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Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
Editor-in- Chief 
 Harley M. Leete, 01 
 
 Alumni Editor 
 Mary Bell, 98 
 
 Associate Editors 
 
 Agnes Frisius, 01 
 
 K. Courtenay Johnston, 01 
 
 Nathan Moran, 01 
 
 Winfield Dorn, 02 
 
 Clifford H. Wood, 03 
 
 Managed by 
 Bryan Bell, 03 
 
Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 Stories by Students of the 
 University of California 
 
 Selected and Edited by the Editorial Staff 
 
 of the University of California 
 
 Magazine 
 
 A. M. Robertson 
 
 San Francisco 
 
 1901 
 
Copyright, igoo 
 
 by 
 A. M. Robertson 
 
 THE MURDOCK PRKSS 
 
TO BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER, PRESIDENT 
 
 OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, 
 
 AND AMEY WEBB WHEELER, HIS WIFE, 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 
 
 9S5160 
 
I. 
 
 YE NORTHERN LIGHTS THAT DANCE AND GLOW 
 ATHWART THE NORTHERN SKY, 
 
 YOUR BRILLIANT HUES INTENSER GROW 
 THEN FLICKER, PALE, AND DIE. 
 
 II. 
 AND, EVANESCENT THOUGH YE BE, 
 
 YOUR DAZZLING GoD-LIT FIRE 
 ENKINDLES BOTH IN YOU AND ME 
 
 A SPARK THAT DOTH INSPIRE. 
 
 III. 
 
 AND SO EACH LITTLE TALE FOUND HERE, 
 LIKE TO THE NORTHERN LIGHT, 
 
 Is BUT THE FLASH OF AN IDEA 
 
 THAT SPRINGS OUT FROM THE NIGHT. 
 
 IV. 
 
 IT CLAIMS NO DEPTH, ITS END THE ART 
 
 To GIVE A MOMENT S PLEASURE, 
 
 AND THEN, LIKE NORTHERN LlGHTS, DEPART 
 IN ONE SOFT FLUSH FOREVER. 
 
 AGNES FRISIUS. 
 
Preface 
 
 The principal reason that these stories 
 have been gathered together and given 
 to the public, is to start the fund where 
 with to erect a fountain on the Campus 
 of the University of California to be in 
 harmony with the great Hearst archi 
 tectural plan. This fountain is to be 
 dedicated by a grateful student body 
 and alumni to Mrs. Phoebe Hearst, in 
 token of their high esteem for her and 
 in recognition of all that her benevolence 
 and personal interest has done for them. 
 
 Aside from this primary motive, we 
 have been actuated by a desire to show 
 what students have done and are doing 
 along literary lines, independent of their 
 collegiate course. Since this is the first 
 
6 Preface 
 
 volume of stories ever published in the 
 University, we have had a wide field from 
 which to select. We have searched the 
 files of college publications and other 
 journals and have selected these stories 
 from among the many at our disposal 
 which, while they in no way may be 
 deemed masterpieces, have at least some 
 one excellence to commend each of them. 
 To please as many readers as possible, 
 they are chosen with very catholic taste, 
 some for felicity in local color, some for 
 their ingenious plot, and some for sub 
 tle character analysis. We have not 
 chosen stories dealing exclusively with 
 college life, as in so doing we found we 
 must lower the standard of the book 
 as a whole, but the staff has selected 
 stories which were written while their 
 authors were college students, with ref 
 erence solely to their literary merit. 
 
 THE EDITORS. 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 TRAVIS HALLETT S HALF-BACK 
 
 Frank Norris, 94 9 
 
 THE PROUD DIG AND THE LAZY STUDENT 
 
 James Hopper, 98 37 
 
 THE LEGEND OF THE RIVER WAYSTE 
 
 Ida H. Ballard, 94 53 
 
 THE SINGULAR EXPERIENCE OF THE GILSTRAPS 
 
 Gertrude Henderson, 95 ... 72 
 
 THE CONFRATERNITY OF THE HOLY AGONY 
 
 Harley M. Leete, 01 102 
 
 THE LITTLE MAID S TRAGEDY 
 
 Mary Sell, 98 129 
 
 THE FATE OF THE FOUR 
 
 Centennia Bar to, 98 (Mrs. Leslie Mott} 138 
 
 A MATTER OF STATE 
 
 Richard Walton Tully, 01 . . 159 
 SHADOWS 
 
 Ralph E. Gibbs, 98 191 
 
 THE SECOND EDITION 
 
 Agnes Crary, 92 (Mrs. P. L. Weaver} 212 
 
Travis Hallett s Half-back: : 
 
 By Frank Norris 
 
 HOSE ball?" shouted a man at 
 Miss Travis Hallett s elbow, to 
 any one that would listen to him. 
 
 Travis did not know this man, and 
 this man did not know her. They did 
 not look at each other at all. They 
 both kept their attention fixed with 
 very painful intensity on the field. 
 
 " Whose ball ? " cried the man again, 
 bitterly, " the other side s ? " 
 
 " No," shouted Travis, so as to be 
 heard above the noise; "no, our ball, 
 I think ; that was the fourth down." 
 Then rapidly, " Yes, yes, there goes 
 their full-back down the field. Our 
 ball! Our ball! Rah, rah, " 
 
 2 
 
io Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 But the man was not listening to her 
 any more. He had put his hat upon 
 the end of his stick, and had climbed 
 up in; his fceat, and was trying to make 
 a noise that he could himself hear. For 
 all the sounds that he or Travis could 
 utter were drowned in a roar from the 
 bleachers that split the drizzling atmos 
 phere and set the canvas awnings vibrat 
 ing, so that they shook down the rain- 
 drippings upon the crowd beneath. No 
 one thought of sitting down. Every 
 one stood up all the time, and not only 
 stood, but stood on the seats of the 
 bleachers ; and when a gain was made 
 jumped up and down, and yelled, and 
 threw things into the air. 
 
 Back of the fence, along the side 
 lines, the crowd was banked half-a-dozen 
 deep ; and from time to time the refer 
 ees and others that were upon the field 
 would impatiently gesture towards that 
 quarter, crying out that the noise of the 
 shouting prevented the teams from 
 
Travis Hallett s Half-back n 
 
 hearing the signals. Then, if one were 
 sufficiently near, he could hear in the 
 moment s succeeding quiet the grind 
 of the canvas jackets upon ^eack other, 
 as the lines bent shoulder t{\ shoulder, 
 or could catch the indifferent voice of 
 the referee droning out " Second down 
 three yards to gain !" or again could 
 hear the sharp, quick tones of the quar 
 ter-backs calling the signals ; the sound 
 of heavy bodies striking together ; the 
 quick, labored breathing ; the occasional 
 brief, hoarse shouts, muffled by the nose- 
 guards ; and then the dull and jarring 
 crash, as the whirling wedge smashed 
 its way through the line. 
 
 The twenty-two men of the oppos 
 ing elevens were fouled and reeking with 
 soil and sweat, their long hair was flung 
 back and forth over their eyes and fore 
 heads as they swayed and struggled. 
 
 By simple or whirling wedges, by 
 end - runs behind interference, or by 
 downright dogged smashing through 
 
12 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 the center, with eyes and teeth closed, 
 Travis s side was carrying the ball down 
 the fiejd. ; And now they were on the 
 twejity^ five-yard line, and now on the 
 twenty, nd noxv their left half-back had 
 aHvahcect the ball six yards around the 
 end, and now the whirling wedge had 
 crushed through for five yards more, 
 and the goal was only a few steps 
 away. 
 
 The crowd behind the side-lines was 
 beyond all control now; they swayed 
 back and forth with every fluctuation of 
 the ball, tense and white with that ex 
 citement that hurts and sickens. Over 
 the barrier of the fence they leaned, 
 with outstretched arms and clenched 
 fists, screaming and cursing as though 
 in the battle themselves, exhorting, im 
 ploring, or applauding, by turns. Back 
 of them on the bleachers the air was 
 alive with the winning colors, the shout 
 ing was incessant now, and the roar of 
 the college yell was coming up through 
 
Travis Hallett s Half-back 13 
 
 the chaos of sounds like the rhythmic 
 pulse of a great surge. 
 
 A man standing near the five-yard 
 line heard the captain of the losing team 
 cry out, "They re coming again, boys! 
 You must stop them ! For God s sake 
 brace up! It s the last ditch now!" 
 
 A few yards more and the goal 
 was theirs. But suddenly the whirling 
 wedge seemed to have struck a solid 
 wall, and was thrown back upon itself, 
 spent and broken. The other side had 
 rallied. 
 
 " First down, no gain ! " droned the 
 referee. 
 
 Again it massed against the opposing 
 team, moved forward, struck the line, 
 and came to a dead lock; the teams be 
 came wedged in a solid mass that for a 
 moment paused, wavered, and then came 
 toppling backward to the earth. 
 
 "No gain!" 
 
 A few seconds more and the other 
 side had the ball on downs, and from 
 
14 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 far away at the other end of the field, 
 where were the bleachers of the rival 
 college, sprang up a great bellow of ex 
 ultation, as the ball shot high into the 
 air from out the brown of the battle, 
 and went careering down the field for 
 fifty yards. 
 
 The opposing full-back caught it near 
 the middle of the field, but was flung 
 before he could gain. 
 
 "Our ball again, anyhow!" screamed 
 Travis, shaking her colors. 
 
 The ball was now in the middle of 
 the field, close under where Travis and 
 her party were sitting. Suddenly, as the 
 scrimmage broke up and fell apart, she 
 saw it passed out and one of the men 
 behind her team running with it. This 
 only she saw; she did not see the cun 
 ning manner in which a way was opened 
 for him. She did not see the quick, 
 clever building up of the interference 
 that closed around and ran with him, 
 and that threw off the tackles of the 
 
Travis Hallett s Half-back 15 
 
 other side as they came plunging through 
 the line. She did not see how carefully 
 he kept with them, adjusting his pace 
 with theirs, and with his hand upon the 
 nearest shoulder, twisting and turning 
 so as to keep one man at least between 
 him and the enemy s tackles. She only 
 saw that a runner of her side had the 
 ball and was gaining ground. By the 
 time he had gotten clear of the end all 
 but one of his interferers had left him, 
 either downed or broken up. For a 
 moment he was lost sight of beneath 
 half a dozen of the opposing side, who 
 flung themselves headlong upon him, 
 but the next instant he reappeared upon 
 the other side of the group, tearing his 
 way free of them, the ball still tightly 
 gripped under his arm. The one re 
 maining tackle he met with a straight 
 arm guard that sent him reeling back 
 wards, and then with a splendid burst 
 of speed, headed down the field. 
 
 The cheers and the yelling were deaf- 
 
16 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 ening; old men were standing up, wav 
 ing their hats and screaming like school 
 boys. The bleachers were frantic, and 
 roaring from end to end; every one was 
 on his feet, and the thunder of the 
 shouting was as the thunder of artillery. 
 Those of the rival college were tensely 
 silent, holding their breath, and digging 
 their nails into their palms. 
 
 It might have been a touch-down 
 from the middle of the field had not 
 the runner slipped in trying to dodge 
 the full-back. But he staggered an in 
 stant upon a strip of slippery turf, and 
 before he could recover himself, the 
 full-back flung himself at him, caught 
 him around the thighs between waist 
 and knee, and threw him backwards to 
 the ground. 
 
 " Forty yards, anyhow ! " shouted 
 Travis. 
 
 At the same time, while the teams 
 were streaming up for the next scrim 
 mage, a young man with a policeman s 
 
Travis Hallett s Half-back 17 
 
 rattle jumped upon the railing of the 
 bleachers, and raising a very hoarse 
 voice to the limit of its pitch, inquired 
 if there was anything in particular the 
 matter with Adler. As one man the 
 bleachers thundered back, " He s all 
 right, you bet, every time ! " 
 
 He of the rattle seemed to fail to 
 understand, for he asked again, Who 
 was all right? and as the shout lifted 
 itself again, Travis joined her treble to 
 the huge gamut of sounds and cried 
 back, "Adler ! " 
 
 " Who ?" asked the policeman s rattle 
 again. 
 
 "Adler," shouted Travis and the rest. 
 
 And this was the way they were first 
 introduced. 
 
 Travis saw him again after the game 
 was over, as their carriage passed close 
 to the coach that held the team. He 
 was just from the field. His nose-guard 
 was flung back over his head like the 
 raised vizor of a helmet, and his long 
 
i8 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 straight hair hung far over his eyes. 
 He had not yet recovered his wind, 
 and was panting just as you have seen 
 a locomotive pant at the terminus of 
 its run. He was yet chewing his gum, 
 and was alternately shouting for a lime 
 or a cigarette. 
 
 She remembered now having seen 
 him before at the practice game early 
 in the season. At that time he had 
 been under the whip and spur of the 
 coach. She remembered this coach as 
 a big man in a blue cloth cap, who con 
 tinually wore an expression of hopeless 
 disgust upon his face, who never seemed 
 pleased at anything the team could do, 
 and who went about the gridiron shout 
 ing, "Play it up sharp, now!" from 
 principle. It seemed very strange now 
 to see him delightedly slapping Adler 
 on the back, and almost leaping in the 
 air for joy. So she began to feel an 
 admiration for this great Adler, and 
 commenced to experience a share of 
 
Travis Hallett s Half-back 19 
 
 that hero-worship which was paid by 
 the men of his own college. 
 
 As they were all talking of the game 
 all the way home, Travis s brother re 
 marked to her escort, "Did you catch 
 on to that trick of Adler s, of grabbing 
 the runner around the waist and pull 
 ing him through the line with him ?" 
 
 The escort, who was opposed to foot 
 ball, made a vague sound of assent. 
 
 "I noticed it!" exclaimed Travis. 
 
 "He s just got on to that this sea 
 son," said the brother. " Jove ! but 
 that was a fine run of his," he contin 
 ued. "Why, those tackles could not 
 hold at all ; they were just fruit for 
 him." 
 
 " I will never go to see another game 
 of football again," said Mrs. Hallett, 
 "and I don t think your father ought 
 to allow you to go, Travis. I don t 
 see where it is any better than a prize 
 fight, and so brutal, too. Time and 
 again I saw eight or ten men pile right 
 
20 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 up on top of the one with the ball. It 
 was just a mercy that his life was not 
 crushed out of him. It is shameful. 
 Some one ought to do something." 
 
 " I quite agree with you, Mrs. Hal- 
 lett," said the escort; "and besides, the 
 effects upon these young men are very 
 bad, too; they think that that is all col 
 lege is for. It takes their mind from 
 their regular work, and teaches them 
 coarse and brutal habits." 
 
 "And then," went on Mrs. Hallett, 
 "what is the use of it all? What ben 
 efit do they derive from it? Can it ever 
 be of any use to them afterwards ? To 
 me, it seems very silly to see twenty-two 
 young men in the field, and twenty-two 
 thousand around it, get so worked up 
 over such a triviality." 
 
 "That is so," said the escort. "If 
 it was baseball, now, where one can see 
 some display of science and skill, I 
 could see the attraction; but this is a 
 mere pushing and slugging contest." 
 
Travis Hallett s Half-back 21 
 
 "What fruit!" said Travis s brother, 
 under his breath. 
 
 A week later Travis met Adler at a 
 tennis tournament where he was the 
 winner. She could hardly recognize the 
 graceful young man in the white flan 
 nels and dainty -colored sash, as the 
 dirty, gasping, canvas-clad savage of the 
 game. There was a picturesqueness 
 about both costumes, but it was hard to 
 reconcile them as being the outward 
 adornments of the same person. Later 
 on, however, she had occasion to admire 
 him in a full-dress suit, for he fell in 
 love with her at once, and began to call 
 with unvarying regularity. 
 
 Adler took Travis to the theater 
 about a month later, after he had gone 
 out of training and was permitted to be 
 up after ten o clock. It was the first 
 time he had been out with her in the 
 evening without a chaperone. They 
 had never been very much alone to 
 gether, and so on this occasion felt very 
 
22 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 mildly and vaguely adventurous. Adler 
 thought he had never seen Travis in 
 better spirits. 
 
 It was a good company and a good 
 play, but in the scene of the fourth act 
 one of the actors was atrociously and 
 unpardonably weak, and the audience 
 began to laugh. 
 
 "It s too bad ! " said Travis. "Why 
 do they laugh? It spoils the play for 
 themselves. When I go to a play I 
 go to be amused, and not to criticise. 
 I can get just as much fun out of a 
 Wild West melodrama or a real-fire- 
 engine-and-live-horses play as the very 
 worst gallery god. Don t you know, 
 you don t get your money s worth if 
 you don t. It is just a matter of cheat 
 ing yourself." 
 
 Adler was not listening to her at all. 
 His eyes were fixed just above the 
 heavy stucco moldings at the angle of 
 one of the topmost boxes, which was 
 vacant, and he was in a fair way to make 
 
Travis Hallett s Half-back 23 
 
 his teeth meet through his nether lip 
 in his effort to keep from crying out, 
 and was holding himself to his seat 
 with both hands to avoid springing to 
 his feet. At the point in the plaster 
 ornamentation where he was looking 
 there was a deep joint, or fissure, where 
 two parts of the molding had not been 
 properly joined, and had by the settling 
 of the building widened to form a long 
 deep crack that reached back to the 
 lathing and woodwork behind. Down 
 this crack Adler saw a dull and vibrat 
 ing glow of red, and out of it was curl 
 ing a very faint blue haze. 
 
 Mechanically he reached underneath 
 his seat for his hat. Then he said very 
 quietly to Travis, " Come, let s get out 
 of this." 
 
 She turned to him surprised. 
 
 " I 11 tell you why," he said, "when 
 we get outside; only come now, and 
 quick, quietly," he added as she hur 
 riedly reached for her cape. 
 
24 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 With one hand under her arm and 
 half-risen from his seat, he was listening 
 very intently for the sound of one cer 
 tain word which might at any moment 
 now be shouted through the house. He 
 was still listening for it as he passed out 
 into the aisle with her, and took her arm 
 in a larger and surer grip, and braced 
 himself for a sudden start at an instant s 
 warning. 
 
 "Are you sick?" whispered Travis, 
 as they moved towards the door. 
 
 Adler did not hear her, because he 
 was measuring the distance that yet lay 
 between him and the dull green valves 
 marked " Exit." 
 
 One-third of the way up the aisle he 
 heard something drop with a crash, and 
 knew without turning his head that it 
 was the plaster cornice falling in. Then 
 he heard what he had been listening for, 
 and a man sitting near the boxes in the 
 gallery jumped back over his seat and 
 shouted " Fire ! " Adler was ready, and 
 
Travis Hallett s Half-back 25 
 
 started forward at the sound as a sprinter 
 starts from the pistol. He was nearly 
 half-way up the aisle with her before 
 it became blocked, and his headway 
 checked. In the midst of the rising 
 tumult in the house behind him he 
 heard a little strident bell whirring, and 
 the asbestos curtain dropped with a long 
 whish and a bang, the iron curtain rat 
 tling down behind it. Then a fire 
 detail with a pick-hatchet in his hand 
 swung himself from the prompt -side 
 of the flies over into the highest gal 
 lery, and began hastily loosening a fire 
 plug. 
 
 Since the first warning shout there 
 nad been no outcry, and as yet the only 
 sounds were the whirring of the fire- 
 drill signal, a furious chopping and 
 pounding somewhere over the stage, and 
 the ominous shuffle and grind of the 
 thousands of feet. Now Adler saw the 
 helmet and blue shoulders of a lieuten 
 ant of police above the heads of the 
 3 
 
26 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 crowd against the wall of the audito 
 rium, and heard him shouting: "There 
 is no danger. For God s sake, gentle 
 men, don t crowd, and we 11 all get 
 safely out!" 
 
 Adler could hear him repeating this 
 long after he was unable to see him. 
 
 Several others in the crowd took up 
 his cry, and soon many were crying out, 
 "Don t crowd! don t crowd!" 
 
 So far the audience on the whole had 
 behaved very well, and as yet there was 
 no panic. 
 
 "It s all right, little girl," he said to 
 Travis. "Don t you be afraid; we ll 
 get out of this all right." 
 
 "O, I m all right," she answered 
 bravely. 
 
 They were moving forward slowly, 
 and were even near enough to the door 
 to hear the clang of the engines arriving 
 in the street outside. A broad feather 
 of water spurted out across the audi 
 torium from the section of hose that 
 
Travis Hallett s Half-back 27 
 
 the detail had screwed to the fire-plug, 
 and the fire-drill bell still whirred stead 
 ily on. 
 
 "Don t crowd, gentlemen !" cried the 
 officer. "Don t crowd. There is plenty 
 of time. We re all going to get safely 
 out!" 
 
 As he was speaking the last words a 
 whole section of plaster on the wall 
 back of the top gallery leaned outward 
 and fell with a great noise, and a huge 
 cloud of dense black smoke, shot 
 through with flickering tongues of fire 
 and hundreds of winking sparks, came 
 billowing out into the body of the 
 house. 
 
 "No danger, gentlemen!" shouted 
 the police lieutenant. "For God s 
 sake, don t crowd!" 
 
 He might as well have spoken to 
 stampeded cattle. 
 
 Adler and Travis were now in the 
 middle of a solid jam, mad with terror 
 and excitement,and men and women were 
 
28 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 fighting with each other with their teeth 
 and their nails for the life they loved. 
 People jumped over one another s shoul 
 ders, and were borne along by the crowd 
 like floats upon a stream. There was a 
 fearful noise of shouting and screaming, 
 and the sounds of the trampling and 
 stamping of feet, and worse sounds of 
 blows and grappling. A thick yellow 
 smoke surrounded them now, choking 
 and blinding them. Adler had to throw 
 back his head and gasp for air, like 
 a drowning man. Sparks and little 
 charred chips began falling upon them 
 from the galleries, and he could catch 
 the pungent smell of burning hair as 
 the cushioned upholstery of the seats 
 burned. Then a part of the highest 
 gallery crumbled in, and a man began 
 to scream that he was burning, and for 
 the first time Adler heard the roar and 
 crackle of the fire. It might have been 
 behind him or above him he could 
 not tell. The smoke was so thick that 
 
Travis Hallett s Half-back 29 
 
 he could only see for a radius of a few 
 feet. Through the murk he could 
 catch glimpses of struggling, shadowy 
 forms ; of clutching hands coming up 
 from the depths below, and now and 
 then a face would be turned towards 
 him, horribly white and writhing, just 
 such sights and faces as one sees in a 
 Dore Inferno. 
 
 The pressure of the crowd around 
 him became almost unbearable; and 
 what with this and the choking smoke 
 there were times when he could not 
 breathe. Ladies were separated from 
 their escorts, or else deserted by them, 
 and once Adler caught sight of a man 
 with a sword-cane, trying with it to 
 open a passage for himself through the 
 press. Several of the crowd had either 
 fainted or succumbed to the smoke; 
 and as Adler went trampling on, driven 
 by the momentum behind, he felt hands 
 and arms reaching and clutching at his 
 legs and feet. But there were other 
 
30 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 heaps that he trod upon which were 
 quite still and inert. 
 
 At last he was vomited forth into the 
 foyer, and still dragging Travis with 
 him, stumbled out into a freer space, 
 where the smoke was not so dense and 
 the press not so close, and where he 
 had a chance to pause an instant and 
 determine the situation. 
 
 He and Travis had been sitting in 
 one of the front rows of the house, so 
 that when the rush came, although they 
 had managed to get a considerable start, 
 they were, nevertheless, among the last 
 to reach the foyer. Here upon either 
 side the stairways from the galleries lea 
 down to the common entrance of the 
 house. When the real rush began, two 
 solid columns had streamed down these 
 stairways, and meeting before the door 
 had by means of the greater impetus 
 gained by coming down the stairs forced 
 a way through that part of the crowd 
 coming from the lower portion of the 
 
Travis Hallett s Half-back 31 
 
 house, and had now cut them off from 
 the entrance entirely. A greater part 
 of those in the pit had, however, man 
 aged to make their escape before the 
 rush down the gallery stairways had be 
 gun; so when Adler and Travis reached 
 this point they found themselves in 
 comparatively freer space, but cut off 
 from further progress by the struggling 
 columns from the galleries in front of 
 them. 
 
 Adler cast a quick glance around 
 him. Behind him the auditorium seemed 
 like a furnace, and he felt the hot breath 
 of the fire coming by puffs through the 
 scorched valves of the doors. There 
 was no time to lose. Outside he could 
 catch the rapid panting and coughing 
 of the engines at work pumping. 
 
