- 
 

 LIBRAR 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Accessions 
 
 CHKT O K 
 
 Chm No. 
 
 
 
, 
 RETURN 
 
 S 
 
 HONVEUSE 
 
 
 I FO RAANO.DD6,40m,3 ^ ^ 
 
 LD 2l-100m-8, 34 
 

 
 
 
 
mrtr 
 
 0bt Jfeet of Homance 
 
THE REAL AGITATOR IS THE CONSERVATIVE. 
 
 TUMULTS ARE CAUSED BY THE FIXED ROCKS THE CONSERVATIVES 
 IN THE STREAM OF PROGRESS. 
 
matxce 
 
 txrittx 
 
 the 
 
 s feet 0f 
 
 CHARLES L. WEBSTER AND COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS NEW YORK MDCCCXCII 
 
to* 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1892, 
 CHAS. L. WEBSTER & CO. 
 
 (All rights reserved.) 
 
 JENKINS & McCovvAN, PRINTERS, 
 NEW YORK. 
 
Jbretuorfr, 
 
 THE purest saint who ever lived has had 
 thoughts as evil, perhaps, as any that ever 
 entered the mind of the most abandoned; 
 but these thoughts, like vultures that fly 
 through the summer sky, leave no trace be 
 hind in the crystal mental atmosphere of the 
 saint. 
 
 We are responsible only for such thoughts 
 as we, by our own choice, detain and harbor 
 in our minds. Our responsibility begins 
 when we interrupt the flight of the vulture, 
 and tempt it to alight by the offer of food. 
 The evil becomes our own when the vulture 
 becomes domesticated. 
 
 Many birds-of-paradise, glittering as with 
 the splendor caught from the inmost heaven, 
 fly through the clouded minds of the most 
 
Xll FOREWORD. 
 
 depraved; but if there is no home nor food 
 offered them, they also disappear and leave 
 no trace of what has passed through the 
 mind. The good comes only with the do 
 mestication of the birds-of-paradise. 
 
 Through the mental heavens of the author, 
 two birds, " Moonblight " and "Six Feet of 
 Romance," have flown, and he is responsi 
 ble for them only so far as he has sheltered 
 and fed them. They came from a land be 
 yond his ken, and would, like birds of pas 
 sage, have flow r n on, and left nothing to tell 
 of their existence had not their strange 
 notes attracted his attention and interest. 
 One twittered a light song, and the cry of 
 the other was the warning scream of a 
 mother bird. Although neither may possess 
 the brilliant plumage of the bird-of-paradise, 
 yet the author trusts and believes that neither 
 may be classed with the vulture. 
 
 Who can deny that the old-fashioned 
 superstition that certain men sell themselves 
 to the devil is a literal truth of to-day? His 
 Satanic Majesty uses them as overseers on his 
 
FOREWORD. Xlll 
 
 earthly plantations; and for that proud office, 
 and the emoluments that go with it, these 
 men have bartered their souls. 
 
 If a word or sentence in this book should 
 cause a single slave-driver to transmute the 
 baser earthly coin into the fine gold of love 
 and the silver of truth, the author will 
 know he has not been deceived in the nature 
 of the birds that have visited him. 
 
 If you place a valuable picture with its 
 face against the wall, and leave it in dark 
 ness, the beautiful tints will fade, the white 
 turn yellow, the flesh-tints green, and the 
 whole become dim, indistinct, and ugly in 
 color; but if this same picture be placed in 
 God s clear sunshine, the colors will return 
 to all their original brightness, enriched and 
 deepened by their temporary exile in the 
 darkness. 
 
 There is a wall called Vested Rights, 
 which prevents nature s sun from shining on 
 our fellow-men; but, thank God! good work 
 men are busy at its foundation; it is already 
 undermined and must fall. Then, and then 
 
XIV FOREWORD. 
 
 only, will the poor tramp, the beggar, and 
 the white slave begin to show the true color 
 of their manhood. 
 
Cist of 3llu0tration0 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Frontispiece. 
 
 Initial Letter (Chapter I.) 17 
 
 " I Could not Light My Pipe " ...... 19 
 
 To Let 30 
 
 "So My Chain s Makin Me a Slave, See?" ... 34 
 
 Seeing Things as They Really Are 37 
 
 Initial Letter (Chapter II.) 42 
 
 The Witch . . . . 44 
 
 " I Wish I Could See Things as They Really Are " . . 47 
 "The Cursed Pigskin-Covered Book" . . . . 54 
 
 Initial Letter (Chapter III.) 59 
 
 " I Had Attended a Meeting of Mine Owners" . . .Co 
 " A Red-Mouthed Wolf with White Fangs" ... 66 
 " True Expression of the Inner Mr. White " . . . -67 
 
 Initial Letter (Chapter IV.) 72 
 
 A Type of the Modern So-Called Christian . . . -75 
 Prejudice .......... 81 
 
 " Now, Mister, What Does That Mean?" . . . .83 
 
 " Now, Mister, What Does That Mean?" .... 85 
 
 " What Does This Mean, Mister, Say?" . . . .87 
 
 One of the Customers ....... 90 
 
 A Forgotten Well 92 
 
 Initial Letter (Chapter V.) 95 
 
 "The Moon is All Right" 96 
 
 Prof. Follium ......... 97 
 
 Clint Butts, My Superintendent ...... 104 
 
 The Old Continental 117 
 
 " The Old White-Faced Moon Saw This " . . . .120 
 
 Initial Letter (Chapter VI.) 128 
 
 A Sketch From Nature 130 
 
 xv 
 
XVI LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PACE 
 
 Its Application ......... 131 
 
 " I Am a Firm Believer in Gnomes," etc. . . . 134, 135 
 
 Initial Letter (Chapter VII.) 146 
 
 Ah, the Hardship, Privation, and Suffering of a Strike ! . 147 
 The Law Locks up What a Loving God Has Created for His 
 
 Children ........ 148, 149 
 
 The People in the Cities Read of These Strikes, and Grum 
 ble at the Inconvenience It Causes Them" . . .151 
 
 Modern Civilization ........ 154 
 
 The Editor . . . . . . . , . .156 
 
 Two Distracted Mothers Were Sobbing, etc. . , 159 
 
 What Abe Lincoln Did Say 163 
 
 " Force Begets Force" 167 
 
 Initial Letter (Chapter VIII.) 174 
 
 The Old Paths 182 
 
 A Red-Faced Old Club-Man 184 
 
 New Paths 189 
 
 The Woman s War-Club . . ..... 193 
 
 The End 197 
 
 Initial Letter (Six Feet of Romance) 201 
 
 The Great Log Fire 203 
 
 An Old-Fashioned Foot-Stove ...... 204 
 
 " A Hand Reached Out of the Haze" .... 206 
 
 " There Were Two Feet Side by Side " 208 
 
 A Pair of Yellow-Topped Boots 210 
 
 I Have Always Regarded These Boots with a Feeling Akin 
 
 to Awe 2I2 
 
 Self-Conscious Boots 214 
 
 Two Hands Reached Down Simultaneously, as if to Take the 
 
 Stove 2l6 
 
 " Only to Immediately Appear " 218 
 
 Tail-Piece 221 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 ISMAL, dismal, dismal ! 
 Rain in torrents, rain in 
 drizzles, rain in mist ! 
 Big rolling- clouds of smoke 
 and mist, low-hanging gray 
 clouds, fast-driving, ragged aerial 
 tramps of the sky ! 
 
 Howls of angry winds, moans of 
 melancholy winds, sobs and sighs 
 of w r eary winds ! 
 
 Such was the history of the day 
 after my arrival at the straggling, 
 dirty mining town in Pennsylvania 
 where my business had called me. 
 My steam yacht was at Port 
 Jefferson, Long Island, out of com 
 mission for the winter. I had parted 
 with my jolly comrades only two 
 days ago, but it seemed like ages. 
 The American House, where I 
 was domiciled, is a 
 ^P^^> small frame building, 
 
1 8 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 the counterpart of hundreds of others of the 
 same name scattered all over Uncle Sam s 
 broad domain. 
 
 I had drummed upon the battered piano 
 in the second-floor parlor ; I had lounged in 
 the dreary apartment which served as bar 
 room and office ; I had examined the prints 
 of gorgeous and not over-modest females 
 posing in lithographic ink as advertisements 
 for sundry cigarette firms ; I had thrown my 
 self upon the gaudy bedquilt that covered 
 the couch where I had slept the night before, 
 but the cotton-seed oil in which my eggs 
 were fried, or the greenish-yellow saleratus 
 biscuit, or their combination, had given me 
 heart-burn and indigestion. 
 
 For the twentieth time I took my pipe from 
 its satin-lined case. Even this appeared to 
 share the general depression : the beautiful 
 amber mouthpiece seemed a trifle more 
 cloudy, the richly colored brown bowl, in 
 which I took so much pride, was covered 
 with a thin mist that dulled the warm tints. 
 
 I wiped off the pipe, filled it, and after 
 wasting breath and endangering my soul by 
 meaningless epithets applied to the country 
 matches that would not ignite, I broke a 
 whole section of them off the block. They 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 stood up like a file of sol 
 diers, just as regular and 
 just as stupid. One brisk 
 rub across my trouser s 
 leg, a smudge, a smell of 
 brimstone, and then a 
 flame. I could not light 
 my pipe: it would not 
 draw. 
 
 I threw pipe and tobacco 
 on top of my sole-leather 
 trunk, and went to the win 
 dow. It was covered with 
 mist. With my hand I 
 wiped clear a spot large 
 enough to look through. 
 
 A dismal, straggling 
 street met my view a dis 
 couraged - looking 
 street, with a pre- 
 ponderance of 
 mud and saloons. 
 Trudging along 
 in a disheartened 
 sort of manner 
 came a file of 
 black-faced, black- 
 handed, dirty, wet 
 
 I COULD NOT LIGHT MY PIPE 
 WOULD NOT DRAW." 
 
 : IT 
 
2O MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 men and boys, each with a clanking- dinner- 
 pail Somehow or other the clanking pails 
 reminded me of clanking chains, while the 
 coal-dust on their faces rendered it impossible 
 to tell whether the real color of the skins was 
 bjack or white. The next instant a picture 
 that I had seen somewhere of a gang of black 
 slaves rose before me. I turned from the 
 window in despair, and my eyes fell upon a 
 shelf of books. 
 
 The landlord had informed me, the night 
 before, when I registered, that there was no 
 room vacant, but that he would put me in a 
 room usually occupied by a regular boarder, 
 who was at present temporarily absent; and 
 this was the room. 
 
 In the corner stood a fowling-piece in its 
 leathern case ; alongside of it were several 
 fishing-rods in their drab cloth covers. These 
 and other articles of a like nature, hanging 
 in the corner, under and around the book 
 shelves, I now noticed for the first time, and 
 they gave me the only thrill of pleasure that 
 I had experienced since my arrival the night 
 before. 
 
 The presence of the rod and gun brought 
 on an independent camp-life feeling. I picked 
 up my pipe, and with a broomstraw removed 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 2 1 
 
 the obstruction in the stem, and refilled it 
 with aromatic tobacco. I shook th*e ashes 
 from the prim, cylindrical stove, and put on 
 more coal ; then, selecting a glowing" coal 
 from the ashes, by skillful juggling, and by 
 dint of keeping it moving from one hand to 
 the other, as I had learned in camp to do, I 
 guided it successfully to my pipe s bowl, and 
 soon had a beautiful light with no taint of 
 sulphur matches. Then, throwing a wrap 
 over a rocking-chair, and lighting the coal- 
 oil lamp, I fixed myself comfortably before 
 the stove with a book. 
 
 Although my life since leaving Ohio had 
 been one of pleasure and idleness, I had a 
 strong inherited attachment for books, and I 
 never saw a strange volume without experi 
 encing an almost irresistible desire to know 
 what was contained between its covers. 
 Many social engagements have I broken by 
 becoming absorbed in some quaint volume 
 found in one of the numerous bookstands 
 that abound on Ann, Nassau, and Fulton 
 streets. 
 
 Evidently the regular boarder was a man 
 with tastes similar to mine ; for although the 
 books on his shelves were not numerous, 
 they were all quaint and such as I would 
 
22 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 select; but most of them were strangers 
 to me. If his room had been in the city, 
 where the money-value of such treasures 
 is known, he most probably would have 
 been compelled to keep them under lock and 
 key. Here, however, their safety lay in the 
 ignorance of the people, who probably would 
 never be tempted even to examine such an 
 antiquated, dilapidated-looking collection. 
 
 How r ever that might be, there the books 
 were in plain sight, now that the lamp was 
 lighted and my attention attracted to them, 
 and formed a sight to make a book-fancier s 
 heart beat and his fingers itch. 
 
 In selecting the volume I was to read, I 
 instinctively chose one of the most worn and 
 ancient in appearance. The fire brightened, 
 the sound of dripping rain and sobbing wind 
 was lost to my ear, the biscuit and cotton 
 seed oil at last gave up their struggle with a 
 healthy digestion, my pipe never tasted 
 sweeter, and the rude jests and brutal oaths 
 of the bar-room loungers below became but 
 a subdued murmur. 
 
 There came a sound louder than the moan 
 ing winds ; it grew in intensity, now louder 
 still, now deafening, but I heeded it not. It 
 was the supper-gong. Buried deep in the 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 23 
 
 interesting work of spelling- out the black- 
 lettered words and admiring the brilliantly 
 illuminated initials of the parchment leaves 
 of the book, the indigestible supper had no 
 charms for me. 
 
 " Dreams and Moonblight " is the title 
 of the work. The book was evidently writ 
 ten after printing was invented and when 
 black-letter was falling into disuse ; yet the 
 monkish author, with the reverence for tradi 
 tion born of his life and the teachings of his 
 church, had painfully written the book by 
 hand, letter for letter, giving the same 
 amount of thought and skill to the artistic 
 handling of his pen as he did to the literary 
 composition. The golden illuminated ini 
 tials were exquisitely done and of the medi 
 aeval Celtic style of ornament. 
 
 I had indeed discovered a triumph of the 
 book-making art, nor did its contents lack 
 interest. It contained quaint old bits of 
 philosophy and a knowledge of nature that 
 must have placed the author far in advance 
 of the scholars of his time. His reasoning 
 was marked by a clear and concise method, 
 and, in spite of the antique manner of ex 
 pression, was not difficult to understand. At 
 least, so it appeared to me. As I turned 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 over the stained yellow vellum leaves, a more 
 than usually curious, ornate, and intricate 
 initial met my eye ; it evidently denoted 
 an important chapter. I began to read, 
 and as I read the black-letter became more 
 familiar, the initials were unnoticed, my 
 interest as a collector was absorbed in my 
 interest as a bookworm. 
 
 After a long apology for daring to think 
 that everything in nature was not a succes 
 sion of miracles of the prestidigitator s sort, 
 but only law-abiding events, the old monk 
 began his essay as follows : 
 
 <l\<& 3 0et before tiou gooft 
 reader manji goob goWn 
 truths a0 3 tlftnk it gooft anfo 
 nece00arn anlr inn bounftcn 
 ftutne to aquatint JIM uritl). 
 
 ^Iccoriitnge to ttye santuge 
 of Sainct Augustine : a0 tljerc 10, 
 ncntljn* 0l)all bt, ann tnnc anpunisljtb 
 ciuu 00 01) all tljerc not be ann gooi 
 
 gl) goolt rcabcr 3 write in plaimc 
 tcrincs, anb not 00 pla^nclg a0 trulji, 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 concerning fyt laws of breams, meaning Ijoncstln to 
 all men anb nrisl) tljcm as mud) goob as mjnie oume 
 f)arte. 
 
 tllitl) stout aubacitg anb bolbe roorbs 3 gtoe mg 
 tljougl)ts. 
 
 till) en a Ijcaltlju l)olsome man l)as l)abbe great 
 djccre tuitl) mud) goobe meatc anb breab anb net 
 agannc mud) more meat anb breab anb fell to l)is 
 mammerings anb moudjcb apace, anb aganne, because 
 of l)ts grcate l)unger or l)oggtsl)ness, l)as taken more 
 cljcer, it be not unse for l)im to seek l)is couclje. 
 
 JFor u)Ijen I)c l)as pluckcb off I)is jerkin, untrusscb 
 l)tm anb remoneb I)is Ijoscn anb got Ijtm to bcbbc, Ijc 
 uitll oft times Ijane untoruarb anb unlb visions anb 
 bn tl)e mass 3 mist not but Ijc bo sobanln u^ake. 
 
 ^Iganne tljere be ccrtnne persons ru!)o bg reason 
 of uieakncss or sickness t)at)e bloub tl)at goetl) but 
 softln ujttl) not passing Ijaste, ivljcn tl)cn sleep anb 
 tl)csc persons are likeunse troublcb will) melenconlc 
 fantasies anb penisl) ougln breams. 
 
 Jf for ensamplc 3 bream tl)at our most I)oln anb 
 reuereneb brother ^Uucfclb comes to me in gcrksomc 
 attnrc anb tl)is glnmmernnge fantasie untl) grcte 
 smorb letcs brnue uiitl) sobbcn force at me anli 3 
 moue not for lack of pomer to stepe but wake, mitl) 
 mud) breab anb in grcte frtgljt. 3 crn out roll oner 
 anb tl)e fear beparts l)encc anb nanisljes aumiie luitl) 
 tlje trisions it conjurcb up. 
 
26 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 The author then proceeds to explain that 
 persons suffering from " moonblight " are 
 all those who are unable to distinguish 
 their dreams from the realities of life. He 
 showed how, in the " ensample " given 
 above, if the author had not known after 
 wakening, that his dream was not real, he 
 would, at first sight of the harmless brother 
 " Awefeld," have fled in great terror, or, worse 
 still, have attacked the inoffensive subject of 
 his nightmare with the first deadly weapon 
 he could lay his hands on, and think he was 
 only fighting to save his own life. 
 
 I had read thus far, and was thinking 
 what a reasonable theory this was, when, 
 before my mind s eye rose that cursed pic 
 ture of a gang of black slaves with clanking 
 chains that I had seen in the dirty wet street 
 outside. It did not at first occur to me that 
 the sight of black slaves in a Pennsylvania 
 town was at all unusual, and I was only an 
 noyed that my thoughts should revert to 
 such unpleasant subjects ; but when I real 
 ized the improbability and absurdity of negro 
 slaves being in the streets of any town in the 
 United States, twenty-five years after Abra 
 ham Lincoln had signed a document freeing 
 them all, and when I thought of what the 
 
MOONB LIGHT. 2 7 
 
 strange book said of the mooncalf that con 
 founded his dreams with realities, I was 
 alarmed. 
 
 " God ield the moonling ! " I exclaimed 
 as I flung the beautiful book upon the floor 
 and hastily leaped from my chair. 
 
 Like a mendicant at the doorway of the 
 mind, Fear ever stands begging for mental 
 food and shelter. If alms are constantly and 
 emphatically denied, the importunities of 
 the mendicant become fainter and fainter 
 until they are inaudible and we are uncon 
 scious of the pauper s presence. But food 
 makes Fear a lusty beggar, whose strength 
 and impudence are in direct proportion to 
 the amount of nourishment he receives; and 
 if but once he gains an entrance to the house 
 of the mind, like a burly tramp, he will wreck 
 the edifice and evict the tenants whose hos 
 pitality he has accepted. 
 
 It has not been my custom to extend any 
 hospitality to Fear, and I have never been 
 considered a coward ; yet the horrible 
 thought that my reason was leaving me I 
 had never before faced, and the bare idea 
 made my heart stand still ; cold chills ran in 
 waves down my spine, and the hair on the 
 nape of my neck rose like that on the back 
 
2 8 MOO NB LIGH 7 . 
 
 of a frightened dog". I felt as though some 
 horrible thing, vague and shadowy, was hov 
 ering over me, shutting off both air and light. 
 My only thought was of escape escape 
 from myself ! With a stifled cry I fled down 
 the stairs to the smoky bar-room below. 
 
 The room was filled with rough men, 
 drinking, swearing, and telling rude, point 
 less stories. No one noticed my agitation, 
 nor in fact did my sudden appearance attract 
 attention, which was a relief to my worried 
 mind and made it easy for me to invite the 
 crowd to the bar. I invited all of them, and 
 they came up, but looked at me askance. 
 With assumed abandon I seated myself upon 
 the counter, and told all the stories I knew, 
 and sang the jolliest " shanty " (chanty) 
 songs, but the chorus was weak, and one by 
 one the company I had thrust myself upon 
 deserted, until at last the drowsy bar-keeper 
 was the only companion left to me. My 
 money and my powers of entertaining, that 
 I had so often used with success aboard my 
 yacht, did not prove attractive enough to 
 secure me a handful of men to make a night 
 of it with. However, I had in a measure re 
 gained my composure, and my native pluck 
 helped in my need, while the thought of 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 2 9 
 
 what my old comrades would say, if they 
 saw me lose courage over a fit of indiges 
 tion, set me on my feet again. After helping 
 the bar-keeper close up, I returned to my 
 room. Before I could seat myself there was 
 a knock at my unclosed door, and, looking 
 around, I saw Sam, the bar-keeper, whom I 
 had just left. 
 
 " Come in," I said, not for politeness sake, 
 but with the hope that he would do so, 
 " Come in, Sam, and have a smoke ! " 
 
 Thanks," said Sam; "I thought I would 
 drop in a minute to tell you that it s no use 
 your trying to make friends with them fel 
 lers," jerking his thumb in a manner that in 
 dicated the bar-room, " for they s outer yer 
 and know that you re one of the mine own 
 ers." 
 
 " Sit down, Sam," said I, in a cordial man 
 ner cordial, because I liked Sam, and was in 
 hopes he would sit down. 
 
 Sam seated himself, but declined to smoke, 
 and as an apology said he never had learned 
 how to use tobacco. 
 
 "Now, Sam," said I, " what s the matter 
 with those men ? I am not an aristocrat, I 
 am only a man, just the same as they are, 
 maybe a little better educated and dressed in 
 
30 MOONB LIGHT. 
 
 finer cloth, but they have the same opportu 
 nities that my father had to gather wealth, 
 for he worked as a day laborer, as a farm 
 hand, and as a flatboat-man on the Ohio and 
 Mississippi Rivers." 
 
 " Hold on, Mister ! " said Sam. " Not so 
 fast ! " The sleepy bar-keeper brightened up, 
 
 and his eyes snapped as he repeated, " Not 
 so fast, Mister ! You re way off, clean off 
 your base. Do you suppose that you would 
 have the same chance as your old man did if 
 you had no money ready made for you ? Not 
 by a long shot ! When your dad and mine 
 were young men, the land was not all owned 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 3 1 
 
 by a few men ; there was plenty of room 
 West, and plenty of work." 
 
 " Bosh ! " said I. " There is plenty of work 
 yet ; and as for the West, there is plenty of 
 room there acres and acres of land. I tell 
 you such talk is all humbug ! " 
 
 Sam s face changed ; he smiled and winked 
 at me in a knowing manner, and started to 
 leave. 
 
 "Hold on,. Sam; don t go yet," said I, 
 dreading to be left alone more than I feared 
 his bar-room arguments. 
 
 Sam reseated himself, and turning the 
 conversation said, " Did you ever see me 
 drink ? " 
 
 " Come to think about it, no," I answered. 
 
 " Or smoke?" 
 
 " You have just declined." 
 
 " Do you think I am fond of tending 
 counter in a gin-mill ?" 
 
 " Can t say, Sam, as I ever thought of 
 it." 
 
 " Well, I m not ! " said he in a decided tone. 
 " I sometimes think I would rather be in 
 hell; and I can give you the straight tip that 
 I ain t far from it, either, when I stand be 
 hind the bar ! Why don t I leave ? Because 
 I m a slave" 
 
 * OF THB** 
 
 VIX7IBSIT?] 
 
3 2 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 Slave ! The word brought up that cursed 
 picture again. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said I, trying to drive the 
 vision away. 
 
 " Ain t I ? " replied Sam, in a fierce and sul 
 len tone. " Look here ! You re a land-owner 
 and I am not. Now, somebody owns all 
 the land, and as I own none of it, and you 
 and I are all thet s present at this yere mass- 
 meeting, you might as well represent der 
 hull gang of landlords and I der hull gang 
 of landless slaves! 
 
 " Don t call them that, Sam. I don t like 
 to hear it." 
 
 " I won t; but I ll prove to you that they 
 are. Here," he said suddenly bringing to 
 view from the pocket of his sack-coat one of 
 those wonderful chains carved out of a sin 
 gle piece of wood and yet with separate 
 links, and a ball inside a cube at the end, that 
 we sometimes see exhibited as the work of 
 prisoners, executed to while away the tedious 
 hours of their captivity " Here," he said, 
 "is something I have made myself with a 
 jack-knife." 
 
 " It is very curiously and skillfully made," 
 I said, examining it with interest. 
 
 "Is it mine?" 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 33 
 
 " Yes," I assented, " I suppose it is if you 
 haven t given it away or sold it to any one." 
 
 " I ain t giving nothing away," said Sam. 
 " It ain t wuth to sell. All the same, I cut it 
 outn a solid cedar stick and just fur arge- 
 ment s sake, we ll low it s wuth money and 
 stands for my labor. Make believe, while 
 we re about it, thet this yere is all I got 
 see ? all I got; and thet s not so far from 
 true, as the first part of the make believe. 
 Now, bein as I m too poor, barrin this yere 
 chain, to buy land, and you own every inch 
 of it, you say to me, says you, You re on 
 my land, says you. Well, says I, I ain t 
 doin no harm standing here, am I ? 
 You re trespassin says you, trespassin on 
 my property,, see ? Well, what kin a fel 
 low do ? Dead or alive, I got to trespass. 
 No place for me as don t own no land as 
 ain t a trespass to stand or lie down on." 
 Well, says you, you let me have a link of 
 that there chain, and I ll let you stand there, 
 says you." 
 
