fc

 
 ANGLED UP fly 
 
 DOUBLEDAY PACE V CO 
 
 I Q O 2 
 
 * "1^
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1901, 1902, BY 
 JOHN WANAMAKER. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY. 
 
 PUBLISHED JUNE, 1902. 
 
 NnrfaooU 
 i. 8. dishing & Co. Berwick & Smith 
 Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
 
 84* 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Disturbing Duckling 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Affection as a Gay Deceiver . . . , .20 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Where is Tuskaloo ?...... 42 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 The Rose Bench ., . . . . .61 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The Swirl ........ 80 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 The Secession of Polly .... 
 
 99
 
 CONTENTS 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Capitulation of Polly . . . , .120 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 In which I struggle with My Own Web . . .137 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Five O'Clock in the Morning . . . . .161 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 In which I become a Nonentity . . . .178 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 The Tournament and what came of it . . .197 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Polly untangles . . . . . . .215 
 
 VI
 
 GLED/UP 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE DISTURBING DUCKLING 
 
 Y excellent half-sister, Madame 
 Petunia Dewey, looked at me 
 with a sparkling superiority as 
 she said : 
 
 " A conscience in a disreputably 
 comfortable man of fifty-four is 
 nothing more than a moral gout. Its twinges 
 annoy without awakening him. He wraps some 
 more flannels about his judgment, and waits for 
 the east wind to stop blowing." 
 
 Petunia looked light and airy in her morning 
 wrap. I often thought that her conversation was
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 a sort of glitter, like her white hands when she 
 made a gesture, as if she had gems that she wished 
 to exhibit. Even her reproaches shone a little 
 when she had that crepe wrap on. But she was 
 a woman of the world, and had acquired some 
 kind of perfumed wisdom from many parterres, 
 or had it acquired for her, like a queen bee, so I 
 forgave the prompt monitorial attitude, and tried 
 to let her see that I bowed to her superiority. 
 
 " Petunia," I said, " I am a little worried." 
 
 " I don't believe it," she replied. " You are 
 trying to coax yourself into the belief that you 
 can be worried like other human beings. You 
 cannot even assume the air of it." 
 
 " Oh, but I am. I never was good at assuming 
 airs. If I suffer at all, it is undramatically. My 
 feelings are singularly devoid of local colour." 
 
 " Has your valet struck? " 
 
 " Try and be serious a moment." 
 
 " Has your doctor cut down on your cigars ? " 
 
 " My dear Petunia, I think I have passed the 
 point at which these things annoy me." 
 
 She assumed an attitude and expression of pro- 
 found curiosity. " Will you tell me," she said, 
 " what things can annoy you ? " 
 
 " You are a very brilliant example of one of 
 the things that cannot. Try and put yourself in 
 my place a moment." 
 
 "It is the most preposterous of impossibilities. 
 Ask me to have myself embalmed before death ; 
 to take the veil, or hasheesh or give absent 
 treatment anything, Rufus, except to put my- 
 
 2
 
 THE DISTURBING DUCKLING 
 
 self in your place. Why should one indulge in 
 such fantastic feats of the imagination ? " 
 
 " Because," I said mildly, " it would be more 
 rational than to indulge in unbridled persiflage 
 when a human being and a brother comes to you 
 with a misgiving and asks you for advice." 
 
 " Brother, I allow," she replied, " I cannot help 
 myself. But human being, Rufus isn't that 
 rather a large assumption ? Human beings are 
 supposed to have some relation to the rest of the 
 world. You are only related to your club and 
 your son." 
 
 " Can it be possible that you regard the latter 
 attachment as a misfortune ? " 
 
 " Certainly, to the son. He was probably in- 
 tended, in the nature of things, to be part of the 
 social system. You have succeeded in making 
 him an annex of your own comfort." 
 
 " You are disposed to be exceedingly ungracious 
 this morning," I said. " If your acerbity is the 
 result of the social fruit, I ought to congratulate 
 myself that Charlie has been kept out of the 
 orchard." 
 
 " I think," she remarked, "that if he had been 
 allowed to eat a few of the green apples it would 
 have benefited him. Life has its necessary colics 
 at least for young men, and they are probably dis- 
 ciplinary. Does it ever occur to you that you 
 have been trying to teach your one duckling that 
 it is immoral to swim ? " 
 
 " It is rather unjust to assume that I have de- 
 tached myself from all human interests because 
 
 3
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 your Thursday nights bore me a little. I try to 
 do my duty to society in a comfortable way. I 
 lent my name to a reform club, though I'm not 
 aware that anything has been reformed. I give 
 a hundred dollars a year to your University Set- 
 tlement affair somewhere, and I suppose the money 
 is properly wasted in committees. I have recently 
 served one term on the grand jury and helped 
 to indict a number of my fellow-citizens. It inter- 
 fered very much with my afternoon nap, but 
 it left a comfortable feeling that nothing would 
 ever come of the indictments. Do you know 
 what my pew costs me ? I rented it to please 
 you." 
 
 " I don't see why you should growl about that. 
 It was understood that if you paid in advance, 
 you would not be expected to occupy it." 
 
 " I make it a matter of conscience," I said, 
 " to go to the opera with Charlie occasionally, 
 and 1 think I can say truthfully that I try to 
 look interested, and never by any means betray 
 that I've heard the Jewel Song regularly for the 
 last thirty years, and read the same article about 
 it every morning during that time." 
 
 " Delightful ! " exclaimed Petunia. " After all, 
 perhaps you are exhausted by your public duties. 
 That had not occurred to me." 
 
 "On the contrary, it is my private duty that I 
 wish to speak to you about. You feel, at least, a 
 woman's interest in the future of that boy. Con- 
 sider a moment his mother left him in trust to 
 me sacredly. I have given up most of the things
 
 THE DISTURBING DUCKLING 
 
 in life that a man at my age enjoys in order to 
 guard and shape his future. We have been com- 
 panions, confidants, ever since he and I came out 
 of that experiment in the Hotchkiss woods ten 
 years ago. I have made it the one purpose of 
 my life to correct and redeem in his the errors 
 and shortcomings of mine. I think that you will 
 acknowledge that Charlie has been kept clean and 
 sweet as a girl, shielded from all the temptations 
 and unsmirched by any of the profligacies that 
 make up the curriculum of the well-to-do young 
 man of our day." 
 
 My excellent sister took a long breath at the 
 end of my preludium, but she did it very much 
 as if she had said, " You are not candid enough to 
 gasp at your own folly, so I will do it for you." 
 Then she remarked quite purringly : 
 
 " Very well, conceding the superhuman beauty 
 of your paternalism, what is it is worrying you ? 
 Has the moral superiority of your duckling begun 
 to frighten you ? " 
 
 " Charlie," I observed, " is of a fine, suscep- 
 tible nature, liable to make irremediable mistakes 
 on the side of his affections, and though I have 
 endeavoured to strengthen his judgment and de- 
 velop his moral sense of values " 
 
 " The boy is in love," said Petunia ; " is 
 that it?" 
 
 " I don't think that he could reach that unfor- 
 tunate condition without confiding it to me. No, 
 I will not say that he is in love, but it might 
 result in that."
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 " What might ? " 
 
 " His boyish fancy for some passing and pos- 
 sibly unworthy person." 
 
 " Who is it ? " 
 
 " I have not the slightest idea." 
 
 " Certainly I might have known that." 
 
 "You understand that our relations are such 
 that I trust entirely to his honour, his training, 
 and his habit of confiding in me. But, with the 
 very best of educational advantages, a boy of 
 nineteen is apt to be blinded by his senses." 
 
 " It isn't the worst kind of blindness," re- 
 marked Petunia. " He never can be morally 
 stone blind till he reaches fifty-four." 
 
 " Oh, come now, you do not think that I am 
 blind ! " 
 
 " Totally and irretrievably, so far as that boy 
 is concerned. You are afflicted by what ought to 
 be called doting cataracts. What is it you have 
 discovered? " 
 
 " Nothing of any importance, I assure you. 
 Perhaps I am inclined to magnify trifles, but the 
 other night, when he had gone out, I came upon 
 a little half-open note that he had left on the 
 table carelessly." 
 
 "Ah," said Petunia, with suddenly awakened 
 interest, " you read it." 
 
 " Pardon me ; I did not. I would not take 
 advantage of his carelessness. But I saw one 
 line before I could help it." 
 
 " What incredible forbearance and that line 
 was "
 
 THE DISTURBING DUCKLING 
 
 " ' Darling.' " 
 
 Petunia seemed to break out into an extra 
 bloom of laughter. Perhaps the word awoke 
 tender and joyful memories in her. 
 
 " You do not detect anything sad in it ? " I 
 inquired. 
 
 "Sad!" she exclaimed. "Why, it is the first 
 peep of exultant nature." 
 
 " But there was something else visible at the 
 top of the paper, and I could not avoid see- 
 ing it." 
 
 " Yes," said my sister, holding her jewelled 
 fingers over her mouth, " it was, f My only, 
 onliest,' or some other throbbing incoherence." 
 
 " No. It was c Wallack's Theatre.' ' 
 
 "Yes," said Petunia, in quite a matter-of-fact 
 way, " how fortunate ! It might have been 
 vaudeville." 
 
 "The association does not appear to startle 
 you." 
 
 " No. It lacks the element of surprise." 
 
 " Then you knew something of it ? " 
 
 "How could I help it? Everybody is not as 
 blind as you are." 
 
 " And you never told me," I said pathetically, 
 as I buttoned my coat. 
 
 " My dear Rufus, a man who will not read his 
 son's letters will not take his sister's advice. Be- 
 sides, it is not proper form to nip love's young 
 dream in the bud nowadays. The boy will have 
 his own way, and why waste anxiety about it ? " 
 
 " Pardon me," I said, " I don't intend that he 
 
 7
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 shall, and, for that matter," I added, as I got up, 
 " neither shall you." 
 
 " Really now, you speak as if I furnished him 
 with money and shut my eyes on his conduct and 
 believed in his archangel nature. You are doing 
 me a great injustice, Rufus, and it wounds me." 
 
 And then my sister drew her handkerchief 
 across one eye with a dainty flourish. 
 
 " Are you aware," I said, as I stood in the 
 middle of the room in a suspensive attitude, 
 between an indignant retreat and a final appeal 
 " are you aware of what boyish folly of this 
 kind may result in ? " 
 
 " I can estimate the chances," she said. " Ordi- 
 narily a flirtation and some needed experience. 
 But with a specially susceptible duckling, liable to 
 have fifteen or twenty thousand a year, it's like 
 the scarlet fever, and apt to leave chronic compli- 
 cations. Have you inquired they may be mar- 
 ried already, you know, and up to their ankles in 
 spilt milk." 
 
 Something in my appearance must have touched 
 her at last, for she got up and came to me, leaving 
 her badinage behind her. 
 
 " I see you are shocked," she said. 
 
 " Terribly. You do not understand how fatally 
 my life is wound up in that boy's." 
 
 " I am glad," she said, " if I have shocked you. 
 I hardly believed it possible, and shock is such a 
 necessary method of nature and art, from earth- 
 quakes to idols. You take it too seriously. Men 
 are different from women ; somebody has said that 
 
 8
 
 THE DISTURBING DUCKLING 
 
 if they were never knocked down they would never 
 get up it must have been an Irishman. At the 
 worst, the affair would only be temporary. Charlie 
 would probably get divorced in six months." 
 
 "Petunia," I replied, with as much dignity as 
 I could command, " I feel that in this matter we 
 are talking at each other from different worlds. 
 You do not know how deep it reaches down into 
 my hopes and happiness." 
 
 " No," she said, " I haven't thought it neces- 
 sary to dive so deep, when a small amount of prac- 
 tical sense on your part would stop the nonsense 
 by stopping the supplies." 
 
 She must have seen me shrink a little at the 
 proposition, for she added: 
 
 " But of course you will never do that, on 
 account of the boy's confidence in you." 
 
 " I am not thinking of punitive measures 
 only of the temperament, the inexperience, and 
 the sad disappointment." 
 
 " Isn't that about what the hen said to the 
 duckling. Consider the dry barnyard, the com- 
 fortable roost, and beware of the duck pond, with 
 its snapping turtles and bullfrogs. Do you know 
 what the duckling said ? You have probably for- 
 gotten. It was this, * I prefer them it is life.' ' 
 
 My interview with Petunia was discouraging. 
 She evidently knew more about the conduct of 
 Charlie than she had cared to tell me. Then, too, 
 I had an ill-defined consciousness of my own 
 comfortable remissness, upon which she had so 
 adroitly put her flashing finger. I found myself
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 hurrying away in my walk, very much as if there 
 was not much time. 
 
 I had gone to a woman of the world in what I 
 conceived to be a purely worldly matter. I would 
 now try a man of the world. Men grasped these 
 matters more firmly. There was my old friend, 
 Major Downs, at the Club; he had just the kind 
 of sagacity to handle such a case. Somebody had 
 said he was a Major Pendennis. With a Fother- 
 ingay on my hands, what could be more appro- 
 priate than a Major Pendennis. 
 
 He sat, as usual, at the Club window, watching 
 the afternoon procession on the Avenue. If it 
 were not for his white side-whiskers and equally 
 white mustache and very pink cheeks, I should 
 have likened him to a gargoyle over a temple 
 door, for he was always there, watching the coming 
 and going, with the same unalterable stare. The 
 animated drift of equipages had for him some kind 
 of personal responsibility, as if he had become its 
 automatic indicator, and must note correctly every 
 day in the year if A were driving his bays and B 
 had his tandem out and C was in proper fettle. 
 
 " Pull a chair up," he said. " The turnout is 
 very fine to-day. D has just gone up with his 
 drag. I really didn't know he was back." 
 
 " D," I said to myself; " it will take him an 
 hour to get through the rest of the alphabet." 
 
 " I'm going to smoke a cigar in the reading- 
 room, Major. I wish you would join me at 
 dinner when the show is over." 
 
 " Yes, yes," he replied impatiently, as if I were 
 10
 
 THE DISTURBING DUCKLING 
 
 disturbing his view, as he bowed to somebody, 
 " yes, yes ; E is in F's landau. They must have 
 made up. New coachman, too. I suppose that 
 old match will be consummated now." 
 
 " I will be in the reading-room," I said, and 
 walked away. 
 
 When he joined me later at dinner, he was so 
 full of the afternoon drift that it was some time 
 before I could get him around to my affairs, and 
 I had to approach the matter with a guarded in- 
 difference. 
 
 " Don't you find the season intolerably dull ? " 
 I asked. 
 
 " Oh, just the usual dulness. I haven't noticed 
 anything extra in it. Nothing happens this time 
 of year." 
 
 " Nothing going on even at the theatres ? " 
 
 He looked up from his plate as if the drop 
 from society to the theatre was not altogether 
 excusable. " I don't think any of our set are 
 going to the theatres now," he said. "It's a 
 little late in the season." 
 
 " By our set you mean the old fellows." 
 
 " Oh, the young fellows have no regard for the 
 calendar. Some of them would go to the theatre 
 on Good Friday if the ballet was a new one." 
 
 " Major," I said, " you can give me a little 
 advice. Did you not have some trouble as 
 guardian with your nephews ? " 
 
 " Oh, just the ordinary trouble, the regular 
 thing." 
 
 " One of the boys made a mesalliance " 
 ii
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 " Oh, that affair was just the ordinary thing. 
 They were divorced, you know, and the matter 
 fixed up." 
 
 " But you tried to prevent it? " 
 
 " Not I. I never try to prevent that sort of 
 thing. Go it, I said to the young scamp. If you 
 didn't do this, you would do something worse. 
 Go it while you're young." 
 
 " Oh," I remarked, somewhat taken aback, " I 
 got the impression somewhere that you succeeded 
 in preventing the affair, and I was going to ask 
 you how you set about it." 
 
 " Prevent it ? " said the Major, with admirable 
 surprise, as he held the bottle of Burgundy over 
 his wine-glass. " You can't prevent it exploded 
 idea, sir. Much the best plan to let the fellow 
 have his swing and have done with it." 
 
 " You speak as if a swing limited itself." 
 
 " Quite right quite right. It's like any other 
 debauch. Is your colt kicking ? " 
 
 " No, no not at all not at all." 
 
 " If he is, give him the run of the paddock. 
 Whatever you pour into his head will run out of 
 his heels. When he gets tired he will come into 
 the box stall and behave himself." 
 
 " And bring another colt with him, perhaps." 
 
 " Oh, temporarily just the ordinary af-filly- 
 ation," and the Major smacked his lips at his pun. 
 
 " As you are pleased to use the stock-breeder's 
 language, Major," I said, " let me remind you 
 that society would do well to imitate his scrupulous 
 care of his stock." 
 
 12
 
 THE DISTURBING DUCKLING 
 
 " Egad," said the Major, " I suppose it does 
 try to, but the tendency of the times is against it, 
 and the stock insist on taking care of themselves. 
 This is a liberal age, you know. Too d d lib- 
 eral, I suppose, for some of us old fellows. We 
 can't keep up the lines of caste now without going 
 abroad to live. Why, sir, when you and I were 
 young men and had our swing, and we did have 
 it, old chap, we drew the line at anything like 
 permanent alliances. By Jove, the old governors 
 wouldn't have it. I remember, in the sixties, 
 I was smitten, along with a number of other 
 young fellows, by Bonfanti you remember 
 Bonfanti ? " 
 
 "Bonfanti," I repeated; "the name sounds 
 familiar. A French actress ? " 
 
 " No, just a premiere assoluta. We used to 
 squander a good deal of money on tuberoses and 
 japonicas you remember tuberoses and japonicas 
 were the rage in the early sixties but, by Jove, 
 sir, nobody thought of setting her down in his 
 family circle. Why, sir, we had dowagers then 
 who would have blighted her with a look. We 
 took our divertisements like gentlemen then, not 
 like business men. I don't know whether the 
 theatre has come up or society has come down, 
 but I'll be hanged if the old chalk-line between 
 them hasn't disappeared. Madame Grampus said 
 a good thing the other night at the Polchers' 
 what the deuce was it ; wait a moment oh, yes, 
 says she, ( The theatre is a place now where the 
 curtain alone separates the professional beauties
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 who have their chance from the professional beau- 
 ties who haven't.' Rather good that, eh ? " 
 
 " Rather a sweeping imputation, Major," I re- 
 marked. 
 
 " Deuced clever, though," replied the Major, 
 his idea of what is deucedly clever being much 
 more liberal than mine. 
 
 "You know," he went on, "one of the Polcher 
 boys was educated for a clergyman, and he came 
 home one day with a soubrette on his arm." 
 
 "Married?" 
 
 "Well, that was the professional claim. I 
 think it cost old Polcher something like ten thou- 
 sand to get his cub out of it, and the fun of it was 
 that the girl turned out to have a better theo- 
 logical education than the Polcher. Now, you 
 wouldn't look for that sort of thing on the stage 
 when we were young, would you ? Let them 
 alone for a year, I said to old Polcher, and it will 
 fix itself. What can you expect if you begin to 
 hamper these young fellows with theology before 
 they get their eye-teeth cut. They must have 
 their experience first and their morality after- 
 ward." 
 
 I had never given much attention to large edu- 
 cational matters, but this presentation of the rising 
 generation as inverted pyramids must have lit up 
 my face as if a popular cartoon had passed by. 
 The Major must have seen it, for he went on 
 assuringly : 
 
 " Fact, sure as you live. Why, I remember 
 when our governors used to say, train up a child
 
 THE DISTURBING DUCKLING 
 
 in the way he should go, and when he is old he 
 will not bolt the track. You remember that it 
 was the school motto over the teacher's desk. 
 Bless my soul, those old fellows really believed it. 
 But you don't see it now. Got broader views. 
 Leave them alone, and they'll come home and 
 bring their tails behind them, doesn't look well 
 worked in worsted so now we work it in taffeta." 
 
 These glistening gems of thought, thrown off 
 over his wine by the Major, made me feel very 
 lonely, and I could not help regarding the Major 
 for the moment as a social siphon intent only on 
 aerating the conversation. 
 
 I had a personal grievance, a private bereave- 
 ment, and it was very plain that the Major would 
 regard it as one of those weaknesses out of which 
 a man of the world should grow. I ought to 
 have arrived at "just the ordinary indifference " 
 to any such foolishness as was involved in trying 
 to keep my boy from traversing my old tracks. 
 It was impossible either to make my excellent 
 half-sister or the Major understand how my ma- 
 ture roots had become entangled in this sapling, 
 and how I resented, with ail my might, the idea 
 of giving him up to his " swing." 
 
 The boy had come home from college six 
 months before, looking a little worn and pale, 
 and the physician had said he must have a year's 
 rest. We had taken the elegant apartments up- 
 town, and had gone into that luxurious bachelor 
 chumship so seldom sustained by father and son, 
 and which I fondly believed was a renewal of the 
 
 15
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 pleasant companionship of former days, when we 
 were boys together off there in the Hotchkiss 
 woods. 
 
 Now that there was some uncertain danger of 
 being compelled to give the fellow up to his own 
 courses, I became aware of how inextricably 
 woven into me were all the hopes and gentler 
 ambitions and reliant affections that our compan- 
 ionship had nurtured. I believe I could have 
 given the rascal up and said, " God speed, Com- 
 rade," if I had been confident that his departure 
 was insured against the pitfalls, the rocks, the 
 sirens, and miserable mistakes through which I 
 had laboriously come. It would be unbearably 
 forlorn for me, no doubt, but I would weather it 
 through somehow. The covert allusions of my 
 sister and the Major hurt me. They both as- 
 sumed that Charlie had easily and naturally lent 
 himself to some kind of hypocrisy, and was lead- 
 ing one life to my face and another behind my 
 back. I blushed at the recreancy to Charlie of 
 such a thought. I would read the truth in his 
 candid face. At the worst, I said, I have the 
 matter in my own hands, and can at any time 
 shut off the supplies and bring him up with a 
 round turn. 
 
 He did not return to the rooms until one 
 o'clock that night. When he opened the door 
 he started a little, I thought, to see me sitting up 
 so late. 
 
 " Been to the theatre ? " I asked, as uncon- 
 cernedly as possible. 
 
 16
 
 THE DISTURBING DUCKLING 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " What theatre ? " 
 
 " Wallack's," and he bustled round getting off 
 his dress coat and slipping on a jacket. 
 
 " Anything interesting to be seen there ? " 
 
 " English burlesque. Some interesting people 
 in it." 
 
 " Ah would it interest me ? " 
 
 " Hardly ; you are not easily interested, Dad." 
 
 This, I thought, was the first intimation that 
 there was a divergence in our tastes. He came 
 over to the table and saw the open letter with its 
 telltale heading, where he had dropped it, and, 
 picking it up with a passing expression of annoy- 
 ance at his own carelessness, put it in his jacket 
 pocket. The act was a fine example of the deli- 
 cacy of our relationship. He knew I had not 
 read the letter. " What kept you up so late ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " Was looking over some old papers." 
 
 " Did you dine at the Club ? " 
 
 " Yes, with Major Downs. It was very dull. 
 In fact, the town has got so dull that I was going 
 to propose that we run away somewheres." 
 
 " You don't mean abroad ? " with a little, sud- 
 den start, I thought. 
 
 "Why not? I'm getting almost lonely." 
 
 " Why, I was saying only this morning, how 
 pleasant the town is becoming, now that the bores 
 are all leaving it." 
 
 " Perhaps you would like me to clear out on 
 that theory, Comrade ? " 
 
 17
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 He had gone over to the bookcase, and was 
 looking for a novel, with his back toward me. 
 At this remark he turned squarely around and 
 looked at me inquiringly, with a copy of Mere- 
 dith in his hands. 
 
 I could not help remarking to myself how 
 handsome he looked, as his mother's features and 
 her unruffled candour of expression came out in 
 the light of the chandelier as he stood there. 
 
 " Go without me ? " he said. " You speak as 
 if you thought it would please me." 
 
 " Well, I have fallen into such a habit of ac- 
 commodating you, that I suppose I could do 
 even that if it would make you more comfort- 
 able." 
 
 " Oh, then cut it," he said. " I'd look like a 
 detached spar floating around in these rooms with- 
 out you." 
 
 " What do you suppose I would look like, 
 floating around Europe without you ? " 
 
 " Well, you can at least wait till the season is 
 over." 
 
 " Do you mean the theatrical season ? " 
 
 He did not answer me promptly, and I 
 fumbled something on the table, trying to recall 
 the words of lago about " trifles light as air," and 
 failing. I was never good at quoting anything 
 literally. The theatrical company would be going 
 back to England at the end of the season. I 
 waited. I felt, rather than saw, that there was in 
 Charlie's face an expression of inquiry a possi- 
 ble pause between suspicion and doubt. Then he 
 
 18
 
 THE DISTURBING DUCKLING 
 
 came up to me and put his hand on my shoulder 
 in his old affectionate way, and I felt, even before 
 he spoke, that candour had taken the bit in its 
 mouth. 
 
 " Dad," he said, " I never lied to you in my 
 life, and it is too late to begin now. If there is 
 anything on your mind, give it to me straight and 
 let's have it out." 
 
 I was not equal to having it out. Something 
 forewarned me that if I precipitated the issue, he 
 would have the best of it. 
 
 " I never doubted you, Comrade," I said, 
 " and it's too far into the night to open a new 
 catechism. I am going to bed. Good night." 
 
 " Good night, Dad." 
 
 I felt when I was alone that I had temporized 
 with the matter in a most craven manner. Some 
 kind of passive rage took possession of me and 
 kept me awake. It was not indignation at Charlie, 
 but at some impalpable danger that threatened to 
 come between us. 
 
 About half-past two, tired of my own foolish 
 perplexities, and seeing the light reflected from 
 the sitting room, I got up softly and, going along 
 the passage, peeped through the portiere. He 
 was sitting at the table. Meredith's novel was 
 turned face down, and, lying back in the chair, 
 Charlie was staring at a photograph which he held 
 in his hand, and his face wore an expression that 
 I had never seen there before.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 AFFECTION AS A GAY DECEIVER 
 
 I^s^HAD taken lunch with my sister, 
 <^& Mrs. Petunia Dewey, and, to get 
 (^w\ rid of listeners, she had our coffee 
 cQs^ taken into the conservatory, where, 
 f52g^ she said, I could smoke as violently 
 ^ >crs as I pleased the smoke was an 
 insecticide, and good for her Madame Lambard 
 tea roses. 
 
 "So," she said, as she spread her laces, "you 
 think your heir has fallen among the Philistines." 
 " No, no, Petunia, do not say fallen. He may 
 have encountered some seductive influences, and, 
 owing to his ignorance of the world, may have had 
 his senses entangled. I thought if I could get 
 him away, it would be to his benefit and my peace 
 of mind." 
 
 She smiled rather incredulously, I thought. 
 " You don't believe he will go," I said. 
 20
 
 AFFECTION AS A GAY DECEIVER 
 
 " I was smiling," she replied, " at your belief in 
 your ability to carry him off. Men are so credu- 
 lous with respect to their own strength at your 
 age." 
 
 " But you understand," I said, " that the boy 
 is closely attached to me I have always made 
 an intimate companion of him, and I have that 
 influence over him still " 
 
 She waved her hand as if my idea annoyed her, 
 and she wished to brush it away. " I clearly 
 understand that you are so attached to the boy 
 that you will let him do as he pleases in the end." 
 
 " I think you underestimate my strength of 
 purpose as well as my influence." 
 
 " Oh, I dare say it is a fine, fatherly feeling, 
 but it lacks dramatic interest for a young man. I 
 dare say he has committed himself by this time, 
 without regard to your arrangements or feelings." 
 
 " You don't know that he has ? " I asked 
 abruptly. 
 
 " I am not going to worry you, Rufus, by tell- 
 ing you how much I know. It is enough for me 
 that you have done your best to develop the fac- 
 ulties in that boy that usually end in a reckless 
 plunge." 
 
 " Then you can suggest no means by which I 
 can save him from what to both of us would be a 
 very disastrous mistake ? " 
 
 " Nothing," said Petunia, "unless " and she 
 paused. 
 
 " Unless what ? " 
 
 " Unless you take a fatal plunge yourself." 
 
 21
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 " Marriage ? Absurd." 
 
 " Do you think so ? It might bring somebody 
 into the menage who has a clearer idea of the 
 practicalities than you have. I can't imagine any- 
 thing that would fetch your boy to terms so quick 
 as the prospect of it. There was the Widow 
 Coldcream. It was generally supposed last year 
 that she had set her cap for you, and, if I'm not 
 mistaken, your young gentleman developed some 
 unmistakable signs of sudden hatred for her. 
 Coldcream is ten years younger than you are. 
 She has a very small income, it is true, but she 
 moves in the best circles, and it is generally un- 
 derstood that she has a decided financial talent. 
 She got it from her father, Drake Coldcream, who 
 was at one time an expert in handling other 
 people's estates." 
 
 If I were not constitutionally slow in my appre- 
 hensions, I would have thanked my sister then 
 and there for the suggestion. But at the time I 
 was thinking only of one thing, and it was that 
 she knew more about Charlie's life than she cared 
 to tell me, and I went away considerably nettled 
 to think that nobody had the slightest confidence 
 in my ability to save that boy from a piece of 
 youthful folly. 
 
 But I had not walked two blocks before the 
 exercise freshened my faculties. Something seemed 
 to occur to me. I stopped suddenly, and, exclaim- 
 ing, " Well, bless my soul ! " turned back and 
 made my way at a rapid pace to my sister's again. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Petunia," I said, as she 
 
 22
 
 AFFECTION AS A GAY DECEIVER 
 
 came out in the hall wearing a look of surprise, 
 " you don't happen to have a photograph of 
 Madame Coldcream, do you ? " 
 
 " Yes," she replied, with a smile, " I think I 
 have. Sit down there a moment. I'll hunt it up 
 for you." 
 
 When she put it into my hands I saw a picture 
 of a highly respectable and slightly prim elderly 
 lady in black, whose jaw indicated considerable 
 decision of character, and whose attire showed a 
 rich but obdurate disregard of the prevailing 
 mode. I put the picture in my breast pocket, 
 merely thanking my sister. But when I reached 
 the door she whispered in my ear, so that her ser- 
 vant could not hear, " I would call on her if I 
 were you." 
 
 Having reached my rooms, I found a note for 
 me that Charlie had left : 
 
 "Have gone to the ball match don't wait 
 dinner for me must be back, however, before 
 seven." 
 
 What a naive confession, I said. The curtain 
 rings up at eight, of course. 
 
 Everything Charlie did now was beginning to 
 be flavoured by my own suspicions, and I suppose 
 I was pretty melancholy there alone in the rooms. 
 I sat thinking over the past, and our almost 
 sacred intimacy that threatened to be disturbed, 
 and something the Doctor had once written to me 
 when we were off there in the Hotchkiss woods 
 kept reverberating in my mind. Finally, I got 
 out a tin box and began hunting for the letter to 
 
 23
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 see just exactly what it was he had said, that could 
 echo so freshly now. 
 
 At last I found it, yellow and faded. As I 
 opened it, some dried lilac petals fell out of it. I 
 laid back in my chair, with the letter in my hand, 
 and mused a moment. The filmy smoke of my 
 cigar seemed to be wreathed by my fancy into 
 half-human convolutions, and a Florentine maid 
 went undulantly by and dissolved into thin 
 air. 
 
 These were the doctor's words that I had tried 
 to recall : 
 
 " The man who has a pulpy replica that can 
 climb up on his knees need not waste regrets that 
 he cannot live his life over again. He is living it 
 over again. Let him regard himself with fear and 
 trembling. How is he to load the results of his 
 experience into that shallop of himself without 
 sinking it ? Presently the young sails will be set 
 and you will see yourself starting out to try it all 
 over again. No compasses nor charts of yours 
 will save him from the sirens. You must sit 
 there on the sands and wait. Some day, perhaps, 
 he will come forlornly back, looking for the old 
 love, and, maybe, find only the runes and the 
 water-marks." 
 
 Dear old Doctor, how unerringly sad his clear 
 vision was, beside the worldly observations to 
 which I had lately listened. I had not heard 
 from him for four years. He had retired some- 
 where, full of honours, and I had no doubt was 
 still full of vitality. I sat down and wrote him a 
 
 24
 
 AFFECTION AS A GAY DECEIVER 
 
 long letter, which, I dare say, if I could read it 
 now, would appear to be absurdly effusive and 
 appealing. 
 
 It was a stormy evening, a bitter spring rain 
 with sleet was driving against the window, and, 
 not caring to venture out, I ordered a dinner for 
 two sent in ; and when it was ready to serve, 
 Charlie arrived. 
 
 "There's no place like home to-night, Dad," 
 he remarked. 
 
 "Then I'll stay in and keep you company," I 
 replied. " I've ordered a good dinner. How is 
 your appetite ? " 
 
 " Prime," he said. " Let me get my jacket on, 
 and I will carve that capon for you." He was 
 in excellent spirits, and I felt that he was bestow- 
 ing upon me some of the exhilaration that another 
 person had supplied. But I was not to be out- 
 done by this sort of elation. 
 
 " Capital ! " I cried. " I'll give you the whole 
 evening, Comrade. I suppose you do get lonely 
 here at times, and, come to think of it, it's a lonely 
 business. I shouldn't be surprised if we both 
 went off in different directions looking for the 
 necessary female society." 
 
 " Both of us ? Oh, don't say that." 
 
 " Well," I remarked, " it could be made a shade 
 more homelike than two men can make it. But 
 we'll remedy all that in good time, eh ? " 
 
 " Remedy what ? " 
 
 "The heavy air of bachelordom. But it will 
 correct itself. Have a little patience, my boy. 
 
 25
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 There, there, that will do help yourself. Will 
 you try some of the wine to-night ? " 
 
 " No, thank you. Have you been trying 
 it?" 
 
 " Certainly not. It is possible for some men 
 to be in good spirits without the aid of wine, 
 though I doubt, my boy, if they could get along 
 permanently without Luther's two other adjuncts," 
 and I poured out the amber liquid with a gener- 
 ous dash of exultation, and pretended not to see 
 the puzzled look that he gave me. 
 
 " I don't think you are quite fair with me," 
 he said. " You alluded last night to something 
 and then strode off to bed without an explanation. 
 It isn't like you." 
 
 " No, I was not very candid, but I have made 
 up my mind to be perfectly frank with you." 
 
 " Frank about what ? You are not going to 
 lecture me at dinner, are you ? " 
 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 " When I explain matters to you and put the 
 thing in the right light " 
 
 " Hold on," I said, " you've got it wrong. 
 I'm going to explain matters to you, and when 
 you see them in the right light, you will agree 
 with me. You eat your dinner, and let me talk. 
 You have noticed, of course, that I have not given 
 you as much of my society lately as you are en- 
 titled to, and you must have had a suspicion of 
 what was going on. I ought to have taken you 
 into my confidence at the start, I suppose. But 
 in these matters everybody is naturally more or 
 
 26
 
 AFFECTION AS A GAY DECEIVER 
 
 less selfish. But as the matter involves some- 
 thing of a change in our establishment " 
 
 Charlie laid down his knife and fork, and, 
 leaning back, took a long breath. 
 
 " By George, Governor, you're not thinking 
 of" 
 
 " Why, yes, I am, Comrade. Now don't give 
 me that nonsense about my being too old. I 
 never felt in better feather in my life, and a man 
 at fifty-four doesn't enjoy any immunity in these 
 matters. Hang me, if you don't look as if my 
 confidence were misplaced." 
 
 " It's a little sudden, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Well, I never did linger much over such 
 affairs, and I don't suppose you will when you 
 come to face them." 
 
 " Do I know the lady ? " 
 
 " You may have seen her, but you cannot know 
 her as I do, until you have acquainted yourself 
 with her many virtues. Solid sort fine, mature 
 judgment, great refinement of taste, and a capital 
 manager." 
 
 " Has she got a son abroad ? " 
 
 " Ah, you dog, you have got upon my trail." 
 
 " Coldcream. Moses ! " 
 
 "Why Moses?" I asked with slight dignity. 
 
 " I don't know," he answered helplessly. " An- 
 cient history, I suppose." 
 
 " Don't be disrespectful, my boy. This is a 
 very serious matter to me." 
 
 " I think, sir, it will be equally serious to 
 me." 
 
 27
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 " Ah, then we shall understand each other 
 perfectly." 
 
 " When did you make up your mind to this ? " 
 
 " When did 1 ? Why, there you have me. 
 One's mind is made up by such imperceptible 
 degrees in these matters, and they are usually of 
 such a nature that he does not remark the 
 progress." 
 
 " Then it is made up ? " 
 
 " Why, as to that, I suppose I can say it is. 
 The final word has not been spoken I thought 
 I would like to have a little word with you 
 before speaking it. Don't you think Madame 
 Coldcream is an unusually fine-looking woman ? " 
 
 " Oh, pardon me, Dad ; it isn't fair to push 
 me to the point of declaring that I differ from 
 you." 
 
 " You must lay your prejudices aside, my boy. 
 Madame Coldcream has connections in Warwick- 
 shire. Her family is one of the oldest in the 
 kingdom. Her son is in the English consular 
 service. A very fine fellow, I understand, but 
 hampered a little for want of funds was educated 
 at Leipsic." 
 
 At this he got up and took a purposeless turn 
 or two. Presently he came up and laid his hand 
 on my shoulder in the old familiar way. 
 
 " Say, Dad, this is so unexpected, don't you 
 know, it takes the wind out of me. I suppose 
 there's no use of my expressing an opinion about 
 it, however respectfully." 
 
 It was as much as I could do to keep from 
 
 28
 
 AFFECTION AS A GAY DECEIVER 
 
 catching him by both hands and letting the 
 bottom out of my device by one weak rebound 
 he looked so forlorn. However, I kept up 
 my paternal recklessness as well as I could. 
 
 " Comrade," I said, " I knew that it would 
 strike you like cold water at the first dash, but 
 when you come to see her through my eyes, as 
 you are bound to do, you will agree with me. 
 You will, I am sure of it. There's a picture of 
 her. Study the ample brow, and breadth of the 
 lower face." 
 
 And I pulled out the photograph. He took 
 it mechanically, and I, pouring out some more 
 wine, galloped on over my home stretch. 
 