 Directly in front of him he saw that 
 the crowd from the galleries, meeting 
 each other head on, had come to a dead 
 lock, and that the only chance of break 
 ing through the masses was at their 
 
32 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 point of impact; a sudden pressure at 
 this point might succeed in breaking up 
 the deadlock, and bending the opposing 
 forces outward in a V-shaped form, 
 through which one might be able to 
 struggle to the street beyond. 
 
 But where did he get the trained 
 eye and the coolness of judgment that 
 told him this was the thing to do, or 
 what experience had given him the fac 
 ulty of rapid thought in emergency, 
 and the power of acting quickly upon 
 it ? How had he kept his head 
 throughout the fierce excitement of the 
 last few moments, or how had he man 
 aged not to lose his feet while he was 
 clutched at and dragged at from behind 
 and from below ? The crush and lurch 
 of the crowd was but the old scrimmage 
 of the gridiron field, and the confused, 
 blind rush that enveloped him was no 
 worse than the trained and disciplined 
 charges of the revolving V or the flying 
 wedge, and for one brief instant Adler 
 
Travis Hallett s Half-back 33 
 
 thanked his God that he was a Varsity 
 half-back, and knew how to use his 
 weight and wits. 
 
 There was not one minute to be 
 wasted now, because the heads of the 
 brass nails on the exits behind him 
 were fiercely hot. Adler knew just 
 what was to be done and how he was 
 to do it. 
 
 He stepped back to gain headway, 
 put his arm tightly around Travis, and 
 ran in with head and shoulders bent 
 very low. He had done this hundreds 
 of times before in practice and match 
 games, when his captain called upon 
 him to buck the center, but never be 
 fore had he done it with such iron de 
 termination as now. He had Travis 
 around the waist, and was dragging her 
 with him through the way he was open 
 ing in the crowd. It was the same 
 trick that Travis s brother had seen 
 him use in the game, and it worked 
 with the same success. 
 
34 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 He had rammed the throngs in front 
 of him just at the point where they had 
 met, and so great was the pressure from 
 the rear of either column that it re 
 quired only a comparatively insignifi 
 cant force to break them apart, and 
 Adler supplied this force. You can 
 get perfectly analagous conditions by 
 pressing the tips of your index-fingers 
 against each other, point to point. As 
 long as you maintain them in a straight 
 line with one another, they will remain 
 as they are ; but deviate them from this 
 position by ever so little, and they will 
 at once break outward or inward in the 
 shape of a V. 
 
 Adler began to be really frightened 
 only after they got out into the street, 
 and some one was helping him to carry 
 Travis, who had fainted, into a drug 
 store on the corner. He had ceased to 
 feel brave and cool ; his knees knocked 
 together when he thought of what they 
 had both escaped. He was quite unfit 
 
Travis Hallett s Half-back 35 
 
 to pose as a hero, because he felt weak 
 and sick at his stomach, and because 
 his hat was jammed down immovably 
 over his eyes and ears. 
 
 But he forgot all about this, and the 
 world and all things visible were turned 
 upside down when he went home in 
 the hired coupe with Travis, with her 
 head on his shoulder and his arm 
 around her waist. 
 
 Adler is captain of the team now, 
 and next season his name will be in 
 every one s mouth, and you will see his 
 picture in the dailies and illustrated 
 weeklies, and you will hear his weight 
 and condition discussed by young ladies 
 and gentlemen who do not know him, 
 across supper-tables and between dances. 
 And the year after that he graduates, 
 and is to be married to Travis Hallett, 
 and is to go with her to Europe for a 
 while, after which he will go into busi 
 ness in old Mr. Hallett s office. 
 
36 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 "But," said the escort, who did not 
 approve of the game of football, "noth 
 ing was proven. A man does not spend 
 his life in pulling young ladies out of 
 burning theaters. Because his football 
 training was of service to him on that 
 occasion, it does not go to show that it 
 will ever be of any other material ben 
 efit to him hereafter." 
 
 " I think you will find, however/ 
 answered Mr. Hallett, rubbing the 
 stubble on his chin the wrong way, " I 
 think you will find that the same quali 
 ties that make a good football man 
 would make a good soldier; and a good 
 soldier, sir, is a man good enough to be 
 any girl s husband." 
 
 "Which," said Travis, as she heard 
 of the conversation later on, "is per 
 fect] v true." 
 
The Proud Dig and the 
 Lazy Student 
 
 By James Hopper 
 
 ONCE upon a time, long, long ago, 
 before the University had its new 
 buildings, before Stanford had invented 
 football, when Professor Putzker spoke 
 only nineteen languages, and co-eds 
 were yet a minority, there lived in Cali 
 fornia a Lazy Student. 
 
 O but he was lazy a masterpiece 
 of perfected laziness ! On sunny days 
 he spent his time on the steps of North 
 Hall (then a temporary building), puff 
 ing at a charred piece of corncob with 
 just enough nicely calculated force to 
 keep a light. His long legs stretched 
 over half-a-dozen steps ; his hazy, blue 
 
38 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 eyes wandered over the landscape. 
 Passers-by stumbled regularly over the 
 legs ; they looked into the hazy blue 
 eyes, and their wrath was quelled. 
 
 Once in a while, as the North Hall 
 bell toned musically, he seemed to 
 remember something. His face con 
 tracted in agony; his dreamy blue eyes 
 took tints of nameless terror ; he half- 
 rose, stiff with resolve. But his muscles 
 would relax ; he fell back limply on his 
 steps, took a puff of relief, and a wave 
 of beatitude smoothed the face to its 
 customary placidity. These paroxysms 
 came about fifteen times a week, and 
 observers noticed that, on a small piece 
 of cardboard lined in little squares, the 
 Lazy Student had marked with crosses 
 the time of occurrence of these dread 
 ful attacks. 
 
 Sometimes, on warm spring days, 
 the Lazy Student forsook North Hall. 
 Early in the morning he sauntered up 
 Eglantine Canyon (this was before the 
 
The Dig and the Student 39 
 
 supremacy of co-eds). In short, labori 
 ous relays, cut by long periods of de 
 licious rest, he puffed and sighed his 
 way to a little knoll, where he threw 
 himself down in the supreme ecstasy of 
 toil done. There, lying on his back in 
 the high grass, he passed the day. Gold 
 en beams stealing through the grass- 
 blades played merrily about his nose. 
 The air vibrated with mysterious sounds 
 of throbbing life ; the quail called from 
 afar ; the lark tinkled ; and, nearer, there 
 were nameless little chirps and squeaks 
 and little cries rustlings, scamperings, 
 whisperings. For the little beasts of 
 the hill liked this lazy man, and he 
 was so nice, so quiet, so beautifully lazy 
 that they took all sorts of liberties with 
 him. Often a scurrying squirrel ran 
 plumb over him, and spiders were wont 
 to weave their webs all about him. 
 Once, one of these tireless little spin 
 ners, a tiny golden-hued thing, had 
 built a bridge from the tip of his shoe 
 
40 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 to the tip of his nose. He watched 
 her with one eye as on this foundation 
 she elaborated a fragile net. Then a 
 happy, buzzing flylet had become en 
 tangled, and the Lazy Student under 
 went a terrible moral crisis. Should 
 he save the fly and disappoint the spi 
 der, or should he please the spider and 
 see the fly devoured ? The spider was 
 certainly his first friend, and saving the 
 fly would be a deliberate breach of 
 trust. He decided for the spider. But 
 just as she was pouncing on the strug 
 gling, helpless little fly, his innate sym 
 pathy for the weak suddenly got the 
 better of him. He moved his foot, 
 straightened his nose, and pifF! the 
 web broke, and buzz ! the fly was off. 
 The little golden spider jumped on his 
 knee, hurried up and down to view the 
 catastrophe, then resolutely began weav 
 ing again. Suddenly the Lazy Student 
 had a vision of her sensation. He 
 imagined the affrighted and question- 
 
The Dig and the Student 41 
 
 ing dismay at the sudden destructive 
 act of the great unknown, brutal force, 
 the passionate "why?" of the little spi 
 der. And a big tear dropped languidly 
 a-down his nose. Ah, the life of a lazy 
 man is not always a happy one ! 
 
 Above, lazy, fluffy clouds floated 
 across the blue eternal invitation to 
 airy, floating life. He loved the clouds, 
 did this Lazy Student. 
 
 One day, as he lay in this interesting 
 position, he suddenly felt an impulse to 
 yell. 
 
 Where he got that idea I will not at 
 tempt to tell. The act necessitated a 
 considerable amount of physical exer 
 tion. He had to draw in a big breath 
 of air, then expel it; the vocal clouds 
 must be set vibrating. Could he have 
 forgotten to calculate this? I fear it. 
 Communion with nature is intoxicating. 
 I know of a dignified professor who, 
 when in the mountains, rolls down every 
 hill of slope gentle enough to impart 
 4 
 
42 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 some slight degree of decorum to such 
 indecorous action. Our hero did not 
 roll down the hill, but he yelled, and, 
 worse, he yelled in German, something 
 that he had heard in his childhood in 
 the happy days when there was a nurse 
 to take care of him and tell him stories 
 and which suddenly rhythmed back 
 into his head: 
 
 O, was soil es bedeuten 
 
 Das ich so traurig bin. 
 
 (He might have said faulig.) 
 
 Soft, far, dreamily indistinct, the echo 
 came floating back. Restarted! Again 
 he yelled. Again the echo returned. 
 He took a big gasping breath; then, 
 leaning back, he closed his eyes, over 
 come by the sudden realization of what 
 might be. 
 
 The remainder of that term the 
 North Hall station was abandoned. 
 The Lazy Student passed his time on 
 the hill. 
 
 At the beginning of the next semester 
 
The Dig and the Student 43 
 
 there went through college vague rumors 
 that the Lazy Student had reformed. 
 
 It was true. He was attending reci 
 tations. One morning, registration week, 
 he had sauntered into the recorder s 
 office. 
 
 He had been at college three years 
 and a half. He found that he had five 
 hours credit. He calmly put down 
 one hundred and twenty hours on his 
 registration -card. This, happening a 
 long, long time ago, before red tape had 
 been invented, was quite possible. 
 
 But what was singular was his choice 
 of studies. His card read something 
 like this: German i, do. 2, do. 3, and 
 so on to German 58; French i, do. 2, 
 do. 3, and so on to French 51. Span 
 ish, Italian, Hebrew, Chinese, Sanskrit, 
 Icelandic appeared in the same propor 
 tion. One hundred and twenty hours 
 in languages ! Putzker paled before 
 this. 
 
 One day, during" German 46 b., the 
 
44 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 Dig, glancing over his spectacles toward 
 a corner of the room, was startled at 
 the sight of the Lazy Student, sprawled 
 comfortably in a corner chair, with half- 
 shut eyes permeating himself with the 
 atmosphere of lore. An hour later, at 
 French 53 c., the Dig, making for a seat, 
 stepped on some one s feet. Turning 
 to apologize, he met the mournful, re 
 proachful look of two hazy blue eyes. 
 At Spanish 37, everywhere he went that 
 day, he met our lazy friend. 
 
 It puzzled him and it irritated him. 
 What right had this long, lazy, unkempt 
 personage to profane the learned haunts 
 with his languid presence? It was pos 
 itively insulting. 
 
 But he had to stand it. The ex-bum 
 attended recitations religiously. Half- 
 asleep most of the time, when called 
 upon to recite he was transformed. 
 His body stiffened with a snap, his 
 eyes opened and flashed genius, and he 
 translated, translated, translated, tearing 
 
The Dig and the Student 45 
 
 his way along like a torrent, rushing 
 over all obstacles. He tossed his head 
 like a fiery nag, snorted and charged on 
 till the moderating, imploring " Kritisch ! 
 kritisch !" of the professor became mild 
 open - mouthed astonishment. When 
 finally stopped, he dropped to his seat 
 and, after a final tremor, regained his 
 usual indescribable ease of posture, while 
 the professor muttered, "Ya, gut ; you 
 haf you haf de geeft of languish." 
 And a stinging envy penetrated the 
 heart of the Dig. 
 
 Every day at four o clock the Lazy 
 Student could be seen making his way 
 by easy stages toward Eglantine Can 
 yon. Under his arm he had a pile of 
 books a Tower of Babel of Greek, 
 Sanskrit, Latin, German, Hebrew, etc. 
 In the evening he returned, flushed and 
 happy with the sense of duty done. 
 He certainly had a remarkable gift for 
 languages. And the Dig who toiled 
 and toiled over a paltry twenty hours a 
 
46 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 week was taken with a formidable hate 
 for that lazy, worthless, shiftless Rip 
 Van Winkle who bummed along one 
 hundred and twenty hours of the same 
 subjects. 
 
 One day after Hebrew 27, during 
 which the Lazy Student had starred the 
 Dig into the shades of mediocrity, the 
 latter made a mighty resolution. He 
 would follow his rival ; he would cling 
 to him like a leech and spy his method, 
 wrest the secret of his success ! 
 
 The Lazy Student started for the 
 hill, and the Dig followed. It was not 
 difficult to keep up. The Lazy Student 
 sighed along one hundred feet, then 
 rolled limply on the ground. There 
 he recuperated a few minutes, his legs 
 stretched like some gigantic compass. 
 With a heart-rending groan he started 
 up again, to repeat the same perform 
 ance with gradual diminuendo of walk 
 ing stages and crescendo of resting 
 periods. The Dig followed these ma- 
 
The Dig and the Student 47 
 
 neuvers, wondering. Creeping through 
 the grass, jumping from tree to tree, he 
 followed our unconscious hero. Two 
 or three times he almost stumbled upon 
 him during one of his numerous rests. 
 At last an ecstatic sprawl in the grass, 
 a formidable sigh of relief, and a total 
 immobility lasting many minutes told 
 that the destination had been reached. 
 Silence reigned. The Dig heard his 
 heart pitapatting. The Lazy Student 
 did not budge. A butterfly perched 
 on his nose, a squirrel peeped at him 
 through the grass; but he did not move. 
 A minute passed. Another. The Dig 
 began to feel ridiculous. The labori 
 ous puffing of a train toiling up a grade 
 seemed to reproach him for his mo 
 mentary idleness. He was wasting his 
 time up here, with Sanskrit 36 to pre 
 pare. He metaphorically kicked him 
 self. It was ridiculous. He was just 
 on the point of sneaking away when 
 a great crackling sent the butterfly off 
 
48 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 in winged flurry and the little squirrel 
 scampering in laughable terror. The 
 Lazy Student was stretching himself. A 
 majestic and resounding yawn followed. 
 Then a rustling of paper. He had 
 picked up a book. He began reading 
 aloud : 
 
 " Wenn ich ein Pferd hatte, so wurde 
 ich nach San Francisco reiten." 
 
 Far, musical, prolonged, came back 
 a voice : 
 
 u If I had a horse I would go to San Fran 
 cisco." 
 
 The echo was translating ! 
 
 A great wrath nearly choked the Dig. 
 So that was the way ! While he digged 
 and toiled laboriously, painfully, cease 
 lessly, that lazy, worthless, shiftless bum 
 merely A great indignation throb 
 bed in his head. But he kept quiet. 
 Ah, two could play the same game ! 
 
 For two hours the Lazy Student read 
 read in French, in German, in Span- 
 
The Dig and the Student 49 
 
 ish, in Hebrew, in Greek, in Latin, in 
 Syriac, in Sanskrit, in other languages. 
 And the echo translated translated in 
 its measured, melodious, golden voice. 
 
 Many of the lessons were also the 
 Dig s, and the echo was doing double 
 duty. When the Lazy Student had fin 
 ished the sun had set. A gray, melan 
 choly, foggy night was falling. The 
 Dig remained. The Lazy Student took 
 not Old English. The Dig did. And 
 he wanted a translation. 
 
 That night was a bad one for the in 
 habitants of the little town of Berkeley. 
 Up in the hills the elements seemed to 
 groan in terrible nightmare. Thunder 
 rolled menacingly; lightning seared the 
 sky. Sudden gusts of wind howled 
 past dismally. In the morning only 
 did the struggle cease, and a bright sun 
 dispelled all gloom. 
 
 A rancher came down from the hills. 
 He told a queer story. Passing along 
 a ridge at night, he had witnessed a 
 
50 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 strange spectacle. On a knoll, erect, 
 defiant, a young man with long black 
 hair and shining spectacles, holding a 
 book at arm s-length read aloud in some 
 weird tongue. It sounded something 
 like this : " Gewat him tha on uhtan 
 mid aerdage ofer sandhleothu to saes 
 farude," and other kindred buzzing, 
 rasping, whirring cries. At each word 
 thunder answered from the hill as if the 
 elements revolted at such sounds. The 
 wind hooted dismally; nameless shrieks 
 and groans came from the canyons. 
 With a sort of frenzy, the weird reader 
 shouted louder and louder, seemed to 
 taunt and defy the elements. A yellow 
 moon glancing at intervals through 
 dirty, sulphurous clouds glamoured the 
 scene in sickly light. The rancher had 
 fled in terror. 
 
 That afternoon the Lazy Student, 
 on the point of spreading himself in his 
 accustomed pastoral study, found it 
 occupied. A man was stretched in his 
 
The Dig and the Student 51 
 
 customary place. The Lazy Student 
 approached. The man did not move. 
 When nearer, the Lazy Student re 
 marked that the body was stark and 
 stiff. The face was black. 
 
 One glance was sufficient. With a 
 howl of terror the Lazy Student scam 
 pered down the hill. He got down 
 without one stop. He gave the alarm 
 and the body was brought down. 
 
 It was the Dig. He was not quite 
 dead. In a few days he regained con 
 sciousness, but only to fall into the hal 
 lucinations of a terrible fever. In his 
 delirium, he imagined himself engaged 
 in a terrible struggle with the echo of 
 the hills. The Dig had got it into his 
 head to make the echo translate Old 
 English. The latter had vigorously 
 protested, and an epic struggle had 
 taken place. To scraps of Old English 
 the tortured echo had hurled back name 
 less imprecations thunder, lightning, 
 earthquake. The proud student had 
 
52 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 persisted, and an extra-vigorous retort 
 had felled him to the earth. 
 
 For weeks he struggled in the throes 
 of his hallucinations. Finally, little by 
 little, his mind cleared of its fearful 
 fantasies and he became convalescent. 
 But he had forgotten all his languages, 
 and had acquired an overpowering re 
 pugnance to language-study. A word 
 of Old English whispered in his ear 
 would cause an epileptic fit. Poor fel 
 low ! He turned to mathematics. 
 
 The Lazy Student graduated. He 
 was the class medalist. He now trans 
 lates great works of foreign tongues. 
 Although famous, he has always clung 
 with touching fidelity to the home of 
 his childhood. 
 
The Legend of the River 
 Wayste 
 
 By Ida H. Ballard 
 
 LEGEND says that there stood on 
 the south boundary of Friesland 
 the castle of the Lord Wenceslaus Gees- 
 tewandach, one of the greatest barons 
 of Friesia. 
 
 Lord Wenceslaus was an old man and 
 had been a Crusader. His eldest son 
 was now a Free Lance in Saxony, whose 
 Duke was suzerain of Friesland ; the 
 younger son hunted boars at home. 
 
 Dame Adelgunda Geestewandach it 
 appears, Scott and others to the con 
 trary, had none of those medieval qual 
 ities, the recital of which so disheartens 
 modern womanhood. She was neither 
 
54 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 tall, nor sloping- shouldered, nor fair- 
 haired. She was not gentle nor minis- 
 trant ; she was no Catherine Barlass, 
 nor did she bid palmers and trouba 
 dours to her iron-bound chamber for 
 long converse. She was a lean, diligent, 
 prayerful woman, who spun and wove 
 from five to five, and went to bed with 
 the birds that she might arise at five to 
 spin. She had spinners from the vil 
 lage, and weavers from the town of the 
 Wayste. Her woolen and flaxen clothes 
 and embroideries had fame both in 
 Bruges and Lubeck ; and her children 
 and her husband went forth to bound 
 ary wars, tournaments, and the Saxon 
 and German courts, bedight in the 
 fancies of a soul that looked not be 
 yond its distaff and beads. 
 
 Among the weavers was a dyer s 
 daughter from the town, who had wed 
 ded the captain of the castle guard. 
 Salva, says the legend, was small and 
 fair and gentle. She wove much and 
 
The Legend of the Wayste 55 
 
 talked little, and was wont to sit in the 
 garden at vespers, though others in the 
 castle went to chapel, to the Iron 
 Mother that William of the Broken 
 Point a century before had set up in 
 the east bastion, or to the shrine that 
 stood in the north hall. This garden 
 was a bit of ground under the north wall 
 where Dame Adelgunda grew simples 
 for her household. 
 
 Salva was the dyer s only daughter, 
 and in his fortress home she had be 
 come a good housewife. For eight 
 years she had worked on a great golcj- 
 thread tapestry, captained by pearls, 
 which the dyer meant to give his liege 
 lord on his seventeenth birthday. 
 
 There was no daughter in the castle, 
 and Salva being gentle, and slow of 
 speech, and light of step, and fair even 
 as a baron s daughter should be, there 
 fell upon her the duties that are a daugh 
 ter s, which were none the less sweet to 
 Salva, for that their fellow privileges were 
 
56 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 not hers as well. She was first weaver, 
 and waited in the Dame s chamber, and 
 stood near her chair at table. She sat 
 within the circle of firelight in the hall 
 when the Baron told to his son and fol 
 lowers tales of the Crusades, and of 
 France and Rome, for he had journeyed 
 much. 
 
 Salva had been five years a wife. Five 
 years the castle walls h^d whispered the 
 soft echo of her comings and goings, 
 her breathed prayers, her lowly incense 
 to the great men and to the great God 
 above her. And the unseen shuttle of 
 her simple life of love, duty, and care 
 had woven about and through the castle 
 a shadowy tapestry, costlier and more 
 beautiful and more wonderfully patterned 
 than the great gold-thread tapestry, and 
 captained by words and deeds set more 
 freely in it than the rich dyer dared set 
 his pearls. 
 
 The legend does not say that Salva 
 had any faults. Such old stories have 
 
The Legend of the Wayste 57 
 
 a pleasant, healthy, and cheerful fashion 
 of generalizing largely. Heroines noses 
 and tempers, moral views and peccadil 
 los are described and put away under 
 two good old adjectives, which, when all 
 is said and done, describe a woman as 
 thoroughly and generously as she need 
 wish to be. She was " fair and gentle/ 
 says the legend. Being fair, her eyes, 
 whether large or small, looked forth 
 fearlessly and earnestly, and, being gen 
 tle, modestly as well ; and being fearless, 
 earnest, and modest in her glances, she 
 was wise as well as fair, and, being gen 
 tle, put that fair wisdom to such practice 
 as Christ approves. 
 
 Dame Adelgunda was virtually child 
 less ; for her eldest son, as became a 
 knight, was ever away, and the younger 
 disrelished her chamber, where distaffs 
 and litanies made scant harmony with 
 visions of squares of spears and fierce 
 boarhounds. She was indeed childless 
 until the dyer s daughter came to serve 
 5 
 
58 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 in the castle. From the first the Dame 
 liked Salva s footstep ; then there was a 
 companionship in the ready hand and 
 arm at her chair ; a satisfaction in pass 
 ing up a bit from her trencher or a sup 
 from her ale ; a pride in saying, " My 
 Lord Wenceslaus, t is a Christ s head 
 done by Salva. I think it good," then, 
 "quite as good as Saul of Bruges sold 
 my cousin of Deitcheufleitchen " ; a 
 pleasure in peeping from the casement 
 at vespers upon the bowed head in the 
 garden ; an exultation when the gold 
 thread tapestry was done, and the dyer, 
 with the burgomaster and the burghers 
 of the town, rode through the forest 
 and across the Wayste in substantial 
 state to present the gift to his liege lord. 
 She thought that only Salva could have 
 done it Salva guided by her. She 
 flushed with delight when the Abbot 
 of Deitcheufleitchen, who was fair to 
 become a cardinal, and even then a 
 writer of monstrous large books, said 
 
The Legend of the Wayste 59 
 
 he tarried on the Wayste to see three 
 things Geestewandach himself, the 
 Dame s chest of cloths, and the wife 
 of the Captain of the Guard, who was 
 deemed in Deitcheufleitchen "the fairest 
 handmaid that ever served on Wayste." 
 
 "Aye, my lord, they say aright," she 
 answered proudly, and turning, "Here 
 is Salva. She hath one fault only 
 the Captain loves her. I would that 
 my Lady of Wayste, to whom I have 
 prayed these forty years, had sent me 
 a snooded maid. I like not the Cap 
 tain s rights." 
 
