y 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 "SON"
 
 "SON 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 1911
 
 Copyright, 
 BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published September, 1911
 
 TO SON 
 
 LIBRARY
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 "SON" I 
 
 J IM 33 
 
 THE LITTLE CLOWN 59 
 
 TOM 89 
 
 NILS 121 
 
 BILL 151 
 
 THE OUTLAW 185 
 
 COUSIN LEMUEL 221 
 
 THE REFLEX 259
 
 " SON "
 
 "SON 
 
 FATHER was a person who occasionally 
 just before bedtime emerged from a 
 place called " Down Town " and interrupted 
 Son's mental activities by inviting the latter 
 to ride on his shoulders. Now Son was by 
 nature polite, and hated to disappoint, but 
 if Father had only realized the horror . . . 
 to look down and down at those dizzying 
 stairs. . . . 
 
 " He will never be manly," said Father. 
 
 Yet, the year before, when the doctor, being 
 warned of Mother, had intimated that it would 
 be necessary to hurt him, Son had stiffened 
 his little frame and had let him go ahead. 
 And the dark held for him only delight. His 
 little room, where he slept alone, was his 
 great pride. The light out, the photograph 
 of Hofmann's Christ over his head seemed to 
 merge into the colored lithographs of Venice 
 3
 
 Son " 
 
 adorning the other walls, and above the blue 
 waters, out of blue skies, looked down the 
 Face. Son, half asleep, was wont to rouse 
 himself from this ecstatic vision to make 
 poetry, which he would repeat next morning 
 to any one who could be got to listen. There 
 was much of starry skies, and silent night, 
 and the majesty of God in these lines, 
 which were in blank verse, for Son was 
 only six. 
 
 " He talk all de time outdoors," complained 
 his nurse, " so much dat before he get 
 home he ask for a glass of water already." 
 
 The family did not go to church, but Son 
 got over this difficulty by holding service 
 himself every Sunday morning. Baby at 
 tended regularly, but Mother found it out 
 quite by chance when she heard " Onward, 
 Christian Soldiers " taking its turn impartially 
 with " When we fit for General Grant." 
 
 Father, who wielded a facile pen, had 
 
 brought home a dummy copy of his new book. 
 
 It contained, beside title page and table of 
 
 contents, untold wealth of blank pages. This 
 
 4
 
 "Son" 
 
 treasure fell to the lot of Son, who had pre 
 viously used up every scrap of paper in the 
 house. Even the rolls wrapped about ribbon 
 had been fed out, a sacrifice to his insatiable 
 industry. Now, in his own room, he went 
 to work, and every sheet was soon covered 
 with drawings. These were in regular series, 
 each ending with a colophon. Occasionally 
 Son, being brought down to the drawing- 
 room, was asked to exhibit his book. One 
 day, on the knees of a distinguished musician, 
 he explained it artlessly for nearly an hour. 
 The visitor's arm stole round him, and the 
 two heads bent in deep absorption over the 
 paper. Son's clear voice, full of its subject, 
 kept on and on, the words tumbling over 
 each other in his eagerness : " There's the 
 fire-engine and here are the ladders and 
 there the house is burning and they're 
 going up and up and now they've put the 
 fire out perkefly well." 
 
 The visitor left, and Son sat down in a 
 corner with magazines. For a long time he 
 paid no attention to the conversation of hia 
 5
 
 "Son" 
 
 family, but then an unusual note in Father's 
 voice struck his unheeding ears and made 
 him wriggle uneasily. 
 
 "What's the use?" Father was saying 
 fretfully. " I'm not making a success of 
 anything, neither literature nor law. I be 
 lieve I'll give it all up and go into farming 
 or a ranch. How would you like to live on 
 a ranch ? " 
 
 Mother adjusted the ruffles of her pretty 
 tea-gown. Son enjoyed the soft " frou-frou " 
 made by the flowing sleeves when she moved 
 her arms. He cast a glance at her, and it 
 showed him her brow serene as he had 
 expected. Mother's brow was never fur 
 rowed ; her equanimity was not disturbed by 
 the problem of the men of her family. Son 
 knew that. " How absurd ! " she was saying 
 in her sweet voice. " A ranch ! You know 
 I hate riding. You are really tired out, dear. 
 I'm glad the Merrills have given up their 
 dinner on account of her aunt's death. Be 
 sides, I have had the motor out all day, and I 
 should really have been ashamed to order it 
 6
 
 "Son" 
 
 around again. We'll dine quietly, and you 
 shall go to bed early." 
 
 "The motor," he continued irritably. "We 
 ought never to have bought it Why, I can't 
 get rid of the mortgage hanging over this 
 house. If you would only let me explain the 
 accounts to you." 
 
 " I'm so stupid at figures," broke in Mother. 
 Then she added, her voice rising a little: 
 " But if I'm to live in New York with no 
 way of getting about, we will go away. 
 You've talked of nothing but expenses 
 every time we've had an evening at home 
 for weeks." 
 
 A pink spot showed in either cheek, and 
 tears Could it be possible that there were 
 tears in Mother's eyes? 
 
 Son was not the only one troubled by this 
 thought. 
 
 " Never mind," Father said in a voice that 
 was well, no Son didn't think it was 
 cheerful exactly "I suppose we shall get 
 on as we are. Don't worry." 
 
 " I don't believe in worrying," said Mother. 
 7
 
 "Son" 
 
 That night Son did not see his pictures. 
 What was a mortgage ? And why must one 
 have motors to get about? He fell asleep, 
 and in his dream the mortgage with big dark 
 wings hovered over the house, making a noise 
 like that of the ventilators the chimney ex 
 pert had put on the roof, over the chimneys 
 that wouldn't draw. 
 
 The next day was Thursday. Son had 
 been taken away bodily from his pursuits to 
 be made ready for school. School was an 
 innovation in his life, and although his teacher 
 had often remarked upon his improvement 
 (" When she kisses the top of my head," he 
 recounted at home), this was only part com 
 pensation for the loss of time involved. 
 
 After school he had to rest; after lunch, 
 to go out. On coming in, he was dressed for 
 supper. After supper he seized upon a 
 chance volume belonging to Baby, and began 
 to sound letters. 
 
 " Only one more paragraph," admonished 
 Mother, who had come in. She felt quite 
 weary at sight of his struggles. 
 8
 
 "Son" 
 
 Son stopped obediently and came over. 
 Something was working in his mind. 
 " Mother," he began. But Mother was 
 watching Baby. She preferred this occu 
 pation to answering questions. Son could 
 understand that. He had the gentleman's 
 chivalric adoration of the little lacy thing, 
 with her curls, her red cheeks, her dancing 
 feet. He loved to see her dark eyes flash 
 when she said, " Don't do dat, Sonny ! " Even 
 when she grabbed his pencil or snatched his 
 paper away, he looked down on her with eyes 
 of love. Well, there was still the old geog 
 raphy Mother had used when she was a little 
 girl, to her scant profit. Son got it out. 
 Father could be diverted from thoughts of 
 shoulder-riding, and from him, if not from 
 Mother, it was possible to elicit geographical 
 information. This was sometimes given in a 
 voice that sounded so loud and decided to 
 Son that it quite paralyzed him, and he was 
 expected to remember a great many things 
 all at once that Father had known all his life. 
 But he would thaw out when he was undress- 
 9
 
 "Son" 
 
 ing, and say everything over instead of un 
 buttoning his buttons. 
 
 On this evening the geography had no 
 charms for him. The Thought would come 
 between. When Baby was tucked into her 
 crib, he tried again. " Mother." Now 
 Mother was systematic, and it was bedtime. 
 So she hurried him off, promising to send 
 Father up if he should come home early 
 enough. 
 
 Son lay in bed listening. He knew that if 
 Father came home he would hear the Thought 
 But Father had gone to the club to play 
 squash, and did not get home until just in 
 time to dress for dinner. 
 
 " He is asleep by this time," said Mother. 
 " Do you know," she added, " the activity of 
 that child's mind is such that it actually tires 
 me." 
 
 The next morning, having been out until 
 the small hours, Father and Mother slept late, 
 and the Thought remained unspoken. He 
 came home from school and found Mother 
 out for lunch, which he ate with Baby. Then 
 10
 
 "Son" 
 
 Son did the unheard-of thing. He put on 
 his overcoat, but forgot all the buttons, 
 tucked his book under his arm, and walked 
 out of the house by himself. He was going 
 to " Down Town " to have some one print it. 
 There were several of his friends to whom he 
 wished to give copies, the musician who 
 was so full of comprehension though he had 
 no boy of his own ; a friend of Mother's, who 
 had taken it home to show her family and 
 had returned it by a messenger ; and Baby, 
 who did n't understand, but that was no 
 matter. 
 
 That he was doing wrong never occurred 
 to him, not even when he was eluding his 
 nurse. She was one of those persons to whom 
 it was not worth while to try and explain. 
 Therefore he eliminated her. 
 
 He had a few qualms as he crossed the 
 avenues, missing unemotionally the accus 
 tomed hand which alternately jerked him for 
 ward or pulled him back. But he managed 
 quite well by himself, owing to the politeness 
 of the chauffeurs, who in all cases refrained 
 II
 
 "Son" 
 
 from running him down. Once on Fifth 
 Avenue he felt in his pocket for his little 
 pocket-book, which contained, beside a penny, 
 a five-dollar gold piece given him by his 
 grandmother on her last visit. Having been 
 passed by two omnibuses, the drivers of 
 which had failed to observe his signal, he 
 boarded a third, the conductor accosting him 
 as " Sonny " and lifting him in. It was 
 pleasant to be known by name, and Son felt 
 quite at home. He had some difficulty in 
 deciding which of the two coins he should 
 present as his fare, as it was hard to part 
 with either. Finally he determined to give 
 up the gold piece, as it did not shine quite so 
 beautifully as the penny. 
 
 The conductor, after a curious glance at his 
 passenger, accepted it without demur, then 
 to Son's great surprise began to shower him 
 with money. He put it into Son's pockets 
 himself, until they bulged with it Son's first 
 impulse had been to refuse it, as he had been 
 instructed never to take money from strangers, 
 but on second thought, under the circum- 
 12
 
 "Son" 
 
 stances, he decided to accept it. Then the 
 conductor, while showing Son a little hole 
 into which he must pop the last coin, a ten- 
 cent piece, drew down upon himself the wrath 
 of a passenger whose repeated button press 
 ings from the outside had failed to make the 
 bus stop, and hastened back to his post. 
 
 The vehicle began to fill, and Son sat 
 quietly observing his fellow-passengers. 
 Once he rose to offer his seat to a lady, but 
 the space vacated was almost imperceptible, 
 and, besides, he had not noticed that a man 
 was in the act of alighting. The lady sat 
 down without having seen Son, so he resumed 
 his seat. At the end of the route he made 
 his descent somewhat doubtfully. The con 
 ductor appeared to be busy, so Son did not 
 interrupt him. 
 
 In the street he stood quite still, hugging 
 his book under his arm. He was cheerful, 
 but had not determined upon his next move. 
 Then he decided to follow the downward- 
 moving crowd. It was a brisk day, and 
 people walked in a springy and elastic fash- 
 13
 
 "Son" 
 
 ion. Son imitated this. He even tried to 
 whistle, an accomplishment so new that he 
 did not make a success of it. At a street 
 corner he perceived a small crowd, all male. 
 His eyes did not travel further than their 
 legs, until some one, without comment, picked 
 him up and swung him shoulderward. 
 Higher than the derby hats, he could now 
 look down upon the street preacher, who 
 was waving his arms and telling about Heaven. 
 
 " But, beloved," he shouted fervently, " be 
 not ignorant of this one thing, that one day 
 is with the Lord as a thousand years. " 
 
 " I'll have plenty of time to do my work 
 then" thought Son. 
 
 Work he was forgetting. He had no more 
 precious moments to spend then. In response 
 to his request, he was set gently on his feet, 
 and made off, but without resuming his manly 
 stride. Ten minutes later he arrested his small 
 perplexed footsteps at sight of another hu 
 man being who was likewise walking without 
 seeming to know his destination. Son was 
 not dismayed by the length of this person's 
 14
 
 "Son" 
 
 hair, nor by the dark and dreadful-looking 
 hat pulled far down over his forehead, for 
 under the hat gleamed a pair of prepossess 
 ing gray eyes. These presently fixed them 
 selves upon Son, before he had determined 
 what mode of address to use in accosting the 
 stranger. 
 
 " Fine day," said the stranger easily. 
 
 Son had not come all this distance to dis 
 cuss the weather. 
 
 " I want to find a printing man," he 
 said, " to print my book. Do you know 
 any?" 
 
 The stranger began at Son's cap and let 
 his eyes descend slowly, missing nothing 
 from delicately shaped, cropped head to 
 small, squarely planted feet. 
 
 " I didn't button all the buttons," said Son 
 apologetically, watching the eyes in the de 
 scent, " because, you see, they're so stiff. And 
 it takes so much time." 
 
 " Of course it does," agreed the stranger. 
 " Shall we find a secluded place where we 
 can talk?" 
 
 IS
 
 "Son" 
 
 Son did not know what a secluded place 
 was, but he felt that it would be safe to go 
 there, and put his mittened hand into that of 
 his new acquaintance. 
 
 They walked through a labyrinth of crooked 
 streets, and finally came out on a big sunny 
 square, where there were trees and a few 
 Italian children playing about a fountain. 
 Nurse-maids who had not already taken their 
 charges indoors walked with unusual alacrity 
 behind their perambulators. 
 
 "In here are benches," said Son's new 
 companion. " Now show it to me." 
 
 " I think you could see better," Son an 
 swered gladly, " if you were nearer. I'll 
 climb up on the bench." 
 
 He did, and the stranger, over Son's shoul 
 der, took a brief survey of the contents of 
 the book. 
 
 " But these are drawings, and not in my 
 line," he said after a few pages. "I am a 
 poet," he added solemnly. 
 
 " I make poetry too," said Son, nothing 
 daunted. 
 
 16
 
 "Son" 
 
 " The I mean you do ? " said the man. 
 " Let's hear some." 
 
 There was a beautiful vibrating note in 
 his voice which made Son quite willing 
 to fold his hands and comply with this 
 request. 
 
 He began, still standing on the bench and 
 facing the other poet : 
 
 " Good-bye, my blue bell ! 
 All winter long 
 Blue bell is resting 
 While I sing my song. 
 
 " The snow is her blanket 
 When the leaves are gone; 
 Blue bell is resting 
 While I sing my song." 
 
 The man did not say anything for a 
 moment While Son waited, his eye trav 
 elled the dusty streets. 
 
 " Any more?" he asked then. 
 
 " Oh, yes," Son answered. " Lots and 
 lots ! " 
 
 " Out with it," encouraged the man. 
 
 Son continued in his clear voice : 
 17
 
 "Son" 
 
 "In the forest green and wild, 
 When just one bird is singing, 
 How pleasant it seems to you and me 
 By the flowers gleaming." 
 
 "Have you been in the woods?" asked 
 the man. 
 
 "No-o," Son admitted. "But that's the 
 way I think they are. I made that when I 
 was going down town with Mother to buy 
 my clothes." 
 
 "Do you write them down?" said the 
 man. 
 
 Son smiled. " I can't write," he said. " I 
 know them. I can't stay any longer," he 
 added firmly. 
 
 " Just one more," pleaded the man. 
 
 "Then I'll say 'The Sun's Call,'" agreed 
 Son after a moment's deliberation. 
 
 " The first day of the summer 
 The Sun arose to call the flowers. 
 He called them by name : 
 
 ' Come, daffodils, crocuses, violets, and daisies, 
 Come, sit in the wood's shade in glee.' 
 No sooner he'd spoken, they came marching in 
 
 form, 
 Marching so happily. 
 
 18
 
 "Son" 
 
 " The second day of the summer 
 The Sun arose to call the birds. 
 He called them by name ; 
 ' Come, bluebird, come, robins and chickadees 
 
 too, 
 
 Come, sit in the wood's shade and sing.' 
 No sooner he'd spoken, they came marching by 
 
 twos, 
 And sweetly they did sing." 
 
 " I'll take you to a printing man," said Son's 
 new friend abruptly. " Come along." 
 
 Hand in hand, they walked for many blocks 
 in silence. Before an imposing looking build 
 ing they stopped. 
 
 " Take the elevator," said the man, " and 
 ask for Mr. White. Perhaps he'll be kinder 
 to you than he was to me," he added grimly. 
 
 Long after the big building had swallowed 
 up Son, the man stood outside, motionless 
 except for his eyes. 
 
 Meanwhile Son was having difficulty with 
 the elevator man, a man of no understanding. 
 
 "Aw! Go home to your Ma," said this 
 individual. "You don't want Mr. White." 
 
 " Yes, I do," said Son, flushing. He was 
 not accustomed to being circumvented except 
 19
 
 "Son" 
 
 by his nurse, and to her piling up of reasons 
 why he should not do what he wanted, he 
 systematically turned a deaf ear and went 
 ahead. 
 
 Providentially a grown-up passenger en 
 tered the elevator at this juncture and the 
 discussion ended. The passenger getting 
 out on the tenth floor, the man deposited Son 
 on the eleventh, slid open the door, and 
 closed it unceremoniously behind him. 
 
 The hour was somewhat late, and a burly 
 Irishwoman was on her knees cleaning up 
 the day's grime in the fireproof hall. 
 
 "Is Mr. White here?" said Son, a little 
 timidly for him. 
 
 " Sure and he is, you blessed lamb," was 
 the hearty response. " Workin' after time, 
 and busy as a bee. It's him that stays late 
 every day. Shtepp this way." She bustled 
 to her feet and opened the door with a soapy 
 hand. 
 
 Son found himself in a big office full of 
 typewriters, one or two of which were still 
 clicking busily. 
 
 20
 
 "Son" 
 
 "I want to see Mr. White," he said to a 
 young lady with her hat and coat on, who 
 seemed to be just going out. The young 
 lady was in a hurry, called him " dear " 
 vaguely, waved her hand toward the inner 
 offices, on which names were printed in big 
 letters, and went her way. 
 
 Son stood still and spelled out three names. 
 Then he began on a fourth. To his great 
 joy it was WHITE. He stepped up boldly to 
 a desk where sat a young man doing nothing. 
 
 " I want to go in there," he said. 
 
 " Mr. White's gone home," was the care 
 less answer. 
 
 "No, he hasn't," said Son. " He's in there. 
 The woman said so." 
 
 " Oh ! Well, maybe he is," said the young 
 man, not unkindly, " but he is busy. You 
 must send in your name if you want him. 
 Here, Tom! take this this kid's name in 
 to Mr. White." 
 
 Tom came up grinning. Son brightened. 
 Here was a boy many sizes larger than 
 himself, to be sure, but a boy for all that 
 21
 
 "Son" 
 
 "Name, please," said the boy in a busi 
 nesslike manner, producing a bit of yellow 
 paper, and taking a pencil from behind 
 his ear. 
 
 " Charles Warren," said Son distinctly. 
 
 The boy scrawled it down and knocked at 
 the much desired door, behind which he dis 
 appeared, shutting it with precision. In an 
 instant he emerged, grinning again. He had 
 lost a front tooth (playing baseball, Son sup 
 posed), but that in no way detracted from the 
 geniality of his expression. Son admired 
 him. 
 
 "He says," drawled the boy, "that MISTER 
 Warren is to come in. ' Show him in at 
 once ! ' he says. " 
 
 Son's bosom swelled. Proudly he ap 
 proached the door. "I can go alone," he 
 said with dignity. 
 
 "Oh, all right, Mister Warren," said the 
 boy, replacing his pencil and winking at 
 someone behind. 
 
 Son opened the door and shut it again 
 carefully, just as he had seen the office boy 
 
 22
 
 "Son" 
 
 do. He saw three windows, and beyond, 
 the pink light of the winter sunset. He loved 
 pink light, and had often wanted to write 
 poetry about it, only no poetry could be as 
 beautiful as the light itself. He had time to 
 think of this, for the old gentleman at the 
 desk had not yet lifted his eyes from the 
 papers over which he was bending. 
 
 " Come in, Charley," said the old gentle 
 man, hearing the click of the door, " I've 
 been expecting a visit from you. On the 
 whole it's selling as well as we could expect 
 at this time of year." 
 
 Receiving no reply, he at last raised his 
 eyes. There, in the middle of his Axminster 
 rug, motionless, stood Son. 
 
 " Bless my soul ! " said the old gentleman. 
 His quiet dignity had deserted him. He ap 
 peared thoroughly flustered. "I you 
 there's some mistake. They told me " 
 
 Son approached. The pink light was on his 
 face, on the rug, even on the stern features of 
 Chief Justice Shaw looking down from the 
 wall. Verily they seemed to smile. 
 23
 
 "Son" 
 
 " Are you a printing man ? " inquired Son, 
 standing beside the desk. 
 
 "I yes, yes, I am, surely I am," said 
 Mr. White. " What can I do for you ? " 
 
 " Please print my book," said Son. " I 
 want lots of money." 
 
 Mr. White spent a long minute looking at 
 Son. Everybody did that; so he was quite 
 accustomed to it and did not mind. He 
 wrinkled his nose a little bit under the scru 
 tiny, and then, remembering that his nurse 
 had told him never to do it, straightened it 
 out again. 
 
 "Money?" said Mr. White, finally seem 
 ing to recover his equanimity in some slight 
 degree. " Now, what for ? " 
 
 Son knit his brows and tried to think it all 
 out before speaking. Bits of fairy tales came 
 back to him and helped him in his expression. 
 
 " There's a great, big monster over the 
 house," he said slowly. " No, not monster," 
 he corrected himself, " but I think it begins 
 with ' M.' It has wings. I dreamed about 
 it. But if we give it money, it will go away." 
 24
 
 "Son" 
 
 There was a moment's silence. A blue 
 veined hand, with a gold ring on it, stole out 
 softly and drew Son so gently that he hardly 
 noticed it onto a welcoming knee. Then the 
 hand deftly removed Son's overcoat, after 
 which it drew off his mittens, and presently 
 busied itself with opening a large gold 
 watch. 
 
 "Do you want to see the jewels in it?" 
 said Mr. White. " Look, how many ! One, 
 two, three, four, five, six, seven." 
 
 Son, for delicious uncounted moments, lost 
 himself in contemplation of the delicate 
 mechanism of the wheels. Then Mr. White 
 said, as if continuing a conversation : 
 
 "An unpleasant monster it must have been 
 too, or one would naturally not have dreamed 
 of it. What did you say its name was? " 
 
 " Oh, / remember now," replied Son 
 brightly. " It was a mortgage. Did you 
 speak?" he added, looking up. But Mr. 
 White did not appear to have said anything ; 
 so he continued, " And we might all have to 
 go away away from New York." 
 25
 
 "Son" 
 
 "On account of the mortgage?" said Mr. 
 White quickly. 
 
 " N-o," said Son, " I don't think so. But 
 Mother couldn't walk." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " She couldn't," repeated Son with convic 
 tion. " She has to have the motor. She 
 would be so tired." 
 
 Then his eye fell on his book, which was 
 lying beside his cap and mittens on the desk. 
 
 " Shall I show it to you ? " he said eagerly. 
 
 " Presently," said Mr. White. 
 
 He was going to ask more questions. The 
 pink light had all gone, and Son was begin 
 ning to feel empty in his stomach. 
 
 " Is your father tired too? " 
 
 "I didn't say Mother was tired," explained 
 Son patiently, "I said she would be tired. 
 Father is tired sometimes. And he hasn't 
 time to work as much as me." 
 
 " When do you work? " 
 
 Son laughed at this funny question. " In 
 bed in the morning, before Mathilde comes 
 in and before lunch, after school and 
 26
 
 "Son" 
 
 after lunch till I go out and oh, a long 
 time when I come in, before supper and 
 after supper, when Baby has gone to bed, 
 because she bothers she's so little." 
 
 " And in bed you dream of mortgages," 
 said Mr. White. 
 
 " That was after I went to sleep," said Son. 
 " Before I sleep, I make poetry." 
 
 Mr. White asked for the poetry, and Son, 
 for the second time that day, repeated it all, 
 after which they went through the book 
 from cover to cover. Some one came in and 
 touched the electric button and went away 
 again. It had grown quite dark. 
 
 " I've got to go home," said Son suddenly. 
 
 " I'll go too, and talk to your father about 
 the book," said Mr. White. 
 
 Son's head swam. For a moment he for 
 got money, mortgage, and motor, and saw 
 his precious book multiplied by unknown 
 quantities. Together they fell miles in the 
 elevator, and together were tucked into the 
 great red Mercedes that buzzed below and 
 kept herself from freezing. 
 27
 
 "Son" 
 
 " You won't be cold," said Mr. White so 
 licitously, looking for Son among the furs. 
 
 " Oh no! " cried a muffled voice delightedly. 
 " Why, this is lots bigger than ours ! " 
 
 " It's to keep you from getting tired," said 
 Mr. White. 
 
 " I'm never tired," answered Son. 
 
 Now this could not have been strictly true, 
 else how did the lamps wink and wink so, and 
 how did Son seem to be missing so much 
 that he wanted to see, while every minute or 
 two he knew that an arm was round him, cud 
 dling him close, and in the intervening minutes 
 he knew nothing at all? 
 
 Son's disordered house presented a strange 
 appearance, for the shades had not been drawn 
 on the entrance floor, and the windows, with 
 lights behind, were like eyes peering into the 
 night. The bell was answered by the kitchen 
 maid without her apron on. Upstairs in the 
 library sat Mother, clad in her morning walk 
 ing suit, her pretty hair disarranged under her 
 hat, no veil on, and both hands over her eyes. 
 Father was standing before the cold ashes of 
 28
 
 "Son" 
 
 a past fire in an attitude of warming himself. 
 Neither was speaking. 
 
 Suddenly upon the threshold of this silent 
 room appeared the erect figure of an old man 
 with a little child in his arms. 
 
 Mother lifted her eyes first, and every 
 vestige of color left her face. Son's head 
 drooped over Mr. White's arm; one little 
 hand hung down in utter relaxation. 
 
 Father looked, and stifled a cry as he saw a 
 warning finger. 
 
 " Hush ! " whispered Mr. White. 
 
 Father and Mother, trembling, met each 
 other's eyes. The reaction was too great. 
 They came together, and clung tight, with 
 closed eyes. 
 
 Then Mother disengaged herself, walked 
 over, and mutely held out her arms. Mr. 
 White shook his head. " It might disturb 
 him," he breathed. "I'll carry him up 
 myself." 
 
 It was a silent procession that climbed up 
 to Son's little room, and still a silent one that 
 made its way down again. 
 29
 
 "Son" 
 
 " Now I'm going to talk to you" said Mr. 
 White. 
 
 Father and Mother hung down their heads, 
 like children expecting to be scolded. No one 
 sat down. 
 
 " He came to me," began Mr. White slowly, 
 " no matter how. That 's another story. He 
 was carrying on his shoulders mortgage and 
 what not, the whole burden of your imaginary 
 difficulties. You, Charley, and you too, Maud, 
 piled it all on. You carried on your fruitless 
 discussion before his sensitive ears. You 
 made his heart beat faster at your silly words." 
 
 Father and Mother were listening now, 
 no longer like children, but like prisoners 
 arraigned at a bar of justice. 
 
 The Judge looked sternly from one to the 
 other, and his face did not soften. 
 
 " I have known you all my life, you two, 
 and that gives me the right to speak. Your 
 father, Charley, my friend, gave you his 
 abilities, every one of them, and what have 
 you done with them? You've passed them 
 on to your son, thank the Lord, but thafs -all. 
 30
 
 "Son" 
 
 A little writing, a little law practice, a great 
 deal of exercise, and a lot of grumbling. And 
 you, Maud, you married him. Have you 
 stimulated him? Have you tried to bring 
 out what was in him? Or have you hung 
 around his neck like a stone, with your lazi 
 ness, your extravagance, your lack of inter 
 est in his career, and your craving for luxuries ? 
 Why, if I had a boy like that," his voice 
 trembled, as he turned toward Father, " I'd 
 work my fingers to the bone if necessary, and 
 with a song in my heart all day long. Since 
 your marriage I've seen you only in the pub 
 lishing line, Charley. I haven't been in your 
 home, for from what I'd heard I felt that we'd 
 have no meeting ground there. I haven't 
 known your children. You never told me ! 
 The boy didn't count much. You passed 
 him over lightly, like everything else. Why, 
 the very conductor, the loafer on the street, 
 the office boy, appreciate him more than you ! 
 When I think of it" his voice trembling 
 again " He wanted money. Lots of it, mind 
 you. He wanted his book printed. Because 
 31
 
 "Son" 
 
 his Mother couldn't walk she had to have a 
 motor. Maud! Maud! If 7 were his mother, 
 I'd be willing to walk till there were no shoes 
 left on my feet, thanking my God all the 
 time for the luxury of such a boy." 
 
 There was a deep silence after Mr. White 
 had ceased. Mother was not crying. She had 
 lifted her head, and Father, looking at her, 
 saw a resemblance to Son. Then she smiled, 
 and the tension snapped. 
 
 The Judge had suspended sentence, and 
 was standing between his prisoners, a hand 
 on the shoulder of each.
 
 JIM
 
 JIM 
 
 SON, with sinking heart, looked for the fif 
 tieth time up and down the driveway, 
 Jim was not there. He had not been there 
 for a week. 
 
 The grass was a delicate green, little cro 
 cuses dotted it here and there, shrubs had 
 begun to be painted a faint yellow, but the 
 glory had gone out of the Spring, Jim was 
 not there. 
 
 Son did not care for horses in general, but 
 Jim's horse he had seen with Jim's eyes. 
 He knew every proud motion, every curve of 
 neck and swing of tail, every graceful lift of 
 foot and dainty planting of hoof. He mar 
 velled to see a horse of such bigness handle 
 himself so easily. It took a big horse to 
 carry Jim, big Jim. And Jim was not there. 
 
 Son, lost in thought, wandered about the 
 Mall by himself. His friends, after repeated 
 35
 
 "Son" 
 
 efforts at inducing sociability, had left him 
 and gone off to their own pursuits. Mathilde, 
 generally watchful, was deep in conversation 
 with a " gar9on de mon pays." 
 
 Son, very melancholy and not so much as 
 seeing his little furry friends who rushed 
 hither and thither, passionately intent upon 
 squirrel business, walked along slowly. Pres 
 ently he came to a full stop. 
 
 Now Son was quite accustomed, being a 
 city boy, to seeing men on benches in the 
 full sunlight of a Saturday morning. But in 
 this particular man, whose back was turned 
 toward him, he discerned something that 
 made him vaguely uneasy. 
 
 Quietly attentive, he observed all that he 
 could see of the man. His head was bowed, 
 his shoulders drooped. They were big 
 shoulders, but they looked sloping. 
 
 Son left the main walk, and with footsteps 
 that were now sharply pattering, soon reached 
 the side path where the man sat on his bench. 
 His toes danced, and he skipped a little, 
 uttering a tiny squeal, as he sometimes did 
 36
 
 Jim 
 
 when joy was too great to be entirely 
 controlled. 
 
 Buttonless, splendorless, horseless, what 
 matter ! It was Jim. Curiously he seemed 
 to be asleep. How to wake him ? 
 
 "Jim!" he cried. 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " Jim ! " again louder. 
 
 No reply. 
 
 Son stood puzzled. Then inspiration came 
 to him. He had an accomplishment, prac 
 tised faithfully to amuse Baby, who was 
 sporty. 
 
 There was a long inquiring whinny. 
 
 And Jim heard. If his sleep had been that 
 which melts into death, that sound would 
 have brought him back. He did not open 
 his eyes, but he stirred, and put out a hand 
 gropingly. 
 
 "All right, Don," he called in his voice 
 like a deep-toned organ, " all right, old 
 boy ! I'm here ! " 
 
 Then his heavy eyelids lifted slowly. 
 
 Son, a little ashamed of his ruse, but with 
 37
 
 "Son" 
 
 all the love of his bursting heart in his face, 
 smiled up at him. Now Jim's face was red 
 enough, but at this moment a deeper flush 
 was beginning at yesterday's collar and 
 mounting slowly to the roots of his hair. 
 
 " Go away, Son," he muttered. " Please 
 go away." 
 
 Then he saw Son's face quiver. With a 
 groan Jim buried his face in his hands. 
 
 " Please," he repeated huskily. 
 
 And Son went without another word or 
 look. 
 
 " I can't imagine what is the matter with 
 Son," said Mother. 
 