 " Remark the equipoise of faculties the 
 strength of jaw, and the aristocratic pose of the 
 head. Just the kind of woman to keep a foolish 
 old chap like your Dad well in hand, don't you 
 think ? " 
 
 I knew very well that he was not looking at 
 the photograph at all, but was looking over it at 
 his Dad with a melancholy tenderness, and so I 
 did not turn around. 
 
 " There's a quiet authority about that kind 
 of woman that is worth its weight in gold in 
 society." 
 
 Then I waited a moment, but he said nothing. 
 So I pushed back my chair, and, getting up, took 
 the photograph from his hands and walked over 
 to the grate, where I stood regarding it tenderly 
 with my back to him. But there was a mirror 
 over the mantle, and I could keep one eye on 
 
 29
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 him as he stood there, leaning against the book- 
 shelves, with his eyes on the carpet. 
 
 It was two days after this when I got an answer 
 from the Doctor to my letter. It was character- 
 istically brief and pertinent, and read as follows : 
 
 TUSK.ALOO, PA. 
 
 " MY DEAR OLD FRIEND : I am out of practice, 
 and the invalid world will have to hobble over 
 its chasms without me. As to your predicament, 
 I foresaw something of it long ago, and warned 
 you of it when you kept coddling that boy's 
 sensibilities at the expense of his will. I should 
 not be surprised if it were now too late, and you 
 were to find out that it is easier to lift yourself 
 by your own waistband than to lift somebody 
 else, when you have taken such precious good 
 care to deprive him of a waistband. I suppose 
 that some of your chickens have respect enough 
 for the proverb to come home to roost, and I 
 cannot for the life of me see what I can do to 
 block the wheels of Nature's Juggernaut, unless 
 you come down here with the young rascal, where 
 you and I can, perhaps, throw ourselves jointly 
 under the car. I have been making my final 
 cocoon here, and have wound myself about 
 pretty comfortably with my own silk for the final 
 transformation ; but if you collar the ingrate and 
 drag him to my doorstep, why, confound you, 
 there's a warm place for both of you in my idiotic 
 old heart, and mayhap redemption in my me- 
 nage." 
 
 30
 
 AFFECTION AS A GAY DECEIVER 
 
 These racing metaphors did not then amuse 
 me. I thought only of the generous nature that 
 defied them. 
 
 Anything like an intrigue has always been very 
 repugnant to me, and I never was on masquerade 
 in my life. But, all at once, I found myself in- 
 triguing against my own boy, and acting, at my 
 sister's suggestion, a little comedy-drama for his 
 reclamation. Still, there was no help for it. Most 
 comedy-dramas have for their purpose the out- 
 witting of the intrigante, and mine was no excep- 
 tion. Who she was, or what she was, or what 
 she looked like, I had not the faintest notion 
 other than my bedizened fears had portrayed her. 
 It was a fight carried on in the dark so far as the 
 antagonists were concerned, because I shrank a 
 little from the light. It had never occurred to 
 Charlie, poor fellow, while he was running his 
 head into some kind of a silken noose, that his 
 old Dad could encounter the same fate. " It began 
 to dawn upon his mind that his old Dad was, 
 after all, an important, if not an inestimable, factor 
 in his future arrangements, and not to be carried 
 off, if he could help it, by some alien. I flattered 
 myself that I had awakened in him something of 
 my sense of loss in having any marrying going 
 on in our small family. 
 
 To me, at least, the situation must have had 
 a humorous, almost a farcical, aspect, but I was 
 playing a high, conservative game, and did not at 
 the time consider the absurdity of father and son 
 doing their best to keep each other from reaping
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 the benefit of their folly. The only person alive 
 who had the full advantage of whatever humour 
 there was in it was my half-sister, Petunia, to 
 whom my alarmed scion rushed, just as I had 
 done, when he awoke to the fact that a mature 
 siren was after his Dad, scrip and scrippage. 
 
 Petunia, that most admirable social manager, 
 preserved a family discretion, and exercised a 
 most tactful wisdom. 
 
 " Your idol has been to see me," she said, a 
 day or two later, " and he wore an encouraging 
 suggestion of being shattered." 
 
 " Poor Charlie ! " I murmured. 
 
 " I suppose you are ready to patch him up in 
 any way he desires ? " 
 
 " Dear boy, it's his first pang." 
 
 " First rubbish. Do compose yourself, and 
 don't begin your quivering." 
 
 " I suppose he felt the folow keenly. What 
 did he say ? " 
 
 " He announced to me, with an almost super- 
 human air of distress, that you thought of taking 
 a wife. I congratulated him. 
 
 " c But, my dear aunt,' he said, ( you don't know 
 who it is. It's Coldcream.' 
 
 "'So I have heard,' I replied. ( A most excel- 
 lent choice a woman of shrewd business capacity. 
 She only needs an income to be able to exercise 
 a real talent for managing. I cannot imagine a 
 better supervising partner for my brother.' 
 
 " l Then you seriously approve of it ? ' he asked 
 me with blank surprise. 
 
 32
 
 AFFECTION AS A GAY DECEIVER 
 
 "Undoubtedly. 1 
 
 " f But you do not consider me.' 
 
 " c Consider you ? ' I said. ' You could not let 
 your selfishness interfere with your father's hap- 
 piness. You are young, and have your own path 
 to make. It does not become you, Charles,' I 
 observed, ' to be thinking only of yourself.' 
 
 " f I am not, I assure you,' said the young 
 hypocrite. f I am thinking of him. A man at 
 his age, with responsibilities, is as liable to make 
 mistakes, I suppose, as a young man. You must 
 remember, Aunt, that we are very much attached 
 to each other.' ' 
 
 " He said that, did he ? " 
 
 " Yes, but I did not tell him that it was just 
 what you had said." 
 
 " No. That was not necessary." 
 
 " I reminded him that true affection is largely 
 made up of self-sacrifice; that he would be get- 
 ting married himself presently, and would prob- 
 ably take a woman who supported herself by her 
 own talents, and who would not need your 
 assistance." 
 
 " Do you think it was necessary to go as far 
 as that ? " 
 
 " Yes, I certainly do, and when I went that far 
 he acted exactly as you did. He buttoned up 
 his coat, took the middle of the floor, tried to 
 look as if he wanted to hate me, and then col- 
 lapsed. I didn't tell him that you were a pair, 
 but you are." 
 
 "He certainly takes after me in some respects." 
 
 33
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 " Not in looks, Rufus." 
 
 " You think not ? " 
 
 "Oh, he is like his mother the handsome 
 young cub. I wanted to get up and give him a 
 good shaking as he stood there, but I had my 
 laces on, and couldn't afford to rumple my 
 authority." 
 
 " Did you ascertain definitely just how far his 
 passing infatuation has gone ? " I asked this 
 rather timidly, fearing that she might tell me. 
 
 " Head over heels, Rufus. It's what your 
 friend the Major calls just the ordinary madness 
 of youth but fatal." 
 
 " Bless my soul, Petunia, you speak as if it 
 were a hopeless case." 
 
 " Precisely. That's exactly the way I spoke to 
 him about you, and he went off in the same way 
 and asked me if it were a hopeless case. I told 
 him it was, unless he got you away immediately. 
 Rufus, you will have to get each other away as 
 quickly as possible, if only for my sake." 
 
 And Petunia held her jewelled hand over her 
 mouth, as if to suppress an unseemly impulse of 
 humour. 
 
 " But the rascal will not go until the season is 
 over," I said, " and everything else may be over 
 by that time." 
 
 " Oh, to save you, I think he will consent to 
 wrench himself a little. By the way, he expressed 
 the same doubt about your consenting to go. 
 You see you will both have to consent for each 
 other's sakes. It's getting intricate, isn't it? If 
 
 34
 
 AFFECTION AS A GAY DECEIVER 
 
 you should both go, it will be interesting to see 
 which protects the other the best." 
 
 "You gave him some advice, did you not? " 
 
 " How could I help it. The handsome young 
 profligate appealed to my woman's sensibilities in 
 spite of myself." 
 
 " Excuse me, Petunia, c profligate ' is rather an 
 unnecessarily harsh word to apply to that boy." 
 
 " He looked so crestfallen at the prospect of 
 the Coldcream gobbling all the resources you 
 don't object to f gobbling,' do you ? it is such a 
 comprehensive vulgarism that I had to treat him 
 confidentially, just as I do you." 
 
 " Heavens, Petunia, you did not betray to him 
 that my idea of marrying was a mere ruse ? " 
 
 " Not exactly. I said to him, Young man, 
 these are difficult cases to handle. Men of your 
 father's age are unreasonably susceptible. The 
 only thing to do is to get him away from the 
 illusions that affect the mature eye.' ' 
 
 " What did the boy say ? " 
 
 " He walked about a bit, tugged at his mus- 
 tache, and said, c Confound it, he wanted to go 
 to Europe the other day, and I opposed it. Now 
 he's got over it/ ' 
 
 " f Yes,' I remarked, f the Coldcream probably 
 talked him out of it, because she isn't ready to go 
 herself. You know she has had a project for 
 years of going to the Holy Land to live perma- 
 nently, on account of the sweet oil there. Her 
 brother is consul at Beirut/ ' How terrible ! ' 
 remarked your innocent." 
 
 35
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 " Petunia," I said, " I have received an invita- 
 tion from my old friend and adviser, the Doctor, 
 to bring the boy down there. If I could get him 
 away and under new influences, I feel that it 
 would be advantageous." 
 
 " It will never work. You must let him get 
 you away," replied Petunia. " You do not seem 
 to see that it is most important that he should 
 save you. These young fellows shy at the first 
 intimation of being saved themselves." 
 
 That evening I came home rather late and 
 suddenly. Charlie was there waiting for me. He 
 had not been out. I fondly fancied that there 
 was a slight shade of anxiety in his face, that 
 Meredith could not quite dispel. 
 
 " What's the matter, Dad ? " he asked. " You 
 appear to be worried." 
 
 " Yes," I said. " Deuce take it, I received a 
 letter from the Doctor, asking me to come down 
 to his place in Pennsylvania, and spend a month 
 you remember the Doctor ? " 
 
 " Of course I do a grand old man. Why 
 don't you go ? " 
 
 " I should like to, but, to tell the truth, it will 
 interfere with some other private arrangements of 
 mine just now. It's too bad, too, for nothing 
 would please me better, and he expects me. Do 
 you think this white tie becomes me as well as 
 those black ones ? " 
 
 " I shouldn't think you would let such an 
 opportunity slip." 
 
 " Well, Comrade, I suppose I'm getting too 
 
 36
 
 AFFECTION AS A GAY DECEIVER 
 
 old or too indolent to travel alone. That barber 
 has cut my hair in a new style he says it makes 
 me look five years younger." Then I strode 
 over to the mirror to admire myself. 
 
 Charlie laughed ironically. " I hope," he said, 
 " that I shall be as chipper at your age as you 
 are, and as ready to go off at a tangent." 
 
 " Why can't you run down there and explain 
 matters ? " I said. " I might join you for a few 
 days, later, though I suppose if the Doctor got 
 me there he would not let me get away." 
 
 " Let me see the letter, Dad." 
 
 This unexpected shot converted me into a 
 gay deceiver literally. I began feeling in my 
 pocket for it, saying, " What the deuce did I do 
 with that letter ? " But, of course, having care- 
 fully burnt it up, I did not find it. 
 
 " It is one of his brief and imperative notes," 
 I said. " I'll have to write him and beg off." 
 
 " Why, it was only a day or two ago that you 
 wanted to run away somewhere, and now you 
 funk at the first opportunity." 
 
 " Yes," I said, " but it will interfere with some- 
 thing else now. You don't want me to go, do 
 you ? " 
 
 "Yes if it will interfere with something else." 
 
 This was candour with a vengeance, but I was 
 too old to be caught off my guard by such a left- 
 hander. We sat down and pretended to waive 
 the whole matter. " By the way," I said, " have 
 we got a Baedeker among our books ? " 
 
 " Yes," he said, " there is an old one." 
 
 37
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 " Give it to me, please." 
 
 He handed me the guide-book, and I settled 
 myself to study it with an air of great interest. 
 He could not stand more than five minutes of 
 this ; then he said : 
 
 " Well, Dad, you're not good company to- 
 night. I'm going to leave you." 
 
 " All right, my boy," I replied, keeping my 
 eye on the page. " You run along. I'll leave 
 the gas burning for you." 
 
 He put on his coat. I was a little afraid he 
 would take me at my word, but he stood a mo- 
 ment, and then said : 
 
 "It seems to me you are not quite as frank 
 with me as you ought to be." 
 
 I looked at him over the page as I replied : " I 
 do not see what could put that in your head. 
 I wish to satisfy myself about some details in this 
 book that I didn't wish to bore you with " 
 
 "You are not disposed to make a visit to the 
 Doctor, and at the same time you are studying 
 the European routes. Is that quite candid ? " 
 
 " My dear fellow, I am not going down to the 
 Doctor's alone. There is no pleasure in that." 
 
 " But you think of going abroad in company 
 on account of the pleasure. It seems to me that 
 there might be a duty in not going." 
 
 I laid the book down as I said, " I hadn't 
 thought of the matter in the light of a duty 
 duty to whom ? " 
 
 " Well, to me, Dad. I think you owe it to me to 
 take a reasonable care of your health and go slow." 
 
 38
 
 AFFECTION AS A GAY DECEIVER 
 
 " Go slow ? What do you mean ? There is 
 no danger of my changing my habits. They are 
 pretty well fixed." 
 
 " How about your tastes ? " 
 
 " They were always quite liberal. There never 
 was a time when I could not admire the sterling 
 qualities of a thoroughbred woman. That is one 
 of the tastes that improve with age." 
 
 " Do you know what I think ? " he said. " You 
 need a change." 
 
 " Yes," I replied, " I have felt it for some time. 
 I was going to speak to you about it." 
 
 " We shall not agree about the nature of the 
 change. You need toning up by a vigorous mas- 
 culine nature of your own kind a man of large 
 views, who understands you. You will pardon 
 me, Dad, but you well, the fact is, you under- 
 stand me this kind of life is apt to make you 
 well, just a little eccentric. You really ought to 
 consult your old friend, the Doctor. If I have 
 not the right to feel concerned about you, nobody 
 has. Didn't he save your life once ? " 
 
 "Yes, he did. But you do not think there is 
 any need of his services to save it now, I hope. I 
 never was in better condition in my life." 
 
 " Physically, yes. But the mind will get stag- 
 nant or capricious in one rut. You have changed, 
 Dad, of late ; there's no use in my denying it." 
 
 " No ; look here, Comrade, you don't mean to 
 insinuate that I am failing, do you ? " 
 
 " I hope not," said my young Guardian, rather 
 pathetically. " Why don't you ask your sister or 
 
 39
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 the Doctor ? I've heard you say more than once 
 that a man cannot do at fifty-five what he did at 
 twenty-five." 
 
 " Fifty-four, Comrade," I remarked. " Try 
 and be accurate." 
 
 " I don't think it's fair to push me into the 
 attitude of a mentor. I have always looked to 
 you for discretion and sobriety." 
 
 " Egad, that's fine," I said. " Shows how you 
 differ from the young men of the time, and have 
 absorbed my teachings. Go on ; do you know, 
 I rather like it." 
 
 " Oh, I can't advise you, Dad. But I am sure 
 your old friend could. He would tell you that 
 you need a change perhaps he can furnish it. 
 Your mind is too active to accept a petty round 
 like this permanently. It disturbs the healthy 
 activities. I am using your own words, sir. Why, 
 you have bought six neckties in two days. How 
 is that for fifty-four to be accurate ? " 
 
 " In a sense, perhaps, you are right," I said. 
 " We have been thinking too much of ourselves. 
 That's the very thing I want to correct." 
 
 " It sounds rather harsh," he replied, " to be 
 told that I must think of somebody besides you. 
 I have not been accustomed to it." 
 
 I had to hold myself down by the arms of the 
 chair. To give way now to a natural impulse would 
 ruin all. Besides, these young rascals have a way 
 of working your sensibilities to their own ends that 
 cannot be relied upon. He was watching me to 
 see if a weak spot appeared. Presently he said: 
 
 40
 
 AFFECTION AS A GAY DECEIVER 
 
 " You want new faces and new environment 
 with some of the old and best influences. Why 
 not cut everything and take a new dash ? I'm 
 not thinking of myself, though I should really 
 like to see the Doctor." 
 
 " But I couldn't think of dragging you away 
 when the city is at its best." 
 
 " Yes, I know, but consider the joy it would 
 give me to drag you away." 
 
 I threw the Baedeker on the table. " Con- 
 found you," I said, " I suppose you will have 
 your own way. You always do." 
 
 " When will you go ? " 
 
 " There's no hurry, is there ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes, there is. If we mean it, let's have 
 at it before somebody changes your mind." 
 
 As I fell into a condition of helpless acquies- 
 cence, I could see that there was a sly look of 
 triumph in his face as he took off his coat again 
 and bustled around the room. Perhaps there 
 was a similar look in my face, as I thought I had 
 got him back into leading-strings, like the little 
 fellow I had so often cajoled before, and I said 
 musingly to myself, with Mother Goose's irony, 
 as I watched him : 
 
 Goosey, goosey gander, 
 
 O whither would you wander ? 
 
 But I dare say he was equally self-congratula- 
 tory, and was saying to himself, " I'll spike Cold- 
 cream's gun, confound her ! "
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 WHERE IS TUSKALOO ? 
 
 I^?s^T was a nasty May day when we 
 <^& locked our rooms and saw our 
 (^o\ traps loaded on an express wagon. 
 6g|K A sharp, wet wind was blowing 
 *~fi\ from the northeast, bringing flur- 
 ^ >crs ries of aggravating crystals and 
 boring into one's marrow acutely. It required 
 considerable moral determination on my part to 
 abandon my comfortable quarters and my easy 
 habits and go blindly forth on such an uncertain 
 chase as this in the teeth of an acrid spring. 
 
 Neither of us had a very definite idea of where 
 we were going or what it was we were to accom- 
 plish by going. But I am quite sure that each 
 of us held stoutly to the vague notion that it was 
 a stern duty to get the other away. 
 
 I must say that Charlie kept up the appearance 
 of bravery at the start much better than I did. 
 
 42
 
 WHERE IS TUSKALOO? 
 
 He fussed about with what looked like resolute 
 energy, as if he were a little afraid I would change 
 my mind if he did not get me started immediately. 
 But what does a fellow of his age know or care 
 about weather or definite destination ? I was 
 glad to get into our comfortable section on the 
 train, for the city we were leaving was about as 
 woebegone under the spring infliction as I had 
 ever seen it business trying to execute itself 
 under futile umbrellas, plunging about in sticky 
 and slimy streets ; leaden skies hanging low and 
 emitting wintry blasts fitfully. 
 
 I could see the look of relief on the young 
 rascal's face as we took possession of our com- 
 partment. He was saying to himself, " I've got 
 him landed anyway, and now if his old friend 
 the Doctor does not keep him out of mischief, 
 when he understands the case, then I deserve to 
 have Madame Coldcream for a keeper." 
 
 I forgave him easily because I could not bring 
 myself to believe that he was reading me as well. 
 He must have been joyously ignorant of the 
 fact that I was saying to myself, " I've got the 
 scapegrace started, and if he gets away from my 
 friend the Doctor, when the Doctor understands 
 the case, then I deserve to have a dancing 
 soubrette, or whatever the thing may be, for a 
 daughter." 
 
 Just exactly into what kind of a country we 
 were plunging by the aid of our self-sacrifice 
 neither of us knew. Tuskaloo might as well 
 have been in Thibet or hid away in the Carnac 
 
 43
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 Alps, as far as our knowledge extended. The 
 Doctor had on one occasion referred to the do- 
 main that had swallowed him up as " Beulah 
 Land." Whether this was his affectionate way 
 of labelling things that took his eye or was so 
 set down in the surveys, I had not the faintest 
 idea. If Charlie had asked me as we sat there, 
 what kind of a place Pennsylvania is, I presume 
 I should have answered in a large and compre- 
 hensive way, that Pennsylvania is the Keystone 
 state, crossed diagonally by the Appalachian 
 chain, with three great terraces respectively in- 
 habited by Moravians, Scotchmen, Quakers, and 
 rattlesnakes, and beautifully traversed by thin 
 and noble rivers. Perhaps I might have ex- 
 pressed the conviction that Pennsylvania is a 
 barbaric domain that is always committing a sort 
 of commercial hara-kari and disembowelling itself 
 of coal and iron and other intestinal products for 
 the benefit of mankind and the much smudging 
 of itself. 
 
 But Charlie had not the slightest curiosity 
 about the matter. He settled himself comfort- 
 ably over a novel, and had evidently made up 
 his mind not to look out of the car window or 
 in any manner interest himself in our destination. 
 He would be satisfied to get there and see me 
 safely entangled in an old friend's hospitality. 
 Then he would find some excuse to hurry back 
 to New York and have the full swing of our 
 rooms. 
 
 Before we reached Harrisburg, he had the 
 
 44
 
 WHERE IS TUSKALOO? 
 
 car window open and had relinquished his novel, 
 for the spring, full-blossomed, was coming up that 
 way. He noticed that the sunshine was quite 
 yellow, the air was heavy with the scent of lilacs, 
 and the glades were already purple with the 
 hepatica. 
 
 The traveller leaves behind him at Harrisburg 
 most of those familiar reminders of a common 
 country and thereafter slips easily into what is 
 distinctively Pennsylvania. But if he is unbur- 
 dened, as we were, by personal or commercial pre- 
 dilections, he accepts the new conditions as he 
 penetrates them, with a comfortable wonder and a 
 calm zest, and thinks of them as belonging not 
 so much to Pennsylvania as to a pleasing picture 
 that defies locality. As he reaches the Juniata 
 and turns north to MifHintown, a new and serene 
 pastoral world welcomes him with pleasant out- 
 stretch. It remains to all such persons as come 
 that way for the first time, to discover the Juniata 
 for themselves, and to wonder, as so many English- 
 men have done, why they have not heard more 
 about it. But it is when the vagrant traveller 
 takes the great bend southward again at Mifflin- 
 town, in obedience to the graceful sweep of this 
 river, and spins along between the Black Log and 
 the Jacks ranges, half the length of Mifflin County, 
 in a vale beside which Tempe was rude and gaunt, 
 that he feels himself rather voluptuously entering 
 Beulah Land. He may at some time have called 
 Maine and New Hampshire and the Berkshire 
 hills the Switzerland of America in succession. 
 
 45
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 We all do. But when he reaches this spot, he 
 is very apt to give over all that nonsense and 
 call this the America of America, as if it were the 
 heart of it, and wearing upon its plateaus and 
 meadowy pleasances, and waving in its gonfalon 
 surprises, high up the timber line, a constant 
 suggestion of calm, beauty, and remoteness. The 
 railway has pierced its secret with iron, but it could 
 not destroy it. The charm that hangs heavy on 
 its gladdening pictures is like a Sabbath-yesterday ; 
 and whether the scenes are English or Scotch, 
 whether they are like Lombardy or Brittany, 
 and they are like all of these in succession, they 
 preserve for us the picturesqueness of Nature and 
 the thrift of a happy and contented people in such 
 combination as one will find nowhere else. And 
 always it is the beautiful river that does the chief 
 beguiling. It is so flush and exultant and joy- 
 ously companionable, growing under your eye 
 more voluble and capricious as it narrows towards 
 its source in the mountains ; springing upon one 
 unexpected tours de force of shadowy pools and 
 silver reaches ; little enchanted islands, fantasti- 
 cally embowered, scurrying past ; and fringed mar- 
 gins of poplar and larch leaping into masterpieces 
 as the eye grasps after them. Other rivers lend 
 their presence to man soberly on his journeyings. 
 This little river accompanies him like a true 
 artist and forever thrums, now softly and now 
 wildly, on the lyre of God. 
 
 Somewhere, far down this legendary vale, lying 
 in the silences, is Tuskaloo. One does not 
 
 46
 
 WHERE IS TUSKALOO? 
 
 stumble over it as if it were an advertisement. 
 One has to hunt for it as if it were a sentiment. 
 It is encompassed by what remains of the grandi- 
 ose American forest that stupendous coverlet 
 that once spread over this state and canopied 
 Kentucky and Tennessee on the other side of the 
 great range ; out of whose trackless glooms the 
 Indian peered in war paint, and under whose 
 endless apse civilization had to hew its way when 
 it went up to possess the land. 
 
 Some insistent commonplaces of travel may 
 have fretted us as we neared our destination, but 
 I have forgotten them. There was of course 
 the regular railway station. I believe there were 
 heads of through passengers thrust out of the 
 train to see if possible why anybody should get 
 off there, and then the train left us to the mercy 
 of a lumbering stage-coach that swallowed up our 
 traps and invited us to be swallowed up ourselves 
 as it cried aloud, " All aboard for Tuskaloo." 
 
 Charlie bravely kept up an appearance of in- 
 terest and inspected the homespun and tow- 
 frocked inhabitants, and remarked to me that it 
 was Arden peopled only with Audreys, to which 
 I replied : " Yes, my Boy, I know, I know. 
 But we are doing the 4 Midsummer Night's Dream.' 
 Let us keep our repertory straight." 
 
 To be rolled away over cushiony roads, already 
 padded with grass and moss, our vehicle giving 
 back no other sound than the stretching and 
 flapping of its leathers, and to be brushed by 
 blossomy boughs and to sniff the arbutus that 
 
 47
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 our wheels crushed ; always confronting that little 
 river at unexpected moments, to hear it cry out 
 liquidly, "Here I am again," all this was to 
 slip submissively enough out of accustomed life 
 into Tuskaloo, which was something slumberously 
 incredible to men so lately escaping from the 
 thousand fangs of sound. 
 
 It gave me a Rip Van Winkle-ish feeling to 
 be set down in front of an old tavern with a 
 swinging sign on the green in front, and, as I 
 live, indubitable evidences that human beings 
 played bowls there probably in the twilight. 
 
 It was difficult to restrain one's archaic inclina- 
 tions when thus plumped, as one might say, 
 into the eighteenth century. I came perilously 
 near to saluting the tavern-keeper as mine host 
 and swearing he was rubicund, which he was not, 
 and ordering a flagon of wine to begin with. 
 Airs of Provence or of Arcady blew his scraggly 
 white locks about, and he wanted to know if 
 " you be the gents Boylston's got to fetch." 
 
 Boylston ! Fifty years came trooping back 
 with that word. It had touched me long ago 
 when I went to singing-school in the basement 
 of the old stone church. 
 
 " I guess," said Charlie, " we shall have to foot 
 it. How far is it to the Doctor's ? " 
 
 " Goin' on two mile or thereabout. I reckon 
 his team may hev got stuck," said the tavern- 
 keeper. " Will yer step in and hev suthin'? " 
 
 We thanked him decorously, as if we owed him 
 some kind of apology for breaking into his coun- 
 
 48
 
 WHERE IS TUSKALOO? 
 
 try, and Charlie, who was an object of interest to 
 several red-faced girls behind the adjacent blinds, 
 whose " te-he's " escaped through the openings, 
 remarked that it seemed to be a nice, quiet, agri- 
 cultural country. 
 
 He was probably thinking of the girls in flesh- 
 ings that he had left behind, and I merely said : 
 
 " Yes, we shall miss the influence of those dis- 
 creet women of the world who lend such a charm 
 to real life, not alone by their graces, but by their 
 wisdom." 
 
 He turned away with a little jerk as he said 
 rather testily, " Oh, we didn't come down here, 
 Dad, for that sort of thing." 
 
 " Certainly not," I replied. " So we'll just 
 take a lung full of it and scurry back among our 
 kind." 
 
 " I shouldn't think," he observed, " a man of 
 your age would want to do so much scurrying. 
 Now that you are here, you'd better make up 
 your mind to stay awhile." 
 
 " You shall have it your own way, my boy, 
 but I'll be hanged if I'll stay here alone." 
 
 Before we could exchange any further condo- 
 lences, a stout, handsome equipage, drawn by a 
 pair of high-stepping bays, came up, carrying 
 Boylston on the front seat as easily as the Doctor 
 had carried Union Pacific when it broke five 
 points. 
 
 Boylston touched his hat and pointed with his 
 whip. He evidently wasted no words on the ob- 
 vious. It was late in the afternoon when we were 
 
 49
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 once more rolling toward the Doctor's this 
 time at a gallant pace. Everything glistened and 
 flashed, and the sweeping boughs now and then 
 sprinkled us with iridescent drops. 
 
 " Sun-shower half an hour ago," said Boylston, 
 and then relapsed into the general jingle of our 
 ongoing. 
 
 We saw the drifting pigments of the shower 
 scumbled in the west, in the gaps of the moun- 
 tains, as we came out of the woods, roiled lakes 
 of fire and blood and gold, with the evening shad- 
 ows creeping upon them, but still throwing great 
 shafts of colour over the vistas, so that the meadows 
 were molten and the jutting crags were rimmed 
 with crimson. And still the little brimming river, 
 flashing in and out upon us with its deepening 
 darks, like Nature's own corybant. 
 
 Just this dash through glades and groves, 
 smitten now by the damp, odorous breath of a 
 bottom, pink with the azaleas and wild rose, and 
 spicy with the tender birch and sassafras, and 
 now coming head on into the full blazonry of the 
 dying day, flying as if pursued by the scented 
 evening, and then, turning in at the gravelled 
 walks of a park and coming all at once abreast of 
 a large colonial house peering through the trees, 
 on the broad veranda of which was grouped the 
 last tableau into which our panorama had resolved 
 itself, with finishing magic. 
 
 Years had whitened but not denuded the Jovian 
 head of the Doctor. Indeed, the frost of time 
 was more like the jolly frost of a wedding cake 
 
 5
 
 WHERE IS TUSKALOO? 
 
 that is made to keep, and his ruddy, frank face ac- 
 cepted the snow as a good picture of Ajax grown 
 old will accept a new mat. Still as erect and 
 hearty at seventy as that Mingo chief whose hunt- 
 ing lodge was once on this very spot, he held out 
 his arms to us, laid his trip-hammer hand on Char- 
 lie's shoulder as if he expected him to bend a 
 little in the knees, which a father's pride 
 may be pardoned for saying, parenthetically, he 
 didn't, and, turning him round as a recruiting 
 sergeant might have done, said, in well-remembered 
 tones: 
 
 " Great Scott, and you are the young rascal I 
 used to carry on my shoulder ! lo, my dear, I 
 present to you an old friend in our young guest. 
 Polly, attention, eyes front ! This is a serious 
 business. Polly is my niece. .Take him away, 
 girls. He is reeking with city. Have him fumi- 
 gated, and put him in the haunted chamber." 
 
 lo and Polly were not to be driven out of their 
 proper reserve by this gustiness, and Charlie, I 
 observed, did not come to this part of the tableau 
 so stoutly. I think the sudden apparition of un- 
 expected loveliness rather took his breath away. 
 However, I can only judge of the matter by my- 
 self. Some kind of a notion floated through my 
 head swiftly enough that the Doctor had offered 
 a prize for the handsomest girls in Mifflin County 
 in order to strike us dumb, which notion was in 
 ridiculous contrast to the matter-of-fact pair of 
 them, who stood in the doorway, and tried their 
 best to look as if the arrival of Charlies was of
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 hourly occurrence, the novelty of which had long 
 since worn off. 
 
 This part of the tableau melted away, after in- 
 troductions, through the doorway, my contribution 
 to it going humbly enough along, followed a little 
 way by an old negro in a dress coat from another 
 generation and race, which coat was very much 
 wrinkled in the back. He carried a wisp broom, 
 and I was left to be properly explained and gen- 
 erously exalted to the Doctor's sister, a quaint 
 relic of other days, fragile and softly spoken, in 
 sober, trim attire, with a pink flush in her cheeks, 
 and a kindly s.parkle behind her spectacles. So 
 curiously like a delicate heirloom did she appear 
 that one was a little afraid the Doctor's breeziness 
 would knock off an edge, but one soon enough 
 saw that the Doctor's bounce had long since been 
 adapted to this gracious light of other days. She 
 had a way of involuntarily putting two ringers 
 over her lips just before speaking, as if her re- 
 moteness, so like the spirit of Tuskaloo, might 
 become oppressive, which was rather aggravating, 
 for I am sure that everybody wanted more of it, 
 as he always does of a lost ideal. Something in 
 the gray kerchief round her neck, but more in the 
 soft, equable perspective of her manner, invested 
 her with a far-away charm, as if some Quaker an- 
 cestor perhaps Penn himself had insisted on 
 peeping out of her, with occasional " thees and 
 thous," all the more delicious, like that kerchief, 
 because they did not quite agree with the present. 
 Her stately courtesy had something aerial about
 
 WHERE IS TUSKALOO? 
 
 it, as if it were always seen through the haze of 
 years ; and it is worth saying here that, long as we 
 stayed at the mansion, we never heard her called 
 anything but " Mother " by each and all, not one 
 of whom had any other than a tacit metaphor to 
 stand upon excepting lo. 
 
 Some women bear with them, into old age, 
 ancestral rights that make the whole world kin. 
 
 Thus were we landed softly enough, but to our 
 glad amazement, into the manorial heart of Tus- 
 kaloo, where life went on with whelming gentle- 
 ness, like that little river, making, as it seemed 
 to me, green pastures and sweet cloistered de- 
 mesnes, that, even to write about, now that I 
 think about it, is perilously near to impertinence. 
 
 I suppose all fairly rounded out men that is, 
 rounded out by protean life itself come in their 
 ascending spirals to that point when it is no longer 
 possible to go forward with their hopes without 
 going backward with their desires. Heaven 
 slowly shifts its position from the clouds and re- 
 appears behind us in the memory. But how few 
 of us can retrace our steps or renew our zest. In 
 this respect the Doctor loomed up to me as a 
 favoured paragon, and I must have said something 
 like this to him as we stood alone on that porch, 
 he in a nankeen jacket, and I listening to the 
 tinkle of a bell somewhere in wet meadows where 
 the cows were coming home. But he blew me 
 out with his hearty breath as if I had been a mere 
 tuppenny dip of sentiment. 
 
 " Now, none of your confounded introspec- 
 
 53
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 tions," he said, " I will not have it. Did you not 
 notice my sign on the gate ? c All analysts are 
 forbidden to trespass on these grounds under 
 penalty of the law' the common law of healthy 
 existence. You are hungry ; why waste your 
 breath? Dinner, is waiting. I hear Bob ringing 
 her voice." 
 
 The chateau air of that dinner was very per- 
 ceptible, eaten, as it was, under wax candles in a 
 wainscoted room that had once been white and 
 gold and still had carvings that held up the 
 mantle, over which hung a portrait of Logan in 
 his war feathers. A coiffured picture or two on 
 the walls seemed to be dimly dancing a dusky 
 minuet in the candle-light as if they might be 
 memorial shadows. The great gap between all 
 this and all that which we had just left grew mo- 
 mentarily. But there was the tableau as if arranged 
 at the board by Teniers himself, and, like all good 
 pictures, carrying its own warning that all else 
 was subsidiary. lo could not very well help being 
 the focus of this group. My first impression of 
 her was distinct and peculiar enough to be defi- 
 nitely recalled. It was one of those cases, com- 
 mon enough, I think, in which it is recognition 
 that baffles you. lo I had certainly never met 
 before, indeed, had never heard of her, and 
 yet, the first time we looked at each other, I re- 
 membered her. Something in the beautiful face 
 was familiar. It was not outline, but an evasive 
 expression, an expression for which I can find no 
 other word than that of familiarity. I suppose 
 
 54
 
 WHERE IS TUSKALOO? 
 
 we all hold some qualities in common, and they 
 shake spiritual hands when they meet. 
 
 I thought afterward, in trying to recall where 
 I had seen anything like her, of a picture I had 
 once observed attentively in the old Vernon 
 Gallery in London. I believe it was by Copley, 
 and the immature stateliness and tenderness of 
 the white face, so simply framed in by soft brown 
 hair, seemed to me at the time to be strangely 
 fascinating. I have since looked at a print of that 
 picture, and it was not at all like lo, which only 
 shows how we carry an archetype in our minds, 
 and go about placing it on other persons' can- 
 vases, lo looked nineteen. I learned afterward 
 that she was much older. I felt sure, however, at 
 the very start, that she did not know exactly how 
 superior she was to the artistic eye. How could 
 she, in that place, where there were no artists or 
 flatterers to be always bothering her about the 
 curve of that white neck or the pose of that 
 head. 
 
 Have you not, now and then, met young 
 women who appeared to be ignorant of their 
 supreme endowment of personal charm ? You 
 reply impossible. If they are not born self- 
 conscious, they acquire self-consciousness from 
 the atmosphere they breathe. True, but I only 
 said appeared to be. Feminine charm is not 
 declaratory, only suggestive. 
 
 As for Polly, I understood at once that she 
 was indigenous. She and the Juniata came up 
 together. A round, vital, effervescent, domestic 
 
 55
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 soubrette, with a delightful snub nose on which 
 two or three freckles had lit, and a red, restless 
 mouth full of little white teeth, not made to bite, 
 but merely to accent volubility, like the high lights 
 in a clever oil painting. 
 
 To be made the principals in such a sextet, 
 written, one might say, by Lully, but played by 
 Liszt on a modern instrument, only seemed to 
 heighten the necromancy of our introduction. 
 
 The Doctor was superbly patriarchal at the 
 head of his table, without allowing his accumula- 
 tive years to obscure his imperishable youthful- 
 ness of spirit. He had slipped somehow from a 
 nankeen to a velvet jacket, and cast behind his 
 chair that colonial shadow of a servitor, in a white 
 apron and wrinkled, shad-bellied coat as straight 
 as self-respect and tradition could make him, and 
 holding his waiter against his breast as he rolled 
 up his eyes in patient decorum. 
 
 One felt at once that affection allowed the 
 Doctor's full, galloping candour many liberties 
 that would have been gruff but for the constant 
 declaration of his face that they were merely 
 temperamental extravagances. He informed us 
 promptly that he was additionally glad we had 
 come, for Polly's sake. Live men were necessary 
 occasionally, like cold baths, to dispel the im- 
 aginary men. He really believed that Polly had 
 begun to write poems to Boylston. 
 
