LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 THE STORIES OF H. C. BUNNER 
 
 "SHORT SIXES" 
 THE SUBURBAN SAGE
 
 BY H. C. BVNNER 
 
 "SHORT SIXES" AND THE SUBURBAN SAGE 
 MORE "SHORT SIXES" AND THE RUNAWAY 
 
 BROWNS 
 
 STORIES : FIRST SERIES. The Story of a New 
 York House, The Midge, Jersey Street and Jersey 
 Lane 
 
 STORIES ! SECOND SERIES. Love in Old Cloathes 
 and Other Stories, Zadoc Pine and Other Stories 
 
 The above 4 volumes in Uniform Binding 
 
 POEMS. With an Introduction by Brander 
 Matthews 
 
 JERSEY STREET AND JERSEY LANE. Urban 
 and Suburban Sketches 
 
 THE STORY OP A NEW YORK HOUSE 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS
 
 A PECULIAR GRITTING NOISE MADE HER LOOK DOWN
 
 THE STORIES 
 
 OP 
 
 H. C. BUNNER 
 
 " SHORT SIXES" 
 
 STORIES TO BE READ WHILE 
 THE CANDLE BURNS 
 
 THE SUBURBAN SAGE 
 
 STRAY NOTES AND COMMENTS 
 ON HIS SIMPLE LIFE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 1919
 
 "SHORT SIXES" 
 
 Copyright, 1890, by 
 ALICE LARNED BUNNER 
 
 THE SUBURBAN SAGE 
 
 Copyright, 1896, by 
 ALICE LARNED BUNNER
 
 To 
 A. L. B.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 "SHORT SIXES": PAG . 
 
 THE TENOR 1 
 
 COL. BRERETON S AUNTY 19 
 
 ^A ROUND-UP 33 
 
 THE Two CHURCHES OF QUAWKET .... 45 
 
 THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH 57 
 
 ZENOBIA S INFIDELITY 73 
 
 THE NINE CENT-GIRLS 91 
 
 ^ THE NICE PEOPLE 107 
 
 MR. COPERNICUS AND THE PROLETARIAT . . . 121 
 
 HECTOR 136 
 
 A SISTERLY SCHEME 149 
 
 Zozo 164 
 
 AN OLD, OLD STORY 180 
 
 THE SUBURBAN SAGE: 
 
 MR. CHEDBY ON A REGULAR NUISANCE . . . 195 
 EARLY STAGES OF THE BLOOMER FEVER . . . 202 
 THE SUBURBAN HORSE 210 
 
 THE BUILDING CRAZE 220 
 
 vii
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 THE SUBURBAN SAGE (Continued) : PAG8 
 
 MOVING IN 228 
 
 A WATER-COLOR HOUSE 237 
 
 THE POINTERS 245 
 
 THE FURNACE 252 
 
 THE TIME-TABLE TEST 259 
 
 THE SOCIETY CHURCH 267 
 
 THE SUBURBANITE AND His GOLF .... 276 
 
 THE SUBURBAN DOG 283 
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 290 
 
 THE FIRST OF IT 298 
 
 THE SPORTING SCHEME 307 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE SUBURBANITE . . 314
 
 " SHORT SIXES" 
 
 STORIES TO BE READ WHILE 
 THE CANDLE BURNS
 
 THE TENOR 
 
 IT was a dim, quiet room in an old-fashioned 
 New York house, with windows opening upon 
 a garden that was trim and attractive, even 
 in its Winter dress for the rose-bushes were all 
 bundled up in straw ulsters. The room was 
 ample, yet it had a cosy air. Its dark hangings 
 suggested comfort and luxury, with no hint of 
 gloom. A hundred pretty trifles told that it was 
 a young girl s room: in the deep alcove nestled 
 her dainty white bed, draped with creamy lace 
 and ribbons. 
 
 "I was so afraid that I d be late!" 
 The door opened, and two pretty girls came in, 
 one in hat and furs, the other in a modest house- 
 dress. The girl in the furs, who had been afraid 
 that she would be late, was fair, with a bright 
 color in her cheeks, and an eager, intent look in 
 her clear brown eyes. The other girl was dark- 
 eyed and dark-haired, dreamy, with a soft, warm, 
 dusky color in her face. They were two very 
 pretty girls indeed or, rather, two girls about to 
 be very pretty, for neither one was eighteen years 
 old. The dark girl glanced at a little porcelain 
 clock. 
 
 "You are in time, dear," she said, and helped 
 her companion to take off her wraps. 
 
 i
 
 2 THE TENOR 
 
 Then the two girls crossed the room, and with 
 a caressing and almost a reverent touch, the dark 
 girl opened the doors of a little carven cabinet 
 that hung upon the wall, above a small table cov 
 ered with a delicate white cloth. In its depths, 
 framed in a mat of odorous double violets, stood 
 the photograph of the face of a handsome man 
 of forty a face crowned with clustering black 
 locks, from beneath which a pair of large, mourn 
 ful eyes looked out with something like religious 
 fervor in their rapt gaze. It was the face of a 
 foreignei . 
 
 "0 Esther!" cried the other girl, "how beau 
 tifully you have dressed him to-day!" 
 
 "I wanted to get more," Esther said; "but I ve 
 spent almost all my allowance and violets do 
 cost so shockingly. Come, now " with another 
 glance at the clock "don t let s lose any more 
 time, Louise dear." 
 
 She brought a couple of tiny candles in Sevres 
 candlesticks, and two little silver saucers, in which 
 she lit fragrant pastilles. As the pale gray smoke 
 arose, floating in faint wreaths and spirals before 
 the enshrined photograph, Louise sat down and 
 gazed intently upon the little altar. Esther went 
 to her piano and watched the clock. It struck two. 
 Her hands fell softly on the keys, and, studying 
 a printed programme in front of her, she began 
 to play an overture. After the overture she 
 played one or two pieces of the regular concert 
 stock. Then she paused. 
 
 "I can t play the Tschaikowski piece."
 
 THE TENOR 3 
 
 "Never mind," said the other. "Let us wait 
 for him in silence." 
 
 The hands of the clock pointed to 2:29. Each 
 girl drew a quick breath, and then the one at 
 the piano began to sing softly, almost inaudibly, 
 "les Rameaux" in a transcription for tenor of 
 Faure s great song. When it was ended, she 
 played and sang the encore. Then, with her 
 fingers touching the keys so softly that they 
 awakened only an echo-like sound, she ran over 
 the numbers that intervened between the first 
 tenor solo and the second. Then she sang again, 
 as softly as before. 
 
 The fair-haired girl sat by the little table, 
 gazing intently on the picture. Her great eyes 
 seemed to devour it, and yet there was some 
 thing absent-minded, speculative, in her steady 
 look. She did not speak until Esther played the 
 last number on the programme. 
 
 "He had three encores for that last Satur 
 day," she said, and Esther played the three 
 encores. 
 
 Then they closed the piano and the little cab 
 inet, and exchanged an innocent girlish kiss, 
 and Louise went out, and found her father s 
 coupe waiting for her, and was driven away to 
 her great, gloomy, brown-stone home near Cen 
 tral Park. 
 
 Louise Laura Latimer and Esther Van Guilder 
 were the only children of two families which, 
 though they were possessed of the three "Rs" 
 which are all and more than are needed to insure
 
 4 THE TENOR 
 
 admission to New York society Riches, Respect 
 ability and Religion yet were not in Society; 
 or, at least, in the society that calls itself So 
 ciety. This was not because Society was not 
 willing to have them. It was because they 
 thought the world too worldly. Perhaps this 
 was one reason although the social horizon of 
 the two families had expanded somewhat as the 
 girls grew up why Louise and Esther, who had 
 been playmates from their nursery days, and 
 had grown up to be two uncommonly sentimental, 
 fanciful, enthusiastically morbid girls, were to be 
 found spending a bright Winter afternoon hold 
 ing a ceremonial service of worship before the 
 photograph of a fashionable French tenor. 
 
 It happened to be a French tenor whom they 
 were worshiping. It might as well have been 
 anybody or anything else. They were both at 
 that period of girlish growth when the young 
 female bosom is torn by a hysterical craving to 
 worship something any thing. They had been 
 studying music, and they had selected the tenor 
 who was the sensation of the hour in New York 
 for their idol. They had heard him only on the 
 concert stage; they were never likely to see him 
 nearer. But it was a mere matter of chance that 
 the idol was not a Boston Transcendentalist, a 
 Popular Preacher, a Faith-Cure Healer, or a 
 ringleted old maid with advanced ideas of Wom 
 an s Mission. The ceremonies might have been 
 different in form: the worship would have been 
 the same.
 
 THE TENOR 5 
 
 M. Hyppolite Remy was certainly the musical 
 hero of the hour. When his advance notices first 
 appeared, the New York critics, who are a singu 
 larly unconfiding, incredulous lot, were inclined 
 to discount his European reputation. 
 
 When they learned that M. Remy was not only 
 a great artist, but a man whose character was 
 " wholly free from that deplorable laxity which 
 is so often a blot on the proud escutcheon of his 
 noble profession;" that he had married an Amer 
 ican lady; that he had "embraced the Protestant 
 religion" no sect was specified, possibly to avoid 
 jealousy and that his health was delicate, they 
 were moved to suspect that he might have to ask 
 that allowances be made for his singing. But 
 when he arrived, his triumph was complete. He 
 was as handsome as his pictures, if he was a 
 trifle short, a shade too stout. 
 
 He was a singer of genius, too ; with a splendid 
 voice and a sound method on the whole. It 
 was before the days of the Wagner autocracy, 
 and perhaps his tremolo passed unchallenged as 
 it could not now; but he was a great artist. He 
 knew his business as well as his advance-agent 
 knew his. The Remy Concerts were a splendid 
 success. Reserved seats, $5. For the Series of 
 Six, $25. 
 
 * 
 
 On the following Monday, Esther Van Guilder 
 returned her friend s call, in response to an ur 
 gent invitation, despatched by mail. Louise Lati- 
 mer s great bare room was incapable of trans-
 
 6 THE TENOR 
 
 mutation into a cosy nest of a boudoir. There 
 was too much of its heavy raw silk furniture 
 too much of its vast, sarcophagus-like bed too 
 much of its upholsterer s elegance, regardless of 
 cost and taste. An enlargement from an am- 
 brotype of the original Latiiner, as he arrived in 
 New York from New Hampshire, and a photo 
 graph of a " child subject" by Millais, were all 
 her works of art. It was not to be doubted that 
 they had climbed upstairs from a front parlor 
 of an earlier stage of social development. The 
 farm-house was six generations behind Esther; 
 two behind Louise. 
 
 Esther found her friend in a state of almost 
 feverish excitement. Her eyes shone; the color 
 burned high on her clear cheeks. 
 
 "You never would guess what I ve done, 
 dear!" she began, as soon as they were alone in 
 the big room. "I m going to see Mm to speak 
 to him Esther!" Her voice was solemnly 
 hushed, "to serve him!" 
 
 "Oh, Louise! what do you mean?" 
 
 "To serve him with my own hands! To to 
 help him on with his coat I don t know to do 
 something that a servant does any thing, so 
 that I can say that once, once only, just for an 
 hour, I have been near him, been of use to him, 
 served him in one little thing, as loyally as he 
 serves OUR ART." 
 
 Music was THEIR art, and no capitals could 
 tell how much it was theirs or how much of an 
 art it was.
 
 THE TENOR 7 
 
 "Louise," demanded Esther, with a frightened 
 look, "are you crazy?" 
 
 "No. Bead this!" She handed the other girl 
 a clipping from the advertising columns of a 
 newspaper. 
 
 CHAMBERMAID AND WAITRESS.- WANTED, A NEAT 
 ^^ and willing girl, for light work. Apply to Mme. Rmy, 
 The Midlothian Broadway 
 
 "I saw it just by accident, Saturday, after I 
 left you. Papa had left his paper in the coupe. 
 I was going up to my First Aid to the Injured 
 Class it s at four o clock now, you know. I 
 made up my mind right off it came to me like an 
 inspiration. I just waited until it came to the 
 place where they showed how to tie up the arte 
 ries, and then I slipped out. Lots of the girls 
 slip out in the horrid parts, you know. And then, 
 instead of waiting in the ante-room, I put on my 
 wrap, and pulled the hood over my head and 
 ran off to the Midlothian it s just around the 
 corner, you know. And I saw his wife." 
 
 "What was she like?" queried Esther, eagerly. 
 
 "Oh, I don t know. Sort of horrid actressy. 
 She had a pink silk wrapper with swansdown all 
 over it at four o clock, think! I was aivfully 
 frightened when I got there; but it wasn t the 
 least trouble. She hardly looked at me, and she 
 engaged me right off. She just asked me if I 
 was willing to do a whole lot of things I forget 
 what they were and where I d worked before. 
 I said at Mrs. Barcalow s." 
 
 " Mrs. Barcalow s? " 
 
 "Why, yes my Aunt Amanda, don t you know
 
 8 THE TENOR 
 
 up in Framingliam. I always have to wash 
 the teacups when I go there. Aunty says that 
 everybody has got to do something in her house." 
 
 Oh, Louise!" cried her friend, in shocked 
 admiration; "how can you think of such things?" 
 
 ""Well, I did. And she his wife, you know 
 just said: Oh, I suppose you ll do as well as 
 any one all you girls are alike. 
 
 "But did she really take you for a servant?" 
 
 "Why, yes, indeed. It was raining. I had 
 that old ulster on, you know. I m to go at 
 twelve o clock next Saturday." 
 
 "But, Louise!" cried Esther, aghast, "you 
 don t truly mean to go!" 
 
 "I do!" cried Louise, beaming triumphantly. 
 
 <( 01i, Louise!" 
 
 "Now, listen, dear," said Miss Latimer, with 
 the decision of an enthusiastic young lady with 
 New England blood in her veins. "Don t say a 
 word till I tell you what my plan is. I ve thought 
 it all out, and you ve got to help me." 
 
 Esther shuddered. 
 
 "You foolish child!" cried Louise. Her eyes 
 were sparkling: she was in a state of ecstatic 
 excitement; she could see no obstacles to the 
 carrying out of her plan. "You don t think I 
 mean to stay there, do you? I m just going at 
 twelve o clock, and at four he comes back from 
 the matinee, and at five o clock I m going to slip 
 on my things and run downstairs, and have you 
 waiting for me in the coupe, and off we go. Now 
 do you see?"
 
 THE TENOR 9 
 
 It took some time to bring Esther s less ven 
 turesome spirit up to the point of assisting in 
 this bold undertaking; but she began, after a 
 while, to feel the delights of vicarious enterprise, 
 and in the end the two girls, their cheeks flushed, 
 their eyes shining feverishly, their voices tremu 
 lous with childish eagerness, resolved themselves 
 into a committee of ways and means; for they 
 were two well-guarded young women, and to en 
 gineer five hours of liberty was difficult to the 
 verge of impossibility. However, there is a 
 financial manoeuvre known as "kiting checks," 
 whereby A exchanges a check with B and B 
 swaps with A again, playing an imaginary bal 
 ance against Time and the Clearing House; and 
 by a similar scheme, which an acute student of 
 social ethics has called "kiting calls," the girls 
 found that they could make Saturday afternoon 
 their own, without one glance from the watchful 
 eyes of Esther s mother or Louise s aunt Lou 
 ise had only an aunt to reckon with. 
 
 "And, oh, Esther!" cried the bolder of the 
 conspirators, I Ve thought of a trunk of course 
 I ve got to have a trunk, or she would ask me 
 where it was, and I couldn t tell her a fib. Don t 
 you remember the French maid who died three 
 days after she came here? Her trunk is up in 
 the store-room still, and I don t believe anybody 
 will ever come for it it s been there seven years 
 now. Let s go up and look at it." 
 
 The girls romped upstairs to the great unused 
 upper story, where heaps of household rubbish
 
 10 THE TENOR 
 
 obscured the dusty half-windows. In a corner, 
 behind Louise s baby chair and an unfashionable 
 hat-rack of the old steering-wheel pattern, they 
 found the little brown-painted tin trunk, corded 
 up with clothes-line. 
 
 "Louise!" said Esther, hastily, "what did 
 you tell her your name was?" 
 
 "I just said Louise ." 
 
 Esther pointed to the name painted on the 
 trunk, 
 
 LOUISE LEVY 
 
 "It is the hand of Providence," she said. 
 "Somehow, now, I m sure you re quite right to 
 go." 
 
 And neither of these conscientious young ladies 
 reflected for one minute on the discomfort which 
 might be occasioned to Madame Remy by the 
 defection of her new servant a half -hour before 
 dinner-time on Saturday night. 
 
 
 
 "Oh, child, it s you, is it?" was Mme. Remy s 
 greeting at twelve o clock on Saturday. "Well, 
 you re punctual and you look clean. Now, are 
 you going to break my dishes or are you going 
 to steal my rings? "Well, we ll find out soon 
 enough. Your trunk s up in your room. Go up 
 to the servants quarters right at the top of 
 those stairs there. Ask for the room that be 
 longs to apartment 11. You are to room with 
 their girl." 
 
 Louise was glad of a moment s respite. She
 
 THE TENOR II 
 
 had taken the plunge; she was determined to go 
 through to the end. But her heart would beat 
 and her hands would tremble. She climbed up 
 six flights of winding stairs, and found herself 
 weak and dizzy when she reached the top and 
 gazed around her. She was in a great half-story 
 room, eighty feet square. The most of it was 
 filled with heaps of old furniture and bedding, 
 rolls of carpet, of canvas, of oilcloth, and odds 
 and ends of discarded or unused household gear 
 the dust thick over all. A little space had 
 been left around three sides, to give access to 
 three rows of cell-like rooms, in each of which 
 the ceiling sloped from the very door to a tiny 
 window at the level of the floor. In each room 
 was a bed, a bureau that served for wash-stand, 
 a small looking-glass, and one or two trunks. 
 Women s dresses hung on the whitewashed walls. 
 She found No. 11, threw off, desperately, her hat 
 and jacket, and sunk down on the little brown 
 tin trunk, all trembling from head to foot. 
 
 "Hello," called a cheery voice. She looked up 
 and saw a girl in a dirty calico dress. 
 
 " Just come 1 ?" inquired this person, with agree 
 able informality. She was a good-looking large 
 girl, with red hair and bright cheeks. She leaned 
 against the door-post and polished her finger 
 nails with a little brush. Her hands were shapely. 
 
 "Ain t got onto the stair-climbing racket yet, 
 eh? You ll get used to it. Louise Levy, " she 
 read the name on the trunk. "You don t look 
 like a sheeny. Can t tell nothin bout names,
 
 12 THE TENOR 
 
 can you? My name s Slattery. You d think I 
 was Irish, wouldn t you? Well, I m straight 
 Ne York. I d be dead before I was Irish. Born 
 here. Ninth Ward an next to an engine-house. 
 How s that? There s white Jews, too. I worked 
 for one, pickin sealskins down in Prince Street. 
 Most took the lungs out of me. But that wasn t 
 why I shook the biz. It queered my hands see? 
 I m going to be married in the Fall to a German 
 gentleman. He ain t so Dutch when you know 
 him, though. He s a grocer. Drivin now; but 
 he buys out the boss in the Fall. How s that? 
 He s dead stuck on my hooks, an I have to keep 
 em lookin good. I come here because the work 
 was light. I don t have to work only to be 
 doin somethin , see? Only got five halls and the 
 lamps. You got a fam ly job, I s pose? I 
 wouldn t have that. I don t mind the Sooprin- 
 tendent; but I d be dead before I d be bossed by 
 a woman, see? Say, what fam ly did you say 
 you was with!" 
 
 This stream of talk had acted like a nerve-tonic 
 on Louise. She was able to answer : 
 
 "M Mr. Kemy." 
 
 "Bamy? oh, lord! Got the job with His Ton 
 sils? Well, you won t keep it long. They re 
 meaner n three balls, see? Eent their room up 
 here and chip in with eleven. Their girls don t 
 never stay. Well, I got to step, or the Sooprin- 
 tendent ll be borin my ear. Well so long !" 
 
 But Louise had fled down the stairs. "His 
 Tonsils" rang in her ears. What blasphemy!
 
 THE TENOR 13 
 
 What sacrilege! She could scarcely pretend to 
 listen to Mme. Remy s first instructions. 
 
 The household ivas parsimonious. Louise 
 washed the caterer s dishes he made a reduc 
 tion in his price. Thus she learned that a late 
 breakfast took the place of luncheon. She began 
 to feel what this meant. The beds had been 
 made; but there was work enough. She helped 
 Mme. Remy to sponge a heap of faded finery 
 her dresses. If they had been his coats ! Louise 
 bent her hot face over the tawdry silks and sat 
 ins, and clasped her parboiled little finger-tips 
 over the wet sponge. At half-past three Mme. 
 Remy broke the silence. 
 
 "We must get ready for Musseer," she said. 
 An ecstatic joy filled Louise s being. The hour 
 of her reward was at hand. 
 
 Getting ready for "Musseer" proved to be an 
 appalling process. First they brewed what Mme. 
 Remy called a "teaze Ann." After the tisane, a 
 host of strange foreign drugs and cosmetics were 
 marshalled in order. Then water was set to heat 
 on a gas-stove. Then a little table was neatly 
 set. 
 
 "Musseer has his dinner at half-past four," 
 Madame explained. "I don t take mine till he s 
 laid down and I ve got him off to the concert. 
 There, he s coming now. Sometimes he comes 
 home pretty nervous. If he s nervous, don t you 
 go and make a fuss, do you hear, child?" 
 
 The door opened, and Musseer entered, 
 wrapped in a huge frogged overcoat. There was
 
 14 THE TENOE 
 
 no doubt that he was nervous. He cast his 
 hat upon the floor, as if he were Jove dashing a 
 thunderbolt. Fire flashed from his eyes. He 
 advanced upon his wife and thrust a newspaper 
 in her face a little pinky sheet, a notorious 
 blackmailing publication. 
 
 "Zees," he cried, "is your work!" 
 
 "What is it, now, Hipleet?" demanded Mme. 
 Eemy. 
 
 "Vot it ees!" shrieked the tenor. "It ees ze 
 history of how zey have heest me at Nice! It 
 ees all zair how I have been heest in zis sacre 
 sheet in zis hankairchif of infamy! And it ees 
 you zat have told it to zat devil of a Eastignac 
 traitresse!" 
 
 "Now, Hipleet," pleaded his wife, "if I can t 
 learn enough French to talk with you, how am I 
 going to tell Eastignac about your being hissed?" 
 
 This reasoning silenced Mr. Eemy for an in 
 stant an instant only. 
 
 "You vood have done it!" he cried, sticking 
 out his chin and thrusting his face forward. 
 
 "Well, I didn t," said Madame, "and nobody 
 reads that thing, anyway. Now, don t you mind 
 it, and let me get your things off, or you ll be 
 catching cold." 
 
 Mr. Eemy yielded at last to the necessity of 
 self-preservation, and permitted his wife to re 
 move his frogged overcoat, and to unwind him 
 from a system of silk wraps to which the Gordian 
 knot was a slip-noose. This done, he sat down 
 before the dressing-case, and Mme. Eemy, after
 
 THE TENOE 15 
 
 tying a bib around his neck, proceeded to dress 
 his hair and put brilliantine on his moustache. 
 Her husband enlivened the operation by reading 
 from the pinky paper. 
 
 "It ees not gen-air-al-lee known zat zees dees- 
 tin-guished tenor vos heest on se pob-lic staidj 
 at Nice in ze year " 
 
 Louise leaned against the wall, sick, faint and 
 frightened, with a strange sense of shame and 
 degradation at her heart. At last the tenor s 
 eye fell on her. 
 
 "Anozzair eediot?" he inquired. 
 
 "She ain t very bright, Hipleet," replied his 
 wife; "but I guess she ll do. Louise, open the 
 door there s the caterer." 
 
 Louise placed the dishes upon the table me 
 chanically. The tenor sat himself at the board, 
 and tucked a napkin in his neck. 
 
 "And how did the Benediction Song go this 
 afternoon f inquired his wife. 
 
 "Ze Benediction? Ah! One encore. One on- 
 lee. Zese pigs of Americains. I t row my pairls 
 biffo* swine. Chops once more! You vant to 
 mordair me? Vat do zis mean, madamef You 
 ar-r-r-re in lig wiz my enemies. All ze vorlt is 
 against ze ar-r-r-teest ! " 
 
 The storm that followed made the first seem 
 a zephyr. The tenor exhausted his execratory 
 vocabulary in French and English. At last, by 
 way of a dramatic finale, he seized the plate of 
 chops and flung it from him. He aimed at the 
 wall; but Frenchmen do not pitch well. With a
 
 16 THE TENOR 
 
 ring and a crash, plate and chops went through 
 the broad window-pane. In the moment of 
 stricken speechlessness that followed, the sound 
 of the final smash came softly up from the side 
 walk. 
 
 Ah-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ah ! 
 
 The tenor rose to his feet with the howl of an 
 anguished hyena. 
 
 Oh, good gracious!" cried his wife; "he s 
 going to have one of his creezes his creezes de 
 nare!" 
 
 He did have a crise de nerfs. "Ten dollair!" 
 he yelled, "for ten dollair of glass!" He tore 
 his pomaded hair; he tore off his bib and his 
 neck-tie, and for three minutes without cessation 
 he shrieked wildly and unintelligibly. It was 
 possible to make out, however, that "arteest" 
 and "ten dollair" were the themes of his impro 
 visation. Finally he sank exhausted into the 
 chair, and his white-faced wife rushed to his 
 side. 
 
 "Louise!" she cried, "get the foot- tub out of 
 the closet while I spray his throat, or he can t 
 sing a note. Fill it up with warm water 102 
 degrees there s the thermometer and bathe his 
 feet." 
 
 Trembling from head to foot, Louise obeyed 
 her orders, and brought the foot-tub, full of 
 steaming water. Then she knelt down and be 
 gan to serve the maestro for the first time. She 
 took off his shoes. Then she looked at his socks. 
 Could she do it?
 
 THE TENOR 17 
 
 "Eediot!" gasped the sufferer, "make haste! 
 I die!" 
 
 "Hold your mouth open, dear," said Madame, 
 "I haven t half sprayed you." 
 
 " Ah I you!" cried the tenor. "Cat! Devil! It 
 ees you zat have killed me!" And moved by an 
 access of blind rage, he extended his arm, and 
 thrust his wife violently from him. 
 
 Louise rose to her feet, with a hard, set, good 
 old New England look on her face. She lifted the 
 tub of water to the level of her breast, and then 
 she inverted it on the tenor s head. For one 
 instant she gazed at the deluge, and at the bath 
 tub balanced on the maestro s skull like a helmet 
 several sizes too large then she fled like the 
 wind. 
 
 Once in the servants quarters, she snatched 
 her hat and jacket. From below came mad yells 
 of rage. 
 
 "I kill hare! give me my knife give me my 
 riwolvare! Au secours! Assassin!" 
 
 Miss Slattery appeared in the doorway, still 
 polishing her nails. 
 
 "What have you done to His Tonsils?" she 
 inquired. "He s pretty hot, this trip." 
 
 "How can I get away from here?" cried 
 Louise. 
 
 Miss Slattery pointed to a small door. Louise 
 rushed down a long stairway another and yet 
 others through a great room where there was a 
 smell of cooking and a noise of fires past white- 
 capped cooks and scullions through a long stone
 
 18 THE TENOR 
 
 corridor, and out into the street. She cried aloud 
 as she saw Esther s face at the window of the 
 coupe. 
 She drove home cured. 
 
 OWING TO THE 
 
 SUDDEN INDISPOSITION 
 
 OF 
 
 M. KEMY 
 THERE WILL BE NO 
 
 CONCERT 
 
 THIS EVENING. 
 
 MONEY EEFUNDED AT THE 
 
 Box OFFICE.
 
 COL. BRERETON S AUNTY 
 
 THE pleasant smell of freshly turned gar 
 den-mould and of young growing things 
 came in through the open window of the 
 Justice of the Peace. His nasturtiums were 
 spreading, pale and weedy I could distinguish 
 their strange, acrid scent from the odor of the 
 rest of the young vegetation. The tips of the 
 morning-glory vines, already up their strings to 
 the height of a man s head, curled around the 
 window-frame, and beckoned to me to come out 
 and rejoice with them in the freshness of the 
 mild June day. It was pleasant enough inside 
 the Justice s front parlor, with its bright ingrain 
 carpet, its gilt clock, and its marble-topped cen 
 tre-table. But the Justice and the five gentlemen 
 who were paying him a business call although 
 it was Sunday morning looked, the whole half- 
 dozen of them, ill in accord with the spirit of the 
 Spring day. The Justice looked annoyed. The 
 five assembled gentlemen looked stern. 
 
 "Well, as you say," remarked the fat little 
 Justice, who was an Irishman, "if this divilment 
 goes on " 
 
 "It s not a question of going on, Mr. O Brien," 
 broke in Alfred Winthrop; "it has gone on too 
 long." 
 
 19
 
 20 COL. BKERETON S AUNTY 
 
 Alfred is a little inclined to be arrogant with 
 the unwinthropian world; and, moreover, he was 
 rushing the season in a very grand suit of white 
 flannels. He looked rather too much of a lord 
 of creation for a democratic community. An 
 tagonism lit the Justice s eye. 
 
 "I m afraid we ve got to do it, O Brien," I 
 interposed, hastily. The Justice and I are strong 
 political allies. He was mollified. 
 
 "Well, well," he assented; "let s have him up 
 and see what he s got to say for himself. Mike ! " 
 he shouted out the window; "bring up Colonel 
 Brereton!" 
 
 Colonel Brereton had appeared in our village 
 about a year before that Sunday. Why he came, 
 whence he came, he never deigned to say. But 
 he made no secret of the fact that he was an 
 unreconstructed Southron. He had a little money 
 when he arrived enough to buy a tiny one-story 
 house on the outskirts of the town. By vocation 
 he was a lawyer, and, somehow or other, he 
 managed to pick up enough to support him in 
 his avocation, which, we soon found out, was 
 that of village drunkard. In this capacity he 
 was a glorious, picturesque and startling success. 
 Saturated with cheap whiskey, he sat all day 
 long in the barroom or on the porch of the vil 
 lage groggery, discoursing to the neighborhood 
 loafers of the days befV the wah, when he had 
 a vast plantation in "Firginia" "and five hun 
 dred niggehs, seh." 
 
 So long as the Colonel s excesses threatened
 
 COL. BRERETON S AUNTY 21 
 
 only his own liver, no one interfered with him. 
 But on the night before we called upon the Jus 
 tice, the Colonel, having brooded long over his 
 wrongs at the hands of the Yankees, and having 
 made himself a reservoir of cocktails, decided to 
 enter his protest against the whole system of 
 free colored labor by cutting the liver out of 
 every negro in the town; and he had slightly 
 lacerated Winthrop s mulatto coachman before 
 a delegation of citizens fell upon him, and finding 
 him unwilling to relinquish his plan, placed him 
 for the night in the lock-up in Squire O Brien s 
 cellar. 
 
 We waited for the Colonel. From under our 
 feet suddenly arose a sound of scuffling and 
 smothered imprecations. A minute later, Mike, 
 the herculean son of the Justice, appeared in the 
 doorway, bearing a very small man hugged to 
 his breast as a baby hugs a doll. 
 
 "Let me down, seh!" shouted the Colonel. 
 Mike set him down, and he marched proudly into 
 the room, and seated himself with dignity and 
 firmness on the extreme edge of a chair. 
 
 The Colonel was very small indeed for a man 
 of so much dignity. He could not have been 
 more than five foot one or two; he was slender 
 but his figure was shapely and supple. He 
 was unquestionably a handsome man, with fine, 
 thin features and an aquiline profile like a mini 
 ature Henry Clay. His hair was snow-white 
 prematurely, no doubt and at the first glance 
 you thought he was clean shaven. Then you
 
 22 COL. BRERETON S AUNTY 
 
 saw that there was scarcely a hair on his cheeks, 
 and that only the finest imaginable line of snowy 
 white moustaches curled down his upper lip. His 
 skin was smooth as a baby s and of the color of 
 old ivory. His teeth, which he was just then 
 exhibiting in a sardonic smile, were white, small, 
 even. But if he was small, his carriage was 
 large, and military. There was something mili 
 tary, too, about his attire. He wore a high col 
 lar, a long blue frock coat, and tight, light gray 
 trousers with straps. That is, the coat had once 
 been blue, the trousers once light gray, but they 
 were now of many tints and tones, and, at that 
 exact moment, they had here and there certain 
 peculiar high lights of whitewash. 
 
 The Colonel did not wait to be arraigned. 
 Sweeping his black, piercing eye over our little 
 group, he arraigned its. 
 
 "Well, gentlemen," with keen irony in his tone, 
 "I reckon you think you ve done a right smart 
 thing, getting the Southern gentleman in a hole? 
 A pro-dee-gious fine thing, I reckon, since it s 
 kept you away from chu ch. Baptis church, I 
 believe!" This was to poor Canfield, who was 
 suspected of having been of that communion in 
 his youth, and of being much ashamed of it 
 after his marriage to an aristocratic Episcopa 
 lian. "Nice Sunday mo ning to worry a South 
 ern gentleman! Gentleman who s owned a plan 
 tation that you could stick this hyeh picayune 
 town into one co neh of! Owned mo niggehs 
 than you eveh saw. Robbed of his land and his
 
 COL. BRERETON S AUNTY 23 
 
 niggehs by you Yankee gentlemen. Drinks a lit 
 tle wine to make him fo get what he s suffehed. 
 Gets ovehtaken. Tries to avenge an insult to his 
 honah. Put him in a felon s cell and whitewash 
 his gyarments. And now you come hyeh you 
 come hyeh here his eye fell with deep disap 
 proval upon Winthrop s white flannels "you 
 come hyeh in youh underclothes, and you want 
 to have him held fo Special Sessions." 
 
 "You are mistaken, Colonel Brereton," Win- 
 throp interposed; "if we can have your prom 
 ise" 
 
 "I will promise you nothing, seh!" thundered 
 the Colonel, who had a voice like a church-organ, 
 whenever he chose to use it; "I will make no 
 conventions with you! I will put no restrictions 
 on my right to defend my honah. Put me in 
 youh felon s cell. I will rot in youh infehnal 
 dungeons; but I will make no conventions with 
 you. You can put me in striped breeches, but 
 you cyan t put my honah in striped breeches!" 
 
 "That settles it," said the Justice. 
 
 "And all," continued the Colonel, oratorically, 
 "and all this hyeh fuss and neglect of youh re 
 ligious duties, fo one of the cheapest and most 
 o nery niggehs I eveh laid eyes on. Why, I 
 wouldn t have given one hundred dollahs fo that 
 niggeh befo the wah. No, seh, I give you my 
 wo d, that niggeh ain t wo th ninety dollahs!" 
 
 "Mike!" said the Justice, significantly. The 
 Colonel arose promptly, to insure a voluntary 
 exit. He bowed low to Winthrop.
 
 24 COL. BBEKETON S AUNTY 
 
 " Allow me to hope, sell," he said, "that you 
 won t catch cold." And with one lofty and com 
 prehensive salute he marched haughtily back to 
 his dungeon, followed by the towering Mike. 
 
 The Justice sighed. An elective judiciary has 
 its trials, like the rest of us. It is hard to com 
 mit a voter of your own party for Special Ses 
 sions. However "I ll drive him over to Court 
 in the morning," said the little Justice. 
 
 I was sitting on my verandah that afternoon, 
 reading. Hearing my name softly spoken, I 
 looked up and saw the largest and oldest negress 
 I had ever met. She was at least six feet tall, 
 well-built but not fat, full black, with carefully 
 dressed gray hair. I knew at once from her neat 
 dress, her well-trained manner, the easy defer 
 ence of the curtsey she dropped me, that she 
 belonged to the class that used to be known as 
 "house darkeys" in contradistinction to the 
 field hands. 
 
 "I understand, seh," she said, in a gentle, low 
 voice, "that you gentlemen have got Cunnle 
 Bre eton jailed?" 
 
 She had evidently been brought up among edu 
 cated Southerners, for her grammar was good 
 and her pronunciation correct, according to 
 Southern standards. Only once or twice did she 
 drop into negro talk. 
 
 I assented. 
 
 "How much will it be, seh, to get him out?"
 
 COL. BRERETON S AUNTY 25 
 
 She produced a fat roll of twenty and fifty dollar 
 bills. "I do fo Cunnle Bre eton," she explained: 
 "I have always done fo him. I was his Mammy 
 when he was a baby." 
 
 I made her sit down when she did there was 
 modest deprecation in her attitude and I tried 
 to explain the situation to her. 
 
 "You may go surety for Colonel Brereton," I 
 said; "but he is certain to repeat the offense." 
 
 "No, seh," she replied, in her quiet, firm tone; 
 "the Cunnle won t make any trouble when I m 
 here to do fo him." 
 
 "You were one of his slaves ?" 
 
 "No, seh. Cunnle Bre eton neveh had any 
 slaves, seh. His father, Majah Bre eton, he had 
 slaves one time, I guess, but when the Cunnle 
 was bo n, he was playing kyards f o a living, and 
 he had only me. When the Cunnle s mother 
 died, Majah Bre eton he went to Mizzoura, and 
 he put the baby in my ahms, and he said to me, 
 Sabrine, he sez, you do fo him. And I ve 
 done fo him eveh since. Sometimes he gets 
 away from me, and then he gets kind o* wild. He 
 was in Sandusky a year, and in Chillicothe six 
 months, and he was in Tiffin once, and one time 
 in a place in the state of Massachusetts I dis- 
 remembeh the name. This is the longest time he 
 eveh got away from me. But I always find him, 
 and then he s all right." 
 
 "But you have to deal with a violent man." 
 
 "The Cunnle won t be violent with me, seh." 
 
 "But you re getting old, Aunty how old!"
 
 26 COL. BRERETON S AUNTY 
 
 "I kind o lost count since I was seventy-one, 
 seh. But I m right spry, yet." 
 
 "Well, my good woman," I said, decisively, 
 "I can t take the responsibility of letting the 
 Colonel go at large unless you give me some bet 
 ter guarantee of your ability to restrain him. 
 What means have you of keeping him in hand ? 
 
 She hesitated a long time, smoothing the folds 
 of her neat alpaca skirt with her strong hands. 
 Then she said: 
 
 "Well, seh, I wouldn t have you say anything 
 about it, fV feah of hunting Cunnle Bre eton s 
 feelings; but when he gets that way, I jes nach- 
 ully tuhn him up and spank him. I ve done it 
 eveh since he was a baby," she continued apolo 
 getically, "and it s the only way. But you won t 
 say anything about it, seh ? The Cunnle s power 
 ful sensitive." 
 
 I wrote a brief note to the Justice. I do not 
 know what legal formalities he dispensed with; 
 but that afternoon the Colonel was free. Aunt 
 Sabrine took him home, and he \vent to bed for 
 two days while she washed his clothes. The next 
 week he appeared in a complete new outfit in 
 
 cut and color the counterpart of its predecessor. 
 
 
 Here began a new era for the Colonel. He was 
 no longer the town drunkard. Aunty Sabrine 
 "allowanced" him one cocktail in the "mo n- 
 ing"; a "ho n" at noon, and one at night. On 
 this diet he was a model of temperance. If occa 
 sionally he essayed a drinking bout, Aunty Sa-
 
 COL. BRERETON S AUNTY 27 
 
 brine came after him at eve, and led him home. 
 From my window I sometimes saw the steady 
 big figure and the wavering little one going home 
 over the crest of the hill, equally black in their 
 silhouettes against the sunset sky. 
 
 What happened to the Colonel we knew not. 
 No man saw him for two days. Then he emerged 
 with unruffled dignity. The two always main 
 tained genuine Southern relations. He called 
 her his damn black nigger and would have 
 killed any man who spoke ill of her. She treated 
 him with the humble and deferential familiarity 
 of a "mammy" toward "young mahse." 
 
 For herself, Aunty Sabrine won the hearts of 
 the town. She was an ideal washerwoman, an 
 able temporary cook in domestic interregna, a 
 tender and wise nurse, and a genius at jam and 
 jellies. The Colonel, too, made money in his line, 
 and put it faithfully into the common fund. 
 
 In March of the next year, I was one of a 
 Reform Town Committee, elected to oust the 
 usual local ring. We discharged the inefficient 
 Town Counsel, who had neglected our interests 
 in a lot of suits brought by swindling road-con 
 tractors. Aunty Sabrine came to me, and sol 
 emnly nominated Colonel Brereton for the post. 
 "He is sho ly a fine loyyeh," she said. 
 
 I know not whether it was the Great American 
 sense of humor, or the Great American sense of 
 fairness, but we engaged the Colonel, condition 
 ally. 
 
 He was a positive, a marvelous, an incredible
 
 28 COL. BRERETON S AUNTY 
 
 success, and he won every snit. Perhaps he did 
 not know much law; but he was the man of men 
 for country judges and juries. Nothing like his 
 eloquence had ever before been heard in the 
 county. He argued, he cajoled, he threatened, 
 he pleaded, he thundered, he exploded, he con 
 fused, he blazed, he fairly dazzled for silence 
 stunned you when the Colonel ceased to speak, 
 as the lightning blinds your eyes long after it 
 has vanished. 
 
 The Colonel was utterly incapable of seeing 
 any but his own side of the case. I remember a 
 few of his remarks concerning Finnegan, the 
 contractor, who was suing for $31.27 payments 
 withheld. 
 
 "Fohty yahds!" the Colonel roared: "fohty 
 yahds! This hyeh man Finnegan, this hyeh 
 cock-a-doodle-doo, he goes along this hyeh road, 
 and he casts his eye oveh this hyeh excavation, 
 and he comes hyeh and sweahs it s fohty yahds 
 good measure. Does he take a tape measure 
 and measure it? NO! Does he even pace it 
 off with those hyeh corkscrew legs of his that 
 he s trying to hide under his chaiah ? NO ! ! He 
 says, I m Finnegan, and this hyeh s fohty 
 yahds, and off he sashays up the hill, wonder 
 ing wheah Finnegan s going to bring up when 
 he s walked off the topmost peak of the snow- 
 clad Himalayas of human omniscience! And 
 this hyeh man, this hyeh insult to humanity in 
 a papeh collah, he comes hyeh, to this august 
 tribunal, and he asks you, gentlemen of the
 
 COL. BRERETON S AUNTY 29 
 
 jury, to let him rob you of the money you have 
 earned in the sweat of youh brows, to take the 
 bread out of the mouths of the children whom 
 youh patient and devoted wives have bohne to 
 you in pain and anguish but I say to you, gen- 
 tel-men (suddenly exploding) HIS PAPEH 
 COLLAH SHALL ROAST IN HADES BE- 
 FO I WILL BE A PAHTY TO THIS HYEH 
 INFAMY!" 
 
 Finnegan was found in hiding in his cellar 
 when his counsel came to tell him that he could 
 not collect his $31.27. "Bedad, is that all?" he 
 gasped: "I fought I d get six mont s." 
 
 People flocked from miles about to hear the 
 Colonel. Recalcitrant jurymen were bribed to 
 service by the promise of a Brereton case on the 
 docket. His performances were regarded in the 
 light of a free show, and a verdict in his favor 
 was looked upon as a graceful gratuity. 
 
 He made money and he gave it meekly to 
 Aunty Sabrine. 
 
 It was the night of the great blizzard ; but there 
 was no sign of cold or wind when I looked out, 
 half-an-hour after midnight, before closing my 
 front door. I heard the drip of water from the 
 trees, I saw a faint mist rising from the melting 
 snow. At the foot of my lawn I dimly saw the 
 Colonel s familiar figure marching homeward 
 from some political meeting preliminary to Tues 
 day s election. His form was erect, his step
 
 30 COL. BEEEETON S AUNTY 
 
 steady. He swung his little cane and whistled 
 as he walked. I was proud of the Colonel. 
 
 An hour later the storm was upon us. By 
 noon of Monday, Alfred "Winthrop s house, two 
 hundred yards away, might as well have been 
 two thousand, so far as getting to it, or even 
 seeing it, was concerned. Tuesday morning the 
 snow had stopped, and we looked out over a still 
 and shining deluge with sparkling fringes above 
 the blue hollows of its frozen waves. Across it 
 roared an icy wind, bearing almost invisible dia 
 mond dust to fill irritated eyes and throats. The 
 election was held that day. The result was to be 
 expected. All the "hard" citizens were at the 
 polls. Most of the reformers were stalled in 
 railroad trains. The Eeform Ticket failed of 
 re-election, and Colonel Brereton s term of office 
 was practically at an end. 
 
 I was outdoors most of the day, and that night, 
 when I awoke about three o clock, suddenly and 
 with a shock, thinking I had heard Aunty Sa- 
 brine s voice crying: "Cunnle! wheah are you, 
 Cunnle?" my exhausted brain took it for the 
 echo of a dream. I must have dozed for an hour 
 before I sprang up with a certainty in my mind 
 that I had heard her voice in very truth. Then 
 I hurried on my clothes, and ran to Alfred Win 
 throp s. He looked incredulous; but he got into 
 his boots like a man. We found Aunty Sabrine, 
 alive but unconscious, on the crest of the hill. 
 When we had secured an asylum for her, we 
 searched for the Colonel. The next day we
 
 COL. BRERETON S AUNTY 31 
 
 learned that he had heard the news of the elec 
 tion and had boarded a snow-clearing train that 
 was returning to the Junction. 
 
 It was a week before Aunty Sabrine recovered. 
 When I asked her if she was going to look for 
 the Colonel, she answered with gentle resigna 
 tion: 
 
 "No, seh. I m most too old. I ll stay hyeh, 
 wheah he knows wheah to find me. He ll come 
 afteh me, sho ." 
 
 Sixteen months passed, and he did not come. 
 Then, one evening, a Summer walk took me by 
 the little house. I heard a voice I could not 
 forget. 
 
 "Hyeh, you black niggeh, get along with that 
 suppeh, or I come in theah and cut youh damn 
 haid off!" 
 
 Looking up, I saw Colonel Brereton, a little 
 the worse for wear, seated on the snake fence. 
 No .... he was not seated; he was hitched on 
 by the crook of his knees, his toes braced against 
 the inside of the lower rail. His coat-tails hung 
 in the vacant air. 
 
 He descended, a little stiffly, I thought, and 
 greeted me cordially, with affable dignity. His 
 manner somehow implied that it was / who had 
 been away. 
 
 He insisted on my coming into his front yard 
 and sitting down on the bench by the house, 
 while he condescendingly and courteously in 
 quired after the health of his old friends and
 
 32 COL. BREBETON S AUNTY 
 
 neighbors. I stayed until supper was announced. 
 The Colonel was always the soul of hospitality; 
 but on this occasion he did not ask me to join 
 him. And I reflected, as I went away, that al 
 though he had punctiliously insisted on my sit 
 ting down, the Colonel had remained standing 
 during our somewhat protracted conversation.
 
 A ROUND-UP 
 I 
 
 WHEN Bhodora Boyd Khodora Pen- 
 nington that was died in her little 
 house, with no one near her but one 
 old maid who loved her, the best society of the 
 little city of Trega Falls indulged in more or 
 less complacent reminiscence. 
 
 Except to Miss Wimple, the old maid, Khodora 
 had been of no importance at all in Trega for 
 ten long years, and yet she had once given Trega 
 society the liveliest year it had ever known. (I 
 should tell you that Trega people never men 
 tioned the Falls in connection with Trega. Trega 
 was too old to admit any indebtedness to the 
 Falls.) 
 
 Ehodora Pennington came to Trega with her 
 invalid mother as the guest of her uncle, the 
 Commandant at the Fort for Trega was a gar 
 rison town. She was a beautiful girl. I do not 
 mean a pretty girl: there were pretty girls in 
 Trega several of them. She was beautiful as 
 the Queen of Sheba was beautiful grand, per 
 fect, radiantly tawny of complexion, without a 
 flaw or a failing in her pulchritude almost too 
 fine a being for family use, except that she had 
 plenty of hot woman s blood in her veins, and 
 
 33
 
 34 A ROUND-UP 
 
 was an accomplished, delightful, impartial flirt. 
 
 All the men turned to her with such prompt 
 unanimity that all the girls of Trega s best soci 
 ety joined hands in one grand battle for their 
 prospective altars and hearths. From the June 
 day when Ehodora came, to the Ash Wednesday 
 of the next year when her engagement was an 
 nounced, there was one grand battle, a dozen 
 girls with wealth and social position and knowl 
 edge of the ground to help them, all pitted 
 against one garrison girl, with not so much as a 
 mother to back her Mrs. Pennington being 
 hopelessly and permanently on the sick-list. 
 
 Trega girls who had never thought of doing 
 more than wait at their leisure for the local 
 young men to marry them at their leisure now 
 went in for accomplishments of every sort. They 
 rode, they drove, they danced new dances, they 
 read Browning and Herbert Spencer, they sang, 
 they worked hard at archery and lawn-tennis, 
 they rowed and sailed and fished, and some of 
 the more desperate even went shooting in the 
 Fall, and in the Winter played billiards and 
 penny ante. Thus did they, in the language of 
 a somewhat cynical male observer, back Accom 
 plishments against Beauty. 
 
 The Shakspere Club and the Lake Picnic, 
 which had hitherto divided the year between 
 them, were submerged in the flood of social en 
 tertainments. Balls and parties followed one an 
 other. Trega s square stone houses were lit up 
 night after night, and the broad moss-grown
 
 A BOUND-UP 35 
 
 gardens about them were made trim and pre 
 sentable, and Chinese lanterns turned them into 
 a fairy-land for young lovers. 
 
 It was a great year for Trega! The city had 
 been dead, commercially, ever since the New York 
 Central Eailroad had opened up the great West ; 
 but the unprecedented flow of champagne and 
 Apollinaris actually started a little business 
 boom, based on the inferable wealth of Trega, 
 and two or three of Trega s remaining firms 
 went into bankruptcy because of the boom. And 
 Ehodora Pennington did it all. 
 
 Have you ever seen the end of a sham-fight? 
 You have been shouting and applauding, and 
 wasting enough enthusiasm for a football match. 
 And now it is all finished, and nothing has been 
 done, and you go home somewhat ashamed of 
 yourself, and glad only that the blue-coated par 
 ticipants must feel more ashamed of themselves; 
 and the smell of the villainous saltpetre, that 
 waked the Berserker in your heart an hour ago, 
 is now noisome and disgusting, and makes you 
 cough and sneeze. 
 
 Even so did the girls of Trega s best society 
 look each in the face of the other, when Ash 
 Wednesday ended that nine months of riot, and 
 ask of each other, "What has it all been about?" 
 
 True, there were nine girls engaged to be mar 
 ried, and engagement meant marriage in Trega. 
 Alma Lyle was engaged to Dexter Townsend, 
 Mary Waite to John Lang, Winifred Peters to 
 McCullom Mclntosh, Ellen Humphreys to George
 
 36 A EOUND-UP 
 
 Lister, Laura Visscher to William Jans (Oranje 
 boven! Dutch blood stays Dutch), Millicent 
 Smith to Milo Smith, her cousin, Olive Cregier 
 to Aleck Sloan, Aloha Jones (niece of a Sand 
 wich Islands missionary) to Parker Hall, and 
 Ehodora Pennington to Charley Boyd. 
 
 But all of these matches, save the last, would 
 have been made in the ordinary course of things. 
 The predestination of propinquity would have 
 settled that. And even if Ellen Humphreys had 
 married John Lang instead of George Lister, 
 and George Lister had wedded Mary Waite 
 why, there would have been no great difference 
 to admire or to deplore. The only union of the 
 nine which came as a surprise to the community 
 was the engagement of B-hodora to Charley Boyd. 
 The beauty of the season had picked up the one 
 crooked stick in the town a dissolute, ne er-do- 
 well hanger-on of Trega s best society, who would 
 never have seen a dinner-card if he had not 
 been a genius at amateur theatricals, an artist on 
 the banjo, and a half-bred Adonis. 
 
 There the agony ended for the other girls, and 
 there it began for Ehodora Boyd. In less than 
 a year, Boyd had deserted her. The Command 
 ant was transferred to the Pacific Coast. Eho 
 dora moved, with her mother, bed-ridden now, 
 into a little house in the unfashionable outskirts 
 of Trega. There she nursed the mother until 
 the poor bed-ridden old lady died. Ehodora 
 supported them both by teaching music and 
 French at the Trega Seminary, down by the
 
 A KOUND-UP 37 
 
 Falls. Morning and evening she went out and 
 back on that weary, jingling horse-car line. She 
 received the annual visits that her friends paid 
 her, inspired by something between courtesy and 
 charity, with her old stately simplicity and im 
 perturbable calm; and no one of them could feel 
 sure that she was conscious of their triumph or 
 of her degradation. And she kept the best part 
 of her stately beauty to the very last. In any 
 other town she would have been taught what 
 divorce-courts were made for; but Trega society 
 was Episcopalian, and that communion is health 
 ily and conservatively monogamous. 
 
 And so Rhodora Boyd, that once was Bhodora 
 Pennington, died in her little house, and her pet 
 old maid closed her eyes. And there was an 
 end of Bhodora. Not quite an end, though.
 
 n 
 
 SCENE. The Public Library of Trega. MRS. 
 GEORGE LISTER and MRS. JOHN LANG are 
 seated in the Rotunda. MR. LIBRIVER, the 
 Librarian, advances to them with books in 
 his hands. 
 
