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 BOSTON AND NEW YORK. 
 
A NATIVE OF WINBY 
 
 AND OTHER TALES 
 
 BY 
 
 SARAH ORNE JEWETT 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 ?, Cambribge 
 
 1893 
 
Copyright, 1893, 
 Bv SARAH ORNE JEWETT. 
 
 All rights reserved* 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass, U. S. A. 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. 
 
To MY DEAR YOUNGER SISTER 
 
 C. A. E. 
 
 I have had many pleasures that were doubled 
 because you shared them, and so I write 
 your name at the beginning of this book. 
 
 S. O. J. 
 AUGUST NINTH, 1893. 
 
 MG88G59 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A NATIVE OF WINBY 1 
 
 DECORATION DAY . 30 
 
 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN 65 
 
 THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY . . . 109 
 THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT .... 137 
 
 Miss ESTHER S GUEST 159 
 
 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE .... 177 
 BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS . . . .219 
 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID 253 
 
A NATIVE OF WINBY. 
 I. 
 
 ON the teacher s desk, in the little road 
 side school-house, there was a bunch of May 
 flowers, beside a dented and bent brass bell, 
 a small Worcester s Dictionary without any 
 cover, and a worn morocco-covered Bible. 
 These were placed in an orderly row, and be 
 hind them was a small wooden box which held 
 some broken pieces of blackboard crayon. 
 The teacher, whom no timid new scholar 
 could look at boldly, wore her accustomed 
 air of authority and importance. She might 
 have been nineteen years old, not more, 
 but for the time being she scorned the fri 
 volities of youth. 
 
 The hot May sun was shining in at the 
 smoky small-paned windows ; sometimes an 
 outside shutter swung to with a creak, and 
 eclipsed the glare. The narrow door stood 
 wide open, to the left as you faced the desk, 
 and an old spotted dog lay asleep on the step, 
 
2 A NATIVE OF WINBY. 
 
 and looked wise and old enough to have gone 
 to school with several generations of children. 
 It was half past three o clock in the after 
 noon, and the primer class, settled into the 
 apathy of after-recess fatigue, presented a 
 straggling front, as they stood listlessly on 
 the floor. As for the big boys and girls, 
 they also were longing to be at liberty, but 
 the pretty teacher, Miss Marilla Hender, 
 seemed quite as energetic as when school was 
 begun in the morning. 
 
 The spring breeze blew in at the open 
 door, and even fluttered the primer leaves, 
 but the back of the room felt hot and close, 
 as if it were midsummer. The children in 
 the class read their lessons in those high- 
 keyed, droning voices which older teachers 
 learn to associate with faint powers of per 
 ception. Only one or two of them had an 
 awakened human look in their eyes, such as 
 Matthew Arnold delighted himself in finding 
 so often in the school-children of France. 
 Most of these poor little students were as 
 inadequate, at that weary moment, to the 
 pursuit of letters as if they had been woolly 
 spring lambs on a sunny hillside. The 
 teacher corrected and admonished with great 
 patience, glancing now and then toward 
 
A NATIVE OF WINBY. 3 
 
 points of danger and insurrection, whence 
 came a suspicious buzz of whispering from 
 behind a desk-lid or a pair of widespread 
 large geographies. Now and then a toiling 
 child would rise and come down the aisle, 
 with his forefinger firm upon a puzzling word 
 as if it were an unclassified insect. It was a 
 lovely beckoning day out-of-doors. The chil 
 dren felt like captives ; there was something 
 that provoked rebellion in the droning voices, 
 the buzzing of an early wild bee against the 
 sunlit pane, and even in the stuffy familiar 
 odor of the place, the odor of apples and 
 crumbs of doughnuts and gingerbread in the 
 dinner pails on the high entry nails, and of 
 all the little gowns and trousers that had 
 brushed through junipers and young pines 
 on their way to school. 
 
 The bee left his prisoning pane at last, and 
 came over to the Mayflowers, which were in 
 full bloom, although the season was very late, 
 and deep in the woods there were still some 
 graybacked snowdrifts, speckled with bits of 
 bark and moss from the trees above. 
 
 " Come, come, Ezra ! " urged the young 
 teacher, rapping her desk sharply. "Stop 
 watchin that common bee ! You know well 
 enough what those letters spell. You won t 
 
4 A NATIVE OF WINBY. 
 
 learn to read at this rate until you are a 
 grown man. Mind your book, now; you 
 ought to remember who went to this school 
 when he was a little boy. You ve heard 
 folks tell about the Honorable Joseph K. 
 Laneway ? He used to be in primer just 
 as you are now, and t was n t long before 
 he was out of it, either, and was called the 
 smartest boy in school. He s got to be a 
 general and a Senator, and one of the rich 
 est men out West. You don t seem to have 
 the least mite of ambition to-day, any of 
 you!" 
 
 The exhortation, entirely personal in the 
 beginning, had swiftly passed to a general 
 rebuke. Ezra looked relieved, and the other 
 children brightened up as they recognized a 
 tale familiar to their ears. Anything was 
 better than trying to study in that dull last 
 hour of afternoon school. 
 
 "Yes," continued Miss Hender, pleased 
 that she had at last roused something like 
 proper attention, " you all ought to be proud 
 that you are schoolmates of District Number 
 Four, and can remember that the celebrated 
 General Laneway had the same early advan 
 tages as you, and think what he has made of 
 himself by perseverance and ambition." 
 
A NATIVE OF WINBY. 5 
 
 The pupils were familiar enough with the 
 illustrious history of their noble predecessor. 
 They were sure to be told, in lawless mo 
 ments, that if Mr. Laneway were to come in 
 and see them he would be mortified to death ; 
 and the members of the school committee al 
 ways referred to him, and said that he had 
 been a poor boy, and was now a self-made 
 man, as if every man were not self-made 
 as to his character and reputation ! 
 
 At this point, young Johnny Spencer 
 showed his next neighbor, in the back of his 
 Colburn s Arithmetic, an imaginary portrait 
 of their district hero, which caused them 
 both to chuckle derisively. The Honorable 
 Mr. Laneway figured on the flyleaf as an 
 extremely cross-eyed person, with strangely 
 crooked legs and arms and a terrific expres 
 sion. He was outlined with red and blue 
 pencils as to coat and trousers, and held a 
 reddened scalp in one hand and a blue toma 
 hawk in the other ; being closely associated 
 in the artist s mind with the early settlements 
 of the far West. 
 
 There was a noise of wheels in the road 
 near by, and, though Miss Hender had much 
 more to say, everybody ceased to listen to 
 her, and turned toward the windows, leaning 
 
6 A NATIVE OF WINBY. 
 
 far forward over their desks to see who might 
 be passing. They caught a glimpse of a 
 shiny carriage; the old dog bounded out, 
 barking, but nothing passed the open door. 
 The carriage had stopped; some one was 
 coming to the school ; somebody was going to 
 be called out ! It could not be the commit 
 tee, whose pompous and uninspiring spring- 
 visit had taken place only the week before. 
 
 Presently a well-dressed elderly man, with 
 an expectant, masterful look, stood on the 
 doorstep, glanced in with a smile, and 
 knocked. Miss Marilla Hender blushed, 
 smoothed her pretty hair anxiously with both 
 hands, and stepped down from her little plat 
 form to answer the summons. There was 
 hardly a shut mouth in the primer class. 
 
 " Would it be convenient for you to re 
 ceive a visitor to the school?" the stranger 
 asked politely, with a fine bow of deference 
 to Miss Hender. He looked much pleased 
 and a little excited, and the teacher said, 
 
 " Certainly ; step right in, won t you, sir ? " 
 in quite another tone from that in which she 
 had just addressed the school. 
 
 The boys and girls were sitting straight 
 and silent in their places, in something like 
 a fit of apprehension and unpreparedness at 
 
A NATIVE OF WINBY. 7 
 
 such a great emergency. The guest repre 
 sented a type of person previously unknown 
 in District Number Four. Everything about 
 him spoke of wealth and authority. The old 
 dog returned to the doorstep, and after a 
 careful look at the invader approached him, 
 with a funny doggish grin and a desperate 
 wag of the tail, to beg for recognition. 
 
 The teacher gave her chair on the platform 
 to the guest, and stood beside him with very 
 red cheeks, smoothing her hair again once or 
 twice, and keeping the hard-wood ruler fast 
 in hand, like a badge of office. "Primer 
 class may now retire ! " she said firmly, al 
 though the lesson was not more than half 
 through ; and the class promptly escaped to 
 their seats, waddling and stumbling, until 
 they all came up behind their desks, face 
 foremost, and added themselves to the num 
 ber of staring young countenances. After 
 this there was a silence, which grew more and 
 more embarrassing. 
 
 " Perhaps you would be pleased to hear 
 our first class in geography, sir?" asked the 
 fair Marilla, recovering her presence of 
 mind ; and the guest kindly assented. 
 
 The young teacher was by no means will 
 ing to give up a certainty for an uncertainty. 
 
8 A NATIVE OF WINBY. 
 
 Yesterday s lesson had been well learned ; 
 she turned back to the questions about the 
 State of Kansota, and at the first sentence 
 the mysterious visitor s dignity melted into 
 an unconscious smile. He listened intently 
 for a minute, and then seemed to reoccupy 
 himself with his own thoughts and purposes, 
 looking eagerly about the old school-house, 
 and sometimes gazing steadily at the chil 
 dren. The lesson went on finely, and when 
 it was finished Miss Hender asked the girl 
 at the head of the class to name the States 
 and Territories, which she instantly did, mis 
 pronouncing nearly all the names of the lat 
 ter ; then others stated boundaries and capi 
 tals, and the resources of the New England 
 States, passing 011 finally to the names of the 
 Presidents. Miss Hender glowed with pride ; 
 she had worked hard over the geography 
 class in the winter term, and it did not fail 
 her on this great occasion. When she turned 
 bravely to see if the gentleman would like 
 to ask any questions, she found that he was 
 apparently lost in a deep reverie, so she re 
 peated her own question more distinctly. 
 
 " They have done very well, veiy well 
 indeed," he answered kindly ; and then, to 
 every one s surprise, he rose, went up the 
 
A NATIVE OF WIN BY. 9 
 
 aisle, pushed Johnny Spencer gently along 
 his bench, and sat down beside him. The 
 space was cramped, and the stranger looked 
 huge and uncomfortable, so that everybody 
 laughed, except one of the big girls, who 
 turned pale with fright, and thought he must 
 be crazy. When this girl gave a faint 
 squeak Miss Hender recovered herself, and 
 rapped twice with the ruler to restore order ; 
 then became entirely tranquil. There had 
 been talk of replacing the hacked and worn 
 old school-desks with patent desks and chairs ; 
 this was probably an agent connected with 
 that business. At once she was resolute and 
 self-reliant, and said, " No whispering ! " in 
 a firm tone that showed she did not mean to 
 be trifled with. The geography class was 
 dismissed, but the elderly gentleman, in his 
 handsome overcoat, still sat there wedged in 
 at Johnny Spencer s side. 
 
 " I presume, sir, that you are canvassing 
 for new desks," said Miss Hender, with dig 
 nity. " You will have to see the supervisor 
 and the selectmen." There did not seem to 
 be any need of his lingering, but she had an 
 ardent desire to be pleasing to a person of 
 such evident distinction. " We always tell 
 strangers I thought, sir, you might be 
 
10 A NATIVE OF WIN BY. 
 
 gratified to know that this is the school- 
 house where the Honorable Joseph K. Lane- 
 way first attended school. All do not know 
 that he was born in this town, and went West 
 very young; it is only about a mile from 
 here where his folks used to live." 
 
 At this moment the visitor s eyes fell. He 
 did not look at pretty Marilla any more, but 
 opened Johnny Spencer s arithmetic, and, 
 seeing the imaginary portrait of the great 
 General Laneway, laughed a little, a very 
 deep-down comfortable laugh it was, while 
 Johnny himself turned cold with alarm, he 
 could not have told why. 
 
 It was very still in the school-room ; the 
 bee was buzzing and bumping at the pane 
 again ; the moment was one of intense ex 
 pectation. 
 
 The stranger looked at the children right 
 and left. " The fact is this, young people," 
 said he, in a tone that was half pride and half 
 apology, " I am Joseph K. Laneway myself." 
 
 He tried to extricate himself from the 
 narrow quarters of the desk, but for an em 
 barrassing moment found that he was stuck 
 fast. Johnny Spencer instinctively gave him 
 an assisting push, and once free the great 
 soldier, statesman, and millionaire took a few 
 
A NATIVE OF WINBY. 11 
 
 steps forward to the open floor; then, after 
 hesitating a moment, he mounted the little 
 platform and stood in the teacher s place. 
 Marilla Hender was as pale as ashes. 
 
 " I have thought many times," the great 
 guest began, " that some day I should come 
 back to visit this place, which is so closely 
 interwoven with the memories of my child 
 hood. In my counting-room, on the fields of 
 war, in the halls of Congress, and most of all 
 in my Western home, my thoughts have flown 
 back to the hills and brooks of Winby and 
 to this little old school-house. I could shut 
 my eyes and call back the buzz of voices, 
 and fear my teacher s frown, and feel my 
 boyish ambitions waking and stirring in my 
 breast. On that bench where I just sat I saw 
 some notches that I cut with my first jack- 
 knife fifty-eight years ago this very spring. 
 I remember the faces of the boys and girls 
 who went to school with me, and I see their 
 grandchildren before me. I know that one 
 is a Goodsoe and another a Winn by the old 
 family look. One generation goes, and an 
 other comes. 
 
 " There are many things that I might say 
 to you. I meant, even in those early re 
 stricted days, to make my name known, and 
 
12 A NATIVE OF WINBY. 
 
 I dare say that you too have ambition. Be 
 careful what you wish for in this world, for 
 if you wish hard enough you are sure to get 
 it. I once heard a very wise man say this, 
 and the longer I live the more firmly I be 
 lieve it to be true. But wishing hard means 
 working hard for what you want, and the 
 world s prizes wait for the men and women 
 who are ready to take pains to win them. 
 Be careful and set your minds on the best 
 things. I meant to be a rich man when I 
 was a boy here, and I stand before you a 
 rich man, knowing the care and anxiety and 
 responsibility of wealth. I meant to go to 
 Congress, and I am one of the Senators from 
 Kansota. I say this as humbly as I say it 
 proudly. I used to read of the valor and 
 patriotism of the old Greeks and Romans 
 with my youthful blood leaping along my 
 veins, and it came to pass that my own coun 
 try was in danger, and that I could help to 
 fight her battles. Perhaps some one of these 
 little lads has before him a more eventful life 
 than I have lived, and is looking forward to 
 activity and honor and the pride of fame. I 
 wish him all the joy that I have had, all the 
 toil that I have had, and all the bitter dis 
 appointments even; for adversity leads a 
 
A NATIVE OF WINBY. 13 
 
 man to depend upon that which is above him, 
 and the path of glory is a lonely path, beset 
 by temptations and a bitter sense of the 
 weakness and imperfection of man. I see 
 my life spread out like a great picture, as I 
 stand here in my boyhood s place. I regret 
 my failures. I thank God for what in his 
 kind providence has been honest and right. 
 I am glad to come back, but I feel, as I look 
 in your young faces, that I am an old man, 
 while your lives are just beginning. When 
 you remember, in years to come, that I came 
 here to see the old school-house, remember 
 that I said : Wish for the best things, and 
 work hard to win them ; try to be good men 
 and women, for the honor of the school and 
 the town, and the noble young country that 
 gave you birth ; be kind at home and gener 
 ous abroad. Remember that I, an old man 
 who had seen much of life, begged you to be 
 brave and good." 
 
 The Honorable Mr. Laneway had rarely 
 felt himself so moved in any of his public 
 speeches, but he was obliged to notice that 
 for once he could not hold his audience. The 
 primer class especially had begun to flag in 
 attention, but one or two faces among the 
 elder scholars fairly shone with vital sym- 
 
14 A NATIVE OF WINBY. 
 
 patliy and a lovely prescience of their future. 
 Their eyes met his as if they struck a flash 
 of light. There was a sturdy boy who half 
 rose in his place unconsciously, the color 
 coming and going in his cheeks ; something 
 in Mr. Lane way s words lit the altar flame 
 in his reverent heart. 
 
 Marilla Hender was pleased and a little 
 dazed ; she could not have repeated what her 
 illustrious visitor had said, but she longed to 
 tell everybody the news that he was in town, 
 and had come to school to make an address. 
 She had never seen a great man before, and 
 really needed time to reflect upon him and 
 to consider what she ought to say. She was 
 just quivering with the attempt to make a 
 proper reply and thank Mr. Laneway for the 
 honor of his visit to the school, when he asked 
 her which of the boys could be trusted to 
 drive back his hired horse to the Four Cor 
 ners. Eight boys, large and small, nearly 
 every boy in the school, rose at once and 
 snapped insistent fingers ; but Johnny Spen 
 cer alone was desirous not to attract atten 
 tion to himself. The Colburn s Intellectual 
 Arithmetic with the portrait had been well 
 secreted between his tight jacket and his 
 shirt. Miss Hender selected a trustworthy 
 
A NATIVE OF WINBY. 15 
 
 freckled person in long trousers, who was 
 half way to the door in an instant, and was 
 heard almost immediately to shout loudly at 
 the quiet horse. 
 
 Then the Hero of District Number Four 
 made his acknowledgments to the teacher. 
 " I fear that I have interrupted you too long," 
 he said, with pleasing deference. 
 
 Marilla replied that it was of no conse 
 quence ; she hoped he would call again. She 
 may have spoken primly, but her pretty eyes 
 said everything that her lips forgot. " My 
 grandmother will want to see you, sir," she 
 ventured to say. " I guess you will remem 
 ber her, Mis Hender, she that was Abby 
 Harraii. She has often told me how you 
 used to get your lessons out o the same 
 book." 
 
 "Abby Harran s granddaughter?" Mr. 
 Laneway looked at her again with fresh in 
 terest. " Yes, I wish to see her more than 
 any one else. Tell her that I am coming 
 to see her before I go away, and give her 
 my love. Thank you, my dear," as Marilla 
 offered his missing hat. " Good-by, boys and 
 girls." He stopped and looked at them once 
 more from the boys entry, and turned again 
 to look back from the very doorstep. 
 
16 A NATIVE OF WINBY. 
 
 " Good-by, sir, good-by," piped two or 
 three of the young voices ; but most of the 
 children only stared, and neither spoke nor 
 moved. 
 
 " We will omit the class in Fourth Reader 
 this afternoon. The class in grammar may 
 recite," said Miss Render in her most con 
 tained and official manner. 
 
 The grammar class sighed like a single 
 pupil, and obeyed. She was very stern with 
 the grammar class, but every one in school 
 had an inner sense that it was a great day in 
 the history of District Number Four. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Honorable Mr. Laneway found the 
 outdoor air very fresh and sweet after the 
 closeness of the school-house. It had just 
 that same odor in his boyhood, and as he 
 escaped he had a delightful sense of playing 
 truant or of having an unexpected holiday. 
 It was easier to think of himself as a boy, 
 and to slip back into boyish thoughts, than 
 to bear the familiar burden of his manhood. 
 He climbed the tumble-down stone wall 
 across the road, and went along a narrow 
 
A NATIVE OF WINBY. 17 
 
 path to the spring that bubbled up clear and 
 cold under a great red oak. How many 
 times he had longed for a drink of that 
 water, and now here it was, and the thirst of 
 that warm spring day was hard to quench ! 
 Again and again he stopped to fill the birch- 
 bark dipper which the school - children had 
 made, just as his own comrades made theirs 
 years before. The oak-tree was dying at the 
 top. The pine woods beyond had been cut 
 and had grown again since his boyhood, and 
 looked much as he remembered them. Be 
 yond the spring and away from the woods 
 the path led across overgrown pastures to an 
 other road, perhaps three quarters of a mile 
 away, and near this road was the small farm 
 which had been his former home. As he 
 walked slowly along, lie was met again and 
 again by some reminder of his youthful days. 
 He had always liked to refer to his early life 
 in New England in his political addresses, and 
 had spoken more than once of going to find 
 the cows at nightfall in the autumn evenings, 
 and being glad to warm his bare feet in the 
 places where the sleepy beasts had lain, be 
 fore he followed their slow steps homeward 
 through bush and brier. The Honorable 
 Mr. Laneway had a touch of true sentiment 
 
18 A NATIVE OF WIN BY. 
 
 which added much to his really stirring and 
 effective campaign speeches. He had often 
 been called the " king of the platform " in 
 his adopted State. He had long ago grown 
 used to saying "Go" to one man, and 
 " Come " to another, like the ruler of old ; 
 but all his natural power of leadership and 
 habit of authority disappeared at once as he 
 trod the pasture slopes, calling back the re 
 membrance of his childhood. Here was the 
 place where two lads, older than himself, had 
 killed a terrible woodchuck at bay in the 
 angle of a great rock ; and just beyond was 
 the sunny spot where he had picked a bunch 
 of pink and white anemones under a prickly 
 barberry thicket, to give to Abby Harran in 
 morning school. She had put them into her 
 desk, and let them wilt there, but she was 
 pleased when she took them. Abby Harran, 
 the little teacher s grandmother, was a year 
 older than he, and had wakened the earliest 
 thought of love in his youthful breast. 
 
 It was almost time to catch the first sight 
 of his birthplace. From the knoll just ahead 
 he had often seen the light of his mother s 
 lamp, as he came home from school on win 
 ter afternoons ; but when he reached the 
 knoll the old house was gone, and so was 
 
A NATIVE OF WINBY. 19 
 
 the great walnut-tree that grew beside it, 
 and a pang of disappointment shot through 
 this devout pilgrim s heart. He never had 
 doubted that the old farm was somebody s 
 home still, and had counted upon the plea 
 sure of spending a night there, and sleeping 
 again in that room under the roof, where the 
 rain sounded loud, and the walnut branches 
 brushed to and fro when the wind blew, as if 
 they were the claws of tigers. He hurried 
 across the worn-out fields, long ago turned 
 into sheep pastures, where the last year s tall 
 grass and golden-rod stood gray and winter 
 killed ; tracing the old walls and fences, and 
 astonished to see how small the fields had 
 been. The prosperous owner of Western 
 farming lands could not help remembering 
 those widespread luxuriant acres, and the 
 broad outlooks of his Western home. 
 
 It was difficult at first to find exactly 
 where the house had stood ; even the founda 
 tions had disappeared. At last in the long, 
 faded grass he discovered the doorstep, and 
 near by was a little mound where the great 
 walnut-tree stump had been. The cellar was 
 a mere dent in the sloping ground ; it had 
 been filled in by the growing grass and slow 
 processes of summer and winter weather. 
 
20 A NATIVE OF WINBY. 
 
 But just at the pilgrim s right were some 
 thorny twigs of an old rosebush. A sudden 
 brightening of memory brought to mind the 
 love that his mother dead since his fif 
 teenth year had kept for this sweetbrier. 
 How often she had wished that she had 
 brought it to her new home ! So much had 
 changed in the world, so many had gone into 
 the world of light, and here the faithful 
 blooming thing was yet alive ! There was 
 one slender branch where green buds were 
 starting, and getting ready to flower in the 
 new year. 
 
 The afternoon wore late, and still the gray- 
 haired man lingered. He might have laughed 
 at some one else who gave himself up to sad 
 thoughts, and found fault with himself, with 
 no defendant to plead his cause at the bar of 
 conscience. It was an altogether lonely hour. 
 He had dreamed all his life, in a sentimental, 
 self -satisfied fashion, of this return to Winby. 
 It had always appeared to be a grand affair, 
 but so far he was himself the only interested 
 spectator at his poor occasion. There was 
 even a dismal consciousness that he had been 
 undignified, perhaps even a little consequen 
 tial and silly, in the old school-house. The 
 picture of himself on the war-path, in Johnny 
 
A NATIVE. OF WINBY. 21 
 
 Spencer s arithmetic, was the only tribute 
 that this longed-for day had held, but he 
 laughed aloud delightedly at the remem 
 brance and really liked that solemn little boy 
 who sat at his own old desk. There was an 
 other older lad, who sat at the back of the 
 room, who reminded Mr. Lane way of himself 
 in his eager youth. There was a spark of 
 light in that fellow s eyes. Once or twice in 
 the earlier afternoon, as he drove along, he 
 had asked people in the road if there were a 
 Laneway family in that neighborhood, but 
 everybody had said no in indifferent fashion. 
 Somehow he had been expecting that every 
 one would know him and greet him, and give 
 him credit for what he had tried to do, but 
 old Winby had her own affairs to look after, 
 and did very well without any of his help. 
 
 Mr. Laneway acknowledged to himself at 
 this point that he was weak and unmanly. 
 There must be some old friends who would 
 remember him, and give him as hearty a 
 welcome as the greeting he had brought for 
 them. So he rose and went his way west 
 ward toward the sunset. The air was grow 
 ing damp and cold, and it was time to make 
 sure of shelter. This was hardly like the 
 visit he had meant to pay to his birthplace. 
 
22 A NATIVE OF WINBY. 
 
 He wished with all his heart that he had never 
 come back. But he walked briskly away, in 
 tent upon wider thoughts as the fresh even 
 ing breeze quickened his steps. He did not 
 consider where he was going, but was for a 
 time the busy man of affairs, stimulated by 
 the unconscious influence of his surround 
 ings. The slender gray birches and pitch 
 pines of that neglected pasture had never be 
 fore seen a hat and coat exactly in the fash 
 ion. They may have been abashed by the 
 presence of a United States Senator and 
 Western millionaire, though a piece of New 
 England ground that had often felt the tread 
 of his bare feet was not likely to quake be 
 cause a pair of smart shoes stepped hastily 
 along the school-house path. 
 
 III. 
 
 There was an imperative knock at the 
 side door of the Hender farmhouse, just after 
 dark. The young school-mistress had come 
 home late, because she had stopped all the 
 way along to give people the news of her 
 afternoon s experience. Marilla was not coy 
 and speechless any longer, but sat by the 
 
A NATIVE OF WINBY. 23 
 
 kitchen stove telling her eager grandmother 
 everything she could remember or could im 
 agine. 
 
 " Who s that knocking at the door ? " in 
 terrupted Mrs. Hender. " No, I 11 go my 
 self ; I m nearest." 
 
 The man outside was cold and foot-weary. 
 He was not used to spending a whole day 
 unrecognized, and, after being first amused, 
 and even enjoying a sense of freedom at 
 escaping his just dues of consideration and 
 respect, he had begun to feel as if he were 
 old and forgotten, and was hardly sure of a 
 friend in the world. 
 
 Old Mrs. Hender came to the door, with 
 her eyes shining with delight, in great haste 
 to dismiss whoever had knocked, so that she 
 might hear the rest of Marilla s story. She 
 opened the door wide to whoever might have 
 come on some country errand, and looked the 
 tired and faint-hearted Mr. Laneway full in 
 the face. 
 
 " Dear heart, come in ! " she exclaimed, 
 reaching out and taking him by the shoul 
 der, as he stood humbly on a lower step. 
 " Come right in, Joe. Why, I should know 
 you anywhere ! Why, Joe Laneway, you 
 same boy I " 
 
24 A NATIVE OF WINBY. 
 
 In they went to the warm, bright, country 
 kitchen. The delight and kindness of an 
 old friend s welcome and her instant sym 
 pathy seemed the loveliest thing in the world. 
 They sat down in two old straight-backed 
 kitchen chairs. They still held each other 
 by the hand, and looked in each other s face. 
 The plain old room was aglow with heat and 
 cheerfulness ; the tea-kettle was singing ; a 
 drowsy cat sat on the wood -box with her 
 paws tucked in ; and the house dog came 
 forward in a friendly way, wagging his tail, 
 and laid his head on their clasped hands. 
 
 " And to think I have n t seen you since 
 your folks moved out West, the next spring 
 after you were thirteen in the winter," said 
 the good woman. " But I s pose there ain t 
 been anybody that has followed your career 
 closer than I have, accordin to their oppor 
 tunities. You ve done a great work for 
 your country, Joe. I m proud of you clean 
 through. Sometimes folks has said, There, 
 there, Mis Render, what be you goin to say 
 now? but I ve always told em to wait. I 
 knew you saw your reasons. You was always 
 an honest boy." The tears started and shone 
 in her kind eyes. Her face showed that she 
 had waged a bitter war with poverty and 
 
A NATIVE OF WIN BY. 25 
 
 sorrow, but the look of affection that it wore, 
 and the warm touch of her hard hand, mis 
 shapen and worn with toil, touched her old 
 friend in his inmost heart, and for a minute 
 neither could speak. 
 
 " They do say that women folks have got 
 no natural head for politics, but I always 
 could seem to sense what was goin on in 
 Washington, if there was any sense to it," 
 said grandmother Render at last. 
 
 " Nobody could puzzle you at school, I re 
 member," answered Mr. Lane way, and they 
 both laughed heartily. "But surely this 
 granddaughter does not make your house 
 hold? You have sons?" 
 
 "Two beside her father. He died; but 
 they re both away, up toward Canada, buy 
 ing cattle. We are getting along consider 
 able well these last few years, since they got 
 a mite o capital together ; but the old farm 
 was n t really able to maintain us, with the 
 heavy expenses that fell on us unexpected 
 year by year. I ve seen a great sight of 
 trouble, Joe. My boy John, Manila s father, 
 and his nice wife, I lost em both early, 
 when Mar ilia was but a child. John was 
 the flower o my family. He would have 
 made a name for himself. You would have 
 taken to John." 
 
26 A NATIVE OF WINBY. 
 
 " I was sorry to hear of your loss," said 
 Mr. Laneway. " He was a brave man. I 
 know what he did at Fredericksburg. You 
 remember that I lost my wife and my only 
 son?" 
 
 There was a silence between the friends, 
 who had no need for words now ; they un 
 derstood each other s heart only too well. 
 Marilla, who sat near them, rose and went 
 out of the room. 
 
 " Yes, yes, daughter," said Mrs. Hender, 
 calling her back, " we ought to be thinkin 
 about supper." 
 
 " I was going to light a little fire in the 
 parlor," explained Marilla, with a slight 
 tone of rebuke in her clear girlish voice. 
 
 " Oh, no, you ain t, not now, at least," 
 protested the elder woman decidedly. 
 " Now, Joseph, what should you like to 
 have for supper ? I wish to my heart I had 
 some fried turnovers, like those you used to 
 come after when you was a boy. I can make 
 em just about the same as mother did. I 11 
 be bound you ve thought of some old-fash 
 ioned dish that you d relish for your supper." 
 
 " Rye drop-cakes, then, if they would n t 
 give you too much trouble," answered the 
 Honorable Joseph, with prompt seriousness, 
 
A NATIVE OF WINBY. 27 
 
 " and don t forget some cheese." He looked 
 up at his old playfellow as she stood beside 
 him, eager with affectionate hospitality. 
 
 " You ve no idea what a comfort Marilla s 
 been," she stooped to whisper. " Always 
 took right hold and helped me when she was 
 a baby. She s as good as made up already 
 to me for my having no daughter. I want 
 you to get acquainted with Marilla." 
 
 The granddaughter was still awed and 
 anxious about the entertainment of so dis 
 tinguished a guest when her grandmother 
 appeared at last in the pantry. 
 
 " I ain t goin to let you do no such a 
 thing, darliii ," said Abby Hender, when 
 Marilla spoke of making something that she 
 called "fairy gems" for tea, after a new 
 and essentially feminine recipe. " You just 
 let me get supper to-night. The Gen ral has 
 enough kickshaws to eat ; he wants a good, 
 hearty, old - fashioned supper, the same 
 country cooking he remembers when he was 
 a boy. He went so far himself as to speak 
 of rye drop-cakes, an there ain t one in a 
 hundred, nowadays, knows how to make the 
 kind he means. You go an lay the table 
 just as we always have it, except you can 
 get out them old big sprigged cups o my 
 
28 A NATIVE OF W1NBY. 
 
 mother s. Don t put on none o the parlor 
 cluset things." 
 
 Marilla went off crestfallen and demur 
 ring. She had a noble desire to show Mr. 
 
 o 
 
 Laneway that they knew how to have things 
 as well as anybody, and was sure that he 
 would consider it more polite to be asked 
 into the best room, and to sit there alone 
 until tea was ready; but the illustrious 
 Mr. Laneway was allowed to stay in the 
 kitchen, in apparent happiness, and to watch 
 the proceedings from beginning to end. 
 The two old friends talked industriously, 
 but he saw his rye drop-cakes go into the 
 oven and come out, and his tea made, and 
 his piece of salt fish broiled and buttered, a 
 broad piece of honeycomb set on to match 
 some delightful thick slices of brown-crusted 
 loaf bread, and all the simple feast prepared. 
 There was a sufficient piece of Abby Hen- 
 der s best cheese ; it must be confessed that 
 there were also some baked beans, and, as 
 one thing after another appeared, the Hon 
 orable Joseph K. Laneway grew hungrier 
 and hungrier, until he fairly looked pale 
 with anticipation and delay, and was bidden 
 at that very moment to draw up his chair 
 and make himself a supper if he could. 
 
A NATIVE OF WINBY. 29 
 
 What cups of tea, what uncounted rye drop- 
 cakes, went to the making of that successful 
 supper ! How gay the two old friends be 
 came, and of what old stories they reminded 
 each other, and how late the dark spring 
 evening grew, before the feast was over and 
 the straight-backed chairs were set against 
 the kitchen wall ! 
 
 Marilla listened for a time with more or 
 less interest, but at last she took one of 
 her school-books, with slight ostentation, and 
 went over to study by the lamp. Mrs. Hender 
 had brought her knitting-work, a blue woolen 
 stocking, out of a drawer, and sat down se 
 rene and unruffled, prepared to keep awake 
 as late as possible. She was a woman who 
 had kept her youthful looks through the 
 difficulties of farm life as few women can, 
 and this added to her guest s sense of home- 
 likeness and pleasure. There was something 
 that he felt to be sisterly and comfortable in 
 her strong figure ; he even noticed the little 
 plaid woolen shawl that she wore about her 
 shoulders. Dear, uncomplaining heart of 
 Abby Hender ! The appealing friendliness 
 of the good woman made no demands except 
 to be allowed to help and to serve everybody 
 who came in her way. 
 
30 A NATIVE OF WINBY. 
 
 Now began in good earnest the talk of 
 old times, and what had become of this and 
 that old schoolmate ; how one family had 
 come to want and another to wealth. The 
 changes and losses and windfalls of good 
 fortune in that rural neighborhood were 
 made tragedy and comedy by turns in 
 Abby Render s dramatic speech. She grew 
 younger and more entertaining hour by 
 hour, and beguiled the grave Senator into 
 confidential talk of national affairs. He had 
 much to say, to which she listened with rare 
 sympathy and intelligence. She astonished 
 him by her comprehension of difficult ques 
 tions of the day, and by her simple good 
 sense. Marilla grew hopelessly sleepy, and 
 departed, but neither of them turned to 
 notice her as she lingered a moment at the 
 door to say good-night. When the imme 
 diate subjects of conversation were fully dis 
 cussed, however, there was an unexpected 
 interval of silence, and, after making sure 
 that her knitting stitches counted exactly 
 right, Abby Render cast a questioning 
 glance at the Senator to see if he had it in 
 mind to go to bed. She was reluctant to 
 end her evening so soon, but determined to 
 act the part of considerate hostess. The 
 
A NATIVE OF WIN BY. 31 
 
 guest was as wide awake as ever: eleven 
 o clock was the best part of his evening. 
 
 " Cider ? " he suggested, with an expectant 
 smile, and Abby Hender was on her feet in 
 a moment. When she had brought a pitcher 
 from the pantry, he took a candle from the 
 high shelf and led the way. 
 
 " To think of your remembering our old 
 cellar candlestick all these years ! " laughed 
 the pleased woman, as she followed him 
 down the steep stairway, and then laughed 
 still more at his delight in the familiar look 
 of the place. 
 
 " Unchanged as the pyramids ! " he said. 
 " I suppose those pound sweetings that used 
 to be in that farthest bin were eaten up 
 months ago? " 
 
 It was plain to see that the household 
 stores were waning low, as befitted the time 
 of year, but there was still enough in the old 
 cellar. Care and thrift and gratitude made 
 the poor farmhouse a rich place. This 
 woman of real ability had spent her strength 
 from youth to age, and had lavished as 
 much industry and power of organization in 
 her narrow sphere as would have made her 
 famous in a wider one. Joseph Laneway 
 could not help sighing as he thought of it. 
 
32 A NATIVE OF W1NBY. 
 
 How many things this good friend had 
 missed, and yet how much she had been 
 able to win that makes everywhere the very 
 best of life ! Poor and early widowed, there 
 must have been a constant battle with 
 poverty on that stony Harran farm, whose 
 owners had been pitied even in his early 
 boyhood, when the best of farming life was 
 none too easy. But Abby Hender had al 
 ways been one of the leaders of the town. 
 
 " Now, before we sit down again, I want 
 you to step into my best room. Perhaps 
 you won t have time in the morning, and 
 I ve got something to show you," she said 
 persuasively. 
 
 It was a plain, old-fashioned best room, 
 with a look of pleasantness in spite of the 
 spring chill and the stiffness of the best 
 chairs. They lingered before the picture of 
 Mrs. Hender s soldier son, a poor work of a 
 poorer artist in crayons, but the spirit of the 
 young face shone out appealingly. Then they 
 crossed the room and stood before some 
 bookshelves, and Abby Hender s face bright 
 ened into a beaming smile of triumph. 
 
 "You didn t expect we should have all 
 those books, now, did you, Joe Laneway?" 
 she asked. 
 
A NATIVE OF WIN BY. 33 
 
 He shook his head soberly, and leaned for 
 ward to read the titles. There were no very 
 new ones, as if times had been hard of late ; 
 almost every volume was either history, 
 or biography, or travel. Their owner had 
 reached out of her own narrow boundaries 
 into other lives and into far countries. He 
 recognized with gratitude two or three con 
 gressional books that he had sent her when 
 he first went to Washington, and there was 
 a life of himself, written from a partisan 
 point of view, and issued in one of his most 
 exciting campaign^ ; the sight of it touched 
 him to the heart, and then she opened it, and 
 showed him the three or four letters that he 
 had written her, one, in boyish handwrit 
 ing, describing his adventures on his first 
 Western journey. 
 
 " There are a hundred and six volumes 
 now," announced the proud owner of such a 
 library. " I lend em all I can, or most of 
 them would look better. I have had to wait 
 a good while for some, and some were n t 
 what I expected em to be, but most of em s 
 as good books as there is in the world. I ve 
 never been so situated that it seemed best for 
 me to indulge in a daily paper, and I don t 
 know but it s just as well ; but stories were 
 
34 A NATIVE OF WIN BY. 
 
 never any great of a temptation. I know 
 pretty well what s goin on about me, and I 
 can make that do. Real life s interestin 
 enough for me." 
 
 Mr. Laneway was still looking over the 
 books. His heart smote him for not being 
 thoughtful; he knew well enough that the 
 overflow of his own library would have been 
 delightful to this self-denying, eager-minded 
 soul. " I ve been a very busy man all my 
 life, Abby," he said impulsively, as if she 
 waited for some apology for his forgetful- 
 ness, " but I 11 see to it now that you have 
 what you want to read. I don t mean to 
 lose hold of your advice on state matters." 
 They both laughed, and he added, " I ve al 
 ways thought of you, if I have n t shown it." 
 
 " There s more time to read than there 
 used to be ; I ve had what was best for me," 
 answered the woman gently, with a grateful 
 look on her face, as she turned to glance at 
 her old friend. " Marilla takes hold wonder 
 fully and helps me with the work. In the 
 long winter evenings you can t think what 
 a treat a new book is. I would n t change 
 places with the queen." 
 
 They had come back to the kitchen, and 
 she stood before the cupboard, reaching high 
 
A NATIVE OF WINBY. 35 
 
 for two old gayly striped crockery mugs. 
 There were some doughnuts and cheese at 
 hand ; their early supper seemed quite for 
 gotten. The kitchen was warm, and they 
 had talked themselves thirsty and hungry ; 
 but with what an unexpected tang the cider 
 freshened their throats ! Mrs. Hender had 
 picked the apples herself that went to the 
 press ; they were all chosen from the old russet 
 tree and the gnarly, red-cheeked, ungrafted 
 fruit that grew along the lane. The flavor 
 made one think of frosty autumn mornings 
 on high hillsides, of north winds and sunny 
 skies. " It livens one to the heart," as Mrs. 
 Hender remarked proudly, when the Senator 
 tried to praise it as much as it deserved, and 
 finally gave a cheerful laugh, such as he had 
 not laughed for many a day. 
 
 " Why, it seems like drinking the month 
 of October," he told her; and at this the 
 hostess reached over, protesting that the 
 striped mug was too narrow to hold what it 
 ought, and filled it up again. 
 
 " Oh, Joe Laneway, to think that I see you 
 at last, after all these years ! " she said. 
 " How rich I shall feel with this evening to 
 live over ! I ve always wanted to see some 
 body that I d read about, and now I ve got 
 
36 A NATIVE OF WINBY. 
 
 that to remember ; but I ve always known I 
 should see you again, and I believe t was 
 the Lord s will." 
 
 Early the next morning they said good-by. 
 The early breakfast had to be hurried, and 
 Marilla was to drive Mr. Laneway to the sta 
 tion, three miles away. It was Saturday 
 morning, and she was free from school. 
 
 Mr. Laneway strolled down the lane be 
 fore breakfast was ready, and came back with 
 a little bunch of pink anemones in his hand. 
 Marilla thought that he meant to give them 
 to her, but he laid them beside her grand 
 mother s plate. " You must n t put those in 
 your desk," he said with a smile, and Abby 
 Heiider blushed like a girl. 
 
 " I Ve got those others now, dried and put 
 away somewhere in one of my books," she 
 said quietly, and Marilla wondered what they 
 meant. 
 
 The two old friends shook hands warmly 
 at parting. "I wish you could have stayed 
 another day, so I could have had the minister 
 come and see you," urged Mrs. Hender re 
 gretfully. 
 
 "You couldn t have done any more for 
 me. I have had the best visit in the world," 
 
A NATIVE OF WIN BY. 37 
 
 he answered, a little shaken, and holding her 
 hand a moment longer, while Marilla sat, 
 young and impatient, in the high wagon. 
 " You re a dear good woman, Abby. Some 
 times when things have gone wrong I Ve 
 been sorry that I ever had to leave Winby." 
 
 The woman s clear eyes looked straight 
 into his; then fell. "You wouldn t have 
 done everything you have for the country," 
 she said. 
 
 " Give me a kiss ; we re getting to be 
 old folks now," said the General ; and they 
 kissed each other gravely. 
 
 A moment later Abby Render stood alone 
 in her dooryard, watching and waving her 
 hand again and again, while the wagon 
 rattled away down the lane and turned into 
 the highroad. 
 
 Two hours after Marilla returned from the 
 station, and rushed into the kitchen. 
 
 "Grandma!" she exclaimed, "you never 
 did see such a crowd in Winby as there was 
 at the depot ! Everybody in town had got 
 word about General Laneway, and they were 
 pushing up to shake hands, and cheering 
 same as at election, and the cars waited much 
 as ten minutes, and all the folks was lookin 
 
38 A NATIVE OF WINBY. 
 
 out of the windows, and came out on the 
 platforms when they heard who it was. Folks 
 say that he d been to see the selectmen yes 
 terday before he came to school, and he s 
 goin to build an elegant town hall, and have 
 the names put up in it of all the Win by men 
 that went to the war." Marilla sank into a 
 chair, flushed with excitement. " Everybody 
 was asking me about his being here last night 
 and what he said to the school. I wished 
 that you d gone down to the depot instead 
 of me." 
 