 Whereupon Polly explained our host as a dear 
 old reminiscence, who would be an inestimable 
 uncle if he were not such a traditional doctor, and 
 
 56
 
 WHERE IS TUSKALOO? 
 
 did not insist on continually treating his family as 
 patients. " I never had a pulse in my life," said 
 Polly, " that his finger wasn't on it." 
 
 " My dear," said the Doctor, with splendid ami- 
 ability, " in old times we used to judge of a girl's 
 condition by looking at her tongue. We no 
 longer need to do that. We only have to listen 
 to it." 
 
 Even Polly laughed while she replied, " I never 
 wrote a poem in my life. I couldn't besides, 
 there is nobody here who would understand it." 
 
 " You did not need to," I observed, with what 
 I thought was the proper courtliness of such a 
 place, " you probably lived it, which was better." 
 
 Charlie and lo, who were directly opposite and 
 ridiculously proper in their fear of each other, 
 looked at me, I thought, with a little envy of my 
 age that could say such things, and so I pro- 
 ceeded. 
 
 " Doctor," I said, " we set out for the wilder- 
 ness, and have arrived at Mount Ida." 
 
 "Nonsense!" exclaimed, the Doctor. "Just 
 plain Tuskaloo and Indian. I suppose you 
 think you are on Mount Ida because you have 
 lo in front of you. It isn't Grecian. It's wild 
 western, and means that our goddess was born in 
 Iowa Cedar Rapids, wasn't it, my dear ? They 
 abbreviate everything out there except the girls 
 themselves." 
 
 " That's just it," I answered. " Charlie and I 
 set out to discover Arcady, and an Indian river 
 flirted ahead of us and seemed to call out, ' This 
 
 57
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 way, gentlemen, open your eyes and shut your 
 mouths.' It would have reminded us of an ac- 
 tress, if your river had called itself the Tiber or 
 the Rubicon." 
 
 Charlie gave me a quick, inquiring glance, but 
 I flatter myself I preserved an innocent aspect, 
 and Polly broke out : 
 
 " Tibers are yellow," she said, " and Rubicons 
 must be red. Fancy a river that is celebrated 
 because somebody crossed it who was it? I 
 tried to paint the Juniata because it is always blue, 
 and Uncle said I must get a multiscope. What 
 is a multiscope ? It sounds like a chorus." 
 
 " A multiscope, my dear," said the Doctor, " is 
 a new invention for adding motion to meaning. 
 They have to have even statuary on the jump in 
 the large cities. The Juniata," he added, address- 
 ing himself to me, " is the only river that in its 
 sources we have not annotated with canals. The 
 Susquehanna always reminds me of a Biblical com- 
 mentary with its marginal readings and footnotes. 
 The travellers follow the stream as does a Biblical 
 student, without touching it." 
 
 " When Uncle goes to Harrisburg," said Polly, 
 " he wants a canoe, and would sit in the end of it 
 wrapped in a blanket and rail at the world with a 
 paddle. And he can't paddle a bit. I've tried 
 him, and he upset me." 
 
 " So I never go to Harrisburg," replied the 
 Doctor, with unfaltering good humour. " I wait, 
 and if everything doesn't come to me at Tuska- 
 loo, I count it gain." 
 
 58
 
 WHERE IS TUSKALOO? 
 
 " My," observed Mother, as she pressed her 
 fingers to her mouth and gave way to a mild foot- 
 note herself, " I am sure we should not have 
 gained anything if our guests had not come." 
 
 " Oh, it's too early to judge," cried the Doctor. 
 " Wait till we see how Polly acts." 
 
 Then we all laughed heartily, including Polly. 
 
 Late that night, when Charlie and I were alone, 
 and had shut our defensive chamber doors on the 
 circumambient hospitality, he looked at me quite 
 seriously, and said : 
 
 " Did you know of these girls, Dad, before we 
 came ? " 
 
 " As I hope for mercy, Comrade,'* I said, with 
 unnecessary earnestness, " I never dreamed of 
 them, much less heard of them, till this evening." 
 
 That seemed to clear his mental atmosphere of 
 some kind of suspicion, and I added : 
 
 " I don't think any dream would have ap- 
 proached the reality, my boy do you?" 
 
 " Very charming, homelike ladies, I am sure," 
 he replied. " I wonder if there's a post-office in 
 Tuskaloo." 
 
 This kind of stubbornness aggravates a man of 
 fifty. " Confound your cucumber soul, my boy," 
 I exclaimed, " when I was your age I would 
 have burst into a blaze of enthusiasm if an lo had 
 crossed my path. Egad, sir, one did, and you're 
 a living proof of it. Why, sir, at such a meteor, 
 as Gray says : 
 
 E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, 
 E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires. 
 
 59
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 Go to. If I were as free as you are ahem 
 I'd have a throne built in my imagination in half 
 an hour for such a girl as that. Don't she remind 
 you a little of Madame Coldcream in her poise 
 of character ? Perhaps you couldn't study her as 
 well as I could." 
 
 The look of disgust that came into his face as 
 he turned away induced me to soften my strain. 
 
 " Anyway," I said, " you must understand that 
 it would be a blessed thing for our forlorn stock 
 if we got such an ideal as that into it. Yes, sir, 
 it's worth some self-sacrifice, and, by Jove, if I 
 were a free man, I'd make the sacrifice, for I am 
 not as blase in my feelings as you are." 
 
 He walked away, and mumbled something to 
 himself. I asked him what he was saying. 
 
 " I was only saying," he replied, as he saun- 
 tered out, " that if you look at it in that way, and 
 there's got to be a sacrifice made, why not offer 
 up Madame Coldcream ? " 
 
 Then he was gone. I went to bed, where I lay 
 for some time punching myself in my imaginary 
 ribs, and wondering whether my Prospero of a 
 Doctor had brought an Ariel or a Miranda to my 
 assistance. 
 
 60
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE ROSE BENCH 
 
 HE sun, coming up at a most un- 
 reasonable hour, poked a sharp 
 yellow shaft at me through the 
 rose vines, and seemed to be call- 
 ing my attention to the bird clam- 
 our under my window. The 
 curtains at the sash were waving indolently into 
 the room, sending heavy billows of incense at me. 
 I looked about me, and tried to recall just where 
 I was. For some time the reality of my environ- 
 ment appeared to be a part of a slowly receding 
 dream, and by the time I had reached the window 
 and had made out my bearings, I became pleas- 
 antly conscious that I had really awakened in a 
 new world. I listened. Nothing was stirring, 
 evidently, but the birds. I went to the adjoining 
 room softly. My heir and companion in intrigue 
 was sleeping soundly in a luxuriant sprawl, his 
 
 61
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 half-draped figure looking white and rather 
 graceful, I thought, in the dewy dusk of the 
 recess. 
 
 I dressed myself and slipped down the stairs 
 noiselessly. The house had the air of always 
 standing wide open. I walked through the hall 
 and out of the open door into the fresh morning, 
 saying to myself, somewhat exultingly, that the 
 man from the city was the early bird after all. I 
 looked at my watch. It was just five o'clock. 
 The sun for a week, I learned afterward, rose 
 through the Tuscarora Gorge, and gave that 
 special charm of dawn that makes the shadows 
 long and the wet fields prismatic. 
 
 I stood a moment in the gravelled path, a little 
 bewildered by the blazonry of the hour, trying to 
 adjust my faculties to the newness and freshness 
 of it, unconsciously taking deep breaths, as a 
 mammal might that is suddenly launched into an 
 unaccustomed atmosphere. 
 
 By degrees the sumptuous and intoxicating 
 beauty of it became intelligible, to my eye at least, 
 as I measured some of the details. The same 
 old artist was at work, I say " old " with some 
 hesitation, but surely those were not the old 
 pigments. Or does the Great Artist, always work- 
 ing with the same pigments, have moods like his 
 feeble imitator, and sometimes transfuse and 
 transform the materials with a new mastership of 
 affection ? 
 
 I took off my hat as if to let the cool, rose- 
 scented air come to the assistance of my brain, 
 
 62
 
 THE ROSE BENCH 
 
 and stood there, feeling that I was turning from a 
 bewildered artist to a reverent worshipper. 
 
 Thus it is, I said to myself, that the Master con- 
 tinues to plant gardens eastward in Eden, and a river 
 still goes out to water the garden and compasseth 
 the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 
 
 Having returned this borrowed tribute where 
 it belonged, I put my hat on, and was about to 
 stride aimlessly through the grass, when there 
 shall I say rose up, or descended, or merely 
 developed like a figure on a film? a thing in a 
 tucked-up petticoat and tilted chip hat, showing 
 Arcadian ankles in red stockings, dew-stained I 
 swear, and carrying a little basket on her arm, as 
 jauntily as if she had been picking airy pippins in 
 the garden of the Hesperides. 
 
 It was Polly. 
 
 I never knew dew and sunrise and ether and 
 bird songs to come together on their own account, 
 but out stepped a Polly like a melody when the 
 instrument and the Master were ready. Gener- 
 ally she is as impalpable and evanescent as the 
 filmies that flout themselves behind all sympho- 
 nies. But this time she was indubitable, dew- 
 bedraggled, making a shadow of her own, like a 
 French silhouette, on the wet June grass, which 
 I am sure a filmy never does, and holding down 
 two measurable spots in the clover with her little 
 buckled shoes. 
 
 " Bon jour, mademoiselle," I said, my polite- 
 ness and my astonishment going off together with 
 an impromptu French alacrity. 
 
 63
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 " My," she said, " I did not expect to meet 
 you so early ! I must look like a tramp. Have 
 you had your coffee ? " 
 
 " Coffee ? " I repeated with considerable disdain, 
 and making an absurd inflation as if a man of my 
 age could live on rose-scented air. " I have been 
 taking my Clicquot in a supernal bath, and I 
 fancy I got ahead of coffee this morning." 
 
 " How stupid not to have told you. You 
 came out the back way ! " 
 
 " I believe I did, if there is a back way." 
 
 " And the coffee is in the front hall. I will 
 walk round and show it to you. Then you will 
 know better next time." 
 
 " Delighted. Let me carry your basket." 
 
 " No. I will leave it at the kitchen as we go 
 round. I gathered them at the Swirl." 
 
 It was full of mushrooms. 
 
 Having deposited her basket at the kitchen 
 door, she led me to the front veranda, her little 
 heels clattering ahead of me, and inside the wide- 
 open hall door, on a small table, was a steaming 
 urn of coffee with a spirit lamp under it, and be- 
 side it a tray of cups, a sugar bowl, and a jug of 
 cream. 
 
 " Everybody comes out this way in the morn- 
 ing," she said, " and takes his coffee as he passes. 
 It is the Doctor's rule. You will have no excuse 
 for breaking it again." 
 
 Then she held a cup under the silver tap and 
 handed me the black product daintily, pointing as 
 she did so to the cream jug and the sugar ; and, 
 
 64
 
 THE ROSE BENCH 
 
 before I knew it, she had excused herself and 
 flitted up the broad staircase. 
 
 I stood there a moment stirring my coffee con- 
 templatively, wondering at the extra flavour of it, 
 and feeling rather proud of my early achievement, 
 when I saw the tray of abandoned cups with the 
 spoons in them, and it occurred to me for the 
 first time that the family had all preceded me, 
 and having passed the coffee ordeal, had gone on 
 somewhere silently into the mazes of outdoors. 
 
 As there was a box of perfecto cigars on the 
 table, with the lid invitingly open, I helped my- 
 self, and strolled out upon the front veranda; and 
 presently Polly, in dry shoes and stockings, the 
 stockings having undergone some kind of sea 
 change to a sober gray, came out, and catching 
 hold of my arm as I strode up and down, 
 promptly and unconcernedly kept step rhyth- 
 mically and colloquially. 
 
 " He has been up an hour," she said. " He 
 and Boylston went to Tuskaloo for the mail. 
 Where did Mr. Charles go ? " 
 
 " Go ? " I said. " He has no go in him at this 
 hour. He is fast asleep in his room." 
 
 " Dear me ! " she exclaimed. " Let's wake him 
 up. That's his window over the rose bench. We 
 can throw things up at him." 
 
 I pulled her arm a little closer through mine. 
 We were walking quite vigorously up and down 
 on the veranda, and there is some kind of luxury 
 in having a girl keep step with you buoyantly 
 while she hangs on to you. (So many of them
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 add a drag instead of wings.) Such a girl con- 
 verts a solo of motion into a duet of delight. 
 
 " Perhaps he is timid," I said, " and it would 
 not help matters if you made a demonstration." 
 
 " Yes," she replied ; " he is quite young, isn't 
 he?" 
 
 It is a curious feminine phenomenon that girls 
 regard all boys of their own age as being pecul- 
 iarly young. 
 
 " Besides," I said, " there is nothing to throw, 
 unless we take the bricks out of the foundation." 
 
 With that she drew her arm away, skipped off 
 the end of the veranda, and, pulling at the great 
 masses of roses that hung over the stone bench, 
 twisted the stems together deftly, making a clumsy 
 bouquet, and then dexterously shot it into the 
 upper window. 
 
 As I stood at the step, laughing at this exhibi- 
 tion of girlishness, she caught up another hand- 
 ful of the plentiful blooms, and just as she threw 
 it, Charlie appeared at the window in a bath robe, 
 pinned together over his breast by a live fist, and 
 received the morning message full in the face, 
 where, like a friendly bombshell, it burst into a 
 thousand leaves, that came fluttering and whirling 
 in a descending shower upon the rose bench, at 
 which the picturesque maiden executed a stage 
 courtesy, and cried out, in imitation of me : 
 
 " Bon jour, monsieur. Shall I have your 
 coffee sent up, with the cream of the morning on 
 it, or will you come down ? " 
 
 And Charlie, unable to grasp the true sportivc- 
 .66
 
 THE ROSE BENCH 
 
 ness of it at once, retired from view, wiping the 
 dew from his face without making reply. 
 
 This incident served to pave the way shall I 
 say with rose leaves ? to Polly's character, 
 though it is unjust to her to suppose that she so 
 intended it. I think one clings to such a delight- 
 ful indifference to the usual methods of establish- 
 ing an intimacy, and I was saying to myself, " Oh, 
 ho ! that's the kind of witch you are, is it ? " 
 when she flirted away the bank of petals on the 
 rose bench with her skirt, and beckoned me to 
 come and sit down beside her. 
 
 " I suppose," she said, " he will think I am a 
 dreadfully rude sort of person. Everybody does 
 at first." 
 
 " Excuse me," I replied, sitting down beside 
 her, " not everybody." 
 
 " What do you think ? You expected to meet 
 a lady, of course. I suppose it is a shame." 
 
 " What is ? " 
 
 " I am." 
 
 " Why do you wish to disagree with me at the 
 first jump ? " 
 
 " Tell me about him " (sticking her index 
 finger up at Charlie's window). " Did you bring 
 him down here, or did he bring you ? " 
 
 I confess that this incredible and instinctive 
 leap of the witch's apprehension startled me. I 
 looked at her with indulgent surprise, wondering 
 what kind of divination was lurking under that 
 chip hat and trim, round bodice. 
 
 "Why don't you tell me all about it? " she asked. 
 
 67
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 "My dear Polly " 
 
 " I wish you wouldn't call me Polly." 
 
 " What shall I call you ? " 
 
 " Call me Bob. Everybody here does. It 
 saves time." 
 
 " I cannot imagine who invented that atrocious 
 and ill-fitting name for you." 
 
 "Why, HE, of course." 
 
 "He?" 
 
 "The Doctor. He is HE. We couldn't be 
 calling him Doctor all the time." 
 
 "So my old friend has become a pronoun ! " 
 
 "HE used to call me Bobolink, then it got 
 shortened to Bob. It was very absurd, because, 
 as I told Him, if I was a real bobolink, you 
 couldn't keep me here in the winter. Guess 
 what HE said. Oh, yes, we could, Birdie in 
 a cage. How would you like to be kept in a 
 cage in winter ? " 
 
 " I fancy I might like it if it belonged to such 
 a HE." 
 
 " At first I retaliated and called lo Ike, but 
 somehow it wouldn't stick to her, though I am 
 sure Ike has a truer Greek ring than lo, hasn't 
 it? If one stops to think of lo, one wants to 
 add c sometimes W and Y.' What do people call 
 you, who are familiar ? ( Mister ' is dreadfully 
 clumsy." 
 
 " Nobody treated me with true familiarity till I 
 met you except Charlie, and he calls me Com- 
 rade sometimes." 
 
 " How perfectly childlike and lovely. It's 
 68
 
 THE ROSE BENCH 
 
 almost as endearing as ' Old Chap.' I suppose 
 you wouldn't care to have me call you * Old 
 Chap.' ' 
 
 " No, you couldn't get the right swagger. 
 Women never do. Now tell me, what made you 
 think that either of us brought the other ? " 
 
 When one asks this kind of a creature to tell him 
 what makes her think, he baffles her. She is not 
 yet quite sure that she does think at all. At all 
 events this young woman did not stop to think, 
 she went right along. 
 
 " It is so unusual," she said, " for young men 
 to stick to their fathers and keep their eyes on 
 them all the time." 
 
 " Oh, I assure you he will not be able to keep 
 his eyes on me all the time down here. I should 
 think you would know that." 
 
 " You felt that way about it, did you, before 
 you came ? " 
 
 Then we both looked at each other a moment 
 as if worldly wisdom and inscrutable ingenuous- 
 ness would like to shake hands, but did not know 
 how to go about it. 
 
 "HE is awfully transparent sometimes, but 
 HE doesn't know it, so HE cannot help letting 
 the cat out of the bag." 
 
 While I was trying to separate these metaphors 
 and pronouns, she rattled on : 
 
 "'Bob,' says HE, 'an old friend of mine is 
 coming here ; try and behave yourself. I have 
 special reasons for making it as pleasant as pos- 
 sible for him. He brings his son with him a
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 fine young man.' * Oh,' says I, is he the special 
 reason ? ' ( If you don't behave yourself/ says 
 HE, 'I'll pack you off while they are here.' 
 ' Then,' says I, l they will not stay.' f Confound 
 your impudence ! ' says HE. f Do you think 
 you are the special reason for everything that 
 takes place in this house ? I wish you to under- 
 stand that there is somebody else in this establish- 
 ment/ f Oh,' says I, c is SHE the special reason ? 
 Glory!' Then HE takes down the dog whip 
 from the mantel and begins to flourish it, and I 
 skip out to see him hanging it up again and 
 shaking all over with laughter. I do like a man 
 who can be brutally candid. You can, can't you ? 
 Is lo the special reason ? " 
 
 " Look here, Bob," said I, adapting myself to 
 her familiarity without the slightest effort, " you 
 have gone quite ahead of the facts with your 
 fervid fancy. Neither I nor Charlie knew of the 
 existence of lo till we got here. It is a humiliat- 
 ing confession, but I never even heard of you." 
 
 " I wonder why HE didn't tell you in ad- 
 vance." 
 
 " I don't believe HE saw the burning importance 
 of it." 
 
 " Do you ? " 
 
 " Well, I'm beginning to." 
 
 " Who is it important to ? " (sticking her finger 
 up in the air again). " I suppose you think 
 he is handsome, don't you ? " 
 
 " A father's opinion is of no account. What 
 do you think ? " 
 
 70
 
 THE ROSE BENCH 
 
 " Oh, I think he is so-so. But I don't cut 
 any ice. Why cannot men be simple and candid 
 when they cease to be so very young ? " 
 
 " I am not so very old, Bob," I protested. 
 
 " No, you don't seem to be as old as you must 
 be. You see, I was not sent off to Harrisburg 
 to be fitted with new dresses because you were 
 coming." 
 
 " That is a compliment ; you didn't need to 
 be." 
 
 "You mean that I was not a need of the 
 occasion." 
 
 " No, I don't mean anything of the kind. 
 There wasn't any special occasion." 
 
 "Then what did HE mean by c special rea- 
 sons ' ? " 
 
 "HE is an old chum of mine, and he wanted 
 to keep me as long as possible, I suppose. Do 
 you think that you are following his directions 
 now ? " 
 
 " I am trying to find out how to follow them." 
 
 By this time I was beginning to readjust my 
 opinion of Polly's intuition, and to suspect that 
 she had obtained a glimpse of my letter to the 
 Doctor. " Perhaps," I said, "HE only wanted 
 to warn you against your reckless curiosity. You 
 are trying to make yourself believe that we came 
 down here for a flirtation. Fancy running away 
 from a city full of women and such women 
 to get up a flirtation where there are only two 
 women." 
 
 " And such women," added Polly. " People
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 sometimes run away to avoid a flirtation, don't 
 they ? " 
 
 This was too much. She had certainly seen 
 my letter to the Doctor, so I said : 
 
 " Very well. Suppose it was true, how can 
 you help the matter by proving that we have 
 jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire ? " 
 
 And then this incorrigible minx, with her chip 
 hat nearly over one eye, looked at me without a 
 tremor and said : 
 
 " Tell me about the frying-pan." 
 
 I returned her look with what her confounded 
 divination must have seen was admiration, and 
 while I was considering if I should not make a 
 clean breast of it, she said : 
 
 " You are really a much meaner man at bottom 
 than you look to be one of those smiling men 
 who like to torment a girl by looking confidential, 
 and acting like a long-distance telephone." 
 
 " Bob," I said, " you are too old for your age, 
 and as I am altogether too young for mine, we are 
 going to have considerable trouble in adjusting 
 ourselves to each other." 
 
 This was an obvious evasion, and it was like 
 a worm talking sophistry to the woodpecker. 
 
 " Of course, you know that Charles, now that 
 he is here, will fall in love with lo," she said. 
 
 " Then I should have to take him away, for it 
 would be very indiscreet on his part." 
 
 At this she leaned over to look up into my 
 face, as if she had the power of peeping behind 
 my words. I could feel the pry of her bright 
 
 72
 
 THE ROSE BENCH 
 
 eyes. " Then you do take him away from places 
 when he is indiscreet, don't you ? " And then 
 suddenly she exclaimed : " Gracious me, you 
 must think I am an impertinent gossip. When 
 you and HE get your heads together, how my 
 ears will burn ! " 
 
 " Bob, I am quite willing to acknowledge that 
 you are a delightful little gossip," I said. " But 
 you must not conclude that everybody else is." 
 
 "Oh, you will sit here together; this is HIS 
 judgment seat, where HE smokes HIS pipe and 
 looks like Solomon and tries to talk like Carlyle, 
 and you will both tear me limb from limb. You will 
 say, f What kind of a girl is that Bob ? She tried 
 to make a confidant of me at the first clip, and, 
 by Jove ! ' you say c By Jove ! ' don't you ? 
 c by Jove ! I'll be hanged if she didn't come within 
 an ace of it, too ! ' And HE will say, * Oh, don't 
 bother with Bob we have other fish to fry. 
 Let her hop round and pick up a worm or two 
 and twitter. Twitter, my dear sir, is one of the 
 harmless embellishments of retirement.' ' 
 
 I listened to this vivacity with indulgent admira- 
 tion. Her heedless volubility and piquant sauci- 
 ness were suggestive truly of a bobolink. 
 
 " Yes," I said, like the boy who is having his 
 fortune told, " then what will I say ? " 
 
 " Oh, you will look a little tired, and say, 
 * Oh, Bob is all right, and, by Jove ! sir, if she 
 wasn't so confounded old, I'd make love to her 
 myself.' ' 
 
 At this point, as we were both looking into 
 
 73
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 each other's eyes, it was quite natural that we 
 should both tumble into a common laugh, just 
 as two streams coming from opposite directions 
 will fall over the same precipice. 
 
 This little attorney, I was saying to myself, 
 with her bill and her plumage, will make quick 
 work of my unsophisticated lad. There will not 
 be a family secret that she will not use as a perch 
 on which to twitter. - 
 
 Just then the Doctor's resonant voice broke 
 in upon us pleasantly as he drove up to the rear 
 entrance. 
 
 " I'll tell you what we will do," said Bob, 
 jumping up. " You and I will go off to the 
 Swirl as soon as we get our breakfast. You 
 must see the Swirl first of all, and I must show 
 it to you. Shall I ? " 
 
 " Must I see the Swirl ? " 
 
 " Certainly, and you must see it with me 
 before you and HE get your heads together." 
 
 " Agreed," I said helplessly, as I followed her 
 through the hall, to find Charlie a little apart at 
 the balustrade reading a tiny blue letter, and the 
 Doctor and Boylston unloading packages from the 
 vehicle. Bob rushed at Charlie impetuously, 
 with the one purpose, I am sure, of seeing how 
 he would act with the letter, and saluted him 
 apologetically. 
 
 " Good morrow, Mr. Charles. I was unpar- 
 donably rude at your window." 
 
 " It was nothing, I assure you," said my absurd 
 son, flushing up as if he felt the blow of the 
 
 74
 
 THE ROSE BENCH 
 
 roses anew, looking at me nervously, and ramming 
 the letter into his side pocket as if it were stolen 
 money. " I rather liked it, you know," he said. 
 
 " Yes, I might have put your eyes out." 
 
 " Here, Bob," cried the Doctor. "Take these 
 packages up to lo's room, and don't you untie 
 them until after breakfast." 
 
 " You see," he said, addressing himself to me, 
 as if an apology were necessary for his morning 
 jaunt, " these days are so precious that we piece 
 them out at the top with an extra hour or two of 
 coiffure. They are like those old dames who 
 used to make themselves longer with their head- 
 dresses." 
 
 As he was speaking lo appeared at the door, 
 with the family Mother behind her like a shadow, 
 holding a finger to her lip. Off went all the hats, 
 down to Boylston, as if the courtly hours with 
 their coiffures of dawn made ancient gallants of 
 us all. 
 
 " I must have overslept myself," said lo, 
 looking resplendently demure in her long morn- 
 ing wrap, as if she had broken a law of the es- 
 tablishment by not having her eyes open at 
 sunrise. 
 
 " You always do, my lady," said the Doctor, 
 whose gallantry relapsed at once into his custom- 
 ary hearty badinage. " I'm going to put a sunrise 
 gun under your window." 
 
 " Do you think it necessary, Uncle, when you 
 can come under it yourself? " asked lo, without 
 parting with her demureness. 
 
 75
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 There was a moment or two in which we ex- 
 changed prim morning compliments, rather stately 
 beside the conversation from which I had just 
 escaped, and then the Doctor drove us all in to 
 breakfast, sans ceremonie, but not before I had the 
 opportunity of admiring lo with some reference 
 to particulars. 
 
 I am afraid my appraisement may have been 
 somewhat unjust, as it was certainly inadequate ; 
 but it seemed to me, as I felt the morning im- 
 pression made by the handsome girl, that Nature, 
 in bending all its efforts to execute a chef d'ceuvre 
 of physical perfection, must have overlooked some 
 other essentials. Experience alone teaches a man 
 that these superb examples of femininity are 
 generally consummated at a sacrifice of some 
 internal qualities. Nature never tries to do two 
 things at once. If she sets out to make a be- 
 wilderingly lovely woman, she seems to forget 
 everything else, and her product is very apt to 
 forget everything else too. I found myself try- 
 ing to extricate my admiration by means of my 
 reason. What is it such external perfection lacks ? 
 It must lack something or it would not be human ; 
 for Nature, that succeeds in making paragons, 
 never accomplishes miracles. 
 
 lo's eyebrows were especially coercive. They 
 were insistent parabolas that were like the signa- 
 ture of the great artists, a finishing flourish of 
 completeness, as if the last curve in the picture 
 should be a summary of all the others occult 
 Oriental arches sprung over mysterious chambers, 
 
 76
 
 THE ROSE BENCH 
 
 that turn out to be all labyrinths, hard to interpret, 
 and from which it is impossible to escape. 
 
 I noticed that she dropped the lids at my scru- 
 tiny, as if I were an archaeologist who was familiar 
 with the Sanscrit of beauty, and might read into 
 the hieroglyphs their true meaning, to discover 
 that this madonna face was the ever recurring 
 illusion. 
 
 But, bless her soul, imbedded as it was in so 
 much perfection of form and colour, I was think- 
 ing of my good fortune in having met with some- 
 thing that would bring my young prodigal's 
 sensibilities back to the natural path. If I had 
 possessed the true Oriental magic, I might have 
 called into existence, for my own fatherly pur- 
 poses, something of this kind, with just that soft 
 brown hair, always restrained a little this side of 
 revelry, and that mild, wondering, receptive look 
 of bottomless eyes, and that half-luminous white- 
 ness of neck and face. I might not have accom- 
 plished the eyebrows, for they, I acknowledged, 
 were beyond magic ; but here it was, all made to 
 order, put up in dainty habiliments, and saying, 
 " Here I am ; you conjured me with your talis- 
 manic imagination what will you do with me ? " 
 
 All this was palpable fate. lo had looked it. 
 Charlie and I had plunged toward it, as dull iron 
 plunges to a magnet. Polly had perceived it with 
 a bobolink's instinct, just as a bird perceives the 
 approach of the inevitable spring before it is in 
 sight. 
 
 So I exulted secretly, as a fond, conniving father 
 
 77
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 might, saying to himself: " So, so, my boy, your 
 city hallucination will dog us to the edge of Eden 
 with blue letters, will she ? You refuse to burn 
 your bridges behind you, do you ? All right, my 
 young master. Now that I have Aladdin's lamp, 
 we shall see, you handsome and overweening 
 young idiot ! " 
 
 A father who has reason and foresight and affec- 
 tion on his side never feels quite confident until 
 eyebrows come to his assistance. 
 
 I leave out the Doctor's exordium on breakfasts 
 in general, and my own vivid remembrance of 
 that breakfast in particular. I believe he said 
 something about the meal needing a portico of 
 approach, with white Hours, like the ambulatory 
 of a classic temple. One must come up the steps 
 in the morning to a breakfast, with a bevy of the 
 Appetites in attendance, as if going to a festival 
 with obedient nymphs. 
 
 He always would make these Icarian flights 
 how well I remembered them of old ! But I 
 noticed that his jolly household held it to be a 
 duty to melt his wings with indulgent indifference. 
 Mother was always deliciously malapropos, and 
 on this occasion wanted to know if the omelette 
 was just right, and lo, beautifully recreant to her 
 Athenian origin, spoke of Johnny-cake ; and my 
 restrained son remarked, with what I thought was 
 an inspiration of imbecility, that Johnny-cake must 
 be a souvenir of the Civil War were not the South- 
 erners called Johnnies ? Whereupon Polly put 
 the finishing touch on this episode by saying : 
 
 78
 
 THE ROSE BENCH 
 
 " That is so ; and the Northern soldiers clutched 
 after the cakes so voraciously that they were 
 called ' Yanks.' ' 
 
 At which everybody laughed except Mother 
 and lo, one of whom was not nimble enough to 
 follow Polly's impertinence, and the other of whom 
 did not include hearty laughs in her stately reper- 
 tory. But the Doctor descended gracefully to his 
 familiar level : 
 
 " You shall enjoy yourselves this morning in 
 your own way. There are horses if your city 
 bones are not too brittle ; and if they are, there 
 are vehicles. You shall expend your exuberance 
 in flying nowhither joyously. I shall leave you 
 to the tender mercies of these women, and may 
 Heaven have pity on your souls, for I must look 
 after the men in the fields until eleven o'clock." 
 
 " We have made our programme," said Polly. 
 " We go to the Swirl." 
 
 " We ? " they all said in polyphonic chorus. 
 
 " Yes, we. Eh, Comrade ? " 
 
 " Polly," said Mother, " try and restrain your 
 familiarity. Our guests do not yet understand 
 you." 
 
 " Oh, don't mind Bob," said the Doctor. " Our 
 guests will have other fish to fry. Bob's all right." 
 
 " What did I tell you ? " said Polly, in my ear. 
 
 " Bob," I whispered, bending down to let 
 everybody see just how familiar we were, "you 
 are a witch. Whatever you say, I'll swear to." 
 
 79
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SWIRL 
 
 O Polly and I went out together 
 into the morning. 
 
 The dewy brightness of it 
 seemed to obliterate the distance 
 that years had placed between us. 
 She put her little hand in mine 
 on the stones in the wet meadow, saying that she 
 would lead me, for she knew them all. And so, 
 through brambly ways, noisy with the early birds 
 that lent their trillets to every spray and bending 
 sweet flag, we climbed the banks and waded 
 through the blooms into aisles of old trees, ver- 
 nally groined and fretted by the early architect of 
 sunrise, and suddenly stood on the edge of the 
 Swirl. 
 
 Once, in that unpremeditated walk, we came 
 upon a rug woven of star mosses and cryptoga- 
 mous threads in Persian brightness, and spread in 
 
 80
 
 THE SWIRL 
 
 cushiony pile round a tulip tree that canopied it 
 with protective sprawl, and I turned to look back 
 at the American chateau, poking its dormers and 
 chimneys out of the near green perspective, and 
 tipped here and there, like a Damascus kiosk, with 
 the glittering old gold of the morning. 
 
 In that glancing retrospect I must have given 
 way to the necromancy of it impotently. There 
 lay the fairy mansion, softly wrapped in the illu- 
 sion of the hour, wholly out of the world of work- 
 a-day stress, and having passed its portals and 
 seen the sleeping beauty, I felt like the tired 
 worker who throws himself upon a couch and 
 gives way to the sweet beguilement of his own 
 fancy. 
 
 From this nepenthe of the senses I was whisked 
 back by Polly under the tulip tree, holding her 
 skirt deftly lifted, her buckled shoes almost hid 
 in the cushiony rug. 
 
 " This was certainly laid to be danced on," she 
 said. " I never come here myself without feeling 
 its appeal to my toes." 
 
 And with that she began to pirouette, her gray 
 stockings twinkling over the green moss, as you 
 may have seen a pair of butterflies flit and flutter 
 across an everglade. 
 
 While I was indulgently regarding this pic- 
 turesque impulse, gone off like a cadenza in the 
 middle of a duet, she caught me by the hand and 
 pulled me upon the enchanted tapestry, saying, 
 " You must remember some steps of a gavotte. 
 It goes like this, doesn't it?" 
 
 81
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 Whereupon she began to whistle some kind of 
 a quaint improvised air, stepping out with inimi- 
 table mock courtesy and I handing her about 
 with an impromptu ceremoniousness, that, now I 
 think of it, was very absurd. 
 
 These wayward moments are lapses into a 
 primitive and healthy spontaneity, and I suppose 
 all men experience at some time the delicious 
 youthful retrocession, when they let go of them- 
 selves, and sit at the feet of Scheherezade hours. 
 The filaments that lead us are very fine. A coup- 
 let, a stave of fugitive music, an act of the roman- 
 tic play, a wandering odour, a confidential fairy in 
 a chip hat and buckled shoes and away we go 
 from the beaten track, into the old labyrinths, 
 sunny and tangled, where at some time we 
 sported with a divine listlessness. 
 
 It is no use trying to outgrow the souvenirs of 
 the heart. They are not hung like fading pictures 
 on the walls of our memory. They are imbedded 
 like fossils in the crystal tissues of our lives, and 
 they come to light at the touch of passing show- 
 ers or the disintegrating finger of time itself. But 
 we never think of this till afterward, when the 
 witch light has gone out, and the stark facts of 
 existence look at us from the shelves where we 
 have arranged them. 
 
 Such an improvised picture as Polly had made 
 was as fluctuant as the images on a running stream. 
 She could be Bayadere or Maintenon only in 
 flashes, and to whistle was to start from every 
 pensile branch about us a new tumult of shrill 
 
 82
 
 THE SWIRL 
 
 protest, that made her strike an attitude of frolic- 
 some astonishment and put her hand over her 
 mouth as if she had tumbled inadvertently in 
 among all the strings of the outdoor instrument. 
 We both drew ourselves up into laughing statues, 
 and then went on to the Swirl. 
 
 By this time Polly had prepared my indolence 
 to accept any illusion at her sportive beck. 
 She had but to crook her arm or toss her head, 
 and it should be Helicon or the Fountain of 
 Youth. It is so comfortable to give over your 
 volition and be wafted by Caprice. 
 
 But no perennial river of song in Macedonia 
 or in the mirage that beckoned to Ponce de 
 Leon could, I feel sure, so outleap the fancies 
 with affluent reality as did the Juniata at the 
 Swirl. Of all the capers of the protean stream 
 none could be so whelmingly sleek and copious 
 as this. It came sinuously through slanting 
 meadows, roistering over stones, to a great deep 
 pool, and then, pouring over the ledge that could 
 not restrain it, turned in a short curve and came 
 smoothly and silently down to us in a great, glassy, 
 sherry-brown volume, scarcely broken by a ripple 
 and flecked only by spots of foam, holding its 
 breath, as one might say, as it slid between the 
 limestone sluiceway to break out exulting in the 
 wider pool below with sudden and pleasant glee. 
 A little distance up the bank, at the first pool, 
 there was a summer house, pagoda-fashioned, so 
 close to the water that its lattices were duplicated 
 below ; and when I expressed some surprise at
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 finding it so conveniently poised over the still 
 waters, not unlike a heron with its wings folded, 
 Polly informed me that it was a bath-house, and 
 I learned that the nymphs, here partly disrobed, 
 and flinging themselves into the little lake, went 
 unresistingly over the spillway into the sliding 
 stream, and down the sluice, to be tossed into the 
 foam below, where, I could easily imagine, there 
 would be much flashing of white limbs in " dolphin 
 tumults " mingled with blithe laughter. 
 
 It was there at the Swirl that I began the 
 most extraordinary flirtation of my life. Extraor- 
 dinary in that it was divested of all the dangers 
 that usually accompany such a performance. 
 Polly seemed bent on presenting to me her 
 volatile nature in its entirety, and managing with 
 rare unconsciousness to identify it with the as- 
 pects of vernal nature around her. But I felt 
 the protection of a certain incongruity in it, 
 and thought there was no more danger of my 
 falling in love with her at my age than of falling 
 into the Juniata upon whose grassy banks we sat 
 and discoursed, and had either accident happened, 
 I should probably have regained my footing, and, 
 after shaking myself as became an experienced 
 man of the world, would have gone back from 
 the episode to my tramway of propriety. But, 
 nevertheless, I was wheedled into a pleasant admira- 
 tion of the unceremonious and ingenuous girl, 
 that may have been as aesthetic as it is possible 
 for one's emotions to become without quite ar- 
 riving at the voluptuous. 
 
