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 CCENTOS DE CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 1904 
 
 48837
 
 C \ C 6 
 
 "c/^w / mj' brother's keeper?" ^/Ijye, thou art! 
 Tis thine to bind the wound, to ease the smarts 
 To guide the halting foot, to help the hand 
 Lagging with over-labor; thine to stand 
 Ever beside the weak against the strong — 
 tA soldier, fearless of the ranks of wrong. 
 Tis thine to succor; shelter; and to heal 
 The ills of flesh and spirit; thine to feel — 
 j4 child of Earth-ihe common lot of woe. 
 'Our brother's Keeper' ^yel and could we know 
 Than this a Heaven fairer that could be! 
 Linked heart and hand in kindred unity, 
 To walk a world whence enmity had fled, 
 A world wherein the tempter. Self was dead. 
 Unbound of cast or creed, or tongue, or race — 
 A world of Love, before our Father's face. 
 
 INA COOLBT{ITH.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 THB WOMAN OF DREAMS - - - Henry S. Kirk 
 
 CHRISTMAS AT SEVEN DEVILS - - Catherine Markham 
 BY THE LIGHT OF THE SHOOTING STAR Lillian Corbett Barnes 
 THE WAY OF A WOMAN .... Olive Percival 
 
 SUSY Nancy K. Foster 
 
 THE SPIRITUAL WOOING OF PETER HANCE Gertrude Henderson
 
 THE WOMAN OF DREAMS. 
 
 ANUELA GONZALEZ stood in her 
 doorway, and looked out over the water. 
 All she could see was the empty bay and 
 the hills beyond; but it was where the 
 ships came in from the sea, and Manuela Gonzales 
 looked over the water with silent eyes. The sea 
 had sung her son from her, and had never given 
 him back. She had watched and waited, but 
 he never came. Every evening at sunset she 
 stood in her doorway and looked over the 
 water, her eyes staring with changing hope and 
 fear. With the last light of the sun, a day of 
 waiting for Manuela was done; with the first gray of 
 dawn, another began. Weeks and months went by. 
 Moons came and melted, and years went with them, 
 but no ship came in from the sea with the son of Man- 
 uela. New stars shone over Monterey, and new roses 
 clung to the adobe walls, leaves dropped from the 
 pear trees, and came back again, but the house of 
 Manuela was empty. 
 
 Manuela Gonzales stood in her doorway and looked 
 out over the water. The sun was below the pine 
 trees on the Sierra. A red Hght spread upon the 
 
 7
 
 bay and upon the hills beyond. The air blew in from 
 the sea, into the face of Manuela, and past her 
 into the house. There was no sound in the earth nor 
 in the sky but of the falling of the sea upon the sand. 
 The mystery of the dying day filled the air. The oak 
 trees stood silent upon the mesa. The red-tiled roofs 
 gave back to the sky its fainting glow. Shadows 
 limned themselves in the canyons in the hills. The 
 things of the day faded before the coming dark. But 
 there was no sight for the eyes of Manuela but the 
 water upon which a ship might sail in from the sea. 
 
 The days of her waiting with their aching and their 
 loneliness cried out in her heart. They were with her^ 
 always, and at sunset a new day with them. Her life 
 and her hope had been for her children. She had 
 given her prayers and her watchings for them, through 
 the days and the nights of their young lives. She 
 had walked after them in death, till all were gone 
 but Mateo, and he was out in the sea, in a world she 
 knew nothing of. Her home was empty. There was 
 no one to come to her in the morning, no one to be 
 with her through the long day. 
 
 Mateo was on the sea, and the others were with 
 God. But some day Mateo might come back to her, 
 and she would no longer sit alone. Her life would be full 
 again and her days would end in peace. She lived and 
 prayed that she might be blessed again with her Mateo. 
 She waited for him, and looked out over the water for 
 the ship to bring him home. She kept his room ready, 
 
 8
 
 and changed the flowers every day upon his little altar. 
 She set his place at the table opposite her own. Some- 
 times she thought she could see him. She would talk 
 with him, and make herself believe he was really 
 there, and not on the water. She gave him his fri- 
 joles and his coffee and the empanadas he always liked 
 and she talked with him of the things that had hap- 
 pened since he was gone. Every night she kissed the 
 air in the empty doorway of his room, and commended 
 his sleep to God and the Blessed Mother. She thanked 
 God for the illusion ; she held it deep in her heart, and 
 looked for it as she did for the ship to come in from 
 the sea. 
 
 Manuela Gonzales stood in her doorway and looked 
 out over the water. The red light of the dying sun 
 faded in the air and upon the hills. The gray of the 
 evening deepened. The breaking surf sounded faint- 
 ly from the sand. A star came into the sky. Man- 
 uela looked out over the water, but no ship came in 
 from the sea. She went into her house, and into the 
 little kitchen. There was Mateo standing against the 
 window. He had never seemed so much like life be- 
 fore. The old woman clasped her hands. 
 
 ''God !" she cried, the tears running down her face, 
 ''Mateo !" She motioned to the table. She brought 
 the things from the fire. 
 
 "Mateo, Mateo," she said, ''the ship did not come in 
 today. Nothing came in but the wind in the air. 
 The empanadas are good. Mateo, Mateo, when will 
 
 9
 
 you come back to me! I was all the morning in the 
 church. Father Sebastian told me God would take 
 care of you, and the Blessed Mother. I know it, but 
 I want you, Mateo. The others are gone. I have 
 only you. General Castro said he would have you in 
 the presidio when you come back. You may go, 
 Mateo, if you like. I shall do nothing to keep you 
 from Avhat you want, only if you were near me, where 
 I could see you! I have given up the others, and I 
 w^ould give you up, too, if you wanted to go. Yester- 
 day a ship came in, and I went to the water, but you 
 were not in it. Mateo, ]\Iateo, I wonder if you ever 
 hear me talking to you ! Perhaps God lets you know 
 I do. He will keep you for me, anyway, and I shall 
 see you with the others !" 
 
 The old woman looked into the eyes of her son. 
 They seemed staring and strange. The lips moved 
 as if endeavoring to speak. Through the window the 
 light of the night fell upon the floor. The stars glit- 
 tered in the sky. The moon came up from behind 
 the hills. Manuela looked into the face of her son. 
 It was in the shadow, but she could see every line upon 
 it. 
 
 ''Mateo," she said, "the sea is always saying it will 
 not give you back, and the wind says the same thing, 
 too. I ask it to blow you back to me, but it will not. 
 Mateo, are you dead ! Are you coming to me to do 
 something! I pray always for you. God will give 
 you rest. I pray with my heart and my soul, and with 
 
 10
 
 all my life. You are looking at me so strangely. 
 Don't say anything, Mateo. It will be all right. The 
 garden is just the same. Will you have some more 
 frijoles? The rose is on the roof now. I bring the 
 flowers to the church. I brought some this morning 
 to Dona Modesta. She said General Castro would 
 not forget you when you came back. Father Sebas- 
 tian says his Mass for you every week. You are all 
 in the moon, Mateo. You used to look at the moon 
 when you were little. I could not get you to sleep, 
 only when I sang to you." 
 
 ^ The old woman rocked in her chair and sang croon- 
 ingly. 
 
 "You always liked to hear me sing better than anyone 
 else. When you come back I will sing you to sleep 
 again. We shall be happy, Mateo. You will be in 
 the presidio. General Castro said he would have you 
 there. May be you would rather be here with me, 
 and work in the garden. The day of our Lady of 
 Guadeloupe is coming. If you could only be here, 
 then, we would go to the church and hear Father Se- 
 bastian, and we would sit in the plaza. You are 
 tired, Mateo. Your room is ready, but I shall go in." 
 
 She rose from the table and went into her son's 
 room. She turned back the coverings of the bed, and 
 stooped and kissed the pillows. She closed a shutter 
 of the window. She made the sign of the Cross 
 with holy water from the little altar, and went back 
 into the kitchen. She paused quickly inside the door, 
 
 11
 
 gasping. Her son stood in the moonlight, his arms 
 outstretched. She could see his throat moving con- 
 vulsively, the tears running down his face. 
 
 "Mateo, Mateo, what is it! Are you not at rest! 
 God, I shall go mad ! You shall rest, Mateo. You 
 are gone from me ! I shall never see the ship in the 
 sea, but you shall rest. I shall see you with the oth- 
 ers. God, give my boy peace, and all who are in un- 
 rest ! Good night, Mateo." 
 
 She went nearer her son. 
 
 ''Good night, our Savior save you, and our Blessed 
 Mother !" 
 
 The figure of the man moved toward her, the arms 
 outstretched. A sound came from his throat, as 
 though a whispered calling upon her. The moonlight 
 fell full upon his face. The old woman started, star- 
 ing rigidly. She went into his arms and kissed him. 
 The good night fainted from her lips. 
 
 "Mateo !" she cried. His arms were tight about 
 her. His tears were falling upon her face. "Mateo !" 
 She threw her arms about his head. "God, Blessed 
 Mother, I thank you ! Mateo, you have come back to 
 me!" 
 
 He:nry S. Kirk. 
 
 12
 
 CHRISTMAS AT SEVEN DEVILS. 
 
 HE rhythmic boom between water and earth 
 in the hydrauHc mines was chording thun- 
 derously with the rush of the storm-wind 
 down the pine-spiked ravines at Seven Devils. 
 A fine mining season and a lively Christmas was the 
 prophecy of the loungers in Solomon's store, await- 
 ing the arrival of the pack-train with the weekly mail. 
 The store doors swung open suddenly and a gust of 
 wind swept in a young man of city bearing, and a 
 slender young woman, swathed in waterproof, a red 
 nubia, with pelting ends about her head. 
 
 The listless sitters were alert at once. Big Denis 
 hitched up his blue overalls, his partner buttoned a 
 greasy vest over a greasier red shirt. Pike's Peak 
 Darby raked a pocket-comb through his hair and 
 beard; Blue Jay, otherwise B. J. Bumpus, put aside 
 the harmonica on which he had been playing, and 
 Black Douglas, the crack-shot, rose to bow and smile 
 with the grace that had pleased Eastern drawing- 
 rooms. The lady greeted each with gentle voice and 
 smile that died at once, leaving wistful eyes, and made 
 a few purchases of Christmas gifts for the half-dozen 
 children of the camp. 
 
 13
 
 The young man leaned against the counter furtively 
 sketching people and postures about the stove. Pres- 
 ently the two passed out again. No one in the store 
 spoke for a few moments. Then Big Denis' partner 
 ejaculated viciously : 
 
 ''D — mn old Tom Bain anyhow !" 
 
 "Vm with you there," said Pike's Peak. "Tom 
 Bain is giving that little wife of his every chance to 
 get broke up. This New York newspaper chap may 
 be his cousin and a good fellow, but it's Bain's own 
 job to take care of her, and not his cousin's." 
 
 "Boys," said Blue Jay, tanned and tawny and like 
 a bronze, in his brown denims, "I don't like to have 
 Agnes Bain's name come up even this way among 
 friends. I'm afraid I'm down in the books Up There 
 for the murder that's in my heart for that hulking 
 brute, Bain. Crazy after her till he got her a year or 
 two ago, and now pays no more attention to her than 
 he does to the Chiny cook. Has mostly no idea she's 
 alone. I don't much blame the story-paper feller for 
 hanging around her. He wants to make up for some 
 of his relation's blank cussedness, I suppose; but I'm 
 afraid he'll git too near the edge of the cut and pull 
 the little girl in with him." 
 
 "How in thunder did that sensitive, delicate young 
 girl ever come to marry that cold-blooded, drunken 
 lout?" said a stranger who sat by. "Strikes me I'd 
 ruther be burned for all eternity than have to live in 
 the house with him." 
 
