I 
 
 
Wayside Experiences 
 
 A Collection of Plain Tales 
 as Heard Along the Road 
 
 BY 
 
 C. ELTON BLANCHARD, M. D. 
 
 Author of, "The Letters of Dr. Betterman," "Medical 
 Dollars and Sense," "The Nut Cracker and Other 
 Human Ape Fables," etc. etc. 
 
 "We are no other than a moving row 
 
 Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go 
 
 Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held 
 In Midnight by the Master of the Show; 
 
 But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays 
 
 Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days; 
 
 Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, 
 And one by one back in the Closet lays." 
 
 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. 
 
 PHYSICIANS DRUG NEWS COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 
 NEWARK, NEW JERSEY 
 
Copyrighted, 1913 
 By C. E. BLANCHARD 
 
639 
 
 To 
 H. D. R. 
 
 284521 
 
CONTENTS Page 
 
 Preface 6 
 
 The Prologue 8 
 
 Dr. Jones' Farm for Down and Outs 11 
 
 The Price He Paid 39 
 
 The Confession of a Second Wife 57 
 
 Dr. Xury 's Marvelous Cure 81 
 
 Mrs. King's Boarding House - 101 
 
 Sowing and Reaping Wild Oats 121 
 
 Bessie Tompkins ' Test 141 
 
 The Biophoretic Healer 161 
 
 Susan Hillis Theoretical Mother 173 
 
 Joel Eigby's Monument 191 
 
 How and Why I Failed as a Wife 207 
 
 The Epilogue 245 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It is an age of plain speaking. When any 
 good purpose is to be served it is well to call 
 a spade by its right name. The ancient and 
 pseudo-respectable prudery is giving place to 
 an earnest and intelligent desire to know more 
 of the physical meaning of life. While teach- 
 ers and preachers have been busy with the 
 fine points of morals and ethics, the terrible 
 scourge of venereal disease has been stealing 
 into our homes, like a thief in the night, de- 
 stroying innocent victims by thousands. 
 
 Fiction writers have assumed or been al- 
 lowed all manner of freedom in our current 
 literature, even of the better class, so called, 
 in dealing with suggestive situations, and 
 illicit sex complications are boldly described, 
 but any fair and truthful exposition of real 
 dangers, even though presented in proper, 
 though plain language, has been tabooed. The 
 cry of the child, until recently, has not been 
 heard the cry that demanded the right to be 
 well born, of clean and healthy parents; the 
 call of the unborn to be given a fair chance, to 
 have used in its behalf the best that science 
 and progress could offer, all this has been un- 
 til recently ignored. 
 
 Now, a new era is dawning. We will teach 
 all these things, these eugenic things, in our 
 schools, in our fiction and in other literature 
 read by the common people, and eventually 
 a general knowledge along these lines will 
 crystallize a strong public opinion into Law 
 
and that designed to protect the innocent and 
 exclude all menace to health and happiness 
 from home life. 
 
 These stories may be premature. They may 
 be timely or untimely; they may be good or 
 bad fiction as judged by the usual standards 
 of literary criticism. They have at least one 
 merit none can deny to them: sincerity and 
 reality, for they are bits of real life gathered 
 from the writer's diversified experiences. Let 
 them serve you if they may, to some good end. 
 
 C. ELTON BLANCHARD. 
 Youngstown, Ohio, March, 1913. 
 
THE PROLOGUE. 
 
 I had a vision of life as a great Highway, 
 and along this the human race was traveling 
 a multitude of hustling, jostling creatures, each 
 earnestly intent upon his own progress, show- 
 ing but little, if any, concern about the condi- 
 tion of others. 
 
 I was in the throng, but why I knew not, 
 nor had I knowledge of how I got there. Of 
 those passing near I asked, " Whither are we 
 bound?" but none gave heed to offer a satis- 
 factory answer. I only knew that we were 
 traveling on and on. 
 
 Of others I sought what seemed for the mo- 
 ment a more reasonable inquiry, and I asked, 
 "From whence came we?" and yet even to this 
 fair question I had no answer except the si- 
 lence of ages. 
 
 And often and anon there came those who 
 separated themselves from the pressing throng 
 and fell by the Wayside. Each of these weary 
 travelers carried a burden, some of one sort, 
 some another, and this burden they called Ex- 
 perience. 
 
 They could not lay it down they could not 
 give it up. Though in telling of it, often they 
 shed bitter tears, still they seemed to prize it 
 with a weird kind of tenderness. Sometimes 
 it seemed to me the more of sorrow this bur- 
 den bore, the more the care-worn traveler 
 cherished it. 
 
So we passed on and on, out into the dim 
 and distant shadows of the falling night, each 
 hngging to himself his burden. 
 
 I carried mine I could not carry jours. 
 
Dr. Jones' Farm for Down 
 and Outs. 
 
 I never knew when or why we began calling 
 him "Sire." It was away back there, at least 
 thirty years ago that we met Benjamin Jones 
 and I. He was a student at the Harvard Medi- 
 cal School and I, a sub-editor on the old Arena 
 magazine that homed about Copley Square. 
 We both roomed around on St. Botolph St., 
 and ate our meals at Mrs. Avery's dining room 
 for students. 
 
 Even in those days Ben Jones was a quiet, 
 thoughtful chap, widely read and ready to talk 
 on any subject, if one could get him alone. He 
 had little to say among people and many 
 thought him very reserved. In the women with 
 whom we came into contact he had no interest 
 whatever. I doubt if more than two or three 
 of all the students at the school ever came to 
 know him and to appreciate the greatness of 
 his mind and character. 
 
 On Sunday it was our custom to take long 
 walks Ben and I historical jaunts, we used 
 to call them. We tramped to all the old places 
 of interest visited the shrines at Cambridge, 
 Bunker Hill, Salem, and once, on a three days 
 trip, we went as far as Plymouth looking for 
 the rock. Our favorite walk was out to School- 
 master's Hill, Franklin Park, Roxbury way, 
 and there under the scrubby pines we would 
 
12 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 sit by the hour, talking of life and things. We 
 tried to imagine we sat on the very spot where 
 Emerson the schoolmaster, used to sit, dream- 
 ing his dreams of the philosophy of life. It 
 was there I think, I first called him "Sire," 
 because I said, he had become my mental fath- 
 er. However it may have happened, it matters 
 little, yet during all these years Dr. Jones has 
 been "Sire" to me. We have met but once 
 since the days in Boston, but we have kept up 
 a peculiar and wonderful correspondence. In 
 one of his letters he said, "I'd rather be called 
 Sire than king. I'd rather be father and 
 brother to those I meet in this life, than the 
 ruler of a kingdom, great or small." Dr. Benj. 
 Jones is the ruler of a wonderful little kingdom 
 now, all his own. 
 
 When the college days were over Ben Jones, 
 M.D., went back to Ohio, and settled in a large 
 industrial town, while I was soon drawn into 
 the maelstrom of New York publishing life. 
 There I ground out copy at one desk and an- 
 other, but never at a desk of my own. Often 
 I have had large salaries, but most of the mon- 
 ey they paid me got away again, and now at 
 fifty I am rich only in experience. I am old 
 for my years, gray and bald about six months 
 to a year from the poor-house at any given 
 time. At times I feel completely down and 
 out, mentally and physically. New York is a 
 great place to feed a man up with a good salary 
 then work him to death. The salary they take 
 away again for board and clothes, and when 
 
DR. JONES' FARM FOR DOWN AND OUTS. 13 
 
 he is worn down to the old plug or has-been 
 class, they turn him loose in the back pasture 
 to graze or die, just as he chooses. There is 
 a new grist of young men coming to the hopper 
 each year. No room for Down-and-Outs in 
 New York. 
 
 Not long ago I had a letter from "Sire" 
 telling me about his farm "Dr. Jones' Health 
 Farm" he calls it and inviting me to come for 
 a stay, long or short, just as my pleasure dic- 
 tated. For months I had been dragging down 
 to my work, doing my daily grind on pure 
 nerve force feeling in every cell of my body 
 and brain the call for rest rest even if the 
 grave had to open to give it. How rest came 
 I cared little. When I got this letter about 
 the farm, I made my plans to go. I told them 
 at the office if I did not come back they need 
 not wonder. 
 
 My journey out to Ohio, neither interested 
 me nor will it interest you. Somehow I got 
 to the little station and "Sire" was there wait- 
 ing for me. For a moment he clasped me by 
 the shoulders, looking me squarely in the face. 
 
 "Well, you needed to come. I can see 
 that." 
 
 "I guess I did, Sire," I replied. 
 
 "It does beat all how the city wears 'em 
 out," leading me toward the auto-bus waiting 
 for us. 
 
 We rode down through the village but at 
 the outskirts, he dismissed the conveyance, and 
 we got down to walk. 
 