 And later she said when the maids 
 went forth to gather osiers on the 
 Wayste : " Linger not, Salva. The 
 river is a long way, and there be rob 
 bers about, though the Duke boasts he 
 hath hanged them to a hundred trees ; 
 and my lord s enemies burrow in the 
 wood. Be nimble, girl ; I am lonely if 
 the sun but shines on thy head and not 
 on mine." 
 
60 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 And she muttered to herself, " I am 
 an old woman, very old, to wait the 
 wench s looks and words as I did e en 
 my lord s once. When she is about, 
 the maids litanies are like the har 
 monies the angels sang St. Anthony. 
 I forget my ora saints, forgive ! I 
 have so little to pray for." 
 
 Salva s chamber was a turret next my 
 lord s bed-chamber. Many times was 
 she called by night by the restless Dame 
 to do some trifling service, and so often 
 was she called that she kept always a 
 rush-light burning in the turret beneath 
 the one window; but by dawn, because 
 of the thick smoke, she was glad to rise 
 and blow it out, and dress by the 
 square of white shadow that copied on 
 the floor the pallid sky above. The 
 sill was so high that she could reach 
 it only with the point of her shoulder, 
 and here she often idled, looking north 
 ward to the sea ; or rather to the pink 
 fog lying faintly on the land s edge, 
 
The Legend of the Wayste 61 
 
 which only the searching, glad light of 
 sunrise vouchsafed to her. 
 
 She stood thus some time one spring 
 morning, thinking, as she often thought 
 at that hour, of her father and the 
 town, of the cathedral and the pageants, 
 and of how much she still missed these 
 things that she yet loved, when a man 
 on the forest road came down to the 
 river. He took off his clothes and 
 made them into a bundle, holding 
 which on his head he crossed the 
 stream, and on the castle bank briefly 
 attired himself, for he was dressed as a 
 serf. Salva watched without seeing him 
 until he took up his staff and ap 
 proached the castle. He was tall and 
 straight and old, and he did not walk 
 like a serf, but in the manner of a free 
 man. As he came nearer she recog 
 nized him. He was a freeman and 
 from town. He was the gardener 
 Jogund. 
 
 Now, the last gossip from the town 
 
62 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 had had evil tales of Jogund. The 
 Count of Horzmund had carried away 
 his son some years before to be a 
 muleteer, and Jogund had borne him 
 self badly since. He quitted his great 
 gardens and went among the soldiers 
 and wanderers outside the town walls, 
 and drank with them, and gave them 
 his money and clothes. His gardens 
 went to waste, his customers forgot 
 him, and the town watchmen drove 
 him home with their staves when they 
 found him wandering on the streets, 
 stupid and lost. Silent Salva cried hid 
 den tears when she heard these woful 
 things ; for Jogund had been her fath 
 er s friend, and had brought her apples 
 every summer, and his first onion, and 
 had come on feast days on his slow, 
 heavy oak barge to bear her father and 
 herself to his gardens. She had loved 
 the black barge. It slipped through 
 the shining waters of the Wayste, lin 
 gering on the. spits and under the 
 
The Legend of the Wayste 63 
 
 banks, and swinging athwart the slow 
 tide at the touch of every alder arm 
 and willow bough. 
 
 When she recognized Jogund, her 
 heart misgave her painfully. She ran 
 through the Baron s chamber, and sped 
 down to the garden and through its 
 door, the key of which she carried. 
 Below was Jogund passing on the 
 shingle. 
 
 "Jogund, Jogund," she cried, "come 
 up, come up ! " And when he came, 
 they sat in the garden and he told her 
 of his troubles. His land was gone 
 sold, and the money gone. He had 
 naught but his smock, and was come. to 
 swear fealty to the Baron and become 
 his man. 
 
 " Since my boy is a serf, I will be no 
 freeman. He eats the black bread, and 
 so must I. I would have brought him, 
 but I could not find him. I asked all 
 the soldiers, all the friars, all the singers 
 who come on Wayste, but none had 
 
64 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 news of him. If he is dead, God be 
 good to a good boy! The Baron will 
 take me for his man, for I can make a 
 garden/ 
 
 Jogund became the Baron s man, 
 and made a garden on the Wayste un 
 der the north wall, where Salva could 
 look down upon him, and shed for his 
 broken heart such tears as made the 
 pink fog a string of dancing diamonds, 
 a gay carcanet upon the bold North Sea. 
 
 But of all this Dame Adelgunda 
 knew nothing. One twilight, when the 
 household was gathering in the hall, 
 she by chance looked from her window 
 upon the garden, and saw Salva pass 
 through the garden-door and down the 
 hill to the gardener s hut. He sat on 
 the bench by the door, and she sat 
 beside him. 
 
 " He is from her town," thought my 
 lady, and forgot the matter. 
 
 Again she missed Salva from the hall, 
 but bethought herself of the gardener, 
 
The Legend of the Wayste 65 
 
 and sent there that she return. It vexed 
 my lady that Salva could find such con 
 tent in a peasant s hut, and so she said 
 when Salva came, and sent her to the 
 shrine to say forty aves; but the Baron 
 said it should be but twenty, and all for 
 him. Salva had whispered hardly three 
 when my lady wanted her blue silken 
 cloak a mere pretense, says the legend. 
 Salva went to seek it, and coming back 
 the Dame bade her keep her aves that 
 night, as the hall was cold, and say them 
 at matins; and muttered to herself the 
 while, " I could box her for her fairness 
 and her patience," and then loved her 
 more because she was so fair and still. 
 
 By day Salva was yet faithful and 
 ever at hand; but she said vespers in 
 the garden no more and played no more 
 games in the court and hall. The maids 
 noted this, and said she must hunger for 
 her town since she sought old Jogund 
 so often and staid so long. 
 
 " She shall not leave the castle," 
 
66 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 vowed the Dame. " She shall love no 
 one but me. T is ill enough that I 
 should be forever treading on the heels 
 of that great wolf-hound, her husband 
 I who have done so much for her! 
 Why goes she to this man ? Cannot 
 the begging friars tell her of her people? 
 And what need she know? Is not the 
 castle great enough for her? What 
 other maid hath so much ? No, not in 
 all Friesia is there such a mistress as I. 
 She is spoiled, the wench, and I shall 
 beat her!" 
 
 And she laid her leather thong sharply 
 across Salva s shoulders, who turned a 
 frightened face upon the Dame and, 
 crying out, ran away. At supper my 
 lady repented of her anger, and passed 
 up to Salva so many morsels that my 
 lord took away her trencher, saying she 
 sinned by giving to eat those who had 
 said no grace. 
 
 "Who is thy gardener?" she asked 
 of Salva. 
 
The Legend of the Wayste 67 
 
 " My father s friend," answered Salva 
 timidly. 
 
 "And what dost with him ? " 
 
 " He talks of home." 
 
 " Home? This is thy home." 
 
 " Yes, my lady." 
 
 " Thou art happy here ? " 
 
 " Yes, my lady." 
 
 " But he talks forever. Thou art 
 always away, it seemeth to me." 
 
 " Only at vespers. He was rich once, 
 my lady, and happy, and had a boy, but 
 all is gone." 
 
 " Tush ! he is a lazy fellow, who 
 sought my lord s service, and talks be 
 cause he is lazy. Thou canst be. talked 
 to within the wall, since thou wilt not 
 talk thyself. I will talk to thee. Thou 
 art a good child to listen, and I like to 
 have thee about. I love thee, Salva." 
 
 " Yes, my lady," murmured Salva. 
 
 " Thou goest no more to this gossip. 
 I want thee to promise." 
 
 But Salva stood silent. The Dame s 
 
68 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 brows thickened and her cheek flushed. 
 Would this whelp of a sea-town re 
 fuse ? 
 
 Salva, seeing the frown, said fearfully, 
 " I cannot, my lady. I love Jogund. 
 I always loved Jogund." 
 
 " Thou shalt not go without the 
 walls. Give me the key. I shall com 
 mand the guard that thou goest not 
 over the draw-bridge nor the foot-bridge. 
 Now, get hence, and may the Mother 
 of Wayste pray away my anger ! " 
 
 " So it happens," says the legend, 
 " that the Dame sat in her high chair 
 alone, and said a pater and a threat, an 
 ave and a vow, all that day, and the next, 
 and the next for Salva came not to 
 pray her pardon," not knowing, poor 
 innocent, what it is to be jealous and 
 think others as mad as herself. 
 
 "The Dame is hard with thee," said 
 the Captain to Salva. " Thou art a 
 gentle seabird, and thou shalt go with 
 out the gates and see thy peasant man. 
 
The Legend of the Wayste 69 
 
 Look thou bringest me no trouble, 
 for the Dame beest strong with my 
 lord." 
 
 " I had not thought to disobey my 
 lady," answered Salva. 
 
 For three days she did not see Jo- 
 gund, who sat sadly on the bench before 
 his hut when the day was done and 
 watched the garden-door for her com 
 ing. Salva had been minded not to 
 disobey the Dame, but when she saw 
 Jogund waiting for her, she said that 
 she would go to him, and the Captain 
 bore her out, saying he would wait for 
 her. 
 
 After an hour she was coming swiftly 
 when the garden-door opened, and Dame 
 Adelgunda called to her: 
 
 " Come to me. Where hast been, 
 Salva? With simples to the village? " 
 
 " No, my lady. I have been with 
 Jogund." 
 
 " Thou lovest Jogund," said my lady 
 in a low voice. 
 
yo Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 " Yes, my lady poor, good Jo- 
 gund!" 
 
 " But not me, wench ! " screamed the 
 enraged Dame. " I would have had 
 thee lie to me, and believed thee hadst 
 thou done so. I saw thee creep away 
 to the churl, an I asked hadst thou 
 been to the village, an thou feared not 
 to say nay. Thou shalt love none but 
 me ! " The Dame raised the great iron 
 key of the garden-door, and struck her 
 shrinking handmaid. 
 
 " Down, girl," she cried, "and prom 
 ise thou wilt no more to Jogund ! " 
 And Salva sank on her knees and thence 
 fell along the wall. 
 
 " The Lady of Wayste judge between 
 us," panted Dame Adelgunda. 
 
 Then men came running, for in the 
 garden a loud shriek resounded, and 
 they found their lady staring at the 
 shadow of the wall and then at the 
 key in her hand. 
 
 " She is dead," muttered the Dame, 
 
The Legend of the Wayste 71 
 
 distraught. " Lady of Wayste, judge 
 betwixt us ! She is dead. T is a pun 
 ishment a punishment. Our Lady has 
 stricken most hard. She is dead!" and 
 so moaning she followed those who bore 
 Salva to the hall, where the leech showed 
 a purple wound on Salva s temple. 
 
 " She is dead," said the leech. "None 
 more so." 
 
 Many years the old Dame sat shrunk 
 en in her high chair telling her beads; 
 and sometimes in a whisper she prayed 
 the Lady of Wayste, " Strike again as 
 before. T is time, dear Lady ; t is 
 time." 
 
The Singular Experience of 
 the Gilstraps 
 
 By Gertrude Henderson 
 
 [In this exciting age of the ascendancy of Hall 
 Caine and his ilk, the lives of heroes and heroines 
 are so exposed to casualties by land and sea, to 
 murder, suicide, hanging, and other interruptions 
 more or less uncomfortable, that the sensitive reader 
 of books is kept in a cold shiver of apprehension 
 from cover even unto cover a condition evidently 
 dangerous for a generation already afflicted with too 
 active nerves. And now that story-writers have 
 taken to themselves the privilege of pessimism and 
 the duty of realism, this unhappy reader is even 
 bereft of his old-time peaceful assurance that it will 
 all come out right some way, because the hero is 
 the hero, and has to live happily ever after; else 
 why should he be the hero? Alas! now that ill- 
 used gentleman has lost so much of his ancient priv 
 ilege that his miseries commonly reach to the end 
 of the last page, and even his death is not unprece- 
 
The Gilstraps 73 
 
 dented. In view of these facts we have decided 
 to spare our readers nerves by killing our hero and 
 heroine in the very beginning. Thus wear and tear 
 on sympathies is entirely done away with. The 
 thoughtful will see at once the practical advantages 
 of the plan.] 
 
 " JV /I Y dear," said the stout gentleman 
 * * * who sat on the rower s seat and 
 plied his oars with the mighty effort 
 that suggests being new at the business, 
 "my dear, I really wish you would be 
 more careful about staying in the mid 
 dle of your seat. It is very unsafe to 
 have the boat so ill-balanced, especially 
 when the water is so rough. I begin 
 to think we were imprudent to venture 
 out at all." 
 
 "Oh, Milty ! are you frightened, 
 too?" gasped his equally stout wife, 
 with a sudden shifting of her substan 
 tial person that set the boat to rocking 
 violently. "Oh, Milty ! if I had known 
 there would be such waves I never 
 would have consented to come, never. 
 6 
 
74 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 You know I told you we ought to have 
 a boatman." 
 
 As if to bring proof of this feminine 
 wisdom, the boat gave a sudden lurch to 
 the left, and followed it by a still more 
 violent one to the right. At each the 
 unhappy woman shrieked and slid into 
 the temporary safety of the uppermost 
 side. 
 
 " Maria," said the pale but perspir 
 ing Milty, plunging his oars deep into 
 the water, " I am perfectly capable of 
 managing this boat, if you will only be 
 sensible and sit still. But if you will 
 fling yourself about in that insane way, 
 probably neither one of us will ever 
 set foot on shore again. Out in the 
 Pacific Ocean! I never thought, Maria, 
 my dear, I don t mean to be harsh, 
 in the very face of death, as we are, but 
 if you will only sit still there s no dan 
 ger at all, not the least in the world, I 
 assure you. You re ridiculous to sug 
 gest such a thing, Maria. 
 
The Gilstraps 75 
 
 The voice of the brave Milty was 
 so tremulous by the time he came to 
 the end of this reassuring speech that 
 his weaker half was seized with new 
 terrors. She started to wring her plump 
 hands, but relinquished her purpose 
 half-way in favor of the more practical 
 one of clutching desperately the sides 
 of the boat, and fixing upon her hus 
 band a pair of eyes so round with ter 
 ror that his last spark of courage flick 
 ered out. He pulled wildly upon one 
 oar, and then the other, and then on 
 both almost at once. At this the boat 
 gave a sudden flop, as much as to say, 
 " Well, my friends, I m not going to 
 stand this kind of thing any longer. 
 I m going to upset, and you Ve only 
 yourselves to blame for it." And with 
 that it turned itself completely over, 
 shook itself free from its occupants, 
 and went tossing, bottom up, over the 
 waves. There were two great splashes, 
 two gurgling screams, and a long silence. 
 
76 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 Presently there began to rise out of 
 the water a sort of vague exhalation. 
 Slowly it took on a certain shadow of 
 definiteness of outline, and at last it 
 uttered a sound, a faint, far-off, agitated 
 sound. 
 
 " Miltiades Gilstrap ! " it said. "Where 
 are you?" 
 
 A second mist wavered up out of the 
 water, and before it had fairly emerged 
 from its original formlessness, answered 
 in a tone of uncertain, spectral joy, " Is 
 that you, Maria ? " 
 
 "Oh, Milty!" said the shade of 
 Maria, stretching itself over toward 
 the second apparition, " I m so re 
 lieved to have you here ! What is the 
 matter? I feel so peculiar!" 
 
 For a moment the misty Miltiades 
 made no reply. At length he said, 
 " Do you see that black thing over 
 there on the water ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Maria. "It looks like 
 our boat." 
 
The Gilstraps 77 
 
 It was in fact that faithless servant, 
 still tossing itself pettishly about with 
 the waves. 
 
 "It is," said Miltiades, "and it is 
 wrong side up. We don t seem to be 
 in it, do we ? " 
 
 " No," said Maria, " we certainly 
 are n t." 
 
 "And there is n t any buoy in sight," 
 continued Miltiades, " nor any other 
 boat, and we are n t near land, and we 
 can t swim." He paused to give him 
 self time to grasp the only conclusion 
 possible. 
 
 " Maria," said he solemnly, " we 
 must be drowned." 
 
 " Miltiades ! " ejaculated Maria. 
 " Miltiades Gilstrap ! You don t mean 
 it ! You make my flesh creep ! " 
 
 " Yes, I do," said that pitiless rea- 
 soner, " I can t see any other way to 
 account for everything. Besides, you 
 have n t any flesh. There, there, Ma 
 ria ! " he added hastily, feeling that he 
 
78 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 had been perhaps a trifle too harsh in 
 the last sentence. " Now, don t take it 
 so hard. I dare say it won t be so bad 
 when once we get used to it. Let s go 
 and sit down on the boat, and talk it 
 over comfortably. Do you feel chilled, 
 my dear? Perhaps you had better 
 take my arm." 
 
 And offering her what seemed to 
 correspond to that member in his va 
 pory substance, he led her to the boat, 
 and helped her to a seat on its up 
 turned bottom. 
 
 " Milty, dear," said Maria, when she 
 was fairly settled, " I suppose you must 
 be right. The boat certainly did turn 
 over. Here it is itself to prove it. 
 There was n t anything else for us to 
 do but to go into the water; and I 
 am sure we never could have gotten 
 out alive. But it s hard to realize." 
 
 " It s too bad we had n t learned to 
 swim," said Miltiades. " Then we 
 might have saved ourselves. Still, 
 
The Gilstraps 79 
 
 there would have been the fright and 
 the exposure, and in your state of 
 health I should n t wonder if it would 
 have been the death of you, anyway. 
 Perhaps we are better off as we are/ 
 
 " There s one thing, Milty," said 
 Maria thoughtfully, " I am glad we 
 are n t leaving any children behind to 
 grieve for us. And there won t be any 
 trouble about the funeral, either. I 
 am glad we went together, are n t you ? 
 I always hoped we could. It would 
 have been so lonely for you staying 
 on alone if I had been taken first, not 
 having any near relatives to keep you 
 company and make things cheerful for 
 you. Yes, it is rather comfortable to 
 know it s all over and settled, and 
 nothing to worry about any longer. 
 Milty," she said, struck with a sudden 
 thought, " that black dress of mine will 
 be simply ruined. I told you I ought 
 to have gone back and put on my old 
 one. And think of your suit ! " 
 
8o Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 " Well, I don t know as that matters 
 now, Maria," said Milty, comfortably. 
 " We shan t need them." 
 
 " That s true," sighed Maria, in a 
 half-regretful tone. " I had forgotten. 
 I don t think I ever had a dress I liked 
 better than that, either." 
 
 " There now, Maria," interposed her 
 vapory spouse at this moment, touched 
 by the growing melancholy in her 
 tones, " I would n t worry about a little 
 thing like that. I don t begrudge the 
 cost. You know I never was stingy 
 about what you had to wear. My 
 dear," he continued, casting about in 
 his thoughts for something wherewith 
 to divert her mind from its depressing 
 chain of reflections, " you Ve often 
 thought of ghosts, have n t you ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Maria. "Oh, Milty! 
 do you suppose we are ghosts ? I 
 never thought I should come to that." 
 
 " I should n t wonder," said Milty, 
 with determined cheerfulness. " And 
 
The Gilstraps 81 
 
 why should n t we have a little enjoy 
 ment out of it ? We can t stay here. 
 It s getting on toward night, and the 
 boat is certainly damp. Suppose we 
 go ashore, and then take a little jour 
 ney somewhere." 
 
 " But how can we get there ? " said 
 the practical Maria, surveying the ex 
 panse of darkening water with an 
 anxious eye. 
 
 " We ve lost the oars, and even if 
 we could get ashore your money is all 
 in your pocket, where you can t possi 
 bly get at it ; and how are we to pay 
 for railroad tickets, or even hire a car 
 riage ? You know you never did like 
 going into debt." 
 
 " But I never heard of ghosts that 
 traveled by rail or by carriage either," 
 said Milty. " Don t you remember, 
 they glide. That s what we must 
 do. " 
 
 "Why, Milty," said Maria, "I never 
 did such a thing in my life. I m sure 
 
82 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 I should n t have the first notion how 
 to do it." 
 
 " Neither did I, in my life," answered 
 Milty; "but then, we never were ghosts 
 before. It s very different, you know. 
 Perhaps it would come quite natural, 
 with a little practice. I suppose we 
 would n t go very fast just at first, but 
 I Ve no doubt we d soon get the way 
 of it. Wouldn t you like to try it? 
 We could stay near the boat for a while, 
 so as to come back and rest whenever 
 we felt tired." 
 
 "Well," said Maria, her sensible 
 mind seeing at once the practical force 
 of her husband s reasoning, "if we re 
 to be ghosts, of course we 11 have to 
 learn to glide, and we might as well do 
 it now as any time. Come on, Milty. 
 Let s begin. Give me your arm, please. 
 It wouldn t do for us to get separated. 
 And don t try to go too fast. Remem 
 ber, I never was very quick on my 
 feet." 
 
The Gilstraps 83 
 
 " Now that s sensible of you, Maria," 
 said Miltiades, affectionately intermin 
 gling his misty arm with that of his wife. 
 And the worthy pair floated hazily up 
 from the boat and drifted across the 
 water, too intent upon the novelty of 
 the motion to waste thought in talking 
 for several moments. 
 
 " Really, I would n t have thought it 
 would be so easy," said Maria, at last. 
 "It s very much pleasanter than walk 
 ing, a little dizzying just at first per 
 haps, but one gets over that." 
 
 "And do you notice how rapid it 
 is? " asked Miltiades, in tones of much 
 placid satisfaction. " We ve gone quite 
 a distance already, and I have n t felt 
 any effect. Would you like to go back 
 and rest now, my dear?" 
 
 " Perhaps we had better," said Maria, 
 turning to look across the water at the 
 boat that now floated quite calmly, hav 
 ing worn off its fit of petulance, and set 
 itself, it is to be hoped, to the sober 
 
84 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 contemplation of its misdeeds. "Still, 
 I don t know," she continued, turning 
 her shadowy eyes meditatively toward 
 the distant beach. " The boat is n t so 
 very much nearer than the shore. I 
 don t know but we might as well keep 
 right on, and rest when we get there. 
 I m really enjoying this. That is, un 
 less you feel tired, Milty." 
 
 "Oh, no; not in the least," he re 
 plied. " It is just as you say, my dear. 
 Only don t be too ambitious all at once 
 and overtax yourself." 
 
 " I believe," said Maria, as they fell 
 once more into an easy glide, " I believe 
 a little exercise like this every day would 
 do us both good. It is very different 
 from walking. That is so fatiguing, 
 when a person is as stout as I am." 
 
 " You do it beautifully, Maria," said 
 Milty, making a vague attempt to pat 
 her unsubstantial arm. " Beautifully ! 
 I never saw a person take to a thing 
 better. Of course, I am not very famil- 
 
The Gilstraps 85 
 
 iar with the proper way of doing these 
 things, so I can t be sure we have it just 
 right; but you do look very graceful." 
 
 " Oh, do I, really, Milty? " said Ma 
 ria, the specter of a blush mantling her 
 ghostly cheek. " I used to be good at 
 getting new dance-steps when I was a 
 girl and had n t so much flesh, but I 
 supposed I had lost the knack. It is 
 so long since I ve practiced. Not that 
 this is anything like dancing, however. 
 I am sure nobody could call this light- 
 minded. I was just thinking how well 
 you go quite as if you had glided all 
 your life." 
 
 " I am surprised to see what good 
 time we make," said Milty. "We ve 
 almost reached the shore already, and I 
 am not at all tired." 
 
 "Neither am I," said Maria. "I 
 never felt fresher in my life. Suppose 
 we don t stop at all. Now that we are 
 going so well, it would be a pity to in 
 terrupt it." 
 
86 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 " No, no, Maria; we had better stop 
 for a few moments, at least," said the 
 more prudent Milty. " You always 
 were too impetuous. There is n t the 
 least hurry. We ve plenty of time be 
 fore us, and you may feel it to-morrow, 
 you know, even if you don t to-day." 
 
 So saying, Miltiades led the way to 
 a crumbling piece of drift-wood on the 
 shore, the fragment of some forgotten 
 wreck, and the two settled airily down 
 upon it, side by side. 
 
 "Where shall we go?" asked Maria. 
 "Well," said Miltiades, "I was just 
 thinking about that. Suppose we go 
 to see Rossou. He is that old school 
 mate of mine you have heard me speak 
 of. It would n t be far to go, and I 
 would enjoy a sight of him. I have n t 
 seen him for years." 
 
 "That is a good idea," said Maria. 
 " Let s start right off and get there 
 before dinner." 
 
