trouble ! nor the little book-case either from Miss 
 Crackle jaw herself, one Christmas-eve, with John G. Whit- 
 tier s poems a-standing all alone and looking such a com 
 fort ! Nor I had n t got this blessed stove in then that I 
 saved a year to run the pipe through, and to get the land 
 lady quite willing ; for anybody s temper would be wore a 
 little thin, my dear, with folks that did n t pay, to say noth 
 ing of the Loon. And make the best you might, my dear, 
 there is no comfort in the Loon. 
 
 So I was setting all alone, my dear, one night without a 
 light, and shivering over the gas stove, and moping by my- - 
 self, for I was out of work; and, setting there, I began 
 to think. All at once I began to seem to be setting in 
 the keeping-room at home with my little brother Li kim. 
 What I said about the drawin that you feel for folks, you 
 know, and you know how some drawin s is as much tighter 
 than other drawin s as is the difference between the sun 
 light and the moonlight, or between the fire and the freeze ! 
 I don t know how it was I can t talk much about it even, 
 after all but in all my life I never had such a drawin 
 of all that in you that makes you love and live for folks, 
 and be blessed when they re by you, and be wretched when 
 they ain t, and most of all that feelin that makes you glad 
 
208 NUMBER 13. 
 
 to do and suffer for em and spare em pain, and shelter of 
 em up as hens brood over their poor chicks, or like young 
 mothers cuddliu their first babies, as the feelin s that I had 
 for my little brother Li kim. What I thought of Peter 
 Doggett before he come to live with us come nighest to it ; 
 but it never, never was the same. 
 
 Li kim was a pretty boy, my dear, and his hair curled. I 
 used to curl it across my fingers for him every morning ; 
 and he brought his little lessons to me, and he always liked 
 to get by me, and he d rather I dgo up to hear his prayers. 
 And oh, my dear, from the night he left us till till long 
 afterward till this very living night I 11 own to you, 
 when I ve kneeled to say my own, there s never, never 
 been a night, not one, that I have n t said over " Now I lay 
 me " through for him, my dear, fearin he d grown too wild 
 and wayward to say it for himself. 
 
 But I ve wandered far from Miss Cracklejaw ; you must 
 excuse me. I have n t often spoke of Li kim not for 
 many years. He was the light of my eyes, my dear poor 
 boy ! just the living light of my young eyes. I used to 
 tell him so sometimes when we sat alone ; but then I did n t 
 even know what I was a-saying when I was a-saying that. 
 
 But when I was setting there that evening it all come 
 back, and all I could think of was that little fellow ; and the 
 strange old mystery of kith or kin, and how I was left bat- 
 tlin without it, come over me ; and how dreary the room 
 looked, and how cold it was, and I without a friend in all 
 that big drear house, and the tea-pot only lukewarm upon 
 the stove ! And I seemed to see my life go stretching out, 
 out, like an awful seam to which there is no end, and me 
 sitting taking stitches to shorten of it up, just so, pent up 
 alone with my tea-pot in that little room, and never a face 
 to kiss nor a hand to get hold of when your head aches like 
 to split, my dear, and never a voice to speak nor to talk 
 back to, and in all the wide, old world no speck of comfort 
 to your name, my dear. 
 
NUMBER 13. 209 
 
 Then all at once within the little lonely room I seemed 
 to see my little brother Li kim kneeling down to say his 
 prayers ; and I put down my tea-cup for it was dark, 
 and my eyes never very strong, and I often saw queer 
 things and I kneeled down where I seemed to see him 
 
 o 
 
 and went through " Now I lay me " by myself, till the tea 
 was cold. But I felt better for it, somehow, that I did, 
 my dear, and before I was off my knees Miss Cracklejaw 
 knocked sudden, and I jumped as if I d been struck in a 
 heap to let her in. 
 
 She wanted a little sewin done, she said, and would I 
 just step into her room and see if I could do it for her ? So 
 I went in with her, and we set down and began to talk 
 about the work. They was little things, my dear, a little 
 blanket, and a little shirt, and what not, and she d given out 
 on finishing em off, for she was n t very well ; and I was 
 sorry for her as we set and talked, for now and then the 
 tears come and trickled down, and she in a sadder way, 
 my dear, than she d ought to be, till I knew there was a 
 trouble on her mind ; " and at last, while we were talking, it 
 come over me, with a great stirring in my heart, to find 
 out what it was that wore on her, and be a comfort if I 
 could. So, though I was the third rear and a gas stove, I 
 up and says : 
 
 "Miss Cracklejaw, something worries you. I ma poor 
 woman, but your neighbor, and if ever I can do for you, just 
 let me know, and there I am ; for it s lonesome boardin 
 with your worries, as I know, my dear." 
 
 Well, she thanked me pretty enough very prettily for 
 a woman with such a stylish head of hair, and cried again, 
 and said she d see, and said there was a worry, and it broke 
 her heart. 
 
 Now it was that very night, my dear, I sittin in my dres- 
 sin -gownd to read my chapter, that I heard the noise out 
 side iny door, a stumblin , scrapin noise, and then a bangin 
 14 
 
210 NUMBER 13. 
 
 like the last trumpet up against my door, and I went to see, 
 for it was half after eleven o clock, and the hours in the 
 house are half past ten, excepting latch-keys to gentlemen 
 of good habits at eleven, and there, my dear, I come plump 
 on Major Crackle jaw, drunk as drunk. 
 
 His poor wife come out as I come out, in a pretty white 
 wrapper, with shirred pink merino up the front, you know, 
 and her hair all streaming and her face as white ! And we 
 helped him into bed together, he never knowin , and neither 
 of us spoke a word till it was done. Then says I, " I know 
 your worry now, Miss Cracklejaw, and Heaven help you ! " 
 
 And she says : " Oh, what shall I do ? what shall I do ? 
 It was so last week and the week before, and twice last 
 month, and some other times. And I Ve let him in quite 
 quiet, nobody knowin his disgrace ; for lie s a young man, 
 my husband is, and never was like this before, and promised 
 me he never, never would. But he s got into a bad set," 
 she says, and " he s troubled in his business " we had to 
 excuse so much in men, she said, on account of business 
 and now, when she was taken ill, oh ! who would let him in 
 at nights, and save the house from knowin of the shame ? 
 she says. And she was in such a taking as you never saw. 
 So of course I said I d let him in, my dear, and so I did. 
 And I let him in with a vengeance, I tell you ; for when it 
 happened twice, I gave him such a talkin to, she lying weak 
 and miser ble up-stairs, poor creetur, that, for very shame, 
 it was a fortnight before he dared to try it again, nay dear. 
 And I talked when he was sober, and I talked when he was 
 drunk, and I set up always till that man was in, as if he d 
 been a boy a dozen years old; and after the baby was born 
 he got ashamed of it, or else I made it too much trouble, 
 and he pulled through and come out all right, my dear ; 
 and such a grateful creetur, when I sat of evenings now and 
 then to help about the baby ! for she was a long time get 
 ting up. And never a soul but them two and myself knew 
 
NUMBER 13. 211 
 
 of his disgrace, my dear, for I never let on a word of it ; 
 and if they had n t been unknownst to you, and gone to 
 California besides, I would n t let on now. I don t know 
 why she took on so about it, as if I d done her some tre- 
 menjous favor. Any woman would have done it she d seen 
 fit to let. 
 
 Now when I saw that young thing well and spry, and 
 him as well-behaved as need be, and the baby with the 
 whooping-cough, and him so tender to it, and home of even 
 ings, I got such comfort in it as you d never guess. It was 
 most as good as having a husband and baby of your own, 
 without the bother or the blacking. And there was that 
 in the way them two looked at me, and the tones of their 
 voice when they spoke to me, my dear, forever after, that 
 made my scrimpy little room a sort of home to me if you 
 can understand the feelin even when I set alone. 
 
 And oh ! the tones, my dear, and oh ! the voices and the 
 looks these walls have seen, I don t know why ! And the 
 folks that have made this house a comfort to me, I don t 
 know how ! I think I got the most out of poor Miss Flynn 
 and Tommy Harkness for a while, though why they ever 
 should have come to me ! You see, it had been going on a 
 long while : she very young and pretty, and her mother 
 dead, and working in a dollar store all day ; and Tommy 
 Harkness, he was young and thoughtless, and he had the 
 second opposite, but he was in the retail grocery ; and I don t 
 suppose they thought of marrying. But she was lonesome, 
 and the boy was good-natured, and this had been goin on 
 for nigh two years, till, my dear, she was the talk of the 
 house. 
 
 One evening, up comes Miss Barker she s the land 
 lady, you know and says she, " I can t have this any 
 longer," says she ; " there s such goin s-on, and in her room 
 at reasonable and onreasonable hours, arid caught a kissin 
 of her a Tuesday last ! All my folks are talkin about it. 
 
212 NUMBER 13. 
 
 Maggie Flynn must suit herself with a less respectable 
 house," says Miss Barker. 
 
 Now, my dear, I was in that distress I could n t bear my 
 self for a half an hour, for I liked Miss Flynn, though very 
 imprudent ; but I cl as soon think evil of myself, my dear, 
 as of that child. And in she comes while I was turning of 
 it over, all her hair tumbled, and her eyes as red as the 
 Loon s herself, and wringing of her hands and wringing of 
 her hands. Oh ! what would ever become of her ? What 
 had she done ? What should she do ? And she clings to 
 me, and begs me to save her from such a shameful, awful 
 thing. In all the house, she said, I was the only friend she 
 had to tell. I don t know why, for more than taking in a 
 hot brick or so when she had an influenza, and watching for 
 a word, and wishing she d confide in me about the boy 
 for I d felt uneasy I d never done. 
 
 I think, my dear, that was the hardest three days work I 
 ever did, for it took three days to straighten of it out. And 
 such a time ! Miss Cracklejaw did most of that, though set 
 against the girl to start with. But we talked it over, and 
 we had Miss Barker up, and Miss Flynn, all red and cry 
 ing, and Tommy too ; and Miss Cracklejaw she said if we 
 could carry it out, she d invite me down to supper on Christ 
 mas evening for it was Christmas time. She d invited 
 me before, my dear ; but when it s only a dried herring arid 
 a cup of tea and a gas stove you can ask back to, you feel 
 a delicacy. So Miss Cracklejaw invited me to supper, and 
 Miss Barker, we prevailed upon her to say she d abide by 
 the decision of the house if it was laid before the house. 
 So then I goes to Tommy Harkness, and I says, " Thomas, 
 you and Maggie Flynn must be engaged to be married be 
 fore six o clock to-riight. And then, Thomas, you 11 have 
 to go across to old Miss Phipps s to board, and call on 
 Maggie in the parlor." 
 
 Says Thomas, groaning out between his hands, " Oh, is 
 
NUMBER 13. 213 
 
 it so bad as that ? Oh, I wish she d never seen me ! I 
 would n t have had this happeu, not for the worth of State 
 Street," say Tommy Harkness ; for he was fond of Maggie, 
 arid never meant to harm her. Then he holds up his head, 
 with his cheeks hot. " Maggie s a lady ! " says he, fast and 
 mad. " She s been a lady to me. It s I that was n t the 
 gentleman," says he, " for I ought to have thought of her. 
 Maggie is a good girl," says Tommy, mighty proud. Then 
 he melted down quite piteous, and cries, " I didn t think! I 
 didn t think ! And we have n t any thing to marry on, and 
 how could a fellow get engaged ? " 
 
 So I made quick work of Tommy Harkness, but it was 
 three blessed days before Miss Flynn would show her poor 
 face to any soul but me, or barely eat a morsel, and crying 
 her eyes out, my dear, till she was almost blind. But when 
 the Christmas come, I told Miss Crackle jaw I d accept her 
 invitation to supper, seeing it would run on forever if I 
 did n t take a step decided ; and I took her just as she was, 
 all pale and blinded with the tears, one hand in mine, and 
 Tommy Harkness with the other on his arm. My ! how 
 that boy did tremble ! And Miss Cracklejaw she was very 
 polite and pretty, and so I took my first tea, my dear, at 
 Miss Barker s table. 
 
 All the house was there, and the room as bright as bright. 
 And you never saw how the silver seemed to me to shine, 
 or the pleasant look about the cake-basket, my dear. And 
 I stood up before them all, and I says, for I knew them 
 mostly by that time. 
 
 " My friends," I says, " I ve come to ask you to congrat 
 ulate these two young people for being promised to each 
 other to be man and wife." I says it very solemn, most 
 like a marriage service, and the people s faces, though black 
 enough, my dear, took on a solemn look. " They re very 
 young," I further says, " without father or mother to guide 
 them or advise them very young," I says ; and when I 
 
214 NUMBER 13. 
 
 felt her poor hand shake in mine, there come that trem 
 bling in my voice I hardly could get out the words. " And I 
 think," says I, " that you 11 all agree with me as it s easier 
 in this world to do foolish things than prudent ones, and 
 sweeter to think well of folks than ill of folks, and nobler 
 to remember that we none of us ain t sure till we are in our 
 graves that the time may n t come we 11 need folks to be 
 lieve in us too against appearances, and to forgive us too the 
 little follies we may commit despite ourselves. My friends," 
 says I, " it s my belief no man nor no woman of us will 
 ever grow so old as to be sure we might n t make a blunder 
 and be sorry for it, and yet have hearts as innocent as two 
 yonng hearts I ve looked into and know all about. And so, 
 because it s the blessed Christmas time, in which we all love 
 to think kindly and believe much in one another, I m sure 
 you 11 join with me in the little supper of congratulation 
 I ve come down to take with you and my two dear young 
 friends to-night." 
 
 And, my dear, they did yes, they did. Even Miss 
 Barker she cleared up, and they helped Miss Flynn six 
 times to marmalade among em, and wished her merry 
 Christmas, and talked politics most beautiful, when she be 
 gan to cry afresh, to change the subject. And when that 
 supper was over, first I knew that whole tableful of folks, 
 they rose up, and Major Crackle jaw, says he : 
 
 " A hundred merry Christmases and three cheers for her 
 that has the Christmas soul among us ! " says Major Crack- 
 lejaw. And so, as I sat looking round, quite pleased and 
 happy, and wondering who it -was of whom the Major 
 thought that pretty thought, my dear, would you believe 
 it ? All those folks they got up and they cheered me ! ME ! 
 
 My dear, I like to have fell through the floor, not so 
 much because the Loon dropped the preserved ginger down 
 my neck that minute, as she truly did, and very cold I 
 found it for so hot a tasting thing, and my best alpaca too 
 
NUMBER 13. 215 
 
 but you can t scold a creetur with no more gumption 
 than that creetur has but because of the fright of it and 
 the surprise. But afterward, when I come to think it over, 
 there come such a comfort to it I could hardly close my eyes 
 that blessed night. 
 
 Ah, my dear, and so it s been this thing and been that ; 
 but I wish you d seen my poor Miss Goldenough before 
 the small-pox winter. Not so very pretty, but gentle and 
 well-looking, though I never can abide loops brought round 
 behind and puffed across the bustle. And when she was 
 taken down up there in that attic, and not a relative nigher 
 than Kentucky, when she come on to sing in the Beatoven 
 chorus, there was I, with a full week on Miss Jabez Smith- 
 son, for she was going to New York to make a little visit ; 
 and when Miss Barker come up all of a zeal about sending 
 of the poor creetur to the hospital, I says, " What shall I 
 do ? " Indeed I did ! But then I thought of being down 
 with small-pox in that attic, and no kith nor kin to stand 
 by you, and of the terror that she had about the hospital, 
 for she d often told me, and it was something of a cousin 
 that was neglected in one once, and died most horrible. And 
 I says, my dear, what has Heaven left me without own 
 folks for, if it ain t to be own folks to those that are simi 
 lar ? and I says : 
 
 " Miss Barker, let the poor thing stay, and shut us up 
 together in the attic, and the Loon will bring the meals and 
 my good-by to all the house," says I, " and tell no one to 
 come nigh us." 
 
 And so she did it, for she s a grateful creetur ; and ever 
 after not scolding her about the ginger, she was most will 
 ing/or a Loon: a little used to sharp words, I guess, for 
 most things. 
 
 So I stayed three weeks in that attic, and the doctor and 
 the Loon come every day at least the tips of her fingers 
 with the dishes and I never saw her eyes so blazin red 
 
216 NUMBER 13. 
 
 before nor since. And we did the best we could ; but one 
 night, Tuesday three week, as I was dropping into a 
 scrappy nap upon the comfortables I d laid upon the floor, 
 Helen Goldenough she called me in a ringing voice. 
 
 I spring, and am by her in a minute, and there she sits, 
 bolt-upright and awful, in the bed. Says she : 
 
 "Why, mother!" says she "why, mother, how good 
 of you to come ! " 
 
 My dear, she took me for her mother ; and when I saw 
 the change upon her, I can t tell you the solemn feelings of 
 my heart to hear that word. 
 
 But they wern t as solemn as the feelings that I had a 
 minute after, when that poor thing did what she did. My 
 dear, upon my living word, she rose upon her knees and 
 folded of her hands and begun to say her prayers to me. 
 I m most afraid to tell you what she said. Says she : 
 
 " Our mother who art in heaven ! " that s what she says 
 " our mother who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name ! " 
 says Helen Goldenough. And then, whether she took me 
 for mother on earth or mother in heaven I can t say, not 
 knowin , but she puts her poor hands about my neck, for 
 I would n t have deceived her not to move an eyelash if 
 I d died for it that minute ; and, my dear, I was so much 
 own folks to her, and whether those of earth or heaven 
 does n t matter as I know, that she fell into my arms, all 
 dreadful as she was, and there,, she died. 
 
 Her mother did come on two days after, and I told her 
 how it was. I don t think, if I d live to the next Centen 
 nial and the ballots, I d forget that woman s look nor the 
 words she said to me. I can t tell them to you, my dear, 
 for they were far, far above my best deserving ; and she 
 gave the Loon a dollar bill, and slept with me and cried 
 upon my neck till she went home. 
 
 No, I never had it, after all ; only three days touch of 
 varyloid, that the Loon brought the meals to, and Miss 
 
NUMBER 13. 217 
 
 Cracklejaw she sent up grapes ; and after you have found 
 out it is n t it, my dear, it ain t so bad to be alone. First 
 two days 1 did n t know, and I thought a great deal about 
 my little brother Li kim, and of bein glad I had no own 
 folks, after all, to take into mortal danger for my sake, till 
 there fairly was a comfort in it, don t you see ? 
 
 And now, my dear, if I had time to tell you about Mr. 
 Hopkinson and his broken arm, or about Miss M Henry 
 Dumps s baby, or about that matter in the first floor rear, 
 or about Miss Barker herself and the invitation down to 
 dinner, or a thousand thousand things that took place to 
 bless me ! but I see you re getting tired, and if I m going 
 to tell a story all about myself, I must tell it I suppose, 
 and you 11 excuse me for the impoliteness, and I 11 make 
 it short as possible. 
 
 But, oh ! I wish you d seen the attic rear poor thing of 
 which I spoke. Mercy Maynard was her name, and sales 
 woman in a fancy store, and a little wild and fond of dress, 
 but a modest woman, in spite of him, my dear; for he 
 owned the store, and he kept the wages down on purpose. 
 And she used to come of evenings, and set on that cricket 
 at my feet, and tell me ; and it was a cursed story, that it 
 was, my dear may I be forgiven for a little swearing 
 when I think of him ! and often and often it happens in 
 this town to them poor girls. And there was a time I 
 thought I d lost her, for I d talked till I. was wore out, and 
 she got as wild as wild with desperation, not knowing any 
 place to go to ; and poor girls must earn their bread, my 
 dear, in spite of cursed men. And it was n t much to do, 
 I m sure, but all I could ; so I persuaded her and I begged 
 her till she came. Says I : " Just quit, and stop with me a 
 while, and help me at my work, till you find more, two in 
 a room being nigh half as much a week, and two to a tea 
 pot nothing more to speak of, and twice the comfort," as 
 was true, my dear. And so she come and stayed till Mr. 
 
218 NUMBER 13. 
 
 M Henry Dumps he found her something in a corset store 
 that a woman owned it, and only peace and women all 
 around her. I was a little short of work just then, it s 
 true ; but, bless you ! somehow we seemed to get along. 
 I ve often thought of a thing she said one night, and strok 
 ing of my hair in a little way she had. " You poor old 
 dear ! " says she. " You love your boardiri -house neighbor 
 as yourself," says she. I m just so mean, my dear, I sup 
 pose I did for her twice as happily for hearing that. Tt s 
 the very Alderney cream of comfort when folks think 
 kinder of you than you deserve. 
 
 But it was about this time there come slowly growin on 
 me that trouble and that terror that drove all other folks 
 troubles half out my crazy, selfish heart. 
 
 It come slowly, and yet it come sudden too. I 11 put it 
 in few words now if I can, for there s nothing in it worth 
 the telling to make a fuss about. 
 
 It was about my eyes, my dear never very strong, and 
 sewing so constant, and perhaps a little with watching with 
 Miss Barker when she had the fever ; but, first I knew, 
 the black work had to lay by till morning; and then it 
 couldn t be black work at all ; and then I noticed that the 
 sewing in the evening had to slip ; and sudden, one after 
 noon, as I sat hurrying to get the narrow velvet on Miss 
 M Henry Dumps s polonaise, there come to me a dreadful 
 thing. 
 
 My dear, I could n t thread my needle. 
 
 Thinkin to mercy it might be a headache, I let it go 
 till next day, and the next ; and when it got no different, 
 I put my bonnet on and went out, sayin nothing to no 
 body, and asked the doctor. 
 
 My dear, I think I know how folks feel when they jump 
 into rivers in their night-gownds, and swallow poison (which 
 must be a most unpleasant manner to select), and even a 
 pistol or a razor any dreadful, desperate, wild, mad way 
 
NUMBER 13. 219 
 
 that you can think of of getting rid of the life the Lord 
 has laid upon your breaking shoulders. When he told me 
 it was cataract, and very doubtful, but they would try it 
 at the hospital if I could get in, I never even said a Thank 
 you, Sir. I tied on my bonnet and come home, and I 
 crawled up stairs to my little room my precious little 
 room, my dear, where it was n t the dyin light that made 
 things look so dim and strange to me and down I sat 
 and locked the door, and there I stayed. 
 
 I can t tell you how long it was maybe till next 
 evening, maybe days and more ; I never could exactly tell. 
 Folks come and come. I sent them all away. They 
 knocked and questioned, but I turned em off. I had to 
 turn it over in my mind alone. 
 
 I turned it over in a curious way. I seemed to see my 
 self a-setting there, much as I d seen Li kim on his knees 
 beside the bed, distinct a miserable woman, half dazed 
 and crazed. I seemed to set and talk about myself as if I d 
 been one, of the poor creeturs in some other room I d gone 
 to do for. And as I set, I talked like this : 
 
 " Dependent on her needle. Poor. A woman. Living 
 by herself. Beginning to grow old. No ftome. No folks. 
 And growing blind. Oh, poor thing ! " 
 
 Then I d have it over a little different : 
 
 " Growing blind. No home. No folks. Poor. Liv 
 ing all alone. A woman. Takes in sewing for a living. 
 How sorry I am for her ! " 
 
 Then I d try it once again : 
 
 " An old woman. Took in sewing for a living. Long gone 
 blind. No home. No folks. Sent her to the poor-house. 
 There she sits. Stone-blind. May live to be eighty. Poor 
 thing ! What can I do for her ? Oh, what can I do ? " 
 
 It was when this had been going on a while that, sudden, 
 as I sat there, Helen Goldenough, that was dead and bur 
 ied, come walking up across the room to my poor eyes that 
 
220 NUMBER 13. 
 
 saw all things so queer. And she took me by the hand, 
 and down she pushed me gently on my knees. And I saw 
 her kneel beside me, and seem to take my hands and lift 
 em up so ! And I saw her talking so ! And, my 
 dear, she says : 
 
 " Our mother who art in heaven" and seems to wait 
 for me to say it after. And after thinkin of it a little 
 while, I says : 
 
 " Our Father and mother who art in heaven," and then I 
 stopped. I felt easier, my dear I truly did. I sensed it, 
 as we used to say to home, that there was another kith and 
 kin than that I had n t got, and lovin er own folks than the 
 own folks I had lost, and I felt ashamed, my dear I was 
 ashamed to have forgot it, for I was brought up religious 
 always, though never quite settled in my mind on justifica 
 tion by faith and the election doctrine, with a leanin to im 
 mersion, I will confess. 
 
 So when I d said those words, and Helen Goldenough 
 she d seemed to go, I let in Maggie Flynn, most uneasy and 
 crying at the door, and told her all about it. 
 
 My dear, it was just three days since the people in the 
 house had known, and I never, never was. deservin of it, 
 when up it come ! I sitting all forlorn and at my wits end 
 in the dark, and the Loon one mortal grin I don t, indeed, 
 believe no other creetur could, unless the bird itself. And 
 in she brought the round robin on a stone-china plate, with 
 a red doyley and two apples. Miss Barker s compliments 
 and the house s love, she says ; and they begs you to accept, 
 she says. 
 
 I 11 get you the paper, my dear, and let you read it for 
 yourself. Rather not ? Well, I will try ; but it always 
 makes my voice a little shaky, and Mr. Hopkinson, I think 
 it must have been,, that drew it, for he s a school-teacher, 
 my dear ; and never was there a mortal thing but helping 
 when the arm was set, and now and then a stockin or so ; 
 he d got no women-folks to do for him. 
 
NUMBER 13. 
 
 " Miss Barker s boarders " (it begins) " Miss Bar 
 ker s boarders beg leave to send their profound sympathy 
 and sorrow to Number 13, in the unexpected trial that has 
 fallen on that room. And in token of their grateful remem 
 brance of unnumbered large and little kindnesses " (my 
 dear, those are the very words, though blush I do to say it) 
 " of unnumbered large and little kindnesses that they, 
 Miss Barker s boarders, have received from the occupant of 
 that room in this and other times, and in memory of her 
 endeavors to bring the spirit of a home among so many 
 homeless people, and of their great indebtedness to her for 
 much neighborly, unselfish service, offered in a sweet and 
 modest manner peculiar to herself, Miss Barker s boarders 
 hereby request her to favor them by accepting the inclosed 
 trifle, hoping it may help to defray the expenses of that 
 affliction which it has pleased Heaven mysteriously to send 
 upon her, and wishing it might testify one half of both the sad 
 ness and the hope that is felt throughout this house for her. 
 
 " (Signed) : M Henry Dumps, Althea Dumps, E. G. 
 Hopkinson, Maggie Flynn, T. Harkness, John Cracklejaw, 
 May Cracklejaw, O. L. Smith, P. Jones, Susannah G. 
 Thrasher, Caleb Thrasher, Mercy Maynard, E. P. Green, 
 Sarah Barker, Elizabeth Tudor, Mary Ann Shamway." 
 
 And, my dear, it was eighty-five dollars and forty -two 
 cents. 
 
 But I never would have thought the forty -two cents of 
 them two girls ; and Mary Ann Shamway s neuralgy, I 
 never could help her much, poor thing, do or not do ; and 
 before I could get it into my head that Elizabeth Tudor was 
 the Loon ! To say nothing of Miss Barker s receipt for 
 three months rent, my dear. And those strange gentlemen, 
 that more than a civil " Pleasant morning, sir ! " never did 
 I have the pleasure. 
 
 And so I went to the hospital, my pretty, quite brave and 
 
222 NUMBER 13. 
 
 happy. And a paid bed is a comfort, my dear, if go you must. 
 And for all the courage and all the happiness that bore me 
 through, like wings, I have to thank their generous way of 
 saying so. For, oh ! there s no tonic and no ether to bear 
 pain and weakness on like joy, my dear ; and the feeling 
 that you re cared for and thought kindly of, comes nighest 
 to the name of joy of any that I know. 
 
 So I left my little room, my dear, saying good-by to all 
 the things, to wonder if I d ever see them more ; the Tur 
 key-red valance, and the tea-pot, and the cricket in especial, 
 and Mercy Maynard s ivy growing in the bottle over there. 
 Eyes looked out of them plain and scrimpy things, my dear, 
 to my eyes, and voices spoke from them to answer me, and 
 grace and blessin s seemed to stand in em and reach to me, 
 and seem to say : 
 
 " Goin to the hospital. Goin to be cured. Pretty well 
 off. Hosts of friends. And a round robin. Need n t worry. 
 Coming back to us. Not so much a happy woman as a 
 quiet. Plenty of folks. Our Father and our mother who 
 art " 
 
 And then I shut the door, my dear, and, as I told you, 
 went and bore it through. 
 
 Well ! well ! well ! it was, oh ! the loveliest spring night, 
 my dear, when I come home. And, oh ! so much beyond 
 my grumpiness and deserving when first they told me all 
 was going well. Never did I half believe nor understand it 
 till the very night they drove me home. It was of an April 
 evening, and the grass was springing greenish here and there 
 in spots upon the Common, and pleasant to the eyes, if 
 weak, my dear, in driving by. And the same I thought 
 with the dyin light, a pink and gentle one, and many thin, 
 high clouds. So many little boys a-whistling in the street, 
 and standin on their heads to scare the wits of you, I never 
 saw. And I counted twenty little girls a-laughing, happy 
 
NUMBER 13. 223 
 
 as the angels, between that hospital and home. And warm, 
 too ; and so mild ! One of the hospital doctors he come 
 with me, for they were kind as kind, and him and the driver 
 they got me out the carriage as if I d been the Queen. 
 
 My dear, for all the fits of blues and undeserving may I 
 hope to be forgiven ! But I was kind of hustled into the 
 parlors, and in a sort of soft, low light, and very thoughtful 
 of my eyes in em, all smilin to their eyebrows, there stood 
 the house the whole of em, all in a row, my dear, to 
 greet me home, they said. And up they come, and like to 
 been the end of me, and Susannah Greenwich too. Some 
 they shook my hands and some they kissed me, but they 
 were women, only poor old Mr. Hopkinson, that you must 
 excuse ; and some they cried and some they laughed, and 
 Miss Barker in the middle, with a tea-table spread out, and 
 a little speech, with ice-cream that the Loon she tripped and 
 stuck her elbow through ; but if you did n t happen to see 
 it, it tasted just as well. 
 
 But there was a strange gentleman among em that I d 
 never seen; and he did n t come to shake hands quite nat 
 ural with the rest, not ever having had the pleasure ; but he 
 stood apart, a little sober ; and Mary Ann Sham way, with 
 her poor head tied up, she said it was his way, and there 
 about a fortnight, and a little sickly, when I went to kiss 
 the Dumpses baby. I in a little bashful with strange gen 
 tlemen, and though he kinder looked at me, I did n t trouble 
 with him not to notice him particular ; and the doctor said 
 too much excitement and the pleasure would n t do, for he 
 stayed to the ice-cream, as Miss Barker invited him most 
 prettily ; and 1 thought the Loon would be the death of 
 him, in spite of tryin to be most polite and handin Mercy 
 Maynard out. 
 