 84
 
 THE SWIRL 
 
 We sat there on the step of the rustic pagoda, 
 and as she chattered aimlessly but interestingly, 
 I wondered if the charm of sprightliness and 
 guilelessness would make the same appeal to an 
 inexperienced young man that it did to me. 
 
 One gives way supinely to an authority of 
 graciousness, especially when it is sportive. This 
 minx had had her own way without protest. My 
 own plans, whatever they were, had somehow 
 been softly superseded. I had promised myself 
 a confidential consultation with the Doctor, and 
 there I was whipped off at the start most aimlessly, 
 sitting on the bank with new and unexpected 
 confidences opening to me, as my companion 
 threw buttercups into the stream to see them 
 glide away like receding spots of sunshine. 
 
 But why should I hesitate to declare that the 
 way of a man of fifty with a maid differs widely 
 from the way of a man of nineteen. It is gen- 
 erally held by the world (and universally acted 
 upon by the maids themselves, I believe) that the 
 man of fifty is altogether more susceptible ; and, 
 while I am not prepared to deny it, I shall insist 
 to my latest breath that the man of fifty keeps 
 one eye open on his own susceptibility, which the 
 man of nineteen never does. 
 
 What, I asked myself, in a running aside, as I 
 watched the buttercups one after the other go the 
 same way and lose themselves in the voiceless 
 torrent, what is the way of a maid with a man 
 of fifty ? Why should she make it apparent that 
 she had gone out of her way to touch my suscep- 
 
 8s '
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 tibilities ? Why should she insist on going off 
 with me before I was fairly domiciled, and danc- 
 ing a gavotte with me before the dew was off. 
 Were there no beds to make or rooms to be 
 aired ? Was it part of the understood policy of 
 the establishment to beguile the fathers who had 
 sons, so that the Princess would be undisturbed 
 in her fascinating ? 
 
 I think Polly had an instinctive sense that a 
 man of my age was liable to consider, for she had 
 a way of darting in and out of the conversation as 
 if she wished to prevent it, and even a man of 
 fifty, thus warned, feels that it is somewhat im- 
 pertinent to consider, very much, in fact, it 
 appears at such times, like analyzing a woman's 
 dress. 
 
 " Well," she said suddenly, " we are not going 
 to sit here all the morning, are we ? " 
 
 I think she felt that she was better protected 
 when she was in motion. So up she jumps with 
 a pretty little impatience. 
 
 " There's the neighbourhood, you know. Aren't 
 you interested in the place ? " 
 
 "Are there then really neighbours ? " I asked. 
 
 " Heaps," she replied, following it with a quick 
 look as if she might have inadvertently dropped 
 a clew of patois. 
 
 " I mean lots," she added. 
 
 " Lots ? " I repeated, trying to fix the word to 
 its proper geographical origin. 
 
 " Well, piles." 
 
 And having heaped each absurd colloquialism 
 86
 
 THE SWIRL 
 
 on the other, she fell to laughing at my inability 
 to sort them. 
 
 " I suppose," she said, " you thought we kept 
 neighbours off with acres. I suppose the Doctor 
 did intend to, but it doesn't work. When I first 
 came here I felt just as you do. I used to look 
 out my window in the morning and scream for 
 Boylston to come and do something human, and 
 he often came and performed on the hoe or a 
 wheelbarrow just to relieve my mind. So much 
 Nature was like those hideous hoop-skirts the 
 women used to wear, it kept everybody at arms' 
 length. But, dear me, I soon found out what a 
 goose I was. There are neighbours hiding in all 
 the woods and hills. Over near the Clove there's 
 the Big Game Hunting Club from New York. 
 Up on the slope of the Black Log spur there's 
 the Juniata Valley Camp. Then there's the Phila- 
 delphia Trout Club's house on the Sprawl. Are 
 you good at walking? because, if you are, I'm going 
 to ask you to climb the side of the Clove some 
 day with me, just to smell the rose fields in Perry 
 County when the wind is sou'-sou'east. You'd 
 think there wasn't a man within gunshot, wouldn't 
 you I mean an eligible man." 
 
 " Yes, I was falling into that pleasing fantasy 
 or perhaps it was a hope that the country produced 
 nothing but girls. It would certainly be more 
 consistent on the part of the country." 
 
 She slipped her arm into mine, and as we 
 walked along the bank of the stream imparted a 
 secret. 
 
 87
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 " I'll tell you something mysterious," she said, 
 " if you will promise not to mention it." 
 
 " On my sacred word and honour," I replied. 
 
 " lo has the power of conjuring men out of 
 the earth. It's the funniest thing you ever saw. 
 When we go off for a gallop together along the 
 Tuskaloo Pike, they rise out of the ground in 
 knickerbockers and slip out of the woods in hunt- 
 ing jackets, and come tearing along on horseback 
 with their hats in their hands. I have tried it 
 alone in all kinds of ribbons, and whistled and 
 yodled, but not a man turned up. Why, some- 
 times there are so many horses hitched at our 
 fence that people must think there's a vendue." 
 
 Then my Mistress Caprice fell to laughing, and 
 having renewed her breath by that operation, went 
 on : 
 
 " When the Keystone State Trout Club built 
 their bungalow they made the Doctor honorary 
 member, and when the big game fellows had their 
 park and club-house finished, they met lo on the 
 road one day, and then they stopped fishing and 
 put in a grand piano and a harp and mandolins 
 and things, and then wanted the Doctor to become 
 one of the directors, and sent a deputation in fine 
 clothes to wait on him and ask him if he had any- 
 body who knew anything about pianos. Now, 
 if there is anything the Doctor hates, it's sport. 
 He hates it almost as much as he does subterfuge." 
 
 " What did the Doctor say to the disinterested 
 request ? " 
 
 "He just said, * Tush, tush, boys/ and went
 
 THE SWIRL 
 
 on smoking his brier-wood pipe. Don't you want 
 to smoke? Gentlemen usually do when they walk, 
 and they seem to be more at ease when they do." 
 
 " That is heaven's truth, Bob, but I came off 
 without my cigar case." 
 
 " Wait a moment. I took one of the cigars as 
 I came out of the hall. I suppose I've smashed 
 it all to smithereens. No. Here it is," produc- 
 ing the article from a little pocket, along with a 
 square pad of handkerchief, two or three curl 
 papers, and some half-melted peppermints. 
 
 " Of course you haven't a match. Let me light 
 it." 
 
 " Wait a moment," I said, " till I get the pepper- 
 mint off." 
 
 And then up went one buckled shoe, a little 
 detonation on the sole of it, and she was holding 
 the match to the cigar in my mouth, while I made 
 stertorous efforts to do my part, and noticed what 
 a pretty little hand she had, and how daintily her 
 little finger stood out like the curlicue at the end 
 of a girl's signature. 
 
 " Now you feel more comfortable, don't you ? " 
 
 " Bob," I said, " if you don't supervise it too 
 much, my comfort will just amble along disinterest- 
 edly like yours." 
 
 At that she drew in her under lip quickly and 
 looked up. She was trying to catch the exact 
 import of my remark, and drew her arm away, 
 saying : 
 
 " I'm too familiar on short acquaintance. I 
 know it, and it isn't becoming." 
 
 89
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 "On the contrary, it is one of the several delight- 
 ful things that I admire in you," I said, replacing 
 her arm. " I especially like a girl who knows 
 how to whistle a gavotte. I'll wager she is old- 
 fashioned enough to say her prayers and eat rasp- 
 berry jam on bread, and sing Auber and Donizetti 
 without a shrink. Do you know, your familiarity 
 puts me in mind of sweetbriar in an antique vase. 
 It always seems to be trying to get out and can't." 
 
 " Usually it is so tedious, when one is making 
 the first visit, to get to be sociable," she remarked. 
 " It's like going to hear a brilliant preacher and 
 have to undergo a tedious service first. You sing 
 standing up, and then you sing sitting down, and 
 then somebody offers you part of his hymn-book, 
 and you hold fast to it and keep your mouth shut 
 for fear he will smell the peppermint." 
 
 " Well, Bob," I said with a laugh, " I have to 
 thank you for coming at the sermon directly. 
 Hav'n't you noticed how completely I have 
 avoided the bashfulness and awkwardness that 
 usually make men of my age so formal and stiff? " 
 
 " You wouldn't like to run me a race to those 
 hayricks, would you, just for the fun of it ? " 
 
 " No," I said, after considering the proposi- 
 tion. " If some of the field hands or sportsmen 
 should see me chasing you, they might shoot me 
 before the situation was explained." 
 
 It must have been an hour or two later when 
 we came suddenly upon the little river again, now 
 brawling with shallow merriment over a sandy 
 bar, between green, sloping banks, dotted here and 
 
 90
 
 THE SWIRL 
 
 there on the other side with sleek, sleepy cows that 
 regarded us with an almost cultivated superiority. 
 Across the dry meadow and in among the alders 
 and gums there glinted the white clapboards of a 
 house. Polly was suddenly seized with an irre- 
 pressible desire to be on the other side. She was 
 sure lo and Charlie, if they had gone off for a 
 gallop, would stop at the Lodge, as she called it. 
 
 " Dear me," she said, " why didn't we cross at 
 the bridge two miles below, and come up on the 
 other side ? Would you mind wading over ? I 
 don't think anything of it. It isn't over one's 
 ankles. Of course it's perfectly ridiculous men 
 at your age don't wade." 
 
 I listened to this challenge with such mature 
 bravado as I could summon. Had I been young, 
 and not yet beyond the habitual idiocy of wading 
 and climbing and sprinting with no conceivable 
 purpose, I should no doubt have disdainfully 
 laughed at her proposal as an altogether superflu- 
 ous test of acknowledged hardihood. But a man 
 at my age has to reckon with a mature vanity that 
 cannot be trifled with, and be ready to authenticate 
 his perennial youth and brawn at the slightest 
 provocation. 
 
 " Bob," I said, " why should we both wade, 
 when I can carry you over ? " 
 
 Such a self-confident assertion I felt sure would 
 quench her recklessness effectually. To my sur- 
 prise she said promptly : 
 
 "Will you?" 
 
 I sat down on the grass and began untying my 
 
 91
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 heavy shoes, and getting my trousers rolled up. 
 " I certainly will," I said, " unless you escape 
 me." 
 
 She was poised on one foot not ten feet away, 
 in involuntary suspense between flight and aston- 
 ishment a fine feminine astonishment that any- 
 body could have the hardihood to take her at her 
 word. 
 
 " I'm heavier than you think," she said. 
 
 " Perhaps," I replied, with grim complacency, 
 as I looked at my stockinged feet. " But I am 
 stronger than you imagine." 
 
 She was a gamey girl, after all. She let me 
 pick her up in my two arms, and I walked into 
 the water, carrying her nurse fashion, her little 
 buckled shoes hanging down pendulously. The 
 stretch of shallows was only thirty-five or forty 
 feet wide, a clear, sandy reach, with a ten or 
 twelve inch film of sweet water racing over it ; and 
 if I did not step into a hole, or run a flint through 
 my foot, I would deposit my burden on the oppo- 
 site bank as triumphantly indifferent as if my life 
 had been in training for it. But before I was 
 half-way across I became aware that my burden 
 was quite a hundred and thirty-five pounds avoir- 
 dupois, and I was wondering to myself where 
 these airy creatures hide all their solidity, when 
 she said : 
 
 " What do you suppose people would think if 
 they saw you carrying me about the country in 
 this fashion ? " 
 
 "If you don't keep still," I panted, "I'll drop 
 92
 
 THE SWIRL 
 
 you in the middle of the stream. This is getting 
 serious." 
 
 And at that her free arm went round my neck, 
 rather tightly I thought. 
 
 " You can't," she cried. " I'm going to hang 
 on to you like grim death. Heavens wait a 
 moment." 
 
 " What's the matter ? " 
 
 " You are not a Baptist preacher, are you ? " 
 
 " No ; but I will be if you don't keep still." 
 
 " I am trying to make myself light." 
 
 " That's all right. But when I am trying to 
 get you over one shallow stream, it isn't fair to add 
 another. Besides, you are choking me." 
 
 " What do you suppose Charlie would say," 
 she continued, " and I haven't known you twenty- 
 four hours. Don't you think you had better take 
 me back again ? it's becoming awfully scandalous." 
 
 Then she gurgled, or perhaps it was the water 
 running through my ankles. I did not at the 
 moment stop to investigate it closely. There 
 were ten feet more of wading to do, and, as I 
 stepped out for the bank, Charlie and lo rode 
 soberly out of the trees, and drew up in very 
 allowable astonishment at the spectacle. 
 
 lo's first impression was that Polly was drowned, 
 and that I was dragging her ashore like a retriever, 
 so the beauty gave a shrill gasp ; but when I had 
 set my burden down on the bank, it jumped to 
 its feet and declared that it was as dry as the 
 Doctor's best wine, to which I could only add 
 exultingly, " and just as full of life." 
 
 93
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 This was literally true, and all the more obvious 
 just at that moment, for the reason that the two 
 equestrians were doing the dismally formal and ex- 
 emplary polite, as if in mortal dread of each other, 
 while I had just had Polly's arm around my neck. 
 
 When my entirely proper son had somewhat 
 recovered from the astonishment that the parental 
 bare legs had occasioned, he slipped off his horse, 
 and pulling me aside, said : 
 
 " Look here, Dad, for a man that lays some 
 claim to gout, isn't this rather foolhardy business ? 
 I don't want you to die on my hands down here." 
 
 " Don't be a fastidious ninny," I said, " but 
 ride over there and bring my shoes across. Mean- 
 while I'll go and dance in that warm grass, and 
 dry myself. Come on, Bob, how does that ga- 
 votte go ? " 
 
 The charm of such a girl as Polly is that you 
 never have to explain anything, much less excuse 
 anything ; and I now recall the picture of Charlie 
 standing by the mounted lo, with one hand on 
 the saddle and the other holding my shoes, as 
 he and his companion looked pensively over to 
 the hot clover, where Polly and I were trying 
 to execute a wild minuet, she whistling like a 
 meadow thrush. 
 
 If age has its tender retrospects, why deny to 
 youth and hot blood its tender perspectives, and 
 the privilege of saying to itself, " Oh, for the far- 
 away times when we can be old and gay without 
 bothering, and the skies will be bluer than they 
 ever were before." 
 
 94
 
 THE SWIRL 
 
 
 
 It was evident enough that lo looked upon the 
 performance with much less concern than did 
 Charlie. She sat her horse with the constant 
 responsibility of being carved to do it. A sus- 
 picion stole over me then for the first time that 
 for her to be deeply interested in anything would 
 disturb her beauty. 
 
 They both watched us a few moments with 
 indulgent composure, and then Polly told them 
 that they need not wait we were going on to 
 the Lodge. She even added that we might be 
 back to dinner if nothing happened. They rode 
 away with much dignity, Charlie looking back 
 several times as if there were some doubts in his 
 mind as to who had the best of it. 
 
 After that incident Polly and I were on a new 
 footing of intimacy. I suppose that this kind of 
 acquaintanceship has its first kiss, like young love, 
 and then things get along with a tacit understand- 
 ing. We went to the Lodge, so called on account 
 of the wigwam that had preceded it in colonial 
 history. There we obtained bowls of yellow milk 
 with chunks of apple pie in it, for tiffin, and, sit- 
 ting on a wooden bench, Polly and I ate our 
 lunch as children do porridge, that is, with the 
 savage zest of hunger, and she said : 
 
 " I know what you are thinking about. You 
 are pitying the man who will have to carry me 
 for keeps." 
 
 " Now you mention it," I replied, " it will be 
 a task if you always want to get on the other side 
 of things. I fancy the man who undertakes it 
 
 95
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 will be like that devotee who is always singing, 
 ' There is one wide river to cross.' ' 
 
 " Oh, that's the Jordan. It wouldn't be such 
 a bugaboo if there were men like you about to 
 carry folks over. I suppose you think I am a 
 very disagreeable person by this time." 
 
 " I haven't quite made up my mind. And yet, 
 I feel quite confident that you are not such a 
 difficult person to carry." 
 
 " But I am not so light as you thought me." 
 
 " Oh, a mere featherweight to a man of reso- 
 lution, and then your conversation always relieves 
 your specific gravity." 
 
 " Oh, I can be serious and painful and mean 
 like other people. You don't know me. I hope 
 you don't think I would act so recklessly with a 
 young man." 
 
 " My dear," I said, " you are over confident. 
 You never can tell from appearances just how 
 young a man is. Some men conceal their youth 
 till they come to a river." 
 
 " Don't say that. Somehow I thought that 
 you were a man with whom it wasn't necessary 
 to be careful and laced up, and it was such a 
 luxury to meet a man who was without any perils, 
 who could eat milk and pie as you do. Wait 
 a moment, and I will get you a napkin." 
 
 Dear little midge, she vanished a moment, 
 came back with a towel that she tucked into my 
 shirt front, and then stood off to look at it as if it 
 were a study in still life, and clapped her hands, 
 and said :
 
 THE SWIRL 
 
 " You ought to have somebody to keep an eye 
 on you all the time fancy a man dropping 
 milk on his coat like that, when he is talking 
 earnestly." 
 
 " To have an eye on you " and such an eye 
 is, I suppose, one of the vain ideals of a mature 
 life. And if the eye isn't literally on you all 
 the time, to feel that it is somewhere in the im- 
 mediate vicinity, liable to light on you suddenly 
 and straighten out things, must be one of the 
 premonitions of dotage. I wonder if it is. 
 
 The world is basely ignorant of the noble 
 virtues of dotage. It mistakes the last develop- 
 ment of sensibility for sentimentalism and over- 
 grown selfishness. But the first shoots of the 
 grandfather instinct in a man are quite as beauti- 
 ful in their way as are the first shoots of maternity 
 in a woman, and altogether less selfish. The 
 next time you get the chance, watch the old man 
 with his first grandchild, and compare his tender 
 solicitude and wholly disinterested self-sacrifice 
 with his earlier parental conduct, when he was 
 presented with a child of his own. I think you 
 will recall his airs of proprietorship and seventy 
 of fatherhood as something preposterous and over- 
 weening by the side of his later gentleness and 
 love for what is another's. 
 
 But to return to our milk and pie. 
 
 " Bob," I said, wiping my mouth with the end 
 of the towel, " you are a jolly good girl, and 
 whenever you find a man strong enough to carry 
 you over without complaining, I want to be on 
 
 97
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 the bank and dance a gavotte with you before 
 you get your arm round his neck for keeps." 
 
 " That's very nice," she exclaimed, " and I'd 
 be pretty sure to get the other arm around your 
 neck. But you mean marriage, and I am the 
 traditional church mouse and must work for my 
 living. Nobody will want to carry me around." 
 
 " You speak as if working for your living were 
 a disgrace." 
 
 " Yes, I have found that some persons think 
 so. I didn't know it before." 
 
 " They must be very narrow and bigoted per- 
 sons. All labour is worthy in the worthy worker." 
 
 " It's awfully good of you to say that. It 
 sounds so fatherly. I'll try and remember it. 
 There comes Boylston with a team." 
 
 " Do you suppose he is coming for us ? " 
 
 " Sure. Charlie did not know what would 
 happen to you if he left you alone with me too 
 long." 
 
 " He is right," I said, as I got up. " I don't 
 know myself."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE SECESSION OF POLLY 
 
 O be privileged guests in the house 
 of a loved friend is the surest eman- 
 cipation we can ever enjoy in this 
 life from the innumerable burdens 
 of life itself. Nothing comes so 
 near to shuffling off the mortal 
 coils and cares, without abandoning the senses. 
 
 The world of duty is just now praising the nobility 
 of service, and very rightly too. But to some of 
 us, now and then, there come times when the ser- 
 vice stops for a while and we are served. These 
 are the spots in our worrying lives where we rest, 
 and say to ourselves with transient delight, " Are 
 they not all ministering spirits ? " 
 
 The Doctor's spacious establishment, so majes- 
 tically curtained from the world by Nature herself, 
 seemed to have been put at our disposal. He had 
 drawn the mountains round about him and sat 
 
 99
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 down to pleasant dreams. But there were no 
 secrets about it, no privacies, and, best of all, no 
 mysteries, unless we brought them with us. The 
 broad hospitality of the place, like the smiling 
 candour of his handsome old face, had the continual 
 air of open arms, and seemed to be saying, " Do 
 as you please. It will be entirely safe, only don't 
 bother." 
 
 I sat in his spacious library one night, shortly 
 after our arrival. The doors were shut and the 
 windows were open. He had stretched himself 
 on a lounge. We could hear the softened voices 
 of youth at the other end of the house singing 
 some of the old war songs, and the notes of the 
 piano tinkled in between. We were farther away 
 from their thoughts than the length of the house. 
 
 " So your solitary scion is beginning to worry 
 you," said the Doctor. 
 
 " No, no," I said. " I have not lost any sleep. 
 He has amused me by falling into the inevitable 
 nonsense of immaturity. If I did not feel able to 
 pull him out, I should ask you for a sedative." 
 
 " Let's come at it directly," said the Doctor. 
 " That's the best way, seeing that you have asked 
 my advice. You are anxious to marry him off 
 with your prudence, instead of letting him marry 
 himself off with his impulses. In other words, you 
 have come to be a damned old match-making 
 dotard, and cannot let things take their course." 
 
 " Oh, pardon me, you are heaping too much dis- 
 tinction on me, to say nothing of expletives." 
 
 " Distinction ? Great Scott, don't flatter your- 
 
 IOO
 
 THE SECESSION OF POLLY 
 
 self. I am getting to be the same sort of a dotard 
 myself. It is one of the discouragements of life, 
 that when you give over worrying about marrying 
 yourself, you must begin to worry about getting 
 other people married. You have a nuisance, I 
 speak physiologically, that has to be abated by 
 natural means. So have I. Yours is masculine, 
 or will be in time. Mine is feminine, which, so 
 far as responsibility goes, is a distinction without 
 a difference. Perhaps if we could consolidate the 
 two idiocies, they might have strength enough 
 between them to walk off and relieve us both." 
 
 " Are you speaking of lo ? " I asked, with gen- 
 uine surprise. 
 
 " I'll tell you," he said. " I have clung tena- 
 ciously all my life to the theory that these things 
 regulate themselves much better than we can regu- 
 late them. Now, I have arrived at a point of 
 dotage where I must abandon my theory and 
 begin to do a little regulating myself. That girl 
 is part of the estate. My sister there is respon- 
 sible for her. That is to say, the original respon- 
 sibility was hers, and she bore it with the usual 
 feminine ignorance of consequences. When this 
 thousand acres fell to her from her husband, she 
 became a little involved, naturally enough for a 
 woman whose kindly disposition was better able 
 to manage aches than acres, and, as you probably 
 know, when I was ready to retire, I pulled her 
 out by buying a half-interest and taking the whole 
 tract on my shoulders. You see, her half-interest 
 will go to the girl, and as neither I nor my sister 
 
 101
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 can reasonably expect to keep up this jog trot 
 many more years, and I have put in about twenty- 
 five thousand dollars, I am naturally a little anx- 
 ious to see the concern fall into hands that will 
 carry out my plans." 
 
 " And have you any misgivings as to Miss lo's 
 desire or ability to go on with your work. She 
 appears to be a young woman of much character 
 and promise." 
 
 " Now, see here ; lo is an estimable blossom, 
 as girls go, but I do not have to tell you that a 
 woman of her make-up isn't built to have her own 
 way, even if by any possibility a way should be 
 prepared for her. Her mission in life is to attract 
 a stronger will than her own, and then submit to 
 it. Ordinarily this would be none of my busi- 
 ness, but as she is a residuary legatee, I find I am 
 becoming, on business principles, an infernal old 
 match-maker myself." 
 
 " Yes, I see. May I ask if there are any indi- 
 cations that the legatee is thinking of bringing a 
 partner into the concern ? " 
 
 The Doctor, who had been lying at full length, sat 
 up and, resting his fore arms on his knees, leaned 
 toward me with a new and confidential earnestness, 
 at the same time softening the tones of his voice. 
 
 " lo," said he, " is a fine girl, as the phrase 
 goes, but she has no initiative and no resisting 
 power. Some day the executive will, disguised in 
 sentiment, will turn up and inform her what her 
 destiny is, and she will accept it as gospel truth 
 without any guarantee." 
 
 102
 
 THE SECESSION OF POLLY 
 
 " And you are desirous of preventing it ? " 
 
 "Preventing it? Heavenly smoke, man, do 
 you suppose that I am such a condign booby as 
 that ? I want to bring it on. You never fight a 
 prairie fire with water." 
 
 " Ah, no," I said. " You light another fire." 
 
 " Well, it has just occurred to me, that as you 
 and I are both threatened in our camps, we 
 might " 
 
 " Light two fires," I said. 
 
 " I am not going into the incendiary business 
 directly, but as we both have the inflammable 
 material, I was thinking that if it came together 
 there might be some spontaneous combustion." 
 
 I began to laugh. " I see you understand my 
 case better than I suspected," I said. 
 
 " Oh, yours is a common case enough," he 
 replied. " But try and understand mine. In the 
 first place, the camps must be consumed at some 
 time, that's inevitable. It is simply a question 
 of directing the conflagration, and not having any 
 more smoke and ashes than is necessary. I don't 
 say this is pleasant or commendable business for 
 men of our age. But if we haven't any old women 
 about capable of doing it for us, heavenly smoke, 
 man, I suppose we must try our hands at it." 
 
 " Are you sure there is anything to do ? Judg- 
 ing from appearances, we ought to be delightfully 
 superfluous." 
 
 " Pardon me a moment," he said, " if I clear 
 up matters. I haven't told you what I am doing 
 here." 
 
 103
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 " My dear Doctor," I said, " it wasn't necessary. 
 You are doing what no other man that I know of 
 ever succeeded in doing. You have kept your 
 ideals of peace and rest till the decline of life, and 
 then let them realize themselves." 
 
 " Pickles and persimmons. You talk as if I 
 had got myself into a hermetically sealed casket. 
 I retired on ten thousand a year in secure four 
 per cents. There's nothing very ideal about that. 
 My ten thousand a year disappears here regularly 
 to help other people. But a man cannot guaran- 
 tee his work after his hand is removed." 
 
 I expressed some surprise, and he added, " I 
 am without other kith or kin, as the old phrase 
 goes, than the two women in this house, and, 
 without the least disparagement of either of them, 
 I don't suppose they are any more fit to carry 
 on the work I have been doing here than I am 
 to make faith cures. I have been all my life 
 working for other people, and I'm running this 
 place for other people." 
 
 " Does it make you happy ? " 
 
 " It makes seven families comfortable, and, 
 rightly viewed, that ought to make me happy, I sup- 
 pose. I'll take you over the place and show you." 
 
 " It is truly philanthropic." 
 
 " Truly moonshine. There's no philanthropy 
 in making other people work, and supplying the 
 shortage, and doing the scolding. Still, if that 
 boy of yours should by any possibility get warmed 
 up, down here, to a practical view of things, it 
 might be providential." 
 
 104
 
 THE SECESSION OF POLLY 
 
 " Why providential ? " 
 
 " Providential because he will have ten thou- 
 sand a year to pour in when I have got through, 
 and thus prevent some unknown quantity from 
 undoing my work. I suppose you have seen 
 enough to satisfy you that the heiress will not 
 die an old maid." 
 
 " Doctor," I said, " you have omitted any 
 mention of the other girl in your establishment." 
 
 " Oh, the other girl is an incident. I am 
 talking about the fixtures of the estate. The 
 other girl doesn't count." 
 
 At that moment the voices came to us from 
 the parlour, woven into some old trio. We both 
 listened. Something of the characters of the 
 three personages was suggested in the tones. 
 There was a rich accenting contralto heard in 
 a voluptuous undercurrent, some uneven dabs of 
 tenor, a little uncertain, and over all a clear, un- 
 fettered soprano, dominating with pitch and volu- 
 bility, running along, in fact as if challenging the 
 other parts to catch up with it, and ending in a 
 roulade of laughter. 
 
 I looked at the Doctor. He was not affected 
 in a similar manner, for he said: 
 
 " You see it was only fair to tell you what had 
 occurred to my mind." 
 
 " I think I understand you," I said, " and I 
 see no reason why we should not contemplate 
 the progress of events conjointly. Suppose you 
 tell me about the unknown quantity." 
 
 " We have some neighbours," he replied, " who 
 105
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 are landed proprietors, and others who make 
 flying trips down here in the summer in search 
 of sport ; but as they are my guests at various 
 times, I guess I will leave you to use your own 
 eyes and judgment." 
 
 At that moment Polly pushed the door open 
 with her foot, and came in, bearing a tray upon 
 which were a bowl of nuts, a bottle of sherry, and 
 wineglasses. 
 
 " I suppose," she said, " you were beginning 
 to wonder why I hadn't interrupted you before." 
 
 "You?" said the Doctor, who had evidently 
 not finished his confidences. " Put that down on 
 the table, and go and get me a small box of light 
 Havanas that is on my dressing-case." 
 
 She tossed her head rather saucily. 
 
 " I will send your servant, sahib," she said, 
 turning to make a flying exit. 
 
 But he got an arm about her and gave her a 
 little hug, which I thought he might have omitted 
 in my presence. 
 
 " Bob can stand smoke like a squaw," he said, 
 " but she resents my orders. Great Caesar, girl, 
 if I didn't have you to explode against, you un- 
 mitigable little snipe, I'd be worse than wet gun- 
 powder. Now go and fetch the small box like 
 a good girl, and you shall crack the nuts for us, 
 and we'll drink your blessed health, which is 
 getting to be a terrible burden to everybody but 
 me, you incorrigible, stuck-up banshee re- 
 member, the small box." 
 
 She gave me one glance as she disappeared. 
 1 06
 
 THE SECESSION OF POLLY 
 
 It was singularly legible, and it said: "You 
 see how the Mogul all went out of him at the 
 slightest resistance. Talk about wet gunpowder." 
 
 The Doctor relapsed at once into the theme 
 which Polly had disturbed without dislodging. 
 
 " Old man," he said, and " old man " was his 
 favourite term of confidence, " old man, neither 
 you nor I at our age can go into the match-mak- 
 ing business, but it seems to me the depth of 
 hoary imbecility for one man to be going about 
 with an interrogation in his keeping, and the 
 other man guarding the answer to it, and both of 
 them looking askance at each other." 
 
 Our heads had come pretty close together, and 
 our voices had sunk to undertones. When 
 Polly came in with the box of cigars, I think we 
 both straightened up a little as if caught una- 
 wares. 
 
 " Gracious," she said, " I ought to have 
 knocked." 
 
 " What are they doing out there in the parlour ? " 
 asked the Doctor. 
 
 She looked sidewise out the door, as if it were 
 necessary to ascertain. 
 
 " They are together, turning over a pile of old 
 music." 
 
 " Yes," said the Doctor, " it's pretty old stuff, 
 I suppose." 
 
 " I guess so," said Polly ; " but it answers its 
 purpose just as well as new." 
 
 "Very well, don't disturb them," said the 
 Doctor, prying open the cigar box with a paper- 
 
 107
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 knife. " You serve our wine. What did you 
 bring that pony glass for ? " 
 
 " You said you were going to drink my health, 
 and I supposed I would have to be in it mod- 
 estly." 
 
 " So you shall," coming down at once to a 
 familiar courtliness. " Here's to your dauntless 
 vitality. As it couldn't be worse, may it never 
 be less. You were born to defy all doctors in 
 general, and one Doctor in particular." 
 
 Whereupon he drank off his sherry with a fine 
 old-fashioned smack, and the minx at the table, 
 looking through her tiny glass with one eye, 
 said : 
 
 " I seem to be drinking to my own misfortunes, 
 but I go you." Whereupon she sipped the wine 
 and made a face. 
 
 " Now sit down and suppress yourself," said 
 the Doctor, " and we'll let you into the private 
 council. I have just been telling my old friend 
 here that there are no secrets in this house. Do 
 you understand ? He is a privileged guest. He 
 is to have whatever he takes a fancy to. If he 
 wants the key of the wine-cellar, it must be taken 
 up to his room. If he should take a notion to 
 marry the young lady of the house, not a word 
 must be said." 
 
 " Not even by the young lady herself? " asked 
 Polly, with genuine surprise. 
 
 " Well, you see, she isn't as anxious to say 
 things as you are, my dear," continued the Doctor. 
 " My friend here is a good deal like myself; he 
 
 108
 
 THE SECESSION OF POLLY 
 
 takes great pride in his dignity and decorum as 
 a father, and insists on all the small proprieties " 
 
 " Oh, come now," I interrupted, seeing that the 
 young lady was making some ironical comments 
 on this speech with her eyebrows and the corners 
 of her mouth, " you are putting me in a false 
 light; yes, you are Bob and I understood each 
 other at the first jump. Confound the small 
 proprieties where everything is on so large a 
 scale." 
 
 " Tush, tush, old man. I never could keep 
 more than one eye on Bob, but now that you 
 are here, she ought to see that there are two on 
 her. When you understand him better, my 
 dear," he said, turning to Polly, " you will see 
 that he doesn't do things rashly like young men." 
 
 " You mean," said Polly, " that he doesn't wade 
 in at the first invitation." 
 
 I laughed boisterously, but the Doctor regarded 
 her seriously. 
 
 " ' Wade in,' my child ?" he said. " If there is 
 anything that my friend dislikes, it is slang, and 
 especially New York slang." 
 
 " Doctor," I said, making one of those plunges 
 that divert, if they do not relieve, one's conscience, 
 " did Polly come from New York ? " 
 
 " Where she came from," he replied, " does 
 not appear to me at this moment to be so exigent 
 as the where she is driving at, if you will pardon 
 that form of speech." 
 
 " Let me ask you one other question ; did you 
 show her that letter I wrote you ? " 
 
 109
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 The Doctor took his cigar from his mouth and 
 looked at me in undisguised astonishment. 
 
 But Polly got ahead of him. " The Doctor," 
 she said, " is not in the habit of showing his private 
 letters, and what is more to the point, nobody in 
 the house would read one if he left it open on the 
 table." 
 
 That this was jumping behind my question to 
 the real import of it, my cheek must have betrayed 
 to her. But I admired her sudden assumption 
 of dignity even more than I had admired her 
 badinage. 
 
 " My dear girl," I said, "you told me that you 
 could be mean if you tried. It wasn't necessary 
 to prove it by thinking me capable of such a 
 suspicion." 
 
 I thought this embodied enough of compliment 
 and apology to turn away the wrath of the baggage, 
 but, when I looked at her, she had her head up, 
 her under lip was drawn in, and there was a scintil- 
 lant drop in the corner of her eye, as I live. 
 
 The Doctor was lying back, rolling out a per- 
 fectly disinterested column of smoke. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Polly, " I wish you good 
 night." 
 
 And out she marched like a vivandiere. 
 
 " You are not as old as I am," said the Doctor, 
 contemplating the ceiling. 
 
 " No," I said, " I appear to be young enough 
 to have made what we call in New York a bad 
 break. I must have offended her. Wait a 
 moment. I'll ask her pardon and bring her back." 
 
 no
 
 THE SECESSION OF POLLY 
 
 Whereupon I started in pursuit of her. But I 
 could not catch her. I ran up the stairs, saw a 
 flash of white skirt as a door was opened and shut 
 quickly, and fancied I heard the click of a key. 
 
 " It is very ridiculous," I said to myself, as I 
 came slowly back, " to be jumping about in this 
 juvenile fashion after that petticoat. Confound 
 her elusive airs, what am I thinking about ? " When 
 I had reseated myself, the Doctor, still contem- 
 plating the ceiling, said : 
 
 " Let me see, how old are you, anyway ? " 
 
 " I suppose I did act like a boy." 
 
 " More like a trout when he sees a glittering 
 fly," observed the Doctor. " I should suppose 
 that you had learned by this time that nothing 
 hurts a young woman so much as to discover that 
 she is not the one who is going to be married off." 
 
 " Then she must have known what we were 
 talking about." 
 
 " My dear fellow, if there is anything in this 
 house that Bob doesn't know all about, you can 
 makeup your mind it isn't worth knowing." 
 
 Then he dismissed the subject peremptorily. 
 
 Several days passed in this uneventful manner, 
 the Doctor carrying me into all the byways of his 
 domain, and pointing out with admirable patience 
 the multitudinous details of the estate, which I saw 
 with much the same pleasure that one experiences 
 in looking at a vast piece of machinery that does its 
 prodigious work noiselessly. How smooth and 
 systematic and unobtrusively the great farm and 
 the great park came together without the observer 
 
 in
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 being able to tell where one melted into the other, 
 making of thrift and luxury a rare marriage of con- 
 tent ! As for the Doctor, he was like the master 
 of the machine, who stands by to keep his eye on 
 the gearing and bearings, only adding a drop of 
 oil here and there, and all the hard work is done 
 easily and continuously under the steady gaze of 
 intelligence. 
 
 In the afternoons what drowsy, fragrant after- 
 noons they were I was left to my siesta, or 
 allowed to read in the Doctor's well-stocked 
 library, where the sun came in broken and danc- 
 ing lights through the rose vines, and sometimes 
 I could hear, over the drone of the bees, the mur- 
 mur of voices on the rose bench, and knew that 
 Charlie and lo were weaving their own spell, so I 
 was content. 
 