 Father paused, shaving-brush in hand, and 
 came in from his dressing-room. 
 
 " He isn't well?" he inquired sharply. 
 
 "Oh, no!" reassured Mother, "not ill, 
 but listless. Why, to-night he was sitting 
 after supper, doing nothing. Baby wanted 
 him to sing to her and he said, ' No, darling, 
 not to-night.' So 7 sang, but she didn't like 
 it half so well." 
 
 38
 
 Jim 
 
 There was a new note in the voices of 
 Father and Mother when they were speaking 
 about Son. They wanted so much to under 
 stand. But it would take years to pick up 
 all the threads. And Son had been used for 
 so long to thinking everything out all alone. 
 He was doing it now, in bed, and he felt that 
 they could not help him. No one could help 
 him, for he had hurt his dearest friend. 
 
 Son's little body was full of electric wires ; 
 he clenched his hands and trembled all over. 
 
 " He thought it was Don," said Son over 
 and over. " And it was really me. He put 
 out his hand and Don wasn't there. And 
 he was so disappointed" Son buried his face 
 in the pillows He could not bear to think 
 any more. 
 
 In the morning with the sun filtering in 
 through the shutters, last night's burden came 
 back and placed itself on his shoulders. But 
 daylight helped, and Son resolutely put down 
 the grief that unfitted him for action. Some 
 thing must be done. 
 
 Every day that week Son went to the park 
 39
 
 "Son" 
 
 full of hope, and every day came home with 
 his hope unfulfilled. On Sunday afternoon 
 he took a walk with Father. With his little 
 hand in Father's big one, and cheerful con 
 versation going on all the time, Son felt 
 happier than he had for many a day. He 
 liked to hear the swish of spring dresses, to 
 see the heavy sunlight dropping down on, the 
 houses, to watch the puffing motors and the 
 children in their best clothes, all the little 
 girls with bright flowers in their hats. He 
 thought of Baby growing bigger and wearing 
 such a hat. He wondered what flowers would 
 look prettiest with her curls. 
 
 Suddenly Father felt his hand clutched. 
 He looked down and could not believe his 
 senses. Son's face was distorted with wrath, 
 his eyes blazed. 
 
 " It's not his," he panted, " it's not his" 
 
 "Not his what? What isn't who's?" 
 said Father hopelessly, following the direc 
 tion of Son's wrathful gaze. 
 
 What he saw was a particularly showy 
 police horse. His nostril glowed red, his 
 40
 
 Jim 
 
 glossy neck curved proudly, his hoof pawed 
 the asphalt with impatience not fully con 
 trolled. Yet he knew his duty, and was 
 doing it, as became him, though this rider 
 sat him impersonally, encouraging neither by 
 pressure of leg nor whispered word. The 
 policeman's buttons gleamed in the sunlight ; 
 it was reflected, too, in the horse's highly 
 polished bits. 
 
 Before Father could move, right into the 
 midst of the Sunday crowd who, at a signal 
 from the policeman, were crossing the Avenue, 
 as if shot out of a catapult, darted Son 
 Son, who was afraid of horses; Son, who 
 could not be induced to ride ; Son, who never 
 of his own volition went near the stable. 
 And now he was standing a quarter of an 
 inch away from this great beast, holding out 
 two supplicating little hands. Before Father 
 could follow and grab him, before the police 
 man had had time to realize what was going 
 on, a veined neck was gently lowered, and after 
 one sniff a cold muzzle thrust into the warm 
 waiting palms. The alien policeman smiled. 
 41
 
 "Son" 
 
 " The horse knows him, sure," he said to 
 Father, whose big arms were by this time 
 encircling Son. 
 
 "Come on, old man," whispered Father, 
 " everybody's looking." Son had been quite 
 unconscious of this, and cared not at all, but 
 he understood that grown-up people disap 
 proved of scenes, and so suffered himself to 
 be led away and lost in the throng. 
 
 Father looked down on the figure at his 
 side, and it occurred to him that Son was very 
 little. But he knew that the small heart was 
 full of emotions that he did not understand, 
 and very humbly his thoughts melted into a 
 sort of prayer that he might never thrust rude 
 fingers among those delicately tuned strings. 
 He listened for the outburst that he knew 
 would come, for Son's chest was heaving. 
 
 " It was Don," said Son. 
 
 Father did not catch what was said. Son 
 had a habit of forgetting the difference in 
 size, and speaking without turning his head, 
 Thus, many times, on their walks, conversa 
 tion had halted between them, Son's words 
 42
 
 Jim 
 
 being carried away on the breeze. Father 
 remembered this and felt that the loss had 
 been his. So he bent his shoulders and said 
 "What?" patiently. 
 
 " It was Don" repeated Son, lifting his 
 eyes full of misery. " Jim's Don Jim's 
 Jim's Jim's!" 
 
 "Who's Jim? " inquired Father. 
 
 "Jim ! " said Son, smiling through his 
 tears. He thought it very funny that Father 
 did not know. Then he explained the whole 
 situation as he understood it, painting in the 
 blackest colors his own fraud and perfidy. 
 
 Father's education was progressing, though 
 he lacked the imagination to fill in the meagre 
 outlines of Son's story, to realize the bitter 
 ness of self-reproach, the dark nights of, 
 despair. But he knew that Son cared very 
 much; and other things he suspected, that 
 Son did not. Therefore his suggestion was 
 practical. 
 
 " I'll see the Police Commissioner to 
 morrow," he said. " He's a friend of mine, 
 and I'll find out all about it." 
 43
 
 "Son" 
 
 Son's heart leaped. He looked with envy 
 upon this Father who to-morrow could, by 
 himself, go to the down town of blessed 
 memories and promise, where things hap 
 pened at every moment ; where sat kind pub 
 lishers who not only printed the books of 
 little boys, but showed them watches and 
 took them home in automobiles, and where 
 Police Commissioners stood ready to right 
 the wrongs of cruelly treated Jims and bring 
 them into their own again. 
 
 Son had once penetrated this magic region 
 himself, only to be thrust back, kindly but 
 firmly, into a humdrum existence of face- 
 washing, school, and park airings. 
 
 He was at the front door when Father 
 came in the next evening, had waited an 
 unconscionable time, with hopeful face pressed 
 against the pane. Father held out both hands, 
 and with Son at arm's length looked down at 
 him anxiously. 
 
 " I'm afraid we can't do anything," he said 
 gravely. " Too bad, old man." 
 
 Now Son had been sure that all would be 
 44
 
 Jim 
 
 well. He had had no doubts. He forgot all 
 his dignity, and burst into a storm of tears 
 worthy of Baby in her most unreasonable 
 moments. Nor could Father quiet him. 
 Mathilde arrived, and made matters worse 
 with her chatterings, and then came Mother, 
 who led him upstairs, put everybody out, 
 and undressed him herself, holding him in 
 her arms until he sobbed himself to sleep, 
 his hands clasped tight about her neck, so 
 tight that they mingled dainty collar and 
 soft hair in a regrettable tangle. 
 
 When the hands relaxed, and Mother ran 
 down to her room, she found that even by 
 hurrying she could not escape being twenty 
 minutes late for dinner. Yet she did not 
 murmur, though she was punctual, and hated 
 hurrying about things, which showed that 
 Father was not the only one being educated. 
 
 " I couldn't tell him," said Father, with 
 knit brows, when they were finally on their 
 way. " And I couldn't lie to him, could I? " 
 
 " No indeed," said Mother, " not that. 
 Never to hint" 
 
 45
 
 "Son" 
 
 Father looked relieved. 
 
 " Reynolds couldn't do anything, "he con 
 tinued. " If it had been the first time, but it 
 wasn't. There was a long record, and the 
 fellow's behavior had been overlooked more 
 than once. You see, he had three medals, 
 and that helped him out. But there must be 
 a limit. So he was dismounted. And since 
 then he has not once reported for duty. Rey 
 nolds will have to dismiss him from the 
 force." 
 
 They arrived at their dinner, and their 
 hostess, who had a penchant for literary men 
 and who had not met Father before, was 
 greatly disappointed in him. As for Mother, 
 whom she had met once and had supposed 
 charming, she found her dull. Decidedly they 
 were an over-rated couple. 
 
 A day or two later, as Mother was prepar 
 ing to rest after lunch, there was a knock at 
 her door. There, her face one protest, stood 
 Mathilde. 
 
 " 'E no more want to go to de park," she 
 46
 
 Jim 
 
 began. " Every day 'e want to go to Fiftee- 
 ninf Street." 
 
 " Let him," said Mother laconically, taking 
 down her hair. 
 
 " Oui, Madame," murmured Mathilde dis 
 approvingly. She did not know what had 
 come over Mother, who had used to uphold 
 her authority. 
 
 Mathilde was cross, but she went to Fifty- 
 ninth Street At least she did not have to 
 drag Son along ; he walked with alacrity. 
 
 Mother pondered, brush in hand, for some 
 moments. Then she put up her hair again 
 deftly. After which she spent twenty min 
 utes at the telephone, which stood on a little 
 table near at hand. She scrawled an address, 
 ordered a taxicab, dressed hastily, and went 
 in search of Son. He was not hard to find. 
 There he was on Fifth Avenue at the familiar 
 crossing, with Mathilde fussily feeling his ears 
 and admonishing him to stamp his feet, for 
 there was a cold wind blowing that day, and 
 Spring had broken her promise. 
 
 Son, unheeding, had eyes for no one but 
 47
 
 "Son" 
 
 Don. He did not see Mother until Mathilde 
 poked him, and forgot to take off his cap as 
 he had been taught. " Quelles manieres!" 
 lamented Mathilde, pulling it from his head, 
 and putting it on again with ungentle affec- 
 tionateness. He accepted reluctantly Moth 
 er's invitation to get in beside her, but 
 when she unfolded her plan his joy knew no 
 bounds. Care left his face, and he chattered 
 all the way over to the tenement house dis 
 trict, watching the swarms of children that 
 had to be looked out for, the peanut venders, 
 pushcart men, and peddlers. Then they 
 stopped. 
 
 " You go up," said Mother. " I'll wait for 
 you in the cab. It's on the sixth floor, back. 
 Remember one, two, three, four, five, six 
 and back ! " 
 
 " One," counted Son. "Two " breathlessly. 
 When he got to six he was speechless, so 
 great had been his haste. " Back," he told 
 himself, and knocked at the door. 
 
 " Come in," said a woman's voice. 
 
 Son entered, and, being alone, remembered 
 48
 
 Jim 
 
 his manners. He took off his cap, and his 
 eyes swept the room. Jim was not there. 
 But at least he was in communication. He 
 could give a message. 
 
 " Is this Jim's house?" he asked politely. 
 
 " Yes," answered the woman with curt sur 
 prise. " I suppose it is." 
 
 Neither tone nor face was prepossessing, 
 but Son was not observing in such matters. 
 To him the woman seemed very nice. She 
 had on a white apron that crinkled when she 
 moved, and the room smelt of soap. 
 
 " Oh, will you tell him," he said, getting 
 his breath " that I thought he'd know it 
 was only me? And I didn't want him to 
 think it was Don, really but I couldn't 
 wake him up any other way." 
 
 The woman looked genuinely puzzled. 
 
 " I'm so sorry," Son continued, his remorse 
 all coming back to him. " And I wish I 
 could see him. Where is he?" 
 
 There was a short pause. Then, " I don't 
 know," answered the woman grimly. 
 
 " But he will be in ! " cried Son. " He's 
 49
 
 "Son" 
 
 got to come in for his supper, hasn't 
 he?" 
 
 Jim's wife looked about the room. She 
 had made no preparation for supper. The 
 stove was cold. 
 
 " He may," she said slowly. " And he 
 may not." 
 
 " Oh, yes, he will ! " Son reassured her. 
 "Everybody has to have supper. He'll 
 come ! " 
 
 The woman made no rejoinder, and the 
 conversation flagged. Then Son said, bright 
 ening: 
 
 " Tell him I'm taking care of Don. I go 
 down to the Plaza to see him every day. 
 And sometimes I give him sugar." 
 
 The woman began to understand. 
 
 " Is Don his horse? " she asked. 
 
 " Why, don't you know? " said Son. "Jim 
 loves Don the best thing in all the world. 
 He said, if he had a boy like me, he'd love 
 him best. But he hasn't, so he loves Don. 
 Isn't Jim splendid?" 
 
 Mrs. Jim had not been accustomed to re- 
 50
 
 Jim 
 
 garding her husband in this light. She con 
 sidered herself a much abused woman. But 
 this child seemed waiting for an answer. 
 
 "Splendid!" she said. 
 
 "He likes everything that / do," Son chat 
 ted on. " Sunsets and flowers Oh, he loves 
 flowers. He always shows them to me when 
 they are first coming out. And he puts them 
 on Don's bridle. And he hasn't got Don 
 any more." 
 
 So Jim loved flowers and sunsets. Jim's 
 wife was thinking. 
 
 " I can't stay any longer," said Son. 
 " Mother's waiting. But please give my 
 love to Jim." 
 
 " I will," promised the woman, and opened 
 the door for him. 
 
 When he had gone, she remained for a 
 long time quite motionless. Then she hur 
 riedly put on her things and went out In 
 the street she made some purchases, and was 
 coming back when her eye was caught by 
 bright gleams of red, yellow, and purple 
 mingled together in a mass bizarre but beau- 
 Si
 
 "Son" 
 
 tiful. The clouds of a gusty day had broken 
 open, and on the narrow street gleamed the 
 last rays of the westering sun. 
 
 "Sunsets and flowers." 
 
 " Buya ! Buya ! " called out the Italian 
 flower-vender, seeing the woman pause be 
 fore his cart. " Ecco, bella ! bella ! Tenna 
 centa ! " His black eyes danced, and he 
 held out enticingly a red geranium in a pot. 
 
 Jim's wife, guilty and ashamed, hurried 
 home, carrying the plant for which she had 
 paid a dime that could ill be spared. 
 
 The stove was burning brightly when the 
 man came in, and the kettle was on. 
 
 " I couldn't make up my mind to go back," 
 he said hoarsely. " I just came in to tell you. 
 I'm going out again." Then in dismay his eye 
 fell on a little dog that had been his compan 
 ion for many hours. It had found him in the 
 morning, and had followed him faithfully all 
 that day. He had forgotten it coming up 
 stairs, and its muddy footprints were already 
 visible on the clean floor. " Get out ! " he com 
 manded roughly. " You ain't wanted here." 
 52
 
 Jim 
 
 The little dog quivered and slunk towards 
 the door, heart-broken at discovering harsh 
 ness where he had scented only friendli 
 ness. 
 
 Then Jim's wife made her supreme effort. 
 
 " He can stay," she said. " Here, doggie, 
 doggie !" 
 
 Jim spent many minutes in begging his 
 little friend's pardon and winning back his 
 confidence. By the time he had accom 
 plished this and had coaxed the little beast 
 onto his knee, supper was ready. Jim drank 
 a great deal of fragrant coffee, which steadied 
 his nerves and brought the light back to his 
 eyes. The food was very good, and he ate 
 heartily. Then he lighted his pipe, and sat 
 smoking in silence. Presently he noticed the 
 red geranium in the window. Jim always 
 noticed things. He looked slowly from plant 
 to wife, from wife to plant. Then he got up, 
 put the dog gently down in his chair, hesi 
 tated, and went over to where she stood, 
 wiping dishes. 
 
 " Mary," he said, and his voice trembled. 
 53
 
 "Son" 
 
 It sounded like an organ again. "Mary 
 What's come over you ? " 
 
 "It's the little boy," she answered simply. 
 "He was here." 
 
 "Oh," said Jim, "/see. Son." 
 
 The next afternoon, when Son arrived at 
 his self-appointed post, some one who had 
 been watching for him drew back quickly 
 into the shadow of a building. It was Jim. 
 Shaved, with his hair cut, and with the whites 
 of his eyes so clear that they looked blue, he 
 was pleasant to look upon, even in civilian's 
 clothes. Presently he crept out part way 
 from his hiding-place and waited. 
 
 Son had been sternly keeping the usurper 
 under observation, watching for any sign of 
 inconsiderateness toward Don. Letting his 
 gaze wander for a moment, he saw, and with 
 a shout, terrific for one of his size, made a 
 rush for Jim. All the bystanders smiled, but 
 Jim's eyes were like bottomless wells as he 
 lifted Son in his arms. 
 
 " I didn't know," whispered Son, half 
 sobbing, "that you'd think it was Don. 
 54
 
 Jim 
 
 Oh, Jim ! That man stole him ! Why don't 
 you take Don back when he isn't looking? 
 Jim ! He isn't looking now / " 
 
 Son was trembling with excitement. Jim 
 looked. The policeman had in fact dis 
 mounted and with his back to Don, who stood 
 like a horse of bronze in the sunlight, was 
 engaged in regulating a particularly con 
 gested bit of traffic. 
 
 The words were hardly out of Son's mouth 
 before he was set down quickly, and Jim 
 the great, the splendid Jim had shot into 
 the street, flung himself into the saddle, and 
 dashed madly down the avenue. 
 
 " He's got him ! " shrieked Son. " Ma- 
 thilde ! Jim's got Don ! " . 
 
 Mathilde stood quite still and white, both 
 hands over her eyes; then, very gently for 
 her, she took Son home. 
 
 She had seen what Son had been too ab 
 sorbed to see, what Jim had seen with those 
 eyes of his that were so clear to-day. And 
 she dared not wait for the outcome. 
 
 While Son had been in Jim's arms, down 
 55
 
 "Son" 
 
 the avenue, swaying fearfully, was coming a 
 runabout drawn by a pair of maddened trot 
 ters. The reins were in the hands of an old 
 man, who with set face held them in the piti 
 ful grip of threescore years and ten. Jim 
 caught the gleam of white hair for one dread 
 ful flash. Vehicles scattered to right and 
 left, somehow clearing a path. But ahead 
 one block, two blocks Jim didn't know 
 was a huge truck, headed down town. The 
 driver, unconscious of the confusion and 
 shouting, kept on his way. 
 
 In mid-gallop Jim leaned over and whis 
 pered in Don's ear. Don was gaining; he 
 was abreast of the insane horses ; the three 
 were going neck and neck Don was ahead 
 and Jim was off down on his feet, in 
 front had seized a rein in each iron hand 
 was swept under, never relaxing his hold 
 Oh, blessed weight of Jim ! Big Jim ! They 
 were slowing up they were standing still 
 and in the nick of time. Don was standing 
 too, waiting for orders. 
 
 " All right, sir? " said Jim, pushing through 
 56
 
 Jim 
 
 the crowd and looking anxiously at his old 
 man. 
 
 Then, because he was so embarrassed by 
 the things the latter had begun to say to 
 him, he muttered an excuse, swung himself 
 once more into the saddle, and headed up 
 town. 
 
 " I'm sorry, Jack," he said heartily to his 
 fellow officer when he had reached Fifty- 
 ninth Street, " but I didn't have time to give 
 you the chance. Here's your horse." 
 
 " Not on your life, Jim ! " said the other. 
 " I guess I can walk until they find me 
 another nag." 
 
 But Jim had already dismounted and, lay 
 ing his hand for a moment on the shoulder 
 of his fellow, he went away. 
 
 Poor Son ! The excitement of that after 
 noon had proved too much for him, and it 
 was three long days before he went to the 
 park. When the afternoon came, he could 
 hardly bear the joyful anticipation. This 
 time there was to be no disappointment. 
 57
 
 "Son" 
 
 There they were, on the accustomed drive 
 Don and Jim. 
 
 The instant Jim caught sight of Son, he 
 swung himself off. 
 
 " Want to ride? " he suggested 
 
 " No, thank you," said Son. " It's a high 
 up." 
 
 " So it is," agreed Jim. " Too high. 
 Come, and I'll show you where there are lots 
 of violets coming out." 
 
 " Oh, good ! " cried Son, clapping his 
 hands. " Violets are my favorite flowers. 
 What are yours?" 
 
 " Mine are red geraniums," said Jim.
 
 THE LITTLE CLOWN
 
 THE LITTLE CLOWN 
 
 IT was the kind of March day that makes 
 one feel as though the whole world had 
 come alive. The trees were swishing on up 
 per Fifth Avenue, each twig glittering in the 
 brazen sunlight and seeming to call out, " I'm 
 going to bud by and by ! Yes, I am ! " 
 
 The sky was so blue that if one thought of 
 clouds at all it was as things he might have 
 read about, perhaps, but could never by any 
 possibility have seen. No cloud would dare 
 show its face on such a sky ! 
 
 Not on this day ! For Son was going to 
 the circus. Father was taking him, and so 
 hastily had Son gulped down his mid-day 
 meal that there was plenty of time for this 
 walk to the Plaza with lungs full of the riotous 
 holiday air, before turning east and board 
 ing a street car, fit conveyance for unaccom 
 panied males. Son felt as though his chest 
 61
 
 "Son" 
 
 expanded several inches by the time he was 
 holding on to the seam of Father's overcoat, 
 wondering whether the proud day would ever 
 come when he should be tall enough to hang 
 by a strap. 
 
 Such of his fellow passengers as he could 
 see through small gaps between skirts, coats, 
 and bundles, filled him with pity. That fat 
 woman who looked as though she was think 
 ing of nothing at all, how her face would 
 kindle could Son whisper in her ear, " Come 
 with me to the circus " ! And that boy, 
 wedged in between the two old men he 
 was not going! If Son could have invited 
 him, his jaws must have snapped, ceasing 
 instantly their uninterested and continuous 
 gum-chewing. All, old and young, pro 
 ceeded phlegmatically toward their various 
 destinations, unconscious, apparently, that 
 there are moments in life to make hearts 
 pound and pulses quicken. 
 
 Father's eyes travelled from Son's small 
 set face to the tiny white sailor-trousered 
 legs below his pea-jacket. " I wonder whether 
 62
 
 The Little Clown 
 
 he is enjoying himself," he thought. Aloud 
 he said, " Come along ! " for they were about 
 to arrive at their destination. What inept 
 remarks grown-up people made ! Son shot 
 ahead, prevented only by the conductor's 
 restraining hand from hurling himself to the 
 sidewalk before the car had stopped. 
 
 In with a crowd, past the taker of tickets, 
 and Son's identity was lost in an immensity so 
 vast as to daze him. If there were empty 
 spaces in the rows of seats that rose tier on 
 tier toward the great dome, he did not see 
 them. The amphitheatre appeared to him 
 to be packed with a waiting multitude, 
 faces without features, as he was accustomed 
 to draw them when he sat down with pad and 
 pencil, feeling that as he could not convey 
 the concrete impression he desired, he could 
 suggest it by a blank that allowed the imagi 
 nation scope. His feet fell soundless on the 
 tan bark. Down from a great height came 
 dim and filtered sunbeams, and millions of 
 tiny particles of dust, revolving, rose up to 
 meet them. 
 
 63
 
 "Son" 
 
 There was an all-pervading smell that, 
 though not pleasing, was inspiring to Son 
 inasmuch as it suggested savagery and the 
 jungle. He thought regretfully of the sign 
 they had just passed, with a painted hand 
 pointing. Though he could not read, it said 
 to him as plain as day, "This way to the 
 animals." It would have been good to hear 
 a few comfortable roars ! Somewhere before 
 he had known this sensation of being swal 
 lowed up it was coming back to him with 
 a sinking of the heart those nights of fever 
 last year, when church bells had tolled all the 
 time, and he had seen at the end of immense 
 distances something very Big, which came 
 nearer and nearer, and just as it was going 
 to close down on him, dwindled fearfully into 
 something Tiny. 
 
 A blatant sound smote his ear, putting in 
 trospection to flight the band, whose efforts, 
 just begun, were to continue without let up 
 the whole performance through. The ceil 
 ing lowered itself, the tiers of seats drew to 
 gether a little, and as things began to assume 
 64
 
 The Little Clown 
 
 more natural proportions Son ceased to feel 
 so small. 
 
 He could have screamed in terror when a 
 smiling official took their checks and slouched 
 ahead of them toward the boxes, for the way 
 led right through the arena. To be sure, it 
 was still empty, but at any moment now it 
 might be brilliant with panoplied chargers 
 ridden by glittering ladies he clung to Fa 
 ther's hand, expecting the thunder of oncom 
 ing chariots, which should grind him to powder 
 beneath their golden wheels. 
 
 " In here," the official's voice drawled, put 
 ting an end to his fears. 
 
 Father had bought two seats in a box, and 
 the girl with the green feather in her hat, who 
 with her escort had arrived before them and 
 was installed in front, obligingly moved back. 
 
 " Ain't he cute? " she said. 
 
 Son looked intently, but did not perceive 
 anything. How suggestive of glories to come 
 was the empty arena ! For years after this 
 day, the smell of tan-bark carried with it for 
 him a hush of anticipation. 
 
 65
 
 "Son" 
 
 Ah! At last! 
 
 Through slow-swung doors the procession 
 was coming. Son had no sooner adjusted 
 his mind to elephants, whose deliberate tread 
 of huge feet moved all the little wrinkles in 
 their skins, than they turned into ponies pat 
 tering along with eyes askance and much 
 shaking of silky manes ; these again into men 
 real men whom Son could have touched, 
 so close was he Phoenician with blue-black 
 curling beard succeeding dusky African, 
 mounted guard in clinking armor giving 
 place to trumpeter who puffed out his cheeks 
 as though preparing to blow great blasts on 
 his trumpet, from which, however, no sound 
 came. 
 
 Son had looked at details until his head 
 swam and things had begun to run together 
 before his eyes, like the bits of mercury he 
 had collected when the nursery thermometer 
 broke. He put his hands before his eyes for 
 a minute and made everything dark save for 
 tiny red stars and mysterious flashes; then 
 he took them down, and lo ! he could grasp 
 66
 
 The Little Clown 
 
 the pageant as a whole. Elephants existed 
 as elephants no longer, men were not individ 
 uals any more, but each formed part of a 
 marvellous moving picture of the East, re 
 vealed to him in undreamed-of splendor. 
 
 Slowly the great procession drew itself out, 
 flashing and glimmering like the coils of a 
 monstrous snake. Barbaric colors smote the 
 sight no longer as purple, silver, green, and 
 gold, but blended in one harmonious whole. 
 
 Son's gaze fixed itself on the door which 
 was beginning to engulf the glittering monster 
 that writhed slowly through. He longed to 
 penetrate the enchanted region beyond, 
 where sentinels paced forever, archers shot at 
 a mark, dancing girls swayed, and pages sat 
 looking on, elbows on velvet knees. 
 
 "How do you like it?" Father asked. It 
 was against his will that his voice habitually 
 softened in speaking to Son, for he had 
 theories, and one of them was that a boy 
 should be handled without gloves. When he 
 was six, he was leader of a gang, and used 
 to play baseball in the street. At least 
 67
 
 "Son" 
 
 he remembered distinctly the leadership and 
 the ball games and six was about the right 
 age, he thought 
 
 " Here come the elephants," he went on 
 without waiting for an answer to his question. 
 
 Son determined to watch only one ring. 
 Yet his eyes turned from middle to right, 
 back to middle and to left, so afraid was he 
 of losing some wonderful feat of these ex 
 traordinary pachyderms. 
 
 No sooner had the elephants disappeared 
 than uniformed attendants busied themselves 
 on the run to set everything in order. Son 
 marvelled at their zeal. He had never seen 
 housework done in such fashion at home. 
 He thought of the new useful man, who never 
 cleaned the windows, though it had been 
 thoroughly understood, Mother said, that this 
 was expected of him and no wonder ! 
 What uninspiring toil, the polishing of win 
 dows ! Put him here, in a green suit with red 
 epaulettes, and he would soon show what 
 stuff he was made of. 
 
 Son did not tire as the afternoon wore on. 
 68
 
 The Little Clown 
 
 Father's offers of peanuts and popcorn 
 tempted him sorely, but in matters pertaining 
 to the stomach he had long since found it 
 wise to take his orders from Mother. He 
 had watched the horses faithfully, in order to 
 be able to repeat to Baby a list of their per 
 formances down to the last detail, well know 
 ing that for this part of the show she would 
 hold him strictly to account. 
 
 To Father's disappointment he had hardly 
 noticed the trapeze performers at all. They 
 hung and balanced, revolved and swung, at 
 such a height above him as to seem remote 
 as birds in a summer sky. He was at the age 
 when one looks at things nearer the butter 
 cup at one's feet rather than the mountains 
 above it. There were so many near things 
 to look at ! Little dogs that lay down and 
 died, coming to life again at the next instant 
 and trotting cheerfully on their way with 
 uplifted tails; seals that flopped wetly by 
 methods known only to themselves onto the 
 backs of horses, where they hung without 
 falling off, awaiting confidently the delicious 
 69
 
 "Son" 
 
 morsel that inevitably followed a successful 
 achievement; boys not much bigger than 
 Son, who turned handsprings and cartwheels 
 without number as though theirs were the 
 only natural method of getting over the 
 ground ; pigeons, who settled themselves on 
 a charger's head as if they had never heard 
 of a barn roof for roosting purposes. 
 
 It flashed through Son's dizzy brain that 
 this was reality and things as he had known 
 them before dreams. He felt sure that had 
 he brought with him their old fat Cocker-span 
 iel, over-indulged by a soft-hearted cook and 
 snoring his existence away under the kitchen 
 stove, and turned him loose among these 
 creatures, he likewise would have begun to 
 perform, amid the admiring cheers of the 
 spectators. 
 
 Son was delighted with the antics of the 
 clowns. Just as he could listen without a 
 tremor to any story of ogre and goblin, 
 reeked it never so horribly of gore, so the 
 horseplay of these Punchinellos come to 
 life seemed to him the highest art. 
 70
 
 The Little Clown 
 
 " There's a funny one ! " came from the 
 girl with the green feather. " Did you ever 
 see such a get up ? " 
 
 Son heartily agreed. The clown she meant 
 was lithe and springy, and under an abbrevi 
 ated ballet skirt his muscular legs pirouetted 
 with no mean skill. He held coquettishly 
 above his head a tiny pink parasol. " What 
 a good time he's having ! " thought Son, 
 smiling. Just then his eyes caught those of 
 a little clown who was passing by. They 
 were gray, clear eyes, unspoiled by the painted 
 lines about them. They met Son's squarely, 
 with an open and pleasant look. He had, to 
 be sure, a painted face with red blotches, a 
 pair of baggy pantaloons, and the regulation 
 peaked cap, but no art could have given him 
 those thousand good-humored lines about a 
 mouth made for kindliness and laughter. 
 That was pure nature. So attentively did he 
 observe the play of his fellows, following 
 their hits with many an impulsive gesture 
 of appreciation, that before long he began to 
 be the centre of attraction. The other clowns 
 
 71
 
 "Son" 
 
 had been received good-naturedly, too, but 
 everybody liked this one best. 
 
 Shuffling along in his wake came presently 
 a great, lanky clown, who gazed solemnly 
 into vacancy. Several feet away he halted, 
 and extending deliberately a long thin arm, 
 snapped the other's peaked cap from his head. 
 It turned over and over like a live thing be 
 fore it finally stopped and lay quiet a long 
 way off. Loud laughter rang from the gal 
 lery. Son joined in, holding his sides until 
 he caught sight of the little clown's face. He 
 saw all the little lines of merriment about the 
 mouth wiped out like figures on a slate. He 
 saw the crow's feet around the eyes smooth 
 themselves away. Slowly, one by one, the 
 thousand delicate and elusive nothings that 
 make a smile disappeared. Then he saw the 
 mouth begin to droop ever so little at the 
 corners. The expression was that of a small 
 child bullied by a big one. The eyes were 
 raised to the tormentor's great height, and 
 then why, the little clown was crying. 
 
 " Er hat mir minerr hat off ge-knocked ! " 
 72
 
 The Little Clown 
 
 he sobbed. " Oh, what shall I make ? And 
 out-ge-laughed to be from all people, wie 
 kommt das schwar ! " 
 
 That anyone should be made so unhappy 
 in this place of delight was not to be borne. 
 Son leaned far out over the rail and called 
 beseechingly : 
 
 " Look ! Oh, please look, dear little clown ! 
 Here's somebody who's not laughing ! " 
 
 The band was playing very loud, and no 
 one could hear the shaking tones the 
 clown least of all, for he was walking away 
 with heavy feet and drooping shoulders to 
 ward the insulted hat. 
 