 So by and by I creep up softly to my own old little room, 
 not to disturb their pleasure, and unbeknownst to most. 
 
 There it was, niy dear, And the pretty shade against the 
 
224 NUMBER 13. 
 
 gas, and a pink geranium in the window, with Mercy May- 
 nard s love, and the towel rack from Maggie Flynn ; and I 
 never did know who put the English breakfast tea into the 
 tea-caddy, but, by the spillin round, I knew it was the Loon 
 that tried to set the tea-pot boilin ready. And as for that 
 chromio upon the wall, I suspect Miss Cracklejaw, but never 
 did I know ; nor the five roses and smilax, with a bit of 
 heliotrope, upon the table, and the little vase. 
 
 It was n t till next mornin that I found the note upon 
 the bureau from Aunt Hannah, sayin how she d but just 
 heard of my condition, and that Peter he had married Sarah 
 Amelia Bolingbroke her that was Miss Patterson before 
 her first an excellent woman, but fully equal to it if there 
 was any snappin of you up, and havin had her hand in once 
 besides. And she said would I come on and make a visit, 
 by-gones bein by-gones, and her health but poorly ? 
 
 That was n t till next mornin , as I tell you. And, oh ! 
 my dear, as I set down alone, so grateful and so happy, no 
 cur that runs is meaner than was I to take exception to my 
 lot. But after all their kindness, they was n t own folks, 
 was they ? And across my feelings there ran a little chilly 
 longing, something as if your soul had taken cold. I could n t 
 get my little brother Li kim out of my head, do what I 
 could. And all his little ways come up to me, and the feel 
 of his fingers, don t you know, and wonderin what it would 
 be like if he had grown like other folks brothers, faithful 
 and considerate, and been by me through my troubles, and 
 been there to set down in your pretty room and call you by 
 your Christian name you d most forgotten, being mostly 
 Miss in that great house. 
 
 And as I set, I seemed to see him, though fainter than it 
 was before the operation, kneeling by the bed. But the 
 most peculiar prayer, my dear ! Like this : 
 
 " Cured. Come home. Every body glad to see her. 
 Better blessed than she deserves. Grumblin over what she 
 
NUMBER 13. 225 
 
 has n t got. Ought to be ashamed. Got a cataract upon 
 her heart. Ought to have it operated on. Hopeless case." 
 
 It was then, my dear, that there come a knock upon the 
 door, and up I jumps to wipe the mean, ungrateful tears and 
 let it in. 
 
 My dear, it was a gentleman the strange gentleman I 
 saw lookiii at me now and then down-stairs. 
 
 Says I, " Sir, most happy, if I had the honor, but the 
 wrong room, perhaps," says I. 
 
 Says he, " No ; the right room the right room, I am 
 sure, thank God ! " says he. 
 
 For something in his voice, I don t know what, I began 
 to tremble very sudden ; and for something in his way, I 
 can t explain, I thought I should have lost my wits. And 
 there was that drawin drew me to that unknown man I 
 can t begin to tell you till up he steps and shuts the door. 
 And, oh ! my pretty, I see it in your eyes you under 
 stand it all ! 
 
 He never was a boy of many words, my dear, and all he 
 says was this : 
 
 " If your little brother Li kim come back, sick and sorry, 
 would you care to live with him ? " says he. " I can go 
 away again," says he, " if you think you d rather not." 
 
 And, oh, the way the stars shone through the window 
 hours and hours ! And the people laughing down below as 
 if all the world had got its own folks back, my dear ! And 
 the tea-pot that the Loon had spilled, it bubbled up and 
 bubbled up, and the flowers on the table, and all the dear 
 old things set looking on. And like a little child that 
 hears a fairy tale I set and heard em say : 
 
 " Happy woman ! No cataract. Cured ! cured ! cured ! 
 The light of her eyes has come back ! Oh, happy, undeserving 
 blessed woman ! Cured ! cured ! cured ! " 
 
 And if you think I asked him many questions to pry into 
 15 
 
226 NUMBER 13. 
 
 his poor past life, my dear, you re wrong, that s all. And 
 if folks tell you how he s ailing and works irregular and 
 a burden, never do you listen to em not a word of that, 
 my dear, for the tenderest and the lovin est, there never 
 was a brother more so. 
 
 And up the Loon comes, when the people wondered, and 
 Miss Barker red and white, for there sat I in his lap a sight 
 to see. 
 
 " If it had been a physician," says Miss Barker, " at such 
 hours, or even a clergyman, if in spiritual need. But even 
 if it was and he told me he was flour and grain such a 
 state of things is most unnecessary, and I never would have 
 thought it of you if I died ! " says Miss Barker, mad as 
 mad. 
 
 So when I tell her, like to die of laughing, down we go. 
 And all the house is there, and Mercy Maynard in pink 
 ribbons, and the gas as bright ! And away at the other end 
 I could see the Loon a-siugeiii her hair against it while I 
 spoke. And I went in upon his arm, and says, for Miss 
 Barker d let a whisper of it round : 
 
 " Dear friends, you ve come to wish me joy on my great 
 happiness to-night, and I thank you kindly. There are 
 eyes of the body," says I, " and eyes of the soul, and there s 
 blindness comes to both, and cures sometimes. And the 
 light of the eyes of my body and the light of the eyes of my 
 soul have come back both at once : and may yours be as 
 bright forever, and bless you all ! " says I. 
 
TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 
 
 THE town of Telephone is ten miles from Boston. It is 
 comfortably situated on the Breakwater Branch of the Hap 
 piness and Energy Railroad, whose trains leave the Boston 
 and Mexico Depot at all inconvenient hours of the day and 
 evening, reaching Telephone when they feel like it, and de 
 parting at the same time, the half or even the whole of a 
 minute in advance of their time-tables being looked upon, 
 perhaps, by the corporation as a delicate atonement for 
 avoidable delays in arrival, and as tending in the long run 
 to exhibit the law of compensation and the equality of 
 things. 
 
 No one was ever heard, however, to criticise the railway 
 communication of Telephone with the outer world except 
 the house-hunters ; and as this long-suffering class of society 
 formed the larger part of the passengers, naturally little at 
 tention was paid to their preferences. 
 
 So at least a man was thinking, somewhat sulkily, one 
 bitter day last November, as having lost his dinner, 
 gained a sore throat, and paid Telephone s most aspiring 
 price for carriage hire to prospect the town in forty-five 
 minutes, and find a home for a lifetime before the two o clock 
 train went he found himself gaping at the empty track, 
 whose conscious rails trembled yet with the thrill of de 
 parted force. He had not only lost his train ; he had failed 
 to find his house. Any under-graduate in human experience 
 will comprehend how heavily the annoyance of the one cir 
 cumstance, was heightened by the existence of the other. 
 
228 TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 
 
 "Didn t lose the train, did you now?" The station- 
 mistress said this. She spoke in a tone of cautious sym 
 pathy, not unlike that with which we approach the thresh 
 old where we are uncertain whether death has recently 
 preceded us. 
 
 She came out from her little " parlor " into the deserted 
 waiting-room. Beyond the swinging and uncertain door one 
 could perceive the colors of a very modern carpet, a paper 
 dado, German ivies, an air-tight stove, decorated blacking 
 bottles, a child framing chromos in colored straws, a girl in 
 a pullback and imitation lace frill thrumming polkas at a 
 piano with its legs in calico pantaloons, rag mats, a cat, and 
 the odors of beefsteak and doughnuts. As the woman 
 stood in the doorway a baby crawled after her, pushing 
 aside her flounced alpaca skirts, and from beneath them 
 regarded the passenger with the marble calm peculiar to a 
 child of the railway, to whom men, machinery, and other 
 sources of disturbance are as unimportant as a daily lul 
 laby. 
 
 The mother s ankle, which the -child first generously re 
 vealed, and then obligingly called attention to by clasping 
 it with one hand and pounding it with the other in a par 
 ticularly absent-minded way the mother s ankle was in 
 cased in a shapely Balbriggan stocking of striped red and 
 white, which lost itself in the outline of a well-fitting " New 
 port tie." 
 
 " Beg pardon, madam ? " ,said the passenger. He was 
 wondering if he had sworn a little about the train. He did 
 not know that there were women about. What a consum 
 mately American scene it was in there behind that self- 
 conscious, superior, jealous door ! Comfortable enough, 
 too. They had a right to feel superior, these people with 
 houses. He would have accepted five rooms in a railway 
 station himself then, not ungratefully. It might well be 
 jealous, the door that creaked guard upon the blacking bot 
 tles and the kitten and the baby. 
 
TWO HUNDEED AND TWO. 229 
 
 He felt to the full at that moment the indefinable, eternal 
 aristocracy of home, wondering if he had ever felt it before. 
 She might put her piano in calico trousers to the end of her 
 days, this high-cheeked woman; but she did not invite 
 strange gentlemen into the room where her little daughter 
 sat practicing in the pull-back and the frill. 
 
 " I m sorry you lost it," pursued the station-mistress, 
 with some vain effort to disunite the baby and the Balbrig- 
 gan stocking ; " and your dinner too, I 11 dare say ? Next 
 one goes at quarter to five. Hope you ll set down and 
 make yerself as comfortable as you can. I 11 turn on the 
 draught a mite ; it s growing cold. There ! There s a lady 
 I ve got to speak to. She left a bundle of salary here. 
 They most always leave something pocket-books and 
 parasols and arctics ; we have one man always leave sassin- 
 gers. They come from Boston dead beat out, and so they 
 drop things butter, and silk dresses, and no end of neck 
 ties and that. I 11 wait till she gits along. It seemed a 
 pity to have her salary spile. She can t afford salary none 
 too often." 
 
 " It is cold, as you say," suggested the passenger, idly, 
 " and the mud is not yet frozen stiff. Allow me ; I will 
 hand the package to the lady. Oblige me by staying in 
 doors with the baby as you should," he added, with un 
 conscious autocracy. It seemed to him unnatural that a 
 woman with a baby should go out-of-doors. It usually did, 
 he thought, but he had never, perhaps, recognized this es 
 sentially masculine train of logic in himself before. She 
 should sit down, in the clean red and white striped stock 
 ings, under the German ivies, and watch those patient 
 frames go fitting themselves under impatient little fingers, 
 colored straw to colored straw. 
 
 It was not until he got out into the keen air that he re 
 membered how much beefsteak and doughnuts this pictur 
 esque course of action involved breathing. 
 
230 TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 
 
 This lady now who had lost her " salary " As he ex 
 plained his errand in a word, standing before her with lifted 
 hat, he caught himself wondering incoherently whether she 
 liked it, facing the full east wind. She stood with her face 
 to the marshes, beyond whose pale gray tides the other tides 
 of the sea could be neither seen nor heard. Yet the air 
 was salt with them ; he could taste them with his dinner- 
 less lips. But the lady was protected with a veil of heavily 
 figured, old-fashioned lace ; perhaps she did not taste the 
 salt. At all events, she had her celery, probably her dinner 
 too, and a house. 
 
 The passenger put on his hat again and dreamily returned 
 to the station. As the celery lady walked on, with rather a 
 bounding step for a woman who could have been no longer 
 in her first youth (he should judge by the gravity of her 
 dress and the repose of her carriage), he bluntly wished he 
 had some more women to think about before five o clock. 
 Probably the station-mistress had shut her Balbriggan stock 
 ings away with the piano legs by this time. He had a great 
 mind to knock, and ask her to let the cat come out and stay 
 with him. Not the baby. He would n t ask for the baby. 
 It would probably attack the hem of his pantaloons to hunt 
 for striped stockings and his were a pale gray. Then it 
 would be disappointed, and perhaps cry. Besides, he was 
 muddy. 
 
 But the baby was already there before him ; the mother 
 held it deftly under one arm while she poked the fire in the 
 sad cylinder stove with a cheerful muscle. 
 
 " How large is this metropolis ? " asked the passenger, 
 abruptly, coming to warm his hands before the burning 
 heart of the coals, which acquired a preternatural homelike- 
 ness from the fact that it was the only spot of comfort or 
 of color in the bare room ; it was clean, though, that room : 
 they always were when your station-master was a woman. 
 
 " Sir ? " 
 
TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 231 
 
 " How many people are there in this town ? " 
 
 " Two thousand." 
 
 " How old is it ? " 
 
 " Two years." 
 
 " Two years ! And all these houses ? " 
 
 " There ain t a house in this town, sir, hain t been built 
 within two years only one." 
 
 " And how old, pray, is that ? " 
 
 " Two hundred." 
 
 " This is not a common state of things/ said the passen 
 ger, after a pause. 
 
 " We would n t have that," pursued the station-mistress, 
 in the regretful tone of one who is explaining away a blem 
 ish on a friend s character, " but for the b und ry line." 
 
 " The what kind of line ? " 
 
 " Well, yes. When they laid us out they cut the b und ry 
 line acrost Palestine, and cut this lady right through ; and 
 so we hed to take her. And that s how she happens to be 
 so old ; for Palestine is full of that kind of folks, and the 
 rest of us so young, sir. There s three first-rate chances up 
 that way two sales and one rent, besides a barn and 
 not too near the steam-shovel." 
 
 " The steam-shovel ?" echoed the passenger. 
 
 " Why, yes," said the station-mistress, closing the stove 
 door with a snap of superior intelligence. " Don t you 
 know ? They use it for building the aqueduct, and for 
 gravel trains, and all those things. Folks don t always like 
 it, because it shovels all night. Some take it to heart so, 
 they move away. But you hev to pay higher as you get 
 off from it. There s a good many things to consider in buy 
 ing house lots in Telephone." 
 
 " So it seems," said the passenger. " I think I 11 run out, 
 if I ve got three hours to wait, and look at those places op 
 posite the house from Palestine. I surely have seen none 
 such." 
 
232 TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 
 
 " I would if I was you," said the station-mistress. She 
 seemed to have changed her mind about something she was 
 going to say to the passenger, speaking with a slight re 
 serve, as to a possible neighbor of whom one knew nothing. 
 She gathered the baby into her neck and turned away. 
 She shut the door upon her sacred little daughter and the 
 pull-back and the polka. 
 
 She was at home, thought the passenger, as he turned out 
 into the now fast-rising wind, and smacked his hungry lips 
 again, to taste the salt from the unseen sea. 
 
 Miss Vesta Rollinstall came and looked at the clouds with 
 a gentle sigh. Standing in the street below, one could 
 almost have seen her sigh. She was not a sighing woman, 
 either. Her wooden house was gray, but not with paint ; 
 gray, too, was the sleeve of her cashmere dress which thrust 
 the gray blind back, and held an ashes-of-roses curtain half 
 drawn, as if reluctant to shut out the bleached grass in the 
 front yard, the black trunks and branches of the few and 
 faithful elms that the " b und ry line " had left her, the col 
 orless gravel heaps in the empty corner lot, the dull outline 
 of the aqueduct, the gray paint (mixed with kerosene) of 
 the opposite empty house, and the grayer hue of the bend 
 ing and more empty heavens. She was reluctant. She 
 stood longer than usual on these pallid November nights 
 taking her last look at the outer world, dreading to light 
 the old lamps which had not yet yielded the field to that 
 puffy and expensive suburban gas ; slow to acknowledge 
 that night had come ; unready to admit by this mute leave- 
 taking of her neighbors that it was time to turn the old-fash 
 ioned bolt in the uneven front door, and to know that there 
 would be no occasion to open it again till she peered out, 
 shivering in her dressing-gown, at six o clock next morning, 
 to pull in the little pint can that the milk-man would leave 
 at three. 
 
TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 233 
 
 She did not even keep a dog. The Rollinstalls never 
 had. 
 
 The Rollinstalls, it is needless to say, were a very old 
 family ; none older in Palestine. Miss Vesta prided her 
 self upon being too good an American to remember this 
 fact and accordingly seldom forgot it. She had acceded 
 cheerfully to the geographical and political fate which had 
 expatriated her into this truly representative American com 
 munity with the absurd name and the absurder aspirations, 
 feeling it to be her duty ; parted even with the ancestral elms 
 and the apple orchard, to make way for the Happiness and 
 Energy Railroad, without an audible groan. Many of her 
 Palestine friends had moved to town ; Miss Vesta some 
 times wondered why. Now and then they came out to 
 lunch with her. Others had died ; for Miss Vesta was no 
 longer young. Some had married, which amounted to the 
 same thing. Miss Vesta lived very much alone. As years 
 went on she sometimes felt as if that " b und ry line," in 
 visible, intangible, unassailable thing as it was, had, in deed 
 and truth, cut her off from her old familiar life into this 
 new and unnatural one, in which she felt herself as sol 
 itary among the bustling young couples who gossiped and 
 laughed and trusted their way along, with unpaid debts and 
 uncounted babies, as the gambrel-roofed, unpainted house 
 itself, set wistfully down among its pert and peaked neigh 
 bors. 
 
 In pleasant weather she had a theory that she did not 
 think about these things. But when it was stormy, as to 
 night, she could not deny that she hated it all yes, all ; 
 the whole new, shiny, vulgar sight ; the little square lots 
 with the turned-up turf, in which no tree nor shrub had 
 found a shelter, not even a make-shift of an arbor-vitas, 
 fresh from the nursery, and tied shivering to a stake, like a 
 baby learning to walk in a baby-jumper ; where the human 
 babies played about in the mud, while their fathers painted 
 
234 TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 
 
 the fences and put on silver door-plates, and their mothers 
 wore trailing calico wrappers on week-days and velveteen 
 suits on Sundays, and kept the blinds of the parlor shut. 
 She hated the rows of cheap houses, all alike ; she hated the 
 signs put out, " For Sale," or " To Let ; " the shabby paint 
 peeling off; the smell of the concrete sidewalks; the bar 
 barous steam-shovel ; the gangs of laborers putting water 
 works into streets whose existence she had not heard of a 
 month ago ; the lines of lank men pouring every day to and 
 from the business trains ; the serenity of their uncultivated 
 and unthoughtful faces : why, the half of them were mort 
 gaged over the depth of soul and body for those square little 
 showy homes of theirs ! 
 
 Miss Vesta felt very lonely whenever she began to hate 
 anything. So now, as she stood reluctantly clinging to the 
 ashes-of-roses curtains, casting her eyes up and down the 
 empty streets, they slowly darkened and blurred ; one quiet 
 tear rolled and fell upon her gray dress. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said Miss Vesta, with a start. " Salt spoils 
 cashmere ! " and she went for the hartshorn bottle to rub 
 off the spot. Miss Vesta did not often cry. 
 
 When she came back, resolutely this time, to draw the 
 curtain close, she saw, across the gloom of the rapidly -dark 
 ening street, and through the drizzle of the rain which now 
 fell steadily, that lights were astir in the opposite house. 
 She stood for a minute looking over. It was Mr. Jobbs, 
 with tenants possible, or perhaps even actual. It often hap 
 pened. She was used to it rather liked to see it. Of all 
 these people who came out house-hunting on the afternoon 
 trains, Jobbs would decoy one some day to sign the lease of 
 his leaky house ; the family would have the rheumatism, 
 but she would have neighbors. Possibly who knew ? 
 pleasant neighbors like the dear old lady Church who had 
 pneumonia there last year; or the young Pettiwinkles, 
 with the very clean baby, on the corner ; or even the Pur- 
 
TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 235 
 
 chases, whom she liked so much when she helped them 
 through with the scarlet fever ; or the Adamses, who sub 
 scribed to her mission Sunday-school. 
 
 It was noticeable how perceptibly Miss Vesta s opinion 
 of Telephone rose as she stood looking at the cheerful flicker 
 of Mr. Jobbs s kerosene lamp from empty room to empty 
 room across there in the dusk, and the broken outline of 
 the shadows that the two men made, seen through the un 
 curtained windows as Jobbs threw back the blinds. The 
 Jobbs shadow was short, square, and familiar. The tenant 
 shadow was tall and strange, yet, after the moment s glance, 
 seemed not unfamiliar either. This struck Miss Vesta pleas 
 antly as she drew her curtain in good faith at last, shrinking 
 suddenly back, as if she had herself been visible behind the 
 small green panes of her old window. Perhaps he would 
 be a gentlemanly person with a nice wife. Miss Vesta felt 
 starved sometimes for a woman a woman one would care 
 to see, perhaps, twice a week. In Palestine how she and 
 Susy Hemlock used to " run in " every day ! There seemed 
 no place to " run in " to in Telephone. And Susy was dead. 
 And it was time to light the astral lamp and the kitchen 
 lamp, and to put on the kettle. She must wash the celery 
 too, which would not keep till to-morrow. 
 
 It was scarcely a Palestine custom, eating celery for sup 
 per. Miss Vesta crushed it delicately and doubtfully. She 
 liked to do things as she was brought up to do them. She 
 washed her solitary tea-cup and her two silver spoons and 
 her lonely goblet daintily by themselves in the Dresden 
 bowl upon the table, just as she used to do when she " kept 
 help," before her Michigan Central stock went down and 
 she had no one to tell her that it was time to sell. After 
 she had wiped the silver and glass with delicate fingers upon 
 a fine old red and blue fruit doyley by the light of the astral, 
 she went into the kitchen, turned up her sleeves, turned up 
 her dress, put on an apron, and " did " the rest of the dishes 
 by the little brass kitchen lamp. 
 
236 TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 
 
 After this she turned down her sleeves, with darned 
 Valenciennes at the wrist, turned down the skirt of the 
 cashmere (which had been her " afternoon dress " for seven 
 years), went into the silent parlor and lighted the fire in the 
 fire-place, and sat down alone. She did not light that fire 
 often. Open fires are expensive company. When it stormed, 
 she sometimes allowed herself the luxury. She sat in a low 
 cushioned rocking-chair, in the irregular light. She had a 
 pink ribbon at her throat, over her gray dress ; it was of 
 the old-fashioned rose pink now so hard to find, not a scorch 
 of magenta in it, pure as a blush-bud on a June day, deep 
 ening as one looked at it. Stiff little roses were painted on 
 it in watercolors. Susy Hemlock painted that ribbon for 
 her one day ; she had a cold could n t come could n t 
 wait Jared brought it over. 
 
 Miss Vesta rose and walked about the room two or three 
 times. The Rollinstall ladies often had that trick of pacing 
 the room a habit which only women of independent char 
 acter and circumstances are apt to have, I believe. The 
 Rollinstalls had always felt at liberty to do as they chose. 
 Usually, however, they chose to do largely the same things. 
 When they married, they married clergymen or lawyers ; 
 brought up their children to have the measles under al 
 lopathic treatment, to brush their teeth three times a day, 
 and never to go to church twice a Sunday before they were 
 five years old. When they did not marry, they kept house ; 
 no female Rollinstall went to live with her relatives unless 
 it were a very clear case that she was the giver, not the 
 receiver, of benefits by so doing ; they never quartered 
 themselves on young married brothers or struggling male 
 cousins ; a Rolliustall preferred her own household, if it 
 were in an attic. No one ever questioned the suitability of 
 any such arrangement which members of her family might 
 make. Miss Vesta herself was but thirty-five when her 
 mother died, and there was a second cousin who took a flat 
 
TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 237 
 
 alone at twenty-six. But hers died. Jane Rollinstall bore 
 forever about her the sacred and sweet shield of maiden 
 widowhood. Happy Jane ! 
 
 Miss Vesta said "Happy Jane ! " aloud, pacing bitterly 
 to and fro. The storm had now come on heavily, and she 
 could hear the wind beat up and down the level, lonely 
 street. Miss Yesta s had not died. Now and then Miss 
 Vesta remembered this. It was a luxury to think about 
 him at all, like the open lire, only to be indulged in on 
 stormy nights. He had not died. Oh that he had ! Oh 
 that he had ! Sometimes, if it stormed very hard, Miss 
 Vesta said this too aloud, crying passionately out. Some 
 times she thought if this had been so, how blessed she 
 would be. But he did not die ; he only got tired of wait 
 ing. Why was it that men could not wait ? Women did. 
 
 And they could not marry then. Jared himself admitted 
 it after a while. But it was a good while before Miss Vesta 
 stopped remembering on stormy nights how he looked the 
 day she told him blazing, white, taking her face between 
 his shaking hands her face, young then, and not uncomely : 
 there was never a Rollinstall who was not comely. They 
 used that sweet, decorous word when they spoke of it even 
 in their own hearts ; it seemed more reserved, Miss Vesta 
 thought, more modest, than " pretty " or " good-looking." 
 
 Miss Vesta s thought had diverged just here, like my sen 
 tence. She did not like to keep it where it was ; it took 
 her breath. 
 
 " I never will endure it ! " Jared Hemlock said. " I can 
 not live without you. Neither heaven nor hell shall come 
 between us. I 11 have you somehow, Vesta." 
 
 Miss Vesta s pale face scorched as she sat alone there by 
 her own fire, with no one else in all the empty house. She 
 looked at her withering hands, the prim, pure colors of her 
 dress. It seemed to her, a kind of rudeness that any man 
 should ever have been in the world talking so to her, it was 
 
238 TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 
 
 so far off now. And then he had not had her somehow, 
 He had lived without her. He had endured it. Nor was 
 it heaven or hell that had come between them. 
 
 It was nothing so romantic or profane as that, thought 
 poor ^ Miss Vesta. It was only that her mother had the 
 paralytic stroke, and that her father, as everybody knew, 
 grew blind. Some one must take care of them. There was 
 nobody but Miss Vesta. 
 
 And then there was not much to live on. There were 
 rich Rollinstalls rich enough to have bought up the 
 Michigan Central Railroad but that was the Rhode Island 
 branch. And Jared was the minister s son. Ministers, of 
 course, were poor. Jared said he never would be a minister. 
 He studied law. And they had waited and waited. Jared 
 used to come to tea every Thursday night. 
 
 And then there came a time when Jared would wait no 
 longer. He went to Germany. Jared went to Germany, 
 to study law or something. He went partly for his health, 
 poor fellow. He had a touch of rheumatism, or what was 
 it ? At first they wrote to one another. But her mother 
 lived on, and on, and on, poor mother ! quite changed, and 
 with broken mind and petulant ways. And when her father 
 grew so helpless, Miss Vesta sat down one day, in a fever 
 of worry and weariness, and wrote to Jared that since her 
 duty was at home, and was likely to be there till she was 
 old and ill herself, since God had willed it so, and since 
 they could not help it, she or he, and since he was so far 
 away, and in strange scenes and among strange people, 
 perhaps they had better call themselves dear friends only 
 to each other, knowing so little as they did what the future 
 had in store for him especially. And Jared wrote that per 
 haps they had, but that no one else could be so dear as she 
 not even in Germany ; which was a great comfort to Miss 
 Vesta for a little while. She had never been in Germany. 
 She felt as if that mysterious country abounded in pleasant 
 
TWO HUNDEED AND TWO. 239 
 
 ladies with no invalid parents to take care of. And so by 
 and by Jared did not write so often. And so one day she 
 saw it in the Puritan Recorder that he was married, and 
 that his wife s first name was Berta, and that she lived in 
 Leipsic. And Jared sent cards to the family. And then 
 he wrote no more. And he had never come home. Jane 
 Rollinstall had a theory that he was dead. Once she had 
 expressed it to Miss Vesta. But Miss Vesta could not talk 
 about it. She did not answer Jane. Her father died that 
 year. When she was thirty-five her mother followed him. 
 The old lady complained a great deal to the neighbors of 
 her daughter the last year of her life ; said that Vesta had 
 not got married, and was a burden to the family. Miss 
 Vesta laid her away in the Rollinstall lot of the Palestine 
 Cemetery, with a sickening grief which none of the occa 
 sional friends who came from Boston to lunch with her 
 seemed to understand ; even Jane Rollinstall herself said 
 it was not like losing one s husband or lover, but invited 
 Miss Vesta to spend a month with her. 
 
 Miss Vesta cried when nobody saw her, and then cried 
 Because there was nobody to see her ; and so, for economy, 
 gave up crying by and by, except on stormy nights, as I 
 said. She had lived a hard life of devotion to a hard duty 
 for a great while. Every nerve in her body and soul 
 quivered tense now like a breaking thing. She could not 
 afford to become hysterical. If she did, something would 
 snap. 
 
 Youth dies hard, and hope harder. Miss Vesta could 
 not understand at first, when at thirty -five she was left 
 alone in the unpainted house, where two hundred years of 
 human joy and anguish kept her mute company, that doing 
 one s definite duty bravely and patiently to the end does 
 not bring one definite happiness. She had really felt some 
 times as if God must mean to surprise her now that the 
 duty was done, as if He had kept some good thing waiting 
 till she could take it. 
 
240 TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 
 
 At first she thought it must be the mission Sunday-school 
 he meant, for to the Sunday-school she had turned devoutly 
 and devotedly as soon as her lonely hands were free. All 
 the Rollinstall ladies taught in mission schools ; usually 
 stopped when they married, and gave the class to some 
 well-connected young lady who was actively desirous for 
 religious usefulness. 
 
 It was with as much surprise as pain that Miss Vesta 
 discovered by and by that there were fierce clamors and 
 wide wastes in her nature which even her twelve big, red, 
 freckled bovs in the vestry could not fill. They were fine 
 fellows ; and when the superintendent said that each class 
 might give itself a name for use at the concert, they sug 
 gested that they should be called Lilies-of-the-Valley. 
 
 But ah ! if hope dies hard, perhaps, after all, youth dies 
 harder. Miss Vesta was still " comely," and the old peo 
 ple were gone. Palestine bachelors and widowers began to 
 think of this. On week-days, between the returning ex 
 citements of the mission school, Miss Vesta s life vibrated 
 now with strange confusions. The minister himself paid 
 his decorous distinct addresses at the ancient house. ai\d 
 Miss Vesta had all the weakness of a woman of the olden 
 time (to say nothing of the added family predilections in 
 this direction) for ministers. At least two lawyers came, 
 saw, and were conquered ; and Jane Rollinstall herself 
 wrote, advising her to think seriously of the shoe-and- 
 leather merchant who did business in Boston. But Miss 
 Vesta watched them all come and go with pure and puzzled 
 eyes. She had loved one man. She had promised to be 
 his wife. His hand had held her ; his kiss had touched 
 her. What did they mean, these other men ? What did 
 they expect ? Could a woman do that thing again ? 
 
 " How dare you ? " she cried, to the shoe-and-leather 
 lover, when he urged his suit a little on a moonlight even 
 ing, coming from the preparatory lecture ; and then had fled 
 from him, aghast, sobbing, like an insulted girl. 
 
TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 241 
 
 But if youth and hope die hard, the capacity for love dies 
 harder. Here in Telephone, in this unfamiliar life, with 
 silence for her lover, with solitude for her husband, with 
 lonely hours for her children, Miss Vesta had been, per 
 haps, most sorely bestead. There was a minister, too, in 
 Telephone. He presided over the Union Church, that tow 
 ered liberally opposite the Telephone Bowling- Alley. Miss 
 Yesta disapproved of Union churches on general principles ; 
 thought them not apt to be sound ; her family had always 
 thought so. But since her old Palestine pastor, Dr. Con 
 serve, had accepted a call to Boston, there was little to 
 do but to submit gracefully to the march of circumstances. 
 Miss Vesta waited on the Union gentleman s preaching, and 
 the Union gentleman waited on her. 
 
 Miss Vesta was lonely ; that cannot be denied. And 
 every week she thought she grew lonelier a little. She 
 tried hard to like the Union minister. For a whole week 
 she kept him waiting for his answer. She went alone into 
 her room, and sat down, in her gray dress and pink ribbon 
 that Susy Hemlock painted, and folded her hands, and said, 
 " Let me see if I cannot love this good man." But when 
 the week was over, she went to him and gravely said : 
 
 " When I was young I promised to be some one s wife. 
 I cannot do that twice. A woman cannot " 
 
 " But other women are not so fastidious ! " interrupted 
 the minister, with a flash of temper. He had never had a 
 woman refuse him before. 
 
 " Then I am not like other women," said Miss Vesta, 
 simply. 
 
 So now she sat alone in the November storm, in the soli 
 tary house, thinking about these things. Her thoughts were 
 sad enough, as those of the solitary may be must be, we 
 sometimes say ; but they were not disquiet or perplexed. 
 Miss Vesta was not a great, or wise, or exceptional woman ; 
 she had lived a plain and commonplace life ; no heroic 
 16 
 
242 TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 
 
 chance had opened before her ; usefulness and honor had 
 spoken to her in lowly language ; her story had been all 
 prose. 
 
 But one poem Miss Vesta knew by heart the long, 
 sweet, sane poem of a pure and permanent love. She was 
 a delicate and tender woman ; she had felt as if her delicacy 
 and tenderness both demanded of her that she should be 
 true to the best and highest side of her nature, so far, at 
 least, as she understood it : Miss Vesta was an old-fashioned 
 woman, and did not think much about " nature." All she 
 knew was that God had given her one right love for one 
 right man, and that solitude was a small cross to count 
 against the wearing of such a crown. It was the only ideal 
 she had ; of reforms, causes, missions, and careers she knew 
 little. She did not care much even about " Boston culture," 
 and sat puzzled when the ladies talked about it at lunch. 
 It was different somehow from what she was taught at the 
 Palestine Female Seminary. Her unreasoning and unswerv 
 ing love, I say, was the only ideal she had. She cherished 
 it in purity and peace ; she served it in honor and fidelity. 
 Nobody called her a great woman. But that does not 
 matter. God understood. 
 
 Miss Vesta went to bed early that stormy night ; put 
 away Susy s painted ribbon in a little olive-wood box where 
 she kept a few other precious, useless things (her thin old 
 betrothal ring among them) ; folded her gray cashmere skirt 
 carefully ; screwed out the lonely astral ; knelt and said her 
 prayers ; asked the Lord, as usual, to bless Jared Hemlock, 
 without the least doubt in the w T orld as to whether that 
 awful and Infinite Will could be shaken by a thing so 
 slight as the request of a solitary old maid shivering in her 
 night-dress on her knees, asking the same thing in the same 
 way every night for fifteen years. Theology was not Miss 
 Vesta s specialty. It was one s duty to say one s prayers. 
 And see, when they are said, and the light of the econom- 
 
TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 243 
 
 ical street gas, which Telephone will put out at half past 
 eleven, falls in through the parted ashes-of-roses curtain 
 upon the smooth white bed-spread, and the increasing rain 
 drives against the small-paned window and the sunken 
 piazza roof, how peacefully one falls asleep ! 
 
 It was twenty minutes past five o clock an angry 
 storrn. Miss Vesta waked ten minutes before her usual 
 time, wondering why, above the raging of the wind and wet, 
 the milk-man stood making such a racket at the door below. 
 She got herself hurriedly into her wrapper ; then, filled with 
 a dim consciousness of the unusual, anticipating possible 
 parleys with unknown tradesmen on unguessed themes, mod 
 estly slipped instead into the gray cashmere, and, throwing 
 an old lace handkerchief round her collarless neck, went 
 shivering down and confidingly drew the bolt without ques 
 tion or demur. She peered out into the breaking darkness 
 through the curtain of the rain. 
 
 " Jerry, is that you ? " 
 
 " Madam ? excuse me." 
 
 It was not Jerry. Miss Vesta pushed the door a trifle 
 closer, but stood serene, looking through the crack. A man 
 was out there, dripping ; dazed, it seemed. 
 
 " I thought it was the milk-man," she said, placidly. 
 
 "Would you be good enough to call your husband?" 
 gasped the visitor. "I I did not mean to disturb a lady 
 at this untimely hour ; but the fact is, I m suffering." 
 
 " Step in, then, out of the rain," said Miss Vesta, decid 
 edly. Miss Vesta was not " timid." And this was no tramp. 
 Besides, why tell strange men that she had no husband ? 
 It was far easier to let this person come into the front 
 entry. 
 
 He stepped in. Miss Vesta had left one of her brass 
 kitchen lamps burning on the stairway -landing. The feeble 
 glimmer struggled half-way down, fainted, and fell into the 
 mysterious half-light in which her visitor stood facing her. 
 He had taken off his hat. 
 
244 TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 
 
 " I bought that confounded house opposite yesterday," be 
 gan the man at once " your pardon, madam : I mean that 
 very unpleasant house. I took the whim to stay in it ; sent 
 in town for my things. Don t think me crazy. I ve nobody 
 but myself to think of. As well there as in hotels. That 
 Jobbs built up a furnace fire. There was a sofa and an 
 empty pillow-case left by the last tenants decoys, I sup 
 pose. Madam, that house leaked like an umbrella turned 
 wrong side out ; spattered into my face ; trickled up my 
 sleeve ; tickled my feet ; crawled down my neck ; ran in 
 streams down the register ; put out the furnace fire al 
 most did as much for me. I am subject to rheumatism at 
 the heart. I stood it till I thought somebody would be stir 
 ring. I I 11 not come in to annoy a lady unless there are 
 gentlemen here ; but excuse me, madam ; I am in great 
 pain." 
 
 He staggered slightly, leaning against the half-shut door 
 through which the pursuing storm beat in. 
 
 " Come ! " said Miss Vesta. She shut the front door, and 
 herself led the way into the dim and silent sitting-room, 
 where the embers of last night s fire peered winking sleepily 
 through the ashes. 
 
 The intruder followed her without speaking, groaning 
 now and then. 
 
 Miss Yesta started the fire promptly, and went out to get 
 the little lamp from the landing. She did not look at her 
 visitor as she went. He might murder her if he chose. She 
 would not turn a man with rheumatism at the heart out into 
 the storm. The conventional propriety of her hospitality 
 it never occurred to Miss Vesta s mind to question, or to 
 question if anybody else would question it. The Rollin- 
 stalls were ladies. They never did what was not proper. 
 Everybody knew that. If Miss Vesta chose to turn her 
 house into a hospital for tramps at six o clock in the morn 
 ing, her so doing would in itself be the only explanation 
 that the eccentricity would require. 
 
TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 245 
 
 While Miss Vesta was gone for the brass lamp, the fire 
 began to burn. 
 
 She came in, looking very pale and sweet and assured in 
 her colorless dress, carrying the lamp with one thin hand 
 curved to shelter the tiny flame. It was a delicate and 
 faithful motion like Miss Vesta. 
 
 Crouched over the waxing fire, haggard, with one hand 
 on his heart, she found her man. She went directly up, 
 and began with the business-like sympathy of voice that 
 she reserved for watching and funerals and all the old-time 
 neighborly services to the suffering. 
 
 " Now what is the first thing to be done for you ? Let 
 me see your pulse. No, your face first." 
 
 In the light of the lamp and fire he turned his face, and 
 they looked at one another. 
 
 " You are the man you are the gentleman who handed 
 me the celery," said Miss Vesta, after a pause. Then she 
 began to tremble. Then she flung away his hand, which 
 she had lifted with cold far fingers to feel the pulse. She 
 retreated from him suspiciously. 
 
 " I don t know who you are ! " she shrilly cried. 
 
 " Forgive me, Vesta ! " he said, stretching out his shak 
 ing arm. " Before God I did not know ! Everything is so 
 changed " 
 
 " But where is Mrs. Hemlock ? " asked Miss Vesta. We 
 must forgive her. Rheumatism at the heart is a passing 
 pain, soon over. That other pain of Miss Vesta s had 
 lasted fifteen years. And Jared was warm now and com 
 fortable ; had tasted of the coffee she had cooked; Miss 
 Vesta ate and drank nothing. She took care of him, with 
 compressed and colorless lips, dutifully, as of an old neigh 
 bor ; the tramp would have been treated as conscientiously, 
 more tenderly. She had asked no questions. His eye had 
 followed her. They had both been silent and constrained. 
 
246 TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 
 
 Now that he was out of suffering, Miss Vesta began to won 
 der what Jane Rollinstall would say. So she asked : 
 
 " Where is Mrs. Hemlock ? Where is your wife ? " 
 primly, with the sharpest twang Jared had ever heard in 
 her voice. Miss Vesta had a soft voice. 
 
 " I have no wife," he said, not more gently. 
 
 " When did she die ? " 
 
 " I don t know," said Jared, meekly, with a dash of his 
 old sauciness. 
 
 " Don t know ? " exclaimed Miss Vesta, with great pro 
 priety of manner. 
 
 " I never had any," pursued Jared. He began to whistle ; 
 then said, " Excuse me, Vesta." 
 
 " You are perfectly excusable," said Miss Vesta, still with 
 much Rollinstall dignity. " But we had the cards. I do 
 not understand you, Jared Hemlock. I do not understand 
 anything anything in this world." She broke down with 
 an unexpected little womanish wail. 
 
 " Berta jilted me," said Jared, shortly. " Perhaps you 
 can understand that. She found a German baron she liked 
 better. She jilted me at the very last moment. I de 
 served it." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Miss Vesta. She did not say he did not. 
 
 " And I m glad of it," added Jared. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Miss Vesta again. She did not say she was 
 sorry. 
 
 " But, of course," observed Jared, stirring his coffee, with 
 a touch of embarrassment, " I thought you were married 
 long ago. I was ashamed to come back to you, Vesta. To 
 think how I did come in the end a beggar a tramp 
 drowned a rat a dying rat ! " continued Jared, with 
 twinkling eyes. " And to think of your saying, Is that 
 you, Jerry ? He laughed. Despite herself the sen 
 sitive, suspicious, woman s self that was stung and bewil 
 dered in every nerve Miss Vesta laughed too. 
 
TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 247 
 
 " It was funny," said Miss Vesta. 
 
 " Very well, then," said Jared ; " suppose you eat your 
 breakfast." 
 
 " There is the celery." said Miss Vesta. 
 
 She brought the celery, and Jared ate some of it. She 
 looked on. Jared said it was frozen, and she said she did 
 not wonder ; and then neither of them said anything. 
 
 The clear day drew on ; the wind was shifting ; through 
 the curtain of the rain a soft gray light began to stir. 
 
 Jared sat by the fire, and Miss Vesta put away the break 
 fast things. The wind went down. Scant drops trickled 
 and twinkled from the piazza roof. People went by to 
 the business train ; they left their umbrellas, and nodded 
 at each other merrily. The- gray light sweetened ; a warm 
 color lay upon the gravel heaps in the corner lot. By and 
 by there came the sunburst. 
 
 Miss Vesta was standing by the window, and the color 
 broke full against her face the shrinking, womanly face, 
 pale and pinched and perplexed. Jared Hemlock wondered 
 what it was like to be a woman ; to be treated as he had 
 treated her ; to stand there waiting, not able to say what 
 she thought or felt or wanted ; wounded, wrung, and dumb, 
 yet so tender ! And true so true ! 
 
 He went abruptly over to her, and said : " Vesta, I m 
 not fit to touch the hem of your dress." But he put out one 
 finger and timidly stroked the old gray cashmere sleeve. 
 " I never felt about any body as I did as I do about 
 you," said Jared Hemlock. He did not whistle now, nor 
 laugh. Miss Vesta looked at him piercingly. She did not 
 understand that. Perhaps it was because she was not a 
 man. Men were so different. The Rollinstalls had always 
 held that men were very different. " It won t do for me 
 to stay on this way," said Jared, awkwardly. " I ought to 
 take the next train, you know, and clear out, and all that." 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Vesta. 
 
248 TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 
 
 " It sounds mean," said Jared, " but I don t mean to be 
 mean. If I supposed you d ever take me now, Vesta, after 
 all perhaps by and by, when you ve got used to me 
 there is n t much to take, Vesta dear an old fellow with 
 rheumatism. It s endocarditis," added Jared, with a scien 
 tific air, " if you d like to know." 
 
 " I m glad you did n t marry her," said Miss Vesta, trem 
 bling. " But " She stopped ; she could not say what she 
 was thinking. She looked at him ; her delicate face shone. 
 So the priestess might have looked, tending the white fire in 
 that older, ruder age which cherished its own share of fine 
 ideals. She lifted her head with a certain haughtiness. " / 
 never kissed any one any man but you." 
 
 She had not meant to say it, but it was said. He had 
 not meant to do it, but it was done. 
 
 "All the more reason, Vesta, why you should do it 
 again." 
 
 " I wonder," said Miss Vesta, presently, " what Jane 
 Rollinstall will say ? " 
 
 "Why, really," said Jared, in a comfortable, common 
 place tone, " what with my coming in the rain and all, and 
 the fuss it would be to explain I hate a fuss, Vesta. 
 Suppose we omit that stanza suppose we go somewhere 
 and get married ? I don t see but one time s as well as 
 another : and the sun is out." 
 
 " The Rollinstalls never have done such a thing," said 
 Miss Vesta, hastily. 
 
 " I doubt if they ever had the opportunity," observed the 
 lover, irreverently. He began to whistle again ; but Miss 
 Vesta, looking up, saw that his eyes were full ; the hand 
 with which he held her shook. " The amount of it is," he 
 said, less distinctly, " I ve beaten about the world so long 
 alone, and you you you my poor girl ! Come, we 
 are n t young any more, Vesta ! We ve tried being lone- 
 
TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 249 
 
 some long enough. I don t feel as if we had a minute to 
 lose. If I m fit to be taken at all, I m fit to be taken at 
 once. Besides," added Jared, clearing his voice, "you ll 
 have to take me in. for charity. I can t go back to that con 
 founded house (I paid five thousand dollars for it) ; I have n t 
 any place to go. If you re going to keep me, I think it s 
 more proper we should be married." 
 
 " I suppose it is," suggested Miss Vesta, after some 
 thought. . " We might go to Jane Rollinstall s ; she would 
 send for Dr. Conserve. I should have preferred to wait 
 till I had thought more about it. But if you should have 
 another of those attacks, I should prefer to take care of 
 you. It s nobody s business but ours," pursued Miss Vesta, 
 with a touch of the family dignity. 
 
 The sun came out, and came out, It seemed as if there 
 never was so much sun to come out before. The fickle wind 
 turned south, and there stayed faithfully. 
 
 They went into Boston on the noon train. Half Tele 
 phone went too. Telephone always went to Boston after a 
 storm. 
 
 Miss Vesta would not take his arm ; she said, " Wait till 
 we come home ; " but she walked beside him with lifted 
 head. She drew the old-fashioned lace veil, and under her 
 cloak she wore Susy s painted pink ribbon and the cash 
 mere dress. She thought of putting on her silk ; but it was 
 black. She had brought down the thin engagement ring, 
 and Jared had put it on again. She said she should have 
 plenty of time to get some gloves in town. 
 
 The sun came out, and came out, and came out. The 
 turned-up turf in the square lots took on warm shades of 
 brown and scanty green. People opened the blinds of the 
 shut parlors (on account of the moths) to let in the air. 
 The rows of cheap houses looked fresh and clean ; the gangs 
 of laborers whistled at their work ; the smell of the con 
 crete sidewalk came up pleasantly, as if to remind one of 
 
250 TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 
 
 summer, when the air would be full of it ; the signs put out 
 read cheerfully. How many happy homes there were " For 
 Sale," or " To Let," in Telephone ! All the business men 
 Miss Vesta and Jared met, had paid for their houses ; their 
 faces shone ; they did not seem lank at all. Miss Vesta 
 thought how many intelligent-looking people lived in Tele 
 phone. She told Jared she thought the place was rapidly 
 becoming cultivated. 
 
 The ladies of the neighborhood passed them ; only one 
 had on velveteen ; they were going in shopping ; they wore 
 pretty, modest clothes. The Pettiwinkle baby trundled by 
 in its carriage, holding out its hands to Vesta. The Pur 
 chases nodded at her, smiling through the window. One of 
 the Adamses stopped and told her that the old lady Church 
 had sent in five dollars from Boston for the mission school. 
 In the distance the steam-shovel sighed softly. 
 
 They looked back as they turned the concrete corner to 
 the station. On an old gray house with little panes of glass 
 and some elm-trees, two hundred years breathed a pure and 
 patriarchal benediction. 
 
 " Heaven bless it ! " said Miss Vesta. 
 
 On a saucy, shabby cottage with a suspiciously wet roof, 
 the morning sun winked warily. 
 
 " It was only two years old, after all," said Jared, for 
 givingly. " Too young to know better. I 11 turn it into a 
 mission school." 
 
 The station-mistress came out see them when they got to 
 the station. Jared went to telegraph to Jane Rollins tall 
 and Dr. Conserve. The station-mistress told Miss Vesta 
 she did n t know it was an acquaintance of hers, and asked 
 her if she was goin in to Cousin Jane s. The station-mis 
 tress had on a clean white apron over the alpaca dress. The 
 baby sat on the floor and held the door open the stock 
 ings were blue that day. The sun lay distinctly on the 
 modern carpet ; it was so warm that there was no fire in 
 
TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 251 
 
 the air-tight stove, and the German ivy jar stood upon it ; 
 the paper dado glitered like old mosaic varnished ; the 
 chromos were framed in the colored straw and hung over 
 the piano. The girl iii the pull-back was ornamenting the 
 calico pantaloons with stripes of deep brick-colored worsted 
 braid ; as she sewed she sang. There was a red geranium 
 in one of the decorated blacking bottles. The station-mis 
 tress said it was one of the days everybody went to Boston. 
 She said folks looked so happy after it had rained. Then 
 she asked Jared if he found a house to suit him, and he said 
 he had. Then she asked him if he minded the steam-shovel, 
 and he said no, he didn t mind anything ; and the station- 
 mistress said that was kind of queer. Then she asked Miss 
 Vesta if her salary was frozen, and then she asked 
 
 But just then the whistle sounded down the narrow, 
 sunny length of the Happiness and Energy Railroad. The 
 two-o clock train was prompt to an instant. Jared noticed 
 this with approval. Everybody pushed and hurried gently, 
 laughing, to get in. Miss Vesta felt it very strange not to 
 have to push and hurry for herself. She sat by Jared 
 silently ; she looked very sweet and young behind her veil. 
 Now and then she wondered if she had let Jared win her 
 too easily this second time. But then she remembered those 
 attacks. If he had not had rheumatism at the heart, of 
 course it would have been very different. And then, as he 
 said, they had been lonesome so long. 
 
 So when they got to Jane Rollinstall s (Jane had a flat in 
 the Boswick Hotel) they found her at home, sitting in her 
 black dress. She was writing invitations to a course of 
 parlor lectures, by an unpopular but conscientious critic, on 
 the Minor Nova Zemblan Poets. She put down her pen, 
 and said, with much Rollinstall independence and deci 
 sion : 
 
 " You did perfectly right, my dear, to come directly to 
 me. Dr. Conserve has sent word he boards here that 
 
252 TWO HUNDRED AND TWO. 
 
 he cannot come here till quarter of five. So take it easily. 
 There are a few old Palestine friends board here ; I 
 thought you would like to have them present. I have in 
 vited Herman and Dorothea Rollinstall boarding here 
 
 they belong to the Rhode Island branch." 
 
CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 CHRISTMAS STORY. 
 
 THIRTEEN hundred miles from home. 
 
 The two Boston boys stepped slowly off the " City Point " 
 upon the little pier s head at Tocoi. The Florida traveler 
 is not accustomed to step slowly at Tocoi. He springs, he 
 vaults, he flies, he pounces, he reddens, he perspires, he 
 agonizes ; for, like the old sums in the arithmetic which 
 were the Nemesis of childhood, whose finality serenely and 
 unblushingly disposed of six eighths of a man, or a half a 
 monkey, or three fifths of a goose, the railroad accommoda 
 tions at Tocoi were adapted chiefly to fractional parts of 
 humanity. 
 
 But the young men whose simple story I am to tell 
 made no effort to join the crowd that poured into the pert, 
 conscious little train, whose very smoke-stack held itself 
 with the coquettish air of a creature much sought and not 
 easily won, and aware of the impossibility of rivals. 
 
 The two Boston boys in the vibrating crowd stood still ; 
 quite still. They looked about them wearily. There was 
 not much to look at, for the matter of that ; the single pier, 
 the lonely river, the departing steamer, the hurrying train, 
 a solitary house ; the crowd pouring, pulsating, pursuant, 
 like a creature in whom one brain beat and one heart 
 throbbed ; the forest, vast, untrodden, dumb ; and above, 
 the unmated southern sky. Everything looked so lonely in 
 Florida ! 
 
254 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 So thought many another northern tourist at Tocoi that 
 late December afternoon : people peered from the car- 
 windows into the gray wilderness through which the light 
 was already slanting low, with the hyper-critical eyes of 
 travelers at the end of a week s journey ; they hugged 
 themselves in their wraps, for the wind swept keen from 
 the St. John s River despite the Florida sun and drizzled 
 complaints, or dammed them (with two m s), according to 
 their several capacities and abilities. 
 
 It was too cold. It was too hot. The twilight was op 
 pressive. The light was glaring. The conductor, they 
 had heard, was three hours getting through. On the con 
 trary, accidents were very common from the reckless man 
 ner in which the train was driven. It was too early in the 
 season. It was too late in the season. It was too dusty. 
 It was too damp. Too many pine-trees. Too many 
 swamps. Too many oranges. Not oranges enough. Or 
 anges hung too high, too low. A consumptive lady, rousing 
 from a despairing apathy in a corner, suggested that the 
 oranges were too yellow. She called her daughter in from 
 the platform of the baggage-car, where she stood silently 
 and intently looking river-wards. 
 
 " Calla ! The only thing people in this car can agree 
 upon is that Florida looks lonely. Now, / think the or 
 anges are too yellow. What do you think ? I must have 
 somebody agree with me immediately. Ask Dr. Frank- 
 row. Dr. Frankrow ! I insist upon it, that the orange, 
 regarded as a fruit, purely as a fruit," persisted the lady 
 argumentatively, as if the orange, but for the conciseness 
 of her language, might be considered a vegetable, or possi 
 bly a mineral, or even an animal, " purely as a fruit, is 
 several shades too yellow." 
 
 " Indeed, mamma," said the young lady gently, " I had 
 not thought about the oranges. I was thinking of the 
 boys." 
 
CLOTH OF GOLD. 255 
 
 " She means those two poor young fellows on the wharf, 
 Mrs. Hepburn. It seems we are to leave them behind," 
 the gentleman explained, also very gently, but standing, as 
 the young lady stood, still looking intently river-wards. 
 
 The young lady wore a dark, lustreless blue dress ; she 
 carried a cloth of gold rose. Most northern women in 
 Florida decorated themselves, like children at a May picnic, 
 with flowers ; whether in traveling or under whatever in 
 appropriate circumstances. Dr. Frankrow found it agree 
 able that Miss Hepburn bore the gorgeous bit of color in 
 her hand and not upon her dress. 
 
 There is so much of the glacier in us, after all ; so chill 
 ing is the self-concentration of our natures, that perhaps it 
 is not strange that of some sixty tourists packed into the 
 train at Tocoi that night, and magnetically agreed upon the 
 solitude of Florida, it occurred only to the two who stood 
 persistently upon the platform, that those boys were the 
 most solitary sight they had seen yet. They did not, how 
 ever, discuss it. The physician, indeed, through a physi 
 cian s deep-set glance, muttered something as he turned 
 away. The young lady, standing alone, and still persistently 
 looking river-wards, thought he said, " tuberculosis," pay 
 ing little attention, however, to the word or to the man. 
 The physician was a Bostonian, as was evident ; a gentle 
 man. 
 
 "All aboard!" 
 
 The elder, and it seemed the stronger, of the solitary 
 figures on the wharf, made a quick movement towards the 
 train. He spoke with a keen Yankee stir in his voice : 
 
 " How far is it to St. Augustine ? " 
 
 " Eighteen miles ! All aboard ! " 
 
 " Eighteen miles ? What is the fare ? " 
 
 " Two dollars apiece, sir ! Take you right there, sir ! 
 Cheap at that. Just hurry up a little, will you, please ? 
 Two dollars ! Eighteen miles ! All aboard there ! Sorry 
 to go without you, sir." 
 
256 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 The boy shook his head ; he went slowly back ; the 
 swift New England animation had died out of voice and 
 face. 
 
 " It would cost us four dollars, Dan ! " mournfully. 
 
 " Never mind," said Dan, " I guess I can walk it." 
 
 He spoke with that enforced cheerfulness which is so 
 much sadder than a moan or a tear, and crept to his feet 
 as he spoke, coughing. 
 
 " Never mind, Jim ! Don t bother, Jim ! I can walk as 
 well as not. I did n t come way down here to be scared at 
 a little walk. Let him go without his four dollars ! There, 
 he s off, and I m glad of it." 
 
 " All a-boo-ard ! Last chance, sir ! Better come on there 
 with that sick boy ! No hotel for ye in this city ! " the 
 conductor, glancing about the desolated landing, called with 
 a certain blur in his voice, as if a cinder or two of sympathy 
 had got into it ; but one must never be blinded by sympa 
 thy in Florida, or honorable trade would come to a stand 
 still. Sick people are, like the babies of Lamb s acquaint 
 ance, " too common" in the commercial regions of American 
 Italy. 
 
 " Dan ! There s three dollars and ninety -two cents left, 
 yet ; besides the chromios. They 11 take us for that. It 
 does n t seem as if I could let you walk it, Dan. Come ! 
 We 11 get aboard, yet. Let s run ! " 
 
 But Dan, upon the wharf, sat obstinately still. He shook 
 his head again and again. He had not come all the way 
 from Boston to cost Jim (poor Jim!) four dollars for a 
 ride of eighteen miles. He turned over their heavy old 
 valise laboriously and sat upon that with a pallid smile. 
 
 " You can go without us, Jim me and the valise. 
 We II walk ! " 
 
 At this moment the young lady on the platform of the 
 car beckoned suddenly and rapidly, The asthmatic loco 
 motive hoarsely shrieked. The elder boy ran confusedly, 
 
CLOTH OF GOLD. 257 
 
 not knowing why. But the lady pointed to Dan, beckoning 
 again, and violently now, while she seemed making some 
 ineffectual effort to find the conductor, who had disappeared, 
 or to stop the train, which had stirred. It had stirred, it had 
 started, it had gone. The boys both rose to their feet and 
 stood looking after it. The figure of the young girl upon 
 the platform seemed to shrink and droop as they looked. 
 She slightly threw up her hands with the gesture of one in 
 acute disappointment, and then suddenly, with a swift, 
 beautiful, womanly impulse, as unconscious that every 
 passenger s eye was now upon the little scene as a lily is 
 unconscious of a visitor to a hot-house, tore off a blue 
 veil she wore, and with a free, fine motion tossed it towards 
 the river. 
 
 " There ! " said Dan, " the woman in the blue dress has 
 lost her veil. Go pick it up, Jim, and mebbe we can give 
 it to her when we get there." 
 
 But Jim, when he picked up the twisted gossamer ball, 
 found within a bill and silver pieces. Three dollars. The 
 rose, too, had fallen, snatched away by the sweeping mo 
 tion, and lay entangled, broken. The great, firm, shining 
 petals heaped themselves like spilled gold coin upon the 
 sand. 
 
 " Considered as an act of benevolence, my dear," coughed 
 Mrs. Hepburn, " simply as an act of benevolence, fifty 
 would n t materially help those boys in a country where you 
 pay two dollars to go eighteen miles, and what is the use 
 of three ? " 
 
 Three dollars ; and a blue veil ; a rose-leaf, and a swift, 
 sweet, womanly thought. What was the use, indeed ? The 
 boys looked at one another. They felt suddenly rich and 
 protected ; they had grown well and glad. Dan laughed, 
 he was only sixteen, he laughed out like a pleased 
 child. But Jim spoke first ; Jim was a man nineteen 
 years old, and supposed to know what was fitting to do or 
 17 
 
258 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 say on any given occasion. Dan used to think he should 
 like to see the things Jim would n t know what to do about. 
 Why, they never should have come to Florida where he 
 was going to get well and tough if it had n t been for 
 Jim. Jim knew it was the thing to do. Jim always knew. 
 Jim had said: "I can sell the chromios, and we ll find 
 work down there." Jim always knew what to say. 
 
 So now he drew himself up ; his lip twitched a little as 
 he looked after the retreating train on which the slender 
 blue figure still stood intently. He folded away the money 
 silently. He did not immediately speak. Dan began to 
 be afraid Jim was not going to know what to say. But 
 when his brother gravely said at length : 
 
 " That is a good woman, Dan. Let s take extry care of 
 her veil," Dan nodded delightedly. He took the veil him 
 self ; he folded it across and across with care, and reverently 
 laid it under his waistcoat. 
 
 Now Dan carried a book in his waistcoat pocket, the little 
 old Testament once belonging to that dead mother whom 
 these two young creatures remembered with a faint, sweet 
 sense of awe and mystery, like that with which they would 
 remember the face of an unusual Madonna seen, and seen 
 but once, in a window as they passed : but he did not tell 
 Jim that he put the lady s veil between the leaves of the 
 Testament. It was not necessary to talk about everything. 
 One of the great petals of the great rose had slipped be 
 tween the folds of the veil ; but he did not talk about that 
 either. It was his fancy to let the rose-leaf stay. 
 
 " Now," said Dan bravely, " let us start, Jim ; I m quite 
 ready. You could n t guess how tough I feel to-night ! " 
 
 They started bravely and tonghly enough. It was still 
 quite light. Dim in the distance sped the retreating steam 
 er, and the retreating train one to the river, one to the 
 sea. On either hand the well, rich, happy people fled from 
 them. In the perfect stillness the waves of the St. John s 
 
CLOTH OF GOLD. 259 
 
 lapped with a lazy sound. The sun slept upon the pier and 
 in the little freight-house where a solitary negro was sleepily 
 closing the door. Into the heart of the forest, mysterious, 
 daring, lonely, cut the narrow line of rails. It plunged 
 into swamp and thicket recklessly; it seemed like an un 
 finished story, or a broken word, or an unfounded hope. 
 The sense of incompletion which always lends so subtle and 
 so weird a sadness to a railway in a solitary region is in 
 tensified to an exquisite strain, when one stands watching 
 the fine, diminishing coil of smoke marking the track of 
 the now unseen train that spans the Florida wilderness from 
 river to sea. 
 