 " But Sam," said I, " your hand has not 
 forgotten its cunning. Can t you make 
 another chain ? " 
 
 "No, siree ! " said Sam emphatically. 
 "Ain t no difference how many chains the 
 
34 
 
 MOOiVBLIGHT. 
 
 under dog makes, land goin up all the time 
 in price, see ? And every chain-maker as 
 
 "so MY CHAIN S MAKIN ME A SLAVE, SEE?" 
 
 comes over here makes my chain wuth less 
 compared with what I got to pay for stand- 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 35 
 
 ing-room. So my chain s makin me a 
 slave, see ? Soon you ll tell me thet my 
 time is up and thet I am in your way ; thet 
 there s another fellow expected here from 
 Europe, and he ll want to stand in my 
 place; and again I dicker for the right by giv 
 ing you more of my chain, till at last I ain t 
 got none left. Do you call me a freeman? 
 I tell you, I am a slave that must needs beg 
 for work, and take what work is thrown to 
 him. Yes, and I, a man who never uses 
 liquor, must sell it to these poor, underpaid, 
 overworked men around here, because I 
 have a wife and children, and dare not give 
 up this situation. Call you this freedom ? The 
 South was full of just such freedom before I 
 enlisted and fought through the war to free, 
 the black slaves, and never tumbled to the 
 fact that my own arms and legs were soon 
 to have shackles made for em. I am a bar 
 keeper in a one-horse, brown-sugar tavern, 
 and you a millionaire. Can you tell me 
 why?" 
 
 Sam rose, and held out his hand, and said, 
 " I did not mean to let drive like that: I only 
 wished to explain why those duffers down 
 stairs won t be friendly and open wid you. 
 It is because they are afraid of you. You 
 
36 MOONBL1GHT. 
 
 might as well see things as they really are. 
 Good-night." And he disappeared in the 
 gloom of the hallway, leaving me alone 
 with my troublesome thoughts. 
 
 That there was a something between me 
 and the men, I felt to be true. I could not 
 talk to them without feeling that it was only 
 politeness that made them answer me, for it 
 was evident that I had not their confidence. 
 It was also evident that the dismal weather 
 had affected Sam as well as myself, for in 
 my occasional visits to this place, I had 
 heretofore found him one of the jolliest of 
 fellows, always with a witty remark ready 
 to slip off the end of his tongue or a comical 
 story to relate. 
 
 What did he mean by "seeing things as 
 they really are" ? 
 
 It has been my custom through life not to 
 think of disagreeable things a custom I 
 have cultivated to such an extent that I have 
 been able, under the most trying circum 
 stances, forcibly to turn my thoughts into 
 pleasant channels. When a friend used me 
 badly, I would not allow my thought to 
 dwell upon it. If the stocks I held went 
 down, I congratulated myself upon possess 
 ing other securities that were booming. If, 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 37 
 
 as it once happened off Buzzard s Bay, my 
 foresail was carried away, I opened a bottle, 
 and drank to the health of the mainsail. 
 
 So now, following my usual custom, I 
 took my mental self in hand, and com- 
 
 SEEING THINGS AS THEY REALLY ARE. 
 
 "WHY, LORD BLESS YOU, SONNY, I VE NOTHING IN MY BAG 
 FOR YOU ! " 
 
 menced to plan a yachting cruise for next 
 year. I would have a most charming party, 
 of both sexes, aboard. Delightful I knew it 
 would be, for me at least, for among the 
 guests would be one whose presence never 
 
38 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 yet had failed to so affect all my surround 
 ings as to make all objects appear beautiful, 
 all sounds seem harmony, all conversation 
 poetry. And as I thought of this, Sam s part 
 ing remark, " You might as well see things 
 as they really are," came to my mind unbid 
 den, and so suddenly that I started, thinking 
 for the instant that I had just heard the sen 
 tence repeated. 
 
 Might it not be possible that, if we did see 
 things as they really are, all would be beau 
 tiful ? Nature is a divine handiwork, and 
 must be beautiful; and if we saw her in her 
 real light, and compared our impressions, the 
 result must be poetry, and then, possibly, 
 all sound, to our better-educated ears, would 
 make a symphony. The dog whose sense 
 of smell is so remarkably acute that he can 
 follow his master s footsteps over a path 
 trodden by numbers of people, hours after 
 his master has passed ; to whom each sepa 
 rate stone, stick, leaf, and bit of vegetation 
 has a separate smell, and who, if he could 
 talk, might say, "A hare passed here," " A 
 partridge sat there," " A child passed this 
 way followed by a lamb," " On this stump 
 sat a cat an hour since " an animal with such 
 a refined sense of smell as this will sneeze 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 39 
 
 and show every sign of pain and disgust 
 when a perfumed handkerchief is put to its 
 nose, and yet will roll with delight on carrion, 
 for no other purpose than to scent its body 
 with an odor unbearable to its master s dull 
 er and comparatively crude sense of smell. 
 The dog undoubtedly has a more highly 
 developed sense of smell than we have, and 
 why is he not a better judge of odors ? 
 
 I laughed as I thought how pleasant some 
 sections of New York would be if I could 
 only smell things as they really are; and, 
 becoming mentally facetious, I imagined the 
 heaven a man with the dog s keen sense of 
 smell would find on this earth; the sight of 
 an artist, who can see beauty in a discolored 
 door, a battered brass kettle, or a yellow 
 pumpkin; and the ears of a poet, to whom 
 the harsh language with which the plowman 
 addressed his horses or oxen, the roar of a 
 wild beast, the silly talk of an awkward, 
 freckled country girl, appear, when filtered 
 through his cultured ear, as the most perfect 
 harmony; and, I might add, the happy men 
 tal composition of a Fourth of July orator, 
 who sees nothing but what is great and 
 grand in his country. 
 
 A Fourth of July orator, by the way I 
 
 
4O MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 thought I have heard them when I was a 
 lad, but not lately. What jolly times we 
 used to have in the grove, listening to the 
 reading of the Declaration of Independence ! 
 And all the country people would bring 
 their lunch with them, and munch it as they 
 listened to the annually repeated words : 
 
 WE hold these truths to be self-evident : that all men 
 are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator 
 with certain tmalienable rights; that among these are life, 
 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 
 
 Why do we not hear it read now as it was 
 when I was a child ? Are we conscious that 
 we are, by our lives, giving the lie to it ? 
 Bosh ! I exclaimed, as I again took a firm 
 hold of my rebellious mind, and tried for 
 cibly to steer it away from the rocks I saw 
 ahead. As I did so, I was conscious, for the 
 first time, that I did not wish to see things 
 as they really are, for fear the truth might 
 be unpleasant to me ; yet, while I was con 
 scious of this, I did not admit it to myself, 
 but, losing my grip for a time, I allowed 
 my annoyance to manifest itself in mental 
 railings against society, politics, church and 
 state in fact, against everything except 
 myself. 
 
 At last, jumping up from my seat, I paced 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 4! 
 
 the floor, exclaiming, " What ails me any 
 how ? What ails Sam ? And what did he 
 mean by his parting shot, You might as 
 well see things as they really are ?" "I 
 wish I could ! " I exclaimed impatiently. " I 
 wish I could ! " I repeated thoughtfully. " I 
 wish I could only see things as they really 
 are, and not as a diseased imagination 
 makes them appear," I said at last earnestly; 
 and as I again seated myself, the words were 
 repeated mentally. The pattering rain out 
 side took up the strain, and repeated over 
 and over again, with the tireless monotony 
 of machinery I wish I could see things as 
 they really are, I wish I could see things as 
 they really are, I wish, etc. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 HE bedroom was just as 
 I had left it the vellum 
 book on the floor, and 
 the light burning. I pick 
 ed up the book, and 
 without daring- to 
 look at the gaudy 
 initials, replaced it 
 carefully upon the 
 bookshelf, and took 
 down another volume 
 bound in red pigskin. 
 On the back, in gold 
 paint, was the simple 
 word, " Magus " ; below 
 the bearded figure of a 
 man, with long finger and toe 
 
 nails, 
 head 
 
 The figure had on his 
 a high -topped, royal 
 crown, and held an arrow in 
 his right hand, the point of 
 which rested over the eye of a 
 dragon, between whose batlike wings this 
 strange personage sat, with his legs hanging 
 
 42 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 43 
 
 on both sides. At the bottom was the 
 legend, " Bene Lightmans, London, 1601." 
 
 Ah ! Here I had something that I knew 
 could only amuse me a real old book of 
 magic, a book of old superstitions. Although 
 witchcraft is supposed to be a thing of the 
 past among enlightened people, yet who can 
 deny that much of the superstition upon 
 which it was built still lurks in the most en 
 lightened minds ? that is, if you count your 
 selves among the enlightened ones. 
 
 Whether this is imbibed with our mother s 
 milk, or grafted upon the tender mind of 
 childhood by superstitious old nurses, it mat 
 ters not: we have every day indisputable 
 evidence that it is there, and I suppose I have 
 my share; and, possibly, the leaven of super 
 stition in my mental composition helped to 
 lend a charm to this old pigskin-covered 
 book, with its bedeviled back and strangely 
 figured leaves. 
 
 Once again my interest as a bookworm 
 was aroused; once again I lighted my pipe, 
 and, comfortably fixed in my chair before 
 the stove, I resolved to make a night of it 
 not with the poor, degraded, hunted-looking 
 wretches that frequented the bar, but with 
 the fantastical whims and nonsense of our 
 
44 
 
 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 ancestors nonsense for which many a poor 
 old woman and many a good man paid 
 dearly in the old days, when fagots and 
 bonfires were used as expressions of faith in 
 the power of cabalistic signs. Thank God, 
 those days are over, and a man may now 
 
 read unmolested whatsoever pleases his 
 fancy ! 
 
 The publisher of the book I now held in 
 my hands, solemnly and apparently in good 
 faith opens with a definition of witchcraft, 
 especially in women, and goes on to state, 
 in his own peculiar style, as follows : 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 45 
 
 PUBLISHER S PREFACE. [TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL 
 LATIN.] 
 
 WE have infinite instances of witchcraft in history 
 which it were not fair to set aside merely because they 
 are not reconcilable to our personal philosophy; but, as 
 it happens, there is something in real philosophy to coun 
 tenance them. 
 
 All living things, we know, emit effluvia, both by the 
 breath and the pores of the skin. All bodies, therefore, 
 within the sphere of their perspiratory or expiratory efflu 
 via will be affected by them; and that, in this or another 
 manner, according to the quality of the effluvia; and in 
 this or that degree, according to the disposition of the 
 emittent and the recipient parts. In confirmation there 
 of, we need only call attention to infectious diseases con 
 veyed by effluvia. 
 
 Now, of all parts of an animal body, the eye, we know, 
 is the quickest. It moves with the greatest celerity and 
 in all variety of directions. Again, its coats and humours 
 are as permeable as any other part of the body (witness 
 the rays of light it so copiously receives). The eye, there 
 fore, no doubt, emits its effluvia like the other parts. The 
 fine humours of the eye must be continually exhaling. 
 The heat of the pervading rays will rarefy and attenuate 
 them; and that, with the subtile juice or spirit of the 
 neighboring optic nerve, supplied in great abundance by 
 the vicinity of the brain, must make a fund of volatile 
 matter to be dispensed, and, as it were, determined by 
 the eye. For, as Tacitus remarks on the savage figures 
 of the Germans, the eyes of men are first overcome in 
 battle. 
 
 Here, then, we have both the dart and the hand to 
 fling it the one furnished with all the force and vehe- 
 
46 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 mence, and the other with all the sharpness and activity, 
 one would require. No wonder if their effects be great. 
 
 Do but conceive the eye as a sling, capable of the 
 swiftest and intensest motions and vibrations; and, again, 
 as communicating with a source of such matter as the 
 nervous juice elaborated in the brain a matter so subtile 
 and penetrating that it is supposed to fly instantaneously 
 through the solid capillaments of the nerves; and so act 
 ive and forcible that it distends and convulses the mus 
 cles and distorts the limbs and alters the whole habitude 
 of the body, giving motion and action to a mass of inert, 
 inactive matter. A projectile of such a nature, flung by 
 such an engine as the eye, must have an effect wherever it 
 strikes. 
 
 This theory, we are of the opinion, fully accounts for 
 that branch of witchcraft called fascination. That man is 
 not secure from fascination is matter of easy observation. 
 Few people but have, again and again, felt the effects of an 
 angry, a fierce, a commanding, a disdainful, a lascivious, 
 an entreating eye, etc. These effects, no doubt, are 
 owing to the different ejaculations of the eye, and are a 
 degree of witchcraft. 
 
 Following this description, and serving as 
 a sort of tail-piece, is a colored illustration 
 of an eye, encircled by words in strange 
 characters. It is, or at least it appeared to me 
 then, an uncanny object. But this explana 
 tion of the power of witchcraft entertained 
 me, and struck me as being ingenious, and 
 I was amused and interested when the 
 publisher promised that the author would 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 47 
 
 teach the reader how to do many wonderful 
 things, until, like the dwarf in " Valentine 
 and Orson," "he would learn so much of the 
 arte of nygromancy that, above all others, he 
 would be perfyte ;" but what particularly in 
 terested me was the promise that the art of 
 the transmutation of metals would also be 
 taught. I turned to the page indicated as 
 containing this secret (for which I have no 
 apology to offer, and can only say that if my 
 reader would 
 have preferred 
 the part which 
 told of the won- 
 derful bone from 
 the right side of " WISH r COUL SEE THINGS AS 
 
 & THEY REALLY ARE." 
 
 Pliny s red toad, 
 
 which, if removed and placed in water, 
 would cause the water to boil, and, if admin 
 istered in food to a lady, would cause a 
 degree of love for the donor equal in 
 intensity to boiling water, the reader is 
 welcome to his choice). What I wanted 
 to know was how to turn the baser metals 
 into gold. With that secret I would form 
 a syndicate of one person that would 
 make the Standard Oil, sugar trust, and rail 
 roads turn green with envy; and I could 
 
48 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 then hunt for the red toad of Pliny if I wish 
 ed. However, having already gained the 
 affections of, to my mind, the most beautiful 
 and loveliest girl in Pennsylvania, Pliny and 
 his red toad possessed no great attractions 
 for me. 
 
 Now, all this time, while my thoughts, re 
 acting from their former gloomy turn, were 
 wandering among the mysteries of the book 
 of magic in a jolly, reckless, yet, although 
 unconsciously, a half-serious manner, I was 
 involuntarily repeating to myself, " I wish I 
 could see things as they really are," so that it 
 seemed as if I had a dual mind, one of which 
 was occupied with the sentence just quoted, 
 and the other with the old book before me. 
 
 Again I was doomed to disappointment, 
 for, as I read, in place of the nonsense I ex 
 pected, this was what met my eye : 
 
 Beware of flattery, self-love, and covetousness, so wilt 
 thou thrive; and be diligent in thy occupation, so shall 
 thy body be fed. Idleness is offensive to the Deity. In 
 dustry shall sweeten thy brown bread, and the fruits of it 
 shall warm thy heart with gratitude to Him that blesses 
 thee with enough. Seek for no more, for it will damn thee. 
 It has been said by Him who never spoke in vain, that man 
 shall get bread by the sweat of his brow. 
 
 I hurriedly turned over the leaves, for I 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 49 
 
 was not looking for moral lessons, especially 
 in the devil s book. At last I found the di 
 rections I was in search of. 
 
 " I wish I could see things as they really 
 are," said one member of my dual mind. 
 " And I believe I am beginning to," replied 
 the other. " Can it not be possible that be 
 neath all this apparent nonsense some great 
 truths are hidden ? What are all these cir 
 cles and signs ? Where did they come from ? 
 Directly handed down from the Magi of the 
 East symbols of a masonry that antedates 
 masonry, and is, perhaps, the father of ma 
 sonry." 
 
 I once again turned to my book, and read : 
 
 When thy spiritual eye is opened, thou shalt begin to 
 see to what end thou wert created, thou shalt want no nec 
 essary thing, either for thy comfort or support. Only 
 keep the rules: Love thy neighbor as thyself ; arrogate 
 nothing to thine own power, for he who desires spiritual 
 knowledge cannot obtain it by any means but by first puri 
 fying his own heart. 
 
 These are strange words for a humbug, a 
 common necromancer, a fake ! Might it not 
 be possible that, in the dark ages of persecu 
 tion and violence, when wise men were wont 
 to hold their tongues between their teeth, to 
 escape the alternative of having them drag- 
 
50 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 ged from their mouths, they had recourse to 
 cipher, understood only by the initiated ? We 
 all know that some people claim that by a 
 system or science of correspondences they 
 can explain most beautifully many mysteri 
 ous chapters of Holy Writ. I began to won 
 der whether the old alchemists, who claimed 
 to be able to manufacture gold, might not 
 have told the truth, not in the sense I had 
 always supposed they meant, but in a higher 
 and better sense. 
 
 " I wish I could see things as they really 
 are," continued to repeat the pattering rain ; 
 and again before my mind rose the image 
 of the chain-gang of slaves ; but this time I 
 felt no alarm, and gradually I saw that it 
 was the string of miners, with begrimed 
 faces, that I had confused with the picture of 
 negroes ; at the same time I was aware of 
 the fact that the clanking dinner-pails might 
 indeed represent the chains of the negroes. 
 Was not I a part owner of that slave-gang 
 of American citizens ? The thought went 
 through me like an electric shock. 
 
 Again I turned to the strange volume, and 
 read : 
 
 When thou shalt have so far purified thy heart, as we 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 5 1 
 
 have spoken is indispensably necessary for the receiving 
 every good thing, thou shalt then see with other eyes than 
 thou dost at present. Thy spiritual eye will be opened, and 
 thou shalt read man as plain as thou wilt our books. . . . 
 All philosophers agree that, the first matter being found, 
 we may proceed without much difficulty, for the Prima 
 Materia, I say, is to be found in ourselves; we all possess 
 the Prima Materia, from the beggar to the king. . . . 
 I pray thee, my friend, look into thyself, and endeavor to 
 find out in what part of thy composition is this Prima 
 Materia of the lapis philosophorum, or of what part of thy 
 substance can the first matter be drawn out. 
 
 "In myself, then, is this Prima Materia" 
 said I, closing the book, " and in myself must 
 I look for it if I wish to see things as they 
 really are, and read men as books. The crude 
 metal the lead, the mercury, the iron is 
 the slave-gangs, with their begrimed faces, 
 and of them I can make so much pure gold." 
 
 I opened the volume again, and my gaze 
 was riveted upon the strange, colored draw 
 ing of the eye; and as I stared at it, won 
 dering at the peculiar fascination it seemed 
 now to exert over me, my dual mind kept 
 up its refrain of, " I wish I could see things 
 as they really are." 
 
 Suddenly a peculiar and indescribable sen 
 sation took possession of my nerves. My 
 chest seemed broader and deeper, my arms 
 
5 2 MOONB LIGHT. 
 
 stronger, my frame larger ; but I dreaded to 
 look toward the mirror, and in avoiding it I 
 noticed that bands of light, like electric light 
 in color, were streaming past the edges of the 
 window-blind into my room, making the 
 lamplight look a bright orange by contrast. 
 I pulled up the blind. It was dawn. The 
 clouds were rolling up the mountain like 
 great rolls of raw cotton, and the light-blue 
 sky shone, clear and beautiful, in the spaces 
 between the fleeing vapor. " A nor west 
 wind, cool and clear." 
 
 As the curtains of mist were lifted, I could 
 see for miles through the transparent air; and 
 as the sunlight burst forth, each drop of rain 
 that lingered on twig or branch became a 
 miniature sun that reflected back the glitter 
 of its great king in the sky. A belated robin, 
 that seemed somewhat confused in regard to 
 his calendar, commenced a wild, hilarious 
 Ghee-wink, chee-wee," evidently under the 
 impression that his winter migration was 
 over, and spring had come again. 
 
 Again a file of miners passed, trudging 
 through the mud. The merry song of the 
 bird had no effect upon them, and I saw them 
 as they really were a band of degraded, 
 disheartened slaves. I read them as I might 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 53 
 
 a book, and in this human book I read my 
 own disgrace. I, an American, whose father 
 fought to free the black slaves of the South, 
 whose grandfather fought in the war of 1812 
 to free the sea of slave sailors, whose great 
 grandfather fought for that grand document 
 which declared that all men were born free 
 and equal I, the American, in the " land of 
 the free and the home of the brave," was 
 part owner of a band of miserable white 
 slaves, and was here, in this town, in this 
 little hotel, the American House for what 
 purpose ? Principally to consult with the 
 other slave-drivers about restricting the out 
 put of coal, that I and they might raise its 
 price by causing untold suffering to these 
 already miserable miners, and add to the ex 
 pense of living for the poor, taxed, and rack- 
 rented people of the city that we might 
 have more money to spend on yachts ! 
 
 I almost wished that the cursed pigskin- 
 covered book, with its companion in vellum, 
 had been destroyed before I could have read 
 them, moonling that I was. Moonblight ? 
 It was only temporary. I now kneiv that I 
 was sane, but untold wealth could not tempt 
 me to look into the glass. 
 
 It was a custom of mine to shave myself 
 
54 
 
 MOON R LIGHT. 
 
 THE CURSED PIGSKIN-COVERED HOOK. 
 
 each morning, and I 
 wore neither beard 
 nor mustache. My 
 razor was acknow 
 ledged by all my 
 boon companions on 
 board the yacht to be 
 the best, and there had 
 always been much wise 
 talk about this and that 
 soap, razor, and strop, 
 as we tested the keen 
 edges of our favorite 
 blades each morning 
 after our plunge in 
 the Sound or in the 
 harbor. But of what 
 use was a beautiful 
 razor, with 
 no glass to 
 shave by ? 
 I made one 
 attempt to 
 do without 
 a glass, but 
 the blood 
 flowed so 
 copiously 
 
MOONBL TGHT. 5 
 
 that it was some time before I could make 
 a piece of court-plaster adhere to my chin. 
 I then carefully wiped the razor dry, re 
 placed it in its case, and proceeded with 
 my toilet. I put on clean linen, but when 
 it came to tying my four-in-hand scarf, I 
 was in a fix. I had never tried it before 
 without a glass ; but after a while I made a 
 knot that felt all right, and stuck my scarf- 
 pin in. The remainder was plain sailing. 
 My shoes were muddy from the day before, 
 and I started down stairs to get a little 
 hump-backed hanger-on of the hotel to black 
 them for me. This hump-backed man, or 
 boy, was a favorite of mine ; he was always 
 so polite and withal so witty and bright that 
 I generally paid him with a silver quarter in 
 place of the customary five-cent nickel, five 
 cents for the shine and twenty because he 
 amused me. I found " Humpy, as he was 
 called, sweeping out the office or bar-room ; 
 his back was toward me. When he heard 
 my voice, he turned with a pleasant good- 
 morning. 
 
 Great Goodness ! Was that the man to 
 whom I had been tossing money, as one 
 would to an amusing negro in slavery times ? 
 Could it be possible that I 
 
56 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 to treat him as an inferior being a dog, who, 
 when he sits up on his hind legs and begs, 
 is to be rewarded with a lump of sugar ? 
 I blushed, stammered, but, for the life of me, 
 could not frame the words. I was ashamed 
 to ask him to black my boots. Why ? Be 
 cause I read him as a book I saw him as he 
 really was. There was no hump on the real 
 man s back, there was nothing comic in the 
 real man s expression ; but there was a 
 grandeur I had never seen before, a nobility 
 I had often pictured, but seldom seen. It 
 seemed almost as if his face shone ; and 
 when he smiled, and asked me if I wanted a 
 shine this morning, it appeared as if some 
 one else was speaking. I could not make 
 the words fit the person I saw. I was about 
 to decline, when, as if anticipating me, he 
 said, " I m glad that you re here, boss, cause 
 I need that quarter dis morning, you bet!" 
 Mechanically I seated myself ; but when he 
 bent his little humped back, and brought 
 his face over my shoe, I could not sit there. 
 So, quickly handing him his fee, I said, 
 " What s your name ? " " Humpy," he re 
 plied. " No ; your real name ? " " Nathaniel 
 James." "Well, Nate," said I, "if you will 
 kindly excuse me, I won t take a shine this 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 5 7 
 
 morning. I don t like to sit still. I didn t 
 sleep well last night, and am nervous." 
 
 He looked up at me with eyes that, I was 
 conscious, read me through. He also saw- 
 men with his spiritual eyes, and I felt more 
 embarrassed than before, when I knew this 
 to be true. 
 
 Never before do I -remember feeling 
 ashamed to meet a fellow-man s eye. I had 
 always prided myself on being perfectly 
 square in my dealings with all men, and, 
 having nothing to be ashamed of, I felt no 
 dread of any one ; but now the case was 
 changed. Here was a man whose character, 
 aims, and life were so far above mine that I 
 dare not expose myself to his glance ; so, 
 hastily turning my back, I started for the 
 barber-shop; but with the door-knob in my 
 hand I stopped short. There were mirrors 
 in front of each chair, so that the customers 
 might survey themselves during all stages 
 of the treatment by the tonsorial artists in 
 charge. If there was one person on earth 
 that I did not want to see as he really was, 
 that person was myself. So I went to the 
 breakfast-room with my shoes unblacked 
 and my face unshaven acts of which I 
 had not been guilty within ten years at 
 
5 8 MO ONB L IGHT. 
 
 least. However, there was fortunately no 
 one at my end of the table; and I took 
 up the small, damp piece of cloth which 
 served as a napkin, and, taking care to 
 look at no one, I ate my breakfast as it 
 was served. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 HE people of the town had all 
 noticed a change in me, and 
 from the significant looks, 
 L nods, and winks, I readily 
 ^ understood that they one and 
 all considered that I was slight 
 ly demented, or, as Sam ex 
 pressed it, "They think ye r a 
 little off." But I knew better. 
 My mind had never been 
 healthier, clearer, and 
 brighter, nor my perceptions 
 keener ; and, while I was 
 conscious of the fact that 
 the new powers I pos 
 sessed were very imper 
 fect, yet the change 
 was wonderful 
 to me. 
 
 My physical 
 health also was 
 most robust. Each morning, when I rose, 
 it was with no touch of languor, but with 
 
 59 
 
6O MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 an exhilarated feeling, as if I had just 
 had a shower and a rub down after a 
 brisk row in a single shell. I drank no 
 spirituous liquor, because, being in a natural 
 state of mind and body, I needed no drug 
 to produce an artificial sensation of health 
 and spirits ; in fact, any preparation of 
 alcohol appeared to me as abhorrent as 
 castor-oil, quinine, or any other concoction 
 
 "I HAD ATTENDED A MEETING OF MINE OWNERS." 
 
 made by physicians for weak and sick 
 humanity. 
 
