w^^ 
 
 .CIT--
 
 Univ. 
 
 of 
 
 California 
 
 Irvine
 
 THE 
 
 WOOD-CARVER OF LYMPUS
 
 " O Lord, by these things men live, 
 and in all these things is the life of my spirit : 
 so thou wilt recover me and make me to live."
 
 " The stranger, looking back, saw the child still standing motion/ess 
 beneath the butternut tree."
 
 THE WOOD-CARVER 
 OF LYMPUS 
 
 BY 
 
 M / E: WALLER 
 
 Author of " A Daughter of the Rich," " Sanna 
 
 "The Little Citizen," "Through the 
 
 Gates of the Netherlands," etc. 
 
 With a Frontispiece from a Drawing 
 by C. C. Emerson 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 1909
 
 Copyright, 1904, 
 BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 Twenty-fourth Printing 
 
 RS 
 
 3 f 
 
 WS" 
 
 S. J. PARKHILL & Co., BOSTON, U. S. A.
 
 TO 
 
 E. AND T. C. 
 
 AND 
 
 THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE OLD CHURCH SETTLEMENT i 
 
 II. THE MOUNTAIN AND THE MAN 15 
 
 III. WHAT HAPPENED IN THE PEN 93 
 
 IV. WARP AND WOOF 153 
 
 V. THE LOVE OF MAN 207 
 
 VI. THE GIFT OF GOD 261 
 
 VII. THE PASSING OF THE HORNET 297
 
 I 
 
 THE OLD CHURCH SETTLEMENT
 
 The 
 Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 i 
 
 THE OLD CHURCH SETTLEMENT 
 
 THE yellow glory of the stage-coach still 
 illumines some of the valley roads in rural 
 New England, and still by means of it, if 
 one bestir himself betimes, he may overtake that 
 Past which is fleeing from us with accelerated speed. 
 
 This is specially true of the larger river valleys 
 of our North Country. Here the four-horse coach 
 still swings cumbersomely on its antiquated leathers 
 and, rolling and pitching like a lumberman s lugger 
 in the La Chine rapids, lunges along the post-roads 
 of Northern and Central Vermont. 
 
 At regular intervals the horses stop to water at 
 some roadside trough of hollowed log, or stone, or 
 iron in the shape of a huge sap-kettle. At noon 
 there is always the hour s halt at some wayside 
 tavern two thirds horse-sheds and one third dilap 
 idated dwelling, of which the greater part on the 
 ground floor is given over to the barn-like office, the 
 colorless monotony of its sanded floor relieved here 
 and there by the accidence of reds and browns in
 
 4 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 wooden chairs and earthen spittoons, in a pot or two 
 of hardy blossoming geranium, and the leaping flame 
 in the depths of a cavernous fireplace. 
 
 Here and there during the thirty miles of posting 
 the stage stops at a farmhouse, and mystifying pack 
 ages are left at the gate or door. Here and there in 
 a woods -road or on a hilltop the driver draws rein 
 and winds a blast on his tin horn that wakens a seven 
 fold echo among the green heights, and summons the 
 dwellers on the " back farms " to the rough box 
 nailed to guide-post, cross-roads tree, or fence that 
 still serves for the rural post. 
 
 On an afternoon in mid-September, in the year of 
 our Lord eighteen hundred and ninety , the stage 
 from Alderbury was slowly climbing from terrace to 
 terrace of the overlapping foot-hills of the Green 
 Mountains, with now and then a galloping spurt on 
 the short levels. The Hornet, yellow-bodied, banded 
 with black, was empty save for a heterogeneous col 
 lection of bags, boxes, and packages piled higgledy- 
 piggledy on the floor and seats. Several plethoric 
 sacks of burlap leaned their top-heavy weight against 
 the old-fashioned back-strap of the middle seat, and 
 lurched and lunged with the chop-sea motion of the 
 lumbering vehicle, but always righted themselves at 
 the critical moment of unstable equilibrium. 
 
 It was so late in the season, and the passengers so 
 rare, that the outside seats that vantage ground for 
 travellers had been removed and the space filled 
 with freight, among which were two crates of Rhode 
 Island Red pullets, a woven-wire cot of peculiar con 
 struction, and a newly weaned pig in a grocery box.
 
 The Old Church Settlement 5 
 
 There was but one passenger, who sat on the seat by 
 the driver. 
 
 They had been several hours on the road, following 
 the White Branch of the Connecticut upwards to its 
 source in the still uninvaded forest belt. The hill- 
 slopes behind the valley farms, through which they 
 passed, were gay with hundreds of hop-pickers in their 
 red and white head-kerchiefs, their plaid shoulder- 
 shawls or blue-jean blouses. To the traveller, looking 
 upward to the slopes from the road, the poles with 
 their largess of rioting vine and delicate green blos 
 soms seemed to lean from out the clear, sun-filled sky 
 of deep blue. Shout, and laughter, and waving of 
 kerchiefs and sunbonnets greeted the passing of the 
 Hornet. 
 
 Farther on, the entire population of the small fac 
 tory village of Scawsville swarmed at the noon hour 
 before the one store in the place " department " 
 on a small scale, and post-office and barber s shop to 
 boot to await the arrival of the Alderbury stage. 
 
 Five miles beyond, on the slope that rises behind 
 the Bend, that sharp turn of the mighty White 
 Branch at right angles to the north, where it rushes 
 downwards through the straight five miles of moun 
 tain gorge, lay the deserted hamlet of the Old 
 Church Settlement: a half dozen of dilapidated 
 houses clustered about the abandoned House of God 
 and its well-filled graveyard. The white walls and 
 white headstones dominated the valley below, east 
 and west, for miles. 
 
 At sight of it the driver, whose loquacity was 
 spasmodic, grew reminiscent. He shifted the quid
 
 6 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 of tobacco from his right cheek to his left and, turn 
 ing to the passenger, pointed with his whipstock 
 upwards to the church. 
 
 " Ther ain t ben er weddin thar sence I was knee 
 high t er grasshopper, n the las bur al but one wuz 
 er double one." He slowly gathered up the slack of 
 the reins to give the man a chance to put a question. 
 Fie had not miscalculated. 
 
 "When was that?" said the stranger, but in 
 differently. 
 
 " Twenty-two year ago come Chris mus two on 
 em ter onct ! Beat all how Si Prindle s fam ly petered 
 out ! Jest ez nice er set er boys n gals ez er man 
 could raise, n all on em, cept one, layin five foot 
 under ground. Ain t but two young uns left, n 
 they re kinder collat rals ; one s er grandson, n 
 t other s his youngest gal s niece-in-law, or, I guess, 
 out-er-the-law." 
 
 Again he jerked his whipstock, but backwards to 
 the slope below them, for the horses were pulling up 
 a steep rise to an upper mountain terrace. 
 
 " Jule was Si s oldest gal, smarter n er steel trap, 
 n harnsome too. She married er feller over n York 
 state city chap I heerd, n lived in Troy ; wuz 
 studyin ter be er minister, n went inter er decline 
 arter they d ben married nigh onter two year. Jule 
 hed ter do the supportin likely nough she wuz 
 willin ; fer I heerd em tell down ter Scawsville, thet 
 she said she warn t goin ter marry nobody but er 
 perfessional ef she hed ter work fer her livin ter do 
 it." He paused for another question, but it was not 
 forthcoming.
 
 The Old Church Settlement 7 
 
 " Guess likely she done it fast nough ; coz twarn t 
 more n two months arter he died thet they brought 
 em both up here ter bury, him n her. He d ben 
 in er tomb t ll then. We hain t got no receivin tomb 
 up here," he added as an afterthought. Then sud 
 denly seizing the post-horn from its leathern socket, 
 he sent forth so powerful a note that the green 
 heights rang with prolonged echoes, and the leader 
 on the off side showed his heels above the traces and 
 pulled bravely up on the bits. 
 
 " This is the fourth time since we left Scawsville 
 that this instrument of yours has rivalled the Last 
 Trump in sound, and yet I haven t seen a living soul 
 nor a living thing but that old crow on the fence that 
 those swallows are tormenting. Where is every 
 body?" said the stranger. 
 
 The man chuckled. "Thet s my special fer Some 
 body ye 11 see in er minute." He handed the reins 
 to the stranger. " Jest hold enter them ribbons, 
 will yer? It ll take me quite er spell ter git the 
 truck off; t ain t more n twice er year ther r s any 
 thing ter be hauled up the Pent Road ; but she s 
 allus on han Look er thar ! What d I tell ye?" 
 
 The stage had drawn up beneath a butternut tree 
 that stood in the angle formed by the highway and 
 the Pent Road that trailed its grass-grown, rocky 
 length over the undulating pasture slopes, through 
 acres of sweet fern and ground-hemlock, around 
 dense growths of spruce-bush, but up, ever up, to 
 the dark forest belt on the mountain top, where it 
 was lost to sight in a narrow clearing. Between the 
 turnpike and these woodlands the Pent Road, where
 
 8 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 it intersected fences or stone walls, was crossed by 
 four sets of bars. 
 
 As the passenger s eyes followed the direction 
 indicated by the driver s whipstock, he was aware 
 of a little figure that lightly leaped the bars nearest 
 the road, and came racing down the long, steep 
 slope to the butternut tree with the unshod security 
 of a fawn. 
 
 " Jest in time, Twiddie," said the driver, as the 
 child, stemming herself against her own impetus 
 and extending both hands to break the force of the 
 impact, brought up rather suddenly against the tree. 
 " Here s the truck ye Ve been lookin fer more n er 
 month who s comin down fer it?" 
 
 " Uncle Shim ; be them all ourn? " 
 
 She passed her lean, freckled hands rapidly along 
 the invalid s adjustable cot the driver of the Hornet 
 had just placed against the tree, and of which the 
 stranger took note for the first time ; she tugged 
 impotently at the piece of sheep-twine that tied the 
 mouth of one of the bulging bags deposited near it ; 
 then suddenly hoppety-skipping to the opposite side 
 of the trunk she sprang with outstretched arms at the 
 sturdy bole, and, clasping it close, with the agility 
 of a monkey shinned up to a limb that, at the reach 
 of a man s arm, projected at a right angle to it. 
 
 Thereon she balanced herself, swinging her bare, 
 brown sticks of legs, and laughing gleefully in a 
 clear, high voice at finding herself so nearly on a 
 level with the astonished passenger on the box. He 
 responded to her mirth with an encouraging smile 
 and by lifting his hat.
 
 The Old Church Settlement 9 
 
 " N thet ain t all," said the stage-driver, as he 
 climbed to the top of the yellow-bodied Hornet, 
 " ye fergot ter look inter yer post-office " 
 
 Hardly had he spoken the words before the child 
 hung by her hands from the limb and dropped to 
 the ground. The swift grace of the movement would 
 have claimed the stranger s admiration, even if his 
 attention had not been arrested by the sudden trans 
 figuration of the peaked, yet healthily tinted face 
 that, seen from above, looked like a vast freckle 
 beneath a thatch of dark red hair, faded and sun 
 burned. 
 
 Thrusting her arm into the opening of a narrow 
 squirrel-hole in the trunk just above her head, she 
 drew forth one yellow envelope. 
 
 " T ain t fer us?" she exclaimed in an awed, 
 questioning voice, half-breathless in her sudden 
 excitement. 
 
 " Don t ye b lieve it, Twiddle ; ef t ain t fer your 
 folks t ain t fer nobody on Lympus." He took the 
 reins from the stranger, and swung the whiplash at 
 arm s length with such professional skill that the one 
 sharp crack sounded like the report of a pistol and, 
 at the same moment, the leader on the off side felt 
 the stinging clip of the cracker on the tip of his 
 right ear. The horses strained to the steep hill 
 before them, and the stranger, looking back, saw the 
 child still standing motionless beneath the butternut 
 tree, gazing, as if fascinated, at the envelope in her 
 hand. 
 
 "Where does she live?" he queried, as the horses 
 rested on ttie first water-bar, whence, looking back
 
 io The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 again, he could see that she had not stirred from 
 the spot. 
 
 " Couple er miles back on the Mountin ." 
 
 " What did you call the place? " 
 
 " Lympus O-lympus, I s pose city folks d say. 
 Thet s what tis on the county map, but thet s only 
 the Mountin ; they re good five mile from Lympus- 
 Gilead, thet s the nearest settlement, cept the one 
 jest erhead. See? t ain t much of er settlement 
 no stores, no mill, no nothin but er pass l er log- 
 skinners n Canucks, n er dozen er more houses." 
 
 "Who is she?" 
 
 "Twiddie? She s one er them collaterals I told 
 ye bout. Si s youngest gal married er poor shote 
 of er feller, Shim Lewis. They hain t no children, 
 but Shim s sister died four years arter thet little gal 
 wuz born out er wedlock, too, n Shim took her 
 hum. Folks say he sets er sight by her, n so does 
 Lize." 
 
 " Is any one of the family an invalid? I noticed 
 that cot was an adjustable one, such as they use in 
 hospitals " 
 
 " Ye did, did ye? Wai, ye know er thing er two. 
 Ye re right thet s fer Hugh, t other collar. ral I 
 told ye bout. Thet s Jule s son. Si took him when 
 he warn t but er year old, n willed him ter Lize. 
 I see the will read kinder queer, but Si was sound 
 nough when he drawed it up. Ye see, he willed the 
 old place, thet was his father s, n the furniture 
 what ther wuz on t ter Hugh, thet wuz his oldest 
 gal s; n then he willed Hugh ter Lize; n ter Shim 
 he willed Lize n all the live-stock.
 
 The Old Church Settlement 1 1 
 
 "Ye see, Shim was his hired man sort of er 
 scape-goat fer all the old man s crotchety doin s 
 n he d ben courtin Lize fer nigh onter fifteen year. 
 Si wuz so dead set agin it, count er Shim s shif less- 
 ness, that Shim dassen t pop, n Lize dassen t en 
 courage him er mite ; n so t went on t ll jest fore 
 the old man died, then I guess he kinder wanted ter 
 make his peace all roun , so he gin em his blessin , 
 n told em not ter lay it up agin him, coz he d 
 fixed it all right in the will. 
 
 " Lize wuz some disapp inted coz the place warn t 
 hers ; but, she thinks bout ez much er Hugh ez ef 
 he wuz her own, so I guess she don t lay awake 
 nights over it n it ll be hers, anyway, fore long." 
 
 " How s that?" 
 
 " Hugh hed bad luck. He come hum er year ago 
 las spring ter help Shim with the cuttin , n jest over 
 thar, by thet clearin the Pent Road leads up ter, in 
 thet very spot, er shoe give way on the traverse n 
 er log pitched right off onter Hugh he hain t so 
 much ez moved er leg sence, never will ; dyin by 
 inches, so folks say, jest like er blasted tree only 
 t other end to. 
 
 " Gosh ! I feel bad fer the feller ; he wuz er smart 
 un, jest like his mother. He d worked out his free 
 dom with Shim n Lize, n laid by er leetle suthin 
 ter start in ter the Cademy down ter Alderbury, 
 wuz tryin ter be er preacher like his father, n hed 
 ben thar er full year n some on ter the next. He 
 wuz ter hum arter the winter term helpin Shim cut 
 n haul logs, n , all of er suddin, he wuz felled jest 
 like er straight, thirty-year maple, full er sap, n
 
 12 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 hez laid thar ter hum goin on two year wuss n 
 useless. I feel bad fer Shim, n Lize too. Ther 
 wuz er morgige on the place when Si left it big 
 nough ter mildew every crop they Ve raised. Hugh n 
 Lize hed worked off some on t, but sence Hugh 
 wuz laid up, they Ve hed er tough time on t, no 
 mistake " 
 
 The flow of his discursive reminiscence had, thus 
 far, suffered no check from the stranger s unrespon- 
 siveness, but a sudden flank movement of the leader 
 on the off side served to deflect the current of his 
 speech into other channels and more forcible ex 
 pression. While he was busy with the horses put 
 ting on the check-rein, testing the traces, adjusting 
 the drag the passenger rose, stretched his legs, and 
 looked about him. 
 
 They had halted on the height of land that forms 
 the watershed between the White Branch and the 
 eastern tributaries of the Otter Creek. The warm, 
 golden peace of a mid-September afternoon lay upon 
 the softly swelling sea of rounded, overlapping hills 
 and mountains wooded to their summits. Here and 
 there mere shining ribbons of water glinted in the 
 valleys far below. The forest belts, from which they 
 had just emerged, lay on the mountain s flank like 
 the tarnished bosses of a huge shield, the yellow of 
 birch, the brown of beech, subdued and enhanced 
 by the massed shadows of hemlock, spruce, and fir. 
 Here and there a weather-blackened farmhouse with 
 adjoining barns and sheds found shelter from the 
 north at the edge of the heavy timber line, and viewed 
 from that height closely resembled, both in appearance
 
 The Old Church Settlement i 3 
 
 and size, the swallows mud-nests beneath overhang 
 ing eaves. 
 
 The stranger breathed long and deep. The sun- 
 filled air at that height, two thousand feet above the 
 sea, was life-giving. As he took his seat again by the 
 driver, who had made all fast for the rapid descent be 
 fore them, he said, pointing to a scattering dozen of 
 houses just below on the next level: 
 
 " I take it that is Farnsfield. Is there an inn 
 there ? " 
 
 " Sech ez t iz ; wuz ye cal latin ter put up thar? " 
 
 " I thought I d stay over a day here I like this 
 region and return with you on your next trip to 
 Alderbury, that s ? " 
 
 "Thet s ter-morrer," interrupted the other; "I ll 
 be long bout noon. Guess ye can t stan it longer 
 n thet; fodder s dirt cheap, but t ain t A i 
 Whoa-ah ! " 
 
 With a deft turn of his wrist and a crack of his 
 whip, he drew rein before the open door of an old, 
 red, two-story-and-a-half inn which, as it stretched its 
 ramshackle length along the dusty highway, presented 
 a full front view of its fallen estate in the gradual de 
 terioration of its architectural members ell, wood 
 shed, horse-sheds, barn, pig-sty, cow-house, hennery, 
 cart-shed, and outhouse. 
 
 As the stranger swung himself down from the top 
 of the stage, a hen, roosting on the threshold of the 
 main entrance, flew, squawking, into the passage. 
 The driver chuckled. 
 
 " Thet s more n most folks git fer er welcome in 
 this God-fersaken hole; guess ye 11 git all ye want
 
 14 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 er the region fore twelve ter-morrer noon. Lay ye 
 ten ter one, I 11 meet ye on the road stid er here ! " 
 He shook his head dubiously, whereat the stranger 
 smiled. 
 
 " You re safe, for you 11 pick me up at the butter 
 nut tree by the Pent Road over the Mountain. I Ve 
 stayed over to make the acquaintance of Twiddie." 
 
 " Wai I vum ! " Uncle Jo Cheatle, the driver of 
 the Alderbury stage for a quarter of a century, slowly 
 removed his straw hat, and drawing forth from its 
 crown a new bandanna, wiped and polished the bald, 
 pink dome of his skull till it shone like a billiard ball ; 
 then he carefully folded and replaced it, put on his hat, 
 and, gathering up the slack of the reins, gave vent to a 
 series of sputtering wheezes which were accompanied 
 by varied and curious contortions of his rotund body. 
 They might have continued indefinitely, had not the 
 leader on the offside chosen that inopportune moment 
 to make known his equine displeasure at the preten 
 sions of a mammoth turkey that, appearing around the 
 corner of the house, suddenly claimed the whole road, 
 and displayed the full circle of his tail and the entire 
 register of his powerful gobble. 
 
 Amid imprecations full and free, the frenetic crack 
 ings of the whip, the all-pervasive gobble of the terri 
 fied turkey, and the gymnastics of the leader on the off 
 side, the yellow-bodied Hornet disappeared in a whirl 
 of dust down the road, leaving the stranger laughing 
 heartily on the doorstep.
 
 II 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN AND THE MAN 
 
 September loth, 189-. 
 
 TWENTY-THREE to-day, and I have lain 
 here just one year and seven months as 
 useless as the log that fell upon me. Where 
 is that log? I Ve wondered time and again where the 
 thing lay, how it lay, how it looks after the year 
 and seven months. I Ve wanted to ask Uncle Shim 
 about it, but have been too cowardly. 
 
 I d like to have it snaked down here before it 
 turns to punk and get at it, just once, to hew and 
 hack it into dead half-inch pieces the damned, 
 senseless, half-cord hulk that has taken the life of 
 me as a man, and cheated me of my birthright. 
 
 Birthright? Birthday ! What do I know about it? 
 I m thinking a man has to take a good deal on trust 
 in that direction. How do I know? I don t; and 
 this impotent ignorance gives the lie to Life in the 
 beginning of things; beginning? God! I d rather 
 the log had struck higher up and left me mad as a 
 March hare with legs to run, and jump, and leap, 
 and get away from it all, than to chain me here to a 
 bed, just as I Ve read they chain the convicts in the 
 galleys, with all my thinking apparatus intact.
 
 1 8 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 The brain reels at times, and a terrible rage pos 
 sesses me: a mood of destruction if I could get at 
 some living thing, or even if 
 
 I try not to show this. I know I must not; I ve 
 still will enough left for that; for day before yester 
 day Twiddie happened in with a big bunch of hooded 
 gentians for me. She came skipping in joyfully 
 enough, but stopped short before she reached the 
 bed, dropped the flowers, and ran from the room. 
 I heard her sobbing out in the woodshed after that. 
 My hearing has grown strangely acute. 
 
 I used the shepherd s crook, that Uncle Shim made 
 for me when I was a six-year-old and ran wild in the 
 Old Pasture with the sheep and the lambs, to hook up 
 the bunch of gentians from the floor; she had tied 
 them with a bit of striped grass. I have put them on 
 the bed, and I hope the child will see them from the 
 kitchen, as she passes the door. 
 
 I hate to see that terrified look in her eyes at sight 
 of me ! I ve seen it there before but only when 
 that horrible mood of destruction is upon me. 
 
 This morning I caught Twiddie looking in at the 
 crack of the. bedroom door I hope she saw the 
 gentians in the pitcher on the table and I called 
 to her to fetch me a needle a coarse one. Instead 
 of answering me, she ran out to the barn, and I heard 
 her call Aunt Lize, but under her breath. Then I 
 heard Aunt Lize hurry in through the shed ; in a 
 moment more she stood by my bed with such a 
 strained, anxious look on her face that I could but 
 wonder.
 
 The Mountain and the Man 19 
 
 "What d ye want, Hughie?" she said; and I 
 noticed her voice trembled. 
 
 " Nothing but a needle, Aunt Lize ; I asked Twid- 
 die to get me one no harm in that, is there?" I 
 know I spoke sharply, but I hate this eternal question 
 ing as to why I want this or that, and I hate to have 
 her call me " Hughie " I m enough of a baby in my 
 helplessness without that reminder. 
 
 " What d ye want on t ? Men don t take ter needles 
 not nat rally ; let me do it fer ye, Hughie." 
 
 Then I blazed away ; I could n t help it. It mad 
 dens me so to be thwarted in such little things when 
 I can t stir a foot to get it for myself tied to a 
 woman s apron-string and a child s little finger 
 
 " I d like to know why you won t give me what I 
 ask for? it s little enough. You wouldn t give me 
 my jackknife yesterday, and last week you stood out 
 about the shears what on earth ails you? Can t 
 you see it s taking the meanest kind of an advantage 
 of a man a man ! O my God ! 
 
 I stopped short, for I felt the rage coming upon 
 me, and the window space looked black against 
 the light outside. I put out my hands to shove her 
 away. 
 
 " Go away, Aunt Lize go, go ! " I cried. But 
 she stemmed herself against my little strength, and, 
 flinging her apron over her head, broke into dreadful 
 sobs, crying out : 
 
 " Oh, Hughie, Hughie ! don t ye know why ? I m 
 feared I m feared" 
 
 At the sound and the words my sight cleared ; I 
 have never known Aunt Lize to give way so, and
 
 2O The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 to see a woman cry like that ! I myself have never 
 shed a tear ; the hot rage has scorched my eyeballs 
 till whatever moisture there was dried before it fell; 
 I have seen red and black during all these nineteen 
 months, and I drew her hands down from her face, 
 and with them the apron. I lifted her bowed head 
 on my palm I had strength enough for that and 
 said: 
 
 " Aunt Lize, look at me." And therewith she 
 raised her reddened lids and looked at me through 
 the streaming tears such a look ! Then I knew the 
 thing she had feared knew why they had kept every 
 harmful utensil from me, or watched me when I was 
 using one. I knew why they had let my beard grow, 
 and I had never seen a razor knew why I was 
 watched and spied upon even by the child, Twiddie. 
 The thought I had dwelt with so long had left its im 
 print on my face, and they could but see and read ! 
 
 It was a shock. I thought I had hidden it. It 
 belonged to myself, what there is left of me ; but 
 I never meant they should see, never meant to terrify 
 them so a woman and a little child. 
 
 But the shock did something to me. It seemed as 
 if some tendon gave a little somewhere about my heart, 
 and I could take a longer breath than I had done in 
 all these past months; and, suddenly, I spoke as I 
 felt, and my voice sounded more like the voice of the 
 man I used to be. I spoke slowly, looking straight 
 into her eyes : 
 
 " You need n t fear, Aunt Lize ; there 11 be nothing 
 to make you afraid after this." 
 
 And hearing my voice, such, I suppose, as it once
 
 The Mountain and the Man 21 
 
 was, she quivered like a popple in a south wind ; her 
 knees gave beneath her, and she fell upon them by 
 the side of my bed, and spoke brokenly, to herself, or 
 to me, or to 
 
 At any rate, I laid my hand on her head, and felt 
 better more eased than for a whole year and 
 seven months past. Then Uncle Shim called from 
 the shed : 
 
 " Lize, where be ye? " 
 
 I have never known him to be absent about his 
 work for an hour even, but that, on entering the 
 house again, those were his first words. Hearing 
 them, Aunt Lize rose quickly, found the door half- 
 blindly through her tears, and, going out, shut it 
 to softly. 
 
 September i6th. 
 
 This morning, after a sleep such as I have not had 
 for months, I found a good, sharp darning-needle run 
 through a slip of paper and again through the hem 
 of the sheet. I seized it so quickly that it pricked 
 me a right smart jab ; the sensation it gave me is a 
 thing to remember. The needle and the prick have 
 both done me good. She trusted me. 
 
 Afternoon. 
 
 About three o clock, when Aunt Lize was out with 
 Uncle Shim cutting fodder, and Tvviddie had gone 
 down the Pent Road to see the stage pass, I experi 
 mented with the needle. 
 
 I tried both legs thighs and calves ; ran it a half 
 inch into each and felt nothing. But the blood
 
 22 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 spurted good red blood, too. Somehow the sight 
 of it has given me courage, for what, I can t say. 
 
 September i7th. 
 
 I wish I could see farther from my one window. 
 I think every sense must have been benumbed during 
 these nineteen months, for I don t remember to have 
 been conscious of seeing anything from the window 
 until yesterday afternoon. 
 
 But there could n t be a worse prospect for me. I 
 can look for five hundred feet straight up the slope of 
 the Mountain, across the stony corn-fodder patch 
 where Aunt Lize and Uncle Shim are at work, into 
 the black gloom of the heavy timber, and the narrow 
 clearing, where 
 
 No, by God ! I 11 fight it down like a man so long 
 as there is a drop of red blood left in me ; to frighten 
 a woman and little child so ! And to lie all through 
 that summer and fall and winter and spring, and 
 now a second summer, like a dead nightmare weight 
 upon those I m dependent on for everything except 
 breath 
 
 There s Twiddie in the clearing, running for dear 
 life ! She has something in her hand is waving it 
 to attract Aunt Lize s attention, and hoo-hooing like a 
 looney. It s a letter! And now all three, loaded down 
 with shocks of green fodder, are hurrying to the barn. 
 
 I can hear Prince backing out of the stall, and the 
 collie has gone daft. Has it anything to do with the 
 letter, I wonder? Twiddie has shunned me since 
 that day she brought me the gentians; I wish she 
 would n t, but I can t blame her.
 
 The Mountain and the Man 23 
 
 I hear the wheels of the light farm-wagon strike the 
 two big rocks in the Pent Road just above the house; 
 I know it is that, because the last time I used it, the 
 king-bolt chinked just as I heard it a minute ago, and 
 Uncle Shim said he d put on some axle-grease. 
 How long ago was that? Just two years; I don t 
 suppose he has thought of it since. That s just like 
 Uncle Shim. 
 
 September i8th, 5 A.M. 
 
 I am glad it is light enough to see to write, or 
 rather to talk with myself. I have n t slept well, and 
 the nights are growing longer. 
 
 I could n t sleep for thinking of the change that is 
 coming into my life to-day. Yesterday, after dark, 
 Uncle Shim came home with the light farm-wagon, 
 bringing a cot-bed : an adjustable one, made for such 
 as I ; and, in time, I may be strong enough to raise 
 myself to a sitting position and lower myself, when 
 tired by means of the ingeniously rigged pulleys 
 and ratchets. 
 
 The small possibilities of, at least, the fag end of a 
 life like mine filled all my thoughts; well, perhaps 
 that s better than 
 
 I m bound to live, as a matter of gratitude to Aunt 
 Lize and Uncle Shim for this. They ve scrimped 
 along on next to nothing to procure it for me have 
 been planning and saving and scraping a year for this 
 one thing. It was intended for my birthday. What 
 have n t they gone without to pay for it ! 
 
 I tried to thank them but it was too much for 
 me; the tears came at last with no hot rage, no
 
 24 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 scorching eyeballs to dry them before they fell. I 
 cried like a child, and Aunt Lize comforted me like a 
 child. I fell asleep, exhausted, and, as it was early 
 just after supper I was awake again at eleven, and 
 have had but one hour s sleep since. 
 
 What a day that was ! Uncle Shim came in after 
 breakfast and got me on to the new cot; that is, one 
 end of me. Aunt Lize managed the other, for my 
 six foot one of hulk has to be moved on the instal 
 ment plan. 
 
 Then they adjusted the pulleys and raised me to a 
 half-sitting position. Oh, the relief of body and mind ! 
 A man s position on this earth, I take it, is intended 
 to be upright; only horizontal in the final sleep, and, 
 transiently, when imitating it once in twenty-four 
 hours. 
 
 Later on I asked for a looking-glass. Aunt Lize 
 brought me a cracked three-cornered piece I remem 
 ber she kept on the shelf over the kitchen dry-sink. 
 I should not have known myself. 
 
 I remember that, during that last week at the 
 Academy, I shaved off my mustache because I over-, 
 heard one of the Scawsville girls, Linnie Lane, laugh 
 ing at it. I was the oldest in the class, and the girls 
 made me feel it. What a pretty minx she was ! She 
 wrote me a note congratulating me and begging for 
 one hair ! I vowed then I d make her smart for it. 
 I came home with the smooth face of a boy, but that 
 which looked back at me from the three-cornered 
 piece of fly-specked glass was a man s face, full- 
 bearded, sunken-eyed, the cheeks furrowed, and a
 
 The Mountain and the Man 25 
 
 stripe of white hair, silver white, running from the 
 left temple to an inch behind the ear. 
 
 I called to Uncle Shim in the kitchen : 
 
 " Let s make a clearing, Uncle Shim ; hone your 
 razor and strap it well, and, Aunt Lize, give me your 
 sharpest shears till I do some tall cutting into this 
 underbrush." 
 
 And when I was lathered, and razed, and shaved, 
 and clipped, and washed, and dressed in a clean blue 
 flannel shirt, and I felt as if I had, at last, an inch or 
 two more of backbone in me, I heard the sheep-dog 
 - not old Tag, Uncle Shim tells me, but her pup 
 bark in the woods, and in a minute Twiddle rushed 
 in, half breathless, as she always is when excited. 
 
 " Come quick, Aunt Lize ! Ther s er strange man 
 comin out er the clearin down the Pent Road ! 
 He s the one I told ye bout wuz on the stage, n 
 smiled n bowed ter me when I was sittin in the 
 butt nut yesterday, n when the stage drove off, he 
 took off his hat jes ez he did jes now when he see 
 me feedin the hens out back. Come, come ! " She 
 tugged at Aunt Lize s dress, and Aunt Lize was so 
 flustered for a stranger finds his way about once 
 in two years to our place over the Mountain that 
 she smoothed out her apron, forgetful of the recent 
 barbering, and all the length and fulness of my brown 
 beard and extra long locks of hair fell to the floor ; 
 then hurried out, shears in hand, to the kitchen door, 
 exclaiming: 
 
 " Land sakes alive ! Who on earth " then caught 
 up her words, for the man stood on the step. 
 
 I could not catch what he said, he spoke in so low
 
 26 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 a voice; but I heard Aunt Lize ask him in, and say 
 she would call her husband ; I heard Twiddle set a 
 chair for him, and then run to the water-butt in the 
 shed and bring him a dipper of water. 
 
 By good luck I had the three-cornered piece of 
 looking-glass in my hand, and turned it at such an 
 angle that I could see the man without his seeing 
 me, although he was in direct range of the beard 
 and the hair lying just on the threshold. He must 
 have thought there was some Samson and Delilah 
 business going on just before his arrival, for Aunt 
 Lize met him with the shears in hand. She was back 
 from the barn before the stranger had finished drink 
 ing, and, knowing that I had steadily refused to see 
 any one save the doctor for nearly two years, quickly 
 shut my bedroom door ; but not before I had taken 
 in his appearance and sized him up. 
 
 A city man, I knew by the cut of his clothes ; I 
 have seen such in Alderbury and on the Hornet, 
 an eye that saw everything in the room without ap 
 parently noticing it; dark hair, parted in the middle 
 like the dudes I Ve read about, but nothing namby- 
 pamby about him for all that I d hate to run up 
 against him in the dark. 
 
 I was wishing I could catch his voice, and hear 
 what he was saying, when, without warning, the bed 
 room door flew open, and Aunt Lize came in with 
 more boldness of manner than I ve ever noticed be 
 fore in her, saying: 
 
 " Here s a gentleman wants ter see ye, Hughie ; 
 he s come for the view." 
 
 View 1 How dared he ! I m afraid I said, " Damn
 
 The Mountain and the Man 27 
 
 him," under my breath ; for what was he to come be 
 fore me with his health ? 
 
 And I I was a fool, and answered without look 
 ing up: 
 
 "I hope the prospect is a pleasing one, sir; " and 
 pointed to my useless legs under the old patch-work 
 quilt Aunt Lize had thrown over them when they got 
 me on the cot. 
 
 Then, for decency s sake (for I know what is due 
 to a stranger beneath my roof), and for very shame 
 at the manner of my greeting, I put out my hand, 
 and felt the firm, warm clasp of the man s the palm 
 tingling with health. It held mine close ; I looked up, 
 and the eyes that met mine compelled me to keep on 
 looking, and so I continued to stare like a fool, and 
 knew not when to withdraw my hand. Before I knew 
 how it happened, the stranger was sitting beside my 
 cot, Aunt Lize had disappeared, and only Twiddie 
 stood with her finger in her mouth at the foot of the 
 cot, staring as I had stared so how could I blame 
 her? and we were talking together like oW acquaint 
 ances, and I telling him of the year and seven months 
 at the Academy, and how I had hated the farmer s 
 life and wanted to study for a profession I did n t 
 tell him what; and when he rose to go, and said 
 " Good-by," I bethought me he had not expressed 
 sympathy for me by so much as a word or look, and 
 I was grateful to him if he had, I think I must have 
 struck him. 
 
 Uncle Shim offered to take him down to meet the 
 stage, but the stranger no, he is no longer that 
 the man said, no, with thanks, that Twiddie was going
 
 28 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 down with him ; and from the window I saw them 
 going up the Pent Road together, the child skipping 
 along, holding by his hand. When they reached the 
 clearing, I heard her laugh, and the man s, hearty and 
 ringing, answering it. She never does that with me. 
 She is so young I suppose what I am at present means 
 to her what I have always been. I wish she would, 
 though. 
 
 I paid the penalty for that day with ten days on 
 my back again. 
 
 When I began to learn the multiplication-table, I 
 used to wonder why two times two always made four, 
 and concluded, in my small way, that the saw-horse 
 in the middle had something to do with it. I m not 
 much wiser now. 
 
 Curious ! I was so taken up with the man, that I 
 never thought to ask his name. Uncle Shim says he 
 told him he came from below in York State, and 
 Aunt Lize said there was that about him she dared 
 not ask him I can understand that; but Twiddie 
 tells me that, as she sat up in the butternut tree, she 
 could look onto the top of the stage into the space 
 where my cot came from, and there was only one 
 valise up there, a light one, with two black letters 
 on it, P. V. During these last days, I have caught 
 myself saying over and over again, " P. V.," and 
 have tried all sorts of names to fit the initials. 
 
 Aunt Lize says, when she was a little girl she knew 
 of a man who lived over the Mountain, and moved 
 to York State years ago; his name was Peleg Ven- 
 ables and maybe, " P. V." is his son. Peleg Ven-
 
 The Mountain and the Man 29 
 
 ables I don t like the sound, and it does n t fit the 
 man. Peleg Venables ! Oh, no ; no Peleg Venables 
 of Olympus ever fathered the cut of those trousers. 
 
 Tuesday. 
 
 Aunt Lize has been helping Uncle Shim load on 
 the ripened corn doing my work ! I have been 
 watching her. Time was, I should have pitied her, 
 but now I envy her, so lean and scrawny, but agile 
 and wiry 
 
 Oh, to hoist and lift and heave, to pitch and toss ! 
 To race, and run, and corner the colts ! To roll over 
 and over down the pasture slope, till sun and sky and 
 earth whirled around me as centre of the universe ! - 
 I can t help it ; I ve struck twice hard with my 
 shepherd s crook at the log-end of me; if I could but 
 feel the tingle of the blood again clod clod 
 clod that I am ! 
 
 Even a clod can nourish a kernel, and I Ve had the 
 germ of an idea, at last. 
 
 There s Aunt Lize this very minute doing the 
 work I, and not she, was cut out to do. I know her 
 back ached yesterday, by the way she sat down after 
 supper while Twiddie was wiping the dishes. See 
 her now, trying to hoist that shock ! 
 
 "Don t, don t, Aunt Lize; drop it! " 
 
 I ve hollered for all I am worth, but she can t hear 
 me ; if she but knew it, the way she lifted that would 
 strain even a man about his middle. I feel guilty. 
 
 My idea came out of the hole of one of Uncle 
 Shim s stockings. I heard them talking in the kitchen
 
 30 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 before they went to bed. Just as soon as cold 
 weather comes, Uncle Shim always goes about in his 
 stocking-feet after supper when the chores are all 
 done, and Aunt Lize can t break him of the habit. 
 To-night I heard her, as I have heard her a hundred 
 times before. 
 
 " Shim Lewis, put on yer down-ter-the-heels." 
 
 " No, no, Lize ; my feet air tired ; it rests em." 
 
 " I tell ye, Shim Lewis, I can t grow wool n spin 
 n knit it fast nough ter keep ye in stockin -feet 
 let erlone yer legs; ye wear em out so fast ker- 
 hewing eround regardless er black frost sech ez 
 we re goin ter hev ter-night." 
 
 " Wai, wal, Lize, I 11 stretch out here on the 
 settle n save my woollen shoe-leather, ef ye say so. 
 I m glad the corn s in." 
 
 " So be I ; what ye haulin up yer right foot fer 
 thet way?" 
 
 " Sho, Lize ! Can t a man git er cramp thout er 
 woman s axin him how he got it?" 
 
 " No, he can t, not ef thet woman s his lawful 
 wife ; see here, Shim, stretch out that foot, now 
 do." 
 
 When Aunt Lize pleads there is no resisting her. 
 I heard Uncle Shim stretch out his leg; there 
 followed a shrill outcry : 
 
 " Oh, my soul 1 Shim Lewis, when d ye change 
 yer stockin s last? sech er hole! big toe n middle 
 toe clean through. Cramps ! I 11 hev ter knit 
 from now t ll sugarin -off to keep ye clear er sech 
 cramps ez thet." 
 
 I heard Uncle Shim chuckle.
 
 The Mountain and the Man 31 
 
 I Ve proposed to Aunt Lize to swap work : I 11 
 knit the stockings for the family if she 11 show me 
 how. The look on her face ! But we re agreed. I 
 heard her singing afterwards, for the first time since 
 I Ve lain here an old verse of Watts s. I Ve heard 
 her sing it ever since I can remember anything; but 
 I Ve had to put my fingers in my ears it irritates 
 me ; still I can hear it, for the mind hears as well 
 as sees. 
 
 " Change me, O God ! my flesh shall be 
 An instrument of song to thee, 
 And thou the notes inspire. " 
 
 October 5th. 
 
 I heard them say they were going to gather the 
 apples next week. I wish I were where I could see 
 the orchard, but it s on the other side of the house. 
 
 It s my own house, and I don t see why I can t 
 have any room in it I choose. 
 
 I told Aunt Lize this morning, when she brought 
 in my breakfast, that I d like to move over into the 
 best room. I saw by her face she was taken aback, 
 but I was n t quite prepared for her reply. 
 
 " Ther ain t no reason why ye can t, Hughie 
 only, what be we goin ter do fer the fun rals n wed- 
 din s, ef we give up the best room? Ther s ben more 
 n er dozen of each in t already." 
 
 " I 11 be the one to move out for the next funeral, 
 Aunt Lize don t you fret about that; and as for 
 the weddings " 
 
 But she interrupted me, speaking sharply, and 
 I know I hurt her I suppose I meant to,
 
 32 The Wood-carver ot JLympus 
 
 " Don t, Hughie, oh, don t ! " and flung out of the 
 room. Afterwards I heard her moving and sweeping 
 and re-settling, and the Sunday passed in confusion. 
 At night they moved me in on the cot. Upon my 
 suggestion, Uncle Shim took down the air-tight stove 
 and the fire-board, and cleaned up the fire-place. 
 Twiddle brought in an armful of dry pine boughs 
 full of rosin, and in five minutes the room was light 
 enough to knit by. Aunt Lize gave me my first 
 lesson Saturday afternoon. I m on plain " back 
 wards and forwards," she tells me. 
 
 I snarl up so dreadfully I can t get the hang of 
 the kink of yarn around my little finger joint. Even 
 cursing does n t help it. 
 
 I find Aunt Lize has removed the coffin-plates from 
 the mantel-shelf there were fifteen of them and 
 taken down the family hair-wreath. She left the 
 Bible, but I asked her to put it away, as well as some 
 theological books of my father s ; I don t want to 
 see a book around ; it puts me too much on the 
 defensive. 
 
 I like this room. I don t get every smell from the 
 kitchen as I did in the other. When Aunt Lize was 
 washing and getting dinner, whew ! I could n t 
 breathe, and had to ask Twiddie to open the win 
 dows wide. And yet I Ve known the time when the 
 smell of a boiled onion and the crisping sizzle of the 
 salt pork in its own fat was a thing to say my prayers 
 for, by reason of the keen hunger gnawing at my 
 stomach.
 
 The Mountain and the Man 33 
 
 I don t think my friend P. V. I like to call him 
 so could find many outs about the views from this 
 room. He said I did not have much from the other; 
 only the corn-patch and the woods and the cursed 
 clearing to help me not to forget that I could see 
 Twiddie coming down the Pent Road just after stage- 
 time, if I chose to look. 
 
 I vowed I would speak out all my thoughts in this 
 one-sided written talk of mine ; but I find it is best 
 for a man not to look too closely at himself some 
 times, nor to hear his own voice too often. 
 
 My cot is in the south-east angle of the room, be 
 tween the one east window and the two southern 
 ones. I can look both ways. This afternoon they 
 have been harvesting the apples, young Tag and 
 Twiddie helping. I used to be proud of our orchard ; 
 twenty of the young trees I set out thirteen years ago 
 on the slope south of the big hemlock " bush, " that 
 comes down over the ledge from the timber line, 
 wedge-shaped its entering point a rod or two from 
 the end of the house. 
 
 The slope is so steep that I can look over the 
 orchard to the valley of the White Branch, and the 
 great peaks of Killington and Pico a little east of 
 south. The Pent Road runs between the house and 
 the orchard ; to the south, I can see it trailing along 
 down the pastures to the highroad from Gilead. 
 
 To-day, looking from the window, I found myself 
 a stranger in thought on every foot of my land in 
 sight; yet there is not a square rod I have not 
 been over as a boy. 
 
 3
 
 ^4 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 Twiddle is driving the light-weight truck up the 
 road from the orchard ; it is loaded with a dozen bar 
 rels of apples she is driving it well, too ! Even at 
 this distance, I can see their complexions, for I am 
 looking down upon them ; the tanned russets, the 
 noble pound-sweets forty-five to a bushel ! the 
 darker winter-greenings, the red Northern Spies. 
 How wholesome and thrifty and pleasant and sound 
 they look sound to the core, I 11 warrant. They re 
 too young for a scab or worm ; too young and sound 
 and I! 
 
 Last night, as I lay awake, I tried to count up the 
 things Aunt Lize and Uncle Shim must have gone 
 without to buy me this cot. 
 
 I have noticed lately that everything is sweetened 
 with maple sugar, and am convinced that I am the 
 only one who has had white sugar for a year past. 
 
 Then there s the semi-weekly county paper that 
 Uncle Shim used to take ; I have n t seen Twiddie 
 bring it in once since I began to take notice of things, 
 back in September. Neither have I been conscious 
 of the strength of Uncle Shim s cut-plug since I 
 don t know when ; and as they dragged the cot 
 through the kitchen the other day, I missed an old- 
 fashioned bureau, that Aunt Lize told me was a part 
 of my grandmother s first housekeeping outfit. Her 
 mother gave it to Aunt Lize ; I know she set great 
 store by it. It had brass knobs and little fluted col 
 umns, and a queer inlaid vine-pattern of curled maple. 
 The piece was cherry. What more? Oh, how long 
 is this to last !
 
 The Mountain and the Man 35 
 
 This morning, when I heard them at breakfast, I 
 called to Aunt Lize: 
 
 " Aunt Lize, bring me in a cup of your coffee ; 
 something is the matter with mine." 
 
 She came in looking distressed and anxious. 
 
 " I made it jest ez usual, Hughie : cream n sugar, 
 n beat up an egg, n all. P r aps I b iled it too 
 long ; le me taste." She was about to take the cup, 
 but I caught her two hands. 
 
 " Aunt Lize, you know you can t tell a lie ; you 
 have n t got any coffee for yourself or Uncle Shim 
 now confess ! " 
 
 She brightened up a bit at that, and, looking me 
 straight in the eyes, lied just like a Christian woman 
 so eagerly and convincingly! 
 
 "Why, no, Hughie; we hain t drunk er drop fer 
 more n er year. The doctor said twuz the wust 
 kinder thing fer liver-complaint, n yer uncle n I 
 both hed er tech on t jest bout er year ago this 
 time " I drew her down beside me resisting, 
 but I find I m much stronger in my arms; perhaps, 
 after all, I sha n t belie my name, Hugh Armstrong. 
 
 " Aunt Lize, there is n t a sounder liver in this 
 township than yours ; but if you tell such whoppers 
 about it, you 11 have a bad conscience, and that, and 
 worry, the doctors say, are the root of every liver 
 trouble in the world since the days of Job and bad 
 blood." 
 
 But she stuck to her point. " The doctor did say 
 so I ain t er-goin back on what I said 
 
 "Well, if he did," I interrupted her, "you got him 
 to say it to fool me now did n t you ? "
 
 36 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 For answer, she changed the subject, picking up 
 my first stocking from the table by the cot. " I see 
 ye re heelin neat ez er pin; ther ain t nothin more 
 ter learn but toein off ; ye ve learned awful quick, 
 now le me go thar s Shim er-callin ! " 
 
 Yes, Aunt Lize, I m " healing " in another sense ; I 
 know by the change in Twiddie. To-day she came 
 to the door while I was knitting, and stood on the 
 threshold, the hollow of one bare, brown foot curv 
 ing over the instep of the other, and all ten toes 
 wriggling like cut-worms beneath a hobnail shoe; 
 both hands behind her; silent, but watchfully ob 
 servant. Tag, however, the six months collie, who 
 had followed her into the house, suddenly brushed 
 past her with a switch of his tail that sent her over 
 the threshold, and, stemming his paws on the cot, 
 nosed my hand until I caressed him. 
 
 I have n t wanted him around before and even a 
 dog knows when he is n t welcome. To-day neither 
 child nor dog fought shy of me. The dog leaped 
 joyfully to my face, and the rough tongue gave the 
 return caress in its own way; the child drew near, 
 and held out to me a bunch of late violets, blue and 
 white, which she had found in a warm, sun-beshone 
 angle of the sheep-pasture, beneath some fallen leaves. 
 
 I put my arm around her, and drew her down upon 
 the cot. I said nothing, but I held her two feet in 
 the clasp of my warm hand, for they were half-numb 
 with cold I shall knit her some stockings at once. 
 I waited, for she is always shy with me ; and when 
 I saw she was ready, I met her more than half way ;
 
 The Mountain and the Man 37 
 
 she nestled into the hollow of my arm, threw back 
 her head on my shoulder, and when I smiled down 
 at her, she smiled up at me and I knew I was 
 forgiven. 
 
 So late in October, yet the warm wind draws in 
 through my open south windows, and I can hear the 
 rush of the brook and the plunge of the waterfall into 
 the rocky basin of the pool down in the Hollow 
 what a hillside that is that rises almost perpendicularly 
 three hundred feet just across it ! The bare poles of 
 white and yellow birch are set as thick on the face of 
 it as a hedge-hog s quills. The delicate tops catch 
 the sunlight in a curious way, and the result, as seen 
 from my window, is a luminous vertical perspective. 
 There used to be a vulture s nest just under the rock 
 that overhangs the cliff at the top ; I climbed to it 
 when a boy. There s an outcrop of quartz that 
 marks the spot from here. 
 
 Just then, I heard the whir of a partridge rising 
 from cover somewhere near the hemlock-bush, I 
 wonder where they ve put my gun? I always kept 
 it in the rack at the head of my bed. I never knew 
 when I might need it for a fox sneaking into the 
 open, or a deer ranging the clearing, for a hen-hawk 
 or an eagle. 
 
 Many a fifty-cent bounty on a fox, as well as the 
 price of the pelt, went into my French and Latin 
 text-books and the two dictionaries useless lumber 
 now. 
 
 It is the interest on the mortgage, and the taxes, 
 and /, as I am, that will ruin this place in the end.
 
 38 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 I am on my second pair of stockings for Twiddie. 
 Uncle Shim was good enough to say I beat Aunt 
 Lize " all holler." I should be ashamed if I couldn t, 
 for the strength is coming back into my fingers and 
 wrists and arms. Night and day I think, think, think 
 what can I do? till the blood pounds against my 
 ear-drums, and prevents sleep. 
 
 I am beginning to understand something of what 
 a woman may feel when she knits, or sews " to ease 
 her mind." I Ve heard Aunt Lize say that many a 
 time. I m knitting " ribbed " stockings, and have to 
 attend to my business of counting fairly closely, or 
 the " three plain and three heel " interfere with one 
 another. 
 
 Then, too, the mere rapid motion of the fingers is 
 easing, and the steady click of the needles means 
 progress towards a definite toe something, in fact, 
 made. 
 
 If it is such a pleasure simply to make, to manu 
 facture what must it be to create? 
 
 I startled myself to-day by laughing out loud, 
 too, and gave Aunt Lize a fright into the bargain. 
 She came in on the run hands all dough, a big dust 
 of flour on her nose, her eyes like green gooseberries, 
 and insisted upon putting the camphor bottle to my 
 nose. At which I laughed immoderately, and that 
 didn t improve matters; but in the end she laughed 
 as heartily as did I. 
 
 Aunt Lize was making bread on the kitchen table, 
 and I was knitting, when a man came along the Pent
 
 The Mountain and the Man 39 
 
 Road by the east window and around the house to the 
 kitchen door. Just then I heard Twiddie rush in 
 from the shed and herald his approach. 
 
 " What s he look like? " said Aunt Lize. 
 
 " Like the man at camp-meetin las summer, the 
 one with the queer nose n " 
 
 " I know all bout him" said Aunt Lize, grimly. 
 " Go out to the barn, Twiddie, n hender Uncle Shim 
 from comin in fer er spell ; Shim can t abide em 
 n don t ye come back t ll I call ye, both on ye ! " 
 
 As Twiddie scudded away, the man knocked and 
 entered without waiting for an invitation from Aunt 
 Lize. 
 
 " Sister Lewis, hope ter see ye well." 
 
 "Thank ye," said Aunt Lize, still kneading; I 
 could hear the thumps. " Ye 11 never see me any 
 better." 
 
 " The fear of the Lord is the health of the righteous, 
 Sister Lewis; but from all I hear roundabouts, the 
 law is wiped out fer sech ez yew." (Thumpity- 
 thump-thump.) " I have called ter-day " here he 
 cleared his throat admonishingly, but Aunt Lize gave 
 no sign, "to confer consarnin the state of yer soul, 
 fer now is the accepted time and now is the day of 
 salvation even fer backsliders." 
 
 " Ye must n t take it ermiss ef I keep right on with 
 the bread," said Aunt Lize, cheerfully; " I m kinder 
 behindhand this mornin ." 
 
 " Do ye know Who said, I am the bread of 
 life ?" 
 
 " Wai, I ain t er fool ef I do live on Lympus," 
 retorted Aunt Lize, sharply
 
 4o The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 " Sister Lewis, I perceive we air at variance on this 
 subjec may I ask ye a simple question ? " 
 
 " I hain t no objection." The thumps were increas 
 ing in vigor. 
 
 " Is yer soul saved, my sister? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, t is," said Aunt Lize with cheerful assur 
 ance, " but I don t like t^r brag much on t t ain t 
 my way." 
 
 " An hez it ben scourged ter the glory of God, my 
 sister, ez is meet fer them that aspires ter the ever- 
 lastin crown of the martyrs?" 
 
 " Guess ye d think so ef ye wuz ter go down ter 
 Old Church Settlement; ye d find fifteen head 
 stones all in er row nine on em s marble, but the 
 rest is slate all mine, too. I guess them signposts 
 don t lie when it comes ter scourgin . " 
 
 I thought I heard a break in Aunt Lize s voice, but 
 I wasn t sure; she was still thumping so unmercifully 
 that I could n t catch the man s next words, but in a 
 lull I heard him say: " Let us pray, my sister." By 
 the aid of the three-cornered piece of looking-glass 
 I had begged of Aunt Lize, I saw him kneel be 
 fore the settle. Then I heard Aunt Lize s cheerful 
 voice. 
 