 14
 
 "Just like a woman," said Blue Jay, apologetically. 
 ''She was almighty lonesome after her father got killed 
 in the big slide, and this man hung around her till 
 he got into her life somehow. She just salted some 
 of her own goodness of heart into him and thought she 
 had struck a prospect. Besides, boys, he is worse now 
 than he used to be. I knew him before Agnes left 
 the convent at Grass Valley, where her father put her 
 after her mother died, and he wasn't so bad. He 
 hadn't took to drinking then, and folks said he had 
 a family of j edges and edintors and things in New 
 York that was mostly decent." 
 
 ''Yes, the crathur has gone to the bad intirely since 
 he lost his money in the True Blue, and began to 
 drink," said Big Denis. "Whin he married he thought 
 he had a pile and would soon quit the mines, thev say, 
 and God knows but it may be preying on his mind the 
 robberies going on all the time in the Sivin Divils " 
 
 "Mighty strange, now ain't it, the way that Seven 
 Devils' claim bucks at every clean-up," said Darby. 
 "The rock pans out as well as ever; the channel is 
 on both sides, and still the company don't m^ake ex- 
 penses." 
 
 "They'll drop the thief soon," said Blue Jay. "Every 
 man in the Seven Devils' cuts feels under suspicion 
 and they are all on the lookout. The watch says he 
 is ready to shoot at sight or sound in the under cur- 
 rents after this." 
 
 Meantime, Agnes Bain had passed to her little 
 15
 
 home under the hill to try to waste away the lircary 
 day. From books and music she turned to the win- 
 dows to watch the gray skeining of the rain with the 
 dull accompaniment of thought : ''Why am I cor- 
 nered here on this dreary mountain side — I, who 
 dreamed such dreams of freedom and large, free liv- 
 ing? Travel, life, and love were in the covenant with 
 this man who names me wife, and yet' counts me of 
 his veriest chattels." 
 
 "And still, why frame the desolation in words? 
 There is nothing to do but endure." 
 
 She glanced at the clock over the fireplace. Two 
 hours before Elton would come; but how futile for 
 her to note his comings and goings, so soon to be at 
 an end forever. 
 
 "It is only that he understands my life and its isola- 
 tion," she said. "Let me enjoy the sympathy. I will 
 repay by and by." 
 
 When Elton came her eyes were still upon the rain- 
 swept hills. "Well, Mistress Agnes," he began, "the 
 summons I have been dreading has come. I am im- 
 peratively bidden home." 
 
 The world's dimness hid from each the other's pal- 
 lor. 
 
 "It will seem well to go," she said, slowly — "to see 
 people living once more." 
 
 "I confess to only one regret," he said, hesitatingly, 
 "and that I scarcely dare to word. You have never 
 uttered a complaint of my cousin, but do you think 
 
 16
 
 I do not know all? How can I leave you with him, 
 Agnes?" 
 
 "Hush! hush!" she commanded, her eyes wide, and 
 fastened on the beckoning trees of the ravines. 
 
 "Tom Bain is my kinsman," said Elton, fiercely, 
 "but I would pluck my heart out if I thought one drop 
 of his cold, cruel blood was in my veins." 
 
 "You must not, must not speak so," she protested, 
 clutching the window ledge, forcing herself to look 
 away, but panting with the bliss of knowing that he 
 understood and cared. 
 
 "You were only a child beside his years," he said. 
 "He had no right to bind his life to yours, to any 
 woman's. There is a curse on all his mother's 
 house — " 
 
 "It is too late to tell me now," she moaned; "but, 
 Elton, I am sometimes so afraid of him. Sometimes 
 he does not sleep at all. I have begged him to let 
 me have a neighbor's child to stay with me, when 
 he must steal in and out; but his anger is terrible if 
 I even seem to notice his coming and going. Some- 
 times for days he does not speak to me. 
 
 "Oh, I ought not to tell even you ; but I have been 
 dumb so long, and you will soon be so far away — " 
 
 "Agnes," he faltered. "It stabs me to think I can 
 do nothing. Let me — " and he reached out his arms 
 toward her. 
 
 But her face was turned toward the writhing woods, 
 and he drew them back and clinched his hands behind 
 him. 
 
 17
 
 ''If I dared to tempt her white soul!" he groaned. 
 "But I must; I will speak," he argued, and he stepped' 
 close and bent his eyes upon hers^* 
 
 ''Agnes, before I go you must hear me; ma/ I 
 speak ?" 
 
 Some import of his words terrified her. 
 "Not now, not now," she implored. 
 "The hour before I go, then ?" he insisted ; and she 
 had not strength to say him nay. 
 * * * 
 
 The ball was to be in the miners' boarding-house. 
 The blind fiddler had come from Yankee Jim's and 
 been steamed dry after a drenching in Shirt Tail can- 
 yon. The barber would come to play the banjo after 
 the evening rush of business was over. Blue Jay was 
 master of ceremonies, and every dancer of the Seven 
 Devils divide was out, notwithstanding the fierce 
 storm. Every nationality and station in life were rep- 
 resented; each person tolerant of, indifferent to, his 
 neighbor's antecedents. 
 
 Agnes Bain was there, too, at her husband's request, 
 her face the saddest in the throng. The New York 
 cousin sat by the fiddler, jotting down groupings and 
 faces. His eyes were oftenest on the pale, sad woman 
 who never glanced toward him. 
 
 The dancing, under Blue Jay's watch, did not flag 
 till th€ midnight supper. After the feast, while the 
 musicians rested, the promenade and chorus began. 
 Dancers, spectators, whosoever would, united in the 
 
 18
 
 circling round and joined in the son^s thev lifted — 
 oid, sad-^ongs mostly the singers had known in far- 
 away homes. 
 
 Agnes Bain had once been the soul of this rude 
 chorusing, but tonight she sat apart, listening. A wail- 
 ing cadence stung her to leave the room : 
 
 "We loved each other then, Lorena, j 
 
 More than we ever dared to tell ; 
 And oh, what might have been, Lorena, 
 Had but our loving prospered well." 
 
 I'he vast, unthinkable Might-Have-Been was upon 
 her, and she seized a wrap and slipped out into the 
 storm. She found comfort in the ra^e and passion 
 of the night. For a moment they made her forget 
 the words that had assailed her ears for hours — the 
 sentence asking her to hear what she must never al- 
 low to be said. 
 
 As she stood she heard the storm-choked peal ol 
 the midnight bell from the little Catholic chapel on the 
 hill. She glanced at its dim lights above the flicker- 
 ing flames of the mines about, and a sudden thought 
 came. She would go and kneel at the altar there 
 <ind ask for peace. 
 
 She sped up the hill. The rain spat in her face. 
 The wind hissed insults in her ears. Trees and boul- 
 ders thwarted her path, and in nervous fatigue she 
 was crying like a lost child when she groped her way 
 through the church gate. Through the window she 
 peered in upon the absorbed group ; some telling their 
 
 19
 
 beads, their bodies swaying to the cadences of the 
 aves ; some thumbing little, thick books ; some lost in 
 meditation. 
 
 And as she leaned she stood apart from herself in 
 the spirit, and saw that she, with boasted ideal of duty, 
 was letting slip some anchorage of right and truth. 
 And then she thrust the burden of guilt aside. "But 
 it is my only life — my fleeting life — why live a lie? 
 I must go far away and forget the waste of joy, and 
 find happiness. I have a right to be happv. I will 
 not be a fool. I will go — I must, I must," and she 
 turned rebelliously to the right ag^ain. 
 
 The gravestones gleamed about her in the beacon 
 fires at the door. She knew every tenant of these 
 mounds, and through her tears and trembling, long 
 dead ones seemed to rise and press about her. Her 
 mother, no older when she died than she herself was 
 now, glided to her, whispering patience ; her father, 
 grave and tender, sadly waved her homeward. Then 
 all the other shades that she had known came hover- 
 ing nearer. The air grew full of them, all beckoning 
 and urging her back. 
 
 Their eyes gleamed out of the darkness, their whis- 
 pers swelled about her; thev were touching her; they 
 were dragging her. She turned, shrieking, and her 
 voice went into the rage of the night unheeded by man. 
 
 She sank on her knees by the low window. "J^^us, 
 Jesus, is it wrong to crave the beautiful, happy world? 
 Do vou vvant me to stav? Will vou help me to bear 
 it?"' 
 
 20
 
 And the aspiration or its answer hushed her. She 
 was a child again in the old convent, with her un- 
 stained thoughts and her untroubled soul. 
 
 The wind held its breath a little time. The priest 
 turned and blessed them all, and, nearing the chalice, 
 stepped down and knelt, too. She knew it was the 
 Virgin's litany: "Mother, most pure, pray for us," 
 they asked. 
 
 "Oh, pray for me, sweet maid — mother," echoed the 
 bruised soul of the woman outside. 
 
 "Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the 
 world; spare us, oh Lord," they entreated. 
 
 "Spare me," she cried. "Give me strength and pa- 
 tience. Lord ; I will go back and keep the oath." 
 * * * 
 
 They found her on the porch, and did not know 
 but that she had been with them. 
 
 "Denis," she said, as he came out, "will you take 
 me home?" 
 
 "And proud of it, Alanna," he said, tenderly. 
 
 "And, Denis, when you come back will you step 
 into the ballroom and give Mr. Elton a note from 
 me?" 
 
 "I would walk miles and carry you and your letther, 
 Acushla," he said. 
 
 The scrawl read only: 
 
 "I have gone home. I beg you never to see me or 
 Speak to me again. This is my farewell." 
 
 But before Denis had reached the hall the ball, 
 
 21
 
 which usually edged up to breakfast time, was at an 
 end, even forgotten. In the noisiest mazes of a 
 *'Tucker" quadrille, a miner waving his lantern aloft, 
 had rushed in shouting: 
 
 "Hey, some of you boys! Come and lend a hand 
 down in the Seven Devils' flumes. We've killed our 
 thief at last, but it's so infernal dark and slippery 
 we've got to have help to pack him out!" 
 
 A score of men, headed by Blue Jay, Elton among 
 them, started down into the heart of the darkness, 
 where the dead man lay. 
 
 The few left in the ballroom huddled together in 
 groups, peering out into the darkness, straining their 
 ears to hear through the now redoubled shrieking of 
 the wind, and venturing theories as to the identity of 
 the thief, and the approaching solution of the long 
 mysterious robbery of the Seven Devils. 
 
 It was growing a shade less black in the heavens 
 when the cortege came toiling up from the canyon 
 bearing a dark heap, swathed in rubber overcoats, 
 upon a rude stretcher made of young pines. 
 
 The bearers and the followers, slipping, breathing 
 heavily against the hindering wind, headed toward the 
 hall where the delayed revelers tarried. They laid the 
 stretcher across the benches, and spread the covers 
 decently over the shape. No word had been spoken, 
 save Blue Jay's hoarse commands. 
 
 Then a woman said softly to her husband, who had 
 gone down into the canyon: ''Who is it, John?" 
 
 22
 
 "My God, wife, haven't you all heard? It is Tom 
 Bain himself. He has been the thief of the Seven 
 Devils." 
 
 She hushed the man as if the corpse might resent 
 the words, and by one accord, from some strange in- 
 stinct of respect for the name of death, they filed from 
 the room and left the dead alone under the cypress 
 boughs of the Christmas bravery. 
 
 Outside in the dim light ot the drenched Christmas 
 morning, the story was told over and over of the 
 slacking of the water in the sluices, the watchman's 
 suddenly reversing his beat and coming upon the 
 thief scraping the riffles into a great buckskin bag; 
 of the quick, sure aim at the red bull's-eye slung upon 
 the thief's breast, and of the flash of the watchman's 
 lantern into the dead face of Tom Bain, the super- 
 intendent of the mine, the thief of the Seven Devils. 
 
