[E LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 iRSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELfe
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 BY 
 FRANCES LESTER WARNER 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 <Xbt ftitoersibe prc* Cambridge
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY FRANCES LESTER WARNER 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE 
 THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IN ANY FORM
 
 To my father 
 the Endicott of these papers 
 
 and to my mother 
 
 whose role as narrator I have ventured 
 to assume
 
 NOTE 
 
 Acknowledgment of permission to reprint cer 
 tain of these papers is made to the editors of 
 The Atlantic Monthly, The Century, The Con- 
 gregationalist, The New Country Life, The 
 Mount Holyoke College Monthly, Scribner's 
 Magazine, and The Unpopular Review.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. ENDICOTT AND I CONDUCT AN OR 
 CHESTRA 1 
 II. ENDICOTT AND I Go SKETCHING 18 
 
 III. ENDICOTT AND I CONDUCT FAMILY 
 
 PRAYERS 36 
 
 IV. THE FLOOR 51 
 V. RETRIEVING THE AIREDALE 61 
 
 VI. ENDICOTT AND I REDUCE 72 
 
 VII. THE AMATEUR CHESSMAN 88 
 
 VIII. ENDICOTT AND I Go FISHING 101 
 IX. CECROPIA MOTH AND OTHER 
 
 STUDIES 117 
 
 X. ENDICOTT AND I ECONOMIZE 138 
 
 XI. DAR'STTHOU, CASSIUS? 160 
 
 XII. BARBARA DEVELOPS THE LAND 173 
 
 XIII. DRIFTWOOD FIRE 187 
 
 XIV. How WILL You HAVE YOUR PAY? 197
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 I 
 
 ENDICOTT AND I CONDUCT 
 AN ORCHESTRA 
 
 HEN two people conduct 
 an orchestra, there is plot 
 material. If the two are 
 knit by marriage ties, the 
 plot thickens. Endicott and I con 
 duct a family orchestra, he at the 
 piano, I playing second violin. I 
 know more about music than does 
 Endicott; he is more musical than I. 
 I keep the time; he has the tempera 
 ment. Temperament is more noble 
 than time, but time, I shall always 
 insist, has its place, perhaps nowhere
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 more appropriately than in an orches 
 tra. He, at the piano, can dominate 
 the situation more neatly than I. In 
 my position among the strings, how 
 ever, I can more readily organize a 
 strike. 
 
 The rest of the "pieces" are pre 
 sided over by our children, young 
 people of inflexible spirit and chro 
 matic moods. Sometimes we doubt 
 whether we have our troupe under 
 the rigid control which, as parents, 
 we might expect to command. The 
 conductivity of an orchestra, says 
 our son Geoffrey, varies with the 
 distance of the blood-relationship be 
 tween artists and conductor. When 
 the children were little, we held the 
 pleasant theory that a family orches 
 tra would draw us all close together, 
 2
 
 WE CONDUCT AN ORCHESTRA 
 
 standing always as a symbol of our 
 perfect harmony. That would be all 
 right if the harmony would only go 
 to suit us all equally at the same 
 time. As it is, our little band, in 
 which observers find so touching a 
 picture of hearthside unity, suggests 
 sometimes all the elements of guerrilla 
 warfare. 
 
 The question most likely to strain 
 diplomatic relations is the choice of 
 what to play. This is complicated by 
 the fact that we each judge music 
 by a different norm. Geoffrey, for in 
 stance, begs us not to play anything 
 where the cornet has to rest too much. 
 He says that he cannot keep track 
 of a rest of more than forty-seven 
 measures and be absolutely sure of 
 coming in again at the right place. 
 3
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 Every one admits that it is unfortu 
 nate when Geoffrey comes in at the 
 wrong place. There is no smoothing 
 over the astonishing effect of his pre 
 mature trumpeting. "You cannot," 
 says Geoffrey, "do the dumb shuffle 
 on the cornet." For his sake, there 
 fore, in looking over new music, we 
 examine the cornet part for rests be 
 fore we buy. 
 
 Endicott, a quorum in himself, 
 agrees to anything except five sharps. 
 Once seated upon the long piano 
 bench, he is the genial patriarch at 
 home. The girls, gracefully in league, 
 object to extremes of any kind. They 
 are our star performers, and must be 
 humored at any cost. Knowing that 
 the first violin and the 'cello are too 
 valuable for us to lose, they exercise 
 
 4
 
 WE CONDUCT AN ORCHESTRA 
 
 a cool and shameless power of veto 
 at every turn. 
 
 I myself admire extremes. My 
 tastes are catholic, and my choices 
 range all the way from the "Unfin 
 ished Symphony" to "The Swing," 
 by Sudds. The one thing in all the 
 world that I really will not play is 
 Schumann's "Warum," a favorite 
 with the first violin. This worthy 
 composition leaves me undone for 
 days. Its insane, insistent question 
 slides through my mind, over and 
 over. I will not play it. I will not 
 think about it. I will not even explain 
 my antipathy. I have hidden the 
 music. 
 
 Probably the assembling of an 
 orchestra is, to the audience, a con 
 ventional and colorless affair enough. 
 5
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 Any players of chamber music, how 
 ever, who have been confined to a 
 space that housed as many other 
 things as does our living-room, know 
 better. After bringing in enough din 
 ing-room chairs to seat the players, 
 and adjusting the cross-legged music- 
 stands, we find ourselves a little short 
 of room. We have as yet been unable 
 to find a type of music-stand which 
 will not trip up long-limbed cornet- 
 ists off their guard. One evening when 
 Geoffrey, threading his way to his 
 seat, really did lose his balance, and 
 plunged headlong into my work- 
 basket, one foot in the fireplace and 
 the other still entangled in Barbara's 
 music-stand, affairs rose to a climax. 
 "Everybody more than a mile high 
 please leave the room," said Barbara, 
 6
 
 WE CONDUCT AN ORCHESTRA 
 
 leaning over her 'cello and unweaving 
 the legs of the stand from among her 
 brother's feet. Any quotation from 
 "Alice in Wonderland" is always 
 calculated to infuriate the men of our 
 family, and Endicott turned at once 
 to his son's support. 
 
 "I don't see," said Endicott, "why 
 Barbara doesn't arrange some little 
 device for her music, just as Mar 
 garet does. Those tin spider-legs are 
 really dangerous." 
 
 Margaret's "device" is at least not 
 dangerous. She always pins her music 
 to the tomato pin-cushion on the 
 mantel, and stands aloof, compactly. 
 
 Once comfortably settled, we tune. 
 
 That is one thing that we all will 
 
 do. Ever since the children began 
 
 to learn, when even the baby would 
 
 7
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 bring his harmonica and say "Give 
 me M," they have always played to 
 pitch. For this fact, Endicott is not 
 responsible. In the most critical at 
 tuning of our strings, Endicott will 
 cease his obvious business of giving 
 us "A," and will break into little 
 improvised arpeggios and fanfares, 
 incorrigibly. Why pianists do this will 
 never fully appear. After the best 
 disciplinary training that accompa 
 nist ever had, Endicott still continues 
 to "practice his part" while the rest 
 of us are tuning our fifths. 
 
 From my position in the orchestra, 
 I can see the whole group reflected in 
 the mirror over the fireplace. This 
 helps me to conduct, and it also gives 
 me pleasure. Barbara's 'cello is the 
 most picturesque of all our instru- 
 8
 
 WE CONDUCT AN ORCHESTRA 
 
 ments. I find something very lovable 
 about the long, vibrant strings, and 
 the gracious curves of its worn, dark 
 form. A 'cello is big enough so that 
 you can embrace it and treat it as an 
 equal, big enough to satisfy your 
 love for layer on layer of velvet tone. 
 And Geoffrey is the most picturesque 
 of all our players. There may be men 
 who can play a cornet with a per 
 fectly natural cast of countenance, 
 concealing their attention to a proper 
 "lip" under a nonchalant expression. 
 There is nothing nonchalant about 
 Geoffrey's lean cheek and beetling 
 brows. His eyes are purposeful and 
 all his hair erect. His incalculable 
 legs are far astray, and the very angle 
 of his elbows has a look of do or 
 die. Margaret, on tiptoe before her 
 9
 
 ENDIGOTT AND I 
 
 tomato pin-cushion, is perhaps not 
 wholly at one with the group. One 
 evening she turned briskly about, 
 waved her violin like a brakeman's 
 flag, and announced that somebody 
 was out, and we'd better begin at 
 "K." 
 
 "It was old Meggie herself," said 
 Geoffrey fraternally. "Everybody 's 
 out of step but Meggie." 
 
 Does every amateur orchestra, I 
 wonder, when trying new music, in 
 terrupt itself sometimes for the ten 
 tative inquiry, "Are we all at T?" 
 Now and then we have an uneasy 
 feeling that we all are not at "J," and 
 a general assurance that we are lends 
 confidence. Another amateur pleasure 
 of ours is in taking liberties with 
 repeat signs. If we like the passage 
 10
 
 WE CONDUCT AN ORCHESTRA 
 
 extremely, we mind the repeat; if 
 we are not acutely stirred, we take 
 the second ending. With new music, 
 we have no way of knowing before 
 hand what we shall especially ad 
 mire. It chances, accordingly, that 
 the cornet and the 'cello perhaps 
 shout in the same breath, "Repeat! " 
 and "Don't repeat!" respectively. At 
 such moments, it is impossible to 
 keep the orchestra together, even 
 with two conductors. We usually 
 stop and have a family consultation 
 as to who is conducting this band, 
 anyway. 
 
 Orders of the kind just mentioned, 
 shouted into the middle of the music, 
 are likely to sound abrupt, not to say 
 savage. When you have a violin 
 beneath your chin, and a melody 
 11
 
 ENDIGOTT AND I 
 
 beneath your bow, you simply can 
 not converse in human tones, no 
 matter how mild your mood. There 
 is a certain tenseness about your 
 voice, a dictatorial crispness about 
 your brief request, that is likely to 
 sound domineering. Margaret and 
 Geoffrey, one evening, almost became 
 permanently estranged because Geof 
 frey in the midst of a lovely passage 
 took the mouthpiece of his cornet 
 from his lips long enough to roar, 
 "Three flats! Three flats!" for her 
 guidance. Such stage-directions have 
 a brusque and startling tone, as if 
 the speaker had stood all he could 
 from you, up to the explosion point, 
 and must now relieve his mind. Then 
 too, there is of course a subtle excite 
 ment about the playing that ap- 
 12
 
 WE CONDUCT AN ORCHESTRA 
 
 preaches the danger mark if anything 
 happens to spoil the spell. Little 
 things seem vital in such moods. 
 
 But I think that the part we shall 
 all remember is something more diffi 
 cult to describe. Sometimes, of a 
 witching night, when we all are keyed 
 for the music, and outside circum 
 stances behave in normal fashion, 
 there comes an experience worth all 
 the years of scratchy scales that went 
 before. We are in the midst of the 
 Larghetto, in the "Second Sym 
 phony," perhaps. I am not conduct 
 ing. Neither is Endicott. Perhaps 
 Beethoven prefers to conduct the 
 Larghetto himself. And then, sud 
 denly, as one sometimes on a journey 
 becomes vividly aware of a breeze 
 and blue distance, and firm hills be- 
 13
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 neath his feet, I really hear the chord 
 that we are playing. It is no longer 
 a measured flow of mingled sound, 
 but distinct, exquisite, richly personal 
 to me. There is the queer little rush 
 of the accent that comes from the 
 first violin when Margaret is really 
 stirred; the 'cello's full response, vi 
 brant, but soft with hidden masses of 
 covered tone. I can feel my own little 
 second fiddle quivering beneath my 
 bow. There is some curious connect 
 ing of the spirit in the playing of a 
 chord. Again and again we find it. 
 Probably these moments are what 
 we live for, varied though our pro 
 grammes always are. In our cabinet 
 are certain ragged folios that we try 
 not to play too often. They live in 
 promiscuous company: "Peer Gynt" 
 14
 
 WE CONDUCT AN ORCHESTRA 
 
 and the "Edinburgh Quadrille" ; Mas 
 senet and MacDowell; "The Red 
 Mill"; Liszt and Bach; "The Toy 
 Symphony" and Schumann's " Liebes- 
 garten" each of these has its time. 
 Our only question is, "What next?" 
 
 At tunes when we have been ambi 
 tious all the evening, and Geoffrey's 
 lip is tired, we hunt up one of the 
 songs arranged for voice and orches 
 tra. The "Shoogy Shoo" is one of 
 these. Endicott then, in generous 
 baritone, sings as he will, and the 
 rest of us, with mutes astride our 
 bridges, follow on. I shall not hear 
 that song without the picture of the 
 group in the mirror: Endicott upon 
 the old red piano-bench, his hair 
 silver under the lamplight, his mood 
 transformed. He is no longer the 
 15
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 down-trodden accompanist, to whom 
 a measure is restraint, but the un- 
 trammeled artist creating his own 
 rhythms. What is a measure or two 
 among friends? Then I watch the 
 girls, now wholly at ease, their bows 
 moving softly, their eyes upon their 
 muted strings. Geoffrey listens with 
 his cornet on his knee. 
 
 After all, though music that we 
 long to play is far beyond us, though 
 we cannot always find all the parts, 
 no matter how many times we search 
 the piles; though the telephone rings 
 and the heater blows off steam 
 these all are only passing discords. 
 Some sort of music is always ready, 
 alluring: Mr. Strauss for times of 
 enterprise, with all our reckless 
 hearts; the "Shoogy Shoo" for mo- 
 16
 
 WE CONDUCT AN ORCHESTRA 
 
 ments when strings have snapped; 
 ancient hymns at twilight of a Sunday 
 evening, with Endicott to sing, and 
 now and then a guest with a fiddle of 
 his own. After such evenings as these 
 are over, when the children are put 
 ting away the instruments and folding 
 the stands, and I go about locking up 
 the house for the night, I think that I 
 do not greatly care who really con 
 ducts that orchestra Endicott or I.
 
 II 
 
 ENDICOTT AND I GO SKETCHING 
 
 SKETCH," said Endi- 
 cott, "is not only a mem 
 orandum; it is a revela 
 tion." 
 
 That was in my early days of expe 
 rience with Endicott, when we were 
 making the final preparations for our 
 wedding trip. He took me into the 
 stationer's and bought two sketch 
 books. 
 
 "But I can't draw," I objected. 
 "Neither can I," said Endicott 
 benignly, and pocketed the books. 
 
 Little by little, as I was able to 
 grasp it, he unfolded to me the theory 
 by which he governed his art. He 
 18
 
 WE GO SKETCHING 
 
 began by saying that every civilized 
 being should habitually keep a sketch 
 book wherein to jot down his vision 
 of the world. This drawing should, 
 moreover, be done naturally, never 
 with one eye out for critics. How else 
 are we to originate a distinctive and 
 progressive manner? We should draw 
 what we see. 
 
 At first I was inclined to be conten 
 tious. That was before I had seen 
 Endicott's manner. 
 
 "When / draw things," said I, 
 "they never turn out to look like 
 what I see." 
 
 "It doesn't matter what it looks 
 like," assented Endicott. "If you 
 draw the thing as you see it, every 
 stroke of the pencil is a shorthand 
 symbol. Years afterward, one glance 
 19
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 at the sketch brings it all back to you, 
 though probably to no one else. The 
 act of making the marks shows you 
 the scene in a new light, and the 
 sketch preserves it." 
 
 In this way the Futurist doctrine 
 in its rudiments was proclaimed a 
 generation ahead of time by a minor 
 prophet. I longed wistfully to be as 
 versatile as Endicott. 
 
 The first time we were alone for a 
 peaceful afternoon together after the 
 bustle of the wedding and departure, 
 he produced the sketch-books and 
 passed one to me. We were sitting 
 near the bluffs at Montauk, and at 
 our feet the low-tide breakers, full of 
 shell and seaweed and green light, 
 were rolling endlessly. I am always 
 hypnotized by surf. At that particu- 
 20
 
 WE GO SKETCHING 
 
 lar moment I was helping the tide to 
 turn, an anxious habit which I out 
 grew only after days of conscientious 
 attention to the waves. I did not 
 want to sketch. Who can sketch and 
 see the tide home both at once? 
 I surmised, however, that Endicott 
 might not understand my role as 
 chaperon to the tide, and I politely 
 accepted his best pencil. 
 
 I had done just enough drawing in 
 my youth to know a few principles 
 and to shrink from practice. With a 
 helpless feeling I looked up toward 
 the bluffs, deciding that they, with 
 their bold and stable outlines, were 
 the safest subject in sight. Endicott, 
 at a little distance, began to sketch 
 busily, and I realized that for the 
 first time in my life I was sitting for a 
 21
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 portrait. There was exhilaration in 
 the thought that I was about to see 
 how I really looked to Endicott. For 
 him, he announced graciously, there 
 was only one object on that beach. 
 
 Finally, just as I had begun des 
 perately to block in my sketch, En 
 dicott rose. 
 
 "Now I dare say that nobody else 
 would consider this a good portrait," 
 he began, "but I shall never look at 
 it without seeing you just as you are 
 now." 
 
 All this happened many years ago, 
 when I was young and proud of 
 spirit. The shade-hats that year were 
 at their sweetest, and mine was an 
 effective thing of white lilacs and 
 silver-green and white. My dress was 
 soft and graceful, and my boots were 
 22
 
 WE GO SKETCHING 
 
 notably trim. Just how much of this, 
 I wondered as I looked at the sketch, 
 had really been wasted upon Endi- 
 cott? I think that I blushed, but I 
 
 know that I did not laugh. Endicott's 
 theory of a sketch as a revelation was 
 too serious a matter. There was, 
 moreover, a certain virile flourish 
 about the artist's signature which 
 bespoke finality. "E. M. A. pinxit." 
 This was his changeless hall-mark 
 upon completed works. What was I 
 to quarrel with an early Futurist 
 about details of chin and waist-line 
 23
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 and coiffure? Of course, if Endicott 
 saw it that way ! 
 
 Through the weeks that followed, 
 each companionable adventure was 
 celebrated by a sketch. My own 
 efforts were touchingly conscientious. 
 
 "You keep trying to draw as you 
 ought to," sighed Endicott hope 
 lessly, glancing through my neat 
 diagrams of headland and farmhouse 
 and wall. Try as I might, I could 
 never learn the secret which chart 
 ered my companion's genius. Memo 
 rable among his landscapes was his 
 sunset view of " Conklin's-by-the- 
 Sea." All these years our children 
 have admired the Conklin ducks, 
 skillfully arranged with inspired per 
 spective so that the fowls nearest the 
 observer were ostrich-like in propor- 
 24
 
 WE GO SKETCHING 
 
 tions, growing smaller and smaller as 
 the procession neared the house, until 
 those by the door appeared scarcely 
 larger than the landlady herself. 
 
 Surreptitiously, Endicott portrayed 
 "Old Grumbler," our one fellow- 
 boarder, an English 
 man with pipe and 
 sun-hat, reminiscent 
 of Kipling and In 
 dia. I have always 
 been more deeply 
 impressed by Endi- 
 cott's character in- . 
 terpretations than 
 by his studies from still life, remark 
 able as they often turn out to be. 
 