 " Ye can pray jest ez long n ez much ez ye re er 
 min ter, ef ye 11 feel any better for t I ve got ter 
 see ter this bread, it s riz too much." And then 
 there followed such a rattling of pans, such openings 
 and shuttings of the oven door, such a sparring-match 
 with the dough, that it was impossible for me to catch 
 a word of the petition. 
 
 In five minutes time the room was clear, the man
 
 The Mountain and the Man 41 
 
 gone, the bread at rest, and Aunt Lize offering me the 
 camphor bottle. Complete rout ! 
 
 "Wai," she said, in extenuation of her inhospitable 
 attitude, " I can t abide them Methody travellin 
 agents, Hughie ; they rile me wus n rhubub V senny ; 
 n I vvuz n t goin ter hevhim git tracker you. They 
 sorter peddle patent religion, n it don t set well on 
 anybody thet s got the real article." 
 
 Poor Aunt Lize ! She need n t count on my know 
 ing anything about the real article I, who have 
 cursed God, and could not die. 
 
 I remember that week in which she took me to the 
 camp-meeting up at Stony Brook, over Farnsfield way. 
 I was just fifteen, and on the Sunday before " break- 
 ing-up Monday," I got religion so they said, and I 
 thought I had. They prayed hard for me ; somehow 
 I found myself on the sinner s bench, and I felt awed. 
 Every lie I d told, every mean thing I d done, every 
 oath I d sworn, lay heavy upon me and made my 
 heart beat hard. And before I knew it I was down on 
 my knees, and the whole crowd groaning and praying 
 and shouting like mad ; then I caught the look on 
 Aunt Lize s face; that settled it. I rose up, and 
 said I was on the Lord s side, and felt important be 
 cause the elders and the evangelist and the folks 
 shook hands with me and slapped me on the shoulder, 
 crying out between singing and shouting: "Glory be 
 to God ! he s got it ! " and I thought I had ! 
 Fool! 
 
 There was a flurry of snow this morning. They 
 are late with the husking. I asked Aunt Lize if I
 
 42 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 could n t help some, and she said we would manage it, 
 someway. They rigged me out with a bushel basket 
 for husks beside the cot, a tin pan on it, and a horse- 
 blanket across it. Then Uncle Shim came in with a 
 great half-shock of corn in his arms, and laid it on the 
 floor beside me ; it piled above my head, and seemed 
 to fill half the room. 
 
 They left me alone after that for they were busy 
 in the barn. I was glad to be ; the nearness of the 
 fresh-smelling leaves, the glint of yellow ears between 
 the faded husks, the sweetness of the stalk the 
 first thing I did was to chew an end sent a strange 
 thrill of life through the living part of me ; the tears 
 came. 
 
 Yet how I hated it all, after I was fifteen ! I grew 
 so restless then ; the Mountain freedom was too con 
 fined for me. Aunt Lize encouraged me for she is 
 proud of her sister s having married a professional man 
 to seek the nearest way out of it all : the plough 
 ing, the harrowing, the digging, the threshing, the 
 hewing and felling and chopping, and become a min 
 ister like my father. She meant well ; and I cheated 
 myself into thinking I d had a " call " ; // 
 
 My husking did n t work. I made a great litter 
 which it took Aunt Lize an hour to clean up. Some 
 how the pesky kernels got between the coverings, and 
 the chaff and dust lay white on everything. It s no 
 use no use. 
 
 The ice that formed on a sap-bucket just outside 
 my window is an inch thick this morning. Twiddie 
 tells me Uncle Shim is up in the pine lot near the Old
 
 The Mountain and the Man 43 
 
 Pasture cutting four-foot logs for my fireplace. She 
 has been up there too. I saw her pass the window 
 just now with a big bundle of fagots on her head. I 
 felt a personal interest in her legs, for they were cased 
 in the brown-ribbed stockings I knit for her. I m 
 on my fifth pair, but they take me longer, for Uncle 
 Shim s shank can be measured by the ell. 
 
 The open fire is a pleasant thing. The fierce wind 
 that is raging over the Mountain drives the smoke 
 and flame, at times, into the room; it gives me 
 even me a sense of power. 
 
 Twiddle is crying in the kitchen because Aunt Lize 
 would n t let her go down to see the stage pass ; in 
 this wild weather ! What is the child thinking of? 
 
 I have been watching the night come from the east; 
 it is now half-past five, but dark as pitch ; the sleet 
 rattles against the windows, and there is alternate roar 
 and lull of the wind in the chimney. The firelight is 
 so bright I can knit by it, and as Twiddle likes to 
 see the play of the shadows on the wall, rising, fall 
 ing, twisting, dancing, I called her in after supper; 
 I don t know when anything has tasted so good 
 hot roast potatoes, fresh brown-bread, and a slice of 
 Uncle Shim s well-cured bacon. 
 
 She s a curious specimen. 
 
 As she sat on the rug before the fire with her elbows 
 on her knees and her chin in her palms, silent, she 
 does n t talk much, I wondered what she could be 
 thinking of. Finally I asked her. 
 
 "What are you thinking of, Twiddie? Tell me." 
 She turned suddenly, and, catching sight of her con-
 
 44 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 torted shadow on the wall, laughed gleefully I like 
 to hear her laugh before she answered : 
 
 " Thinkin mad bout Aunt Lize, coz she would n t 
 let me go down to see the stage but I ain t now," 
 she added shyly, making loops with her two hands to 
 form a goose-shadow on the wall. 
 
 " What do you do when you go down to meet the 
 stage?" 
 
 " I git up in the butt nut tree sometimes, n some 
 times I git behind the fence where ther s er patch er 
 brakes, n when I lay flat, the folks can t see me 
 2ven Uncle Jo could n t find me." 
 
 "What folks?" 
 
 " The folks I know." 
 
 "What are their names?" 
 
 She hesitated a moment. " Ye won t tell Aunt Lize 
 *f I tell ye ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 She lowered her voice : " I make b lieve, ye know. 
 I learn all the letters on the trunks n valises by heart 
 jes ez we do in school n then I play I know all 
 the folks they b long ter, n I go off with em down ter 
 Rutland, n Alderbury, n , oh way, way off, most ez 
 fur ez York State." 
 
 " How many do you know, Twiddie? " 
 
 " I dunno bout twenty, I guess ; ye want ter hear 
 em?" 
 
 "Yes. Curl up here on the cot beside me, or 
 you 11 have a blister on your nose." She laughed, 
 and nestled into the hollow of my arm as she did that 
 time when she forgave me. 
 
 " Now you can whisper, and Aunt Lize can t hear 
 our secrets."
 
 The Mountain and the Man 45 
 
 " First, ye know, ther s P. V. he s real, ain t he ? " 
 
 I smiled for answer, for, in spirit, the man still sits 
 beside my cot, and at times I can feel the firm, warm 
 clasp of his hand ; his presence is more real to me 
 than the child s beside me. 
 
 "What next?" 
 
 "Then ther s S. M. n L. K. n O. M. ; they re all 
 ladies, thet sit inside n look out of the winder, n bow 
 to me ; n then ther s K. O. n F. D. n S. E. n two 
 H. P. s, they re twins n they all set up with Uncle 
 Jo on top of the stage, n take off their hats ter me jes 
 ez Mr. P. V. did thet day, ye member?" I nodded 
 emphatically, although I had not seen him bestow the 
 greeting. 
 
 " N then ther s er boy thet sets on behind where 
 the trunks are I mean when ther ain t no trunks 
 n dangles his legs ; n he gits down when he sees 
 me, n says, Miss Twiddle Lewis, here s yer mail, n 
 then he puts the letters inter the squirrel-hole, n 
 then he jumps up behind agin, n Uncle Jo cracks his 
 whip n says, Good-by, Twiddie, ther 11 be some ter- 
 morrer sure/ n then the stage goes off, n I put my 
 hand inter the hole n take out the mail " 
 
 "What mail?" 
 
 " Why, the mail the boy leaves," she answered in a 
 surprised tone ; " n then I read the letters, n they re 
 from all the folks I know thet s why I wuz cryin , 
 coz Aunt Lize would n t let me go down fer it ter-day, 
 n I know ther s a letter, one anyway." 
 
 What could I say but: " How do the letters begin, 
 Twiddie?" 
 
 " Some on em begin, Dear Miss Lewis/ n some,
 
 46 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 Dear Miss/ V some, Dear Miss Twiddle, n nother 
 allus writes, Dear Twiddle ; but ther s one, ye 
 won t tell ? " 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " Not er livin soul?" 
 
 " True as you live and breathe, Twiddle." 
 
 "He allus begins, Dearest Theodora " (I d for 
 gotten that is the child s name, for Twiddie was her 
 four-year-old pronunciation of Theodora when she 
 first came to us, and we have always called her that), 
 " n hisn are the best. He writes every day." 
 
 " And what is his name? " 
 
 She twisted herself out of my arm and sat down 
 again before the fire, back to me, with her elbows on 
 her knees and her chin in her palms. " Ye won t 
 tell?" 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " Nobody in all this world? " 
 
 " I give you my word " as a man, I was going to 
 say ; but I sickened at the thought, and said, " gentle 
 man " and then I wondered at myself. But the 
 child spoke joyfully : 
 
 " Why, thet s jest what he is ! He s H. A." 
 
 " And have you seen him on the coach too? " 
 
 She answered sorrowfully : " No, I never see him 
 there ; but Uncle Jo says he s ben there er good many 
 times. I see his valise onct. Uncle Jo wuz takin it 
 home fer him, n thet s how I could see the letters." 
 
 " Merciful sakes, Hughie ! what air ye keepin 
 this child up fer?" said Aunt Lize, appearing at the 
 door. " It s long past her bedtime." 
 
 And Twiddie turned with a merry laugh, " Good-
 
 The Mountain and the Man 47 
 
 night, Hughie," she said, with her finger on her lips, 
 and ran past Aunt Lize like a small whirlwind. 
 
 The wind is wild, and I can t sleep. 
 
 Curious ! Long before Twiddie came to us I used, 
 as a boy, to ride on the trunk-rack of the old Hornet, 
 holding by the leathern straps, and swinging my legs. 
 That was my treat, and Uncle Jo gave it to me when 
 ever he could. 
 
 Twiddle s " folks " have been peopling the room in 
 the dim light of the embers. Now that I have lighted 
 my lamp to write, they are gone. I forgot to ask 
 Twiddie whose was the letter in the yellow envelope 
 that she brought up that day. That was a real one. 
 
 November loth. 
 
 Killington and Pico are snow-capped this morning; 
 Aunt Lize and Twiddie are raking up the leaves under 
 the maples in the south dooryard to bank the house 
 with. Uncle Shim has just brought down a load of 
 hemlock boughs to lay on top of them; there is no 
 chance for the cellar to freeze with both leaves and 
 boughs to protect it; they keep the floors from being 
 cold too. 
 
 Twiddie went down for her " mail " this forenoon, 
 and it seemed scarce half an hour before I heard her 
 back again, storming through the shed into the kitchen 
 but it must have been an hour and a half, for it is 
 good four miles there and back. Aunt Lize called 
 to her from the pantry, but she did not heed. 
 
 " Hughie, Hughie ! The letter the letter!" she 
 cried in her clear, high voice, tearing into the room,
 
 48 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 flinging herself upon the cot beside me, panting 
 almost breathless and thrusting the letter into my 
 face. At her cry the heart of me leaped in my throat 
 as a trout leaps to a fresh-thrown fly. I knew, with 
 out her telling me, from whom it was ; and I read the 
 address thrice aloud, to gain time before sending 
 Twiddle from the room, for I wanted to read it by 
 myself, "Mr. Hugh Armstrong," firm and solid, 
 every stroke, like the clasp of his hand. 
 
 " Go, now, Twiddle," I said. " If there s any mes 
 sage for you I 11 tell you ; shut the door." 
 
 The child went, but not before she had flung her 
 arms about my neck and whispered joyfully: " I told 
 true, didn t I, Hughie?" And, for answer, what 
 could I do but kiss her? I, who for nearly two years 
 not only have shunned, but hated the sight of every 
 living thing that has the wherewith to move freely 
 on earth, in air or water whether the sheep-dog, or 
 the child, or man or woman, fish, flesh, or fowl. 
 
 The letter shall lie here between the leaves of this 
 book, where lie the late violets Twiddle gave me the 
 other day. 
 
 WASHINGTON SQUARE, NORTH, 
 
 NEW YORK, Nov. 8th, 189-. 
 MY DEAR MR. ARMSTRONG, 
 
 I have recently been out to St. Louis, and on my 
 return trip stopped over for a day or two in Cincin 
 nati. While there, I visited the School of Wood- 
 carving for the purpose of placing an order for a 
 friend. There are many pupils, and the results of 
 their labor are both artistic and useful ; I am much 
 interested in it. It occurred to me while there that
 
 The Mountain and the Man 49 
 
 you also might be interested in this special handi 
 craft, and I forward to you one of the circulars, and 
 a book which gives information as to the kinds of 
 wood required for the carvings and the technical 
 difficulties to be overcome in working them; there 
 are also numerous plates of designs. 
 
 I often think of that forest-belt that crowns your 
 Olympus however did that pagan name find its 
 lodging among the Hebraic nomenclature of Sharon, 
 Gilead, Lebanon, that your pioneer forefathers took 
 along as part of their goods and chattels when they 
 followed the Connecticut upwards from its mouth? 
 I noticed several tamaracks here and there on the 
 way up from the butternut tree, and some fine speci 
 mens of mountain-ash. I have promised myself the 
 pleasure, sometime, of a closer acquaintance with all 
 the noble-bodied individuals of that special timber- 
 belt that lies to the north of your land. 
 
 How is my little acquaintance of the butternut tree? 
 Say to her for me that I am her debtor for the 
 pleasant hour in your room, and tell her to look for 
 a letter from me any time between now and Christ 
 mas. Will you express to Mrs. Lewis my apprecia 
 tion of her courtesy? And with best remembrances 
 for you and Twiddie, 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 PHILIP VANEVER. 
 
 P. S. As an afterthought, I returned to the 
 School and procured a set of tools sufficient to ac 
 complish a little practical experimenting in the art, 
 if you care to try. Kindly let me know if your 
 woods can be utilized for any of these designs. If
 
 50 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 you don t care for this, give the tools to Twiddie, 
 for whom I shall send a box, by express, to be 
 used in all weathers for her " mail." I enclose two 
 keys, one for Uncle Jo Cheatle, and one for her, 
 which please present with my compliments. 
 
 P. V. 
 
 November nth. 
 
 I gave the key and the message to Twiddie last 
 night the dumb joy of the child! It was well 
 worth seeing. The key is so mysterious ! She is 
 on the piece of rag carpet before the fire, the key 
 hung on a string around her neck. She is turning 
 and twisting it that it may catch the firelight; but she 
 is not in a talkative mood. Doubtless she is holding 
 converse with her " folks." 
 
 From the tall pine in the clearing there is a trust 
 worthy echo of the post-horn to be heard, and when 
 the wind is in a certain direction it can be heard at 
 the house. Aunt Lize has promised Twiddie that 
 if the horn sounds Uncle Shim shall harness up and 
 take her down for the package. 
 
 They have been watching together in the twilight 
 up there at the pine, but have come home disap 
 pointed. 
 
 November I2th. 
 
 Aunt Lize says she has a " feeling in her bones " 
 that the things will come to-day. To help Twiddie 
 kill time till four o clock I have sent her down the 
 road to count the larch trees, and to bring me back a 
 branch. 
 
 That there might be no mistake, I bade her fetch
 
 The Mountain and the Man 51 
 
 me a piece of charcoal such as Aunt Lize keeps on 
 hand to use in boiling cabbage, and with it I drew for 
 her on a bit of brown paper a branch of the tough, 
 close-grained tree. I had the trick of a piece of char 
 coal when I was a little chap and drew trees and sheep 
 and loggers camps on the flat stones beneath the 
 crotch set for the sap-kettles, when I went with Aunt 
 Lize and Uncle Shim over into the sugar-bush. 
 
 She came back with an armful of the bare branches, 
 and reported seven half a mile down the road. 
 
 After Twiddle had gone up to the pine tree, I 
 opened the east window a crack almost my full 
 arm-strength has come back ; I wanted to listen for 
 the horn. It was still ; everything frost-bound, but 
 without snow. Straining my ears, I heard a faint 
 echo of Uncle Jo s signal blast; the sound unheard 
 until now for has it been a lifetime? 
 
 I shut the window, for I was shaking ; and so shut 
 nyself in again. Christ ! to be shut in to this, and 
 shut out from all that ! Oh ! I fight, I fight, having 
 taken my stand, but the black thing swoops down 
 upon me at times, and every struggle but tightens 
 its clutch upon me. 
 
 It was like the breaking of a nightmare, when, an 
 Hour later, I heard Twiddie call joyfully: "We ve 
 got em, Hughie ! " Then Uncle Shim came in 
 through the shed. I drew a long, full breath. It 
 is not well to be alone, and Aunt Lize trusted me. 
 
 November ijth. 
 
 The book is a revelation, and Twiddle s box an 
 inspiration. It is two feet by a foot and a half; made
 
 52 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 of oak. On the panel of the door is carved a 
 squirrel ; he is cracking a nut he holds in his paws. 
 Branches, leaves, and acorn-cups ornament the sides; 
 the back is plain, and provided with screw-eyes for 
 hanging or fastening. The letter-drop is a simulated 
 squirrel-hole. I am studying the book and the tools. 
 Meanwhile, I 11 make those meat-skewers I heard 
 Aunt Lize asking Uncle Shim for. The tamarack 
 wood is just the thing for them. 
 
 The fire was blazing Twiddie on the rug before 
 it, with Tag on one side and her box on the other 
 and I was whittling for all I was worth, when I caught 
 myself softly whistling ! The boy s old habit had 
 persisted. 
 
 At the sound, Tag pointed his ears and was on the 
 alert at once. Twiddle stole out of the room and 
 I, whistling all the while, took out my three-cornered 
 bit of glass, adjusted it at the right kitchen-angle, and 
 saw Aunt Lize listening at the door, just out of sight, 
 with bent head and clasped hands. The tears were 
 running down her cheeks, her lips were moving, but 
 no sound came. I continued to whistle till I had 
 finished a dozen good skewers. 
 
 November i7th. 
 
 Twiddle brought me this morning a few branches 
 of the pine, balsam fir, and larch, with their cones ; 
 and all day long I have been pottering with a piece 
 of charcoal and some wrapping-paper. I Ve been 
 trying my tools, too, and have finished the book 
 my first in all these months.
 
 The Mountain and the Man 53 
 
 In my answer to Philip Vanever s letter, I was 
 ashamed to confess I did n t know how or why 
 Olympus came by its name. I Ve been no better 
 than the hogs that root for acorns, and never once 
 know there s a tree above them that lifts its top into 
 the blue. 
 
 November i8th. 
 
 Uncle Shim is going down to . the grist-mill in 
 Scawsville to get the corn ground. Twiddie goes 
 with him, and Aunt Lize is putting up their dinner, 
 for it s an all-day s job. They are going to stop on 
 the way to put up the mail-box on the butternut tree, 
 and Uncle Shim will make a pent-roof for it to pro 
 tect it from the rough weather. I hate to see it go. 
 They have driven around the corner of the house for 
 me to see; Twiddie is sitting on the pile of meal- 
 bags, and the cart, with the rack, is filled to the third 
 board a good half cord. 
 
 Uncle Shim used to let me ride on the corn when 
 I was a little shaver, and root into it as I liked. It 
 was fun to feel my legs work downwards into the 
 yielding mass it was like treading water. 
 
 When I wrote Philip Vanever the other day, I 
 found myself feeling glad I had had that year and a 
 half at the Academy. I came late to the training, 
 but I bent all my energy to it; I earned all I had, 
 too, by the five years service on the farm. 
 
 How I did long for books after I had left the 
 district school ! And with nothing but my text 
 books, the Bible, and my father s theological works
 
 54 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 to satisfy the hunger. I have shunned the sight of 
 those, even, let alone the sight of living things. 
 
 I Ve been alone nearly all day. Aunt Lize has 
 been busy making sausage-meat in the back shed. 
 The fire has died down to embers; it s getting cold 
 in the room, and outside snow is beginning to fall. 
 I can see to knit no longer in the twilight. 
 
 Good Lord, what a coward I am ! Need a man be 
 a fool because he is a cripple? Did the log, falling 
 on me, benumb faculties, paralyze common-sense, 
 knock the manhood out of me for good and all? I 
 wish I had my legs again, with double joints into the 
 bargain, just to be able to kick myself into trim. I 11 
 see every Canuck that logs it on the Mountain, and 
 every man, woman, and child that finds his way up 
 here. I 11 go to work on my Latin and French 
 again, I 11 
 
 That first groan must have been a mighty one, 
 anyway, it carried with it the burden of twenty-one 
 months, for Aunt Lize came running in, and a 
 breath of onion, sage, and summer-savory came along 
 with her. 
 
 "What s the matter, Hughie? Ye re freezin 
 here." She began to throw on wood. 
 
 " I Ve had a turn, Aunt Lize." 
 
 " Oh, Hughie ! " There was distress in her voice. 
 Then the flame leaped, lighting the whole room, and 
 my face as well. 
 
 " Come here, Aunt Lize." She came to the side of 
 the cot. 
 
 " I want you to take me by the scruff of my neck
 
 The Mountain and the Man 55 
 
 a id give me one good shaking the kind you gave 
 me when I let the woodchuck out of the trap and he 
 ate up all your peas and beans; you remember?" 
 
 "I sha n t fergit it soon." She laughed. " N I 
 made sure fer onct thet ye d keep it well in mind fer 
 the rest er yer life. I know I got scairt myself, when 
 I heerd yer teeth knockin tergether in yer head 
 My ! warn t I mad ! but ye wuz tryin , Hughie, 
 ther ain t no denyin thet; allus er suthin : baitin , 
 er trappin , er shootin , er fishin , er whittlin yer 
 fingers most ter chips makin whistles n bow n 
 arrers, besides robbin every good cock s tail I hed 
 fer feathers ter wing em ; n every time I heerd er 
 squawk round the house, I knew suthin wuz up. 
 
 " D ye remember the coon ye treed, thet ye 
 couldn t git down? n how ye vowed ye d watch 
 him out till mornin ? n set with yer back ter the big 
 beech up thar in the Old Paster, watchin , watchin , 
 with yer lantern beside of ye? n me n Uncle Shim 
 went up thar long bout three o clock, fore t wuz 
 light, n found ye sound asleep, n the coon gone out 
 the back way ? " 
 
 " And do you remember the screech-owls, Aunt 
 Lize, I hid up in the back garret?" Aunt Lize 
 began to laugh again " and how when you had the 
 Methodist circuit minister to supper, one night before 
 Thanksgiving, just as he was saying grace "Aunt 
 Lize was laughing so immoderately at the remem 
 brance that I joined her. 
 
 " Oh, Hughie ! " she cried when she got her 
 breath, " what er blood-curdlin screech thet wuz ! 
 Thet s the only time I ever see Shim Lewis s tan
 
 56 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 look yaller, V the minister, he shook like er popple, 
 n riz right up, n said he d better be gittin erlong, 
 he did n t want no supper. He told artervvards in 
 Scawsville, thet the Evil One himself could n t stan" 
 sech er racket; n ye sot thar er-squeezin yer two 
 han s twixt yer little legs, n wrigglin 1 , n chucklin 
 ter yerself ! 
 
 " I never see yer Uncle mad with ye but jest thet 
 onct. He made ye dance some fore ye went ter bed ; 
 n 1 I went up arter ye wuz in, fer I had n t heerd er 
 sound er nothin but the cut er the ox-thong round 
 yer legs, n every stroke cut me n rubbed on 
 steeped salt n wormwood ; n then ye cried yerself 
 nearly inter er fit. I hain t never see yer cry sence 
 t ll t ll " 
 
 "Till six weeks ago? I know, Aunt Lize ; it did 
 me good too. There s been a good deal of salt and 
 wormwood rubbed in this last year and a half." 
 
 " N it s jest the same with me now ez t wuz when 
 ye warn t but seven year old every stroke ye Ve 
 hed hez cut me too, Hughie." 
 
 She sat down on the side of the cot, and I found 
 her knotty, toil-hardened hand. 
 
 November ipth. 
 
 A note and two books of travels christened the oak 
 box. 
 
 WASHINGTON SQUARE, 
 
 NEW YORK, November i5th. 
 MY DEAR MR. ARMSTRONG, 
 
 I am glad if you can make any use of the tools. 
 My hand has no cunning in that direction, although
 
 The Mountain and the Man 57 
 
 for several years I have been greatly interested in the 
 wood-carvings of various countries and races ; in fact, 
 have been making a collection, which I hope to en 
 rich some day by an Olympian contribution. I send 
 by this mail two books on Ceylon ; I was there last 
 year. The illustrations are excellent; please note the 
 details of the temple carvings you 11 find some of 
 the flora in them. Pray keep the books ; I have a 
 duplicate set. I like to think of you as travelling in 
 imagination. 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 PHILIP VANEVER. 
 
 How that thought quickens " travelling in imagi 
 nation " for me who have never been beyond the 
 state boundary stones ! 
 
 My trouble is to find woods well-seasoned, well- 
 cured. There are two planks of basswood under the 
 eaves in the garret, they have been there as long 
 as I can remember: a sufficient seasoning, I take it, 
 for any want of mine, and one or two slabs of 
 cherry which Aunt Lize says her mother kept on 
 hand in case the spindles, or spokes, of her wheels 
 and reels should give out. I can use those after 
 Uncle Shim has taken them down to the saw-mill 
 and got them into shape for me. 
 
 A sure hand; an eye, not only true to a line of a 
 hair s breadth, but open to the value of cutting-depths 
 for light and shade to the hundredth part of an inch; 
 a right feeling for form and a something besides- 
 In that last lies the art of it. I wonder if I have it-
 
 58 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 This work is beginning to absorb me, as well as 
 my time ; I Ve even neglected the stockings. I ve 
 botched everything I Ve tried from the designs in the 
 book, and am thrown back upon myself, which means 
 that I must touch, feel, see, trace the actual model. 
 I m put to it for those now, for there s afoot of snow. 
 
 November 29th. 
 
 Aunt Lize burst into the room to-day in a state of 
 mind bordering on frenzy, and Twiddie was behind 
 her, clasping a half-day-old suckling in her arms. 
 
 " I never see the beat er thet old sow, Hughie ; 
 here s yer Uncle ben gone ter the saw-mill most all 
 day, V thet s jest the time she takes ter litter 
 fifteen ! n November, n cold nough ter freeze their 
 tails off. Look er thar ! " Twiddie held up a pink 
 and white pigling for my inspection. 
 
 " Well, Aunt Lize, you finished your sausage-meat 
 yesterday, and Nature must level up somehow, you 
 know." I could n t help laughing to see Aunt Lize s 
 discomfiture and Twiddie s efforts to warm the toes 
 of the specimen one-fifteenth of the old sow s progeny 
 at the fire. Such wrigglings, and squirmings, and 
 slippings ! Such infant squeals and abortive grunts ! 
 the little pink tail double twisted like one of Aunt 
 Lize s raised doughnuts ! But Aunt Lize could 
 brook no jest. 
 
 " Jest let it come so bitter freezin thet every pail er 
 hog s wash skims fore ye can git it out ter the pen, 
 n ther s jest nough straw fer the hosses beddin fer 
 the winter, n thet critter, all of er suddin, presents 
 her imperance with fifteen ter the trough ! But ye let
 
 The Mountain and the Man 59 
 
 it come mild, thawin weather long bout April, when 
 she can git out inter the back run, n she waddles 
 round with only one, or two. I allus knew hogs wuz 
 cantankerous but sows ! It s jest downright, tee 
 total depravity." 
 
 She bounced out of the room, Twiddle, with her 
 pigling, following at her heels. Poor Aunt Lize ! If 
 only I could help ! 
 
 How many times I have come home from school in 
 the early spring afternoons, to find the old sow and 
 thirty or more shotes rooting about in the ploughed 
 piece of land behind the house. And at my wild 
 war-whoop and sudden rush up the Pent Road, what 
 a lifting of snouts, a turning-to of tails, what a mad 
 scamper for the pen and such crowding, jostling, 
 over-riding, squealings, snortings, and gruntings ! 
 Routed! and I triumphant. 
 
 " Twiddie," I said, as she sat on the rug before the 
 fire this evening, and I was knitting for dear life, try 
 ing to finish my stint a pair in five days " Twid 
 die, you never showed me that letter in the yellow 
 envelope you brought home that day, do you re 
 member?" She nodded. 
 
 " T warn t er letter not er truly one." I knew 
 she was holding some conversation with her " folks " 
 by the sound of her voice. 
 
 "What was it? one, two, three, heel." I pre 
 tended not to be over-curious. 
 
 " Twuz ter Aunt Lize, n Uncle Shim put it inside 
 the clock."
 
 60 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 "Did you see it?" 
 
 " No, Aunt Lize said t warn t nothin but er bill." 
 
 " Oh, well, then she won t mind my seeing it. Go, 
 get it for me, will you? " 
 
 " I m fraid she 11 see me, Hughie." 
 
 "What if she does? I m not asking you to do 
 anything mean by Aunt Lize. Now, hurry up I 
 hear her out in the shed with Uncle Shim." 
 
 Twiddie came back with the yellow envelope; it 
 was the bill for my cot fifty-two dollars ! White 
 sugar, old-fashioned bureau, Uncle Shim s tobacco, 
 the newspaper and coffee ; half the taxes, and some 
 thing of the interest on the mortgage ! I saw it all. 
 I suppose I must have groaned, for Tag, lying before 
 the fire, rose with a whine, and Twiddie tried to draw 
 my hands down from my face. 
 
 " Don t, Hughie, oh, don t ! " Her lips quivered, 
 and to avoid a scene I sent her out to put away the 
 yellow envelope in the clock before Aunt Lize should 
 come in. 
 
 December I2th. 
 
 To-day I finished the carving of a branch of larch 
 with its little cones. It s my fifth attempt to make 
 something only half satisfactory to myself. I shall 
 send it to Philip Vanever for criticism. 
 
 There is a great racket going on overhead in the 
 garret. I know by the sound it s Aunt Lize getting 
 down her spinning-wheel and the reel. She told me 
 yesterday she had n t but two more hanks of yarn 
 left. I ve finished eight pair of stockings.
 
 The Mountain and the Man 61 
 
 December i;th. 
 
 There was a light fall of snow last night, turning 
 into sleet later on; and this morning, from my east 
 window, I saw the sun rise over the mountain tops ; 
 its level beams caught in the ice on tree and fence, on 
 rock and crust, and were broken into all colors of the 
 rainbow. 
 
 3 P.M. 
 
 It is growing intensely cold, already fifteen below. 
 The back-log glows clear red from end to end. This 
 noon I heard the ring of an axe in the woods for 
 the first time this season; the sound sickened me. 
 Uncle Shim has begun early; I know he hasn t 
 the ready cash to pay for help, never had ; but he 
 had me. 
 
 How often I have cut and trimmed my six trees a 
 day. Oh ! the swing of the arms, the deep " hah 
 hah " that sound forced from the inflated lungs by 
 the downward stroke ! Oh ! to feel the thrill of the 
 springing resistance of the live wood through the axe- 
 helve ! To see the slow ooze of the sap in the 
 clean-angled gash, to smell the fresh breath of the 
 leaping chips ! To feel the coursing of the blood to 
 the roots of the hair, and the warm moisture on the 
 nape of the neck ! Never again 
 
 I went straight to work on my new carving blades 
 and ears of the corn ; but the lust of the woodman was 
 strong within me, and I hewed where I should have 
 cut, and gashed when I tried to carve. Work ruined 
 for to-day.
 
 62 The Wood-carver of Lyrnpus 
 
 December 2Oth. 
 
 Twiddle s patience has nearly given out. She has 
 been down the two miles to the butternut tree every 
 other forenoon to see if Uncle Jo has left anything 
 for her in the box. As yet, there has been nothing, 
 and I saw the tears in her eyes when she handed 
 me a letter to-day such a letter ! Enough to warm 
 the cockles of a man s heart if they had frozen solid. 
 Here it shall lie. 
 
 NEW YORK, Dec. i7th. 
 MY DEAR MR. ARMSTRONG, 
 
 I have always envied the man who can work in 
 wood, clay, or stone, and so materialize his ideas. 
 When I took that panel of yours out of the box, I 
 wanted to put myself aboard the first north-bound 
 train and congratulate you in person. 
 
 You ask for criticism I have n t any, for it s 
 the larch itself, engrafted on that cherry panel ! I 
 went straight over to the Art Society and entered the 
 piece in my name, subject to withdrawal. Of course, 
 I knew it would be accepted,- they don t get such 
 often, and when I received the notification of ac 
 ceptance, I went round to see the secretary, with 
 whom I left it, and withdrew it, after promising to 
 return it for orders. Then I went up town to see a 
 friend of mine who is remodelling the upper story of 
 his house, and who spoke to me the other day about 
 a design in wood for the mantel in his den. By a 
 stroke of luck I was just in time ; he was about to 
 send to the Cincinnati School. 
 
 Now, can you do it? Or, rather, will you? He 
 wants the panels and lintel in the same design 
 larch ; but he leaves you free hand in its application.
 
 The Mountain and the Man 63 
 
 The wood is cherry. He will ship the three pieces, 
 if you write me you will do the work. Let me 
 know, if possible, by return mail, via, of course, the 
 Hornet. Thanks for your thought of me. 
 
 Yours in haste, 
 
 PHILIP VANEVER. 
 
 Will I? Will I? I am unnerved, unmanned by 
 all this. 
 
 Twiddie went down this forenoon with my answer 
 in time for the stage at twelve. She took the small 
 wood-sled, for the crust holds, and there is a fine 
 coast for good two thirds of the way down the Pent 
 Road ; the bars are down for the winter, fortunately for 
 her, for she tells me she always slides " bellybump." 
 
 Uncle Shim is over in the hemlock-bush, cutting 
 logs for peeling. I can hear the ring of his axe, 
 and the slow crash of the falling trees. I always used 
 to look forward to that, and when the noble crown 
 bowed lower and lower, the limbs strained with a 
 groan, the mighty trunk with the last splintering 
 crash lay prostrate how the blood in me leaped at 
 the sight and the sound ! I felt like a conqueror. 
 
 I had Aunt Lize pop some corn, and place two 
 Northern Spies, with a tin cup of sweet cider, on the 
 hot bricks of the hearth against Twiddle s return. 
 The air is white with frost it must be fifteen below ; 
 but still, so still, that I heard a squirrel bark in the 
 woods just now. 
 
 Twiddie came back with a telegram my first ; 
 and my heart was like lead in my stomach when I 
 read:
 
 64 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 " Hold your hand with the design till you hear 
 from me again. I have headed off the Hornet at the 
 other end, Rutland. P. V." 
 
 December 22nd. 
 
 Uncle Shim hitched up into the pung after four, 
 and went down to the butternut tree ; Twiddie was 
 with him. She had a hot soapstone for her feet, and 
 a hot roast potato in each hand. It s twenty below. 
 I Ve been knitting furiously, and counting out loud 
 like a madman, to keep from thinking what if it 
 should fall through, just at the moment I feel my 
 head above water? 
 
 But it did n t ! I had a note, and Twiddie had a 
 letter, at last. The note was a hurried one, to tell 
 me to work into the design of the lintel the Latin 
 verse, " Dens hacc otia fecit" 
 
 " God hath made this a rest." So this is to be my 
 first object-lesson with a block of wood ! 
 
 Sometime I will carve out the face of my Fate ; 
 it shall be beautiful, calm and noble, restful ; the eye 
 lids level ; the parted lips curved in a smile but 
 between them I 11 carve the protruding head of a 
 poison adder, fang prominent, and the coils of its 
 body just hinted at. 
 
 Twiddie has said nothing of her letter so long 
 looked for, but she goes about as full of the sup 
 pressed ferment of excitement as Aunt Lize s jug of 
 new yeast, which I hear just now blowing its stopple 
 out in the kitchen, and raising its own row, I should 
 say, by the noise. Aunt Lize and Twiddie are out in
 
 The Mountain and the Man 65 
 
 the hemlock-bush somewhere. They keep out of 
 sight. Now, what are they up to ? I 11 get even with 
 them. 
 
 I opened the window a crack and called : 
 
 "Aunt Lize ! " 
 
 I heard her then : " Run in, Twiddie, and see what 
 Hughie wants." 
 
 " I want you, Aunt Lize," I hollered ; " the yeast s 
 running over." 
 
 "Oh, Luddy!" 
 
 I propped the window with the crook of my staff, 
 and leaned close to breathe the keen air: so keen, 
 that my nostrils stuck together. I saw Aunt Lize 
 and Twiddie dragging between them a small balsam- 
 fir across the Pent Road and around the house to the 
 shed. Then I heard Aunt Lize mopping up the 
 kitchen floor. 
 
 " I never see the beat er new pertater yeast ! " 
 she said, when, an hour afterwards, she came in with 
 my dinner. "It s jest like some folks I know 
 allus er-workin , er-workin in their in ards ; never 
 at peace with themselves, n what s wuss, won t never 
 let other folks be in peace." 
 
 I knew it was only a blind. 
 
 " What were you doing out in the hemlock-bush, 
 Aunt Lize?" 
 
 " Me?" she said innocently. 
 
 " Yes, you." 
 
 " Oh, I wuz jest helpin Twiddie git some moss n 
 ground-pine. Ther ain t much snow in the bush, 
 n I fergot ter git the moss ter stuff in the winder
 
 66 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 cracks fore this cold snap, V t is time t wuz in." I 
 caught her hand. 
 
 " Aunt Lize, the truth " 
 
 "Le me go, Hughie; I hear Shim callin My! 
 but ye re gittin powerful strong in yer arms." I let 
 her go, but I scent a mystery. 
 
 I ve been drawing the larch design for the lintel 
 and experimenting with the letters. I wish I had 
 some good paper for it ; but I hate to ask Aunt Lize 
 for even fifty cents, knowing what I do. 
 
 A curious fancy occupied my thoughts all the 
 forenoon. I should like to carve that Plate s head 
 from a piece of the log that laid me here ; I 11 ask 
 Uncle Shim about it. Three months ago I wanted 
 to hack and hew it into splinters ; now, I d like to 
 put it to a slow torture with these sharp tools. 
 
 December 24th. 
 
 Uncle Shim and Twiddle have gone down in the 
 pung to meet the stage I know by the time they 
 take. 
 
 The door into the kitchen is shut ; but I can hear 
 Aunt Lize stirring about, and smell the hot maple 
 syrup she is boiling down to candy ; she used always 
 to make it for me at Christmas, and I cracked the 
 butternuts, the blackish-brown stain on my hands 
 for a month afterwards. How good it was ! I wish 
 she d open the door. 
 
 The room is red with firelight. Outside there is a 
 still cold ; the window-panes are frosted thick with 
 silver brake and fern and raying pine leaves that
 
 The Mountain and the Man 67 
 
 catch the reflection of the flames on all their 
 spiculae. 
 
 There s Tag barking in the clearing ; I hear 
 the " tinkle-tankle " of the old cracked cow-bell I 
 strapped on Prince s head-stall seven years ago ; 
 Twiddie is calling 
 
 There was a letter, a box for me, and one for 
 Twiddie. I opened the letter, I could n t wait ; 
 but the boxes are to be brought into my room and 
 opened after supper. I have read the letter while 
 the others are in the kitchen. 
 
 MY DEAR MR. ARMSTRONG, 
 
 All-the-year-round greetings to you on your 
 Mountain. I wish I might see that heavy timber- 
 belt by moonlight, in frost and snow ! Tell me, 
 sometime, how it impresses you in all its moods 
 and tenses ; I find forests have such. 
 
 The panels were shipped to-day by express. My 
 friend finds that the price of the carving of each 
 panel at any designer s, or Art School, would be 
 twenty-five dollars each. Do you agree to this basis 
 of adjustment? for the business? 
 
 I have sent Twiddie a Christmas box, the con 
 tents of which are based on Hans Andersen s Fairy 
 Tales a book I lived on when I was younger than 
 she. I should like to see her small face when she 
 grasps my conception of the box. Do you help 
 her to it and play boy again. In a recent letter she 
 promised me some " maplc-sugar-butternut " candy, 
 and some spruce gum which she has gathered herself. 
 Don t let her forget to send me both. There has
 
 68 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 always been a good home market for the consump 
 tion of those special articles with me. 
 
 The other box is for you, with the season s greet 
 ings. I thought you might be interested in Michael 
 Angelo and John of Bologna, for their trade is 
 likely to be yours, in Peter Vischer, and Hilde- 
 sheim Bernward. I made their acquaintance several 
 years ago, and you are eight years younger than I. 
 
 Good-night; the traffic on the Avenue just out 
 side the club windows is deafening jobbers, express 
 men, hacks, carriages, newsboys, messenger-boys, 
 florists wagons, Christmas-trees by the hundred 
 apparently walking up town on stilts, children, men, 
 women confusion worse confounded; but it s two 
 days before Christmas, which explains it all. Kind 
 regards to Mr. and Mrs. Lewis. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 PHILIP VANEVER. 
 
 P. S. I 11 put you into direct communication with 
 my friend within a few days. That s a good idea 
 of yours to send the charcoal designs for approval. 
 I m glad you enjoyed that trip to Ceylon ; that 
 lotus-flower was a thing to remember, was n t it, as 
 well as the trip half-way round the world? P. V. 
 
 Twenty-five dollars each ! Seventy-five dollars for 
 the three Seventy-five dollars! The white sugar, 
 and Uncle Shim s cut-plug, the coffee and weekly 
 paper, the interest on the mortgage, and the taxes 
 And who is Hans Andersen ? Who is Michael 
 Angelo? Who is Bernward, and that John of Bo 
 logna? What am I what do I know, that all these 
 should come to me?
 
 The Mountain and the Man 69 
 
 I was glad when Uncle Shim came in with the 
 boxes, for I was growing dizzy with the crowding 
 thoughts. 
 
 Twiddie is quiet through sheer exhaustion from 
 excitement. I never noticed the child s eyes before 
 blue-black to-night, for the pupil is so enlarged. 
 They seem to take up the whole face. She has given 
 me her letter to read. 
 
 MY DEAR TWIDDIE, 
 
 Merry Christmas ! and may Hans Andersen bring 
 you the good luck that comes to every boy and 
 girl who loves him. You 11 find your box in layers ; 
 a layer for each story. The first story you Ve helped 
 to make yourself, for I know you have the little balsam- 
 fir I told you about, set up in the room for Christ 
 mas eve. Every week I want you to read Cousin 
 Hugh a story, and then take out a layer of the box, 
 and enjoy it. The box ought to last two months. 
 You 11 find it is the story made real. 
 
 I m waiting for the " maple-sugar-butternut " candy 
 and the spruce gum meanwhile, my mouth waters 
 when I think of them. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 PHILIP VANEVER. 
 
 I was as much interested as Twiddie, and, after the 
 boxes were opened and my books had been taken 
 out, they brought in and set up the little balsam-fir 
 in a socket Uncle Shim had made for it. Then 
 Twiddie, sitting on the rug, read the story of " The 
 Fir Tree." 
 
 How my vision went roaming into the timber-belt
 
 70 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 with the opening words : " Out in the forest stood 
 a pretty little fir tree. It had a good place ; it could 
 have sunlight, and there was air in plenty, and all 
 around grew many larger comrades, pines as well as 
 firs." The resin of the little balsam was keen in my 
 nostrils, and, suddenly, the sick longing for my boy 
 hood came upon me. 
 
 But when she had finished with the words : " And 
 the story is past too, past, past and that s the 
 way with all stories" I pulled myself together and 
 entered into the mute, trembling joy of the child in 
 that first layer. Aunt Lize and Uncle Shim shared 
 it too. It was as wonderful to them as to the child ; 
 for there lay the gilded apples and walnuts, the nets 
 of colored paper filled with sweetmeats, the dozen 
 little candles, red, white, and blue, a doll Twiddie 
 caught her breath at the sight, she has had only her 
 rag one with brown yarn for hair and a tinsel star 
 for the top of the tree. Then she and Aunt Lize 
 dressed the little fir in all its Christmas bravery, ac 
 cording to the fairy tale, and Aunt Lize threw over it 
 some strings of popcorn. The candles were affixed 
 to the branches and lighted ; Uncle Shim tiptoed 
 about, and a curious hush fell upon us all. 
 
 Christmas Day. 
 
 I waited till this evening to tell them of my good 
 luck. Aunt Lize broke right down, and Uncle Shim 
 went out of the room softly, in his stocking-feet. I 
 believe I broke down too, for I felt Twiddle s arms 
 about my neck and heard her say : 
 
 "Don t, Hughie, don t; I did tell true, didn t
 
 The Mountain and the Man 71 
 
 I?" And in comforting the child, I became again 
 master of myself. 
 
 January loth. 
 
 The hum of the spinning-wheel and the whir of the 
 reel throughout the short winter afternoons and long 
 evenings make me sleepy. Aunt Lize has been busy 
 with the wool all the afternoon, treadle and spindle 
 seemingly in perpetual motion. 
 
 It is among my first recollections that sound, 
 and the sight of Aunt Lize, foot, hand, arm, back in 
 rhythmic movement, only interrupted by the parting 
 of a strand or the joining of the same, her thumb and 
 forefinger first wet quickly at her lips twirling 
 and twisting the end of the roll of carded fleece. 
 And the fleece itself! A soft, yellowish white pile in 
 the willow basket beside the reel ; I see it all, even 
 to the carders hanging from a beam over the garret 
 stairs; and the old garret itself with its loom and 
 stool, its cheese-press, its strings of red peppers and 
 onions and dried apples, its popcorn in an old, 
 hooded, wooden cradle that was built with the house, 
 and has rocked me and past generations. 
 
 Oh, the work, the work ! the blessedness of it ! I 
 have said as much in a recent letter to Philip Vanever. 
 It prospers. 
 
 The cold is strengthening with the lengthening 
 days. Everything is ice-bound. Not a sound out 
 side except the butting of the cattle in their stalls, 
 the thin blat of a sheep beneath the barn, and, at 
 daybreak, the crowing of the cocks.
 
 J2 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 Twice I have heard the boom of a bursting tree- 
 trunk and the crack of ice in a water-filled hol 
 low. Not an egg for ten days past, and on 
 the latch of my door, that opens out towards the 
 orchard, the frost is white and thick like new-fallen 
 snow. 
 
 The windows are made snug with the dried moss in 
 the cracks, but I roast to the fire, and freeze at my 
 back. It s better though than the air-tight; I should 
 stifle with that, and there is no need to spare the 
 wood. There 11 be a let-up soon. 
 
 Oh, but the work is a joy ! and how the time 
 goes ! January fifteenth, and the left panel finished. 
 I had a fancy to cut the whole life of the tamarack 
 into the wood : the slender spring branches with the 
 globular buds and the catkins ; the full flush of sum 
 mer in its leaf; the autumn nudity with its delicate 
 clustered cones. 
 
 Uncle Shim, with my help, has contrived a solid 
 work-table of beech five feet by three. It is four 
 inches higher than the cot, and can be shoved up 
 over it, and pushed back again over the foot when I 
 have finished. 
 
 I have begged Aunt Lize to take up the rag-carpet 
 that I may make all the litter I choose. She objected 
 at first, on account of the cold floor; but I told her 
 that, as I never set foot to it, she need n t stand for 
 that. All she said was, " Oh, Hughie ! " But she 
 took it up last week, leaving one of the rugs for 
 her wooden rocker, and another for Twiddie before 
 the fire.
 
 The Mountain and the Man 73 
 
 Uncle Shim comes in regularly to hear the stories. 
 I don t know which I m the more in love with 
 Hans Andersen or Michael Angelo; it s a toss-up. 
 All the week through Twiddie plays her story, and 
 lives one third in this world and two thirds in 
 another. 
 
 Our January thaw. Whenever I wake in the night, 
 I hear the drip, drip of the melting ice from the 
 eaves. This morning I heard a little run start over 
 in the sledge track on the Pent Road. Twiddie is 
 out in the slush now, building a snow-dam across it. 
 
 January 2ist. 
 
 Aunt Lize has opened my east door and let the 
 whole world of the mountains into my room. The 
 sun is as warm as in April, and the air filled with 
 the running, dripping, splashing, gurgling, slipping, 
 sliding sounds of melting ice and snow. 
 
 The chickadees are fairly singing somersaults over 
 one another; there is a bare patch in the Pent Road. 
 
 The wind changed suddenly in the night, and this 
 morning the sky is like lead. The chill is in the 
 house, and Aunt Lize looks blue and pinched, even 
 about her work. There is snow in the air, and the 
 cold pierces to the very marrow ; my fingers are too 
 numb for work. 
 
 We are cut off from the world. It has been snow 
 ing for two days and two nights a steady fall, 
 straight as a plummet ; but to-night the wind has 
 risen and a gale is raking the Mountain.
 
 74 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 What a sound that is! the scream of the winter 
 blast through the pines as if the needles were vibrat 
 ing wires. 
 
 January 28th. 
 
 The drifts are twelve feet between the house and 
 the barn. Uncle Shim has been tunnelling through; 
 the wind has gone down and the mercury has dropped 
 twenty degrees since morning. 
 
 There s another world beyond our mountains ; 
 I feel this the more I read of these great men. 
 What a life, that of Angelo s ! And his love for 
 that woman 
 
 I should like to see once a perfectly beautiful 
 woman. 
 
 Linnie Lane had a pretty face ; the prettiest I have 
 ever seen : fresh skin and dimples but I can imag 
 ine something other than that. 
 
 I must ask Aunt Lize about Linnie Lane. 
 
 January 30th. 
 
 In the sunlight I feel expansive, and reach out to 
 that world beyond our mountains ; but the firelight 
 shuts me in, and invites to confidence with Aunt 
 Lize. 
 
 I heard Uncle Shim snoring on the settle. Twiddie 
 was in bed, and Aunt Lize stringing winter apples 
 to dry for another year s store. I called to her: 
 " Aunt Lize ! " 
 
 " What ye want, Hughie? " 
 
 " You. Come in with your apples, and I 11 help 
 string."
 
 The Mountain and the Man 75 
 
 " It 11 make er muss " 
 
 " Never mind. I want to talk." 
 
 She supplied me with a darning-needle and a string, 
 and, having placed the wooden chopping-tray of 
 quartered apples on the work-bench, fed the fire till 
 the room was light enough to read by, then sat 
 down by the cot, and we fell to. 
 
 " Whatd ye want ter talk bout, Hughie? " 
 
 " Oh, a good many things ; when is Uncle Shim 
 going to break out the road?" 
 
 " He wuz cal latin ter put the ox-team on ter- 
 morrer, but he 11 hev ter plough out fust, n then 
 shovel through the big drifts." 
 
 " He can t do it inside of a week." 
 
 " No ; he says mebbe they 11 break out a leetle 
 ter help from the Farnsfield turnpike, but the heft 
 on t 11 come on him. We hain t been snowed up 
 like this sence eighty-one, d ye member, Hughie? 
 the time Uncle Shim brought Twiddle home up the 
 Mountin ?" 
 
 " Yes, I remember the snow had been setting ir 
 thick and heavy ever since noon, and you were 
 worrying about Uncle Shim. I know I wanted to go 
 down the Pent Road, Gilead way, to look for him, 
 but you would n t hear to it." 
 
 " I never shall fergit thet storm ; it seemed as ef the 
 wind raised the roof long bout six ; n then I heerd 
 Prince whinner, n the fust thing I knowed, Shim 
 wuz comin through the shed with er big bundle in his 
 arms, n his face all sot n blue. He walked right 
 up ter the settle, n laid the bundle down on t, n 
 then, turnin ter me, he says slow n solemn like:
 
 76 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 Lize, what s thet the Good Book says bout 
 sheep? 
 
 " N I thought the frost hed struck inter his 
 brain I d heerd er sech things n I acted kinder 
 scairt (ye wuz n t in the room, coz ye d gone out ter 
 put up Prince) n flew inter the pantry ter git some 
 rum n er red pepper ter fix up some hot drink ter 
 thaw him out; but he follered me in, n took hold er 
 my arm n led me back ter the settle, n , p intin ter 
 the bundle, says agin : What s thet the Good Book 
 says bout lambs, Lize? n I ter pacify him, says, 
 Hev ye got er lamb thar, Shim? 
 
 " Yes/ he said, but what s thet the Good Book 
 says bout lambs, Lize? 
 
 " Then I knowed jest what he meant, n says, 
 " Feed my lambs," Shim is thet what ye re arter? 
 
 " Thet s what I mean, Lize, he said, n his voice 
 sounded kinder nat ral, n I thought he wuz thawin 
 out, n reached up ter take off his muffler, but he 
 drawed back, n p inted ter the settle, n says, " Feed 
 my lambs feed my lambs" n then went inter the 
 shed n kicked off his boots, while I went to work on 
 thet bundle." 
 
 " And I found you at it when I came in with Uncle 
 Shim, and we both watched you ; how you screamed 
 when you saw Twiddie sound asleep inside a blanket 
 and the quilt and the buffalo robe peeled off of her ! 
 It woke her, and she put out her hands and began 
 to cry, and when you took her up, she only cried the 
 harder " 
 
 " N then ye said, Give her ter me, Aunt Lize ; I 
 can t stand the young un s squallin n took her
 
 The Mountain and the Man 77 
 
 in yer arms n snuggled her head down onter yer 
 shoulder, n walked up n down the kitchen with her, 
 n in er minute she stopped, n she hain t shed many 
 tears sence." 
 
 " Do you know who her father was, Aunt Lize? " 
 " No, n nobody else. Shim hed never let on ter 
 me thet his sister d come back ter Old Town Gilead 
 more n six months fore he brought Twiddie here. 
 He d took his oath ter her thet he d never tell who 
 she wuz, Shim s folks lived over n York State 
 n fer them six months, she took in tailorin fcr the 
 store down ter Alderbury, n lived in half the house 
 on the old Rowen place up in Old Town Gilead. 
 She called herself Mis Smith but Shim knowed 
 she wuz thar n when she found she warn t goin 
 ter live, she sent fer him n gin him the child. In 
 makin out the death certif cate, Shim hed to own 
 up ; thet s how folks come ter know bout it." 
 