 Blue Jay alone had no time for idle gossip. With 
 more than pious resignation he directed the laying out 
 of the corpse, the making of the coffin. It puzzled 
 him most to know how to tell the tidings to the -.vife. 
 Where was the New York cousin? Denis knew. He 
 had seen Elton reading Agnes' note by the flickering 
 pitch fire on the hill, even as the word was passed 
 that Bain was the corpse below. He had seen the 
 white awe on the man's face as though crouching be- 
 fore the judgment-seat. He had seen him leave the 
 crowd for his own room, saying only, ''You go to 
 her, Denis, and keep them all away from her till she 
 
 23
 
 can bear to see some woman." 
 
 It was Denis who had been first to tell her of her 
 father's death, who now roused her from a feverish 
 stupor to tell her of her husband's death and disgrace. 
 
 She heard aghast. She sobbed in some hysterical 
 mood of pity for herself and the dead, and moaned, "I 
 am so deeply glad that I made up my mind before I 
 knew. Down in my heart I always meant to be true." 
 
 But Denis would not seem to understand. "Sure 
 we all knew you never thought him a scoundhril, an* 
 a faithfuller wife no man iver had. But rest you 
 now." 
 
 He tarried about the house until the time to lead the 
 wife to the funeral in the afternoon. 
 
 Blue Jay had hurried the inquest through. The 
 stored-up gold in hundreds of ounces had been found. 
 A heavy snowstorm had begun, and all agreed that 
 the grave might better take the unfortunate dead at 
 once. So in the white of the Christmas afternoon, 
 under the bending branches of the pines, they gath- 
 ered about the coffin. The male quartet of the Boom- 
 erang saloon chanted a solumn hymn proclaiming 
 mercy beyond weight of sin, promising sins as crimson 
 to be made white as snow. When they had done, the 
 kinsman Elton stepped to the coffin-head, and in the 
 hush said: 
 
 "Friends, I have been harsher than any of you in 
 my past judgment of our dead. We need not gloss his 
 sins now, but we may all have been too hard on him. 
 
 24
 
 There is a terrible taint of madness in his mother's 
 family, and the poison may have begun to work ,in 
 his blood. 
 
 "None here have noble deeds of his to sound, but 
 back in a New York village I know a young man will 
 say, 'He saved my life at the risk of his own when I, 
 a little child, had sunk through the rotten ice/ And 
 an old woman, his insane mother's nurse, will weep 
 and say, 'He has been my only support for years.' 
 Let us think on these things, friends, and try to for- 
 get the blackness of the last. May God have mercy 
 on his soul." 
 
 They had uncovered their heads to the snow as he 
 spoke. Pity stirred in every heart. Blue Jay thought 
 as he helped heap the clay upon the coffin: "This is 
 the minute I used to pray for, but I was too almighty 
 hard and fast, I guess. I'll make a memorandy to 
 'pologize to him on the Judgment Day, and he kin 
 lick me for it if his temper ain't improved by then." 
 
 Denis was on his knees against the next grave, his 
 lips trembling in prayer for the living and the dead. 
 He knew that Elton must start this hour for the East, 
 and he felt the crisis in two lives as the widow of the 
 dead and the dead's young kinsman met for the first 
 time since the death, parted now before them all with 
 only one long look and the simple, immemorial part- 
 ing word, "GoQd-by." 
 
 Catherine Markham. 
 
 25
 
 BY THE LIGHT OF THE SHOOTING STAR 
 
 ORGOTTEN sunlight shone upon the San 
 Gabriel uplands, and the uplands opened 
 forgotten poppies to the sun. It was a 
 miracle that enkindling sun, those rekind- 
 led mesas, and under the sun, across the mesa-trails, 
 rode a boy with the sunlight in his eyes and a shoot- 
 ing-star in his button-hole. His mare galloped against 
 a lilting breeze, and he urged her on. Across fifty 
 miles he heard a girl's voice singing in the sunlight, 
 across fifty miles he saw the sunlight on her hair. 
 The sound and the sight made him throw himself back 
 in his saddle and give a long, low, exultant cry. Then 
 he bent forward again and spurred on his mare. 
 
 Beside the sunshine and the golden meadows there 
 were other things along his way : grazing cattle ; flocks 
 of wild birds ; ground squirrels on their hillocks ; an 
 occasional red-tiled adobe ; an occasional horseman, his 
 lariat round his saddle-horn ; the broad, low bell tower 
 of San Gabriel in the distance ; canyons, and foot-hills, 
 precipitous trails, and open pasture land, and brown 
 vineyards, and gray-green olive-groves, and violet Sier- 
 ras. The boy thought that he saw them all quite plain- 
 ly. ''What a heavenly day !" he thought that he heard 
 
 27
 
 himself saying to himself. In reality his pulse beat 
 only to one tune — "Eulalie ! Eulalie !" 
 
 The horsemen he met waved their hats, and he waved 
 his in return. It seemed to him that they were very 
 joyous, those horsemen. The cattle, the ground-squir- 
 rels, the violet Sierras, were joyous, too. From one 
 of the red-tiled adobes a woman ran out on the porch 
 and waved a scarlet reboso to him as he passed, calling 
 out a greeting. He did not wait to catch the greeting, 
 he only bowed low in his saddle and fled faster. She 
 must be aware, that woman, that he was bound on 
 weighty business, aflfairs of the universe that brooked 
 no delay. The woman laughed when she saw that 
 he would not stop. Her laughter sounded pleasant 
 in his receding ears. She knew, of course she knew, 
 where he was going, and for what. It seemed the one 
 patent fact. Indeed, if it had been borne in upon him 
 that any one solitary object along his road was not 
 fully alive to his errand, he would have drawn rein 
 and told that object, bird, or beast, or boulder. But 
 it never entered his head. Again he flung himself 
 back in the saddle and uttered that long, lov/, melo- 
 dious shout. 
 
 Later on, in the heart of a canyon, he found himself 
 singing. His mare drew down to the bed of the 
 stream to drink. He let the reins fall loose on her 
 neck and watched her. How delightful it was to see 
 a horse drink ! What bright drops of water dripped 
 from her mouth ! It occurred to him that he would like 
 
 28
 
 a drink, also, before he ate his tortilla, and, slipping 
 from the saddle, he knelt down and dipped his hol- 
 lowed palm into the brook. He gave the shooting- 
 star a drink, too, and kissed its purple pink petals when 
 he put it back into its place. 
 
 "Eulalie!" he said. 
 
 When he remounted, his mood was changed. Rev- 
 erie took possession of him. Outside, it was fierce 
 noonday by this time. Here, under the sycamores, 
 shadows played. His need for haste vanished. He 
 dallied with his delight. It was budded. It was blos- 
 somed. How gracious was this hour before it was 
 plucked ! Infinite peace brooded upon it, and through 
 the peace he looked out upon eternity. The song died 
 upon his lips. He crossed himself reverently. 
 
 ''Madre de Dios, be good to her — now, and at the 
 hour of her death. Amen." 
 
 After this, there was silence in his soul. The word 
 Death, which had come to him with the instinctive 
 ending of his prayer, rested upon him tenderly. He 
 saw it shining, far-off, down the years, a thing inde- 
 scribably beautiful, indescribably remote. Her Death ! 
 He bowed his head and crossed himself again, awe- 
 stricken. When he looked up, there were tears brim- 
 ming his eyes, but they were tears of joy. The reality 
 of life welled to flood-tide for that passing shadow. 
 
 He came out from the canyon upon the open country 
 again. Before him stretched the King's Highway. 
 Mid-day pulsated in a haze of heat upon the land. 
 
 29
 
 The haze was more blinding than darkness. It daz- 
 zled his eyes. It benumbed his soul. His senses be- 
 came conscious of certain annoying things — one, the 
 heavier loping of his mare ; another, the dust of the 
 road. He had on a fine, new suit — a silver braided 
 sombrero, a green velvet jacket. He took ofiF the 
 sombrero and dusted it carefully. ^'Diablo!" he ejac- 
 ulated, **I shall look like a sheep-herder!" 
 
 Then he dusted the velvet jacket carefully, too, and, 
 chancing to brush against the shooting-star, his frown 
 vanished. 
 
 Turning his mare from out the King's Highway, he 
 pricked his path along less-frequented trails. They 
 led him past the outskirts of the white pueblo of Los 
 Angeles, over open pasture lands, by short cuts stead- 
 ily downward from the mountains to the sea. 
 
 He galloped on, singing to himself again. Mid-day 
 became afternoon. Afternoon waxed and waned. 
 Shadows of live-oaks lengthened across the meadows. 
 The atmosphere grew^ clearer, the air cooler, the scent 
 of the wind salt. By and by he was riding among 
 salt-marshes. Tremulous glory of sunet played over 
 the shallow tide-waters that eddied in and out among 
 their reeds, and even as he lifted his eyes to the hori- 
 zon of the west, the fiery flower of the sun melted into 
 liquid splendor of rose and amber and olivine, and 
 went out. 
 
 Before him lay the twilit Pacific. Behind him 
 loomed the twilit Sierras. In the still, green dusk 
 
 30
 
 blossomed the first star. Little by little the sky was 
 full of stars, and it was night. The stars in the sky 
 were suns, but there were also lesser stars on earth. 
 At a turn of the road, now winding among sandy hills, 
 they leaped into being, scarcely a mile ahead. The 
 road led through young almond orchards, straight 
 onward to a house, and the house was a house of 
 stars. They moved, they twinkled, they glowed, they 
 increased, they multiplied — a festival of lights ! The 
 mare saw them, too. Under the sudden spur, her 
 gallop becarrie a race; her race, a madness. The boy 
 sat like a statue. Only, his pluses throbbed. Only, 
 his eyes shone. 
 
 A half-mile a quarter a hundred rods 
 
 he saw gay figures in the light, he heard guitars, 
 
 songs, laughter, the neighing of tethered horses, the 
 echo of bantered speech. 
 
 Abruptly he wheeled from the road to the by-paths 
 of the orchard. "The old way once yet, Eulalie!" he 
 whispered, and let the reins fall loose. The mare 
 seemed to know the by-paths well. She galloped un- 
 hesitatingly on. It was very dark under the trees. 
 The almond-blossoms brushed against his face. He 
 reached up his hand 
 
 "Pepe!" — a hushed cry, but it threw the mare back 
 on her haunches. 
 
 'Tepe!" — the voice had a ring of laughter in it. 
 "Is it so wicked for me to come to meet you, that you 
 have to ride right over me, me in my wedding gown ?" 
 
 31
 
 On his knees on the ground, the boy pressed two 
 slim, brown hands to his breast. 
 
 "Ay, Pepe!" 
 
 Then, with feigning of deep wonder, "What is this 
 queer thing I feel against your heart?" 
 
 "Only a little star of earth, querida, to remind a 
 miserable sinner of his Star-on-high." 
 
 "Poor soul! have you lost your sweetheart?" 
 
 "No, my Star-on-high, I kneel before her now." 
 
 "Then she is only a star of earth, after all, very 
 jealous of that other star ! How long has it been lying 
 there, too sweet?" 
 
 "All day — too sweet by love of you, its food and 
 drink." 
 
 "One little day! Don't be so proud! There are 
 all the days of all the years to come." 
 
 "It will still smell sweet." 
 
 "Lover's words ! I am wiser, I have listened to the 
 duenas. Give me the star and let me go" — 
 
 "Not yet, my Star" — 
 
 "Yes, now, this minute! The duenas will pass 
 judgment on more than my gown! Give me my 
 star"— 
 
 5iv JjC 5JC 5^C 3|C S|C 
 
 "Give me my shooting-star, great-grandfather! 
 You've been holding it most an hour!" The child at 
 the old man's knee shifted her weight impatiently 
 from one foot to the other. The blue eyes in her 
 brown face betrayed a strain of Saxon blood. 
 