 The next half-hour was as full of misery 
 for Son as the preceding ones had been of 
 joy, for he had to see the wretched mummery 
 repeated at least six times at different ranges 
 of vision. It was not so bad while the two 
 figures gesticulated like puppets of a Punch 
 and Judy show, but when they came nearer, 
 and he could once more see them as men 
 and not as dolls, he could bear the strain no 
 longer. 
 
 73
 
 "Son" 
 
 For the seventh and last time the incident 
 was about to be repeated, and directly in 
 front of Son's box. Oh, the poor little clown ! 
 He was so confiding ! And he had thought 
 each time that his troubles were over, and 
 had gone rejoicing on his way ! He was a 
 foreigner, too just come over, probably, 
 since he spoke so little English. That big 
 fellow was a coward ! Son wanted to run 
 out and beat him with his hands. His sense 
 of hospitality was outraged. Once more his 
 heart stood still. The churl was creeping up 
 behind the back of his unsuspecting mate ; a 
 stealthy arm was extended and off blew 
 the conical hat again. At the same instant 
 a childish voice cried out firmly, determined 
 to be heard this time : 
 
 " Never mind him, little clown ! Here's a 
 hat for you ! " 
 
 Father, startled, saw Son holding out in 
 both hands his little sailor cap of blue cloth. 
 
 " Son ! " he began hastily. " Have you 
 lost your " 
 
 He stopped short, for the little clown some- 
 74
 
 The Little Clown 
 
 how managed to tell him that it was all right. 
 This would not have surprised his fellows, to 
 whom Kent Von Hergberg was known as the 
 quickest clown in the circus. 
 
 After a moment of surprise, not long 
 enough for a little boy to notice, he had 
 taken the cap out of the eager hands and 
 was holding it as if it were some very pre 
 cious and breakable thing. Next he came 
 quite close to the box rail and stood with 
 wistful chin uplifted toward Son. Then, as 
 if remembering all of a sudden, he tossed the 
 cap high in air with a joyous shout, so that 
 the beautifully stamped letters, " U. S. S. 
 Valiant" mingled in a whir of gold, caught 
 it, clapped it onto the top of his head, where 
 it stuck no one knows how, and without so 
 much as a " Thank you " danced off past the 
 boxes and made the entire circuit of the 
 arena before he disappeared behind the mys 
 terious door. As for the big one, he followed 
 at a respectful distance, skulking wofully. 
 The conical cap was left unheeded where it 
 had fallen, and was presently swept up by one 
 75
 
 "Son" 
 
 of the attendants, who was rushing about 
 assiduously with broom and dustpan. 
 
 Father, leading Son out with the crowd, 
 was suddenly bumped into quite unneces 
 sarily, he thought. 
 
 " Excuse me, sir ! " some one said. 
 
 He looked down, and there at his elbow 
 was a small man in neat blue serge, smiling 
 irresistibly and making signs. 
 
 " Here's his cap don't let him know," 
 he whispered with a slight accent but in ex 
 cellent English. 
 
 Father took it and slipped it into his 
 pocket, with a glance at Son's smooth bare 
 head. 
 
 "Why does he let that child go around 
 without a hat? So conspicuous!" he heard 
 some one whisper in the street car, and he 
 rather wished he had called a taxi. But to do 
 Father justice, that was only because he was 
 afraid Son would take cold. 
 
 He might have spared himself this anxiety. 
 In Son's exhilarated state catching cold was 
 not in the realm of possibilities. He glowed 
 76
 
 The Little Clown 
 
 all over. It was so irritating to have your 
 hat knocked off! Only that week some boys 
 had played that trick on him. Baby's nurse 
 had said he mustn't mind. But he had 
 minded ! And that was only once, while 
 the little clown, too small to defend himself, 
 had been subjected to the indignity over and 
 over. But now never again ! 
 
 The next day, Sunday, Son went to the 
 park in the morning longing for fresh excite^ 
 ment. He forgot to play, and found himself 
 gazing anxiously up and down the walks of 
 the Mall, his glance stopping at every bench. 
 It was absurd ! He had never encountered 
 a clown in the park. But, after all, why 
 shouldn't one come there once in a while? 
 He had seen Santa Claus plenty of times at 
 Christmas standing soberly in the light of 
 every day, shaking a tambourine or keeping 
 guard over a toy chimney on a tripod, for 
 pennies. Then why not a clown, on a spring 
 Sunday, when the circus wasn't working, and 
 there was nothing else for him to do? 
 
 Idling along with his hands in his pockets, 
 
 77
 
 "Son" 
 
 Son's heart suddenly leaped into his mouth. 
 Surely, behind that tree that was he ! He 
 waited, confidently expecting him to creep 
 out, shaking a playful finger. It took so 
 long that Son could not endure the suspense, 
 so he stole up softly on tiptoe, and clasping 
 his hands about the venerable trunk, peered 
 stealthily around it. Nothing was there. 
 What he had seen moving was but the shadow 
 of the branches that swayed in the breeze. 
 He went home, and his heart was heavy with 
 a sense of disillusion. 
 
 It was Mathilde's Sunday out, and he had 
 looked forward to walking in the afternoon 
 with Baby and her nurse, both persons of 
 sense. He was going to tell them all about 
 yesterday's horses. But when the time came, 
 Baby seemed listless, and it was decreed that 
 she must stay at home. 
 
 Son was sent back to the park with the 
 housemaid, who had just given notice and 
 was going away next week to be married. In 
 unsocial mood she sought out an unfre 
 quented corner of the ramble, and as the air 
 73
 
 The Little Clown 
 
 was warm threw herself on a bench, opened a 
 book she had brought with her, and was 
 soon completely absorbed in a story suited to 
 her state of mind. Son, left to his own de 
 vices, regarded her gravely for a moment, 
 pondering on the unpleasant transformation 
 wrought in even the most sane persons by 
 falling in love. Then he wandered off. He 
 hardly knew how far he went, still looking 
 for a possible clown. 
 
 He ought not to have expected him in the 
 morning ! It was of a Sunday afternoon that 
 clowns came to the park. Everybody came 
 then ! Weary mothers, with dragging feet 
 and wan faces that yet had smiles for the 
 babes in their arms ; pinched children with 
 greedy eyes spying out anything that was 
 beginning to bud, looking about warily for 
 " cops " before they snatched at the forbidden 
 treasure ; whole families of little ones unac 
 companied, and holding each other by the 
 hands for fear of getting separated, many 
 looking, alas ! as if they had been housed 
 the whole winter through. 
 79
 
 "Son" 
 
 Son was so glad that they were out at last ! 
 Mathilde always grumbled at the park on 
 such days, saying it was no place for him, 
 but the more crowded it was, the better he 
 liked it. It was good to see the tiniest ones 
 sniffing the sweet air, and to hear them crow 
 at the carriages and motors that went roll 
 ing by. 
 
 Son, trotting along, always keeping a sharp 
 lookout, did not notice a small man coming 
 toward him, evidently watching for some one 
 too. This person, after spending a fruitless 
 hour in the Mall, had sought out these rest 
 ful by-paths because he was weary of so 
 much humanity. When he caught sight of 
 Son, his face lighted up in one flash of joy. 
 But he drew back behind some bushes and 
 bided his time. 
 
 It was tiresome work, this waiting for 
 clowns who never came. And there was no 
 one to play with. Son, with a little sigh, 
 took his ball out of his pocket and began to 
 throw it into the air and catch it again. He 
 was not very skilful, and presently it slipped 
 80
 
 The Little Clown 
 
 away and rolled a long distance down the 
 walk. Here was the man's chance. He 
 picked up the ball and made ready to toss it. 
 
 " Catch ! " he said in an encouraging voice 
 with pleasant inflection. 
 
 Son put out his hands, palms upward in 
 nursery fashion and missed. 
 
 " That's not the way," said the man, com 
 ing up. " Look ! Like this ! " 
 
 And in twenty minutes he had taught Son 
 as much about ball-playing as even Father 
 could have known in his gilded youth. It 
 was a royal game they had. 
 
 " I can't do any more ! " panted Son finally, 
 rosy and laughing. So they changed to hop 
 scotch, for which his accommodating pocket 
 provided a piece of chalk. 
 
 Son burst into a peal of merriment when 
 the man's turn came*. 
 
 " You jump just like a kangaroo ! " he 
 cried. "Doesn't he?" 
 
 This remark was addressed to a group of 
 Italian children who had come up, chattering 
 like little monkeys, and were now standing in 
 81
 
 "Son" 
 
 an admiring circle around the intrepid pair 
 who had dared to make chalk marks on other 
 ground than that set apart for such purposes. 
 They smiled and nodded when Son appealed 
 to them, their responsive faces full of pleasure. 
 When Son sank down on a bench, followed 
 by the man, and there was promise of no 
 more amusement, they stood for an instant 
 wide-eyed and then scampered off. 
 
 " A rivederci ! " they called in their musi 
 cal tones, waving back over their shoulders. 
 
 The confidence begun in play was increased 
 by the meeting of eyes. Surely those were 
 not the eyes of a stranger ! Son was con 
 vinced that he had looked into them before. 
 But where? When? He gave it up, and 
 began at once to talk to this new friend on 
 the subject nearest his heart. That a man so 
 full of general information should know all 
 about the circus seemed perfectly natural to 
 him. 
 
 He learned what circus folk did on Tues 
 days, how they exchanged stories, sitting 
 around in the big dressing-room on boxes 
 82
 
 The Little Clown 
 
 and trunks; how sociable they were, and 
 how kindly, and how they thrilled to the 
 applause which was the breath of life to them. 
 It was for this, he said, that the trapeze per 
 formers risked their lives cheerfully twice a 
 day, and for this, too, that a mere boy made 
 the high dive from the dome, well knowing 
 the chances to be one in twenty that he would 
 be killed before the year was out. 
 
 Of Son's clown he seemed reluctant to 
 talk at first, merely vouchsafing the informa 
 tion that he had come from somewhere across 
 the sea in a great big ship. 
 
 " Are you his friend ? " Son asked. 
 
 " I may not be much of a friend to him," 
 was the smiling answer, " but I know him 
 about as well as anybody." 
 
 " Why did he come?" asked Son. 
 
 " Well, you see," answered the man, " laugh- 
 making is his living, and he was afraid he 
 might forget it over there." 
 
 "Was he unhappy?" 
 
 " Once upon a time," the man said, " he 
 was the happiest little clown that ever lived. 
 83
 
 "Son" 
 
 The very happiest ! For he had a beautiful 
 little wife." 
 
 "Did she belong to the circus?" asked 
 Son. 
 
 " Sure, she did ! " replied the man, " and 
 wore spangles and rode a white pony. But 
 by and by she went away." 
 
 "Went away!" Son was incredulous. 
 "Did the clown go too?" 
 
 "No," was the reply. "She left him 
 something to take care of for her," the man 
 replied. 
 
 " The white pony ! " guessed Son. 
 
 "Better than that," said the man. Then, 
 anxious to divert the conversation, " But he 
 did keep the pony, and whenever he had 
 time he used to go to the railroad station and 
 buy a ticket and travel to the place where it 
 was. He would walk miles through the 
 country, and when he came to the field where 
 he kept it turned out, he would stand for 
 hours against the fence, watching it frisk 
 about and whisk away the flies with its great, 
 long tail." 
 
 84
 
 The Little Clown 
 
 "Did he bring them to America the 
 pony and the present the lady left?" 
 
 " No," said the man. 
 
 " Then he hadn't anything ! " Son cried. 
 
 " Oh, yes," was the quick reply, " he had 
 the spangled dress in his trunk ! " 
 
 Then Son wanted to hear all about the big 
 clown who would never dare bother the little 
 one any more. So they talked on and 
 on. 
 
 Squirrels scolded them occasionally, look 
 ing down from the trees with bright, inquisi 
 tive eyes, and birds hopped up quite close to 
 their feet, flew off, hoped they had been mis 
 taken in thinking that the two on the bench 
 had nothing to feed them with, and came 
 back to try again. 
 
 They were interrupted at last by the de 
 linquent housemaid, for whom Son had un 
 wittingly provided a very unpleasant half-hour. 
 She had continued her reading until the last 
 page of the book, had suppressed a desire to 
 go back to the beginning without looking up, 
 and, having regretfully closed the enticing 
 85
 
 "Son" 
 
 volume, had glanced about vaguely for her 
 charge. 
 
 There he was at length, in absorbed con 
 versation with a little, strange man, and no 
 harm done. So great was her relief that 
 when the man arose, uttered a few whispered 
 words in her ear, took Son's hand in his and 
 started toward home with him, she was 
 quite ready to follow meekly a few yards 
 behind. 
 
 Son did not notice whither he was being led, 
 nor how the walks had begun to clear them 
 selves of children, all hurrying home eastward 
 through the streets. For his mind was else 
 where, among the gay scenes of the day 
 before, and he was learning that clowns must 
 keep very close out of working hours, else 
 no one would buy tickets to see them in the 
 show. 
 
 " Why, here we are ! " said Son, waking 
 up in front of his own home. 
 
 When the door was opened in response to 
 their ring, Father was in the front hall taking 
 off his hat and coat. 
 
 86
 
 The Little Clown 
 
 Son was not surprised at the cordial greet 
 ing between the two men. It was right that 
 they should like each other these two, both 
 of whom were so worthy, and whom chance 
 had brought together. 
 
 " Won't you come in? " urged Father. 
 
 The man shook his head. 
 
 " No, sir, thank you," he said. " I hope you 
 did not mind," he added anxiously, lowering 
 his voice, " my coming to the door with him. 
 I was looking for him all the afternoon. And 
 when I found him, I wanted to see where he 
 lived, so that I could remember after I 
 went away." 
 
 Father looked at him curiously for a long 
 minute. 
 
 "Why don't you go into vaudeville?" he 
 then asked abruptly. " It pays better ! I 
 could help you to an opening ! " 
 
 The man only smiled. 
 
 " You're very kind," he presently said, 
 
 " but I'd rather stick to the circus. I was 
 
 bringing my boy up for it. He was just his 
 
 age. I was going to make a clown of him. 
 
 87
 
 "Son" 
 
 And as for the money," he added, "I don't 
 need so much just for myself." 
 
 Father said no more, but wrung his hand. 
 
 Then the man took a long look at Son, as 
 if to stamp on his memory every feature. 
 
 " Good-bye ! " he said. 
 
 " Oh, please," cried Son, " give my love to 
 the Clown." 
 
 The man hesitated, then he stooped down. 
 He did not have to stoop very much. 
 
 " Would you," he asked diffidently, " would 
 you give me something else for him?" 
 
 Son put up his arms and closed them tight 
 around the man's neck. 
 
 " Give him that ! " he said. 
 
 All night long Son dreamed of clowns 
 clowns in hostile countries, among unfriendly 
 inhabitants, clowns in dire peril, who were 
 rescued by little boys, and whose faces, when 
 they bent over to thank their protectors, 
 became the faces of the little boys' mothers. 
 
 88
 
 TOM
 
 TOM 
 
 OON was out in the open, looking up at the 
 low rambling house that pressed the turf 
 as he was pressing it with his foot. On the 
 east the sea, the sea on the west, every 
 where, always, that riotous sheet of dancing 
 blue, and melting into it a green so sober 
 that it checked gently the soaring of his 
 spirit and brought it home again. 
 
 That there were rocks, he knew, for some 
 times in less radiant mood he had gone down 
 to them, seeking the treasures that little boys 
 love, and stopping in the midst of his indus 
 try to watch them white with spray or pink 
 in the sunset. But this was morning ! And 
 they didn't belong to such a morning as this. 
 The trees did, they belonged always. They 
 were big and protecting, and Son had only to 
 stand under their great branches to let the 
 heavy sunlight drop down on him in flecks of 
 gold. 91
 
 "Son" 
 
 If there had been any one observing Son at 
 that moment, he might have envied the care 
 less joys of childhood digging the toes of its 
 boots into such a fragrant dewy carpet, he 
 would not have suspected that with Son mere 
 joy of digging paled beside his delight in the 
 living green. For none knew that this little 
 boy, with the freckles on his nose, whose 
 years by the calendar numbered seven, was 
 really of no age at all, that he was as old as 
 any heart that beat that could rhyme with the 
 sound of the sea, as young as the blue-bell 
 that had sprung up yesterday. 
 
 Father and Mother, appearing at this 
 moment upon the terrace for their rather late 
 breakfast, saw Son. 
 
 " Why do you suppose he stands around 
 like that?" said Father. 
 
 "I don't know," Mother answered, pour 
 ing out the coffee; "he may be think 
 ing." 
 
 " Thinking ! " replied Father with some 
 scorn, and added dogmatically, " Boys don't 
 think at that age." 
 
 92
 
 Tom 
 
 "Very likely not," said Mother absently, 
 looking about for spoons. 
 
 " Hello ! " called Father, and Son came at 
 once to kiss his parents good morning. 
 
 " Have you been down to the stable yet? " 
 began Father diplomatically. 
 
 " No," said Son. 
 
 Father looked disappointed. 
 
 " I'll go now," Son said cheerfully, and 
 ran off. 
 
 The stable was in charge of an elderly man 
 who had been got cheap on account of a cer 
 tain meagreness in his references, with long 
 gaps which were not very well accounted for. 
 Father had frowned over them for a long 
 time in a state of indecision. 
 
 " But he has such a nice face ! " Mother 
 had said. " And the livery will just fit him. 
 And he will be much more contented than a 
 younger man, so far from the village. He is 
 perfectly willing to mow the lawn, too, and 
 black boots, and look after the furnace if we 
 stay late in the Autumn. Of course he's 
 Irish," she added a little regretfully, " but we 
 93
 
 "Son" 
 
 never could get an Englishman who would 
 mow the lawn." 
 
 So Tom was engaged, and put in charge of 
 a pair of horses hired from the village and 
 of Baby's pony, Peter Pan. 
 
 This pony was the pride of the whole fam 
 ily, for Mother, having seen an advertisement 
 in the Sun setting forth his virtues and the 
 sorrow of those who on account of reverses 
 had been obliged to part with him, had made 
 her way to a stable somewhere near the river 
 and bought him at sight, together with a 
 governess-cart and russet harness. 
 
 Father had heaved a sigh of relief on see 
 ing the new purchase, and had thought in 
 secret that fate had been kind. For Peter 
 was young and sound, and looked serviceable. 
 The harness turned out to be machine made, 
 and as it had to be replaced by a safer one 
 the outfit had not come quite so cheap as 
 Mother had thought But that, after all, was 
 a small matter. "It might have been so 
 much worse," reflected Father. " Now, if the 
 pony had had a spavin ..." 
 94
 
 Tom 
 
 Mother was triumphant this Summer, for 
 Tom, too, had turned out a treasure. He was 
 up at dawn, and worked unceasingly all day. 
 His only rest was during the hours when, in 
 the livery which, after all, had needed a few 
 alterations, and looking very neat and respec 
 table, he was out with Baby and her nurse in 
 the pony-cart. The hired pair Father gen 
 erally drove himself. 
 
 When after a few weeks it appeared that 
 Baby was not only holding the reins on her 
 expeditions but was learning to handle them 
 with the inborn instinct of the true sport, 
 every one, from the fat laundress who stood 
 behind the lattice watching, hands on hips, 
 to Father and Mother themselves, was in a 
 state of almost hysterical enthusiasm. 
 
 As for Son, he was swollen with vanity and 
 pride. That people could write books or 
 make up poetry did not seem to him remark 
 able. But any one who could handle a horse 
 he regarded with respectful admiration. And 
 that Baby his own Baby, not yet four years 
 old was doing it every afternoon was 
 95
 
 "Son" 
 
 wonderful beyond words. So, when Father 
 was laughing one day over the receipt of a 
 notice inviting him to make entries in the 
 coming August horse-show, Son had cried 
 out, " Let Baby drive Peter ! " 
 
 Father and Mother had exchanged looks of 
 silent astonishment, and had then responded 
 with one voice, "Why not?" 
 
 And Son, to whom it did not seem to occur 
 that he had work enough already, had en 
 tered heart and soul into the idea. Son knew, 
 as he trotted toward the stable on this partic 
 ular morning, just what Tom would be doing. 
 He would be rubbing, rubbing, rubbing, and 
 as he rubbed he would make a peculiar half- 
 whistling, half-sighing sound. Son had 
 thought this was meant to soothe the horses, 
 until one day he heard Tom doing it as he 
 bent over the lawn mower. 
 
 " Good morning, Tom ! " said Son. 
 
 " Good morning, me lad," said Tom. 
 
 "Isn't it a beautiful day?" Son went on. 
 
 " Sure, it's a foine day for horses," responded 
 Tom, " and the flies isn't botherin' thim at all." 
 96
 
 Tom 
 
 Son sighed. There was only one subject 
 upon which one could converse with Tom. 
 So they went over for the thousandth time 
 their plans for the coming show. 
 
 It was at lunch that very day that the 
 crash of Son's hopes came. They were, of 
 course, talking of Baby. 
 
 " She hasn't a chance of any kind of a 
 ribbon," Father said easily. 
 
 "Don't you suppose I know that?" re 
 torted Mother, piqued at his assumption of 
 her ignorance. Then she continued more 
 amiably, " He's a pretty pony, though." 
 
 " Yes," Father said judicially, " but no 
 action. Have you seen the Reynolds' pony, 
 the black one ? He can step ! " 
 
 "Oh, never mind," went on Mother. "We're 
 only going into it for fun. Baby will look 
 too sweet ! And she won't know whether she 
 gets a ribbon or not." 
 
 Thus carelessly did Mother thrust her little 
 daughter into the class of incompetents. 
 
 Not know the difference ! Son grew hot. 
 97
 
 "Son" 
 
 But he said no word, and occupied himself 
 with his potato. 
 
 The instant the meal was finished, Son 
 went down to the stable. Tom was working 
 on harness this time. Not the harness that 
 had been rented with the village horses, but 
 Peter's little russet one, which he handled 
 delicately, pausing from time to time with 
 his head on one side to determine whether 
 the mountings shone enough. 
 
 Son watched him for some moments 
 quietly. He hated to tell what he had heard, 
 longing at the same time for sympathy. He 
 knew nothing of the vicissitudes of Tom's 
 life, the long years of drifting and knock 
 ing about, so he could not realize the blessed 
 ness of the peace that had come to the gray- 
 haired man through being anchored fast at 
 last 
 
 Poor Tom would not express himself in 
 words, but with the work of his hands he 
 could show his adoration of Baby, and did. 
 Nothing was too good for her. And in the 
 eyes of his love everything pertaining to her 
 98
 
 Tom 
 
 expanded and grew. Thus he slaved for 
 Father and Mother, merely because she owned 
 them, and he had come to regard Peter, who 
 served her, as the one pony in the world. 
 Son's intuition told him enough of all this to 
 make this moment very difficult. And it is 
 not easy to put things just right when you 
 are only seven. 
 
 " Tom," he said at last tentatively, " do 
 you think Peter will get a ribbon ? " 
 
 " Sure, I do," replied Tom with conviction. 
 " It's the blue he'll get." 
 
 " Mother and Father don't think he's got 
 action enough," burst out Son. There, it 
 was said, and he had meant to do it so 
 much more gradually. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Tom. He had not thought of 
 that. But now that it had been spoken of, 
 his ideal pony had in a twinkling dissolved in 
 thin air, and left in his stead a naked, change 
 ling Peter. 
 
 Tom emerged from his nightmare to see 
 Son's anxious eyes on his face. Son had a 
 way of waiting for an answer. 
 99
 
 "Son" 
 
 "Action, is it?" blustered Tom feebly. 
 " Well, what if he ain't?" 
 
 Then Son knew that Father and Mother had 
 spoken truth. He went out thinking deeply. 
 
 Tom resumed his work, and his face looked 
 quite old and ashen. But it seemed that he 
 too was thinking, for toward night a mysteri 
 ous smile began to play around his eyes and 
 the corners of his mouth. 
 
 That evening at supper, Son said : 
 
 " Baby, if you shouldn't get a blue ribbon, 
 what color would you like ? " 
 
 " Green," answered Baby promptly. 
 
 And her nurse laughed, for she was Irish, 
 as well as Tom. 
 
 The afternoon had come. Father and 
 Mother were going to the horse-show on a 
 brake. Son was to follow in that anomalous 
 conveyance known as a cutunder, that Baby 
 might be kept as quiet as possible on the way 
 over with Peter. 
 
 But when the brake, with much crunching 
 of gravel, fussing about of grooms, and head 
 100
 
 Tom 
 
 tossings of horses, had been brought to a 
 standstill before the door, Mother's resplen 
 dent friend noticed Son standing gravely there 
 to see the party off, and with a sudden im 
 pulse to make herself very agreeable, cried 
 out: 
 
 " Why can't he come too?" 
 
 " Yes ! Yes ! " shouted all the other beauti 
 ful ladies and fine gentlemen, in chorus. 
 
 " Let him sit in front with you, Dick," said 
 Mother's friend to her husband, trying to 
 make her tone ungrudging ; " he won't take 
 up much room. I hope he won't be noisy," 
 she added under her breath. 
 
 Son was swung up by the attentive grooms, 
 to whom the gentleman gave a. great many 
 orders in a very loud voice, and sat as still as 
 a mouse between the gentleman and the most 
 beautiful young lady he had ever seen. Her 
 cheeks were as red as roses, and she was 
 clothed all in violet of the most delicate 
 shades. When she moved she exhaled a 
 pungent odor, also of violets. She put her 
 arm about Son, giving him a little squeeze, 
 101
 
 "Son" 
 
 and paid no further attention to him. The 
 gentleman handled the reins with an easy 
 skill that was marvellous to Son. 
 
 "Well, old sport," he asked familiarly, 
 looking down, " and how goes the world with 
 you ? " 
 
 Son did not know how to reply to this 
 strange form of address. But it came to him 
 quickly that the gentleman was probably not 
 used to little boys, so he said cordially: 
 
 " Very well, thank you." 
 
 And the gentleman looked at him again 
 with a kindly glimmer in his little gray eyes, 
 after which he asked Son quite solicitously 
 whether he had room enough. 
 
 How dusty the road was ! Son was glad 
 that the great white swirls did not reach to 
 their high perch, for it would have been such 
 a pity to spoil the beautiful dress of the violet 
 young lady. Their progress was necessarily 
 slow, but the gentleman man manoeuvred his 
 four in and out among crawling vehicles of 
 every description with a sureness born of long 
 practice up and down New York's great 
 1 02
 
 Tom 
 
 thoroughfare. For he took his driving seri 
 ously, and who shall say he was not the 
 better for it? Had fate denied him the 
 wherewithal to follow out his destiny, and 
 tried to make of him a doctor or a lawyer, 
 how pitiable would have been the result! 
 Each after his kind. And Son followed with 
 unbounded admiration every twist and turn 
 of his wrist, wondering most of all at sight of 
 the long, thin lash that, fascinating as a live 
 reptile, uncoiled itself, pricking with unerring 
 aim first one leader and then the other, to be 
 wound up again instantly without the minutest 
 tangle. He doubted whether even Baby 
 would be able to do it like that, when she 
 should have a four of her own. 
 
 Baby ! She would be coming soon. Son 
 felt in his pocket, to make sure that some 
 thing was there. Yes, there it was, all safe. 
 
 A sudden jar turned his thoughts. Some 
 of the ladies screamed. Not Mother, she 
 never screamed. Almost obliterated by dust, 
 a well-loaded cutunder had stopped short in 
 the middle of the last hill before you came 
 103
 
 "Son" 
 
 to the park, directly in front of the brake. 
 The leaders, pulled sharply to the left, cleared 
 it by a hair's breadth. The brake rocked, 
 and its owner uttered forcible expletives in no 
 gentle tone. The driver of the cutunder 
 turned toward the party his round, humorous 
 face. 
 
 " I can't help it, Mr. Jennings ! " he pleaded. 
 "There ain't no power on earth will make 
 him go when he takes a notion not to. So 
 long ! " 
 
 And Son turned to see him, slumped down 
 in his seat, the reins over the horse's back, 
 wagon and occupants motionless and very 
 much in the way of everybody. 
 
 Sharply trotting, for the congestion was 
 less for the moment, the leaders reached 
 the crest of the hill and lessened their pace 
 for the downward slope. For, as everybody 
 knew, Mr. Jennings explained good-naturedly 
 to Son, the chances were a thousand to one 
 you would snap your pole if you neglected 
 to take this precaution. " Break it short off, 
 by thunder ! " he said impressively. 
 104
 
 Tom 
 
 But Son did not hear. For down in the 
 valley he could see a green level field, cool 
 as an emerald after the dusty road. The sky 
 was brilliant, and against it stood out sharp 
 the outlines of the watching mountains. 
 Great masses of cloud moved slowly across 
 the blue, casting shadows over their slopes. 
 Son longed for time to notice their mysterious 
 changes of form, their luminous colors and 
 watery depths. 
 
 But already the field was growing bigger, 
 men and horses had ceased to look like 
 puppets, the freshly whitewashed fence glit 
 tered in the sun, and it was as hot as ever. 
 
 Inside the gate the confusion was worse 
 than on the road. One driver did not know 
 where to go, and the two old ladies in black 
 silk with tiny sunshades, who were his fares, 
 turned deaf ears to all offers of aid, thinking 
 to discern behind each one some hostile 
 arritre pensee. A policeman if such are 
 made by uniform and buttons was standing 
 by, letting people work themselves out of 
 their difficulties as best they might. His 
 105
 
 "Son" 
 
 helmet was on the back of his head, and he 
 was chewing a straw, cracking jokes the 
 while with his acquaintances. Son found 
 time to observe him with open-eyed disap 
 proval. He longed to show him a real police 
 man, one who was his intimate friend, 
 named Jim. One look at Jim would crush 
 the spirit of this undignified rustic ; of that 
 Son was certain. 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Jennings, avoiding all ob 
 stacles, had landed his brake in the proper 
 parking-space, and the agile grooms were 
 busying themselves with the horses. Their 
 master had descended somewhat heavily, 
 followed by Son, and was superintend 
 ing the unharnessing and blanketing, en 
 joying once more his prerogative of giving 
 orders. 
 
 Amid the laughter of the ladies the brake 
 was then drawn up close to the rail, and the 
 violet one extended jauntily two little prettily 
 slippered feet. One of the gentlemen, a 
 young one, climbed over from the middle 
 seat and took the now vacant place beside 
 106
 
 Tom 
 
 her, carrying on with her a whispered con 
 versation which seemed to amuse them both 
 very much. 
 
 The village band struck up a lively tune, 
 which to Son's uncritical ear was martial 
 music, and added greatly to his excitement. 
 He slipped away from his big companion, 
 and wandered about among the tents which 
 constituted that part of the show called by 
 courtesy "the fair." The pink lemonade 
 looked inviting, but he lacked the necessary 
 nickel, and Mother was too busy talking to 
 be disturbed. Son went over to a booth 
 where people were aiming with baseballs at 
 half a dozen grotesque masques. He watched 
 for several minutes the jovial and generally 
 unsuccessful attempts of many competitors, 
 wishing that Mr. Jennings would try and put 
 these bunglers to shame. In one he recog 
 nized a coachman whom he had often seen 
 sitting up very straight on his box, looking 
 neither to right nor left. He threw the worst 
 of all, with his white tie under one ear. His 
 efforts caused boisterous mirth, in which he 
 107
 
 himself joined loudly, and Son nearly died 
 laughing too. 
 
 Looking up, he saw the cutunder of their 
 adventure just entering the grounds, the horse 
 walking along with a certain conscious dignity. 
 " I wonder what made him change his mind ! " 
 thought Son. " Perhaps he did not want the 
 people to be disappointed." Suddenly he 
 heard a class being called through the mega 
 phone, and running in and out among the 
 blanketed horses, clambered up on the fence 
 in front of his own parking-space. The top 
 rail was well covered with children, vil 
 lagers and summer visitors rubbing shoul 
 ders, while their elders stood good-temperedly 
 behind. 
 
 It looked hot inside the wooden pavilion 
 known as the judges' stand. The judges were 
 all there, two short ones on chairs, and the 
 third, who was tall and much cut in at the 
 waist, posed gracefully against the rail. At 
 the foot of the stand were grouped figures 
 long familiar to Son, the local veterinary, 
 a handsome fellow in a black and white 
 1 08
 
 Tom 
 
 checked suit; an enormously fat man in a 
 white waistcoat, whom Son sincerely pitied 
 on this warm day, owner of a small livery 
 stable that was always disintegrating and 
 somehow being nursed along again for the 
 next season. There, too, were the success 
 ful liverymen, brothers, standing side by side, 
 with thin, dissipated faces as inscrutable as 
 any to be met on the tenderloin, and, moving 
 up and down nervously, a little neat gentleman 
 who had no entries and nothing to do with 
 the show, but merely liked to be everywhere 
 and talk with every one. 
 