 I had attended a meeting of mine owners. 
 I saw before me a crowd of men, most of 
 whom I knew ; that is, I had always sup 
 posed that I knew them a well-dressed, 
 polite party of men. But I could see below 
 the surface. Each one seemed to think that 
 his neighbor was glass, and he himself 
 opaque, while to me all were so transparent 
 that it appeared as if I were in an assem 
 blage of children. 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 6 1 
 
 Mr. Keene, whom we always looked up to 
 as a regular Napoleon in business, I was dis 
 appointed in. It appeared manifest that his 
 whole success came from keeping his coun 
 tenance placid, with a knowing look in his 
 eye, while his mind was barren absolutely, 
 without a plan or an original thought; yet he 
 was a smart man for all that, and his smart 
 ness consisted in simply waiting until some 
 one else suggested a bright idea, and then, 
 with the knowing look and placid face, 
 immediately appropriating the idea. Rising 
 to his feet, he would state, in a very patron 
 izing manner, that the only practical sug 
 gestion so far had come from Mr. Brown, 
 and it coincided with his preconceived plans 
 exactly. Thereupon he would paraphrase 
 Mr. Brown s suggestion in such a manner 
 that Mr. Brown would feel highly compli 
 mented, while Mr. Keene would wear the 
 laurels that properly belonged to Mr. Brown. 
 I saw this repeated over and over again, yet 
 no one else seemed to be aware of it. 
 
 No one paid any attention to me except 
 by a good-natured smile or nod. They 
 evidently thought, with the villagers, that 1 
 was a " little off." My beard by this time 
 was stubby and my mustache of about the 
 
62 MOON BLIGHT. 
 
 consistency of a worn-out tooth-brush. My 
 hair needed trimming, but my linen was 
 neat, and I had learned to black my own 
 shoes, and paid " Humpy " his quarter a day 
 for some less menial service. 
 
 At this meeting I listened until they had 
 about decided upon a plan of action which I 
 saw at once was bound to work great hard 
 ship among the miners and the poor con 
 sumers in the city. Then I rose and pointed 
 out these facts to them. 
 
 " Business is business," said Mr. Keene. 
 " Our business is to look out for our inter 
 ests; that of others to look out for theirs. 
 I think that settles it." 
 
 Now it so happened that the arrangement 
 about to be agreed upon would benefit Mr. 
 Keene more than any present, and would 
 even be a great disadvantage to two others 
 present This I saw in Mr. Keene s mind; 
 although he was not bright enough to sug 
 gest the proposed plan, he could see how 
 advantageous it \vould be to him; for as he 
 saw it, I read his thoughts and saw it too. 
 So, when they tried to shut me off with 
 cries of "Question! Question!" I simply 
 stood there until there was a lull, and then 
 said: 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 63 
 
 " Mr. Chairman, I believe I have the 
 floor ? " 
 
 " You have, sir, unless you wish to resign 
 it to facilitate business." 
 
 "I will do so in a few moments," I replied. 
 
 A tired look crept over each face, as the 
 members of the conference settled back in 
 their chairs, not to listen, but to endure. 
 
 " Gentlemen," I said, " you really must not 
 go into this thing blindly. Next to Mr. 
 Keene himself, I would be the one most ben 
 efited financially by this arrangement ; but 
 there is Mr. Brown, who suggested the idea, 
 and Mr. White, who approved of it: they 
 will be absolute losers if they keep to their 
 agreement." 
 
 Mr. Brown and Mr. White looked interest 
 ed. Mr. Keene jumped to his feet, and 
 wanted to know if I had not just stated that 
 Mr. Brown himself suggested the idea. Not 
 noticing the interruption, I proceeded to put 
 into words all that I saw in Mr. Keene s 
 mind, and a hubbub followed. Cries of 
 "Question!" "Order!" "Move we ad 
 journ!" "Previous question!" were heard 
 on all sides. Mr. White, a greedy, vindic 
 tive, and heartless fellow, with the polish of 
 a courtier and the mind of a savage, owing 
 
64 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 Mr. Keene a grudge for some past transac 
 tion, was loud in his denunciation of this 
 gentleman, who, he claimed, was using the 
 conference to further his own individual in 
 terest ; and, to my astonishment, this savage 
 pointed out how Mr. Keene was willing to 
 commit any injustice to the poor, toiling 
 miners, even to drive them past the verge of 
 starvation, if by that means he could make 
 a dollar or two ; and the pathetic picture he 
 drew of the effect upon the poor laborer 
 brought tears to the eyes of many present. 
 But the chairman hammered with his gavel, 
 and ruled Mr. White out of order. 
 
 Now, amid all this, I saw that these men, 
 who were coolly planning to rob the people 
 of so much money, were not naturally bad 
 men. Most of them were what are con 
 sidered charitable people. 
 
 After I sat down, I received no more 
 smiles and good-natured nods. Mr. Keene 
 looked at me with that placid face and know 
 ing look, as if he would say, " You re a sharp 
 one. I see through your move !" But I knew 
 that he did not, because my move was too 
 simple; there was nothing behind what I had 
 said, and 1 could not help smiling to see 
 Keene s troubled mind taking one view and 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 65 
 
 then another, trying tp see in what way I 
 was to be benefited financially by opposing 
 his motion. 
 
 The thought that I was acting in a disin 
 terested manner never entered a mind pres 
 ent. As I turned from face to face, I could 
 see that all except Mr. Brown and Mr. White 
 were puzzling themselves just as Mr. Keene 
 was. Mr. Brown and Mr. White were con 
 cocting schemes to put Keene in a hole, as 
 they would have termed it, and they looked 
 upon me as their ally, never taking time to 
 question my motives, satisfied with the fact 
 that, for some reason of my own, I would 
 help them. But no one of them all thought 
 that I was not perfectly sound mentally, 
 although 1 could see that Mr. Keene and 
 some others intended to treat me as an irre 
 sponsible party the next time I was in their 
 way. 
 
 I have related how the assembly appeared 
 to me as an assembly. As individuals the 
 phenomenon was strange indeed; when some 
 casual or accidental remark appealed to the 
 true man in any one of them, I could see him 
 (the true man, I mean), always handsome, 
 always strong, always bright; but as the 
 lower impulses were in turn made promi- 
 
66 MOONB LIGHT. 
 
 nent, while the clothes, the hair, or the feat 
 ures were not altered, an expression would 
 steal over his face that was sometimes 
 ludicrous (or at least so it appeared to me 
 before I fully appreciated its meaning), 
 sometimes disgusting and revolting, and 
 sometimes terrible, but never pleasant. 
 
 Mr. Keene, for instance, would so resem 
 ble a fox at times, that I could scarcely be 
 lieve him human; and yet there were the 
 
 "A RED-MOUTHED WOLF WITH WHITE FANGS." 
 
 same nose, eyes, mouth and brow that I had 
 always known, and thought strikingly hand 
 some, and even while I was studying him to 
 detect just what it was that made him look 
 like a fox, I realized that there was no 
 fox there, but a red-mouthed wolf, with 
 white fangs showing, ready to rend and de 
 vour any of the pack that was unfortunate 
 enough to be crippled or killed; and, even 
 in the midst of this appearance, I could 
 plainly see the well-known features that I 
 
MOONBLICHT. 
 
 had so long admired for their manly beauty. 
 
 Once or twice only did I see a trace of the 
 
 real man in him, and 
 that was so transient 
 that I could scarce 
 make up my mind it. 
 really existed. 
 
 Mr. White, in spite 
 of his fashionable 
 and expensive dress, 
 his closely shaven 
 face, his immaculate 
 linen, and his trained 
 smile, did not de 
 ceive me ; for, while 
 I could see these 
 with my natural 
 eyes, and know that 
 they existed, I could 
 also see the true ex 
 pression of the inner 
 Mr. White, and it 
 was that of a rat- 
 ~ tlesnake. The 
 COULD ALSO SEE THE TRUE EXPRESSION rapid manner in 
 
 OF THE INNER MR. WHITE. 
 
 dressed the chairman before launching- into 
 his remarks constantly reminded me of 
 
68 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 the vicious, dry, singing noise made by a 
 rattlesnake before striking ; but when he 
 drew the pathetic picture of the poor starved 
 slaves of the coal-pit, the snake expression 
 had left him, and something in his appear 
 ance brought to my mind one of those 
 spiders hidden in a rose, whose swollen 
 body and thin legs, partaking of the color 
 of the flower, look so like the harmless plant 
 that they are unnoticed by the busy bumble 
 bee until, just as the latter thinks he has se 
 cured the treasures of the rose, he feels the 
 poisonous fangs of the enemy in his head, 
 and, benumbed by the poison, dies with 
 hardly a struggle. 
 
 Ofttimes these transformations seemed 
 only thoughts flitting through my mind; then 
 again they appeared so real that it was with 
 difficulty that I retained sufficient control of 
 my feelings to prevent showing my abhor 
 rence or terror by exclamations or precipi 
 tate retreat. Such action on my part would, 
 I knew, confirm the suspicions of my mental 
 derangement and put an end to any chance 
 I might have of being useful to my fellow- 
 men in helping them to avoid the pitfalls I 
 now began to see plainly. 
 
 During the meeting, and always while the 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 69 
 
 financial interests were under discussion, the 
 real man seldom showed himself in any of 
 the assembly ; but he more frequently shone 
 through and ennobled the countenance 
 during the conversation upon subjects that 
 did not touch the pocket. 
 
 Once, when a question of agreeing upon 
 the form of a lease that would evade the 
 eviction laws for the protection of the miners 
 was broached, I became so disgusted that it 
 was with the greatest effort I could restrain 
 some exclamation for, before me I saw, not 
 an assemblage of gentlemen, but a lot of 
 parasitic insects, covering the body of the 
 miner, and sucking his blood. It was only 
 an instant that the impression lasted, yet it 
 was extremely vivid while it remained, and 
 the strangest part of it was that, at the time, 
 I saw no reason for such an appearance, but 
 I knew that there must be one. 
 
 I was so much interested in what I saw 
 that each day appeared all too short. Ten 
 days had passed. The meeting of mine own 
 ers, thanks to my remarks, broke up without 
 coming to any decision. My business was 
 all finished, yet still I lingered in the gloomy, 
 straggling town. 
 
 Not many miles away lived the lady of 
 
7O MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 my choice, the girl whose gentle heart, 
 refined and educated mind, shone through 
 a face as charming as any to be found. 
 She was waiting for me anxiously, and 
 each day I received a letter from her in 
 which she expressed great concern for my 
 health. There was nothing to detain me, 
 and I had been counting for months upon 
 this opportunity of visiting her at her home ; 
 still I postponed my visit. 
 
 This may seem strange, but, since I am 
 making a clean breast of my experiences, I 
 may as well own up to the fact that I 
 dreaded her as much as I did my mir 
 ror. Not that I could see myself reflected 
 in her sweet eyes in any but a compliment 
 ary manner, but ashamed as I am now, and 
 was then, of the fear I was afraid to see 
 even her as she really was. 
 
 I was rich ; she had but little. I was es 
 teemed a " good catch "; she was admired for 
 her acknowledged beauty ; and many a fel 
 low, in my hearing, had deplored the fact 
 that she had not a fortune. That was before 
 I met her ; since then, they only congratu 
 lated me on my luck in securing such a prize. 
 
 I could recall several instances where 
 friends of mine had become engaged to 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 7 1 
 
 ladies who, to them, possessed all the vir 
 tues and beauties of the sex combined, 
 but to me, were foolish, simpering girls, 
 or cold, selfish, affected creatures. I won 
 dered what my friends could see in them 
 that was attractive, much less, lovable; and 
 yet I knew that they loved these girls with 
 a true devotion, and were men of good taste. 
 If these fellows were blinded by Cupid, why 
 not I ? If I was blinded, it was such a heav 
 enly blindness that I dreaded the restora 
 tion of my eyesight, and feared as much to 
 see my darling as she appeared to others, 
 and might really be, as I did to see my own 
 cowardly face in the glass. 
 
 And so, day by day I postponed my visit, 
 and spent the time inspecting my mines. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ROF. FOLLIUM is an old 
 friend of mine, a natural 
 ist and a geologist, and a 
 man whose general know 
 ledge is extensive. I 
 had had many a de 
 lightful talk with him 
 upon books and nature, and never 
 left him without a pleasant im 
 pression and a feeling that I had 
 gained some knowledge by his dis 
 course. Naturally, in my present state, 
 he came to my mind, and I wondered 
 that I had not thought of him before, 
 knowing that he was in town, collecting 
 specimens from the mines to add to his 
 already large collection, and to illustrate his 
 lectures. 
 
 I started off immediately in search of the 
 professor, and found him, hammer in hand, 
 just starting upon an expedition. 
 " Good morning, Professor," I said. 
 
 " Good morning," he replied. " I ve been 
 
 72 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 73 
 
 expecting to see you. Heard you were in 
 town. Heard you raised a rumpus at the 
 meeting, the other day. I congratulate you, 
 my boy ! I knew there was good stuff in 
 you ! " And the professor smiled over the 
 rims of his glasses as he extended his hand 
 cordially and grasped mine. 
 
 " Professor, I come for advice. I am in 
 trouble. I see wrong all around me, and ap 
 pear helpless to prevent it. What is the cause 
 of all this?" 
 
 The professor looked sober a moment, and 
 shook his head as he replied, " It is man. 
 God never creates a wrong." 
 
 " Do you mean," I said, " that it is our 
 constant evasion or breaking of the law that 
 is at fault ? " 
 
 "Law? "said the professor. " Law, my 
 boy, is never at fault. In the nature of 
 things, it is impossible." Again he shook 
 his head, paused a moment, and repeated, 
 " Law ? Law is perfect." 
 
 I smiled, and was about to make some 
 facetious remark, when the professor rever 
 ently removed his hat, gazed around at the 
 mountains and landscape for a moment, then 
 solemnly repeated, as if to himself, "Law? 
 I acknowledge but one law, and that is the 
 
74 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 law that I see ruling the universe, every 
 where present and everywhere active, and 
 never broken. If I attempt to break that 
 part of it called gravitation, and step from 
 the roof of a tall house, my mangled remains 
 will testify that the law is unbroken." Then 
 turning and addressing his remarks to me 
 he continued: "Talk about martyrs to relig 
 ion, to principle, to honesty ! Personally, I 
 never saw one ; but martyrs to crime, to 
 filth, to greed, I see everywhere. Go to our 
 prisons, go to our hospitals, our insane-asy 
 lums. All are filled with martyrs to crime, 
 suffering the torments of hell for the sake 
 and only for the sake of trying to break 
 the plain laws of nature. 
 
 " When a botanist wishes an Alpine plant, 
 he climbs the mountain; and there, mid the 
 glaciers, or in the track of the avalanche, he 
 finds the object of his search, because the 
 atmosphere and the surroundings produce 
 the conditions necessary for the existence of 
 the plant. When he wishes an aquatic plant, 
 he seeks the valley, and in the lakes, rivers 
 or marshes finds the object of his search, be 
 cause the atmosphere and the surroundings 
 produce it. When a naturalist wishes to 
 procure a certain kind of animal, he seeks that 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 75 
 
 spot where the atmosphere and the surround 
 ing s produce just the conditions necessary 
 for that animal, and there he finds the ob 
 ject of his search. A sportsman would never 
 go to the plains and the valleys in search of 
 big-horn or chamois, but amidst the cloud- 
 capped mountains; because there the atmos- 
 
 IF MIGHT IS RIGHT, THIS IS A TYPE OF THE MODERN 
 SO-CALLED CHRISTIAN. 
 
 phere and the surroundings produce the 
 conditions necessary for these animals exist 
 ence. A detective would never go to the 
 homes of the workingmen in search of a 
 defaulting bank president; but to Wall 
 Street, the faro-table, the race-course, or some 
 place where people acquire money without 
 
76 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 work, because there the atmosphere and the 
 surroundings produce and suit defaulters. 
 
 " Show me a government founded and 
 conducted on the principles of justice and 
 equal rights to all men, and I will show you 
 the highest type of manhood, intelligence, 
 industry and prosperity, because the atmos 
 phere and surroundings produce it. Show 
 me a tyrannical and unjust government, and 
 I will show you vice, squalor, poverty and 
 crime, because the atmosphere and surround 
 ings produce them. Now if, in our own 
 country, we see waiters cringing and bow 
 ing for a tip; railroad employees and bag 
 gage-men putting their manhood in their 
 pockets for the sake of the quarter that goes 
 with it ; miners living like starved vermin 
 in the blackened and begrimed shanties of 
 Pennsylvania ; gentlemen, so-called, living 
 lives of debauchery ; people starving in the 
 streets of the cities ; tramps, anarchists and 
 Pinkerton bullies it is because the atmos 
 phere and the surroundings produce them. 
 My dear fellow," said the genial professor, 
 again resuming his pleasant smile, " we are 
 ourselves to blame for all the misery we see 
 around us. I confess that my studies have 
 not been directed in this line, but I know, 
 
MOONB LIGHT. * 77 
 
 from my knowledge of Nature, that she 
 makes no mistakes. There is an ample feast 
 provided by her for man, and this country 
 has riches untold and incalculable, which 
 need only labor to bring them forth ; and 
 yet, owing to the greed of a few of us, and 
 the thoughtlessness of many, we keep those 
 treasures locked up, while our fellow-men 
 die by the wayside for want of the necessa 
 ries of life. I see that you know this much 
 yourself. Then do as I do with all my prob 
 lems commence at the beginning. Com 
 mence with a babe. A baby is born. It has 
 eyes: that means that it was intended to 
 see. It has ears: that means that it was in 
 tended to hear. It has a mouth to receive 
 nourishment: that means that nourishment is 
 provided for it. It has neither wings nor fins, 
 but feet: that means that it must walk, and 
 is a land animal, and must have land to walk 
 on. All these things will teach you that it 
 has an inherent right to light, air, water and 
 food ; to procure the latter it has hands to 
 transform the products of the earth into a 
 suitable form by labor. I have already said 
 that Nature has provided untold wealth for 
 the babe, yet we will not allow it to use its 
 hands, unless it does so for us. Now, then, 
 
78 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 it seems to me that we meaning you and 
 me, and the rest of humanity are the ones 
 to blame if this or any babe dies from want 
 and starvation ; and the cause lies in us, not 
 in the law." 
 
 " Yes," I replied; " the prima materia is in 
 ourselves, and there we must look for it if 
 we expect to turn the cruder metals into 
 pure gold." 
 
 " Oh ho ! " exclaimed the little man, as he 
 took off his spectacles to look at me the bet 
 ter. " So, so ! You ve been trying to find the 
 solution in the black-book, eh ?" 
 
 " Well, a well-balanced mind can find food 
 in almost any book; and I must say it always 
 appeared to me that there must be some hid 
 den treasures locked up in those old books 
 of so-called magic." 
 
 " It is not many years ago that all chemists 
 and physicians were considered magicians. 
 But don t let yourself be led astray by wild 
 fancies. Apply this test to everything can 
 it be demonstrated ? If so, adopt it without 
 fear, for it is the truth, and truth is divine. 
 If an Indian or Chinaman makes a statement, 
 do not disparage it. If it can be demon 
 strated, it is true; if not, it is false. If I 
 and other college professors make a state- 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 79 
 
 ment, tell us to demonstrate it. If it can be 
 demonstrated, it is true ; if not, it is false. 
 Believe nothing that is incapable of demon 
 stration, except the fact that you exist, and 
 are a living soul. Apply this test, and sooner 
 or later, you will find out the cause of the 
 terrible wrong, the dire want, the squalor, 
 the crime, the abrutement of our brothers, 
 keeping their place alongside of a hotbed 
 growth of civilization of the most brilliant 
 type. And now, lad, I must be off. This is 
 more of a lecture on political economy than 
 I ever remember delivering before. Only one 
 word more. If you are going into this thing 
 in earnest (and I believe you are), when 
 you find the cause let me know; and if you 
 can demonstrate it, as I require my pupils to 
 do, with a piece of chalk on the blackboard, 
 you may count me as a convert. Good-bye ! " 
 And gathering up his bag and hammer the 
 man of science departed. 
 
 After bidding good-bye to the professor, I 
 went directly to the hotel-bar to look for 
 Sam, and found him practising at twirling a 
 spoon in a glass of water, though the expert 
 manner in which he did it seemed to require 
 no practice to render it perfect. 
 
 " Good morning, Sam," was my greeting. 
 
8O MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 " Good morning-, sir," he replied, without 
 taking his eyes from the glass, or ceasing to 
 make the little spoon spin around in a most 
 marvelous manner. 
 
 " What are you up to, Sam ? " I asked. 
 
 " Oh, nothing, sir; just practising making 
 a cocktail." 
 
 There were no customers in, only two or 
 three gray-haired old men sitting in the heavy 
 wooden-armed chairs peculiar to country 
 bar-rooms; and these old fellows were dream 
 ing the day away, or reading, with their 
 eyes only, the daily papers. Their old 
 eyes were none too good, for the frosty- 
 headed men held the papers close against 
 their noses as they read; but they were 
 all too absorbed in vacancy to heed me, 
 so I plunged right in to what was upper 
 most in my mind. 
 
 " Sam," I said, " are you an anarchist ? " 
 
 "No, sir," he replied gravely. 
 
 " Are you a socialist ? " 
 
 " No, sir," he again answered, " unless Abe 
 Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson were socialists; 
 and from what I have read in socialistic 
 speeches I don t think they were." 
 
 " What are you, Sam ?" 
 
 "I, sir?" Sam dropped the spoon, and 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 Si 
 
 straightened himself up to his full height. 
 "I, sir," he repeated, "I am an American!" 
 
 " Well, I know that much from what you 
 have already told me." 
 
 "You don t catch on," said Sam, with a 
 face that ill accorded with his slangy speech. 
 " I am an American in principle. I believe 
 
 PREJUDICE. 
 
 in chucking the tea overboard, widout tak 
 ing the trouble to work the Injun racket 
 either. I believe in the inspired" Sam 
 said "inspired " in a hesitating manner, as if 
 he was not quite sure that it was proper form 
 to use so high-sounding a word, but gaining 
 courage from my looks, he continued " I 
 
82 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 believe in the inspired document called the 
 Declaration of Independence. I believe, with 
 Abe Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, that 
 there should be no involuntary servitude ex 
 cept for crime" 
 
 " So do I, Sam, so do I. But what of that ? " 
 " What of thet ? " said the bar-keeper fierce 
 ly, his black eyebrows knitting, as he twirled 
 his heavy moustache until it stood out in two 
 spikes at each side of his face, " what of thet ? 
 Why, thet is as rank treason to-day as old 
 Paddy Henry s talk before der Revolution; 
 and if things goon as they are for a mighty 
 short time longer, der duffer who says thet 
 will be called an anarchist and an agitator. 
 If I could run a talking-mill, like some fel 
 lers I know, and could fire off dictionary lingo 
 off-hand, I d stump der United States on my 
 own hook, and give it to em straight wher 
 ever I could catch a crowd to talk to. Oh, 
 these crawling and sneaking men that steal 
 our votes wid der money they rob us of ! 
 These ornery curs thet rob us of our wages, 
 and then dole it out to us in charity ! These 
 hypocritical hirelings that desecrate the Sab 
 bath every Sunday by preaching bosh be 
 cause they r too cowardly to tell w r hat the 
 Bible means ! I ain t much of a Christian, 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 but t other day I thought I d see if der 
 Bible had any such bosh in it. I tell yer, 
 Mister, I was ready to throw up my hat when 
 I read it, and how these sniveling old sneaks 
 
 "NOW, MISTER, WHAT DOES THET MEAN?" 
 
 can read thet book and live is past me! Why, 
 they seem ter think the Great Creator ain t 
 got no sense at all, and can be fooled as easy 
 as a voter; and der tricks they try ter fool him 
 wid are so thin that a lad can see t rough 
 
84 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 em building big- churches wid der money 
 stole from us, and then a-plastering them all 
 over wid their own monograms, giving con 
 science-money back to us in der shape of hos 
 pitals, asylums, and libraries, and then a-plas 
 tering their ornery names all over them ! 
 And the fust thing I struck in thet grand 
 book was Take heed that ye do. not your 
 alms before men to be seen of them Now, 
 mister, what does thet mean ? In another 
 place, it told us not to blow a trumpet before 
 giving alms. What does thet mean ? I ain t 
 superstitious and don t go much on luck ; but 
 I just lowed that book to open fer itself, and 
 then would read the fust thing that caught 
 my eye ; and whew ! how St. Jeems goes for 
 the rich. Woe to ye ! he says oh, he was 
 onter em Go to now, ye rich men, and 
 weep and howl, for your miseries shall come 
 upon you ! Then he gives them dead away 
 in another verse about the wages they kept 
 back by fraud. Well, sir, I could hardly be 
 lieve thet was written so long ago, it hit em 
 so hard right now." 
 
 " Sam, Sam!" I exclaimed, "I am afraid you 
 did not read the book in the right spirit. 
 There is nothing, as I remember it, vindictive 
 in the New Testament." 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 85 
 
 "Thet s so," said Sam solemnly, " thet s so. 
 What it says there, ain t for the sake of cuss 
 ing them, but as a warning, and thet s the 
 way I took it ; but I did feel a bit vindic 
 tive just now, when I thought of my old 
 landlord a-howlin . But he, poor cuss, can t 
 help himself any more than I can. You see, 
 
 "NOW, MISTER, WHAT DOES THET MEAN?" 
 
 Mister, if he lets me have der rent any cheaper 
 than market price he is giving me der diff. 
 in charity. The truth is, there s no such 
 thing as cheap rent. Where it looks cheap, 
 it s cause it won t bring any more, thet s all ; 
 and I spect, if I were a landlord, I d hev to 
 do the same. Now, ain t it a blamed mean 
 
86 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 sort of law thet makes a fellow a robber or a 
 robbed man, say ?" 
 
 "Now, look here, Sam. While I can t help 
 but acknowledge there is something funda 
 mentally wrong, I am hardly prepared to 
 own that I am a robber ; but I will own up to 
 even that, if you can demonstrate it to me. 
 Mind now ! demonstrate it like a problem 
 on the blackboard, and prove the demon 
 stration." 
 
 "Thet s easy, mister, mighty durned easy. 
 What s thet you ve got your hand on ? " 
 
 " My watch-chain," I replied, a little puz 
 zled. 
 
 " Where did yer get it?" 
 
 All bar-keepers are inclined to be im 
 pudent, or, as they themselves would term 
 it, " fresh," if you allow them liberties ; but 
 I knew that Sam had some object in view, 
 so I answered, "At the jeweler s." 
 