 MRS. LISTER. Ah, here comes Mr. Libriver, with 
 my " Intellectual Life." Thank you, Mr. Libri 
 ver you are always so kind! 
 
 MRS. LANG. And Mr. Libriver has brought me 
 my "Status of Woman." Oh, thank you, Mr. 
 Libriver. 
 
 MR. LIBRIVER, a thin young man in a linen duster, 
 retires, blushing. 
 
 MRS. LISTER. Mr. Libriver does so appreciate 
 women who are free from the bondage of the 
 novel. Did you hear about poor Bhodora s 
 funeral ? 
 
 MRS. LANG (with a sweeping grasp at the intel 
 lectual side of the conversation). Oh, I de 
 spise love-stories. In the church? Oh, yes, I 
 heard. (Sweetly.) Dr. Homly told me. Doesn t 
 it seem just a little ostentatious? 
 
 MRS. LISTER. Ostentatious but, do you know, 
 my dear, there are to be eight pall-bearers! 
 
 MRS. LANG (turning defeat into victory). No, I 
 did not know. I don t suppose that ridiculous 
 old maid, that Miss Wimple, who seems to be 
 conducting the affair, dared to tell that to 
 Dr. Homly. And who are they? 
 
 38
 
 A ROUND-UP 39 
 
 MRS. LISTER (with exceeding sweetness). Oh, I 
 don t know, dear. Only I. met Mr. Townsend, 
 and he told me that Dr. Homly had just told 
 him that he was one of the eight. 
 
 MRS. LANG. Dexter Townsend! Why, it s scan 
 dalous. Everybody knows that he proposed 
 to her three times and that she threw him 
 over. It s an insult to to 
 
 MRS. LISTER. To poor dear Alma Townsend. I 
 quite agree with you. I should like to know 
 how she feels if she understands what it 
 means. 
 
 MRS. LANG. Well, if I were in her place 
 
 Enter MRS. DEXTER TOWNSEND, 
 MRS. LANG. 
 
 MRS. LISTER. 
 
 MRS. TOWNSEND. Why, Ellen! Why, Mary! 
 Oh, I m so glad to meet you both. I want 
 you to lunch with me to-morrow at one o clock. 
 I do so hate to be left alone. And poor Kho- 
 dora Pennington Mrs. Boyd, I mean her 
 funeral is at noon, and our three male pro 
 tectors will have to go to the cemetery, and 
 Mr. Townsend is just going to take a cold 
 bite before he goes, and so I m left to lunch 
 
 MRS. LANG (coldly). I don t think Mr. Lang 
 will go to the cemetery 
 
 MRS. LISTER. There is no reason why Mr. Lis 
 ter
 
 40 A ROUND-UP 
 
 MRS. TOWNSEND. But, don t you know? They re 
 all to be pall-bearers! They can t refuse, of 
 course. 
 
 MRS. LANG (icily). Oh, no, certainly not. 
 
 MRS. LISTER (beloiv zero). I suppose it is an 
 unavoidable duty. 
 
 MRS. LANG. Alma, is that your old Surah ? What 
 did you do to it? 
 
 MRS. LISTER. They do dye things so wonder 
 fully nowadays! 
 
 SCENE. A Verandah in front of MR. McCuLLOM 
 MC!NTOSH S house. MRS. McCuLLOM MC!N- 
 TOSH seated, with fancy work. To her, enter 
 MR. WILLIAM JANS and MR. MILO SMITH. 
 
 MRS. MclNTOSH (with effusion). Oh, Mr. Jans, 
 I m so delighted to see you! And Mr. Smith, 
 too! I never expect to see you busy men at 
 this time in the afternoon. And how is Laura ? 
 and Millicent? Now don t tell me that you ve 
 come to say that you can t go fishing with Mr. 
 Mclntosh to-morrow! He ll be so disap 
 pointed ! 
 
 MR. JANS. Well, the fact is 
 
 MRS. MclNTOSH. You haven t been invited to 
 be one of poor Khodora Boyd s pall-bearers, 
 have you? That would be too absurd. They 
 say she s asked a regular party of her old 
 conquests. Mr. Libriver just passed here and 
 told me Mr. Lister and John Lang and Dex 
 ter Townsend
 
 A ROUND-UP 41 
 
 MR. JANS. Yes, and me. 
 
 MRS. MclNTOSH. Oh, Mr. Jans! And they do 
 say at least Mr. Libriver says that she 
 hasn t asked a man who hadn t proposed to 
 her. 
 
 MR. JANS (Dutchily). I d no. But I m asked, 
 and 
 
 MRS. MclNTOSH. You don t mean to tell me that 
 Mr. Smith is asked, too? Oh, that would be 
 too impossible. You don t mean to tell me, 
 Mr. Smith, that you furnished one of Eho- 
 dora s scalps ten years ago? 
 
 MR. SMITH. You ought to know, Mrs. Mclntosh. 
 Or no perhaps not. You and Mac were to 
 windward of the centre-board on Townsend s 
 boat when 7 got the mitten. I suppose you 
 couldn t hear us. But we were to leeward, 
 and Miss Pennington said she hoped all pro 
 posals didn t echo. 
 
 MRS. MclNTOSH. The wretched c but she s 
 
 dead. Well, I m thankful Mac Mr. Mclntosh 
 never could abide that girl. He always said 
 she was horribly bad form poor thing, I 
 oughtn t to speak so, I suppose. She s been 
 punished enough. 
 
 MR. SMITH. I m glad you think so, Mrs. Mcln 
 tosh. I hope you won t feel it necessary to 
 advise Mac to refuse her last dying request. 
 
 MRS. MclNTOSH. What 
 
 MR. SMITH. Oh, well, the fact is, Mrs. Mclntosh, 
 we only stopped in to say that as Mclntosh 
 and all the rest of us are asked to be pall-
 
 42 A EOUND-UP 
 
 bearers at Mrs. Boyd s funeral, you might ask 
 Mac if it wouldn t be just as well to postpone 
 the fishing party for a week or so. If you 
 remember will you be so kind? Thank you, 
 good afternoon. 
 MR. JANS. Good afternoon, Mrs. Mclntosh. 
 
 SCENE. The Linen Closet, at the end of a sunny 
 corridor in MR. ALEXANDER SLOAN S house. 
 MRS. SLOAN inspecting her sheets and pillow 
 cases. To her, enter BRIDGET, her housemaid, 
 with a basket full of linen, the Trega Even 
 ing Eagle on the top, folded. 
 
 MRS. SLOAN. Why, that surely isn t one of the 
 new napkins! oh, it s the evening paper. 
 Dear me! how near-sighted I am getting! 
 (Takes it and opens it.} You may put those 
 linen sheets on the top shelf, Bridget. We ll 
 hardly need them again this Fall. Oh, Brid 
 get here s poor Mrs. Boyd s obituary. You 
 used to live at Colonel Pennington s before 
 she was married, didn t you? 
 
 BRIDGET. I did that, Mum. 
 
 MRS. SLOAN (reading}. "Mrs. Boyd s pall-bear 
 ers are fitly chosen from the most distinguished 
 and prominent citizens of Trega." I m sure 
 I don t see why they should be. (Reads.} 
 "Those invited to render the last honors to 
 the deceased are Mr. George Lister " 
 
 BRIDGET. Tis he was foriver at the house. 
 
 MRS. SLOAN (reads}. "Mr. John Lang "
 
 A BOUND-UP 43 
 
 BRIDGET. And him. 
 
 MRS. SLOAN (reads). "Mr. Dexter Townsend " 
 
 BRIDGET. And him, too. 
 
 MRS. SLOAN (reads). "Mr. Mclntosh, Mr. Will 
 iam Jans, Mr. Milo Smith " 
 
 BRIDGET. And thim. Mr. Smith was her siv- 
 inth. 
 
 MRS. SLOAN. Her ivJiatf 
 
 BRIDGET. Her sivinth. There was eight of thim 
 proposed to her in the wan week. 
 
 MRS. SLOAN. Why, Bridget! How can you pos 
 sibly know that? 
 
 BRIDGET. Sure, what does it mean whin a gin- 
 tleman calls twice in th wake an thin stops 
 like he was shot. An who is the eight gintle- 
 man to walk wid the corpse, Mum? 
 
 MRS. SLOAN. That is all, Bridget. And those 
 pillow-cases look shockingly! I never saw 
 such ironing! (Exit, hastily and sternly.) 
 
 BRIDGET (sola). Only siven of thim. Saints 
 bless us! The pore lady 11 go wan-sided to 
 her grave! 
 
 SCENE. The Private Office of MR. PARKER HALL. 
 MR. HALL writing. To him, enter MR. ALECK 
 SLOAN. 
 
 MR. SLOAN. Ah, there, Parker! 
 
 MR. HALL. Ah, there, Aleck! What brings you 
 around so late in the day? 
 
 MR. SLOAN. I just thought you might like to hear 
 the names of the fellows Rhodora Pennington 
 chose for her pall-bearers. (Produces list.)
 
 44 A ROUND-UP 
 
 ME. HALL (sighs). Poor Rhodora! Too bad! 
 Fire ahead. 
 
 ME. SLOAN (reads list). "George Lister." 
 
 ME. HALL. Ah! 
 
 ME. SLOAN (reads). "John Lang." 
 
 ME. HALL. Oh! 
 
 ME. SLOAN (reads). "Dexter Townsend." 
 
 ME. HALL. Well! 
 
 ME. SLOAN (reads). "McCullom Mclntosh." 
 
 ME. HALL. Say! 
 
 ME. SLOAN (reads). "William Jans." 
 
 ME. HALL. The Deuce! 
 
 ME. SLOAN (reads). "Milo Smith." 
 
 ME. HALL. Great Csssar s ghost! This is get 
 ting very personal ! 
 
 ME. SLOAN. Yes. (Reads, nervously.) "Alex 
 ander Sloan." 
 
 ME. HALL. Whoo-o-o-o-up ! Yon, too? 
 
 ME. SLOAN (reads). "Parker Hall." 
 (A long silence.) 
 
 ME. HALL (faintly). Oh, lord, she rounded us 
 up, didn t she? Say, Aleck, can t this thing 
 be suppressed, somehow? 
 
 ME. SLOAN. It s in the evening paper. 
 (Another long silence.) 
 
 ME. HALL (desperately). Come out and have a 
 bottle with me? 
 
 ME. SLOAN. I can t. I m going down to Bitts s 
 stable to buy that pony that Mrs. Sloan took 
 such a shine to a month or so ago. 
 
 ME. HALL. If 7 could get out of this for a pony 
 Oh, lord!
 
 THE TWO CHURCHES 
 OF QUAWKET 
 
 THE Eeverend Colton M. Pursly, of 
 Aquawket (commonly pronounced Quaw- 
 ket), looked out of his study window over 
 a remarkably pretty New England prospect, 
 stroked his thin, grayish side-whiskers, and 
 sighed deeply. He was a pale, sober, ill-dressed 
 Congregationalist minister of forty-two or three. 
 He had eyes of willow-pattern blue, a large nose, 
 and a large mouth, with a smile of forced ami 
 ability in the corners. He was amiable, perfectly 
 amiable and innocuous but that smile some 
 times made people with a strong sense of humor 
 want to kill him. The smile lingered even while 
 he sighed. 
 
 Mr. Pur sly s house was set upon a hill, al 
 though it was a modest abode. From his win 
 dow he looked down one of those splendid streets 
 that are the pride and glory of old towns in 
 New England a street fifty yards wide, arched 
 with grand Gothic elms, bordered with houses 
 of pale yellow and white, some in the homelike, 
 simple yet dignified colonial style, some with 
 great Doric porticos at the street end. And 
 above the billowy green of the tree-tops rose 
 two shapely spires, one to the right, of granite, 
 one to the left, of sand-stone. It was the sight 
 
 45
 
 46 TWO CHUBCHES OF QUAWKET 
 
 of these two spires that made the Reverend Mr. 
 Pursly sigh. 
 
 "With a population of four thousand five hun 
 dred, Quawket had an Episcopal Church, a 
 Eoman Catholic Church, a Presbyterian Church, 
 a Methodist Church, a Universalist Church (very 
 small), a Baptist Church, a Hall for the "Sev 
 enth-Day Baptists" (used for secular purposes 
 every day but Saturday), a Bethel, and "The 
 Two Churches" as every one called the First 
 and Second Congregational Churches. Fifteen 
 years before, there had been but one Congrega 
 tional Church, where a prosperous and contented 
 congregation worshiped in a plain little old- 
 fashioned red brick church on a side-street. 
 Then, out of this very prosperity, came the idea 
 of building a fine new free-stone church on Main 
 Street. And, when the new church was half- 
 built, the congregation split on the question of 
 putting a "rain-box" in the new organ. It is 
 quite unnecessary to detail how this quarrel over 
 a handful of peas grew into a church war, with 
 ramifications and interlacements and entangle 
 ments and side-issues and under-currents and 
 embroilments of all sorts and conditions. In 
 three years there was a First Congregational 
 Church, in free-stone, solid, substantial, plain, 
 and a Second Congregational Church in granite, 
 something gingerbready, but showy and modish 
 for there are fashions in architecture as there 
 are in millinery, and we cut our houses this way 
 this year and that way the next. And these two
 
 TWO CHUKCHES OF QUAWKET 47 
 
 churches had half a congregation apiece, and a 
 full-sized debt, and they lived together in a 
 spirit of Christian unity, on Capulet and. Mon 
 tague terms. The people of the First Church 
 called the people of the Second Church the * Sad- 
 duceeceders," because there was no future for 
 them, and the people of the Second Church called 
 the people of the First Church the "Pharisee- 
 me"s. And this went on year after year, through 
 the "Winters when the foxes hugged their holes 
 in the ground within the woods about Quawket, 
 through the Summers when the birds of the air 
 twittered in their nests in the great elms of 
 Main Street. 
 
 If the First Church had a revival, the Second 
 Church had a fair. If the pastor of the First 
 Church exchanged with a distinguished preacher 
 from Philadelphia, the organist of the Second 
 Church got a celebrated tenor from Boston and 
 had a service of song. This system after a time 
 created a class in both churches known as "the 
 floats," in contradistinction to the "pillars." 
 The floats went from one church to the other 
 according to the attractions offered. There were, 
 in the end, more floats than pillars. 
 
 The Reverend Mr. Pursly inherited this con 
 test from his predecessor. He had carried it on 
 for three years. Finally, being a man of logical 
 and precise mental processes, he called the head 
 men of his congregation together, and told them 
 what in worldly language might be set down 
 thus:
 
 48 TWO CHUECHES OF QUAWKET 
 
 There was room for one Congregational Church 
 in Quawket, and for one only. The flock must 
 be reunited in the parent fold. To do this a 
 master stroke was necessary. They must build 
 a Parish House. All of which was true beyond 
 question and yet the church had a debt of 
 $20,000 and a Parish House would cost $15,000. 
 
 And now the Eeverend Mr. Pursly was sitting 
 at his study window, wondering why all the rich 
 men would join the Episcopal Church. He cast 
 down his eyes, and saw a rich man coming up 
 his path who could readily have given $15,000 
 for a Parish House, and who might safely be 
 expected to give $1.50, if he were rightly ap 
 proached. A shade of bitterness crept over Mr. 
 Pursly s professional smile. Then a look of 
 puzzled wonder took possession of his face. 
 Brother Joash Hitt was regular in his attend 
 ance at church and at prayer-meeting; but he 
 kept office-hours in his religion, as in everything 
 else, and never before had he called upon his 
 pastor. 
 
 Two minutes later, the minister was nervously 
 shaking hands with Brother Joash Hitt. 
 
 "I m very glad to see you, Mr. Hitt," he stam 
 mered, "very glad I m I m " 
 
 11 S prised 1" suggested Mr. Hitt, grimly. 
 
 "Won t you sit down?" asked Mr. Pursly. 
 
 Mr. Hitt sat down in the darkest corner of the 
 room, and glared at his embarrassed host. He 
 was a huge old man, bent, heavily-built, with 
 grizzled dark hair, black eyes, skin tanned to a
 
 TWO CHUECHES OF QUAWKET 49 
 
 mahogany brown, a heavy square under- jaw, and 
 big leathery dew-laps on each side of it that 
 looked as hard as the jaw itself. Brother Joash 
 had been all things in his long life sea-captain, 
 commission merchant, speculator, slave-dealer 
 even, people said and all things to his profit. 
 Of late years he had turned over his capital in 
 money-lending, and people said that his great 
 claw-like fingers had grown crooked with holding 
 the tails of his mortgages. 
 
 A silence ensued. The pastor looked up and 
 saw that Brother Joash had no intention of 
 breaking it. 
 
 "Can I do anything for you, Mr. Hitt?" in 
 quired Mr. Pursly. 
 
 "Ya-as," said the old man. "Ye kin. I 
 b leeve you gin lly git sump n over n above 
 your sellery when you preach a fun l sermon?" 
 
 "Well, Mr. Hitt, it yes it is customary. * 
 
 "How much?" 
 
 "The usual honorarium is h m ten dollars." 
 
 "Thewhutf" 
 
 "The the fee." 
 
 "Will you write me one for ten dollars?" 
 
 "Why why " said the minister, nervously; 
 "I didn t know that any one had had died " 
 
 "There hain t no one died, ez I know. It s 
 my fun l sermon I want." 
 
 "But, my dear Mr. Hitt, I trust you are not 
 that you won t that " 
 
 "Life s a rope of sand, parson you d ought 
 to know that nor we don t none of us know
 
 when it s goin to fetch loost. I m most ninety 
 now, an I don t cal late to git no younger." 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Pur sly, faintly smiling; 
 "when the time does come " 
 
 "No, sir!" interrupted Mr. Hitt, with empha 
 sis; "when the time doos come, I won t have no 
 use for it. Th ain t no sense in the way most 
 folks is berrid. Whut s th use of puttin a man 
 into a mahog ny coffin, Avith a silver plate big s 
 a dishpan, an preachin a fun l sermon over 
 him, an costin his estate good money, when 
 he s only a poor deef, dumb, blind fool corpse, 
 an* don t get no good of it? Naow, I ve be n to 
 the undertaker s, an hed my coffin made under 
 my own sooperveesion good wood, straight 
 grain, no knots nuthin fancy, but doorable. 
 I ve hed my tombstun cut, an chose my text to 
 put onto it we brung nuthin into the world, 
 an it is certain we can take nuthin out an 
 now I want my fun l sermon, jes as the other 
 folks is goin to hear it who don t pay nuthin 
 for it. Kin you hev it ready for me this day 
 week?" 
 
 "I suppose so," said Mr. Pursly, weakly. 
 
 "I ll call fer it," said the old man. "Heern 
 some talk about a Perrish House, didn t I?" 
 
 "Yes," began Mr. Pursly, his face lighting up. 
 
 " Tain t no sech a bad idee," remarked 
 Brother Joash. "Wai, good day." And he 
 walked off before the minister could say any 
 thing more.
 
 TWO CHUKCHES OF QUAWKET 51 
 
 One week later, Mr. Pursly again sat in his 
 study, looking at Brother Joash, who had a sec 
 ond time settled himself in the dark corner. 
 
 It had been a terrible week for Mr. Pursly. 
 He and his conscience, and his dream of the 
 Parish House, had been shut up together work 
 ing over that sermon, and waging a war of com 
 promises. The casualties in this war were all on 
 the side of the conscience. 
 
 "Bead it!" commanded Brother Joash. The 
 minister grew pale. This was more than he had 
 expected. He grew pale and then red and then 
 pale again. 
 
 "Go ahead!" said Brother Joash. 
 
 "Brethren," began Mr. Pursly, and then he 
 stopped short. His pulpit voice sounded strange 
 in his little study. 
 
 "Go ahead!" said Brother Joash. 
 
 "We are gathered together here to-day to pay 
 a last tribute of respect and affection " 
 
 "Clk!" There was a sound like the report of 
 a small pistol. Mr. Pursly looked up. Brother 
 Joash regarded him with stern intentness. 
 
 " to one of the oldest and most prominent 
 citizens of our town, a pillar of our church, and 
 a monument of the civic virtues of probity, in 
 dustry and wisdom, a man in whom we all took 
 pride, and " 
 
 "Clk!" Mr. Pursly looked up more quickly 
 this time, and a faint suggestion of an expression 
 just vanishing from Mr. Hitt s lips awakened in
 
 52 TWO CHUECHES OF QUAWKET 
 
 his unsuspicious breast a horrible suspicion that 
 Brother Joash had chuckled. 
 
 " whose like we shall not soon again see in 
 our midst. The children on the streets will miss 
 his familiar face " 
 
 "Say!" broke in Brother Joash, "how d it be 
 for a delegation of child n to f oiler the remains, 
 with flowers or sump n? They d volunteer if 
 you give em the hint, wouldn t they?" 
 
 "It would be unusual," said the minister. 
 
 "All right," assented Mr. Hitt, "only an idee 
 of mine. Thought they might like it. Go ahead ! 
 
 Mr. Pursly went ahead, haunted by an agon 
 izing fear of that awful chuckle, if chuckle it 
 was. But he got along without interruption until 
 he reached a casual and guarded allusion to the 
 widows and orphans without whom no funeral 
 oration is complete. Here the metallic voice of 
 Brother Joash rang out again. 
 
 "Say! Ef the widders and orphans send a 
 wreath or a Gates- Ajar ef they do, mind ye! 
 you ll hev it put a-top of the coffin, where 
 folks 11 see it, wun t ye?" 
 
 "Certainly," said the Eeverend Mr. Pursly, 
 hastily; "his charities were unostentatious, as 
 was the whole tenor of his life. In these days of 
 spendthrift extravagance, our young men may 
 well" 
 
 "Say!" Brother Joash broke in once more. 
 "Ef any one wuz to git up right there, an say 
 that I wuz the derndest meanest, miserly, penu-
 
 TWO CHURCHES OF QUAWKET 53 
 
 rious, parsimonious old hunks in Quawket, you 
 wouldn t let him talk like that, would ye?" 
 
 "Unquestionably not, Mr. Hitt!" said the min 
 ister, in horror. 
 
 "Thought not. On y thet s whut I heern one 
 o your deacons say about me the other day. 
 Didn t know I heern him, but I did. I thought 
 you wouldn t allow no such talk as that. Go 
 ahead!" 
 
 "I must ask you, Mr. Hitt," Mr. Pur sly said, 
 perspiring at every pore, "to refrain from in 
 terruptions or I I really can not continue." 
 
 "All right," returned Mr. Hitt, with perfect 
 calmness. Continner. 
 
 Mr. Pursly continued to the bitter end, with no 
 further interruption that called for remonstrance. 
 There were soft inarticulate sounds that seemed 
 to him to come from Brother Joash s dark cor 
 ner. But it might have been the birds in the 
 Ampelopsis VeitcJiii that covered the house. 
 
 Brother Joash expressed no opinion, good or 
 ill, of the address. He paid his ten dollars, in 
 one-dollar bills, and took his receipt. But as the 
 anxious minister followed him to the door, he 
 turned suddenly and said: 
 
 "You was talkin bout a Perrish House?" 
 
 "Yes " 
 
 "Kin ye keep a secret!" 
 
 "I hope so yes, certainly, Mr. Hitt." 
 
 "The 11 be one." 
 
 * 
 
 "I feel," said the Reverend Mr. Pursly to his
 
 54 TWO CHUKCHES OF QUAWKET 
 
 wife, "as if I had carried every stone of that 
 Parish House on my shoulders and put it in its 
 place. Can you make me a cup of tea, my 
 dear?" 
 
 The Summer days had begun to grow chill, 
 and the great elms of Quawket were flecked 
 with patches and spots of yellow, when, early 
 one morning, the meagre little charity-boy whose 
 duty it was to black Mr. Hitt s boots every day 
 it was a luxury he allowed himself in his old 
 age rushed, pale and frightened, into a neigh 
 boring grocery, and cried : 
 
 "Mist Hitt s dead!" 
 
 " Guess not," said the grocer, doubtfully. 
 "Brother Hitt s gut th Old Nick s agency for 
 Quawket, n I ain t heerd th t he s been dis 
 charged for inattention to dooty." 
 
 "He s layin there smilin ," said the boy. 
 
 "Smilin ?" repeated the grocer. "Guess I d 
 better go n see." 
 
 In very truth, Brother Joash lay there in his 
 bed, dead and cold, with a smile on his hard old 
 lips, the first he had ever worn. And a most 
 sardonic and discomforting smile it was. 
 
 The Eeverend Mr. Pur sly read Mr. Hitt s 
 funeral address for the second time, in the First 
 Congregational Church of Quawket. Every seat 
 was filled; every ear was attentive. He stood
 
 TWO CHURCHES OF QUAWKET 55 
 
 on the platform, and below him, supported on 
 decorously covered trestles, stood the coffin that 
 enclosed all that was mortal of Brother Joash 
 Hitt. Mr. Pursly read with his face immovably 
 set on the line of the clock in the middle of the 
 choir-gallery railing. He did not dare to look 
 down at the sardonic smile in the coffin below 
 him ; he did not dare to let his eye wander to the 
 dark left-hand corner of the church, remember 
 ing the dark left-hand corner of his own study. 
 And as he repeated each complimentary, obse 
 quious, flattering platitude, a hideous, hysterical 
 fear grew stronger and stronger within him that 
 suddenly he would be struck chimb by the * elk ! 
 of that mirthless chuckle that had sounded so 
 much like a pistol-shot. His voice was hardly 
 audible in the benediction. 
 
 The streets of Quawket were at their gayest 
 and brightest when the mourners drove home 
 from the cemetery at the close of the noontide 
 hour. The mourners were principally the dea 
 cons and elders of the First Church. The Eev- 
 erend Mr. Pursly lay back in his seat with a 
 pleasing yet fatigued consciousness of duty per 
 formed and martyrdom achieved. He was ex 
 hausted, but humbly happy. As they drove along, 
 he looked with a speculative eye on one or two 
 eligible sites for the Parish House. His com 
 panion in the carriage was Mr. Uriel Hankinson, 
 Brother Joash s lawyer, whose entire character
 
 56 TWO CHUKCHES OF QUAWKET 
 
 had been aptly summed up by one of his fellow- 
 citizens in conferring on him the designation of 
 "a little Joash for one cent." 
 
 " Parson," said Mr. Hankinson, breaking a 
 long silence, "that was a fust-rate oration you 
 made." 
 
 "I m glad to hear you say so," replied Mr. 
 Pursly, his chronic smile broadening. 
 
 "You treated the deceased right handsome, 
 considering" went on the lawyer Hankinson. 
 
 "Considering what?" inquired Mr. Pursly, in 
 surprise. 
 
 "Considerin well, considerin " replied Mr. 
 Hankinson, with a wave of his hand. "You must 
 feel to be reel disapp inted bout the Parish 
 House, I sh d s pose." 
 
 "The Parish House?" repeated the Reverend 
 Mr. Pursly, with a cold chill at his heart, but 
 with dignity in his voice. "You may not be 
 aware, Mr. Hankinson, that I have Mr. Hitt s 
 promise that we should have a Parish House. 
 And Mr. Hitt was was a man of his word." 
 This conclusion sounded to his own ears a trifle 
 lame and impotent. 
 
 "Guess you had his promise that there should 
 be a Parish House," corrected the lawyer, with 
 a chuckle that might have been a faint echo of 
 Brother Joash s. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well the Second Church gits it. I draw d 
 his will. Good day, parson, I ll light here. Air s 
 kind o cold, ain t it?"
 
 THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH 
 
 WHEN the little seamstress had climbed 
 to her room in the story over the top 
 story of the great brick tenement house 
 in which she lived, she was quite tired out. If 
 you do not understand what a story over a top 
 story is, you must remember that there are no 
 limits to human greed, and hardly any to the 
 height of tenement houses. When the man who 
 owned that seven-story tenement found that he 
 could rent another floor, he found no difficulty 
 in persuading the guardians of our building 
 laws to let him clap another story on the roof, 
 like a cabin on the deck of a ship; and in the 
 southeasterly of the four apartments on this floor 
 the little seamstress lived. You could just see 
 the top of her window from the street the huge 
 cornice that had capped the original front, and 
 that served as her window-sill now, quite hid all 
 the lower part of the story on top of the top- 
 story. 
 
 The little seamstress was scarcely thirty years 
 old, but she was such an old-fashioned little body 
 in so many of her looks and ways that I had 
 almost spelled her sempstress, after the fashion 
 of our grandmothers. She had been a comely 
 
 67
 
 58 THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH 
 
 body, too; and would have been still, if she had 
 not been thin and pale and anxious-eyed. 
 
 She was tired out to-night because she had 
 been working hard all day for a lady who lived 
 far up in the "New Wards" beyond Harlem 
 River, and after the long journey home, she had 
 to climb seven flights of tenement-house stairs. 
 She was too tired, both in body and in mind, to 
 cook the two little chops she had brought home. 
 She would save them for breakfast, she thought. 
 So she made herself a cup of tea on the minia 
 ture stove, and ate a slice of dry bread with it. 
 It was too much trouble to make toast. 
 
 But after dinner she watered her flowers. She 
 was never too tired for that; and the six pots of 
 geraniums that caught the south sun on the top 
 of the cornice did their best to repay her. Then 
 she sat down in her rocking chair by the win 
 dow and looked out. Her eyry was high above 
 all the other buildings, and she could look across 
 some low roofs opposite, and see the further end 
 of Tompkins Square, with its sparse Spring 
 green showing faintly through the dusk. The 
 eternal roar of the city floated up to her and 
 vaguely troubled her. She was a country girl, 
 and although she had lived for ten years in 
 New York, she had never grown used to that 
 ceaseless murmur. To-night she felt the languor 
 of the new season as well as the heaviness of 
 physical exhaustion. She was almost too tired 
 to go to bed. 
 
 She thought of the hard day done and the
 
 THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH 59 
 
 hard day to be begun after the night spent on 
 the hard little bed. She thought of the peaceful 
 days in the country, when she taught school in 
 the Massachusetts village where she was born. 
 She thought of a hundred small slights that she 
 had to bear from people better fed than bred. 
 She thought of the sweet green fields that she 
 rarely saw nowadays. She thought of the long 
 journey forth and back that must begin and end 
 her morrow s work, and she wondered if her 
 employer would think to offer to pay her fare. 
 Then she pulled herself together. She must 
 think of more agreeable things, or she could not 
 sleep. And as the only agreeable things she 
 had to think about were her flowers, she looked at 
 the garden on top of the cornice. 
 
 A peculiar gritting noise made her look down, 
 and she saw a cylindrical object that glittered in 
 the twilight, advancing in an irregular and un 
 certain manner toward her flower-pots. Looking 
 closer, she saw that it was a pewter beer-mug, 
 which somebody in the next apartment was push 
 ing with a two-foot rule. On top of the beer- 
 mug was a piece of paper, and on this paper 
 was written, in a sprawling, half- formed hand: 
 
 porter 
 
 pleas excuse the IMerty And 
 
 drink it 
 
 The seamstress started up in terror, and shut 
 the window. She remembered that there was a
 
 60 THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH 
 
 man in the next apartment. She had seen him 
 on the stairs, on Sundays. He seemed a grave, 
 decent person; but he must be drunk. She sat 
 down on her bed, all a-tremble. Then she rea 
 soned with herself. The man was drunk, that 
 was all. He probably would not annoy her fur 
 ther. And if he did, she had only to retreat to 
 Mrs. Mulvaney s apartment in the rear, and Mr. 
 Mulvaney, who was a highly respectable man and 
 worked in a boiler-shop, would protect her. So, 
 being a poor woman who had already had occa 
 sion to excuse and refuse two or three "lib- 
 berties" of like sort, she made up her mind to 
 go to bed like a reasonable seamstress, and she 
 did. She was rewarded, for when her light was 
 out, she could see in the moonlight that the two- 
 foot rule appeared again, with one joint bent 
 back, hitched itself into the mug-handle, and 
 withdrew the mug. 
 
 The next day was a hard one for the little 
 seamstress, and she hardly thought of the affair 
 of the night before until the same hour had come 
 around again, and she sat once more by her win 
 dow. Then she smiled at the remembrance. 
 "Poor fellow," she said in her charitable heart, 
 "I ve no doubt he s awfully ashamed of it now. 
 Perhaps he was never tipsy before. Perhaps he 
 didn t know there was a lone woman in here to 
 be frightened." 
 
 Just then she heard a gritting sound. She 
 looked down. The pewter pot was in front of 
 her, and the two-foot rule was slowly retiring.
 
 THE LOVE-LETTEES OF SMITH 61 
 
 On the pot was a piece of paper, and on the 
 paper was: 
 
 porter 
 
 good for the helth 
 
 it makes meet 
 
 This time the little seamstress shut her win 
 dow with a bang of indignation. The color rose 
 to her pale cheeks. She thought that she would 
 go down to see the janitor at once. Then she 
 remembered the seven flights of stairs; and she 
 resolved to see the janitor in the morning. Then 
 she went to bed and saw the mug drawn back 
 just as it had been drawn back the night before. 
 
 The morning came, but, somehow, the seam 
 stress did not care to complain to the janitor. 
 She hated to make trouble and the janitor might 
 think and and well, if the wretch did it again 
 she would speak to him herself, and that would 
 settle it. 
 
 And so, on the next night, which was a Thurs 
 day, the little seamstress sat down by her win 
 dow, resolved to settle the matter. And she had 
 not sat there long, rocking in the creaking little 
 rocking-chair which she had brought with her 
 from her old home, when the pewter pot hove in 
 sight, with a piece of paper on the top. 
 
 This time the legend read: 
 
 Perhaps you are afrade i will 
 
 adress you 
 
 i am not that kind
 
 62 THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH 
 
 The seamstress did not quite know whether to 
 laugh or to cry. But she felt that the time had 
 come for speech. She leaned out of her window 
 and addressed the twilight heaven. 
 
 "Mr. Mr. sir I will you please put your 
 head out of the window so that I can speak to 
 you?" 
 
 The silence of the other room was undisturbed. 
 The seamstress drew back, blushing. But before 
 she could nerve herself for another attack, a 
 piece of paper appeared on the end of the two- 
 foot rule. 
 
 when i Say a thing i 
 
 mene it 
 
 i have Sed i would not 
 
 Adress you and i 
 
 Will not 
 
 What was the little seamstress to do? She 
 stood by the window and thought hard about it. 
 Should she complain to the janitor? But the 
 creature was perfectly respectful. No doubt he 
 meant to be kind. He certainly was kind, to 
 waste these pots of porter on her. She remem 
 bered the last time and the first that she had 
 drunk porter. It was at home, when she was a 
 young girl, after she had had the diphtheria. 
 She remembered how good it was, and how it 
 had given her back her strength. And without 
 one thought of what she was doing, she lifted 
 the pot of porter and took one little reminiscent 
 sip two little reminiscent sips and became
 
 THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH 63 
 
 aware of her utter fall and defeat. She blushed 
 now as she had never blushed before, put the 
 pot down, closed the window, and fled to her 
 bed like a deer to the woods. 
 
 And when the porter arrived the next night, 
 bearing the simple appeal: 
 
 Dont be afrade of it 
 drink it all 
 
 the little seamstress arose and grasped the pot 
 firmly by the handle, and poured its contents 
 over the earth around her largest geranium. She 
 poured the contents out to the last drop, and 
 then she dropped the pot, and ran back and sat 
 on her bed and cried, with her face hid in her 
 hands. 
 
 "Now," she said to herself, "you ve done it! 
 And you re just as nasty and hard-hearted and 
 suspicious and mean as as pusley!" 
 
 And she wept to think of her hardness of 
 heart. "He will never give me a chance to say 
 I am sorry," she thought. And, really, she 
 might have spoken kindly to the poor man, and 
 told him that she was much obliged to him, but 
 that he really mustn t ask her to drink porter 
 with him. 
 
 "But it s all over and done now," she said to 
 herself as she sat at her window on Saturday 
 night. And then she looked at the cornice, and 
 saw the faithful little pewter pot traveling slowly 
 toward her. 
 
 She was conquered. This act of Christian for-
 
 64 THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH 
 
 bearance was too much for her kindly spirit. 
 She read the inscription on the paper: 
 
 porter is good for Flours 
 but better for Pokes 
 
 and she lifted the pot to her lips, which were not 
 half so red as her cheeks, and took a good, 
 hearty, grateful draught. 
 
 She sipped in thoughtful silence after this first 
 plunge, and presently she was surprised to find 
 the bottom of the pot in full view. 
 
 On the table at her side a few pearl buttons 
 were screwed up in a bit of white paper. She 
 untwisted the paper and smoothed it out, and 
 wrote in a tremulous hand she could write a 
 very neat hand 
 
 Thanks. 
 
 This she laid on the top of the pot, and in a 
 moment the bent two-foot rule appeared and 
 drew the mail-carriage home. Then she sat still, 
 enjoying the warm glow of the porter, which 
 seemed to have permeated her entire being with 
 a heat that was not at all like the unpleasant 
 and oppressive heat of the atmosphere, an at 
 mosphere heavy with the Spring damp. A grit 
 ting on the tin aroused her. A piece of paper 
 lay under her eyes. 
 
 fine groing iveather 
 
 Smith 
 it said. 
 
 Now it is unlikely that in the whole round and 
 range of conversational commonplaces there was
 
 THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH 65 
 
 one other greeting that could have induced the 
 seamstress to continue the exchange of commu 
 nications. But this simple and homely phrase 
 touched her country heart. What did " groing 
 weather" matter to the toilers in this waste of 
 brick and mortar? This stranger must be, like 
 herself, a country-bred soul, longing for the new 
 green and the upturned brown mould of the 
 country fields. She took up the paper, and wrote 
 under the first message: 
 
 Fine 
 
 But that seemed curt: for she added: "for" 
 what? She did not know. At last in despera 
 tion she put down potatos. The piece of paper 
 was withdrawn and came back with an addition: 
 
 Too mist for potatos. 
 
 And when the little seamstress had read this, 
 and grasped the fact that m-i-s-t represented the 
 writer s pronunciation of "moist," she laughed 
 softly to herself. A man whose mind, at such a 
 time, was seriously bent upon potatos, was not 
 a man to be feared. She found a half-sheet of 
 note-paper, and wrote: 
 
 1 lived in a small village before I came to New 
 York, but I am afraid I do not know much about 
 farming. Are you a farmer? 
 
 The answer came: 
 
 hav e ben most Every thing 
 farmed a Spel in Maine 
 Smith
 
 66 THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH 
 
 As she read this, the seamstress heard a 
 church clock strike nine. 
 
 "Bless me, is it so late?" she cried, and she 
 hurriedly penciled Good Night, thrust the paper 
 out, and closed the window. But a few minutes 
 later, passing by, she saw yet another bit of pa 
 per on the cornice, fluttering in the evening 
 breeze. It said only good nite, and after a mo 
 ment s hesitation, the little seamstress took it 
 in and gave it shelter. 
 
 After this, they were the best of friends. Every 
 evening the pot appeared, and while the seam 
 stress drank from it at her window, Mr. Smith 
 drank from its twin at his; and notes were ex 
 changed as rapidly as Mr. Smith s early educa 
 tion permitted. They told each other their his 
 tories, and Mr. Smith s was one of travel and 
 variety, which he seemed to consider quite a 
 matter of course. He had followed the sea, he 
 had farmed, he had been a logger and a hunter 
 in the Maine woods. Now he was foreman of 
 an East Eiver lumber yard, and he was pros 
 pering. In a year or two he would have enough 
 laid by to go home to Bucksport and buy a share 
 in a ship-building business. All this dribbled 
 out in the course of a jerky but variegated cor 
 respondence, in which autobiographic details 
 were mixed with reflections, moral and philo 
 sophical.
 
 THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH 67 
 
 A few samples will give an idea of Mr. Smith s 
 style : 
 
 i was one trip to van demens 
 land 
 
 To which the seamstress replied: 
 
 It must have been very interesting. 
 
 But Mr. Smith disposed of this subject very 
 briefly : 
 
 it wornt 
 
 Further he vouchsafed: 
 
 i seen a Chinese cook in 
 
 hong kong could cook flapjacks 
 
 like your Mother 
 
 a mishnery that sells Rum 
 
 is the menest of Gods crechers 
 
 a bulfite is not what it is 
 cract up to Be 
 
 the dagos are wussen the 
 brutes 
 
 i am 6 
 
 but my Father was 6 foot 4 
 
 The seamstress had taught school one Winter, 
 and she could not refrain from making an at-
 
 68 THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH 
 
 tempt to reform Mr. Smith s orthography. One 
 evening, in answer to this communication: 
 
 i Uilld a Bare in Maine 600 
 Ibs waight 
 
 she wrote: 
 
 Isn t it generally spelled Bear? 
 
 but she gave up the attempt when he responded : 
 
 a bare is a mene animle any 
 way you spel him 
 
 The Spring wore on, and the Summer came, and 
 still the evening drink and the evening corre 
 spondence brightened the close of each day for 
 the little seamstress. And the draught of porter 
 put her to sleep each night, giving her a calmer 
 rest than she had ever known during her stay in 
 the noisy city; and it began, moreover, to make 
 a little "meet" for her. And then the thought 
 that she was going to have an hour of pleasant 
 companionship somehow gave her courage to 
 cook and eat her little dinner, however tired she 
 was. The seamstress s cheeks began to blossom 
 with the June roses. 
 
 And all this time Mr. Smith kept his vow of 
 silence unbroken, though the seamstress some 
 times tempted him with little ejaculations and 
 exclamations to which he might have responded. 
 He was silent and invisible. Only the smoke of 
 his pipe, and the clink of his mug as he set it 
 down on the cornice, told her that a living, mate-
 
 THE LOVE-LETTEKS OF SMITH 69 
 
 rial Smith was her correspondent. They never 
 met on the stairs, for their hours of coming and 
 going did not coincide. Once or twice they passed 
 each other in the street but Mr. Smith looked 
 straight ahead of him, about a foot over her head. 
 The little seamstress thought he was a very fine- 
 looking man, with his six feet one and three- 
 quarters and his thick brown beard. Most people 
 would have called him plain. 
 
 Once she spoke to him. She was coming home 
 one Summer evening, and a gang of corner-loafers 
 stopped her and demanded money to buy beer, 
 as is their custom. Before she had time to be 
 frightened, Mr. Smith appeared whence, she 
 knew not scattered the gang like chaff, and, 
 collaring two of the human hyenas, kicked them, 
 with deliberate, ponderous, alternate kicks, until 
 they writhed in ineffable agony. When he let 
 them crawl away, she turned to him and thanked 
 him warmly, looking very pretty now, with the 
 color in her cheeks. But Mr. Smith answered no 
 word. He stared over her head, grew red in the 
 face, fidgeted nervously, but held his peace until 
 his eyes fell on a rotund Teuton, passing by. 
 
 * Say, Dutchy ! " he roared. 
 
 The German stood aghast. 
 
 "I ain t got nothing to write with!" thundered 
 Mr. Smith, looking him in the eye. And then the 
 man of his word passed on his way. 
 
 And so the Summer went on, and the two cor 
 respondents chatted silently from window to win 
 dow, hid from sight of all the world below by
 
 70 THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH 
 
 the friendly cornice. And they looked out over 
 the roof, and saw the green of Tompkins Square 
 grow darker and dustier as the months went on. 
 
 Mr. Smith was given to Sunday trips into the 
 suburbs, and he never came back without a 
 bunch of daisies or black-eyed Susans or, later, 
 asters or golden-rod for the little seamstress. 
 Sometimes, with a sagacity rare in his sex, he 
 brought her a whole plant, with fresh loam for 
 potting. 
 
 He gave her also a reel in a bottle, which, he 
 wrote, he had "maid" himself, and some coral, 
 and a dried flying-fish, that was somewhat fear 
 ful to look upon, with its sword-like fins and its 
 hollow eyes. At first, she could not go to sleep 
 with that flying-fish hanging on the wall. 
 
 But he surprised the little seamstress very 
 much one cool September evening, when he 
 shoved this letter along the cornice:
 
 THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH 71 
 
 /3/nd- 
 
 /&r AvvnfiAJL- wMJ 
 
 UWI 
 
 Jfcr 
 
 fo*v/ncrY(r A/V~ttAs 
 
 GVWL J&IL WsCc CWIJC&- &-
 
 72 THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH 
 
 The little seamstress gazed at this letter a 
 long time. Perhaps she was wondering in what 
 Ready Letter- Writer of the last century Mr. 
 Smith had found his form. Perhaps she was 
 amazed at the results of his first attempt at 
 punctuation. Perhaps she was thinking of some 
 thing else, for there were tears in her eyes and 
 a smile on her small mouth. 
 
 But it must have been a long time, and Mr. 
 Smith must have grown nervous, for presently 
 another communication came along the line where 
 the top of the cornice was worn smooth. It read : 
 
 // not understood will you mary me? 
 
 The little seamstress seized a piece of paper 
 and wrote : 
 
 // / say Yes, will you speak to me? 
 
 Then she rose and passed it out to him, leaning 
 out of the window, and their faces met.
 
 ZENOBIA S INFIDELITY 
 
 DR. TIBBITT stood on the porch of 
 Mrs. Penny pepper s boarding-house, and 
 looked up and down the deserted Main 
 Street of Sagawaug with a contented smile, the 
 while he buttoned his driving-gloves. The little 
 doctor had good cause to be content with him 
 self and with everything else with his growing 
 practice, with his comfortable boarding-house, 
 with his own good looks, with his neat attire, 
 and with the world in general. He could not 
 but be content with Sagawaug, for there never 
 was a prettier country town. The Doctor looked 
 across the street and picked out the very house 
 that he proposed to buy when the one remaining 
 desire of his soul was gratified. It was a house 
 with a hip-roof and with a long garden running 
 down to the river. 
 
 There was no one in the house to-day, but 
 there was no one in any of the houses. Not 
 even a pair of round bare arms was visible 
 among the clothes that waved in the August 
 breeze in every back-yard. It was Circus Day 
 in Sagawaug. 
 
 The Doctor was climbing into his gig when a 
 yell startled him. A freckled boy with saucer 
 eyes dashed around the corner. 
 
 73
 
 74 ZENOBIA S INFIDELITY 
 
 "Doctor!" he gasped, "come quick! The cir 
 cus got a-fire an* the trick elephant s most 
 roasted!" 
 
 "Don t be silly, Johnny : said the Doctor, 
 reprovingly. 
 
 "Hope to die Honest Injun cross my 
 breast!" said the boy. The Doctor knew the 
 sacredness of this juvenile oath. 
 
 "Get in here with me," he said, "and if I find 
 you re trying to be funny, I ll drop you in the 
 river." 
 
 As they drove toward the outskirts of the 
 town, Johnny told his tale. 
 
 "Now," he began, "the folks was all out of 
 the tent after the show was over, and one of the 
 circus men, he went to the oil-barrel in the green 
 wagon with Dan l in the Lion s Den onto the 
 outside of it, an he took in a candle an left it 
 there, and fust thing the barrel busted, an he 
 wasn t hurted a bit, but the trick elephant she 
 was burned awful, an the ring-tailed baboon, he 
 was so scared he had a fit. Say, did you know 
 baboons had fits?" 
 
 When they reached the circus-grounds, they 
 found a crowd around a small side-show tent. 
 A strong odor of burnt leather confirmed John 
 ny s story. Dr. Tibbitt pushed his way through 
 the throng, and gazed upon the huge beast, lying 
 on her side on the grass, her broad shoulder 
 charred and quivering. Her bulk expanded and 
 contracted with spasms of agony, and from time 
 to time she uttered a moaning sound. On her
 
 ZENOBIA S INFIDELITY 75 
 
 head was a structure of red cloth, about the 
 size of a bushel-basket, apparently intended to 
 look like a British soldier s forage-cap. This 
 was secured by a strap that went under her chin 
 if an elephant has a chin. This scarlet cheese- 
 box every now and then slipped down over her 
 eye, and the faithful animal patiently, in all her 
 anguish, adjusted it with her prehensile trunk. 
 
 By her side stood her keeper and the pro 
 prietor of the show, a large man with a dyed 
 moustache, a wrinkled face, and hair oiled and 
 frizzed. These two bewailed their loss alter 
 nately. 
 
 "The boss elephant in the business!" cried 
 the showman. "Barnum never had no trick ele 
 phant like Zenobia. And them lynes and Dan l 
 was painted in new before I took the road this 
 season. Oh, there s been a hoodoo on me since 
 I showed ag inst the Sunday-school picnic!" 
 
 "That there elephant s been like my own 
 child," groaned the keeper, "or my own wife, I 
 may say. I ve slep alongside of her every 
 night for fourteen damn years." 
 
 The Doctor had been carefully examining his 
 patient. 
 
 "If there is any analogy " he began. 
 
 "Neuralogy!" snorted the indignant show 
 man; " tain t neuralogy, you jay pill-box, she s 
 cooked!" 
 
 "If there is any analogy, repeated Dr. Tib- 
 bitt, flushing a little, "between her case and that 
 of a human being, I think I can save your ele-
 
 76 ZENOBIA S INFIDELITY 
 
 pliant. Get me a barrel of linseed oil, and drive 
 these people away." 
 
 The Doctor s orders were obeyed with eager 
 submission. He took off his coat, and went to 
 work. He had never doctored an elephant, and 
 the job interested him. At the end of an hour, 
 Zenobia s sufferings were somewhat alleviated. 
 She lay on her side, chained tightly to the ground, 
 and swaddled in bandages. Her groans had 
 ceased. 
 
 "I ll call to-morrow at noon," said the Doc 
 tor "good gracious, what s that?" Zenobia s 
 trunk was playing around his w r aistband. 
 
 "She wants to shake hands with you," her 
 keeper explained. "She s a lady, she is, and 
 she knows you done her good." 
 
 "I d rather not have anything of the sort," 
 said the Doctor, decisively. 
 
 When Dr. Tibbitt called at twelve on the mor 
 row, he found Zenobia s tent neatly roped in, 
 an amphitheatre of circus-benches constructed 
 around her, and this amphitheatre packed with 
 people. 
 
 "Got a quarter apiece from them jays," whis 
 pered the showman, "jest to see you dress them 
 wownds." Subsequently the showman relieved 
 his mind to a casual acquaintance. "He s got a 
 heart like a gun-flint, that doctor," he said; 
 "made me turn out every one of them jays and 
 give em their money back before he d lay a 
 hand to Zenobia."
 
 ZENOBIA S INFIDELITY 77 
 
 But if the Doctor suppressed the clinic, neither 
 he nor the showman suffered. From dawn till 
 dusk people came from miles around to stare a 
 quarter s worth at the burnt elephant. Once in 
 a while, as a rare treat, the keeper lifted a cor 
 ner of her bandages, and revealed the seared 
 flesh. The show went off in a day or two, leaving 
 Zenobia to recover at leisure ; and as it wandered 
 westward, it did an increased business simply 
 because it had had a burnt trick elephant. Such, 
 dear friends, is the human mind. 
 
 The Doctor fared even better. The fame of 
 his new case spread far and wide. People 
 seemed to think that if he could cure an ele 
 phant he could cure anything. He was called 
 into consultation in neighboring towns. Women 
 in robust health imagined ailments, so as to send 
 for him and ask him shuddering questions about 
 "that wretched animal." The trustees of the 
 orphan-asylum made him staff-physician in this 
 case the Doctor thought he could trace a con 
 nection of ideas, in which children and a circus 
 were naturally associated. And the local news 
 paper called him a savant. 
 
 He called every day upon Zenobia, who greeted 
 him with trumpetings of joyful welcome. She 
 also desired to shake hands with him, and her 
 keeper had to sit on her head and hold her trunk 
 to repress the familiarity. In two weeks she was 
 cured, except for extensive and permanent scars, 
 and she waited only for a favorable opportunity 
 to rejoin the circus.
 
 78 ZENOBIA S INFIDELITY 
 
 The Doctor had got his fee in advance. 
 
 Upon a sunny afternoon in the last of August, 
 Dr. Tibbitt jogged slowly toward Sagawaug in 
 his neat little gig. He had been to Pelion, the 
 next town, to call upon Miss Minetta Bunker, 
 the young lady whom he desired to install in the 
 house with the garden running down to the river. 
 He had found her starting out for a drive in 
 Tom Matson s dog-cart. Now, the Doctor feared 
 no foe, in medicine or in love ; but when a young 
 woman is inscrutable as to the state of her 
 affections, when the richest young man in the 
 county is devoting himself to her, and when the 
 young lady s mother is backing the rich man, a 
 young country doctor may well feel perplexed 
 and anxious over his chance of the prize. 
 
 The Doctor was so troubled, indeed, that he 
 paid no heed to a heavy, repeated thud behind 
 him, on the macadamized road. His gentle little 
 mare heard it, though, and began to curvet and 
 prance. The Doctor was pulling her in, and 
 calming her with a "Soo Soo down, girl, 
 down!" when he interrupted himself to shout: 
 
 "Great Caesar! get off me!" 
 