 "My Cousin Abby does n't like to 
 have me sketch," mused Endicott 
 one afternoon, putting the finishing 
 25
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 touches to a freshly drawn cartoon of 
 a casual wayfarer who had just put 
 in a mysterious appearance at Conk- 
 lin's, "but I intend to keep just such 
 a book as this through all our vaca 
 tions to come." 
 
 He did. There is an entire volume of 
 Watch Hill scenes, where the seaside 
 chapel furnished a favorite model. 
 There is one sketch of the interior 
 of this chapel where the officiating 
 rector preaches forever unheard, while 
 the beholder's attention is divided 
 between the curious texts upon the 
 chapel walls and the still more curi 
 ous-looking dog that barks savagely 
 in penciled balloons just outside the 
 place of prayer. A later book contains 
 Block Island sketches, including one 
 of "Camp As You Like It," where 
 26
 
 WE GO SKETCHING 
 
 the grazing horse appears to range 
 unbridled in the sky; and a "study 
 from life," where I am apparently 
 sliding down the face of South Cliff, 
 
 while our eldest daughter in her baby- 
 carriage coasts miraculously alongside. 
 Cousin Abby, as had been pre 
 dicted, cordially disapproved. She is 
 an artist, and had been a convenient 
 crony of Endicott's in his law-school 
 days. During her occasional visits to 
 27
 
 ENDIGOTT AND I 
 
 our home, as years went on, I noted 
 her unchastened way of commenting 
 with open sarcasm upon Endicott's 
 various convictions, but I never 
 heard what Cousin Abby could do in 
 the cause of righteousness until one 
 day she found one of the children's 
 sketch-books lying open on the table. 
 Endicott, thoroughly discouraged 
 with me, had provided a complete 
 set of sketching-books for his chil 
 dren and had pointed them each the 
 path to freedom. Barbara was the 
 only one that took to freedom. The 
 others steadfastly consulted models. 
 Their favorite pattern was the one 
 sketch in their father's book that was 
 flatly conventional. That sketch was 
 made upon one of our flying trips 
 through Easthampton, the village 
 28
 
 WE GO SKETCHING 
 
 of many windmills. Endicott an 
 nounced his intention of rising be 
 fore time for our early train to sketch 
 one of the windmills on the bluff. At 
 sunrise, however, he felt less enter 
 prising, and, noticing that there were 
 windmills on the wall-paper, he ease- 
 fully copied one of these instead. In 
 conspicuous exception to his usual 
 fervid manner, this sketch has served 
 as a copy for one after another of the 
 toiling children; but not for Barbara. 
 One thrilled glance through the Mon- 
 tauk sketch-book, and Barbara was 
 off after ducks and fence-rails and a 
 horizon of her own. No wall-paper 
 windmills for her! 
 
 It happened to be Barbara's book 
 that Cousin Abby found. She took it 
 to Endicott. She took it seriously. 
 29
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 "It doesn't so much matter about 
 you," she began in a tone of dry 
 decision, "but it is wrong to let 
 Barbara do so. Look at the pattern 
 of that parlor lamp in the window of 
 that house! Look at the shingles on 
 that barn, and the black spots on 
 those tiger-lilies. Notice the leaves on 
 that rosebush ! " 
 
 "Barbara saw them," said Endicott. 
 
 "But she shouldn't draw them!" 
 Cousin Abby turned suddenly from 
 the conflict. Not debate, but action 
 was her specialty. She led the adoring 
 Barbara through a perfect paradise 
 of light and shade; of doorsteps that 
 stood out nobly from the verandas of 
 the houses; of long, tapering roads 
 ending beautifully in a point among 
 the trees; and of lonely sky-lines, 
 30
 
 WE GO SKETCHING 
 
 with one dim ridge of hills to mark 
 the sunset. She gave her a box of 
 water-colors and talked about flat 
 washes and composition. Cruelly she 
 spoiled Barbara's joy in depicting 
 the sun's rays. Barbara had hitherto 
 used the same general plan for the 
 sun as for a many-footed spider. 
 After Cousin Abby's visit she felt a 
 little shy about her sunrises, her high 
 noons, and her sunsets. She often 
 left the sun to shine from a point 
 just off the margin of the paper. 
 Cousin Abby, however, could not be 
 expected to forestall every possibility. 
 Barbara still drew the moon with 
 eyes and nose and mouth. 
 
 Expert opinion, decidedly ex 
 pressed, carries a great deal of weight 
 with me. Was Barbara indeed a child 
 31
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 of promise, led deliberately into sin? 
 Endicott was unmoved. He said that 
 the reason why so few people draw 
 naturally is because there are so 
 many Cousins Abby in the world. 
 He held that it was time for some 
 hardy souls to rise and insist that 
 they do see the flower-pots in the 
 window, and the cat on the ridge 
 pole, and the honey-bee coming a 
 long way off. Who cares for a gray 
 monotone of homestead wall on which 
 one may paint no lichens at all, and 
 the trumpet-vine only as a green 
 puddle on the roof? He was glad that 
 Barbara, in her seashore sketch, had 
 made her sister the dominant note in 
 the landscape. What matter if Mar 
 garet, passant, did obscure the sky 
 line and tower above the sailing-yacht 
 32
 
 WE GO SKETCHING 
 
 at her elbow? It was pleasant to re 
 flect that she was more to Barbara 
 than all of these. 
 
 Gradually, however, Endicott came 
 to see that with Barbara the damage 
 had already been done. Sophisticated 
 now, she could never again fully enter 
 the realm of the unspoiled amateur. 
 Her trees, of old so strongly built that 
 orioles and fly-catchers lodged in 
 their branches, nests and all, were 
 now leafless blurs of misty green; and 
 over her houses grew vague tracery 
 of vines without a bud or flower, 
 unvisited by any humming-bird or 
 wandering dragon-fly. That was 
 proof. 
 
 We compromised. Endicott, though 
 still laying by a supply of sketch 
 books for himself, gave me a camera, 
 33
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 and engaged a drawing teacher for 
 Barbara. Thoughtfully he watched 
 the work of many artists for adequate 
 paintings of surf and windy shores. 
 Upon our walls hangs one of these, a 
 painting of Montauk breakers, with 
 all their surge and foam and change 
 ful light. I love the stately picture, 
 but where are the frightened little 
 sandpipers that were always hurrying 
 along the shore? 
 
 To-day, feeling homesick for old 
 times, I gather up the little heap 
 of sketching-books and glance them 
 through again. Sea wind and flowing 
 tide and comfortable memories. I 
 wonder if the windmill is still there? 
 And "Josiah Peckham, His House'* 
 is it still upon the sand? Here indeed 
 are all the little intimate signs of life, 
 34
 
 WE GO SKETCHING 
 
 the shorthand notes of all our memo 
 ries; even the ducks and flying gulls 
 and fisher-nets offshore. When Endi- 
 cott went sketching he saw these.
 
 Ill 
 
 ENDICOTT AND I CONDUCT 
 FAMILY PRAYERS 
 
 NDICOTT is a born pa 
 triarch. Thirty years ago, 
 when we were setting up 
 our first household ar 
 rangements, when I was chiefly occu 
 pied in placing the furniture and 
 putting away my wedding silver, En- 
 dicott discussed with me the erec 
 tion of a family altar. As I look back 
 upon it now, I confess that we felt an 
 unwarranted complacency at the ease 
 with which we observed the custom 
 of daily prayers. We did not see why 
 every family should not do it. It 
 seemed a fitting close to every new 
 36
 
 WE CONDUCT FAMILY PRAYERS 
 
 day, this quiet moment of reading 
 md prayer as we sat together be 
 fore the fireplace. We realized that 
 it safeguarded our companionship as 
 few other things could have done. A 
 married couple cannot maintain a 
 strained relation and family prayers 
 both at the same time. We knew that 
 the custom gave balance and tone to 
 our somewhat spirited early years 
 together. It seemed, moreover, nat 
 ural and easy to arrange. 
 
 Now, after the lapse of three dec 
 ades, the custom remains unbroken; 
 and it is once more the calm and 
 simple matter that it was at first. In 
 the intervening years, however, its 
 history has been that of the Church 
 Militant, at times in danger. Most 
 mothers, I suppose, reckon their fam- 
 37
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 ily annals from certain significant 
 changes that marked the growth of 
 the family group. Some would date 
 events from necessary changes in the 
 arrangement of the house ; some from 
 periods of illness in the family; some 
 from various experiments in the chil 
 dren's education. The most significant 
 gauge of our own family's progress 
 toward civilization, however, would 
 be the varying methods, spirit, and 
 times of day that we have tried for 
 family prayers. 
 
 If all the children had been like 
 Margaret, the upheavals would not 
 have been so marked. The only 
 change that she caused was a shift in 
 the hour of devotions. To accommo 
 date her early programme, we stopped 
 our evening prayers, and arranged to 
 38
 
 WE CONDUCT FAMILY PRAYERS 
 
 have morning worship among her 
 earliest impressions. She was a 
 thoughtful, religious little baby, and 
 sat contentedly in my lap while we 
 read and sang the hymn. But the 
 other children were interested in no 
 godly thing. My most ambitious aim 
 was to keep them in any sort of quiet 
 until the service was over. This did 
 not satisfy Endicott. He missed the 
 spirit of true devotion; he wanted not 
 only good order, but worship in spirit 
 and in truth. And true devoutness 
 dwelt not in the spirit of Barbara nor 
 of Geoffrey. 
 
 Barbara spoke familiarly of our 
 morning worship as "the meetinV 
 She had a penchant for bringing 
 things to the meeting things in 
 tended to be used as supplementary 
 39
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 hand-work while the service went 
 on. She communicated adroitly with 
 Geoffrey during the prayer. She cor 
 rupted the well-trained Margaret into 
 timing the exercises accurately, with 
 careful eye on the clock. She stipu 
 lated that the meeting should be not 
 more than five minutes long. We 
 were worried about Barbara. 
 
 We finally decided that we must 
 adapt ourselves somewhat to her 
 habit of thought, since she was in no 
 degree ready to adapt herself to ours. 
 Although Barbara was not spiritually 
 minded, at least we knew that she 
 was intellectual. We planned, there 
 fore, to change the spirit of our 
 "meeting" from the worshipful to the 
 educational. Barbara might not be 
 able to listen receptively to a passage 
 40
 
 WE CONDUCT FAMILY PRAYERS 
 
 of Scripture, but she could memorize 
 one with finish and dispatch. She 
 could, moreover, fire Margaret and 
 Geoffrey to similar deeds. We were 
 startled at their progress. We began 
 with detached verses which we re 
 peated every morning until they be 
 came familiar. Then, with a quickness 
 which seemed uncanny to our more 
 laborious mature minds, the children 
 learned chapter after chapter with no 
 apparent effort. Barbara, we learned, 
 held private exercises for review be 
 tween times upon the front stairs for 
 a rostrum, until one day she was con 
 ducting a hymn so vigorously that 
 she fell the length of the flight, baton 
 and hymnal in hand. 
 
 Endicott's chief anxiety now fixed 
 upon Barbara's debonair manner of 
 41
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 mispronouncing the Biblical terms. 
 She especially clung to her formula, 
 "Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Ax." 
 One morning it became her portion 
 to recite the books of the New Tes 
 tament. She gave Matthew, Mark, 
 Luke, and John, and stopped, unac 
 countably. Prompting was against 
 Endicott's principles. With careful 
 suggestions he tried to stir his legal- 
 minded descendant to think of the 
 next book. But nothing stirred the 
 mind of Barbara. 
 
 Endicott at last resorted to a des 
 perate measure. "What do you chop 
 wood with? " asked Endicott. 
 
 Light broke. Barbara's face was 
 radiant. "Hammer!" said Barbara, 
 and went on to Romans and Corin 
 thians unchallenged. 
 42
 
 WE CONDUCT FAMILY PRAYERS 
 
 Endicott sometimes questioned our 
 wisdom in converting our quiet time 
 of prayer and meditation into this 
 sort of memory drill. We discussed 
 possible ways of restoring some of the 
 old-time spirit of beauty to the cere 
 mony. 
 
 " Would it help if we knelt for the 
 prayer?" queried Endicott. We tried 
 this experiment one morning when 
 Geoffrey had just recovered from a 
 rather serious childish ailment. All 
 of us were feeling deeply, and the 
 little additional ceremony seemed 
 appropriate and sincere. Endicott, 
 however, on that particular Sunday 
 morning, was robed in a certain 
 dressing-gown of a cut which dated 
 from his riotous law-school days. Its 
 folds settled comfortably and volumi- 
 43
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 nously about his figure, in lines more 
 classic than conventional. After the 
 prayer was over, the infant Geof 
 frey chuckled happily. "You ought 
 to have seen how funny Papa looked 
 all cuddled down that way," said 
 Geoffrey. Thereafter we always main 
 tained an upright Congregational at 
 titude during the prayer. 
 
 As the children grew older and the 
 family life more complex, the meeting 
 was harder and harder to plan for. I 
 have wondered if in every home the 
 time for family worship is always the 
 signal for interruptions? The activi 
 ties of the telephone, the grocer's boy, 
 the postman, and Endicott's clients, 
 all seemed to center punctually upon 
 the few minutes allotted for our brief 
 devotions. Endicott and I were a good 
 44
 
 WE CONDUCT FAMILY PRAYERS 
 
 while coming to an agreement about 
 how I ought to treat the incoming 
 grocery man. Should the maid be 
 instructed to entertain him, or should 
 I put his claims before my commun 
 ion with my Maker? If the telephone 
 rang for Endicott, should he leave, 
 and resume his reading after a pro 
 longed business consultation? These 
 were nice questions about which we 
 could find no reliable precedent. 
 There is no grocery boy in the 
 "Cotter's Saturday Night," and no 
 telephone. Nor did the children in 
 those days have to start for High 
 School at half past seven. 
 
 Once more we changed the form of 
 our programme. We no longer gath 
 ered around the fireplace, but re 
 mained at the breakfast-table for 
 45
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 the briefest possible reading. If an 
 interruption occurred, we adjourned, 
 hoping for better luck next time. I 
 still think that this was wise. It saved 
 the custom from absolute destruction 
 in those busy years of early pro 
 grammes and varied interests. 
 
 This breakfast-table arrangement 
 involved one difficulty. At times it 
 was hard to manage a natural transi 
 tion from table conversation to wor 
 ship. Ideally, of course, the table- 
 talk and the beauty of holiness should 
 merge and blend with no incongruity. 
 Sometimes our own did not. Once, 
 long after school-days were over, 
 when the children were at home on a 
 vacation, we were in the midst of an 
 uncensored discussion of the latest 
 gossip. Endicott was not listening. 
 46
 
 WE CONDUCT FAMILY PRAYERS 
 
 Barbara was well launched upon an 
 emphatic exposition of her decided 
 opinions, and paused midway for 
 breath. 
 
 "Hosea eleven, one to twelve," said 
 Endicott, unexpectedly beginning to 
 read. 
 
 "Speaking of guns," gasped Bar 
 bara. 
 
 Margaret choked and vanished 
 from the room, Geoffrey helpfully 
 attending her with a glass of water. 
 Barbara, perfectly composed, but 
 knowing herself to be the root of all 
 evil, followed them loyally. I was 
 left gazing fixedly at the picture of 
 Henry W. Longfellow on the wall, 
 and trying to recall enough of his 
 biography to keep my mind from 
 other things, while Endicott went 
 47
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 seriously along with Hosea. I knew 
 that the children were well on their 
 way up the street to finish their 
 hysterics at their grandmother's. En- 
 dicott, since then, waits for a signal 
 from me before he ventures to intro 
 duce Hosea. 
 
 These have been a few of the 
 problems. They seem strangely far 
 in the past and unimportant now. 
 We smile almost affectionately when 
 we remember the old-time grocery 
 boy and the postman of those days. 
 All the details have gathered grace 
 through the years. None of us would 
 willingly forget those Sunday morn 
 ings when all three children climbed 
 upon the long piano-bench beside 
 Endicott to sing "Welcome, Delight 
 ful Morn," and "My days are gliding 
 48
 
 WE CONDUCT FAMILY PRAYERS 
 
 swiftly by"; nor the times when Bar 
 bara, rocking vigorously in her little 
 chair, led her brethren in responsive 
 Scripture. And now, upon the rare 
 occasions when the children are all 
 at home again, the "meeting" seems 
 very dear and altogether lovely. It 
 has made us rich in memories and in 
 a certain spiritual continuity of fam 
 ily life. 
 
 Endicott and I were mistaken when 
 we thought that it would be easy 
 to arrange. We were short-sighted in 
 allowing outside distractions to loom 
 so large. I am glad that we were mili 
 tant. We know now that through all 
 those years our Early Church was 
 gathering power. I believe that any 
 family who will cling to this ancient 
 rite will find it not only the source of 
 49
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 precious memories, but the embodi 
 ment of a deep unity of spirit, richly 
 inspiring. The family life will almost 
 surely be linked with the eternal, in 
 a way which will endure through all 
 separation, far beyond the time when 
 daily meetings must be things of long 
 ago.
 
 IV 
 
 THE FLOOR 
 
 ETTING the floor in a dis 
 cussion conducted in our 
 family is no simple mat 
 ter; but once you have it, 
 you are safe. We do not interrupt. 
 Changing the subject, making irrele 
 vant comments, or breaking up into 
 little subgroups and talking all at once, 
 are matters that we deal with to the 
 full extent of the Parliamentary law. 
 We do this, not because we are polite, 
 but because each of us loves an audi 
 ence. We love it to the extent that we 
 are willing to grant it to others on the 
 condition that they may later do even 
 so to us. If one of us starts to talk, 
 51
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 the others listen; if two start at once, 
 precedence is given to the elder, or the 
 female. Geoffrey, it is true, being 
 youngest, and male, has led an anx 
 ious life. But even he, once started, 
 was always absolutely sure of the 
 undivided attention of the whole 
 house. 
 
 On this tradition, we have estab 
 lished the family conclave. The gen 
 uine friendly conversation demands 
 this sense of safety. The most harrow 
 ing page in any literature, to my way 
 of thinking, is the passage where 
 Mr. Direck tries in vain to tell Mr. 
 Britling about the little incident that 
 happened to his friend Robinson in 
 Toledo. Certainly one of the most 
 pathetic touches is poor Mr. Direck's 
 wistful day-dream later when he 
 52
 
 THE FLOOR 
 
 imagines himself talking very slowly 
 and carefully, while Mr. Drilling lis 
 tens. "Already he was more than half 
 way into dreamland," observes Mr. 
 Wells, "or he could never have sup 
 posed anything so incredible." 
 