 "Was that her name when Uncle Shim took her?" 
 "Thet s what she called herself; but her mother 
 said her name wuz Theodory, n Shim said her las 
 words wuz, My gift er God my gift er God ; n 
 Shim thought she wuz wanderin , but he axed the 
 minister down ter Alderbury thet he brought up 
 fer the buryin , ther warn t no reg lar fun ral, n 
 he said it wuz the child s name she wuz meanin , 
 Theodory." 
 
 " You never told me this before, Aunt Lize." 
 
 " Wai I hain t said much bout it. Yer Uncle 
 
 wuz cut ter the quick with the disgrace, n least said, 
 
 soonest mended. But ye never took much notice er 
 
 Twiddie anyway, Hughie; ye wuz allus er-plannin n
 
 78 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 studyin how ye could git ter the Cademy, n she 
 knowed she warn t made much of." 
 
 " That s true, Aunt Lize ; but she s a handy one 
 to have about. She says she s going to keep my 
 room clear of the litter each day after I get through 
 the work." 
 
 " I m glad on t. She can t begin too soon, fer 
 she s got ter earn her own livin when she s of age, 
 n time flies. Did she slick up yer room ter-day?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "I thought she d ben here. I don t know what 
 I d er done thout her when ye wuz so sick folks 
 comin n goin , inquiring n sympathizin . I could n t 
 tend ter em all." 
 
 " Who came, Aunt Lize?" 
 
 She laughed softly. " How ye Ve changed, Hughie ! 
 Three months ago, I dassen t so much ez tell ye Tag 
 hed stuck his nose inter the door, n now ye want 
 ter know who come." 
 
 " Yes, all of them, Aunt Lize." 
 
 She laughed again. " Wai, ther wuz Uncle Jo 
 Cheatle, fust n foremost, n the Duddses over east- 
 ards, n the new Methody minister in Scawsville, n 
 the principal down ter the Cademy; n then ther 
 wuz Silas Strong, ye member he done the loggin 
 with yer four year ago, n ther wuz Lawyer Binin s 
 son, he said he wuz in yer class ; n one day, two gals 
 drove up, n one on em said she wuz Linnie Lane 
 from Scawsville ; she wuz granddaughter to Elnathan 
 Lane thet owned the saw-mill ; he n yer grand 
 father wuz great cronies she come twice " 
 
 " How long ago was that, Aunt Lize? "
 
 The Mountain and the Man 79 
 
 " Oh, most er year V er half. She wuz dressed 
 up fit ter kill; hed on high heel gaiters made of 
 kinder brown leather, n er belt ter match, n seemed 
 real taken aback when Twiddie told her ye would n t 
 see anybody but me n Uncle Shim n the doctor, 
 n I guess she took the hint. 
 
 " When yer Uncle wuz down ter Scawsville las 
 spring, he heerd em say she wuz goin ter marry the 
 mill-owner s son some new folks thet come in last 
 winter; n t other day when Shim went down to 
 meet the stage, Uncle Jo told him they d hed the 
 weddin thet very day. She wuz purty ez er picter 
 n - She interrupted herself suddenly. "My land, 
 Hughie ! Here I be keepin ye up past ten o clock, n 
 the kitchen fire most out, n Shim ketchin his death 
 er cold on the settle, n ye re lookin ez tired ez ef 
 ye d ben drawed through er knot-hole, n me runnin 
 on like the North Crick in er freshet Anyway, 
 them apples air all done. Ye Ve strung more n half 
 sence I set here." 
 
 She ministered to me as usual; but when the 
 house was quiet, I could not sleep. 
 
 February 6t h. 
 
 Clear and still and intensely cold. Every day the 
 sun rises undimmed through the frost-filled air upon 
 the white world of the mountains. Every day it 
 wheels steadily higher to the north, yet the icicles 
 still hang from the eaves, firm as rock crystal. Every 
 day it sets, clear, undimmed, red, in the to me 
 unseen west ; but I see its crimson glow reflected in 
 the southeast on Killington and Pico.
 
 80 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 What a pleasure to have finished the lintel with all 
 its summer fulness in such winter weather ! 
 
 At last Uncle Shim has broken out the whole 
 length of the Pent Road ; he and Twiddie have come 
 back with the mail a letter, two books, and a long 
 flat box. My letter first : 
 
 MY DEAR MR. ARMSTRONG, 
 
 I see by the papers that you are snowed up in 
 your region trains and mails blocked, and stage- 
 roads impassable, so I cannot depend upon these 
 sendings to reach you to shorten some of the evening 
 hours during this storm. 
 
 What you said in your last, about work, rings true. 
 I ve thought that myself but perhaps I have 
 thought it in just that way because, for several years 
 past, I have read annually Carlyle s Past and Present. 
 You will find it the very gospel of work text, 
 sermon, preacher, pulpit, all to your hand, and, I 
 hope, to your mind. I feel as if I had struck bed 
 rock every time I read it. 
 
 By the way, if at any time you should strike a 
 workable " vein " in Michael Angelo and brotherhood, 
 or in Carlyle, and wish to follow it up, just let me 
 know. Our Club has a good library for use. We 
 are glad to supply a box of books on demand for 
 such mountain Patmoses as yours, -may the revela 
 tion equal St. John s ! I 11 trust Uncle Jo Cheatle 
 to handle anything under seven stone. 
 
 I don t know what you 11 think of the contents of 
 the long box but I send it in good faith, trusting 
 that a bowing acquaintance with Michael Angelo 
 won t come amiss even in your high latitudes.
 
 The Mountain and the Man 81 
 
 Greetings to Twiddie ; I should like to see the 
 
 child s face as you describe it while she is reading 
 
 Hans Andersen by firelight that is an added touch 
 
 of phantasy. Let me know how the work comes on. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 PHILIP VANEVER. 
 
 I Ve done nothing but look, and look, and look 
 again I can t look my fill at a large photograph of 
 Angelo s David ; the statue seems large enough to 
 fill in the whole panel space above the mantel shelf. 
 I shall carve a frame for it so soon as the spring 
 shall come, and I find time. I know where some 
 alders grow by the brook in the Hollow ; they shall 
 serve me for models they belong to my shepherd 
 lad and his brook. 
 
 What hands ! like mine, and I never noticed my 
 own till now. And the sinewy arm, and the turn of 
 that nervy wrist ; it knows its throwing power to the 
 hundredth part of an inch. And the neck ! like a 
 young stag s half the carrying force of that Goliath 
 pebble lies in its power of backward brace. I know, 
 for I, too, used to sling pebbles from our brook, long 
 before I could use a gun. 
 
 Something in me throbs and lifts and quivers, the 
 longer I look You bedridden fool ! Carve your 
 little cones and tamarack branches ; tend to your 
 business ; earn your seventy-five dollars, and wor 
 ship but don t aspire. 
 
 Twiddie eyes the Master s work with awe. Aunt 
 Lize hasn t made up her mind about it; but Uncle 
 
 6
 
 82 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 Shim said it looks better on the mantel-shelf than the 
 coffin-plates ! 
 
 Angelo s David drove the thought of Linnie Lane 
 Somebody I don t know her name completely 
 out of my mind. Why was it there anyway? It had 
 no right. Oh, yes, in one respect, I am like the 
 angels there is neither marrying nor giving in 
 marriage for the like of me, and I guess that s my 
 only passport to angelhood. I curse inwardly when 
 I think of it, for I know with the spring the sap will 
 rise and I am a man, cheated of his birthright. 
 
 Just a blaze of blue above, a dazzle of white be 
 neath ; day in, day out, a steady, stinging cold ; the 
 snow two feet deep in the woods for the choppers. 
 Uncle Shim is driving the ox-sled down the Pent 
 Road to Gilead with a load of bark for the tannery. 
 The runners squeak and grate on the packed ice- 
 snow ; the vapor from the steaming hides frosts in a 
 white mist about the rough-coated creatures. The 
 yoke strains and creaks. I always like to hear Uncle 
 Shim guide the oxen, by voice and thong. His 
 drawling " A-hish, thar ! " is a thing to remember. 
 
 February 28th. 
 
 Twenty-seven below this morning. The outside 
 sounds are flat and lifeless. Aunt Lize said the 
 kettle of water on the back of the stove skimmed 
 over, although there was a good fire in the front of 
 it. Tag came in with a frozen paw, and is lying 
 before the fire near enough to scorch him in ordi 
 nary weather.
 
 The Mountain and the Man 83 
 
 Uncle Shim has moved my cot in front of the fire 
 place, and I have managed to work an hour at a time 
 by warming my hands on the soapstone Aunt Lize 
 has wrapped in an old flannel shirt and laid on the 
 cot beside me. The windows are white with frost an 
 eighth of an inch in thickness ; even Twiddie can t 
 blow peep-holes through it. 
 
 To-night they are all in my room, huddled around 
 the fire a back-log of hard maple, the girth of a 
 man, and red as a live coal to the heart of it; a fore- 
 log of beech, with pine and birch piled high on top. 
 Twiddie laughed and clapped her hands, rough and 
 cracked with the cold, and danced up and down the 
 room in the flare of the firelight on the walls. 
 
 A big crock of cider, with a red pepper bobbing 
 about in it, is mulling in a corner of the hearth. 
 Uncle Shim has filled the wooden chopping-tray with 
 hot popped corn ; the smell of it tickles a man s 
 nostrils in the dead of winter. Aunt Lize is trying to 
 knit, but it s slow work, for although the heat from 
 the fire warms our faces, when we turn, we can see 
 the vapor of our breaths in the room. 
 
 Angelo s David is no longer white, but warmed and 
 glowing in the lighted room. 
 
 When Aunt Lize had poured out the hot cider into 
 the tin cups, and handed it around, Uncle Shim, who 
 was scooping his with a good deal of satisfaction, said : 
 " Come, Twiddie, give us yer Fir Tree. Kinder 
 warms ye up jest ter hear bout thet party." That 
 story is Uncle Shim s favorite. But I heard little of 
 it, the mind was seeing, till she came to the last
 
 84 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 words, " and the story is fast, too past, past and 
 that s the way with all stories" ; and I know that 
 my story is past, nor Linnie Lane, nor any other 
 girl will ever enter into it. I spoke out my thought, 
 suddenly: 
 
 " Where s that log, Uncle Shim, that felled me?" 
 
 He shifted uneasily in his chair, looked helplessly 
 at Aunt Lize, and rose to go. 
 
 " Guess I d better look ter the stock agin fore I 
 turn in, Lize yc want more wood, Hughie?" 
 
 " Yes, I want that wood, Uncle Shim no, no, sit 
 down ; I m sane enough." My long arms pulled him 
 back to the chair. 
 
 "What d ye do with it, Shim?" Aunt Lize asked 
 bravely, and the sound of her voice encouraged Uncle 
 Shim, as it always does at all his unmarked cross 
 roads in life. 
 
 " I hauled it down inter the shed, Hughie it give 
 me the creeps ter see it layin thar every time I went 
 through the clearin ; V so I snaked it down inter the 
 shed, n then I could n t abide ter tech the cussed 
 thing with er decent saw n axe, but wal, ye 11 
 think I m n A. Number One fool ef I tell ye 
 
 " Go-ahead, Uncle Shim ; I can stand anything 
 after this, you know." 
 
 " Wal, the sight on t sickened me, n I felt so riled 
 up, thet one day I heated the long poker white hot, 
 n went out unbeknownst ter Lize, n branded the 
 dummed log with er word He hesitated. 
 
 "What word, Uncle Shim?" 
 
 " Why, Shim Lewis ! " exclaimed Aunt Lize, 
 "what d ye go keepin sech doin s from me fer?
 
 The Mountain and the Man 85 
 
 Ye didn t swear inter it, did ye?" she asked 
 anxiously. 
 
 " I ain t no blasphemer, Lize," retorted Uncle Shim 
 with some warmth; "I jest burned it in good n 
 deep I wuz feared ye d smell the bark, Lize 
 
 "Fer the land s sakes, Shimei Lewis, WHAT? 
 I b lieve ye grow long-windeder every day of yei 
 life." 
 
 " Cain." 
 
 " My soul ! " said Aunt Lize with an anxious look 
 at me. 
 
 " N arter thet, I don t deny but thet I felt better, 
 n I rolled it agin the underpinnin , n piled ten cords 
 er hard wood on top on t, n I guess t 11 be seasoned 
 fore I need it." 
 
 "But I want it, well-seasoned, too." 
 
 " What ye goin ter do with it? " Aunt Lize looked 
 at me suspiciously. 
 
 " No harm, Aunt Lize. I Ve often wondered what 
 became of it. It was a black birch, wasn t it?" 
 
 " Yes, t wuz thet big one we said we d git out 
 fore we went inter the woods east ards three foot 
 through ter the butt." 
 
 " I know." 
 
 He went out. Twiddie had fallen asleep in the 
 warmth of Aunt Lize s arms. In fact, the room was 
 warmer, and when Uncle Shim came back, he reported 
 clouds in the south and east; a sign on our Mountain, 
 at this time, of milder weather. 
 
 The sun is running high ; it will soon be time for 
 sugaring. I have been making spigots for Uncle
 
 86 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 Shim. The snow has settled and melted, and the 
 woods ring with the axes of the choppers ; Uncle 
 Shim has let out four acres to cut to halves. I can 
 bear the sound better, and am busy finishing the last 
 panel. 
 
 A stag and three does crossed the Pent Road just 
 below the spruce-bush lean-coated, gray, gaunt 
 from famine. Tag was off with Uncle Shim in the 
 woods, and they came down to the sheep-pen for a 
 wisp of hay. I have told Twiddle to carry a big 
 bundle of it up to the spruce-bush for them. 
 
 March I4th. 
 
 It s a grand book that Past and Present ! The 
 lesson of the Past is the lesson of the Present, and 
 Life elucidates Life. The horizon, yonder, has nar 
 rowed since reading it. I d like to know more of 
 Thomas Carlyle I Ve struck one vein I 11 work. 
 And to have the books ! To be starved no longer, 
 but to put out my hand and find food within reach ! 
 
 Just to stand at the door of such a Life s smithy, 
 and see the smith at work, ringing blow on blow upon 
 the anvil, hammering, shaping, heating, welding, while 
 the glowing metal, the showering sparks, the plung 
 ing hiss of white-hot iron, the clouds of acrid steam. 
 the labored breath of the leathern bellows, toil, smut, 
 grime, all intermingle and a character is forged ! 
 
 I Ve finished the book at twelve of the kitchen 
 clock, and am still crying, " Give, give ! " 
 
 The panels went ofif to-day, after we had set them 
 up about our fireplace to see what kind of an appear-
 
 The Mountain and the Man 87 
 
 ance they would make in that distant city " den." 
 Uncle Shim and Twiddietook them down in the pung 
 to meet the stage. 
 
 Twiddie came home wild with excitement; she has 
 an order for spruce gum from Philip Vanever s friend, 
 the owner of the panels. She has asked me to keep 
 her letters with mine how selfish I have been! 
 Never a thought of Twiddie at Christmas ! I might 
 have made her a little box for her few treasures. I 11 
 make good this neglect. 
 
 " Oh, Hughie, see, see ! It s comin true ! " she 
 cried, rushing into the room, her eyes blue-black 
 again, her cheeks red, her face alight with joy. I 
 have always thought her a homely enough child, but 
 to-day why, I rubbed my eyes ; it was surely 
 Twiddie, but a glorified one ; Ole Luk-oie must have 
 squirted some of his magic milk into my eyes. She 
 flaunted the envelope before my face. 
 
 "Read, read quick, Hughie ; " and I read, of 
 course aloud, to please her: 
 
 " Dear Miss Twiddie " she clapped her hands, 
 interrupting me: 
 
 "Didn t I tell ye, Hughie, ther wuz one allus be 
 gun Dear Miss Twiddie ? The other, ye know, is 
 the Dear Twiddie one. Now begin again." 
 
 " DEAR Miss TWIDDIE, 
 
 " My friend, Mr. Vanever, told me when he came 
 back from Vermont, that you lived near a big spruce 
 wood, where you can find the real spruce gum. I m 
 so tired of the stick chewing-gum you know the
 
 88 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 kind, lavender-pink, with the flavoring in it [" I 
 don t, Hughie."] It does n t taste country enough, 
 and I wish I might have some of the real kind. 
 If you could get some for me, I should be glad to 
 purchase a pound or two ; the price would be a dollar 
 and a half a pound. 
 
 " Very soon I shall sit down before the new fire 
 place in my library, for I hear from your Cousin he 
 has sent the panels, and look at the larch, its branches 
 and catkins, its leaves and its cones showing so en 
 ticingly in the firelight, and then I shall want a good 
 piece of spruce gum to chew for when I chew 
 real gum I make believe I live near the real woods ; 
 the gum always tastes to me as the spruce trees 
 smell does it to you? Do you ever make believe 
 things? 
 
 " I m coming up some time to see you and the 
 butternut tree and your Cousin Hugh and the real 
 larches and spruces ; Mr. Vanever says he 11 take me 
 with him. Meanwhile, I want the spruce gum, and 
 am, 
 
 " Dear Miss Twiddie, 
 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 
 " RICHARD MALORY." 
 
 She breathed a long sigh of satisfaction and nodded 
 gravely. " I shall write him I hain t never seen no 
 lavender-pink chewin -gum, n thet I do make b lieve 
 lots er things, n ef he 11 tell me hisn I 11 tell him 
 mine. Thet s fair, ain t it, Hughie? I m goin ter git 
 some now, n p r aps he d like some butternut meats, 
 n oh, Hughie! s posin" I should send him some 
 maple sugar bimeby would it help him ter make 
 b lieve some more?"
 
 The Mountain and the Man 89 
 
 " I m sure of it, Twiddie, but hold on, wait a 
 minute. Tell me if you Ve had a letter from that 
 other chap lately, the one that begins, Dearest 
 Theodora ?" 
 
 She hung her head. " No, I hain t, not fer oh, 
 ever so long." 
 
 " Do you think he has forgotten you? " 
 
 She shook her head emphatically, and ran away ; 
 but not before I saw the tears well in her eyes, and 
 quench the glad light in them. She s a curious 
 child. I wonder who her father was, or is the gal 
 lows are too good for such, who leaves a girl like that 
 unfathered. 
 
 How selfishly blind I Ve been ! What must the 
 child s little letters to men of Philip Vanever s stamp 
 have been like? All that untrained speech of the 
 Mountain caught from Aunt Lize and Uncle Shim 
 I 11 begin to-morrow with her. I know how hard it 
 was to break myself the first few months at the Acad 
 emy, and the shame of it all. I Ve sweat many a 
 time when I Ve blundered in class with the habitual 
 " hain t " and " warn t," and Twiddie sha n t suffer so 
 for want of that training when she meets these men 
 who say they re going to find out our Mountain 
 l another summer. She shall be fitted for a different 
 " life, even if she lives and dies on Olympus. 
 
 March 25th, and the first crow-caw. Twiddle s car 
 rots, scraped hollow and filled with water, are sus 
 pended from strings in front of the south windows; 
 they are so many hanging cups of feathery green.
 
 90 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 She is going to the district school during the spring 
 term. 
 
 Seventy-five dollars ; I Ve said it over and over 
 again, and failed to realize it, staring at the check 
 the first I ve ever had. It doesn t mean anything to 
 me that slip of paper ; if the money had been sent it 
 would seem real. I think Aunt Lize is disappointed; 
 she seems suspicious of it. But I know it s all right. 
 I 11 send it down by Uncle Jo Cheatle to get it cashed 
 at Alderbury, and I 11 write him a word or two and 
 tell him there ll be no more shabby treatment of him 
 the next time he gets up the Mountain to see me ; 
 and I 11 ask him, as a favor, to take five or six dollars 
 of the money, and buy a quarter of a hundred of white 
 sugar, and two pounds of Uncle Shim s cut-plug the 
 same kind he uses and five pounds of good coffee, 
 and to pay for a year s subscription for the County 
 Granger, and if there s any left, to put it into stamps 
 and good letter paper and some coarse white draw 
 ing sheets and a half pound of pink gumdrops for 
 Twiddie 
 
 I stared so long at the check that I forgot the 
 other letters. On opening one, I found an order 
 from that Society, of which Philip Vanever told me, 
 for two mahogany panels, larch design, to put into an 
 old-fashioned cabinet top they have forwarded the 
 wood by express. Oh, if summer were only here, 
 with its gifts of mullein and fern, of oak and tassel- 
 ling corn and bearded wheat, of the wild grape, its 
 leaves and tendrils all models to my hand ! 
 
 The other letter from my friend my friend! I 
 love to linger on the sound of the words. I have held
 
 The Mountain and the Man 91 
 
 it in my hand for half an hour, in lieu of the hand 
 clasp I m wanting. He is sending a box of books, 
 " incited thereto," so he writes, " by your hearty re 
 ception of Carlyle. He was so big a gun to fire at 
 you without warning, that I had my doubts, but, any 
 how, there s no smokeless powder about him ; you 
 always know when he has fired and what he s aiming 
 at. We 11 talk this over in the summer. 
 
 " I m off now on a half-way-round-the-world trip 
 to Japan, and shall be gone four months. In the 
 interim, I send you a dozen or two friends of mine 
 (consider this a letter of introduction, which they 
 present), and so assure myself you will be in good 
 company while I am gone. 
 
 " The fireplace is perfect; Dick Malory is showing 
 it off to a half dozen people a day he s near your 
 age, by the way, and just out of college and he told 
 me yesterday he had two orders already for you, but 
 you re not to repeat his special design. Dick is a bit 
 selfish when it comes to a matter of art, but I honestly 
 think it will be well to indulge him in this whim, un 
 less you are put to it for models or designs at this 
 season. In any case, if I may offer a word, I would 
 put off the carvings for the orders, if possible, until 
 Dame Nature can supply you with some new ideas, 
 rather than repeat this charming design. People are 
 willing to pay for originality. Of course, what I have 
 said applies only to the fireplaces; Dick has no 
 thought, no intention, nor could have any power, to 
 restrict you as to other applications of the larch 
 design. 
 
 " Tell Twiddie I 11 bring her a Japanese teapot and 
 a kimono. I have put in a story-book for her,
 
 92 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 Little Women ; and for you, that you may travel with 
 me, you have the imagination for it, two books 
 on the little Japs, their country and their art 
 
 " Greetings to one and all on your Mountain, and 
 for yourself, a hearty hand-shake from 
 " Yours faithfully, 
 
 " PHILIP VANEVER. 
 
 " P. S. Write to Dick if you strike a snag in the 
 busings while I am away. P. V."
 
 Ill 
 
 WHAT HAPPENED IN THE PEN
 
 Ill 
 
 WHAT HAPPENED IN THE PEN 
 
 I WAS so excited last night at the thought of all 
 the new life entering into mine that I could not 
 sleep. 
 
 The box has come : a part of that other world 
 coming to me Lanciani, Hare, Ruskin and Vasari, 
 Browning and Byron, Sand and Dumas. 
 
 And all these are strangers from over the sea, the 
 names of but one or two known to me, who have 
 come to me here on this " back farm " in New England 
 and are to sit at my fireside and by my bedside to tell 
 me of that other world beyond our mountains; to 
 hearten me in my down hours and hold intimate con 
 verse with me in my midnight watches. 
 
 He said they were his friends may they abide 
 with me until they become mine. I ve gathered 
 them all into my arms and hugged them close and 
 hard. 
 
 That s curious ! I had forgotten Twiddie, to whom 
 I had given her book, and, on looking around with 
 my arms full of my books, I saw her sitting on the 
 rug before the fire hugging her one, with both arms, 
 too, as tightly as ever she could. She was singing to 
 herself. I listened ; it was that old verse she has 
 caught from Aunt Lize.
 
 96 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 April 5th. 
 
 I smell the breaking up of winter snow-water set 
 tling in among masses of thawing leaves produces it. 
 
 Uncle Shim reports a great run of sap. Two 
 Canucks have come over from the Duddses to help 
 him ; it was too hard for a woman and child. Such 
 leather-skinned, weasel-eyed runts, but tough as pine- 
 knots ! I had them in after supper, and the one they 
 call " Toughheel " broke out suddenly with: 
 
 " Bah gosh ! Ah shamed." 
 
 "Ashamed of what, Toughheel?" 
 
 "Ah shamed ah mah legs"; and then the honest 
 fellow gripped my hand, wrung it, and went out with 
 a sob, like a child. We used to work together haul 
 ing logs and peeling bark. 
 
 Last night, about nine, I heard the roar in the Hol 
 low. The warm sun and the two days rain have 
 loosened every little run, and the brook-ice has given 
 way at last ; a rushing torrent fills the narrow bed. 
 
 I, too, feel as if something had given way within 
 me ; he is only a Canuck, but his sudden word of sym 
 pathy is the first I have been willing to accept. I 
 have played the coward and acted the fool hitherto. 
 Henceforth no shirking, no shrinking, but " Tapfer- 
 keit " the " deliberate valor " of Carlyle. I wish I 
 knew German. 
 
 Toughheel Toughheel, I have been saying over 
 to myself, and it has come to me that it must mean 
 Theophile. I Ve been working " hammer and tongs " 
 at the French these last two months and am ready for 
 all the foreigners in my box.
 
 What Happened in the Pen 97 
 
 The days are full, full to the brim, sometimes over 
 flowing with springtime, work, reading, studying, and 
 just living. The song-sparrows have come, and a 
 flock of red-winged blackbirds have found their way 
 to the alders, so Twiddie says, and are minded to 
 settle there. 
 
 "What s the matter, Aunt Lize?" I said, as she 
 made her appearance at the east door this morning. 
 She looked worried. 
 
 " Whar s Twiddie? I hain t see her fer more n 
 two hours. She wuz goin ter help me set them 
 Plymouth Rocks, n then Shim wanted her to help 
 him drop n cover them early peas. I can t leave ter 
 look her up, fer I ve got ter tend ter my bread, n 
 Thar she comes now, moonin erlong; what hez got 
 inter her, Htighie?" 
 
 " We 11 find out, Aunt Lize ; you try first." 
 
 Aunt Lize went to the door. " Whar ye ben, 
 Twiddie? " 
 
 I saw Twiddie jump, hide something under her 
 apron, then run round the house for dear life. 
 
 " Now look at thet, Hughie ! What ails her, any 
 way ; you don t s pose thet t other blood s showin 
 up arter thirteen years, do ye? n the child s taken 
 to deceivin ? She s allus ben jest ez straight ez er 
 string." She went out, calling sharply, " Twiddie, 
 come here." 
 
 Twiddie came, but through the kitchen, outflank 
 ing Aunt Lize, who had gone round the house in 
 search of her. In a minute, Aunt Lize followed her 
 in, her face red with vexation.
 
 98 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 " Whar ye ben, Twiddle?" I never heard Aunt 
 Lize speak so sharply before to the child. Twiddie 
 turned white. 
 
 " Out in the barn." 
 
 "What fer, I d like ter know?" 
 
 " Ter set the hens." 
 
 " Set the hens ! " cried Aunt Lize, shrilly ; " ye 
 hain t set er hen this mornin , Twiddie Lewis, n 
 me wastin my time waitin fer ye ter do it don t 
 tell me." She laid her hand heavily on the child s 
 shoulder, but at the touch Twiddie sprang back 
 wards, planting her feet firmly, and clinching her 
 fists. 
 
 " Don t ye tech me so ! " she shouted rather than 
 cried, in her clear, high voice. Aunt Lize looked at me 
 in helpless amazement, and I saw her hand tremble. 
 
 " Ef ye tech me like thet, I 11 tell ye lies." We 
 both noticed that her eyelids were red and swollen, 
 as if she had been crying, an unusual thing for 
 her. 
 
 I think Aunt Lize must have had a vision of 
 " t other blood showin up," for I saw war to the 
 knife written in her face, and I knew she would go to 
 almost any length rather than give in to it. But she 
 controlled herself well. 
 
 " Whar ye ben, Twiddie?" 
 
 " Out in the barn." 
 
 "What fer?" 
 
 " Ter set the hens ." 
 
 " Wai, ye hain t sot em." Twiddie was silent. 
 Aunt Lize returned to the charge. 
 
 "What ye ben doin ?"
 
 What Happened in the Pen 99 
 
 " Layin on the hay." 
 
 " What ye doin layin on the hay, I d like to 
 know, this time er day?" 
 
 " Makin b lieve." Aunt Lize looked horrified. 
 
 " Makin b lieve what?" 
 
 "Jo." 
 
 " Jo who ? " asked Aunt Lize, faintly, her eyes like 
 green gooseberries. 
 
 "Jo March." 
 
 "Who s Jo March, Hughie?" Aunt Lize looked at 
 me appealingly. 
 
 " I don t know, Aunt Lize." 
 
 " Fore I d make b lieve boys," said Aunt Lize, 
 trying scorn. 
 
 " T ain t boys," answered Twiddie, doggedly. 
 
 " Wai, who is she, then? " 
 
 " She ain t nobody, not truly." Aunt Lize began 
 to look as if she were seeing ghosts. 
 
 " Ain t nobody ! What d ye mean by thet? " 
 
 " She s made b lieve too ; n all on em, Amy, n 
 Meg, n Oh, I can t bear it ! " She set up a howl 
 that I could see would eventually drive Aunt Lize 
 distracted. 
 
 " Twiddie," she said solemnly, and this time she 
 laid her hand with her usual tenderness upon the 
 head bowed into the gingham apron, " Twiddie, whar 
 ye ben? can t ye tell me?" 
 
 " Ter the fun ral the fun ral, n Laurie n Amy 
 warn t there, n only Jo Beth hed the fever the 
 fever, ye know, n never got well n oh, dear 
 me ! " Sobs shook her so that I began to fear for 
 the child.
 
 ioo The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 Aunt Lize was beaten. She turned to me with the 
 old worried look on her face I used to see there 
 when she was watching me that first year and a half, 
 and whispered : 
 
 " Ye don t think, Hughie, ther could be anything 
 here?" She put her finger to her forehead signifi 
 cantly " in thet t other blood? She s jest the age, 
 ye know, fer it ter show. My land ! I m weaker n 
 er rag ; I guess I 11 hev ter set down." 
 
 Poor Aunt Lize. The bread began to scorch before 
 she was fairly seated in the wooden rocking-chair; 
 whereupon, she flew out into the kitchen like a hen 
 with her head cut off. Twiddie was still crying. 
 
 " Twiddie, come here," I said. She came and 
 stood by the cot, and I drew her hands down from 
 her face. But she hung her head when I tried to dry 
 the tears on her apron. 
 
 "You don t want to trouble Aunt Lize, do you? 
 She has enough to do and to fret her with me here ; 
 she must n t have you, too, on her hands." 
 
 She gave her head a dissenting shake. 
 
 " Won t you tell me what you were doing out in 
 the barn?" She found her tongue then, and the 
 words fell over one another. 
 
 "Jest readin Little Women, Hughie, out in the 
 barn, n makin b lieve Jo ; n Beth hed jest died, n 
 I fergot Aunt Lize wanted me fer the hens, n I 
 fergot bout Uncle Shim n the peas, n ye hain t " 
 ("Haven t, Twiddie," I corrected,) "haven t," she 
 repeated obediently, "ye haven t" ("You, Twiddie, 
 remember,") " you have n t read it, but when ye " 
 ("You, Twiddie,") "you do read it, Hughie, you ll"
 
 What Happened in the Pen 101 
 
 (" That s right, Twiddle,") " cry too, n fergit " (" No, 
 no, forget,") " forget things like as I do" (" As I 
 do,") " as I do." She began to smile. 
 
 " I ll read it, Twiddle, but I won t promise to cry; 
 there are so many real things to cry over." 
 
 "But you ll, you ll" ("Yes, I hear,") "think 
 they re real, n thet s all the same." 
 
 <: I have n t made up my mind about that yet, 
 Twiddie. Now run and help Aunt Lize." 
 
 Those little Japs are a wonderful people. I have 
 finished the two books Philip Vanever sent me. I 
 get an inward vision of them set among their plum 
 and cherry blossoms, their miniature waterfalls and 
 yellow chrysanthemum blooms the blue sea en 
 circling all. 
 
 What is the sea like, I wonder? Sometimes, when 
 of a morning the valley of the White Branch is filled 
 with blue-gray mist that rises and falls as if some 
 great heart were beating beneath it, and, beyond, in 
 the east the mountain tops heave dark blue against 
 the horizon, with half-shut eyes I narrow my line of 
 vision and say to myself, " That is like the sea." 
 Sometimes I fancy I see a sail, but it is only the 
 sunlight catching on the bellies of a flock of swallows 
 that wheel suddenly at an acute angle in mid-air. 
 
 Sunday, May 2nd. 
 
 Cherry blossoms, chrysanthemum blooms, visions 
 of blue seas ! What joy do they give me comparable 
 to the sight of Uncle Shim in clean shirt-sleeves sit 
 ting on the step of my east door and smoking like 
 a blast furnace ! And / earned the cut-plug, and
 
 IO2 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 with my two hands can keep up the supply, I hope 
 indefinitely. 
 
 I miss Twiddie. She is all day at the school, and 
 the house is alone with me. Aunt Lize is helping 
 Uncle Shim, for it is lambing-time, and the ewes have 
 dropped naught but weaklings this year. Uncle Shim 
 says it was the steady, bitter cold of February that 
 did it never a day on which at noon the mercury 
 was over five above. There s one now ! He s been 
 lying in the clothes-basket by the kitchen fire since 
 yesterday afternoon, and Aunt Lize has been feeding 
 him. By the sound, I 11 bet he s on his feet this 
 very minute " Ca-duc, ca-duc " 
 
 Oh, my God ! and I used to call them at the lower 
 bars of the Old Pasture, and love to feel them crowd 
 me with their soft, warm bodies 
 
 At my call, the day-old idiot actually came stag 
 gering on its wabbly legs into my room, and blatted 
 at me, and rubbed against the cot. When I put my 
 fingers to its mouth, it took them all in, and sucked, 
 and sucked, as if it could never have enough ! 
 
 The dumb fool of a beast no more fool than I; 
 for I found as I watched it, that its fleece was turning 
 all colors of the rainbow, and my cheeks were wet. 
 
 Twiddie gave me no peace until I read Little 
 Women ; and now, in the long May twilights, we 
 talk together of Meg and Jo, of Beth and Amy, of 
 Laurie lucky dog ; and the little woman on the 
 doorstep lives in another world, and I have the 
 key that unlocks the door by which she enters it;
 
 What Happened in the Pen 103 
 
 if I had n t, I should be a " shut-out " as well as 
 a " shut-in." 
 
 What an old house this is ! Every clapboard 
 weather-blackened and browned. I Ve been think 
 ing of what Philip Vanever wrote about coming up 
 here again in the summer; I believe he meant it. 
 Then Twiddle s friend, Mr. Richard Malory, whom I 
 call Dick Malory because I like the name and he is 
 near my age, wrote her he was coming too. I wish 
 I could make the old house beautiful for them; if 
 only 
 
 I have it ! I Ve been hatching plans as fast as the 
 White Brahma, that has stolen her nest in the depths 
 of the spruce-bush, has been hatching her chickens 
 to-day, eleven thus far, Twiddie reports. 
 
 We Ve a lot of spruce boards and two or three 
 bundles of laths, and if I can ply Uncle Shim long 
 enough with cut-plug and keep him answering ques 
 tions as to how he did things when he was a boy over 
 in York State, I m sure I can get something knocked 
 together; and if, in addition, I can rouse Aunt Lize s 
 enthusiasm and Twiddie s curiosity, I 11 fetch it. 
 
 We re hard at work. Uncle Shim laid the floor 
 ing yesterday; to-day we re finishing it. It s just a 
 big latticed porch like one I found in an illustrated 
 book on Holland that Vanever sent me : the gable of 
 my end of the house extended ten feet and supported 
 on four stout cedar posts; a big flooring laid beneath 
 it on a level with my east door, and boarded up for 
 two feet and a half to form an enclosure. One end,
 
 io4 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 to the south, I have left open for an entrance. Coarse 
 lattice fills the triangle of the gable and follows down 
 the sides of the posts. I m going to cover it with 
 vines, fill the shelf around the three sides of the base 
 board with Aunt Lize s plants, and so make a bower 
 of greenery for her and Twiddie to sit in, and for 
 Philip Vanever and Dick Malory to see when they 
 come by the end of the house. Perhaps they will 
 smoke a corn-cob pipe there with Uncle Shim. I 11 
 make some in readiness. 
 
 To-day Twiddie brought me up another order that 
 fairly staggers me. It is from the Society, and nothing 
 less than the carving of sixteen oak panels, six feet by 
 one and a half; the designs to show forth our New 
 England spring, summer, autumn, and winter ! Four 
 panels for each season. Nature will have to hustle to 
 keep up with me now. 
 
 Aunt Lize has left her work to go down with 
 Twiddie into the hollow where the brook-alders are 
 in blossom. They have been gone two hours ; I hope 
 nothing has happened, the rocks and stones are so 
 wet and slippery. There they come now, loaded 
 with alders, dogwood, and great branches of cherry 
 blooms. I see the white stars from here ; they must 
 have been up into the woods beyond the Old Pasture. 
 
 The SPRING entered my room with them and 
 filled it. 
 
 This morning Uncle Shim came in and began to 
 move my cot across the room. 
 
 " What are you going to do, Uncle Shim?"
 
 What Happened in the Pen 105 
 
 " Coin ter give ye er breath er air. I measured 
 the door n the cot yisterd y unbeknownst ter yew, 
 n it fits ez neat ez er thole-pin jest shaves through. 
 See thar now ! " He was triumphant, and hollered to 
 Aunt Lize who was sorting beans in the back shed : 
 
 " Lize, come here ! " 
 
 She came running into the empty room Uncle 
 Shim does n t often holler like that and cried out 
 in a frightened voice : 
 
 "Shim, whar s Hugh?" 
 
 " Here I am, Aunt Lize, I can t run far " It was 
 a dead failure ; for Aunt Lize sat down suddenly on 
 the platform and began to cry softly into her apron. 
 Uncle Shim disappeared round the corner of the 
 house, and I swallowed lumps at the rate of two-forty 
 a minute. 
 
 So I m out here at last. I have drawn my first 
 full free breath. 
 
 I never knew such a last-of-May morning ! There 
 is not a living thing on or above the Mountain that 
 is not making some kind of a noise. The lambs are 
 bleating in the Old Pasture, and the cattle lowing 
 at the bars they have just been turned out; the 
 hens are cJinck-churring about the dung-heap be 
 hind the barn ; even the old sow is grunting because 
 she has been let out into the run. 
 
 I hear the brook in the Hollow, the plunge of the 
 waterfall, the wind drawing through the pines, the 
 drone of the bees in the orchard which lies like a 
 sunrise cloud on the slope. The swallows are scream 
 ing like mad as they turn, and wheel, and dive around 
 and over the barn ; the crows are cawing in the forest,
 
 106 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 robins calling, pewees crying; now and then a song- 
 sparrow down in the lilac-hedge along the Pent Road 
 bursts into melody. 
 
 Uncle Shim is ploughing in the corn-patch and 
 hollering to Prince, who is neighing like a colt; Aunt 
 Lize is churning, and Tag s tail whacks in time to 
 every chug-chug of the dasher. I d like to yell 
 but it would frighten Aunt Lize. 
 
 Another day in the open. The sun warms, the air 
 quickens, but not to work. It is enough to be here, 
 and just look and breathe and feel that part of me 
 which can still feel. Curious ! I have never known 
 a spring that intensifies life like the present one ; it is 
 as if there were sensation even in my finger-nails, in 
 my hair 
 
 Twiddle is grubbing with might and main for clem 
 atis and hop roots; Uncle Shim has just put out a 
 stout wild grape-stock at the entrance to the Pen, I 
 call it that, and Aunt Lize is mounted on the step- 
 ladder, staining the whole structure with butternut 
 juice, a good blackish brown that just matches the 
 weather-stained timbers of the house. 
 
 How the Pen will glow in due season with its climb 
 ing nasturtium and morning glories, with its riot of 
 color in Aunt Lize s geraniums, begonias, and fuchsias, 
 all her house plants massed against the greenery 
 of grape and hop and clematis, and set in the black- 
 brown frame of the latticed porch ! 
 
 Twiddie is wild with delight, running in and out of 
 the Pen, and Aunt Lize, who has just finished the last 
 bit of trellis, is standing around with her apron rolled
 
 What Happened in the Pen 107 
 
 over her bare arms like an animated exclamation- 
 point. She was preparing to do her baking when I 
 called to her this morning to come and help, and now 
 it is four o clock and we Ve stopped only for dinner 
 a makeshift one baked potatoes and cream-pork 
 gravy. I Ve never known Aunt Lize to omit her 
 Saturday baking before. 
 
 7 P. M. 
 
 Whew ! there s a blue smoke of burning fat 
 coming in from the kitchen ; Aunt Lize is thumping 
 out doughnuts in the pantry; Twiddie is paring 
 apples for pies ; Uncle Shim is down cellar fishing 
 for a piece of corned-beef. I smell gingerbread and 
 fresh-baked cookies. 
 
 " I say, Aunt Lize, what are you doing? " 
 " My Saturday bakin ; I hain t never missed one 
 onct sence I married Shimei Lewis, n I ain t goin 
 ter begin now. I ben foolin round all day, n all yer 
 fol-de-rols won t feed ye over Sunday. I m goin ter 
 bile thet piece er beef ef I set up all night ter do it 
 Twiddie, go down cellar n see what yer Uncle s up 
 ter ; I b lieve my soul he s pokin round in the salt- 
 pork bar l ; tell him it s in the little keg longside er 
 the pertater bin." 
 
 This first day of June has brought me a letter, the 
 paper so thin that it is like the inner skin of the young 
 white birch ; and the strange stamp ! I hold it to 
 the light, and think how it has travelled to me from 
 out the Land of the Sun winds, ocean, forge, fur 
 nace, steam, electricity, stage-coach, and Twiddle s 
 willing feet, the bearers of this friend s greeting.
 
 io8 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 KIOTO, May ist. 
 MY DEAR MR. ARMSTRONG, 
 
 A word of greeting from Fuji-san to Olympus ! 
 
 I take it for granted you have read the two books, 
 so spare you any description of this, after all is said, 
 indescribable country; only, I want to say to you 
 right here, that if I don t turn up in Farnsfield by 
 August loth, the ist is the limit of my Japanese 
 trip you may telegraph to Dick Malory to put a 
 tracer on my track, and he 11 be apt to find me among 
 the wood-carvers of a little village just a few miles 
 north of Kioto. How I wish you were with me ! 
 I ve purchased some pieces to take home, and as for 
 the workers in iron, and the ancient sword-guards 
 I 11 have to bring some up to show you. 
 
 There is one I picked up for you of the eigh 
 teenth century; it is three inches in diameter, yet 
 it pictures a great cliff, full six hundred feet high, a 
 river flowing swiftly at its base (you can see the cur 
 rent), a man poling a boat against it, inshore, and 
 a tiny full moon of hammered silver the size of a 
 small pea that lights water, cliff, and boatman. I Ve 
 seen nothing here more wonderful in art than these. 
 
 Did the books arrive safely ? And have my friends 
 made themselves agreeable? And how is the Wood- 
 carver of Olympus himself? I fancy, from what you 
 wrote last, that you are impatient for the fruition 
 of summer; yet the spring should yield you some 
 grist for your mill. Sometime I mean to see it come 
 there in that New England of yours. 
 
 Tell Twiddle I Ve bought her a kimono, and should 
 like to see her with it on come flying down the 
 pasture-slope as she came that day last September. 
 
 My trip is resting me by giving me new interests.
 
 What Happened in the Pen 109 
 
 For the past three years I have had some rather 
 large affairs on my hands the trip to Ceylon was a 
 business one besides the settlement of my father s 
 estate ; it was well to narrow my life for a few 
 months to the Japanese dimensions. But I could n t 
 breathe long in this atmosphere ! Neither could 
 you ; and I m going back to my own country with 
 increased respect for its national and social ozone. 
 I am already looking forward to August. Till then, 
 believe me 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 PHILIP VANEVER. 
 
 How such a letter heartens ! A cold rain is falling ; 
 the mountains, valley, birch-hill all blotted out. 
 From my window I see only the spruce-bush shining 
 gray with rain-and-mist-beaded branches. The alders 
 are growing beneath my hand more rapidly than by 
 the brook in the Hollow. 
 
 With the help of my dictionary I am reading La 
 Mareau Diable. I wonder if George Sand is a woman? 
 I should like to know so many things. He, or she, 
 says "the four-lined verse" (that heads the preface) 
 " in simple naturalness is profoundly sad." 
 
 I, too, should find it so, had I not had my two 
 years object-lesson in enforced idleness, and learned 
 by experience that deprivation of labor is death, 
 work only, life. I have Englished poorly the little 
 verse of old French : 
 
 " In the sweat of thy face 
 Thou shalt earn thy scant bread, 
 Toil and moil with the race, 
 After feast with the dead"
 
 I :o The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 There s Twiddle coming home from school ; I can 
 hear her singing singing in the rain like that robin 
 somewhere in the orchard yonder. I wish she d 
 choose something else, anything but that : 
 
 " Change me, O God ! my flesh shall be 
 An instrument of song to thee, 
 And thou the notes inspire. " 
 
 But I know she likes the tune ; Aunt Lize used to 
 sing her to sleep with it. 
 
 June 6th. 
 
 Such a morning! Clear, sunny sky with high 
 white clouds rising over the timber-belt and sailing 
 over the roof of the house, across the Hollow, and 
 vanishing behind the birch-hill. Every grass-blade 
 and leaf glittering with raindrops ; robins, swallows, 
 bluebirds are drunk with the joy of life. 
 
 While waiting for Uncle Shim to move my cot out 
 into the Pen, I have been looking at my David, and 
 thinking what George Sand said on the next page or 
 two of that wonderful preface : " No, we have not to 
 do with death, but with life." And a little farther on, 
 it is said of the true artist: " His aim ought to be to 
 make people love the objects of his solicitude, and, 
 upon occasion, I should not reproach him for embel 
 lishing them a little. Art is not a study of positive 
 reality, but the search for ideal truth." 
 
 I, even I, Hugh Armstrong, such as I am, can 
 understand that. I have looked at my Shepherd 
 David, and it has been revealed to me by something 
 not of the marble, but in it. Something, too, is being
 
 What Happened in the Pen 1 1 1 
 
 cut into my alders and dogwood, that shows the mount 
 ing spring joy in every living thing; it does not 
 detract from the truth of reality, it but enhances it. 
 If if- 
 
 "Ye ready, Hughie?" 
 
 " Uncle Shim, can t we get the work-bench out 
 into the Pen?" 
 
 " Jest ez ye say, Hughie ; I 11 have ter git Lize ter 
 help h ist it through the door." 
 
 "Where is Aunt Lize?" 
 
 " Makin scarecrows fer the corn-patch ; the corn s 
 jest prickin through, n them thieves hez their weather- 
 eye open every time, durn em." 
 
 I like to see Uncle Shim cross, he is so shiftless 
 about it; his " durn em" would n t scare a one-eyed 
 crow. 
 
 I work daily now in the Pen, while this settled June 
 weather lasts. It seems as if I could hear things 
 grow; there is such a thrusting, pushing, upreaching, 
 unfolding, expanding process going on about me. 
 The new pine tops grow green, green, greener ; the 
 .new spruce tips thick, thick, thicker ; the corn-stalks 
 high, high, higher; the tasselled birch on the oak 
 panel more and more satisfactory but in the midst 
 of it all, I smell the spruces in the sun, and something 
 grips me at thought of the little fir tree and the " story 
 that is past." Perhaps I Ve thought more of it be 
 cause Twiddie s teacher is coming up the Mountain 
 to stay over Sunday with us. Aunt Lize asked me if 
 I minded. At first I felt like begging off, but the 
 look on Twiddie s face warned me in time. It s the 
 first time I Ve had to face a girl since this happened.
 
 ii2 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 I dread her coming; I dread to see a girl anyway. 
 Sometimes I wish, almost, I had n t read The Devils 
 Pool I fear to be bedevilled, for it s the flood life- 
 tide of the year, and I m human. 
 
 Monday. 
 
 I need n t have been such a coward ! I m glad she 
 came, and I hope she 11 come again. She s a quiet 
 girl, wears eye-glasses ; she was graduated from the 
 Academy last year. She says Twiddle is the smartest 
 thild in the school. She did n t seem to notice my 
 legs, or act as if anything was the matter with me. 
 
 Twiddie and I have struck a bargain. She asked 
 me the other day if I would n t teach her French ; 
 French and Twiddie ! I never thought of that 
 combination. 
 
 "Why, Twiddie?" I asked. 
 
 " Oh, coz." 
 
 " Now, Twiddie, tell me why." 
 
 " You won t tell ?" 
 
 " Never ; here s my hand on it." 
 
 She took it, straightened out each of my long fin 
 gers, crooked them again, then doubled my fist and 
 suddenly squeezed it between her hands. She looked 
 at me with shining eyes, and a rich red was in her 
 cheeks. 
 
 " Coz " (" Because, Twiddie,") " because I m goin 
 off some day." 
 
 " Off where ? To the Canuck country where Tough- 
 heel came from? " 
 
 " Stop teasin , Hughie." She turned away with
 
 What Happened in the Pen i i 3 
 
 a pout positively, Twiddie is growing pretty. I 
 caught her hand, and tried to pull her down beside 
 me, but she drew back, and, pointing over to the 
 mountains, said earnestly: 
 
 " Over there, Hughie, to see the places I read 
 about in Hans Andersen and Little Women, where 
 Amy went ; I make b lieve I go every night, n now 
 the folks are beginning to come again in the stage 
 from Alderbury, it seems real. I wait after school 
 every day now, n make b lieve I m goin off in the 
 stage; don t you remember bout the princess in 
 Hans Andersen ? n how Amy n her folks talked 
 French over there? " she pointed again beyond 
 the mountains " in Europe, you know. I want to 
 learn ; Jo did n t, but she was awful sorry afterwards. 
 Won t you learn me, Hughie? " 
 
 " Yes, I 11 teach you, Twiddie, if you 11 learn to 
 speak English first yes, I know you ve tried; 
 you re doing well too. Now, that s a fair trade, 
 isn t it? " 
 
 " You don t think Aunt Lize would mind, Hughie, 
 if I speak different from her?" 
 
 " Bless your heart, no, Twiddie ; only, you re never 
 to notice how Aunt Lize and Uncle Shim speak. 
 Ladies never do that, and I take it that is what 
 you re going to try to be like Jo and Amy ? " She 
 nodded emphatically. 
 
 "Well, then, Lady Twiddie But she inter 
 rupted me : 
 
 " Lady Theodora, Hughie ; that s what I make 
 b lieve." I humored her. 
 
 " Lady Theodora then, let s begin to-night I 11 
 8
 
 114 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 give you a French verb to learn, and you stop saying 
 learn for teach, and ter for to, and don t drop 
 your g s/ and don t say coz and " 
 
 " I 11 try to, Hughie," she interrupted, laughing 
 merrily, " but t is n t fair to make me do all that 
 fer " (" For, Twiddie,") " for jest I mean just, one 
 verb." 
 
 " No more it is n t, Lady Theodora." Hearing 
 that, she grew so radiant that I was minded to gaze 
 after her as she ran out of the Pen and around the 
 house, Tag barking at her bare heels. How she 
 is shooting up ! Az slim as a willow-shoot. She s 
 getting too big to run barefoot like that and swing 
 on the butternut tree when the stage goes by. I 
 must speak to Aunt Lize about it. 
 
 The four spring panels were sent to the Society 
 last week. I wonder whose they are to be? I m 
 behindhand with my work; there are the two fire 
 places for November. 
 
 I have had word to-day that I need send no more 
 designs on approval ; this leaves me free hand and 
 eases me up a bit. 
 
 Aunt Lize and Twiddie are off to a swamp down 
 the Pent Road, Gilead way; it lies in the corner of a 
 pasture where the brook leaves the Hollow, and some 
 back water sets in there. I told them they would 
 find it by the two black ash trees that grow by the 
 fence. The great blue-flag is found there three and 
 four feet high. I was bound to get my swamp 
 somehow into the panels, -*- this design will fill one 
 nobly.
 
 What Happened in the Pen 115 
 
 The wheat in the roadside-field by Farnsfield will 
 come later, and August will bring the larger brakes 
 and the Canada thistles. So, in time, I shall manage 
 to have them all for the panels swamp and moun 
 tain-slope, roadside-field and thicket. Who, who is 
 to see it all? It is getting to be a labor of love. I 
 shall make bold when I shall have finished the sixteen 
 panels to ask the Society ; they have given me until 
 February. 
 
 July 4th. 
 
 I sent down by Uncle Jo Cheatle to bring up some 
 torpedoes and fire-crackers for Twiddie to celebrate 
 for me, too. I love it have always loved it. 
 After I was a youngster of five, Uncle Shim and 
 Aunt Lize always made a bonfire on the Mountain 
 for me ; folks used to say they could see its light for 
 miles. I Ve asked them to make one to-night. Uncle 
 Shim has fastened grandfather s old flag to the post 
 of the Pen. I wish I could have voted once for 
 president; I should feel more of a man for having 
 done so. An American, his mark; that s what an 
 honest presidential vote should be to a man. 
 
 July iSth. 
 
 Something was in the wind ; I knew it as I sat 
 working in the Pen. I heard Tag barking furiously, 
 and Twiddie hoo-hooing wildly from the clearing ; in 
 a minute the two came racing around the corner of 
 the house. Twiddie flung herself full-length on the 
 grass before the Pen, and Tag flopped, panting, 
 beside her. I waited till she should get her 
 breath.
 
 1 1 6 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 The shadows were growing long and I laid aside 
 my tools; I had been at work all day like a beaver 
 with my chips. The Pen is looking as I hoped it 
 might; hops and clematis are flourishing, and nas 
 turtiums and morning-glories are in full bloom. It 
 is good to see Aunt Lize s joy in it. 
 
 Finally, Tvviddie sat up facing me, her knees drawn 
 up to her chin, her hands clasping them. 
 
 "It s all coming true, Hughie," she said dreamily. 
 
 "What! More folks?" 
 
 She nodded. " Real ones this time, though." 
 
 " Tell me about them, Twiddie." 
 
 "I will if you 11 b lieve me, Hughie." 
 
 " Believe you ! Every word. Did n t your letters 
 come true ? " She gave me a grateful look. Sud 
 denly, at some thought, her face grew scarlet and she 
 hung her head. 
 
 " I disobeyed you and Aunt Lize." I could 
 scarcely hear her. 
 
 " Come, speak up, Twiddie; out with it." 
 
 " You won t be mad, Hughie? " 
 
 "I? no; what should I be mad about?" 
 