14 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 "It's only a mile or so from here. We used 
 to walk and we can now I am sure. As we 
 go along, I will tell you about the farm." 
 
 Walking and talking, we presently came 
 out through the fields, for which the road had 
 been deserted, to a sloping hillside and looking 
 down into the valley we could see the farm 
 buildings among the trees. 
 
 "There it is," said the doctor. "Six years 
 ago I left the city to retire after twenty-five 
 years of practice and came back to this little 
 valley. It was my cradle and it will be my grave. 
 I had saved a few thousand dollars enough 
 to keep me the rest of my days I thought. I 
 had the old place from the estate of my father 
 not all the land we have now, but enough 
 for a retired doctor. This home had been in 
 our family for many years. It was my great 
 grandfather, Benjamin Jones, after whom I 
 was named, who came with the early New Eng- 
 land emigration to the Western Reserve. 1 
 have often heard my grandfather tell of those 
 times. There in the woods along the river 
 they settled, built the log cabins and worked 
 to clear up the land for you and me, though 
 they thought they were working for them- 
 selves no doubt. 
 
 "I did not do much the first Summer. We 
 had a garden and some crops. I also started 
 my root beds. I say we, but the only family 
 I had at first was Wong How, the same Chi- 
 nese cook, we still have. We have never had 
 any women folks at the farm, not that I have 
 
DR. JONES' FARM FOR DOWN AND OUTS. 15 
 
 any notions against them, but being alone my- 
 self, I thought best to continue living as I had 
 done in town. ' ' 
 
 I knew the doctor had never married and I 
 often wondered why, for I remembered some- 
 thing about a sweetheart back in the college 
 days. He had never offered to tell me, and I 
 felt unwilling to ask outright. Once I hinted 
 in a letter about it, but to this he made no 
 reply. 
 
 "May be Jack will be wiser than I have 
 been," he said presently, with a smile, "and 
 bring home a wife some day. ' ' 
 
 "Who is Jack?" I asked. 
 
 "That is so, I never wrote you of the boy. 
 Well, it's a long story for some night under 
 the trees. You must wait just now I am tell- 
 ing you about the farm. Wong How and I 
 came in the early Spring. In spite of the 
 work, and there was plenty of it to do, by 
 June I was lonesome, so I invited a friend of 
 mine to come out from the city. He is the di- 
 rector of charities there. We had a good time, 
 and when he went home, I asked him to send 
 out six boys, from ten to fifteen years of age, 
 who might be benefitted by a month's stay in 
 the country. The bargain was that I should 
 teach them to work in return for their keep, 
 as we put it. The boys came and we had a 
 glorious time. After a month I sent them home 
 and a new set came out. With the second lot 
 came the director again, and with him two 
 grownups, friends he had interested. We went 
 
16 WAYSIDE EXPEEIENCES. 
 
 swimming in the river, and fishing too. The 
 hay was ready to cut, so the boys, old and 
 young, pitched in and helped me put it up. We 
 had a royal good time and the good it did those 
 fellows, suggested the idea of extending the 
 work, but I hesitated to undertake it. 
 
 ''When the director and his two friends 
 went home, they left me twenty-five dollars 
 each, seventy-five dollars, they said, to help 
 feed the boys. Well, I guess I had fifty dif- 
 ferent youngsters out here that Summer. Every 
 one of them went home healthier and better 
 boys than when they came. The men who came 
 with them often lingered a few days, and I 
 could see the good it did every one of them. 
 My friend the director, wrote up the story for 
 the city papers and gave me quite a send off. 
 People began to write about coming. Nearly all 
 the first Winter I had from one to a half dozen 
 men with me. We cut wood, put up ice and 
 made plans for the next Summer. 
 
 "At first, I had no idea of such an institu- 
 tion as we now have. I had no fixed charges 
 and no thought of profit. The folks in town 
 asked me to estimate the cost of keeping the 
 boys, per day, with their work contributed. I 
 could not do it, so we settled on the rate of 
 fifty cents a day for each boy. The grownups 
 that came set their own price and left me at 
 the rate of two dollars a day. This custom 
 has become the rule of the institution. I never 
 make out any bills, but we keep a register that 
 shows the names and dates of arrival. So far 
 
DR. JONES' FAEM FOR DOWN AND OUTS. 17 
 
 no one has forgotten to leave the money before 
 he goes and some have left or sent substantial 
 sums for the promotion of our plans. A few 
 have come along that we found it necessary 
 to hand a schedule of the trains that leave the 
 village, because we could do them no good. 
 
 ' 'Besides the money, our big boys have con- 
 tributed labor according to their ability, and 
 each man received from the farm what he need- 
 ed. The second Summer we had with us Nate 
 Coleman, and it is to his skill and enthusiastic 
 interest that we owe most of the improvements 
 on the farm. He was a down and outer from 
 drink, but no better architect and engineer ever 
 lived. Besides his mechanical ability he was 
 an artist of rare taste. When you get down 
 there, you will see the wall and the big gates 
 and the new buildings, all built of field stone 
 nigger heads, people about here call them 
 laid in cement. We did not have enough stone 
 about the place, but farmers near by brought 
 us thousands of loads. We paid them one dol- 
 lar a load. 
 
 "It was Nate who projected the dam in the 
 river. It is made of reinforced concrete and 
 lifts the surface about five feet, giving us a 
 nice body of water at all times for boating, fish- 
 ing and bathing. In Winter it holds the water 
 better for the ice crop, and we have great fun 
 skating, besides. The overflow from the dam 
 runs our hydraulic rams, that work while we 
 sleep, keeping our water tanks full all the time. 
 We have always plenty of water, so the lawns, 
 
18 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 gardens and flower beds never suffer for want 
 of it. All this came along so fast, I had to 
 dip into my savings account a few thousand 
 dollars. I did not mind that, for I began to 
 see I would not need the money for myself. 
 
 "How the boys did work, helping the ma- 
 sons on the wall. They wheeled dirt, pounded 
 stone, shoveled sand, mixed cement and no 
 paid workers could have shown more interest. 
 Men with soft hands and with heads worth ten 
 thousand dollars a year, tended mason, called 
 themselves 'wops' and went to bed tired, to 
 the table hungry, and home after a month or 
 so of stay, feeling well and happy. They call- 
 ed it 'Dr. Jones' Work Cure' and it certainly is 
 a specific for neurasthenia. 
 
 "Those that went home sent others and be- 
 fore the second Summer was over, we had to 
 make plans for more house room. Nate had it 
 up his sleeve all the time to build the Rec- 
 tangle. You can see it now very well from 
 here. It is just a big bungalow arranged about 
 an open court, cement floored except the space 
 in the center for the flowers and the pool for 
 the fish. The boys call the rooms sleeping cells, 
 but they are cozy and healthy. For each four 
 cells is a sitting room, with a big fire place. 
 There is a toilet and a wash room for each set 
 of cells. The doors of the sitting rooms open on 
 the court, and a porch with stone columns, 
 runs about the three sides of the Rectangle lev- 
 el with the court. There are now forty-eight 
 beds in the building, but in Summer when we 
 
DR. JONES' FARM FOB DOWN AND OUTS. 19 
 
 are crowded we put up cots in the court, and 
 some sleep in tents about. 
 
 "Behind the Rectangle, but connected by 
 a covered passage is the Bath House. It has 
 a number of small compartments with modern 
 plumbing. In the center is the plungepool, 
 made of porcelained brick, laid in cement. We 
 use this swimming pool only in Winter, as a 
 rule, though a few 'tenderfoots' prefer it to 
 the river plunge, at first, but they soon get in 
 the procession. 
 
 "By the end of the third year the director 
 had induced the city to establish a municipal 
 farm school for boys nearer to town, so after 
 that we had no more youngsters. I am called 
 one of the Board for the boys' farm school and 
 some of my boys are there as teachers and out 
 door instructors. It is a grand idea. I was 
 pleased with this change, for it was necessary 
 to provide for about five hundred boys and this 
 was too much for an old man like me. 
 
 "When I cast up my accounts at the end 
 of the third year, I found we had invested over 
 twenty-five thousand dollars in the improve- 
 ments, besides paying all expenses and salaries. 
 Ten thousand of this had come out of my old 
 age fund. By this time I had made up my mind 
 that I would not have any old age. I had come 
 out here to retire, but instead I found I had 
 really taken on a new life job. The best of 
 it was, I did not care whether we made any 
 profit or not. The people came, worked and 
 created. We had much of the material at hand, 
 
20 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 and with Nate's gray matter, we have made a 
 very beautiful property. Of course it's mine, 
 but that don't mean anything, any more than 
 the air or sunshine is mine. 
 