 32
 
 The old man started. He rubbed his hand across 
 his eyes. 
 
 "So long as that, little Eulalie?" he answered quiz- 
 zically in the same tongue." But, do you know, I 
 thought myself that it had been a whole day!" 
 
 "Why, it couldn't be that! Manuel brought it to 
 me from the mountains this morning, when he came 
 down to Wilmington on the train, and it's morning 
 yet. I wish they grew down here by the sea ! Give it 
 back to me great-grandfather — it isn't yours to keep!" 
 
 The old man folded the stalk into the out-stretched 
 hand. From the porch of the crumbling adobe where 
 he sat, a shadow among shadows, he pointed to the 
 open court. Beyond the court-yard glowed the fresh, 
 spring glory of ancient almond orchards, and old pep- 
 per-tree boughs shifted an illusive and delicate lace- 
 tracery of sun and shade over its sunken flag-stones. 
 Under the pepper trees, her wrinkled face a more deli- 
 cate and illusive lace-tracery still, more of the sun and 
 shade of four-score years, dozed a little, old grandma. 
 
 "Take the posy to your great-grandmother, little 
 Eulalie," he said, "and tell her" — his voice melted into 
 the softer syllables of Spain, "that great-grandfather — 
 no, no! — tell her that Pepe sends his love, and says to 
 see the shooting-star, and to smell, it still is sweet." 
 
 The blue eyes rounded. "What do you mean, great- 
 grandfather ?" , 
 
 The old man's withered fingers patted the rounded 
 cheek. He smiled tremulously. 
 
 "Great-grandmother knows," he said. 
 
 LlIvLIAN CORBETT BaRNES. 
 33
 
 THE WAY OF A WOMAN. 
 
 A Very Modern Tragedy. 
 ISS Dean sat bolt upright on the teakwood 
 stool and gazed at him in a way that was 
 unflinchingly adoring, — yet he, with avert- 
 ed eyes, continued silent and placid. 
 And thus ended his first evening in The Den, al- 
 though the soft firelight was a witchery. 
 
 He was not Miss Dean's very first love. He was 
 merely one of a long series and it is wholly probable 
 that she had gazed at all his predecessors in the same 
 frankly worshipful way. Perhaps Miss Dean was an 
 impulsivist. At any rate, the moment, her eyes first 
 beheld him, she had gasped undisguisedly and clasped 
 together her jewelled hands in a dramatic and beauti- 
 ful ecstasy of appreciation. And her friends had 
 smiled, in a certain, slow way, — but about that she 
 did not care in the least, as she meant to please her- 
 self in such a matter. She always had. 
 
 It had been different with him. He had never 
 cared for any man except himself and certainly for no 
 woman — women are so immeasurably inferior ! He 
 had not even glanced at this ridicuously rich American 
 girl until, on that fateful afternoon, she had singled 
 him out from the rest of his companions and had made 
 
 35
 
 such a great to-do over him, right there before them 
 all. Then, in astonishment he had to look at her. 
 Yet it had proved worth his while. It was said that 
 Miss Dean was always a pleasing surprise to every- 
 body, including herself, and it is certain that in look- 
 ing at her lie forgot to remember that all demonstratiye- 
 ness is plebeian — he forgot to be repelled by even the 
 American variety. But the intensity and the quality 
 of this particular lady's appreciation were so flatter- 
 ingly evident and so agreeably different from all oth- 
 ers ! One properly associated her expressions with 
 the most expensive incense — clouds and clouds of it 
 and acceptable even in high places. 
 
 Nevertheless, he did not trouble to assist in the con- 
 versation. He merely listened and smiled his one 
 little smile that, besides being an enigma, was always 
 a fascination. And Miss Dean, fully realizing that 
 she had captured a great prize, loudly proclaimed her- 
 self perfectly happy and content at last. 
 
 For was he not a magnificent Japanese Daimio, 
 cleverly carved from a single piece of fine ivory? 
 Was not the crest of the haughty and powerful Tok- 
 ugawas on his sleeves? 
 
 In The Den of this modern maiden, there was a 
 jumble of many, many things, — rare, curious, expen- 
 sive things, — things that Miss Dean firmly believed 
 were beautiful, tolerating no contrary argument — 
 things from The East and The West, from The North 
 and The South- — and a sudden view had been known to 
 
 36
 
 make strong men dumb or giddy. If, indeed, one 
 sometimes contrived to get himself out of The Den 
 without upsetting a Louis Sixteenth, or a Martha 
 Washington or an Art Nouveau table, — or without 
 totally wrecking the lot of foreign dago bric-a-brac 
 (more appalling to him than many men in battle 
 array), he drew a deep breath and murmured softly 
 to himself something that might have been interpreted 
 as prayer. But Miss Dean's real friends seemed always 
 willing to make oath and depose that The Arrange- 
 ment was very good and tremendously artistic and so 
 perfectly comfortable and so delightfully simple ! What 
 the others said does not matter. Yet, to The Daimio 
 from old Kyoto, it was an amazement and a sorrow; 
 for in such a place it was not possible to succeed in 
 thinking of nothing and, alas! there was no beautiful 
 little image of the good Buddha in The Den, to see 
 and pity. Many were the years that The Daimio 
 had been accustomed to tokonamas in Japanese pal- 
 aces, yet The Den, the treasure-room, of this strange 
 woman-creature he found incomprehensible. It was 
 much like a shop or a warehouse. 
 
 He had presupposed that when he arrived he would 
 be the only object d'art — that any predecessors would 
 be promptly wrapped in their brocades and sent to 
 the godown. It had always been that way in Old 
 Japan. 
 
 But it was not so in Miss Dean's Den and he pond- 
 ered long and long and long. In time, his comfort- 
 
 37 
 
 dHk27
 
 able philosophy taught him that it was a sufficient dis- 
 tinction merely to be one of the unnumbered and ever- 
 present treasures of such a person as Miss Dean, al- 
 though she knew nothing of the beautifully refined 
 enthusiasms of Dai Nippon and cared less. It is also 
 true that he — a daimio of The Tokugawas — soon per- 
 mitted himself to become entirely content with the 
 adoration of this young woman. 
 
 Who The Others all were he had not an idea, — they 
 who were posing and frolicking about everywhere — 
 in cabinets and on low tables and high shelves. Yet 
 he frequently bowed, touching his forehead to the 
 mantel-shelf and drawing in his breath in the politest 
 way in the world. In days gone by, the faultless 
 elegance of his manners at flower picnics and tea- 
 ceremonies had won him the distinguished admiration 
 of two shoguns and one heaven-born mikado. Oh! 
 the magnificence of those old days in august Japan! 
 But, very strangely, these of The West did not seem 
 to understand the etiquette of princes; his most elab- 
 orate hisses and bows were acknowledged with storms 
 of anger and derision, with sneers and ahas! They 
 behaved like coolies in a riot. Yet The Daimio only 
 haughtily narrowed his eyes and privately swore to 
 maintain for ten thousand years the demeanor of a 
 noble, though in the very midst of foreign-devils. And, 
 in his own inimitably elegant and self-contained man- 
 ner, he continued to kneel on the shutenwood pedestal, 
 — his background a wonderful screen from a shogun's 
 
 38
 
 godown (much faded but still beautiful with pine 
 trees and cherry bloom and clouds of golden mist and 
 a great artist's autograph), his nearest neighbors a 
 silly pink-and-gilt vase and an incomprehensible, un- 
 sympathetic clock from a country called France. 
 
 In such an environment, of course, there were oppor- 
 tunities for great unhappiness. 
 
 The Others were always quibbling and wrangling, 
 quite like 'rickshaw-men and sampan-men — especially 
 the little Watteau shepherds and the big warriors on 
 the blue jar. It was disgraceful the way they always 
 went on from midnight to daybreak, truly disgraceful ! 
 Then there was a plaster Hermes and a Parian marble 
 Shakespeare and a black soapstone Osiris, — a trio sin- 
 fully resentful of Miss Dean's love for The Daimio. 
 Shakspeare swore long and strange oaths and Osiris 
 roared most terribly at him ; but Hei mes was really the 
 most trying — for his puns and jests were unending. 
 Then, too, there was a multitude of little unknowns 
 that sneered by companies and another multitude that 
 made terrifying faces at him en masse. But, and this 
 is the truth, — as any of the survivors will bear wit- 
 ness, — the patient, high-bred smile of The Daimio 
 never varied. 
 
 There was but one in the whole Den who impressed 
 him as being something of a courteous gentleman and 
 he was just a poster-man on the wall by The Favorite 
 Window-seat. Erect, broad-shouldered, with a love- 
 ly mass of cadmium-yellow hair and golf-clothes of 
 
 39
 
 purple and turquoise, he was just the man to compel 
 attention in any Den, — leaning as he always did against 
 a cobalt-green and burnt-orange sunset. Once upon 
 a time, but that was weeks before, Miss Dean had 
 adored him to the exclusion of all The Others. Every- 
 body said so. And not on account of the sunset 
 either (there were other sunsets in The Den) but be- 
 cause her admiration was limited to blondes and she 
 had a personal theory that all little men were domi- 
 neering; certainly, The Poster Man was big enough 
 to have big ideas even on the woman question — 
 and that he was the most magnificent of blondes, there 
 was none to dispute. Therefore did he consider him- 
 self eminently suitable. However, as he had no eyes 
 at all (nor any facial features to speak of), Miss Dean 
 early lapsed into indifference. She forgot very soon 
 that he was a great thing in the way of a flat-tone 
 effect. And he, in a repressed manner that w^as ad- 
 mirable, mourned and mourned and then he began to 
 fade dreadfully. So the arrival and enshrinement of 
 The Daimio from Japan was as nothing to him. 
 
 Time in The Den passed swiftly. It was marred 
 only by the elegant hisses of the Oriental prince and 
 the responsive contumelies of the very advanced and 
 surpassingly rude Occidentals. Yet, when Miss Dean 
 would rush into the room for a perfectly quiet half- 
 hour before dinner, or for a few minutes just before 
 going out for the evening, there would always be an 
 instantaneous, a perfect peace and all w^ould imme- 
 
 40
 
 diately look their very best. How her eyes would 
 shine with deep, quiet joy of appreciation and possess- 
 ion! She would stretch her glittering fingers to the 
 fire and glance slowly about at them all, over and over 
 again, and smile oh! so happily! And how exceed- 
 ing great was their happiness that moment! 
 
 It is certain that in those last days her eyes rested 
 longest and most caressingly upon The Daimio ; some- 
 times she would even stand before his shelf and say 
 so very impassionedly : "Oh! you dear, dear thing! 
 I'm so glad I found you ! You're the very best thing 
 in all Los Angeles! You are perfectly adorable! Do 
 you know it?" Naturally, The Daimio's happiness 
 was then too great for expression, so he continued to 
 say nothing to the lady. 
 
 To The Others partialitly of this degree was more 
 than bitter and when Miss Dean had gone and the 
 fire had burned low and then died away and the clock 
 had said — "Midnight ! Speak-all-who-will !" — there 
 would be perfectly terrible outbursts of resentment and 
 anger — regular scenes with missiles, jeers, sobs, and 
 anathemas of many historic varieties. Yet, even at 
 these times. The Daimio never condescended to retort ; 
 his classic features never lessened in their beautiful, 
 Buddha-like calmness and passivity — yet in his heart 
 there was great contempt, as well as the splendid cour- 
 age of the mother-carp swimming agaist the fierce 
 current. 
 
 There was, also, much happiness 
 
 41
 
 One day, and without any warning, Felicita The 
 Maid came in and locked all the windows and pulled 
 down all the shades. After that came days, even weeks, 
 of total darkness. 
 