 "Where did he get it?" 
 
 " At the manufacturer s." 
 
 " Where did the factory get the gold ?" 
 
 " Well, I suppose you want to know where 
 the gold comes from, eh ?" 
 
 " Just so. From the mines, from the 
 earth," said Sam. 
 
 " You are right." 
 
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN, MISTER, SAY ? 
 
88 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 " Where did yer hat come from ? Where 
 did yer clothes come from ? " 
 
 " Hold on, Sam. My clothes came from 
 sheep." 
 
 " Thet s so ; but where did the stuff thet 
 made the wool grow come from ? " 
 
 "The grass? Oh, that grew in the pas 
 ture, I suppose." 
 
 " Yes; it also came from the earth. Where 
 did yer shoes come from? Earth," he said, 
 answering his own query. " Where did yer 
 stockings come from ? Earth," he repeated. 
 " Where does yer food come from? Earth. 
 Now, yer see, the fellow thet owns der earth 
 owns the base of supplies, as we used ter say 
 in der army ; and if we could catch on ter 
 der enemy s base of supplies, and hold it, 
 der enemy was ours widout any more fight 
 ing, cause, soon as they used up what they 
 had, they would starve, unless they came ter 
 us as prisoners of war. Now, then, mister, a 
 few men a mighty few, too own the 
 United States and the earth, * the base of 
 
 * FROM THOMAS G. SHEARMAN, THE WELL-KNOWN NEW YORK 
 STATISTICIAN. " The average annual income of the richest hun 
 dred Englishmen is about $450,000; but the average annual income 
 of the richest hundred Americans cannot be less than $1,200,000, 
 and probably exceeds $1,500,000. The richest of the Rothschilds, 
 and the world-renowned banker, Baron Overstone, each left about 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 89 
 
 supplies fer the hull of us. That s the rea 
 son we are prisoners of war ! That s the rea 
 son we are slaves ! Thet s the reason I tend 
 bar ! Thet s the reason them fellers live all 
 their lives under ground, piling up money 
 fer you fellers, see?" 
 
 Well, I did begin to have a glimmering of 
 light ; but I was not ready to give in yet ; so 
 I said : 
 
 $17,000,000. Earl Dudley, the owner of the richest iron mines, 
 left $20,000,000. The Duke of Buccleuch (and the Duke of 
 Buccleuch carries half of Scotland in his pocket) left about 
 $30,000,000. The Marquis of Bute was worth, in 1872, about 
 $28,000,000 in land; and he may now be worth $40,000,000 in all. 
 The Duke of Norfolk may be worth $40,000,000, and the Duke of 
 Westminster perhaps $50,000,000." In the United States he gives 
 a list of 70 names representing an aggregate wealth of $2,700,000,- 
 ooo, an average of more than $37,500,000 each. Although Mr. 
 Shearman, in making this estimate, did not look for less than 
 twenty-millionaires, he discovered incidentally fifty others worth 
 more than $10,000,000 each; and he says that a list of ten persons 
 can be made whose wealth averages $100,000,000; and another 
 list of one hundred persons, whose wealth averages $25,000,000. 
 No such list can be made up in any other country. " The richest 
 dukes of England," he says, " fall below the average wealth of a 
 dozen American citizens; while the greatest bankers, merchants, 
 and railway magnates of England cannot compare in wealth with 
 many Americans." 
 
 Mr. Shearman s conclusion is that 25,000 persons own one- 
 half the wealth of the United States; and that the whole wealth 
 of the country is practically owned by 250,000 persons, or one in 
 sixty of the adult male population; and he predicts, from the 
 rapid recent concentration of wealth, that, under present condi 
 tions, 50,000 persons will practically own all the wealth of the 
 country in thirty years or less than one in 500 of the adult male 
 population. 
 
9 o 
 
 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 11 Sam, why not buy some property, and 
 
 be a landlord yourself ? " 
 
 " What s der matter wid yer giving it to 
 
 me ? " said Sam, with a grin. " No," he add- 
 
 ed, "you can 
 keep yer land. 
 Yer ain t a bad 
 one. Der boys 
 all know about 
 der laying out 
 yer give them 
 fellows at der 
 meeting, and if 
 you was to try 
 to be sociable 
 wid em now, 
 they wouldn t be 
 so cold like." 
 
 " I don t drink 
 now, and would 
 not ask them to," 
 I answered. 
 "Smoke?" ask 
 
 ONE OF THE CUSTOMERS. 
 
 ed Sam. 
 
 " No, nor smoke either. I never thought 
 of it before; but the fact is, Sam, I have 
 not smoked since the night you called 
 on me, have had no desire to, and have 
 
MOONBLIGHT. g [ 
 
 been so busy that I have not thought 
 of it." 
 
 Sam evidently thought it not worth while 
 to answer my last question, and I did not 
 repeat it ; but said, as I saw some men 
 crossing the street, evidently making for the 
 bar : 
 
 " Sam, how are we to remedy all this ? 
 Have you ever thought it out ? " 
 
 " No," said Sam. " Thet is, another feller 
 thought it out for me, and I read it onct in a 
 paper that was a-pitching inter him, little 
 thinking that by printing what he said fer 
 der purpose of knocking der stuffing out of 
 it, it was really preaching fer der feller, 
 cause it caught me right off. l What a 
 durned fool I am ! I said ter my woman. 
 Well, my woman didn t say nothing ; maybe 
 she agreed wid my remark. So I said it over 
 again. Yer needn t be telling der children 
 if yer be, she said. * Well, said I, here is 
 a feller thet shows me something thet I ve 
 been trying ter find out fer ten year, and it s 
 simple as falling off a log : If any one wants 
 to use the earth, let him pay the rest for the 
 privilege at market rate. No more fining a 
 feller, like a drunkard or a criminal, fer 
 building a house or painting his barn or be- 
 
MOONBLIGffT. 
 
 ing industrious. Jest charge him fer der 
 rent of der land he uses, and thet s all. No 
 more blue-coated pirates ploughing around 
 der coast, wid der new-fangled piratical flag 
 der American flag wid der stripes running 
 der wrong way ! No more locking up all der 
 
 coal, all der oil, 
 all der gold, all 
 der iron, all der 
 timber, thet 
 God Almighty 
 gave ter us all ; 
 but let any fel 
 ler thet wants 
 ter pay der rest 
 for der privilege, 
 use jest as much 
 as he wants ! I 
 warn t such a 
 fool as it seem- 
 
 " A FORGOTTEN WELL." ed at fuSt, but 
 
 thet fellow had 
 
 a big head ! You bet your high old muckey 
 muck he s a daisy ! He is in it wid both feet, 
 he is. Can t fool him. No siree, bob horse fly! 
 Say, mister, he s der man can explain these 
 things jest as plain as der nose on yer face. 
 Own the land ? How in thunder can a man 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 93 
 
 own land ? It was there before he was born, 
 it will be there thousands of years after he 
 has gone, see ? Own nothing" ! I own that 
 thing I showed yer t other night, cause I 
 made it out of der product of der earth; and 
 to prove my ownership, I can destroy it, and 
 no feller can say a word or stop me, see ? 
 Like to see yer destroy yer town lot. Guess 
 before yer got ter China, you d throw up der 
 job ; and even if yer did go through ter 
 China, der space would be there all der same, 
 and yer could sell that space. Air, thet s all; 
 but it could be bridged over and used, and 
 would bring big money just on account of 
 its being in a town where space is wanted, 
 and lots of people would want to use it. Sell 
 air? Yes; but yer don t own it; yer can t 
 dig thet away, see? Gosh! wouldn t some- 
 feller like ter cage up der air, and put a gas- 
 meter on our lungs, and charge us so much a 
 cubic-foot fer air; and if we kicked about der 
 price, they would say, Yer needn t be so 
 extravagant. Be economical wid der air : 
 it s ours, and we must be paid for it, see ? 
 Why, they s got a meter in my uncle s cellar 
 in the city that gives away every drop of 
 water he uses. Can t take a drink widout 
 being charged, and if he takes a bath he s 
 
94 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 got to be rich. His wife takes in washing, 
 and thet water costs her twenty-two dollars 
 every six months. I say, Free Land, Free 
 Water, and Free Labor, them s my senti 
 ments ! " 
 
 The customers had crossed the street, en 
 tered the bar, and were standing waiting to 
 be served, unnoticed by Sam. At the close 
 of his remarks they applauded him and called 
 for their accustomed stimulant; and I left 
 them as they were pouring the fiery stuff 
 down their poor throats. 
 
^y 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 HE professor came 
 round to the hotel that 
 night highly elated 
 with the success of his 
 day s search for fossils 
 and minerals. All was 
 fish that came to his 
 net animal, mineral, 
 plant, or fossil none 
 were strangers to him, and all were of inter 
 est ; and, better still, he possessed the rare 
 faculty of making them interesting to others. 
 He could sit down by the roadside and talk 
 for an hour over some bit of stone, leaf or 
 plant; and without using one technical term, 
 in every-day language, could tell me more 
 than I can learn in a week s reading; and, 
 what is more to the purpose, I could not only 
 understand him, but remember what he told 
 me. He had the profoundest contempt for 
 collectors of birds eggs and birds skins, as a 
 rule, because, as he expressed it, their collec 
 tions were made like a school-boy s collec- 
 
 95 
 
96 MO ONBLIGH 7 . 
 
 tion of stamps, the owner having all the 
 names pat. and each specimen labeled and 
 numbered, but there it ended. The collec 
 tion was of no use to the owner or any one 
 else, except for the money value it might 
 possess. 
 
 " Now," said the professor, " not to use is 
 to lose. Remember that, my boy, and if you 
 
 "THE MOON IS ALL RIGHT." 
 
 get a good idea from any of your old books, 
 write it down, repeat it to the first man that 
 you can make listen to you ; nab a small 
 boy, your sister, mother, brother, servant, 
 car-driver or policeman, and give him or her 
 your idea. They may not appreciate it, may 
 not be interested in it, may not understand 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 97 
 
 By repeating it to them, 
 By writing it down and 
 
 it. What of that ? 
 you are using it. 
 sending it to the 
 publisher or a 
 friend, you are 
 using it ; by us 
 ing it you are 
 making it your 
 own, and no one 
 can take it from 
 you. You have 
 added to your 
 stock, you have 
 added to your 
 education, you 
 have added to 
 your ability for 
 use in this 
 world ; and the 
 man who pre-/p 
 sumes to live 
 on this grand 
 planet, and does 
 not endeavor to 
 be of use, prac- 
 tically denies 
 the existence of a God, practically denies 
 that he owes anything to mankind in fact, 
 
 PROF. FOLLIUM. 
 
98 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 by so living 1 , insolently and boldly affirms 
 that he is above God and man. 
 
 " Now, these collectors are not so bad as 
 that ; they are of some use ; their collections, 
 sooner or later, are sold, and go to enrich 
 some museum ; but they have not repaid the 
 collector for his work because he was satis 
 fied with the selfish pleasure of possessing a 
 better or more complete collection than some 
 other felltfw, and with knowing the names 
 and being able to repeat them like a parrot. 
 If you collect books, read them; and when 
 you leave this world, see to it that your col 
 lection goes to some library, where the books 
 belong, and not to heirs, whose only interest 
 is in the money your bequest will bring at an 
 auction. Never buy a book because it is 
 rare. You are not a dealer ; buy only such 
 books as are of use to you in your particular 
 line of thought or are necessary to perfect 
 your collection, for its ultimate place on the 
 shelves of some public institution, where 
 others interested in the same line of study 
 may find them. 
 
 " Hello ! Where did you get this ? " said 
 the professor, as his eyes lighted upon the 
 bookshelf, and he made a dive for an old 
 book on botany. " Well, here is a prize," 
 
MOONBLTGHT. 99 
 
 said he, as he opened the book. "I have 
 tried all the book-stalls in London in search 
 of this volume and have never met with it 
 before"; and after rubbing his glasses with 
 his silk handkerchief, the professor replaced 
 them on his nose, and without waiting for a 
 reply, commenced to pore over the volume, 
 and was soon lost to all surroundings. 
 
 This was not exactly what I expected. I 
 wanted to talk. I wanted him to combat the 
 ideas I had just received from Sam ; but it 
 must have been an hour before the little man 
 looked up, and the expression of humility 
 and chagrin that spread over his face was 
 comical, as he stammered out an apology for 
 forgetting my presence and where he was. 
 He closed the book, looked it over, the brass- 
 clasp binding and all, carefully replaced it 
 on the shelf, and said: 
 
 " Well, what do you intend to do ? Go 
 into tenement-house reform ? Start a Coo 
 per s Institute ? Build a hospital, or run for 
 Congress ? There is a great field in the ten 
 ement-house sanitary plumbing, more light, 
 parks, water on each floor, house rules, and 
 all that sort of thing, you know." 
 
 " Yes," I replied, " I ve thought of that, but 
 what then ? My tenement-house would be 
 
I OO MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 a flat, and would be occupied by the middle 
 classes, so-called, because the rents would be 
 too high for the people for whom it was 
 built." 
 
 " True enough,", replied he, " but why 
 charge such high rent ? " 
 
 " Because I would be compelled to. There 
 is a market value for such flats, and the price 
 is fixed. Should I lower it, I would in real 
 ity be giving in alms the difference between 
 my charge and the market value, and those 
 who accept alms cannot do so without injury 
 to their manhood and independence. I 
 would either fill my house with what are 
 popularly known as dead-beats, or I would 
 make paupers of men, who before, though 
 poor, were self-sustaining." 
 
 " My dear fellow," laughed the professor, 
 " you have made wonderful progress in a 
 very short time ! " 
 
 "For which, in a great measure, I am in 
 debted to a bar-keeper," I replied, at the same 
 time remembering Sam s cutting remarks 
 about the conscience-money and the hospi 
 tals and public institutions. I related these 
 remarks to the professor, and he was might 
 ily pleased, and laughed until the tears 
 dimmed his glasses. 
 
MOONBLIGHT. I O I 
 
 " Well, run your mines on the co-operative 
 plan, then," he said, as soon as he regained 
 his composure. 
 
 "No, I cannot do that either; because by 
 so doing I would only be enriching- a com 
 paratively few miners and doing nothing to 
 change the system. The immediate effect 
 would be to make a position in my mines 
 worth so much premium, and the needy 
 would all sell out to get ready money for 
 present necessities ; while the ultimate end 
 would be that the benefit would fall upon 
 those among the miners (or those who 
 might have become miners) who were already 
 comparatively well off. Possibly I would 
 have an efficient set of workmen, but it 
 would be practically only enlarging a com 
 pany by taking in so many more stockhold 
 ers, and the principle would remain the 
 same. The poor degraded slaves I see about 
 me would still be poor degraded slaves. 
 Neither could I sell my mines or give them 
 away, because that would be merely shirk 
 ing a responsibility an attempt to shove it 
 upon some one else s shoulders. I have 
 thought of all that." 
 
 " I see you have, my boy, and thought of 
 it more deeply than I ever did, I must ac- 
 
I O2 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 knowledge. Now, I can plainly see that a 
 fellow of your pluck will not try to shirk 
 either a fight or a responsibility, and you 
 have both ahead of you, for all other mine 
 owners will bitterly oppose any suggestions 
 from you, and fiercely resent any reforms 
 you may choose to introduce in your own 
 mines. Not only that, but they will have the 
 public on their side the great, unthinking 
 booby called the public, that is plundered, 
 robbed, insulted, and imposed upon in a man 
 ner that any individual fragment of it in the 
 form of a man would resent instantly if the 
 insult or imposition were put upon him per 
 sonally as separated from the rest. Why, it 
 is amusing to see the public in New York 
 driven about like cattle by creatures living 
 upon its own permission. I mean the corpo 
 rations whose charters are granted by the 
 public, whose money comes from the public, 
 whose valuable franchises are rendered val 
 uable by the public, but who, one and all, by 
 their every act, word, and speech, claim to 
 own the public whose servants they ought 
 and were originally intended to be. They 
 make rules of their own, in defiance of the 
 comforts or rights of the public, and enforce 
 them as laws, and the great, stupid public 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 1 03 
 
 accepts them as such. I tell you, a man 
 cannot travel from the Battery to Harlem 
 without having every particle of manhood 
 in him trampled upon. There, I ve said 
 what has been on my mind for a long 
 time, and in repeating it, according to my 
 own precepts, have made it my own, I 
 suppose," said the professor. 
 
 Well, it was my turn to laugh then. I 
 could see, without the aid of my spiritual 
 eyes, that the professor had been badly used 
 in the great city ; but I seldom saw anything 
 else than the real man in my learned friend; 
 and, as was the case with Sam, I never 
 found it necessary to use my newly acquired 
 powers to read him as I would a book, be 
 cause both men were strictly honest and 
 made no attempt to conceal their real selves, 
 which were so plainly discernible in their 
 speech and looks. 
 
 There was a knock at my door, and 
 " Humpy," or Nate as I now called him, an 
 swered my summons to come in. 
 
 "Your superintendent is down stairs, sir, 
 and wishes to see you immediately." 
 
 " Send him up, Nate," said I. " No, pro 
 fessor, don t leave; nothing private some 
 thing in regard to mines," I continued as I 
 
104 
 
 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 saw my friend knocking the ashes from his 
 pipe, preparatory to leaving. 
 
 " Come right in, 
 Clint," I called, as I 
 heard my mine super- 
 intendent s heavy 
 tread outside. "Come 
 in. Mr. Butts, Pro 
 fessor Follium." 
 
 The two men shook 
 hands, and, as they 
 stood there, the con 
 trast was striking; the 
 round, intelligent 
 head of the professor 
 bearing the marks of 
 refinement, culture 
 and good nature in 
 every curved line 
 from the top of his 
 round bald head to 
 the bottom of his 
 round bald chin, 
 in direct contrast 
 to my superintend 
 ent s not less intel 
 ligent but less refined appearance. 
 
 Clint Butts was a large, square man, with 
 
 CLINT BUTTS, MY SUPERINTENDENT. 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 1 05 
 
 a broad, square forehead, a heavy, square 
 jaw; his brows were two broad, straight, dark 
 lines separated by twin vertical wrinkles; 
 his gray eyes were deep-set, with long 
 black lashes, his nose was very regular and 
 straight, and his dark, closely cropped mus 
 tache ran in almost a horizontal line beneath 
 it. As if he was conscious of nature s at 
 tempt in the rectangular plan and had a de 
 sire to help her out, Clint wore a square-cut, 
 double-breasted sack coat and heavy-soled, 
 square-toed shoes. Immense reserve force 
 both of mind and body, was the impression 
 Clint Butts made upon any one whom he 
 met. An iron will and great physical endur 
 ance were expressed in every line of his face 
 and figure. Honesty with him was a matter 
 of course ; he could not round off his sharp 
 corners with any sort of deception, and this 
 trait made him both dreaded and respected 
 by miner and mine owner. If Clint was 
 asked for an opinion, he gave it without fear 
 or favor; if ordered by his employer to do 
 anything, he did it without words, so when 
 he turned to me after greeting the professor 
 I knew I would soon be master of the 
 facts, whatever they were, that caused his 
 visit. 
 
I O6 MO OAT BLIGHT. 
 
 "Sit down, Clint, and tell me what s 
 up. Anything- wrong at the mines ? " I in 
 quired. 
 
 " There is going to be a strike for an ad 
 vance in wages." 
 
 "Humph! What do the men get now?" I 
 asked. " You know," I explained, feeling 
 ashamed of my ignorance, " I never did 
 understand the wage system; fact is, I 
 never bothered myself about these mat 
 ters of detail until the conference was 
 called, and I am not yet up on all the 
 points ; but I have an impression that the 
 men make about two dollars a day, when 
 they work." 
 
 "That seems to be the general impression 
 of the public; but I am sorry to say that the 
 men seldom, if ever, make such a sum. The 
 wage system in the anthracite-coal region is 
 a complicated affair, and each complication 
 deprives the miner of more or less money. 
 With the sliding scale/ as it is sometimes 
 called, or basis system/ as we call it, 
 the wages of the miner fluctuate with the 
 price of coal. We call it the basis sys 
 tem because the market price of coal is 
 the basis upon which the miner s wages 
 are paid." 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 107 
 
 " Mr. Butts, this is very interesting," said 
 the professor, beaming through his glasses ; 
 " and it strikes me as not an unwise arrange 
 ment, if I understand aright. When there 
 is a rise in coal, there is a corresponding 
 rise in the wages of the miners ; and if 
 there should be a sudden drop in the mar 
 ket price of coal, the corresponding drop 
 in the wages paid the men would in a 
 measure prevent the owners from a great 
 loss which, being unlocked for, might be 
 disastrous." 
 
 "True," replied Clint; "but so many 
 abuses have been forced in the system 
 that the basis system has become one of 
 the most oppressive tools in the hands of 
 owners." 
 
 " How is that, Clint ? What are the abuses ? 
 Come, let us have the whole story," said 
 I, as I handed Clint a pipe and a pouch 
 of tobacco. The pipe he declined but ac 
 cepted the proffered tobacco, and filled his 
 own odd-looking French clay pipe. In 
 lighting the tobacco he made that loud 
 smacking noise with his lips, peculiar to 
 Irishmen. 
 
 "The professor here knows something of 
 the manner in which coal is prepared for the 
 
108 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 market," continued Clint, " for I saw him ex 
 amining our breakers. He saw how the 
 coal was crushed between two big- revolving 
 cylinders, toothed with steel, and afterward 
 saw how the coal was run through screens, 
 where it was assorted into the several sizes 
 from * broken pieces, which are as large as 
 an ordinary tea-cup, to what is called buck 
 wheat, which is, in plain language, dirt. Then 
 we have lump coal, which comes a little 
 larger than broken. Now you see, gentle 
 men," continued Clint, and he held the pipe 
 between his fingers and blew a cloud of 
 smoke before the sentence, " when the basis 
 sytem was first established there were but 
 six grades of coal sold in the market, name 
 ly, lump, steamboat, broken, egg, stove 
 and chestnut. These were all high-priced 
 grades" 
 
 " What s that got to do with the abuses ? " 
 I said a little impatiently ; for these details 
 were still rather dry to me in spite of my 
 efforts to understand them all. 
 
 Just this," replied Clint: "Lately two 
 lower grades of coal have been added to 
 the list and one higher grade, steamboat, 
 dropped. Now, according to the basis, min 
 ers in this anthracite-coal district receive 
 
MOONBLIGHT. IOQ 
 
 cents for cutting and loading a ton of 
 coal when the market price is $5. Out of 
 this 42^ cents they must pay help, and pay 
 a profit to the mine owner at the company s 
 store, on the powder, oil, fuse and all the 
 other incidental expenses of a miner s work, 
 besides the dockage " 
 
 " What is the dockage ?" I inquired. 
 
 "Deductions made by -the docking boss 
 for slate, light loading, or any other cause 
 that may suggest itself to him ; and, as his 
 living depends upon what he knocks off the 
 miners earnings, you may be sure he will 
 not fail to find a cause for dockage and this 
 notwithstanding the fact that the men mine 
 thirteen extra cubic feet to the ton to cover 
 these very deficiencies. 
 
 " Coal has not been quoted as high as $5 
 since 1875. This would make the consumers 
 who pay $6 and $6.25 per ton open their 
 eyes, but it is true, and this is the way it is 
 arranged. As I said before, at the start of 
 the basis system there were but six grades 
 of coal, all high-priced ones. Now there are 
 seven, and two of them are low-priced 
 grades. If you will just run over this 
 table," said Clint, " you will see what I 
 
 mean." 
 
I I O MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 THE TABLE. 
 
 1 Lump Coal $6.00 Lump $6.00 
 
 2 Steamboat 5.00 Broken 5.00 
 
 3 Broken 5-o Egg 5.50 
 
 4 Egg 5.50 Stove 5.00 
 
 5 Stove 5.00 Chestnut 3.50 
 
 6 Chestnut 3-5 Pea, new grade 2.00 
 
 Buckwheat, newgrade 1.25 
 
 6 | 30.00 
 
 7 I 28.25 
 
 Average 5.00 
 
 *Average 4.03* 
 
 * EXTRACT FROM LETTER TO NEW YORK PAPER BY T. V. POWDERLY. 
 
 When it is published that an anthracite-coal miner receives so 
 much money for one day s work, it causes men, in New York as 
 well as in Wisconsin, to believe that he ought not to grumble at 
 short time now and then. But his expenses are never set forth, 
 in fact I have never seen a reference to them in print; everything 
 goes to show that he draws from $5 to $8 a day. Let us say that 
 a full month consists of twenty-five days. The miner gets out 
 seven cars a day, and at the end of the month his account will 
 stand this way: 
 
 25 full days 175 cars $153.12 
 
 Out of which he pays: 
 
 Laborer at the rate of $2. 10 a day $52. 50 
 
 Powder at $3 a keg 36.00 
 
 Dockage for month 9.62 
 
 Smithing for month .65 
 
 Oil for lamp 2.00 
 
 Cotton for lampwick .20 
 
 Squibs to ignite powder .30 
 
 Waterproof paper 25 
 
 Soap for mining purposes .05 
 
 Wear and tear on tools for month .75 
 
 Total expenses for month ... $102.32 
 
 Which deduct from $153.12 
 
 Leaves him as result of month s toil $50.80 
 
 From the foregoing statement it will be seen that with a full 
 
MOONBL1GHT. I I I 
 
 " " Thus you see how the wages are reduced 
 by forcing the miners to accept two new 
 grades of coal ; and, mind you, gentlemen, 
 these last two grades are made from the dirt 
 and waste that the miner has already been 
 docked for. He is a fortunate miner who can 
 clear a dollar a day; and even he must spend 
 that dollar at the company s store and in rent 
 to the company for the house he lives in, and 
 thus it all goes back to the mine owner." 
 
 month s work the miner will have over and above his expenses 
 but $50.80. The Hampton is an ordinary mine and is operated by 
 the D., L. and W. Company. The best mine, so miners tell me, 
 owned by that Company, is the Central. Both Hampton and 
 Central shafts are in the limits of Scranton, on what is called the 
 Hyde Park side of the city. In the Central the miner is paid at 
 the rate of $1.07^ per car, gets out six cars for a day s work when 
 mining bottom coal and eight cars when mining top coal. Top 
 coal is easiest to mine. 
 
 ANOTHER BALANCE SHEET. 
 