 A certain cousin of ours is very like 
 Mr. Britling. She is to be found at 
 a fine old farmhouse where we visit 
 now and then. Whenever, in a placid 
 moment, we all sit talking with the 
 aunts and uncles, this particular 
 cousin, not less dear than the others, 
 but more restive, will come in from 
 the milk-room, talking all the way. 
 We hear her coming, and suspend 
 whatever sentence we are in the 
 middle of, to strain our ears to hear 
 her; much as an Episcopal congrega 
 tion pricks up when the choir-boys 
 53
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 begin to chant the processional in 
 distant chapels. By that long-range 
 method, our cousin puts a stop to our 
 subject-matter, preempts the floor, 
 and ignores our squatters' claims. 
 We have only to refer to cousin 
 Britling when one of us, at home, 
 changes the subject without giving 
 due notice in advance. "Come in 
 from the milk-room," we implore, 
 and the offender at once subsides. 
 
 There are groups, I know, who are 
 not comfortable unless everybody is 
 talking all the time. Put six of them 
 in one room, and they automatically 
 split up into three groups of two 
 talkers each. Each group listens with 
 scattering attention to itself and to 
 the adjoining one; remarks are over 
 heard and replied to in bright asides; 
 54
 
 THE FLOOR 
 
 counter-messages are tossed back and 
 forth with no checking system; until 
 finally nobody is really talking to any 
 body else, although nobody is silent 
 for an instant. 
 
 The only parallel that I can think 
 of is the way in which, during very 
 early years, the children sometimes 
 played tiddledywinks. When the man- 
 made rules of that staid sport became 
 too wearing for their advanced intel 
 lects, they used to get to snapping 
 all at once, promiscuously. Every 
 body snapped everybody else's wink, 
 at the bull's-eye or the eye of his 
 neighbor, regardless. This indiscrimi- 
 nating sort of thing lends a lawless 
 charm most bracing to tiddledywinks, 
 but it cancels conversation. 
 
 Now this is no mere craving for 
 55
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 long-winded monologues. We simply 
 like a group, and we like to keep it 
 whole. Why must it be broken up 
 into chattering fragments? We want 
 to see the personalities emerge dis 
 tinctly. We like to hear a sustained 
 sentence of each .man's making, and 
 enjoy the swift current of challenging 
 thought that makes itself felt in a 
 group of expressive beings who are all 
 awaiting their turn to have their say. 
 The interplay of individualities is 
 more vivid and quickening if both 
 men and women are of the group ; but 
 beware of those ladies who, the in 
 stant a remark stirs their interest, are 
 possessed to gather a private auditor 
 or two and start a low-voiced com 
 mittee-meeting of their own, instead 
 of enriching the general group with 
 56
 
 THE FLOOR 
 
 their opinions. Such centers of volu 
 bility in the side-lines ruin real talk. 
 
 I suppose that even I would not 
 demand that the guests at a large 
 social function should sit in a great 
 ring while each in turn stood up and 
 gave his Oral Theme. At large recep 
 tions everybody must talk and no 
 body listens. But who likes a large 
 reception anyway? 
 
 What I really do like is a group 
 of guests around our fireplace of a 
 winter evening, when Geoffrey comes 
 home unexpectedly from his work. 
 Barbara meets him in the hall, and in 
 her condensed and rapid way gives 
 him the outline of such recent gossip 
 as he needs to know. I meanwhile slip 
 away in the direction of the larder, 
 and beckon him out for a sustaining 
 57
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 bit of pie. I have learned that Geof 
 frey rates it one of the most exquisite 
 joys of an unexpected home-coming to 
 have his mother offer him food of the 
 forbidden variety that he had to steal 
 out of the moonlit refrigerator of old. 
 
 "Who's in there?" says Geoffrey 
 from his throne on the kitchen table. 
 
 He learns. 
 
 "What are they talking about?" 
 
 Barbara gracefully eavesdrops 
 round the dining-room door. "Father 
 is telling his Darius Cobb stories," 
 she reports cheerfully. 
 
 "Then we have plenty of time." 
 Geoffrey finishes his pie with the 
 lingering Fletcherism of which its 
 brand is worthy; and we watch and 
 listen for an interval when we can 
 join the fireside group. 
 58
 
 THE FLOOR 
 
 There, in that circle of alert men 
 and women of assorted ages and call 
 ings, our thoughts feather out and 
 fly. There is time to think, and time 
 to express one's mind; time also to 
 change it. It is not only an inter 
 change of ready-made ideas; it is a 
 chance to hatch some new ones and 
 add them to our own. We catch tan 
 talizing glimpses into each other's 
 hidden prejudices, and we disclose 
 unexpected convictions by the way. 
 
 But the most intimate moment of 
 all comes after the company goes. 
 Probably a truly upright family 
 would not comment upon the van 
 ished guest. We do. We discuss him 
 and all his works. Sometimes, after 
 this stimulating ceremony is over 
 and we are on our way to bed, some- 
 59
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 body thinks of an additional grain 
 of truth which calls for conflicting 
 comment. We pause upon the stairs 
 for another session. I can see Endi- 
 cott dimly, by the half-light in the 
 hall, as he brings down his fist on the 
 newel post to emphasize a vigorous 
 ultimatum. In the heavy shadows he 
 looks like a Rodin study of Authority. 
 I seat myself comfortably on the top 
 most stair and peer down through 
 the banisters at him, and bide my 
 time. When that time comes, I know, 
 I shall carry my point; but for the 
 present he has the floor. The floor! 
 that choice possession which none ex 
 cept the very spry can take away!
 
 RETRIEVING THE AIREDALE 
 
 E are sending Geoffrey a 
 half-grown Airedale pup," 
 wrote Uncle Tyler. "His 
 registered name is Jasper 
 III. Don't let him run by himself 
 until you have shown him the coun 
 try." 
 
 If Jasper was a puppy, he was old 
 for his age. He was approximately 
 the size of a sheep, though more 
 gaunt and rangey in build; and he 
 had the easy gait of a zebra. His 
 expression was worn and sapient. 
 This aspect of advanced age was 
 heightened by the brown wisps of 
 beard that floated around his chin. 
 61
 
 ENDIGOTT AND I 
 
 He had an elderly mannerism of 
 cocking one eyebrow and glancing 
 about, sidelong, out of the corner of 
 one cynical eye. He looked like an 
 ancient dervish shrewd and inscru 
 table. 
 
 But however aged Jasper looked, 
 his stride was agile. "Don't let the 
 dog out!" shouted the family in one 
 breath if one of us went to the door. 
 We developed an elaborate tech 
 nique of stage-exit to get out of the 
 house at all; first backing discreetly 
 to the door, squeezing hastily through 
 and finally stuffing back such por 
 tions of Jasper's leaping frame as 
 had managed to emerge. 
 
 Twice daily, our pet walked out 
 on a leash. Geoffrey was showing him 
 the country. The rest of us were 
 62
 
 RETRIEVING THE AIREDALE 
 
 offered in turn the privilege of acting 
 as Burton Holmes ourselves, if we 
 liked, but we all assured Geoffrey 
 that we objected personally to going 
 on a leash. Our dog had therefore 
 seen only such parts of the country 
 as his master had had time to show 
 him, when, on New Year's Sunday, 
 he escaped. 
 
 Margaret was responsible. Two 
 friends had called for her to go with 
 them to four o'clock Vespers. Know 
 ing the habits of our captive animal, 
 they opened the door cautiously, one 
 of them guarding the entrance with 
 her knee. Jasper was too quick, and 
 too expert at the pole-vaulter's art. 
 He flew over the puny barrier, rushed 
 down the drive, and pranced deliri 
 ously off across the snow. 
 63
 
 ENDIGOTT AND I 
 
 "Catch him!" gasped the girls, as 
 Margaret plunged down the steps. 
 She whistled busily as she ran. Surely 
 he would come! He was still in sight 
 against the sky-line, dancing on his 
 hind legs like some fairy-tale goblin 
 in the snow. If only they could reach 
 the top of the hill before he finished 
 his barn-dance! Just at this point, 
 the minister's bull-dog Mike came 
 trotting happily down the west road, 
 and with him Terence, the belligerent 
 Irish terrier owned by the High- 
 School principal. Into this impeccable 
 company sailed Jasper, a yelping 
 lunatic, wild with joy. They greeted 
 him with shouts, and all three rolled 
 with amusement in the drifts. 
 
 The breathless girls came scram 
 bling over the hill, and charged three 
 
 64
 
 RETRIEVING THE AIREDALE 
 
 abreast toward the heap of dogs. 
 Jasper saw them first. With a kanga 
 roo leap he cleared the fence, and, 
 followed by Mike and the terrier, 
 went skimming in great sweeping 
 circles toward the square. Here, Ad 
 miral Suns, the grocer's young span 
 iel, joined the flying squadron. The 
 dogs stopped to explain matters to 
 the Admiral. 
 
 "Oh!" gasped one of the pursuers, 
 "if we could only creep up on 'em 
 now!" 
 
 Creeping up, one finds, is not the 
 right method of pursuit for such as 
 Jasper. They had barely gained the 
 green when Judge Granger's white 
 setter, Lady Montague, appeared 
 around the corner by the church, 
 Head over heels went Admiral Sims 
 65
 
 ENDICOTT 
 
 Swifter than eagles flew Mike and the 
 terrier. But more fleet than they all, 
 went Jasper. Lady Montague met 
 them serenely in the wide enclosure 
 by the church. Once more the circle 
 of dogs stood motionless, noses to 
 gether, tails all wagging amiably, 
 plumed tail, bob-tail, willow tail, 
 screw-tail, and the rag-tag tail of our 
 Jasper. 
 
 People were still going into church e 
 As Margaret and her friends came 
 pounding along, they thought fever 
 ishly of those quiet old days when 
 they used to go to Vespers them 
 selves. But even upon holy ground, 
 the Airedale must be captured. Into 
 the circle of dogs dashed Margaret, 
 seizing the startled Jasper by two 
 handfuls of his wiry wool. 
 66
 
 RETRIEVING THE AIREDALE 
 
 Then she turned a heated coun 
 tenance to her friends. "Go into 
 church," said she solemnly. "All I 
 have to do now is to take Jasper 
 home. I shall be with you in ten 
 minutes." 
 
 They obeyed, protesting. 
 
 "Come, Jasper," said Margaret in 
 disciplinary monotone, a persuasive 
 hand upon his collar. 
 
 She stood aside politely to let 
 Judge and Mrs. Granger pass into 
 divine worship, and then she set off 
 across the lawn dragging her lion 
 couchant beside her over the frozen 
 crust. At the gate he rose with a jerk, 
 rampant and his collar slipped off 
 in her hand. 
 
 Oh, dogs can laugh wild mirth, 
 an ecstasy of humor. Down the long 
 67
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 hill they flew, hysterical with glee; 
 Mike and the Admiral and Terence 
 in the rear, Lady Montague and 
 Jasper well ahead. 
 
 Margaret set her teeth. She was 
 accountable to Geoffrey for Jasper's 
 safe convoy. She had vague, ascetic 
 visions of following, following, still 
 whistling morbidly, until she died. 
 With the warm collar still in hand, 
 she toiled on gloomily, now at a foot 
 pace, now at a moderate trot. The 
 term "Dog-trot" can assume a rich 
 ness of significance not always ap 
 parent. In a sketchy, canine way, 
 they mapped the whole township and 
 all its rural routes, returning at last 
 by early star-rise down the west road 
 to the home neighborhood again. 
 
 Here Margaret had an inspiration. 
 68
 
 RETRIEVING THE AIREDALE 
 
 Going to the door of the High-School 
 principal, she rang the bell. 
 
 "Would you be willing," said she, 
 "to see if you can call Terence? If 
 all the rest of these dogs would go 
 home, I might be able to catch 
 Jasper." 
 
 A house-to-house canvass of all the 
 dog-owners she made, with conscien 
 tious thoroughness. She roused them 
 all, even Judge Granger's distin 
 guished son. He greeted her appeal 
 with a roar of frivolous gayety, but 
 he called Lady Montague. 
 
 "Shall I call Mike too?" he in 
 quired. "The minister and my father 
 are staying for a committee meeting 
 after Vespers." 
 
 " Vespers" thought Margaret. 
 
 "Yes, call him," she said. "Do." 
 69
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 This left only Jasper. He flitted 
 briskly up the embankment near 
 our neighbor's house, and dared her 
 to come near. She glanced over at 
 our own home. There was a light in 
 Geoffrey's room. With parched lips 
 she whistled the family whistle. Up 
 went the window. 
 
 "Geoffrey," said Margaret mildly, 
 "Jasper got out. He won't come in." 
 
 "Why don't you whistle for him?" 
 suggested the tranquil Geoffrey. 
 
 Margaret walked stonily into the 
 house, and met her brother in the 
 hall. 
 
 "Here," she said bitterly, "here is 
 Jasper's collar. You whistle." 
 
 A moment later, Geoffrey and 
 Jasper came in, hand in hand, and sat 
 down before the fire. 
 70
 
 RETRIEVING THE AIREDALE 
 
 "Geoffrey," said Margaret gently, 
 after a thoughtful pause, "when did 
 Uncle Tyler say we might let Jasper 
 run?" 
 
 "As soon as he's seen the country." 
 
 Margaret looked at Jasper, and 
 Jasper, cocking one eyebrow, looked 
 at her. 
 
 "Well," said Margaret, "he has."
 
 VI 
 
 ENDIGOTT AND I REDUCE 
 
 NDICOTT had been read 
 ing a book on diet. It told 
 how to "Feast and be 
 Slim." There are nearly 
 
 two hundred pounds of Endicott. The 
 last time he was measured for a suit, 
 he asked me with some uneasiness if 
 I had noticed that he was acquiring 
 as to waist-line what our son Geof 
 frey calls a "presence." A man with a 
 presence, says Geoffrey, must have a 
 remarkable profile and a lofty man 
 ner, or look like Tammany; likewise 
 the Globe Man. Endicott knew that 
 as far as looks were concerned he 
 could well afford a presence. He was 
 72
 
 WE REDUCE 
 
 tired, anyway, of being taken for a 
 minister, and the Globe Man would 
 be a change. But the author of 
 "Feast and be Slim" had made a 
 great point of the spare figure for its 
 own sake. Endicott said that he was 
 going to diet, according to the plan 
 laid down by the author of Feast. 
 
 I at once offered to plan the meals 
 with this in mind. 
 
 "No," said Endicott, "part of this 
 chap's idea is that you select from 
 the natural family meal only the part 
 most suitable to your purpose. It 
 makes no trouble for the rest of 
 the family. Don't give it another 
 thought." 
 
 I said nothing, but I knew where 
 he kept the book. I read it. Then I 
 had a talk with the maid. The family 
 73
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 meals I left unabridged, but there 
 were certain non-carbohydrates rec 
 ommended in the book. These I or 
 dered in abundance. At least my hus 
 band should not starve. 
 
 "No butter?" said Barbara to her 
 father at breakfast next morning. 
 
 "No," said Endicott with quiet 
 dignity. " I am going to be abstemi 
 ous for a few weeks." 
 
 "Abstemious" has always been a 
 cherished word with Endicott, but 
 the children are used to hearing it 
 only when the food in question is not 
 popular with the head of the house. 
 Barbara looked at the butter, and 
 tasted a crumb of it daintily at the 
 tip of a bit of bread. Then she 
 watched her father, who was thought 
 fully munching a dry portion of ce 
 74
 
 WE REDUCE 
 
 real garnished with Malaga grapes. 
 Then Barbara looked at Geoffrey, 
 and then she went on with her 
 breakfast. 
 
 "Is he really planning to feast and 
 be slim?" The door had hardly closed 
 after the departing men when Bar 
 bara had me by the arm. "Because if 
 he is, he won't. The book 's been in 
 his newspaper pile for a week, and I 
 have read it through." Barbara, quite 
 satisfied, trailed through the door. 
 "He took the car to the office this 
 morning," she called back from the 
 stairs. "The book says you must 
 exercise," she added, and vanished. 
 
 That evening when the children 
 were out, Endicott, setting his eye 
 glasses astride his ancestral nose, 
 looked at me over his paper. 
 75
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 "I must exercise regularly in con 
 nection with this diet," said he, "or 
 when my weight disappears I shall 
 be more or less haggard. The general 
 constitution must be kept up." Endi- 
 cott laid a hickory log on the and 
 irons. "I 've ordered a fresh load of 
 wood," he went on, "and when it 
 comes, Andrews will dump it in a 
 different part of the cellar. I told him 
 how. Don't have it on your mind." 
 Endicott went out into the hall and 
 returned with both hands full. 
 
 "I knew that the children were 
 going out," said he genially, "and I 
 thought that some candy would be 
 pleasant. We have n't eaten our old- 
 fashioned candy and peanuts by 
 ourselves for some time." He handed 
 me my bag of peanuts and a generous 
 76
 
 WE REDUCE 
 
 newspaper for my shells, and took 
 out his knife to cut the ribbon on the 
 candy box. 
 
 "But " I hesitated. Here were 
 the symbols of our rare irresponsible 
 revels together. To intrude at such 
 a moment a question of the flesh! 
 "Your diet, you know " I said it 
 gently with an inquiring inflection. 
 
 Endicott was pouring his peanuts 
 into his newspaper, and he paused 
 halfway. "I didn't think," said he. 
 "Of course they do expect you to 
 diet between meals, don't they?" 
 He pondered. Then he poured the 
 rest of the peanuts. "I have n't fairly 
 begun to diet yet. We '11 call to-day 
 an experimental trial, and begin tech 
 nically to-morrow morning." 
 
 I have always been glad that 
 
 77
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 Endicott was of a legal turn of mind. 
 As the wife of one of the elders of the 
 bar, I have always felt secure. 
 
 The next afternoon I walked into our 
 front drive in time to seeAndrews's 
 wood-wagon disappearing down the 
 street. With housewifely interest I 
 went to the cellar stairs to see if 
 everything had been locked up prop 
 erly. Some one was in the cellar. It 
 was Endicott. His cane leaned against 
 the arm of the old rocking-chair in 
 which he sat. The load of wood had 
 been deposited in the bulkhead, and 
 Endicott, conveniently seated in a 
 chair and a draft, was busily aiming 
 stick after stick at the corner where 
 the wood always goes. I sat down on 
 the top stair and waved at him 
 sociably. 
 
 78
 
 WE REDUCE 
 
 "I am exercising," said Endicott. 
 "I told Andrews to have the wood 
 dumped here for me to pitch. He said 
 that you liked to have the door of the 
 bulkhead locked, and I 'm getting the 
 worst of it out of the way." 
 
 "Yes," said I, "but we 're going out 
 to dinner. It 's five now." 
 
 Endicott handed me indulgently up 
 the stairs. "When we get home," said 
 he, "I '11 pitch enough more so that 
 we can lock the door for the night. 
 No burglar will take the trouble to 
 climb through that pile this evening." 
 
 He went to his room and I heard 
 him telephoning. I wanted that door 
 locked. I seized a bushel basket and 
 flew to the pile. Basket after basket 
 went busily into the corner. I had to 
 work silently; I longed to work faster. 
 79
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 I had not realized that the pile was so 
 large. My head was just beneath the 
 bulkhead door, when suddenly the 
 leaves of the roof parted above me, 
 and I looked up into the astonished 
 eyes of Andrews. 
 