 " I d took off my shoes n stockings I hate em 
 so ! I only wear em to please you n Aunt Lize 
 n was swinging on the butternut tree waiting for the 
 stage." 
 
 " Oh, Twiddie, they did n t see you up there with 
 your long, bare legs ! " 
 
 She nodded, but looked so shamefacedly penitent 
 that I had to laugh. At that she brightened up a 
 bit. " Yes, I was, n they look different than they 
 did, coz, ye see" (in her excitement her English
 
 What Happened in the Pen 1 1 7 
 
 going all to the dogs, but I did n t correct her, think 
 ing the story was of more importance), " I hain t gone 
 barefoot for so long thet the tan hez come off n left 
 em awful white, n Uncle Jo s got er new leader, 
 n I never thought bout my legs swingin so fast n 
 they bein so white, n all of er sudden, when the new 
 leader see em, jest ez Uncle Jo reined up under the 
 tree, he give sech er jump thet he went clean over 
 the traces, n Uncle Jo hollered at me awful, n all 
 the ladies " 
 
 "What ladies?" 
 
 " Yes, ladies, real ones, this time. They called ter 
 me ter git down, n I dropped right off the tree thout 
 stopping to swing down by my hands, n fell in the 
 grass, n one on em said I must be hurt, n they all 
 got out while Uncle Jo wuz fixin the leader, n Oh, 
 Hughie ! ef ye could jest see her I " 
 
 " Her who?" 
 
 " The one thet thought I wuz hurt but I wux <i t 
 She saw the box, too, n asked who made it? n I 
 told bout the things ye make. They all talk so dif 
 ferent, Hughie, more like you do, n she " 
 
 "Who, Twiddle?" 
 
 " The one thet said it wuz charmin , n nother 
 said it wuz n idea no, t warn t thet 
 
 "Ideal?" 
 
 " Yes, thet s it, n one er the gentlemen " 
 
 " Gentlemen, Twiddle, and you in your bare legs ! " 
 
 " I never 11 do it again, Hughie, never but they 
 did n t seem to mind, coz I squatted on the ground 
 n tried ter hide em. They jest talked bout the 
 scen ry, n one on em said it made him thiuk of
 
 ii8 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 of I can t remember where twuz; n one on em 
 gave Uncle Jo er cigar n they all lighted theirs, but 
 first they asked the ladies if they might, think er 
 thet, Hughie ! jest ez ef they wuz princesses, n all 
 the rest wuz swineherds jest like in Hans Andersen, 
 ye know." 
 
 " What did the ladies say? " 
 
 " Oh, they wuz willin ; they said they d ride inside 
 n leave em the top all ter themselves, n one er the 
 gentlemen the one thet give Uncle Jo the cigar 
 came up ter where the ladies wuz all stan in bout me, 
 n said, Come, Madeline, give me a chance ter look 
 at thet box, n then he see me close to, n took off 
 his hat, Hughie ! his hat, quick, so quick, n 
 laughed and said, By Jove, it s Twiddie ! n held 
 out his hand ; n I wuz shamed, n fraid he d pull 
 me up, n I did n t want him ter see me bare-legged, 
 so I jest squatted harder, n made b lieve I did n t sec 
 him." 
 
 " Oh, Twiddie ! " 
 
 " N then they all laughed, n he put his hand under 
 my chin and made me look up, n said, Is n t this 
 Miss Twiddie Lewis, who sent me the spruce gum? 
 V V Oh, Hughie!" 
 
 I saw her chest begin to heave, and I felt for the 
 child. " What did you say, Twiddie? " 
 
 " / said I ivuz n t." 
 
 " Why, Twiddie Lewis ! What will Aunt Lize 
 say?" 
 
 She sprang up, and I saw her set her teeth in brave 
 effort to keep back the tears ; then suddenly the 
 scarlet flame leaped upon her throat and ran over
 
 What Happened in the Pen 1 1 9 
 
 neck, face, temples to the roots of her hair, and she 
 cried out shrilly, stamping her foot : 
 
 "I didn t lie! I ain t Tvviddie Lewis I ain t, I 
 ain t / I heard you n Aunt Lize talkin thet night 
 ye thought I wuz ter sleep I m Theodora Some 
 body, n ye don t know who, n Aunt Lize, nor Uncle 
 Shim, nor nobody knows who, n teacher licked er 
 boy fer twittin me of it last week n I ain t er- 
 goin ter school any more, n I ain t er-goin down ter 
 see the stage " 
 
 She was sobbing uncontrollably, and I do hate a 
 scene. 
 
 " Twiddle, come here." But she flung herself down 
 upon the grass again full-length and sobbed face 
 downwards into it. Tag whined and nosed her. I 
 thought, after all, it was better to let her have her cry 
 out. Poor little Twiddle ! I m the shut-in and she s 
 the shut-out; which is worse? I d like to thrash 
 that boy within an inch of his life. 
 
 July iQth. 
 
 She cried herself out yesterday afternoon, and 
 then I sent her down into the Hollow to get some 
 ferns, and to wash her face in the cold water of the 
 pool. 
 
 After supper, while Aunt Lize and Uncle Shim 
 were salting the sheep in the Old Pasture, she sat on 
 the cot beside me we were out in the Pen and we 
 talked together (it did us both good) I the shut-in, 
 a man who has known suffering for two years, and 
 must live with it the rest of his life, to a child hardly 
 a child any longer the shut-out, who is just enter-
 
 1 20 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 ing into the same heritage of suffering, only with a 
 difference. 
 
 Yes, it must have been Dick Malory. I wish he 
 had n t passed me by. I asked Twiddie if he replied 
 to her, and she said he did not, but that he turned 
 away and got up on the seat beside Uncle Jo, and 
 she heard him ask him something, and Uncle Jo said, 
 " Yes, thet s her, thet s Twiddie; " and she had not 
 dared to look up again, nor to get up in order to run 
 away, because of her bare legs; so sat there in her 
 shame and misery till the stage had disappeared. I 
 am glad school is over. She is trying so hard with the 
 English, and takes to French like a duck to water. 
 
 July 2Oth. 
 
 Twiddie came rushing in early this afternoon with a 
 letter, the one I had been looking for from the Soci 
 ety for a week past. I had proved to her that all her 
 trouble came to her the other day through her diso 
 bedience, and the bare legs. She was sensible 
 enough, and offered to go down as usual for the mail. 
 Now she has come back with the astounding announce 
 ment that they are all coming up here to-morrow, 
 Uncle Jo says, and we must be ready for them ; 
 coming up Gilead way to see the view, and so on 
 through the clearing and down over the Mountain, 
 and back to Alderbury! 
 
 This thing has never happened before. They have 
 chartered the Hornet, and Uncle Jo is to drive ; Silas 
 Strong is to take his place for the day, and carry the 
 mail and passengers in the big, three-seated wagon.
 
 What Happened in the Pen 121 
 
 To see the Hornet again ! To hear the horn ! To 
 see people from that other world to touch Life 
 again in its fulness to others, real men, real women ! 
 My hand shakes ; I can t work. I am as excited as 
 Aunt Lize and Twiddle, but I keep it under, and, as 
 a result, am less useful. 
 
 We have been concocting ways and means. It s 
 my house, and I m not going to act the coward this 
 time. Aunt Lize says they ought to have a treat, 
 and I say so too ; a steep climb of five miles from 
 Gilead on a hot July day is no fool of a job for man 
 or beast. 
 
 Uncle Jo asked Twiddle to come down and open 
 the first bars below the house ; it s no place to stop, 
 for there s a bad pitch there ; and then she is to 
 ride up on the rack for a treat. 
 
 She and Aunt Lize are out picking late wood- 
 strawberries ; the ground, they say, is covered with 
 them up near the timber line; there is plenty of 
 cream, and Aunt Lize is going to make some of her 
 soft, sugar cookies. I m glad we can have all the 
 white sugar we need. Twiddie has swept the Pen as 
 clean as a whistle, and I m going to stay inside and 
 leave it clear for them to sit in and eat their straw 
 berries ; the sun turns early, and the shade in the 
 south dooryard is deep. 
 
 July 2ist. 
 
 Oh, the horn ! Uncle Jo never blew such a blast 
 before, and never will again. How it rang among the 
 heights, repeating itself for full twenty seconds, the
 
 122 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 last faint echo seeming to die away somewhere near 
 Killington and Pico; at the sound, every fibre of me 
 thrilled with sick, excited longing. 
 
 I could see the old Hornet from the south window, 
 the horses straining to that last pitch, and Twiddie at 
 the bars ; the men were walking up ; I saw the move 
 ment of the green and white parasols of the women 
 on top. As they drew nearer, I heard them talking 
 the sound carries at this height and exclaim at 
 the view, and at last cry out when they caught sight 
 of the Pen and all its glowing mass of color. They 
 were within a few hundred feet of the house when I 
 caught the words from Uncle Jo : 
 
 "Yes, thet s Hughie s work; purty good fer er 
 cripple, hey? " 
 
 Then a woman s voice such a voice ! do women 
 of that other world yonder often have such voices? 
 
 " I wonder if he has a soul commensurate with 
 such beautiful expression?" 
 
 Dick Malory I knew it was he -came into the 
 yard first, where Aunt Lize was standing in the shade, 
 and, behold ! Twiddie was with him, laughing glee 
 fully. And then Uncle Jo pulled up, and called out : 
 
 "Where s Hughie? we ve come ter sec Hughie," 
 and Twiddie answered joyfully : 
 
 " In here," and brought him in, while Uncle Shim 
 tended to the horses and the men helped the ladies 
 down from the top four of them, gay, bright, smil 
 ing women. They were chatting with Aunt Lize as 
 if they had always known her, and all the time Uncle 
 Jo was talking, my ears were strained to catch that 
 voice. Now and then I heard it Aunt Lize was
 
 What Happened in the Pen 123 
 
 asking them where they came from, how they got 
 here, how long they were going to stay ; she was in 
 her glory, but I was sorry, knowing they came from 
 that other world which is unused to ours of the 
 Mountain. 
 
 Somehow, within a few minutes, I don t know 
 bow it came about, the other three men were all in 
 with me, and Dick Malory was gripping my hand, 
 and telling me of his friendship with Philip Vanever. 
 He s my age nearly; but I felt, as I looked at him 
 and heard him praise my friend, of another and an 
 older generation. But the blue eyes, the hearty way 
 with him, the straight back, square shoulders, and 
 clean length of shank ! He was good to look upon 
 as a man. 
 
 Then Uncle Shim came in and gave me away, say 
 ing: " Ye don t seem ter be in yer right place here, 
 Hughie ; the Pen looks kinder lonesome thout ye." 
 
 " But, Uncle Shim, we planned to have the ladies 
 eat in there, you know." 
 
 For answer, Dick Malory laid his hand upon the 
 cot to help Uncle Shim move me out, and, looking 
 to the deep shade of the elms and maples in the 
 dooryard, I saw her for the first time. She was 
 helping Twiddie set out the old, two-leaved cherry 
 table with saucers and the best spoons, the glass 
 jug of cream, and my grandmother s willow-tree bowl 
 of blue crockery heaped to the brim with the wood- 
 strawberries. Twiddie was setting on a plate of the 
 sugar cookies when Aunt Lize said : 
 
 " Git the six-quart pail, Twiddie, n go down ter 
 the spring fer some good cold water."
 
 1 24 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 Hearing that, Dick Malory called out : " Madeline, 
 come here, and keep Mr. Armstrong company. This 
 is my cousin, Miss Cope," he said, as she came into 
 the Pen ; " I m going with Miss Twiddie to the 
 spring," and he was off with a bound that I, too, 
 knew of old. 
 
 July 22nd, 4 A. M. 
 
 It is light, but the sun is not yet over the moun 
 tains ; it will rise to-day for me out of a new heaven 
 upon a new earth. I am still here in the Pen ; 
 the night was so hot I stayed out for air. I could n t 
 sleep, and have been watching for the dawn. 
 
 She is so different from the others ; even I, unused 
 as I am to many women, can see that. She is neither 
 a shut-in nor a shut-out, but carries her head in a 
 free, glad, uplifted way, like a red deer breaking from 
 cover at sunrise. When she spoke, she was the 
 voice ; when she looked, the eyes spoke for her, 
 and when she smiled, the face grew radiant, like the 
 eastern horizon as I write. What is it that illumines 
 a human face like that? 
 
 She is tall, too ; I calculated swiftly as she stooped 
 to enter the Pen, that the dark head would come a 
 good bit above my shoulder, and I am six foot one. 
 
 How interested she was in the work ! The others 
 exclaimed over the summer panels I have finished ; 
 she said never a word, but just came back to them 
 again and again, as if she could not look her fill. 
 Twiddie took her in to see the David ; " An old 
 friend of mine," she told me afterwards ; and there 
 on the shelf she found the books, and lingered within,
 
 What Happened in the Pen 125 
 
 handling them ; and I knew by her manner with them 
 that she, too, cared as I care. I wish I might have 
 talked with her of them. But the time sped ; there 
 was the Hollow to see, and the sheep and lambs in 
 the Old Pasture, and the north path through the for 
 est-belt a trail I blazed four years ago when I went 
 into the woods with Toughheel ; it is green twilight 
 there even in the brightest summer day. Then 
 Twiddle must needs beg Aunt Lize to let her show 
 them the garret her play-room with the loom 
 and cheese-press, the wheels and reels; and of that 
 neither Dick Malory nor she could have enough. 
 
 While they were rummaging about, I was left with 
 the old yellow Hornet for company. Uncle Shim 
 had taken out the four horses to bait and water, and 
 he and Uncle Jo were smoking in the cart-shed. I 
 have seen it standing like that so many times before 
 the tavern at Alderbury; but then it was empty. 
 Now, as I looked, it was filled with memories of my 
 boyhood ; inside, outside, baggage-rack, driver s scat 
 everything taken by a tow-haired, barefooted boy, 
 who used to watch for its coming down by the butter 
 nut tree, and dream of the time when it should take 
 him away from the Mountain and its pent life. 
 
 They were with us three hours. When they left, 
 Dick Malory said he would blow the horn once in 
 the clearing, and two or three times down the Pent 
 Road. I strained my ears the last time they were 
 at the butternut tree, so Twiddie told me afterwards; 
 she had ridden down with them and as I caught the 
 last echo, a longing came upon me unlike anything I 
 have ever felt.
 
 126 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 But I have touched her hand. She came the last to 
 me to say good-by. I was awkward enough, for I 
 not only clasped the hand held out to me, but, having 
 it once within my palm, looked long at the slim, white 
 fingers, that could give pressure for pressure at the 
 nails, the markings, and wondered at the delicate 
 strength. When I looked up, a light red had mounted 
 into the clear white of her cheek; but she smiled 
 down upon me so womanly-kindly ! she is no longer 
 a girl, but a woman of Philip Vanever s age, with a 
 young grace of figure, and a child s heart shining out 
 of her dark eyes. To work, to work ! 
 
 August ist. 
 
 How full my life is of summer, of work, of 
 thoughts, of friends. 
 
 August 6th. 
 
 Aunt Lize says that Dick Malory told her that they 
 were on a coaching trip through the Green Moun 
 tains, and had been stopping at Wynnegate Inn for 
 a week ; that he had proposed that they charter the 
 Hornet for a two days trip over the Mountain and 
 take in Olympus on the way. Philip Vanever had 
 told him about the views ; and, moreover, he wanted 
 to thank me for the fireplace carvings. So she is his 
 cousin. 
 
 A hot haze covers the mountains and the valley, 
 limiting the range of vision; but the inner eye s hori 
 zon line has widened since July. 
 
 Madeline, Madeline Cope ; I say it softly to myself 
 while at work, and when Aunt Lize and Twiddle are
 
 What Happened in the Pen 1 27 
 
 up in the pasture picking blackberries, and the house 
 is empty save for the buzzing of a blue-bottle, I speak 
 it aloud, and the sound of my own voice lingering on 
 the name soothes for a time, then inspires me to new 
 effort. Why, I cannot say. 
 
 I feel as if all the world had come to my door that 
 day. There was one among them, a professor 
 Waldort, if I caught the name from one of the great 
 California universities ; as tall as I, fair-haired, ruddy- 
 skinned, blue-eyed a geologist. I liked the man 
 and had the curiosity to ask him how he had found 
 his way to our mountain-corner of New England; 
 and I liked his answer: 
 
 " I have found that a man who travels on a trunk 
 line does not know the American people, and I have 
 learned that it is not in the highways, but in the by 
 ways, one gets beneath the surface; that is why I 
 have found out this New England corner of yours." 
 
 That was two weeks ago. Yesterday I had a lettei 
 from him ; what am I that all this should come to me ? 
 I, who have cursed God, and man in his likeness? 
 
 I like to think of filling these pages, that have been 
 a reflection of my own life, with the thoughts of 
 others as they express themselves to me in these rare 
 letters that find their way up here. It s pleasant 
 reading, and lets in daylight. 
 
 OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA, August 5th. 
 DEAR ARMSTRONG, 
 
 I am sending you a box of books that, I hope, 
 will compel you to think oftener of me than would
 
 128 The Wood-carver cf Lympus 
 
 otherwise be the case. You know I am your debtor 
 for an Olympian hour or two on that perfect mid 
 summer day. 
 
 I m still pig-headed enough at thirty-six to believe 
 that every new man I meet and like is just as 
 interested in the rock-ribs and outcrops and vein- 
 ings of this earth-mother of ours as I am forget 
 ting that all men were not born in the " diggings " ; 
 for I am a miner s son, a Californian by birth, and have 
 had among other things " stones for bread." Your 
 trade is akin to mine ; your trees break rock in 
 the subsoil ; hence the kind of books I have sent 
 you. 
 
 Will you remember me to all your people? and 
 say to Mrs. I^ewis, please, that throughout the length 
 and breadth of this big, Nature s prodigal of a state 
 of ours, there are no strawberries that can compare in 
 flavor with those delicate wood waifs to which I paid 
 natural homage that day. 
 
 Across continent greetings from, 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 FRANZ WALDORT. 
 
 They went down for the box after chores were 
 finished, and on their return brought the whole round 
 earth into my room and my life. 
 
 There they lie on the bench, six noble volumes 
 of filisee Reclus s geographical works, and two of the 
 professor s on the mineralogy of the Pacific Slope. 
 Strange ! He, a breaker of stones, to me, a whittler 
 in wood. 
 
 Oh, the world beyond my Mountain is not so wide 
 after all ! And what a world it is !
 
 What Happened in the Pen 1 29 
 
 September i8th. 
 
 I was interrupted in my last entry by a voice an 
 swering Twiddle s joyful outcry Philip Vanever s ! 
 
 A month has passed since then. What a month ! 
 He was with me as guest in my own house for a week, 
 and the close companionship of such a man has been 
 a revelation; we are Hugh and Philip for each other 
 now. 
 
 It came about in the silences of the night, when the 
 smoke from our corn-cob pipes curled about the 
 roof-timbers of the Pen, the moon rose behind Kil- 
 lington, and the valley in the August haze looked, so 
 he told me, like a southern sea. 
 
 It came in the brief speech of the morning, when 
 the Pen opened its flowers to the kindling eastern 
 light, and the dew lay heavy on grass and corn. We 
 had our breakfast together on the bench in the Pen, 
 blackberries and cream, coffee and Aunt Lize s 
 good Johnny-cake, and for a top-off, buckwheat flap 
 jacks and maple syrup. 
 
 It came in the hot noons, when he lay beneath 
 the maples in the deep shade of the dooryard, and 
 Twiddle, in her blue and white kimono, read to us his 
 favorites of the Andersen tales " The Fir Tree," 
 " The Wild Swans," " The Old House," and " The 
 Storks." 
 
 Dick Malory, too, came up for a few days trout- 
 fishing I might say, with Twiddie ; for they were off 
 together with a basket of lunch by the day, and 
 Twiddie showed him all my haunts, the deep pool 
 in the heart of the North Creek glen, where, beneath 
 the shade of a big rock overhung with alders, I have
 
 130 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 found a two-pounder, with his nose rubbing the rock 
 shiny; the trail up the Hollow, where the brook picks 
 its way among the moss-covered boulders, that 
 nourish in their crevices the fronded ferns, to a little 
 run that gets a fair start away from the rocks and 
 whirls into a sand-pocket across which lies the trunk 
 of a monster pine. Just there the water will dartle 
 suddenly ; there s a flash of silver, a spurt for the 
 little run where am I? 
 
 He also satisfied me in regard to himself; as he 
 said, " opened the windows a little." 
 
 One night when all were gone to bed and the moon 
 light transfused the crowding birches on the face of 
 the hill over against the Hollow, we spoke of Made 
 line Cope. I asked him if he knew Dick Malory s 
 cousin, the one who was with him on the coaching- 
 trip. 
 
 "You mean Madeline Cope?" 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Yes, I ve known her for five years that is, 
 off and on. She is a Baltimore woman ; Dick s 
 mother and hers were sisters, both of them Maryland 
 women, and my father s aunt was their grandmother. 
 Now, make what you can of that relation. We claim 
 a distant cousinship that s safe under the circum 
 stances. I have n t seen her for a year." 
 " She s about your age, isn t she? " 
 " Why? does she look it, do you think? " 
 " No but she s different from a girl." 
 " She s a month or two younger than I ; inter 
 ested in the carving, was n t she? "
 
 What Happened in the Pen i 3 1 
 
 " I m sure of it, but she did n t say anything about 
 it." 
 
 He knocked the ashes from his pipe and refilled 
 it before he answered : 
 
 " That s like Madeline. She s demonstrative 
 enough over anything that pleases her fancy merely ; 
 but let her be really touched, and all the king s 
 horses and all the king s men can t draw an ex 
 pression from her." 
 
 "But I know she liked them," I persisted. 
 
 "Why shouldn t she, Hugh? She d have to be 
 blind not to see the beauty of them, and if ever a 
 woman had an artist s eye, true for line, and apprecia 
 tive of color, she has. By the way, have you chosen 
 your designs for the new fireplaces? " 
 
 It is pleasant for a man to hear words of praise for 
 his work from the lips of his friend, and, somehow, he 
 switched me off the track, and I heard no more of 
 Madeline Cope and I would so gladly have heard 
 more ! 
 
 The fall rains have set in early. Uncle Shim is 
 behindhand about getting in the corn, and Aunt Lize 
 is fretting for fear of mildew in the shocks. 
 
 It is so dark, so overcast, that I have had to lay 
 aside my work, the designs for the autumn panels 
 oak branches, corn in the ear, vines of the hop and 
 wild grape. 
 
 Aunt Lize came in a few minutes ago; I knew by 
 the way she sat down in the old rocker she was out 
 of sorts, discouraged. I don t blame her, Uncle Shim 
 is so shiftless.
 
 132 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 " What ye doin in the dark, Hughie? " 
 
 " Thinking thunks, Aunt Lize," I answered, know 
 ing that my announcement of this occupation gener 
 ally put her to rights. Not so to-day. 
 
 "I wish ye d speak ter yer Uncle," she broke 
 out fretfully "he hain t no notion bout seasons n 
 their doin s ; he s allus queer bout some things, n 
 it s more n flesh n blood can stan ." 
 
 "What s the matter, Aunt Lize? He s churning 
 now, I hear him out in the shed ; is n t it pretty late 
 in the afternoon for that?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, he s churnin ," repeated Aunt Lize with 
 all the scorn of which her voice is capable ; " he s 
 churnin fer the second time ter-day." 
 
 " How does that happen? " 
 
 "Jest ez everything happens in this house 
 through clear, downright shif lessness. Ef he wuz 
 er woman, I d call him er slattern, but he hain t jest 
 thet nuther; he s clean nough, Shim is, n allus 
 changes his shirt n overalls n boots when he sets 
 out ter churn; but this mornin I dunno but 
 t wuz part my fault 
 
 Aunt Lize was weakening ; that s the way she 
 always does when she is rinding fault with Uncle Shim 
 ends by laying all the blame on herself. It riles 
 me. I m afraid I spoke up pretty sharp : 
 
 "What s he churning for anyway at this time of 
 day? He s going it two-forty a minute "Aunt 
 Lize began to chuckle, then to shake, and at last 
 she laughed so hard that she had to wipe the tears 
 away with her apron before she could speak. 
 
 "Efye d only seen him, Hughie, ye d carry the
 
 What Happened in the Pen 133 
 
 sight with ye ter yer dyin day. My senses ! I 
 wished I d hed one er them new-fangled ambrotype 
 boxes thet the folks hed up here, thet ketched me n 
 Twiddie while we wuz talkin , quicker n ye can say 
 Jack Robinson." She began to laugh again. 
 
 " He wuz out in the shed where he allus sets, ye 
 know; I d skum half the cream n hed er big mess, 
 bout six quarts, n he wuz churnin erway kinder 
 half n half, thinkin the Lord knows what ; I ain t 
 blasphemin nuther, fer Shim hez got the slowest 
 workin mind fer er man I ever come ercross; n I 
 wuz stewin bout the corn mildewin , n s posed he 
 wuz lis ning. Purty soon, I heerd er cur ous noise, 
 n the kitchen door bein open, I jest laid my eye ter 
 the crack thout stoppin jawin , n thar he sot both 
 han s graspin the dasher, goin it chuggety-chug, n 
 his two eyes raised e en-a-most heavenwards ter the 
 shed timbers, n his old cowhide boots, he d fergot 
 ter change with his shirt, all flooded ter the vampin 
 with my good cream n most ter butter too ! " I 
 began to laugh immoderately. 
 
 " What did you say, Aunt Lize? " 
 
 "Say? nothin ; I jest let him keep thet dasher 
 er-goin till he come to, n found he d somehow 
 managed ter git the bottom out er the churn. He 
 said t hed warped but t warn t no sech thing. Six 
 quarts er good thick cream ! I can t git er cent erhead 
 ef I git up fore cock-crow ter do it." 
 
 Poor Aunt Lize. But I could see she felt better 
 for the telling of her trial. She began to rock com 
 fortably. 
 
 "Let s make b lieve, Aunt Lize, as Twiddie does.
 
 134 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 What would you like most to have in all the world if 
 you could ? " 
 
 " Me, Hughie? I hain t no time ter make b lieve; 
 but I guess ye know the fust thing I d want." 
 
 "What s that? " She leaned over and stroked my 
 tumbled hair with her hard, work-worn hand. The 
 hair caught on the roughened skin. 
 
 "Guess it s most time fer barberin , ain t it, Hughie?" 
 There was a quaver in her voice, but her hand went 
 back and forth, over and around, smoothing my 
 hair. 
 
 " It s about a year ago you barbered, Aunt Lize ; 
 do you remember? " 
 
 " I hain t fergot ; ye ve changed er sight sence 
 then." 
 
 I laughed. " Grown in grace, have I? " 
 
 She nodded emphatically. " Ye member he come 
 jest ez I d finished? " 
 
 " I shan t ever forget that." 
 
 " It s them folks hez changed ye, Hughie ; give ye 
 new life, n put new marrer inter yer bones 
 
 " Only so far," I interrupted, pointing to the dead 
 end of me ; then, seeing the look on Aunt Lize s 
 face, I could have kicked myself for having shown the 
 white feather. " Not the new people wholly ; you 
 trusted me first with the darning-needle, do you 
 remember? and Twiddle forgot to be afraid of me. 
 No, no, Aunt Lize you and Twiddie first." 
 
 For answer her hand rested on my head for a 
 moment, then the sound of Uncle Shim s dasher 
 suddenly ceased. Aunt Lize flew up. 
 
 "I must go the buter s come ! quicker n it eve*
 
 What Happened in the Pen 135 
 
 did before ; I guess thet scoldin did n t bender it 
 any." 
 
 October. 
 
 Work fills the seven hours of daylight out of the 
 ten ; the rest I give to reading. Tvviddie has been 
 out gathering butternuts ; Uncle Shim is just empty 
 ing the bushel basket on the garret floor overhead. 
 How that sound stirs every fibre of my Past ! Some 
 times I think I Ve conquered ; then, of a sudden, 
 a sound like that ! and I m undone again. 
 
 The barberry bush lives once a year in its color. 
 How it glows against the big, gray boulder that 
 crops out just above the hemlocks ! I wish it might 
 lend itself to wood and tools but it does n t, I Ve 
 tried it. 
 
 November. 
 
 The fireplace panels are off, and I m having a 
 vacation of a week after my fall working-term. I m 
 tired, and rest by looking at my David and the iron 
 sword-guard ; by reading of the lands till now un 
 known to me, of other races, their development de 
 pendent upon the physiography of their habitat, their 
 differentiation and points of contact. It is wonder 
 ful what these volumes of Reclus have opened up 
 to me. 
 
 On a bitter night like this I am far away in the 
 lotus-land of India ; in the few days of Indian summer, 
 I roamed the Canadian forests and rivers with the 
 old French voya^eurs.
 
 136 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 The mind is unfettered, reading so; the bound 
 body forgotten, tenantless when its in-dweller roams. 
 
 Two checks for seventy-five each have come this 
 week. We have decided to lift the mortgage little 
 by little ; when the whole nine hundred shall have 
 been paid off, we can draw a free breath and 
 celebrate Thanksgiving in old style. 
 
 In part, this is " making believe," like Twiddie, for 
 how do I know that work will be given me? It has 
 been just a run of luck thus far. 
 
 Day before Thanksgiving. How I Ve laughed 
 over the revolt of Aunt Lize ; laughed and 
 
 Yesterday afternoon at dusk I heard a wild com 
 motion in the hen-house. Afterward Twiddie rushed 
 in with my supper a bowl of fresh hulled-corn and 
 milk nearly spilling it in her flutter, and then tore 
 out again, slamming the door behind her; that means 
 I am shut out from something. But I would n t give 
 her the satisfaction of asking her a question ; if I 
 wait long enough, she 11 always tell. 
 
 But she did n t ! I read till ten o clock, then I 
 rapped pretty sharply with my crook on the wall, 
 and Uncle Shim instead of Aunt Lize appeared to 
 settle me for the night. 
 
 " Halloo, Uncle Shim; what s up?" 
 
 " Yer aunt s got er spell, Hughie." 
 
 "What kind?" 
 
 "Oh, fixin things." 
 
 "What things?" 
 
 " Oh, kinder gin ral mussin ."
 
 What Happened in the Pen 137 
 
 11 Come, Uncle Shim, out with it." 
 
 " I dassen t, Hughie, I gin my word." 
 
 " What was the trouble in the hen-house last night 
 skunks?" 
 
 " No t warn t er skunk." 
 
 "Fox?" 
 
 " No can t say ez t wuz er fox." 
 
 "Uncle Shim, I 11 never knit you another pair of 
 double soles to go stocking-feet in if you don t tell 
 me what Aunt Lize is up to." 
 
 " I dassen t, Hughie ; I gin my word." 
 
 " Tell Twiddle to come here." 
 
 " She s jest gone up ter bed, Hughie." 
 
 "What! without saying good-night to me? She 
 never does that." 
 
 " Guess she dassen t nuther; she gin her word ter 
 Lize." 
 
 " Shim Lewis ! " called Aunt Lize from the pantry, 
 "ye ve hed time nough ter put Hughie ter bed ten 
 times over I never see sech mortal slowness; come 
 here ; I want ye." 
 
 And Uncle Shim went, chuckling. 
 
 It is Thanksgiving morning, old style, bleak 
 and gray, ground frozen hard, a spitting of snow 
 with a rising wind. 
 
 Aunt Lize came in before it was fairly light and 
 raked out the coals, piling pine brush on the split 
 wood. Then, when the flames leaped, she rose from 
 her knees on the hearth, and, coming over to the 
 cot, stood by it a moment without speaking, but roll 
 ing the corner of her apron between her thumbs and
 
 138 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 forefingers a sure sign with her of a perturbed 
 state of soul ; I Ve seen it before. 
 
 "What is it, Aunt Lize?" I asked in surprise. 
 
 "I ve got ter speak, Hughie, even ef tis yew." 
 Her voice trembled. 
 
 " Go ahead, Aunt Lize; don t mind me." 
 
 " I can t help it, Hughie Oh, I can t help it even 
 ef ye be er cripple 
 
 " What in thunder, Aunt Lize "I believe if I 
 could have reached her mouth I should have stopped 
 it. She has never called me that before and just 
 to-day ! 
 
 By the light of the fire I saw her lips twitch, then 
 tighten, before she went on ; no tremble in her 
 voice this time : 
 
 " Yes, er cripple ; n I ain t goin agin the mercies 
 er my God any longer jest coz ye be one. It s goin 
 on nigh onter three year sence ye wuz laid here, n 
 all this time I ben sayin my prayers under my breath, 
 n thinkin ter deal with the Lord kinder left-handed ; 
 n Shim hain t said grace onct, coz we could allus 
 hear ye cursin n blasphemin , mutterin* n swearin 
 ter yerself agin the God thet made ye." 
 
 I think I must have felt for the handle bars to raise 
 the cot, for Aunt Lize drew back, and put out her 
 hand as if to ward off something ; but she went on 
 steadily : 
 
 " I ain t sayin He put ye thar mind thet, Hughie ; 
 t warn t God, t wuz the log ; n anybody thet s got 
 common sense ain t goin ter lay nat ral things onter 
 Him ; but He made ye, body n soul, n I ain t goin 
 ter deny Him in His merciful kindness any longer
 
 What Happened in the Pen i 39 
 
 erlong er yew, nor Shim nuther ; n now thet ye Ve 
 stopped cursin leastways I hain t heerd ye aloud 
 I Ve changed my mind bout waitin ter hev Thanks- 
 givin till we Ve paid off the morgige, n I m goin ter 
 never reg lar dinner jest ez we used ter hev turkey 
 n chicken-pie n all the fixin s, n Shim s goin ter 
 say grace, n I want ye ter be moved out on yer cot 
 n eat with us won t ye, Hughie?" 
 
 I could not answer; it had come upon me like a 
 lightning-bolt out of a clear sky and struck. She 
 went on : 
 
 " Ther ain t no use er folks thinkin they can mor 
 gige their futer, n cal latin ter pay int rest on t arter- 
 wards ; ther ain t nothin but jest now thet s ourn, 
 n I, fer one, be er-goin ter make the most on t. We 
 can afford ter make Thanksgivin this year, n I m 
 goin ter make it." 
 
 "Where be ye, Lize?" called Uncle Shim. She 
 turned, threw on more wood, then hurried out of 
 the room. 
 
 Such a paring, and chopping, and beating, and 
 whisking, and rolling, and patting, and stewing, and 
 boiling, and roasting, and basting, as went on for the 
 next seven hours ! Then they moved me out into 
 the fragrant, Thanksgiving-filled warmth of the old 
 kitchen, and we had dinner together. Aunt Lize and 
 Twiddie were radiant, and Uncle Shim said grace, 
 but in a husky voice, the same he used to say: 
 
 " O Lord, we thank thee fer life and victuals, n 
 fer thy mercies everlastin ; Amen." 
 
 " Amen ! " said Aunt Lize, triumphantly. 
 
 " Amen ! " echoed Twiddie, joyously.
 
 140 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 Aunt Lize and I have been knitting together in the 
 short December twilight. We have decided it is not 
 best for Twiddie to go longer to the district school ; 
 what happened early in the summer influenced us. 
 I told Aunt Lize what the child said to me that night 
 we talked together : 
 
 " But we always have mothers, don t we, Hughie? 
 They can t twit us bout not havin them ? " 
 
 " Ye call her er child, Hughie, but she s growin up 
 fast," said Aunt Lize when she could speak, " n ther 
 ain t no use puttin her inter places whar she 11 hev 
 ter suffer more n she need ter. I knew she d hev ter 
 know sometime, but I never thought t would come 
 thet way I d oughter told her, but I was er coward. 
 I hain t dared ter tell Shim; he s slow bout sensin 
 sech things, but when he hes sensed em he holds 
 on ter er grudge like er dog ter er bone. Ef he d 
 known it, I dunno but he d er killed thet boy." 
 
 "I m glad you kept it from him; we ll manage 
 somehow. I ll see to her sums and geography; and, 
 in time, I hope to get enough books together to 
 help her out. She learns French so quick she 
 beats me ; and yesterday, she was begging me to 
 teach her Latin. We 11 manage somehow ; don t you 
 worry." 
 
 " I dunno, Hughie, what we should all dew thout 
 ye." 
 
 " How about you, Aunt Lize? " 
 
 " Me ! Oh, I don t count much." She beat the 
 patch-work cushion in the rocking-chair till I thought 
 the feathers would fly, " redded up," as she says, the 
 hearth with the turkey-wing brush, and then flew out
 
 What Happened in the Pen 141 
 
 to get a hot supper for Uncle Shim, who has gone 
 down to Scawsville to take some logs to the saw-mill. 
 Twiddie is with him. 
 
 She came back, overjoyed. It is a fact that 
 Twiddie is growing handsome ; even Aunt Lize 
 spoke of it the other day when we had our talk. 
 She had had a note from Madeline Cope asking her 
 to tell her what books she would like for Christmas, 
 as she was going to send her a box. 
 
 I have the little note in my hand, have kept it a 
 half-hour under pretence of having forgotten to give 
 it back. What a fool a man can be when there is no 
 one by to see ! 
 
 We are nonplussed, both of us; we don t know the 
 names of any books that s the trouble. I ve ad 
 vised Twiddie to write that she would like Miss Cope 
 to send her the books she liked when she was fourteen. 
 I pulled one string for myself in this. 
 
 To show her approval, Twiddie danced up and 
 down the room, clapping her hands, and making such 
 a racket that Aunt Lize came in to see what was the 
 matter. 
 
 After supper she wrote her letter; she has im 
 proved much in her English, only dropping a "g" 
 now and then, or mispronouncing a word. When 
 she had finished it, she grew strangely quiet. 
 
 " A penny for your thoughts, Twiddie," I said. 
 
 She looked up ; the firelight caught on the thick 
 waves of her reddish-brown hair, and the profile 
 against the flame showed as pure as the David s. 
 
 " Hughie, Miss Coge isn t a mother, is she? "
 
 142 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 (What a thought leaped within me ! ) 
 
 " No, Twiddle." 
 
 " And she isn t married, of course?" 
 
 " No, of course not." 
 
 " But, Hughie, I don t understand. I had a mother, 
 did n t I?" 
 
 "Why, of course ; Uncle Shim s sister." 
 
 " But she was n t married either, was she? " 
 
 " No, Twiddle." I began to grow hot and wish 
 Aunt Lize were in the room. 
 
 " But she was different from Miss Cope ; how, 
 Hughie?" 
 
 "Why do you ask such things, Twiddie? " I tried 
 to speak sternly, but failed ; for her blue eyes 
 nearly black with inward excitement were raised 
 to mine with a look in them like that in the brown 
 ones of a doe with fawn that I shot once by 
 mistake. 
 
 "Because don t I say it nice now, Hughie? " 
 ("Yes, Twiddie") "because I wish you won t 
 laugh at me?" ("Not I.") "I wish she could be 
 my mother ; I love her so ! " 
 
 I was dumb. 
 
 I shall be careful how I ask for the girl s thoughts 
 again. Yes, undoubtedly, Twiddie is growing up. 
 
 What weather ! Clear and crisp ; sunshine from 
 sunrise to sunset ; enough snow to blanket the ground, 
 yet not so much as to prevent work in the deep 
 timber-belt. Everywhere there is the ring of axes. 
 I Ve been able to hire ten Canucks for a week this 
 year; Aunt Lize feeds them, and Uncle Shim spends
 
 What Happened in the Pen 143 
 
 his time sledding food to their camp beyond the 
 clearing. I Ve lived in a perpetual stew this week, 
 for Aunt Lize has cooked from morning till night 
 brown-bread, boiled corned-beef, baked beans and 
 pork, doughnuts by the hundred dozen, I should say; 
 I know the appetite that is whetted as the axe dulls. 
 Whew ! The air ! 
 
 I Ve envied Twiddle up at the edge of the woods 
 beyond the Old Pasture with Tag for company. She 
 is gathering greens, ground-pine, ground-hemlock, 
 and bitter-sweet to make into Christmas wreaths for 
 Philip Vanever, Dick Malory, and Madeline Cope. 
 
 Miss Cope wrote her again to ask her to gather as 
 much ground-pine as possible, and send it to her 
 in barrels. She says the price in the city is five cents 
 a pound, and she will pay Twiddie that for all she 
 gathers. 
 
 How joyous the girl is ! She and Aunt Lize 
 are making " maple-sugar-butternut " candy in the 
 kitchen. Uncle Shim and Toughheel, who has been 
 helping Twiddie with the greens for half a day, are 
 cracking butternuts before my open fire, each with a 
 flat stone on his lap, and a cobble for a cracker. 
 
 It was Twiddie s idea to send a box of the candy 
 to each of our friends, not forgetting Franz Waldort 
 in California, and mine to carve a bit of our New 
 England winter bitter-sweet and partridge berry 
 into the wood of each. The house has been like a 
 beehive in consequence, and Twiddie s joy in it all 
 is contagious.
 
 144 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 She flew into my room just now, and flung down a 
 huge bunch of bitter-sweet upon the bench ; her 
 cheeks match the red of the seeds. 
 
 " Oh, Hughie ! I never had such good times in 
 my life." 
 
 She seized my face between both mittens, and gave 
 it a well-meant, if somewhat rough, rubbing. 
 
 "There now ! I ve put some winter red into your 
 cheeks! Do you know what you are?" This with 
 a parting scrub. 
 
 " Come back here, and play fair, or I 11 " 
 
 " You re a bijou ! " 
 
 "Twiddie, come back just for a jiffy " 
 
 For answer, I heard her laugh in the kitchen with 
 Aunt Lize. 
 
 There is no denying it ; Twiddie is growing up. 
 
 I went to work again on my boxes. 
 
 I ve worked like a beaver these last two weeks. To 
 finish the boxes, I Ve put aside the winter panels, but 
 the designs are ready -pine and cones, mountain- 
 ash, larch, and last, but I like it best of all, being 
 put to it for a fourth winter design, I bethought me 
 of the little chipping-sparrow s nest in a spruce tree 
 yonder in the bush. It is in full sight, and I have put 
 branch and empty nest, just as I see them, upon the 
 panel. That s winter with a vengeance. 
 
 Now look at that ! The very day on which Uncle 
 Shim carried down the barrels of greens and the pack 
 ages as far as Scawsville, he came back with some mail 
 and a book parcel ; I can t get ahead of them, do 
 what I may.
 
 What Happened in the Pen 145 
 
 DEAR ARMSTRONG, 
 
 That letter of yours had the right ring ; I glory in 
 your grit. Sometime, if it comes right, I 11 tell you 
 a bit of my own experience. I find that social life is 
 no botch-work, no hit-or-miss affair, but subject to 
 natural laws like those that govern the trend of strata, 
 outcrops, faults, and the like. 
 
 Meanwhile, I m pleased enough that the books 
 please you, and because I want you to know us better, 
 us, who have only " Forty-niners," for an ancestry, I 
 send you, with the season s greeting, a year of the 
 Overland Monthly, I don t believe you know it, 
 the poems of our Joaquin Miller, and two volumes 
 of Bret Harte. I add to them a little volume of verse 
 by Sill do you know him? and have marked a poem 
 or two, " April in Oakland," and " Eastern Winter " ; 
 I think of you in that environment at present; if I 
 am wrong, tell me. 
 
 As we Westerners don t stand particularly on cere 
 mony when we ve struck a vein or staked a claim 
 of anything, I am shipping to you to-day, with 
 out so much as asking your leave, two planks of our 
 best redwood. I told a friend about those carv 
 ings, and he would like you to fill this order, if you 
 can, by May ist. I say if you can; for you may 
 not find it workable ; but possibly a broad treatment 
 may show results. He wants the redwood for a fire 
 place for hi r , " shack" back in the mountains of Santa 
 Barbara all New England designs; he leaves you 
 frqe hand in everything. Of course we grow every 
 thing out here that any one else grows, but we don t 
 grow it in quite the same way as you do in that New 
 England corner of yours I have n t forgotten those 
 wood-strawberries. 
 
 10
 
 146 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 Set your price, and don t mind my saying " shack." 
 He owns a mine or two, and can pay with a " gold 
 brick " (no joke) if necessary. His " shack " has 
 seventeen rooms, and the fireplace is for the living- 
 room. 
 
 The season s greetings to your people on the 
 Mountain, and turn to page 28, last verse, of Sill, for 
 I want you to see by the aid of the mind s eye what I 
 am looking at this winter night in California. 
 Yours of the Overland, 
 
 FRANZ WALDORT. 
 
 " Away 
 
 Across the bay, the city with its lights 
 Twinkling against the horizon s dusky line, 
 Looks a sea-serpent, crawled up on the shore, 
 With rings of fire across his rounded back, 
 And luminous claws spread out among the hills 
 Above, the glittering heavens. Magnificent ! " 
 
 Dare I say longer that this is a " run of luck " ? 
 
 Aunt Lize s attitude toward all this work and litter 
 of mine amuses me ; to her it is merely " whittling " 
 and " chips," nor can she understand why I get such 
 pay for it. 
 
 The Canucks have gone, all except Toughheel, 
 who is to help Uncle Shim haul logs. Saturday 
 night, after six, they filed into my room to get their 
 pay, a squat, black-browed, brown-faced crowd ; 
 before they left, I read to them from Reclus the river- 
 songs of the old Canucks that they sang to ward off 
 evil from their craft:
 
 What Happened in the Pen 147 
 
 " Un noir corbeau, volant a 1 aventure, 
 
 Vient se percher tout pres de ma toiture 
 
 Va t en manger, laisse moi en repos. " 
 
 How the beady eyes sparkled, the strong yellow- 
 stained teeth came into full view, the gold half-moon 
 earrings twinkled as they nodded emphatic approval ! 
 
 But when I read them the other, which most of 
 them had sung on some lumberman s lugger in the 
 rapids, they, one and all, led by Toughheel, fell into 
 a kind of swaying motion, keeping time with their 
 feet and jerking their arms, and broke forth in shrill 
 cadence : 
 
 " Nous avons saute" le longue Sault 
 
 Nous 1 avons saute tout d un morceau 
 
 Rould, roulant, ma boule roulant, 
 En roulant ma boule roulant 
 En roulant ma boule ! " 
 
 It did me good to hear them sing the old catch, 
 and they were as frankly pleased with their per 
 formance as children. But Aunt Lize and Twiddie 
 were frightened, and fled to Uncle Shim in the barn 
 with a woful tale. 
 
 Two days before Christmas. 
 
 Uncle Shim remembered the fir tree of last year, 
 and came in to-day with a little beauty ; he has set 
 it up in my room. Aunt Lize, too, has caught the 
 infection, and trimmed my room with greens. Twiddie 
 has made wreaths for every window in the house. 
 
 Three Christmas boxes have come, and she is
 
 148 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 tense with curiosity and excitement. My own small 
 gifts I have had to make and procure on the sly, for 
 Twiddle has had eyes in the back of her head these 
 last two weeks. 
 
 Christmas night, n P. M. 
 
 All abed, and I am writing by the light of the fire. 
 The little tree, so green and sturdy, stands at the 
 right of the fireplace; its fragrance fills the nostrils 
 pleasantly. 
 
 The bench is covered with remembrances from that 
 other world ; they were too many for the tree. I 
 touch this and the other, and North, South, East 
 and West strike their palms into mine ; the blood 
 tingles, thought quickens, the heart throbs high at the 
 contact. 
 
 Another box of books, two boxes of the best cigars, 
 another photograph ; I ve scarce been able to keep 
 my eyes from it. It glows warm in the firelight like 
 the David on the mantel-shelf. The figure in the 
 photograph stands full three feet the Venus di 
 Milo ! Who is she? What is she? Has she taken 
 all men sensuously captive as she has me? I can t 
 wait to know more of her but was n t Aunt Lize 
 shocked when she saw her ! 
 
 " It s downright pagan-heathenish, Hughie." 
 
 "Then I m a pagan-heathen, too, Aunt Lize." I 
 had to laugh at the look on her face. 
 
 " I don t deny but she s well-made, Hughie ; I 
 s pose there be jest sech women, but I wish ter 
 decency she d h ist her shift er leetle." I roared, 
 and Aunt Lize went out of the room in a huff.
 
 What Happened in the Pen 149 
 
 I noticed she was back again mighty quick, and 
 did her share of the looking. Uncle Shim was 
 stupefied into an open-mouthed " I vum ! " Twiddie 
 thinks she is beautiful, and so shows her sense of what 
 is fine. I wonder \{ she is another friend of Madeline 
 Cope s? 
 
 A Christmas note from her my first! It lies 
 under my pillow, to be read and re-read in the 
 night-watches. 
 
 MY DEAR MR. ARMSTRONG, 
 
 I have purposely delayed writing to you in ac 
 knowledgment of your Mountain hospitality on that 
 never-to-be-forgotten summer day, because when I 
 wrote, I knew I should have to make a confession as 
 well as ask a favor. Now is n t that the depth of 
 humiliation for a woman? I 11 put my favor first, as 
 a kind of moral breastplate for the confession. 
 
 My aunt and I are going to Florida the first of 
 March ; and before we go a sale is to be held at our 
 house. Do you think you could find time for the 
 carving of some small articles book-racks, magazine- 
 cutters, or photograph frames for my table ? If 
 I m asking too much, don t hesitate to say so ; I know 
 what steady application you have given to my panels 
 -Yes! They re mine! I do so hope it s a sur 
 prise to you. It all came about in the simplest way. 
 I was in New York after the holidays at my uncle s, 
 Dick s father, and before I had time to take off my 
 hat, Dick dragged me up three flights of stairs to his 
 den to show me the fireplace. Dick has called me 
 a Vestal Virgin ever since, for I knelt right down on 
 the hearth to examine, and remained to adore. 
 
 I think I know the very larch you modelled from ;
 
 150 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 it s on the right-hand side of the Pent Road on 
 the north side of Olympus, about half a mile front 
 your house isn t it? Dick, having dragged me up 
 there rather against my will, had to drag me away 
 for lunch, wholly and entirely against it. 
 
 Of course, I determined on the spot to have some 
 of those lovely carvings to live with permanently. 
 Dick directed me to the Society, as I wanted to 
 preserve my incognito you-wards, and I m waiting 
 for my last panels. 
 
 How could I help stealing back into your room 
 to see the designs for the autumn panels and the 
 finished summer ones ! Thank you so much for giv 
 ing me an opportunity, while living in a crowded 
 southern city, to breathe on your New England 
 mountain-top. 
 
 The panels are to be set in my own little morning- 
 room, where, after breakfast, my aunt and I linger to 
 read letters, write them, or sew for a while. Some 
 times our club, the one that is to give the sale, meets 
 there, and I don t know what the girls will say when 
 they get a sight of those four seasons alders, dog 
 wood, birch, and cherry; iris, thistle, wheat, and fern ; 
 corn and oak ear and acorn climbing grape and 
 twining hop; for winter what? I have tried to 
 imagine, but failed. Don t keep me in suspense too 
 long, even if you have to neglect the things for the 
 sale. 
 
 Will you remember me most kindly to Mr. and 
 Mrs. Lewis? and tell Twiddie I have sent her special 
 greetings with the box. 
 
 The check for the panels would have been sent 
 long ago, had it not been for the rules of the Society, 
 by which, as a purchaser through them, I am bound
 
 What Happened in the Pen 151 
 
 as by the laws of the Medes and Persians. So for a 
 time I must still remain your debtor for the panels 
 and ever and always for those three hours on the 
 heights. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 MADELINE COPE. 
 
 P. S. We will have no middlemen after this 
 will we? 
 
 How like her ! Frank, open-hearted, with a kind 
 of buoyancy making itself felt in every line ; one feels 
 that in her presence. 
 
 No, we will have no " middlemen " hereafter in 
 anything, she and I. Twelve by the kitchen clock.
 
 IV 
 WARP AND WOOF
 
 IV 
 
 WARP AND WOOF 
 
 July, 189-. 
 
 NOT an entry in this book for more than two 
 years, yet Life has been so full, so en 
 riched with work, friends, love ; I dare 
 write the word, now that I have grown used to living 
 with it in thought. Indeed, I have another record of 
 these thirty months of far more value than anything 
 I might have written here ; for I have led two lives 
 during this time : one the life of a working shut-in the 
 work growing more earnest every day, the art more 
 dear ; the other, through the many letters, that of a 
 traveller in foreign lands, with a congenial companion 
 sometimes a man, but oftenest a woman by my 
 side. Journeyman years they have been in the true 
 sense of the word. 
 
 Beginning with the Florida note that came with the 
 orange flowers packed in gray moss, and made known 
 to me our Sir Galahad of poets, Lanier, I have read 
 through the entire record for these years. 
 
 All this forenoon I was busy selecting, arranging, 
 combining the hundred or more letters that would 
 fill a quarto were I to attempt to transcribe them 
 here ; and, during all the time that, in spirit, I was 
 across the sea, roaming with Her the purple-heathered
 
 156 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 heights about St. Fillan s and Lochearnhead, or the 
 golden-purple heaths of North Germany, seeing with 
 Her the unspeakable beauty of Venetian sunsets, or 
 the ineffable but faded glories of Veronese in dark 
 San Sebastiano, satisfying my craving for the real 
 with the ancient carvings of Bernward s Hildesheim, 
 or letting my soul bask in the sunlight of the divine 
 serenity of the Madonna faces of Holbein and Raphael, 
 I was aware of Aunt Lize at work with the old hand- 
 loom in the garret overhead. I heard, as an accom 
 paniment to my thoughts, the rick-rack of the swift 
 shuttles, and the jar and rattling crash of the frames 
 every time Aunt Lize shifted them. It has given me 
 food for thought. 
 
 How incessantly the shuttles have been flying these 
 last years, interweaving our life-threads Madeline 
 Cope s, Waldort s, Philip s, and mine ! Nor yet may 
 I trace the pattern. Strange ! 
 
 This afternoon I am alone, and have been re-reading 
 a dozen of the letters that are entirely personal ; tran 
 scribing them also, as well as a few extracts from the 
 many descriptive ones. In them I have found the 
 loose ends of several strands ; the strands themselves, 
 which I mistook at first for single threads, I find to be 
 duplex, triplicate, yea, multiplex. 
 
 While busy transcribing these letters I have felt as 
 if I were working at the Loom of Life, watching the 
 plying shuttles, taking a hand now and then in shift 
 ing the frames. Once or twice I have caught at an 
 end a mere "thrum" and tried to unravel a 
 little way to find its connection with the pattern of
 
 Warp and Woof 157 
 
 the whole ; but I have been balked in my purpose, 
 and met only bewildering entanglement, labyrinthine 
 intricacy. 
 