 Into the slumbrous restfulness of the place came 
 lo's admirers, with pleasant disturbance. I could 
 see them from the window, ride up and make their 
 courtly obeisance on the big veranda, gallant fel- 
 lows enough, in corduroy breeches and gay sporting 
 coats, with large exuberant carelessness, mingling 
 formal politeness with freedom of demeanour, and 
 acting altogether like city men who have left met- 
 ropolitan restraints behind. It was plain that they 
 were tolerated by the Doctor's generous hospitality, 
 and that they made the most of it, without penetrat- 
 ing very deep into his domesticity or drawing him 
 familiarly into their group. They regarded our 
 menage with good-natured familiarity, but it was 
 evident enough that there was only one real object 
 
 112
 
 THE SECESSION OF POLLY 
 
 of interest in the place. One of these summer 
 neighbours had been introduced to me as Mr. Ber- 
 wick Fancher, and his personality outranked the 
 others in quantity rather than in quality. There 
 was so much more of him. He knew my sister, 
 Mrs. Dewey, very well ; was glad to meet a city 
 man so far away from his base ; how did I fill in 
 the time ; if it grew heavy, hoped I would come 
 up to the club house ; there were some extra flies 
 and rods there, and a rack of good fowling-pieces ; 
 and then he stalked off as if he had exhausted the 
 polite repertoire. It required a constant exercise 
 of one's self-conscious dignity to withstand this 
 magnificent impact of health and egotism. Mr. 
 Fancher's heartiness was entirely dynamic, and was 
 probably not intended to be supercilious, but over- 
 weening physical health sometimes manages to be 
 both. His broad shoulders, square face, massive 
 jaw, heavy, jet-black whiskers, and handsome, 
 sparkling brown eye, made an ensemble of virility 
 that overrode everything. I think sensibility 
 invariably shrank a little at his personal momen- 
 tum, for there was an irresistible puissance in his 
 vibrant bass voice and his sinewy step. That it 
 was lo who attracted him to our otherwise un- 
 attractive group, he took no pains to conceal. 
 
 This young man's father had more than once 
 flitted across my view at the Club. I remembered 
 that Major Downs held him in great estimation, 
 as in fact did a very large circle of men, for no 
 other apparent reason than that he was able to buy 
 them all up. As to how the elder Fancher made 
 
 "3
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 his money, proper form never permitted us to in- 
 quire. If that matter was discussed at all, it was 
 discussed among the dowagers whose social bait 
 the son had refused to nibble. It was very certain 
 that the son had fallen into the worst of all human 
 habits, which is the habit of obtaining all that one 
 desires. Perhaps my passing interest in him 
 sprang from a parental pride in my own offspring, 
 and I will not deny that I had a little anxiety, if 
 not resentment, at the self-complacent manner in 
 which obstreperous health planted both its feet 
 into a demesne that the Doctor and I had staked 
 out between us. 
 
 I was walking on the big porch one morning 
 just after breakfast, wondering what had become of 
 Polly, and expecting every moment that she would 
 flutter out of the hall lightly, and, catching me by 
 the arm, again add buoyancy and intimacy to my 
 exercise, when Mr. Fancher arrived, quite spectacu- 
 larly, on a splendid black animal, accompanied by 
 a mounted groom who led an extra horse. He 
 came up to the porch in fine style. He had 
 changed his jaunty white corduroy jacket for a 
 Prince Albert coat and wore a silk hat. His 
 salutation to me was not lacking in politeness, 
 but I thought it was tinged with a slight air of 
 supererogation. "Miss lo," he said, " promised 
 to try this Morgan horse. We are going to take 
 a five-mile dash. A capital morning for a run, 
 eh?" 
 
 Then he ignored me entirely in the inspection 
 of the animal, so that I continued my walk with 
 
 114
 
 THE SECESSION OF POLLY 
 
 a half-conscious duty to let him see that his 
 arrangements were of no especial interest to me. 
 But I could not help wondering if lo lo with 
 those drooping lids would not accept this man's 
 coercive masculinity as irresistible. I had seen 
 such women before. Their weight of loveliness 
 destroyed their resistance. I slipped away to the 
 library, and watched her come out in a riding habit 
 and wait for Boylston to bring her side-saddle. 
 She was animated and flushed, and I remarked 
 that Mr. Fancher was not restrained by any idola- 
 trous delicacy. As the little cavalcade rode away, 
 Charlie came up just in time to see them issue 
 at the gate into the highway. If he had a spark 
 of his father's enthusiasm, he must have admired 
 the beauty with such a mount, as she galloped 
 out of sight. He leaned against one of the pil- 
 lars of the veranda, gazing after her, and if you 
 will pardon that kind of dotage which in a jbarent 
 is not the result of age, I must acknowledge that 
 he for the moment appeared somewhat inadequate 
 to the situation. How, I asked myself, was that 
 slender and sensitive youth, who had never been 
 allowed to put one foot beyond the limits of a 
 delicate noblesse oblige, to grapple with this lusty 
 Lochinvar who would ride up and carry off the 
 maiden under his eyes by sheer strength and 
 audacity. It seemed to me at that moment that 
 Charlie looked smaller than usual as he stood 
 there, limply enough, up against the possibilities. 
 Perhaps every fond father does not go through 
 this experience, but how many mothers do; and 
 
 "5
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 had I not for years been playing the dual role in 
 watching over and possibly exaggerating him ? 
 But I lacked a woman's power of magnifying her 
 own. 
 
 I would have given a great deal if I could have 
 told by Charlie's pensive attitude if he was think- 
 ing of the beauty who had galloped away, or of 
 that girl in New York. There was a keen little 
 reproach in the reflection that I might have set 
 a trap for him only to see him uselessly caught 
 and mangled. If he had already been smitten by 
 this beauty, and Heaven knows no man could 
 blame him for that, how was I to assist him ? 
 I had always come to his rescue promptly. Must 
 I stand by now and pity him ? The Doctor was 
 averse to intrigues, at least he pretended that in 
 such matters it was safe to let the best man win. 
 There was nobody in the establishment that a 
 doting father could confide in. 
 
 Bless my soul, yes, there was, there was 
 Polly. What quick work her nimble wit would 
 make of that overbearing masculinity. What 
 finesse, what intuition, what quick discernment, 
 and Polly had almost precipitated herself at me. 
 What aid and comfort that little diplomatist might 
 be to a well, to a doting person. 
 
 I got up and strode out again upon the 
 porch. 
 
 "Halloo, my boy," I cried, "what's the 
 matter ? " 
 
 " Matter," he said, " with me ? " 
 
 " Yes, you look lonesome." 
 116
 
 THE SECESSION OF POLLY 
 
 " More than usual ? " he asked. 
 
 " What's become of Miss Polly ? " 
 
 "Miss Polly, why, I understand that she's 
 gone." 
 
 " Gone ? " I almost gasped. " Gone where ? " 
 
 He turned away, but I got in front of him. 
 
 " How do you know she has gone ? " I asked. 
 
 " I heard it mentioned. I supposed you knew 
 it." 
 
 " What did she go for ? " 
 
 " Perhaps there wasn't any adequate reason for 
 her staying." 
 
 There was something like evasion in his man- 
 ner and answers, and I did not like it. 
 
 " Look here, Comrade," I said, " if you have 
 done anything or said anything to drive that girl 
 away, hang me if I don't hunt her up and make 
 an apology." 
 
 This conversation was broken into by the 
 appearance of " Mother," who came out smil- 
 ingly, with her two fingers on her mouth. I came 
 at her directly. " Madame," I said, " what has 
 become of Polly ? " 
 
 The dear old lady had her eyes on the high- 
 way, and I could see that her mind was there 
 also. Polly was of little account to her at that 
 moment. 
 
 "Miss Polly," she said, "has gone to her 
 cousin's over at the Lodge. We never can tell 
 just what that young lady will do next." 
 
 " Delightful," I said, " she is liable to come 
 back at any moment." 
 
 117
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 " Well, I don't know She sent for her 
 trunk last night, and the Doctor refused to let it 
 go. It wasn't very nice of her to go off in that 
 manner when she knew I had company. She's 
 as independent as if she was hired." 
 
 It did not become me to take advantage of 
 this kind old lady's garrulity to gratify my curios- 
 ity, but I could not help venturing to remark 
 that I hoped the Doctor would hold fast to her 
 trunk, for it would be a pity to lose sight entirely 
 of such a sprightly young woman. 
 
 " Yes, she is sprightly enough," said the Mother. 
 " There's nothing the matter with her sprightli- 
 ness, I'm sure she keeps us all on the twitter; 
 but girls will be girls, you know, or they wouldn't 
 have a chance to kiss and make up." 
 
 I was not disposed to agree with her final de- 
 cision. Some girls, I was inclined to think, must 
 be witches, but as we were obviously not thinking 
 of the same girl, I moved my chair around so 
 that I could see the beauty and her cavalier re- 
 enter the gate on their return, merely remarking 
 that the young ladies were so much attached to 
 each other that I should think Miss lo would 
 miss Polly. 
 
 " Yes, I guess she knows that we miss her. 
 The Doctor said this morning that a breakfast 
 without Polly was like trying to shave with cold 
 water." 
 
 While we sat there our equestrians returned. 
 They came in at the gate with much more pag- 
 eantry than they were aware of, and the old lady 
 
 118
 
 THE SECESSION OF POLLY 
 
 fairly beamed with admiration. As soon as lo was 
 dismounted, her cavalier, with a sweep of his hat, 
 put spurs to his horse and he and his groom went 
 thundering off. It was like a page of Froissart. 
 The first thing that Miss lo said as she mounted 
 the steps was, " Has Polly come back ? " 
 
 It thus became evident to me that the whole 
 household wanted Polly back again, and I made 
 up my mind that I would find Charlie, who had 
 wandered off somewhere, and then see if we could 
 find the house called the Lodge, and, if possible, 
 bring her back. In my search for Charlie, I ran 
 upon the Doctor in the trees, and told him frankly 
 what I intended to do. To my surprise he said : 
 " Very good. I will go with you. I want to 
 give her a piece of my mind. If you feel like it, 
 we will walk there. It is only a couple of miles." 
 
 119
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE CAPITULATION OF POLLY 
 
 HE Doctor and I strode along 
 across his fields in the full glare 
 of that summer day, heralded by 
 innumerable birds and bannered 
 by blossoming trees. The aspect 
 of the country was one of whelm- 
 ing life and beauty, softened by infinite varieties 
 of colour, and prophetic of an orderly opulence 
 that seemed to be the expression of an undis- 
 turbed divine plan. It was impossible not to feel 
 the gentle stress of Nature, everywhere luxuriat- 
 ing in the early stages of its exultation. The 
 lanes were snowed deep in blossoms, the air was 
 heavy with the incense of a thousand censers. It 
 was that auspicious moment when, as the poet 
 has said, " the earth is in tune," and out of her 
 myriad mysteries came only the harmonies that 
 intoxicate the sense. 
 
 1 20
 
 THE CAPITULATION OF POLLY 
 
 The Doctor, who instinctively knew what I 
 was thinking about, fitted himself into it with a 
 ready gusto. 
 
 " The real charm of this country," he said, 
 " has not changed much for half a century. The 
 sturdy men who came here from Scotland and the 
 north of Ireland left most of the distressing influ- 
 ences behind them. They came from bleak hills 
 and storm-swept moors into a land flowing with 
 milk and honey, where the roses sprang up over 
 night and the grasses of the field stretched for- 
 ward millions of hands to meet them. The 
 whole belt of this country, from the mountains 
 eastward across the great terraces to the sea, 
 slopes away in an intermediate zone of quiet 
 luxuriance. On one side races the torrent of 
 Northern enterprise, magnificent, clamorous, in- 
 satiable ; on the other side stretches the exhausted 
 domains of an outlived condition, waiting for new 
 life. This is the splendid mean between the 
 aggressive destructiveness and the patriarchal in- 
 dolence of man. Here he seems to have lost 
 everything but the primitive thrift and content, 
 and walks in the footsteps of his fathers with a 
 homely industry." 
 
 Having delivered himself of this characteristic 
 speech, the Doctor stopped in the lane and 
 pointed very much as Abraham might have 
 done to the outlying meadows, through which 
 a bit of blue ribbon ran its watery way, and upon 
 which the dainty mistress of the season had shirred 
 her wild parterres with feminine device. It was 
 
 121
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 not that, however, to which he directed my at- 
 tention, but to the Southdown mutton moving 
 lazily across the slopes, and looking at that dis- 
 tance like the aphides on a succulent leaf. Sil- 
 houetted on the crown of the rise, against the 
 purple bastions of a far-off mountain, sat the 
 shepherd and his collies, like black dots on 
 the rim of it all. The pastoral perspective was 
 like an opening into ancient days. The soft 
 south wind swept over the stretches, rippling the 
 fields and puffing lazily a few white clouds that 
 sailed into the northeast. No doubt the Doctor 
 saw that my fancy was leaping ahead of the facts, 
 and for that profligacy he always had a leash of 
 practical sense, though he was not always able to 
 adjust it to my evasive faculties. I believe his 
 remarks made, on this occasion, reference to 
 pounds of fleece and heads of fadings, with a 
 quiet observation about the easy flux of vegetable 
 into animal life, if you did not interfere violently 
 with it. But when he drew me down to the 
 stark market rates, and told me that he would cut 
 a hundred and fifty tons of hay, worth two thou- 
 sand dollars in the market, and began to figure on 
 the small profits, I, who must have been breath- 
 ing in a little of the illimitable, and thinking of a 
 shepherdess in her buckled shoes dancing over 
 those slopes, rather resented his sordid disturbance 
 of my atmosphere, and told him that the result by 
 barn measurement did not appear to my financial 
 mind to be exultingly remunerative. 
 
 " That is because you look at it through your 
 122
 
 THE CAPITULATION OF POLLY 
 
 infernal Wall Street spectacles," he said. " Look 
 at it through my unaided eyes just for a moment. 
 I haven't taken to glasses yet." 
 
 "Seen through your eyes," I asked, "is the 
 sum total changed ? " 
 
 " Absolutely. Metamorphosed sublimated 
 from mere connivance to comfort ; from insatiate 
 grasping and grubbing to a kind of ethereal 
 guardianship. You do not apprehend the spir- 
 itual side of it." 
 
 " Spiritual side of what, wool and mutton 
 and grass ? " 
 
 " Not exactly. The spiritual side of my deal- 
 ing in them at all, without any barn measure- 
 ments. The spirituality of it resides in the fact 
 that I get so precious little out of it." 
 
 " That's it," I said ; " the spiritual assets of 
 your husbandry are not computable. If I were 
 to give way to your agriculture of the air, I 
 might try to reap some of your rhapsodies, but I 
 should probably fail for want of your harvesting 
 fancy." 
 
 " Then you think that I reap nothing but 
 fancies ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, philosophy. But you would reap 
 that in the top of a New York apartment house. 
 I shall agree with you and share your enjoyment 
 so long as you do not try to list your assets as 
 available resources." 
 
 " Yes," he said reflectively, " my scheme must 
 appear that way to you, and is not an industrial 
 one." 
 
 123
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 " Better," I said. " As you put it, it seems to 
 me to be a religious scheme." 
 
 He laughed heartily. "Try and understand 
 me," he said. " I have been beguiled into it, not 
 by a promoter, but by the cajolement of the thing 
 itself. So great has been its influence that I have 
 given up working for myself and taken to work- 
 ing for other people. You have no idea what a 
 relief it is. Instead of pulling the other fellows 
 down in a strictly business or industrial manner, 
 I stoop a little so that the other fellows can climb 
 up a little higher on my shoulders. I am carry- 
 ing seven families on my back." 
 
 " But you do not stoop any." 
 
 " No. I stand pretty straight to it, do I not ? 
 I learned, when I was in England, that the whole 
 art of being a successful landed proprietor is not 
 to depend on your land, but to make it depend 
 on you. Nothing is more un-American and 
 effete and delightful. It is a lesson that I 
 learned from the land itself, and I think any one 
 can learn it when he isn't content to furrow the 
 land, but fraternizes with it." 
 
 " That," I said, " is undoubtedly a pretty poetic 
 idea, and is properly appreciated when a man has 
 ten thousand a year." 
 
 The Doctor gave no heed to this, but con- 
 tinued : " I came into this country with the 
 common understanding that I was to get every- 
 thing I could out of it. Squeeze and grub was 
 the agricultural motto. If I hadn't leftmost of 
 my human kind out of the scheme and taken a 
 
 124
 
 THE CAPITULATION OF POLLY 
 
 lesson or two from Nature herself, I should have 
 been much more successful as an agriculturist, 
 but not as self-respecting as a philosopher or a 
 religionist. No sooner had I settled myself and 
 arranged my sordid machinery than I established 
 an intimacy with Nature and began to feel a little 
 ashamed of myself. She had to squeeze and 
 grub. Everything was giving up to something 
 else; from the stem of grass to the Holstein cows 
 the whole procession of forces was bent on relin- 
 quishing, giving up joyously all that it had, and 
 then getting out of the way for something else. 
 I pictured myself bringing the procession to a 
 halt on my porch, spreading myself and taking 
 it all in, and congratulating myself that I was a 
 terminal depot where it all stopped. I think that 
 I sneaked around among the fields for a while, 
 feeling that I was a piece of impertinence, and 
 before I knew it I had fallen into the general 
 scheme. There was no use in breaking a cog in 
 such enginery. So I took to passing on the 
 benefits. I might have discharged my seven 
 workmen and lived on my interest, but I retained 
 them and let them live on it. When a man gets 
 to be my age, I suppose it does look like religion, 
 but it is only a doting voluptuousness. I like to 
 fancy myself sitting over these people and shep- 
 herding them with a benign superiority like that 
 fellow you saw on the rim with his dogs. Now 
 and then one of the flock gets a little astray, like 
 this lamb we are going after, and then I come 
 down with my crook and fetch things round into 
 
 125
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 natural order again. It's about the only luxury 
 left to a dotard." 
 
 " Doctor," I said, " you are perfectly right, and 
 I think I understand you. Having imbibed the 
 great lesson from Nature, you set about trans- 
 forming your human establishment into a par- 
 terre where everybody should bloom and sing 
 and grow, and take no special heed. I suppose 
 it is as near to a paradisiacal condition as a philos- 
 opher ever gets in this world, and it was worth 
 coming a long way to see. If you will pardon 
 me for saying it, I feel like a bird myself on this 
 occasion ; but what I cannot understand is why 
 any lamb in the flock should be at all anxious to 
 get away." 
 
 " Bob ah, you are thinking of Bob. Well, 
 you see that Bob belongs so entirely to the nature 
 of things, that her absence makes me feel that I 
 have in some way disturbed the natural order 
 just as if the robins should depart in July." 
 
 " I hope there was nothing in my treatment of 
 her," I said, " that made her uncomfortable." 
 
 " That's just it," said the Doctor, catching hold 
 of my arm. " Bob probably scented our con- 
 spiracy, and being such a child of Nature, her 
 first impulse was to escape from anything so dia- 
 bolically unnatural you understand me, I mean 
 that she scented the conspiracy and resented the 
 omission. It is a peculiarity of Bob's, that she 
 must not only suspect everything, but must have 
 a finger in everything. I think you will have to 
 tell her all about your paternal anxiety, and ask 
 
 126
 
 THE CAPITULATION OF POLLY 
 
 her to help you. I have great faith in Bob's 
 caprices and inscrutable impulses." 
 
 " I wish you would suggest some possible way 
 in which her delightful caprices would be of any 
 assistance to a slightly perturbed father." 
 
 " One can never tell. She might keep Mr. 
 Fancher at a distance. I have already observed 
 that he avoids her as he would an X-ray. Has 
 it occurred to you that Mr. Fancher needs a 
 gentle repulsion, such as the duties of hospitality 
 forbid me to exercise ? " 
 
 " From the somewhat casual observation that I 
 made of Mr. Fancher, I think that gentleness 
 would play a part of no more importance with 
 him than does water on a duck's back. I hope I 
 am not disparaging your guest." 
 
 " Ah, you have been observing him." 
 
 " I passed the time of day with him, and he 
 managed to impart to that amenity a decided dis- 
 regard of delicacy." 
 
 The Doctor laughed. " Bob," he said, " is a 
 most extraordinary buffer. If I thought there 
 was any danger of my colliding with Mr. Fancher, 
 I'd hang Bob over my gunwale." 
 
 " I wish you would tell me explicitly in what 
 way I can avail myself of Polly's talents." 
 
 " I don't know that I can tell you why a pinch 
 of salt adds to the zest of one's appetite. I have 
 an idea that Polly belongs more entirely to the 
 natural order than we do, and as the consequences 
 which we are trying to avoid belong also to that 
 order, we might baffle Nature herself with an alliance 
 
 127
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 with Nature. Bob probably sees through us both, 
 and is piqued that she has been left out of the 
 conspiracy. Besides, with the mingled impudence 
 and acumen of her sex, she detests Fancher." 
 
 "Why do you think so?" I asked, feeling a 
 sudden throb of kindliness toward Bob. 
 
 " Don't ask me why I . think. Great Scott, 
 man, when one is up to his ears in a day like 
 this, he doesn't try to find out why he thinks. 
 He just keeps on thinking, very much as he keeps 
 on breathing." 
 
 And the Doctor threw out his ample breast and 
 took in an extra supply of oxygen. 
 
 " Doctor," I said, " what do you suppose Miss 
 lo's views are with respect to Mr. Fancher? " 
 
 " Absolutely nebulous and abeyant," he re- 
 plied, "waiting like chaos to be shaped by some 
 imperative will. lo is the most plastic arrange- 
 ment of beauty and inertia you ever saw. So 
 imagine my anxiety and, to some extent, my 
 responsibility." 
 
 Here we came within sight of the house where 
 
 O 
 
 our renegade had taken refuge, and I exclaimed : 
 " Why, I've been here before ; eaten pie and 
 milk here." 
 
 " So much the better," said the Doctor. " We'll 
 just clap her straw hat on, take her by the ear, 
 and march her back. When you get a good 
 opportunity take her into your confidence dis- 
 creetly." 
 
 On arriving at the gate we were confronted by 
 two malicious mastiffs that had the run of the 
 
 128
 
 THE CAPITULATION OF POLLY 
 
 yard, and that warned us off with a superfluous 
 show of white teeth and a duet of growls. 
 
 The Doctor expressed some indignant astonish- 
 ment that the dogs were not chained up, and then 
 shouted "House" in summoning tones. Im- 
 mediately there appeared at an upper window the 
 pert face of Polly herself, holding the curtain 
 away with a quick hand and leaning eagerly out. 
 
 " Come down here, you baggage," cried the 
 Doctor, "and shut up these dogs." 
 
 " Gracious, how you frightened me," said Polly. 
 " I thought you were tramps. Did you bring 
 my trunk? How kind " 
 
 " No nonsense. I've come to fetch you back. 
 Put your hat on." 
 
 Polly leaned her elbows on the window-sill. 
 "There comes Boylston," she said, " how good 
 of him. He's bringing the trunk." 
 
 We looked round and presently up drove the 
 family phaeton, with " Mother" and Boylston in it. 
 The old lady leaned out and, seeing us at the gate, 
 said in an explanatory way : 
 
 " I'll take her back with me." 
 
 " How good of you all," said Polly. " But you 
 know I can't come down. I am just as much 
 afraid of the dogs as you are, and if I came down 
 they would be sure to tear the only innocent per- 
 son there is to pieces. Marjory has gone to the 
 field, and she always lets them loose till she comes 
 back." 
 
 The doctor leaned on the gate-post and shouted 
 to the dogs to be quiet, and " Mother " tried to 
 
 129
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 coax them with much sibilation from the vehicle, 
 while Boylston, who was assuring the horse that 
 there was no burglary intended despite the noise, 
 also tried to whistle amicably between. I looked 
 at the scene and especially at the bright face so 
 leisurely taking it all in at the window, and said 
 to the Doctor : 
 
 " It seems to me that this is one of those occa- 
 sions when it would disturb the natural order to 
 interfere. There is somebody else coming up the 
 road," and sure enough, presently Miss lo and 
 my disinterested son appeared on horseback and 
 joined the group, thereby increasing the clamour 
 of the dogs, that were evidently not used to such 
 convocations. Charlie regarded the family gather- 
 ing with considerable awe, I thought, but Polly 
 clapped her hands. 
 
 " What a surprise party," she cried. " Stand 
 still a moment. I have it." 
 
 Then she disappeared from the window. 
 
 "It's all right," said the Doctor. "She has 
 gone to get her hat. We ought to have brought 
 a shotgun and a pair of handcuffs." 
 
 Boylston, who had tied his horse, approached 
 the fence coaxingly, and Polly, calling to him from 
 the window, asked him to stand a little more on 
 one side. 
 
 " Come, come," cried the Doctor, " never mind 
 your frills. We can't stand here all day." 
 
 " Just a moment," said Polly. " Keep your 
 eye on that chimney. All right now there you 
 are," and we all heard the click, and knew that 
 
 130
 
 THE CAPITULATION OF POLLY 
 
 the captive maiden had snapped us with her 
 camera. 
 
 " It was such a splendid opportunity," she 
 said afterward, " to catch the whole family at 
 bay, with HIM in the foreground, gnashing his 
 teeth, and everybody staring into the sky, as if a 
 new star had appeared." 
 
 But it was reserved for Charlie to put the finish- 
 ing touch of absurdity on this picture. He came 
 up to the fence, saying quite demurely : " I sup- 
 pose you all want to go in. I don't think these 
 dogs are dangerous," and, putting his hand over 
 the rail, he patted them on their heads, and with 
 a word or two transformed them into tail-wagging 
 lambs. " I'll just chain them up," he said, open- 
 ing the gate and striding off round the house with 
 the two animals at his heels. 
 
 " Now, then," cried the Doctor, " you stand 
 here at the gate, and Boylston, you guard the rear 
 exit, while I take the position by storm." 
 
 " You had better let me go in," said Mother, 
 " and help her arrange herself." 
 
 " Nonsense,''" said the Doctor. " I will arrange 
 her in short order," and in he strode. 
 
 " It seems to me," said lo, " that Mr. Charles 
 is better than any of you in arranging matters." 
 
 " Oh, when it comes to dogs," I said, " he al- 
 ways did show the stuff he was made of. It's 
 what the Doctor calls fraternization." 
 
 Our colloquy was interrupted by the appearance 
 of the Doctor leading the captive on his arm. 
 She looked very demure, but stepped rather airily
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 for a prisoner, and preserved, I thought, some 
 kind of latent defiance in the tilt of that chip 
 hat. 
 
 " Please," she said, making a great show of 
 struggling with the Doctor's arm, "please I 
 see one friend in the crowd let me go to him," 
 and she kissed her hand to me. 
 
 " You just get in to that phaeton and do as I 
 tell you, you absconding and ineffable little in- 
 grate," said the Doctor. 
 
 Once in the phaeton, guarded by the old lady 
 beside her, the Doctor arranged the bodyguard. 
 He and I walked Indian file on one side, Charlie 
 and Boylston on the other, lo bringing up the rear 
 with the two horses, and thus protected, the cor- 
 tege moved in solemn procession down the road, 
 its majesty broken only at times by little flute- 
 like bursts from the phaeton. 
 
 When the captive was once more landed in 
 triumph on the Doctor's front veranda, I think 
 there were many upbraidings and explanations and 
 evasions all tangled up in soprano, from which the 
 masculine conspirators kept well away. But an 
 hour or two later, when matters had apparently 
 fallen into their old rut and everybody seemed 
 to have recovered his and her former buoyancy, 
 except Charlie, who was moping somewhere 
 round the carriage house, trying to make up for 
 the loss of New York excitement by the vivacity 
 of Boylston and the animation of the horses, 
 then it was I caught Bob on the fly and pinned 
 her down on the rose bench. She appeared to be 
 
 132
 
 THE CAPITULATION OF POLLY 
 
 a little more nervous than usual, I thought, and 
 showed an inclination to escape me. 
 
 " Polly," I said, " the first time that we had a 
 talk, you invited me to be confidential with you. 
 I have just come to the conclusion that I should 
 have taken you at your word." 
 
 That did not allay her nervousness. " Oh, 
 don't bother with it," she said. " I was too 
 rude." 
 
 " Not a bit. I was too reserved. The Doctor 
 thinks I ought to tell you everything." 
 
 "HE? Everything? Me?" 
 
 " Yes ; what makes you so apprehensive ? I 
 am old enough to be your father, and you are 
 young enough to be my daughter. You might 
 even, as a matter of friendship, regard Charlie as 
 your brother." 
 
 " Father," she repeated rather softly, looking 
 up at me, and pulling in her under lip as was 
 her habit. "It sounds a little too sacred for a 
 pretence." 
 
 " You suspected that I had run away from 
 something when I came down here. You were 
 right. Now let me tell you just what it was." 
 
 " Oh," said she, quite impulsively, " why not 
 write it ? It would be ever so much nicer in a 
 letter and then I can study it." 
 
 " No. I am going to tell you all about it now. 
 You see, Charlie and I are a little different from 
 most persons. We have always been close to- 
 gether, and think a great deal more of each other 
 than father and son usually do. I suppose his 
 
 133
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 future and happiness are really more important 
 to me than anything else in life ; you can under- 
 stand that." 
 
 " Yes," she said, " in a father that sounds all 
 right." 
 
 " Oh, Charlie feels the same way. I don't be- 
 lieve he would deliberately do anything against 
 my wishes ; but Charlie is young, you know, and 
 might do something before he knew it." 
 
 " Did he ? " 
 
 " Why, yes. There wasn't anything wrong, 
 you understand. It was only foolish. Young 
 men cannot always see as far ahead as their 
 fathers. Try and imagine yourself his sister, 
 and then I am sure you will take my view of it. 
 Remember that I had been for so many years 
 planning and preparing and watching and guard- 
 ing, and then you will see how it affected me." 
 
 " What did ? " 
 
 "Why, his, how shall I put it? his get- 
 ting estranged from me a little, just a little, you 
 know. Being deluded, beguiled, only through 
 his eyes, you know. He allowed himself to get 
 acquainted with a girl in the theatre. I don't be- 
 lieve he stopped to think, or he wouldn't have done 
 it. Boys are so easily caught by a passing illusion, 
 and, poor fellows, they have no means of knowing 
 just how unworthy it may be. Probably he thought 
 she was an angel, and all that sort of thing, just 
 because of her glitter and shallow prettiness." 
 
 " Was she pretty ? " 
 
 " I suppose she was. But all girls are more or 
 
 134
 
 THE CAPITULATION OF POLLY 
 
 less pretty to young men. She was probably 
 nothing more than the ordinary creature of plu- 
 mage and vanity, the kind that one expects to find 
 in a theatre. Now if it were your brother and I 
 were telling you this about him, you would feel 
 just as I do, wouldn't you ? But Charlie is made 
 of such excellent stuff that I knew if I could only 
 get him away where some other and better ideal 
 could fill his eye, don't you know, he would 
 rise to the situation. There's nothing so effectual 
 for this kind of disease as change of air and scene, 
 and when my old friend the Doctor invited us 
 down here, fortune favoured me by presenting such 
 new attractions as I feel sure would create in any 
 young man's mind a new standard of beauty and 
 character. Remember that the Doctor and I are 
 old and intimate friends, and when he told me 
 that he was anxious to save lo from the same 
 mistakes of youth that beset my boy, and, if 
 you will permit me to say so, my dear girl, that 
 beset all young persons, you can imagine how 
 providential it all seemed. Can't you turn round 
 and let me see your face when I am trying my 
 best to be confidential ? Just think what a dis- 
 aster it would have been if Charlie in a moment 
 of heedlessness had made an alliance with some 
 dreadful woman in a theatre ; and young men are 
 all liable to do these insane things. I have been 
 young myself, Polly." 
 
 " Have you, really ? " said Polly, in a tone of 
 doubt. 
 
 " Sure. Don't you feel the least bit of sym- 
 
 '35
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 
 
 pathy for me in my experience. I had an idea 
 that you could help me." 
 
 " O dear me," said Polly, " I don't see what you 
 brought me back here for. What can I do ? " 
 
 O 
 
 "You are so quick and clever, and then you 
 are closer to lo than anybody else can be at pres- 
 ent ; and it is all such a plain-sailing duty for 
 every one of us. You seem to have lost all your 
 desire to be confidential. What is it I have done 
 to forfeit your candour ? " 
 
 She was silent a moment, as if trying to think. 
 Then she said rather hesitatingly : 
 
 " Was the New York person Mr. Charles's 
 sweetheart, wasn't that what you called her?" 
 
 " No, I didn't call her that." 
 
 " Was she irredeemably unworthy ? " 
 
 " I didn't say that either. She wasn't in Charlie's 
 class, that is all, and he will forget her he must." 
 
 " For lo's sake." 
 
 " Let us say for his own sake and his father's." 
 
 "And I am to help in it. You ought to see 
 that it is impossible." 
 
 " I cannot see why," I said, taking her little 
 hand coaxingly, and remembering how it had gone 
 up round my neck there at the river. " I wish you 
 would tell me why you cannot." 
 
 She gave something like a little gulp. I felt it 
 come down to her fingers. But she did not turn 
 round. 
 
 "Because " she said, and then she took a 
 fresh breath " because I am the disreputable 
 New York girl herself." 
 
 136
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 IN WHICH I STRUGGLE WITH MY OWN WEB 
 
 I^@ WISH I could describe with ex- 
 <^& actness how this large clap of 
 ^\ thunder from a small pink cloud 
 AJisx affected me. I suppose the best 
 iPfC way to express it would be to 
 ^***' avoid the idea of thunder and 
 stick to that of lightning, for I was not so much 
 stunned as illuminated. A great deal of what 
 ought to have been perplexity disappeared in 
 a flash. Presto, the whole business cleared up 
 at a stroke, as if all of the facts had been set in 
 order on a dark stage, and only awaited this elec- 
 tric flash. Whatever may have been my imme- 
 diate surprise, I had no opportunity to express it 
 to my companion, for she pulled her hand away 
 from mine suddenly, and disappeared, leaving 
 only a few flurries of rose leaves. 
 
 137
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 I sat there a few moments and made an inven- 
 tory of the details that came into view. Her pre- 
 science, her intuition, when I first met her they 
 looked rather shabby now. Her protean vivacity 
 and frankness of course, if she was an actress, 
 they were her stock in trade. Her coquetry with 
 me and all that silly business in the river part 
 of the comedy of cajolement. What craft in tell- 
 ing me that she had to earn her living and 
 bedevilling me into praise of it. Her rogu- 
 ish ingenuousness in throwing the roses into 
 Charlie's face that was nothing more, after all, 
 than the familiarity of two comedians. 
 
 I did not at the moment ask myself how the 
 girl of the theatre came to be down there, lying 
 in wait for me, though that was a question that, 
 more than any other, needed explanation. What 
 just then appeared to me to be of more immediate 
 concern than anything else was my sudden flow- 
 ering out as the dupe of the whole group, every 
 one of whom appeared to have entered into an 
 easy understanding to fool me to the top of my 
 bent. Perhaps in any other mood I should have 
 regarded the disclosure as something in the nature 
 of a practical joke, of which I was the victim, to 
 be put by without annoyance. But as I had set 
 out with what I considered superior craft to bring 
 things about to my own satisfaction, I could not 
 very well at the first view help feeling that my 
 own doting imbecility was the largest element 
 on exhibition, and some degree of pride and 
 pique must be allowed to a man of my years who 
 
 138
 
 I STRUGGLE WITH MY OWN WEB 
 
 does not like to be outwitted even by his affec- 
 tions. 
 
 I think I sat there some time feeling that 
 nothing but sheer slang would accurately express 
 my condition, and calling myself, confidentially, 
 " a purblind chump." But this easy labelling of 
 my discomfiture did not disentangle anything. 
 It did not seem possible that the Doctor had lent 
 himself to the cheap trick of befooling me, and 
 yet how was it possible for him not to know what 
 was going on in his own establishment. How in 
 thunder, I asked myself, did my unsophisticated 
 son manage the wires so adroitly. There was no 
 answer to this conundrum to be pumped out of 
 my consciousness. But I must say that my mo- 
 mentary irritation and resentment were accompa- 
 nied by a very distinct sense of loss that, to tell 
 the truth, was more poignant than anything else. 
 It was not alone that my Comrade had suddenly 
 withdrawn from the atmosphere of affectionate 
 frankness that I had created for him, and gone 
 without hesitation into the common arena of de- 
 ception ; but a sprite, a real, live, and lovable 
 piece of ingenuous girlhood, that I had warmed 
 to with all the ardent susceptibility of years, had 
 shaken her skirts and resolved herself into a com- 
 mon actress, intent only on making me a victim 
 of her intrigue. Such a discovery always con- 
 geals a man's best judgment, turning even his 
 limpid magnanimity into sharp crystals. 
 
 It was growing late in the afternoon. I sat 
 there on the rose bench feeling a new sense of
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 loneliness stealing over me. After all, what folly 
 it was to try and keep alive and fresh the zest- 
 ful companionships which one has outgrown. 
 The things that one cherishes most must go on 
 their way. It is the penalty of age to be de- 
 serted. What was it the Doctor had so recently 
 preached to me about turning the penalty into a 
 privilege and giving up. Must a man then tear 
 out of his heart all that keeps him alive, and 
 say to it cheerfully, Go your way my share 
 in it all is relinquished ? What a supreme and 
 protective philosophy such a man as Major 
 Downs possessed. Those practical old fellows 
 kept their systems free from these undergrowths, 
 and escaped from the dotage of the sensibili- 
 ties into the sufficient routine of dinners, and 
 cards, and good wholesome tittle-tattle, enjoying 
 the procession calmly from the safe Club win- 
 dow. 
 
 I looked at the roses, hanging all round me 
 with odorous opulence. They wore a new as- 
 pect of evanescence, and every light breath of air 
 bade them fall to pieces and litter the ground 
 with outworn beauty. The bees far up the wall 
 of the house kept up a dull moan. It was like 
 the movement of some irresistible, ongoing stream. 
 A few swallows flickered across the sky, to and 
 fro, with vagrant uncertainty. The big shadow 
 of the house reached eastward. I could see its 
 peak crawling across the highway, as if to empha- 
 size the passing of the afternoon, or perhaps, with 
 the merciless symbolism of all visible things, only 
 
 140
 
 I STRUGGLE WITH MY OWN WEB 
 
 to picture for me what might be crawling over 
 my own heart. 
 
 Bah ! you will say. For a man of your age, this 
 is the very effervescence of decline. Up, man, and 
 about your duty, if you have any. It is not the 
 role of maturity to sit in rose bowers and moon. 
 
 If you are saying this, it is a coincidence, for it 
 is just what I was saying myself, as I got up and 
 struck the rose vine with my cane, a little vindic- 
 tively, only to bring down a shower of petals as 
 if I deserved to be snowed under, pinkly. 
 
 But you are to have a little patience with ma- 
 turity, seeing that you are young and heedless. 
 It is only a man's weaknesses, after all, that en- 
 title him to your attention. Dear me, if we were 
 all strong like you, where would be our tangle 
 and our romance ? 
 