 "I had the best part of anybody," said 
 Mrs. Render, smiling and going 011 with her 
 Saturday morning work. " I m real glad 
 they showed him proper respect," she added 
 a moment afterward, but her voice faltered. 
 
 " Why, you ain t been cryin , grandma ? " 
 asked the girl. " I guess you re tired. You 
 had a real good time, now, didn t you?" 
 
 " Yes, dear heart ! " said Abby Hender. 
 " T ain t pleasant to be growin old, that s 
 all. I could n t help noticin his age as he 
 rode away. I ve always been lookin for 
 ward to seein him again, an now it s all 
 over." 
 
DECORATION DAY. 
 I. 
 
 A WEEK before the thirtieth of May, three 
 friends John Stover and Henry Merrill 
 and Asa Brown happened to meet on Sat 
 urday evening at Barton s store at the Plains. 
 They were ready to enjoy this idle hour after 
 a busy week. After long easterly rains, the 
 sun had at last come out bright and clear, 
 and all the Barlow farmers had been plant 
 ing. There was even a good deal of plough 
 ing left to be done, the season was so back 
 ward. 
 
 The three middle-aged men were old 
 friends. They had been school-fellows, and 
 when they were hardly out of their boyhood 
 the war came on, and they enlisted in the 
 same company, on the same day, and hap 
 pened to march away elbow to elbow. Then 
 came the great experience of a great war, 
 and the years that followed their return from 
 the South had come to each almost alike. 
 
40 DECORATION DAY. 
 
 These men might have been members of the 
 same rustic household, they knew each other s 
 history so well. 
 
 They were sitting on a low wooden bench 
 at the left of the store door as you went in. 
 People were coming and going on their 
 Saturday night errands, the post-office was 
 in Barton s store, but the friends talked 
 on eagerly, without being interrupted, except 
 by an occasional nod of recognition. They 
 appeared to take no notice at all of the 
 neighbors whom they saw oftenest. It was 
 a most beautiful evening; the two great 
 elms were almost half in leaf over the black 
 smith s shop which stood across the wide 
 road. Farther along were two small old- 
 fashioned houses and the old white church, 
 with its pretty belfry of four arched sides 
 and a tiny dome at the top. The large cock 
 erel on the vane was pointing a little south 
 of west, and there was still light enough to 
 make it shine bravely against the deep blue 
 eastern sky. On the western side of the 
 road, near the store, were the parsonage and 
 the storekeeper s modern house, which had a 
 French roof and some attempt at decoration, 
 which the long-established Barlow people 
 called gingerbread-work, and regarded with 
 
DECORATION DAY. 41 
 
 mingled pride and disdain. These buildings 
 made the tiny village called Barlow Plains. 
 They stood in the middle of a long narrow 
 strip of level ground. They were islanded 
 by green fields and pastures. There were 
 hills beyond ; the mountains themselves 
 seemed very near. Scattered about on the 
 hill slopes were farmhouses, which stood so 
 far apart, with their clusters of out-buildings, 
 that each looked lonely, and the pine woods 
 above seemed to besiege them all. It was 
 lighter on the uplands than it was in the 
 valley, where the three men sat on their 
 bench, with their backs to the store and the 
 western sky. 
 
 " Well, here we be most into June, an I 
 ain t got a bush-bean above ground," la 
 mented Henry Merrill. 
 
 " Your land s always late, ain t it ? But 
 you always catch up with the rest on us," 
 Asa Brown consoled him. " I ve often ob 
 served that your land, though early planted, 
 was late to sprout. I view it there s a good 
 week s difference betwixt me an Stover an 
 your folks, but come first o July we all even 
 up."^ 
 
 " T is just so," said John Stover, taking 
 his pipe out of his mouth, as if he had a good 
 
42 DECORATION DAY. 
 
 deal more to say, and then replacing it, as if 
 he had changed his mind. 
 
 " Made it extry hard having that long wet 
 spell. Can t none on us take no day off 
 this season," said Asa Brown ; but nobody 
 thought it worth his while to respond to such 
 evident truth. 
 
 " Next Saturday 11 be the thirtieth o May 
 that s Decoration Day, ain t it ? come 
 round again. Lord ! how the years slip by 
 after you git to be forty-five an along 
 there ! " said Asa again. " I s pose some o 
 our folks 11 go over to Alton to see the pro 
 cession, same s usual. I ve got to git one 
 o them small flags to stick on our Joel s 
 grave, an Mis Dexter always counts on 
 havin some for Harrison s lot. I calculate 
 to get em somehow. I must make time to 
 ride over, but I don t know where the time s 
 comin from out o next week. I wish the 
 women folks would tend to them things. 
 There s the spot where Eb Munson an John 
 Tighe lays in the poor-farm lot, an I did 
 mean certain to buy flags for em last year 
 an year before, but I went an forgot it. 
 I d like to have folks that rode by notice 
 em for once, if they was town paupers. Eb 
 Munson was as darin a man as ever stepped 
 out to tuck o drum." 
 
DECORATION DAY. 43 
 
 "So he was," said John Stover, taking 
 his pipe with decision and knocking- out the 
 ashes. " Drink was his ruin ; but I wan t 
 one that could be harsh with Eb, no matter 
 what he done. He worked hard long s he 
 could, too ; but he wan t like a sound man, 
 an I think he took somethin first not so 
 much cause he loved it, but to kind of keep 
 his strength up so s he could work, an then, 
 all of a sudden, rum clinched with him an 
 threw him. Eb was talkin long o me one 
 day when he was about half full, an says he, 
 right out, I would n t have fell to this state, 
 says he, if I d had me a home an a little 
 fam ly; but it don t make no difference to 
 nobody, and it s the best comfort I seem to 
 have, an I ain t goin to do without it. I m 
 ailin all the time, says he, an if I keep 
 middlin full, I make out to hold my own 
 an to keep along o my work. I pitied Eb. 
 I says to him, You ain t goin to bring no 
 disgrace on us old army boys, be you, Eb ? 
 an he says no, he wan t. I think if he d 
 lived to get one o them big fat pensions, 
 he d had it easier. Eight dollars a month 
 paid his board, while he d pick up what 
 cheap work he could, an then he got so that 
 decent folks did n t seem to want the bother 
 of him, an so he come on the town." 
 
44 DECORATION DAY. 
 
 "There was somethin else to it," said 
 Henry Merrill soberly. " Drink come nat 
 ural to him, t was born in him, I expect, an 
 there wan t nobody that could turn the divil 
 out same s they did in Scriptur . His father 
 an his gran father was drinkin men; but 
 they was kind-hearted an good neighbors, 
 an never set out to wrong nobody. T was 
 the custom to drink in their day ; folks was 
 colder an lived poorer in early times, an 
 that s how most of em kept a-goin . But 
 what stove Eb all up was his disapp intment 
 with Marthy Peck her f orsakin* of him an 
 marryin old John Down whilst Eb was off 
 to war. I ve always laid it up ag inst her." 
 
 " So ve I," said Asa Brown. " She did n t 
 use the poor fellow right. I guess she was 
 full as well off, but it s one thing to show 
 judgment, an another thing to have heart." 
 
 There was a long pause ; the subject was 
 too familiar to need further comment. 
 
 " There ain t no public sperit here in Bar 
 low," announced Asa Brown, with decision. 
 " I don t s pose we could ever get up any 
 thing for Decoration Day. I ve felt kind of 
 shamed, but it always comes in a busy time ; 
 t wan t no time to have it, anyway, right in 
 late plant in ." 
 
DECORATION DAY. 45 
 
 " T ain t no use to look for public sperit 
 less you ve got some yourself," observed 
 John Stover soberly ; but something had 
 pleased him in the discouraged suggestion. 
 " Perhaps we could mark the day this year. 
 It comes on a Saturday ; that ain t nigh so 
 bad as bein in the middle of the week." 
 
 Nobody made any answer, and presently 
 he went on, 
 
 " There was a time along back when folks 
 was too nigh the war-time to give much 
 thought to the bigness of it. The best fel 
 lows was them that had stayed to home an 
 worked their trades an laid up money ; but 
 I don t know s it s so now." 
 
 " Yes, the fellows that stayed at home got 
 all the fat places, an when we come back we 
 felt dreadful behind the times," grumbled 
 Asa Brown. " I remember how t was." 
 
 "They begun to call us heroes an old 
 stick-in-the-mud just about the same time," 
 resumed Stover, with a chuckle. " We wa n t 
 no hand for strippin woodland nor even 
 tradin hosses them first few years. I don 
 know why t was we were so beat out. The 
 best most on us could do was to sag right on 
 to the old folks. Father he never wanted 
 me to go to the war, t was partly his Qua- 
 
46 DECORATION DAY. 
 
 ker breed, an he used to be dreadful 
 mortified with the way I hung round down 
 here to the store an loafed round a-talkin 
 about when I was out South, an arguin. with 
 folks that did n t know nothin , about what 
 the generals done. There ! I see me now just 
 as he see me then ; but after I had my boy- 
 strut out, I took holt o the old farm long o 
 father, an I ve made it bounce. Look at 
 them old meadows an see the herd s grass 
 that come off of em last year ! I ain t 
 ashamed o my place now, if I did go to the 
 war." 
 
 " It all looks a sight bigger to me now 
 than it did then," said Henry Merrill. " Our 
 goin to the war, I refer to. We did n t sense 
 it no more than other folks did. I used to 
 be sick o hearin their stuff about patriotism 
 and lovin your country, an them pieces o 
 poetry women folks wrote for the papers on 
 the old flag, an our fallen heroes, an them 
 things ; they did n t seem to strike me in the 
 right place ; but I tell ye it kind o starts 
 me now every time I come on the flag sud 
 den, it does so. A spell ago long in 
 the fall, I guess it was I was over to Al 
 ton, an there was a fire company paradin . 
 They d got the prize at a fair, an had just 
 
DECORATION DAY. 47 
 
 come home on the cars, an I heard the band; 
 so I stepped to the front o the store where 
 me an my woman was tradin , an the com 
 pany felt well, an was comin along the street 
 most as good as troops. I see the old flag 
 a-comiii , kind of blowin back, an it went 
 all over me. Somethin worked round in my 
 throat ; I vow I come near cryin . I was 
 glad nobody see me." 
 
 " I d go to war again in a minute," de 
 clared Stover, after an expressive pause ; 
 " but I expect we should know better what 
 we was about. I don know but we ve got 
 too many rooted opinions now to make us 
 the best o soldiers." 
 
 " Martin Tighe an John Tighe was con 
 siderable older than the rest, and they 
 done well," answered Henry Merrill quickly. 
 " We three was the youngest of any, but we 
 did think at the time we knew the most." 
 
 " Well, whatever you may say, that war 
 give the country a great start," said Asa 
 Brown. " I tell ye we just begin to see the 
 scope on t. There was my cousin, you know, 
 Dan l Evins, that stopped with us last win 
 ter ; he was tellin me that one o his coastin 
 trips he was into the port o Beaufort lo din 
 with yaller-pine lumber, an he roved into an 
 
48 DECORATION DAY. 
 
 old buryin -ground there is there, an he see 
 a stone that had on it some young Southern 
 fellow s name that was killed in the war, an 
 under it was, He died for his country. 
 Dan l knowed how I used to feel about them 
 South Car lina goings on, an I did feel kind 
 o red an ugly for a minute, an then some- 
 thin come over me, an I says, Well, I don 
 know but what the poor chap did, Dan Evins, 
 when you come to view it all round. 
 
 The other men made no answer. 
 
 "Le s see what we can do this year. I 
 don t care if we be a poor han ful," urged 
 Henry Merrill. " The young folks ought to 
 have the good of it ; I d like to have my 
 boys see somethin different. Le s get to 
 gether what men there is. How many s left, 
 anyhow? I know there was thirty-seven 
 went from old Barlow, three-months men 
 an all." 
 
 " There can t be over eight now, countin 
 out Martin Tighe ; he can t march," said 
 Stover. " No, t ain t worth while." But the 
 others did not notice his disapproval. 
 
 " There s nine in all," announced Asa 
 Brown, after pondering and counting two or 
 three times on his fingers. " I can t make 
 us no more. I never could carry figur s in 
 my head." 
 
DECORATION DAY. 49 
 
 " I make nine," said Merrill. " We 11 have 
 Martin ride, an Jesse Dean too, if he will. 
 He s awful lively on them canes o his. An 
 there s Jo Wade with his crutch ; he s 
 amazin spry for a short distance. But we 
 can t let em go far afoot ; they re decripped 
 men. We 11 make em all put on what 
 they ve got left o their uniforms, an we 11 
 scratch round an have us a fife an drum, 
 an make the best show we can." 
 
 " Why, Martin Tighe s boy, the next to 
 the oldest, is an excellent hand to play the 
 fife ! " said John Stover, suddenly growing 
 enthusiastic. "If you two are set on it, 
 let s have a word with the minister to-mor 
 row, an see what he says. Perhaps he 11 
 give out some kind of a notice. You have 
 to have a good many bunches o flowers. I 
 guess we d better call a meetin , some few 
 on us, an talk it over first o the week. 
 T would n t be no great of a range for us to 
 take to march from the old buryin -ground 
 at the meetm -house here up to the poor-farm 
 an round by Deacon Elwell s lane, so s to 
 notice them two stones he set up for his boys 
 that was sunk on the man-o -war. I expect 
 they notice stones same s if the folks laid 
 there, don t they?" 
 
50 DECORATION DAY. 
 
 He spoke wistfully. The others knew that 
 Stover was thinking of the stone he had set 
 up to the memory of his only brother, whose 
 nameless grave had been made somewhere in 
 the Wilderness. 
 
 " I don t know but what they 11 be mad 
 if we don t go by every house in town," he 
 added anxiously, as they rose to go home. 
 " T is a terrible scattered population in Bar 
 low to favor with a procession." 
 
 It was a mild starlit night. The three 
 friends took their separate ways presently, 
 leaving the Plains road and crossing the 
 fields by foot-paths toward their farms. 
 
 II. 
 
 The week went by, and the next Saturday 
 morning brought fair weather. It was a busy 
 morning on the farms like any other ; but 
 long before noon the teams of horses and 
 oxen were seen going home from work in the 
 fields, and everybody got ready in haste for 
 the great event of the afternoon. It was so 
 seldom that any occasion roused public in 
 terest in Barlow that there was an unexpected 
 response, and the green before the old white 
 
DECORATION DAY. 51 
 
 meeting-house was covered with country wag 
 ons and groups of people, whole families 
 together, who had come on foot. The old 
 soldiers were to meet in the church ; at half 
 past one the procession was to start, and 
 on its return the minister was to make an 
 address in the old bury ing-ground. John 
 Stover had been first lieutenant in the war, 
 so he was made captain of the day. A man 
 from the next town had offered to drum for 
 them, and Martin Tighe s proud boy was 
 present with his fife. He had a great long 
 ing strange enough in that peaceful, sheep- 
 raising neighborhood to go into the army ; 
 but he and his elder brother were the main 
 stay of their crippled father, and he could 
 not be spared from the large household until 
 a younger brother could take his place ; so 
 that all his fire and military zeal went for the 
 present into martial tunes, and the fife was 
 a safety-valve for his enthusiasm. 
 
 The army men were used to seeing each 
 other ; everybody knew everybody in the 
 little country town of Barlow ; but when one 
 comrade after another appeared in what re 
 mained of his accoutrements, they felt the 
 day to be greater than they had planned, and 
 the simple ceremony proved more solemn than 
 
52 DECORATION DAY. 
 
 any one expected. They could make no use 
 of their every-day jokes and friendly greet 
 ings. Their old blue coats and tarnished 
 army caps looked faded and antiquated 
 enough. One of the men had nothing left 
 but his rusty canteen and rifle ; but these he 
 carried like sacred emblems. He had worn 
 out all his army clothes long ago, because 
 he was too poor when he was discharged to 
 buy any others. 
 
 When the door of the church opened, the 
 veterans were not abashed by the size and 
 silence of the crowd. They came walking 
 two by two down the steps, and took their 
 places in line as if there were nobody looking 
 on. Their brief evolutions were like a mystic 
 rite. The two lame men refused to do any 
 thing but march as best they could ; but poor 
 Martin Tighe, more disabled than they, was 
 brought out and lifted into Henry Merrill s 
 best wagon, where he sat up, straight and 
 soldierly, with his boy for driver. There was 
 a little flag in the whip-socket before him, 
 which flapped gayly in the breeze. It was 
 such a long time since he had been seen out- 
 of-doors that everybody found him a great 
 object of interest, and paid him much atten 
 tion. Even those who were tired of being 
 
DECORATION DAY. 53 
 
 asked to contribute to his support, who re 
 sented the fact of his having a helpless wife 
 and great family ; who always insisted that 
 with his little pension and hopeless lameness, 
 his fingerless left hand and failing sight, he 
 could support himself and his household if 
 he chose, even those persons came forward 
 now to greet him handsomely and with large 
 approval. To be sure, he enjoyed the con 
 versation of idlers, and his wife had a com 
 plaining way that was the same as begging, 
 especially since her boys began to grow up 
 and be of some use ; and there were one or 
 two near neighbors who never let them really 
 want ; so other people, who had cares enough 
 of their own, could excuse themselves for for 
 getting him the year round, and even call 
 him shiftless. But there were none to look 
 askance at Martin Tighe 011 Decoration Day, 
 as he sat in the wagon, with his bleached 
 face like a captive s, and his thin, afflicted 
 body. He stretched out his whole hand im 
 partially to those who had remembered and 
 those who had forgotten both his courage at 
 Fredericksburg and his sorry need in Barlow. 
 Henry Merrill had secured the engine com 
 pany s large flag in Alton, and now carried 
 it proudly. There were eight men in line, 
 
54 DECORATION DAY. 
 
 two by two, and marching a good bit apart, 
 to make their line the longer. The fife and 
 drum struck up gallantly together, and the 
 little procession moved away slowly along 
 the country road. It gave an unwonted touch 
 of color to the landscape, the scarlet, the 
 blue, between the new-ploughed fields and 
 budding roadside thickets, between the wide 
 dim ranges of the mountains, under the great 
 white clouds of the spring sky. Such pro 
 cessions grow more pathetic year by year ; it 
 will not be so long now before wondering 
 children will have seen the last. The aging 
 faces of the men, the renewed comradeship, 
 the quick beat of the hearts that remember, 
 the tenderness of those who think upon old 
 sorrows, all these make the day a lovelier 
 and a sadder festival. So men s hearts were 
 stirred, they knew not why, when they heard 
 the shrill fife and the incessant drum along 
 the quiet Barlow road, and saw the handful 
 of old soldiers marching by. Nobody thought 
 of them as familiar men and neighbors alone, 
 they were a part of that army which had 
 saved its country. They had taken their 
 lives in their hands and gone out to fight for 
 their country, plain John Stover and Jesse 
 Dean and the rest. No matter if every other 
 
DECORATION DAY. 55 
 
 day in the year they counted for little or 
 much, whether they were lame-footed and 
 lagging, whether their farms were of poor 
 soil or rich. 
 
 The little troop went in slender line along 
 the road ; the crowded country wagons and 
 all the people who went afoot followed Mar 
 tin Tighe s wagon as if it were a great 
 gathering at a country funeral. The route 
 was short, and the long, straggling line 
 marched slowly ; it could go no faster than 
 the lame men could walk. 
 
 In one of the houses by the roadside an 
 old woman sat by a window, in an old-fash 
 ioned black gown, and clean white cap with 
 a prim border which bound her thin, sharp 
 features closely. She had been for a long 
 time looking out eagerly over the snowberry 
 and cinnamon - rose bushes ; her face was 
 pressed close to the pane, and presently she 
 caught sight of the great flag as it came 
 down the road. 
 
 " Let me see em ! I ve got to see em go 
 by ! " she pleaded, trying to rise from her chair 
 alone when she heard the fife, and the women 
 helped her to the door, and held her so that 
 she could stand and wait. She had been an 
 old woman when the war began ; she had 
 
56 DECORATION DAY. 
 
 sent sons and grandsons to the field; they 
 were all gone now. As the men came by, 
 she straightened her bent figure with all the 
 vigor of youth. The fife and drum stopped 
 suddenly ; the colors lowered. She did not 
 heed that, but her old eyes flashed and then 
 filled with tears to see the flag going to salute 
 the soldiers graves. " Thank ye, boys ; thank 
 ye ! " she cried, in her quavering voice, and 
 they all cheered her. The cheer went back 
 along the straggling line for old Grand 
 mother Dexter, standing there in her front 
 door between the lilacs. It was one of the 
 great moments of the day. 
 
 The few old people at the poor-house, too, 
 were waiting to see the show. The keeper s 
 young son, knowing that it was a day of 
 festivity, and not understanding exactly why, 
 had put his toy flag out of the gable window, 
 and there it showed against the gray clap 
 boards like a gay flower. It was the only 
 bit of decoration along the veterans way, 
 and they stopped and saluted it before they 
 broke ranks and went out to the field corner 
 beyond the poor-farm barn to the bit of 
 ground that held the paupers unmarked 
 graves. There was a solemn silence while 
 Asa Brown went to the back of Tighe s 
 
DECORATION DAY. 57 
 
 wagon, where such light freight was carried, 
 and brought two flags, and he and John 
 Stover planted them straight in the green 
 sod. They knew well enough where the 
 right graves were, for these had been made 
 in a corner by themselves, with unwonted 
 sentiment. And so Eben Munson and John 
 Tighe were honored like the rest, both by 
 their flags and by great and unexpected 
 nosegays of spring flowers, daffies and flower 
 ing currant and red tulips, which lay on the 
 graves already. John Stover and his com 
 rade glanced at each other curiously while 
 they stood singing, and then laid their own 
 bunches of lilacs down and came away. 
 
 Then something happened that almost 
 none of the people in the wagons understood. 
 Martin Tighe s boy, who played the fife, had 
 studied well his part, and on his poor short- 
 winded instrument now sounded taps as well 
 as he could. He had heard it done once in 
 Alton at a soldier s funeral. The plaintive 
 notes called sadly over the fields, and echoed 
 back from the hills. The few veterans could 
 not look at each other ; their eyes brimmed 
 up with tears ; they could not have spoken. 
 Nothing called back old army days like that. 
 They had a sudden vision of the Virginian 
 
58 DECORATION DAY. 
 
 camp, the hillside dotted white with tents, 
 the twinkling lights in other camps, and far 
 away the glow of smouldering fires. They 
 heard the bugle call from post to post ; they 
 remembered the chilly winter night, the wind 
 in the pines, the laughter of the men. Lights 
 out ! Martin Tighe s boy sounded it again 
 sharply. It seemed as if poor Eb Munson 
 and John Tighe must hear it too in their 
 narrow graves. 
 
 The procession went on, and stopped here 
 and there at the little graveyards on the 
 farms, leaving their bright flags to flutter 
 through summer and winter rains and snows, 
 and to bleach in the wind and sunshine. 
 When they returned to the church, the min 
 ister made an address about the war, and 
 every one listened with new ears. Most of 
 what he said was familiar enough to his lis 
 teners ; they were used to reading those 
 phrases about the results of the war, the 
 glorious future of the South, in their weekly 
 newspapers ; but there never had been such 
 a spirit of patriotism and loyalty waked in 
 Barlow as was waked that day by the poor 
 parade of the remnant of the Barlow soldiers. 
 They sent flags to all the distant graves, and 
 proud were those households who claimed 
 
DECORATION DAY. 59 
 
 kinship with valor, and could drive or walk 
 away with their flags held up so that others 
 could see that they, too, were of the elect. 
 
 III. 
 
 It is well that the days are long in the last 
 of May, but John Stover had to hurry more 
 than usual with his evening work, and then, 
 having the longest distance to walk, he was 
 much the latest comer to the Plains store, 
 where his two triumphant friends were wait 
 ing for him impatiently on the bench. They 
 also had made excuse of going to the post- 
 office and doing an unnecessary errand for 
 their wives, and were talking together so 
 busily that they had gathered a group about 
 them before the store. When they saw 
 Stover coming, they rose hastily and crossed 
 the road to meet him, as if they were a com 
 mittee in special session. They leaned against 
 the post -and -board fence, after they had 
 shaken hands with each other solemnly. 
 
 " Well, we ve had a great day, ain t we, 
 John?" asked Henry Merrill. "You did 
 lead off splendid. We ve done a grand 
 thing, now, I tell you. All the folks say 
 
60 DECORATION DAY. 
 
 we ve got to keep it up every year. Every 
 body had to have a talk about it as I went 
 home. They say they had no idea we should 
 make such a show. Lord ! I wish we d be 
 gun while there was more of us ! " 
 
 "That han some flag was the great fea 
 ture," said Asa Brown generously. " I want 
 to pay my part for hirin it. An then folks 
 was glad to see poor old Martin made o some 
 consequence." 
 
 " There was half a dozen said to me that 
 another year they was goin to have flags out, 
 and trim up their places somehow or nother. 
 Folks has feelin enough, but you ve got to 
 rouse it," said Merrill. 
 
 "I have thought o joinin the Grand 
 Army over to Alton time an again, but it s 
 a good ways to go, an then the expense has 
 been o some consideration," Asa continued. 
 " I don t know but two or three over there. 
 You know, most o the Alton men nat rally 
 went out in the rigiments t other side o the 
 State line, an they was in other battles, an 
 never camped nowheres nigh us. Seems to 
 me we ought to have home feelin enough to 
 do what we can right here." 
 
 "The minister says to me this afternoon 
 that he was goin to arrange an have some 
 
DECORATION DAY. 61 
 
 talks in the meetin -house next winter, an 
 have some of us tell where we was in the 
 South; an one night t will be about camp 
 life, an one about the long marches, an 
 then about the battles, that would take 
 some time, an tell all we could about 
 the boys that was killed, an their record, 
 so they would n t be forgot. He said some 
 of the folks must have the letters we wrote 
 home from the front, an we could make out 
 quite a history of us. I call Elder Dallas 
 a very smart man ; he d planned it all out 
 a ready, for the benefit o the young folks, 
 he said," announced Henry Merrill, in a tone 
 of approval. 
 
 " I s pose there ain t none of us but could 
 add a little somethin ," answered John Stover 
 modestly. " T would re lly learn the young 
 folks a good deal. I should be scared numb 
 to try an speak from the pulpit. That ain t 
 what the Elder means, is it ? Now I was one 
 that had a good chance to see somethin o 
 Washington. I shook hands with President 
 Lincoln, an I always think I m worth 
 lookin at for that, if I ain t for nothin else. 
 T was that time I was just out o hospit l, an 
 able to crawl about some. I ve often told 
 you how t was I met him, an he stopped an 
 
62 DECORATION DAY. 
 
 shook hands an asked where I d been at the 
 front an how I was gettin along with my 
 hurts. Well, we 11 see how t is when win 
 ter comes. I never thought I had no gift for 
 public speakin , less t was for drivin cattle 
 or polliii the house town-meetin days. Here ! 
 I ve got somethin in mind. You need n t 
 speak about it if I tell it to ye," he added 
 suddenly. "You know all them han some 
 flowers that was laid on to Eb Munson s 
 grave an Tighe s ? I mistrusted you thought 
 the same thing I did by the way you looked. 
 They come from Marthy Down s front yard. 
 My woman told me when we got home that 
 she knew em in a minute ; there wa ii t no 
 body in town had that kind o red flowers 
 but her. She must ha kind o harked back 
 to the days whe,n she was Marthy Peck. She 
 must have come over with em after dark, or 
 else dreadful early in the mornin ." 
 
 Henry Merrill cleared his throat. " There 
 ain t no thin half-way bout Mis Down," he 
 said. " I would n t ha spoken bout this 
 less you had led right on to it ; but I over 
 took her when I was gittin towards home 
 this afternoon, an I see by her looks she was 
 worked up a good deal ; but we talked about 
 how well things had gone off, an she wanted 
 
DECORATION DAY. 63 
 
 to know what expenses we d been put to, an 
 I told her ; and she said she d give five dol 
 lars any day I d stop in for it. An then she 
 spoke right out. ; I m alone in the world, 
 says she, 4 and I ve got somethin to do with, 
 an I d like to have a plain stone put up to 
 Eb Munson s grave, with the number of his 
 rigiment on it, an I 11 pay the bill. T ain t 
 out o Mr. Down s money, she says ; 4 t is 
 mine, an I want you to see to it. I said I 
 would, but we d made a plot to git some o 
 them soldiers headstones that s provided by 
 the government. T was a shame it had been 
 overlooked so long. No, says she; I m 
 goin to pay for Eb s myself. An I told 
 her there would n t be no objection. Don t 
 ary one o you speak about it. T would n t 
 be fair. She was real well-appearin . I 
 never felt to respect Marthy so before." 
 
 " We was kind o hard on her sometimes, 
 but folks could n t help it. I ve seen her 
 pass Eb right by in the road an never look 
 at him when he first come home," said John 
 Stover. 
 
 " If she had n t felt bad, she would n t have 
 cared one way or t other," insisted Henry 
 Merrill. " T ain t for us to judge. Some 
 times folks has to get along in years before 
 
64 DECORATION DAY. 
 
 they see things fair. Come ; I must be goin 
 home. I m tired as an old dog." 
 
 " It seemed kind o natural to be steppin 
 out together again. Strange we three got 
 through with so little damage, an so many 
 dropped round us," said Asa Brown. " I ve 
 never been one mite sorry I went out in old 
 A Company. I was thinkin when I was 
 marchin to-day, though, that we should all 
 have to take to the wagons before long an 
 do our marchin on wheels, so many of us 
 felt kind o stiff. There s one thing, folks 
 won t never say again that we can t show 
 no public sperit here in old Barlow." 
 
JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 I. 
 
 THERE was laughter in the lanes of St. 
 Augustine when Jim returned from a North 
 ern voyage with a Northern wife. He had 
 sailed on the schooner Dawn of Day, one 
 hundred and ninety-two tons burden, with a 
 full cargo of yellow pine and conch-shells. 
 Not that the conch-shells were mentioned in 
 the bill of lading, any more than five hand 
 some tortoise-shells that were securely lashed 
 to the beams in the captain s cabin. These 
 were a private venture of the captain s and 
 Jim s. The Dawn of Day did a great deal 
 of trading with the islands, and it was only 
 when the season of Northern tourists was 
 over that her owners found it more profitable 
 to charter her in the lumber business. It 
 was too hot for bringing any more bananas 
 from Jamaica, the last were half spoiled in 
 the hold; and those Northerners who came 
 excitedly after corals and sprouted cocoa- 
 
66 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 nuts and Jamaica baskets, who would gladly 
 pay thirty cents apiece for the best of the 
 conch-shells, brought primarily by way of 
 ballast, those enthusiastic, money - squan 
 dering Northerners had all flown homeward 
 at the first hints of unmistakable summer 
 heat, and market was over for that spring. 
 
 St. Augustine is a city of bright sunshine 
 and of cool sea winds, a different place from 
 the steaming-hot, listless-aired Southern ports 
 which Jim knew well, Kingston and Nas 
 sau and the rest. He had sailed between 
 the islands and St. Augustine and Savannah, 
 and made trading voyages round into the 
 Gulf, ever since he ran away to sea on an 
 ancient brigantine bound for Havana, in 
 his early youth. Jim s grandfather was a 
 Northern man by birth, a New-Englander, 
 who had married a Minorcan woman, and 
 settled clown in St. Augustine to spend the 
 rest of his days. Their old coquina house 
 near the sea-wall faced one of the narrow 
 lanes that ran up from the water, but it had 
 a wide window in the seaward end, and here 
 Jim remembered that the intemperate old 
 sailor sat and watched the harbor, and criti 
 cised the rigging of vessels, and defended 
 his pet orange-tree from the ravages of boys. 
 
JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 67 
 
 His wife died long before he did, and the 
 daughter, Jim s mother, was married, and 
 her husband ran away and never was heard 
 from, and Jim himself was ten years old 
 when he walked at the head of the funeral 
 procession, dimly imagining that the old man 
 had gone up North, and that he was to live 
 again there among the scenes of his youth. 
 There were a few old shipmates walking two 
 by two, who had known the captain in his 
 active life, but they held no definite views 
 about his permanent location in high lati 
 tudes. Still, there was a long procession 
 and a handsome funeral ; and after a few 
 years Jim s mother died too, a friendly, sad- 
 faced little creature whom everybody la 
 mented. Jim came into port one day after 
 a long absence, expecting to be kissed and 
 cried over and coaxed to church and mended 
 up, to find the old coquina house locked and 
 empty. He shipped again gloomily ; there 
 was nothing for him to do ashore ; and that 
 year the boys took all the oranges, and 
 people said that the old captain s ghost lived 
 in the house. The bishop stopped Jim one 
 day on the plaza, and told him that he must 
 come to church sometimes for his mother s 
 sake : she was a good little woman, and had 
 
68 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 said many a prayer for her boy. Did Jim 
 ever say a prayer for himself? It was a 
 hard life, going to sea, and he must not let 
 it be too hard for his soul. " Marry you a 
 good wife soon," said the kind bishop. " Be 
 a good man in your own town ; you will be 
 tired of roving and will want a home. God 
 have pity on you, my boy ! " 
 
 Jim took off his hat reverently, and his 
 frank, bold eyes met the bishop s sad, kind 
 eyes, and fell. He had never really thought 
 what a shocking sort of fellow he was until 
 that moment. He had grown used to his 
 mother s crying, but it was two or three 
 years now since she died. The fellows on 
 board ship were afraid of him when he was 
 surly, and owned him for king when he 
 was pleased to turn life into a joke. He 
 was Northern and Southern by turns, this 
 Southern-born young sailor. He could talk 
 in Yankee fashion like his grandfather until 
 the crew shook the ship s timbers with their 
 laughter. But in all his roving sea-life he 
 had never been to the coast of Maine until 
 this story begins. 
 
 The Dawn of Day was a slow sailer, and 
 what wind she had was only a light south 
 westerly breeze. Every other day was a 
 
JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 69 
 
 dead calm, and so tliey drifted up the North 
 ern coast as if the Gulf Stream alone im 
 pelled them, making for the island of Mount 
 Desert with their yellow pine for house- 
 finishing; and somewhere near Boothbay 
 Harbor their provisions got low, and the 
 drinking-water was too bad altogether, and 
 there was nothing else left to drink, so the 
 captain put in for supplies. They could not 
 get up to the inner harbor next the town, 
 but came to anchor near a little village when 
 the wind fell at sundown. There were 
 some houses in sight, dotted along the shore, 
 and a long, low building at the water s edge, 
 close to the little bay. Jim and the captain 
 and another man pulled ashore to see what 
 could be done about the water-casks, and the 
 old water-tank, which had been rusty, was 
 leaky and good for nothing when they first 
 put to sea. 
 
 Jim went ashore, and presently put his 
 head into a window of the long, low build 
 ing ; there were a dozen young people there, 
 and two or three men, with heaps of lobster 
 shells and long rows of shining cans. It 
 was a lobster -canning establishment, and 
 work was going on after hours. Somebody 
 screamed when Jim s shaggy head and broad 
 
70 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 shoulders shut out the little daylight that 
 was left, and a bevy of girls laughed provok- 
 ingly ; but one of them Jim thought she 
 was a child until she came quite close to him 
 asked what he wanted, and listened with 
 intelligent patience until he had quite ex 
 plained his errand. It proved easy to get 
 somebody to solder up the water-tank, and 
 in spite of the other girls this little red- 
 haired, white-faced creature caught her hat 
 from a nail by the door, and went off with 
 Jim to find the solderer, who lived a quarter 
 of a mile down the shore. 
 
 Jim thought of the old bishop many times 
 as he walked decently along by the little 
 woman s side. He thought of his mother, too, 
 and how she used to cry over him ; he never 
 pitied her for it before. He remembered 
 his cross old grandfather and those stories 
 about the North, and by a strange turn of 
 memory he mentally cursed the boys who 
 came to steal the old man s oranges, there in 
 the garden of his own empty little coquina 
 house. What a thing to have a good little 
 warm-hearted wife of his own ! Jim felt as 
 if he had been set on fire ; as if something 
 hindered him from ever feeling like himself 
 again ; as if he must forever belong to this 
 
JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 71 
 
 little bit of a woman, wlio almost ran, trying 
 to keep np with his great rolling sea strides 
 along the road. She had a clear, pleasant 
 little voice, and kept looking up at him, 
 asking now and then something about the 
 voyage as if she were used to voyages, and 
 seemed pleased with his gruff, shy answers. 
 He heaved a great sigh when they came to 
 the solderer s door. 
 
 The solderer came out and walked back 
 with them, saying that his tools were all at 
 the factory. He told Jim that there was 
 the best cold spring on the coast convenient 
 to the schooner, just beyond the factory, and 
 a good grocery store near by. There was 
 no reason for going up to Boothbay Harbor 
 and losing all that time in the morning, 
 and Jim s heart grew light at the news. He 
 sent the solderer off to the schooner, and 
 stayed ashore himself. The captain had al 
 ready heard about the grocery, and had gone 
 there. The grumbling member of the crew, 
 who was left in the boat, looked back with 
 heart-felt astonishment to see Jim sit down 
 on apiece of ship timber beside that strange 
 little woman, and begin to talk with her as if 
 they were old friends. It was a clear June 
 evening, the sky was pale yellow in the west, 
 
72 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 and on the high land above the shore a 
 small jangling bell rang in its white steeple. 
 A salt breath of sea wind ruffled the smooth 
 water. The lights went out in the canning 
 factory and twinkled with bright reflections 
 from the schooner. The solderer finished his 
 work 011 board, and was put ashore close to 
 his own house ; as for the captain, he re 
 mained with some new-made friends at the 
 grocery. 
 
 They wondered on the deck of the Dawn 
 of Day what had come over Jim ; they 
 laughed and joked, and thought that he 
 might have found one of his relations about 
 whom he had told the Yankee stories. As 
 long as there was any light to see, there he 
 sat, an erect, great fellow, with the timid- 
 looking little woman like a child by his side. 
 The captain came off late, and in a state 
 unbefitting the laws of Maine, and Jim came 
 with him, sober, pleasant, but holding his 
 head in that high, proud way which forbade 
 any craven soul from putting an unwelcome 
 question. 
 
 The next morning, when the wind rose, 
 the Dawn of Day put out to sea again. 
 Somebody besides Jim may have noticed 
 that a white handkerchief fluttered at one of 
 
JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 73 
 
 the canning - factory windows, but nobody 
 knew that it meant so much to Jim as this : 
 the little woman was going to marry him, 
 and promised by that signal to come to 
 Mount Desert to meet him. They had no 
 more time for courtship ; it was now or 
 never with the quick-tempered fellow. Lit 
 tle Martha did not dare to promise until 
 she had thought it over that night ; but she 
 was a lonely orphan, and had no ties to keep 
 her there. Jim had told her about his home 
 and his orange-tree in the South, and when 
 morning came she had thought it over and 
 said yes, and then even cried a little to see 
 the old schooner go out to sea. She said 
 yes because she loved him ; because she had 
 never thought that anybody would fall in 
 love with her, she was so small and queer, 
 and not like the rest of the girls. Jim had 
 certainly waved his handkerchief in reply ; 
 and as Marty remembered that, she felt in 
 her pocket for a queer smooth shell to make 
 herself sure that she was not dreaming. Jim 
 had carried this shell in his pocket for good 
 luck, as his strange old seafaring grandfather 
 had done before him, and by it he plighted 
 his faith and troth. Before they sighted 
 Monhegan, running far out to catch the 
 
74 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 wind, he told the skipper that he was going 
 to be married, and expected to carry his wife 
 down to St. Augustine in the Dawn of Day. 
 The skipper swore roundly, but Jim was 
 the ablest man aboard, and had been shipped 
 that voyage as first mate. They were short- 
 handed, and he was in Jim s power in many 
 ways. There was a wedding, before the 
 week was out, at a minister s house, and Jim 
 gave the minister s wife a pretty basket of 
 shells besides what Marty considered to be a 
 generous wedding fee. He had bought a 
 suit of ready-made clothes before he went to 
 the cousin s house where the little woman 
 had promised to wait for him. Marty did 
 not explain to this cousin that she had only 
 seen her lover once in the twilight. She 
 wondered if people would think Jim rough 
 and strange, that was all ; but Jim for once 
 was in possession of small savings, and when 
 he came, so tall and dark, shaven and 
 shorn and dressed like other people, she fell 
 to crying with joy and excitement, and had 
 much difficulty in explaining to her lover 
 that it was nothing but happiness and love 
 that had brought such tears. And after the 
 yellow pine was on the wharf, and the conch- 
 shells sold at unexpected rates to a dealer in 
 
JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 75 
 
 curiosities at Bar Harbor, who got news of 
 them, and after much dickering gave but a 
 meagre price for the tortoises also, the Dawn 
 of Day set forth again southward with dried 
 fish and flour from Portland, where, with 
 his share of the conch-shell gains, Jim had 
 given his wife such a pleasuring as he 
 thought a lord who had an earldom at his 
 back might give his fair lady. 
 
 When the crew first caught sight of Jim s 
 small, red-headed, and pale-faced wife, the 
 discrepancy in the size of the happy couple 
 was more than could be silently borne. Jim 
 always spoke of her as his little woman, and 
 Jim s little woman she was to the world in 
 general. She was as proud-spirited as he. 
 She seldom scolded, but she could grow pale 
 in the face and keep silence if things went 
 wrong. The schooner was a different place 
 on that return voyage. They had the cap 
 tain s cabin, and she made it look pretty 
 with her girlish arts. She mended every 
 body s clothes, and took care of the schooner s 
 boy when he was sick with a fever turn, a 
 hard-faced little chap, who had run about 
 from ship to ship, just as Jim had ; and 
 though the wind failed them most of the 
 time going south, they were all sorry when 
 
76 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 they reached St. Augustine bar. The last 
 Sunday night of all, Jim s little woman 
 got out her Moody and Sankey song-book 
 for the last time, and sang every tune she 
 knew in her sweet, old-fashioned voice. She 
 was rough in her way sometimes, but the 
 crew of the Dawn of Day kept to the level 
 of its best manners in her hearing all the 
 time she was on board. As they lay out be 
 yond the bar, waiting for enough water to 
 get in, she strained her eyes to see her future 
 home. There was the queer striped light 
 house, with its corkscrew pattern of black 
 and white, and far beyond were the tall, 
 slender towers of a town that looked beauti 
 ful against the sunset, and a long, low shore, 
 white with sand and green here and there 
 with a new greenness which she believed to 
 be orange-trees. She may have had a pang 
 of homesickness for the high ledgy pasture 
 shores at home, but nobody ever guessed it. 
 If ever anybody in this world married for 
 love, it was Jim s little woman. 
 
JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 77 
 
 II. 
 