 Oh, Waldort ! Heart of oak that you are ; you 
 have deserved better of Life ; yet your last word 
 shows you sound to the core, and the grain of the 
 wood fine, fine ! 
 
 MOUNT VERNON PLACE, May. 
 MY DEAR MR. ARMSTRONG, 
 
 Here we are at home again ; but only as birds of 
 passage, for we sail for Europe in June, and shall prob 
 ably remain there two years, seeking the by-ways 
 and browsing by the way. 
 
 You may trust me to be on the lookout for all sorts 
 and conditions of carvings. I mean, if I can, to keep 
 you in touch with all the blossom-side of life over 
 there. I am going because I have found a thorn 
 among my roses over here, which is a rather unpleas 
 ant surprise for a woman of thirty-two. 
 
 I am so glad you like Lanier ; I thought you would ; 
 that is why I sent him to you. Does n t it seem to 
 you as if the key to that wonderful spiritual genius of 
 his lies in the fact that it begins and ends in God? 
 
 I am perfectly sure that neither Grampians, Alps, 
 nor Apennines can give me fuller enjoyment than 
 your New England mountains gave me on that ideal 
 summer day. May I come again, invited, sometime 
 when I shall be again in America? 
 
 Tell Twiddie I wish she would write me often ; the 
 child s letters are unique. Dick says she has promised 
 to write him. Did you know he is going? All letters 
 may come care of Baring Brothers; you see I am 
 taking it for granted that the Hornet s mail-bag
 
 158 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 will carry some with that address ; that s a woman s 
 privilege to take things for granted, or is n t it? 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 MADELINE COPE. 
 
 SAN CHRISTOVAL, CALIFORNIA, June. 
 DEAR ARMSTRONG, 
 
 The redwood fireplace is a triumph. I am guest 
 in the shack, resting after an extended trip with my 
 post-graduate class into the Sangre del Cristo moun 
 tains of Colorado for the moraines of Grape Creek. 
 Tough, back-breaking work it has been ; but I have 
 welcomed it, for I have noticed that when a man s 
 " nerve," not nerves, is overstrained, the best restora 
 tive is a set of muscles dead-beat through overwork. 
 
 The truth is, Armstrong, there s been an upheaval 
 in my life of late. I knew it had to come, it s 
 been coming for years ; but when it came it was a 
 regular convulsion of nature ; and, just at present, 
 I m played out, and have come away up here to draw 
 a long breath and get a new grip on Life. It s a 
 good place for it. 
 
 I wish you could see it. The shack is located on 
 a grassy plateau in the apex of a triangular gorge, 
 the base broad and open to the plains and the sea. 
 Behind us the gray walls of rock, weathered and 
 eroded into massive sculptured pillars, rise sheer a 
 thousand feet. There is a brook at all seasons tum 
 bling into the depths beneath us, but in the rains it 
 is a white leaping torrent. The gorge is filled with 
 pines and their shadows, and we look over them down 
 and away to the Pacific. 
 
 Mine host has a history; all men have who are 
 lucky enough to have been born out here in the
 
 Warp and Woof 159 
 
 sixties. He has made and lost a half-dozen fortunes 
 but is solid now. I met him in Europe, and he 
 has never failed me ; but he does n t " open up well," 
 as we say of a vein, when it cornes to the eternal 
 things of a man s life. We get on well enough with 
 the transient quotations on stocks and bonds, land 
 prospectus, mining, etc. So I turn to you there on 
 your New England mountain-top, sure of finding with 
 you what I can t with him. 
 
 Don t ask me to define the " what," I m not 
 strong on definitions ; but give me a good fact like 
 a geode, and I can crack away on it with the best 
 of them. 
 
 I can t help saying I do admire your pluck, Arm 
 strong. I should be a devil if I were in your place. 
 You have the kind of courage I admire more than 
 any other; I haven t it. Let me know how you re 
 coming on. I hear Miss Cope is going to Europe 
 for two years. I met her there, too. In fact, but 
 for mine host, I should never have seen her and I 
 take it she s a woman worth any man s seeing. But 
 I m aware that I m speaking in the dark to you. 
 I 11 fulfil my written word of telling you something 
 of my experience later on, as you have shown such 
 kindly interest in the Forty-niner s son. 
 
 But I d like to know what the deuce you mean by 
 taking such liberties in legitimate business, as to send 
 back half the amount of that check and saying it is 
 over-pay ! Did n t you know we Californians dropped 
 Troy weight in the diggings? 
 
 I had no lie ready when mine host came in with 
 your check in his hand and a thunder sign between 
 his eyebrows, so I told him the truth about the pro 
 verbial squeamishness of the true New England con-
 
 1 60 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 science, etc., etc. But it was no go ; you 11 have to 
 take it ; besides, you earned it fairly and squarely 
 so don t be a fool. With which personal admonition 
 the case for the plaintiff is closed. 
 
 Yours fraternally, 
 
 (I hope you appreciate this signature after the 
 admonition.) 
 
 FRANZ WALDORT. 
 
 (Oh, Armstrong, I Ve been such an awful one !) 
 
 Why won t the Gloire de Dijon roses bloom in 
 America as they do here, like great yellow moons 
 flattened against the gray stone lintels? Why aren t 
 there lochs instead of lakes ? Why are n t there 
 mountains, purple with heather blooms, that shadow 
 the lochs which gleam like huge opals in the after 
 glow? Why can t we live in one-roomed gray stone 
 huts, with a kitchen grate in one wall and a noble 
 red-draperied bed in a cosy alcove in the other? 
 Why can t we have pewter bowls and platters and 
 spoons, and from them eat delicious green-goose 
 berry jam, and curds and cream? 
 
 Why, oh, why? . . . To all your Mountain deities 
 greetings from over the sea from a just at pres- 
 
 > 1 1 i~ -- - - 
 
 Fair Maid of Perth! (St. Fillan s) 
 
 M. C. 
 
 Here s a photograph of the " Prentice Pillar" in 
 Rosslyn Chapel a bit of real carving in stone 
 worth some hours of worship. I feel as if it were a 
 desecration to eat " cold kale " even " on Friday " 
 after seeing this. Why can t we Americans apothe 
 osize the hop-vine in some such way? You, at least,
 
 Warp and Woof 161 
 
 are the pioneer in wood. Do use it all you can, 
 won t you? M. C. 
 
 SAN CHRISTOVAL, September. 
 DEAR ARMSTRONG, 
 
 That letter of yours did me good. If there are 
 others among your friends who are lucky enough to 
 get that kind from you once in a lifetime, they may 
 well be envied. 
 
 How do you reach out into all that cut off as 
 you are from the world, the flesh, and the Devil? 
 
 Yes, I am glad to tell you something of my own 
 life; you put it kindly enough that it will help you 
 to elucidate yours. I think it is the other way round. 
 I can t promise it will be pleasant reading, but 
 here goes. 
 
 In the first place, I was n t started fair, for I don t 
 know who my mother was. Just turn to one of those 
 volumes of Bret Harte, and find " The Luck of Roar 
 ing Camp" you ll get it all there in a nutshell, 
 without annotations on my part, which are n t neces 
 sary under the circumstances. 
 
 My father was a German from the Harz region, 
 who had worked in the mines in Saxony, and run 
 away, shipping at Hamburg for the States, to avoid 
 conscription. 
 
 My eyes opened on the " diggings," and for fifteen 
 years my range of vision was limited to them. Un 
 like the " Luck " in Bret Harte, I had for mother s 
 milk, curses, blows, and desertion. 
 
 I can t say how and when my father disappeared ; 
 I have no recollection of seeing him after I was nine. 
 Some men told me he was carried off by the typhus 
 in San Francisco, where he went yearly with his bags 
 
 ii
 
 1 62 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 *. 
 
 of gold dust for a grand gambling and drinking bout. 
 A dirk knife with his name on the handle, the name 
 is mine, a Colt s revolver, a " lucky pig" (a German 
 trifle he carried in his pocket), a bag of gold dust 
 worth a hundred dollars, and twelve Spanish doub 
 loons were delivered to me tied in a shirt-sleeve by 
 the men who came up from Frisco with the news of 
 his death. 
 
 How I kept that heritage, I fail to understand, 
 except that at eleven I was past master in the use 
 of the dirk, as quick as a weasel in my movements, 
 and as unexpected, which meant " hands off," and a 
 good deal of respect shown me in the various camps 
 where I found work. 
 
 I had panned gravel, broken quartz, washed gold, 
 dug, picked, mined, frozen, starved, baked, feasted, 
 and rioted, all before I was fifteen. Then, some 
 thing happened. 
 
 I was going down the gulch one night to get my 
 canteen filled at the settlement shanty at the lower 
 end ; in reality, it was bar-room, grocery, post-office, 
 gambling-hell, and miners bourse, all in one. The 
 moon was full and the night cold December in the 
 Sierras. 
 
 As I bore down the trail, I heard, high above 
 me, the wickering squeal of a pack-saddle mule ; - 
 that meant news from the coast. In a moment, I 
 saw the flare of a camp-fire, and, boy-like, wanted 
 to know what was up. 
 
 I was hampered in climbing by my heritage, which 
 I carried with me night and day, hung around 
 my neck beneath my shirt; but I risked it: toe in 
 one crevice, dirk in another, a pine root, hand over 
 hand, a trapeze act or two, and I lay out on a
 
 Warp and Woof 163 
 
 branch on a level with the camp-fire and the group 
 about it. 
 
 I have been told, Armstrong, that there is in every 
 man s life a moment for conversion whether he avail 
 himself of it or not. That was mine. 
 
 It would be wholly impossible for me to formulate 
 the change that took place in me ; but change there 
 was. 
 
 A man was reading by the light of the fire the 
 story of " Little Nell." For four nights running, I 
 crawled up there at the risk of life and limb, and 
 when at last they laid Her away, Life, for a time, 
 was a blank to me. 
 
 By the next train of pack-mules I went to the 
 coast. There had come upon me a madness of long 
 ing to get away from it all; to roam, to wander in 
 other lands, of which I had heard so many tales by 
 the camp-fires in the mountains; to see something of 
 the world besides the Sierras, the gulches, the placer- 
 mines ; in fact, something other than the " diggings." 
 
 I worked for six months as stevedore for the coast 
 wise vessels at Frisco, then shipped as cabin-boy 
 on a brigantine bound for Australia. But I was no 
 true salt. Arrived at Melbourne, the old life laid 
 hold of me again, and drew me back into the Aus 
 tralian Alps, into the " diggings," and there I squan 
 dered life and substance for another year. Again 
 came the longing to roam, and I fled, shipping for 
 Singapore and the Straits Settlements. In Singapore 
 I got hold of a half dozen of Dickens works 
 second hand. Old Curiosity Shop was among them 
 and a well-thumbed volume of The Subterranean 
 World. All the books looked as if they had been 
 through the cholera and black plague combined, but
 
 164 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 I knew I d struck a vein which I proposed to work 
 for all it was worth. And then I turned another 
 corner. 
 
 As I wrote you once, Ihad had " stones for bread," 
 for playthings also ; for a pillow, as well as a defence, 
 ever since I could remember anything; and what 
 was more natural than that I should look to stones 
 for my future? 
 
 I can t say how it came about it was an adolescent 
 process, I suppose, but the result was plain enough. 
 I familiarized myself with the physical features 
 especially the mountains of every new country 
 upon which I set foot. I shipped again, for Borneo, 
 and its gold mines kept me six months. While there 
 I fell in with a Dutchman, or more properly a Boer, 
 and from him I caught the South African fever. I 
 had it hard, and theKimberley diamond diggings held 
 me chained for two years but what am I thinking 
 of! It is late, half-past one in the morning! 
 
 A full moon silvers every pine-top in the gorge ; 
 Do, Armstrong, read that immortal poem of Bret 
 Harte s in the second volume, " Dickens in Camp." 
 It belongs to the world, but to me especially, as a 
 Californian and tell me if for true, inward human- 
 ness, there has been, in America, its equal. 
 
 " Above the pines the moon was slowly drifting, 
 The river sang below ; 
 The dim Sierras far beyond uplifting 
 Their minarets of snow." 
 
 Armstrong, I tell you, a man knows the good of 
 being a man when he feels that uplift. Thank God, I 
 was born a Galifornian ! 
 
 Yours, 
 
 F. W.
 
 Warp and Woof 165 
 
 I m sending just a word, in season, to bespeak 
 from Twiddle another box a much bigger one 
 of that "maple-sugar-butternut" candy such as she 
 sent me last year. 
 
 I had to give in when that melted in my mouth ; 
 
 we can t furnish that in California; you New Eng- 
 landers go ahead of us there. 
 
 Tell Twiddie, for me, that for the box of candy 
 
 I take it for granted she will send me some I 
 propose to trade with her on reciprocity terms ; a 
 box of our Brobdingnagian fruits for a box of her 
 butternut candy. How is that, Armstrong, for a com 
 promise with free trade? 
 
 I send the box by express to-day; it is well- 
 packed, the shippers say, to withstand anything above 
 zero. I shall write soon. 
 
 Yours, in haste, 
 
 FRANZ W. 
 
 SAN CHRISTOVAL, December. 
 
 It s about as you say, Armstrong : every think 
 ing man has a hard row to hoe between twenty-three 
 and thirty, I don t care whether he s a Porphyro- 
 genitns or a gutter-genitus it s all the same in the 
 end if he use his head-piece as an instrument for any 
 modicum of soul he may have. 
 
 You did n t feel me grip your hand the other night, 
 did you, about eight, Eastern time ? 
 
 Well, I did. I reached right out across the conti 
 nent, after reading your letter, and gripped hard, for 
 it was the only way I could express rationally my 
 feeling of fellowship on the subject of your own out- 
 reaching for more light in that other world of what 
 other men have thought, felt, known, suffered, en-
 
 1 66 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 joyed, proved, tested, examined of Life s heights and 
 depths and everyday levels since recorded Time in a 
 word, books, whether of parchment, papyrus, brooks, 
 mountain-folds, or stones. 
 
 I m with you there every time. 
 It was that craving, that longing to be in touch 
 with some other life than that to which I had been 
 born, and which I perceived but only dimly to 
 be attainable for me through books and study, that, in 
 the end, put a stop to my rovings and anchored me 
 for four years. 
 
 From Cape Town I took passage to Amsterdam, 
 and from there to Gothenburg. I wanted to see the 
 iron mines of Sweden. I had made my little pile of 
 a thousand dollars, and had I eschewed gambling 
 and drinking, I should have had twice as much. 
 
 There in the iron mines of Dannemora I worked 
 for three months side by side with an American a 
 son of one of our Iron Kings : a heavy-featured, big- 
 headed, persistent sort of a chap, who was learning 
 the trade root and branch. He spoke Swedish fairly 
 well, and when he found I was an American with a 
 sneaking fondness for the contents of our Mother 
 Earth s bowels of mercy, he spoke a good word 
 for me with the superintendent, and so gave me a 
 boost. 
 
 I shall never forget the first time I went over to 
 his rooms on invitation. I quit work, washed up, and 
 changed my shirt, and then went over to dinner at 
 seven. He had his own menage, a half-dozen 
 rooms and two servants, and I sat down for the first 
 time in my life at a gentleman s private table. A 
 year or two ago I dined with him in his own mansion 
 in an Eastern city, and I assure you, Armstrong, all
 
 Warp and Woof 167 
 
 its elegance made no such impression upon me as 
 that modest dining-room, the salon, and the little 
 library with its book treasures. 
 
 I sweat through the first two courses, for it was 
 my initiation, remember, and I was awkward with the 
 tools ! But after that I felt better, and forgot myself 
 so far as to stretch my long legs under the table, put 
 my shoulders against the chair-back, and get my hands 
 out of my way. A good smoke in the library after 
 wards made it all plain sailing. 
 
 When we were well on with the third pipe, that 
 chap began to talk to me like a grandfather. He was 
 about twenty-four. 
 
 He said I was n t making the most of my oppor 
 tunities I d have drawn my dirk on a man in the 
 " diggings " for less plain speech than that ; but, you 
 see, the environment made the difference, and, more 
 over, it was after dinner that I had the natural 
 endowment, and all I needed was the equipment; 
 that it was my own fault if I did n t get it; that if I 
 could n t get a university education, I ought to ap 
 proximate to it by study and travel ; that I had such 
 a gift for languages I ought to try Latin and Greek. 
 Finally, he wound up with advising me to buy a good 
 Scotch tweed suit, English make, and slough off the 
 miner s garb after work hours. 
 
 I want you to realize, Armstrong, that all this was 
 from a multi-millionaire s son to a scion of the Sierra 
 gulches. Moreover, all this advice was gratis he 
 drew the line right at the pocket, for he made no 
 offer of a pistole towards furthering this much-to-be- 
 desired consummation. 
 
 When he had finished, I opened fire on him by ask 
 ing him from what university he had been graduated.
 
 1 68 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 You should have seen how he wilted, Armstrong ! And 
 I asked all in good faith, too. 
 
 But he owned up fair and square that he had 
 been expelled for high jinks in his second year, and 
 could n t take a degree from any university. That s 
 why he was there, trying by his devotion to the 
 business to make up to his father for the thing his 
 father had set his heart upon and could n t have. 
 We got on still better after that, and the upshot of it 
 was, that when he left for America, I stayed on for 
 two years with the use of all his books, and a letter 
 of introduction to a professor of science in Upsala 
 University, which unlocked for me treasures untold. 
 
 I began to count my wealth from that time. Act 
 ing on the advice of the professor, I decided to take 
 the four years course of mining and engineering at 
 the famous School of Mines in Freiberg, Saxony. To 
 this end I worked like a Turk, and went thither when 
 the professor thought I was sufficiently prepared, and 
 spent my time, during the summer that followed, in 
 the Harz region, whence came the man who begot 
 me. I worked for a while in the various mines there, 
 and acquired a knowledge of the whole region, in 
 cluding the smelting stations. 
 
 How I wish all this were by telephone ! then 
 you could " ring off" to shut me up. I don t seem to 
 know when to stop. Sometimes I think I 11 save all 
 this to say through the smoke of our corn-cob pipes 
 in the Pen next summer; but the disturbance from 
 that upheaval I mentioned is still very great, and just 
 at this time this opening up to you gives me a neces 
 sary vent. 
 
 I am glad all of you are enjoying the fruits ; there 
 is a largeness, a natural amplitude about them that,
 
 Warp and Woof 169 
 
 somehow, belongs to our state but don t think I m 
 boasting! I m humble enough when I think of those 
 wood-strawberries, and the delicious New England 
 candy. 
 
 If you could see my state from the Sierras to the 
 Sequoias, you d know what I mean. Greetings to all. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 FRANZ WALDORT. 
 
 HILDESHEIM, GERMANY. 
 
 Christmas greetings to all on Olympus ! How 
 would it seem, think you, to live in a carved house 
 that stands on a carved market-place, its nine-story 
 houses wrought and painted to the apex of the gables, 
 and its huge stone fountain sculptured into quaint 
 forms ? 
 
 And the carved market-place is in a carved town 
 where post and lintel, frieze and cornice, gable and 
 casement run riot with carvings of animate and inani 
 mate things grewsome, graceful, grotesque ! Hilde- 
 sheim is the illuminated initial letter in the missal 
 of German art. How I wish you might see it ! 
 
 We are here for the fair. Oh, if Twiddle were only 
 with me ! In the box I have sent for all of you on 
 Olympus in the care of my uncle, Mr. Malory I 
 have put some photographs of these ancient carved 
 buildings. Bishop Bernward set his people the good 
 example more than eight hundred years ago. There 
 are the vesper bells ringing from his cathedral, which 
 is ten minutes walk from here. I must be off to that 
 service; Catholic? Yes, but it s all one to me so 
 long as the stones were raised in His name. 
 
 I m just back from the service. I like to think of 
 you as a young Bernward living out his idealism in
 
 170 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 Art s service away up there on your New England 
 mountain-top. Indeed, dear friend, if these detached 
 bits of the mosaic of my life over here give you the 
 pleasure you say they do, as you express it, " en 
 rich my life beyond measure," be sure I shall keep 
 right on sending them to you. 
 
 Perhaps I, too, am a debtor to you. But I m 
 not going to tell you how. That is n t playing fair, 
 is it? Well, perhaps, sometime I don t know. I 
 told you it was a thorn. 
 
 I have thought so much of what you said in a recent 
 letter. You say you are convinced a man has nothing 
 but his will with which to meet Life ; that " deliberate 
 valor " is the only safeguard against temptations that 
 beset a man s weaknesses. True but Well, I wish 
 you would look for just one verse in your new volume 
 of Browning; seek for it, please, and when you will 
 have found it, learn it, and say it over to yourself in 
 those night-watches of which you write me; after 
 wards, ponder it in your heart. Here it is : 
 
 " All I could never be, 
 All, men ignored in me, 
 
 This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher 
 shaped." 
 
 That is what I felt when I saw you. 
 
 OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA, January, 189- 
 DEAR ARMSTRONG, 
 
 I had such a letter from Twiddie the other day ! 
 Enough to warm the cockles of a childless man s 
 heart through and through. Give her my love, and 
 tell her that if a small Christmas gift of an Indian 
 basket can give her such pleasure, I shall send her
 
 Warp and Woof 171 
 
 without delay a Navajo squaw s blanket to match the 
 basket. That will mean, of course, on the reciprocity 
 principle, another long letter from her. 
 
 I don t know, Armstrong, I don t know about 
 that last hypothesis of yours. We get hammered into 
 shape, or out of shape, whether we will or no, and in 
 the end But, God knows, I ve no right, as a man, 
 to measure myself with you. 
 
 All this talk about " ordained dimensions " sounds 
 well; there s a set of men an Eastern importation 
 here in the University, who ring so many changes on 
 that theme, that the soul grows deaf; how stands it 
 with the deeds? With the facts? 
 
 In any case, let me know if your hypothesis prove 
 a working one. It looks that way now, and I am 
 ready to be convinced. 
 
 I m beginning to understand, through your letters, 
 the satisfaction a man may get in looking at himself 
 under the microscope just once in his lifetime. I 
 don t take much stock in those men who spend their 
 strength in self-analysis ; they wabble too much to 
 suit me and my views of life. But, just at this time, 
 I count myself fortunate in having a friend to whom I 
 can " open up"; Olympus can keep its own counsel, 
 and Jove reigns. 
 
 It was in my third year at Freiberg that I met 
 Her, no need to write the name ; it s a nasty 
 wound, and just to see the initials opens it afresh. 
 I suppose you ve thought all along that a woman s 
 hand has been on my lever. 
 
 It was in the Saxon Switzerland, just above Dres 
 den. I had been tramping through it for a month, 
 enjoying to the full the summer vacation it was such 
 a fine, free life ! and one day, as I was strolling up
 
 172 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 a valley that in its ascent to the heights narrows to a 
 ravine, chipping and ringing with my hammer here 
 and there, as is always my wont when examining a 
 new crease or wrinkle in Dame Nature s wonderful 
 mantle, I stepped aside from the narrow, rocky path 
 to allow passage for a train of mountain horses coming 
 up behind me. 
 
 I heard the gay voices of girls, the merry jest and 
 laughter, and recognized my countrywomen of whom 
 I had seen but few and known not one during my 
 years of roving. Then I heard the voice of " mine 
 host " greeting me. I must say, that man has never 
 failed me. He did n t then. His father was off in 
 Leadville somewhere, working to let his wife and 
 children splurge in Europe. They knew how to do 
 it too. " Mine host " was a student with the rest of 
 us in Freiberg, but lived like a swell, big bachelor 
 apartment, two servants, etc. The mother and three 
 sisters had been in Paris. Consequently, I had never 
 seen them. 
 
 He had been running up to Dresden pretty regu 
 larly once or twice a week during the last winter, but 
 I never suspected why, until I saw the look on his 
 face when he introduced me to the girl whose horse s 
 bridle he was holding. That was enough. I knew 
 he was hard hit 
 
 He found out later that " the golden key unlocks 
 all doors but Heaven s " and that, I take it, Arm 
 strong, is a true woman s heart. At least, that s my 
 idea of Heaven all I care to know of it. He has 
 never married ; could n t, in fact, until the last two 
 years, for he has had his whole family to support, 
 and in a luxury to which they were not born far 
 from it ! That s what makes me mad !
 
 Warp and Woof 173 
 
 From the moment I saw her, Armstrong, there in 
 the Amsel Grund, that queer blank that was left in 
 my boy s life when they laid Little Nell away under the 
 pines of the Sierras beneath the December moon 
 light, was filled, and it seemed to me as if I had but 
 just begun to know the thing called Life. 
 
 In the fall, " mine host " gave a lunch to half the 
 young American colony in Dresden, and the few 
 Americans among the students acted as ushers in 
 the inspection of the silver mines. Then I saw her 
 again, so joyous, so interested in everything, with a 
 charm of manner beyond any I have ever seen since 
 in girls. 
 
 You have seen her on Olympus. The face and 
 figure have changed but little, only, the promise 
 of her girlhood has been richly fructified, and the 
 woman s charm has been enhanced a hundred-fold. 
 
 I fairly gambled with happiness, Armstrong, and 
 grew as reckless in the new dispensation as I had 
 been in the old only, with a difference. I bought 
 a dress suit and accessories my pile had diminished 
 to three hundred dollars during the student years ; 
 I contributed to the ball fund ; I took private dancing 
 lessons ; I borrowed a book on etiquette from one of 
 our mess, a Californian like myself; I made a clean 
 sweep of my beard and mustache, and, at last, at the 
 Freiberg ball which we gave in December to the 
 American girls (" mine host " was leader in all this, 
 and set the pace) my courage failed me and I 
 did n t ask her to dance ! 
 
 How that girl she was only nineteen man 
 aged to open up her world to me, I can t say. I had 
 a note from her aunt, a gracious Southern gentle 
 woman, asking me to make one of a party at the
 
 174 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 skating carnival in the Grosse Garten in Dresden 
 during the December holidays. And when that was 
 over, there was a little dance at her house, and after 
 wards a ball for " mine host s " sisters. I was there 
 every time. 
 
 Time and again, during those days, I had an in 
 ward vision of myself as a factor in the midnight 
 orgy in the settlement shanty, or as a reveller in the 
 purlieus of Melbourne, and a terrible soul-nausea 
 would attack me. I began to realize I was handi 
 capped by my ancestry, by my early environment, by 
 the years of dissipation and I suffered ; but, I 
 thank God, it was the travail of re-birth. 
 
 You see, Armstrong, I had n t come into any 
 realization of my Americanhood. I had gone from 
 the Pacific coast ten years before, unwitting that 
 behind the rocky wall of the Sierras lay another 
 America, to which I was a stranger, to its customs, 
 to its traditions, to its civilization. In entering Europe 
 by way of Asia, I had found before me the Chinese 
 wall of caste separation reared by the hands of a 
 hundred generations; and between those two ram 
 parts my life of twenty-five years had been spent. 
 
 A man s rough exterior may lose the point of its 
 angles in contact with other men it s only a woman s 
 hand that can use the rotten-stone, and polish. 
 
 What that girl did for me ! I don t believe she 
 knew she was doing it, either. 
 
 Her kindness to me and thoughtfulness of me 
 were just the simple surface drainage of an unspoiled, 
 unselfish, genial soul. She was an art-lover not a 
 dabbler in art, like the thousands of women of to-day, 
 but a true worshipper of the best in painting, litera 
 ture, music. And the best belonged by right to her.
 
 Warp and Woof 175 
 
 You 11 think I m idealizing in this but if you could 
 know her ! 
 
 So I was drawn by the best of leading-strings 
 a gentlewoman to the best in Art; and the Dresden 
 Gallery, the music, the opera and concerts, the won 
 derful collections of porcelain, and treasures wrought 
 in silver, ivory, and gold, became mine for a trifling 
 sum. 
 
 That s one of the glories of that old country 
 Life s doors swing outwards for the Poor into the 
 regions of Art. 
 
 A year after she left Dresden I took my doctor s 
 degree, and the first thing I did, Armstrong, was to 
 go down again into the Saxon Switzerland, into the 
 Amsel Grund, and there, on the spot where I had first 
 seen her, vow to make myself worthy of her; to 
 purify my life in act and thought, and to keep myself 
 unspotted from the world if there was strength 
 enough of manhood in me. It was only so that I 
 could realize to myself my love for her. 
 
 My funds were, by this time, at lowest ebb, and I 
 took what work I could find wherever it could be 
 found, anything, everything, to earn an honest 
 thaler, till I made my way down into the Dolomites 
 a region I had long wished to examine and from 
 there into the Oetz Valley, where I lived with Tyrolean 
 peasants, one with them if not of them a simple, 
 quiet mountain-life in the higher Alps. Two years I 
 gave there to the writing of those volumes I sent you. 
 I got them printed in Berlin, and they opened the 
 scientific fraternity to me. Thus equipped, I turned 
 my face homewards, entering America this time by 
 the front door, and knocked at the portals of the 
 young University of my native state. They let me in ;
 
 176 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 and I thought then, " Now I Ve just a straight road, 
 with no turning, to Her ! " But I did n t know, Arm 
 strong, I did n t know. How could I, born and 
 bred as I was? 
 
 You 11 think by this time that I have a talent for 
 waiting; so I have, that belongs to my trade. 
 Mother Earth writes large with aeons of patience, and 
 a man may well learn a lesson or two from her. 
 
 Good-night; I m dead tired I know you must 
 be by this time. FRANZ W. 
 
 Easter. Good-morning ! Just look over your val 
 ley towards Killington, and if you should see a blue 
 bird or a swallow fleck the sky between you and it, 
 imagine it my Easter greeting. 
 
 I have celebrated this year in my own way. 
 Church? No, indeed. Did it ever occur to you 
 that on that first Easter day they did not find Him 
 in any sepulchre of stone, but abroad on the road? 
 
 I, too, think I found Him, at least in a by-way of 
 the road. M. C. 
 
 DRESDEN, ALT STADT. 
 
 I am so glad you have that special work for the 
 University ! No, indeed, don t look to Europe for 
 designs. I am sure you will find enough native in 
 spiration on Olympus. No wonder you love Franz 
 Waldort. I do ! I feel I may say that to you and 
 be understood ; for when I meet with such sincer 
 ity, such straightforwardness of purpose, combined 
 with such a queer, old-fashioned chivalry of manner 
 towards all of us women, just because we are women, 
 I find it refreshing, and, without exactly flattering me, 
 it makes me feel at peace with my entire sex, the
 
 Warp and Woof 177 
 
 world in general, and my own world in particular. 
 He is a friend of whom any man or woman may be 
 proud. I met him in Dresden years ago, and knew 
 he would be heard from sometime. 
 
 And you do care for those few lines of Browning? 
 And they would mean so much more to you if you 
 could see what I saw the other day at Meissen. 
 
 We were at the famous porcelain works. As I 
 stood by one of the workmen, I marvelled as I saw 
 the rough mass whirl, and bend, and curve into con 
 cave and convex surfaces, and assume its beautiful 
 shape, although broken again and again on the wheel 
 by the skilful hands. 
 
 The old words came back to me : " But now, O 
 Lord, thou art our father, we are the clay and thou 
 our potter ; and we are all the work of thy hand " : 
 my friend on the distant New England mountain-top, 
 that nobleman, Franz Waldort, the potter beside 
 the wheel, the men and women and little children 
 that should drink of the cup for it was that 
 which was being fashioned from the clay of which I 
 am next of kin ! Oh, Hugh, dear friend, I wanted 
 you there beside me to feel the force of that object- 
 lesson ! 
 
 Did it ever occur to you that a physical disability 
 is the least of Life s handicaps with which a man 
 must reckon? But, oh, when I say all this, I know 
 I should n t. What am I to speak of these things to 
 you who have suffered such deprivation? I, who 
 have had everything except the one thing a woman 
 must have to be wholly content. But what am I writ 
 ing, and why? It was the potter at his wheel that 
 has broken me in thought. May I have a letter 
 soon? M. C. 
 
 12
 
 178 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 DEAR ARMSTRONG, 
 
 You may well ask, as you did in your last, why I 
 have n t let myself be heard from the last two months. 
 
 You did n t consider that order I sent you in 
 February to the point then? Now, I thought I was 
 doing a mighty friendly thing to get the committee 
 to give it to you ! I told them I knew a man East 
 this is always a good bait for us Californians, I con 
 fess who could give them something worth while; 
 that so long as they were about it, they might as well 
 perpetuate their names by giving the University a 
 lasting memorial in real and, at the same time, in 
 digenous Art. 
 
 You have been in correspondence with them, so 
 you know what they require. It will be your monu 
 ment, Armstrong, and mine also, in that I have such 
 pride in your work. So " Gliick auf!" You say 
 you re bothered about designs for the ceiling, and 
 are looking to Europe to help you out. My advice 
 may be worth nothing in this matter, for I am such a 
 rabid American that I never can see the use of bor 
 rowed plumes when we have our own ostrich-farms ! 
 But don t you think it would be more to the credit of 
 all of us to keep on this side of the Atlantic? 
 
 You can do if. You say it will take you a full year 
 and a half, steady work and I am glad to know it, 
 for I shall soon be off to South America for a year or 
 more. I welcome this. It s my first sabbatical year, 
 and I Ve always wanted to tread in Humboldt s foot 
 steps and make acquaintance with the Cordilleras. The 
 planning for this arranging the courses which my 
 substitute is to give, marking out the work for the 
 post-graduates, two of whom accompany me has 
 filled my time.
 
 Warp and Woof 179 
 
 Then, too, I have delayed a little, knowing I 
 should close, with this letter, the chapter of my life 
 I have opened to you. 
 
 Until She marries, Armstrong, I shall be only a 
 sleeping volcano ; I know this, and have accepted it. 
 But, meanwhile, I want to give Nature a chance to 
 cover me with her own gentle, softening growths, and 
 I m going to do all I can to give her that chance. 
 
 When She marries and I know she must, some 
 time, no woman like that should be without a mate 
 the volcano will be extinct; but the surface growth 
 will, I trust, supply sustenance for another, a domestic 
 love, or loves. I want a home, Armstrong; a true 
 woman to love me ; I want children to play about my 
 hearth ; I shall want a change from the homeless, 
 unbound life I have led so long in my faithfulness to 
 an ideal. I shall want to be bound by the ties of a 
 quiet, domestic affection. 
 
 If there should come a time when some woman might 
 need my protection and my love, she should have 
 both ; but not until I had told her what I have told 
 you, what I tell you now. She shall know all: 
 know that a part of me she can never possess, and 
 that part -God help you, Armstrong, if ever you 
 give that part into a woman s keeping, for she will 
 hold it in this world and the next, if there be one ! 
 
 There s no use ; when one soul lays hold upon 
 another, there is no escape, and the worst or best 
 of it is, one does not wish for it. 
 
 Two years ago I went East for the first time. I 
 had never heard from her directly. She had gone back 
 to her own, and even " mine host," who had swallowed 
 his bitter pill like a man, had ceased to mention her. 
 But I took a Baltimore daily, and so kept track of
 
 180 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 her comings and goings in that " other world " of hers, 
 between her own city, New York, Washington, An 
 napolis, White Sulphur Springs, Bar Harbor, and 
 Newport. 
 
 In spirit I fought the Navy and Army combined, 
 challenged the East to single combat, and cudgelled 
 the entire South simply to keep her intact for me. 
 For I, too, felt myself a man ; I had won my spurs 
 like a man, and I was n t going to knuckle to any one 
 with a pedigree even if it were as long as the missing- 
 link s tail. 
 
 I had some work for the Government in Wash 
 ington, and I stopped over in Baltimore to see her. 
 I found her the same genial soul, glad, so she said, to 
 renew her Dresden acquaintance. She informed me, 
 considerably to my surprise, that she had been keep 
 ing track of me ! that she was so proud of my 
 record ; and would I give her the pleasure of allowing 
 her to present some of her friends to me and more 
 of the like. What is the use of repeating it, even? 
 A woman like that has everything at her command 
 for a man s enchaining and I had been hers already 
 so long. 
 
 But she was so true with it all, so kindly, so 
 friendly, the girl s bright charm softened, yet enhanced 
 to a woman s fascination ! What wonder that I lost 
 my head? 
 
 I have been East every summer since, and have 
 spent some portion of each where she was. Little by 
 little, I began to see what her environment was, what 
 her traditions were, what it meant to come of a family 
 that struck root into America s soil over two hun 
 dred years ago, and during that time had given the 
 best of its manhood and its womanhood to the up-
 
 Warp and Woof 1 8 i 
 
 building of this country in its Government, its Judi 
 ciary, in its Defenders by land and sea. 
 
 But it was the woman I loved realizing all the 
 time as I did, more and more clearly, that just thia 
 woman was a product of her ancestry, her environ 
 ment. Yet such was and is my faith in her, 
 that I knew and know that where her heart goes 
 she will follow. 
 
 But then another curious fact made itself plain to 
 me, " fixing " in my consciousness as a film is set on 
 a sensitive-plate, that she could and would love only 
 along the lines of her heredity, circumscribed by her 
 environment; and that even herein, she was not 
 narrowed in the worldly sense. 
 
 Her aunt was gracious ; her friends, men and 
 women, were gracious; they couldn t be otherwise, 
 for they were all true Southerners with the blood that 
 warms and tempers our national life to a humanness, 
 which, when it is once known and understood, shows 
 that national life at its very best. 
 
 It was a curious process ; there was throughout 
 no disillusionizing, only a gradual perception of con 
 ditions, before unperceived, and with it, a gradual 
 weakening of my power of will to achieve that which 
 I had set before me. 
 
 At last I gathered myself together it was after 
 that coaching-trip through the Green Mountains 
 and when I got home, I wrote it all out to her; I 
 knew I could never say it face to face not my life. 
 
 And I had such a letter in return ! that Well, 
 Armstrong, all I can say is, paradoxical as it may 
 sound, that letter, while true to herself and her 
 womanhood, true to me and my manhood, has made 
 it possible for me to love some other woman, some-
 
 1 82 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 time, I hope, the better for it. More I need not say; 
 - not of this. I shall never mention it again. 
 
 But I do want to say, right here, that it has been 
 to me a help to say this to you. 
 
 Once, in the China Sea, our vessel was struck 
 by the typhoon, and all hands took to what they could 
 get. There was a man in the crew second mate 
 I d nursed through the Java fever ; he was still 
 weak from it, but he had a wife and two children off 
 in one of your New England seaports waiting for him, 
 and as there was n t room enough for all of us who 
 had taken to the catamaran, and like to be less with 
 the madness that was coming upon us through drought 
 and famine, I slipped off behind with a plank and a 
 marline as the dark fell, quietly enough, I thought; 
 but in a second there was a splash beside me, and a 
 hand gripped mine : " No, you don t, VValdort ! If you 
 go, by God, I 11 go too ! Here hold on to me." 
 
 And that hand helped to save me, for, knowing 
 his weakness, I fought twice as hard for us both dur 
 ing the next twenty-four hours, till we were picked 
 up more dead than alive. 
 
 Your letters have been another such hand. God 
 bless you. 
 
 I sail next month for the Isthmus. Tell Twiddle 
 she may order anything from South America for 
 next Christmas from a parrot to an electric eel I 
 am hers to command. I am looking forward to this 
 work ; but my letters will be irregular and far between, 
 for I go inland at once, away from the ordinary 
 channels of communication. 
 
 By the way, the committee have told you they 
 want California redwood, New England cherry, and 
 South American mahogany? How do you like the
 
 Warp and Woof 183 
 
 combination ? Let me know if I can do anything at 
 my end to help you. 
 
 I leave the fifteenth send me a good stirrup-cup 
 of a letter ! 
 
 Yours (consider your hand gripped just here), 
 
 FRANZ WALDORT. 
 
 FROHE ALP, FELSENGARTEN, 
 
 VALLEY OF THE OETZ, IN THE TYROL! 
 
 At last I am looking down upon your two-thou 
 sand-feet-high Olympus from a superior height of 
 three thousand feet, and am, in turn, looked down 
 upon by the Wildspitze, one of the monarchs of the 
 Tyrolean Alps, with its hundreds of attendant peaks; 
 so it is in vain I try to feel any superiority. 
 
 Oh, what a mountain-peace this is ! This little 
 hamlet of Felsengarten lies on a narrow plateau two 
 thousand feet above the river, that looks like a mere 
 thread of silver interwoven in the black depths. At 
 this height not a sound rises from the valley, although 
 the water foams and leaps and rushes downward with 
 a deafening roar through its gorges and ravines. 
 
 Behind the hamlet, which consists of a dozen or 
 more houses straggling along the plateau and climbing, 
 at one end, to the small church built of dark-timbered 
 fir, rises the Frohe Alp, or green, wide-stretching 
 mountain pastures where the goats and cattle browse. 
 On the slope of this Alp is the farmhouse of a well- 
 to-do peasant, Nicodemus Bendl now, how do you 
 like that for a sturdy mountaineer s name? He has 
 given us two rooms for our own, and, I fear, crowded 
 himself and wife out of the house ; I have yet to dis 
 cover where they sleep. 
 
 My room is don t be shocked over the cow-
 
 184 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 shed, and I mount to it by the cow-shed stairs ! But 
 a cleaner, sweeter, wholesomer little room does not 
 exist in the civilized world. For you must know 
 our cows are washed and scrubbed, and, for aught I 
 know, perfumed ; their sweet breath rises to me in the 
 early morning, and, at night, their beds of fresh straw 
 give forth a warm scent as of dried herbs. I can t 
 express it or explain it, but it s just the wonderful 
 breath of the Alps, pure with the purity of virgin 
 snows, and sweet with the delicious growths of these 
 high, untainted pastures. 
 
 The room is about eight feet by ten. I have in 
 it a chest for my clothes a carved one, too, a 
 small washstand, a high-backed chair of some dark 
 wood, and a narrow bed furnished with two coarse 
 sheets, white as the driven snow, a moss-and-straw- 
 filled mattress, and a feather-bed for my coverlet 
 cased in dark blue, loosely woven woollen. On the 
 wall, over the head of the bed, is a wooden crucifix. 
 
 My one window takes up half the narrow end of 
 the room, and is provided with a kind of wooden 
 eyelid that opens in the roof and is propped on a 
 stick set in a wooden socket I keep this eyelid 
 open all the time, and the view from it -is the moun 
 tain-sea of the Oetzthaler Alps, the white crests of 
 its great rock waves caught in marvellous folds and 
 plications. Just to see the morning come, kindling 
 its light from beacon peak to beacon peak till the 
 whole serrated horizon flashes with rose and gold 
 
 There s no telling it. 
 
 Tuesday. 
 
 But there is telling of the simple life here ; of our 
 black bean soup what if we do eat it from wooden
 
 Warp and Woof 185 
 
 bowls? of the delicious roast goose stuffed with 
 apples and plums, and the plums, themselves, purple 
 for the stuffing, and golden, big as goose eggs for my 
 breakfast, which consists in addition of a bowl of 
 goat s milk, a new-laid egg, a square of black bread 
 and a small morning churning of unsalted butter. 
 
 Wednesday. 
 
 I have been wanting to send you something that 
 would bring this mountain life nearer to you, but 
 what has puzzled me till yesterday, when I went into 
 a low-ceiled room in one of the village houses where 
 a chamois-hunter, crippled for life by an accident on 
 the glacier of the Donnerjoch just above our house, 
 was carving the Liliputian figures of chamois, goat, 
 dog, and hunter. Tiny? You will see by what I 
 send you ; for I have chosen a dozen of the frail 
 things, packed them in cotton wool, and sent them 
 by post, in the care of my uncle on account of the 
 customs. The whole collection can be set up on 
 the surface of a silver dollar ; and such strong, 
 big-knuckled, brown, peasant hands that carve the 
 dainty things ! 
 
 I thought of you, and told him of your work and 
 your mountain home. He was delighted, and has 
 sent you a chamois-beard he used to wear in his best 
 cap ; I have put that in the package. He said when 
 I left him : 
 
 "You ll tell him, won t you, Fraulein Madeline? 
 that fine fellow over yonder, that when a broken 
 chamois-hunter like me thinks of him, I take good 
 courage again to live." I am sending you to-day a 
 little German Tale, Der Herrgottsclmitzer von Am- 
 mergau. There is a translation, I believe, Tlie Cruci-
 
 1 86 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 fix-carver of Ammergau, but you will enjoy it more in 
 the original. I am so glad you have conquered the 
 German. Griiss Gott ! 
 
 All that you say makes me feel humbled in the 
 true sense of the word. Isn t it queer? Just the 
 moment we free ourselves from conventions and 
 the soul is bound by them at times as with an iron 
 ring the good begins to work, unwittingly to us, 
 but surely, both to ourselves and others. 
 
 Now see how all this came about. I knew I was 
 eight years your senior, knew that your horizon line 
 and mine had never coincided, knew that it would 
 need but a word to deprive myself of the joy, which, 
 with only a woman s intuition for an excuse, I foresaw 
 would be mine in that remote, mountain-companion 
 ship of yours and I neither spoke the word, nor 
 have I written it since. I couldn t and I don t 
 know why either. 
 
 I saw that you were a thinking, feeling, suffering 
 man, and a thinking man s age is not to be measured by 
 years ; so I cast that barrier to the winds. That you 
 had a heart that trouble and deprivation had not been 
 able to embitter was shown to me in a dozen ways 
 during those three hours on Olympus ; for was there 
 not the expression of yourself in the lovely " Pen"? 
 and your manner towards Twiddle and your " Aunt 
 Lize " ? and the carvings, with the seasons life almost 
 visible in them? and the books and the David? 
 
 That you had suffered, both physically and spirit 
 ually, was plain enough, written large in your face. 
 Then, too, your Aunt told me how black the shadow 
 had been that had rested so long upon you, and be 
 cause upon you, upon them, for they adore you ;
 
 Warp and Woof 187 
 
 (if you could see Twiddle s letters ! but you can t). 
 Yes, they do ; and when Mrs. Lewis told me, with 
 tears in her eyes, that our coming would bring new 
 life into your life, I just squeezed her hand hard, and 
 tried to say that perhaps the indebtedness was n t 
 wholly on our side, which I have long since discovered 
 to be a fact. 
 
 That hand-squeeze, which we two women gave 
 each other, and yes, I will confess everything 
 that quiet holding of my hand in the way you held 
 it when I said " Good-by," broke the last rail of any 
 imaginary fence that was hedging me in. 
 
 I know all this is n t the " thorn," - but I don t 
 feel thorny to-day. I am going down with Nicodemus 
 to Felsengarten to see my chamois-hunter. I ve 
 ordered a quantity of those figurines to send home to 
 various people for Christmas, and he is to carve a 
 crucifix for you, to illustrate the Ammergau story. 
 
 He is the dearest fellow ! Sings at his work, 
 plays the zither to distraction, and makes loving, 
 longing eyes at the prettiest Sennerin in the village. 
 She ought to wear a bright skirt with an embroidered 
 bodice, and yards of silver chain about her neck; 
 but, instead, she goes gowned in plain linsey-woolsey, 
 barefooted, to drive the goats of the high-peasant, for 
 whom she works, up to feed with Nicodemus s, now 
 that the pastures are failing. I see the kernel of a 
 romance in this, and shall prepare the ground in the 
 most practical way enrich it with a prospective 
 bride s dowry for Trudel; that s her name. 
 
 I know she loves him, for she told me so ! up 
 there on the Frohe Alp, at the very entrance to the 
 ice-world, where we opened our hearts to each 
 other.
 
 1 88 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 " Now, you see, Fraulein Madeline," she said, 
 brushing aside a little heap of sncw to let free a tiny 
 blue gentian, " the world is n t all ice and snow, and 
 warm hearts make sunshine enough ; and if I had a 
 herd of goats and a cow, I d marry him to-morrow 
 in spite of himself that is, if he d have me but 
 he won t speak, Fraulein Madeline ! So what am I 
 to do? With no goats, no chest, even," (that is 
 the peasant-girl s linen-dowry) " only my two willing 
 hands, my ready feet, and one loving heart 
 
 Of course I made up my mind it must be, I 
 simply can t leave here till he speaks ; besides, I have 
 a strong fellow-feeling with Trudel and all because 
 of that " thorn," of which surely a prick in my next 
 letter. 
 
 Nicodemus is ready with a kind of wooden creel 
 strapped on his back. He brings home his weekly 
 provisions in it. Yours, 
 
 M. C 
 
 So you, too, are interested in this romance of the 
 higher Alps? Well, I intended you should be! 
 
 Two weeks since my last bulletin and still he 
 has not spoken ! I Ve tried wile, diplomacy, bribery, 
 stratagem, subtlety, archness, which is not becoming 
 to my years, and artifice, which is foreign to my 
 constitution all to no purpose as yet. 
 
 But I have n t lost all hope oh, no ! Meanwhile, 
 Trudel is actually growing thin, and her face shows 
 pale through the tan. The sound of the zither is 
 heard no longer from within the low-ceiled room ; the 
 lovely melody : 
 
 Behiit dich Gott, 
 Es war zu sciioii gewesen "
 
 Warp and Woof 189 
 
 sounds no more in ringing tenor down the village 
 street of a pleasant autumn evening. He has spoiled 
 more than a dozen of my figurines, and if this state 
 of things continues I am sure he will be incapacitated 
 for work. But what can I do ? 
 
 Yours distractedly and, vicariously, in despair, 
 
 MADELINE COPE. 
 
 P. S. I am too busy extracting Trudel s thorn to 
 think of my own. 
 
 Another week ! I packed my trunk on Tuesday 
 because I felt sure by certain signs that the longed- 
 for word would be forthcoming, and, moreover, Aunt 
 is growing uneasy in the thick cold mists and flurry 
 ing snows that hover and settle around us day and 
 night. We are lost in a cloud-world that is confus 
 ing to sight and hearing. 
 
 Trudel weeps quietly when we walk and talk and 
 consult together even the six goats I have given 
 her (we went with Franzl over the Donnerjoch to 
 another " Hof " to purchase them) fail to give comfort, 
 although the yield of milk, she says, is enormous ! 
 
 The strain of the situation is becoming tense 
 even Nicodemus feels it, and is grumpy. 
 
 M. C. 
 
 October 22nd. 
 
 Yesterday I bought a cow with Nicodemus s aid, 
 and we drove her I say "we," for Trudel, Nico 
 demus, Franzl, and I had taken advantage of a half 
 day of sunshine to go to Ilsengau, three miles down 
 the mountain, to buy her up through the village 
 street just before sunset.
 
 190 The Wood-carver of Lym pus 
 
 Of course, we had to pass His window. He was 
 there poor fellow, he is always there of necessity 
 and I said to myself, " This will bring it about; it 
 must six goats and a cow! " But I reckoned with 
 out my host. 
 
 Well ! For all the obtuse, fossil-hearted, obdu 
 rate, stiff-necked specimens of humanity, commend 
 me to this chamois-hunter of Felsengarten ! 
 
 I had wild thoughts of begging Nicodemus and 
 Franzl to buy eight or ten cords of dressing from 
 somewhere, and having it hauled through the village 
 street in his very face and eyes, placarded " For 
 Trudel " ; for be it known unto you, that the pre 
 cious " muck-heap " is the peasant s Bank of England 
 consols. But all was brought to naught by Trudel, who 
 came up to me after supper, and begged with scarce 
 articulate lamentations that I take back the goats 
 and the cow and make her poor again ! ! ! Did you 
 ever? 
 
 I tried reason but I might as well have reasoned 
 with the wind. 
 
 "Oh, go and tell him I m poor," she said, " poor 
 as I used to be go, Fraulein Madeline, go do, 
 do, if you love me ! " 
 
 Of course I went this morning as fast as my 
 two legs and the momentum acquired by the rapid 
 descent of a precipitous alp could carry me, and 
 with outward calmness inquired how the work was 
 coming on. 
 
 " Fine, Fraulein Madeline." 
 
 I saw the brown hands tremble a little. 
 
 " I want to see just these last two or three finished 
 before I go I shall leave Monday." 
 
 "So? I am sorry, Fraulein Madeline."
 
 Warp and Woof 191 
 
 That was all, but the dark eyes rested on me with 
 a look that somehow made me feel blood-guilty, and 
 I saw the strong hands begin to shake. 
 
 " Yes," I said cheerfully, " and I may take Trudel 
 with me she s such a dear girl, and needs some 
 one to protect her; she s too young, too alone in 
 the world," (" Stand that if you can," I was thinking 
 to myself), "too poor " 
 
 " Poor, poor did you say?" He gave a scornful 
 laugh, but I heard his voice break, " With six goats 
 and a cow that is not true, Fraulein Madeline; a 
 Sennerin is rich with that, and can choose among 
 the high-peasants." 
 
 " Oh, but she has n t any goats and cow that s 
 village gossip," I hastened to explain. " They re 
 mine; that is, I m coming back again next sum 
 mer, and Trudel has promised to take care of them 
 for m " 
 
 " Fraulein, Fraulein ! " he cried out, dropping 
 his work and burying his handsome face in his 
 hands, "I ve been a purblind fool tell her tell 
 her " 
 
 "What, Hansl, what?" cried an eager, loving voice 
 behind me. Of course it was Trudel s. I made my 
 escape, but not before such a " jodel," full, ringing, 
 joyous, like the " blowing up of the trumpet in the 
 full moon," resounded along the village street, that all 
 the children, men, and women ran together at the 
 Post thinking a brief had come up from the Emperor. 
 Even Nicodemus on the Frohe Alp heard it. 
 
 "What was that, Fraulein Madeline?" he asked, 
 the moment I came in sight. 
 
 " Hansl s announcement to Felsengarten that he 
 is betrothed to TrudeL"
 
 192 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 " Herr mein Gott ! " exclaimed Frau Bendl, clap 
 ping her hands, " that s a piece of luck for the fine 
 fellow." 
 
 "But the goats and the cow, Fraulein?" said 
 Nicodemus, anxiously. 
 
 I smiled. " Oh, I m going to hire Trudel to 
 take care of them for me till I come again next 
 year, Nicodemus." 
 
 " Praise God," he muttered, crestfallen. I know 
 he wanted them himself. 
 
 I Ve packed my trunk for good and all, and on 
 Monday we leave for Italy, faring over the Brenner 
 Pass. Really I feel the reaction from this awful 
 strain. To think of that fellow s pride ! He would n t 
 ask her because she was suddenly become rich, and 
 he is what he is "cripple-lame" as he expresses 
 it. Good-night. 
 