 Something like a yard of rubber hose had 
 come in through the side of the buggy, and was 
 rubbing itself against his face. He looked 
 around, and the cold sweat stood out on him as 
 he saw Zenobia, her chain dragging from her 
 hind-foot, her red cap a-cock on her head, trot-
 
 ZENOBIA S INFIDELITY 79 
 
 ting along by the side of his vehicle, snorting 
 with joy, and evidently bent on lavishing her 
 pliant, serpentine, but leathery caresses upon 
 his person. 
 
 His fear vanished in a moment. The animal s 
 intentions were certainly pacific, to put it mildly. 
 He reflected that if he could keep his horse 
 ahead of her, he could toll her around the block 
 and back toward her tent. He had hardly 
 guessed, as yet, the depth of the impression 
 which he had made upon Zenobia s heart, which 
 must have been a large organ, if the size of 
 her ears was any indication according to the 
 popular theory. 
 
 He was on the very edge of the town, and his 
 road took him by a house where he had a new 
 and highly valued patient, the young wife of old 
 Deacon Burgee. Her malady being of a nature 
 that permitted it, Mrs. Burgee was in the habit 
 of sitting at her window when the Doctor made 
 his rounds, and indicating the satisfactory state 
 of her health by a bow and a smile. On this 
 occasion she fled from the window with a shriek. 
 Her mother, a formidable old lady under a red 
 false-front, came to the window, shrieked like 
 wise, and slammed down the sash. 
 
 The Doctor tolled his elephant around the 
 block without further misadventure, and they 
 started up the road toward Zenobia s tent, Zeno- 
 bia caressing her benefactor while shudders of 
 antipathy ran over his frame. In a few minutes 
 the keeper hove in sight. Zenobia saw him first,
 
 80 ZENOBIA S INFIDELITY 
 
 blew a shrill blast on her trumpet, close to the 
 Doctor s ear, bolted through a snake-fence, lum 
 bered across a turnip-field, and disappeared in 
 a patch of woods, leaving the Doctor to quiet 
 his excited horse and to face the keeper, who 
 advanced with rage in his eye. 
 
 "What do you mean, you cuss," he began, 
 "weaning a man s elephant s affections away 
 from him? You ain t got no more morals than 
 a Turk, you ain t. That elephant an me has 
 been side-partners for fourteen years, an here 
 you come between us." 
 
 "I don t want your confounded elephant," 
 roared the Doctor; "why don t you keep it 
 chained up?" 
 
 "She busted her chain to git after you," re 
 plied the keeper. "Oh, I seen you two lally- 
 gaggin all along the road. I knowed you wa n t 
 no good the first time I set eyes on yer, a-sayin 
 hoodoo words over the poor dumb beast." 
 
 The Doctor resolved to banish "analogy" from 
 his vocabulary. 
 
 The next morning, about four o clock, Dr. Tib- 
 bitt awoke with a troubled mind. He had driven 
 home after midnight from a late call, and he had 
 had an uneasy fancy that he saw a great shadowy 
 bulk ambling along in the mist-hid fields by the 
 roadside. He jumped out of bed and went to 
 the window. Below him, completely covering 
 Mrs. Pennypepper s nasturtium bed, her pre-
 
 ZENOBIA S INFIDELITY 81 
 
 hensile trunk ravaging the early chrysanthe 
 mums, stood Zenobia, swaying to and fro, the 
 dew glistening on her seamed sides beneath the 
 early morning sunlight. The Doctor hastily 
 dressed himself and slipped downstairs and out, 
 to meet this Frankenstein s monster of affection. 
 
 There was but one thing to do. Zenobia would 
 follow him wherever he went she rushed madly 
 through Mrs. Pennypepper s roses to greet him 
 and his only course was to lead her out of the 
 town before people began to get up, and to detain 
 her in some remote meadow until he could get 
 her keeper to come for her and secure her by 
 force or stratagem. He set off by the least fre 
 quented streets, and he experienced a pang of 
 horror as he remembered that his way led him 
 past the house of his one professional rival in 
 Sagawaug. Suppose Dr. Pettengill should be 
 coming home or going out as he passed! 
 
 He did not meet Dr. Pettengill. He did meet 
 Deacon Burgee, who stared at him with more of 
 rage than of amazement in his wrinkled counte 
 nance. The Deacon was carrying a large bundle 
 of embroidered linen and flannel, that must have 
 been tied up in a hurry. 
 
 "Good morning, Deacon," the Doctor hailed 
 him, with as much ease of manner as he could 
 assume. "How s Mrs. Burgee?" 
 
 "She s doin fust rate, no thanks to no circus 
 doctors I" snorted the Deacon. "An if you want 
 to know anything further concernin her health, 
 you ask Dr. Pettengill. He s got more sense
 
 82 ZENOBIA S INFIDELITY 
 
 than to go trailin around the streets with a 
 parboiled elephant behind him, a-frightening 
 women-folks a hull month afore the r time." 
 
 "Why, Deacon!" cried the Doctor, "what 
 what is it?" 
 
 "It s a boy," responded the Deacon sternly; 
 "and it s God s own mercy that twa n t born 
 with a trunk and a tail." 
 
 The Doctor found a secluded pasture, near the 
 woods that encircled the town, and there he sat 
 him down, in the corner of a snake-fence, to 
 wait until some farmer or market-gardener 
 should pass by, to carry his message to the keep 
 er. He had another message to send, too. He 
 had several cases that must be attended to at 
 once. Unless he could get away from his pachy 
 dermatous familiar, Pettengill must care for his 
 cases that morning. It was hard but what was 
 he to do? 
 
 Zenobia stood by his side, dividing her atten 
 tion between the caresses she bestowed on him 
 and the care she was obliged to take of her red 
 cap, which was not tightly strapped on, and 
 slipped in various directions at every movement 
 of her gigantic head. She was unmistakably 
 happy. From time to time she trumpeted cheer 
 ily. She plucked up tufts of grass, and offered 
 them to the Doctor. He refused them, and she 
 ate them herself. Once he took a daisy from 
 her, absent-mindedly, and she was so greatly
 
 ZENOBIA S INFIDELITY 83 
 
 pleased that she smashed his hat in her endeav 
 ors to pet him. The Doctor was a kind-hearted 
 man. He had to admit that Zenobia meant well. 
 He patted her trunk, and made matters worse. 
 Her elephantine ecstasy came near being the 
 death of him. 
 
 Still the farmer came not, nor the market- 
 gardener. Dr. Tibbitt began to believe that he 
 had chosen a meadow that was too secluded. At 
 last two boys appeared. After they had stared 
 at him and at Zenobia for half an hour, one of 
 them agreed to produce Dr. Pettengill and Zeno 
 bia s keeper for fifty cents. Dr. Pettengill was 
 the first to arrive. He refused to come nearer 
 than the furthest limit of the pasture. 
 
 "Hello, Doctor," he called out, "hear you ve 
 been seeing elephants. Want me to take your 
 cases? Guess I can. Got a half -hour free. 
 Brought some bromide down for you, if you d 
 like to try it." 
 
 To judge from his face, Zenobia was invisible. 
 But his presence alarmed that sensitive animal. 
 She crowded up close to the fence, and every 
 time she flicked her skin to shake off the flies she 
 endangered the equilibrium of the Doctor, who 
 was sitting on the top rail, for dignity s sake. 
 He shouted his directions to his colleague, who 
 shouted back professional criticisms. 
 
 "Salicylate of soda for that old woman? 
 What s the matter with salicylate of cinchoni- 
 dia? Don t want to kill her before you get ont 
 of this swamp, do you?"
 
 84 ZENOBIA S INFIDELITY 
 
 Dr. Tibbitt was not a profane man; but at 
 this moment he could not restrain himself. 
 
 "Damn you!" he said, with such vigor that 
 the elephant gave a convulsive start. The Doc 
 tor felt his seat depart from under him he 
 was going going into space for a brief moment, 
 and then he scrambled up out of the soft mud 
 of the cow-wallow back of the fence on which 
 he had been sitting. Zenobia had backed again^ 
 the fence. 
 
 The keeper arrived soon after. He had only 
 reached the meadow when Zenobia lifted her 
 trunk in the air, emitted a mirthful toot, and 
 struck out for the woods with the picturesque 
 and cumbersome gallop of a mastodon pup. 
 
 "Dern you," said the keeper to Dr. Tibbitt, 
 who was trying to fasten his collar, which had 
 broken loose in his fall; "if the boys was here, 
 and I hollered Hey Bube! there wouldn t be 
 enough left of yer to spread a plaster fer a 
 baby s bile!" 
 
 The Doctor made himself look as decent as the 
 situation allowed, and then he marched toward 
 the town with the light of a firm resolve illumi 
 nating his face. The literature of his childhood 
 had come to his aid. He remembered the un 
 kind tailor who pricked the elephant s trunk. It 
 seemed to him that the tailor was a rather good 
 fellow. 
 
 "If that elephant s disease is gratitude," 
 thought the Doctor, "I ll give her an antidote." 
 
 He went to the drug-store, and, as he went,
 
 ZENOBIA S INFIDELITY 85 
 
 he pulled out a blank pad and wrote down a pre 
 scription, from mere force of habit. It read thus : 
 
 PESSELS & MORTON, 
 DRUGGISTS, 
 
 Commercial Block, Main Street, Sagawaug. 
 PRESCRIPTIONS CAREFULLY COMPOUNDED. -*& 
 
 / 
 
 fa . 
 
 When the druggist looked at it, he was taken 
 short of breath. 
 
 "What s this!" he asked a bombshell?" 
 
 "Put it up," said the Doctor, "and don t talk 
 so much." He lingered nervously on the drug 
 gist s steps, looking up and down the street. He 
 had sent a boy to order the stable-man to harness 
 his gig. By-and-by, the druggist put his head 
 out of the door. 
 
 "I ve got some asafcetida pills," he said, "that 
 are kind o tired, and half a pound of whale-oil 
 soap that s higher n Haman 
 
 "Put em in!" said the Doctor, grimly, as he 
 saw Zenobia coming in sight far down the street.
 
 86 ZENOBIA S INFIDELITY 
 
 She came up while the Doctor was waiting for 
 the bolus. Twenty-three boys were watching 
 them, although it was only seven o clock in the 
 morning. 
 
 "Down, Zenobia!" said the Doctor, thought 
 lessly, as he might have addressed a dog. He 
 was talking with the druggist, and Zenobia was 
 patting his ear with her trunk. Zenobia sank to 
 her knees. The Doctor did not notice her. She 
 folded her trunk about him, lifted him to her 
 back, rose, with a heave and a sway, to her feet, 
 and started up the road. The boys cheered. The 
 Doctor got off on the end of an elm-branch. His 
 descent was watched from nineteen second-story 
 windows. 
 
 His gig came to meet him at last, and he en 
 tered it and drove rapidly out of town, with 
 Zenobia trotting contentedly behind him. As 
 soon as he had passed Deacon Burgee s house, 
 he drew rein, and Zenobia approached, while 
 his perspiring mare stood on her hind legs. 
 
 "Zenobia pill!" said the Doctor. 
 
 As she had often done in her late illness, Ze 
 nobia opened her mouth at the word of command, 
 and swallowed the infernal bolus. Then they 
 started up again, and the Doctor headed for 
 Zenobia s tent. 
 
 But Zenobia s pace was sluggish. She had 
 been dodging about the woods for two nights, and 
 she was tired. When the Doctor whipped up, she 
 seized the buggy by any convenient projection, 
 and held it back. This damaged the buggy and
 
 ZENOBIA S INFIDELITY 87 
 
 frightened the horse; but it accomplished Zeno 
 bia s end. It was eleven o clock before Jake 
 Bumgardner s " Half -Way House" loomed up 
 white, afar down the dusty road, and the Doctor 
 knew that his round-about way had at length 
 brought him near to the field where the circus- 
 tent had been pitched. 
 
 He drove on with a lighter heart in his bosom. 
 He had not heard Zenobia behind him for some 
 time. He did not know what had become of her, 
 or what she was doing, but he learned later. 
 
 The Doctor had compounded a pill well calcu 
 lated to upset Zenobia s stomach. That it would 
 likewise give her a consuming thirst he had not 
 considered. But chemistry was doing its duty 
 without regard to him. A thirst like a furnace 
 burned within Zenobia. Capsicum and chloride 
 of lime were doing their work. She gasped and 
 groaned. She searched for water. She filled her 
 trunk at a wayside trough and poured the con 
 tents into her mouth. Then she sucked up a 
 puddle or two. Then she came to Bumgardner s, 
 where a dozen kegs of lager-beer and a keg of 
 what passed at Bumgardner s for gin stood on 
 the sidewalk. Zenobia s circus experience had 
 taught her what a water-barrel meant. She ap 
 plied her knowledge. With her forefoot she 
 deftly staved in the head of one keg after an 
 other, and with her trunk she drew up the beer 
 and the gin, and delivered them to her stomach. 
 If you think her taste at fault, remember the 
 bolus.
 
 88 ZENOBIA S INFIDELITY 
 
 Bumgardner rushed out and assailed her with 
 a bung-starter. She turned upon him and 
 squirted lager-beer over him until he was cov 
 ered with an iridescent lather of foam from 
 head to foot. Then she finished the kegs and 
 went on her way, to overtake the Doctor. 
 
 The Doctor was speeding his mare merrily 
 along, grateful for even a momentary relief from 
 Zenobia s attentions, when, at one and the same 
 time, he heard a heavy, uncertain thumping on 
 the road behind him, and the quick patter of a 
 trotter s hoofs on the road ahead of him. He 
 glanced behind him first, and saw Zenobia. She 
 swayed from side to side, more than was her 
 wont. Her red cap was far down over her 
 left eye. Her aspect was rakish, and her gait 
 was unsteady. The Doctor did not know it, but 
 Zenobia was drunk. 
 
 Zenobia was sick, but intoxication dominated 
 her sickness. Even sulphide of calcium with 
 drew courteously before the might of beer and 
 gin. Eocking from side to side, reeling across 
 the road and back, trumpeting in imbecile inex 
 pressive tones, Zenobia advanced. 
 
 The Doctor looked forward. Tom Matson sat 
 in his dog-cart, with Miss Bunker by his side. 
 His horse had caught sight of Zenobia, and he 
 was rearing high in air, and whinnying in terror. 
 Before Tom could pull him down, he made a sud 
 den break, overturned the dog-cart, and flung 
 Tom and Miss Minetta Bunker on a bank by the
 
 ZENOBIA S INFIDELITY 89 
 
 side of the road. It was a soft bank, well-grown 
 with mint and stinging-nettles, just above a 
 creek. Tom had scarce landed before he was up 
 and off, running hard across the fields. 
 
 Miss Minetta rose and looked at him with fire 
 in her eyes. 
 
 "Well!" she said aloud; "I d like Mother 
 to see you now!" 
 
 The Doctor had jumped out of his gig and let 
 his little mare go galloping up the road. He 
 had his arm about Miss Minetta s waist when 
 he turned to face his familiar demon which 
 may have accounted for the pluck in his face. 
 
 But Zenobia was a hundred yards down the 
 road, and she was utterly incapable of getting 
 any further. She trumpeted once or twice, then 
 she wavered like a reed in the wind; her legs 
 weakened under her and she sank on her side. 
 Her red cap had slipped down, and she picked 
 it up with her trunk, broke its band in a reck 
 less swing that resembled the wave of jovial 
 farewell, gave one titanic hiccup, and fell asleep 
 by the roadside. 
 
 
 
 An hour later, Dr. Tibbitt was driving toward 
 Pelion, with Miss Bunker by his side. His horse 
 had been stopped at the toll-gate. He was driv 
 ing with one hand. Perhaps he needed the other 
 to show how they could have a summer-house in 
 the garden that ran down to the river.
 
 90 ZENOBIA S INFIDELITY 
 
 But it was evening when Zenobia awoke to find 
 her keeper sitting on her head. He jabbed a 
 cotton-hook firmly and decisively into her ear, 
 and led her homeward down the road lit by the 
 golden sunset. That was the end of Zenobia s 
 infidelity.
 
 THE NINE CENT- GIRLS 
 
 MISS BESSIE VAUX, of Baltimore, paid 
 a visit to her aunt, the wife of the 
 Commandant at old Fort Starbuck, 
 Montana. She had at her small feet all the 
 garrison and some two dozen young ranch-own 
 ers, the flower of the younger sons of the best 
 society of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. 
 Thirty-seven notches in the long handle of her 
 parasol told the story of her three months stay. 
 The thirty- seventh was final. She accepted a 
 measly Second-Lieutenant, and left all the bach 
 elors for thirty miles around the Fort to mourn 
 her and to curse the United States Army. This 
 is the proem. 
 
 Mr. John Winfield, proprietor of the Winfield 
 Ranch, sat a-straddle a chair in front of the fire 
 in his big living room, and tugged at his hand 
 some black beard as he discussed the situation 
 with his foreman, who was also his confidant, 
 his best friend and his old college mate. Mr. 
 Richard Cutter stood with his back to the fire, 
 twirled a very blonde moustache and smoked 
 cigarettes continually while he ministered to his 
 suffering friend, who was sore wounded in his 
 
 91
 
 92 THE NINE CENT-GIRLS 
 
 vanity, having been notch No. 36 on Miss Vaux s 
 parasol. Dick had been notch No. 1; but Dick 
 was used to that sort of thing. 
 
 "By thunder," said Mr. Winfield, "I m going 
 to get married this year, if I have to marry a 
 widow with six children. And I guess I ll have 
 to. I ve been ten years in this girlless wilder 
 ness, and I never did know any girls to speak of, 
 at home. Now you, you always everlastingly 
 knew girls. What s that place you lived at in 
 New York State where there were so many 
 girls?" 
 
 "Tusculum," replied Mr. Cutter, in a tone of 
 complacent reminiscence. "Nice old town, plas 
 tered so thick with mortgages that you can t 
 grow flowers in the front yard. All the fellows 
 strike for New York as soon as they begin to 
 shave. The crop of girls remains, and they 
 wither on the stem. Why, one Winter they had 
 a humpbacked man for their sole society star in 
 the male line. Nice girls, too. Old families. 
 Pretty, lots of them. Good form, too, for pro 
 vincials." 
 
 "Gad!" said Jack Winfield. "I d like to live 
 in Tusculum for a year or so." 
 
 "No, you wouldn t. It s powerful dull. But 
 the girls were nice. Now, there were the Nine 
 Cent-Girls." 
 
 "The Nine-cent Girls?" 
 
 "No, the Nine Cent-Girls. Catch the differ 
 ence? They were the daughters of old Bailey, 
 the civil engineer. Nine of em, ranging from
 
 THE NINE CENT-GIRLS 93 
 
 twenty- two, when I was there that s ten years 
 ago down to oh, I don t know a kid in a 
 pinafore. All looked just alike, barring age, and 
 every one had the face of the Indian lady on the 
 little red cent. Do you remember the Indian 
 lady on the little red cent?" 
 
 "Hold on," suggested Jack, rising; "I ve got 
 one. I ve had it ever since I came." He un 
 locked his desk, rummaged about in its depths, 
 and produced a specimen of the neatest and most 
 artistic coin that the United States Government 
 has ever struck. 
 
 "That s it," said Dick, holding the coppery 
 disk in his palm. "It would do for a picture of 
 any one of em only the Bailey girls didn t 
 wear feathers in their hair. But there they 
 were, nine of em, nice girls, every way, and the 
 whole lot named out of the classics. Old Bailey 
 was strong on the classics. His great-grand 
 father named Tusculum, and Bailey s own name 
 was M. Cicero Bailey. So he called all his girls 
 by heathen names, and had a row with the parson 
 every christening. Let me see there was Eu- 
 phrosyne, and Clelia, and Lydia, and Flora and 
 Aurora those were the twins I was sweet on 
 one of the twins and Una and, oh, I can t 
 remember them all. But they were mighty nice 
 girls." 
 
 "Probably all married by this time," Jack 
 groaned. "Let me look at that cent." He held 
 it in the light of the fire, and gazed thoughtfully 
 npon it.
 
 94 THE NINE CENT-GIRLS 
 
 "Not a one," Dick assured him. "I met a 
 chap from Tusculum last time I was in Butte 
 City, and I asked him. He said there d been 
 only one wedding in Tusculum in three years, 
 and then the local paper had a wire into the 
 church and got out extras." 
 
 "What sort of girls were they?" Winfield 
 asked, still regarding the coin. 
 
 "Just about like that, for looks. Let "me see 
 it again." Dick examined the cent critically, 
 and slipped it into his pocket, in an absent- 
 minded way. "Just about like that. First rate 
 girls. Old man was as poor as a church mouse ; 
 but you would never have known it, the way 
 that house was run. Bright girls, too at least, 
 my twin was. I ve forgotten which twin it was; 
 but she was too bright for me." 
 
 "And how old did you say they were? How 
 old was the youngest?" 
 
 "Oh, I don t know," replied Dick, with a 
 bachelor s vagueness on the question of a child s 
 age, "five six seven, may be. Ten years ago, 
 you know." 
 
 "Just coming in to grass," observed Mr. Win- 
 field, meditatively. 
 
 Two months after the evening on which this 
 conversation took place, Mr. Eichard Cutter 
 walked up one of the quietest and most emi 
 nently respectable of the streets of Tusculum. 
 
 Mr. Cutter was nervous. He was, for the
 
 THE NINE CENT-GIRLS 95 
 
 second time, making up his mind to attempt a 
 difficult and delicate task. He had made up his 
 mind to it, or had had it made up for him; but 
 now he felt himself obliged to go over the whole 
 process in his memory, in order to assure him 
 self that the mind was really made up. 
 
 The suggestion had come from Winfield. He 
 remembered with what a dazed incomprehension 
 he had heard his chum s proposition to induce 
 Mr. Bailey and all his family to migrate to Mon 
 tana and settle at Starbuck. 
 
 "We ll give the old man all the surveying he 
 wants. And he can have Ashford s place on the 
 big dam when Ashford goes East in August. 
 Why, the finger of Providence is pointing Bailey 
 straight for Starbuck." 
 
 With a clearer remembrance of Eastern con 
 ventionalities than Mr. Winfield, Dick Cutter had 
 suggested various obstacles in the way of this 
 apparently simple scheme. But Winfield would 
 hear of no opposition, and he joined with him 
 eight other young ranchmen, who entered into 
 the idea with wild Western enthusiasm and an 
 Arcadian simplicity that could see no chance of 
 failure. These energetic youths subscribed a 
 generous fund to defray the expenses of Mr. 
 Cutter as a missionary to Tusculum; and Mr. 
 Cutter had found himself committed to the ven 
 ture before he knew it. 
 
 Now, what had seemed quite feasible in Star- 
 buck s wilds wore a different face in prim and 
 proper Tusculum. It dawned on Mr. Cutter that
 
 96 THE NINE CENT-GIRLS 
 
 he was about to make a most radical and some 
 what impudent proposition to a conservative 
 old gentleman. The atmosphere of Tusculum 
 weighed heavy on his spirits, which were light 
 and careless enough in his adopted home in 
 Montana. 
 
 Therefore Mr. Cutter found his voice very 
 uncertain as he introduced himself to the young 
 lady who opened, at his ring, the front door of 
 one of the most respectable houses in that re 
 spectable street of Tusculum. 
 
 "Good morning/ he said, wondering which 
 one of the Nine Cent-Girls he saw before him; 
 and then, noting a few threads of gray in her 
 hair, he ventured: 
 
 "It s Miss Miss Euphrosyne, isn t it? Yon 
 don t remember me Mr. Cutter, Dick Cutter? 
 Used to live on Ovid Street. Can I see your 
 father?" 
 
 "My father?" repeated Miss Euphrosyne, 
 looking a little frightened. 
 
 "Yes I just want 
 
 ""Why, Mr. Cutter I do remember you now 
 didn t you know that Papa died nine years 
 ago the year after you left Tusculum?" 
 
 Dick Cutter leaned against the door-jamb and 
 stared speechlessly at Euphrosyne. He noted 
 vaguely that she looked much the same as when 
 he had last seen her, except that she looked tired 
 and just a shade sad. When he was able to 
 think, he said that he begged her pardon. Then 
 she smiled, faintly.
 
 THE NINE CENT-GIRLS 97 
 
 "We couldn t expect you to know/ she said, 
 simply. "Won t you come in?" 
 
 "N-N-No," stuttered Dick. "I-I-I ll call later 
 this evening, if you don t mind. Ah ah 
 good day." And he fled to his hotel, to pull 
 himself together, leaving Miss Euphrosyne 
 smiling. 
 
 He sat alone in his room all the afternoon, 
 pondering over the shipwreck of his scheme. 
 What should he tell the boys? What would the 
 boys say? Why had he not thought to write 
 before he came? Why on earth had Bailey 
 taken it into his head to die? 
 
 After supper, he resolved to call as he had 
 promised. Mrs. Bailey, he knew, had died a 
 year after the appearance of her ninth daughter. 
 But, he thought, with reviving hope, there might 
 be a male head to the family an uncle, per 
 haps. 
 
 The door was opened by Clytie, the youngest 
 of the nine. She ushered him at once into a 
 bright little parlor, hung around with dainty 
 things in artistic needlework and decorative 
 painting. A big lamp glowed on a centre-table, 
 and around it sat seven of the sisters, each one 
 engaged in some sort of work, sewing, embroid 
 ering or designing. Nearest the lamp sat Eu 
 phrosyne, reading Macaulay aloud. She stopped 
 as he entered, and welcomed him in a half -timid 
 but wholly friendly fashion. 
 
 Dick sat down, very much embarrassed, in 
 spite of the greeting. It was many years since
 
 98 THE NINE CENT-GIKLS 
 
 he had talked to nine ladies at once. And, in 
 truth, a much less embarrassed man might have 
 found himself more or less troubled to carry on 
 a conversation with nine young women who 
 looked exactly like each other, except for the 
 delicate distinctions of age which a masculine 
 stranger might w^ell be afraid to note. Dick 
 looked from one to the other of the placid classic 
 faces, and could not help having an uneasy idea 
 that each new girl that he addressed was only 
 the last one who had slipped around the table 
 and made herself look a year or two older or 
 younger. 
 
 But after a w^hile the pleasant, genial, social 
 atmosphere of the room, sweet with a delicate, 
 winning virginity, thawed out his awkward re 
 serve, and Dick began to talk of the West and 
 Western life until the nine pairs of blue eyes, 
 stretched to their widest, fixed upon him as a 
 common focus. It was eleven when he left, with 
 many apologies for his long call. He found the 
 night and the street uncommonly dark, empty 
 and depressing. 
 
 "Just the outfit!" he observed to himself. 
 "And old Bailey dead and the whole scheme 
 busted." 
 
 For he had learned that the Nine Cent-Girls 
 had not a relative in the world. Under these 
 circumstances, it was clearly his duty to take 
 the morning train for the West. And yet, the 
 next evening, he presented himself, shamefaced 
 and apologetic, at the Bailey s door.
 
 THE NINE CENT-GIRLS 99 
 
 He thought that he wanted to make some sort 
 of explanation to Miss Euphrosyne. But what 
 explanation could he make 1 There was no earth 
 ly reason for his appearance in Tusculum. He 
 talked of the West until eleven o clock, and 
 then he took a hesitating leave. 
 
 The next day he made a weak pretense of 
 casually passing by when he knew that Miss 
 Euphrosyne was working in the garden; but he 
 found it no easier to explain across the front 
 fence. The explanation never would have been 
 made if it had not been for Miss Euphrosyne. 
 A curious nervousness had come over her, too, 
 and suddenly she spoke out. 
 
 "Mr. Cutter excuse me but what has 
 brought you here? I mean is it anything that 
 concerns us or or Papa s affairs! I thought 
 everything was settled I had hoped " 
 
 There was nothing for it now but to tell the 
 whole story, and Dick told it. 
 
 "I suppose you ll think we re a pack of bar 
 barians," he said, when he had come to the end, 
 "and, of course, it s all impracticable now." 
 
 But Miss Euphrosyne did not seem to be of 
 fended only thoughtful. 
 
 "Can you call here to-morrow at this time, 
 Mr. Cutter?" she inquired. 
 
 Miss Euphrosyne blushed faintly when Dick 
 presented himself to hear judgment pronounced.
 
 100 THE NINE CENT-GIRLS 
 
 "I suppose you will think it strange," she 
 said, "but if your plan is feasible, I should wish 
 to carry it out. Frankly, I do want to see the 
 girls married. Clelia and Lydia and I are past 
 the time when women think about such things 
 but Clytie and the rest. And, you know, I can 
 remember how Papa and Mama lived together, 
 and sometimes it seems cruelly hard that those 
 dear girls should lose all that happiness I m 
 sure it s the best happiness in the world. And 
 it can never be, here. Now, if I could get occu 
 pation you know that I m teaching school, I 
 suppose and if the rest of the girls could keep 
 up their work for the New York people why 
 don t you know, if I didn t tell if I put it on 
 business grounds, you know I think they would 
 feel that it was best, after all, to leave Tuscu- 
 lum . . ." 
 
 Her voice was choked when she recommenced. 
 
 "It seems awful for me to talk to you in this 
 cold-blooded way about such a thing; but what 
 can we do, Mr. Cutter? You don t know how 
 poor we are. There s nothing for my little 
 Clytie to do but to be a dressmaker and you 
 know what that means, in Tusculum. Oh, do you 
 think I could teach school out in Star Star 
 Starbuckle?" 
 
 Miss Euphrosyne was crying. 
 
 Dick s census of possible pupils in the neigh 
 borhood of Starbuck satisfied Miss Euphrosyne. 
 It troubled Dick s conscience a bit, as he walked 
 back to the hotel. "But they ll all be married
 
 THE NINE CENT-GIRLS 101 
 
 off before she finds it out, so I guess it s all 
 right," he reflected. 
 
 The next week Dick went to New York. This 
 was in pursuance of an idea which he had con 
 fided to Winfield, on the eve of his forth-setting. 
 
 "Why," Winfield had said to him, "you are 
 clean left out of this deal, aren t you?" 
 
 "Of course I am," said Dick. "How am I 
 going to marry a poor girl on a hundred dollars 
 a month?" 
 
 "I might set you up for yourself " began 
 his employer. 
 
 "Hold on!" broke in Dick Cutter, with em 
 phasis. "You wouldn t talk that way if you d 
 ever been hungry yourself. I most starved that 
 last time I tried for myself; and I d starve next 
 trip, sure. You ve been a good friend to me, 
 Jack Winfield. Don t you make a damn fool 
 of yourself and spoil it all." 
 
 "But," he added, after a pause, "I "have a 
 little racket of my own. There s a widow in 
 New York who smiled on yours affectionately 
 once, ere she wed Mammon. I m going just to 
 see if she feels inclined to divide the late la 
 mented s pile with a blonde husband." 
 
 So, the business at Tusculum being determined, 
 and preparations for the hegira well under way, 
 Dick went to look after his own speculation. 
 
 He reached New York on Tuesday morning, 
 and called on the lady of his hopes that after-
 
 104 THE NINE CENT-GIELS 
 
 "If they show in Cleveland, I d like to go 9 
 first rate," the Conductor explained. 
 
 "Those ladies," Dick thundered, at the end of 
 his patience, "are not actresses!" 
 
 "Hmf ! What be they then!" asked the Con 
 ductor. 
 
 * * 
 
 They had arrived at Buffalo. They had gone 
 to the Niagara Hotel, and had been told that 
 there were no rooms for them; and to the Tifft 
 House, where there were no rooms; and to the 
 Genesee, where every room was occupied. Final 
 ly they had found quarters in a very queer hotel, 
 where the clerk, as he dealt out the keys, said: 
 
 "One for Lily, and one for Daisy and one for 
 Rosie here, Boss, sort out the flower-bed your 
 self," as he handed over the bunch. 
 
 Dick was taking a drink in the dingy bar-room, 
 and trying to forget the queer looks that had 
 been cast at his innocent caravan all the day, 
 when the solitary hall-boy brought a message 
 summoning him to Miss Euphrosyne s room. 
 He went, with his moral tail between his mental 
 legs. 
 
 "Mr. Cutter," said Miss Euphrosyne, firmly, 
 "we have made a mistake." 
 
 "It looks that way," replied Dick, feebly: 
 "but may be it s only the the ulsters." 
 
 "No," said Miss Euphrosyne. "The ulsters 
 are a part of it; but the whole thing is wrong 
 Mr. Cutter; and I see it all now. I didn t real 
 ize what it meant. But my eyes have been opened.
 
 THE NINE CENT-GIRLS 105 
 
 Nine yonng unmarried women cannot go West 
 with a young man if you had heard what people 
 were saying all around us in the cars you don t 
 know. We ve got to give up the idea. Oh, but 
 it was awful!" 
 
 Miss Euphrosyne, trembling, hid her face in 
 her hands. Her tears trickled out through her 
 thin fingers. 
 
 "And the old house is sold! What shall we 
 do? Where shall we go?" she cried, forgetting 
 Dick utterly, lost and helpless. 
 
 Dick was stalking up and down the room. 
 
 "It would be all right," he demanded, "if 
 there was a married woman to lead the gang, 
 and if if if we caught on to something new in 
 the ulster line?" 
 
 "It might be different," Miss Euphrosyne ad 
 mitted, with a sob. Speaking came hard to her. 
 She was tired; well nigh worn out. 
 
 "THEN," said Dick, with tremendous empha 
 sis, "what s the matter with my marrying one 
 of you?" 
 
 "Wliy, Mr. Cutter!" Miss Euphrosyne cried, 
 "I had no idea that you you ever thought of 
 is it Clytie?" 
 
 "No," said Mr. Cutter, "it isn t Clytie." 
 
 "Is it is it Miss Euphrosyne 9 s eyes lit up 
 with hope long since extinguished, "is it Au 
 rora?" 
 
 "No!" 
 
 Dick Cutter could have been heard three rooms 
 off.
 
 104 THE NINE CENT-GIRLS 
 
 "If they show in Cleveland, I d like to go, 
 first rate," the Conductor explained. 
 
 " Those ladies," Dick thundered, at the end of 
 his patience, "are not actresses!" 
 
 "Hmf ! What be they then?" asked the Con 
 ductor. 
 
 * 
 
 They had arrived at Buffalo. They had gone 
 to the Niagara Hotel, and had been told that 
 there were no rooms for them; and to the Tifft 
 House, where there were no rooms; and to the 
 Genesee, where every room was occupied. Final 
 ly they had found quarters in a very queer hotel, 
 where the clerk, as he dealt out the keys, said: 
 
 "One for Lily, and one for Daisy and one for 
 Bosie here, Boss, sort out the flower-bed your 
 self," as he handed over the bunch. 
 
 Dick was taking a drink in the dingy bar-room, 
 and trying to forget the queer looks that had 
 been cast at his innocent caravan all the day. 
 when the solitary hall-boy brought a message 
 summoning him to Miss Euphrosyne s room, 
 He went, with his moral tail between his mental 
 legs. 
 
 "Mr. Cutter," said Miss Euphrosyne, firmly, 
 "we have made a mistake." 
 
 "It looks that way," replied Dick, feebly; 
 "but may be it s only the the ulsters." 
 
 "No," said Miss Euphrosyne. "The ulsters 
 are a part of it; but the whole thing is wrong 
 Mr. Cutter; and I see it all now. I didn t real 
 ize what it meant. But my eyes have been opened
 
 THE NINE CENT-GIRLS 105 
 
 Nine yonng unmarried women cannot go West 
 with a young man if you had heard what people 
 were saying all around us in the cars you don t 
 know. "We ve got to give up the idea. Oh, but 
 it was awful!" 
 
 Miss Euphrosyne, trembling, hid her face in 
 her hands. Her tears trickled out through her 
 thin fingers. 
 
 "And the old house is sold! What shall we 
 do? Where shall we go?" she cried, forgetting 
 Dick utterly, lost and helpless. 
 
 Dick was stalking up and down the room. 
 
 "It would be all right," he demanded, "if 
 there was a married woman to lead the gang, 
 and if if if we caught on to something new in 
 the ulster line?" 
 
 "It might be different," Miss Euphrosyne ad 
 mitted, with a sob. Speaking came hard to her. 
 She was tired; well nigh worn out. 
 
 "THEN," said Dick, with tremendous empha 
 sis, "what s the matter with my marrying one 
 of you?" 
 
 "Wliy, Mr. Cutter!" Miss Euphrosyne cried, 
 "I had no idea that you you ever thought of 
 is it Clytie?" 
 
 "No," said Mr. Cutter, "it isn t Clytie." 
 
 "Is it is it " Miss Euphrosyne s eyes lit up 
 with hope long since extinguished, "is it Au 
 rora?" 
 
 "No!" 
 
 Dick Cutter could have been heard three rooms 
 off.
 
 106 THE NINE CENT-GIRLS 
 
 "No!" he said, with all his lungs. "It ain t 
 Clytie, nor it ain t Aurora, nor it ain t Flora, 
 nor Melpomene nor Cybele nor Alveolar Aureole 
 nor none of em. It s YOU Y-O-U! I want 
 to marry you, and what s more, I m going to!" 
 
 "Oh! oh! oh! oh!" said poor Miss Euphro 
 syne, and hid her face in her hands. She had 
 never thought to be happy, and now she was 
 happy for one moment. That seemed quite 
 enough for her modest soul. And yet more was 
 to come. 
 
 For once in his life, Dick Cutter seized the 
 right moment to do the right thing. One hour 
 later, Miss Euphrosyne Bailey was Mrs. Richard 
 Cutter. She did not know quite how it hap 
 pened. Clytie told her she had been bullied 
 into it. But oh! such sweet bullying! 
 
 "No," said Mr. Richard Cutter one morning 
 in September of the next year, to Mr. Jack 
 Winfield and his wife (Miss Aurora Bailey that 
 was), "I can t stop a minute. We re too busy 
 up at the ranch. The Wife has just bought out 
 Wilkinson; and I ve got to round up all his 
 stock. I ll see you next month, at Clytie s wed 
 ding. Queer, she should have gone off the last, 
 ain t it? Euphrosyne and I are going down to 
 Butte City Monday, to buy her a present. Know 
 anybody who wants to pay six per cent, for a 
 thousand?"
 
 THE NICE PEOPLE 
 
 "f | AHEY certainly are nice people," I as 
 sented to my wife s observation, nsing 
 A the colloquial phrase with a conscious 
 ness that it was any thing but "nice" English, 
 "and I ll bet that their three children are better 
 brought up than most of " 
 
 "Two children," corrected iny wife. 
 
 "Three, he told me." 
 
 "My dear, she said there were two." 
 
 "He said three." 
 
 "You ve simply forgotten. I m sure she told 
 me they had only two a boy and a girl." 
 
 "Well, I didn t enter into particulars." 
 
 "No, dear, and you couldn t have understood 
 him. Two children." 
 
 "All right," I said; but I did not think it was 
 all right. As a near-sighted man learns by en 
 forced observation to recognize persons at a dis 
 tance when the face is not visible to the normal 
 eye, so the man with a bad memory learns, almost 
 unconsciously, to listen carefully and report ac 
 curately. My memory is bad ; but I had not had 
 time to forget that Mr. Brewster Brede had told 
 me that afternoon that he had three children, at 
 present left in the care of his mother-in-law, 
 while he and Mrs. Brede took their Summer 
 vacation. 
 
 107
 
 108 THE NICE PEOPLE 
 
 "Two children," repeated my wife; "and they 
 are staying with his aunt Jenny." 
 
 "He told me with his mother-in-law," I put 
 in. My wife looked at me with a serious expres 
 sion. Men may not remember much of what they 
 are told about children; but any man knows the 
 difference between an aunt and a mother-in-law. 
 
 "But don t you think they re nice people?" 
 asked my wife. 
 
 "Oh, certainly," I replied. "Only they seem 
 to be a little mixed up about their children. 
 
 "That isn t a nice thing to say," returned my 
 wife. I could not deny it. 
 
 And yet, the next morning, when the B redes 
 came down and seated themselves opposite us 
 at table, beaming and smiling in their natural, 
 pleasant, w T ell-bred fashion, I knew, to a social 
 certainty, that they were "nice" people. He was 
 a fine-looking fellow in his neat tennis-flannels, 
 slim, graceful, twenty-eight or thirty years old, 
 with a Frenchy pointed beard. She was "nice" 
 in all her pretty clothes, and she herself was 
 pretty with that type of prettiness which out 
 wears most other types the prettiness that lies 
 in a rounded figure, a dusky skin, plump, rosy 
 cheeks, white teeth and black eyes. She might 
 have been twenty-five; you guessed that she was 
 prettier than she was at twenty, and that she 
 would be prettier still at forty. 
 
 And nice people were all we wanted to make
 
 THE NICE PEOPLE 109 
 
 us happy in Mr. Jacobus s Summer boarding- 
 house on top of Orange Mountain. For a week 
 we had come down to breakfast each morning, 
 wondering why we wasted the precious days of 
 idleness with the company gathered around the 
 Jacobus board. What joy of human companion 
 ship was to be had out of Mrs. Tabb and Miss 
 Hoogencamp, the two middle-aged gossips from 
 Scranton, Pa. out of Mr. and Mrs. Biggie, an 
 indurated head-bookkeeper and his prim and 
 censorious wife out of old Major Halkit, a re 
 tired business man, who, having once sold a few 
 shares on commission, wrote for circulars of 
 every stock company that was started, and tried 
 to induce every one to invest who would listen 
 to him? We looked around at those dull faces, 
 the truthful indices of mean and barren minds, 
 and decided that we would leave that morning. 
 Then we ate Mrs. Jacobus s biscuit, light as 
 Aurora s cloudlets, drank her honest coffee, in 
 haled the perfume of the late azaleas with which 
 she decked her table, and decided to postpone our 
 departure one more day. And then we wandered 
 out to take our morning glance at what we called 
 "our view;" and it seemed to us as if Tabb and 
 Hoogencamp and Halkit and the Biggleses could 
 not drive us away in a year. 
 
 I was not surprised when, after breakfast, my 
 wife invited the Bredes to walk with us to "our 
 view." The Hoogencamp - Biggie - Tabb - Halkit 
 contingent never stirred off Jacobus s verandah; 
 but we both felt that the Bredes would not pro-
 
 110 THE NICE PEOPLE 
 
 fane that sacred scene. "We strolled slowly across 
 the fields, passed through the little belt of woods, 
 and as I heard Mrs. Brede s little cry of startled 
 rapture, I motioned to Brede to look up. 
 
 "By Jove!" he cried, "heavenly!" 
 
 We looked off from the brow of the mountain 
 over fifteen miles of billowing green, to where, 
 far across a far stretch of pale blue lay a dim 
 purple line that we knew was Staten Island. 
 Towns and villages lay before us and under us; 
 there were ridges and hills, uplands and low 
 lands, woods and plains, all massed and mingled 
 in that great silent sea of sunlit green. For 
 silent it was to us, standing in the silence of a 
 high place silent with a Sunday stillness that 
 made us listen, without taking thought, for the 
 sound of bells coming up from the spires that 
 rose above the tree-tops the tree-tops that lay 
 as far beneath us as the light clouds were above 
 us that dropped great shadows upon our heads 
 and faint specks of shade upon the broad sweep 
 of land at the mountain s foot. 
 
 "And so that is your view?" asked Mrs. Brede, 
 after a moment; "you are very generous to make 
 it ours, too." 
 
 Then we lay down on the grass, and Brede 
 began to talk, in a gentle voice, as if he felt the 
 influence of the place. He had paddled a canoe, 
 in his earlier days, he said, and he knew every 
 river and creek in that vast stretch of landscape. 
 He found his landmarks, and pointed out to us 
 Sphere the Passaic and the Hackensack flowed,
 
 THE NICE PEOPLE 111 
 
 invisible to us, hidden behind great ridges that 
 in our sight were but combings of the green waves 
 upon which we looked down. And yet, on the 
 further side of those broad ridges and rises were 
 scores of villages a little world of country life, 
 lying unseen under our eyes. 
 
 "A good deal like looking at humanity/ he 
 said; "there is such a thing as getting so far 
 above our fellowmen that we see only one side 
 of them." 
 
 Ah, how much better was this sort of talk than 
 the chatter and gossip of the Tabb and the Hoo- 
 gencamp than the Major s dissertations upon his 
 everlasting circulars! My wife and I exchanged 
 glances. 
 
 "Now, when I went up the Matterhorn," Mr. 
 Brede began. 
 
 "Why, dear," interrupted his wife, "I didn t 
 know you ever went up the Matterhorn." 
 
 "It it was five years ago," said Mr. Brede, 
 hurriedly. "I I didn t tell you when I was 
 on the other side, you know it was rather dan 
 gerous well, as I was saying it looked oh, it 
 didn t look at all like this." 
 
 A cloud floated overhead, throwing its great 
 shadow over the field where we lay. The shadow 
 passed over the mountain s brow and reappeared 
 far below, a rapidly decreasing blot, flying east 
 ward over the golden green. My wife and I ex 
 changed glances once more. 
 
 Somehow, the shadow lingered over us all. As 
 we went home, the Bredes went side by side along
 
 112 THE NICE PEOPLE 
 
 the narrow path, and my wife and I walked to 
 gether. 
 
 "Should you ihirik," she asked me, "that a 
 man would climb the Matterhorn the very first 
 year he was married?" 
 
 "I don t know, my dear," I answered, evasive 
 ly; "this isn t the first year I have been married, 
 not by a good many, and I wouldn t climb it for 
 a farm." 
 
 "You know what I mean," she said. 
 
 I did. 
 
 When we reached the boarding-house, Mr. Ja 
 cobus took me aside. 
 
 "You know," he began his discourse, "my wife 
 she used to live in N York!" 
 
 I didn t know, but I said "Yes." 
 
 "She says the numbers on the streets runs 
 criss-cross-like. Thirty-four s on one side o the 
 street an thirty-five on t other. How s that?" 
 
 "That is the invariable rule, I believe." 
 
 "Then I say these here new folk that you 
 n your wife seem so mighty taken up with d ye 
 know anything about em?" 
 
 "I know nothing about the character of your 
 boarders, Mr. Jacobus," I replied, conscious of 
 some irritability. "If I choose to associate with 
 any of them " 
 
 "Jess so jess so!" broke in Jacobus. "I 
 hain t nothin to say ag inst yer sosherbil ty. 
 But do ye know them?"
 
 THE NICE PEOPLE 113 
 
 "Why, certainly not/ I replied. 
 
 "Well that was all I wuz askin ye. Ye see, 
 when lie come here to take the rooms you wasn t 
 here then he told my wife that he lived at num 
 ber thirty-four in his street. An yistiddy she 
 told her that they lived at number thirty-five. 
 He said he lived in an apartment-house. Now 
 there can t be no apartment-house on two sides 
 of the same street, kin they?" 
 
 "What street was it?" I inquired, wearily. 
 
 "Hunderd n twenty-first street." 
 
 "May be," I replied, still more wearily. 
 "That s Harlem. Nobody knows what people 
 will do in Harlem." 
 
 I went up to my wife s room. 
 
 "Don t you think it s queer?" she asked me. 
 
 "I think I ll have a talk with that young man 
 to-night," I said, "and see if he can give some 
 account of himself." 
 
 "But, my dear," my wife said, gravely, "she 
 doesn t know whether they ve had the measles 
 or not." 
 
 "Why, Great Scott!" I exclaimed, "they must 
 have had them when they were children." 
 
 "Please don t be stupid," said my wife. "I 
 meant their children." 
 
 After dinner that night or rather, after sup 
 per, for we had dinner in the middle of the day 
 at Jacobus s I walked down the long verandah 
 to ask Brede, who was placidly smoking at the
 
 114 THE NICE PEOPLE 
 
 other end, to accompany me on a twilight stroll. 
 Half way down I met Major Halkit. 
 
 "That friend of yours," he said, indicating 
 the unconscious figure at the further end of the 
 house, " seems to be a queer sort of a Dick. 
 He told me that he was out of business, and 
 just looking round for a chance to invest his 
 capital. And I ve been telling him what an 
 everlasting big show he had to take stock in 
 the Capitoline Trust Company starts next 
 month four million capital I told you all about 
 it. Oh, well/ he says, let s wait and think 
 about it. Wait! says I, the Capitoline Trust 
 Company won t wait for you, my boy. This is 
 letting you in on the ground floor, says I, and 
 it s now or never. Oh, let it wait, says he. 
 I don t know what s in-to the man." 
 
 "I don t know how well he knows his own 
 business, Major," I said as I started again for 
 Brede s end of the verandah. But I was trou 
 bled none the less. The Major could not have 
 influenced the sale of one share of stock in the 
 Capitoline Company. But that stock was a great 
 investment; a rare chance for a purchaser with 
 a few thousand dollars. Perhaps it was no 
 more remarkable that Brede should not invest 
 than that I should not and yet, it seemed to 
 add one circumstance more to the other sus 
 picious circumstances. 
 
 When I went upstairs that evening, I found
 
 THE NICE PEOPLE 115 
 
 my wife putting her hair to bed I don t know 
 how I can better describe an operation familiar 
 to every married man. I waited until the last 
 tress was coiled up, and then I spoke: 
 
 "I ve talked with Brede," I said, "and I 
 didn t have to catechize him. He seemed to feel 
 that some sort of explanation was looked for, and 
 he was very outspoken. You were right about the 
 children that is, I must have misunderstood 
 him. There are only two. But the Matterhorn 
 episode was simple enough. He didn t realize 
 how dangerous it was until he had got so far 
 into it that he couldn t back out; and he didn t 
 tell her, because he d left her here, you see, and 
 under the circumstances " 
 
 "Left her here!" cried my wife. "I ve been 
 sitting with her the whole afternoon, sewing, 
 and she told me that he left her at Geneva, and 
 came back and took her to Basle, and the baby 
 was born there now I m sure, dear, because I 
 asked her." 
 
 "Perhaps I was mistaken when I thought he 
 said she was on this side of the water," I sug 
 gested, with bitter, biting irony. 
 
 "You poor dear, did I abuse you?" said my 
 wife. "But, do you know, Mrs. Tabb said that 
 she didn t know how many lumps of sugar he 
 took in his coffee. Now that seems queer, doesn t 
 it." 
 
 It did. It was a small thing. But it looked 
 queer. Very queer.
 
 116 THE NICE PEOPLE 
 
 The next morning, it was clear that war was 
 declared against the Bredes. They came down 
 to breakfast somewhat late, and, as soon as they 
 arrived, the Biggleses swooped up the last frag 
 ments that remained on their plates, and made 
 a stately march out of the dining-room. Then 
 Miss Hoogencamp arose and departed, leaving 
 a whole fish-ball on her plate. Even as Atalanta 
 might have dropped an apple behind her to 
 tempt her pursuer to check his speed, so Miss 
 Hoogencamp left that fish-ball behind her, and 
 between her maiden self and Contamination. 
 
 We had finished our breakfast, my wife and 
 I, before the Bredes appeared. We talked it 
 over, and agreed that we were glad that we had 
 not been obliged to take sides upon such insuffi 
 cient testimony. 
 
 After breakfast, it was the custom of the male 
 half of the Jacobus household to go around the 
 corner of the building and smoke their pipes and 
 cigars where they would not annoy the ladies. 
 We sat under a trellis covered with a grape 
 vine that had borne no grapes in the memory 
 of man. This vine, however, bore leaves, and 
 these, on that pleasant Summer morning, shielded 
 from us two persons who were in earnest con 
 versation in the straggling, half-dead flower- 
 garden at the side of the house. 
 
 "I don t want," we heard Mr. Jacobus say, 
 "to enter in no man s pry-vacy, but I do want 
 to know who it may be, like, that I hev in my 
 house. Now what I ask of you, and I don t
 
 THE NICE PEOPLE 117 
 
 want you to take it as in no ways personal, is 
 hev you your merridge-license with you?" 
 
 "No," we heard the voice of Mr. Brede reply. 
 "Have you yours?" 
 
 I think it was a chance shot; but it told all 
 the same. The Major (he was a widower) and 
 Mr. Biggie and I looked at each other; and Mr. 
 Jacobus, on the other side of the grape-trellis, 
 looked at I don t know what and was as silent 
 as we were. 
 
 "Where is your marriage-license, married read 
 er? Do you know? Four men, not including 
 Mr. Brede, stood or sate on one side or the other 
 of that grape-trellis, and not one of them knew 
 where his marriage-license was. Each of us had 
 had one the Major had had three. But where 
 were they? Where is yours? Tucked in your 
 best-man s pocket; deposited in his desk or 
 washed to a pulp in his white waistcoat (if 
 white waistcoats be the fashion of the hour), 
 washed out of existence can you tell where 
 it is? Can you unless you are one of those 
 people who frame that interesting document and 
 hang it upon .their drawing-room walls? 
 
 Mr. Brede s voice arose, after an awful still 
 ness of what seemed like five minutes, and was, 
 probably, thirty seconds: 
 
 "Mr. Jacobus, will you make out your bill at 
 once, and let me pay it? I shall leave by the 
 six o clock train. And will you also send the 
 wagon for my trunks?"
 
 118 THE NICE PEOPLE 
 
 "I hain t said I wanted to hev ye leave " 
 began Mr. Jacobus; but Brede cut him short. 
 1 i Bring me your bill." 
 
 "But," remonstrated Jacobus, "ef ye ain t " 
 "Bring me your bill!" said Mr. Brede. 
 