 "Mr. Avery telephoned to me just 
 now," gasped Andrews, recovering. 
 "He told me to pitch in the wood." 
 Andrews is a man of poise. He had 
 taken my basket and was at work. 
 Thoughtfully I went upstairs to dress. 
 
 The next day Endicott arrived at 
 the house with a chest-exerciser, a 
 mechanism of weights and springs 
 and handles, and a clamp by which 
 to affix it to the study wall. Endicott 
 does not need an increased chest 
 development. All that he needs is an 
 arrested presence. But the chest- 
 80
 
 WE REDUCE 
 
 exerciser was warmly recommended 
 by the books. The results were to be 
 a matter of persistence, merely. 
 
 For the next few weeks it was no 
 such simple matter to cater for Endi- 
 cott. One could never tell when he 
 might suspend his training and call 
 for the fat of the land. The maid 
 would inquire delicately, "And do ye 
 know, ma'am, will he be dieting 
 to-day?" As time went on, these 
 seasons of reprieve were extended 
 enough to amount to a furlough. I 
 heard him tell Geoffrey in confidence 
 that he had lost approximately a 
 gramme a fortnight. 
 
 He gained, however, in other ways. 
 
 The methods, the terms, the ideals, 
 
 and caprices of a new cult had become 
 
 familiar to him. He had collected 
 
 81
 
 ENDIGOTT AND I 
 
 quite an impressive set of apparatus 
 and had learned to use it all. No 
 marksman could have protested more 
 hotly against the removal of the stag's 
 antlers from the mantel than Endi- 
 cott against the removal of his chest- 
 exerciser from his study wall. It will 
 always remain there, a trophy of 
 great days. 
 
 "You never use it," objected 
 Barbara. 
 
 "How do you know when I use 
 it?" inquired her father with some 
 severity. 
 
 "Because it squeaks," said Barbara. 
 
 In the meantime, I was really re 
 ducing. Admiring Endicott's large- 
 hearted way of sharing his ambition, 
 I nevertheless shrank from telling 
 about my own experiences, though I 
 82
 
 WE REDUCE 
 
 was making a striking success at it. 
 I still shrink. The matronly woman 
 who decides to go into training has 
 her humorous moments. Just one 
 princely soul I discovered who did 
 not laugh at my ambitions. His fine 
 tact would have adorned queens' 
 palaces. I was on my weekly trip to 
 weigh myself on the naturalization 
 scales at the court-house when I 
 came upon Endicott and his partner 
 there, in earnest consultation. I could 
 not retreat; I would not dissemble. I 
 stepped upon the scales. "Mr. Taft 
 and I," said I casually, "have decided 
 to reduce." 
 
 The princely one bowed gravely. 
 "If you really care to reduce," said 
 he, "I wish you success." 
 
 Both those gallant men nobly re- 
 83
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 frained from going near the scales. 
 There are times when one has a deep 
 appreciation for these graceful little 
 amenities of omission. 
 
 In general, however, I cannot say 
 that I found people ideally sensitive 
 to the beauty of my enterprise. 
 Geoffrey found a gloomy sort of 
 pleasure in calling me Susannah di 
 Milo. He brought me boxes of candy, 
 arguing that if he presented it I 
 would have to eat it out of mere 
 politeness. Firmly, with much the 
 same feelings that I had when I 
 taught him not to take mice and 
 turtles to his room, I now trained my 
 son not to bring me candy. Floral 
 tributes, fruit, music, and jewels I 
 would accept; but candy, popcorn, 
 and peanuts I gave to the poor. 
 84
 
 WE REDUCE 
 
 I have grown reasonably thin. 
 But I wish now that in my years of 
 abundance I had taken more com 
 fort. I am impatient now as never 
 before with the callow distaste for 
 anything but the most regulation 
 fashion-plated figure. What else ap 
 pears so tragic in Arnold Bennett's 
 stories as the irrevocable way in 
 which his heroines grow middle-aged 
 and fat, fat and old; fat and helpless? 
 I rebel, now that I can rebel grace 
 fully. The most gracious memories in 
 my life chance to concern old age 
 grown comfortable; matronly women 
 who were wide-bosomed and firm of 
 poise; certain ample dresses with 
 folds and folds of softness; gentle 
 aunts and grandmothers whose shoul 
 ders were not sharp. I cannot find it 
 85
 
 ENDIGOTT AND I 
 
 all unlovely, this tendency of people 
 to gather substance with the years. 
 Our modern ambition to keep a 
 normal figure is unquestionably a 
 wholesome thing. But I deplore ex 
 tremes of fashion. Are we in danger 
 of narrowing our minds with our 
 silhouettes? We must not forget the 
 quiet serenity which oftenest seems 
 to belong to women who are large, 
 nor the sense of peace and hearthside 
 calm that we feel when we are with 
 them. After all, the sylph-like figure 
 will never seem just right for holding 
 a tired little boy at bedtime until he 
 goes to sleep. 
 
 Oh, well! I am glad that I re 
 duced. I like a trim shadow on 
 the sidewalk, and I like my narrow 
 sleeves. It is pleasant to know that 
 86
 
 WE REDUCE 
 
 this matter of the flesh is under our 
 control, and I wish that I had known 
 it twenty years ago. I think that even 
 Endicott could afford a less com 
 manding presence. As soon as cold 
 weather comes he is planning once 
 more to reduce. With a certain blend 
 of anxiety and wifely awe, I am await 
 ing the abstemious days to come. 
 The chest-exerciser and the wood 
 pile also wait, gathering dust and 
 cobwebs. And if his grammes do not 
 appreciably decrease, I shall not care, 
 nor yet be much surprised.
 
 VII 
 THE AMATEUR CHESSMAN 
 
 NY game of chance or skill 
 has its element of sym 
 bolism. The more highly 
 developed the game, the 
 more striking its parallel to life. The 
 home run, the goal, the hitting of the 
 mark, the taking of a trick, the throw 
 of the dice all these have become 
 figurative terms, not alone because 
 they are picturesque of themselves, but 
 because they dramatize experience. 
 
 Of all games in the world, the most 
 allegorical is chess. For this reason, 
 Barbara selected it as the last hope 
 for her sister Margaret. She thought 
 it a pity for any person to go through 
 88
 
 THE AMATEUR CHESSMAN 
 
 a world of games and to remain a 
 hardened Philistine and self-confessed 
 outsider as Margaret was doing. She 
 felt sure that her sister would respond 
 to the charm and symbolism of play 
 ing if only the matter could once be 
 presented to her in the proper form. 
 
 Margaret had hitherto been entirely 
 impervious. Our family divides rather 
 naturally into partnerships in games. 
 Endicott and I play best together, 
 because he requires a partner with 
 sufficient authority and force of char 
 acter to center his attention on the 
 progress of the game. Barbara and 
 Geoffrey make a. keen and deter 
 mined pair of opponents for us, their 
 intuitions responsive, their tastes in 
 brilliant ventures well matched. But 
 Margaret long since gave herself up 
 89
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 as hopeless. She admires all sorts of 
 games in a distant fashion, but when 
 forced to take an active part she has 
 a way of succumbing at critical mo 
 ments as if from a species of shell- 
 shock, and must be led tactfully from 
 the field. She shows her good-will by 
 sitting near us when we play, and 
 by answering the telephone and the 
 doorbell when they ring. 
 
 Barbara cannot reconcile herself to 
 this deficiency in one so near of kin. 
 It was in a moment of extreme des 
 peration that she hit upon chess as 
 just the thing for Margaret. The 
 presence of only two players at the 
 board ought in itself to be soothing. 
 The long intervals of deliberation 
 between moves should relieve nerv 
 ous tension, and the picturesque ap- 
 90
 
 THE AMATEUR CHESSMAN 
 
 pearance of the chessmen would mean 
 while capture the imagination. 
 
 Margaret was docile. She conscien 
 tiously learned the moves from the 
 encyclopaedia, and the traditions from 
 Morphy's Manual, and sat down to 
 the game with an attitude of pale 
 determination that went to the hearts 
 of those who knew her. 
 
 In Margaret's hands, chess became 
 allegorical, indeed. The thoroughly 
 helpless amateur can find three pleas 
 ures in the royal game which to Mr. 
 Morphy immortality itself shall not 
 restore; three pleasures: a fresh de 
 light in the personality of the various 
 chessmen; the recklessness of un 
 certain and irresponsible moves; and 
 the unprecedented thrill of check 
 mating the opposing king by accident. 
 91
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 The expert, it is true, may some* 
 times retain through life a personal 
 appreciation of the characters of the 
 pieces: the conservative habits of the 
 king; the politic, sidelong bishop; the 
 stout little plodding pawns. But since 
 the days of his forgotten apprentice 
 ship, Mr. Morphy has not known 
 their many-sided natures. To the true 
 expert the pieces on the board have 
 become subject people; as far as inde 
 pendence of purpose goes, they might 
 as well all be pawns. With a novice, 
 on the contrary, the men and women 
 of the chessboard display their indi 
 viduality and their Old World ca 
 prices, their mediaeval greatness of 
 heart. Like Aragon and the Plantag- 
 enets, they have magnificent leisure 
 for the purposeless and daring quest 
 92
 
 THE AMATEUR CHESSMAN 
 
 The stiff, circular eyes of the simple 
 boxwood knight stare casually about 
 him as he goes. Irresponsibly he 
 twists among his enemies, now draw 
 ing rein in the cross-country path of 
 the angry bishop, now blowing his 
 horn at the very drawbridge of the 
 king. It is no cheap impunity that he 
 faces in his errant hardihood. Mar 
 garet's knights often die in harness, 
 all unshriven. That risk lends unfail 
 ing zest for excursions into the ene 
 my's country. Most of all she loves 
 her gentle horsemen. 
 
 She is also very loyal to the bishop. 
 One evening Barbara accidentally 
 imperiled her queen. Only the oppos 
 ing bishop needed to be sacrificed 
 to capture her. The spectators were 
 breathless at her certain fate. But 
 
 93
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 Margaret esteems the stately bishop. 
 Rather this man saved for defense 
 than risked for such a captive. The 
 bishop withdrew, and the queen went 
 on her destructive way. 
 
 Of all the men the one who least 
 concerns Margaret is the king. She 
 considers him a non-committal mon 
 arch at best. At times, imperial and 
 menacing, he may conquer, with 
 goodly backing from his yeomen, his 
 wife, and his chivalry. Sometimes, 
 and far more often, he is like Lear, 
 his royal guard cut down, no longer 
 terrible in arms. And at his death he 
 likes to send urgently for his bishop, 
 who is solacing though powerless to 
 save. Whenever Margaret sees that 
 her king is surely about to lose his 
 head, she uses her last move to bring 
 94
 
 THE AMATEUR CHESSMAN 
 
 the bishop hurrying to his side. 
 Endicott, chancing to pass by the 
 board one night just as Margaret 
 made this ceremonial move, paused 
 to reason with her about it. He re 
 fused to see the beauty of this pious 
 return of the out-bound bishop at 
 the last battle-cry of the king. But 
 Margaret still believes that a move 
 may well be wasted to the end that 
 everything may happen decently and 
 in order. 
 
 In fact, as time went on and Mar 
 garet's codes became more and more 
 complicated, Barbara began to feel 
 that the emphasis upon the symbol 
 ism of the game was capable of being 
 over-stressed. She hated to think 
 that her sister's methods in life would 
 be as irrational and as unprincipled 
 95
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 as her moves in chess. For Marga 
 ret's gambits in general are character 
 ized by a grand disregard for conse 
 quences. Let her men rush forth to 
 the edge of the hostile country. Once 
 there, there will be time enough to 
 peer around and reconnoiter and see 
 what they can see. Meanwhile, the 
 enemy is battering gloriously at the 
 postern gate, but at least the fight is 
 on. 
 
 Part of the recklessness of these 
 opening moves consists in the fact 
 that the girls are on such confidential 
 terms. 
 
 "This need not worry you at pres 
 ent," says Margaret, planting her 
 castle on an unprotected crag. "I'm 
 only putting it there in case." 
 
 That sort of thing saves a great 
 96
 
 THE AMATEUR CHESSMAN 
 
 deal of time. Barbara might other 
 wise have found it necessary to 
 waste long minutes trying to fathom 
 the unknowable of the scheme. With 
 out this companionable interchange, 
 chess is the most lonely of human 
 experiences. There you sit, solitary 
 and unsignaled a point of thought, 
 a center of calculation. You have no 
 partner. The world is canceled for 
 the time, except, perched opposite 
 you, another hermit intellect, sitting 
 remote and sinister. Oh, no! The 
 amateur should be allowed to discuss 
 his plots! 
 
 I have often thought that strange 
 clues to character appear around the 
 friendly chessboard. There is the 
 supposedly neutral onlooker who can 
 not possibly remain neutral while he 
 97
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 murmurs warnings or laments the 
 ill-judged moves. Without him how 
 tame both life and chess would be. 
 There is the stout-hearted player who 
 refuses to resign though his defeat is 
 demonstrably certain, but continues 
 to jog about the board, eluding actual 
 capture. In life, would he resign? 
 There is the player who gives little 
 shrieks at unexpected attacks; the 
 player who explains his mistakes and 
 describes what he intended to do 
 instead; the player who makes no 
 sign whatever of gloating or despair. 
 Most striking of all is the behavior 
 of people when they face the necessity 
 of playing against their own past 
 mistakes. A wrong move can never 
 be retracted by the thoroughbred. 
 No apology, no retracing of the path; 
 
 98
 
 THE AMATEUR CHESSMAN 
 
 no attempt to "be the architect of 
 the irrevocable past"; the playing 
 must go on as if the consequences 
 were part of the plan. Indeed, the 
 game is allegorical, with its checkered 
 board and far crusades. 
 
 In my mind, however, the final 
 test of true insight is the degree 
 in which a person can enjoy the end 
 of a game of chess when he is the 
 defeated player. Checkmate, of all 
 human inventions, is the most per 
 fect type of utter finality. In other 
 conclusions there is something left 
 ragged, something in abeyance. Here 
 there is no shading, no balancing of 
 the scales. The victor wins not by 
 majority as in cards; success or failure 
 is unanimous. There was one ballot, 
 and that is cast. No matter how 
 99
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 faulty the playing that went before, 
 the end of a game of chess is always 
 perfect. That is why the game so 
 fascinates the imagination. Out of its 
 austere antiquity comes one beautiful 
 gift for the most hopeless amateur; 
 at least he can be perfectly defeated. 
 The quiet fatalism of it is as perfect 
 for him as for the Chinese wizard 
 centuries ago playing with amber 
 chessmen. It is as complete as for 
 the ancient Persian who thought of 
 the magical final phrase: Shah-mat! 
 Checkmate! The king is dead.
 
 VIII 
 ENDICOTT AND I GO FISHING 
 
 NDICOTT and I fully ap 
 preciate the discrepancy 
 between our manner of 
 taking a fishing trip, and 
 all the instinctive tendencies of well- 
 ordered couples. We are not artistic 
 about it. We have no startling theories 
 about it, nor any quarrel with the hab 
 its of other fishermen. We frankly ad 
 mire the fine art of Henry van Dyke's 
 masterly fishing of "Little Rivers," 
 and we have read with chuckling 
 appreciation Bliss Perry's exposi 
 tion of the crackling-underbrush-and- 
 hip-rubber-boots delights of "fishing 
 with a worm." We are neither skill- 
 101
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 ful fly-fishers like Van Dyke, nor 
 as fearlessly close to nature as Mr. 
 Perry. We violate, moreover, the 
 cardinal rule of fishermen. It is well 
 known that the unexpected lure of 
 watery spring sunlight, suggestive 
 of red-winged blackbirds and pussy 
 willows, or perhaps the chance sound 
 of a bluebird's distant warble, should 
 be the proper motive force which 
 should put into the fisher-heart an 
 irresistible craving for the trout-run, 
 and should constrain him to drop all 
 engagements to wander through dan 
 delion lanes to cowslip-covered tus 
 socks in some far cranberry bog. In 
 the face of this tradition, settled, 
 middle-aged couple that we are, we 
 arrange our fishing trips beforehand. 
 Endicott plans not more carefully 
 102
 
 WE GO FISHING 
 
 for his Short Calendar nor I more 
 systematically for my best dinner 
 party than we both together settle 
 the details of our day at the farm. 
 
 Therefore, when the six o'clock sun 
 light brightened the dewdrops on the 
 rambler roses outside our dining-room 
 window one glorious July morning, 
 we had no adventuresome thrill at 
 the thought of duties to be deserted 
 as we accepted the parting attentions 
 of the children. The family lunch- 
 basket, knobby with tin cups and 
 sandwiches, was ready. Our six-quart 
 pail and our frying-pan leaned socia 
 bly against the front doorstep. Bar 
 bara laid near them a pile of crisp 
 kindling-wood Endicott and I have 
 had experience with impromptu twigs 
 and bark which ought to be inflam- 
 103
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 mable and Geoffrey added a large 
 tin box labeled "Medium Screws," 
 chivalrously resisting the temptation 
 to give it more than one small sugges 
 tive shake for the benefit of his sisters. 
 
 No possible item of equipment was 
 lacking, when, arrayed for our trip, 
 we ascended the lofty step of the 
 two-seated carriage which was to take 
 us to the farm. Not that Endicott and 
 I cannot ride in a one-seated vehicle 
 together. But with our kindling-wood, 
 our frying-pan and our six-quart pail, 
 our shawls and our hammock, our 
 block of ice, my tackle and the me 
 dium screws, we were more comfort 
 able each with a seat alone. 
 
 So we started out, with our cheer 
 fully rattling cargo, leaving our chil 
 dren appreciative spectators on the 
 
 104
 
 WE GO FISHING 
 
 front doorstep. Endicott insisted on 
 driving. He dislikes to drive, and I 
 can never relax my spinal column 
 while he holds the reins. Moreover, I 
 myself delight in driving, and he feels 
 happy and secure in my horseman 
 ship. But Endicott has sometimes an 
 ignoble regard for appearances, within 
 city limits. Alone by ourselves we do 
 as we will, contrary to the codes of 
 manly chivalry and feminine help 
 lessness. We have tried family fishing- 
 parties, but the atmosphere is ruined. 
 Endicott feels that he must play the 
 part of gallant spouse and indulgent 
 patriarch when the children are by, 
 and the girls expect me to be a gra 
 cious out-of-door Ceres, aloof and ar 
 tistic; and Ceres, forsooth, may not 
 bail out a boat. 
 
 105
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 We stopped at the fish market on 
 the way, and Endicott tucked a cool, 
 soft package of bluefish carefully 
 against our ice before we started 
 again. This business was performed 
 in impressive silence. I have learned 
 to ignore the bluefish part of our 
 trips. It always seems the most fla 
 grant incident of our programme 
 until lunch-time. 
 
 On our journey we talked a little. 
 Alone with each other! we almost 
 felt obliged to be entertaining. We 
 spoke of the excellent weather, of 
 our parting instructions to household 
 and stenographer, of the children and 
 the town meeting. And Endicott re 
 lated anecdotes. 
 