 Venice in winter ! You can t imagine it. Just 
 now a queer bronze mist is driving in unexpectedly 
 over the Lagoon, and the wastes of steel gray waters 
 are furrowed with black. We have had letters from 
 Rome that urge us to spend the winter there. But 
 to one and all we say, " No." We have promised, 
 however, to go down for a month before Easter ; we 
 must sacrifice that to the family, for a cousin of mine 
 is in the embassy. But it will mean for me a round 
 of balls, dinners, receptions, conversazioni I know 
 it all, and am tired and sick of it. 
 
 But till then, this fascinating, unmolested corner in 
 Venice, and intimate acquaintance with my favorites. 
 If it be a possible thing, I am going to make you see 
 all this. How, do you suppose? I am going to
 
 Warp and Woof 193 
 
 revel in the carvings and sculptures of this city of the 
 waters, and, as I make acquaintance with the most 
 beautiful, write out an account of them, and then mount 
 a photograph of some exquisite detail, and so form 
 an illustrated book of Venice s handiwork along your 
 lines. 
 
 Imagine my pleasure in all this ! The close, daily 
 companionship with the realized ideals of these 
 masters; the companionship in spirit with a certain 
 Wood-carver far away across the ocean, and by means 
 of these ideals the communion of All Saints, which I 
 shall have gratis for my work of love. Your letters? 
 I ll not tell you what they have been to me not 
 yet, for I have still to strip myself of that thorn. I 
 find there are compensations There s my aunt. 
 
 M. C. 
 
 VENICE, CORTE SCARLOTTI. 
 DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 Once when a monk was showing us through the 
 cloisters of a Cistercian monastery in northern Italy, 
 I saw him gather a branch of roses that was set with 
 strong thorns, and crush the stem in his palm. Di 
 rectly after I saw the blood trickle from his clenched 
 fist, and I spoke impulsively: " You have hurt your 
 self with the thorns." 
 
 " I did it for remembrance," he said sternly, turn 
 ing upon me, a worldling, such a Last-Day-of-Judg- 
 ment look that I quailed in spirit. But I have often 
 thought of that and wondered what its entire signifi 
 cance might be. 
 
 This letter seems to me a symbolic repetition 
 of that act on my part ; for just to remember, to re 
 live certain experiences, will draw blood like that
 
 194 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 monk s thorn. You will wonder why I do it then? 
 Have n t you found that in the crises of Life the 
 soul needs a little blood-letting as well as the body? 
 That s why. Moreover, unless I tell you, you can 
 not know what your letters have been to me these 
 past years. 
 
 You know something of the shadow that fell upon 
 my life when I was fifteen? A shadow that has never 
 wholly vanished. I was an only child, and when I 
 was just entering into the joy of young girlhood, 
 I lost both father and mother within two weeks. It 
 seemed for a time to blot out the whole life of my 
 affections ; but my aunt was all to me that a woman, 
 not my mother, could be; I was young, and the 
 joy of life came back to me gradually, but never 
 undimmed as it was before. 
 
 And I have so disappointed that good aunt ! 
 She had settled all my future for me, along pre-natal 
 lines, if I may so express myself, and her ambition 
 knew no limits. We not only entertained largely in 
 our own city home and our summer one, but were 
 entertained in turn. Consequently, it was a round of 
 gayeties for me for the year and a half after I came 
 out. Then, yielding to my importunings, my aunt 
 took me to Europe. A cousin of my mother s had 
 married in England, and I can credit, or discredit, 
 my life with a full London season. We went directly 
 from there to Germany, and settled in Dresden ; in 
 the comparative quiet of the city on the Elbe, I found 
 time to draw a free breath, look about me, and begin 
 to think. 
 
 If I had married at nineteen, like so many others 
 of my acquaintance, and a little child of my own had 
 led me, I might never have cared to think of Life s
 
 Warp and Woof 195 
 
 meaning to others, only to my own, perhaps not 
 even to myself; I don t know these things are 
 hidden from us. 
 
 But I did know that, although I had entered into 
 all the gayety of the life about me in America and 
 .England, I never felt one of it ; I don t know why. 
 There was never a balcony-door opened, but that I 
 looked for some indefinable release from something 
 I could not define ; never a new acquaintance ap 
 peared in the drawing-room that I did not idealize 
 him for ten minutes or more and was disillusioned 
 forever after. Yet people said I had everything ; I 
 knew better. 
 
 In Dresden, that quiet back-water where the cur 
 rent of cosmopolitan social life makes scarce a ripple, 
 I had time to think. At first, through Art and Music, 
 then through German thought and German books ; 
 and before I knew it, Hugh, I was dragging anchor, 
 losing the dear, sweet, child-like faith I had kept 
 as my best heritage from my father and mother, a 
 Christian gentleman and a Christian gentlewoman, 
 and with it, losing much of the spontaneous joy of 
 life. 
 
 It was then I met our friend, Franz Waldort. 
 He was one of the American students in Freiberg, 
 and already making his mark, the professors said. 
 He is a splendid-looking man now but I wish you 
 might have seen him then ! " Balder the Beautiful," 
 was our name for him in private. He was just like a 
 young Norse god ; and he brought into my life a 
 breath of that other " elemental world " which had yet 
 to be discovered by me, a Human. I did n t stop to 
 investigate; I tumbled head-first into Science. This 
 strenuous effort to comprehend, not the law of the
 
 196 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 crystallization of a mineral, but the why of the minera\ 
 itself, brought about confusion worse confounded in 
 my ideals of life, and the eternal things thereof. 
 
 I realized that the lenses, spiritual, social, must 
 be readjusted before I could "see deep enough to see 
 musically," but I was too young to do it; I had to 
 grow to that. Meanwhile, I grew restless, and roamed 
 for four years, dragging my devoted aunt from 
 Algiers to St. Andrews from Andorra to Odessa. 
 Then we returned to Baltimore, and there, literally 
 on the threshold of my own home, I found what I had 
 been seeking ! . . . 
 
 But I must stop for to-day. My aunt is ready, 
 and our gondolier, Beppo Cortelli, is waiting at the 
 foot of the water-steps. It is a day of days ; a sky 
 the color of the Virgin s mantle; the waves of the 
 Adriatic alive like sapphires in the sun. Give my 
 love to Twiddie. Tell her that last letter made 
 me long to taste some of the quince preserve she 
 is " doing up." I hope she received the box for 
 Christmas day. I wish I might see her in the white 
 serge ! Won t she have her photograph taken for 
 me ? Dick writes me he has a tintype of her taken 
 last summer. He won t send it to me, but says he 
 will show it to me when he meets me in Rome. Posi 
 tively, I m jealous. 
 
 What will you ask next ! Why do you want to 
 know what gowns I wear at these receptions, balls, 
 and dinners? I was at the Russian Embassy last 
 night, and wore a gown of dark blue velvet made 
 perfectly plain, with a square neck, and angel sleeves 
 lined with pale blue silk Oh, what does a man know 
 about angel sleeves ! Well, you must use your imag-
 
 Warp and Woof 197 
 
 mation ; anyway, they fall a yard below the hips. I 
 tell you this that you may not delude yourself into 
 thinking they extend horizontally from the shoulders 
 backwards ! With this modest gown I wear no jewels, 
 but a single " red, red rose." - - Dick took occasion 
 the other day to show me that tintype of Twiddie. 
 Why, Hugh, how beautiful she has grown ! Dick has 
 put the poor tin plate into a dainty velvet case, and 
 the girl s face, even with that queer combination, 
 rivals in feature and expression many an ivory I have 
 seen here. 
 
 I thought of her at the conversazione which my 
 cousin gave for us at the Villa last evening. I could 
 see just how she would grace some of those exquisite 
 gowns I saw in the columned salon Oh, you want to 
 know what I wore ? heavy, corded silk, ivory-white, 
 with a bertha of Venetian Point, a pearl necklace and 
 girdle of my mother s, and a bunch of yellow tea-roses 
 fastened in the clasp at my belt. Does this find favor 
 with Olympian Hugh? 
 
 Dick and I spoke of Olympus when we found 
 time, after our guests had gone, to go out on the 
 terrace and pace there in the moonlight for half 
 an hour. We talked of you and Twiddie, and Dick 
 said, pointing to a group of ilex and cypress just 
 below us : 
 
 " What would n t I give for one full inhalation of 
 that forest breath on Olympus ! " 
 
 Yes, you have a right to know of my " seeking and 
 rinding." I should be no true woman if, receiving as 
 I have the assurance of your feeling towards me, I 
 did not draw aside the veil of my Holy of Holies once 
 at least ; for only by a glimpse of that can you un 
 derstand what you are to me and why. But not
 
 198 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 now not here. This air proves miasmatic for my 
 soul ; I can t expose it in Rome. 
 
 Good-morning, for it is that. 
 
 M. C. 
 
 CAMALDOLI, NEAR BIBBIENA, 
 
 AT THE INN OF THE SANCTUARY. 
 
 Where it is so beautiful that one understands the 
 meaning of the Holiness of Beauty. This Forest of 
 the Camaldoli is the true sanctuary. 
 
 With the advent of Lent we fled from Rome. 
 Having done the whole of my duty, I felt entitled 
 to live for myself for a few weeks, and under the chest 
 nuts of the first sanctuary, Vallombrosa, I sloughed 
 my society skin, and cleared my soul of malaria, 
 Rome-engendered. Goodness, how that city op 
 pressed me ! 
 
 I stopped in that dear city of Saint Mary of the 
 Flower how I love it! long enough to order for 
 you a set of book-shelves, carved in the black oak in 
 which the Italians work so much. The Florentine 
 carvings are all a joy, whether in marble, wood, or 
 precious metals. I have also forwarded to you, by 
 freight via Leghorn, of course, in the care of my 
 uncle, two planks of Italian walnut, that you may 
 try your hand at it, and in the same case I have sent 
 two hats for Twiddie ; one is a broad Leghorn, the 
 other of light Tuscan straw made by the peasant 
 girls of Fiesole. The book of Venetian Carvings 
 goes with them, as also some photographs of the best 
 Florentine work. And do you mind my putting in 
 two of the pretty Florentine blankets made of refuse- 
 silk one a deep blue, the other the color of a cactus 
 flower ?
 
 Warp and Woof 199 
 
 I thought one would look cosy on Twiddle s bed, 
 and the other might lend a bit of fine color to your 
 room in the firelight, if thrown over the cot of a bitter 
 winter night. 
 
 I am glad you like the Browning poems the more 
 you read them. What you say of them is what I 
 have always thought but have not been able to ex 
 press : that you feel " not only the jar of Life in them, 
 but its adjustment." The touchstone of his world- 
 humanness is that you realize the truth of that which 
 you have said of him, just as forcibly here in this 
 solitude of Camaldoli or on the top of your distant 
 Olympus, as in the Ghetto at Frankfurt, a Roman 
 salon, at the curtain of a confessional-box in a cathe 
 dral, or in the rush and roar of the thoroughfares of 
 our New World metropolises. 
 
 I like to imagine all those books you have been 
 gathering and making yours on these special shelves. 
 From what you write, I know so many of my friends 
 must be among them. I believe in the end you will 
 make your room as fascinatingly beautiful in its way 
 for the shut-in months, as you have made the Pen for 
 the uncaged ones. 
 
 I am writing in the loggia, or roof-porch of this 
 mountain-inn, and our landlord is placing our dinner, 
 which we take at five, on the small round oak table 
 by the balustrade. It is temptingly simple two fat 
 potted pigeons, a kind of puree of boiled chestnuts, 
 two huge artichokes stewed in olive oil, two strips of 
 pulled white bread, a dish of olives, a small flask of 
 the red wine of the country, and a basket of manda 
 rins. For the last touch, he has brought in a square, 
 deep jar of coarse, green majolica filled with long- 
 stemmed narcissuses.
 
 2OO The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 The forest lies below us, about us, above us, and 
 through the clearings there are ravishing glimpses of 
 purple Apennine and sun-misted plain. 
 
 A-Dieu. M. C. 
 
 EASTER SUNDAY, 
 
 FOREST OF THE CAMALDOLI. 
 DEAR HUGH, 
 
 You write that your life has been a slow resurrec 
 tion for the past four years, and that your soul had 
 lain for nineteen months in worse than the tomb. 
 I, too, thank God that there can be a resurrection 
 of the life of the heart after it has lain long in the 
 winding-sheet. 
 
 Such a resurrection has come to me through the 
 beautiful love you have given me, Hugh. And just 
 as parched lands welcome refreshing showers, I ac 
 cept it; accept it as you give it, feeling all, under 
 standing all, realizing all. The knowledge of it has 
 revivified me ; but that I have been to you all that 
 you say, I fail to realize. It humbles me ; but, Hugh, 
 you have idealized me. 
 
 I told you I would tell you how I " sought and 
 found " ; but, indeed, I did n t find, not really, for all 
 my seeking. It was revealed to me. I have often 
 had in my thought the truth of those words, " Who 
 by seeking can find out God?" Does one ever find 
 Him out just by seeking? I doubt it. But to the 
 true seeker, I am sure He is revealed ; revealed to each 
 individual of the seeking multitudes in some one of 
 His infinite ways by a word, an inspiring thought, 
 a moment of anguish, a flower blooming on the grave 
 of some beloved ; through the scourge of a sin, in the 
 star-filled sky, in the miracle of a kernel nourished in 
 an earth-clod ; by the law of the spheres, of the earth,
 
 Warp and Woof 201 
 
 and all things thereon of ourselves ; but most per 
 fectly of all may I not say most transcendentally 
 of all, through the agency of the Human as the most 
 perfect expression of Himself? 
 
 It was revealed to me so. 
 
 It is easy to say all this to you, here in this forest 
 quiet, which is a singing silence of leaves stirring in 
 the tree-tops ; and on just this day, too ! 
 
 Above me I can catch a glimpse of the sanctuary s 
 walls a centuries old sepulchre of a long unrisen 
 humanitarianism. But the resurrection has come, 
 even here, and one finds one s Master no longer in cell 
 and cloister, but abroad on the road with his people, 
 in brotherly converse and the breaking of bread. 
 
 There was a friend of some friends of mine, whom 
 I met for the first time on my return. I had heard 
 much of him, and all in praise. Can a woman ever 
 tell, in real life fiction is another thing how she 
 comes to love a man? Why, perhaps but how? 
 I doubt it. 
 
 When I saw him, I knew, and a great peace came 
 with the knowledge; I felt intuitively that my quest 
 was over. There is no need to tell you in detail ; 
 only, for several years, I saw much of him and heard 
 often from him. I learned to look upon his thoughts 
 as my thoughts, his ways as my ways. In what I 
 learned from others of his way of life, I knew that he 
 was true, pure, upright, with a largeness of heart and 
 an humility of soul that found its best expression in 
 walking side by side with the outcast, the forlorn, the 
 sinned-against of God s earth. 
 
 Unknown to him I had opportunities, and made 
 them, to acquaint myself with his work. It is far- 
 reaching. I know of lives, some enriched, some de-
 
 2O2 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 veloped, some rescued, some protected, some turned 
 God-wards through him; and, at last, the purposes 
 of God through Christ stood revealed to me through 
 this man His image. 
 
 Woman-like I worshipped His creature how 
 could I help it? I had waited so long; not willing 
 to accept any lesser thing; and I don t know why 
 I suppose it sounds conceited, egotistical, but, indeed, 
 it is not meant so but because I loved him with all 
 my heart, I thought that he, being free, must love me, 
 and so. 
 
 But, Hugh, I was mistaken. I waited, and waited; 
 he never called me " friend," but we drew close, so 
 close in purpose, in sympathy, in thought and our 
 life-lines, too, ran parallel. (My aunt saw, and almost 
 openly rejoiced.) But the word, for which I was wait 
 ing, longing, yes, praying, Hugh, never was spoken. 
 
 At first I was amazed, then indignant, then humil 
 iated when the letters grew infrequent, and he was 
 off and away across the ocean with only a few words 
 to make known his change of plans. Hugh, I have 
 been " very vilely proud," and that my love, my first, 
 true, deep woman s love should be unrecognized, un 
 sought where I feared I had shown it all too plainly, 
 I felt to be an insulting humiliation. Even my family 
 had speculated upon it and such speculations are 
 a sensitive woman s worst defeats. 
 
 Once, and once only, during the years I knew 
 him, I had let my heart leap to my eyes when I bade 
 him good-by, and I knew he must know, must under 
 stand, must see through that one look the very soul 
 of me. And I I saw a response that I trusted ; but, 
 as it appears, in vain. 
 
 Shortly after his return, before I had opportunity
 
 Warp and Woof 203 
 
 to see him, I determined to run no more heart-risks, 
 but burn my bridges behind me and set a limit, if I 
 could, to the suffering of soul-humiliation, by putting 
 the ocean between us. But I was n t only cowardly, 
 I was n t good, Hugh. With the knowledge that I had 
 given my love, as it appeared, unsought, came a feel 
 ing of vengefulness, of " don t care," of laisser-aller, 
 and I did just as many another woman has done ; " If 
 I can t have what I want, I 11 amuse myself with what 
 I don t want," was my thought, and my life followed 
 suit. Oh, Hugh ! the awful humiliation of all this ! 
 It was worse than the first. I know of many mar 
 riages, fairly happy ones, both for men and 
 women, that have been founded on the rebound of a 
 disappointed love; but I knew myself well enough 
 not to take that step ; for, with me, there can be no 
 such thing as a " fairly happy marriage." But I erred 
 sinned, if you will, in my heart, and suffered in 
 consequence. 
 
 This is my " thorn " ; and now you know why I 
 had so strong a fellow-feeling with Trudel. 
 
 But before T went I met you, and a strange moun 
 tain-peace, an influence for good, seemed all about 
 me and around me that day. I was glad to know 
 you ; and because through my own heart-suffering I 
 had come again into an attitude of child-like trust in 
 the Father, because I saw how best I could serve Him 
 by serving others of His children who are less fortu 
 nate than I, who have suffered more, indeed, been 
 deprived of Life s best ; because I felt that you, too, 
 wished it, I entered into this friendship, this com 
 panionship, which has been so much to me during 
 these two years of finding myself through losing 
 myself in others.
 
 2C>4 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 There, dear Hugh, you have it all. If, after this 
 confession, you can still love me, just keep on telling 
 me so ; it won t harm either of us not tJiis love ; 
 for, Hugh, I am older than you, and because older a 
 little wiser in the ways of love, for the reason that I 
 have loved as a true woman loves but once. There 
 are other ways, I know ; and this of my loving you is 
 one of them. 
 
 Sometime you will see for yourself just what I 
 mean ; till then, I am going to ask a favor of you. 
 Will you, in the future, destroy, after reading, the 
 notes I shall send you? You say you have kept all 
 my letters of the last two years to read and re-read 
 but, please, not the others I shall send you. The 
 time will come when I can tell you the reason ; till 
 then trust me, will you? 
 
 We make our way northward to the lakes, and 
 again to Venice for the white roses over the wall of 
 the Corte Scarlotti ; then across the Adriatic and the 
 Semmering Pass to Vienna and Gastein, where we 
 meet Dick and some friends. From Gastein back for 
 a day or two to our beloved Joyous Alp and Trudel s 
 wedding, when the goats and the cow are to be hers 
 " her heirs and assigns forever." Dick goes with us, 
 for he is as interested in that romance as you are. 
 
 Have you heard from our friend, Franz Waldort, 
 since he left for South America? My dear love to 
 Twiddle, and for yourself I think you know all 
 there is for yourself after this. M. C. 
 
 MOLLENDO, COAST OF PERU, May, 189-. 
 
 Now look at that, Armstrong ! When I got to the 
 coast last October, I left a box and some letters to go 
 by the next steamer and the Overland to you. I
 
 Warp and Woof 205 
 
 wanted Twiddle to get the South American trifles by 
 Christmas without fail ; and now, after seven months 
 in the clouds and a recent drop of fifteen thousand 
 feet from the quicksilver mines of Hauncavalica into 
 this miasmatic hole, I find the letters and the box safe 
 in the ship agent s office they were forwarded from 
 Callao waiting for some one connected with the 
 government to " viser " them. 
 
 I can assure you, Armstrong, there has been an 
 irruption of the natural volcanic order that has sur 
 prised some of the numerous asinine officials - 
 they d fumigated those letters, too ! But what can 
 one do? The laisser-aller of this people is as stu 
 pendous as their country, and that, Armstrong, is 
 incomparable. 
 
 I count myself fortunate in having received an 
 extension of leave in order to give me time to do 
 some tall-game stalking in the Andes. 
 
 Tell Twiddie, with warm thanks for her charming 
 letters which I found awaiting me, that she may 
 imagine me henceforth shooting butterflies as large 
 as dessert plates with a shotgun loaded with mustard 
 seed, stampeding electric eels in the back waters of 
 the Orinoco, or peaceably milking cow-trees, peeling 
 Peruvian bark, or smoking rubber in the Amazon 
 regions. 
 
 Thanks for your letters. I was anticipating them. 
 They keep me in touch with the normal conditions 
 of Life-as-it-should-be-lived. 
 
 I can t say where I shall come up next to breathe, 
 but probably on the Brazilian coast near the Amazon ; 
 I want to travel in Humboldt s footsteps for a while. 
 
 Is n t it rather remarkable that a girl of Twiddle s 
 age should interest herself to the extent you say she
 
 206 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 does in making a collection of the rocks and minerals 
 of your region ? Is n t that due to your teaching 
 rather than to my books? I am afraid, though, I 
 want to think the latter. What a way girls and 
 women have of interweaving a man s interests in 
 their sheltered lives ! The sex continues a wonder 
 to me. 
 
 I m satisfied with the amount of work accom 
 plished. As you know, I Ve been working off steam, 
 and the results are rather surprising, even to me. 
 
 Do you know, I still have an ideal? Don t laugh; 
 I want, sometime, to go to you on your Mountain 
 for five months under a flag of truce with Life, and 
 busy myself in the wholesome serenity of that atmos 
 phere, domestic and otherwise, with my two prospec 
 tive books. I Ve a curious unreasoning feeling that 
 Life has n t played my Ace of Hearts yet i God bless 
 you, Armstrong ; I know the worth of this, friendship 
 of yours. My love to Twiddie. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 FRANZ WALDORT.
 
 V 
 
 THE LOVE OF MAN
 
 THE LOVE OF MAN 
 
 I SHALL try to set it down as it all has happened 
 since that day in midsummer when I finished 
 reading the record of those two years of travel, 
 my journeyman years that have enriched my life be 
 yond telling. Happened, did I say? "As it was 
 ordained " from the beginning, would be better. 
 
 Twiddie had been down the Pent Road towards 
 Gilead to get me some blue-flag in the swamp by the 
 two black ash trees. I was putting the letters back 
 into the box where I keep them, when I heard her 
 "hoo-hoo." 
 
 " Ship ahoy ! " I shouted without looking up, for I 
 wanted to get the letters out of sight before she came 
 into the Pen. I had noticed several times that she 
 seemed irritated, almost resentful, if she found me 
 re-reading them. 
 
 " Look, Hugh ! " 
 
 I had kept my head down purposely ; I like to 
 make her come sometimes more than half way. 
 Then I looked up suddenly, full in her face. She 
 was leaning against the post at the corner of the Pen. 
 The rapid walk up the hill had quickened her breath 
 and deepened the rich color in her cheeks. Her 
 beauty startled me. In truth, I have caught myself 
 
 14
 
 21 o The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 marvelling during the last year at its ever-varying 
 charm. She has a new face for a new day, and the 
 artistic element in me is sufficiently selfish to rejoice 
 in the pleasure it affords my eyes. 
 
 But as I saw her so, standing at the entrance of the 
 Pen, beneath the vine that moved softly above her in 
 the light breeze, her hands clasping the long, angled, 
 dark-green stalks of the iris, the superb blue of its 
 petals touching the damask of her cheek and match 
 ing the eyes that looked down at me from under the 
 shade of the broad Leghorn hat that Madeline Cope 
 had sent her, I found myself wishing there were others 
 there to see, or that the girl s beauty might have its 
 chance, and not be wasted for me here on this Moun 
 tain ; I did n t feel it to be right. 
 
 Suddenly she laughed merrily : a fresh, sweet sound, 
 as when a bell-wether shakes his head in exuberant 
 life. She laid the bunch of iris on the bench. 
 
 " I shall be careful how I ask you to look again, 
 Hugh, if you keep on looking that way much longer! 
 What s the matter with my face, anyway? Pollen on 
 my nose? " 
 
 She looked cross-eyed with a frown down the ridge 
 of that little straight member, and, raising her gingham 
 skirt, gave it a thorough polishing. 
 
 " There now ! It s nothing but a freckle ; I m 
 bound to have them, Leghorns or no Leghorns. 
 See?" 
 
 She knelt by the cot and held her face up for 
 inspection. The texture of the skin was so fine that 
 I marvelled the more upon nearer view. But there 
 was a freckle, sure enough, on the tip of her nose.
 
 The Love of Man 211 
 
 " A beauty-spot," I said, smiling down into the 
 upturned face, and fanning it with the Leghorn hat 
 which she had thrown aside. " Was it hot down 
 there in the swamp?" 
 
 " Hot ! No name for it. I oozed in and I oozed 
 out; I had to wade, Hugh." 
 
 " Wade ? Do you mean you had actually to take 
 off your shoes and stockings?" 
 
 " Yes, I did and if I let those flowers lie there 
 another minute, I shall have had my pains for noth 
 ing. Whew ! " She seized the hat from my hand 
 and began to fan herself vigorously. Suddenly she 
 flew up. 
 
 " I must get that big stone jar down cellar that 
 Aunt Lize keeps the boiled cider in winters; that is 
 just deep enough for those stems." 
 
 I heard her about the house, filling, it seemed to 
 me, all the rooms at once ; for I heard her first on 
 the cellar stairs then at the water-butt then in 
 the pantry; at last, she was off through the wood 
 shed, then silence. 
 
 I knew her ways so well ! She would be off to the 
 hives to see if the bees were thinking of swarming ; 
 then away to the Old Pasture bars to pat the Jersey 
 yearlings on their velvety black nozzles ; mayhap, 
 she might gather a bowl of raspberries for supper 
 before she came back What was she doing? She 
 was back again so soon, and I heard the tinkle of 
 ice she had been to the ice-house ! 
 
 " Oh, Twiddie," I cried, " you re a gem of a girl ! 
 How did you happen to think of raspberry-shrub ? " 
 
 " Simply because I m melting now, no nonsense,
 
 212 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 Hugh, or you 11 get none ! " She lifted the tray, with 
 its huge, old-fashioned goblets filled with the rich 
 red juice, high on her hands above her head, beyond 
 reach of my long arms, and all the curving grace of 
 her young figure was thrown into relief against the 
 darkened doorway of my room where she stood. 
 
 " Give, give, I cry you mercy," I pleaded. But 
 she was obdurate, shaking the tray till the ice tinkled 
 deliciously, thirst-tormentingly against the glasses. 
 
 " Now wait, Hugh ; there s no hurry. Here, I 11 
 set it down on the bench under your very nose, and 
 you can tinkle the ice to pass the time till I come 
 back " 
 
 " Torments of Tantalus ! " I groaned. 
 
 " I 11 be back soon," she said appeasingly, relent 
 ing a little, " but not a taste till I come, promise." 
 
 " One swallow, Twiddie just one " 
 
 " Not one, at your peril." 
 
 "A sup " 
 
 " It 11 be your last ! " 
 
 "Just a drop, then, for love of me hold on, 
 Twiddie " I caught her skirt and held her as she 
 was about to flee. 
 
 " For love of you ! " she repeated with mock earn 
 estness. " Oh, that s quite another matter ; here, 
 open your lips. One drop " 
 
 She dipped her finger, and holding it above me, let 
 one drop slowly gather at the tip and fall upon my 
 tongue ; then she was off, and in another two 
 minutes was back again from the barn with two fine, 
 large straws. Our equipment was complete, and 
 we " oh ed " and " ah ed " like two children, while
 
 The Love of Man 
 
 213 
 
 we drew tip the cooling drink through the yellow 
 tubes. 
 
 " Goodness, Hugh ! we have n t half enough. I 11 
 run up into the pasture and pick some fresh berries 
 to make some more for Aunt Lize and Uncle Shim 
 
 it s most time for them to be here. Won t Aunt 
 Lize be primed with all the news of Scawsville ? " 
 
 " Here, take your hat, Twiddie ; remember the 
 beauty-spots." But she laid it on the bench. 
 
 " This will do just as well." She laughed as she 
 broke a piece off the grape-vine and tied it, kerchief 
 fashion, over her hair and under her chin. 
 
 "Raspberry stains won t hurt this I won t be 
 gone fifteen minutes ; they re as thick as spatter." 
 She reached for a strong-handled, flat basket that 
 hung on a peg in the post, laid it with leaves, and 
 started up the hill. 
 
 The minutes passed without note of time on my 
 part, for across the Valley of the White Branch, the 
 mountains loomed blue and high in the soft haze, and, 
 in my imaginative vision, they were metamorphosed 
 into Alps and Apennines, Grampians and Cordilleras 
 
 mountain homes of a foreign life, but human in its 
 every appeal to me. Suddenly I was aware of foot 
 steps not Twiddle s and voices neither Aunt 
 Lize s nor Uncle Shim s at the turn of the house, 
 and behold ! Philip Vanever, with Dick Malory, 
 whom I had not seen for three years ; not since his 
 three days fishing with Twiddie. 
 
 " Oh, I say ! " I shouted in my joy at seeing them, 
 and, having no cap of my own to toss up, threw up 
 Twiddle s great Leghorn flap, which the breeze caught
 
 214 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 and landed at Dick Malory s feet. He picked it up 
 and came in with it. Then we all talked together, 
 hand grasping hand, and the fellowship of the Pen 
 wrought upon us all to the forgetting of Twiddle 
 at least, on my part. 
 
 "Where is Twiddie?" said Vanever at last, point 
 ing to the empty glasses with the straws still in them. 
 " Is that her work? " 
 
 " Yes ; Twiddie is the same hospitable little soul 
 what a surprise this will be for her ! She is off in the 
 Old Pasture after more raspberries ; it s time for her 
 to be back there she is now! " 
 
 We heard her singing as she came down the Pent 
 Road behind the house, at the very top of her voice 
 too ; a curious, hodge-podge of a catch she learned 
 phonetically years ago, when she first came to us, 
 from an old Canuck who used to chop wood for 
 Uncle Shim. When she is in her gayest spirits, she 
 is pretty certain to sing it. We listened. 
 
 " Roky tummy me Ik, Ik, /d, 
 Came put a dee de la, de Id,, 
 De lil ol chou, 
 
 De mikum, makum, lemma nata jou; 
 Szumme lumme me la, lemma nata jou. " 
 
 How the clear voice rang out, beginning again : 
 " Roky tummy me Ik, Ik, la " 
 
 Round the corner she came full tilt, then stopped 
 short, voice and all breath, too, for a moment. 
 
 I looked at her once, and took it all in ; would 
 have looked again had not the faces of the two men
 
 The Love of Man 2 1 5 
 
 before me as they caught sight of her claimed my 
 whole attention. I never saw such a contrast. 
 
 I recall distinctly her gown of dark blue and white 
 gingham, simple enough but enhancing the fairness 
 of her skin. Her face was still flushed from exercise ; 
 the bronze brown hair, disordered among the rasp 
 berry bushes, caught the level rays of the sun and 
 showed golden on the roughened curves of the thick 
 waves ; the wilted leaves of the vine framed the entire 
 face, and the stem was knotted beneath the firm, deli 
 cate oval of her chin. In one hand she held the flat 
 basket filled with the luscious red of the fruit; in the 
 other she was dragging a branch of maple with a 
 curious fungus growth upon it. 
 
 I saw something leap into Dick Malory s face, the 
 like of which I had never seen before in any man s 
 it transfigured him ; and, suddenly, I, too, saw. But 
 over Vanever s face there crept a slow, ash-gray wave, 
 I can t explain it otherwise ; and I noticed that his 
 hand shook as he lifted it slowly and closed it a 
 minute upon his eyes, as one does to clear a blurred 
 vision. 
 
 Twiddie, leaning into the Pen, set down her basket 
 on the bench, and held out both hands, one to each, 
 with a joyful welcome in her eyes but tongue-tied, 
 like the others. I came to the rescue. 
 
 "A surprise-party for you, Mistress Theodora; 
 what can your hospitality offer for supper, for Dick 
 says they saw Aunt Lize and Uncle Shim as they 
 came through Scawsville, and Aunt Lize sent word 
 she would not be at home before dark." 
 
 "Just hear him, Mr. Malory ! " she exclaimed joy-
 
 2i 6 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 ously, and pouncing upon me, as is her way when she 
 is a bit excited, with an energetic manner of her own 
 that is captivating. She put her ringer under my 
 chin and lifted my face. 
 
 " Honor bright, now, Hugh; do you, or I, keep the 
 spindle-side of this house?" 
 
 " Neither of us ; Aunt Lize seems to be the special 
 spoke in this domestic routine." 
 
 " Aunt Lize ! " There was scorn in her voice. 
 " You 11 see how big a spoke she is but what is 
 the use of arguing about what I can do? The 
 supper s the thing; that s my strong point in the 
 argument, isn t it, Mr. Vanever?" 
 
 " We 11 wait till we see," he answered, willing to 
 tease her. She turned with a pout to Dick Malory. 
 
 "You 11 help me, won t you? for we have fished 
 together." 
 
 There was a kindling light in Malory s eyes that 
 was dangerous, and I was sure he welcomed the 
 diversion. 
 
 " All I ask is that you will let me help you till we 
 can confound these unbelieving scoffers ; they ought 
 to starve in penance. Tell me, can you make as 
 good buckwheat flapjacks as you used three years 
 ago?" 
 
 "Better you ll see to-morrow; I ll make some 
 for breakfast. Come and help me with the table ; we 
 will set it here next the Pen, then we sha n t have to 
 disturb Hugh s work-bench." 
 
 He sprang to aid her, and I saw the slight embar 
 rassment of their meeting had worn off. They were 
 again the good comrades of three years ago. It was
 
 The Love of Man 2 1 7 
 
 pleasant to hear her joyous laugh and merry jest and 
 Dick answering it with quick repartee, as they brought 
 out the table, dishes, and chairs. I heard her sending 
 him to the spring for a pail of water. It did me good 
 to hear her order him about, and I knew it did him 
 good. I nodded to Vanever. 
 
 "That s what she has needed young life to 
 brighten hers." 
 
 He looked at me gravely ; his face had regained its 
 normal color. " Dick is not much your junior, Hugh 
 only a year." 
 
 " I know; but I m a century older in experience." 
 
 " True," he said abstractedly. I knew my friend 
 so let him alone. Dick came back with the water, 
 and Twiddie was hither and thither and yon, intent 
 upon her preparations, for she is a hospitable genius. 
 When we drew up to the table Philip had moved 
 my cot close to the side of the Pen, and the table was 
 on the grass just outside I saw that Twiddie had 
 done herself proud, and my house would not lack 
 hospitable abundance through any shortcoming of 
 hers. 
 
 She looked adorable, as she sat there at the head 
 of the table, an unsuspected brush of flour on the 
 side of her nose, her cheeks crimson with the quick 
 baking of her flaky biscuits, her fingers stained rose- 
 rcd with picking over the raspberries. A huge bib- 
 apron enveloped her, but it could not hide a certain 
 joyous grace in every movement. I was proud of 
 her, and the supper as well. She had given us 
 dozens of her tiny biscuit she knows I can eat twice 
 six and scarcely wink a rasher of Uncle Shim s
 
 2i 8 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 good bacon, with an omelette that melted on the 
 tongue, and for top-off, the raspberries and Jersey 
 cream, clear honey in the comb and some fresh 
 sponge-cakes Aunt Lize had baked before she started 
 for Scawsville. Our guests did justice to it all. 
 
 And when the inner man was satisfied, the outer 
 took on a show of contentment, as is the way with 
 men at such times, and Dick Malory said, pushing 
 back his chair to look at the sunset reflection on 
 Killington and Pico : 
 
 " I wish Madeline were here ! She and I have 
 spoken of this so often as an ideal to be realized 
 some day." 
 
 "Your cousin is not in America, then?" I tried 
 to speak naturally, but I felt a sudden let-down in 
 spirits, for I had been hoping against hope that she 
 had returned with him. 
 
 " No, she had made arrangements with friends to 
 sail in September. I had engaged passage for us all, 
 but was called home suddenly. My father needed 
 help in some business matters, and my mother felt 
 that the two years away from her one child had been 
 twenty. I was glad to come ; Madeline looked 
 dismal enough when she bade me good-by; I know 
 she wanted to come. She sent all manner of loving 
 greetings to Olympus." Suddenly he laughed, his 
 hearty, good-fellowship laugh. 
 
 " Madeline told me to be sure and tell you about 
 Trudel s wedding I went up there for it." Just 
 then Twiddie sprang up, for she heard Prince with 
 the light farm-wagon coming down the Pent Road. 
 
 " Oh, do wait till I put on some more supper for
 
 The Love of Man 219 
 
 Aunt Lize and Uncle Shim, and get the dishes done 
 up then we can hear all about it. I don t want to 
 miss a word." 
 
 " No more you shall, Twiddle," I assured her. 
 "Just bring the tobacco-box and pipes before you 
 go in." 
 
 Malory gave me a queer look. He sprang up. 
 "Let me get it for you, Miss Twiddie; you have 
 enough to do." 
 
 Perhaps he thought I did n t take, but I did ; 
 Twiddie showed herself a regular little brick in her 
 answer: "Oh, no, indeed; I always fill and light 
 Hugh s pipe for him that is, hold the taper, you 
 know." 
 
 " Now put that in your pipe and smoke it ! " I 
 thought, and, somehow, I began to feel as if, after 
 all, because of the incomprehensible feeling of bel 
 ligerent youth I suddenly experienced, there might 
 not be a century s seniority on my part. But aloud 
 I said : 
 
 " Twiddle s pipes have a knack of keeping lighted 
 when they are neglected for a half hour s sober 
 reflection." 
 
 " In that case, is your Cousin Hugh the only one 
 to be favored with such a self-renewing flame, Miss 
 Twiddie?" asked Malory, frankly enough, I must 
 confess; and Twiddie answered just as frankly: 
 
 " No, indeed. I light Uncle Shim s, and Tough- 
 heel s too 
 
 We all laughed, and Malory said with mock plead 
 ing in his voice : 
 
 "Then won t you add my pipe to the list? "
 
 220 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 " Why, of course I will wait till I get the box, 
 and I 11 light them all." 
 
 Sure enough, when Aunt Lize and Uncle Shim had 
 finished their supper, the table had been cleared and 
 set away, and they had all gathered in and around 
 the Pen, for the night was warm, Twjddie lighted 
 the four pipes, " In the order of primogeniture," Dick 
 said. At any rate, she lighted his last. Then, when 
 the smoke curled upward from the Pen, our talk 
 ranged from Olympus to Rome, from Scawsville to 
 the Frohe Alp, and just before we separated for the 
 night, Malory told us of Trudel s wedding. 
 
 I noticed Twiddle listened as if fascinated. She 
 was within the Pen, near me, on a low stool of her 
 own. In her absorption she had leaned forward with 
 both elbows on the railing, her chin in her palms. 
 It was late, about eleven ; the moon was rising to the 
 east of Killington, and its level, white light touched 
 the girl s face into a Madonna-like beauty. I saw 
 that Dick was telling it all to her telling it well 
 too. At times I heard Aunt Lize sniff; at others, 
 Uncle Shim chuckle softly to himself, particularly 
 when Malory described the wedding-procession, and 
 the advance guard of the musicians, followed by the 
 six goats washed and scrubbed within an ace of losing 
 their hair; how they nipped along with wreaths of 
 wild Alpine flowers about their horns, followed by 
 the cow, likewise adorned with one around her neck, 
 two bells on a leather collar at her throat, and long 
 strands of red yarn braided into her tail. And all so 
 decorous ! 
 
 But when he told of the simple service in the
 
 The Love of Man 221 
 
 village church, of the robed priest, the village choir, 
 the chamois-hunter in the roll-chair that Madeline 
 had provided ; of Trudel in her gay skirt, her em 
 broidered blue bodice and the silver chain another 
 of Madeline s gifts and how she knelt by the roll- 
 chair to pray, and Hansl laid his hands upon her 
 bowed head, I heard a sob beside me, and Twiddie 
 rose with a sudden, impetuous movement and flung 
 herself forward across the threshold of my door. We 
 did not see her again that night. 
 
 Those next two days passed all too quickly for 
 Malory ; I saw that plainly. But I was n t sorry to 
 have him go ; for I felt that Philip would not be quite 
 himself until he should be alone with me. We had 
 seen so much of each other from time to time during 
 the last two years, he had been so much to me, that I 
 had learned to know his ways. Since this last coming 
 of his I knew there was something weighing upon his 
 mind. I call myself his "silent" business partner; 
 for he is a man of large affairs, carrying out his 
 father s schemes, which, towards the last of his life, 
 assumed colossal business proportions. So it has 
 come about that he has run up for a day or two to 
 get, as he terms it, a true perspective through my 
 eyes. My eyes, that have n t seen a railroad for 
 years I It amuses me, but I indulge him in his fancy 
 that he is getting help from me. I see he thinks he 
 is, and therein lies all of help there is. So we lay 
 out new railroads, make combinations of others, 
 discuss syndicates, brotherhoods, travelling libraries, 
 employes disabilities insurance anything, every-
 
 222 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 thing, along the trend of our Country s progress; 
 and at all times, through him, I touch world interests, 
 and am in the thick of the battle, where I love to be. 
 He says he goes away rested and enlightened ! I 
 tell him he leaves me stimulated and refreshed ; so 
 it s an even exchange. 
 
 I saw he felt more at ease the very evening Dick 
 left. We were smoking in the Pen late at ni^ht. All 
 the rest were abed, and the silence had lasted fully 
 half an hour before he spoke. 
 
 " Hugh, I suppose you ve had your eyes opened 
 as to Dick s coming up here?" 
 
 " Yes, but I had n t thought of it before she s 
 so young." 
 
 " How old is she now? " 
 
 " Seventeen ; eighteen next January." 
 
 " What would you think of it? " 
 
 " Think of what? You mean marriage for those 
 two?" 
 
 " Yes ; eventually that is what it will come to, if 
 things go on as they have begun." 
 
 " But, Philip " I hesitated without knowing why. 
 I suppose I was feeling my way, for it had come upon 
 me suddenly after all. "He s an only son, isn t 
 he?" 
 
 "What if he is?" The question sounded sharp, 
 unlike him. 
 
 " I know what if he is is all right in theory, but 
 when you come to put it into practice, there are a 
 good many things you will have to reckon with 
 
 " For instance? " I felt he was pressing me, and 
 my impulse was to resent it. I pulled away at
 
 The Love of Man 223 
 
 my pipe for five minutes; that always helps; then 
 I said : 
 
 " I ve never spoken of it before, but I take it for 
 granted you know of her parentage? " 
 
 " Well? " The laconic inquiry irritated me. 
 
 " Well," I repeated, " it s just here ; no one knows 
 who her father was, or is, and the girl is handicapped 
 when it comes to men of Malory s class " 
 
 He interrupted me with a scornful: "Humph! 
 Was it the girl s fault? And what is this talk about 
 class ? Seems to me you are hedging a bit with 
 your principles as set forth these last three years in 
 the Pen." 
 
 Franz Waldort s wise words flashed into remem 
 brance, and helped me to keep my temper, for I saw 
 he was in an unusual mood, and that something was 
 stirring in the dregs of his life. I spoke out as man 
 to man. 
 
 "Philip, if you ve got anything to say say it; 
 but don t keep me treading water this way any longer. 
 Let me touch bottom just once, and perhaps I can 
 answer you. Now, go ahead." 
 
 In reply, his hand felt for mine and gripped it hard ; 
 then we both pulled away in silence for ten minutes and 
 got calmed down. When he next spoke, I thought 
 he had switched us both off the track. 
 
 " Have you finished that last batch of Balzac I sent 
 you?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then you Ve read The Village Priest ? " 
 
 " Yes, and re-read. It has been a spiritual eye- 
 opener for me. That woman s case moved me pro-
 
 224 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 foundly; in fact, it was like looking at Twiddle s 
 through the other end of the glass." 
 
 " How? I don t quite follow you." 
 
 " Why, that boy, her child, had reaped the benefit 
 of a long repentance ; and it was a woman who fought 
 that awful spiritual battle in the thick of the world. But 
 that man who begot Twiddie, left a girl, innocent of 
 any wrong, who was to grow to womanhood and be 
 obliged to fight her own battle without knowing 
 where her enemy lay in ambush. It rouses me so 
 when I see her, when I think of it, that I curse him 
 for a poltroon ; the gallows are too good for such. 
 Don t you say so? " 
 
 " Yes, they are too good." I could scarcely catch 
 the words, but I heard him groan, and, straining my 
 eyes in the light of the waning moon, that was partly 
 obscured by clouds, I saw him drop his head into his 
 hands. His pipe fell to the floor, and, mechanically, 
 he put his foot on the "fire and stamped it out. Then 
 he spoke : 
 
 " That book will always remain a marvel ; the ex 
 pression of a profound insight into the sinning as well 
 as the redeeming soul. You recall the attitude of the 
 woman to her confessor, don t you?" 
 
 " Yes ; and in reading that scene, I think I under 
 stood for the first time the hold of the Roman Church 
 upon all classes of its communicants. It has met in 
 the provision of the confessional a great, unmet 
 human need, perhaps the greatest the necessity 
 that a human being finds, once at least in his life, of 
 disburdening his sin-laden soul upon another. All 
 men can t find Christ in Humanity as you and I do,
 
 The Love of Man 225 
 
 Philip, but in the Human they may find Christ-like 
 consolation, and, after all, it may be only a con 
 fusion of terms." 
 
 " You are anticipating my words, Hugh. I, too, 
 have felt the need of confession, and now I have come 
 to you as to my spiritual Camaldoli a sanctuary in 
 truth He interrupted himself: " Do you feel too 
 much of the night air, Hugh? I ll move you in if 
 you do." 
 
 " Oh, no," I said, wondering what was the length of 
 his tether, and when he would come to the end of it, 
 " I often sleep out here in midsummer." 
 
 He went on : " You recall that woman s hair-shirt, 
 and the r61e it played in her life and the lives of 
 others ? " 
 
 " Indeed, I do ; it was a mortification of the flesh, 
 symbolic of the mortification of the soul ; a veritable 
 scourge to her, but a clothing of hundreds of others 
 in the vestments of a charitable love and material 
 well-being." 
 
 " Hugh, / wear the hair-shirt of philanthropy" I 
 heard him draw a long breath : " Thank God, I have 
 spoken at last ! I am going to tell you all, even if 
 thereby I lose your friendship "I interrupted him : 
 
 " Let me say right here, Philip, that nothing, 
 nothing do you understand ? can lessen my friend 
 ship for you. Tell me all, without reserve, if you 
 can." 
 
 " I know by that note you Ve struck you are young 
 yet, Hugh ; but don t say what you 11 do or what you 
 won t do ; you may swallow your own words yet, for 
 there is a woman in the case, and I should be a hypo-
 
 226 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 crite to allow you to continue to idealize me as you 
 have the last three years." 
 
 I turned sick as I took in the sense of what he was 
 saying; I remember looking at the sickly, waning 
 moon, and thinking it looked as I felt so suddenly 
 old, decrepit in spirit. He went on calmly enough to 
 the finish. 
 
 "You know something of my father s ambition 
 through the work as I am carrying it on, Hugh, but 
 of his unbounded ambition for me, you could have no 
 idea no matter what I might tell you. To understand 
 that would necessitate your having known him as I 
 knew him for twenty-nine years. During my second 
 year in college I went to Harvard, following the 
 tradition of five generations our relation as father 
 and son very nearly suffered shipwreck. I was not 
 eighteen when I entered. Perhaps I was as poorly 
 equipped for the hand to hand scrimmage with college 
 life and its manifold temptations as a youth could be, 
 for I had known little of the influence of women. 
 
 " My mother died when I was born, and, after the 
 usual nursery governesses and tutors, I spent two 
 thirds of my boy s life in one of the great preparatory 
 schools. Then I was pitched in with two or three 
 thousand men to find my bearings as best I could, 
 and take my one three-thousandth chance of com 
 ing out all right in the end. 
 
 " But just because I had not known the influence of 
 women in my home and my life, I idealized them to 
 such an extent that I failed to discern the clay feet of 
 the image. I have knocked a man down for speaking
 
 The Love of Man 227 
 
 an ill word of a notorious actress in my presence, and 
 thrashed a junior for swearing at the laundress who 
 did up shirts for both of us. I constituted myself the 
 special patron of the hall scrub-women, and at the 
 same time offered my incense in the form of flowers 
 and bonbons at the shrine of every pretty girl at the 
 Harvard Assemblies. 
 
 " In my sophomore year, while I was at home for my 
 usual Christmas vacation, I went into one of the large 
 shops that sell a little of everything to buy some trifle 
 for an old servant of ours. It was a bitter day, and 
 a keen wind from the north was drawing down the 
 Hudson. As I passed in with the crowd and an 
 Arctic draught, I saw a girl at a near-by counter, 
 which was unprotected by a screen, huddle her shiv 
 ering shoulders, and heard her say to the girl next 
 her: I m frozen stiff; I d get out of this if I could, 
 you bet. 
 
 " I saw her face, pretty, delicate and weak, only 
 I was n t old enough to know that. It was blue 
 and pinched with cold, and her small, shapely hands 
 were half numb as she made up a parcel of articles I 
 ordered immediately of her. I can t account for the 
 suddenness of its coming, but then and there I re 
 volted in spirit against all law, order, society ; all so- 
 called convention, pre-established principles of trade, 
 and against a deadly commercialism that could show 
 such a resultant of its forces. 
 
 " There was no obstacle. Within the two weeks 
 of my vacation I had her away from there clothed 
 and fed to her satisfaction, after a regimen of no 
 flannels, a continual draught of icy air, and starvation
 
 228 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 diet on a salary of five dollars a week. When I went 
 back to college, I established her in Boston in a small 
 well-furnished apartment, and for a few months I was 
 flattered and fooled to the top of my bent and 
 thought I was happy ! Then the unexpected hap 
 pened and I promised to marry her to legitimatize 
 the child. 
 
 " That plunge Into cold water realities brought me 
 to ; but by that time my father had in some way 
 obtained an inkling of the affair and came on unan 
 nounced to see me. There was a scene I don t 
 like to recall it ; but he vowed that so long as I was 
 a minor he would move all the machinery of the law 
 to prevent my disgracing his name by marrying a 
 good-for-naught so he termed her. I swore I would 
 keep my word, that my honor was more to me than 
 my name. You should have heard him laugh me to 
 scorn, Hugh. Honor ! he cried; you fledgling 
 fool ! You don t know the meaning of the word yet ! 
 and proceeded to try to break me on the wheel of his 
 wrath, his pity for my foolishness, his scorn of my 
 weakness. 
 
 " I could n t see why I had been born, when I flung 
 away from him at twelve o clock that night, and, cross 
 ing the bridge over the Charles, walked aimlessly till 
 that June dawn. 
 
 " When I went next day to see her, she was gone, 
 bag and baggage nor to this day have I ever found 
 a trace of her. I put detectives at work ; but whether 
 they were bribed by my father, or whether they 
 worked indifferently, I can t say; all is, she was 
 never found. I accused my father of all things under
 
 The Love of Man 229 
 
 heaven and on earth in regard to it, but he preserved 
 absolute silence and let my impotent rage wear itself 
 out. She told me she had no relations, and, as 
 matter of fact, no letters came to her during the five 
 months I knew her. She gave me her name, but I 
 have always believed it to have been a fictitious one. 
 No answers to the advertisements were received. 
 
 " But, Hugh, when I knew she was gone when I 
 stood in the empty apartment, the key in my hand, 
 and realized the bond had been but a rope of sand, 
 I drew the first free breath for months, and felt as if 
 a nether millstone had slipped from my neck. 
 
 " I went to Europe that season, for I had refused to 
 go home ; and when I came back I settled into the 
 work of my junior year determined to make amends 
 for wasted time. 
 
 " It was then I came under the influence of that 
 Preacher of preachers, whose life may still be read 
 written large in the lives of thousands of men who 
 were privileged to know him, to hear him, to follow 
 where he led. He shall drink of the brook in the 
 way, therefore shall he lift up his head ; that was 
 the key-note to my life that he struck. There are 
 no heights for me, Hugh ; those are for other men. 
 My work lies nearer the subsoil, at the source of 
 the springs that fill the little runs, the brook in the 
 way ; it is there I gather strength. 
 
 " I pleased my father in my last college years, and, 
 to please him further, I studied two years in Berlin 
 and took my Ph.D. degree; my work lay entirely 
 along economic and sociological lines. 
 
 " Now, what can I do for you, Phil? he said to
 
 230 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 me the morning after my return, as we sat in the 
 library trying to get acquainted with each other. I 
 was ready with my answer. 
 
 " Let me work shoulder to shoulder with you, 
 father, and further your interests, he nodded a 
 pleased, and, as I thought, surprised approval, 
 and, meanwhile, let me work out my own salvation 
 along my own lines 
 
 " And those are? He interrupted me sharply, 
 with the peculiar lift of his left eyebrow I knew so 
 well. 
 
 " I think I won t tell you yet, father, I said quietly 
 enough, but my heart was pounding like a trip-ham 
 mer, for I had always dreaded his indignation often, 
 I must confess, justified. I m twenty-four, my own. 
 master, and my mother s fortune at my disposal 
 No ! please don t say anything, father ; you may 
 trust me to make no unworthy use of it. 
 
 " See to it that you do not, was all he said ; but 
 I noticed his face went white. He had never men 
 tioned my mother to me but once, and that was at 
 the time I came into full possession of my inheritance. 
 I see him now, as he sat before the library fire in his 
 leather smoker, a large, heavy man, unbowed, for 
 he was only fifty-nine. Suddenly he bent forward and 
 took the tongs to pick up a brand from the hearth. 
 
 " Phil/ he said, and his voice sounded hoarse, I 
 want to live long enough to see you with a good wife 
 of your own, some woman worthy of you ; and to 
 hold a grandchild on my knee. Don t disappoint me 
 in this, will you? The question was only a veiled 
 demand; I knew that.
 
 The Love of Man 231 
 
 " Father, I replied, why bring this up why 
 keep it in evidence in our lives? You, and you only, 
 know how matters stand with me ; so long as I do 
 not know the fate of that other the fate of the child 
 that was to be my child I am bound. I feel that 
 I should have no moral right to belong to another. 
 There s no use saying anything more about it. 
 