 Computing the earnings of the miner at bottom coal prices it 
 will leave him but from $8 to $10 more in the month than is paid in 
 the other mine. Giving the miner his full month s wages at top coal 
 prices, or at the rate of eight cars a day, and he will receive $8.60 
 per day and a total of $215 for the month. Out of this he pays: 
 
 For laborer $60.00 
 
 Powder 20.00 
 
 Dockage 9.00 
 
 Oil for lamp 2.00 
 
 Other expenses same as in other mine 2.25 
 
 Total $93.25 
 
 Leaving a balance for the miner of $121.75 
 
 If a miner were allowed to work top-coal during the month, that 
 
I I 2 MOONB LIGHT. 
 
 " Pitch right in, Clint ; don t mind me. I 
 am getting used to the position of slave- 
 driver and robber, and don t mind it, I assure 
 you ; but I want facts now. Tell us what 
 some one miner you know makes a day," I 
 interrupted. 
 
 " There is Nathaniel James," answered 
 Clint. " For the last two weeks work he 
 received $8.50, or $4.25 per week. This 
 
 is the best that could be done in the anthracite mines. The miner 
 works bottom coal for a distance and then takes down the top-coal, 
 so it will be seen that he must take the chance when it comes to 
 him, and that chance is given to but a very few. I have not heard 
 of a case in which such a month s work was performed, and for 
 years no miner has made full time. The best average earnings 
 of this region for the past year will not exceed $30 per month. I 
 have placed the expenses for powder, dockage, wear and tear and 
 supplies at the lowest figure. 
 
 A COMMON OCCURRENCE. 
 
 Up to to-day, Feb. 27th, the Sloan shaft has worked but two 
 days. The miner, after paying his laborer and other expenses, will 
 take home to his family not more than $6 for this month, unless the 
 last day of the month is worked. The best time made in any of 
 the mines around here this month will not exceed six days, 
 and the miner will not make over $14 for the month. For the 
 last year and a half times have been poor, some months almost 
 as bad as this and others but a trifle better. 
 
 WHAT A PICTURE OF POVERTY ! 
 
 Imagine what the fare must be of a family that is depending 
 on $6 a month. Economists, those who advise workingmen to 
 practise economy, should do as I did last Wednesday evening 
 eat supper with a miner who had nothing on the table for his fam 
 ily of seven but cornmeal mush and water. 
 
MOONBLIGHT. \ \ 3 
 
 man is a steady, industrious man and one of 
 the most practical miners of the middle coal 
 fields. Nate never tastes a drop of liquor 
 and never loses a day s work except for sick 
 ness, or some such urgent cause. He is the 
 father of the little humpback boot-black at 
 the hotel, and * Humpy owes his name and 
 hump to an accident in the mines when he 
 was almost an infant. Nate told me the 
 other day that his earnings, not counting 
 Humpy s, amounted to just 15 cents a day, 
 divided per capita among his family. Now 
 here is a report," continued Clint, taking a 
 pamphlet from his pocket, " showing the cost 
 of maintaining paupers at the present time to 
 be 28 cents per day for each pauper ; that is, 
 your best miners families are living on just 
 a little over half what it costs the county 
 to keep a pauper ! " 
 
 " Lord ! " said the professor, " I knew things 
 were bad, yes, extremely bad ; but goodness 
 me ! I had no idea they were so horribly bad 
 as your figures make them out to be, Mr. 
 Butts. It seems to me," said the man of sci 
 ence, " that a knowledge of mathematics 
 would make paupers of all the miners, or 
 else cause them to kill their babies as fast as 
 they were born." 
 
I 1 4 MOONB LIGHT. 
 
 "It makes tramps of some," continued 
 Clint. "If you at any time want to know 
 what wages the miners are receiving, watch 
 the newspapers closely, and you will see re 
 ported the fact that a few men meet monthly 
 in New York City and arbitrarily set the fig 
 ures at which coal is to be sold. Now make 
 a table of these figures like the one I have 
 just shown you, strike your average, and use 
 this proportion: As the original $5.00 a ton 
 is to the 42^ cents, so is the average you 
 have struck to the wages of the miners at 
 the time the quotations were made. Simple 
 Rule of Three, you see. For instance, if coal 
 sells now at $4.00, the miner will receive a 
 little over 34 cents for mining a ton. Re 
 member that a good miner and his help can 
 cut about ten tons a day ; help costs $2.10 
 per day, and that one keg of powder costs 
 $2.75, and will cut from twenty-five to thirty 
 tons of coal, and dockage will average six 
 per cent, of all coal sent out ; and don t 
 forget that all miners supplies come from 
 the company s store and at extortionate 
 prices." 
 
 "That will do for to-night, Clint. I have 
 as much on my conscience as it will bear at 
 present. Why have you never told me this 
 
MOONBLIGHT. I I 5 
 
 before ? " I asked ; but I saw the answer be 
 fore Clint gave it, and hastened to forestall 
 him with " That s all right; I understand." 
 Then I asked : " What advance will my men 
 ask for, and when ? " 
 
 "They will ask, as my informant tells me, 
 for the abolition of the two cheap or dirt 
 coals from the list, and a restoration of steam 
 boat, and will not make the demand until 
 next week." 
 
 "How do you get your information, 
 Clint?" 
 
 " From a Pinkerton who belongs to 
 their society, and reports to me once a 
 week." 
 
 " Have the men announced it publicly as 
 yet, or has it leaked out, that there will be a 
 strike ? " 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 "Then cause a notice to be posted imme 
 diately, commending the men for their faith 
 fulness I have been watching them at work 
 and at home, and I must confess that I was 
 more than surprised at the general industry 
 and economy of these poor fellows and 
 end it with a proclamation to the effect that 
 on and after date an increase of ten per cent, 
 will be given. We will retain the system 
 
I 1 6 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 because I think that by gradually eliminat 
 ing the evils, it may be made a good thing. 
 By the way, Clint, if these fellows had free 
 use of the land around here, could they 
 make $2.00 a day ? " 
 
 The answer came promptly, " Yes, sir ; 
 with half the work they do now, and every 
 day in the week." 
 
 " That will do, Clint. See that the notice 
 is posted." 
 
 Clint rose, and looked at me in a curious 
 sort of way, but said nothing. 
 
 " Did you hear?" I continued. " Give the 
 poor fellows an advance of ten per cent. 
 no, make it fifteen and some compliment on 
 their industry thrown in, and do it before 
 they make a formal demand forestall 
 them do you see ? " 
 
 "I understand, sir," answered the superin 
 tendent. "You know what that means?" 
 
 " Why, it means more money for the poor 
 wretches." 
 
 " Yes, sir," answered the practical man of 
 facts, "it means that and more. It means 
 that you will precipitate a strike through the 
 whole coal region ; it means that all the 
 other corporations and private owners will 
 be down on you and combine against 
 
-- * 
 
 AS THE MOON WATCHED THE OLD CONTINENTAL FREEZING AT 
 
 VALLEY FORGE. 
 
 117 
 
I 1 8 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 you ; that your coal will be boycotted by 
 the railroads. It means a fight ! " * 
 
 " Well, Clint, are n t you game for a 
 fight?" 
 
 Clint s broad mouth widened still further 
 into a broader smile, as he answered, " You 
 are the boss, sir. If you know what the step 
 you are taking means, and will see me 
 through, I rather guess I m game enough to 
 carry out my part of the job. I d rather face 
 the corporations than the Mollies, and I ve 
 faced them in some pretty ticklish situations. 
 Good night, sir." And Clint bowed himself 
 out. 
 
 * EXTRACT FROM A LETTER TO THE " STANDARD. 
 
 Away back in the 70 s Mr. Coxe was a land owner, having 
 all his collieries except Drifton (his home) leased to outside par 
 ties, who operated them. In the spring of 1877 the coal trade 
 reached its lowest ebb, the mine workers worked six or eight days 
 per month, and Mr. Coxe realized the necessity of seeking wider 
 markets for anthracite coal. He surveyed the field and called his 
 men together, making the proposition that if they agreed to work 
 at a specified rate of wages for said year he would warrant them 
 steady work for that period. The men accepted, and Mr. Coxe 
 commenced operations by building boats and shipping coal by the 
 lakes into the western market. He was a pioneer in the busi 
 ness, and expended an enormous sum to make the enterprise a 
 success. 
 
 In the meantime the Lehigh Valley railroad company had its 
 secret agents at work buying up and grabbing all available coal 
 lands. In a short time the Lehigh Valley company, in direct vio 
 lation of the state constitution, commenced operations as miners 
 
MOONBLIGHT. I 1 9 
 
 " You are in for it now," said the professor. 
 " But from the looks of your superintendent, 
 I think you have a good man to back you ; 
 and if you will make a place at your office 
 for your friend the bar-keeper, you three will 
 form a strong combination of talent. Of all 
 men, a bar-keeper has the greatest opportuni 
 ties of knowing other men s weak points, 
 and this barkeeper appears to have intelli 
 gence enough to make use of his knowledge. 
 Good night and good luck to you ! I leave 
 in the morning on the early train. I am 
 sorry, for I should dearly like to see you 
 through this. Good-bye." 
 
 and shippers of coal, and of course coveted Mr. Coxe s western 
 market. For a while competition was keen, but Mr. Coxe, being 
 an energetic business man, and having a fair field, was amply able 
 to hold his own. He was compelled to ship his coal over the Le- 
 high Valley road, and the company determined to exterminate 
 him by discriminations in tolls. Mr. Coxe, after appealing in 
 vain to other individual operators for aid and co-operation, went 
 it alone and brought the Valley company before the inter-state 
 commerce commissioners, with the result that that august body 
 has failed to render a decision, although the case has been in their 
 hands for three years. 
 
 In the meantime Mr. Coxe s leases have expired, all his mines 
 being controlled and operated by himself. He is aland user and 
 as hopelessly in the grasp of the railroads as his poor miners are 
 in his. But he does not stop here. He is building a railroad of 
 his own to connect with four trunk-lines, apparently ignoring the 
 fact that these four roads may pool their issues and leave him 
 more helpless and dependent than before. 
 
I2O 
 
 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 Once again I was left alone in the room 
 with the fishing-rods, guns, and weird books 
 of that mysterious regular boarder ; but the 
 
 "THE OLD, WHITE-FACED MOON SAW THIS." 
 
 fire burned brightly and from the outside the 
 moon peeped into the window, with a face as 
 
MOONB LIGHT. 121 
 
 broad and determined-looking as my super 
 intendent s. No wonder, poor thing ! If it 
 has any heart at all, it must be worn out or 
 hardened to flint by the sights it sees as it 
 sails through the clouds that surround our 
 poor, wicked, blind, and ignorant little earth. 
 
 I wondered if, at the birth of this nation, as 
 the moon watched "the old Continentals in 
 their ragged regimentals," starving and freez 
 ing at Valley Forge, it had any hopes of see 
 ing the spirit of freedom that these heroes 
 were suffering for, triumph ; or if its lunar 
 experience in watching other like struggles, 
 which were crushed in the end by the very 
 wealth the temporary freedom created, 
 taught it to foresee a like end to the old 
 Continentals hopes. 
 
 Freedom is health : slavery is disease. 
 And even while our ancestors were suffer 
 ing from the surgical operation that cut out 
 the cancer of monarchy, they left, as an in 
 heritance for their children, a pustule called 
 negro slavery. The old, white-faced moon 
 saw this saw the disease grow until it prov 
 ed almost fatal ; and the silver light from 
 the* sky shone over many a bloody field 
 where Labor laid on the altar of Freedom 
 thousands of her sons. 
 
122 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 Yes, and as we were resting after that 
 almost fatal operation of the surgeon s pain 
 ful knife, the old moon saw, and still sees, 
 another neoplasm forming on Uncle Sam s 
 body. All of these diseases come from 
 the roots of the old monarchical cancer left 
 in the nation s system. 
 
 James Henry Hammond voiced the sen 
 timents of the old Slave States when he 
 said : 
 
 " In all social systems there must be a 
 class to do the mean duties, to perform the 
 drudgery of life ; that is, a class requiring 
 but a low order of intellect and but little 
 skill. Its requisites are vigor, docility, fidel 
 ity. Such a class you must have, or you 
 would not have that other class which leads 
 progress, refinement, and civilization. It 
 constitutes the very mudsills of society and 
 of political government ; and you might as 
 well attempt to build a house in the air as to 
 build either the one or the other except on 
 the mudsills. Fortunately for the South, she 
 found a race adapted to that purpose to her 
 hand a race inferior to herself, but emi 
 nently qualified in temper, in vigor, in docil 
 ity, in capacity to stand the climate, to an 
 swer all her purposes." 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 12$ 
 
 And this old believer in chattel slavery 
 was right, when, continuing , he said : 
 
 " We use them for the purpose and call 
 them slaves. We are old-fashioned at the 
 South yet ; it is a word discarded now by 
 ears polite ; but I will not characterize that 
 class at the North with that term ; but you 
 have it ; it is there ; it is everywhere ! " 
 
 Mudsills ! Ah, the poor mudsills upon 
 which all our wealth and power rest ! 
 What if these mudsills, after a drenching 
 rain, should become slippery ? What if they 
 should slide ? What becomes of the tem 
 ples, churches, and cities, whose massive 
 walls rest so heavily on the earth as to cause 
 a landslide ? The broad-faced moon knows. 
 She has seen them dashed to pieces, in one 
 confused mass ; she has seen old Mother 
 Nature heal up the wound and hide the scar 
 with wild flowers, trees and vines ; and the 
 earth still rolled on ! 
 
 " O thou ghostly phantom of the sky that 
 hast watched our puny, selfish race for so 
 many centuries, tell me," I cried, " are we 
 to be another Rome ? Is our glorious re 
 public to be sacrificed because the rich are 
 insatiable and the poor are slaves?" 
 
 " Not by a long shot !" answered a voice 
 
I2 4 
 
 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 in anything but a lunar tone. " We re all 
 right," continued the voice, which I at once 
 recognized to be Sam s. " Don t you see der 
 moon s all right, too? Thet s what she 
 means by squinting thet left eye. She says, 
 says she, Yer don t build no fence around 
 me. Yer can t stick yer trespass signs up 
 on me. I m a free-trader, a free-thinker, a 
 free-lander. I goes booming right along 
 bout my business, and a millionaire ain t no 
 more to me than nothing ; I don t know em ; 
 they hain t in it, and hain t got a jewel in 
 their hoard that can shine like me. I m all 
 right. I m in the push, I am ! I m the poor 
 man s gas-company, and never send a man 
 round to pertend to read the meter, and 
 charge him so much a cubic-foot for moon 
 light. No, sir-ree bob horse fly ; what I ve 
 got, I give, and ask no questions. I m a 
 white man, I am. I m a true democrat that s 
 just as happy a letting my Might shine on 
 a lot of innocent niggers in darkest Africa 
 as I am shining on a lot of poor dudes stag 
 gering home from der club. I don t blame 
 der dudes : they can t help being born rich, 
 and I don t consider it any more disgrace than 
 being born in der top of a tenement house 
 or in a Spring Valley coal miner s hut after 
 
MOONBLIGHT, 125 
 
 der mortgage was foreclosed by der wealthy 
 men who ran that bunco game. 
 
 " Hold on, Sam!" I shouted, laughing, 
 " hold on ! The moon doesn t use any such 
 slangy speech as that." 
 
 " No," answered Sam, with a grin, " no 
 more n she does poetry. To a feller who 
 only talks slang, the moon expresses herself 
 in slang. To the poetry chap, the moon is 
 poetical ; to me, the moon is democratical." 
 
 Sam was about to pass on his way through 
 the hall, when I called to him, and told him 
 of the conversation between the superintend 
 ent and myself, and of the fight in prospect. 
 At the word " fight," Sam set down his bad- 
 smelling lamp that he had been holding in 
 one hand, and protecting from the draught 
 with the other. 
 
 A smile like that which had broadened the 
 mouth of my superintendent caused Sam s 
 kinky moustache to curl at the ends, and he 
 slid into a chair near the door, and waited 
 for further details. I told him what the 
 professor had said, and that, as Mr. Keene 
 would say, " it coincided with my precon 
 ceived ideas exactly." 
 
 .Sam s face looked solemn in an instant, 
 and he was about to decline my proffer of a 
 
126 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 position. I saw it was because he thought it 
 was made for him out of a sort of charitable 
 feeling". I hastened to explain how useful he 
 would be to me, and then I met another un 
 looked-for opposition in regard to the amount 
 he was to receive for his services. 
 
 " No, sir," he said, " tain t no use talking. 
 I ain t wuth any such sum as thet ; and while 
 I would, if I could, demand as my right 
 every durned cent I am wuth, to take a cent 
 more is to acknowledge myself to myself as 
 a pauper or a parasite living off some one 
 else." 
 
 At last I let the matter of salary drop; and 
 he consented to accept the situation, emolu 
 ments to be agreed upon after trial, provided 
 I would allow him to do the square thing by 
 the hotel man and get another fellow to fill 
 his place as clerk and bar-keeper, etc.; and I 
 bade him good-night. 
 
 Not long after engaging Sam as a private 
 secretary and general assistant I received 
 notice that the regular boarder was expected 
 to return and claim possession of his room ; 
 and having succeeded in finding a man from 
 a neighboring town to take Sam s place at 
 the bar, and a small Italian to assume Nate s 
 duties of sweep, bootblack, and bell-boy, our 
 
MOONBLIGH7\ I 2 7 
 
 little colony decided to move from the strag 
 gling, dirty mining town to a no less dirty 
 and hopeless-looking spot in the vicinity of 
 my own mines, which were situated some 
 eight or ten miles distant. 
 
 When we arrived, we were received by 
 Mr. Butts at the depot, and escorted to our 
 quarters. Clint had erected for me a snug 
 little shanty, with an office in front and a 
 bedroom in the rear. The village, if the 
 group of shanties adjoining my mines could 
 be dignified by such a name, I christened 
 " Moonblight." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OT many months after we 
 had settled in our new 
 quarters, while I was busy 
 working- over plans and 
 studying- out some 
 new schemes, the door 
 flew open and in came 
 a muffled figure. Above 
 the fur collar of the over 
 coat gleamed a pair of 
 gold-rimmed glasses, and a 
 moment later I was grasping 
 the hand of Professor Follium. 
 
 "Well, now, this is snug!" exclaimed the 
 little man, as he looked around at the 
 scattered paper, architects plans, surveyors 
 implements, top-boots, axes, picks, patent 
 lamps, models, and all the medley of mate 
 rial that a few months had collected around 
 rue. "But where on earth did you find such 
 a name for your city ?" inquired the profess 
 or, as his eye caught a new, colored plan of 
 
 128 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 1 29 
 
 the village, laid out and mapped under the 
 directions of Clinton Butts, C. E. 
 
 " Oh, it s a long story, Professor," I replied; 
 "but I feel like talking, for I have done very 
 little of it lately. I have not had time to 
 talk much since I saw you last. I will tell 
 you all about it; but first tell me where you 
 came from, and what brought you away out 
 here this time of the year ? " 
 
 " Never mind about me. My doings are 
 uninteresting. Been on a lecturing tour ; 
 was in the neighborhood, and my curiosity 
 to know how you were getting on, added to 
 my desire to see you, made me time my en 
 gagements so that I might have a few days 
 off when I reached this neighborhood; and, 
 now I am here, I am anxious to know what 
 possessed you to choose such a queer name 
 for your proposed city for I see by Mr. 
 Butts s map here that you intend to make a 
 city of it. Please tell me what that word 
 means, where you got it, and how you came 
 to choose it. I am as curious as a child." 
 And throwing himself back on the wolf-skin 
 that covered an easy-chair near the open fire, 
 the professor assumed a comfortable attitude 
 of attention. There was a twinkle in his eye, 
 as he glanced at my long, curly hair and 
 
1 3 o 
 
 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 blond beard, but he made no remarks upon 
 them. 
 
 I began and told him my whole experience 
 during the night spent with those strange 
 books of the "regular boarder" at the 
 American House. During the recital the 
 pleasant face of my friend assumed as grave 
 a look as it was 
 possible for mus 
 cles accustomed 
 to be stimulated 
 only by dry good 
 humor, mirth and 
 good-fellowship 
 to assume: when 
 I finished he re 
 mained silent for 
 a long time, and 
 then muttered : 
 
 " Remarkable ! 
 remarkable ! Why, you are a regular St. 
 Paul ! " he exclaimed at last, as his face 
 regained its accustomed good-natured ex 
 pression. " But do you know," he continued, 
 "I believe that both you and St. Paul were 
 unconsciously preparing yourselves for the 
 change that was to come, long before the 
 light blinded you. Had your mind not been 
 
 A SKETCH FROM NATURE. 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 prepared you would not have understood 
 
 the message 
 when it came ; 
 the old book of 
 magic would 
 have been sim 
 ply an old book 
 of magic noth 
 ing more. The 
 deeper meaning 
 was in you, or 
 the book could 
 not have reach 
 ed you. With 
 most of us this 
 change is so 
 gradual that we are 
 unconscious of it. If 
 our spiritual eyes are 
 opened, it is by such 
 slow degrees that we 
 do not know it, and 
 attribute our insight 
 into hidden things 
 to an accomplish 
 ment acquired by 
 constant practice in 
 looking for the real meaning of what we see. 
 
 ITS APPLICATION. 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 So you found Mr. Keene to be a fox and a 
 wolf? Ha, ha!" laughed the little fellow. 
 "And that spider illustration why ! that s 
 an inspiration. I have a collection of those 
 spiders at the college, and I ll never look at 
 them again without thinking of your mine 
 owners meeting. Oh, they are financiers, 
 those spiders ! They live, literally, in a bed 
 of roses and grow fat on the blood of the 
 industrious bees. Good ! Grand ! I ll use 
 that illustration in my next lecture, if I am 
 mobbed for it; and if I can find that regular 
 boarder, I ll pawn my clothes to buy his 
 witch-book. But first I will try to purify 
 my mind. " And again the grave look 
 chased the dimples from the rosy cheek of 
 the man of science. " Yes, sir; I ll become 
 an alchemist too, and try to see how much 
 gold I can make out of my audiences. No 
 pun, no pun; I did not mean it that way. 
 You cannot get much money out of people 
 when you want to teach them anything: 
 they will pay to be amused, but as a rule, 
 they hate to be instructed. It makes them 
 think, and if they think, why, then, my dear 
 boy, they might see things as they really 
 are, eh ? " 
 
 " Professor," I ^exclaimed, "you do not 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 133 
 
 know how pleasant it is to hear you talk like 
 this ! I was certain that you would not 
 laugh at me at least, I thought I was; but 
 the relief I feel at hearing you indorse my 
 opinions and approve my actions shows me 
 that there must have been a lurking fear or 
 doubt that you would, like the villagers in the 
 other town, think that I was flighty; and 
 while, generally, such things do not bother 
 me, I would have felt it grievously if you too 
 had harbored any such thought. I may yet 
 have need of your testimony as an expert; for 
 Mr. Keene has twice tried to cause my arrest 
 and incarceration as a lunatic. I have been 
 shadowed by detectives my steps dogged 
 by agents of the combination of Keene, 
 White, and Brown. Even my long hair and 
 beard were urged by my enemies as signs 
 of insanity. In vain have Keene, White, and 
 Brown searched for my heirs, hoping that 
 they would cause me to be locked up as 
 incompetent to take care of my estate. I 
 knew, if they found them, they would do 
 more than I can do, for I am the last of our 
 line in this country, and the other branches 
 are all across the water, bearing a different 
 name. The name I am known by is one as 
 sumed by an old ancestor when he escaped 
 
134 
 
 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 to this country from the political persecution 
 in England to which his outspoken ideas on 
 government subjected him; hence I feel com 
 paratively easy on that score." 
 
 " They think, or pretend to think, you a 
 lunatic ? Ah, the rogues ! It would be well 
 for them, and for the poor wretches upon 
 
 " I AM A FIRM BELIEVER IN GNOMES, BROWNIES, AND FAIRIES 
 AS REAL LIVE BEINGS." 
 
 whose labor they live, if your lunacy were 
 contagious. I shall add a new word to my 
 dictionary: Moonblight That sort of lu 
 nacy that causes a man to try to act like a 
 man ; and I will change the definition of fi 
 nanciering to That sort of lunacy which 
 makes a man forget that he is a man ; and 
 every time that I find among my collection 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 135 
 
 of old prints the picture of a witch on a 
 broom, I ll draw around her head one of 
 those hoops or pin-wheels such as the old 
 masters always put around the heads of 
 saints. As for your beard and hair, 
 why, they make you positively handsome ; 
 they are nature s own adornment. Not only 
 
 "I AM A FIRM BELIEVER IN GNOMES, BROWNIES, AND FAIRIES 
 AS REAL LIVE BEINGS." 
 
 have you taught me, my boy, to believe in 
 the old books of magic, but I have already 
 taken a step ahead of you. I am a firm be 
 liever in gnomes, brownies, and fairies as 
 real live beings. I mean it I believe in 
 them. 
 
 " An artist conceives a great picture be 
 fore he has drawn a line or put a brush to 
 
136 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 the canvas ; and so real is it that he will alter 
 the composition, take a figure out here, and 
 put one in there ; and yet, to all the world 
 but the painter, that picture is invisible. A 
 poet will conceive a poem while the paper 
 before him is blank and his pen dry. An 
 architect will build a palace, and frequently 
 select designs for minor details of ornament, 
 w r hile it is still a castle in the air, visible only 
 to the architect himself. An inventor makes 
 a machine while vainly trying to sleep at 
 night, surrounded by darkness and dressed in 
 his night-clothes, and nothing is visible to 
 any one s sight but his own until he embodies 
 his thoughts in wood or iron. All these 
 things are real. Who can deny their exist 
 ence ? They are the gnomes, the brownies, 
 the fairies, wearing their magical caps which 
 render them invisible. When the caps are 
 removed, we see pictures, poems, buildings, 
 operas or machinery whatever excites our 
 admiration, veneration, and wonder. 
 
 " There is not a principle in government 
 that did not first have its existence in the 
 mind of some dreamer or crank. There is 
 not a reform accomplished that did not origi 
 nate as an immaterial, intangible thing called 
 a thought. Each human being is constantly 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 737 
 
 conjuring up and sending forth innumerable 
 fairies, gnomes and brownies, to caper 
 around the earth, performing all sorts of 
 mischievous , vicious, harmless, pleasant, en 
 tertaining, helpful, or useful acts ; and these 
 little folks never die, but go capering on 
 through all time, bobbing up here and 
 there, in the most unexpected and surprising 
 manner. 
 