 1 'Up to this time the old house had been my 
 quarters, and it was good enough, and is still 
 good enough for me. It had also been the cook- 
 ing department and the dining room, as well 
 as quarters for the help. Wong How often 
 had quite a number of his countrymen with 
 him. I do not know why we drifted into this 
 way of hiring Chinese help. It seemed to be 
 satisfactory, and while we try to teach the dig- 
 nity and worth of any kind of labor, it may 
 have saved us a good deal of trouble. Wong 
 How and his boys do their work in the kitchen 
 and laundry faithfully and well. We can de- 
 pend upon them. They are clean and orderly. I 
 have had Wong How so long he seems a part of 
 my life. Perhaps he is serving his purpose, just 
 as I am serving mine or you, yours. The 
 fourth Summer, Nate built the Food House, 
 as the boys call it." 
 
 We were now approaching the main en- 
 trance to the farm and the doctor's narrative 
 continued. 
 
 "You can see this building to the right of 
 the Rectangle. The bungalow idea is carried 
 out with it. We have plenty of ground space 
 here, and except in the old house, there are no 
 stairs on the farm. The big room has a small 
 stage and we have just set up a new piano 
 there. Some of the folks thought the old one 
 
DR. JONES' FARM FOE DOWN AND OUTS. 21 
 
 was not good enough for us. It makes a din- 
 ing room, theatre, church, dancing hall, coun- 
 cil chamber, all combined. Behind the big 
 room is the bakery and kitchen. The ovens are 
 in the basement, also the store rooms for sup- 
 plies, provisions, etc. We have a cold storage 
 over there by the river bank. This is our 
 feeding plant. It supplies food for the body 
 and sometimes food for the soul. 
 
 "This year we had what we called our 
 'Haying Time Musical.' The boys sent out 
 their invitations to wives, sisters and sweet- 
 hearts also to a few mothers. They came, 
 we saw them, but they conquered us! Well, 
 we had some great music. There were some 
 professionals among the performers and it was 
 quite a treat to many of the people living 
 about here, all of whom were invited. You 
 will notice those low windows slide, and when 
 opened a large number on the outside saw and 
 heard about as well as those on the inside. The 
 estimated number was one thousand persons, 
 which was quite a crowd for a rural corner like 
 this. 
 
 "In this room we have our Sunday lec- 
 tures some times I talk when we can fin<3 no 
 one with a better message. Now and then we 
 have theatricals and dancing when ladies vis- 
 it us. The Food House has been a good invest- 
 ment. I raised nearly enough golden seal root 
 over there in the grove that season, to pay for 
 it. I had about one thousand pounds of the 
 dried root and I got five dollars a pound for 
 
22 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 it. You should have seen some of my farmer 
 neighbors open their eyes, when my first five 
 thousand dollar load, ten barrels with one hun- 
 dred pounds to the barrel, went to the station. 
 I am going into this drug plant raising more 
 extensively. We will market about a ton of 
 the golden seal this season, if nothing happens, 
 and a like quantity of echinacea also, which 
 brings about three dollars a pound. Golden 
 seal is now six fifty a pound on druggist lists. 
 "Well, here we are and I have done all the 
 talking so far. You shall have your chance 
 later." 
 
 We turned into the big stone pillared gate- 
 way and under the main arch I read this sign : 
 
 DR. JONES' HEALTH FARM. 
 
 I had no sooner washed and rested a few 
 minutes in one of the "cells" assigned me, than 
 the supper bell rang. The good old "Sire" 
 was waiting at my door to escort me to my seat 
 at his table. I must stand while he made a lit- 
 tle speech, telling who I was and what I was 
 to him. His smooth face wreathed in smiles 
 the merry blue eyes beaming all this spoke 
 plainly his happiness to have me with him. 
 Dr. Benjamin Jones was an old man then; his 
 mane of hair fell backward over his head as 
 white as snow, but he had all the life and spirit 
 of the youngest in that roomful forty odd aa 
 I counted. 
 
DR. JONES' FARM FOR DOWN AND OUTS. 23 
 
 As the meal proceeded, we talked. To the 
 others at the table he said, "I shall leave it to 
 my friend here to select his own labors, but if 
 he should chance to join the wood choppers 
 tomorrow you must be easy on him, boys. His 
 hands are soft." 
 
 "Yes, oh, yes, we'll be easy on him," said 
 some of the fellows laughing at my discom- 
 fort. 
 
 The food came on, substantial but plain. 
 There was corn bread and butter, soft boiled 
 eggs and baked potatoes. At each plate stood 
 a good sized dish of maple syrup, made on the 
 farm and how well it went with the corn bread. 
 There was milk, tea, coffee, water take your 
 choice. Mine was milk Jersey milk the doc- 
 tor explained. 
 
 "We keep a dairy now of ten cows, but I 
 must add a few more, I fear, the way these 
 boys drink milk and eat butter. I tell them 
 they must have been bottle-fed babies." 
 
 My walk seemed to bring my appetite and I 
 surprised myself the way I went after that corn 
 bread and syrup. 
 
 "You'll do better after they break you in 
 tomorrow," the doctor commented. 
 
 Just where the big trees end by the river 
 bank, a bluff, thirty or forty feet above the 
 water, is formed. The great wall encircles the 
 trees at the end, forming an outlook over the 
 swimming pool. From this circle the steps lead 
 down to the platform at the edge of the water 
 or "swimming hole" as they called it. The 
 
24 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 men called this circular court under the trees, 
 " Council Bluff" and it was the custom for 
 those who had no other work or self appointed 
 task, to gather here at the evening hour, to 
 smoke, talk and listen. It was here the old 
 doctor came closest to his friends. They al- 
 ways saved his seat near the end of the wall, 
 by the steps. It was a little higher there and 
 from this place he pronounced his "sermons" 
 on life and things. Here many men were born 
 again into a new conception of life's meaning. 
 
 We gathered after supper in this council 
 place under the trees and as the twilight deep- 
 ened, they cast their kindly shadows over the 
 faces of the group. We talked each with his 
 neighbor as we smoked. After a time, the old 
 doctor finished his pipe, and looked from face to 
 face. They seemed to know what was coming 
 and a silence fell as we waited on his words. 
 The sound of rippling water at the dam came to 
 our ears. Crickets were calling in the grass. 
 Across the distant meadow we heard faintly 
 the lowing of a cow. The cooling dew was fall- 
 ing. A mist arose over the river like some 
 weird phantom of the night. 
 
 Then the doctor began to talk. He spoke 
 very slowly and with great tenderness. It was 
 a long sermon in a few words. It made us 
 wonder why we had so long forgotten the real 
 meaning of life. We felt very close to Nature 
 and to God, as we sat there in the shadows lis- 
 tening to his words. The dear old philosopher 
 spoke but a few minutes, yet we seemed to have 
 
DR. JONES' FAEM FOR DOWN AND OUTS. 25 
 
 lived again our whole life time. At last he 
 said, "Boys, let's have a song now. Let's sing 
 again that old hymn, 'Lead Kindly Light.' 
 Everybody knows it." 
 
 There were twenty or more of us in the 
 group that night, of all ages from early man- 
 hood to life's decline. There were some very 
 good singers among these men and when the 
 old song arose and the sweet melody of men's 
 voices filled the night air it aroused in me a 
 wonderful emotion. They had evidently sung 
 the song together before for they sang exceed- 
 ingly well. 
 
 "Lead kindly light amid the encircling 
 gloom, 
 
 Lead thou me on : 
 
 The night is dark and I am far from home. ' ' 
 
 Three verses they sang and I am sure my 
 tears were not the only ones to be hastily 
 brushed away, at least among the newcomers. 
 The song ended, and its faint echoes came from 
 over the river. The night so still, told us of 
 peace and rest. 
 
 "Well, boys, let's go to our beds," the doc- 
 tor said quietly. 
 
 One by one we made off to our rooms. On 
 the way from "Council Bluff" the old doctor 
 slipped his arm through mine and said, "Well, 
 dear boy, do you think you'll like the farm?" 
 
 "Sire, if it does for my body what it has 
 already done for my mind, I shall never want to 
 leave you." 
 
26 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 He chuckled a little and pressed my arm 
 tighter. 
 
 "Oh, they come and go. Many go and come 
 back again. Some try it out there a while after 
 this, and they don't like it," he said stretching 
 his hand toward the star-lighted horizon. 
 
 We stood looking at the stars a few min- 
 utes before he continued. 
 
 "I am a very small man, and this is a very 
 small world when we think of all God's out- 
 doors in the sky. Still there are places and cor- 
 ners where peace dwells, if people only keep 
 working and singing their songs. I can't let 
 our farm become chronic with any man. When 
 he comes back too often, I send him out some- 
 where to start one of his own. There are sev- 
 eral here and there that call us the 'Mother 
 Farm' like the Mother Church we used to visit 
 sometimes in Boston. The mother idea is all 
 right if we can't agree with the rest." 
 