 It was not long before the dismal little, 
 boarded-up, spidery coquina house was as 
 clean as a whistle, with new glass windows, 
 and fresh whitewash inside and yellow wash 
 outside ; with curtains and rugs and calico 
 cushions, and a shining cooking-stove,- on 
 which such meals were concocted as Jim 
 never dreamed of having for his own. The 
 little woman had a small inheritance of 
 housekeeping goods, which had been packed 
 into the schooner s hold ; luckily these had 
 been in charge of the Northeast Harbor 
 cousin ; as Jim said, they had to get married, 
 for everything came right and there was 
 nothing else to do. He seemed as happy as 
 the day was long, and for once was glad to 
 be ashore. They went together to do their 
 marketing, and he showed her the gray old 
 fort one afternoon and the great hotels with 
 the towers. In narrow St. George Street, 
 under the high flower-lined balconies, every 
 body seemed to know Jim, and they had to 
 spend much time in doing a trifling errand. 
 Go into St. George Street when she would, 
 the narrow thoroughfare was filled with peo- 
 
78 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 pie, and dark-eyed men and women leaned 
 from the balconies and talked to passers-by 
 in a strange lingo which Jim seemed to know. 
 People laughed a good deal as they passed, 
 and the little woman feared that they might 
 think that she was queer-looking. She hated 
 to be so little when Jim himself was so big ; 
 but somehow the laughter all stopped after 
 one day, when a man with an evil face said 
 something in a mocking voice, and Jim, 
 blazing with wrath, caught him by the waist 
 and threw him over the fence into a garden. 
 
 " They laugh to think o me getting so 
 small a wife," said Jim frankly one day, in 
 one of his best moods. " One o the boys 
 thought I d raised me a f ambly while we 
 was gone, and said I d done well for a lit 
 tle gal, but where was the old lady. I prom 
 ised I d bring him round to supper some 
 night, too ; he s a good fellow," added Jim. 
 " We 11 have some o your clam fritters, 
 and near about stuff him to death." 
 
 The summer days flew by, and to every 
 body s surprise Jim lived the life of a sober 
 man. He went to work on one of the new 
 harbor jetties at his wife s recommendation, 
 and did good service. He gave Marty his 
 pay, and was amused and astonished to see 
 
JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 79 
 
 how far she made it go. With plenty of 
 good food, he seemed to have lost his craving 
 for drink in great measure ; and they had 
 two boarders, steady men and Jim s mates, 
 for there was plenty of room ; and the little 
 woman was endlessly busy and happy. Jim 
 had his dark Spanish days with a black 
 scowl, and Marty had her own hot tempers, 
 that came, as she said, of the color of her hair. 
 Like other people, they had their great and 
 small trials and troubles, but these always 
 ended in Marty s stealing into her husband s 
 lap as he sat by the window in his grandfa 
 ther s old chair. The months went by, and 
 winter came, and spring and their baby came, 
 and then they were happier than ever. Jim, 
 for his mother s sake, carried him to the old 
 bishop to be christened, and all the neigh 
 bors flocked in afterward and were feasted. 
 But there was no mistake about it, Jim 
 drank more than was good for him that day 
 in his pride and joy, and had an out and out 
 spree while the baby s mother was helpless 
 in bed ; it was the first great worry and sor 
 row of their married life. The neighbors 
 came and sat with Marty and told her all 
 about him ; and she got well as fast as she 
 could, and went out, pale and weak, after 
 
80 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 him, and found Jim in a horrid den and 
 brought him home. But he was sorry, and 
 said it was all the other fellows fault, and a 
 fellow must have his fling. The little woman 
 sighed, and cried too when there was nobody 
 to see her. She had never believed, though 
 she had had warnings enough, that there 
 was any need of being anxious about Jim. 
 Men were different from women. Yet any 
 body so strong and masterful ought surely 
 to master himself. But things grew worse 
 and worse; and at last, when the old 
 schooner, with a rougher-looking crew than 
 usual, came into the harbor, the baby s fa 
 ther drank with them all one night, and 
 shipped with them next morning, and sailed 
 away, in spite of tears and coaxing, on a 
 four months voyage. Marty had only three 
 cents in her thrifty little purse at the time. 
 It was a purse that her mate at the canning 
 factory gave her the Christmas before she 
 was married. All the simple, fearless old 
 life came up before her as she looked at it. 
 The giver had cried when they parted, and 
 had written once or twice, but the last letter 
 had been long unanswered. Marty had lost 
 all her heart now about writing ; she must 
 wait until Jim was at home and steady again. 
 
JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 81 
 
 Alas, the months went by, and it seemed as 
 if that time would never come. 
 
 Jim came home at last, drunk and scold 
 ing, and when he went away again with the 
 schooner it would have been a relief to be 
 rid of him, if it were not for the worry. He 
 did not look so strong and well as he used. 
 Under the tropic skies his habits were mur 
 dering him slowly. The only comfort Marty 
 could take in him was when he lay asleep, 
 with the black hair curling about his smooth 
 white forehead, and that pleasant boyish 
 look coming out on his face instead of the 
 Spanish scowl. The little woman lost her 
 patience at last, and began to wear a scowl 
 too. She was a peppery little body, and 
 sometimes Jim felt himself aggrieved and 
 called her sharp names in foreign tongues. 
 He had a way of bringing his cronies home 
 to supper when she was tired, and ordering 
 her about contemptuously before the low- 
 faced men. At last, one night, they made 
 such a racket that a group of idle negroes 
 clustered about the house, laughing and jeer 
 ing at the company within. Marty s North 
 ern fury rose like a winter gale ; she was 
 vexed by the taunts of a woman who lived 
 up the lane, who used to come out and sit 
 
82 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 on her high blue balcony and spy all their 
 goings on, and call the baby poor child so 
 that his mother could hear. Jim s little wo 
 man drove the ribald company out of doors 
 that night, and they quailed, drunk as they 
 were, before her angry eyes. They chased 
 the negroes in their turn, and went off shout 
 ing and swearing down the bayside. They 
 tried to walk on the sea-wall, and one man 
 fell over and was too drunk to find his way 
 ashore, and lay down on the wet, shelly mud. 
 The tide came up and covered Joe Black, 
 and that was the last of him, which was not 
 without its comfort, for Jim stayed humbly at 
 home, and tried to make his wife think bet 
 ter of him, for days together. He had won an 
 out and out bad name in the last year. No 
 body would give him a good job ashore now, 
 so that he had to go to sea. He was apt to 
 lead his companions astray, and go off 011 a 
 frolic with too many followers. Yet every 
 body liked Jim, and greeted him warmly 
 when he came ashore ; and he could walk as 
 proudly as ever through the town when he had 
 had just drink enough to make him think 
 well of himself and everybody else. He 
 dodged round many a corner to avoid meet 
 ing the bishop, that good, gray-haired man 
 with the kind, straightforward eyes. 
 
JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 83 
 
 Marty made a good bit of money in the 
 season. She liked to work, and was always 
 ready to do anything there was to do, 
 scrubbing or washing and ironing or sewing, 
 and she came to be known in the town 
 for her quickness and power of work. 
 While Jim was away she always got on well 
 and saved something; but when he came 
 in from his voyages things went from bad to 
 worse ; and after a while there was news of 
 another baby, and the first one was cross and 
 masterful ; and the woman up the lane, in 
 her rickety blue balcony, did nothing but 
 spy discomforts with her mocking eyes. 
 
 Jim was more like himself that last week 
 before he went to sea than for a long time 
 before. He seemed sorry to go, and kept 
 astonishingly sober all the last few days, and 
 picked the oranges and planted their little 
 vegetable garden without being asked, and 
 made Marty a new bench for her tubs that 
 she had only complained of needing once or 
 twice. He worked at loading the schooner 
 down at the sawmill, and came home early 
 in the evening, and Marty began to believe 
 she had at last teased him and shamed him 
 into being decent. She even thought of 
 writing to her friend in Boothbay after two 
 
84 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 years silence, she had such new hopes about 
 being happy and prosperous again. She 
 talked to Jim about that night when they 
 first saw each other, and Jim was not dis 
 pleased when she got the lucky shell out of a 
 safe hiding-place and showed him that she 
 had kept it. They looked each other in the 
 face as they seldom did now, and each knew 
 that the other thought the shell had brought 
 little luck of late. Jim sat down by the 
 window and pulled Marty into his lap, and 
 she began to cry the minute her head was on 
 his shoulder. Life had been so hard. What 
 had come over Jim ? 
 
 " That old bishop o my mother s," faltered 
 Jim. " He s been givin it to me ; he catched 
 me out by the old gates, and he says, Jim, 
 you re goin to break your little woman s 
 heart. Was that so, Marty ? " 
 
 Marty said nothing ; she only nodded her 
 head against his shoulder and cried like a 
 child. She could feel his warm shoulder 
 through his coat, and in a minute he asked 
 her again, " Was that so, Marty ? " And 
 Marty, for answer, only cried a little less. 
 It was night, and Jim was going away in the 
 morning. The crickets were chirping in the 
 garden. Somebody went along the sea-wall 
 
JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 85 
 
 singing, and Jim and his little woman sat 
 there by the window. 
 
 " The devil gets me," said Jim at last, in 
 a sober-minded Northern way that he had 
 sometimes. " There s an awful wild streak 
 in me. I ain t goin to have you cry like 
 mother always done. I m goin to settle 
 down an git a steady job ashore, after this 
 one v y ge to the islands. I m goin to 
 fetch ye home the handsomest basketful of 
 shells that ever you see, an then I m done 
 with shipping, I am so." 
 
 " T ain t me only ; t is them poor little 
 babies," said Marty, in a tired, hopeful little 
 voice. She had done crying now. She felt 
 somehow as if the reward for all her patience 
 and misery was coming. 
 
 " I would n t go off an leave ye now, as 
 things be with ye," said Jim, " but you see 
 we need the money ; an then I ve shipped, 
 and the old man s got my word. I m stout 
 to work aboard ship, an he knows it, the 
 cap n does. The old bishop he warned me 
 against the cap n ; he said if t wa n t for 
 him I d be master o a better vessel myself. 
 He works me hard an keeps me under. I 
 do believe the bishop s right about him, and 
 I d kept clear from drink often if t wa n t 
 for the old man." 
 
86 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 " You ve kep you under," said honest 
 Marty. "Nobody ain t master over you 
 when it comes to that. You 9 ve got to set 
 your mind right against drink an the cap n, 
 Jim." 
 
 " It s so cursed hot in them islands," Jim 
 explained. "You get spent, and have to 
 work right through everything ; but I give 
 you my honest word I 11 bring you home my 
 pay this trip." 
 
 At which promise the little woman gave a 
 pleased sigh, and moved her head as if for 
 sheer comfort. She tried to think whether 
 there was anything else she could have done 
 to the poor clothes in his battered sea-chest ; 
 then she fell asleep. When she waked in 
 the morning, Jim had laid her on the bed 
 like a child, and spread an old shawl over 
 her, and had gone. At high tide in the 
 early morning the schooner Dawn of Day 
 had come up from the sawmill wharf with a 
 tug, and sent a boat ashore for Jim. Marty 
 had never missed him as she did that morn 
 ing ; she had never felt so sure of his loving 
 her, and had waked thinking to find herself 
 still in his arms as she had fallen asleep. 
 There stood the empty chair by the window ; 
 and through the window, over beyond the 
 
8 LITTLE WOMAN. 87 
 
 marshes, she could see the gray sails of the 
 schooner standing out to sea. Oh, Jim ! 
 Jim ! and their little child was crying in the 
 crib, like a hungry bird in its nest the poor 
 little fellow ! and calling his father with 
 pleading confidence. Jim liked the brave 
 little lad. When he was sober, he always 
 dressed up on Sundays and took little Jim 
 and his mother for a walk. Sometimes they 
 went to the old Spanish bury ing-ground, and 
 Jim used to put the baby on his grand 
 father s great tombstone, built strong over 
 his grave like a little house, and pick the 
 moss from the epitaph with his great sea 
 jack-knife. His mother had paid for the 
 tomb. She was laid at one side of it, but 
 Jim had never built any tomb for her. He 
 meant to do it, some time, and Marty always 
 picked some flowers and green sprigs and 
 laid them on the grave with its bits of crum 
 bling coquina at the head and foot. 
 
 In spite of a pain at her heart, and a fore 
 boding that Jim would never come back 
 from his unwilling voyage, the little woman 
 went up the lane boldly that late morning 
 after he sailed ; she no longer feared the 
 mocking smile and salutation of the neigh 
 bor in the balcony. She went to her work 
 
88 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 cheerfully, and sang over it one of her Moody 
 and Sankey hymns. She made a pleasure 
 for the other women who were washing too, 
 with her song and her cheerful face. She 
 was such a little woman that she had a box to 
 stand on while she washed, but there never 
 was such a brisk little creature for work. 
 
 III. 
 
 Somehow everything prospered in the next 
 two months until the new baby came. Some 
 young women hired all her spare rooms, and 
 paid well for their lodging, besides being 
 compassionate and ready to give a little lift 
 with the housework when they had the time. 
 Marty had never laid by so much money 
 before, and often spoke with pride of her 
 handsome husband to the lodgers, who had 
 never seen him: they were girls from the 
 North, and one of them had once worked in 
 a canning factory. One day Marty wrote to 
 her own old friend, and asked her to come 
 down by the steamer to Savannah, and then 
 the rest of the way by rail, to make her a 
 long visit. There was plenty of hotel work 
 in the town; her lodgers themselves got 
 good wages on George Street. 
 
JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 89 
 
 Jim was not skilled with his pen ; he never 
 wrote to her when he went away, but ever 
 since they were married Marty always had 
 a dream one of the nights while he was gone, 
 in which she saw the schooner s white sails 
 against a blue sky, and Jim himself walking 
 the deck to and fro, holding his head high, as 
 he did when he was pleased. She always saw 
 the Dawn of Day coming safe into harbor in 
 this dream ; but one day she thought with a 
 sudden chill that for this voyage the good 
 omen was lacking. Jim had taken the lucky 
 shell along ; at any rate, she could not find 
 it after he went away ; that was a little 
 thing, to be sure, but it gave some comfort 
 until one morning, in shaking and brushing 
 the old chair by the seaward window, out 
 dropped the smooth white shell. The luck 
 had stayed with her instead of going with 
 poor Jim, and the time was drawing near 
 for his return. The new baby was a dear 
 little girl ; she knew that Jim wanted a girl 
 baby, and now, with the girl baby in her 
 arms, she began her weary watch for white 
 sails beyond the marshes. 
 
 The winter days dawned with blue skies 
 and white clouds sailing over ; the town 
 began to fill with strangers. As she got 
 
90 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 strong enough there was plenty of work wait 
 ing for her. The two babies were a great 
 deal too large and heavy for their little 
 mother to tend; they seemed to take after 
 Jim in size, and to grow apace, and Marty 
 took the proud step of hiring help. There 
 was a quiet little colored girl, an efficient 
 midget of a creature, who had minded babies 
 for a white woman in Baya Lane, and was not 
 without sage experience. Marty had bought 
 a perambulator the year before from a woman 
 at one of the boarding-houses, who did not 
 care to carry it North. When she left the 
 hired help in charge that first morning, and 
 hurried away to her own work, the neighbor 
 of the blue balcony stood in her lower door 
 way and bade her a polite good-morning. 
 But Jim s little woman s eyes glittered with 
 strange light as she hurried on in the shadow 
 of the high wall, where the orange boughs 
 hung over, and beyond these, great branches 
 laden with golden clusters of ripening lo- 
 quats. She had not looked out of the sea 
 ward window, as she always liked to do 
 before she left the house, and she was sorry, 
 but there was no time to go back. 
 
 The old city of St. Augustine had never 
 been more picturesque and full of color than 
 
JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 91 
 
 it was that morning. Its narrow thorough 
 fares, with the wide, overhanging upper bal 
 conies that shaded them, were busy and gay. 
 Strangers strolled along, stopping in groups 
 before the open fronts of the fruit shops, 
 or were detained by eager venders of flowers 
 and orange - wood walking - sticks. There 
 were shining shop windows full of photo 
 graphs and trinkets of pink shell-work and 
 palmetto. There were pink feather fans, 
 and birds in cages, and strange shapes and 
 colors of flowers and fruits, and stuffed 
 alligators. The narrow street was full of 
 laughter and the sound of voices. Lumber 
 ing carriages clattered along the palmetto 
 pavement, and boys and men rode by on 
 quick, wild little horses as if for dear life, 
 and to the frequent peril of persons on foot. 
 Sometimes these small dun or cream-colored 
 marsh tackeys needed only a cropped mane 
 to prove their suspected descent from the 
 little steeds of the Northmen, or their cousin- 
 ship to those of the Greek friezes ; they were, 
 indeed, a part of the picturesqueness of the 
 city. 
 
 The high gray towers of the beautiful 
 Ponce de Leon Hotel, with their pointed red 
 roofs, were crowned with ornaments like the 
 
92 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 berries of the chinaberry-trees, and Marty 
 looked up at tliem as she walked along, and 
 at the trees themselves, hung with delicate 
 green leaves like a veil. Spring seemed to 
 come into the middle of summer in that 
 country ; it was the middle of February, but 
 the season was very early. There was a 
 mocking-bird trying its voice here and there 
 in the gardens. The wind-tattered bananas, 
 like wrecked windmills, were putting out 
 fresh green leaves among their ragged ones. 
 There were roses and oranges in bloom, and 
 the country carts were bringing in new 
 vegetables from beyond the old city gates ; 
 green lettuces and baskets of pease and 
 strawberries, and trails of golden jasmine 
 were everywhere about the gray town. Down 
 at the foot of the narrow lanes the bay looked 
 smooth and blue, and white sails flitted by 
 as you stood and looked. The great bell of 
 the old cathedral had struck twelve, and as 
 Marty entered the plaza, busy little soul that 
 she was and in a hurry as usual, she stopped, 
 full of a never outgrown Northern wonder at 
 the foreign sights and sounds, the tall pal- 
 mettoes ; the riders with their clinking spurs ; 
 the gay strangers ; the three Sisters of St. 
 Joseph, in their quaint garb of black and 
 
JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 93 
 
 white, who came soberly from their parish 
 school close by. Jim s little woman looked 
 more childlike than ever. She always wore 
 a short dress about her work, and her short 
 crop of red curly hair stood out about her 
 pale face under the round palmetto hat. 
 She had been thinking of Jim, and of her 
 afternoon s affairs, and of a strange little 
 old negro woman who had been looking out 
 of a doorway on George Street, as she passed. 
 It seemed to Marty as if this old withered 
 creature could see ghosts in the street in 
 stead of the live passers-by. She never 
 looked at anybody who passed, but some 
 times she stood there for an hour looking 
 down the street and mumbling strange words 
 to herself. Jim s little woman was not 
 without her own superstitions ; she had been 
 very miserable of late about Jim, and espe 
 cially since she found his lucky shell. If 
 she could only see him coming home in her 
 dream ; she had always dreamed of him be 
 fore ! 
 
 Suddenly she became aware that all the 
 little black boys were running through the 
 streets like ants, with single bananas, or limp, 
 over-ripe bunches of a dozen ; and she turned 
 quickly, running a few steps in her eagerness 
 
94 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 to see the bay. Why had she not looked 
 that way before? There at the pier were 
 the tall masts and the black and green hull 
 of the Dawn of Day. She had come in that 
 morning. Marty felt dizzy, and had to lean 
 for a minute against the old cathedral door 
 way. There was a drone of music inside ; 
 she heard it and lost it ; then it came again 
 as her faintness passed, and she ran like a 
 child down the street. Her hat blew off and 
 she caught it with one hand, but did not 
 stop to put it on again. The long pier was 
 black with people down at the end next the 
 schooner, and they were swarming up over 
 the side and from the deck. There were 
 red and white parasols from the hotel in the 
 middle of the crowd, and a general hurry 
 and excitement. Everybody but Marty 
 seemed to have known hours before that the 
 schooner was in. Perhaps she ought to go 
 home first ; Jim might be there. Now she 
 could see the pretty Jamaica baskets heaped 
 on the top of the cabin, and the shining colors 
 of shells, and green plumes of sprouted co- 
 coanuts for planting, and the great white 
 branches and heads of coral ; she could smell 
 the ripe fruit in the hold, and catch sight of 
 some of the crew. At last she was on the 
 
JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 95 
 
 gangway, and somebody on deck swore a 
 great oath under his breath. " Boys," he 
 said, in a loud whisper, " here s Jim s little 
 woman ! " and two or three of them dropped 
 quickly between decks and down into the 
 hold rather than face her. When she came 
 on board, there was nobody to be seen but 
 the hard-faced cabin-boy whom she had taken 
 care of in a fever as they came down from 
 Boothbay. He had been driving a brisk 
 trade with some ladies down in the captain s 
 cabin. 
 
 " Where s Jim gone ? " said Marty, look 
 ing at him fiercely with her suspicious gray 
 eyes. 
 
 " You d better go ask the cap n," said the 
 boy. He was two years older than when she 
 first knew him, but he looked much the same, 
 only a little harder. Then he remembered 
 how good Marty had been to him, and that 
 the " old man " was in a horrid temper. He 
 took hold of Marty s thin, freckled, hard- 
 worked little hand, and got her away aft into 
 the shadow and behind the schooner s large 
 boat. "Look here," he faltered, "I m 
 awful sorry, Marty ; it s too bad, but 
 Jim s dead." 
 
 Jim s wife looked the young fellow straight 
 
96 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 in the face, as if she were thinking about 
 something else, and had not heard him. 
 
 " Here, sit right down on this box," said 
 the boy. But Marty would not sit down; 
 she had a dull sense that she must not stay 
 any longer, and that the sun was hot, and 
 that she could not walk home along the sea 
 wall alone. 
 
 " I 11 go home with you," said the boy, 
 giving her a little push ; but she took hold 
 of his hand and did not move. 
 
 " Say it over again what you said," she 
 insisted, looking more and more strange ; her 
 short red hair was blowing in the wind all 
 about her face, and her eyes had faded and 
 faded until they looked almost white. 
 
 " Jim s dead," said the hard-looking boy, 
 who thought he should cry himself, and wished 
 that he were out of such a piece of business. 
 The people who had come to chaffer for shells 
 began to look at them and to whisper. " He s 
 dead. He well, he was as steady as a gig 
 most all the time we was laying off o Kings 
 ton, and the ol man could n t master him to 
 go an drink by night ; and Jim he would n t 
 let me go ashore ; told me he d bout kill 
 me ; an I sassed him up an down for boss- 
 in , and he never hit me a clip back nor 
 
JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 97 
 
 nothin : he was queer this voyage. I 
 never see him drunk but once, when we 
 first put into Nassau, and then he was 
 a-cryiii afterwards ; and into Kingston he 
 got dizzy turns, and was took sick and laid 
 in his bunk while we was unloadin . T was 
 blazin hot. You never see it so hot ; an 
 the ol man told how twas his drinkin the 
 water that give him a fever; an when he 
 went off his head, the old man got the hos- 
 pit l folks, an they lugged him ashore 
 a-ravin ; an he was just breathin his last 
 the day we sailed. We see his funeral as 
 we come out o harbor ; they was goin out 
 buryin of him right off. I ain t seen it 
 myself, but Jim Peet was the last ashore, 
 an he asked if t was our Jim, an they said 
 t was. They d sent word in the mornin 
 he was bout gone, and we might s well 
 sail f we was ready." 
 
 " Jim Peet saw his funeril ? " gasped the 
 little woman. " He felt sure t was Jim ? " 
 
 " Yes m. You come home long o me ; 
 folks is lookin ," said the boy. " Come, 
 now ; I 11 tell you some more goin along." 
 
 Marty came with him through the crowd. 
 She held her hat in her hand, and she went 
 feeling her way, as if she were blind, down 
 
98 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 the gangway plank. When they reached 
 the shore and had gone a short distance, 
 she turned, and told the lad that he need 
 not come any farther; if he would bring 
 his clothes over before the schooner sailed, 
 she would mend them all up nice for him. 
 Then she crept slowly along Bay Street 
 bareheaded; the sun on the water at the 
 right blinded her a little. Sometimes she 
 stopped and leaned against the fence or a 
 house front, and so at last got home. It 
 was midday, there was not a soul in the 
 house, and Jim was dead. 
 
 That night she dreamed of a blue sky, 
 and white sails, and Jim, with his head up, 
 walking the deck, as he came into harbor. 
 
 IV. 
 
 All the townsfolk who lived by the water 
 side and up and down the lanes, and many 
 of the strangers at the hotels, heard of poor 
 Marty s trouble. Her poorest neighbors 
 were the first to send a little purse that they 
 had spared out of their small savings and 
 earnings ; then by and by some of the hotel 
 
JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 99 
 
 people and those who were well to do in the 
 town made her presents of money and of 
 clothes for the children ; and even the spy 
 ing neighbor of the balcony brought a cake, 
 and some figs, all she had on her tree, the 
 night the news was known, and put them 
 on the table, and was going away without a 
 word, but Marty ran after her and kissed 
 her, for the poor soul s husband had been 
 lost at sea, and so they could weep together. 
 But after the dream everybody said that 
 Marty was hurt in her mind by the shock. 
 She could not cry for her own loss when 
 she was told over and over about her neigh 
 bor s man ; she only said to the people who 
 came that they were very kind, and she was 
 seeing trouble, but she was sure that Jim 
 would come back ; she knew it by her 
 dream. They must wait and see. She 
 could not force them to take their money 
 back, and when she grew too tired and un 
 strung to plead about it any longer, she put 
 it together in a little box, and hid it on a 
 high cupboard shelf in the chimney. There 
 was a wonderful light of hope in her face in 
 these days ; she kept the little black girl to 
 tend the two babies, and kept on with her 
 own work. Everybody said that she was 
 
100 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 not quite right in the brain. She was often 
 pointed out to strangers in that spring sea 
 son, a quaint figure, so small, so wan, and 
 battling against the world for her secret 
 certainty and hope. 
 
 Never a man s footstep came by the house 
 at night that she did not rouse and start 
 with her heart beating wildly ; but one, two, 
 three months went by, and still she was 
 alone. Once she went across the bay to the 
 lighthouse island, babies, baby-carriage, 
 the small hired help, and all, and took 
 the railway that leads down to the south 
 beach. It was a holiday, and she hoped 
 that from this southern point she might 
 look far seaward, and catch sight of the 
 returning sails of the old schooner. She 
 would not listen to her own warnings that 
 Jim had plenty of ways of getting home be 
 sides waiting for the Dawn of Day. Those 
 who saw the little company strike out across 
 the sand to the beach laughed at the sight. 
 The hired help pushed the empty perambu 
 lator with all the strength she could muster 
 through the deep white sand, and over the 
 huge green, serpent-like vines that wound 
 among the low dunes. Marty carried the 
 baby and tugged the little boy by the other 
 
JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 101 
 
 hand, and sat down at the edge of the beach 
 all alone, while the children played in the 
 sand or were pushed to and fro. She 
 strained her eyes after sails, but only a bark 
 was in sight to the northward beyond the 
 bar, and a brigantine was beating south 
 ward, and far beyond that was a schooner 
 going steadily north, and it was not the 
 Dawn of Day. All the time Jim s little 
 woman kept saying to herself : "I had the 
 dream; I had the dream. Jim will come 
 home." But as this miserable holiday ended, 
 and they left the great sand desert and the 
 roar of the sea behind them, she felt a new 
 dread make her heart heavier than ever it 
 had been before ; perhaps even the dream 
 was mocking her, and he was dead indeed. 
 
 Then Marty had need of comfort. She 
 believed that as long as she kept faith in 
 her omen it would come true, and yet her 
 faith slowly ebbed in spite of everything. 
 It was a cruel test, and she could not work 
 as she used ; she felt the summer heat as she 
 never had before. All her old associations 
 with the cool Northern sea-coast began to 
 call her to come home. She wondered if it 
 would not do to go North for a while and 
 wait for Jim there. The old friend had 
 
102 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 written that next winter she would come 
 down for a visit, and somehow Marty longed 
 to get home for a while, and then they 
 could come South together ; but at last she 
 felt too tired and weak, and gave up the 
 thought. If it were not for the children, 
 she could go to Jamaica and find out all 
 about Jim. She had sent him more than one 
 letter to Kingston, but no answer came. 
 Perhaps she would wait now until next 
 summer, and then go North with Lizzie. 
 
 In midsummer the streets are often empty 
 at midday, and the old city seems deserted. 
 Marty sometimes took the children and sat 
 with them in the plaza, where it was shady. 
 Often in the spring they all wandered up 
 the white pavement of the street by the 
 great hotel to see the gay Spanish flags, and 
 to hear the band play in the gardens of the 
 Ponce de Leon ; but the band did not play 
 as it used. Marty used to tell the eldest 
 of the children that when his father came 
 home he would take him sailing in the bay, 
 and the little fellow got a touching fashion 
 of asking every morning if his father were 
 coming that day. It was a sad summer, 
 a sad summer. Marty knew that her neigh 
 bors thought her a little crazed ; at last she 
 
JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 103 
 
 wondered if they were not right. She began 
 to be homesick, and at last she had to give 
 up work altogether. She hated the glare of 
 the sun and the gay laughter of the black 
 people ; when she heard the sunset gun 
 from the barracks it startled her terribly. 
 She almost doubted sometimes whether she 
 had really dreamed the dream. 
 
 One afternoon when the cars stopped at 
 the St. Augustine station, Marty was sitting 
 in the old chair by the seaward window, 
 looking out and thinking of her sorrow. 
 There was a vine about the window that 
 flickered a pretty shadow over the floor 
 in the morning, and it was dancing and 
 waving in the light breeze that blows like a 
 long, soft breath, and then stops at sundown. 
 She saw nothing in the bay but a few small 
 pleasure-boats, and there was nothing beyond 
 the bar. News had come some time before 
 that the Dawn of Day had gone North 
 again with yellow pine, and the few other 
 schooners that came now and then to the 
 port were away on the sea, nobody knew 
 where. They came in as if they dropped 
 out of the sky, as far as Marty was con 
 cerned. She thought about Jim as she sat 
 there ; how good he was before he sailed 
 
104 JIM 1 8 LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 that last time, and had really tried to keep 
 his promise on board ship, according to the 
 cabin-boy s story. Somehow Jim was like 
 the moon to her at first ; his Spanish blood 
 and the Church gave an unknown side to 
 his character that was always turned away ; 
 but another side shone fair through his 
 Northern traits, and of late she had under 
 stood him as she never had before. She used 
 to be too smart-spoken and too quick with 
 him ; she saw it all now ; a quick man ought 
 to have a wife with head enough to keep her 
 own temper for his sake. "I couldn t help 
 being born red-headed," thought Marty with 
 a wistful smile, and then she was dreaming 
 and dozing, and fell fast asleep. 
 
 The train had stopped in the station, and 
 among the strangers who got out was a 
 very dark young man, with broad shoulders , 
 and of uncommon height. He was smartly 
 dressed in a sort of uniform, and looked about 
 him with a familiar smile as he strolled among 
 the idlers on the platform. Suddenly some 
 body caught him by the hand, with a shout, 
 and there was an eager crowd about him in 
 a minute. " Jim ! Here s dead Jim ! " cried 
 some one, with a shrill laugh, and there was 
 a great excitement. 
 
LITTLE WOMAN. 105 
 
 " No," said Jim, " I ain t dead. What s 
 the matter with you all ? I ve been up North 
 with the best yacht you ever see ; first we 
 went cruisin in the Gulf an over to Marti 
 nique. Why, my wife know d I was goin . 
 I had a fellow write her from Kingston, an 
 not to expect me till I come. I give him a 
 quarter to do it." 
 
 " She thinks you re dead. No ; other folks 
 says so, an she won t. Word come by the 
 schooner that you was dead in hospit l, of a 
 Jamaica fever," somebody explained in the 
 racket and chatter. 
 
 " They always was a pack o fools on that 
 leaky old Dawn o Day," said Jim contemp 
 tuously, looking down the steep, well-clothed 
 precipice of himself to the platform. " I 
 don t sail with those kind o horse-marines 
 any more." 
 
 Then he thought of Marty with sudden in 
 tensity. " She never had got his letter ! " 
 He shouldered his great valise and strode 
 away ; there was something queer about his 
 behavior ; nobody could keep up with his 
 long steps and his quick runs, and away he 
 went toward home. 
 
 Jim s steps grew softer and slower as he 
 went down the narrow lane ; he saw the 
 
106 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 little house, and its door wide open. The 
 woman in the blue balcony saw him, and 
 gave a little scream, as if he were a ghost. 
 The minute his foot touched the deep-worn 
 coquina step, Marty in her sleep heard it 
 and opened her eyes. She had dreamed 
 again at last of the blue sky and white sails ; 
 she opened her eyes to see him standing 
 there, with his head up, in the door. Jim not 
 dead ! not dead ! but Jim looking sober, and 
 dressed like a gentleman, come home at last ! 
 That evening they walked up Bay Street 
 to King Street, and round the plaza, and 
 home again through George Street, mak 
 ing a royal progress, and being stopped by 
 everybody. They told the story over and 
 over of its having been another sailor from 
 a schooner, poor fellow ! who had died in 
 Kingston that day, alone in hospital. Jim 
 himself had gone down to the gates of death 
 and turned back. There was a yacht in har 
 bor that had lost a hand, and the owner saw 
 handsome Jim on the pier, looking pale and 
 unfriended, and took a liking to him, and 
 found how well he knew the Gulf and the 
 islands, so they struck a bargain at once. 
 They had cruised far south and then north 
 again, and Jim only had leave to come home 
 
JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 107 
 
 for a few days to bring away his little wo 
 man and the children, because he was to 
 keep with the yacht, and spend the summer 
 cruising in Northern waters. Marty had 
 always been wishing to make a visit up in 
 Maine, where she came from. Jim fingered 
 his bright buttons and held his head higher 
 than ever, as if he had been told that she 
 felt proud to show him to her friends. He 
 looked down at little Marty affectionately ; 
 it was very queer about that dream and 
 other people s saying he was dead. He 
 must buy her a famous new rig before they 
 started to go North ; she looked worn out 
 and shabby. It seemed all a miracle to 
 Marty ; but her dream was her dream, and 
 she felt as tall as Jim himself as she remem 
 bered it. As they went home at sunset, they 
 met the bishop, who stopped before them 
 and looked down at the little woman, and 
 then up at Jim. 
 
 " So you re doing well now, my boy ? " 
 he said good htunoredly, to the great, smil 
 ing fellow. " Ah, Jim, many s the prayer 
 your pious mother said for you, and I 
 myself not a few. Come to Mass and be a 
 Christian man for the sake of her. God 
 bless you, my children ! " and the good 
 
108 JIM S LITTLE WOMAN. 
 
 man went his wise and kindly way, not 
 knowing all their story either, but knowing 
 well and compassionately the sorrows and 
 temptations of poor humanity. 
 
 It seemed to Marty as if she had had 
 time to grow old since the night Jim went 
 away and left her sleeping, but the long 
 misery was quickly fading out of her mind, 
 now that he was safe at home again. In a 
 few days more, the old coquina house was 
 carefully shut and locked for the summer, 
 and they gave the key to the woman of the 
 blue balcony. The morning that they 
 started northward, Marty caught a glimpse 
 of the Dawn of Day coming in through the 
 mist over the harbor bar. She wisely said 
 nothing to Jim ; she thought with apprehen 
 sion of the captain s usual revelry the night 
 he came into port. She took a last look at 
 the tall light-house, and remembered how it 
 had companioned her with its clear ray 
 through many a dark and anxious night. 
 Then she thought joyfully how soon she 
 should see the far-away spark on Monhegan, 
 and the bright light of Seguin, and pres 
 ently the towers of St. Augustine were left 
 out of sight behind the level country and 
 the Southern pines. 
 
THE FAILUKE OF DAVID BERRY. 
 
 MR. DAVID BERRY kept his shop in a 
 small wooden building in his own yard, and 
 worked steadily there a great many years, 
 being employed by a large manufacturing 
 company in Lynn at soling and heeling 
 men s boots. There were many such small 
 shoe shops as his scattered among the vil 
 lages and along the country roads. Most of 
 the farmers knew something of the shoe- 
 making trade, and they and their sons 
 worked in their warm little shops in winter 
 when they had nothing else to do, and so 
 added a good deal of ready money to their 
 narrow incomes. The great Lynn teams, 
 piled high with clean wooden shoe boxes, 
 came and went along the highways at regu 
 lar times, to deliver and collect the work. 
 Many of the women bound shoes, and 
 sometimes in pleasant weather half a dozen 
 friends came together with their bundles, 
 and had a bit of friendly gossip while they 
 stitched. The little shops were only large 
 
110 THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 
 
 enough for the shoe benches, with shiny 
 leather seats and trays of small tools, 
 sprinkled with steel and wooden shoe pegs 
 and snarled with waxed ends ; for their 
 whetstones and lapstones and lasts, and the 
 rusty, raging little stoves, with a broken 
 chair or two, where idlers or customers 
 could make themselves permanently com 
 fortable. No woman s broom or duster had 
 any right to invade the pungent, leathery, 
 dusty, pasty abodes of shoemaking ; these 
 belonged wholly to men, and had a rudeness 
 akin to savagery, together with a delightful, 
 definite sort of hospitality as warm as the 
 atmosphere itself. If there were not a life- 
 sustaining broken pane of glass somewhere, 
 the door had to be left ajar. There were 
 apt to be apples on the high window ledges, 
 and any one might choose the best and eat it, 
 and throw the core down among the chips 
 of leather. The shoemaker usually had a 
 dog, which wagged an impartial tail at each 
 new-comer ; for the shoemaker always sat 
 in the same place, and society came and 
 found him there, and told news and heard 
 it, and went away again. There were some 
 men who passed their time as guests in 
 shoemakers shops, especially in winter ; 
 
THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. Ill 
 
 their wives were fortunate in having other 
 sources of income, and merely looked out 
 for their rights in the matter of neighbor 
 hood news. These shoemakers guests were 
 a distinct and recognized class. There 
 never were many of them, and they each 
 had a sufficient excuse for idleness, either 
 in their diligent wives, or some slight physi 
 cal hindrance to active labor. 
 
 One cannot follow a farmer as he ploughs 
 his furrows in a clayey field and expect 
 the time to be given to steady conversation, 
 but a shoemaker sits all day pounding, peg 
 ging, and silently shaping leather with his 
 thin, sharp knife, at the receipt of custom 
 and news. He likes to have his time be 
 guiled with idle talk ; he grows wise in 
 many ways, and deeply reflective as he 
 grows old. The humble hero of this brief 
 tale, Mr. David Berry, was one of the 
 pleasantest and wisest and least prejudiced 
 of shoemakers. You could not spend five 
 minutes pegging time with him and miss 
 hearing some ever-to-be-remembered piece 
 of rural wisdom, some light coin of country 
 speech, bearing the stamp of that mint where 
 wit holds the hammer. 
 
 He was always an old-looking man for 
 
112 THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 
 
 his years, and as wise of countenance as 
 a Greek philosopher. In the days when 
 parishioners listened critically to sermons, 
 and on Mondays and Tuesdays argued 
 excitedly for and against the minister s 
 opinions, Mr. David Berry, though never 
 a fierce partisan, could always keep the 
 points and heads of the discourses very 
 clear in his mind. He was much respected 
 among the old residents of the town, and 
 always made Judge Hutton s and General 
 Barstow s best boots, and patiently repaired 
 the foot-gear of half the men and women of 
 his neighborhood. Everything prospered 
 with him in early life ; his wife was busy 
 and cheerful, and helped him to earn, 
 though nobody could help him to save. 
 His steady business brought in enough 
 Lynn work and custom work together to 
 pay for their house and a bit of land in 
 course of time, but David Berry was one 
 who liked to give for giving s sake ; he 
 believed with all his heart in foreign mis 
 sions ; he considered the poor, and was in 
 every way a generous man. People did not 
 notice this trait at first, because he never had 
 large sums to give, and one never looked 
 for his cramped handwriting at the head of 
 
THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 113 
 
 a subscription paper, but you might always 
 find it before you came to the end. 
 
 Everything prospered until he and his 
 wife were far past middle life ; then they 
 suddenly became aware that the growth of 
 the town was leaving them at one side. The 
 tide of business had swept away from the 
 old shoe shop. Sometimes Mr. Berry did 
 not have a customer all day, and his wife 
 came out with her sewing and sat on the 
 doorstep to keep him company. The idlers 
 had disappeared : some had gone to another 
 world, and the rest evidently had followed 
 the track of business ; they were off at the 
 square looking at men who drove new horses 
 by, and tried to look unconscious ; at mer 
 cantile strangers who came from Boston; 
 at the great brick walls of the new mills 
 which were going to bring so much money 
 to the town. Professional idlers have no 
 spirit of loyalty, they find occupation in 
 the occupation of others, and they are fond 
 of novelty. 
 
 Business had gone to another part of the 
 town, and it was the plainest sort of good 
 sense to follow it. One morning, after 
 much trotting back and forward, an express 
 wagon was backed up to the door of the lit- 
 
114 THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 
 
 tie shoe shop in David Berry s yard, and 
 loaded with the old shoe bench and the 
 rusty stove, and all the sole-leather and old 
 shoes and boots, and the idlers chairs, and 
 a great quantity of queer-shaped wooden 
 lasts, and these were soon bestowed, looking 
 meagre enough, in a narrow brick store 
 down town. The rent had been a great 
 lion in the way to a man who had never 
 paid any rent ; but Mrs. Berry was sanguine, 
 and had no sentimental ties to the old shop, 
 which she had always complained of as a 
 dirty place and a temptation to the loafers 
 of that neighborhood. Before long she suc 
 ceeded in getting a good offer for the empty 
 little building from a neighbor who was en 
 larging his hen house, and could not under 
 stand why her husband was slow to seize upon 
 such a good handful of ready money, and 
 even after he had taken it, would not stay 
 at home and lend a hand at the moving. 
 Mrs. Berry declared that the yard looked a 
 great deal better without the old shoe shop. 
 She could sit at her favorite window in the 
 kitchen now, where the light was best, and 
 look far down the street, as she never could 
 before, to see the passing. 
 
 But David Berry felt old and bewildered 
 
THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 115 
 
 in his new quarters. The light was not 
 nearly so good, and his tools were scattered, 
 and he had to get up and cross the room 
 half a dozen times in an hour, when formerly 
 he had only to reach to the shelf above his 
 head or across to the cutting board. He 
 put up some signs in his window, made for 
 him long ago out of friendship by one of 
 the idlers, whose only gift was one for orna 
 mental penmanship. " Boots and Shoes Re 
 paired While You Wait" was the most 
 prominent of these, and brought the indus 
 trious little man a good many hurried ten- 
 cent jobs of pegging and heeling. Some of 
 his old friends followed him ; those who 
 could afford to have their boots made still 
 did so, for David Berry had won consider 
 able renown for making comfortable shoes. 
 But almost every one in the fast-growing, 
 extravagant little town thought it better 
 to spend two dollars three times in the six 
 months than five dollars once, and , ready- 
 made boots and shoes were coming more and 
 more into favor. Still there was work 
 enough to do, though life was not half so 
 friendly and pleasant as it used to be ; and 
 it always seemed strange to the little round- 
 shouldered old man to take his long walk 
 
116 THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 
 
 down the street after breakfast, and put the 
 new key into the lock of an unfamiliar door. 
 Mrs. Berry thought that her husband had 
 lacked exercise, and that his walk did him 
 good. She promoted him to a higher station 
 of respectability in her own mind because he 
 had a store down town, even though that 
 store was a queer little three-cornered place 
 tucked in at the head of the street between 
 two large blocks. 
 