 " There ! it s gone ! " said the elder boy in a half-whisper, 
 feeling in spite of himself a certain awe or depression. The 
 smoke had melted. The track was bare. The negro in 
 the freight-house was gone. St. John s on the hot beach 
 whispered hoarsely, like a sick man speaking in a foreign 
 tongue. The two boys, as they turned into the forest, 
 seemed to be the only breathing souls in Florida. 
 
 Thirteen hundred miles from home. The boys glanced 
 covertly at one another s faces as they trudged along, step 
 ping heavily across the uncertain sleepers, and the rude and 
 frequent culverts. The road lay upon little piles, defiant of 
 abounding swamp ; the forest pressed in sturdily on either 
 hand ; on the tops of the trees the light struck freely ; in 
 the thickets it had already begun to darken ; the flame of 
 the wild oranges was fainting ; the wreaths of moss made 
 delicate tendrils of color overhead, that seemed to grasp 
 and entwine upon the sky ; as they swung and dipped into 
 the shadow, they took on sudden ghastly shades like the 
 faces of the ill or dying. 
 
 " Tired, Dan ? " 
 
 Jim did not like the looks of Dan as they toiled along. 
 Perhaps it was because they walked so near the thicket, 
 and that the gray moss made a gray shadow upon the boy s 
 
260 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 pinched, pathetic face. They had been already long enough 
 in Florida to have learned the fatal story of the gray moss. 
 It is treacherous beauty, it is demoniac grace, it is an ex 
 quisite Medusa. The tree which shelters it must die. It is 
 bloodless, relentless. It is to the forest what the devil-fish 
 is to the sea. 
 
 The elder boy, turning his brave young face upwards and 
 inwards through the mystery of the wilderness, with that 
 impatience of sorrow and blind pursuit of hope which only 
 a young face wears, felt himself, in an imaginative fashion 
 which he could not have withstood, because he could not 
 have understood it, vaguely disturbed by this symbol of 
 death and decay. He hoped Dan did not see the grand old 
 cypresses standing in the shadow stark and dead ; nor the 
 pitiful young oaks that had but just begun to die, thrusting 
 out scant foliage through the coils of the gray vampire, 
 like struggling hands. 
 
 "Tired, Dan?" 
 
 "I m first-rate ! " said Dan, nodding. He hoped Jim did 
 not notice that bother in his breath. He had never had so 
 much trouble with his breath. It came laboriously at the 
 end of the first two miles. The low, purple shadows of the 
 everglades seemed to crowd about him, as it darkened, like 
 flocks of uncleanly birds. They had a faint sweetish odor 
 which sickened him. He shrank when they touched him 
 as if he had felt the flap of cold wings against his head. 
 Strange sensations seemed to await him as he walked deeper 
 and deeper into the forest. The wilderness itself seemed to 
 become embodied, energetic, like a vast unknown disease, 
 and grappled with him. Singular distresses neither sick 
 ness nor faintness, nor altogether pain, nor exactly giddiness 
 took hold of him. He was filled with unexampled fear. 
 
 Eighteen miles. Well. If only Jim would n t ask him 
 how he felt ! Poor Jim ! 
 
 " Tired, Dan ? " 
 
CLOTH OF GOLD. 261 
 
 " Splendid ! " skid Dan. He looked up ; he smiled into 
 his brother s face, growing dim, now, like the thicket and 
 the forest and the sky, it would soon be dark. It was 
 too dark now for Jim to see what a pitiful little smile that 
 was. To have that " splendid " without that smile was well 
 worth while. Jim tugged at the heavy valise with a happy 
 whistle. 
 
 " We 11 be there before we know it, Dan, if only you ll 
 hold out as well as this." 
 
 " Oh, I 11 hold out," said Dan. But after that he did 
 not speak again for a long time. The purple shadow in the 
 everglades deadened black ; the dull shine of patches of 
 slimy water died across the swamp ; above the tree-tops 
 the throbbing color of the sky grew faint ; the tendrils of 
 the far moss seemed to relax like nerveless fingers, and the 
 ghastly faces which had troubled Jim to turn themselves 
 over solemnly against the wall of the night. Strange birds, 
 whose note was unfamiliar to the northern boys, called to 
 each other mournfully from unseen nests. Strange sounds, 
 from unknown creatures of the wood or swamp, glided 
 stealthily to and fro about them. Now and then a cow, 
 that the departed train had disturbed, wandering yet un- 
 summoned to the home of some solitary cracker in the for 
 est, plunged heavily into the thicket, or out of it, as they 
 passed. In the dimness these creatures showed gigantic and 
 wild. 
 
 " Jim ? " said Dan at length in the slow, plaintive voice 
 in which excitement has given place to endurance. 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Jim. " Most there ! Ain t very tired, 
 be you, Dan ? " 
 
 " Not very tired, Jim," more slowly ; " I was only wonder 
 ing, you ain t homesick now, I guess. You never are home 
 sick, are you, Jim? " 
 
 " Me and you have n t got so much to be homesick over, 
 if you come to that." Jirn spoke gruffly. " There s Mis 
 
262 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 Green ; and the cat ; and the lame dog ; and the crooked 
 boarder into the attic rear." 
 
 " And the fellow at Jobbs s that brought me the orange 
 when I was first sick," interrupted Dan. eagerly ; " and that 
 little girl of Peter s that made me tissue-paper roses ; and 
 the last boss I worked for at the factory, he did n t jaw, 
 that boss didn t; and Betty Poggin s hen, now, Jim, that 
 come over to be fed when we had crackers for dinner, 
 would n t you like to see Betty Poggin s hen, to-night ? " 
 
 " Rather see Augustine ! " growled Jim ; he walked on 
 faster, with a jerk at the valise. " Folks with homes and 
 mothers and places to go to when they re sick can afford 
 to be homesick, Dan. We ain t no call that way." 
 
 " And sisters," added Dan, coughing. " If we had a place 
 to go to, we d have a sister in it, would n t we, Jim ? Like 
 her that tossed us the veil. I d like my sister to wear a 
 blue veil soft and with a sweet smell to it like that," 
 said Dan audaciously. " But /ain t homesick, either. Only 
 I d like to know if the crooked boarder stayed his time 
 out. I wonder if Jobbs s boys 11 ever get to Florida. He 
 said he meant to come some winter peddlin ." 
 
 " Jim ? " presently, " I d like to see the cat. And the 
 dog. I 11 be glad when I get well and we go home. Do 
 you suppose Mis Green misses us any ? " 
 
 There has been a silence in which the rasp of the boy s 
 labored breathing is louder to Jim s ear than any of the 
 voices of the strange, unhomelike night. " Do you sup 
 pose," more slowly and more plaintively, "Do you sup 
 pose, Jim, all these folks we saw in the car, are going 
 somewhere ? " 
 
 " Why yes," said Jim with a practical air, " they re 
 going to Augustine. And so are we. Be there pretty 
 soon. Ain t tired, are you, Dan ? " 
 
 " Oh no, not tired, Jim," faintly, " but I meant, were 
 they going to folks ? There 11 be somebody glad to see em, 
 won t there ? " 
 
CLOTH OF GOLD. 263 
 
 "Mebbe," said Jim shortly. "Hurt you to breathe, 
 Dan ? I did n t know it was so cold in Florida. Want 
 to rest a bit?" 
 
 " It is a little cold for Florida," shivered Dan, with 
 the wise air of an old resident. " But I don t mind. And 
 it does n t hurt me very much to breathe. We re most 
 there, ain t we ? I can get along nicely, if we re most 
 there." 
 
 " Do you think," presently again, " do you think, Jim, 
 there 11 be anybody glad to see us when we get there ? " 
 
 " I ve heard they re very fond of Northerners in 
 Florida," said Jim, sententiously. 
 
 " I guess they are," returned the boy cheerfully. " We ve 
 been a-travelin so long. I d like somebody to be glad to 
 see us. That was what I liked about that lame dog. He 
 was always glad to see me. And Mis Green she let me 
 feed him. He d eat my dinner when you was off to work ; 
 but I did n t want the dinner, Jim, you know. Do you re 
 member the day Mis Green broiled me the herrings ? She 
 was always good to us, Mis Green was, nelse it was wash- 
 in or ironin , or mebbe bakin or sweepin or rent days, or 
 some such times. And I don t think the room was quite 
 so cold as we thought it was, come to think of it, after 
 we put the weskit in the window and puttied up the other 
 panes. But I ain t homesick, Jim. I m glad we come to 
 Florida." 
 
 The two young travelers are walking slowly now ; very, 
 very slowly. It is too dark to walk fast, and one stumbles 
 so against the rickety sleepers, and the feet plunge suddenly 
 into sodden sand or oozing water, and now and then one 
 falls heavily in groping on. It is deadly dark. It is deadly 
 still. Throughout the sweep of the vast wilderness there is 
 no sign of human life. The boys can hear their own heart 
 beats if they pause, half-frightened, to listen, hand in hand. 
 The faint odors from the swamps deepen and sweeten like 
 
264 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 rare poisons. The painful breathing of the sick child be 
 comes a spasmodic, strangling cough. He stops frequently 
 to rest. They sit down side by side, shivering together, 
 upon the hard, damp hummocks that lift themselves above 
 the stagnant pools. The wilderness closes around them, 
 solidly, like walls. They seem to sit, prisoners in a little 
 cell of blackness. They look up, far, at the faint sky in 
 which the stars are pulsing now. The two poor young 
 things these strangers in a strange land receive dimly 
 a sense of welcome from the sky. 
 
 " Seems as if they was glad to see, anyhow, Jim." 
 
 " Who ? " 
 
 " The stars. I ve seen a star like that one out of Mis 
 Green s window. It was one night when there was n t bed- 
 close enough, and I laid awake to keep warm. When we 
 get out of these woods, it 11 be warm in Florida, won t it, 
 Jim?" 
 
 " Warm as toast ! " said Jim. " Ain t very tired, Dan ? " 
 
 "Not very tired;" hopefully, "Jim, do you think I 
 shall get well in Florida ? " 
 
 After a pause, again : " You expect to sell the chromios 
 till I get well, don t you ? You expect they 11 buy a lot of 
 chromios in Florida, don t you ? " 
 
 Dan has walked in perfect silence for now, a long time ; 
 he pulls heavily upon his brother s hand like an exhausted 
 child. " Most there, aint we ? I must sit down. I 
 can t " sinking slowly down again, " You re glad we came 
 to Florida, ain t you, Jim? " 
 
 " Considered as a work of art, purely as a work of art, 
 you know, it is an atrocity," said the lady, plaintively. 
 
 "Ma am?" said Jim. 
 
 " A chromo, young man, is to the world of art what a 
 theft or a murder is to the moral world. The trader in 
 chromos, considered generically as a trader in chromes, ought 
 
CLOTH OF GOLD. 265 
 
 to be held legally responsible for the enormities which he 
 commits. We talk of crimes and criminals. The degrada 
 tion of art " 
 
 " Mamma dear ? " 
 
 The trader in chromos looked confusedly around. The 
 soft voice reached him distinctly ; but the speaker was hid 
 den mysteriously somewhere overhead, behind the blinds of 
 the great coquina house. It was dead December noon 
 white-hot in St. Augustine. The house was closed and 
 dark. Long shadows slept upon the painfully cultivated 
 lawn. Vivid Florida foliage sheltered a rose-garden which 
 curved, crescent-wise, across the place, and shone softly ; 
 it seemed like a rainbow thrown down by mistake. The 
 leaves of orange-trees glittered like the fine scales of jointed, 
 jeweled armor worn in defiance of the arrows of the hot 
 headed sun. In the air was the undefined perfume of buds 
 yet unopened and unseen. To poor Jim s eyes vistas of 
 magnificence opened beyond the great door of the deep, 
 cool hall. The wind blew from the water, and the veranda 
 faced the blessed sea. 
 
 Jim, dusty, hot, anxious, gaunt, leaned against one of 
 the great veranda pillars. He was sorry when he heard 
 the lady cough. But she would get well. Dan would have 
 got well in such a house as this. 
 
 "Mamma dear?" The blind stirred softly overhead, 
 letting a gleam of rose-color through from shadowed walls 
 and ceiling, " suppose you take a chromo. Never mind 
 about the degradation of art, just now. It must be so hard 
 to make a living that way, don t you think, mamma ? Take 
 me one for a Christmas present," laughing softly. " I d 
 come down, only," whispering, " don t tell the chromo-man, 
 but I m in my dressing-sack ! " 
 
 " Will you have* something mediasval, my dear ? Here s 
 an indigo Madonna on a gamboge sky. Or a genre piece. 
 I find a choice bit in that line. It is called The Twins. 
 
266 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 They part their curls alike to a hair, and are clutching two 
 separate and individual black-and-tan terriers, as a piece de 
 resistance, in their separate and individual right hands. 
 Beautiful studies from still life ; peaches and a cucumber 
 
 three for twenty -five cents, my dear ! Oh, and a vin 
 egar cruet and lobster salad. Or perhaps you d prefer a 
 chicken ? Or an angel. Here s an angel in Naples yel 
 low, put out to pasture in a field of emerald green. And 
 
 oh, shade of Correggio ! His Magdalene in Indian red 
 with an arm Here, Mr. Peddler ! Give me a dozen 
 and go. And when you Ve sold them all, I advise you, as a 
 mother, select some occupation less perilous to the interests 
 of the country, and more soothing to the individual con 
 science I don t wonder you look pale. Call it two 
 
 dozen, and make haste ! There ! " 
 
 Jim s eyes (despite a little perplexity, for he found his 
 customer more or less mysterious) glistened faintly at the 
 unprecedented luck ; but very faintly : and he walked away 
 without a smile. The Naples yellow angel might have 
 arisen from the old valise (he had six of her) and walked 
 beside him, or the indigo Madonna herself bought out his 
 stock ; he would hardly have cared to-day. What a lark 
 they would have had over it once ! Nobody could be hap 
 pier over a stroke of luck than Dan. And two dozen 
 chromos ! Perhaps, even now Jim began to whistle in 
 spite of himself, as he crossed the rose-garden, stepping 
 from the rainbow to the dense cloud of the orange-grove ; 
 and the young girl, shrinking behind the blind in her dainty 
 undress, in the rose-heart of the shining room, leaning one 
 soft cheek dreamily upon a soft shoulder a cheek like a 
 shell, upon a shoulder like a foam-flake listened to the 
 sound with happy, parted lips. She had that faint, sweet 
 sense of having partially earned the right to be happy, 
 which makes a kind act, to a sensitive nature, the necessary 
 condition of content ; and even the element of sadness which 
 
CLOTH OF GOLD. 267 
 
 most kind acts introduce into the imagination, beautiful only 
 as the gentle darkness of the Claude Lorraine in which the 
 sunrise shines softer and more fair. 
 
 St. Augustine keeps Christmas week as if the Lord were 
 born entirely on her account. This is very natural. St. 
 Augustine is a little world ; has its own axis, its own orbit ; 
 its own astronomy ; spins serenely through the chaos of the 
 Florida wildness to the music of its own sweet sphere. 
 Sufferers my seek her for healing ; revelers may woo her 
 for pleasure ; but they are visitants from another planet, 
 after all: seek they never so wisely, woo they never so 
 passionately, yield she never so graciously, they may be in 
 her world, but they are not of it. She is like a reserved 
 and beautiful woman she keeps them seekers and lovers 
 forever. There are other worlds to be ordered that is 
 plain. There may be other sinners to be saved that is 
 possible. But meanwhile, in this matter of Christmas, St. 
 Augustine is so sure that Christ came for love of her, that 
 her full heart overflows with an intense, individual joy, at 
 c^ce a humility and an inspiration to see. 
 
 u Verily," wrote Latimer to Cranmer, on the birth of a 
 son to the king, " God hath showed himself the God of 
 England, or rather we may say, an JEnglish God." 
 
 So it seems St. Augustine, in. her heart of hearts, did she 
 but admit it, were fain to consider Him a Floridian. 
 
 Thus, at least, one visitor, strolling through her quaint 
 and quiet streets one vivid morning of the Christmas week, 
 entertained himself by fancying. 
 
 The sweet alien sound of matins in the old Cathedral, the 
 shadows of the robed priest on the coquina walls of the gray 
 monastery, the placid faces of the sisters from the convent, 
 the flitting of the incense-boys on mysterious Christmas 
 business, the faint glow of reverent expectance on the faces 
 of the Catholic natives, the swiftly growing presence of the 
 
2G8 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 fair sign of cross and wreath in the windows of obscure 
 Negro and Minorcan homes, even the preparation for the 
 crude worship of fireworks, like a northern Fourth of July, 
 all the indefinite sense of hope and holiday which gave an 
 atmosphere to the place, seemed to the northern gentleman 
 to form a sort of sacred exhilaration such as no northern 
 Christmas could give him though he sought it, and which 
 here he experienced, as one always experiences the finest 
 intoxications, imperiously, despite the resistance of his nat 
 ure. The wonderful wine-like southern sunlight either 
 added to this impression, or created it, it was impossible to 
 say which ; and the high, warm winds that swept the widen 
 ing southern heavens chanted a deepening Te Deum to the 
 reverent ear. It seemed to Dr. Frankrow as if the very 
 roses which he had come out to order for Miss Hepburn s 
 Christmas party, the cream, the blush, the pearl, the car 
 mine and the snow, and the royal gold, the warm, rich, 
 riotous roses, lifted their fair faces at once tenderly and loft 
 ily as if conscious that they too were members of the body of 
 the beautiful lost earth, which eighteen hundred years ago 
 was placed in the tiny hands of an obscurely born Baby to 
 redeem. It seemed as if Christmas in Florida meant more 
 than it could under a more reticent sun. The very flowers 
 had souls here, and would have part in the solemn privilege 
 of the holy time. Indeed, why not ? Would Christ forget 
 the roses when He saved the sinners ? God had created 
 many a soul less fair, less pure, less worthy of being, than 
 those sensitive, it seemed sentient, hearts of scent and color. 
 Might they not then have part in the great ennobling, the 
 great idealizing, which was promised to all earth-born and 
 imperfect beauty ? Would roses some day bud in heaven 
 as never roses blossomed upon earth, for his dear sake ? 
 
 She was saying something like that yesterday. 
 
 Had he caught the sweet tricks of her fancies already, so 
 that he could not distinguish them from his own ? He bent 
 
CLOTH OF GOLD. 269 
 
 over the cloth-of-gold roses with a man s slow, deep, painful 
 blush. 
 
 Ah well ; own up to it like a man ! here among the roses. 
 They would never tell. The palpitating southern sunlight 
 which crowned the flowers, the world, the future, in a sud 
 den glory, would be dumb. Own, then, that he loved her ! 
 He loved her. Any man would. He loved her and it 
 was Christmas week. And the roses could not Florida 
 roses speak? 
 
 He broke them delicately, nervously, lavishly ; he heaped 
 his arms with the choicest that the great and famous gar 
 dens held. To the northern gentleman, standing flower- 
 laden, rapt, an inexpressible radiance within his eyes, such 
 as perhaps might only be seen in the eyes of a man in love, 
 on Christmas week, and in St. Augustine, appeared sud 
 denly a haggard, grimy, panting boy. He stood in the hot 
 road and looked over the fence, which he griped with both 
 his hands. 
 
 " Can you tell me where to find a doctor ? " 
 
 " I think I can. What do you want of a doctor ? " 
 
 " I ve got a brother sick. He would n t have a doctor. 
 He s very sick, sir ! I want to get back to him. But I 
 must find them both first, the doctor and the lady." 
 
 The lady ? " 
 
 " There s a lady that he s set his soul on seeing. I ve 
 got to hunt her up. Mebbe you can tell me where she is, 
 sir ? " said Jim, innocently. 
 
 " Perhaps I can," said the other, without a smile. " Do 
 you know her name ? " 
 
 tl Oh, no," said Jim dejectedly, " nor nothin about her. 
 Only she tossed us a veil Dan says it is a veil. There 
 was money in it. We was at Tocoi. Dan wants to give 
 her back the veil. I promised him I d find her. I calc - 
 late to keep a promise that I make to Dan. I d like to 
 find the lady." 
 
270 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 " What is the matter with Dan ? " 
 
 u The cough. And yesterday and to-day he bleeds dread 
 fully," said Jim, with a sudden, sick look. "I sold two 
 dozen chromios yesterday at one place, but when I got 
 back he choked so that I dares n t tell him, to talk about 
 it." 
 
 " How long has the lad been sick ? " 
 
 " A year, sir ; off and on, but not like this. He thinks 
 it wa*s the moss, sir." 
 
 " The moss ? " 
 
 "Pie took a notion again the moss that hangs acrost the 
 trees. They told us up to Jacksonville it eet out people s 
 lives. It was in the swamp, from walking over. We walked 
 over from Tocoi." 
 
 " Oh ! walked ? That malarial night ? " 
 
 " Yes ; it took a good spell ; we had to set and rest : Dan 
 choked unless he set to rest pretty often. He give out be 
 fore we got in. We spent that night in the woods. It was 
 pretty damp. Next day we went round and round. I got 
 him some breakfast at a hotel but it took a good deal of 
 money. If I d had a place to let him rest that day but 
 I dares n t ask it. I went here and there, you know, sir, 
 and it was nigh midnight before I got a place to stop. We 
 re stoppin at an old darkey s out beyond the Gates. It s 
 pretty dirty, and they make us pay em every mornin , and 
 he ain t willin to take the chromios," said Jim, sadly. " And 
 Dan he s homesick to die among folks. Dan never did like 
 darkies much." 
 
 " Have you friends at home ? " 
 
 " Only the woman where we boarded, and the dog he 
 talks about, and such, sir. I have n t any folks. Our folks 
 died when we was little, and we was all scattered. You ve 
 heard tell of a place they call the Little Wanderer s Home," 
 in Boston ? " 
 
 Yes ; he had heard of it. 
 
CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 271 
 
 " We come from there Dan and me." 
 
 "Ah?" 
 
 " Yes ; we was parceled out in families nigh together, in 
 New York State. Dan, he learned a plasterer s trade, pren 
 tice but the lime got into his breathing. And once he 
 was in an organ factory, but that was to Boston. I was a 
 grocer s boy at the start ; but I took to pictures. And after 
 Dan began to be poorly, we come back to Boston. Then 
 we come here. I worked my way down in a Savannah 
 steamer. I thought I d find work down here. I expected 
 to sell a good many chromios. I did n t think it would have 
 been so hard to make a living here. And Dan s lost an 
 awful sight. I tried to do what I thought was right. But 
 I wish we d never come to Florida." 
 
 Jim has a manly young lip, but it trembles ; and dry, 
 deep-set Yankee eyes, but they dim. 
 
 " I ve set up with him for ten nights. I m most beat 
 out. But I said I d find the lady. He thought it would 
 cost too much to have a doctor. But I can pay him in 
 chromios. And a doctor d think more of chromios than 
 these darkies do," said poor Jim. A sense of high, personal 
 culture struggled through his grief. He held up his head 
 with a tear on his cheek. The swift New England pride 
 glanced across his pathetic mouth. 
 
 " Perhaps you re from Boston, sir ? " said Jim. 
 " Come," said the Boston gentleman, " come away to the 
 lady." 
 
 They found her standing in her own rose-garden. Her 
 tender, young face wore a flitting shadow. It was too bad 
 to spoif a rainbow for a party ! The rose-garden should not 
 be touched. She stood breast-high among the flowers. 
 She wore a dress of pale blue, the color of a partly-clouded, 
 far, June sky. Her hair and eyes shone when she turned 
 suddenly at the low sound of her name. She stood quite 
 
272 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 still an Iris in a prism stretching out her hands with a 
 pretty, appealing gesture of welcome that she had. She 
 had delicate hands, and she used them with the motions 
 which only delicate breeding and a life of ease can give to 
 a woman s hand. Dr. Frankrow remembered for a long 
 time after what a delicate and sheltered look she had that 
 morning, and how untouched by care appeared her lifted 
 face. He remembered thinking how she seemed a creature 
 set apart from the striving, black world such a world as 
 that in which this haggard boy lived, moved, and had his 
 being. She was as alien to it as the wild rose-curlew is to 
 the Florida marsh over which it flies, slender, shining, unap 
 proachable. Circumstances in Miss Hepburn s life, of which 
 he had received dim perceptions, gave a zest to these fan 
 cies ; and he had all a young man s (and a Bostonian s) in 
 stinctive delight in the outer symbols of inner gentleness in 
 the lady of his choice. He was glad with all his soul that 
 she was a happy, idolized girl, to whom life had never 
 brought a labor, a perplexity, nor a care. Her own Christ 
 mas roses should not bloom as tenderly Heaven helping 
 him ! as she should Heaven bless her ! if he won her 
 to the eternal Florida summers of his daring heart. 
 
 He silently and tremulously unloaded his arm of its fra 
 grant burden ; the flowers lay at her feet in the shadow 
 of the orange grove. He took a bud of the cloth of gold, 
 scarcely knowing that he did so, or why he did so, .and, 
 bowing his agitated face over it, laid it in her hand. 
 
 Jim, too, said, " Heaven bless her ! " But nobody heard 
 him, and it did not matter. 
 
 She joined them without a curious or hesitating word. 
 " Hers not to question why." Since the poor lad wanted 
 her that was enough. She stepped from her rainbow to the 
 shadow of the orange grove in a sweet and serious silence. 
 Dr. Frankrow stood to let her pass, and she and the chromo 
 peddler stepped out together into the dusty road. 
 
CLOTH OF GOLD. 273 
 
 " She looks like that blue chromic," said Dan, weakly. 
 Jim had thought so, on the way over. He took the Ma 
 donna out of the valise, shyly, when Dan mentioned the 
 likeness, and put it up against the smoky wall. 
 
 She was kneeling by the poor lad s bed. In her pale, 
 transparent dress, with her shining hair and hands and eyes 
 she made, the Christmas lover thought, a luminous life in 
 the miserable room, as if there had fallen into it, indeed, a 
 creature of the holy sky. 
 
 " I m glad to see you, ma am," said Dan. 
 
 " I am glad to be here," said the young girl, gravely. " I 
 am sorry to find you so very, very ill. I remember seeing 
 you before. You have had a hard time in Florida." 
 
 " You won t tell Jim, will you, if I tell you something ? " 
 
 " No, I won t tell Jim." 
 
 " I wish we had n t come to Florida. We had n t got the 
 money to get well in Florida. I thought I should get well. 
 But don t mention that to Jim. He tried so hard to sell the 
 chromios ! " 
 
 " And now," said Dan again, in a confused, pathetic whis 
 per, " if I ve got to die, I d rather die to home at Mrs. 
 Green s. I know the dog would like to see me, and 
 Jobbs s boy, perhaps, and the cat. I have n t got anybody 
 in Florida. We re thirteen hundred miles from home." 
 
 A silence falls upon the very face of the sunshine that 
 dozes on the miserable floor. It is plain -from the physi 
 cian s look that the stifling hut is becoming fast a solemn 
 and a sacred place. Jim turns his face towards the indigo 
 Madonna, and hides it in his hands beneath the pity of her 
 supernaturally round eyes. The wide, warm Christmas eve 
 comes slowly on. The chattering of the Negroes hushes yi 
 the hut, and in the street outside. From the distant Ca 
 thedral the sound of Christmas chant floats faintly. The 
 wooden shutter which has been drawn across the window 
 flaps suddenly and heavily back. Jim, with a start, closes 
 18 
 
274 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 it in again solidly. Through that window Jini, the phy 
 sician, the lady, and the boy upon the bed, can see the out 
 line of the old city churchyard, behind which the sun will 
 soon set in the fair Florida colors that die but to live again 
 in the Florida Christmas dawn. 
 
 " I sent for you to give you back your veil. You was 
 very good to us. I ve kept the veil." The poor lad 
 preludes the word with a reverent pause. " I ve kept it in 
 a place where it shouldn t get a harm. I ll show you. 
 It s in a Bible. It was my mother s Bible. She has her 
 name in it. I thought you d like to see it." 
 
 He puts the book into her hands, and the perfumed veil 
 falls out and flutters down. The leaf of a dead rose falls, 
 too, leaving an evanescent scent of its own, swift as a van 
 ishing soul, upon the air. The young girl kneeling, blue- 
 robed, reverent, turns the fly-leaf of the book, and reads. 
 Over her head the blue-robed Madonna, with the deathless 
 maternal yearning which even an indigo " chromio " can 
 not quench, looks silently. Faint and far from the Cathe 
 dral sounds on the Christmas chant. 
 
 " Jim ? " The pathetic, interrupted whisper hits against 
 the hush. " I let her look at mother s Bible. It s 
 almost like having own folks in Florida to see a 
 
 " Dr. Frankrow ! " 
 
 Calla Hepburn gently laid down the little old book. A 
 change, marked as that upon the faces of the dying, or as 
 the look of one suddenly restored to life, had fallen upon 
 her. It might be that she had grown very pale. A daz 
 zling color seemed to have crowned her. To those who 
 saw her, her young face shone as it had been the face of an 
 angel. 
 
 " Dr. Frankrow, will you step aside with me one mo 
 ment? I have a word to say to you." 
 
CLOTH OF GOLD. 275 
 
 He stepped beside her and she closed the door. They 
 stood in the little garden-plot belonging to the hut, sheltered 
 by high coquina walls. The sun dreamed upon the strag 
 gling, dusty flowers. The square of sky above them seemed 
 to stoop to meet them where they stood. By the closing of 
 the door the sound of poor Dan s cruel breathing was quite 
 shut out. They seemed to stand alone in the world in that 
 one moment, among the dying flowers, beneath the stooping 
 sky they two. 
 
 Miss Hepburn, looking up into the young man s face, was 
 suddenly, though it were difficult to see how, made conscious 
 of this. Her own face indefinably changed its expression 
 for an instant. Her eyes sought the dying flowers before 
 she spoke. 
 
 " You knew, Dr. Frankrow," she said at last in a low, but 
 perfectly even voice, " something, I think, of my history ? " 
 
 He knew that she was the adopted daughter of Mrs. 
 Hepburn ; certainly ; little else ; he hastened to deprecate 
 being made the recipient of any allusions painful to her 
 self ; but his clear-cut, high-bred features sharpened ; he put 
 out his hand as they stood there, impulsively, incoherently, 
 as one does in pushing something away from one in the 
 dark. 
 
 " I have nothing to say which is painful to myself " 
 the young girl lifted her head " Mr. Hepburn took me 
 from a place of public charity. My parents could not help 
 that ; they died. One is not ashamed of one s parents for 
 being dead. Dr. Frankrow, that is my mother s name in the 
 old Testament. What is the matter ? Are you ill ? " 
 
 No ; he was not ill ; only a trifle dizzy ; the sun glared 
 so, in this dusty garden The boys, then ? 
 
 " The boys are my brothers." 
 
 And she proposed to do what ? 
 
 " Do ! " The young girl turned her shining face upon 
 him. He felt to his inmost soul at that moment that she 
 
276 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 scorned him for the question. She had no more doubt of 
 what she should do than a star has of its orbit. The child 
 of charity, moved by instincts so lofty and so fine that 
 the high-bred gentleman felt himself plebeian beside her. 
 " Do ? I only called you here to ask if I might tell Dan. 
 You are his physician. I did not dare to judge. And then 
 I thought you would go and tell mamma. Mamma tried 
 once to find out about the boys, but we lost the track of 
 them. Tell mamma I shall stay with Dan, and oh, 
 may I tell him ? Will it do, Doctor, to tell my brother 
 that I love him, before he dies ? " 
 
 " Tell Dan," said the physician huskily ; " yes, tell him. 
 A man would die a few hours sooner to be in Dan s place." 
 
 She turned ; she swept ; she fled from him. Mute shy 
 ness would have fled like that ; but so would merciless 
 scorn. The breadth of the dusty little garden widened be 
 tween them ; it seemed to the young man to stretch out im 
 measurable, black ; and the narrow space between himself 
 and the Negro huts to reel and yawn like a gulf. 
 
 In the hut door she paused ; she did not face him, but 
 she paused. The bud which he had given her had opened 
 in her hand. She lifted it and looked deep into it. She 
 held it above her head like a lamp. One can look forever 
 into the heart of a rose of the cloth of gold. It is deep as 
 the heart of a tender woman and as dazzling. 
 
 Calla Hepburn for a swift instant peered into the soul of 
 the royal rose petal past petal, down to the blazing calyx. 
 The flower shed a pale lambent color upon her face, she 
 held it so near. 
 
 She held it so near, that he hardly knew she had pressed 
 her lips to it, till the sudden, shy, maidenly kiss was given. 
 But it was given. She had kissed it. Then, did she repent 
 the kiss ? Or did she seal it ? Would she waste it on 
 the rising wind ? or would she that the Florida sun should 
 garner and guard it for her ? Who could say ? She turned ; 
 
CLOTH OF GOLD. 277 
 
 she tossed the rose with a magnificent movement towards 
 the Christmas sky. It flew like an oriole, and fell like a 
 sunbeam. The young man left alone in the dingy garden- 
 plot caught it, kneeling in the dust. It quivered under his 
 touch, like a thing of life. There was a soul in the cloth 
 of gold roses ; that, he had always known. He had been 
 used to call it a bird s, a butterfly s, a sun s. Now he knew. 
 It was a woman s. He held it for a moment against his 
 heart, still kneeling, with uncovered head, before he stirred. 
 
 The indigo Madonna was radiant when he came into the 
 stifling hut. Beneath her happy eyes the blue-robed girl* 
 had crept upon the wretched bed, beside the wasting lad, 
 " to help him die," she said. She had told him, that was 
 clear. She had told him quietly, with such sweet, serene, 
 simple nature, as the roses had, when they told the sun 
 they grew. Dan had accepted it as quietly. The poor 
 boy s head lay upon her arm. Her little blue veil was still 
 in his hand ; the withered rose-leaf had dropped from it 
 upon the floor. The Florida roses had faded for poor 
 Dan. 
 
 " We did n t think," said Dan, "we did n t think we d 
 find own folks in Florida, did we, Jim ? " 
 
 He wandered a little, as the Christmas eve drew solemnly 
 on. He talked of Jobbs s boy, and Mrs. Green. He talked 
 of the hen that came to get the crackers for her dinner. 
 He longed for the little girl that made the tissue-paper 
 roses. He asked if the boss had given him a notice. He 
 called the cat that was purring in the Boston boarding- 
 house, thirteen hundred miles away, and seemed to pat an 
 unseen dog upon the head. That dog, he said, was always 
 glad to see him ; he had n t seen a decent dog in Florida. 
 He did n t know it was so cold in Florida. How much 
 farther was it to St. Augustine ? He would n t have 
 thought eighteen miles would last so long. Jim ! Jim ! JIM ! 
 That moss was round his neck : it twisted tight and choked 
 
278 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 him. If he had a sister, she would take it off yes ; there ! 
 Oh, yes. He opened the book and found her. They keep 
 sisters in their Bibles down in Florida. That s one good 
 thing he d found about the place. But don t tell Jim. 
 Poor Jim ! Don t tell Jim it was a mistake to come to 
 Florida. Jim would have to work his way back to Boston 
 with the chromios. But then, he d found his folks. Per 
 haps they d buy the chromios to help. He d find her in 
 the Bible. She would look after him, till he got to Mrs. 
 Green s. 
 
 He liked the music. How much folks sang in Florida ! 
 That new lodger in the attic rear was fond of music. He 
 played the jewsharp on a rainy day. 
 
 Christmas music ? Christmas ? That was somebody s 
 birthday Christmas. He feebly put his wasted hand 
 against his sister s cheek and asked her : was it hers ? 
 
 " Now .... Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea." 
 Too solemn for a sob, her voice broke against the distant 
 Christmas chant, and reverent, ringing, penetrated the mis 
 erable room. 
 
 " And lo, the angel of the Lord came .... and the glory 
 of the Lord shone." .... 
 
 The angel had come, in truth ; the glory was shining as 
 she spoke. " Why Dan ! " said the Christian woman sim 
 ply, " you re going to spend the Lord s birthday with 
 Him ! " 
 
 But Jim suddenly lifted his gray face from his hands. 
 
 " Dan ! " he cried, " Dan, old boy, you ain t afraid, be 
 you ? " 
 
 Dan stretched out both his arms : " I ain t afraid, Jim, to 
 go anywhere with you. But don t you think we Ve been 
 in Florida long enough ? Take me back to Boston." 
 
 All the world that is to say, all St. Augustine knew 
 by the setting of the Christmas sun why Miss Hepburn had 
 
CLOTH OF GOLD. 279 
 
 no Christmas party. All the world knew, too, that by the 
 setting of that solemn sun a pathetic dead face rested on 
 Miss Hepburn s own delicate pillow in the heart of her 
 rose-red room. It was the little last thing left to do for 
 him, and she thought it would seem to him like " having 
 folks in Florida." The chromo peddler sat by ; he held 
 the lad s unresponsive hand; it was hard to say what Jim 
 thought about the rose-room, or if he thought at all. He 
 did not talk. A new sister like an angel in a wonder 
 ful room, was a mystery yet, deep and dim like life or 
 death. But Dan he knew all about. And Dan was gone. 
 He had brought Dan to Florida. And Dan had asked him 
 to take him back to Boston. One does not talk about such 
 things. So he sat and held the boy s hand. Dan had lifted 
 up his hands to him the very last, last thing. 
 
 " I 11 set by him, if you please," said Jim. 
 
 And so he did, till Dan was borne away to the little old 
 churchyard without the City Gates, where the peaceful 
 graves are marked with crosses of Florida shells. The rose 
 garden was shorn of every white bud it bore, to carry too. 
 But in the lad s hand, hidden half from sight, there was one 
 rose of the cloth of gold. The other flowers were so daz 
 zling white, that this looked like sunshine upon snow : or 
 like a woman s kiss on marble. 
 
 " Considered as a funeral," sighed Mrs. Hepburn one day 
 when the roses had had time to wither on the grave, " purely 
 as a funeral, I called it a very melancholy thing. But when 
 you come to view a chromo peddler in the light of a brother- 
 in-law, I will say I regard Dr. Frankrow as the only man I 
 know who is half worthy of her, though I don t doubt he s 
 got more than he deserves at that. Regarded as a man, 
 simply as a man, a lover always does, Call him a photog 
 rapher substitute a camera for a chromo and in proc 
 ess of time, can you tell me where will be the odds ? Mrs. 
 
280 CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 Cameron herself is a photographer, and Tennyson sits to 
 her, and that in England. An American, regarded merely 
 as an American " 
 
 " Mamma dear ? Suppose you regard me as a daughter 
 for a minute merely as a daughter, and tell me If you 
 were going to be married again, mamma ? " 
 
 " No, I thank you, Calla ! Mr. Hepburn was a good man, 
 my dear, an excellent man. But marrying, like dying, 
 should never be expected of one but once. I claim you ve 
 done your duty in either case by God and man if the 
 thing is once thoroughly attended to. I prefer not, if you 
 please, my dear ! " 
 
 " But mamma, if you must, you know if there were n t 
 any way out of it that you could see and you d put it 
 off, and put it off, and all, and it had got to be done some 
 time, what should you think of being married when the new 
 spring comes on to the everlasting summer, in Florida, 
 you know ? " 
 
 " Regarded as a duty," said Mrs. Hepburn, sadly, " en 
 tirely in the light of a duty, I would rather be married in 
 Florida than in Paradise." 
 
SAINT CALIGULA. 
 
 THE first time that I saw Caligula, I remember, my cigars 
 had given out. 
 
 I was, it is needless to add, a smoker ; Caligula was a 
 member of a Baptist church. I was in the combative phase 
 of experience ; Caligula was in the acquiescent. I was, per 
 haps I may venture to say, of a speculative nature ; Calig 
 ula of an incurious one. I was twenty-six ; Caligula was 
 sixty-two. I was reading " Hopkins on Original Sin ; " 
 Caligula was blacking my boots. I was a junior in the 
 Theological School of Harmouth University ; Caligula was 
 the divinity sweep. I was white ; Caligula was black. 
 
 To say that Caligula and I had never met before would 
 be inaccurate. I believe I had been in Harmouth ten days. 
 Ten times, therefore, I must infer that Caligula had been a 
 visitor in No. 2, West Depravity Hall. Ten times he must 
 have stepped in slippered sanctity of foot across my smoke- 
 beclouded threshold. Ten times he must have dusted those 
 lyrics of Heine into the waste-basket, and put the Eng 
 lish Bible conspicuously on top of the meerschaum. Ten 
 times he must have essayed to produce order in that awful 
 bedroom, out of which I got with the utmost possible speed 
 every morning, thinking it the discreeter part of valor not 
 to look behind. Ten times yes, it must be he who had 
 ten times washed the soap-dish and forgotten to dry it ; ten 
 times made unpardonable dust with that particular kind of 
 a broom, patented for University purposes, which can t go 
 
282 SAINT CALIGULA. 
 
 into corners, but leaves a circular mark to show how clean 
 the middle of the room is. He it was, then, who had ten 
 times blacked my ungrateful boots ; but until this day I 
 mention, I am not quite sure that I had ever bestowed 
 upon Caligula any such share of my valuable mental proc 
 esses as could be philosophically called attention. 
 
 That day it was Friday, and rained I put my amber 
 mounted pipe upon the askew little thin red cloth of the 
 unsteady library table (one of the fellows had whittled a 
 leg short), and, without raising my eyes from " Hopkins," 
 said leisurely : 
 
 " Oh ! Here, if you please. I want an errand done 
 downtown." 
 
 " Yes, Mist Hub." 
 
 " My name is Hubbard," I said, putting down the book. 
 " I wonder, by the way, what yours is." 
 
 " I did n t supposed you d done forgot, Mist Hub," said 
 the negro, gently. 
 
 I closed the book and regarded him. 
 
 " Why, Caligula ! Is this you ? " 
 
 " Yes, Mist Hub." 
 
 " You were round senior year, in college, a week or so. 
 Somewhere the end of the term, was n t it ? " 
 
 " I had you three month, Mist Hub," said Caligula, 
 slowly. " I tought you d done remembered. You was very 
 good to me. I had you ole weskits, Mist Hub ; an de 
 neckties you trew in. I did n t supposed you d done for 
 got, sar." 
 
 I have said that this was the first time I saw Caligula. 
 The visual power of a student in Harmoutli College (not 
 too much restricted in income, let us say, and not of an un 
 popular temperament) during the last three months of senior 
 year is a more or less limited faculty. Could it be expected 
 to bring to a focus distinctly upon a negro sweep of tempo 
 rary history and unobtrusive habits ? 
 
SAINT CALIGULA. 283 
 
 My " Original Sin " dropped with a resounding thwack 
 upon the floor. Caligula picked it up. He stood bowing 
 and cringing. I looked at him silently. A little man, gray, 
 spare, bent, bald, black as the French boots which stood 
 shining upon the pine shelf somebody (was it he, perhaps ?) 
 had obligingly put up for them behind the bedroom door. 
 A little, obsequious, uninteresting man, of an enslaved nat 
 ure, I thought, flattering myself upon the judicial nicety of 
 my perceptions ; a creature without even the crude con 
 ditions of heroism, of romance, of poetry, w T hich now and 
 then attach to select specimens of his rudimentary race. 
 Gentle, perhaps, with the grotesque sarcasm of that name 
 of his to overset all possible gravity in one s appreciation 
 of the fact ; gentle, silent, and commonplace. Oh ! yes, and 
 clean. Caligula was tolerably clean, and his forehead was 
 heavily lined. He wore small round earrings, too. Next 
 time I should know Caligula. He " would n t supposed I 
 clone forgot" again. My cheeks burned at the gentle 
 manly rebuke. 
 
 " I stand corrected, Caligula," I said. " You have better 
 manners than I. Come and shake hands. But I don t know 
 why you should remember me out of; so many fellows." 
 
 " It was the weskits partly, Mist Hub," said Caligula, 
 thoughtfully. " But, ye see, some de young men dey yank 
 a man s earrings an old man s earrings," added Caligula, 
 with dignity " dat a doctor said would cure me of weak 
 eyes, sar. You neber tetched em, Mist Hub." 
 
 " Glad if I did n t, Caligula ! " said I, hastily thinking 
 what a narrow escape it was, if I had n t. " But you 
 need n t have been at any trouble to remember the waist 
 coats. And now /remember that you used to get tobacco 
 for me before. I want some cigars from Dobbins s." 
 
 " Yes, sar. I know. I remember de sort I done used to 
 got for you at Dobbins s. I 11 go at once, sar," said Calig 
 ula, gravely. He did not approve of smoking. He gave it 
 
284 SAINT CALIGULA. 
 
 up when he was immersed, and he always used to say : 
 " I 11 go at once, sar." I began to recall these incidents in 
 Caligula s history. 
 
 Caligula turned, as he went out that day, standing in the 
 doorway, through which (I had front corner, ground floor) 
 I could see the wet, graveled walk and the rain beating the 
 infirm October grass. 
 
 " Dar s one reason, sar, I remember you, Mist Hub. 
 When Mari come home wid de wash " 
 
 "Mari?" 
 
 " Mari is my wife, sar. I tought you d done remember 
 Mari. She washed for you for two years, sar, Mari." 
 
 " Caligula," said I, decidedly, " I have been in Germany 
 for two years, studying biology." 
 
 " And when a man studies biology in Germany for so 
 long a time, Caligula, it is difficult for him to keep all his 
 American acquaintances as distinctly in mind as he would 
 like. Don t you see ? Biology preoccupies the memory to 
 a curious extent." 
 
 " Yes, Mist Hub." A look of awe stole over Caligula s 
 humble, listening face. 
 
 "But really I think, Caligula yes, I do think that I 
 remember Mari. Short, was n t she ? " 
 
 " Tall, sar. Mari is tall of her size, and well put to- 
 geder." 
 
 " Yes, I mean rather tall. Just tall enough to be 
 good-looking, and somewhat slim ? " 
 
 "She s pretty stout," said Caligula, patiently; "pretty 
 stout of her weight, an lighter complected than I, sar. 
 She s handsome to see, Mari. An she had one twenty-five 
 a dozen for starched, sar ; she did up so well." 
 
 " Now I am sure I remember her," I continued, enthu 
 siastically. " A handsome woman, stout and short " 
 
 " Tall, sar." 
 
SAINT CALIGULA. 285 
 
 " Stout and tall I mean, who asked one twenty-five for 
 starched things. I remember perfectly. An admirable 
 woman. But what was it I did about Mari, Caligula ? " 
 
 " Some de young men chaff at her," said Caligula, with 
 reviving spirit, " seein she was a washwoman and black. 
 Dar was some rooms she would n t go nigh, sar. She s 
 sperited in her feelin s, Mari. She used to send me to their 
 rooms. Mist Hub, I tank you, sar. You treat my wife 
 like a lady." Caligula drew himself up. He had put on 
 his hat ; but took it off again, and bowed gravely to me, 
 standing in the rain, before he shut the door. 
 
 Some of the fellows were in when Caligula came back 
 with the cigars. I nodded at him kindly, with a vague 
 sense of gaining experience in the pastoral work. I said, 
 " Did you get very wet, Caligula ? " with that unconscious 
 condescension we fall into, especially in the presence of wit 
 nesses, toward a person to whom we have been kind. I 
 think I had some idea of asking further questions about 
 Mari, with the purpose of drawing him out, for the enter 
 tainment of my visitors. But the sweep checked my ad 
 vances with an indefinable reticence and dignity of manner. 
 I let him go in silence. It suddenly seemed to me that he 
 was rather an old man to be going out in the rain to get 
 cigars for us. 
 
 We were preparing for a debate in our Seminary Literary 
 Society that week the fellows and I. I remember that I 
 had the affirmative on the question, " Is it desirable to have 
 a Celibate Clergy?" 
 
 " I hope your wife is well," I said one morning to Calig 
 ula. I spoke with something of a society air in my anxiety, 
 newly acquired, to avoid the twang of patronage. Indeed, 
 I think I put the question rather gayly, like a man exchang 
 ing the compliments of a New Year s call. 
 
 Caligula was cleaning my coat. He had the ammonia 
 bottle, and with assiduous, cramped finger was rubbing the 
 
286 SAINT CALIGULA. 
 
 spot spattered by the turtle soup at dinner. He did not 
 immediately answer me. When he did, he said : 
 
 " Powerful strong ammony, sar, dis yere." He lifted his 
 eyes the melancholy eyes of his race. I found myself 
 unexpectedly face to face with an old man s difficult and 
 impressive tears. 
 
 " She s well, sar ; yes, Mari is well, tank God. She s 
 peart an well. An so s de chillen. They re powerful 
 peart chillen, sar." 
 
 " I have some washing, if she wants it," I said, with the 
 irrelevance of perplexity. 
 
 " Tank you, sar. She don t take in now." 
 
 " Why, what s the matter ? " 
 
 It takes the bluntness and the boldness of youth (and I 
 had both) to ask such questions. Caligula put down the 
 ammonia bottle and slowly folded the coat before he said : 
 
 " Mist Plub, sar, Mari s out with me." 
 
 " Out with you, Caligula ? " 
 
 " She s been out with me, sar, dis two years. She s 
 powerful sperited woman, Mari. Mist Hub, sar, my wife 
 hain t spoke to me for two whole years." 
 
 He bowed as he said this, crouching a little. It is not 
 easy to put into words the effect the motion had upon me ; 
 as if the creature must apologize to another for his very 
 sorrows. I was young and a theological student. I knew 
 little about sorrow. But I felt to the bottom of my un 
 taught, untried heart that I was in the presence of a pro 
 found affliction. Biology offered no assistance for such 
 emergencies. " Original Sin " gave me no suggestion. I 
 ran over the main points in my paper on the " Celibate 
 Clergy," without avail. In simple desperation, I said : 
 
 " Caligula, I beg your pardon." 
 
 " Tank you, sar," said Caligula. He was at work once 
 more on the turtle spot, rubbing meekly, with bent, bald 
 head. As he rubbed his earrings shook. 
 
SAINT CALIGULA. 287 
 
 " I did not know you had domestic troubles. I did not 
 mean to intrude upon them by by careless questions." 
 
 " No, sar. Tank you, sar." 
 
 There was a silence. 
 
 " You d been kind to her, of course, Caligula ? " I ven 
 tured, breaking it at last. 
 
 " I tried to be, Mist Hub," said Caligula, gently. 
 " She s a powerful sperited woman, Mari," he added, 
 slowly. " She can t stand much. We disagreed, sar, bout 
 de doctrine of Immersion. Mari took to the Piscopals, to 
 St. John s. A powerful aristocratical church, St. John s, 
 Mist Hub ; s ported mainly by head waiters an barbers, 
 sar. Mari an me, we disagreed on Immersion an Postol- 
 ical Succession. I tried to be kind to her ; but she hain t 
 spoke to me for two years. I don t wish to find no fault 
 with Mari ; but it s hard, someways, to git long, sar. She 
 won t take in nor go out, sar, to earn nothing. Nor yet 
 she won t cook, sar, an tend up at home. She hain t lifted 
 a finger to do for me for nigh two years, sar. She does for 
 de chillen, sar ; but she neber does for me." 
 
 " But do you support, do you take care of her, under the 
 circumstances, Caligula ? " 
 
 u Sartainly, sar. She has a claim upon me for s port. 
 She s my wife. She has de legal claim. I s ports em all, 
 sar, de same as if Immersion had n t come between us. It 
 comes a mite hard ; but I don t wish to find no fault with 
 Mari." 
 
 " You re too good to her ! " I said, hotly. 
 
 Caligula lifted his head. " She is my wife, sar," he an 
 swered, simply. 
 
 " You re too good to her, all the same, Caligula." 
 
 " So she says, Mist Hub. It s that she s most high 
 sperited about. She says it makes her heaps ob trubble in 
 the way of gitten the divose." 
 
 " Divorce ! Does she want a divorce ? " 
 
288 SAINT CALIGULA. 
 
 " Yes, Mist Hub, sar. She s been tryin for de divose 
 dis year while past. Mebbe she 11 git it, sar, de lawyer 
 done says. I d be sorry," said Caligula, sighing. " But de 
 Lord understand de matter. He s de best lawyer /know, 
 sar. You see, Mist Hub, sar, I ve sorter put de case in 
 his ban s. He knows Mari. He must kinder see what a 
 powerful fine woman she is, settin Postolical Succession 
 out the account, and them high sperits he giv her. A 
 handsome woman, too," pursued the sweep, straightening. 
 His eye flashed with marital pride ; but across his dark 
 and heavy jaw there passed the pinched look peculiar to 
 those species of animals who suffer without outcry. 
 
 I did not understand the expression, being, as I say, but 
 twenty-six. But I understood that I did not understand it, 
 and sat before Caligula awed and silent. Who was I, that 
 I should comfort, instruct, or edify my negro sweep ? 
 Love ? I had thought myself in love once or twice, in 
 summer vacations ; when the moon was on the river ; when 
 the twilight touched the sea ; when the wind blew soft hair 
 against my face ; when the scent of flowers was strong ; 
 when people in parlors sang love songs without the lamps ; 
 when it was not incumbent to reduce one s visions of do 
 mestic life upon a rural clerical income to the coherence of 
 an immediate engagement. 
 
 This black brute, it seemed, could love a woman, in his 
 own way. Well, what a way it was. 
 
 Christianity ? I had chosen the sacred profession, whose 
 peculiar precinct it is to define for other men their duty 
 to God and man; to inspect their motives; to judge their 
 conduct ; to prescribe their principles ; to be their leader 
 through the subtle perils and delicate intoxications of a 
 spiritual consecration. 
 
 Suppose I prated of resignation, of self-denial, of purity, 
 of integrity, to this negro Baptist, building my fire there, 
 crouched, patient, kneeling on the seminary floor ! I ! 
 
SAINT CALIGULA. 289 
 
 I looked at the man with a peculiar interest, I remember, 
 as if I had never seen a Christian before ; as if I had dis 
 covered the type of character. My heart said: " Caligula, 
 teach me." 
 
 I was still young enough not to ask for the other side 
 of a story that appealed to my sympathies ; and it was not 
 until I happened to lunch one day with Mari s lawyer a 
 professor in the Harinouth Law School, I regret to be 
 obliged to say that it occurred to me what a shock it 
 would be to discover in my St. Caligula some ordinary do 
 mestic tyrant, of uncertain habits, temper, or purse-strings, 
 from whom the protective marriage laws of the parental 
 state would be richly justified in freeing that handsome, 
 high-spirited, but long-suffering female, Mari. 
 
 I measured my escape by my sensations when Burrage 
 said, carelessly : 
 
 " You have a phenomenon up at Depravity Hall, in the 
 shape of your sweep ; one of the best husbands I ever knew 
 in my life. Eh ? Oh ! yes, the divorce. I think I shall 
 be able to get the woman the divorce from him. Should 
 have got it last year if he d neglected her or showed tem 
 per. She 11 make it incompatibility, I think under the 
 present laws. Curious case. The worst she acts the better 
 he treats her. He s hard pushed, poor chap. Very curious 
 case. Why, confound it ! the fellow seems to love the 
 woman ! Says he promised to, when they got married ! " 
 
 Having neither experience nor wisdom with which to 
 help Caligula, I offered him the only trifles at my com 
 mand money and reverence. He accepted both, without 
 remarks. He seemed to be suffering from an attack of 
 dumb gratitude. But next week he appeared with a new 
 Droom. I am not versed in the natural history of brooms ; 
 :>ut I suppose this to have been rectangular in shape, for the 
 corners of my bedroom were clean from that day forever- 
 more. 
 
 19 
 
290 SAINT CALIGULA. 
 
 Being very much occupied about this time with my de 
 bate on the Celibate Clergy, with the lectures on Predesti 
 nation, some Hebrew roots on which I had "got sat down" 
 in the class-room, and a few other matters of importance, 
 I think, as nearly as I can recall, that I had little or no 
 conversation with Caligula for several weeks. 
 
 One day he hung about, after his work was done, with 
 that pitiable bow. I was reading Baur on the " Fourth 
 Gospel," I remember. Caligula seemed at U large remove 
 from the argument. I was tense with zeal for the honor of 
 the tender evangel, and the affairs of this colored brother 
 seemed unimportant beside the literary history of the dis 
 ciple whom Jesus loved. 
 
 Caligula said : " Busy, Mist Hub ? " 
 
 "Why, -yes, Caligula; rather, just now. Anything 
 wanted ? " 
 
 "No, sar; tank you, sar." 
 
 He moved away. His hands came together at the lean 
 finger-tips with a submissive motion. 
 
 " Caligula ! Come back ! " 
 
 " Yes, sar ; tank you, sar." 
 
 " You had something to say to me. What troubles you ? 
 What has Mari done now ? " 
 
 " Nothing, sar, of no great consequence ; but the di- 
 vose." 
 
 " Oh ! The divorce." 
 
 " She done got the divose, sar she an de chillen. I 
 did n t s posed she d done get a divose for de chillen. 
 She s took em with her, sar. She s gone to Teniiysee, 
 Mari has. Dey s all gone, sar. I m lef to myself, sar ; 
 tank you, sar. I thought I d give you information of the 
 
 fac . That s all Mist Hub, the pail needs fillin 
 
 fresh. I call the water turned a mite sour. I will fill it. 
 1 11 go at once, sar." 
 
 I was too much of a novice in human experience to be 
 
SAINT CALIGULA. 291 
 
 equable in my treatment of human confidence, and remem 
 ber to have suffered many keen alternations of feeling about 
 Caligula ; but from this time I think he advanced upon my 
 interest with sad and steady inroads. I did not call in the 
 fellows to see him now. I could not, somehow. Caligula 
 did not converse much with the rest ; or, if he did, it was 
 on a superficial plane, carefully confined to the area of 
 blacking, brooms, and coal, of soap or towels, of the weather 
 or the wages. There was a senior opposite the ablest 
 man in the seminary, and reported to be of a singularly 
 spiritual nature, interested in the higher life. But Caligula 
 had never mentioned Mari to this good man. As I thought 
 more about it, I became at first awed, then humbled, by 
 the confidence of the sweep. 
 
 I remember saying, one day : 
 
 " Caligula, I m a young fellow, and can t understand 
 your troubles, I know. But I d like to have you know 
 I m downright sorry for them and for you ! I hope Mari 
 is ashamed of herself before now ! " 
 
 Caligula lifted his melancholy eyes to answer me : but 
 spoke with difficulty, bringing out his patient " Tank you, 
 sar," without his usual distinctness. 
 
 " I d take it kindly, Mist Hub," he added, " sein you ve 
 been so good, sar, if you d speak regardfully of my wife. 
 Don t s pose she done understood how lonesome it would 
 make it, gettin de divose for de chillen too. She was sech 
 a handsome woman," sighing, " and so high sperited. I 
 don t sweep up no grudgin feelin s against my wife." 
 
 It was the second term of middle year. The exam 
 inations on Federal Headship in Adam were past. The 
 snow had melted from , the University Green ; the ice was 
 breaking on the Harmouth River ; great freshets were 
 gathering their forces. Our seminary windows stood open. 
 Caligula s coal fires burned low. The Professor had got 
 
292 SAINT CALIGULA. 
 
 along as far as Justification by Faith. Sparrows twittered 
 in the bare seminary elms. Spring was coming. 
 
 So, it seemed, was Caligula, with a definite haste in his 
 shuffling step. I heard it far down the stairs that day, and 
 listened idly over the notes on Eternal Punishment and the 
 Natural Man. 
 
 The year had come and gone, leaving Caligula as it 
 found him a patient, melancholy man, with slavish in 
 born manners and grand acquired Christian eyes. Caligula 
 had ceased to talk of his domestic afflictions. He honored 
 me by a silent assumption of my sympathy. 
 
 This day I have in mind, he presented a remarkable, 
 though perfectly indefinable appearance. We call it trans 
 figuration in white people. He came directly to my side, 
 and said : 
 
 " Mist Hub, sar, T done got a letter from her. I got a 
 letter from my wife." 
 
 " She is not your wife ! " I exclaimed thoughtlessly. I 
 was angry for Caligula. I do not know but I was angry 
 with him. I should have relished a touch of masculine 
 temper in this long-suffering and long-loving creature. Ca 
 ligula waved away my words with a gesture of much dig 
 nity. 
 
 " She writes to say, sar " 
 
 " What business has she to write to you at all ? " 
 
 " It is in reply," said Caligula, with a good deal of man 
 ner. " I wrote de fust letter. Dis is in reply." 
 
 " Oh ! you ve been writing to her, have you ? " 
 
 It is as unsafe, we find, for a superior nature to assume 
 that it has absorbed the confidence of the inferior as it would 
 be to establish an elective affinity between the " walrus and 
 the carpenter" (with whose attempt to walk " hand in hand" 
 a contemporary humorist has made us all familiar). 
 
 What else had Caligula done, pray, which he had not 
 condescended to communicate to me ? 
 
SAINT CALIGULA. 293 
 
 " I wrote to her," pursued Caligula, with increasing in 
 dependence, in a tone which, however, lost none of its gentle 
 and appealing character. " I wrote that I had bout made 
 up my,mine, sar, to go to housekeepin again. I d live alone 
 too long. I should marry somebody, sar, as de law allow, 
 an go to keepin house dis yere season. So I told her I d 
 give her de fust chance." 
 