 Then we went to our beds. As I lay there 
 in my tidy little room, with the night air com- 
 ing in at my window so clean and sweet with 
 the smell of many herbs and bloom, the still- 
 ness seemed to keep me awake. A whip-poor- 
 will was calling his mate somewhere in the 
 grove, and but for it the silence might have 
 seemed oppressive. 
 
 I must have slept, for I awoke when the 
 soft tones of the morning bell rang out the call 
 for the "Bath Robe Parade" as the boys called 
 it. Sire was knocking at my door. 
 
DR. JONES' FARM FOR DOWN AND OUTS. 27 
 
 "You will want to see the fun, so throw on 
 this and come," he said, handing me a bath 
 robe. Pulling on my slippers, I joined him. 
 Down the walk went the procession of forty 
 odd health seekers monks they seemed, some 
 with cowls pulled over to the steps at ' * Coun- 
 cil Bluff" and down the steps to the platform 
 at the pool. Off went the bath robes, and men 
 as naked as God made them except for bath- 
 ing trunks plunged into the deep cold water 
 of the river. Such a splashing and confusion 
 of legs and arms I never saw. 
 
 "We use the pool here till the first frost 
 comes in the Fall, then we go to the Bath House 
 pool," the doctor explained. 
 
 They did not stay in the water but a few 
 minutes. Out they came, laughing, puffing and 
 happy. On went the robes and one by one 
 they trotted back to their cells. 
 
 "Tomorrow, I'll take mine too," I said. 
 
 By the time the bathers had rubbed down 
 and dressed the bell for breakfast sounded. 
 The sun was just coming up in the East and 
 through the window at our table, I could see 
 the red and the gold that promised a good 
 day. 
 
 There were ten of us in the wood chopping 
 "gang." Sire took an equal number to the 
 grove to work among the roots, while others 
 went to the gardens and fields. There were 
 four "professional lawn tenders" who looked 
 after the grass and flowers. The woodmen 
 and field workers went under the direction of 
 
28 WAYSIDE EXPEKIEN'CES. 
 
 farmer foremen in the doctor's employ, and 
 these men taught us to work successfully at the 
 task in hand. 
 
 Everywhere was order and system. Every- 
 thing in trim and neatness. While about such 
 a farm there always accumulates a great 
 amount of odds and ends, there was a place 
 for everything, nothing wasted, neglected or 
 thrown at random. 
 
 In the closets off our cells we found our 
 suits of overalls and jacket "jumpers" some 
 called them also rubber boots and brogans for 
 wet or dry weather. The footwear was usually 
 big enough to fit, but if not suited, there was an 
 assortment in the storeroom. The foreman had 
 ten keen edged axes ready for us. These we 
 shouldered and marched off like soldiers to the 
 war. 
 
 In the group were some men who held high 
 positions, when classed by the dollars and cents 
 they commanded. One lawyer had fees, it was 
 known, that often reached fifty thousand ft 
 year. There was a banker or two and a cap- 
 tain of industry. They all took orders from a 
 twenty-five dollar a month farm foreman. 
 
 It seemed that while a natural gas well sup- 
 plied light and fuel for the Food House and 
 Bath House, they used wood in the fire places 
 and in the steam heating plant. It was this 
 wood we were helping to prepare. We went to 
 a wood lot, where many second growth and un- 
 desirable trees were to be cleared away, both 
 for the fuel and to improve the land for pas- 
 
DE. JONES' FARM FOR DOWN AND OUTS. 29 
 
 ture. These trees varied from three to ten 
 inches in diameter. Most of the choppers were 
 new to the work so the foreman showed us 
 how it was done. With rapid and accurate 
 blows he soon made the chips fly, and present- 
 ly the tree, a good sized one, lay upon the 
 ground. 
 
 "Looks easy enough," the banker com- 
 mented. 
 
 "I'll be all right if I can hit more than 
 once in the same place," ventured the lawyer. 
 
 So with many jokes and much banter we 
 began learning the woodman's art. We were 
 divided into pairs and set at work with safe 
 distance between each set of workers. I was 
 paired off with the lawyer and we waded into 
 a good sized tree that had been marked for us. 
 We hacked away, one resting while the other 
 worked. Now and then some fellow from an- 
 other set would call out to us. One said, "I 
 could gnaw it off quicker than that." 
 
 "I don't doubt it," called back the lawyer, 
 "always thought you were part dog or beaver 
 or some sort of rodent." 
 
 Thus we laughed and worked, also sweated 
 at our tasks. Our tree fell at last and we 
 shouted like schoolboys. Then we forged ahead 
 on the limbs and the cutting of the trunk into 
 proper lengths. When the poles we had cut 
 were piled, also the brush laid in heaps, we 
 could hardly realize we had been at work four 
 hours. The old bell was calling us to wash and 
 dress for dinner. 
 
30 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 I do not think our whole company of ten 
 men did as much work, no, I won't say work, 
 for we worked hard enough I'll say, cut as 
 much wood as two skilled woodmen would have 
 done, but we went home tired, hungry and hap- 
 py. It was a luxury the sponge bath and 
 the rub down. How good our natural clothing 
 felt, and how we did eat! 
 
 The afternoons on the farm are spent as 
 each man's pleasure dictates. Some went up 
 the river fishing. Others took walks over the 
 hills. Others still read or wrote letters or 
 chatted in the shade. Some of the more inter- 
 ested ones of the gardens or the flower beds, 
 studied their plants and consulted books from 
 the library, and the doctor had a large col- 
 lection by this time. 
 
 Sire and I took a walk to see his golden 
 seal beds in the grove, where by following the 
 plan of nature he was producing a root that 
 excelled anything the drug makers had ever 
 seen, he said. It was out in the grove by the 
 golden seal beds he told me the story of Jack. 
 
 "You will remember back there in the Bos- 
 ton days I once told you of Nan. We had been 
 schoolmates, and when I went away to medical 
 college she had promised to be my wife. It 
 seemed a long time to wait I suppose. It 
 seemed long to me, still not too long for the 
 girl I loved. It must have seemed too long 
 for Nan, for before I left you in Boston, she 
 wrote breaking her engagement. I could not 
 blame her much, yet I loved her dearly and 
 
DR. JONES' FARM FOR DOWN AND OUTS. 31 
 
 what she did greatly depressed me for a time. 
 I could not speak of it to anybody not even 
 to you. She took what she thought was a 
 better chance, a man I never knew, but every- 
 one said she had done well to marry John 
 Pobes, a Chicago banker's son. A few said 
 it was better than to wait for Ben Jones, a 
 struggling young doctor. I have never dis- 
 puted them in this, still I have waited to see 
 the end of the story. 
 
 "Fobes took his wife, my Nan, and went to 
 Chicago, where he had originated. There he 
 soon became a successful banker and politician. 
 He belonged to that set of grafters that made 
 Chicago its happy hunting ground those years. 
 I never knew the whole story but I read of his 
 arrest for some sort of peculation and he went 
 to prison for a long term of years. He died 
 suddenly soon after his term began, and Nan 
 came home to her folks with her little boy. I 
 saw her here, and the child and I soon became 
 great friends. I loved the lad, but when I saw 
 the change that had come over his mother in 
 those years of her married life, I was glad I 
 had not married her. Maybe she would not 
 have changed this way had she married me, 
 who knows. I saw considerable of them that 
 Summer, and I advised her to put the boy in 
 school. She had saved a little money from 
 the wreck of Pobes' estate so she was rather 
 independent that way. She followed my sug- 
 gestion and sent the boy away to school, but 
 
32 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 she did this, I thought, because it left her more 
 freedom to follow her own fancy. 
 
 "Her father died that Winter, and her 
 mother went to live with the older son. After 
 that I heard no more of Nan, except as reports 
 of her notorious conduct about racing and wat- 
 ering places, drifted back to us. When the 
 boy was twelve I became his guardian. I never 
 knew how it happened but it had been his 
 mother's wish. She was either murdered or 
 committed suicide, while living as the mis- 
 tress of a well known race track gambler. Poor 
 Nan, how I have wished since then she had 
 waited and never changed," and the old man 
 sat silent a moment or two. 
 
 "I brought the boy back to Ohio and put 
 him in school in town and he lived with me 
 and Wong How. I have been father and moth- 
 er to him ever since. He is now twenty-five 
 and gets his M.D. in June from John Hop- 
 kins. There was a little money left for Jack 
 and I have helped him some. Better still, he 
 has helped himself. I tried to teach him what 
 a dollar costs by earning one for himself. He 
 is a practical chap, and I hope he lives to 
 take my place here." 
 
 The doctor then fussed about among the 
 roots a while. I knew if he had anything more 
 to say, he would say it in his own time. 
 