 " Everything that represents the product 
 of human labor first existed as a thought, 
 and without the application of human labor, 
 which removed the magical cap, would have 
 died a thought, unknown and unseen by the 
 world. What is true of us is true of nature. 
 Every object, plant, mountain, river, sea, 
 continent, must first have existed as a 
 thought." 
 
 "Yes, professor, I too believe in the fairies 
 you describe, and these little folk give me 
 courage ; these are the fairies that supported 
 me when, in spite of my wealth, I felt help 
 less and incapable of doing aught to allevi 
 ate the suffering I saw around me. Whether 
 the reforms I have introduced at my mines 
 will of themselves result in good, I know 
 not ; but this much I can see with my spirit 
 ual eyes that an honest, thoughtful effort 
 
138 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 for the good of others, in spite of mistakes 
 and blunders, never fails to result in good. 
 I think that there are many rough diamonds 
 among my men, who need only the jeweler 
 to make them gems of great value." 
 
 "Gems?" interrupted the lecturer; "the 
 soil of the road, farm, or barnyard, when crys 
 tallization has rearranged the molecules, is 
 worn by us as ornaments of the greatest 
 value, and we hoard them in our treasure 
 chests or place them behind the locks and 
 bars of a safe-deposit vault for safe keep 
 ing ; yet, day by day, we trample the same 
 material under foot or carefully brush it from 
 our clothes, and call it dirt. We never think 
 of how much greater value it is in the form 
 of dirt, the food-supply for all vegetation ! 
 That is not impromptu ; it is from my last 
 lecture, but it applies here, so I use it. 
 
 " Suppose that all the different molecules 
 that go to compose the so-called precious 
 stones were allowed to assume the form of 
 crystals. With diamonds enough to build 
 our houses, we should die of starvation. 
 You could not farm land composed of dia 
 monds ; the hardiest plant could receive no 
 nourishment if planted in a bed of rubies ; 
 corn would not grow in a field of emeralds. 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 139 
 
 All vegetation would cease to exist for want 
 of food and all animal life would soon fol 
 low from the same cause. Neither animals 
 nor vegetables can live on gems." 
 
 " Professor," I interrupted, " there is a gem 
 whose crystallization cannot hurt it ; it is 
 love the only thing of real value in this 
 world ; and usefulness is another name for 
 love, Here, I have discovered, is the secret 
 cause of the nobility that made the hump 
 back s face shine the morning after the mem 
 orable night spent with the old books, in the 
 regular boarder s room. Nate s only thought 
 is for others ; his own fate, discomfort or 
 inconvenience never adds weight to the 
 burden his poor, distorted back has to 
 bear." 
 
 But the little man had warmed up to his 
 lecture, and apparently without heeding the 
 interruption, continued: 
 
 " Dirt is of inestimable value, as it repre 
 sents the love of the Creator in providing a 
 storehouse from which his creatures are to 
 get their food, clothing, and shelter. Nature, 
 through the medium of wild plants and ani 
 mals, prepares the crude material in a form 
 fit for the support and shelter of man ; but 
 man cannot obtain it without labor. Man, 
 
I4O MOONB LIGHT. 
 
 even in his most primitive state, must labor 
 as a hunter and fisherman to live." 
 
 The professor gave me many points which, 
 from my lack of scientific education, I should 
 have missed. He directed my attention to 
 the fact that physical force became an 
 element in society when the primitive man 
 discovered that weapons he used to kill game 
 would kill his brother as well, and employ 
 ed those weapons to compel his weaker, or 
 not so well-armed, brother to hunt and 
 fish for him. 
 
 " Yes," said my friend, "he risked his life 
 and that of his family and tribe for the 
 chance of living upon the labor of others." 
 
 " But he was a savage," said I. 
 
 " Ah, yes ; and that gnome, conjured up 
 by the primitive savage, still lives. He and 
 slavery were born together, and will exist 
 together until physical force ceases to con 
 trol, and usefulness has the seat of honor. 
 The gnome conjured up by the primitive 
 man, and made visible by the use of weapons 
 against his brother savage, is the gnome that 
 builds our forts, that plans our ironclads, that 
 drills our armies, and sits alongside the 
 banker and railroad magnate in the count 
 ing-room and in the office. This last, my 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 141 
 
 dear fellow, is impromptu, and not in my 
 lecture." 
 
 " Bravo ! " I exclaimed. " There is noth 
 ing like science to help a fellow, either in 
 speechmaking or in a mining operation." 
 
 I do not remember a morning spent more 
 enjoyably than that winter morning in the 
 office of my shanty at Moonblight. 
 
 I had a large open fire, and although coal 
 was everywhere, I burned wood. It is so 
 cheerful and bright, and then the smell of it 
 takes me back to the old homestead in Ohio 
 where I lived as a boy. This wood-fire was 
 the only real luxury in which I indulged. 
 The furniture of the office was made by the 
 carpenter, and the easy-chair that the pro 
 fessor occupied, had it not been for the wolf 
 skin carriage-robe thrown over it, would have 
 been but a hard seat; for it was made of pine 
 boards in a very primitive manner. Like a 
 couple of boys, we two sat there in front of 
 the fire, and took turns poking the logs, to 
 see the sparks go up the chimney, and we 
 talked as fast as any two school-chums when 
 they meet after their holiday vacation. 
 
 " Come," said the professor, " tell me all 
 about your plans and what you have done." 
 
 " As I have told you, my steps at first were 
 
1 4 2 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 dogged, and I was everywhere shadowed 
 by detectives. You informed me when last 
 I saw you that I was in for it, and I 
 am in for it, heart and soul. Thanks to the 
 book of Magus, I can read men, and I rec 
 ognized these spies at a glance ; but at first 
 I had the greatest difficulty in restraining 
 Sam, whose indignation would get the bet 
 ter of his universal-peace doctrine ; and 
 both he and Clint were bent on * doing 
 the detectives." 
 
 " Doing them ? " said the professor. " I 
 do not quite understand." 
 
 4< Oh, it is one of Sam s expressions, and 
 means pounding and jumping on them until 
 they are good subjects for the hospital. Sam 
 is invaluable, always bright and ready for 
 what the day may bring forth. He believes 
 that physical force is wrong, and if his indig 
 nation should get the better of him at any 
 time, and cause him to knock a man down, 
 he would be abject in his apologies the next 
 moment. Naturally a fighter, his philosophy 
 and his pugnacious instinct are constantly at 
 war. His philosophy is stronger than his 
 instinct, and gaining strength by exercise 
 every day ; but should the excitement of the 
 moment ever cause him to act before his for- 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 143 
 
 bearance could influence him, there would 
 be a sorry time for some one, because he 
 is as quick on his feet as a cat, and can han 
 dle his fists like a professional prize-fighter. 
 As for Clint, he would never bother himself 
 to get into a fight nor trouble himself to 
 avoid one. Sam and he are firm friends, 
 and would make an extremely awkward 
 couple in a street fight. This seems to be 
 generally understood by all the people 
 about here, and very few persons would 
 care to provoke a quarrel with Sam the bar 
 keeper or Butts the superintendent. Nate 
 is a regular little angel of peace. No one can 
 quarrel with him, and any one that would 
 try would bring every man, woman, and 
 child in the village about his ears. Nate is 
 also very useful ; but no matter how busy I 
 keep him, he always finds time to visit the 
 sick, the needy, and the unfortunate, and to 
 share his little earnings with them. A bet 
 ter staff it would be impossible for me to 
 find. Sam s advice on any subject is gener 
 ally sound ; he has a way of getting directly 
 at the facts of a case. And Mr. Butts is a 
 prodigy for carrying out and supplying 
 mathematical details for any plan I may 
 suggest. But when I pointed out to the 
 
1 44 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 last-named gentlemen a poor wretch whose 
 necessities had compelled him to accept a 
 position as a sneaking spy, Sam came very 
 near forgetting his philosophy and Mr. Butts 
 his disinclination to go out of his way for a 
 fight. For a moment or so it was as much 
 as Nate and I could do to prevent the two 
 indignant men from literally wiping up my 
 office floor with the frightened Pinkerton. 
 After order was restored, I placed the detect 
 ive in front of me, and as I did so I was 
 surprised at what I read in his mind. Why ! 
 professor, I could see crimes enough to 
 hang that man twenty times. As his tell 
 tale mind called up each incident of his 
 past career, and wondered if by any pos 
 sible means I could be aware of it, of 
 course I read it, and by means of a few ques 
 tions I caused the mental book to open at 
 pages that had been sealed with blood. 
 For a moment I was undecided what to do. 
 I have grave doubts whether hanging a man 
 does him or the country any good. So I only 
 exhibited my knowledge in a few remarks 
 that forced the criminal so-called officer of 
 the law to turn white with fright, and beg me 
 to say no more before witnesses. Sam, 
 show the gentleman to the door/ I said ; and 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 145 
 
 Sam smilingly complied, bowing with mock 
 politeness as he opened the door for our 
 prisoner s escape, and motioned him with a 
 wave of his hand to leave. Not only did the 
 detective leave, but he did so on a run, and 
 made a bee-line for the railroad depot. There 
 being no train, he took to the track, and the 
 last we saw of him, he was counting the cross- 
 ties, as Sam expressed it, to the next town. 
 
 " And so it is with all of them. As soon 
 as I show a knowledge of their past history, 
 they are more than pleased to leave, with all 
 possible speed, a section of the country where 
 it is apparent that their real past is known or 
 suspected. As you may imagine, it was not 
 long before my enemies began to find great 
 difficulty in securing detectives who were 
 willing to watch me for evidences of insanity. 
 After a while, when I caught a spy sneaking 
 after me, it was only necessary to look him 
 squarely in the face to send him scampering 
 away like a coyote pursued by hounds. 
 
 " Everything I said or did was weighed for 
 evidence of lack of rationality ; but, what is 
 strange, Messrs. Keene, White, and Brown will 
 under no considerations meet me to talk over 
 this or any other matter; they all three, I verily 
 believe, think that I am Satan himself." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HE strike had come. All through 
 the coal regions work had ceas 
 ed. The great dark holes 
 no longer diurnally swal 
 lowed up and vomited forth 
 strings of black-faced 
 jj"|j men and boys. The tin 
 dinner-pails ceased their 
 chain-like clanking. Ah, 
 the terrible silence of a 
 strike! Ah, the hard 
 ship, privation, and suf 
 fering of a strike ! Ah, 
 the bitter disappoint 
 ment, the gnawing hun 
 ger, the barren despair 
 of a strike! Oh the cruel, 
 cruel power of a corpora 
 tion, the soulless, grinding 
 machine which coins human 
 blood and bone into gold ! 
 
 The bleak winter wind, as it 
 howls about the mountain, 
 blowing the cutting, drifting snow 
 
 under the doors, into the fireless 
 146 
 
AH, THE HARDSHIP, PRIVATION AND SUFFERING OF A STRIKE ! 
 
 147 
 
148 
 
 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 THE LAW LOCKS UP WHAT A LOVING 
 
 rooms of the miner, is less cruel than the 
 power that keeps mountains of fuel locked up 
 while human beings die for lack of the gen 
 ial warmth that lies latent in the unused coal. 
 Oh, the blasphemy, the sacrilege, of the law 
 that locks up what a loving God has created 
 for his children ! 
 
 "The people of the cities read of these 
 strikes in their morning papers, and grum 
 ble at the inconvenience it causes them, 
 never thinking for an instant that a strike is 
 the last feeble effort of manhood to save it 
 self from hopeless and degrading slavery. 
 Why will not people use their brains, and 
 think?" I said to the professor, who hap- 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 149 
 
 P ^ C EJ1Q-5 OF AUU 
 
 GOD HAS CREATED FOR HIS CHILDREN. 
 
 pened in the office, as he explained, to get 
 my experiences up to date. 
 
 "Hold on, my dear fellow," answered 
 my friend. " You must not require that of 
 the generality of people; if you do, you are 
 asking more than even your occult powers 
 can accomplish. Thinking, in the true sense 
 of the word, gives the average man the 
 headache. I used to try to make my boys 
 at college use their brains, and I can tell 
 you truly, that in a class of fifty I am 
 fortunate if I have two thinkers : the rest 
 learn like parrots. Most men do the same. 
 Suppose a New Yorker begins to reason 
 upon what passes about him what is the 
 
150 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 consequence ? Perhaps the man wonders 
 why the policeman is allowed to sneak 
 up behind a licensed peddler near Fulton 
 Street, in your great city of New York, 
 and kick that peddler, one brutal kick after 
 another, across Broadway. I saw that my 
 self. The man thinks, and he can find no 
 solution to the difficulty ; his impulse is to 
 ask the policeman ; but he is afraid, as I was 
 afraid, of being clubbed and sent up for 
 ten days for * resisting an officer. And so the 
 thinker asks his friend, and his friend looks 
 at him with pity, and says, I hope you are 
 not going to turn crank. 
 
 "That frightens the ordinary man, and he 
 ceases to think, because, as soon as he uses 
 his brains, he finds himself separated from 
 the crowd ; he lacks confidence in himself, 
 and argues that the crowd is right. Oh, it 
 is much easier to take your politics from the 
 newspaper, your science from the professors, 
 your religion from the pulpit, than it is to 
 study for yourself ! Remember, my dear 
 boy, it took a book on Moonblight, 
 another on magic, a fit of indigestion, and 
 an all-night struggle before you dared see 
 what has been before your eyes ever since 
 you were born. 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 " We are gregarious; we like to be conven 
 tional, and not excite remark. What man 
 there among your acquaintances who 
 
 is 
 
 dares even to eat what he likes, drink what 
 
 "THE PEOPLE TN THE CITIES READ OF THESE STRIKES AND 
 GRUMBLE AT THE INCONVENIENCE IT CAUSES THEM." 
 
 he likes, or dress as he likes ? Not one. 
 The man who did so would be considered an 
 idiot or desirous of creating a sensation ; or, 
 what is worse, he would be looked upon as 
 
I 5 2 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 a madman. Conservatism is a good thing 
 as a guard against unthinking impulse ; but 
 when it stands in the way of reason ; when it 
 lumbers up our churches, filling the skin of 
 Christianity with a stuffing of vile paganism; 
 when it binds the shackles on the slave; 
 when it bolsters up the tyrant and evil-doer, 
 conservatism becomes retrogression. Just 
 now, we are on the retrograde ; but the un 
 dercurrent is gathering strength and volume 
 for a big tidal wave of public opinion, that 
 will come, when it does come, with an irre 
 sistible force, sweeping everything before it. 
 I dread these tidal waves almost as much as 
 I do conservatism. But I did not come here 
 to lecture : I came here to learn. Pardon the 
 interruption, and continue your story." 
 
 " Well, the strike came, and is still here," 
 I continued ; " but the Moonblight mines 
 are working to their fullest capacity. New 
 shafts have been opened, new breakers 
 erected, and every improvement for facili 
 tating work and adding to the comfort and 
 safety of the men that Sam, Mr. Butts, or 
 I myself could think of has been adopted. I 
 have even purchased more coal lands adjoin 
 ing those already worked. The happy faces 
 of the men and the smiles of the poor, tired- 
 
MOONBLIGHT. I 5 3 
 
 looking- women are worth more than money; 
 and the song of the miner and the sound of 
 his pick and sho vel are music to my ears. 
 But it is painful to see the misery of the 
 strikers and heartrending to see the want and 
 destitution of the strikers families. I give 
 employment to all the men I can, but it is 
 impossible, even if I were to bore the hills 
 like a rabbits warren, to give employment to 
 all applicants. My men deny themselves, 
 and contribute liberally to the support of 
 their unfortunate brothers. I have abolished 
 the company-store system, and allow those 
 among the miners who wish to, and are 
 competent, to buy out the shops, and run 
 them themselves. I divided the village up 
 into regular lots, and leased them under 
 ninety-nine-year leases to the highest bid 
 ders ; and such was the boom business had 
 that there was a corresponding boom in real 
 estate. In each lease I incorporated an 
 agreement to the effect that all the land-rent 
 should go toward public improvements 
 schools and public buildings. Each lease 
 holder also holds a proportional part of all 
 public buildings. Every five years a new 
 rent-rate is to be made. In other respects it 
 is about the same sort of document as most 
 
154 
 
 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 ninety-nine-year leases are, with the vital ex 
 ception that all land-rent goes to the public, 
 that is, back to the rent-payers again ; and 
 at my death, the village or town through 
 their trustees inherits the property. 
 
 " Thus I have bound myself, while alive, 
 
 "HOWEVER STRONG AND MIGHTY THE BEAST MAYBE, HE CAN IN 
 THE END BE CONQUERED BY THE DIMINUTIVE MICROBE." 
 
 and the town after my death for almost a 
 hundred years ; and I hope by that time the 
 success of the scheme will be such that the 
 leases will be renewed, with any improve- 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 155 
 
 ments that experience may suggest. Sam 
 started a building association, which, like all 
 such associations, is a success. Look out of 
 the window, and see the new houses going 
 up ! These men have something to live for ; 
 they see comfort and education for their lit 
 tle ones and rest for their old people. The 
 sale of liquor on my property will nullify a 
 lease. That is a bit of arbitrary power I have 
 used ; but after the reforms are permanently 
 established, I am inclined to think it will be 
 an unnecessary clause. 
 
 " Why do men drink ? Only to procure a 
 temporary relief from the responsibilities and 
 cares of life. That the jollity and mirth, 
 which should be spontaneous, can for a brief 
 time have an artificial sway, wine is neces 
 sary at dinner. It is used as a drug to be 
 numb care even among the wealthy or well- 
 to-do. The solution of the temperance prob 
 lem is to give a man something to work for. 
 The solution of the religious problem is 
 to give a man something to live for. Every 
 man, in whatever business he may be, is 
 practically a mine owner or a miner. We 
 are not the only slave-drivers. Our slave 
 system is more evident, but no more real 
 than theirs." 
 
156 
 
 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 " Bravo ! Bravo ! " cried the professor, 
 rubbing his hands with delight. 
 
 "The cash for the 
 leases I receive is imme 
 diately spent upon the 
 draining and grading of 
 streets, the paving of 
 sidewalks and the mak 
 ing of parks. Small as 
 the village is, we al 
 ready have two parks 
 laid out. Listen a mo 
 ment; hear the sounds of 
 the saw and hammer, 
 Professor. That is on our 
 school-house. It will not 
 be long before the little 
 hamlet, that grew like 
 a filthy fungus from the 
 mud and mire surround 
 ing my mines, will be 
 come a beautiful village. 
 " For fear that, in case 
 of my death, the mines 
 themselves might fall 
 into the hands of some 
 such diabolical combination as that which 
 shut down the mines of ^Spring Valley, 
 
 * See "A Strike of Millionaires Against Miners," by H. D. Lloyd. 
 
 THE EDITOR. 
 
 "OUR SLAVE SYSTEM IS MORE 
 EVIDENT, BUT NO MORE REAL 
 THAN THEIRS." 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 157 
 
 ruined a happy village, starved the in 
 habitants, and stopped their incomes that it 
 might foreclose the mortgages, I have caused 
 to be recorded a grant or deed which allows 
 the miners of Moonblight to run the mines 
 themselves in case the owner should refuse 
 to meet a board of arbitration that is provid 
 ed for to decide any disputed point of 
 wages. Notwithstanding all these grants, 
 and property practically given away, my 
 mines would still pay me large dividends 
 were it not for Messrs. Keene, White, and 
 Brown, and their railroad combinations." 
 
 " Well," exclaimed my companion, " I fail 
 to see any cloud in the bright prospect 
 before you. Your town is growing under 
 my very eyes. That little cottage over there 
 by the park has a roof on it now, and as I 
 came by from the depot, there was only a 
 patch of shingles on one side. How patri 
 otic you are ! Almost every house has a 
 United States flag of some kind." 
 
 " Oh, yes," I replied, " that is a suggestion 
 from Sam. He said, and rightly, that we are 
 following out the true American principles 
 of giving every man an equal opportunity, 
 and that the flag stands for and is the em 
 blem of the freedom our ancestors fought 
 
158 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 for, and does not stand for vested rights, as 
 some of our legislators would try to make 
 us believe, any more than the teachings of 
 Christ stand for the modern paganism of the 
 churches. Adopting Sam s hint, I have tried 
 to make my men, both foreign and Amer 
 ican born, understand and believe that that 
 flag is the symbol of the rights they have 
 so long struggled for, and when it is used 
 to represent anything else, it is usurpation. 
 This helps win popular opinion and senti 
 ment. We claim to be Americans, and 
 declare that all oppressors, no matter what 
 their birth may be, are not Americans because 
 they do not believe in the American princi 
 ples. 
 
 " This, professor, is the bright side, and 
 the side I choose to look upon ; but there is 
 a shadow wherever there is a light, and in 
 that shadow I am maligned, called a crank, 
 a rascal, a fool, a schemer, an unprincipled 
 speculator, and a dangerous agitator. Mr. 
 Keene, in most scathing language, has pre 
 tended to show how I am planning to ruin 
 all the other companies and then form a 
 trust which will grind the laborer further 
 into the ground than before my so-called 
 reforms were introduced. I continue to 
 

 TWO DISTRACTED MOTHERS WERE SOBBING OVER THE LOSS 
 OF THEIR LITTLE ONES. ONLY GOD AND MOTHERS 
 KNOW WHY THEY MOURNED." 
 
1 60 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 ship my coal and keep the price down at 
 the usual rates, but I must confess that 
 Messrs. Keene, Brown and White in a meas 
 ure checkmate me, by forming a railroad 
 combination which takes all my profits in 
 tolls. 
 
 " Gangs of foreigners began to pour 
 in from New York strange, greasy, dirty- 
 looking men, many of them wearing sheep 
 skin coats and odd-looking caps ; none 
 of them speaking English. These hordes 
 come from the emigrant ships and are hired 
 in gangs by the laborer broker. The min 
 ing boss passes the word, * Give me a hun 
 dred men at the same price as the last lot, 
 to the broker, who is a cunning fellow and 
 squeezes a commission out of both sides for 
 his services. By dealing in men by the 
 wholesale, as if dealing in potatoes or corn, 
 one is able to get wholesale prices, which 
 are much cheaper than if the men were 
 bought singly or in blocks of five, and the 
 employers save quite a neat sum by the proc 
 ess. The laborer broker goes to the gang- 
 master, who, as soon as he receives the order, 
 loses no time in having the potatoes excuse 
 me, the men ready for delivery. 
 
 " Huns , my miners called them, and appar- 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 1 6 1 
 
 ently they have no other name, either per 
 sonal or national; if they possess any real 
 name it is known only to themselves and the 
 padrones. 
 
 "Each Hun is numbered and answers to 
 his number and is known only by that num 
 ber. 
 
 " Clint told me that the padrones make a 
 good living by securing such gangs for those 
 who want them on short notice; and evi 
 dently the padrones are doing a flourishing 
 business during the strikes. On pay-day the 
 gang-master is there, and he sees to it that no 
 Hun, be his name Mr. One or Mr. One Hun 
 dred gets more than enough to keep his poor, 
 shivering, slavish soul inside of his greasy, 
 poverty-stricken body. These men are to be 
 come voters. Did I say voters ? No, not that; 
 ignorant as they are, slavish as is their spirit, 
 they are men, and could they vote, the vote 
 would-be that of freemen; but these Huns 
 will act as proxies for their different masters 
 and cast their master s vote in numbers 
 equal to the number of slaves on the plan 
 tation I beg pardon miners working in his 
 mines. 
 
 " Things looked squally. Each car that 
 came in brought a load of Huns and loads 
 
1 62 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 of guns carried by professional cut-throats 
 whom any one in this " Land of the Free," 
 who has the money, can employ to shoot 
 down their rebellious slaves. How this book 
 of Magus plays havoc with my tongue ! 
 What I should say, so as not to offend, is to 
 protect his property against mobs of dissi 
 pated, whiskey-drinking men, who dare to 
 claim the inherent right granted them by 
 their Creator and demand the privilege of 
 living on God s great earth, which some of 
 them are sacrilegious enough to think was 
 intended by their Creator for man s use and 
 support. 
 
 " Black clouds of Huns covered the hills, 
 and black clouds of despair shaded the 
 brows of the poor strikers, as these foreign 
 herds began to take their places at the mines, 
 and eviction followed eviction, turning fam 
 ily after family out into the cold, bleak win 
 ter, with no shelter, no hope, and no place 
 to go. Added to this was the galling fact 
 of the presence of the armed guards of Pink- 
 ertons. I could not help asking myself 
 what our ancestors would have done under 
 such circumstances ? What would Abe 
 Lincoln have said ? How would Thomas 
 Jefferson have acted ? What was / to do ? 
 
SPEECH ON FREE LABOR, DELIVERED SEPTEMBER, 1859. 
 
 WHAT ABE LINCOLN DID SAY." I hold, if the Almighty had ever made a set 
 of men that should do all the eating and none of the work, he would have made 
 them with mouths only, and no hands; and if he had ever made another class that he 
 had intended should do all the work and none of the eating, he would have made 
 them without mouths and with all hands." 
 
164 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 "My men were kept quiet only by keep 
 ing them busy." 
 
 " Force begets force," said Professor Fol- 
 lium. " Peaceful methods are the only ones 
 a Christian can use and still claim to be a 
 Christian. A chaplain attached to a regi 
 ment is like a temperance pledge attached 
 to a gin-mill counter. Force is the argument 
 of the robber, the bandit, and the savage. 
 A thief, a burglar, a desperado, is always 
 armed, because he lives by force; takes what 
 he gets by force, retains what he has by 
 force, and in the end dies by force." 
 
 " Yes, professor, that is about the way 
 Sam and I reasoned it out, when the subject 
 of our carrying arms was broached. As for 
 Clint, he never bothered his head about it 
 one way or the other. Fear is a word which 
 signified to him something that makes other 
 people commit acts that to him are incom 
 prehensible. 
 
 " I sent Sam among the strikers to do 
 some stump-speaking and to advise the men 
 to throw up the strike at once and resume 
 their places; for I plainly saw that, with the 
 opportunities for labor locked up under the 
 silly laws of the country, the opportunity 
 market is cornered; while the labor supply is 
 
MOONB LIGHT. 165 
 
 practically unlimited. The strike must be 
 a failure; and for humanity s sake I sent Sam 
 to tell them how hopeless was their rebellion. 
 