 My wife and I went out for our morning s 
 walk. But it seemed to us, when we looked at 
 "our view," as if we could only see those in 
 visible villages of which Brede had told us 
 that other side of the ridges and rises of which 
 we catch no glimpse from lofty hills or from 
 the heights of human self-esteem. We meant to 
 stay out until the Bredes had taken their depar 
 ture; but we returned just in time to see Pete, 
 the Jacobus darkey, the blacker of boots, the 
 brusher of coats, the general handy-man of the 
 house, loading the Brede trunks on the Jacobus 
 wagon. 
 
 And, as we stepped upon the verandah, down 
 came Mrs. Brede, leaning on Mr. Brede s arm, 
 as though she were ill; and it was clear that she 
 had been crying. There were heavy rings about 
 her pretty black eyes. 
 
 My wife took a step toward her. 
 
 "Look at that dress, dear," she whispered; 
 "she never thought anything like this was going 
 to happen when she put tliat on." 
 
 It was a pretty, delicate, dainty dress, a grace 
 ful, narrow-striped affair. Her hat was trimmed 
 with a narrow-striped silk of the same colors
 
 THE NICE PEOPLE 119 
 
 maroon and white and in her hand she held a 
 parasol that matched her dress. 
 
 " She s had a new dress on twice a day," said 
 my wife ; "but that s the prettiest yet. Oh, some 
 how I m awfully sorry they re going!" 
 
 But going they were. They moved toward the 
 steps. Mrs. Brede looked toward my wife, and 
 my wife moved toward Mrs. Brede. But the 
 ostracised woman, as though she felt the deep 
 humiliation of her position, turned sharply away, 
 and opened her parasol to shield her eyes from 
 the sun. A shower of rice a half-pound shower 
 of rice fell down over her pretty hat and her 
 pretty dress, and fell in a spattering circle on 
 the floor, outlining her skirts and there it lay 
 in a broad, uneven band, bright in the morning 
 sun. 
 
 Mrs. Brede was in my wife s arms, sobbing as 
 if her young heart would break. 
 
 "Oh, you poor, dear, silly children!" my wife 
 cried, as Mrs. Brede sobbed on her shoulder, 
 "why didn t you tell us?" 
 
 "\V-W-W-We didn t want to be t-t-taken for 
 a b-b-b-b-bridal couple," sobbed Mrs. Brede; 
 "and we d-d-didn t dream what awful lies we d 
 have to tell, and all the aw-aw-ful mixed-up-ness 
 of it. Oh, dear, dear, dear!" 
 
 "Pete!" commanded Mr. Jacobus, "put back 
 them trunks. These folks stays here s long s 
 they wants ter. Mr. Brede " he held out a
 
 120 THE NICE PEOPLE 
 
 large, hard hand "I d orter ve known better," 
 he said. And my last doubt of Mr. Brede van 
 ished as he shook that grimy hand in manly 
 fashion. 
 
 The two women were walking off toward "our 
 view," each with an arm about the other s waist 
 touched by a sudden sisterhood of sympathy. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said Mr. Brede, addressing Ja 
 cobus, Biggie, the Major and me, "there is a 
 hostelry down the street where they sell honest 
 New Jersey beer. I recognize the obligations 
 of the situation." 
 
 We five men filed down the street. The two 
 women went toward the pleasant slope where the 
 sunlight gilded the forehead of the great hill. 
 On Mr. Jacobus s verandah lay a spattered 
 circle of shining grains of rice. Two of Mr. 
 Jacobus s pigeons flew down and picked up the 
 shining grains, making grateful noises far down 
 in their throats.
 
 MR. COPERNICUS AND THE 
 PROLETARIAT 
 
 THE old publishing house of T. Coper 
 nicus & Son was just recovering from 
 the rush of holiday business a rush of 
 perhaps a dozen purchasers. Christmas shoppers 
 rarely sought out the dingy building just around 
 the corner from Astor Place, and T. C. & Son 
 had done no great business since young T. C., 
 the "Son," died, fifteen years before. The house 
 lived on two or three valuable copyrights; and 
 old Mr. Copernicus kept it alive just for occu 
 pation s sake, now that Tom was dead. But he 
 liked to maintain the assumption that his queer 
 old business, with its publication of half-a-dozen 
 scientific or theological works per annum, was 
 the same flourishing concern that it had been in 
 his prime. That it did not flourish was nothing 
 to him. He was rich, thanks to himself; his wife 
 was rich, thanks to her aunt; his daughter was 
 rich, thanks to her grandmother. So he played 
 at business, and every Christmas-time he bought 
 a lot of fancy stationery and gift-books that no 
 body called for, and hired a couple of extra 
 porters for whom the head-porter did his best 
 to find some work. Then, the week after New 
 Year s, he would discharge his holiday hands, 
 
 121
 
 122 ME. COPERNICUS 
 
 and give each of them a dollar or two apiece ont 
 of his own pocket. 
 
 " Barney," he said to the old porter, "you 
 don t need those two extra men any longer?" 
 
 " Deed an we do not, sorr!" said Barney; 
 "th wan o thim wint off av himself the mornin , 
 an t other do be readin books the whole day 
 long." 
 
 "Send him to me," Mr. Copernicus ordered, 
 and Barney yelled unceremoniously, "Mike!" 
 
 The figure of a large and somewhat stout 
 youth, who might have been eighteen or twenty- 
 eight years old, appeared, rising from the sub- 
 cellar. His hair was black, his face was clean 
 shaven, and although he held in his hand the 
 evidence of his guilt, a book kept partly open 
 with his forefinger, he had an expression of 
 imperturbable calm, and placid, ox-like fixity 
 of purpose. He wore a long, seedy, black frock- 
 coat, buttoned up to the neck-band of his collar- 
 less shirt. 
 
 "How s this?" inquired Mr. Copernicus. "I m 
 told that you spend your time reading my books. 
 
 The young man slowly opened his mouth and 
 answered in a deliberate drawl, agreeably diver 
 sified by a peculiar stutter. 
 
 "I haven t been reading your b-b-books, sir; 
 I ve been reading my own. All I had to do was 
 to hand up boxes of fuf-fuf-fancy stationery, 
 and" 
 
 I see," interposed Mr. Copernicus, hurriedly, 
 
 "
 
 ME. COPEENICUS 123 
 
 "there hasn t been any very great call for fancy 
 stationery this year." 
 
 "And when there wasn t any c-c-call for it, I 
 read. I ain t going to be a pip-pip-porter all my 
 life. Would youT 
 
 "Why, of course, my boy," said Mr. Coper 
 nicus, "if you are reading to improve your mind, 
 in your leisure time let s see your book." 
 
 The young man handed him a tattered duo 
 decimo. 
 
 "Why, it s Virgil!" exclaimed his employer. 
 "You can t read this." 
 
 "Some of it I kik-kik-can, " returned the em 
 ployee, "and some of it I kik-kik-can t." 
 
 Mr. Copernicus sought out "Arma virumque" 
 and "Tityre, tu patulse," and one or two other 
 passages he was sure of, and the studious young 
 porter read them in the artless accent which the 
 English attribute to the ancient Eomans, and 
 translated them with sufficient accuracy. 
 
 "Where did you learn to read Latin?" 
 
 "I p-p-picked it up in odd hours." 
 
 "What else have you studied?" 
 
 "A little Gig-Gig-Greek." 
 
 "Anything else?" 
 
 "Some algebra and some Fif -Fif -French. " 
 
 "Where do you come from?" 
 
 "From Baltimore," drawled the prodigy, ut 
 terly unmoved by his employer s manifest aston 
 ishment. "I was janitor of a school there, and 
 the principal lent me his bib-bib-books." 
 
 "What is your name?"
 
 124 MB. COPERNICUS 
 
 * * M-M-Micliael Quinlan. 
 
 "And what was your father s business?" 
 
 "He was a bib-bib-bricklayer," the young man 
 replied calmly, adding, reflectively, "when he 
 wasn t did-did-drunk. 
 
 "Bless my old soul!" said Mr. Copernicus to 
 himself, "this is most extraordinary! I ll see 
 you again, young man. Barney!" he called to the 
 head-porter, "this young man will remain with 
 us for the present." 
 
 A couple of days later, Mr. Copernicus sent 
 for Michael Quinlan, and invited him to call at 
 the Copernicus residence on Washington Square, 
 that evening. 
 
 "I want to have Professor Barcalow talk with 
 you," he explained. 
 
 At the hour appointed, Mr. M. Quinlan pre 
 sented himself at the basement door of the old 
 house, and was promptly translated to the li 
 brary, where Professor Barcalow, once President 
 of Clear Creek University, Indiana, rubbed his 
 bald head and examined the young man at 
 length. 
 
 Quinlan underwent an hour s ordeal without 
 the shadow of discomposure. 
 
 He drawled and stuttered with a placid face, 
 whether his answers were right or wrong. At 
 the end of the hour, the Professor gave his 
 verdict. 
 
 "Our young friend," he said, "has certainly 
 done wonders for himself in the way of self- 
 tuition. He is almost able mind, I say almost
 
 MB. COPERNICUS 125 
 
 to pass a good Freshman examination. Of 
 course, he is not thorough. There is just the 
 same difference, Mr. Copernicus, between the 
 tuition you do for yourself and the tuition that 
 you receive from a competent teacher as there 
 is between the carpentering you do for yourself 
 and the carpentering a regular carpenter does 
 for you. I can see the marks of self -tuition all 
 over this young man s conversation. He has 
 never met a competent instructor in his life. 
 But he has done very well for himself wonder 
 fully well. He is entitled to great credit. Try 
 to remember, Quinlan, what I told you about 
 the use of the ablative absolute. 
 
 Quinlan said he would, and made his exit by 
 the basement door. 
 
 "If he works hard," remarked the Professor, 
 "he will be able to enter Clear Creek by June, 
 and work his way through." 
 
 "And as it happens," said Mr. Copernicus, 
 "I m going to lose my night-watchman next 
 week, and I think I ll put Quinlan in. And then 
 I ve been thinking there are all poor Tom s 
 books that he had when he went to Columbia. 
 I ll let the boy come here and borrow them, and 
 I can keep an eye on him and see how he s get 
 ting along." 
 
 "H m! yes, of course," the Professor assented 
 hesitatingly, dubious of Mr. Copernicus s classics. 
 
 Well, Barney," Mr. Copernicus hailed his
 
 126 MB. COPERNICUS 
 
 head-porter a month or two later, "how does our 
 new night-watchman do?" 
 
 " Faith, I ve seen worse than him," said Bar 
 ney. "He s a willing lad." 
 
 Barney s heart had been won. He came down 
 to the store each morning and found that Quin- 
 lan had saved him the trouble of taking off the 
 long sheets of cotton cloth that protected the 
 books on the counters from the dust. 
 
 Every week thereafter, Quinlan presented him 
 self at the basement door, shabby, but no longer 
 collarless, was admitted to the library, by way 
 of the back-stairs, and received from Mrs. Co 
 pernicus the books that Mr. Copernicus had set 
 aside for him. But one day Mr. Copernicus 
 forgot the books, and Mrs. Copernicus asked the 
 young man into the parlor to explain to him 
 how it had happened. When she had explained, 
 being a kindly soul, she made a little further 
 conversation, and asked Quinlan some questions 
 about his studies. Greek was Greek indeed to 
 her; but when he spoke of French, she felt as 
 though she had a sort of second-hand acquaint 
 ance with the language. 
 
 "Floretta," she said to her daughter, "talk 
 to Mr. Quinlan in French, and find out how much 
 he knows." 
 
 Floretta blushed. She was a wren-like little 
 thing, with soft brown hair, rather pretty, and 
 yet the sort of girl whom men never notice. To
 
 MB. COPERNICUS 127 
 
 address this male stranger was an agony to her. 
 But she knew that her French had been bought 
 at a fashionable boarding-school, and bought for 
 show, and her mother had a right to demand its 
 exhibition. She asked M. Quinlan how he por 
 trayed himself, and M. Quinlan, with no more 
 expression on his face than a Chinese idol, but 
 with a fluency checked only by his drawl and 
 his stutter, poured forth what sounded to Mrs. 
 Copernicus like a small oration. 
 
 "What did he say then, Floretta?" she de 
 manded. 
 
 He said how grateful he was to Papa for giv 
 ing him such a chance, and how he wants to be 
 a teacher when he knows enough. And, oh, 
 Mama, he speaks ever so much better than / do." 
 
 "Where did you learn to speak so well?" in 
 quired Mrs. Copernicus, incredulously. 
 
 "I lived for some years in a French house, 
 Ma am. At least, the lady of the house was 
 French, and she never spoke anything else." 
 
 Beneficence is quick to develop into an insidi 
 ous habit. When Mr. Copernicus heard this new 
 thing of his prodigy and protege, a new idea 
 came to him. 
 
 "Old Haverhill, down at the office, speaks 
 French like a native. I ll let him feel Quinlan s 
 teeth, and if he is as good as you say he is, 
 he d better come once a week and talk French to 
 Floretta for an hour. You can sit in the room. 
 She ought to keep up her French." 
 
 And every Wednesday, from four to five, Mr.
 
 128 MR. COPERNICUS 
 
 Quinlan and Miss Floretta conversed, Floretta 
 blushing ever, Quinlan retaining his idol-like 
 stolidity. Sometimes the dull monotony of his 
 drawl, broken only by his regular and rhythmic 
 stutter, lulled Mrs. Copernicus into a brief nap 
 over her book or her fancy work. 
 
 Spring had come. The trees had brought out 
 their pale and gauzy green veils, the beds of 
 tulips and Alpine daisies made glad spots in the 
 parks, and Quinlan, at his employer s suggestion, 
 had purchased a ready-made Spring suit, in 
 which he looked so presentable that Mr. Coper 
 nicus was half-minded to ask him to dinner. 
 
 For Mrs. Copernicus had said something to 
 Mr. Copernicus that had set him to thinking of 
 many things. The Chinese idol had abated no 
 jot of his stolidity, and yet perhaps he had 
 found a worshiper. Floretta began blushing of 
 Wednesdays, a full hour before the lesson. 
 
 What was to come of it? On the face of it, it 
 seemed impossible. A Quinlan and a Coperni 
 cus! And yet great-grandfather Copernicus, 
 who founded the family in America was not 
 he a carpenter? And did not his descendants 
 point with pride to his self-made solidity? And 
 here was native worth; high ambition; achieve 
 ment that promised more. And Floretta was 
 twenty-four, and had never had an offer. 
 "What," inquired Mr. Copernicus of himself, 
 "is my duty toward the proletariat?"
 
 MR, COPERNICUS 129 
 
 One thing was certain. If the question was not 
 settled in the negative at once, Quinlan must be 
 educated. So, instead of inviting Quinlan to 
 dinner, he invited Mr. Joseph Mitts, the travel 
 ing agent of the Hopkinsonian Higher Education 
 Association, who, by a rare chance, was in town. 
 
 Cynical folk said that the Hopkinsonian Asso 
 ciation existed only to sell certain text-books and 
 curious forms of stationery which were neces 
 sary to the Hopkinsonian system. But no such 
 idea had ever entered the head of Mr. Mitts. 
 He roamed about the land, introducing the Sys 
 tem wherever he could, and a brisk business 
 agent followed him and sold the Hopkinsonian 
 Blackboards and the Hopkinsonian Ink and 
 the Hopkinsonian Teachers Self-Examination 
 Blanks, on commission. 
 
 As they smoked their cigars in the Library 
 after dinner, Mr. Copernicus told Mr. Mitts 
 about Quinlan. Mr. Mitts was interested. He 
 knew a Professor at a fresh-water college who 
 would put Quinlan through his studies during 
 the vacation. 
 
 "Well, that s settled/ Mr. Copernicus said, 
 and he beamed with satisfaction. "I knew you d 
 help me out, Mitts. Only it s so hard ever to 
 get a sight of you you are always traveling 
 about." 
 
 "We don t often meet," Mr. Mitts assented. 
 "And it is curious that this visit should have 
 been the means of giving me sight of a man in 
 whom I want to interest you. His name is
 
 130 ME. COPERNICUS 
 
 Chester Dudley Winthrop Chester. He is the 
 son of my old clergyman, and he has given his 
 parents a deal of trouble. I don t know that 
 Dud ever was vicious or dissolute. But he was 
 the most confirmed idler and spendthrift I ever 
 knew. He couldn t even get through college, 
 and he never would do a stroke of work. He 
 made his father pay his debts half a dozen 
 times, and when that was stopped, he drifted 
 away, and his family quite lost sight of him. 
 I met him in Baltimore last year, and lent him 
 money to come to New York. He said he was 
 going to work. And just as I came in your front 
 door, I saw him going out of your basement 
 door with a package under his arm, so I infer 
 he is employed by one of your trades-people 
 your grocer, perhaps." 
 
 "Just as you came in? Why a large, dark- 
 haired young man?" 
 
 "Yes; clean-shaven." 
 
 "Why, that was Quinlan!" 
 
 "No," said Mr. Mitts, with the smile of supe 
 rior knowledge. "It was Chester, and if I m 
 not mistaken, he was kissing the cook." 
 
 "Then you are mistaken!" cried Mr. Coper 
 nicus; "my cook is as black as the ace of spades. 
 There isn t a white servant in the house." 
 
 "Why, that s so!" Mr. Mitts was staggered 
 for the moment. "But wait a minute does 
 your man Quinlan speak with a drawl, and just 
 one stutter to the sentence?"
 
 MR. COPEKNICUS 131 
 
 "I think he does," replied his host; "but " 
 
 "Dudley Chester!" said Mr. Mitts. 
 
 "But, my dear Mitts, where did he get the 
 Latin and Greek?" 
 
 "He had to learn something at Yale." 
 
 "And the French?" 
 
 "His mother was a French Canadian. That s 
 where he gets his French and his laziness." 
 
 Mr. Copernicus made one last struggle. 
 
 "But he has been most industrious and faith 
 ful in my employ." 
 
 "What is he?" 
 
 "My my night-w T atchman. " 
 
 "Mr. Copernicus," inquired Mr. Mitts, "have 
 you a watchman s clock in your building?" 
 
 "No, sir," said Mr. Copernicus, indignantly. 
 "I have none of those degrading new-fangled 
 machines. I prefer to trust my employees." 
 
 "Then Dudley Chester is asleep in your store 
 at this minute." 
 
 
 
 A soft, moist breeze, with something of the 
 sea in it, blew gently in at an open window of 
 the second floor of the business establishment of 
 T. Copernicus & Son. Near the window a gas- 
 jet flickered. Under the gas-jet, on, or rather in, 
 a bed ingeniously constructed of the heaped-up 
 covering-cloths from the long counters, lay Mr. 
 Michael Quinlan, half-supported on his left elbow. 
 In his other hand he held, half-open, a yellow- 
 covered French novel. Between his lips was a 
 cigarette. A faint shade of something like amuse-
 
 132 MR. COPERNICUS 
 
 ment lent expression to his placid features as he 
 listened to Mr. Copernicus puffing his way up 
 the stairs, followed by Mr. Mitts and Barney. 
 The hands on the clock pointed to eleven. Mr. 
 Quinlan s attire was appropriate to the hour. 
 He wore only a frayed cotton night-shirt. His 
 other clothes were carelessly disposed about his 
 couch. 
 
 He waited calmly until his visitors had ap 
 peared before him, and then he greeted them 
 with a gracious wave of his hand an easy ges 
 ture that seemed to dismiss Quinlan and an 
 nounce Chester. 
 
 "Gentlemen," he drawled, "you ll excuse my 
 not gig-gig-getting up to welcome you. Ah, Jo 
 seph! I saw you this evening, and I supposed 
 the j-j-jig was up." 
 
 Mr. Copernicus was purple and speechless for 
 the better part of a minute. Then he demanded, 
 in a husky whisper: 
 
 "Who are you?" 
 
 Mr. Chester, with nothing of the Quinlan left 
 about him, waved his hand once more. 
 
 "Mr. Joseph Mitts is a gentleman of irre- 
 pip-pip-proachable veracity," he said. "I can 
 kik-kik-confidently confirm any statements he has 
 made about me." 
 
 "And why " Mr. Copernicus had found his 
 voice "why have you humbugged me in this 
 iniquitous infamous w r ay?" 
 
 The late Quinlan gazed at him with blank sur 
 prise.
 
 MR. COPERNICUS 133 
 
 "My dear sir, did-did-don t you see? If I d 
 told you who I was, you d have thought I was 
 a did-did-damn fool not to know more than I 
 did. Whereas, don t you seel you thought I 
 was a did-did-devil of a fellow." 
 
 "Get up and dress yourself and get out of 
 here!" said his employer. 
 
 "The jig, then," inquired Mr. Dudley Chester, 
 slowly rising, "is did-did-defmitely up? No more 
 Fif-Fif-Freneh lessons? No? Well," he con 
 tinued, as he leisurely pulled on his trousers, 
 "that s the kik-kik-cussed inconsistency. The 
 j-j-jig is up for the gentleman; but when you 
 thought I was a did-did-damn Mick, I was right 
 in the bib-bib-bosom of the blooming family." 
 
 "Here are your week s wages," said Mr. Co 
 pernicus, trembling with rage. "Now, get out!" 
 
 "Not exactly," responded the unperturbed 
 sinner; "a ticket to Chicago!" 
 
 "I m afraid you had best yield," whispered 
 Mr. Mitts. "Your family, you know. It wouldn t 
 do to have this get out." 
 
 Mr. Copernicus had a minute of purple rage. 
 Then he handed the money to Mr. Mitts. 
 
 "Put him on the train," he said. "There s 
 one at twelve." 
 
 "We can make it if we hurry," said the 
 obliging Mr. Mitts. "Where s your lodging- 
 house, Chester?" 
 
 Chester opened his eyes inquiringly. "Why, 
 this is all I ve got," he said; "what s the mim- 
 mim-matter with this?"
 
 134 MB. COPERNICUS 
 
 "But your your luggage?" inquired Mr. 
 Mitts. 
 
 Mr. Chester waved a much-worn tooth-brush 
 in the air. 
 
 "Man wants but lil-lil-little here below," he 
 remarked. 
 
 see," explained Mr. Dudley Winthrop 
 Chester, formerly Quinlan, as he stepped out 
 into the night air with Mr. Mitts, "the scheme 
 is bib-bib-busted here, but I ve got confidence 
 in it. It s good it ll gig-gig-go. Chicago s the 
 pip-pip-place for me. I suppose if you flash up 
 amo, amas to a Chicago man, he thinks you re 
 Elihu Burritt, the learned bib-bib-blacksmith." 
 
 "Aren t you tired of this life of false pre 
 tences?" asked Mr. Mitts, sternly. 
 
 "You can bib-bib-bet I am," responded Ches 
 ter, frankly; "I haven t said a cuss- word in 
 six months. Did-did-did-damn damn damn 
 damn!" he vociferated into the calm air of 
 night, by way of relieving his pent-up feelings. 
 
 "How long is it, Dudley," pursued the pa 
 tient Mitts, "since your parents heard from 
 you?" 
 
 "Two years, I gig-gig-guess," said Chester. 
 "By Jove!" he added, as his eye fell on the 
 blue sign of a telegraph office, " did-did-damn 
 if I don t telegraph them right now." 
 
 Mr. Mitts was deeply gratified. "That s a 
 good idea," he said.
 
 MR. COPERNICUS 135 
 
 "Lend me a kik-kik-quarter, " said Dudley 
 Chester. 
 
 At midnight sharp, Mr. Mitts saw his charge 
 ascend the rear platform of the Chicago train 
 just as it moved out of the gloomy Jersey City 
 station of the Pennsylvania Railroad. 
 
 A young woman of slight figure, with a veil 
 about her face, emerged from the interior of the 
 car and threw her arms around the neck of 
 Mr. Chester, late Quinlan. 
 
 "I thought I wasn t mistaken," said Mr. Mitts 
 to himself. 
 
 The next week he received an envelope con 
 taining a scrap roughly torn out of a daily 
 paper. It read as follows: 
 
 MARRIL 
 
 .3CHOFF. At tL. 
 
 // tbe Rev. Dr. Krotej. 
 
 BISCHOFT. daughter ot 
 
 off. to THEODORE BRECBINO. of On*bro*.-. 
 many. 
 
 OHESlER-COPERNlC0S.-At the rectory of th 
 Church of St. Jaao8 the Greater, by tho Rev. Dr. 
 Wilson Wilson, I). D.. FLOBETTA. daughter of 
 Thomas Copernicus, of New York, to EUDLKY 
 
 CHESTEB. of Baltimore. Md. No cards. 
 
 Marriwe -xh no* ~~v * -d, without 
 extra char Uher the 
 
 London " , 
 
 Bt 
 
 And yet, within six months, Mr. Mitts re 
 ceived cards. They bade him to a reception 
 given by Mr. and Mrs. Chester at the house of 
 Mr. Thomas Copernicus. 
 
 "7 couldn t have done that," said Mitts to 
 himself.
 
 HECTOR 
 
 IT was such a quiet old home, so comfortably 
 covered with wistaria from basement to 
 chimney-tops, and it stood on the corner 
 of two such quiet, old-fashioned streets on the 
 East Side of New York that you would never 
 have imagined that it held six of the most agi 
 tated and perturbed women in the great city. 
 But the three Miss Pellicoes, their maid, their 
 waitress and their cook, could not have been 
 more troubled in their feminine minds had they 
 been six exceptionally attractive Sabines with 
 the Roman soldiery in full cry. 
 
 For twenty years ever since the death of old 
 Mr. Pellicoe these six women had lived in mor 
 tal fear of the marauding man, and the Man had 
 come at last. That very evening, at a quarter 
 past eight o clock, a creature who called himself 
 a book-agent had rung the front door bell. Ho- 
 nora, the waitress, had opened the door a couple 
 of inches, inquired the stranger s business, 
 learned it, told him to depart, tried to close 
 the door, and discovered that the man had in 
 serted his toe in the opening. She had closed 
 the door violently, and the man had emitted a 
 single oath of deep and sincere profanity. He 
 had then kicked the door and departed, with a 
 marked limp. 
 
 136
 
 HECTOR 137 
 
 At least this was the story as Honora first 
 related it. But as she stood before the assem 
 bled household and recounted it for the seventh 
 time, it had assumed proportions that left no 
 room for the charitable hypothesis that an in 
 nocent vender of literature had been the hapless 
 victim of his own carelessness or clumsiness. 
 
 "And whin he had the half of his big ugly 
 bod} 7 in the crack o th dure," she said, in 
 excited tones and with fine dramatic action, "and 
 him yellin an swearin and cussin* iv ry holy 
 name he could lay his black tongue to, and me six 
 years cook in a convent, and I t rew th* whole 
 weight o me on th dure, an 
 
 "That will do, Honora," said Miss Pellicoe, 
 who was the head of the household. She per 
 ceived that the combat was deepening too rapid 
 ly. "You may go. We will decide what is to 
 be done." 
 
 And Miss Pellicoe had decided what was to 
 be done. 
 
 "Sisters," she said to her two juniors, "we 
 must keep a dog." 
 
 "A dog!" cried Miss Angela, the youngest; 
 "oh, how nice!" 
 
 "I do not think it is nice at all," said Miss 
 Pellicoe, somewhat sternly, "nor would you, 
 Angela, if you had any conception of what it 
 really meant. I do not propose to keep a lap- 
 dog, or a King Charles spaniel, but a dog a 
 mastiff, or a bloodhound, or some animal of that
 
 138 HECTOE 
 
 nature, such as would spring at the throat of 
 an invader, and bear him to the ground!" 
 
 "Oh, dear!" gasped Miss Angela. "I should 
 be afraid of him!" 
 
 "You do not understand as yet, Angela," Miss 
 Pellicoe explained, knitting her brows. "My 
 intention is to procure the animal as a in fact 
 a puppy, and thus enable him to grow up and to 
 regard us with affection, and be willing to hold 
 himself at all times in readiness to afford us 
 the protection we desire. It is clearly impos 
 sible to have a man in the house. I have de 
 cided upon a mastiff." 
 
 When Miss Pellicoe decided upon a thing, Miss 
 Angela Pellicoe and her other sister promptly 
 acquiesced. On this occasion they did not, even 
 in their inmost hearts, question the wisdom of 
 the decision of the head of the house. A man, 
 they knew, was not to be thought of. For twenty 
 years the Pellicoe house had been a bower of 
 virginity. The only men who ever entered it 
 were the old family doctor, the older family 
 lawyer, and annually, on New Year s Day, in 
 accordance with an obsolete custom, Major Kit- 
 sedge, their father s old partner, once junior of 
 the firm of Pellicoe & Kitsedge. Not even the 
 butcher or the baker or the candlestick-maker 
 forced an entrance to that innocent dovecote. 
 They handed in their wares through a wicket- 
 gate in the back yard and were sent about their 
 business by the chaste Honora. 
 
 The next morning, having awakened to find
 
 HECTOR 139 
 
 themselves and the silver still safe, Miss Pellicoe 
 and Miss Angela set out for a dog store which 
 they had seen advertised in the papers. It was in 
 an unpleasantly low and ill-bred part of the town, 
 and when the two ladies reached it, they paused 
 outside the door, and listened, with lengthened 
 faces, to the combined clamor and smell that ema 
 nated from its open door. 
 
 "This," said Miss Pellicoe, after a brief delib 
 eration, "is not a place for us. If we are to pro 
 cure a dog, he must be procured in some other 
 way. It need not entail a loss of self-respect. 
 
 "I have it!" she added with a sudden inspira 
 tion. "I will write to Hector." 
 
 Hector was the sole male representative of the 
 Pellicoe family. He was a second cousin of the 
 Misses Pellicoe. He lived out West his address 
 varying from year to year. Once in a long while 
 Miss Pellicoe wrote to him, just to keep herself 
 in communication with the Man of the family. It 
 made her feel more secure, in view of possible 
 emergencies. She had not seen Hector since he 
 was nineteen. He was perhaps the last person 
 of any positive virility who had had the freedom 
 of the Pellicoe household. He had used that free 
 dom mainly in making attempts to kiss Honora, 
 who was then in her buxom prime, and in decor 
 ating the family portraits with cork moustaches 
 and whiskers. Miss Pellicoe clung to the Man of 
 the family as an abstraction ; but she was always 
 glad that he lived in the West. Addressing him 
 in his capacity of Man of the family, she wrote
 
 140 HECTOR 
 
 to him and asked him to supply her with a young 
 mastiff, and to send her bill therefor. She ex 
 plained the situation to him, and made him under 
 stand that the dog must be of a character to be 
 regarded as a male relative. 
 
 Hector responded at once. He would send a 
 mastiff pup within a w^eek. The pup s pedigree 
 was, unfortunately, lost, but the breed was high. 
 Fifty dollars would cover the cost and expenses 
 of transportation. The pup was six months old. 
 
 For ten days the Pellicoe household was in a 
 fever of expectation. Miss Pellicoe called in a 
 carpenter, and, chaperoned by the entire house 
 hold, held an interview with him, and directed 
 him how to construct a dog-house in the back-yard 
 a dog-house with one door about six inches 
 square, to admit the occupant in his innocent pup- 
 hood, and with another door about four feet in 
 height to emit him, when, in the pride of his ma 
 ture masculinit} 7 , he should rush forth upon the 
 burglar and the book-agent. The carpenter re 
 marked that he " never seen no such a dorg as 
 that;" but Miss Pellicoe thought him at once 
 ignorant and ungrammatical, and paid no heed 
 to him. 
 
 In conclave assembled, the Misses Pellicoe de 
 cided to name the dog Hector. Besides the con 
 sideration of the claims of gratitude and family 
 affection, they remembered that Hector was a 
 classical hero. 
 
 The ten days came to an end when, just at dusk 
 of a dull January day, two stalwart expressmen,
 
 HECTOR 141 
 
 with much open grumbling and smothered curs 
 ing, deposited a huge packing-case in the vestibule 
 of the Pellicoe house, and departed, slamming the 
 doors behind them. From this box proceeded 
 such yelps and howls that the entire household 
 rushed affrighted to peer through the slats that 
 gridironed the top. Within was a mighty black 
 beast, as high as a table, that flopped itself wildly 
 about, clawed at the sides of the box, and swung 
 in every direction a tail as large as a policeman s 
 night-club. 
 
 It was Hector. There was no mistake about it, 
 for Mr. Hector Pellicoe s card was nailed to a 
 slat. It was Hector, the six-months-old pup, for 
 whose diminutive proportions the small door in 
 the dog-house had been devised ; Hector, for whom 
 a saucer of lukewarm milk was even then waiting 
 by the kitchen range. 
 
 "Oh, Sister I" cried Miss Angela, "we never 
 can get him out ! You ll have to send for a man!" 
 
 "I certainly shall not send for a man at this 
 hour of the evening," said Miss Pellicoe, white, 
 but firm; "and I shall not leave the poor creature 
 imprisoned during the night." Here Hector 
 yawped madly. 
 
 "I shall take him out," exclaimed Miss Pelli 
 coe, "myself!" 
 
 They hung upon her neck, and entreated her 
 not to risk her life ; but Miss Pellicoe had made up 
 her mind. The three maids shoved the box into 
 the butler s pantry, shrieking with terror every 
 time that Hector leaped at the slats, and at last,
 
 142 HECTOR 
 
 with the two younger Pellicoes holding one door 
 a foot open, and the three maids holding the other 
 door an inch open, Miss Pellicoe seized the house 
 hold hatchet, and began her awful task. One slat ! 
 Miss Pellicoe was white but firm. Two slats! 
 Miss Pellicoe was whiter and firmer. Three slats ! 
 and a vast black body leaped high in the air. 
 With five simultaneous shrieks, the two doors 
 were slammed to, and Miss Pellicoe and Hector 
 were left together in the butler s pantry. 
 
 The courage of the younger Pellicoes asserted 
 itself after a moment, and they flung open the 
 pantry door. Miss Pellicoe, looking as though 
 she needed aromatic vinegar, leaned against the 
 wall. Hector had his fore-paws on her shoul 
 ders, and was licking her face in exuberant affec 
 tion. 
 
 11 Sisters/ gasped Miss Pellicoe, "will you 
 kindly remove him? I should like to faint." 
 
 But Hector had already released her to dash 
 at Miss Angela, who frightened him by going into 
 such hysterics that Miss Pellicoe was obliged to 
 deny herself the luxury of a faint. Then he found 
 the maids, and, after driving them before him 
 like chaff for five minutes, succeeded in convinc 
 ing Honora of the affectionate purpose of his 
 demonstrations, and accepted her invitation to 
 the kitchen, where he emptied the saucer of milk 
 in three laps. 
 
 "I think, Honora, " suggested Miss Pellicoe, 
 who had resumed command, "that you might, per 
 haps, give him a slice or two of last night s leg
 
 HECTOR 143 
 
 of mntton. Perhaps he needs something more 
 sustaining." 
 
 Honora produced the mutton-leg. It was clearly 
 what Hector wanted. He took it from her with 
 out ceremony, bore it under the sink and ate all 
 of it except about six inches of the bone, which 
 he took to bed with him. 
 
 The next day, feeling the need of masculine ad 
 vice, Miss Pellicoe resolved to address herself 
 to the policeman on the beat, and she astonished 
 him with the following question : 
 
 "Sir," she said, in true Johnsonian style, "what 
 height should a mastiff dog attain at the age of 
 six months?" 
 
 The policeman stared at her in utter aston 
 ishment. 
 
 "They do be all sizes, Mum," he replied, 
 blankly, "like a piece of cheese." 
 
 "My relative in the West," explained Miss 
 Pellicoe, "has sent me a dog, and I am given to 
 understand that his age is six months. As he is 
 phenomenally large, I have thought it best to seek 
 for information. Has my relative been imposed 
 upon?" 
 
 "It s har-r-rd to tell, Mum," replied the police 
 man, dubiously. Then his countenance brightened. 
 "Does his feet fit him?" he inquired. 
 
 "What what do you mean?" asked Miss Pel 
 licoe, shrinking back a little. 
 
 "Is his feet like blackin -boxes on th ind of 
 his legs?" 
 
 "They are certainly very large."
 
 144 HECTOE 
 
 "Thin tis a pup. You see, Mum, with a pup, 
 tis this way. The feet starts first, an the pup 
 grows up to em, like. Av they match him, he s 
 grown. Av he has arctics on, he s a pup." 
 
 Hector s growth in the next six months dissi 
 pated all doubts as to his puphood. He became 
 a four-legged Colossus, martial toward cats, ag 
 gressive toward the tradesmen at the wicket-gate, 
 impartially affectionate toward all the household, 
 and voracious beyond all imagining. But he 
 might have eaten the gentle ladies out of house 
 and home, and they would never have dreamed 
 of protesting. The house had found a Head 
 even a Head above Miss Pellicoe. 
 
 The deposed monarch gloried in her subjection. 
 She said "Hector likes this," or "Hector likes 
 that," with the tone of submissive deference in 
 which you may hear a good wife say, Mr. Smith 
 will not eat cold boiled mutton," or "Mr. Smith 
 is very particular about his shirt-bosoms." 
 
 As for Miss Angela, she never looked at Hector, 
 gamboling about the back-yard in all his super 
 abundance of strength and vitality, without feel 
 ing a half-agreeable nervous shock, and a flutter 
 of the heart. He stood for her as the type of that 
 vast outside world of puissant manhood of which 
 she had known but two specimens her father and 
 Cousin Hector. Perhaps, in the old days, if Cousin 
 Hector had not been so engrossed in frivolity and 
 making of practical jokes, he might have learned
 
 HECTOR 145 
 
 of something to his advantage. But he never 
 did. 
 
 For the first time in her life, Miss Angela found 
 herself left to watch the house through the horrors 
 of the Fourth of July. This had always been Miss 
 Pellicoe s duty ; but this year Miss Pellicoe failed 
 to come back from the quiet place in the Catskills, 
 where no children were admitted, and where the 
 Pellicoe family, two at a time, spent the Summer 
 in the society of other old maids and of aged 
 widows. 
 
 "I feel that you are safe with Hector," she 
 wrote. 
 
 Alack and alack for Miss Pellicoe s faith in 
 Hector ! The first fire-cracker filled him with ex 
 citement, and before the noises of the day had 
 fairly begun, he was careering around the yard, 
 barking in uncontrollable frenzy. At twelve 
 o clock, when the butcher-boy came with the chops 
 for luncheon, Hector bounded through the open 
 wicket, right into the arms of a dog-catcher. Miss 
 Angela wrung her hands as she gazed from her 
 window and saw the Head of the House cast into 
 the cage with a dozen curs of the street and driven 
 rapidly off. 
 
 In her lorn anguish she sought the functionary 
 who was known in the house as "Miss Pellicoe s 
 policeman." 
 
 * * Be aisy, Miss, he said. l Av the dog is worth 
 five dollars, say, to yez, I have a friend will get 
 him out for th accommodation."
 
 146 HECTOR 
 
 Oh, take it, take it ! cried Miss Angela, trem 
 bling and weeping. 
 
 After six hours of anxious waiting, Miss Angela 
 received Hector at the front door, from a boy who 
 turned and fled as soon as his mission was ac 
 complished. Hector was extremely glad to be at 
 home, and his health seemed to be unimpaired; 
 but to Miss Angela s delicate fancy, contact with 
 the vulgar of his kind had left a vague aroma of 
 degradation about him. With her own hands she 
 washed him in tepid water and sprinkled him 
 with eau de cologne. And even then she could 
 not help feeling that to some extent the bloom 
 had been brushed from the peach. 
 
 Hector was ill very ill. The family conclave 
 assembled every night and discussed the situation 
 with knit brows and tearful eyes. They could not 
 decide whether the cause of his malady was the 
 unwholesomeness of the Summer air in the city, 
 or whether it was simply over-feeding. He was 
 certainly shockingly fat, and much indisposed to 
 exertion. He had lost all his activity; all his 
 animal spirits. He spent most of the time in his 
 house. Even his good-nature was going. He had 
 actually snapped at Honora. They had tried to 
 make up their minds to reduce his rations; but 
 their hearts had failed them. They had hoped 
 that the cool air of September would help him;
 
 HECTOR 147 
 
 but September was well nigh half gone; and 
 Hector grew worse and worse. 
 
 " Sisters," said Miss Pellieoe, at last, "we shall 
 have to send for a Veterinary!" She spoke as 
 though she had just decided to send for an execu 
 tioner. And even as the words left her lips there 
 came from Hector such a wail of anguish that 
 Miss Pellicoe s face turned a ghastly white. 
 
 "He is going mad!" she cried. 
 
 There was no sleep in the Pellicoe household 
 that night, although Hector wailed no more. At 
 the break of day, Miss Pellicoe led five other white- 
 faced women into the back yard. 
 
 Hector s head lay on the sill of his door. He 
 seemed too weak to rise, but he thrashed his tail 
 pleasantly against the walls, and appeared amiable 
 and even cheerful. The six advanced. 
 
 Miss Pellicoe knelt down and put her hand in 
 to pet him. Then a strange expression came 
 over her face. 
 
 "Sister," she said, "I think a cat has got in 
 and bitten him." 
 
 She closed her hand on something soft, lifted 
 it out and laid it on the ground. It was small, 
 it was black, it was dumpy. It moved a round 
 head in an uncertain, inquiring way, and tried 
 to open its tightly-closed eyes. Then it squeaked. 
 
 Thrice more did Miss Pellicoe thrust her hand 
 into the house. Thrice again did she bring out 
 an object exactly similar. 
 
 "Wee-e-e-e!" squeaked the four objects. Hec 
 tor thrashed her tail about and blinked joyfully,
 
 148 HECTOR 
 
 all unconscious of the utter wreck of her mascu 
 linity, looking as though it were the most natural 
 thing in the world for her to have a litter of 
 pups as, indeed, it was. 
 
 Honora broke the awful silence Miss Angela 
 was sobbing so softly you could scarcely hear 
 her. 
 
 "Be thim Hectors? * Honora inquired. 
 
 "Honora!" said Miss Pellicoe, rising, "never 
 utter that name in my presence again." 
 
 "An fwat shall I call the dog?" 
 
 "Call it" and Miss Pellicoe made a pause 
 of impressive severity, "call it Andromache."
 
 A SISTERLY SCHEME 
 
 AWAY up in the very heart of Maine 
 there is a mighty lake among the moun 
 tains. It is reached after a journey of 
 many hours from the place where you "go in." 
 That is the phrase of the country, and when 
 you have once "gone in," you know why it is 
 not correct to say that you have gone through 
 the woods, or, simply, to your destination. You 
 find that you have plunged into a new world a 
 world that has nothing in common with the 
 world that you live in; a world of wild, solemn, 
 desolate grandeur, a world of space and silence; 
 a world that oppresses your soul and charms 
 you irresistibly. And after you have once "come 
 out" of that world, there will be times, to the 
 day of your death, when you will be homesick 
 for it, and will long with a childlike longing to 
 go back to it. 
 
 Up in this wild region you will find a fash 
 ionable Summer hotel, with electric bells and 
 seven-course dinners, and "guests" who dress 
 three times a day. It is perched on a little flat 
 point, shut off from the rest of the mainland 
 by a huge rocky cliff. It is an impertinence 
 in that majestic wilderness, and Leather-Stock 
 ing would doubtless have had a hankering to 
 burn such an affront to Nature; but it is a 
 
 149
 
 150 A SISTERLY SCHEME 
 
 good hotel, and people go to it and breathe 
 the generous air of the great woods. 
 
 On the beach near this hotel, where the canoes 
 were drawn up in line, there stood one Summer 
 morning a curly-haired, fair young man not so 
 very young, either whose cheeks were uncom 
 fortably red as he looked first at his own canoe, 
 high and dry, loaded with rods and landing-net 
 and luncheon-basket, and then at another canoe, 
 fast disappearing down the lake, wherein sat 
 a young man and a young woman. 
 
 "Dropped again, Mr. Morpeth?" 
 
 The young man looked up and saw a saucy 
 face laughing at him. A girl was sitting on the 
 string-piece of the dock. It was the face of a 
 girl between childhood and womanhood. By the 
 face and the figure, it was a woman grown. By 
 the dress, you would have judged it a girl. 
 
 And you would have been confirmed in the 
 latter opinion by the fact that the young person 
 was doing something unpardonable for a young 
 lady, but not inexcusable in the case of a youth 
 ful tomboy. She had taken off her canvas shoe, 
 and was shaking some small stones out of it. 
 There was a tiny hole in her black stocking, 
 and a glimpse of her pink toe was visible. The 
 girl was sunburnt, but the toe was prettily pink. 
 
 "Your sister, " replied the young man with 
 dignity, "was to have gone fishing with me; but 
 she remembered at the last moment that she had 
 a prior engagement with Mr. Brown." 
 
 "She hadn t," said the girl. "I heard them
 
 A SISTERLY SCHEME 151 
 
 make it up last evening, after you went up 
 stairs." 
 
 The young man clean forgot himself. 
 
 " She s the most heartless coquette in the 
 world!" he cried, and clinched his hands. 
 
 "She is all that," said the young person on 
 the string-piece of the dock, "and more, too. 
 And yet, I suppose, you want her all the same?" 
 
 "I m afraid I do," said the young man, mis 
 erably. 
 
 "Well," said the girl, putting her shoe on 
 again, and beginning to tie it up, "I ll tell you 
 what it is, Mr. Morpeth. You ve been hanging 
 around Pauline for a year, and you are the only 
 one of the men she keeps on a string who hasn t 
 snubbed me. Now, if you want me to, I ll give 
 you a lift." 
 
 "A a what?" 
 
 "A lift. You re wasting your time. Pauline 
 has no use for devotion. It s a drug in the mar 
 ket with her has been for five seasons. There s 
 only one way to get her worked up. Two fel 
 lows tried it, and they nearly got there; but 
 they weren t game enough to stay to the bitter 
 end. I think you re game, and I ll tell you. 
 You ve got to make her jealous." 
 
 "Make her jealous of me 1 ?" 
 
 "No!" said his friend, with infinite scorn; 
 "make her jealous of the other girl. Oh! but 
 you men are stupid!" 
 
 The young man pondered a moment. 
 
 "Well, Flossy," he began, and then he became
 
 152 A SISTEELY SCHEME 
 
 conscious of a sudden change in the atmosphere, 
 and perceived that the young lady was regarding 
 him with a look that might have chilled his 
 soul. 
 
 "Miss Flossy Miss Belton " he hastily cor 
 rected himself. Winter promptly changed to 
 Summer in Miss Flossy Belton s expressive face. 
 
 "Your scheme," he went on, "is a good one. 
 Only it involves the discovery of another girl." 
 
 "Yes," assented Miss Flossy, cheerfully. 
 
 "Well," said the young man, "doesn t it strike 
 you that if I were to develop a sudden admira 
 tion for any one of these other young ladies 
 whose charms I have hitherto neglected, it would 
 come tardy off lack artistic verisimilitude, so to 
 speak?" 
 
 "Kather," was Miss Flossy s prompt and 
 frank response; "especially as there isn t one 
 of them fit to flirt with." 
 
 "Well, then, where am I to discover the girl?" 
 
 Miss Flossy untied and retied her shoe. Then 
 she said, calmly: 
 
 "What s the matter with " a hardly percep 
 tible hesitation "me?" 
 
 "With you?" Mr. Morpeth was startled out 
 of his manners. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Mr. Morpeth simply stared. 
 
 "Perhaps," suggested Miss Flossy, "I m not 
 good-looking enough?" 
 
 "You are good-looking enough," replied Mr. 
 Morpeth, recovering himself, "for any tiling "
 
 A SISTERLY SCHEME 153 
 
 and he threw a convincing emphasis into the 
 last word as he took what was probably his first 
 real inspection of his adored one s junior "but 
 aren t you a trifle young?" 
 
 "How old do you suppose I am?" 
 
 "I know. Your sister told me. You are six 
 teen. 
 
 "Sixteen!" repeated Miss Flossy, with an 
 infinite and uncontrollable scorn, "yes, and I m 
 the kind of sixteen that stays sixteen till your 
 elder sister s married. I was eighteen years 
 old on the third of last December unless they 
 began to double on me before I was old enough 
 to know the difference it would be just like 
 Mama to play it on me in some such way," she 
 concluded, reflectively. 
 
 "Eighteen years old!" said the young man. 
 "The deuce!" Do not think that he was an 
 ill-bred young man. He was merely astonished, 
 and he had much more astonishment ahead of 
 him. He mused for a moment. 
 
 "Well," he said, "what s your plan of cam 
 paign? I am to to discover you." 
 
 "Yes," said Miss Flossy, calmly, "and to flirt 
 with me like fun." 
 
 "And may I ask what attitude you are to take 
 when you are discovered?" 
 
 "Certainly," replied the imperturbable Flos 
 sy. "I am going to dangle you." 
 
 "To to dangle me?" 
 
 "As a conquest, don t you know. Let you 
 hang around and laugh at you."
 
 154 A SISTERLY SCHEME 
 
 "Oh, indeed!" 
 
 "There, don t be wounded in your masculine 
 pride. You might as well face the situation. 
 You don t think that Pauline s in love with you, 
 do you?" 
 
 "No!" groaned the young man. 
 
 "But you ve got lots of money. Mr. Brown 
 has got lots more. You re eager. Brown is coy. 
 That s the reason that Brown is in the boat 
 and you are on the cold, cold shore, talking to 
 Little Sister. Now if Little Sister jumps at you, 
 why, she s simply taking Big Sister s leavings; 
 it s all in the family, any way, and there s no 
 jealousy, and Pauline can devote her whole mind 
 to Brown. There, don t look so limp. You men 
 are simply childish. Now, after you ve asked me 
 to marry you " 
 
 "Oh, I m to ask you to marry me?" 
 
 "Certainly. You needn t look frightened, now. 
 I won t accept you. But then you are to go 
 around like a wet cat, and mope, and hang on 
 worse than ever. Then Big Sister will see that 
 she can t afford to take that sort of thing from 
 Little Sister, and then there s your chance." 
 
 "Oh, there s my chance, is it?" said Mr. Mor- 
 peth. He seemed to have fallen into the habit 
 of repetition. 
 
 "There s your only chance," said Miss Flossy, 
 with decision. 
 
 Mr. Morpeth meditated. He looked at the 
 lake, where there was no longer sign or sound 
 of the canoe, and he looked at Miss Flossy, who
 
 A SISTERLY SCHEME 155 
 
 sat calm, self-confident and careless, on the 
 string-piece of the dock. 
 
 "I don t know how feasible " he began. 
 
 "It s feasible," said Miss Flossy, with de 
 cision. "Of course, Pauline will write to Mama, 
 and of course Mama will write and scold me. 
 But she s got to stay in New York, and nurse 
 Papa s gout; and the Miss Redingtons are all 
 the chaperons we ve got up here, and they don t 
 amount to anything so I don t care." 
 
 "But why," inquired the young man; and his 
 tone suggested a complete abandonment to Miss 
 Flossy s idea; "why should you take so much 
 trouble for me?" 
 
 "Mr. Morpeth," said Miss Flossy, solemnly, 
 "I m two years behind the time-table, and I ve 
 got to make a strike for liberty, or die. And 
 besides," she added, "if you are nice, it needn t 
 be such an awful trouble." 
 
 Mr. Morpeth laughed. 
 
 "I ll try to make it as little of a bore as pos 
 sible," he said, extending his hand. The girl 
 did not take it. 
 
 "Don t make any mistake," she cautioned him, 
 searching his face with her eyes; "this isn t to 
 be any little-girl affair. Little Sister doesn t 
 want any kind, elegant, supercilious encourage 
 ment from Big Sister s young man. It s got to 
 be a real flirtation devotion no end, and ten 
 times as much as ever Pauline could get out 
 of you and you ve got to keep your end way 
 way way up!"
 
 156 A S1STEKLY SCHEME 
 
 The young man smiled. 
 
 "Ill keep my end up," he said; "but are you 
 certain that you can keep yours up?" 
 
 "Well, I think so," replied Miss Flossy. 
 "Pauline will raise an awful row; but if she 
 goes too far, I ll tell my age, and Ifiers, too." 
 
 Mr. Morpeth looked in Miss Flossy s calm 
 face. Then he extended his hand once more. 
 
 "It s a bargain, so far as I m concerned," 
 he said. 
 
 This time a soft and small hand met his with 
 a firm, friendly, honest pressure. 
 
 "And I ll refuse you," said Miss Flossy. 
 
 Within two weeks, Mr. Morpeth found himself 
 entangled in a flirtation such as he had never 
 dreamed of. Miss Flossy s scheme had suc 
 ceeded only too brilliantly. The whole hotel 
 was talking about the outrageous behavior of 
 "that little Belton girl" and Mr. Morpeth, who 
 certainly ought to know better. 
 
 Mr. Morpeth had carried out his instructions. 
 Before the week was out, he found himself giv 
 ing the most lifelike imitation of an infatuated 
 lover that ever delighted the old gossips of a 
 Summer resort. And yet he had only done what 
 Flossy told him to do. 
 
 He got his first lesson just about the time 
 that Flossy, in the privacy of their apartments, 
 informed her elder sister that if she, Flossy, 
 found Mr. Morpeth s society agreeable, it was
 
 A SISTERLY SCHEME 157 
 
 nobody s concern but her own, and that she was 
 prepared to make some interesting additions 
 to the census statistics if any one thought dif 
 ferently. 
 
 The lesson opened his eyes. 
 
 "Do you know," she said, "that it wouldn t 
 be a bit of a bad idea to telegraph to New York 
 for some real nice candy and humbly present 
 it for my acceptance? I might take it if the 
 bonbonniere was pretty enough." 
 
 He telegraphed to New York and received, in 
 the course of four or five days, certain marvels 
 of sweets in a miracle of an upholstered box. 
 The next day he found her on the verandah, 
 flinging the bonbons on the lawn for the children 
 to scramble for. 
 
 "Awfully nice of you to send me these things," 
 she said languidly, but loud enough for the men 
 around her to hear she had men around her 
 already: she had been discovered "but I never 
 eat sweets, you know. Here, you little mite in 
 the blue sash, don t you want this pretty box 
 to put your doll s clothes in?" 
 
 And Maillard s finest bonbonniere went to a 
 yellow-haired brat of three. 
 
 But this was the slightest and lightest of her 
 caprices. She made him send for his dog-cart 
 and his horses, all the way from New York, only 
 that he might drive her over the ridiculous little 
 mile-and-a-half of road that bounded the tiny 
 peninsula. And she christened him "Muffets," 
 a nickname presumably suggested by "Mor-
 
 158 A SISTERLY SCHEME 
 
 peth"; and she called him "Muffets" in the 
 hearing of all the hotel people. 
 
 And did such conduct pass unchallenged? No. 
 Pauline scolded, raged, raved. She wrote to 
 Mama. Mama wrote back and reproved Flossy. 
 But Mama could not leave Papa. His gout was 
 worse. The Miss Eedingtons must act. The 
 Miss Redingtons merely wept, and nothing more. 
 Pauline scolded; the flirtation went on; and the 
 people at the big hotel enjoyed it immensely. 
 
 And there was more to come. Four weeks 
 had passed. Mr. Morpeth was hardly on speak 
 ing terms with the elder Miss Belton; and with 
 the younger Miss Belton he was on terms which 
 the hotel gossips characterized as "simply scan 
 dalous." Brown glared at him when they met, 
 and he glared at Brown. Brown was having a 
 hard time. Miss Belton the elder was not pleas 
 ant of temper in those trying days. 
 
 "And now," said Miss Flossy to Mr. Morpeth, 
 "it s time you proposed to me, Muffets." 
 
 They were sitting on the hotel verandah, in 
 the evening darkness. No one was near them, 
 except an old lady in a Shaker chair. 
 
 "There s Mrs. Melby. She s pretending to be 
 asleep, but she isn t. She s just waiting for us. 
 Now walk me up and down and ask me to marry 
 you so that she can hear it. It ll be all over 
 the hotel inside of half an hour. Pauline will 
 just rage." 
 
 With this pleasant prospect before him, Mr. 
 Morpeth marched Miss Flossy Belton up and
 
 A SISTERLY SCHEME 159 
 
 down the long verandah. He had passed Mrs. 
 Melby three times before he was able to say, in 
 a choking, husky, uncertain voice: 
 
 "Flossy I I I love you!" 
 
 Flossy s voice was not choking nor uncertain. 
 It rang out clear and silvery in a peal of 
 laughter. 
 
 "Why, of course you do, Muffets, and I wish 
 you didn t. That s what makes you so stupid 
 half the time." 
 
 "But " said Mr. Morpeth, vaguely; "but 
 I" 
 
 "But you re a silly boy," returned Miss Flos 
 sy; and she added in a swift aside: "You haven t 
 asked me to marry you!" 
 
 "W-W-W-Will you be my wife?" stammered 
 Mr. Morpeth. 
 
 "No!" said Miss Flossy, emphatically, "I will 
 not. You are too utterly ridiculous. The idea 
 of it! No, Muffets, you are charming in your 
 present capacity; but you aren t to be consid 
 ered seriously." 
 
 They strolled on into the gloom at the end 
 of the great verandah. 
 
 "That s the first time," he said, with a feel 
 ing of having only the ghost of a breath left in 
 his lungs, "that I ever asked a woman to marry 
 me." 
 
 "I should think so," said Miss Flossy, "from 
 the way you did it. And you were beautifully 
 rejected, weren t you? Now look at Mrs. Mel-
 
 160 A SISTERLY SCHEME 
 
 by, will you? She s scudding off to spread the 
 news." 
 
 And before Mr. Morpeth went to bed, he was 
 aware of the fact that every man and woman 
 in the hotel knew that he had "proposed" to 
 Flossy Belton, and had been "beautifully re 
 jected." 
 
 Two sulky men, one sulky woman, and one 
 girl radiant with triumphant happiness started 
 out in two canoes, reached certain fishing-grounds 
 known only to the elect, and began to cast for 
 trout. They had indifferent luck. Miss Belton 
 and Mr. Brown caught a dozen trout; Miss 
 Flossy Belton and Mr. Morpeth caught eigh 
 teen or nineteen, and the day was wearing to a 
 close. Miss Flossy made the last cast of the 
 day, just as her escort had taken the paddle. 
 A big trout rose just touched the fly and dis 
 appeared. 
 
 "It s this wretched rod!" cried Miss Flossy; 
 and she rapped it on the gunwale of the canoe 
 so sharply that the beautiful split-bamboo broke 
 sharp off in the middle of the second joint. 
 Then she tumbled it overboard, reel and all. 
 
 "I was tired of that rod, anyway, Muffets," 
 she said; "row me home, now; I ve got to dress 
 for dinner." 
 
 Miss Flossy s elder sister, in the other boat, 
 saw and heard this exhibition of tyranny; and 
 she was so much moved that she stamped her
 
 A SISTERLY SCHEME 161 
 
 small foot, and endangered the bottom of the 
 canoe. She resolved that Mama should come 
 back, whether Papa had the gout or not. 
 
 Mr. Morpeth, wearing a grave expression, was 
 paddling Miss Flossy toward the hotel. He had 
 said nothing whatever, and it was a noticeable 
 silence that Miss Flossy finally broke. 
 
 "YouVe done pretty much everything that I 
 wanted you to do, Muffets," she said; "but you 
 haven t saved my life yet, and I m going to give 
 you a chance." 
 
 It is not difficult to overturn a canoe. One 
 twist of Flossy s supple body did it, and before 
 he knew just what had happened, Morpeth was 
 swimming toward the shore, holding up Flossy 
 Belton with one arm, and fighting for life in 
 the icy water of a Maine lake. 
 
 The people were running down, bearing blan 
 kets and brandy, as he touched bottom in his 
 last desperate struggle to keep the two of them 
 above water. One yard further, and there would 
 have been no strength left in him. 
 
 He struggled up on shore with her, and when 
 he got breath enough, he burst out: 
 
 "Why did you do it? It was wicked! It was 
 cruel!" 
 
 "There!" she said, as she reclined composedly 
 in his arms, "that will do, Muffets. I don t 
 want to be scolded." 
 
 A delegation came along, bringing blankets 
 and brandy, and took her from him.
 
 162 A SISTERLY SCHEME 
 
 At five o clock of that afternoon, Mr. Morpeth 
 presented himself at the door of the parlor 
 attached to the apartments of the Belton sis 
 ters. Miss Belton, senior, was just coming out 
 of the room. She received his inquiry after 
 her sister s health with a white face and a 
 quivering lip. 
 
 "I should think, Mr. Morpeth," she began, 
 "that you had gone far enough in playing with 
 the feelings of a m-m-mere child, and that oh! 
 I have no words to express my contempt for 
 you!" 
 
 And in a most unladylike rage Miss Pauline 
 Belton swept down the hotel corridor. 
 
 She had left the door open behind her. Mor 
 peth heard a voice, weak, but cheery, addressing 
 him from the far end of the parlor. 
 
 "You ve got her!" it said. "She s crazy mad. 
 She ll make up to you to-night see if she 
 don t." 
 
 Mr. Morpeth looked up and down the long 
 corridor. It was empty. He pushed the door 
 open, and entered. Flossy was lying on the 
 sofa, pale, but bright-eyed. 
 
 "You can get her," she whispered, as he knelt 
 down beside her. 
 
 "Flossy," he said, "don t you know that that 
 is all ended? Don t you know that I love you 
 and you only? Don t you know that I haven t 
 thought about any one else since since oh, 
 Flossy, don t you is it possible that you don t 
 understand?"
 
 A SISTERLY SCHEME 163 
 
 Flossy stretched out two weak arms, and put 
 them around Mr. Morpeth s neck. 
 
 "Why have I had you in training all Sum 
 mer?" said she. "Did you think it was for 
 Pauline?"
 
 zozo 
 
 THROUGH a thickly falling snow, on the 
 outskirts of one of New York s sub 
 urban towns (a hamlet of some two 
 hundred thousand population), walked a man 
 who had but one desire in the world ungrati- 
 fied. His name was Richard Brant, and he was 
 a large, deep-chested, handsome man a man s 
 man; hardly a woman s man at all; and yet the 
 sort of man that is likely to make a pretty seri 
 ous matter of it if he loves a woman, or if a 
 woman loves him. 
 
 Mr. Richard Brant came from the West, the 
 Western-born child of Eastern-born parents. He 
 made his fortune before he was thirty-five, and 
 for five years he had been trying to find out 
 what he wanted to do with that fortune. He 
 was a man of few tastes, of no vices, and of a 
 straight-forward, go-ahead spirit that set him 
 apart from the people who make affectation the 
 spice of life. He wanted only one thing in the 
 world, and that one thing money would not buy 
 for him. So he was often puzzled as to how he 
 might best spend his money; and he often spent 
 it foolishly. As he walked through the suburban 
 streets of the suburban city, this sharp Winter s 
 night, he was reflecting on the folly of spending 
 
 164
 
 ZOZO 165 
 
 money on a fur coat. He was wearing the coat 
 a magnificent affair of bear-skin and sable. 
 
 "South of Canada," he said to himself, "this 
 sort of thing is vulgar and unnecessary. I don t 
 need it, any more than a cow needs a side-pocket. 
 It s too beastly hot for comfort at this moment. 
 I d carry it over my arm, only that I should 
 feel how absurdly heavy it really is." 
 
 Then he looked ahead through the thick snow, 
 and, although he was a man of strong nerves, 
 he started and stepped back like a woman who 
 sees a cow. 
 
 "Great Caesar s ghost!" said he. 
 
 He was justified in calling thus upon the most 
 respectable spook of antiquity. The sight he 
 saw was strange enough in itself: seen in the 
 squalid, common-place sub-suburban street, it 
 was bewildering. There, ahead of him, walked 
 Mephistopheles Mephistopheles dressed in a 
 red flannel suit, trimmed with yellow, all peaks 
 and points; and on the head of Mephistopheles 
 was an old, much worn, brown Derby hat. 
 
 Brant caught Mephisto by the shoulder and 
 turned him around. He was a slight, under 
 sized man of fifty, whose moustache and goatee, 
 dyed an impossible black, served only to accen 
 tuate the meagre commonness of his small 
 features. 
 
 "Who are you?" demanded Brant. 
 
 "Sh-h-h!" said the shivering figure, "lemme 
 go! I m Zozo!" 
 
 Brant stared at him in amazement. What
 
 166 ZOZO 
 
 was it? A walking advertisement for an au 
 tomatic toy or a new tooth-powder ?" 
 
 "It s all right," said the slim man, his teeth 
 chattering, "lemme get along. I m most freez 
 ing. I m Zozo the astrologer. Why don t 
 you know on Eapelyea Street 1 ?" 
 
 Brant dimly remembered that there was a 
 Eapelyea Street, through which he sometimes 
 passed on his way to the railroad station, and 
 he had some faint memory of a gaudily painted 
 shanty decked out with the signs of the zodiac 
 in gilt papier mache. 
 
 "My orfice got afire this evening," explained 
 Zozo, "from the bakery next door. And I had 
 to light out over the back fence. Them people 
 in that neighborhood is kinder superstitious. 
 They ain t no idea of astrology. They don t 
 know it s a Science. They think it s some kind 
 of magic. And if they s to see me drove out by 
 a common, ordinary fire, they d think I was no 
 sort of an astrologer. So I lit out quiet." 
 
 His teeth chattered so that he made ten sylla 
 bles out of "quiet." 
 
 "They don t understand the Science of it," 
 he continued, "and the fire got at my street 
 clo es before I knew it, and so I had to light 
 out mighty quick. Now, jes lemme get home, 
 will you? This here flannel ain t no fur coat." 
 
 Brant s coat came off his shoulders in an 
 instant. 
 
 "Put this on," he said. "Confound you!" 
 as the man resisted "put it on!"
 
 ZOZO 167 
 
 The astrologer slipped into the coat with a 
 gasp of relief. 
 
 "Cracky!" he cried, "but I was freezin !" 
 
 "Do you live far from here?" Brant in 
 quired. 
 
 "Just a bit up the road. I m most home, 
 now," replied Zozo, still chattering as to his 
 teeth. 
 
 As they walked along the half-built street, 
 Zozo told his tale. He had been in the astrol 
 ogy business for thirty years, and it had barely 
 yielded him a living. Yet he had been able, by 
 rigorous economy, to save up enough money 
 to build himself a house "elegant house, sir," 
 he said; " tain t what you may call large; but 
 it s an elegant house. I got the design out of 
 a book that cost a dollar, sir, a dollar. There 
 ain t no use in trying to do things cheap when 
 you re going to build a house." 
 
 But his joy in his house was counterbalanced 
 by his grief for the loss of his "orfice." He 
 had taken the ground-rent of the city lot, and 
 had erected the "orfice" at his own cost. Three 
 hundred and twenty-seven dollars he had spent 
 on that modest structure. No, he had not in 
 sured it. And now the bakery had caught fire, 
 and his "orfice" was burned to the ground, and 
 his best suit of street-clothes with it his only 
 suit, as he owned after a second s hesitation. 
 
 In ten minutes walk they arrived at Zozo s 
 house. It was quite the sort of house that 
 might have come out of a dollar book, with a
 
 168 ZOZO 
 
 great deal of scroll-work abont it, and with a 
 tiny tower, adorned with fantastically carved 
 shingles. As they stood on the porch nothing 
 would content Zozo but that his new friend 
 should come in and warm himself Mr. Brant 
 looked at the name on the door-plate. 
 
 "Zozo s only my name in the Science," the 
 astrologer explained. "My real name my born 
 name is Simmons. But I took Zozo for my 
 business name. Z s seem to kinder go with the 
 astrology business, somehow I don t know why. 
 There s Zadkiel, and Zoroaster, and oh, I don t 
 know they re *Z s or *X s, most of em; and 
 it goes with the populace. I don t no more like 
 humoring their superstition than you would; but 
 a man s got to live; and the world ain t up to 
 the Science yet. Oh, that s you, Mommer, is it ? 
 he concluded, as the door was opened by a bright, 
 buxom, rather pretty woman. "Mother ain t to 
 bed yet, is she? Say, Mommer, the orfice is 
 burnt down!" 
 
 "Oh, Popper!" cried the poor woman; "you 
 don t reely say!" 
 
 "True s I live," said the astrologer, "and my 
 street-clo es, too." 
 
 "Oh, Popper!" his wife cried, "what 11 we 
 do?" 
 
 "I don t know, Mommer, I don t know. We ll 
 have to think. Jes let this here gentleman in, 
 though. I d most a froze if he hadn t lent 
 me the loan of his overcoat. My sakes!" he 
 broke out, as he looked at the garment in the
 
 ZOZO 169 
 
 light of the hall-lamp, "but that cost money. 
 Mommer, this here s Mr. I ain t caught your 
 name, sir." 
 
 " Brant, " said the owner of the name. 
 
 "Band. And a reel elegant gentleman he is, 
 Mommer. I d a froze stiff in my science clo es 
 if t hadn t been for this coat. My sakes!" he 
 exclaimed, reverently, "never see the like! 
 That d keep a corpse warm. Shut the door, 
 Mommer, an take the gentleman into the din 
 ing-room. He must be right cold himself. Is 
 Mother there?" 
 
 "Yes," said Zozo s wife, "and so s Mamie. 
 You was so late we all got a kinder worried, 
 and Mamie come right down in her nighty, just 
 before you come in. Where s Popper? sez 
 she; ain t he came in yet to kiss me good 
 night? Tain t mornin , is it? sez she. And 
 the orfice burned down! Oh, my, Popper! I 
 thought our troubles was at an end. Come right 
 in, Mr. Mr. I ain t rightly got your name; 
 but thank you kindly for looking after Popper, 
 and if you had an idee how easy he takes cold 
 on his chist, you d know how thankful I am. 
 Come right into the dinin -room. Mother, this 
 is Mr. Band, and he lent Simmons the loan of 
 his coat to come home with. Wa n t it awful?" 
 
 "What s that?" croaked a very old woman in 
 the corner of the dining-room. It was a small 
 dining-room, with a small extension-table cov 
 ered with a cheap red damask cloth. 
 
 " Simmons s orfice is burned up, and his best
 
 170 ZOZO 
 
 snit with it," explained Mrs. Simmons. "Ain t 
 it awful!" 
 
 "It s a jedgement," said the old lady, sol 
 emnly. She was a depressing old lady. And 
 yet she evidently was much revered in the fam 
 ily. A four-year-old child hung back in a cor 
 ner, regarding her grandmother with awe. But 
 when her father entered, she slipped up to his 
 knee, and took his kisses silently, but with spark 
 ling eyes. 
 
 "Only one we ve got," said Zozo, as he sat 
 down and took her on his knee. "Born under 
 Mercury and Jupiter if that don t mean that 
 she ll be on top of the real-estate boom in this 
 neighborhood, I ain t no astrologer. Yes, Ma," 
 he went on, addressing the old woman, who gave 
 no slightest sign of interest, "the orfice burned 
 down, and I had to get home quick. Wouldn t 
 a done for them Eapelyea Street folks to see 
 me, scuttin off in my orfice clo es." 
 
 He had shed Brant s huge overcoat, and his 
 wife was passing her hand over his thin flannel 
 suit. 
 
 "Law, Simmons!" she said, "you re all wet!" 
 
 "I ll dry all right in these flannels," said Zozo. 
 "Don t you bother to get no other clo es." 
 
 He had forgotten that he had told Brant that 
 the suit in his office was his only suit. Or per 
 haps he wished to spare his wife the humiliation 
 of such an admission. 
 
 "I m dryin off first-rate," he said cheer 
 fully; "Mamie, Popper ain t wet where you re
 
 ZOZO 171 
 
 setting is he? No. Well, now, Mommer, yon 
 get out the whiskey and give Mr. Mr. Band 
 a glass, with some hot water, and then he won t 
 get no chill. We re all pro bitionists here," he 
 said, addressing Brant, "but we b lieve in spirits 
 for medicinal use. Yes, Mother, you d ought- 
 erVe seen that place burn. Why, the flames was 
 on me before I know d where I was, and I jist 
 thought to myself, thinks I, if these here people 
 see me a-runnin away from a fire, I won t cast 
 no horoscope in Rapelyea Street after this; and 
 I tell you, the way I got outer the back window 
 and over the back fence was a caution! There s 
 your whiskey, sir; you ll excuse me if I don t 
 take none myself. We ain t in the habit here." 
 
 Brant did not greatly wonder at their not 
 being in the habit when he tasted the whiskey. 
 It was bad enough to wean a toper on. But he 
 sipped it, and made overtures to the baby. And 
 after a while she showed an inclination to come 
 and look at his wonderful watch, that struck the 
 hour when you told it to. Before long she was 
 sitting on his knee. Her father was telling the 
 female members of the family about the fire, and 
 she felt both sleepy and shut out. She played 
 with Brant s watch for a while, and then fell 
 asleep on his breast. He held her tenderly, and 
 listened to the astrologer as he told his pitiful 
 tale over and over again, trying to fix the first 
 second when he had smelled smoke. 
 
 He was full of the excitement of the affair; 
 too full of the consciousness of his own achieve-
 
 172 ZOZO 
 
 ment to realize the extent of the disaster. But 
 his wife suddenly broke down, crying out: 
 
 "Oh, Simmons! where 11 you get three hun 
 dred dollars to build a new orfice?" 
 
 Brant spoke up, but very softly, lest he might 
 wake the baby, who was sleeping with her head 
 on his shoulder. 
 
 "I ll be happy to to advance the money, " 
 he said. 
 
 Zozo looked at him almost sourly. 
 
 "I ain t got no security to give you. This is 
 a Building Society house, and there s all the 
 mortgage on it that it s worth. I couldn t do no 
 better," he concluded, sullenly. 
 
 Brant had been poor enough himself to un 
 derstand the quick suspicion of the poor. "Your 
 note will do, Mr. Simmons," he said; "I think you 
 will pay me back. I sha n t worry about it." 
 
 But it was some time before the Simmons 
 family could understand that a loan of the mag 
 nitude of three hundred dollars could be made 
 so easily. When the glorious possibility did 
 dawn upon them, nothing would do but that 
 Mr. Brant should take another drink of whis 
 key. It was not for medicinal purposes this 
 time; it was for pure conviviality; and Brant 
 was expected, not being a prohibitionist, to 
 revel vicariously for the whole family. He 
 drank, wondering what he had at home to take 
 the taste out of his mouth. 
 
 Then he handed the baby to her mother, and 
 started to go. But Simmons suddenly and un-
 
 ZOZO 173 
 
 expectedly turned into Zozo, and insisted on 
 casting his benefactor s horoscope. His bene 
 factor told him the day of his birth, and guessed 
 at the hour. Zozo figured on a slate, drawing 
 astronomical characters very neatly indeed, and 
 at last began to read off the meaning of his 
 stellar stenography, in a hushed, important voice. 
 
 He told Brant everything that had happened 
 to him (only none of it had happened; but Brant 
 did not say him nay). Then he told him various 
 things that were to happen to him; and Zozo 
 cheered up greatly when his impassive and sleepy 
 guest sighed as he spoke of a blonde woman 
 who was troubling his heart, and who would 
 be his, some day. There was a blonde woman 
 troubling Brant s heart; but there was small 
 probability of her being his some day or any 
 day. And then Zozo went on to talk about a 
 dark woman who would disturb the course of 
 true love; but only temporarily and as a side 
 issue, so to speak. 
 
 "She ain t serious," he said. "She may make 
 a muss; but she ain t reel serious." 
 
 "Good night!" said Brant. 
 
 "You don t b lieve in the Science," said Zozo, 
 in a voice of genuine regret. "But you jist see 
 if it don t come true. Good night. Look out 
 you don t trip over the scraper." 
 
 The blonde woman in Mr. Brant s case was 
 Madame la Comtesse de Renette. No, she was
 
 174 ZOZO 
 
 not a French woman: she was a loyal American. 
 She was the daughter of an American million 
 aire; she had lived for many years in France, 
 and her parents had married her, at the age of 
 eighteen, to a title. The title was owned by a 
 disagreeable and highly immoral old spendthrift, 
 who had led her a wretched life for two weary 
 years, and then had had the unusual courtesy 
 and consideration to die. Then she took what 
 he had left of her millions, went home to the 
 town of her birth, bought a fine estate on its 
 outskirts, and settled down to enjoy a life 
 wherein she could awake each morning to feel 
 that the days would never more bring her suf 
 fering and humiliation. 
 
 Then Mr. Eichard Brant disturbed her peace 
 of mind by falling in love with her, and what 
 was worse, asking her to marry him. That, she 
 said, she could not do. He was her best, her 
 dearest friend; she admired and esteemed him 
 more than any man in the w^orld. If she ever 
 could marry a man, she would marry him. But 
 she never, never could. He must not ask her. 
 
 Of course, he did ask her. And he asked her 
 more than once. And there matters stood, and 
 there they seemed likely to stay. 
 
 But Eichard Brant was a man who, when he 
 wanted a thing, wanted it with his whole heart 
 and his whole soul, and to the exclusion of every 
 other idea from his mind. After eighteen months 
 of waiting, he began to find the situation in-
 
 ZOZO 175 
 
 tolerable. He had no heart in his business 
 which, for the matter of that, took care of itself 
 and he found it, as he said to himself, "a 
 chore to exist." And what with dwelling on 
 the unattainable, and what with calling on the 
 unattainable once or twice every week, he found 
 that he was getting into a morbid state of mind 
 that was the next thing to a mild mania. 
 
 "This has got to stop," said Eichard Brant. 
 "I will put an end to it. I will wait till an even 
 two years is up, and then I will go away some 
 where where I can t get back until until I ve 
 got over it." 
 
 Opportunity is never lacking to a man in this 
 mood. Some scientific idiot was getting up an 
 Antarctic expedition, to start in the coming June. 
 Brant applied for a berth. 
 
 "That settles it," he said. 
 
 Of course, it didn t settle it. He moped as 
 much as ever and found it just as hard as ever 
 to occupy his mind. If it had not been for the 
 astrologer, he would hardly have known what 
 to do. 
 
 It amused him to interest himself in Zozo and 
 his affairs. He watched the building of the 
 new "orfice," and discussed with Zozo the color 
 of the paint and the style of the signs. Zozo 
 tried to convert him to astrology, and that 
 amused him. The little man s earnest faith in 
 this "science" was an edifying study. Then, 
 when the "orfice" was completed, and Zozo be-
 
 176 ZOZO 
 
 gan business again, he took great pleasure in 
 sitting hid in Zozo s back room, listening to 
 Zozo s clients, who were often as odd as Zozo 
 himself. He had many clients now. Had he not 
 miraculously evanished from a burning build 
 ing, and come back unscathed? 
 
 But there are two sides to every friendship. 
 Brant took an amused interest in Zozo. Zozo 
 worshiped Brant as his preserver and benefactor. 
 Zozo s affairs entertained Brant. Brant s af 
 fairs were a matter of absorbing concern to 
 Zozo. Zozo would have died for Brant. 
 
 So it came about that Zozo found out all 
 about the blonde lady in Brant s case. How? 
 Well, one is not an astrologer for nothing. 
 Brant s coachman and Mme. de Renette s maid 
 were among Zozo s clients. No society gossip 
 knew so much about the Brant-Renette affair 
 as Zozo knew, inside of two months. 
 
 "It s perfectly ridiculous, Annette! I can t 
 see the man!" 
 
 "Madame knows best," said Annette, wiping 
 away a ready tear. "It is only that I love Ma 
 dame. And it is not well to anger those who 
 have the power of magic. If they can bring 
 good luck, they can bring bad. And he is 
 certainly a great magician. Fire cannot burn 
 him."
 
 ZOZO 177 
 
 Mme. de Renette toyed with a gorgeously- 
 printed card that read: 
 
 9 
 
 Astrologer & Fire Monarch 
 
 Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. 
 27 Kapelyea St. 
 
 "Well," she said at last, "show him in, An 
 nette. But it s perfectly absurd!" 
 
 Zozo, in a very ready-made suit, with no 
 earthly idea what to do with his hat, profuse 
 of bows and painfully flustered, did not inspire 
 awe. 
 
 "You wish to see me?" inquired Mme. de 
 Eenette, somewhat sternly. 
 
 "Madam," began her visitor, in a tremulous 
 voice, "I come with a message from the stars." 
 
 "Very well," said Mme. de Renette, "will you 
 kindly deliver your message? I do not wish to 
 detain you from your stars." 
 
 It was a flushed, but a self-complacent, beam 
 ing, happy Zozo who stopped Richard Brant on 
 the street an hour later. 
 
 "If you please, Mr. Brant, sir," he said; "I d 
 like a few minutes of your time." 
 
 "Certainly," said Mr. Brant, wondering if 
 Zozo wanted to borrow any more money. 
 
 "You ve been a great good friend to me, Mr.
 
 178 ZOZO 
 
 Brant," Zozo began, "and I hope yon b lieve, 
 sir, that me and Mommer and Ma Simmons and 
 Mamie are jist as grateful as well, as any 
 thing. " 
 
 "Oh, that s all right, Simmons " 
 
 "Yes, sir. Well, now you ll pardon me for 
 seeming to interfere, like, in your business. But 
 knowin as I done how your affairs with the 
 blonde lady was hangin fire, so to speak " 
 
 " The blonde lady! " broke in Brant. 
 
 "Madam dee Kennet," explained Zozo. 
 
 "The devil!" said Brant. 
 
 "Well, sir, knowin that, as I done, and know- 
 in* that there couldn t be nothin to it no lady 
 would chuck you over her shoulder, Mr. Brant, 
 sir but only jist that her mind wasn t at ease 
 with regard to the dark lady whereas the stars 
 show clear as ever they showed any thin , that 
 the dark lady was only temporary and threat 
 ened, and nothin reel serious why, I made so 
 free as jist to go right straight to Madam dee 
 Eennet and ease her mind on that point and 
 I did." 
 
 "Great heavens!" Brant yelled. "You infer 
 nal meddler! what have you done? I don t know 
 a dark woman in the world! What have you 
 said? oh, curse it!" he cried, as he realized, 
 from the pain of its extinction, that hope had 
 been alive in his heart, "what have you done? 
 you devil!" 
 
 He turned on his heel and rushed off toward 
 Madame de Kenette s house.
 
 ZOZO 179 
 
 "This does settle it," he thought. "There s 
 no getting an idea like that out of a woman s 
 head." 
 
 "I understand," he said, as he hurriedly pre 
 sented himself to the lady of his love, "that a 
 madman has been here " 
 
 "Yes," said Mme. de Renette, severely. 
 
 "You didn t pay any attention to his non 
 sense?" 
 
 "About the dark woman?" inquired Mme. de 
 Renette. 
 
 "Why, there s no other woman, dark or 
 light" 
 
 "I don t know whether there is or not, Rich 
 ard," said Mme. de Renette, with icy distinct 
 ness; "but I know that there won t be, after 
 well, sir, could you break your June engage 
 ment for me?" 
 
 And Zozo was justified.
 
 AN OLD, OLD STORY 
 
 I SUPPOSE the Tullingworth-Gordons were 
 good Americans at heart; but the Tulling 
 worth-Gordons were of English extraction, 
 and, as somebody once said, the extraction had 
 not been completely successful a great deal of 
 the English soil clung to the roots of the fam 
 ily tree. 
 
 They lived on Long Island, in a very English 
 way, in a manor-house which was as English as 
 they could make it, among surroundings quite 
 respectably English for Americans of the third 
 or fourth generation. 
 
 They had two English servants and some other 
 American "help"; but they called the Americans 
 by their last names, which anglified them to some 
 extent. They had a servants hall, and a but 
 ler s pantry, and a page in buttons, and they 
 were unreasonably proud of the fact that one 
 of their Tory ancestors had been obliged to leave 
 New York for Halifax, in 1784, having only the 
 alternative of a more tropical place of residence. 
 I do not know whether they really held that the 
 signers of the Declaration of Independence com 
 mitted a grave error; but I do know that when 
 they had occasion to speak of Queen Victoria, 
 they always referred to her as "Her Majesty." 
 
 180
 
 AN OLD, OLD STORY 181 
 
 "I see by the Mail to-night," Mr. Tulling- 
 worth-Gordon would say to his wife, "that Her 
 Majesty has presented the poor bricklayer who 
 saved seventeen lives and lost both his arms at 
 the Chillingham-on-Frees disaster with an India 
 shawl and a copy of the Life of the Prince 
 Consort." 
 
 "Her Majesty is always so generous!" Mrs. 
 Tullingworth-Gordon would sigh; "and so con 
 siderate of the common people!" 
 
 Mr. Tullingworth-Gordon was a rich man, and 
 he was free to indulge the fancy of his life, and 
 to be as English as his name; and he engaged 
 those two English servants to keep up the il 
 lusion. 
 
 It is the tale of the menials that I have to tell 
 the tale of the loves of Samuel Bilson, butler, 
 and Sophronia Huckins, "which Uckins it ever 
 was an so it were allays called, and which 
 Uckins is good enough for me, like it was good 
 enough for my parents now departed, and there 
 is ope for eaven for chapel-goers, though a 
 Church-of -England woman I am myself." 
 
 Sophronia Huckins was lady s maid to Mrs. 
 Tullingworth-Gordon, housekeeper to Mr. and 
 Mrs. Tullingworth-Gordon, and, in a way, auto 
 crat and supreme ruler over the whole house of 
 Tullingworth-Gordon. There were other ser 
 vants, as I have said, but, in their several depart 
 ments, Bilson and Sophronia were king and queen. 
 Of course, at the first, there was some friction 
 between these two potentates. For ten years they
 
 182 AN OLD, OLD STORY 
 
 scratched and sparred and jostled; for ten years 
 after that they lived in comfortable amity, reliev 
 ing their feelings by establishing a reign of terror 
 over the other servants; and then ah, then be 
 gan the dawn of another day. Bilson was careless 
 about the wine ; Sophronia took to the wearing of 
 gowns unbefitting a maid of forty years. It broke 
 upon the Tullingworth-Gordon mind that some 
 thing was in the wind, and that the conservative 
 quiet of their domestic service was likely to be 
 troubled. 
 
 Meanwhile, Nature, unconscious of the propri 
 eties of the situation, was having her own way in 
 the little passage back of the butler s pantry. 
 
 "You say" the housekeeper spoke with a cer 
 tain sternness "as how you have loved me for 
 ten long years. But I say as how it would ave 
 been more to your credit, Samuel Bilson, to ave 
 found it out afore this, when, if I do say it myself, 
 there was more occasion." 
 
 "It s none the wuss, Sophronia, for a-bein 
 found out now," rejoined the butler, sturdily: 
 "what you was, you is to me, an I don t noways 
 regret that you ain t w r hat you was, in point of 
 beauty, to ave young men an sich a-comin be 
 tween us, as an engaged pair. 
 
 " Oo s an engaged pair?" demanded Soph 
 ronia, with profound dignity. 
 
 "Us," said Mr. Bilson, placidly: "or to be con 
 sidered as sich." 
 
 J l ain t considered us as sich," said Sophronia, 
 coquettishly : "not as yet."
 
 AN OLD, OLD STORY 183 
 
 Mr. Bilson was stacking up dishes on the 
 shelves in the passage-way. He paused in his 
 labors; put his hands on his hips, and faced his 
 tormenting charmer with determination in his 
 eye. 
 
 "Sophronia Uckins!" he said: "you re forty, 
 this day week; that much I know. Forty s forty. 
 You ve kep your looks wonderful, an you ave 
 your teeth which Providence give you. But 
 forty s forty. If you mean Bilson, you mean 
 Bilson now, ere in this ere cupboard-extension, 
 your and an your art, to love, honor, an obey, 
 so elp you. Now, ow goes it?" 
 
 It went Mr. Bilson s way. Sophronia demurred, 
 and for a space of some few weeks she was doubt 
 ful; then she said " No "but ir the end she 
 consented. 
 
 Why should she not? Bilson had been a saving 
 man. No luxurious furniture beautified his little 
 room over the stables. His character was above 
 reproach. He allowed himself one glass of port 
 each day from Mr. Tullingworth-Gordon s stock; 
 but there he drew the line. Such as it was, the 
 master of the house had his own wine, every drop, 
 except that solitary glass of port save on one 
 occasion. 
 
 And Sophronia Huckins was the occasion of 
 that occasion. Smooth and decorous ran the 
 course of true love for four months on end. Mrs. 
 Tullingworth-Gordon had been made acquainted 
 with the state of affairs; had raged, had cooled, 
 and had got to that point where the natural
 
 184 AN OLD, OLD STOEY 
 
 woman arose within her, and she began to think 
 about laying out a trousseau for the bride. Fair 
 was the horizon; cloudless the sky. Then came 
 the heavy blow of Fate. 
 
 When Cupid comes to you at forty years, he is 
 likely to be something wrinkled, more or less fat 
 and pursy, a trifle stiff in the joints. You must 
 humor him a little; you must make believe, and 
 play that he is young and fair. It takes imagina 
 tion to do this, and in imagination Sophronia was 
 deficient. Her betrothal was not two months old 
 when she suddenly realized that there was some 
 thing grotesque and absurd about it. How did 
 she get the idea? Was it an echo of the gossip 
 of the other servants! Did she see the shop 
 keepers, quick to catch all the local gossip, smil 
 ing at her as she went about the little town on her 
 domestic errands? Was there something in Bil- 
 son s manners that told her that he felt, in his 
 inmost heart, that he had got to the point where 
 he had to take what he could get, and that he 
 held her lucky to have been conveniently acces 
 sible at that critical juncture? 
 
 We cannot know. Perhaps Bilson was to 
 blame. A man may be in love over head and 
 ears in love and yet the little red feather of his 
 vanity will stick out of the depths, and proclaim 
 that his self-conceit is not yet dead. 
 
 Perhaps it was Bilson: perhaps it was some 
 other cause. It matters not. One dull November 
 day, Sophronia Huckins told Samuel Bilson that 
 she could not and would not marry him.
 
 AN OLD, OLD STORY 185 
 
 "It was my intent, Samuel; but I ave seen it 
 was not the thing for neither of us. If you had 
 a* seen your way clear five or ten or may be 
 fifteen years ago, I don t say as it wouldn t a 
 been different. But as to sich a thing now, I may 
 ave been foolish a-listenin to you last July; but 
 what brains I ave is about me now, an I tell you 
 plain, Samuel Bilson, it can t never be." 
 
 To Bilson this came like a clap of thunder out 
 of the clearest and sunniest of skies. If the Cupid 
 within him had grown old and awkward, he was 
 unaware of it. To his dull and heavily British 
 apprehension, it was the same Cupid that he had 
 known in earlier years. The defection of his be 
 trothed was a blow from which he could not 
 recover. 
 
 "Them women," he said, "is worse n the 
 measles. You don t know when they re comin 
 out, an you don t know when they re goin* 
 
 m." 
 
 The blow fell upon him late one evening, long 
 after dinner; when everything had been put to 
 rights. He was sitting in the butler s pantry, 
 sipping his one glass of port, when Sophronia 
 entered and delivered her dictum. 
 
 She went out and left him left him with the 
 port. She left him with the sherry; she left him 
 with the claret, with the old, old claret, with the 
 comet year, with the wine that had rounded the 
 Cape, with the Cognac, with the Chartreuse, with 
 the syrupy Curagoa and the Eau de Dantzic, and 
 with the Scotch whiskey that Mr. Tullingworth-
 
 186 
 
 Gordon sometimes drank in despite of plain 
 American Eye. 
 
 She left him with the structure of a lifetime 
 shattered; with the love of twenty years nipped 
 in its late-bourgeoning bud. She left him alone, 
 and she left him with a deadly nepenthe at hand. 
 
 He fell upon those bottles, and, for once in his 
 quiet, steady, conservative life, he drank his fill. 
 He drank the soft, sub-acid claret; he drank the 
 nutty sherry ; he drank the yellow Chartreuse and 
 the ruddy Curagoa. He drank the fiery Cognac, 
 and the smoky Scotch whiskey. He drank and 
 drank, and as his grief rose higher and higher, 
 high and more high he raised the intoxicating 
 flood. 
 
 At two o clock of that night, a respectable 
 butler opened a side-door in the mansion of Mr. 
 Tullingworth-Gordon, and sallied forth to cool 
 his brow in the midnight air. 
 
 He was singing as they brought him back on a 
 shutter, in the early morning; but it was not 
 wholly with drunkenness, for delirium had hold 
 of him. Down to the south of the house were 
 long stretches of marsh, reaching into the Great 
 South Bay, and there he had wandered in his first 
 intoxication. There he had stepped over the edge 
 of a little dyke that surrounded Mr. Tallingworth- 
 Gordon s pike-pond where all the pike died, be 
 cause the water was too salt for them and there 
 they found him lying on his back, with one of the 
 most interesting cases of compound fracture in 
 his right leg that has yet been put on record, and
 
 AN OLD, OLD STOEY 187 
 
 with the flat stones that topped the dyke lying 
 over him. 
 
 They took him to his room over the stable, and 
 put him to bed, and sent for the doctor. The 
 doctor came, and set the leg. He also smelt of 
 Mr. Bilson s breath, and gazed upon Mr. Bilson s 
 feverish countenance, and said: 
 
 "Hard drinker, eh? We ll have trouble with 
 him, probably. Hasn t he got anybody to look 
 after him?" 
 
 This query found its way up to the manor- 
 house of the Tullingworth-Gordons. It came, in 
 some way, to the ears of Sophronia. Shortly 
 after dinner-time she appeared in the chamber of 
 Bilson. 
 
 Bilson was "coming out of it." He was con 
 scious, he was sore; he was heavy of heart and 
 head. He looked up, as he lay on his bed, and 
 saw a comely, middle-aged Englishwoman, sharp 
 of feature, yet somehow pleasant and comfort 
 ing, standing by his bed. 
 
 * Sophronia ! he exclaimed. 
 
 "Hush!" she said; "the medical man said yon 
 wasn t to talk." 
 
 "Sophronia t ain t you!" 
 
 "P r aps it ain t," said Sophronia, sourly; 
 "p r aps it s a cow, or a orse or a goat, or any- 
 thin that is my neighbor s. But the best I know, 
 it s me, an I ve come to ave an eye on you." 
 
 "Sophronia!" gasped the sufferer; " t ain t 
 noways proper." 
 
 " T s goin to be proper, Samuel Bilson. You
 
 188 AN OLD, OLD STORY 
 
 wait, an you ll see what you ll see. Ere e 
 comes." 
 
 Mr. Bilson s room was reached by a ladder, 
 coming up through a hole in the floor. Through 
 this hole came a peculiarly shaped felt hat; then 
 a pale youthful face; then a vest with many 
 buttons. 
 
 "To ave and to old," said Sophronia. " Ere 
 >eis." 
 
 The head came up, and a long, thin body after 
 it. Pale and gaunt, swaying slightly backward 
 and forward, like a stiff cornstalk in a mild breeze, 
 the Reverend Mr. Chizzy stood before them and 
 smiled vaguely. 
 
 The Reverend Mr. Chizzy was only twenty-four, 
 and he might have passed for nineteen; but he 
 was so high a churchman that the mould of several 
 centuries was on him. He was a priest without 
 a cure ; but, as some of his irreverent friends ex 
 pressed it, he was "in training" for the Rector 
 ship of St. Bede s the Less, a small church in the 
 neighborhood, endowed by Mr. Tullingworth-Gor- 
 don and disapproved of by his Bishop, who had 
 not yet appointed a clergyman. The Bishop had 
 been heard to say that he had not yet made up 
 his mind whether St. Bede s the Less was a church 
 or some new kind of theatre. Nevertheless, Mr. 
 Chizzy was on hand, living under the wing of the 
 Tullingworth-Gordons, and trying to make the 
 good Church-of-England people of the parish be 
 lieve that they needed him and his candles and 
 his choir-boys.
 
 AN OLD, OLD STORY 189 
 
 Behind Mr. Chizzy came two limp little girls, 
 hangers-on of the Tullingworth- Gordon household 
 by grace of Mrs. Tullingworth- Gordon s charity. 
 In New England they would have been called 
 "chore-girls." The Tullingworth- Gordons called 
 them "scullery maids." 
 
 Bilson half rose on his elbow in astonishment, 
 alarm and indignation. 
 
 "Sophronia Uckins," he demanded, "what do 
 this ere mean? I ain t a-dyin , and I ain t got 
 no need of a clergyman, thank eaven. And no 
 more this ain t a scullery, Mrs. Uckins." 
 
 "This," said Sophronia, pointing at the clergy 
 man as though he were a wax-figure in a show, 
 "this is to wed you and me, Samuel Bilson, and 
 them" (she indicated the scullery maids), "them 
 witnesses it." 
 
 "Witnesses ivot?" Mr. Bilson inquired, in a 
 yell. 
 
 "Witnesses our marriage, Samuel Bilson. 
 Nuss you I cannot, both bein single, and nussed 
 you must and shall be. Now set up and be marri d 
 quiet. 
 
 Mr. Bilson s physical condition forbade him to 
 leap from the bed; but his voice leaped to the 
 rafters above him. 
 
 1 Marri d ! " he shouted : " I 11 die fust ! 
 
 "Die you will," said Sophronia, calmly but 
 sternly, "if married you ain t, and that soon." 
 
 "Sophronia!" Bilson s voice was hollow and 
 deeply reproachful; "you ave throwed me over." 
 
 "I ave," she assented.
 
 190 AN OLD, OLD STORY 
 
 "And ere I am." 
 
 "And there you are." 
 
 "Sophronia, you ave not treated me right. 5 
 
 "I ave not, Samuel Bilson," Miss Huckins 
 cheerfully assented; "I might ave known as you 
 was not fit to take care of yourself. But I mean 
 to do my dooty now, so will you ave the kindness 
 to button your clo es at the neck, and sit up?" 
 
 Mr. Bilson mechanically fastened the neck-band 
 of his night-shirt and raised himself to the sitting 
 posture. 
 
 "Mrs. Huckins," Mr. Chizzy interrupted, in an 
 uncertain way; "I didn t understand you did 
 not tell me there does not appear to have been 
 the usual preliminary arrangement for this most 
 sacred and solemn ceremony." 
 
 Sophronia turned on him with scorn in her voice 
 and bearing. 
 
 "Do I understand, sir, as you find yourself in 
 a urry?" 
 
 "I am not in a hurry oh, no. But dear me, 
 you know, I can t perform the ceremony under 
 these circumstances." 
 
 Miss Huckins grew more profoundly scornful. 
 
 "Do you know any himpediment w y we should 
 not be lawfully joined together in matrimony?" 
 
 "Why," said the perturbed cleric, "he doesn t 
 want you." 
 
 " E doesn t know what e w r ants," returned 
 Sophronia, grimly; "if women waited for men to 
 find out w en the} 7 wanted wives, there d be more 
 old maids than there is. If you ll be good
 
 AN OLD, OLD STORY 191 
 
 enough to take your book in your and, sir, I ll 
 see to im." 
 
 Bilson made one last faint protest. 
 
 " T wouldn t be right, Sophronia," he wailed; 
 "I ain t wot I was; I m a wuthless and a busted 
 wreck. I can t tie no woman to me for life. It 
 ain t doin justice to neither." 
 
 "If you re what you say you are," said Soph 
 ronia, imperturbably, "and you know better than 
 I do, you should be glad to take wot you can get. 
 If I m suited, don t you complain." 
 
 "Mrs. Huckins," the young clergyman broke 
 in, feebly asserting himself, "this is utterly 
 irregular." 
 
 "I know it is," said Sophronia; "and we re 
 a-waitin for you to set it straight." 
 
 The two chore-girls giggled. A warm flush 
 mounted to Mr. Chizzy s pale face. He hesitated 
 a second; then nervously opened his book, and 
 began the service. Sophronia stood by the bed 
 side, clasping Bilson s hand in a grasp which no 
 writhing could loosen. 
 
 "Dearly beloved," Mr. Chizzy began, address 
 ing the two chore-girls ; and with a trembling voice 
 he hurried on the important question : 
 
 "Wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded 
 wife?" 
 
 "N yah!" 
 
 Bilson had begun to say "No ;" but Sophronia s 
 firm hand had tightened on his with so powerful 
 a pressure that his negative remonstrance ended 
 in a positive yell.
 
 192 AN OLD, OLD STORY 
 
 "Ah, really," broke in Mr. Chizzy; "I cannot 
 proceed, M M Miss ah, what s your name! 
 I positively can t!" 
 
 "Mrs. Bilson," returned the unmoved Soph- 
 ronia. "Are you intending for to part usband 
 and wife at this point, sir ? Excuse me ; but we re 
 a-waitin of your convenience." 
 
 Mr. Chizzy was a deep red in the face. His 
 pallor had given place to a flush quite as ghastly 
 in its way. The blood was waltzing in giddy 
 circles through his brain as he read on and on. 
 
 No church no candles no robes no choiring 
 boys. Only this awful woman, stern as death, 
 commanding him and Bilson. Why had he yielded 
 to her? "Why had he permitted himself to be 
 dragged hither? Why was he meekly doing her 
 bidding? Mr. Chizzy felt as though he were act 
 ing in some ghastly, nightmarish dream. 
 
 "Then shall the Minister say: Who giveth this 
 Woman to be married to this Man?" 
 
 That roused Mr. Chizzy from his trance. It 
 came late ; but it seemed to open a way out of the 
 horribly irregular business. He paused and tried 
 to fix an uncertain eye on Sophronia. 
 
 "Have you a Father or a Friend here?" he 
 demanded. 
 
 "Jim!" said Sophronia, loudly. 
 
 "Ma am?" came a voice from the lower story 
 of the stable. 
 
 "Say I do. " 
 
 "Ma am?" 
 
 "Say I do an say it directly!"
 
 AN OLD, OLD STORY 193 
 
 "Say say? what do you want, Miss Huck- 
 ins?" 
 
 "Jim!" said Sophronia, sternly, "open your 
 mouth an say I do 7 out loud, or I corne down 
 there immejit!" 
 
 "I do!" came from the floor below. 
 
 " Ere s the ring," said Sophronia, promptly; 
 " I, M., take thee, N. if you ll ave the kind 
 ness to go on, sir, we won t detain you any 
 longer than we can elp. I m give away, I 
 believe; an I ll take im, M." 
 
 "Forasmuch as," began the Eeverend Mr. 
 Chizzy, a few minutes later, addressing the chore- 
 girls, "Samuel and Sophronia have consented to 
 gether in holy wedlock " 
 
 He stopped suddenly. Up through the opening 
 in the floor arose the head of a youthful negro, 
 perhaps fourteen years of age. Mr. Chizzy rec 
 ognized him as the stable-boy, a jockey of some 
 local fame. 
 
 "What you want me to say I done do?" he 
 inquired. 
 
 "Mrs. Mrs. Bilson!" said Mr. Chizzy, with 
 a tremulous indignation in his voice; "did this 
 negro infant act as your parent or friend, just 
 now?" 
 
 * E give me away, replied the unabashed 
 bride. 
 
 Mr. Chizzy looked at her, at Bilson, at Jim, and 
 at the chore-girls. Then he opened his book again 
 and finished the ceremony.
 
 194 AN OLD, OLD STOEY 
 
 The Tullingworth-Gordons were angry when 
 they heard of the marriage. They missed the two 
 main-stays of their domestic system. But well, 
 Bilson was growing old, and Sophronia was grow 
 ing tyrannical. Perhaps it was better as it was. 
 And, after all, they had always wanted a Lodge, 
 and a Lodge-keeper, and the old ice-house stood 
 near the gate a good two hundred feet from 
 the house. 
 
 It was nearly a year before Bilson could walk 
 around with comfort. Indeed, eighteen months 
 later, he did not care to do more than sit in the 
 sun and question Fate, while Mrs. Bilson tried 
 to quiet a noisy baby within the Lodge. 
 
 " Ere I am laid up, as I should be," said Bil 
 son; "an there s an active woman a-goin around 
 with a baby, and a-nussin of him. If things was 
 as they should be, in the course of nachur, we d 
 ave exchanged jobs, we would."
 
 THE SUBURBAN SAGE 
 
 STRAY NOTES AND COMMENTS 
 ON HIS SIMPLE LIFE
 
 MR. CHEDBY ON A REGULAR 
 NUISANCE 
 
 " T T seems quite possible," I said to my wife; 
 and if Chedby ever had anything of his 
 
 JL own that I could possibly use, I should cer 
 tainly go down and make a pretense of borrowing 
 it, just to get a look about the place. But I hardly 
 know the man, long as he s been here, and I should 
 suppose he might think it strange if I dropped in 
 there at this late date with no ostensible reason 
 that is, of course, if it is so." 
 
 My wife pondered a moment, and then came 
 to my rescue. 
 
 "You might go down on your afternoon walk," 
 she suggested, "and ask him if that dog that 
 strayed in here yesterday belongs to him." 
 
 "That s a good idea," said I; "I ll put the 
 dog in a leash, and take him right down there." 
 
 "I don t think I would take the dog down 
 with you, dear," my wife said, thoughtfully. 
 
 "Why not?" I asked. 
 
 "Well, you know best, my dear," she replied 
 meekly; "but I only thought that if you were 
 just to say that the dog had strayed in here, and 
 that he seemed to be quite a valuable fox-ter 
 rier " 
 
 195
 
 196 ME. CHEDBY ON A NUISANCE 
 
 "I see," I said, with a sudden flash of illu 
 mination; "and he s such a really valuable ani 
 mal that I hate to take the responsibility of keep 
 ing him." 
 
 "I think it would be well, my dear," said my 
 wife, sedately. "The poor creature cried all 
 night in the cellar, and neither of our dogs will 
 have him about the place." 
 
 Inside of half an hour I presented myself at 
 Mr. Chedby s gate. He lived the better part 
 of a mile away from me, near the River Eoad. 
 
 I found Mr. Chedby industriously pulling an 
 iron roller up and down the bit of grass-plot 
 which is known in our suburban community by 
 a polite and friendly fiction as a "lawn." The 
 roller was old, and of a somewhat battered ap 
 pearance, and, being unusually small and light, 
 it carried on its inside, besides the usual comple 
 ment of weights, an extra one in the shape of 
 a small iron glue-kettle, which had been filled 
 up solidly with melted lead. Mr. Chedby greeted 
 me cordially, but he responded to my inquiry 
 with something like suspicion. 
 
 "I did lose a fox-terrier," he said, after some 
 hesitation; "but it was most two weeks ago, and 
 I guess he s been snapped up long ago. He was 
 a fine-blooded dog. Is the one youVe got a fine- 
 blooded dog?" 
 
 I assured him that the dog s blood was the 
 finest of the fine, and this seemed to encourage
 
 ME. CHEDBY ON A NUISANCE 197 
 
 him to think that it might be his dog, after all; 
 but I could not help feeling that he had his 
 doubts about the genuineness of my enthusiasm. 
 And, for a fact, when you come to think of it, 
 it doesn t look natural and unaffected to be too 
 honest in horse and dog matters. 
 
 This became quite evident when, on Mr. Ched- 
 by s proposing to look in on me some time in 
 the course of the week to see if he could identify 
 the dog, I had the indiscretion to urge him to 
 fix an earlier date. This chilled his interest to 
 such an extent that he hastily decided that it 
 could not be his dog, and that if it was, he didn t 
 want him, anyway. 
 
 He must have seen the disappointment on my 
 face, for he went on talking in a soothing strain. 
 
 "The fact is, Mr. Sage," he said, as he and 
 the roller drew up in front of me; "the fact is 
 that a man who lives in one of these suburban 
 towns never knows half the time what he has 
 got and what he hasn t got. I don t know; that 
 may be my dog, or it may not. Again, it may be 
 some other man s dog; and I ve got so that I 
 sometimes think I don t care." He stacked 
 himself up against the roller handle, and began 
 to discourse with the air of a heavy philosopher. 
 
 "Yes, sir," he said; "that s the state we re 
 in in these suburban towns; and do you know 
 what, in my opinion, is the cause that brings it 
 about? It s the borrowing habit, sir; the bor 
 rowing habit! The borrowing habit has got so 
 grafted on us that I find it mighty hard, some-
 
 198 MB. CHEDBY ON A NUISANCE 
 
 times, to keep out of the way of the fatal in 
 fection that I see all around me. It begins it 
 strikes in just as soon as a man moves here 
 from the city. Take this family that moved in 
 next door, for instance, two days ago. I don t 
 suppose they d ever known what it was to bor 
 row a thing before in their lives, but, Lord ! they 
 caught the disease right off. First, they bor 
 rowed a box-opener from the man next door on 
 the other side. Then they sent over the way 
 and borrowed a drawing of tea. Then, by Jove ! 
 they came over here and borrowed some hot 
 water out of the kitchen kettle to make the tea 
 with. "Well, I don t say anything against that. 
 Of course, when you move into a strange place 
 you have to depend upon your neighbors a little. 
 I had to do it, myself, when I first moved out 
 here. But I only mention it to show how the 
 disease begins. It will be milk next; they al 
 ways want to borrow milk. Then it will go on to 
 butter and eggs. Sugar, of course, and tea and 
 coffee right along that s the regular thing. 
 Pretty soon it will be a bucket of coal or a 
 barrow load of kindlings. Then they get to 
 hanging pictures and putting up shelves around 
 the house, and then it s hammers and saws and 
 nails. Hammers and saws sometimes come back, 
 when you go after them, but nails, never! I 
 knew a man who lent a keg of nails, once, to a 
 neighbor s wife. Some months afterward he 
 met the neighbor, and the neighbor says to him: 
 Oh, Smith, didn t my folks borrow some brads
 
 MR. CHEDBY ON A NUISANCE 199 
 
 or nails or some blame thing or other from you 
 a while ago? I ll tell my hardware man to send 
 them up to you. Well, when Smith got home, 
 what do you think he found? A paper of carpet 
 tacks from the hardware dealer. Yes, sir; a 
 paper of carpet tacks. Did he kick? Not much. 
 He knew he was lucky to get even that. And, 
 talking about hammers, I can tell you the fun 
 niest story, just to show how this borrowing 
 habit weakens a man s sense of individual own 
 ership in property. Some time ago I missed a 
 hammer that I d been working with, and had 
 left on the front stoop for half an hour or so. 
 Next day I met a man I won t say who he is, 
 but he don t live far from here and says he 
 to me, Oh, Mr. Chedby, I was going along the 
 street here the other day, and I saw the hammer 
 I lent you lying on your front stoop. I happened 
 to need it just then, so I took it along with me. 
 Well, sir, I didn t say anything to him; but that 
 man had no more right to that hammer than 
 you have; and it didn t look anything like his 
 hammer. The hammer he took belonged to Rob 
 inson, down the street here, and his hammer 
 was up in the garret in my tool-chest all the time. 
 But, of course, I had to tell Robinson, when he 
 came out for his hammer. And I understand 
 that there s been a coolness between the two of 
 them ever since. Well, you couldn t expect any 
 thing else. That s one of the indirect effects of 
 the disease. Oh, I tell you, the borrowing habit 
 is the curse of suburban life. It s got to be a
 
 200 MB. CHEDBY ON A NUISANCE 
 
 regular nuisance, sir; a regular unmitigated, 
 unqualified damned nuisance, if you ll excuse 
 the profanity." 
 
 Here Mr. Chedby paused and mopped his 
 perspiring forehead. The sinking sun glowed 
 red through the evening haze. It reminded me 
 that my homeward walk up the hill would take 
 me longer than the journey down; and that the 
 real purpose of my mission had been accom 
 plished, even though I hadn t got rid of the 
 dog. 
 
 "Mr. Chedby," I said, as I turned away, 
 "when you are quite through with using that 
 roller, will you be so kind as to send your man 
 up to my place with it? I ve got a lot of new 
 lawn to roll, or I d be happy to spare it to you 
 as much longer as you want it. But if you can 
 send your man up with it in the morning, I ll 
 be much obliged. (He had no man; but it is 
 a polite suburban fiction to assume that every 
 body keeps one.) 
 
 If I had cherished any hopes of disturbing 
 Mr. Chedby s serenity, I should have been dis 
 appointed. 
 
 "Sho!" he said; "is that queer old contraption 
 yours? I was just wondering whoever owned it. 
 I got it down the street here at Higginbotham s. 
 The family wasn t at home, and there was no 
 body that could tell me anything about it. Why, 
 that old thing has been kicking about this neigh 
 borhood for more than six months." 
 
 "More than a year, I think, Mr. Chedby,"
 
 MB. CHEDBY ON A NUISANCE 201 
 
 said I. "You ll send your man up with it in 
 the morning?" 
 
 Mr. Chedby looked at the roller and then at 
 the long road up the hill to my house. Then 
 he turned to me in a burst of hearty cordiality: 
 
 "Why, I am clean through with it," he said. 
 "I wouldn t have kept you out of it a minute 
 if I d known you wanted it. You take it right 
 along with you now. Don t mind about me. My 
 work can wait. Take it right along!" 
 
 I thanked him kindly, but I told him that it 
 would be quite time enough if his man brought 
 it up in the morning.
 
 EARLY STAGES OF THE 
 BLOOMER FEVER 
 
 FOR several weeks this Spring I was a hay- 
 widower. I take this term to be the mas 
 culine equivalent of "grass- widow" as 
 applied to a member of a matrimonial firm tem 
 porarily parted from the rest of the household, 
 and leading a separate but not wholly independ 
 ent existence. By whatever name you choose 
 to call my state, I was certainly, for the time 
 being, quite bereft of family ties. Mrs. Sage 
 and the children and the children s nurse were 
 all visiting Mrs. Sage s family to foregather 
 with an elderly uncle who had just returned 
 from India in a state of sickening and offensive 
 affluence. Personally, I do not believe that he 
 will ever pan out one cent s worth; but that is 
 neither here nor there. The domestic staff had 
 been allowed a vacation, all except Bartholo 
 mew. Bartholomew is our man or, at least, as 
 near to the man as we have yet got. Newcomers 
 in the town speak of him as a boy, until they 
 get into suburban ways, and learn that that is 
 not polite either to him or to his employer. Bar 
 tholomew remained to guard the house, and in 
 this occupation he took great pride and pleas 
 ure, for it gave him a good excuse for sleeping 
 with his grandfather s old percussion-cap shot 
 gun by his bedside, so that he could be able to 
 
 202
 
 THE BLOOMER FEVER 203 
 
 repel burglars at a moment s notice. You might 
 have abstracted seventeen steel safes from the 
 house without awakening Bartholomew, and no 
 earthly power could ever have made that gun go 
 off; but Bartholomew slept proud and happy all 
 the same. 
 
 I made no use of my lonely mansion, except 
 to go there to do my work, which is the writing 
 of such things as this. I had no need to dwell 
 within its silent walls. The lot of a hay-widower 
 in a suburban town is not unhappy by any 
 means; in fact, his condition makes him a valu 
 able member of society. He may be invited to 
 dinner without his wife and every housekeeper 
 knows what that means. It is one thing to in 
 vite the unobservant male animal to take pot- 
 luck with you, and it is quite another to sub 
 ject the every-day fatigue-dress style of your 
 domestic economy to the keen and critical femi 
 nine eye. So it came about that I got not only 
 dinner invitations, but bids to stay a week at 
 this house and a week at that, and I made quite 
 a picnic of my desolation and abandonment. 
 
 Now, when I say I am going to give you an 
 abstract of a study in feminine ethics, w r hich I 
 made under the roof of my good friend, Biddle- 
 by, I want you to understand that I am violating 
 no confidence imposed upon me by the generous 
 hospitality which I enjoyed. I make this state 
 ment with Mrs. Biddleby s full consent and per 
 mission. 
 
 I am fond of making studies of feminine
 
 204 THE BLOOMER FEVER 
 
 methods of marital management. I know, of 
 course, that I, myself, am managed at home; 
 but I do not know just how it is done, and I 
 am not likely to be let to know. But while the 
 process of management is generally impercepti 
 ble to the husband who is being managed, it is 
 often quite clearly visible to the casual on 
 looker; and it amuses me greatly to see the 
 manipulation of my fellows. Whatever I may 
 think of myself, I can smile a superior smile 
 at their weakness and blindness. I will now 
 proceed to my brief statement, which is based 
 partly upon what Mrs. Biddleby afterward told 
 me. 
 
 It happened one day as, in going to my room, 
 I passed by the door of Mrs. Biddleby 9 s sewing- 
 room, the draught of an open window blew 
 against my feet three or four pieces of light- 
 brown tissue paper cut into curious shapes, and 
 perforated with many little round holes. Seeing 
 that there was nobody around to take charge 
 of them, I carried them into the sewing-room 
 and looked for something heavy to lay on them. 
 The only thing I found was a huge pamphlet 
 that lay open on a chair. I could not help 
 noticing that the open pages showed a number 
 of designs for a garment then coming noticeably 
 into general use, but still regarded in conserva 
 tive feminine circles with a certain degree of 
 distrust and even disfavor. I need not say that 
 I got out of the room quickly and quietly; and 
 that I tried not to consider the remarkable like-
 
 THE BLOOMER FEVER 205 
 
 ness in shape between the pieces of paper I had 
 gathered up and certain dotted designs on the 
 paper under my eye. I knew, of course, that 
 Mrs. Biddleby was taking bicycle lessons. 
 
 The next day I brought the Biddleby mail 
 home with my own when I came from the post- 
 office, and it consisted principally of bulky en 
 velopes bearing the names of New York dry- 
 goods houses. I have been so long married that 
 it would be idle to deny that I knew that they 
 contained samples of dress goods. I also knew 
 that Mrs. Biddleby had recently expressed her 
 satisfaction with having got done with the dress 
 makers, for that season, at least. 
 
 It was some two or three days after this, that 
 as I was going from my house to Biddleby s, 
 I encountered Mrs. Biddleby and three of her 
 friends practicing bicycle riding on a smooth 
 stretch of macadam road. They had evidently 
 got beyond the care of their tutor, but they were 
 still taking turns at practice work on a hired 
 bicycle. I joined them, for they were evidently 
 quite past the nervous state, and I sat with those 
 who w T ere not riding, on a low stone w r all, and 
 watched the rider on the wheel exhibit her newly 
 acquired skill. Mrs. Biddleby was easily the 
 cleverest and most self-possessed rider of them 
 all, and I was somewhat surprised when she 
 dismounted and sat down beside us, and said 
 in an almost petulant tone: 
 
 "Well, I declare, I really don t know what 
 I am going to do about it! I am afraid I shall
 
 206 THE BLOOMER FEVER 
 
 have to give the whole thing up. I certainly 
 can t attempt to ride if my skirt keeps catching 
 the way it does." 
 
 I had not observed that her skirt had caught, 
 and I was just exactly fool enough to tell her so. 
 
 "Oh, well, you couldn t have noticed, or per 
 haps you re just saying so out of kindness, but 
 I came near having a terrible fall twice on my 
 way up the road and once coming down; and 
 I m sure I ve ripped every bit of binding off 
 on this side. Look there!" and she pointed to 
 where nearly three-quarters of an inch of braid 
 had fetched loose. 
 
 "Skirts are a perfect misery, anyway," said 
 Miss Applegate, the next best rider in the quar 
 tette; and she turned to me, and added, auda 
 ciously: "I do sometimes wish that women could 
 dress the same way you men do " 
 
 "I agree with you entirely," said Mrs. Bid- 
 dleby. "And, do you know, when I was down 
 on the River Road the other day, and saw one 
 of those women coming along with bloomers on, 
 I almost envied the vulgar thing, she looked so 
 easy and comfortable." 
 
 "Oh, Milly! how can you say so?" cried an 
 other of the ladies; but a fourth came to Mrs. 
 Biddleby s assistance. 
 
 "Well, I saw her, too; and, do you know, I 
 was thinking the very same thing. And, really, 
 Mrs. Biddleby, to tell you the truth, I didn t 
 think she looked vulgar a bit." 
 
 "Well, I don t know as I ought to have called
 
 THE BLOOMER FEVER 207 
 
 her exactly vulgar," Mrs. Biddleby amended; 
 but, of course, you know, it does look a little 
 how shall I call it? unconventional." 
 
 Then all the four ladies held a little autopsy 
 on the word, and decided that the English lan 
 guage didn t furnish anything suitable. So they 
 had recourse to French and called it outre. 
 
 "Well, I don t care," said Mrs. Biddleby, 
 summing up; "I think we re all of us too much 
 slaves of fashion, and I am sure if I thought I 
 could look half as well in them as that woman 
 did, I should wear them, whatever people might 
 say. 
 
 Encouraged by this bold stand, the lady who 
 had been so shocked at first said that she thought 
 so, too, and she had all along. 
 
 Then I put my foot into it again. I said: 
 
 "If your skirts catch, why couldn t you make 
 them a little shorter?" 
 
 Mrs. Biddleby turned on me in a very pretty 
 flame of indignation, and exhibited her skirt, 
 which was so high that it absolutely exposed a 
 small sample of her ankle; and she said: 
 
 "There, you wouldn t have me wear any 
 shorter skirt than that, would you? Why it s 
 positively indecent as it is! No; of course you 
 men don t know about such things; but I can 
 tell you that a woman takes her life in her hands 
 every time that she goes on a bicycle with a 
 skirt on." 
 
 Mrs. Biddleby had made her husband promise
 
 208 THE BLOOMER FEVER 
 
 to buy her a machine as soon as she had learned 
 to ride really well; but Biddleby, for a reason 
 which I will mention later on, was quite cool 
 about the project. Therefore, it devolved upon 
 Mrs. Biddleby to bring up the topic every day, 
 so as to keep him informed of her progress. 
 Hitherto her reports had been cheerful and en 
 couraging; but this evening I noticed that she 
 dwelt at great length on the bruises and sprains 
 she had suffered when she fell, in consequence 
 of catching her skirt in the sprocket. The next 
 morning &t breakfast, she was so lame that she 
 could hardly move, and very low in her mind. 
 She told Biddleby that he wasn t sorry enough 
 for her. He said yes, he was, and suggested 
 arnica. She explained that she suffered princi 
 pally in her mind, because she feared she would 
 have to give up riding, just as she was doing so 
 well. Biddleby said just what I said about the 
 skirts, and got just what I got. Then the lady 
 hooked her fish. 
 
 "Well," said Biddleby, as he got up to take 
 the train, "if that s the case, I don t see what 
 you can do about it, dear, unless you get a pair 
 of those two-legged thinguma jiggers what do 
 you call them?" 
 
 "Oh, Henry!" cried his wife, in tones of hor 
 ror; "you wouldn t have me wear bloomers!" 
 
 "Better than breaking your neck, I should 
 think," said Henry, absent-mindedly, as he went 
 out of the door.
 
 THE BLOOMER FEVER 209 
 
 Next day it rained, and the day after that. 
 The third day, however, was fair, and, as soon 
 as the bicycle lessons began, I joined the ladies. 
 They had not reached the ground more than two 
 minutes in advance of me, but as soon as I came 
 up I heard Mrs. Biddleby saying: 
 
 "Do you know, my dear, I really don t know 
 what I shall do. Henry is absolutely set on the 
 idea of my wearing bloomers, and you know how 
 determined he is when he gets an idea into his 
 head. Why, only day before yesterday he said 
 to me, as he was going to the train: My dear, 
 it is simply a case of life and death, and you. 
 should not let any other considerations outweigh 
 that! " 
 
 I lingered with them only four or five minutes ; 
 but before I left, the three other dear humbugs 
 had banded themselves together to wear bloom 
 ers, just by way of giving moral support to Mrs. 
 Biddleby. 
 
 But this is not quite all. Here is Biddleby s 
 reason for looking coldly on the bicycle project, 
 as stated to me when the lessons first began: 
 
 "I d be more than glad to get my wife a 
 bicycle if it wasn t that I ve heard so much about 
 accidents that happen to women riding in long 
 dresses; and, of course, there s no consideration 
 on the face of the earth that would make Mrs. 
 Biddleby put on one of those sensible Zouave 
 trouser rigs what do they call them, now? 
 Bloomers? Oh, yes! that s the name."
 
 THE SUBURBAN HORSE 
 
 I HAVE often wondered where the suburban 
 horse lives before he comes to the sub 
 urbs; and I have sometimes thought that 
 there must be people who make a special busi 
 ness of going about all over the country and 
 collecting misfit horses of odd, job-lot sizes and 
 styles, for distribution in suburban towns. 
 
 City horses and real country horses may be 
 readily divided into various grades and classes; 
 recognizable even to one as ignorant of such 
 matters as I am. Though every householder 
 here except myself owns one horse, at least, 
 I am sure that you could not pick anything 
 remotely resembling a matched pair out of the 
 whole lot. I am speaking, of course, of the true 
 suburban horse. I have several neighbors of 
 sporty proclivities, who own costly teams of 
 high-blooded horses, which are spoken of in a 
 reverential sort of way as "fine actors," or 
 "grand steppers." I do not speak from personal 
 knowledge of the quality of these animals ; I only 
 know that they walk as if they had corns, and 
 that they are always sick; and these, I am as 
 sured, are signs of high blood and great com 
 mercial value in a horse. But I am not speak 
 ing about animals such as these. You may see 
 
 210
 
 THE SUBURBAN HORSE 211 
 
 their like everywhere where people are trying to 
 get rid of their money. But the suburban horse 
 belongs to the suburbs, and is a thing to be 
 studied all by himself. 
 
 In the first place, he is no particular kind of 
 horse or he is any and every kind, as you please 
 to put it. His quality, character and station 
 among horses depend almost entirely upon his 
 ownership and employment; and he has only 
 to change hands to change his nature. He is 
 one horse if you own him, and another horse if 
 7 own him ; and he may be any number of horses 
 in the course of his long and peaceful but much 
 varied existence. Having no horse or carriage 
 of my own, good or bad, to provide for, I am a 
 mere spectator of other men s horses, and how 
 the} 7 play their parts, and you have no idea how 
 diversely they are presented unto me. 
 
 Take the case of Rix, for instance. I take 
 his case because he is the horse I know best, 
 and because he is one of the very few that I can 
 recognize at sight. In the way of horse-flesh it 
 takes something, as a rule, about as showy as 
 a calico circus pony to attract my attention and 
 fix itself in my memory. But Rix and I got per 
 sonally acquainted when I first came to the town, 
 and I have since watched his checkered career 
 with a friendly interest. 
 
 When I first knew him he belonged to a 
 market-gardener in the next county, who used to 
 come to my door with his vegetables. The gar 
 dener was a very intelligent man, and I got into
 
 212 THE SUBUKBAN HORSE 
 
 the habit of talking botany with him while I fed 
 his own things to his own horse. The town was 
 quite small then, and decidedly lonely at times, 
 and even tree-peddlers and book-agents were 
 welcomed with a cordiality and courtesy that 
 sometimes lured them into thinking that we 
 meant to buy. So I used to be very glad to 
 see Eix and the market-gardener, and when the 
 latter gave up the business because he said there 
 was no profit in it, I really felt considerable re 
 morse for the way I had pampered his animal 
 with luxuries at his expense. 
 
 The gardener asked me if I knew anybody 
 who wanted to buy a horse. I told him that I 
 had heard the old butcher in Orchard Lane say 
 something about buying a horse; and he asked 
 me to speak to the butcher about it. This I did, 
 and they met in my back yard, and the bargain 
 was struck. I never saw my friend, the gar 
 dener, again; but when Eix came around with 
 the butcher s meat, I felt as though he were 
 quite an old acquaintance. 
 
 Now, up to this date, I wish you to observe, 
 the horse was devoid of any noticeable character 
 istic. He had no pedigree. The gardener had 
 bought him from a wandering Swede, and had 
 named him Eix-Dollar, with a vague idea that 
 he ought to do something Scandinavian in the 
 matter. He was a very dark bay horse, neither 
 large nor small, of an equable disposition, and 
 quite sound and healthy. Indeed, I may say for 
 Eix that he was never sick but once in his life.
 
 THE SUBURBAN HORSE 213 
 
 I was present when the butcher bought him, and 
 I heard his points discussed; but I could not 
 make out that they were different from those 
 of any other horse. 
 
 In the course of a few months the old butcher 
 died, and left no immediate successor. I had to 
 go elsewhere for my meat; and I really missed 
 the sight of Rix jogging deliberately on his daily 
 rounds, with the white-bearded old butcher half- 
 asleep in the wagon. 
 
 But one day we heard that a new butcher had 
 taken the old place; and that the new butcher 
 was a great sport, and was going to make things 
 hum in the meat business in our town. I strolled 
 around to Orchard Lane to see what the new 
 butcher was like. He was not in his shop; but 
 as I started homeward I heard a furious clatter 
 of hoofs down the street, and, casting up my 
 eyes, beheld a large, red-faced stranger in a 
 showy vehicle of the dog-cart sort, driving a 
 dark bay horse at a rattling clip. The man was 
 the new butcher, and the horse was Rix Rix 
 in a showy harness with brass trimmings all over 
 him, with bracelets on his ankles, and with a 
 patent-leather shine on his hoofs. I marvelled 
 much. The butcher did not interest me; but it 
 was clear to my mind that either Rix was acting 
 a part now, or that he had heretofore dissem 
 bled his true character. I didn t particularly 
 object to his present frivolous worldliness, but 
 I thought he ought to have let me know before 
 that he was that kind of a horse.
 
 214 THE SUBURBAN HORSE 
 
 Shortly after this, a friend of mine, whose 
 knowledge of the noble Horse was so profound 
 and pervasive that it came out in his clothes, 
 spent a few days with me looking about the 
 town, with a view to taking a house in the suc 
 ceeding Fall. He happened to see the butcher 
 drive by behind Rix, and he was as much im 
 pressed as a really horsey person ever allows 
 himself to be. He told me that the dog-cart was 
 entirely incorrect in the matter of style, and 
 that the butcher didn t know how to drive; but 
 that the horse was an uncommonly neat little 
 animal, and that if he, my friend, had that horse 
 for six months, he could make something of him. 
 
 "I ve owned worse, myself, my boy, before 
 this, I can tell you," he said, patting me encour 
 agingly on the shoulder ; and I felt that his praise 
 of Rix reflected a certain glory on the whole 
 township, including myself. I didn t say any 
 thing to him about Rix s earlier days; for I 
 always make it a point to go light on such par 
 ticulars when I am talking with a man who 
 wears horse-shoe pins, and has gold whips and 
 wheels and axle-trees, and other miniature imi 
 tations of stable upholstery on his watch-chain. 
 
 A few weeks later my friend wrote to me, 
 asking me to see if I could buy Rix for him, and 
 have him kept on a neighboring stock-farm until 
 the Fall. He named the figure which he was 
 willing to "go" for the horse. It was a figure 
 that amazed me greatly, when I remembered the 
 modest price for which he had been sold in my
 
 THE SUBURBAN HORSE 215 
 
 back yard. But I knew better than to say any 
 thing about this to my friend; for he was a very 
 good friend, and I should have hated to lose him. 
 Fortunately, it made no practical difference; for 
 the sporty butcher had failed and fled from his 
 creditors, and Rix was legally in the custody of 
 the Sheriff, and bodily in a pasture lot adjoining 
 my place, whence he occasionally wandered into 
 my wife s flower-garden, and ate indiscrimi 
 nately. Later in the season, a retired clergyman, 
 with a family of five elderly daughters, came to 
 board in my neighborhood, bringing letters of 
 introduction to me. He was in search of a re 
 tired place in which to write a six-volume work 
 on palaeontology. After he had paid me six 
 or eight protracted calls and set this fact forth 
 at full length, I found him a retired place at a 
 distance of about seven miles. He rewarded my 
 kindness by hiring Rix from the Sheriff and 
 driving his whole family into town three times 
 a w^eek. 
 
 In the Fall my friend, whom I shall call Mr. 
 Fornand, came, and took a house in the town. 
 He had to run out every day for a week or so, 
 to get settled, and he frequently took his lunch 
 eon at my house. This was very pleasant for 
 me, not only because my friend was good com 
 pany, but because I stretched a point and told 
 the palaeontological clergyman that I had a gen 
 tleman who raced horses staying at my house, 
 and he promptly stopped making visits to town. 
 He stopped for so long, indeed, that I had al-
 
 216 THE SUBURBAN HOESE 
 
 most forgotten him and Rix, too, when one day 
 I came across his capacious carryall standing at 
 the station. He told me that he was going away, 
 and that the Sheriff was going to meet him 
 there, and take charge of Rix again. Part of 
 this was not pleasant news to me; and when, 
 as I was hurrying homeward, I caught up with 
 Fornand going in the same direction, and, shortly 
 afterward, the Sheriff drove past us behind Rix, 
 I said somewhat hastily to my friend: 
 
 "There, Fornand, there s that horse of the 
 butcher s you wanted to buy in the Spring. I 
 think you could get him now." 
 
 As soon as I had said this I knew that I 
 had made a mistake. A Summer of palaeon 
 tology had told on Rix, and he had absorbed 
 something of the depressed and mildewed ap 
 pearance of the prehistoric carryall behind him. 
 But I confess I was somewhat startled when my 
 friend burst out in wild guffaws of derisive 
 mirth, and shouted: 
 
 "That horse the one I was looking at? Why, 
 Great Scott! if that isn t the funniest thing I 
 have heard in a year! That horse the butcher s? 
 Well, Sage, I always knew you were pretty green 
 about horses, but I did think you had enough 
 gumption to know a first-class animal from an 
 old plug like that." 
 
 I didn t attempt to argue with him; I was 
 ashamed, anyway, of Rix s present appearance, 
 and I thought I would let the matter drop. But 
 it didn t drop. He guffawed all the way up to
 
 THE SUBURBAN HOESE 217 
 
 the house, and then he told my wife what a big 
 joke he had on me. Afterward my wife said 
 to me, kindly but pitifully: 
 
 "Well, my dear, I didn t think you knew much 
 about horses; but I should have thought you 
 would have known Rix." 
 
 For one moment I thought of setting myself 
 right ; and then I concluded to accept my humilia 
 tion as a deserved punishment. When a man 
 carries Christian forbearance to the extent of 
 making a plumb fool of himself, he ought to take 
 the consequences. 
 
 Eix went at Sheriff s sale to the teamster 
 who carted away my ashes, and to whom I ad 
 vanced twenty dollars to buy him. He came to 
 the house twice a week, but I hated to see him 
 now, for he had become a neglected-looking, 
 disreputable, shaggy-haired brute, with worn 
 spots here and there on him, and a generally 
 moth-eaten appearance. I was glad when the 
 teamster sold him to the local expressman, al 
 though he was not a success in his new place. 
 Having grown accustomed to hauling shamefully 
 heavy loads, he suddenly found himself hitched, 
 one fine Spring morning, shortly before Easter 
 Sunday, to a light wagon, laden principally with 
 paste-board boxes that had just arrived from 
 New York. When he started to pull on this, he 
 became intoxicated with his comparative free 
 dom, and ran away down the street, scattering 
 Easter millinery and dry-goods right and left. 
 He was sent to the livery stable for safe-keep-
 
 218 THE SUBUEBAN HOESE 
 
 ing; and there a tramp stable-boy, who had 
 been a jockey, bought him for five dollars, took 
 him in hand, treated him in the mysterious ways 
 that are known to jockeys, and actually got him 
 into such a condition that he sold him to an 
 undertaker who had just started a shop in the 
 town. The undertaker was a man who took 
 pride in his business, and he fattened Eix up 
 and groomed him and broke him to hearse so 
 thoroughly that in a few months he was as sleek 
 and wholesome-looking a horse as you would 
 wish to see, and I felt proud of him whenever I 
 met him. He attended only two or three fu 
 nerals, but his dignity and style were much ad 
 mired. When the undertaker gave up and went 
 in search of an unhealthier town, there was lively 
 competition for Eix at the auction of the busi 
 ness effects. He went to a local horse-dealer 
 for one hundred and forty dollars. I attended 
 the sale out of curiosity. As I was going away 
 I met my friend Fornand, and I saw from his 
 sheepish manner and from his vain endeavors 
 to keep the catalogue which he held, out of 
 my sight, that he had been among the unsuc 
 cessful bidders. I couldn t help it, and I didn t 
 want to. I asked him what he wanted with 
 that old plug. He reddened up; but he had too 
 much capital invested in horsey jewelry to let 
 me call him down. 
 
 "That horse is no plug," said he, "though 
 he may have looked like one at one time. The 
 man who s driving may be a plug, and that
 
 THE SUBURBAN HORSE 219 
 
 makes a horse look like a plug; but if yon knew 
 as much about a horse as I do, Sage, you d 
 know that in the hands of a right kind of man 
 that would be the right kind of horse. And 
 when your uncle tells you that, you don t want 
 to forget it." 
 
 Consequently he hired Rix from his new 
 owner, and put him into a scratch spike-team 
 that he got up to impress a Bergen Point man 
 who was thinking of buying his house. This 
 occasioned Rix s one sickness. He caught pink 
 eye from a thoroughbred. 
 
 Since then Rix has been in several hands; 
 but he is still recognizable to his old friends. 
 He worked on a milk route for a while, which 
 quite incapacitated him for the work of the 
 homoeopathic physician who bought him next, 
 and who was dreadfully embarrassed by being 
 drawn up in front of various houses where 
 nothing on earth would have induced the in 
 mates to call in an irregular practitioner. 
 
 He is now pulling the phaeton of an aged 
 invalid lady, under the guidance of a groom in 
 half-livery. From what I know of him, he is 
 trying his best to assume the demeanor of quiet, 
 slow-going and responsible respectability suit 
 able to his present position. What changes of 
 social status and personal appearance may be 
 in store for him I cannot tell; for he is hardly 
 more than fourteen years old, and, for a subur 
 ban horse, that is the prime of life.
 
 THE BUILDING CRAZE 
 
 I DROPPED in to see my young friend 
 Pinxter the other night. I knew that it 
 was Mrs. Pinxter s Singing Society night, 
 and I thought that Pinxter might be lonely. He 
 has not been long enough in the town for people 
 to get in the way of dropping in on him; and 
 he cannot go out when his wife is absent; for 
 they are on their first baby, and they don t think 
 it ought to be left alone with the nurse. On 
 such occasions Pinxter is generally almost effu 
 sively grateful for my visits. But the other 
 night I noticed a marked difference in his man 
 ner. I could not call him cool; indeed, he re 
 marked, in the course of conversation, that he 
 had never met such friends anywhere as he had 
 met in our town, and that I was the dearest of 
 them. But he certainly was absent-minded and 
 preoccupied, and could not help showing some 
 slight signs of relief and satisfaction when I got 
 up to depart, after a very brief stay. 
 
 Do not think that I was offended at my re 
 ception, and left early for that reason. I was 
 not in the least hurt. As I was approaching 
 the room through the hallway, I had seen Pinxter 
 hastily slip some loose sheets of paper into a 
 
 220
 
 THE BUILDING CRAZE 221 
 
 big flat book, like an atlas, and thrust the book 
 under the side-board. During all my call his 
 left hand was playing with a newly sharpened 
 drawing-pencil. Having seen this much, I had 
 but to look at his abstracted countenance, and to 
 calculate the length of his residence in the sub 
 urbs, to know perfectly well that Pinxter was 
 under the spell of the Building Craze, and dead 
 to the social world for the time being. 
 
 I have seen so many, many cases that it is 
 an old story to me ; especially as one case differs 
 from another only in degree of virulence, and 
 not at all in character. Pinxter s will be like 
 every other case that I have seen; and the 
 breaking out of the fever at the normal and 
 usual period only shows that he is a natural- 
 born suburbanite, for such alone does the dis 
 ease attack. A man who can live a year in a 
 growing suburban town without wanting to build 
 is a man whom Fate is pointing with inexorable 
 finger to the penal cells of a New York flat. 
 
 The disease usually begins to fasten itself on 
 young people like the Pinxters during their first 
 Summer in the suburbs. Its approach is gentle, 
 but insidious. It begins to come on when they 
 find out that they are permitted to roam at 
 will over cottages in process of construction. 
 This is a new and strange joy, and at first they 
 go about in simple, unaffected wonderment, mak 
 ing innocent guesses at the mysteries of car 
 pentry and mason-work. Then they get bolder 
 and begin to criticise and offer suggestions,
 
 222 THE BUILDING CRAZE 
 
 which last are rejected by the mechanics with 
 profound scorn and a flow of technical language 
 that utterly abashes the suggester. 
 
 But nothing checks the progress of the dis 
 ease when it has once started on its course. In 
 the next stage, the victim begins to learn the 
 technical talk for himself. By the end of the 
 Summer it is not uncommon to hear the victims 
 using lightly and airily such words as: " flash 
 ing," "rabbet," "mould-board," "valley," and 
 "popout." Some even learn that in the build 
 ing trades there is no change in the plural of 
 certain familiar names, such as "sash," "strip," 
 "blind" and "joist"; and that "cornice" is not 
 pronounced as it is spelled. That is, for in 
 stance, the professional builder does not say 
 "those cornices," but "them cornish." 
 
 Then comes the Fall, and they see the build 
 ings finished that were a while ago only a 
 mystery of naked timbers. Until the new oc 
 cupants move in, they may still roam through 
 the bare rooms, and pick out what they don t 
 like about each house. And when the tenants 
 move in, there is the delight of calling upon 
 them, and finding out what they think of the 
 habitations that are supposed to have been 
 shaped to fit them. 
 
 Winter, of course, puts an end to all this; 
 but it initiates the most interesting and active 
 stage of the disease. The Pinxters begin to 
 DRAW PLANS. 
 
 The first plan that Pinxter draws will be
 
 THE BUILDING CEAZE 223 
 
 drawn on the back of an envelope. It will be 
 a simple geometrical figure a Maltese Cross, 
 perhaps, or an L, or a semi-circle, and he will 
 submit it to his friends, and ask them if they 
 don t think that would be a good shape for a 
 house. He will find that his friends do not seem 
 to be particularly impressed; and, after a while, 
 he, himself, will begin to feel that there is 
 something unsatisfactory about it; and that it 
 requires an effort of the imagination to connect 
 that empty outline with the idea of a habitable 
 house. So he fills it up with rooms, pretty much 
 at random, and tries it on his friends again 
 "just as a rough idea, you know." Then hard, 
 unsympathetic persons will call his attention to 
 the fact that his front vestibule is larger than 
 his parlor, and that it is unusual, to say the 
 least, to have a dining-room that occupies more 
 than half of the house, and that is accessible 
 only through the kitchen and butler s pantry. 
 
 He begins to see that there are realms of 
 architectural knowledge which it behooves him to 
 explore, if he wants to get people to look at his 
 plans. So he stops at the railway news-stand 
 and buys a twenty-five cent book of ready-made 
 dwelling plans. Of course he despises the plans ; 
 not because they are despicable as they cer 
 tainly are but because the book cost twenty- 
 five cents and not one dollar. However, he ac 
 quires from the book the art and mystery of 
 drawing plans; and, with the aid of a foot rule 
 and a T-square, he finds himself able to turn
 
 224 THE BUILDING CRAZE 
 
 out a couple of dozen in the course of a single 
 evening. 
 
 Of course he doesn t get just what he wants 
 right at first. He didn t expect to. Building a 
 house is a serious matter, and his means are 
 limited. By this time, too, he has discovered 
 the fact that the size of his house must be fixed 
 by the size of his pile; and that the proportion 
 of one to the other is to be determined by a 
 mathematical calculation of a very strict and 
 inflexible sort. This doesn t really trouble him. 
 He finds that for the money he has to spend he 
 can get a house thirty-five feet square. But, 
 then, he really doesn t want anything larger. 
 All that he has to do is to utilize the space at 
 his disposal to the best advantage. So he sets 
 to work and draws plans, and more plans, and 
 other plans, and different plans again. By this 
 time he has got to doing his work privately and 
 keeping it to himself, so long as it is in the 
 experimental stages. He sees other suburbanites 
 of recent establishment trying the patience of 
 their friends with plans born too young; and 
 he determines that he will make no such mis 
 take. When he finally settles upon his plan, 
 it shall be one that is open to no criticism, and 
 that will be instantly accepted, by all who see it, 
 as the ideal house to be constructed in that 
 space for that amount of money. And, when it is 
 done, he will bring it to me and exhibit it with 
 an aspect in which defiant pride blends with 
 patronizing superiority, and he will say to me :
 
 THE BUILDING CRAZE 225 
 
 "There! if there s anything wrong with that, 
 I would like you to let me know what it is." 
 
 Oh, how well I know that plan! It is neatly 
 ruled out on a single sheet of paper; but no 
 single sheet of paper could contain all its glory. 
 It looks at first glance like the ground-map of a 
 municipal building with an orphan asylum annex. 
 Pinxter sits down by me and explains it all, 
 pointing out its beauties with a lead pencil. 
 
 "This is the front door," he says, "and here 
 is the vestibule. I ve made that good and roomy. 
 I hate these cramped little entrances, don t you? 
 You see, I have left space here for a hat-rack and 
 an umbrella-stand, and on the other side there 
 are shelves, and a little cupboard to hang coats 
 in. And here, you see, is a place for the baby- 
 carriage, and right opposite it is a locker for my 
 tennis things. Oh! I ve thought it all out. Now 
 we come into the hall. I like a good big hall, 
 don t you? I got the idea for this one from one 
 I saw in the house of one of those Standard Oil 
 fellows on Long Island somewhere. You see, I 
 figured to get it big enough to play a game of 
 badminton in. May be that s unnecessarily large, 
 but that s better than being all cramped up, you 
 know. Now, there s the dining-room. May be 
 I might have cut that down a little bit, but my 
 great-aunt has left me her mahogany dining- 
 table in her will, and that seats twenty-two 
 people, you know. Perhaps we shouldn t really 
 want to use it, but I thought I would take it 
 into consideration. Here s the library: I haven t
 
 226 THE BUILDING CRAZE 
 
 got books enough to fill it yet; but you must 
 think of the future, you know. This is the draw 
 ing-room, with three bay-windows opening on 
 the garden. Won t that be nice in Summer? 
 And for the Winter I ve designed this alcove 
 for an inglenook, with a great big old-fashioned 
 fireplace; and a long settee on each side of it. 
 That brings us around to the kitchen; and there 
 I ve had to cramp a little to keep within the 
 bounds of space but ten feet by eleven-and-a- 
 half is quite ample, don t you think so? This 
 little odd corner here I ve utilized for my den 
 just a cozy, snug little place, big enough to put 
 a billiard table in if I should want to. Oh! I 
 tell you, I ve used up every inch of space. And 
 now tell me candidly, Sage, do you think that, 
 considering what the house is going to cost, I 
 really could get anything more than I have got 
 out of those dimensions?" 
 
 I tell him that I don t see how he possibly 
 could; and he is so pleased by my saying so, 
 that, in a burst of unselfish gratitude, he offers 
 to leave the plan with me over night to feast my 
 eyes on until I go to bed, if I will solemnly 
 engage to give it to him at the station in the 
 morning. 
 
 And, as his footsteps go out of hearing down 
 the gravel-walk, I take a pencil and add up the 
 little figures that freckle his neatly drawn plan 
 7x11, 9x14 and so on. His thirty-five foot- 
 square house is 72 feet one way by 92y 2 the 
 other.
 
 THE BUILDING CRAZE 227 
 
 Next Winter, when Mrs. Sage and I go to 
 call upon the Pinxters in their new house, Pinx- 
 ter will move the big arm-chair out of the parlor 
 to make room for unfolding the card-table, and 
 he will say to me, in a casual way: "You see, 
 I had to make a few minor alterations in my 
 original plan. But if ever I build another 
 house " 
 
 That, however, is looking too far ahead. Even 
 at the plan-drawing point, Pinxter is only in 
 the incipiency of the disease. There are several 
 interesting phases to record before Pinxter gets 
 where he is able to talk about "another house."
 
 MOVING IN 
 
 AS I look out of my window, my eyes 
 tempted from my work by the grate 
 ful sight of the Spring-time green, I 
 see an imposing and dignified procession pass 
 majestically, at a dignified rate of progress, 
 along the highway. It is a procession of four 
 gigantic vans, like small barns mounted on 
 wheels. The vans are beautifully painted in 
 the brightest and shiniest of carriage paint, and 
 on their ample sides they bear pictures of mighty 
 warehouses warehouses of the reddest red brick 
 imaginable, and of such vast dimensions that 
 the perspective looks too good to be true. These 
 vans are drawn by huge, well-groomed, hand 
 somely caparisoned Percheron horses. Each van 
 carries a crew of three or four sturdy-looking 
 men. There is an air of well-to-do respectability 
 about the whole outfit; and the great, tightly 
 closed doors at the back of the vans give a sug 
 gestion of decent privacy and seclusion, w T hich 
 imply a proper respect for the goods and chattels 
 of a home on the move. 
 
 Very presently the procession will stop at its 
 destination, which is at a house where the sign 
 "To Let" has just been removed, and the stal- 
 
 228
 
 MOVING IN 229 
 
 wart-looking men will jump down and open the 
 great doors, and dive into the cavernous depths 
 within; and in an incredibly short time, with a 
 wonderful skill and precision, they will shift their 
 bulky cargo of trunks and furniture from van to 
 house, depositing every article according to direc 
 tions, and being so obliging and pleasant about 
 it all, and never breaking or scratching anything, 
 that the delighted owner of the goods and chat 
 tels will give them twice as much beer-money 
 as he had intended to. Then the doors will be 
 closed again, the crews will mount to their 
 perches, and the imposing procession will roll 
 away along the pleasant, saloon-dotted road to 
 the great city. 
 
 Now, this is all as it should be. It is a 
 proper, orderly and economical way of perform 
 ing a task whose difficulties and annoyances and 
 general cussedness used, once upon a time, to 
 drive strong men to drink and desperation. I 
 am not the least inclined to sneer at the pageant ; 
 I only wonder, as I gaze, how a people who do 
 more moving from house to house than any other 
 race on the face of the earth, ever managed to 
 get along without a system that saves so much 
 discomfort, loss of property, petty annoyance 
 and humiliation yes, bitter, biting, cruel hu 
 miliation. 
 
 I sigh as I look back across the years and 
 think of our own moving in or, rather, moving 
 out from the city. Things were very different 
 then. Nowadays these mighty vans roll upon
 
 230 MOVING IN 
 
 their errands of mercy from early Spring to late 
 Fall; and even a comparatively humble family 
 may do its moving with dignity and style, on the 
 shortest notice. But when I moved here the 
 tortures of May-day were still in vogue. The 
 man who wanted to move had to hire his truck 
 man long before he hired his house. Prudent 
 people generally went to the truck-stands about 
 the Christmas season, calculating on the genial 
 influences of the time to soften even a haughty 
 truckman s stony heart, and move him to throw 
 a dollar or two off his price. People in whom 
 the moving habit was highly developed used to 
 hire their truckman from year to year; but up 
 in Harlem, where no one ever keeps a house for 
 two consecutive years, they used to sell options 
 in truckmen. 
 
 The truckman whom I engaged was a genial, 
 active, encouraging person with whom I drove 
 my bargain in January. He promised to be on 
 hand at six o clock in the morning on the first of 
 May, and he offered to turn up at four if I pre 
 ferred that hour. I told him that I thought it 
 was ostentatiously early, and that six would do. 
 He had four or five trucks of a size that at that 
 time was considered large; but in case they 
 proved inadequate to the occasion he promised 
 to bring his brother-in-law s one-horse wagon, 
 to which said one horse w r as attached. He en 
 tered my name and address in his engagement 
 book; and, for further surety, I made a point of 
 passing that way about once a month and recall-
 
 MOVING IN 231 
 
 ing myself to his memory, and giving him one 
 of my best cigars. 
 
 On the morning of the first of May we were 
 all up and dressed at six o clock and waiting 
 for the truckman my wife and I and our whole 
 domestic staff, and my wife s eighty-two-year- 
 old uncle, who would come in to help us move, 
 and who had to be fed all day with light, un 
 breakable articles to potter around with. Even 
 the baby was with us at least, she was crying, 
 and I suppose it was for the truckman. She 
 had cried for every conceivable thing else al 
 ready, and it didn t seem as if there were any 
 thing left to cry for except the truckman. 
 
 Six o clock came, and seven, but no truck 
 man. We sat around on trunks tied up with 
 clothes-line, and discussed the chances of his 
 having been bribed to desert us for the service 
 of some millionaire. We hung out of the win 
 dows and strained our eyes to catch the ap 
 proach of the army of chariots. Scores of truck 
 men passed, but ours came not. When it came 
 to the point where my wife began to ask me 
 whether I was sure I had given him the right 
 address, I felt that the need of a temporary ab 
 sence was clearly indicated, and I said I would 
 go to the truck-stand and see what had become 
 of my man. At nine o clock I went. The truck- 
 stand was a long way off, and the day was hot 
 and sulky. When I got there I was a perspiring 
 crucible of pent-up profanity. There was not a 
 truck on the stand. The policeman told me that
 
 232 MOVING IN 
 
 my man had left early, but he conld not say 
 whether he had gone in my direction or not. 
 He kindly advised me not to wait for him after 
 twelve o clock. 
 
 I went back to the house. I found the truck 
 man there with his caravan. He explained that 
 I had given him the wrong address; but he 
 saved me from a lasting misunderstanding with 
 my wife by adding that I gave him the wrong 
 name. The truckman s manner had entirely 
 changed. He had a contemptuous and com 
 manding aspect ; and there was the flush of pride 
 upon his face. At least, I thought at the time 
 it was pride. I tried to explain to him the in 
 genious scheme my wife and I had devised of ap 
 portioning the furniture of a given room, or set 
 of roomSj to one particular truck. His manner 
 was so abstracted and absent-minded that by the 
 time I had got him to show any interest at all, 
 his men had distributed the greater portion of 
 the furniture among the various trucks, on an 
 entirely inferior system of their own. He then 
 told me that he had moved more families than 
 I had ever seen, and requested me to keep my 
 wife s uncle out of the hall-way unless I wanted 
 somebody to let a feather-duster fall on him and 
 kill him. 
 
 Most of the morning I spent in keeping the 
 truckmen away from a little back hall where we 
 had stowed away a lot of discarded furniture and 
 household belongings generally, which we had 
 given to an obliging junk-man, who had kindly
 
 MOVING IN 233 
 
 consented to take them away. It was quite 
 an accumulation of legless chairs, broken-down 
 kitchen furniture and worn-out bedding, and it 
 included a number of those atrocities in the 
 way of highly and cheaply decorated furniture 
 and idiotic objects of ornamental intent which 
 find their way into every household, even those 
 that really mean well. Some of those truckmen 
 would pass by an ebony bookcase six feet long 
 without seeing it, and would hurl themselves 
 upon that collection, and try their best to carry 
 away a wash-pitcher without a handle or a foot- 
 rest with a broken back. My unresting vigilance 
 kept the assortment intact until the last truck 
 was loaded; and then, in an evil hour, I turned 
 my back for a few minutes. I had not counted 
 upon the brother-in-law and his one-horse wagon. 
 He arrived about this time, and, finding nothing 
 else to make a load of, he took the whole dis 
 reputable-looking outfit and drove merrily away. 
 By this time everything had been removed from 
 the place; the servants, with the exception of 
 the nurse, had been started off on an early train 
 to our new suburban home, and my wife and I 
 sat down to eat a bit of luncheon on the floor. 
 After luncheon I sat on the window-sill and 
 smoked a pipe. My wife remarked that she was 
 thankful that we had got out before the new 
 tenants had begun to move in. 
 
 "We haven t missed it by much," I said; 
 "for there are their trucks in the street. And 
 do you remember, my dear, my telling you that
 
 234 MOVING IN 
 
 the way that this fool of a landlord was treating 
 his tenants would result in lowering the charac 
 ter of the street? Now look out there at the 
 furniture of these people who are going to move 
 in here. Did you ever see anything so sicken- 
 ingly cheap and utterly common? Why, it s 
 hardly one remove from what you d expect to 
 find in a tenement house!" 
 
 My wife looked out of the window. 
 
 "Why, my dear, how can you?" she said. 
 
 "Well," I went on, "just look at it. Did 
 you ever see such a lot of cheap, worn-out, 
 poverty-ridden stuff to move into a nice, smart- 
 looking house like this?" 
 
 "Why, dear," said my wife, "that s our fur 
 niture, and those are our trucks. They were 
 loaded almost an hour ago, but they haven t 
 started yet, and I think the men are all in the 
 saloon on the corner." 
 
 By the time I had hurried the men out of 
 the saloon, and started the caravan, it was too 
 late to take the train by which we had meant 
 to go out, and we found that there would be no 
 other for three hours. There was nothing for 
 it but to take another railroad to a larger town 
 five miles nearer New York, and hire a carriage 
 to ride the rest of the way. We rather liked 
 the prospect, however, for we thought the ride 
 would rest us, and that baby could take her nap 
 in the carriage. But we had taken too cheerful 
 and optimistic a view of the livery-stable accom 
 modations of suburban towns, as we realized
 
 MOVING IN 235 
 
 when, an hour later, we found ourselves jogging 
 over a dusty country road in an ancient two- 
 wheeled herdic coach, drawn by a lame horse, 
 and driven by an Irishman who had more time 
 on his hands than he knew what to do with. 
 
 We had just begun the ascent of a hill so 
 long that it seemed to end nowhere in particular 
 this side of the zenith, when I heard a sound of 
 creaking w r heels, and, looking up, I saw ahead of 
 me a caravan of heavily-laden trucks ; and a chill 
 struck to my heart when I realized that the fur 
 niture on them was OUR furniture. It was no use 
 my saying to myself that, as a matter of fact, 
 our furniture w r as very good and comparatively 
 new, and that all furniture looks at its worst in 
 the process of moving. It seemed to me that I 
 had never seen such a wretched, pitiful, worn, 
 scratched, battered, faded and frayed collection 
 of cheap and nasty household articles in the 
 whole course of my life. That furniture had 
 been very much admired by our visitors when 
 each article stood on its proper end, and was 
 kept up to the highest standard of domestic 
 cleanliness. But with its backs and bottoms 
 and wrong sides generally exposed to the public 
 gaze, with its legs sticking up in the air, with 
 the half of its castors jolted out, tied up with 
 knotted shreds of rope, with pieces of worn 
 counterpane stuffed here and there to prevent 
 chafing, and with a thick coating of roadside 
 dust all over it, it looked very much like the
 
 236 MOVING IN 
 
 outfit of an emigrant gang that had busted up 
 in Kansas, and was coming home regardless of 
 appearances. Just as we drew up even with it, 
 one of the wagons gave a lift to a Polish Jew 
 peddler with a bundle of second-hand clothing 
 tied up in a red table-cloth. He stretched him 
 self out on the top of the load, on something 
 that I subsequently discovered to be the baby s 
 crib, and assumed an air of easy proprietorship. 
 I asked my driver to whip up, and he told me he 
 would as soon as he got to the top of the hill. 
 At the top of the hill we came to the town, and 
 drove together down the principal residential 
 street to my house. As we drew up, my wife 
 grasped my arm convulsively and pointed to the 
 front lawn. The servants had not yet arrived 
 to open the house, having left the train, with 
 the unerring instinct of their kind, at a station 
 several miles away; and the brother-in-law of 
 my truckman, being the lightest laden of the mov 
 ing throng, had arrived an hour before anybody 
 else, had deposited his entire load of bric-d-brac 
 on the front lawn, and was now waiting to be 
 paid. 
 
 It was the close of a beautiful May afternoon, 
 and in the pleasant twilight a number of people 
 were going home from the first tennis practice 
 of a field club in the immediate vicinity. I saw 
 at once that the place teemed with life and 
 vivacity; and yet I did not feel entirely sure 
 that I should not have preferred something more 
 retired and secluded.
 
 A WATER- COLOR HOUSE 
 
 THE Pinxters are really building. Indeed, 
 they are quite a long way on in their 
 troubles. There is no more drawing 
 of plans on the back of envelopes: they are in 
 bondage to a professional architect, and to a 
 professional builder in league with a profes 
 sional stone-mason. They are not the same 
 lithe young things that they were a few months 
 ago; but they know more. 
 
 First, Pinxter bought his lot. Then came a 
 short period of rose-colored hope. As soon as 
 he had got his deed, Pinxter became convinced 
 that he had got the very best lot in the very best 
 neighborhood of the very best town in the world, 
 and he wondered at his own acuteness in doing 
 it. Every afternoon when he came home from 
 business Mrs. Pinxter and he wandered about 
 that lot, feeling their ownership in the very soles 
 of their feet. They visited it in all sorts of 
 weather; they brought parties of friends to visit 
 it. Pinxter never allowed any postponement on 
 account of the weather. He asked everybody s 
 advice about the proper location for the house. 
 He and Mrs. Pinxter selected a number of pos 
 sible sites and marked them out with stakes. 
 They let their friends drive stakes, too. They 
 
 237
 
 238 A WATER-COLOR HOUSE 
 
 got so many stakes in the ground that after a 
 while passers by used to stop and wonder what 
 sort of a camp-meeting it could have been that 
 was so free with its tent-pegs. 
 
 Then they had a great time deciding upon 
 an architect; but when they did settle on their 
 man, they were delighted to find that they had 
 made exactly the right choice. They found him 
 an uncommonly pleasant person. He let them 
 tell him all their ideas a practice in which 
 their friends had not encouraged them much of 
 late. He took the kindest sort of interest in the 
 whole business; and he suggested all sorts of 
 little comforts and conveniences which need not 
 add at all to the expense if they were put in 
 at the first instance, but which would be beyond 
 the reach of wealth itself after the house was 
 completed. They had thought at one time of 
 dispensing with an architect, and building the 
 house out of a book ; and they shuddered as they 
 thought that in that case they would never have 
 known of all these delightful possibilities. Then 
 the architect brought them a little water-color 
 sketch something he had dashed off to give 
 them an idea of what he thought they would like. 
 It represented a most charming little cottage, 
 with a great many kinds of roof, and it had the 
 most alluring dormer windows and round win 
 dows and lattice windows, and it had a pretty 
 little porch with big benches at the side, and 
 with a trellis with vines clambering over it. 
 Then there was a lawn with flower-beds on it,
 
 A WATER-COLOR HOUSE 239 
 
 and a neat little driveway with a pony-phaeton 
 standing at the door, presumably waiting for 
 Mrs. Pinxter. Back of the house were stately 
 trees, and a deep-blue sky hung over all, with 
 fleecy white clouds upon its bosom. A little more 
 and you could have heard the birds sing. 
 
 Of course that settled it. It is true that 
 there were no trees on their lot; and that the 
 architect had made no provision for drying 
 clothes anywhere except in the back yard. But 
 from the moment that Pinxter saw that picture 
 their doom was sealed. Then came the estimates 
 and contracts and specifications, and a very lucid 
 and precise explanation of the system at first, 
 second and third payments, and so on. This 
 was the first jarring note in the lovely sym 
 phony of hope. 
 
 There were more jarring notes later on when 
 it came to cutting down the estimates to fit the 
 appropriation. They never thought, poor chil 
 dren, of cutting down on the external beauty 
 of the cottage in the picture. The fancy win 
 dows, and the roofs with their valleys and peaks 
 and gables and angles and what-not, and the 
 ornamental porch, all cost money a great deal 
 of money; and yet it never once occurred to 
 them that the one house that they best knew 
 and best loved and admired was the simple, 
 unpretentious old hip-roofed homestead where 
 Mrs. Pinxter s mother lived, and where Pinxter 
 had done his courting. There wasn t a fancy 
 window in that building, and a ten-dollar bill
 
 240 A WATER-COLOR HOUSE 
 
 would have paid for all the tinsmith s work on 
 the roof; but its simple, well-chosen lines had 
 a home-like beauty that had endeared them to 
 generation after generation. 
 
 No; the Pinxters made their architectural 
 economies out of the needs of their domestic 
 life. They cut down a foot on this room and 
 six inches on that. They made their kitchen 
 range so small that their joints of meat would 
 have to be measured to fit the oven. They sub 
 stituted cast-iron fixtures for brass, and they 
 decided on a cheap grade of window glass. They 
 agreed upon ready-made mantels and single 
 floors; and they decided to go without a laun 
 dry, although they retained a butler s pantry 
 that could not have been more commodious had 
 they owned an ancestral butler. And they or 
 dered for the bath-room a tub so short that 
 Pinxter could only sit in it in the shape of a 
 letter N, and take his morning bath in sections. 
 
 Then comes a hole in the ground in the 
 middle of the lot; and then the masons begin to 
 fill this with a stone lining, stopping short for the 
 day every time that an April shower casts a two- 
 minutes sprinkle upon the earth. Then up goes 
 a bewildering lot of hemlock framework before 
 Pinxter has a chance to find out for himself 
 whether it conforms to the plans or not. 
 
 About this time a chill comes over the cordial 
 relations between the Pinxters and their archi 
 tect. They begin to be disappointed in him. 
 When they engaged him to superintend the con-
 
 A WATER-COLOR HOUSE 241 
 
 struction of their house they fancied him going 
 merrily to his work with the earliest laborer, and 
 watching over everything with an eagle eye nntil 
 the getting sun released him from his important 
 task. When they find that he makes an inspec 
 tion about once a week, and then only exchanges 
 a few friendly technicalities with the master 
 mason, and asks him how soon he is going to 
 start that next job down the street, they are 
 surprised, grieved and indignant. 
 
 They appeal to the architect s friends to 
 rouse him to a sense of duty, and to a realiza 
 tion of the great professional opportunity he 
 is missing. It gives them a certain shock to 
 learn that the architect had not calculated to 
 support himself, his wife and a growing family, 
 for a whole year on the $250 that he is to make 
 out of the Pinxter s job, and that he is erecting 
 houses for several other people, and will erect 
 more if he gets the chance. Later on they are 
 better satisfied with him. He comes oftener and 
 assumes a more active command of the work. 
 But even then they find him a different man. 
 They discover that very few of his brilliant sug 
 gestions have been incorporated in the plans and 
 specifications. When they appeal to him to re 
 pair these omissions he tells them coldly that 
 they ought to have seen to it before, and that 
 if they want any alterations they must pay for 
 them as extras. When Mrs. Pinxter tells him 
 that the closet in her room is not large enough, 
 he tells her that it is larger than any closet he
 
 242 A WATER-COLOR HOUSE 
 
 has ever built. "When Pinxter finds out that he 
 cannot put his Chippendale sideboard between 
 the dining-room windows, he is told that a Chip 
 pendale sideboard wouldn t match the room, 
 anyhow, and that he had better get another. 
 Not room sideboard. It does not take the Pinx- 
 ters long to learn that the moving of a window 
 two inches one way or the other will utterly 
 destroy the whole artistic scheme of the archi 
 tect that is, after the contracts are once signed. 
 After the contracts are once signed, architecture 
 is always a delicate and fragile art, and should 
 be dealt with reverently by people who cannot 
 afford extras. 
 
 The Pinxters get this idea firmly impressed 
 on their minds when they make what is termed 
 a "kick" about the front stairs. They and their 
 friends cannot see that a newel post about as 
 big as the capstan of a man-of-war harmonizes 
 with a lead-pencil rail and baluster. The archi 
 tect stakes his professional reputation that the 
 proportions are artistically correct. He also 
 refers them to the undeniable fact that the 
 dimensions are those given in the specifications, 
 and that they ought to have objected before 
 accepting the latter. It is of no use their saying 
 that they didn t know that the structure would 
 look like that when it was done. Neither did 
 he. He is a young architect; and he has got to 
 practice on staircases if he ever wants to get 
 them right. 
 
 Pinxter is on his third payment now, I be-
 
 A WATEK-COLOR HOUSE 243 
 
 lieve; and I, somehow, feel as if true delicacy 
 ought to keep me from obtruding my society 
 upon him unnecessarily. But I wonder with a 
 friendly interest how he will come out of the 
 game of house-building into which he has put 
 his poor little stakes. 
 
 What will come to him from his speculation, 
 undertaken in almost childish ignorance and in 
 experience? Will he get a cozy, comfortable 
 little home that he will learn to love the more 
 dearly as the days go by? or will he have a 
 poor make-shift, misshapen habitation on his 
 hands that will make him for years discontented 
 at home, and envious under his neighbor s roof? 
 
 Who can tell? It is a mere chance either 
 way. But do not blame poor Pinxter if he 
 yielded to a natural weakness of human nature, 
 and let a pretty picture of a pretty house tempt 
 him to forget that a man builds the inside of 
 a home for himself, and the outside for his 
 neighbor across the way. How many of us are 
 wiser? Did not the makers of fashion-plates 
 long ago learn to make the w r oman in their cos 
 tumes graceful and beautiful, and the men stately, 
 tall and deep-chested? And, shall we blame the 
 architect if he tries to set off his design with 
 the attractions of ideal surroundings? No, in 
 deed! If your wife goes shopping to buy a 
 Winter wrap, does the head of the cloak depart 
 ment look among the saleswomen for one just 
 as short and stout, or one just as tall and angu 
 lar as his customer? No, no! He calls up a
 
 244 A WATER-COLOR HOUSE 
 
 yonng lady with a perfect figure and the car 
 riage of a queen, and he drapes the garment 
 over her faultless shoulders. 
 
 It is human nature all around, and that is why 
 so many people are living to-day as the Pinxters 
 will live until their house is finished, in a water- 
 color picture of a dainty dwelling, enshrined in 
 luxury and foliage, with a pony phaeton waiting 
 at the door, and with a front-yard where a lawn 
 is ever green under the perpetual green skies, 
 and where, in trim beds, the springtide forcythia 
 and the hardy Fall chrysanthemum blossom side 
 by side in innocent and unconscious defiance of 
 the laws of nature.
 
 THE POINTERS 
 
 ON Summer Saturdays the Suburbanite 
 hastens from town on the midday train; 
 and Mrs. Suburbanite arrays herself in 
 cool and dainty garments and goes out on the 
 lawn to meet him. On other days of the week, 
 when he comes home just in time for dinner, 
 she meets him in the front hall and says: "Oh, 
 is that you, dear? Hurry up and get ready 
 for dinner, please, for your train is late to 
 night." But on Saturday she goes out on the 
 lawn and says: "Oh, darling, I m so glad you ve 
 come! I was so afraid you wouldn t get the 
 train." I don t know what makes the difference, 
 but I suspect that there is a good deal of swivel 
 silk and French hat and fancy tan shoes about it. 
 And pretty soon the Suburbanite gets into his 
 Summer bravery of white flannel and colored 
 shirt, and, standing with Mrs. Suburbanite on his 
 front steps, he looks up and down the pleasant 
 street, comparing his lawn with his neighbor s. 
 According to suburban etiquette, he must always 
 praise his neighbor s lawn and speak slightingly 
 of his own ; but in his heart of hearts he believes 
 that his own is the best in sight. From this 
 harmless and gratifying amusement he is startled 
 by his wife s indignant voice. 
 
 "Oh, Henry!" she cries, "there s a lot of 
 
 245
 
 246 THE POINTERS 
 
 those horrid Pointers coming up the road. They 
 must have come out on the train with you." 
 
 "Gad!" says Henry, in deep disgust; "look at 
 the pair of them over the way!" 
 
 On the walk at the opposite side of the street 
 two people are slowly passing a man and a 
 woman. Though their dress proclaims them 
 from the city, they loiter and gawk like country 
 folk ; and they stare at everything they see about 
 them like people wandering through a waxwork 
 show. The stare is sufficiently frank and undis 
 guised and contemptuously careless enough to 
 irritate a hippopotamus if it were directed at 
 the thickest spot on his hide. 
 
 But the stare is forgotten wiped into oblivion 
 by what comes next. The male person of the 
 pair extends his arm, points his forefinger 
 straight in the direction of the modest front 
 porch of Mr. and Mrs. Suburbanite, and de 
 mands of his companion: 
 
 "There! how do you like that one?" 
 
 The female person gives one brief glance in 
 the direction indicated, and then replies in ring 
 ing tones of contempt: 
 
 "I think it s perfectly hideous! I wouldn t 
 live in it if you gave it to me. Why, the little 
 one with the red roof is better than that!" 
 
 They pass on down the street; but even when 
 they have got as far as the corner their con 
 versation is still audible to Mr. and Mrs. Subur 
 banite. The female person inquires in loud but 
 languid tones:
 
 THE POINTERS 247 
 
 "I wonder what sort of people live in a town 
 like this, anyhow?" and the male responds, in 
 clear and vigorous tones: 
 
 1 Oh ! pretty devilish common, I should think. 
 
 Is it really possible that there are such people 
 in the civilized world? Oh, yes; there are plenty 
 of them, and they are not bad people at all. 
 Indeed, they are not, at home, rude people, 
 even. In the city they would never think of 
 pointing their forefingers at a man s front door, 
 and commenting upon the appearance of his 
 dwelling in any way that would attract his at 
 tention, nor do they mean to do so now and 
 here. The unfamiliar scene, the novel distances, 
 the sense of a wholly unfamiliar mode of life 
 all these things make them feel as though they 
 were walking in a world in which they had no 
 part, and they hardly feel at the first as if it 
 were just as real an every-day life as their own. 
 And then, the silence of the country cheats them 
 into talking loudly, as it does every one. 
 
 For the rest, their intent is not at all offensive. 
 They are simply "Pointers" a married couple 
 of moderate means, who, having some idea that 
 they may, at some time, be obliged to move 
 from the city to the country, have come out to 
 look about them and see how they would like it 
 on the whole. 
 
 It is all a matter of speculative unreality to 
 them, and they no more think that they are seen 
 and heard in their finger-pointing and too frank
 
 248 THE POINTEBS 
 
 criticism than well, than you did, my dear Mr. 
 Urban, when yon did pretty mnch the same thing 
 in a university town in Holland, where every 
 second man on the street spoke English quite as 
 well as you did. 
 
 The Pointer has all seasons for his own. He 
 has been known to make his explorations in mid 
 winter, and I have encountered one cheerful soul 
 who never went house-hunting in the country 
 except on a day of genuinely mean rainy or 
 snowy weather. He said that if you could see 
 anything to like in a suburban town under such 
 conditions, it must be a pretty good town when 
 you came to try it dry and comfortable. That 
 man, I believe, is still living in town. But, of 
 course, late Spring, early Summer, and the first 
 of the Fall are the chosen times of the Pointer 
 especially if he is a Pointer of limited means. 
 It is always pleasant to take an afternoon stroll 
 through a pretty country town; and this luxury 
 the Pointer may enjoy at no greater cost than the 
 railway fare for himself and his wife. For, if 
 they arrive in the morning, they generally bring 
 their luncheon with them in a paste-board box, 
 and eat it in the railway station, to the great 
 disgust of the station agent. That is, they do 
 this when they are new beginners at the point 
 ing game Greenpointers, so to speak. After 
 ward they advance in knowledge of the possi 
 bilities of the game. And, after they have had 
 their first free ride in a real estate agent s car 
 riage, they begin to see that there is something
 
 THE POINTERS 249 
 
 more in the pastime of pointing than trailing 
 aimlessly around on foot and staring at the 
 outside of other people s homes or else, peep 
 ing furtively into the dismal interiors of empty 
 houses. There are free rides in it; cakes and 
 ale in it, free, too; and, more than this, there 
 is consideration and respect and even deference 
 and delicate flattery undeserved, it is true; un 
 earned, enjoyed only for a brief hour, and then 
 on false pretenses but sweet, sweet, sweet on 
 the tongue while the taste lasts. 
 
 For, sooner or later, there comes a Friday 
 afternoon when the Pointer climbs to his airy 
 flat with a lightsome step and a beaming counte 
 nance. 
 
 "My dear," he says to his wife, "we ll go 
 and look at some out-of-town houses to-morrow, 
 but this time we ll go in style. I ve struck a 
 real estate man downtown, a man who s in 
 terested in property at Howsonlotville, and he s 
 going to take us out to see the place. It won t 
 cost us even our fares; he puts up for every 
 thing, and when we get there he blows us off 
 to luncheon at his own house, and in the after 
 noon he drives us all around, and shows us all 
 there is to be seen. Great scheme, isn t it?" 
 
 "But, my dear," timidly remonstrates his 
 wife, "is it quite right, do you think? You know 
 we haven t the least idea of going to Howson 
 lotville to live, and wouldn t it be, somehow, like 
 getting a good time on false pretenses?"
 
 250 THE POINTERS 
 
 Then the Pointer explains to his wife that 
 women don t know the first thing about busi 
 ness. This is entirely a matter of business with 
 the real estate man. He takes such chances 
 right along in the hope of getting his property 
 known. It is simply an advertisement of his 
 business nothing else just the way the grocer 
 sends you a sample cake of soap or a can of 
 some new brand of baking-powder. And in the 
 end, of course, she says she supposes that he 
 knows best. 
 
 From that day on their doom is sealed. A 
 new era dawns for them. They travel out to 
 Howsonlotville on the family ticket of the agent 
 of the great Howsonlot estate. They accept of 
 the agent s hospitable board, eat the excellent 
 luncheon he has provided, show a refined ap 
 preciation of his good wine; talk casually and 
 carelessly of their rich relations, and make inci 
 dental mention of horses they have owned. In the 
 afternoon, perched high and proud on the agent s 
 drag, they look down with a feeling of infinite 
 satisfaction upon the less experienced Pointers 
 wandering about on foot and unattended. Then 
 they go and look at a house which they never 
 in the world could afford to take; and con 
 descendingly promise to give its merits their 
 kind consideration over Sunday. This is not 
 entirely duplicity; it sometimes takes quite a 
 while to trump up an insuperable objection to 
 a pretty good house. 
 
 Once embarked in this fascinating game, the
 
 THE POINTERS 251 
 
 true Pointer never tires of pitting his ingenuity 
 and evasive skill against the cunning of the 
 real estate agent. Of course the ultimate fate 
 of every gambler lies ahead of him. For a 
 longer or shorter time he may enjoy free lunch 
 eons, free drives, and all the consideration which 
 the real estate operator keeps on tap for his 
 victims until he has them safe. But, be it soon 
 or late, the day will surely come when he is 
 cornered, when the compromising word is said, 
 when he sees his name on an innocent-looking 
 "memorandum of agreement" and then it is 
 all over before he knows it. The fatal Deed and 
 the ravenous Bond and Mortgage are signed, 
 sealed and delivered; his bridges are burnt be 
 hind him, he stands trembling and apprehensive 
 at the beginning of a new life; and the Pointer 
 has become the last thing that he ever meant 
 to be a Suburbanite.
 
 THE FURNACE 
 
 WHEN I first moved into the country 
 (I have told this story before; but 
 only in the comparative privacy of the 
 poetic form), I inquired for a suitable man to 
 take charge of my furnace. One was recom 
 mended to me, and we opened negotiations, 
 which were conducted warily on both sides; for 
 each of us was wondering how much the other 
 knew about a furnace, and each of us was con 
 scious of plenty of ignorance to betray. Finally, 
 the man asked me how much time I wanted him 
 to devote to the furnace. Here I turned and 
 rent him. I told him that if he were applying 
 for the post of furnace tender, he ought to know 
 how much time it was his duty to devote to that 
 particular furnace. This disconcerted him, and 
 he said that he had asked the question only be 
 cause it had occurred to him that I might want 
 him to stay with the furnace all day. I asked 
 him why he should stay with the furnace all 
 day, and he said: "To prevent its blowing up." 
 Now, in my simple city ignorance I supposed 
 that that man was simply trying to impose upon 
 me and to get a profitable job for himself; but 
 I have since come to know that he merely re 
 flected, in his uneducated, exaggerated way, the 
 
 252
 
 THE FURNACE 253 
 
 attitude of all suburbanites toward that domestic 
 Moloch, the Furnace. 
 
 The furnace is, for eight or nine months in 
 the year, the heart of domestic life, and it may 
 be said to feed the pulse of all suburban con 
 versation. Even the question of domestic service 
 has to yield to it in importance, as a topic; for 
 you may, or you may not, at any given time, 
 have a cook, but you always have a coal-bill. 
 
 Now, I wish to do all that lies in my power 
 to reprehend this tendency. It not only imparts 
 to suburban conversation an ashy and uninterest 
 ing flavor, but it spoils the furnace. Long ex 
 perience has taught me, and I do not hesitate to 
 affirm it, that furnaces are just like children 
 you can spoil them and set them all wrong in 
 life by making too much fuss over them; by 
 coddling and petting them; by paying attention 
 to their little whims and fancies; and, above all, 
 by talking about them to their faces in the pres 
 ence of visitors and strangers. You all know 
 how it is with children: if little Claribel is in 
 the room, and you say to the lady who is visit 
 ing you: 
 
 "Oh, I don t know what to do! little Clari 
 bel is so sensitive! Do you know, the other 
 day she wept for five hours together because 
 the cat killed a little bird on the lawn!" 
 
 Do you know what happens after that? Little 
 Claribel s one idea is to beat her own record 
 for sensitiveness by weeping six hours over the 
 next dead bird she finds; and if she can t find
 
 254 THE FUENACE 
 
 any other way of attracting attention and win 
 ning praise for her delicate susceptibilities, she 
 will drop a tear on a deceased tumblebug, just 
 to attract a moment s notice. In the same way, 
 if you tell your visitor in the youngster s hear 
 ing, that your dear little Reginald has such a 
 wonderful flow of spirits that it seems impossible 
 for him to control himself why, you must not 
 be surprised if Reginald seizes the opportunity 
 to kick his football through the parlor window, 
 by way of showing the exuberance of his spirits, 
 and the impossibility of restraining them. Well, 
 you can spoil a furnace much in the same way 
 as you can spoil a child. 
 
 Do not for an instant imagine that I began 
 my suburban life with any superiority of knowl 
 edge over my neighbors at least, so far as the 
 management of a furnace was concerned. In 
 many other respects I knew more than they did 
 although I am not using so much knowledge 
 now. I treated my furnace with the same famil 
 iar indulgence and familiarity; and gave it just 
 as absurd an idea of its own importance as did 
 the most thoughtless of those about me. Many 
 and many a time has that furnace heard me 
 talking through the thin floor that separates the 
 cellar from the ground story telling of its w r ays 
 and its fancies; of its extravagance in coal one 
 week, and of its strict economy the next; of its 
 entire unwillingness to work in an east wind, and 
 its furious enthusiasm to roast the house every 
 time there was a breath from the south. Be-
 
 THE FURNACE 255 
 
 ginning that way, no wonder I turned the poor 
 thing s head. 
 
 But this was only the least of the foolishness 
 with which I encouraged that furnace to mis 
 behave. I discharged the man whom I had first 
 engaged to take care of it; not because I could 
 find any real fault with him, but because he 
 seemed to me to have no real sense of the seri 
 ousness of his responsibility. I thought he 
 treated the furnace in a slighting and disrespect 
 ful manner; and I didn t like the way that he 
 slammed the door after he had put the coal in. 
 I hired a small boy to sleep in the house, so that 
 he might be at the service of the furnace day and 
 night. I can say for the boy that he carried out 
 one part of his contract. He slept in the house. 
 
 It was I who went down late at night after 
 I had got home from a dinner or a dance, or a 
 trip to the city to hear the opera, and dove into 
 the cellar to study the immediate needs of that 
 furnace, drowsily summoning to my aid what 
 small scraps of knowledge I possessed about 
 draughts and heat-units and cold air supply 
 only in the end to stir up something or other, 
 I didn t know why; to let down something, about 
 the end and aim of which I knew still less; and 
 to make some combination of dampers and slides 
 and doors, for which I never in the world could 
 have offered the slightest reason. 
 
 Of course, in my earlier suburban days, I 
 was even more foolish in my treatment of my 
 furnace. I took a number of plumbers down to
 
 256 THE FURNACE 
 
 see it, and consulted with them one at a time, 
 of course, in its very presence. Each one laid 
 out for me a different set of rules by which to 
 work it, and explained to me a different set of 
 principles which governed each set of rules. You 
 could not have told them from so many doctors. 
 At first, too, I showed the furnace to friends of 
 experience and to distinguished strangers who 
 occasionally honored my humble roof. On one 
 occasion I took down a distinguished poet, a 
 scientist of wide reputation and a man who had 
 recently invented a ten-cent puzzle; and this 
 overdose of glory and dignity was quite too 
 much for the furnace. It would not draw for 
 the next three weeks, and it gave out verv little 
 more heat than the refrigerator. 
 
 The furnace did not improve as the years 
 went on; and the members of the household 
 learned with each successive twelve-month to rely 
 more and more upon open fires and upon a 
 gradual toughening process that went on from 
 September to April, and that made an indoor 
 temperature of fifty degrees Fahrenheit bear 
 able, if not, perhaps, enjoyable. Then there 
 came a day a happy day when the owner of 
 the furnace asserted himself. It was a mild 
 January day of a Winter which I had begun by 
 laying in twenty tons of coal for the consump 
 tion of that furnace. The boy came up to tell 
 me that they were consumed. He was not the 
 first boy who had made of his young energies 
 a burnt offering to my furnace ; he was only one
 
 THE FURNACE 257 
 
 in a long succession. When I heard from his 
 lips that the coal was all gone; and when I re 
 flected that the chilly annoyances of the Winter 
 were to be succeeded by the cruel inclemencies 
 of Springtime, I was bitterly angered; and for 
 the iirst time in my experience I went down into 
 the cellar, conscious of an angry and unkind 
 feeling toward my furnace. 
 
 The boy had spoken truth: yet not all the 
 truth. The twenty tons of coal had vanished 
 from the bin, and now, slightly charred, formed 
 a large portion of what was supposed to be a 
 pile of ashes, in a lonely region of the cellar. 
 One door of the furnace was broken, another 
 had lost its hinge; and a huge crack rent its 
 fire-pot half way through. I gave my orders 
 sternly and precisely. The food for the furnace 
 was no longer to be purchased in twenty-ton 
 lots. It was to be fed from hand to mouth: 
 ton by ton at a time. No plumber Avas to heal 
 its gaping wounds and I was never to hear 
 one solitary word about it until the Summertime 
 should come, when I could tear it out and sell 
 it for old iron, and put some more modern 
 device in its place. 
 
 That was six years ago, and all is changed 
 since then. That day the furnace learned its 
 lesson: in bitterness of spirit, I have no doubt; 
 but faithfully and fully. Never since then have 
 I had to contend with it. Perhaps its duties 
 are not performed in absolute cheerfulness of 
 mind; but so long as it locks up its discontent
 
 258 THE FUKNACE 
 
 in its breast and locks no clinkers there, I shall 
 not complain. A dull and sullen servant it may 
 be, but so diligent and loyal and steady that I 
 try to shut my eyes to the fact that the crack 
 in the fire-pot is steadily widening; and that be 
 fore long the companion of many days and nights 
 of suburban solitude and solicitude will be loaded 
 on a truck, and will be borne dangling and clang 
 ing away from its home to lie in some river 
 side junkyard and rust itself redder than it ever 
 would fire up for me. 
 
 In the meantime it patiently eats and turns 
 to good account, short rations of coal, grudgingly 
 doled out to it, too often from the sifted ash-heap.
 
 THE TIME-TABLE TEST 
 
 ONCE upon a time, in the days of my 
 young and green suburbanity, I served 
 on some society for the improvement of 
 everything in general; and I was appointed a 
 committee of one to call upon the residents 
 of a certain street and find out how they were 
 disposed toward some project the society had in 
 hand. I was appointed, I suppose, because I 
 knew hardly any one in that particular quarter. 
 In fact, I knew but one man, and him very 
 slightly. So, as I knew that he was a man of 
 wealth and reputation, I thought I would save 
 myself trouble by calling on him only, and letting 
 him voice the sentiment of his district. 
 
 Mr. Banker was out, but Mrs. Banker re 
 ceived me graciously, and even treated me with 
 a certain affability until I told her my mission. 
 Then her manner underwent a change. She said 
 she thought Mr. Banker was in favor of the proj 
 ect, but that she knew nothing of the other 
 people of whom I inquired. I said that I had 
 thought Mr. Banker would be able to tell me 
 something about the probable attitude of his next 
 door neighbor, Mr. Smallsales. Mrs. Banker did 
 not think, however, that Mr. Banker would be 
 likely to possess any information as to the views 
 of Mr. Smallsales. I then suggested that Mr. 
 
 259
 
 260 THE TIME-TABLE TEST 
 
 Banker might at least be able to tell me how Mr. 
 Pettycash, across the way, might happen to stand 
 on the subject. Mrs. Banker was very sure that 
 Mr. Banker could do nothing of the sort. I 
 named several other residents of the neighbor 
 hood, but in every case Mrs. Banker was con 
 fident that Mr. Banker could not possibly be 
 acquainted with the gentleman s opinions. The 
 coldness of her tone increased with every inquiry ; 
 and at last it became so disapprovingly chilly 
 that I meekly rose to retire, wondering wherein 
 I had offended. 
 
 Mrs. Banker saw my confusion, and she re 
 lented sufficiently to afford me a hint of enlight 
 enment. With a severe, though pitying rebuke, 
 conveyed in voice and manner, Mrs. Banker 
 drew herself up majestically and said, icily 
 looking over my bowed head : 
 
 "We have not had the pleasure of having you 
 long in the town, Mr. Sage, and you probably do 
 not know that Mr. Banker never goes in earlier 
 than the 10:17!" 
 
 In one instant I recognized the vast social gap 
 which separated the husband of my hostess from 
 poor Smallsales who "went in" on the 7:27. 
 Blushing for my obtuseness, I went home and 
 resigned from the society. I told the president 
 that I thought I was too new in the suburban 
 field for active work; and when he said that it 
 was only the new men who ever would do any 
 active work, I knew that I was right.
 
 THE TIME-TABLE TEST 261 
 
 It was this incident, I think, that first led me 
 to find diversion in studying the humors and 
 humanities of the Children of the Time-table. 
 There is an upper window in my house that 
 commands an uninterrupted view of the little 
 railway station, and it is a daily pleasure for 
 me to stand there and watch our little suburban 
 world going to business. We are all slaves of 
 the bell: they of the locomotive-bell, and I of 
 the one that jingles in a corner of the type 
 writer, and keeps tab of the lines as they crawl 
 along. 
 
 I have got so now that if I were to wake 
 up out of a sound sleep, look out of that win 
 dow and see so much as the back of a man, or 
 even the top of his hat there is a good deal 
 of expression in hats going to the train, I could 
 tell you instantly what train it is, whether it is 
 the man s regular train or not and more or 
 less why he is taking it. 
 
 There is no affectation or self-consciousness 
 about the men who go into New York on the 
 very early trains. Life is too serious a matter 
 to them, and too dull a matter; and it holds 
 no bright possibilities. On the first six o clock 
 train or on the second six o clock train they 
 go in; and on the first six o clock train or on 
 the second six o clock train they will go in until 
 the time comes for another journey which will 
 not involve their getting up so early. Perhaps 
 there are some among them who might ease 
 their weary lives and work themselves up a
 
 262 THE TIME-TABLE TEST 
 
 train or two; but as this would involve the 
 execution of several extra licks of work, I do not 
 think that it is at all likely. 
 
 It is the first train after seven o clock that 
 brings forth the passenger to whom the time 
 table assumes the appearance of an ascending 
 social scale. He is only an office-boy at present. 
 If he is employed by a very large commission 
 house, rating at Al or A2 in the books, he may 
 be called a junior clerk; but even in that case 
 his duties are the same, and his pay is likely 
 to be less. His companions on his townward 
 trip all occupy similar positions, and he knows 
 them all and greets them with airy familiarity. 
 They skylark noisily on the platform, and be 
 have just as much like college boys as they dare 
 to. They have to put some restraint upon them 
 selves, however, for the neighboring commuters 
 are jealous of their rest. And, while they are 
 accustomed to stand a great deal of noise from 
 locomotives, they naturally draw the line at 
 boys. 
 
 The 7:03 train is a pleasant sight to watch, 
 as it begins to puff on its way, for even if the 
 boys do show off a little they are genuinely 
 happy and full of the joy of life; and I like 
 to see them scramble up the steps like young 
 monkeys. But the 7:27 train is quite another 
 affair. 
 
 The errand-boy has got his promotion. He 
 is really a junior clerk of some sort; and he 
 has the glorious privilege of getting to his
 
 THE TIME-TABLE TEST 263 
 
 office exactly twenty-four minutes later. But, 
 with his first step upward, he leaves light-hearted 
 boyishness behind him and becomes a prey to 
 cankering ambition. His companions are men 
 now, but mostly men who have barely escaped 
 the bondage of the 6 :38, and in whose breast the 
 hope of ever rising even to the 8:01 is slowly 
 dying out. There is no companionship among 
 them, for they all hate the doubtful limbo in 
 which they are placed; and those who may get 
 out of it despise those who never may, while 
 the latter hate the former with all the cordiality 
 of a healthy human envy. It needs only a 
 glance to tell a 7:27 man. He appears long 
 before train time, and he hurries along and 
 casts furtive glances up and down the street, 
 fearful that some 8:01 man may be ostenta 
 tiously loafing around his garden, flaunting to 
 the world his thirty-four minutes of superiority. 
 And yet the 8:01 man that is, the regular 
 every-day 8:01 man is not a happy creature. 
 It is true he puts a bolder face on as he goes 
 to the station, and assumes a jauntier carriage. 
 He cultivates an air of being extremely fond 
 of early rising ; and he sniffs the morning breeze 
 with such an affectation of enjoyment that he 
 sometimes awakens late sleepers under whose 
 windows he may chance to pass. But his arro 
 gant pretenses desert him when he gets to the 
 station. There you see him glance nervously 
 about, anxiously seeking for some 8:48 man 
 who has been forced by an exceptional emer-
 
 264 THE TIME-TABLE TEST 
 
 gency to take an earlier train. Him he will 
 pursue and catch, and fasten on him with the 
 grip of death; and he will not be shaken off. 
 The 8:48 man has business on his mind; he 
 has got up three-quarters of an hour before his 
 usual time and every morning minute counts 
 with the suburban commuter and he is sleepy 
 and cross, and his breakfast is sitting crosswise 
 on his stomach. But the 8:01 man will stick 
 by him, and walk up and down the platform 
 with him, and nod loftily to his regular com 
 panions, as though he, too, were one of the 
 favored children of fortune who usually took 
 the train of the day. 
 
 For, of course, the 8:48 is the train of the 
 day. WE take it the WE that is WE in 
 every suburban town oh! too often most tire- 
 somely WE, and most unkindly nobody else. 
 The passing of the 8:48 train is decidedly a 
 social function. The men approach it by twos 
 and threes, never hurrying, but with an air of 
 elegant leisure that may have taken ten or fifteen 
 minutes in preparation. They are all spick and 
 span in their clothes: for a commuter s clothes 
 improve from train to train until he gets to 
 taking the 10:17, when he is reputed so rich 
 that he may safely dress shabbily. There is 
 always a crowd at this train, and many ladies 
 take it who could much more conveniently go 
 in later. There is a great deal of tipping of 
 hats and shaking of hands in the latest imported 
 style; and, altogether, you would think that the
 
 THE TIME-TABLE TEST 265 
 
 people assembled on the little platform had come 
 together to go to a meeting of the Fourhundred 
 Hunt, instead of going to New York to make 
 money downtown or spend it uptown and no 
 great money at either end. 
 
 I saw a perfectly happy man the other day. 
 It was my friend Pettycash. For many years, 
 Summer and Winter, he has served the 7:27 
 train faithfully and unfailingly. The other day 
 he came into his old aunt s money, and he 
 promptly resigned his clerkship. He told his 
 wife that for a few days before he entered on 
 the management of the estate he would stay 
 at home, and they would have a splendid time 
 together, looking over the garden and figuring 
 out what the house needed in improvements. 
 But on the very first day of his freedom he 
 surprised and disappointed her immediately 
 after breakfast by telling her that he had for 
 gotten something in town which he ought to 
 attend to, and that he positively must go in. He 
 tried to placate her by offering to do an errand 
 for her; but I think that only aroused unjust 
 suspicions in her mind. She need not have been 
 troubled, however. He only wanted to take the 
 10:17 train, and he took it. I happened to be 
 at the station, where the train was delayed for 
 a few minutes, and I saw him roaming uneasily 
 from car to car, although it has been his in 
 variable custom to travel in the smoker. But
 
 266 THE TIME-TABLE TEST 
 
 when I saw him at last settle himself in the 
 forward car, just in front of the great Mr. 
 Banker, and begin, with an air of indolent ease, 
 to read an illustrated paper, I knew just how 
 he felt.
 
 THE SOCIETY CHURCH 
 
 "^\ T"ERY pleasant people, I have no doubt, 
 
 \/ my dear. In fact, I have heard that 
 
 T Mrs. Chasuble met them and thought 
 
 them very agreeable, indeed. But I really don t 
 
 know anything about them, myself. They don t 
 
 belong to our church, you know!" 
 
 Do not imagine, my startled friend, that good 
 Mrs. Burrage is speaking in an un-Christian 
 spirit when she answers thus a newcomer s 
 question about some resident of older date. 
 There is not a hint of un-Christian spirit in 
 Mrs. Burrage. She has the highest respect for 
 the people of whom she speaks; her manner is 
 most cordial to them when she meets them here, 
 and I am sure it will be even more cordial when 
 she meets them in heaven after the burden of 
 her social responsibilities shall have rolled off 
 her much-tried suburban back. In speaking as 
 she does, she is simply asserting the right of 
 her own beloved church to call itself the Society 
 Church of the town. She and other earnest 
 workers have won for it that distinction; not 
 by zealous religious effort for she knows no 
 more of the doctrines of her church than she 
 knows of the doctrines of Confucius but simply 
 by good, solid, indefatigable financiering. 
 
 What has she not done what has she not 
 
 267
 
 268 THE SOCIETY CHURCH 
 
 gone through, to attain that much-desired end? 
 She has wrung gold out of rocks, silver out of 
 stone, and nickel and copper out of the very 
 pebbles and dust. She has coaxed and cajoled 
 and wheedled well-to-do home-seekers into set 
 tling in our town; and she has lured their wives 
 and daughters from other folds by an extrava 
 gance in the way of social entertainment which 
 has driven Burrage almost to the verge of dis 
 traction. He told me that he completely w r ore 
 out one dress suit while Mrs. Burrage was get 
 ting the church-spire built; and that he worked 
 a hole in his new trousers over a series of 
 dinners which she gave to rope-in some people 
 who hadn t subscribed to the font. 
 
 For the rock on which the suburban Society 
 Church rests is, I am afraid, a rock of gold- 
 bearing quartz that has little likeness to the 
 rock on which Peter founded Ms church. I do 
 not mean to say, or even to hint, that the 
 church, as a church, is not all that a church 
 should be in the way of disinterested and de 
 voted spirituality. I should not presume to 
 bear testimony upon such a point. I am only 
 speaking of the church as the dominant social 
 organization of the town, to point out that it 
 attained that proud position or, as the vulgar 
 say, "got there" because its congregation had 
 the most money and the best workers. 
 
 The opposition church we have a number 
 of churches in our town, but only two of what 
 you might call the first magnitude thought it
 
 THE SOCIETY CHURCH 269 
 
 had done a very clever thing when it got its 
 corner-stone laid; covered up with a neat little 
 wooden box, and left to await the growth of a 
 building fund to visible proportions. Little the 
 congregation of that church knew Mrs. Burrage. 
 She laid her corner-stone later, it is true, but in 
 it she put attested copies of all the builders 
 contracts, and of the guarantees of fifteen well- 
 to-do citizens to pay for the construction of the 
 edifice up to the roof-line. It may have been 
 this move; or it may have been her chartering 
 a freight-train, decorating it with flowers and 
 green things, and running a church-fair on 
 wheels the whole length of our section of the 
 railroad but one way or another victory perched 
 on her banners. People said that the freight-car 
 church-fair was undignified and even irreverent; 
 but it was a glittering success; and, in the end, 
 there was the beautiful little brown-stone church 
 to show for it, on the best corner lot in the 
 best quarter of the place. And when the new 
 comer in town looked around him and saw that 
 church and the other churches, and the weather- 
 beaten box, rain-streaked and gray, that shel 
 tered the corner-stone of the opposition church, 
 it is small wonder that he (or his wife) promptly 
 exchanged the religious convictions of his (or 
 her) ancestors for the social convictions of Mrs. 
 Burrage. 
 
 I have not told you what particular church 
 it is for which Mrs. Burrage has struggled so 
 hard; but I may say that in most suburban
 
 270 THE SOCIETY CHURCH 
 
 towns the struggle is apt to lie between the 
 Episcopalians and the Presbyterians. The Pres 
 byterians have the most money and the Episco 
 palians have the most skill. I suppose that all 
 the churches are equally capitalized in respect 
 to Christianity; but when it comes to cash capi 
 tal, these two denominations loom up like light 
 houses. The Methodist Church is rich in spots, 
 and the Congregational Church of New England 
 has a few well-provisioned outposts; but if you 
 want to see a real good, lively tussle for the 
 possession of the top place in a new town, you 
 want to see an Episcopal congregation and a 
 Presbyterian congregation tackle each other for 
 blood. 
 
 The struggle is rarely a long one. The first 
 stone church up gets the prize. There is no 
 gainsaying that sure and certain proof of certain 
 financial superiority. It is the Stonechurchites 
 henceforward who will build the finest club 
 house, organize the largest entertainments, and 
 set the social key for the whole town deciding 
 whether the majority shall go in for athletics 
 or for intellectuals; for the higher culture or 
 for fashionable frivolity. If the Presbyterians 
 get the inside track, the town is sure to get the 
 higher culture, and will probably come in for 
 athletics; but it doesn t stand a ghost of a show 
 for frivolity. If the Episcopalians get there, 
 the fashionable frivolity and the athletics (of a 
 mild sort) are quite safe; but there is absolutely 
 no chance for the intellectualities of the higher
 
 THE SOCIETY CHURCH 271 
 
 culture: the idea of an Episcopalian s needing 
 to know any more than he naturally does know 
 being too preposterous to consider. 
 
 Let me say here that although my range of 
 observation has covered, by-and-large, a dozen 
 small towns of this country-side, I have never 
 seen one instance where defeat, in a fight of 
 this sort, was not accepted loyally and bravely. 
 If the Presbyterians are conquered, they simply 
 screw the armor of sanctity a little tighter, and 
 move among their neighbors as stern old Puri 
 tans might have moved amid Papists and mum 
 mers in the days of the second Charles. If the 
 Episcopalians lose the game, they simply smile 
 a pitying smile of amused tolerance, and the 
 vestryman s wife says to her guests: 
 
 1 Oh, no, my dear! you mustn t expect any 
 thing in the way of gayety here, you know. 
 This is the very stronghold of Presbyterianism ; 
 and we poor idolators are quite looked down 
 upon. There are only enough of us, you know, 
 for two or three tables at whist, and I m afraid 
 that our good neighbors think we are very 
 shocking people." 
 
 Yet it must be very hard. Of course every 
 body discounts the fact that nine out of ten of 
 the newcomers in town will have neither religion 
 nor politics until they find out which is the 
 fashionable church, and which is the party with 
 the normal majority. But it must be trying to 
 the Shepherd when his best ewe lambs begin 
 to stray from the fold.
 
 272 THE SOCIETY CHURCH 
 
 Here is the case of Mrs. Chedby, for instance. 
 Her pastor met her on the street the other day, 
 and remarked: 
 
 "I have not had the pleasure of seeing you 
 lately, Mrs. Chedby." (In church understood.) 
 
 "No," says Mrs. Chedby, a little pinkish, but 
 with the air of one who has prepared herself 
 for the fray: "you see, Mr. Chedby s mother is 
 visiting us, and she s such an ardent Stone- 
 churcharian, you know, and counts so much 
 upon never missing a service; and being nearly 
 eighty, you know, I really had to go with her. 
 And I m sure, much as it is that I miss there, 
 it s been a great comfort to me to be a help 
 to the old lady, finding her places in the prayer- 
 book. It came quite easy to me, of course, for 
 my mother was an Episcopalian, you know." 
 
 Yes, he knows; the poor pastor knows. And 
 he knows that her father was a hard-shell Bap 
 tist; and he knows that if she were to go to 
 Paris to-morrow her grandparents would turn 
 out to have been Roman Catholics. And he 
 knows that she is slipping slipping slipping 
 away from him. 
 
 A little before the end of dear Mama s visit, 
 Mrs. Chedby "gets at" Mr. Chedby to induce 
 him to go to church once in a while just for 
 the look of it. That question having been set 
 tled for ten years or so, Mr. Chedby does not 
 understand her at all. Then he thinks she wants 
 more money. When he finds she doesn t, he 
 becomes a little worried about her health, and
 
 THE SOCIETY CHURCH 273 
 
 privately asks the doctor if women ever get 
 " nutty" from going to church too much. Finally 
 he begins to dimly perceive that she has some 
 object in view which she means to keep to her 
 self. He waxes wroth. He lays back his ears 
 and stubbornly refuses. She pleads with him 
 for his mother s sake. 
 
 "You know, my dear, she hasn t said one 
 word about it since she s been here, though I m 
 sure it s a grief to her, you re not going. Your 
 father always did, you know. Now, if you d 
 only go once, just once, to please her, and I 
 promise you I won t ask you another time. You 
 know, dear, you may never see her again." 
 
 Finally Chedby compromises to the extent 
 of one solitary service, and Mrs. Chedby reminds 
 him of his promise the moment he opens his 
 eyes on the beautiful Sabbath morn. It is well 
 she does, for it is no trifling job to get Chedby 
 off to church. In the first place, he is a man 
 who spends most of his waking hours in a cheviot 
 shirt, for he is an electrical engineer of renown, 
 and he is the superintendent for this region of 
 some great company that is scarring this fair 
 country with trolleys and power-houses, and all 
 manner of evil inventions; and most of Chedby s 
 time is spent in driving furiously hither and 
 thither in a sulky with a bottom like a big yellow 
 soap-dish. 
 
 He swears profusely as he struggles with his 
 collars and cuffs, alone in his little dressing- 
 room. Mrs. Chedby, in the next room, hears
 
 274 THE SOCIETY CHURCH 
 
 him; but she rebukes him only with a gentle 
 "Hush!" He swears still more every time that 
 he looks out of his dressing-room window, and 
 his eye lights on his little workshop in the gar 
 den, where for so many years he has spent his 
 Sunday mornings, peacefully tinkering away at 
 his inventions and improvements and contrap 
 tions generally; for Chedby is a mechanical ge 
 nius on his own hook I wish he would make 
 himself a lawn-roller. 
 
 However, he has got ready at last, and is 
 steered into the church-going throng on the 
 highway, red in the face, and suffering much 
 in the region of the collar. He gets redder 
 yet as he hears low whistles of surprise and 
 incredulity from passing golfers and bicyclers; 
 but with his eyes firmly fixed upon the prayer- 
 book, which he grasps with perspiring fingers, 
 he marches on behind his womenfolk. At church 
 he gets along pretty well through the service; 
 although Mrs. Chedby has to take his silk hat 
 away from him two or three times, because he 
 will play a tattoo on the crown. In the first 
 of the sermon he fidgets, then he calms down 
 into a state of absolute abstraction, and Mrs. 
 Chedby knows by his drumming on his knees 
 with his finger tips and puckering his lips as 
 if he were going to whistle, that he is deep in 
 mathematical calculations. In fancied security 
 the good lady folds her arms and begins to 
 study Episcopalian styles in sermon-hearing at 
 titudes. The clergyman draws the main argu-
 
 THE SOCIETY CHURCH 275 
 
 ment of his discourse to an end with one of 
 those sweeping, triumphant questions which are 
 only asked because there isn t any answer to 
 them; and Mr. Chedby, dimly conscious in his 
 mathematical depths of an interrogative pause, 
 gives a loud, absent-minded snort of assent. A 
 little titter titters around; Mrs. Chedby flushes 
 crimson, and the Rev. Mr. Lilymouth turns the 
 pinkest he can, and reads the rest of his ser 
 mon as if it were an auctioneer s catalogue. 
 
 But Chedby has served his turn. The paths 
 of the two congregations cross each other ^ and 
 Mrs. Chedby takes good care that her old pastor 
 shall see her turn-out. 
 
 "Oh, yes," she will say to him later, when 
 he makes his hopeless remonstrance; "I got jinto 
 the habit of going when Mr. Chedby s mother 
 was here, and Mr. Chedby showed so much in 
 terest in going to his old church again; and I 
 knew he wouldn t go by himself; and as the 
 children are to be brought up in that faith, 
 anyway, and as both Mr. Chedby and his mother 
 felt so strongly about it, it didn t seem to me 
 as though I ought to consider myself. And of 
 course it would have been different, in a way, 
 if dear Mama hadn t been a Church-of-England 
 woman ! 
 
 And when he hears the "dear Mama" and 
 the "Church-of-England woman" the poor Shep 
 herd knows that the brand of the other flock 
 is on his ewe lamb.
 
 THE SUBURBANITE AND 
 HIS GOLF 
 
 ONE day last Summer, Mygatt called on 
 me at about five o clock in the after 
 noon. I saw from the evening paper 
 in his hand that he had just come from the 
 train; and I wondered a little at this, for he is 
 a regular man in his goings and comings, and 
 my house is well out of his way. With an air 
 that was at once mysterious and diffident, he 
 asked if he might look at my encyclopedia. I 
 took him to the library and asked him what 
 volume he wanted. He seemed uncertain about 
 it, and something in his manner suggested to 
 me that he wanted to be left alone. I strolled 
 out upon the verandah, and I had not sat there 
 long before Hix came in at the gate. He, too, 
 wanted to look at my encyclopedia. I was about 
 to tell him that Mygatt was at that moment 
 looking at it, when, glancing over my shoulder, 
 I saw that the library was empty, and that one 
 of the volumes was missing from the big leather- 
 bound set. Mygatt must have slipped out of 
 my own back door of retreat, and I could not 
 but infer that he had his own wishes for having 
 his errand kept private. I told Hix I would 
 
 276
 
 THE SUBURBANITE AND HIS GOLF 277 
 
 go with him to the library as soon as my smoke 
 was finished, and I got him to sit down by me 
 on the side farthest from the door, and smoke 
 until Mygatt should have had a chance to cover 
 his retreat. In the meantime I asked Hix if I 
 could be of any service to him in his researches. 
 At first he didn t think I could, and then he 
 hemmed, hawed, and finally blurted out: 
 
 "Why, it s this way, Sage: I want to look up 
 something about an English game that they 
 call golf or goff, or something like that; and I 
 guess I ll have to get you to help me, for I m 
 hanged if I know how to spell the blamed thing." 
 
 "Oh!" said I, much relieved; "is that what 
 you want?" A hasty glance showed me that 
 Mygatt was gone, and his volume was back in 
 the book-case. I led my guest to the old red 
 cherry book-case in the hall, that enshrines the 
 sporting library of the family for several gen 
 erations a curious collection that ranged from 
 Izaak "Walton, by way of Mr. Sponge s Sporting 
 Tour, to the Baseball Guide of the current year. 
 Here I hunted up two or three recent works on 
 golf which I had to read in boning up for a 
 Quarterly article on "The Specific Moral Influ 
 ence of Certain Assorted and Selected Forms 
 of Physical Exercise;" and I was just simple 
 enough to give him a condensed account of what 
 I had boned up. I thought Hix looked a little 
 frightened at the books; but he took the thin 
 nest one of them and departed, thanking me 
 more warmly than seemed necessary. As I went
 
 278 THE SUBURBANITE AND HIS GOLF 
 
 back into the library, I could not help noticing 
 that Mygatt had not put his volume back prop 
 erly. I pulled it out, and the book split itself 
 open at the pages headed 
 
 GOLDSMITH GOMEE 
 
 GOLF GOMPHIASIS 
 
 It did not require any great sagacity to put 
 the one two and the other two together; but I 
 felt pretty sure of my guess, when, late the next 
 night, just as I was closing my book to go to 
 bed, a man who had not crossed my threshold 
 for two years slipped stealthily in on me and 
 said: 
 
 "Oh, Sage, they tell me you re a great au 
 thority on the new game they call garf. Would 
 you mind telling me something about it? Pretty 
 much the same thing as shinny, isn t it!" 
 
 I was away from home for a few weeks in 
 the latter part of the Summer. The first night 
 that I got home Hix and Mygatt came to see 
 me. It was the hottest September night, I think, 
 that I ever remember; but those two dear sim 
 ians wore heavy tweed suits, hand-me-down cloth 
 caps that fell over their noses, and golf stockings 
 an inch thick, with a diamond pattern on them, 
 in a ghastly orange that somehow suggested a 
 dish of fried eggs gone astray. 
 
 They told me that they wanted me to play 
 golf; that it was the greatest game on earth;
 
 THE SUBURBANITE AND HIS GOLF 279 
 
 and that I did not want to lose an hour in 
 making myself acquainted with its mysteries. 
 