 There was only a north light in the new 
 shop, and this seemed strange to a man who 
 had been browned like a piece of the leather 
 he worked upon because, small as the old 
 shoe shop was, there were five windows in it, 
 facing east and west and north, besides the 
 upper half of the door, which was glazed, 
 and faced to the southward. In dark weather, 
 as the autumn came on, he had to light up 
 early, and the care of the three lamps which 
 were necessary for the new place of business 
 seemed very troublesome. But he pegged 
 and pounded away bravely. The old bench 
 and the lapstone and all the tools were 
 familiar, if the surroundings were not. He 
 often said to himself that he should have 
 felt like a king when he was a young journey 
 man to have had such a good location and 
 
THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 117 
 
 outlook for business as this. There was an 
 opportunity, besides, for making new friends. 
 An old sailor with a wooden leg came in one 
 morning to have his one boot patched, and 
 the two men instantly recognized a capacity 
 for comfortable companionship in one an 
 other. David Berry had made one wretched 
 fishing voyage to the Banks before he finally 
 settled upon his trade, and this made him a 
 more intelligent listener to the life history of 
 a mariner than was commonly to be found. 
 
 So the old sailor was unmolested in the 
 best seat by the stove, by the time winter 
 had set in. There was a poor little child, 
 too, who came almost every day, and sat by 
 the work-bench and watched the sharp knife 
 and the round-headed hammer, the waxed 
 ends and the lapstone, do their work. Mr. 
 Berry had seen the little thing as he went to 
 his work in the morning, and it being natural 
 to him to inspect people s shoes before he 
 glanced at their faces, he had been compas 
 sionate toward a worn-out sole, and offered 
 his services at mending it. The child put 
 her little hand into his, and they walked 
 along together to the shop. She was a poor 
 little body, and grateful for the luxurious 
 warmth and for an apple, but the mended 
 
118 THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 
 
 shoe she took quite as a matter of course. 
 Ever since, she had come every day for a 
 while, to sit beside the bench, to run er 
 rands, to love the kind old man and look at 
 him eagerly, but into what crevice of the 
 town she disappeared when she went out of 
 the shop door, he never knew. 
 
 It came into Mr. David Berry s thoughts 
 sometimes in the old shop how he had pegged 
 away on his bench year after year, and how 
 many men and women had kept him com 
 pany for a time and then disappeared. 
 There had been six ministers of the parish 
 to which he and his wife belonged, and they 
 had all gone away or died. It sometimes 
 seemed as if he were going to peg away for 
 ever just the same, and the rest of the world 
 change and change ; but in these later days 
 the world outside seemed to fare on its pros 
 perous and unhindered way, while he was 
 battling against change himself. But for 
 all that, he liked many things in the new 
 life. He was doing more business, if only 
 the rent were not so high ; and Mrs. Berry 
 was completely satisfied with him, which was 
 most delightful of all. She could not have 
 treated him better if he had owned the 
 whole new shoe factory that was just being 
 
THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 119 
 
 fitted with its machinery and office furniture. 
 Some misguided persons went so far as to 
 suggest that David should apply for work 
 there, but his wife was scornful in the ex 
 treme, and so, to tell the truth, was David 
 himself. Since his days as apprentice, and 
 a few months spent as a journeyman in see 
 ing the shoemaking world, he had been his 
 own man. 
 
 Some time went by, and business seemed 
 just as good, and even the continuous stream 
 of passers-by in the street made the old 
 shoemaker feel as if he could not work fast 
 enough to keep up with the times. There 
 was no question among Mr. David Berry s 
 friends about his unflagging prosperity. 
 His friend the doctor, who said always and 
 everywhere when he found opportunity that 
 no shoemaker in town understood the anat 
 omy of the human foot as Mr. Berry did, 
 looked at him sharply once or twice, and 
 asked if he got light enough, and if he had 
 a good appetite nowadays, but there never 
 was anything but an unaffectedly cheerful 
 answer. The change had been good on the 
 whole, and the rent was always paid on the 
 day it was due, though Mrs. Berry forgot 
 about it every quarter, and could not ima- 
 
120 THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 
 
 gine what her man did with his money. 
 Think of the work he had now ! As much 
 again as came to him in his shop in the 
 yard. She asked him sometimes if he spent 
 it for nuts and candy, remembering that in 
 his early days he had yielded to such tempta 
 tions, but David colored, and shook his head 
 soberly. He did buy an apple or an orange 
 for the little girl sometimes, but he could 
 not confess it even to his wife. Mrs. Berry 
 sometimes looked into the place of business, 
 and once or twice had found the child there, 
 and asked all sorts of questions, but the old 
 man hastened to suggest another subject, 
 saying that she did no mischief, and kept 
 some others out of that chair who would 
 be in it and bothering him if she were not. 
 When the little clerk s mysterious grand 
 mother kept her at home, Mr. Berry felt 
 very lonely. She was an odd, silent child ; 
 but they felt the warmth of each other s 
 affection without a word being said, and 
 were contented in their opportunity of being 
 together. Mr. Berry sometimes believed 
 that if the grandmother should die, from 
 whom this stray little person ran away daily, 
 as a matter of course, he should try to per 
 suade his wife to give the child a home. 
 
THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 121 
 
 Before long, Mrs. Berry would need some 
 one to help in the house ; but all this got no 
 further than being a pleasant holiday flight 
 of his imagination. 
 
 In the second year of Mr. David Berry s 
 occupation of the down-town place of busi 
 ness he yielded to bad advice, and enlarged 
 his business unguardedly. Sam Wescott, 
 the man who had bought the old shoe shop, 
 came in one night to get a pair of new boots, 
 and after beating the price down unmerci 
 fully, and robbing honest David of nearly 
 all his small profits, under pretense of hard 
 times, and being a neighbor who had shown 
 past favors about buying the building, he 
 sat down for a friendly talk, saying that it 
 was almost time for closing up, and then they 
 could walk home together. David was glad 
 to have a companion in his evening s journey 
 of three quarters of a mile. He used to go 
 home to dinner at first, but of late it seemed 
 to keep him out of his shop just when the 
 mill people were likely to wish to come in. 
 The little girl was apt to come in at noon 
 and share his feast. 
 
 " You ve got more room than you want 
 here," said the unprofitable customer, look 
 ing about with a lordly air. " Why don t 
 
122 THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 
 
 you put in some new stock ? Why don t you 
 keep ready-made boots ? " 
 
 " I can t recommend them to customers," 
 said the shoemaker, frowning. 
 
 "You needn t recommend them; they 11 
 be snapped up quick enough if you keep the 
 prices low. Plenty of ways of getting round 
 recommendations." 
 
 David Berry said nothing. 
 
 " And you are doing well as you are, so 
 what you could sell extra would be clear gain, 
 and draw in a sight o folks who don t come 
 now. I hear they sell second-choice shoes 
 at the factory for next to nothing. My 
 woman gets hers that way. You see, the 
 thread 11 break, or the needle, and make a 
 scratch on the leather, or there 11 be some 
 little defect, and the shoe s just as good to 
 wear, but t won t do to put in the shipping 
 cases." 
 
 " I ain t goin to palm off no such stuff on 
 folks that respect either me or themselves," 
 said Mr. David Berry, reddening. 
 
 " You can tell folks just what they be," 
 urged the poultry merchant. " Some likes 
 that kind the best. I can lend ye something 
 to start on ; just as soon lend ye as not." 
 
 The shoemaker rose and put by his tools 
 
THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 123 
 
 and his apron, but made no answer. The lit 
 tle girl, who was lingering late, waited until 
 he had put on his coat and hat and locked the 
 door, then put her hand into his and trotted 
 at his side. Sam Wescott was amused at the 
 sight, but after they passed two or three 
 squares, the child slipped away silently down 
 the side street. 
 
 " I d think the matter over about extend 
 ing your business," he suggested again ; and 
 this time David Berry said gravely that he 
 would think of it, and ask Mrs. Berry ; then 
 he spoke decidedly about other matters, but 
 would hear 110 more of business until they 
 parted. 
 
 He went in at the side door of his little 
 house, and hung up his coat and hat in the 
 narrow entry-way before he opened the door 
 of the kitchen. Mrs. Berry was putting some 
 old-fashioned shoe lasts into the stove. She 
 was dressed all in her best, and there was a 
 look of festivity; it was evident that she 
 had company to tea. 
 
 " Step into the bedroom quick as you can, 
 David, an put on a clean shirt and your best 
 coat. Mis Lester is here an her son s wife. 
 They come over from West Farms in the 
 stage, shopping, and I over-persuaded em to 
 
124 THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 
 
 spend the night. I just run over and asked the 
 Wescotts to come too. I ve been wantin 
 to invite them this great while, you know ; 
 they re some connection o the Lesters. I 
 can t make this fire burn, no matter what 
 I do. Them lasts is got too old-fashioned 
 even to burn." 
 
 " There, hold ! hold ! " exclaimed David, 
 rescuing a treasure from the very jaws of the 
 devouring stove. " That one ain t to be burnt ; 
 it s a very particular last with me. I won t 
 have ye take any o those in the barrel." 
 
 u They re all one to me," said Mrs. Berry, 
 laughing. " I wish barrel and all was out 
 o my way. Come, go and dress up, David, 
 and have some ambition besides hoardin 
 them old lasts ! " She was very busy, but 
 she turned round to look at him. " You feel 
 well, don t you ? " she asked anxiously, dis 
 turbed by an un explainable change in his 
 looks. " Now you re doin so well, you 
 might shut up shop for a week, and go off 
 and have a good visit somewhere. I d like a 
 change," she pleaded. " There, David Berry, 
 you don t know how glad I be to have 
 you out o that little sixpenny shoe shop. I 
 feel so free to have company when I want it, 
 and not to stop and count every cent. I m 
 
THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 125 
 
 going to make some o my best tea-cakes, the 
 kind that takes six eggs." 
 
 David stood, with the last in his hand, 
 looking at her and faintly smiling approval. 
 He was childishly delighted when she was 
 pleased with herself and him, as she appeared 
 to be to-night. Then he turned and went 
 into the bedroom, and found his clean shirt 
 and satin stock and Sunday coat spread out 
 for him on the bed. 
 
 After tea was over, and the women had 
 settled down to steady conversation, Sam 
 Wescott returned to the subject of the ex 
 tension of David Berry s capital, and David 
 said that he had been thinking it over, and 
 believed it would be 110 harm to try and 
 work oif a few dozen pairs of the factory 
 shoes. He had put by something for a rainy 
 day, though his rent hampered him all the 
 time, and his wood bill had been double 
 what he expected. There was no place to 
 store firewood at the little shop, and he had 
 to buy a foot at a time at an increased price. 
 Before the tea party broke up, he had bor 
 rowed fifty dollars from Sam Wescott. There 
 was nothing said about the interest not being 
 put so high because they were neighbors. 
 David Berry felt uneasy about this departure 
 
126 THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 
 
 from his rule of never borrowing money, but 
 he did n t like to touch what they had in the 
 bank. It was little enough, and yet his wife 
 really wanted to feel better off, now that she 
 was in her prime. For himself, he was older, 
 and would be contented to do without tea 
 parties and the tea-cakes that took six eggs. 
 But for several days Mrs. Berry kept say- 
 
 in g> ~ 
 
 "What makes you so dumb, David?" 
 And David would look at her with his slow 
 smile, and make no excuse for himself. 
 
 A year went slowly by in these plain lives, 
 and brought no change except that Mrs. 
 Berry had a long siege of illness, and a wo 
 man had to be hired to take care of her, and 
 the doctor s considerate bill was paid, and 
 David Berry, that prudent, saving man, who 
 had feared debt as if it were a tiger, found 
 himself likely to be behindhand with his rent, 
 and obliged for the first time to tell the 
 parish collector that ,he could not pay the 
 quarter s pew rent or his punctual missionary 
 subscription until next month. The situa 
 tion was not so terrible, after all, as he 
 might have expected. His wife was slowly 
 recovering her strength, and he had plenty 
 of work to do. The little three-cornered 
 
THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 127 
 
 shop was reopened, and he set himself to 
 work again, and felt as prosperous as usual 
 as soon as he felt the old hammer in his 
 hand. The little girl was- waiting about the 
 door, though he had not been there for sev 
 eral weeks except for an hour or two at a 
 time. He had forgotten his obligations to 
 the business world in his cares of nursing 
 and forlorn housekeeping; but now, as he 
 assured the little clerk, for lack of a wiser 
 confidante, he had found a good woman, who 
 was glad to come and spend the rest of the 
 winter. She looked at him wonderingly. 
 It never occurred to him to persuade her 
 into more confiding speech, because she 
 always smiled at him when he looked up and 
 smiled at her. 
 
 It is astonishing how one may feel secure 
 in the presence of dreaded danger. David 
 Berry became used to the surly calls of the 
 rent agent and the wood and coal man, and 
 to Sam Wescott s disagreeable references to 
 the money that was still owed on account. 
 David answered them all soberly that they 
 must give him a little time. He had been 
 in hard sledding lately, but was picking up 
 his trade fast. The ready-made shoe busi 
 ness had not been successful, and while he 
 
128 THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 
 
 was at home, a leak in the roof ruined the 
 best of the stock, but he had managed to 
 pay Sam Wescott all but sixteen dollars of 
 the fifty. If it had not been his rule to pay 
 the doctor s bill first after the minister s 
 dues, he might have been ready with his 
 rent. David Berry never was quick-handed ; 
 he was growing slower every year, and took 
 great pains with his stitches and patches. 
 At ten and fifteen cents each for his minor 
 pieces of work, it took a good while to earn 
 a dollar. " Give me a little time," he always 
 said ; " I mean to pay ye ; I ve always paid 
 my bills, and asked no favors of any man 
 until now." He worked as fast as he could 
 and as long as he could, and spring was 
 coming on ; with the long days he could do 
 even better. 
 
 One day, Sam Wescott, an impetuous, 
 thoughtless sort of man, who liked to have 
 his own way about things, and was rather 
 fond of his petty grudges, met the rent col 
 lector of the property to which David 
 Berry s place of business belonged. 
 
 " Can you get anything out of old Berry 
 yet ? " asked the rent collector. 
 
 " No, not yet ; he keeps promising. I 
 guess he 11 pay, but I m beginning to want 
 
THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 129 
 
 my money," said Wescott pompously, as if 
 he liked the reputation of having money out 
 at interest. 
 
 " T ain t our rule to keep tenants who get 
 behindhand," said the other. " He s get 
 ting along in years, and all that. It ain t 
 a shop that s been called desirable hereto 
 fore, but there s an Italian fellow after it 
 sharp that wants to keep fruit, and I ve got 
 to warn old Berry out, I guess, one o these 
 days." 
 
 Wescott ought to have been ashamed, 
 but he really felt a lurking sense of satis 
 faction. The time had been when he had 
 been in debt, not to say disgrace, which 
 David Berry had taken occasion to justly 
 comment upon, and the chance had now 
 come to assist at David s own downfall. 
 He might always have been steady at 
 church, a good neighbor, and prompt of 
 pay, and able to look every man in the face, 
 but the welcome time had come to show him 
 up as no better than other folks. 
 
 A few days afterward, the mischief hav 
 ing been set in motion, the blow fell out of a 
 clear sky. The wood and coal man heard 
 a whisper of other debts, and was quickly 
 to the fore with his own account ; and the 
 
130 THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 
 
 shoe-factory book-keeper sent an insolent 
 young fellow to demand instant pay for the 
 last purchase of shoes, although it wanted 
 two weeks to the regular time of payment. 
 Sam Wescott felt sorry when he slouched 
 into the little shop and saw his old neigh 
 bor s scared, hurt, grayish face. David 
 Berry was keeping on with his work out of 
 sheer force of habit. He did not know 
 what his hands were doing ; his honest 
 heart grew duller and heavier every minute 
 with pain. 
 
 " I was going to pay your bill to-morrow, 
 sir," he said appealingly to the rent collec 
 tor. "I thought that ought to come first. 
 I Ve been hard up for ready money, but I ve 
 got within twd dollars of it." He did not 
 look at Sam Wescott. 
 
 " The rest of us has some rights," said the 
 shoe-factory messenger loudly. 
 
 A crowd was gathering about the door ; 
 the poor little girl the little clerk began 
 to cry. There were angry voices ; somebody 
 had brought a law paper. In a few minutes 
 it was all over, like dying. David Berry 
 had failed, and they were putting up his 
 shutters. 
 
 When he fairly comprehended the great 
 
THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 131 
 
 blow, he stood up, swaying a little, just in 
 front of the old shoe bench. " It ain t fair, 
 neighbors," he said brokenly, " it ain t 
 fair. I had my rent most ready, and I don t 
 owe Sam Wescott but sixteen dollars." 
 
 Then he burst into tears, pleasant old 
 David Berry, with his gray head and stoop 
 ing shoulders, and the little crowd ceased 
 staring, and quickly disappeared, as if they 
 felt a sense of shame. 
 
 " They say he owes everybody," one man 
 told another contemptuously. 
 
 David Berry took his old hat at last, and 
 stepped out of the door. The agent locked 
 it, and took the key himself and put it into 
 his pocket. t 
 
 " I 11 send up your things this afternoon, 
 sir ; the law can t touch a man s tools, you 
 know," he said compassionately ; but it was 
 too late now for compassion to do David 
 Berry any good. The old man walked 
 feebly away, holding the ragged little girl 
 by her thin hand. 
 
 Sam Wescott did not like the tone with 
 which all his neighbors commented upon the 
 news of Mr. Berry s failure. He explained 
 carefully to every one that he felt sorry, but 
 of course he had to put in his little bill with 
 
132 THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 
 
 the rest. The whole sum of the old shoe 
 maker s indebtedness came to less than a 
 hundred dollars. 
 
 All the neighbors and friends rallied to 
 show their sympathy and good-will, but Mr. 
 Berry did not have much to say. A look of 
 patience under the blows of fate settled into 
 his worn old face. He had his shoe bench 
 put into the kitchen, and then wrote his 
 name and occupation on a piece of paper, 
 and tacked it to the gate. He sent away 
 the woman who took care of his wife, though 
 the good soul begged to stay, and he worked 
 on and on from earliest morning to latest 
 night. Presently his wife was about again, 
 nervous and fretful, and ready to tiresomely 
 deplore their altered fortunes to every cus 
 tomer. After the first influx of business 
 prompted by sympathy, they seemed to be 
 nearly forgotten again, and the old skilled 
 workman bent his pride so low as to beg for 
 work at the shoe factory, only to be con 
 temptuously refused, simply because he was 
 old. 
 
 Within a few months the doctor, who had 
 been as kind as a brother to David Berry 
 and his wife, met Sam Wescott going down 
 the street, and with a set look in his kind 
 
THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 133 
 
 face stopped his horse, and beckoned to the 
 poultry merchant. 
 
 Sam stepped out to the roadside. 
 
 " I ve just come from David Berry s," the 
 doctor said ; " and the good old man is going 
 to die. " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked Sam, star 
 ing indignantly. 
 
 " He s going to die," repeated the doc 
 tor. " And I make no accusation, because 
 I would rather believe you were thoughtless 
 than malicious in shutting him up. But you 
 might have fended off his troubles by a sin 
 gle word ; you might have said you d stand 
 security for his rent. It broke his honest 
 heart. You ve seen yourself how he s 
 grown twenty years older. You took away 
 his pride, and you took away his living, and 
 now he s got a touch of pneumonia, and is 
 going as fast as he can go. I can t do any 
 thing for him ; his vitality is all spent." 
 
 The doctor shook his reins and drove on, 
 and Wescott went back to the sidewalk, very 
 angry and somewhat dismayed. Nobody 
 knew what made him so cross at home, espe 
 cially on the day that David Berry died. 
 The day of the funeral he pushed away from 
 the gate a tearful little girl who stood there 
 
134 THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 
 
 wistfully looking in. He muttered some 
 thing about children being underfoot and 
 staring at such times, and did not know that 
 she was the silent little clerk, who had a 
 perfect right to count herself among the 
 mourners. She watched everybody go into 
 the house and waited until they came out, 
 and when the humble procession started, she 
 walked beside it along the sidewalk, all the 
 way to the burying-ground, as a faithful 
 little dog might have done. 
 
 The next week somebody hung out a 
 small red flag, and the neighbors gathered 
 again to the auction. Mrs. Berry was broken 
 in health, and every one said that it was 
 best for her to sell the house, keeping some 
 furniture for one room, and go up country 
 to live with a cousin. Everything else was 
 sold, the best-room furniture (of which the 
 good people had been so proud), the barrel 
 of lasts, the lapstone and round hammer, 
 the old shoe bench itself. David Berry was 
 always slow and behind the times, many 
 people said; he had been a good workman 
 in his day, but he ran into debt and failed, 
 and died ; and his wife had broken up house 
 keeping and gone to live up country. Hardly 
 any one remembered to say that he paid all 
 
THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 135 
 
 his debts before he died, with interest, if 
 there were any; the world could think of 
 him only as a man that had failed in busi 
 ness. 
 
 Everybody missed him and his honest 
 work unexpectedly, the people who had 
 been his near neighbors and received many 
 kindnesses at his hands, whom he had watched 
 with at night through their sicknesses and 
 always been friendly with by day. Even 
 strangers missed his kind face as he passed 
 their houses. 
 
 One day Sam Wescott was standing in 
 the old shoe shop, which made a little shed 
 outside his poultry-yard, and he happened 
 to notice a bit of printed paper pasted to 
 the wall, low down, where it must have been 
 close to the old shoe bench. He stooped to 
 read it, out of curiosity, and found that it 
 was only a verse out of the Bible : Owe no 
 man anything "but to love one another. 
 
 Sam Wescott looked at it again, then he 
 walked away down the path with his hands 
 behind him. In a minute or two he came 
 back, took his jack-knife out of his pocket, 
 and scratched the verse from the wall. 
 Somehow there was no getting rid of one s 
 thoughts about the old man. He had 
 
136 THE FAILURE OF DAVID BERRY. 
 
 laughed once, and told somebody that David 
 Berry could travel all day in a peck measure ; 
 but now it seemed as if David Berry marched 
 down upon him from the skies with a great 
 army of those who owed no man anything 
 but love, and had paid their debt. 
 
THE PASSING OF SISTEE BAKSETT. 
 
 MRS. MERCY CRANE was of such firm 
 persuasion that a house is meant to be lived 
 in, that during many years she was never 
 known to leave her own neat two-storied 
 dwelling-place on the Kidge road. Yet 
 being very fond of company, in pleasant 
 weather she often sat in the side doorway 
 looking out on her green yard, where the 
 grass grew short and thick and was undis- 
 figured even by a path toward the steps. 
 All her faded green blinds were securely 
 tied together and knotted on the inside by 
 pieces of white tape ; but now and then, 
 when the sun was not too hot for her 
 carpets, she opened one window at a time 
 for a few hours, having pronounced views 
 upon the necessity of light and air. Al 
 though Mrs. Crane was acknowledged by 
 her best friends to be a peculiar person and 
 very set in her ways, she was much re 
 spected, and one acquaintance vied with 
 another in making up for her melancholy 
 
138 THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT. 
 
 seclusion by bringing her all the news they 
 could gather. She had been left alone 
 many years before by the sudden death of 
 her husband from sunstroke, and though 
 she was by no means poor, she had, as 
 some one said, " such a pretty way of tak 
 ing a little present that you could n t help 
 being pleased when you gave her anything." 
 
 For a lover of society, such a life must 
 have had its difficulties at times, except that 
 the Ridge road was more traveled than any 
 other in the township, and Mrs. Crane had 
 invented a system of signals, to which she 
 always resorted in case of wishing to speak 
 to some one of her neighbors. 
 
 The afternoon was wearing late, one day 
 toward the end of summer, and Mercy Crane 
 sat in her doorway dressed in a favorite old- 
 fashioned light calico and a small shoulder 
 shawl figured with large palm leaves. She 
 was making some tatting of a somewhat 
 intricate pattern ; she believed it to be the 
 prettiest and most durable of trimmings, 
 and having decorated her own wardrobe in 
 the course of unlimited leisure, she was now 
 making a few yards apiece for each of her 
 more intimate friends, so that they might 
 have something to remember her by. She 
 
THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT. 139 
 
 kept glancing up the road as if she expected 
 some one, but the time went slowly by, 
 until at last a woman appeared to view, 
 walking fast, and carrying a large bundle in 
 a checked handkerchief. 
 
 Then Mercy Crane worked steadily for a 
 short time without looking up, until the 
 desired friend was crossing the grass be 
 tween the dusty road and the steps. The 
 visitor was out of breath, and did not re 
 spond to the polite greeting of her hostess 
 until she had recovered herself to her sat 
 isfaction. Mrs. Crane made her the kind 
 offer of a glass of water or a few pepper 
 mints, but was answered only by a shake 
 of the head, so she resumed her work for a 
 time until the silence should be broken. 
 
 " I have come from the house of mourn 
 ing," said Sarah Ellen Dow at last, unex 
 pectedly. 
 
 "You don t tell me that Sister Bar- 
 sett " - 
 
 " She s left us this time, she s really 
 gone," and the excited news-bringer burst 
 into tears. The poor soul was completely 
 overwrought ; she looked tired and wan, as 
 if she had spent her forces in sympathy as 
 well as hard work. She felt in her great 
 
140 THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT. 
 
 bundle for a pocket handkerchief, but was 
 not successful in the search, and finally pro 
 duced a faded gingham apron with long, 
 narrow strings, with which she hastily dried 
 her tears. The sad news appealed also to 
 Mercy Crane, who looked across to the 
 apple-trees, and could not see them for a 
 dazzle of tears in her own eyes. The spec 
 tacle of Sarah Ellen Dow going home with 
 her humble workaday possessions, from the 
 house where she had gone in haste only a 
 few days before to care for a sick person 
 well known to them both, was a very sad 
 sight. 
 
 " You sent word yesterday that you 
 should be returnin early this afternoon, and 
 would stop. I presume I received the mes 
 sage as you gave it?" asked Mrs. Crane, 
 who was tenacious in such matters ; " but I 
 do declare I never looked to hear she was 
 gone." 
 
 " She s been failin right along sence yis- 
 terday about this time," said the nurse. 
 " She s taken no notice to speak of, an 
 been eatin the vally o nothin , I may say, 
 sence I went there a-Tuesday. Her sisters 
 both come back yisterday, an of course I 
 was expected to give up charge to them. 
 
THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT. 141 
 
 They re used to sickness, an both havin 
 such a name for bein great housekeepers ! " 
 
 Sarah Ellen spoke with bitterness, but 
 Mrs. Crane was reminded instantly of her 
 own affairs. " I feel condemned that I 
 ain t begun my own fall cleanin yet," she 
 said, with an ostentatious sigh. 
 
 " Plenty o time to worry about that," her 
 friend hastened to console her. 
 
 " I do desire to have everything decent 
 about my house," resumed Mrs. Crane. 
 " There s nobody to do anything but me. 
 If I was to be taken away sudden myself, I 
 should n t want to have it said afterwards 
 that there was wisps under my sofy or 
 There ! I can t dwell on my own troubles 
 with Sister Barsett s loss right before me. 
 I can t seem to believe she s really passed 
 away ; she always was saying she should 
 go in some o these spells, but I deemed 
 her to be troubled with narves." 
 
 Sarah Ellen Dow shook her head. " I m 
 all nerved up myself," she said brokenly. 
 " I made light of her sickness when I went 
 there first, I d seen her what she called 
 dreadful low so many times ; but I saw her 
 looks this morning, an I begun to believe 
 her at last. Them sisters o hers is the 
 
142 THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT. 
 
 master for unfeelin hearts. Sister Barsett 
 was a-layin there yisterday, an one of em 
 was a-settin right by her tellin how diffi 
 cult t was for her to leave home, her niece 
 was goin to graduate to the high school, an 
 they was goin to have a time in the evening, 
 an all the exercises promised to be extry 
 interesting. Poor Sister Barsett knew what 
 she said an looked at her with contempt, 
 an then she give a glance at me an closed 
 up her eyes as if t was for the last time. I 
 know she felt it." 
 
 Sarah Ellen Dow was more and more ex 
 cited by a sense of bitter grievance. Her 
 rule of the afflicted household had evidently 
 been interfered with ; she was not accustomed 
 to be ignored and set aside at such times. 
 Her simple nature and uncommon ability 
 found satisfaction in the exercise of authority, 
 but she had now left her post feeling hurt 
 and wronged, besides knowing something of 
 the pain of honest affliction. 
 
 "If it had n t been for esteemm Sister 
 Barsett as I always have done, I should have 
 told em no, an held to it, when they asked 
 me to come back an watch to-night. T ain t 
 for none o their sakes, but Sister Barsett 
 was a good friend to me in her way." Sarah 
 
THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT. 143 
 
 Ellen broke down once more, and felt in her 
 bundle again hastily, but the handkerchief 
 was again elusive, while a small object fell 
 out upon the doorstep with a bounce. 
 
 " T ain t nothin but a little taste-cake I 
 spared out o the loaf I baked this morniii ," 
 she explained, with a blush. " I was so 
 shoved out that I seemed to want to turn 
 my hand to somethin useful an feel I was 
 still doin for Sister Barsett. Try a little 
 piece, won t you, Mis Crane ? I thought it 
 seemed light an good." 
 
 They shared the taste-cake with serious 
 enjoyment, and pronounced it very good in 
 deed when they had finished and shaken 
 the crumbs out of their laps. " There s no 
 body but you shall come an do for me at 
 the last, if I can have my way about things," 
 said Mercy Crane impulsively. She meant 
 it for a tribute to Miss Dow s character and 
 general ability, and as such it was meekly 
 accepted. 
 
 " You re a younger person than I be, an 
 less wore," said Sarah Ellen, but she felt 
 better now that she had rested, and her con 
 versational powers seemed to be refreshed 
 by her share of the little cake. " Doctor 
 Bangs has behaved real pretty, I can say 
 
144 THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT. 
 
 that," she continued presently in a mournful 
 tone. 
 
 " Heretofore, in the sickness of Sister 
 Barsett, I have always felt to hope certain 
 that she would survive ; she s recovered 
 from a sight o things in her day. She has 
 been the first to have all the new diseases 
 that s visited this region. I know she had 
 the spinal mergeetis months before there 
 was any other case about," observed Mrs. 
 Crane with satisfaction. 
 
 " An the new throat troubles, all of em," 
 agreed Sarah Ellen ; "an has made trial of 
 all the best patent medicines, an could tell 
 you their merits as no one else could in this 
 vicinity. She never was one that depended 
 on herbs alone, though she considered em 
 extremely useful in some cases. Everybody 
 has their herb, as we know, but I in free 
 to say that Sister Barsett sometimes done 
 everything she could to kill herself with 
 such rovin ways o dosin . She must see it 
 now she s gone an can t stuff down no more 
 invigorators." Sarah Ellen Dow burst out 
 suddenly with this, as if she could no longer 
 contain her honest opinion. 
 
 " There, there ! you re all worked up," 
 answered placid Mercy Crane, looking more 
 interested than ever. 
 
THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT. 145 
 
 "An she was dreadful handy to talk 
 religion to other folks, but I ve come to a 
 realizin sense that religion is somethin be 
 sides opinions. She an Elder French has 
 been mostly of one mind, but I don t know s 
 they ve got hold of all the religion there 
 is." 
 
 "Why, why, Sarah Ellen!" exclaimed 
 Mrs. Crane, but there was still something in 
 her tone that urged the speaker to further 
 expression of her feelings. The good crea 
 ture was much excited, her face was clouded 
 with disapproval. 
 
 " I ain t forgettin nothin about their 
 good points either," she went on in a more 
 subdued tone, and suddenly stopped. 
 
 " Preachin 11 be done away with soon or 
 late, preachin o Elder French s kind," an 
 nounced Mercy Crane, after waiting to see 
 if her guest did not mean to say anything 
 more. " I should like to read em out that 
 verse another fashion : Be ye doers o the 
 word, not preachers only, would hit it 
 about right ; but there, it s easy for all of 
 us to talk. In my early days I used to like 
 to get out to meetin regular, because sure 
 as I did n t I had bad luck all the week. I 
 did n t feel pacified less I d been half a day, 
 
146 THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT. 
 
 but I was out all clay the Sabbath before 
 Mr. Barlow died as he did. So you mean 
 to say that Sister Barsett s really gone ? " 
 
 Mrs. Crane s tone changed to one of real 
 concern, and her manner indicated that she 
 had put the preceding conversation behind 
 her with decision. 
 
 " She was herself to the last," instantly 
 responded Miss Dow. " I see her put out 
 a thumb an finger from under the spread 
 an pinch up a fold of her sister Beckett s 
 dress, to try an see if t was all wool. I 
 thought t wa n t all wool, myself, an I know 
 it now by the way she looked. She was a 
 very knowin person about materials ; we 
 shall miss poor Mis Barsett in many ways, 
 she was always the one to consult with about 
 matters o dress." 
 
 "She passed away easy at the last, I 
 hope ?" asked Mrs. Crane with interest. 
 
 "Why, I wa n t there, if you ll believe 
 it !" exclaimed Sarah Ellen, flushing, and 
 looking at her friend for sympathy. "Sis 
 ter Barsett revived up the first o the after 
 noon, an they sent for Elder French. She 
 took notice of him, and he exhorted quite a 
 spell, an then he spoke o there being need 
 of air in the room, Mis Deckett havin 
 
THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT. 147 
 
 closed every window, an she asked me of 
 all folks if I had n t better step out ; but 
 Elder French come too, an he was very rea 
 sonable, an had a word with me about Mis 
 Deckett an Mis Peak an the way they was 
 workin things. I told him right out how 
 they never come near when the rest of us 
 was havin it so hard with her along in the 
 spring, but now they thought she was re lly 
 goin to die, they come settlin down like a 
 pair o old crows in a field to pick for what 
 they could get. I just made up my mind 
 they should have all the care if they wanted 
 it. It did n t seem as if there was anything 
 more I could do for Sister Barsett, an I set 
 there in the kitchen within call an waited, 
 an when I heard em sayiii , There, she s 
 gone, she s gone ! and Mis Deckett a-weep- 
 in , I put on my bunnit and stepped myself 
 out into the road. I felt to repent after I had 
 gone but a rod, but I was so worked up, an 
 I thought they d call me back, an then I 
 was put out because they did n t, an so here 
 I be. I can t help it now." Sarah Ellen 
 was crying again ; she and Mrs. Crane 
 could not look at each other. 
 
 " Well, you set an rest," said Mrs. Crane 
 kindly, and with the merest shadow of disap- 
 
148 THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT. 
 
 proval. " You set an rest, an by an by, if 
 you d feel better, you could go back an just 
 make a little stop an inquire about the ar 
 rangements. I would n t harbor no feelin s, 
 if they be inconsiderate folks. Sister Bar- 
 sett has often deplored their actions in my 
 hearing an wished she had sisters like other 
 folks. With all her faults she was a use 
 ful person an a good neighbor," mourned 
 Mercy Crane sincerely. " She was one that 
 always had somethin interestin to tell, an 
 if it wa n t for her dyin spells an all that 
 sort o nonsense, she d make a figger in the 
 world, she would so. She walked with an 
 air always, Mis Barsett did ; you d ask who 
 she was if you had n t known, as she passed 
 you by. How quick we forget the outs about 
 anybody that s gone ! but I always feel grate 
 ful to anybody that s friendly, situated as 
 I be. I shall miss her runnin over. I can 
 seem to see her now, coming over the rise in 
 the road. But don t you get in a way of tak- 
 in things too hard, Sarah Ellen ! You ve 
 worked yourself all to pieces since I saw 
 you last ; you re gettin to be as lean as a 
 meetin -house fly. Now, you re comin in to 
 have a cup o tea with me, an then you 11 
 feel better. I ve got some new molasses 
 gingerbread that I baked this mornin ." 
 
THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT. 149 
 
 " I do feel beat out, Mis Crane," acknow 
 ledged the poor little soul, glad of a chance 
 to speak, but touched by this unexpected 
 mark of consideration. " If I could ha done 
 as I wanted to I should be f eelin well enough, 
 but to be set aside an ordered about, where 
 I d taken the lead in sickness so much, 
 an knew how to deal with Sister Barsett so 
 well! She might be livin now, perhaps" 
 
 " Come ; we d better go in,, t is gettiii 
 damp," and the mistress of the house rose 
 so hurriedly as to seem bustling. " Don t 
 dwell on Sister Barsett an her foolish folks 
 no more ; I would n t, if I was you." 
 
 They went into the front room, which was 
 dim with the twilight of the half -closed blinds 
 and two great syringa bushes that grew 
 against them. Sarah Ellen put down her 
 bundle and bestowed herself in the large, 
 cane-seated rocking-chair. Mrs. Crane di 
 rected her to stay there awhile and rest, and 
 then come out into the kitchen when she got 
 ready. 
 
 A cheerful clatter of dishes was heard at 
 once upon Mrs. Crane s disappearance. " I 
 hope she s goin to make one o her nice 
 short-cakes, but I don t know s she 11 think 
 it quite worth while," thought the guest 
 
150 THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT. 
 
 humbly. She desired to go out into the 
 kitchen, but it was proper behavior to wait 
 until she should be called. Mercy Crane was 
 not a person with whom one could venture to 
 take liberties. Presently Sarah Ellen began 
 to feel better. She did not often find such 
 a quiet place, or the quarter of an hour of 
 idleness in which to enjoy it, and was glad 
 to make the most of this opportunity. Just 
 now she felt tired and lonely. She was a 
 busy, unselfish, eager -minded creature by 
 nature, but now, while grief was sometimes 
 uppermost in her mind and sometimes a 
 sense of wrong, every moment found her 
 more peaceful, and the great excitement lit 
 tle by little faded away. 
 
 " What a person poor Sister Barsett was 
 to dread growing old so she couldn t get 
 about. I m sure I shall miss her as much 
 as anybody," said Mrs. Crane, suddenly 
 opening the kitchen door, and letting in an 
 unmistakable and delicious odor of short 
 cake that revived still more the drooping 
 spirits of her guest. " An a good deal of 
 knowledge has died with her," she added, 
 coming into the room and seeming to make 
 it lighter. 
 
 " There, she knew a good deal, but she 
 
THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT. 151 
 
 did n t know all, especially o doctorin ," in 
 sisted Sarah Ellen from the rocking-chair, 
 with an unexpected little laugh. " She used 
 to lay down the law to me as if I hacl neither 
 sense nor experience, but when it came to 
 her bad spells she d always send for me. 
 It takes everybody to know everything, but 
 Sister Barsett was of an opinion that her 
 information was sufficient for the town. 
 She was tellin me the day I went there how 
 she disliked to have old Mis Doubleday 
 come an visit with her, an remarked that 
 she called Mis Doubleday very officious. 
 4 Went right down on her knees an prayed, 
 says she. Anybody would have thought I 
 was a heathen ! But I kind of pacified her 
 feelin s, an told her I supposed the old lady 
 meant well." 
 
 "Did she give away any of her things? 
 
 Mis Barsett, I mean," inquired Mrs. 
 Crane. 
 
 " Not in my heariii ," replied Sarah Ellen 
 Dow. " Except one day, the first of the 
 week, she told her oldest sister, Mis 
 Deckett, t was that first day she rode over, 
 
 that she might have her green quilted 
 petticoat ; you see it was a rainy day, an Mis 
 Deckett had complained o f eelin thin. She 
 
152 THE PASSING OF SISTER BAESETT. 
 
 went right up an got it, and put it on an 
 wore it off, an I m sure I thought no more 
 about it, until I heard Sister Barsett groanin 
 dreadf id in the night. I got right up to see 
 what the matter was, an what do you think 
 but she was wantin that petticoat back, and 
 not thinking any too well o Nancy Deckett 
 for takin it when t was offered. Nancy 
 never showed no sense o propriety, says 
 Sister Barsett ; I just wish you d heard her 
 go on ! 
 
 " If she had felt to remember me," con 
 tinued Sarah Ellen, after they had laughed 
 a little, " I d full as soon have some of her 
 nice crockery - ware. She told me once, 
 years ago, when I was stoppin to tea with 
 her an we were havin it real friendly, that 
 she should leave me her Britannia tea-set, 
 but I ain t got it in writin , and I can t say 
 she s ever referred to the matter since. It 
 ain t as if I had a home o my own to keep 
 it in, but I should have thought a great deal 
 of it for her sake," and the speaker s voice 
 faltered. " I must say that with all her vir 
 tues she never was a first-class housekeeper, 
 but I would n t say it to any but a friend. 
 You never eat no preserves o hers that 
 wa n t commencin to work, an you know 
 
THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT. 153 
 
 as well as I how little forethought she had 
 about putting away her woolens. I sat be 
 hind her once in meetin when I was stop- 
 pin with the Tremletts and so occupied a 
 seat in their pew, an I see between ten an 
 a dozen moth millers come workin out o 
 her fitch-fur tippet. They was flutterin 
 round her bonnet same s t was a lamp. I 
 should be mortified to death to have such a 
 thing happen to me." 
 
 " Every housekeeper has her weak point ; 
 I ve got mine as much as anybody else," 
 acknowledged Mercy Crane with spirit, 
 " but you never see no moth millers come 
 workin out o me in a public place." 
 
 " Ain t your oven beginning to get over- 
 het ? " anxiously inquired Sarah Ellen Dow, 
 who was sitting more in the draught, and 
 could not bear to have any accident happen 
 to the supper. Mrs. Crane flew to a short 
 cake s rescue, and presently called her guest 
 to the table. 
 
 The two women sat down to deep and 
 brimming cups of tea. Sarah Ellen noticed 
 with great gratification that her hostess had 
 put on two of the best tea-cups and some cit 
 ron-melon preserves. It was not an every 
 day supper. She was used to hard fare, poor, 
 
154 THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT. 
 
 hard-working Sarah Ellen, and this handsome 
 social attention did her good. Sister Crane 
 rarely entertained a friend, and it would be 
 a pleasure to speak of the tea-drinking for 
 weeks to come. 
 
 " You ve put yourself out quite a con- 
 sid able for me," she acknowledged. " How 
 pretty these cups is ! You ought n t to use 
 em so common as for me. I wish I had a 
 home I could really call my own to ask you 
 to, but t ain t never been so I could. Some 
 times I wonder what s goin to become o me 
 when I get so I m past work. Takin care 
 o sick folks an bein in houses where 
 there s a sight goin on an everybody in a 
 hurry kind of wears on me now I m most 
 a-gittiii in years. I was wishin the other 
 day that I could get with some comfortable 
 kind of a sick person, where I could live 
 right along quiet as other folks do, but folks 
 never sends for me less they re drove to it. 
 I ain t laid up anything to really depend 
 upon." 
 
 The situation appealed to Mercy Crane, 
 well to do as she was and not burdened with 
 responsibilities. She stirred uneasily in her 
 chair, but could not bring herself to the 
 point of offering Sarah Ellen the home she 
 coveted. 
 
THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT. 155 
 
 " Have some hot tea," she insisted, in a 
 matter of fact tone, and Sarah Ellen s face, 
 which had been lighted by a sudden eager 
 hopefulness, grew dull and narrow again. 
 
 "Plenty, plenty, Mis Crane," she said 
 sadly, " t is beautiful tea, you always have 
 good tea ; " but she could not turn her 
 thoughts from her own uncertain future. 
 " None of our folks has ever lived to be a 
 burden," she said presently, in a pathetic 
 tone, putting down her cup. " My mother 
 was thought to be doing well until four 
 o clock an was dead at ten. My Aunt 
 Nancy came to our house well at twelve 
 o clock an died that afternoon ; my father 
 was sick but ten days. There was dear 
 sister Betsy, she did go in consumption, but 
 t wa n t an expensive sickness." 
 