 But once at the old beaver lake, 
 where the twisted orchard trees had 
 106
 
 WE GO FISHING 
 
 dropped their little green apples into 
 the water where they bobbed up and 
 down in the ripples when we found 
 the hammock hooks still in the trees 
 where we had left them, and the old 
 flat-bottomed boat full of the water 
 of many rains then Endicott and I 
 became frankly ourselves, irrespon 
 sible and unembarrassed. 
 
 "Let me bail out the boat for you 
 this time," said Endicott, turning 
 as he stood halfway up the orchard 
 slope with his arms full of hammock 
 and shawls. His attitude expressed 
 genuine readiness to drop every pref 
 erence together with his burden and 
 rush to the pumps without delay. 
 The best part of an independent feel 
 ing is the knowledge that at any 
 moment one may resort to the cling- 
 107
 
 ENDIGOTT AND I 
 
 ing-vine attitude and find a worthy 
 support whereon to twine. The ad 
 vantages of the married state are 
 summed up for me in my sensation 
 when Endicott offers to bail out my 
 boat. But no such sentimental ele 
 ment was in my air as I moored my 
 craft beside the nearest clump of 
 blue-flags and perched firmly on the 
 highest seat with my pail and my 
 sponge. The ambition of dipping up 
 the Atlantic with a teacup is rendered 
 somehow small and unworthy by its 
 obvious futility, while in that boat 
 there seemed to be nearly as much to 
 conquer, but it had been emptied 
 before, and there was the joy of the 
 last muddy spongeful to look forward 
 to. So, crouched with skillfully up- 
 gathered skirts in the prow of the 
 108
 
 WE GO FISHING 
 
 boat, I dipped and dipped, while the 
 bright splash of the water over the 
 boatside stirred up the twinkling 
 school of minnows in the sun. A 
 stake-driver flapped over and settled 
 in the cat-tails, and a kingfisher 
 perched watchfully on the shad-bush 
 by the dam. Obviously a poor fishing 
 day, thought the kingfisher and I, 
 with quizzical glances at each other; 
 but he still swung on his silver-green 
 bough, and I whole-heartedly mopped 
 out the last puddles, jointed my rod, 
 unreeled my line, and provided my 
 hook with a well-chosen medium 
 screw. 
 
 I could see Endicott twisting in 
 the hammock to watch me row across 
 the pond, and I feathered my strokes 
 as well as the stiff, wooden oarlocks 
 
 109
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 would allow, because Endicott 
 scrape went the bottom of the boat! 
 A settled feeling as the crumbling 
 stump whereon I was moored gave 
 way a little to let the boat's beams 
 sink comfortably into it, a futile 
 lashing of the waves when I tried to 
 push myself off by backing water, or 
 to progress by straight rowing no 
 use! I must pole. I poled. The dizzy 
 sweep of my boat as I gave the muddy 
 ground a vigorous push with my 
 brandished oar told me I was free, 
 and I sat down to row again. My 
 anchorage was as fast as ever. I must 
 pole on the other side. I poled. I 
 poled until I felt that all my fishes 
 must be dizzied to docility. Around 
 and around I could go with ease; any 
 tangent to the circle was impossible, 
 no
 
 WE GO FISHING 
 
 There are times when solid founda 
 tions beneath one's feet are exasper 
 ating instead of reassuring. 
 
 I knew that Endicott was watch 
 ing. He has reached that point of 
 perfect manners when he stands 
 firmly with his back against such 
 stone walls as I may wish to climb, 
 forming of himself a disinterested and 
 most convenient post for me to snatch 
 at if I need to, keeping the while a 
 dreamy gaze on far-off landscapes. 
 He talks to the horse while I climb 
 into carriages. He did not watch me 
 bail out the boat. But a double time 
 of service would be necessary to make 
 any easeful husband forego the pleas 
 ure of seeing his erstwhile blithesome 
 Frau a-swing upon a stump in a pond. 
 I had almost decided to begin to fish, 
 111
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 thus giving him the impression that 
 I had been circulating to get my 
 bearings and to locate the best fishing- 
 holes, when I saw Endicott rise from 
 his hammock. Ordinarily I do not 
 watch his exit from hammocks, 
 though it is a notable sight. Down to 
 the verge he came, a modern Bedi- 
 vere. Was he planning to swim out to 
 my rescue? 
 
 "Ship ahoy!" he called between his 
 hands. His side whiskers, I knew, 
 were a-bristle with enjoyment of the 
 subtle humor of this remark. I re 
 sponded rather coolly with that fem 
 inine salutation which my daughters 
 call a "hoo-hoo." 
 
 "Say! Why do you sit on the 
 stump?" he inquired impersonally, in 
 carefully separated syllables. 
 112
 
 WE GO FISHING 
 
 "Can't move," I shouted, in my 
 most carrying and formal woman's 
 club voice. 
 
 "Get into the end of the boat! 
 You 're sitting on the stump," he 
 roared. 
 
 Almost I decided to remain where 
 I was and to fish with dignity, mov 
 ing perhaps by degrees away from 
 the center of gravity of my scow. 
 But the logic of the situation was 
 too beautiful to be so disregarded. 
 I stepped into the stern. With dis 
 concerting suddenness my shallop 
 plunged, swung about, and floated 
 lightly though unevenly upon the 
 waves once more. I balanced back 
 to my rowing-bench and paddled to 
 my favorite fishing-cove. The white 
 birches flickered in the quiet water 
 113
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 while I trailed my hook idly over the 
 edge of the boat. Small, radiant sun- 
 fish came by twos and threes and 
 floated, round-eyed, near the bait, 
 which I twitched away from their 
 comical mouths, and waited for a 
 pout or a pickerel. 
 
 One might as well look to see the 
 rainy Pleiades in the sunshine as a 
 pout on a pleasant day. When I fish 
 for fish, I go with my son in the 
 drizzling twilight; on a pleasure trip 
 with Endicott it is as well, after all, 
 to stop at the fish-market. For the 
 bluefish, cooked in the intrusive fry 
 ing-pan, over our kindled-by-kin- 
 dling-wood fire, eaten from a paper 
 plate, was a part of the perfection of 
 that sunny afternoon; almost as much 
 a part as the singing of the grass- 
 
 114
 
 WE GO FISHING 
 
 hoppers in the daisy-field, and the 
 quivering shadows made by the apple 
 leaves upon the grass. Endicott and 
 I learn again to talk to each other on 
 our fishing trips. Tradition helps us 
 there; we always have talked under 
 that particular tree, and it is easier 
 to open the way again, perhaps begin 
 ning where we left off the year before 
 when the apple blossoms were fall 
 ing on the grass and the veery sang 
 where we found the ovenbird's nest 
 years ago. An afternoon under the 
 apple tree, and then another hour in 
 the boat, with Endicott to row, and 
 the sunset fading into star-rise I 
 think we were not sorry to leave the 
 perch and the pickerel still in the 
 shadows around the toad-lily roots, 
 when it came time for us to drive 
 115
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 home along the old wood road, while 
 the cool mist came out of the forest 
 where the katydids were singing, and 
 fireflies were dancing in the dark.
 
 IX 
 
 CECROPIA MOTH AND OTHER 
 STUDIES 
 
 NDICOTT is not an ar 
 dent student of the birds 
 and bees. He observes 
 them affably when we 
 
 point them out to him, but without 
 enthusiasm. The Agassiz Clubs that 
 flourished in New England during his 
 youth left him virtually untouched, 
 except for one single item of nature- 
 lore which he did permanently retain: 
 he knows the Cecropia Moth. When 
 ever one of us mentions having seen a 
 new moth or butterfly, Endicott kin 
 dles with instant attention. "Was it," 
 he inquires hopefully, "a Cecropia?" 
 117
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 I believe that to know the name of 
 one moth really well is to have the 
 key to the enjoyment of all moths. 
 In the first place, the intellectual 
 pleasure of classification is open. 
 Endicott's mode of identifying moths 
 and butterflies is complete and simple. 
 He knows that any lepidopterous 
 insect must be one of two things; it 
 is either Cecropia or not-Cecropia. 
 Judged by every rule of logic, this 
 theory of division is flawless. In the 
 second place, a person who knows 
 one moth is always in a position to 
 add to his knowledge. Endicott, to 
 be sure, never adds to his, but if he 
 should ever care to do so he could 
 start from the vantage-point of a life 
 long interest in the subject. And in 
 the third place, when occasionally a 
 118
 
 CECROPIA MOTH AND OTHER STUDIES 
 
 moth does turn out to be a Cecropia, 
 there comes a moment of indescrib 
 able satisfaction, when rich content 
 ment floods the spirit; a blend of 
 astonishment, recognition, rapt appre 
 ciation, and proper pride. I know that 
 a smattering of knowledge is looked 
 down upon by the thorough scholar, 
 and that educators must stress the 
 essentials and frown upon the super 
 ficial; but there are certain superfici 
 alities that arouse the spirit in a de 
 gree all out of proportion to their 
 value. I am sure that Endicott takes 
 more pride in his one moth than he 
 ever took in his ability to read and 
 write. 
 
 When the children were small, I 
 hoped that they might grow up with 
 a fortunate mental balance, nicely 
 
 119
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 adjusted between my own careful 
 habits of accurate information, and 
 Endicott's sense of the artistic glam 
 our of common things. I knew enough 
 about botany and bird-study to make 
 a beginning with the children and 
 send for hand-books; I started very 
 early to teach them the names of 
 the birds and flowers. The girls were 
 rapid and acquisitive pupils, keeping 
 lists and scouring the woods and using 
 an old herbarium of mine for their 
 pressed flowers and ferns. But Geof 
 frey had a scientific bent that was 
 none of my planning. I had thought 
 that my tastes were sufficiently 
 broad; I can appreciate the beauty of 
 the flowers, birds, rocks, trees, and 
 stars; but when it comes to rep 
 tiles, I draw the line. Doubtless the 
 120
 
 CECROPIA MOTH AND OTHER STUDIES 
 
 reptiles and water-creatures demon 
 strate many phases of the miracle of 
 animate form; indeed I am ready to 
 admit that they have plenty of life. 
 But I hold that researches in this 
 line can be pushed too far. I ruth 
 lessly trained both my son and his 
 dog not to bring home snakes. 
 
 Turtles, however, and that small 
 species of lizards called newts, and 
 all sorts of frogs, were different. If 
 the girls could collect the pitcher- 
 plant and the swamp-azalea in the 
 old cranberry-bog at the farm, why 
 should Geoffrey not be allowed to 
 collect the snapping turtle, the sala 
 mander, and the horned pout? He 
 kept them in a tank sunk in the 
 ground just inside a wire enclosure 
 that had once served as a paddock 
 121
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 for the puppy. This gave the amphib 
 ious specimens room to range. One 
 afternoon a neighbor, coming in to 
 look at the collection, told the eight- 
 year-old Geoffrey that turtles lived a 
 hundred years, and that if you carved 
 your name on the shell and took the 
 turtle back to the pond, your grand 
 children might later on find it and 
 recognize it as yours. The neighbor 
 assured Geoffrey that the carving on 
 the shell would be entirely painless to 
 the turtle. 
 
 Geoffrey was fired at once. He was 
 too little to carve the letters neatly 
 himself; but in view of my well- 
 known skill in writing on birthday 
 cakes with pink frosting at his dicta 
 tion, he now sought me out, laid his 
 largest turtle in my lap, handed me 
 122
 
 CECROPIA MOTH AND OTHER STUDIES 
 
 his sharpest knife, and requested an 
 inscription. 
 
 At times I have found it a strain 
 to live up to my son's estimate of my 
 talents. Anybody who has seen an 
 immense gray turtle stretch out his 
 serious head and look back over his 
 shoulder to watch an intruding en 
 graver at work upon his roof, will 
 remember that a turtle's eyes can 
 take on an expression of mild rebuke. 
 I felt bound by the codes of sports 
 manship to finish the initials I had 
 begun, but I explained to Geoffrey 
 that I could no longer bear to face the 
 eye of that turtle. Geoffrey, with 
 immediate inspiration, got a news 
 paper, rolled it up in the shape of a 
 funnel, and held it over the turtle's 
 head until I finished my carving. It 
 123
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 looked like an ether-cone, but it 
 served its purpose in shielding me 
 from the coldness of the turtle's gaze. 
 The next step was to take the 
 turtle back to the pond. Geoffrey 
 decided to make a clean sweep of his 
 whole collection, return everything 
 to the pond, and catch some fresh 
 newts. Therefore one afternoon in 
 April he and three other little boys 
 set out on a pilgrimage to Duck's 
 Pond. Geoffrey carried a fishing- 
 creel full of turtles, and a tin pail full 
 of newts. He also took his long- 
 handled dip-net with which to catch 
 more newts at the pond. On their 
 way the boys saw a grocer's wagon 
 overtaking them, and decided to 
 hook a ride to the bridge. Up went 
 the three friends like monkeys, and 
 124
 
 CECROPIA MOTH AND OTHER STUDIES 
 
 up went Geoffrey. But his leap was 
 complicated by the dip-net. The long 
 pole hit against the wheel, and 
 twitched him neatly out of the wagon, 
 landing him flat on his face in the 
 road. Turtles flew in every direction. 
 Rivers of newts flooded the highway. 
 The kind grocery man turned back, 
 helped to collect all these scattered 
 passengers, lent Geoffrey a handker 
 chief to mop his wounded face, and 
 hoisted him and his aboard. 
 
 But that afternoon was not one 
 of Geoffrey's lucky days. The boys 
 found that their path through the 
 woods to the old pond was inter 
 rupted by a little rivulet which the 
 spring rains had swollen to a wide 
 stream. One of the hundred uses of a 
 dip-net is its convenience as a vault- 
 125
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 ing-pole. If you plant the end of the 
 handle in the middle of the stream, 
 take a good flying leap, and keep a 
 steady hold, it lands you lightly on 
 the other brink. One by one the boys 
 flew over, and then came Geoffrey's 
 turn. As a precautionary measure he 
 emptied his fishing-creel of turtles 
 and ladled them in the dip-net across 
 the stream to his friends who received 
 them on the other bank. Then, skill 
 fully balancing his pail of lizards in 
 his free hand, he grasped the vaulting- 
 pole, and leaped. The one drawback 
 about a vaulting-pole is the fact that 
 an uneven river-bed affords some 
 times a treacherous pivot for its 
 curve. Just as Geoffrey reached the 
 perpendicular, a rock caught the pole 
 and held it firmly upright; and there 
 126
 
 CEGROPIA MOTH AND OTHER STUDIES 
 
 hung Geoffrey, at half-mast. He 
 could not swing the pole in any di 
 rection. It was wedged too firmly in 
 the rocks. The pole was slippery 
 from long experience in many ponds, 
 and the falling action was swift. 
 Down slid Geoffrey into the middle 
 of the water. His newts and his cap 
 swam happily down-stream together, 
 while he, brandishing dip-net and 
 pail, waded ashore, marched his 
 turtles safely at last to Duck's Pond, 
 and bade them good-bye for a hun 
 dred years. 
 
 At supper-time, a little tramp, 
 muddy and soaking from head to 
 foot, made his way homeward. His 
 cap was gone. His hair was plastered 
 down in an amateur attempt at a 
 stylish parting in the middle. On his 
 127
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 nose and across his cheek were rough 
 red scratches where his face had bled 
 and dried. In his hands he carried his 
 dip-net and a large tin pail of newts. 
 I saw him coming, and went to meet 
 him at the front door. 
 
 "I am afraid," said Geoffrey apolo 
 getically, "that I have spoiled my 
 looks for Easter." 
 
 I had to admit that I was afraid he 
 had. I also began to see that Geof 
 frey's education in natural history 
 was to be distinctly a thing outside 
 my province. Blood-suckers and Dob- 
 sons, frogs'-eggs, rats with the help of 
 his dog, and even an occasional eel 
 I was by no means broken-hearted 
 when the rage for electricity struck my 
 son and he turned from salamanders 
 to sal-ammoniac and wet batteries. 
 128
 
 CECROPIA MOTH AND OTHER STUDIES 
 
 The girls' investigations were more 
 along my own line. They did not 
 always share each other's tastes, but 
 they kept well within the range of 
 mine. Barbara, for instance, passed 
 through a phase of interest in geol 
 ogy, and went about for some time 
 with hammer and text-book collect 
 ing specimens. That fad was short 
 lived. Margaret, who is ordinarily a 
 respecter of other people's property, 
 used Barbara's specimens of ferru 
 ginous quartz one night, to throw at 
 cats. Barbara took this bereavement 
 philosophically, not even troubling 
 herself to collect her specimens from 
 the vicinity of the neighboring fence. 
 
 She did, however, redouble her 
 efforts to discourage Margaret's craze 
 for mushrooms. Threats of mushroom 
 
 129
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 poisoning, she knew, had no effect 
 whatever. Margaret was accustomed 
 to take high ground on that subject 
 and to explain that she was not 
 afraid of death, as such. In the face 
 of every protest, she went on collect 
 ing inky-caps and field-mushrooms, 
 frying them in butter, and consuming 
 them on toast until Barbara's in 
 sight hit upon the weak place in her 
 sister's defenses. 
 
 "If you knew how affected you seem 
 when you do it " observed Barbara, 
 and sighed hopelessly. The trick was 
 done. No more shaggy-manes, no 
 more puff-balls. Margaret was per^ 
 manently cured. 
 
 It was long after the children had 
 put away their flower-books and 
 bird-lists and had fully grown up, 
 130
 
 CECROPIA MOTH AND OTHER STUDIES 
 
 that Barbara had a belated attack 
 of collecting butterflies. She was 
 ashamed to spend the money that 
 would be necessary to buy a regu 
 lation butterfly-net, and therefore 
 looked about for material to make 
 one. In a dark corner of the tool- 
 house she found Geoffrey's old-time 
 turtle net, with its long heavy pole 
 and stout iron hoop and twine net 
 ting. A clumsy thing indeed, but 
 effective. She replaced the ragged 
 dip-net with a new one made of 
 mosquito-gauze, and went out to 
 ensnare her specimens. Geoffrey and 
 Margaret could not contain their 
 scorn. Barbara had made her net 
 very long and slender, because her 
 supply of mosquito-netting was not 
 quite wide enough in proportion to 
 
 131
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 its length. The consequent shape of 
 the net reminded Geoffrey of the 
 Christmas-tree stockings made of 
 similar material and filled with candy 
 at kindergarten celebrations. He stole 
 the net, and with Margaret's help 
 filled it with an appropriate selection 
 of gifts: an orange in the toe, a lit 
 tle old square copy of Paradise Lost, 
 a Kewpie, a fish-horn, a wide pink 
 hair-ribbon, and a pencil-box. He 
 added an affectionate inscription, and 
 hung the offering, landing-pole and 
 all, at Barbara's place at table. The 
 recipient was unmoved. She said that 
 they had better be careful not to 
 stretch her net. She assured them that 
 a new one would cost them fifteen 
 dollars. 
 And so the family training in 
 
 132
 
 CECROPIA MOTH AND OTHER STUDIES 
 
 nature-study closed as it began, with 
 butterflies and moths. Every spring 
 now when I sort the contents of the 
 attic, I look at the old herbarium and 
 bird-records and the butterfly collec 
 tion, and wonder how long I ought to 
 keep them. The children have not 
 gone on to be botanists or entomolo 
 gists, and I suppose that pretty soon 
 I shall throw away the relics of their 
 early enthusiasms. It is just as well. 
 It is mainly for memories that we 
 prize our old pursuits. It is worth our 
 while simply to have learned some of 
 the lovely names that our race has 
 found for the little things of the 
 woods and sky. Margaret may have 
 been routed from her mushrooms, but 
 at least the whole family had heard 
 several times the names of the Fairy 
 133
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 Ring, the Little Gray Nuns, and the 
 Angel of Death. Barbara's geological 
 specimens went flying out into the 
 night, but we shall not forget her 
 rose-quartz nor her specimens of 
 shale and pudding-stone. Things in 
 the fields and swamps have now the 
 power of awakening instant associa 
 tions with us all. The reddening of 
 the swamp-maple, the song of the 
 meadow-lark, the pink flutter of are- 
 thusa in the marshes, the cool wet 
 ness of pond-lily stems, every one 
 knows how these can stir the spirit. 
 I wish that there were time to know 
 such things completely. But even the 
 slightest knowledge of them enriches 
 the family tradition. 
 