 No one dreamed what it signified. The gloom, the 
 stillness, the dust, the slight were maddening and un- 
 precedented; naturally enough their faces took on 
 new lines and crackles with the worry of it and they 
 sank way down into the depths of sorrow and market- 
 value. They made no secret of their suffering, they 
 moped openly, — and at last Misery made of them all 
 very good comrades. 
 
 Finally, there came an evening with Miss Dean's 
 voice in the hall. But she did not rush into The Den, 
 she did not even peep in at the door. What did it 
 mean? 
 
 A day dragged by, then an entire week. 
 
 And yet it seemed that Miss Dean was happy — im- 
 moderately happy — because she talked and she laughed 
 and she hummed gay little tunes as she passed by The 
 Den. What could it mean? Were they all despised? 
 Or forgotten? The suspense was heart-breaking. 
 Yet were none of them loudly resentful of the neglect 
 and their enforced coats of dust; each was reasonably 
 patient and oh, so determinedly hopeful! 
 
 Miss Dean did rush into The Den one morning. 
 
 The happiness of that moment should have been per- 
 fect and unending, but alas ! it was not perfect and it 
 was brief. A man came in with her ! 
 
 42
 
 Now he was not beautiful like Hermes and The 
 Greek Warriors; he was not graceful and pleasingly 
 dressed like pink Watteaus ; nor was his appearance 
 quaint, nor athletic, nor aristocratic. The Man was 
 merely little and fat and red-faced and, instead of 
 much lovely cadmium-yellow hair, his head was 
 adorned with a thin fringe of iron-gray. And he 
 stared about, stupidly, inappreciatively. 
 
 Where had Miss Dean found The Man? Why had 
 she brought him there? Plainly, he was one of the 
 utterly impossibles — he was not the type to be feared ! 
 And yet — 
 
 Perfectly oblivious of his nearness. Miss Dean at 
 once sank among the cushions of The Favorite Win- 
 dow- seat, next to the pale-blue Poster Man, who (but 
 it was not generally observed) hastily disengaged him- 
 self from the tack in the wall and plunged straight 
 through the open window to the rain-wet garden be- 
 low. But his stratagem was as vain as desperate. 
 Miss Dean did indeed glance carelessly at him but any 
 desire to rescue, any concern in the outcome of his 
 rash move, was not evinced by the lifting of a finger or 
 an eyebrow. The Others held their breath in aston- 
 ishment at this and at the wholly undecorative intruder 
 — and the agony was theirs of uncertainty as to Miss 
 Dean's intentions. 
 
 In a possessive way that was more than exasperating. 
 The Man had at once thrown up the shades and opened 
 the windows and then, having tripped over a manda- 
 
 43
 
 rin's lunch-box, two Indian baskets and a bronze hi- 
 bachi, he seated himself upon a frail, little Vernis- 
 Martin table and began to swing his feet. 
 
 Then he thrust his hands in his pockets and yawned 
 and yawned and yawned; he also stared hatefully at 
 them all. 
 
 Many long minutes elapsed — then The Man spoke. 
 He said: ''Well, Little Girl, you've got an awful lot 
 of old junk crammed in here! Haven't you?" 
 
 And Miss Dean laughed! 
 
 To be sure, it is an incredibility but Miss Dean 
 The Enthusiast, Miss Dean The Appreciative One, 
 really did laugh — she laughed merrily at The Man's 
 words — flippant, pernicious words ! And alas ! and 
 alas! her answer (is there one so faithless as to believe 
 it?) was this: "Yes, Billy dear! But it'll make just 
 a perfectly sweet smoking-room for you ! We can 
 store all this truck, you know, or give it away to some- 
 body ! Shall we — " 
 
 It was at this point that The Daimio understood 
 it all — everything. He comprehended at last the 
 depth of Miss Dean's heartlessness and abominable 
 perfidy. 
 
 Promptly, bravely, he determined to die — so seek 
 his lotus-flower in Paradise alone! The Honorable 
 Death of Old Japan was not expedient — it could not be 
 his — yet not for one little instant did he waver, neither 
 did he repine; and, before The Man could state his 
 ignoble preference, The Daimio (a prince of The Tok- 
 
 44
 
 ugawas!) cleverly managed to so leap from his shelf 
 that he was dashed into a million infinitesimal bits of 
 ivory, at Miss Dean's very feet. 
 
 But Miss Dean was saying: "Give it away? Very 
 well, you darling, old dear! Fm awfully sick of the 
 whole outfit!" 
 
 And this was ever the way of a woman. 
 
 Olive Percival. 
 
 45
 
 SUSY. 
 
 USY was already fifty, but she was still 
 straight and white as the yucca, with the 
 flash of the near star in her brown eye and 
 the lone, clear call of the desert-bird in her 
 voice. 
 
 Yet the spirit of Youth, buoyant as the sea breeze 
 (which Susy had never felt), the spirit of Youth, that 
 had once sung its wild, undaunted carol through Susy's 
 being — had fled. This bright comrade had been de- 
 ceiving Susy all the long uneventful years. One Au- 
 gust day, as she sat in the shadowy veranda, the 
 peaches and nectarines, luscious as the faces of Cor- 
 reggio's cherubs, dropping in the orchard beyond, 
 there in the tense heat of mid-summer and desert si- 
 lentness, Susy knew that her old comrade had left 
 her. For the first time she felt old, felt that she might 
 have been more than she was. 
 
 Susy's uncle in Colorado had set his heart upon 
 educating her. When she was sixteen, he had sud- 
 denly died without a will and his money went to nearer 
 folk than Susy. She became head-waitress in the sta- 
 tion eating-house at Pueblo. In six months she was 
 married. Her husband's name was Walter Head. He 
 
 47
 
 was an anaemic bachelor, on his way to New Mex- 
 ico to rejuvenate blood and nerves. Walter married 
 because he wanted a wife. Just what this meant it 
 would have been difficult to find out. The thought of 
 oflfspring had long ago faded from his mind, and the 
 idea of a wife as a companion or drudge had not 
 been evolved. Walter never talked with Susy beyond 
 the space of time it took to eat a hurried meal, so of 
 what use was her pretty girlish prattle? On the New 
 Mexico ranch she had ranch-hands at her command 
 and a sturdy Mexican woman in the kitchen ; certainly 
 there was nothing parsimonious about Walter Head. 
 To the end of her days Susy never knew what had 
 prompted "Walt" to speak to her as she brought him 
 a cup of coffee in the station-restaurant, following 
 this overture by the gift of a box of candy. For a 
 week he remained in Pueblo, then carried her off, after 
 the ceremony in the shabby dining-room, when she 
 and the Mormon preacher danced. 
 
 That wedding-night Youth, gaillard and free, made 
 a pact with Susy. Susy danced, danced, danced, first 
 with the preacher, then with two men from the sta- 
 tion-house and with a young conductor. Once, flut- 
 tering towards Walter in her long blue lawn, with 
 its lace insertings, a chain of turquoise dangling from 
 her slender throat and a crimson rosette rising in 
 audacious brightness from the coils of her shining 
 hair — once Walter himself almost wished that he were 
 her partner. He only yawned, looked wonderingly up 
 
 48
 
 out of his muddy dull eyes, puffed a second time at 
 his cheap cigar and watched her float on and away 
 to the other side of the room. Here, beneath the 
 smutty lamp, Susy took out her little mull handker- 
 chief, wiped the moisture from her wide white fore- 
 head, adjusted her rosette and, breathless, turned for 
 another dance, and another, and yet another, until 
 far on in the morning. Then Walter got up, stretched 
 himself, for he had enjoyed several naps, and Susy 
 let him lead her away to bed. 
 
 The men turned, fastening their eyes on the vanish- 
 ing blue dress and the tall, willowy, girlish figure. "A 
 fellow doesn't have to play partner to that girl. She 
 beats all at dancin' that I've struck. She's the man 
 this time, and how she can keep it up! I felt as 
 though I was in the arms of the wind, had no more 
 power over myself than if I had been a new-born 
 baby." As the stalwart station-master spoke, three 
 men standing near shook their heads in mute assent. 
 After their rounds with fair Susy they were worn, 
 fagged, beaten. 
 
 All this happened more than thirty years ago. It 
 had taken so long for Susy and Youth to break the 
 pact. It had taken monotonous years on the lonely 
 desert-ranch, speechless weeks, vacuous hours, days 
 and days, when Walt was at work with the ranch- 
 hands, when Magdalena, the old Mexican woman, 
 dozed on the veranda, when the last fruit-jar was 
 filled and a satiety of nothingness choked Susy's 
 
 49
 
 spirit. There were intervals, too when "Walt^' went to 
 Santa Fe for several days. At such times Susy was 
 in the habit of spending the endless afternoons crouch- 
 ing on the floor before "Walt's" three book-shelves. 
 Fifty books filled the little cases. On the first shelf 
 were eighteen volumes of "The New American Ency- 
 clopaedia," "A Gazetteer of the United States," and 
 "The Library of Universal Knowledge." None of 
 these had she dared to open, — the word "Encyclo- 
 paedia"' disconcerted her, she had no idea what it 
 meant or how to pronounce it. One day she had 
 almost reached the point of asking "Walt," but he 
 always laughed at her questions. She was also afraid 
 that if he should tell her, and she might not remember, 
 then he would tease her, and to be teased was some- 
 thing she could not endure. The middle row was 
 even more baffling. The titles were so far beyond her, 
 that she concluded they must be in another language. 
 "Geology and Palaentology of California," "Metal- 
 lurgical Treatment of Ores," "Desilverization of Base 
 Bullion." She grew to despise the words. They 
 meant all that was mortifying, humiliating in her life. 
 They meant defeat. She decidedly liked the books 
 on the last shelf. She felt equal at least to their 
 outside covers. There were the "Battles of the United 
 States," "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Gov- 
 ernment," "The Great Conspiracy," and one book, her 
 favorite of them all, "The Personal Memoirs of U. 
 S. Grant." After many months she learned to say 
 
 50
 
 over this list with her eyes shut. One day she read 
 a paragraph in the ''Memoirs," she thought that some 
 time she might get through a whole chapter, she read 
 very slowly and the meaning of ''Memoirs" went un- 
 revealed to the last. 
 
 It had taken all this to complete the breach between 
 Susy and Youth. 
 
 On this August afternoon when Susy put out her 
 arm to fasten the comb in her still lustrous hair, her 
 arm pained, a twinge, a start — Youth had fled! She 
 rose more quickly than was her wont. By seven 
 o'clock she and Magdalena were seated in the old 
 buggy on their way to the dance. "Walt" had never 
 approved of this dissipation of Susy's. As time went 
 on, she had gradually refused the weekly invitations to 
 the Mexican parties. Tonight "Walt" was in Santa 
 Fe. It would matter very much to Susy's friends in 
 the valley whether she went or not ; for it was a dance 
 in honor of the little bride, Don Eulogio's only daugh- 
 ter. To be sure there had been a tacit understanding 
 between "Walt" and herself that she would not go; 
 but this was no ordinary occasion, — all her old friends 
 would be there, and as a dancer old Don Eulogio had 
 not his peer in the valley. Something of this sort went 
 through Susy's mind, as Magdalena urged on the 
 horse and Susy nervously buttoned the wrinkled 
 white gloves and patted her feet under the linen 
 buggy-shawl. Eager, restless she was for one more 
 dance. Years must have passed since she had felt the 
 
 51
 
 moist earth beneath her feet, since she had heard the 
 celestial music of lame Benito's mandolin. Don Eulo- 
 gio's patio was crowded with guests; but in the sola 
 of the adobe, where lame Benito was for the third time 
 sprinkling the earth floor to keep down the dust, there 
 was nothing less than a ''crush." Statuesque, imper- 
 turbable, the Indians in their splendid blankets, sheep- 
 skin leggings, embroidered belts, tunics and feathers, 
 stood about the white walls — satisfying as a Pompei- 
 ian freize. Pressing against them were Mexicans 
 from far and wide the valley over. Some were 
 '"dressed," others wore blue jeans, the women were 
 mostly in yellov/ skirts and bright w^aists. The little 
 bride was arrayed in white. Don Eulogio stepped 
 lightly upon a bench and called the first dance; high 
 up in the casement the orchestra plaved old Spanish 
 music, wistful, seductive. The eyes of the men light- 
 ened a bit ; but no hint of a smile was seen on the 
 women's faces, — not even upon that of the squatty 
 brown bride. It was all so dignified and full of sol- 
 emnity — the waltz, the two-step, the slow, rhythmic 
 music. 
 