 " I ve thought sometimes about you, how 
 you d get past rovin from house to house 
 one o these days. I guess your friends 
 will stand by you." Mrs. Crane spoke 
 with unwonted sympathy, and Sarah Ellen s 
 heart leaped with joy. 
 
 "You re real kind," she said simply. 
 " There s nobody I set so much by. But I 
 shall miss Sister Barsett, when all s said an 
 done. She s asked me many a time to stop 
 
156 THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT. 
 
 with her when I was n t doin nothin 7 . We 
 all have our failin s, but she was a friendly 
 creatur . I sha n t want to see her laid 
 away." 
 
 " Yes, I was thinkin a few minutes ago 
 that I should n t want to look out an see 
 the funeral go by. She s one o the old 
 neighbors. I s pose I shall have to look, 
 or I should n t feel right afterward," said 
 Mrs. Crane mournfully. "If I had n t 
 got so kind of housebound," she added with 
 touching frankness, " I d just as soon go 
 over with you an offer to watch this night." 
 
 " T would astonish Sister Barsett so I 
 don t know but she d return." Sarah Ellen s 
 eyes danced with amusement ; she could not 
 resist her own joke, and Mercy Crane her 
 self had to smile. 
 
 " Now I must be goin , or t will be dark," 
 said the guest, rising and sighing after she 
 had eaten her last crumb of gingerbread. 
 " Yes, thank ye, you re real good, I will 
 come back if I find I ain t wanted. Look 
 what a pretty sky there is ! " and the two 
 friends went to the side door and stood to 
 gether in a moment of affectionate silence, 
 looking out toward the sunset across the 
 
 O 
 
 wide fields. The country was still with that 
 
THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT. 157 
 
 deep rural stillness which seems to mean the 
 absence of humanity. Only the thrushes 
 were singing far away in the walnut woods 
 beyond the orchard, and some crows were 
 flying over and cawed once loudly, as if they 
 were speaking to the women at the door. 
 
 Just as the friends were parting, after 
 most grateful acknowledgments from Sarah 
 Ellen Dow, some one came driving along the 
 road in a hurry and stopped. 
 
 " Who s that with you, Mis Crane ? " 
 called one of their near neighbors. 
 
 " It s Sarah Ellen Dow," answered Mrs. 
 Crane. " What s the matter ? " 
 
 " I thought so, but I could n t rightly 
 see. Come, they are in a peck o trouble 
 up to Sister Barsett s, wonderin where you 
 be," grumbled the man. " They can t do 
 nothin with her ; she s drove off everybody 
 an keeps a-screechiii for you. Come, step 
 along, Sarah Ellen, do ! " 
 
 " Sister Barsett ! " exclaimed both the 
 women. Mercy Crane sank down upon the 
 doorstep, but Sarah Ellen stepped out upon 
 the grass all of a tremble, and went toward 
 the wagon. " They said this afternoon that 
 Sister Barsett was gone," she managed to 
 say. " What did they mean ? " 
 
158 THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT. 
 
 " Gone where ? " asked the impatient 
 neighbor. "I expect t was one of her 
 spells. She s come to ; they say she wants 
 somethin hearty for her tea. Nobody can t 
 take one step till you get there, neither." 
 
 Sarah Ellen was still dazed ; she returned 
 to the doorway, where Mercy Crane sat shak 
 ing with laughter. " I don t know but we 
 might as well laugh as cry," she said in an 
 aimless sort of way. " I know you too well 
 to think you re going to repeat a single 
 word. Well, I 11 get my bonnet an start ; 
 I expect I ve got considerable to cope with, 
 but I m well rested. Good -night, Mis 
 Crane, I certain did have a beautiful tea, 
 whatever the future may have in store." 
 
 She wore a solemn expression as she 
 mounted into the wagon in haste and de 
 parted, but she was far out of sight when 
 Mercy Crane stopped laughing and went 
 into the house. 
 
MISS ESTHER S GUEST. 
 I. 
 
 OLD Miss Porley put on her silk shawl, 
 and arranged it carefully over her thin shoul 
 ders, and pinned it with a hand that shook a 
 little as if she were much excited. She bent 
 forward to examine the shawl in the mahog 
 any-framed mirror, for there was a frayed 
 and tender spot in the silk where she had 
 pinned it so many years. The shawl was 
 very old ; it had been her mother s, and she 
 disliked to wear it too often, but she never 
 could make up her mind to go out into the 
 street in summer, as some of her neighbors 
 did, with nothing over her shoulders at all. 
 Next she put on her bonnet and tried to set 
 it straight, allowing for a wave in the look 
 ing-glass that made one side of her face 
 appear much longer than the other ; then 
 she drew on a pair of well-darned silk gloves ; 
 one had a wide crack all the way up the 
 back of the hand, but they were still neat 
 
160 MISS ESTHER S GUEST. 
 
 and decent for every-day wear, if she were 
 careful to keep her left hand under the edge 
 of the shawl. She had discussed the pro 
 priety of drawing the raveled silk together, 
 but a thick seam would look very ugly, and 
 there was something accidental about the 
 crack. 
 
 Then, after hesitating a few moments, she 
 took a small piece of folded white letter- 
 paper from the table and went out of the 
 house, locking the door and trying it, and 
 stepped away bravely down the village street. 
 Everybody said, " How do you do, Miss 
 Porley ? " or " Good-mornin , Esther." Every 
 one in Daleham knew the good woman ; she 
 was one of the unchanging persons, always 
 to be found in her place, and always pleased 
 and friendly and ready to take an interest 
 in old and young. She and her mother, 
 who had early been left a widow, had been 
 for many years the village tailoresses and 
 makers of little boys clothes. Mrs. Porley 
 had been dead three years, however, and 
 her daughter " Easter," as old friends called 
 our heroine, had lived quite alone. She 
 was made very sorrowful by her loneliness, 
 but she never could be persuaded to take 
 anybody to board : she could not bear 
 
MISS ESTHER S GUEST. 161 
 
 to think of any one s taking her mother s 
 place. 
 
 It was a warm summer morning, and Miss 
 Porley had not very far to walk, but she was 
 still more shaky and excited by the time she 
 reached the First Church parsonage. She 
 stood at the gate undecidedly, and, after she 
 pushed it open a little way, she drew back 
 again, and felt a curious beating at her heart 
 and a general reluctance of mind and body. 
 At that moment the minister s wife, a pleas 
 ant young woman with a smiling, eager face, 
 looked out of the window and asked the 
 tremulous visitor to come in. Miss Esther 
 straightened herself and went briskly up the 
 walk ; she was very fond of the minister s 
 wife, who had only been in Daleham a few 
 months. 
 
 " Won t you take off your shawl ? " asked 
 Mrs. Way ton affectionately ; "I have just 
 been making gingerbread, and you shall have 
 a piece as soon as it cools. " 
 
 " I don t know s I ought to stop," answered 
 Miss Esther, flushing quickly. " I came on 
 business ; I won t keep you long." 
 
 " Oh, please stay a little while," urged the 
 hostess. " I 11 take my sewing, if you don t 
 mind ; there are two or three things that I 
 want to ask you about." 
 
162 MISS ESTHER S GUEST. 
 
 " I ve thought and flustered a sight over 
 taking this step," said good old Esther 
 abruptly. " I had to conquer a sight o re 
 luctance, I must say. I ve got so used to 
 livin by myself that I sha n t know how to 
 consider another. But I see I ain t got 
 common feeliii for others unless I can set 
 my own comfort aside once in a while. I ve 
 brought you my name as one of those that 
 will take one o them city folks that needs a 
 spell o change. It come straight home to 
 me how I should be feeling it by this time, 
 if my lot had been cast in one o them city 
 garrets that the minister described so affect 
 ing. If t had n t been for kind consider 
 ation somewheres, mother an me might have 
 sewed all them pleasant years away in the 
 city that we enjoyed so in our own home, 
 and our garding to step right out into when 
 our sides set in to ache. And I ain t rich, 
 but we was able to save a little something, 
 and now I m eatin of it all up alone. It 
 come to me I should like to have somebody 
 take a taste out o mother s part. Now, 
 don t you let em send me no rampin boys 
 like them Barnard s folks had come last 
 year, that vexed dumb creatur s so ; and I 
 don t know how to cope with no kind o 
 
MISS ESTHER S GUEST. 163 
 
 men-folks or strange girls, but I should 
 know how to do for a woman that s get 
 ting well along in years, an has come to feel 
 kind o spent. P raps we ain t no right to 
 pick an choose, but I should know best how 
 to make that sort comfortable on count of 
 doin for mother and studying what she 
 preferred." 
 
 Miss Esther rose with quaint formality 
 and put the folded paper, on which she had 
 neatly written her name and address, into 
 Mrs. Way ton s hand. Mrs. Way ton rose 
 soberly to receive it, and then they both sat 
 down again. 
 
 " I m sure that you will feel more than re 
 paid for your kindness, dear Miss Esther," 
 said the minister s wife. " I know one of the 
 ladies who have charge of the arrangements 
 for the Country Week, and I will explain 
 as well as I can the kind of guest you have 
 in mind. I quite envy her : I have often 
 thought, when I was busy and tired, how 
 much I should like to run along the street 
 and make you a visit in your dear old-fash 
 ioned little house." 
 
 "I should be more than pleased to have 
 you, I m sure," said Miss Esther, startled 
 into a bright smile and forgetting her anx- 
 
164 MISS ESTHER S GUEST. 
 
 iety. " Come any day, and take me just as I 
 am. We used to have a good deal o com 
 pany years ago, when there was a number o 
 mother s folks still livin over Ashfield way. 
 Sure as we had a pile o work on hand and 
 was hurrying for dear life an limb, a wagon- 
 load would light down at the front gate 
 to spend the day an have an early tea. 
 Mother never was one to get flustered same s 
 I do bout everything. She was a lovely 
 cook, and she d fill em up an cheer em, 
 and git em off early as she could, an then 
 we d be kind o waked up an spirited our 
 selves, and would set up late sewin and 
 talkin the company over, an I d have 
 things saved to tell her that had been said 
 while she was out o the room. I make such 
 a towse over everything myself, but mother 
 was waked right up and felt pleased an 
 smart, if anything unexpected happened. 
 I miss her more every year," and Miss 
 Esther gave a great sigh. " I s pose t wa n t 
 reasonable to expect that I could have her 
 to help me through with old age, but I m a 
 poor tool, alone." 
 
 " Oh, no, you must n t say that ! " ex 
 claimed the minister s wife. " Why, nobody 
 could get along without you. I wish I had 
 
MTSS ESTHER S GUEST. 165 
 
 come to Daleham in time to know your 
 mother too." 
 
 Miss Esther shook her head sadly. " She 
 would have set everything by you and Mr. 
 Wayton. Now I must be getting back in 
 case I m wanted, but you let em send me 
 somebody right away, while my bush beans 
 is so nice. An if any o your little boy s 
 clothes wants repairiii , just give em to me ; 
 t will be a real pleasant thing to set a few 
 stitches. Or the minister s ; ain t there some 
 thing needed for him ? " 
 
 Mrs. Wrayton was about to say no, when 
 she became conscious of the pleading old 
 face before her. " I m sure you are most 
 kind, dear friend," she answered, " and I do 
 have a great deal to do. I 11 bring you two 
 or three things to-night that are beyond my 
 art, as I go to evening meeting. Mr. Way- 
 ton frayed out his best coat sleeve yesterday, 
 and I was disheartened, for we had counted 
 upon his not having a new one before the 
 fall." 
 
 " T would be mere play to me," said Miss 
 Esther, and presently she went smiling down 
 the street. 
 
166 MISS ESTHER S GUEST. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Committee for the Country Week in 
 a certain ward of Boston were considering 
 the long list of children, and mothers with 
 babies, and sewing-women, who were looking 
 forward, some of them for the first time in 
 many years, to a country holiday. Some 
 were to go as guests to hospitable, generous 
 farmhouses that opened their doors willingly 
 now and then to tired city people ; for some 
 persons board could be paid. 
 
 The immediate arrangements of that time 
 were settled at last, except that Mrs. Belton, 
 the chairman, suddenly took a letter from 
 her pocket. " I had almost forgotten this," 
 she said ; " it is another place offered in dear 
 quiet old Daleham. My friend, the min 
 ister s wife there, writes me a word about it : 
 4 The applicant desires especially an old per 
 son, being used to the care of an aged parent 
 and sure of lier power of making such a one 
 comfortable, and she would like to have her 
 guest come as soon as possible. My friend 
 asks me to choose a person of some refine 
 ment, one who would appreciate the 
 delicate simplicity and quaint ways of the 
 hostess. " 
 
MISS ESTHER S GUEST. 167 
 
 Mrs. Belton glanced hurriedly down the 
 page. " I believe that s all," she said. " How 
 about that nice old sewing-woman, Mrs. Con 
 nolly, in Bantry Street ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! " some one entreated, looking up 
 from her writing. " Why is n t it just the 
 place for my old Mr. Rill, the dear old Eng 
 lishman who lives alone up four flights in 
 Town Court and has the bullfinch. He used 
 to engrave seals, and his eyes gave out, and 
 he is so thrifty with his own bit of savings 
 and an atom of a pension. Some one pays 
 his expenses to the country, and this sounds 
 like a place he would be sure to like. I ve 
 been watching for the right chance." 
 
 " Take it, then," said the busy chairman, 
 and there was a little more writing and talk 
 ing, and then the committee meeting was 
 over which settled Miss Esther Porley s 
 fate. 
 
 III. 
 
 The journey to Daleham was a great ex 
 perience to Mr. Rill. He was a sensible old 
 person, who knew well that he was getting 
 stiffer and clumsier than need be in his gar 
 ret, and that, as certain friends had said, a 
 
168 MISS ESTHER S GUEST. 
 
 short time spent in the country would cheer 
 and invigorate him. There had been occa 
 sional propositions that he should leave his 
 garret altogether and go to the country to 
 live, or at least to the suburbs of the city. 
 He could not see things close at hand so well 
 as he could take a wide outlook, and as his 
 outlook from the one garret window was a 
 still higher brick wall and many chimneys, 
 he was losing a great deal that he might 
 have had. But so long as he was expected 
 to take an interest in the unseen and un 
 known he failed to accede to any plans about 
 the country home, and declared that he was 
 well enough in his high abode. He had 
 lost a sister a few years before who had been 
 his mainstay, but with his hands so well used 
 to delicate work he had been less bungling 
 in his simple household affairs than many 
 another man might have been. But he was 
 very lonely and was growing anxious ; as he 
 was rattled along in the train toward Daleham 
 he held the chirping bullfinch s cage fast 
 with both hands, and said to himself now 
 and then, " This may lead to something ; 
 the country air smells very good to me." 
 
 The Daleham station was not very far out 
 of the village, so that Miss Esther Porley 
 
MISS ESTHER S GUEST. 169 
 
 put on her silk shawl and bonnet and every 
 day gloves just before four o clock that af 
 ternoon, and went to meet her Country Week 
 guest. Word had come the day before that 
 the person for Miss Porley s would start two 
 days in advance of the little company of chil 
 dren and helpless women, and since this 
 message had come from the parsonage Miss 
 Esther had worked diligently, late and early, 
 to have her house in proper order. What 
 ever her mother had liked was thought of and 
 provided. There were going to be rye short 
 cakes for tea, and there were some sprigs of 
 thyme and sweet-balm in an old-fashioned 
 wine-glass on the keeping-room table ; mother 
 always said they were so freshening. And 
 Miss Esther had taken out a little shoulder- 
 shawl and folded it over the arm of the rock 
 ing - chair by the window that looked out 
 into the small garden where the London- 
 pride was in full bloom, and the morning- 
 glories had just begun to climb. Miss Esther 
 was sixty-four herself, but still looked upon 
 age as well in the distance. 
 
 She was always a prompt person, and had 
 some minutes to wait at the station ; then the 
 time passed and the train was late. At last 
 she saw the smoke far in the distance, and 
 
170 MISS ESTHER S GUEST. 
 
 her heart began to sink. Perhaps she would 
 not find it easy to get on with the old lady, 
 and well it was only for a week, and she 
 had thought it right and best to take such a 
 step, and now it would soon be over. 
 
 The train stopped, and there was no old 
 lady at all. 
 
 Miss Esther had stood far back to get 
 away from the smoke and roar, she was al 
 ways as afraid of the cars as she could be, 
 but as they moved away she took a few steps 
 forward to scan the platform. There was 
 no black bonnet with a worn lace veil, and 
 no old lady with a burden of bundles ; there 
 were only the station master and two or three 
 men, and an idle boy or two, and one clean- 
 faced, bent old man with a bird-cage in one 
 hand and an old carpet-bag in the other. She 
 thought of the rye short-cakes for supper and 
 all that she had done to make her small home 
 pleasant, and her fire of excitement suddenly 
 fell into ashes. 
 
 The old man with the bird-cage suddenly 
 turned toward her. " Can you direct me to 
 Miss Esther Poiiey s ? " said he. 
 
 " I can," replied Miss Esther, looking at 
 him with curiosity. 
 
 "I was directed to her house," said the 
 
MISS ESTHER S GUEST. 17 1 
 
 pleasant old fellow, " by Mrs. Belton, of tlie 
 Country Week Committee. My eyesight is 
 poor. I should be glad if anybody would 
 help me to find the place." 
 
 " You step this way with me, sir," said Miss 
 Esther. She was afraid that the men on 
 the platform heard every word they said, but 
 nobody took particular notice, and off they 
 walked down the road together. Miss Es 
 ther was enraged with the Country Week 
 Committee. 
 
 " You were sent to Miss Porley s ? " she 
 asked grimly, turning to look at him. 
 
 " I was, indeed," said Mr. Rill. 
 
 " I am Miss Porley, and I expected an old 
 lady," she managed to say, and they both 
 stopped and looked at each other with ap 
 prehension. 
 
 " I do declare ! " faltered the old seal-cut 
 ter anxiously. " What had I better do, 
 ma am ? They most certain give me your 
 name. May be you could recommend me 
 somewheres else, an I can get home to-mor 
 row if t ain t convenient." 
 
 They were standing under a willow-tree in 
 the shade ; Mr. Rill took off his heavy hat, 
 it was a silk hat of by-gone shape ; a golden 
 robin began to sing, high in the willow, and 
 
172 MISS ESTHER S GUEST. 
 
 the old bullfinch twittered and chirped in 
 the cage. Miss Esther heard some foofr 
 steps coming behind them along the road. 
 She changed color ; she tried to remember 
 that she was a woman of mature years and 
 considerable experience. 
 
 " T ain t a mite o matter, sir," she said 
 cheerfully. " I guess you 11 find everything 
 comfortable for you ; " and they turned, much 
 relieved, and walked along together. 
 
 " That s Lawyer Barstow s house," she 
 said calmly, a minute afterward, " the hand 
 somest place in town, we think t is," and Mr. 
 Eill answered politely that Daleham was a 
 pretty place ; he had not been out of the city 
 for so many years that everything looked 
 beautiful as a picture. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Miss Porley rapidly recovered her com 
 posure, and bent her energies to the prepar 
 ing of an early tea. She showed her guest 
 to the snug bedroom under the low gambrel 
 roof, and when she apologized for his having 
 to go upstairs, he begged her to remember that 
 it was nothing but a step to a man who was 
 
MISS ESTHER S GUEST. 173 
 
 used to four long flights. They were both 
 excited at finding a proper nail for the bird 
 cage outside the window, though Miss Es 
 ther said that she should love to have the 
 pretty bird downstairs where they could see 
 it and hear it sing. She said to herself over 
 and over that if she could have her long-lost 
 brother come home from sea, she should like 
 to have him look and behave as gentle and 
 kind as Mr. Rill. Somehow she found her 
 self singing a cheerful hymn as she mixed and 
 stirred the short-cakes. She could not help 
 wishing that her mother were there to enjoy 
 this surprise, but it did seem very odd, after 
 so many years, to have a man in the- house. 
 It had not happened for fifteen years, at 
 least, when they had entertained Deacon 
 Sparks and wife, delegates from the neigh 
 boring town of East Wilby to the County 
 Conference. 
 
 The neighbors did not laugh at Miss Es 
 ther openly or cause her to blush with self- 
 consciousness, however much they may have 
 discussed the situation and smiled behind 
 her back. She took the presence of her 
 guest with delighted simplicity, and the 
 country week was extended to a fortnight, 
 and then to a month. At last, one day Miss 
 
174 MISS ESTHER S GUEST. 
 
 Esther and Mr. Rill were seen on their way 
 to the railroad station, with a large bundle 
 apiece beside the carpet-bag, though some 
 one noticed that the bullfinch was left be 
 hind. Miss Esther came back alone, looking 
 very woebegone and lonely, and if the truth 
 must be known, she found her house too soli 
 tary. She looked into the woodhouse where 
 there was a great store of kindlings, neatly 
 piled, and her water-pail was filled to the 
 brim, her garden-paths were clean of weeds 
 and swept, and yet everywhere she looked it 
 seemed more lonely than ever. She pinned 
 on her shawl again and went along the street 
 to the parsonage. 
 
 " My old lady s just gone," she said to the 
 minister s wife. " I was so lonesome I could 
 not stay in the house." 
 
 " You found him a very pleasant visitor, 
 did n t you, Miss Esther ? " asked Mrs. Way- 
 tori, laughing a little. 
 
 " I did so ; he wasn t like other men, kind 
 and friendly and fatherly, and never stayed 
 round when I was occupied, but entertained 
 himself down street considerable, an was as 
 industrious as a bee, always asking me if 
 there wa n t something he could do about 
 house. He and a sister some years older 
 
MISS ESTHER S GUEST. 175 
 
 used to keep house together, and it was her 
 long sickness used up what they d saved, 
 and yet he s got a little somethin , and there 
 are friends he used to work for, jewelers, a 
 big firm, that gives him somethin regular. 
 He s goin to see," and Miss Esther blushed 
 crimson, "he s goin to see if they d be 
 willin to pay it just the same if he come to 
 reside in Daleham. He thinks the air agrees 
 with him here." 
 
 " Does he indeed ? " inquired the minister s 
 wife, with deep interest and a look of amuse 
 ment. 
 
 " Yes m," said Miss Esther simply ; " but 
 don t you go an say nothin yet. I don t 
 want folks to make a joke of it. Seems to 
 me if he does feel to come back, and remains 
 of the same mind he went away, we might be 
 judicious to take the step " 
 
 " Why, Miss Esther ! " exclaimed the lis 
 tener. 
 
 " Not till fall, not till fall," said Miss 
 Esther hastily. " I ain t going to count on 
 it too much anyway. I expect we could get 
 along ; there s considerable goodness left in 
 me, and you can always work better when 
 you ve got somebody beside yourself to work 
 for. There, now I ve told you I feel as if 
 I was blown away in a gale." 
 
176 MISS ESTHER S GUEST. 
 
 " Why, I don t know what to say at such 
 a piece of news ! " exclaimed Mrs. Way ton 
 again. 
 
 " I don t know s there s anything to say," 
 gravely answered Miss Esther. " But I did 
 laugh just now coming in the gate to think 
 what a twitter I got into the day I fetched 
 you that piece of paper." 
 
 " Why, I must go right and tell Mr. 
 Wayton ! " said the minister s wife. 
 
 " Oh, don t you, Mis Wayton ; no, no ! " 
 begged Miss Esther, looking quite coy and 
 girlish. " I really don t know s it s quite 
 settled, it don t seem s if it could be. 
 I m going to hear from him in the course 
 of a week. But I suppose he thinks it s 
 settled ; he s left the bird." 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 I. 
 
 ONE windy morning in May, three old wo 
 men sat together near an open window in the 
 shed chamber of Byfleet Poor-house. The 
 wind was from the northwest, but their win 
 dow faced the southeast, and they were only 
 visited by an occasional pleasant waft of 
 fresh air. They were close together, knee 
 to knee, picking over a bushel of beans, and 
 commanding a view of the dandelion-starred, 
 green yard below, and of the winding, sandy 
 road that led to the village, two miles away. 
 Some captive bees were scolding among the 
 cobwebs of the rafters overhead, or thump 
 ing against the upper panes of glass ; two 
 calves were bawling from the barnyard, 
 where some of the men were at work load 
 ing a dump-cart and shouting as if every one 
 were deaf. There was a cheerful feeling of 
 activity, and even an air of comfort, about 
 the Byfleet Poor-house. Almost every one 
 
178 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 
 was possessed of a most interesting past, 
 though there was less to be said about the 
 future. The inmates were by no means dis 
 tressed or unhappy ; many of them retired 
 to this shelter only for the winter season, and 
 would go out presently, some to begin such 
 work as they could still do, others to live in 
 their own small houses ; old age had im 
 poverished most of them by limiting their 
 power of endurance ; but far from lament 
 ing the fact that they were town charges, 
 they rather liked the change and excitement 
 of a winter residence on the poor-farm. 
 There was a sharp-faced, hard-worked young 
 widow with seven children, who was an ex 
 ception to the general level of society, be 
 cause she deplored the change in her for 
 tunes. The older women regarded her with 
 suspicion, and were apt to talk about her in 
 moments like this, when they happened to 
 sit together at their work. 
 
 The three bean-pickers were dressed alike 
 in stout brown ginghams, checked by a white 
 line, and all wore great faded aprons of blue 
 drilling, with sufficient pockets convenient 
 to the right hand. Miss Peggy Bond was a 
 very small, belligerent-looking person, who 
 wore a huge pair of steel-bowed spectacles, 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 179 
 
 holding her sharp chin well up in air, as if 
 to supplement an inadequate nose. She was 
 more than half blind, but the spectacles 
 seemed to face upward instead of square 
 ahead, as if their wearer were always on the 
 sharp lookout for birds. Miss Bond had 
 suffered much personal damage from time to 
 time, because she never took heed where she 
 planted her feet, and so was always tripping 
 and stubbing her bruised way through the 
 world. She had fallen down hatchways and 
 cellarways, and stepped composedly into deep 
 ditches and pasture brooks ; but she was 
 proud of stating that she was upsighted, and 
 so was her father before her. At the poor- 
 house, where an unusual malady was consid 
 ered a distinction, upsightedness was looked 
 upon as a most honorable infirmity. Plain 
 rheumatism, such as afflicted Aunt Lavina 
 Dow, whose twisted hands found even this 
 light work difficult and tiresome, plain 
 rheumatism was something of every-day oc 
 currence, and nobody cared to hear about it. 
 Poor Peggy was a meek and friendly soul, 
 who never put herself forward ; she was just 
 like other folks, as she always loved to say, 
 but Mrs. Lavina Dow was a different sort of 
 person altogether, of great dignity and, occa- 
 
180 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 
 sionally, almost aggressive behavior. The 
 time had been when she could do a good 
 day s work with anybody: but for many 
 years now she had not left the town-farm, 
 being too badly crippled to work ; she had 
 no relations or friends to visit, but from an 
 innate love of authority she could not sub 
 mit to being one of those who are forgotten 
 by the world. Mrs. Dow was the hostess 
 and social lawgiver here, where she remem 
 bered every inmate and every item of inter 
 est for nearly forty years, besides an immense 
 amount of town history and biography for 
 three or four generations back. 
 
 She was the dear friend of the third wo 
 man, Betsey Lane ; together they led thought 
 and opinion chiefly opinion and held 
 sway, not only over By fleet Poor-farm, but 
 also the selectmen and all others in authority. 
 Betsey Lane had spent most of her life as 
 aid-in-general to the respected household of 
 old General Thornton. She had been much 
 trusted and valued, and, at the breaking up 
 of that once large and flourishing family, she 
 had been left in good circumstances, what 
 with legacies and her own comfortable sav 
 ings ; but by sad misfortune and lavish gen 
 erosity everything had been scattered, and 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 181 
 
 after much illness, which ended in a stiffened 
 arm and more uncertainty, the good soul had 
 sensibly decided that it was easier for the 
 whole town to support her than for a part of 
 it. She had always hoped to see something 
 of the world before she died ; she came of an 
 adventurous, seafaring stock, but had never 
 made a longer journey than to the towns 
 of Danby and Northville, thirty miles away. 
 
 They were all old women ; but Betsey 
 Lane, who was sixty-nine, and looked much 
 older, was the youngest. Peggy Bond was 
 far on in the seventies, and Mrs. Dow was 
 at least ten years older. She made a great 
 secret of her years ; and as she sometimes 
 spoke of events prior to the Revolution with 
 the assertion of having been an eye-witness, 
 she naturally wore an air of vast antiquity. 
 Her tales were an inexpressible delight to 
 Betsey Lane, who felt younger by twenty 
 years because her friend and comrade was 
 so unconscious of chronological limitations. 
 
 The bushel basket of cranberry beans was 
 within easy reach, and each of the pickers 
 had filled her lap from it again and again. 
 The shed chamber was not an unpleasant 
 place in which to sit at work, with its traces 
 of seed corn hanging from the brown cross- 
 
182 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 
 beams, its spare churns, and dusty loom, and 
 rickety wool-wheels, and a few bits of old 
 furniture. In one far corner was a wide 
 board of dismal use and suggestion, and close 
 beside it an old cradle. There was a bat 
 tered chest of drawers where the keeper of 
 the poor-house kept his garden-seeds, with 
 the withered remains of three seed cucum 
 bers ornamenting the top. Nothing beauti 
 ful could be discovered, nothing interesting, 
 but there was something usable and homely 
 about the place. It was the favorite and un 
 troubled bower of the bean-pickers, to which 
 they might retreat unmolested from the pub 
 lic apartments of this rustic institution. 
 
 Betsey Lane blew away the chaff from her 
 handful of beans. The spring breeze blew 
 the chaff back again, and sifted it over her 
 face and shoulders. She rubbed it out of 
 her eyes impatiently, and happened to notice 
 old Peggy holding her own handful high, as 
 if it were an oblation, and turning her queer, 
 up-tilted head this way and that, to look at 
 the beans sharply, as if she were first cousin 
 to a hen. 
 
 " There, Miss Bond, t is kind of botherin 
 work for you, ain t it ? " Betsey inquired 
 compassionately. 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 183 
 
 " I feel to enjoy it, anything that I can 
 do my own way so," responded Peggy. "I 
 like to do my part. Ain t that old Mis 
 Fales comin up the road? It sounds like 
 her step." 
 
 The others looked, but they were not far- 
 sighted, and for a moment Peggy had the 
 advantage. Mrs. Fales was not a favorite. 
 
 " I hope she ain t comin here to put up 
 this spring. I guess she won t now, it s get- 
 tin so late," said Betsey Lane. " She likes 
 to go roviii soon as the roads is settled." 
 
 " T is Mis Fales ! " said Peggy Bond, lis 
 tening with solemn anxiety. "There, do 
 let s pray her by ! " 
 
 " I guess she s headin for her cousin s 
 folks up Beech Hill way," said Betsey pres 
 ently. " If she d left her daughter s this 
 mornin , she d have got just about as far as 
 this. I kind o wish she had stepped in 
 just to pass the time o day, long s she wa n t 
 going to make no stop." 
 
 There was a silence as to further speech 
 in the shed chamber ; and even the calves 
 were quiet in the barnyard. The men had 
 all gone away to the field where corn-plant 
 ing was going on. The beans clicked steadily 
 into the wooden measure at the pickers feet. 
 
184 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 
 Betsey Lane began to sing a hymn, and the 
 others joined in as best they might, like 
 autumnal crickets ; their voices were sharp 
 and cracked, with now and then a few low 
 notes of plaintive tone. Betsey herself could 
 sing pretty well, but the others could only 
 make a kind of accompaniment. Their 
 voices ceased altogether at the higher notes. 
 
 " Oh my ! I wish I had the means to go 
 to the Centennial," mourned Betsey Lane, 
 stopping so suddenly that the others had to 
 go on croaking and shrilling without her for 
 a moment before they could stop. " It seems 
 to me as if I can t die happy less I do," she 
 added ; " I ain t never seen nothin of the 
 world, an here I be." 
 
 " What if you was as old as I be ? " sug 
 gested Mrs. Dow pompously. " You ve got 
 time enough yet, Betsey ; don t you go an 
 despair. I knowed of a woman that went 
 clean round the world four times when she 
 was past eighty, an enjoyed herself real 
 well. Her folks followed the sea ; she had 
 three sons an a daughter married, all ship 
 masters, and she d been with her own hus 
 band when they was young. She was left a 
 widder early, and fetched up her family her 
 self, a real stirrin , smart woman. After 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 185 
 
 they d got married off, an settled, an was 
 doing well, she come to be lonesome; and 
 first she tried to stick it out alone, but she 
 wa n t one that could ; an she got a notion 
 she had n t nothin before her but her last 
 sickness, and she wa n t a person that en 
 joyed havin other folks do for her. So one 
 on her boys I guess twas the oldest 
 said he was going to take her to sea ; there 
 was ample room, an he was sailin a good 
 time o year for the Cape o Good Hope an 
 way iip to some o them tea-ports in the 
 Chiny Seas. She was all high to go, but it 
 made a sight o talk at her age ; an the 
 minister made it a subject o prayer the last 
 Sunday, and all the folks took a last leave ; 
 but she said to some she d fetch em home 
 something real pritty, and so did. An then 
 they come home t other way, round the 
 Horn, an she done so well, an was such a 
 sight o company, the other child n was 
 jealous, an she promised she d go a v y ge 
 long o each on em. She was as sprightly 
 a person as ever I see ; an could speak well 
 o what she d seen." 
 
 " Did she die to sea ? " asked Peggy, with 
 interest. 
 
 "No, she died to home between v y ges, 
 
186 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 
 or she d gone to sea again. I was to her 
 funeral. She liked her son George s ship 
 the best ; t was the one she was going on to 
 Callao. They said the men aboard all called 
 her gran ma am, an she kep em mended 
 up, an would go below and tend to em if 
 they was sick. She might a been alive an 
 en joy in of herself a good many years but 
 for the kick of a cow ; t was a new cow out 
 of a drove, a dreadful unruly beast." 
 
 Mrs. Dow stopped for breath, and reached 
 down for a new supply of beans ; her empty 
 apron was gray with soft chaff. Betsey 
 Lane, still pondering on the Centennial, be 
 gan to sing another verse of her hymn, and 
 again the old women joined her. At this 
 moment some strangers came driving round 
 into the yard from the front of the house. 
 The turf was soft, and our friends did not 
 hear the horses steps. Their voices cracked 
 and quavered ; it was a funny little con 
 cert, and a lady in an open carriage just be 
 low listened with sympathy and amusement. 
 
 II. 
 
 " Betsey ! Betsey ! Miss Lane ! " a voice 
 called eagerly at the foot of the stairs that 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 187 
 
 led up from the shed. " Betsey ! There s 
 a lady here wants to see you right away." 
 
 Betsey was dazed with excitement, like a 
 country child who knows the rare pleasure 
 of being called out of school. " Lor , I ain t 
 fit to go down, be I? " she faltered, looking 
 anxiously at her friends ; but Peggy was 
 gazing even nearer to the zenith than usual, 
 in her excited effort to see down into the 
 yard, and Mrs. Dow only nodded somewhat 
 jealously, and said that she guessed t was 
 nobody would do her any harm. She rose 
 ponderously, while Betsey hesitated, being, 
 as they would have said, all of a twitter. 
 " It is a lady, certain," Mrs. Dow assured 
 her ; " t ain t often there s a lady comes 
 here." 
 
 " While there was any of Mis Gen ral 
 Thornton s folks left, I wa n t without visits 
 from the gentry," said Betsey Lane, turning 
 back proudly at the head of the stairs, with 
 a touch of old-world pride and sense of high 
 station. Then she disappeared, and closed 
 the door behind her at the stair-foot with a 
 decision quite unwelcome to the friends 
 above. 
 
 " She need n t a been so dreadful fraid 
 anybody was goin to listen. I guess we ve 
 
188 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 
 got folks to ride an see us, or had once, if 
 we hain t now," said Miss Peggy Bond, 
 plaintively. 
 
 " I expect t was only the wind shoved it 
 to," said Aunt Lavina. " Betsey is one that 
 gits flustered easier than some. I wish 
 t was somebody to take her off an give her 
 a kind of a good time ; she s young to settle 
 down long of old folks like us. Betsey s 
 got a notion o rovin such as ain t my na- 
 tur , but I should like to see her satisfied. 
 She d been a very understandin person, if 
 she had the advantages that some does." 
 
 " T is so," said Peggy Bond, tilting her 
 chin high. " I suppose you can t hear nothin 
 they re saying? I feel my hearin ain t 
 up to whar it was. I can hear things close 
 to me well as ever ; but there, hearin ain t 
 everything ; t ain t as if we lived where 
 there was more goin on to hear. Seems to 
 me them folks is stoppin a good while." 
 
 " They surely be," agreed Lavina Dow. 
 
 " I expect it s somethin particular. 
 There ain t none of the Thornton folks left, 
 except one o the gran darters, an I ve often 
 heard Betsey remark that she should never 
 see her more, for she lives to London. 
 Strange how folks feels contented in them 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 189 
 
 strayaway places off to the ends of the 
 airth." 
 
 The flies and bees were buzzing against 
 the hot window-panes ; the handf uls of beans 
 were clicking into the brown wooden mea 
 sure. A bird came and perched on the win 
 dow-sill, and then flitted away toward the 
 blue sky. Below, in the yard, Betsey Lane 
 stood talking with the lady. She had put 
 her blue drilling apron over her head, and 
 her face was shining with delight. 
 
 " Lor , dear," she said, for at least the 
 third time, " I remember ye when I first see 
 ye ; an awful pritty baby you was, an they 
 all said you looked just like the old gen ral. 
 Be you goin back to foreign parts right 
 away? " 
 
 " Yes, I m going back ; you know that 
 all my children are there. I wish I could 
 take you with me for a visit," said the 
 charming young guest. " I m going to 
 carry over some of the pictures and furni 
 ture from the old house ; I did n t care half 
 so much for them when I was younger as I 
 do now. Perhaps next summer we shall all 
 come over for a while. I should like to see 
 my girls and boys playing under the pines." 
 
 " I wish you re lly was livin to the old 
 
190 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 
 place," said Betsey Lane. Her imagination 
 was not swift; she needed time to think 
 over all that was being told her, and she 
 could not fancy the two strange houses 
 across the sea. The old Thornton house 
 was to her mind the most delightful and 
 elegant in the world. 
 
 " Is there anything I can do for you ? " 
 asked Mrs. Strafford kindly, " anything 
 that I can do for you myself, before I go 
 away ? I shall be writing to you, and send 
 ing some pictures of the children, and you 
 must let me know how you are getting on." 
 
 " Yes, there is one thing, darlin . If you 
 could stop in the village an pick me out a 
 pritty, little, small lookin -glass, that I can 
 keep for my own an have to remember you 
 by. T ain t that I want to set me above the 
 rest o the folks, but I was always used to 
 havin my own when I was to your grandma s. 
 There s very nice folks here, some on em, 
 and I m better off than if I was able to 
 keep house ; but seiice you ask me, that s 
 the only thing I feel cropin about. What 
 be you goin right back for ? ain t you goin 
 to see the great fair to Pheladelphy, that 
 everybody talks about ? " 
 
 "No," said Mrs. Strafford, laughing at 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 191 
 
 this eager and almost convicting question. 
 " No ; I m going back next week. If I 
 were, I believe that I should take you with 
 me. Good-by, dear old Betsey ; you make 
 me feel as if I were a little girl again ; you 
 look just the same." 
 
 For full five minutes the old woman stood 
 out in the sunshine, dazed with delight, and 
 majestic with a sense of her own conse 
 quence. She held something tight in her 
 hand, without thinking what it might be ; 
 but just as the friendly mistress of the poor- 
 farm came out to hear the news, she tucked 
 the roll of money into the bosom of her 
 brown gingham dress. " T was my dear 
 Mis Katy Strafford," she turned to say 
 proudly. " She come way over from Lon 
 don ; she s been sick ; they thought the voy 
 age would do her good. She said most the 
 first thing she had on her mind was to come 
 an find me, and see how I was, an if I was 
 comfortable ; an now she s goin right back. 
 She s got two splendid houses ; an said 
 how she wished I was there to look after 
 things, she remembered I was always her 
 graii ma s right hand. Oh, it does so carry 
 me back, to see her ! Seems if all the rest 
 on em must be there together to the old 
 
192 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 
 house. There, I must go right up an tell 
 Mis Dow an Peggy." 
 
 " Dinner s all ready ; I was just goin to 
 blow the horn for the men-folks," said the 
 keeper s wife. " They 11 be right down. I 
 expect you ve got along smart with them 
 beans, all three of you together ; " but 
 Betsey s mind roved so high and so far at 
 that moment that no achievements of bean- 
 picking could lure it back. 
 
 III. 
 
 The long table in the great kitchen soon 
 gathered its company of waifs and strays, 
 creatures of improvidence and misfortune, 
 and the irreparable victims of old age. The 
 dinner was satisfactory, and there was not 
 much delay for conversation. Peggy Bond 
 and Mrs. Dow and Betsey Lane always sat 
 together at one end, with an air of putting 
 the rest of the company below the salt. 
 Betsey was still flushed with excitement ; in 
 fact, she could not eat as much as usual, and 
 she looked up from time to time expectantly, 
 as if she were likely to be asked to speak of 
 her guest ; but everybody was hungry, and 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 193 
 
 even Mrs. Dow broke in upon some attempted 
 confidences by asking inopportunely for a 
 second potato. There were nearly twenty 
 at the table, counting the keeper and his 
 wife and two children, noisy little persons 
 who had come from school with the small 
 flock belonging to the poor widow, who sat 
 just opposite our friends. She finished her 
 dinner before any one else, and pushed her 
 chair back ; she always helped with the 
 housework, a thin, sorry, bad-tempered- 
 looking poor soul, whom grief had sharpened 
 instead of softening. " I expect you feel too 
 fine to set with common folks," she said en 
 viously to Betsey. 
 
 " Here I be a-settm ," responded Betsey 
 calmly. " I don know s I behave more un- 
 becomin than usual." Betsey prided her 
 self upon her good and proper manners ; but 
 the rest of the company, who would have 
 liked to hear the bit of morning news, were 
 now defrauded of that pleasure. The wrong 
 note had been struck; there was a silence 
 after the clatter of knives and plates, and one 
 by one the cheerful town charges disappeared. 
 The bean-picking had been finished, and 
 there was a call for any of the women who 
 felt like planting corn ; so Peggy Bond, who 
 
194 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 
 could follow the line of lulls pretty fairly, 
 and Betsey herself, who was still equal to 
 anybody at that work, and Mrs. Dow, all 
 went out to the field together. Aunt La- 
 vina labored slowly up the yard, carrying a 
 light splint-bottomed kitchen chair and her 
 knitting-work, and sat near the stone wall 
 on a gentle rise, where she could see the pond 
 and the green country, and exchange a word 
 with her friends as they came and went up 
 and down the rows. Betsey vouchsafed a 
 word now and then about Mrs. Stratford, but 
 you would have thought that she had been 
 suddenly elevated to Mrs. Stratford s own 
 cares and the responsibilities attending them, 
 and had little in common with her old as 
 sociates. Mrs. Dow and Peggy knew well 
 that these high-feeling times never lasted 
 long, and so they waited with as much pa 
 tience as they could muster. They were by 
 no means without that true tact which is 
 only another word for unselfish sympathy. 
 