 At the head of a table that shone 
 
The Gilstraps 87 
 
 resplendent with Christmas silver and 
 glass, and sent up savory promises of 
 Christmas good cheer to the nostrils 
 of the waiting company, sat Thomas 
 Rossou, grizzled of hair, rubicund of 
 face, and pretty of figure, with a Christ 
 mas turkey of phenomenal plumpness 
 sizzling before him, a knife gleaming 
 in his hand, and expectation shining in 
 his cheerful countenance. With the 
 deftness of a practical epicure he made 
 the assault upon the crisp brownness 
 under his hand, and "William," he 
 said, "do you remember Miltiades Gil- 
 strap, that used to go to school with 
 us?" 
 
 "But Milty," whispered Maria to 
 her husband, just outside the window, 
 " I don t feel right about going in this 
 way, without knocking, or ringing or 
 anything. I m sure it is n t polite. And 
 in the window, too? It is n t so bad 
 for you, an old friend ; but I never 
 met the Rossous, you know. I don t 
 
88 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 know what they 11 think of me. And 
 I never can get through that crack." 
 
 " Miltiades Gilstrap?" said William, 
 an elderly, smooth-shaven gentleman, 
 whose florid good nature shone through 
 the steam of the gravy at his host s right 
 hand. " Miltiades Gilstrap ? Let me 
 
 see." 
 
 "Yes, you can, too, Maria," said 
 Miltiades, outside. Miltiades had taken 
 the wise precaution while yet in life to 
 make himself well informed as to ghosts, 
 by way of a highly seasoned course of 
 literature on the subject ; and this juve 
 nile forethought now stood him in good 
 stead. "Ghosts can go through any 
 thing. It s like smoke, you know. All 
 you have to do is to stretch yourself 
 out thin enough. And it s perfectly 
 proper, I assure you. I never heard 
 of their ringing/ 
 
 "Well," said Maria, "if you say so, 
 I suppose it s all right." And, like 
 an obedient wife, albeit with some mis- 
 
The Gilstraps 89 
 
 givings, she put out an airy hand to try 
 the passage ; and rinding no resistance, 
 followed it with the rest of her impon 
 derable body. 
 
 "Well, Tom!" said Miltiades, with 
 effusive warmth, as he drew himself 
 together after this attenuating entrance. 
 " Surprised to see me, are n t you ? And 
 isn t this Will Keepover? What a 
 piece of luck to find you here ! I d 
 have known you anywhere, Will. Do 
 you think I am changed much ? I tell 
 you it does me good to see you both. 
 It brings back the old days." And 
 the soft-hearted specter rubbed his hands 
 together with a joy in no wise lessened 
 by their unsubstantiality. " My wife and 
 I Let me make you acquainted with 
 my wife, Mr. Rossou; and Mr. Keep- 
 over, Maria, my dear. We were in the 
 country, and thought we would come 
 in upon you in this unexpected way and 
 wish you a c Merry Christmas/ Hope 
 you 11 excuse the informality, but the 
 7 
 
90 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 circumstances, you see, were peculiar. 
 We had the misfortune to meet with 
 a little accident a while ago, and in 
 fact " 
 
 "Milt Gilstrap? Why, of course," 
 said William, in serene oblivion of the 
 presence of the gentleman himself. "Of 
 course, I remember him. A chubby- 
 faced youngster he was, and always 
 having mishaps. He never knew the 
 time when he did n t have a finger half 
 off, or a tooth knocked out, or some 
 thing of the sort. Do you recollect?" 
 
 "They couldn t have heard you," 
 whispered Maria. "How very extraor 
 dinary ! You had better speak again." 
 
 The shade of Miltiades floated over 
 nearer to the very tangible person of 
 Mr. Rossou, and waited politely for 
 Mr. Keepover to finish his remark. 
 
 "Is that the Will Keepover you had 
 the fight with when you were a boy," 
 asked Maria, in an undertone, "and 
 whipped so ? " 
 
The Gilstraps 91 
 
 "Yes," answered Miltiades; "and he 
 was twice my size then." 
 
 "That day," continued Mr. Keep- 
 over, " when he and I had a fight, he 
 was a good two inches taller than I, but 
 I was a better fighter. I tell you he 
 had enough of it." Mr. Keepover 
 smiled at the memory of those mighty 
 blows. 
 
 " Why, Will ! " burst from the as 
 tonished lips of the shade of Miltiades. 
 " You never had such a beating in 
 your life. You know I Excuse 
 me," he said, turning to the host. 
 " Good -evening and ( Merry Christ 
 mas, Tom. I know you have a wel 
 come for an old friend, even if he does 
 come rather unceremoniously. My 
 wife here, and I " 
 
 " Milt was a good-natured boy," said 
 Mr. Rossou, " but he never did have 
 much pluck. I wonder where he is now." 
 
 Maria laid a sympathetic hand upon 
 her husband s arm. 
 
92 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 " Maria ! " groaned that unhappy 
 gentleman, " Oh, Maria, we re dead, 
 my dear ! I had n t realized it. Let s 
 get away. I I feel very ill ! " And, 
 in melancholy silence, they floated out 
 through the crack. 
 
 " Good -evening," said a gusty voice, 
 and a shape settled down from the up 
 per air and wavered indistinctly before 
 them. " Can you tell me Why, 
 what s the matter ? You look rather 
 blue. Are you new ones ? " 
 
 " New what ? " said Miltiades. 
 
 " Ghosts," said the new-comer. 
 
 " I suppose so," said Miltiades, 
 heaving a sigh that took shape in the 
 frosty air as tangible as his own. "Are 
 you one? " 
 
 "Oh, yes," said the new-comer; 
 " I Ve been one this half-century. May 
 I ask when you died, if it s no intru 
 sion ? " 
 
 " Only this evening," said Miltiades. 
 " We were out on the water " 
 
The Gilstraps 93 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! " said the stranger 
 sympathetically. " Many of our peo 
 ple come in that way. I suppose," he 
 continued, returning to his original 
 tone of brisk cheerfulness, " it is too 
 early to inquire how you are enjoying 
 it. Been doing any haunting?" 
 
 Maria and Miltiades exchanged 
 glances. 
 
 "Well, no," said Miltiades; "not 
 exactly." 
 
 " Oh, you ought to haunt," said the 
 stranger. " I m sure you would find 
 great pleasure in it." And he turned 
 with an air of courtly deference to Ma 
 ria, who was looking somewhat shocked 
 at the proposition. 
 
 " But is it do they consider it 
 quite right ? " she said. 
 
 "Yes," said Miltiades, "isn t that 
 kind of thing confined to murdered 
 men, and suicides, and people one 
 would n t just like to be classed with ? " 
 
 " Oh, you re entirely mistaken," 
 
94 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 said the stranger. " Why," with a wide 
 sweep of his hazy arm, " I m just off 
 on a little business of that kind myself 
 now. Our very best people do it. I 
 assure you, you won t be thought any 
 thing of in society if you don t haunt. 
 There s Colonel Ashmore s wife, one of 
 the most charming women that ever died 
 in this country; she does a great deal 
 of it. She keeps a regular visiting-list 
 of her places. And her great-grand 
 daughter, Mrs. Levison, goes about 
 with her a great deal. But, of course, 
 she is older, and does n t care to be out 
 quite so much. You need n t feel any 
 hesitancy about it at all, my dear 
 madam," (and again he addressed him 
 self with charming grace to Maria) ; 
 " and I urge you to do it, for your own 
 enjoyment." 
 
 The minds of Maria and Miltiades 
 were too full of novel ideas for ready 
 speech. Before either of them could 
 make answer the stranger continued : 
 
The Gilstraps 95 
 
 " I must really bid you good-evening. 
 I can t bear to be late for my appoint 
 ments. It s a house-party, and they 11 
 be looking for me. I hope to see 
 more of you in future. Good-evening." 
 
 " Good-evening," said Miltiades and 
 Maria, and the voluble gentleman 
 melted away, humming a popular ditty 
 of fifty years ago. 
 
 "Well, Maria?" said Miltiades, a 
 faint cheerfulness struggling back into 
 his voice. 
 
 " I ll do just as you say, Milty," an 
 swered Maria. " I m sure I don t 
 know what to think." 
 
 " I certainly have read of it in the 
 most aristocratic families," said Milti 
 ades. " Don t you know how common 
 it is in the English nobility ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Maria ; " that is true." 
 
 " Let s try it," said Miltiades tenta 
 tively. 
 
 "Well, if you think best. But 
 where?" quavered Maria. 
 
96 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 Milty s eyes traveled up the street 
 and down the street, and rested on a 
 brightly lighted house not far away. 
 
 " That " looks cheerful," said he. 
 " Let s go there." 
 
 With the words, they started off in 
 true ghostly fashion, glided to the near 
 est window, drifted through a friendly 
 chink, and settled down side by side 
 upon a sofa to plan the details of their 
 unaccustomed enterprise. 
 
 The room was gay with red-berried 
 branches, after the cheerful fashion of 
 the Christmas-tide, but only the flicker 
 ing fire-glow lighted it. 
 
 "Just the place, isn t it?" said Mil- 
 tiades, looking about with approval. 
 
 "Yes," said Maria, with a dubious 
 inflection, looking at the room s one 
 
 Miltiades glanced quickly around at 
 his wife. " You mean there ought to 
 be more people here: " he said. " Oh, 
 no, no! Not at all. I know they 
 always take them one at a time." 
 
The Gilstraps 97 
 
 " But, Miltiades," objected Maria, 
 "she l(X>ks so young and so sens 
 Of course, we would n t hurt her for 
 anything. But suppose she should be 
 frightened :" 
 
 " Now, Maria," said Miltiades severe 
 ly, "you 11 have to get over that notion. 
 Why, what s haunting for: Of course, 
 she 11 be frightened. 
 
 " But what if it should throw her into 
 hysterics? It might make her sick," 
 persisted Maria, 
 
 "I don t believe she s that kind," 
 said Miltiades. "She s pretty, isn t 
 she?" he added, his eyes lingering with 
 evident admiration upon the girl, who 
 sat motionless and gazed absently at the 
 fire. 
 
 " Very," said Maria. "What a pretty 
 bright brown her hair is! See how it 
 catches the firelight and shines here and 
 there/ 
 
 " I wonder what she is thinking of," 
 said Miltv. "What eves she has 
 
98 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 always liked that expressive kind of 
 brown." 
 
 "She does n t seem to have noticed 
 us," said Maria. "Had we better be- 
 gin?" 
 
 "Yes," said Milty. "What had we 
 better do first?" 
 
 " Could n t we just wish her a ( Merry 
 Christmas, and not startle her too much 
 all at once?" suggested Maria. 
 
 "Maria," said Miltiades, "if we are 
 going to do this thing at all, we ought 
 to do it well; and whoever heard of 
 that sort of remark for a ghost? No; 
 we must clank our chains. They always 
 do." 
 
 "Well, but we haven t any," said 
 Maria. "At least I am sure I have n t; 
 and if you have I don t know where 
 you got them." 
 
 This was a grave difficulty. 
 
 "We certainly ought to have some," 
 said Milty. " I don t see how we can 
 do anything at all without." 
 
The Gilstraps 99 
 
 " Don t they sometimes rap on 
 tables?" suggested Maria, doing her 
 best to call up some scraps of super 
 natural information. 
 
 "That s a good idea," said Milty. 
 " Yes ; we can do that. We 11 rap, and 
 then we 11 both groan at once, and then 
 we 11 say What do they say, Maria ? 
 c Vengeance ! or f The hour is come ! 
 or Beware! or something short and 
 blood-curdling like that?" 
 
 " Miltiades," said Maria, her tender 
 heart smiting her past endurance, " I 
 won t do it. I can t." 
 
 At this moment the door opened. 
 " Ellen," said a voice, and the dreamer 
 by the fireside looked quickly up. 
 " Ellen, they want you. They sent me 
 to find you. Ellen," and the voice also 
 was by the fireside, "why did you go 
 away? " 
 
 " Milty," whispered Maria, " that 
 young man is in love with Ellen. I 
 can tell by the way he looks at her." 
 
ioo Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 " It did n t make any difference/ said 
 Ellen. " There were so many. I was 
 tired of games." 
 
 " But it made a difference to me/ 
 said the voice. "What have you been 
 thinking of here by yourself? Will 
 you tell me? " 
 
 " Oh of a great many things/ said 
 Ellen. 
 
 "And of one thing?" asked the 
 voice. It was a very low voice now. 
 " Of what I told you ? Have you 
 been remembering that?" it asked. 
 
 "Yes," said Ellen. 
 
 "Miltiades," whispered Maria, "I do 
 believe that young man s proposing to 
 Ellen. I don t think we ought to stay. 
 Just think how you would feel yourself 
 to have complete strangers come in at 
 such a time." 
 
 "And will you tell me now what I 
 asked you?" said the voice. 
 
 "Not yet," said Ellen. 
 
 "But will you soon ? " said the voice, 
 after a little pause. 
 
The Gilstraps 101 
 
 There was another little xiaus^, and 
 then: "Perhaps so," said Ellen. .... 
 
 "And do you think* it wiM be what I 
 want to hear?" asked the voice, as if it 
 were no more than a thought that had 
 some way made itself audible. 
 
 "I think perhaps it may," said 
 Ellen. 
 
 " Here is a sprig of misletoe on the 
 floor," said the voice a very glad, 
 clear voice. " See what a pretty piece 
 it is ! Its berries glisten so ! Would 
 you mind if I should put it in your 
 hair? And then if I should take its 
 privilege? Would you, Ellen?" 
 
 "Maria," said Milty, while his arm 
 flowed vaguely around her unresisting 
 form, " Maria dear, do you remem 
 ber ?" And, forgetting their pur 
 pose, the two faded out of the window 
 and away into the moonlit night. 
 
 And "No," said Ellen. 
 
The Confraternity of the 
 Holy Agony 
 
 By Harley M. Leete 
 
 ON North Hall steps the Sopho 
 mores were roaring out their 
 old-time war-song to the ominous ac 
 companiment of clattering canes and 
 significant wagging of their mortarboard 
 head-gear. Groups of Freshmen were 
 scurrying across the campus, in threes 
 and fours, to some rendezvous in the 
 park beyond. " Rush " was in the air. 
 To-night the University of California 
 would witness the annual struggle be 
 tween Sophomore and Freshman. 
 
 Up the campus, wending their way 
 through this confusion, side by side, 
 came two young friends, a boy and 
 
The Confraternity 103 
 
 a girl. He was tall and heavy, yet 
 with the grace of strength in his step, 
 and a delicacy of feature unusual to a 
 man of his stature. His eyes were 
 dark, and there burned in them that 
 pure fire which we may imagine lighted 
 the eyes of Sir Launfal as he sallied 
 out his dream -castle gate. At least, 
 that was the mental comparison of his 
 companion, a fair, sprightly girl with a 
 treasure of brown hair and merry gray 
 eyes. Gray eyes are so often serious. 
 She glanced up at him now, as he kept 
 the hurrying Freshmen from jostling 
 her, and a little shadow rested in their 
 depths. 
 
 " Mr. Hope," she said, " I expect 
 you to do something to distinguish 
 yourself from the mass of men I know 
 at college." 
 
 " Why? " he asked quietly. 
 
 " Because," she replied irrelevantly, 
 with a shade more color than the set 
 ting sun would warrant. 
 
104 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 " Seems to me you exercise your 
 prerogative rather emphatically, Miss 
 Burton." 
 
 " Yes ? Well, since I Ve done so, 
 there s no appeal. The question is, 
 Will you do it ? " 
 
 He thought a long time. She was a 
 Senior, and belonged to the Amateur 
 Artists Club. She knew hosts of men 
 on the top round of their life-work, 
 and he well, he sighed he was only 
 a Freshman. 
 
 "You have a lifetime to do it in," 
 she suggested at this critical moment. 
 
 He started. She had a little way of 
 thinking along parallel with him that 
 often surprised him. 
 
 " Well ? " she asked, after another 
 pause. 
 
 At that moment the Sophomores, 
 ending their song with a wild crescendo 
 whoop, came pell-mell down the steps, 
 and, forming fours, executed a serpen 
 tine march down the path leading to 
 
The Confraternity 105 
 
 Jack Maguire s billiard- hall. Then 
 suddenly vague chaotic impulses, soul- 
 protestations, were crystallized into a 
 hard, unflinching purpose. His eyes 
 flashed as he almost shouted, "I will !" 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Hope. And may 
 may I be your friend?" she asked 
 half-fearful of that flash, and with some 
 misgivings as well. 
 
 " What might a man of his tempera 
 ment and strength of will accomplish!" 
 she thought; and she of the very ex 
 clusive "Amateurs" was conscious of 
 just a little presumption. 
 
 " Why," he stammered, " if you only 
 would. I don t seem to make friends 
 here. I ," and then his throat stuck 
 and Miss Burton came to the rescue. 
 
 " That s good of you to put it that 
 way, and I m very grateful." Then 
 she took a thin gold bangle from her 
 wrist, and went on a trifle nervously, 
 "And this I 11 give you as a token to 
 wear on your imaginary helmet. But 
 8 
 
io6 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 stop I haven t knighted you yet," 
 and laying a book playfully across his 
 shoulder, she exclaimed, "Arise ! Sir 
 James Hope henceforth." Then she 
 bade him good-by and left him stand 
 ing by the library-steps looking fool 
 ishly at the little gold bangle laying in 
 his great palm. 
 
 Descended from a long line of Cath 
 olic Hopes, who traced their ancestry 
 two hundred years back of the time 
 when the first Hope had come to 
 America with Lord Baltimore, James 
 was of a deeply religious nature. De 
 spite the influences widely at variance 
 with their religious forms, the Hopes 
 still maintained, as sacredly as an heir 
 loom, their Catholicism intact, though 
 it was but the husk. The doctrine of 
 universal brotherhood they believed fun 
 damental to all true Christianity, and 
 this formed the living, throbbing pulse 
 of their religion. Naturally James be 
 lieved that a man s first fraternity-pin 
 
The Confraternity 107 
 
 should be that of his university. What 
 he believed he gave expression to, both 
 in action and speech. Hence, heralded 
 as one of the finest half-backs who had 
 ever entered college, applauded for his 
 brilliant plays, he soon found himself 
 with but few or no close friends, and all 
 because he took life too seriously and 
 had neither the tact nor geniality to win 
 friends. 
 
 On the night of the rush he prayed 
 long and fervently before his crucifix, 
 till his resolve glowed to a white heat 
 and shone from his face. At the foot 
 of the cross was a little sandal-wood 
 box, upon which, in raised silver letters, 
 was an inscription reading, "The Confra 
 ternity of the Holy Agony." Into this 
 box James dropped a piece of silver, as 
 his fathers before him for many genera 
 tions had done at the end of their 
 prayers. At New Year s the money from 
 these deposits was gathered up and sent 
 to some institution for unfortunates. 
 
io8 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 The rush was over. At Jack Ma- 
 guire s billiard-hall, waiters were run 
 ning hither and thither in a mad 
 endeavor to quench the huge thirst of 
 the victors. Jack Maguire, notorious 
 law-breaker and boss of town politics 
 (and college politics, it was whispered), 
 was everywhere congratulating the trium 
 phant Sophomores. The winning side 
 always had his sympathy, for win who 
 would, he won from the winners, and 
 sent many a one home on unsteady feet. 
 All this in spite of the fact that a 
 State law prohibited the sale of liquors 
 within a radius of a mile about the Uni 
 versity grounds. But, winked at by 
 local authorities, Maguire had built a 
 splendid billiard-hall just outside the 
 grounds. Years of practice had em 
 boldened him, until now he sold liquor 
 in flagrant, open violation of all law. 
 Nobody complained, because it was 
 nobody s business. 
 
 On this evening the crowd little 
 
The Confraternity 109 
 
 resembled students in appearance. Old 
 clothes, slouch hats, a glint of military 
 buttons here and there, faces in which 
 the recent conflict had accentuated the 
 brutal lines and dissolved the finer ones, 
 bandaged arms and heads, and trophies 
 of the rush flourished aloft, character 
 ized the crowd. Not that this forty or 
 fifty-odd students were representative 
 of the entire student body. Far from 
 it. But it was that element which was 
 always in evidence whenever there was 
 any hurrahing to be done or a college 
 election to take place. 
 
 On a table at the head of the room 
 stood Hal Rickstaad leading the singing 
 of a coarse parody of one of the college 
 songs. 
 
 "Hit em up, boys!" he shouted, and 
 they responded with a roar: 
 
 " Behold the conquering hero comes ! 
 He is the very prince of bums ! 
 He doth whatever him doth please, 
 Oh ! him doth please ! 
 
no Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 And leads a life of luscious ease, 
 Oh ! luscious ease ! " 
 
 " The devil take the man who digs, 
 He is the very prince of pigs ! 
 Cold water drinks, which iron doth rust, 
 
 Oh ! iron doth rust ! 
 And with dyspepsia he is cussed, 
 
 Oh! he is cussed!" 
 
 As Hal Rickstaad lifted his mug for 
 another draught before beginning the 
 last verse, his hand was arrested before 
 his mouth, and his eyes bulged out with 
 astonishment and terror. All turned 
 and followed the direction of his eyes. 
 There, at the far end of the room, 
 pressed against the pane, was the white, 
 drawn face of James Hope, looking in 
 on the brute horror of their debauch. 
 Then the face faded into the darkness. 
 In the room reeking with tobacco and 
 fumes of drink, where a moment be 
 fore all was hilarity and drunken socia 
 bility, there burst forth a wild, discordant 
 
The Confraternity in 
 
 clamor. Hal Rickstaad dashing his 
 mug to pieces on the floor yelled, "A 
 spotter ! a spotter ! Out on the spy ! 
 Out on the faculty s whelp!" and 
 springing from the table he joined the 
 wild scramble for the door. 
 
 For a few moments all was still save 
 the tramping of feet, as the mob, 
 broken up into small searching parties, 
 hurried about the campus. Then a 
 howl of triumph went up from the 
 botanical gardens, and with answering 
 halloos they all hurried thither. 
 
 When Hope came to himself he was 
 lying in darkness on the banks of a 
 small stream some two miles from the 
 campus. His body was bruised and 
 bleeding from the cane-beating he had 
 received. When he essayed to rise, his 
 head pained him savagely, and the trees 
 wobbled about so strangely, the ground 
 rushed up to him so swiftly, that after 
 one or two attempts he gave it up and 
 
ii2 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 lay very still, puzzling his reluctant 
 thoughts with the why and the where 
 fore. 
 
 They came so slowly, his thoughts, 
 and were so unlike, he could scarcely 
 make a sequence of them. By much 
 piecing together he remembered hazily 
 of being taken in the botanical gardens 
 and being given his choice of leaving col 
 lege or chastisement at the hands of his 
 captors. He had chosen the latter and 
 fought manfully for a while, but their 
 numbers finally prevailed, and they 
 dragged him to this stream, and after 
 stripping and beating him threw him 
 into a shallow pool. There they 
 splashed the water over him by hurling 
 rocks close to him. Sometimes their 
 aim was unsteady and they had hit 
 him. At last one struck him in the 
 head, and he remembered nothing until 
 now. Evidently they had dragged him 
 out, and, fearing he was dead, had run 
 away in a panic. 
 
The Confraternity 113 
 
 It began to grow lighter, and a trifle 
 encouraged by a growing coherence in 
 his thoughts he rose unsteadily and 
 tremblingly drew on his clothes, which 
 he found scattered along the bank. 
 
 Two weeks later Hope appeared again 
 on the gridiron. His strong vitality 
 could yield but a short time to sickness, 
 though he was quite pale from confine 
 ment indoors. The students assembled 
 on the bleachers looked on in mute 
 astonishment, as with a half- smile he 
 swung out with his foot and raised the 
 ball in one of his famous punts. Then 
 hisses broke out. 
 
 He dropped the ball and stood for 
 a moment facing the hostile eyes on 
 the bleachers. 
 
 Some one called to the coach, "Put 
 the spotter out ! " 
 
 With a despairing glance at his fel 
 low players, Hope turned to leave, 
 when there came the raucous voice of 
 the coach across the field : 
 
ii4 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 " Don t you mind them, Jimmie. 
 Damn them ! for a little spite they d 
 lose the Thanksgiving game. Play as 
 you have played, old man, and I 11 put 
 you on the Varsity, spite o hell ! " 
 
 They all heard it. Hope wavered a 
 moment, and then came back. It was 
 not the hope of playing on the Varsity 
 that turned him back. It was the 
 words " Jimmie " and " old man." He 
 could have sobbed out his thanks for 
 those. His mother called him Jim 
 mie. The bleachers were shamed into 
 silence. 
 