 I walked off vigorously, because muscular exer- 
 cise, without our knowing it, is a faucet when the 
 enclosed feelings are too heady. But my vigorous 
 step did not prevent me from keeping on the 
 other side of the junipers, so that my condition 
 should not be observed from the house. Thus it 
 was that I coupled vigour of limb with a sneaking 
 desire to be alone with my discomfiture. 
 
 Perhaps the circulation of the blood helped to 
 clear the emotional sky and stir up my volition, 
 for I said, " Ho, ho, I am only so much waste 
 material to be used by others. My views and 
 desires are entitled only to politeness. Very well, 
 my youthful plotters, by Jove, there's Coldcream 
 who has to be counted with." 
 
 141
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 I believe I stopped and put my hand on the 
 opposite arm, as if I had a card up my sleeve. 
 But the act, absurd as it was, brought its own 
 reaction, as if I had assured myself that there 
 really was no card there. 
 
 " Is there a Coldcream ? " I asked aloud of a 
 bird that was sitting on the top of a shadbush, 
 " or is she another vagary made for the occasion?' 
 The bird said nothing, and I replied to myself, 
 (l I will write to Coldcream to-night," and just 
 then the note of a tanager came across to me from 
 the trees at the river, as if the summer had an- 
 swered me with a bell. 
 
 I would go over to the Swirl and think it all 
 out with a severe sense of duty, and thus be able to 
 meet circumstances with the austere complacency 
 of a disciplined mind. Then I strode along again 
 a.s I felt my resolution reaching from my limbs 
 mto my mind, occasionally looking back just as 
 though Coldcream might be pursuing me. 
 
 The portal of the woods was carpeted with moss, 
 and I entered it noiselessly and preoccupied with 
 my own musings, to come in sight of the Swirl, 
 and, as I live, Polly herself, sitting by the side of 
 the pagoda with her head in her hands, Niobe 
 like, all tears. A more disconsolate little wreck I 
 never before saw in such a frame of gold and 
 green. Before she was aware of it, I was upon 
 her, and had sat down beside her, putting out one 
 authoritative hand as gently and firmly as I could, 
 to keep her from going off in another flurry. 
 
 " Young woman," I said, calling to my gravity 
 142
 
 1 STRUGGLE WITH MY OWN WEB 
 
 the full aid of the vernacular, " we must have this 
 thing out. I suppose you thought I was only 
 made to dance a gavotte with." 
 
 " Why couldn't you let me alone ? " she said, 
 turning a wet face full upon me. It reminded me 
 so clearly of those roses all falling to pieces, that 
 it seemed as if I had used my speech, as I had 
 used my cane, and she was shrinking, shattered, 
 from the blow. 
 
 " I do not feel guilty of having designedly 
 intruded upon you at any time," I said ; " I was 
 willing from the first to let you alone." 
 
 Perhaps I was overarming myself against her 
 vivacious tongue with cool severity. But she 
 looked so helpless that I felt instantly sure that 
 her vivacity had all tumbled to pieces like those 
 rose petals. 
 
 " I packed my trunk and went away. What 
 did you bring me back for? " she asked. 
 
 " Polly," I replied, " you must see that some 
 explanation is proper on your part. You made a 
 pretty show of candour (a very good imitation 
 it was, too) when we first met." 
 
 " And you nipped it in the bud. I wanted to 
 tell you everything." 
 
 " Did you ? I am glad to hear it. You can 
 do it now." 
 
 "Oh, I am tired of it all now, and I am not 
 of sufficient account to anybody to bother with 
 it." 
 
 " But remember, that I still consider myself of 
 sufficient account to expect it, and Charlie too
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 he is of sufficient account, at least in my 
 estimation." 
 
 " Then why don't you go to him ? You prob- 
 ably understand him better than you do me. Did 
 he ever deceive you ? " 
 
 " I was proud to think that he never did. But 
 that was before he met you, Polly." 
 
 " And I am a deceiving, frivolous, mischief- 
 making thing, bent on ruining him." 
 
 " Do sit down, Polly, and try and act like a 
 sensible woman. I did not say anything like 
 that. I am trying my best to find out what you 
 are." 
 
 " I am just a poor innocent girl who never 
 wanted to deceive anybody, and between you all 
 I feel like a guilty wretch." 
 
 " But if you will only sit down and make a 
 clean breast of it, I am sure you will feel better. 
 I shall." 
 
 In spite of myself I could not help admiring 
 her as she stood there, in a piquant attitude or 
 defence, her head up saucily, and her little hand- 
 kerchief in her hand ready at intervals to give her 
 eyes a dab. 
 
 " You make a great mistake," she said. " I 
 refuse to be a culprit and make a confession. I 
 haven't done a thing to be ashamed of." 
 
 "Now, now, Polly," I rejoined, as I shook my 
 finger monitorily at her, " you know very well 
 that you have committed two unpardonable sins. 
 In the first place, you made Charlie fall in love 
 with you." 
 
 144
 
 I STRUGGLE WITH MY OWN WEB 
 
 " I made him ? " 
 
 "Yes. And it seems that would not satisfy 
 you, but you must carry your mischief even 
 farther." 
 
 "I must? How must I?" 
 
 " Why, you had to make his old father fall in 
 love with you too." 
 
 She had retreated some feet away, and this 
 acknowledgment seemed to catch her, as the 
 sailors say, "all abaft" as she stood there. All 
 those variant emotions of which her nature was 
 composed tangled themselves up in her inquiring 
 face, and so pretty was the look of wonder coming 
 through half tears, that it is a mystery, now that 
 I think of it, that I did not jump up and kiss her 
 then and there. She sat down on the root of a 
 tulip tree at a safe distance from me, regarding 
 me with poised perplexity, in which there were 
 some half-drowned gleams of her old roguishness 
 reviving. 
 
 "What did you come here to Tuskaloo for?" 
 I asked. 
 
 " Because I belong here. What did you come 
 for ? you do not belong here." 
 
 " It seems to me now," I said, " that I came 
 down here because you and Charlie arranged it." 
 
 " What injustice. I told your son in New 
 York that I was going home. I was sick of New 
 York. I wanted to get away. I am always try- 
 ing to get away and everybody prevents me. One 
 day he came and told me that I could not get 
 away. You were coming down here, and he would 
 
 45
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 have to come with you. What had he to do with 
 it what had I to do with it?" 
 
 She was fairly started now, and her sense of 
 wrong thawed her into volubility. 
 
 " When you came here and made your plans, 
 I tried to get away again. I don't want to in- 
 terfere with anything. Why can't you let me 
 alone ? " 
 
 " Perhaps," I said meditatively, as I gazed into 
 the deep green Swirl, " perhaps it's because your 
 going away would be the greatest interference of 
 all. I suppose Charlie and you have about fixed 
 everything in your minds, just how it should all 
 end, if other persons would only let you alone. 
 You would go off, and the next thing, he would 
 go off after you. My views of the matter would 
 not be of the slightest moment." 
 
 " You are doing him a great injustice," said 
 Polly. " He is a young thing and cannot leave 
 his father." 
 
 " And you tried to beguile him away. Polly, 
 you are a young thing yourself. I am sorry to 
 say you are a disappointment." 
 
 " So are you. What's the use talking any more 
 about it. We are both disappointments. Let's 
 part." 
 
 " Oh, I don't see any sense in that. Running 
 away will not help matters. Anyway, I don't 
 want you to run away from me." 
 
 " Well, I don't see how I can run away from 
 Charlie without running away from you." 
 
 " But I want you to help me and Charlie. 
 146
 
 You really have his interest at heart, haven't 
 you ? " 
 
 " No, I haven't. I'm going to have my own 
 interest at heart, and I'm not going to be annoyed 
 any more." 
 
 Up went the handkerchief for a dab, but as her 
 head went up at the same time with a saucy jerk, 
 one action neutralized the other. 
 
 " Don't worry, Polly," I said. " These things 
 never turn out as bad as they at first sight seem 
 to be. You will get over it," I added, with an 
 indulgent imbecility, as I looked into the Swirl, 
 that was smoothly eddying in oily vortices. 
 
 " Of course," she replied, " I'll get out of it." 
 
 " Can you get out of it nicely ? " 
 
 " To be sure I can. I can go back to New 
 York." 
 
 " To the theatre ? I wouldn't do that, after 
 leaving it. By the way, what made you leave it?" 
 
 " I didn't like it." 
 
 " That is not a good reason." 
 
 " People would not let me alone." 
 
 " Charlie told you he didn't like it ? " 
 
 " No, he didn't." 
 
 " Didn't he ? What did he tell you ? " 
 
 " He said J0# wouldn't like it." 
 
 " Oh, you got out because I wouldn't like it." 
 
 " But you do like it now, don't you ? " 
 
 " I neither like nor dislike it. What annoys 
 me is that Charlie should have withdrawn from 
 my confidence. He should have told me every- 
 thing from the start."
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 " Well, he wanted to, and I wouldn't let 
 him." 
 
 " And why wouldn't you let him, pray ? " 
 
 " Because I wanted to tell you myself." 
 
 " Oh, it was arranged between you to tell me all 
 about it, and you both failed to do it." 
 
 " I suppose so. But that's all done now. We 
 didn't know what your plans were, and I didn't 
 know how easily he could do what you desired. 
 It's different now." 
 
 " What is different ? " 
 
 " Charlie." 
 
 "In what respect ? " 
 
 " Well, he is beginning to see now that he 
 ought to do what you want him to do. He 
 didn't see it so clearly before." 
 
 " Before ? Before what ? " 
 
 " Before he saw lo." 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me, Polly, that my son 
 has no more strength of character than to fall in 
 love with every pretty face he encounters ? " 
 
 " Oh, it would be very impolite to tell you what 
 I think about it." 
 
 "I shall not have him disparaged, Polly." 
 
 " No, consider his filial duty. He has more 
 strength of character than I have, and more 
 father." 
 
 It took all my mental power to separate her 
 irony from her admiration, as she sat there perked 
 up on the root of the tulip tree, like a French 
 picture of the seventeenth century. 
 
 " I hope," she said, " you do not think I am 
 148
 
 I STRUGGLE WITH MY OWN WEB 
 
 mean enough to interfere with his duty, now that 
 it is made plain to me." 
 
 " But it isn't as plain to me, my dear, as it was." 
 
 " No ? " 
 
 Such a composite and amorphous " No " never 
 could have been uttered before. I felt something 
 like a little pang of pity as I looked at her sitting 
 there bolt upright, for after all it was a most un- 
 warrantable proceeding on my part. I should 
 have gone my way, and had it, like a man, and 
 not fooled away the time prying into a girl's 
 wholly unreliable and inconsequential vagaries. 
 But nobody ever goes away on such occasions. I 
 stayed and grew weak and indulgent on account 
 of the French picture. 
 
 " No," I said, " I don't think you should go 
 away and carry such mistakes with you. Better 
 stay and help me clear up matters. What is that 
 bell ringing for ? " 
 
 " That is your dinner they are waiting for 
 you." 
 
 " Then come along. Let us go to dinner." 
 
 " I don't want any dinner. Don't bother about 
 me." 
 
 " But I shall bother," I said, getting up. " I 
 shall not go back without you. If you do not 
 come along, you will have the whole household 
 out here looking for you again, and then our 
 little private affairs will be betrayed to everybody." 
 
 As she stood up I approached her, seeing that 
 there was a sign of irresolution. 
 
 " Let me wipe your eyes," I said, taking her 
 149
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 handkerchief and dipping it into the Swirl. "We 
 need not exhibit our feelings any more than is 
 necessary." 
 
 She let me do some gentle dabbing myself, and 
 looked up at me half wonderingly, like a child, 
 with her handsome blue eyes full of a tender, liquid 
 light, and I thought to myself that Charlie was 
 not such a fool after all. She had another dry 
 handkerchief handy with which she wiped the 
 water from her face, and while she was doing it, I 
 leaned over, and before she knew it had kissed 
 her on the forehead paternally and even forgiv- 
 ingly, and got ahead of all protest by saying : 
 
 " Come along, now, you look like the morning 
 star again." 
 
 She was passive and unresisting and allowed me 
 to pull her arm under mine, and then we started 
 on our way back to the house. 
 
 I tried to make her feel that the subject was 
 dismissed for the time being, but a young woman's 
 emotions are very tenacious, and my endeavours to 
 assume a light and airy tone about irrelevant things 
 were regarded somewhat suspiciously, I thought, 
 as more becoming an old and practised deceiver, 
 and her volubility did not return at once. Just 
 before we arrived at the house, I said : 
 
 " Polly, no matter what occurs, there is no good 
 reason why we should not remain fast friends and 
 keep our own counsel, is there ? " 
 
 " It would be great fun to keep one friend 
 through thick and thin," she replied. " I should 
 like to try it." 
 
 150
 
 I STRUGGLE WITH MY OWN WEB 
 
 " So you shall. But we mustn't do any acting, 
 remember that." 
 
 We were too late to join the family at dinner, 
 and partook of our meal tete-a-tete. Boylston had 
 brought some letters for me, which I found upon 
 the table. I put them in my pocket and gave my- 
 self entirely to the pleasant task of convincing 
 Polly that I had not lost my good humour. It 
 was somewhat interfered with by " Mother," who 
 presently joined us and evinced considerable curi- 
 osity, in her discreet way, about our absence from 
 the family dinner, and I thought was trying to 
 make out through her spectacles what the exact 
 condition of Polly's eyes was ; at which that young 
 lady turned on their electric vivacity on purpose 
 to baffle her, and there ensued a very pretty little 
 game of Hunt the Slipper between them, which I 
 admired very much. 
 
 " lo," said Polly, " is out on the rose bench 
 with Mr. Charlie, isn't she ? " 
 
 " Is she ? " said Mother, meekly. " Why, Mr. 
 Fancher is in the parlour talking to the Doctor." 
 
 " Oh, then they are waiting there on the bench 
 for him to bring the news of his interview," said 
 Polly. 
 
 Before we had finished our meal and the candles 
 were lighted, we heard Mr. Fancher ride away, 
 and immediately after came the sound of the 
 Doctor's tread on the afternoon porch, and then 
 a cheery call to us to come out in the twilight. 
 
 I joined him, but Polly disappeared in another 
 direction. We sat down there in the dying rose
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 light, and he told me that Mr. Fancher had been 
 
 O ' 
 
 to see him with regard to lo. " I guess," he said, 
 " the matter will turn out all right, so far as we 
 are concerned." 
 
 " Did he make a formal proposal to you ? " 
 " I suppose he thought it was a proposal, but 
 it was more like a pronunciamento." 
 
 " He is desirous of marrying Miss lo ? " 
 " He warned me that such was his intention. 
 I thanked him for his frankness and told him I 
 should do everything in my power to prevent it. 
 He wanted to know if I had made other arrange- 
 ments for the young lady. I told him I had. He 
 said she was of age. I acknowledged it, but told 
 him she was also under bonds. He seemed to 
 think that he could exercise more authority with 
 her than I could, and I believe we locked horns in a 
 gentlemanly fashion about it. But he preserved 
 his good humour, and, to show that he had no 
 resentment, invited my whole household up to 
 their tournament at the Club House, and I, not 
 to be outdone in civility, agreed to have my whole 
 establishment there." 
 
 " Doctor," I said, " it seems to me that a great 
 deal of time might be saved by ascertaining the 
 young lady's views in the matter." 
 
 " My dear sir," replied the Doctor, " I have 
 before mentioned the fact that the young lady has 
 no views merely impressions and that is de- 
 cidedly to our advantage ; for, as I understand it, 
 both you and I have decided views. Mr. Fancher 
 asked me very bluntly if I objected to telling him 
 
 152
 
 I STRUGGLE WITH MY OWN WEB 
 
 in what respect I thought his success would be 
 disadvantageous to the lady." 
 
 " Did you tell him ? " 
 
 " I certainly did. I was not going to be out- 
 done in candour by the fellow, so I told him that 
 if he didn't tire of her in a year, she would of him. 
 He merely smiled and thought that was a hasty 
 conclusion. We shook hands and parted like 
 two business men who intend to get the best of 
 each other if they can." 
 
 " Perhaps, after all," I said, " the young people 
 may be intended for each other and it would be 
 folly to interfere with them. Mr. Fancher is well 
 fixed and moves in good society." 
 
 " Confound it," said the Doctor, " that sounds 
 slightly pusillanimous to me. We have made up 
 our minds as to the best course to pursue, and now 
 you throw up your hands." 
 
 " But I don't see the case as clearly as you do. 
 It may be easier to stave off Mr. Fancher than to 
 lure on my son. You see you have two young 
 ladies in the house. I do not say that Miss lo 
 is not the most resplendent in personal charms 
 (and I felt a little twitch of reproach as I said it 
 and thought of Polly's wet violet eyes looking up 
 into mine), but the other young lady is not desti- 
 tute of attractions." 
 
 " What Bob ? " he exclaimed, and then went 
 to the door and looked in to see that Bob was not 
 anywhere about listening, and continued "Bob 
 doesn't figure in our calculations, and I don't 
 intend that she shall. If she does, I'll pack her 
 
 '53
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 off to New York and let her earn her own liv- 
 
 
 
 ing. 
 
 It was very evident from this speech that the 
 Doctor had no part in Polly's intrigue, and from 
 a sheer sense of pity for her I felt reluctant to tell 
 him of it. So I said : 
 
 " Our conclusions will be premature before we 
 ascertain which way the tide sets I mean the 
 current of young blood. I will have a serious 
 talk with my son, and I would suggest that you 
 pin Miss lo down to a confession, and then we 
 can compare results." 
 
 The Doctor's reply showed very plainly that, 
 sagacious as he was in most worldly affairs, he was 
 no expert in dealing with love's young dream. 
 He had made up his mind to a match between 
 Miss lo and Charlie, and he regarded her in the 
 matter as passive material quite incapable of seri- 
 ously opposing his desires. 
 
 " It will not do," he said, " to let the natural 
 currents have their own way, when a little guidance 
 will bring them into the proper channel. I regard 
 Mr. Fancher's bold declaration as an advantage. 
 If your son has the slightest amount of spirit, it 
 will awaken his opposition. It usually acts that 
 way, and you will allow me to speak of your 
 son as partaking of the common qualities of 
 youth." 
 
 " Alas, yes," I said, " it was the common quali- 
 ties of youth that brought me down here. At 
 least, I thought so." 
 
 " Then," said the Doctor, " having escaped 
 
 154
 
 I STRUGGLE WITH MY OWN WEB 
 
 from the snare, the best we can do is to regulate 
 things with our good sense for the benefit of all 
 parties. In my profession we learn soon enough 
 that to guide and assist Nature is the best plan. 
 We cannot destroy the appetites, but we can steer 
 them." 
 
 Considering all that Polly had said to me, this 
 did not appear to be a very comfortable conclu- 
 sion, and I got as far as to say, " But Polly, 
 Doctor " when he cut me short as usual with 
 an idiom : 
 
 " Bob doesn't cut any ice. I reserve Bob for 
 myself. I like to have her twitter and stick her 
 bill into matters that she doesn't understand. 
 The peculiar charm of such a woodpecker is that 
 she doesn't require any serious attention." 
 
 After this conversation, which left me in some- 
 what of a dilemma, I was desirous of having a 
 heart-to-heart talk with my son, and that night he 
 came into my room just as I had pulled the letters 
 from my pocket and laid them on the table. I 
 came at him directly. 
 
 " Well, Comrade, I saw you on the rose 
 bench with Miss lo making love?" 
 
 He looked at me inquiringly. " Trying to do 
 my duty," he said. 
 
 " Was it painful ? " 
 
 " Well, no. I never found it very painful to 
 carry out your wishes, and in this case it is rather 
 pleasant. One must kill time somehow down 
 here." 
 
 " Now look here, don't load your responsibility 
 
 155
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 upon me. I never had any wishes in the matter 
 that you were aware of." 
 
 He stood there looking at me with the same 
 inquiring expression. Then he said : 
 
 " Hasn't Polly told you ? " 
 
 " Yes. Polly has made a clean breast of it." 
 
 " I hope you treated her kindly. It wasn't her 
 fault." 
 
 " No. .It was yours. You at least were under 
 obligations of confidence." 
 
 " I was the victim innocent victim of cir- 
 cumstances. They were your circumstances." 
 
 " Mine ? " 
 
 " Why, yes. This was your trip, not mine. I 
 was thinking of you in the whole matter. It 
 seemed to me that you were about to sacrifice 
 yourself." 
 
 I laughed somewhat derisively. "You are 
 thinking of Madame Coldcream," I said. " Dis- 
 miss her dismiss her. Let's talk about Miss 
 lo she's more to the point." 
 
 "Have you dismissed Madame Coldcream ?" 
 
 " My boy, look here, if I dismiss Madame 
 Coldcream, will you dismiss Polly ? " 
 
 " Good heavens, Governor, that sounds as if 
 you had made up your mind to substitute Polly 
 for Madame Coldcream." 
 
 " Don't be frivolous," I said, with an effort to 
 be stern. " Try and tell me exactly what your 
 attitude is in this matter." 
 
 " I think it is one of filial obedience," and he 
 turned his back on me as he said it. " I try to 
 
 156
 
 I STRUGGLE WITH MY OWN WEB 
 
 adapt myself to your views, but they change so 
 confoundedly that it is becoming difficult." 
 
 This aggravated me a little, coming from a 
 youngster who was ready at the slightest provo- 
 cation to give up one woman for another. 
 
 " Change ! " I exclaimed. " Do you mean to 
 tell me that I would make love to one estimable 
 young lady to-day, and make love to another es- 
 timable young lady to-morrow, because some one 
 desired it ? You must have a pitiable notion of 
 my stability of character." 
 
 " Look here, Governor, it isn't a fair compari- 
 son. You haven't a father." 
 
 " What has that to do with it ? " 
 
 " Oh, a great deal. You ought to look at the 
 thing practically. You certainly gave me to 
 understand that you intended to marry Madame 
 Coldcream, because she was such a good manager 
 of financial affairs, and had such a nice son who 
 wanted money. Well, of course, that put a dif- 
 ferent face on my affairs. I couldn't marry a 
 poor girl, and I had to look out for one with an 
 income to accommodate you and Madame Cold- 
 cream and her son. When I do my best to adapt 
 myself, you change your mind with regard to 
 marrying Madame Coldcream. You will pardon 
 me, there wasn't much rhyme or reason in your 
 choice, and there seems to be less in your change 
 of mind." 
 
 " Madame Coldcream was a mere fantasy," I 
 exclaimed, " and you cannot use that respectable 
 lady as an excuse. We can dismiss her, but can 
 
 '57
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 you dismiss Polly without a pang ? Are you, 
 then, one of those heartless men who trifle with 
 a girl's affections and throw them aside at any 
 caprice ? " 
 
 " You will have to make some allowance for 
 me, Dad. I never had but one example set be- 
 fore me." 
 
 "Rubbish you are talking nonsense. My 
 feelings for that estimable woman, Madame Cold- 
 cream, were those of respectful appreciation, and 
 I have not changed them. But as to marrying, 
 I can change my views, I suppose, without any 
 recreancy or dishonour, seeing that the whole 
 matter was one of convenience." 
 
 " Oh," said Charlie, " then you have given up 
 that idea ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes. Let us stick to the really impor- 
 tant matter in hand, which is Miss lo. Did you 
 know that Mr. Fancher had made an avowal to 
 the Doctor ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. lo told me." 
 
 " Then she knew it. What did she say about 
 it?" 
 
 " I don't remember that she said anything defi- 
 nite. She seemed to regard it as quite the regular 
 course of affairs. Mr. Fancher is the fifth or 
 sixth. I suppose these things lose their edge in 
 time." 
 
 " Suppose Mr. Fancher gets her ? " 
 
 " Well, then, I suppose I can change my views 
 without any recreancy, seeing that it would be a 
 matter of convenience." 
 
 158
 
 I STRUGGLE WITH MY OWN WEB 
 
 " But have you no blood, no passion, no youth- 
 ful fire not a single emotion ? What the deuce 
 are you yawning for ? " 
 
 "To tell you the truth, I'm a little tired and 
 sleepy. You will pardon me, Dad, but the sudden 
 disappearance of Madame Coldcream leaves me a 
 little limp." 
 
 " Very well," I said, with a strong effort at 
 sternness, " go to bed. But to-morrow I expect 
 you to bring Polly and let me talk to the two of 
 you, and stop this disgraceful business somehow. 
 And I don't want to hear any more about Madame 
 Coldcream. Good night. I am going to read my 
 letters." 
 
 " Good night, Dad," he said, and, coming up 
 behind me, he put his arm familiarly round my 
 neck and added: "We were awfully jolly in our 
 New York quarters, before Madame Coldcream 
 and the rest of them interfered with us. Sup- 
 pose we go back." 
 
 " No, sir," I said, bringing my fist down on 
 the table to preserve the air of grimness. " No, 
 sir we stay here and fight it out. Good night." 
 
 I settled down in my chair and opened the first 
 letter. It was from my half-sister, Mrs. Petunia 
 Dewey, and this is what it said : 
 
 MY DEAR RUFUS : I have not heard a word from 
 you, and do not know which of you has taken the best 
 care of the other. But I have a surprise for you, which 
 I think will gladden your blase heart. I have received 
 an invitation from our old friend Mr. Berwick Fancher 
 to come down to the annual tournament of the Game 
 
 159
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 Club, and I have invited Madame Coldcream to join me. 
 By the way, I have told her of your admiration, and I 
 think you will find the way made quite smooth for you 
 when she arrives, for she has promised to accompany me, 
 and I have written to the Doctor by this mail informing 
 him of our visit, with a request to wire us if his accom- 
 modations are not ample. I trust, my dear Rufus, that 
 you will make the most of this visit, for the more I 
 think of it the more I am satisfied that both you and 
 your son need a practical woman at the head of affairs, 
 and I have done all that can be done to pave the way. 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 PETUNIA DEWEY. 
 
 1 60
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING 
 
 HIS letter completely threw me 
 off my mental balance. Fate 
 sometimes is a Nemesis trying 
 to play the Merry Andrew. It 
 isn't pleasant. It annoys one to 
 have serious matters masquerade. 
 Destiny, I said to myself, has a serious role to 
 play, and this is too ridiculous. Madame Cold- 
 cream coming here, is she ? Then, by the in- 
 exorable demands of business, I can pack my 
 gripsack and hie me to New York to-morrow on 
 a matter of vital importance. What is it Mae- 
 terlinck says about destiny being a blear-eyed 
 bowman, aiming straight ahead, but if the target 
 be raised somewhat higher than usual, the arrows 
 pass underneath ? Good ; I'll raise the target, 
 and go back to New York. 
 
 161
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 Having adjusted destiny to my own schedule, 
 I went to bed, and so well satisfied was I that I 
 could at least dodge the blear-eyed jade, that I 
 went to sleep. 
 
 I woke up the next morning, and, looking at 
 myself in the glass, saw with satisfaction that I 
 had a well-defined expression of decision round 
 my mouth. I prided myself that it was the 
 mature expression that belongs to such an act as 
 is called " taking the bull by the horns." 
 
 But those summer mornings at Tuskaloo, when 
 all the ephemeral annoyances of life fled from the 
 memory and nothing remained but the glory of 
 the hour ! Those glittering moments sang to- 
 gether a new symphony of life, and it was impos- 
 sible not to feel, despite all the conditions of 
 one's mind, that these were transitional and tran- 
 scendent moments when dumb material uttered 
 its elemental rhythmus with effluent unison, and 
 the vivid sunlight, the cool shadows, the dewy, 
 rose-scented air, and the disturbance of the birds 
 were all parts of the same uplifting oratorio. I 
 walked about as I attired myself and tried to sup- 
 press an inclination to whistle, because in a reso- 
 lute frame of mind whistling is not consistent. 
 But when all the elements about one are kicking 
 up a roulade, it is difficult to suppress one's auto- 
 matic sympathies. I looked into my companion's 
 room. He was gone. Wayward youth, I said, 
 he has no sense of the seriousness of life; and 
 just then the pulse of air that came in my vine- 
 covered window brought with it a stave of human 
 
 162
 
 FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING 
 
 song, itself rose-scented and softly exultant, a 
 mere snatch of song that seemed to have tumbled 
 into expression out of the condition of things and 
 was going its bright way with the hurrying hours. 
 But how well I knew it a strain of " Lucia di 
 quest Anima," just that bobolink burst, and I 
 knew that Polly was somewhere mixed up in the 
 dewy shadows, exulting like all other things with- 
 out considering. All the old associations of that 
 bubbling romanza were touched in me, and I 
 listened with my head cocked on one side and, I 
 dare say, with a smile of recognition on my face 
 that must have diluted my decision. Polly was 
 somewhere at a softening distance contributing to 
 the morning fund. I felt sure she was in the wet 
 grass, with her buckled shoes, colloguing with the 
 robins, and that if I listened long enough I 
 should hear a stave of the song in " Dinorah," 
 and know that she was mocking the birds with 
 " Si Carina," and presently would catch up her 
 skirts and go pirouetting round in the " Shadow 
 Song," just to show those pretentious robins how 
 much better she could do it. I suppose every 
 exultant girl has a casket of a voice into which 
 the old masters have at some time dropped their 
 little jewels, and these mornings open the lid 
 and let them shine. 
 
 All the domestic elements in my comedy were 
 assembled at the breakfast table, all wearing the 
 morning on their unlike visages, and I alone try- 
 ing to look judiciously malapropos with my 
 sense of impending danger. They were all keyed 
 
 163
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 up to the auroral gayety of heart, and the Doctor 
 began his fanfare as soon as we were seated. 
 
 " Good news for all of you ! " he said. " Have 
 to brush up the old ranch, and get out our laced 
 and embroidered hospitality. High-stepping 
 company coming." 
 
 We all looked at him with a keen interest, I 
 alone suspecting what was impending. 
 
 " We are to have a tournament in the moun- 
 tains at the Club House," he said ; " that you 
 know. But what you do not know is that some 
 old friends of mine are coming to it from New 
 York. I have a letter from your sister," he said, 
 looking at me, " Madame Petunia Dewey, an- 
 nouncing her intended visit here to renew her old 
 acquaintance with me and to' look after her brother; 
 and she brings with her a friend, Madame Cold- 
 cream." 
 
 This announcement, so confidently and jovi- 
 ally made, did not fall upon all of us with the 
 same enlivenment. Charlie, who sat opposite me, 
 let his two hands come down upon the table, hold- 
 ing his knife and fork in them, and stared at me 
 with his eyes propped very wide open by inquiry, 
 and his mouth partly open as if to accommodate 
 a little gasp. lo, who sat next him, was alone 
 unperturbed, and went placidly on taking her 
 coffee by the spoonful. lo, as usual, was superior 
 to any vagrant emotions. 
 
 There was a moment of silence, and then the 
 voices all broke out together. 
 
 " I suppose you were also notified of the visit," 
 164
 
 FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING 
 
 said Charlie, still boring at me with his wide-open 
 eyes. 
 
 Polly, by my side, was leaning forward trying 
 to look into my face, I felt that she was anxious 
 to see how Charlie's look affected me, and 
 Mother's household anxiety surmounted every- 
 thing. 
 
 "Why, Doctor," she said, "you know we've only 
 one upstairs maid, and all the woollens in the extra 
 chambers are put away for the summer ; the mus- 
 lin curtains are not up, and the mosquito frames 
 are all in the barn." 
 
 " They will have to take pot-luck," said the 
 Doctor. " Madame Dewey I know very well, and 
 she will accommodate herself to circumstances. As 
 for the other lady, I presume my friend Rufus 
 can vouch for her adaptability to our barbarism." 
 
 " A most estimable lady of the old school, 
 Doctor," I said, " and sure to add distinction to 
 your group." 
 
 " And that is just what our group needs. When 
 it comes to tournaments, we shall need a chaperon." 
 
 " But we do not need two, do we ? " asked 
 Polly. " Who's the other one for ? " 
 
 " Bob," said the Doctor, " always speaks as if 
 there were only one young lady in the house." 
 
 "Naturally," replied Polly, "when I don't 
 count. But isn't it rather late for a chaperon ? " 
 
 " A good chaperon ought to be a great relief 
 to all of you," said lo, holding a piece of omelet 
 in the air with her fork. 
 
 "It strikes me," said Mother, "that you are 
 
 165
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 speaking somewhat disrespectfully of our coming 
 guests. As they are friends of Mr. Fancher's, I 
 think we ought to try and match them in polite- 
 ness and courtesy." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Polly, " they are coming to 
 chaperon Mr. Fancher." 
 
 " That will do, Bob," said the Doctor. " Please 
 keep your twitters until after meals. You do not 
 need a chaperon only a policeman. You must 
 understand that the ladies are not only Mr. 
 Fancher's friends, but the friends of Charlie and 
 his father." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, I only know one of the 
 ladies she is my aunt," said Charlie. 
 
 " Oh, you'll learn to appreciate the other lady's 
 good qualities, from all I hear," observed the 
 Doctor, looking at me with a particularly sly 
 expression. 
 
 But Charlie tried to rise to the occasion and 
 remarked, " I have heard of the lady, and I am 
 quite anxious to see her and satisfy myself if she 
 be a fact or a fantasy." 
 
 I was getting impaled on both sides now, and I 
 didn't like it. 
 
 " Fantasy, my boy ? " exclaimed the Doctor, 
 " whose fantasy ? Yours ? " 
 
 " No, indeed," replied Charlie, " not mine." 
 
 " Can I twitter, please ? " asked Polly, demurely. 
 
 " No, not a twit, my dear. It strikes me that 
 you are putting a rather flippant aspect on a very 
 important event. I expect this establishment to 
 assume its highest tone and wear its best bib and 
 
 166
 
 FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING 
 
 tucker on the arrival of our honoured guests. The 
 visit may result in some very interesting, not to 
 say serious, considerations. At all events, we 
 must do our best to preserve the record of this 
 house in high-toned gayety and hospitality." 
 
 They all promptly avowed their willingness to 
 do all in their power, but I could feel Charlie 
 stare at me as if he were inquiring of himself if, 
 after all, his Dad was a consummate old deceiver. 
 Nevertheless, the Doctor's voluble good spirits 
 overrode everything. 
 
 " We'll make it antiquely and rustically warm 
 for them," he said, " and if we all work together, 
 matters will go as merry as a well" (looking at 
 lo and then at me), " as merry as a marriage bell." 
 
 When the breakfast was over I went immedi- 
 ately to my chamber, where I felt sure Charlie 
 would seek me for an explanation. How I was 
 to act in the matter I scarcely knew at the mo- 
 ment. It occurred to me that the apparent 
 collusion of myself and Madame Coldcream might 
 enable me still to hold the whip-hand over Charlie. 
 Should I tell him the truth that I had nothing 
 whatever to do with the visit, or should I let him 
 think that I had? In the one case I might sacri- 
 fice my advantage, in the other I might sacrifice 
 his respect for me. Before I had made up my 
 mind he was upon me. He came in with a rather 
 brusque manner, I thought, shutting the door 
 after him. 
 
 " Say, Dad, you ought to treat me squarely. 
 There's not one chance in a hundred that
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 Madame Coldcream would come here unless 
 you wanted her." 
 
 " My son," I said, " I had no hand in bring- 
 ing her here, but now that she is coming it may 
 be of some practical advantage to me." 
 
 " Practical advantage ? " he exclaimed. " You 
 said last night she was a fantasy and I was to dis- 
 miss her. Did you know she was coming when 
 you said that ? " 
 
 This direct appeal to my sincerity was very 
 hard to dodge, and I was afraid that the intrigue 
 would sooner or later disturb his faith in me. 
 
 " Certainly not," I replied. " But now that 
 she is coming, of course the fantasy idea will have 
 to be given up. She is determined to convert 
 herself into a living fact, it seems. But that is a 
 matter that need not give you any uneasiness." 
 
 " But it does. I do not like to have Madame 
 Coldcream suspended above me like the sword 
 of Damocles, liable to fall at any moment." 
 
 " Explain yourself." 
 
 " I mean that it is better to have done with it 
 to have her fall, than to have her always im- 
 pending. If you and I must go different ways, 
 why, I suppose the best thing to do is to brace 
 ourselves and accept the decree." 
 
 " Oh, you feel that way, do you ? " and I could 
 feel myself collapsing at this first assertion of 
 independence. "Look here, Charlie, it sounds 
 as if you had made your programme much more 
 definitely than I have. I can invent an excuse to 
 get out of this urgent business in New York. 
 
 168
 
 FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING 
 
 We can go back to our rooms and dodge Madame 
 Coldcream if she annoys you." 
 
 He was standing near the table, and, striking 
 his fist upon it in exact imitation of his Dad, he 
 said : 
 
 " No, sir. I stay here and fight it out. I've 
 never had but one model, and I have tried to 
 imitate it pretty closely, even in its lightning 
 changes. Let the Damoclean Coldcream fall." 
 
 This was fairly hoisting me with my own 
 petard, whether Charlie was aware of it or not. I 
 did not want Madame Coldcream to fall at 
 least upon myself, and after considering a mo- 
 ment, I told him so. 
 
 " Then," said he, " I cannot understand why 
 you should want to run away, just as matters are 
 approaching a crisis here." 
 
 " Oh, they are getting interesting, are they ? I 
 suspected as much." 
 
 " Suspected ? You desired it, didn't you ? See 
 here, Dad, I think I have been a pretty docile 
 son. I've tried my best to adapt myself to 
 your changing moods, but I'm blessed if I can 
 do it any more unless you give me a route of 
 them. Your mind is getting so eccentric that it 
 changes over night. Yesterday, Madame Cold- 
 cream was a fantasy. To-day she is a fact. What 
 she will be to-morrow, I shudder to think. A 
 week ago, you were scared to death because you 
 thought I had fallen in love with a church-mouse, 
 and in a spirit of the most self-sacrificing, filial 
 obedience, I tore the church-mouse out of my 
 
 169
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 heart and proceeded to fall in love with a wax 
 Venus. Instead of calming your mind and bring- 
 ing it round to its normal gait, I'm blessed if you 
 haven't gone off at another turn and act as though 
 you were indignant because I didn't defy you in 
 the first place." 
 
 " Easy, easy, my boy. I didn't know how far 
 matters had gone." 
 