 The strip of corn land ran along the side 
 of a great field ; at the upper end of it was 
 a field-corner thicket of young maples and 
 walnut saplings, the children of a great nut- 
 tree that marked the boundary. Once, when 
 Betsey Lane found herself alone near this 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 195 
 
 shelter at the end of her row, the other plant 
 ers having lagged behind beyond the rising 
 ground, she looked stealthily about, and then 
 put her hand inside her gown, and for the 
 first time took out the money that Mrs. 
 Strafford had given her. She turned it over 
 and over with an astonished look: there 
 were new bank-bills for a hundred dollars. 
 Betsey gave a funny little shrug of her 
 shoulders, came out of the bushes, and took 
 a step or two on the narrow edge of turf, 
 as if she were going to dance ; then she has 
 tily tucked away her treasure, and stepped 
 discreetly down into the soft harrowed and 
 hoed land, and began to drop corn again, 
 five kernels to a hill. She had seen the top 
 of Peggy Bond s head over the knoll, and 
 now Peggy herself came entirely into view, 
 gazing upward to the skies, and stumbling 
 more or less, but counting the corn by touch 
 and twisting her head about anxiously to 
 gain advantage over her uncertain vision. 
 Betsey made a friendly, inarticulate little 
 sound as they passed ; she was thinking that 
 somebody said once that Peggy s eyesight 
 might be remedied if she could go to Boston 
 to the hospital ; but that was so remote and 
 impossible an undertaking that no one had 
 
196 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 
 ever taken the first step. Betsey Lane s 
 brown old face suddenly worked with excite 
 ment, but in a moment more she regained 
 her usual firm expression, and spoke care 
 lessly to Peggy as she turned and came 
 alongside. 
 
 The high spring wind of the morning had 
 quite fallen ; it was a lovely May afternoon. 
 The woods about the field to the northward 
 were full of birds, and the young leaves 
 scarcely hid the solemn shapes of a company 
 of crows that patiently attended the corn- 
 planting. Two of the men had finished 
 their hoeing, and were busy with the con 
 struction of a scarecrow ; they knelt in the 
 furrows, chuckling, and looking over some 
 forlorn, discarded garments. It was a time- 
 honored custom to make the scarecrow re 
 semble one of the poor-house family ; and 
 this year they intended to have Mrs. Lavina 
 Dow protect the field in effigy ; last year it 
 was the counterfeit of Betsey Lane who stood 
 on guard, with an easily recognized quilted 
 hood and the remains of a valued shawl 
 that one of the calves had found airing on 
 a fence and chewed to pieces. Behind the 
 men was the foundation for this rustic at 
 tempt at statuary, an upright stake and 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 197 
 
 bar iii the form of a cross. This stood on 
 the highest part of the field; and as the 
 men knelt near it, and the quaint figures of 
 the corn-planters went and came, the scene 
 gave a curious suggestion of foreign life. 
 It was not like New England ; the presence 
 of the rude cross appealed strangely to the 
 imagination. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Life flowed so smoothly, for the most part, 
 at the Byfleet Poor-farm, that nobody knew 
 what to make, later in the summer, of a 
 strange disappearance. All the elder in 
 mates were familiar with illness and death, 
 and the poor pomp of a town-pauper s fu 
 neral. The comings and goings and the 
 various misfortunes of those who composed 
 this strange family, related only through its 
 disasters, hardly served for the excitement 
 and talk of a single day. Now that the 
 June days were at their longest, the old 
 people were sure to wake earlier than ever ; 
 but one morning, to the astonishment of 
 every one, Betsey Lane s bed was empty; 
 the sheets and blankets, which were her own, 
 and guarded with jealous care, were care- 
 
198 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 
 fully folded and placed on a chair not too 
 near the window, and Betsey had flown. 
 Nobody had heard her go down the creaking 
 stairs. The kitchen door was unlocked, 
 and the old watch-dog lay on the step out 
 side in the early sunshine, wagging his tail 
 and looking wise, as if he were left on guard 
 and meant to keep the fugitive s secret. 
 
 "Never knowed her to do nothin afore 
 thout talking it over a fortnight, and pa- 
 radin off when we could all see her," ven 
 tured a spiteful voice. " Guess we can wait 
 till night to hear bout it." 
 
 Mrs. Dow looked sorrowful and shook her 
 head. " Betsey had an aunt on her mother s 
 side that went and drownded of herself ; 
 she was a pritty-appearing woman as ever 
 you see." 
 
 " Perhaps she s gone to spend the day 
 with Decker s folks," suggested Peggy Bond. 
 " She always takes an extra early start ; she 
 was speakin lately o going up their way ; " 
 but Mrs. Dow shook her head with a most 
 melancholy look. " I m impressed that 
 something s befell her," she insisted. " I 
 heard her a-groanin in her sleep. I was 
 wakeful the forepart o the night, t is very 
 unusual with me, too." 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 199 
 
 " T wa n t like Betsey not to leave us any 
 word," said the other old friend, with more 
 resentment than melancholy. They sat to 
 gether almost in silence that morning in the 
 shed chamber. Mrs. Dow was sorting and 
 cutting rags, and Peggy braided them into 
 long ropes, to be made into mats at a later 
 date. If they had only known where Betsey 
 Lane had gone, they might have talked about 
 it until dinner - time at noon ; but failing 
 this new subject, they could take no interest 
 in any of their old ones. Out in the field 
 the corn was well up, and the men were hoe 
 ing. It was a hot morning in the shed 
 chamber, and the woolen rags were dusty 
 and hot to handle. 
 
 V. 
 
 Byfleet people knew each other well, and 
 when this mysteriously absent person did 
 not return to the town-farm at the end of 
 a week, public interest became much ex 
 cited ; and presently it was ascertained that 
 Betsey Lane was neither making a visit to 
 her friends the Deckers on Birch Hill, nor 
 to any nearer acquaintances ; in fact, she had 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE, 
 
 disappeared altogether from her wonted 
 haunts. Nobody remembered to have seen 
 her pass, hers had been such an early flitting ; 
 and when somebody thought of her having 
 gone away by train, he was laughed at for 
 forgetting that the earliest morning train 
 from South Byfleet, the nearest station, did 
 not start until long after eight o clock ; and 
 if Betsey had designed to be one of the 
 passengers, she would have started along the 
 road at seven, and been seen and known of 
 all women. There was not a kitchen in that 
 part of Byfleet that did not have windows 
 toward the road. Conversation rarely left 
 the level of the neighborhood gossip : to see 
 Betsey Lane, in her best clothes, at that hour 
 in the morning, would have been the signal 
 for much exercise of imagination ; but as 
 day after day went by without news, the 
 curiosity of those who knew her best turned 
 slowly into fear, and at last Peggy Bond 
 again gave utterance to the belief that Betsey 
 had either gone out in the early morning 
 and put an end to her life, or that she had 
 gone to the Centennial. Some of the people 
 at table were moved to loud laughter, it 
 was at supper-time on a Sunday night, but 
 others listened with great interest. 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 201 
 
 " She never d put on her good clothes to 
 drownd herself," said the widow. " She 
 might have thought t was good as takin em 
 with her, though. Old folks has wandered 
 off an got lost in the woods afore now." 
 
 Mrs. Dow and Peggy resented this im 
 pertinent remark, but deigned to take no 
 notice of the speaker. " She would n t have 
 wore her best clothes to the Centennial, 
 would she ? " mildly inquired Peggy, bobbing 
 her head toward the ceiling. " T would 
 be a shame to spoil your best things in such 
 a place. An I don t know of her havin 
 any money ; there s the end o that." 
 
 " You re bad as old Mis Bland, that used 
 to live neighbor to our folks," said one of the 
 old men. " She was dreadful precise ; an 
 she so begretched to wear a good alapaca 
 dress that was left to her, that it hung in a 
 press forty year, an baited the moths at 
 last." 
 
 " I often seen Mis Bland a-goiii in to 
 meetin when I was a young girl," said 
 Peggy Bond approvingly. " She was a 
 good-appearin woman, an she left property." 
 
 " Wish she d left it to me, then," said 
 the poor soul opposite, glancing at her pa 
 thetic row of children: but it was not good 
 
202 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 
 manners at the farm to deplore one s situa 
 tion, and Mrs. Dow and Peggy only frowned. 
 " Where do you suppose Betsey can be ? " 
 said Mrs. Dow, for the twentieth time. 
 " She did n t have no money. I know she 
 ain t gone far, if it s so that she s yet alive. 
 She s b en real pinched all the spring." 
 
 " Perhaps that lady that come one day 
 give her some," the keeper s wife suggested 
 mildly. 
 
 " Then Betsey would have told me," said 
 Mrs. Dow, with injured dignity. 
 
 VI. 
 
 On the morning of her disappearance, 
 Betsey rose even before the pewee and the 
 English sparrow, and dressed herself quietly, 
 though with trembling hands, and stole out 
 of the kitchen door like a plunderless thief. 
 The old dog licked her hand and looked at 
 her anxiously ; the tortoise-shell cat rubbed 
 against her best gown, and trotted away up 
 the yard, then she turned anxiously and 
 came after the old woman, following faith 
 fully until she had to be driven back. 
 Betsey was used to long country excursions 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 203 
 
 afoot. She dearly loved the early morn 
 ing ; and finding that there was no dew 
 to trouble her, she began to follow pasture 
 paths and short cuts across the fields, sur 
 prising here and there a flock of sleepy 
 sheep, or a startled calf that rustled out from 
 the bushes. The birds were pecking their 
 breakfast from bush and turf ; and hardly 
 any of the wild inhabitants of that rural 
 world were enough alarmed by her presence 
 to do more than flutter away if they chanced 
 to be in her path. She stepped along, light- 
 footed and eager as a girl, dressed in her 
 neat old straw bonnet and black gown, and 
 carrying a few belongings in her best bundle- 
 handkerchief, one that her only brother had 
 brought home from the East Indies fifty 
 years before. There was an old crow perched 
 as sentinel on a small, dead pine-tree, where 
 he could warn friends who were pulling up 
 the sprouted corn in a field close by ; but he 
 only gave a contemptuous caw as the adven 
 turer appeared, and she shook her bundle 
 at him in revenge, and laughed to see him so 
 clumsy as he tried to keep his footing on the 
 twigs. 
 
 " Yes, I be," she assured him. " I m 
 a-goin to Pheladelphy, to the Centennial, 
 
204 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 
 same s other folks. I d jest as soon tell 
 ye s not, old crow ; " and Betsey laughed 
 aloud in pleased content with herself and 
 her daring, as she walked along. She had 
 only two miles to go to the station at South 
 Byfleet, and she felt for the money now and 
 then, and found it safe enough. She took 
 great pride in the success of her escape, and 
 especially in the long concealment of her 
 wealth. Not a night had passed since Mrs. 
 Straff ord s visit that she had not slept with 
 the roll of money under her pillow by night, 
 and buttoned safe inside her dress by day. 
 She knew that everybody would offer advice 
 and even commands about the spending or 
 saving of it ; and she brooked no interference. 
 The last mile of the foot-path to South 
 Byfleet was along the railway track ; and 
 Betsey began to feel in haste, though it was 
 still nearly two hours to train time. She 
 looked anxiously forward and back along the 
 rails every few minutes, for fear of being run 
 over ; and at last she caught sight of an 
 engine that was apparently coming toward 
 her, and took flight into the woods before 
 she could gather courage to follow the path 
 again. The freight train proved to be at a 
 standstill, waiting at a turnout ; and some 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 205 
 
 of the men were straying about, eating their 
 early breakfast comfortably in this time of 
 leisure. As the old woman came up to them, 
 she stopped too, for a moment of rest and 
 conversation. 
 
 " Where be ye goin ? " she asked pleas 
 antly; and they told her. It was to the 
 town where she had to change cars and take 
 the great through train ; a point of geography 
 which she had learned from evening talks 
 between the men at the farm. 
 
 " What 11 ye carry me there for ? " 
 
 " We don t run no passenger cars," said 
 one of the young fellows, laughing. " What 
 makes you in such a hurry ? " 
 
 " I m startin for Pheladelphy, an it s a 
 gre t ways to go." 
 
 " So t is ; but you re consid able early, 
 if you re makin for the eight-forty train. 
 See here ! you have n t got a needle an 
 thread long of you in that bundle, have 
 you ? If you 11 sew me on a couple o 5 but 
 tons, I 11 give ye a free ride. I m in a 
 sight o distress, an none o the fellows is 
 provided with as much as a bent pin." 
 
 " You poor boy ! I 11 have you seen to, 
 in half a minute. I m troubled with a stiff 
 arm, but I 11 do the best I can." 
 
206 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 
 The obliging Betsey seated herself stiffly 
 on the slope of the embankment, and found 
 her thread and needle with utmost haste. 
 Two of the train-men stood by and watched 
 the careful stitches, and even offered her a 
 place as spare brakeman, so that they might 
 keep her near ; and Betsey took the offer 
 with considerable seriousness, only thinking 
 it necessary to assure them that she was 
 getting most too old to be out in all weath 
 ers. An express went by like an earth 
 quake, and she was presently hoisted on 
 board an empty box-car by two of her new 
 and flattering acquaintances, and found her 
 self before noon at the end of the first 
 stage of her journey, without having spent 
 a cent, and furnished with any amount of 
 thrifty advice. One of the young men, be 
 ing compassionate of her unprotected state 
 as a traveler, advised her to find out the 
 widow of an uncle of his in Philadelphia, 
 saying despairingly that he could n t tell her 
 just how to find the house ; but Miss Bet 
 sey Lane said that she had an English 
 tongue in her head, and should be sure to 
 find whatever she was looking for. This 
 unexpected incident of the freight train 
 was the reason why everybody about the 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 207 
 
 South Byfleet station insisted that no such 
 person had taken passage by the regular 
 train that same morning, and why there 
 were those who persuaded themselves that 
 Miss Betsey Lane was probably lying at 
 the bottom of the poor-farm pond. 
 
 VII. 
 
 " Land sakes ! " said Miss Betsey Lane, 
 as she watched a Turkish person parading 
 by in his red fez, " I call the Centennial 
 somethin like the day o judgment ! I wish 
 I was goin to stop a month, but I dare say 
 twould be the death o my poor old bones." 
 
 She was leaning against the barrier of a 
 patent pop -corn establishment, which had 
 given her a sudden reminder of home, and 
 of the winter nights when the sharp-kerneled 
 little red and yellow ears were brought out, 
 and Old Uncle Eph Flanders sat by the 
 kitchen stove, and solemnly filled a great 
 wooden chopping - tray for the refreshment 
 of the company. She had wandered and 
 loitered and looked until her eyes and 
 head had grown numb and unreceptive ; but 
 it is only unimaginative persons who can 
 
208 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 
 be really astonished. The imagination can 
 always outrun the possible and actual sights 
 and sounds of the world ; and this plain old 
 body from Byfleet rarely found anything 
 rich and splendid enough to surprise her. 
 She saw the wonders of the West and the 
 splendors of the East with equal calmness 
 and satisfaction ; she had always known 
 that there was an amazing world outside 
 the boundaries of Byfleet. There was a 
 piece of paper in her pocket on which was 
 marked, in her clumsy handwriting, " If 
 Betsey Lane should meet with accident, no 
 tify the selectmen of Byfleet; " but having 
 made this slight provision for the future, 
 she had thrown herself boldly into the sea of 
 strangers, and then had made the joyful 
 discovery that friends were to be found at 
 every turn. 
 
 There was something delightfully com 
 panionable about Betsey ; she had a way of 
 suddenly looking up over her big spectacles 
 with a reassuring and expectant smile, as if 
 you were going to speak to her, and you 
 generally did. She must have found out 
 where hundreds of people came from, and 
 whom they had left at home, and what they 
 thought of the great show, as she sat on a 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 209 
 
 bench to rest, or leaned over the railings 
 where free luncheons were afforded by the 
 makers of hot waffles and molasses candy 
 and fried potatoes ; and there was not a 
 night when she did not return to her lodg 
 ings with a pocket crammed with samples of 
 spool cotton and nobody knows what. She 
 had already collected small presents for al 
 most everybody she knew at home, and she 
 was such a pleasant, beaming old country 
 body, so unmistakably appreciative and inter 
 ested, that nobody ever thought of wishing 
 that she would move on. Nearly all the 
 busy people of the Exhibition called her 
 either Aunty or Grandma at once, and made 
 little pleasures for her as best they could. 
 She was a delightful contrast to the indiffer 
 ent, stupid crowd that drifted along, with 
 eyes fixed at the same level, and seeing, 
 even on that level, nothing for fifty feet at a 
 time. " What be you making here, dear ? " 
 Betsey Lane would ask joyfully, and the 
 most perfunctory guardian hastened to ex 
 plain. She squandered money as she had 
 never had the pleasure of doing before, and 
 this hastened the day when she must return 
 to Byfleet. She was always inquiring if 
 there were any spectacle-sellers at hand, and 
 
210 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 
 received occasional directions ; but it was a 
 difficult place for her to find her way about 
 in, and the very last day of her stay arrived 
 before she found an exhibitor of the desired 
 sort, an oculist and instrument-maker. 
 
 " I called to get some specs for a friend 
 that s upsighted," she gravely informed the 
 salesman, to his extreme amusement. " She s 
 dreadful troubled, and jerks her head up 
 like a hen a-drinkin . She s got a blur 
 a-growin an spreadin , an sometimes she 
 can see out to one side on t, and more times 
 she can t." 
 
 " Cataracts," said a middle-aged gentle 
 man at her side ; and Betsey Lane turned 
 to regard him with approval and curiosity. 
 
 " T is Miss Peggy Bond I was mention 
 ing, of Byfleet Poor-farm," she explained. 
 " I count on gettin some glasses to relieve 
 her trouble, if there s any to be found." 
 
 " Glasses won t do her any good," said 
 the stranger. " Suppose you come and sit 
 down on this bench, and tell me all about it. 
 First, where is Byfleet ? " and Betsey gave 
 the directions at length. 
 
 " I thought so," said the surgeon. " How 
 old is this friend of yours ? " 
 
 Betsey cleared her throat decisively, and 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 211 
 
 smoothed her gown over her knees as if it 
 were an apron ; then she turned to take a 
 good look at her new acquaintance as they 
 sat on the rustic bench together. " Who be 
 you, sir, I should like to know ? " she asked, 
 in a friendly tone. 
 
 " My name s Dunster." 
 
 " I take it you re a doctor," continued 
 Betsey, as if they had overtaken each other 
 walking from Byfleet to South Byfleet on a 
 summer morning. 
 
 " I m a doctor ; part of one at least," 
 said he. " I know more or less about eyes ; 
 and I spend my summers down on the shore 
 at the mouth of your river ; some day I 11 
 come up and look at this person. How old 
 is she?" 
 
 " Peggy Bond is one that never tells her 
 age ; t ain t come quite up to where she 11 
 begin to brag of it, you see," explained 
 Betsey reluctantly ; " but I know her to 
 be nigh to seventy-six, one way or t other. 
 Her an Mrs. Mary Ann Chick was same 
 year s child n, and Peggy knows I know it, 
 an two or three times when we ve be n in 
 the buryin - ground where Mary Ann lays 
 an has her dates right on her headstone, 
 I could n t bring Peggy to take no sort o 
 
212 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 
 notice. I will say she makes, at times, a 
 convenience of being upsighted. But there, 
 I feel for her, everybody does ; it keeps 
 her stubbin an trippin against everything, 
 beakin and gazin up the way she has to." 
 
 " Yes, yes," said the doctor, whose eyes 
 were twinkling. " I 11 come and look after 
 her, with your town doctor, this summer, 
 some time in the last of July or first of Au 
 gust." 
 
 " You 11 find occupation," said Betsey, not 
 without an air of patronage. " Most of us 
 to the Byfleet Farm has got our ails, now I 
 tell ye. You ain t got no bitters that 11 
 take a dozen years right off an ol lady s 
 shoulders?" 
 
 The busy man smiled pleasantly, and 
 shook Ms head as he went away. " Dun- 
 ster," said Betsey to herself, soberly com 
 mitting the new name to her sound memory. 
 " Yes, I must n t forget to speak of him to 
 the doctor, as he directed. I do know now 
 as Peggy would vally herself quite so much 
 accordin to, if she had her eyes fixed same 
 as other folks. I expect there would n t 
 been a smarter woman in town, though, if 
 she d had a proper chance. Now I ve done 
 what I set to do for her, I do believe, an 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 213 
 
 t wa n t glasses, neither. I 11 git her a 
 pritty little shawl with that money I laid 
 aside. Peggy Bond ain t got a pritty shawl. 
 I always wanted to have a real good time, 
 an now I m havin it." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Two or three days later, two pathetic fig 
 ures might have been seen crossing the 
 slopes of the poor-farm field, toward the low 
 shores of Byfield pond. It was early in the 
 morning, and the stubble of the lately mown 
 grass was wet with rain and hindering to 
 old feet. Peggy Bond was more blundering 
 and liable to stray in the wrong direction 
 than usual ; it was one of the days when she 
 could hardly see at all. Aunt Lavina Dow 
 was unusually clumsy of movement, and 
 stiff in the joints ; she had not been so far 
 from the house for three years. The morn 
 ing breeze filled the gathers of her wide 
 gingham skirt, and aggravated the size of 
 her unwieldy figure. She supported herself 
 with a stick, and trusted beside to the 
 fragile support of Peggy s arm. They were 
 talking together in whispers. 
 
214 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 
 "Oh, my sakes ! " exclaimed Peggy, mov 
 ing her small head from side to side. " Hear 
 you wheeze, Mis Dow ! This may be the 
 death o you ; there, do go slow ! You set 
 here on the side-hill, an le me go try if I 
 can see." 
 
 " It needs more eyesight than you ve 
 got," said Mrs. Dow, panting between the 
 words. " Oil ! to think how spry I was in 
 my young days, an here I be now, the full 
 of a door, an all my complaints so aggra 
 vated by my size. T is hard ! t is hard ! 
 but I m a-doin of all this for pore Betsey s 
 sake. I know they ve all laughed, but I 
 look to see her ris to the top o the pond 
 this day, t is just nine days since she 
 departed; an say what they may, I know 
 she hove herself in. It run in her family ; 
 Betsey had an aunt that done just so, an 
 she ain t be n like herself, a-broodin an 
 hivin away alone, an nothin to say to you 
 an me that was always sich good company 
 all together. Some thin sprung her mind, 
 now I tell ye, Mis Bond." 
 
 " I feel to hope we sha n t find her, I 
 must say," faltered Peggy. It was plain 
 that Mrs. Dow was the captain of this dole 
 ful expedition. " I guess she ain t never 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 215 
 
 thought o drowndin of herself, Mis Dow ; 
 she s gone off a-visitin way over to the 
 other side o South Byfleet; some thinks 
 she s gone to the Centennial even now ! " 
 
 " She had n t no proper means, I tell ye," 
 wheezed Mrs. Dow indignantly ; " an if 
 you prefer that others should find her 
 floatin to the top this day, instid of us 
 that s her best friends, you can step back 
 to the house." 
 
 They walked on in aggrieved silence. 
 Peggy Bond trembled with excitement, but 
 her companion s firm grasp never wavered, 
 and so they came to the narrow, gravelly 
 margin and stood still. Peggy tried in vain 
 to see the glittering water and the pond- 
 lilies that starred it ; she knew that they 
 must be there ; once, years ago, she had 
 caught fleeting glimpses of them, and she 
 never forgot what she had once seen. The 
 clear blue sky overhead, the dark pine-woods 
 beyond the pond, were all clearly pictured in 
 her mind. " Can t you see nothin ? " she 
 faltered ; " I believe I m wuss n upsighted 
 this day. I m going to be blind." 
 
 " No," said Lavina Dow solemnly ; " no, 
 there ain t nothin whatever, Peggy. I hope 
 to mercy she ain t " 
 
216 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 
 " Why, whoever d expected to find you 
 way out here ! " exclaimed a brisk and 
 cheerful voice. There stood Betsey Lane 
 herself, close behind them, having just 
 emerged from a thicket of alders that grew 
 close by. She was following the short way 
 homeward from the railroad. 
 
 "Why, what s the matter, Mis Dow? 
 You ain t overdoin , be ye ? an Peggy s all 
 of a flutter. What in the name o natur 
 ails ye ? " 
 
 "There ain t nothin the matter, as I 
 knows on," responded the leader of this 
 fruitless expedition. " We only thought 
 we d take a stroll this pleasant mornin ," 
 she added, with sublime self-possession. 
 " Where ve you be n, Betsey Lane ? " 
 
 " To Pheladelphy, ma am," said Betsey, 
 looking quite young and gay, and wearing 
 a townish and unfamiliar air that upheld 
 her words. " All ought to go that can ; 
 why, you feel s if you d be n all round the 
 world. I guess I ve got enough to think of 
 and tell ye for the rest o my days. I ve 
 always wanted to go somewheres. I wish 
 you d be n there, I do so. I ve talked 
 with folks from Chiny an the back o Penn- 
 sylvany ; and I see folks way from Australy 
 
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 217 
 
 that peared as well as anybody ; an I see how 
 they made spool cotton, an sights o other 
 things ; an I spoke with a doctor that lives 
 down to the beach in the summer, an he 
 offered to come up long in the first of 
 August, an see what he can do for Peggy s 
 eyesight. There was di monds there as big 
 as pigeon s eggs ; an I met with Mis Abby 
 Fletcher from South Byfleet depot; an 
 there was hogs there that weighed risin 
 thirteen hunderd " 
 
 " I want to know," said Mrs. Lavina Dow 
 and Peggy Bond, together. 
 
 " Well, t was a great exper ence for a 
 person," added Lavina, turning ponderously, 
 in spite of herself, to give a last wistful look 
 at the smiling waters of the pond. 
 
 " I don t know how soon I be goin to 
 settle clown," proclaimed the rustic sister of 
 Sindbad. " What s for the good o one s 
 for the good of all. You just wait till we re 
 setting together up in the old shed chamber ! 
 You know, my dear Mis Katy Strafford 
 give me a han some present o money that 
 day she come to see me ; and I d be n 
 a-dreamin by night an day o seein that 
 Centennial ; and when I come to think on t 
 I felt sure somebody ought to go from this 
 
218 THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE. 
 
 neighborhood, if t was only for the good 
 o the rest ; and I thought I d better be the 
 one. I wa n t goin to ask the selec meii 
 neither. I ve come back with one-thirty- 
 five in money, and I see everything there, 
 an I fetched ye all a little somethin ; but 
 I m full o dust now, an pretty nigh beat 
 out. I never see a place more friendly 
 than Pheladelphy; but t ain t natural to 
 a Byfleet person to be always walkin on a 
 level. There, now, Peggy, you take my 
 bundle-handkercher and the basket, and let 
 Mis Dow sag on to me. I 11 git her along 
 twice as easy." 
 
 With this the small elderly company set 
 forth triumphant toward the poor-house, 
 across the wide green field. 
 
BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 
 
 MASS was over ; the noonday sun was so 
 bright at the church door that, instead of 
 waiting there in a sober expectant group, 
 three middle-aged men of the parish went a 
 few steps westward to stand in the shade of 
 a great maple-tree. There they stood watch 
 ing the people go by the small boys and 
 the chattering girls. Now and then one of 
 the older men or women said a few words 
 in Irish to Dennis Call or John Mulligan 
 by way of friendly salutation. They were a 
 contented, pleasant-looking flock, these pa 
 rishioners of St. Anne s ; they might have 
 lost the gayety that they would have kept 
 in the old country, but a look of good cheer 
 had not forsaken them, though many a figure 
 showed the thinness that comes from steady, 
 hard work, and almost every face had the 
 deep lines that are worn only by anxiety. 
 The pretty girls looked as their mothers had 
 looked before them, only they were not so 
 
220 BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 
 
 fair and fresh-colored, having been brought 
 up less wholesomely and too much indoors. 
 
 " That s a nice gerrl o Mary Finnerty s," 
 said Dennis Call, gravely, to his mates, fol 
 lowing the charming young creature with 
 approving eyes. 
 
 " Deed, then, you re right, Dinny," 
 agreed little Pat Finn, a queer old figure 
 of a shoemaker, who was bent nearly double 
 between the effects of his stooping trade and 
 a natural warp in his bones. " There don t 
 be so pritty a little gerrl as Katy Finnerty 
 walk into church, so there don t ! I like her 
 meself; she s got the cut o the gerrls in 
 Tralee the prittiest gerrls is in it that s 
 in the whole of Ireland." 
 
 " Coom now, then ! you do always be 
 bragging for Tralee ; there s enough other 
 places as good as it," scoffed Dennis. " Any 
 body that ain t a Bantry man can tark as 
 they like, they 11 have to put up wid second- 
 best whin all s said an done." 
 
 " Whisht now ! " said John Mulligan, put 
 ting his hand to his forehead and bobbing 
 his head respectfully at Father Ryan, the old 
 priest, who had just come hurrying from the 
 vestry door along a precarious footway of 
 single boards left there since the days of 
 spring mud. 
 
BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 221 
 
 " I hope you re feeling fine the day, sir ? " 
 said little Pat Finn, looking up with friend 
 liness and pride at the tall old man. 
 " We re getting good weather now, thank 
 God, sir." 
 
 " We are that, Patrick Finn. God bless 
 you, boys ! " And Father Ryan went past 
 them down the street to his house, while they 
 all watched him without speaking until he 
 had turned in at the gate with a flutter of 
 his long coat-tails in the spring wind. 
 
 " Faix, I wisht we all had the sharp teeth 
 for our dinners that his riverence has now," 
 laughed Dennis. " I 11 be bound he s keen 
 for it, honest man. Twas to early mass 
 over to White Mills he was, lavin by break 
 o day, an just comin back an they sent to 
 him for poor Mary Sullivan that s to be 
 waked this night, God rest her ; and he not 
 home from the corp house an Mary just 
 dead, but two women come screechin for him 
 to hurry, there was a shild to be christened 
 waitin in the church; twas one o Jerry 
 Hann an s wife s, that whit into black fits an 
 it being two hours born. Then it was high 
 mass he had. I saw him myself puttin a 
 hand to his head an humpin wit his shoul 
 ders, an he before the alther. T is a great 
 
222 BETWEEN MASS AND VESPEES. 
 
 dale o worruk, so it is, for a man the age o 
 Father Ryan, may God help him ! " 
 
 " I d think the Bishop ould give him some 
 aid now. They could sind some young mis- 
 sioner for a while to White Mills. T is out 
 of our own rights we do be, an he to White 
 Mills, day an 7 night wit them French, an 
 one of us took hurt or dyin . T is too far 
 to White Mills intirely," protested John 
 Mulligan. 
 
 " Well, b ys, the road s clear for us now, 
 an I 11 say that I ve got the match to Father 
 Ryan s hunger in me own inside, t is thrue 
 for me. Coom, Pat, now, there s no more 
 gerrls ! Get a move on you now, John, the 
 fince is tired from ye ! " And being thus 
 suitably urged Dennis s companions started 
 on their way. Dennis himself was a sturdy, 
 middle-aged man, a teamster for the manu 
 facturing company that had long ago gath 
 ered these Irish people into the staid and 
 prosperous New England village. They had 
 made a neighborhood by themselves, and 
 were just now alarmed in their turn and dis 
 turbed by the presence of a few French 
 Canadians, so thoroughly did they feel at 
 home and believe in their rights to an 
 adopted country. They meant to stay, at 
 
BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 223 
 
 any rate, and jealously suspected their lively 
 neighbors of only a temporary appropriation 
 of citizenship that would take more than 
 it gave. Dennis Call would have been a 
 prosperous man and good citizen anywhere, 
 with his soberness and thrift and decent no 
 tions; he was much respected by his fellow- 
 townsfolk. 
 
 " Coom, now ! " exclaimed Pat Finn, try 
 ing to keep step with his tall companions, 
 " Leg over leg, as the dog wint to Dover, 
 he added cheerfully. " I might have been 
 coaxing a ride home wit Braley s folks, they 
 had the one sate saved in the wagon, but I 
 was idlin me time away wit the likes of 
 you; a taste of tark is always the ruin of 
 me." 
 
 " Good-day to ye, Pat," the others called 
 after him as he crossed over to go down a 
 side-street ; but the droll, stooping figure did 
 not turn again, and Mulligan and Dennis 
 went on in the peaceful company. Dennis 
 Was a step ahead of his friend. You rarely 
 see the old-fashioned Irish folk walk side by 
 side ; perhaps they keep a dim remembrance 
 of footpaths over the open fields and moors. 
 There is less of the formal, military sense 
 than belongs to most Europeans, and a con- 
 
224 BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 
 
 stant suggestion of the flock rather than the 
 platoon. 
 
 At this moment two women who had lin 
 gered in the church overtook our friends and 
 gave them a cordial greeting. One was the 
 niece of Dennis Call, and almost as old as he. 
 They lived at opposite ends of the town, and 
 she stopped to ask him some questions about 
 his family, while the other two, after hesi 
 tating a moment, went their way together. 
 Sunday is the great social occasion for wo 
 men who are hardly out of their houses all 
 the rest of the week, and Dennis eagerly be 
 sought the favor of a visit. " Run home wit 
 me now for a bite of dinner," lie urged. 
 " T will be pot-luck, but the folks 11 give you 
 a grand welcome, and some of the children 
 will be coming to vespers." 
 
 " Yirra now, I can t then, Dinny," the 
 niece insisted, but her face shone with grati 
 fication, and they both knew that she was 
 ready to accept. 
 
 " Oh, be friendly now an come an see the 
 folks," Dennis continued. " The poor wo 
 man was in all the week wit a bad wakeness 
 that troubles her very bad, t is the stomach- 
 bone falls down, they all says, but the docther 
 has it that she s only wantin a bit of strength 
 
BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 225 
 
 wit the spring weather an all. T is a dale 
 o work she has all the time, but the little 
 gerrls begins to help iligant now, an twill 
 soon be aisy ; they grow very fast. Little 
 Mag is getting a foine dinner the day. 
 Coom, Mary!" 
 
 Mary gave a sigh of compassion for the 
 hard-worked mother, whose tiredness she 
 well comprehended. "You re lucky then, 
 Dinnis, and herself is lucky, the two of you 
 bein together and you gettin steady work 
 the year through. 1 know well herself gets 
 a bit of the pain in her, we all gets it, faix ! 
 I knows well what it is. T is our folks has 
 hard times, wid my man dead this sivin years 
 gone an the old oman always in her bed, 
 an I havin to tind poor Johnny an herself 
 like two babies. Wisha, wisha ! I was n t 
 to mass to-day is four Sundays gone since 
 I heard mass before. Well now, see ! I m 
 goin wid you like a little lost dog. I m 
 glad of a treat but I 11 help little Mag wid 
 the dinner, so I will, t is a task for the 
 shild." 
 
 A lovely readiness to help shone in Mary 
 O Donnell s homely face. She looked poor 
 and anxious ; her bonnet, with its brown and 
 white plaided ribbon and ancient shape, 
 
226 BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 
 
 looked as if it might have been ten years in 
 wear. She had worn her poor mourning 
 threadbare and returned to this headgear of 
 an earlier and more prosperous time. She 
 had been full of hope and cheerfulness when 
 she bought the queer old brown bonnet, but 
 a blessed light of hope and kindliness still 
 shone in her eyes. 
 
 As they went along, busy with their 
 homely talk, some one lifted a window near 
 them and called " Dennis, Dennis ! " in a 
 tone of mild authority. 
 
 " T is his riverence wants you ! " ex 
 claimed Mrs. O Donnell, flushing with excite 
 ment and pleasure. " I 11 be going on slow ; 
 do you take your time. Run now, Dinny ! " 
 
 " I 11 be there, sir," said Dennis, already 
 inside the gate, and by the time he reached 
 the steps, Father Ryan opened the door. 
 " Step in," he said ; " I must have a word 
 with you. Who s that with you ? " 
 
 " Mary O Donnell, she that s brother s- 
 daughter to me, sir ; t ain t often we gets 
 the bit of tark. She s goin home to dinner 
 with the folks, herself s at home the day, 
 sir, she s not well." 
 
 " I 11 stop an see her one day soon. I 
 missed her at mass. Your wife s a good 
 woman, Dennis." 
 
BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 227 
 
 " An Mary O Donnell, too, has done fine 
 she was af ther bein left very poor, t is your 
 self knows it well, an has been very kind, 
 sir. She had but the two hands of her for 
 depindence, but we all did what we could." 
 Dennis had blushed at the priest s good words 
 about his wife as if he himself had been 
 praised. " I thank God I m prospered wit 
 good health, sir." 
 
 The old priest stood still in the narrow 
 entry looking at Dennis Call as if he were 
 riot listening and were lost in his own 
 thoughts. Dennis stood with hat in hand ; 
 the moment was strangely embarrassing. 
 Father Ryan s strong-featured, good-humored 
 face looked drawn and bluish as if he were 
 really suffering from hunger and fatigue and 
 some unforeseen perplexity beside. There 
 was a cheerful insistent clatter of plates in 
 the little dining-room beyond, and a comfort 
 ing odor of roast-beef. Dennis felt more 
 puzzled every moment, but he unconsciously 
 smacked his lips in spite of uncertainties as 
 to what the priest wanted. 
 
 " My heart s sick, Dennis," said his rev 
 erence, and a sudden flicker of light shone 
 in his eyes. 
 
 Dennis shifted his weight to the other foot 
 
228 BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 
 
 and passed his hat from right hand to left. 
 "What s the matter, then, sir?" he asked 
 anxiously. " Did anybody break the church 
 window again I do know? " He felt a little 
 impatient; Mary O Donnell would be far 
 down the street, and the priest s good dinner 
 made a man unbearably hungry. Still 
 Father Ryan was frowning and planning 
 without saying a word, and it made an hon 
 est man feel like a thief. 
 
 " Dennis, will you take a bit of dinner 
 with me now and run afterward to Fletcher s 
 place and get the best horse that s in, all in 
 fifteen minutes time ? And say we re going 
 on an errand of mercy if anybody puts a 
 question. They 11 think it s for the sick 
 while it s for the well, God save us," said 
 the old man. 
 
 "I ll do that, sir," said Dennis. 
 
 " Let s to dinner then," said Father Ryan. 
 " I suppose good Mary O Donnell s out of 
 sound of your voice." 
 
 Dennis opened the door hastily, it was a 
 relief to do something, and gave a loud call 
 to Mary, who was still loitering not so very 
 far away. " I 11 not be home to my dinner," 
 said he. " Do you go on then and tell the 
 folks." So Mary, in happy amaze, went her 
 
BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 229 
 
 ways to carry the pleasing news that Dennis 
 was kept to his dinner with the priest. 
 
 Father Ryan was already in the dining- 
 room ; the roast-beef was smoking on the ta 
 ble, there were onions and potatoes, and even 
 cranberry-sauce from some secret repository 
 of the housekeeper, who was not unmindful 
 of the priest s long morning of hard service. 
 Mrs. Dillon was setting another plate op 
 posite Father Ryan s own. Dennis forgot 
 that he was clinging to his Sunday hat, but 
 when they had blessed themselves, and din 
 ner was fairly begun, and the hat pushed 
 under the table, the guest felt that he could 
 hold his own again, and ventured a sociable 
 remark. Dennis was as quick as he could 
 be, but the priest finished his beef first, and 
 impatiently waved back a noble Sunday pud 
 ding which Mrs. Dillon was proudly bringing 
 in at the door. " Run for the mare now, if 
 you ve had enough," said he, and Dennis 
 gave a lingering glance at the pudding and 
 departed. 
 
 u Lord be good to us, but he s in the 
 hurry ! " he grumbled, as he went at a jog 
 trot down the street. It was not yet one 
 o clock and a lovely May afternoon. The 
 season was early, and the maples in full leaf ; 
 
230 BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 
 
 the prospect of a drive out into the country, 
 with a light buggy, and possibly Fletcher s 
 best mare, delighted Dennis Call as if he 
 were a schoolboy. He marched into the 
 stable yard with most important manners, 
 and said, in the hearing of a group of stay- 
 at-home loungers, that Father Ryan called 
 for the best team and was in great haste. 
 
 "What s up, Dennis, a christening?" in 
 quired an amiable idler ; but Dennis plunged 
 his hands deep into his pockets and calmly 
 turned away, and looked up at the blue sky 
 with an air of assurance, exactly as if he 
 were not wishing that he knew, himself. Pre 
 sently he stepped into the light carriage with 
 the air of a lord, and whirled out of the yard. 
 
 "Which way now, sir?" he asked the 
 priest, who was already waiting at his gate, 
 but Father Ryan took the reins himself. 
 " I m afraid you might go too slow for 
 me," he said, trying to give Dennis a droll, 
 reassuring look, but he could not hide the 
 provocation, and even grief, that he evidently 
 felt. " I don t forget that you are used to 
 heavy teaming," he added, and they both 
 laughed and felt much more at ease. " I 
 must be back in time for vespers," said his 
 reverence, as they passed the church. 
 
BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 231 
 
 The sorrel mare sped along the road ; her 
 master had kept her in for his own use later 
 that afternoon, and she was only too fresh 
 and ready. For a while they followed the 
 main road toward the next large town, and 
 passed many of their acquaintances, driving 
 or on foot, and Dennis was not without pride 
 at being seen in the priest s company ; but 
 suddenly they turned into a rough, seldom- 
 traveled by-way, that led up among the hills. 
 It seemed as if the errand were to some per 
 son in trouble, but presently they had left 
 behind what appeared to be the last house. 
 This was a strange path to follow, and for 
 what reason had Father Ryan desired a com 
 panion, unless it were necessary in such a 
 steep and almost dangerous ascent ? Once, 
 years before, Dennis had climbed by this 
 deserted road, up to the woodlands of the 
 higher hills ; he had been gunning with some 
 young men, and he remembered the small, 
 lonely farms that they had just passed, and 
 how poor and inhospitable they looked in the 
 winter weather ; in fact, his remembrance of 
 the holiday was not bright in any way, be 
 cause he had gained but a poor day s sport. 
 None of the priest s flock lived in this direc 
 tion, that was one sure thing. 
 
232 BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 
 
 The road seemed to grow steeper and 
 steeper ; the sorrel mare stopped once or 
 twice, discouraged, and looked ahead at the 
 hard climb. There were dark hemlocks and 
 pines on either side, illuminated here and 
 there by the vivid green of young birch sap 
 lings that stood where they caught the sun 
 light. Tlie air was fresh and sweet, there 
 were busy birds fluttering and calling ; the 
 light tread of the mare seemed to disturb 
 the secluded region, as if nothing had passed 
 that way since the coming of the year. 
 
 Father Eyan had not spoken for a long 
 time ; all the cheerfulness had faded from his 
 face. " Dennis ! " said he suddenly, so that 
 the man at his side turned, startled and open- 
 eyed, to look at him. " Dennis, you remem 
 ber that smart young Dan Nolan, Tom No 
 lan s boy, the one that went to the seminary 
 for a while, but left and went West to be a 
 railroad man ? " 
 
 " I does mind Danny Nolan, sir ; they say 
 he s got rich. Him an John Finnerty s 
 gerrl is courtin this long time, the pritty 
 gerrl Katy ; I saw her coming out from mass 
 the day. John Finnerty do be thinking 
 she s got a great match, the b y always says 
 in his letters that he s doing fine." 
 
BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 233 
 
 " May God forgive him ! " said the priest, 
 under his breath. 
 