 "Sam was the man who could do it; he 
 could talk in a language they could under 
 stand, and use arguments that would appeal 
 to them. But imagine my surprise and 
 chagrin when Nate came running in one 
 day to tell me that the Pinkertons had made 
 a rush to capture Sam, calling him an agita 
 tor and a ringleader of rioters; that the 
 miners had defended Sam and thrown coal 
 and stones; that the Pinkertons had fired on 
 the crowd and killed two boys and wounded 
 a woman; that the crowd, being reinforced, 
 had driven the Pinkertons back. 
 
 " Here was a situation ! And as I read the 
 newspaper accounts the next day, I was hor 
 rified to find that Sam was designated as an 
 anarchist bar-keeper, a tough and desperate 
 character, and that warrants were out for his 
 arrest. 
 
 " Clint s fight had come, and a serious 
 affair it was ! Two poor stiff little forms lay 
 stretched dead in two wretched miners huts; 
 two distracted mothers were sobbing over 
 the loss of their little ones. Only God and 
 mothers know why they mourned; even my 
 
1 66 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 spiritual eyes could see naught before them 
 in this life but degrading poverty, bitter 
 want, drudgery and slavery. But none the 
 less did two mothers sob and refuse to be 
 comforted; two black-faced, black-handed, 
 grizzly-headed miners ground their teeth 
 and clenched their fists, but shed no tears 
 
 " All because you sent -a man of peace to 
 preach peace among them," said Professor 
 Follium. 
 
 " No, the real reason was because the as 
 semblage of a crowd gave the combination 
 an opportunity to allow that gnome Force 
 to have his way, in hope that it would cre 
 ate a riot and turn popular opinion on their 
 side," I answered. "As for Sam, he was 
 safe for the present with me, for no detect 
 ive would face me. They think that I am 
 secretly connected with their infernal bureau, 
 and by private means keep myself posted 
 on their misdeeds; and not one has a con 
 science clear enough or the courage to have 
 his acts laid bare before witnesses. But 
 more trouble was in store. Clint Butts was 
 accused of leading the reinforcements that 
 came to Sam s rescue. I sent for Clint 
 and asked him if it was true. No, sir, he 
 replied, and I dismissed him. I then sent for 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 i6 7 
 
 Nate to ask him about it; but he came run 
 ning in, all out of breath, to tell me that Mr. 
 Butts was in trouble that he was attacked 
 by a crowd of armed men. Snatching my 
 
 " FORCE BEGETS FORCE." THE DETECTIVES FAILED TO ARREST 
 
 CLINT BUTTS. 
 
 hat and calling to Sam to follow, I rushed 
 out in the direction taken by my superin 
 tendent; for I knew some one was bound to 
 be hurt this time. 
 
1 6 8 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 " Here comes Buffalo Bill! I heard 
 shouted. Hurrah for Buffalo Bill of Moon- 
 blight ! cried a group of youngsters, as I 
 dashed by, my hair flying, and Sam follow 
 ing close behind. We were none too soon, 
 for, as I turned a corner of the new school- 
 house that I am having built, I saw Clint 
 Butts standing on the scantling frame-work 
 in front of the unfinished building, with two 
 prostrate, bloody figures at his feet, and three 
 more upright men staring into the muzzle of 
 a nickel-plated revolver that glistened in the 
 sun. -It was a splendid group for a show- 
 poster or the back of a cheap novel, and so 
 still were. they all that they might have been 
 mistaken for wax figures, had not the steel- 
 gray eyes of the superintendent, glinting 
 through their fringe of long, dark lashes, 
 moved from one to the other of the group 
 of three. 
 
 " Stand back, sir ! They are armed ! he 
 cried upon seeing me, but the warning was 
 unnecessary, for Sam had noiselessly come 
 up behind them and snatched the pistols 
 from under the coat-tails of two of the men. 
 He pressed a revolver against the cheek of 
 one, and covered the second, as he quietly 
 said: 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 1 69 
 
 " Gentlemen, throw up your hands ! The 
 jack-pot is ours ! It s the superintendent s 
 next deal ! Up went six hands. 
 
 " Clint, I exclaimed, have you injured 
 those two men ? pointing to the prostrate 
 forms. 
 
 " No, sir, guess not/ said Clint, with a 
 broad smile, as he still covered the middle 
 man, while Sam proceeded to relieve the third 
 of his revolver. But Sam had better dis 
 arm this one, too/ said Clint, motioning with 
 his foot to one recumbent figure, for he ll 
 shoot as soon as he comes to/ 
 
 " Seeing no damage done, I regained my 
 breath and composure at about the same in 
 stant, and recognized the men as being Pink- 
 erton detectives. The blood on the two 
 prostrate figures, I was relieved to see/came 
 from their noses, and one look at Clint s 
 brawny fist told the cause of the bloodshed. 
 
 " Mr. Butts/ I said sternly, how came you 
 with that pistol ? I requested you not to 
 carry arms ; did I not ? 
 
 " Yes, sir/ said Clint, still smiling ; for 
 both he and Sam appeared to think some 
 thing humorous had happened. Yes, sir/ 
 repeated Clint; but this pistol was paid for 
 by your friend, Mr. Keene, and sent by him to 
 
I 70 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 me. This gentleman here, bowing and smil 
 ing at one of the discomfited fellows at his 
 feet, was kind enough to present it to me; but 
 he awkwardly enough presented it cocked, 
 with the muzzle aimed at my head; and had 
 I not knocked it up with one hand while I 
 pushed him away with the other, I fear you 
 would have been minus a superintendent. 
 
 " Sam, said Clint in a commanding tone, 
 and his steel-gray eyes flashed through their 
 black lashes, pile up the arsenal here ! Now, 
 you sneaks, when I say attention, stand up 
 like men. At-ten SHUN ! Up stood the 
 five men. Right dress, eyes front ! All 
 eyes were fixed on Clint. Will you step 
 here, sir? said Clint. I instinctively obeyed 
 him, as the detectives had done. Good 
 day, sir, remarked the superintendent, as he 
 handed me the shining revolver, and coolly 
 proceeded upon his way to the mines, leav 
 ing Sam with an arsenal of weapons, and me 
 in command of a squad of dejected-looking 
 detectives. 
 
 " Gentlemen, I said, * I will not ask you 
 what brought you here. You know that we 
 carry no arms, and are not accustomed to 
 armed visitors. We are men of peace. 
 There seemed to be some doubt in the minds 
 
MOONBLIGHT. I J I 
 
 of the desperadoes about this announcement, 
 but they discreetly said nothing. Sam, will 
 you please unload these revolvers ? No, stop ! 
 This man, said I, pointing to one of them, 
 fired a pistol on August the i2th, 1872, and 
 I do not think he will use this one here, with 
 so many witnesses present -respectable wit 
 nesses, mind you, I repeated, because by 
 this time a crowd of store-keepers and work 
 men had collected. The man to whom I 
 spoke turned pale, and his four companions 
 looked curiously at him, and in their turn 
 turned pale as I looked at them. 
 
 " * These other four gentlemen, I know, 
 do not desire me to name their little es 
 capades, and I will refrain from doing so. I 
 will simply say that they will not be indis 
 creet in the use of their weapons ; and, as the 
 firearms are not our property, Sam, you will 
 kindly restore the. revolvers to the owners, 
 loaded as they are. 
 
 " One chamber empty in this one, sir, said 
 Sam sententiously. 
 
 " The bullet is there, said a bystander, as 
 he pointed to a hole in the new plank just 
 over the spot where we had seen Clint stand 
 ing a few moments before. 
 
 " Yes, that pistol went off accidentally, 
 
172 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 said Sam. The accident part was when 
 Clint knocked der murderous weapon up 
 wid one hand, and clipped der duffer in der 
 nose wid der other. See ? But what I don t 
 understand, continued the bar-keeper, un 
 consciously dropping- his barroom slang, as 
 I noticed he frequently did, is why the others 
 did not draw their guns. 
 
 " They didn t have time, said the same 
 bystander. One of those men went up be 
 hind Mr. Butts, and put his hand on Mr. 
 Butts s shoulder, and w^as just about to say 
 something to him when all of a sudden he 
 dropped, and Mr. Butts was facing them all. 
 The other man pulled out that big revolver, 
 and it went off almost as soon as he got it 
 out ; but before I could see how twas done, 
 Mr. Butts had the revolver, and the man was 
 down alongside the first one. The other 
 three had their hands under their coat-tails. 
 Then Sam came running over, and you know 
 the rest. 
 
 " Gentlemen, I continued after the inter 
 ruption, here is your property. Take it and 
 leave, and you will confer a great favor on 
 me, the next time you have business to trans 
 act or legal papers to present, if you will 
 leave your arms at headquarters, and not 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 1 73 
 
 present your pistol before presenting the pa 
 per. As your paper does not concern me, I 
 will bid you good day. 
 
 "Had it not been for Sam and Nate, the 
 crowd would have jeered the discomfited 
 Slinkertons, as Sam styles them. Some of 
 the small boys did hurrah for Buffalo Bill, a 
 name irreverently bestowed upon me on ac 
 count of my flowing; locks. The Pinkertons 
 left, as I knew they would, to tell their com 
 rades stories of the long-haired detective that 
 was onto them all, and to wonder who the 
 individual could be who looked like a cow 
 boy and played the mine owner s part. These 
 men had a warrant for the arrest of Clint 
 Butts, but they did not show it or mention 
 it ; in fact, never a word did they utter, but, 
 taking their arms, marched off, not as if they 
 had been whipped, but with the air of men 
 who had misunderstood orders, and, through 
 no fault of their own, had got into some 
 trouble as a consequence. They were evi 
 dently glad enough to get away from me ; 
 for my fame was now firmly established 
 among them as the king of detectives." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HE next day I showed 
 the professor all the new 
 buildings, the new 
 school-house, the parks, 
 and the mines; and 
 Sam and Mr. Butts 
 were delighted with an 
 opportunity to explain 
 all the details of their 
 work to a man who not 
 only could understand 
 their explanations and 
 the difficulties over 
 come, but could ap 
 preciate their success, 
 whether it was shown in a building, a mine, 
 or the formation of a circulating library. 
 
 When we returned to the office, and the 
 professor s pipe was lighted, he announced 
 it as his opinion that I had been going 
 through some incantation; "For," said he, 
 "nothing but magic could produce such re 
 sults in so short a time." 
 
 174 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 " Magic it is, professor," said Sam; "and 
 it s real old Yankee-doodle American magic, 
 too." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Clint. " My employer is 
 truly a magician." 
 
 " Clint," said I, " I thought you were too 
 practical to stoop to a compliment, and too 
 much of a materialist to use such a term, 
 even in joke." 
 
 "The real materialist," interrupted the 
 professor, "is unconsciously spiritual; every 
 experiment of his, every bit of knowledge 
 he acquires, every truth or partial truth he 
 discovers, aids the vision of the spiritual 
 eyes of such as use them. I take a walk 
 with you by the sea-shore; the old ocean rolls 
 in, in, in, one roll after another thundering 
 on the beach; the blue sky overhead is re 
 flected in the mirror of water below, but, on 
 account of the unevenness of the waves, the 
 sea is a deeper, darker blue than the sky 
 overhead; the distant sails look like flecks of 
 white on the horizon, the sea-birds like snow- 
 flakes. This much we see together, this much 
 we enjoy together; but here it ends. What 
 to me are only sails on the horizon, to your 
 nautical eyes are schooners, coasters, yachts, 
 and pilot-boats; what to me is only a dark- 
 
I 76 MOON BLIGHT. 
 
 blue sea, to your yachtsman s eyes is a stiff 
 sailing breeze; what to you is only a sandy 
 beach is to me the wrecks of continents, 
 ground to atoms, and the atoms polished 
 like gems by the ceaseless grinding of Old 
 Neptune s mill; what to you is a bit of shell, 
 to me is a valuable and heretofore mislaid 
 page in Nature s volume of Conchology; 
 what to both of us is sky and water, to an 
 artist would be a scheme of color. In other 
 words, we each have eyes and we see not, 
 because we see only what our eyes are edu 
 cated to see, or what we look for. You point 
 out to me the peculiarities of form of a dis 
 tant sail, and I notice them for the first time. 
 You explain to me that such a rig is carried 
 only by a certain style of craft, and the next 
 time I see that peculiar cut of sail, I know 
 what sort of craft it is off on the horizon. So 
 I learn that those dark spots on the water 
 are squalls, and my nautical eyes are partly 
 opened. In my turn, I explain the action of 
 the sea in wearing away the shores in some 
 places by undermining the cliffs and causing 
 them to cave into the water; then/by using 
 the fragments to grind against each other, 
 and the waves as motive power, with time 
 unlimited, I show you how the pieces are 
 
MOONB LIGHT. 
 
 ground to small fragments called sand, and 
 the next time you visit the beach you exam 
 ine a handful of sand, and your only par 
 tially opened eyes will detect the different 
 rocks and the quartz which originally com 
 posed the cliffs or shores of some unchroni- 
 cled land. So the materialist unconsciously 
 aids the vision of the man he despises as a 
 dreamer. So you, my friend, have partly 
 opened my spiritual eyes, and even though 
 I see things but dimly through the green 
 glasses of science, still the green glass, by 
 giving a oneness of color to all objects, sug 
 gests to me what may possibly be a truth to 
 you; that is, that there is no such distinction 
 as natural and spiritual laws. Either they 
 are all spiritual or all natural; and further 
 more, there car. be but one Church, and that 
 is the brotherhood of man; and but one 
 dogma in that Church, and that is love by 
 love meaning the sentiment which prompts 
 us to worship God by working for the wel 
 fare of others, to seek to benefit and give 
 pleasure to others, and to derive our own 
 pleasure from so doing. But these things 
 that appear so plain to you and me, are only 
 words to a third party; the fleck of white 
 is only a sail to him, the beach is only 
 
1 78 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 sand. His eyes are closed, and will not 
 open." 
 
 "Ah, no, professor; there you err. He of 
 whom you speak is the baser metal, and to 
 turn him into pure gold you must have the 
 prima materia which the pigskin-covered 
 book tells us is to be found in yourself: 
 Every one has it, from the beggar to the 
 king. I have searched for that lapis phi- 
 losophorum, and found it. So have you, 
 but you were unconscious of it. It is love. 
 With love you can make the blind see; love 
 will transmute the baser metals into pure 
 gold, but there will be only as much pure 
 gold as there is essence of gold in the 
 baser metal. I agree with you in most 
 things. You have aided my sight most won 
 derfully, and unless that sight betrays me, 
 there is but one thing taught from the begin 
 ning to the end of the gospel, and that is 
 love. You expressed it in your talk on use. 
 A useful man is the only religious man. All 
 idlers are pagans, whether they wear the garb 
 of the Church, the millionaire, or the tramp." 
 
 "Thet s der kind of magic that s built this 
 place, professor, and nary a blamed preacher, 
 barring my boss and myself, in der town," 
 said Sam. 
 
MOONBLIGHT. I 79 
 
 " What s the matter with me ?" said Clint. 
 
 "Well, professor, Mr. Butts is one of der 
 silent-preacher kind ; he don t talk much wid 
 his mouth, but he s great on a prayer, you 
 bet ! Oh, he s a one-er when it comes to 
 praying ! " Sam announced enthusiastically. 
 
 " Why, Sam, you wretch ! I have not said 
 my prayers since I was a lad." 
 
 " Have n t, eh ? " replied the bar-keeper. 
 " Why, you re at it all der time. You pray 
 thet a hole shall be made in der mountain, 
 and you pray wid pick, shovel, gunpowder, 
 and surveying implements. And, gewhilli- 
 kens ! Lo ! there s der hole. Prayer answered; 
 see ? Now, take all those make-believe Chris 
 tians thet pray for der poor people on Sun 
 days, and work all der week to make them 
 poorer, what is their real prayer ? They get 
 down on their marrow-bones to try to fool 
 der Good Lord on Sunday, and pray all der 
 week by their work just der other way. What 
 a man works for, he is praying for; see ? What 
 he says wid his mouth don t amount to noth 
 ing ; thet ain t his prayer. In a whole church- 
 ful of people, how many are game enough to 
 put der real prayer in words, so thet all could 
 hear ? Bout one, I reckon, in a hundred." 
 
 " Come, Sam, don t be too hard on the 
 
l8o MOONBL1GHT. 
 
 church people, for I intend to build a big 
 church, and make you a deacon ; and all 
 preachers that choose to come here shall be 
 allowed to preach from the pulpit of that 
 church, and say just what suits them. But no 
 one denomination shall ever have control. 
 They are all brothers, or they are not Chris 
 tians." 
 
 " Geewhiz ! Let der bug hop, sir ! I m in 
 for thet church ! " said Sam, as we all parted 
 for the night. 
 
 Again I bade farewell to my genial friend, 
 the professor ; the only one of my former 
 friends that I have seen since leaving my 
 yacht, months ago, at Port Jefferson, L. I. A 
 feeling of sadness crept over me, as I saw 
 my learned ally board the train to continue 
 his lecturing tour a feeling of loneliness that 
 I could not dispel. Moonblight, in spite of 
 the snow, in spite of the frost, was flourish 
 ing. Sleighbells jingled in the streets, the 
 merry voices of children could be heard on 
 the hillsides, as their heavily loaded sleds 
 spun down the icy slopes. The American 
 flag floated from the liberty-pole in the park, 
 and the smoke that came from the cottage 
 chimneys told that there were warm fires 
 within ; but I was alone : the pleasant greet- 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 1 8 I 
 
 ings I received from each passer-by somehow 
 failed to cheer me, as I tramped back through 
 the snow. The desolate specter of the strike 
 seemed to leer like some monster over the 
 mountains, and with hungry eyes to threat 
 en the peace and prosperity of our little vil 
 lage. I knew that if the coal companies could 
 by any means crush my town they would do 
 so, and that the laws of the State, if they did 
 not uphold them, would never help me. I 
 should be crushed, law or no law. 
 
 The air was crisp and cold, the snow un 
 der foot squeaked and crunched, plainly in 
 dicating that every drop of moisture in it 
 was transformed into brilliant crystals, and, 
 as a gust of wind would blow up a little 
 cloud of snow, and twist it around in a min 
 iature whirlwind, the icy particles glistened 
 in the sun like a shower of diamonds. Christ 
 mas greens decorated the shops, but the dark 
 clouds of doubt and helplessness so filled my 
 mind that the invigorating air, the merry 
 voices, and the Christmas greens were un 
 able to dispel them. I reached my office- 
 door, turned the knob, and entered. 
 
 Throwing myself into an office-chair in 
 front of the dying embers of the fire, I did 
 nothing to repel the attack of melancholy 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 183 
 
 which already had possession of me ; but, on 
 the contrary, I threw open the gates of my 
 mind and heart, spiked the guns of hope, and 
 banished all cheerful thoughts. 
 
 Not only did I not repel the enemy, but I 
 gave it a hearty welcome, and, as thousands 
 of people are doing at this very moment, I 
 coddled and warmed the invading "blue 
 devils " in my bosom into stronger life fed 
 them on morbid thoughts until they grew 
 fat. 
 
 I abandoned myself to the luxury of being 
 perfectly miserable. 
 
 What is the use of trying to do right ? 
 Why make an attempt to do anything differ 
 ently from other men ? 
 
 The old paths are the safest to travel ; they 
 are well worn, free from underbrush and 
 briers, and supplied with a goodly company 
 of jolly traveling companions. 
 
 New paths are guarded by unknown mon 
 sters ; the ground, strewn with sharp stones, 
 is full of pitfalls; thorns and briers impede 
 the way, but fail to hide the bleaching bones 
 and grinning skulls of former explorers. 
 
 Why not return to my old, careless life in. 
 New York City ? 
 
 Why? Because it is too late too late. I 
 
184 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 have passed that stage of my life s journey, 
 I thought, and it would be as impossible for 
 me to return to it as it would be to PX> back 
 
 o 
 
 to my twenty-first birthday. 
 
 I imagine the utter dreariness of gazing, 
 day after day, from the club window on Fifth 
 Avenue, only varying the monotony by an 
 
 A RED-FACED OLD CLU15MAN. 
 
 occasional Manhattan cocktail ; to sit and 
 dawdle with my glass and cigar, and watch 
 the toiling mass of humanity that pass the 
 club windows, and to know that one and all, 
 the typewriter, the stage-driver, the clerk, the 
 fruit-vender and the scavenger, are all toiling 
 to supply me with a club window, cocktails 
 and the companionship of some red-faced, 
 
MOONBLIGHT. I 8 5 
 
 gray-haired old clubmen, or loose-jointed, 
 big, flabby, white-faced young clubmen. 
 
 No, it is too late; and the company of 
 the frost-headed old idlers would drive me 
 from the club-rooms, while the sight of the 
 helplessly inane faces of the younger men 
 would cause me to wish that I had never 
 been born. 
 
 Better to fight my fight at Moonblight ; 
 but, oh, how lonesome I felt ! I had devel 
 oped great affection for Sam and Clint, but 
 they were not the boon companions to whom 
 I had been so long accustomed. Oh ! for 
 some one to whom to go when I felt tired ; 
 some one to help me with an encouraging 
 word or suggestion; some one to 
 
 The office door flew open, a gust of bitter 
 cold air and Sam rushed in. Sam s dark eyes 
 were snapping, as he exclaimed : 
 
 " Well, sir, there is the devil to pay, and no 
 mistake ! " 
 
 I motioned him to take a seat, which he 
 did, first helping himself to an armful of 
 small sticks from the wood -box, casting 
 them on the embers in the wide-gaping fire 
 place. 
 
 -Well?" I said. 
 
 " T ain t well at all, sir ! " and Sam gave 
 
1 8 6 MO ONE LIGHT. 
 
 the fire a vicious punch with a small crowbar 
 we used for a poker. " Them Hessians 
 dod rat their ornery hides ! " and the bar 
 keeper banged the wood such a blow that 
 the sparks went flying up the chimney. 
 
 " Well, the Hessians, Sam, who are 
 they?" 
 
 " Oh, those Slinkerton detectives who have 
 been prowling around with der guns as if 
 dey were wid Stanley in Africa ! Well, one 
 of them s got a head as red as a Japanese 
 devil; and Big Buck Thornton, he laughed 
 at him, called him Carrot Top, and asked him 
 if he was laying around looking for white 
 horses. With that all the strikers by the 
 breaker laughed, and it made the Slinkerton 
 so mad that he up with his Winchester and 
 fired into the crowd, and. killed " 
 
 "Whom?" I exclaimed. 
 
 " Another woman, of course ! "said the bar 
 keeper. "The strikers," he continued, "are 
 gathering in force, and swear revenge. All 
 our men want to aid the strikers, and it is as 
 much as Clint and I can do to keep the mines 
 working. Our men say blood is thicker than 
 water ; the strikers are their brothers, and 
 our miners argue that to keep quiet while a 
 band of hired ruffians shoot down their 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 187 
 
 neighbors wives and children is simply cow 
 ardice. Clint and I have put on extra gangs 
 of men wherever we could find room for 
 them, and we are doin our best to keep all 
 hands so busy that they will not have time 
 to get in harm s way. But there s going to 
 be trouble over there"; and Sam scowled at 
 the mountains that separated our village and 
 mines from those of my enemies and former 
 associates. 
 
 So my gloomy forebodings were not with 
 out cause. However odd it may appear, 
 now that trouble was in sight I felt a strange 
 reaction and a certain gay buoyancy of spirit 
 as I listened to Sam s narrative. As the real 
 trouble approached, the gloomy forebodings 
 fled. 
 
 A week passed, and the subdued grum 
 blings of the strikers could be heard every 
 where. A mass-meeting was held, and the 
 Pinkertons denounced as murderers. This 
 incendiary language being reported, the 
 sheriff demanded assistance, and the gov 
 ernor of the commonwealth ordered out 
 the militia: they were even now expected, 
 Sam informed me. The words had barely 
 escaped his lips when I heard the drums, and, 
 to my horror, they sounded as if they were 
 
1 88 MOON BLIGHT. 
 
 marching through Moonblight. Next, I 
 heard hooting and shouting. 
 
 Snatching my hat, I rushed out, to behold, 
 marching up toward the main street of the 
 village, a regiment of our State Guards, sur 
 rounded on all sides by a mob of women and 
 children. 
 
 As I approached nearer, I could could see 
 that most of the soldiers were young fellows 
 with smooth faces; but among the officers 
 were a few grizzled men, upon whose breasts 
 hung the bronze star worn by veterans of 
 the late civil war. Hastening up to one of 
 them, whose shoulder-straps proclaimed him 
 to be the colonel, I touched my hat, and, 
 walking by his horse s side, asked him if he 
 could not march his regiment by some other 
 route, calling his attention to the wild, half- 
 scared looks with which his boyish soldiers 
 viewed the screaming mob. I told him that 
 I feared some accident would cause an out 
 break in my peaceful town. 
 
 The colonel was courteous, as are all vet 
 erans, and replied that his judgment agreed 
 with mine, but that he had positive orders 
 to move his men as he did. My enemies had 
 political influence, and were using it, it was 
 evident, to tempt my men to riot. 
 
NEW PATHS. 
 
 THORNS AND BRIERS IMPEDE THE WAY, BUT FAIL- 
 TO HIDE THE BLEACHING BONES AND GRINNING 
 SKULLS OF FORMER EXPLORERS. 
 I8 9 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 A piece of ice came whizzing by the colo 
 nel and me; and as we turned, in alarm, an 
 other piece struck the color-sergeant, and he 
 fell forward. It was the work of some boys, 
 and I rushed into the crowd to stop them. A 
 gang of miners, with their pails in hand, were 
 just above us on the path, watching the pa 
 rade. I had only time to notice this when I 
 heard a shot, another, then an irregular vol 
 ley, followed by screams and curses. I saw 
 the old colonel, sword in hand, shouting to 
 his men; I saw the miners rushing toward us; 
 then I felt a sudden blow in my side, and, 
 turning around to see who had struck me, I 
 was astonished to find myself alone. When 
 I removed my hand from the spot where I 
 had felt the blow, it was covered with blood ! 
 I was shot ! 
 
 Yet at first I felt no inconvenience, except 
 a numb sensation where the bullet entered. 
 