 " Didn't you ? Then what made you so anx- 
 ious to get me away from New York ? " 
 
 " Why, you young ingrate, it was you who 
 were anxious to get me away. You were scared 
 to death by Madame Coldcream, and now you 
 want her to fall upon me like the wolf upon the 
 fold. Talk about an eccentric mind, look at 
 yourself and blush. Why, it was only last night 
 you wanted to go back to our rooms.'* 
 
 " Pure regard for you, sir. I am learning to 
 put my own desires in these matters entirely at 
 your disposal and prepare for anything. I have 
 told lo that I love her. I didn't expect a medal 
 for it, but I certainly did expect some considera- 
 tion for my obedience." 
 
 " But confound it, sir, you told the other 
 girl that you loved her too. Must I inform you 
 that no man of our stock would lead an innocent 
 girl to believe that he loved her, and then coolly 
 desert her for the first good-looking woman he 
 met ? What would you think of me if I did such 
 a thing ? " 
 
 " You labour under some disadvantages, Dad 
 you haven't a father." 
 
 170
 
 FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING 
 
 " But this is a serious matter, my boy, to trifle 
 with a girl's heart, and the worst of crimes to 
 break it. That poor girl may be crying her eyes 
 out now on your account. By Jove, sir, I saw tears 
 in her eyes, and it went to my heart. I don't 
 know how you feel, but there is something 
 shameful in the mere possibility of a double 
 game of this kind." 
 
 We were looking at each other rather seriously, 
 and at that moment there came through the roses 
 at the window a snatch of that same scented 
 
 song 
 
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 It stopped short, and Charlie said: 
 
 " There are no tears in that, Dad. Why in 
 thunder doesn't she finish it ? " 
 
 " Ah," I said pensively, " it is like a broken 
 column." 
 
 " Do you think so ? It seems to me like a 
 cash payment on the instalment plan. You said 
 you wanted to see us together. Why not give 
 her a yodel out of the window ? Troll the rest 
 of that song. You know it. I've heard you 
 whistle it." 
 
 He looked at his watch. " Ta-ta," he said, 
 
 171
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 " I promised I o to go with her for a gallop before 
 the sun got up." 
 
 " Go your way," I said. " I will have a talk 
 with Polly alone." 
 
 " That's good of you you comfort her and 
 cheer her up like you do me. I'll be back in an 
 hour, and maybe by that time you will have a 
 new idea." 
 
 I went down and sat on the big veranda, where 
 I lit a cigar and tried to give myself up to the 
 morning swoon. But there is no nepenthe in 
 such a morning. The days at Tuskaloo were 
 all arranged on an electric plan, each with its 
 poles, very positive at one end and negative at the 
 other, full of stimulant matin influences at the 
 beginning and tapering off at the end with slum- 
 berous sedatives in the gloaming. 
 
 Presently the Doctor joined me. His heavy 
 tread on the porch made the boards creak as if 
 even the old lumber of the place had sharp tiny 
 voices that could be called into service. He had 
 on his nankeen jacket, a soft, yellow, unstarched 
 roundabout with big side pockets, out of one 
 of which hung a silk bandanna like a toreador's, 
 and his immaculate duck trousers gleamed round 
 his massive legs with ample coolness. He took 
 off the broad Panama hat, fanned his ruddy face 
 with it once or twice, and, taking in all the inspi- 
 ration of the moment, said, with a lusty, compre- 
 hensive breath : 
 
 " Well, my old friend, it is for this we toil and 
 spin." 
 
 172
 
 FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING 
 
 " True," I replied. " There are some moments 
 here that are too bright to belong to time. They 
 seem to have filtered down from eternity." 
 
 " My dear fellow," he said, pulling up another 
 big Quaker rocker, and disposing himself in it like 
 a rajah who has included Nirvana in his assets, 
 " my dear fellow, we apportion our feelings off to 
 the hours. If we could keep our morning fresh- 
 ness till evening, everything would glitter and 
 sing in the dusks as it does in the dawns. It is 
 not that there is any more joy afloat in the morn- 
 ing, it is because we are better attuned. It's a 
 fact, after seven or eight hours of enforced 
 faith in the Unseen absolute self-abnegation 
 in sleep we get up brimful of the Eternal and 
 think it has just arrived. We wear our faith out 
 before nightfall, and then, because the fumes of 
 earth make the sun go down murky, we become 
 pessimists. I like to catch a man in the morn- 
 ing, when he is at concert pitch, before he is self- 
 jangled. Then everything is at early mass. If 
 I wanted to convert men I'd begin at daybreak, 
 tvhen the souls are already half converted and 
 don't know it. Religion is a matin hymn, and 
 [ suppose love is too, our young lovers have 
 rone away into the dew and sunshine. I saw 
 :hem ride off." 
 
 He said this jocularly enough, but it sounded 
 ather melancholy to me. I don't know why. 
 
 " lo has acknowledged to me that your son is 
 <tn attractive young man. Attractive, my friend. 
 Weigh that word from a girl's mouth. lo is not 
 
 173
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 volatile and effusive like Polly, but there is every 
 reason to believe that the wind sets from the 
 right quarter and I do not mind saying frankly 
 to you that it is a great relief to me." 
 
 Now, what would you have done in such a 
 case ? I mean you who are reading this page. I 
 think I see you drawing yourself up with that 
 severe ethical judgment that is given to us only 
 when we read, seldom indeed when we act, and 
 saying, If I had emitted so many fine senti- 
 ments and put such a high estimate on sincerity 
 and frankness as you have done, I would try and 
 act up to my theories, tell the Doctor the plain 
 truth, and be hanged to the tangle. 
 
 You would, would you ? You would tell the 
 Doctor that Polly had deceived him ; that Charlie 
 had lent himself to the deception ; that we had 
 been pretending to run away from a temptation 
 and had followed it up, making the Doctor parti- 
 ceps criminis. You would say to him, I have 
 pretended to lend myself to your scheme, but I 
 was not honest, and now that Charlie is making 
 love to lo, I think he ought to marry Polly. 
 And you would still eat the Doctor's salt. 
 
 Consider. I was not sure that Charlie ought 
 to marry Polly, nor was I entirely certain that she 
 would break her heart if he didn't. Let me re- 
 mind you again that if the men who write books 
 were as strong and direct as the men who read 
 them, there would be an end of all romance. If I 
 had shown the slightest inclination to be as frank 
 as the circumstances seemed to demand, the Doc- 
 
 174
 
 FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING 
 
 tor would have gone off, hunted up that letter I 
 wrote him from New York and flourished it in my 
 face. Would it not have been extremely selfish on 
 my part to disturb, simply on account of a pair of 
 blue eyes, the relationship which was growing up 
 between lo and Charlie? Then,, too, the Doctor 
 had made it very plain that his interest in the 
 future of the estate would be assured by the 
 arrangements he was making. He did not say 
 clearly how, but I suspected that he needed fresh 
 capital to continue his generous patriarchal life. 
 
 " Doctor," I said, feeling my way along 
 guardedly, " Doctor, what are you going to do 
 with Polly ? " 
 
 " Ah," he said, " there you touch me. She 
 belongs to the atmosphere of the place, one of 
 those appurtenances with which you must not do 
 anything. I cannot bear to think of the ultimate 
 evaporation of Bob. Her twitter is as much a part 
 of the sunshine and song of the long evening of 
 my life, as is Nature herself, and gives it the zest 
 of morning. But I suppose that bubble must 
 burst. Some confounded yokel, like a hawk, will 
 come along and pick her up and fly away with 
 her, and then, why then, things will grow silent 
 and gray. I have allowed myself to drift into a 
 comfortable delusion that, come what may, Bob 
 will be always somewhere about, swinging on a 
 spray and twittering. It's rather foolish, I admit, 
 but it is the penalty of having no Bobs of your 
 own." 
 
 " Yes," I said, " I can understand that. It 
 
 '75
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 makes us old fellows wish that we were thirty 
 years younger." 
 
 " Then we should not appreciate it. A young 
 man doesn't care for atmosphere, he wants 
 avoirdupois." 
 
 " Doctor, Polly weighs at least a hundred and 
 forty. She is heavier than you think. I wouldn't 
 estimate her by her twitters, and she is not a bad- 
 looking girl, either." 
 
 " Yes, yes ; it takes sixty or seventy years to 
 estimate Bob's weight. I see you have arrived 
 at years of discretion, and then, our faculties are 
 keen in the morning. You always were suscepti- 
 ble just after breakfast. I remember how you 
 tried to build an ivory throne in the Hotchkiss 
 woods for a milkmaid. Well, well, I shall not 
 blame you, in the morning, when the universe is 
 flirting with itself. I felt like singing when I saw 
 your boy galloping off an hour ago. Yes, I did. 
 I haven't got much voice left, but my memory is 
 good and an old ballad slipped through my mind, 
 as if it had Polly's buckled shoes on: 
 
 " And as he lingered at her side, 
 
 Despite his comrade's warning, 
 
 The old, old story was told again 
 
 At five o'clock in the morning. 
 
 Do you remember how Parepa Rosa sang that 
 homespun ballad years ago, with her sunrise voice 
 making daybreak for dusky souls ? " 
 
 The Doctor was reminiscent and human in 
 the morning. 
 
 ! 7 6
 
 FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING 
 
 " It is always the old, old story," he said. 
 " The best we can do is to sit on the shore and 
 watch the bid springtides flushing." 
 
 Somehow it did not appeal to me in exactly the 
 same way. I saw a pair of violet eyes looking up 
 into mine, suffused and appealing. They re- 
 mained to me the most eloquent eyes I had ever 
 looked in. It was plain that the Doctor had 
 never detected their pathos. 
 
 But all this was suddenly interrupted by the 
 sound of a horn on the road. 
 
 " Aha," exclaimed the Doctor, jumping up. 
 " Our guests, and Boylston is making an ass of 
 himself with a horn." 
 
 We could hear the horses coming, and presently 
 the laughter of voices. I had just time to breathe 
 a transitory hope to myself that Madame Cold- 
 cream had been left behind, when the equipage 
 turned in at the gate dramatically, with Mr. 
 Fancher galloping by its side ; and there was 
 Madame Coldcream sure enough on the front seat, 
 just as large and resolute as life itself, and as they 
 came jingling up to the veranda in the highest 
 of spirits, there came faintly from the distance the 
 vanishing strain so like a receding bobolink's : 
 
 177
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 IN WHICH I BECOME A NONENTITY 
 
 HE old Manse wore a livelier air of 
 contemporaneous life when these 
 visitors came to it. My excellent 
 half-sister Petunia Dewey fluttered 
 the Mater of the house, you may 
 be sure. It was such an event to 
 have personages of affairs come this way from a 
 seething centre and sit down at the archaic board 
 and make the recluses feel how provincial they 
 were ! But the Doctor gave no heed to such 
 consideration. His exuberant hospitality stopped 
 not at trifles, but went on its overflowing way 
 without recognizing any new responsibilities. I 
 think that he exulted a little, as a provincial patri- 
 arch might, in being able to show off his rusty 
 courtliness to such good advantage. 
 
 The moment that all the preliminary greetings 
 and welcomings were over and the guests were
 
 I BECOME A NONENTITY 
 
 adjusted to the menage, Petunia pulled me away 
 to herself and came at me with interrogations as 
 the crow flies. 
 
 " What is the situation here ? " she asked. 
 " Have you and your precious scion taken such 
 good care of each other that the inevitable is a 
 back number ? " 
 
 " Petunia," I said, " you are disingenuous. 
 You probably know that I ran away from a temp- 
 tation only to rush into its arms. Between you 
 all I have been made the dupe of my own solici- 
 tude." 
 
 " That is interesting," she exclaimed. " Tell 
 me all about it." 
 
 " I would if it could possibly have any novelty 
 for you." 
 
 But Petunia vowed that she had not the slight- 
 est idea what I was talking about, and sometimes 
 her vows wore the aspect of sincerity. So I told 
 her, making my explanations as brief as possible. 
 She was frankly amazed, and disavowed all com- 
 plicity. 
 
 " It is not a plot," she said. " It is fate." 
 
 " Then permit me to say that fate is a bungling 
 playwright. No sooner does it arrange its denoue- 
 ment than the actors strike. My wayward scion 
 appears to have fallen in love with the leading 
 lady here." 
 
 " Then it is not fate that has miscarried, but the 
 stage manager." 
 
 " Who is the stage manager ? " 
 
 "You. You have changed your point of view." 
 179
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 " My son has changed his point of view." 
 
 " And for some reason that I do not under- 
 stand, you appear to regret it." 
 
 " Yes, I cannot help feeling annoyed at an 
 exhibition of such wayward susceptibility. I 
 rather counted on the fellow's stubborn loyalty to 
 his first love." 
 
 " Then he has fallen in love again. He is 
 vivacious, isn't he ? " 
 
 "He has had his youthful sensibilities touched 
 by a new face." 
 
 " Then, in Heaven's name, Rufus, let Nature 
 take its course this time, if there are no other 
 new faces here. I warn you that I shall throw all 
 my influence on the side of Nature, unless you 
 tell me that the latest is out of our class." 
 
 Petunia's estimate of these things was entirely 
 social. Like a great many other estimable women, 
 she had relegated her conscience to her set. It 
 was useless for me to tell her that I was governed 
 in the matter by the fitness that insured the future. 
 
 "You observed Miss lo," I said, "and prob- 
 ably measured her charms if not her capacity. 
 Isn't she a beautiful girl?" 
 
 " She is good-looking enough," replied Petunia, 
 with a woman's conservatism when speaking of 
 other women, " good-looking enough as girls go. 
 The question is, Is she able to take her place in 
 the circle that your son will move in ? " 
 
 " As to that," I said, " I suppose that with such 
 a face and figure, the circle, whatever it may be, 
 will square itself to her authority." 
 
 1 80
 
 I BECOME A NONENTITY 
 
 " Humph," she observed. " It is very evident 
 that you and the Doctor have arranged it. I 
 didn't think you were so lively." 
 
 " We have recognized it." 
 
 " Where is the other one, into whose arms I 
 understood you to say you had rushed ? Is that 
 arranged, too ? " 
 
 Now, the " other one " had withdrawn into 
 the background. I presumed that, like myself, 
 she had made up her mind that it was folly to 
 oppose the inevitable, and was over at the Lodge, 
 packing her trunk. At all events, she was not in 
 evidence ; so I could not expect Petunia to make 
 any immediate comparisons, and I said : 
 
 " See here, Petunia, I have only one desire in 
 this matter, and it is that boy's future. I don't 
 care a rap for what you call his or his wife's social 
 position." 
 
 " Since when did you execute this lightning 
 change ? " she asked. 
 
 " What I want," I continued, " is to secure his 
 future domestic happiness, and if I felt sure that 
 his present susceptibility would insure it, I should 
 give no further thought to the matter. But that 
 is just where I am baffled. Such beauty as lo's 
 is sphinxine, at least to a man. I have been here 
 some time, and I know no more of lo's character 
 than when I came ; and the worst of it is, she ap- 
 pears to know that she can dazzle any man's 
 judgment by looking at him." 
 
 " What rubbish ! " said Petunia. " The only 
 amiable weakness that you have not outgrown is 
 
 181
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 an inveterate quality of sex. She can't dazzle 
 me." 
 
 " I know it. Therefore I expect you to lend 
 me your unblinking judgment." 
 
 " Let. me see them together, and I will tell you 
 all about it. These dazzlers have one excellent 
 quality they are transparent." 
 
 If Miss lo had known that Madame Dewey's 
 eye was upon her and going through her during 
 that visit, I think it would have given her an 
 extra charm of nervousness. And yet, now that 
 I think of it, how do I know that lo's eye was 
 not placidly on Madame herself, making an 
 equal inventory and defying her ? Who can fol- 
 low these reciprocal processes ? The women 
 probably read each other through and through, 
 and never for one moment acknowledged each 
 other's acumen. 
 
 I hope the reader perceives the dilemma in 
 which I was placed, and understands my further 
 dilemma in being the narrator of what the reader 
 fondly believes is a love story. When did the 
 reader get a love story from the father's point of 
 view ? It is a most incredible undertaking for a 
 man of my age, for a father has qualms. He 
 may carry, as I did, his susceptibility to beauty 
 up to the edge of the sear and yellow, but, con- 
 found it ! he carries his experience also, and they 
 are sure to lock horns. He turns over the page 
 of the new book and the rhetoric holds him with 
 its fresh glitter. But he knows the trite plot at 
 a glance. Most of the veterans, they tell me, 
 
 182
 
 I BECOME A NONENTITY 
 
 leave the theatre at the end of the second act 
 They have seen the new beauty and they know 
 the rest. Nobody ever thinks of getting a new 
 plot, only of seeing a new woman. That is why 
 popular plays depend on the relays, not on the 
 reason. 
 
 The only advantage that a father has in trying 
 to tell a love story, is that he is a little suspicious 
 of superlative beauty. It is no longer a guarantee. 
 He has learned, perhaps, that Nature's purpose 
 in getting up what we call her divinities, is wholly 
 dissociated from anything but her own idea of 
 fecundity, and that consequently she often adorns 
 the shallowest souls with the most regal lines and 
 colours. It takes a man generally about forty 
 years to learn that real beauty is like Truth 
 like Truth, I cry you shame. It is Truth, and 
 it never bursts upon the vision, outside of the 
 current novel, with the blazon of voluptuous 
 facts, but glimmers up slowly according to the 
 law of evolution, and shines securely when Aph- 
 rodite is grown obese and dull. 
 
 What the world has consented to call beauty 
 in a woman ever since the Argive Helen, is often 
 a vacuum which that same world rushes to fill 
 with its fancies. When beauty consents to die, 
 or, what is worse, to live on beyond its attractive- 
 ness, we can discover nothing but the vagaries 
 we imputed to it. 
 
 I suppose, if the truth must be told, that I 
 was mean enough to harbour a skulking distrust 
 of Miss lo. Her imperious superiority to all 
 
 183
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 the demands of a father, her unauthorized sover- 
 eignty of line and colour, aggravated me in some 
 unknown way. She often looked at me with a 
 mild and matchless contempt that only I could 
 interpret, for it said to me, " Pish, for your years 
 of watchfulness and of anxious guardianship ! I 
 override them all with contour and the divine 
 right of effulgence." 
 
 I was not sure, even while experiencing this 
 unworthy feeling, that I was not doing her great 
 injustice. One thing I am sure of. I never 
 came under the spell of her beauty without feel- 
 ing the absence of something. I dare say I was 
 foolish enough to think of an overflowing girlhood 
 somewhere ; something scintillant, in buckled 
 shoes ; daring to throw its arms about my 
 neck ; now looking at the shadows of its own 
 temperament through tears, and now dancing' a 
 gavotte interpreting itself like a wind harp, as 
 the breath of heaven touched it. And then I 
 wondered at the majestic keyboard of this other 
 instrument which kept every player at a dis- 
 tance. 
 
 I had already learned that there are two occa- 
 sions in a father's life when he is expected to be- 
 come a nonentity. One is a birth and the other 
 is a death. I had now to learn that there are 
 three, and a marriage must be added to the 
 periods of self-extinction, when your friends 
 push you aside and take upon themselves the 
 management of what looks to you like your 
 destiny. Now that I had a marriageable son, 
 
 184
 
 I BECOME A NONENTITY 
 
 my individuality was kindly reminded on all 
 sides that it should remain at zero. 
 
 The Doctor caught me by the arm and walked 
 me up and down his veranda with complacent 
 patronage. 
 
 " Now that the house wears a gala-day aspect," 
 said he, " we might top off with a wedding. What 
 do you say ? Suppose we seize the opportunity 
 and tie the knot." 
 
 I shrank a little at this unexpected precipitancy. 
 
 " Better wait awhile," I said. " There is noth- 
 ing gained by taking the matter out of its natural 
 course." 
 
 " Certainly not, certainly not ; but, having as- 
 certained the natural course and determined the 
 result, we might as well arrive at it and have done 
 with it. Just tell your youngster to fix the day, 
 while the company is here ; to strike while the 
 iron is hot ; you understand. One day is as good 
 as another. By the soul of Andrew Jackson I 
 feel like shaking an archaic leg myself and tap- 
 ping tuns of wine, and tripping it gayly on the 
 greensward. I haven't had a square merrymaking 
 these forty years. Gads, my old friend, we'll 
 renew our youth and pack these perilous young 
 responsibilities off in the narrow path of honour 
 and offspring while the roses are in bloom." 
 
 It is astonishing, I said to myself, with what 
 avidity philosophy worms itself into other persons' 
 affairs. Here was my discreet old mentor thrown 
 off his balance entirely by a prospect of orange 
 blossoms, and ready to avail himself of the hal- 
 
 185
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 lucinations of youth, to fasten two young persons 
 irremediably together for life. 
 
 I told him I would consult with one of the 
 principals and talk further of it. But they kept 
 the principal out of the way between them. 
 Charlie and Miss lo had ridden up to the Club 
 to make inquiries about the tournament. I im- 
 agined that he slipped out in the mornings be- 
 fore I was up, and lingered round somewhere at 
 night till I had gone to bed. Some kind of a 
 film had come between us already. 
 
 In such an uneasy condition of mind, made 
 restless by the conviction that I no longer had 
 any determining voice in that which alone inter- 
 ested me, I felt an impulse to rush after my son 
 and throw my arm about him with the old-time 
 confidence and say, " Come, come, Comrade, our 
 interests are identical let us tear ourselves away 
 from all this and recover our implicit candour born 
 of so many hours of affection." The more I pon- 
 dered over these intricacies of my own weaving, 
 the more vividly I remembered the spontaneity 
 and motiveless vivacity of Polly, who had no pur- 
 poses only instincts. 
 
 I am afraid the Doctor's circle began to bore 
 me a little. Madame Coldcream put my com- 
 placence to a severe test. I was kept at a con- 
 tinual pitch of decorous consideration by her 
 well-bred platitudes and her unexceptionable arti- 
 ficiality. She had brought her groove with her, 
 and one could not be polite without walking in 
 it. The Doctor appeared to think it was a 
 
 186
 
 I BECOME A NONENTITY 
 
 luxury to bounce about her with elephantine 
 courtesy and practise some of his old social 
 graces. But I had no vanity of hospitality to 
 sustain, and when he carried them all off for a 
 drive to show them the country, I begged out of 
 the group and was left behind in the big, echoing 
 house with the servants. Then it was that I 
 seized a sombrero from the hat rack and, clutch- 
 ing a heavy cane, set out for the Lodge. I 
 never before had been so destitute of a definite 
 purpose. If you had asked me what I was going 
 to the Lodge for, I should have looked at you 
 with a vacuous ignorance worthy of a wax figure. 
 
 It is well, perhaps, that one does not at times 
 know what he is about. He is thus enabled to 
 stumble on providentially. 
 
 When I arrived within a stone's throw of the 
 house, the plunk of a banjo came through the 
 roses. The free, jocund stroke of its few strings 
 called to me from very far back, and I kept step 
 to it as I entered the enclosure and found Polly 
 in the back yard sitting on an overturned wash- 
 tub, one leg over the other, strumming some kind 
 of barbaric stave. 
 
 Suddenly as I had come upon her, it did not 
 surprise her. She might have been expecting me 
 for all the change that my appearance made in 
 her manner. 
 
 " Listen to this," she said. " I have been 
 picking at it two days and I have just got it 
 snatched it like a bunch of marshmallows, down in 
 the meadows where the boys play it to the cattle. 
 
 187
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 " Wait awhile, my honey dear, 
 
 Summer time's a-comin'; 
 When the snow is melted, suah 
 You'll hear de bees a-hummin'." 
 
 One makes quick estimates sometimes. I said 
 to myself in one of those lightning calculations 
 that astonish us afterwards, I know now what 
 is the matter with Miss lo and Madame Cold- 
 cream and Petunia herself they have no banjo 
 in their dispositions. 
 
 " Polly," I said, looking round for another 
 overturned tub and not finding it, " have you 
 abandoned us ? There is something atrocious 
 in leaving us to our own resources at such a 
 crisis." 
 
 " Us ? " repeated the minstrel, with an inter- 
 rogative plunky-plunk. " Are you speaking for 
 the company ? " 
 
 " No," I replied, tumbling at the first stroke 
 to her own frankness, " only for myself." 
 
 " There is something funny in a man of your 
 resources coming to a church mouse. (Plunkety- 
 plunk.) Listen to the second verse." 
 
 " Wait a moment," I said. " Aren't you going 
 to the tournament with the family ? " 
 
 " Nobody axed me, sir, she said." (Plunkety- 
 plunk.) 
 
 " That explains why I am here." 
 
 " To ask me ? " 
 
 " Will you go with me ? " 
 
 "Yes, with you." (Plinkety-plink.) 
 
 She jumped up, ran to the door of the house,
 
 I BECOME A NONENTITY 
 
 placed the banjo inside, seized her chip hat, and, 
 coming back, slipped her arm through mine. 
 
 "It was real good of you," she said, as we 
 walked along. "I was afraid I had offended you." 
 
 " Well, Polly, I have turned it all over in my 
 mind, and do my best I cannot find anything to 
 be offended at in you, at least. I have been a 
 little disappointed, I suppose, but we get over 
 those things." 
 
 " And you are recovered ? " 
 
 " Somewhat. It is a man's duty to rectify mis- 
 takes when he cannot prevent them." 
 
 " You mean other persons' mistakes." 
 
 " No, I don't. I mean my own. Polly, I 
 want you to tell me exactly how old you are." 
 
 " You can't correct that. I was twenty on the 
 first of April. All Fool's day. You might have 
 guessed it I mean the day." 
 
 " True, if I had thought of sunshine and 
 showers, which you take such good care to re- 
 mind me of. But, after all, what have the years 
 to do with it ? Some girls are born women, and 
 some men remain boys. You know we were so 
 confidential at the start." 
 
 " Yes, at the start." 
 
 " Why shouldn't we be at the finish ? " 
 
 She stopped short in the grassy road and 
 looked at me with one of those quick, involun- 
 tary starts that were her own property and in 
 which she always played the echo. 
 
 "Finish?" she said, with a soft, rose-tinted 
 alarm. " My what has happened ? " 
 
 189
 
 "You have," I replied, catching hold of her 
 and resuming the walk. " If you had been con- 
 tent to remain an uncertain danger, all would 
 have been well. But you must happen in pro- 
 pria persona and muddle everything even me." 
 
 " Walk along this path to the meadow," she 
 murmured. " I want you to see the Holsteins. 
 When I am muddled, I come down here and 
 look at the cows. Aren't you fond of cows ? " 
 
 " Polly," I said, " you may be able to relieve 
 my mind of a burden. I feel that my family has 
 placed itself under some kind of obligation to 
 you, and as a man of honour I think it ought to 
 be redeemed, if not by one, why then by another 
 member of the family. Has it ever occurred to 
 you that Charlie may be too young to see it in 
 that light?" 
 
 We had come to the heavy stile at the meadow, 
 and we both leaned upon it close together. The 
 Holsteins dotted the green stretches with their 
 white stomachers, and the long afternoon shad- 
 ows reached across the fields in soft bars. 
 
 " You really feel sometimes," she said, " that 
 you are younger than Charlie, don't you ? Is 
 that what you mean by being muddled ? " 
 
 " Would you mind telling me what you think ? " 
 
 " I don't think there is so much difference 
 between you as one ought to expect." 
 
 " Oh, yes, there is. I cannot do the same things 
 that Charlie does at least, with his indifference. 
 A young man never has so much consideration 
 for other persons." 
 
 190
 
 I BECOME A NONENTITY 
 
 While we were talking, the Holsteins that were 
 scattered about the field began to move slowly, 
 in converging lines, toward us, so slowly and 
 softly that I did not notice it until they had 
 drawn together at some little distance and were 
 all pointing at Polly. I looked up and saw the 
 absurd semicircle of beasts that had closed in 
 upon us, as if indeed Polly carried her magnet- 
 ism into the fields and all things came toward 
 her. 
 
 " Wait," she said. " I have some salt in my 
 pocket. You shall see them stick out their big, 
 jolly tongues and lick my hand. Aren't they 
 handsome, with their velvet belts and big agate 
 eyes ? " 
 
 They came so close that I could smell their 
 minty breaths, a warm, musky fragrance, picked 
 up from daisied glades and gathered along wet, 
 odorous paths, lush with medicinal shoots and 
 blades of balsam. One or two of them tried to 
 say something in their own absurdly inarticulate 
 and mumbling way a way that opened great 
 coral caverns of mouths, and emitted soft rum- 
 bling interrogative moos, not unlike the summer 
 rumble of the heavens after a hot, dry day, 
 when you listen to the mooing in the far-off 
 mountain. 
 
 Polly held out a little white hand, and they all 
 came up in turn and kissed it, beautiful, half- 
 mute obeisance, trying to contribute its homage 
 from the nature of things ; and she pulled their 
 velvety ears and stroked their massive jowls, and 
 
 191
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 had untranslatable words for each one, that belong 
 to the mid-kingdom between instinct and reason. 
 I believe the influence of the honest kine must 
 have affected me. Perhaps I tried myself to moo. 
 It is some time ago, and I cannot be accurate. I 
 leaned close to my companion and said : 
 
 " Polly, be frank with me Charlie has hurt 
 
 
 you. 
 
 She gave a little start, as if I had tried to open 
 the lid of a forbidden casket. But her impulsive 
 frankness dominated her. 
 
 "Yes a little," she said; "but it does not 
 count now." 
 
 I pulled her a little closer. 
 
 " Yes, it does count," I insisted. " We are 
 both hurt in the same way." 
 
 " Oh, no not in *he same way." 
 
 " Well, at least by the same act." 
 
 " No, no you are unjust." 
 
 " He pretended to love you." 
 
 " Pretended ? Dear me." 
 
 I held her fast, for I could feel her shrink from 
 the subject. 
 
 " It must have been a pretence if it was so short- 
 lived. Something or somebody interfered with it." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 "Why do you say 'well.' It is not well." 
 
 "Isn't it?" 
 
 " Why, no. How can it be ? Now he loves 
 somebody else. It's lo, isn't it? " 
 
 " Oh, no, certainly not." 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 192
 
 I BECOME A NONENTITY 
 
 " It isn't lo." 
 
 " Then who, in the name of all the youthful 
 follies, is it ? " 
 
 "You." 
 
 "Try and be serious a moment. He cannot 
 help that, and it is no great credit to one's flesh 
 and blood. You understand that I am speaking 
 of his recreancy to you." 
 
 "Yes. It was his fidelity to you. I rather 
 admired it, it was so original. He couldn't love 
 anybody unless you did." 
 
 " What imbecility ! Do you mean to say that 
 my son has never grown out of his infancy and 
 has to ask his father what kind of emotion he 
 shall experience ? " 
 
 " Oh, his father stands first in his consideration. 
 You don't know him." 
 
 " Polly, tell me honestly, did Charlie ask you 
 if you could love him ? Speak up. We want to 
 understand each other." 
 
 She turned her head away and put her salty 
 hand to her mouth, so that she answered through 
 her fingers. 
 
 " He asked me if I thought I could love his 
 Governor." 
 
 " Great Solomon, Polly, and what did you 
 
 5 " 
 
 say r 
 
 " I said I could try, he had set me such a 
 good example. And I did try." 
 
 She must have rubbed her salty hand across 
 her eyes, for, as I pulled her face gently round, 
 those violet eyes were swimming again. This 
 
 '93
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 was too much for me. I had no immediate words 
 that were fitted to the occasion ; so what should I 
 do but pull her a little closer and kiss her, that 
 being in some sort an acknowledgment to her as 
 well as a comfort to myself, the cows looking on 
 complacently, as if it were part of the ordinances. 
 
 " I think we understand each other better," I 
 said, not quite understanding myself. 
 
 " Yes, and so we need not mention the subject 
 again, for after all it isn't a matter of life and 
 death. I should hate to imagine myself bereaved." 
 
 "You never shall. When a father sees his 
 duty clearly, he always expects his son to per- 
 form it." 
 
 This was at last so exactly idiotic in its fitness to 
 the occasion that one of the cattle smiled ponder- 
 ously, which looked very much like a yawn ; but 
 Polly only said : 
 
 " He always performed it, didn't he ? " 
 
 " Yes, according to his changing lights. He 
 may consider it his duty now to be a ninny." 
 
 " His duty to you ? " 
 
 " Suppose we hurry back. I should like to 
 give him some fresh points on what may be his 
 duty to me." 
 
 " I am sure it would be more comfortable for 
 everybody to let him find out for himself. Besides, 
 it really isn't of so much importance." 
 
 Then we returned along the lane, Polly hang- 
 ing to my arm with what I thought was a new 
 confidence, and after some little argument she 
 consented to accompany me to the Doctor's man- 
 
 194
 
 I BECOME A NONENTITY 
 
 sion and undergo the ordeal of Mesdames Dewey's 
 and Coldcream's inspection, an ordeal from which 
 she did not flinch and of the success of which I, in 
 my infatuation, had not the least doubt. 
 
 I recall that walk back from the meadow with 
 a vivid memory. These incidental pictures remain 
 longest in the mind and flash their colours with 
 unfading brilliancy. Polly must have noticed 
 that I held to her with a new zest, as if I had in 
 some measure reclaimed her. I remember that 
 there was a peculiar golden glow over the land- 
 scape, and I was bucolic enough to remark that 
 it seemed to come through fresh cream. Polly 
 only said, " If you don't mind, I'll take my 
 banjo with me," and, as I had to carry it, we ar- 
 rived at the Doctor's porch like two wandering 
 minstrels, but received a boisterous reception. 
 
 It was well that I had brought her back, for that 
 evening down came Mr. Fancher and two or 
 three of his associates to pay their respects to the 
 guests, and to make the old house ring with their 
 merriment, in which the Doctor joined with a 
 youthful zest that was amazing, and Polly with 
 her banjo and her vivacity violated all forms and 
 delighted everybody. 
 
 Madame Coldcream and I watched the young 
 people from our corner, vainly endeavouring to 
 read, between all the lines of merrymaking, some 
 sober purposes that might be lurking there. But 
 it was of no use. Charlie did not hesitate to rival 
 Mr. Fancher in dancing attendance upon lo, and 
 I could not see that Polly was at all distressed by
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 it. When it grew late, and those of us whose 
 stock of merriment was not large were preparing 
 to leave the young folks to make a night of it, my 
 sister caught me in the hallway. 
 
 " Rufus," she said, " you are entirely off your 
 base." (My excellent sister occasionally uses 
 sporting terms.) " I wouldn't give that " (snap- 
 ping her fingers) " for your or the Doctor's dis- 
 cernment. You are a pair of most exemplary 
 bats. I can't tell you now, for I have a slight 
 headache and must go to bed. It is too late to 
 explain, but Nature does not need my assistance. 
 These people get up in the morning at most 
 pagan hours and I must get a few winks of sleep. 
 Good night." 
 
 196
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE TOURNAMENT AND WHAT CAME OF IT 
 
 1jy?^N the midst of preparation I alone 
 <^>> lacked a merry heart. It was plain 
 (^^T enough that any social event as- 
 6JSK sumed undue proportions to this 
 igsC household, dependent for the most 
 ^ iCj ** part upon themselves for festivity. 
 There was, I noticed, a slightly feverish anxiety 
 and an unusual activity on that morning of the 
 tournament. The Doctor himself was not entirely 
 free from excitement. He bounced in, shouted 
 amiable imperatives, and bounced out. The break- 
 fast, at a most unseemly hour, was hurried through 
 as a matter of routine duty, and even lo, I thought, 
 wore something like a suppressed flutter on her 
 madonna face. The only person who preserved 
 an observant composure, and insisted on taking 
 all the time that propriety called for over her 
 coffee, was my sister, and presently she and I 
 
 197
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 found ourselves deserted at the table, not yet 
 having finished our meal. 
 
 " Rufus," she said, " we must be getting old. 
 Neither of us seems to be human enough to be 
 disturbed." 
 
 " I am afraid," I said, " that with our experience 
 we are apt to regard tournaments as a bore." 
 
 " Yes, undoubtedly ; but it is part of woman's 
 education to be bored patiently. I think, how- 
 ever, there is a surprise in store for you at this 
 particular merrymaking." 
 
 " For me ? -I wish you would prepare me for 
 it." 
 
 " That's just it. I am not in the secret. I 
 only suspect, and could not help overhearing a 
 word or two." 
 
 " It is very annoying," I said, " that there 
 should be secrets when there is no occasion for 
 them." 
 
 " There wouldn't be any, Rufus, if there weren't 
 men. A secret is merely a defect of vision." 
 
 " Now see here, Petunia," I said, with some 
 irritation, " I have been very much disturbed by 
 what I may call a complication, which is partly 
 of my own making, and I don't think you ought 
 to add any more weight to it than you can avoid. 
 Just tell me plainly what it is you think will sur- 
 prise me ; perhaps, if it isn't an agreeable surprise, 
 I may prevent or avoid it." 
 
 " That's it. It is never safe to tell you any- 
 thing. You rush off at a parental tangent and 
 make a fuss. Now if you will just remain cool 
 
 198
 
 THE TOURNAMENT 
 
 and indifferent, as I do, and let things take their 
 course, you can laugh at surprises. Nature will 
 have its own way. The truth is a father who has 
 a son old enough to crack stone should be inured 
 to surprises." 
 
 "It seems to me that you are intimating as 
 plainly as you can that it is my son who has a 
 surprise for me." 
 
 " I am sure of it. The boy is in love, and 
 you are bothering him. He is liable to do any- 
 thing rash." 
 
 " I don't believe a word of it. He may be in 
 love, and I think he is, but it does not at all fol- 
 low that he will deceive me, and nothing else would 
 surprise me. But to make sure of it, I will take 
 the young bull by the horns." 
 
 As I got upon my feet with impulsive deter- 
 mination, Petunia imitated me, and took hold of 
 my arm. But before she could say anything, the 
 Doctor burst in upon us. 
 
 " Now, then, my excellent friends," he cried, 
 " if we are to get away before the sun is unen- 
 durable, you really must come along." 
 
 " Where is that son of mine ? " I asked, some- 
 what anxiously. 
 