 " Why, in course I d know him well, sir," 
 Dennis continued eagerly, in his most com 
 municative manner. "Wasn t he brought 
 up next house to my own by the mill yard, 
 until I moved to the better one I m in now, 
 thanks be to God, the other one being dacint 
 to look at, but very damp an the cause of 
 much sickness to every one. Oh, but the 
 fine letters the b y does be writing home, 
 they brings them and reads them to herself 
 an me ; truth is Tom Nolan s put his money 
 into a mine that Danny s knowing to, out 
 where he is, and they ve been at me would 
 n t I come wid em. Every one says there do 
 be a power o money in it. The tark is all 
 right, but for Tom not having got any pa 
 pers ; I d like to see the papers they gives, 
 first ; an I think meself , sir, it s the same 
 with Tom, but he won t let on." 
 
 " My God ! " said the old priest again. 
 
 "An John Finnerty, the little gerrl s 
 f adther, he sint t ree hundred t was all he 
 had laid by you know the wife s a great 
 spinder an Danny Nolan wrote back he d 
 find it t ree thousand this time next year, an 
 herself has been in the street goin to the 
 
234 BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 
 
 shops ivery night since then, as rich-feeling 
 as a conthractor! Katy, the young thing, 
 sint him out her small savings she got in the 
 mill that she was keeping to buy her wedding 
 with. I was against that when they tould 
 me, but she d sint to Dan and he wrote a 
 great letter to sind it along, an he d put it 
 where it would grow. Too many eggs in 
 the one basket, says I. She s awful proud 
 of Dan, and he do be always writin the 
 beautiful letters, sir ; but he does be knowing 
 his fadther works hard all the time, and at 
 Christmas last year divil a cint came home to 
 any one of them. They all says it was too far 
 entirely to be gettin prisents, but they d like 
 to be showing anything they got the lingth 
 of the town. Tell me now, sir, do ye know 
 of anything wrong ? I do be thinkin you ve 
 heard bad news. I could n t tell why " 
 
 Father Ryan touched the horse and gave 
 a queer groan before he spoke. 
 
 " The truth is that Dan Nolan s a swin 
 dler," said he. " Those poor souls 11 never 
 see their money again." 
 
 " Well, something held me back from 
 him, thanks be to God ! " protested Dennis 
 with pride, though he looked shocked and 
 anxious. " I come very near givin him all 
 
BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 235 
 
 I had too. Whin a craze gets amongst 
 folks, one must be doing like all the rest ; 
 ain t it so, sir ? And that Dan was the best 
 scholar in the schools here ; don t you mind 
 the praise he d get from every one, an his 
 fadther was proud as a paycock. I does 
 be thinkin them schools has their faults. If 
 a man dies now an laves a houseful of 
 childher they don t be half so fit to earn their 
 bread as they were in the old times. I m 
 thinkin the old folks was wiser wit the 
 childher, Father Ryan, sir ! " 
 
 " There never was a boy in any parish I 
 had these forty-five years that I took the 
 pains with that I took with him," said Father 
 Ryan slowly. " I paid the most of his bills 
 myself when he went to the seminary. Poor 
 Tom Nolan could n t do it, with his small 
 wages and the sickness and the trouble he 
 used to have. Danny was my altar-boy, 
 a pretty face there was on him, and a laugh 
 ing eye. He always stood to me for a little 
 brother of mine, and looked the very mar 
 row of him when I first saw him, and Tom 
 came to the mills. My little brother was 
 my playmate, we were always together like 
 twin lambs. I can mind myself now, and 
 I running home alone, crying, to tell my 
 
236 BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 
 
 poor mother that we d run away to the 
 rocks, and a great wave came in and licked 
 him off before my very eyes, and I a bit 
 higher up on the shore. I wake up dream 
 ing of him, stiff with the horror and a cold 
 sweat all over me, after a lifetime that s 
 gone between me and that day. I m an 
 old man now, Dennis Call, and my mind s 
 always been in a priest s holy business. 
 But I ve a warm Irish heart in me, and 
 there are times when I d like a brother s 
 young child, or one of my sister s that I 
 left long ago in Kerry, or to see my old 
 mother shake her head and have the laugh 
 at me, and I sitting there in the long win 
 ter evening in my still house. And when 
 that young Danny Nolan gave a smile at 
 me, like the little lad that went under the 
 sea, and never was afraid, or trying to get 
 away from me because I was the priest, I 
 liked him more than I knew. I could n t 
 see then why he should n t make a good 
 man, and I helped him the best I could. 
 I know plenty of harm of him now, God 
 forgive him and bring him to repentance." 
 The old man scowled and looked away. 
 His heart was filled with sorrow. Dennis s 
 ready tongue was checked, but he was grum- 
 
BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 237 
 
 bling to himself about the black heart of 
 Danny Nolan. " I begin to think that sharp 
 wits are the least of all the means by which 
 a man wins true success," said Father Ryan. 
 
 " Everybody thought well of Dan Nolan 
 then, sir." Dennis tried to comfort him ; 
 he had seen Father Ryan angry and stern, 
 but never cast down like this. 
 
 They came to an open, grassy space on a 
 shelf of the great hill. At one side was the 
 cellar where a house had stood long ago ; 
 some roses still grew about it, and there 
 was much of the solemn little cypress plant, 
 so often seen in country burying-grounds, 
 growing about the crumbling foundations 
 and straying off into the grass. There was 
 a smooth, broad doorstep partly overgrown, 
 and a hop-vine was sending up its deter 
 mined shoots near by, where it could find 
 nothing to twine upon. The old doorstep 
 had evidently served as a seat for stray 
 wanderers ; there was a place before it that 
 had been worn by feet, like the beginning 
 of a path. The house had been gone many 
 years, but one might have thought that its 
 ghost was there, and the doorstep was still 
 trodden by those unseen inhabitants who 
 went and came. The priest may have 
 
238 BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 
 
 thought this, but Dennis saw a gun wad 
 lying by the step, and a little bird fluttered 
 away, as if it had been finding a few stray 
 crumbs. 
 
 There was a magnificent view of the wide 
 spread lower country - woods and clearings 
 and bushy pasture-lands stretching miles 
 upon miles, with a river dividing them like 
 a shining ribbon ; and white villages, with 
 their tiny spires and sprinkled houses and 
 heavy dark mills. As you turned the other 
 way you looked up the dark hill-slope. The 
 road appeared to end here by the deserted 
 farmstead, but some winter wood-roads led 
 off in different directions. 
 
 Father Ryan stopped the breathless mare 
 and got down clumsily. " We 11 walk 
 from here, Dennis," he said, and Dennis 
 also alighted. His face was befogged with 
 perplexity. They plunged deep into the 
 woods along one of the half overgrown win 
 ter tracks which led up and over a high 
 shoulder of the great hill. 
 
 " T is like the way to the cave of the 
 foxy oman," said Dennis, half aloud, as a 
 dry twig whipped him in the face, and 
 Father Kyan heard him and laughed. 
 
 " Well, it s wonderful how those old tales 
 
BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 239 
 
 do stay in the mind," lie said cheerfully. 
 "I was working away with a book yester 
 day, a fine hard knot of Latin it was, too, 
 and I got sleepy, and not a bit could I think 
 of but how did the story of the Little 
 Cakeen go that my old granny used to tell 
 me before she d give me a little cakeen her 
 self that she d have hidden in her blue 
 cloak. I d be afraid to eat it, too, after the 
 tale. Well, I think it might be twenty 
 years since I thought of it, but I could not 
 rid my mind of the trick of that foolish 
 story, and it kept twirling itself round and 
 round in my mind. It may be the way 
 with old folks. I begin to feel old." 
 
 " T was a great story of the Little Ca 
 keen," agreed Dennis solemnly. " I do be 
 telling it to the childher ; there s nothing 
 anybody tells that they d like so well, wit 
 their little screeches always in the same 
 place. T was the same way wit my bro 
 thers and meself at home. We d better 
 mind, sir, lest ourselves gets on the fox s 
 back an into his big mout . Do you know 
 where you do be going?" Dennis looked 
 about him anxiously. 
 
 The priest only laughed ; a queer laugh 
 it was that might mean one thing or another. 
 
240 BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 
 
 " Come on ! " he said. " You make me 
 think of another old tale they used to be 
 telling at home about one Mrs. O Flaherty s 
 donkey, that could neither go nor stand 
 still." 
 
 At this moment, when the conversation 
 had taken a most sociable and even merry 
 tone, the two men found themselves on the 
 edge of the thick woods, with an open, 
 partly overgrown acre of land before them. 
 The seedling pines had covered a piece of 
 land cleared and deserted again many years 
 before ; they had grown close to the tumble 
 down old house, which had sometimes been 
 used as a shelter by lumbermen who were at 
 work among the hills, or sportsmen who 
 might have taken refuge there in wet 
 weather. Dennis was astonished to find 
 himself there; he remembered the place 
 well, but they had reached it by so short a 
 path that the priest seemed to have brought 
 him by the aid of magic. Dennis had taken 
 heart at a change for the better in Father 
 Ryan s manner, and was already preparing 
 to laugh at the expected story about a don 
 key; but Father Ryan looked stern and 
 priestly again and began to stride forward, 
 telling Dennis by a gesture to wait outside 
 
BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 241 
 
 the house. " Tis a den of thieves I m 
 sure, now," muttered Dennis, but he fol 
 lowed his companion to the door, and stood 
 there, strong and sturdy and not displeased, 
 looking about him suspiciously like a wary 
 sentinel. 
 
 The priest stepped softly on the pasture 
 turf among the little pine-trees, and entered 
 the door as if he did not mean to be heard. 
 Immediately there was a scuffle and crash 
 inside and the jar of a heavy fall, at which 
 Dennis Call rushed in with his eyes dan 
 cing and his fists clenched. 
 
 There, in the middle of the dismal rain- 
 stained room, by an overturned table and 
 broken chair, Father Ryan was fighting with 
 a younger man and getting the worst of it. 
 Dennis pounced down and caught the fel 
 low off by the shoulders. His great thumbs 
 held down the cords like iron bolts ; he 
 stood the rascal back on his knees and gave 
 him a terrible shaking. Dennis had been 
 a tidy man at a fight when he was younger, 
 and his rage revived the best of his experi 
 ence. " Get up, sir ; get up, your river- 
 ence ! " he commanded, in a bold voice. 
 " Lave the beggar to me ! " and he kept 
 his clutch with one hand while he adminis- 
 
242 BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 
 
 tered a succession of sound blows with the 
 other. " Take that, will you now, Danny 
 Nolan, an that wit it ! " he said scorn 
 fully. " Is it full of drink you are, I do 
 know, to strike down an old an rispicted 
 man that s been a fadther to you, and he 
 God s priest beside ! I 11 bate the life out 
 of you and lave you here to the crows an 
 I get a saucy word out o your head, so 
 there, now ! " and Dennis proceeded to cuff 
 and shake his captive unmercifully. 
 
 The old priest looked shocked and shaken ; 
 he got upon his feet and tried to brush the 
 dust from his black clothes. There was no 
 place to sit, it was a dirty, stifling place, 
 and he turned and went swaying with falter 
 ing steps to the door, and Dennis, holding 
 the young man s arm in an unflinching grip, 
 went after him. 
 
 " Sit down on the step, sir," he said, anx 
 iously, to the old man. " I hope it is n t 
 faint you are, sir? " 
 
 Father Ryan seated himself upon the 
 crumbling door-sill, and Dennis backed him 
 self and his captive against a bowlder that 
 stood in front of the old house, close by. 
 As he turned to take a good look at Dan 
 Nolan, a feeling of contempt stole into his 
 
BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 243 
 
 honest face. In the clear light the young 
 man looked so colorless and disreputable, 
 wrecked and ruined by an only too evident 
 life of vice and ignorance of every sort of 
 decent behavior, that he seemed but a poor 
 antagonist for a man like Dennis Call. There 
 was little left of his boyish good looks and 
 fine spirit. He must have thrown Father 
 Ryan by some trick that caught him unpre 
 pared, for in spite of his age the priest 
 looked much the stronger of the two. Den 
 nis felt a strange anxiety as he saw how 
 badly out of breath Father Ryan was still, 
 and what bad color had come to his lips. 
 
 " Will I get you a sup of water, sir ? " he 
 asked eagerly. " This thing ont run away ; 
 or I 11 just stun the poor cr ature a bit wit 
 me fist so he can t step foot an he tries. 
 I m afraid you re bad off, sir, so I am." 
 
 "No, no," said Father Ryan. "Let go 
 his arm now." 
 
 "I don t dare lave him go, sir," pro 
 tested Dennis. 
 
 " Let go his arm. Stand out, Dan ! " and 
 a strange light blazed in the old man s eyes. 
 Danny Nolan, in his smart, dirty, city-made 
 clothes, stood out a step in front of Dennis, 
 a poor wretched image of a young man as 
 
244 BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 
 
 ever startled the squirrels and jays of that 
 wild, deserted bit of country. He cast a 
 furtive glance to the right and left, but the 
 old priest raised a warning hand. 
 
 " No, you won t run, Dan, my boy," he 
 said. " My old heart is ready to break at 
 the sorry sight of you. Those poor legs of 
 yours would throw you before you could run 
 a rod. Take out the money that s in your 
 pockets. Dennis, keep your eye on him 
 now. Take it out, I say ! " 
 
 Father Kyan rose to his great height with 
 a black and angry look ; his years seemed to 
 fall off his shoulders like a cloak, and Dennis 
 stepped forward eager for the fray. The 
 fellow was at bay. He looked for a moment 
 as sharp and ugly as a weasel, then the cow 
 ardice in him showed itself; he began to 
 whimper and weaken, and so fell upon his 
 knees. 
 
 " It is in the state s prison that you ought 
 to be. I know it well," said Father Kyan 
 sternly. 
 
 "Will I give him a nate kick or two, 
 your riverence ? " inquired Dennis suggest 
 ively. " May be t will help him to mind 
 what you do be saying, the dirty bla guard." 
 
 Danny Nolan, still whimpering, took some- 
 
BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 245 
 
 thing from his pocket and dropped it before 
 him on the turf. " There, now," he said, 
 trying to be bold, " let me go." 
 
 "Go through his pockets yourself, Den 
 nis," said the priest, and he stood watching 
 while this business was carefully accom 
 plished, and a little heap of counterfeit bills 
 was gathered at their feet, which Dennis had 
 sought for with little tenderness. " What 
 
 o 
 
 have you hidden in the house beside ? " he 
 demanded, looking up in black rage, as 
 Danny Nolan stood there, surly and flushed. 
 
 " If t was my last word, I d tell you the 
 same," he answered. " There s no more but 
 this. I was only waiting till evening, so 
 I d get away. There s two dollars there 
 that s good," he sulkily added, touching the 
 money with his foot. 
 
 " Ye d best give it to his riverence for a 
 collection, then," Dennis advised. "Ain t 
 you the dirthy divil ! " 
 
 " I ve had awful hard luck," said Danny, 
 in a grieved tone. " T was a man on the 
 cars give me this " 
 
 " Why did n t you come straight to those 
 who were your friends ? " said Father Ryan 
 sadly. " You have been robbing those that 
 loved you and taking their little earnings 
 
246 BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 
 
 you are a liar and a thief. How will you 
 face them now and go to them for food and 
 shelter ? Who 11 want to give you a day s 
 work? You have been living with cheats 
 and liars ; see what they have done for you, 
 and how rich and fine you come home to 
 those that have praised you the length of 
 the town. What do you mean to do? " 
 
 "They re out after me; the officers are 
 out after me, sir." The poor rascal instantly 
 turned to his old friend for help. " I can t 
 stop here ; t was the man that gave me this 
 stuff to get rid of it himself, and then went 
 and told." 
 
 " You sent down to the mills to some fellows 
 you thought bad enough to buy this trash. 
 Don t lie to me, Dan! You have fallen 
 into this sort of thing by your own choice. 
 Come now, if Dennis and I will stand by 
 you, will you try to be decent and live 
 honest ? You 11 be dead this time next 
 year if you don t, and there s God s truth 
 for you. I 11 try you this once more, God 
 helping me. I ll not send you home to 
 those that are n t able to keep you. I Ve a 
 little money put by, and I !] lend you some 
 thing for those you have robbed and cheated 
 with your stories about the mine." 
 
BETWEEN MASS. AND VESPERS. 247 
 
 " I was cheated myself in the first place, 
 Father Kyan," said Nolan. Then he fell to 
 sobbing and covered his face with both his 
 hands. " I ve been bad, you re right, sir, 
 but oh, try me again. I don t know what 11 
 I do. I m starved here, and every bush 
 that rustles turns me cold these three nights. 
 I 11 do the best I can, sir. I would n t have 
 said it so easy yesterday, but I m beat to the 
 ground now. Everybody s turned against 
 me. I thought some friends of mine would 
 be here last night " 
 
 " Come, stand up an behave like a man ! " 
 Dennis gave him a vigorous jerk by way of 
 stimulant. " We mane no harm by the likes 
 of you. Do now as Father Kyan says, since 
 he s so willing to try you." There was 
 kindliness in his tone, though the shake was 
 contradictory. "I ll stand by you meself 
 for Father Ryan s pleasure, but it goes hard 
 wit me to say the word." 
 
 " You 11 come to me this evening at eight 
 o clock," said the priest. " I 11 be thinking 
 what s best to do. I can t stand between 
 you and the laws you Ve broken. You 11 
 stay at my house the night. Mrs. Dillon 11 
 be washing in the morning ; the first thing is 
 to make you look decent. Then I 11 find a 
 
248 BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 
 
 way to talk with your father, poor honest 
 man!" 
 
 " I d as soon go chop at Tom Nolan wit 
 me ax," muttered Dennis. 
 
 The priest stooped and struck a match on 
 the gray rock and touched it to the counter 
 feit bills, stirring them now and then with 
 his foot as they smouldered. When the few 
 ashes began to blow in the light spring wind, 
 and there was little left but an ugly small 
 scar in the green turf, Father Ryan held out 
 his hand and Danny Nolan tried not to see 
 it and turned away. The old priest could 
 not help a sigh. Then the young man, who 
 had known every sin, threw himself upon 
 the mercy of this merciful old friend. No 
 matter if Dennis stood by with his aggravat 
 ing sense of honesty, his narrow experience 
 of a stupid mill town, Dan Nolan caught 
 hold of Father Ryan s hand and clung to it 
 as if his whole heart were spent in love and 
 gratitude. " O God, help me ; I 11 not fail 
 you this night, sir. T is the Lord sent you 
 to me, sir. Tis you were always good to 
 me when I was a little boy minding the 
 altar, sir." 
 
 " You were always great wit your fine 
 words and your smart letters," grumbled 
 
BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 249 
 
 Dennis, who in spite of himself was much 
 affected. If his own sons should ever go 
 wrong, God send them such a friend. " See 
 now that you give his riverence satisfaction 
 for all the trouble he s taking, and pay him 
 back his money too. There s work enough 
 if you d only be dacint, but if I d hear from 
 any of your tricks, or you d be doing harm 
 among the young folks, Lord be good to me 
 but I d be the one to break your neck, so I 
 would. When I think of that pritty gerrl 
 you ve fooled ! " 
 
 " Don t shame the man any more. We 11 
 give him his chance to do better. T is God 
 does the same every day for you and me," 
 said Father Eyan. 
 
 The May wind in the pine woods was like 
 the sound of the sea as the two elder men 
 turned away to go down the hill, not once 
 looking back. The old priest left Dan 
 Nolan behind as if he had forgotten him, 
 and Dennis was awed into speechlessness as 
 he walked alongside. 
 
 The sorrel mare was restless. She had 
 unwisely browsed the sharp-thorned sprout 
 ing rosebushes, and had got the reins tan 
 gled about her feet. Father Ryan climbed 
 into the carriage ; he began to feel lame and 
 
250 BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 
 
 tired, and Dennis, still silent, took the mare 
 by the head and led her carefully down the 
 steepest part of the road. When they came 
 to the lowest slope of the hill he got in and 
 took the reins, and they went quickly home. 
 The church-bells began to ring for vespers 
 as they neared the town. 
 
 " I 11 be a trifle late, I m sorry," said the 
 priest. " Leave me at the church and you 
 go on with the mare, Denny. Oh, I m all 
 right, t was fine and pleasant in the green 
 woods. It seems long to me since mass was 
 
 "My saints in heaven, but ain t he the 
 father to us ! " exclaimed Dennis, a moment 
 later. He still felt a delightful sense of 
 excitement and adventure, but after they 
 had parted at the church something choked 
 him, as he thought of Father Ryan s figure 
 as he had seen him go along the little path 
 to the vestry, with that dust on the back of 
 his coat. As he came back to the church 
 himself he overtook Mary O Donnell, who 
 greeted him with pleasure and even curiosity, 
 and some other friends made mention of the 
 fact that he had been away with the priest. 
 The parishioners were used to being igno- 
 
BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 251 
 
 rant about most of Father Ryan s affairs ; 
 a priest could never make talk about his er 
 rands of business and mercy as another man 
 could. 
 
 The warm May Sunday indeed seemed 
 long. The vesper service did not often attract 
 Dennis Call. He was always in his place 
 at mass, but he took his Sunday sleep and 
 stroll in the afternoon. He made himself 
 easy in the corner of the pew, he picked 
 some pine-needles out of the cuff of his coat, 
 and he said, a little grudgingly, a prayer for 
 Danny Nolan. He noticed that there was 
 a bruise befirinninar to show itself on the old 
 
 O O 
 
 priest s forehead, and how the hands trembled 
 that were lifted at the altar. The doctor 
 had been known to say that Father Ryan 
 was not a sound man, that he had better not 
 take long walks alone any more, or overtax 
 himself as he often did, and Dennis won 
 dered vaguely if this were not the reason he 
 had been called upon that day for company. 
 " I d like to clout the saucy bla guard a 
 couple o times more," he grumbled to him 
 self ; but his heart was not without compas 
 sion. His own boys were just beginning to 
 put on the airs and to share the ambitions of 
 men, and poor Tom Nolan, his old friend 
 
252 BETWEEN MASS AND VESPERS. 
 
 and neighbor, must hear sad news of Danny, 
 and that soon. Dennis blinked his sleepy 
 eyes and looked reverently at Father Ryan s 
 tall figure at the altar. The setting sun 
 brought out the color and tarnished gold 
 thread of the worn vestments. The paper 
 flowers that a French woman had made new 
 at Easter looked gay and almost real in the 
 pleasant light. v 
 
 " T is in many strange places that a priest 
 does be having to serve God," said Dennis 
 to himself. " I m thinking Danny Nolan 11 
 light out this night wit the two dollars, an 
 we 11 see no more of him. Faix, t would 
 be best for him, the young fool ; the likes of 
 him will break every heart, stay or go ! " 
 
 That night, however, just at dark, Dan 
 Nolan came across the fields, and presently 
 stole out from a thicket at the foot of the 
 priest s little garden, and went into the 
 house. The lights were bright ; there was a 
 good supper on the table. As the hungry, 
 crestfallen offender sat there, abashed by all 
 the light and good cheer, the old man s tired 
 face shone with golden hopefulness. Father 
 Ryan even persuaded himself that the look 
 of his own young brother had come back 
 again into Danny Nolan s eyes. 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 THE early winter twilight was falling over 
 the town of Kenmare ; a heavy open carriage 
 with some belated travelers bounced and 
 rattled along the smooth highway, hurrying 
 toward the inn and a night s lodging. Two 
 slender young figures drew back together 
 into the leafless hedge by the roadside and 
 stood there, whispering and keeping fast 
 hold of hands after the simple fashion of 
 children and lovers. There was an empty 
 bird s nest close beside them, and they looked 
 at that, and after they had watched the 
 carriage a moment, and even laughed because 
 Dinny Killoren, the driver, had recognized 
 their presence by a loud snap of his whip, 
 they still loitered. The girl turned away 
 from her lover, who only looked at her, and 
 felt the soft lining of the nest with the 
 fingers of her left hand. Johnny Morris s 
 handsome young face looked pinched and 
 sad in the gray dampness of the dusk. 
 
254 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 " The poor tidy cr atures ! " said Nora Con 
 nelly. " Look now at their little house, 
 Johnny, how nate it is, and they gone from 
 it. I mind the birds singing in the hedge 
 one day last summer, and I walking by in 
 the road." 
 
 " Wisha, t is our own tidy house I m think 
 ing of," said Johnny reproachfully ; "I ve 
 long dramed of it, and now whatever will I 
 do and you gone away to Ameriky ? Faix, 
 it s too hard for us, Norry dear ; we 11 get 
 no luck from your goin ; t was the Lord 
 mint us for aich other ! " 
 
 " I m safe to come back, darling," said 
 Nora, troubled by her lover s lamentations. 
 " T is for the love of you I m going, sure, 
 Johnny dear ! I suppose t is yourself won t 
 want me then aither, when I come back ; 
 sure they says folks dries all up there, and 
 gets brown and small wit the heat that s in 
 it. Promise now that you 11 say nothing 
 sharp, so long as I m fine an rich coming 
 home ! " 
 
 " Don t break me heart, Nora, wit your 
 wild talk ; who else but yourself would be 
 joking, and our hearts breaking wit parting, 
 and this our last walk together," mourned 
 the young man. " Come, darling, we must 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 255 
 
 be going on. Tis a good way yet through 
 the town, an your aunt s ready to have my 
 life now for not sinding you back at t ree 
 o clock." 
 
 " Let her wait ! " said Nora scornfully. 
 " I 11 be free of her, then, this time to 
 morrow. T is herself 11 be keenin after me 
 as if t was wakin me she was, and the cold 
 heart of stone that s inside her and no tears 
 to her eyes. They might be glass buttons in 
 her old head, they might then ! I d love 
 you to the last day I lived, John Morris, if 
 twas only to have the joke on her;" and 
 Nora s eyes sparkled with fun. " I d spite 
 her if I could, the old crow ! Sorra a bit of 
 lave-takin have I got from her yet, but to 
 say I must sind home my passage-money 
 inside the first month I m out. Oh, but, 
 Johnny, I 11 be so lonesome there ; t is a 
 cold home I had since me mother died, but 
 God help me when I in far from it ! " The 
 girl and her lover were both crying now; 
 Johnny kissed her and put his arms tenderly 
 about her, there where they stood alone by 
 the roadside ; both knew that the dreaded 
 hour of parting had come. 
 
 Presently, as if moved by the stern hand 
 of fate rather than by their own will, they 
 
256 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 walked away along the road, still weep 
 ing. They came into the town, where lights 
 were bright in the houses. There was the 
 usual cheerful racket about the inn. The 
 Lansdowne Arms seemed to be unusually 
 populous and merry for a winter night. 
 Somebody called to Johnny Morris from a 
 doorway, but he did not answer. Close by 
 were the ruins of the old abbey, and he drew 
 Nora with him between the two stones which 
 made a narrow entrance-way to the grounds. 
 It was dreary enough there among the wintry 
 shadows, the solemn shapes of the crumbling 
 ruin, and the rustling trees. 
 
 " Tell me now once more that you love 
 me, darling," sobbed the poor lad ; " you re 
 goin away from me, Nora, an tis you ll 
 find it aisy to forget. Everything you lave 
 will be speakin to me of you. Oh, Nora, 
 Nora ! howiver will I lave you go to Amer- 
 iky! I was no man at all, or why didn t 
 I forbid it? Tis only I was too poor to 
 keep you back, God help me! O Deaf 
 Deaf" 
 
 " Be quiet now," said Nora. " I 11 not for 
 get you. I ll save all my money till I ll 
 come back to you. We re young, dear lad, 
 sure ; kiss me now an say good-by, my fine 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 257 
 
 gay lad, and then walk home quiet wit me 
 through the town. I call the holy saints to 
 hear me that I won t forget." 
 
 And so they kissed and parted, and walked 
 home quiet through the town as Nora had 
 desired. She stopped here and there for a 
 parting word with a friend, and there was 
 even a sense of dignity and consequence in 
 the poor child s simple heart because she was 
 going to set forth on her great journey the 
 next morning, while others would ignobly 
 remain in Kenmare. Thank God, she had 
 no father and mother to undergo the pain 
 of seeing her disappear forever from their 
 eyes. The poor heart-broken Irish folk who 
 let their young sons and daughters go away 
 from them to America, which of us has 
 stopped half long enough to think of their 
 sorrows and to pity them ? What must it 
 be to see the little companies set forth on 
 their way to the sea, knowing that they will 
 return no more? The fever for emigration 
 is a heart-rending sort of epidemic, and the 
 boys and girls who dream of riches and plea 
 sure until they are impatient of their homes in 
 poor, beautiful Ireland ! alas, they sail away 
 on the crowded ships to find hard work and 
 hard fare, and know their mistakes about 
 
258 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 finding a fairy-land too late, too late ! And 
 Nora Connelly s aunt had hated Johnny Mor 
 ris, and laid this scheme for separating them, 
 under cover of the furtherance of Nora s 
 welfare. They had been lovers from their 
 childhood, and Johnny s mother, from whom 
 Nora had just parted on that last sad even 
 ing, was a sickly woman and poor as poverty. 
 Johnny was like son and daughter both, he 
 could never leave her while she lived ; they 
 had needed all of Nora s cheerfulness and 
 love, and now they were going to lose her, 
 perhaps forever. Everybody knew how few 
 come back from America ; no wonder that 
 these Irish hearts were sad with parting. 
 
 On the morrow there was little time for 
 leave-takings. Some people tried to make it 
 a day of jokes and festivities when such par 
 ties of emigrants left the country-side, but 
 there was always too much sadness under 
 neath the laughter ; and the chilly rain fell 
 that day as if Ireland herself wept for her 
 wandering children, poor Ireland, who 
 gives her best to the great busy countries 
 over seas, and longs for the time when she 
 can be rich and busy herself, and keep the 
 young people at home and happy in field 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 259 
 
 and town. What does the foreign money 
 cost that conies back to the cottage house 
 holds broken as if by death? What does 
 it cost to the aching hearts of fathers and 
 mothers, to the homesick lads and girls in 
 America, with the cold Atlantic between 
 them and home ? 
 
 II. 
 
 The winter day was clear and cold, with 
 a hint of coming spring in the blue sky. 
 As you came up Barry Street, the main 
 thoroughfare of a thriving American town, 
 you could not help noticing the thick elm 
 branches overhead, and the long rows of 
 country horses and sleighs before the stores, 
 and a general look of comfortably mingled 
 country and city life. 
 
 The high-storied offices and warehouses 
 came to an end just where the hill began to 
 rise, and on the slope, to the left, was a ter 
 raced garden planted thick with fruit-trees 
 and flowering shrubbery. Above this stood 
 a large, old-fashioned white house close to the 
 street. At first sight one was pleased with 
 its look of comfort and provincial elegance, 
 
260 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 but as you approached, the whole lower 
 story seemed unused. If you glanced up at 
 a window of the second story, you were likely 
 to see an elderly gentleman looking out, pale 
 and unhappy, as if invalidism and its en 
 forced idleness were peculiarly hard for him 
 to bear. Sometimes you might catch sight 
 of the edge of a newspaper, but there was 
 never a book in his hand, there was never 
 a child s face looking out to companion the 
 old man. People always spoke of poor old 
 Captain Balfour nowadays, but only a few 
 months before, he had been the leading busi 
 ness man of the city, absorbed in a dozen 
 different enterprises. A widower and child 
 less, he felt himself to be alone indeed in this 
 time of illness and despondency. Early in 
 life he had followed the sea, from choice, not 
 necessity, but for many years he had been 
 master of the old house and garden on Barry 
 Street, his inherited home. People always 
 spoke of him with deference and respect, 
 they pitied him now in his rich and pitiful 
 old age. In the early autumn a stroke of 
 paralysis had dulled and disabled him, and 
 its effect was more and more puzzling, and 
 irritating beside to the captain s pride. 
 He more and more insisted upon charging 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 261 
 
 his long captivity and uncomfortable condi 
 tion at the doors of his medical advisers and 
 the household. At first, in dark and gloomy 
 weather, or in days of unusual depression, a 
 running fire of comments was kept up toward 
 those who treated him like a child, and who 
 made an apothecary s shop of his stomach, 
 and kept him upon such incomprehensible 
 diet. A slice of salt beef and a captain s 
 biscuit were indignantly demanded at these 
 times, but it was touching to observe that 
 the person in actual attendance was always 
 treated with extreme consideration or even 
 humble gratitude, while the offenders were 
 always absent. " They " were guilty of all 
 the wrongs and kept the captain miserable ; 
 they were impersonal foes of his peace ; there 
 never was anything but a kind word for Mrs. 
 Nash, the housekeeper, or Reilly, the faithful 
 attendant; there never were any personal 
 rebukes administered to the cook ; and as for 
 the doctor, Captain Balfour treated him as 
 one gentleman should treat another. 
 
 Until early in January, when once in a 
 while even the hitherto respected Mrs. Nash 
 was directly accused of a total lack of judg 
 ment, and James Reilly could not do or say 
 anything to suit, and the lives of these honest 
 
262 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 persons became nearly unbearable ; the maid 
 under Mrs. Nash s charge (for the household 
 had always been kept up exactly as in Mrs. 
 Balfour s day) could not be expected to 
 consider the captain s condition and her 
 own responsibilities as his older and deeply 
 attached companions could, and, tired of the 
 dullness and idleness of the old house, fell 
 to that state where dismissal was inevitable. 
 Then neither Mrs. Nash nor Reilly knew 
 what to do next ; they were not as young as 
 they had been, and, to use their own words, 
 minded the stairs. At last Reilly, a sen 
 sible man, proposed a change in the order of 
 housekeeping. The captain might never 
 come downstairs any more ; they could shut 
 up the dining-room and the parlors, and 
 make their daily work much lighter. 
 
 " An I won t say that I have n t got word 
 for you of a tidy little girl," said Reilly, be 
 seechingly. " She s a relation to my cousins 
 the Donahues, and as busy as a sparrow. 
 She 11 work beside you an the cook like 
 your own shild, she will that, Mrs. Nash, 
 and is a light-hearted shild the day through. 
 She s just over too, the little greenhorn ! " 
 
 " Perhaps she 11 be just what we want, 
 Reilly," agreed the housekeeper, after reflec- 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 263 
 
 tion. " Send her up to see me this very 
 evening, if you re going where she is." 
 
 So the very next day, into the desolate old 
 house came young Nora Connelly, a true 
 child of the old country, with a laughing 
 gray eye and a smooth girlish cheek, and a 
 pretty touch of gold at the edge of the fair 
 brown hair about her forehead. It was a 
 serious little face, not beautiful, except in 
 its delightful girlishness. She was a friendly, 
 kindly little creature, fond of her simple 
 pleasures, and willing to work hard the day 
 through. The great house itself was a trea 
 sure-house of new experience, and she felt 
 her position in the captain s family to be a 
 valued promotion. 
 
 One morning, life looked very dark to 
 the master. Everything had been going 
 wrong since breakfast, and the captain rang 
 for Keilly when he had just gone out, and 
 Mrs. Nash was busy with a messenger. 
 
 " Go up, will you, Nora ? " she said 
 anxiously, " and say that I 11 be there in a 
 minute. Keilly s just left him." 
 
 And Nora sped away, nothing loath ; she 
 had never taken a satisfactory look at the 
 master, and this was the fourth day since 
 she had come to the house. 
 
264 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 She opened the door and saw a handsome, 
 fretful, tired old gentleman, whose news 
 paper had slipped from his hand and gone 
 out of reach. She hurried to pick it up, 
 without being told. 
 
 " Who are you ? " inquired the captain, 
 looking at her with considerable interest. 
 
 " Nora Connelly, sir," said the girl in a 
 delicious Irish voice. " I m your new maid, 
 sir, since Winsday. I feel very sorry for 
 your bein ill, sir." 
 
 " There s nothing the matter with me," 
 growled the captain unexpectedly. 
 
 "Wisha, sir, I m glad of that!" said 
 Nora, with a wag of her head like a bird, and 
 a light in her eye. " Mrs. Nash 11 be here 
 at once, sir, for your ordhers. She is daling 
 wit a boy below in the hall. You are look 
 ing fine an comfortable the day, sir." 
 
 " I never was so uncomfortable in my 
 life," said the captain. " You can open that 
 window." 
 
 " And it snowing fast, sir ? You 11 let 
 out all the fine heat ; heat s very dear now 
 and cold is cheap, so it is, with poor folks. 
 T is a great pity you ve no turfs now to 
 keep your fire in for you. T is very strange 
 there do be no turf in this f oine country ; " 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 265 
 
 and she looked at the captain with a winning 
 smile. The captain smiled back again in 
 spite of himself. 
 
 Nora stood looking out of the window; 
 she seemed to be thinking of herself instead 
 of the invalid. 
 
 "What did you say your name was?" 
 asked the old gentleman, a moment later, 
 frowning his eyebrows at her like pieces of 
 artillery. 
 
 " Plase, sir, I in Nora Connelly, from 
 the outside o Kenmare." She made him 
 the least bit of a courtesy, as if a sudden 
 wind had bent her like a long-stemmed 
 flower. 
 
 " How came you here ? " His mouth 
 straightened into a smile as he spoke, in 
 spite of a determination to be severe. 
 
 " I m but two weeks over, sir. I come 
 over to me cousins, the Donahues, seeking 
 me fortune. I d like Ameriky, tis a fine 
 place, sir, but I m very homesick intirely. 
 I m as fast to be going back as I was to be 
 coming away;" and she gave a soft sigh and 
 turned away to brush the hearth. 
 
 " Well, you must be a good girl," said 
 the captain, with great propriety, after a 
 pause. 
 
266 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 " Deed, sir, I am that," responded Nora 
 sincerely. " No one had a word to fling 
 af ther me and I coming away, but crying 
 afther me. Nobody 11 tell anything to my 
 shame when my name 11 be spoke at home. 
 My mother brought me up well, God save 
 her, she did, then ! " 
 
 This unaffected report of her own good 
 reputation was pleasing to Nora s employer ; 
 the sight of Nora s simple, pleasant Irish 
 face and the freshness of her youth was the 
 most delightful thing that had happened in 
 many a dreary day. He felt in his waist 
 coat pocket with sudden inipulse, sure of 
 finding a bit of money there with which 
 Nora Connelly might buy herself a ribbon. 
 He was strongly inclined toward making her 
 feel at home in the old house which had 
 grown to be such a prison to himself. But 
 there was no money in the pocket, as there 
 always used to be when he was well. He 
 had not needed any before in a long time. 
 He began to fret about this, and to wonder 
 what they had done with his pocket-book ; it 
 was ignominious to be treated like a school 
 boy. While he brooded over his wrongs, 
 Nora heard Mrs. Nash s hurrying footsteps 
 in the hall, but as she slipped away it was 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 267 
 
 plain that she had found time enough to be 
 stow her entire sympathy, and even affection, 
 upon the captain in this brief interview. 
 
 " He s dull, poor gentleman, he s very 
 sad all day by himself, and so pleasant spo 
 ken, the cr ature ! " she said to herself indig 
 nantly, as she went running down the stairs. 
 
 It was not long before, to everybody s 
 surprise, Captain Balfour gained strength, 
 and began to feel so much better that Nora 
 was often posted in the room or the hall close 
 by to run his frequent errands and pick up 
 his newspapers as they fell. This gave Mrs. 
 Nash and Reilly a chance to look after their 
 other business affairs, and to take their ease 
 after so long a season of close attendance. 
 The captain had a gruff way of asking, 
 " Where s that little girl ? " as if he only 
 wished to see her to scold roundly ; and Nora 
 was always ready to come with her sewing or 
 any bit of housework that could be carried, 
 and to entertain her master by the hour. 
 The more irritable his temper, the more un 
 conscious and merry she always seemed. 
 
 " I was down last night wit me cousins, so 
 I was," she informed him one morning, while 
 she brushed up the floor about the fireplace 
 
268 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 on her hands and knees. " You d ought to 
 see her little shild, sir ; indade she s the 
 darling cr ature. I never saw any one so 
 crabbed and smart for the size of her. She 
 ain t the heighth of a bee s knee, sir ! " 
 
 "Who isn t?" inquired the captain ab 
 sently, attracted for the moment by the 
 pleasing simile. 
 
 " Me cousin s little shild, sir," answered 
 Nora appealingly, with a fear that she had 
 failed in her choice of a subject. " T is no 
 more than the heighth of a bee s knee she is, 
 the colleen, and has every talk to you like a 
 little grandmother, the big words of her 
 haves to come sideways out of her mouth. 
 I d like it well if her mother would dress her 
 up prertty, and I d go fetch her for you to 
 see." 
 
 The captain made an expressive sound 
 of disdain, and Nora brushed away at the rug 
 in silence. He looked out of the window 
 and drummed on the arm of his chair. It 
 was a very uncomfortable morning. There 
 was a noise in the street, and Nora pricked 
 up her ears with her head alert like a young 
 hare, stood up on her knees, and listened. 
 
 " I 11 warrant it s me heart s darling toot 
 ing at the fife," she exclaimed. 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 269 
 
 " Nothing but a parcel of boys," grumbled 
 the captain. 
 
 " Faix it s he, then, the dacint lad ! " said 
 Nora, by this time close to the other front 
 window. " Look at him now, sir, goin by ! 
 He s alther-b y in the church, and a lovely 
 voice in him. Me cousins is going to have 
 him learn music. That s The girl I left 
 behind me, he s got in the old fife now." 
 
 " Hard to tell what it is," growled the cap 
 tain. "Anything for a racket, I dare say." 
 
 " Faix, sir, I was thinking meself the tune 
 come out of it tail first," agreed Nora with 
 ready sympathy. " He s the big brother 
 to the little sisther I told you of just now. 
 T was Dan Sullivan gave Johnny the old 
 fife ; himself used to play it in a company. 
 There s a kay or two gone, I m misthrusting; 
 anyway there s teeth gone in the tune." 
 
 Nora was again brushing the floor indus 
 triously. The captain was listless and mis 
 erable ; the silence vexed him even more 
 than the harmless prattle. 
 
 " I used to play the flute pretty well my 
 self when I was a young man," he said 
 pleasantly, after a while. 
 
 " I d like well to hear you, then, sir," 
 said Nora enthusiastically. She was only 
 
270 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 making an excuse of the brushing to linger 
 with him a little while. " Oh, but your 
 honor would have liked to hear me mother 
 sing. God give her rest, but she had the 
 lovely voice for you! They d be sinding 
 for her from three towns away to sing with 
 the fiddle for weddings and dances. If you d 
 hear her sing the Pride of Glencoe t would 
 take the heart out of you, it would indade." 
 
 " My wife was a most beautiful singer 
 when she was young. I like to hear a pretty 
 voice," said the captain sadly. 
 
 " T was me dear mother had it, then," an 
 swered Nora. " I do be often minding her 
 singing when I m falling asleep. I hear 
 her voice very plain sometimes. My mother 
 was from the north, sir, and she had tunes 
 that did n t be known to the folks about 
 Kenmare. Inniskillen Dragoon was one 
 of the best liked, and it went lovely with 
 the wheel when she d be spinning. Every 
 body d be calling for her to sing that tune. 
 Strangers would come and ask her for a 
 song that were passing through the town. 
 There was great talk always of me mother s 
 singing ; they d know of her for twinty miles 
 round. Whin I see the fire gone down in 
 red coals like this, like our turf at home, 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 271 
 
 and it does be growing dark, I remimber well 
 t was such times she d sing like a bird for 
 us, being through her long day s work, an 
 all of us round the fire kaping warm if we 
 could, a winter night. Oh, but she d sing 
 then like a lark in the fields, God rest her ! " 
 Nora brushed away a tear and blessed 
 herself. " t You d like well to hear me mo 
 ther sing, sir, I m telling you God s truth," 
 she said simply. And the old captain 
 watched her and smiled, as if he were will 
 ing to hear more. 
 