 As Hope left the field that evening 
 he encountered Hal Rickstaad and Jas- 
 amine Burton at the gate. Neither of 
 them bowed to him. Rickstaad stared 
 at him contemptuously. Jasamine 
 looked at him steadily for a moment, 
 then with a slight painful tightening 
 of her lips turned her eyes away. 
 
 Hope was stunned. The little gold 
 bangle, her promise, meant nothing. 
 
The Confraternity 115 
 
 "Nothing nothing," he repeated dully 
 to himself. 
 
 Late at night he knelt and prayed. 
 The click of his beads answered the 
 tick of the clock, and both struck into 
 the marrow of his loneliness. He knew 
 now, yes, he knew too well what 
 the holy agony was. It did not 
 mean the sorrow of the blind, the dis 
 eased, and the maimed, alone. It 
 meant that great universal sorrow which 
 hangs over all, and makes each one de 
 pendent on another for sympathy, for 
 food to satisfy the heart-hunger, and 
 for the brotherly hand of friendship 
 when that sorrow swoops down like a 
 storm-cloud and envelops all in melan 
 choly. At last the clink of silver told 
 of prayers ended, and James fell asleep. 
 
 The next day Jack Maguire was ar 
 rested for violation of the State law. In 
 spite of the fact that a number of stu 
 dents perjured themselves to save him, 
 the dormant interest of the good public 
 
n6 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 and majority of the student body was 
 aroused, and a rigid prosecution secured 
 him a sentence of two years in the pen 
 itentiary. 
 
 Still they held aloof from Hope. 
 Their attitude may perhaps be expressed 
 thus: " Hope no doubt had done per 
 fectly right according to his lights; but 
 he had made himself so awfully con 
 spicuous." 
 
 He often saw Jasamine Burton on 
 the campus. But he had a feeling that 
 it must annoy her to be obliged to cut 
 him; so he avoided her as much as pos 
 sible, to save her the pain of it. 
 
 Thanksgiving day at last! Cold and 
 clear it dawns. Hats, canes, flags, and 
 ribbons are furbished up in the morn 
 ing. Noon trains bring the entire pop 
 ulation of neighboring towns into San 
 Francisco, and by one o clock the bleach 
 ers are full. Friends of California and 
 Stanford are ranged on opposite sides. 
 
The Confraternity 117 
 
 Near the middle section on either side 
 are the rooters facing each other, those 
 on California s side wearing blue-and- 
 gold hats and those on Stanford s red. 
 Fiercely they shout their slogans across 
 at one another. Taunts of past years 
 defeats, hurled in chorus across the grid 
 iron, meet scorn and wit as keen as that 
 of the senders, and the alumni, with 
 happy faces and fluttering flags, applaud 
 each witty sally of " their boys." 
 
 Now the whistle sounds, and the 
 blue-and-gold face the red for the 
 struggle. Again the whistle, and they 
 are off. Now follows a deep silence as 
 the audience breathlessly watches the 
 outcome of the Stanford kick-off and 
 California s return. Hah! the latter s 
 advantage! and their rooters rise as one 
 man and cheer frantically for the team 
 collectively, and individually, too, for 
 all but Hope. No word of praise for 
 him, though his is the punt that makes 
 the gain. 
 
n8 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 The first half is over, and neither 
 side yet scored. At first the Cardinals, 
 from their victory of last year, have 
 the odds, but betting is even now. At 
 the whistle-call for second half the men 
 form and face each other in sullen 
 silence. How evenly matched they are ! 
 How alike in proportions is that left 
 tackle of California matched against the 
 right tackle opposite, or that spare, lithe 
 end against his foe ! Now California 
 plunges across the line and catches the 
 enemy s full-back before he can return. 
 But see ! the half-back in falling loses 
 the ball. 
 
 "Hurrah !" shout the California root 
 ers. 
 
 " Damnation ! " growl the red hats. 
 
 Fast following on the seizure of the 
 ball comes the sharp, barking tones of 
 California s quarter-back giving the sig 
 nal as they take the offensive forma 
 tion. The ball is passed to Hope and 
 he, springing forward, leaps clear of 
 
The Confraternity 119 
 
 both lines and plunges head first into 
 the arms of Cardinals backs. 
 
 "Well done! Bravo!" shout the 
 alumni. But no word from the rooters. 
 
 Now the other half-back takes the 
 ball for the same play. Over he goes 
 into the mass of red shirts. A mo 
 ment s pause. The Stanford team 
 hustle the enemy at random and the 
 half-back lies stunned on the ground. 
 Then panic seizes the California players. 
 Who has the ball ? A howl of rage from 
 the bleachers tells them. Turning they 
 see Stanford s long, lank full-back 
 speeding down the field with the ball. 
 Closely following him is James Hope. 
 There is a tense quiet on both sides 
 of the gridiron. Fifteen yards more and 
 they will have a touch-down. Then 
 a long deep sigh of relief from one side 
 and a groan from the other. Hope 
 has sprung forward, and hurling him 
 self after his fleeing rival, has tackled 
 and thrown the flying man heavily on 
 
120 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 the ten-yard line. The ball rolls out 
 from the full-back s nerveless arms. 
 On his feet in an instant, Hope catches 
 up the ball and turns down the field. 
 
 Now ensues one of the finest inter 
 ference plays ever witnessed on the 
 gridiron. As Hope runs down the 
 field, man after man of the Cardinals is 
 baffled, tripped, or blocked as he tries 
 to tackle. As he speeds by the red- 
 hatted section, scattering cries of " Kill 
 him! Kill him!" are shouted down at 
 him. At last he falls eighteen yards 
 from goal, tackled by the enemy s left 
 end. Meanwhile the coach looks on in 
 astonishment. Never before has he seen 
 such interference. A wild, inarticulate 
 sound bursts from his throat. He 
 dances along the lines, and, with tears 
 streaming down his cheeks, crazily 
 murmurs to himself: "Good for you, 
 Charlie ! Nobly done, Jack ! Throw 
 em hard! That s the stuff! Go on 
 Jimmie, for God and your college !" 
 
The Confraternity 121 
 
 Opportunity comes knocking at the 
 door of the California s yell-leader 
 opportunity for heroship second to 
 Hope s. He looks at the seething parti 
 colored bank before him where a babel 
 of sounds rises along with hats and 
 canes whirled madly into the air regard 
 less of their landing-place or final 
 recovery. Shall he, or shall he not ? 
 Then he catches the eye of Hal Rick- 
 staad, his fraternity brother, which with 
 a menace says he shall not, and he is 
 known thenceforth as Mr. What s-his- 
 name who led the rooters in such-and- 
 such a year. 
 
 But the coach strides over to the sec 
 tion with indignation blazing in his face. 
 Seizing the yell-leader s beribboned cane 
 he shouts, " Up, there, every one of you 
 that has a spark of manhood in him! 
 Up and give a man his due ! Now !" 
 
 And there rose in unison the yell 
 that first greeted Hope when he ap 
 peared on the campus gridiron: 
 9 
 
122 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 " Hope ! Hope ! Jim Hope ! 
 Oh ! Stanford has faith 
 And charity sweet, 
 But we have Hope 
 They cannot beat ! " 
 
 In that yell was voiced for the man 
 the unqualified admiration of the long 
 silent but approving majority, and those 
 of the minority in whom their better 
 nature had triumphed. 
 
 But Hope heard and smiled in a way 
 not good to see. Brute courage, of 
 which all could see the trial on the grid 
 iron, they could applaud ; but the trial 
 of his soul s courage which had cost him 
 his one friend in college and his faith 
 in all friendship that was passed by 
 in silent contempt and misunderstand 
 ing. 
 
 The game finished with a score of 
 six to nothing in favor of California. 
 While the hubbub of band -playing, 
 cursing and rejoicing, weeping and 
 laughing filled the late hard-fought 
 
The Confraternity 123 
 
 field, with the successful team riding 
 the uncertain shoulders of the rooters 
 at the head of a rude procession, Hope 
 slipped off the backs of his new and 
 ardent friends and made the best of his 
 way to the carriage-stand. 
 
 People nudged one another as he 
 passed, and said in undertones, "That s 
 Hope." Small boys sneaked up behind 
 to touch his rough suit and boast of it 
 next day. Alumni proudly pointed at 
 him and said to visiting strangers, 
 " That s he ; that s our Jim." 
 
 But he went on alone, seeing nor 
 hearing no one. What were his honors 
 compared to the wrong one had done 
 him? "A mere slip of a girl," he 
 thought, trying to contemn himself for 
 feeling so wretchedly about it. But 
 oh, well she promised to be his friend 
 and and failed him in the first storm. 
 She would probably come around to 
 congratulate him now. If she should 
 and he ground his teeth. 
 
124 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 Suddenly he became conscious that 
 somewhere near him in the throng was 
 that same " mere slip of a girl." It 
 may have been some low note of her 
 voice battling unconsciously through the 
 noisy herd of sounds that apprised him 
 of her presence, or, perhaps, in looking 
 for a carriage, his eye had caught the 
 glint of her brown hair and lost it 
 again. However it was, he knew that 
 she was near him. But then and he 
 stifled the pain gnawing at his heart 
 what did it matter ? Jasamine no longer 
 recognized him. At that moment he 
 saw her with her mother standing by 
 their carriage at the curb. She bowed. 
 He raised his cap coldly and was pass 
 ing on, when she pushed toward him. 
 Then he stopped. 
 
 "Mr. Hope, I want Oh, don t 
 look at me in that way ! I can t bear 
 it! I mamma and I want to take 
 you up town in our carriage." 
 
 " I thank you, but I have made 
 
The Confraternity 125 
 
 other arrangements," he said with grave 
 bitterness. 
 
 " Oh, break them this once, won t 
 you? I know I Ve failed in my promise, 
 but Hal Rickstaad and others told me 
 a story I could n t but believe. And 
 and please forgive me, won t you ? 
 I " And she gave a half-fearful 
 glance at the crowd that flowed by on 
 either side of James s stalwart form. 
 
 " I Ve forgiven you and forgotten 
 you a long time since, Miss Burton. 
 Is that all ? " 
 
 " Yes, it it is, I guess. I must tell 
 you, though, that I came to you as 
 soon as I found I was wrong. For I 
 sat next to Professor Conrad this after 
 noon, and he told me the truth about 
 that Maguire affair. Rickstaad said 
 the faculty hired you to do it, you 
 know. I did n t care anything about 
 your splendid plays. I only thought 
 of the wrong I had done you. But 
 yes I suppose it s all I deserve ! " 
 
126 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 And then her frightened little words 
 refused to come, and James saw, with 
 sudden contrition, the tears brimming 
 over those great gray eyes ; and he 
 said, trying not to be fierce with him 
 self lest he frighten her, " I am a brute, 
 and I lied ! I never could forget 
 you. See ! " and he pulled out from 
 his shirt that ridiculous little gold 
 bangle. 
 
 She laughed with hysterical delight, 
 and said, with an attempt at her old 
 playfulness, "And your arrangements, 
 Sir James, will not permit " 
 
 " Oh, yes, they will," and he forgot 
 all about her being a Senior and a 
 member of the exclusive Amateur Club, 
 and helped the "mere slip of a girl" and 
 her mother into the carriage and rode 
 up town, a very happy man, with his 
 faith in friendship firmly re-established. 
 
 He did not know, poor fellow, how 
 sadly, how very sadly it might again be 
 shaken. 
 
The Confraternity 127 
 
 As for Jasamine, she snuggled back 
 into a corner of the carriage and 
 thought over and over how very glad 
 she was that he had not forgotten her, 
 and never could forget her, and had 
 worn her token through the thick of 
 the battle and that glorious run of 
 eighty yards. 
 
 That night, as she and her mother 
 sat by the fire and the wind of Thanks 
 giving night went roaring thanklessly 
 overhead, Jasamine remarked, with a 
 little tremor in her voice, and apropos 
 of nothing in particular, " There is 
 nothing, nothing on earth so fine for 
 development of character in men and 
 women as close friendships with the 
 opposite sex." 
 
 Her mother smiled and sighed a 
 little, and then replied discreetly, " I 
 suppose you re right, my dear." 
 
 When on New Year s the Sisters of 
 St. Anthony opened a package labeled 
 
128 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 " For the Confraternity of the Holy 
 Agony" they found among the silver a 
 gold piece. Such had been the way 
 in which James Hope s forbears had 
 marked some turning-point in their 
 prayerful lives, and on that Thanksgiv 
 ing night James had followed faithfully 
 the custom of his fathers. 
 
The Little Maid s Tragedy 
 
 By Mary Bell 
 
 T HE Little Maid timidly followed 
 1 the teacher down the aisle and 
 took the seat indicated. It was at the 
 back of the room with two rows of girls 
 on her right, and three rows of boys 
 on her left. She wished the boys were 
 not there. She had never known but 
 one, and he was ugly. 
 
 The girl in front of her, with big 
 black eyes and curling hair, turned and 
 gazed so steadily at her, that she felt 
 she could not remain in that room 
 another moment. Her eyes appealed 
 to her mother, who was saying a few 
 words of farewell to the teacher. 
 
 "! am glad my Little Maid is to 
 
130 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 know other children," she said. "The 
 lack of companions has made her differ 
 ent from most little ones." The mother 
 turned a caressing last glance on her 
 child. She caught the appealing eyes, 
 but she softly closed the door. The 
 Little Maid was in a new world alone. 
 
 The teacher called the attention of 
 the class, and announced that the first 
 name on the roll of honor was the same 
 that month as the one before. All eyes 
 turned toward a fair-haired boy who sat 
 first in the last row of seats. The Little 
 Maid could not see his face ; but often 
 after the excitement entailed by the read 
 ing of the roll had subsided, her earnest 
 blue eyes were fixed on him as he bent 
 over a befigured slate. 
 
 He turned at last, and the light 
 leaped into her heart. He was beautiful 
 but he was not happy. Although he 
 knew more than any other boy or girl 
 in the room, something had made him 
 very sad. His mother must be dead. 
 
The Little Maid s Tragedy 131 
 
 For a long time she was unconscious 
 that the Boy was returning her gaze, 
 and when her eyes fell a strange feeling 
 came to her. 
 
 She looked up in a little while to see 
 if he were looking. At the same in 
 stant and with the same hope he turned. 
 The Little Maid quickly opened her 
 book, and she dared not lift her eyes 
 until recess. She marched out with the 
 other children, but the Boy stayed to 
 correct papers. He was monitor. 
 
 Their eyes met again that day. He 
 smiled, and in response a mist blinded 
 her. He made her feel as she did when 
 her beloved little pony died. 
 
 She knew his presence when she en 
 tered the room next morning. Twice 
 during the day they glanced at each 
 other at the same time. The next 
 morning there was a flower on her desk. 
 She did not look at him, but he saw 
 her blush. The next day she joined 
 the rest of the class in their exercises, 
 
132 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 and passed her papers in to be corrected. 
 They came back to her marked "Per 
 fect." She was very glad. She did not 
 want him to think her stupid. The 
 teacher explained the examples after the 
 papers were returned, and she found 
 the monitor had made a mistake ; for 
 two of the examples marked as correct 
 had different answers from those the 
 teacher said they should have. She 
 looked at the Boy, but he turned away 
 quickly, and she felt something pull at 
 her heart. She did not know what to 
 do. The teacher would give her cred 
 its she should not have ; but if she 
 told, perhaps they would not let the 
 Boy be monitor any more. She knew 
 he was good, and he would not do it 
 again. He did it that once to let her 
 know that he liked her and she tore 
 up her paper quickly. Then she was 
 ashamed ashamed for herself and the 
 Boy. 
 
 She was marked "Perfect" again next 
 
The Little Maid s Tragedy 133 
 
 day. Three of her examples were 
 wrong. She tried to tell her mother, 
 but could not. If the Boy had not 
 helped her steal the credits she would 
 have asked to be forgiven, but she 
 did not want him punished ; and, as 
 she lay awake in her little bed, she 
 remembered his sad eyes and thought 
 again that perhaps he had no mother, 
 and did not know it was wrong to 
 cheat. 
 
 She studied desperately, so that she 
 would not make a mistake, but she was 
 behind the class in arithmetic, and it 
 was her most difficult study. 
 
 Then she grew so anxious and nerv 
 ous that she failed oftener; and once, 
 a thousand times worse than all, she 
 saw the paper of the girl in front 
 and copied the example. There was 
 one excuse. She wanted to lift part 
 of the load of sin from the Boy, even 
 at the expense of doubling her own. 
 When the papers were collected, she 
 
134 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 hid her face, for it seemed to her that 
 the Right was something with a thou 
 sand eyes, and that they were all look 
 ing at her. 
 
 If she could only speak to him! But 
 he, being monitor, always remained in 
 his seat when the other children were 
 obliged to march from the room. He 
 never came to her ; she dared not go to 
 him. 
 
 At last the black-eyed girl in front 
 discovered the sin. At first she laughed 
 and teased until the Little Maid thought 
 she would die of mortification. Then 
 she appeared shocked and talked of 
 honor. The black-eyed girl told some 
 of the other girls, and they threatened 
 to tell the teacher ; but the Little Maid 
 was so terrified and begged them so 
 piteously not to tell that they re 
 lented on condition that a note be 
 written to the Boy, demanding that 
 he correct her papers as he did the 
 others. Her problems came back all 
 
The Little Maid s Tragedy 135 
 
 marked wrong. Then, oh then, a new 
 pain came to her. He was a very 
 wicked Boy. Three examples were right, 
 and he had been cruel to her. She tried 
 not to look at him once that day, but 
 his eyes appealed so for forgiveness that 
 at last she smiled. 
 
 What a throb of joy came to her, 
 when once again her paper was handed 
 back to her marked "Perfect"! The 
 favors of the beautiful Boy were dearer 
 to her than the possession of a clear 
 conscience. 
 
 Every day brought her a new pleasure 
 as well as regret. There were flowers 
 in her desk, or a tiny basket filled with 
 bon-bons, or a few lines of childish 
 verse ; and yet he did not come to her, 
 and she was too timid to go to him. 
 
 She had been at school six weeks. 
 One morning she went very early. She 
 would get there before any one else, and 
 when he came she would tell him they 
 must be good and not cheat any more. 
 
136 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 He was standing beside her desk, laying 
 a bunch of forget-me-nots upon her 
 books. She paused in the door and 
 watched him with flushed face, and 
 when he turned to move away, she tried 
 to go to him. Then he began to walk, 
 and oh ! she saw that he was crippled. 
 Her eyes, dark and startled, followed 
 him. One little limb was shriveled and 
 dragged on the floor. When the Little 
 Maid fully realized the truth, she gave 
 a pitiful cry, and the Boy dropped sud 
 denly into a seat. Then he saw her, 
 and to his pale face the blood rushed. 
 Ashamed, heart-broken, his head fell 
 upon his arms, and the Little Maid 
 slowly went to her desk. 
 
 The Little Maid s mother decided 
 that public-school life was not making 
 her child happier or wiser, and she at 
 last came to take her away. The other 
 children had all left the room, and they 
 were awaiting the return of the teacher 
 to tell her good-by. The Little Maid 
 
The Little Maid s Tragedy 137 
 
 stood at the window watching. He 
 came at last from the door beneath her 
 the Boy with the beautiful face and 
 sad eyes the Boy who had stolen 
 credits for her, and who had made her 
 feel very, very naughty. 
 
 He looked up ! For a moment he 
 met her gaze so full of pity and 
 question, and then with bent head he 
 dragged out of sight. 
 
 " How beautiful that lame boy is ! " 
 the mother said. But she was looking 
 at the Little Maid, who lifted her 
 startled eyes. Two great tears slipped 
 from the lashes. 
 
 " Does my Little Maid weep because 
 she cannot understand life s mysteries?" 
 said the mother gently, as she put her 
 arms around her child ; and from the 
 little heart so full of pain there came a 
 long, broken sob. 
 
 " I don t like to live/ whispered the 
 Little Maid, "because I don t know 
 what to do ! " 
 10 
 
The Fate of the Four 
 
 By Centennia Barto 
 
 THERE is a strange bit of history 
 preserved in the archives of the 
 Sicard family. The Sicards are an old 
 bourgeois family whose generous in 
 come from the Funds accounts for 
 their magnificent old palace on the Rue 
 St. Honore. But several generations 
 back, before the Sicards had emerged 
 from obscurity, in the days of the tri- 
 colored cockade, you might find in the 
 list " Citoyens Iniegres de la Republique" 
 the name of St. Etienne Sicard. St. 
 Etienne is the one truly tragic figure 
 of this otherwise commonplace family, 
 and the little bourgeois Sicards of to 
 day, when goaded to join in the mod- 
 
The Fate of the Four 139 
 
 ern ancestor chase, seize eagerly upon 
 the name of St. Etienne, martyr of the 
 Napoleonic regime. Yet they dare not 
 claim for themselves all that history 
 could give in connection with this dei 
 fied ancestor the times are not yet 
 ripe. Yet St. Etienne Sicard well-nigh 
 changed the map of Europe ; his star 
 once threatened the ascending Na 
 poleon s, only Josephine poor, sinned 
 against, if sinning, Josephine pre 
 served, unwittingly and blunderingly, it 
 is true, the hand that later ostracized 
 her. But this startling bit of history 
 has been till now jealously guarded in 
 the Sicard archives. The whole story 
 in its dramatic details was transmitted 
 as a sacred legacy through three gener 
 ations, and at last came to light through 
 the loquacity of an eavesdropping ser 
 vant. We give it here, stripped of 
 much of its tragic setting. 
 
 It was in December of 1801, the 
 year of the Concordat. The ruined 
 
140 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 hotel of the de Cambaceres family 
 spoke eloquently of the ravages of the 
 Revolution for though Napoleon had 
 recalled all noble emigres from exile, 
 yet the vast silent rooms, despoiled of 
 their draperies and art treasures, still 
 had no occupant. The de Cambaceres 
 were almost extinct now; the Comte 
 and his four sons had all made their 
 last ceremonious bow in the world to 
 Madame Guillotine. None had es 
 caped. The private hatred of Citoyen 
 Victor Lavalette had kept the dan 
 gerous eye of the republic upon them 
 till the extermination was complete. 
 As for Helene de Cambaceres, it was 
 rumored that her pale, beautiful face 
 had been seen once on the Champs 
 Elysees, but whether she had really 
 returned to Paris, where she had wit 
 nessed the frightful scene of the butch 
 ery of all nearest her, or was still an 
 exile in England, no one could say. 
 A former servant of the great house 
 
The Fate of the Four 141 
 
 swore that he had seen Helene going 
 hurriedly on foot in one of the most 
 wretched environs of Paris, miserably 
 clad and without an attendant. He 
 was sure it was she, despite the attenua 
 tion of a face and figure once famous 
 in all Paris. 
 
 The Hotel de Cambaceres had wit 
 nessed great reverses. A few proud 
 portraits, saber-rent, remaining from fif 
 teen generations of French nobility, 
 stared sternly upon a bourgeois collec 
 tion of citoyens, who, by a grim irony, 
 met under this aristocratic roof to dis 
 cuss plans for furthering the welfare 
 of the republic. The heavy oaken 
 table, around which Louis XV. and his 
 courtiers had often glittered in gold 
 lace and priceless fripperies of jewels ; 
 that stately ceiling which had echoed to 
 the airy laughter of the beautiful de 
 Pompadour and her wanton court 
 these mute witnesses of the old careless 
 revelry now beheld a jostling throng of 
 
142 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 hoarse -throated bourgeoisie, fierce and 
 voluble, clamoring for " Egalite et la 
 Republique" their coarse fists mauling 
 the heavy oak in denunciation of the 
 dangerous pretensions of the First 
 Consul. 
 
 But beyond the mere general brag 
 gadocio, there were oftentimes men of 
 earnest purpose and true patriotic mo 
 tive. To these Napoleon s rapid rise 
 was a cause of serious alarm, and their 
 fanatic devotion to the republic made 
 them dangerous enemies. 
 
 On a December night of 1801, four 
 men admitted themselves quietly to the 
 Hotel de Cambaceres. Silently they 
 seated themselves at the huge oaken 
 table in the long dining-hall. A single 
 flickering taper with sickly rays cast 
 their faces in half light, half gloom, 
 but it was sufficient to reveal St. Etienne 
 Sicard, young patriot and "Citoyen In- 
 tegre de la Republique" and his three 
 companions, Victor Lavalette, Adrien 
 
The Fate of the Four 143 
 
 Duchesnois, and Eugene Mastignac. 
 Even the crafty eyes of Lavalette showed 
 an unwonted solemnity, and the pale 
 boyish face of Eugene Mastignac was 
 marked with a shrinking fear. Adrien 
 Duchesnois alone still preserved his 
 mocking smile ; the recklessness that 
 made him hesitate at no hazard, or even 
 crime, gave him a certain air of supe 
 riority now over even St. Etienne. St. 
 Etienne was one of those tragic souls 
 who work their own ruin by a desperate 
 resort to evil means to secure a noble 
 end. And now from his very heart he 
 shrank from the work there was for 
 him to do. 
 