 Into their midst stepped the queenly figure of Susy 
 in the old blue lawn and the crimson rosette, followed 
 by Magdalena. The men smiled, the passive coun- 
 tenances of the, women relaxed. Under the dripping 
 candles Don Eulogio led her, approved by gracious 
 glances from the air-starved little room. The bride, 
 gathering up her muddy, bedraggled skirts, retired 
 
 52
 
 and sat down to watch the supple movements, the ser- 
 pentining grace of la Americana. Susy danced with 
 every man in the room who asked her. A few held 
 off from sheer timidity, from fear of the old beauty's 
 abandon. It must have been nearly daybreak, "Muy 
 bien, muy hien!" cried the guests. One tall Indian 
 gave a prolonged grunt for more. There was not a 
 partner equal to another turn. 
 
 Whether it was the Indian's grunt of delight that 
 urged Susy on or not, who can tell? Alone she swept 
 into the middle of the jEloor. Two candles sputtered 
 in the primitive candalabra, the straggly red geran- 
 iums drooped along the wall, the musicians had 
 stopped, — only lame Benito played low tremulous mu- 
 sic on his mandolin. Susy danced, swaying her long 
 slender arms, gracefully bending her stately head. 
 Susy danced, her dark eyes gleaming as though she 
 looked into the face — Ah ! Youth was by her side ! — 
 'Twas he of the old aspirations, the illimitable hopes, 
 the unquenchable desires. And no one of the on- 
 lookers guessed, nor did Susy herself, that the pas- 
 sion, disappointment, pain, were for an instant trans- 
 muted into the beautiful grace of that quivering old 
 body. 
 
 * * >f: :{: 5]: ils 
 
 -J» 5jC ^ JjC ^ ^ 
 
 Morning intruded itself upon the desert's solitude. 
 Rays of sunlight ran up the dumb peaks, forcing 
 them into speech — the speech of color — passionate as 
 
 53
 
 the vibrations of sound. Below, the gray, silent val- 
 ley brightened, and a birH piped in Susy's nectarine 
 tree. 
 
 "Don't leave me, Magdalena," moaned Susy to the 
 faithful Alexican woman who bent tenderly over her, 
 as she lay pale, suffering in the white adobe kitchen. 
 "Don't leave me, and when 'Walt' comes tell him I 
 am sorry I went. I knew if I danced another step, 
 the pain would cinch me." 
 
 Nancy K. Foster. 
 
 54
 
 THE SPIRITUAL WOOING of PETER HANCE. 
 
 IVE feet three Peter measured. He had to 
 stand straight to do it, and he never meas- 
 ured in his stockings. Ordinarily it might 
 have been less, v^hen he hadn't his back 
 braced against a wall and his muscles stiffened with 
 the zeal for achieving inches, when his shoulders 
 rounded to their usual easy slouch and his back bent 
 a little, comfortably, after its manner. Taken un- 
 awares, Peter might not have reached even five feet 
 three. But five feet three was his mark, and he could 
 straighten to it again, if it came to proving. 
 
 But the soul of Peter was looked up to as at great 
 heights above his fellows. When six-foot men dropped 
 their chins into their collars to look down at his fleshly 
 countenance and met his mild, blue upturned eyes, they 
 felt, and Peter felt, that their souls were gazing up 
 almost into the clouds to perceive him. Peter was a 
 spiritualist, the most fervid, and he was understood 
 to have had experiences. It was rather a new thing 
 with him. While Martha lived he had never consorted 
 with spirits, other than the ordinary, embodied kind, 
 nor been encouraged much to realize that he was as 
 other men were not. Martha was a good wife, but 
 
 55
 
 not flattering. With the fatality that attends the 
 choice of Httle men, Peter had wedded a tall, tall 
 lady in his youth, and Martha had always made the 
 utmost of her advantage of physical substance. But 
 Martha was dead — dead more than a year ago — and 
 in that year the lowly Peter had risen, and, strange 
 enough, it was Martha who had exalted him. 
 
 It began one late May morning. Peter was de- 
 ciding something. You could have told that from the 
 looks of him — or Martha could. He had decided 
 eleven times in twice as many hours, five times one 
 way and six times the other, and was proceeding to 
 the twelfth, which would have made things even ; and 
 never in all the months of his bereavement had he felt 
 the lack of Martha more keenly. He looked at his 
 showcase — Peter kept a jewelry store in a small way 
 — his eye traveled over its glitter, and found no stay- 
 ing counsel there. He glanced at the window ; no 
 suggestions in it. He went over to the door, and 
 gazed long up the street; two boys, one wagon, and 
 a cloud of dust; nothing whatever to guide a per- 
 turbed mind. In very helplessness he was on the in- 
 stant of the twelfth decision, when a footstep arrested 
 him, and plucked him out of the chaos of his thoughts. 
 
 It was a man coming — when Peter turned he was 
 already near — a tall, puffy man, with small, pale blue 
 eyes that wandered, and a silk hat which he wore with 
 a sort of devoutness. 
 
 ''Sir," said he, "good morning. I am not mistaken 
 56
 
 in thinking I speak to Mr. Peter Hance?" 
 
 "No, sir," said Peter. ''That's my name, sir." 
 
 ''The voice and all, exactly as she described him," 
 murmured the tall gentleman. "May I step inside, 
 Mr. Hance? I have something of the gravest im- 
 portance to communicate; I have something to de- 
 liver to you which it will stir your heart to receive." 
 
 "You have!" said Peter. The remark scarcely 
 seemed adequate, but Peter was a trifle bewildered. 
 Snatched from the very brink of his twelfth decision, 
 he was not able all in a minute to take hold of a new 
 situation. "Come in," he said, "and sit down. What 
 is it, Mr. " 
 
 The tall man laid aside his hat solemnly, and took 
 the chair Peter offered him as if it were a sort of rite. 
 
 "All as she told us," he said. "All as his wife de- 
 scribed it — the room, that showcase, the watches in 
 the first tray, gold rings next, the clock there " 
 
 "What?" said Peter. "Whose wife?" 
 
 "Mr. Hance," said the visitor, "do you know what 
 that question is you have asked?. Do you know, sir? 
 Are you prepared to receive the answer?" 
 
 Peter's eyes were round by this time with a sense 
 of mystery. His lips opened to let out a reply, if his 
 brain should be able to forward one. 
 
 "You asked whose wife," continued the visitor. 
 "Sir," and he sat tall in his chair and let his eyes rest 
 for one instant on Peter's, "Mr. Hance, yours." 
 
 "Why, Martha's — " began Peter. "Did you know 
 Martha?" 
 
 57
 
 The tall man smiled a tender and solemn kind of 
 smile. "In this life," said he, *'we never met." 
 
 "I — I'm afraid I don't understand you," said Peter. 
 
 "Many things of the spiritual life are yet dark to 
 you," said the visitor. "Your wife has told us so. But 
 she wishes your eyes to be opened. And for your 
 sake she came to us. I am — my name is not unknown 
 here ; I think I may say it is not unknown in the spirit 
 land either, through the lady who bears it. I am the 
 husband of Mrs. Anna J. Smithers." 
 
 Mr. Hance bowed his acknowledgments of the honor 
 of meeting a gentleman so highly connected and mur- 
 mured some words, but Mr. Smithers did not wait to 
 listen to them. 
 
 "It is scarcely necessary to remind you," continued 
 he, "that Mrs. Anna J. Smithers is a medium. She 
 is a psychographic medium." 
 
 "Oh?" said Peter. Then he added, "What— what is 
 that?" 
 
 "Your departed wife told us," said Mr. Smithers, 
 "that you would not understand our terms, and wished 
 me to explain them to you. I will, Mr. Hance. A psy- 
 chographic medium is one who is privileged to be the 
 means of communication by letter from the other 
 world. Those who are in the spirit life write with her 
 hand, in trance, and so make her the instrument of a 
 renewed intercourse with their friends who are still 
 in this life." 
 
 A flash illuminated Peter. "Sounds like a sort of 
 58
 
 a telegraph," said he. 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Smithers. ''Grossly put, that is 
 it. She is what you might call a spiritual telegraph. 
 And oh, Mr. Hance, such blessed communications as 
 I and many others have been privileged to receive 
 through her !" A solemn quaver broke his voice, and 
 he stopped speaking and began to look among the 
 papers in a large pocketbook which for some minutes 
 he had been holding in his hand. He took one out 
 from the rest, laid it on his knee, and shut the pocket- 
 book and fastened it again with a broad rubber and 
 put it back in his pocket, Peter watching him the 
 while with absorbed and somewhat apprehensive in- 
 terest. Then he picked up the paper from his knee. 
 
 "Take it," he said. "This letter is from your de- 
 parted wife." 
 
 Peter took it. He looked at one side, and long at 
 the other, and then at Mr. Smithers. Then he looked 
 at the letter again. 
 
 " 'Tisn't her writing," he said. "Not Martha's." 
 
 "Oh, no," said Mr. Smithers. "That you couldn't 
 expect, yet. You see it's an unfamiliar hand she uses 
 to write with, and though willing, though eager, 
 though long experienced in being used by those in 
 spirit life, not yet accustomed to yield itself to her 
 individuality." 
 
 Peter was still turning the letter over and over in 
 his hand — and in his mind, too, apparently — and still 
 he did not open it. But his face was flushed, and ex- 
 
 59
 
 citement was growing in his eyes. 
 
 "Hers was kind of long," he said, "and straighter; 
 didn't have those curves to the ends of the letters. 
 It always looked like Martha to me, her writing did." 
 
 "She said," suggested Mr. Smithers, looking now at 
 the showcase and now at the door, and occasionally 
 between words at Peter, "she said you might doubt 
 at first. But she hoped you would soon be enabled 
 to perceive the truth. She felt that you might be in 
 trouble of mind, my dear sir, and in need of the guid- 
 ance of her clarified intelligence." 
 
 Peter looked up from the letter suddenly with a 
 startled countenance, and almost met Mr. Smither's 
 eyes, which were just shifting to the window. All 
 his eleven decisions rushed back to his mind at once 
 in a chaos of remembered helplessness. 
 
 "That seems like her, more than the hand-writing," 
 said he. "I — Pd like to have a talk with Martha — or 
 something," and his look went back to the letter. 
 
 Mr. Smithers rose. "I will leave you, ^Ir. Hance," 
 said he, "to your wife's communication. I trust you 
 will find great comfort in it. Good morning, sir." 
 
 Even when Air. Smithers was gone, even when his 
 black shoulders and his tall and shining hat had quite 
 disappeared down the street, even yet Peter did not 
 open his letter. He stood turning it in his fingers ab- 
 sently. Remorse was fastening upon him, and no one 
 was near to witness the ravages it was making. 
 
 "She wouldn't have done it," said he. "If I'd been 
 
 6c
 
 taken and she'd been left, Martha wouldn't have been 
 thinking of inviting her neighbor and going to the 
 theater as soon as this afterward." Peter sighed heav- 
 ily. "Oh, no," he said, ''Martha wouldn't ha/e. I 
 think she wouldn't." 
 