 Some time ago an old friend of 
 Endicott's was visiting us. He has 
 134
 
 CECROPIA MOTH AND OTHER STUDIES 
 
 lived an absorbing life in his profes 
 sion, but he has also kept up his 
 interest in a youthful hobby for col 
 lecting rare stones and fossil-remains. 
 He had heard that there was a rich 
 hunting-ground for such things in a 
 region near our town. One afternoon 
 when Endicott was busy I took our 
 guest for a ride and we made an 
 exploration of the recommended field. 
 At the foot of the ledges were the very 
 things we came for, and we sat down 
 on the stone wall to examine the 
 discovery and to exult. I glanced at 
 the face of the old gentleman beside 
 me. It was aglow with the flush of 
 triumph and delight. He had thrown 
 his hat on the ground, and the keen 
 wind of late autumn stirred his white 
 hair. He was explaining the perfect 
 135
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 points of the specimens with all the, 
 eagerness of an intent mind. As we 
 started back to the carriage, my 
 glance strayed just beyond the drifts 
 of red leaves on the ground beside 
 the wall. There was a patch of blue in 
 the corner by the bars. Fringed gen 
 tians. Dozens of them. With our frag 
 ment of rock and a spray of fringed 
 gentians we rode home, still exchang 
 ing congratulations. Our afternoon 
 had been a success. 
 
 I think that there was something 
 quite genuine in our cordial response 
 to each other's enthusiasm that after 
 noon. Any interest which retains 
 permanently the power to charm and 
 freshen the imagination brings us 
 moments of keen excitement which 
 add to the normal quota of our sym- 
 136
 
 CECROPIA MOTH AND OTHER STUDIES 
 
 pathies and our experience. The zest, 
 the fresh delight, and the eagerness 
 are never trivial, whether the object 
 that arouses them is a fossil, a turtle, 
 or a Cecropia Moth.
 
 X 
 
 ENDICOTT AND I ECONOMIZE 
 
 HEN I see Endicott com 
 ing up the steps with an 
 Edam cheese under one 
 arm and a large bottle of 
 
 olives under the other, I know that 
 I have carried food-conservation far 
 enough. In theory, our family is heart 
 ily in favor of plain living and high 
 thinking, yet there are many admira 
 ble and inexpensive foods that they 
 will not touch. A practical maiden 
 aunt of mine suggests that I might 
 starve them into it. Unfortunately my 
 husband and son and daughters are 
 people of independent resources, and 
 if the diet that I provide does not 
 138
 
 WE ECONOMIZE 
 
 minister to delight as well as to diges 
 tion, all sorts of little donation parties 
 ensue at once. My relatives begin to 
 bring home things that they "saw in 
 a window down-street." Endicott's 
 favorite reaction seems to be olives 
 and Edam cheese, but he has been 
 known to vary that choice with hot 
 house tomatoes, or squabs, or a 
 lobster of great price. 
 
 This complicates my plans. Not 
 only in war-time but on general 
 principles I am a thrifty soul. I know 
 how to make left-overs into the most 
 delicious ragouts and puddings in the 
 world. But my family has an instinct 
 for appraising food-values on a cash 
 basis. The instinct is unconscious, for 
 they all approve of thrift, but their 
 appetites register none the less ac- 
 139
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 curately the difference between the 
 costly and the humble dish. 
 
 "Why do you fuss with this Illus 
 trated Cookery?" inquires Geoffrey 
 when he finds on the table some left 
 over disguised as delicacy that re 
 minds him of the pictured pages of 
 my housekeeping magazines. "We'd 
 just exactly as soon have plain things." 
 
 Endicott too prides himself upon 
 being a man of simple tastes. What 
 could be more unpretentious than a 
 plain cut of Porterhouse steak, simply 
 broiled? He really prefers this to the 
 most elaborate "made dish." When it 
 comes to oysters, he urges me not to 
 give myself the trouble of concocting 
 anything as elaborate as a stew. He is 
 perfectly satisfied with Bluepoints in 
 their shells comfortably roasted over 
 140
 
 WE ECONOMIZE 
 
 the coals in the fireplace, quite in 
 a plain, old-fashioned way. In fact, 
 Endicott expects that something plain 
 and old-fashioned is going to be pro 
 vided for him whenever the rest of us 
 have illustrated cookery for dinner. 
 
 Once I was sure that I had struck 
 a combination of cannelon of beef and 
 tomato sauce that every one would 
 like. Endicott carefully served us all, 
 and then, with his carving-knife and 
 fork at parade rest, he inquired, "And 
 what is Papa going to eat?" I ex 
 plained that the elaborate dish before 
 him was a very inexpensive prepara 
 tion of round steak; and he partook 
 of it tolerantly with the air of a man 
 who must uphold national issues. 
 But later he telephoned to say that 
 there was a man to see him on busi- 
 
 141
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 ness and he would n't come up to 
 supper. He would get a bite down- 
 street. The only bite that Endicott 
 sees fit to get down-street costs a 
 dollar a plate. When he begins to talk 
 to the children about the pleasures of 
 "gathering around the frugal board," 
 I know that it is about time for him 
 to be gathering about a board that is 
 not quite so frugal, and I hastily stop 
 retrenching. 
 
 To tell the truth, when I try to 
 reduce our table expenses I have a 
 sensation of stalking my family. This 
 is nervous work, and I have often 
 suggested that we might do better to 
 economize in some direction where 
 the rest of the household could take 
 more responsibility. 
 
 Endicott and Geoffrey are per- 
 142
 
 WE ECONOMIZE 
 
 fectly reasonable about this. They 
 decided to dispense with the furnace- 
 man altogether one winter and at 
 tend to the heater themselves. As part 
 of the fitting preparation, Endicott 
 bought a great sprinkling-can with 
 which to water the ashes to keep 
 them from flying when he emptied 
 them. He bought a large pair of 
 gloves with gauntlets for his cuffs, 
 and established a nail for them over 
 the boiler. He also bought a new low 
 chair to sit in, so as to get the proper 
 leverage upon the ash-pan. Then fol 
 lowed a remodeling of the top of the 
 chimney to improve the draught; a 
 new scientific form of shaker; and 
 daily disparaging utterances about 
 our heating-plant. 
 
 Geoffrey and his father agreed per- 
 143
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 fectly about the heater. They named 
 it Flossie, and arranged various 
 patented devices with alarm-clocks 
 attached, which were intended to 
 regulate Flossie's early morning ac 
 tivities. They would have been will 
 ing, I think, to let her run entirely 
 by alarm-clocks, but they have failed 
 as yet to find one that will shovel on 
 the coal. They had to content them 
 selves with reducing the coal to a 
 system. Twice a day, they said, was 
 enough to feed her, and I was im 
 plored not to intervene. 
 
 Now an old family furnace does 
 not take kindly to systems, and Flos 
 sie has always had her little ways. I 
 got into the habit of going surrepti 
 tiously to the cellar myself now and 
 then, to shake her down and coddle 
 
 144
 
 WE ECONOMIZE 
 
 her a bit. I was not allowed to do 
 this when my family was in the 
 house. They drew the line at my 
 shoveling coal. I love to stoke, and 
 it goes against all my finer instincts 
 to stir up contented men from their 
 newspapers and send them down to 
 dark cellars where they hate to go. 
 But let me rattle the subterranean 
 coal-shovel never so softly, and I 
 have both Endicott and Geoffrey 
 roaring at my heels. They consider it 
 a reflection on them when I do it. 
 With infinite patience they divest me 
 of my shovel, and explain over and 
 over again their famous system. All 
 winter they ran the heater, and all 
 winter I carried on my clandestine 
 activities in the cellar. As time went 
 on, Flossie and I began rather to miss 
 
 145
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 the furnace-man, but we tried to con 
 sole ourselves with the thought of 
 the elegant new equipment we had 
 acquired. 
 
 In the spring, it seemed, Endicott 
 was planning to continue his role of 
 Handy Man About the House. Late 
 one busy afternoon, I found him pre 
 paring to put on the screens. He 
 usually sends up his office-janitor to 
 do this, but your true thrifter does 
 not pay janitors to do things that 
 can be done as well by home talent. 
 It is no child's play to put on our 
 screens, but Endicott went about it 
 with a high heart. 
 
 Probably every house in the world 
 
 except ours has uniform windows 
 
 and uniform screens, so that all the 
 
 screens fit all the windows, no mat- 
 
 146
 
 WE ECONOMIZE 
 
 ter how you pair them off. Ours are 
 not like that. No two of our windows 
 are equiangular nor equilateral, and 
 our screens are made in assorted 
 shapes and sizes according to the 
 windows that they respectively fit. 
 Consequently, they fit no way except 
 respectively. We have bent squares 
 and rhomboids, trapezoids and trape 
 zia; and woe to the man that tries 
 to put an oblong screen into a bent 
 hole. I have marked the screens and 
 the window-ledges with a neat code 
 of my own, so that I know at a glance 
 where each should go, and by dint 
 of annual supervision I have taught 
 my code to Endicott's janitor. But it 
 had never occurred to me to instruct 
 Endicott. He is not commonly given 
 to furbishing up the premises. 
 
 147
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 He went about busily, however, 
 trying a screen here and a screen 
 there, rattling them, reversing them, 
 turning them upside down, and fin 
 ally fastening each securely into the 
 window which it seemed most ap 
 proximately to fit. My advice was 
 not asked, nor offered. When Endi- 
 cott takes to sloyd work I have 
 learned to subside. I have no doubt 
 that connubial murders have been 
 committed with a screw-driver. I 
 was therefore prudently absorbed in 
 various neutral occupations in the 
 sewing-room when Endicott appeared 
 at the window with a screen in one 
 hand and a roll of screen-cloth in the 
 other. 
 
 "I have tried this screen in all the 
 windows," said Endicott, looking at 
 148
 
 WE ECONOMIZE 
 
 it with some distaste, "and it does n't 
 fit anything, any side up or either side 
 out. That makes me short one screen. 
 The rest are all on. Do you mind if I 
 use screen-cloth for this window?" 
 
 I expressed approval, and minded 
 my own business more feverishly than 
 ever while he unrolled his square of 
 screen-cloth and produced his box of 
 tacks. 
 
 "Would you mind shutting the 
 window?" asked Endicott regretfully, 
 after some moments of measuring and 
 pounding. "I shall have to nail the 
 bottom of this screen-cloth to the 
 lower part of the window-sash itself. 
 It turns out to be a little scant." 
 
 "But if you nail it to the sash," I 
 ventured, "how can we open the 
 window?" 
 
 149
 
 ENDIGOTT AND I 
 
 Endicott considered, resourcefully. 
 
 "We don't really have to open this 
 window, do we?" he inquired. "We 
 could use the other always and keep 
 this one shut." 
 
 "Then," said I, as mildly as pos 
 sible, "if we are n't going to open the 
 window why do we need a screen at 
 all?" 
 
 When a beautiful truth dawns upon 
 Endicott, he acts on it at once. He 
 genially pried out his tacks, rolled up 
 his screen-cloth, and telephoned to 
 his janitor to come up and measure 
 us for a new screen. Proper screening, 
 Endicott remarked as he and the 
 janitor installed the new one, is the 
 truest economy. 
 
 About the pear-tree I was not 
 such a model of wifely tact. There 
 150
 
 WE ECONOMIZE 
 
 was a drooping limb on one of our 
 trees overhanging the sidewalk in 
 front of our house. This lowest branch 
 had a habit of involving itself with 
 people's umbrellas on rainy days. It 
 caught the top of the umbrella and 
 jerked it back against the passing 
 hat, spattering down showers of rain 
 water on the upturned face in the 
 most exasperating way. It is annoy 
 ing to stub your toe, but it is far more 
 annoying to stub your unbrella. For 
 some time we had been going to have 
 that branch removed, and now Endi- 
 cott decided that he himself would do 
 it in a trice. 
 
 I came home one afternoon to find 
 
 the thing accomplished. That bough 
 
 would never again ensnare umbrellas, 
 
 but the operation had been oddly per 
 
 151
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 formed. Endicott had cut off the 
 branch at a narrow place just before 
 the twigs and leaves began, and had 
 left an awkward eighteen-inch length 
 of the pear-tree limb which thrust 
 itself out at right angles with the 
 trunk, like a semaphore. The relieved 
 passersby could afford to be jocose. 
 They said that it looked like the 
 spout of a tea-pot. Workmen oiling 
 the road hung their coats and dinner- 
 pails upon it. A hook so conveniently 
 placed is surely not meant to be 
 ignored by an appreciative public. 
 Endicott insisted that people would 
 soon get used to it, but I knew that I 
 never could. I called up my favorite 
 workman and engaged him to saw off 
 our famous land-mark nearer to the 
 trunk. There are times when the 
 
 152
 
 WE ECONOMIZE 
 
 simple laboring man has a warm place 
 in my regard. 
 
 After a good deal of this kind of 
 thing had gone on, Endicott and I 
 were discussing our results. We saw 
 that when we economized on service 
 we usually laid out more on new tools 
 and experiments than we saved by 
 doing the work. The example might 
 be good for others and the spirit 
 noble, but the difference in our cash- 
 account was negligible. I suggested 
 that we might look over the budget 
 once more to see what personal ex 
 penditures might be cut down en 
 tirely. 
 
 "If Mother 's going to cut anything, 
 
 it ought to be agents," said Barbara 
 
 with feeling. "She doesn't know how 
 
 to cut 'em. They come around sell- 
 
 153
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 ing brushes to go through college. 
 She says that they are just about 
 Geoffrey's age." Barbara glanced at 
 Geoffrey with a sardonic and sisterly 
 eye. "She bought some more brushes 
 just yesterday." 
 
 "It wasn't exactly a brush," I pro 
 tested. "It was a very good little 
 knife-sharpener that you turn with a 
 crank." 
 
 "Yes," continued Barbara unfeel 
 ingly; "and last week there was a 
 handy can-opener that would n't open 
 anything after the man had gone. 
 But mostly it's brushes. Radiator 
 brushes, stove brushes, gas-pipe 
 brushes. All kinds." 
 
 Barbara seated herself at the piano 
 and began to play, partly to cover my 
 embarrassment, and partly to ob- 
 154
 
 WE ECONOMIZE 
 
 scure any argument that I might 
 have made. But I am perfectly willing 
 to admit a weakness when I have one. 
 I know that I ought not to let my 
 impulses as a hostess and a parent 
 run away with my funds. But it is 
 true that an enterprising young agent 
 finds me tame quarry. When I can, 
 I try to leave such parleys to Barbara. 
 It is she, if any one, who finds out 
 about Endicott's extravagances in 
 new books. That is the thing that 
 Endicott cannot help buying. He sees 
 them advertised in irresistible book- 
 reviews and dealers' notices. He 
 glimpses their tantalizing pages lying 
 open in the windows of the pub 
 lishers. Every so often he casts aside 
 all restraint, goes into a brain-storm, 
 and buys books of all kinds. He 
 155
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 gathers them in by the armful, in 
 sets, in five-foot shelves. His method 
 after one of these rash purchasing- 
 bees is to keep the new books quietly 
 at the office, just as new wine is set 
 away for a time, to age. When the 
 bindings have grown sufficiently old 
 and useful-looking, he brings up the 
 volumes one at a time quite casually 
 to the house. If any one asks ques 
 tions he replies easily, "That? That's 
 a book that I bought once in Bos 
 ton. As I remember it, it was pretty 
 good." An old-time purchase like 
 that never sounds extravagant. A 
 book that has become blended with 
 its owner's past does not seem exactly 
 like a purchase at all. It is a part of 
 one's growth, and dollars and cents 
 have nothing to do with it. 
 156
 
 WE ECONOMIZE 
 
 If I could only conceal my brushes 
 and can-openers until they too could 
 grow old and weather-beaten with 
 hard use! But Barbara knows all the 
 places where I keep brushes. 
 
 Sometimes when the children are 
 away, Endicott and I confer with real 
 seriousness upon this question of 
 thrift. We reluctantly admit that the 
 amassing of funds is not our strong 
 point. We can economize on some 
 things, but not on others. I know 
 that I shall save something on to-mor 
 row's frugal board; but I also know 
 that I shall spend it presently on 
 violin strings and camera plates. It 
 seems to go that way. We make reso 
 lutions, and manage ingeniously, and 
 we save. Then we have impulses and 
 appeals and accidents, and we spend. 
 157
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 The more complex the family inter 
 ests, the harder it is to balance the 
 savings and the extravagances. We 
 have never, for instance, had any 
 kind of phonograph. The money 
 saved from this, we felt we could 
 devote with a clear conscience to the 
 musical training of the children. Not 
 an elaborate training, but courses of 
 lessons on different instruments, just 
 enough so that we might form a 
 family orchestra. We have the or 
 chestra, but we have not noticed 
 that the money saved on phonograph 
 records has made us very rich. We 
 also hardened our hearts against auto 
 mobiles and motor-boats and the 
 delights of travel. It would not hurt 
 the children to do without non- 
 essential matters. Just a college course 
 158
 
 WE ECONOMIZE 
 
 for each of them and a bit of voca 
 tional training before they went 
 we believed in bringing up the family 
 very simply. Yet for all its simplicity, 
 we have not found it a money-saving 
 device. 
 
 "Of course," says Endicott, after a 
 few moments of this earnest talk, "I 
 wouldn't give up some of the things 
 that we have enjoyed for a good 
 many stocks and bonds. We might 
 have managed those too if we had 
 been gifted that way, but as it is we 
 have the things we wanted most. 
 Still we must see that the children 
 do not repeat our mistakes." 
 
 Endicott pauses reflectively. 
 
 "In fact it's high time now," says 
 Endicott, "that we began to save."
 
 XI 
 
 DAR'ST THOU, CASSIUS? 
 