 "Perhaps it is better so," he said softly. 
 "Fate seems to arrange our plans for us and all 
 we can do is to follow the path marked out. 
 Man proposes but God disposes, they say. How- 
 
DR. JONES' FAKM FOR DOWN AND OUTS. 33 
 
 ever, every man needs a woman to smooth 
 his brow. I prescribe it, but somehow I could 
 not forget Nan Nan as she used to be as she 
 might have been to me. Now I've got Nan's 
 boy." 
 
 I couldn 't think of anything good to say, so 
 I said nothing and once more we sat in si- 
 lence a long time. By and by, I said, "I un- 
 derstand, Sire, I do." 
 
 "I knew you would I wanted to tell you. 
 No one else knows. Let it be so. Shall we 
 trot back now? It's almost supper time." 
 
 That night under the trees, when we came 
 to the place for the "talk," the doctor said, 
 "I've had some thoughts today about how 
 every man pays the price. Do you want to 
 hear them?" 
 
 We could not see his face very well, but 
 I am sure he looked at me and smiled. 
 
 "Hear! hear!" we cried. This was the 
 custom at the beginning of each of the doc- 
 tor's talks. 
 
 "Every man pays his price. Nature or 
 God, call it what you will, puts it on the ticket, 
 marked in plain figures, one price to all. You 
 and I must pay that's all there is to it. 
 
 "Because brain labor is the better money 
 getter, and seems more desirable, men have 
 counted toil with hands as degraded. The men 
 and women of ease grow fat and the vital or- 
 gans degenerate. The heart falters and fails. 
 
34 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 The arteries harden and break. Presently a 
 great hulk of corruption is carted off to the 
 dead. He was a great banker, statesman, cap- 
 tain of industry, a judge on the bench, or what 
 not, but he did no physical work. He left a 
 huge fortune perhaps that others had produced. 
 He left a family tainted with his own fatal 
 heredity. He paid the price. 
 
 "By devious and subtle ways, by systems of 
 great cunning, by the formulation of law and 
 by the interpretation of this law, men have 
 succeeded wonderfully in the exploitation of 
 the toiler: like the horse the worker has been 
 dumb. His interest centered about his feed 
 box. So long as it was full he was content. 
 Fatigue made intelligence difficult, and the 
 worker did not know his strength or the value 
 of his labor in production. 
 
 "By the subtle devices called profits, tar- 
 iffs, rents, rebates, interest, bonds, stocks and 
 franchises, by patents, secret formula and by 
 all the other hidden systems, often made legal 
 by political subalterns and substantiated by 
 subjugated courts, the products of labor have 
 been taken from the producer and given to 
 the exploiter. The scorner of honest toil has 
 gloated over his millions and his hundreds of 
 millions. These billions have been garnered 
 into Wall Street where the wolves of finance 
 tear and rend each other for supremacy for 
 possession of this stolen wealth I say stolen, 
 but of course taken according to the laws of 
 the looting system, yet in the last analysis as 
 
DR. JONES' FARM FOR DOWN AND OUTS. 35 
 
 wrongly taken as the loot of the bank vault 
 robber or the highwayman. 
 
 4 'And what is the price we pay for all this? 
 It is poverty. Poverty that breeds crime and 
 disease. It builds hovels and jails, workhouses 
 and poorhouses, hospitals and insane asylums, 
 dives and brothels. It sends millions of inno- 
 cent babes to premature graves. It drives a 
 horde of fair women to the harlot's bed. It 
 wears out the toilers before their time and 
 throws them on the scrap heap. Behold in the 
 picture of our present industrial struggle the 
 price we pay for millionaires. Behold the sys- 
 tem of profit seeking competition, toppling over 
 upon itself, because of its own rottenness. The 
 rich are equally as ignorant of the causes of our 
 social diseases as are the poor victims. Here 
 and there men of wealth make desperate effort 
 to check the fall the crisis, that is upon us, 
 by charities, hospitals, foundations, libraries, 
 pseudo-profit sharing, workingmen's benefit 
 associations and a hundred other futile make 
 shifts. Preachers of the gospel of Jesus, cry 
 out 'Repent and be saved' and all the while 
 the church is as diseased as society itself. Doc- 
 tors rush here and there night and day to cure 
 sickness that never should have occurred. Hos- 
 pitals are filled with thousands of injured and 
 undertakers are busy with the killed, all of 
 whom need not have suffered and died had in- 
 dustry been put upon the right basis. Law- 
 yers are pleading cases and judges deciding en- 
 tanglements that should not have occurred but 
 
36 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 for poverty and the fear of poverty. Officers 
 of the Law go chasing poor victims who listen- 
 ed to Brute Force which said, 'do and dare, 
 take and revolt.' Policemen, as dull as the 
 tough in their hands, try to beat the idea of 
 submission into the heads of the rebellious, with 
 their night sticks. Isn't it all a woeful price to 
 pay? 
 
 "What shall a man do to be saved? Men 
 of wealth are often men of great personal 
 worth. What can they do? Here and there 
 they follow the advise of Jesus, 'Sell all and 
 give to the poor' but it is futile. It is but a 
 drop in the bucket, that adds only to the mis- 
 ery of the whole and leaves the giver no bet- 
 ter off. 
 
 "Brothers, there is only one solution, only 
 one way to escape from all this terrible price 
 we pay. We must abolish poverty. To do this 
 we must give up profits and competition. We 
 must come down to earth and be willing to per- 
 form whatever labor of hands Nature has im- 
 posed upon us." 
 
 I cannot reproduce all this talk. He tried 
 to make us understand his definition of labor. 
 He illustrated the classification of toil. He 
 gave us glimpses of a society without poverty, 
 but he added that none present would live to 
 see it fully established. He said each must 
 solve his own problem of adjustment, and not 
 be embittered. For himself, he had by hard 
 labor and economy in his life as a doctor, sav- 
 ed a little money and come out there to end his 
 
DR. JONES' FARM FOE DOWN AND OUTS. 37 
 
 days in peace. Now the turn of affairs had 
 created there a valuable property to which he 
 held the title. It was not his property how- 
 ever. He had no personal use for it. He had 
 arranged that when he went away on the long 
 journey, it would continue in the way it had be- 
 gun, serving men. If all men thought as he, and 
 had no fear of poverty for themselves or their 
 children, then this desire to hold property 
 would be taken out of human life. It is a vain 
 desire and its costs such a price, the race can- 
 not afford it. The cost of poverty is too great. 
 Let us abolish poverty. 
 
 I have been at the farm now two months. 
 I am a well man again. I eat and sleep like a 
 boy of twenty. I am going back to my desk 
 but I shall come again. Dear old Sire says I 
 must come every Summer, as we have but a few 
 more to spend together. 
 
 I am going back into the struggle, but it 
 won't be the same as before. 1 can laugh at 
 it now, for I know it means nothing. If I 
 can help others to recognize its insincerity and 
 futility that will be part of my excuse for liv- 
 ing. If the Thing tries to get me down again 
 and to crush me into mental and physical mis- 
 ery, I will laugh at it. Pooh, I will say, I fear 
 you not. Out in Ohio there is a real place to 
 live called Dr. Jones' Health Farm, and the 
 good old Sire is waiting there to welcome me 
 any day. He will welcome you too, my reader, 
 if you need what the farm can do for you. 
 
The Price He Paid. 
 
 "Well, don't that beat the devil?" 
 
 This was Dr. Xury's exclamation, when the 
 nurse brought the baby, all washed and dress- 
 ed, into the doctors' lounging room at the 
 hospital. It was a fat clean-skinned child, and 
 its lusty cry was ample evidence of good 
 health. 
 
 "It certainly is a sweet child," the nurse 
 said as she carried it away to the waiting 
 mother. 
 
 Dr. Xury Taylor Lane was known by 
 everybody connected with the hospital as "Dr. 
 Xury." He was old enough to have been rip- 
 ened by experience, yet young enough to appre- 
 ciate that saving sense of humor. To fit this 
 prescription a man usually has to be somewhere 
 around forty. Had Dr. Lane been asked he 
 would have confessed forty at least. He was 
 a sharp, keen-eyed man, reasonably bald, he 
 said from early piety, but erect and muscular, 
 his very manner suggesting power and sin- 
 cerity. Yet there was always a pleasant smile, 
 partly hidden by a close cropped moustache. 
 There is little need, however, to dwell long 
 upon Dr. Lane for he is not the star actor in 
 our story. This will do as a formal intro- 
 duction. You will learn to know him by what 
 he says and does, just as I came to know him. 
 
40 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 "What was it about that baby that beats 
 the devil, Dr. Xury?" the house surgeon 
 asked, after the nurse had left the room. 
 
 "The mother and father of that child are 
 both under my care and treatment for consti- 
 tutional syphilis. Now comes a clean healthy 
 baby. Don't that beat the devil?" 
 
 "Not necessarily," the younger doctor re- 
 plied. ' ' It only shows what medicine will do. ' ' 
 
 "Well, we won't boast too soon. Give the 
 child three years, then if nothing shows up, 
 we will hurrah. Meantime we'll be just wait- 
 ing only waiting!" and Dr. Xury went down 
 the long hall toward his waiting machine, hum- 
 ming a tune. 
 
 For some time before the opening of our 
 story, Mr. Harry B. Van Auker had been a 
 successful illustrator and artist. He had a 
 studio in connection with a large engraving 
 establishment. His drawing was good and 
 therefore in demand. His work was original 
 and clever. Several vacation times he had 
 spent in travel, and he did some work in water 
 color and oil. One Summer he went to Eu- 
 rope and spent a few happy weeks in Holland 
 where the tradition says his family originated. 
 
 Harry is an interesting fellow calm, easy 
 in manner and slow of words, but with that 
 drawl sort of humor and wit most of us en- 
 joy so well. It is not to be wondered at that 
 Marion Sturdevant learned to love him. They 
 had been engaged about six months when Har- 
 ry first went to Dr. Lane. They planned to be 
 
THE P&1CE HE PAID. 41 
 
 married the next June and spend the Summer 
 about the Irish coast sketching. Marion was 
 something of a water color enthusiast. In fact 
 I believe they had met at the Art Club. Harry 
 had already sold a few of his Dutch scenes 
 for fair prices, so they thought it might be a 
 profitable way to spend the honeymoon. You 
 can understand how they looked forward to 
 this trip, especially when you remember this 
 was to be a wedding journey. 
 
 During October Harry went to Dr. Lane 
 about some sores in his mouth. He had tried 
 throat lozenges, mouth wash tablets, etc. re- 
 commended by the druggists, but nothing 
 seemed to help him. Like many others, Harry 
 would not think of consulting a physician so 
 long as the druggist would sell him "some- 
 thing good for what ailed him." Doctors al- 
 ways get a big bill against you someway, if 
 you once fall into their hands. This was Har- 
 ry's idea like many other folks because he 
 put the service of a physician on the same bas- 
 is as that of the drug store clerk who sold him 
 something good for mouth sores, price 25 cents. 
 
 Luckily Harry thought well of Dr. Xur> 
 and when the mouth kept on getting worse, he 
 went to the doctor's office. 
 
 "I want you to examine my mouth," said 
 Harry. 
 
 "All right, son, sit here," and Dr. Lane 
 placed his patient, fixing his head lamp into 
 place. 
 
 "Well, by jinks, mucous patches!" 
 
 "What do you mean by that?" asked the 
 young man, somewhat alarmed. 
 
42 WAYSIDE EXPEBIENCES. 
 
 "I mean the secondary sores of syphilis," 
 with this remark the doctor began to feel for 
 glands in the back of the neck, about the el- 
 bows and other places. 
 
 "I never had anything wrong with me," 
 Harry protested. 
 
 "Not that you thought was anything, yet 
 you did have something wrong with you, and 
 you have got something very much wrong 
 right now." 
 
 For a moment or two Harry sat looking at 
 the doctor closely, as if to make out his mean- 
 ing, then he said, "Now look here, Dr. Lane, 
 if you are sure about this thing, it's a mighty 
 serious matter, I can tell you that; you can't 
 understand what it means to me." 
 
 "There are tests of the blood we can make, 
 but it is not necessary. Your tongue and 
 mouth show plain enough what the trouble is. 
 Did you never have a sore of any kind?" 
 
 "Oh, about a year ago I had a little lump, 
 but it did not hurt me any. I got some powder 
 at the drug store and it soon went away." 
 
 "All right, I say you have got syphilis. 
 Go to any one or a dozen doctors and see 
 what they say. Then if you want me to treat 
 you, come back." 
 
 "If I have this disease, can you cure met 
 Can you do it right away?" 
 
 "We have successful treatment for syphilis. 
 The old way takes from one to three years. 
 The new way is too new to say much about 
 just yet. If what they are calling '606' does 
 
THE PRICE HE PAID. 43 
 
 what is claimed for it, it may save time, but 
 I'll stick to the old way for the present.'' 
 
 "Doctor, you won't feel offended if I see 
 one or two others, will you? I want to feel 
 sure, you know." 
 
 "Not at all, son, not at all." 
 
 Two or three days later artist Harry call- 
 ed again on Dr. Lane. The doctor already 
 knew about all the other physicians he had 
 consulted, for almost without exception, they 
 had, one by one, called him over the telephone, 
 confirming his diagnosis. 
 
 "Well, you've been the rounds, have you?" 
 
 "Yes, doctor, I saw a few they all agree 
 for once. I guess you will have to treat me," the 
 young man replied, with a sob in his voice. 
 "I'm all broke up about this. I even thought 
 of committing suicide." 
 
 "Nonsense, son! You do as I tell you and 
 you '11 get well all right. So they all agreed for 
 once?" 
 
 "Yes, all but one. I called upon one doctor 
 over here, who has 'Specialist' on his sign. I 
 thought I'd see what he would say. He said 
 I had pipe cancer that I'd be dead inside a 
 year, if not treated. He would cure me for 
 one hundred dollars cash, or for twenty-five 
 dollars a month for five months. He would 
 guarantee a cure in five months." 
 
 "Well, why don't you go to him?" 
 
 "I did not like his line of talk. Anyway 
 Dr. Lane is good enough for me." 
 
44 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 So the treatment began. In a few weeks 
 the mouth was well and Harry began to act 
 and feel more like himself. Repeatedly the 
 doctor explained the necessity of long con- 
 tinued treatment. He told him as forcibly as 
 he knew how that he should not think of mar- 
 riage, at least not for two or three years. For 
 fear of making trouble Harry did not tell the 
 doctor anything about his plans, his engage* 
 ment to Marion or their wedding as set for 
 the coming June. Winter went along with its 
 round of work and social activity. Harry 
 felt in excellent health himself he could not 
 be better he assured himself and friends. As 
 the months went by, he saw the doctor but 
 rarely. He had his prescription filled for me- 
 dicine as he needed it, and when he did not 
 go to the doctor, it saved a fee. There is no 
 use of paying a doctor a dollar or two for 
 just going and saying, "How do you do?" 
 This is another strange idea Harry and many 
 other people have, that is, an unwillingness to 
 recognize a doctor's service. You pay the 
 dentist and the barber for certain work, there- 
 fore, like these the doctor earns no fee unless 
 he performs some physical task. 
 
 As often as he debated the matter with him- 
 self the less reason he could see for asking a 
 delay in the marriage plans. In case he did 
 ask, what honest excuse could he give, except 
 the real one? He could not think of con- 
 fessing to his future wife the nature of the di- 
 sease which his own reckless conduct had 
 
THE PRICE HE PAID. 45 
 
 brought upon himself. Harry Van Auker 
 knew that Marion was a good and pure girl 
 and he loved her devotedly. Ever since she 
 had come into his life, he had lived in the 
 right way. He argued with his own con- 
 science that he was like all the boys, only he 
 had been unlucky in sowing his "few wild 
 oats" that was all, very unlucky. 
 
 He prayed that something might happen 
 to delay the marriage. He kept faithfully to 
 his medicine, saying to himself, "I am cer- 
 tainly all right by this time." Weeks went 
 by and nothing happened. The fates seemed 
 to smile upon the happy couple. Business 
 was good, money for the trip was in the bank, 
 and the week of the wedding day came along. 
 Putting aside his worries by force of will the 
 poor fellow entered into all the preparations 
 as happy bridegrooms usually do. Not a 
 cloud could be seen in their matrimonial sky. 
 
 The guests showered presents and good 
 wishes upon them. Rice and old shoes strewed 
 their pathway to the carriage at the gate. 
 Good byes were said, and with bag and bag- 
 gage they were off for the boat to take them 
 to Europe. 
 
 Had Dr. Lane been present and heard that 
 question the minister put, using the old form 
 of ceremony, "Is there anyone here present 
 who can say aught against uniting this twain 
 in holy wedlock?" he could have cried out, 
 "Yea, I forbid, because the groom is liable to 
 communicate a terrible disease, liable to curse 
 
46 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 his nnborn children. In the name of humanity 
 that has a right to be well horn, I forbid this 
 marriage." 
 
 But Dr. Lane was busy with his patients 
 and knew nothing of the wedding. Had he 
 known it, he would have said nothing. He 
 might have cussed a little quietly to himself. 
 He might have said, the time will come when 
 it will require something more than two dol- 
 lars to pay the preacher, to obtain a marriage 
 license. 
 
 The honeymoon trip was a glorious happy 
 Summer. They worked and played along the 
 shore of the Irish sea. They visited all the 
 points of interest, painted ruins, rocks and 
 Irish peasants. They brought home a valu- 
 able collection of sketches, also many happy 
 memories of their days spent in this interest- 
 ing corner of the world. 
 
 October found them nicely settled again in 
 a home of their own, and Marion was preg~ 
 nant. It was <as she wanted it. Her mother- 
 heart leaped with joy when she felt the first 
 motions of life. By Christmas time she had 
 all the little baby things ready. It was such 
 fun making them and arranging everything. 
 
 During January Dr. Lane had a call from 
 Harry. 
 
 "Doctor/' said he, "my wife has the same 
 kind of sores in her mouth that I had in mine. 
 You have no idea it's the same trouble have 
 you?" 
 
THE PRICE HE PAID. 47 
 
 "Your wife! You don't mean to say you 
 went and married after all I said to you, do 
 you?" The doctor raved about and cussed as 
 vigorously as a man in good church standing 
 could without breaking a certain command- 
 ment. 
 
 Then the husband told his story. He plead- 
 ed for secrecy. It would kill him to lose the 
 love and respect of his wife. Surely some 
 thing could be done. What were doctors good 
 for if they cannot cure people of things. The 
 doctor should treat her as he had him. She 
 need not know what it was. He did not care 
 what it cost. Just name any price he pleased 
 and he would pay it. 
 
 "That will do that will do. Do you think 
 I am a medical pirate that holds up the victim 
 because he is at my mercy? The price will be 
 just the usual price. Send your wife to me at 
 once." 
 
 "Marion, you had better call on Dr. Lane 
 about your throat. I told him about it the best 
 I could, but he wants to see you. Better go 
 down today." This was Harry Van Auker's 
 instruction to his wife. 
 
 The doctor was very kind. His pity went 
 out to this poor young woman, greater sympa- 
 thy than he dared to show. He admitted she 
 had quite a bad looking throat. He inquired if 
 she ever had any kind of a sore anywhere else. 
 She assured him that she never had. He gave 
 her treatment and medicine himself, instead 
 of writing a prescription, for after she had 
 
48 WAYSIDE EXPEKIENCES. 
 
 told him her condition, he was determined to 
 see the case through. 
 
 Marion's mouth got well promptly, as did 
 her husband's, and she went along with usual 
 good health, under the doctor's care up to the 
 time the baby came. At the birth of the child 
 neither father or mother showed any signs of 
 the disease, and the mother had no suspicion 
 whatever of such a thing. After Mamma Mar- 
 ion and the baby went home from the hospital, 
 Dr. Xury heard little of them, except as he met 
 Harry now and then on the street. Harry al- 
 ways said, "They're doing fine, Doc." 
 
 When the baby was about three months 
 old Mrs. Van Auker called up the doctor say- 
 ing, " Baby's hair is coming out. He is al- 
 most as bald as a little old man. What is 
 the matter with him?" 
 
 "It will come in again. Give him time," 
 the doctor replied. "Bring him down and let 
 me see him if you don't think he is doing 
 well." 
 
 A month later he had another call. "Baby 
 is all broken out with a rash, a scaly rash 
 all over his body. I want you to call and see 
 him." 
 
 The doctor called. There lay the little 
 chap, not a hair on his head and the whole 
 body covered with a syphiloderm, the skin 
 full of creases and wrinkles like old age. What 
 could he say to that mother? What ought he 
 to say? They had not called him sooner be- 
 cause they were using a blood purifier they 
 
THE PRICE HE PAID. 49 
 
 had bought at the drag store. What a crime 
 it was for Harry Van Auker to marry this 
 good woman, infect her with this dreadful di- 
 sease and then bring into the world this poor 
 little innocent babe to suffer and be cursed. 
 
 However the doctor left his medicine and 
 instructions, outlined the care and treatment, 
 and went away. Talking with his colleague, 
 old Dr. Blunt, about it he urged the impor- 
 tance of marriage laws that would demand 
 physical fitness. 
 
 "Oh, ye*s, I argued and published all that 
 twenty-five years ago. I advocated laws de- 
 manding physical examination and a certifi- 
 cate of physical fitness before marriage license 
 should be granted. I advocated the produc- 
 tion of sterility in victims of tuberculosis, syp- 
 hilis, epilepsy, insanity and habitual criminals 
 and drunkards. Oh, I went after them rough 
 shod ! What do you think came of it ? " 
 
 "What did come of it?" asked Dr. Lane. 
 
 "Nothing. People said I was an old crank. 
 I wanted to let the doctors manage every- 
 thing. Nobody could get born, or die without 
 employing them, and now I wanted to fix it 
 so nobody could get married without paying 
 the doctors a fee." 
 
 "Yet, for all that, it will come," said Dr. 
 Lane. 
 
 "Perhaps, every little holler helps. I made 
 my holler twenty-five years ago. Now you 
 make yours. Meantime hanging is too good 
 for such a chap as this of yours." 
 
50 WAYSIDE EXPEKIENCES. 
 
 "Be easy, doctor, be easy," laughed Dr. 
 Xury, "ignorance causes a multitude of sins. 
 People have been squemish so long about hav- 
 ing the truths of life taught the general pub- 
 lic that it is hard to work against this preju 
 dice. Here and there light is breaking. Ill 
 pull this family through yet, and meantime 
 I guess the father is getting his pay all right. ' ' 
 
 The baby did splendidly under treatment. 
 His skin cleaned up and the hair began to 
 grow. Inside a few months he was a plump fat- 
 boy again, and once more happiness seemed 
 at home in the Van Auker family circle. Both 
 mother and father were kept on the medicine. 
 They were in good health, but it had been de- 
 cided there should be no more children. 
 
 When the child was about two he seemed 
 to act strangely about his sight. He had been 
 a little slow in walking but now that he did get 
 about some on his feet, he seemed to be unable 
 to make out the objects about him. He often 
 stumbled over things, still the mother could 
 not see anything wrong with his eyes. Weeks 
 passed and the child grew worse instead of 
 better. Without saying anything to Harry, 
 Marion took the baby to an oculist of whom 
 she had heard. He questioned her closely. 
 The innocent mother talked freely of the ba- 
 by's previous sickness and of her own. 
 
 "Who was your doctor?" the oculist asked. 
 
 "Dr. Lane." 
 
 "Dr. Xury?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
THE PRICE HE PAID. 51 
 
 "All right, I'll talk with him. I'll say now 
 though, I think your baby is going blind. I 
 think he has a degeneration of the optic 
 nerves. I do not think we can save his sight, 
 but I will talk with Dr. Lane and you will hear 
 from us right away." 
 
 The poor mother got home some way, she 
 never knew how. She carried the child, 
 hugged close to her heart, tears streaming 
 down her face. She telephoned at once for Har- 
 ry. When he arrived at the door, she cried, 
 "Oh, Harry, Harry, baby is going blind. The 
 doctor says so," and fell fainting at his feet. 
 
 There was a rush call for Dr. Lane, and as 
 she lay recovering from her shock, she told 
 him what the oculist had said. Then he ex- 
 amined the baby himself. After that he sat 
 looking squarely at Harry Van Auker for sev- 
 eral minutes. 
 
 Finally the doctor arose and said, "You 
 better keep quiet a while, Mrs. Van Auker. I 
 will see Dr. Anderson on my way home. He 
 is the best man you can employ for the baby. 
 He will save the sight if any one can mind 
 you, if any one can." 
 
 In the hall, when they were out of hearing 
 he said to Harry, "You better tell her every- 
 thing, for she will find it out sooner or later. 
 Better tell her yourself than let some one 
 else." 
 
 Harry Van Auker said nothing, but stood 
 pale and trembling as he watched the doctor 
 going down the walk. Do those who believe 
 
52 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 in a place of torment, think a better hell 
 could be invented than that in which this poor 
 husband now found himself? Do they feel 
 willing to say that an All- Wise Providence 
 had shown a justice when an innocent wife and 
 a dear sweet babe had to be punished for the 
 sins of another? Would any sort of torture or 
 punishment of that husband and father set 
 them free? It was to save just such innocent 
 victims as these that old Dr. Blunt had wanted 
 to put the regulation of marriage into com- 
 petent medical hands. So far the public has 
 preferred to let people take their own ignor- 
 ant chances, then if trouble and sorrow came, 
 some one offered the consolation, "marriage 
 is all a lottery anyway/' 
 
 That night Harry Van Auker paced the 
 floor of his study. He could not sleep. He 
 could not face his wife and tell her the truth. 
 He could not see what it would accomplish if 
 he told her. At times he prayed, as we poor 
 humans often do when face to face with 
 trouble we cannot overcome. 
 
 "My God, I cannot face her and live," he 
 said to himself. Along about midnight he 
 crept toward the bedroom where they slept. 
 The little boy was sleeping in his crib-bed 
 along side that of his parents' the mother 
 was also asleep, her hand stretched out clasp- 
 ing that of the child. Their breath came and 
 went in the rythm of slumber. He looked at 
 them for a moment and then went quietly 
 down to the study again. 
 