 "Your plans, St. Etienne?" Lavalette 
 demanded with impatient eagerness. 
 His cruel eyes were feverishly anxious, 
 and his wrinkled hands trembled with 
 a distressing rat-tat-tat on the polished 
 oak. Adrien Duchesnois noted the 
 movement with a scornful smile. He 
 turned to St. Etienne. 
 
144 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 "And I," he asked, grimly facetious, 
 "what is my role in this little tragedy 
 the poison-bowl or the knife?" As he 
 spoke, he seized his blade from his 
 belt and with a suggestive gesture 
 plunged it viciously into the oak, where 
 it gleamed, quivering. 
 
 Mastignac paled, and gave an invol 
 untary shriek. Duchesnois laughed 
 aloud at the success of his trick. "We 
 seem to be either in our dotage," glan 
 cing at Lavalette s trembling hands, "or 
 womanish cowards," he said meaningly 
 at Mastignac. 
 
 "Enough," broke in St. Etienne, de 
 cisively. "Adrien, you would trifle on 
 the brink of the grave. Why, Victor ! 
 What now?" 
 
 Lavalette was gazing with strained 
 eyeballs at a door in the gloom beyond. 
 
 "It moved! I saw it move!" he 
 gasped hoarsely. 
 
 "Ah, the avenging spirit of the old 
 Comte de Cambaceres, Lavalette!" It 
 
The Fate of the Four 145 
 
 was the mocking insinuation of Duches- 
 nois. 
 
 St. Etienne hastily arose. 
 
 "It must be Courreau. Our new cito- 
 yen y you remember. He was to join 
 us to-night." And striding the length 
 of the hall, he threw back the door, dis 
 closing a solitary figure standing rigidly. 
 There was a whispered watchword, and 
 the two advanced again to the table. 
 The light revealed a tall, slender youth 
 with deep-sunken, burning eyes. He 
 bore their sharp scrutiny unflinchingly, 
 and seemed to accept at once a position 
 in the background. 
 
 "And now," began St. Etienne with 
 a deep breath, " to our evening s work. 
 You have seen to the placing of our 
 men in the Tuileries, Duchesnois?" 
 
 " Yes ! Grandet is now the only ob 
 stacle to an entrance to the Consul s 
 private apartments. But he is an ob 
 stinate devil." 
 
 "Then he must die. I think I have 
 
146 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 wormed myself sufficiently into Jose 
 phine s confidence to have her sign him 
 to the guillotine to-morrow. Here are 
 the forgeries to prove him a traitor. 
 Poor honest Grandet! And then 
 perhaps to-morrow night France is 
 free again!" St. Etienne s eyes glis 
 tened with patriotic fervor. 
 
 "And who who will do it? " 
 Mastignac seemed to gaze in fascinated 
 horror at some awful inward vision. 
 
 " For that/ answered St. Etienne 
 gravely, " we must draw lots." And 
 amid dead silence, broken only by the 
 rustling of the papers he was tearing 
 into strips, he prepared to put the knife 
 into the hand that was to rid France of 
 her tyrant. Breathlessly each drew his 
 slip from St. Etienne s firm fingers. 
 
 Duchesnois looked for the fatal cross 
 on his, saw a blank, and blew it from 
 him with a laugh. The spasm of relief 
 on Lavalette s face announced the result 
 to him. " Daggers are not becoming 
 
The Fate of the Four 147 
 
 to old women," commented Duches- 
 nois. 
 
 "Now, Eugene, courage! it is for 
 France," St. Etienne whispered. The 
 trembling fingers closed over the paper. 
 
 "Tell me I can t look," he said 
 with dry lips, after futile attempts to 
 open its folds. But the dagger was not 
 for him. 
 
 But two remained. All turned in 
 stinctively to Courreau, who seemed 
 dazed at the closeness of Fate. Me 
 chanically he put out his hand lo, the 
 fatal cross ! 
 
 At that intense moment, suddenly all 
 became aware of Lavalette s long, bony 
 finger pointing mutely at Courreau 
 
 "That hand, that ring! It is a traitor!" 
 
 He was gazing as if fascinated at the 
 small white hand of Courreau on which 
 glistened a beautiful white diamond. 
 At the word "traitor," each leaped to his 
 feet. There was the metallic sound of 
 swords drawn from scabbards. 
 
148 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 " That is no bourgeois hand," Lava- 
 lette screamed shrilly "vile aristocrat! 
 It is a spy of the emigres or Napoleon 
 
 a spy, I say! We are ruined !" His 
 sword swung out, only to clash with the 
 blade of Courreau, who stood desper 
 ately defying them all. Blood streamed 
 from Lavalette s right hand. Maddened 
 at the sight, and confused by the sudden 
 disclosure of the mine at their feet, all 
 rushed to the onset. Courreau fell 
 mortally wounded. 
 
 " Cowards ! Canaille ! Thus you fight 
 
 four against one, and that one a 
 woman!" 
 
 The four conspirators, disordered and 
 still uncomprehending all but the danger 
 threatening them, looked about fearfully, 
 expecting a trap. 
 
 " Yes, a woman, you hear ? It is 
 Helene, the last of the de Cambaceres!" 
 
 The conspirators stared stupidly. 
 Lavalette grew ashy pale. He watched 
 the proud defiance melt from the dying 
 
The Fate of the Four 149 
 
 eyes, as the piteous hopelessness of her 
 cruel fate overcame her. 
 
 "Thou God," she appealed, "must 
 I die now, and none to avenge the mur 
 der of my father and my brothers ! " 
 In the agony of these thoughts she fell 
 back gasping. The body relaxed and 
 was still. 
 
 The suddenness of it all paralyzed 
 the conspirators. But the great tragedy 
 of this beautiful girl was meaningless 
 in the face of their own danger. 
 
 " Quick ! the others may be near. 
 We must get out of this cursed house." 
 
 Duchesnois rushed to the door. But 
 Lavalette stood stonily transfixed. "The 
 last of the de Cambaceres," he mut 
 tered mechanically. Then a great fear 
 stole over his face. 
 
 "Duchesnois, I see it! I see our 
 doom! It is fated that we shall all die 
 by the hand of a woman " 
 
 " Superstitious fool, save your skin 
 while you can. We must escape " 
 
150 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 " It is hopeless if it is a plot, Adrien," 
 said St. Etienne quietly. "But you 
 heard her last words ? She was alone, I 
 think. I shall present myself at the 
 Tuileries to-morrow as if nothing had 
 happened. Do you meet me at my 
 house to-morrow night at nine, all of 
 you. And now we had best go." 
 
 Silently they stole from the ghostly 
 house, St. Etienne with a deep regret 
 for the tragic deed of that strange night, 
 with shame in his heart and a forebod 
 ing of the future. And the cold form 
 of Helene de Cambaceres, the last of 
 her name, lay dead in the hall of her 
 ancestors. 
 
 The afternoon of the next day the 
 loungers in the gardens of the Tuileries 
 noted a youth passing impatiently up 
 and down, seemingly without purpose, 
 and in deep agitation. It was Eugene 
 Mastignac awaiting the result of St. 
 Etienne s interview with Josephine. 
 The thousand perils that threatened 
 
The Fate of the Four 151 
 
 them, the thoughts that the conspiracy 
 might be known to their powerful ene 
 mies, and that even now St. Etienne 
 might be a prisoner, that he had walked 
 into the trap set for him these fears 
 surged through his heart, and he turned 
 sick with apprehension and suspense. 
 
 But St. Etienne was safe. He came 
 up quickly, pressed Eugene s hand 
 without a word, and silently they made 
 their way to the Seine at the Pont 
 Royal. His mission had been success 
 ful. Josephine had been very gracious 
 to this handsome bourgeois Sicard, had 
 coquetted with him, and, finding him 
 somewhat cold, she had the more 
 quickly written and dispatched the fatal 
 order to consign Grandet to the guillo 
 tine that night at eleven. St. Etienne 
 breathed more fully when he saw the 
 jeweled pen fly over the paper, and 
 the order handed instantly to a guard 
 to be put into execution. 
 
 And now there was nothing to do 
 
152 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 but to wait. They would watch from St. 
 Etienne s room in the Rue Vanneau 
 for the guard to come to remove 
 Grandet, who lived just below then 
 the way would be clear. 
 
 So the four conspirators began their 
 weary vigil, gazing fixedly down the 
 street for the appearance of the gen 
 darmes. They could hear the uncon 
 scious Grandet moving about below, 
 preparing his humble meal. An hour 
 and a half had dragged out its length, 
 when there was a sharp knock at the 
 door of the concierge. There were muf 
 fled tones of conversation and heavy 
 steps on the creaking stair. The door 
 was flung abruptly open and the con 
 cierge announced that this was the 
 apartment of Citoyen Sicard. 
 
 " Ah, you wish to know . if the 
 Grandet you see lives here ? " asked 
 St. Etienne of the gendarmes in the 
 doorway. 
 
 "We wish no Grandet. Our orders 
 
The Fate of the Four 153 
 
 are for Citoyen Sicard," was the abrupt 
 response. 
 
 " A summons from Citoyenne Jo 
 sephine? " 
 
 " An order of the Citoyenne Joseph 
 ine. We are to seize and deliver to 
 execution at eleven this night a St. Eti- 
 enne Sicard. You are he." 
 
 " I do not understand," stammered 
 St. Etienne, paling. " You have made 
 some mistake. It is Grandet, St. Eti 
 enne Grandet, you mean." Yet the 
 frightful suspicion of treachery grew 
 strong within him. 
 
 "Here are our orders, Citoyen Sicard. * 
 
 There was no mistaking the hand of 
 Josephine. It was the paper he had 
 seen her write that afternoon. The 
 name "St. Etienne Sicard" was clear 
 and firm. 
 
 " We are betrayed ! " Big drops of 
 cold perspiration stood on his brow. 
 Helplessly he allowed his hands to be 
 fettered, 
 ii 
 
154 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 The other three knew resistance was 
 useless. Their ruin was upon them. 
 Eugene Mastignac threw himself at the 
 feet of the stolid gendarmes, and ut 
 tered wild words of entreaty for the life 
 of St. Etienne. They pushed him 
 roughly aside and dragged the prisoner 
 down the stair. As the door closed 
 behind him, St. Etienne heard a shriek 
 and a fall. It was Eugene Mastignac, 
 who had fainted. 
 
 When Eugene opened his eyes again 
 he found himself alone with Duches- 
 nois. There was a look in Duchesnois 
 face before which Eugene trembled. 
 
 " I see you understand," he said sig 
 nificantly over the prostrate form. 
 " The game is up for us all, Made 
 moiselle Eugenie Mastignac, and espe 
 cially for you." 
 
 " For me ? " The vague question 
 was simply to gain time. 
 
 " Yes, for you. I know you. I 
 know why you became one of us. Is 
 
The Fate of the Four 155 
 
 all womankind to go masquerading 
 nowadays ? " Duchesnois pointed sig 
 nificantly at the trim figure in its ill- 
 fitting clothes. Eugenie looked wildly 
 about for some avenue of escape from 
 this tormentor. 
 
 " Yes, we are alone. Your St. Eti- 
 enne has gone to become a saint in 
 reality. Ah, that touches you. How 
 you must have loved him ! " Then 
 for a deeper thrust: "And he did not 
 know now he will never know! " 
 
 A great wave of desolation swept 
 over her soul. But one idea possessed 
 her to rush to St. Etienne and to make 
 his death sweeter by the knowledge of 
 the love of one humble being. Then 
 she could die. She rose, swaying, to 
 her feet. 
 
 " Not so fast, my fair Eugenie/ An 
 arm barred her progress. A dread of 
 this strong, mocking man made her 
 pitiably brave. 
 
 "How dare you keep me!" she 
 
156 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 struggled fiercely in his grasp. But the 
 contest had aroused all the dormant 
 animal within him Eugenie s strength 
 was rapidly failing. 
 
 " Let me go, or I will kill you ! " she 
 gasped. 
 
 The bells pealed the hour of eleven. 
 
 St. Etienne is dead ! The bells 
 tolled solemnly. 
 
 Despair seized Eugenie. In a mo 
 ment it was over. The dagger gave 
 two quick thrusts. The morning light 
 found the rigid bodies of Duchesnois 
 and Eugenie, stained with each other s 
 blood. 
 
 Death at a woman s hand ! Was La- 
 valette s prophetic vision coming to 
 pass ? 
 
 And Lavalette? He had fled like 
 a haunted thing, dreading to look be 
 fore or behind. He must get beyond 
 this cruel Paris, the city of hateful eyes. 
 And then ? To starve ? Perhaps it 
 was the sight of his injured hand that 
 
The Fate of the Four 157 
 
 suggested it like a flash came the 
 vision of the stone on Helene du Cam- 
 baceres rotting hand. It meant life 
 and safety. Creeping along the shadows 
 of the Rue St. Dominique, he came to 
 the deserted hotel. Noiselessly he en 
 tered. There was his ghoulish work. 
 
 The history of the conspirators is 
 complete with two items, gleaned, first, 
 from the official city reports, and from 
 Hector Vilibert, private guard to Jose 
 phine. In the list of the morgue un 
 fortunates of the year 1801 is the name 
 of one Victor Lavalette, found dead in 
 the Hotel de Cambaceres ; cause of 
 death, blood-poisoning. Few compil 
 ers of dreary statistics realize the trag 
 edy behind that commonplace record. 
 
 Hector Vilibert testified that having 
 reported to Josephine the satisfactory 
 execution of the traitor St. Etienne 
 Sicard, she had reviled him in angry 
 words, ordering him to the guillotine 
 
158 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 for his blunder, and it was only by 
 showing her own handwriting that he 
 was exculpated from the consequences 
 of Josephine s careless substitution of 
 the name St. Etienne Sicard for that 
 of St. Etienne Grandet. 
 
 Were these instruments of Fate 
 the dead hand of Helene de Camba- 
 ceres, and the unwitting fingers of Jose 
 phine ? 
 
A Matter of State 
 
 By Richard Walton Tully 
 
 IT is n t every summer that a fellow 
 gets the chance to visit Central Amer 
 ica, or at least to sail along its coast. I 
 must confess that I was delighted when 
 the opportunity to do this dropped, as 
 it seemed, into my hands a week after 
 college closed. Captain Weston said I 
 would be welcome to go along on the 
 Benito to Panama and back. The Pater 
 agreed that it would be an excellent 
 thing for my chest, which my relatives 
 in congress assembled had decided was 
 not sufficiently developed, in spite of 
 my three years of drill. So I went. 
 
 Now that I think it over, it does n t 
 matter much why I went or what I ex 
 pected to do. What really should be 
 
160 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 noted is that I occupied state-room 63, 
 and occupied it alone. When I placed 
 my name on the passenger-list, I had 
 noticed that I was to have as a room 
 mate a person named Banks James 
 K. Banks. But when the steamer had 
 slipped out of the Gate and I had de 
 cided that I did not think much of the 
 motion of the vessel anyway, I found, 
 on retiring to my room, that Banks, 
 J. K., as aforesaid, was not within, nor 
 were his goods, nor anything that was 
 his. As a result, I had the entire apart 
 ment to myself during the whole of the 
 voyage. 
 
 There is n t much happens on a 
 steamer, even if one wishes to describe 
 such things and I don t. My memory 
 of the trip down the coast consists of a 
 confused mixture of swishing winds, 
 hot, broiling calms, wet, sudden thunder 
 storms, and the smell of greasy cooking. 
 The one pleasurable experience of the 
 trip was purely social. 
 
A Matter of State 161 
 
 After we left San Diego, I was able 
 to appear at my place at the table. In 
 scanning my fellow passengers, I noticed 
 at the other side of the table, some dis 
 tance to my left, a young lady whose 
 face seemed familiar to me. As she 
 caught my eye later, she smiled and 
 bowed slightly. Of course, I bowed; 
 but I must have shown that I was en 
 deavoring to recall her name, for her 
 smile broadened to a laugh, which 
 quickly sobered to a severely mischiev 
 ous look straight to the front. Then 
 I remembered where I had seen that 
 splendid profile before. It was Dolores 
 Anguiana of my "Prep" school days at 
 St. Mark s down at San Mateo, with 
 whom I had danced half the numbers 
 that night in old Trinity Hall, when I 
 had graduated with her brother. I was 
 no longer in doubt; no one could mis 
 take those clear black eyes with their 
 great curved lashes, that roguish chin, 
 or that delicate olive skin. 
 
162 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 I went over to her after I had fin 
 ished my meal and dropped into a 
 vacant chair beside her. 
 
 " Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 
 Miss Dolores ? " I asked. 
 
 "You should answer that question 
 yourself, Mr. Malcom," she answered. 
 " You did n t know me. Now, confess 
 you did n t." And she smiled know 
 ingly. 
 
 " I 11 not pretend that I did. But 
 you have changed; you are not so 
 so" 
 
 " Much of a kid, as Miguel says. 
 Is that it? Well, it s the worry of 
 official life." And she tried to look 
 serious. " But pardon me," she con 
 tinued, " this is Senora Cienfuegos. 
 You have heard of General Cienfue- 
 gos." 
 
 I confessed that I had, and in return 
 the ladies informed me that he had re 
 mained in San Francisco "on special 
 government business," instead of re- 
 
A Matter of State 163 
 
 turning with them to Guataragua. "And 
 so," concluded Seiiorita Dolores pathet 
 ically, "we had to return alone on this 
 horrid, stupid boat." 
 
 " Not so, indeed, with such charming 
 passengers," I ventured gallantly. 
 
 The Senora sniffed and her compan 
 ion colored slightly as she replied, "I 
 see you have lost none of your propen 
 sity to flatter." I was glad to see, how 
 ever, that she looked pleased. 
 
 It was evening, when we were pacing 
 along the deck in the brisk wind that 
 was blowing, that I asked her what my 
 old friend Anguiana had been doing 
 since he left school. 
 
 "Don t you know?" said the Seno- 
 rita, as she caught her wide hat to pre 
 vent its blowing away into the darkness. 
 " Why, Miguel is in the Government 
 House at Manaqua he s Secretary 
 of State under President Cabanas." 
 
 And then I remembered the reports 
 from the south of the overthrowing of 
 
1 64 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 the last government and its dictator, 
 General Barrios, who had gone to the 
 United States to raise a filibustering 
 expedition to retrieve his fallen for 
 tunes. 
 
 I was n t pleased to learn that my 
 old friend was mixed up in the kaleid 
 oscopic politics of those despotisms 
 which call themselves republics ; and I 
 so expressed myself. 
 
 "Sorry? I sorry?" she said, draw 
 ing herself up proudly. "Indeed I m 
 not. Do you know why he is there ? 
 Because he must revenge the death of 
 my father. Miguel is no coward." 
 And she launched forth into a bitter 
 discussion of the political troubles of 
 Guataragua. 
 
 I confess I did not care particularly 
 to hear of the petty doings of this toy 
 republic, and would have much pre 
 ferred the pleasanter subject of my 
 boarding-school days ; but once her 
 spirit was aroused, I was compelled 
 
A Matter of State 165 
 
 to listen to the Senorita s description 
 of the condition of affairs in that coun- 
 try. 
 
 Darrios had caused her father to be 
 assassinated for suspected treason, and 
 his estates had been confiscated. She 
 and Miguel had been at school in the 
 States, and so had escaped the general 
 proceedings against the family that had 
 been carried on with all the refined 
 cleverness of the Inquisition. At last 
 Miguel had landed secretly and joined 
 General Cienfuegos, who had induced 
 the army to revolt. In the revolution 
 which followed, Miguel had proved him 
 self a good soldier, and when Darrios 
 had been expelled he had been given 
 the office of Secretary of State. 
 
 "And now," concluded the Senorita 
 enthusiastically, "our party is in full 
 control. We have the army, the for 
 eigners, and most of the upper classes. 
 You know the Indians and Mestizos 
 don t count." 
 
166 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 "But," I said, "how long will you 
 keep control?" 
 
 " Oh, it shall be permanent this time," 
 she said smilingly ; that s why General 
 Cienfuegos stayed behind. It was to 
 stop Darrios from sending aid to his 
 followers. Without it they will soon 
 disappear. It is only necessary for us 
 to control Manaqua to hold the entire 
 country. We can do that with the 
 army." 
 
 In my mind I had a doubt as to the 
 loyalty of the average Central Ameri 
 can army, but I did not disturb the 
 girl by voicing my sentiments. Instead, 
 I talked of the past, and endeavored 
 to begin my friendship with her again 
 from where I had left off three years 
 before. 
 
 The night before we were to reach 
 Manaqua, I stood with Dolores in the 
 shelter of a ventilator-pipe. She was 
 quiet, and I also was far from happy, as 
 
A Matter of State 167 
 
 her company had been more than agree 
 able, and I was anticipating a very dull 
 voyage after she had gone ashore. I 
 mentioned the fact to her, and, although 
 it may have been irrelevant, I stated 
 that at the very first I had been de 
 prived of a companion in my room 
 mate, Banks, who had never appeared. 
 
 To my surprise she gave a hearty 
 laugh and said, " Of course he did n t," 
 immediately subsiding, and refusing to 
 say more about the missing man, whom 
 she evidently knew. 
 
 It was rather late, and while I was 
 saying my farewell to the Senorita she 
 suddenly pointed forward and off to 
 the left where several dim lights showed 
 faintly. 
 
 " That is Manaqua," she said. 
 " Some day, if you care to visit us, we 
 shall be pleased to welcome you as our 
 guest. Good -by." 
 
 As she turned I caught her extended 
 hand and pressed a kiss upon her fin- 
 
i68 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 gers in true cavalier fashion before she 
 could withdraw them. She gave me 
 one last look, not in the least dis 
 pleased, and vanished within, while I 
 strolled to my room wondering what 
 she knew about the absent Banks. 
 
 It was a stuffy night; so I left my 
 door ajar and turned in. I had slept 
 several hours when I awoke to realize 
 that one of the sudden rains of the 
 tropics had come up and was driving 
 into the room. I arose to close the 
 door, and was about to do so when I 
 heard a voice say, "This is 62 the 
 next is 63." After this followed a 
 conversation in Spanish, which I could 
 barely follow with all my grouping on 
 Romance languages. The men there 
 were several of them were hunting 
 for my room. 
 
 I resolved to retain the small sum 
 of money which I possessed as tena 
 ciously as possible ; so I closed the 
 door and reached under my pillow for 
 
A Matter of State 169 
 
 my revolver. Instead of trying to 
 enter, however, those outside knocked 
 loudly on the door. 
 
 " Who s there ? " I asked sleepily. 
 
 " You are wanted immediately," a 
 voice answered. 
 
 " Who wants me ? " 
 
 " The Captain. Hurry up ! " 
 
 In a second I had passed the matter 
 through my mind. It was impossible 
 for any one to commit violence on a 
 boat of this kind. But perhaps Cap 
 tain Weston needed my help for some 
 purpose. I quickly pulled on my 
 clothes, and jamming my hat on my 
 head and my pistol into my pocket, 
 I went outside. Three men stood in 
 the shelter of the wall to escape the 
 rain, which was coming down in a driz 
 zle. 
 
 "Where is he?" I asked. 
 
 " On the wharf," answered the man 
 who spoke English. " Come ! " 
 
 While I followed the men to the 
 12 
 
170 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 bow of the boat, I made out in the 
 blackness of the night that the steamer 
 was lying at a small wharf which pro 
 jected out from an inky mass of land 
 that rose to a considerable height in 
 the distance. To the right was another 
 sooty streak, and so I judged that we 
 were in a bay. The red steamer- 
 lights and the white lantern on the 
 wharf showed out dimly. 
 
 We went to the front and down the 
 gang-plank to the wharf. I felt a cer 
 tain misgiving, but this vanished when 
 I saw a figure waiting for us. Then my 
 spirits fell again as I saw it was not 
 Captain Weston. 
 
 The man who spoke English called 
 ahead, "Here he is, Captain." 
 
 The "Captain" advanced, and raising 
 his hand to his cap, said distinctly, 
 "Lieutenant Banks, I believe." 
 