 HERE are people who 
 cannot whistle; people 
 who cannot distinguish 
 red from green; people 
 who cannot carry a tune. These limi 
 tations we accept as facts, recognizing 
 reasonable demonstration. But about 
 certain other limitations, men are 
 incurably sanguine. I, for instance, 
 cannot learn to swim. For years I 
 have been called upon to demonstrate 
 this incapacity to a curious and skep 
 tical seaside public. But no matter 
 how thorough my demonstrations, 
 people will not grasp the fact that I 
 constitutionally cannot swim. They 
 
 160
 
 DAR'ST THOU, CASSIUS? 
 
 assume that I am learning. The in 
 competent person trying to swim is 
 never regarded as a defective: he is 
 regarded as a beginner. The optimistic 
 salt-water mind is incapable of ab 
 sorbing tragedy. It cannot accept the 
 fact that a being may appear once or 
 twice in history who is unable to 
 begin. I cannot begin to swim, and 
 the person whom I have tried the 
 hardest to convince of this final fact 
 is my son Geoffrey, a youth of heavy 
 hand and towering ambitions, whose 
 will to power is weakened by no base 
 alloy of pity. 
 
 He suddenly decided one summer 
 that it was a family oversight not to 
 have brought me to the swimming 
 point. I must learn at once. 
 
 I should explain without further 
 
 161
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 delay that I am in my element in the 
 salt water, if left to myself. I am not 
 like Endicott, who snatches the hour 
 of rare calm at the cottage for his 
 newspaper and the hammock. Nor 
 am I like Margaret, who spends the 
 bathing-hour sitting high upon the 
 beach, fully clad in muslin, acting as 
 curator of wrist-watches, bath-house 
 keys, and children's water-wings. My 
 natural method in the salt water is 
 to rest my finger-tips on the white 
 sand of the ocean-bed, where the 
 water is not quite two cubits deep, 
 and thus to lie at ease in the rocking 
 brine, drifting gently inshore with 
 the waves. The sun makes wavering 
 lights in the shallow water; the peb 
 bly sand runs in and out through my 
 fingers; and if a more generous billow 
 162
 
 DAR'ST THOU, GASSIUS ? 
 
 than usual washes me too far inland, 
 I can back lazily out on my finger 
 tips again until I reach the ideal 
 depth once more, where the shelving 
 sand is exactly at arm's length from 
 the surface. Anchored in this way, I 
 am not emulous of my sea-going 
 friends; I am too contented. 
 
 The exacting Geoffrey, however, 
 cannot countenance my methods. He 
 trusts that I will admit the fact that 
 I cannot learn to swim in two feet of 
 water. He gives me fair warning 
 early in the day that he will teach me 
 to swim at eleven. At half-past ten 
 he leads me to the door of the bath 
 house and bids me make ready. 
 
 When I know that a swimming- 
 lesson is in store, my outlook upon 
 the ocean undergoes a chilling change. 
 163
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 A typical morning of water-sport goes 
 somewhat like this: Tricked out in 
 black suit and gay cap, I cower be 
 hind the bath-house door, dreading 
 my debut. Through the crescent- 
 shaped window that looks out upon 
 the sand I can see my daughter Bar 
 bara swinging down through the 
 beach-grass with a thoughtless confi 
 dence that is now my envy. With one 
 tragic eye glued to the crescent moon, 
 I watch her as she dives lightly from 
 the pier, and I listen as Geoffrey 
 roars to her to race him to the raft. 
 I wait until all the family and all the 
 friends of the family are well under 
 water. At last, when further delay 
 would mean a search party, I emerge 
 from my sandy cell. I start off down 
 the board walk, trying to advance to 
 
 164
 
 DAR'ST THOU, CASSIUS? 
 
 my fate with assurance, watching a 
 distant sail. But I cannot help quail 
 ing at that which is to come. 
 
 I think that I could endure it all 
 better if I could for once go into the 
 deep water unattended. But no. The 
 crowd hails me with cordial cries. 
 A dutiful son comes striding out 
 through the surf to meet me, dripping 
 arms outstretched. The touch of a 
 water-soaked sea-monster is a horror 
 to the flesh. I evade the clammy arms 
 hysterically, and throw myself des 
 perately into the sea. Then, standing 
 rigidly up to my neck in freezing 
 brine, I turn one fearful eye upon my 
 approaching tutor. With such a 
 glance, a mink in a trap observes the 
 approaching canoe of the hunter; you 
 may see the same bright look of 
 165
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 questioning terror in the eyes of a 
 wild kitten cornered in a loft. 
 
 Geoffrey is not sensitive to dra 
 matic atmosphere. Purposefully he 
 approaches, threshing the surface as 
 he comes. 
 
 I shall not attempt to describe all 
 that happens next. I cannot answer 
 for the subtleties of teaching a non- 
 teachable, non-aquatic animal to 
 swim. But to any incredulous critic 
 who suggests that I have not been 
 trained by the proper method, I reply: 
 I have been trained by all the methods. 
 There is no device given under heaven 
 among men that has not been tried 
 upon me. Consultations have been 
 held over me. Experts have been 
 called in from distant parts to look me 
 over. Possibly not all the devices 
 
 166
 
 DAR'ST THOU, CASSIUS ? 
 
 were tried quite long enough, but 
 that was not the fault of my tutor. 
 My case is still to him a tantalizing 
 problem, complex in technicalities, 
 and because insoluble fascinating. I 
 can see him now in my uneasy dreams 
 as he pauses for a moment, balanc 
 ing me on one careful hand, while he 
 reflects upon the details of his next 
 experiment. 
 
 I try to help him all I can. I fol 
 low orders with touching intelligence, 
 writhing along upon the water in all 
 the prescribed angles. But one thing 
 I cannot control. I cannot help sink 
 ing. Out of my great love for my 
 trainer I have learned to sink without 
 struggling. I can go down with per 
 fect repose of manner, like a sinking 
 star. 
 
 167
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 Geoffrey will never understand this. 
 "Have a little confidence," he im 
 plores, "and you can't sink." 
 
 Obediently I have confidence. My 
 soul rises to confidence, as an oriental 
 worshiper lifts his heart in spiritual 
 sublimity before his hopeless gods. 
 Yet with all my confidence thick 
 upon me, I sink; sink with the mod 
 eration and firmness of a subma 
 rine submerging with all on board. 
 I sink unanimously; not head-first, 
 not feet-first, but horizontally and as 
 a whole. 
 
 It seems that I am not to be per 
 mitted to drown. Just as I am begin 
 ning to grow resigned to the calmness 
 of the lower deeps, I am fished up 
 again, and arranged carefully once 
 more upon the waves, like a needle 
 
 168
 
 DAR'STTHOU, CASSIUS? 
 
 on the surface of a glass of water, and 
 bidden yet another time to "Strike 
 out." 
 
 Strike out! Oh, attitudes most or 
 thodox and frog-like! I have learned 
 to strike them all. Not, however, upon 
 the surface. The great combers close 
 over me, and I go down; then rhyth 
 mically I am drawn back to the sur 
 face again by loving hands, my dizzy 
 brain repeating faintly a lovely line 
 of poetry with new meaning: 
 
 " From the great deep to the great deep she 
 goes." 
 
 The very cadence is soothing. 
 
 This is the way it always happens 
 not one time nor twenty times, nor 
 ninety-nine times out of a hundred, 
 but always. It always will happen 
 this way, because I cannot swim. 
 169
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 Yet Geoffrey is blind to proof. He 
 still believes that it is some omission 
 of his that keeps me helpless. No 
 doubt when he comes back from 
 across the water, he will want to trj 
 new methods, learned perhaps from 
 Turks. 
 
 At all events, no swimming-hour 
 goes by without a new variation 
 of technique, guaranteed by friends. 
 At times I question the value of a 
 wide circle of acquaintance, technical 
 and ingenious. Too drugged by sea- 
 water by this time to suffer much, 
 however, I struggle on, only mind 
 enough left to wonder what great 
 faith supports this excellent son of 
 mine that he should spend the entire 
 bathing-hour alternately launching 
 me and dredging for me with the 
 170
 
 DAR'ST THOU, CASSIUS? 
 
 morose persistence of a secretary of 
 the navy. 
 
 Usually, just as the last glimmer of 
 human intelligence is about to be 
 drowned out, my respite comes. Bar 
 bara, surging along from her revels 
 by the raft, comes paddling by: 
 "Make her go in," she advises my 
 master. "She ought not to overdo 
 when she is just learning. Hi! Hurry! 
 Fish her up ! Now make her go in." 
 
 Make her go in! With an ironic 
 cackle I laugh terribly between chat 
 tering teeth, and wade out, stiffly 
 flapping. 
 
 In "The Egoist," George Meredith 
 in an admiring mood describes Clara 
 Middleton's graceful way of walking 
 from the garden to the house as 
 "swimming" across the grassy lawn. 
 171
 
 ENDIGOTT AND I 
 
 Meredith has been criticized for this 
 figure of speech. Many readers con 
 demn it as far-fetched and artificial. 
 But I support Meredith. If one must 
 swim, the best place for it, in my 
 opinion, is the lawn.
 
 XII 
 BARBARA DEVELOPS THE LAND 
 
 NDICOTT and I have 
 an admiration for well- 
 kept grounds and orderly 
 premises. Therefore, our 
 consciences used to trouble us as we 
 considered the looks of our estate when 
 the children were small. We ran, in 
 those days, an amateur playground in 
 our back yard ; sand-piles and potato- 
 bakes, croquet wickets and a tennis 
 set, a hop-scotch field and a house for 
 the bandit Geoffrey. Our back yard 
 was small, and these things filled 
 it full. These furnishings, moreover, 
 were not all of the strictly ornamental 
 type. No landscape gardener had 
 173
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 been consulted as to their placement, 
 and the "values" were by no means 
 according to his art. Geoffrey's little 
 house, for instance, was made from 
 a large piano box, clapboarded and 
 shingled, the interior furnished and 
 inhabited by his roistering gang of 
 followers. Where we should have had 
 a "velvet lawn," the boys had sunk 
 old tubs in the ground as often as they 
 felt the need of a new turtle-tank; 
 and up and down within these ponds 
 sailed scores of stately turtles with 
 inquiring necks thrust forth. There 
 was no room to keep a garden. Relics 
 of our former flower-beds struggled 
 here and there a flowering almond 
 bush by the fence-corner, a vine-like 
 growth known as perennial pea, which 
 miraculously reappeared every spring, 
 
 174
 
 BARBARA DEVELOPS THE LAND 
 
 striped grass beneath the plum-trees, 
 and a row of grapevines by the wall, 
 these last immensely encouraged by 
 the boys. This was about all, except 
 the apple tree, laden with Baldwins 
 and acrobats each fall. In fact, our 
 back yard was not one of the sightly 
 spots of town. 
 
 Then Geoffrey, outgrowing turtles 
 and his little house, moved upward 
 to his attic work-room. The gang, 
 busy there with print-shop and wire 
 less, climbed the garret stairs instead 
 of the apple tree, and left the yard 
 deserted. The garden rested quietly 
 in the sun. 
 
 Here, logically, might have been 
 
 our chance to reassert our suspended 
 
 plans for a picturesque and fruitful 
 
 plot of ground. Endicott, however, 
 
 175
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 is no born tiller of the soil, and I had 
 other rows to hoe. 
 
 Barbara, at this point, announced 
 that she was going to have a garden. 
 She said it in that decided tone in which 
 Saint Simeon Stylites told his friends 
 that he was going to have a pillar. 
 This tone, from Barbara, means per 
 sistence through mockings and scourg- 
 ings. The mockings are the specialty 
 of her brother Geoffrey. 
 
 "It's too bad," said she, "to have 
 that ground running to waste, with 
 nothing growing on it to amount to 
 anything." 
 
 "There's the Perennial Pea," said 
 Geoffrey hopefully. 
 
 "That," said Barbara firmly, "is 
 never going to come up again." 
 
 Barbara is business-like and inde- 
 176
 
 BARBARA DEVELOPS THE LAND 
 
 pendent. She believes in consulting 
 experts before she makes her plans. 
 That afternoon she went alone to her 
 grandfather's, hunted up his work 
 man who was busy about the early 
 gardening, and consulted him. 
 
 "You can't expect to have no such 
 garden as this," Andrews told her. 
 "This land of your grandpa's has had 
 something put on it for years and 
 years. You can't have a good garden 
 without you put something on it." 
 
 Barbara decided that her garden 
 should have something on it, and 
 inquired what. 
 
 In the season that followed we saw 
 her transformed before our eyes. 
 From a cheerful ornament to the 
 household and a talented adjunct to 
 our various exploits, she became pre- 
 177
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 occupied, her conversation smacking 
 strongly of the soil. Instead of going 
 up to call on her grandmother, she 
 went up to see Andrews. She hob 
 nobbed sociably with the butter-man, 
 exchanging with him anecdotes about 
 transplantings and cut-worms. The 
 word "cut- worms," we learned, is 
 the pass-word and countersign among 
 gardeners. Barbara spent confidential 
 moments at the door with a certain 
 kindly and dejected Mr. Pollard who 
 raises vegetables and mingled her 
 tears with his as he recounted the 
 depredations of the cut-worms 
 these subterrenes. 
 
 "Ten rod of radishes," sighed Mr. 
 Pollard, "and all but two rod cut 
 clean off!" 
 
 "When do they turn into butter- 
 178
 
 BARBARA DEVELOPS THE LAND 
 
 flies," asked Barbara, "and stop cut 
 ting?" 
 
 "They don't never stop," said Mr. 
 Pollard morosely. "They keep right 
 on a-cuttin'." 
 
 The vegetable garden, however, 
 was not Barbara's most intimate 
 concern. Her most thoughtful plan 
 ning was devoted to the flowers. 
 She had a feeling that a garden as 
 small as hers should not be too flat. 
 The plants should hold their blossoms 
 rather high. She knew the flowers 
 that she wanted, most of them hardy 
 perennials, blooming the second year. 
 That first spring she spent her time 
 transplanting frail wisps of green, 
 setting out the seedlings in careful 
 groups, and later weeding plump 
 rosettes of flowerless green plants 
 179
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 through the summer. Snapdragons, 
 digitalis, hollyhocks, and delphinium 
 all these were only one sober mass 
 of green. 
 
 She did not tell us her trials. We 
 could not help knowng it when a row 
 of hopeful shoots that she had just 
 transplanted for the second time 
 burst into bloom, producing the un 
 mistakable fine flower of chickweed. 
 Barbara explained that in the coty 
 ledon stage she had thought that it 
 was something else, more rare and 
 generally sought after, that evidently 
 had never come up at all. She called 
 our attention to the fact that it was 
 uncommonly thrifty chickweed. 
 
 She did consult the family about 
 her pink sunflowers. "They bloom 
 right away," she began, "and will 
 180
 
 BARBARA DEVELOPS THE LAND 
 
 make a rapid effect this first year. 
 They are of dwarfish growth, and the 
 petals are creamy white, with rose- 
 color around the edges. You can cut 
 them and they blossom all the more. 
 'Gut and come again,' the catalogue 
 says." 
 
 We advised pink sunflowers, by all 
 means. How they grew! "A rapid 
 effect" was a conservative phrase. 
 They grew into great angular stalks, 
 with rank towers of rough green 
 leaves, where swarms of grasshoppers 
 sprang explosively out upon the 
 passer-by. The first enormous bud 
 appeared, fat and round and hard. 
 We watched with suspense for the 
 pink sunflower to unroll its rays of 
 rose and cream-color, as advertised. 
 "La tulipe noire," Geoffrey called it. 
 
 181
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 And one morning when we looked out 
 it was open. Its perfidious heart lay 
 flat to view, and every sturdy petal 
 was bright yellow, the yellow of a 
 healthy pumpkin on a sunny day. 
 
 "Just exactly like the sunflowers 
 around Mr. Pollard's chicken-yard," 
 remarked Barbara cheerfully. "Only 
 larger." 
 
 At that same time, the hollyhocks 
 were weighing heavily on their own 
 er's mind. Three dozen beautiful 
 plants out by the fence were attacked 
 by hollyhock rust, and were curling 
 up their leaves to die. Barbara went 
 at once to Geoffrey. 
 
 "You have to spray my hollyhocks 
 with whale-oil soap," announced Bar 
 bara politely. 
 
 "Why?" asked Geoffrey. The most 
 182
 
 BARBARA DEVELOPS THE LAND 
 
 casual reference to whale-oil soap 
 makes Geoffrey's social manner a bit 
 stilted. His tone now was chilly. 
 
 "Because I can't work the spray," 
 explained Barbara. 
 
 "I '11 show you!" Geoffrey started 
 hopefully for the tool-house. 
 
 "No." Barbara was calm but reso 
 lute. "I'll melt the whale-oil so " 
 
 "Look here," began Geoffrey rea 
 sonably. "You don't know what it 
 means to spray the under side of 
 those leaves. You have to go at it 
 upside down, and the stuff gets all 
 over you. Your little old hollyhocks 
 will live just as well without whale- 
 oil soap as with. What do you care?" 
 
 But Geoffrey went forth with the 
 sprayer, and sprayed. Whale-oil soap, 
 he said, went a long way. He was 
 183
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 confident that there would never be 
 any hollyhock rust on him. 
 
 A varied life for Barbara began 
 with that year. Now that the garden 
 is a family institution, it seems odd 
 to reflect on the experimental season 
 when the roses and radishes were her 
 chief consolation. For the garden is 
 a pleasure now. The flowers are tall 
 and graceful, well above the ground. 
 Spires of giant larkspur, deep blue 
 and light blue and lavender, rise just 
 beyond the pointed stalks of white 
 foxglove, gleaming against the shad 
 ows. Lofty Japan lilies grow along 
 the path, and hollyhocks beside the 
 wall. It is hard to suggest in words 
 the effect of those straight, thin lines 
 of bloom rising all over the garden. 
 The beauty of the flowers seems to be 
 184
 
 BARBARA DEVELOPS THE LAND 
 
 starting upward in slender shafts of 
 color, from the green below. It is best 
 after a late shower, when it stands in 
 the low sunlight. Against the cool 
 wetness of the leaves lie the shadows 
 of the flower-spires, and the clear 
 tones of blue and ivory in the blos 
 soms content the eye. 
 
 Endicott and I stood watching it 
 late one afternoon, as the children 
 went out to tie up the bent stalks 
 after a summer storm. It was a pic 
 ture that we like to remember the 
 girls, with Geoffrey sauntering in 
 their wake, moving in and out among 
 the tallest flowers. That garden is 
 almost like the visible rising of a 
 dream. It means that the children 
 have grown up, to meet us on the 
 lines of our own planning. I love the 
 185
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 flowers for that. And yet sometimes 
 I give a swift, affectionate thought to 
 that old-time scene the sand-piles, 
 the little house, the snapping turtle 
 pacing up and down on guard, and 
 by the fence, the hardy flowering al 
 mond bush, the striped grass, and 
 the Perennial Peal
 
 XIII 
 DRIFTWOOD FIRE 
 
 HAVE in my cellar a bar 
 rel of driftwood, planks 
 of old whaling brigs with 
 the copper nails still bris 
 tling here and there. Every winter 
 Endicott orders me just such a bar 
 rel, sometimes from Montauk, some 
 times from New Bedford, where the 
 old schooners are broken up. This is 
 in memory of one evening years ago 
 on our wedding trip when the uncer 
 tain wheels of the Montauk stage 
 drew up at the door of Conklin's-by- 
 the-Sea, and we went in from the 
 rain. There, in the farm kitchen, we 
 187
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 found our first driftwood fire burning 
 blue and lavender on the hearth. 
 