 " That son of yours has been gone ten minutes. 
 He and lo are in the saddle. The surrey is wait- 
 ing for Mrs. Dewey, who is going under my pro- 
 tection, and the phaeton is there for you and Polly, 
 as you desired. Heavenly smoke, man, go and 
 hunt up Bob, and leave my guests to me." 
 
 Polly and I jogged along in the family phaeton 
 199
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 after all the inmates of the house had set out with 
 a compounded hurrah-boys air. It was early in 
 the morning. The sun had not been up long 
 enough to dispel the dew, and the shadows of the 
 trees lay long and damp over the road. I could 
 not recall that I had ridden at so early an hour for 
 twenty years. 
 
 " Polly," I said, when we were seated side by 
 side, " Charlie has avoided me for several days, I 
 fancy. What do you suppose can be the reason ? " 
 
 " I cannot, for the life of me, imagine," said 
 Polly, " what any one should avoid you for. But 
 then I haven't had as much of you as Charlie has." 
 
 " There is something on his mind and in his 
 conduct that I do not understand. He hurried 
 off with Miss lo before I could get a word with 
 him." 
 
 " The Doctor hurried them off together. He 
 is terribly brisk in the mornings. Mr. Charlie is 
 all right." 
 
 " Do you really feel that way, Polly ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes, I'm naturally of a generous disposi- 
 tion." 
 
 " What do persons do at these tournaments ? " 
 
 " They sit on the balcony and watch the young 
 men play polo, and then they eat a trout dinner, 
 and call on the Doctor to make a speech. Then 
 they have a dance, and flirt and gossip, and drive 
 home in the moonlight. You'll enjoy it." 
 
 " Will you ? " 
 
 " Certainly if it's moonlight and you drive 
 me back." 
 
 200
 
 THE TOURNAMENT 
 
 " I mea,n the festival." 
 
 " Oh, yes, that's great fun in its way. The Club 
 members will try to break their necks, and the old 
 folks will look on, and lo will be perked up on a 
 throne and not move a muscle if two of them are 
 killed. She has a great deal of firmness." 
 
 " I fancy it will be something of a bore to me. 
 I would rather sit down at the Swirl and talk to 
 you." 
 
 " Oh, no, you will be surprised." 
 
 " Surprised ? There you go. That is what 
 Mrs. Dewey said. But you are confidential enough 
 to forewarn me. What am I to be surprised at ? " 
 
 " Well, then, you will be surprised at the com- 
 pany, first of all. There will be the homespun 
 gentry and the city athletes. Then the dinner 
 will surprise you ; then, lo will be a surprise, and, 
 last of all, HE will astonish you." 
 
 "These things do not appear. to promise any 
 surprises. You must remember that I am a some- 
 what blase veteran." 
 
 " That's the reason it will surprise you like 
 a new salad. The young gentlemen of the Club 
 are so far away from their city governors that they 
 think they can let themselves loose in the woods." 
 
 " You have been to the annual tournament 
 before." 
 
 " I missed it last year. I was in New York. 
 But the year before I attended it. I'll tell you 
 what they did. First, they had the joust on the 
 lawn. Polo and hurdles and rough-riding. They 
 picked up handkerchiefs (the ladies' handker- 
 
 201
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 chiefs) at full gallop, and kept them as prizes ; and 
 Barclay Jennings was thrown and dislocated his 
 shoulder ; and Frank Buckley sprained his ankle ; 
 and they had to carry them upstairs, and the Doc- 
 tor took his coat off and operated yes, he did. 
 ' Now this is something like sport,' said HE. ' Get 
 me warm water and bandages.' ( Bind it up with 
 that handkerchief, Doctor,' says Frank Buckley ; 
 1 the one with the pink monogram on it.' * Tush, 
 tush, boys,' says the Doctor, ' we'll keep that for 
 the next patient, who will probably dislocate his 
 neck. You keep quiet or I will take your leg off.' 
 You know it was lo's handkerchief." 
 
 " I should think that would have dampened 
 the merriment." 
 
 "O dear, no enhanced it. lo put on a 
 white apron and played the nurse in spite of the 
 Doctor, who ramped and stamped and said : 
 1 Holy smoke, girl, don't you do it. We'll have 
 the whole Club dislocated.' ' 
 
 And here Polly let off a little roulade of 
 laughter like a small sky-rocket. 
 
 "Yes," I said, " I can understand that lo as a 
 nurse is worth risking one's neck for." 
 
 " The Doctor said she was too ridiculous let 
 me see, what was it he did say oh, yes, f Great 
 Scott,' says he, ( fancy a man with a sprained 
 ankle who wants his temples bathed every ten 
 minutes. Where's Bob ? ' " 
 
 Then I tried to execute a roulade of my own. 
 I'm afraid I was not in very good voice. 
 
 " Is Mr. Fancher a rough rider ? " I asked, 
 202
 
 THE TOURNAMENT 
 
 feeling a little gleam of hope that perhaps he 
 would be the surprise in store for me, and in- 
 tended to risk his neck. 
 
 " I should think he must be," replied Polly. 
 " You know he told the Doctor he intended to 
 marry lo. That was rather desperate, wasn't it? " 
 
 " I should like to know what it was the Doctor 
 really said to the proposition." 
 
 "Oh, I can tell you. HE said: { Tush, tush, 
 my son, you had better stick to your regular 
 amusement and break your neck in some other 
 comfortable way. I flatter myself I'm master 
 .of this paddock.' Did it ever occur to you that 
 the Doctor is especially good at flattering him- 
 self? " 
 
 " Polly," I said quite seriously, " the Doctor 
 has set his mind on marrying lo to Charlie. He 
 has reasoned himself into a belief that it is a 
 duty." 
 
 " Yes, dear old goose, you can't help feeling 
 sorry for him." 
 
 " For Charlie, you mean." 
 
 " No, for the Doctor." 
 
 "You don't believe that Charlie will ever 
 marry lo ? " I asked, as I tightened on the reins 
 and, without knowing it, stopped the horse in the 
 road. 
 
 . " Never," said Polly, with what I thought was 
 a soft intensity. " What have you stopped for? " 
 
 "You must have taken my breath and the 
 horse's at the same time. Get up, Periwinkle. 
 Polly, if there is anybody to be sorry for, it is 
 
 203
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 you. I should think you could see that Charlie, 
 like all the rest of them, has fallen down abjectly 
 at lo's feet. He's bewitched." 
 
 She was looking straight ahead, and I could 
 not see her telltale eyes, but I thought she shook 
 her head with a slightly negative action, as if she 
 had repeated to herself the word never. Whether 
 it was resolution or faith in Charlie I could not 
 tell, but in either case, it had only, for me, a 
 tender solicitude. She was a confiding girl, after 
 all, believing with a girl's innocence that a young 
 man holds his vows sacred. How little she knew 
 of the power of passion in the young man to blind 
 the judgment and hide the consequences. And 
 yet, the father instinct of me felt strangely touched 
 by the fidelity of this girl, who, in spite of all, 
 believed in Charlie, or pretended to. 
 
 " We shall never get to the tournament," she 
 said, " if you do not drive faster." 
 
 " Bother the tournament," I replied. " It 
 seems to me we have come to it. Polly, just 
 listen to me a moment. You are strangely con- 
 fident. I honour you for it, but I do not feel 
 about it as you do, and I am going to ask you to 
 do a strange thing." 
 
 " Wait a moment," she said. " Stop the horse. 
 I want to gather some of those wild flowers," and 
 out she jumped. 
 
 I watched her flitting in the grass and among 
 the bushes, plucking the summer blooms that had 
 come up with many colours along the stretch of 
 damp meadow, and the unconscious grace of mo- 
 
 204
 
 THE TOURNAMENT 
 
 tion and strong relief of her lithe figure against 
 the shadowy wood filled me with new admira- 
 tion. There was something about Polly, seen 
 thus, that defied all analysis that I could com- 
 mand. Whenever I thought of her and lo with 
 comparative intent as two pictures, it always 
 seemed to me that one of them carried her own 
 light and irradiated herself without knowing it. 
 She possessed a human and fluctuant quality that 
 fitted itself inimitably and instantly, like that little 
 river, to whatever it touched. As she went lightly 
 among the stems, she occasionally looked toward 
 me, holding up a bunch of colours, but I saw only 
 the glad smiling face, and it seemed to me that this 
 was what Vernet and all those French romancers 
 of the brush had been trying to realize. Pres- 
 ently she climbed back into the phaeton with her 
 burden, and once bestowed, she said, in the most 
 matter-of-fact way : 
 
 " I interrupted you. You were going to say 
 something and you looked solemn. Have you 
 thought it over ? " 
 
 "Polly," I said, "if you do not marry Charlie 
 will you marry me ? It isn't so much of a 
 pledge as a test." 
 
 She turned squarely round, held out her 
 hand, and, without the least hesitation, replied 
 promptly : 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 It came at me so plumply that I held her hand 
 until she pulled it away, and being for a moment 
 unable to make out the exact meaning of her 
 
 205
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 promptitude, must have looked rather wonder- 
 ingly sentimental. Nevertheless, my remaining 
 good sense told me that it was simply a declara- 
 tion on her part that she would never be called 
 upon to marry me. 
 
 " Now, please whip up the horse," she said. 
 " We must not think altogether of ourselves. 
 There are others." 
 
 We arrived at the Club House about nine 
 o'clock. A more romantic spot could not have 
 been found than this broad plateau on the moun- 
 tain side, with a torrent tumbling down within 
 view, and a great campus stretching out under the 
 ancestral trees in front, beyond which the misty 
 perspectives of the valleys made spacious out- 
 looks. 
 
 We were hailed from the crowded balcony with 
 shouts of greeting, and Polly was carried off by a 
 body-guard of athletic young men. I saw but 
 little of her after that, save in flashes, and only 
 heard of her in airy gurgles, blown to me from 
 the wood, and always accompanied, I thought, by 
 a chorus of acclamations. 
 
 The only distinguishing feature of such an 
 affair as was this is the easy determination of 
 everybody to leave as many of the conventions 
 behind as is compatible with the association of 
 ladies and gentlemen. The young men of the 
 Club, in becoming hosts for one day, demanded 
 and received the right to mingle some of the free- 
 dom of an outdoor camp with the amenities of 
 a formal function. Even the dowagers and vet- 
 
 206
 
 THE TOURNAMENT 
 
 erans who have to be present for protective rea- 
 sons are supposed to relax a little of their vigilance 
 in the wildwood, and their endeavour to do so on 
 this occasion was to me one of the most amusing 
 features of the gathering, and I saw with zest, before 
 the day was over, the proper Madame Coldcream 
 skipping in the grass with wide-awake hat on, and 
 positively showing her autumnal ankles with some- 
 thing like mature abandonment. 
 
 How much a tournament costs these profligate 
 young men I should not like to estimate. They 
 had French cooks from Philadelphia and New 
 York, and coloured waiters from the Hot Springs, 
 to say nothing of the Hungarian band and exotic 
 flowers. There were wine and cigars galore, and 
 Roman punches handed round in tiny Dresden 
 bowls, hired, I dare say, for the occasion. Then, 
 too, they had assembled most of the landed gen- 
 try in the county, or at least that portion of them 
 which had eligible daughters likely to be inter- 
 ested in the sports of the city gentlemen, and a 
 variegated and interesting collection it made, re- 
 minding me more of Commencement Day at West 
 Point than of any other tournament I had ever 
 attended, minus, of course, those fetching gray 
 coats and white trousers. 
 
 Polly had described the festivities with her usual 
 accuracy. Most of the members had their hunters 
 brought down, and there was an exhibition of high 
 jumping.and other reminiscences of the New York 
 Horse Show, with a competing struggle for the 
 handkerchief, which lo from her chair of state 
 
 207
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 had given up, all of which elicited a good deal of 
 hearty applause from the ladies and some criti- 
 cism from the Doctor, who had served a term on 
 the plains and was familiar with the feats of the 
 cowboys. When it was over the guests and the 
 club men paired off, and I saw Mr. Fancher carry 
 away lo on his arm, and caught a glimpse of Polly 
 hanging to a stalwart beau. 
 
 I must have acted a little morosely, I suppose, 
 straying off alone and trying to make up my mind 
 if, after all, it might not be an allowable arrange- 
 ment to claim Polly for myself and let Charlie go 
 his headlong way. I own that I had a growing 
 inclination to retain Polly in my family, and it 
 seemed to me at the moment that Polly had 
 evinced no opposition to being retained one way 
 or the other. The simple fact is Polly had grown 
 by some inscrutable virtue of her own to be a very 
 important consideration with me, and I confess 
 that I gave way to the ignoble thought for a 
 moment, that perhaps it would be well to let 
 Nature have her way with the three of us. Even 
 fathers have their weak moments. Might it not 
 be that Fate had reserved Polly for my mature 
 rescuing ? It would not be such a monstrous 
 thing if the girl saw something in the father 
 better balanced and more reliable than had won 
 her in the son. I had gone so far as to make an 
 unprecedented and conditional proposal to Polly, 
 and the girl had accepted it promptly and frankly. 
 For the life of me I could not make out, now that 
 I thought it over, whether her acceptance was of 
 
 208
 
 THE TOURNAMENT 
 
 me or the result that was already guaranteed to 
 her faith. 
 
 So it was that Polly, by baffling me, won me to 
 an admiration that was beyond all reason. And 
 so it always is with a man when he gets past his 
 headlong stage. He begins to worship a supernal 
 twitter that reminds him of his own youth. 
 Against the chiselled lo, Polly seemed to throb 
 and quiver and smile and weep as the tides of life 
 went exultingly on. 
 
 Now this is all very well, but when a father of 
 fifty with a son of twenty gets into this tangle, he 
 has to deal with a new element, utterly unknown 
 to the youthful lover who is foot-loose. The 
 parental bonds are tight. He may play at the 
 selfishness of passion, but he cannot get rid of 
 the father's loyalty. I do not know which is the 
 most craven, his admiration for that which is most 
 admirable in a girl, or his sympathy for that which 
 is most contemptible in his own offspring. It 
 was plain enough to me that Charlie, like all the 
 rest of them, was under the spell of lo. How 
 could I help pitying him. Suppose she jilted 
 him. Just think of that poor fellow being all 
 smashed up at his age. And then I was respon- 
 sible for most of it myself. What did the Doctor 
 know of a father's feelings ? 
 
 So I wandered about and smoked my cigar and 
 watched the romp of exuberant nature, and tried 
 to read for myself between the lines of flirtation. 
 Do my best, I could not discover any surprises. 
 There were some bouncing girls in the bowling 
 
 209
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 alley one of them had dropped a ball on her 
 toes and was being fanned in a chair; another had 
 made a ten-strike and fainted. There were other 
 groups in the billiard room and on the croquet 
 ground. It was all traditional, and familiar to 
 the man who has been through it. But I noted 
 that Mr. Fancher had appropriated lo, and I 
 fondly believed that my boy, like myself, was 
 wandering about slightly disgruntled, not even 
 caring to interfere with Barclay Jennings, who had 
 carried off Polly. As for the Doctor, he had 
 encountered Judge Gates of Mifflin, one of the 
 staunchest of the old Quaker stock of Pennsylva- 
 nia, with a large family of girls and boys, several 
 of whom had come with him and were introduced 
 as Pearl and Sapphira and Jasper, for, as the 
 Doctor gallantly remarked, the Gates house- 
 hold had as many shining portals as the Holy 
 City. With this staunch old gentleman, the 
 Doctor entered into an argument on protection 
 and free trade, to the delectation of a small group 
 of ancients, and the consequence was that the 
 young folks had everything their own way, and 
 everything seemed to gallop or dawdle in the 
 familiar and preordained route. The dinner was 
 quite an achievement of its kind, with mountains 
 of wild berries and trout in various modes. 
 There were appropriate wines and confections, 
 and Mr. Fancher was master of ceremonies. 
 He had put lo at the end of the table, and had a 
 wreath of white roses suspended above her head 
 like a halo. He took good care to have the seat 
 
 210
 
 THE TOURNAMENT 
 
 next to her, and to have my son pushed down to 
 the other end among the reverend seniors, where 
 he was compelled to listen to the Pearl Gates open- 
 ing and shutting. I think Mr. Fancher managed 
 to say to the Doctor in this arrangement, without 
 any words, that at this banquet his worthy guest 
 was not quite master of the paddock. So there 
 was some good-natured cut and thrust between 
 them which amused the rest of us, though the wit 
 was not remarkable. When the Doctor asked 
 what the thing was above Miss Jo's head, Mr. 
 Fancher replied that it was a reminder that she 
 was not under a cloud for one day. It was a 
 crown. Whereupon the young men applauded, 
 and lo did not even blush, though the Doctor 
 called upon her vehemently to do so for the sake 
 of her sex, and Polly tartly volunteered to do it 
 for her. 
 
 With such exhilaration as the dinner afforded, 
 they gathered on the lawn, and with the Hunga- 
 rian band well disposed, danced the hours away 
 until the moon was up. 
 
 As I sat on the balcony with " Mother " and 
 Madame Coldcream, watching the figures, and 
 remarking that Polly was the best dancer in the 
 party, the Doctor came up, and touching me on 
 the shoulder, drew me away from the group. 
 
 " What do you suppose has become of lo ? " 
 he whispered. " She and Fancher have not been 
 seen for an hour, and these runagates are too mad 
 to miss anything." 
 
 " They are probably wandering about in the 
 
 211
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 moonlight somewhere," I replied. " I saw them 
 this afternoon in a shady dell holding each other's 
 hands." 
 
 " Confound that fellow," said the Doctor. " I 
 don't want to mar this merrymaking, but I sup- 
 pose I must give him a piece of my mind. 
 Don't worry the old lady about it I'll find 
 out." 
 
 And he strode off. I heard afterward that he 
 went down among the dancing groups to make 
 inquiries, and catching Barclay Jennings between 
 whirls, he asked, " What has become of Fancher ? " 
 and Jennings, keeping time with one leg, and 
 speaking in puffs, said : 
 
 " Fancher ? Why, Fancher, he's gone to New 
 York. Now, then, Miss Polly, there's the waltz." 
 
 The Doctor took out his big red handkerchief 
 and wiped his forehead. He waited for a few 
 moments to catch Jennings again, and this time 
 he caught him by the arm. 
 
 " Look here, young man, one of my family, 
 Miss lo, has not been seen for an hour. I'm a 
 little anxious about her." 
 
 " Miss lo ? " says Jennings, beating time with 
 his hand, " oh, she's all right. She's gone to 
 New York too. You see I was to go with them 
 as best man, but I got tangled up in this dance, 
 and they were in such a confounded hurry " 
 and then Jennings was swept away in the waves 
 of motion. 
 
 The Doctor has what is called a level head. 
 He took in the matter at one gulp, and sup- 
 
 212
 
 THE TOURNAMENT 
 
 pressed himself with admirable will, for he per- 
 fectly well understood that Fancher in such an 
 escapade would have the sympathy of the Club, 
 if indeed the Club had not been his fellow-con- 
 spirators. 
 
 He looked at his watch. The through train did 
 not pass Tuskaloo for an hour. He could get 
 there in time, and make such a row that the val- 
 iant Mr. Fancher would back away from the in- 
 dignant brawn of Tuskaloo. Besides, he would 
 take Boylston with him, and Boylston had once 
 broken a man's back. 
 
 This was all very natural, and very like the 
 Doctor, who in an emergency was a very cool 
 and determined man. But when he got back to 
 the balcony, carrying his Panama in his hand, 
 and still mopping his forehead, he encountered 
 " Mother " and me, we having withdrawn from 
 the group, and "Mother" handed him a note 
 that had just reached her. She pressed her two 
 fingers on her lips as he read it, rather, I thought, 
 to suppress him this time than herself. It was 
 very simple and direct. All it said was : 
 
 " Don't worry about me Married at Tuska- 
 loo Will telegraph from New York. lo." 
 
 The Doctor looked crestfallen rather than 
 grim. 
 
 " Don't discuss the matter here," he said. " A 
 misfortune is bad enough, but to have it turned 
 into a joke is worse. We'll get away, if you don't 
 mind, as soon as possible. Just find our people 
 and I'll order the teams." 
 
 213
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 In such a denouement my first thought was 
 of Charlie. How would he take this blow ? I 
 sighed for him. This was his first shock in life. 
 He had never had any disappointments. His 
 poor young heart would probably feel very dis- 
 mal, and life, for a time at least, would not be 
 worth living. I must find him at once, and, like 
 a true father, come to his assistance and brace 
 him up. 
 
 That Hungarian band was getting infernal. I 
 went down and hunted for him through the gal- 
 loping coterie. When I caught him with an 
 affectionate but firm grasp, I said : 
 
 "My boy, something has happened. Prepare 
 yourself for a great shock." 
 
 He was blowing like a porpoise. 
 
 "What is it?" he said "Madame Cold- 
 cream had a paralytic stroke ? " 
 
 " Miss lo has eloped with Mr. Fancher." 
 
 He was not looking at me at all. His eyes 
 were going up and down with the music and the 
 figures. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I heard of it. Wait a 
 moment, Dad, till I finish this dance, and I'll be 
 with you. Polly is engaged to me for this set." 
 
 214
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 POLLY UNTANGLES 
 
 >HE morning after this unexpected 
 and unpardonable escapade of lo's 
 broke rainy and leaden. I must 
 have overslept myself owing to the 
 sombre light of my chamber. I 
 stood at my open window and lis- 
 tened to the rain. It was pattering with steady 
 persistency on the rose vines and running in riv- 
 ulets from the porches. It was one of those 
 summer rains that come now and then in June 
 and July and that have a reminder of April and a 
 presage of September in them something passed 
 and something chilly approaching. I looked into 
 the adjoining chamber. It was empty. Then I 
 proceeded to attire myself in the most discon- 
 nected manner, sitting on the edge of the bed 
 with one shoe on my foot and the other in my 
 
 215
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 hand listening to the rain and trying to recall 
 what it was I said to Polly in the phaeton. 
 
 These summer rains that borrow the melan- 
 choly of October and pour it steadily for hours out 
 of unlit skies have an occult retroactive effect. 
 They suggest a chilliness that does not exist. 
 They make you huddle and remember. You 
 light wood fires in the large rooms, but they burn 
 pallidly and spit reproachfully, like things born 
 out of season, and your convivial circle falls into 
 commonplaces of impatience and supposes " this 
 has set in for a week," and, being in the country, 
 thinks of the roads. 
 
 However, the weather is often singularly apro- 
 pos, and at this time it was only trying to supple- 
 ment the chill that had settled on the group in 
 the Doctor's establishment. I could hear a mono- 
 tone of voices in the room beneath, and I learned 
 when I came downstairs that //<?and Mother were 
 having it out behind locked doors. A slight oscil- 
 lation suggested that the Doctor was walking the 
 floor, and a lack of femininity in the tones implied 
 that Mother had her fingers on her lips. 
 
 No coffee in the hall. I looked at the bare 
 little table and wondered if it was intentional or 
 accidental. I tried the porch. The rain blew in 
 upon it, and when I turned the corner a wet blast 
 smote me and I buttoned up my coat. The pros- 
 pect was shivery and dripping. Recreant Nature 
 that had been saying for so many days, " When 
 you get tired of each other come out here to me 
 I have zithers and tabernacles and companion- 
 
 216
 
 POLLY UNTANGLES 
 
 ship " now seemed to wear a vindictive spite and 
 say, " Fall back on your humanities, you mis- 
 erable, overweening mortals ! " . 
 
 It is at such times that the overweening mor- 
 tals have a fine opportunity to snap their fingers 
 in the face of Nature and laugh at its storm ca- 
 prices, and mortals now and then avail themselves 
 of it with all the exuberant authority of Lords and 
 Masters. We all remember hours when Boreas 
 only incited us to defiant revelry. We have, most 
 of us, been shut up by the weather at some time 
 in big, rambling, isolated houses where we were 
 besieged by storms. And what a jolly contempt- 
 uous defence we made of it. How we heaped up 
 the logs and laughed through the frosty panes at 
 the snow-drifts and the cohorts of winter. What 
 games we played, what forfeits we paid and exacted. 
 We never heard the shriek of the wind, or, if we 
 did, it only spurred our merry-making. What a 
 shame it is that we lose our power of resistance as 
 we get wiser. 
 
 But the breakfast ? Oh, yes, we assembled at 
 the breakfast table. But we seemed to have made 
 a tacit agreement to preserve the relations of guests 
 and host and not disturb any family secrets. It 
 was evident that the Doctor and Mother had as- 
 sumed an extra air of polite formality. They spoke 
 rather elaborately about the weather, and the Doc- 
 tor seemed to think it was a subject that we ought 
 to consider specially interesting. 
 
 There was lo's empty chair on one side and 
 Polly's on the other. Charlie came in a little out 
 
 217
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 of breath, made an apology for keeping us waiting, 
 and sat down next to one of the empty chairs and 
 took up the theme of the weather as if he had 
 been cramming for it. How my voluble and 
 thoroughly feminine half-sister managed to fit 
 herself to the prohibitory reticences of that break- 
 fast, I do not know. But women measure the 
 social atmosphere with inscrutable nicety, and she 
 and Madame Coldcream spoke of the necessity of 
 hurrying back to New York with as cool a recog- 
 nition of a change in the weather as if there had 
 been a bankruptcy in the family, to which the Doc- 
 tor regretted that their engagements were such that 
 they could not stay, such weather was enough to 
 drive even a philosopher to the city. Charlie 
 looked up at me, as if he expected me to go with 
 the ladies. But I was not giving special heed to the 
 drift of commonplace, and so the breakfast came 
 to an end, and everybody had a disposition to go 
 off where nobody would interfere with the indi- 
 vidual glumness. Nevertheless I seized my esti- 
 mable half-sister by the arm, just as she had 
 gathered her skirts for an exit up the stairs. 
 
 " Petunia," I said, " come into the parlour a 
 moment, there is no good reason why you and I 
 should congeal." 
 
 " Congeal," she repeated, dropping her skirts. 
 " I feel as if I were in a refrigerator. Your friend 
 regards me as a traitor in the bosom of his family 
 and the worst of it is, I suppose I am." 
 
 "Nonsense. He is generally disgruntled. He 
 will get over it in a day or two." 
 
 218
 
 POLLY UNTANGLES 
 
 " Are you going to stay and wait for it ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " I am not going to do anything rash. Let me 
 advise you to wait till the weather changes, and 
 not rush off in this storm." 
 
 We walked into the parlour and stood at one 
 of the windows, looking unobservantly out at the 
 steady downpour. 
 
 "You see," she said, "the Doctor suspects me 
 of having a hand in this folly of lo's. But he 
 does me a great injustice. I had only a finger 
 in it. There, there ! do keep quiet a moment if 
 you want me to tell you. I had an inkling of 
 Mr. Fancher's infatuation, and as I thought your 
 duckling might be similarly ensnared I thought 
 I'd run down here and if necessary throw my 
 weight in with your son's. It took me just about 
 half an hour to understand that Charlie was not 
 in the race, and so I kept my mouth shut and let 
 Nature take its course, but I did not suppose 
 that the maiden would go flying off like a lunatic 
 after that picnic. Let me tell you that it is a pre- 
 cious good thing that Fancher's got her and your 
 son has not. You had better pack your satchel 
 and come back with me, now that the farce is 
 ended. I must go and change my dress. Do 
 you know anything about that three o'clock train ? 
 perhaps you think by staying here there will 
 be another elopement men get morbid by let- 
 ting their minds dwell on these things." 
 
 " You must not go off on that three o'clock 
 way-train. Wait till morning, there's a through 
 
 219
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 express stops for water at ten. I must straighten 
 out matters with the Doctor. If I fail, I'll go 
 with you in the morning." 
 
 My efforts to patch up matters did not begin 
 promisingly. My sister did not like the idea of 
 staying over another night, and she hurried off to 
 change her dress. I called her back. 
 
 "If you would not be in such a fussy hurry," 
 I said, " I might be induced to go with you. Why 
 not listen to me ? " 
 
 " I cannot imagine what there is to listen to," 
 she replied. " I am anxious to get back. You 
 are not." 
 
 " How do you know ? I am beginning to feel 
 uncomfortable here. The Doctor is sore at what 
 has happened and thinks Charlie and I could 
 have prevented it. Charlie half suspects that I 
 want to go back on Madame Coldcream's account. 
 Mother is piqued because she thinks I tried to 
 interfere with her scheme. Polly believes that 
 the Doctor and I wanted Charlie to marry lo, 
 and you think I am a fool for interfering with 
 Charlie's infatuation in New York. You see I 
 have much more reason to clear out than you 
 have, but I preserve my equanimity and look at 
 matters calmly." 
 
 " Yes, considering that you have fallen in love 
 with Polly yourself^ you do preserve a certain air 
 of indifference." 
 
 "Oh, come now " 
 
 "It is as plain as a pike staff, whatever that is. 
 I don't wonder the Doctor expected you to use 
 
 220
 
 POLLY UNTANGLES 
 
 your parental influence in marrying off your son 
 to lo. I should think you would feel rather 
 cheap about it after all you said to me in New 
 York of your son's folly. You do, don't you, 
 when Charlie is about ? I notice you are not 
 much together." 
 
 This speech nettled me perhaps on account 
 of the truth in it. 
 
 " Oh, if you feel that way about the matter," 
 I said, " perhaps the less we say about it the 
 better. If it hadn't been for your mischievous 
 suggestion about Madame Coldcream, Charlie and 
 I would have retained our confidence in each other 
 to the end." 
 
 " Had you taken my suggestion," replied 
 Petunia, "your son could not have helped 
 himself." 
 
 " True, we should have both been helpless." 
 
 Then she went up the stairs. 
 
 How it did rain ! I poked about in the empty 
 rooms aimlessly. Everything in the old house 
 seemed to have quit business. There was an 
 open book on the library table beside the big 
 chair. " Hewitt's Cranberry Culture." Faugh ! 
 It sounded marshy and wet. I sat down and let 
 my thoughts wander off to the comfortable Club 
 in the city. While I sat there the Doctor came in, 
 and seeing me, shut the library door. He looked 
 so much like a bull that I could not help taking 
 him by the horns, as it were. 
 
 "You are pretty badly smashed up by this 
 business, Doctor," I said. 
 
 221
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 He took out his bandanna and wiped the rain 
 from his face. 
 
 "If there is anything that I have set great store 
 on all my life," he said, "it is honesty and fair 
 dealing among friends." 
 
 " True, in that we are one," I replied en- 
 couragingly. 
 
 "Not at all! Not at all!" and he began 
 fumbling in his breast pocket for the letter I 
 wrote him from New York. 
 
 I held up my hand. 
 
 " Why go back to that," I said. " Let us deal 
 with the present. I am as completely taken 
 aback by what has occurred as you are." 
 
 " You speak as if some one had deceived you 
 too." 
 
 " If any one has deceived you, Doctor, it was 
 not me. I am surprised at your imputation." 
 
 " There's your letter," he replied, throwing it 
 on the table. "You had better refresh your 
 mind." 
 
 "About what?" 
 
 " See here, my old friend," he said, " if you 
 think you have treated me with exact fairness, I 
 am not going to disturb your conviction. We 
 can at least disagree about some things without 
 forgetting our present relations as host and 
 guest." 
 
 I felt my cheek burn a little as I got up and 
 we stood facing each other across the table. 
 
 " Doctor," I exclaimed impulsively, " our 
 relations as guest and host need not interfere 
 
 222
 
 POLLY UNTANGLES 
 
 with the expression of our opinions of each other. 
 The relations can cease from this moment if you 
 desire more latitude of suspicion." 
 
 " My share of the relation forbids me to reply 
 in kind," he said. " You are in my house." 
 
 " Perhaps that is unfortunate, but it is not 
 irremediable. I beg your pardon, but nothing is 
 easier than to readjust our relations if it will give 
 you a better command of language." 
 
 Then I took two steps toward the door and 
 came face to face with Charlie. 
 
 "Ah, there you are, my boy," I said. "Just 
 in time, we go back at three. Get your things 
 together." 
 
 He looked from me to the Doctor who had 
 walked to the window and was examining the 
 barometer with his back towards us. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " he asked. 
 
 " We have forfeited the Doctor's respect be- 
 cause we let Mr. Fancher carry off Miss lo." 
 
 " Pardon me," said the Doctor, turning round. 
 " Do you think that is a fair explanation ? " 
 
 " I think it is accurate," I replied. 
 
 " It isn't anything of the sort. Charlie, my 
 boy," he said, striding over and putting his hand 
 on my son's shoulder, " I had great hopes of you. 
 I didn't think that you would permit yourself to 
 be beaten in a game of this kind." 
 
 Charlie hung his head a little. 
 
 "Speak up," I said. "What's the matter 
 with you ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said Charlie, " unless it is 
 223
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 that I am one of those fellows who do not know 
 when they are beaten." 
 
 " Well, if you do not know it by this time 
 you never will, and I give you up. Between the 
 lot of you I must look like a consummate old 
 guy. But I deserve it. I deserve it for med- 
 dling with such tomfoolery at my age." 
 
 Then the Doctor went over and looked at the 
 barometer again with his back toward us, and I 
 really believe the old savage was affected. It is 
 astonishing how much pathos a man can put into 
 his back. For a moment I felt sorry for the 
 Doctor who, having lost a choice piece of bric- 
 a-brac, must look bereaved even in the rear. I 
 could imagine how a man must suffer who is robbed 
 of a Fortuny that has gladdened him for years. 
 It was not the moment to speak to him about 
 carrying off his remaining picture. 
 
 " Doctor," I said, " it is very unfortunate that 
 you and I should allow a misunderstanding of so 
 trivial a nature to strain the friendship of years." 
 
 " Trivial ! " he exclaimed. " Confound it, sir, 
 it goes to my marrow. A man at my age doesn't 
 like to be made a monkey of. I told you why I 
 had set my mind on this thing, and was weak 
 enough to believe that you understood my posi- 
 tion in the matter." 
 
 " I believe I did." 
 
 " See here ! " he shouted. " You ought to 
 know that what I was trying to do was to keep 
 together a little group that I had gathered about 
 me in my decline. It was the only thing I had 
 
 224
 
 POLLY UNTANGLES 
 
 to live for down here. A man hates to see his 
 work all go to pieces when he takes his hand off. 
 Confourid that ungrateful baggage after all I 
 have done for her. Gentlemen, I feel as if I had 
 lost a leg. I should think you would have some 
 sympathy for me." 
 
 At that moment the sun broke out and came in 
 a deep yellow shaft through the bay window. 
 Everything outside sparkled and danced in pris- 
 matic splendour. And then, as if it were part of 
 it, came the voice of Polly that same roulading 
 exultation. We looked at each other a second, 
 and the Doctor opened the sash. 
 
 " You have Polly, Doctor," I said. 
 
 " Have I ? " he snapped. " How long will I 
 have her, do you suppose ? How long will I have 
 anything ? " 
 
 " Call her in and ask her," said Charlie, with 
 appropriate imbecility. 
 
 She must have glittered into view, for we heard 
 her say, " Come out on the gravel, there's a rain- 
 bow." 
 
 " You come in here, you infatuated treetoad, I 
 want to chain you down," cried the Doctor, and 
 a moment later she appeared at the door, looking 
 as if she had brought the rainbow with her. She 
 gave one quick look at the solemn trio, let out a 
 gurgle, and then clapping her hand on her mouth 
 tried to look solemn like the rest of us. 
 
 " Polly," I said, jumping into the breach, " the 
 Doctor has lost one of his girls, and he wants to 
 feel assured that he will not lose the other." 
 
 225
 
 TANGLED UP IN BEULAH LAND 
 
 " Oh, the other doesn't count," said Polly, de- 
 murely. 
 
 " None of your twitters," cried the Doctor. 
 
 " Pardon me, Doctor," I said. " This goes to 
 my marrow. Pray be serious. I had the privi- 
 lege of asking this young lady if, in a certain con- 
 tingency, she would be my wife. Her reply was 
 remarkable." 
 
 " It couldn't be as remarkable as the question," 
 said the Doctor. 
 
 " Why not ? Her answer was, ' Yes, sir.' ' 
 
 " It was quite safe. He knew I was engaged 
 already," simpered Polly. 
 
 " Engaged, were you, already ! " snorted the 
 Doctor " and under my very eyes ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir," replied Polly, hanging her head. 
 " I couldn't marry both of them. He must have 
 known that, and besides" said the minx, drop- 
 ping her head lower and looking out of the cor- 
 ner of her eye at Charlie " either one would 
 do." 
 
 "You see, Doctor," said Charlie, "I couldn't 
 help myself when it was a question of saving my 
 Dad. I promised his sister, my aunt, to look 
 after him down here." 
 
 "That's all you want of me, isn't it?" asked 
 Polly, edging off toward the door. 
 
 " Come back here, you inscrutable jack-o'-lan- 
 tern ! " shouted the Doctor. " So you are going 
 to marry Charlie, are you ? " 
 
 " Either Charlie or his father," said Polly, put- 
 ting her hands over her eyes as if to shut out the 
 
 226
 
 POLLY UNTANGLES 
 
 prospect. " Why not let them settle it between 
 them ? " 
 
 " Very well," ejaculated the Doctor, sitting down 
 helplessly. " Go it. Clear out, all of you, and 
 leave me to my dogs. Here, come here, you 
 twittering ingrate " and he pulled out a drawer 
 of his writing table "here, take these with you, 
 I bought them for lo," and he pulled out two or 
 three little boxes. 
 
 She floated over somehow and got her arm 
 round the old man's neck. 
 
 " I am not going away. Nobody's going away. 
 Everybody's going to stay, till it's over and 
 I'm going to stay after it is for keeps. You 
 can't drive me out." 
 
 " Nor me," said Charlie. 
 
 I took a full breath. "Nor me," I added quite 
 resolutely. 
 
 The Doctor looked a little baffled and helpless 
 for the first time in his life, so I went over and 
 extended my hand. 
 
 " Old friend," I said, " there's one comfort left 
 to us. If we cannot be fathers again at our age, 
 let us be father' s-in-law. What do you say ? " 
 
 " Say yes," whispered Polly in his ear. 
 
 He gave me his hand. 
 
 " Wait a moment," cried Polly. " I'll go up 
 and stop the packing." 
 
 And she did. We all stayed. 
 
 Charlie is staying there yet. He is raising cran- 
 berries. 
 
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