 I am not sure, but I think it was the 
 three years of carrying a musket over 
 the Berkeley hills that made me instinct- 
 
A Matter of State 171 
 
 ively return the salute. That action 
 was my undoing. "Captain" took my 
 action for an affirmative answer, and 
 turning on his heel, said : "We were 
 waiting for you ; come on. Pedro, if 
 any one tries to stop us, shoot him 
 down like a dog !" 
 
 Who "we" were, I was at a loss to 
 comprehend. One thing was certain, 
 however, with Pedro on the lookout 
 behind, it was safer for me to go for 
 ward than to hesitate. So I marched in 
 silence between the men down the long 
 wharf. We then climbed up the dark, 
 silent street, splashing along the winding 
 way through mud-puddles and ruts left 
 by the native carts. As I walked along, 
 I tried to solve the riddle of my posi 
 tion. I was evidently a Lieutenant 
 Banks undoubtedly an American, from 
 the name for whom "we" had been 
 waiting. That Banks was not known 
 personally was evident but not certain. 
 I hefted the revolver in my pocket, 
 
172 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 and decided that the situation was ex 
 hilarating, at any rate. 
 
 Two men behind me were talking in 
 Spanish. The trend of their conver 
 sation was lost amid imprecations at the 
 falling rain. The "Captain" turned 
 and in Spanish told them to be silent. 
 Then he said to me abruptly, "How is 
 he?" 
 
 "Oh, as well as could be expected," 
 I answered coolly. 
 
 "Did he send any money?" 
 
 Of that I was certain. "No!" I 
 answered shortly. 
 
 The men behind me broke out anew 
 with maledictions. "Captain" uttered 
 an oath. " I suppose he 11 bring it with 
 him the beast!" 
 
 "I suppose so," I answered imper- 
 turbably. 
 
 Further conversation was cut short as 
 the leader dived through the thick foli 
 age that lined the road and approached 
 a low, pale-looking house of two stories 
 
A Matter of State 173 
 
 that was set back from the road. Around 
 the frames of the windows narrow streaks 
 of light showed that some one was stir 
 ring within. 
 
 At this point the spirit of adventure 
 had nearly died out within me. I wished 
 myself well out of the matter. How 
 ever, there seemed no other course but 
 to enter. The door swung open, and 
 "Captain" passed within and stood wait 
 ing for me. In the light of the room I 
 saw his face for the first time. It was 
 an extremely villainous one, and the 
 other men were a hard-looking set. 
 
 I glanced about. I found myself in 
 a rectangular room which occupied about 
 one-half of the lower floor, and was 
 meagerly furnished, after the manner of 
 tropical houses. At one side a lighted 
 candle burned on the table. In the 
 farther corner I could see several men 
 sleeping on the floor. 
 
 The "Captain" gave a low shout, 
 and from above came the sound of per- 
 
174 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 sons moving about. The men on the 
 floor turned sleepily, but arose on find 
 ing the cause of the disturbance. They 
 came up and looked at me curiously. 
 " El Gringo Capitan ! " they ejaculated, 
 and appeared rather pleased to see me. 
 
 Then I guessed that they were my 
 friends, or at least Banks s friends, 
 and I smiled into their ugly faces. The 
 noise above increased, and, after sounds 
 of persons coming downstairs, a dozen 
 or more half-breeds entered through the 
 door which evidently led to the next 
 room. I was now surrounded by a 
 score of men. "Captain" pointed to 
 a chair in the middle of the room. 
 "Lieutenant Banks," he said, "tell us 
 what says General Darrios." 
 
 Solved ! Darrios Banks it all 
 became clear. These men took me for 
 a revolutionary emissary. I was think 
 ing very rapidly as I mounted the 
 rude rostrum. " I must know first 
 what you have done in the General s 
 
A Matter of State 175 
 
 absence," I said, looking steadily at 
 " Captain." 
 
 The latter burst out with an oath. 
 " Curse them ! they re riding it higher 
 than ever. But we ve done everything 
 that he wrote us to do. To-night the 
 revolt will start. All depends on secur 
 ing success at first. We 11 knife the 
 leaders, and in the confusion seize the 
 treasury. Then about half the army 
 will come over, and we 11 proclaim Dar- 
 rios dictator at the plaza and overawe 
 the town. When will the General arrive 
 in his yacht? " 
 
 A murmur went up as " Captain " 
 finished. Every eye was now turned 
 toward me. I saw that there was a fine 
 chance for some tall argumentation that 
 you don t find in books. 
 
 In my speech that followed I must 
 have filled the bill, for they seemed 
 satisfied. I located Darrios in his 
 yacht only a day s journey off, and 
 assured them that he would be present 
 
176 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 to rule over the new government. I 
 closed with a beautiful peroration of 
 fireworks and patriotism, and ended 
 with a flourish. 
 
 The men were pleased, but " Cap 
 tain " looked slightly sour. He jumped 
 upon the chair I had vacated. " Vas- 
 quez ! Vasquez ! " they cried. I saw 
 he was popular with his men. He 
 spoke to them rapidly in Spanish. He 
 said they did n t want any cursed Grin 
 go talk; they were going to act. Pedro 
 he delegated with ten men to take the 
 treasury. He would go with the re 
 mainder to the Government House. 
 
 " Remember/ he said, " your Gen 
 eral is coming back to redeem your 
 country from the hands of the thieves 
 into which it has fallen. Go back to 
 your homes, but come here to-night 
 before you go to your stations. When 
 the signal comes from the Government 
 House, do what you have been told to 
 do. But remember," and his eyes 
 
A Matter of State 177 
 
 flashed wickedly, " no one must touch 
 the vaults until I come. Go ! " 
 
 The men filed out, and I noted me 
 chanically that it had cleared up. Vas- 
 quez walked toward me insolently and 
 bowed low. 
 
 " Perhaps the Lieutenant would like 
 to finish his sleep/ he said. 
 
 I should have liked to punch his 
 ugly face, but I simply nodded and 
 followed him across the room into an 
 other and up a flight of stairs to the 
 floor above. In the corner was a cot. 
 He motioned to it. " Sleep well, for 
 there s lots of work to do to-night." 
 
 " Perhaps there 11 be more than you 
 think," I thought, as I listened to his 
 retreating footsteps ; for it is needless 
 to say that I had determined to escape 
 and warn the Anguianas at all hazards. 
 Then I commenced to examine the 
 room, and it took me only a short time 
 to find out that I could not escape 
 from it but in one way, and that was 
 
178 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 the one by which I had entered. There 
 were no windows, and the tiles were 
 fastened solidly to the roof and walls 
 of heavy logs. Nowhere was there a 
 space over three inches wide between 
 the logs. 
 
 I sat down on the edge of the cot 
 and thought. I still had my pistol, 
 and I judged that perhaps a bold dash 
 might carry me through the men down 
 stairs. I thought it over again. Then 
 I took off my shoes and crept to the 
 head of the stairs. Below I could hear 
 Vasquez giving orders to his men. 
 "Watch that cursed Gringo upstairs/* 
 he was saying; "I don t trust them. 
 We ll use him to-night, and then " 
 I heard a slightly audible sound. 
 
 The "better part of valor" decided 
 me not to make the attempt imme 
 diately ; so I retired to the cot to await 
 a more favorable time. It was well for 
 me that I did so ; for on going down to 
 meals a little later, I found that they 
 
A Matter of State 179 
 
 always kept a man with a gun guarding 
 the doorway. 
 
 While I ate with the men at the 
 greasy table, I found out the complete 
 plans for the night. Vasquez told me 
 that there was to be a ball in the Gov 
 ernment House in honor of the return 
 of " that damned animal, Anguiana s 
 sister." All the men would attend un 
 armed. At the appointed time he would 
 stab President Cabanas and make away 
 with Anguiana. I was to be waiting 
 outside with the men, and at this junc 
 ture was to rush in with them and hold 
 the occupants of the room prisoners 
 until he returned from the treasury, and 
 then The sinister smile that spread 
 over his face told me how much mercy 
 his victims might expect from him. 
 
 Shortly before eight o clock, I ex 
 amined my pistol and found it in good 
 condition. I had figured that Vasquez 
 would come up to call me, and I was 
 
i8o Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 resolved to try the resort of the success 
 ful romantic hero and compel him to 
 change clothes with me ; after which 
 I would walk downstairs and through 
 his men. But Vasquez only knocked 
 on the wall and shouted, " Come on/ 
 as he went down. 
 
 I saw that my only hope of warning 
 my friends was at the scene of action, 
 and I went down. Vasquez pointed at 
 a sword that was lying on the table. I 
 buckled it on. 
 
 "Have you a pistol?" he asked. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Then take this/ and he shoved a 
 small revolver into my hands. 
 
 We started out again down the dark 
 roadway toward the lights of the town. 
 It was very clear. I could see the 
 vacant wharf below and vaguely won 
 dered what Captain Weston had thought 
 of my disappearance. 
 
 We reached the grounds about the 
 Government House in a roundabout 
 
A Matter of State 181 
 
 way by the Indian adobe houses. It was 
 brilliantly lighted within. We took up 
 our position in the shadow of the trees 
 near the door. Vasquez left us, and I 
 saw him go up the steps with a smile 
 on his sneering countenance. Above 
 us was a portico that was on the level 
 of the ballroom floor. I could hear 
 the faint strains of an overture which 
 told me that the dance had not yet 
 commenced. In a moment I had de 
 cided on my course of action. 
 
 "See here," I said, turning to one of 
 the men, "we can t see when to act here. 
 I 11 climb up and give you the signal 
 from the portico." 
 
 The man looked at me suspiciously 
 and hesitated. 
 
 " I 11 go through the window and 
 join you when you rush the door," I 
 said angrily. " Do you think that I 
 am trying to run away? " 
 
 The fellow grinned uneasily, but I 
 did not waste further time with him, for 
 
1 82 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 every moment was precious. I com 
 menced to scale one of the posts, and 
 as I went up I expected every moment 
 to feel a knife in my back. I went 
 higher, and then I knew that I was safe, 
 for they would not dare shoot until the 
 appointed time. 
 
 The music had stopped, and I heard 
 the hum of conversation. Perhaps I 
 should be too late! Another foot, and 
 I swung over the railing of the bal 
 cony just as the orchestra struck up a 
 march. 
 
 Through a window I could see the 
 procession had formed and was coming 
 down the middle of the room. At its 
 head was a small dark man with gray 
 hair and a blue ribbon across his breast. 
 Clinging to his arm was Dolores Angui- 
 ana. Behind him was Miguel, with 
 another fair girl ; and directly across the 
 hall from me was Vasquez, leaning 
 against the wall. I noticed that he held 
 one wrist crooked, as if concealing some- 
 
A Matter of State 183 
 
 thing up the sleeve of his brilliantly 
 faced uniform. 
 
 The march proceeded down the room 
 and around toward Vasquez. At this 
 juncture I attempted to raise a window, 
 but found it fastened on the inside. 
 A second more and I saw Vasquez dart 
 at the elder man, who led the march. 
 
 I can not describe exactly just what 
 happened. I know I went through 
 the window at a jump and landed 
 on the floor in a heap. Vasquez had 
 struck the old man down, but turned 
 to see what had caused the crash before 
 he struck at Anguiana. 
 
 For a moment there was silence. 
 Then a scream went up just as I fired 
 at Vasquez. 
 
 I did not stop to see the result of 
 my shot ; for I heard the trample of 
 men ascending the front stairs, and 
 I sprang toward the door to meet them. 
 Up they came with a rush, filling the 
 air with curses. From the shelter of a 
 
184 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 stone pillar I commenced a fusillade in 
 their faces. They returned my fire as 
 they came. I heard the bullets whistle 
 by me ; and as they faltered and began 
 to turn, I felt some one pinch my arm. 
 One last shot, and what was left of the 
 beggars took to their heels and vanished 
 into the dark. 
 
 Behind me the uproar still continued. 
 I threw away my empty revolvers and 
 drew my sword. To the left two bodies 
 lay close together on the floor; and 
 advancing across the hall was Miguel 
 Anguiana with a seam of red down the 
 side of his face. The women had fled 
 to the other side of the room ; the men 
 were coming behind Miguel toward me. 
 
 "Tom!" he shouted. 
 
 "Quick!" I answered, saluting him 
 with my sword. " Ten men are attack 
 ing the treasury! I I " and then 
 he began to dance a sort of jig ; the 
 room began to turn at the strangest 
 sort of angles ; the pinching of my arm 
 
A Matter of State 185 
 
 made the screaming of the women fade 
 into a sort of melancholy chant and 
 gradually die away into a murmur. 
 
 I found that the wound was only 
 slight when I awoke to contemplate my 
 arm. I was lying in a white bed in a 
 room trimmed in green and gold. I 
 sat up in a dazed way and tried to recall 
 what had happened. In the next room 
 some one was singing softly, and, to 
 attract attention, I coughed. 
 
 It was Dolores that entered, and she 
 smiled when I asked, " How did it 
 come out?" 
 
 " Everything is quiet," she answered. 
 "Miguel is now in control of every 
 thing. He was proclaimed Provisional 
 President this morning." 
 
 "And Vasquez?" 
 
 "Dead." 
 
 "His men?" 
 
 "Dead." 
 
 " The treasury ? " 
 13 
 
i86 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 " Safe." 
 
 "And I " 
 
 "You will be our guest for some time 
 to come, I hope." 
 
 "Then the revolution " 
 
 "Is entirely over." 
 
 And so it was. When I went out 
 the next day, everything was peaceful 
 and quiet. That night I sat in Man 
 uel s room and talked it over with him. 
 He was exceedingly happy over his 
 new-found powers, and had his head 
 bandaged. 
 
 "Malcom," he said, "you saved my 
 life, and I want you to understand that 
 anything you wish in Guataragua is 
 yours for the asking. What do you 
 say to Secretary of State ?" 
 
 I looked at him in amazement. Then 
 I laughed. " To be stabbed in the back 
 next week," I added. 
 
 "No, Tom; you re wrong there," 
 he returned. " It s true that the people 
 don t care much for the Gringos, as they 
 
A Matter of State 187 
 
 call you; but you ll be safe enough 
 here, now that Vasquez is out of the 
 way. Besides Cienfuegos has ended all 
 of Darrios s schemes in Frisco." 
 
 "And Banks?" 
 
 " Drunk and aboard a liner bound for 
 China. That s why he did n t appear 
 to claim his berth. Come! What do 
 you say? " 
 
 I told him to let me think it over, as 
 I was rather upset by the suddenness 
 of his offer. It isn t every day that a 
 fellow is appointed Secretary of State 
 of a republic, be it ever so small. I 
 wandered out into the darkness, leaving 
 him to talk over matters of state with 
 an attache who came in. 
 
 I walked along the portico. The air 
 was heavy and thick. Not a breath was 
 stirring. Below, among the trees, I 
 heard the tinkle of a guitar; and as I 
 went down the broad steps I made out 
 a figure in white seated on a bench at 
 the corner of the building. 
 
i88 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 "What do you suppose your brother 
 has done, Miss Dolores ? " I asked as 
 I approached the fair serenader. 
 
 She expressed her inability to guess. 
 
 "He has offered me the position of 
 well, vice himself promoted." 
 
 "And you 11 stay for good ? " 
 
 "I haven t decided." 
 
 " Oh, I hope you will ," she started, 
 and then was suddenly silent. 
 
 " Would you really like me to stay? " 
 I asked, coming closer. 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 " But I have one more year at col- 
 lege." 
 
 "Is that so much to give up ? " 
 
 It was now my turn to be silent. I 
 looked down on the bay, which re 
 flected the yellow light of the moon, 
 and for the moment could almost fancy 
 myself back on the Berkeley hills in 
 front of the library looking out through 
 the Gate. A red and a green light 
 appeared together coming around the 
 
A Matter of State 189 
 
 point of land to the south of the 
 harbor. 
 
 "If I should stay, would you 
 you" 
 
 " I would sing all your college songs 
 to you to keep you from being home 
 sick," she laughed. "Oh! I know 
 them," and straightway she swung into 
 the familiar strains: 
 
 u Oh! have you seen the heavens blue 
 heavens blue " 
 
 I started and listened eagerly. She 
 sang it through, and ended with a 
 flourish: 
 
 u A Californian through and through ; our 
 totem he, the Golden Bear ! " 
 
 "Miss Dolores," I asked, "what 
 vessel is that below there just coming 
 in?" 
 
 " The Benito^ on its return trip. But 
 you won t go ? " 
 
 " Yes, Miss Dolores. I m sorry to 
 
IQO Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 leave such kind friends, but I think I 
 shall." 
 
 But but " she faltered, " you 11 
 come back ? " 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 "And you really are " 
 
 " I m going back to Berkeley," I 
 said. 
 
 And I went. 
 
Shadows 
 
 By Ralph E. Gibbs 
 
 IT was a bit of meadow in the High 
 Sierra; a scant oval of flower-starred 
 verdure a gem of sunlit emerald, set 
 in the sad immensity of the forest. Its 
 strip of plashy sod, walled about by the 
 somber firs that cast long shadows across 
 it, was the birthplace of a brook a 
 cold stream that murmured away down 
 through the whispering solitude of trees 
 till it flung cheerily over the cliffs to 
 swell the torrent in the canyon below. 
 
 Far below, beyond the hazy foot 
 hills, the plain already lay parched and 
 brown in the summer heat, but here in 
 the meadow was the joy of spring. The 
 retreating snow had only lately uncov- 
 
192 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 ered the sodden earth, ^so lately that, 
 a stone-throw yonder, under the close 
 vault of the forest, there still lingered a 
 patch of white, bespattered with brown 
 fir-needles and pollen -cones that had 
 fallen and thawed and frozen again into 
 its surface. 
 
 Only thus lately had the snow melted, 
 yet already the boggy open was matted 
 thick with vivid green, with velvet 
 moss, dotted with a pigmy forest of 
 frail - stalked capsules, and grass and 
 sedge unfurling their powder-shedding 
 panicles of feathery bloom, and all 
 about were sprinkled the mountain 
 buttercups, and the violets, blue and 
 white and yellow. Then, there were a 
 host of potentillas, creamy and golden, 
 and the dwarf mimulus standing tiptoe 
 to lift its small freckled face above the 
 turf, with the rosy clusters of the dode- 
 catheon nodding over them ; while here 
 and there the columbine swung its ban 
 ners of scarlet and gold on some little 
 
Shadows 193 
 
 island of grass-tuft, moated about by 
 runnels of water that wandered and 
 joined and parted again, and trickled 
 down through Yosemites a hand s- 
 breadth deep, whose moist walls hung 
 red and russet with the lace of roots. 
 Then, sometimes, the vagrant waters 
 were gathered into a sedge-fringed pool, 
 where some old moldering log, half- 
 sunk in the moss, barred the way, offer 
 ing a dry eminence where the silent- 
 flitting ouzel perched on a gnarl and 
 prinked its feathers in the soft sunshine, 
 or where the frog climbed up to warm 
 himself, gazing round-eyed about, till, 
 as one approached, he plunged back into 
 the pool with a flourish of legs and a 
 stirred-up cloud of mud. 
 
 In tranquil silence, save for the frog s 
 sudden croak that startled the echoes 
 uncannily, or the plaintive quaver of 
 an unseen solitary bird that haunted the 
 tree-tops, the little meadow basked in 
 the light and watched the fluff of cloud 
 
i94 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 that drifted across the blue sky beyond 
 the fir-tops. It was not the flat painted 
 blue of the lowland sky, but a deep 
 translucent blue that almost let one see 
 through into the universe beyond, a 
 dark, fathomless blue, where the sun 
 floated splendid in inconceivable space. 
 Near the lower end of the meadow, 
 where the scattered waters began to come 
 together into a mountain brook, a trail 
 crossed. Only to a sharp eye was it 
 visible as it wound from the west softly 
 down through the trees a barely per 
 ceptible depression in the muffling brown 
 carpet of fir and pine needles, untrod 
 den as yet since last winter s snow first 
 sifted through the branches. Where it 
 dipped into the enameled green of the 
 meadow the trail vanished ; but one 
 seeking to follow it would observe that 
 where, midway of the trackless green, 
 an ancient log stretched its crumbling 
 length across the way, the passing feet 
 of a generation had scuffed out a fur- 
 
Shadows 195 
 
 row through the rotten wood. Then, 
 on the farther edge of the meadow, 
 reassured by an old blaze on a lichen- 
 crusted pine an old scar that would 
 scarce catch the eye of the skittering 
 chipmunk the trail emerged and un 
 dulated away through the hush of the 
 solemn firs till it rose above them to 
 an indiscriminate scramble over the frost- 
 reft granite of the divide. 
 
 This was the theater. And when 
 the shadows of the western trees had 
 crept across the meadow and climbed 
 the trees on the east till only their 
 slender tops still caught the level rays, 
 there entered upon the scene an actor. 
 Along the trail from the west walked 
 a man, breathing deeply, as though he 
 had come fast from far down the moun 
 tain. He was heading for the pass and 
 the plains of Nevada. Before him he 
 drove a donkey loaded with bags, pan, 
 pick a prospector s outfit. The pack 
 
1 96 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 had been hurriedly put on. Things 
 dangled untidily, and the blanket-roll 
 that topped the pack had worked lop 
 sided and wabbled as the burro stepped. 
 The man strode hastily and prodded 
 the poor beast with his rifle-butt till 
 with a rattle of pot and frying-pan it 
 broke into a mincing trot. Here and 
 there in the meadow their feet slumped 
 in the lush turf with a slopping noise. 
 Where the debris of the old log was 
 soft under foot and a frog went plop 
 into the water, the man paused. He 
 was quivering with a determination. His 
 face, sweatily glistening, was stamped 
 just now with an unvacillating resolu 
 tion grotesquely unnatural to it. He 
 looked around, calculating the fitness 
 of the place, as though the act he in 
 tended were a drama requiring an ex 
 ceptional staging. The burro seized 
 the chance for a drink. It gulped in 
 a clucking rhythm. In fitful impa 
 tience the man kicked the burro and 
 
Shadows 197 
 
 they passed on across and up into the 
 thickening dusk of the trees. 
 
 Soon the man returned alone and 
 looked back along the way he had first 
 come. At the very moment a halloo 
 came faintly reverberating through the 
 columned forest, and " Oh, Bill ! " 
 seemed to float over the trees and sink 
 through the evening air into the quiet 
 meadow. He paid no heed to the call, 
 but his under lip twitched uncontrol 
 lably. He withdrew to where, near the 
 blazed pine, a pair of tamaracks grew, 
 joined at the root, with a cleft above 
 just wide enough to pass a gun-barrel. 
 
 The shouting sounded nearer. 
 
 " Wauhoo ! Bill ! Come back here, 
 you damn fool ! " 
 
 But Bill was rigidly silent behind the 
 twin trees. 
 
 Another man and another burro 
 came forth into the diffused glow of 
 sunset. The man stopped, as the other 
 had done, at the old log. 
 
198 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 "Oh, Bill! Come back here, and 
 we 11 divvy up even." 
 
 He began in a shout that wavered 
 down to a conversational pitch, as he 
 peered about, perplexed and half-appre- 
 hensively, as though Bill might step 
 from behind any tree. He held up a 
 buckskin sack and waved it tentatively. 
 Then his eye caught the line of Bill s 
 tracks, straight on across the meadow. 
 He shaped his hands to his mouth to 
 call again, but stiffened with a tremor, 
 wavered, and sank in a disorderly heap 
 as the report of Bill s rifle seemed to 
 jar the very leaves from the trees, and 
 the echoes came clattering back from 
 the granite peaks. The phlegmatic 
 burro slanted its ears at Bill as he 
 approached, and finally, finding itself 
 unheeded, strolled off down stream, 
 knocking its pack against the trees as 
 it went. 
 
 Bill s thoughts were in a haze. He 
 threw out the empty shell, vaguely 
 
Shadows 199 
 
 marveling that so little a thing should 
 be so potent. He straightened the 
 body, and regarded it, stretched on the 
 cool grass. Little wisps of green, and 
 a violet, white in the growing dusk, 
 peeped between the idly-spread ringers. 
 It was a narrow face, and pale but for 
 the oozing spot in the forehead. 
 
 Bill s wrath was spent. He was still 
 as intrepid as any man would be who 
 had dispassionately weighed his griev 
 ances, and merely apportioned dire jus 
 tice. He even remarked the excellence 
 of his shot plumb between the eyes. 
 There was not much blood, and Bill, 
 with a few scooped handfuls of water, 
 washed it away. He dashed water on 
 the grass till it seemed innocently green 
 again. It was growing too dark to see 
 well. 
 