 His eyes, which had been staring very far away, 
 turned again to the letter. He left the doorway and 
 went back to the chairs that he and his visitor had 
 lately quitted. Then he stood still, and looked round 
 the room, and at the door, and the street beyond, 
 and the stationery store across the street, and its door- 
 way, in which somebody appeared just at this instant 
 and then vanished again inside. 
 
 "I don't suppose she'd have gone, anyway," he 
 sighed. "She's just wrapped up in Mr. Brown's mem- 
 ory. 'Tisn't likely she'd have gone anyway." 
 
 An hour or so later Mr. Hance came out to his 
 door again, and seeing nothing that looked like a cus- 
 tomer up or down the street, abandoned his jewels 
 and hurried over the way to the little stationery store 
 opposite. Inside a woman behind the counter was 
 doing up a parcel, while the purchaser stood waiting. 
 She was a fluttering sort of a woman, with a quantity 
 of blond hair that curled and waved and stood out 
 elaborately round her rather thin, rather tired face. 
 Her quick fingers finished the tying of the string, and 
 she handed the purchaser her package and change, 
 ,and turned a gracious smile upon Peter. 
 
 "Good morning," she said. "Anything I can do 
 61
 
 for you, Mr. Hance?" 
 
 Peter watched the customer out of the door before 
 he made any answer, and when he did speak it was 
 with some embarrassment. 
 
 "If you aren't so very busy and could spare time 
 to talk about something — " said he. "There's some- 
 thing happened this morning that's — that's upsetting, 
 Mrs. Brown, and I don't know what to. make of it. 
 I've been thinking about it all the last hour, and the 
 more I think the more I don't know what to think." 
 He had the letter in his hand now. "And I just 
 thought," he concluded, "that if you'd be willing to 
 read the letter and see whether you thought it was 
 really her that sent it — " 
 
 "Why, hasn't it got any name to it? Where'd you 
 get it? Through the mail?" Mrs. Brown leaned over 
 the counter and looked with lively interest at the en- 
 velope that Peter's words offered her but his hand 
 still held tight. 
 
 "It isn't just an ordinary kind of a letter, you see," 
 said Peter. "It's signed all right; but — I don't know. 
 Mr. Smithers — he's a medium, I mean his wife is, and 
 she goes into trances and spirits of different people 
 who've died write letters with her hand, and then he 
 gives them to the people they're to — I don't know 
 whether you've heard of him — well, he brought it to 
 me this morning, and he says it's from Martha, from 
 my wife who's dead, Mrs. Brown." 
 
 "You don't say!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown. 
 
 62
 
 ''That's what he told me," said Peter. 
 
 "Well, what does it say ? Does it seem like her ?" 
 
 "That was what I wanted to ask you to do — to read 
 it," said Peter. "I thought, seeing you'd been left 
 alone too, you'd kind of understand how I felt." 
 
 "Yes, I do," said Mrs. Brown. "I'd feel just that 
 way if anybody'd brought me anything from Ira." 
 
 "Well, here it is," said Peter, at last really prof- 
 fering the letter. 
 
 A strange unwillingness seized Mrs. Brown now 
 that the moment was come, and she shrank from the 
 envelope that looked so uncannily ordinary, so white 
 and square and commonplace and insignificant of 
 anything beyond this ordinary fleshly world. 
 
 "You — hadn't you better read it aloud?" she sug- 
 gested. 
 
 "Well," said Peter, taking the letter out of its en- 
 velope, "maybe I had." He unfolded it slowly. "I 
 don't know what to think," he said, and looked into 
 space a moment, and sighed, and began to read. 
 
 "Beloved husband." Here he interrupted the read- 
 ing. "Now some way that doesn't sound like Mar- 
 tha," he said. "She generally used to say just 'Dear 
 Peter.' " 
 
 "But then," said Mrs. Brown, "things would be 
 so different now. I don't know how you could ex- 
 pect her to use the same words. We don't know how 
 much they're changed." 
 
 "Yes, of course, that's so," said Peter. "I'd thought 
 63
 
 of that." Then he went on reading. 
 
 " 'All is well with me, and I am much happier than 
 when on earth. I am with dear Mother and dear 
 brother John, who died in infancy. Do not sorrow 
 for me. We are all together, all united once more 
 in the blessed life beyond the tomb. Some day you 
 too will be with us and all our dear ones. Dry your 
 tears and look forw^ard to that bright day when we 
 shall be together here in the spirit world. Brother 
 John and Mother are very happy. Death has not 
 separated us, dear husband, for my spirit remains near 
 you. How happy it would make me to come to you 
 at one of the meetings, and bind up your aching heart ! 
 Your ever loving,. 
 
 Martha.' -" 
 
 Peter folded the letter carefully and put it back in 
 its envelope. 
 
 ''Well,"said he, "that's the letter." 
 
 "Well!" said Mrs. Brown. 
 
 A leisurely, gingham-shirted boy appeared in the 
 doorway just then. "There's a man wants his watch 
 fixed, Mr. Hance," said he. "There ain't been any- 
 body else in before. He said he wished I'd tell you 
 to hurry up." 
 
 "All right, Willie," said the proprietor, rising hast- 
 ily. "You tell him I'll be right over." Then as the 
 youth sauntered off he turned to Mrs. Brown again. 
 
 "Would you — couldn't we — I thought maybe you'd 
 like to go to one of those meetings, considering Mr. 
 
 64
 
 Brown, you know; and, of course, maybe the letter 
 isn't from Martha, but that about her mother and her 
 Httle brother John — that looks as if Martha must have 
 had something to do with it, because Mr. Smithers 
 didn't know Martha's folks, nor his wife, either. And 
 I thought I'd like to go to one and kind of see. It says 
 in the paper there's one tomorrow night, and I thought 
 I'd ask you what you'd think of us going to it." 
 
 He waited anxiously for Mrs. Brown's reply. 
 
 *'l don't know as I'd ever have thought of such 
 a thing." Mrs. Brown's voice was agitated, and she 
 picked up a bit of paper and commenced folding it 
 small. ''It's a solemn thought to think of hearing 
 from Ira again when I'd given him up five years ago. 
 And yet I don't know why they shouldn't. I know if 
 it was me I'd try and come back and talk to Ira, and 
 I guess you feel the same way about your wife." 
 
 Peter leaned against the counter, the man ajcross 
 the way quite gone from his thoughts already. 
 
 ''You know JgHphalet Smith?" asked he. 
 
 "Yes," said" Mrs. Brown. 
 
 "Well, he goes to the meetings and he gets mes- 
 sages all the time from his little Lizzie." 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Brown, "I've heard him tell. And 
 I knew a lady when I lived in Mayhew that went to 
 spiritualist meetings, and it was just wonderful the 
 things they told her that nobody could have known 
 about but her and her friends that had died. She 
 used to tell me."^'"'^' 
 
 65
 
 "It does seem as if there was more in it than we 
 knew. There's lots of things we don't know about 
 this world, let alone the other." Peter stared absently 
 at his own shop front as he made this deep reflection, 
 but seemed not to see it nor to remember the unhappy 
 man behind it. 
 
 "Well," said Mrs. Brown hesitatingly, "I don't 
 know as 'twould do any harm just to go and sec." 
 
 Peter looked up with great gratification, but his 
 eves met, beyond Mrs. Brown's, the gingham-shirted 
 boy's, looking almost as if he saw reasons for hur- 
 rying. 
 
 "He says maybe you think he can wait all day," 
 he remarked cheerfully. 
 
 "Thank you, Mrs. Brown," said Peter fervently, 
 and to the boy, "Yes, I was just coming, Willie." 
 
 That evening's meeting was the beginning of 
 Peter's absorption into the inner circles of spiritual- 
 ism, and side by side with Peter, of Mrs. Brown's. 
 They went and sat through two hours of uncompre- 
 hended talk and inexplicable occurrences. Ghostly 
 fingers touched them, ghostly garments passed them, 
 ghostly voices whispered to them, and long-buried mo- 
 ments of their lives came up and greeted them from 
 Mrs. Smithers's lips w*th unearthly accuracy; and 
 when it was over they walked home together with 
 minds awed and tongues tied and unready to specu- 
 late. Then they went again, and then again, and then 
 again; and at first slowly and then very rapidly they 
 
 66
 
 discarded their questionings and took on instead the 
 settled habit of indignation with any one who was 
 so ignorant or so frivolous-minded or so merely wicked 
 as to insinuate doubt about the reasonableness of their 
 new convictions. At evening gatherings and on Sun- 
 day afternoons Peter came to be one of the familiar 
 sights, one of the inseparable details of the meeting, 
 Peter, sitting forward on his bench, hands on knees, 
 eyes round and unwinking, his bald round head thrust 
 forward in eager attention, and his collar pushing up 
 the little ruff of yellowish hair at the back of his 
 neck. 
 
 Now Peter never understood just how the next thing 
 happened. To speak the truth, he never noticed after- 
 ward that there was anything in it that needed any 
 particular explaining. It may be that Mr. Smithers 
 knew the causes that worked obscurely. It may be 
 that Peter was liberal minded and a good person to 
 keep important. But, however it was, this was the 
 time he blossomed from an insignificant little jeweler 
 into a truly great man. The first thing he knew, and 
 the first thing Mrs. Brown knew, he found himself 
 speaking in Sunday meetings and being a personage. 
 Once started in that way, he rose often. He talked 
 with a confidential fervor and a great flow of sen- 
 tences, and enjoyed himself this way amazingly, and 
 more and more often, while his fellow-believers sat 
 before him on the benches, listening and worshipful. 
 Meanwhile other great things were shaping them- 
 67
 
 selves, not visibly, not audibly, not before the knowl- 
 edge of men, but deep in the secret breast of Peter, 
 and hidden in the palpitating bosom of Mrs. Brown. 
 If they gave no words to this something that was 
 growing within them, far be it from any biographer 
 to name it. Let him delicately suggest, and then with 
 a blush withdraw from the subject altogether, that 
 one prophetic picture was taking form in the two 
 of them simultaneously. But alas ! One thought held 
 them both back from utterance and disquieted both 
 of them. What would the spirit of Martha say? 
 What could be the sentiments of the spirit of the de- 
 parted Ira? 
 
 In the late summer or the early autumn the so- 
 ciety of the spiritualists was accustomed to hold a 
 camp-meeting. Peter went this year, a dusty week in 
 September, and so did Mrs. Brown. Tents were 
 pitched in a sycamore grove on the outskirts of the 
 town, a place familiar with camp-meetings of many 
 sorts, and familiar, too, between camp-meetings, with 
 picnics and merrymakings, and even with rather beery 
 and riotous assemblages. Dust lay white on its syca- 
 mores along the roadside, and two degraded evergreen 
 trees, cropped into ragged pillars, stood at the en- 
 trance, with a high wooden gate swung between them. 
 Beyond it two rows of evergreens bordered the walk, 
 and between the hand of man and the hand of nature 
 wavered uncertainly, half yearning to be trees and half 
 yielding to be a green arched passage, and the result 
 
 68
 
 was most unkempt and unattractive. The walk under 
 them branched where they stopped and offered you 
 two directions; either you could go through another 
 evergreen gateway to a small, untidy wooden build- 
 ing, and sit down on its porch, by a table, and stay 
 and refresh your body; or, in camp-meeting weeks, 
 you could follow to a large pavilion, open to the air 
 all round, and sit on a long wooden bench and lift 
 your eyes to Mr. Hance and other great people on 
 the high platform at one end, and drink in wisdom 
 for vour soul's sustenance. Or it was possible, when 
 there w^ere not camp-meetings, to have sounds quite 
 other than Mr. Hance's proceeding from the high 
 platform, and no long benches ranged on the floor, 
 but all of it cleared for dancers, and at these times 
 the path under the evergreens commonly led people 
 both ways, one and then the other. Around and be- 
 yond the buildings, away from the dust along the 
 fence, the sycamores stood cool and green and shad- 
 owy, stretching their charitable, all-welcoming 
 branches over camp-meetings or dances impartially, 
 over the spirituous or the spiritual without discrim- 
 ination. 
 