 Ever since, our wood-basket has had 
 hidden under the logs of maple and 
 hickory a stick or two of the battered 
 old whalers. This has become a family 
 tradition. The children used to make 
 witch-fires of the wood on Hallowe'en. 
 Planks of it went to college on the 
 floors of their trunks. And now, when 
 they are all away and have barrels of 
 their own, Endicott invites guests for 
 the winter evening, and still gets me 
 my driftwood. 
 
 This is about all Endicott does do 
 in the matter for he does not like to 
 chop. The planks are too large for 
 economical burning, and really need 
 to be split. This must, moreover, be 
 done with some skill, without flaking 
 188
 
 DRIFTWOOD FIRE 
 
 off the strange green substance that 
 cakes their surface, and without wast 
 ing a single nail-hole. I can therefore 
 have no unlettered man of toil chop 
 ping my whalers for hire. Therefore, 
 since I find the professional classes 
 loth to chop, I descend to my bar 
 rel, pry out a plank, and split the 
 worn old sticks myself. With my little 
 pile of odd-shaped fagots in hand, I 
 ascend to my wood-basket, and wait 
 for a good night for a fire, with guests. 
 Guests, we have found, always 
 behave better at their second drift 
 wood fire than at their first. If drift 
 wood is mentioned to the human race, 
 the human race invariably mentions 
 driftwood powder. At least, no guest 
 of ours, but one, has ever failed to 
 discuss it, its ingredients, and the 
 
 189
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 shops where it may be had. Endicott 
 at such times plays the perfect host. 
 He evinces cordial interest, explain 
 ing in turn how the copper nails and 
 copper sheathing of these ancient 
 brigs, acted upon by the chemicals 
 in sea-water, produce a similar com 
 pound. In fact, for some guests, En 
 dicott maintains, the powder would 
 be best. A tablespoonful sown over 
 the fire and lo! the instant, sure 
 result, continuing as long as one 
 cares to keep on basting the logs 
 with it. The powder has its advan 
 tage; at least its possibilities furnish 
 talk in the first few minutes after the 
 true driftwood has been laid on the 
 embers. 
 
 As the mouldy old sticks kindle 
 slowly with ordinary yellow flame, I 
 190
 
 DRIFTWOOD FIRE 
 
 am always uneasy. I can feel the guest 
 deciding that the much-talked-of col 
 ors are all imagination. I recall the 
 dreadful evening when driftwood did 
 refuse to burn colors, a plank that 
 I myself had collected by the shore 
 and brought home in my steamer 
 trunk. I was having an experimental 
 fire by myself with a piece of it one 
 evening when Endicott walked in. 
 
 "Burning the ship?" asked Endi 
 cott cordially. 
 
 "I don't believe it 's exactly a ship," 
 I explained modestly. "It looked like 
 the end of an old dory." 
 
 "It acts like the end of an old 
 shed," said Endicott. 
 
 This conversation runs in my head 
 whenever driftwood burns yellow. 
 
 And then, in the midst of such 
 191
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 uncomfortable reflections, up flare 
 the waves of green and saffron-green 
 and blue. Little points of clear color 
 flicker at every crevice, and conversa 
 tion dies. 
 
 I do not know what we all think 
 about as we watch it. Perhaps it is 
 not necessary to muse on lost ships 
 and storms and broken ventures, nor 
 on all our drifted voyages apart. It 
 is enough for once to see a rainbow in 
 flames. 
 
 There is no monotony now. Rarer 
 colors show as the heart of the wood 
 begins to burn. Rich violet some- 
 tunes glows underneath, and a pe 
 culiar lilac color wavers over the 
 burned -out fragments as the edges 
 crumble. One stick falls, and a 
 glory of turquoise and peacock-green 
 192
 
 DRIFTWOOD FIRE 
 
 rushes up afresh. We watch it burn 
 and change and flare, until at length 
 it settles slowly into one last quiet 
 flame of softest blue, with now and 
 then a tiny red spark running over 
 its surface, like a wild-goose-chase 
 up a kobold's chimney flue. Rose- 
 color in the embers; the last of the 
 fire is the best. Then absolute dark, 
 uncompromising as the death of a 
 dream. 
 
 "Can you reach that bit of excelsior 
 in the corner of the basket?" inquires 
 Endicott of the guest. The obliging 
 friend gropes efficiently in the dark. 
 
 "Now watch," remarks Endicott, 
 and puts a handful of tinder on the 
 dark little heap that was our fire. 
 
 What follows must some day go 
 into somebody's collected poems. I 
 
 193
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 have mentioned our one guest who 
 did not talk about driftwood powder. 
 We first tried the experiment when 
 he was here, and I have always 
 thought that he would write the 
 poem. For, as we watched, up through 
 the common tinder rose once more 
 the best of all the driftwood colors; 
 the exquisite purity of blue and 
 lilac, and the palest daffodil and 
 green. We tossed fragments of birch 
 and apple wood into the flame, and 
 they burned as if they too had sailed 
 the old North Sea with Sir Patrick 
 Spens. Up from those soft dim ashes, 
 into the commonplace material, came 
 the rarest spirit of flame. We asked 
 our guest what the poem should be 
 about. He said that it meant for him 
 the sadness of second love. He said 
 
 194
 
 DRIFTWOOD FIRE 
 
 that it might be a symbol of sharing 
 of inspiration. He said it was the 
 beauty of a dead dream rising to 
 bless a common life. 
 
 Endicott, with academic eyeglasses 
 akimbo, watched the experiment geni 
 ally. The poet dropped a twisted bit 
 of a business letter into the ashes, 
 and it flared into a wave of gold and 
 violet. 
 
 "Perhaps it is the heat volatilizing 
 the gases again," explained the poet 
 dreamily. 
 
 "Exactly," said Endicott. 
 
 Yes. A quick little gust of wind 
 down the chimney made the flame 
 whirl softly. A gray flake of feathery 
 ash floated out along the hearth. By 
 what winds had it once been driven? 
 By what old storms at night? I 
 195
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 brushed it back into the flame again; 
 strange ashes, curiously com 
 pounded of many things; of memories 
 of Arctic reefs and dead men's bones, 
 and going after whales.
 
 XIV 
 
 HOW WILL YOU HAVE YOUR PAY? 
 
 HEN I go to have a cheque 
 cashed at the bank and 
 the paying-teller says, 
 "How will you have it ?" 
 I usually ask for small bills. I do this 
 for the convenience of the butter-man, 
 the vegetable-man and the farmer 
 who brings us chickens, but I have 
 sometimes thought that the question 
 and answer at the bank window are 
 symbolic. "How will you have your 
 pay?" 
 
 Whenever I hear young mothers 
 
 complain that they simply have no 
 
 tune to keep up with anything, I am 
 
 not impatient. I know that it is true. 
 
 197
 
 ENDIGOTT AND I 
 
 The most devoted young home-maker 
 in the average American family is 
 sometimes shocked when she finds 
 how large a proportion of her time 
 must go into little monotonous tasks 
 of plain manual labor with nothing 
 to show for it. I am thinking of the 
 typical educated young woman who 
 glorifies her pretty home, employs a 
 servant when she can get one, and 
 clothes her children in neat little 
 straight-cut garments which she has 
 learned may be stout and plain but 
 never dirty. How glibly one can pro 
 nounce that last specification, and 
 how reasonable it sounds. The table- 
 linen, also, may be simple to the point 
 of severity but at least it must be 
 spotless. At least! That is no light 
 proviso when one infant in the family 
 198
 
 HOW WILL YOU HAVE YOUR PAY? 
 
 is learning to hold a spoon in his un 
 certain fist, and when an older child 
 is learning to cut up meat and cope 
 with a baked potato. I confess that 
 there were times in our own fam 
 ily history when if it had not been 
 for Endicott's standards, a simple 
 runner of spotless oilcloth would 
 have decked our dinner-table. The 
 civilized standards certainly do take 
 thought and time. 
 
 The sort of young woman whom I 
 have in mind wants to meet the 
 civilized standard and meet it grace 
 fully. She is ready to sacrifice outside 
 interests to her home duties. She can 
 not, however, help feeling sorry when 
 she finds that many of her cultivated 
 talents are running down. She had 
 intended to keep up her music, for 
 199
 
 ENDIGOTT AND I 
 
 example, but she finds that her chil 
 dren instantly recognize the differ 
 ence between the music she plays for 
 them and the things that she prac 
 tices in the line of scales and etudes. 
 Childhood taste instinctively eschews 
 the etude. Besides, she has not time 
 enough for study without neglect of 
 the hundred details that are waiting 
 for her. I myself did manage to revive 
 my piano practice one winter by 
 allowing my small son to sit on the 
 piano bench beside me and accom 
 pany me on a toy drum. With the 
 steady roll of his drum-beats at my 
 side we made quite a martial sound. 
 One afternoon I turned suddenly 
 from my exercises and began to play 
 the "Moonlight Sonata." Geoffrey 
 paused with lifted drum-sticks and 
 200
 
 HOW WILL YOU HAVE YOUR PAY? 
 
 listened. Then he observed, "That's 
 no piece to drum to," left me for a 
 moment, and came clambering back 
 beside me again, singing through a 
 comb. The bust of Beethoven on 
 the music-cabinet almost relaxed its 
 frown. 
 
 With ingenuity and planning, I 
 think, it is really possible for a busy 
 housewife to cling to her music and 
 share it with her children. Even if she 
 does get out of practice, the remnants 
 of her damaged accomplishments 
 sometimes go as far toward mellowing 
 life as the most finished concert per 
 formance. But the fact remains that 
 for genuine creative progress in any 
 art, the presence of domestic care is 
 not a stimulus. No doubt it ought to 
 be; Endicott has a good deal to say 
 201
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 about "angels in the kitchen." I 
 know that the home-maker is en 
 gaged in the most divine and ele 
 mental occupation, and that her soul 
 should put forth blossoms accord 
 ingly. But the modern kitchen is a 
 place calculated to absorb the atten 
 tion and the vitality of the most 
 feathery angel imaginable. When it 
 comes to literary work or indepen 
 dent scholarship of any sort, the 
 efficient housekeeper must follow the 
 example of Harriet Beecher Stowe 
 and write upon the stove-pipe if at 
 all. 
 
 It is as well to recognize the situa 
 tion, not as it ought to be, perhaps, 
 but as we find it. The woman who 
 marries and makes a home to-day, 
 unless she wants to dodge the issue 
 202
 
 HOW WILL YOU HAVE YOUR PAY? 
 
 and shift her logical responsibilities 
 to the hands of servants or relatives, 
 must give up her mastery of the pro 
 fession in which she was launched 
 before marriage, and must learn half 
 a dozen new and complicated arts. 
 It is as if a man, at marriage, were 
 expected to leave his desk or his en 
 gineering or his manufacturing plant, 
 and take up the combined profes 
 sions of janitor, grade-teacher, tailor, 
 trained nurse, and chef, without 
 drawing the salary of any one of 
 them. Feminist Bolsheviki of every 
 stripe have made much of this situa 
 tion. It is at the root of modern 
 theories about community kitchens, 
 about the bringing up of children by 
 the State, and about arrangements 
 whereby the husband and wife go on 
 203
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 parsuing independent professions ana 
 meeting each other congenially at a 
 restaurant for dinner at night. 
 
 In spite of this unrest, however, 
 most of us will continue to find an 
 essential beauty in family home-life 
 closely knit and intimately shared. 
 Most of us believe that a woman can 
 afford to give up attainments in other 
 arts for the sake of an intense and 
 creative study of this central art of 
 living. She must serve her ideal at the 
 cost of many phases of her other 
 potential talents, but so must any 
 artist. It all depends on how im 
 portant we think the home-associa 
 tions of the race to be. 
 
 Suppose, then, that a woman ac 
 cepts all the conditions squarely, 
 sticks to her ideals, masters the de- 
 204
 
 HOW WILL YOU HAVE YOUR PAY? 
 
 tails of domestic machinery, brings 
 up her children, and finally launches 
 them on lives of their own. How will 
 she take her pay? 
 
 She cannot often take it in freedom 
 from anxiety. One of her acquired 
 talents is an acute feeling of responsi 
 bility. All her life long she has slept 
 with one ear alert for the slightest 
 sound. She is still wide-awake and 
 vigilant. And she knows that in spite 
 of her sensitive skill in adjusting the 
 details of her children's lives hith 
 erto, she is now powerless to govern 
 a single event that may happen to 
 them. 
 
 Every mother thought of this when 
 the war was going on. What use had 
 it been, this intricate work of build 
 ing up and training young life, if a 
 
 205
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 single bomb in a flash of time could 
 dash it to pieces without a trace? 
 A destructive force accomplishes so 
 much with such finality in an instant. 
 A constructive force, in contrast, 
 works against odds, works with in 
 finite patience with treacherous ele 
 ments on every hand, works at 
 unlimited expense. It was sickening 
 to belong to the constructive forces 
 in war-time. And yet I have never 
 been so fully convinced of the signifi 
 cance of ordinary family life as I 
 was during the eighteen months when 
 Geoffrey was in France. Suppose the 
 entire fabric of our physical existence 
 did go to atoms in an instant. Would 
 not the structure of family experience 
 outlast even that? What parts of our 
 companionship were durable in the 
 
 206
 
 HOW WILL YOU HAVE YOUR PAY? 
 
 face of long separation and broken 
 plans? 
 
 Not only in war-time, but nor 
 mally, every family life is subject to 
 unforeseen disaster. Nine chances out 
 of ten, the moment a careful mother 
 has steered her course to the point 
 where she might reasonably expect 
 plain sailing, some unexpected cyclone 
 comes up ahead and she has to rush 
 about launching lifeboats in all di 
 rections. Her reward seldom comes 
 in the form of "peace, perfect peace." 
 
 How, then, does she take her pay? 
 I think that she usually takes it in 
 frequent installments of small de 
 nomination. She finds it in the confi 
 dential remark of a little child, in a 
 moment of pleasant companionship 
 with her husband, in a conference 
 207
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 with a grown-up son or daughter 
 when thought flashes across with the 
 humorous illumination of old-time un 
 derstanding; and most of all in her 
 first-hand experience with the major 
 facts of life. 
 
 This last is no small thing. We see 
 the importance of contemporary liv 
 ing only in glimpses, but when we do 
 catch sight of it clearly we never for 
 get. My own most striking vision of 
 the dignity of our modern type is a 
 memory picture of my own father 
 near the end of his long life. One of 
 his youngest grandchildren was just 
 a year old that day, and her mother 
 had brought her over so that the 
 grandfather might light the candle on 
 her first birthday cake. There he sat 
 against the shadows of the early 
 208
 
 HOW WILL YOU HAVE YOUR PAY? 
 
 winter evening, holding the delighted 
 baby on his knee. The clear flame of 
 the one candle lit up the flushed 
 cheeks and silky round head of the 
 dark-eyed little baby, and deepened 
 the splendid furrows in the face of 
 the grandfather. It was a Rem 
 brandt lighting, but not a Rembrandt 
 face. Rembrandt's old men are tired; 
 their nobility is that of weariness and 
 the sheer duration of time. But the 
 expression of the grandfather's face 
 in the candle-light was not weary; it 
 was attentive, whimsical, powerfully 
 expressive of the poetry of the mo 
 ment. I shall always keep that picture 
 the thoughtful old man and the 
 exquisite little baby sitting together 
 to watch the candle burn. 
 Perhaps it is always in the ad- 
 209
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 joining generations that we see the 
 grandeur of the human type most 
 clearly. We are more stirred by the 
 very young and the very old than by 
 people like ourselves. But we of the 
 middle years can be assured that the 
 mode of civilization which can pro 
 duce old men of wisdom and vitality, 
 and young men of purpose and en 
 durance, is a phase of human history 
 that is worthy of our steel. No matter 
 what earthquake comes, we have 
 known life. Nothing to show for it if 
 the physical part of it goes to pieces? 
 But we have had the honor and glory 
 of touching it with a reverent hand. 
 
 Years ago, when I dropped into 
 Endicott's office one afternoon, I saw 
 a large glass paper-weight on a pile 
 210
 
 HOW WILL YOU HAVE YOUR PAY? 
 
 of letters on his desk. The paper 
 weight, I knew, was a relic of his 
 bachelor days, and I picked it up 
 with interest. It was the sort of 
 contrivance made so that pictures 
 and memoranda of all kinds could be 
 inserted under the glass. I found that 
 Endicott had stolen a photograph of 
 mine and had put it in among the 
 miscellaneous clippings and souvenirs 
 that the generous frame contained. 
 Directly under my picture I read this 
 clipping from Longfellow's "Hyper 
 ion": "Look not mournfully into the 
 Past. It comes not back again. Wisely 
 improve the Present. It is thine. Go 
 forth to meet the shadowy Future, 
 without fear, and with a manly heart." 
 "Endicott," I began gently (this was 
 in the early days when I still avoided the 
 211
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 role of termagant wife) " Endicott, do 
 you consider the inscription beneath 
 my picture exactly appropriate?" 
 
 "What inscription?" asked Endicott, 
 looking up from his desk. I handed 
 him the paper-weight in silence. 
 
 "That?" said Endicott. "That does 
 n't go with the picture. I put it 
 in there years before I ever saw you." 
 
 But I was afraid that Endicott's 
 business friends might misinterpret 
 the tone of courageous resignation in 
 the motto. I stole the paper-weight. 
 
 A while ago I came across it where 
 I had hidden it in the corner of a big 
 chest in the attic. The photograph 
 was faded and the quotation from 
 " Hyperion" was turning yellow around 
 the edges. After all, I thought, that 
 motto might be worse. I took it 
 212
 
 HOW WILL YOU HAVE YOUR PAY? 
 
 downstairs and made Endicott a 
 resent of it for his study-table. 
 
 That evening we sat and talked 
 ntil late, about our home, and the 
 far, and about how things would 
 )ok to Geoffrey when he came back 
 rom France. We compared notes 
 bout the things he mentioned most 
 'equently when he wrote of coming 
 ome: the Sunday morning break- 
 ist, the fireplace, strawberry short- 
 ake, the family conclave on the 
 -ont stairs on the way to bed, our 
 aturday night peanuts, and most 
 jnder association of all the family 
 r ater-pitcher. I told Endicott that I 
 lought that one of the rewards of 
 
 mother's life was the pleasure of 
 eing associated with all these homely 
 3ntral things. 
 
 213
 
 ENDICOTT AND I 
 
 Endicott listened with interest and 
 said, "That 's true about the mother's 
 part in the family life, but where does 
 the father come in?" 
 
 Then I assured Endicott that he 
 could not possibly come in for he is 
 in already, in the very center of the 
 family group, the charter member and 
 founder of it all.
 
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