 " Is n t, hey? he snorted. I could see the working 
 of his suppressed wrath ; but he kept himself well in 
 hand. 
 
 " Don t mistake me, father, I went on; I don t 
 love her 
 
 " Love her ! he thundered, I should think not. 
 My son, the son of his mother, love her God in 
 Heaven, Phil ! it makes me sick to think what you Ve 
 got to live through yet before your eyes are opened. 
 Love ! He breathed heavily. Listen to me, Phil, 
 I will speak once and heed what I say. I had my 
 fling like other men when I was young then I 
 loved, loved you can t understand it even in its 
 repetition I say, your mother. I would have waited 
 a lifetime for her I had only to wait ten years. She 
 was mine for two, then she left me. I have walked 
 alone for twenty-four years; and to-day, if I could 
 but see her shadow her shadow, mark you on the 
 wall there, I would give the rest of my life, my entire 
 fortune, yes, even you, and gladly, if I might em 
 brace it. Now you have heard what Love is. 
 
 " He sat back again in the chair, and his hands 
 hung limp, nerveless, over the arms. It was then I 
 saw for the first time the shadow of what was to 
 come he died of paralysis creep over his face
 
 232 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 and discolor his nails. I sprang to his side, and foi- 
 the first time, in the presence of such a soul-rending 
 revelation of a man s nature, my heart went out to 
 him as a son s to a father. I got hold of his hands 
 to chafe them. 
 
 " Promise me you will marry so, sometime, Phil. 
 His breathing was still labored. 
 
 " Father, father, I groaned, I cannot spare me ; 
 I dare not until Oh, if I had that mother, she would 
 know, would understand, would make you see. 
 
 " That 11 do, Phil, he said, but without withdraw 
 ing his hands; you need not bring your mother 
 into the matter; still I understand. I m not blaming 
 you. It is only the ever new, the ever old case of 
 Fathers and Sons the book is on my shelf there ; 
 
 I Ve needed a woman s hand on the helm all these 
 years ; I should have been a different man, and you 
 
 God help you ! no mother, no wife He broke 
 off there, told me to ring for the carriage and come 
 down to the office with him. 
 
 " After that I was with him constantly. He came 
 in time even to take note of my special work, and 
 I think in his heart he approved, although he never 
 mentioned it- That work can be laid before you in 
 a few words. I found wherever I went, into the 
 by-ways, as well as along the highways, many an un 
 fathered child, boy or girl. Of course I was looking 
 for them ; and with the thought of my own unfathered 
 child ever with me, I stood sponsor to such children, 
 that Life should not browbeat them, that the world s 
 cold water should not quench all their young enthu 
 siasms and aspirations.
 
 The Love of Man 233 
 
 " There are now over thirty who look to me for 
 fatherly advice, for help, for love. But they know 
 me only as their friend. They are scattered far and 
 wide, even as the sins of man sporadic. Coming 
 up on the stage, Uncle Jo Cheatle let fall a word in 
 his garrulous county gossip of Twiddle s birth ; that 
 is why I came up here the first time. But I found 
 her protected by such a bulwark of love that I knew 
 she had no need of me. On the contrary, I found I 
 had need of all on Olympus. Still, I have hoped 
 that, in time, I might be allowed to do something for 
 her; but I have never dared ask. Now that Dick 
 Malory must be reckoned with as an element in our 
 life here, perhaps the way is opened to me. However, 
 we 11 talk that over when I come up in November 
 You re cold, Hugh; I felt you shiver " He broke 
 off abruptly ; his hand had been on my cot. " I m 
 going to get you in at once." He struck a match to 
 look at his watch. 
 
 " A quarter of one ! " He exclaimed at his thought 
 lessness, and moved me in ; then he made up a good 
 fire, which soon warmed me through and through. 
 
 "How about the friendship now, Hugh?" He 
 was laying a stick on the fire, softly, not to awaken 
 the others, so I could not see his face, but his voice 
 spoke for him. 
 
 " Come here, Philip," I said. He came and sat 
 beside me on the cot, and, taking my right hand 
 between his, chafed it, gently, with almost a woman s 
 touch, for it was cold. It wasn t easy for me to 
 acknowledge my sin even in the face of his. 
 
 "Philip," I said, "there are sins and sins; I, too,
 
 234 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 have a confession. For nearly two years I cursed 
 my Maker day and night, and I could not die. I 
 not only cursed Him, but I cursed every living thing 
 that had the power of locomotion and man in His 
 image. Yet, out of the depths, even my cursings 
 were heard and interpreted as prayer; a man s hand 
 was sent to grasp mine even as it grasps mine 
 now. No, no, Philip first the beam out of our 
 own eyes 
 
 I felt two hot tears plash on my hand, then his 
 head was bowed upon it, and my left hand rested on 
 his hair. " Tell me the rest, Philip," I said, half an 
 hour afterwards. 
 
 " It s too late, Hugh; you 11 be worn out." 
 
 " Oh, no ; it will help to fill those night-watches of 
 which I have written you. I have so many of them, 
 even now." He drew up a chair to the cot. 
 
 " My father died, suddenly, when I was twenty- 
 nine, but not before he had seen something of the 
 truth of his words to me verified ; for, two years 
 before, I had met the woman without whose com 
 panionship my life will prove, in a measure, abor 
 tive. He knew and admired her loved her in his 
 direct, uncompromising way ; and she understood 
 him far better than I ; she knew how to make him 
 unbend, how to soften him. I saw then what my 
 mother, had she lived, might have made of him. 
 
 " I can t tell you how I knew it, Hugh ; I can only 
 say I knew that she was my mate not another s 
 in the highest interpretation of that word, and what 
 it implies of that perfect spiritual and intellectual at- 
 oneness which, together with that third factor an
 
 The Love of Man 
 
 2 35 
 
 all-powerful physical attraction in the trinity of 
 forces denominated Love, is the complement of what 
 we call I, myself. It was the sense of the identity 
 of soul, indestructible even if the body perished, even 
 if I were never to possess the body. These things 
 are of the mysteries, Hugh, and admit of no last 
 analysis. When I began to realize the strength of 
 my love, to know that every fibre of me, spiritual, 
 intellectual, physical, was vibrant to her every fibre, 
 I felt the weight of those fetters of that early indis 
 cretion, as we men term it, chafe until, figuratively 
 speaking, they performed the office of the regulation 
 hair-shirt. 
 
 " I have never told her my love, but I know I must 
 have shown it, despite the restraint I put upon myself; 
 for, Hugh, souls may kiss when the lips are uttering 
 commonplaces. What was the use of my speaking? 
 I should have had to tell her all. She would have 
 been repelled ; I know her purity of thought. I 
 could not ask her to be my wife, bound as I con 
 sidered myself to be. I think God knows I am 
 humble enough in saying this she began to realize 
 that she might come to love me. But she is a 
 woman who keeps herself under in a way, and only 
 once during the years that she knew me did she 
 speak to me through her eyes. Then I read her 
 soul through them. 
 
 " It was time to call a halt; I could at least spare 
 her. It seemed cruel ; and sometimes I have felt that 
 I may have been thoughtless ; perhaps just the avowal 
 of my love would have helped her, although I am 
 sure she knew it without words. But women are
 
 236 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 women, and men are men; and whereas she might 
 have welcomed the acknowledgment of my feeling 
 towards her, and contented herself as women do in 
 stress of circumstance with just that and its idealiza 
 tion, I knew that I, as a man, should break every 
 barrier once I could hear from her lips that my love 
 was returned. So I have safeguarded myself pos 
 sibly at her expense ; but that is like us the best of 
 us are inherently selfish. 
 
 " She comes home in September. She put the 
 ocean between us, I think to help me ; and I have 
 been thinking of late that it is best to tell her all, 
 once and for all, and take the consequences. But I 
 suffer at the thought of losing her respect, and I 
 suffer more at the thought of losing her help me, 
 Hugh; what shall I do?" He bowed his head into 
 his hands, and for a while there was no sound in the 
 room but the snapping of the fire. 
 
 All the time he had been occupied with his confes 
 sion I was aware of two distinct states of consciousness : 
 the one concerned wholly with him and his relation to 
 the events with which he had acquainted me ; the other 
 concerned wholly with my relation to those events, the 
 knowledge of which must effect a radical change in 
 my attitude towards myself and others. 
 
 In this conscious confusion of distinct but counter 
 currents, I had but one compass, that was a clearly 
 recognizable duty. Out of my depths I had reached 
 to find Philip Vanever s hand ; out of his depths he 
 was reaching to find mine, and it should not fail him; 
 I realized also, without logical sequence of any sort,. 
 and the realization came as a shock, laming me in
 
 The Love of Man 
 
 2 37 
 
 feeling, that of the love with which Philip Vanever s 
 father had loved his wife, of the love which Philip 
 himself bore to Madeline Cope, of the love, even, 
 which Franz Waldort had given her, I knew as yet 
 only the initial letter; and, with an uprising of the 
 old-time bitterness, I accepted the fact that such as 
 I could never experience that bliss or that torture. 
 For me there was only renunciation. When I spoke, 
 I weighed my words. 
 
 " Philip, I believe the greatest wrong you have 
 done is in having kept silence so long -how many 
 years?" "Seven, Hugh." " towards the woman 
 you love. I believe that other of whom you have 
 told me, never could have suffered through your sin 
 the humiliation that this one whom you love has suf 
 fered through your silence. Go to her, Philip ; tell 
 her all as you have told me ; her love will stand the 
 test. I know whereof I speak." 
 
 By the light of the fire I saw a change pass over 
 his face, which had been turned towards me as I spoke 
 with a strained expression wholly unlike his usual 
 controlled serenity. It was like the lifting of a shadow 
 to show every feature illumined from within. 
 
 He rose and stood by the cot silent for some 
 minutes; then, after ministering to me, he seized his 
 cap and went out of the east door, whence could be 
 dimly seen Killington and Pico showing black against 
 the coming dawn. He did not return until long after 
 sunrise and the household had been astir for an hour. 
 
 For weeks after he left us I was good for nothing 
 - lost in profitless speculation, to the neglect of my
 
 238 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 work, Aunt Lize, and Twiddie. Finally I roused my 
 self for the girl s sake. Where were our evenings 
 with the French readings? our delightful travels with 
 Reclus? our classifying of the minerals Franz Waldort 
 had forwarded to her? our German study? our game 
 of chess? our one hour a week with Carlyle s heroes, 
 or the regular Dickens Club at which Uncle Shim 
 and Aunt Lize were always present, an absorbed and 
 emotional audience? 
 
 Already Aunt Lize and Betsey Trotwood were 
 great cronies, and Twiddie had again and again to 
 read the " donkey scene " for her delight. Twiddie 
 was devoted to Little Nell and Little Em ly, and 
 Uncle Shim had enshrined in his heart Mr. Peggotty 
 and Ham. In my waking hours I roared over Pick 
 wick till the rafters rang, but in my dreams I kept 
 company with a little lame boy, my small brother in 
 misfortune, Tiny Tim. 
 
 I went to work with a vim one frosty morning in 
 November, and Aunt Lize, hearing the unwonted con 
 fusion, looked in after breakfast. 
 
 " I begun ter think t wuz most time ter put up them 
 coffin-plates agin, Hughie," she remarked drily, wip 
 ing the suds from her arm with her apron. " It s ben 
 bout ez solemn ez er fun ral in here ever sence Mr. 
 Vanever left, n I, fer one, much ez I like him, wished 
 he d keep erway ef sech doin s is goin ter be the 
 upshot of the visits." I laughed at the vision of 
 the " coffin-plates " on my mantel with its present 
 accessories. 
 
 " It s not Philip Vanever s fault, Aunt Lize, it s 
 mine ; it s been my moulting-season, that s all."
 
 The Love of Man 
 
 2 39 
 
 " I m glad ter know what t wuz ; I thought mebbe 
 ye wuz bilious, ye hain t looked jest nat ral lately. 
 But ye seem all right this mornin , n it gives me 
 courage ter begin ter think er Thanksgivin . Mr. 
 Vanever hain t never seen er real old-fashioned, New 
 England one, n I promised ter go the hull figger, 
 even ter hevin the spinnin -wheel down, n the reel." 
 
 " He s looking forward to it, Aunt Lize ; we 
 could n t celebrate very well without him this year, 
 for we owe so much to him all this work that has 
 helped us pay off the mortgage. Just look at that 
 for my bank account ! " I drew out my bank-book 
 from beneath the cot and showed her the balance of 
 three hundred dollars. She gazed at it admiringly. 
 
 " And that is n t all. The California check is due 
 for the last of the carvings five hundred more. 
 Is n t that a noble balance, and the mortgage paid off 
 to the last cent? " 
 
 " Oh, Hughie ! Seems ez if I could n t sleep nights 
 jest fer thinkin how hard ye Ve worked fer it n 
 he s so awful rich ; Uncle Jo Cheatle says the folks 
 down ter Alderbury know all bout his father, n it 
 seem ez ef ez ef " 
 
 "What, Aunt Lize?" 
 
 " Ez ef the Bible wuz truer n truer the older ir 
 gits." 
 
 I began to laugh, for her startlingly illogical se 
 quences never fail to produce contrary to all reason 
 ing a distinctly common-sense conclusion. " That s 
 a good sign for the noble book, Aunt Lize; come, 
 say out what you have tucked away there under your 
 sweeping-cap." She smiled tremulously.
 
 240 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 " I ain t denyin but he s jest splendid, Hughie, but 
 ef he s so rich, n yer friend, what s he let ye work 
 yer fingers ter the bone fer when he could pay up the 
 hull thing not thet I don t b lieve in bein inde 
 pendent ez long ez ye can n be no poorer fer it? 
 I never git stuck threadin er needle thout thinkin er 
 thet rich man n the needle s eye." 
 
 " Come here, Aunt Lize, please." 
 
 She came to the side of the cot and stood there 
 with her thumbs and forefingers twirling the corners 
 of her apron a sign I knew so well. 
 
 "You don t know Philip Vanever; there s no 
 needle s eye for him, I can assure you. Three 
 years ago he wanted to place at my disposal a sum 
 that would see you and me and Uncle Shim, and even 
 Twiddie, through in comfort and plenty. I refused 
 it and why? Because he had been the means of 
 bringing to me here on this mountain-top something 
 which no money could provide, something which 
 money cannot buy, something wholly beyond price 
 the salvation of work, Aunt Lize, and through 
 my work the heaven of my art; and to have owed 
 my support to any man while my art was crying 
 within me for life, would have been a moral, and, in 
 the end, a speedy physical death." Aunt Lize drew 
 back in a curious, awed way. 
 
 " Ye re jest like yer father, Hughie ; ye d oughter 
 ben er preacher. I wished yer mother hed lived ter 
 hear ye." She stooped and kissed me : an unwonted 
 demonstration on her part. 
 
 " But he does want to do something now for Twid 
 die, Aunt Lize, what I want to do and can t; and who
 
 The Love of Man 241 
 
 knows" I struck a lighter note "you may see 
 her dressed in silks and satin shoon and driving 
 behind her coach and six, if we let him have his 
 way." 
 
 Aunt Lize s eyes sparkled. " I 11 take it all back, 
 Hughie. I had n t oughter spoke ez I did ; but it s 
 grind, grind, grind, day in day out, n sometimes I 
 git mad at rich folks thout jest knowin why nuther." 
 Then she was off at a tangent. " I heerd Mr. Malory 
 tell Twiddie he d never seen er real New England 
 country Thanksgivin , n I sorter thought he wuz 
 fishin fer n invitation. He seems ter be er likely 
 nough young man, Hughie." She tried to hide it, 
 but I read it all in her eyes, and in the way in which 
 she smoothed down her apron with both hands. 
 Woman-like, she was planning a match. 
 
 " You think he likes Twiddie, Aunt Lize? " I asked 
 abruptly. 
 
 " My land ! how ye scairt me, Hughie ! Why, who 
 said anything bout likin thet child?" She parried 
 adroitly. 
 
 " She s no longer a child, you ve been telling me 
 that these last four years, and anybody that has an 
 eye can see why he comes up here." She took the 
 bait. 
 
 " N did ye see it too, Hughie, n never let on?" 
 she said eagerly, crossing the room to close the door 
 into the kitchen. 
 
 Now perhaps another man can tell why I did just 
 what I did. As Aunt Lize turned from me to close 
 the door, I raised my right fist and shook it vigorously 
 at her back ! My Aunt Lize ! Then I took up my 
 
 16
 
 242 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 tools and told her I had work to finish, but that I 
 would ask Twiddie, as she seemed the one to be con 
 sulted, whether or not she would like Dick Malory 
 as our guest over Thanksgiving. 
 
 "Where is Twiddie now?" 
 
 " Up in her room puttin up them curtains ; I can 
 tell ye it s goin ter look neat with all thet rose-bud 
 cotton stuff Mis Cope sent her." 
 
 " Tell her to come in here when she gets through, 
 will you? " 
 
 " Yes. She told me she warn t goin ter hev this 
 room outshine hern, ef she could help it. It does 
 beat all, Hughie, what er change ye Ve made, n the 
 Pen, n everything. Thet s what ye call Art, I s pose." 
 She laughed in her pleasant, contented fashion : " I 11 
 show ye my Art bout Thanksgivin time." 
 
 " It s a noble one, Aunt Lize," and I meant what I 
 said. I heard Twiddie in the kitchen. 
 
 " Twiddie ! " I called ; " come here a minute." 
 
 " I can t, Hugh ; I m busy." 
 
 "Just a minute." 
 
 " Are you awfully busy too? " 
 
 " No, any amount of time on my hands do 
 come." 
 
 " Well, in a minute." She came in, demure in her 
 great bib-apron she is always most provoking in 
 that a dish, a bundle, and a small knife in her 
 hands. 
 
 " I m so glad you are n t busy, Hugh," she said 
 sweetly. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because I m swamped with work, and here are
 
 The Love of Man 243 
 
 four pounds of raisins I want you to seed. Aunt Lize 
 is going to begin on the pies to-morrow." She put 
 everything down on the bench. 
 
 " But I hate to seed raisins, Twiddie, you know 
 well enough." 
 
 " I know you do," she replied, still with dangerous 
 sweetness, " and I propose to ameliorate your state of 
 mind while you are thus occupied by sitting here and 
 resting me a bit while I read Carlyle to you." 
 
 " Oh, Carlyle go to grass ! " I muttered. 
 
 "Why, but it s Heroes and Hero Worship!" she 
 said in an aggrieved tone, " and you always - 
 
 "No, I don t always," I interrupted her; "not in 
 the middle of the forenoon with my fingers all stuck 
 up with the moist, unpleasant things." 
 
 She laughed, softly, merrily. " Goodness, Hugh ! 
 I thought you were going to swear; moist un 
 pleasant sounds dreadfully profane." 
 
 " Now, look here, Twiddie, I 11 have no non 
 sense " 
 
 " Nor I," she interrupted, flouncing out of the room, 
 and leaving me with the darned job on my hands. I 
 went to work with a vengeance. 
 
 " Twiddie ! " I called softly about ten minutes after 
 wards. There was no answer, but I knew she was 
 somewhere within hearing. 
 
 " Twiddie ! " I called again, " would you mind bring 
 ing me a bit of rag? I Vc cut my finger." 
 
 " Oh, Hugh ! " there was a genuine, melting tender 
 ness of anxiety in her voice that made me chuckle 
 under my breath. I heard her scurrying about for 
 string, rag, and arnica bottle ; then in she flew.
 
 244 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 " Here, let me bind it up for you you poor dear. 
 Which finger is it?" 
 
 "Am I a dear/ Twiddie, honor bright? I said 
 wheedlingly, but hiding my hand. 
 
 " Of course you are at times. Now be good, 
 and let me put on the rag." 
 
 I held out my third finger, on which an infinitesi 
 mal drop of blood was oozing from a tiny scratch I 
 had given myself to excite her sympathy. 
 
 " Hugh ! " She started back when she understood 
 my feint, but not before I had caught and held her 
 by her two hands. 
 
 " Let me go, Hugh." Her eyes flashed danger 
 ously; I love to see her so. 
 
 " I can t, Twiddie ; I want company." 
 
 " Hugh " she stamped her foot and set her 
 pretty teeth, " you you are abominable ! " 
 
 " Only at times; at others, you know, I am a 
 
 " Hugh Armstrong, let me go. I Ve no time to 
 waste on you." 
 
 "On one condition, Twiddie easy there, don t 
 pull away so; you can t go until I choose to have 
 you." 
 
 "What s that?" 
 
 " That you will sit here with me till I Ve finished 
 this job you ve foisted on me. I want to talk, 
 Twiddie." 
 
 " About what?" 
 
 " Dick Malory." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 Such a radiant " Oh ! " I was n t quite prepared for, 
 I must say, accompanied as it was by a flashing smile.
 
 The Love of Man 245 
 
 " That s something worth talking about ; just let 
 me get the citron to slice while I m sitting here, 
 and you may talk on that subject as long as you 
 like the longer the better," she added, as I let 
 her go. 
 
 " The deuce I may ! " I muttered. She was back 
 and seated with her work beside me in less time than 
 it takes to tell. 
 
 " Now, let s begin," she said with apparentlyjoyous 
 anticipation. I growled out something ; this was not 
 according to my program. She took the initiative, 
 and I felt outflanked. 
 
 " He told me he had never seen an old-fashioned 
 Thanksgiving; I know he would like a taste of Aunt 
 Lize s mince-pies. Look out, Hugh ! You re 
 wasting the raisins, cutting so deep." 
 
 " M. Y. B.," I said, half laughing at my novel method 
 of venting my irritation. 
 
 "What s that?" she said brightly, " Dick?" 
 
 "So it s come to that, has it?" I asked severely. 
 " Seems to me your acquaintance has progressed 
 rather rapidly." 
 
 " Why, no, Hugh." She looked up in innocent 
 surprise. " I Ve known him three years, besides, " 
 she manufactured a charming blush, "you know 
 we corresponded all the time he was in Europe." 
 
 " The deuce you did ! Well, this is news to me. 
 How often, may I ask?" 
 
 " Of course, Hugh, you know you really have no 
 right to ask only Uncle Shim has that; but I don t 
 mind telling you if you want to know. Not quite so 
 often as you have written Miss Cope, but I managed
 
 246 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 to send off one to Dick almost every time I took one 
 of yours to her down to the mail." 
 
 " Humph ! " 
 
 " Please interpret," she said with all seriousness. 
 
 " Now, look here, Twiddie ; I am in dead earnest " 
 
 " So - am I," she hastened to say, puckering her 
 lips, while she busily sliced the citron. 
 
 " If you want him up here for Thanksgiving, just 
 say so. Of course, it s my house, but any guest of 
 yours would be welcome." 
 
 She laughed a little before she spoke, and I 
 caught the mischief in the curving corners of her 
 mouth. 
 
 " Who said I wanted him up here for Thanksgiving ? " 
 
 " Why, you said yourself you - 
 
 " No, I did n t, Hugh." She shook her head em 
 phatically. " I said he said he had never seen an old- 
 fashioned country Thanksgiving, and that s quite 
 another matter." 
 
 " But don t you want him to come up here? I 
 insist upon your answering me, for if I ve got to 
 write his invitation I want to know my ground." 
 
 Suddenly she looked up from her work. " Do you 
 want me to want him to come, Hugh? Because if 
 you do, I 11 say so to oblige you." I knew by her 
 look we had both reached the limits of persiflage. 
 
 " Twiddie, I don t want you to want him to come, 
 selfish as that may sound ; but if you do want him, 
 whether I want you to or not, I 11 write him as cordial 
 an invitation as I know how." 
 
 An expression showed for an instant in her eyes 
 that I failed to interpret.
 
 The Love of Man 247 
 
 " And I m selfish too, Hugh, and should love just 
 this year to celebrate our Thanksgiving with only us 
 four who belong here." 
 
 "No more?" 
 
 " Us four, no more, " she quoted, smiling, but in 
 all earnest. 
 
 " I should like to say Amen/ Twiddie, if it were n t 
 for Philip Vanever; he is a lonely man, and my 
 friend." 
 
 "But he seems like one of us, Hugh; he is 
 different." 
 
 " How, Twiddie ? " 
 
 " He has suffered more than Dick Malory." 
 
 I looked at her in surprise. " What do you know 
 about suffering, Twiddie? you who have been so 
 sheltered in our love?" Just then Aunt Lize called 
 to her from the kitchen. She sprang up. " I must 
 go, Hugh. Here, give me the dish you ve done 
 them beautifully; I ll do the rest. I ll get a wet 
 towel for your hands." 
 
 " Your praise is reward enough, Lady Theodora." 
 She beamed on me. 
 
 That same day, at the close of one of our old-time 
 delightful evenings with our French, our game of 
 chess, and merry chat, as she bade me good-night, 
 standing in the doorway with a lighted candle in her 
 hand, I called her to me: 
 
 " Twiddie " 
 
 "Well, Hugh?" 
 
 " Come nearer to me and give me your hand." 
 She drew near, but did not offer me her hand. 
 
 " You say Uncle Shim alone has the right to ask
 
 248 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 you such such private questions about correspond 
 ence, but are you willing to tell me if you showed 
 those letters to Uncle Shim? " 
 
 " No, Hugh, Uncle Shim knows nothing about 
 them ; but I read them all to Aunt Lize." 
 
 "Ah I see." I felt relieved. 
 
 "What, Hugh?" 
 
 " Through a barn door when it is wide open," I 
 made reply, smiling to myself. 
 
 "You re very provoking." I realized then that, 
 without intention, I had seriously offended her, and, 
 as I knew by experience, that was a risk it would not 
 be wise to run. 
 
 " Twiddie, come back ! " I cried. There was no 
 answer, but I heard her go upstairs to her room. I 
 called again. Then I took my shepherd s crook and 
 rapped sharply on the wall ; that is my signal when I 
 am in urgent need of something. 
 
 Aunt Lize flew in in her nightcap and gown, her 
 eyes wide with excitement. 
 
 "What d ye want, Hugh? I wuz jest gittin inter 
 bed ; I knew Shim would be in in er minute to put 
 you ter rights ; he s gone out ter the barn." 
 
 " I want to see Twiddie, Aunt Lize. She is angry 
 with me, and you know what you taught us both 
 about not letting the sun go down upon our wrath ; 
 anyway, I don t want it to rise on hers you know, 
 yourself, that is n t so pleasant." 
 
 " Thet s so," said Aunt Lize, emphatically; 
 "what s she mad bout?" 
 
 " Oh, the way I said something to her." 
 
 " I don t blame her er mite. Ye hev er dretfully
 
 The Love of Man 249 
 
 masterful way with ye of sayin er thing it riles me 
 clear through. I 11 call her, though." 
 
 She went to the foot of the stairs; I heard her 
 speak and Twiddle answer her. Then I waited. At 
 last I heard her coming through the kitchen. She 
 stood again in the doorway a white clinging woollen 
 wrapper thrown about her, her hair hanging in long 
 braids, the candle lighting her flushed, resentful face. 
 
 " Twiddie, tell me I can t sleep unless I know; 
 did Dick Malory ever begin his letters Dearest 
 Theodora like that other chap ? " 
 
 " No, Hugh." I saw her face soften. 
 
 " Does that other chap ever write you so now? I 
 haven t thought to ask for why, it s nearly three 
 years ! " 
 
 " I know it is. No, he does not write me any 
 more." 
 
 "Why, Twiddie?" 
 
 " He has forgotten me, Hugh." 
 
 " Are you sure? " 
 
 " Sure, Hugh." 
 
 " Will you say good-night to me, Twiddie? " 
 
 " Good-night, Hugh." 
 
 " Twiddie, give me your hand I m not satisfied." 
 
 She crossed the threshold and came over to my 
 cot. She gave me her hand, but passively. I held it 
 a moment, nor did she withdraw it. " Twiddie, do 
 you remember years ago when you smiled up into 
 my face sitting here beside me and forgave me, 
 just by smiling? " 
 
 I saw the flame leap upon her delicate neck the 
 cheeks the temples ; her eyes brimmed with tears.
 
 250 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 She drew away her hand, but not before she had 
 leaned suddenly above me and smiled down into my 
 face. She caught away the loosened end of her braid 
 that dropped upon my forehead, straightened herself, 
 and, holding one hand before the flame of the candle, 
 hurried from the room. 
 
 Those next three weeks were filled with good 
 things. There were unwonted preparations, and Aunt 
 Lize was in her glory. The weather was stinging 
 cold, the skies lowery, with a daily spitting of snow ; 
 but this house of mine was filled with the sunshine of 
 a girl s joyous presence, and the rooms echoed to 
 her merry song and jest and laugh. 
 
 One afternoon Aunt Lize, Twiddie, and Uncle Shim 
 filed into my room, each with a tin tray of pies 
 the whole tribe. They were set out in noble array 
 on the bench that I might see, smell, admire, but not 
 taste ! Oh, no, not so much as a bite till the day, 
 Twiddie said. And when that day came, we surveyed 
 our work with satisfaction. I say " we " because I 
 had been pressed into service and furnished my quota 
 of muscle in beating, stirring, and chopping. At 
 eleven o clock the turkey, a noble bird of twenty 
 pounds, outdid himself by bursting the trussing and 
 disgorging the dressing. While Aunt Lize was kneel 
 ing with flushed face before the oven-shrine repair 
 ing the damage, and Twiddie with scarlet cheeks was 
 burning her nose in the steam in her efforts to help, 
 Philip Vanever drove up from Alderbury; he had 
 come on the night train. 
 
 It was a glad day ! and Philip Vanever s joy in it
 
 The Love of Man 251 
 
 all a thing to remember. The old kitchen was redo 
 lent of every kind of New England cheer, from tur 
 key and turnovers to cider and celery, and, thanks 
 to our guest s thoughtfulness, had blossomed into 
 summer fragrance with the flowers he had brought 
 up for Aunt Lize and Twiddie roses, violets, carna 
 tions. Twiddle s face was a study when she opened 
 the box and leaned to inhale their fragrance. And 
 after the table had been cleared and the dishes 
 washed, Twiddie changed her gown, and came down 
 in the white serge Madeline Cope had sent her the 
 year before, and the dark crimson velvet girdle that 
 came with it. She took two roses of that same rich 
 color Jacqueminots, Philip called them and fas 
 tened them in her girdle, and the stem of another 
 she tucked into the waves of her bronze brown hair ; 
 and then, looking at us who were looking at her, she 
 said happily : " Do I suit now? " 
 
 We three men were dumb, and could do naught 
 but look and try to drink our fill of such beauty ; but 
 Aunt Lize, seeing our admiration, snapped suddenly : 
 
 " Harnsome is thet harnsome does ; remember thet, 
 Twiddie Lewis ! " At which we all laughed but 
 Twiddie, who, slipping behind Aunt Lize s chair and 
 leaning over the back, clasped her two arms about 
 her neck, saying : " How dare you quote that, Aunt 
 Lize, in the face of the pound-cake I made for to 
 night s tea? " And after that tea, which we had late, 
 they all came into my room, and while we three men 
 smoked, Aunt Lize, to please Vanever, sat in the 
 chimney-corner and spun by the firelight, and Twid 
 die, on the rug, minded the chestnuts she was roasting,
 
 252 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 and her forehead into the bargain. Our talk ranged 
 from the new inn at Farnsfield, which some New 
 York men were financiering, and the late rumors 
 of a prospective railroad in the Valley of the White 
 Branch, to the wanton destruction of the forests to 
 feed the pulp mills, and the new game laws. It was 
 good to be together, but I caught myself wonder 
 ing if Philip Vanever had spoken. At bedtime Uncle 
 Shim opened the east door to look out, and a dash 
 of snow whirled into the room. 
 
 " Thet 11 give us good sleighin by ter-morrer," he 
 said. " Ye d better take Prince n exercise him er 
 leetle." 
 
 " I shall be glad to, Mr. Lewis, if one of you will 
 go with me; I m poor company for myself." 
 
 Oh, that to-morrow ! It broke clear and shining 
 on a mountain-world mantled in white. After break 
 fast I heard Twiddie in the kitchen, teasing him to 
 stay over one more night just one; but he would 
 not give his word. 
 
 " By the way, Twiddie, you promised to show me 
 the made-over room ; I want to contribute my mite 
 towards it. What do you say to a rug, white ground 
 and all rose-buds to match the curtains?" 
 
 Twiddie clapped her hands. " Oh, that will be 
 lovely ! The floor is the one thing that has dis 
 tressed me. Come up and I 11 show you." 
 
 Perhaps ten minutes had passed, and I was wishing 
 that I, too, might see the pretty room, when I heard 
 Vanever s voice in the kitchen asking Uncle Shim, 
 who had just come in, if it would be convenient for 
 him to take Prince for a few hours. I heard Uncle
 
 The Love of Man 253 
 
 Shim assure him that he would hitch up at once; 
 after that, Vanever came into my room, closing the 
 door behind him. 
 
 " What is it, Philip? " I cried when I saw him, for 
 over his face had crept that strange ash-gray wave 
 leaving every feature rigid, drawn. He dropped into 
 Aunt Lize s rocking-chair and leaned forward, his 
 elbows on his knees, his head bowed into his hands. 
 
 " I ve had a blow, Hugh, I ve had a blow 
 he groaned rather than spoke. " Don t ask me now ; 
 I shall be back this afternoon." 
 
 I knew there was nothing to be said I could not 
 feel my way in such dark; so waited until I heard 
 Uncle Shim drive round the house. Vanever reached 
 for his overcoat on a peg by the east door, and went 
 out, seeming half-dazed, as if the blow had stunned 
 him. 
 
 It was five o clock and dark before he drove into 
 the yard. My eardrums had been strained to burst 
 ing for the last two hours, and I heard the " tankle " 
 of the old cow-bell away down the road towards 
 Lympus-Gilead. When he went, he drove up the 
 other way through the clearing. He came in at the 
 east door with a quick, firm tread, and, throwing off 
 his coat, drew up a chair to the fireplace and spread 
 his hands to the blaze. I saw that he had had time 
 to pull himself together, that he was himself again. 
 But I was n t prepared for the tone in which he spoke 
 even the commonplaces. It sounded as if a sup 
 pressed joy, an exultant triumph, were the basal-note 
 of every word. 
 
 " I shall have to go back, as I planned, on the
 
 254 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 night train, and leave here a little earlier than I in 
 tended about six." 
 
 " You will want Uncle Shim to drive you down, 
 won t you ? The team you ordered from Farnsfield 
 will be too late." 
 
 "Oh, no; Prince must not be imposed upon to 
 that extent. I 11 just take my grip and walk down, 
 even as far as Scawsville if necessary ; but I know I 
 shall meet it a good bit this side." 
 
 I began to protest, but he cut me short. " This 
 has been in truth a Thanksgiving, Hugh. I wish I 
 might make some thank-offering other than a grate 
 ful heart. Supposing we ask Mr. Lewis in and talk 
 over some little plan for Twiddle, for her pleasure, 
 her improvement, if you will, although I see little 
 chance to improve her. You may well be proud of 
 your pupil, Hugh." 
 
 " I am ; but how will you broach this to Uncle 
 Shim?" 
 
 " Leave that to me ; I know my ground now," he 
 said with such a sure emphasis, such a flash of his 
 dark eye upon me, that it staggered me for a min 
 ute. In a curious way I had a sudden vision of the 
 truth, only in eclipse. Before I could answer, Uncle 
 Shim came in at the east door. 
 
 " Ye d better wait t ll arter supper, n let me take 
 ye down ez fur ez Scawsville," he said with his back 
 to the fire. 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Lewis, but I prefer to walk ; 
 besides, I am already under too many obligations to 
 you for the use of Prince for so many hours." 
 
 " I take it ye druv quite er piece, seein ye went
 
 The Love of Man 255 
 
 Farnsfield way n come back Lympus-Gilead road." 
 I could see that Uncle Shim was over-full of curiosity. 
 
 " Yes, it was a long way around, but I wanted to 
 head off Uncle Jo Cheatle over the Mountain. " 
 
 " Did ye ketch him?" asked Uncle Shim, eagerly. 
 
 " Yes ; but, Mr. Lewis, before I go I want to talk 
 about something of great interest to me and, I think 
 I may say, to Hugh. I Ve been the recipient of so 
 many favors here from you all, that I must refuse to 
 be under greater obligation, unless you will allow me 
 in some way to make a return." 
 
 " Wai? " It was not an encouraging sound. Uncle 
 Shim straightened himself in a curiously defiant fash 
 ion, and clasped his hands behind his back. He 
 stood facing me and Vanever, his old felt hat set 
 well off his forehead ; his old overcoat of nondescript 
 color, faded, bleached, sunburned, patched, hung 
 loosely from his shoulders. 
 
 " Has it ever occurred to you, Mr. Lewis, as Twid- 
 die s guardian " I saw Uncle Shim start, and his 
 light blue eyes suddenly open wide under his bushy 
 brows " that possibly it might be well for Twiddie 
 to have an opportunity to see something more of life 
 than she can on this mountain-top, beautiful as this 
 is? She is gifted beyond most girls of her age, and 
 and " Even Philip Vanever hesitated in the 
 face of the uncompromising, wide-open stare with 
 which Uncle Shim was regarding him. 
 
 " I guess I can git the gist of what yer tryin ter 
 say thout many more words," he said in his deliber 
 ate, drawling speech. " I s pose ye mean ye want 
 ter marry her, n air axin my leave "
 
 256 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 " God forbid ! " exclaimed Vanever, interrupting 
 him with such a look of horror that Uncle Shim s 
 face turned white, then worked strangely. 
 
 " What ye ben comin here fer, I d like ter know, 
 ef twarn t fer her? " Vanever looked at me as if he 
 had been caught in a trap. 
 
 " Uncle Shim," I said, and I was so mad my voice 
 trembled, " this is my house, and you can t speak 
 that way to any guest of mine. If you 11 hear Mr. 
 Vanever out, you 11 be well ashamed of yourself for 
 this." 
 
 "I will, will I?" He laughed with a strange shake 
 in his throat; "I didn t know ez ye d j ined the 
 majority. I know the house is yourn, n the land is 
 yourn, n yer aunt is yourn, n yer friend is yourn, 
 but Twiddie s mine mark thet, both on ye, n yer 
 Aunt Lize, too ; n ef wust comes ter wust, Twiddie 
 n me 11 take the outside er the house, n yer Aunt 
 Lize n yew can keep the in. I ve seen the hull 
 thing "I saw he was working himself into a pas 
 sion, and that the passion, because of the extreme 
 rarity of its occurrence, was affecting him physically. 
 I tried to stop him. 
 
 " Uncle Shim, you don t know what you re talking 
 about; we won t say any more to-night; I can easily 
 explain to you afterwards, when you are calmed 
 down." 
 
 " Calmed down ! Jest talk thet ter some other 
 man ; ye 11 hear honest Injun from me, I can tell ye, 
 calmed down or calmed up. I tell ye both now, I 
 ain t er-goin ter hev no city chaps hangin round 
 my leetle gal. She s good n true n sweet; n
 
 The Love of Man 257 
 
 ruther n hev her go down inter thet hog-pen er rottin 
 human " 
 
 " Uncle Shim ! " I thundered, " stop, or I ll " 
 
 " Yew shet up, n let me say my say, then I 11 go ; " 
 he took a step half-threateningly towards the cot. 
 "I say," --he raised his voice, but his words were 
 just as deliberately spoken, "I d ruther lay her 
 in her coffin n screw down the lid, tight. Ye can t 
 tech her," he faced Vanever, who had stood im 
 movable since he last spoke, " nor thet other feller 
 thet s tryin ter hang round her. I see her goin fer 
 the mail, furrin stamps n all, n he eatin n drinkin 
 n talkin her the las time he wuz here, V I won t 
 hev it!" He brought his fist down on the corner of 
 the mantel with such force it was a wonder it did not 
 break the bone. "She s my own flesh n blood 
 mine, d ye hear? n her mother wuz my 
 
 Something passed between those two facing each 
 other with their nostrils white and jaws set. Vanever 
 told me afterwards he had not intended to speak, 
 knowing it was no time ; but that suddenly an ele 
 mental surcharge of feeling mastered him, and he 
 lost control. 
 
 " More my flesh and blood than yours," he said in 
 measured tones, but with exulting conviction ringing 
 through them, "for I am her father." 
 
 It was said, and my first thought was that he was 
 free for Madeline Cope ; the next was for the two 
 men I feared for both. 
 
 For a minute there was a dead silence in the room ; 
 even the fire did not crackle. Outside in the kitchen, 
 Twiddie was singing while she was setting the table
 
 258 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 that old verse of Watts s. I looked at Uncle Shim. 
 His jaw had dropped, his face grown a sickly yellow. 
 Then I heard an oath. Such an oath I dare not 
 blacken this page with writing it down. He stag 
 gered to the door, and Vanever sprang to put his 
 arm beneath his ; but Uncle Shim threw it off, and 
 went out into the night. 
 
 " My God ! What have I done, Hugh ? Shall I go 
 after him?" Vanever turned to me in such distress 
 that I knew I must be calm for both. I got hold of 
 his hand. 
 
 " Philip," I said, " the ways of God the ways of 
 God ; remember that; it will come right; believe 
 me, and leave him to me. Call Twiddle." 
 
 He opened the door into the kitchen; how her 
 sweet voice rang out: 
 
 " Change me, O God ! my flesh shall be 
 An instrument of song to thee, 
 And thou the notes inspire. " 
 
 " Twiddle, Hugh wants you." 
 
 "I ll come, Hugh, just a minute." 
 
 " Twiddie," I said, speaking quietly, " I don t think 
 Uncle Shim is feeling very well he went out of the 
 east door just now; I think he has gone to the barn. 
 Just put on a shawl over you and run after him and 
 bring him in." She had flung on my plaid and was 
 off almost before I had finished. 
 
 " Hugh, I Ve done wrong managed badly, and it 
 is better for us all that I should go now, without delay. 
 Tell Twiddie and Mrs. Lewis ; I will write you all, 
 and give the letter to Mr. Lewis "
 
 The Love of Man 259 
 
 "But, Philip, where are you going?" 
 
 " Home on the night train as I had planned, Hugh, 
 and then" he paused, drew a long breath "to 
 Madeline ; for I am free, Hugh, FREE ! " 
 
 I saw then that his first thought was not for his 
 child. 
 
 " I will write to-morrow ; be on the lookout for it 
 and keep me informed of everything, will you ? " He 
 was putting on his overcoat. 
 
 " I will." 
 
 " God bless you, Hugh." He was gone.
 
 VI 
 
 THE GIFT OF GOD
 
 VI 
 
 THE GIFT OF GOD 
 
 ON that Saturday following Vanever s return, 
 there was an unnatural calm within the 
 house. It was as if a cyclone were sweep 
 ing the Mountain and we were in the storm centre. 
 
 O 
 
 But on the Sabbath there was a change, a lessening 
 of the tension, and the quiet of Nature and the peace 
 of the Spirit brooded my soul like a great beneficent 
 Hand. 
 
 About eight o clock I saw a flock of snow-buntings 
 whirl, like dark, driven leaves, in a snow-flurry before 
 my window. Fifteen minutes afterwards came a mar 
 vellous sunburst. The sky suddenly freed itself from 
 the gray and white clouds, rolling them back like a 
 scroll to the south-east, and afterwards there was one 
 clear blue, a dazzling sun, and the immaculate white 
 of mountain-snows. 
 
 I re-read what, for want of a better name, I call my 
 Mountain-Litany jottings by the way: marks, by 
 which I may keep in mind the trail I have followed 
 through the wilderness of doubt into the sunny open 
 of faith. 
 
 My Mountain-Litany. 
 
 I spoiled a piece of work to-day, because I failed 
 to see that to bring out a certain effect I must needs
 
 264 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 cut with the grain of the wood. Must not Life run 
 so, along the line of one s grain, if one is to work 
 according to a natural law? 
 
 Twiddie brought me a mullein-leaf covered with 
 hoar-frost. What a marvel of texture, bediamonded ! 
 Every tiny globule shows in the sunshine the chord 
 of the seven colors. 
 
 What a pleasure it must be for Some One to create 
 this ! If I take such delight in creating, in material 
 izing the idea, which is the essence of the tangible 
 what, primarily, must the creating of this mullein 
 afford and to Whom? 
 
 Some stalks of the bee-balm stand in my pitcher on 
 the bench. What an imagination it must have re 
 quired to originate the factors of this ! a composite 
 of trumpet, chalice, cardinal s hat, that " scarlet 
 thread " of the Bible, and blood-stained leaf; shape, 
 color, symbolism, and fragrance, frankincense . and 
 myrrh, all there. 
 
 I used to like to see Orion wheel to his setting ; 
 about April, the belt, like a huge arrow, transfixed 
 the western hills. " The firmament showeth his handi 
 work." That truth has been distilled into my soul- 
 consciousness hour by hour during the night-watches 
 in the Pen. 
 
 " His handiwork " my handiwork ; and between 
 the two, the vibration of some wonderful accord which 
 unites the choiring of the spheres and the note of the 
 song-sparrow in the lilac-hedge ; some bond of inti 
 mate union in which is interwoven the elemental forces,
 
 The Gift of God 265 
 
 whether of gravitation, or the power of the mounting 
 sap that in the end gives me the fibre of the wood. 
 
 The forest is yielding me its secrets in this intimacy 
 with the wood and the designs. And the secret of 
 the forest lies deep, deep in the subsoil deeper 
 still in the elemental world of a mountain s heart. 
 
 That is a curious matter to ponder ! Elemental 
 strength of all kinds at work for aeons upon shift 
 ing sands and deposits of detritus ; fire and water 
 doing their utmost; hearts of mountains incandes 
 cent; quiescence of strata for untold ages, then 
 Upheaval, and our geologist on the mountain-top may 
 ring his hammer on the earliest formation ! 
 
 Such, I take it, is the process of Humanity strati 
 fied into Society. A great truth there. 
 
 Even the " dung-heap " has its secret. I heard the 
 hens churring about it this morning while Uncle Shim 
 was forking it over preparatory to drawing two loads 
 up to the corn-patch. To-morrow he will plough it 
 under, and in five months the corn will be ground and 
 Aunt Lize s Johnny-cakes steam golden-brown on the 
 breakfast-table. So are we all indissolubly linked 
 with the earth-elements the nourishing and the 
 nourished ; and the one returns to the other, and the 
 other yields its return. What a harmony of provi 
 sion ! and thereby the sustenance of the Spirit 
 during its short earth-pilgrimage. Ay, ay "see 
 deep enough and we see musically." 
 
 The Soul of Man is a pilgrim with the scrip of the 
 body filled for his sustenance during the earth-tarry-
 
 266 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 ing. On his long journeying, he entereth into the 
 Temple of Human-Life-on-this-Earth through the 
 portals of Human Birth, and tarrieth for a while in 
 crypt or cloister, in nave or chapel, in choir or 
 chancel marvelling, praying, begging, sinning, re 
 penting, loving, worshipping, praising, delving, inves 
 tigating; then passeth onwards, out through the 
 portals of Human Death, still marvelling ! 
 
 A flower in its perfection : the expression not 
 only of the Divine Imagination, but of the utility of 
 economics grace springing from satisfied needs. 
 Should it not be so with our lives? 
 
 There are so many avenues of approach to God for 
 the wandering soul ! Even a spiritual cul-de-sac may 
 prove eventually a straight, if narrow, path. 
 
 My approaches have been through work, the friend 
 ship of a man, the love of a woman; yes, and the 
 open fire, the stars in the night-watches, the minis 
 trations of Aunt Lize, and Twiddle s sunny presence, 
 have been lights unto my devious paths. 
 
 This, I believe, rounds to as much perfection of 
 happiness as may fall to my lot as a man. 
 
 There has been a fearful tempest, the thunder 
 crashing ceaselessly, with a snarling, splittering sound ; 
 the lightning playing incessantly through the cloud 
 that enshrouded the Mountain. There has been 
 havoc in the forest. 
 
 It swooped down upon us with a great wind, blot 
 ting out the sun, sky, everything beyond the spruce- 
 bush; and it cleared almost as suddenly. The sun
 
 The Gift of God 267 
 
 broke through the huddling, scurrying cloud-masses ; 
 there was a glimpse of intense blue, a sudden clear 
 ing of a sapphire circle in the zenith, then the last re 
 verberation of the thunder, and a sparkle and glitter 
 and dazzle of flashing reds and greens among the 
 myriad drops caught on grass-blade, bush, and tree. 
 The silence was broken by the thin bleat of a lamb ; 
 then a song-sparrow sang its Te Deurn. 
 
 Again and again I have put off the carving of the 
 Fate s head from the seasoned black birch. The 
 desire has grown less and less to materialize my con 
 ception of it; Life is showing me another face. 
 
 Uncle Shim got me out a plank last fall, and one 
 day I went to work to carve, not the Fate s head, but 
 a crucifix for Toughheel. I had Hansl s for a model ; 
 but something not in the face of his Christ got carved 
 into mine, and made me loath to part with it, "a 
 man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." It was 
 loving, worshipping work, and did me good. 
 
 When I gave it to Toughheel for Christmas, the 
 fellow s face was a study. 
 
 I tried; but I could not think it out, could not 
 reason it out, could not discover it, search as I might; 
 but, lying with open eyes, open heart, open mind, re 
 ceptive soul it was revealed to me that God is, and 
 there is naught old, and there is naught new, and faith 
 remains the compass for the Soul. 
 
 What a revelation ! here on my Mountain- 
 Patmos. 
 
 I was interrupted in my reading by Uncle Shim.
 
 268 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 It was near sunset, and in the waning light his face 
 looked old and haggard. He closed the door into 
 the kitchen and sat down, brokenly, in Aunt Lize s 
 rocker. I had been expecting him all day, and had 
 the pipes ready filled. 
 
 "Draw up your chair to the fire, Uncle Shim, and 
 we 11 light up," I said, hoping to cheer him. It cut 
 me to see his dejection. 
 
 " No, Hughie, I don t want no pipe ; I hain t slep 
 any fer two nights, n Lize hez got scairt coz I hain t 
 eat nothin , n won t say grace." 
 
 " Oh, Uncle Shim, it is n t so bad as all that. Let s 
 talk the whole thing out, and you 11 feel better ; I m 
 sure I shall." He shook his head slowly. 
 
 "Ye ain t got it on yer conscience, Hughie; I 
 would n t Lize should know on t fer my soul s eternal 
 salvation. She d git er bill er divorce quicker n 
 lightnin ef she d heerd it." 
 
 " Heard what, Uncle Shim? I think I m not sure 
 just what you mean about the relationship between 
 Twiddie and Mr. Vanever? " 
 
 " Lord, no, Hughie! t ain t thet; she ll be tickled 
 ter death ter know thet. She s hed her idees bout 
 what Twiddie ought ter be mighty up-in-the-world 
 ones they be, tew " 
 
 "Well, what is it then?" I began to feel impa 
 tient ; like Aunt Lize, I feared " long-windedness." 
 
 " Hughie," he turned to me with such a stricken 
 look in his sagging jaw that I felt troubled. " I ve 
 damned er man ! I ve damned him in this world and 
 the next. I ve damned my feller-man, Hughie, n 
 how be I er-goin ter make my peace with my God ? "
 
 The Gift of God 269 
 
 Poor Uncle Shim ! How he had suffered ! 
 " Uncle Shim," I said, "you were in a tight place 
 and hard put. It came too sudden ; Vanever said 
 that to me before he went " He interrupted me. 
 
 " No, t warn t so sudden ez ye think, Hughie. I ve 
 allus felt thet Twiddle warn t the common kind, n 
 thet she might turn out ter be er millionaire s child; 
 she ain t er mite like her mother, but, Hughie, blood s 
 thicker n water, even ef t ain t only half n half; n 1 
 ef she warn t only my half-sister 
 
 " Your half-sister ! How is that, Uncle Shim? I 
 never knew that before." 
 
 " I know ye hain t. I hain t said nothin bout 
 it. Shet mouth n live it down, is my motto every 
 time. Yes, she wuz half-sister ter me, n fifteen year 
 younger. I could n t tell ye, nor nobody else, what 
 got inter mother ter git bewitched, arter she d ben 
 widdered fourteen year, with er low-down, rum- n - 
 water land-shark thet come perspectin up in the north 
 part er the state. Anyhow, she married him, n er 
 year arterwards, Marier come erlong, n the man 
 dusted. Mother got her bill, n kep father s name, 
 n I worked out my freedom keerin fer her n the 
 baby." 
 
 " What was her name? " 
 
 " Rasle ; Marier Elviry Rasle ; but mother wuz cut 
 up so bad with the disgrace, thet she never called her 
 nothin but Marier Lewis, n I don t know ez ther s 
 more n two-three livin souls thet know her real name. 
 She went agin her mother, jest ez soon ez I d left n 
 come over here ter farm it with yer grandfather, n 
 when she wuz eighteen, she went off down country
 
 270 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 ter earn her livin . Thet s the last I heerd from her 
 t ll I got word ter come down ter Old Town Gilead ; 
 n thar I found her with the child. She said she d 
 ben deserted, n hed come up here ter die some- 
 whars near me ; mother d died long before thet. It 
 teched me arter all in er tender spot, n the leetle gal 
 come ter me, n put her leetle arms round my neck, 
 n Lize n I hed n t any " 
 
 I heard a gulp, and looked out of the window not 
 to see his emotion and to hide mine. 
 
 " N she seemed so kinder erlone in the world, n 
 I knew the man thet hed fathered her hed left the 
 poor, innercent leetle soul ter shift fer herself, fer 
 Marier hed one foot in the grave when she sent fer 
 me; n I took n awful grudge, Hughie, agin thet 
 man. It s ben ranklin n eatin in, jest like gangrene, 
 inter my life, n when he stood thar before me so 
 kinder sudden n proud-like, knowin nothin bout 
 trials n privations, n Life sech ez we know it, 
 Hughie, the venom riz right up under my tongue, 
 n I spit it all out all the gatherin fer eighteen 
 year onter him in thet one oath ; n I hain t hed 
 er minute s peace sence." 
 
 " Uncle Shim, I wish you would let me tell you all 
 I know about it, and by to-morro\v there 11 be a letter 
 explaining what none of us can understand." 
 
 "Go ahead, Hughie; I guess I dew feel er leetle 
 mite eased fer speakin ." 
 
 " Yes, Uncle Shim, and I believe you are going to 
 feel eased for the rest of your life because you have 
 spit out all the venom that is in you in that one oath."
 
 The Gift of God 271 
 
 "D ye think so, Hughie?" He looked up wist 
 fully, but I could see his face had brightened a little. 
 
 " I m sure of it; but before I tell you what I know, 
 I want to ask a question or two." 
 