 All these people interested Son more than 
 the class that was about to be judged, which 
 consisted of heavy pairs in harness. At last 
 it was time to award the ribbons. He watched 
 them all, blue, red, yellow, and, last, white, 
 watched until the colors swam before his 
 eyes and his heart beat like a trip-hammer. 
 For Baby's was the next class. 
 
 One of those big, puffy clouds drifted 
 slowly across the sun, and a fresh breeze 
 lifted for a moment the awning over the 
 109
 
 "Son" 
 
 grand stand as if it had been a sail. Every 
 one felt the relief of it, and people moved 
 about in the crowded boxes, chatting, laugh 
 ing, and ready to be pleased. Even the 
 horses noticed it, and from the paddock to 
 the right of the wooden structure that penned 
 in the fashionable throng, came many a joy 
 ful snort and whinny. Son's little cramped 
 hands dug into the wooden rail. For the 
 ponies were coming in. 
 
 " How sweet ! " he heard the violet girl say 
 on the brake. " Look at his little ears ! " 
 
 And from that moment he no longer loved 
 her. For it was the Reynolds' pony that she 
 meant 
 
 It was a big class, five, six, seven, 
 Baby would make eight 
 
 Where was Baby? 
 
 The Reynolds' pony was trotting up and 
 down, always nearest the rail. Son could 
 have touched him, so close was he. And as 
 he passed he lifted his little feet proudly. A 
 groom drove him, and with him in the cart 
 was a boy of about Son's age. Then there 
 
 IIO
 
 Tom 
 
 was a piebald, driven by a girl whom Son 
 knew, a big girl, he thought scornfully, 
 as much as eight years old ! One pony was 
 a Shetland, nothing but a toy. A groom 
 was driving him, too, and his owners were 
 two small boys in sailor suits, twins, with 
 vacuous faces and innocent eyes exactly alike. 
 That one there was a pretty one ! A bay. 
 Almost as showy as the Reynolds' pony and 
 far harder to handle. A boy in a norfolk 
 jacket was managing him alone, giving a very 
 nice exhibition of skill. A much older girl 
 was driving in a surrey a pampered gray 
 pony that looked over-fed. Son didn't notice 
 the rest, for his impatience was burning 
 him up. 
 
 Where was Baby? 
 
 He looked across the track, and saw Father 
 over by the judges' stand, eyes fastened on 
 the gate by which Baby must come in, and 
 with a very grave face. Son's heart almost 
 stopped beating, for the ponies were lining 
 up to be judged. He could bear it no longer, 
 and without stopping to look for Mother, 
 ill
 
 "Son" 
 
 rushed wildly back of the green painted 
 grand stand, toward the paddock. 
 
 There they were ! There was Baby and 
 Peter and everybody! But what was the 
 matter? And why was Tom bending over 
 and looking at Peter's legs, instead of sitting 
 in the cart? "Baby!" he sobbed, long be 
 fore there was any possibility of being heard, 
 " Oh, Baby ! Hurry up ! " At last Tom 
 was in, and they were ready. But the gate 
 was closed. Son rushed up to it, sobbing 
 still, and tried to tear at it with his hands. 
 He was so blinded by tears that he did not 
 see the man standing beside it, until the lat 
 ter called out with a smile, " All right, little 
 boy ! Don't worry ! Plenty of time ! " and 
 opened the gate. 
 
 Son saw that Tom had the reins. " Prob 
 ably he thinks she's too little to drive him 
 through," he said to himself. " But she could 
 do it ! Yes, she could ! " 
 
 He ran behind the cart; crossed the track, 
 reached the judges' stand, and slipped his 
 hand into Father's. 
 
 112
 
 Tom 
 
 What a relief! Tom had given Baby the 
 reins. The whole tension of Son's body 
 relaxed. 
 
 "Let her drive up and down once or 
 twice," said the reddest-faced judge to Tom. 
 
 So Baby, eyes front, cheeks glowing, a soft 
 curl or two lifted by the breeze, started up 
 the track amid the cheers of the crowd. 
 
 Baby never noticed them, but Son experi 
 enced the intoxication of popular acclaim. 
 He wanted to shout back in a mighty voice, 
 " She's my sister ! " Strung up to the high 
 est pitch, he was the first to feel the change 
 in their humor. What was it? 
 
 No cheering now . . . and yet not silence 
 . . . Men were protesting, women crying 
 out . . . Peter, who had started out so well, 
 had begun to break. . . . 
 
 Tom had taken the reins, turned the pony, 
 and succeeded in bringing him into line, 
 where he stood still for a moment, and then 
 began to paw frantically, first with one deli 
 cate little hoof, then with another. The red 
 face of the judge had grown purple.
 
 "Son" 
 
 " Have you lost your senses?" he snarled 
 at Tom. "Take that child out ! " 
 
 But Father with one spring had reached 
 the cart before Tom could obey, had grabbed 
 Baby, and was holding her on his arm. Loud 
 hisses had begun to be audible, derisive 
 fingers pointed at Tom. Amid the wrathful 
 murmurs, cries of " Gate ! gate ! Give him 
 the gate !" could be heard on all sides. For 
 a moment no one thought of Baby, who had 
 squirmed to be put down, and was now stand 
 ing all alone in her white dress, her dimpled 
 knees showing, her little whip grasped firmly 
 in her gloved right hand. The judges were 
 talking in low tones, and Son heard such 
 words as "shameful," "risk," "danger," and 
 " dope." 
 
 Tom, looking up, saw every hand pointing 
 at the gate. 
 
 He bent his head and drove silently through, 
 and the man who had smiled at Son followed 
 him with a look of contempt. 
 
 Son, crushed for a moment, realized that 
 there was something to be saved from the 
 114
 
 Tom 
 
 wreck of his world. He fumbled in his 
 pocket, ran over to Baby, and cried in a brave 
 voice that trembled very much : 
 
 " Here, Darling ! Here 's your ribbon ! " 
 Then lifting to the irate judge his white, 
 dejected face, "Have you got a pin?" he 
 said. The judge produced one, and Son, 
 with hands that were almost numb, decorated 
 the dainty frock with an enormous green ro 
 sette. His heart rose in thankfulness to the 
 crowd who were so kind to Baby, for once 
 more every body clapped. If any one had 
 whispered in his ear at that moment that the 
 applause was meant for him, he would not in 
 the least have grasped the significance of the 
 words. 
 
 As for Baby herself, her face was wreathed 
 in smiles, and the owner of the Reynolds' 
 pony, who won the blue, was not half so 
 proud as she. Whenever a fresh wave of 
 disappointment threatened to overcome Son, 
 he stole a look at her happy face, and little 
 warm feelings of comfort began to melt the 
 ice at his heart.
 
 "Son" 
 
 When the track had been cleared, Father 
 crossed it, holding a child by each hand, and 
 made his way over to the brake. Son, much 
 to his confusion, was surrounded by ladies, 
 who had all descended and were prepared to 
 make much of him, even the violet one. 
 
 " What a darling ! " they were saying. 
 " Such a sweet little brother ! Couldn't bear 
 to have her disappointed ! How did he ever 
 think of it ! Most unfortunate ! " 
 
 All these comments descended on Son, for 
 Baby would have none of them. Suddenly 
 Son rushed over to Mother, buried his face 
 in her dress and burst into a passion of tears. 
 
 " Poor old fellow ! " he heard Father say, 
 " he's all upset No, thanks, old man, we'll 
 get a cutunder right here. I've got to get 
 these children home." 
 
 "All right," Mr. Jennings replied, "but 
 I'd like to have 'em on the brake. Both of 
 'em. Great kids." 
 
 Mother was busy whispering to Son. Her 
 pretty gown was all crumpled on the trodden 
 grass, but she did not know it. Both forgot 
 116
 
 Tom 
 
 for a moment that there were any other 
 people in the world. 
 
 Son was put into the front seat of the cut- 
 under, Mother, Baby, and the nurse behind. 
 Where was Father going to sit? 
 
 " I've got to look after the pony," the 
 latter said, " before that fool gets at him. 
 I'll drive him home as soon as he's fit I 
 won't be long." 
 
 He turned away, but Son called after him. 
 
 "Father!" he said, "isn't Tom going to 
 drive Peter home ? " 
 
 Father came back. Son had never seen 
 his face look as it did now. 
 
 " I think you're old enough to understand," 
 he said. " That man, out of idiocy and van 
 ity or heaven knows what, took it upon him 
 self to endanger your little sister's life. He 
 rubbed turpentine into the pony's legs. He 
 tried to cheat the Association by a low trick. 
 I'm going to borrow the money from Jen 
 nings to pay him off this minute. Don't ever 
 speak to me of him again." 
 
 During the progress of this speech, in 
 117
 
 "Son" 
 
 which the law was being laid down to him, 
 Son's mind was drawing its own conclusions 
 on the evidence. 
 
 "It was to make him step," was all he 
 said, in a little voice that died half-way to 
 Father's retreating form. 
 
 It would have been a silent party that 
 drove slowly home had not Baby talked and 
 laughed continuously, playing with her ribbon. 
 
 Poor Son ! There seemed to be no end to 
 his responsibilities. Before the reality of this 
 last disaster, the rest was mere child's play. 
 For he saw continually before his eyes Tom's 
 bent head at the moment in which with such 
 cruel curtness he had been ordered off the 
 track. It was Father who did not understand. 
 Somehow people never understood things. 
 Son knew, as he knew that he was alive, why 
 Tom had done this thing. It was all out of 
 love great, big, warm love that he had 
 done it. Tom would have gone through fire 
 or water for Baby he would at any moment 
 have sacrificed his life for her. And if, to 
 secure her a pleasure, it became necessary to 
 118
 
 Tom 
 
 commit crime or pull off a sharp trick, it was 
 all one to him. That he had never thought 
 of danger went without saying. How easy 
 it was to understand ! But, oh, how impos 
 sible to explain ! 
 
 And in the end he was saved from attempt 
 ing this Herculean task. For what Father 
 and Mother lacked in appreciation they made 
 up in affection, and they let Son go after 
 Tom next day, just because they saw how 
 tremendously he cared. 
 
 Son, on his little bicycle, made for the 
 blacksmith's shop. His instinct had not 
 erred in telling him where to look. 
 
 Tom had been standing motionless in the 
 doorway for hours, but when he saw Son he 
 disappeared inside. 
 
 Son leaned his bicycle against the wall and 
 went in, past the clanging anvils, to the spot 
 where Tom was hiding in the shadows. Son 
 took his hand and led him out into the sun 
 shine, chatting all the time. 
 
 " The harness hasn't been cleaned, and the 
 119
 
 "Son" 
 
 cart is all dusty," he said ; but there was no 
 response. 
 
 " Father and Mother said I could come 
 and get you," he continued. But Tom did 
 not brighten. 
 
 "Baby is waiting to give Peter his sugar," 
 said Son. 
 
 And Tom ran back into the shop to get 
 his hat 
 
 120
 
 NILS
 
 NILS 
 
 " T TIS reference \sfetfect" said Mother. 
 
 JL JL Father said nothing. He had heard 
 that sanguine tone before. But Mother looked 
 so pretty, with her flushed cheeks and bright 
 eyes, that he decided then and there to keep 
 silence not only as to the possibility of fresh 
 disappointment, but as to the unwisdom of 
 the added expense. 
 
 " I can write another story," he thought, 
 " a pot-boiler." And he began to revolve 
 in his mind plots with a feminine detective 
 interest, putting off until some future time 
 the planning of an article on certain reforms 
 in the Criminal Law. 
 
 So the fourth butler was engaged. The 
 three that preceded him had served but a 
 short week apiece. The last had had a coun 
 tenance void of expression, and a tread that 
 shook the floor of the poor little house. 
 123
 
 "Son" 
 
 Twenty feet front was a space far too small 
 for such impressiveness. 
 
 " W-h-y," Son had said, as he entered the 
 dining-room on the second morning of the 
 reign of this personage, turning toward him 
 with a smile of pleased recognition, " there's 
 the goat ! " 
 
 "What do you mean?" said Father. 
 "What goat?" 
 
 "The buster-goat." 
 
 This was too much. The man retired into 
 the pantry, for he was in danger of losing his 
 most precious asset, his gravity. If he had 
 shown for a moment a touch of humanity, 
 and had "m-a-a-d" at Son and Baby from 
 behind the door as they came in, that was 
 neither here nor there. He came back im 
 passive as ever. And at the end of seven 
 days he moved on to a place where there 
 were no children, and where in his joyless 
 formality he vied with his employers them 
 selves. 
 
 "His name is Lundstrom," said Mother, 
 "Nils Lundstrom. But Lundstrom is too hard 
 124
 
 Nils 
 
 to say. I think we shall have to call him 
 Nils." 
 
 When Nils had been in the house three 
 days, Father began to admit to himself that 
 he was not like the others. 
 
 " She's stumbled on it again," he thought, 
 " run right onto it in the dark." For he 
 was a firm believer in Mother's luck. He 
 found it surprisingly easy to get used to 
 being waited on, while he grumbled a little 
 on the side. 
 
 Mother was quite accustomed to this and 
 did not mind it. She had sat opposite him 
 at dinner for a number of years now, hearing 
 him talk of his boyhood's porridge and of 
 the simple fare he had had in his college 
 days. 
 
 " I'd be perfectly satisfied to-night [with a 
 couple of poached eggs," he often said. 
 
 Yet it was he who gave the final word as to 
 the capabilities of the cooks, of whom there 
 had been in these years quite a procession, 
 each giving place silently to a successor who 
 a little excelled her in daintiness and skill. 
 125
 
 "Son" 
 
 " By Jove ! I've left my handkerchief," 
 Father would exclaim as Nils was opening 
 the front door. And it was hardly a second 
 that he and Mother would have to wait 
 just time enough for a glance at himself in 
 the mirror, an instant's adjusting of the soft 
 fur at her neck before Nils had sprung up 
 the three flights of stairs and was down again 
 with the required article in his hand. 
 
 He would emerge from nowhere to an 
 nounce that the motor was at the door, or 
 appear noiselessly in Mother's sitting-room 
 to ask whether she cared to speak to who 
 ever might be at the telephone. No more 
 ringing of the extension bell at the behest of 
 any chance milliner seeking renewed custom 
 or stranger wishing to investigate a ser 
 vant's reference, as in the days of ease-loving 
 parlor-maids. 
 
 And during a hiatus of furnace men he 
 stoked the furnace himself, though it was in 
 the height of the season and he was very 
 busy getting ready for a number of little 
 dinners. 
 
 126
 
 Nils 
 
 "The silver was in such a state," thought 
 Mother, looking with satisfaction at two 
 Georgian boxes, wedding presents, which 
 had just been rubbed into the beauty they 
 had possessed on that day, now so long ago, 
 when she had first taken them out of their 
 wrappings. And because the machinery of 
 the house went on, she did not hurry herself 
 in filling in the interim between out-going 
 Michael and in-coming Patrick. 
 
 " It's much more fun to have only eight 
 for dinner, and it is much less work, as well 
 as being cheaper," Mother would say to 
 Father, as she gave a last glance at the well- 
 appointed table, with its few flowers exquis 
 itely arranged. She never had to touch the 
 flowers now, Nils did it all, and the din 
 ners of eight went so well, and were so much 
 appreciated, that they began to take place 
 very often. 
 
 Women liked to sit in the impanelled 
 drawing-room, with its graceful chairs of 
 another age, from which worn gilt and one 
 time white enamel were crumbling-, merging 
 127
 
 "Son" 
 
 and blending into an exquisite bit of color. 
 For Mother had the feel of these things, and 
 knew where to pick them up. 
 
 And afterwards they liked to join the men 
 in the library, which, if less dainty, had an 
 air of very solid comfort. This was Father's 
 sanctum, and adhering sternly to his ideals 
 in this case, he would not hear of banishing 
 a chair whose cushions were getting thin or 
 a sofa whose leather was worn. So all sat on 
 and on, listening to his amusing stories if he 
 was in the vein, or talking comfortably in 
 groups, until late in the night. 
 
 Then, when they were all gone, Nils would 
 put out the lights. 
 
 One day at lunch, Son, eating his chop, 
 glanced up to see two dark eyes fixed on his 
 face. Utterly free from self-consciousness 
 though he was, there was something about 
 them that made him vaguely uncomfortable. 
 
 After that he often encountered this puzzling 
 look, and in bed at night it would come back 
 to him. It made him long unspeakably for 
 128
 
 Nils 
 
 something he knew not what. He would 
 go to sleep, unsatisfied, and dream of great, 
 lonely lakes, going on and on into infinite 
 distance. Over these lakes hovered majestic 
 mountains, and the light that glimmered on 
 all was neither sunlight nor moonlight, but 
 something just between. 
 
 Yet Son, who made friends with everybody, 
 did not succeed in making friends with Nils. 
 His tentative efforts were met with gentleness, 
 and gently warded off. 
 
 At breakfast one day, Baby, who had come 
 down to wish Father good morning, and was 
 running about at will, fell and bumped her 
 head smartly on the floor. 
 
 Before Father could put down his news 
 paper, or Son swallow his mouthful of egg 
 (Mother never came to breakfast), Nils in 
 one flash had reached her, caught her in his 
 arms, and held her against his heart with a 
 look that burned into Son's very soul. He 
 took her instantly to Father and set her on 
 his knee, where she soon began to play with 
 a proffered pencil, her woe all forgotten. 
 129
 
 "Son" 
 
 But Son ran out to Nils in the pantry, 
 and, trembling all over, looked up into his 
 face. 
 
 " Oh, why did you look at Baby like that? " 
 he said. 
 
 Then Nils patted Son's head reassuringly, 
 and, turning away, busied himself among the 
 dishes. 
 
 " Mother," Son said that evening, picking 
 up little things from her dressing-table, "why 
 don't you let Nils go out sometimes in the 
 afternoon? All the other butlers do." 
 
 " Son," said Mother, who was in a hurry, 
 " I've told you a thousand times to let those 
 things alone. If you touch them again you'll 
 have to go right upstairs. He doesn't want 
 to go out. He's never asked me." 
 
 She moved the displaced articles about 
 with her delicate fingers, here a glove but- 
 toner, there a shell comb, creating order 
 absently. 
 
 " All the other butlers do," reiterated Son, 
 stubbornly for him. Out of many memories 
 of the crowded Mall on a sunny winter's day, 
 130
 
 Nils 
 
 he was picking up one class for reconsidera 
 tion. One young man, who officiated at the 
 home of a friend of Son's, he had seen that 
 very afternoon, wheeling his baby in a peram 
 bulator, while his young wife walked at his 
 side. Another, older, had promenaded up 
 and down alone, enjoying a cigar. A third, 
 while in the company of one or two friends, 
 had watched for a long time a group of chil 
 dren playing hop-scotch, and had looked as 
 if he would like to join in himself. 
 
 " Species, Butler " was the unconscious 
 classification of all these persons in Son's 
 mind. 
 
 Mother, who was ready, gave Son a hasty 
 kiss, and ran into Father's dressing-room to 
 hurry him up. 
 
 Five minutes later Son heard the front 
 door close behind them. He ran downstairs 
 very silently, he did not know why himself. 
 The house was full of shadows, and in the 
 unlighted library, as he tiptoed by, he could 
 see on the ceiling, upside down, the shapes 
 of Tiny Things made Tall. The curtains had
 
 "Son" 
 
 not been drawn, and the street lamps were 
 shining in. 
 
 Son felt very queer, and wished that he 
 could turn back, but he couldn't. He felt 
 that some one wanted him there in the dark. 
 So he was not surprised to see in the dimness 
 of the lower hall a motionless figure standing 
 not even when he made out its outline, and 
 traced the figure's head buried in its hands. 
 
 But when a shudder ran through the man's 
 frame, and he put out a hand gropingly, Son 
 was there, offering his little narrow shoulder 
 for support. For it was for this that he 
 had braved the whispering stillness of the 
 house. 
 
 "Are you better now?" Son asked 
 presently. 
 
 And Nils breathed a " Yes." 
 
 After this he understood the eyes better. 
 
 " I want you, Son ! " they said to him, 
 " I need you ! But don't tell." 
 
 He felt convinced that they were asking 
 him not to tell, so he went about his little 
 affairs busily and said nothing. 
 132
 
 Nils 
 
 " I think Son has something on his mind," 
 said Father one day. " He goes around so 
 quietly and looks so solemn. I don't believe 
 I've heard him laugh for a week." 
 
 " He's all right," Mother answered. "You 
 can't judge him by other boys." 
 
 "I wish you could!" said Father petu 
 lantly. " Why, a boy at seven ought to be 
 tearing the house down." 
 
 Mother looked up and her eyes fell com 
 placently upon her attractive surroundings. 
 It occurred to her to be glad that Son did not 
 belong to the " tearing " type of boy. But 
 she knew better than to express her thought 
 aloud. 
 
 " He'll come to it later," she said. 
 
 " He ought to have a boy's interests," went 
 on Father, walking up and down. " A dog, 
 for instance. Why couldn't he have a dog?" 
 
 " He's afraid of dogs," said Mother quickly, 
 in sudden perturbation, forgetting all her tact. 
 
 "Afraid!" stormed Father. "Who ever 
 heard of such a thing? I'll bring one home 
 to-night." 
 
 133
 
 "Son" 
 
 Poor Mother thought sorrowfully of chewed 
 chairs and marred woodwork. But she knew 
 that she had lost her chance. " How idiotic 
 of me ! " she reflected. 
 
 Meanwhile Father was hanging by a strap 
 in the subway train, his mind full of ferocious 
 bulldogs, valiant St Bernards, and other 
 canines. He came out into the frosty air 
 and made for his office. 
 
 Walking quickly, he had almost arrived at 
 the roped off space behind which, in the 
 middle of the street, the curb brokers were 
 gesticulating inanely, when something ar 
 rested his attention. A man was holding out 
 for his inspection an infinitesimal atom of 
 dog flesh. 
 
 " Nice dog ! " said the man insinuatingly. 
 And the puppy blinked in Father's direction 
 with his brown, velvety eyes. 
 
 Father hesitated. 
 
 " It isn't the right type of dog," he said to 
 himself, trying to be resolute. And in this 
 he did not make any mistake, for the puppy 
 belonged to no known species. 
 134
 
 Nils 
 
 In another moment he had bought it and 
 put it in his pocket. 
 
 At his desk, having carefully shut the door 
 of his private office, thus giving to office boy 
 and stenographer the impression that he had 
 important business to transact, he sat down, 
 and took the little soft, foolish face between 
 his hands. There he sat for a long time, 
 answering the little creature's irresistible 
 appeal. 
 
 " You and Son have got to be friends. 
 Friends, do you hear, Fulsy?" said Father. 
 Then he touched the cold, wet nose with his 
 cheek. 
 
 And friends they were beyond Father's 
 highest hope or expectation. 
 
 An hour's separation in the daytime, though 
 it was hard enough, might be borne, but at 
 night . . . 
 
 Mathilde was almost ready to give notice. 
 "It is ridicule!" she raged, when she went 
 down to the library to summon the higher 
 powers.
 
 "Son" 
 
 " You go up," said Mother. 
 
 Father found the puppy sitting on Son's 
 white bed, his eyes saying reproachfully, 
 " You told me to be friends with 
 him ! " 
 
 " O Hell ! " said Father. And he ran 
 downstairs with his fingers in his ears, so as 
 not to hear Mathilde. 
 
 But Son cuddled his puppy all night, his 
 face against its quickly beating heart. 
 
 Whenever his secret threatened to weigh 
 on him too heavily, Son had only to look 
 at Fulsy to be strengthened and cheered. 
 Father, in trying to make a man of Son, bad 
 but given him another object that appealed 
 to the Mother in him. 
 
 Father might just as well have let him 
 alone. For it was God that worked in him 
 both to will and to do of his good pleasure. 
 Son was just as God made him. 
 
 So thought Nils, who continued to look at 
 him with devouring eyes. Though he talked 
 no more than before, he had never dis 
 couraged Son's presence near him since that 
 136
 
 Nils 
 
 night in the hall. Son loved to hover around, 
 Fulsy in his arm, watching him at his work. 
 Nils had the most wonderful hands, so nervous 
 and skilful. They were white as ivory, and 
 as delicately veined as the birch leaves whose 
 tracery Son had often followed last Autumn 
 with his finger, when he had picked up one 
 that had fluttered to the ground. 
 
 It happened more than once, when Son 
 was standing by, that the hands, working so 
 feverishly, faltered and stopped. Then Son 
 waited, anxious and ready. But whatever it 
 might be that was wrong with the machine 
 it righted itself, and went on, tremulously at 
 first, then steadily as before. 
 
 Every second Sunday Nils went out, unless 
 there were guests for dinner. When this 
 occasionally happened, Son divined that Nils 
 was bitterly disappointed. So was Son, for. 
 these Sundays were the bright spot in his 
 vigil. When he came down to breakfast on 
 the Monday following, he knew there would 
 be a gleam of color in his friend's thin cheeks, 
 a light that was almost happy in his eyes. 
 137
 
 "Son" 
 
 And Son would hug Fulsy, and a great weight 
 would be lifted from his heart. 
 
 One night Fulsy had been taken down to 
 the kitchen to his bath. Mathilde had been 
 adamant. " Qu'il est sale, ce chien ! " she 
 had wailed, sweeping him firmly from the 
 bed into her apron. "You t'ink I 'ave not'in' 
 to do but wash dogs, huh?" she had said 
 accusingly to Son, turning out his light. 
 
 Then she had disappeared and left Son 
 lying there, thinking that he knew just how 
 Fulsy was feeling at that moment. Mathilde 
 was thorough both with dogs and boys, and 
 cleanliness was her god. 
 
 Son was so lonely that he could hardly 
 bear it. If you have never had a dog, it 
 would be different, but when you have been 
 used for twenty-one nights to a little hot, 
 palpitating live thing beside you . . . 
 
 Son started up in bed, almost deafened 
 by the beating of his heart. Mathilde, with 
 pretended forgetfulness, had left his door 
 a little open. And while he was thinking of 
 Fulsy, far below he had heard the muffled 
 138
 
 Nils 
 
 sound of a fall. Son got out of bed, and in 
 his pajamas flew down the stairs, his little 
 bare feet sinking noiselessly into the heavy 
 carpet, the confused sounds below growing 
 momently more distinct. 
 
 " In here ! We'll carry him in here," he 
 heard Father say, and then a door was shut. 
 
 Son went into the drawing-room, where 
 stood two or three ladies in a frightened 
 group, not Mother. 
 
 " Where's Mother ? " cried Son, running up. 
 
 " In there," said one of the ladies, indicat 
 ing the closed library door. 
 
 No one commented on his presence or his 
 costume. The moment was too grave for that. 
 They treated Son as one of themselves. 
 
 Never had Son heard anything with such 
 a sense of relief as the opening of that door. 
 
 " He'll be all right in a minute," said Fa 
 ther, coming out. " He's coming to." He 
 was followed by the other men, with Mother, 
 who led her guests back to the dining-room, 
 Father promising to join them as soon as the 
 doctor should arrive. 
 
 139
 
 "Son" 
 
 "Nothing serious, I hope . . . just faint . . . 
 Lucky it was no worse . . ." Son heard as 
 their voices died away in the distance. 
 
 But the dinner, which was served by the 
 parlor maid with long pauses between the 
 courses, was an effort for everybody, and as 
 soon as it was over the guests left, no less 
 glad to escape than Mother was to see 
 them go. 
 
 The doctor had come, but Father had not 
 put in an appearance to bid his visitors good 
 night. Mother ran upstairs hurriedly. 
 
 Nils was lying on the sofa, fully conscious, 
 Father and the doctor were bending over him, 
 and Son in his pajamas, with his little pink 
 soles turned up, was kneeling beside him, 
 holding his hand. 
 
 How long he would have stayed there will 
 never be known, for it had not occurred to 
 any one to put him out, had not Mathilda 
 appeared in the doorway with his slippers in 
 one hand and his wrapper the red one 
 with the white Teddy bears, that he delighted 
 in in the other. 
 
 140
 
 Nils 
 
 " But they should have ' honte ' to let him 
 in his ' robe-de-nuit ' like that ! " she mur 
 mured, real consternation in her voice. And 
 having disengaged his hand gently from the 
 eager clasp of the sick man, she wrapped 
 him in his belongings and prepared to carry 
 him off. 
 
 " Oh, no ! " said Son miserably. 
 
 " Non, and leave a little dog waitin' for 
 you upstairs?" said Mathilda. " Tu ne sais 
 pas comme il s'impatiente, ce 'Fulsie,' 
 va!" 
 
 And Son protested no more. 
 
 The next morning Mother came down to 
 breakfast. Baby's nurse had gone to church, 
 Mathilde was busy, and there did not seem 
 to be any one to carry up her tray. 
 
 Son was thankful that it was Sunday, for 
 he could not have borne to be hurried off to 
 school. Mother did not sit down behind the 
 coffee-pot, but walked up and down, waiting 
 impatiently for Father to come in. 
 
 " How is he?" she cried when she saw him. 
 141
 
 "Son" 
 
 " Easier this morning," he answered. " But 
 we shall have to tell him what the doctor 
 said." He bit his lip, catching Mother's 
 quick glance in Son's direction. 
 
 But Son had heard nothing. He was 
 absorbed in his own thoughts. What week 
 was this? No . . . Yes . . . 
 
 " It's Nils' Sunday out ! " he cried pite- 
 ously. " Oh, what will he do ! Poor Nils ! " 
 
 It was indeed Nils' Sunday out. But he 
 did not go to the mysterious regions from 
 which he was wont to bring back that fitful 
 color and that light of eyes. He went to the 
 hospital instead. 
 
 Son loved the whiteness of it, the shining 
 wards, the muslin-curtained windows, the 
 flower-pots, and the spotless beds. He loved 
 above all Nils' welcoming look when he 
 came. 
 
 After the second visit came a busy season 
 
 for Mother, days packed with engagements. 
 
 She did not know herself how they were 
 
 slipping by. But when Son asked her for 
 
 142
 
 Nils 
 
 the hundredth time, she took an hour and 
 went with him to the hospital. Fulsy went 
 too. 
 
 The white bed was empty. No head had 
 pressed the pillow. For this was a paying 
 ward, Father and Mother had seen to that, 
 and not as overcrowded as the free ones. 
 
 " Where is he? " Mother demanded of the 
 nurse, her voice sharp with anxiety. 
 
 " Oh, seventeen, you mean? Such a good 
 patient. He never asked for anything. He 
 left last week. Said he wanted to go home." 
 
 " Home?" said Mother, entirely at a loss. 
 
 But Son's heart leaped with joy. He could 
 look down a long vista of days in Nils' life, 
 days that were all rilled with the happiness 
 that used to come but twice a month. 
 
 " Of course ! " he laughed. " That was 
 where he went on his Sundays out ! Home ! " 
 
 They went in the motor to the address 
 Mother had obtained at the office. 
 
 Mother was still puzzled, almost angry 
 with Nils. She was surprised, too, at the 
 house in which he was living. The neighbor- 
 143
 
 "Son" 
 
 hood was poor, but the house was modern 
 and cheerful. Some of the landings were 
 being scrubbed as Mother and Son climbed 
 by, and the little square tiles shone. 
 
 The door of the flat was opened by a 
 woman, still young and pretty. Behind her 
 stood a boy of Son's age, but taller, holding 
 his little sister by the hand. The woman was 
 dressed in black. 
 
 Then Mother knew. And without a word 
 she opened her arms and drew into them this 
 other woman. There they stood for many 
 minutes, their two bright heads together. 
 They were soon talking as women may talk 
 to one another. 
 
 " He never told me he was married," said 
 Mother. 
 
 " No, Madame," said his wife. " He did 
 not tell after he began to be sick. It was 
 easier to get a place as a single man." 
 
 "How long had he been ill?" Mother 
 asked. 
 
 " About five years," the woman answered. 
 
 " Oh, how must he have felt when he 
 144
 
 Nils 
 
 was working ! How could he work ! " cried 
 Mother. 
 
 Nils' wife looked over to where her children 
 were standing, the boy's arm thrown protect- 
 ingly now about his sister's shoulders. For 
 little Alma was shy. She looked, and her 
 lips quivered. 
 
 " He had to work, Madame," she said. 
 
 " How many places did he have?" asked 
 Mother when she could speak. 
 
 " Two," answered the woman. " He would 
 work as long as he could, until they found 
 it out. Then he would go away." 
 
 "Didn't they do anything for him?" 
 cried Mother, aghast at such heartlessness. 
 
 "The last lady was very kind," returned 
 the woman gently. " She gave him twenty- 
 five dollars when he left. He had paid out 
 about twenty-three for express packages and 
 telegrams. But she had forgotten that. And 
 she said she would give him a good reference." 
 
 Mother's mind went back to the perfect 
 reference over the telephone. 
 
 " He wouldn't let me work," the woman 
 145
 
 "Son" 
 
 went on. " He wanted me to be with the 
 children. He was so proud of little Petersen." 
 Her voice broke. 
 
 There was a long silence. 
 
 " He came home to die," the woman said 
 at last reverently. " He didn't want to die 
 in the hospital. He would not let you know, 
 for he said you had done enough for him." 
 
 " Oh, why didn't he? " cried Mother. 
 
 " He was always like that," she responded 
 with loving pride. " He did not want to 
 trouble any one. He was happy with you," 
 she added, brightening. " Oh, how precious 
 to him were your children ! " 
 
 Mother's eyes were riveted on this woman, 
 who, with quiet dignity and in quaint English, 
 sat telling her of the tragedy of her life. 
 She contrasted with this her own protected 
 existence, and she felt humbled to the dust. 
 
 " He was sorry," said Nils' wife, " that he 
 frightened you so much. He knew that it 
 was the end . . . But he could not know it 
 would come so soon. It was his regret that 
 he did not give his notice " 
 146
 
 Nils 
 
 " Don't ! " said Mother. For five years 
 they have been getting ready for this . . . 
 she thought. 
 
 It was true. They had accepted it long 
 ago, after the manner of their race. 
 
 The loss . . . thought Mother . . . The 
 loss of him . . . When she had never had 
 him . . . Oh, God, wasn't that enough? 
 
 But there was more, much more besides. 
 Mother saw it all in one terrible flash, saw it 
 more distinctly than she had ever seen any 
 thing in all her life. The neat room, the 
 well-dressed children, all all paid for 
 with the man's heart's blood. And this 
 woman, who loved him, had had to stay by 
 and see him give it, even to the last drop. 
 What was to become of them now? 
 
 " You won't give up your children ! " cried 
 Mother. 
 
 " Never," said the woman solemnly, lifting 
 up her head. Her eyes looked into the dis 
 tance, and she said it as though she were 
 making a promise to some one beyond. 
 
 " He longed so to see your son once more," 
 H7
 
 "Son" 
 
 she went on after a minute. " But it could 
 not be. It was a little child ! His last words 
 were of him." 
 
 " What did he say ? " asked Mother through 
 her tears. 
 
 " Don't cry," repeated Nils' wife, control 
 ling her voice. " He is the angel sent of God 
 to help you when I can help you no more." 
 
 When they had looked at each other 
 enough, Petersen and Son had made friends, 
 as boys will. 
 
 " She's not as big as Baby," said Son, in 
 dicating the little girl, who was eyeing him 
 askance. 
 
 " But she's big" said Petersen quickly, 
 drawing Alma forward. "Where did you 
 get him ? " he asked, his eyes on Fulsy. 
 
 " Father brought him home to me from 
 downtown. Is Nils your father?" said Son. 
 
 " My Papa is dead," said Petersen. He 
 could not help feeling a little important. 
 And, after all, people cannot get very well 
 acquainted in two half days a month. 
 148
 
 Nils 
 
 Son's head swam. Nils was dead, Nils, 
 whom he had so loved ; Nils, who had been 
 this boy's father. 
 
 " He's a good little pup," said Petersen, 
 still looking at Fulsy, who wriggled to be 
 free. 
 
 Son went up to the boy, this boy, whose 
 father had been Nils, Nils, who was now 
 dead, and put Fulsy into his arms. 
 
 " He's for you," said Son. 
 
 149
 
 BILL
 
 BILL 
 
 ""TTCTHAT a pity he has no boys to play 
 
 V T with ! " said Father. " Companions 
 of his own age are just what he needs." 
 
 " I don't know how he would get on with 
 them," Mother answered doubtfully. " Per 
 haps boys wouldn't like him. He's always 
 been so much with older people." 
 
 While they were talking about him, Son 
 was standing a mile down the road, leaning 
 on his bicycle, motionless and absorbed. On 
 the other side of a wooden fence another 
 boy was weeding in a vegetable garden. 
 
 " How much have you done ? " asked Son. 
 
 " A good bit," answered the other shortly. 
 He was not working to kill time, but as if his 
 heart were in it. And his supple little brown 
 hands moved cheerfully, with no small deft 
 ness. Their callous hardness detracted not a 
 whit from the soft and beautiful moulding 
 153
 
 "Son" 
 
 that belongs to the hands of a child, and as 
 he pulled up the weeds, the bent knuckles 
 showed the delicacy of their lines through 
 the dirt. Hands of babe, but back of old 
 man, so determined, and weary, and bent. 
 Son's eye caught the line of it. 
 
 " Come and play with me ! " he invited. 
 
 The boy shook his head. 
 
 " Ain't got time," he said. 
 
 " They don't make you do it ! " cried Son, 
 in horror at such a possibility. 
 
 "Make me? " answered the boy. " Nope." 
 
 Son stood silent. It seemed impossible to 
 get any information out of his laconic friend. 
 
 " I'll help you ! " he said. 
 
 The boy smiled, showing two rows of 
 straight white teeth. 
 
 " You do that end," he directed, pointing. 
 
 Son, streaming with sweat, stole an occa 
 sional surreptitious glance at his hardier com 
 panion, who appeared oblivious of the direct 
 rays of the sun. Bees droned, light waves 
 glimmered in the haze, and into Son's nostrils 
 penetrated good odors of earth and growing 
 154
 
 Bill 
 
 things. He shook off the drops that oozed 
 out of his forehead, and paid no attention to 
 the little hammer that beat on his temples. 
 
 " This bed's nearly done ! " he cried at 
 length, when the rays had begun to slant. 
 
 The other boy said nothing, but he stretched 
 himself slowly into an erect position, and Son 
 knew that they had toiled enough. Together 
 they climbed the fence and stood looking at 
 the bicycle. 
 
 "Don't you want a ride?" suggested Son. 
 
 "Don't know how," admitted the boy, 
 ashamed. 
 
 " Of course not," Son said quickly, " if you 
 haven't got one. It's easy, though." 
 
 " Learn me ! " The demand was made 
 eagerly. 
 
 " It's rather hard in bare feet," commented 
 Son. But he changed his mind when he 
 found out how the leathery soles could grip 
 
 " You're great ! " he cried. 
 
 " G'wan," replied the other modestly. 
 
 The sun was drawing toward the west, a 
 red ball of fire and smoke was curling upward 
 155
 
 "Son" 
 
 invitingly from the red chimneys of the farm 
 house near by, when the boy terminated the 
 lesson abruptly. 
 
 " I've got to go to supper," he said. 
 
 Son watched him run off down the pink- 
 tinged road between the rows of ash trees, 
 and disappear into the house. Then he 
 mounted his bicycle and rode off contentedly 
 enough, for though no word had been said 
 there was a tacit understanding between the 
 two that they should meet on the morrow. 
 A hermit thrush accompanied Son with its 
 song, exulting in the delicious chill that 
 comes of a Maine evening after the hottest day. 
 
 Mother heard the crunching of his wheel, 
 that made the tiny pebbles fly on the drive 
 way, and came out, in fresh linen and a great 
 shade hat, looking too tidy to touch. Never 
 theless she put her arm about his reeking 
 person. 
 
 " How hot you are ! " she said. " Where 
 have you been ? " Then, not waiting for him 
 to answer, a habit of hers, " You'll just 
 have time to dress. Run along ! " 
 156
 
 Bill 
 
 Son's thoughts were many as he went 
 through this useless performance. It occurred 
 to him to envy that other boy, who, work over, 
 could sit down just as he was, begrimed and 
 happy, to eat his well-earned food after labor. 
 
 It took three days to finish the vegetable 
 garden. Then the boys began killing potato- 
 bugs, a much more difficult task. And 
 finally it was proposed that they should go 
 a-berrying on the mountains, an alluring pros 
 pect. Son dug his toe into the edge of an 
 ant-hill, weighing this suggestion. His shoes 
 and stockings were flung in a heap under a 
 hammock, together with his coat and neck 
 tie. The sinews showed in his legs, and he 
 Stretched his toes luxuriously. One might 
 learn much in three days as regarded one's 
 comfort. From under his eyebrows he 
 glanced up at his new friend shyly. How 
 explain to him ? It had pleased Son to keep 
 utter silence at home as to his agricultural 
 pursuits and for a reason most embarrass 
 ing to divulge. 
 
 157
 
 "Son" 
 
 Last night, work finished, the two had re 
 galed themselves with boyish sports, ball 
 playing, running races, jumping. Son was 
 serving an apprenticeship. His new friend, 
 taller, stronger, toughened by exposure and 
 outdoor life, was his model. Last night Son 
 had watched him running, his little body sil 
 houetted against a glowing sky, head thrown 
 back, teeth flashing in a joyous smile, throat 
 bare, lean arms bare, legs bare, weight flung 
 in ecstasy on the evening breeze. This, then, 
 was a boy. This was what was meant by 
 " manly." 
 
 Son's heart burned with a fury of admira 
 tion, of desire to emulate, mingled strangely 
 with a feeling of romance. This new thing, 
 a playmate, and such a playmate! was 
 his discovery. Son had ferreted him out, 
 digging sedately with bent shoulders among 
 onions and cabbages, had shared his labor, 
 thus gaining a magic key to his confidence, 
 and had appropriated him. He could not 
 drag him out for everybody to handle ! 
 
 Son's conscience was perfectly clear. His 
 158
 
 Bill 
 
 friend's abode the white farm-house was 
 within bounds. Did not the rules done into 
 rhyme by Father for his easy memorizing, 
 and hanging in full sight on the door of the 
 coat closet, contain this couplet, 
 
 "One long mile in each direction 
 You may go without correction " ? 
 
 Son decided to give up the berrying, since 
 the not doing so involved asking permission 
 and thus divulging his secret. 
 
 " You will have to go without me," he said 
 with a great sigh. And he watched his 
 friend off, pail swinging, feet treading so 
 berly, as if it were no wonderful privilege to 
 do and go wherever you pleased. 
 
 " I didn't tell him why," thought Son with 
 satisfaction. " He doesn't think so much of 
 me anyhow ! He'd say I was a silly ! " 
 
 "Weren't you lonely?" asked Son, when 
 the endless hours had gone round and it was 
 the next morning. 
 
 The boy's great eyes widened. 
 
 "Me!" he said. 
 
 159
 
 "Son" 
 
 Son secretly determined never to be lonely 
 again. 
 
 " Did you get caught in the thunder 
 shower?" he went on. 
 
 "Yep," answered his friend indifferently. 
 " I kep ' right on pickin'. I got four quarts." 
 
 " You must have been soaked ! " cried Son. 
 
 His friend gave him a commiserating look. 
 "Ain't you ever been wet?" he asked. 
 
 "Not not very often," admitted Son, 
 longing for another thunder shower, that he 
 might walk abroad in it. 
 
 " Wait a minute," said the boy suddenly. 
 
 Son waited, never having had any intention 
 of leaving. 
 
 The boy came back, running, from the 
 house. Before Son's astonished gaze he held 
 out a handful of pennies, their hue matched 
 by the rich brown of his hands. 
 
 " Your share," he said. " I've counted 'em 
 over twice. There's ten of 'em." 
 
 "What for?" wondered Son. 
 
 " For the weedin'," said the boy. " And 
 the bugs. Weedin's a cent a row. Bugs, 
 160
 
 Bill 
 
 five cents a hundred. Dad paid up last night. 
 But there ain't near enough yet." 
 
 Son put the pennies in his pocket. 
 
 "What you goin' to do with yours?" 
 asked the boy. 
 
 "I don't know," said Son. "What are 
 you?" 
 
 The boy came quite close, hands in 
 pockets. 
 
 " I'm goin ' to the fair at Elliston," he said, 
 and stood back to witness the effect of the 
 statement. 
 
 It produced no effect on Son at all. 
 
 " It's seven mile," he added disappointedly. 
 
 "Do you drive there?" asked Son. Dis 
 tances meant little to him. 
 
 " Nope," said the boy. " Walk." 
 
 Son was beginning to be impressed. 
 Walk seven miles and back to a fair ! 
 
 " You can take my bicycle ! " he cried in 
 sudden inspiration. 
 
 The boy shook his head. 
 
 " I wouldn't dast," he said. " Might smash 
 it, or somethin'. Dad 'd be mad." 
 161
 
 "Son" 
 
 Son put his hand in his pocket, fished up 
 the pennies and held them out. 
 
 " I don't need them ! " he said. " I'm not 
 going to the fair ! " 
 
 The boy did not move. His lips drew 
 together stubbornly. 
 
 " You earned 'em ! " he said. " They're 
 yourn." 
 
 Son did not know what to do. He stood, 
 uncomfortable and helpless, hating the reward 
 of his labor of love. 
 
 "Did you sell the berries?" he asked, not 
 knowing what else to say. 
 
 The boy grinned. 
 
 " Nothin' in that deal ! " he answered. " I 
 took 'em to five houses, but no one wanted 
 berries. Ma's goin' to use 'em for pies." 
 
 Son was aghast The long day on the 
 mountain in blistering sunlight, the sudden 
 storm. Wind, bringing in its wake drenching 
 sheets of rain, heat, wet, weariness, fruitless 
 hawking about of his hard-earned wares. 
 
 " It's too bad ! " stammered Son. 
 
 The boy looked at him in surprise. 
 162
 
 Bill 
 
 " No ' get rich quick ' for me, I guess," he 
 said philosophically. " I'd better stick to 
 bugs. Want to play horse ? " 
 
 They got the wagon, made of a packing 
 box, out of the shed. 
 
 " I'll pull you ! " cried Son. " I'll pull you 
 all the time ! " 
 
 The boy frowned. 
 
 "You haul me," he said, "and then I'll 
 haul you. " 
 
 And with this arrangement Son was forced 
 to be content. 
 
 That night in bed his thoughts flew back 
 to his friend. " He meant to pay me all the 
 time," he reflected. " He let me weed, when 
 he could have done it all himself, and kept all 
 the money." Son wriggled his head on the 
 pillow. " It's no use to tell Mother," he de 
 cided. " If he wouldn't let me help him, he'd 
 never let her" 
 
 " He won't let me be generous to him," 
 was his last waking thought, "when he's so 
 generous to me. What can I do with him? " 
 
 Father and Mother commented on Son's 
 163
 
 "Son" 
 
 appearance with great satisfaction to them 
 selves. 
 
 " The country air is doing him good ! " 
 said Mother oracularly. 
 
 " He looks hard as nails ! " agreed Father 
 with enthusiasm. 
 
 As fair time drew near and the little store 
 of pennies waxed but slowly, the boy re 
 doubled his energy. No time now for play 
 ing horse. No strength for Olympic feats in 
 the sunset ! Work, work, work ! Up to the 
 limit of endurance, and ending only with 
 the latest glimmer of daylight. Son's heart 
 ached as he stood by inactive, and saw the 
 strong little shoulders droop more and more, 
 the supple feet shuffle through the furrows. 
 One day he could find his friend nowhere, 
 and he was moved to take his courage in his 
 hands and knock at the farm-house door. He 
 was admitted by a pleasant-looking, elderly 
 woman, wiping her hands in her apron. 
 
 "Bill's sick," she replied in answer to his 
 inquiries. "Been feverish all night. I put 
 
 him to bed." 
 
 164
 
 Bill 
 
 Son was choking with anxiety. 
 
 "Do you think he'll be well in time for the 
 Elliston fair next week ?" he asked. 
 
 "Fair?" she asked vaguely. "Was he 
 goin' ? Oh, yes, he'll be well in a day or two. 
 Just a touch of the sun, I guess." 
 
 " Can I see him?" Son begged. 
 
 " Certainly," said Bill's mother. " Come this 
 way." 
 
 Son was shocked at his friend's face. 
 
 "Oh, Bill," he whispered, "I'm so sorry 
 you're sick ! " 
 
 "Tain't nothin'," the boy muttered. " I'll 
 stay here to-day. Can't stay any longer, you 
 bet!" 
 
 He moved restlessly, and Son thought he 
 had better go. 
 
 "I've got all but nineteen cents!" Bill 
 called after him. 
 
 Son, full of apprehension, could hardly 
 bear the beating of his heart next day as he 
 came in sight of the now familiar white house. 
 Yes no yes, surely, that was Bill, dig 
 ging dandelions ! 
 
 165
 
 "Son" 
 
 " Hurrah ! " shouted Son, vaulting from 
 his bicycle. 
 
 Bill looked up, smiling weakly. 
 
 "I've got a big bunch already!" he said 
 in a hoarse and tremulous voice, and went 
 on picking. 
 
 "You're not really better !" cried Son with 
 sharp intuition. 
 
 " Bah ! " was Bill's reply. 
 
 "Did your mother let you get up?" Son 
 asked. 
 
 " It's washin' day," was the succinct answer. 
 
 Son did not appreciate all that this remark 
 connoted. 
 
 "How much are you going to earn?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "A dollar," replied Bill promptly. 
 
 " It doesn't cost all that to get in, does it?" 
 asked Son. 
 
 " Nope," Bill replied. " You git in for a 
 quarter." 
 
 "What do you want the rest for?" Son 
 was puzzled. 
 
 "Ma never gits to a fair nohow," was the 
 166
 
 Bill 
 
 irrelevant reply. "When she ain't washin' 
 she's makin' pies, er dryin' fish, er some- 
 thin'." Bill's brown eyes deepened and 
 glowed, as though he were seeing visions and 
 dreaming dreams. " Mebbe they'd have dress- 
 goods there. I dunno!" he added thoughtfully. 
 
 Son's ideas as to the buying power of 
 seventy-five cents did not differ materially 
 from those of his friend. Together they 
 stood lost in thought over the disbursing of 
 so goodly a sum. Then Bill went back to 
 his dandelions. 
 
 Son, in bed, deliciously drowsy, heard the 
 rustling of trees in a strong north-west breeze. 
 It sounded wild, but it wasn't really, for the 
 warm wind as it moved along had swept up 
 every smell of earth and trees and flowers, 
 and was flinging them in mingled odors 
 through his window. The light that fell was 
 caught from the gold of the little sails that 
 flapped on the bay, and from the bright 
 wings of sea-gulls. He rubbed his eyes, feel 
 ing that something portentous was about to 
 happen. Well, so it was ! 
 167
 
 "Son" 
 
 Son, fully awake, realized that this was the 
 day of the Elliston fair. In a tumult of joy 
 he tumbled out, and dressed with feverish 
 haste. Not that there was any need to hurry, 
 for he should not see his friend that day. 
 Bill had been on his way there many hours. 
 Son stopped in the midst of brushing his hair, 
 and with much secrecy opened his upper 
 drawer, and pulled therefrom a hand-knit 
 boy's sock. Carrying it over to his bed with 
 both hands, for it was heavy, he took it by 
 the toe, whereupon its contents fell with sub 
 dued clatter upon the blankets. In the glit 
 tering sunshine the heap of coins shone gold, 
 and Son's face shone too, so that he seemed 
 akin to sails and wings of gull, and all that 
 breathed and radiated happiness on such a 
 morning. Son picked up a penny, then a 
 nickel, then a dime, and then he let a little 
 heap of coins trickle through his fingers, so 
 that he could come close to Bill, his Bill, 
 at thought of whom his bosom swelled with 
 pride that a boy like himself had earned every 
 penny by the sweat of his brow. Son had 
 168
 
 Bill 
 
 hated to accept the pile the day before in ex 
 change for his own crisp one dollar note. It 
 took all his friend's practical efforts to per 
 suade him that he was giving an equivalent 
 for what he received. 
 
 " I could never carry it in the stocking ! " 
 Bill had laughed. " Walkin' all that way ! 
 I'd swelter ! " 
 
 "Where will you put the dollar?" Son 
 had asked anxiously. 
 
 " Dunno," Bill said, scratching his head. 
 
 The decision had been difficult, Bill not 
 wearing winter shoes into which a bank note 
 might be stuffed, nor hat in whose lining it 
 could be concealed. Finally they had put it 
 in his trousers' pocket, no less obvious 
 receptacle offering itself. 
 
 " That'll have to do," Son had said in a 
 dissatisfied manner. " Positive there are no 
 holes in it? " 
 
 To which Bill had replied, " Ma mends 
 them superbly," but had nevertheless thrust 
 in his hand to make sure that he was not 
 over-stating. 
 
 169
 
 "Son" 
 
 Now Son toyed with the money, each bit 
 bringing home to him some fond memory of 
 dogged pluck. Truly he was a miser, for he 
 felt that he loved the coins in themselves, and 
 could never see them spent to the longest 
 day of his life. For hours he wandered about, 
 attending to nothing, his spirit on the dusty 
 road, folding its wings to toil along faithfully 
 at his friend's side. 
 
 Even Bill's calmer nature had felt all sorts 
 of inward stirrings when he had taken his 
 candle the night before and gone up to bed. 
 You might belong to good farming stock, the 
 backbone of the country. You might work 
 your ringers to the bone, showing what stuff 
 you were made of. You might have poise 
 and balance enough for a full-grown man, 
 but if you were a boy, a little boy at that, 
 only eight years old, your pulses would 
 stir and your heart leap when the goal of 
 your ambition was in sight. 
 
 Bill, during his brief undressing, was more 
 and more upborne by an unheard of and de 
 licious excitement. For something was going 
 170
 
 Bill 
 
 to happen. Nothing had ever been going to 
 happen before in all his life, he thought. His 
 mind went back to the long winter evenings, 
 when his big brothers sat by, smoking their 
 pipes, elbows on knees, and he sat with them, 
 chin on hands, book resting on the table, 
 looking up every little while at his mother, 
 whose gentle face, prematurely old, shone 
 quiet in the light of the lamp that stood 
 between them, and whose ever busy hands 
 plied the knitting-needles and wrought stock 
 ings to clothe the feet of them all. Then 
 perhaps they might hear a jingle of bells, and 
 Dad would come in after a sharp, cold journey 
 from some distant mart, his overcoat powdered 
 with snow. Bill's heart beat a little quicker 
 then with pleasure. Yes, a little quicker. 
 But nothing to this ! 
 
 Sometimes he shared these journeys with 
 one brother or another or with his father, for 
 Bill minded his own business and was never 
 in the way. Then, as it grew cold and night 
 came on, he would huddle down into his 
 muffler, and watch for the light that shone 
 171
 
 "Son" 
 
 out of the window like a friendly eye. Far 
 better than the frosty stars so far away, that 
 cheerful yellow glow of the lamp in his home ! 
 It was friendly, to be sure. But so many 
 times had it welcomed him that there was 
 nothing in the sight of it to stir his blood 
 like this, like this. 
 
 Bill stood in the middle of the floor and 
 hated to get into bed, for he was sure he 
 could not sleep. In the room of his father 
 and mother, next his alcove, all sounds had 
 ceased. His brothers on the other side had 
 ended their monosyllabic remarks, for slumber 
 descended upon young and old, in the white 
 farm-house, or ever the mantel clock got 
 round to ten. He fixed his eyes upon the 
 candle flame and thought his thoughts, never 
 ceasing until there were two tongues and two 
 candlesticks, hurting his eyes so much that 
 he was recalled sharply from the untoward 
 and bewildering flights of his imagination. 
 
 It was still candle-light when he awoke. 
 But Bill knew the feel of the morning, and 
 needed no timepiece to tell him what o'clock 
 172
 
 Bill 
 
 it was. " I want to be there early," he mut 
 tered, putting on his clothes. The cold break 
 fast that he gathered together in the kitchen 
 stuck in his throat. " There'll be enough 
 left to buy a ice-cream cone," he reflected, 
 thrusting his hand down to feel something 
 that crinkled deliciously. But being a person 
 of foresight he stuffed into another pocket 
 a big hunk of bread and a slice of cheese. 
 Then he started out. 
 
 The stars were paling and had almost dis 
 appeared ; fields and trees began to glimmer 
 green instead of gray. Then the breeze came 
 up with the sun, and day burst into being. 
 Oh, but the green was green, and the blue was 
 blue ! Not that Bill was thinking about it, 
 as he walked along at an even pace, his dark 
 eyes burning under their lashes. 
 
 " I wonder whether there'll be a two-headed 
 calf," he was speculating, as the sweet air 
 smote his forehead and made him move the 
 quicker. 
 
 "I don't want to get there too soon," he 
 decided presently, and flung himself un- 
 173
 
 "Son" 
 
 der a tree, " not before the other folks 
 come." 
 
 No solitude for him ! No hanging about the 
 empty booths, with men sleepily setting out 
 their wares for a few stragglers to see. In 
 with the crowd, the rush, the laughter ! To 
 be elbowed, pushed, jostled forward ! That 
 was life ! 
 
 He had timed his arrival just right. In 
 sight of Elliston village he hurried a little, 
 because he could not help it. Wheels were 
 crunching merrily to right of him, big steel- 
 tired ones, belonging to substantial farm- 
 wagons, with their jolly loads of holiday 
 makers. Some of these were from his own 
 neighborhood, and recognized him. " Hi 
 there, Bill ! Where you goin' ? Don't buy 
 the fair out before we git thar ! " and other 
 pleasantries of equal originality. But most 
 of them were strange to him. He took in 
 every detail of their costumes, the girls' 
 frills and ribbons, the men's high collars, 
 torturing their sun-burned necks. When in 
 his absorption he was nearly run down, he 
 174
 
 Bill 
 
 laughed " fit to kill," and the annoyance of 
 the burly driver who by pulling his nag back 
 on his haunches averted the catastrophe, 
 ended in a smile. 
 
 No one could help smiling with Bill to-day, 
 so joyfully did his eyes sparkle, so glad were 
 his footsteps, hurrying now, oblivious of the 
 journey overpast. 
 
 Suddenly in the midst of these humble 
 equipages, also going fair-ward, he beheld 
 one of quite a different character. It was a 
 basket phaeton drawn by a high-stepping 
 little bay, with much-veined, glossy neck, and 
 red nostrils quivering. Seated in the phaeton 
 was a young lady, the like of whom Bill had 
 never seen. Her attitude was one of boyish 
 grace, for her back was bent in the posture 
 of a child who does not care how it looks, and 
 therefore looks its best. Her chin had an 
 upward curve, and from under the broad 
 Panama hat she had put on anyhow, the 
 sunny ripples of her hair escaped rebelliously. 
 She held the reins loosely in her ungloved 
 hand, and was moved neither by the clatter 
 '75
 
 "Son" 
 
 about her nor by the angry snorting of her 
 horse at being in the midst of it. 
 
 Bill, staring in mute admiration, was para 
 lyzed when her eyes fixed themselves squarely 
 on his. They were gray, with brown rims, 
 and little brown flecks in them, and for the 
 life of him he could not look away. Suddenly 
 the vision reined in, reached over, and tapped 
 his shoulder with the silver butt of her whip. 
 
 " Tag ! " she said. 
 
 Bill saw stars. That this beautiful lady, 
 removed from him by worlds and worlds of 
 space, should come down out of the other 
 and actually speak to him, was inexplicable. 
 
 " Don't you know it's ' tag day ' ? " contin 
 ued the goddess, in a tone of easy familiarity 
 that added momently to his embarrassment. 
 
 Bill looked down into the dust at his feet 
 and made no reply. 
 
 " Give me some money, please ! " 
 
 It was an order, peremptory, brooking 
 
 no denial. Bill was observing the ground 
 
 attentively, else he would have seen that the 
 
 lady was looking at him very pleasantly out 
 
 176
 
 Bill 
 
 of her hazel eyes as she gave it. He had 
 never heard of the time-honored custom by 
 virtue of which the petted daughter of a Maine 
 Senator may with propriety demand of even 
 a barefoot boy a donation for her favorite 
 charity. But she thought he had. 
 
 " Something for the hospital," she repeated, 
 waiting. 
 
 " If he had only had five cents ! One of 
 those nickels in the stocking ! That much he 
 could have spared. Would the lady be very 
 angry at having to make change ? He wanted 
 to explain, but the words stuck in his throat. 
 So he put his hand deep into his pocket, drew 
 out his dollar, and coming close to the wheel, 
 gave it over. She hesitated in genuine sur 
 prise, and then taking it, said warmly: 
 
 " What ! A whole dollar ! What a generous 
 little boy you are ! I'll tell all the sick chil 
 dren in the ward about you ! " 
 
 Bill looked up as a little dog will when it 
 hears tones of praise, and took in no word of 
 what was being said, 
 
 " What a beautiful boy ! " the girl thought, 
 177
 
 "Son" 
 
 letting her glance travel from the dark eyes 
 with their curled lashes to the brown, 
 bared throat, the square shoulders, the erect 
 poise, in keen appreciation of the strong 
 young grace of little Bill. " Good-bye ! " she 
 called, looking back prettily over her shoulder 
 as she drove off, for she was unconscious 
 mistress of many arts. 
 
 Bill stood quiet, expecting her to come 
 back with his change. Even when she had 
 dwindled to a pin-point he thought this would 
 turn, becoming larger and larger, until it was 
 once more at his side, bending over him, 
 sorry for having teased him. Another driver 
 shouted to him to get out of the way. This 
 time Bill did not laugh, but moved a little, 
 not too far for her to see. She was keeping 
 him too long. He could take a joke, but 
 not if it was carried too far ! Not when it in 
 volved his dollar, that he had earned himself, 
 every penny, and was going to spend at the 
 fair. 
 
 Still she did not come. 
 
 Bill thought he remembered something 
 178
 
 Bill 
 
 something about sick children in a hospital. 
 Yes, that was it. He ought to have told her 
 about his mother's dress. He choked. She 
 was so pretty, she would have understood 
 that. She would not have wanted him to 
 give the money for his mother's dress to 
 sick children in any hospital. But he had 
 not told her. And she had not come back. 
 She had gone. She did not know that his 
 mother never went anywhere. She would 
 never know it. Never, not even when 
 the fair was over, and the years had 
 gone on, and he was an old, old man. 
 Never ! 
 
 Bill's chest heaved, over and over, and he 
 thought he should die of the sobs that were 
 inside. But not a whimper, not one, 
 that could direct at his misery even one 
 glance, curious or sympathetic, from all their 
 eyes. If they would only go, go to their 
 Elliston Fair, and leave him alone ! The 
 crowd, for which he had longed so ardently, 
 was most hateful to him of all things on 
 earth. 
 
 179
 
 "Son" 
 
 " She never gits nowhar," he muttered, as 
 he turned slowly and set his face toward 
 home. 
 
 Son's restlessness had grown on him as the 
 morning wore on. Still thinking of his friend, 
 he finally decided to read, and came upon 
 the piazza seeking his book. Father was 
 sitting there, and Mother was at the tele 
 phone just inside the door. 
 
 " Senator Hillhouse wants us to come over 
 to lunch," she said, coming out. " Marjorie 
 says there's a fair to-day, and she thinks it 
 would be fine to go for a few minutes. Why, 
 Son, what on earth " 
 
 In the wildest excitement he had thrown 
 his arms around her, and was pleading : 
 
 " Oh, Mother, take me with you ! Ask her 
 if I can come too ! " 
 
 Father and Mother exchanged surprised 
 glances. Son was such a decorous little boy, 
 and never minded being left out of any 
 excursions, so many things had he always 
 planned to do. 
 
 1 80
 
 Bill 
 
 " I might ask," Mother said doubtfully. 
 " Marjorie wouldn't mind. There's no one 
 else coming." 
 
 " Oh, take him along," said Father. " No 
 one'll know that he's there ! " 
 
 Thus it came about that a belated surrey 
 carrying four passengers and following the 
 line of travel in the direction of Elliston had 
 the road all to itself. Son sat on the front 
 seat next the driver, and said not a word. 
 In what booth should they find him? Gaz 
 ing at what wonder? Buying what rich gifts? 
 
 " There's Marjorie now," cried Mother, 
 " coming to meet us." 
 
 " Hello ! " cried the girl, as the two car 
 riages came to a stop. " I've been on the 
 road for hours. Started early to breakfast 
 with a friend of mine down the road, and 
 telephoned from there. I thought I'd drive 
 out this way and escort you back." 
 
 They talked a few moments, and then the 
 girl looked at Son. 
 
 "Want to get in with me?" she said 
 invitingly. 
 
 181
 
 "Son" 
 
 " He'd love to," responded Mother quickly. 
 And Father admonished her under his breath. 
 
 " Don't put words into his mouth ! Let 
 him answer for himself." 
 
 Son, willing to oblige, though his thoughts 
 were elsewhere, clambered out of his own 
 carriage and into the basket trap. He was 
 glad in a few moments that he had come, so 
 easy was it for his hostess to talk to boys. 
 They were deep in conversation, when Son 
 suddenly turned white and gripped her arm. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " she asked in alarm. 
 
 " It's Bill ! " cried Son. "And he's coming 
 back ! Oh, stop, and let me speak to him ! " 
 
 Bill, shuffling along, shoulders bent, head 
 drooping, saw nothing, heard nothing. 
 
 " Bill ! " shouted Son. 
 
 Then Bill looked up. 
 
 " It's my boy," said the girl wonderingly. 
 "The boy that gave me a dollar for the 
 hospital." 
 
 Son stopped in the act of getting out. 
 
 "Bill gave you his dollar?" he cried, in 
 credulous. " His dollar that he earned?" 
 182
 
 Bill 
 
 Bill, looking up, had seen her whom he had 
 thought never to behold again, seen her 
 with his own familiar friend at her side, wav 
 ing to him. It was too much. He put both 
 fists into his eyes, and sobbed as though his 
 heart would break. 
 
 An hour later, between Son and Marjorie, 
 tightly holding a hand of each, he was enter 
 ing his land of promise. 
 
 Father and Mother walked behind. 
 
 " Pity he has no companions," said Father. 
 
 Mother did not smile. She was watching 
 the two boys, shoulder pressing shoulder* 
 heads close together, while their hearts beat 
 high in friendship and anticipation. 
 
 183
 
 THE OUTLAW
 
 THE OUTLAW 
 
 " T T'S a two-mile carry," said Nang. 
 
 A " What of it? " wondered Son. He had 
 spent two days in fishing the silent streams 
 and dreaming the hours away; the blood 
 coursed through his veins and glowed in his 
 cheeks, adding to the exhilaration he could 
 not help feeling at having been chosen by 
 Father to be his companion on this magical 
 trip. He was only eight, and he had never 
 been in the woods before. 
 
 The men started in doggedly, measuring 
 the stuff with practised eye, and knowing to 
 the fraction of a pound how much each one 
 could lug. 
 
 Son picked out a little load for himself and 
 shouldered it in silence, as they did. He had 
 not gone far before some one came up from 
 behind and deliberately took it away from 
 him. 
 
 187
 
 "Son" 
 
 It was Nang, the guide. 
 
 Son flushed to the roots of his hair, so 
 humiliated did he feel. 
 
 " Here's just the place left for the tea-pot 
 and the camera," said Nang's voice. " Made 
 for it." He swung the articles in question 
 onto the top of his pile. " Now you run 
 along," he ordered. " If you get yourself 
 over there, you'll be doing enough." 
 
 Struggling to hide his resentment, Son felt 
 two sharp, bright eyes upon him. 
 
 " There's a beautiful walk near here," said 
 Nang. "You'd have time to take it while 
 we're makin' the first two mile. It's called 
 the horseback." 
 
 " Good ! " said Father, who had overheard. 
 And after obtaining full directions they 
 started off together. A trail brought them 
 to a level ridge, along which Son ran, his 
 hand warm in Father's, over a path pine- 
 carpeted and elastic with the soft ruin of last 
 year's leaves, the trees straight and still above 
 him like soldiers on parade, all things hushed 
 and green far nearer than sun or sky, of 
 188
 
 The Outlaw 
 
 which he was conscious a great way off. 
 When, clinging to the bushes, he ventured 
 to look down, he saw a running stream so 
 far below him that he could not hear the 
 sound of it, and at intervals the shrubbery 
 ceased abruptly, wiped out by the mighty 
 logs that had gone thundering down the slide 
 during the Winter. Son stood awed before 
 these great skidways, where stalwart young 
 saplings had been uprooted, and all the more 
 tender growth lay buried under powdered 
 earth and stones. 
 
 " I suppose the big trees were angry," he 
 thought with a smile, " at being chopped 
 down like that, so they did not care what 
 they killed after they had been pushed over 
 the side." 
 
 The silence was so deep, as he stood there, 
 that, had not his eyes borne witness, he would 
 not have believed it had ever been broken. 
 He put his hand once more in Father's, drawn 
 to the one with whom he was alone in this 
 wonderful and lonely place. 
 
 What was that ? 
 
 189
 
 "Son" 
 
 His heart stood still, for up from the depths 
 had come a startling sound. 
 
 They were not alone, they two. Somewhere 
 down there another heart was beating beat 
 ing high with a great fear. Something was 
 conscious of their presence something big. 
 They waited, moving not so much as a finger, 
 for a second of surcharged silence. Then a 
 great body, heedless from terror, plunged 
 splashing into the stream, and annihilating 
 with heavy foot whatever growing thing hin 
 dered it in its mad flight, crashed into the 
 thick forest on the other side. 
 
 Son had caught no more than a glimpse of 
 two majestic antlers, with such lightning ra 
 pidity had the moose vanished. Still he 
 dared not speak, for somewhere among the 
 trees it might be in hiding, with fixed eyes 
 burning red, and breathing hard. Son felt 
 so sorry for it that in its wild home it 
 should be thus frightened by two other 
 live creatures who, without guns, were 
 but delighting harmlessly in this spot of 
 mystery. 
 
 190
 
 The Outlaw 
 
 " Come back ! " he whispered prayerfully. 
 " I do want to see you so ! I'm just a 
 boy, you know, not quarter as big as 
 you ! " 
 
 He was answered only by a little breeze 
 that swayed lightly the tops of the trees. 
 
 " He's gone ! " Father sighed regretfully. 
 
 And Son sent after him a scarcely breathed 
 " Good-bye ! " 
 
 They went on, and Son almost forgot the 
 moose. For the other side of the ridge, un 
 suitable for logging by reason of its gentler 
 slope, was thick with trees, and the moss that 
 clung to their roots was more silvery than the 
 stems of birch trees, or the wrong side of 
 little leaves in Spring. The two clambered 
 down, their feet buried in velvet, and reached 
 the wide dells at the foot, from which the 
 trees stood back because they had wished to 
 leave the moss unbroken and undisturbed. 
 There it ran riot, clinging to every little rise, 
 marking out every miniature valley. Son 
 threw himself down in it and buried his face, 
 but so soft it was that it seemed to melt away 
 191
 
 "Son" 
 
 beneath his clinging cheek and fingers. When 
 he got up, no imprint marked the place where 
 he had flung his weight. 
 
 " I can't leave it ! " he cried out. " Oh, do 
 let's stay here and sleep to-night ! " 
 
 Father laughed, looked at his watch, and 
 said they must be turning back. 
 
 Then Son remembered the guides. While 
 he had revelled in this paradise, they had 
 been toiling ; Nang had been doing his 
 work. 
 
 " I was so cross," he repented. " And if 
 he'd let me do as I liked, I'd never have seen 
 the moose." 
 
 With gratitude warm in his heart he hur 
 ried, and as Father took long steps they re 
 joined the two guides just at the completion 
 of the third trip. All the load was lying at 
 the beginning of the last half-mile stretch, 
 which Nang called the " hayth." Son, look 
 ing at the ungainly bags and bundles spread 
 out among the stumps of trees, began to real 
 ize what a two-mile carry meant Theirs had 
 not seemed much of an outfit to him before, 
 192
 
 The Outlaw 
 
 but now he longed to leave it by the wayside 
 and do without tents and blankets, since these 
 things must be brought through the wilder 
 ness piled on the braced shoulders of men. 
 The " hayth " was a nightmare, for the en 
 tangling bushes which hampered the men's 
 feet came up waist high on Son. Also the 
 sun was hot. He went on, setting his teeth. 
 All at once Nang, who was just in front of 
 him, stopped and let his load slide to the 
 ground. 
 
 "What's the matter?" asked Son anx 
 iously. "Are you sick?" 
 
 He received no reply. In another instant 
 he was in the guide's arms, then on his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " He treats me as if I were a gunny-sack ! " 
 thought Son. Still he did not protest, nor 
 was he inwardly very angry, for he remem 
 bered who had been the cause of that walk 
 that he could never forget He knew that 
 through the coming months the thought of it 
 would refresh him like a breath of September 
 air. His little life was barren still of memo- 
 193
 
 "Son" 
 
 ries, greatest of all compensations for the 
 piling up of years. 
 
 Nang walked on with quick, staccato steps ; 
 he never looked back to see who had assumed 
 his discarded burden. 
 
 " How did he know," pondered Son, very 
 sleepy and comfortable, "that I was tired? 
 He couldn't see me when he was in front." 
 
 Without words, something warm stole from 
 his heart to that of the tense little guide under 
 him. " He didn't see me," was his thought, 
 " but he knew just the same." 
 
 " How tired you must be ! " he said finally. 
 
 " Tain't the first time," Nang answered 
 shortly. 
 
 No one had ever met Son's advances after 
 this manner before. Yet he did not shrink 
 The fact was that he understood. " It's just 
 his way," he explained to himself. 
 
 "Is 'Nang' your real name?" he asked. 
 
 " Leander," was the reply. " But folks down 
 where I live ain't much given to poetry, so 
 I'm Nang." 
 
 When at length the shimmering lake was 
 194
 
 The Outlaw 
 
 before them, Nang left Son sitting in the 
 shadow of a rock, and went back for a canoe. 
 
 Son listened to the lap of the wavelets, and 
 watched the red sun drawing mercifully down 
 wards, wondering how long it would take to 
 disappear behind that black cloud with hard 
 bright edges. He did not feel lonely, for 
 every little while he would discern a figure 
 laboring toward him from far away over the 
 heath, and no one failed to find time for a 
 cheerful word to him before turning back. 
 
 There followed such a beautiful night, with 
 soft breeze flapping the tents, and a delicious 
 odor of pine in his nostrils, that Son would 
 have forgotten all about the afternoon's strain 
 had it not been for his friend's face next 
 morning. 
 
 There are no gradations in the words. 
 Toil taxing every nerve and muscle, 
 rest perfect and complete. But Nang 
 managed to miss that part of it. For the 
 hard years were telling, and it was the spirit 
 alone that gave to the worn frame still the 
 quality of whalebone. 
 195
 
 "Son" 
 
 " Didn't you sleep? " asked Son, while the 
 coffee was making. 
 
 " No," said Nang. " I had the rheumatism 
 bad last night. But / heard something that 
 you didn't ! " 
 
 "Oh, what?" cried Son. 
 
 " A deer in the bushes," said Nang. 
 
 And it seemed to Son that this sound, 
 which could hold for him no element of sur 
 prise, made up to Nang for all those hours of 
 painful wakefulness. 
 
 Son was frightfully hungry. He ate for 
 his breakfast the most extraordinary things, 
 last night's beans warmed over, flap-jacks 
 made with Aunt Jemima's flour, coffee, and 
 soda-biscuit. All were alike good, and gave 
 him a warm, comfortable feeling inside. After 
 breakfast they broke camp, and in an hour, 
 with loaded canoes, were ready to paddle 
 silently away. 
 
 That evening Father lingered late on the 
 
 stream) absorbed in his fishing, and Nang, 
 
 being in his pay, said nothing, only keeping 
 
 his eyes on the fine line of gold that marked 
 
 196
 
 The Outlaw 
 
 the place where the sun had been. Now he 
 was making bread, while the others wandered 
 up and down aimlessly in the darkness. 
 
 "Where are the tent pegs, Nang?" said 
 Father. 
 
 " Over there," was the answer, with a quick 
 nod toward the largest gunny-sack. " They're 
 right at the top." He directed Father's fum 
 bling hands. 
 
 " Say, have you got the jack-knife ? " asked 
 the second guide, peering helplessly. 
 
 " It's sticking in that tree where you left 
 it." 
 
 "What shall I do with the frying-pan?" 
 questioned Son, who had run up, wishing to 
 be useful. 
 
 " Whatever you like," replied Nang irri 
 tably. 
 
 Son drew back and stood still as a mouse, 
 resolved to ask no more pointless questions. 
 
 In this scene of confusion, which might so 
 
 easily have been avoided by the use of a little 
 
 forethought, Nang was the moving spirit of 
 
 order. Son watched in the firelight his 
 
 197
 
 "Son" 
 
 strange and weazened face in which the sharp 
 eyes moved restlessly like those of some alert 
 little animal. When Nang looked about for 
 the tin of baking powder, Son shoved it under 
 his hand. Nang's mouth remained set and 
 stern ; only the eyes smiled. 
 
 " Good boy ! " he said shortly. 
 
 And Son felt that even at eight years old 
 one could be helpful in the woods. They 
 had done their travelling in the morning, had 
 chosen a camping ground, and dumping the 
 stuff on the bank had started out with light 
 canoes. Son had not fished that afternoon, 
 though he liked to hold in his hands his own 
 feather-weight rod. It had taken all his time 
 to watch the reflections of overhanging maples 
 in the stream ahead, trees far more distinct 
 than the real ones on the banks, whose leaves 
 broke into red and yellow flutterings when 
 reached by the ever widening circles from the 
 canoes. Son had never thought of fish as 
 creatures to be envied, but to-day he would 
 not have minded changing places with one of 
 the big fellows that he knew were lying with 
 198
 
 The Outlaw 
 
 unwinking eyes and not so much as a flip of 
 tail at the very bottom of the stream. Always 
 supposing, that is, that he were endowed 
 with their astuteness, to be lured from his 
 pebbly fastnesses neither by Parmachene 
 Belle nor Brown Hackle, skimmed they never 
 so enticingly over the smooth surface of the 
 water. All wood creatures were wary. 
 
 Just then there was a sharp crackle; the 
 smouldering logs burst into flame. Son 
 looked up and saw the face of their guide. 
 All wood creatures, including Nang. 
 
 The days went on, and Son's impression of 
 Nang did not change. Though there was 
 much about him that was puzzling, he began 
 to feel toward the crotchety little man a loy 
 alty which seemed to have been part of his 
 life for years. He had succumbed to the 
 power of the woods to make intimacies, for a 
 day of companionship in the open is worth a 
 twelvemonth of intercourse in cities. 
 
 On Grand Lake he had spent a wondrous 
 night encamped on the beach, where the big 
 moon shone right in on his bed through the 
 199
 
 "Son" 
 
 open tent-flap, and where all the sands glowed 
 rosy in the early morning; but the other 
 sheets of water, often wind-swept, Dobsis, 
 Gasabeus, and Nikataus, depressed him. 
 So much the more he loved the rivers. It filled 
 him with keenest pleasure to watch Nang 
 shooting rapids, standing all alone in his 
 canoe, quick in thought and action, absolute 
 master of the frail thing and knowing exactly 
 how much it would do. Son felt unbounded 
 admiration for the skill which could turn the 
 force of the current so easily to its own uses. 
 
 Sometimes he caught an expression on his 
 friend's face that troubled him. It would 
 come at unlocked for moments, as when 
 Nang was steering a loaded canoe across a 
 breezy lake, and his sharp eyes, suddenly 
 fixed, would try to pierce the distant shore, 
 or at night in camp, when they were all sitting 
 about, relaxed and comfortable, and the little 
 man's frame would unexpectedly draw itself 
 together with a snap. 
 
 One evening they made camp early, after 
 an exquisite day on sharply winding rivers, and 
 200
 
 The Outlaw 
 
 the warmth was that of August. Even mos 
 quitoes, whose existence they had forgotten, 
 came to life again in this still place, and Son 
 had to sit close to the smoke of the men's 
 pipes to escape them. 
 
 There was much talk after supper, and the 
 second guide astonished Son beyond meas 
 ure by the ease of his answers to mathemati 
 cal puzzles propounded by Father. Son 
 disapproved of Father's habit of fastening 
 with avidity upon these problems, and writing 
 them down in a little book for future trial 
 upon man, woman, and child. There was one 
 about Arabs in a desert who fed upon cheeses, 
 which Son particularly disliked, and he sat 
 by pityingly when Father began to tell it to 
 this guide who had spent his life catching 
 grasshoppers and putting them into a bottle 
 as bait for bass, and who hardly appeared to 
 listen. Then out came the correct answer in 
 a second. And the guide did not seem to 
 think he had done anything at all ! Son 
 ever after regarded him with vast respect. 
 
 The talk began to turn upon trials and 
 
 201
 
 "Son" 
 
 court-room scenes. Nang, who had taken no 
 part in the puzzles, became quickly attentive, 
 and asked many questions as to New York 
 procedure. 
 
 " How do you know so much law? " quizzed 
 Father suddenly. He was smoking a good 
 cigar, and was vastly pleased with his audi 
 ence. "Ever studied it?" 
 
 Son did not stop to hear Nang's answer to 
 this question. He was slightly bored by the 
 conversation, and, besides, he thought he had 
 heard a sound down by the river. If only he 
 could see a moose ! He made his way to the 
 bank and stood for a moment absorbed in 
 the beauty of this second sky at his feet, no 
 longer blue as in prosaic daylight, but varie 
 gated with greens, yellows, and violets of the 
 most delicate shades. All was still. The 
 broken stalks alone, plentifully sprinkled 
 through the opalescent water and ruthlessly 
 trodden down, told a story of past ecstatic 
 wallowings. 
 
 Son turned and started back to camp, as 
 he thought. He could not see the fire, but it 
 .202
 
 The Outlaw 
 
 was over there, just behind that little hill. 
 Strange that it took so long to get to it ! Son 
 could hear talking and the second guide's, 
 loud laugh. He began to hurry. Then he 
 stopped short. There were no voices any 
 more. What was that? Only the twitter of 
 a bird far away, singing a little sunset song. 
 
 Son's heart beat fast. He looked up at the 
 silent trees, bathed in that great light that 
 comes for a moment between day and dark 
 ness. How splendid they were, and how 
 cruel ! He began to run from one to another. 
 Each group was exactly similar to the one 
 before. Now they were gathering about him, 
 beginning to press upon him, their out 
 stretched arms closing him in, always in 
 terrible, inexorable silence. Low bushes 
 clambered up and scratched his face, but he 
 paid no attention to them. He could not 
 breathe. Frantic, he threw his weight against 
 a young pine, and began to beat the slender 
 trunk with his closed fists. It bent gracefully, 
 ever so little, and as soon as the slight pres 
 sure was relaxed, it came back and stood 
 203
 
 "Son" 
 
 utterly still, as if in scorn of this poor futile 
 human energy. Son did not struggle any 
 more. There was no fight left in him. He 
 stood quite as motionless as the big trees, 
 and there was a look on his face in the wan 
 ing light that did not belong to that of a 
 child. 
 
 It was not quite dark when Nang found 
 him. Son heard something coming, heard 
 a twig or two snap, but he did not shout, 
 so great was his dread of disappointment. 
 The wrinkled face, whose outlines his strain 
 ing eyes could just make out coming between 
 the tree trunks, seemed to him the most beau 
 tiful in the world. It was a pity that those 
 who knew Nang could not see it, for it 
 had an expression wholly unfamiliar to 
 them. 
 
 " Hello ! " he said. 
 
 Son shuddered, and a violent trembling 
 seized his whole body. He began to cry. 
 " I can't help it ! " he said, ashamed, between 
 sobs. 
 
 Nang moved a step nearer. 
 204
 
 The Outlaw 
 
 "It's nothin' to feel bad over," he said 
 quietly. "Any man would do the same. 
 You've had a terrible experience, bein' lost 
 in the woods." 
 
 Son felt the electric thrill of this strange 
 little man's sympathy, and it steadied his 
 over-wrought nerves. 
 
 " They were so unkind ! " he whispered, 
 half to himself, but in entire confidence that 
 Nang would understand him. He was not 
 disappointed. 
 
 " They would be," Nang said, looking up 
 at the shadowy trunks " to you" 
 
 "Why to me?" said Son. 
 
 " Because you've only come to them for 
 your amusement," Nang answered slowly, 
 " and they're not your friends." 
 
 " I know they're yours," Son said. " Oh, 
 Nang ! tell me what made them be? " 
 
 Nang paused before he answered. 
 
 " I've lived with 'em and worked with 'em 
 
 and learned 'em through and through," he 
 
 said at last solemnly. " I could walk right 
 
 across the state through them to-morrow, 
 
 205
 
 "Son" 
 
 and come out anywhere I wanted to within 
 ten miles." 
 
 " Cut right through the woods, without 
 paths ? " asked Son. 
 
 "Right through, by the sun." 
 
 " Could you go to-night? " Son continued. 
 
 Nang shook his head. 
 
 " Better not," he said. " When night comes, 
 a woodsman lays down where he is and 
 waits for morning." 
 
 His next words were low and dreamy. 
 
 " They'll do more for a man than that," he 
 almost whispered. " They'll swallow him up 
 when there's need." 
 
 Son felt a little chill down his spine, so 
 queerly gleamed Nang's eyes in the twilight. 
 
 " Let's go back to the fire," he said. 
 
 Father and the second guide were still 
 smoking and talking about cheeses when 
 they came up. 
 
 " Hello ! " the latter greeted their arrival. 
 " You were gone quite a spell. Nang thought 
 you might 'a' got lost." 
 
 Son could not speak of what he experi- 
 206
 
 The Outlaw 
 
 enced. He looked at Nang, who likewise 
 kept silence. Idle for once, the latter sat 
 down on a log, chin on hands, and appeared 
 lost in thought. 
 
 His preoccupation stopped the easy flow 
 of talk. Son, watching him, longed to pene 
 trate still further than he had done into the 
 mystery of his spirit. 
 
 " Oh, Nang ! " he cried impulsively, " tell 
 me what you're thinking about." 
 
 The little man looked up, startled. Then 
 he smiled sourly. " My thoughts wasn't 
 any too pleasant," he said, and his look 
 was more bitter than the smile it blotted 
 out. 
 
 Again Son felt the little chill, and it com 
 municated itself to the others. 
 
 " We're all friends here," said Father, look 
 ing around. It was as though he expected 
 momentous disclosures. 
 
 " I was talkin' to him" Nang began, nod 
 ding in Son's direction, " about knowin' the 
 woods. 
 
 " Up in this country," he went on, " every 
 207
 
 "Son" 
 
 boy knows 'em, and every man that is a 
 man'll fight ter use 'em as he sees fit." 
 
 Nang's meagre voice had- gained in depth 
 and volume, as he spoke, making his last 
 words sound peculiarly significant 
 
 " Ten years ago," he resumed after a pause, 
 "the young men of Machias met together to 
 ask a few pertinent questions. This was one : 
 ' By what right do a lot of judges sittin' in 
 a stuffy court house dictate to us what we 
 shall do when we're out in the woods?' " 
 
 His eyes were blazing now, and Son was 
 frightened by the flash of fanatical hatred 
 that distorted his features, breaking down all 
 barriers of reserve. 
 
 " Them as sits down every day to their fat 
 dinners," he cried, his voice no longer deep, 
 but cracked and shrill, " shall they dare to 
 forbid us to kill for food after we've walked 
 fifty mile through the wilderness?" 
 
 Father was listening attentively, surprised 
 
 at the facility of expression, the command 
 
 not only of words but of the thousand tricks 
 
 of voice and manner that mark familiarity 
 
 208
 
 The Outlaw 
 
 with the court room, which came so easily 
 from this untutored woodsman. 
 
 " Are they goiri ter stop us from catchin' 
 trout for our supper," Nang demanded, 
 "because it happens to be the first of May 
 by their calendar? That was a second ques 
 tion the young men asked. That's their way 
 of tellin' the time of year. But we tell it a 
 different way. We tell it by freezin' in winter 
 and sweatin' in summer. When the sun sets 
 one night, the law says, ' Fish if you like ! ' 
 And when the sun rises next mornin' it says, 
 ' Fish if you dare ! ' There they sit, and make 
 it, and write it down in books." 
 
 The excitement died out of his face, and 
 he continued more quietly, 
 
 " The young men of Machias decides that 
 there's only one answer to such questions. 
 So they builds a fort of logs up the river, and 
 defies, not so much the judges," his voice 
 lowered itself, " but the man who can give 
 the judges cards and spades for meanness, 
 the feller who takes their pay and comes 
 sneakin' through the woods to track us down." 
 209
 
 "Son" 
 
 The fire flared up; all waited breathless 
 for Nang to go on. 
 
 " It was all fight and no quarter fer game- 
 wardens if they came," said Nang. " But 
 they didn't come" 
 
 " Didn't they ever?" asked Son. 
 
 Nang shook his head, grimly reminiscent. 
 
 " Not there," he said. " There was too 
 many of us. They waited till they caught 
 one alone." . 
 
 " Tell us ! " begged Son. 
 
 " It was Si Weston," Nang complied, 
 " who was campin' out one Spring on the 
 west bank of the river. He was all soul alone 
 excep' fer his two dogs. Then, one day, 
 when he was cookin' dinner, two of 'em slunk 
 up out of the bushes. 
 
 " ' We want you,' they said. 
 
 "'What fer?' asked Si. 
 
 " ' Doggin' deer,' the wardens speaks 
 up. 
 
 " Just then the dogs comes around the 
 corner of the camp growlin' and bristlin,' 
 seein' strangers. 
 
 210
 
 The Outlaw 
 
 " ' Call off your dogs ! ' orders the war 
 dens, and points their guns at 'em. 
 
 " The dogs was young, and begins to point 
 up their ears and wag their tails, givin' up 
 their bluff of fight. Si was clean crazy over 
 dogs, always foolin' with 'em, and spoilin' 'em 
 fer work. Now he stands up and looks at 
 the wardens. 
 
 " ' Shoot my dogs if you dare,' he says, 
 very quiet. 
 
 " There was two reports ; two little puffs 
 of smoke, and both dogs rolls over on their 
 backs." 
 
 "Dead?" quivered Son. 
 
 " One was," said Nang. " The other lived 
 just long enough to lick Si's hand when 
 he was bendin' over him." 
 
 " Go on," said Father. Son could not 
 speak. 
 
 "There ain't much more to tell," said 
 Nang. 
 
 "What happened to the wardens ?" Father 
 asked. 
 
 " Si got up and stood between his dogs' 
 
 211
 
 "Son" 
 
 bodies," said Nang quietly, " and shot 'em 
 both dead, one after the other. They 
 dropped almost together, went down like 
 logs, without a sound." 
 
 No one spoke for a long time. Then, 
 
 " What became of Si ? " asked Father. 
 
 " He ran away to California," said Nang, 
 " and then came back and stood trial, and 
 got off. He's livin' in Machias now." 
 
 " It's like the trees on the horse-back, that 
 killed when they crashed over the side," 
 thought Son. 
 
 In his tent that night he overheard Father 
 and the second guide talking, while Nang was 
 chopping wood at a distance. He did not 
 mean to listen, but between the dull thuds he 
 could not help catching just a word or two at 
 first, and after that he listened feverishly, 
 sitting up. 
 
 " Queer fellow," Father was saying. " He'd 
 have made a cracking lawyer ! " 
 
 "How did you come to get him?" asked 
 the mathematician, who had been engaged 
 by Father independently, was from a different 
 212
 
 The Outlaw 
 
 section of the state, and had not escaped the 
 nervous irritation that even the most even- 
 tempered was in danger of feeling after days 
 of contact with Nang. 
 
 "The guide I wrote for was engaged," 
 Father answered, " so he recommended 
 Nang. Said there was nobody like him in 
 the woods." 
 
 " Ain't nobody like him in the whole state 
 o' Maine," returned the other. 
 
 Something in his inflection made Father 
 look up. 
 
 " How do you mean ? " he asked 
 quickly. 
 
 " He's been tried fifty-two times fer vio- 
 latin' the game-laws, and never convicted." 
 
 " That accounts for his legal training," was 
 Father's low comment. 
 
 The guide continued in a whisper. 
 
 " Remember the fire-warden who came 
 through at Gasabeus?" Son heard. "Well, 
 he told me Nang was wanted right now fer 
 burnin' down a warden's barn." 
 
 " That can't be ! " returned Father sharply. 
 213
 
 "Son" 
 
 " He wouldn't stoop to arson. I haven't been 
 with him all this time for nothing." 
 
 " He wouldn't call it by an ugly name like 
 that," was the slow reply, " seein' the barn 
 belonged to a game warden." 
 
 From that night on, Son kept a sort of 
 guard over Nang, and when their trip drew to 
 a close without anything having happened to 
 disturb it, his heart was lightened of a great 
 load. 
 
 The last day but two was spent on Nikataus 
 stream, that exquisitely winding thread, where 
 both banks burned scarlet, and each sharp 
 bend was more beautiful than the last. That 
 night Son hoped secretly that he should hear 
 stealthy foot-falls, and when his wish remained 
 unrealized he rejoiced at Father's decision 
 not to break camp that day. " There's one 
 more night ! " he thought hopefully. 
 
 It looked cozy and homelike on the bank, 
 as the keels of the canoes drew up on the 
 pebbles the second afternoon, after a good 
 day's fishing. Son was so glad the white 
 tents stood there, welcoming, with no poles 
 214
 
 The Outlaw 
 
 to be cut, and no gunny-sacks to be undone. 
 The next day was to be spent on still another 
 river, the Passadumkeag, the last of the 
 trip. 
 
 While they were sitting at supper, they 
 heard a sound in the woods. Son turned 
 cold with excitement. Could it be? Of 
 course not. How could he have imagined 
 that a wild animal would seek out the haunts 
 of men in broad daylight? 
 
 The low bushes parted, and in their midst 
 stood the new-comer. He was beautiful as a 
 young god, and he stood silent as a statue, 
 drawn up to his great height. Son had 
 plenty of time to look at him, from his curly 
 head and splendid bronzed face, with eyes as 
 blue and gentle as the stream at their feet, to 
 his heavy boots, before he spoke. 
 
 " Evenin'," he said. 
 
 "Won't you have some supper?" Father 
 asked. 
 
 " No, thank you, can't stop." 
 
 And with that he turned and went back 
 into the bushes. But not without a whispered 
 215
 
 " Son " 
 
 word to Nang as he passed him by. Nang 
 gave no sigh, not a muscle moved. So no 
 one saw but Son, who was ever on the watch. 
 
 That night Son could not sleep. Heart 
 and mind were full of the errand of their 
 visitor, who had travelled thus silently, not 
 by water, but on foot, for countless miles, 
 with nothing in his hand but an axe, and, his 
 message given, had vanished into the forest 
 whence he had come. The trees had closed 
 behind him as water closes over the head of a 
 drowning man ; they held him and his secret 
 in their faithful hearts, and would not tell. 
 
 " Nang's got another friend beside me ! " 
 thought Son, grateful, yet a little jealous. " I 
 wish / could do something to help him too ! " 
 
 He longed to be one of those who knew 
 the woods, as these men know them. Though 
 he could not express it, he felt instinctively 
 the mutual dependence of naked man and 
 naked nature. Here man was as he had 
 ever been, brother of the first man Adam 
 who had been made a living soul. 
 
 He felt a sickening anxiety for his friend. 
 216
 
 The Outlaw 
 
 It had come at last, the urgent message he 
 had been half expecting, wholly dreading. 
 
 Had Nang really burned down somebody's 
 barn? That was a very wrong thing to do. 
 Father had called it by one of those names 
 of which he had such a store in his vocabulary. 
 
 " But I'm sure there were no cows in it ! " 
 he reflected. " Nang would never have done 
 it without taking out the cows. He's too 
 fond of everything alive." 
 
 His mind went back to the young men of 
 Machias, of whom Nang, now so broken, had 
 been one but ten years ago; he saw them 
 in their fort of logs, holding it against all 
 comers, bidding them defiantly to come on. 
 
 Then he pictured to himself Si Weston, 
 taking calmly a man's life in payment for 
 that of a dog. " It was wicked " he decided, 
 and buried his face. " Oh, the poor dogs ! " 
 he sobbed. 
 
 The law was right; Father had told him 
 so. Mother's law governed his life. With 
 out it, all would be confusion. But the young 
 men of Machias had decreed it otherwise. 
 217
 
 Son " 
 
 " The woods are theirs ! " Son's heart insisted 
 in justifying them. 
 
 Was ever little boy so torn? 
 
 Father turned in quietly, and for hours 
 after he was asleep Son lay staring into the 
 dark, with a dull ache over his eyes. 
 