 O 
 
 " Folks would pay her well, too. They d 
 all be afraid she d stop when she d once be 
 gin. There was nobody but herself could 
 sing with the fiddle. I mind she came home 
 one morning when she d been sint for to a 
 great wedding, t was a man s only daugh 
 ter that owned his own land. And me mother 
 came home to us wit a collection of twilve 
 and eight-pince tied up in her best apron 
 corner. We d as good as a wedding our 
 selves out of it too ; t was she had the spind- 
 ing hand, the cr ature ; and we had a roast 
 goose that same night and asked frinds to 
 it. Folks don t have the good fun here 
 they has in the old counthry, sir, so they 
 don t." 
 
272 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 " There used to be good times here," said 
 the poor old captain. 
 
 " I m thinking t would be a dale the bet 
 ter if you wint and stayed for a while over 
 there," urged the girl affectionately. " It 11 
 soon be comin green and illigant while it s 
 winther here still ; the gorse 11 be blooming, 
 sir, and the little daisies thick under your 
 two feet, and you d be sitting out in the 
 warm rain and sun, and feeling the good of 
 the ground. If you d go to Grlengariff, I 
 think you d be soon well, I do, then, Cap 
 tain Balfour, your honor, sir." 
 
 " I m too old, Nora," replied the captain 
 dismally, but not without interest. 
 
 " Sure there ain t a boy in the town that 
 has the spark in his eye like yourself, sir," 
 responded Nora, with encouraging hearti 
 ness. " I d break away from these sober old 
 folks and the docthers and all, and take ship, 
 and you d be soon over the say, and live like 
 a lord in the first cabin; and you d land aisy 
 on the tinder in the cove o Cork, and slape 
 that night in the city, and go next day to 
 the Eccles Hotel in Glengariff. Oh, wisha, 
 the fine place it is wit the say f orninst the 
 garden wall. You d get a swim in the 
 clane salt wather, and be as light as a bird. 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 273 
 
 Sure I wouldn t be tased wit so much 
 docthoring and advising, and you none the 
 betther wit it." 
 
 " Why could n t I have a swim in the sea 
 here?" inquired the captain indulgently. 
 
 " Sure, it would n t be the same at all," 
 responded Nora, with contempt. " T is the 
 sayshore of the old country will do you the 
 most good. The say is very salt entirely 
 by Glengariff; the bay runs up to it, and 
 you d get a strong boatman would row you 
 up and down, and you d walk in the green 
 lanes, and the folks in the houses would 
 give you good-day ; and if you d be afther 
 givin old Mother Casey a trippence, she d 
 down on her two little knees and pray for 
 your honor till you d be running home like 
 a light-horseman." 
 
 The old man laughed heartily for the first 
 time that day. " I used to be the fastest 
 runner of any lad in school," he said, with 
 pride. 
 
 " Sure you might thry it again, wit Mrs. 
 Casey s kind help, sir," insisted the girl. 
 " Now go to Gleiigariff this next month o 
 May, sir, do ! " 
 
 " Perhaps I will," said the captain de 
 cidedly. " I m not going to keep up this 
 
274 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 sort of tiling much longer, I can tell them 
 that ! If they can t do me any good, they 
 may say so, and I 11 steer my own course. 
 That s a good idea about the salt water." 
 
 The old man fell into a pleasant sleep, 
 with a contented smile on his face. The fire 
 flickered and snapped, and Nora sat still 
 looking into it ; her thoughts were far away. 
 Perhaps her unkind aunt would find means 
 to stop the letters between Johnny Morris 
 and herself. Oh, if her mother were only 
 alive, if the scattered household were once 
 more together ! It would be a long time at 
 this rate, before she could go back to Johnny 
 with a hundred pounds. 
 
 The fire settled itself together and sent 
 up a bright blaze. The old man opened his 
 eyes and looked bewildered ; she stepped 
 quickly to his side. " You 11 be askin for 
 Mr. Reilly?" she said. 
 
 "No, no," responded the captain firmly. 
 " What was the name of that place you were 
 talking about ? " 
 
 " Whiddy Island, sir, where me father 
 was born ? " Nora s thoughts had wandered 
 far and wide ; she was thinking that she had 
 heard that land was cheap on Whiddy and 
 the fishing fine. She and Johnny had often 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 275 
 
 thought they might do better than in Ken- 
 mare. 
 
 " No, no," said the captain again, sternly. 
 
 "Oh, Glengariff," she exclaimed. "Yes, 
 sir, we were talking " 
 
 " That s it," responded the captain com 
 placently. " I should like to know some 
 thing more about the place." 
 
 " I was never in it but twice," exclaimed 
 Nora, " but t was lovely there intirely. My 
 father got work at fishin , and t was one 
 summer we left Kenmare and went to a place, 
 Baltimore was the name, beyond Glengariff 
 itself, toward the illigant town of Bantry, sir. 
 I saw Bantry, sir, when I was young. We 
 were all alive and together then, my father 
 and mother and all of us ; the old shebeen 
 we lived in looked like the skull of a house, 
 it was so old, and the roof falling in on us, 
 but thank God, we were happy in it. Oh, 
 Ireland s the lovely counthry, sir." 
 
 " No bad people at all there ? " asked the 
 captain, looking at her kindly. 
 
 " Oh, sir, there are then," said the little 
 maid regretfully. " I have sins upon my 
 own soul, truth I have, sir. The sin of stal 
 ing was my black shame when I was growing 
 up, then." 
 
276 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 " What did you ever steal, child? " asked 
 the captain. 
 
 " Mostly eggs, sir," said Nora humbly. 
 
 " I dare say you were hungry," said the 
 old man, taking up his newspaper and pre 
 tending to frown at the shipping-list. 
 
 " Oh, no, captain, t was not that always. 
 I used to follow an old spickled hen of my 
 mother s and wait for the egg. I d track 
 her within the furze, and when I d be two 
 days gettin two eggs I d run wit em to 
 sell em, and t was to buy things to sew for 
 me doll I d spind the money. I d ought 
 to make confission for it now, too. I m 
 ashamed, thinkin of it. And the spickled 
 hen was one that laid very large white eggs 
 intirely, and whiles my poor mother would be 
 missing, them and thinking the old hen was 
 no good and had best be killed, the honest 
 cr ature, and go to market that way when 
 poulthry was dear. I d like one of her eggs 
 now to boil it myself for you, sir ; t would 
 be fine atin for you coming right in from 
 some place under the green bushes. I think 
 that hen long s dead, I did n t see her a long 
 while before I was lavin . A woman called 
 Johanna Spillane bought her from my aunt 
 when my mother was dead. She was a very 
 honest, good hen ; a top-knot hen, sir." 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 277 
 
 k I dare say," said the captain, looking at 
 at his newspaper ; he did not know why the 
 simple chatter touched and pleased him so. 
 He shrugged his shoulders and moved about 
 in his easy- chair, frowned still more at the 
 shipping-list, and so got the better of his 
 emotion. 
 
 "I see that the old brig Miranda has gone 
 ashore on the Florida Keys," he said, as 
 if speaking to a large audience of retired 
 shipmasters. " Stove her bows, rigging 
 cut loose and washed overboard ; total wreck. 
 I suppose you never saw a wreck ? " He 
 turned and regarded Nora affectionately. 
 
 " I did, sir, then," said Nora Connelly, 
 flushing with satisfaction. " We got news of 
 it one morning early, and all trooped to the 
 shore, every grown person and child in the 
 place, laving out Mother Dolan, the ould 
 lady that had no use of her two legs ; and 
 all the women, me mother and all, took 
 their babies to her and left them, and she 
 entreatin you d hear the bawls of her a 
 mile away that some of the folks would 
 take her wit em on their backs to see what 
 would she get wit the rest ; but we left her 
 screechin wit all the poor shilder, and I was 
 there with the first, and the sun coming up, 
 
278 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 and the ship breaking up fine out a little 
 way in the rocks. T was loaded with sweet 
 oranges she was, and they all comin ashore 
 like yellow ducklings in the high wather. I 
 got me fill for once, I did, indeed." 
 
 " Dear, dear," said the captain. " Did the 
 crew get ashore ? " 
 
 " Well, I belave not, sir, but I could n t 
 rightly say. I was small, and I took no no 
 tice. I mind there were strangers round 
 that day, but sailors or the nixt parish was 
 one to me then. The tide was going out 
 soon, and then we swarmed aboard, and 
 wisha, the old ship tipped up wit us in it, 
 and I thought I was killed. T was a foine 
 vessel, all gilded round the cabin walls, and 
 I thought in vain t would be one like her 
 comin to Ameriky. There was wines 
 aboard, too, and all the men got their fill. 
 Mesilf was gatherin me little petticoat full 
 of oranges that bobbed in the wather in the 
 downside of the deck. Wisha, sir, the 
 min were pushin me and the other shil- 
 der into the wather ; they were very soon 
 tight, sir, and my own father was wit em, 
 God rest his soul! and his cheeks as red 
 as two roses. Some busybody caught him 
 ashore and took him to the magistrate, 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 279 
 
 that was the squire of our place, sir, and 
 an illigant gentleman. The bliguards was 
 holdiri my father, and I running along, 
 screechin for fear he d be goin to jail on 
 me. The old squire began to laugh, poor 
 man, when he saw who it was, and says he, 
 4 Is it yoursilf, Davy? and says my father, 
 4 It s mesilf , God save your honor, very tight 
 intirely, and feelin as foine as any lord in 
 Ireland. Lave me go, and I 11 soon slape 
 it off under the next furze-bush that 11 stop 
 still long enough for me by the roadside, 
 says he. The squire says, Lave him go, 
 boys, t was from his ating the oranges ! says 
 he, and the folks give a great laugh all round. 
 He was doiii no harrum, the poor man ! I 
 run away again to the say, then ; I forget 
 was there any more happened that day." 
 
 " She must have been a fruiter from the 
 Mediterranean. I can t think what she was 
 doing up there on the west coast, out of her 
 bearings," said the captain. 
 
 " Faix, sir, I could n t tell you where she 
 was from, if it s the ship you mane ; but 
 she wint no further than our parish and the 
 Black Rocks. I heard tell of plinty other 
 foine wrecks, but I was to that mesilf." 
 
280 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 III. 
 
 The lengthening days of late winter went 
 slowly by, and at last it was spring, and the 
 windows were left open all day in the cap 
 tain s room. The household had accepted 
 the fact that nobody pleased the invalid as 
 Nora did, and there was no feeling of jeal 
 ousy ; it was impossible not to be grateful 
 to any one who could invariably spread the 
 oil of sympathy and kindness over such 
 troubled waters. James Reilly and Mrs. 
 Nash often agreed upon the fact that the 
 captain kept all the will he ever had, but 
 little of the good judgment. Yet, in spite of 
 this they took it upon them to argue with 
 him upon every mistaken point. Nora alone 
 had the art of giving a wide berth to danger 
 ous subjects of conversation, and she could 
 twist almost every sort of persistence or 
 aggravation into a clever joke. She had 
 grown very fond of the lonely old man ; the 
 instinct toward mother liness in her simple 
 heart was always ready to shelter him from 
 his fancied wrongs, and to quiet him in the 
 darkest hours of f retfulness and pain. 
 
 Young Nora Connelly s face had grown 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 281 
 
 thin daring the long winter, and she lost the 
 pretty color from her cheeks as spring came 
 on. She was used to the mild air of Ireland, 
 and to an out-of-door life, and she could not 
 feel like herself in the close rooms of Cap 
 tain Balfour s house on Barry Street. By 
 the time that the first daffodils were in bloom 
 on the south terrace, she longed inexpres 
 sibly for the open air, and used to disappear 
 from even the captain s sight into the garden, 
 where at times she took her turn with the 
 gardeners at spading up the rich soil, and 
 worked with a zeal which put to shame their 
 languid efforts. Something troubled the 
 girl, however ; she looked older and less 
 happy ; sometimes it was very plain to see 
 that she had been crying. 
 
 One morning, when she had been delayed 
 unusually with her downstairs work, the cap 
 tain grew so impatient that he sent Eeilly 
 away to find her. Nora quickly set down a 
 silver candlestick, and wiped her powdery 
 hands upon her apron as she ran upstairs. 
 The captain was standing in the middle of 
 the floor, scowling like a pirate in a picture- 
 book, and even when Nora came in, he did 
 not smile. " I m going out to take a walk," 
 he said angrily. 
 
282 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 " Come on, then, sir," said Nora. " I 11 
 run for your coat and hat, if you 11 tell me 
 where " 
 
 "Pooh, pooh, child!" the pacified cap 
 tain was smiling broadly. " I only want to 
 take a couple of turns here in the hall. You 
 forget how long I ve been house-bound. 
 I m a good deal better ; I 11 have that med 
 dling Reilly know it, too ; and I won t be told 
 what I may do and what I may not." 
 
 " T is thrue for you, sir," said Nora ami 
 ably. " Steady yourself with my arrum, now, 
 and we 11 go to the far end of the hall and 
 back again. T was the docther himself said 
 a while ago that ye d ought to thry walking 
 more, and twas your honor was like to have 
 the life of him. You re a very conthrairy 
 gentleman, if I may be so bold ! " 
 
 The captain laughed, but the business of 
 dragging his poor heavy foot was more seri 
 ous than he had expected, in spite of all his 
 brave determination. Nora did her best to 
 beguile him from too much consciousness of 
 his feebleness and disappointment. 
 
 " Sure if you d see ould Mother Killahan 
 come hobbling into church, you d think your 
 self as good as a greyhound," she said pres 
 ently, while the master rested in one of the 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 283 
 
 chairs at the hall s end. " She s very old 
 intirely. I saw her myself asleep at her 
 beads this morning, but she do be very 
 steady 011 her two knees, and whiles she prays 
 and says a bead or two, and whiles she gets a 
 bit of sleep, the poor cr ature. She does be 
 staying in the church a dale this cold weather, 
 and Father Dunn is very aisy with her. She 
 makes the stations every morning of the year, 
 so she does, and one day she come t rough 
 the deep snow in a great storm there was, 
 and she fell down with weakness on the 
 church steps; and they told Father Dunn, 
 and said how would they get her home, and 
 he come running himself, scolding all the 
 way, and took her up in his arrums, and wint 
 back with her to his own house. You d 
 thought she was his own mother, sir. She s 
 one of God s poor, says he, with the tears in 
 his eyes. Oh, captain, sir ! I wish it was 
 Father Dunn was praste to you, I do then ! 
 I m thinking he d know what prayers would 
 be right for you; and himself was born in 
 the country forninst Glengariff, and would 
 tell you how foine it was for your stringth. 
 If you d get better, sir, and we d meet him 
 on the street, we d be afther asking his 
 
284 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 The captain made no answer ; he was tired 
 and spent, and sank into his disdained easy- 
 chair, grateful for its comfortable support. 
 The mention of possible help for his feeble 
 frame from any source clung to his erratic 
 memory, and after a few days one of the 
 thoughts that haunted his mind was that Fa 
 ther Dunn, a kind-faced, elderly man, might 
 be of use in this great emergency. To every 
 body s surprise, his bodily strength seemed 
 to be slowly returning as the spring days 
 went by, but there was oftener and oftener 
 an appealing, childish look in his face, the 
 firm lines of it were blurred, even while 
 there was a steady renewing of his shattered 
 forces. At last he was able to drive down 
 the busy street one day, with Reilly, in his 
 familiar chaise. The captain s old friends 
 gathered to welcome him, and he responded 
 to their salutations with dignity and evident 
 pleasure ; but once or twice, when some one 
 congratulated him upon certain successful 
 matters of business which he had planned 
 before his illness, there was only a trou 
 bled look of dullness and almost pain for 
 answer. 
 
 One day, Nora Connelly stole out into the 
 garden in the afternoon, and sat there idly 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 285 
 
 under an old peach-tree. The green fruit 
 showed itself thick all along the slender 
 boughs. Nora had been crying already, and 
 now she looked up through the green leaves 
 at the far blue sky, and then began to cry 
 again. She was sadly homesick, poor child ! 
 She longed for her lover, whom she feared 
 now never to see. Like a picture she re 
 called the familiar little group of thatched 
 houses at home, with their white walls and 
 the narrow green lanes between ; she saw the 
 pink daisies underfoot, and the golden gorse 
 climbing the hill till it stood against the 
 white clouds. She remembered the figures 
 of the blue-cloaked women who went and 
 came, the barefooted, merry children, and the 
 dabbling ducks ; then she fell to thinking 
 lovingly of her last walk with Johnny Mor 
 ris, the empty bird s nest, and all their hopes 
 and promises the night before she left home. 
 She had been willful in yielding to her aunt s 
 plans ; she knew that Johnny feared her 
 faithlessness, but it was all for love of him 
 that she had left him. She knew how poor 
 they were at home. She had faithfully sent 
 a pound a month to her aunt, and though she 
 had had angry appeals for more, the other 
 pound that she could spare, leaving but little 
 
286 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 for herself, had been sent in secret to John 
 ny s mother. She always dreaded the day 
 when her avaricious aunt should find this 
 out and empty all the vials of her wrath of 
 covetousness. Nora, to use her own expres 
 sion, was as much in dread of this aunt as if 
 the sea were a dry ditch. Alas ! she was 
 still the same poor Nora Connelly, though 
 rich and busy America stretched eastward 
 and westward from where she made her new 
 home. It was only by keeping her pounds in 
 her pocket that she could gather enough to 
 be of real and permanent use to those she 
 loved ; and yet their every-day woes, real or 
 fictitious, stole the pounds from her one by 
 one. 
 
 So she sat crying under the peach-tree 
 until the pale old captain came by, in the 
 box-bordered walk, with scuffling, unsteady 
 steps. He saw Nora and stopped, leaning 
 on his cane. 
 
 " Come, come, Nora ! " he said anxiously. 
 " What s the matter, my girl? " 
 
 Nora looked up at him and smiled instantly. 
 It was as if the warm Irish sunshine had 
 broken out in the middle of a May shower. 
 A long spray of purple foxglove grew at 
 her feet, and the captain glanced down at 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 287 
 
 it. The sight of it was almost more than 
 she could bear, this flower that grew in the 
 hedgerows at home. She felt as if the 
 flower were exiled like herself and trying to 
 grow in a strange country. 
 
 " Don t touch it, sir," she faltered, as 
 the captain moved it with his cane ; " t is 
 very bad luck to meddle with that : they 
 say yourself will be meddled with by the 
 fairies. Fairy Fingers is the name of that 
 flower ; we were niver left pick it. Oh, 
 but it minds me of home ! " 
 
 "What s the matter with you to-day?" 
 asked the captain. 
 
 " I ve been feeling very sad, sir ; I can t 
 help it, either, thinkin o me home I ve left 
 and me dear lad that 1 11 see no more. I 
 was wrong to lave him, I was indeed." 
 
 " What lad ? " asked Captain Balf our sus 
 piciously. " I 11 have no nonsense nor lads 
 about my place. You re too young " 
 He looked sharply at the tearful young face. 
 " Mrs. Nash can t spare you, either," he 
 added humbly, in a different tone. 
 
 " Faix, sir, it s at home he is, in the old 
 counthry, without me ; he 11 niver throuble 
 ye, me poor Johnny," Nora explained sadly 
 enough. She had risen with proper cour- 
 
288 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 tesy, and was standing by the old man ; now 
 she ventured to take hold of his arm. He 
 looked flushed and eager, and she forgot 
 herself in the instinct to take care of him. 
 
 " Where do you be going so fast ? " she 
 asked with a little laugh. " I m afther be 
 lieving t is running away you are." 
 
 The captain regarded her solemnly ; then 
 he laughed, too. " Come with me," he said. 
 " I m going to make a call." 
 
 " Where would it be ? " demanded the 
 girl, with less than her usual deference. 
 
 " Come, come ! I want to be off," in 
 sisted the old gentleman. " We 11 go out of 
 this little gate in the fence. I Ve got to see 
 your Father Dunn on a matter of business," 
 he said, as if he had no idea of accepting 
 any remonstrance. 
 
 Nora knew that the doctor and all the 
 elder members of the household approved 
 of her master s amusing himself and taking 
 all the exercise he could. She herself 
 approved his present intentions entirely ; it 
 was not for her to battle with the head of 
 the house, at any rate, so she dutifully and 
 with great interest and anxiety set forth 
 beside him down the path, on the alert for 
 any falterings or missteps. 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 289 
 
 They went out at the gate in the high 
 fence ; the master remembered where to find 
 the key, and he seemed in excellent spirits. 
 The side street led them down the hill to 
 Father Dunn s house, but when they reached 
 it the poor captain was tired out. Nora be 
 gan to be frightened, as she stole a look at 
 him. She had forgotten, in the pride of her 
 own youthful strength, that it would be such 
 a long walk for him. She was anxious 
 about the interview with Father Dunn ; she 
 had no idea how to account for their pres 
 ence, but she had small opinion of the mer 
 its and ability of the captain s own parish 
 minister, and felt confident of the good re 
 sult, in some way, of the visit. Presently 
 the priest s quick step was heard in the pas 
 sage ; Nora rose dutifully as he came in, but 
 was only noticed by a kindly glance. The 
 old captain tried to rise, too, but could not, 
 and Father Dunn and he greeted each other 
 with evident regard and respect. Father 
 Dunn sat down with a questioning look ; he 
 was a busy man with a great parish, and 
 almost every one of his visitors came to 
 him with an important errand. 
 
 The room was stiff-looking and a little 
 bare ; everything in it was well worn. There 
 
290 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 was a fine portrait of Father Dunn s prede 
 cessor, or, it should rather be said, a poor 
 portrait of a fine man, whose personal good 
 ness and power of doing Christian service 
 shone in his face. Father Miles had been 
 the first priest in that fast-growing inland 
 town, and the captain had known and re 
 spected him. He did not say anything now, 
 but sat looking up, much pleased, at the 
 picture. This parlor of the priest s house 
 had a strangely public and impersonal look ; 
 it had been the scene of many parish wed 
 dings and christenings, and sober givings of 
 rebuke and kindly counsel. Nora gazed 
 about her with awe ; she had been brought 
 up in great reverence of holy things and of 
 her spiritual pastors and masters ; but she 
 could not help noticing that the captain was 
 a little astray in these first few moments. 
 There stole in upon his pleased contempla 
 tion of the portrait a fretful sense of doing 
 an unaccustomed thing, and he could not re 
 gain his familiar dignity and self-possession ; 
 that conscious right to authority which 
 through long years had stood him in such 
 good stead. He was only a poor, broken- 
 down, sick old man ; he had never quite 
 understood the truth about himself before, 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 291 
 
 and the thought choked him ; he could not 
 speak. 
 
 " The masther was coveting to spake with 
 your riverence about Glengariff," ventured 
 Nora timidly, feeling at last that the suc 
 cess of the visit depended wholly upon her 
 self. 
 
 " Oh, Glengariff, indeed ! " exclaimed the 
 good priest, much relieved. He had dis 
 covered the pathetic situation at last, and 
 his face grew compassionate. 
 
 " This little girl seems to believe that it 
 would set me up to have a change of air. 
 I have n t been very well, Father Dunn." 
 The captain was quite himself again for the 
 moment, as he spoke. " You may not have 
 heard that the doctors have had hold of me 
 lately ? Nora, here, has been looking after 
 me very well, and she speaks of some sea 
 bathing on your Irish coast. I may not be 
 able to leave my business long enough to 
 do any good. It s going to the dogs, at 
 any rate, but I ve got enough to carry me 
 through." 
 
 Nora was flushing with eagerness, but the 
 priest saw how white the old captain s fin 
 gers were, where they clasped his walking- 
 stick, how blurred and feeble his face had 
 
292 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 grown. The thought of the green hills and 
 hollows along the old familiar shore, the 
 lovely reaches of the bay, the soft air, the 
 flowery hedgerows, came to his mind as if 
 he had been among them but yesterday. 
 
 " I wish that you were there, sir, I do in 
 deed," said Father Dunn. " It is nearer 
 like heaven than any spot in the world to 
 me, is old Glengariff . You would be pleased 
 there, I m certain. But you re not strong 
 enough for the voyage, I fear, Captain Bal- 
 four. You d best wait a bit and regain 
 your strength a little more. A man s home 
 is best, I think, when he s not well." 
 
 The captain and Nora both looked de 
 feated. Father Dunn saw their sadness, and 
 was sure that his kindest duty was to interest 
 this poor guest, and to make a pleasure for 
 him, if possible. 
 
 " I can tell you all about it, sir, and how 
 you might get there," he went on hastily, 
 shaking his head to some one who had come 
 to summon him. " Land at Queenstown, go 
 right up to Cork and pass the night, and 
 then by rail and coach next day, t is but a 
 brief journey and you re there. T is a 
 grand little hotel you 11 find close to the bay, 
 t was like a palace to me in my boyhood, 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 293 
 
 with the fine tourists coming and going; 
 well, I wish we were there this day, and I 
 showing you up and down the length of the 
 green country." 
 
 "Just what I want. I ve been a busy 
 man, but when I take a holiday, give me none 
 of your noisy towns," said the captain, eager 
 and cheerful again. 
 
 " You d be so still there that a bird light 
 ing in the thatch would wake you," said 
 Father Dunn. " Ah, t is many a long year 
 since I saw the place. I dream of it by 
 night sometimes, Captain Balfour, God bless 
 it!" 
 
 Nora could not keep back the ready tears. 
 The very thought that his reverence had 
 grown to manhood in her own dear country 
 side was too much for her. 
 
 " You re not thinking of going over this 
 summer? " asked the captain wistfully. " I 
 should be gratified if you would bear me 
 company, sir; I d try to do my part to make 
 it pleasant." But the good father shook his 
 head and rose hastily, to stand by the win 
 dow that looked out into his little garden. 
 
 " We d make a good company," said he 
 presently, turning toward them and smiling, 
 " with young Nora here to show us our way. 
 
294 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 You can t have had time yet, my child, to 
 forget the old roads across country ! " and 
 Nora fairly sobbed. 
 
 " Pray for the likes of me, sir ! " she fal 
 tered, and covered her face with her hands. 
 " Oh, pray for the masther too, your river- 
 ence Father Dunn, sir ; t is very wake he 
 is, and t is mesilf that s very lonesome in 
 Ameriky, an I m afther laving the one I 
 love ! " 
 
 " Be quiet, now ! " said the priest gravely, 
 checking her with a kindly touch of his hand, 
 and glancing at Captain Balfour. The poor 
 old man looked in a worried way from one 
 to the other, and Father Dunn went away 
 to fetch him a glass of wine. Then he was 
 ready to go home, and Father Dunn got his 
 hat and big cane, pleading that an errand 
 was taking him in the same direction. 
 
 " If I thought it would do me any good, I 
 would start for that place we were speaking 
 of to-morrow," said the captain as they set 
 forth. " You know to what I refer, the sea 
 bathing and all." The priest walked slowly ; 
 the captain s steps grew more and more 
 faltering and unsteady. Nora Connelly fol 
 lowed anxiously. There flitted through Fa 
 ther Dunn s mind phrases out of the old 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 295 
 
 Bible story, " a great man and honorable;" 
 " a valiant man and rich," " but a leper ; " 
 the little captive maid that brought him to 
 the man of God. Alas, Father Dunn could 
 tell the captain of 110 waters of Jordan that 
 would make him a sound man ; he could 
 only say to him, " Go in peace," like the 
 prophet of old. 
 
 When they reached home the household 
 already sought the captain in despair, but it 
 happened that nobody was in the wide, cool 
 hall as they entered. 
 
 " I hope that you will come in and take a 
 glass of wine with me. You have treated 
 me with brotherly kindness, sir," said the 
 master of the house ; but Father Dunn shook 
 his head and smiled as he made the old man 
 comfortable in a corner of the broad sofa, 
 taking his hat and stick from him and giving 
 them to Nora. " Not to-day, Captain Bal- 
 four, if you will excuse me." 
 
 The captain looked disappointed and child 
 ish. " I am going to send you a bottle of 
 my father s best old madeira," he said. 
 " Sometimes, when a man is tired out or has 
 a friend come in to dine " But he was 
 too weary himself to finish the sentence. The 
 old house was very still; there were distant 
 
296 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 voices in the garden ; a door at the end of 
 the hall opened into an arbor where flickers 
 of light were shining through the green vine 
 leaves. Everything was stately and hand 
 some ; there was a touch everywhere of that 
 colonial elegance of the captain s grandfa 
 ther s time which had never been sacrificed 
 to the demon of change, that restless Amer 
 ican spirit which has spoiled the beauty of 
 so many fine and simple old houses. 
 
 The priest was used to seeing a different 
 sort of household interior, his work was 
 among the poor. Then he looked again at 
 the house s owner, an old man, sick, sorry, 
 and alone. " God bless you, sir," he said. 
 " I must be going now." 
 
 " Come and see me again," said the cap 
 tain, opening his eyes. " You are a good 
 man ; I am glad to have your blessing." The 
 words were spoken with a manly simplicity 
 and directness that had always been liked 
 by Captain Balfour s friends. " Nora," he 
 whispered, when Father Dunn had gone, 
 " we 11 say nothing to Mrs. Nash. I must 
 rest a little while here before we get up the 
 stairs." 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAW. 297 
 
 IV. 
 
 Toward the end of the summer, things 
 had grown steadily worse, and Captain Bal- 
 four was known to be failing fast. The 
 clerks had ceased to come for his signature 
 long before ; he had forgotten all about busi 
 ness and pleasure too, and slept a good deal, 
 and sometimes was glad to see his friends 
 and sometimes indifferent to their presence. 
 But one day, when he felt well enough to sit 
 in his great chair by the window, he told 
 Mr. Barton, his good friend and lawyer, that 
 he wished to attend to a small matter of busi 
 ness. " I Ve arranged everything long ago, 
 as an aging man should," he said. " I don t 
 know that there s any hurry, but I 11 men 
 tion this item while I think of it. Nora, you 
 may go downstairs," he said sharply to the 
 girl, who had just entered upon an errand of 
 luncheon or medicine, and Nora disappeared ; 
 she remembered afterward that it was the 
 only time when, of his own accord and seem 
 ing impatience, he had sent her away. 
 
 Reilly and Mrs. Nash bore no ill-will to 
 ward their young housemate ; they were rea 
 sonable enough to regard Captain Balfour s 
 
298 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 fondness for her with approval. There was 
 something so devoted and single-hearted 
 about the young Irish girl that they had be 
 come fond of her themselves. They had their 
 own plans for the future, and looked forward 
 to being married when the captain should 
 have no more need of them. It really hurt 
 Mrs. Nash s feelings when she often found 
 Nora in tears, for the desperate longing for 
 home and for Johnny Morris grew worse in 
 the child s affectionate heart instead of better. 
 
 One day Eeilly had gone down town, leav 
 ing the captain asleep. Nora was on guard ; 
 Mrs. Nash was at hand in the next room 
 with her sewing, and Nora sat still by the 
 window ; the captain was apt to sleep long 
 and heavily at this time of the day. She 
 was busy with some crocheting ; it was some 
 edging of a pattern that the sisters of Ken- 
 mare had taught Johnny Morris s mother. 
 She gave a little sigh at last and folded her 
 hands in her lap ; her gray Irish eyes were 
 blinded with tears. 
 
 "What s the matter, child?" asked the 
 captain unexpectedly; his voice sounded 
 very feeble. 
 
 Nora started ; she had forgotten him and 
 his house. 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 299 
 
 " Will you have anything, sir ? " she asked 
 anxiously. 
 
 " No, no ; what s the matter, child? " asked 
 the old man kindly. 
 
 " T is me old story ; I m longing for me 
 home, and I can t help it if I died too. I m 
 like a thing torn up by the roots and left 
 in the road. You re very good, sir, and I 
 would never lave the house and you in it, 
 but t is home I think of by night and by 
 day ; how ever will I get home ? " 
 
 Captain Balfour looked at her compas 
 sionately. " You re a good girl, Nora ; per 
 haps you ll go home before long," he said. 
 
 " T is sorra a few goes back ; Ameriky s 
 the same as heaven for the like o that," 
 answered Nora, trying to smile, and drying 
 her eyes. " There s many d go back too 
 but for the presents every one looks to have ; 
 t would take a dale of money to plase the 
 whole road as you pass by. T is a kind of 
 fever the young ones has to be laving home. 
 Some laves good steady work and home and 
 friends, that might do well. There s getting 
 to be fine chances for smart ones there with 
 so many laving." 
 
 " Yes, yes," said the captain ; " we 11 
 talk that over another time, I want to go to 
 
300 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 sleep now ; " and Nora flushed with shame 
 and took up her crocheting again. " T was 
 me hope of growing rich, and me aunt s 
 tongue shaming me that gets the blame," she 
 murmured to herself. The sick man s hands 
 looked very white and thin on the sides of 
 his chair ; she looked at them and at his face, 
 and her heart smote her for selfishness. She 
 was glad to be in America, after all. 
 
 They never said anything to each other 
 now about going to Glengariff ; a good many 
 days slipped by when the captain hardly 
 spoke except to answer questions ; but in 
 restless evenings, when he could not sleep, 
 people who passed by in the street could hear 
 Nora singing her old familiar songs of love 
 and war, sometimes in monotonous, plain 
 tive cadences that repeated and repeated a 
 refrain, sometimes in livelier measure, with 
 strange thrilling catches and prolonged high 
 notes, as a bird might sing to its mate in the 
 early dawn out in the wild green pastures. 
 The lovely weird songs of the ancient Irish 
 folk, how old they are, how sweet they are, 
 who can tell ? but now and then a listener of 
 the new world of the western seas hears them 
 with deep delight, hears them with a strange, 
 golden sense of dim remembrance, a true, 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 301 
 
 far-descended birthright of remembrance that 
 can only come from inheritance of Celtic 
 blood. 
 
 When the frost had fallen on the old 
 garden, Captain Balfour died, and his year 
 of trouble was ended. Reilly and Mrs. 
 Nash, the cook and Nora, cried bitterly in 
 the kitchen, where the sudden news found 
 them. Nobody could wish him to come 
 back, but they cried the more when they 
 thought of that. There was a great deal 
 said about him in the newspapers ; about his 
 usefulness in town and State, his wealth, his 
 character, and his history ; but nobody knew 
 so well as this faithful household how com 
 fortable he had made his lonely home for 
 other people ; and those who knew him best 
 thought most of his kindness, his simple 
 manliness, and sincerity of word and deed. 
 
 The evening after the funeral, Nora was 
 all alone in her little room under the high 
 roof. She sat on the broad seat of a dormer 
 window, where she could look far out over 
 the city roofs to a glimpse of the country be 
 yond. There was a new moon in the sky, 
 the sunset was clear, the early autumn 
 weather was growing warm again. 
 
302 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 The old house was to belong to a nephew 
 of the captain, his only near relative, who 
 had spent a great many years abroad with 
 an invalid wife ; it was to be closed for the 
 present, and Mrs. Nash and Mr. Keilly were 
 to be married and live there all winter, and 
 then go up country to live in the spring, 
 where Mrs. Nash owned a little farm. She 
 was of north of Ireland birth, was Mrs. 
 Nash ; her first husband had been an Ameri 
 can. She told Nora again and again that 
 she might always have a home with her, but 
 the fact remained that Nora must find her 
 self a new place, and she sat in the window 
 wondering with a heavy heart what was 
 going to happen to her. All the way to the 
 burying-ground and back again in the car 
 riage, with the rest of the household, she 
 had sobbed and mourned, but she cried for 
 herself as much as for the captain. Poor 
 little Irish Nora, with her warm heart and 
 her quick instincts and sympathies ! how 
 sadly she thought now of the old talk about 
 going to Glengariff ; she had clung long to 
 her vain hope that the dream would come 
 true, and that the old captain and his house 
 hold were all going over seas together, and 
 so she should get home. Would anybody 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 303 
 
 in America ever be so kind again and need 
 her so much as the captain ? 
 
 Some one had come to the foot of the 
 stairs and was calling Nora loudly again and 
 again. It was dark in the upper entryway, 
 however bright the west had looked just 
 now from her window. She left her little 
 room in confusion; she had begun already to 
 look over her bits of things, her few clothes 
 and treasures, before she packed them to go 
 away. Mrs. Nash seemed to be in a most 
 important hurry, and said that they were 
 both wanted in the dining-room, and it was 
 very pleasant somehow to be wanted and 
 made of consequence again. She had begun 
 to feel like such an unnecessary, stray little 
 person in the house. 
 
 The lamps were lighted in the handsome 
 old dining-room, it was orderly and sedate ; 
 one who knew the room half expected to see 
 Captain Balfour s fine figure appear in the 
 doorway to join the waiting group. There 
 were some dark portraits on the wall, and 
 the old Balfour silver stood on the long side 
 board. Mrs. Nash had set out all the best 
 furnishings, for this day when the master of 
 the house left it forever. 
 
 There were not many persons present, and 
 
304 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 Nora sat down, as some one bade her, feeling 
 very disrespectful as she did it. Mr. Barton, 
 the lawyer, began to read slowly from a 
 large folded paper; it dawned presently 
 upon Nora that this was the poor captain s 
 will. There was a long bequest to the next 
 of kin, there were public gifts, and gifts to 
 different friends, and handsome legacies to 
 faithful Mrs. Nash and James Reilly, and 
 presently the reading was over. There was 
 something quite grand in listening to this 
 talk of thousands and estates, but little Nora, 
 who had no call, as she told herself, to look 
 for anything, felt the more lonely and friend 
 less as she listened. There was a murmur 
 of respectful comment as the reading ended, 
 but Mr. Barton was opening another paper, 
 a small sheet, and looked about him, expect 
 ing further attention. 
 
 " I am sure that no one will object to the 
 carrying out of our deceased friend s wishes 
 as affirmed in this more recent memorandum. 
 Captain Balfour was already infirm at the 
 time when he gave me the directions, but, 
 as far as I could judge, entirely clear in his 
 mind. He dictated to me the following 
 bequest and signed it. The signature is, I 
 own, nearly illegible, but I am sure that, 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 305 
 
 under the somewhat affecting circumstances, 
 there will be no opposition." 
 
 " I desire " (read Mr. Barton slowly), " I 
 desire the executors of my will to pay five 
 hundred dollars within one month after my 
 death to Nora Connelly; also, to secure her 
 comfortable second-class passage to the port 
 of Queenstown, in Ireland. I mean that, if 
 she still desires, she may return to her home. 
 I am sensible of her patience and kindness, 
 and I attempt in this poor way to express 
 my gratitude to a good girl. I wish her a 
 safe return, and that every happiness may 
 attend her future life. 
 
 " JOHN BALFOUR." 
 
 " T is a hundred pounds for ye an yer 
 passage, me darlin ," whispered the cook ex 
 citedly. " T is mesilf knew you would n t 
 be forgotten an the rist of us so well re- 
 mi mbered. T is foine luck for ye ; Heaven 
 rist his soul, the poor captain ! " 
 
 Nora was sitting pale and silent. She did 
 not cry now ; her heart was deeply touched, 
 her thoughts flew homeward. She seemed 
 to hear the white waves breaking about the 
 ship, and to see the far deep colors of the 
 Irish shore. For Johnny had said again and 
 again that if they had a hundred pounds and 
 
306 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 their two pairs of hands, he could do as well 
 with his little farm as any man in Ireland. 
 
 " Sind for your lad to come over," urged 
 Cousin Donahue, a day later, when the news 
 had been told ; but Nora proudly shook her 
 head. She had asked for her passage the 
 very next week. It was a fine country, 
 America, for those with the courage for it, 
 but not for Nora Connelly, that had left 
 her heart behind her. Cousin Donahue 
 laughed and shook his head at such folly, and 
 offered a week s free lodging to herself and 
 Johnny the next spring, when she d be the 
 second time a greenhorn coming over. But 
 Nora laughed too, and sailed away one Sat 
 urday morning in late October, across the 
 windy sea to Ireland. 
 
 V. 
 
 Again it was gray twilight after a short 
 autumn day in the old country, and a tall 
 Irish lad was walking along the high-road 
 that led into Kenmare. He was strong and 
 eager for work, but his young heart was 
 heavy within him. The piece of land which 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 307 
 
 he held needed two men s labor, and work as 
 he might, he must fall behind with his rent. 
 
 It was three years since that had hap 
 pened before, and he had tried so hard to do 
 well with his crops, and had even painfully 
 read a book that was wise about crops which 
 the agent had lent him, and talked much 
 besides with all the good farmers. It was 
 no use, he could not hold his own ; times 
 were bad and sorrowful, and Nora was away. 
 He had believed that, whatever happened to 
 her fortunes, he should be able in time to 
 send for her himself and be a well-off man. 
 Oh, for a hundred pounds in his pocket to 
 renew his wornout land ! to pay a man to 
 help him with the new ditching. Oh, for 
 courage to fight his way to independence 
 on Irish ground ! "I ve only got my heart 
 and my two hands, God forgive me ! " said 
 Johnny Morris aloud. " God be good to 
 me and Norry, and me poor mother ! May be 
 I 11 be after getting a letter from me dar 
 ling the night; t is long since she wrote." 
 
 He stepped back among the bushes to let 
 a side-car pass that had come up suddenly 
 behind him. He recognized the step of 
 Dinny Killoren s fast pacer, and looked to 
 see if there were room on the car for another 
 
308 A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 
 
 passenger, or if perhaps Dinny might be 
 alone and glad to have company. There was 
 only Dinny himself and a woman, who gave 
 a strange cry. The pacer stopped, and 
 Johnny s heart beat within him as if it would 
 come out of his breast. " My God, who s 
 this ? " he said. 
 
 " Lift me down, lift me down ! " said the 
 girl. " Oh, God be thanked, I m here ! " 
 And Johnny leaped forward and caught Nora 
 Connelly in his arms. 
 
 "Is it yoursilf?" he faltered, and Nora 
 said, " It s mesilf indeed, then." Dinny 
 Killoren laughed aloud on the side-car, with 
 his pacer backing and jumping and threat 
 ening to upset all Nora s goods in the road. 
 There was a house near by ; a whiff of turf 
 smoke, drifting low in the damp air, blew 
 into Nora s face ; she heard the bells begin 
 to ring in Kemnare. It was the evening of 
 a saint s day, and they rang and rang, and 
 Nora had come home. 
 
 So she married the lad she loved, and was 
 a kind daughter to his mother. They spent 
 a good bit of the captain s money on their 
 farm, and gave it a fine start, and were able 
 to flaunt their prosperity in the face of that 
 unkind aunt who had wished to make them 
 
A LITTLE CAPTIVE MAID. 309 
 
 spend their lives apart. They were seen 
 early on market days in Keiimare, and 
 Nora only laughed when foolish young people 
 said that the only decent country in the 
 world was America. Sometimes she sat in 
 her doorway in the long summer evening and 
 thought affectionately of Captain Balfour, 
 the poor, kind gentleman, and blessed herself 
 devoutly. Often she said a prayer for him 
 on Sunday morning as she knelt in the par 
 ish church, with flocks of blackbirds singing 
 outside among the green hedges, under the 
 lovely Irish sky. 
 
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