 And now, what to do ? Before, when 
 he was mad, he had thought to simply 
 leave it here for the wolves, or had 
 shunned to think of that at all. He 
 
200 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 was no longer mad neither sorry. 
 He was simply even with Charley now, 
 and served him right. Not to say 
 there was n t good in Charley. Yes, 
 there was always a good deal to like in 
 Charley ; only he wanted to run things 
 too much. No man could stand that 
 forever, and a lot of old scores were 
 paid now. Still there came back to 
 Bill the days when Charley drove the 
 express team at Quartz Hill, and used 
 to let Bill drive when the boss was out 
 of town. Now that it came to the 
 point, he could n t leave old Charley 
 here for the wolves to snarl over. 
 
 He had heard people talk about a 
 " Christian burial." The phrase seemed 
 something occult a sort of 
 
 God ! what a fool to stand mooning 
 this way ! Down in the valley they 
 must be on their trail by now, tracking 
 like hounds, closing on him relentless 
 ly as the night. It meant that if he 
 were not well over the pass by to- 
 
Shadows 201 
 
 morrow, he had as well join Charley at 
 once. 
 
 But he would have time for this first. 
 He tried to lift the body, but its lump 
 ish weight seemed to make mute resist 
 ance. He slipped on the wet grass 
 and his load tumbled limply. The 
 head knocked back against the log, and 
 Bill winced. He stooped, and with 
 clumsy fingers closed the wide eyes. 
 They opened again. He forced the 
 lids down once more and held them. 
 Still, despite his pains, they remained 
 half-open, as though covertly watching. 
 At last he grasped the body under the 
 arms, and dragged it along, shuffling 
 backwards. 
 
 A few rods above the trail, and as 
 many from the twilighted meadow, be 
 tween three giant firs, was a little hol 
 low, curtained about by the darkness 
 of the woods. Here, where day brought 
 no sunshine, where, under the close- 
 14 
 
202 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 vaulting firs, the wreckage of dead trees 
 lay moldering, and crawling blind things 
 burrowed endlessly in the rottenness, 
 where unwholesome fungi waxed fat 
 and pallid in unending twilight, Bill 
 at last laid down his burden. He 
 brought it thus far for no reason. With 
 out will to choose, he had dragged it 
 blindly on, until in the hollow, stum 
 bling against an old stump that glowered 
 with phosphorescence where he kicked 
 it, he was forced to pause. 
 
 Gouging the dank mold with fingers 
 and knife, Bill scooped a trench while 
 Charley lay dumbly waiting beside it. 
 Bill reflected on how cantankerous Char 
 ley used to be if kept waiting for any 
 thing; and now he must wait for his 
 grave, patiently. Oddly the thought 
 stirred in him a vague pity for old 
 Charley. 
 
 Under the trees the deep shadows 
 had dilated and merged into a chill en 
 wrapping darkness. Only it seemed to 
 
Shadows 203 
 
 Bill that a lambent radiance spread from 
 the upturned face of the dead man. 
 The face was the one pale blot on the 
 immaculate dark. It was only dimly 
 discernible, but Bill could see it clearly, 
 with the dark spot on the forehead, and 
 the inscrutable eyes. He could see 
 nothing else, and it harassed him. He 
 would have covered up the face, but 
 that a sort of moral inertia would only 
 allow him to dig, dig. And then he 
 began to think that he saw it when his 
 eyes were shut. 
 
 He dug fast through the leafy humus. 
 Then it became hard to dig, and still 
 not half deep enough. Unseen rocks 
 tore his hands. Baffling roots mocked 
 his frantic hacking. His knife struck 
 blindly upon a stone and snapped. 
 Without pause he dug on. He might 
 have built a fire for light, but he never 
 thought of it. Yet he was thinking all 
 the time; that was the torment! 
 
 A wind came down from the icy sum- 
 
204 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 mit. It swayed the boughs with a 
 whisper, and then it moaned. Far over 
 head the tree-tops shivered and bowed 
 in the gust. Below, the forest teemed 
 with small noises a thousand tiny 
 voices. A twig fell; branches creaked. 
 Bill, half-erect and nerve-tense, strained 
 to listen. Then for a moment he cow 
 ered, with a gasp of heart-gripping 
 terror. A whelming burst of sound 
 seemed to rend the very darkness. And 
 suddenly Bill gurgled a laugh, and re 
 lapsed in an ecstasy of trembling. It 
 was only the braying of his burro which 
 he had tied near the trail close by. 
 
 Still he dug deeper. It was cold. 
 Where he kneeled the chill earth sucked 
 the life from his bones ; yet fever throb 
 bed in his head, and his lips stuck 
 together. It was not deep enough, but 
 he must get water and a rest. Soon the 
 moon would rise and make it easier to 
 finish, and then away for the pass, and 
 safety ! 
 
Shadows 205 
 
 He stumbled out to the meadow, 
 feeling the way with stretched arms. 
 He lay on the frosty grass and drank, 
 but the freezing water strangled him. 
 In the cold half-light of the stars he 
 crossed the meadow and crouched 
 against a tree s furrowed base, facing 
 back to the east, waiting till the moon 
 should mount above the black wall of 
 the forest. He wished that he had 
 brought his rifle, to back up his over 
 strung nerves. Now there was nothing 
 to do but to watch, and to bear the 
 ingenious tortures of memory. 
 
 No ; he would not recall the past. 
 It was safer to think of the future of 
 to-morrow. Ah ! how the sun would 
 shine over there to-morrow! He 
 would have done with this task and 
 would stand on the Sierra crest at dawn 
 to see the glorious sunrise upon the 
 eastern plain. Only to sleep now ! to 
 lie snug against the rock and forget ! 
 But he could face it out; and to- 
 
206 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 morrow, down on the warm foot-hills, 
 where the air is hot and still, and 
 dreamy with the spice of chaparral and 
 pine, he would stretch him in the shade 
 and rest his heart with looking on the 
 peaceful hills of brown and hazy pink 
 and olive, and watching far off how 
 the sun dazzles on the lava-slope. 
 
 For Bill loved the sun -browned 
 hills; and not the awesome high moun 
 tains; though Charley liked the cold 
 gray peaks. But Charley liked many 
 things that Bill did not. Maybe Char 
 ley was right. He always outdid Bill 
 at school. Charley knew a great 
 deal and where was it now ? 
 
 The stars shone brilliant in a deep 
 sky. Bill had heard it said somewhere 
 that dead men s souls went to the stars 
 to other worlds. Better worlds, 
 most likely. He wondered whether he 
 himself could find a better star up 
 there. Bill seemed not much use in 
 this world, anyway. Better, perhaps, 
 
Shadows 207 
 
 if he could trade places now with Char 
 ley. He entertained a vague commis 
 eration for his wretched self. 
 
 And Charley was dead ! What did 
 it mean, anyway ? He recalled stories 
 that he had heard. Was there really a 
 spirit ? something besides that senseless 
 thing that lay over there under the 
 trees ? something, say, that would stand 
 there smoky-white and dim to accuse 
 him when he went back ? 
 
 Would the moon never come ? Bill 
 was shaking miserably from cold, and 
 more from horror of the indefinable. 
 He was not sure whether this were the 
 first night that he had watched there. 
 He was waiting for something which he 
 dreaded. 
 
 The breeze was rising again. The 
 grass was crisp with frost, and soft foot 
 falls were stealing over it. There was 
 an evil something a malign intelli 
 gence, hovering in the night. He 
 strained his eyes at the shadows that 
 
208 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 closed in his dim circle of vision. 
 Around, behind him the black void 
 was sibilant with secret whisperings, 
 the dark was pregnant with intangible 
 shapes that conspired against him, that 
 slipped behind him, and vanished when 
 he turned upon them. Suddenly his 
 breath caught. There beyond the 
 meadow something glimmered white, 
 vague, vanishing when his eyes strove 
 most to see, and reappearing when he 
 turned away. There ! it was there ! 
 With face set, and eyes never turning 
 from it, Bill rose totteringly. He could 
 not feel his legs, but went unswerv 
 ingly towards it, across the meadow. 
 He felt an exultation of despair. His 
 brain was dead, and still something, not 
 himself, moved his body. It was a 
 mad spirit, akin to the shadows the 
 fleeting, evading things that flocked 
 around him, jeering in voices of the 
 wind, whirling in fantastic derision about 
 him, only shrinking into the dark be- 
 
Shadows 209 
 
 fore the menace of his knife. They all 
 came dancing, writhing, trooping behind 
 him. Now they flew between him and 
 the stars. Through water he stumbled, 
 and he fell in a gully; but he went on, 
 and no longer knew fear. He had an 
 army of shadows at his back. He 
 moved his arms, and led on. 
 
 Ah! That white thing was only the 
 little snow-bank. Never mind! He 
 would go on now, in despite of the 
 moon. There was something ! It fled 
 from him, and they ran madly among 
 the trees. The treacherous throng at 
 his back pressed on his heels, pushed 
 and tripped him. He flung upon them, 
 striking at and through them, raved, 
 and cursed them. 
 
 Ah, but they should not make him 
 forget the grave! nor the dumb thing 
 that must be buried, else it would follow 
 him, with half-shut eyes, forever, seek 
 ing to put the brand of its own fore 
 head upon his. He coursed crazily 
 
210 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 through the aisles of darkness, and 
 dashed at the taunting phantasms that 
 glided everywhere. They mocked and 
 tripped him, waiting for a chance to 
 sieze him. He lunged again at the 
 fleering shadows that danced closer in a 
 circle, goggling at him with glow-worm 
 eyes; and their chance came. 
 
 Over a loose log he pitched headlong 
 and rolled down into a hollow. Some 
 thing was there that grappled with him; 
 and a maniacal Hell s legion was upon 
 his back and tearing at his throat. 
 Fighting, he struggled up, threw his 
 knife hand back to strike, and lurched 
 forward. 
 
 The meadow was scarcely awakened 
 to the sweetness of a new day when 
 there rode up the trail the Sheriff of 
 Calaveras and his deputy, in pursuit of 
 the men who had held up the Milltown 
 stage. Midway of the meadow the 
 Sheriff dismounted and picked up a 
 
Shadows 211 
 
 small bag of gold. Thence they saw 
 where something had been dragged. 
 The flowers struggled to raise their 
 bruised heads, and the grasses beckoned 
 all one way, obliquely up to a point of 
 the woods. The men followed. In the 
 hollow they found two bodies, the up 
 per clenching in stiff fingers a broken 
 knife. 
 
 The Sheriff was a man of discern 
 ment and few words. 
 
 "Umph! More use to us than 
 them/ he said, hefting the gold. 
 
 He looked at the deputy, and the 
 deputy nodded at the Sheriff. 
 
The Second Edition 
 
 By Agnes Crary 
 
 T HAD been in town all the morning, 
 * shopping, making the last prepara 
 tions for the prune-harvest. Shopping 
 meant new trays for the dryer and a 
 contract for Chinese fruit-pickers ; but, 
 you see, I still clung to the old femi 
 nine word. I had just started for home, 
 when I remembered it was the third 
 Tuesday of the month, and I had sol 
 emnly promised to go to the next meet 
 ing of the Tuesday Club. The last 
 time I had been there was in the height 
 of the ribbon period, and there were 
 more bows to the square foot of that 
 parlor than I put trees to the acre. 
 
The Second Edition 213 
 
 Now the rooms were all white and gold, 
 and drapes floated triumphantly over 
 the scene. 
 
 The girls were all there, the old 
 girls, I mean, and they talked of Em 
 ily Dickinson in the way we used to go 
 on over Browning. You see, I had 
 belonged years ago, when the Brown 
 ing wave first struck California. They 
 had been up to the times so long, it 
 was getting hard to find fresh subjects, 
 and so they fell on Miss Dickinson 
 with all the joy of a new sensation. 
 
 I had to own I did not know who 
 she was, and I felt they were thinking, 
 " Poor Louise ! What a case of ar 
 rested development ! She s nothing 
 but a farmer !" 
 
 As I tried to follow the discussion, 
 I found I was no longer in touch with 
 the group of dainty women. I could 
 not help thinking they had a few more 
 views, and a more patient, waiting look 
 than when I used to know them. It 
 
214 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 was horrid of me, but the old nursery 
 rhyme, 
 
 " Little Sally Waters, sitting in the sun, 
 Waiting and sighing for a young man, " 
 
 kept running in my head. I always 
 thought Sally must have lived near 
 us. They were so bright, though, and 
 wore such dainty gowns, and talked 
 with such authority upon the latest 
 opinions of the Nicene Creed, that I 
 felt more and more of a Philistine, and 
 was glad when it was over and I was in 
 the fresh air again. 
 
 The drive out to the orchards is al 
 ways a delight, and in the summer 
 evenings I would not have one of the 
 eight miles taken away. Bacchus and I 
 go over it so often that I don t have to 
 drive, but can just lean back and rest. 
 It s my time for thinking and airing 
 what few day-dreams my busy life has 
 room for. But that night I could not 
 slip into the mood, when the broad 
 
The Second Edition 215 
 
 stretches of field, the vinelands, and, 
 back of all, the foothills, spoke to me, 
 and the sunset glowed like "the light 
 that never was on land or sea." 
 
 The club had amused me, and yet it 
 brought up all I had hoped to do when 
 I had first belonged, the travels and 
 studies long ago crowded out in the 
 unforeseen struggle to keep a roof over 
 Aunt Katherine s head and give Ben 
 the education he so much coveted. I 
 had succeeded ; but in spite, of success 
 the old hopes had died hard, though I 
 seldom indulged in the luxury of airing 
 them. It is too hard on the eyes. I 
 soon turned to business and prunes 
 again, in the shape of a letter from my 
 New York agent. There was one also 
 from Ben, and, best of all, one from 
 Cora, she used to belong to the Tues 
 day Club, too, but while she was in 
 Chicago she had met and married Doc 
 tor Vail. I ran through the description 
 of her last new suit, and the new carved 
 
216 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 screen in the church, looking for the bit 
 of fun or tenderness I had learned to 
 depend on. 
 
 What I found very effectually turned 
 the channel of my thoughts: 
 
 " The Doctor says he wants my old letters 
 to you that I wrote when I had broken our 
 engagement. He says he knows I was per 
 fectly wretched, but don t you send them 
 he d be just too conceited. I ve half a 
 mind, though, to read him those you wrote 
 when in New York. We re both so fond 
 of you, dear, I know you would n t care. 
 Baby Louise has learned " 
 
 I dropped that letter with scant cere 
 mony. Cora had been the soul of 
 honor before she married, and so had 
 the Doctor, but here they were funding 
 their varied confidences for mutual 
 benefit in the reprehensible way I had 
 suspected most married people of 
 doing. I had written those letters 
 when I was some ten years younger, and 
 theyNvere not such as the members of 
 
The Second Edition 217 
 
 the Tuesday Club wrote. I had long 
 ago disposed of most of Cora s and 
 mine well, I had asked her, com 
 manded her, to burn them, and now 
 she and the Doctor were reading them, 
 or at least thinking of reading them, 
 and in my vexation I gave a jerk at the 
 reins which so disturbed Bacchus s 
 meditations that he stopped short in 
 amazement. I planned a good many 
 replies, and even began one stinging 
 little note with "Dear Madam"; but 
 when I thought of Cora s surprise and 
 pain, I had not the heart to send it. 
 
 The next few weeks were so full of 
 work I had no time to think of any 
 thing else, but flew about directing, 
 testing the dips, watching with the sat 
 isfaction only a farmer knows the low 
 orchard-wagons with their load after 
 load of purple prunes. Then the long 
 trays of drying fruit, glossy black from 
 its dip, lying out on the sloping hill 
 side, represented the completion of long 
 
2i8 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 care and forethought. By the time I 
 saw the last carload shipped all rancor 
 was buried deep under ninety tons of 
 prunes, and I was too proud of my 
 year s work, too happy and tired, to 
 write any but a gentle note, even to 
 such a perfidious person as the friend of 
 one s girlhood who marries. 
 
 I wrote, and in a casual way said : 
 
 "By the way, about those letters, I 
 know, of course, you were fooling, for you 
 are too honorable to show them j but I want 
 them back. You are too romantic for the 
 mother of three children, but they would fit 
 in so perfectly with this old vine-covered 
 farmhouse, and a woman who s getting as 
 moss-grown as her house. Just think how 
 the eternal fitness of things would be pre 
 served ! Tie them with blue ribbon and put 
 in a few rose-leaves, and I 11 provide a hid 
 den drawer in some desk, or may have a 
 panel closet fixed in the library. Then 
 imagine what a stock-in-trade they would be 
 to little Louise when she becomes the famous 
 
The Second Edition 219 
 
 novelist ; for, if I remember, they had a 
 good kind of real joy and sorrow in them." 
 
 I should be ashamed to tell you how 
 anxiously I waited for the answer. 
 
 " Fidus Achates," as Ben named the 
 young Hoosier I had imported to be 
 general factotum, thought I was losing 
 my head when I insisted on having the 
 mail daily. But I did so want to look 
 into the old life a little. At last they 
 came a good bundle of them. Cora 
 had taken me at my word, and tied 
 them in yards of baby ribbon. Achates 
 touched the bundle gingerly, and I was 
 thankful Aunt Katherine was n t around 
 when it arrived. 
 
 That night I slipped into a real 
 dinner-dress and pinned a rose into my 
 hair, and tried to feel some kinship to 
 the girl who had written the notes. I 
 was so gay Aunt Katherine became fes 
 tive, too, and it was late before I had 
 the library to myself. The curtains 
 
220 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 were drawn close, and as I looked about 
 the room filled with survivals of the 
 wreck, as Ben called the few remains 
 of household gods, I felt quite like the 
 Louise Hunter of old. But I undid 
 the mocking blue ribbons with trem 
 bling fingers. Inside was a note from 
 Cora : 
 
 " DEAR ; I really did want to read a little 
 from those letters to Jack; for I wanted him 
 to see deeper into your life than you now let 
 us. But when I came to look them o er, I felt 
 that you would rather, perhaps, even I should 
 not see them now. I read a little, and cried, 
 and took up Baby Louise to comfort me. 
 You never seemed nearer than to-night. I 
 wish I could send Cora with them, for she 
 would climb up into your lap and comfort 
 you. * 
 
 I turned to the first. It was dated 
 "New York, Jan. i, 1881." How 
 well I remembered writing it ! We had 
 just come home from a New Year s Eve 
 dance, and after all the rest were asleep 
 
The Second Edition 221 
 
 I sat before the fire and in the flicker 
 ing light scribbled off the rollicking 
 little note to Cora. I could see the 
 whole picture, my old room with its 
 pretty litter of girlish belongings, the 
 warm dressing-gown mother had laid 
 out, and the bunch of blush roses 
 father had insisted on pinning on to my 
 gown with his own dear old hands. It 
 was some time before I read any further. 
 I felt the difference too keenly. But 
 as I went on I found a sense of strange 
 ness, almost alienation, coming over 
 me. I saw a friendship deepening until 
 all life seemed rooted in one life. But 
 when I came to the letters of the quar 
 rel, and read the passionate oratory of 
 that young soul who felt all slipping 
 with the severance from one dearer 
 than life, I had only a sense of pro 
 found pity. I wanted to take the girl 
 in my arms, and tell her how life meant 
 more than she could then grasp, and 
 give to her of the mingled bitter-sweet 
 
222 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 that had come to me with years of daily 
 toil. Through the night I read, and 
 before me stood my old self, and across 
 the bridge of years I spoke to her of 
 possible conquest and peace. It was 
 early dawn before I stole off to sleep ; 
 but the tears that fell like rain were not 
 for the girl and her lover, but for the 
 old room with Ben s toys on the floor, 
 and mother s care and father s roses. 
 
 For some days the loneliness was 
 almost more than I could bear. Poor 
 old Aunt Katherine with her constant 
 comparisons but accentuated it. If 
 only Ben were here! But he was busy 
 and happy, and I could not let him 
 know how I missed him, and almost 
 hated to see him grow beyond need of 
 my constant care. 
 
 I plunged deeper than ever into a 
 series of experiments I had been 
 making with insect pests that infested 
 our valley, and had long talks with 
 Achates on the comparative value of 
 
The Second Edition 223 
 
 silver and French prunes, under the 
 new method of grafting. Through the 
 winter I worked on my "pestiferous 
 papers," as Aunt Kate insisted on call 
 ing them, and the next spring they were 
 accepted by the publishers, Wells & 
 Company. 
 
 I was very proud of the little pam 
 phlet. It looked so scientific in its 
 plain green cloth. I dedicated it to the 
 Tuesday Club, who tried to be mildly 
 interested. Cora and the Doctor were 
 delighted, and Baby Louise should 
 learn her letters out of it, Cora said. 
 
 Through the summer Wells & Com 
 pany found my work a good invest 
 ment "and hoped to undertake a simi 
 lar work in the future. Sincerely," etc., 
 etc. My success gave me a feeling of 
 power, and I began to think of a plan I 
 had cherished ever since I first read the 
 letters. 
 
 I would answer them from my pres 
 ent point of view, rearrange the few 
 
224 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 telltale facts, and publish all in the 
 form of a story. The more I thought 
 of it the more it grew on me. Now, 
 when Bacchus and I went to town, we 
 jogged along slower than ever, and I 
 wrote long, loving letters, full of coun 
 sel and cheer for the Louise Hunter of 
 the past. I told her all about my early 
 life, and drew little pen-pictures of the 
 Orchards and its neighbors. For, you 
 see, I wanted to rouse the girl. At last 
 I really believe she did feel better. 
 Only, the telling was not all on one 
 side, for sometimes I would have to do 
 an immense amount of reasoning, or go 
 dig in the rose-garden, to prove to my 
 self that the old Louise was not right, 
 after all. 
 
 It was a good country book, and 
 breathed of a whole, full country year. 
 I had much trouble over christening it. 
 I wrote at last to Ben about it, but so 
 lightly that he never imagined I was in 
 earnest, and suggested "A Brace of 
 
The Second Edition 225 
 
 Geese" as a good significant title. I 
 was more cast down than ever, but after 
 long meditation at last settled down on 
 "A Sheaf of Letters." 
 
 I had the most delightful time after 
 it was accepted. Every time I got a 
 leter from Wells & Company, I used to 
 go to the Tuesday Club. They had 
 boxed the compass in regard to subjects, 
 and were on Chaldee architects then. I 
 sat up in front and spoke as one having 
 authority. The girls were surprised; 
 but I used to smile when I thought 
 what awaited them, and wondered if 
 they would " interpret " my story. 
 
 It came out just at Christmas-time, 
 and had quite a run, it was so beauti 
 fully gotten up. The Tuesday Club 
 gave a five-o clock tea, and wanted me 
 to tell how far I had used the synthetic 
 imagination, and if it had a spiritual 
 purport. One of them said it was an 
 allegory between youth and old age, 
 which rather nettled me ; but, after all, 
 
226 Under the Berkeley Oaks 
 
 their appreciation was sweet, for I felt 
 one or two of them really began to 
 love me. I had a beautiful letter from 
 Ben ; he was so proud of me ! He 
 had come near having serious trouble 
 with an English professor, who said the 
 story did n t have a satisfactory denoue 
 ment. I blessed Ben for his zeal, but I 
 did n t tell him that some way in my 
 secret heart I agreed with the English 
 professor. But, on the whole, Louise 
 Hunter the elder kept the upper hand 
 very well. 
 
 I could hardly wait for June to come. 
 I was going East to see Ben graduate. 
 I was also going to pay off the few 
 debts that remained after the old home 
 had been sold. Even Aunt Katherine s 
 discovery of a few gray hairs could not 
 dampen my spirits ; for I felt positively 
 giddy, and raced about the ranch like a 
 child of ten. One day Achates brought 
 me a whole handful of mail, with 
 " Here s your crop o letters." You see, 
 
The Second Edition 227 
 
 he had heard of my book, too. Among 
 them was one from Wells & Company, 
 and one whose foreign stamp and old- 
 time but never-to-be-forgotten hand 
 sent the blood flushing into my face. 
 
 I opened it last, and after I read it 
 sat for some time looking with eyes that 
 saw not on the green lawn and rose 
 hedge, and there came to me then a 
 sense of peace and fulfillment that still 
 glows in my heart. 
 
 But when Aunt Katherine came 
 up with the question, " What ails you, 
 child ? " I kissed her, and showing 
 her the letter from my publisher, said, 
 " Auntie, my story has just reached its 
 second edition." 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 NOV? 184S 
 
 | 9 f \iitfff 
 
 JUI3019" 
 
 
 DEC 3 1969*9 
 JttU20 69-8PB 
 
 RECEI 
 
 VED 
 
 *> 
 
 LD 21-100m-9, 48(B399sl6)476 
 
YB 7b72 
 
 925460 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY