sity of California
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brary Facility
Under the Harrow
Under the Harrow
By
Ellis Meredith
Author of "The Master Knot of Human Fate,"
" Heart of My Heart," Etc.
The toad beneath the harrow knowi
Exactly where each tooth-point goes.
The butterfly upon the road
Preaches contentment to the toad.
Pagftt, M.P.
Boston
Little, Brown, and Company
1907
Copyright, 1907,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
righti reserved
PUBLISHED, MARCH, 1907
8. J. PABKHILL <fc Co., BOSTON, U. 8. A.
DEDICATED TO
THE HEAVENLY TWINS
AND ALL THOSE GOLDEN GIRLS AND LADS WHO CLIMB
THE HILL DIFFICULTY
TOWARDS MOUNT PARNASSUS
2229004
UNDER THE HARROW
'T^HE rain was falling steadily, insistently,
and the winter night was cold and cheer-
less. Lorraine Townsend plodded on down
Broadway, the water sopping through her worn
shoes at every step, while her wet skirts were
blown and wrapped about her by the wind
which threatened to tear her umbrella from
her numbed fingers. The many lights were a
blur in the rain and the shops looked inhos-
pitable. She turned west at Twenty-third
Street, and sighed as she looked at the long,
interminable blocks, and took a fresh hold
upon her refractory umbrella. Presently, turn-
ing in at a small grocery, she bought the supper
supplies for herself and the two girls who were
waiting for her in the fourth floor back, a
block or so beyond. She wondered whether
i
UNDER THE HARROW
they had had anything to eat that day. They
had finished the crackers the night before and
the tea that morning. She was conscious of a
feeling of weakness which had superseded that
of hunger to which she had grown accustomed
during the past few months, and she dreaded
the cold, dark room and the wan faces of her
companions. But there was enough change
left to buy some coal, and then had she not
glorious news ? Poor they unquestionably were,
but before them were glowing possibilities.
She hesitated a little, for Hope was sarcastic
1
and Bess matter of fact, and what had seemed
an amusing adventure might not appeal to
them in the same way. Lorraine held her
parcels tightly and tried to hurry. One more
turn, and she found herself stumbling up the
dimly lit stairway, conscious of an excited col-
loquy going on overhead. As she reached the
last turn she saw the attenuated form of their
landlady and heard her high, strident voice.
"I don't want to be unreasonable, and you
ain't much behind, with this leastways," she
was saying, while she examined the bill in her
hand, "but land sakes, what's the use of it
2
UNDER THE HARROW
all ? Every day of my life I useter say to
Mr. Willis, 'Mr. Willis,' I says, * what's the
good of it all?' and up to the day he died he
never made no answer, and I don't know as
he would if he was to rise up now. Seems
like a man would hardly lie down an' die if
there was any use livin'. Here you be, a-tryin*
to write books and paint picturs and sech-like,
just as if there wasn't hundreds a-starvin' at
it now. So long's you pay your rent 'tain't no
affair of mine, but what air ye doin' it for ?
Some of ye has good homes, an* ye'd be a sight
better off in 'em. New York ain't no place
for young girls, and the better lookin' they
air the worse it is. There ain't none of you
to say homely enough to get out and make a
livin' with any comfort."
Lorraine was used to Mrs. Willis. "Is this
a new book of lamentations?" she asked
cheerfully, as she gained the landing and was
fallen upon by her waiting comrades in distress,
who relieved her of her parcels and her drip-
ping umbrella. She had expected to find
gloom and a chilly stove, but the parlor cook
had got over the sulks, the kettle was singing,
3
UNDER THE HARROW
and the room was warm and light. Mrs.
Willis took her departure regretfully, with a
lingering look at the parcels Lorraine had
brought, and the girl looked around with a
feeling that she had been defrauded of her
part of good fairy. "What has happened ?"
she asked, surprise and grievance mingling in
her voice.
"It's 'many happy returns' and one of them
wasn't so bad," said Hope gleefully. " Can you
believe it ? We have a check, just a little one,
of course, but it did some good."
"Which did you sell?" asked Lorraine
eagerly, "and what has come back?"
"I sold some nonsense verses with Bess'
illustrations, or maybe it was the pictures that
sold. Anyhow, I got eight dollars, and while
that isn't much it was enough to 'soften the
heart of the cow.' I wouldn't have given Mrs.
Willis so much of it, but she was here when it
came, explaining how really sensible young
women do housework, which pays well and
requires no previous training! and no outlay
for clothes, so I had to convince her that
literature is a paying profession. I promised
4
UNDER THE HARROW
her an immediate settlement if she would let
us have some coal, and then I went out and
got the check cashed and bought a dollar's
worth of stamps. I could put them in my
purse where she couldn't see them, and 1 gave
her the rest. There's nothing to eat, but it's
warm anyhow."
Lorraine laughed. "Isn't that just like
Hope?" she said, "a dollar's worth of stamps
and a Mother Hubbard pantry. But there's
plenty to eat, an' it please you. I've had just
a bit of luck to-day too, and we are going to
have supper, a real, hot supper."
"Tell us about the luck," said Hope.
"Not yet," answered Lorraine evasively.
" Let's have something to eat, and tell me about
the stories. Maybe you won't think much of
my piece of news."
After the supper things were cleared away,
the girls gathered about the stove and Lorraine
asked, "Where are the rest of the returns?
Which of mine came back?"
"I'm not sure," answered Hope; "but I
think this is 'Eagle Eye,'" handing over a long
envelope, "and this is about the weight of
5
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'An Experiment in Polities'; that takes three
stamps, doesn't it ? and this looks like poetry."
Lorraine frowned. " Contemporaneous verse,
my child. You will never be the real thing
until you learn these distinctions. Call no
man, or woman either, a poet until after
death." She opened the envelopes. "Yes,
here's poor old 'Eagle Eye'; he's nearly been
the rounds. The other is 'Harriet's House-
hold.' Now what do you think is the matter
with them ?"
Hope reflected a moment. " Do you remem-
ber the story of the girl who makes jam and
wants to be a writer ? She has written one
story, which she can't sell, and everybody
advises her differently. There's a pirate in it,
and first she is told to take him out and send
it to a religious magazine, and then when it
comes back she puts him in again; and she
keeps on taking him out and putting him back,
until finally she rewrites the whole thing, and
sells it on the strength of the pirate. Then
she retires on her laurels and sells jam the rest
of her days. It's not very clear in my mind,
but I think if you could make the pirate motif
6
UNDER THE HARROW
a trifle more couchant in 'Eagle Eye' and a
wee mite more rampant in 'Harriet's House-
hold' it would be an improvement. 'Eagle
Eye' is too somber. There's no relief in the
tragedy; can't you wash off some of the war-
paint, or take off a feather or two "
"It's impossible," groaned Lorraine. "The
only thing you can take off in that story is
scalps. Besides, I've told it the way it hap-
pened. Isn't there any publisher who cares
for history ?"
"That's nothing. People don't care how a
thing happened. They want it to happen to
suit them, and you know yourself you couldn't
sleep after reading a story like that. Do try
and tone it down."
"I know what Hope means," said Bess.
"When Dick Heldar's 'Last Shot' doesn't
please, he just puts the soldier in his Sunday
clothes and gives him a clean shave and a
bath and sells him for twice as much and says,
'If they want furniture polish, let them have
furniture polish, so long as they pay for it.'
They don't want real Indians and fresh war-
paint. Give your hero a diploma from Car-
7
UNDER THE HARROW
lisle and a tailor-made suit instead of a blanket.
You can't foreshorten a picture as it is in life.
Nobody would believe it."
Lorraine shook her head obstinately. "Pos-
sibly I can leave off some feathers," she said,
"but it won't be true to life. As it is I didn't
scalp my victim, and I toned down my no-
menclature and called 'Hell Gate' another
name, which is enough to bar me from mem-
bership among the Daughters of the Pioneers.
When you have a pirate story I don't believe
in decorating his long, low, rakish craft with
pink and white pop-corn and Christmas-tree
candles, and serving afternoon tea. If you're
going to have a pirate at all, you have to have
grog, extra rations of it, and in spite of my
W. C. T. U. mother, when I go on freebooting
expeditions I insist on Jamaica rum."
"That may all be true," said Hope doubt-
fully, "but this is the twelfth venture. He has
only one more chance. There must be some-
thing wrong."
"Maybe it's the readers," sagely suggested
Bess.
"Darling child!" murmured Lorraine grate-
8
UNDER THE HARROW
fully. "No, there's something the matter, but
I don't know what. I'll send him out West
somewhere; maybe they'll take to him more
kindly, but he's such a good Indian I thought
he'd stand a better show East where folks have
had a few hundred years to forget about
Indians. Then if he comes back he'll have to
go to the ash-barrel."
"What's the matter with the other one?"
asked Bess.
"Harriet'? I think Hope is right about
her," Lorraine admitted. "That's another true
story, and the end isn't dramatic enough. If
I could bring in the bold buccaneer long enough
to sing the 'Pirate's Serenade' and make off
with the fair but reluctant Harriet, that would
improve it." She looked over the typewritten
pages and sighed. "That means rewriting at
least two-thirds of it, and when I typewrite my
stuff I never blame the editors for declining it.
I don't know anything that will reduce a swollen
cranium so quickly. Did you get anything
back, Hope?"
"Oh, yes; you are not the only unsuccess-
ful writer in New York. Here's ' Mrs. Field's
9
UNDER THE HARROW
Good Name/ with a polite note asking me to
send them something else like it, but different.
Is that sarcasm, or does the editor mean to
drive me to a home for the feeble-minded ?"
"You might send him 'Sara Harding,' that's
different but like," ventured Lorraine, looking
at the clock.
"Mercy, it's after ten, and you haven't told
us about your good luck yet," said Bess.
They had reached the hair-combing stage,
and Lorraine retreated behind the thick masses
of a chestnut mane that almost reached the
floor. "You know I washed my hair yester-
day," she said irrelevantly.
"Your efforts to put off the evil day are all in
vain," laughed Hope. "What has washing your
hair to do with this wonderful piece of news ?"
"Lots," she answered briefly; "I've rented
my hair."
The girls stared at her. Bess found her voice
first. "You're not going to have it cut off!"
she cried in horror-stricken tones.
Lorraine's courage had returned. "I said
rented, not sold," she answered. "You know
how dreadfully it blew this afternoon about
10
UNDER THE HARROW
three ? I never can do anything with my hair
for a day or two after it is washed. It just
sifts out the pins. I felt it coming down and
made a wild clutch at it and took refuge in a
tiny drug store kept by a tiny old man, up on
Fortieth Street, and the whole pile of it un-
uncoiled."
"And you looked just like 'The Lady of
Shalott' in the old editions of Tennyson," said
Hope.
" Perhaps, but it was a blessing, not a curse,
that came upon me," responded Lorraine.
"One can't be dignified under such circum-
stances as that. The nice little old man
laughed and made some pretty speeches, and
I bought some hairpins with my last pennies;
and to make a long story short I am going
to sit in his window, with my hair spread
abroad, as an advertisement for a tonic he can
make for a cent and sell for a dollar a bottle.
It's an old prescription that my family has
always used, and is really good. He's going
to divide the profits evenly, and insisted on my
taking a small advance. Hence the supper.
His name is Peter Bright, and his customers,
ii
UNDER THE HARROW
most of them, call him 'Uncle Peter/ I once
knew three old maid sisters," she went on,
"who used to prepare for death every little
while, so as to spare those who should be left
when the sad day came. They had a lot of
trouble to know what to do with their false
hair, for they had all lived in the days of
chignons and waterfalls, and they had waves
and curls and switches and frizzes; so at last
they bundled up the whole assortment and
sold it to a hair-dealer. Now if one can rent her
hair and keep it too, isn't that much better than
using it merely to keep one's hat in place ?"
"Lorraine, you certainly are a trump!" said
Bess.
"Besides, it will work out two ways, as I
figure it," went on Lorraine. "First, it will
give us a much-needed revenue, for if I do say
it as shouldn't, there's not a thin-haired woman
in New York but would buy a tonic that will
grow hair like that; and, second, it will give
me a subject for a good, newsy article,
'How it feels to be an Advertisement/ Come,
let's go to bed. There's something to get up
for to-morrow morning."
12
II
ORRAINE'S business adventure proved so
successful that she prolonged it for several
weeks longer than she at first intended. A real
friendship sprang up between her and "Uncle
Peter," who took heart of grace and cleaned
up the shop under her direction, and indulged in
a fresh coat of paint for his dingy sign. In turn
she told him the story of their struggle, and her
plan to write up her experience. He listened
with pleased interest, and then said: "When
you get it done, mail it to this address. Mary
Deland is my niece, and she has an editorial
position on this paper. I'll give you a note to
enclose to her, and she will do the best she can
for you. We don't see each other often, for
we both work long hours, but we love each
other dearly. She is almost my only relative.
And drop in sometimes. I wish you were my
niece too."
It was two weeks before Lorraine heard any
news from her story. Then there came a note
13
UNDER THE HARROW
asking her to call on Mrs. Deland. The re-
O
vulsion of feeling, the hope that her work was
not absolutely worthless, since it was not re-
turned, brought Lorraine's nerves almost to
the snapping point. Quite suddenly she real-
ized all the strain of the past few weeks, and
the blank misery if this hazard also proved a
failure. The girls cheered her as best they
could, and lent her whatever wearing apparel
they possessed that would lend any touch to her
costume. It is a sad commentary on human
nature, but they had all learned that one is
not more likely to obtain work because the need
of it is obvious.
Fortunately she did not have to wait long,
and as she was ushered into a small, well-
appointed office she was welcomed by a very
tall, beautiful woman who held out her hand
and said with a charming smile: "I am very
pleased to meet you, Miss Townsend; any one
of Uncle Peter's friends is dear to me for his
sake, but as a writer you are all the more
welcome." Mrs. Deland knew something of
human nature, and Lorraine's dumb and im-
ploring face told her all Uncle Peter's letter
1.4
UNDER THE HARROW
had omitted. "Sit down, and let us have a
cup of tea," she said. "I always have tea
about this hour, and I want to hear about
Uncle Peter, and then we will talk about the
story."
Lorraine told all about her meeting with
Uncle Peter, and their subsequent partnership,
with girlish enthusiasm. It was such a relief
not to have to speak of herself right at first.
When they had reached the second cup and
Lorraine was quite herself again, Mrs. Deland
said: "We like your stuff" very much; the
managing editor wanted me to see you and
talk with you, no, I don't mean about this
story, for it is already being set up, but could
you keep on ? We want some daily human in-
terest stories; say half to three-quarters of a
column; never more than that."
Lorraine's tongue clove to the roof of her
mouth for the space of a half-minute, then she
said she thought she could; there was a little
more discussion, and then she found herself
in The Presence. She never remembered much
of that interview. She had a hazy recollection
of a tall, grizzled man, slight of form with keen
15
UNDER THE HARROW
eyes and a voice so singularly cool that one
instinctively looked for a thermometer to see
if the temperature was not fall ng.
"Can you begin now, Miss Townsend?" he
a ked. "Our special man has gone to the
Herald, and we wish to replace him at once.
You bring a lighter touch and a new point of
view. That's the great thing in newspaper
work, the fresh standpoint."
"What hour shall I report?" answered Lor-
raine.
"You might report to Mrs. Deland for a
week or so at eight in the morning After
that, when you have the idea, you will find it
more convenient to keep a day ahead, and turn
in your copy by ten," he answered, turning
away from a look of such gratitude that even
he, hardened newspaper man that he was, found
himself remembering and smiling over it.
Lorraine took her car trying to realize that
her career had begun, but found herself think-
ing less of her own amazing good fortune than
of Mary Deland, gracious, wonderful Mary
Deland, as different from all other women as
if she belonged to a new type. It seemed to
16
UNDER THE HARROW
Lorraine that while the ordinary New York
countenance might be called the face militant,
Mary Deland's was the face triumphant. The
usual face is a fighting face; the grim mouth,
the lines, the alert eyes, the repression, the
mask that slips now and then; most of us,
for few are non-combatants, show the signals
of war in our faces. The flag droops at half-
mast, it is shot to ribbons, it is trai'ed in the
dust, it is hauled down, it is reversed; sometimes
it is the black flag, sometimes the white; some-
times it is the warning yellow of the plague
ancf sometimes the fluttering red of the auc-
tioneer. Lorraine felt that she knew the fight-
ing face in all its moods, but this woman was
different. Her white forehead seemed the fit-
ting symbol of the lofty soul that dwelt within,
her sweet lips and grave eyes were full of the
serenity of overcoming. Thinking of her, Lor-
raine was carried far past the corner where she
should have left her car.
Ill
/"\NE story does not make an author, nor
provide an income, save in rare instances,
nor one small salary insure die turning of a win-
try discontent into glorious summer. Though the
girls contrived to live upon Lorraine's wages,
while they sought employment on their own
account, they both rebelled.
"We can't go on this way, living on Lor-
raine," said Hope one gloomy afternoon turn-
ing away from her typewriter and gathering up
her manuscript. "It's outrageous. She could
get along fairly well on what she makes, but
this thing of taking care of two able-bodied
women is too much."
"I know," said Bess dismally, looking up
from the table that was strewn with her card-
board, and poising her pen in mid-air to the
imminent danger of her last sketch. "I sup-
pose I ought to go home, as Mrs. Willis says.
Did you hear her this morning? Anybody
would think we were Barn urn's ten-thousand-
18
1MDER THE HARROW
dollar beauties to listen to her go on about the
frmpratimn ind uirfjBi Tifcirh thn rky nrniiiffi
for the good looking. She spent at least {fifteen
nunutes asajiung me that the one thing she
and the late LjinrjMrd ewer agreed upon was
that this show was not worth die pace of
aAnksJMij and that aD its three rings wouldn't
fiiiniA sawdust c noiiffi ID stnnr onr don,, and
after k was stuffed k would be nothing but
sawdust. Oh, is that you, Lorraine ?"
** Yes, and I'm glad I amrcd in time to hear
that disquisition on sawdust. If there B a
class of people on earth lor whom I ha*r no
use, k*s die crowd who mourn when they find
dieir dofls stuffed wkh sawdust. Whfle my
doll has anything in k I shall not coonplam. It
is only when she hangs, hmp and iat, wkh
nothing to pin her dotfacs to and dancing
china limbs, that yon ait going to hear die
outcry of my anguished souL What do yon
cipcct in a fijtry~nine-cent doD ?""
"Marked down from two eigjhiy-lour/* added
Hope.
"And dear at any price," said a race from
the doorway.
UNDER THE HARROW
The girls turned in the dull twilight, and
Lorraine flung open the door. Their unex-
pected guest was a little old lady, with near-
sighted eyes, peering through thick-lensed
glasses. She was dressed in the hodden gray
of the Quaker, and a black and tan dog was at
her heels.
"I beg your pardon," she said. "I rapped
twice, but you did not hear me, and the door
was ajar, and I couldn't help overhearing your
conversation. My name is Brent, and I'm the
oldest of the Heavenly Twins. My sister Eliza
is only sixty, and there's just as much sawdust
in our dolls as there ever was."
Her manner was so quaint and her ac-
cent so cheery that the girls drew toward
her as if she were more promising than the
sullen stove. "Perhaps," said Lorraine,
politely offering her a chair, "you can tell
these tiresome children how to keep the saw-
dust in their dolls."
"Or how to keep one's sawdust and eat it
too," said Bess. "That's the rub, and one
does grow hungry now and then. Can you
tell us anything about a sawdust diet?"
20
UNDER THE HARROW
"Certainly," said Miss Brent. "Dear, dear,
but it is shameful the way the classics are
neglected. Have you never heard of the
* Old person of Crewd,
Who said, We use sawdust for food ;
It is cheap by the ton,
And it nourishes one,
And that's the main object of food ' ? "
"I wonder where one could find the nearest
carpenter shop," said Lorraine reflectively.
"Miss Brent, you behold before you three
persons of undoubted genius. One of us has
written a book which has been called a classic;
as nobody reads it, when it gets old enough it
may get into that category. We know we are
geniuses because we seldom have enough to
eat, while mere mediocrity goes forth and or-
ders steak and onions. We live in a garret,
never have any new clothes and, much to our
regret, we are devoted to art for art's sake; at
least we can't get anything else for it."
"That sounds like a true bill," said Miss
Brent. "What do you do ?"
"We do various things. Hope would have
liked to tread the histrionic boards, but owing
21
UNDER THE HARROW
to her entire lack of vanity I can't persuade
her to try, and so she 'ekes out a miserable
existence' that's the right expression, isn't it ?
as a producer of 'literacheur,' which is also
my avocation. We have done some things of
great brilliance. The reason it is so dark is
that yesterday Hope found some stamps and
sent off all our efforts. Usually our apartment
looks like the grotto in a pantomime, lit solely
by the effulgence of our unpublished works.
We mean to keep a few on hand to save kero-
sene, but Hope is so extravagant."
"Never mind," said Bess, "some of them
will be back soon."
"The infant prodigy who has just spoken,"
continued Lorraine, "hankers to 'paint on a
ten-league canvas with brushes of camel's hair/
but so far her chromos usually come back, save
when they are sent with some soul-thrilling
tale of Hope's, and sold on the strength of the
story."
"Which do you have the best returns from ?"
asked Miss Brent curiously.
"The quickest? I think Harpers is about
as reliable as any of them. The Century is
22
UNDER THE HARROW
prompt. Sometimes they come back from
McClures in two weeks, and I've had them
back from the Cosmopolitan in ten days. The
Atlantic takes a little longer, but they let you
down with a personal letter that encourages
you to send something else. The rest average
along from two weeks to a month. We are
small prophets, but we get reasonably quick
returns."
"I don't think so," said Hope with a dis-
satisfied air. "It takes over a year for a story
to reach the ash-barrel. Publishers have no
right to waste so much time. Why can't they
return things sooner ? At this rate my ash-
barrel will not be half full when I make my
great hit."
"I have a friend in California who says all
the big magazines keep agents at the Mississippi
River to meet his manuscript and turn it back;
but you'll have to explain about the ash-barrel.
I thought writers wanted publishers to keep
things," said Miss Brent.
"That's quite the old-fashioned idea," said
Hope. "Now the way is to get an ash-barrel
full of stories against the day of success. Don't
23
UNDER THE HARROW
you recall that delicious fable in Life of the
successful author and his ash-barrel ? It tells
how the critic goes forth to see what is the
matter with literature, and he finds a plump
old gentleman sitting on a pile of laurels
selling stuff marked D. W. T. declined with
thanks out of a barrel he filled before he
grew famous. After one gets the laurels he can
sell anything, but it is against the rules of the
Amalgamated Order of Authors to put any-
thing into the ash-barrel until it has been sent
to thirteen places. Any one doing so is likely to
lose his working card and be fined by the union."
"But why thirteen?" asked Miss Brent. "I
thought thirteen was an unlucky number."
"Well, don't you think it's pretty unlucky to
have a story come back thirteen times ?" asked
Lorraine.
"Oh, yes, of course!" answered Miss Brent,
"it looks that way, but then that's another
sign of genius. 'Vanity Fair' was rejected by
twenty publishers, and Thackeray brought it
out himself. ' Sartor Resartus ' went the rounds.
'Tom Jones' failed until is was dramatized.
At least a dozen publishers refused 'Uncle
24
UNDER THE HARROW
Tom's Cabin.' 'Innocents Abroad' was de-
clined by all the standard publishers and brought
out as a subscription book. It took two years
to sell 'Ben Hur,' and 'Lorna Doone' made
its success after it had been out a dozen years.
Miss Corelli's 'Romance of Two Worlds' was
refused by all of Bentley's readers, including
Hall Caine."
"I call that poetic justice," laughed Lorraine.
" Do you remember how Carolyn Wells brackets
the two of them ?
'To the masses should our classes offer Ibsen when we find
Mr. Caine and Miss Corelli better please the massy mind ? '
But you must be following the literary trail
yourself or you wouldn't have so many of these
consoling facts in mind."
Miss Brent blushed a charming pink. "Yes,"
she said bravely, "that is, I'm not, but I'd like
to be. That's how I come to be here. An old
gentleman, that I'm in the habit of pestering,
tells me that what my work needs is editing,
and he suggested that if Miss Townsend would
undertake this for me that I have some things
that might do. I shall not mind how dis-
25
UNDER THE HARROW
couraging you are," she went on valiantly, turn-
ing to Lorraine. "Do you remember how
Thackeray asked Jerrold if it was true that he
had said 'The Virginians' was the worst book
he had ever written, and Jerrold answered,
'No, I said it was the worst book anybody ever
wrote' ? And then there was the lunatic I beg
your pardon, my dear, no offence to you who
called 'The Wreck of the Grosvenor' 'a cata-
logue of ship's furniture,' and the reviewer who
said Byron could never be a poet. You can
call my scribbling anything you like; so far
no one has been willing to call it at all except
Peter Bright, and he only reads it because we
used to go to school together. Can I bring the
articles to-morrow ? Will you really be so good
as to go over them for me, for a consideration,
of course ?"
Lorraine hesitated. "I don't know that I
can be of any use to you," she said honestly.
"I have done a good deal of reviewing, but I
haven't done much editorial work, and don't
feel that my opinion is worth much."
"I'll be satisfied," said Miss Brent. "I'd
like to come anyhow. I'm fond of geniuses."
26
UNDER THE HARROW
She shook hands all round, and Lorraine saw
her down the dark stairway. A carriage was
waiting in the narrow street, to the great in-
terest of the neighbors. It seemed darker and
colder after she had gone. The girls held the
lamp at the top of the stairs and waited Lor-
raine's return.
"What do you think she is?" asked Hope.
" I believe she is a district visitor from a college
settlement, looking for a chance to improve our
minds and ask us to hear some good music."
"Maybe she's a city missionary," said Bess
doubtfully.
"She might be the committee-woman for this
ward," said Lorraine, who hailed from Denver,
"but she isn't. She is our fairy godmother. I
have just tucked her into a large pumpkin
drawn by four fat white rats and she has vanished.
You just wait and see. Things are going to be
better for us and that right early. There was
no condescension about her, or any effort to lend
us aid and comfort and the price of a meal."
"And it was Uncle Peter who sent her!"
added Bess, as if this alone constituted a guar-
antee of good faith.
27
IV
TN April there came an upheaval in the office
where Lorraine was employed, and the new
city editor promptly discontinued her daily
story. "Come around in a week or so," he
said gruffly; "there may be something then, but
not now."
Lorraine turned to leave the office, sick at
heart and utterly discouraged, and meeting Mary
Deland in the elevator they went out together.
For a long time they walked in silence, then
turned in at Trinity Churchyard.
"It's hard," Mary said at last. "It's dread-
fully hard for a woman to do newspaper work,
if she is a real woman and feels it with her
heart. You've done well, Lorraine. It has
been really good work, with the elixir of life in
it, the one drop of human blood that makes
it vital; but Maxwell has a man he wants to
put on, and he has to show his authority some
way. He has let Hunter out, and Hunter is
the best political man we ever had; and Stan-
28
UNDER THE HARROW
ley, who knows more about music than any
critic we are likely to get. How he had the
heart to discontinue your little story I don't
know."
"City editors are not much afflicted with
enlargement of the heart," said Lorraine
gloomily. She was thinking of the attic and
the parlor cook and the girls, the girls, the attic
and the parlor cook, and the thought was
bitter.
" Some of them are kindness itself," answered
Mary. "The first city editor I ever worked for
was so patient and painstaking and so consid-
erate in the assignments he gave me that I was
spoiled for all the others. But, as you say,
Maxwell has no heart. The boys in the office
say he has no stomach even."
"What!" cried Lorraine in amazement.
"Yes, they say he doesn't eat; he stokes; he
gets up steam in the boiler, and instead of the
usual heart, lungs, et cetera, he has works which
he winds up every week or so. He is a good
machine, but woe to any one who gets caught
among the cogs. I can't stay here any longer,
Lorraine; there are other reasons, and I am
29
UNDER THE HARROW
going West. I have a good offer and shall
leave at once. Can't you go with me ? It is
always an advantage to have worked in New
York, and I think I might be able to help you
find an opening. We will take a few rooms
together, and perhaps we can find time
for something beside the 'demnition grind.'
I have a novel I want to finish. Will you come,
Lorraine ? There's no one else in the world
that I'd care to have, but I want you."
Lorraine looked up at the taller woman, her
guide and inspiration, and her eyes filled. She
longed to go, but she thought of Hope, working
away so faithfully; of Bess, whose drawings had
been accepted several times of late. Without
her they could not stay. The brimming eyes
brimmed over and the two women stole into
the quiet, dark church, and Lorraine had her
cry out on Mary's shoulder.
"Some day you will come," she said, "and
we will work together, and until then, if I don't
write often, don't think it is because I don't
care." She held up her shaking right hand,
an eloquent if silent tribute to her industry.
"They say it will be worse as time goes on,
30
UNDER THE HARROW
but every Sunday there will be something in
my stuff that will be for you, and you must try
and take that as a weekly letter, just as I shall
look for your stories, and feel that I am hear-
ing from you."
" I shall write to you whether you answer or
not, Mary Deland, and I shall read every line
of yours," said Lorraine; "and when the girls
don't need me any more I shall come to you. I
shall never forget what you have been to me,
what you have done for me. How can you
understand everything so perfectly ? How can
I ever learn that ?"
Mary Deland's face saddened. "I hope you
may never learn by experience," she said. "I
hope you will never purchase knowledge at so
high a price as I, for it has been dearly bought
and paid for in my heart's blood. Some day
I will tell you. Promise me, Lorraine, that
every day you will write something, even if it
is only twenty lines, into which you put the best
there is in you, for some day you are going to
do something worth while. I know this and
look forward to the time when I shall be very
proud of you."
UNDER THE HARROW
They kissed each other good-by there in the
somber church and separated at the gate, one
to pack trunks and buy tickets, the other to
face Mrs. Willis and the anxious faces of her
comrades
might as well face the cold facts, Lor-
raine," said Hope, "and they are cold,
chronically, clammily cold, like this stove,"
giving the coals a vicious poke. "You go with
Mary Deland and I'll go back to the farm and
teach school, or marry William Smith or some
other rural hero. I can't produce literature, or
if I can I can't sell it. I used to say if all else
failed I would start a waffle factory, for I can
make better waffles than anybody, but I haven't
the courage. If I tried it all the hens in the
country would strike, eggs would soar without
waiting to hatch wings, and I verily believe sour
milk would turn sweet, because I can't cook
with baking powder."
"But the mortgage?" asked Lorraine; "and
- it isn't exactly pleasant at home, is it ?"
"No," drearily. "A mortgage is like Nixon
Waterman's grass. 'I see it growing day by
day, it also grows by night,' and the interest
eats one out of house and home, but at this
33
UNDER THE HARROW
rate I shall never be able to help lift it. All I've
done by coming here is to relieve them of the
burden of my existence, and you've borne that
a good part of the time, which isn't fair. The
rent is due for another month and we haven't
anything ahead to speak of, and you know
Mrs. Willis."
"Stand her off for a few days," answered
Lorraine. "Tell her that 'rent is robbery.'
That will give her something to think about
and us a little more time."
"I've had time enough," answered Hope.
"After more than a year I haven't made good,
and I have no right to keep you here when you
can do so much better. If Bess can hang on
a little longer I am sure she will succeed, but
I can't see anything ahead for myself. I can
write some things fairly well, but it is work for
me; I don't love it as you do. I have the
dramatic instinct, I can see a situation, and if
I could say it I could make it sound real, but
it slips away before I can write the words. I'd
starve to death at it. Who's that ?"
There was a brisk rat-a-tat at the door and
Miss Brent came in, Rab at her heels. "Don't
34
UNDER THE HARROW
think me a professional eavesdropper," she said,
"but who is starving?"
"We haven't begun yet, at least not enough
to hurt," answered Lorraine; "but Hope is sure
she has sighted it right off our port quarter in
the fog. I'm delighted. It's a sure sign of
genius."
Miss Brent shook her head. "Don't you
ever believe such trash as that. Geniuses don't
starve because they are geniuses; they are
geniuses because they starve. It isn't necessary
to know any more about literature than I do
to see that it is suffering from fatty degenera-
tion."
"Don't try to reconcile us to our poverty,
Miss Brent," said Hope, laughing a trifle bit-
terly. "If we hanker after the flesh-pots of
Egypt it's only 'them spicy garlic smells' we're
thinking of, and our idea of riotous living is to
put cream on our porridge."
Lorraine adjusted a piece of paper over a
broken window pane and tried to stir the fire
to some sign of life, and Miss Brent sat in silent
communion with herself for several minutes.
"Girls," she said finally, "you are every one
35
UNDER THE HARROW
of you the owner of God-given genius, and
genius ought always to live in the attic and
keep its clothes in pawn, like Goldsmith or
Balzac. If it lives well for three days a month,
like Henri Miirger, it should starve the other
twenty-seven, as he did, or be without a sou,
as Gerard de Nerval usually was. I don't like
to interfere with the ways of Providence or lay
a straw in your pathway, but the truth is, our
attic is full of geniuses now, and there's noth-
ing left but the basement. There is a kitchen
and a big dining-room with a closet and a
pantry. The furnace is on that floor, so it is
always warm, and if you could cook and eat
in the kitchen, and fix your cots in the other
room, you might be very comfortable. We
don't use that part of the house any more, and
you would be more than welcome if you cared
to come; do you think you would like it?
Please don't be offended at the offer."
A question like that is too palpably absurd
for an answer. The two older girls precipitated
themselves upon Miss Brent, while Bess con-
tented herself with nearly hugging the life out
of Rab. There being nothing to wait for and
36
UNDER THE HARROW
no vast amount of household goods to move,
the transfer was made that very day, while
Mrs. Willis predicted dire disaster, and the
Heavenly Twins hovered over their new prote-
gees like two benevolent bantam hens, cluck-
ing encouragement and good will.
37
VI
'T~ S HE girls had been installed in the Brent
basement for several days before they re-
ceived a visit from the elder of the Heavenly
Twins.
"We didn't want you to think we should be
running in every hour in the day just because
we want to," she explained; "but Elise does
make such good cookies I just had to bring
you some." She put a heaped-up plate upon
the table and the girls fell to. Fortune had not
yet smiled upon them, but, even if she had,
cookies by a pound-cake recipe, and still
smoking hot from the oven, are fit food for
Fortune herself.
"Whichever of you writes a book first,
mes enfants," said Miss Brent, " if it has
anything about geniuses in it, is hereby noti-
fied that I want to write one chapter. No-
body need read it, and you can label it To
Be Skipped, but I want to write just one
chapter."
38
UNDER THE HARROW
"You shall," cried Hope and Lorraine in a
chorus. "And I'll illustrate it, if it is the only
picture in the book," added Bess; "but what is
it to be about ?"
"The advantages of hunger," answered the
old lady. "No, but seriously, I mean it; and
while you might not think it, I know something
about it myself. When Elise and I went to
Paris the first time we exhausted our allowance
long before the next remittance was due. We
did not know any one there, we were not very
wealthy, and we found ourselves confronted
with the problem of living three weeks on ten
francs. First we went without our breakfasts.
That is quite a fad now, but it was unheard of
then. However, the Continental breakfast isn't
much to go without when you've been accus-
tomed to Pennsylvania Dutch cooking, ham and
eggs, fried potatoes, cracked wheat, 'panhaus'
and buckwheat cakes pour dejeuner. Then we
took to eating bread and nuts and apples in our
room. How we did want some American cook-
ing, but we stretched out the ten francs, and at
the end of our three weeks were wiser and
healthier! And then, what do you think we
39
UNDER THE HARROW
did after all that experience ? When our money
came we went straight to the best restaurant
we knew and ate so much we were stupid for
two days. I've always felt certain that if we
had kept on short rations two weeks longer
Elise would have had her pictures on the line
and I might have achieved a place on the staff
of Figaro."
"Let me see, how long is it since we had a
wild orgy ? " mused Hope. " Last May, wasn't
it, Lorraine, when you sold your 'Cooperative
Mortgage,' and Bess, her 'Boy Fishing,' on the
same day ? I wanted to make them an eel pie,
Miss Brent. You know Sterne said he liked
nothing else so well, because you get so much
for your money. But they insisted on a tea-
bone, such a wasteful steak, and apple pie.
Now do you think geniuses ought to eat pie ?"
"Certainly not," laughed Miss Brent, "though
Goldsmith said rebellion would be impossible
if there were veal pie and whisky in every man's
house. Raphael and Correggio are my favor-
ites; they were vegetarians; and Murillo said
a man couldn't live on coarse food and have
the soul of an artist. But then, on the other
40
UNDER THE HARROW
hand, Schubert was given to consuming quan-
tities of corned beef and cabbage. Fancy writ-
ing that Serenade after a boiled dinner; and
Beethoven was addicted to pumpernickel and
ivienerwurst. But all this is preliminary. I
didn't mean to write the chapter now, or turn
it into a sermon, but Elise sent me down with
a discourse divided a la all Gaul; first to pre-
sent the cookies, second to say you are wel-
come to the use of a cook-book compiled as a
result of that ten-franc experience, and third
to ask you to * come to the festal board to-night,
for bright-eyed beauty will be there/ This
does not refer to Elise or me, but to our Blessed
Boys who are coming down to have coffee with
us and spend the evening. Now, having done
my best to take your appetites away, I hope
you will forgive me and be as hungry as pos-
sible. Come a few minutes before six."
"Didn't I say she was a fairy godmother?"
said Lorraine triumphantly, as the old lady's
quick steps died away upon the stair.
"And now that she has conjured up several
princes there can be no doubt about it," con-
cluded Bess.
VII
' I X HE evening was a most enjoyable one, as
they say in the society columns. Promptly
at seven o'clock the young men from the attic
arrived; there were three of them, Theodore
Erskine, as yet a briefless barrister; Louis
Lassalle, who had drifted from story to play
writing ; and Paul Garreck, who played sec-
ond violin in one of the minor theaters.
The fourth attic genius, Karl Prince, gener-
ally called Prince Karl, was to come later.
He was a student at Columbia, and had a
lecture on for the first of the evening.
After a little music the conversation drifted
naturally to the struggles of the artist, and when
the girls told of their difficulties in placing
stories, Louis said quickly, " If you think it is
hard to sell a story, you ought to try a play.
There's no comparison."
"I don't see how it can be much worse,"
said Lorraine, "except that it takes more
stamps."
42
UNDER THE HARROW
"Oh, I do!" Hope interrupted. "Doesn't
every leading lady want part of it rewritten,
and the denouement changed ? Doesn't the
soubrette object to her song, and the old man
insist on a touch of pathos ?"
"Yes," answered Louis, turning to her ap-
preciatively, "and the leading man doesn't think
the strong scene suited to him, and the villain
wants to know why you haven't had him say,
'Ha! I have it!' and the man who has been
hind legs in the dancing heifer of the last
pantomime is hurt if he is asked to say, 'My
lord, the carriage waits;' and the managers!
they tell you their sole aim in life is to en-
courage talent, but . I caught one of them
on the stage one afternoon just after rehearsal
and gave him my scenario. He was very fa-
vorably impressed, and then some one trotted
R. of c. and it was all u. p. with me simply
because he had an umbrella."
They all looked at him interrogatively, and he
went on: "Oh, it's unlucky! Another time I
had a curtain raiser that just suited a certain
leading lady; her manager said he knew she
would take it, and sent me to her. Just as
43
UNDER THE HARROW
soon as she saw the manuscript she nearly
fainted. It was written on manila paper, and
yellow is supposed to be a hoodoo to theatrical
people."
"Tell us some more," said Hope breathlessly.
"I love stage gossip."
The young fellow colored warmly. " It would
be pleasanter telling if it wasn't so monotonous.
I've been amused sometimes at the way these
actors love one another. I had an appoint-
ment with one of them whose name is pretty
well known, and incidentally mentioned another
of the fraternity to whom I had submitted a
play. 'Yes,' she said sweetly, 'Violet is a
dear girl; I'm awfully fond of Violet, but
isn't she getting just too fat for anything?'
Later on, when I saw Violet, I couldn't resist
the temptation to get her opinion of the other
lady, so I spoke of her work, whereupon the
second lady said, 'Oh, Mary is such a clever
woman! Don't you think her Mrs. Alving
wonderful ? But isn't she a back-yard fence
for looks!'"
"Did either of them take your play ?" asked
Hope.
44
UNDER THE HARROW
"No. I thought Violet was going to, and I
had an appointment with her manager and her
leading man to meet us after rehearsal. As
they were going over the play a cat jumped on
the stage, and nothing could budge the lady
after that."
"A harmless, necessary cat,'" quoted Hope.
The young fellow named Theodore, but called
Ted, laughed heartlessly and hummed still more
heartlessly, "'Oh, I thought he was a goner,
but the cat came back!' Was he like the poor
cat i' the adage, according to Mark Twain's
version, ' sicklied o'er with care ' ? Is the poor
creature dead now?"
Louis joined in the laughter. "I don't want
to bring down seven more years of bad luck,"
he said. "No, the cat went on his way rejoic-
ing, but when Violet got stranded I felt it
was a judgment on her. The cat was a warn-
ing not to reject my play."
"Literature is bad enough, as I know to my
sorrow," ventured Ted, "but the professions
are worse. There is a young doctor across the
hall from me, and we have frequently discussed
the singular freedom from sickness and liti-
45
UNDER THE HARROW
gation enjoyed by the people of Manhattan.
We have a wager as to which of us will suc-
cumb first, and the one who makes the first fee
is to give a dinner, if the fee is large enough to
pay for it. It is awful when one thinks of the
number of young people who are graduated an-
nually and turned out to starve. We have de-
cided that starvation should be set down among
the so-called natural deaths for professional
people."
"Yes," said Lorraine; "while the stamps
hold out to burn, the manuscript may not re-
turn. At least we can go after the editor and
make the welkin ring with the tramp of the
postman bringing back the unavailable."
"I saw a good thing and cut it out the other
day," laughed Ted. "It is from Frank Leslie's,
telling how they submitted their prospectus
to 'A proud and Independent Author,' who
rejected the same without even one word of
encouragement, but only the following (type-
written) slip:
"I regret that the enclosed is not just suitable
for my purpose. It is accordingly returned to you
with the thanks of
THE AUTHOR.
46
UNDER THE HARROW
; * While Authors cannot hold themselves re-
sponsible for magazine advertisements received
by them, they will endeavor to return those they
do not find interesting, if stamped and addressed
envelopes are enclosed for that purpose.'
"The article goes on to say:
" ' We will not go so far as to say that the
authors are joined together in a conspiracy' to
keep certain magazines from getting their names
before the public, though sometimes we have
. reason to suspect that such is the case; but we
do claim that authors as a rule are biased and
narrow and arbitrary in their judgment of maga-
zines, and we have about given up hope of
receiving justice or strictly impartial treatment
at their hands.'
"Now isn't that richness ?"
In the general laughter Miss Brent turned
to Lorraine. "My dear, what was that stuff
you read me about the 'How to' articles in
the magazines ?"
"Oh, don't!" objected Lorraine; "it was such
a personal thing, Miss Brent. I don't mean I
wrote it, but I think it would hit us all. Is
there any one here who has never read a letter
beginning, 'We regret to be obliged to re-
turn '?"
47
UNDER THE HARROW
Miss Elise broke the stony silence. "I never
did," she said; "but as I never could remem-
ber to enclose stamps, my manuscripts never
came back."
"That's a new way to prevent the return of
one's yarns," said Ted, "but let's have the
poem by all means;" and, amidst laughter and
applause, Lorraine recited the following gem,
long since pasted in the scrap-book of every
aspiring genius in the literary field :
"Now's the time the bookstore windows show a most en-
gaging lot
Of the 'How to' books and essays telling How and How
to Not
How to know the purple Pansy when you meet it in the
Wood;
How to tell the Poison Toadstool, when it Is or Isn't Good;
How to recognize a Sparrow, Fighting in the Garden dirt;
How to Pick out Proper Patterns for a Woodland Walking
Skirt;
How to feed the shining Goldfish; How to know the
Cuckoo's call;
How to deal with Mr. Burglar when you meet Him in the
Hall;
How to play at Table Tennis; How to Ping and How to
Pong;
How to do artistic Fretwork; How to Write a Funny Song;
48
UNDER THE HARROW
How to bet on Running Horses, so you'll surely, surely Win;
How to walk Home in the evening after Losing all your Tin;
How to Win a timid Maiden, with a Soft Persuasive
Coo;
How to make her think she's got to Leave her Happy Home
for you
Though I've searched the bookshop windows high and low,
from morn till night,
I have never yet discovered How to sell the stuff I write!"
"Why dpesn't somebody write it?" sighed
Hope; while Ted, looking over the group, said
reflectively: "There are enough of us to try
Mark Twain's painter plot. Don't you recol-
lect it ? There are the usual young men study-
ing art in Paris, with starvation staring them
in the face, also as usual. They cannot help
seeing how much it helps a genius to die, so
they decide that the one who does the best
work must be sacrificed. Don't be alarmed.
They slay him for publication only and fill the
papers with stories of his talent and his poverty
until Millet and Bougereau are not to be men-
tioned in the same day. This enables them to
sell his pictures for enough to provide them
all with ease and comfort, and whenever they
get a little hard up they 'discover' another of
49
UNDER THE HARROW
his immortal canvases and sell it for a fabu-
lous sum."
Lorraine shook her head. "I don't see how
we could work that out in literature," she said.
"Bess draws and paints too, but none of the
rest of us do, and I don't think it would go
with stories, but here is a plan of mine -
Just then the front door opened. "It's
Prince Karl," said Miss Elise; "bring him in,
Teddy, before Lorraine tells her stratagem for
beguiling the unwary publisher."
The young fellow who came in was younger
than most of the others, barely twenty, and,
without being in the least handsome, there was
something so fine about his bearing and so
noble in his face that one understood why it
seemed natural to call him Prince Karl. After
the introductions, Miss Brent explained, and
Lorraine continued:
"I want to form an authors' conspiracy; let
us agree on some plot that has enough merits
so that we can each work it out in our own
way. Bess can illustrate for all of us, and
when the stories are done send them to the
same editor. He might take one of them, and
50
UNDER THE HARROW
in that way we would find out, by sending
them to different editors as fast as they came
back, the kind of story that is likely to be
available."
"I'd like that," said the newcomer eagerly;
"and I heard a story the other night that I
think would give a fine subject. There was a
man who was determined to commit suicide;
he had come to the conclusion life wasn't
worth living; he was the last of his family, in
poor health and with not much money. Just
as he was buying the poison a chance came for
him to practically give up his life; never mind
how, but it seems to me there might be a lot
made out of that situation. He must give or
be willing to give his life away. Would that
do, Miss Lorraine?"
"Splendidly," she answered; but Bess shiv-
ered.
"I don't want to illustrate your stories!"
she said.
"It is a bit gruesome," said Louis.
"Do you think so?" answered Lorraine.
"Death doesn't seem any more tragic than life.
Do you think it is, Miss Brent ?"
UNDER THE HARROW
The old lady readjusted her glasses. "I
confess," she said slowly, "that death doesn't
strike me as particularly cheerful. Maybe you
could make it so in fiction. I've often won-
dered how we would go if we had our choice.
What would you choose, Ted ?"
"With the flag flying and the bugle call
sounding," he answered without a moment's
hesitation.
"And you, Paul?"
"Like Mirabeau, to the sound of exquisite
music."
Louis shook his head. "I'm frankly a
coward," he said. "I don't like even thinking
of it. If I can't slip away in my sleep I'd
rather go with some one I loved in some para-
lyzing disaster, flood or earthquake."
"Hope?"
"Oh, not that way," she said dreamily; "but
on a May morning in the country, with the
scent of the clover fields coming through the
open window, and the song of the meadow lark
and all the sense of the renewal of life."
Karl smiled. "Death ought to be a conflict,"
he said. "I don't believe in dying till one has
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to, unless one dies for something. Then it
wouldn't make much difference. I don't want
to 'easy live and quiet die.' Guillotine or rifle
shot, flood or flame, so one dies for a cause
or to save some one else, it's all the same to
me."
Miss Brent turned to Bess, who held her hand
and drew closer to her. "Like Louis," she
whispered, "Mr. Lassalle, I mean, with some
one I loved."
The old lady patted her shoulder. "Well,
Lorraine, I begin to see infinite possibili-
ties in your plan. How are you going to
meet the grizzly monster, if you have a choice
in the matter?" While she spoke lightly there
was an undercurrent of feeling in her voice that
did not escape Lorraine's sharp intuitions.
"Any way that is quick," she answered. "I
am a coward about pain, but I don't dread
death, and sometimes I rather like to look
forward to it, just as I do to coming home,
now we have a home to come to. It is the door
to happiness and peace, where those we love
are waiting for us; why should one dread it?
You'll see before the stories are done."
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There was a general agreement, and then
the little party broke up, the Blessed Boys as-
cending to their eyrie and the God-given ones
to their burrow, while the Heavenly Twins laid
heavy wagers as to who would have the best
story in the contest, and laughed again over
the jests of the evening and then slept the sleep
of the just.
54
VIII
"HVO or three weeks later as Lorraine, who
had been taken back on the paper, was
hurrying home through the gathering darkness,
she heard quick steps behind her that seemed
familiar.
"Can I be a friend in need?" asked the
boy called Prince Karl, taking her umbrella
and substituting his more ample one. "It's
a miserable night and we go the same
way."
Lorraine gave up her packages with a sigh
of relief, and Karl stowed them away in his
capacious overcoat. Then she tucked her hand
under his arm and they went on. "I seem to
be the friend in need," she laughed. "I need
everything, beginning with pockets. Have you
done your euthanasia story yet ?"
"I'm glad of a chance to talk to you about it,"
he said, "for it isn't turning out as I planned
at all. I believe I have a story, but I can't
seem to lay hold of it."
55
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"That sounds as if it were alive," she said
encouragingly. "A real story is apt to develop
characteristics of its own, and go off on tan-
gents the author never thought of when he
began it. Can't you come down and read it
to me ?"
"I'm afraid of the others," he answered with
boyish shyness.
"Bess is going to an art lecture with Ted.
By the way, has he always been deeply inter-
ested in art ? And Hope is going to rehearse
something with Louis and Paul in Miss Brent's
parlor, so we shall have the coast to ourselves.
I'd like to have you read it to me; it makes me
feel so vain and self-important!"
As they turned into the infinitesimal front
yard, she said impulsively: "Come down and
have supper with us. There's plenty, for I'm
at work again and Hope has sold a serial and
Bess has some illustrating. I'm writing up
' Men Who Carry Their Wards.' Coming from
Denver I know a ward from a precinct and
the relation of a caucus to a primary, which is a
source of never-ending amusement to the city
editor. Do come; the girls will be delighted."
56
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They went into the basement hallway and
turned in at the door of the room that served
as a workshop and laid aside their wet things,
and then Karl was ushered into the kitchen-
dining-room combination. Bess was cracking
the crisp baked potatoes as she heaped them
on the platter; there was a jar of steaming
baked apples, and Hope was beating the eggs
for the omelet. It was a jolly supper, and when
it was over Lorraine, who by virtue of her
quarter of a century posed as a venerable
person, despatched Bess to her lecture and
Hope to her play, while she washed the dishes
and Karl dried them. Already she had grown
fond of the household; they were all dear and
different perhaps Prince Karl was the most
different.
As he sat reading by the drop-light while
Lorraine rested in the cozy corner, she watched
his fine, clearly cut face, full of enthusiasm,
with his whole soul in the story he was reading
to her. As he went on, Lorraine put the pil-
lows away and sat up very straight. When he
finished and looked up for her verdict, she was
leaning towards him with shining eyes. "You
57
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mustn't try to make a short story of that,"
she said eagerly. "No wonder it rebels and
refuses to be cut down to fit your Procrustean
requirements. You must make a novel of it,
and it will be a great one."
He looked at her incredulously. "A book,
why, I couldn't write a book," he said.
"But you can, you have, you are going to,"
she cried delightedly. "Out West before I
came here to burn up the East River I used
to do reviews, and even if I can't make litera-
ture myself I know it when I hear it, and that's
a great story. There are plenty of ways to
elaborate the suicide idea in a repellent or
commonplace manner, but your hero comes
out of the shadows and makes of death a
shining mark, and his exit is splendid. There
are situations that transcend mere tragedy."
She paused as if ransacking her brain for an
illustration, and he waited silently. Finally she
went on: "Hugo wrote the greatest suicide
stories that I know of; we don't think of them
that way because they are so much beside, but
his heroes generally take suicidal risks or de-
liberately commit suicide. You think I am
58
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mistaken, don't you ? In ' The Toilers of the
Sea' the hero goes to the great chair-like rock
and waits for the tide to cover him. In 'The
Man who Laughs' Gwynplaine walks off the
deck of the vessel into the sea. In 'Ninety-
three' the old count returns to rescue the
children from the tower when it means certain
capture and death, and is released by his
nephew who takes his place under the guillotine
the next morning, while his friend who has
voted for his execution shoots himself as the
knife falls. And Javert after his life has been
saved by Jean Valjean, and he learns that the
ex-galley-slave has rescued Marius at the barri-
cades and carried him through the Great Sewer,
unable to fulfil his duty by arresting Jean
Valjean, kills himself. Every one of these cases
possesses the elements of the highest tragedy, but
those in which the cause of the action is merely
a personal equation do not compare with the
others in grandeur. Gauvain is infinitely finer
than his friend, Gavroche than Gwynplaine.
Just as life 'persists,' as the doctors say, even
when there is no health in us, so there is some-
thing in our nature that revolts against the idea
59
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of dying for nothing. One may die for his
country or for a belief or for another, and go
down to his long rest justified. Hugo showed
that he could be the heroic as well as write it
when he published the book that sent him into
exile, the old Roman alternative for death. The
charge of the Light Brigade was magnificent,
but it wasn't war; Leonidas and his three
hundred achieved immortality without an in-
terposing blunder. Thermopylae was magnifi-
cent, but it was war too. There are no more
splendid suicides in history than these, yet are
they to be compared with the awful heroism
of Father Damien going to Molakai to live and
die with the lepers there ? Courage like that
makes the greatest soldier that ever lived a
mere gladiator in comparison. Don't you see ?
Your story has this finer quality and plot and
imagination -
"But I haven't any style," he said, still
unconvinced.
"Never mind about that," she answered.
"Style, when you come to think of it, is like
the top step that one misses in the dark be-
cause it isn't there. Doesn't it seem foolish to
60 /
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read directions to read Addison or Stevenson
or Ruskin to improve one's style ? Read them
for a lesson in the use of words, for artistic
proportion, for pleasure, and then write your
own story in your own way, and if you succeed
in saying what you want to say, you have
found the style you had to have for that par-
ticular story. But hurry, hurry! I do so want
to know a successful author, and think of the
fun we shall have reading the reviews!"
"I'm afraid even to think of them," he said.
"Do the critics read the books they review ?"
"Yes, generally. When you think of what
is expected of most of them I wonder they are
as lenient as they are. Very few of them are
as gentle as Bryant; you know, when the book
was impossible, or should have been, he used
sometimes to say, * but the cover is very pretty.'
Just try reading a book a day and you'll have
lots of sympathy for the critics. Besides, one
doesn't have to read the whole of a story to-
know whether the author can write English,
is ordinarily painstaking, and has a publisher
who knows something of typographical beauty.
Once I reviewed a story that was accounted
61
UNDER THE HARROW
one of the season's successes, and yet, after
describing the arrival of a carriage-load of
people at a country inn during a pouring rain,
with roads almost impassable with mud, his
heroine trips lightly down the same road the
next morning and meets the villain who, after
staring her out of countenance, drives on 'en-
veloped in a cloud of dust.' A thing like that
prejudices the reviewer."
"I should think it would," answered the
boy, " but it doesn't seem as if any one
could make such a mistake if he re-read the
story."
"It doesn't follow. Homer nods sometimes,
you know. Who was the Chicago girl who
wrote the viking story a few years ago ? It was
gorgeously gotten up, and in the advance no-
tices it was said the young lady had spent
several years studying Norse customs, yet she
draped her viking halls in black velvet. How-
ever, when Richard Hovey dressed his Round
Table people in the same fabric, she might be
forgiven."
"Was that wrong?" he asked. "I never
thought anything about that sort of thing."
62
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"Yes, because velvet wasn't made until a
good many centuries later. According to crit-
ics one must be 'convincing' - -what is it Van
Dyke says about seeing the local color without
being blind to the inner light ? The local color
should not be laid on with a trowel, so thick
that the inner light can't shine through, and if
it is one of the strong features of the story it
should be correct. Otherwise it can't be con-
vincing. The author who has a pleasure party
drive to Cheyenne Mountain and over Marshal
Pass the same afternoon may be a master of
English, but he has something to learn of
Colorado distances."
"I don't see how I can make my story con-
vincing," he said, still doubtful. "The very
heart of it is a legend, a myth, something that
couldn't happen."
"That may be, but nevertheless you have
made it real; you have made it seem as if it
could happen. Now, Henry James could take
the legend of Mary's little lamb and make it
seem as if it couldn't happen. That's the other
kind of genius. But go on with it while the
spirit moves you. There's many a cake that
63
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remains dough for the lack of turning at the
right time!"
The boy thanked her, and, gathering up his
manuscript, ascended to the attic to go to
work with renewed vigor and a great burning
of the midnight gas.
64
IX
*T'M glad we're well insured," said Miss
Elise. " Emmy, this house fairly coruscates;
genius to left of us, genius to right of us
"Geniuses in front of us volleyed and thun-
dered," added Miss Brent, as the sound of a
dramatic climax and the wild screech of a violin
were drowned in a burst of laughter.
"I wonder if they'd mind an audience?"
said Miss Elise. "Karl is trying his new story
on Lorraine; Bess and Ted have gone some-
where; and I pine to do something wild and
riotous and exciting. Let's go hear Louis'
play."
"Maybe they won't want us," said Miss
Emma.
"I'll ask them," said Miss Elise bravely; but
there was no need, for Paul was already at the
door, with his beloved violin tucked under his
arm, requesting their attendance.
"We want an umpire," he said. "The man-
ager and the star have reached a deadlock
65
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over a piece of business; I agree with the
star, but the manager says the orchestra has
no business to have opinions, so we'd like to
have you come and decide for us."
The audience, pleased and excited, took the
box seats on the sofa, the orchestra struck up,
and the little play progressed to its tragic con-
clusion, for does not youth always love
tragedy ?
The plot was simple, the old story of the
lover who loves and rides away; they are both
players; the deserted woman returns to their lit-
tle garret home to find the sunshine gone, and a
cold brief note that leaves no doubt of her fate.
Five years later, the player has made a Parisian
success when in doubt of the entire moral-
ity of anything set it in Paris and the for-
gotten woman reappears, asking for an engage-
ment in his company. She meets the star.
"Can you act ?" he asks, "do you dance ? Pos-
sibly you sing?" In her poverty and distress
he fails to recognize the girl he has betrayed
and left behind; spurred by the memory of
her love and her sorrow, she answers by pro-
posing a pantomime. Quickly she suggests her
66
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stage setting, and then portrays the return of
the young woman, as she comes singing into
the room, and bends over the cradle, cooing to
her little one. Then, still talking to the baby,
she lays the cloth as if to prepare the supper,
and going to the chiffonier finds the letter that
tells her the end of all her hopes and dreams
has come.
Up to this time the man has been an inter-
ested spectator; then memory asserts itself and
conscience dashes the scales from his eyes. It
was at this point that the author of the play
and his leading lady hopelessly differed. There
was a stage fall, and Louis insisted that the
O *
first thought of the young mother would be for
her child, all she had left in the world, and that
she should fall with her arms outstretched
across the cradle, while the false lover starts
toward her in conscience-stricken grief.
Hope scouted the idea. "It is too soon/'
she said. "She has forgotten the very exist-
ence of the child, everything in the world except
the one ereat, overwhelming loss that has left
o * o
the world a blank, striking her dumb and para-
lyzing her brain."
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" But wouldn't she turn to her child ? She is
a mother as well as a wife," insisted Louis;
"it seems to me the natural thing would be for
her to cling to what she had left."
"No," said Hope stubbornly, "not a young
woman, who loves with all the first fervor and
passion of her nature; perhaps an older woman,
with three or four children, might think of them
first, for it would be a common grief and shame
that they must share, but not a young girl
to whom, even yet, the child is a kind of a
marvel, dearer because of its father than of
itself. Moreover, you must remember that this
woman is playing her life; she is asking for her
place in his heart, not for a place in his troupe.
The appeal must be direct; nothing can come
between. She ought actually to faint; that can-
not be a part of her play, but the culmination
of her soul's tragedy."
Still Louis remained half-unconvinced. "I
don't believe a woman can forget her child,"
he said; "and wouldn't the child itself con-
stitute the strongest claim she could make
upon the man ? Don't you think so, Miss
Elise?"
68
UNDER THE HARROW
"No," she said, shaking her head; "I believe
Hope is right, but I can give you better author-
ity than either of us. Don't you remember
Tennyson's poem ?
'Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swoon'd, nor utter'd cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
"She must weep or she will die." '
She never thinks of the child until
' Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee
Like summer tempest came her tears
"Sweet my child, I live for thee.'"
"I surrender," said Louis; "I'm not only
outnumbered, but outclassed. I don't know as
much about women as Tennyson did, or about
anything else, for that matter. Shall we go
on?"
The players took their places again, the
audience settled back on the sofa, and Paul
took up the score, playing very softly the old
tune of "The Mill-Wheel." One could almost
hear the words:
" For she I love is faithless,
And broken is the ring."
69
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The little scene of the finding of the letter
was well played, and then, as if it took some
time for her to grasp the dreadful truth, she
stood, holding the letter, then fell slowly, in-
ertly.
The sisters and the orchestra and the author
applauded wildly, then the sisters looked at
each other.
"Yes, it does remind me " said Miss Emma,
and stopped
"Of Mary Anderson's fall in 'A Winter's
Tale,'" completed Miss Elise.
They had all adjourned to the study and were
gathered about the fireplace. "Tell us about
it," said Louis.
"Oh, it was years ago; she was playing
Hermione, a wonderful, statuesque Hermione.
It was after the king has refused to believe the
oracle, in the trial scene, and the servant comes
in to tell the death of their son. It was the last
drop in her cup of bitterness. She raised her
arm, veiled her face, and seemed to melt and
fall like a snow image, so slowly, so quietly.
But you are too young ever to have seen that,"
concluded Miss Elise.
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"My mother saw it," said Hope. "She said
it was the most effective fall she had ever seen
to portray a psychological grief. She taught
me how to do it. Of course it would not fit
many scenes."
"Do you know," said Miss Emma, "you play
wonderfully well ? If Louis could always be
certain of so sympathetic an interpreter he
need not wait long for success. Have you ever
thought of going on the stage ?"
"You ought to," added Louis.
"I never used to think of anything else,
till my mother died," the girl answered.
" Maybe you have seen her, Miss Brent ? She
was Rose Farron."
"Of course we've seen her!" exclaimed both
the old ladies. Then simultaneously, "Can you
ever forget her Peg Woffington, Emmy ? " " Did-
n't she break your heart as Camille, Elise?"
Hope sighed. "I think she was very good,"
she said, "but I never saw her on the stage.
When she married she retired, and my father
was jealous of the old life. I am afraid they
were not always happy, for sometimes she longed
to go back; I was born with that longing in
UNDER THE HARROW
my blood. We lived in a big, rambling farm-
house, and she made a companion of me, and
we 'play-acted' up in the garret, everything she
could find that had a child in it, scraps and
scenes from 'Odette,' 'Miss Multon,' 'Jane
Eyre,' 'Richard Third.' I remember how I
used to struggle with Arthur's appeal to Hubert;
it was so real that it almost gave me hysterics,
so after that she made little plays from fairy
stories, and we were happy, so happy ! She
set me reading and learning plays. I knew
most of ' Hamlet ' and 'Much Ado' and 'Romeo
and Juliet' and 'Richard' by heart when I was
twelve. Then the other two babies came, and
when I was sixteen she died, and I had to take
care of the children. I used to act and recite
for them, but that was the end of my hopes and
plans." She stopped, lost in memories both
sweet and bitter. "Then my father married
again; my stepmother didn't mind the little
children, but a grown stepdaughter was in the
way and we didn't agree about the cooking.
I hate salt-rising bread!" snapped Hope, with
the vindictive force of a sudden hateful memory.
"So I came to New York, with my mother's
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books, her old plays, her clothes, and a few
hundred dollars, and nothing else."
"And couldn't you find any company that
suited you?" asked Miss Brent.
"Any of them would have suited me, but
remember, I had no experience; I'd never seen
twenty plays in my life. I had no acquaintance
with theater people, no money, no influence.
I wasn't even beautiful, nor young, not to
begin stage work at least."
"But you have talent," said Miss Elise. "I
should have thought they would have been glad
to have you."
"There are hundreds of girls already on the
stage who have not only talent, but a fairly
good idea of stage business," answered Hope.
'They know how to make their exits and their
entrances; why should a manager pass them
by to take up an utterly unknown quantity ?
I had written for the local papers, and sold a
few stories and magazine articles. I had an
introduction to the editor of a Sunday-school
paper from our rector, and I made enough
writing short stones and serials to keep me
alive. That was where I met Bess. She was
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UNDER THE HARROW
furnishing puzzle pictures for it. One night
while I was waiting for my bowl of bread and
milk and correcting proofs on the restaurant
table, Lorraine came in and sat opposite me.
Presently she took out a roll of copy and began
revising it, and so we fell to talking, and pres-
ently when her order came she made me share
with her, and nothing will ever taste so good
again as that sirloin. We used often to meet
after that. Sometimes I paid for the steak and
sometimes she did and sometimes we had hash,
and finally we went to housekeeping, and then
we took Bess in, and so we went along until
you found us."
"But why don't you try now?" Louis and
Paul asked in the same breath.
Hope shook her head. "It's too late. I
don't want to add one more to the list of those
who make a living by acting just as they might
by plain sewing or bookkeeping. I have gone
to the theater whenever I could spare the money.
I sat in the cheap seats, but as I forgot every-
thing after the curtain went up it was not such
a hardship to me as it would be to you. With
my feeling about the stage, its fineness and
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UNDER THE HARROW
dignity and mission, it seems presumption for
me to think of it, for I wouldn't want to act
unless I could do really good work; it is a
vocation, not an avocation."
"Have you ever thought what kind of a part
you'd like to play best?" asked Miss Brent.
"Yes, but it wasn't always the same. When
I saw Mansfield's Richard Third I thought how
when Garrick played the part 'the ladies ex-
pressed themselves almost in love with Richard,'
but I have never seen a possible Anne. She is
always played as a vain, frivolous, foolish
woman. My idea of that part would be taken
from her first speech to Richard, 'Mortal
eyes cannot endure the devil,' and I would
have her play it as if she were under a spell,
something like Blanche Walsh's famous scene
in 'Aristocracy.' Hypnotism is a new word,
but the thing itself is old, and Gloucester cannot
account for his power even by 'the aid of the
plain devil, and dissembling looks.' But I
didn't mean to take the center of the stage and
hold it all this time. Miss Brent, you look as
if you would say, 'My soul is heavy and I fain
would sleep/ so, as I still have 'some certain
75
UNDER THE HARROW
dregs of conscience yet within me,' I'll say
good night."
"Well, 'God bless thee, and take meekness
out of thy breast," 1 responded Miss Brent.
"What you need is some wholesome vanity and
a press agent."
So the party broke up.
As Louis and Paul joined the boys upstairs,
Prince Karl was filling his fountain pen to
begin the next chapter, while Ted hung up his
overcoat. Louis took a jug of cider from the
closet and, filling the glasses, raised his own.
"Fellows," he said, "this house will yet appear
in the limelight."
"If anybody should ask you," added Prince
Karl, "you can say that girls like those are
just about out of print, and it was a small
edition."
"And beautifully bound," said Ted, thinking
of the bright-faced girl he had just left.
" I'll join you in a toast to all of them," said
Paul, "but first and most of all to the oldest
girls and the jolliest, here's to the Heavenly
Twins, who have made life worth living for all
of us."
76
" TF ever there was a story that is an insult to
human intelligence," remarked Ted with
his most judicial and ipse dixit expression, "it
is 'The Honorable Peter Sterling."
It was Saturday night, and the geniuses were
gathered in the large double parlors.
"Yes, I mean it," he went on as his hearers
looked at him with doubt upon their faces.
"It's all right so far as the dirty office is con-
cerned, with the long crack in the plaster, and
the dusty books, and the solitude, but when it
comes to Peter's worrying along and contriving
to pay his rent on a paltry fifteen hundred a
year, it makes me tired, not to say disgusted.
I don't believe half the lawyers in New York
who have been practising for ten years are sure
of more of an income than that. Just give me
fifteen hundred dollars a year and see me come
splurging to the front! What I want to know
is, not how to live on fifteen hundred or even
half that, but how to get it to live on."
77
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"Or how to live without an income," sug-
gested Louis, "or upon the outgo."
"Or on the net deficit," said Lorraine. "The
Honorable Peter is a bit like 'The Duchess'
heroes who barely subsist on three or four
thousand dollars a year. When one considers
the number of people who go on from day to
day doing their work, with the wolf always
sitting by the kitchen stove, like a hungry
house dog, it speaks well for human nature that
they keep up the fight."
"Or very poorly for the imagination," said
Karl.
"That works both ways," said Hope quickly.
"It is the dread of something after death that
makes cowards of many of us, who let I dare
not wait upon I would. It is when the imagi-
nation fails and we can think of no evils worse
than those we already endure that resolution
retains its native hue. It is when we believe
no dreams can come so fearful as the reality,
that we are willing and ready to end the heart-
ache and the troubles that make long life a
calamity."
"How about those euthanasia stories ?" asked
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Miss Brent. "How many of you have finished
yours ? When does the competition close ?
What, only two of you ? Ted, what excuse
have you to offer ? If you knew the Grand
Prix Elise and I are going to bestow upon the
victor you'd not be so dilatory."
"I can't write it," answered Ted. "I've
tried to make a brief for the defendant, but
before I reach the argument I always find my-
self going over to the prosecution. We ought
to fight it out. I've no use for a man who tries
to dodge. I can't make a hero out of that kind
of a fellow."
Lorraine laughed. " Let us hope you'll never
be assigned to defend some unfortunate, rashly
importunate, who has run counter to the laws
of this state. But if you remember Karl's
plan, the hero does not actually take his life;
he gives it away, and does not even necessarily
lose it, save so far as his own initiative is con-
cerned. Neither is it necessary to regard him
as a hero. The man who can't screw his cour-
age to the sticking point is just as available
for our purposes as the one who can. Wouldn't
it have been more heroic for Dr. Jekyll to have
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made his own quietus than to wait for Hyde
to murder him ?"
"You never can make a lawyer see it," said
Karl. "He always has a picture of the corpse
with a stake through the body buried at the
crossroads, and his family disgraced, according
to old English law. Yet the Romans, from
whom we derived our law originally, always
recognized the right of a citizen to dispose of
his life as he saw fit. In fact, if a man was
under sentence of death his only escape from
disgrace lay in being his own executioner. In
that case he had an honorable burial and could
will away his property. If he waited for the
law to take its course, his children were dis-
inherited, and his body exposed to every in-
dignity. Wasn't it Domitian who invented the
idea of disgrace as an excuse for the confisca-
tion of the property of those he drove to sui-
cide?"
" Even if he did, the Antonines sustained him
and perpetuated the custom," interrupted Ted;
but Karl went on dispassionately.
"The prejudice against taking life under any
circumstances is largely a Christian idea, yet
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few religions lay so much stress on the life to
come or depict it in such glowing terms. It
seems as if the Christian, with his belief that
death is gain, should hold life lightly rather
than the Japanese, whose future life is dreary
and repellent."
"I think it is the idea of duty," ventured
Miss Elise rather timidly. "That is the fun-
damental difference between the Christian re-
ligion and other religions. I suppose duty is
the basis of any religion, but I don't know any
other that dwells as largely upon our duty to
our fellow men. The question with us is what
is right, not for ourselves alone, but in the
widest possible relation to other people. The
Jap is guided by his worship of his ancestors;
his supreme duty is to the dead rather than
to the living. He ends his life rather than
endure what might be construed as an insult
to the shades of his great-grandfathers, even if
he leaves a family that will be reduced to pen-
ury by his action; at the worst, have they not
his example ? We can't judge a nation that
has such different ideals. The question re-
mains, is it right?"
Si
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"Who is to say ?" answered her sister. "Can
we lay down a hard and fast rule of right and
wrong ? Didn't we glorify the old woman who
killed herself that her son might feel himself
free to go to fight the Russians ? As Karl says,
we may sing about lands of pure delight where
saints immortal reign, but we don't take any
chances of getting there as long as we can
avoid it. We hang on, sans eyes, sans teeth,
sans everything, a burden to ourselves and
everybody else. Solomon said there was a time
to die, and when that time comes I have no
gratitude to the science that prolongs life under
such circumstances."
Karl nodded approvingly. "Every humane
society takes the life of animals when it is
necessary to relieve them from ceaseless pain,"
he said; "why should we cease to be humane
because the sufferer belongs to humankind
rather than to the brute creation ? In every
hospital, in every asylum, lives are preserved in
pain and weariness that are a useless burden
to themselves and the community. It costs as
much to keep a feeble-minded child in school
as to give a normal child the best advantages,
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and he can learn such a little then, not enough
for life ever to be a joy to him; he will never
be intelligently alive. If we are pagans and
believe this life is all, is it worth while to live
it in such a way ? If we are really Christians
and believe in the immortality of the soul, why
not release him and let him pass on to the life
more abundant ?"
"Money ought not to enter into it at all,"
said Ted a little warmly. "We can't kill people
just because there are too many of them. Be-
sides, it is all sophistry anyhow. Go back to
Sparta and her plan to secure the survival of
the fittest, and what do we know or care for
Sparta ? She has left us nothing but the mem-
ory of Leonidas. 'The glory that was Greece '
doesn't come down to us from the people who
would have killed their Byrons and Popes in
infancy. Just eliminate all the physically unfit
and see what will happen to art and literature
from Homer down to Milton and Prescott,
Beethoven and Schumann. There isn't one of
us who does not know some soul who has lived
on the rack of pain yet kept so sweet, so strong,
so sane, that we have felt more envy than pity.
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Who is to be a judge, who would be willing to
take the responsibility of passing the death
sentence wholesale, and to whom are we willing
to intrust such power as that ?"
"I don't think you understand Karl exactly,"
said Miss Brent. "His idea is that it is more
merciful to release these unhappy ones from
the burden of life than to exhaust every means
to prolong their lives. But I am inclined to
think that before any such action is ever taken
we shall have had to entirely revise our code
in regard to suicide. Perhaps we are not civil-
ized enough to get along without sickness and
pain; we need the schooling in patience and
tenderness as well as in medical science; but if
the sufferer himself elects to go I can see no
reason why we should demand that he stay.
What is it Montaigne says ? that 'Nature has
ordered one door into life, but a hundred
thousand out of it,' and again, that 'living is
slavery, if the liberty of dying be taken away.
God gives us leave enough when he is pleased
to reduce us to such a condition that to live
is far worse than to die/"
Miss Elise, who had disappeared into the
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library, returned with a portentous old French
volume in her hands. "Now just hear me
crush Emmy with her philosophers," she said.
"Here on the very next page Montaigne says,
I'll translate it the best I can, ' It belongs to
God alone, who placed us here, not for our-
selves only, but for his glory and the service of
others, to dismiss us when it shall best please
him, and not for us to depart without his per-
mission.' And listen to this: 'It is cowardice,
not virtue, to lie in a furrow under a tomb, to
evade the blows of fortune.' Besides, who
knows which are the incurable diseases ? or
that they will be incurable to-morrow ? Think
of the marvels that are being discovered every
day. What are you thinking, Hope ? You've
been in a brown study for ten minutes."
The girl raised her head, and brushed back
a refractory lock of hair. "I was thinking,"
she began hesitatingly, "that I shouldn't agree
with any of you, or any of those who are ad-
vocating these various plans for the elimina-
tion of the unfit, with or without their consent,
because you all limit the justification to physical
conditions, as if bodily pain were the most
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acute in the world. That I do not believe.
Only 'in the infinite spirit is room for the
pulse of an infinite pain/ I can imagine
anguish that would make the rack a flowery
bed of ease. We all read of cases of affliction
in the San Francisco earthquake, where perhaps
but one member of a family was left, friends,
relatives, property all gone, nothing left to
begin with and no one left to work for,
would not life be ten times more awful after
such an experience than the pangs of the most
cruel disease ? When the fountains of the great
deep of one's soul are broken up, there is far
more excuse for finding life unbearable than
any physical pain can give. Can you imagine
Lazarus, called back from the tomb, ever find-
ing life quite the same again ? It seems to me
as if he must always have walked apart."
Miss Brent was listening intently. "But,
my dear," she said, "such a man can still be
useful, while the patient suffering from some
hopeless, torturing disease is of no use to him-
self or any one else."
"How can we say that?" said the girl ear-
nestly. "We are talking of one's right to end
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his own life when it becomes intolerable to
him, not of our right to pick and choose and
take life when we see fit. If we are to issue
suicide permits to lepers, and I don't say we
should not, I can't see by what logic we deny
the claims of my hypothetical Californian. We
are not regarding him as a beast of burden to
be fed until he can no longer bear the burden;
the question is not of what use he may be to
the world, but of what value is life to him.
When he goes to sleep he lives through it all
again. He sees the flames and hears the crack
of the rifle that brought merciful release to
those who were doomed. He wakens suddenly,
feeling again the shock of closing walls and
sliding floors. By what curious course of rea-
soning would you give a release to a man suffer-
ing from locomotor ataxia to be a blessed
ghost and condemn this man to the nightmare
of life in death ? I don't say it isn't right to
give the merciful cup to the first, but if you
do, how can you refuse it to the second ?"
There was silence for a few moments; every
one was conscious of some strange, electrical
tension, then Ted broke it abruptly.
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"That's it. If you begin, where is the line
to be drawn ? It sounds fairly well until you
begin to work it out in detail, and then it falls
to pieces of its own weight and weakness.
Let's give it up, and find some less morbid
theme for our experiment."
"I second the motion," said Miss Elise.
"Let's have something cheerful and happy.
There's enough misery without our imagining
any more."
And though they changed the subject, and
banished the gloom it had occasioned, it re-
mained a vague phantom of unrest, haunting
the minds of Miss Elise and Hope.
XI
TT is a good thing to possess ten talents, or
even five, or but one, but it is a bad thing to
overestimate the value of one's possessions.
Miss Brent's attic and basement specimens of
the genus genius struggled along as best they
could; and as they were about equally gifted in
different ways, it did not occur to them that they
were above and apart from the rest of their
fellows. The fact that there are thousands of
young men and women in New York who never
write anything, who cannot sing or play or
draw a picture, who do not read and to whom
study would be a hardship, this gigantic fact,
palpable and obvious as it may be, did not
present itself to their minds. Each one ad-
mired the achievements of the others more than
his own. Prince Karl was going to be a mining
engineer; he could not only write a story, but
he knew the secrets of the rocks, and he stood
high in his classes and bade fair to take all
sorts of honors at Columbia. And if Ted had
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not succeeded in literature, and was still brief-
less, he was a barrister nevertheless. Louis was
on the highway to success, and although that
highway is much like the rocky road to Dublin,
still none of the Brent household doubted that
he was bound to arrive; and Paul's music and
verse made the cares that infest the day flee
without waiting to fold their tents.
Lorraine's political sketches had become
something of a feature, and she was on the
pay-roll regularly. Uncle Peter Bright had
found a place for Hope with a publisher, where
she read and read, and learned something of
what the public is supposed to want, which
helped her to dispose of some of her own ar-
ticles; and between Hope and Lorraine con-
siderable illustrating was thrown into the eager
hands of little Bess, who was blossoming into
a most beautiful womanhood.
Over them all was the unfailing faith and
affection of the Heavenly Twins, who would
not have believed it possible for one ugly
duckling to find a place among their young
swans.
As the summer came on the daily, hourly
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struggle grew less for most of the young people.
Prince Karl was preparing for a trip to the
Rockies to geologize and see mining at first
hand ; Louis was in the throes of watching the
rehearsals of his farce, which was to go on at
one of the summer theaters where Paul played
second violin.
But things were in a bad way for Teddy. As
the days passed he seemed to grow a little thin-
ner and lankier each day. The doctor across
the hall suggested that erelong they might
open opposition stalls in a dime museum as
the living skeleton and the ossified man.
"Yes; we can realize Sidney Smith's wish to
take off his flesh and sit in his bones," he
answered with a rather feeble smile; "but I
can't say that I see much fun in it." He
looked across the hall at his orderly desk and
bleakly empty office. He had had that office
for two years the coming fall, ever since he
had been admitted to the bar, and he had
never been so much as retained. He had never
had a client, save as now and then he had been
appointed to defend some one. He had written
a weekly New York letter to his home paper,
UNDER THE HARROW
and once in a while he had sold an article, but
the end was in sight.
He looked up at the doctor's sign, "Frances
Silverton, M.D.," and at her office, the coun-
terpart of his own, except that, being a woman,
hers was a little less dingy.
"Doctor," he said shortly, "let's cut it.
There's no use trying any longer. Let's go
West and grow up with the country. New
York is no place for poor people. Let's go to
some little place far out West and take our
chances that there will be more malaria, which
is good for your business, and more bad blood,
which is good for mine."
The doctor shook her head. "No," she said,
"no; who was that sage who said, 'God Al-
mighty hates a quitter' ? There are more people
who hate each other to the point of going to
law about it in New York than anywhere else
in this country. Judging from my experience,
nobody ever dies a natural death here, with or
without medical aid; yet I have faith to believe
my time's coming, and I'm getting plenty of
experience, if it doesn't bring in any money.
Some new bacillus will come to the rescue."
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" But when ? Bacilli are slow and rime is
fleeting."
"Yes, I know," she answered; "but you can
be sure of one thing. There's no place where
there's a better show than New York. It may
take longer to succeed, but when success comes,
when it comes it is worth having, and
means something anywhere else you may go.
But succeed in any other city in America and
New York is still ahead of you, frowning and
impregnable, her harbor full of torpedoes.
Stay by it awhile longer. It will pay in the
end." ^
"Perhaps," he answered. "At the present
rate I'm afraid it will not pay in rime, or
enough to meet the funeral expenses."
93
XII
CUMMER had come in good earnest. The
streets fairly palpitated with the heat, and
the big, gloomy office building where Ted spent
most of his time was half deserted. The doctor
found plenty of occupation, if small remunera-
tion; the lawyers were away for their summer
vacations and the other tenants kept office hours
in a desultory fashion, if at all. Ted walked
home, thinking wrathfully of the stupidity of
fate, and the long hard climb before we can
even catch a glimpse of the Delectable Moun-
tains.
When he reached the house he went down
the three steps into the basement instead of
up the three flights to the attic. The girls \vere
a sympathetic lot, but he rather wished that
Hope would be at home; there was more in
common between them; they could join in the
hymn of the conquered. He had never minded
being poor so much until he met Bess.
But neither Hope nor Bess were there. In-
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stead he was startled by the sight of Miss
Brent bending over a pile of Lorraine's copy
and wiping her tear-dimmed glasses. Lorraine
was walking up and down the room, her eyes
blazing out of her white face, and her hands
clenched.
"What on earth is the matter?" he asked.
"What has happened? Is any one hurt, is
Bess "
"Oh, no!" answered Miss Brent. "It's Lor-
raine's story. Tell him about.it, Lorraine; I
can't. Sit down, Teddy."
The girl went on walking up and down until
she gained a little more self-control.
"It's the Riordan case," she said, trying to
keep the quiver out of her lips. "You must
have read about it; the papers have been full
of it."
"Good Lord! They haven't put you on
that, have they?" he asked disgustedly. "The
idea of sending a woman like you to look up a
miserable lot of little degenerates and cut-throats
like those!"
"Hush!" she said excitedly. "You are a
lawyer; you have no business to take sjdes,
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still less to 'take life without the form of jus-
tice.' You ought not to believe in the mission
of the daily press to act as judge, jury, and
executioner. What do you know about it
anyway ?"
"I know what every one knows, that this
gang of boys are the usual cigarette-smoking,
dime-novel reading little toughs; that they call
themselves the Jesse James gang, and that they
shot and murdered a playfellow in cold blood,"
he answered.
"You mean you know what you've read,"
she said; "is that what you call evidence?
Those children had never heard of Jesse James
until one of our enterprising newspaper artists
stood them up before his camera and christened
them so. There isn't a scintilla of proof against
them."
"Didn't one of the boys confess ?" he asked.
"Yes, three of them confessed," she an-
swered. "Three of them confessed to me, after
the police had 'sweated' them for hours."
"Then what more do you want?" he asked
a little impatiently.
"Well, you see, they all confessed to different
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things; their stories didn't hang together," she
replied. "The essential facts are these: The
little Riordan boy was sent to bring home the
cow. He had to pass the place where these
other boys were in swimming; it was a kind of
woodsy little playground, not far from the
water. Later he was found, shot dead in
these woods, where the Brown boys and Roy
Collins had been at play. A boy named Willie
Hinckley says that Roy shot Patsy, and Rior-
dan made the complaint; the boys were all
arrested and taken to jail without a moment
to see their folks. The youngest is eight years
old, and the oldest seventeen. The eight-year-
old boy has confessed, also one who is about
eleven, and who is subject to epileptic attacks,
and the boy named Hinckley, who made the
charge originally, and has taken it back and
then repeated it twice since."
"Do you mean you think they didn't do it ?"
asked Ted incredulously.
"I'm perfectly certain they didn't," she an-
swered, "but how can they prove it ?"
"They don't have to," he responded quickly.
"The burden of proof is on the prosecution;
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they must prove that the crime was committed.
The accused are not compelled to show their
innocence. That's as old as Magna Charta,"
he finished conclusively.
"Nonsense," she said curtly. "Stuff and
nonsense. They have been sentenced already.
Half the papers have had leaders on the in-
crease of crime, and the number of arrests
among the young; the other half are moralizing
over the evil effects of novel reading, and ask-
ing what shall be done with these young repro-
bates. Every one of them has bunches of
scavengers out looking up evidence to send
these half dozen children to prison for life."
"And what have you been doing on the
case?" asked Ted.
" I ? Well, Maxwell sent me to write my
impressions, honestly, and I went, with very
much the same expectations as you would have
had, from what you have just said. I did not
find what I expected, but seven boys, one of
them crying hysterically for his mother, and
nothing about any of them to justify the belief
that they were in any way different from dozens
of other country boys. You know it happened
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out in a little suburb that is just like the coun-
try."
Ted was beginning to look bewildered.
"What have you written about it ?" he said.
She picked up the first page of her copy,
where she had written in a bold, free hand,
" For the Defense in the Riordan Case."
"You don't mean it!" he said. "Oh, I sup-
pose the lawyer they have retained has a pull
with your paper!"
"No," she answered steadily. "They haven't
any lawyer; they are too poor to employ one.
They consulted Ward, but if they mortgaged
everything they have in the world they couldn't
pay his retainer fee. I suppose the court will
assign some one to defend them, but that will
amount to nothing. Public sentiment is all the
other way. I don't know why we should have
a public prosecutor any more than a public
defender. The defense of these boys will be a
mere empty formality, and the memory of their
mothers' faces haunts me. After I had seen
them I went to their homes, and I know they
are innocent, but how can we prove it ? and it
will kill their mothers!"
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Her voice broke, and Miss Brent wiped her
glasses again and pushed the copy across the
table to Ted. "Read it, my dear," she said,
"and then, if you are willing to take the case,
I would like to retain your services. The boys
have found a defender, but they still need a
lawyer."
He read the long, circumstantial story care-
fully. There were treacherous breaks in his
voice and his eyes were bright as he laid it
aside and said slowly, "I dare hardly call
myself a lawyer, but such as I am, if they have
no one else, I will do the best I can for the
defense."
100
XIII
r^ED was as good as his word, or even a
trifle better. Having undertaken the de-
fense of the boys, he went over the case with
Lorraine, point by point, making notes and
planning his campaign, and the next morning
the two set out for the prison where the
defendants were confined, the gravity of the
charge against them making the ordinary house
of detention for juvenile offenders out of the
question.
Lorraine's defense of the accused, which was
out in the morning edition, did not make her a
more welcome visitor at the prison, for prisons
are conducted on the belief that it is well-nigh
impossible to make a mistake in arresting any
one. Nevertheless, her daring in taking the
side of the under dog such a helpless, un-
fortunate, unromantic, yellow under dog won
the admiration, if not the approval, of the
department, and the doors swung open before
her.
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They groped their way through the dark
corridors to the cell where the older and pre-
sumably more desperate of the criminal chil-
dren were confined. The oldest boy, Arthur
Brown, looked wistfully out from behind the
bars, and when the door was opened stood in
the narrow aperture and answered Ted's ques-
tions. He was rather a gentle-faced boy, be-
tween seventeen and eighteen, and as they stood
a cat walked into his cell. He picked her
up, with a quick, loving motion, and held
her against his neck, where she purred con-
tentedly.
"Please don't mind my hands," he said.
"I'd been shoveling dirt where they're making
an excavation, and I haven't had any chance
to wash."
"Arthur," said Lorraine, "I've been to see
your folks; they have perfect confidence in you,
and you must not be unhappy. This gentle-
man, Mr. Theodore Erskine, is going to defend
you. Tell him all you can, and tell him the
exact truth."
The boy stopped petting the cat and looked
at them in astonishment. "We haven't any
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money," he said simply. "Father's got a cow,
if that would be any use to you; but we haven't
any money at all, because father's been sick,
and I was the only one that was making any-
thing. I don't know what they will do with-
out me. Roy Collins' folks can afford a lawyer;
but of course time is money with you, sir, and
we can't expect you to do this for nothing,
and we haven't anything; I wish we couid
have you."
Ted gulped and colored. Time was the only
thing in the world which he possessed in abun-
dance.
"Never mind about that," he said hurriedly.
"Don't think anything about the money, or the
cow, but tell me all you know about this and
help me to clear your little brothers; I think
from what I know that your own alibi is clear.
But if Roy is guilty, you cannot afford to shield
him; you must speak the truth to save your
brothers."
"My folks never allowed any of us to lie,"
he said slowly. "My little brother, that they
said confessed, used the words that was put
into his mouth; don't I know? They tried the
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same thing with me. Wasn't this so, wasn't
that so, didn't I know that Roy had broken
down and owned that he did it, and all that
sort of thing for hours and hours, and nothing
to eat, and part of the time shut in a dark cell.
No wonder Jimmy finally said whatever they
told him to. But it isn't so. Roy never had a
gun, except an old muzzle-loading musket that
burst the first time we fired it off, Fourth of
July. What would we have killed Patsy for ?
He was a nice little chap."
It was a long, hard day's work to interview
each of the boys and their parents, but if
Lorraine's views had not met with favor at
police headquarters she was received with bene-
dictions and open arms at the homes of the
accused. When she explained that a friend
who was interested had employed Mr. Erskine
to defend the Brown children, without any cost
to their parents, Miss Brent was calendared as
a saint at once, while Teddy was regarded as a
tall angel; certainly his raiment was shining at
every seam. The parents of Roy Collins had
employed an attorney named Harrison, but as
the cases were so closely allied, Teddy wasted
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no time in conferring with him, and then went
home to draw up his first papers in his first
case, a case already a nine-days' wonder, and
destined to hold "top of column" when it
should come off.
105
XIV
; I V HE exigencies of the defense made it neces-
sary for the attorneys for the Brown boys
and the Collins boy to have frequent consulta-
tions, and a fast friendship sprung up between
Ted and Mr. Harrison, who, though a much
older man than himself, had not been in New
York for a great length of time, and had been
glad to take the Collins defense because of the
opportunity it afforded him to make a debut in a
somewhat spectacular trial. He had made his
terms to suit the emergency in his own affairs.
He was not inexperienced in his profession,
but merely one of those who having succeeded
elsewhere had his spurs yet to win in New
York. He was a man of fine presence, lit-
erary tastes, and a winning personality, though
at times Ted found him somewhat cold-
blooded.
Strangely enough, Lorraine, who had been
of no small service to them, took an aversion
to Harrison from the very first.
1 06
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"Don't be unreasonable," Ted argued.
"You're too good a fellow for such whims.
The Dr. Fell attitude is unworthy of you."
They were going over the case for the twen-
tieth time, while Bess sketched away at the
other end of the table, and Hope rested in the
cozy corner. "What are you two quarreling
about now?" she asked.
"Over my confrere in the defense," Ted
answered. "I think Maurice Harrison is all
right, and, without being able to give a single
reason, Lorraine dislikes him so she can scarcely
be civil."
"Maurice Harrison ?" queried Hope vaguely.
"What has he to do with the Riordans ? I
thought he was literary."
Lorraine looked up quickly. "Why, do you
know him?" she asked.
"Yes, no, I don't know," she answered.
"Is he a tall, blonde man, well built, rather
handsome ? I know a Harrison like that, but
he is a writer. He has a novel that is to come
out this fall or winter some time. I read the
manuscript, and my verdict was so favorable
that the firm showed it to him, and and so
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we were introduced, and I've met him a time
or so since," rather lamely.
"I guess it's the same man all right/' an-
swered Ted. "He's a rattling good lawyer,
keeps 'clear and cool' like the weather predic-
tions for to-day, and is up to all the tricks and
dodges of the law. He has given me lots of
good points and is almost as much interested
in my clients as his own. Now, don't you
think that is unselfish ? Don't you like him,
Hope ? It's the same man, I'm sure, for he
told me he had a story coming out."
Before Hope could answer, for she hesitated
several moments, Lorraine joined with Ted:
'Yes, do tell us about him, Hope. To my mind
the one thing of which Maurice Harrison is
absolutely incapable is unselfishness. Of course
he takes an interest in Ted's clients; he has to;
how could he protect his own if he didn't ?
Besides, didn't you say it was his first case in
New York that is any ways striking ?"
Hope hesitated still, and Ted said encourag-
ingly, "'Speak, and let the worst be known,
speaking may relieve you,'" and, thus urged,
she went on.
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"To tell the truth, I've found him very
interesting; of course I haven't talked business
with him, for literature is not his business but
only a by-path. He is well read and has
traveled considerable. I believe the family
come from Philadelphia, I think his parents
live there now, but he has been in the West
for some years. Possibly if I met him when
he had on his professional manner I should not
like him."
Lorraine looked disappointed, and then said,
rather irritably: "I'd be willing to wager my
next 'exclusive' that his interest in this case is
largely that of the literary ragpicker. He is
contemplating a murder story, and he wants
to study the type from infancy to age. He has
never been really more than half sure of Roy's
innocence; that's one reason why I dislike him
so; he isn't fair to the child, but now I can
understand better. You'll see. His next story
will have a lonely wood and a corpse in it, and
an owl that inquires, 'Whoo, whoo, whoo/ from
above the mangled remains, while the blood-
shot moon sinks behind the black and somber
forest. I know his type. Has he decided yet
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whether to have a snowstorm, or is the horrid
deed to take place under the affrighted eyes of
the man in the harvest moon ?"
Hope gasped, for Mr. Harrison had confided
to her, during one of the luncheons they had
had together recently, that his next story was
to be one of plot, and they had discussed the
relative virtues of snow with its enveloping pall,
and rain, leaving the ground in good condition
for telltale footprints. "Oh, don't, Lorraine!"
she said; "this case is getting- on your nerves,
and you are so anxious about it that you are
unduly suspicious. Mr. Harrison is very much
a gentleman, and has quite uncommonly fine
manners."
"Yes, as mild mannered a man as ever
scuttled a ship," muttered Lorraine under her
breath; adding aloud, "Well, I hope I'm mis-
taken, but his eyes are too close together to
suit me, and he's as given to moods and caprices
as a 'dope-fiend* or a 'Miss Flora MacFlimsy.'
I've no doubt he can be entertaining, but
well, I'll leave you two to praise him all you
like. I'm going to see Miss Brent; she's worth
a million of him." And she vanished into
no
UNDER THE HARROW
the gloom of the hallway, annoyed with Ted, al-
most provoked with Hope, and more than ever
prejudiced against the man who had brought
the first shadow between her and two of her
best friends.
in
XV
"1T7ITH the first of September Prince Karl
returned, and his arrival was celebrated
from basement to garret. He brought with him
a trunk of ore, a red Indian tan, and an insatiable
appetite, not to mention a brain teeming with
the romance of the hills. Lorraine almost wept
upon his neck for joy, for there seemed to have
come an intangible something between herself
and Hope. Louis was wholly absorbed in a
new play, and as it was impossible to discuss
Ted's chief interest in life without referring to
the objectionable Harrison, they had tacitly
shelved it. So Lorraine devoted all her spare
time to the Miss Brents, yet there also she felt
rather than saw the shadow of a cloud. Miss
Emma did not seem quite herself, though Miss
Elise was apparently happily unconscious of
any change.
"I think I'll give it up," said Miss Emma
one dark afternoon when the postman brought
back two of her most cherished animal stories.
112
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"I'm too old, or too dull, or too something to
get into print. I'd better be fixing my atten-
tion on the tomb and preparing for death. By
the way, how do people prepare for death ?
Renan once wrote a play, of which nobody has
ever heard except people who like digging up
literary curiosities, to prove that if we knew
the world was coming to an end next week, the
whole swinish multitude of us would rush vio-
lently down the hill and drown ourselves in a
sea of unlicensed debauchery. What would
you do if you knew your time was limited ?"
"Keep on working," said Lorraine prosa-
ically. "When it got down to the last few
days I'd burn my letters and papers, give away
the few scraps I have to give, and arrange with
the nearest crematory for the last sad rites.
Then, like the noble three hundred at Ther-
mopylae, I'd sit down and comb my hair. I'd
like to leave that to Uncle Peter," she added
reflectively. "I feel as if he has a claim on
it. But what a question! Even if one's manu-
script does come back, there is no use in being
snuffed out like Chatterton or slain by the lack
of reviewers."
"3
UNDER THE HARROW
"I can't seem to hit the popular fancy,"
said Miss Brent. "I don't get anywhere with
all my writing, except as the papers take a
letter now and then. It would never occur to
me to record the fact that I've never seen a
purple cow. The singular fact that I've never
seen a little colt with coat as white as snow,
and where we get our horses white I'd really
like to know, has never seemed to me of suf-
ficiently vital importance to warrant rushing
into print with it, yet that is as remarkable as
the narrative of the lilac mooley."
"Maybe that's one trouble," said Lorraine.
"If you had hurried to the publisher with your
white colt before the lavender cow maybe you
would have achieved everlasting fame. Thank
heaven for the people who are willing to amuse
us; they never get any more than their due
when they get the best. Most of us don't dare
to write unless we think we have a revelation,
and then we complain because 'vanity is still
on deck and humble virtue gets it in the neck."
"Like Lewis Carroll, with his horrid old
arithmetics, being ashamed of Alice and the
Jabberwock," said the old lady. "I dare to
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be as funny as I can, but it takes real genius
to be funny. Anybody can be serious without
being wise."
"Now here's an idea," said Lorraine, "that
came to me when I was reviewing, but I've never
worked it up and you're more than welcome to
it. It is a plea for a literary humane society."
"On behalf of the readers ?"
"No, for the prevention of cruelty to animals
in fiction. There seems to be no limit to the
abuse that authors are willing to permit, or even
encourage. I can stand what's-his-name killing
the aurochs, and the general gladiatorial slaugh-
ters in 'Quo Vadis,' but when it comes to tor-
turing a dog the way the vicar does in 'Jack
Raymond' I object. In 'The Conquest of
Canaan' the whole village takes a hand in the
persecution of a dog, and the way heroes and
heroines ride and drive is a caution. It's the
lady in 'Dorothy Vernon' and the man in
'None but the Brave.' You remember how
'Richard Carvel' exploits that horse, jumping
him over houses and racing him about London,
while in 'The Leopard's Spots' Dixon heart-
lessly drives a bay mare ten miles in forty-nine
"5
UNDER THE HARROW
minutes, over country roads up hill and down,
so that she drops dead. I object to these ex-
amples of cruelty being placed in the hands of
the children of the land."
"I'll do it," said Miss Brent with much
gusto. "Didn't you hate the man who killed
Kroof's cub in 'The Heart of the Ancient
Wood' ? I hope she never married him, and if
she did I don't mean Kroof, but the girl I'm
sure they lived unhappily ever after. But do
you think I can ? I'm afraid I can never be a
really intellectual woman."
Miss Elise, who had come in a few minutes
before with the tea things, laughed and said
consolingly: "Never mind, Emmy. I never
knew but one intellectual woman who prided
herself on that fact. She could not keep house or
sew, and her flannels always showed at the wrist.
There comes Hope down the street. She walks
as if her name were Madame Atlas; suppose I
go and call her in to have some tea with us."
"Your sister's description reminds me of the
lady who said her friend was not vulgar; she
was not refined; she was the kind of per-
son who keeps a parrot. I shall never strive
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for intellectuality again. What is the matter,
Hope?" for the girl had come in and dropped
down beside Miss Brent, the very picture of
despondency.
"Oh, it's 'Goliath'!" she said. "I've been
thinking of that story that was so good the
author couldn't sell anything else; 'My Wife's
Deceased Sister,' wasn't it ? Well, that's the
trouble. Those people had taken a lot of
things before 'Goliath,' but they've never been
pleased with anything since. They are as kind
as possible and they say different things, but
they all mean the same; nothing I've sent them
has come up to 'Goliath.' Oh, for a David with
his ever-ready sling to have slain my ogre!"
"Perhaps you are trying to wear the armor
of Saul and it doesn't fit," said Miss Brent
whimsically. "As near as I can figure it out,
that is what's the matter with me. We haven't
found our line yet. Don't you remember what
Arnold says ?
'And we have been on many thousand lines,
And we have shown on each talent and power,
But hardly have we, for one little hour,
Been on our own line, have we been ourselves.'
UNDER THE HARROW
One of these days some publisher will discover
you and your fortune will be made."
"No," said Hope resolutely, "I used to think
that, but I know better now. I've got all the
chance there is and so has everybody else. If
one publisher doesn't like your work there are
dozens of others, and the way the Arthurs have
hung on to me, and tried to help me with all
kinds of suggestions, and written me every now
and then to send them something, shows plainly
enough that the publishers are just as anxious
to discover latent talent as any of us can be
to be discovered. I'm not so jaundiced by
defeat that I can't see that. The fault is not
in the publishers, but in me."
"I wish she'd fall in love," said Lorraine
tempestuously. "Nothing would do her so
much good."
"Never!" cried Miss Brent. "She'd marry
and the world would lose her. Fancy a God-
given genius attending to the family marketing
and mending while the ink dries in her
fountain pen. Anybody can get married,
but only a few people can write a story like
'Goliath'!"
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UNDER THE HARROW
"Oh, I don't care anything about her getting
married," Lorraine answered, oblivious of the
fact that Hope had blushed furiously and then
turned pale and colored again. "It isn't in the
least necessary for the affair to go so far as
that. Kipling says, 'Next to a requited at-
tachment, one of the most convenient things
that a young man can carry about with him, at
the beginning of his career, is an unrequited
attachment.' I'm convinced if Hope once had
a case of heart disease of the malignant type,
no palpitations need apply, that she would
find herself."
The old lady sniffed unbelievingly. "You
were evidently brought up on the belief that
whatever hurts does good. That's orthodox,
but I don't believe it myself. Love isn't the
djinn or the Aladdin's lamp of life. Goodness
knows it isn't generally even the magic carpet
that makes easy going. It's the little old man
of the sea. Don't pay any attention to her,
Hope. Just be a genius, and don't be in a
hurry to take up with the good loaf of brown
bread prescribed for geniuses. You will arrive
without putting yourself under a steam-crusher
119
UNDER THE HARROW
to hasten the good work. By the steps in
the hall I should say Bess and Teddy have
come in. If Lorraine must have a love
affair and can't be happy till she gets it, that
looks rather promising. Have some more tea,
Hope."
Though the girl drank her tea and tried to
shake off her depression, the effort was appar-
ent, and when they were alone that evening
Lorraine made her a bowl of catnip tea and
insisted on her going to bed.
"No, it isn't that I'm tired or sick, Lorraine;
but the truth is so plain that I can't deceive
myself any longer, and yet, don't you see ? it is
like giving up life itself when one resigns one's
whole plan and scheme of life. I had to give
up the stage when my heart was set on it; then,
because I had succeeded in amusing the chil-
dren, I thought perhaps it was in me to write
the stories I had grown used to telling, but it
was the instinct of the actor, not of the creator,
that made me tell my stories well. I don't
know exactly what the sting of death may be,
but the sting of life is to write 'Failure' when
one has tried with all one's heart and soul.
1 20
UNDER THE HARROW
If I had written a euthanasia story it would
have been about some one who realized that
the light of the whole world dies with the
setting sun. Don't try to comfort me; not yet,
not yet."
121
XVI
AS the time drew near that was to see the
beginning of the case of The State vs. Roy
Collins, Arthur Brown, et al., Ted grew nervous,
and one Sunday, not long before the momentous
day, he and Lorraine took the long journey to
the suburban town near where the tragedy had
taken place, and walked out to the small wood.
The leaves were falling, and the thickets silent,
the birds flown. They sat down on a log and
recounted the case to each other.
"There is one thing in which I have been
disappointed with myself," said Ted discon-
tentedly. " I think I have done fairly well with
the rest of it, but so far I haven't been able
to find any clue to the real criminal. In this
kind of an affair there is a lack of motive that
is baffling to begin with, and yet I am certain
that there was a motive; that's where Harrison
and I differ. He intends to dwell upon the
probability that it was an accident, as people
often went hunting about here. The Browns
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UNDER THE HARROW
believe it was an accident; they say people often
shot at targets, or made targets of the trees,
and they think it was a stray shot. Poor little
Patsy Riordan; it wasn't worth the while of the
detective force to track his slayer, and I'm
afraid I'm not a combination of M. Lecoq and
Sherlock Holmes."
"I don't believe it was an accident either,"
answered Lorraine. " I've always had a theory
about this case, but, as in another instance, I
have no better reason than 'because,' and I'll
admit that is not much of a reason."
"Let's have it anyhow," said Ted, idly turn-
ing over the leaves with his foot. "We are
sitting on the log where the boys sat who wit-
nessed the murder, according to Willie Hinck-
ley's confession, and Patsy was lying over there
under that tree."
Lorraine looked at the tree curiously. It was
not very large, and about eight or nine feet from
the ground one bare branch stood out almost
at right angles with the tree.
" Do you respectable New Yorkers ever have
lynchings ?" she asked.
"Why, I don't remember," he said, racking
123
UNDER THE HARROW
his brain to recall an instance. "I suppose
we have had them at some time in our career.
Men are brothers down under their skin, North
and South, East and West, same as the colonel's
lady and Judy. What made you think of it ?"
"The tree," answered Lorraine. "Do you
like ghost stories ? No ? There's no account-
ing for tastes. Now I do; also I once compiled
a scrap-book of superstitions, and one section
of it dealt with legends and strange tales about
trees. One doesn't have to believe them to
find them interesting. If you will look at that
tree carefully, you will see that it is just the
kind of a tree a lynching party would seek.
You will perceive also that while the other
trees are still fairly green, that one has fallen
into the sere and yellow leaf. One shake and
it would stand denuded of even its last leaf."
"I don't see the ghost," said Ted.
Lorraine sank her voice to a sepulchral
whisper. "When a tree has been made ac-
cessory before or even after the fact, particeps
criminis, I believe you call it, in a crime, it
never gets over it. Its nature is too fine to
withstand the shock. There is a haunted apple
124
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tree in a Massachusetts town under which a
murder was committed; the apples it bears are
streaked with crimson to the core, and any
Southerner can tell you that the tree that has
served as a gallows dies and stands a blasted
monument to the evil that men do."
"I've often thought," Ted answered, "what
it would mean if inanimate nature had a voice.
In France they believe it has, to a certain extent.
You know no one can be convicted of a crime
without being confronted with his prey, and
the victim is kept in the morgue for a year or
so, perhaps, just as he is found, that the * con-
frontation,' as they call it, may be possible.
When there is a very awful murder they repro-
duce the scene of it: if it was in a room, they
take all the furniture and make another room
just like it, and when they have the man they
believe guilty they take him down into this
horrible subterranean place, and suddenly con-
front him with the scene and the victim, just
as he left it. Miss Brent was telling me about
such a room that she saw in the morgue in
Paris when she was there. They say nine-
tenths of the criminals will break down and
125
UNDER THE HARROW
confess under these circumstances. Now that
tree could tell the truth if it could speak, for
whatever was done, was done under its very
branches."
"The tree isn't dying for nothing," said Lor-
raine. "It knows more than it tells."
"Naturally, since it knows all and tells noth-
ing. Let's go and consult the dryad, if she
hasn't fled."
They walked across the dry, hard ground,
with its litter of rustling leaves and yellowing
grass, and Lorraine leaned against the trunk
of the tree while Ted caught the branch and
with a quick jerk swung himself up amidst
a shower of yellow leaves. Lorraine turned
toward him, her face pale and startled.
"Something dropped inside the tree," she
said in a frightened voice.
"What?" he cried excitedly, clinging to the
branch.
"Reach over to the crotch," she said, "and
see if there isn't a hollow."
He slid along the drooping branch until he
reached the trunk of the tree. "Yes," he said,
"there's a small hole." He thrust his hand
126
UNDER THE HARROW
into it, and the arm to the elbow. "The whole
trunk must be hollow," he said; "I might have
known it by looking at it."
Lorraine was looking at the tree fixedly.
"That tree holds your clue," she said. "When
you shook it something heavy fell. Don't you
remember the inquest showed that the wound
was made with a thirty-two caliber cartridge,
and one of the things that struck me first was
that the boys all told different stories about the
gun, and none of any kind was ever found ?
The detectives didn't even find a gun in Rior-
dan's house, though the neighbors say he used
to shoot at the mark too."
"You don't mean oh, but if it was a gun,
why didn't it go off when it fell ? Why didn't
whoever put it here take it away ? Why
didn't it fall to the bottom in the first place ?
It must have been just a piece of rotted wood."
" No," she insisted. " It fell heavily. It did-
n't go off because the trigger had been pulled
and the hammer was down on an empty car-
tridge. Whoever put it there couldn't reach
it to take it away; it probably slipped from his
fingers and caught midway on wood that has
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rotted since, so that when you shook the tree it
gave way. At first he did not dare come to
this spot, haunted both by the detectives and
his child's blood "
"You don't think Riordan did it ?" Ted cried.
"I don't think," she answered quickly. "I
don't think anything, except that this tree can
tell us what we want to know, but not being
Indians we don't carry tomahawks with us,
and how are we to find out ? We may have
been watched. We can't both leave to go find
a hatchet, even if we could account for such a
singular request. How about your knife ? The
bark on this side looks thin, and as if the trunk
under it might be rotten."
Ted drew out his knife a rough-handled,
strenuous looking affair, reminiscent of his
youth and set to work. First he cut off a
piece of the bark, large enough to allow his
hand to pass through, and placed it carefully
on one side. "We'll hide our tracks if we
can," he said, and then began hacking away.
It was slow work, and the sun had set and the
moon was rising before the sound wood was
carved away and his knife struck through. In
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a minute more he had thrust in his hand and
brought out what they expected, a rusted re-
volver, thirty-two caliber. As they bent over
it in the growing moonlight, two initials rudely
carved in the handle were plainly visible, -
"P. R." They looked in each other's faces in
silence. Then Ted carefully put the chips he
had made inside the tree, slipped the bark back
in place, fastened it with a few tiny wedges,
and they started homeward.
"Still, it doesn't prove anything," said Ted.
"No," she admitted, "it doesn't, but it gives
a clue. Now we must find the motive."
"I've got the motive," he answered slowly.
"I never told you or any one, but I have the
same feeling about Riordan that you have, and
I tried to learn all I could about him. This is
his second wife. Patsy's mother died over a
year ago; her life had been insured in Patsy's
behalf. It was only a small sum, say five hun-
dred dollars, but to a man like Riordan it would
have been enough. Besides, he had an un-
governable temper. He had the name of treat-
ing his family badly, and Patsy's body bore the
marks of his anger when it was buried. But I
129
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couldn't get any further. There was no evidence
against him, and he was a wreck of misery
"Or fear," suggested Lorraine.
at the preliminary hearing; I'll have to talk
this over with Harrison, and try to figure it out."
Lorraine grew frigid at once. "I hope you
will do nothing of the kind," she said. "Don't
you see here is your chance for a 'confronta-
tion ' scene of your own ? You've got as much
at stake as he has in this case; don't give him
the best dramatic situation in it to make copy
out of, and a reputation for himself. Keep
still, and see what more you can learn; find
out if Riordan doesn't intend to leave here as
soon as- this trial is over."
"Well, since this is mostly your contribution
to the case, and but for you I wouldn't have
had it at all, I think I ought to regard you as
senior counsel, and if you don't want anything
said, I'll say nothing. But what a fearful thing
it is; can you realize it ?"
"From battle, murder, and sudden death,''
half whispered Lorraine, and they finished to-
gether in hushed voices, "'Good Lord, deliver
us!'"
130
XVII
~*HE Riordan case had been nearly forgotten
long before it was reached on the docket.
Lorraine's article had taken some of the spec-
tacular features away from it, from the jour-
nalistic standpoint, and if the prosecution had
developed anything new or sensational it had
kept it out of the papers. The poverty of the
families concerned made it a foregone con-
clusion that the accused would be summarily
disposed of and hustled off to prison and re-
formatory with that through-train speed that is
apt, in such cases, to offset the usual law's delays.
There were other capital cases involving repu-
tations, property, what not, defended by men
who had established professional positions.
The curious found more interesting criminals
than the half-dozen frightened children.
The courtroom was large, dingy, and bare,
and when the Riordan case was called the
spectators' seats were nearly empty. A few
scholarly looking men were present, evidently
UNDER THE HARROW
prepared to make a psychological study of the
accused, who sat at one side of the door, just
within the railing. The younger children had
little comprehension of the occasion, but as
often as the accustomed smile came to their
faces one glance at their parents, sitting by
them in stony, white-faced misery, drove it
away, leaving in its place an expression of
mingled surprise and fear.
Roy Collins was deadly pallid and emaciated.
His mother, a nervous little woman, sat by him,
holding his slim, white hand in hers, the same
awkward paw that used to be so brown and so
seldom clean. There was a hard, defiant glitter
in her eyes, and scarlet spots burned on her
cheeks. The boy's father, on the other side
of him, looked broken and worn.
Mrs. Brown, seated by Arthur, with the little
boys about them, or sitting on their father's
knees, made no attempt to keep back the tears.
Some neighbors who had come with them
looked about curiously, and then turned back
to the pathetic little group with sympathetic
faces.
Farther away from the railing that shut out
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the spectators sat Peter Riordan, haggard of
countenance, his head bowed on his hands.
As soon as the case began it was evident that
the acting district attorney did not believe in
killing flies with a steam-hammer. He felt sure
the case was to be an easy victory, and re-
garded Harrison with disdain and Ted as a
mere babe in arms, who knew little and would
not dare to do anything, even if he did not
forget the small amount of legal lore at his
command. It was not until Ted had chal-
lenged the third juror "for cause," because he
admitted a scientific interest in penology, that
the prosecution realized that Ted was not quite
so young as he looked.
True, Teddy had never had a case, but his
knowledge of court practice was not wholly
gleaned from the printed page. Having no
suits of his own to attend to, he had made it
a practice to spend hours every week in the
different courts of the city, watching the con-
duct of any trial of importance that might be
going on. Fresh from his books he appre-
ciated nice points as they arose, and the prac-
tical determination of moot questions, before
133
UNDER THE HARROW
his eyes, was worth much. Nevertheless, the
morning the Riordan case began he was on an
extreme tension that was well-nigh intolerable.
He had ideas of his own of the sympathy to be
accorded to the younger members of his pro-
fession, and also a firm belief that no lawyer
should lose his first case; he should not take a
case for his debut in which he could not believe
with all his mind and strength that justice and
equity, which are legally quite different, be-
longed to his client. He had seen men of
experience lose, simply for lack of preparation;
a man with unlimited time, he thought, should
not fail from this cause. While he believed
he would succeed in clearing the accused boys,
he could not fail to recognize that this was not
at all the kind of a case upon which he had
relied to prove his theory; there was so little
law and so much fact in it. Neither did he
trust to the indifference with which district
attorneys often prepare and try their cases.
Nash's term of office was nearing its conclu-
sion, and is not a prosecuting attorney known
by the number of convictions he makes ? How-
ever unique the suit might be from a senti-
134
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mental standpoint, he knew that the formalities
of the trial would present little beyond the
usual routine, saving the one feature upon
which, more than anything else, he was re-
lying.
When the case was called for trial Harrison
was absent, and Ted secured a brief delay,
and sent a messenger after him. It had been
reached sooner than was expected, still he was
a little annoyed that Harrison should have taken
any chances, and after half an hour proceeded
to trial without him.
In the selection of the jury he took extraor-
dinary care. The district attorney was inclined
to ridicule his close examination of some of
the panel, and Harrison, when he hurried in
an hour late, was a little impatient aho, but
Ted went on in his own way. He exercised
the right of peremptory challenge in several
cases where he believed that the would-be
juror had more interest in proving theories than
in judging mankind, and also excused several
young, unmarried men. He was after the milk
of human kindness, and he believed it would
be more likely to be found among those who
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had boys of their own. When the twelve good
men and true were chosen, he was quite sat-
isfied.
As the prosecuting attorney warmed to his
work, his voice rang out through the halls of
the courthouse and some of the reporters
straggled in. He dwelt upon the enormity of
the crime, and the degeneracy of the accused,
who, he said, had been the bane of the neigh-
borhood. Their bodies had been ruined by
cigarette smoking, and their imaginations in-
flamed by reading pernicious books. Though
young in years they were old in vice, and Patsy
Riordan had incurred their ill will by the very
fact that he was a more than ordinarily good
child. True to their vicious instincts, they had
murdered him in cold blood. He called atten-
tion to the father of this victim of youthful de-
pravity, a mere wreck of his erstwhile manhood,
and dilated upon his suffering when he found
his only child foully murdered. He set forth
what he expected to prove with such certainty
that Walter Davis, a Herald reporter sitting
next to Lorraine, whispered, "Well, it's all over
with your young friends, the Jameses, except
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sending for the hurry-up wagon and giving
them some new clothes."
Teddy wanted Harrison to make the opening
address for the defense; but Harrison, who
wished to have the close, insisted that he, as he
had been there from the beginning, should do
this. The young man felt the dirty floor of the
courtroom roll under his feet like the ground-
swell of an ocean steamer. The judge and
jury were an indistinct blur, his mouth felt like
an advertisement of some one's liquid glue, and
his voice was gone beyond recall. He saw a
white blotch over by the door, and as he strug-
gled to his feet a suppressed sob broke the still-
ness of the room. The white blotch turned
into the face of Mrs. Collins, and the sob from
Mrs. Brown was the bugle call that brought
Ted to his feet and his senses, his wits and his
voice, all at once. Contrary to the expecta-
tions of the district attorney, he did not go into
an extended speech, but contented himself with
a general denial of the guilt of his clients, and
a few sarcastic references to the charge of the
prosecution that the children were homeless
vagabonds. He called the attention of the
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UNDER THE HARROW
jury to the fact that the parents of the boys
were in court, suffering as much, perhaps, on
account of the unjust accusation of their chil-
dren, their months of imprisonment on an un-
founded charge, as even the unhappy father of
the murdered boy. When he sat down again,
Walter Davis remarked to Lorraine, "This
case may be worth as much as eight lines; I'll
pass the word along for the fellows to play it
up a little. Your young friend isn't such a fool
as he might be, judging from his being so hand-
some. We'll just casually remark that he's on
earth;" and thus Ted received his first rec-
ognition from the Fourth Estate. The court
adjourned until the next day.
138
XVIII
TX/HHEN the court reconvened the next morn-
ing there was some question in regard to
swearing the children. Willie Hinckley, the
boy who had confessed to being a witness of the
murder, and who had rescinded his confession
afterward, was the first witness produced by the
prosecution.
The judge called the lad to him, and got
from him a fragmentary statement of his views
concerning the nature of oaths. He did not
permit the boy to be sworn. Ted looked at the
judge attentively. He remembered that some
one had told him that the judge had once
been compared to Abraham Lincoln, and from
that good hour that he had been trying to live
up to and increase the resemblance. He was a
very tall man, with a rather shambling frame,
and shoulders that had a charitable, earthly
stoop. The resemblance ended there; other-
wise the judge was distinctly handsome, and his
manner was so patient that Ted found himself
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wondering whether by any chance the judge
had some not over-saintly boys of his own. He
decided that he was glad to have his case before
a judge who wanted to be like Lincoln.
Hinckley was a lad of twelve, and having told
his story and taken it back several times, he
now retold it concisely and clearly. Lorraine,
sitting at the reporters' table, looked over at Ted
anxiously. Harrison conducted the cross-ex-
amination; it seemed to her prejudiced mind
that his manner was perfunctory. As the boy
was about to leave the stand, Ted stopped him
a moment.
"You say that Patsy was lying down when
he was shot ?" he asked.
"Yes, sir, with his arm thrown over his head,"
answered the boy. "Roy, he stood at his feet
and fired."
" How far was the muzzle of the gun from his
head?"
"Not more than a foot."
"Oh, it was a gun then; can you tell us what
kind of a gun it was ? I mean did it have a long
barrel or was it a revolver ?"
"It was an old shotgun," said the boy,
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pleased with the sensation he was making.
"We often played with it."
"Did it belong to Roy?" asked Ted.
"Why yes, I suppose so; he always had
it."
"Do you remember seeing him load the gun ?
What did he load it with and how ?"
"He had some shot and a paper wad; he
loaded it from the muzzle."
"And tamped it down with a ramrod ?"
"I don't remember."
"You would know the gun if you saw it
again ?"
"Oh, yes, sir!"
"That's all."
The witnesses brought to the stand on behalf
of the prosecution were chiefly those who had
testified at the coroner's inquest. Ted expected
and found little new in their evidence. The
trial had not lasted long before Ted was con-
vinced of the determination of the prosecution to
convict. Residents of the Riordan neighbor-
hood were put on the stand to prove the boys
incorrigibles, and they naturally made some
impression on the jury. Harrison did his best
141
UNDER THE HARROW
in the cross-examination, but it could not be
denied that the state had a strong case. To
be sure, it rested on the statement of a boy
who had shown himself capable of perjury,
and was backed up by circumstantial evidence
only; but even so, Ted knew that it more than
offset the meager amount of direct evidence he
could present, were he compelled to put wit-
nesses on the stand, a contingency which he
hoped to prevent. He felt that success lay in
showing that the prosecution had indicted the
wrong persons.
Next to Hinckley's statement, nothing told
so heavily against the accused as the statements
of several members of the police department
concerning the confessions alleged to have been
made by Tommy and Jimmy Brown, and the
attempt of the prosecution to introduce them as
evidence led to a heated discussion. These
depositions had been published with sensational
headlines at the time of the arrest of the boys,
and the prosecution made an herculean effort
to have them admitted.
When Ted cross-examined the official who
had sworn that he had received the confessions,
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he began by asking, "How long did you have
these children in jail before they 'confessed' ?"
"About three days," the man replied.
"Had to sweat them several times, and several
hours at a time ?"
"Yes a little."
"Isn't it a fact that you told Detective Howe
that you 'spent three hours over that rickety
young one, and were as limp as a rag, but you
had it' ?" asked Ted.
The man colored angrily, but controlled him-
self. "Not that I remember," he said inso-
lently.
" Both of the boys told you Roy Collins shot
Patsy?"
"Both of them."
"Isn't it a fact that the sick boy said he had
a musket, a single-barreled musket?"
"I don't recall exactly."
"Here is your sworn affidavit, in which one
boy makes that statement."
"Well, he might have," said the detective.
"But isn't it also a fact that Tommy Brown
said Roy had a revolver, a little revolver that
belonged to his mother ? Allow me to refresh
H3
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your memory;" hafiding him the typewritten
statement.
"They all agreed oh a gun, an* the shootin';
the particular kind don't cut no ice."
Ted turned to the jury. "I trust the jury
will remember that statement," he said. "If
the court please, it seems to me this testimony
is entirely incompetent. Here we are told of
three kinds of guns used to assassinate this
unfortunate child. There isn't a man in this
courtroom who owned a gun in his boyhood
who couldn't describe it accurately, to the kind
of sights, the maker's name and the wood in
the stock. Boys have not changed so much in
the past quarter of a century as all that. If
the prosecution intends to rest its case on a
gun that may have been a toy cannon, a blun-
derbuss, or a Sharp's rifle, we want to know
it."
"Never you mind about the prosecution,"
said the district attorney. "We'll attend to
that. Your Honor, do I understand the ob-
jection to the introduction of these affidavits is
overruled ?"
"Objection sustained," said the judge.
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Ted leaned back in his chair for the first
time.
"Mr. Riordan," said the district attorney,
"you will be sworn and take the stand."
The man who shambled forward, held up
his hand and then dropped heavily into the
chair on the witness-stand, was. of about middle
age. His hair was grizzled at the temples, and
his face haggard and wretched. He had the
instant sympathy of the spectators, and the
newspaper people looked at his miserable face,
listened to his low, strained voice and began to
make copy. The district attorney was a past
master in the art of extracting evidence, and
under his skilful questioning Mr. Riordan told
a story that sent many a hand upon a surrep-
titious search for a handkerchief. When the
bundle of clothing was placed on the stand,
and the torn trousers, faded shirt, and the cap
laid on his knee, the man broke down and,
hiding his face in his hands, the tears fell upon
the pathetic little heap of garments. At that
moment the prosecution had it all its own way.
A sob so hard and dry that it seemed to have
wrenched itself free from the very soul of the
H5
UNDER THE HARROW
man broke from the father of Roy Collins.
He turned this way and that, as if to escape
from this torture chamber, but the room was
crowded. He sat down again and bent his
white face on the shoulder of the little woman
beside him, and, reaching his hand across her
lap, caught that of his 'boy. She patted the two
hands gently and smiled.
It was an instant's glimpse into the terrible
drama of life, but it was a reminder that all
the sorrow was not confined to the prosecu-
tion's side of the case, nor all the woe endured
by one parent. "Like as a father pitieth his
children,'" said Lorraine to Walter Davis.
"I suppose that's Bible," he answered.
"Anything later would have been, 'Like as a
mother." 1
Up to this time the prosecution had proved
that many of the neighbors did not consider
the accused boys beyond suspicion. Ted had
tried to show that they were no more mischiev-
ous than boys usually, and was prepared to
put witnesses on the stand, including teachers
and Sunday-school teachers to show that there
was nothing about them to justify these senti-
146
UNDER THE HARROW
ments, but the value of negative testimony is
slight. Hinckley's story had made a profound
impression, which had not been destroyed by
his subsequent confusion. Mr. Riordan's tes-
timony was brief but conclusive. His evident
suffering prompted the district attorney to ask
no more questions than necessary. He told his
story brokenly. Patsy had gone after the cow,
as usual. He did not return, and when supper
time came he went to look for the child, and
found him cold and dead under the tree. There
was a shot in the back of his head and some
bruises on his body. He had notified the police,
and the day of the inquest Willie Hinckley had
come forward and told his story.
As he sat nervously stroking the clothes which
he had identified as those worn by Patsy, Ted
almost feared for his theory. Either the man
was a consummate actor or he was innocent.
Possibly remorse might account for this atti-
tude. Any attempt to badger the witness
would cost Ted's clients dear.
Ted began his cross-examination very con-
siderately. Riordan admitted that the boy and
his stepmother did not get on well, and that
UNDER THE HARROW
he was often late to meals, which was a cause
of friction. Yes, Patsy had known and played
with the Brown boys and Roy. No, he had
not objected. Where had they lived before
moving to the flats ?
"If your Honor please," said the district attor-
ney, "this has no bearing on the case; I object
to the question as irrelevant and immaterial."
The judge looked at Ted kindly. "I am
sure," he said, "that in his anxiety to serve his
clients the lawyer for the defense will not waste
time. The witness may answer the question."
Something had come over Riordan. There
was an ugly, wolfish look in his eyes. "In
Illinois," he snarled.
"How did you come to leave there ?"
"I don't know as I have to say," he answered.
Ted's voice was almost caressing, it was so
gentle. " I have here a newspaper that I would
like to have marked 'Exhibit D,'" he said; "it
contains an interesting account of the white-
capping of Peter Riordan by his neighbors, in
return for his habitual abuse of his wife and
child, Patsy. Have you anything to say, Mr.
Riordan?"
148
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"It's a damned lie," shouted the man; "I
might have slapped, but I never beat her."
"But you were white-capped; you do not
deny that ?"
The man sat in sullen silence.
"Mrs. Riordan died shortly before you moved
to the flats ?"
"Yes."
"Isn't it a fact that the insurance company
made some objection to paying the policy on
her life?"
"Have I got to answer all these fool ques-
tions?" asked Riordan.
" You will answer the question." The judge's
voice was stern.
"I don't remember," he said.
"No? Your memory is bad at times; well,
if necessary I can prove by members of the
company that they did object and demanded
an inquest."
"Yes, and what did it prove?" snapped
Riordan.
"It proved that your abuse of your family
was so habitual that all your neighbors knew
of it; if I remember rightly the company took
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the case into court, and when the money was
paid over it was not paid to you, was it ?"
"It was for Patsy," answered Riordan, con-
trolling himself with a mighty effort, while the
attorney came to his rescue with an objection
which was overruled.
"Say, the old judge is all right," whispered
Davis to Lorraine. "Here's a chance to help
Nash get re-elected, and instead of that the old
fellow's just a-ladling out justice."
"Then Patsy was heir to this insurance
money?" persisted Ted.
"Yes."
"Was his life insured, too ?"
"Yes."
"Has that policy been paid yet ?" asked Ted.
"Not yet," said Riordan.
Ted gave him a few minutes to recover him-
self, asked some inconsequential questions, and
then said, "Mr. Riordan, hasn't it seemed
strange to you that all these witnesses have
described different kinds of guns ?"
"Yes no; I don't know. It's all seemed
strange."
"Willie Hinckley says that Roy and the
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Brown boys and Patsy often shot at the target
with Roy's gun; did you ever see them ?"
"No, sir."
"Did Patsy ever speak of their having a
gun?"
"Not that I remember; he might."
The night was darkening down, and the
courtroom was in half twilight. The man had
stopped caressing the dead boy's clothing, and
clutched it with fierce, bony hands.
"These boys tell of a musket and a shot-
gun; do you remember that the inquest said
death was caused by a thirty-two caliber ball;
how do you account for that ?"
"I suppose the boys made a mistake. They
might."
"Don't you think that would be a singular
mistake ?"
"Oh, I don't know; all guns are pretty much
alike." There was an attempt at jocularity
that was ghastly.
"Did you ever happen to have a gun ?" Ted
asked quickly.
"Yes; I had a revolver once, back in Illinois,"
said the man.
UNDER THE HARROW
"You left it there, I suppose, leaving in a
hurry as you did ?"
"Yes," sullenly.
"But you could identify it, in spite of its
being like thousands of others?" said Ted.
"Yes," said Riordan, "I could, because it
had my initials cut in the handle, and a groove
filed in the barrel."
Ted rose and stepped close to the witness,
holding something not plainly visible in the
half-light. "Is that it?" he asked.
At that instant, when the hush was death-
like, the bailiff turned on the lights, and the
change in the witness' face was too evident
and too appalling for any one to doubt its
meaning.
"Take the pistol in your hand," commanded
Ted sharply. "Take it in your hand, and tell
this jury whether it is a thirty-two caliber,
marked P. R., with a groove filed in the barrel;
tell them whether it is your revolver, and how
you hid it in the tree, where Patsy's dead body
was found."
Riordan looked at it, dumb and fascinated;
his staring eyes starting from his head, the beads
152
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of sweat on his white forehead. The weapon
fell from his shaking fingers and the light of
reason faded slowly from his face. "I didn't
go to do it!" he said querulously; "I didn't go
to do it." His voice rose to a shriek and he
fell forward.
The scene in the courtroom was indescrib-
able. In the midst of the excitement the dis-
trict attorney, who was too shrewd a man not
to rise to the occasion, stepped to the bar.
"If your Honor please," he said, and the
sound of his voice brought an instant hush,
"from the evidence just produced I am con-
vinced that these defendants are not guilty of
the crime with which they are charged, and I
believe it to be the duty of this court to dismiss
them. I therefore desire to enter a plea of
nolle prosequi, and to file an information against
Peter Riordan, and upon my own motion re-
quest the court to hold him until I can file
additional information against him."
Then he stepped over and congratulated
Ted.
153
XIX
~\HE announcement of the engagement of
Hope and Maurice Harrison was a shock
to Lorraine, but as she found herself in a hope-
less minority she said nothing. Bess and the
boys were delighted to have a romance under
the same roof, and the Heavenly Twins were
mildly pleased. Louis set his under jaw and
said little. Louis had never before stood so
high in Lorraine's good graces.
"What's the matter with the man?" asked
Miss Brent, when Lorraine took refuge with
her. "Isn't he good enough?"
"Of course he isn't," answered Miss Elise.
"Hardly any man is good enough for hardly
any woman. Don't expect that."
"It isn't that," said Lorraine; "besides I
don't feel that way about men; I've known lots
of them good enough for the best women. If
only Louis were a few years older! Any of
the Blessed Boys are good enough, but there's
something about this man that makes me dis-
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trust him. He is too suave, too smiling, too
apparently sincere, not to be hiding some-
thing."
"Well," said Miss Brent philosophically, "the
best of men always remind me of Dooley's
description of the Filipinos: 'simple an'
kindly be nature, but crool an' bloodthirsty in
their instincts.' It's all a lottery, with few
prizes and many blanks. When I visit my
married friends I'm glad to get back to Elise
and Rab; and since we have had the boys up-
stairs and you down, I don't know a family I'd
change with."
"Don't go and borrow trouble, Lorry," said
Miss Elise kindly. "He has plenty of money,
hasn't he ? and he can make her life easier;
besides, you might just as well make up your
mind to it; your friends will never in this world
marry the people they obviously ought to marry.
There's nothing on earth so surprising as the
matrimonial misfits who think they can't be
happy without each other. All the rest of us
know they'll never be happy together, but other
people's experience never does any good."
"I know it," admitted Lorraine; "but Hope
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is so quiet, so intense. She'll never get over it
if things go wrong."
"Didn't you like his novel when she brought
it home and read it to you?" asked Miss
Brent.
"Yes, I did," said Lorraine honestly. "It
is a beautiful novel, and it keeps reminding me
of some one who is as different from him as
daylight from darkness. The story doesn't
square with him at all. It is full of deep things;
sometimes it is almost inspired, and I have
listened to him when he has been talking with
Ted, or with the girls, and he has never said
anything worth remembering. He is shallow;
his bright things are borrowed or superficially
clever. He doesn't ring true," she finished
desperately.
"It's too bad," admitted Miss Brent; "to
tell the truth I can't imagine Hope resolving
herself into a mere hatisfrau; she has always
complained that she was the three-cornered
block in the round hole, but I'm afraid she
will find the square hole doesn't fit much
better."
"I suppose when a manuscript is accepted
156
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there's no way of getting it back, is there?"
asked Miss Elise.
"I'm afraid it's already in type," answered
Lorraine. "Yet that is one of the things I
don't like about him. He wants to keep it a
secret. His parents live in Philadelphia, yet
he has never suggested that his mother would
come up to see Hope."
"Perhaps she is old or an invalid," said Miss
Elise.
"In that case he might ask Hope to waive
conventionality and go to see her," answered
Lorraine.
"Maybe he thinks his people will oppose it,"
the little sister ventured.
Miss Brent laughed this to scorn. "I agree
with Lorraine on that point," she said. "They
ought to be proud to have Hope for a daughter-
in-law, and he ought to want to spread the glad
tidings to the four quarters of the earth. If I
was going to marry a beautiful young man,
with real genius, and wit and culture and all
that Hope has, I'd send a bellman out to cry
'boy lost,' so all the other New York women
could realize their loss and die of envy. But
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I wouldn't worry over it any more. Just turn
your hand to hemming these napkins, and try
and find out how she would like to have her
silver marked. We don't have to marry him.
Besides, some very uncomfortable shoes turn
out well and wear a long time."
XX
"^HE coming of the postman is always a
matter of vital interest, but with geniuses
it is of supreme importance. Almost any day
he may bring a summons to the higher seats in
the synagogue, and the really industrious ap-
prentice in literature counts upon at least one
unhappy return a week. No one but a writer
can fully appreciate the sinking of heart pro-
duced by a long, thick envelope, or the ecstatic
fear that accompanies a short, thin one, with
the publisher's name in the corner. Other
letters may have their value, but it is the thin,
flat letter that causes rejoicing among the
writer-folk.
Yet it was a plain, heavy envelope that made
Lorraine exclaim for joy.
"It's from Mary Deland," she explained
delightedly in answer to the questioning looks
of the girls. "She is coming to New York -
Then consulting the letter, "She is here now!
Where are my things ? Lend me your unbrella,
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Hope, please. She is stopping at a respectable
hotel, and I don't want to be distinguished
from the other lions, like Daniel, by my green
cotton affair. Don't look for me till you see
me!" and she was gone.
It was a dreary day, the beginning of winter,
and the rain was falling disconsolately as if it
didn't find cloud-life worth living. Lorraine
took the L and hurried away up town. Mary's
note had been very brief, and there was nothing
to tell whether she had come on a flying visit
or for a more protracted stay.
She was in, however, and Lorraine was
shown to her room. After the first excitement
of meeting was over the two women stood and
looked at each other and exclaimed simultane-
ously, "How thin you've grown!" Then they
laughed and sat down by the radiator.
"You begin," said Mary. "What are you
doing to make yourself thin ? I understand
you are succeeding; why, then, this interesting
pallor ? Is it a love affair that is gnawing like
a worm i' the bud ?"
"Yes, it is," admitted Lorraine; "but not
mine. I don't have them. My political stuff
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is taking fairly well, and while men think, or
say they think, women can't understand politics,
they all of them prefer that topic to anything
more personal when they're conversing with
me. That is, if they belong to the class who
take an interest in the pool. This may be a
crushing admission, but it is the truth."
"But the love affair," insisted Mary. "Is
it one of the Blessed Boys you have written
about, or has one of the Twins suddenly fallen
a victim after all these years of immunity ?"
"Worse," said Lorraine. "It's my chum,
Hope. It isn't the usual veally affair, either.
She's over twenty, and it's a bad case and he's
a bad case, and I know she is going to be
unhappy, and I can't do anything about it."
Mary smiled rather sadly. "No, under the
circumstances all one can do is to hope that
she may prove a false prophet," she said. "If
matrimony were an employment it would prob-
ably be classed among those labeled 'extra
hazardous/ But don't worry. It will do no
good."
"And your trouble?" asked Lorraine; "I
hope it is a proxy one too."
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Mary's white face grew whiter, and she rose
and walked up and down the room a time or
so. "No," she said, "my trouble is my own.
I never told you, Lorraine, in fact I never
told any one in New York, except Uncle Peter.
I have lived and worked under my old name,
my newspaper name; it is nobody's business.
I was married ten years ago; three years after
that my little girl was born, and when she was
two weeks old my husband left us. Everything
had been mortgaged, even the bed she was born
in, and when he went away, without one word
of explanation, I did the one thing I knew how
to do, went to work in a newspaper office. I
was very weak still, and the city editor was kind
to me; he made me copy-reader. When my hus-
band found I had gone to work he swore that
I had disgraced him, and he would never speak
to me again so long as I earned my living."
"But how did he expect you to live?" asked
Lorraine.
"I don't know; the mortgage was foreclosed,
and the home and everything in it went. Then
I took my baby and lived in lodgings. My
landlady was very good to me, and let her little
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girl take care of the baby." She stopped to
gather self-control, and then went on: "The
child did the best she could, but my little
one needed me. Oh, when people blame women
for leaving their children and going out to
make a living, do they never think of the heart-
break of it! Do they never realize that it is
a choice between going out and seeing them
starve ? That winter poor little May had
diphtheria, and when the doctors said she
would die I wrote her father; he sent me
twenty-five dollars by his attorney. If I had
had time I should have begun to hate him
then, but I was fightin'g for my baby's life.
Inch by inch we drew her back from the very
brink of the grave; then the doctors said she
must have a change, so I went to the lawyer
and asked him what arrangements my husband
was willing to make for her. I asked nothing,
wanted nothing for myself. For a few months
he sent me a little money now and then, noth-
ing I could depend upon. My mother came
and took May home with her, and I went to
work to get the money to pay the debts that
had accumulated during her long illness."
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"And haven't you seen her since?" asked
Lorraine.
"My baby? Yes, often then; but when the
New York chance came I had to give her up.
It meant so much, but you can never guess
what it was to me to live here those two years
and only see her for a few weeks. That was
one reason why I went to Chicago when I had
the offer; I could see her every week or so. I
haven't seen her father since he left us, and
I loved him, oh, I loved him so!"
She seemed to drift far away for a few min-
utes, and Lorraine asked, "Do you love him
still, in spite of it all ?"
Mary shook her head. "No; but it seems
as if a part of me had died, rather than my
feeling for him. I never want to see him again,
yet I am here for that purpose."
"What was the trouble, dear? Why did he
go?" asked Lorraine, the tears coming to her
eyes.
"I think he well, he used to take opium
sometimes, and he was not always account-
able; then he speculated, and lost heavily. He
was a queer combination of moods and emo-
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tions, and he could be charming when he wished.
I think he really felt that I had disgraced him
when I went back to the desk. Don't you
know there are people who think it more hon-
orable to owe bills than to pay them by the
sweat of one's brow ? He was like that. Since
then he has made some rather good invest-
ments, and has quite a little sum of money."
"Is he here?" asked Lorraine timidly.
"Yes; he has been here some time. That
was another reason why I left a year and more
ago; I learned quite accidentally that he had
come here. Now he has brought suit for di-
vorce. That's what brings me here."
"You don't mean to say you are going to
fight it?" asked Lorraine in amazement.
"I must, dear," answered Mary. "I am
willing enough to let him go, but if the case
goes by default I could never compel him to
pay a penny of alimony. Don't look so hor-
rified, Lorraine. Do you think I am doing
this for myself, or that I could ever spend a
cent of his for my own needs ? Food bought
with his money would choke me; clothes would
sting like nettles "
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She sprung to her feet and clenched her hands.
"I won't cry," she half sobbed, "I will not cry."
"Do, dear," mourned Lorraine; "it will do
you good."
"No," she said, "not yet. Several years ago
I had a fearful illness; I had cried myself half
blind and the brain fever left some kind of a
weakness. Anyhow the doctors told me that
tears might cost me my life at almost a min-
ute's notice. And some day I shall break down.
I must make some provision for little May
against that time when she will not have me
any longer. And, who knows ? Perhaps she
may redeem her father and lead him back to
his better self. He used to be so gentle, so
lovable. When I am dead I have no right to
deprive him of that one chance. He can't help
being a better man for being compelled to re-
member now and then that he is a father."
She stopped, exhausted, and threw herself
upon the bed. "Don't be afraid," she said,
"don't be afraid, Lorraine. I shall not cry
until May's future is secure."
But Lorraine, with her arms around her, was
crying for two.
166
XXI
"*HE Saturday before Christmas was to be a
day of jubilation and celebration. The
geniuses had arranged quite a program, and
Uncle Peter Bright and a few others of the elect
had been invited to be present. Louis and
Hope were to give the curtain raiser they had
been working upon so long, Paul was to furnish
the music, and, to Lorraine's great joy, she had
been able to prevail upon Mary Deland to give
a reading from the advance sheets of her new
book, which was to be on the market early in
the year.
There had been a flurry of snow early in
the afternoon, just enough to give the proper
Christmas atmosphere, and then the weather
had cleared, and the night was sparkling and
cold. Everybody was in the highest possible
spirits. Lorraine was happy because Mary was
coming; Bess, because well, just because,
sometimes there is no better reason; Hope, be-
cause Mr. Harrison, who had seemed rather
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UNDER THE HARROW
shy, had promised to drop in late in the even-
ing; and the Heavenly Twins, because all their
ducklings seemed likely to eventually turn out
swans.
The big double parlors were festooned with
Christmas greens, and the log fire crackled and
sparkled. Every one came early, and Ted was
patted on the back and congratulated till a less
modest youth would have been spoiled; all the
garret geniuses rejoiced in his success as whole-
heartedly as if it had been their own. There
was not in all New York a happier party.
The play went off admirably, and the play-
wright and his leading lady won applause that
might well have appealed to and warmed the
cockles of the heart of any professional. Then
there was a little music, a duet sung by
Bess and Teddy, an encore, and then Mary
was introduced by Miss Brent and began her
story. She had taken a few scenes and ar-
ranged them so as to give a plan of the novel,
and ended with a climax so strong and dra-
matic that it left her hearers breathless, all of
them figuratively so, two of them literally. As
she proceeded with the reading in her exquisitely
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trained voice, Hope and Lorraine exchanged
puzzled glances. Before she had finished crim-
son spots were burning on Hope's cheeks, and
her eyes were flashing with an angry light.
Lorraine was as white as a ghost. First she
had been startled, then frightened, then the
light of a sudden, awful conviction broke upon
her confused mind.
The close of the story, strongly dramatic as
it was, held the audience. No one had heard
the bell or noticed the advent of Mr. Harrison,
who stood by the curtains in the back parlor,
as if uncertain whether to go or remain. No
one except Hope, who had risen like an aveng-
ing Nemesis and was demanding in ringing
tones :
"You say this is from your story, Mrs.
Deland, a book already published ?"
"Yes," said Mary gently and a little sur-
prised at the evident hostility of the speaker.
"I have just finished all the revises; the book
will be on the market by February."
"And you wrote it when ?" Hope's voice
was vibrant with wrath and indignation.
"In the forests of Michigan years ago," Mary
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answered, troubled at the meditated offense of
the question; and turning to Lorraine for ex-
planation, her glance fell upon the colorless face
and rigid form of Maurice Harrison, standing
as if turned to stone, and gazing at her with a
malignant glare of hatred.
No one in the room ever forgot that moment.
Even Hope followed the eyes of the woman she
had risen to denounce, until she also had turned
and was facing her lover. Her lover ? This
shrinking, cowering creature ? Her lover, whose
eyes did not dare meet hers ?
"Speak!" she cried. "Who is this woman,
what is she doing with your story ?"
The wretched man wet his parched lips and
tried to answer; then with something between a
snarl and a curse he would have flung himself
out of the room, but for Ted's long fingers on
his collar, and the iron sinewed right arm that
Prince Karl put out to bar his passage.
"Not yet, my friend," Ted said sternly.
"When your affianced wife asks you a question
you will do well to answer it, yes, and answer
damn quick too," with sudden anger. " An-
swer! Do you hear ?"
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" His affianced wife," said Mary slowly,
"his affianced "
"Yes," said Hope hotly, "and who and what
are you ?"
The older woman looked at her with infinite
compassion. "God help us both," she said.
*I am his wife."
"You won't be in ten days," he said impu-
dently; but Hope shrank away.
"It is true then?" she said. "You have
asked me to marry you when when you were
already married ? And I believed in you, oh, I
believed in and trusted you so!" She turned
from one to the other piteously, "And the story,
did you lie about that too ?"
All the flush had gone from her face, the light
from her eyes. She put out her hands as if
groping in the dark for something gone forever.
"Lorry," she said faintly, "Lorry!"
But it was Louis who caught her in his strong,
young arms, Louis whose face was as pale as
her own.
171
XXII
* I V HE holidays were long gone by before
Hope emerged from the darkened room
where she had been carried that eventful night.
Fragile and worn with the anxiety, hard work,
and disappointments of the last few years, the
girl was in no condition to stand such a shaft
from the blue sky of love and hope. Nature
always takes her reprisals, sooner or later, and
she is a merciless creditor, compounding her
interest.
Worn and hollow-eyed, the girl crept down-
stairs one day, for the Twins had taken her
into their ampler fold during the days when
it seemed as if her life might flicker out. She
had never mentioned Harrison's name, and he
had never dared Lorraine's wrath, but once
he had stopped Bess and asked after the woman
he had wronged. Through Ted they knew he
had left town immediately after the divorce pro-
ceedings. None of them ever saw him again.
Hope stopped with her hand on the knob.
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Miss Brent and Lorraine were talking, and she
heard her name.
"I can't go and leave Hope," Lorraine was
saying. "I just can't. I couldn't do my work if
I tried. I'd be worrying about her all the time."
"There's not a bit of use in your staying,"
Miss Brent answered just as decidedly. "Do be
sensible; you can't do a thing for her. Poor
child, no one can. You've never been in love,
you're too sensible for that, and then you hated
him from the very first; and for all you'll never
say, ' I told you so,' every time she sees you she's
going to be reminded that you did tell her so.
You just go to Albany with your horrid old
legislators, and leave her to me; it will be better
all around."
Lorraine seemed doubtful. "Do you really
think so?" she said. "Is this going to come
between us, after all these years when we've
gone through so much together?"
"I know," answered the old lady. "It does
seem too bad that a mere man should be able to
come between friends, but they do sometimes.
Go away, my dear, and let her have a little time
to get over it."
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Hope crept back to her bedroom upstairs,
wondering how the getting over it process is
accomplished. When Miss Brent came in, she
was lying on the couch, so white and still that,
but for her wide, tearless eyes, she might have
been still forever.
"How am I going to get over it ?" she asked;
and the older woman sat down by her and patted
her hand as if she were a little child.
"I don't think you will 'get over it/ dearie,"
she said, " but you'll live through it. Yes, you
will live through it." There was a touch of
bitterness in her voice. "There are troubles
one does not live through," she added.
The girl dropped back on her pillows. ' ' ' Men
have died and worms have eaten them.' Oh,
don't you see that that is just the worst of it ? 1
shall live through it, and through all the long,
long years heavy and savorless as unleavened
bread. The tortures of the inquisition were
kinder than this. One knew that death must
come reasonably soon, but there is no such
fortune in store for me; I have to go on and
on and on till I live through it."
The elder woman looked out at the gray sky
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and flying flakes of snow. "And I love life,"
she said, half to herself. " Once it took so much
to make me happy, and now, as I draw nearer
and nearer to its close, I think I could be quite
content to sit by the window and watch the
snow, the rain, the sunshine, the children in the
streets."
"Science is stupid, blind, futile," Hope said
wearily. "Why can't I give you my life ? Why
must I live on when all desire of life is past ?
I'm so young, so terribly young; 1 may have to
live for forty or even fifty years. Miss Brent,
do you think one must live, whether she wants
to or not, whether life is worth living or not,
whether it is one long-continued misery or not ?"
Miss Brent's face looked gray and drawn in
the fading light, and she hesitated. "I think
so, my dear," she said at length. " I don't see
any way; no, I don't see any other way out
of it."
After she had gone Hope found herself re-
membering her last words. "She said it as if
she wanted to see some other way," she said to
herself. " And she spoke as if she were thinking
of some one else. I wonder who she meant ?"
175
XXIII
TV/riSS BRENT sat alone in her study. Elise
had gone to visit one of their multitudinous
cousins, at her sister's earnest request. Her ab-
sence was a relief and a sorrow at the same time.
"What am I going to do?" said Miss Brent
to herself, after looking into the fire for an hour.
"What am I going to do?" Rab came and
laid a troubled nose upon her knee, and Miss
Brent patted him on the head. "You're a
great comfort, Rabsey, old man," she said,
"but even you can't help me now. It's the
Valley of the Shadow, and my faithful dog
can't bear me company. You must stay and
take care of Elise, poor little Elise. She'll need
you worse than I; but how am I ever going to
tell her ? Rabsey, my dear, I think the chil-
dren must help me out. Will you take a note
to the top floor?"
The dog danced appreciatively until she had
finished writing, and, taking the note in his
intelligent little mouth, fairly flew upstairs.
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"And I want a girl," continued the old lady.
" I don't like to lay my woes on Lorraine, but
Hope has more than enough of her own, and
Bess wouldn't understand. It's hard lines, but
friends are made for adversity."
Ted followed Rab's scampering feet down-
stairs, and the dog was despatched with a sec-
ond note, and Lorraine appeared a few seconds
later. Neither of them was surprised. The
dog-express was an old and honored institution,
but when they entered the room something told
them that it was a different errand that had
brought them there than any of the exigencies of
a literary existence, or the whims of a patron saint
of aspiring youth. Ted asked almost in the first
breath, "What is the matter?" and Lorraine
made the same query the moment she entered.
Miss Brent had herself well in hand. "I
want you to draw my will, Theodore," she
said, "and Lorraine can act as a witness."
He drew a breath of relief. "Oh, is that all ?
Well, that's a simple matter. Do you want me
to actually do it now, or do you want to talk
about it, and let me get it up in proper shape
on the typewriter, with duplicate copies ?"
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She motioned him to a chair at the big table,
with its litter of pens, papers, magazines, and
books. "Now, please," she said. "I want to
have it off my mind; you'll find legal cap in the
right-hand drawer and blotters and everything
you need." He sat down obediently and un-
capped his fountain pen. Lorraine walked to
the window, with a sense of bewildered anxiety,
and then back to the fire, where she sat down
at Miss Brent's feet.
Ted wrote the date, and then asked, "Do
you want to begin in the usual way: I, Emily
Brent, being sound in mind and body "
"Not exactly," she said; "write, I, Emily
Brent, being sound in mind " She stopped,
and he wrote it down and waited. The pause
grew ominous. Lorraine flung her arms about
Miss Brent and looked up with something like
terror in her eyes. "Sound in mind," repeated
the old lady firmly, "but assured that I have
but a short time to live "
Ted dropped the pen, and Lorraine's arms
tightened around her.
"Yes, my dears, I mean it," said Miss Brent.
"I've known it for some time, but I couldn't
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make up my mind to admit it. The world is
so beautiful I can't bear to leave it. I'm
I'm afraid I'm a worldly old woman. I've
always enjoyed being alive, and I've never fixed
my thoughts on the future life. I've been so
busy, there's been so much to do, and so many
to do for, that I have had no time to think
about dying; and now it has come quite sud-
denly, and I can't seem to get used to the idea.
'Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing
it is for the eyes to behold the sun. But if a
man live many years and rejoice in them all,
it is hard to remember that the dust must
return to the earth as it was, and the spirit
I can't quite seem to realize it, now that it is
almost here -
Lorraine had hidden her face in Miss Brent's
lap and was crying. "But what makes you
think it is here?" cried Ted impetuously.
"What is the matter ? You are thinner, but -
who says it is hopeless ?"
"It is carcinoma, my dears," she said. "That
doesn't sound quite so hateful as cancer. It's
the slow kind. I went to an awful place where
they profess to burn them out. I was there a
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year, and it was a year of hell; they claimed
that I was cured, and I came home. A few
months ago it recurred. I have seen some of
the best surgeons there are. They give me six
months at the outside, possibly not so much;
I pray it may not be so long, and there will be
unspeakable pain, though Dr. Powers has prom-
ised that it shall not be more than I can bear.
Oh, he has been an angel to me! I I think I
couldn't stand it, but for his promise that I
shall not suffer any more as I have."
Ted and Lorraine looked at each other de-
spairingly.
"Does your sister know?" he asked.
"No; she knew before, but she doesn't know
it has come back. What's the use of troubling
her until I have to ?"
"But she ought not to be away even for
twenty-four hours," objected Lorraine. "She
will begrudge every minute away from you.
She just lives in you, Miss Emma. Oh, are you
sure ? It doesn't seem possible; are you sure ?"
"Haven't you noticed how I clung to the
summer?" she asked. "I went to the park
every day, because I hardly expect to see it
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UNDER THE HARROW
green again, at least I hope not. Even if I
last that long I shall be in too much agony to
see anything. Isn't it wicked," she said sharply,
"isn't it cruel and wicked to think that just
because I am a human being I must be treated
with less kindness than a dumb brute ? If it
were Rabsey we would put him out of his
misery. It isn't just, Lorraine, you know it
isn't just, let alone doing as we'd be done by."
"It's against the law to anticipate death in
this state," said Ted, "no matter what a curse
life may be."
"Yes; a foolish law, enacted by a foolish
legislature," said Miss Brent curtly. "Pagan
peoples are kinder and more humane. I can't
understand why a Christian nation, that lives
in the belief of immortality and the hope of
glory, should expend every possible effort to
prolong life when it is an intolerable misery.
When life is a burden too great to be borne,
when one has done all that can be done, why
not end the agony ? Why not be gathered to
one's fathers in peace, instead of dragging on
from day to day, to go shrieking out, half in-
sane with the torture of a hideous disease?
1*1
UNDER THE HARROW
The day is going to come when our present
system will be looked back to as a species of
civilized barbarism."
Again the quick flash of understanding passed
between the young people.
"Oh, don't say that to Hope!" sobbed Lor-
raine. "There is a grief that eats one's heart
out as as the cancer does physically. The
mind can suffer pain as excruciating as the
body. I suppose if we have the right to escape
from one we have the right to escape from the
other, and I have been so afraid Don't you
remember, she said it would be the mental
pain from which she should shrink, that night,
when "
"She is young," said Miss Brent; "she doesn't
believe it now, but the sun will shine again.
It is different with her; breaking the slate does
not solve the problem, but for me the sun
has set. Why must I grope on in darkness ?"
"Because we can't spare you yet," answered
Lorraine; "and perhaps the doctor can really
save you from much of the suffering. He will
try."
"Remember, not one word to the other chil-
182
dren; not half a word to Elise," said Miss
Brent.
Ted took up his pen and flung it down again.
"I can't do it to-day, Miss Emma; I just
can't;" and he buried his face on his arms on
the table. Rab whimpered plaintively, and
Lorraine caught him in her arms. Down the
street a hand organ jangled painfully the notes
of the once popular song, "Silver Threads
Among the Gold," and Lorraine seemed to
follow them and recall the forgotten words up
to the line, "Life is passing fast away."
She raised her face, blotted and tear-stained.
"Miss Brent," she said softly, "nobody in the
world has ever done for me what you have;
but for your help and encouragement and belief
we might all of us have given up. Now I will
try to be strong for your sake and help you bear
it; but, oh, if sometimes I can't be amusing or
good company any more, remember that it is
because I cannot reconcile myself to letting
you go, I can't seem to think of any life worth
living without you."
Miss Brent stroked her hair. "It isn't as if
it were for always," she said.
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UNDER THE HARROW
"No," said Lorraine quickly; "and even in
the Delectable Mountains you will not forget
us, toiling up the sheer steeps of the Hill
Difficulty. You will not forget us, Miss
Emma."
184
XXIV
IV/riSS BRENT would not hear of Lorraine's
giving up her legislative work, and the
night before she left for Albany she had a long
talk with Hope. They were alone, and had
been silent for some time before Lorraine found
courage to say, "Hope, I want to give you
just a little, little piece of advice. I'm not
heartless, and I'm not cold, and I don't mean to
be unkind, but I want to say something that
may seem all three."
Hope braced herself mentally, as we all do
when our friends serve notice that they are
about to say something for our own good.
"Do you remember the parable of the woman
who had ten pieces of silver, and how, having
lost one of them, she lit her candle and swept
the whole house until she found it ? Now sup-
pose, after all her pains and trouble, when she
found what she had thought her tenth piece
of silver, it had turned out to be a cleverly
executed counterfeit, worthless lead or pewter.
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UNDER THE HARROW
Do you think she would have wasted many
tears over it ? Would she not have been glad
that she learned the truth herself, instead of
having her spurious coin rejected in the market-
place ? Wouldn't she have looked on her nine
remaining pieces of silver, tested their weight,
and tried them one by one to see that each
had the true ring, and would she not have
rejoiced over the good coin that was left, in-
stead of grieving over what was worthless ?"
Hope's sensitive mouth quivered for an in-
stant. "Perhaps she had planned to buy cer-
tain things with the tenth coin, things none of
the other coins would purchase," she said.
"That's what I mean exactly," answered
Lorraine. "Don't you see she never could have
bought anything with it, because it was coun-
terfeit ? It was better for her to know it before
she went out to buy."
"Nevertheless, she must go without what it
would have bought," said Hope wearily.
"No, because it wouldn't have bought any-
thing," insisted Lorraine. "She thought it
would, but it wouldn't. It would have brought
her nothing but humiliation and misery. It
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UNDER THE HARROW
was counterfeit. The real coin, even of the
same date, is in existence, and will buy her all
she desires, all she dreamed of. If she had
lost the real coin, her loss would have been
irretrievable " Lorraine paused a moment;
possibly she was remembering, then went on,
"But the loss of a counterfeit, something that
is nothing, not even the phantom of false morn-
ing, that is not a loss; it is a good riddance."
Hope leaned back in her rocking-chair and
closed her eyes. "She had only so many
candles," she said, "and she burned one to the
candlestick looking for the silver piece "
"And got dust in her hair sweeping under a
lot of furniture that hadn't been moved since
the spring cleaning," supplemented Lorraine;
"but her hair needed washing anyhow, the
house was spotlessly clean, she had nine good
pieces of silver left, and as she swept at night
she had all the day left for other things. Hope,
you have ten talents. One of them is the talent
for happiness. You were going to put the
others away while you gloated over this one.
Now you think you have lost it, but you haven't.
You have lost something that gave a promise
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UNDER THE HARROW
of it. Suppose some one wishes to wrong me
and make me unhappy, and I put it all out of
my mind. He is disarmed. If I brood over it
and make myself moody, bitter, and suspicious,
he has accomplished his purpose. The poisoned
arrow has gone home instead of glancing off."
"He jests at scars that never felt a wound," 2
said Hope a trifle bitterly.
"Because one refuses to wear his heart upon
his sleeve is no sign he has none," answered
Lorraine. "It is because I was a fool, such a
motley fool once on a time, that I am trying
to make you spare yourself. Let me tell you
it is no small thing to sacrifice a good com-
plexion to an idol with clay feet, and get round-
shouldered burning joss-sticks before an altar
that hasn't a thing in the world on it save your
own imagination. Sometimes I think the French
saying that when a woman loves first it is the lover
that is all important, and after that she only
loves love, is quite as true when it is reversed.
A woman, especially a serious, intense woman,
is awfully apt to love the great god of Love
himself, and hang all his attributes upon a
most unworthy representative the first time her
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UNDER THE HARROW
heart is ever engaged. Indeed, it is hardly
true to speak of her heart; it may be nothing
more than her imagination that is involved.
Don't you see, dear?"
Hope rose, trembling a little, and the women
caught each other's hands and stood looking
into each other's eyes.
"You're a real gold piece," said Hope feel-
ingly. " I'll go back to work to-morrow."
"You're another," responded Lorraine; "we'll
both go to work, and, Hope, remember I
leave Miss Brent in your care. I want you
to cultivate her and amuse her, if you can;
the boys are so busy, and Ted and Bess so
absorbed in each other, I'm afraid she will
miss me. You will find her a tower of strength."
"Is she in trouble, Lorraine?" asked Hope.
"I fancied the other day, from something she
said, that she was ill and worried."
Lorraine hesitated. "She'll tell you herself,
dear; just be very good to her, and never let
Miss Elise notice anything. Now go to bed,
like a good child; we must be up early."
189
XXV
* I S HE gentle art of minding one's own busi-
ness, without losing the ability to know
when to rejoice with those that do rejoice and
mourn with those who are afflicted, is a rare
gift, but the little company gathered together
under the roof of the Heavenly Twins possessed
it. When Hope crept back into what was left
of the charmed circle there was kindness and
consideration and a complete ignoring of the
unpleasant episode that had wrecked her air-
castle and the temporary peace of the household.
If one has set his heart upon a pasteboard
crown, glittering with tin-foil and brilliants, it
doesn't make it any easier for his disillusion-
ment to take place on coronation day, before
the assembled multitude. To wear a gilded
sorrow gracefully, before the curious eyes of the
world, makes letting concealment prey like a
worm in the bud seem an easy and even agree-
able process.
Pride will do much, but work will do more,
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UNDER THE HARROW
and Hope returned to her labors with a kind
of inarticulate fury. She was absorbed, not in
her grief, but in a headlong flight from it.
Lorraine scolded on her weekly visits; Louis
entreated. She did not seem to understand
them, and the two who helped her most were
Miss Brent, fighting her own grim, always losing
battle, and Bess, still so young that she be-
lieved "the setting of a great hope is like the
setting of the sun," and forgot that the sun has
never failed to rise. She assumed charge of their
tiny me'nage, and saw that Hope had a good
breakfast, and dragged her out to luncheon,
and told her the perplexities that beset her,
and showed her all her sketches, and saw that
she wore her rubbers and took her umbrella.
The girl who had been called "the Infant"
became the mainstay and did the mothering
herself. Hope brought much of her work
home, and read to Miss Brent, whose keen
criticisms were always amusing and often help-
ful. Finding sleep unwilling to knit up the
raveled sleave of care, she pulled out her
mother's plays and read them and acted scenes
for the Twins and Louis. She left not one
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UNDER THE HARROW
single moment open for repining, and Bess
began to feel that her efforts were rewarded.
Ted watched Bess approvingly, yet felt it a
duty not to let her sacrifice herself too far, and
with that end in view he took her many even-
ings for long, apparently cheerless walks up
and down the romantic streets of that suburb
of Arcadia, New York City.
While one swallow does not make a summer,
one straw will show the direction of the wind,
and Ted's success in the Riordan case had
brought the young man some business and
recognition from quarters where recognition
may be figured on as cash capital. More than
once he had almost needed a "This is My
Busy Day" sign, and his typewriter lived in
the hope of an indefinite supply of new ribbons.
One day he received a call from the Honorable
Michael Cahill. Ted had the advantage of his
caller in several things beside birth and educa-
tion. The Honorable Michael was one of the
gentlemen "written up" by Lorraine among the
heroes who carry their wards. As it was an
article of faith with the geniuses to read each
other's published works, Ted knew that his
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UNDER THE HARROW
caller was a Tipperary man, that he had taken
out his first papers the day he landed, and
offered his services to the Volunteer Fire De-
partment the next week, and that he had re-
ceived a medal from the city for services rendered
in connection therewith. He knew that Michael
was one of the few surviving privates of the Civil
War, and that the one decoration he prized more
highly than his fireman's medal was the small
brown Grand Army button. Michael had the
reputation of being square. He was not above
buying votes that he believed would stay bought,
but he kept his promises to his committee-men,
remembered the widows and orphans of trusted
lieutenants, saw that his ward got its share of
political favors, and made a specialty of keeping
track of young men who might be useful. He
had happened to be in court the day of Ted's
victory, and learning that Ted's office was
located in his ward and that Ted shared his
political predilections his heart warmed to him.
He foresaw possibilities in the not too distant
political future, and dropping a word here and
there he steered some business into Ted's office,
and took him some of his own. The promptness
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with which it was attended to assured him of
what he already guessed, that the young man
was not driven to death with the rush of busi-
ness. For several reasons this suited him.
Late one wintry afternoon he dropped into
the office, where Ted was typewriting a letter
to Lorraine, who had not been able to come
down the preceding Sunday.
"If ye're busy," said Mr. Cahill politely,
"111 wait till 'tis finished."
Ted knew it would be more dignified to pre-
tend he was pressed for time, but he also knew
that honesty was the only policy likely to win
with Michael Cahill, and so he answered
frankly, "Your time is worth a whole lot more
than mine, Mr. Cahill. What can I do for
you?"
"Have ye kept much track of the legislative
proceedin's ?" asked the old man cautiously.
"Fair," said Ted with equal caution; for in
addition to reading the papers, Lorraine had
sent him copies of bills in which he was likely to
be interested, and he had written considerable
legislative gossip in his letter to his home news-
paper. Yet he might not even know the num-
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UNDER THE HARROW
ber of the bill in which Mr. Cahill was interested.
That there was such a measure he did not doubt.
"Ye haven't read House bill one hundred and
seventy-eight, have ye ?" ventured Mr. Cahill.
"Lawton's gerrymander, you mean?" asked
Ted quickly.
"The same. If it should pass the Sinit -
"How did it ever get through the House?"
asked Ted.
"Money," answered Cahill briefly. "We
thought 'twas safe; it only passed by wan
vote."
"Well, it's gone to the Sinit," he continued,
"and has been referred to th' elictions com-
mittay,"- Cahill still put the accent on the first
and last syllables of the word, "and what I'm
wantin' to know is whether it's like to die there,
or be reported out."
The two men sat and looked at each other in
silence. Ted knew the bill well. It was an-
other of the many attempts to wrest away
some part of the representation of the city of
New York and give it to other sections of the
state. The merits of the bill were largely
according to the point of view. The chairman
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UNDER THE HARROW
of the committee to which the bill had been
referred was a country member, from the
district in which Ted had been born, and the
lad was well acquainted with him. He knew,
among other things, that he expected to move
to the metropolis when the session was over.
It remained to be seen whether the future or
his present constituents would guide him in his
course in regard to this bill.
"Ye haven't a stenographer, have ye ?" asked
Cahill irrelevantly.
Ted reddened. "My business hasn't war-
ranted it," he said briefly. "If you want any-
thing written, I can do it for you.'*
"It might be betther to have wan," said
Cahill reflectively. "Now, if ye should be
called out of the office suddenly, it looks bet-
ther and more businesslike. I know a handy
boy who's taken a course at a business college.
He's dead anxious to git into a place where he
can study law; the wages manes little to him.
He's the son of Danny Martin in the Fift Pre-
cint. 'Tis a nice lad that he is. Do ye think
ye could thry him, and then if ye was called to
Albany ye could leave him in the office."
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Ted's brain was working fast. "Why do
you want me to go? I'm an unknown man;
you must have plenty of people with more
experience ?"
"There's reasons," said the old man. "They
mean to push this bill through on the quiet.
Nobody knows you yet and nobody'll ever
think av putting ye and this bill together. You
come from Herkimer county; mayhap ye know
Hillis?"
Ted nodded assent.
"There's no cryin' need for him to report the
bill out if it isn't demanded," said Cahill; "it
might be better fer him if he didn't."
Ted looked embarrassed. "You don't want
me to to "
"No," answered Cahill shortly, "neither to
bribe nor blackmail, but to keep thrack of it."
Ted picked up Lorraine's last letter. "It
won't be reported unless there is a demand," he
said slowly.
Cahill jumped. "How d' ye know ?" he asked
eagerly.
"It wouldn't be exactly professional to tell,"
answered Ted; "but I do know as well as
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UNDER THE HARROW
one can know anything that hasn't happened.
Hillis will not send the bill out unless it is de-
manded, and if he does it will come under the
adverse reports, and have to go over. What
we have to look out for is Lawton; he's trying
to make a record. Fortunately he has incurred
the ill will of several of his own party in the
upper house in doing it, and that won't help his
bill any if it does come up."
It is a peculiarity of politicians, shared by
several other kinds of people, never to be able
to understand how any one in another line of
business may yet have some comprehension of
their own. Cahill sat looking at Ted, lost in
admiration and wonder. He believed him, but
he could not account for the knowledge pos-
sessed by this country boy, inexperienced in
politics.
"Ye think 'tis not necessary to go to Albany
then?" said Mr. Cahill, rising; he wondered,
too, that a young man in Ted's position should
give up the chance of so pleasant and presuma-
bly profitable a trip.
"Not now," answered Ted. "We could do
nothing, for Hillis is no more anxious to have
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the bill come up than we are. I can get a wire,
and know at least a day sooner than any one else
if it is to be reported; that will give us at least
three days to act. I'd like to go well enough,
but I don't believe in spending a client's money
for nothing, or when it isn't necessary."
"I don't believe it will ever be asked for,"
said Mr. Cahill.
Ted hesitated. "I do," he said, "but I may
be wrong. I would advise getting a line-up
against it, and tying up some of the other fellows
who have important bills, so as to have some
hold over them, but we ought to be ready for it
when it does come. Be sure and have at least
six of the most important bills from the House
and from his party tied up. And, Mr. Cahill, if
you think Mr. Martin's boy would be willing to
come here for the pittance I can pay, and take
it out in experience and reading law with me,
I'd like to have him."
"Terry'll be here in th' morning," said Mr.
Cahill, beaming.
199
XXVI
' I V HE exigencies of politics kept Lorraine in
Albany; and persuading her paper that her
stuff would be greatly improved by thumb-nail
sketches, she had descended upon the basement
and taken Bess away with her. The fate of the
gerrymander bill called for immediate action,
and at the earnest solicitation of Mr. Cahill, Ted
also departed for the capital city.
Before going he had a final interview with
Mr. Cahill, who gave him much good advice.
" Ye may meet Baumgarten," he said. " He's
the Rapublican committee-man from this pre-
cinct, an' a good fella, barrin' his politics.
But this time we have th* same interests and
ye can talk to Baumgarten."
"I'd prefer to have him do the talking,"
said Ted.
"'Tis the best way," admitted Mr. Cahill.
"An' don't be sparin' with telegraph tolls.
There's ither ways of economizing will be more
appreciated. If ye need help bad and quick,
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telephone. There's reasons why we prefer to
keep our known men out av this."
"Are you perfectly sure of Baumgarten?"
asked Ted.
"I am, son; in politics 'tis this way; this is
the way it is. 'Tis a wheel; what goes up may
stay up a long time, but 'twill come down, and it's
this that makes it interestin' the struggle be-
tween thim that'd keep it up and thim as is pray-
in' and, what's more, pullin' to make it come down.
No man that lives in the city of New York can
afford to lave go wan ripresentative. We must
hold what we've got, 'tis none too much as it
is, Rapublican or Democrat. No man has anny
business in politics, son, who if he's a Rapubli-
can doesn't look forward to carryin' Georgia,
and th' ither way about. Have no fears of
Baumgarten. Now, is there annything I can
do fer ye personally, while ye are away, beside
seeing that Terrence is behavin' himself, an'
givin' him the father an' mither av a batin' av
he doesn't ?"
Ted hesitated. Then he remembered the
coat of arms of the geniuses and their motto,
"One for all, all for one," -and caught a
201
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glimpse of the sign that still swung idly and
hopelessly across the hall. An epidemic of an
unusual form of meningitis was prevalent, and
he remembered that the board of health had
decided upon a commission of physicians to
learn the cause; he remembered also Dr.
Silverton's prediction of almost a year ago:
"some new bacillus will come to the rescue."
Probably Mr. Cahill would not take kindly to
a woman physician, but he was not too old to
live down a prejudice.
"Yes; there is one thing," answered Ted.
"There's a doctor who is a friend of mine, who
has an office across the hall. If you could get
her an appointment on this special inquiry the
health board has decided on, it would be a real
favor."
Michael Cahill's face darkened. "A woman
is ut, did ye say ?"
"Yes; Dr. Frances Silverton," answered Ted.
"She lives in this ward."
"Tis little difference what ward a woman
lives in," said Mr. Cahill stiffly. "But I'll see
what can be done."
His tone was not promising, and Terry, who
202
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had been a silent listener, judged that the time
had come for him to pay his debts.
"Is it Dr. Frank you're speaking of, begging
your pardon for the question?" he asked.
"She's a lady, and a doctor too. She set me
dog's leg, and she saved the Murphy baby.
She's the best ever."
"Castlereagh Murphy?" demanded Mr. Ca-
hill.
"Naw, Dennis Murphy; she's wastin' no
time on them that's rich. But when the vet.
said I'd better kill me dog that the cart run
over, she done up his leg like a Christian, and
he's a good dog this day. Dennis Murphy
swears by her."
Dennis Murphy was a worker in his precinct,
and seventeenth cousin of the aristocratic and
wealthy Castlereagh.
"The young lady'll have the place in the
morning," he said to Ted; and having con-
sented to be introduced to her, Michael Cahill
went off to attend to the appointment and Ted
took the next train for Albany.
Mount Parnassus was fairly deserted, but
those who remained drew closer together, and
203
UNDER THE HARROW
Hope tried in some measure to brighten the
lives of the two women so sorely stricken.
Miss Brent rarely left the house now, but one
sunny afternoon the early spring tempted her,
and she accepted the invitation of some friends
and went for a drive, leaving Hope and Elise
alone. Miss Brent's secret was no secret to
either of them, but so long as it pleased her to
cherish the hope that she was deceiving the
patient little sister who was suffering hardly
less than herself, they respected her wishes and
kept up the delusion.
Left alone, the two women fell into each
other's arms and cried together.
"Is there no hope at all?" asked little Miss
Elise. "She won't tell me anything, but she
has been to Dr. Powers, the best cancer special-
ist in this city. I found his prescriptions. Has
she told you anything, or Lorraine ? Don't
answer if I am right, and I shall know by your
silence."
The brave, frail little woman looked at her
with a face that showed the struggle of hope
and despair, but Hope's tear-stained face gave
no reassurance, and she went on. "I knew it;
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I've known it ever since it recurred, but if it
makes her happier to think I don't, why she
must think so, and we must help her to deceive
herself. Do you know how long about how
long it will be now?"
"Not very long," Hope answered; "and we
must not be sorry, though she does not suffer
so much as I feared she would. It may be
several months yet. She has such wonderful
vitality, but the doctor did not expect it would
have been so long as this. Oh, I ought not to
have told you!" as Elise sank down, a miser-
able little heap in the old rocking-chair.
"How am I to go on living!" she said.
"How am I to go on without her!"
"We do go on somehow," answered Hope;
"and there is this one comfort for you, it can't
be long. There is that blessing about not
being young any more."
They sat together until they heard the sound
of wheels, and Rab's joyful bark. In an in-
stant Miss Elise jumped up, smiling and alert.
"Will she see the tears?" she asked anx-
iously. "Oh, my dear, you mustn't go out
now; she will know you have been crying!"
205
UNDER THE HARROW
Hope was busily dabbing rose water on Miss
Elise's face. "You go out," she said, "and
I'll run upstairs and let you in. Even if she
does see that I've been crying it won't hurt,
because I'm a blighted being; she will prob-
ably scold you for wasting time trying to com-
fort me."
Miss Elise fled up the basement steps and
Hope went to the front door, her heart so
heavy that it seemed to weigh down the soles
of her shoes.
206
XXVII
again '" said Miss Brent "never
again while I have the breath of life will
I waste it advising any one to fall in love, by
way of arousing latent talent. Look at Hope."
"As I remember it, you didn't advise it; that
was Lorraine's charming idea," answered her
sister; "but then, on the other hand, look at
Louis. That last play of his is worth all the
rest put together. There's more feeling and
power than in anything he has ever done.
Making ladders of our dead selves, our broken
hearts, and our blasted ambitions may be a
hard way to rise in the world, but it's effective.
Speaking of angels, there comes the boy now.
How pale he is!"
"That's excitement as well as a broken
heart," answered Miss Emma. "I hope he'll
come in and tell us about it."
The turn of the key was followed by a quick
tap at the door, which Miss Elise flung hos-
pitably open. Louis was distinctly her favor-
207
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ite. "What is it?" she said. "You look as
if you had seen a ghost, and it had thrice
offered you a kingly crown. You're not going
to reject it, I hope."
The boy subsided into a chair, with a gest-
ure of utter despondency.
"Have they refused it?" said Miss Elise
breathlessly.
"Have they taken it ?" asked Miss Brent.
"Both," he said. "When I submitted it to
Mr. Raymer he said at once that he wanted
to star Mrs. Campbell in it, but it should be
rewritten in several scenes to suit her. He ar-
ranged for me to meet her, and she read the
play and professed to be delighted, but wanted
at least one more act. Well, I wrote it over
twice more before I was satisfied. Then I
learned that Mrs. Campbell was to be in
Chicago, you know she's been starring all
winter, so I wrote and made an appoint-
ment, and went on to see her. She was ill. I
waited a week; and you know what that
means to a lean and hungry pocketbook like
mine. Finally she sent me word that any
arrangement I made with Mr. Raymer would
208
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be satisfactory to her, and I've just come from
an interview with him."
"Well?" cried both old ladies.
"Well," with a sigh, "he wants it cut to
three acts again, and the leading man given a
little more work. The company is to be re-
organized. He'll take the play as it is, and
have Weston cut it, or he'll allow me to cut it
myself; but inasmuch as my whole future is
involved, I'd prefer to be my own Shylock.
Weston ? Oh, he's a kind of general utility
man, a kind of human call-board; I guess they
have them in all theaters. It is their business
to telescope plays, pull them out or shut them
up to the required length. If * Richard the
Third' wasn't long enough they'd write an-
other act; and if 'Hamlet' could be improved by
leaving Hamlet out, out he'd go; and if the
rose garden in 'If I Were King' would appeal
to the galleries by tethering a spotted calf at
the right of the stairway, the spotted calf would
go in."
"If that's the way they do, it's no wonder
the managers have a hard time to find plays,"
sniffed Miss Elise.
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" I remember well when Mr. Palmer retired,"
said her sister. "We were all so sorry; it
seems to me the stage has never been the same
since; he said at the time that he gave it up
because he 'found it impossible to secure new
and attractive material for his theater/ But
don't take it too much to heart if you have
to rewrite and revise; all those things are
sure signs of genius. Don't you remember
Sheridan had to take 'The Rivals' off and cut
it square in two ? Let me read you a scrap
out of his preface; I think it will encourage
you."
She fumbled around for her spectacles, and
pulled down a richly bound, but much worn
volume. "Now listen to this," she said, "and
if you don't say 'here's richness,' I miss my
guess.
'"In the dramatic line it may happen that
both an author and a manager may wish to
fill a chasm in the entertainment of the public
with a hastiness not altogether culpable. The
season was far advanced when I first put the
play in Mr. Harris' hands. It was at that
time at least double the length of any acting
210
UNDER THE HARROW
comedy. I profited by his judgment and ex-
perience in the curtailing of it, till I believe
his feeling for the vanity of a young author
got the better of his desire for correctness and
he left many excrescences remaining, because
he had assisted in pruning so many more.
Many other errors there were, which might
in part have arisen from my being by no means
conversant with plays in general, either in read-
ing or at the theater. Yet I own that, in one
respect, I did not regret my ignorance, for as
my first wish in attempting a play was to
avoid every appearance of plagiary I thought
I should stand a better chance of effecting this
from being in a walk which I had not frequented,
and where, consequently, the process of inven-
tion was less likely to be interrupted by starts
of recollection; for on subjects on which the
mind has been much informed, invention is
slow of exerting itself. Faded ideas float in the
fancy like half-forgotten dreams, and the im-
agination in its fullest enjoyments becomes
suspicious of its offspring, and doubts whether
it has created or adopted/ Now, isn't that
some comfort ?"
211
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Louis bowed. "I cannot do better than
answer by the book,'* he said, with a half
laugh. "Here's Bob Acres for you: 'Your
words are a grenadier's march to my heart!
I believe courage must be catching! I cer-
tainly do feel a kind of valor rising as it were,
a kind of courage' ; but I'm so tired of
all this uncertainty. I can't go on with any-
thing else, and I can't cut this play. I've
worked over it till what's that he says ?
'faded ideas float in the fancy like half-forgotten
dreams.' My mind's all hazy with it, if you
can understand that."
Miss Brent looked at Elise and hesitated a
minute, until she nodded acquiescence. "Show
it to Hope," she said. " Just give it to her
and ask her to cut mercilessly. She knows
more about plays and players than any-
body I know. We'll send Rab down for
her."
Louis turned a shade paler, walked up and
down a time or so, and then gave the manu-
script to Miss Brent. " I'll leave it with you,"
he said. "If she will be so kind, I believe now
her judgment would be better than mine."
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He left the room abruptly, and a few minutes
later Rab trotted downstairs with a tiny note.
"Poor boy," soliloquized Miss Elise, "he's
hard hit, but he is bearing it like a man, and
maybe things will end right."
213
XXVIII
T TOPE came upstairs and listened to Miss
Brent's explanation. She took up the
beautifully typewritten pages and looked at
them absently.
"You have such good judgment and dra-
matic insight, and you have read so many
plays," said Miss Brent, "and the poor lad is
in such trouble about it. See if you can't
make some suggestions."
"'Sure if I reprehend anything in this world
it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice
derangement of epitaphs,"' answered Hope
with an assumption of Mrs. Malaprop that
sent both old ladies off into ecstasies; "but it
doesn't seem fair for me to pass on other
people's work when I'm such a failure my-
self, and as Lydia Languish says, 'have come
to you with such an appetite for consola-
tion/"
"Poor dear," said Miss Elise. "Stay and
have tea with us, and read the play aloud, if
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UNDER THE HARROW
you're not too tired. Maybe we can all help.
Will Lorraine be down Saturday?"
"She doesn't say," answered Hope; "but I
hardly think so; she said she had wired Teddy
that House bill one hundred and seventy-eight
would be reported Monday, and she evidently
expects he will come up post haste."
"What's that?" asked Miss Elise.
"The bill? I haven't the slightest idea.
Lorraine has a natural gift for politics; she can
keep track of more bills in her head than I
could on both sides of a slate, and she is act-
ually interested in it all. I can't seem to see
any difference. When we have a Republican
mayor the streets are dirty and wet, and when
we have a Democratic mayor they are wet and
dirty. Whoever is out of power tells how well
that party would do if it were in, and whoever
is in tells of the vast improvements it has made.
I can't see what good legislation is going to do,
but to hear Ted and Lorraine when they get
together, one would think election day was the
earth's axis, upon which turns the fate of na-
tions."
"Sometimes it does turn the fate of nations,"
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answered Miss Brent gravely. "I remember
election day in 1864."
"Why, was that election anything to be
compared with that of 1860?" asked Hope.
The old lady threw up her hands in mock
despair. "What a pity it is," she said dryly,
"that American history is not taught in the
public schools! You of the younger generation
seem to have an idea that Lincoln was always
revered as his memory is now. I suppose you
think all he had to do in 1864 was to write his
letter of acceptance and prepare his second
inaugural address. As a matter of fact in
August of that year he did not expect to be
re-elected. Thurlow Weed told him it was
impossible, and I know of nothing finer in
history than his statement written at that time,
pledging himself, in case of his defeat, to co-
operate with the President-elect to save the
Union. He sealed it up, and had it indorsed
by each member of his Cabinet, and did not
tell them its contents until after his election.
Do you know that there were people who were
proud to be called 'Copperheads' and 'Butter-
nuts,' and wore those insignia as emblems of
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UNDER THE HARROW
their opposition to the President ? Do you re-
member those banners, Elise, with the words,
'The War is a Failure,' and Lincoln pictured
as a baboon ? Why, the governor of this very
state said that Lincoln couldn't save the Union
if he wanted to. Good gracious, child, you
may think the election of 1864 unimportant,
but they didn't so regard it in the South.
Jefferson Davis said the real issue was the con-
tinuance or cessation of the war, in which, for
once, he entirely agreed with Lincoln. Don't
forget that if Washington had his Valley Forge,
Lincoln had the draft riots and the peace-at-
any-price party at home in addition to the foe
in the field. History is pretty much all of it a
battle and a march, and most of our heroes
have worn the crown of thorns for years be-
fore we were willing to give them the laurel
wreath."
"Well, I agree with Hope," said Miss Elise.
" I'm glad Lorraine is interested and successful,
but I can't see how she and Ted can be so
bound up in it, or believe anything one man
can do is going to make much difference. I've
lived long enough so I don't think the state
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UNDER THE HARROW
or the country is going to the dogs, no matter
who is elected."
"It's you 'don't care' people who may prove
the destruction of this nation," said her sister
severely. "If I'd had a vote it would always
have gone for the Republican party, but I'd
a great deal rather people voted the Democratic
ticket than that they didn't care enough to
vote at all."
"I'm a mugwump," said Miss Elise. "I'd
vote for the best man, and I don't think either
party's got all of them."
"You'd agree with Lorraine then," said Hope.
"She says she can't stand the Senate chaplain
because he always prays as if he thought the
Lord was a Republican. But it's their vital
interest that I envy her and Ted. They're
completely absorbed in their work, and they
look upon politics as a high and lofty calling,
instead of a 'pool.' I can't understand it."
"It is or it ought to be a high and lofty
calling," said Miss Brent, "and one man can
do much if he wants to; in fact ail history is a
record of the accomplishments of the one-man
power. Look at the work done right in this
218
UNDER THE HARROW
city by men with the courage of their convic-
tions. Look at Nast with his lead pencil, at
Henry Bergh, at Abraham Lincoln. One man
can do almost anything if he sets his mind to
it and says, 'This one thing I do."
"Louis is just as bad in his own line," said
Miss Elise. "In politics one must be a good
bit of an altruist to be a reformer; but one may
have noble aspirations, even when his achieve-
ments would redound principally to his own
honor. Louis believes that the stage has never
begun to occupy the place in our lives which it
should. He believes in holding the mirror up
to Nature until she changes the pictures she
does not like. Besides, it is not Nature that is
so ugly, but the artificial part of our lives."
"Yes," Hope assented. "Don't you see it
is this that makes me so discontented ? Lor-
raine is satisfied, though she knows her work
is absolutely ephemeral; it has its moment and
that moment's influence, and then is gone. Ted
has learned already something of the power of his
profession; Prince Karl is going out into the
world armed cap-a-pie; Paul pours his very soul
into his music; Bess already dreams of Rome
219
UNDER THE HARROW
"Of home," corrected Miss Brent in an aside
to Elise.
"And Louis sees his work before him, real,
living; and if it struts but a little hour upon
the stage, it is nevertheless instinct with life
itself. Don't you see how out of tune I am ?
Music ? I don't pretend to understand it; I
can only love it. Art ? I can admire, that is
all. Books ? I do fairly well as a critic, but
what an ungracious part, and the more so
because when I attempt to write it is as if I
had climbed to some lofty peak where I beheld
the broad earth as a map before me, and if I
could lift up my voice and chant my hymn of
praise then and there it might be worth the
hearing, but by the time I have descended to
the valley the glow and the glory have departed.
If I find my ideas at all they are drowned in
the inkstand."
"The real artistic type must always dwell on
the heights," said Miss Brent. "Didn't you
see 'The Sunken Bell'? That is the lesson;
you must be willing to leave the valley and live
alone upon the height."
"Didn't I see it?" cried Hope, her eyes
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UNDER THE HARROW
shining; "do you remember the lines when
Rautendelein looks at the tear upon her finger,
and how the Nickelmann says:
'A wondrous gem!
Within that little globe lies all the pain,
And all the joy, the world can ever know.
'Tis called a tear!'
And yet, I think one should always read
'Peer Gynt' as an offset to 'The Sunken Bell.'
There the lesson is that the great joy of all his
life, which he has sought all round the world,
is the joy he left upon the mountainside. Oh,
I mustn't talk about those things; it only makes
things harder! In a few weeks I am going
back home to apply for the summer school. If
they refuse me, as they probably will, I shall
take summer boarders. Maybe they will ap-
preciate me."
"Never," said Miss Brent solemnly. "Don't
throw yourself away so; no one on earth but
Edith Wharton or Henry James could ever
possibly do justice to the delicate subtlety of
your waffles. They would be wasted on or-
dinary humanity. Come, let's have the play -
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UNDER THE HARROW
'The play's the thing,'" acquiesced Hope,
taking the low chair under the drop light, and
gathering up the loose pages; "but in the mood
Fm in to-night, I think, if I were Louis, ' I had
as lief the town crier had spoke my lines." 1
Nevertheless, she read it rarely well.
222
XXIX
BRENT had heard the hours and the
half hours strike as she lay in her big
four-poster bed and fought her never-ceasing
battle with pain. It was half past twelve, and
the fire that always burned in the old-fashioned
fireplace had smouldered down to a few brands
gleaming dully through the white ashes. Save
for this the room was in darkness. The old
lady crept painfully out of bed, feeling about for
her bedroom slippers, and drew her dressing-
gown about her. The room was chilly and she
shivered, partly with cold and partly with ex-
haustion, as she lit the candle and looked for
her medicine.
"I wish Lorraine were here," she said im-
patiently, "or that I hadn't let Elise go. I
can't see why Catherine has to take it into her
head that Elise is a specific for neuralgia. I
don't mean to break down and be sick and
keep people trotting up and down waiting on
me, but there's no denying that I'm awfully
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UNDER THE HARROW
bad company for myself. I suppose I ought
to have a nurse," she rambled on, still search-
ing for the medicine among the assortment of
cleanly litter that covered her table. " My poor
old eyes are not good for much. Why can't
things stay where they are put ? Oh, here it is ! "
She took up the bottle. It was almost empty.
"That means I've got to go out into that
drafty hall for some more of it. I never had
to take so much before, and it hasn't done any
more good than water."
She sat down to rest for a moment as a
paroxysm of pain came over her, still clutching
the vial in her hands. As the agony of suffer-
ing subsided for a moment and she sat huddled
over in the chair, too weak to rise, her atten-
tion seemed to fix itself upon the bottle in her
hands, and slowly the light of a desperate
determination dawned upon her face. "Why
not?" she said grimly. "It's got to come,
sooner or later; God knows it ought to have been
sooner than this. The doctor promised me it
wouldn't be long, and every day is a year. What
use is there in suffering like this ? Nobody will
know just a little more than usual "
224
UNDER THE HARROW
She stood up and drew her robe about her,
and taking up the candle went to the medicine
closet midway in the hall. "I don't want to
get carbolic acid by mistake," she said, fumbling
among the bottles and peering at the labels
with her near-sighted eyes. As she stood in
the long, dark hall, the dim gas-light near the
front door and Egyptian darkness at the other
end, her candle making grotesque shadows, she
heard a strange sound, half a groan, half a long-
drawn sigh, and then the bell in a near-by
steeple tolled one.
"I'm getting nervous," she said. "Oh, it's
quite time to be going when one gets to seeing
phantoms and hearing ghostly noises what's
that?" she said sharply as it came again.
She put down the vial and stood listening in-
tently. Rab, who had followed her, whined
and ran to the bedroom door at the far end
of the hall and came back, whimpering and
frightened. She caught up her candle and
hurried down the dim passageway, but the door
was fastened on the inside and her feeble
strength was not sufficient to stir it. The
sounds which came from within were growing
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UNDER THE HARROW
fainter. With that clearness of mental vision
that often accompanies extreme physical debil-
ity a dozen ideas flashed through her brain and
she remembered that the doorway leading from
the hall bedroom to Elise's room, long ago
metamorphosed into a closet by hooks and
portieres and unused for its original purpose,
had never been nailed up; Elise had merely
turned the key when she gave up her dressing-
room to some unfortunate pensioner years ago.
Hurrying back through her own room and that
of her sister, she found the key still in the lock
and, turning it, wrenched the door open. Hope
was lying upon the narrow bed, her long black
hair streaming over the pillows and her face
concealed beneath the folds of a thick towel.
The fumes of chloroform were overpowering.
With the energy of terror Miss Brent snatched
the towel from the girl's face and threw up the
window. She lay white and still, no sound
coming from her lips, and if her heart beat at
all the poor old lady was too agitated to find
the feeble pulse. Painfully she hurried back
to the medicine closet and, finding a bottle of
brandy, returned to her patient, but her teeth
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UNDER THE HARROW
were set. "What shall I do?" wailed Miss
Brent, vainly trying to force the rigid jaws
apart. She threw open the door into the hall,
determined to call for aid, and the night wind
blowing through the open window, her candle
flickered and went out. At the same moment
she heard a latch-key, the front door opened,
and Louis entered.
"Thank God!" she cried. "Come here. Oh,
hurry, or you will be too late!"
The young man stood bewildered, the hall
lamp being too dim for him to see clearly, and
then as he distinguished her in the darkness
hurried forward, throwing off his hat and over-
coat as he did so. As he lit the gas one glance
told him the whole story.
"Leave the door open," he said; "the cold
wind blowing on her may revive her." He took
the pillow from under her head, and put his
hand on her heart. "Have you any brandy ?"
he asked. "Let me have it and a spoon." He
pried the close-shut teeth apart and poured a
little brandy down her throat, then caught up
her hands and chafed and beat them, but she
showed no sign of life.
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UNDER THE HARROW
"Is she gone?" whispered Miss Brent.
"Can't we send for a doctor?"
He held a hand-mirror over her face. There
was a faint shadow on its bright surface. " We'll
save her yet," he said. "There isn't time to
go for a doctor, but I must make her breathe."
Taking her arms in his firm grasp, he moved
them outward and then across her body much
as one would to resuscitate the drowned.
"Bring her into my room," said Miss Brent.
"The scent of the chloroform is still sickening
here, and maybe the warmth will help -
A faint sigh came from the pallid lips.
"Quick, the brandy." He poured the burning
liquid down her throat and she stirred a little
as if too weak to resist. "Now I can move
her, I think," he said, and gathering her up
very tenderly, he carried her into the other
room and put her on Miss Brent's bed. He
made up a bright fire in the grate and, wheeling
Miss Brent's couch before it, made her lie
down, for she was exhausted with all the con-
flicting emotions of the last hour. "It isn't
best to bring her out of it too quickly," he said,
after watching beside the patient a little longer.
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UNDER THE HARROW
"While she continues to breathe as regularly
as she does there is no danger. In fact the
only thing I dread is heart failure, and her
pulse seems strong, though it is very slow."
As she stirred restlessly he drew back into the
shadow. "She may sleep; the drug relaxes all
the nervous tension, and if she can, so much
the better," he went on presently. "I am
going to lie down on the couch in the hall
where I shall hear even a whisper if you need
me, but she is likely to rouse at any time and
it will be better for her to find no one but you
when she wakens." He turned and took both
Miss Brent's hands. "If there is the slightest
change, you will call me ?" he entreated.
"What else would I do ?" the old lady asked
reassuringly. "You have saved her life. I
never could have managed by myself."
The girl slept fitfully until morning, but as
the gray half light crept through the closed
blinds, she struggled slowly back to conscious-
ness of the past as well as the present.
"Why did you bring me back!" she cried;
"why did you!"
"We couldn't spare you yet, Hope," the old
229
UNDER THE HARROW
lady said, bending over her, and putting back
the loosened hair. "I, who am so near the
end of my journey, beg you to stay. Some-
thing tells me that life will yet be worth living
for you. I do not know why, but we are apt
to think that those who have passed to life
eternal are wiser than we, with a mysterious
second sight. Standing as I do at the very
limits of life, where its western horizon is dark
with night, I seem to see the dawn come in the
east. Life has not been easy for me, but it
has been interesting and worth living, and after
a while it will be so for you. Think, dear, of
the heavy hearts in this house if you had left
us so. Lorraine would always have reproached
me for not taking better care of you."
"She made me promise to take care of you,"
sobbed Hope, "and I did mean to, I did try
to be strong, and put myself into my work ; but
oh, Miss Emma, you don't know, you don't
know the pain that seems eating my very heart
out!"
Miss Brent hesitated a moment. "Yes, I
think I know," she said slowly. "I don't say
that the pain I bear is worse; perhaps it is not
230
UNDER THE HARROW
so bad, but oh, my dear, it is eating into my
heart! For months and months it has been
creeping nearer and nearer like slow fire. I have
prayed that this stout old heart of mine might
fail and let me escape some portion of the long-
drawn agony, but it does not lose a beat, and
every day I wonder whether it is possible for
me to endure another twenty-four hours. Prom-
ise me, Hope, that you will be brave, or I
must write Lorraine."
"Don't tell her," said the girl. "She could
not understand, for all she talked as if it might
be right that evening so long ago. I knew she
didn't really mean it."
"No one shall know," answered Miss Brent;
"and some time you will be glad you did not
succeed, though that may not seem possible
now. Oh, my dear, my dear! The mortal pain
that body and soul can bear before they part
company. We know it, you and I. Help me
to bear these last few months, Hope, for I
cannot bear them alone."
231
XXX
\X7TIETHER or not Hope's suggestions met
Louis' approbation, they suited Mr. Ray-
mer, and the much revised play was put on for
rehearsal. With it was to be played the curtain
raiser already familiar to the geniuses. It had
been the play that Saturday night, the last
Saturday they had ever celebrated, and it was
the first bit of his dramatic work that Louis had
ever shown to Hope. It was a slight thing,
depending wholly upon the art of the player for
its success; but since the play had been cut to
three acts again, something else was needed to
round out the evening.
Now, the actress who was to take the leading
part had sprained her ankle and could not
appear; there were but two days to find a
substitute and the understudy was terribly
wooden. After fifteen minutes, Mr. Raymer
called the rehearsal to an end.
"She is impossibly execrable in the part," he
said. "You must see, my dear Lassalle, that
232
UNDER THE HARROW
it is better to give it up than to take chances
of spoiling the play itself, and losing you a
success by prejudicing people beforehand." f
"But the play isn't long enough. It won't
fill an evening," objected Louis.
" Perhaps you know some one who can take
this part on ten minutes' notice." Mr. Raymer
was coldly sarcastic.
Louis' heart gave a leap and stopped. "Yes,
I do," he said.
Mr. Raymer almost jumped. "Where is she
playing? Can we get her?" he asked.
"She isn't an actress," Louis answered,
something of the other's excitement communi-
cating itself to him, "but she has played this
and knows every syllable of it, and does it
better than Miss Trevyllyn ever has. Oh, if
she would do it; if she only would!"
"Go, get her," answered the manager
brusquely. "We'll wait; take a cab and hurry.
Who is she?"
Louis' mind was working fast. "Mr. Ray-
mer," he said, "I'll go for her on one con-
dition. She doesn't know that you have taken
this play or ever heard of it. If I tell her
233
UNDER THE HARROW
the truth it will frighten her and she will think
she can't do it. If I tell her you have given
me this chance to present the play to you,
she won't think of herself at all and can do
her best."
"And if she fails, as she probably will," Mr.
Raymer said to himself, "it will let me out of
a scene. Well, go on. Clyde can read his
lines as if he'd never seen the part before. Go
get her. What did you say she was ?"
"She is a reader for one of the big publish-
ing houses; her name is Hope Lloyd. I'll be
as quick as I can;" and he was off.
Hope hardly understood the nature of her
errand until they were in the cab. Then the
one point clear to her mind was that a great
manager might take Louis' play if he were
favorably impressed with it. She knew too
little of theaters and the ways of managers to
see how improbable this was, and, taking her
part, began going over it once more to refresh
her mind. Alas, there was no need! Every
incident connected with that Saturday night
was indelibly fixed upon her memory. But
now the words took on a new meaning, and
234
UNDER THE HARROW
grew instinct with a feeling unknown before.
As they entered the great, gloomy theater that
soft spring day, she was living over again that
night in December. She acknowledged the in-
troductions rather dully, and with a lack of
comprehension that argued ill for her. Mr.
Raymer would hardly think with much favor
of a mere amateur who could appear in his
presence with so little embarrassment. Mr.
Clyde, the leading man, shared in the feeling
of wonderment, not unmixed with disdain, but
obediently sat at one side of the dark stage,
with his lines in his hand, and without further
preliminaries the little play began.
"If you can't sing," said Mr. Raymer, "never
mind about that on your second entrance."
Hope looked a little puzzled, but answered
quite innocently, "Oh, enough for that; will you
play the accompaniment we are used to, Louis ?"
And as he seated himself at the piano she left
the stage, until her cue came. The scene with
o *
the actor lover was played with much restraint.
Mr. Raymer, watching like a hawk, said in a
quick aside to Louis, "Is she really so frozen,
or does she assume it ?"
235
UNDER THE HARROW
"It is her conception of the part," Louis
answered; "you'll see in a moment."
The star asks insolently, hardly looking at
the young woman who stands before him ask-
ing for a chance to join his company, "Can
you act? Have you any experience?" and the
young woman proposes the little scene, portray-
ing the return of the discarded girl, to which
he gives a languid assent. In an instant the
restraint vanished, the iceberg thawed. For
her second entrance she came dancing on the
stage singing in her blithe young voice that
inimitable little chanson that seems fairly bub-
bling over with gladness:
"Dites moi, ma jeune belle,
Ou voulez-vous aller ?' '
There was a little rush to the supposed
cradle, and then the gay preparations for the
return of Francois after a month's absence,
interspersed with apostrophes to the baby, and
fragments of the sparkling song. Then came
the discovery of the letter. The song stopped
in the middle of a bar with a sudden minor
discord. Unbelievingly she tries to decipher the
236
UNDER THE HARROW
letter by the failing light ; so far it is disappoint-
ment alone. She approaches the table, the
little table set for two, and half mechanically
goes through the form of lighting a candle,
and stoops to read the sheet of paper in her
hand by its rays. There can no longer be any
doubt; the paper flutters to the floor, and with
a strange, white face in which the horror grows
she stands facing straight front. Then as if
all life and strength and hope had left her she
sank to the floor. It was not the usual heavy
fall, but rather as if every bone in her body
were broken with the blow that has come upon
her. So she lay, a disconsolate little heap,
while the player forgot his lines and the man-
ager stared at Louis, who stood stricken with
the knowledge that for his sake she had lived
anew her own tragedy, smitten with the recol-
lection of her words, "She is living, playing, if
you like, her own life."
Mr. Raymer recovered himself first, and gave
the cue to Clyde, and in a moment it was all
over, and Hope was listening to words she
hardly understood.
"A reader, a critic, you!" he was saying.
237
UNDER THE HARROW
"Any fool can read and write and cavil. You
were born to act, to live, to feel, not to mull
over a typewriter, telling other people how to
do things. Where have you studied acting ?
Why hasn't your idiot of a teacher put you on
before?"
And still she stood, absolutely inarticulate.
"Lassalle, my boy," he cried, "she doesn't
believe it; she looks as if she would say,
'WTiat fire is in mine ears?' Are you quite
dumb ?"
"Oh, do you mean it ?" she said, coming back
from a personal pain almost beyond belief to
a personal joy far beyond expression. "I never
thought of the acting; Louis said if you liked
the play Oh, you are not you could not
say it unless you were in earnest, could you ?
I have longed all my life to act and never
dreamed I could."
"And why?" asked Mr. Raymer, half irrita-
bly; "are real actresses so numerous that
you need hesitate ? With whom have you
studied ?"
A softer light came into her eyes. "With
my mother," she said. "She taught me to love
238
UNDER THE .HARROW
Shakespeare and Sheridan and many of the old
writers and plays that are forgotten now. She
taught me to use my voice so as to make it
carry, and made me learn whole acts by heart.
If she had lived she meant to have given me a
chance, but she died when I was sixteen and
there were the other children, so I gave it up,
and now I am twenty-two. Isn't that too
old to begin ? Oh, don't let me hope, unless
you know I can make the old dreams come
true!" She put back a refractory lock of
hair, with a little gesture familiar to her
friends.
"Any good thing can come to Rose Farron's
daughter," he said, taking her hands gently.
"I beg your pardon for not knowing you at
once; why didn't you brush back that stray love-
lock before ? I see now how very like her you
are. Now try and understand this; you have
much yet to learn, but I offer you a place in my
company to take this part as nearly as you have
done it this afternoon as possible, and you can
trust me to give you all the chance you need.
If you will work as I believe you will, you are
certain to make a name; I believe you may be
239
UNDER THE HARROW
a great actress, but it will mean harder work
than you have ever done in your life."
It was Hope's Mount of Transfiguration,
but Louis was even happier than she.
"I must go and wire Lorraine!" she said.
240
XXXI
"*HE Legislature completed its labors and
adjourned sine die, and the gerrymander
bill died with it, though there was a sharp fight,
during which Ted took his first lesson in the
great American system of circumlocution, or
how not to get things done. Michael Cahill
had come up to be in at the death, and he and
Ted took the late, or early, train home.
"Ye have done well," said Cahill. "M'anin'
no reflection on ye, I think ye have the makin'
av a legislator in ye. Ye are honest, but ye are
not foolish. Ye do not take it for granted that
a stove will not be stolen because it is hot.
When a man goes into a place where there's a
large number of ither men, it makes no differ-
ence if it is a penitentiary or a Sunday-school
convention, he should always raymimber there's
some there that is not what they seem to be."
Lorraine and Bess followed the next day by
boat, glad and sorry it was over, and enjoying
the peaceful beauty of the Hudson after the
241
UNDER THE HARROW
rush and confusion and wrangles of the As-
sembly. As Bess sat on a low camp-stool, her
arm on Lorraine's knee, she looked up after a
long interval of silence with an expression of
hesitation on her lovely face.
"Tell me about it," responded Lorraine; and
for answer she held her left hand up, with Ted's
ring shining upon it. "Really?" said Lorraine,
an amused look creeping into her face.
But for the absurdity of it, one would have
said the girl's face was anxious. "Don't you
mind, Lorraine, honestly now, don't you mind ?"
asked Bess.
Lorraine kissed her. "I am honestly de-
lighted," she replied. "I'm not going to say
'this is so sudden,' because not being blind,
I've seen it coming for a long time. Ted is a
dear; this is one of the few cases where it will
be correct to congratulate both bride and groom,
for indeed, Bess, he is one in ten thousand."
" But but," faltered Bess, " I thought you
didn't approve of getting married and and
giving up one's career. Or, perhaps, you did
not believe I had any career?" She looked up
wistfully.
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UNDER THE HARROW
"What a little imitation of an idiot you
can be," said Lorraine cheerfully. "Of course
I believe you might have had a career, and I
hope you will not entirely forget how to hold a
pencil, or that blue and yellow make green, or
devote all your artistic ability to making paper
dolls; but what you give up isn't worth half or
a tenth of what you will gain. Well, go on and
say it."
The girl hesitated. "Isn't it funny, Lor-
raine ?" she said finally. "But I really thought
you would despise me for capitulating so easily.
You and Miss Brent always talk as if there were
no use in getting married so long as one can do
anything else."
"Well, is there?" said Lorraine. "Just so
long as there is anything else that one would
rather do, under any circumstances, she has no
business to get married. That's what we mean.
But don't you think marriage is something of a
career ? You will find that art is simple and
success easy compared to being a good wife and
a perfect mother. Isn't it strange, my dear,
that we think only a few so talented that they
may be entitled to work in clay or marble, and
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UNDER THE HARROW
treat lightly, sometimes almost profanely, the
unspeakable gift of molding human clay into
flesh and blood, heart and mind and soul ? To
my mind, being a mother calls for more genius
than anything else in the world, and for more
whole-hearted consecration."
"But you were so happy over Hope's rinding
herself," said Bess, still half unconvinced.
"Oh, yes, more than happy, but don't you see ?
Hope is an exemplification of the hard saying,
that 'he who loseth his life shall find it.' And
there is this to be said for a career, especially
such a one as hers promises to be. Work is like
charity, or love, if you prefer the revised version,
as you doubtless do. 'Whether there be proph-
ecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues,
they shall cease; whether there be knowledge,
it shall vanish away,' but work suffereth long
and is kind; we may fling it aside and forget it,
but it awaits our return, ready to supply an
interest when all other interests have fled; it
ministers to a mind diseased and, together with
time, can pluck a rooted sorrow from the brain.
Love may fail, youth will pass, but if one does
the thing he loves to do he has one unfailing
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UNDER THE HARROW
source of joy. That is the reason why I am so
thankful for Hope; she has found, you would
not believe it if I said 'the joy of living,' but the
greatest blessing of life. Even death, that robs
us of all else in time, cannot rob of this, our con-
solation and relief. I am trying hard to realize
this now, when the shadow of death is upon
our home."
"You mean Miss Brent ?" said Bess.
"Yes; she thinks she has kept it from us all,
but we are the deceivers ourselves, and since it
makes her happier to keep up the innocent
pretense we must not appear to notice any
change, though Hope writes me she has broken
very much the last two weeks since we have seen
her. Tell her the funny things, show her some
of your caricatures and amuse her if you can."
" It seems heartless," said the girl.
"No, I don't think so," answered the older
woman. "She is going not to suffer any
more. We ought to look on death as a resur-
rection, not a burial. It is 'with the morn those
angel faces smile.' I know this and I say it
over and over, and for her I can be sincerely
thankful, but oh Bess, when I think of poor
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UNDER THE HARROW
Miss Elise, and of going on without that cour-
ageous, helpful spirit, I am ready enough to
admit that words are useless! I want you and
Ted to go to them and ask their blessing; surely
they have been our guardian angels ever since
dear old Uncle Peter sent Miss Emma to us;
and then talk over your housekeeping arrange-
ments with Miss Elise. It will do her good to
feel that we still need and depend upon her and
love her very much. You have no idea what a
fine, strong, brave little soul she is, and we must
do all we can to help her now. I didn't mean
to sadden you with this to-day, when you are so
happy, and I am so happy for you "
"Don't speak as if I were a child," said Bess,
"or as if my heart were so narrow that one
love must crowd out all others. I am glad you
have told me. We are almost home, Lorraine!
Doesn't it seem good to be home ! "
246
XXXII
you think Miss Emma would like
to have a quiet little gathering next
Saturday night, Miss Elise?" asked Hope.
"Would it be too much for her, or would she
be pleased ?"
Miss Elise looked up quickly. They had
not foregathered in one of the old-fashioned
Saturday nights since Hope's trouble had come
upon her. " I think Emmy would like it of all
things; she has been lamenting our dulness, but
couldn't we have it Sunday night instead ?"
replied thoughtful little Elise.
"Sunday will be the best for Prince Karl,"
answered Hope. "He is studying so hard I
doubt if we could get him any other day, and
a week from Monday is the day of days for
Louis and me. Can I help Gretchen about
anything?"
"You are rather busy yourself, aren't you ?"
said Miss Elise; "but if you can come in Sunday
morning or afternoon and make the sandwiches
247
UNDER THE HARROW
I shall be glad to have you, and be sure and
tell the children that they are to come just as
usual, and talk and be merry. They can be
as attentive as they like, but they mustn't ask
Emmy how she is feeling, or so much as look
sympathetic. She is so morbid over being ill,
and so afraid of being a damper, that nothing
you can do will please her so much as for you
just to be liie your old selves."
"We'll try," said Hope obediently; "and if
any of us seem inclined to be tearful, just give
us a look and we'll remember. Oh, Miss Elise,
when I think how bravely you have played your
part all through, I fear I shall never be half so
good an actress as you!"
The young folks gathered early that Sunday
evening, conscious that there had been many
changes since they separated, and that greater
changes were not far from them, for the slopes
of Mount Parnassus were to be depopulated.
Immediately after his graduation Prince Karl
was to start for South Africa; Bess and Ted
were to be married and spend the summer
with his people on the Herkimer county farm.
Mary Deland was going abroad, her book
248
UNDER THE HARROW
having been one of those rare instantaneous
successes that bring wealth and fame at the
same time, and she had asked Lorraine to go
with her. As before, Lorraine had refused.
"I can't leave them now; later I will come and
bring Miss Elise with me," she had promised;
and Mary had already sailed. As for Miss
Brent it was evident that her feet were already
set upon the shadowy pathway that leads down
into the valley. For a little time there was a
feeling of constraint, then Lorraine came to
the rescue and, improvising a gavel, she ham-
mered on the table.
"The joint assembly will be in order," she
commanded, "that we may listen to the gov-
ernor's address. Your Excellency has the
floor;" and she turned and bowed to Miss
Brent.
The old lady rose. She was feeble, but her
face had kept its cheeriness, in spite of the lines
that pain had graved upon it.
"I want your help and advice," she said,
"upon a plan that has long been in my mind;
it is not very well outlined, but I think Lor-
raine can explain it, and I want you all to feel
249
UNDER THE HARROW
free to offer suggestions, because but for you
all of you it would never have entered
my mind. You tell about it, Lorraine."
It was evidently an effort for her to remain
standing or to talk, and Lorraine had to
struggle with a cough and a lump in her throat
before she could go on. Finally she resumed,
as lightly as she could: "As we all know, we
are in the presence of two of the most devoted
of the patrons of the arts and sciences, and more
especially of those neophytes thereof who are
floundering around, lost in the swamps of toil,
with never a helping hand to haul them out
and set them on the hard, well-trodden path
that leads to a loaf of bread. They believe,
these Heavenly Twins of ours, that the best
way to help people is to help them to help
themselves. In fact it is the only way. We
none of us believe much in charity as it usually
is exercised."
"Tell 'em that thing Roosevelt said about
charity," interrupted Miss Brent.
"Oh, yes; I'm glad you reminded me!
He says, 'The soup-kitchen style of philan-
thropy is worse than useless, for in philan-
250
UNDER THE HARROW
thropy, as everywhere else in life, almost as
much harm is done by soft-headedness as by
hard-heartedness.' '
"Hear, hear!" cried Ted; and there was a
ripple of applause.
"In short," continued Lorraine, "the Heav-
enly Twins wish to found a Genius Fund;
something along the plan of scholarships, ex-
cept that it is to be a loan fund to be repaid
by the genius when he arrives. Any young
person who can show more than ordinary
ability in any of the fields of art or science, and
satisfy the trustees that he is a worthy follower
thereof, is to be allowed to draw on the fund
to a certain amount, giving his promise to repay
the money advanced to him during the lean
years of study and preparation, when the fat
years come."
"Is there to be no security ?" asked Ted.
"None save the honor and good faith of the
young people asking assistance," answered Miss
Brent. "We must believe that there is no
higher security than the youth and the youth-
ful ideals of a nation, or rank ourselves among
the most pessimistic of pessimists."
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UNDER THE HARROW
"The trust will not be abused if we have the
right kind of a board of trustees," said Lor-
raine, "but that is almost as important as the
fund itself. They must be people who will
carry out the spirit as well as the letter of the
trust, and that is one of the things about which
the founders wish to consult you."
"You are going to find one trouble to begin
with," said Louis. "If you get professional
people on the board they are all going to say
the same thing, with variations according to
species. Don't act, don't sing, don't write,
don't study law or medicine, don't paint, or
try to let the angel out of the marble with your
chisel. If you haven't two or three degrees
and half the alphabet after your name, you
cannot cope with the English language. If you
haven't studied abroad don't attempt to sing
for the American public that fancies itself
musical because it whistles 'Bedelia.' You
may be a second Jenny Lind; it makes no dif-
ference, the Door of Don't will be slammed in
your face just the same."
"That's true," said Lorraine, "with certain
shining exceptions. I have long understood
252
UNDER THE HARROW
that no one should go on the stage who is not
at least five feet five inches tall; this would
let Hope scrape through, but it would bar out
about the most successful American actress we
own. Mrs. Fiske is a genius, but her best
friend wouldn't claim that she is tall only
about as tall as Rachel, at least."
"And you can't get into the army unless you
are half a head taller than Napoleon," said
Prince Karl disgustedly. "I hope the Japs
have taught the world a thing or two in that
regard. I missed my physical examination for
West Point by four pounds. You have only
to look at the average policeman to know
that in this country valor and fat are synony-
mous."
Miss Brent laughed. "There's a lot in that,"
she said. "We are a great people, we Ameri-
cans, but we are young yet. We won't go into
the international copyright agreement because
we want to pirate foreign books, and we won't
put art on the free list because it is an infant
industry, though we have no welcome for our
infant artists until they come sailing up to Ellis
Island. Hand me that book over there, Elise."
253
UNDER THE HARROW
She adjusted her glasses, found her place, and
looking up said, "Just let me read you this;
Mrs. Ward says, not Mrs. Humphry, but she
as was a Phelps: 'Make shoes, weed cabbages,
survey land, keep house, make ice cream, sell
cake, climb a telephone pole, be a lightning-
rod pedler or a book agent before you set
your heart upon it that you shall write for a
living. . . . Unless you are prepared to work
like a slave at his galley, for the toss-up chance
at a freedom which may be denied him when
his work is done, do not write. There are
some pleasant things about this way of spend-
ing a lifetime, but there are no easy ones.
There are privileges in it, but there are heart-
ache, mortification, discouragement, and eternal
doubt. Had one not better have made bread
or picture frames, run a motor, or invented a
bicycle tire ?' '
"That's all very fine," said Bess, "but if
she'd tried making ice cream or selling cake
she might have learned that those pleasant
callings have their drawbacks also; there has
always been an eternal doubt about my loaf-
cake. My favorite of all her heroines confesses
254
UNDER THE HARROW
to making very sour bread, but she paints real
pictures, nevertheless."
"As for the joys of being a book agent, and
finding signs in all the big buildings to warn
you to keep out and dogs loose in all the small
yards for the same benevolent purpose," said
Lorraine, "while I may never amass wealth by
writing books, I'll enjoy it more and probably
make quite as much as I would selling them
for other people. However, I can almost for-
give her the rest of the paragraph, because she
says 'had better' in the last sentence. That
from a Bostonian does my heart good, even if
I am convinced one hadn't better."
There was a general laugh, and Prince Karl
rejoined: "That's the way with the average of
the artistic and professional crowd. Never hav-
ing done anything with their hands, they think
everybody else had better stick to manual
labor; that is the easy road to a competence.
You must all have noticed the large number of
successful blacksmiths who live in their vine-
clad cottages in the most exclusive sections of
town and ride in automobiles, while they con-
sent to shoe the horses of the humbler ranks
255
UNDER THE HARROW
of society. As a rule, we have all seen that
lightning-rod agents electrify the world. All
the people who are on top insist that the only
place that isn't crowded to suffocation is to be
found at the bottom. But there's one sugges-
tion I'd like to make. The idea seems to me
one of the finest imaginable, but couldn't there
be some other object beside just helping a lot of
young people ? Couldn't there be some kind of
an obligation on their part beside the mere return
of the money advanced to them ? It seems to
me, if I were a beneficiary of such a fund, I
should be more contented if I felt that I could
do something to show my appreciation of those
who had founded it. I can't make myself quite
clear, but I think sometimes it is a good thing
to feel that there are benefits that can never be
repaid in money."
The old, whimsical smile lit Miss Brent's
thin, drawn face. "Good boy; you've exactly
struck it," she said. "I've been thinking it
out while you have been talking, and I have a
burden to lay upon my geniuses. Perhaps you
have heard the old superstition about finding
one's mission, though I believe this only applies
256
UNDER THE HARROW
to women, in the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs,
in the verse corresponding to one's birthday.
Mine is this, and all my life I have been trying
to live up to it: 'Open thy mouth for the dumb
in the cause of all such as are appointed to
destruction.' My geniuses must be willing to
do something once every year, so long as they
live, for the sake of those that suffer in silence.
If the musician can do no more, he can sing or
play for the children in some hospital, or for
the old in some poorhouse, or for those in
prison. If the artist cannot paint like Landseer,
he can still devote the price of a picture to
paying dog licenses for the poor children of
his town or city. The lawyer can try to secure
the passage and enforcement of laws for the
protection of. children and animals; and the
doctor can set himself as flint against vivisec-
tion."
"Why wouldn't it be as well to make it a
fund for the protection of animals in the first
place?" asked Ted. "It would be very much
simpler and more easily administered."
"Perhaps I might have done so," she an-
swered, "if I had not had the experience of
257
UNDER THE HARROW
having all you young folks with me. It has
been a great lesson to me, mes enfants. I used
to like almost any kind of animal better than
the human kind, but I don't any more. Be-
sides, as Karl has pointed out, I wanted some-
thing more than a temporary relief and a tem-
porary benefit. This will be an ever-widening,
an always-growing crusade against cruelty. Do
you think war would be possible if Verastcha-
gin's picture, * Forgotten,' were exhibited in
every village and city ? Put a photograph of it
over every notice of the recruiting officer, the
wounded boy with arms outstretched towards
the batteries that are disappearing in the dust
far down the mountainside, as his life ebbs
away from hideous wounds, while a vulture
hovers over him in greedy expectation. That
is war. Do you recall Mark Twain's story of
the vivisector's dog ? That is the kind of trib-
ute I want from my geniuses. They will not
be Verastchagins or Twains, but they can add
their protest; they can do their best to lighten
the burden of cruelty and stupidity."
The old lady sank into her chair, exhausted
with the excitement of the moment, and with
258
UNDER THE HARROW
quick tact and comprehension Lorraine and
Hope put the subject by, and bringing in the
little tables served the dainty refreshments, in
the old informal way, and after some music
there was a general good-night.
259
XXXIII
T TP to the great day of the great First Night,
Louis and Hope and Miss Brent had all
tried to believe that she would be able to occupy
the box reserved for the occasion. When she
finally gave it up, it would have been hard to
say which was the most disappointed.
"Elise shall go," she said; "she will enjoy it
and bring you good luck and a blessing as she
has me all these years."
But Elise was unwilling to leave her sister.
Finally at an appealing look from Miss Brent,
Lorraine spirited Miss Elise away. "Do go,"
she said, "and let me stay. I wouldn't tell
Hope for anything, but I should absolutely
suffer through it, in a cold fear lest she should
forget a syllable, or some stupid actor spoil
Louis' masterpiece. They have taken me to
see the dress-rehearsal, and it is great, but I
should be on tenter-hooks to-night. It will be
a mercy to me if you will go, and leave me with
Miss Emma. And besides, they are your own
260
UNDER THE HARROW
particular swans. I know that there have been
ever so many times when they have been going
disconsolately away to die as mere ugly duck-
lings under the first currant bush, when you
have made them believe in their future. They
will be unhappy if you don't go why, of
course, they must have one of you; what would
any of us be without you ? Please go, Miss
Elise, and let me take care of Miss Emma."
Even then she might have refused, had not
Miss Emma hobbled in and added her en-
treaties. "Do go, Elise," she said. "It won't
be long, and I shall like to think that you are
there. Have you made all the arrangements ?
We want to give the swans a supper when they
come back, for of course it is going to be a
triumph; Lorraine and Elise and I want to
drink to you all and pledge your futures in
some very harmless punch."
So it was settled, and the two friends were
left alone, the one so frail and near the end,
the other so strong and self-reliant with all the
best of life before her. When the house was
quite silent Lorraine knelt beside Miss Brent
and took her hand.
261
UNDER THE HARROW
"You wanted to tell me something?" she
said.
"Yes, my dear," answered Miss Brent. "I
have told Elise, and we had a consultation with
the doctor to-day. He says it may be soon;
and yet, I have lasted so much longer than he
thought possible, that he will not be surprised
if the release does not come for some time yet.
Is it not terrible ? Even if I could endure the
pain myself without wincing, it is almost as
bad to watch little Elise suffering with me, and
knowing neither she nor any power on earth
can help me. I cannot feel that I ought to put
her to this torture. It is not right, Lorraine,
you must feel in your heart of hearts that it is
not right. If there were anything to be gained,
or if I might suffer alone and add to her happi-
ness by remaining here, perhaps I should be
strong enough to bear it, but it seems to me a
useless sacrifice."
Lorraine's self-control was gone, and she
buried her face in the brown silk lap.
Miss Brent stroked her rumpled hair. "I
wanted to tell you that I have seen my lawyer
too, and explained to him about the fund, and
262
UNDER THE HARROW
he understands everything and will arrange
with you and Ted and Elise. I didn't feel
quite strong enough to bother with all the
details myself, and Elise will know just what I
would wish.
"I have tried to be patient and strong, Lor-
raine. I have tried as I watched Louis struggle
with his hopeless heartache, and Hope battling
against her bitter grief and humiliation, and
little Elise trying to put from her the misery
and dread of the years to come. I do not
think I have altogether failed, but there comes
a time when it is weakness to fear convention
so much that rather than defy it we suffer
unnecessarily ourselves and thrust suffering on
others. I wanted to say this to you, Lorraine,
though no one else must ever know that I have
said it. Perhaps Death himself may be merci-
ful, at last. Kiss me, my dear, and know that
if the dead return I shall be often near you.
Now go and play something slow and drowsy
and dreamy, and I'll try to sleep so as to be
rested when they come. You are a dear girl,
Lorraine, and have been a comfort to me; you
will be to little Elise when she needs you, I
263
UNDER THE HARROW
know, without your telling me so. Go play
any little ballad thing you know the music
I like."
Lorraine played on in the half light that
streamed in from the hall, and Miss Brent
dropped asleep or into a half doze that left
her faintly conscious of the peaceful hush and
the soft, tender music stealing over her senses.
Lorraine was playing "Solvejg's Song" when
the wheels of the returning carriages roused
Miss Brent.
"Quick," she commanded, "turn on the
lights and strike up something appropriate,
'Hail to the Chief,' or something "
Lorraine sprang up, turned on all the lights
and was playing "Lo, the Conquering Hero
Comes" with grace notes and accidentals not
to be found in any arrangement of it, when they
all came in together, pell-mell, all talking and
laughing at once, save Hope and Louis, and
trying to explain how Racine and Rachel,
Moliere and Mrs. Siddons, had all been put
to rout.
Lorraine drove them all into the dining-room,
where Louis was seated at Miss Elise's right
264
UNDER THE HARROW
and Hope by Miss Emma, and there were toasts
and more toasts, and Miss Emma seemed to
forget that there was such a thing as pain, while
she pledged first one and then another.
"I am sure we ought to feel honored," she
said, "for I know the lions were wanted and
expected elsewhere. But you were wise to come
straight home. When 'The School for Scandal'
was put on, Sheridan celebrated so vigorously
that he woke up in jail the next day. I'm glad
to have you emulate his success without drown-
ing your pleasure in the flowing bowl. You can
drink endless quantities of this punch without
fear of a headache. All success to you, my
boy, but if discouragement comes, remember
that Shakespeare never, no never wrote one of
the six best-selling books!"
They drank the toast standing, and then Miss
Elise led Louis to the head of the table, so that
the Heavenly Twins stood together, Louis on
one side and Hope on the other, both of them
happy, confused and blushing at the honors
heaped upon them. But in spite of vociferous
demands they could not speak. Louis stam-
mered words of incoherent gratitude and affec-
265
UNDER THE HARROW
tion to the Heavenly Twins and all the dwellers
on Mount Parnassus for the faith and inspiration
that had never failed him on the weary upward
climb, and then he turned to Hope. "Of the
play," he said brokenly, "if I cannot claim that
it is so good as to need no epilogue, then I must
confess like a dull actor now, I have forgotten
my part. Whatever success has come to me I
owe to you, who have believed in me and most
of all to her," he bowed to Hope, "whose
very name is a bugle call to the drooping spirit
and whose genius has wrested victory from
defeat!"
"Make him your best bow, Hope, and prom-
ise to spring eternal whenever the cue comes,"
said Lorraine laughing. "Hope is a lover's
staff,'" she whispered in an aside to Miss Emma.
"I wish we were sure that he might 'walk hence
with that.' Come, Hope, say something for
us to remember when the great world claims
you, and we have become only part of the crowd
that stand in line before the box office."
But Hope turned first to the Heavenly Twins
and then to Louis with something upon her face
that none of them had ever seen before, and the
266
UNDER THE HARROW
voice that had thrilled the great audience an
hour or two ago was low and tremulous with
feeling.
"There are no words to thank you," she said.
" For you, Louis, the world will bring its tribute.
But I, what can I say ? I that was dead and am
alive again, I who was lost and am found ?"
There was a moment's hush, then Miss Brent
said quite gayly, "If I remember it, the rest of
that verse is, 'And they began to be merry!' If
these geniuses of ours refuse to let us burn in-
cense, here's to the bride! Teddy, we congratu-
late you on acquiring a genius all for your own.
Bess, we hope you will be happy, though mar-
ried. Here's to the geniuses, may you live long
and prosper; God bless you all, God bless you
every one."
*****
When the morning dawned the greatest bless-
ing to those who sink to slumber in pain, and
waken in suffering, had brought release to
Miss Brent.
267
A Novel that Mirrors Washington Society
THE IMPERSONATOR
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