 "Hem! You did, did you?" 
 
 u Yes, sar. I did n t cringe to her, sar. She s high- 
 sperited herself. I jest told her, in a high-sperited way, 
 how it was. She could do jest as she done pleased. But I 
 told her I d give her de fust chance." 
 
 " And what under these unusual circumstances did 
 the lady say ? " 
 
 " She say she d come, and be tankful, sar. But I must 
 send a hundred and fifty dollars to get her and de chillen 
 on from Nashville." 
 
 " It is a large sum, Caligula." 
 
 " A large sum, sar," repeated Caligula, cheerfully. " But 
 she says she s done glad to get home again and behave like 
 a lady, sar. She says she s had a very dull time in Nash 
 ville, sar." " I expect she would," added Caligula, modestly. 
 
 Justification by Faith was struggling with the natural 
 man in this model husband at that moment. Anybody but 
 St. Caligula would have said : " I told her so ! " 
 
 " And how," I asked, submissively, " do you expect to 
 raise one hundred arid fifty dollars, Caligula ? " 
 
 " The Lord will provide ! " said Caligula, religiously. 
 " I ve laid up a trifle jest a trifle, sar sence she got de 
 divose. I laid up against things took a turn in dis direction, 
 sar. I neber wanted to marry no other woman. Mari was 
 my wife. I expect she done come back to me. I ain t 
 gwine to let a matter like a hunderd and fifty dollars come 
 between me an my wife, sar." 
 
 Caligula stood confidingly child-like, serene, and sweet. 
 
294 SAINT CALIGULA. 
 
 But out of the dark mirror of his face, as out of the Claude 
 Lorraine illuminated landscapes, looked and blinded me. 
 The Negro sweep was a radiant creature. 
 
 I yielded the case without a murmur. We took up a 
 subscription in Depravity Hall. The theological professor 
 himself subscribed five dollars, at the close of his famous 
 lecture on Imputed Sin. The exegetical chair was gener 
 ous. The homiletic department kindly headed a paper. 
 Several of the fellows put down a Sunday s preaching. One 
 of them was supplying a mission pulpit at two dollars and 
 seventy-five cents a Sabbath. In three days I had made up 
 the amount necessary to reinstate Caligula in the perils and 
 the pleasures of domestic life. He requested me to write 
 the letter which should explain to the absent fair the pro 
 found mysteries of money orders, railway routes, the di 
 vorce laws, and his own unconditional forgiveness and un 
 swerving attachment, especially urging me to " make it cl ar 
 bout de money an de feelin s " involved in the complicated 
 case. Humbly I did my best in both particulars ; adding, I 
 must confess, one or two pungent suggestions in postscript 
 form and on my personal responsibility, which Caligula did 
 not see, but I am glad to remember that Mari did. 
 
 I sent the letter. And the freshets came ; and the coal- 
 fires died quite out ; and the elms began to breathe ; and 
 the class got their three-months license ; and the Greek 
 department had us all to tea, six at a time ; and the spring 
 budded and burst. And one afternoon Caligula walked in, 
 at an unwonted hour, and said : 
 
 " I ve had a telegram from my wife. She d like to have 
 me meet her an de chillen at Forty-second Street Station, 
 in New York, to-morrow. I 11 go at once, sar." 
 
 Two days after, as I stood plaintively blacking my own 
 boots and thoughtfully wondering how Caligula managed to 
 get the sheet on the bed so it would turn over the blanket, 
 my sweep reappeared. He had on a new pair of earrings, 
 
SAINT CALIGULA. 295 
 
 very bright. He wore fresh kid gloves that had ripped 
 across the thumb. He held his gray head loftily. He 
 said : 
 
 " Mist Hub, sar, we d take it very kind, me an Mari, 
 if you d step over to de house this evening, sar, and read 
 the service, sar. We re gwine to be married again, Mari 
 an me. Dar s de Baptis minister could do it. But I told 
 Mari to have that aristocratical clergyman to St. John s, 
 if she done want him. But, Mist Hub, sar, she say she 
 take it very kind if you would condescend to come yourself, 
 and no sectarian diffunces to be considered on dis yere 
 peaceful and glorious occasion." 
 
MISS MILDEED S FEIEND. 
 
 THE nurse was gone at last. 
 
 Miss Mildred sighed peacefully, watching the door as it 
 closed upon her. The door was of black walnut. Mrs. 
 Hobson had the effect of being finished in black walnut too. 
 She wore brown and then her complexion ! 
 
 Miss Mildred herself had the rare pleasure (to an inva 
 lid) of having retained her complexion. She was sensitive 
 about this point in other people. And Mrs. Hobson moved 
 like a bureau without casters. Besides, she called her " my 
 dear." Mildred always sighed peacefully when Mrs. Hob- 
 son had rolled up the round stand, brought the ice-water, 
 wrung out the wet towels, set the milk behind the Cologne 
 bottle, and the crackers on the chair, measured off the Life 
 Food, put the chamomilla within reach, and " fixed " the 
 fire, a terrible process, consisting of raspings and scrap 
 ings, of puffings and pokings and gaspings, on the part of 
 Mrs. Hobson, every one of which Miss Mildred firmly be 
 lieved to be an unnecessary torture inflicted upon her nerv 
 ous system, but against which there was no redress. Mrs. 
 Hobson was one of those persons who have theories about 
 managing a fire, and with such people it is no more possible 
 to argue than with a man in love. When all this was over, 
 aud Mrs. Hobson had vanished for the night, Miss Mildred, 
 as I say, was glad. 
 
 She had resolutely refused to have Mrs. Hobson in at 
 tendance upon her at night. This pleased her mother, who 
 
MISS MILDRED S EKIEND. 297 
 
 thereby received and gave the impression that she took care 
 of Mildred half the time. No one ever alluded to the fact 
 that it was because Mrs. Suowe was systematically incapa 
 ble of taking care of her daughter at any time, that there 
 was a nurse in Mildred s case at all. 
 
 Mildred Snowe was what I have heard called " one of the 
 ethereal invalids." Nothing very dreadful or disagreeable 
 was the matter with this pale and patient young woman, 
 who had not left her beautiful room in the stately Snowe 
 mansion for now three long and empty years. She did not 
 have sick-headaches, a cancer, or a cough. She had never 
 even gone into hysterics. She did not often cry. She was 
 not expecting to die, and had never once called the family 
 together to give orders about her funeral. She had only 
 met with an accident a good while ago, and got a hurt upon 
 the spine between the shoulders, and so had the backache 
 ever since. Her mother said Mildred always "kept up;" 
 and what would have become of her if she had n t, Heaven 
 only knew, for she sometimes thought of the two she needed 
 nursing as much as anybody, but she wouldn t let poor 
 Mildred hear her say such a thing for the world. 
 
 Oh, how many times Mildred had heard her say it, talk 
 ing to callers down in the front entry, as they went away, 
 in that high-strung voice of hers that pierced her daughter s 
 ears like a fine poisoned wire, and seemed to revolve upon 
 itself within the brain for an hour after how many times ! 
 
 But Mildred only said, " Poor little mother ! she can t 
 help \\QYself" and spoke gently next time she came up, ask 
 ing how the pleurisy was, or the dyspepsia, or if she slept 
 last night, or dwelling upon whatever cheerful conversa 
 tional material of this sort happened to be uppermost at the 
 time in Mrs. Snowe s interest and favor. The subject of 
 discussion on this especial night, before Mrs. Hobson came 
 in, had been diphtheritic throats, Mrs. Snowe having heard 
 that the next lecturer in the Hamlet s Citizens Lecture 
 
298 MISS MILDRED S FRIEND. 
 
 Course had been obliged to postpone his engagement for 
 Friday, owing to this afflicting cause. The night before, 
 Mrs. Snowe was interested in a theory of chloral poisoning. 
 Last week oh, yes, last week it was amalgamated fillings. 
 
 It was always something. Mildred was used to it. Per 
 haps it was her fault, she sometimes thought. It came of 
 having an invalid in the house. 
 
 " After this diphtheria man," observed Mrs. Snowe, when 
 Mrs. Hobson had lunged out of the way, " comes Mr. Ho 
 garth. I ve long wanted to see that man. It is a fine 
 selection this year." 
 
 " What ! Henry Hogarth ? " asked Mildred. The poet ? " 
 
 " Yes, it s Henry Hogarth. I never thought of him so 
 much as a poet, though, my dear, as I did as a lecturer on 
 Pompey or was it " 
 
 " Pompeii ? " suggested Mildred. 
 
 " Well, yes, Pompeii and Herculaneum, or the Schleier- 
 macher investigations, or something of that sort. At any 
 rate, I ve always dreamed of him as a lecturer on antiq 
 uities, with an invalid wife," sighed Mrs. Snowe. 
 
 Ah ! had he an invalid wife ? 
 
 Mildred s eyes twinkled merrily. Nothing could have so 
 recommended a poet to her mother, unless, indeed, he could 
 have been an invalid himself. 
 
 " Why, yes, my dear, an extremely invalid wife. So I Ve 
 always understood. He is most devoted to her. He won t 
 stay at a party and he is said to be very fond of society 
 after nine o clock, because she prefers to have him help 
 her to bed rather than the maid. And he answers her bell 
 like a maid, jumping up every half hour. And it s so in 
 teresting to know that they live in a boarding-house, in 
 two small rooms, and he does all his writing with her be 
 side him at a little table, and her callers coming in as lovely 
 as possible ! " 
 
 It was very interesting, surely very much so ; Mildred 
 assented, idly. 
 
MISS MILDRED S FRIEND. 299 
 
 " She has a most remarkable disease," pursued Mrs. 
 Snowe, with animation. " I hear it is deterioration of 
 something. There is no other case on record like it. De 
 terioration of " 
 
 11 The heart?" suggested Mildred. 
 
 Oh, no ! " 
 
 " Intellect ? feelings ? will ? " 
 
 " No, none of those, I am sure ; they don t sound like it. 
 I think it may have been * deterioration of the arteries. At 
 any rate, it is a most remarkable disease. I Ve a mind to 
 invite him to stay here when he lectures." 
 
 "Mother! To find out what is the matter with his 
 wife ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, Mildred, not at all. What an unpleasant way 
 you have of putting things ! But he must stay somewhere. 
 Mrs. Jessop will be after him if she gets over her neuralgia. 
 I should be ashamed to have him stay at the Jessops . 
 Their carpet is blue and their curtains maroon. She d be 
 sure to have his cold mutton overdone, besides. The man 
 with the spectroscope stayed there." 
 
 " Stereoscope, mother ? " 
 
 " Yes, stereoscope, I should say and had to go up to 
 the hotel for a lunch. If I don t have one of my attacks 
 I will try it, I believe. It would be pleasant for you, too, 
 Mildred. The lectures run over several weeks. I suppose 
 he would come and go. But we need n t give him the per 
 manent invitation till we Ve tried him once. If you don t 
 need me any longer, Mildred dear, I ll go and write to 
 him, I believe, to-night. I suppose the committee have his 
 address. Comfortable, Mildred ? There ! I meant to have 
 got out of my silk before I came into your room. I must 
 remember." 
 
 Mildred smiled patiently. Her mother seldom did re 
 member. It could not be helped. She pulled the blue 
 Chinese crape coverlet close about her ears, but her eyes 
 
300 MISS MILDRED S FBIEND. 
 
 softened kindly as the stiff bonnet silk rustled elegantly 
 away. Her poor mother was such a handsome little woman, 
 when dressed ! And the merino wrapper was not becom 
 ing to her. 
 
 The invalid turns with what may be called the invalid s 
 consciousness of solitude an acute and active thing, like 
 a sixth sense ; her eyes stir over the grave blue room in 
 which she lies imprisoned ; the curtained recess where her 
 bed stands seems to gasp about her for the wide air ; her 
 supersensitive ear detects the scratch of her mother s pen 
 .through the closed door. The wind rises, and this means 
 a wakeful night. She will have time enough to think. It 
 never seems to her that she can think with Mrs. Hobson in 
 the room. 
 
 But what has she to think about? Not much, verily. 
 Only the same old story, told in the same old way of the 
 ache and anguish of the day ; the doctor s visit ; the new 
 prescription ; the prospect for to-morrow ; the items in the 
 evening paper that she read before the blinding pain crashed 
 down on brain and eyes ; the novel that Mrs. Hobson read 
 to her in the afternoon, in a very high key, and with a 
 punctuation entirely Mrs. Hobson s own, and a pronuncia 
 tion of which the less one thinks the better ; of the neigh 
 bor who " dropped in " and gossiped at her, or the other 
 neighbor who brought flowers and sympathized with her ; 
 of the subscription that she sent to the Reform Club ; of the 
 poor people whom she never sees, who give their thanks 
 for the help that costs her nothing ; of the changes in the 
 weather ; of the snapping of the fire ; of the pattern of 
 bare branches without against the moon-lit sky they have 
 a homeless, comfortless look when it is bright ; of a poem 
 that took her fancy yesterday ; of her mother, and her 
 mother s notions ; of this lecturer who is coming. 
 
 It is a dreary place to bring him to a man of the world, 
 the wide, well world. Miss Mildred, in her blue room won- 
 
MISS MILDRED S FKIEND. 301 
 
 ders what the world is like to the well. She has forgot 
 ten. It is so long now that she has lain here ! so long since 
 she has been " Miss Mildred " to people ! a way of speak 
 ing that came by degrees, a phrase full of the patronage of 
 compassion, and the dreary recognition of her lost youth. 
 Yet Mildred is not so very old. She felt young enough the 
 day it happened, bounding out from her blue room in blue 
 ribbons, while the picnic wagon stood waiting, and Jamie 
 Lenna called her at the door, and her mother Yes, her 
 mother trips ; that is all. Her mother trips, and the low, 
 wide, oiled stairs are slippery, and Mildred springs. She 
 knows how to put one hand on the baluster and bound 
 down ; she is a hoidenish girl perhaps, lithe and fearless. 
 To leap and fling herself before the sliding figure is the 
 work of a thought 
 
 So here she is. 
 
 Jamie Lenna used to call at first, but she could not see 
 him. And by and by he moved to Boston. He was a nice 
 boy, but he liked well people. He had always seemed like 
 a boy to Mildred ; most of the young men in Hamlet did. 
 Outside of Hamlet it was different, for Mildred had been 
 outside of Hamlet. But Jamie was outspoken and honest, 
 and told a good story ; she would have liked to see him 
 now and then. Mildred had been one of those frank, merry 
 girls who are easily " good friends " with the young fel 
 lows. 
 
 But only the girls came now into the sick-room, and not 
 too often, either. Mildred remembers a Miss Jones, who 
 used to be The Invalid of Hamlet ; had consumption, but 
 would n t die ; lasted unpardonably long ; people went to 
 see her fast-days and Sundays after church ; sent her jelly 
 when it was left over, and ice-cream after parties if the 
 children did n t eat it all for breakfast. When there was 
 a sermon on charity, or a revival, Miss Jones was run to 
 death with callers. She was the village scape-goat for an 
 
302 MISS MILDRED S FRIEND. 
 
 uneasy conscience. Sometimes a dozen people would sit in 
 lier room at once ; then nobody would go near her for a 
 fortnight. All the small boys of the village objected to 
 Miss Jones. Mildred had a brother in those days, a mis 
 chievous little fellow. Tom was drowned, poor boy, but no 
 body could drown his frolic out of Mildred s heart. Tom 
 used to say that Deacon Brim was gone, and Miss Jones 
 was going, and then there would be nobody left in town to 
 have to take things to after dinner. 
 
 O 
 
 " I am an old story in Hamlet," said Mildred, on this 
 windy night. " I am growing to be a Miss Jones to people 
 the town invalid." 
 
 She called her mother presently, hearing her stir. " Mam 
 ma, dear, have you written your letter ? Did you say yes ? 
 And you think he will come ? If I were you, mamma, I 
 would n t begin by asking this gentleman about his wife s 
 health. People with sick ^ives are tired of sickness. 
 Would you mind, mother just to please me? I should 
 be worried. Don t ask him. Let him say what he pleases 
 about his domestic affairs." 
 
 " Very well, Mildred," Mrs. Snowe assented, with the 
 slightly weary and patronizing air of a watcher who must 
 humor the whims of the dying " very well. Give your 
 self no anxiety. I will do the proper thing, and please you 
 too, if possible." 
 
 No interesting disease prevented Mr. Henry Hogarth 
 from fulfilling his advertised engagement to lecture upon 
 Antiquities in the Hamlet Citizens Star Lecture Course. 
 Mrs. Snowe (in black bellon and crepe lisse) observed 
 through the drawing-room windows, as he came up the 
 long, old-fashioned flagged walk, that he had not even the 
 lecturer s bronchial hack ; an unreasonably well man, who, 
 she believed, did not so much as take troches. She never 
 remembered entertaining a lecturer before who did not come 
 into the house with a troche in his mouth. 
 
MISS MILDRED S FRIEND. 303 
 
 " And the modern improvements in troches are so great," 
 thought Mrs. Snowe, pensively. It seemed as if a man in 
 that profession would eat them for the luxury of testifying 
 to the advancement of science. 
 
 " I hope you are not very much fatigued with your jour 
 ney ? " began Mrs. Snowe, sympathetically, extending her 
 delicate and hospitable hand. 
 
 " Thank you, not at all. I am seldom tired." 
 
 The hearty words rang over the sad and silent house. 
 Mildred heard them up-stairs. A happy man, she thought. 
 An interesting man, notwithstanding his extreme health, 
 thought Mrs. Snowe, scrutinizing him over her silver tea- 
 urn at supper. She liked him. All the woman in her re 
 sponded to his quick, dark eyes and straight shoulders and 
 firm mouth ; his full, vibrating voice ; his outright way of 
 saying, " What a cup of tea ! " his unexpressed (but evident) 
 pleasure in being delicately entertained; his readiness to be 
 " made at home," and his fluent, excellent stories. 
 
 A man was a rarity now at the Snowes . The widow 
 felt a change in the atmosphere, as if she had gone to the 
 beach or the mountains. She experienced a faint excite 
 ment in putting on her bonnet to attend the lecture. She 
 had one of the faces which it is easiest to classify by saying, 
 She is a woman who looks her best in a bonnet. Yet let 
 us understand her. Mrs. Snowe was a lady, not a flirt. 
 For a woman of her years to wear her widow s veil a fold 
 the more or less becomingly for the sake of a gentleman, 
 she would have felt from the bottom of her heart was vul 
 gar. Still, as I say, there existed this undefined stimulant 
 to the pose of the bonnet. Mildred and Mrs. Hobson were 
 so used to things, and did not notice how one looked. 
 
 Now the lecturer, it had already become evident, did. 
 He saw everything : the silhouette of Konewka s on the 
 tile beneath the tea-pot ; the square pattern of hand-carv 
 ing (a hundred years old) in the white painted cornice of 
 
304 MISS MILDRED S FKIEND. 
 
 the softly lighted and heavily shaded room, fourteen feet 
 high above his head ; the Shetland shawl, too, that had 
 dropped to the floor by the sideboard : it was blue her 
 daughter s shawl, she told him, as he stooped to pick it up. 
 With his permission, she would take him up to see the poor 
 girl presently. It was a case of nervous shock and abrasion 
 of one of the cervical vertebrae an accident. 
 
 "He would rather come up after lecture," said Mrs. 
 Snowe, kissing Mildred good-by. She was a little hurried, 
 and chiefly kissed her own veil, while Mildred made the best 
 of her way through a mouthful of crape to hastily cry : 
 
 " Don t bother him to drag him into a sick-room, mother ! 
 don t ! Let the poor man go to bed in peace." 
 
 In her heart she wondered if he were not rather relieved, 
 on the whole, that his business required him to be so much 
 away from that other sick-room and that other sufferer, to 
 whom his affectionate and celebrated loyalty was so sensi 
 tive ; for the well, be they never so loyal and affectionate, 
 are glad to be free. Mildred knew. 
 
 What Mr. Hogarth expected to find when, still flushed 
 with the proud pleasure of leading the Hamlet intellect cap 
 tive into that region vaguely described by his hostess as 
 "Antiquities," he followed her up the wide, low stairs 
 which Mildred had not crossed for three years, it is not 
 easy to say. He was a man of broad experience, setting his 
 domestic afflictions even out of the account, and prepared 
 for anything in the invalid line, dark rooms, camphor, 
 paregoric, tears or a whine, bottles on everything, the ther 
 mometer at ninety, a good deal about the doctor, and a 
 singularly hideous shade of purple-gray, of which he had 
 observed that very yellow sick people always had their 
 wrappers made. 
 
 What he found rather, let me say, what he felt was 
 at first a delicate misty fine sense of the color of blue a 
 pale blue with much lace drapery. He stood in a lady s 
 
MISS MILDRED S FKIEND. 305 
 
 parlor, it seemed ; a small room, with a recess closely cur 
 tained. Books were about, and flowers. A window was 
 open. A low fire in an open grate flickered gently. Not a 
 bottle was to be seen. Mrs. Hobson was not present. The 
 lamps were shaded with blue and creamy laces, but burned 
 cheerily beside the lounge on which Mildred lay, easily 
 putting out her little hand, with the frank, girlish motion 
 she had never lost, to say : 
 
 u It is kind in you to come up, Mr. Hogarth, and I am 
 glad to see you. Do you like smoking-chairs ? Because 
 there s one I keep for people who do. No ; mother likes 
 her low rocker here by me. So I can see you both. That 
 is right ! " 
 
 Mildred had a voice of which it was not possible to say 
 that sickness had not saddened it slightly, but it had not 
 soured it b^ a fleck ; and she had no whine. She laughed, 
 too, most merrily. She wore something of cream-colored 
 cashmere and blue ribbons. She had a little lace cap over 
 her smooth hair, which was light and abundant, and grew 
 low upon her temples and forehead, brushed back in those 
 natural waves, the peculiar charm of low, thick hair, and 
 which are sufficient in themselves to draw an attentive 
 glance repeatedly to a woman s face. Then she had her 
 unspoiled complexion, and her eyes ; but the visitor did not 
 quite make out Miss Mildred s eyes. They struck him as 
 fine but guarded ; only slightly, however, and (who could 
 say ?) possibly thereby revealed the more clearly, like 
 ladies faces behind what are called masque veils. 
 
 They fell into talk, easy and ready as Mildred s laughter. 
 Mr. Hogarth leaned back in the smoking-chair ; he did not 
 even miss his cigar yet. The reaction from the strain 
 of public speech came on gently in the calm blue room ; 
 each nerve adjusted itself to every other with a certain 
 pleasurable leisure. They talked of lectures and lecturers, 
 of Hamlet society, of Boston music, of Western hotels, of 
 
 20 
 
506 MISS MILDRED S FRIEND. 
 
 Yankee idioms, pastry, and poetry. Mrs. Snowe was " dy 
 ing " to ask about his wife s Deterioration, but remained 
 loyal to Mildred, and contented herself with vague remarks 
 about Antiquities, and with observing that her daughter 
 had long admired Mr. Hogarth s works. 
 
 " My works ? " echoed their visitor, with one of his quick 
 looks. 
 
 " Your poems, sir." 
 
 " I never wrote a poem in my life that I know of but 
 once." 
 
 "But Mildred said I am sure you said Mr. Hogarth 
 was a poet, Mildred." 
 
 " You wrote a song about the sea," replied Mildred, 
 quietly. " I thought everybody knew it." 
 
 " Oh, that ! And you called me a poet for it ? You are 
 generous." 
 
 " It never struck me so. I am not apt to be generous 
 with people who work (or live) only in moods. I think I 
 was only just to the poem." 
 
 Mildred spoke in a grave, impartial tone, as if she were 
 discussing some character dead and buried in a text-book of 
 English literature ; it was impossible to be foolishly flat 
 tered. Mr. Hogarth felt that he had been severely weighed 
 and measured in the making up of this judgment ; he was 
 not sure that this thoughtful little invalid (was she little, 
 though? In all those wraps, who could say?) did not rate 
 him, on the whole, as a man of mood rather than of pur 
 pose, and while appreciating his best, set him down as in 
 capable of living up to it. He felt at once gratified and 
 stung. He should either like or dislike this sick girl, deci 
 dedly, he thought, yielding to the almost inevitable impulse 
 of the author whom a stranger s criticism has moved. What 
 most people say of us does not matter. But you who have 
 hit the truth, we never forget. 
 
 " It was something about the tide," hummed Mrs. Snowe. 
 
MISS MILDRED S FRIEND. 307 
 
 " When the tide comes in, 
 When mv love leans " 
 
 " Oh, mother, please ! You have n t it right," cried Mil 
 dred, so hastily that Mrs. Snowe, with what she felt was 
 admirable tact, changed the subject at once to Homoeo 
 pathy. 
 
 Soon after, what appeared to Mr. Hogarth to be a walnut 
 bureau rolled into the dark doorway. It proved to be Mrs. 
 Hobson, who said that it was time for Miss Mildred s drops. 
 Mr. Hogarth remembered as he went away that this was 
 the first word he had heard mentioned about the poor girl s 
 illness since he had been in the blue room. She must have 
 put her mother under a severe course of training in that 
 respect. 
 
 " He never once mentioned his wife ! " mourned Mrs. 
 Snowe when she came to kiss Mildred good-night. " And 
 I spoke of the difficulties of such a public life to a domestic 
 man. In fact, I did n t really make out where his home 
 was, or even if he had a home. Did you ? " 
 
 " I did not ask him," replied Mildred, pulling out the 
 comb from under her lace cap and letting her hair down 
 for Mrs. Hobson to brush. She looked younger with her 
 hair down. 
 
 Mr. Hogarth s lectures in Hamlet were eight in number. 
 He came twice a week till they were given, remaining the 
 guest of Mrs. Snowe. 
 
 " I feel that I know him like a relation," Mrs. Snowe 
 used to observe vaguely, but with great earnestness. " In 
 fact, he seems to be very happy with us ; as if he had 
 always lived here." 
 
 He certainly did seem happy ; Mildred admitted as much 
 as this. He was, of course, a great deal in the sick-room 
 the sitting-room of the family. As they grew better 
 acquainted, Mrs. Snowe left them sometimes together. 
 
 "These have been four pleasant weeks to me," said Mil- 
 
808 MISS MILDRED S FRIEND. 
 
 dred, in her frank way, one evening as the limit of his stay 
 approached. 
 
 " Have they ? " Henry Hogarth hesitated a moment ; he 
 came and stood by her sofa, looking down. The man of the 
 well world felt that he must protect the invalid. He paused 
 before saying, " 1 am glad. I have enjoyed them too." 
 
 " Thank you. I see so few people " 
 
 Mildred looked up with her candid but still gravely- 
 guarded eyes. They were alone just then, and both fell 
 silent. Hogarth glanced about the blue room ; his eye took 
 in every familiar detail in the sheltered lonely place all 
 so like her ! all grown in his memory now, a part of a sweet, 
 brave life, and of the story of his admission to its trustful 
 friendliness. He thought he should always remember the 
 color of the Chinese crape shoulder robe, the pale pearl of 
 the ceiling, the names and bindings of the books, where the 
 flowers stood, and the piano, which window was open, with 
 the lace curtain drawn over the stuff one, and the pictures : 
 there was a Landseer, one of Norton s beaches, Holbein s 
 Madonna, Ary Scheffer s Francesca di Rimini, and Leonar 
 do s Christ among them ; the last two hung in the corner 
 opposite the sofa. The fire burned low in the grate be 
 tween. 
 
 It was a cheerful room, but ah! so pitifully resigned! 
 The man looked about impatiently, then down again at her. 
 
 Her head ached that evening he could see and she 
 had thrown aside her lace cap ; her hair fell in two long 
 braids, like a little girl s, and her cheeks were flushed with 
 pain of which she did not speak. The beautiful, brave 
 face ! The poor, denied, appealing face ! 
 
 " What did you say ? " asked Mildred, looking up. 
 
 But he had said nothing. He turned away, muttering 
 something about being there only once again, and that he 
 should miss coming to Hamlet. 
 
 " I am glad you will miss us," said Mildred, openly. 
 
MISS MILDRED S FRIEND. 809 
 
 He wondered, as he stood there, what it would be like to 
 be this peaceful, patient woman shut up there, seeing noth 
 ing, suffering everything. And still so young ! 
 
 When she was well it was evident that she had seen 
 something of the world ; she had been admired, he thought. 
 He knew when a woman had been admired without her 
 saying so ; the rather if she did not say so. But now 
 why, she had not seen a man for three years, except her 
 doctor and her minister. Mr. Hogarth had indirectly 
 found out all about them. The minister was seventy ; the 
 doctor was married and loved his wife. Besides 
 
 Mrs. Snowe rustled in. She, too, felt sorry to think how 
 soon they should lose their guest. She had enjoyed having 
 some one to sit opposite at her lonely teas and breakfasts. 
 The sad, sick woman s house reluctantly yielded its hold on 
 the well and happy but elusive man. Still, Mrs. Snowe 
 was too old a woman to forget the main objects of existence 
 in its casual recreations. She could not but admit it to be 
 very strange that all this while Mr. Hogarth had never 
 spoken of his wife. She could not deny that she did not 
 altogether approve of this reticence. She had said so to 
 Mildred. She talked a good deal to-night about the sacred- 
 ness of home, its cares and anxieties. She reproached her 
 self for her unwary promise to her daughter not to start 
 the subject of Deterioration ; thought she should know 
 better next time. But Mildred said, if a man were silent 
 about his domestic life, the more reason for respecting his 
 reserve, and suggested that perhaps Mrs. Hogarth did not 
 like to be talked about. But Mrs. Snowe replied that she 
 thought more likely she was an idiot or insane. 
 
 " There is a wish expressed," began Mrs. Snowe, on this 
 evening, when she had taken her low rocker by Mildred, 
 and turned her handsome profile toward their visitor "a 
 very general wish expressed that Mr. Hogarth should come 
 again in a few weeks and give his course on Egyptology in 
 
310 MISS MILDRED S FKIEND. 
 
 Hamlet ; but in a more select manner, Mr. Hogarth in 
 some parlor, by private arrangement with some of our best 
 people. I was requested to mention it to you. I was 
 asked to do so by Mrs. Martin B. Hallowell. She wishes 
 to entertain you, but I hope you will consider yourself pre- 
 engaged. Mrs. Hallowell is a very interesting lady, with a 
 tendency to consumption. She has old-school treatment." 
 
 Mildred had looked up quickly when her mother spoke ; 
 she had heard nothing of this before. For the instant her 
 unguarded eyes leaped out. He saw them, for he, too, had 
 been taken by surprise, and turned quickly toward her. He 
 saw them, and answered, after some thought, that he thanked 
 the people of Hamlet for their interest in his work. It 
 would be impossible for him to decide so unexpected a point 
 just now. He was not in the habit of giving parlor courses. 
 He said he would, however, consider it, and rather abruptly 
 bade the ladies good-night. He took Mildred s hand gravely, 
 and bowed with formality. 
 