 "All right, Hughie." He settled himself in the 
 chair and stretched his legs. I saw in the movement 
 an expression of the relief he was experiencing. 
 
 " You remember you did n t say grace for nearly 
 two years not so very long ago? " 
 
 " I member, Hughie." 
 
 " And that you did n t feel like saying it because 
 you could hear me cursing and blaspheming in the 
 little bedroom?" 
 
 " Ye re tellin* it jest ez t wuz ; it went agin me 
 ter mix words er grace n words er damnation in the 
 same minute fore the Lord." 
 
 " Well, Uncle Shim, you cursed your fellow-man 
 once, a fearful curse, I must own, but I not 
 only cursed the creature, but the Creator, and that, 
 not once, but a thousand times in the course of 
 those nineteen months ; and if I can say I know I 
 am forgiven, don t you think you 11 find forgiveness 
 too?" 
 
 He drew the back of his hand slowly across his 
 eyes. " Ye d oughter ben er preacher, Hughie ; I 
 never thought nothin bout yer doin it. It only 
 seemed kinder nat ral fer anybody thet hed ben under 
 sech discipline ez yourn " 
 
 " And it seemed just as natural to me that you 
 should utter that oath with the provocation you had. 
 We re both men, and pretty human ones, too, Uncle 
 Shim "
 
 272 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 " Thet s so, Hughie," he broke in eagerly, coming 
 over to the cot, " we re er durned selfish lot, the hull 
 on us, n I hain t no right ter fling stones. I Ve tried 
 Lize most ter death, n mounted to nothin ." He 
 grasped the hand I held out to him, and the slow 
 tears coursed down his furrowed, unshaven cheeks. 
 
 " Just get me a coal to light my pipe, will you, 
 Uncle Shim? I want a smoke to ease me up a 
 bit." 
 
 " Jest what I wuz wantin myself. I can kinder 
 think things out clearer when I m drorrin n puffin 
 fer all I m wuth, n seein things outside er me through 
 er blue smudge." He lighted his pipe and took his 
 seat in the rocker. We talked till late in the evening, 
 and threshed family affairs to some purpose. 
 
 " Tell him," he said, when he rose to bid me good 
 night, " not ter lay it up agin me I Ve forgiven, ez 
 I hope ter be forgiven." 
 
 I told Aunt Lize the next day, and when the 
 letter came I read it and handed it over to them both, 
 When Aunt Lize gave the sheet back to me, I saw by 
 her face that Philip Vanever had one stout ally for 
 time and for eternity. 
 
 But after all was said there was Twiddie. I 
 held the letter, when Aunt Lize had finished reading 
 it to Uncle Shim, long in my hand, and pondered. 
 Finally I asked Aunt Lize to tell her; but she put up 
 her hands as if to ward off a blow. " I can t, Hughie ; 
 don t ask me t/iet," she said. 
 
 " Then, Uncle Shim, you must you are her 
 guardian." 
 
 "My God! Hughie, I can t; don t ask me it s
 
 The Gift of God 273 
 
 like turnin loose er whole stream er mud onter her 
 purty white life " 
 
 " But, Uncle Shim, she must be told ; she is of age 
 next month, and you would have no right to keep it 
 from her." 
 
 " T ain t thet, Hughie; but I dassen t say sech 
 things ter the gal ; let let her father do it." I saw 
 how hard it was for him to speak the word and what 
 a victory he had gained over himself. 
 
 "It wouldn t be wise; she couldn t bear it from 
 him not now." 
 
 " Hughie," said Aunt Lize, speaking abruptly, " it s 
 borne in on me thet ye re the one ter tell her ; ye 
 know how ter put things better n we do, n she 11 
 take anything from yew. Ye ve allus known how ter 
 manage her, n she sets er sight by what ye think on 
 her ; ye ve got ter be the one. Ef t wuz on the 
 mother s side, I d do it fast nough, but it s on t other 
 side, n it b longs t er man ter say it." 
 
 " I 11 do it, Aunt Lize, to help you and Uncle Shim 
 -you have been so good to your boy and girl." 
 
 " Don t, Hughie, don t ! " cried Aunt Lize, and flung 
 out of the room. 
 
 But how to tell Twiddle ! I thought and thought, 
 but could find no entering wedge, and the longer I 
 pondered the matter, the more the difficulties multi 
 plied. I said to myself: " To-morrow, I will tell her 
 without fail ; " but on the morrow she came back 
 from the butternut tree with a letter and what a 
 letter ! from Madeline Cope, and the reading of 
 that gave me, as I thought, the end of the string 
 which should unravel the ball. To answer that letter 
 
 18
 
 274 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 I felt to be my first duty. It shall lie here between 
 the leaves, for it has shown me the strength and 
 purity of a true woman s first love. I know she will 
 let me keep this one, despite my promise. 
 
 HUGH, DEAR HUGH, 
 
 Philip has come from you to me, and something 
 tells me you know why he has come, at last. 
 
 What are we women good for but just loving and 
 forgiving, for comforting and supporting? He has 
 told me all. Oh, Hugh, it has needed the discipline 
 of all these years, to show me how to be humble in 
 accepting such love ; and he thought during all this 
 time that, because of that Past, because of his sin, I 
 could not love him ! Oh, how little you men can 
 know, even the best of you, of a true woman s heart ! 
 And I, too, have confessed all to him. I have told 
 him how I have felt all these years : as if I were mar 
 ried to him in soul and that is the eternal part, say 
 what we will. It is that which holds and binds in this 
 world and hereafter, however it may be. Even had 
 he married, there could have been no divorce of my 
 soul from his. 
 
 And now to know that such has been his feeling 
 for me ! To know we may live our life, not our lives, 
 together, not apart any more; that I may take his 
 dear head between my hands and comfort and love 
 as a wife loves A rain of tears is blotting this page ; 
 but you will understand, the long waiting is at 
 an end. 
 
 And Twiddie dear little Twiddle, my Twiddle, 
 because his. How strange all this is ! Make known 
 to her in your own way, dear Hugh, what she is to 
 me, how I feel to her as a mother. I had planned,
 
 The Gift of God 275 
 
 before this surcharge of happiness, to have her with 
 me during February and March; that is, if I could 
 persuade her to leave you. I want to know her more 
 intimately in my own home, and I know there is much 
 young pleasure I can provide for her. Moreover, 
 Dick is looking forward to her coming, and planning 
 to run over often while she is here. 
 
 Can t this be made a surety, now that the tie is so 
 close ? Let me know after you tell her ; let me know, 
 too, how she looks upon all this from her girl s stand 
 point I long to help her, for she will need some 
 help sorely. 
 
 I am writing in the morning-room with the beau 
 tiful panels all about me and here is a confession : 
 it was not wholly, nor firstly, because I wanted a work 
 of art with which to live, that I ordered these panels 
 from you. No, Hugh, it was because Dick told me 
 Philip had been so interested in your work and in 
 you, that I that I oh, how despicable this must 
 seem to you ! wanted to know you because he knew 
 you, and I planned the trip which included Olympus, 
 because He had been there before me. And, after 
 wards, Hugh, I loved you, not only for your own sake, 
 but because I knew, through Dick, that Philip loved 
 you and had made you his close friend. I felt nearer 
 to him when I could chat, by means of letters, with 
 you. When you, too, Hugh, shall find the scales 
 fallen from your eyes, you will be able to forgive a 
 woman this because she is a woman, and a loving one. 
 You remember what I wrote you ? the time will 
 come when you will experience the difference; till 
 then, think as kindly of me as you can. 
 
 Philip told me of those words of yours to him 
 " The ways of God the ways of God." Indeed, they
 
 276 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 are " past finding out," and in witness thereof, I hum 
 bly and lovingly acknowledge myself 
 
 Your affectionate friend and debtor, 
 
 MADELINE COPE. 
 
 I had written the answer and asked Twiddie to 
 carry it down to meet the stage at noon. She was 
 gone unusually long three hours; and when she 
 came in, I noticed she went directly to her room, 
 instead of coming, as was her wont, to me. Nor did 
 she show herself until it was time to set the table for 
 supper. When she brought in my tray I asked her : 
 
 " What kept you so long to-day, Twiddie? " 
 
 " I 11 tell you when I come in after supper ; I want 
 to talk with you, Hugh." My heart gave a queer, 
 frightened thump at nothing, so it seemed, for she 
 spoke as usual, but earnestly. 
 
 " Shall we have a bout at chess to-night? " 
 
 "Not to-night, Hugh; I ll bring in my sewing; 
 I m a little tired." 
 
 " What a brute I have been," I thought, as I 
 watched her brighten the fire and light the lamp, 
 " to send her down so often in all weathers just to 
 carry my mail, or get a letter ; and what has it all 
 amounted to?" I felt down, without knowing why. 
 Madeline s letter had radiated such intimate, human 
 love, that I felt its warmth only to realize the more 
 the chill of my own isolation. Now and then I heard 
 a dash of sleet against the south windows, and I 
 vowed it should be the last time I asked Twiddie to 
 do such an errand for me. 
 
 After the dishes were finished, she came in with
 
 The Gift of God 277 
 
 her sewing, and sat in Aunt Lize s rocking-chair by 
 the bench on which stood the lamp with its yellow 
 porcelain shade a gift of Philip s. I felt strangely 
 oppressed. 
 
 "Well, Twiddie?" 
 
 Her head was bent low over her work, and I could 
 see only the pure profile. " Hugh, do you remember 
 the teacher that stayed with us over Sunday four years 
 ago ? the one with the eye-glasses ? " 
 
 " Yes, to be sure I do ; a nice girl she was too. 
 Where is she now?" 
 
 " In Boston ; she has been there ever since she 
 left her position at the Academy two years ago." 
 
 " What is she doing teaching? " 
 
 " Yes, she is a day-governess. I went down to 
 Farnsfield to-day to see her cousin, who has come as 
 housekeeper at the new inn. She is going to get 
 things in readiness during the winter for the opening 
 next May." 
 
 " How does it look there, greatly changed? " 
 
 " You would n t know it, Hugh. It is like one of 
 those old English inns such as we have admired in 
 that book on Windermere that Mr. Vanever sent you. 
 They are going to make the most of everything when 
 spring comes ; you remember the lilac and syringa 
 hedge opposite, and the great elm at the corner? 
 The signboard hangs from that, and to-day it 
 creaked in the wind just as I imagine all the sign 
 boards creaked that advertised those wonderful 
 taverns in Pickwick 
 
 " What an imagination you have, Twiddie ! But 
 it helps lots, doesn t it?"
 
 278 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 " Indeed it does, Hugh," she answered earnestly, 
 but without looking up. " Do you remember how 
 I used to imagine the people in the stage and the 
 going off/ away as far as Rutland and New York? " 
 
 " Yes, I remember it all. You never do that 
 now? " 
 
 "No, because I m going to make it come true; 
 so there will be no need for making believe. " I 
 saw her head bend more closely over her work. 
 
 "What do you mean, Twiddle? " I spoke sharply, 
 for there was a fear clutching at my heart. 
 
 " Don t speak so to me, Hugh ; if you do, I won t 
 tell you anything." 
 
 " But what do you mean about it s coming true 
 -tell me." 
 
 "Just that; I m really and truly going off, 
 Hugh." 
 
 "Look here, Twiddie, be reasonable what do 
 you mean? Are you going to Miss Cope?" 
 
 Her eyes flashed and her work dropped. " I 
 should like to know why you think I am going to 
 Miss Cope, Hugh? Your imagination outstrips your 
 common-sense many times." 
 
 This from Twiddie ! Suddenly the girl seemed 
 to have vanished from my life, and left a woman sitting 
 there in Aunt Lize s rocker, a woman with whom 
 in future I must reckon. And I, realizing this, found 
 my task of telling her assuming the weight and pro 
 portions of an intolerable burden. " Best have it 
 over with now once and for all time," I thought, 
 and braced myself mentally to the work. Perhaps 
 Twiddie saw that; she spoke rapidly, shortly:
 
 The Gift of God 279 
 
 " I should really like to know, Hugh, why you 
 intrude Miss Cope at every turn in the conversation? " 
 I controlled myself and answered quietly : 
 
 " I will tell you, Twiddle ; because she thinks so 
 much of you that she has planned to have you come 
 to her for February and March to enjoy everything 
 the city can offer." 
 
 " Did she write you this?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Why didn t she address herself directly to me? 
 And since when has she looked upon you as my 
 guardian?" Was this Twiddle! 
 
 " She wrote me because she knows perfectly well 
 the interest I take in everything touching your life, 
 Twiddle She interrupted me with a short laugh, 
 not a pleasant one. 
 
 " Really, Hugh, I can t see any reason in that why 
 she should not give me the invitation herself." 
 
 " I am sure she will later on, when she knows " 
 
 "Knows you are willing to let me go? Thank 
 you, I prefer to be consulted first." 
 
 " Well, all I can say is, it is n t every girl who can 
 get such a chance. I should think you would like 
 just for once the real balls and parties and dinners 
 you Ve imagined enough about them the last four 
 years. Dick Malory is looking forward to your com 
 ing, and She interrupted again : 
 
 " You really think I should like that, Hugh?" 
 
 " Why not? You re young, and it belongs to you 
 by right." 
 
 "By what right, I should like to know?" How 
 she flashed out at me !
 
 280 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 "By right of of a good many things: your youth, 
 for instance." 
 
 "Hugh, tell me truly; do you think I belong 
 there with them?" She looked at me earnestly, 
 questioningly. 
 
 " Yes, I do," I answered stoutly, for now was my 
 time. " You do belong there of right too." 
 
 " Hugh," the blood rushed to her face, then as 
 quickly receded, leaving it white ; " do you remem 
 ber once when you talked with me and comforted me, 
 yet told me truly about about what that boy told 
 me ? Do you suppose I have forgotten that ? " 
 
 " No, Twiddle, but " 
 
 " And do you think for one moment that I could 
 place myself with such people as Miss Cope and 
 Mr. Vanever and Mr. Malory, to be reminded every 
 minute in the heart of me, Hugh, that I was not of 
 them, or their friends? Do you suppose, if if 
 Mr. Malory knew that that that I O Hugh!" 
 She buried her face in her hands. 
 
 I felt the sweat bead my upper lip ; this was awful. 
 I wet my lips, for they were as dry as chips. 
 
 " Twiddie, won t you come nearer to me? I have 
 to tell you something." 
 
 But she shook her head and remained where she 
 was ; I was forced to go on. I told her as well as I 
 knew how which was poorly enough and tried 
 to prove to her that as Philip Vanever s daughter she 
 belonged of right among them, although all the time 
 my heart was crying out against the forswearing of 
 my lips. I told her as gently as I knew how, soften 
 ing, smoothing, yet not daring to condone. She
 
 The Gift of God 281 
 
 neither spoke nor moved ; but sat motionless, with 
 bowed head, as if all the waves and billows of Life s 
 deluge of experience were breaking over her. " Twid- 
 die," I pleaded, " say something to me speak ! " 
 
 " Read me the letter, Hugh," was all her response. 
 Her voice came muffled through her hands. And I 
 read : 
 
 " DEAR HUGH, 
 
 " You are in possession of all the facts up to the 
 day after Thanksgiving, and those I know you have 
 laid before Mr. Lewis before now. There remains 
 but the account of the developments by which I was 
 able to establish the identity of Twiddle s mother with 
 the one I wronged eighteen years ago, and the con 
 sequent proof of her child s relation to me. The 
 links in this chain of evidence are as follows : 
 
 " As I have told you, my father died of paralysis ; 
 there was an interval of but two days between the 
 second and third shock, which proved instantly fatal. 
 During those two days, although deprived of all 
 speech and movement, he nevertheless made known 
 to me that I was to put my hand beneath his pillow. 
 I drew out a small velvet case containing a miniature 
 on ivory of my mother. I had never seen this one 
 before. I realized that he wished it near him, and 
 placed it in his hand, raising both his arm and hand 
 on two pillows to bring the case opposite his face. 
 He died so looking at it. It was one of the fairest 
 faces I have ever seen : that of a girl of eighteen" with 
 bronze brown hair, dark violet blue eyes, and an 
 exquisite complexion. She was in ball dress, and 
 upon her hair there lay a wreath of ivy leaves. 
 
 " The miniature was buried with him. But that day
 
 282 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 in July, when Malory and I went up to Olympus, and 
 Twiddle came singing around the corner of the house, 
 and suddenly stood before us with the rich color in 
 her cheeks and the grape-vine upon her hair, I saw 
 before me the living lineaments of that face in the 
 velvet case. It was a shock, and I think you must 
 have seen the physical effect it had upon me. The 
 two faces haunted me until I came up again the 
 other day. 
 
 "That morning after Thanksgiving, I went you 
 will remember up into Twiddle s room, and there 
 on her little table I saw a tintype likeness in a small 
 carved, wooden frame. The face was that of the 
 woman whom for seven years I had tried to find. 
 I was unable to speak, but Twiddie, seeing that 
 something was wrong, spoke quickly : That is my 
 mother ; Uncle Shim gave it to me on my last birth 
 day and this, too. She took out of her bureau 
 drawer a ring, gold, set with a small diamond. It 
 was the same. 
 
 " How I found my way downstairs I cannot say. I 
 took Prince and drove to find Uncle Jo Cheatle. He 
 told me all he knew, which was little enough, and 
 directed me to Old Town Gilead. There I found 
 that the physician who had attended her in her last 
 illness was dead ; the minister, however, who had 
 read the burial service was living, but had removed 
 to Alderbury. I had inquired for Maria Lewis, the 
 name by which Uncle Jo Cheatle said she was known 
 after her death. In the town-registrar s office there 
 was no entrance of any death under that name. All 
 the man could tell me was that, up to the time of her 
 death, she was known as Mrs. Smith; he had that 
 from the minister who knew the former town-clerk.
 
 The Gift of God 283 
 
 " I drove then to Alderbury, and found the minister, 
 who failed, after long thought, to recall her name. 
 He is old, about eighty-two; and in such a case, 
 where, until just before death the person was unknown 
 to him, he said his memory was not to be trusted. 
 However, he assured me he could go to the grave, 
 and that would help us both out. 
 
 " I left Prince at the stables at Alderbury, and 
 hired a trap to take us back to Old Town Gilead. 
 On the way over there the old gentleman recalled 
 from time to time little things in regard to the 
 woman, and told me he remembered distinctly being 
 called in just before her death to baptize her and 
 christen her little child ; but the child s name had 
 likewise escaped his memory. In the graveyard, he 
 sought among the graves, and, as often happens, by 
 some powerful law of association the environment 
 worked to the quickening of his memory. It was 
 here, he said suddenly, and, stooping, he read the 
 name, Elvira Rasle. 
 
 " That s the one/ he said. Poor woman, it was 
 strange I could not recall her name ; but it all comes 
 back to me now. Strange I should have forgotten 
 it! 
 
 " The name before me was not the one by which I 
 had known her, but nevertheless I had seen the name. 
 After my father s death, in settling the estate and 
 looking over his private papers, I came upon a draft 
 on a New York bank. It was for a sum of ten thou 
 sand dollars, made payable to Elvira Rasle. At that 
 time I felt that it would furnish me some clue to 
 what I had been seeking, and immediately advertised 
 in papers East and West, placing the advertisement 
 upon a claimant for property basis. I had but two
 
 284 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 answers, and they proved to be spurious claims. Of 
 course, the looking up of the death-entry at the office 
 proved without difficulty. 
 
 " On the drive back to Alderbury, the old gentle 
 man suddenly struck his forefinger to his forehead 
 with an exclamation of surprise. 
 
 " Sir/ he said, you have not told me your 
 name, but I take it for granted you have an interest 
 either in that woman or her child? I assured him 
 I was looking up the mother s death, as there was 
 property waiting to be claimed by her heir. 
 
 " Then, surely I can help one of God s little ones, 
 for it has come to me little by little that my friend, 
 the good physician of this place, just before his death, 
 intrusted to my care and keeping a little package con 
 taining the name of that poor erring woman, the name 
 of her child and, if I mistake not, the name of the 
 father of her child. As you may be aware, Sir, it is 
 the custom when a physician is called to aid a woman 
 in such straits, to require her to reveal under oath to 
 her physician the true name of the child s father, and 
 this she did to my friend. He gave me the package, 
 with the request to keep it for reference in case any 
 inquiry should be made for the child. I recall, more 
 over, that he told me the child was born somewhere 
 in the Adirondacks, where he was summering for a 
 few weeks, and that the woman had told him she had 
 settled in Old Town Gilead to be near him ; but that 
 afterwards, before she died, he had learned that she 
 had relations who lived in another township not dis 
 tant from here. 
 
 " If you will stop in at the rectory for a few 
 minutes, we will look over these papers together. 
 
 " In that package I found all that was necessary
 
 The Gift of God 285 
 
 for proof. There was her full name, Maria Elvira 
 Rasle ; Mr. Lewis s name and address ; Twiddie s 
 baptismal certificate with her name, Theodora; and 
 my own in her handwriting. 
 
 " On the back of that draft was an indorsement 
 Elvira Rasle, and the handwriting was identical with 
 that on the slips of paper in the package. Presum 
 ably, she had received the check from my father, 
 and, in her pride, returned it to him; but that is 
 conjecture. 
 
 " This is all ; but it is sufficient for me to claim my 
 own, to claim Twiddle legally for my own " 
 
 " Never ! Never ! " She sprang to her feet with 
 a suppressed but heart-breaking cry ; her hands were 
 clinched, and a spot of burning scarlet on each cheek 
 accented the pallor of her face ; " I tell you, Hugh 
 Armstrong, I will never be claimed as his His ? 
 How dare he, when he has filched my very life ; what 
 right has he to take me from Oh, Hugh, Hugh " 
 She sank on her knees by the cot and, bowing her 
 head upon it, sobbed as if her heart would break. I 
 tried to draw her up to me, for my own heart was 
 bleeding for her ; but she pulled away and rose quickly 
 again, crying out under her breath : 
 
 " Oh, I will go will go " 
 
 Then in my extremity, seeing hers, I spoke but 
 it was the wrong word : 
 
 "Twiddie, hear me; heed me just this once. If 
 you must go, promise me you will go to Madeline 
 Cope ; she will be as a mother to you " 
 
 "Hugh " She interrupted me ; her voice caught 
 in a sob on that word, but thereafter she spoke in
 
 286 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 almost a monotone and with a perfect control, which 
 gave to the passionate words an emphasis wholly 
 disproportionate to the manner of their utterance; 
 "there are limits and I can bear no more. For 
 three years I have run and waited and tended and 
 fetched and carried for her, and I m sick of it. 
 It s been Twiddle this and Twiddie that day in, 
 day out, and I am no longer a child. No don t 
 say a word ; I know what I owe to you ; but do you 
 think for a moment that I, as a woman, can in the 
 future be dependent for support upon you and 
 your work as I have been as a child when no 
 tie of blood binds us? No, don t say anything; 
 it s too late; I shall go, the sooner the better 
 but not to Miss Cope ; I can assure you of that. 
 She would be the very last in this world to whom I 
 would turn 
 
 " You do her great wrong, Twiddie ; " I raised 
 my voice ; " I will speak you have no better 
 friend " 
 
 " Hugh, stop ! " She pressed both hands over her 
 ears ; " I tell you I will hear no more " 
 
 "You must." I was terribly roused, and I almost 
 thundered at her. Her hands dropped by her sides 
 and every particle of color left her face. She stared 
 at me as if I were about to pronounce some final 
 judgment upon her. " You may go to the ends of 
 the earth, if your wilfulness lead you there, but one 
 question you shall answer me before you go : Do 
 you want to go ? Are you fulfilling your own desire 
 in this matter? Answer me." 
 
 I saw the corners of her mouth tremble, and a sud-
 
 The Gift of God 287 
 
 den contraction of the white throat. "Yes," she 
 spoke slowly and as if weary, " I want to go I 
 can t wait to get away." 
 
 " Then go," I said, and turned my face to the 
 windows, against the panes of which the sleet, driven 
 by a strong southeast gale, that since sunset had 
 been howling through the forest, was rattling like 
 small-shot. 
 
 When I turned my head again she had left the 
 room, but not before she had laid fresh fuel on the 
 fire. Seeing that, I buried my face in my hands, and 
 had it out with myself. 
 
 The next day, when Aunt Lize and Uncle Shim 
 came to me in their distress and trouble, for Twid- 
 die had laid all her plan before them, but had not 
 even asked permission of Uncle Shim to carry it 
 out, I assumed a cheerful manner that was but a 
 mask for my outraged feelings for had she not 
 told me in so many words that she wanted to leave 
 me? and spoke encouraging words that belied the 
 heaviness of my heart. 
 
 " The plan is a good one, Uncle Shim, and I 
 believe she will make it work. There is no harm in 
 her going down to Boston to board two or three 
 weeks with her old teacher, and, meanwhile, advertis 
 ing for a place as companion. Twiddie has a level 
 head and can make her way in the world with the 
 contents of her knowledge-box at her disposal. She 
 reads French well, and her Latin has astonished me. 
 She has even tackled the German. Oh, she ll do 
 you 11 be proud of her some day."
 
 288 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 He smiled, but uncertainly, " I dunno, Hughie, ez 
 I d mind her goin 1 so much; she s young, n t ain t 
 nat ral fer the fledglings not ter want ter try their 
 wings, n we air all gittin* erlong in years t ain t 
 thet; but it s the idee er her bein in thet great 
 hog s wash er city life " 
 
 I laughed. " I should think you had been reading 
 Carlyle, Uncle Shim." 
 
 " I don t know nothin bout Carlyle, Hughie, n I 
 don t keer nuther; I hain t much on readin , but I ve 
 heerd tell ; n only t other week, I see in the Granger 
 where er gal went down country n got pickpocketed 
 fore she left the depot, n hed ter go ter the lockup 
 fer er night s lodgin fore she could git word hum ter 
 send her some cash. I dunno I dunno " He 
 shook his head dubiously. 
 
 " I 11 tell you what I 11 do, Uncle Shim ; I 11 write 
 to Miss Cope and tell her all about it, and ask her 
 to go on to Boston and see Twiddie and report just 
 how things are ; and then I 11 send a telegram to her 
 father to-day, and you can take them both down un 
 beknown to Twiddie, and I m sure you and Aunt 
 Lize need not to worry." 
 
 Aunt Lize put her hand on my hair and began to 
 stroke it. I knew by that she was satisfied. Uncle 
 Shim drew a long breath. 
 
 "Thet 11 take er load off n my mind, Hughie; 
 kinder seems, arter all, ez ef things wuz goin ter 
 work round all right. But I feel sorter meechin ter 
 be feelin thankful ter my God thet my leetle gal s 
 got er father ter look out fer her, arter what I ve 
 said ! Yew git them despatches ready, n I 11 hitch
 
 The Gift of God 289 
 
 up, n take em down ez fur ez Scawsville ter make 
 sure." 
 
 In three days time we had answers from both that 
 they would be in the city by the time Twiddie should 
 be there. Philip thought it would not be best to let 
 her know of his presence, but he had planned to have 
 an old friend of his mother s, who had lived in the 
 city for years, answer all advertisements she might 
 see in the papers for a position as companion, and so 
 procure Twiddle s service, assure her a home, and 
 afford her the protection and care that would put all 
 our hearts at rest while she should be away from us. 
 
 Twiddie was apparently in the gayest of spirits, 
 promising Aunt Lize this, that, and the other with 
 the money she was to earn ; teasing Uncle Shim, 
 who never takes a pen in his hand, to write her regu 
 larly once a week, and threatening, when he begged 
 off, to stay away from him five years; coming in a 
 dozen times a day to show me the few new things she 
 had bought for her journey; practising her French 
 upon me and Toughheel, much to the latter s amaze 
 ment, and singing, "Roky tummy me la, la, la " 
 
 I entered into it all but I could but wonder. 
 Was this gay girl the woman who had knelt by my 
 cot? I answered jest for jest, smile for smile and 
 she never knew, she never knew I did n t mean 
 she should ; and I would n t ask her to stay not 
 I. But on that seventeenth day of December, when 
 Uncle Shim drove the sleigh around the house that 
 she might wave good-by again to me at the window, 
 I knew that a part of my life was bidding me farewell. 
 I strained my ears to catch the last " tankle " of
 
 290 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 Prince s cow-bell ; then I turned my face to the David 
 and refused my dinner. 
 
 Oh, that winter ! I tried to work, I tried to read, I 
 tried to study but my hand had lost its cunning, 
 my eyes roamed from the page to the bleak moun 
 tain-world in the east, my brain refused to work in 
 the old grooves. 
 
 The cold was piercing, penetrating flesh and mar 
 row, and numbing the soul. And the dreary, empty 
 house ! My eardrums were strained to the aching 
 point in trying to hear a light footstep on the garret 
 stair, to catch some sound of the sweet voice and the 
 joyous laugh. The routine of the work went on, day 
 in, day out, without let or hindrance, unbroken by a 
 jest or a merry retort. 
 
 Aunt Lize s step seemed to have lost the elasticity 
 that had been peculiar to it for fifty years, and Uncle 
 Shim stooped more than ever. Day after day, in 
 snow and sleet and bitter cold, he went down for the 
 mail, and letters from Philip and Madeline came 
 often and regularly, filled with the cheer and love of 
 perfect friendship. Even a batch from Waldort made 
 its appearance just after Christmas, with a box for 
 Twiddle. We sent it to her at once. 
 
 I lived from Tuesday till Thursday, from Thurs 
 day till Saturday, and again till Tuesday, when her 
 tri-weekly letters came regularly to Aunt Lize 
 bright, cheerful, full of hope and kindly messages; 
 but to me she never wrote. She was leading a 
 new life. 
 
 There came a day, the last of February, when I 
 laid aside my work. A strange weakness had come
 
 The Gift of God 291 
 
 upon me, almost a numbing of my faculties. I laid it 
 at first to the excessive cold. But as the sun warmed 
 in early March, and I felt no stronger, I laid it to my 
 loss of appetite. Aunt Lize tried to tempt me with 
 all my favorite dishes, but even to please her I could 
 not eat a sufficient amount, or regularly. At last 
 Aunt Lize s face took on the old worried look of 
 five years before. I assured her I was all right, but 
 I saw her watching me from the kitchen when I lay 
 by the hour with my face turned to the David, seeing 
 with unseeing eyes the play of the firelight upon it, 
 and thinking over every little act of loving grace 
 and they were legion towards me, selfish, unthank 
 ful, unwitting, unmindful of the treasure in my own 
 chimney-corner. 
 
 Every look, every word, every gesture came back 
 to me ; the willing feet, oh, how willing ! the help 
 ful hands that brought in my three meals daily and 
 never tired ; the loving smile when I was weary ; 
 the hours she had read to me while I toiled ; and, 
 in the night-watches, there came to me the touch of 
 her long braid upon my forehead, and the clinging 
 of her child s hands about my neck when she 
 whispered that it was all " coming true." 
 
 It was then that Madeline Cope sent me those 
 letters Twiddie had written her during the three years. 
 I read them also in the night-watches, and again by 
 daylight, that I might not be deceived. No, the 
 loving girl s heart was all there. It was " Hugh," 
 " Hugh," and again " Hugh," that filled page after 
 page. But I said to myself that was the child she 
 was mine; but the woman had awakened, and she
 
 292 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 was not for me ; for me ! How dared I ? helpless, 
 useless almost, or so it seemed to me ; my life mort 
 gaged already for two-thirds and ten years her 
 senior. 
 
 One night I lay watching the fire, for I was sleep 
 less, and often in following the flare and flicker of a 
 burning stick I could lose myself. 
 
 But that night, as I continued to stare steadfastly, 
 there was outlined on the rug a little figure, her 
 elbows on her knees, her chin in the palms, and I 
 knew, as we know between sleeping and waking, that 
 it was Twiddie ; and slowly the flame and shadow in 
 the fireplace grew into a branching tree with the wind 
 swaying its top, and a white, burnt streak in the soot 
 at the back was a road with no turning ; and far, far 
 down it, I could see a yellow speck that drew nearer 
 and nearer until I recognized it as the old Hornet ; 
 and lo ! it drew up beneath the spreading tree, and 
 a boy I started, when I made that discovery was 
 on the trunk-rack, swinging his legs; and the boy 
 was myself, Hugh Armstrong. He jumped down 
 from the rack, and said to the little figure on the rug, 
 which seemed to be beneath the tree : " Miss Twiddie 
 Lewis, here s your mail," and put it into a hollow 
 of the tree ; and the little figure on the rug, which 
 seemed beneath the tree, rose quickly and took out 
 the letters and read them in a low voice to herself: 
 " Dear Twiddie " " Dear Miss Twiddie " last, 
 " Dearest Theodora." She laughed softly, as if fear 
 ing to wake me, and murmured : " H. A." " H. A.," 
 and kissed that letter again and again. But the boy, 
 that was I, had not gone off with the stage, which had
 
 The Gift of God 293 
 
 somehow disappeared without my seeing it. He had 
 hidden behind the trunk of the tree, and when she 
 kissed that letter the third time, he sprang out from 
 behind the tree 
 
 I must have fallen asleep then or fully awakened, 
 I don t know which. But I awoke in the morn 
 ing, refreshed, and took pen and ink and wrote to 
 Twiddie ; and I began that letter, " Dearest Theo 
 dora," and signed myself, " H. A. " and what was 
 written between that beginning and that ending, let 
 any man who has loved with all his heart and soul 
 and body, his mind and strength, one woman, and 
 her only, supply. Thereof the deponent saith no 
 more. 
 
 But of one thing I may tell, how on Thursday of 
 that week I had sent the letter on Monday just 
 before sunset, as I was hoping, praying that there 
 might be some answer to ease my aching heart, I 
 heard the " tankle " of the cow-bell, the squeaking of 
 the runners as Uncle Shim drove the sleigh into the 
 barn, and Aunt Lize go out into the shed. It seemed 
 a week before she came in again, and I could call to 
 her. 
 
 "Aunt Lize, is there any mail? " 
 
 " No, Hughie, not ter-night." I noticed that her 
 voice had something of the old ring in it. " I 11 hev 
 yer supper ready in er few minutes." 
 
 " I don t want any, Aunt Lize ; just a sup of milk 
 and a piece of bread," I said, then turned to the re 
 flection of the sunset fires in the east disheartened, 
 sick, weary of the game. 
 
 I heard Aunt Lize about the kitchen, and soon the
 
 294 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 door was pushed open, and the clatter of dishes told 
 me she was coming. 
 
 "I told you I didn t want any, Aunt Lize "I 
 spoke irritably, and turned to the door lo ! there she 
 stood in the level soft light of the flushing east with 
 the tray in her two hands that trembled so the dishes 
 kept up a subdued, unsteady clirring, 
 
 " Aunt Lize thought you might eat some supper if 
 I brought it in " 
 
 Still I could not speak. I saw the color leave her 
 sweet face and the hands shake until she was obliged 
 to set the tray on the bench. 
 
 " Aunt Lize wrote me you were n t well, Hugh, so 
 I ve come home." 
 
 Then I found my voice. " Theodora ! " and 
 held out my arms. 
 
 She came swiftly to the cot, and leaned over me 
 with great unshed tears in her eyes. I drew her down 
 beside me ; and then, as of old, she nestled in the hol 
 low of my arm, and, throwing back her head upon my 
 shoulder, smiled up at me with such depths of promise 
 shining through her tears, that I 
 
 June, 189-. 
 
 Three months since then, and I am at work in the 
 Pen the days all too short even at this first summer 
 solstice that ever has been since the world was made, 
 to accomplish what I wish. I ve whistled till I m 
 fairly faint, for she made me promise " to keep my 
 spirits up " while she should be away. I have had 
 need of it. She has gone up into the Old Pasture 
 with Uncle Shim, and is to bring me a branch of the
 
 The Gift of God 295 
 
 sweet-brier for a design. She has been gone already 
 an hour ; she is rarely absent from my side now for 
 that length of time, either by day or night there 
 she comes ! I hear her calling Tag 
 
 I began to whistle for all I was worth, but as she 
 neared the corner of the house I had to caii just to 
 hear the sweet voice answer. 
 
 " Theodora ! " 
 
 "Yes, Hugh, I m coming." 
 
 Oh, my Gift of God my Gift of God f
 
 VII 
 THE PASSING OF THE HORNET
 
 VII 
 
 THE PASSING OF THE HORNET 
 
 TWO years ago the scream of the locomotive 
 awoke new echoes in the Valley of the 
 White Branch, and sounded forever the 
 doom of the Hornet s post-horn. 
 
 Until the completion of the road, the yellow-bodied, 
 black-banded stage-coach could still be seen daily lung 
 ing along the old Post-road from Alderbury " over 
 the Mountain." On its last tenth of September, when 
 the Hornet left that town, it had but two passengers : 
 a man and a woman, who had kept the inside seats 
 all the way up the Valley. Not until the driver, a 
 stranger, for Uncle Jo Cheatle had passed with the 
 passing of the last century and the iron invasion of 
 the new, had left Scawsville two miles behind him, 
 did the sound of pick and axe, of dynamite blast and 
 hurtling rocks, of crashing trees, the ring of riveted 
 iron and the creak of derrick wholly cease, and the 
 unsightly scars of gravel-pit, cleared and blackened 
 mountain-sides, rock-hewn roadbed, and meadows dis 
 figured by the garish, yellow-white of new-timbered 
 trestle-work, entirely disappear. 
 
 As the stage approached the slope behind the 
 Bend, the late afternoon sun, that had been obscured 
 by heavy cloud-masses, shone forth brilliantly be-
 
 300 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 neath their rolled, dark edges, and lighted the walls 
 and headstones of the Old Church Settlement. 
 
 The man put his head out of the window : " You may 
 leaveus here," he said to the driver who drew rein at the 
 foot of the grassy hillside below the church to let the 
 two out. Then he drove on ; but at the next water-bar 
 he reined up again, and, turning to look backwards and 
 downwards, he saw the two, hand in hand, slowly climb 
 ing the steep path that led directly to the churchyard. 
 He stared for full a minute ; then, gathering up the 
 reins, he scratched the back of his head with the butt 
 of his whipstock, and chirruped encouragingly to his 
 horses that strained to the steep rise before them. 
 
 Time has genially mellowed the marbles and em 
 bossed with lichens the other headstones of the Old 
 Church Settlement, and its every grave is covered and 
 graced with the glossy leaves of the myrtle. Year 
 after year the grace of this green mantle is renewed, 
 nor biting frost nor frozen ground endangers its 
 vigorous life. 
 
 The man and woman made their way at once across 
 the tangle of vines that obliterates the paths, and 
 often a forgotten grave, to a corner overhung by a 
 tall larch, where, at the end of a row of headstones, 
 both marble and slate, stands a wooden cross of oak, 
 some five feet in height. 
 
 The woman, the tears raining down her cheeks, 
 knelt by the myrtle-covered mound before raising her 
 eyes to read the inscription on the cross: 
 
 " HUGH ARMSTRONG, 
 WOOD-CARVER. 
 AGED 30."
 
 The Passing of the Hornet 301 
 
 " Philip, O Philip ! " her voice was broken with 
 sobs, "it is more beautiful even than you said; 
 and what do we not owe to him ! " 
 
 Woman-like, she began to busy herself with pick 
 ing off a withered leaf or two, and disentangling an 
 obstinate vine that spoiled the symmetry of the other 
 wise perfect oval of the mound. 
 
 " He bridged an abyss for me with his friendship, 
 Madeline ; and when I knelt by this open grave four 
 years ago, I consecrated myself anew to walking 
 humbly with God but with you by my side." 
 
 " But, Philip, there was something more, something 
 of which I have never told you 
 
 " I know it, Madeline." 
 
 "Did Hugh tell you?" 
 
 " No never." 
 
 "Then how could you know, Philip?" 
 
 He smiled down upon her and caught away her 
 hand from the vine she was lifting. 
 
 " Because my love for one woman had given me 
 second sight where another man s love for her was 
 concerned." An answering smile broke through her 
 tears. 
 
 " See, Philip," she said, " what Hansl has sent us 
 from the Frohe Alp for this very hour. It was his 
 request; he knew they would keep, and that I was 
 coming up this fall. I did n t want you to know of it 
 before." She untied the pasteboard box she had 
 with her, and taking out a large bunch of Alpine 
 Edelweiss laid it among the myrtle just over the 
 stilled heart beneath. 
 
 It was the man s turn to fight with his emotioa
 
 302 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 " Come, dearest, we must be going. It is near sun 
 set and the chill will fall with the dew; you must not 
 risk too great a strain or exposure as you are. I see 
 the carriage coming that I ordered from Farnsfield." 
 
 He put his arm about her and aided her to rise, 
 tenderly, as is the way of a man towards a woman 
 who carries another life beneath her heart. She 
 leaned heavily upon him as they went down the steep 
 path. 
 
 " Twiddle wrote she would be down with Aunt Lize 
 to-morrow morning at the inn," she said, as he helped 
 her into the carriage. 
 
 Her husband was silent, pondering many things. 
 
 As he neared the butternut tree he found himself 
 hoping against hope that he might find his child 
 awaiting him there. Yet he knew from the experi 
 ence of the last four years that the hope would be in 
 vain. He had been unable, aided and abetted as he 
 had been by his wife, to change the old relationship 
 which had obtained between them from the time of 
 his first coming to the Mountain now nearly ten 
 years ago. She welcomed him ever as a friend her 
 friend and Hugh s; but, after her husband s death, 
 whenever he had attempted to establish his natural 
 claim and he had tried in many ways, in all ways 
 that his heart could prompt his brain to devise, in 
 ways that could offend neither her pride nor her self- 
 respect he had been met with a stubborn, but 
 gentle, resistance. 
 
 He had come to acknowledge, unwillingly, without 
 reserve, in humiliation, that he would be allowed to 
 be naught to her but a friend. The logic of the
 
 The Passing of the Hornet 303 
 
 moral law was irrefutable ; that never forgave. He 
 recognized the justice ; he bowed to the decree, 
 there was naught else left for him to do, but he 
 knew, as he passed the butternut tree and found no 
 one waiting for him there, that he must long unto the 
 End for that which would never be wholly his : his 
 first child s filial love. And his heart was sore. 
 
 It was his wife who spoke as the carriage climbed 
 the steep rise beyond the tree : 
 
 " Twiddie wrote me a few weeks ago that Franz 
 Waldort was coming on in the spring. I wonder 
 She did not finish that sentence, but her husband 
 heard her murmur: 
 
 " Poor Dick ! " 
 
 Falling leaf, drifting snows, springing green had 
 marked two-thirds of the cycle of another year. It 
 was the Hornet s last trip, and it carried the mail and 
 but one passenger as it left Scawsville. 
 
 Along the route not only the farmhouses but entire 
 hamlets were deserted, for on that day the grand 
 opening excursion of the Valley Railroad had gath 
 ered its hundreds from far and near to celebrate with 
 brass band, colors, and speeches the Progress of the 
 Inevitable. 
 
 All along the River Valley the construction of the 
 road had had its interest for the passenger. He had, 
 however, asked no questions concerning it, nor had 
 the driver volunteered any information ; but when 
 they left the valley for the heights, the latter, hitherto 
 uncommunicative, pointing with the butt of his whip- 
 stock to a shoring of piles and stone, broke the silence :
 
 304 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 " They Ve ben tryin to fence in the Branch ; but 
 jest let it come ter n ice-jam j ining hands with er 
 spring freshet, n I can tell em ther 11 be music ter 
 beat the band down thar," he jerked his whipstock 
 backwards towards Alderbury ; " the River 11 do some 
 waltzin right over thet to er purty lively tune tew, 
 yer can bet yer life on thet." 
 
 " I noticed a few miles back that a heavy roadbed 
 had been laid on an embankment of clay," said the 
 stranger. " There will be a landslide into the river 
 some day, just at that point. Why did n t they leave 
 the heavy timber on the bank to protect it? " 
 
 " They say the Comp ny cut it to run the engines 
 on the spot, so s ter save coal kinder worked their 
 way along up thet way." 
 
 He relapsed into silence, for the stranger had 
 merely smiled as if incredulous ot such folly in en 
 lightened times. 
 
 He was thinking what an anomaly it. was this 
 small out-of-the-way corner of America, this North 
 Country of the New England. The trained vision of 
 the geologist was noting the dip of the strata, the 
 outcrops, the old river-beds and terraces, the tracks 
 of glaciers, the work of water ; and the trained mind 
 was intent upon certain problems, psycho-physical, 
 that were presenting themselves to him in rapid 
 succession as the Hornet slowly pulled up the over 
 lapping foothills. The keen eye took note of the con 
 figuration of the ever-widening expanse of country. 
 
 It was old, this New England ; there was no doubt 
 about that. He could tell the signs of its age as he 
 could tell them in a horse : by the wearing down of
 
 The Passing of the Hornet 305 
 
 the grinders. The great primeval mountains had 
 been ground down to their granite roots, and over 
 laid with new deposit. 
 
 He smiled at his fancy; yet it was a fact that this 
 New England had come within an ace of being an 
 island like the mother-country. Just a deeper furrow 
 drawn here and there by the glacier s plough, an extra 
 lengthening and deepening of the Hudson s gorge, a 
 touch in the extreme east, and the noble North River, 
 Champlain,the St. Lawrence, the St. John, the Atlantic 
 would have rendered it insular, impregnable. 
 
 Indeed, like the Old England, its characteristics 
 were many of them insular. And how old the New 
 was getting to be both politically and sociologically ! 
 Like the Old England, it had bred already now for 
 these three hundred years men; was still breeding 
 them : men who had been the pioneers in an Eastern 
 wilderness ; men who had been the pioneers in a West 
 ern one, who had made their way across a mountain- 
 bastioned continent, who had rounded that mighty 
 outpost of the two Americas, the sentinel of two 
 great oceans the Headland of the Horn, and made 
 for statehood in the early anarchic conditions and 
 genetic throes of the newest and farthest West on the 
 shores of the Pacific ; made for Law, made for Order, 
 made for Stability. And from this poor soil ! 
 
 He gazed around him; it was so poor, so needy, 
 yielding but grudgingly sustenance ; the climate for 
 a time rigorously arctic ; the waters bound as with 
 adamant for many months ; its summers short and 
 almost tropical, yet in a few weeks working a natural 
 revelation even to his Western eyes as witness that 
 
 20
 
 306 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 old apple tree ! A mere roadside distortion, gnarled, 
 warped, wind-riven, twisted of branch, hoar with moss 
 and lichen, graced meagrely with half abortive foliage ! 
 
 Yet towards the road it stretched forth one 
 straight, sturdy, ten-inch bough tufted with bushels of 
 luxuriant pink-and-white blooms that, as they passed, 
 charged the air with a delicately elusive fragrance. 
 
 That he felt was symbolic of New England : warp, 
 gnarl, moss-growth, deep taproot, a holding-on-like- 
 grim-Death to what of sustenance there might be in 
 the barren subsoil ; wind-bent, bowed, bereft of vari 
 ous members, but never uprooted ; and so long as 
 there should be life there would be somewhere deli 
 cate, entrancing, unexpected blossoming and, despite 
 untoward conditions, promise of fruition. 
 
 Waldort drew a long breath and smiled again to 
 himself at his pleasing conceit: he, too, was about 
 to take from the impoverished New England soil a 
 delicate branch to engraft upon his own life in the 
 West with promise of rich fruition. 
 
 He had seen her but once in all these years, in the 
 summer preceding his friend s death ; but he had con 
 tinued his letters to Olympus after the inspiration of 
 its deity had been withdrawn. 
 
 He had known from the first that he must be wise 
 for both, and give her time to attempt the readjust 
 ment of her life in her own way. He felt sure the 
 attempt would prove abortive. She was not made 
 for that isolated mountain-life. She was young, and 
 although she did not know it, could not realize it, 
 would have resented any suggestion on his part in re 
 gard to it he knew she would soon crave that which
 
 The Passing of the Hornet 307 
 
 is for the young: Life in its fulness, its richness, its 
 entirety, which, being interpreted for a woman, means 
 home, husband, children. 
 
 So he had waited patiently until this last year, his 
 " heart of oak " gathering the grace of a great tender 
 ness; the " volcano," after Madeline Cope s marriage, 
 at last extinct; and the gentle growths of a protect 
 ing love and anticipated domestic joys were clothing 
 the excoriated sides, the lava-filled crevices. He 
 rejoiced in his own deep feeling for this legacy of his 
 friend. When once it should have actually come into 
 his possession ah, then! 
 
 A bluebird broke into sudden song by the roadside, 
 and the man s eyes filled. 
 
 He recalled that day in the early spring when that 
 letter came telling him of her inability to live so 
 longer ; of the impossibility of readjusting her life in 
 the changed conditions of the Mountain the Moun 
 tain that was no more to any of them without the Man ; 
 telling him how Aunt Lize had said, " It was Hughie 
 that made the life for us all," and how they had deter 
 mined to breakup the old place, sell it, if possible, and 
 find a small home in Alderbury where she had obtained 
 the position of principal s assistant at the Academy 
 for the next fall term. The Mountain-life had be 
 come intolerable for them all. 
 
 And how he had rejoiced when she told him in her 
 next that she had been reading for the first time his 
 letters to Hugh. She had waited, at her husband s 
 request, the four years and a half before reading 
 them ; and now what a revelation they had been to 
 her ! How her heart went out to him in that un-
 
 308 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 fathered boyhood of his for had not she also been 
 unfathered, unmothered? 
 
 It was then he exulted, knowing they had found 
 each other on a common basis. It was then he had 
 written her by return mail and told her all. 
 
 And how he had gloated over the touch of bitter 
 ness in her answer which recognized his claim upon 
 her : " It is strange that in my two diverging paths 
 of life Madeline Cope should have been before me 
 gathering the first roses." 
 
 How he cherished her in thought for that one bit 
 ter touch! It was so natural; it belonged to her 
 youth. And how soon it would be changed to sweet 
 ness in different conditions, in a new environment: 
 in a land prodigal in its sunshine, prodigal in its 
 blossoms, prodigal in its serrated peaks of shining 
 snow, in its spaciousness of sea and sky Oh, thank 
 God for California! in a home of her own, in the 
 protection of his cherishing love, in the clasp of a 
 child s little arms about her neck. He lost himself in 
 reverie, and smiled to himself as he thought of Uncle 
 Shim and Aunt Lize opening their New England eyes 
 upon the wonders of that other land ; he almost 
 laughed aloud as he recalled the description in his 
 last letter of the latter s enthusiasm for the prospec 
 tive migration and a farm of their own run entirely 
 upon the irrigation plan. 
 
 As the Hornet emerged from the forest-belt, the 
 silvery flute notes of a hermit thrush deep within the 
 green gloom aroused Waldort to a consciousness of 
 his surroundings. 
 
 Just before him shone the white walls of the de-
 
 The Passing of the Hornet 309 
 
 serted House of God. He bared his head as he 
 passed the slope of the Old Church Settlement 
 whereon the trees were rife with bird notes. But he 
 would not stop. That was for another time. To 
 day was for the living, and his face was set, not to the 
 rising sun towards which one goes only the sooner to 
 meet the night, but Westwards, anticipating the day. 
 
 Yes, this New England bred men ; had bred even 
 upon this Mountain one man who, with his battlefield 
 narrowed to the space of a seven-by-four-foot cot, 
 handicapped, armorless, beset behind and before by 
 the horror of a bedridden despair, in the face of pov 
 erty and a blank future had fought valiantly, disputing 
 the ground inch by inch until it had narrowed ever 
 so slightly to the dimensions of a victorious grave. 
 And he had died still fighting. 
 
 A hero? Yes, but only one of the forgotten 
 millions. 
 
 On the heights above the Bend, just before he 
 reached the butternut tree, the driver drew rein. 
 
 "It s bout time fer it ter be leavin Scawsville. 
 Les listen n mebbe we 11 hear it whoop," he said to 
 the passenger beside him. 
 
 They waited five, ten, fifteen minutes. A hen- 
 hawk circled high in the soft June sky; a chipmunk 
 cluttered along the stone wall. For a moment there 
 was no other sound but the champing of the bits as 
 the leader grew impatient at the delay. 
 
 Suddenly from the depths of the Valley came a 
 prolonged, piercing shriek two of them three of 
 them. The heights echoed stridently. The driver 
 turned to the man beside him.
 
 310 The Wood-carver of Lympus 
 
 "What d I tell ye?" he said with a slow, trium 
 phant smile ; then, suddenly seizing the post-horn 
 from its leathern socket, he tooted blast on blast in 
 feeble mockery. The passenger caught him by the 
 arm. 
 
 "What s the use of making such a racket as that? 
 there s no one to hear." The driver shook off the 
 hand, and blew with the full strength of his lungs one 
 more blast. 
 
 " Ef I Ve got ter celebrate my own fun ral, I m 
 goin ter toot while I can set on the coffin-lid. I 
 thought I d got er life-job jest like Uncle Jo Cheatle, 
 n then come the durned railway perspecters, n 
 t wuz all up with me. Besides she told me to," he 
 added irrelevantly. 
 
 "Who?" asked the stranger, simulating indiffer 
 ence ; but his heart leaped. 
 
 The driver pointed with his whipstock up to the 
 Pent Road, which they were approaching. 
 
 " Mis Armstrong ; she s allus on hand fer the 
 mail, n she told me ef ther wuz anybody thet 
 stopped off fer their place ter the butternut tree, 
 ter blow on the horn, n ye said ye wuz goin ter git 
 down here." He drew rein beneath the tree. 
 
 " Oh, that alters the case," said the passenger, swing 
 ing himself down ; " I beg your pardon." 
 
 " I take it ye re er stranger in these parts," the 
 driver said as he handed him down his bag. 
 
 " Not wholly," the other answered with a suspicion 
 of a smile ; " but I have n t seen it for five years." 
 
 " Guess ye re some used ter stagin , the way ye 
 swung off thar jest now."
 
 The Passing of the Hornet 311 
 
 " I ought to be ; I m an old Californian," replied 
 the man. 
 
 "Thet so?" said the driver without any show of 
 surprise. " Jest tell Mis Armstrong thar she comes 
 now! ther ain t no mail ter-day ter celebrate the 
 Hornet s fun ral ; she 11 hev ter git it from Farnsfield 
 ter-morrer." 
 
 The passenger watched the stage climb the rise 
 beyond and disappear over the brow of the hill. 
 Then he turned, and with outstretched hands went 
 to meet the figure that was coming lightly down the 
 pasture slope from the last bars. 
 
 "There s no mail, Twiddie," he said; and the two 
 went back together up the Pent Road. 
 
 October, i9O2-February, 1903.

 
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