 He must have slept finally, for all at once 
 he was broad awake, every sense alert. 
 Something had awakened him, of that he was 
 sure. He had never been afraid of the night, 
 and it held no terrors for him now as he 
 arose and without putting on his shoes crept 
 softly out of the tent 
 
 He stopped to listen, and his straining 
 ears caught a faint sound. A light object 
 was being pushed gently and cautiously into 
 the water. The moon shone with faint and 
 watery gleam, obscured for a moment by a 
 black cloud gliding across it. When it came 
 out, a small, shadowy figure, standing, was 
 pushing a canoe farther and farther out into 
 the stream. It made ready to spring in and 
 then hesitated. Softly, with cat-like footsteps, 
 it turned and left the water's edge. Son, 
 218
 
 The Outlaw 
 
 who had drawn back into the bushes, thought 
 Nang must surely hear him breathe. 
 
 Nang's eyes were fixed on the tents, gleam 
 ing ghostly white above. Outside of Son's 
 he stopped, wavered, and then retraced his 
 steps. 
 
 Son knew that Nang had run some risk 
 for that silent farewell. He longed oh, how 
 he longed, to come out and whisper : 
 
 " I'm right here, Nang right here with 
 you ! " 
 
 It required a supreme effort for Son to 
 stifle the impulse of his loving heart and re 
 main hidden. Should he make himself known, 
 a whisper might be heard, or precious seconds 
 lost. 
 
 Once more the little man reached the 
 water's edge, stepped into his canoe and 
 pushed off. Carefully he let himself down 
 in the bow and dipped in his paddle. The 
 canoe began to move down stream, slowly at 
 first, then gaining speed. There was no 
 sound, for Nang kept his paddle always in 
 the water. Son came out of hiding and 
 219
 
 " Son " 
 
 watched the canoe until he lost it in distant 
 shadows. 
 
 He felt terribly alone. Silence was the 
 law of the woods, silence when one heard 
 a moose at the foot of a skidway, silence 
 when one saw a mink's little head peeping out 
 from behind a big rock, silence when one 
 watched a man stealing away into the night. 
 
 Son went back to his tent. 
 
 The trees bent toward him on the way, 
 rustled by a sudden breeze, and his sad 
 heart was comforted, for they seemed to tell 
 him that he had done well. 
 
 220
 
 COUSIN LEMUEL
 
 COUSIN LEMUEL 
 
 SON was writing a story. This was the 
 beginning of it: 
 
 I. 
 
 " As the last bell of school rang two boys 
 emerged from the line and walked briskly 
 toward a large group of trees with a pipe 
 sticking out of the top of them. They turned 
 into a path which was nothing but some 
 gravel. As they neared the spot they mut 
 tered something and disappeared in between 
 two of the trees. One could have thought 
 they disappeared by magic, but my reader 
 knows the truth, I hope." 
 
 Son stopped, and sat biting his pencil. He 
 felt that he was not in the right vein. His 
 reference to the reader seemed to him inar 
 tistic, but who was he, after all, that at eight 
 years old he should depart from the model 
 223
 
 "Son" 
 
 set by most of the boys' 1 books he had read ? 
 He went on. 
 
 " There was a small hut in those trees, and 
 the pipe was the chimney." 
 
 Son wanted to give the boys' hut the back 
 ground that he knew, daisy-dotted meadow, 
 murmuring water, hazy-blue mountains, and 
 white cloudlets gradually cobwebbing a sum 
 mer sky, for he occupied most of the spare 
 hours of his eight city months in dreaming of 
 the paradise in which he spent the other four. 
 But it was of no use to-day, white wagons roll 
 ing and motors puffing outside, and the rain 
 beating down steadily all that weary Sunday 
 afternoon. So he gave up description, and 
 decided to plunge his boys into adventure 
 instead. He brought one of them, after many 
 wanderings, to the door of a summer cottage, 
 and through the kindness of those within, 
 gave him entrance. 
 
 " What a castle it was in his eyes ! " scrib 
 bled Son. " What wonderful tapestries " 
 
 Once more he stopped, tore the sheet 
 across, went over to the window, and stood 
 224
 
 Cousin Lemuel 
 
 looking out into the dreary street. Then he 
 came back to his little table, and touched 
 with gentle fingers the great yellow pad with 
 its blue lines, which he had borrowed from 
 Father for his literary efforts. There were 
 certain things which made Son's heart beat : 
 piano keys, waiting silent and unobtrusive for 
 the inspired touch; blank pages, suggest 
 ive of riotous and wonderful imaginings. 
 Son's eyes filled. There was so much to be 
 done, and he was so small and incapable of 
 doing it. A longing rose in him for com 
 panionship, light of eyes, touch of hand. 
 In the library, he was aware, it was the hour 
 for drawn curtains, firelight, and tea, with 
 kettle humming and bubbles in commotion 
 at the bottom, just making up their minds to 
 rise slowly to the surface, one by one. But 
 that was not what he wanted just now ! 
 Gradually his vague need took concrete 
 form. 
 
 Of course. It was Cousin Lemuel that he 
 wished for. Dear Cousin Lemuel, who on 
 the occasion of his last visit had listened so 
 225
 
 "Son" 
 
 respectfully to Son's explanation of his latest 
 invention, and had pored over its demonstra 
 tion on paper for at least half an hour. His 
 comments had consisted merely of " Oh ! " 
 " Ah ! " and " Indeed ! " but they had been 
 perfectly satisfactory to Son. Father had 
 convinced him in five minutes later on that 
 the invention was no good. " His mind is 
 utterly unscientific ! " he had remarked dis 
 contentedly to Mother. 
 
 Son, while accepting Father's verdict, had 
 not been able to resist going over the draw 
 ings anew in unoccupied moments, making 
 amplifications and improvements in anticipa 
 tion of Cousin Lemuel's next visit. He had 
 not come last Sunday, nor the Sunday before. 
 He must come to-day ! 
 
 In the library Mother sat up, looking as 
 though she had never lolled in her life. The 
 bell had tinkled. 
 
 " I hope it's not Cousin Lemuel ! " she 
 said. 
 
 " I hope not ! " responded Father fervently. 
 
 But it was. 
 
 226
 
 Cousin Lemuel 
 
 They looked at each other, oblivious of the 
 waiting maid. 
 
 " We've got to see him," said Mother. 
 
 " I suppose we have," Father replied 
 ruefully. 
 
 A silence followed the retreat of the maid, 
 interrupted presently by a slight creaking 
 on the stair. In a moment more the visitor 
 stood in the doorway. 
 
 " I hope I'm not interrupting," he said 
 stiffly, his vague blue eyes turning from one 
 to the other of his hosts. 
 
 " Not at all ! " cried Father in a tone of 
 bluff heartiness that sounded hollow in his 
 own ears. 
 
 " How could you think of such a thing ! " 
 Mother added lamely. 
 
 Though she knew this to be merely Cousin 
 Lemuel's " way," she despaired of being able 
 to guide the conversation out of the channel 
 into which his ineptitude had thrust it. She 
 wished, almost angrily, that he would come 
 in without being urged, and, once in, would 
 sit down without being urged again. " I 
 227
 
 "Son" 
 
 don't know why he comes at all," she thought. 
 That subtle perception which belongs to 
 childhood, and which, outlasting that period, 
 makes spiritual natures, old or young, did not 
 come to Mother's aid as she looked at Cousin 
 Lemuel's frock-coated figure, his necktie 
 drawn through a gold band with a moonstone 
 in it, his bald head showing pink between 
 shadowy bumps. Her instrument was a sen 
 sitive one, with strings at once delicate and 
 powerful, but she had lost the habit of play 
 ing on it, and had let the strings get out of 
 tune. It was a pity. For now there was 
 nothing to tell her that this silent, elderly 
 relative, so ill at ease, vibrated to her every 
 look and motion. Into this tall and graceful 
 lady had grown the daughter of his only 
 friend the child who had used to run to 
 him with open arms and face all dimpled 
 with pleasure. Wonderful ! 
 
 Absorbed in thought of her he had taken 
 
 his homeward way three Sundays ago, after 
 
 supper and a long evening. The night had 
 
 been fine, so he had walked to his hotel. " I 
 
 228
 
 Cousin Lemuel 
 
 can't go next Sunday," he had thought, me 
 chanically holding out his hand across the 
 office counter. The clerk had placed in it an 
 iron key with dangling brass tag. " Nor 
 next Sunday," he had reflected, fitting the 
 key into his lock. " Perhaps the Sunday 
 after," he had pondered, reappearing from 
 within and placing his boots with precision 
 side by side on the threshold. And when 
 the promised day had dawned he had man 
 aged to restrain himself yet another week. 
 
 " Anyhow," thought Mother, as the three 
 sat on, Cousin Lemuel having declined tea, 
 " we'll escape a whole evening of it. I must 
 tell him pretty soon that we're dining out." 
 
 Then Son burst in and saved the situation. 
 
 " Cousin Lemuel ! " he cried ecstatically. 
 " Oh, you don't know how I wanted you ! It's 
 rained all day, and I tried to write a story, 
 but it was horrible, and then I began to wish 
 and wish that you'd come. And I want to 
 explain to you " He broke off, remember 
 ing his unscientific mind. After all, it didn't 
 really matter about the invention. What 
 229
 
 " Son " 
 
 mattered was that Cousin Lemuel was here, 
 holding Son's hand in one of his and patting 
 it softly with the other. 
 
 " Why didn't you send for me ? " Son 
 said reproachfully to Mother. " I didn't hear 
 the bell at all ! I've lost all this time." 
 
 " Only a few minutes," apologized Father, 
 surprised on glancing at the clock to find 
 that he spoke truth. 
 
 Son spent the next hour motionless at 
 Cousin Lemuel's side, listening to his occa 
 sional remarks on the condition of the stock 
 market, the state of the weather, or the activ 
 ities of the National Hide and Buckskin 
 Bank, of which he had been the paying teller 
 for more than thirty years. To these last 
 Son lent strict attention, for he had visited 
 Cousin Lemuel once in business hours, and 
 had never forgotten how he had given out 
 crisp bank-notes to a humbly waiting line of 
 people. Ever since, Cousin Lemuel had 
 seemed to him very rich and great. 
 
 Son sat faithfully on, though the nerves in 
 his legs had begun to twitch, and the desire 
 230
 
 Cousin Lemuel 
 
 to change his position amounted almost to 
 physical pain. Finally his supper was an 
 nounced, and Cousin Lemuel arose, as a 
 matter of form. 
 
 It was an embarrassing moment for Mother. 
 Cousin Lemuel was very sensitive. " Touchy, 
 / call it," Father always said bluntly, when 
 this quality was under discussion. 
 
 " If I could only tell him where we're 
 dining," Mother reflected, "it would be all 
 right. But I can't mention Aunt Winifred, 
 for she hasn't noticed his existence for years." 
 Mother remembered certain remarks of the 
 redoubtable and witty old woman at Cousin 
 Lemuel's expense. She felt a twinge of con 
 science, for they had made her smile. 
 
 "I'm so sorry," she said nervously, "we're 
 going out to dinner. But you mustn't think 
 of leaving yet. Please sit down again." 
 
 Cousin Lemuel remained standing, and 
 quickly drew himself together. His voice 
 trembled a little when he spoke. 
 
 " I must be going," he said. " It's getting 
 late." 
 
 231
 
 " Son " 
 
 There was an uncomfortable pause. 
 
 Then Son came up, and lifted his face to 
 Cousin Lemuel's. His whole heart was in his 
 eyes. 
 
 " Come and have supper with Baby and 
 me," he said. "Please do! Oh, Mother, let 
 him stay ! " 
 
 Mother caught at the suggestion eagerly. 
 
 " Do, Cousin Lemuel ! " she cried. " It 
 would be such a delight to the children." 
 
 By the time they had succeeded in persuad 
 ing him to do what he desired, the cereal had 
 ceased smoking and had in fact grown so cold 
 that it had to be sent to the kitchen again. 
 But that was a detail. 
 
 Mother, who went down with them, did 
 not fail to catch Cousin Lemuel's suspicious 
 glance through the dining-room door, nor his 
 look of relief at seeing that the big table 
 was not set. " How lucky I didn't order 
 their supper in the nursery ! " she thought. 
 Then she excused herself hurriedly and ran 
 off to dress, for Aunt Winifred kept early 
 hours. 
 
 232
 
 Cousin Lemuel 
 
 Father was upstairs already, banging about. 
 
 " Thank Heaven I haven't any relative like 
 that ! " he called out savagely from his room, 
 ripping off his collar. 
 
 Mother took out two shell hairpins without 
 reply, and he felt that he had scored. 
 
 " How about your great-aunt Susan in 
 Worcester ! " she then called out sweetly. 
 
 The rest of the dressing was accomplished 
 in silence. Meanwhile things were going 
 smoothly in the dining-room. The meal over, 
 Baby, pleased at company, graciously con 
 sented to accompany the visitor back to the 
 library, and even to sit on his knee, from 
 which precarious slope she slid down at the 
 end of half a second. Then she went away 
 without ceremony to her own domain, having 
 decided at a glance that Cousin Lemuel was 
 not of those who may be fed, driven, or 
 stalled in corners behind sofas, and was there 
 fore unsuited to her purposes. 
 
 At last Son's time had come. With a sigh 
 of content he got out his stamp collection, 
 and holding the big book under his arm, 
 233
 
 Son " 
 
 settled himself on the sofa, drawing Cousin 
 Lemuel down beside him. 
 
 " Did you ever collect stamps? " asked Son, 
 opening the volume on his knees. 
 
 Cousin Lemuel shook his head. But he 
 looked long and earnestly at every page, as 
 Son turned each slowly, expounding and ex 
 plaining. In this collection he and Father 
 were at present equally absorbed, and many 
 an hour had the two spent over it in happy 
 comradeship, satisfying a common interest in 
 lands and people far away. 
 
 " What did you do when you were a little 
 boy?" asked Son finally, closing the book. 
 
 Cousin Lemuel drew his brows together, 
 trying to gather up memories of that forgotten 
 time. 
 
 " Never mind ! " cried Son. " Did you 
 ever travel ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Cousin Lemuel, brightening. 
 
 " Oh, where ?" Son asked. " I wish /could ! 
 Tell me about it." 
 
 " I went to Bermuda once, about twenty 
 years ago," was the reply. 
 234
 
 Cousin Lemuel 
 
 "What was it like?" 
 
 "Very nice," said Cousin Lemuel. "I 
 used to sit on the hotel piazza and watch the 
 young ladies and the young gentlemen play 
 ing lawn tennis. It was very gay." 
 
 "Was it pretty in that country?" 
 
 Cousin Lemuel pondered a moment It 
 had never occurred to him to classify what 
 passed under his eyes in this way, since there 
 had been no one to question him as to his 
 impressions. He would have liked to satisfy 
 Son. 
 
 " The roads were straight," he began tenta 
 tively. " They were made of broken oyster 
 shells." 
 
 He looked at his interlocutor narrowly, 
 fearing his disappointment. But Son was 
 filling in the meagre outlines for himself. 
 
 " I know what grows in the tropics ! " he 
 said. " You must have seen palm trees ! " 
 
 " Oh, yes, there were palms," agreed Cousin 
 Lemuel. " Palms, of course." 
 
 And when Son's bedtime came the old 
 man was thinking of oyster shells no longer, 
 
 235
 
 "Son" 
 
 but of trees whose forms were quaint and 
 curious and whose shade was deep. 
 
 About three weeks after this, Mother came 
 in one afternoon, tired out. She had been 
 motoring, and an hour from home had come 
 a light snow-flurry. The chains had been 
 left behind, and the machine had skidded 
 continually. 
 
 " There's nothing that gets on my nerves 
 like skidding," Mother announced to Father, 
 as they finally descended in safety. 
 
 " That's obvious," Father wanted to retort, 
 but he refrained. " I'm going in next door 
 to speak to Holworth for a minute," he said 
 instead. 
 
 " I won't see any one" Mother directed the 
 maid who opened the door. " Say I'm not 
 at home." She turned for a moment to give 
 another order, and then ran upstairs. 
 
 It was that instant's turning that did all the 
 damage. 
 
 Cousin Lemuel, just rounding the corner, 
 saw the motor at the house and hurried his 
 236
 
 Cousin Lemuel 
 
 footsteps. A shy pink showed in each cheek, 
 and his blue eyes had lost their vagueness. 
 He was quite breathless when he reached 
 the steps. The door was uncurtained, for 
 Mother was still waiting to pick up a piece 
 of Italian lace for it at auction. Through 
 the polished glass he could see, furred and 
 glowing rosy in spite of the state of her 
 nerves, her whom he loved as a daughter, 
 and to whom he always referred in his inmost 
 thoughts as his "little girl." His pulses 
 quickened when she looked toward the door 
 and saw him, as he thought. He raised his 
 hand to his silk hat and pressed the bell. A 
 moment later he was descending the steps, 
 having carefully dropped two pasteboards 
 into an extended card tray. 
 
 The maid watched him in some uneasiness 
 of mind. Mother's tone had been petulant, 
 an unusual circumstance which allowed her 
 no exercise of discretion. What was to be 
 done? 
 
 " Would you like to see the children, sir?" 
 she bethought herself of calling out. 
 237
 
 "Son" 
 
 " No, I thank you," he answered her with 
 distant courtesy. " Some other time. Not 
 to-day not to-day. " 
 
 Son saw the cards on the tray when he 
 went down to supper. He ran into the pan 
 try at once to make inquiries, but could not 
 find the parlor-maid, who was in her own 
 quarters, engaged in those long and serious 
 preparations that are a necessary adjunct to 
 an evening out He ran up to Mother's 
 room next. There was a slip pinned to the 
 door bearing in her neat handwriting the 
 words " Do not knock." He stood there, 
 baffled, a poor little Adam, barred out of 
 his Garden of Eden by flaming swords. 
 
 Mathilde insisted on his going to bed early 
 because he had not eaten his supper and 
 must therefore be ill. Could she have minis 
 tered to his heart as she did to his body, what 
 a wonderful person she would have been, 
 this Mathilde, who sat outside his door until 
 half-past ten and then went to bed with con 
 science clear, having done her whole duty as 
 she saw it. 
 
 238
 
 Cousin Lemuel 
 
 Son could not sleep. If Mother was out 
 when Cousin Lemuel came, why hadn't Mary 
 brought him up to the nursery to wait for her? 
 
 Cousin Lemuel was awake, too, in his room 
 at the hotel. He had not even begun to un 
 dress. He was thinking strange thoughts 
 for him. 
 
 The hall boy, coming along to collect the 
 shoes, did not find any outside of Cousin 
 Lemuel's room, so he passed on to the next 
 
 When Son obtained an explanation from 
 Mary, it was only a partial one. For who 
 could have guessed that the poor old gentle 
 man would fail to realize the impossibility of 
 seeing from the lighted hall any one stand 
 ing without, in the gathering darkness of the 
 short winter afternoon ? 
 
 Mother laughed at Son's anxieties when he 
 confided them to her. " You carry the bur 
 dens of the whole world on your shoulders," 
 she said. But she wrote a note to Cousin 
 Lemuel, inviting him to dinner on the follow 
 ing Sunday, and left it herself at the hotel. 
 239
 
 "Son" 
 
 Next morning when she opened her mail 
 Son was at her elbow. 
 
 " Is there an answer?" he queried. 
 
 "Answer to what?" she replied absently. 
 " No, there isn't. Run along." 
 
 " She didn't know what I was talking 
 about," he thought sorrowfully, as he went. 
 
 When he came home from school he found 
 that she had gone to Philadelphia with 
 Father on one of those sudden business trips 
 she was always ready to join. 
 
 Son stood in the confusion of her room, 
 and watched her maid putting things to rights. 
 He picked up one of her handkerchiefs, a 
 pretty feminine thing of lace and embroidery 
 that somehow made the room seem more 
 motherless than before. It was not good to 
 be a child. For people left you all alone 
 with anxieties that they did not even know 
 you had. 
 
 It was on Saturday that Mother returned. 
 
 "Has the letter come?" Son asked her 
 gravely. 
 
 This time she did not inquire what he 
 240
 
 Cousin Lemuel 
 
 meant, but began at once to search through 
 the pile that had accumulated during her 
 absence. 
 
 " I haven't come to it yet," she said, trying 
 to speak reassuringly. " But it's here, of 
 course. I'll find it in a minute." 
 
 It was not to be found. 
 
 " I'm afraid he's ill," she said. 
 
 " I don't think so," Son answered. " Per 
 haps he thought you didn't want to see him," 
 he added slowly. 
 
 " How stupid of him ! " she exclaimed in 
 some impatience. " But I must send and 
 look him up. How would you like to go? " 
 
 " It's not me he wants," said Son. " It's 
 you. Oh, Mother, he loves you so ! " 
 
 An expression of utter incredulity crossed 
 her face. 
 
 "Why, no, he doesn't," she said. "What 
 put such an idea into your head?" 
 
 Son put his arms around her neck and 
 hugged her tight. 
 
 " Do you think that's so funny? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh, Son, Son ! " she cried, burying her 
 241
 
 "Son" 
 
 face on his shoulder. " I don't know any 
 thing. Tell me ! " 
 
 Son loved the little perfumeless perfume of 
 Mother's clothes as he sat beside her in the 
 motor, the tilt of her hat, the feel of her 
 glove when his hand touched it, for her eyes 
 looked to him and her heart beat in tune to 
 his as she took over the burden he had car 
 ried unaided all these days. 
 
 Her world looked so different in the light 
 that this last half-hour had cast that she was 
 scarcely surprised at the information given in 
 a matter-of-fact tone by the clerk at the hotel 
 office. Still she did not seem able to think 
 what to do. For many minutes she stood 
 there, staring. 
 
 " He was here for years," volunteered the 
 clerk at length, moved to sympathy. " Long 
 before / came. We asked if there was any 
 dissatisfaction, and he said 'None at all.' 
 Just paid his bill and left." 
 
 "Thank you," said Mother, and turned 
 away. "We shouldn't find him at the bank, 
 it's after hours," she whispered to Son. 
 242
 
 Cousin Lemuel 
 
 "We'll go home and telephone Father. That's 
 the best thing to do. He went directly to his 
 office from the train." 
 
 While she telephoned Son stood by, and in 
 his presence she controlled her agitation and 
 spoke quietly. 
 
 " He'll ring me up as soon as he finds out," 
 she said, hanging up the receiver. " He's 
 going to talk to Mr. Janeway that's the 
 president of the bank if he's in town." 
 
 They waited in suspense for ten long min 
 utes. When the call came, Son, watching 
 Mother's, face saw it turn white. 
 
 " What is it?" he cried in dread. 
 
 " I'm afraid," she answered, and wished 
 that she had not 
 
 When she had finished talking she arose, 
 and with both hands on Son's shoulders stood 
 looking down at him. 
 
 " Mr. Janeway doesn't know where he is," 
 she said. " Cousin Lemuel has resigned." 
 
 Still looking at him, she perceived that he 
 had failed to understand. He was such a 
 little boy. She was always forgetting that. 
 243
 
 "Son" 
 
 " He isn't there any more," she explained 
 gently. " Behind the little window, you 
 know." 
 
 This time Son understood. He was al 
 most overwhelmed by the magnitude of this 
 disaster. It made Mother's heart ache to 
 see how he trembled. 
 
 " Don't ! " she said, drawing him within 
 her arms. " Oh, Son ! he must have been 
 very unhappy to give up his work ! " 
 
 " Why did they let him ? How could they ? " 
 Son's voice was sharp with indignation. 
 
 Mother's face hardened. Son had never 
 seen it look so stern. 
 
 "They didn't want him any more. He 
 was old and slow. They were glad of an 
 excuse." 
 
 She looked into Son's hurt, shocked face, 
 and everything in her melted. 
 
 " Perhaps they didn't know" she said, and 
 added humbly, "like me." 
 
 Then she gave him a hurried kiss, as if she 
 had just remembered that there were things 
 to be done. 
 
 244
 
 Cousin Lemuel 
 
 " I've got to go and meet Father," she said. 
 "I'll be back soon." 
 
 " Aren't you going to take me ? " he asked, 
 aghast. 
 
 "Oh, no, no!" she cried. "I can't tell 
 what " She shuddered at her thought, 
 and went out. 
 
 Never had Son felt so utterly alone. There 
 were no sounds, even from the street. He, 
 too, must do something, or his heart would 
 break. But what? In his despair words 
 came back to him, words in Mother's voice. 
 
 " Perhaps they didn't know." 
 
 They must be told, then ! Son's face 
 cleared, and his eyes shone, as he ran over 
 to the desk and began busily turning the 
 leaves of the telephone book. Janeway. 
 That was the name! But which? There 
 were so many Janeways in the book. He 
 must go down the list. That was all. 
 
 Son went at it with his customary attack, 
 
 brows knit and forefinger laboring. There 
 
 was nothing on the page about bank 
 
 presidents. Grocers, tailors, doctors Yes. 
 
 245
 
 "Son" 
 
 Bank presidents No. Through the names 
 of all the Janeways whose occupations were 
 indicated, he drew a line in pencil. 
 
 " I'll have to call up the rest," he decided. 
 
 His fifth attempt succeeded. But, alas ! 
 Mr. Janeway, the right Mr. Janeway, who 
 was indeed a bank president, was out. 
 
 " Oh, please," implored Son desperately, 
 " tell me where he is ! " 
 
 Fortunately for Son it was the afternoon 
 in of the Janeway butler. He was a human 
 butler, fond of boys. 
 
 " He's at a directors' meeting," came the 
 prompt answer. " There's a directors' meet 
 ing at the bank at five. Who shall I 
 say" 
 
 The butler stood nonplussed. He had been 
 cut off. 
 
 " It was a little lad," he reflected, " and he 
 wanted Mr. Janeway bad. Talked like a man, 
 too. So I answered him like one." 
 
 In the private office of the president, at a 
 table of San Domingo mahogany, sat the 
 officers of the National Hide and Buckskin 
 246
 
 Cousin Lemuel 
 
 Bank. They were very black as to coats and 
 very white as to collars, and if there were 
 hearts under their waistcoats they were not 
 conscious of them. For the heart is a negli 
 gible quantity when it comes to a directors' 
 meeting. 
 
 " Gentlemen," began Mr. Janeway, " as we 
 have a great deal of business to attend to, we 
 had better come to order. " 
 
 The gentlemen moved slightly and fixed 
 their eyes on the speaker. 
 
 " The first matter before us," continued the 
 president, " is the resignation of Mr. Lemuel 
 Patterson, our paying teller." 
 
 He paused. Hearing no comments, he 
 went on. 
 
 "This was made in a manner somewhat 
 unusual, to use no harsher term. Last 
 Monday morning, without notice, and during 
 my absence in Pittsburg Mr. Patterson re 
 mained away from the bank. He made no 
 explanation whatever. In the shortest pos 
 sible note, addressed to me and mailed to 
 my house, he stated that he wished to resign. 
 247
 
 "Son" 
 
 Nothing more. The note was not forwarded, 
 and it was therefore not until my return to 
 day that I received it." 
 
 " Casual ! " remarked the vice-president. 
 
 " So it appeared to me," said Mr. Janeway 
 coldly. " It seems," he added, " that his rela 
 tives did not know of it until to-day, either. 
 He has moved, and they were looking for 
 him not two hours ago. They have undoubt 
 edly found him by this time. " 
 
 "How are the books?" a voice asked 
 sharply. 
 
 A few crows' feet shaped themselves about 
 Mr. Janeway 's eyes. 
 
 " I lost no time in examining them," he 
 said. " They are perfect." 
 
 "What possible motive . . ." mused the 
 vice-president 
 
 But Mr. Janeway was glancing at the mem 
 oranda before him on the table. The motives 
 actuating old paying tellers in performing 
 out-of-the-way actions concerned him not 
 at all. 
 
 " We all know, gentlemen," he resumed in a 
 248
 
 Cousin Lemuel 
 
 tone of finality, " Mr. Patterson's er limita 
 tions. We have had many years in which to 
 familiarize ourselves with them. Now, if you 
 agree with me that a little new blood " 
 
 He stopped short, displeased. Some one 
 had dared to knock at the door. 
 
 " Come in ! " he ordered. 
 
 He was prepared to make short work of 
 the intruder. But so great was his surprise 
 when, in obedience to his summons, the door 
 opened and admitted a small boy, that his 
 mantle of austerity fell from him, leaving 
 nothing to distinguish him from eleven other 
 solemn and dignified personages in Son's 
 eyes. 
 
 " Please excuse me for interrupting," said 
 Son, trying to pick out his man. " It's very 
 important." 
 
 " Let's have this important business," said 
 Mr. Janeway, with an unmistakable smile. 
 " But first may I ask how you got in? " 
 
 So that was the president, the man of 
 power. And he wasn't cross a bit ! 
 
 "That was easy!" Son answered with a 
 249
 
 "Son" 
 
 little laugh, forgetting for an instant in his 
 relief the importance of his errand, "I'm 
 so small. I just slipped in behind the man 
 who was closing up the grating. He never 
 saw me ! " 
 
 " Who told you where to come?" 
 
 " I walked along until I heard voices. Then 
 I knew the meeting must be in here." 
 
 A gleam of interest showed on the faces of 
 the seated ones. 
 
 " How did you find out that there was a 
 meeting?" asked Mr. Janeway. 
 
 " They told me at your house, over the 
 telephone. I had to speak to you, so I came 
 right down. I knew the way, because I've 
 been here before to see Cousin Lemuel." 
 
 Mr. Janeway began to understand. " Oh ! " 
 he said. 
 
 Son's face had suddenly grown intent. No 
 more social amenities ! Too much time had 
 been spent already in preliminaries. 
 
 " I came to tell you about him," he said. 
 
 " Go on," the president answered. 
 
 Son struggled for expression. He looked 
 250
 
 Cousin Lemuel 
 
 around, and every face was kind. That made 
 it easier ! 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Janeway ! " he burst out, " if 
 Cousin Lemuel didn't have the bank I think 
 he'd die." 
 
 No one spoke. 
 
 Son went on. " He's told me about it 
 often," he said. " Every morning he wakes 
 early, and then he lies with his watch in his 
 hand, he's so afraid he might go to sleep again 
 and be late. The bank's all he has, except 
 Mother, and he only comes to see her once 
 in a while, on Sundays. He has the bank 
 every day ! " 
 
 Son stopped and came up close to Mr. 
 Janeway's chair. 
 
 "You didn't know!" he said. "You 
 couldn't of course. Cousin Lemuel never 
 told you. But he thinks about the bank all 
 the time. He can't even remember what he 
 used to do before he came here." 
 
 So deeply in earnest was Son that he never 
 noticed Mr. Janeway's arm put gently about 
 him. 
 
 251
 
 "Son" 
 
 " It's all a mistake ! " he cried, his eyes 
 filling. "Cousin Lemuel wouldn't have left 
 for the world. Only he didn't care what he 
 did, he was so unhappy. It was all because 
 he thought Mother didn't want him when 
 she really did. Nobody wanted him, he 
 thought. Not Mother or you or any 
 body in the world. But you do, don't you? " 
 
 Son was hanging on Mr. Jane way's face 
 with eyes and lips and all his being. 
 
 There was a heavy silence. 
 
 Then, "Yes," said Mr. Janeway, putting 
 his other arm around Son. 
 
 " I knew it ! " cried the latter, almost 
 delirious with joy. He quivered with the 
 excitement of reaction from his previous 
 uncertainty. 
 
 " Will you go and explain to Cousin Lem 
 uel ? " said Mr. Janeway, to steady him. 
 
 Son's face fell. 
 
 " We've got to find him first," he answered. 
 
 " Isn't he found yet? " shouted the presi 
 dent, springing up so suddenly that he over 
 turned his chair. " Gentlemen, you will 
 252
 
 Cousin Lemuel 
 
 excuse me. An important matter. Mr. 
 Woodrough will take my place." 
 
 The . vice-president, to whom he referred, 
 had arisen, and was engaged in picking up 
 the chair that had been knocked over. " It's 
 broken," he muttered. " Go along, Janeway." 
 
 Mr. Janeway went, holding Son by the 
 hand. 
 
 The whereabouts of Cousin Lemuel were 
 discovered in the end by a simple expedient 
 It was Mother who thought of it, when she 
 and Father drew up before the hotel, and 
 saw a line of hacks standing near the entrance. 
 
 " Why not ask the cabmen ? " she said. 
 