 Mildred looked after him. Her mother buzzed on, but 
 she did not hear. Mrs. Hobson came to brush her hair. 
 Well, it must be borne ; she tossed the long, bright braids 
 at her silently. As Mrs. Hobson untwisted, waves of light 
 came out and flooded the invalid s face. 
 
 " You look to me, my dear," said Mrs. Hobson, " as if 
 you needed a little chamomilla. Or shall I read that story 
 of Auer bake s awhile ? " 
 
 But Mildred thanked her, and got alone as soon as might 
 be. Chamomilla and " Auerbake " were not to the pur 
 pose. Her face looked out, shocked, hurt, and old, between 
 all that young glad hair. To the bottom of her soul the 
 woman felt shocked and hurt. If she lived till morning, 
 she would tell him; but what would Mildred tell him? 
 "What could a woman tell a man who had dared 
 
 She checked herself. Mr. Hogarth had dared nothing. 
 He had hurt her without daring ; he had shocked her with 
 out speech. 
 
MISS MILDRED S FKIEND. 311 
 
 Indefinable as the oxygen in the air had been her trust 
 fulness and happiness an hour since ; indefinable as the 
 carbon in the close room her sense of outrage now. Men 
 knew how to do those things, risking nothing, saying noth 
 ing, cruelly. Perhaps they did not know how to do them 
 in any other way. 
 
 She called to Mrs. Hobson to fling both windows wide 
 open, and lay looking from her curtained alcove with 
 smoldering eyes that flashed now and then about the de 
 serted room. The fire trembled and went out. The out 
 lines of the books grew dim, and of the sofa and the smok- 
 ing-chair. The hyacinths gave out the strong tenderness 
 of a flower s night. Francesca, on the pure blue wall, with 
 closed eyes, whirled through hell, and above her the Christ 
 looked down. 
 
 In the morning, when Mr. Hogarth came to say good-by, 
 Mildred looked uncommonly well. She had a pink ribbon, 
 instead of the blue, knotted into the cashmere wrapper, 
 and the flush of the headache had not faded from her 
 cheek ; it was dying slowly, like an undisturbed and gentle 
 fire. She said : 
 
 " If you come back to give the other course of lectures, 
 Mr. Hogarth, I hope, as mother does, that you will con 
 sider this your home." 
 
 " Thank you. If I come You are very kind. I have 
 not decided." 
 
 " And I wish it were possible," Mildred continued, " to 
 bring Mrs. Hogarth with you. Does she never go any 
 where ? Is she quite unable ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Hogarth " A rapid change, which puzzled Mil 
 dred, swept his face. It was a face never too easy to read at 
 best. " I thank you. Mrs. Hogarth is " He hesitated. 
 
 " We have always understood she was ill," Mildred 
 hastened to add, " but I did not know how seriously Mr. 
 
312 MISS MILDRED S FRIEND. 
 
 Hogarth ! Why do you smile ? Why do you laugh ? If 
 I had a sick wife, I never would laugh at her, sir ! Never ! 
 Not if she were the most unreasonable and fussy person 
 in the world. And I never would " She stopped. It 
 was a dead stop. 
 
 Henry Hogarth threw himself down in the smok ing- 
 chair and laughed in good earnest now ; peals of merriment 
 rang through the blue room and out into the silent house. 
 Mrs. Snowe, in a becoming morning cap, glided in to share 
 the fun. She said she was glad to see him enliven Mil 
 dred so. 
 
 " Mr. Hogarth is laughing at his wife," said Mildred, 
 angrily. " Or else at me. I don t know which. I don t 
 believe he does himself." 
 
 This was Mrs. Snowe s hour. She had borne too much, 
 and resisted too long. Flushed and tremulous with excite 
 ment, she moved the matronly little rocker nearer to the 
 smoking-chair, and, in her saddest and most intelligently 
 pathological tones, began : 
 
 " Ah ! your poor wife ! I have never mentioned her, 
 Mr. Hogarth, but I assure you, not from want of sympathy. 
 Mildred would n t let me. She said men never liked to 
 talk about diseases. Whereas, in this case so uncommon 
 and I have heard all about it from many sources your 
 kindness and patience " 
 
 " But, Mrs. Snowe " 
 
 " I insist upon saying my say, sir. Such patience is 
 seldom surpassed and never equaled among husbands, Mr. 
 Hogarth. Oh, I know ! Don t protest. You deserve to 
 be told how the public revere you for your devotion and 
 in a boarding-house too and coming home at nine o clock 
 from parties because she prefers " 
 
 " But, my dear Mrs. Snowe " 
 
 " Because she prefers you to the maid," persisted Mrs. 
 Snowe, triumphantly, " and writing at a little table by her 
 
MISS MILDRED S FEIEND. 313 
 
 side. Ah ! Sir, we know how it all is and she sick so 
 many years. And that it was a most uncommon and trying 
 disease I Ve always heard, but Mildred would n t let me say 
 how I sympathize with you both. But now, Mr. Hogarth, 
 the ice is broken, and you know we know your goodness 
 and patience and all about it, I think I may ask if she has 
 homoeopathic treatment, and what it is Deterioration of? 
 And " 
 
 " But, my dear Mrs. Snowe," gasped the gentleman 
 again, " hear me a moment. I must protest indeed I 
 must. For there is n t " 
 
 Sir ! " 
 
 " There is n t any," said Mr. Hogarth, more quietly. 
 
 tl Any what ? " cried Mrs. Snowe. 
 
 " Any Mrs. Hogarth," said the guest, meekly. 
 
 " But you must be mistaken," insisted she, putting her 
 hand to her forehead. After a pause she faintly said : 
 
 "Is she dead, then?" 
 
 " Not that I know of." 
 
 " And you never lived with her in two little rooms at a 
 boarding-house ? " 
 
 " Not yet." 
 
 " Nor were so devoted and good, and all that ? " 
 
 " Alas ! never yet." 
 
 " And she never had Deterioration of Any thing ? " 
 
 " Not that I ever heard of." 
 
 " And she is n t insane, or an idiot ? " 
 
 " Decidedly not." 
 
 " You mean, then," returned the lady, in some sense re 
 covering her composure after this blow, " that you are not 
 a married man ? " 
 
 " I certainly am not." 
 
 " And never were ? " 
 
 " To the best of my knowledge and belief, never." 
 
 " But we heard all about it," urged Mrs. Snowe, mourn 
 fully " all the details a great many times." 
 
314 MISS MILDRED S FRIEND. 
 
 " I don t doubt it," said the poet and lecturer. " I am 
 always hearing my own biography in full, with variations 
 according to the latitude and longitude. In Massachusetts, 
 my wife is ill ; in Maine, she is dead ; in Texas, I am di 
 vorced ; in California, I am engaged to an actress. I don t 
 know whether the soul of man is immortal, but I know his 
 gossip is. But really, I think this was funny." 
 
 Really, Mildred thought so, too. Her smoldering look 
 was gone, her eyes were electric with fun, as he shook 
 hands hurriedly, for Mrs. Hobson lumbered in to say that 
 the carriage was at the door. 
 
 But Mrs. Snowe could not be reconciled. Now she 
 should never know what it was Deterioration of. She felt 
 that she had been defrauded of a rare experience, and at 
 first quite inclined to let Mr. Hogarth go to the Jessops or 
 the Hallowells if he returned for the Parlor Course. She 
 was much depressed the rest of the day ; talked a good 
 deal about her boy who was drowned ; thought if he had 
 not had scarlatina so recently, he would have resisted the 
 1 cramp ; and said that if Jamie Lenna had not called so 
 loud that day of the picnic, she should never have started 
 and slipped, and poor Mildred would have been like other 
 girls. 
 
 They met next time like children. A beautiful joyous- 
 ness seemed to be in the air that they might breathe it. 
 Hogarth came in laughing. He had never known before, 
 he thought, what wonderful eyes she had. They were not 
 guarded to-day ; they sported with him. He held out his 
 hand, retaining hers a moment, as if to be sure he touched 
 it, then sat down in the smoking-chair, and looked at her 
 merrily. 
 
 " So you thought me an old married man all this while ? " 
 
 " You knew I did ! " 
 
 " With an invalid wife, whom I " 
 
MISS MILDKED S FKIEND. 315 
 
 " Never mind her, sir." 
 
 " Whom I was tired of ? " 
 
 " Naturally, yes." 
 
 " You must have thought I behaved pretty well, consider 
 ing." 
 
 " Well, perhaps so, on the whole. But you insulted me, 
 sir, once." 
 
 " I ? You ? Tell me what you mean." 
 
 " 1 shall never tell you," cried Mildred, shaking her head 
 with a sweet obstinacy. " But you did. I was very angry ; 
 I am a little angry yet. But never mind : I am glad to see 
 you back. You look tired, though ! " 
 
 She turned toward him with a familiar affectionateness, 
 like that of a very old friend. 
 
 " I was in a hurry to get here," murmured Hogarth. 
 
 She did not answer this. The windows were open, for 
 the afternoon was warm, and the sounds of the approach 
 ing spring were in the air. The melting snow trickled 
 somewhere unseen, like a brook beneath leaves. The first 
 robin of the year sang as they sat listening. 
 
 " Summer is coming," said Mildred. 
 
 " You are happier in the summer ? you are better ? " he 
 asked, with unconcealed tenderness. 
 
 " Oh, so much better ! Mrs. Hobson rolls me out upon 
 the piazza roof. I mean to be taken down-stairs this year. 
 When I can touch grass with my foot, I shall be so grateful 
 -so glad!" 
 
 " You look glad," said Hogarth, dreamily, " already. And 
 you have n t touched the grass yet." 
 
 An indefinable expression flitted over Mildred s forehead. 
 She pushed her hair back as if to push it away. 
 
 " Why are you so glad ? " pursued the man, inexorably. 
 
 " Why are you ? " flashed the woman, turning upon him. 
 She looked young and well, brimming with mischief. 
 
 "I don t know," answered Hogarth, honestly enough. 
 
316 MISS MILDKED S FKIEND. 
 
 He really did not see what they had to be glad about. He 
 thought he knew her too well for that. Perhaps, alas ! 
 perhaps he knew himself too well, besides. 
 
 " / know," said Mildred, more quietly. " I am glad, be 
 cause " 
 
 " Well ! " for she hesitated. 
 
 " Because I really believe that you are my friend," con 
 tinued she, simply. 
 
 " I wish I were worthy ! " 
 
 " And would contribute to my happiness, would make my 
 life easier, if you could." 
 
 " God knows ! Yes, if I could." 
 
 " I thought so," said Mildred, contentedly ; and then fell 
 silent, as if there were nothing more to be said. 
 
 Hogarth heard the robin plainly as they sat there, singing 
 as if its heart would break with joy. But Mildred listened 
 chiefly to the melting snow. 
 
 " Why should it make you so glad," asked he, breaking 
 the silence, " to know that we were friends only friends ? 
 You -have many such." 
 
 No, not many such. But she did not tell him that. She 
 said, in her sweet voice, with its minor ring : " If you had 
 lain here for three years perhaps you would under 
 stand. I cannot explain." 
 
 The man of the world looked down at her, perplexed; 
 he did not understand this invalid girl. Many women would 
 feel that he was playing a cruel, perhaps an unmanly, part ; 
 would withdraw, wounded, from his half assertions and his 
 hints. Mildred did not withdraw. She advanced. 
 
 Yet the child was as sensitive as the snow-drop that lay 
 hidden yonder beneath the drift beside that happy brook 
 they could not see. He wished he were sure that he un 
 derstood her. He felt the extreme helplessness of a man 
 in such a position, which is beyond the helplessness of the 
 woman, inasmuch as it carries the responsibilities of both. 
 
MISS MILDRED S FRIEND. 317 
 
 A moment since, perhaps, he wished he could be sure that 
 he understood himself. But he had forgotten that now. 
 
 " A man who could be a friend, a real friend, to a woman 
 situated as I am " began Mildred, but paused. 
 
 "What would you do," cried Hogarth, with rebellious 
 eagerness, " for such a man ? Say ! tell me ! " 
 
 But she turned her face away from him. 
 
 " You would do anything for him but one thing ! " said 
 he, savagely. 
 
 " But one thing ; yes." 
 
 " Ai.d he might ask that to the day of doom; you 
 would not yield." 
 
 " I hope not. I hope he would not ask it." 
 
 " Would you not ask it if you were a man ? " 
 
 " No, sir ! " 
 
 Her voice rang through the sad, blue room, strong and 
 sweet and assured. Hogarth looked at her blindly. 
 
 " But sick people have ma have felt differently. All 
 do not judge so." 
 
 " No ; all do not judge so." 
 
 " And people have been have risked it have been 
 very happy," urged the man. Really he had not meant to 
 go so far. 
 
 He was stung by being baffled. She knew that better 
 than himself. She turned to him; a certain haggardness 
 came about her mouth and chin. 
 
 " Mr. Hogarth ! I thought you were to be my friend! " 
 
 He felt the appeal. He got up abruptly and walked to 
 the window, talking no more to her. Pretty soon he said : 
 " It is time for me to go and look over my lecture," and so 
 went away. 
 
 After lecture he seemed tired, and Mrs. Snowe was in 
 terested in an account of a female electrician who had come 
 to town. Did Mr. Hogarth think it would be wise for Mil 
 dred to try her ? 
 
818 
 
 " How can I tell-? " cried Hogarth, rudely enough, but 
 there was distress in his voice. Mildred looked on mildly ; 
 she was sorry for him sorrier for him than for herself. 
 
 " I wish," pleaded Hogarth, more gently, " if you feel 
 able, that you would sing to me to-night, Miss Mildred, 
 pardon the consummate conceit of it, that song of my own 
 you were so kind as to like." 
 
 " Very well," said Mildred, in a motherly way, as if he 
 had the headache and needed petting. 
 
 Mrs. Snowe went to the piano. She had a lady-like 
 touch, and Mildred sang " When the tide comes in " from 
 beginning to end. It was a passionate song, and not with 
 out power. It was the best he had ever done, better than 
 he would ever do again ; he knew that. The girl s con 
 trolled, sweet voice gave a soul to the fair body of the 
 rhythm, which it seemed to him had waited for one always 
 until now. But as he sat with his hand above his eyes to 
 listen, he thought, " It is a lost soul." 
 
 The lecturer on Antiquities, in the Citizens Star List, 
 did not give the Parlor Course in the town of Hamlet. 
 He and Mrs. Martin B. Hallowell compromised upon a sin 
 gle lecture, his famous " Legends of the Sphinx," to be 
 read in Mrs. Hallowell s drawing-room upon a day in April 
 a severely selected day, when Hamlet had no Church 
 festivals, Shakespeare Club, sewing circles, private theat 
 ricals, prayer-meeting, or rival lecturer upon its mind, and 
 Mr. Hogarth was not preengaged to enlighten the rural 
 New England intellect upon the matter of Antiquities in 
 any other direction. 
 
 In the interval between Antiquities and the Sphinx he 
 wrote to Mildred thus : 
 
 " DEAR Miss MILDRED, I have decided against the 
 course on Egyptology, very reluctantly ; but shall visit 
 
MISS MILDRED S FRIEND. 319 
 
 Hamlet once more by a special business arrangement with 
 the committee of ladies who were interested in the matter. 
 I thought I should like you to be the first to know of my 
 decision. It seems, on the whole, to be the wisest and best 
 thing. I wish to do the wise and right thing if I can. 
 " I hope you are suffering no more than usual. 
 " I shall be your mother s guest again for this last time. 
 " I am, most sincerely, yours, 
 
 " HENRY HOGARTH." 
 
 But when he came, all that broke down. The man 
 meant to be prudent cruelly prudent, perhaps. But he 
 had not seen her for two weeks. 
 
 She was out on the piazza roof when he came, in her in 
 valid s chair, looking very sweet and calm and happy, trust 
 fully gazing over the railing at the thin and pale grass that 
 sprang below the grass she could not yet set her poor 
 feet upon. 
 
 A mad impulse came to him to snatch her in his arms 
 and carry her down into the throbbing spring, and say, " I 11 
 hold you here till you, too, live again ! " 
 
 For it might be who knew ? Love had raised the dy 
 ing. Mildred was not dying. Joy was God s great healer. 
 What if joy were all she needed ! If happiness could 
 cure 
 
 " Good God ! " he said, brokenly ; " I believe I could 
 make you happy." 
 
 But Mildred answered, " Hush ! " 
 
 They sat together for a little, quite silent. Mrs. Snowe 
 and Mrs. Hallowell were chattering down stairs about the 
 Sphinx. Mrs. Hobson, in the blue room behind them, 
 trundled to and fro. The elm branch that overhung the 
 piazza was tender and tremulous with buds ; the soft air 
 stole by ; it was growing green in between the irregular 
 stones of the old flagged walk. 
 
320 MISS MILDRED S FRIEND. 
 
 " What do you expect," he cried at length, impatiently 
 
 " what do you expect of a man in just my place ? " 
 " I expect nothing," replied the woman, quietly. 
 
 " But what would you do if you were I ? " 
 
 A superb light shot through and through her face. 
 
 " Never mind what I would do if I were a man. I am 
 not." 
 
 " Such acquaintances, such friendships, ending nowhere, 
 meaning nothing " he began. But at this, for the first 
 time, Mildred winced. He cried out then, hating himself, 
 angry, tender, wise, and mad at once a man ! 
 
 " Oh, forgive me ! I meant, nothing to the world 
 nothing to other people." 
 
 She was silent. 
 
 " You despise me ! " said Hogarth, between his teeth. 
 
 " Oh, no. Heaven knows, no ! " 
 
 " You think me a coward, then ? " 
 
 But she was silent still. 
 
 " I have to think, to judge, for two," urged the man, hotly 
 and justly enough. 
 
 " It is not that" she said. 
 
 " I wish I d never written you that accursed note ! " he 
 began. 
 
 But Mildred said, " Mother is coming." She had grown 
 a little pale. Mrs. Hobson came out and offered her some 
 of the Life Food. 
 
 He came to bid her good-by when the lecture on the 
 " Legends of the Sphinx " was over. It was late, for Mrs. 
 Martin B. Hallowell had invited some of our best people 
 to meet him. And in the morning he took an early train 
 
 for Omaha, Mildred believed. 
 
 Mrs. Snowe was present. They talked of Egyptology 
 and the Jessops, Mrs. Hallowell, and the Swedish Move 
 ment Cure. 
 
MISS MILDRED S FRIEND. 321 
 
 Then they shook hands, and he closed the door softly 
 he had always closed it more softly and thoughtfully than 
 any one in the house. And then Mrs. Hobson came in, and 
 rolled up the round stand, brought the ice-water, wrung out 
 the wet towel, set the milk behind the Cologne bottle, and 
 the crackers on the chair, measured off the Life Food, put 
 the chamomilla within reach, and fixed the fire. 
 21 
 
NEBLITT. 
 
 As to putting of it into print, I ain t so clear. 
 
 I 11 tell you the story, sir, being as you ask me for it. 
 But as has regards to the noospaper, I must leave it to 
 your honor, sir, if you 11 excuse the word. I ain t partial 
 to them of your calling, take em as a family lot. I won t 
 go so far as to say they might n t have their feelin s like 
 other folks ; but take em as a family lot, I d as soon turn 
 my heart t other side out to a sou west wind, beggin your 
 pardon, sir. There was a man down our way once, screwed 
 a poor young creetur s affairs out of her she waited on 
 him at table to the hotel and by and by out it come all 
 printed in a religious paper up to New York, that some of 
 her folks found to a reading-room and told her of it like 
 to die of shame and temper. The young woman s name 
 was Soosan. But the young woman into the story, he 
 called her Puella Ann. 
 
 Howsomever, I 11 lay no obligations on you, sir, in p int 
 of what I have to tell, beyond leaving of it to your honor. 
 Mebbe there might some poor chap take heart from it if so 
 be he read the noospaper. Being an unedicated man my 
 self I can t judge. Which will explain to you what I 
 mean by leaving of it to your honor. 
 
 The first time I saw Her was the thirteenth of July be 
 fore last, at five minutes to four o clock in the afternoon. 
 
 But before I get onto that I d ought to explain how I 
 come to be that as it would have been anyways proper or 
 pretty for Her to take notice of. 
 
NEBLITT. 323 
 
 I suppose now, you read the noospaper after you ve 
 wrote it, don t you ? Because. In case you do, you 11 not 
 be so ignorant, sir, as some is. We had some summer-folks 
 here this season that went into Charles Henry s grocery 
 and asked what Club it was. One of them she thought it 
 was Dress Reform ; I did n t so much blame her, consid- 
 erin that it was she d have ben a pretty serious case her 
 self, if you considered the kivering on her arms and neck, 
 sir. Another one he asked if it was a Radical Club. But 
 I don t rightly know what he meant by that. He was the 
 one that hired Charles Henry s boat so much to fish on 
 Sunday mornin s. Charles Henry asked him fifty-two cents 
 an hour. But on week-days it was forty-eight. 
 
 I m an unedicated man, sir, as I told you, and I can t 
 talk as clever as some can ; but I can think as well as any 
 body. I was setting here this morning and thinking, just 
 before you come along, about this new race we ve got into 
 New England these last two years. It don t always seem 
 to me as if folks had got it into their heads yet what it 
 means, sir, to have a new race of men thrown onto society 
 like we are. There s all sorts of men, you know. There s 
 black men, and white men, and Yankees, and pious men, 
 and Dutch and Irish, and those ; and there s blacklegs, and 
 Sunday schools sooperiritendents, and tramps, and sots, and 
 insurance men, and men that play the planner ; and all 
 sorts. And then there s Reformed men. 
 
 You 11 remember, mebbe, what it has said in the noos 
 paper, off and on of late, about us ? Should be glad to 
 have you step in, I m sure, some evening, to a lecture, if 
 you felt inclined. It s over Charles Henry s grocery, one 
 flight up ours is. I m second Vice-President. There s a 
 matter of two hundred members or so, in our Club. We ve 
 ben organized two years. Hey ? Not more than ten of us 
 has broke in all that time, sir. We was mostly pretty hard 
 drinkers, too, to the start. I m not wishing to be on- 
 
324 NEBLITT. 
 
 charitable, but I think it s partly owing to the hats. It s 
 dirty work hat factories. I suppose it s in the nature of 
 felt to be pulpy. And it s hot in the ironin -room, and you 
 look so black, a walking home, and other folks look so 
 clean. It makes you kind of down. And they hain t paid 
 us very reg lar since the Treasurer eloped with the assets, 
 So you run in debt. 
 
 Wife ? No, I haven t got a wife. I d rather not talk 
 about my wife. She s dead. She died in Pennsylvany. I 
 lived in Pennsylvany once, before I come here. I have n t 
 lived in this place not more than going on four year. I was 
 a railroad man. I drove an engine one spell. I drove it 
 off a broken bridge one night. We had four hundred and 
 fifty passengers aboard. We didn t lose but twenty-two. 
 But it was the first time the Company suspicioned that I 
 was a drinking man. I was young then. I was just court 
 ing my wife. She felt bad when they turned me off. 
 
 There s one thing I don t like to hear a man do : I don t 
 like to hear him set down and brag of his sins. I ve heerd 
 that plenty in temperance meetin s and revivals, and all 
 sorts of caucusin . I m sick of it. I ve seen men stand 
 up and take the ondecent part of their history and hold it 
 up before an audience, and pet it and hug it as if it was 
 something that set em up a peg or two above other folks. 
 And I Ve seen good people set and cheer em on as if it 
 was a polite sort of thing to do. I ain t that kind, myself. 
 
 I ll tell you, sir, as short as possible, how it was. If 
 you 11 excuse me for say in it, I was a pretty bad man. 1 
 was a rum-soaked, rascally man. I was a Godless, scoffin , 
 desperate man. That s the kind I was. I had some boys, 
 but they died. I m glad^ on t. They d have been like theii 
 father, poor little devils. I m glad my boys are dead. 
 
 There was one little girl, we had, but you see I well, I 
 left home. I left my wife. It s seventeen years since I 
 deserted her. She died after a while, so I ve heerd tell. 
 
NEBLITT. 325 
 
 The little girl, she was two year old when I left ; but I 
 never kept no trace of her. It s easy to lose girls, because 
 of their taking of his name when they get married. 
 
 It was five minutes to four, as I tell you, the afternoon I 
 saw Her. No, sir, I m not likely to forget. I d come out 
 of the pressing-room and run acrost to Jobbs s there, to get 
 a drink. I met her on the way back. She was coming along 
 just there by them spruces. I d never seen her before. 
 She was dressed in black ; a little creetur. She held a 
 young un by the hand. It was a little girl. The young un 
 did n t notice me, but as I come reeling by the lady lifted 
 up her eyes and looked at me. 
 
 It s often bothered me to make out, sir, I m free to own, 
 what it is about a lady born that ain t like other women. 
 This one was something like the summer-folks, and then 
 again she was n t like the summer-folks. There s chaps that 
 works beside me in the dryin room, their wives wears finer 
 clothes a sight than she did. She was dressed as plain, sir, 
 as plain as a chip-bird on a June day, and she had a wid- 
 der s veil about her. She had eyes, sir, about the color of 
 the veil. I remember thinking in a muddled sort of way 
 for I was n t so far gone as might have been as how 
 her eyes had gone into mourning, like her clothes. They 
 had that look about em. 
 
 There s one of our men his name is Amram Peter- 
 weigh, we call him Ram he stood to the window when 
 I d got back into the factory that day, a-looking out. Says 
 I:- 
 
 " Ram, who is she ? " says I, for I went and stood along 
 side of him to watch her. 
 
 " The devil knows ! " says Ram. Ram was a sulky fel 
 low at his best. 
 
 It is difficult to explain, sir, the feelings that a man will 
 have, and how they come and go, I think, don t you ? If 
 he d sent all the women of New Hampshire to the devil, I 
 
326 NEBLITT. 
 
 should n t have felt hurt about it. Women did n t make no 
 odds to me. But when he spoke up onrespectful of that 
 little strange creetur, I was that riled I could have knocked 
 him down, sir. 
 
 Mebbe I may have spoke a little sharp to Ram ; I can t 
 exactly say how that was. He give me a look and walks 
 off. The men, they said I called him a pretty hard name, 
 which I was in no state, sir, to remember of. Ram s a man 
 that nusses a grudge. 
 
 Next day he comes up and says in this way, sudden : 
 
 " She s a school-ma am." 
 
 " Who ? " says I, for I was n t thinking of Her at the 
 time. 
 
 " The little widder," says he. 
 
 But I said I d never seen a school-ma am complected 
 like her. 
 
 " She keeps a Kind o Garden," said Ram. 
 
 " Does she hoe her own potatoes ? " says I. 
 
 What I intended, sir, was to be severe and sarcastikle on 
 Ram. For her little glove was off that day beside the 
 spruces, and I see her hand, and the size of it, and the color 
 white enough to blind a sober man, let alone a drunk. 
 
 " I can t say whether it s District or Grammar or Graded, 
 and it can t be High on account of the lowness of the young 
 uns," said Ram; "but it s a new fashioned sort o school. 
 They call it Kind o Gardenin. I suppose they let the 
 young uns run to grass," says Ram. 
 
 Now, sir, it was just that living minute that a chap come 
 up. His name was Jones ; but he was dangerous in his 
 cups, drawed revolvers, and so on, and we called him Cos 
 set. Cosset, he come up for he d been reformed going 
 on eight days, and asked me arid Ram to sign. Nobody d 
 asked me to sign for going on a month or so. Mebbe if I 
 had n t kicked the last man as tried it down the elevator, 
 but he only fell a piece and did n t limp a week, they 
 might, sir. 
 
KEBLITT. 327 
 
 " You won t last more n two or three weeks, Cosset," 
 said Ram, kiiid of tenderly, as if he d taken a sight of pains 
 to say the most oncouragin thing in the Dictionary. 
 
 I remember plain enough how Cosset looked. 
 
 " I don t think," says he, " one wicked wretch had 
 ought to talk to another one like that, Ram," says he. 
 " I hain t been sober eight days steady before sence I was 
 sixteen year old," says Cosset, looking all around the mill, 
 kind of strange. " A lady, she asked me to sign," says 
 Cosset. " I moved some books for her of a Saturday night. 
 She s a stranger to town. She s a little widder, and keeps 
 a Kind o Garden in her front parlor." 
 
 Can t say what come over me, sir, to do it, whether it 
 was the joke of seeing Cosset sober, or mebbe from what 
 Ram and me d been saying, and the kind of gentle feelin , 
 sir, it gives a man to talk about a lady, but I says : 
 
 " Curse it, Ram, let s sign ! " 
 
 Ever been a drinkin man yourself ? No ? Well, then 
 you could n t be looked to understand. Most folks don t 
 seem to understand. I ve seen em sit down and talk to 
 a chap, parsons and women and such, and tell him how 
 wicked it was ; and I Ve seen him set and look at em, 
 every vein on fire, and them so cool. It s much like 
 fastenin onto a man a-fightin with a typhis fever, and 
 tellin of him how sinful he was to have the fever, sir. 
 Then again it s like pitchin onto a poor devil a-drownin 
 in the river, and settin up in your boat a-hollerin to tell 
 him how careless it was in him to have fell in. 
 
 I in not denying the wickedness, sir, but think of the 
 manners of it ! 
 
 Sir, I stuck ten days. I did, upon my honor ; I stuck 
 ten days before I broke. Mebbe you won t understand our 
 ways of speech. I mean to say, I kept my pledge ten days 
 before I touched a mortal drop. I don t think there s any 
 
328 NEBLITT. 
 
 other ten days in my whole life 1 11 remember so long as 
 I shall them ten. But if you was n t a drinkin man your 
 self, you could n t understand. 
 
 She spoke to me one day. It was the second day. She d 
 been in to give us a chromo of her n, that the janitor he 
 hung bottom upwards most gratefully, for it was sky-terrier 
 pups, I don t know s I blame him, they look so derned 
 similar to both ends, sir, and I was hangin round when 
 she come out. 
 
 She stopped a spell upon the steps, and says she to the 
 janitor, says she : 
 
 " Will you introduce Mr. Neblitt to me ? " says she. 
 That s my name, sir, Neblitt. Dell Neblitt. But when 
 she called me Mr. Neblitt I was stuck. I could n t tell 
 you when anybody d Mistered me before. It was a good 
 while. It must have been as far back as when I was court 
 ing my wife. It was mostly Neb, and Dell, and Whiskey 
 Neb, and Devil Neblitt, not to mention wuss. 
 
 " Mr. Neblitt," says she, and she drawed aside her long 
 black veil to look at me, " I m glad to hear good news of 
 you," says she. " A reformed man s life is a noble life," 
 she says. 
 