 "I suppose," said Mygatt, "you think it s 
 something like shinny. Most people do. But 
 it s not, in the least. You see, it s this way " 
 
 "Hold on!" interrupted Hix; "you let me 
 explain to him. I ve shown so many people 
 I ve kind of got the hang of it. Maybe he s 
 heard something about it, anyway. You ve heard 
 of the game, haven t you, Sage? G-O-L-F You 
 must have seen something about it in the pa 
 pers." 
 
 "My dear," inquired Mrs. Sage, when I had 
 toiled upstairs that night, an hour or two later, 
 "what on earth were those men talking to you 
 about all this while?" 
 
 "Golf," I said, wearily. 
 
 "What!" cried Mrs. Sage, indignantly; "not 
 that ridiculous game that they ve been trying 
 to get us to play all this time up at Seacaddie?" 
 
 "I am afraid, my dear," I said, "it is the 
 very same." 
 
 Now, I am not going to say anything against 
 golf; and I do not doubt that to the unfortu 
 nates of Lenox and Tuxedo, idle and incapable 
 of intellectual enjoyments, it must be, indeed, a 
 precious boon. But to the plain suburbanite of 
 modest means it is nowhere in interest to the 
 game the conductor plays making holes in his 
 commutation ticket.
 
 280 THE SUBURBANITE AND HIS GOLF 
 
 I think that perhaps the golf enthusiasts might 
 have made better progress in their great mis 
 sion, had they not too early in the day let out 
 the fact that there is more golf played off the 
 grounds than on them in fact, that it is a great 
 ferry-boat and station-platform game. 
 
 In the beginning, Hix and Mygatt and the 
 rest of them took turns at carrying broken golf 
 clubs into the city, and expatiating on the deli 
 cate points of the instrument. 
 
 "Best mashie I ever had," one announces, 
 as if he had been brought up with mashies. "I 
 got it the day I got that craigenputtoch and that 
 gloomer you know, Hix?" 
 
 "Little bit like my stymie-boddle, isn t it?" 
 inquires Hix. 
 
 "No," says Mygatt, judicially; "I think you 
 will find it has a little more whoof on the wimsie 
 side just a thirty-second of an inch, maybe; 
 but that s what does it." 
 
 And they all agree that that is what does it; 
 and they tell stories about strikes they have 
 made and they haven t made, so long, and so 
 specific, and so utterly pointless and uninter 
 esting that they would turn a trout-fisher green 
 with envy. 
 
 An indiscreet excess of this sort of thing led 
 to a chilly, suspicious feeling about golf in the 
 more active athletic circles of our town. Mem 
 bers of the baseball team went down to the golf- 
 links, watched the proceedings for a half -hour or 
 so, and then demanded:
 
 THE SUBUEBANITE AND HIS GOLF 281 
 
 "Say, when are you fellows going to quit prac 
 tice and call the game?" 
 
 This treatment so irritated the golfites that 
 they worked themselves into a sort of religious 
 fury of enthusiasm. They ravaged the town for 
 converts. Men, women and children were torn 
 from happy homes and forced to swing deformed 
 war-clubs in the air, and to pound the inoffensive 
 earth. Brasseys and craigenputtochs were thrust 
 into the trembling hands of age, and even inno 
 cent childhood was not exempt. The church 
 itself was invoked to exert its powerful influence ; 
 and the Rector obligingly went around saying to 
 recalcitrants: "What! not play golf? I thought 
 everybody did!" It must have looked that way 
 to him Sunday mornings for the Church of 
 England, you know, golfs on Sunday with per 
 fect propriety. 
 
 But somehow all this was of no avail. The 
 game enjoyed a sort of hectic prosperity during 
 the latter days of Fall, when there was very 
 little else to be done out-of-doors; but the snow 
 buried it for the Winter; and when it was 
 brought forth again in the Spring, only a hand 
 ful of sneezing devotees gathered in the cause. 
 The practice games for the tennis openings 
 diminished even this number ; and when the base 
 ball season opened, the first swing of the bat 
 knocked golf galley-west. 
 
 When the crusade was at its hottest, I was
 
 282 THE SUBUEBANITE AND HIS GOLF 
 
 dragooned, against my natural instincts, into 
 buying a pair of crazy-quilt stockings an inch 
 thick, and a couple of crooked sticks with fool 
 names to them. The stockings were a good in 
 vestment, as I find on chilly days; but I never 
 knew what to do with the sticks until Mygatt, 
 who had made me buy them, moved into my 
 neighborhood. Then I painted red spots on 
 them, fixed them up with leather ears and bris 
 tling manes, which I had made out of an old 
 hair brush, and gave them to my two youngest 
 children for hobby-horses. Mygatt has to pass 
 my door twice a day, and every time I see him 
 watching those children with eyes of horror, 
 and shuddering at the desecration, I feel that 
 those sticks are earning an honest penny for 
 the first time in their crooked lives.
 
 THE SUBURBAN DOG 
 
 THERE is a small, sweet patch of silence 
 that comes over the suburban night 
 just as it is turning into morning. There 
 is no other really silent period in all the stretch 
 between bed-time and get-up time. A man never 
 realizes with what a variety of animal life he 
 is surrounded, until he lies awake one Summer 
 night in the suburbs. It will be borne in upon 
 him, in the course of that experience, that be 
 tween the moo of the calfless cow and the buzz 
 of the sleepless mosquito, there is as large a 
 choice in nocturnal noises as the most exacting 
 could demand. 
 
 But, for this little space, there comes a silence 
 so profound that it occasionally wakes me up. 
 It did the other day, and I did not try to go 
 to sleep at once, but lay still for a while, drink 
 ing in the charm of it. 
 
 The stillness was perfect. Even the little 
 birds in the vines had let up on their sawfiling 
 lullabies; and there was not enough wind to 
 move the leaves in the tree-tops. For ten min 
 utes the spell lasted, and then, far, far away, 
 in a distant street, I heard the opening and 
 shutting of a house-door, and my ear faintly 
 caught the sound of a heavy, regular foot-fall 
 on the hard macadam. 
 
 283
 
 284 THE SUBURBAN DOG 
 
 4 Ruh-ruh-ruh-ruh-ruh ! 
 
 It was only the engineer at the mill, going 
 to his daily work, and I knew it, and the dogs 
 knew it; but it made no difference to the dogs. 
 
 1 Ruh-ruh-ruh-ruh-ruh ! 
 
 It might have been a college yell, but it wasn t ; 
 it was the real thing. Somebody s dog had 
 seized the chance to be smart. Then another one 
 answers him a querulous little kiyi, who goes: 
 
 "Rih-rih-rih-rih-rih!" 
 
 Then a big hound comes in with a heavy bay 
 
 Roo-roo-roo-roo-roo ! 
 
 Then a lady-dog somewhere comes in with a 
 hysterical yelp, telling the world that her nerves 
 are all unstrung, and that it gave her a terrible 
 start to be waked up so suddenly, and what is 
 the matter, anyway? Then there is a vague 
 dog, who must live somewhere where he is not 
 in the habit of seeing things; and he barks in 
 a doubtful, inquiring way, as if he had done a 
 good deal of barking in the course of his life, 
 and had never seen any particular good come 
 of it. Then there is a peculiarly offensive dog 
 who yaps so shrilly and persistently and pene 
 tratingly that I know he cannot be much over 
 six inches long, and the kind of dog that would 
 run away from a rubber-doll. 
 
 One by one they all come in. Under my win 
 dow two familiar dog-voices break forth the 
 bass of my big dog and the treble of my little 
 one. On sweeps the chorus in every key and 
 cadence; and I know that the spreading ripple
 
 THE SUBURBAN DOG 285 
 
 of melody will not die out until it has reached 
 the confines of the town. It does not last long 
 five minutes, perhaps and then it subsides all 
 of a sudden. One low cur, who must have jack 
 ass blood in him, tries to get up an encore, but 
 it doesn t go. 
 
 A nuisance? Well, perhaps. But it is a nui 
 sance that goes with the dogs; and, so far as 
 I can judge, from the volume and extent of that 
 chorus, it has not deterred one single person 
 in town from keeping dogs. But it is totally 
 unnecessary. "Why do they do it 1 ? 
 
 Purely as a matter of sentiment. That is 
 their way of reminding us that they still cling 
 to the old title of service by which they earned 
 the right to share men s homes, and to be the 
 companions of men. The barking simply says: 
 
 "Here we are, you see; not wanted at present, 
 but just as ready to warn you of danger and 
 to fight for you as the best of our forefathers. 
 We know that it is all right just now; we don t 
 even get up to bark; we just lie here and wag 
 our fat tails, but we re here oh! we re here!" 
 
 Very foolish, you think. Well, perhaps so; 
 but there are four or five old gentlemen right 
 here in this State of New Jersey who meet once 
 every year in a remote town in the woods, and 
 go through certain legal formalities to assure the 
 myriad house-owners of the State that they, the 
 old gentlemen, are still the Proprietors of New 
 Jersey which they are, indeed, by right of suc 
 cession, although the original grant has dwindled
 
 286 THE SUBURBAN DOG 
 
 to a few pine-barrens. Now, either there is a 
 good deal of human nature about a dog, or 
 we will let it go at that. 
 
 I suppose it must be confessed that the sub 
 urban dog is, as a rule, a job lot. His owner, 
 of course, affects to see signs of blood and lin 
 eage about him; but his owner s neighbors call 
 him a mongrel cur, and as his past is generally 
 hazy, perhaps the neighbors size him up rightly. 
 Once in a while you find an inexperienced sub 
 urbanite who is rash enough to pay good money 
 for a real canine aristocrat, but he never repeats 
 the experiment. To keep the noble beast from 
 contaminating associations with the lower orders, 
 he has to be cooped up in a cage or pen, and 
 taken out to walk at the end of a leash. Under 
 this treatment the animal pines, and becomes a 
 burdensome object of compassion. Veterinaries, 
 amateur and professional, work over him with 
 no better effect than to increase his depression 
 of spirits. Finally he takes hold of the case 
 himself, breaks out of the cage one fine night, 
 and is not seen again for a couple of weeks, 
 when he returns home with every sign of having 
 led a highly disreputable life. His escapade 
 cannot be concealed from a censorious world. 
 In fact, complaints of his uninvited visits come 
 from dog-owners near and far, and in the end, 
 he is given to the farmer who makes the most 
 fuss over his claim for damages.
 
 THE SUBURBAN DOG 287 
 
 But in the case of the average dog, he is either 
 given, or he gives himself. Some dogs lead a 
 varied and unsettled life, involving a constant 
 repetition of both processes. A. moves to town 
 and gives his setter pup to B. Setter pup 
 doesn t like B., and goes and inflicts himself 
 upon C. C. won t have it, and passes the dog 
 over to D. The dog runs away every chance 
 he can get, and goes back to C. That makes D. 
 mad, and he tells C. to take his wretched pup 
 back. C. goes to E. and labors hard with him 
 to take the dog. E. finally consents, and then it 
 is discovered that the dog has established him 
 self in the household of F., from whence he 
 will probably be ejected as soon as he exposes 
 the objectionable ways that he has picked up 
 in the course of his many changes of ownership. 
 
 But whatever may be the ultimate fate of this 
 dog, he will for the rest of his days carry 
 around his affections, not in a solid chunk, but 
 cut up into sections, like a closely divided pie. 
 From A. to F. or to Z., if he lasts long enough 
 he will feel that he has a dropping-in acquaint 
 ance at every house; and not one of all the 
 people through whose hands he has passed will 
 ever get wholly rid of him, except C., who, 
 having had more trouble than anybody else with 
 the animal, may have found some clear and 
 comprehensible method of expressing his feel 
 ings on the subject. 
 
 I feel somewhat conscience-stricken for having 
 given this instance to the world, as I look out
 
 288 THE SUBURBAN DOG 
 
 of my window and see the flock of innocent, 
 harmless and wholly unobjectionable dogs repos 
 ing on my lawn and the neighborhood lawns 
 it is the very hottest of the day, and they are 
 quiet for a while. There are red and black set 
 ters, and calico setters, and fox-terriers, and 
 bull-terriers, and Scotch terriers, and Newfound 
 lands, and skyes, and bassett-hounds, and mas 
 tiffs, and every kind and variety of dog, down 
 to the plain yellow, or common dog dog. There 
 is not a pedigree among the whole lot of them; 
 few have any beauty, and the usefulness of the 
 best of them is a doubtful quantity. True, they 
 bark at night, but they bark as sensationally at 
 the squirrel in the tree as they do at the lurking 
 burglar; and they might bark their heads off 
 before any of us got up to bother with them. 
 They certainly do accompany the baby-carriages 
 on their rounds, with an air of proud, protecting 
 importance, which nothing in the world ever 
 attains to, except an officer in a militia regiment ; 
 and there is a widespread belief that if a tramp 
 attempted to raid a baby carriage, the largest of 
 the attendant dogs would eat him up. This must, 
 however, be always a problem of the future, for 
 tramps who are collecting babies are scarce in 
 these parts. 
 
 Perhaps they are not valuable or beautiful or 
 useful our dogs but we keep the most of 
 them for plain, honest love of them. They play 
 gently with the children; they submit to awk 
 ward, childish caresses that hurt them; even the
 
 THE SUBURBAN DOG 289 
 
 great, big, short-haired St. Bernard puts his 
 policeman s-club of a tail between his legs and 
 shrinks meekly away when the baby prods him 
 with a sharp stick. When, having been away, 
 we come home, they are the first to meet us, 
 wagging their honest tails, reaching us far ahead 
 of the children, and yet patiently waiting for 
 their meagre word and caress of recognition 
 until the young ones have been fully greeted. 
 
 How could we spare them our dogs for are 
 they not part and parcel of the suburban house 
 hold? When the Master of the House comes 
 home at evening, and looking up the roadway 
 from afar off, sees the big yellow tail and the 
 little brown tail wagging cheerfully as he heaves 
 in sight, he knows that all has gone well with the 
 home company, and that he need not fear that 
 change or sickness has come to pass in his ab 
 sence ; for, had it been otherwise, the dogs would 
 have known it, with their wonderful and mys 
 terious dog knowledge, and they would have 
 hid themselves from his sight at the time of his 
 home-coming, instead of going out into the road 
 to wag their honest mongrel tails, and tell him 
 that all was well with those he loved.
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 THE other evening my wife reminded me 
 that I had promised to lend a road map 
 to a man who had recently moved into 
 town from New York. This surprised me some 
 what, for I did not remember that I had ever 
 made such a promise. But when I found out 
 that my wife had promised for me, I realized 
 that it was a much more binding engagement 
 than any I could have made, because it was one 
 that I should not be allowed to forget. So I 
 laid down my pipe and book, found the road- 
 map, and strolled out into the night alone; for 
 Mrs. Newcomer had not yet returned Mrs. Sage s 
 call, and my visit was to have no standing in 
 social law to be a thing existent, but unrec 
 ognized, like a drink between drinks, or a Phila 
 delphia alley. 
 
 In a spirit of informality, I put on my oldest 
 slouch hat and walked leisurely and luxuriously 
 through the mellow August evening. I say 
 "luxuriously" advisably; for I had not walked 
 a hundred yards before I realized that I was 
 enjoying one of the best luxuries that our gen 
 erous but somewhat confused climate has to 
 give us. The stars made a faint light in the 
 brooding skies; and the darkened earth was 
 
 290
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 291 
 
 peaceful and silent with a temperate air, neither 
 hot nor cool ; and a pleasant green smell to it. 
 
 Ahead of me the gray macadam road stretched 
 dimly on till it lost itself in a vista of arching 
 trees. I was surprised that I seemed to have 
 it all to myself. Perhaps it was too early in 
 the evening, and my fellow-townsmen preferred 
 the charms of nicotine to those of nature. I 
 smiled a smile of kindly contempt for their pref 
 erence, as I lit a cigar, which I happened to 
 find in my pocket. 
 
 I soon perceived, however, that the night 
 was not attractive to me alone. Away off in 
 the distant woods, I heard the performance of 
 a nocturnal tragi-comedy, familiar enough at this 
 season of the year. It had only three acts, or 
 rather, three sounds. The Owl said: 
 
 "Whoo-oo!" the gun said "Pop!"; and then 
 the boy with the gun made an unspellable noise 
 that expressed surprise and delight for he had 
 hit the owl. 
 
 This little episode brought out another evi 
 dence of human companionship. Away up the 
 road the pale macadam suddenly turned white 
 where a small but brilliant disk of light was 
 projected upon it. Then the light dashed around 
 and lit up , the tree-trunks and the underbrush. 
 Then, after an interval, in which I could not 
 hear a sound, except the insect noises of the 
 night, it appeared on the other side of the road, 
 and apparently nearer to me. I stood stock-still 
 and watched the peculiar antics of the light. It
 
 292 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 went backward and forward in an uncertain sort 
 of way, not as if its bearer were looking for 
 anything, but more as if he were trying to find 
 his way out of a thicket or a marsh. But there 
 were no thicket or marshes on the broad level 
 road, and even the underbrush in the vacant lots 
 was sparse and low. Besides, the light was 
 sometimes full on, sometimes shut off to a tiny 
 crescent, and sometimes hidden altogether. 
 Moreover, the night was so clear that if it 
 had not been for the blackness that enshrouded 
 whatever was in back of the glare, I should 
 have been able to see the figure of the lantern. 
 
 I quickened my pace; but at the first sound 
 of my feet on the hard road the light began to 
 dance backward and forward like a will-o -the- 
 wisp in a fit; and when I got to the corner of 
 the road that turned down to the Newcomers 
 house and shouted " hello !" after it, it took 
 itself out of sight up the road, with such speed 
 that I had no temptation to follow it. 
 
 When I came in front of the Newcomers house 
 I stopped in astonishment, and mechanically 
 pulled my watch from my pocket and lit a match 
 to see the time. It was fifteen minutes past 
 eight, but not one light peeped from the closed 
 shutters of the comfortable old-fashioned cottage. 
 A hundred yards on either side lights glowed 
 in the neighbors windows; but not so much as 
 a glimmer of a night-lamp in a bed-room broke 
 the blackness of the Newcomers house. 
 
 I knew they were all at home, for Mrs. New-
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 293 
 
 comer had told my wife they would be ; so, after 
 some hesitation, I concluded to try a ring at the 
 bell. I think I found the idea that they might 
 be asleep somewhat galling to my spirit. It was 
 showing too frank and unaffected a contempt 
 for the charms of suburban life, and I resented 
 it. I pushed the button in the door-post, and 
 heard a response from the distant kitchen, too 
 loud and clear to escape the notice of any wak 
 ing person. Then I heard a scratching sound 
 above my head, and, stepping back off the porch, 
 I saw the blinds of a front window pushed out 
 about an inch and a half; and by the faint light 
 that appeared at the chink I judged that some 
 one was holding a candle far back in the bed-room 
 hall. Then a woman s voice, husky and tremu 
 lous, but still to be recognized as Mrs. New 
 comers , whispered with intense agitation: 
 
 "Oh! what is it? Who is it? Please go away! 
 We don t want anything! I ll wake my hus 
 band! Mr. Newcomer will see you in the morn 
 ing! We ve all gone to bed! Oh, dear!" 
 
 This exclamation was caused by the action of 
 a gust of wind which blew one leaf of the blind 
 out of the lady s hand and revealed that Mrs. 
 Newcomer was anything but accurate in her 
 statements, for she wore a very pretty and rather 
 elaborate dress, and, as the blind swung back, 
 a piece of fancy work fell at my feet. 
 
 I established my identity and stated my errand, 
 and was welcomed with an effusiveness such as 
 no stranger had ever greeted me with before.
 
 294 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 The maid in the hallway, devoutly thanking the 
 saints, as if my coming had saved the house from 
 an attack of Apache Indians, produced a lamp, 
 and the two females descended the stairs and 
 were joined in the hallway by some more of the 
 domestic staff. The process of letting me in 
 was a long one. Bolt after bolt was withdrawn, 
 key after key was turned. I knew the old house 
 in its former tenant s time, and remembered that 
 an iron lock with a brass key was its only equip 
 ment. The mighty armament was evidently new; 
 but at last the door was pulled open, or, rather, 
 pulled and pushed, for it stuck so tight in the 
 frame that I had to put my shoulder to it before 
 it would yield. As it went back a gust of chok 
 ingly warm air rushed out into my face; and 
 it did not take me long to discover that every 
 window in the house, from cellar to garret, was 
 shut tight, although several large lamps were 
 going at full blaze in the kitchen and library, 
 where blankets had been hung up at the windows 
 to keep the light in. 
 
 Mrs. Newcomer, with beads of perspiration 
 standing on her forehead, cordially invited me 
 in, but I told her I had not come to stay, and 
 had only meant to leave my map at the door, as 
 I had another pressing engagement. This, how 
 ever, she would not hear of ; and she so earnestly 
 begged me to remain, at least, until Mr. New 
 comer returned from the Doctor s, that I had to 
 consent. Fortunately, in my utter astonishment, 
 I had forgot to dispose of my cigar, and Mrs.
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 295 
 
 Newcomer, observing this, suggested that I 
 should smoke on the porch while she sat near 
 the doorway. She admitted that it was rather 
 close in the house, but said of course she didn t 
 dare to have anything open when Mr. Newcomer 
 was not within doors. So I sat outside and 
 smoked, my hostess sat within the door and 
 talked, and from the servants in the kitchen I 
 could hear fervent ascriptions of thankfulness for 
 the presence of the "good jontlemin." 
 
 "I feel quite ashamed of myself for making 
 you stay with me, Mr. Sage," began the lady; 
 "but I know you wouldn t mind if you knew how 
 nervous we all are over these dreadful nights 
 in the country. I suppose you ve got used to 
 them you must have, because you ve lived here 
 so long, but I should think it must have required 
 a great deal of courage. And how you get 
 around at night, I don t see. Why, you haven t 
 even got a cane, Mr. Sage ! Last night we counted 
 five electric lights that were out, and to-night 
 they ve only just lit them up; and poor Mr. 
 Newcomer has to go to the doctor s in all 
 this dreadful darkness! We couldn t remember 
 whether the baby had to have his pills first and 
 the powders afterward, or the other way. And 
 Henry that is, Mr. Newcomer, is so very near 
 sighted that he s just as likely to run into a tramp 
 as not and, anyway, they tell me that the night 
 air is full of malaria germs, and that you never 
 should sleep with your windows open. You don t 
 think anything could have happened to Henry,
 
 296 THE NEWCOMERS 
 
 do you, Mr. Sage? I am sure I expected him 
 back by this time. If you ll excuse me a minute 
 I ll go up to the corner room and look down the 
 road through the opera glass. Oh! you don t 
 know what a relief it is to have you here." 
 
 Henry I mean Mr. Newcomer arrived at 
 last, and although he hailed me cordially when 
 his wife told him who I was, I noticed that he 
 slipped hastily past me, and went with his wife 
 into a little reception room just behind my back. 
 Perhaps he supposed that I would think he was 
 delivering an important medical message to his 
 wife ; but I could not have thought that, for from 
 where I sat I saw him take off a light overcoat, 
 unwind a silk muffler from his neck, and disem 
 barrass himself of a heavy stick, a tiny 22-calibre 
 revolver, and a dark-lantern. 
 
 At Mr. Newcomer s earnest request, I braved 
 the trying atmosphere of the house and drank a 
 glass of tepid beer with him. It was a costly 
 glass of beer for Newcomer. As I stepped over 
 his door-sill to go home I felt the boards of the 
 porch settle under my feet with a drop of an inch 
 and a half. 
 
 * B-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r 
 r-r-r!!!" 
 
 The loudest electric bell that I ever heard was 
 going off with frightful rapidity and violent 
 persistence. It was hardly necessary for Mrs. 
 Newcomer to explain that she had set the new 
 burglar-alarm, and had forgotten to warn me ; and 
 I realized her feelings when Newcomer admitted
 
 THE NEWCOMERS 297 
 
 that he knew everything about that bell, except 
 how to stop it. Meanwhile the bell continued to 
 perform its functions. Newcomer asked me if I 
 knew anything about electricity. I was glad and 
 proud to say that nobody in the world knew so 
 little about electricity as I did. I went home, 
 leaving Newcomer doing something in a vague 
 way with a screw-driver. I strolled slowly home 
 and sat on my porch. An hour or so later, my 
 wife asked me what that faint tinkling was that 
 she had heard for so long. I told her, and she 
 seemed mildly amused. 
 
 But the next day she lured me down to a dis 
 used tool-house, at the end of the garden, where 
 lay an accumulation of old junk, with the rust 
 of many years upon it. There was not much 
 left of it, and I had quite forgotten all about it, 
 but I could not help recognizing some coils of 
 insulated wire, several gong-bells, two or three 
 patent window fastenings, and a dark-lantern.
 
 THE FIRST OF IT 
 
 THE question that his old friends of the 
 city oftenest ask of the suburbanite in 
 the course of his first year is this: 
 
 "Do you really like it, living out there?" 
 
 To this, if he is unwise it being assumed that 
 he cannot help being a little bit snobbish he 
 will reply that he despises suburban life; that 
 he only takes to it for the sake of the children, 
 and that it is merely a temporary expedient in 
 the interests of sanitary science. For this little 
 indiscretion he will pay dearly later on, when he 
 buys his house and settles down. But if he is 
 wise he will say Yes and say it in very large 
 letters, too, and feign an appropriate enthusiasm. 
 
 Yet, if you ask me whether there ever was an 
 indurated resident of a metropolitan city who 
 really enjoyed his first year of suburban house 
 keeping, I should have to tell you that I do not 
 believe it could be truly said of any man of the 
 sort. 
 
 How could he enjoy it? enjoy the new respon 
 sibilities the new problems a struggle with the 
 furnace that ends only when the struggle with 
 the front lawn begins the new conditions of 
 butcher and baker-dom, and the strangeness of 
 keeping your water supply in a box in the garret I 
 
 298
 
 THE FIRST OF IT 299 
 
 No; certainly he does not enjoy these things, al 
 though they surely occupy his mind; nor does 
 he enjoy the breaking up of his settled ways of 
 city life the loss of his pleasant stroll uptown 
 from the office; of his half-hour s smoke at the 
 club ; of his careless stroll through art-gallery or 
 auction-room; of his luxurious idle hour before 
 dinner, and of his easy transition to the theatre 
 or the opera afterward. These things are a part 
 of his life, and he misses them; and deep in his 
 heart he believes that he always will miss them 
 to the end of the chapter; but, after all, this is 
 not where the shoe pinches. His new world 
 must have joys of its own, even though it denies 
 him those of the old. And, after all, it is one 
 whose importance he has calculated exactly, and 
 to which he has thoroughly made up his mind. 
 No, no; the pinch is not here. He could readily 
 enough accommodate his old foot to the new shoe 
 if only his old friends wouldn t step on it. 
 
 But, oh! those old friends! How the faces of 
 them have changed! For years he has been fa 
 miliar with their kindly jests and gibes; and he 
 has never regarded them as anything worse than 
 pleasant tributes to his pleasant individuality, 
 and he laughs as heartily as they do when he is 
 rallied on the peculiarities of his tastes and habits 
 and fancies. Now, however, he is made to un 
 derstand beyond peradventure that he has put 
 himself out of the pale of that generous com 
 munion, and that his claims to delicate considera 
 tion are held to be forfeit unless he is willing to
 
 300 THE FIEST OF IT 
 
 bow himself in the dust and humble himself 
 before the righteous. 
 
 At first he is only surprised and puzzled and 
 pained when he finds the jests of his old city com 
 panions taking on a tone not in the least sugges 
 tive of urban courtesy. It is more in wonder 
 than in anger that he perceives the bitter, re 
 sentful undercurrent of the humor that makes 
 only a clumsy pretense to be as genial as of yore. 
 He knows, of course, that he must expect some 
 jokes on his desertion to the ranks of the Hay 
 seeds; but he cannot understand why, for the 
 first time, these jests that come from friendly 
 lip should be edged and pointed to cut and 
 wound; why they should come so strangely 
 close to the verge of the positively offensive; or 
 why they should convey a suggestion of contemp 
 tuously indiscreet familiarity. After a while 
 he gets a light on the subject, but it is not 
 a very pleasant light. He gets an idea of the 
 double crime he has unconsciously committed 
 against the little world he has just left. In the 
 first place, he has taken, with deliberation and 
 foresight, a step to which his old comrades know 
 that they all may be forced sooner or later; and 
 they feel toward him as the other passengers 
 would naturally feel toward a man who said: 
 "Oh, well, if nobody really wants first choice 
 of berths, I ll take the extra large lower one in 
 the middle section. " In the second place and 
 this is the real galling, maddening, stinging thing 
 that he has done he has shown them all, quite
 
 THE FIRST OF IT 301 
 
 unconsciously and unintentionally, but all the 
 more convincingly, that he doesn t think it worth 
 while to sacrifice to their gods any longer; that 
 he has made his own estimate of the game that 
 they are playing, and that he doesn t think it 
 worth the amount of combustion which it gets 
 out of the candle of human vitality. 
 
 And yet they think he might have done it a 
 little longer, just as they are doing it, bravely 
 and uncomplainingly. He might have figured to 
 get the children to the seaside, one after another, 
 and he might have managed for his wife a week 
 or two at Narragansett, and for himself a few 
 days on somebody s yacht. With a small new 
 economy here, and another one there, and a bit 
 of self-sacrifice of this point, and a risk skilfully 
 evaded at that, it ought to have been possible 
 for him to remain at least a few years longer 
 a resident of the city, though one dwelling sixty 
 or eighty feet above its soil, and to enjoy the 
 blessed favor and privilege of inquiring super 
 ciliously of the suburbanite: 
 
 "What! You live in the country? And do 
 you really like it, living out there?" 
 
 After a while a sort of resigned pity succeeds 
 to resentment in the comments which the sub 
 urbanite s friends make upon his dark and dis 
 creditable life. There even comes a time when 
 they accept presents of flowers and fruit and 
 early vegetables from him with the patronizing 
 kindness and curiosity which we extend to the 
 prisoner who craves ingenious knickknacks in his 
 lonely cell.
 
 302 THE FIRST OF IT 
 
 Then there comes a time when they begin to 
 ask casual, indifferent questions about the price 
 of lots in his neighborhood; the sort of society 
 he has; what he does to amuse himself; and 
 what it costs to keep a horse in the country. It 
 is unnecessary to say, however, that it never en 
 ters the innocent mind of the suburbanite that 
 these questions are anything but a desire to obtain 
 general information, or that they display any 
 intention on the part of his haughty associates to 
 join him in his rural walk in life. 
 
 And so the time goes on, the suburbanite set 
 tling himself, day by day, more comfortably in 
 the ever-increasing shadow of his own vine and 
 fig tree; but always at the bottom of his heart, 
 just a little bit pitying himself; until 
 
 It so happens that early in June Mrs. Shingle- 
 roof takes the children to pay a visit to her 
 family, and Mr. Shingleroof is left a bachelor 
 for a couple of weeks. Mr. Shingleroof is to 
 spend the term of his bachelorhood in a New 
 York hotel. Mrs. Shingleroof has suggested the 
 plan, for her husband may not soon again have 
 such an opportunity of re-visiting the glimpses 
 of the urban moon that shone so brightly on his 
 bachelor vigils; and she does not want to feel 
 that marriage has wholly separated her husband 
 from his old friends. 
 
 Shingleroof has just seen his family off at the 
 Grand Central, and is wending his way downtown 
 when he meets Brownstone. He has not seen 
 much of Brownstone within the last three years;
 
 THE FIRST OF IT 303 
 
 for while Brownstone is a very good fellow he 
 is known as a great wit of the clubs, and at one 
 time he was so confoundedly sarcastic upon a 
 certain subject, that really, you know 
 
 "Hello, Shingleroof ! " is Brownstone s greet 
 ing, "you re the very man I want to see. I want 
 to ask you some questions about that place you 
 live in, and I want you to make some inquiries 
 there for me. Are you going out there to-night ? 
 
 Shingleroof explains, and Brownstone has a 
 brilliant idea. Shingleroof must spend a week 
 with him, and he a week with Shingleroof. The 
 first week is to be a mad revel among the won 
 ders of the town; the second week is to be one 
 of quiet recuperation and exploration in suburban 
 scenes. "We ll have a rattling high old time," 
 says Brownstone; "just like the old days, and 
 then we ll go out to your place and loaf it off. 
 You are in for a holiday, anyway, and I can get 
 my partner to run the office for a few days." 
 
 The rattling good time rattles less than they 
 had expected. Three or four nights of the thea 
 tres and music halls make them both more than 
 willing to spend a quiet evening at home 
 Brownstone s home but the evening is so quiet 
 that Shingleroof goes to bed at half-past nine 
 o clock but not to sleep, for the roar of the 
 city breaks his slumbers. In the daytime he 
 finds Brownstone s clubs somewhat too prim and 
 poky. He has lost track of the personalities. 
 He feels out of place, too, among the pale, 
 precise people, he with his ruddy brown face,
 
 304 THE FIEST OF IT 
 
 and his clothes that are just the same as theirs, 
 only they aren t. One stranger takes him for 
 an African explorer. 
 
 On Friday night they see their last show, and 
 go out of town on the midnight train to see a 
 tennis tournament at Shingleroof s Field Club. 
 And, as he walks up the broad, silent road, 
 breathing in the sweet night breeze under the 
 great arching elms, Shingleroof is conscious of 
 a new, strange and glad sensation. 
 
 He is up bright and early the next morning, 
 happy in the sunlight, the whispering trees, the 
 wind blowing through his many windows; happy 
 in the songs of birds; happy even in picking 
 out the voices of individual dogs from among 
 the great and tireless orchestra that barks and 
 yelps and bays all around him. He gets into 
 his flannels and goes downstairs and shakes 
 hands with everybody in the house, like a pa 
 triarch in old days coming home from a journey. 
 He hears the homely news of the town who is 
 sick, and who has got well; how the water isn t 
 roily any more, and what Mr. Dogberry said 
 about the sick terrier. He and his Man (or 
 nearly so) inspect every corner of his small 
 domain, and look his seventeen-year-old horse 
 over as though he were a probable winner of 
 the Suburban. In his trim garden he rejoices 
 in his radishes and is content with his corn.
 
 THE FIRST OF IT 305 
 
 He strolls out on the highway and receives a 
 cheery greeting from every passer-by; from the 
 easy-going townspeople to the brisk commuters; 
 from the butcher in his snowy-hued wagon, and 
 the doctor in his rusty gig. The boy with the 
 milk stops to inform him that "We waxed de 
 Woodstocks, and I swiped free ball off of 
 dem." The young tennis enthusiasts, coming 
 back from before-breakfast practice, cross the 
 street to tell him of the chances of the game. 
 Before he has been out ten minutes he has been 
 asked to score for a ball match, referee in the 
 tennis final, subscribe to the fund for a new 
 church organ, and buy three tickets to the pic 
 nic of the Friendly Sons of Abyssinians. He 
 feels quite at home. 
 
 Then he looks up and sees Brownstone stand 
 ing by him. Brownstone in patent-leather shoes, 
 pearl-gray trousers, black cutaway coat, high- 
 collared shirt, and, for some mysterious reason, 
 in a silk hat. He, too, has been out for a walk, 
 and he has got into the only patch of under 
 brush within a mile. Clinging green memen 
 tos of his trip decorate him from head to foot. 
 He feels that Brownstone is not doing him 
 credit in the eyes of the young tennis players, 
 but he is too happy to be cross, and he inquires 
 if his guest has had a good night. 
 
 "Ye-es," replies Brownstone, doubtfully; 
 "that is, those wretched dogs and birds of 
 yours kept me awake a good deal of the night. 
 I say, what will take grass stains out of my
 
 306 THE FIRST OF IT 
 
 trousers, and is this prickly stuff here what you 
 call poison ivy?" 
 
 Brownstone will go to town on Monday morn 
 ing just to see if his partner is doing all right, 
 and he will tell his host that he will surely be 
 back that evening unless pressing business de 
 tains him. Shingleroof knows that pressing 
 business will detain him, but he cares not a 
 cent. He can get along without Brownstone s 
 company, even though his wife and children 
 be absent; he is at home not at Brownstone s 
 home at Shingleroof s home. 
 
 And that makes all the difference.
 
 THE SPORTING SCHEME 
 
 THE train had been flagged at a little 
 station in New Jersey, and I looked 
 out the window to see if any passengers 
 were likely to come aboard, for I was getting 
 lonely in the great empty smoking-car. It was 
 a gloomy day, too dark to read with comfort, 
 and a fine, drizzling rain was beginning to fall. 
 The sight of the company on the platform 
 at once awakened my interest. They had just 
 crossed over from a little real estate office which 
 stood across the way from the station, and they 
 formed a curious and striking collection of in 
 dividuals. One was a sour, saturnine, middle- 
 aged man, who carried a dinner-pail. He was 
 shaking his head obdurately in negative answer 
 to what were evidently persistent pleadings on 
 the part of another man, a small, spry person, 
 cheaply clothed, who looked as if he might be 
 a sewing-machine agent or the "advance" of a 
 circus. The other six men were startlingly dif 
 ferent in appearance from the other two talk 
 ers. They were all large, burly men, with rosy 
 cheeks, close-cropped hair, a well-groomed ap 
 pearance generally, and clothes that were at once 
 expensive, English and loud. Two wore riding- 
 breeches, one under a great white box-coat, the 
 
 307
 
 308 THE SPORTING SCHEME 
 
 other with a covert-coat. Another was in the 
 "pink" of an English fox-hunter; and the fourth 
 wore a tweed suit with checkerboard stockings, 
 baggy knee-breeches, and a cap. This man car 
 ried a golf stick. The other two men, although 
 they belonged to the same general type, wore 
 coachmen s liveries. Each of the six carried a 
 heavy black rubber overcoat on his arm. The 
 big men accompanied the two others in silence. 
 
 My window was open, and I could hear the 
 conversation as they approached. 
 
 "You won t do it, then?" the little man was 
 saying; "not even if I find the horses? Well, 
 all right; just as you say; but I tell you, man, 
 you are losing the chance of your life!" 
 
 The man with the tin-pail shook his head 
 and went away, and the little man suddenly 
 turned upon his companions, full of the rage of 
 disappointment. 
 
 "Climb on there, you tarriers!" he said, ad 
 dressing the elegant group with every mani 
 festation of disrespect. "It s your fool mugs 
 that hoodoo the business. Get aboard, you 
 damn micks! You ain t worth your feed!" 
 
 And he drove them before him into the smok 
 ing-car. 
 
 "Get up there, you potato-peelers!" he said. 
 "Get up to the further end of the car. I won t 
 sit with you. I am sick of you. And put on 
 your coats, you yahoos. I don t care if it is 
 hot; I ain t going to let you spoil those 
 clothes."
 
 THE SPORTING SCHEME 309 
 
 He had sunk down into a seat across the aisle 
 before he perceived me and caught my wonder 
 ing eye. At once he crossed over. 
 
 " Sounds kinder queer, doesn t it?" he said. 
 "Well, just be so good as not to give it away, 
 and I ll explain." 
 
 He produced a business card and handed it 
 to me. It read: 
 
 I. LEGGET, 
 SPORT BOOMER, 
 
 Refers to every Real Estate Dealer in New Jersey. 
 
 "Don t catch on?" he inquired. "Well, it s 
 a pretty original scheme of my own. It didn t 
 work at that place, and I was a fool to bother 
 with a real estate agent who would carry his 
 dinner in a can. But, you see, that s a religious 
 community. All towns in New Jersey may be 
 divided into two classes religious and sporting. 
 Now, my business is booming sport towns. Want 
 to see how I do it? Well, you wait until I get 
 two stations further on, where I drop this gang 
 to relieve another one. It s a junction, that 
 station is, and we ll be just in time for a train 
 from New York on the other branch. You ll 
 see my boys work a train, and you ll see how my
 
 310 THE SPORTING SCHEME 
 
 scheme can build up a community. Here, IVe 
 got to give them some orders!" 
 
 Going up to the other end of the car, he talked 
 earnestly for a long time to the six big men, 
 who listened with awe on their faces. I caught 
 his closing words: 
 
 "Now, behave yourselves for once, you chumps, 
 and show the gentleman how the trick s done, 
 and you shall have a can of beer when you get 
 paid off." 
 
 "Yis, sorr," said the man in the covert coat; 
 "we will, sorr; thank you kindly, sorr." 
 
 The little man came back to me just as the 
 second station hove in sight. This was a very 
 different place from the desolate domain of the 
 agent with the tin-can. Through the trees in 
 every direction I could see the light wood of 
 unfinished houses. New paint shone on a score 
 of commodious villas. There was also a real 
 estate office near the station, but it was a neat 
 and attractive structure, and a portly, well-fed 
 gentleman stood in the doorway. 
 
 "Drill, ye tarriers!" shouted the little man 
 to the big ones. "Hustle over to the other plat 
 form. There s Mickey s gang over there. Tell 
 Mickey to drill them with you till the New York 
 train is gone. They ll have plenty of time left 
 to get aboard here." 
 
 As the men hurried across the platform they 
 were met by another group similar in appear 
 ance, several of whom led horses. One had a 
 horse of some blood drawing a dog-cart. One
 
 THE SPORTING SCHEME 311 
 
 of the footmen immediately took his station at 
 the head of this animal, while the other received 
 from the agent a dressing-suit case and a leather 
 gun-case, which he held, one in each hand, stand 
 ing erectly in the station door. Four of the 
 magnificent gentlemen then mounted the horses, 
 with considerable difficulty in fact, they had to 
 be boosted up by their companions. The others 
 assumed much easier attitudes upon their own 
 feet. One or two lit cigars. The man in the 
 checkerboard smoked a brierwood pipe. The 
 agent distributed hunting-crops among them, and 
 a small boy came out with a case of gleeks and 
 teeing irons and putters, and the rest of them, 
 and stood behind the checkerboards exactly like 
 a Scotch or English caddie. All maintained 
 absolute silence. 
 
 It was on this ravishing spectacle of sport 
 and fashion that the New York train drew up. 
 Out came a group of seekers of suburban homes. 
 They were probably mostly city people; but 
 when they saw that display of sporting style 
 they stared about them like a lot of hayseeds 
 on Broadway. Before we started I saw the 
 whole group safely herded into the real estate 
 office. Then the little man brought his second 
 shift of men back into the car. 
 
 "There!" said he; "that catches them every 
 time. There weren t ten houses in that town 
 six months ago. I did it every bit of it." 
 
 "But don t they discover the imposition after 
 a while?" I inquired. "Surely your new set-
 
 312 THE SPORTING SCHEME 
 
 tiers must some time find out that these decoy- 
 ducks of yours don t live in the town." 
 
 "There is no imposition, my dear sir!" re 
 joined the little man, less warmly. "The people 
 who are attracted by that sort of thing are every 
 bit as bad fake-sports as my bog-trotters here. 
 These poor fellows of mine are honest laboring 
 men out of employment. They do this thing for 
 their board and lodging you see I feed them 
 well and they re a good deal better men than 
 most of the dudes who think they can t live 
 without white boxcoats and balloon riding- 
 breeches. 
 
 "Of course," he resumed, after a moment of 
 reflection, "it don t do to work a town too long. 
 There have been revulsions of feeling, and my 
 tarriers have had the hose played on them. But, 
 you see, it s the regular secret society business. 
 The people who are caught want to catch others. 
 I ve known them to go out in their own sport 
 clothes and drill with my boys when the express 
 trains came in. Oh, man, you don t understand 
 the real estate business!" 
 
 Mr. Legget sank into a deep reverie on the 
 greatness of his scheme, from which he awoke 
 with a sudden start. 
 
 "Here," said he, "I m forgetting myself. I ve 
 got to inspect these men before I go to Jersey 
 City. I have got to have them out on two more 
 of these infernal criss-cross New Jersey rail 
 roads before dark. Here, you flannel-mouths, 
 stand up in the aisle and be inspected. Larry
 
 THE SPORTING SCHEME 313 
 
 Dooley, you wear your pants too hard. If you 
 ain t more careful of them I ll lay you off for 
 a week. Maloney, your red-flannel shirt is show 
 ing over your shirt-collar. Corrigan, I saw you 
 at the station without gloves. I ve a mind to 
 stop your supper for that. Do you think those 
 red mud-scoops of yours look like Tuxedo or 
 the Meadowbrook Hunt? McCarty, if you strike 
 any more matches on yourself you ll hear from 
 me. Owney Muldoon, my friend, the next time 
 you hold on to a horse s ears to keep yourself 
 steady, you ll get the sack. Now, hustle over 
 to the Greenwood Lake branch, every mother s 
 son of you, and take the tobacco out of your 
 mouths before you get into the train." 
 
 "Say," said Mr. Legget to me, turning back 
 after we had parted; "you don t know any 
 lady-like young women in reduced circumstances, 
 do you, who d do the tailor-made girl for me? 
 I d pay them well, and they d beat the Micks 
 out of sight." 
 
 I said "No!" and he chased his four sporting 
 swells and their footmen into another smoking- 
 car.
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE 
 SUBURBANITE 
 
 A DRAMATIC SKETCH IN FIVE TABLEAUX 
 
 DRAMATIS PERSONS 
 
 MR. SUBURBANITE 4 married New Yorker of 
 
 moderate means, lately set 
 tled in Commutahville, N. J. 
 
 MR. CITT His friend, an unmarried 
 
 New Yorker of moderate 
 means. 
 
 MR. NEXT Friend of Mr. Citt. Also an 
 
 unmarried New Yorker of 
 moderate means. 
 
 TIME: The Present 
 
 TABLEAU I. SCENE: A Pleasant Suburban 
 Road. Neat Cottage in fore 
 ground, with front lawn. View 
 of hills, etc., in distance. 
 
 MR. SUBURBANITE discovered, escorting MR. 
 CITT to the Sunday afternoon train. The latter 
 carries a hand-bag. He has been spending the 
 day at Commutahville. 
 
 314
 
 EVOLUTION OF THE SUBURBANITE 315 
 
 MR. CITT (with an expression of kindly supe 
 riority, gazing carelessly and superciliously about 
 him). Nice sort of little place you have here, 
 Subby. I suppose you ll get to like it pretty 
 well, too, after a while. Let s see, you used to 
 say that you rather liked country life, didn t 
 you? Seems kind of funny to see you in a place 
 like this, though. I should think you d find it 
 slow a good deal of the time. 7 should, I know. 
 However, as you say, the children you know 
 best, of course, what suits you but I should 
 think Oh! is that the train? (Shaking hands 
 warmly and hurriedly.) Well, good-by; I ve 
 had a charming day! Tell Mrs. Suburbanite 
 how much I ve enjoyed it! So long! 
 
 (Exit, running.) 
 
 TABLEAU II. SCENE: Same Pleasant Sub 
 urban Road. Same neat Cottage 
 in foreground, with same front 
 lawn. Same view of hills, etc., in 
 distance. 
 
 MR. SUBURBANITE discovered, accompanying 
 MR. CITT to the Monday morning train. MR. CITT 
 still carries a hand-bag, but his demeanor is less 
 proud and more genial. He is thinking of a girl 
 he knows in town, and wishing that MRS. SUB 
 URBANITE knew her, and would ask her out.
 
 316 EVOLUTION OF THE SUBURBANITE 
 
 MR. CITT (gazing about "him, approvingly}. 
 Really, you are very nicely settled here, Subby, 
 old man. Seems to have done yon good, too. 
 Gad! I never knew yon were snch a walker. 
 Say, these macadam roads must be elegant for 
 tandem bicycles, mustn t they? I s pose yon 
 really like it out here, don t you? Of course 
 you do, or you wouldn t stay. Well, if you do 
 want to live in the country, I suppose you 
 couldn t have chosen a better place, in its way. 
 That little view down there (pointing}, that s 
 really very pretty a morning like this, don t 
 you know. Spring makes everything look pretty, 
 though, I suppose. 
 
 (Exeunt, strolling, to catch the train ~by one- 
 eighth-of-a-second.) 
 
 TABLEAU III. SCENE: Just the same Pleas 
 ant Suburban Road. Just the 
 same neat Cottage in foreground, 
 with just the same front lawn. 
 Just the same view of hills, etc., 
 in distance. 
 
 MR. SUBURBANITE discovered, accompanying 
 MR. CITT to the Wednesday morning train. MR. 
 CITT carries no hand-bag. He has got to the 
 point of leaving his things at the house, and run 
 ning out when he feels like it. He is engaged
 
 EVOLUTION OF THE SUBURBANITE 317 
 
 to the girl in New York; and he looks around 
 him with balmy ecstasy bubbling in his heart 
 and beaming out of his eyes. 
 
 MR. CITT. No, old man; I m sorry, but I 
 shan t be out again to-night. Nellie will be at 
 Narragansett at the end of the week, and I must 
 hurry up and get some work done if I want to 
 get off and see her. If it wasn t for that, I d 
 love to stay. Really, I don t believe you fellows 
 who live out here all the time quite appreciate 
 what a good time you have. Why, I met Lugsby 
 in town the other day, and he was perfectly en 
 thusiastic over his visit here. Said he hadn t 
 enjoyed himself so much in he didn t know 
 when. Oh! there s no doubt about it, you ve got 
 a most delightful, rational way of life. Of course 
 Nellie and I wouldn t care to live anywhere ex 
 cept in New York; but I suppose there s no 
 doubt about it, you fellows out here in the 
 country get more in return for your money than 
 we do in the city. Now what, for instance, did 
 you say that little gray house over there on the 
 hill rented for? Oh, yes; five hundred dollars. 
 Cheap, isn t it, for such a location? And then 
 that view! Why, Lugsby you know how un 
 demonstrative he is? he was quite enthusiastic 
 over that view. He said there was something 
 Swiss about it. 
 
 (Exeunt MR. CITT, talking steadily.)
 
 318 
 
 TABLEAU IV. SCENE: Same identical Sub 
 urban Road. Same identical neat 
 Cottage in foreground, with same 
 identical front lawn. Same iden 
 tical view of hills, etc., in distance. 
 
 MR. SUBURBANITE discovered, escorting MR. 
 CITT to last Sunday afternoon train. MR. CITT S 
 bearing is no longer either proud or exultant; 
 but humble, grateful and anxious. He is married 
 and is the father of one child, aged at the present 
 moment 21 days, 4 hours and 56 minutes. He 
 wears an ulster, and he grasps his friend s hand 
 with effusive warmth at parting. 
 
 MR. CITT. Well, good-by, old man. You ve 
 been awfully kind to take so much trouble. I 
 feel as if I d been confoundedly selfish, don t 
 you know, taking up your Sunday in dragging 
 you all over those cold houses; but, really, I 
 shouldn t know what to do if it wasn t for your 
 advice. No; I positively can t stay to dinner 
 Mrs. Suburbanite is just as good as she can be 
 but I must get back to the flat. The doctor 
 says Nellie can sit up to dinner to-day, if she s 
 had a good day, and I know the poor child has 
 simply set her heart on it. Your wife under 
 stands, I am sure. I can t tell you how relieved 
 I shall be when I get Nellie and the baby out 
 here in the fresh air and quiet! She can t help 
 getting back her strength here; don t you think 
 sof And she ll enjoy it so! And that view!
 
 EVOLUTION OF THE SUBURBANITE 319 
 
 Think of having that view to look at instead of 
 that miserable dark city street ! Why, every time 
 I see that view, it reminds me of Switzerland! 
 And you ll tell the agent that I ll take the Du- 
 senberry cottage the gray one, I mean, not the 
 other you know. Good-by, again, and thank 
 you ever so much. Nellie will be simply de 
 lighted when I tell her. 
 
 (Exit, computing interest.) 
 
 TABLEAU V. SCENE: Same Pleasant Sub 
 urban Road. TWO Neat Cottages 
 in foreground, with TWO front 
 lawns. Same view of same hills, 
 etc., in same distance. 
 
 MR. CITT discovered, escorting MR. NEXT to 
 the Sunday afternoon train. The latter carries 
 a hand-bag. He has been spending the day in 
 Commutahville with his old friend and former 
 bachelor companion, MR. CITT, late of New York. 
 With an expression of kindly superiority he 
 gazes carelessly and superciliously about him. 
 
 MR. CITT (with feverish enthusiasm). Pretty 
 nice now, isn t it? I don t believe there s an 
 other place like this within twenty no, sir, 
 within forty miles of New York. I ll tell you 
 what it is, Next, my boy, what you want to do 
 is to marry a nice girl, and come out here and 
 settle down with us. It s the only real way to
 
 320 EVOLUTION OF THE SUBUBBANITE 
 
 enjoy life. Now, there s that house I had be 
 fore I built my present one the Dusenberry 
 cottage up there on the hill put a few hundred, 
 or maybe a thousand dollars worth of repairs 
 into that to the plumbing and that sort of thing 
 and it will make a cottage fit for a king. And 
 that view ! man alive, look at that view ! Could 
 you imagine you were within one hour of New 
 York? Why, man, it s Switzerland, that s what 
 it is! It s Switzerland! 
 
 (Exeunt. The train booms in the distance.) 
 
 SO SPINS TO END IT WITH A EHYME 
 
 THAT VENGEFUL WHIRLING OF TIME!
 
 // 
 
 UC SOUT 
 
 HERN REGIONAL LIBRARVFACIUTV 
 
 lil i li IM . . of-\~7