 Poor Cousin Lemuel had not used much 
 skill in covering his tracks. He had only 
 wanted to get out of the way, like a hurt 
 animal that retires without outcry to nurse 
 its wounds as best it may. It did not take 
 ten minutes to unearth the very man who 
 had transferred him and his trunk to their 
 new quarters. 
 
 Cousin Lemuel had just passed the sixth 
 253
 
 "Son" 
 
 longest day of his life. Waking early, he had 
 taken his watch from under his pillow by 
 force of habit, and had held it in his hand, 
 musing. As he observed for the millionth 
 time the delicately chiselled gold face, his 
 thoughts went back to that good friend whose 
 gift it had been, Son's maternal grandfather, 
 cousin by blood, brother by a heart's need. 
 Of his relatives this one alone had never 
 failed him, loyal in full and prosperous years 
 to the companion of his youth. Gone long 
 ago. What business had that old pain of 
 loss to crop up again to-day? 
 
 He put the watch back and tried to lie 
 still a few more minutes. Then he gave it 
 up, dressed, and went down to breakfast He 
 still shrank from the new waiter who served 
 him in the new dining-room, and ordered a 
 boiled egg that he might swallow it quickly, 
 though it was his habit to eat two lamb chops 
 every morning. 
 
 The meal over, he took his hat and went 
 out briskly, with every appearance of haste. 
 Once around the corner his steps faltered 
 254
 
 Cousin Lemuel 
 
 and became quite slow and feeble, as they 
 had every day that week. 
 
 He was deadly tired when he came in to 
 lunch. Going out again afterwards was not 
 to be thought of. He went up to his room, 
 where no eye of stranger was upon him, and 
 sat down. Hour after hour he sat there, 
 neither moving nor thinking. When there 
 came a knock at the door, he did not rouse 
 himself to answer. 
 
 " They've got the wrong room," he thought 
 listlessly. " It's for some one else." 
 
 Then a shiver went through his frame, and 
 he straightened in his chair. 
 
 " Cousin Lemuel ! " cried two or three 
 voices in confusion outside. 
 
 It was Mother who opened the door. He 
 got up, took two steps toward her, swayed a 
 little, and in the sudden dark that blotted her 
 out felt her two arms about him. 
 
 " He'll be all right in a minute," he heard. 
 " Only a little faintness. Turn on the lights ! " 
 
 Cousin Lemuel, coming back into full con 
 sciousness, kept his eyes closed. Which were 
 255
 
 "Son" 
 
 better, to feel her, still kneeling beside the 
 chair in which they had placed him, or to 
 look at her and have her get up? His de 
 cision was not made when some one spoke. 
 Cousin Lemuel opened his eyes, and saw for 
 the first time the rest of the group, Father, 
 Mr. Janeway, and Son, the two latter having 
 gone directly from the bank to the old hotel, 
 where they had encountered the others. 
 
 " The officers of the bank have commis 
 sioned me to decline your resignation," said 
 Mr. Janeway. 
 
 " Mother didn't see you in the hall ! " cried 
 Son. 
 
 Cousin Lemuel patted Mother's head. 
 Since she was still kneeling beside him, what 
 matter whether she had seen him or not? 
 
 " Let us take you home to dinner ! " 
 begged Father. 
 
 Cousin Lemuel shook his head. He was 
 very tired. 
 
 " I'll come on Sunday," he said. 
 
 Then he arose, took off his watch, leaving 
 the useless chain dangling, and with old- 
 256
 
 Cousin Lemuel 
 
 fashioned formality put the watch into Son's 
 hand. 
 
 " Oh, no ! No ! " cried everybody. 
 
 But Cousin Lemuel glowed. " I've always 
 intended it for him," he said. And he looked 
 so happy as he stood there, with pink in his 
 cheeks and blue in his eyes, that they dared 
 protest no more. 
 
 "Let's go," whispered Mother. "He's 
 had excitement enough." 
 
 " We'll see you at the bank on Monday. 
 Good-bye ! " said Mr. Janeway. 
 
 " Good-bye ! " echoed Father and Son. 
 
 Mother, who had suggested going, lingered. 
 " Good-bye, dear ! " she said. 
 
 " Good-bye," whispered Cousin Lemuel. 
 " Good-bye, my little girl ! " 
 
 257
 
 THE REFLEX
 
 THE REFLEX 
 
 OON passed it every morning on his way 
 to school. It was an ugly red brick build 
 ing, and any one could have told that it had 
 been erected with charitable intent. It had 
 all the indications. Son had often seen some 
 shy little old head appear at one of the win 
 dows, to be withdrawn at the next instant 
 
 "Why don't they build a lot of little 
 houses for them?" he thought in happy 
 ignorance of the value of real property in the 
 City of New York. " White wooden ones, 
 with green blinds ? " And he saw in his 
 mind innumerable tiny kitchens, smelt savory 
 smells from imaginary lacquered stoves, and 
 pictured in each toy house an owner, impor 
 tant, happy, holding in black bombazine un 
 disputed sway over her own hearth. " That 
 is the way I should do it ! " thought Son. 
 
 He liked hospitals: it seemed right that 
 261
 
 "Son" 
 
 sick people should be cared for in long rows 
 of white cots, to be discharged when cured. 
 But from this great, solid building there was 
 no discharge, and for the ailment which had 
 brought each inmate there, age, there 
 was no cure. Potential grandmothers all, 
 checked and pigeon-holed. Son's soul re 
 belled. What a waste ! 
 
 Son did not possess a grandmother himself. 
 Perhaps it was just as well in these modern 
 days, for, who knows? had he owned 
 one she might not have had little gray curls 
 at all, but a coiffure in the latest fashion, and 
 clothes to match. This would have been 
 fatal, for somewhere in the recesses of his 
 mind was a very exact idea of what an old 
 lady should be. Toward this old lady of his 
 dreams he had a feeling, not quite the same 
 as his love for Baby, nor yet like his tender 
 ness for Fulsy, Fulsy, his own puppy, 
 whom he had given to Nils' boy Petersen, 
 and whom he still longed for at night with 
 empty arms, but similar to both. So he 
 was not at all surprised, in looking up one 
 262
 
 The Reflex 
 
 day as he passed by, to see her peeping out. 
 There she was ! Black dress, gray curls, and 
 all. And he took off his cap and waved it at 
 her with a bright smile of recognition. 
 
 "Mais, quoi done?" cried Mathilde, grab 
 bing him by the shoulder and hurrying him 
 along. 
 
 Son did not often stop to analyze Mathilde. 
 He accepted her as he did the Indian meal 
 mush which was sometimes served to him for 
 breakfast. He did not fancy it, but he ate 
 it because of a tradition in his family which 
 proclaimed it superior in sterling qualities to 
 pleasanter foods. This time he thought her 
 over, and concluded that her interference had 
 sprung, not from any objection to the old 
 ladies, to whom she would joyfully have 
 rushed with arms full of packages of any size, 
 had such been entrusted to her for them, 
 but from an ineradicable conventionality of 
 temperament. She never allowed Son to 
 make acquaintances. How, then, enlarge 
 his horizon? That night he asked Mother 
 whether he might not be permitted in future 
 263
 
 "Son" 
 
 to go to school alone. It was not his fault 
 that his motives were misinterpreted. 
 
 " He's getting manly at last ! " cried Father 
 in triumph, when the request was repeated to 
 him by Mother during the evening. 
 
 " But the automobiles " 
 
 " Nonsense ! " Father interrupted. " He 
 can take care of himself." 
 
 " He's so little " 
 
 " Didn't want to be seen with a nurse ! 
 Quite right, too ! " Father said, not listening. 
 And in this fashion he disposed of all further 
 arguments. 
 
 Son started off very happily next day, his 
 books under his arm, while Mathilde watched 
 him from a third floor window. 
 
 " Not'in' more for me to do in dis house," 
 she grumbled to the housemaid. Then she 
 took up the jacket he had worn last night 
 from the hanger, where it had waited with 
 the sleeves full of creases made by his arms, 
 and began to brush it energetically. 
 
 That day Son did not see his old lady, but 
 the following morning she was there, leaning 
 264
 
 The Reflex 
 
 out of an upper windowwith a green flower-pot 
 in her hand. Son stood quietly waiting until 
 she had watered the whole row of pink tulips 
 that lifted their heads with such delicate stiff 
 ness, making the only spot of color on the 
 dreary face of the " home." When the last 
 drop had been sucked into her little bit of 
 brown earth, she looked down, saw him, and 
 leaned out perilously far, waving to him as 
 quickly as though she had been another boy. 
 
 After he had gone on she continued to 
 stand there, though she knew he was caught 
 behind some sternly shut door, where people 
 were trying to put into his head a thing that 
 they called knowledge. He would not come 
 back for hours. 
 
 By and by the dinner bell rang. She went 
 down with the others, and left as soon as it 
 was over. There he was again ! Waving his 
 cap ! Laughing ! Running by. 
 
 Had she really waited all that time with 
 
 the single interruption of the mid-day meal, 
 
 hovering between the window and her chair? 
 
 Well, it didn't matter, after all. For she had 
 
 265
 
 "Son" 
 
 watered her flowers, and, apart from eating, 
 there was nothing else to do. 
 
 After that Son knew that as regularly as 
 he got up, as regularly as he ate his break 
 fast and started out, he should see her, 
 going and coming. 
 
 And the old lady, nestling about in the 
 early morning on the coarse clean pillow case 
 which was marked in ink in one corner, " Un- 
 sectarian Home, No. 568," at that pleasant 
 moment which comes between sleeping and 
 waking, would feel that something delightful 
 was about to happen Christmas, or some 
 thing of the sort. 
 
 Sunday, which had been for years an event 
 ful day to her, and the occasion of much in 
 nocent prinking before she started out, ivory 
 prayer-book in hand, for church, was now 
 a weariness. That and Saturday. For on 
 those days he did not come. She had for 
 gotten holidays. 
 
 There was one holiday to which she looked 
 forward from year to year with a stirring of 
 the pulses at the mere thought of it. On 
 266
 
 The Reflex 
 
 that day she always got out a little silk flag 
 that she numbered among the dearest of her 
 possessions, and hung it out of the window, 
 where above the row of tulips it fluttered 
 valiantly in the breeze, Lincoln's birthday. 
 
 This time she felt like a traitor to her dear 
 hero, that on his day, instead of soaring, her 
 heart sank. But she fastened her flag in its 
 place, thinking all the while, " He's not com 
 ing. He won't come to-day." 
 
 And then he did come, after all, came 
 with his school books under his arm, and his 
 cap on the back of his head, at an angle 
 never tolerated by Mathilde. But she was 
 away on an unheard-of holiday gone to 
 meet at the dock a sister newly arrived 
 and Father and Mother were away too, on a 
 motoring trip. Son, who was often absent- 
 minded, had clean forgotten what day it was. 
 He never remembered it until he looked up 
 and saw the old lady standing listlessly be 
 side the stars and stripes. He laughed 
 outright. " How funny ! " he said aloud. 
 " Why, there isn't any school to-day ! " Then 
 267
 
 "Son" 
 
 his eyes met those of his friend, shining down 
 at him. 
 
 "There isn't any school to-day!" he 
 shouted, making a trumpet of his hollowed 
 hands. 
 
 She beckoned, and quick as thought Son 
 had run up the front steps. He was just going 
 to ring the bell when the door was opened. 
 "How did she ever get here so soon?" 
 thought Son. " But she can move fast 
 she's not so much bigger than me." 
 
 " How do you do ? " he said politely, re 
 moving the rakish cap. 
 
 "I'm so glad you came, after all!" she 
 answered with a little sigh of pleasure. " Will 
 you come up to my room ? " 
 
 Hand in hand they trotted up the uncar- 
 peted stairs., she softly, he with a creditable 
 clattering of little stout shoes. 
 
 " Whew ! " he said. " Perhaps they won't 
 like me to make such a noise ! " 
 
 But she assured him that " they " would. 
 
 At the end of the second flight the two 
 stopped, and turning to the right came to 
 268
 
 The Reflex 
 
 one of many wooden doors just alike. " No. 
 301 " was painted on it in black letters. 
 
 " That's my house-number ! " she said, as 
 she opened the door. 
 
 There was one window, through which the 
 sun was coming in. Son caught the pink 
 glow of the tulips on the sill. 
 
 " I'm glad the sun's shining! " he consoled 
 himself, looking about the bare space. A 
 little white iron bedstead in one corner, a 
 bureau in another. A mission table without 
 a cloth occupied the centre of the room, and 
 there were two chairs and a footstool. Under 
 the window was a worn black leather trunk. 
 That was all. No, not quite all. On the 
 whitewashed walls were hanging, not pic 
 tures, but bits of handwriting in neat oak 
 frames. 
 
 Son's old lady followed the direction of 
 his eyes. 
 
 " Can you read ? " she asked eagerly. 
 
 " Yes," he replied. 
 
 She took him to a chair under one of the 
 frames, held his hand while he climbed up, 
 269
 
 "Son" 
 
 and pointed with a tapering forefinger at the 
 manuscript displayed. 
 
 "ALBANY, Feb. 18, 1861. 
 DEAR ANN, 
 
 Having a moment's leisure at this locality 
 I write to you. Old Abe has just now been received 
 here. His journey to the Capital is to be a success. 
 The people are rising en masse the further he goes 
 the greater will be the numbers. At this place there 
 were at least fifteen thousand in the crowd. The park 
 at the Capital here was every inch of it packed, and 
 all the trees were filled with living beings. If you 
 have not seen Lincoln you will be disappointed on 
 seeing him. With his present heavy beard he is 
 really a noble-looking man. His likenesses are de 
 cidedly a mistake " 
 
 " That's true ! " interrupted the old lady 
 softly. 
 
 Son turned, and with both hands on the 
 rim of the chair looked down on her absorbed, 
 upturned face. 
 
 "Did you ever see him?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, after I had received that letter I 
 started at once for Washington, and saw him 
 for myself when he arrived. " 
 270
 
 The Reflex 
 
 " Tell me about the war ! " pleaded Son, 
 jumping down. 
 
 " It's a long story," she warned. 
 
 " Oh, good ! " he cried clapping his hands. 
 "Please begin. But first where's your 
 knitting?" 
 
 " How do you know that old ladies have to 
 knit?" she said happily, going over to the 
 bureau and getting it out of the upper drawer. 
 " They always do, you know ! " 
 
 "Of course," he said. "What beautiful 
 stockings! Who are they for ?" 
 
 " For soldiers," said the old lady, dropping 
 instantly her bantering tone and lowering her 
 voice. 
 
 " Soldiers in barracks? " 
 
 " No, soldiers at war," she replied. 
 
 "But we're not having war in this coun 
 try ! " he cried, wondering. 
 
 "This is not the only country," she re 
 proved him gently. " Somewhere who 
 knows they may be needed when they 
 are finished." 
 
 Son watched her, awed, for her breath 
 271
 
 "Son" 
 
 came quickly, and her eyes were alight with 
 what he knew to be Mother-love for all the 
 soldiers in the whole world. 
 
 She settled herself in the rocking-chair 
 and offered him the footstool, but he pushed 
 it under her feet and sat down on the floor, 
 clasping his drawn-up knees with his hands 
 and leaning his chin on them. 
 
 " Tell me," he pleaded. 
 
 " Once upon a time," she began thought 
 fully, " there lived a girl. She was almost 
 grown up, you know, but she was little." 
 
 "Where did she live?" said Son, all ex 
 pectation. 
 
 " She lived in a white house," said the old 
 lady, " with green blinds." 
 
 " Just the kind I love ! " cried Son ecstati 
 cally. " With roses. There were roses ? " he 
 added with some anxiety. 
 
 " Crimson ramblers," said the old lady 
 promptly. 
 
 Son unclasped his knees with a sigh of 
 satisfaction. " Go on, please," he said. 
 
 " She lived with her aunt," his friend con- 
 272
 
 The Reflex 
 
 tinued. " A quiet, kind aunt, who had never 
 been out of her native village. The girl liked 
 school. After the primary came the high 
 school, and she graduated with honors. And 
 the minister of her church, who had lived in 
 cities, told her what books to get from the 
 library. She read a great deal, mostly 
 history, and the biographies of great men. 
 Then came a rather dreary time. Her school 
 days were over, and she did not wish to read 
 any more of the events in busy lives. She 
 used to lean out of her little window in the 
 gray of morning, when the air was still and 
 heavy with the sweet garden odors below, 
 and wish that something would stir. 
 
 " ' Things may happen to other people,' 
 her heart would cry out, ' but not to 
 me ! ' " 
 
 "Did anything?" asked Son. 
 
 " Yes," said the old lady joyously. " Into 
 this Sabbath quiet came a man." 
 
 "What kind of a man?" 
 
 " Just a man ! A great, big young man, who 
 could lift the girl with one hand and put her 
 273
 
 "Son" 
 
 over the fences when they were walking to 
 gether through the fields. All the things 
 that the girl had long since forgotten to 
 notice gave him the keenest pleasure. The 
 tolling bell on the old white church, the gay 
 colors of the garden flowers, the smell of hay, 
 and the singing of birds at sunrise. She 
 learned to see them all with his eyes. 
 
 " But most of all he loved the elms. By 
 day, when the sun cast late afternoon shadows 
 over them, or at night, when they stood, silent 
 sentinels under a round yellow moon, while 
 the glistening mist rose in great clouds over 
 the marshes." 
 
 "Then what happened?" said Son. 
 
 " Well, one day the man took the girl's 
 hand and led her up the straight aisle of the 
 church, where the minister who had directed 
 her reading married them, with the aunt and 
 all her school friends looking on from the 
 high-backed pews. 
 
 " That very day he took her away, and, 
 oh, she was glad to go ! But through the 
 anxious days that followed, he looked back 
 274
 
 The Reflex 
 
 to that sleepy little town as to an earthly 
 paradise." 
 
 The old lady paused, and Son did not in 
 terrupt her thoughts. 
 
 "The war broke out almost at once," she 
 resumed presently. " And of course the man 
 volunteered." She got up and began fum 
 bling over papers in the trunk. " This will tell 
 you the beginning of it," she said, coming 
 back with a folded sheet in her hand. And 
 she began to read : 
 
 " Head Quarters, First Division. 
 
 Gen. Williams (late Banks) Corps. 
 MARYLAND HEIGHTS, September 24th, 1862* 
 
 GEN. A. A. WILLIAMS, 
 
 Commanding Corps. 
 SIR, 
 
 In conformity with orders, emanating from 
 Headquarters of the Corps, I have the honor to re 
 port upon the part taken by my Brigade, the Third, 
 of the First Division of your Corps, in the recent 
 battle of Antietam, near Sharpsburg, on the i;th 
 instant. 
 
 The enemy, routed at passes of the South Moun 
 tain on the I4th, were rapidly pursued and brought to 
 a stand, near Sharpsburg, on the westerly side of 
 Antietam Creek, on the i6th instant " 
 275
 
 "Son" 
 
 " I'd rather have you tell it ! " said Son. 
 
 " Perhaps you are a little young for the 
 official reports," the old lady replied. " But 
 you look as though you could understand 
 anything. 
 
 " All that day the Corps had nothing to do. 
 So they spent it nearly all of them in 
 writing letters. One letter came long after 
 to a wife." 
 
 "What did it say? " asked Son. 
 
 "Pages and pages of things that you 
 wouldn't understand," she replied. "But it 
 ended with this: 
 
 "'If I shouldn't come back, I'd like to think of 
 you in their keeping the big fellows that listened to 
 all I whispered to you that night.' " 
 
 " The elms ! " Son said. 
 
 "There's a lot more in the report," said 
 the old lady. " About how they were awak 
 ened from a brief sleep by a sharp firing of 
 musketry how General Hooker was sorely 
 pressed, and General Gordon brought his 
 Brigade to his support how he moved his 
 ployed masses at double quick " 
 276
 
 The Reflex 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Son, " if I could only have 
 been there ! It doesn't sound like that in my 
 ' Children's Stories in American History ' ! 
 Mother read me something out of the Bible 
 that sounded like it. What was it now? Oh, 
 yes, I know, ' The thunder of the Captains, 
 and the shouting.' " 
 
 Son looked up, but the old lady did not go 
 on. He shuffled his feet, and she looked 
 down at him smiling. 
 
 " May I read a little now ? " she asked. 
 "I'm afraid I couldn't tell this part." 
 
 She turned several pages, and the leaves 
 crackled. 
 
 " These regiments," she read, " were received with 
 a galling fire, which they sustained and returned for a 
 brief period, then fell back upon their supports. So 
 strong was the enemy that an addition of any force 
 I could command would only have caused further 
 sacrifice without gain. The loss in the 2nd Mass, 
 was severe. Here fell mortally wounded Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Winfield Graham of this Regiment bravely 
 fighting for his country. 
 
 "An official paper is not the place to express the 
 sadness the death of this gallant officer brings to the 
 Regiment in which his presence was so much felt, as 
 2/7
 
 "Son" 
 
 well as to many friends serving in the army, to 
 whom " 
 
 " But no one must be killed now ! " inter 
 rupted Son, his eyes filling. "Why, it's 
 only the beginning of the story ! " 
 
 The old lady looked down into his disap 
 pointed face, and her smile was the sweetest 
 he had ever seen. 
 
 " It's the end of my story," she said. 
 
 Son went home, and all that day forgot to 
 do everything that was expected of him, for 
 he smelled the battle afar off. In the after 
 noon the streets were gay with flags. He 
 longed passionately to do some deed of hero 
 ism, to sacrifice his life, if need be. Mother 
 and Father came home toward night, and 
 Son went down to say his prayers. Instead 
 of mumbling them off as usual, with the 
 pleasant feeling that the doing of it was sure 
 to rob the night of cares, he faltered in the 
 middle and stopped. 
 
 "What's the matter, Son?" said Mother, 
 greatly surprised, for she knew him to be a 
 278
 
 The Reflex 
 
 happy soul, who generally took things as they 
 came. 
 
 " I don't want to go to bed," he said. 
 
 "That can't be it," said Mother gently. 
 " You always go to bed at this time. I know 
 you wouldn't make a fuss about such a thing 
 as that." 
 
 Then he lifted to her a face so old and full 
 of misery that it shook her to the depths of 
 her heart, as nothing in her comfortable 
 life ever shook her. 
 
 " I haven't accomplished anything all day," 
 he said. " If I've got to live like that, I don't 
 want to live. " 
 
 Then Mother took both his hands, hoping 
 humbly that she might be able to follow 
 where led this little child of hers, and tried 
 to explain to him that it could not be ex 
 pected of a little boy to do great things every 
 day. So the lines smoothed themselves out 
 of his face, for at eight it is easy to forget 
 your wasted life in your Mother's arms. 
 
 Father had gone out to dinner, and Mother 
 and Son sat for a long time together on the. 
 279
 
 "Son" 
 
 library sofa. In their companionship that 
 night there was an intensity that did not be 
 long to the life of every day " though it 
 would," her heart cried out in bitter self- 
 reproach, " if I didn't let a host of things 
 come between ! " 
 
 "Whatever happens," said Son slowly, 
 " when I'm grown up, whatever I do, it 
 will all come back to this." 
 
 " How do you mean?" asked Mother. 
 
 "Back to this," he repeated. "To all 
 these books with stories in them that hap 
 pened long ago and the lamp and to 
 you and me sitting here together." 
 
 Mother looked at him, in the serge jacket 
 and white collar which had been substituted 
 this winter for sailor suits, his head all the 
 more fine and delicate for the rougher clothes; 
 his whole body trembling with what he felt, 
 while he thus projected himself into the fu 
 ture. And she determined to hold the pic 
 ture fast. Before he went to bed he told 
 her all about his old lady, and obtained her 
 permission to ask her to the house. 
 280
 
 The Reflex 
 
 Son's old lady was on her knees before the 
 leather trunk. The row of tulips drooped a 
 little, for she had forgotten to water them 
 that day. She shoved the papers one side, 
 copies of reports and all, and with quick 
 motions threw out one after another various 
 articles of clothing, throwing over one arm 
 what she needed, and dropping the rest un 
 heeded on the floor. 
 
 Had any of her fellow inmates of the Home 
 come in just then, the little room, once so 
 drearily in order, would have presented to 
 their eyes quite a festive appearance of con 
 fusion. But none came. They did not break 
 in upon her very often, for she did not suffer 
 from rheumatism, nor did she have any fault 
 to find with the regime of the institution or 
 with the food. There were certain rumors 
 about her. It was whispered that she had 
 refused a pension from the War Department, 
 saying that her husband's services to his 
 country had been freely given, and that his 
 widow declined to accept pay for them. But 
 that was long ago, when she was young and 
 281
 
 "Son" 
 
 could support herself by teaching. If she 
 had foreseen that she must end her days 
 as a recipient of charity, would her answer 
 have been the same? Some shook their 
 heads, others kept silence, but all in their 
 inner consciousness felt pretty sure that it 
 would. 
 
 The old lady, having laid the other articles 
 on a chair, pulled out very carefully from the 
 bottom of the trunk the package she had 
 been seeking. It was wrapped in a camel's- 
 hair shawl and pinned with many pins. She 
 took it in her arms as if it had been a baby, 
 and carried it to the bed. When she had 
 taken it out, she stood back and looked at it. 
 It was a dress of rich black silk, and she had 
 not had it on for fifteen years. 
 
 She hurried with her dressing, standing 
 before the mirror to comb out the ringlets 
 that kinked all the more for the dampness of 
 the day. " It always did curl," she said to 
 herself. Then she put on the gown, which 
 rustled not at all when she moved, so heavy 
 and soft were the folds of it, and fastened the 
 282
 
 The Reflex 
 
 real lace at her throat with her best cameo 
 pin. Her cap was lace, too, and had a violet 
 ribbon on it. She wrapped her head, curls 
 and all, in a solemn black silk scarf, from 
 which her sweet face and live eyes looked 
 out eagerly. She drew on her mitts, and 
 threw a pelisse over her shoulders. Then 
 she was ready, and closing the door softly, 
 she ran down the stairs and out into the 
 street, where she tried not to walk too fast 
 
 To Son, no less than to her, this day had 
 been one of anticipation. 
 
 "Why don't you wait until to-morrow?" 
 Father and Mother had said. " We won't 
 be in to-night until you have finished 
 supper." 
 
 Son had not thought it polite to explain 
 to them that their presence was not neces 
 sary to his party. He had begun his prepa 
 rations immediately after lunch. 
 
 " You had better have supper in the dining- 
 room," the parlor maid had suggested, quite 
 willing to deck out the table with silver and 
 candles for his pleasure. 
 283
 
 "Son" 
 
 " Oh, no ! " Son had answered, " we're 
 going to have it in the nursery." 
 
 " But there's nothing up there but a little 
 table and chairs ! " 
 
 " That doesn't matter ! " he had replied in 
 glee. " They're big enough for her. You'll 
 see ! " 
 
 Mathilde had stood with unusual patience 
 for a long time at the florist's around the 
 corner, waiting for Son to make up his mind 
 on what flowers to spend his last week's al 
 lowance of twenty-five cents. Finally he had 
 decided on a tea rose. " That looks like her," 
 he had said. 
 
 "You can have two for a quarter," the 
 florist had remarked, hardly knowing why, 
 for he was not given to generosity. And 
 when Son had explained that he did not 
 want two, the man had given him back fifteen 
 cents. 
 
 Now the moment had come. There she 
 was ! On the tick of the clock. 
 
 " Come up to the nursery," said Son. 
 
 The nursery was a big room with three 
 284
 
 The Reflex 
 
 windows, containing toys both masculine and 
 feminine of every sort. On one side was a 
 much kicked sofa upholstered in green denim, 
 and in the middle of the room a white painted 
 table covered with a white cloth and set 
 for three. Around the room ran a frieze of 
 animals marching in solemn procession. Son 
 pulled out one of the little white chairs as he 
 had seen Father do for Mother, and the old 
 lady made him a formal courtesy before she sat 
 down, after which he pinned on the rose. 
 Then in stormed Baby, and all ceremony 
 was at an end. 
 
 " But, Baby," said Son, in that gentle tone 
 of ineffective protest used habitually by 
 elderly female relatives, " people don't drum 
 on the table with spoons at parties." 
 
 " Baby does," was all the satisfaction he 
 got. 
 
 When he found that his visitor did not 
 mind at all, appeared to enjoy the accom 
 paniment, in fact, he began to breathe freely. 
 And as the meal progressed it became mirth 
 ful, almost hilarious. So it seemed per- 
 285
 
 "Son" 
 
 fectly natural to Son to ask, when the table 
 had been cleared away and Mathilde had 
 gone down to the pantry with dishes, 
 
 "What shall we play?" 
 
 The old lady's eyes, looking about for 
 ideas, met the frieze and were arrested by 
 the leopard's spots. 
 
 "Animals," she suggested. 
 
 " I'll be a bear ! " shouted Son. " What 
 shall Baby be?" 
 
 "A lion," said the old lady. "A little 
 furry one, that never eats anybody." 
 
 But Baby said she wanted to be a zebra. 
 
 " It's because we can't have horses in this 
 game, for they're not wild," explained the 
 bear. " She's crazy about horses, and she 
 thinks zebras are the nearest." 
 
 " Then I'll be the lion," said the old lady, 
 getting down on all fours and growling 
 dreadfully. 
 
 Father and Mother, climbing the stairs 
 
 heard unusual noises. Above all the din 
 
 could it be? they looked at one another. 
 
 Yes, it surely was the voice of their Son ! 
 
 286
 
 The Reflex 
 
 When they opened the door, the old lady 
 arose at once, smoothed out the folds of 
 her dress, and looked up at them without 
 embarrassment. 
 
 " We were just playing animals," she said. 
 
 Father and Mother thought that they had 
 never seen so charming a picture. The color 
 in her cheeks was that in the very heart of 
 the rose, the tint of skin and daintily mod 
 elled throat, framed in old lace, that of its 
 outer petals. Face, form, and hair, all old, 
 and beautiful not in spite of this, but because 
 of it. All old but the eyes. Those were 
 ever young, for back of them burned the fire 
 of an indomitable spirit. A daguerreotype 
 come to life. 
 
 " My Son tells me you are interested in the 
 war," said Father. " If you wouldn't mind 
 coming down to the library, I'd like to show 
 you some of my letters." 
 
 The four went down together, and Father 
 began searching in one of the table drawers. 
 " Here's one ! " he said, and began to 
 read: 
 
 287
 
 "Son" 
 
 " WJLLARD'S HOTEL, 
 September 3rd, 1863. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 Brigadier General Gordon has come in entirely 
 worn out, and he has not a staff officer left. I am 
 quite willing to volunteer, and if I can receive a staff 
 appointment will join him at once. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 CHARLES WARREN. 
 
 It will be of great service to me if the above 
 
 arrangement can be made. 
 
 GEO. H. GORDON, 
 
 Brig. General, U. Sts." 
 
 "That was grandfather," he explained, 
 looking at Son. 
 
 The old lady was looking at him too. 
 " His grandfather ! " she said softly. " It 
 was the Brigade to which my husband's regi 
 ment belonged." 
 
 "Your husband ! " cried Father. " Was 
 your husband an officer? I don't even know 
 the name yet ! " 
 
 " Winfield Graham," she said. 
 
 "That's an honored name to every one," 
 said Father quickly. 
 
 Son's eyes grew big. That was the name 
 288
 
 The Reflex 
 
 of the officer in the story. The one who had 
 been killed at Antietam. The soldier who 
 had written the letter home. The man who 
 had married the girl of the white house and 
 the roses. 
 
 " Why, it was you all the time ! " he said. 
 
 She drew him to her and kissed away his 
 tears. " I won't tell you any more like that," 
 she comforted him. " You see, when I 
 told it to you I thought I didn't know 
 any other. I can tell you a much better 
 one now." 
 
 Son's drooping spirits rose. 
 
 "What about?" he said. 
 
 " Oh, about a fairy," she answered. 
 
 "What did she do?" 
 
 " It was a boy fairy. He was very power 
 ful. And one day when he was floating 
 through the air, looking about all the time to 
 see what good he could do " 
 
 " What happened? " said Son. 
 
 " He came to a tree that had been touched 
 by frost when it was young. It was dead. 
 And the boy fairy waved his wand over it " 
 289
 
 "Son" 
 
 "Yes?" queried Son. 
 
 " And the sap began to flow, and the little 
 leaves to sprout, and it had come to life 
 again ! " she cried, giving him a great big 
 hug. 
 
 THE END
 
 This book is DUE on the last 
 date stamped below 
 
 3m-2, '45(3232)
 
 A 001 247 887 1 
 
 PS 
 
 3539 
 
 T682s