 Meantime, the riot was at its height. I saw 
 one woman pull off her stocking: there was 
 blood on it; but there was more on it before 
 the day was over; for, slipping a round lump 
 of coal in the foot, and tying a knot in the leg 
 of the stocking, she used her hose as a war- 
 club with terrible effect upon the heads of 
 the soldiers. 
 
MO ONE LIGHT. 1 9 I 
 
 The worst had come. I knew not what to 
 do. My shouts were unheeded. I was sur 
 rounded by demons not human beings. 
 Every eye was staring, each hand grasped 
 whatsoever weapon came handy, and with 
 only one purpose to kill. Another shout, 
 and a band of detectives came dashing down 
 the street with their Winchesters. The broken 
 ranks of the State troops reunited. 
 
 I saw the little humpbacked figure of 
 Nate bending over a wounded woman. I 
 saw a burly detective level his revolver and 
 fire, and the lad drop. The next instant a 
 square-faced man, with heavy, bull-dog jaws 
 and a black mustache, appeared. Although 
 apparently unarmed, he walked slowly up to 
 the detective, without any show of excite 
 ment. I shouted, but my voice was weak, 
 and I could not rise from the sitting posture 
 I had unconsciously assumed. 
 
 The detective evidently was under the im 
 pression that the man meant to surrender ; but 
 the impression was of short duration. I heard 
 Clint s familiar voice say, "Take that, you 
 cowardly Hessian ! " And the representative 
 of private enterprise and the lack of law doub 
 led up from an unexpected blow in the abdo 
 men, only to receive an upper cut in the face. 
 
1 9 2 MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 11 Down with the Hessians ! " cried another 
 voice; and Sam, the bar-keeper, ran to Clint s 
 side. 
 
 My head swam; but, with an almost super 
 human effort I gained my feet and stagger 
 ed toward my men. 
 
 " Colonel !" I shouted, "Colonel ! for God s 
 sake, stop the firing ! They are killing inno 
 cent people ! " 
 
 At last I w r as noticed, and my men became 
 quiet. The colonel got control of his reg 
 iment, but the detectives had not yet played 
 their part ; for they meant that there should 
 be a riot at Moonblight, and they had no 
 intention of allowing it to subside until it 
 had reached an important magnitude. Riots 
 are their stock in trade ; without them their 
 calling is gone, and here was an opportunity 
 not to be missed. At the same time, they 
 had a number of old scores of a personal na 
 ture to settle with both Clint and Sam, and 
 no sooner were my aids recognized by the 
 detectives than a grand rush was made to 
 capture them as " ringleaders." 
 
 The bar -keeper and the superintendent 
 were standing side by side, alone, and only 
 a short distance ahead of me. 
 
 " Fire one shot, move one step, and we will 
 
THE WOMAN S WAR-CLUB. 
 
194 MOONBL1GHT. 
 
 blow the whole durned lot of you to hell ! " 
 shouted Sam; and I saw the two friends each 
 take a couple of oblong packages from their 
 pockets. 
 
 "Dynamite! Clint! Sam!" I cried; then 
 reeled. The troops and the rioters ran in 
 circles around me ; the earth heaved, and 
 struck my face I saw no more. 
 
 The grizzled old colonel sat with Sam and 
 Clint on the ground, and, with the aid of the 
 colonel s sword, they cut up a detective into 
 square pieces. Clint used these to build a 
 wall with ; it took the united strength of the 
 three to lift some of the stones in place. I 
 was deeply interested in the operation, when 
 one of them turned to look at me. It was 
 not the colonel, Sam, nor Clint, it was Mr. 
 Keene, in immaculate collar and cuffs. 
 
 He and his associates placed the pieces of 
 flesh it was Humpy s flesh into the letter 
 press, and squeezed out, not blood, but 
 gold, which they divided amongst them 
 selves. How they watched each other ! How 
 disgraceful ! Without exception, each, as 
 opportunity offered, helped himself from his 
 neighbor s pile. 
 
MOONBL IGH 7\ 195 
 
 I was mistaken; for, after all, it was only 
 a group of chickens eating corn in the back 
 yard of the old farm in Ohio. Oh, no; I was 
 not in the least alarmed, for how could the 
 old rooster reach me, and I safe in the second 
 story and the window down ? 
 
 But, horror ! the old cock s neck began 
 to stretch; it grew longer and longer; the 
 head reached the window, and the great, 
 blazing eye peered in at me. Grandmother 
 came into the room just in time, and the 
 neck receded and the head disappeared. 
 
 If Grandmother would only come to my 
 bedside, and smooth my pillow, instead of 
 standing at the opposite end of the room, 
 and reaching her long arms across the bed 
 chamber, I would not be afraid of her. 
 
 Professor Follium came in, and, breaking 
 open two dynamite cartridges, he poured the 
 contents into the binnacle light, took out his 
 watch, looked at it, then examined the min 
 ing-pumps I had in my wrist. I told him 
 that one needed a new valve, and he, say 
 ing that Clint would attend to that, asked 
 me to have a drink with him. I called the 
 steward, and he brought us two glasses of 
 wine. Then the professor examined the 
 pumps, and again looked at his watch, 
 
I 96 MOONR LIGHT. 
 
 smiled, left the cockpit, and disappeared 
 over the stern. The wine had a soothing 
 effect, and I think I must have fallen asleep 
 and slept soundly until I was conscious of a 
 faint perfume greeting" my nostrils a per 
 fume so faint that I was not sure it did not 
 emanate from my imagination; yet it was a 
 strangely familiar perfume. It took me back 
 to the city, to the theatre, to the ball-room, 
 to a certain particular ball-room, and I re 
 membered the hostess and all the guests. 
 
 I remembered, and I felt a blush crimson 
 my face as memory brought up the conserv 
 atory, the tropical plants, the rare flowers, 
 the strange caged birds. But it was not the 
 plants, the flowers, or the birds that made 
 me blush: it was the sight of a girlish face, 
 a slight, girlish figure, and two lustrous dark 
 eyes that looked timidly into mine as the 
 hostess presented me. 
 
 This was the girl I was too cowardly to 
 see ; this was the girl whose true heart had 
 never doubted mine through all my unac 
 countable absence; and I felt the warm blood 
 suffuse my face again for shame that I could 
 ever have been afraid to see her as she really 
 was. 
 
 The perfume grew more apparent. I im- 
 
MOONBLIGHT. 
 
 197 
 
 agined that I felt a soft, caressing hand 
 stroke my hair. I was dreaming, for I heard 
 my name repeated twice. It was a pleasant 
 dream, and, looking up, I beheld those same 
 lustrous eyes, the same timid look, the same 
 girlish face; and then the voice said: 
 
 " Do you know me, dear ? There don t 
 speak ! " And a slender white finger was 
 placed upon my lips. The delirium was over, 
 and I was making my long-postponed visit 
 at her house. 
 
SIX FEET OF ROMANCE 
 
SIX FEET OF ROMANCE. 
 
 rn OMETHING unac 
 countable had hap 
 pened. A hand, a 
 real, live hand, in a 
 long lace mitten 
 that allowed the 
 tapering white fingers 
 with their pink tips to 
 show, reached out of the 
 surrounding haze. 
 
 To say that I was as 
 tonished is to describe in 
 very mild terms the daz 
 ed state in which I sat 
 and stared. Left alone 
 in my studio, I had been 
 examining some new 
 treasure-trove in the 
 shape of small household 
 articles, mementos of the 
 home life of the last century, which it had 
 been my good fortune to rescue from junk 
 and attic rubbish. 
 
 Thanks are due the Cosmopolitan Publishing Company for 
 kind permission to reprint, from their magazine, the illustrations 
 which accompany this story. 
 
2O2 SIX FEET OF ROMANCE. 
 
 From my earliest boyhood ancient wearing- 
 apparel, old household and kitchen utensils, 
 and antique furniture have appealed to me 
 with peculiar force; telling facts, and relating 
 incidents in such a plain, homely, but graphic 
 manner of the every-day life of our ances 
 tors, that I look upon them more as text 
 books than as curiosities; for it is only by the 
 light of truth, reflected from these objects, 
 that we are enabled to brush away the 
 romance that tinges the most ordinary facts, 
 or pierce the rose-hued atmosphere of fiction 
 with which the perspective of years sur 
 rounds the commonest objects of those re 
 mote times. 
 
 My antique frying-pans, toasters, and 
 waffle-irons all have very long handles; the 
 andirons of the same date rear their massive 
 brass heads several feet above their strong 
 wrought-iron cross-bars. 
 
 How plainly these things tell us of the 
 great log fires that roared in their ample fire 
 places, in the brave old days of our great- 
 grandsires ! How the reflected flames must 
 have glistened in the polished brass knobs 
 on the andirons, and cast a warm glow on 
 the powdered wigs of courtly dames, sparkled 
 on the hilts of young gallants swords, and 
 
SIX FEET OF ROMANCE. 
 
 20. 
 
 HOW PLAINLY THESE THINGS TELL 
 US OF THE GREAT LOG FIRES THAT 
 ROARED IN THE AMPLE FIRE- 
 
 PLACES!" 
 
 flushed the pretty faces of 
 maids in their finery of stiff 
 pointed waists and rich flow 
 ered brocades ! 
 
 I had been gazing especial 
 ly with a gratified, satisfied 
 sense of ownership at what 
 I considered the gem of my 
 find an old-fashioned foot- 
 stove. 
 
 This is not the ordinary tin 
 box, such as one finds among 
 the carefully preserved relics 
 of any well-cared-for colonial 
 homestead. It is a foot-stove 
 of more than ordinary beauty 
 of form and make. The 
 square box that 
 forms the stove 
 proper is of iron, 
 hammered by hand 
 into thin sheets, the 
 top an d sides of 
 which are perforated 
 with small holes ar 
 ranged in complicat 
 ed and intricate 
 designs, while the 
 
2O4 SIX FEET OF ROMANCE. 
 
 framework which holds the box is made of 
 quaintly carved mahogany. The door forms 
 one side of the stove, and it stood open, 
 showing- within the metal cup that still held 
 the ashes of coals which had glowed and 
 burned over a hundred years ago. I ob- 
 
 . 
 
 "THE DOOR FORMS ONE SIDE OF THE STOVE, AND IT STOOD OPEN, 
 SHOWING WITHIN THE METAL CUP." 
 
 served the top crosspieces of the wooden 
 frame were worn in their middle to thin 
 strips by the generations of feet that had 
 warmed their toes over the hot embers. 
 
 You know when you look continuously 
 and intently at one object for a long time, 
 all your surroundings will become misty, in- 
 
SIX FEET OF ROMANCE. 205 
 
 distinct, and finally disappear. That was the 
 way with the old foot-stove, as I gazed at it. 
 
 Down a hundred feet or more below me, 
 Broadway s rumbling, bustling tide was be 
 ginning to ebb. The orange-colored gas-jets 
 had commenced to glimmer, and the purplish 
 glare of the fierce electric lights made sput 
 tering nebulae in the misty rain. But of this 
 I seemed to be aware through an interior 
 sense, for all my powers of physical sight 
 were occupied in watching a most wonderful 
 occurrence a hand had reached out of the 
 haze surrounding my foot-stove, and taken 
 the metal cup from the open door, and van 
 ished. 
 
 I can scarcely expect my readers to believe 
 this, and I hardly believed the evidence of 
 my own eyes but there was my foot-stove 
 empty. A circular mark in the dust covering 
 the rusty iron floor of the stove alone bore 
 witness of the recent presence of the metal 
 cup. 
 
 I sat and stared blankly until aroused by 
 the presence of the same beautiful, delicate, 
 feminine hand, which replaced the iron cup 
 in the stove, closed and latched the door, and 
 melted away. Thin threads of blue smoke 
 streamed through the perforations of the iron 
 
206 
 
 SIX FEET OF ROMANCE. 
 
 box, like incense, and I was conscious of the 
 odor of burning wood that awakened mem 
 ories of an old Kentucky log-house, familiar 
 to my boyhood; but the house was forgotten 
 
 "A HAND HAD REACHED OUT OF THE HAZE SURROUNDING MY 
 FOOT-STOVE AND TAKEN THE METAL CUP." 
 
 when I saw, materialized from the cloudy 
 haze, a foot oh, such a dainty foot ! 
 
 The quaint, red silken shoe that incased 
 this new visitor was latched over the instep 
 with a silver buckle, and the shoe had the 
 
SIX FEET OF ROMANCE. 2O/ 
 
 highest of high heels. The slender ankle, 
 with its silken hose, that faded away in the 
 surrounding mists, or was modestly hidden 
 by the filmy lace of an overhanging skirt, 
 was as delicate as the fairy foot in its quaint 
 ly shaped shoe, that now rested on the top 
 of the well-worn crosspiece of the ancient 
 foot-warmer. 
 
 There were two feet, as I could plainly 
 see, side by side, absorbing the genial heat 
 that filtered through the perforations from 
 the glowing coals inside the box, but they 
 apparently remained only a sufficient time to 
 assure their owner that the coals inside were 
 warm and bright: then they were gone, and 
 I heard, or thought I heard, the rustling of a 
 stiff gown and skirts. 
 
 The hand was now again visible, this time 
 covered with a red woolen mitten, and 
 grasping the handle of my foot-stove it lifted 
 it from the floor and moved off. 
 
 But all these unaccountable and wonder 
 ful occurrences were not sufficiently startling 
 to blind me to the fact that my much-prized 
 antique was about to be taken away from 
 me. It was not my desire to break the con 
 tinuity of such wonderful occurrences by any 
 rash act; but the loss of my treasure was not 
 
208 
 
 SIX FEET OF ROMANCE. 
 
 to be contemplated, and even the knowledge 
 that it was in the possession of such fasci 
 nating hands and feet did not prevent me 
 from hastily rising to follow it. 
 
 THERE WERE TWO FEET, AS I COULD PLAINLY SEE, 
 SIDE BY SIDE." 
 
 My memory fails to recall how it was we 
 reached the ground, without descending the 
 long flight of stairs in the building. How 
 ever, I was presently conscious of walking 
 
SIX FEET OF ROMANCE. 2 09 
 
 over uneven and unfamiliar pavements, to 
 tally different from Broadway. 
 
 Right in front and but a short distance 
 ahead of me tripped the red silken shoes, 
 their high wooden heels tinkling over the 
 frozen ground. Presently my attention was 
 arrested and my wonder increased by meet- 
 ingapair of yellow-topped boots, that I at once 
 recognized as a pair that I had left hanging, 
 along with some buckskin trousers, upon my 
 studio wall. I knew them at a glance, and 
 their identification was complete, when I saw 
 the new heels which I had had put on them, 
 and the tear in the top of one, made by the 
 struggles of a fat model in his frantic efforts to 
 pull the boot-leg over his bulky calf. (The 
 leather in these ancient foot-coverings is so 
 dry and brittle that unless great care is taken, 
 it will tear like paper.) 
 
 I have always regarded these old boots 
 with a feeling akin to awe, imagining that 
 they must have been worn by some pow 
 dered and buckled hero, like the " old-fash 
 ioned Colonel," who " galloped through the 
 white infernal powder cloud," but if they had 
 been upon the feet of a country bumpkin, 
 they could scarcely have appeared to worse 
 advantage than they did as they hesitated 
 
2 JO SIX FEE 7^ OF ROMANCE. 
 
 and halted beside the little red shoes. With 
 toes turned in, the boots shuffled uneasily 
 about, almost tripping over each other in 
 their embarrassment. , 
 
 There is a witchery about a beautiful 
 woman that envelops her like a mantle, 
 reaching and covering even her feet. It is, 
 
 "MY WONDER WAS INCREASED BY MEETING A PAIR OF 
 YELLOW-TOPPED BOOTS." 
 
 in fact, as if she were surrounded by a pe 
 culiar atmosphere, which not only obscures 
 or hides all defects of mind or body, but at 
 the same instant brings into greater promi 
 nence all her exquisite loveliness. 
 
 It was probably a perception of this that 
 made the boots so self-conscious. As for the 
 high-heeled shoes, they behaved in a most 
 
SIX FEET OF ROMANCE. 
 
 coquettish manner, which apparently only 
 tended to heighten rather than impair their 
 charm. 
 
 However that may be, the rarest old cos 
 tume in America could not have tempted me 
 to stand in those old boots. 
 
 The greeting over, the two pairs moved 
 off together, and I followed after them, hav 
 ing now a double interest a pair of boots 
 and a foot-stove. True, the boots are old 
 and worn: one is a duplicate of the other, or, 
 as a shoemaker would say, they are not 
 rights and lefts." The toes are bluntly 
 pointed and stiff, but I know of no other 
 boots of the same make and date, and that 
 is the reason they are dear to me. 
 
 They did not appear to be in the least 
 dear to those little reckless feet in the red, 
 buckled shoes, and I made a mental note, as 
 they tripped carelessly on, how the high 
 heels prevented the small feet from touching 
 aught but their toes to the earth, while the 
 great broad-soled, pointed-toed, square-heel 
 ed boots moved along humbly and awk 
 wardly, slap ! slap! slap! beside their tiny 
 companions. 
 
 The amount of emotion and thought that 
 can be expressed by feet was a revelation 
 
212 
 
 SIX FEET OF ROMANCE. 
 
 to me. Such graphic expression of, not only 
 character, but incident and feeling as well, 
 gave an additional interest to this strange 
 adventure, and the interest grew to excite 
 ment when I saw a pair of Wellington boots 
 
 "I HAVE ALWAYS REGARDED THESE OLD BOOTS WITH A 
 FEELING AKIN TO AWE." 
 
 come walking briskly up. I knew them, knew 
 them well, for I had often tried to induce 
 their owner to part with them. They belong 
 ed to a studio in the Sherwood Building. 
 As the* new-comers came in sight, my boots 
 looked mad. One would think it impossible 
 
SIX FEET OF ROMANCE. 213 
 
 for a pair of boots to show anger, but the 
 manner in which my old Continentals set 
 themselves squarely upon the ground, the 
 bluntly pointed toes turned out in a dignified 
 yet defiant manner, was very expressive, and 
 as unmistakable as a clenched fist or a cor 
 rugated brow. 
 
 A moment s hesitation, and the little red 
 shoes ran ahead to meet the Wellingtons, 
 and there they stood, side by side, the new 
 comers a great deal closer to the dainty silk 
 en toes than my poor boots had dared to 
 come. Intuitively I began to take sides 
 with my property; my sympathies were all 
 with the Continentals, and I was aware of an 
 undignified prejudice and jealousy toward 
 an old pair of Wellington boots. 
 
 As the pedestrians started on their walk 
 again, the feminine shoes guarded by the 
 Continentals and Wellingtons on either side, 
 I followed, fully determined to pursue the 
 adventure to an end. 
 
 The foot-path that we traveled was strewn 
 with dead leaves and edged with grass. No 
 thought of where we were disturbed me, but 
 I was impressed with the feeling that the 
 Wellington boots were trying to monopolize 
 the attention of the red shoes, and either ig- 
 
214 SIX FEET OF ROMANCE. 
 
 noring my Continentals entirely, or acknowl 
 edging" their presence only by slighting or 
 flippant remarks; and my surmises were in a 
 measure confirmed by the occasional grind 
 ing twist of a Continental heel into the 
 frozen sod. 
 
 Presently we turned into a well-traveled 
 road, where there seemed to be many feet, 
 
 "IT WAS PROBABLY A PERCEPTION OF THIS THAT MADE THE 
 BOOTS SO SELF-CONSCIOUS." 
 
 all walking in the same direction. Their des 
 tination proved to be a building, which we 
 entered after ascending some wooden steps. 
 A musty odor, peculiar to hymn-books and 
 woodwork which only receive an airing 
 once a week, proclaimed the building to be 
 a church. 
 
 If it was cold inside the edifice I was not 
 
SIX FEE 7" OF ROMANCE. 2 I 5 
 
 reminded of it until the little red-mittened 
 hand placed the old foot-stove near by, and 
 the same fascinating red-clothed feet hopped 
 upon it. Close upon one side were my old 
 Continental boots, and upon the other side 
 the Wellingtons. 
 
 It was with ill-concealed impatience that 
 I watched the egotistical wrinkles assumed 
 by the impertinent, uptown studio boots, 
 and I felt my blood tingle with anger when 
 they rested their varnished and polished toes 
 against my old foot-stove, upon the top of 
 which the little red shoes were perched. 
 
 For a time all three pairs of foot-gear 
 maintained a deportment sufficiently discreet 
 for church manners, but the way the Conti 
 nentals finally kicked over a wooden foot 
 stool satisfied me that they at least were not 
 in a receptive mood for the sermon. 
 
 Although conscious, in a general way, of 
 my surroundings, my senses of hearing and 
 of sight were focused upon the three pairs of 
 feet, and what did not immediately affect 
 them made no impression upon me. 
 
 I suppose the benediction was said, but I 
 heard neither sermon, hymn, nor benedic 
 tion, and only judged the services had ended 
 by the movement of the feet. 
 
2l6 
 
 SIX FEET OF ROMANCE. 
 
 When the dainty, high-heeled shoes had 
 descended from their perch upon the foot- 
 warmer, two hands reached down simulta 
 neously, as if to take the stove. One was 
 
 "TWO HANDS REACHED DOWN SIMULTANEOUSLY AS IF TO 
 TAKE THE STOVE." 
 
 broad, muscular and sunburned; the other 
 was gloved, but showed an aristocratic nar 
 rowness and length of fingers, and, notwith 
 standing the rich lace frill which fell partly 
 
SIX FEET OF ROMANCE. 2 I J 
 
 over it from the wrist, there was nothing 
 weak or effeminate in its appearance. 
 
 While I could not help admiring the refine 
 ment and genteel proportions of the gloved 
 hand, I disliked it all the more for its good 
 points. There was a momentary struggle 
 between those two hands for the possession 
 of my foot-stove, but it was soon evident 
 that the brown fingers had been too quick 
 for their rivals, and the latter retired, only to 
 immediately reappear with a small visiting 
 card between the index and the second 
 fingers. 
 
 Once again we were walking over the 
 frozen ground of the country road, retracing 
 our steps, and we had proceeded quite a dis 
 tance, when my strange guides stopped for 
 a moment, and then departed. The red 
 shoes tripped lightly away until they passed 
 the base of two large stone posts, but walked 
 more slowly as they continued up a well- 
 kept path. 
 
 To my surprise, the boots did not offer to 
 follow, but both pairs strode briskly together 
 off in an opposite direction. 
 
 Here was a dilemma I had not anticipated. 
 I was morally certain the red shoes had car 
 ried off my foot-stove, but when I thought 
 
218 
 
 SIX FEET OF ROMANCE. 
 
 of my Continentals disappearing- in company 
 with those Wellingtons I decided to follow 
 the boots, consoling myself w r ith the thought 
 that the stove was probably safe, and that, in 
 the ordinary and natural course of events, 
 the boots would be sure to find the silken 
 shoes again, and I my foot-warmer. 
 
 We left the road, and walked Indian file 
 through underbrush and briers to what ap- 
 
 "ONLY TO IMMEDIATELY REAPPEAR WITH A SMALL VISITING CARD 
 BETWEEN THE INDEX AND SECOND FINGERS." 
 
 peared to be a clearing in the woods. I was 
 glad to be out of the brambles; for, knowing 
 the fragile condition of my old boots, I 
 greatly feared there would be nothing left 
 of the top leather, and so interested was I 
 in looking them over to count the damage, 
 that I at first failed to notice their odd pose. 
 With toes pointing at right angles from each 
 other, the boots stood planted wide apart, 
 
SIX FEET OF ROMANCE. 2IQ 
 
 with a peculiar, and I thought somewhat 
 dangerous, look, if such a term maybe used, 
 when my attention was attracted by a clink 
 and ring of metal, and, raising my eyes, I 
 saw two gleaming steel blades two long, 
 bright swords fencing in midair, lunging and 
 parrying away in fine style. 
 
 My heart fairly stood still with excitement. 
 I dreaded lest some lunge or stab might bring 
 a pale, intense face within the circle of my 
 vision. 
 
 It was skillful and brave work. That broad, 
 brown hand was as firm as iron, yet as sup 
 ple in the wrist as a steel spring; and its long, 
 thin, white -lace -edged antagonist was as 
 quick and vicious as a cat s paw. 
 
 For an instant the only movement of the 
 crossed swords was a nervous tremor, then, 
 like a flash, came a quick stroke and a twist. 
 Up went one sword with a ringing sound, 
 glinting into the air. 
 
 Bravo ! I was about to cry, when I was 
 hushed by the appearance of that same soft, 
 feminine, lace-mittened hand, much whiter 
 now than before. It grasped the victorious 
 blade and closed the pretty fingers tightly 
 over the wicked, shining steel, while its trem 
 bling mate rested upon the big, broad, brown 
 
22O SIX FEE T OF ROMANCE. 
 
 hand that still held the sword on guard. 
 There was a moment s pause; then the sword 
 dropped, and two brown, sinewy hands 
 grasped the little, mittened fingers in a rap 
 turous, uncontrollable sort of way, which not 
 only plainly said that they cared not to press 
 their vantage with the sword, but that they 
 would brave anything for the sake of hold 
 ing those little lace-mittened fingers. 
 
 To make sure to whom the brown hands 
 belonged, I cast down my eyes, and saw, as 
 I felt 1 would, my old Continental boots. 
 They were now no longer awkward, but with 
 a sturdy, manly, happy stride, they walked 
 alongside the red, silken, high-heeled, buck 
 led shoes, and while these looked just as 
 pretty, just as dainty and just as piquant as 
 ever, they had not now any suggestion of 
 coquetry about them. 
 
 As they moved off I followed, until we 
 came suddenly upon my old foot -stove, 
 where it had been hastily dropped by the 
 side of the path. While I looked at it, the 
 boots and shoes passed on. I noticed that the 
 stove - door was open, and all looked dark 
 within. 
 
 The haze around the old foot - warmer 
 gradually melted away, and I saw reflections 
 
SIX FEET OF ROMANCE. 
 
 221 
 
 of the lights from the streets dancing upon 
 the walls of my studio, and in the dusky 
 shadows I could trace what appeared to be 
 my old Continental boots hanging alongside 
 the buckskin trousers. 
 
 I jumped from my seat, lighted a match, 
 and examined the old foot-stove. The cin 
 ders were still in the metal cup. I moisten 
 ed my finger with my tongue, touched the 
 cinders, but they were cold! 
 
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YC C8083 
 
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