 This week there was a large sign by the gate, let- 
 ting the passerby know what things were happening 
 within, and the tents scattered under the trees were 
 another evidence. In many of the tents, too, there 
 were signs of one kind and another. Spirit photog- 
 raphy, one offered, and another announced a mate- 
 
 69
 
 rializing medium; at one tent the brethren were in- 
 vited to step in and enjoy the blessings of slate-writ- 
 ing to and from their departed, and at several places 
 one might stop and look darkly into the future, or 
 have all one's diseases cured by spirit intervention. 
 The first day of the meeting passed, and the sec- 
 ond, and then dawned the third, which to Peter was 
 the soul-stirring climax. For on that day he spoke. 
 It may be that the young reoorter in front was not J 
 moved to say it was a great effort. It may be that 
 none of the three speakers of that afternoon impressed 
 him profoundly as seers and prophets. But svmpathy 
 was not in the soul of the young reporter. He was 
 too young and too successful, too adequate to life. 
 Trouble had never confronted him. nor the desolate 
 emptiness of living. How should he be anything but 
 a trifle amused, and a trifle bored, and a good deal 
 contemptuous? Near him an old woman sat. Her 
 black was very rusty, and all curves and gracious- 
 ness had long since departed from the tall frame it 
 covered. He watched how her mouth hune nerveless- 
 ly open, and how she put up her hand now and then — 
 large knuckled and yellow — to wipe her weak blue 
 eyes, that were continually filling and overflowing but 
 never moved from the speaker, or to put back a 
 straight wisp of faded hair that came down over her 
 face and annoyed her, and he thought she was prob- 
 ably half crazy from being so work-worn and lonely. 
 Perhaps she was. A man sat beside her, wlio Kept 
 
 70
 
 moving his hands nervously, an under-sized man, with 
 an unbrushed coat-collar. And next to him an old 
 man was half dozing, but his hands kept waking him 
 up by slipping off the cane on whose knob they were 
 folded. Across on the farther end of the benches 
 sat a young woman, with large, dark eyes, and a lit- 
 tle boy was beside her. Life was tugging in him, and 
 he squirmed in his seat, and got up, and sat down, 
 and craned past his mother to see out under the trees 
 where some children were playing, and now and then 
 gazed up into her face curiously and sat back quiet 
 for a minute, and then began following the children's 
 play again, moving very silently. She seemed not to 
 notice him, but sat listening, her face tense, wistful, 
 unsatisfied. 
 
 Outside, the sycamores stirred and rustled, and the 
 breeze brought in the voices and laughter of children, 
 little sons and daughters of the society, who thought 
 a camp-meeting was a particularly glorious kind of 
 picnic, because it lasted a whole week and there were 
 so many people to play with and everything was so 
 upset and unpredictable. 
 
 After all, the young reporter's opinion mattered 
 very httle to Peter. He was simply an unbeliever; 
 he had not seen the light; and what he might choose 
 to put in his paper was of no special significance. 
 Papers were flippant organs, and scoffs were familiar 
 to the spiritualists, and could not touch nor alter the 
 realities of things. One gaze, however, Peter sought 
 
 71
 
 as he talked, with eager desire that it should be ap- 
 proving. It was ; Mrs. Brown was listening unswerv- 
 ingly, and her face wore an unconscious look that 
 Peter did not stop to understand but that gratified 
 him exceedingly and yet made him turn his eyes away 
 to the farthest corner of the pavilion when he met 
 it and stammer full five seconds in search of the next 
 phrase. 
 
 When it was ended, and the meeting was adjourned 
 till the evening, Peter stood for a while basking in 
 appreciation. A ponderous lady who moved in bil- 
 lows of white organdy came up and pressed his hand, 
 and her husband, who was one of the lights of the 
 society and therefore to be trusted, turned his broad, 
 red, double-chinned countenance upon Peter, and said 
 it was ''a fine address, Mr. Hance; very fine," after 
 which the two moved oflf arm in arm in an expansive 
 flutter of organdy and importance, and the young 
 reporter, waiting at Peter's elbow, began wanting to 
 know a number of things. Peter told them, glow- 
 ingly, and the young reporter left to find Mr. Smith- 
 ers; and others succeeded him. After awhile, in the 
 eddy and change of sociability, Peter drifted away 
 from his group and, standing alone a minute, saw 
 Mrs. Brown and joined her, and the two strolled oflE 
 without much purpose and without much noticing 
 where they were going, out of the pavilion and down 
 a shady vista of trees together, talking of Peter's 
 speech and then of the less important events of the 
 
 72
 
 day and then drifting round again to its great climax. 
 
 "You did just outdo yourself, Mr. Hance," said 
 Mrs. Brown admiringly. "I never heard you s^eak 
 so well." 
 
 Peter's heart swelled with self-esteem and gratitude. 
 A vision came before his memory of Mrs. Brown's 
 gaze of rapt attention, and an impulse siezed him. 
 
 "I owe it to you, Mrs. Brown; I do really. I 
 couldn't have done what I did if I hadn't seen how 
 you were listening, so interested. I never can ev- 
 press to you how you have helped me." 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Hance!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown, beam- 
 ing at the unexpected tribute. "Why what an ideal 
 Me help you!" 
 
 "Yes you did, and you've been a help to me ever 
 since the day you moved into your store. I was so 
 down-spirited and so lonesome, and you've been just 
 a regular angel — Susie!" 
 
 Mr. Hance blushed bright red at the name, and 
 looked anywhere else but at the lady; and Mrs. 
 Brown's bosom, fluttered already at the thought of 
 Peter's eminence and the lustre his very presence was 
 shedding upon her, fluttered now still more wildly. 
 She murmured something rather incoherent about his 
 kindness to think so — nothing she'd done — nothing 
 she could have done — 
 
 "No, just your kindness," went on Peter, "and 
 goodness, to me, and every way." A surge of the 
 afternoon's excitement and enjoyment bore him on 
 
 73
 
 past his knowing. ''You don't know what you've been 
 to me all these months — just a constant inspiration. 
 I don't believe I'd ever have been what I am now 
 if it hadn't been for you, always so sympathetic and — 
 and advising. There hasn't anybody ever had the in- 
 fluence over me you have. Why, even when Mar- 
 tha—" 
 
 Peter stopped short and his eyes met Mrs. Brown's 
 in sudden consternation. Then he looked round him 
 nervously, and so did she, strangely, as if at the air 
 rather than the trees or the pathway. But the impulse 
 of speech was not to be borne down now. Peter 
 moved close to Mrs. Brown and spoke low. 
 
 "I love you, Susie," he said. "Do you think you 
 love me any? Or — or do you think you could ever?" 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Brown, in a voice small and 
 tremulous, "I do already." 
 
 It was out! It was done! It was spoken! And 
 now what about Mr. Ira Brown, and what about Mar- 
 tha? 
 
 "Do you think they'd care if we married each 
 other ?" asked Peter presently, and his tones were very 
 anxious. There had been several moments of silence, 
 a silence into which the two had fallen gradually, a 
 silence heralded by some time of distraught and laps- 
 ing conversation, and heavy with pondering. 
 
 "I don't know whether they would or not," said 
 Mrs. Brown ; "all I know is I never in this world can 
 feel right to do it if Ira Brown doesn't like it, or if 
 
 74
 
 your — if Martha doesn't." 
 
 "I can't make it seem as if we ought to any way," 
 she went on in a minute, "with them so near." 
 
 "Still," said Peter, " 'tisn't as if they hadn't died, 
 and them that's dead's dead, and I don't know as 
 spirits make it any different." 
 
 "They do seem to, though," said Mrs. Brown. "I 
 wish — " A look of bewilderment came into her face, 
 and there was a long pause. 
 
 "I wish," she began again — and this had evidently 
 no connection with her former beginning — "I just 
 wish I knew what they'd say, both of them." 
 
 Peter's face cleared suddenly. "Why, let's ask 
 them," said he. "Hadn't we better? Ask them if 
 we'd better do it, and if they'd have any objection, 
 and if they don't think it would be for our good." 
 
 "Yes," Mrs. Brown reflected. "Yes, we can. I 
 guess that's the way we ought to do. 'Twouldn't 
 be right not to — Peter." 
 
 The name fell so graciously upon Peter's ear, and 
 was met with such a look of rapture, that anxiety 
 fled both their faces for an instant. But it overspread 
 them again immediately. 
 
 "And of course," Mrs. Brown continued, "if they 
 have any feeling — if they don't feel like wanting us 
 to—" 
 
 She left the sentence unfinished, and so did Peter. 
 
 "There's Mr. Smithers's wife," she suggested, after 
 a minute. 
 
 75
 
 "I don't know," said Peter; "I don't just want to 
 go to Mrs. Smithers; I don't know why." 
 
 "Well/" assented Mrs. Brown very cheerfully, as 
 if she, too, felt some occult objections, "we don't have 
 to. There's plenty of mediums here. We can get 
 some other. All round in these tents I've seen their 
 signs." 
 
 An unwonted spirit of decision seized Peter. 
 
 "Let's go find one right away," he said, "and — 
 and get it over." 
 
 They turned back in the direction of the pavilion, 
 and walked along under the trees, whose shadows 
 were lengthening now toward evening, till they came 
 to the trampled and dusty space where the tents stood 
 thickest. There Mrs. Brown's eye caught a sign on 
 a dingy little tent with a dark cloth hung at the en- 
 trance, and she stopped. Peter's eyes followed hers 
 and read, "Trance Medium. See and talk with your 
 departed friends face to face. Private seances." They 
 glanced at each other, and with one impulse started 
 on again, nor did either say anything for some sec- 
 onds. Then, "I think likely a message in writing 
 would do, don't you?" said Peter,in a low voice. 
 
 "Yes. I'd rather," said Mrs. Brown, with tones 
 equally subdued. 
 
 It was late that night, long after the evening meet- 
 ing was over, when Mr. Smithers, returning from 
 business of importance somwhere, met Mr. Hance 
 emerging from a small tent with a certain air of buoy- 
 
 76
 
 ancy quite new to him, and accompanied by a tremu- 
 lous and tearful, but radiant ladv. He would have 
 passed on with a bow merely, the night being already 
 so far spent, but Mr. Hance stopped him. 
 
 ''I want to tell you, Mr. Smithers," said he, "that 
 Mrs. Brown and I are going to get married. We've 
 just been having a seance in here — a. verv gratifying 
 seance, Mr. Smithers ; I wish you could have been 
 present — and Martha — my wife that was, you know — 
 and the late Mr. Brown have both given their con- 
 sent — given it heartily, sir; we couldn't have asked 
 anything better. Next month we expect to be united." 
 
 "You do not surprise me, Mr. Hance," said Mr. 
 Smithers. "You do not surprise me at all. But," 
 he added sepulchrally, "you delight me. Through 
 Mrs. Anna J. Smithers I have for several weeks been 
 acquainted with the wishes of your beloved spirit wife 
 upon this very subject. I congratulate vou. I con- 
 gratulate both of you. Good night, sir. Mrs. Brown, 
 good night." And he passed on into the darkness. 
 
 "Good night !" they chorused after him in their two 
 keen, high voices, and they also went away into the 
 night, illuminating it almost visibly as they went with 
 the radiance of their satisfaction. 
 
 Gertrude Henderson. 
 
 77
 
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