 Sir, those was the very words. A noble life. She said 
 a noble life. I set and looked after her when she d gone. 
 I did n t answer her more than to lift my hat and stand and 
 hold it. I could n t seem to put it on. If she d said as 
 much to Bealzebob himself, I don t think it would take him 
 more onexpected. 
 
 Me me a raskill, rum-sodden good-for-nothing 
 that cared a darn for nobody, and nobody cared a darn for 
 him me a NOBLE LIFE ! 
 
 I hain t got used to it, exactly, yet. Sometimes it comes 
 all over me. 
 
 I don t suppose I d have stuck till Saturday but for that. 
 Bein as it was, I stuck ten honorable days, square days, 
 
NEBLITT. 329 
 
 by the First Methodist clock, from four o clock to four 
 o clock, sir, of an afternoon. 
 
 If you was to ask me what injuced me to step into 
 Jobbs s with Earn at three minutes after four, I could n t 
 explain it to you. And if you was to ask why I was drunk 
 as Lucifer before the Methodist clock struck five, I could n t 
 tell you. Seems as if I should die, sir. Seems as if Hell 
 etarnal could n t be wuss than to stick another hour. I 
 drank and I drank and I drank. I kept at it, sir, a matter 
 of some three weeks, that spell. I heerd the boys about 
 the club-room, sayin : 
 
 " He s voyilated his pledge, and gone upon a tear." 
 
 And one day I met Her acrost the road. But I looked 
 upon the ground. It s cur ous how I happened to think 
 on t at the time, but there was a passage of Bible come into 
 my head I used to hear my wife read it quarter days 
 when she had n t nothin to pay the rent, and a few such 
 times ; it went like this : 
 
 " But he .... standing afar off, darst not lift up so 
 much as his eyes toward Heaven." 
 
 Well you see, when I come out o that, I vowed I d 
 never sign again, for Heaven nor Hell, sir. And no more 
 I d never have, for either of them parties. 
 
 It was her being so little, partly, I think, sir, and so 
 white ; and if she d been rich we should n t have set so 
 much by her. But for all she worked so steady at that Kind 
 o Gardenin, she seemed to be most as poor as some of us. 
 
 It was her bein so near like us, and yet so terrible onlike, 
 that give us the feeling we had towards her. She come 
 from Ohio. She d seen what you may call temperance 
 work, I take it. She d a mite got over the nateral scar of 
 women folks at a drinking man, may be. She treated us 
 like human bein s. 
 
 A cur ous thing happened along that time. Cosset come 
 up to me one day and says he : " You re invited up to see 
 
330 NEBLITT. 
 
 Her," says he ; " you re invited with me and my wife and 
 one or two, up to spend the evening," says Cosset. 
 
 " I think I see you ! " says Ram. 
 
 " I think I see myself ! " says I. 
 
 "I d go, Neb, if I was you," said Cosset. "She ll 
 she 11 think you re why she 11 think you re stuck up if 
 you don t ! " 
 
 So I went. For I did n t like to hurt her feelin s. 
 
 I ve sometimes set and thought, sir, how a chap would 
 feel that had climbed out of the bad place by some mistake 
 or nuther and got adrift in t other. Always thought I knew 
 jest how he d feel sence that night. 
 
 I d never been into a lady s house before that I remember 
 of. Only once I helped Pudge s Express carry a sewing- 
 machine into Mrs. Hemen way s he s the Corporation, 
 Hemenway but Mrs. Hemenway did n t remember me to 
 keep up the acquaintance afterward. 
 
 Sir, she asked us into her parlor like gentlemen. 
 There was pictures in the parlor, and a sight of books. You 
 never see such a sight of books. And a fire in the open 
 grate, for it was sort of chilly. And one or two statooes in 
 the corners. But the carpet was most wore, and the sofy 
 I see was patched. She had a little girl with her and I see 
 it was her own little girl. Pretty soon a young woman 
 come in and took the child to bed. It was her servant girl. 
 I liked her looks. 
 
 We hated to let the young one go. She took a shine 
 to Mrs. Cosset, by which I should say Mrs. Jones, and 
 the boys they set and laughed to see her. But the young 
 woman told her to bid us all good-night, and so she did. 
 She come up to me and give me her little hand. I can t 
 tell you when I d had holt of a little girl s hand before. It 
 made me kind of down. I was the only chap there that night 
 that had broke. I did n t see what she d asked me for. 
 
 So then she told us of the pictures, and we played some 
 
NEBLITT. 331 
 
 games, and had some cake and raspberry shrub that the 
 young woman brought, and she played the planner to us 
 (for she had a planner), and we sung a spell ; and then she 
 read us a little story for a spell. It was a Christmas story, 
 with something of a cricket in it, and a tea-kettle, and a 
 man s wife that he thought she took a shine to another 
 feller but she had n t. And I sat by the fire, for I could 
 n t sing. And I covered up my face and thought, and 
 thought. 
 
 I thought partly, sir, of her onlikeness and how far she 
 was above us, though so poor and Kind o Gardenin for a 
 livin . And I thought what another spere it was, too, to the 
 spere we lived in ; how clean it was, sir, and sheltered in. 
 And I thought, seems to me if I could set long enough in a 
 room like this, and see her passin in and out, and hear her 
 speaking to her little girl, I thought if I could stay awhile 
 where I could so much as see her shadder on the floor, that 
 may be I could ondertake to be a better man. 
 
 And by and by we all went home (for we d had a first- 
 rate time), but when the young woman had let us all out 
 and drawed the bolt, I fell behind the rest a spell. I stood 
 out by the fence in the dark. Cosset walked on with his 
 wife. And one of the boys he had his daughter with him. 
 And two they were together, for they were very thick. So 
 I was to myself, and I stood to think. The young woman 
 come to the window and drawed the shades. She was a 
 quiet-looking young woman, with a modest way. And then 
 acrost the shades I saw Her pass, the shadder of her to and 
 fro. But all I could seem to think about her was, Heaven 
 bless her ! And after that I turned away. 
 
 But I did n t sign again till next week. I wanted to think 
 it over. If I signed again I meant to stick. So next week 
 I just went up one day and put my name down, and Cosset 
 he carried the book up to her to show it where it was. 
 
 I kep a copy of that pledge to home ; like this. Here s 
 
332 NEBLITT. 
 
 the way it stood on the books to the Club room, you know : 
 " I hereby pledge myself with the help of God not to buy 
 nor sell nor drink intoxicating liquors as beverages." 
 
 Here s the way my copy went that I took home : 
 
 " I, Dell Neblitt, raskill, hereby pledge myself with the 
 help of Her and God, to stick it out, so help me them two ! 
 Till Death us do part. Amen." 
 
 But I never showed that copy to the boys. 
 
 Now I 11 tell you two facts. In order to explain myself I 
 must tell you these two facts. I Ve heerd folks doubt em 
 as there s always folks to doubt the druggin stories, and 
 such like. They need n t. They re true. This is the first 
 one: 
 
 It was after I d stuck awhile, quite a spell as I remem 
 ber, and one day me and Ram Peterweigh were histing 
 empty cases onto the elevator, and we got to skylarking. 
 And the men stood by to see, and bet on us accordin to 
 their taste, for Ram was the heftiest, but I m a wiry man 
 into the muscle. But Ram he got the better of me that 
 time, and in the scuffle, first I knew he d rubbed my face 
 all over with something wet. Sir, it was rum ! 
 
 Whysoever I did not go under with the smack of it upon 
 my lips, sir, I cannot tell you. And Ram stood by to see. 
 And all the boys. But Cosset said it was too derned bad. 
 And one of our men, a presser, that was a steady fellow, 
 and got converted once or twice in the Methodist meetin , 
 so he used to say, but had sorter got out o the habit of it of 
 late years he comes up to me and says : 
 
 " Here Neb," says he, " come away. Let me walk home 
 with you a spell," says he. But he spoke quite low. And 
 they looked to see me go to Jobbs s, going by. But when 
 we got home, for I was all of a ragin tremble with the 
 anger and the taste, I set down on the doorstep of my 
 boarding-house a spell, me and this man I tell you of. 
 And it was a sunny day, and as I set there she come along 
 
NEBLITT. 333 
 
 herself. Somebody d told her, for she was out walking 
 with her little girl. But she come up to me and held out 
 her hand. She had on white gloves. She held out her 
 hand, and says she : 
 
 " You re a brave man, Mr. Neblitt." says she, and then 
 she went her ways, and the little girl ran on before. 
 
 Sir, after that you might have drownded me in it. I 
 don t believe I d have swallowed a drop. 
 
 Well, after that I held out considerable of a while ; nigh 
 upon four months, and I went to the Club quite reg lar. 
 We elected Cosset President that quarter, for he d never 
 broke, and Hemenway raised his wages for the quality of 
 his work being so far reformed, as you might say. And 
 there come along a chap about that time, a drummer for a 
 firm that sold policemen s outfits, and it was so orderly 
 along our way he got quite discouraged and low in his 
 mind. He said if these Reform Clubs went on they d 
 spoil the billy business. 
 
 May be you saw that in the noospaper yourself a spell 
 after ; for it got into the noospaper. But I knew the chap 
 that said it. He said it over there by the pump in the 
 square. It was Charles Henry he said it to. 
 
 Now this other fact I spoke to you about has to do with 
 that there pump. This was the way of that : 
 
 We take our dinner to the factory, you see : only them 
 that has wives and hot coffee to home, unless the pail leaks 
 or he can support a separation from her from dawn to dark 
 without much suffering, sir, then he eats with the rest of 
 us baches and widderers. For a factory boarding-house, 
 and a mile and a quarter to do it come winters, and your 
 ontire nooning but three quarters, and you wet and hot 
 from the steaming-room in the raw wind, it ain t a seducin 
 type of dinner-party. That s one way, if you 11 take the 
 trouble to consider, sir, how it comes to be so easy to run 
 over to Jobbs s. 
 
334 NEBLITT. 
 
 Now you see we get our water from the purnp I tell you 
 of. Do you see that there little dipper hangin by a chain 
 onto the nozzle ? A tin dipper with a rusty iron chain, 
 rasping up against the shoulder of the pump when the wind 
 is up like it is to-day. See it ? 
 
 That s the very dipper. One day I come out to get a 
 drink. It was a December day. It was pretty cold, and the 
 snow blew. I had n t had much dinner. The johnny-cake 
 was heavy, and salt by mistake into the gingerbread ain t 
 so fillin or so stayin , sir, as sugar. And I d give the 
 corned beef, what there was on t, to .a starvin pup that 
 come rubbing himself against me. My wife she had the 
 greatest taking for a pup. It always remembers me of her 
 to see one round. She got a striped yellow creetur for the 
 baby once, which was the little girl I spoke about, that 
 was drownded from having too many fits in the front entry. 
 Well, there. It was the dog that had the fits, you under 
 stand. So I come out to get a drink and to rinse the dip 
 per. But it was so cold I did n t rinse it, and I noticed of 
 it that it was very wet about the rim. But I filled it up 
 and drank ! 
 
 I told you, did n t I, the rim of that dipper was wet ? It 
 had n t froze. Sir, THAT was rum. 
 
 It was, upon my honor as a poor devil, that wouldn t 
 bely another, not for no purpose. Upon my honor as a 
 reformed man and I Ve got no other honor, sir, in this 
 world now, to swear by, he d smeared the lips of that 
 there dipper with it a purpose to draw me down to break. 
 I could n t lay it to him, not to swear to it, but I could n t 
 believe there was another chap in Hemenway s would have 
 did it. I hoped to God there was n t. 
 
 I don t know as much as most folk seem to know about 
 the t other world, sir. Never having got religion, I did n t 
 feel no call to know. It was a kind of fancy religion, too, 
 I was brought up to. I was brought up a Universal. The 
 
NEBLITT. 335 
 
 Universals, you know, don t take no stock in damnation. 
 May be they re right, may be they re wrong ; can t say ; 
 but I was pious myself so far as that, this time I speak 
 of, that / did n t take stock in damnation neither. But I 
 thought it over a sight then and after then, and I got so 
 far as this : 
 
 If there ain t a hell for a creetur that will do for another 
 what that creetur did for me that day, sir, there d ought to 
 be ! If there ain t a punishment for deeds like them deeds, 
 there d better be. I m clear on that. If I d been God 
 Almighty, and had n t never opened one before, I m clear 
 I d have opened one the hour that I looked down and see 
 Ram Peterweigh standing by the pump that freezing day, 
 rubbing that there rum acrost that there dipper to draw 
 a strugglin, sinful, rum-soaked, reformin man like I was 
 down to break ! 
 
 That was along the first of December. I don t remember 
 much that happened after that, till to-wards Christmas time. 
 I remember tasting of it on the brim and the scorch of it 
 upon my tongue, and I remember standin stock-still there 
 in the snow beside the pump and striking my two hands to 
 gether. I think I must have spoke aloud. But no one was 
 nigh me. It had begun to snow and had a dreary look. I 
 can remember that I wished I had a wife or a bowl of soup 
 or something. Or anywhere to go where folks would care 
 for me to keep me to home in a warm place that day. I 
 struck my two hands together, and says I, standin there 
 alone, says I : 
 
 " O my God ! I m a lost man this time ! " And then I 
 began to walk to-wards the factory, and can remember that 
 I wondered to myself if God Etarnal cared enough for me 
 to help me get by Jobbs s. 
 
 And I can remember making little circles in the drifting 
 snow to get by. And how I narrowed in an ; d narrowed in. 
 And how I struck out again, and struggled to-wards the fac- 
 
336 NEBLITT. 
 
 tory. But all I could do I kept a narrowing narrowing 
 in. The dog I gave the corned beef to, he followed me. 
 He kept between me and Jobbs s a long time, that dog did. 
 "When I went nigh he d growl. Seems as if he knew. I 
 can remember of giving him a kick, and that he yelped and 
 got behind me. But nobody else seemed to care, only the 
 dog ; neither the boys nor God, nor any of em, for they 
 did n t understand the case, perhaps ; and so I kept a nar- 
 rowin in. Then first I knew it was as if some onseen cree- 
 tur come behind me through the snow and pushed me in. 
 
 I started, and I tried to run I tried to run past the 
 door. I started three times. I could n t get past. I went 
 into Jobbs s. The dog he come and curled upon the steps 
 all crinkled up. But I stepped over him, for I thought I 
 wouldn t kick him twice. It was curious how I had an 
 idea come to me my wife would n t feel quite so bad about 
 it if I did n t kick him. I could n t get by, sir. I had to go. 
 But you could n t understand. I would n t try, if I was you. 
 I went to Jobbs s. 
 
 From then till Christmas week I can t remember much 
 to tell you of. From having stuck so long I took it out 
 most thorough. Most folks don t seem to remember of a 
 drinking-man, leastways a habitual, that he s a diseased and 
 pisoned creetur, that wants to be treated for pison and dis 
 ease. Treat him for sin and wickedness, for deviltry and 
 damnation, if you feel a call ; but wait a spell. What the 
 creetur needs is coffee and beefsteak, a doctor, may be, 
 medicine, a fire, and a place to set by it, a home and folks 
 within it, eyes to watch him, sir, that cares enough to cry 
 for him, and hands to hold him that ain t loath to touch on 
 his n ; a voice, sir, to be patient to him, and tender of him, 
 as mothers is to babies, or wild things to their young ; or as 
 them that have got religion perfess to say God would be 
 patient and tender of his own accord with all folks if he got 
 
NEBLITT. 337 
 
 the chance. Sympathy before sermons, sir, if you re set 
 on making a good man of a bad. You 11 remember some 
 clay a reformed man told you that. May be it will serve 
 you in good stead. 
 
 It ain t that I would be excusing of myself, but it s sim 
 ple justice as between man and man, to remind you that I 
 hadn t none of these things myself. 
 
 Ever been into a factory boarding-house ? Ever been 
 into a ^-factory boarding-house ? 
 
 That was all /had. 
 
 Seems to me it must have snowed pretty much all that 
 time, as I remember. There was a kind of white mist be 
 fore my eyes wherever I come or went. Once or twice I 
 thought I see Her through it, but I could n t tell. Some 
 times, I seemed to see her betwixt me and the glass. She 
 must have been in my mind quite nateral, a good deal, in a 
 kind of crazy way. But there was always a white mist be 
 fore her. Call it snow. Call it craze. Take your choice, 
 /don t know. 
 
 One day I was setting on Jobbs s counter the candy 
 arid peanut counter ; it s cod-fish and postal cards the t other 
 side and when the constabulary come he keeps a trap 
 door to the rear that he empties it into the river, and treats 
 them to sweet apples all around. He s a well-mannered 
 chap, Jobbs ; but the sign says, " W. I Goods and Gro 
 ceries," in pale green letters on a butt nut-colored ground. 
 
 I was setting on the peanut* counter, and at once I come 
 to. A man will, sometime, that sudden. I looked up and 
 it was snowing. It was snowing very hard. The shop was 
 full. The boys was all around the store. They was laugh 
 ing and larking like to split. They was in a little hollow 
 circle, this way, me and the stove over against em. I sec 
 in a minute they were larking at me. 
 
 The tumbler was in my hand, for I d drained it dry, I 
 know. Ram Peterweigh was there. He come up to me 
 22 
 
338 KEBLITT. 
 
 and asked me how I was. Said I d given them a most on- 
 common entertainment. I can remember that I put down 
 the tumbler, for I felt a kind of sudden soberness and fear, 
 I could n t tell you why. I can remember that I asked him 
 what he meant before he says : 
 
 " Why, Neb, you Ve been drinking to Her " 
 
 " WHAT ? " roars I and over that glass goes, sir, in a 
 thousand shivers ; but it was cracked before, and Jobbs he 
 knows it, too. 
 
 Then Ram he finished his sentence, very slow : 
 
 " To her health," said he ; " you Ve been drinking to the 
 little widder lady quite a spell," says Ram, " and very enter 
 taining, too," said he. 
 
 Sir, there ain t no words for it, there ain t indeed. All 
 the boys stood looking on. And none of them gainsaid him. 
 And I set upon the counter like a caged creetur, to think of 
 what I d said. But it was gone, sir, gone like the souls of 
 dead folks out of their bodies. There s a man we read of 
 in Bible who come to himself and was a most onhappy 
 cuss ; I mean him that arose and went to the old gentle 
 man that ran half-ways to meet him. But, sir, he don t know 
 misery when he sees it, nor any man don t that has n t come 
 to himself to find he d took the name he honored above all 
 others on the earth a lady s name Her n on lips like 
 his n in such a place such a place such men he 
 crazy drunk to drag the shadder of the thought of one like 
 her down through that and not to know what his cursed 
 tongue had said 
 
 " Oh, for God s sake, Ram ! " says I, " tell me what it 
 was ! " 
 
 But Ram puts his hands in his pocket and walks off. He 
 whistled as he walked. 
 
 I must have been lying down behind the counter, grovel 
 ing there ; with my face between my hands ; seemed to me 
 I could never lift it up to see the light of day again ; the 
 
NEBLITT. 339 
 
 sun that shone on her, the air she breathed, the pure white 
 snow she trod on and me to look into her face and know 
 
 when at once the door opened wide, and a lady come 
 
 in. 
 
 Sir, it was Herself. She come into Jobbs s. She come 
 after me. Me. If ever Him who made us come from 
 Heaven to earth, as some folks say He did, to hunt us out, 
 it must be most like that of anything I know. The snow 
 blew in with her when she come. She was nigh covered 
 with it acrost her black dress. And when I looked up, I 
 saw her through the mist, dead-white, as if it was snowing 
 even in Jobbs s, soft and clean upon us all. 
 
 She stood a minute, for I think she d caught what we 
 were saying ; and she turned a deadly color first. And she 
 looked upon us all. And we all fell silent, sir, and Ram 
 he d shuffled up and hung his head. Jobbs took off his hat. 
 But I lay groveling by the peanut counter on the ground. 
 And then she spoke. 
 
 " Is Mr. Neblitt here ? " says she ; " I ve come to find him 
 if I can. I want him to leave this place. It s no place for 
 a poor man that had begun to lead a better life," says she ; 
 " I want to take him to his home." But still I lay grovel 
 ing before her, for I darsent look her in the holy face. Her 
 color had come back, and she stood among us looking scared 
 and scarlet, as she d fly. 
 
 Then one of the boys he spoke up compassionate and 
 told her of me ; the state that I was in, and the conse 
 quences when I come out of it, and that I had no wife nor 
 daughter and no home but the boarding-house and the yel 
 low dog as had hung around me ever since. 
 
 " It is a hard case," said this chap, " and the landlady 
 she don t like him, nor yet the dog. Jobbs feeds the dog." 
 
 And so he did, I 11 say as much for him. And he was so 
 tickled, for he thought she d come to talk religion to him, 
 that he dusted off a chair for her, and asked Ram where 
 was his manners, hulking in her way. 
 
840 NEBLITT. 
 
 And then, as I lay there, she looked around again upon 
 us all but she would n t take the chair and says : 
 
 "Is there any one here who will help me take this poor 
 man to a place where he can be properly cared for ? I 
 will find the place," said she. 
 
 So the chap I spoke of he volunteered. And she walked 
 beside us. And we went out into the fresh, falling snow. 
 And the yellow dog went too. But she patted him upon 
 the head. 
 
 But I did n t understand till I d got there, where she d 
 took me to. I 11 tell you. 
 
 It is a living fact. It is true as Heaven. It s just as 
 much perplexing and mysterious to the mind. Sir, she took 
 me to her own house she did ; that little delicate 
 white and me so s I was, just off from Jobbs s floor. 
 
 The chap I spoke of, he hung round and hesitated a 
 spell as if there was something on his mind he d ought in 
 common honesty to warn her of. And I seemed to hear 
 him say : 
 
 " You d ought to know, marm, the state he s in. You d 
 ought to onderstand what it means. It means a case of 
 delirium tre-min-jous before to-morrow morning on your 
 hands, marm." 
 
 " Yes," she says, " I know. I understand." 
 
 And he could n t stir nor change her. And she took me 
 in. 
 
 But I reckon she sent for Cosset, being as it needed a 
 man to hold me for a day or two ; and Mrs. Cosset she 
 come off and on ; and the young woman was there. Mostly 
 I remember seeing the young woman, so fur s I remember 
 of it, anyhow, those first few days. She took a sight of 
 pains the young woman did, and hung around me and 
 missed me up. 
 
 Sir, she kept me for three mortal weeks. She did, may 
 Heaven bless her, true as you and me are standing here ag in 
 
NEBLITT. 341 
 
 this fence, she kept me, crazy and disgraced, and onclean 
 and ravin she kept me in that little quiet holy house of 
 her n along with herself and the young woman, and the 
 little girl till I was over it. 
 
 She sent for her doctor to doctor me. But when I won 
 dered how I was to pay his bill, she said it was no matter. 
 She brought me down into her parlor to set among the 
 pictures, and the books, against the sun, before the fire. 
 And I set and see her passing in and out as once I d 
 thought of. And I watched her shadder on the floor. 
 And I head her voice a hushing to her little girl. And 
 I knew that I was safe and sheltered in. And I set a storin 
 strength to ondertake to be a better man. 
 
 But she did n t talk to me, not a great deal to sarmonize, 
 only to amuse me, till I got able to be out. And first she 
 trusted me to saw some wood. And then I carried some 
 apples down the bulk-head- for her. Then one day she 
 sent me to Charles Henry s on an errand, but the young 
 woman was going as far as the Methodist Church, so she 
 went too. Next time she trusted me alone. And once she 
 went herself. 
 
 And so it went till I got pretty strong. But I could n t 
 say much to her to bless her. And, sir, when I remembered 
 me of what had happened into Jobbs s and of the drunken 
 words I d spoke to drag her holy name acrost that mire 
 I was as staring still as them born deef and dumb. 
 
 If there s anything wuss in hell than what I underwent 
 in thinking of it, I d like to see it, sir, that s all. Talk 
 about fire, brimstone, smoke, and lakes, and that. I don t 
 want no other scorch. 
 
 And me beneath her roof a lady s roof cared for, 
 and sheltered in, and nussed and with the chance to look 
 up any hour, if I would, and see her eyes bent towards me, 
 and the smiles she had. 
 
 You re right, sir, he would n t have been wuth saving, 
 
842 KEBLITT. 
 
 the man would n t, as could go back to the mud after a 
 chance like that : may God do so to me, and more also, if I 
 ever do, so help me Him and Her ! 
 
 One day I know I says to her, for I d been thinking of 
 it over, to wonder what edged her on to do it. 
 
 " It can t be for no profit nor no selfish reason that I can 
 get hold of ; it must be for humanity s sake," says I. 
 
 But she come up to me, and said quite soft : 
 
 " Call it for Christ s sake, Mr. Neblitt," says she. 
 
 Now I ve thought a sight about that sence. For Christ s 
 sake. She said for Christ s sake. Well, if that was it 
 but there s folks that hold us at arm s-length and never 
 steps beside a poor up-strugglin sinner so much as to speak 
 to him acrost the street and they re what you call Chris 
 tians too, you see. If their way is Christ s way, why I 
 should take it her n was n t. And if her n is, I take it 
 their s ain t. So there it is. I m a ignorant, onreligious 
 man, sir, but when I was to her house that time, I read in 
 the Testament one day a piece, one sunny day while she 
 was Kind o Gardenin in the parlor with her young ones. 
 Seems to me her way is more like His n, sir. At all events, 
 I 11 bet on her n, however that may be. 
 
 So at last, sir, it come Christmas-time, and on Christmas 
 Eve she had a little party for her little girl. The young 
 woman and I her name was Jinny, Jinny and I, we 
 carried the oysters in, and the cake and things. But after 
 the folks had gone, and the young one was in bed, I went 
 and wandered about a spell through the kitchen and the 
 room she d gin me in the L, a warm room, sir ; I was n t 
 used to having a warm room in the winter-time, and it 
 had patchwork on the bureau of a blue color, and a 
 picture, and a looking-glass ; and Jinny kept it very tidy 
 for me. 
 
 I felt lonesome and down about my mind that night ; for 
 I knew that I must go, and I had n t nobody to go to, nor 
 
NEBLITT. 343 
 
 yet to go with, in all the world, sir, only the yellow dog 
 that she d been so considerate of and let him sleep into the 
 wood-shed all that while. 
 
 And while I set there beside the kitchen fire, the young 
 woman come out. Jinny come out. It was Christmas Eve 
 that Jinny come to me, and said : 
 
 " Ain t you lonesome," says she, " setting all alone ? " 
 
 " I in going to the boarding-house to-morrow," says I, 
 " I ve plagued her long enough." 
 
 " Well ! " says Jinny. 
 
 " Well," says I. And then we come to a halt. 
 
 " How many years," asks Jinny, " is it since your wife 
 died, Mr. Neblitt ? " 
 
 " Don t talk to me about my wife ! " says I, for I thought 
 it strange in Jinny. I wondered if the girl was sparking ; 
 she usially so modest, and I felt no call that way. But the 
 young woman she went on without seeming to take a-no- 
 tice : 
 
 " And your children," says she, " did all your children 
 die, too, and leave you leave you " and there the young 
 woman begun to sob for sympathy, " all alone in the 
 world, poor man," says Jinny ; " all alone with none to 
 claim you on a Christmas Day ! " says Jinny. 
 
 " All alone," says I, for I was sot I would n t cry over 
 it, " only the yellow dog, and Her we leave behind us in 
 this house. We re going now, the dog and me, to under 
 take to be better men, because of Her. Don t forget us, 
 Jinny," says I, " and don t cry ! " 
 
 Now, sir, that very minute, as I set by the kitchen fire, 
 saying, " Don t cry, Jinny ! " this happened : The young 
 woman come up and put her hand upon my arm, and says 
 she : 
 
 " Fa-ther ? " like that ; " fa-ther ? " 
 
 Omy GW/"saysL 
 
 " It s true," says Jinny, " It s true, true, true ! An.l 
 
844 NEBLITT. 
 
 we knew it from the first. For she took me seven years 
 ago. But she would n t let on when she found you out. 
 Wait till he s earned a daughter, says she to me ; wait, 
 Jinny, till he s fit, says she. O father, father, father ! " 
 says Jinny. Just like that. 
 
 Well, sir, it s a curious story, but a true ; I won t bother 
 you to tell you any more ; I ve talked a long spell. But it 
 was all as Jinny said, and they explained to me how she d 
 took her from a County -house and cared for her, and how 
 they planned between em to save me, sir, when fust they 
 come to live our way and heerd my name. 
 
 It was my daughter, sir. I had n t seen her since she 
 was two years old. It was my little girl. 
 
 And, sir, she let me stay. She wanted a man about the 
 house for many things she said, in odd hours after mills 
 were out, and for feeling safer in the night-time, and for er 
 rands in wet weather. She let us take the L and fix it up, 
 me and Jinny, the room with the blue bureau and Jinny s 
 room, and a cook-room of our own, where we have our 
 meals together that we get ourselves, for to give us the 
 feeling of a home to our two selves, she says, and the 
 yellow dog besides. 
 
 I never had to go out from the blessin of her presence, 
 sir. I never had to go where I could n t hear her voice, nor 
 see her shadder on the floor, nor see her kiss her little girl. 
 Me and my little girl, we live in the shelter of her. May 
 Heaven bless her ! 
 
 Now there s one other other thing. It was about New 
 Year s time. There come a message to me one day at the 
 .Club meetin that Ram Peterweigh d got hurt. He got 
 jammed into the elevator very bad, and they thought he 
 could n t last. So he wanted to see me most particulerlay, 
 and I went over to his house. 
 
 I found him pretty low, for it was an awful jam. And he 
 
-NEBLITT. 345 
 
 died next day. But he asked me if I thought She d deign 
 to come and make a prayer for him. So I went for her, 
 and she came and made the prayer, and set by him, and 
 Ram he seem to feel a sight easier in his mind for it. For 
 he d never been a pious man. 
 
 " If there was more like her " Ram says ; but he 
 stopped there, for he was very low. 
 
 Only when she was gone into t other room with his wife 
 to hush the baby, he turned to me and says : 
 
 " Neb, I m done for." 
 
 " I m afraid so," says I. 
 
 " But I can t die easy," says Ram, " till I tell you what it 
 was you said at Jobbs s." 
 
 I felt myself run cold, sir, for I wanted to forget it if I 
 could, and lest she should overhear. But to humor him, 
 being a dying man, I asked him what it was. But I sat all 
 of a tremble to be told. 
 
 " You took the tumbler," says Ram, but he groaned out 
 awfully. " You took it up, and says : God bless Her ! 
 Upon my honor as a dying man, that was every mortal 
 word. You God blessed Her, in the rum" says Ram, " may 
 Him and you and She forgive me ! " 
 
 But with that he sank into a sort of doze, and when She 
 was not needed, we went home to Jinny, and to tell her how 
 it was. 
 
FOURTEEN DAY USE 
 
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 ill 
 1956 |jf 
 
 LD 21-100m-2, 55 
 (B139s22)476 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley 
 
M504966