THE PEICE HE PAID. 53 
 
 "Oh, how I wish we were all dead," sobbed 
 the poor man as he resumed his struggle, pac- 
 ing back and forth in his little study-den. At 
 last he went to the desk, opened a drawer and 
 took out the new automatic he had bought for 
 burglars. Guns made and advertised for bur- 
 glars are as often used for murder and sui- 
 cide. 
 
 Yes, he would end it all. He laid the gun 
 on the table before him and sat down to think. 
 He thought of the past. He lived again the 
 happy days on the Irish coast. He heard his 
 wife's laughter as they romped like children. 
 He thought of the future. His success ruined, 
 his home broken up, his life blighted. Yes, 
 it would be better if they were all dead. 
 
 He would go up stairs quietly, shoot them 
 and then himself. It would be a painless in- 
 stant death. Still how could he do it? How 
 could he kill the wife he loved so dearly and 
 the poor little child of his heart? All the love 
 for his wife welled up in his mind, and he 
 shook with his sobs. 
 
 Presently he grew quiet. He could not 
 face death as a murderer. He could how- 
 ever end it all for himself. His life was his 
 own and he had a rig*ht to do what he pleased 
 with it. There was a good life insurance and 
 some property enough to provide for them 
 very well. Again life insurance like guns may 
 lead to suicide. That would be the simplest 
 and best way. 
 
54 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 Taking pen and paper, he began to write: 
 
 My beloved wife I cannot face you 
 and live with the terrible knowledge of 
 how I have wronged you and our child. I 
 did not mean this harm should come I 
 was ignorant believe me dear, and for- 
 give me. I thought the disease was cured. 
 You will be better off when I am gone. 
 
 Say it was an accident. Good bye, 
 Marion, sweetheart, Try to forgive me if 
 you can, I cannot forgive myself. 
 
 Harry. 
 
 Then he placed the paper weight upon the 
 sheet he had written and took up the gun. 
 He looked into the frowning muzzle and won- 
 dered where he had better aim. He thought 
 of himself in the coffin, and remembering of 
 reading about a suicide case where the man 
 shot himself in the mouth, he decided this 
 would be the best and surest way, he did not 
 want to suffer. Bracing his feet against the 
 table legs, he opened his mouth and lifted the 
 gun toward it. 
 
 Some time during the night Marion awoke 
 and discovered that Harry was not in bed. 
 She wondered why. She looked about and de- 
 cided that he had not come to bed at all. The 
 baby was sleeping soundly. She listened. 
 Once she thought she heard someone talking. 
 A sudden intuition of harm and danger came 
 over her and she slipped hastily from the bed. 
 Her bare feet made no noise on the stairs as 
 
THE PRICE HE PAID. 55 
 
 she crept down to the floor below. She saw 
 the light coming from the den, and she drew 
 the hangings aside slightly and looked in. 
 There she saw her husband sitting at the table 
 writing, and before him lay the gun. So in- 
 tent was he that he neither saw nor heard the 
 white figure that crept up and stood behind 
 his chair. Just as he lifted the gun and plac- 
 ed it toward his mouth her white hand shot 
 out and snatched the weapon away. When the 
 man opened his eyes, he was staring into the 
 horror stricken face of his wife. 
 
 " Harry Van Auker, what are you doing?" 
 she cried almost in a scream. 
 
 "Read," he said hoarsely, pointing to the 
 paper on the table. Holding the paper in one 
 hand, and the gun in the other, she slowly read 
 the note. Gradually the hand holding it droop- 
 ed and the paper fell to the floor. She turned, 
 put the gun into the drawer, turned the key 
 and hid it among the books. Tears now blind- 
 ed her, but dimly she saw where her hus- 
 band was sitting, and she fell into his arms. 
 
 It is only fair that we should leave this 
 husband and wife to settle their own affairs. 
 No outsider can assist them now their trou- 
 bles are all their own. 
 
 It was evidently settled someway, for Har- 
 ry Van Auker is still a successful artist and 
 illustrator, and for all we know the home 
 is a happy one, as happy as it could be under 
 the circumstances. I often see the mother 
 
56 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 with the child, always she leads him by the 
 hand. His great brown eyes look but they 
 see not. Under treatment the boy is growing 
 and in apparent good health, but that Fate 
 which decrees that the sins of the fathers shall 
 go down to the sons, has given him a world of 
 darkness. Two devoted parents may spend 
 all manner of care and effort in his behalf, but 
 still his world will be dark. 
 
 Dr. Xury has given me the facts for this 
 story, of course in strictest professional con- 
 fidence. He says that Harry is a changed man. 
 He has paid a high price for his folly and his 
 ignorance. 
 
 What a blessing it would be if every young 
 man could know what he knows now, and if 
 every young woman knew what Marion knows 
 now. How true it is we need another life to 
 make use of what we learn in this. How true 
 too, that saying: Experience is a good teach- 
 er, but the price is high. 
 
 Harry Van Auker is paying the price. 
 
The Confession of a Second Wife 
 
 I haven't the least idea what I am going to 
 say will help any marriageable girl along the 
 path of wisdom. Pew of us care to take ad- 
 vice about our love affairs. I know I couldn't, 
 though the truth is I had no one to advise me. 
 It seems as if we must get our learning in the 
 school of experience some write it with capi- 
 tals from the pumps of life, from the hard 
 knocks. I am not lamenting this, for it seems 
 to be the plan of Providence or Fate. It is 
 what is laid out for us poor atoms of the uni- 
 verse, learning over and over again each gen- 
 eration, the ways of life and Nature. 
 
 Neither can I say I would not do it all over 
 again, knowing what I know now, for there is 
 compensation. It is a poor soul that has noth- 
 ing to compensate, to offset. In my case there 
 is our great love my husband's and mine, and 
 that is enough. We are our own world, and, 
 " Nobody knows but God and I, 
 What is in my heart. ' ' 
 
 We know, Jerry and I, that our lives are 
 good. We know too, what a difference there is 
 between what we are and what people think 
 we are. It is nice, I admit, to have everyone 
 think you are good and be good too, and it is 
 also very nice to have people think you are good 
 when you're not. Most people care more 
 about reputation than they do about character, 
 
58 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 but my husband is not one of these. I think 
 this fact has made it especially hard for me. A 
 man can be stiff-necked and independent. He 
 can look the world in the eye and tell it to go 
 to hell, as he says, but, dear me, a woman can't 
 do that or anything like it. A woman must 
 be very tactful and discreet, for she has in her 
 own sex her very worst critics and her most 
 subtle enemies. "Ink fishes," Jerry calls them, 
 and then he will hand out a long dissertation on 
 the double moral standard, and bifocal ethics. 
 Jerry is certainly a radical. 
 
 However, I must not wander from the story 
 I have determined to tell. Even though I have 
 expressed my doubts about its usefulness, still it 
 may help some poor girl situated as I was, to 
 see what is before her, even though it does not 
 cause her to change her course. If just one 
 gets a bit of help, I shall not have written in 
 vain. 
 
 When I was nineteen all I had in this world 
 was good health, fairly good looks my hair 
 and complexion being enough to save me from 
 lapsing into the unattractive class and a 
 strong ambition to forget my foster mother. It 
 was then Dr. Jerry came into my life. My 
 father had married beneath him, they said, 
 which meant he had married a poor man's 
 daughter, instead of a rich one. Just as it 
 usually happens his father had cut him off and 
 he had to join the working class, a thing he 
 was proud to do, strange as it may seem to 
 some people. I can just remember him, a pale 
 
THE CONFESSION OF A SECOND WIFE. 59 
 
 blue-eyed man, with gentle ways. It was I who 
 found him dead in his bed I, a child of five, 
 sent by my mother to call him to his breakfast. 
 
 ''Papa won't wake up," I called down to 
 her from the stairs. I did not know what death 
 meant then. I realized it meant something 
 dreadful by the way it affected my mother. 
 When they came and carried my papa away 
 and put him in the ground, I began to under- 
 stand that I should not have any papa again. 
 A year later my mother followed him, from 
 broken heart, they told me when I was older. 
 
 Child though I was, I realized then that I 
 was alone in the world and that no one really 
 loved me. My poor old hardworking grand- 
 father could not provide for me and was glad 
 enough when Mrs. Sam Jerkins proposed ' ' tak- 
 ing" me. 
 
 The first years of my stay in the Jerkins 
 home, a home that God and nature seemed to 
 have intended should be childless, are rather 
 dim in my memory now, though I distinctly re- 
 call how I disliked this ugly woman who pro- 
 posed to take my dead mother's place. She 
 called me "my little girl" and "our little girl." 
 My mamma was beautiful and had such wavy 
 red-brown hair, and when she smiled, showed 
 such even white teeth, you just wanted to kiss 
 her. No one could take her place, surely not 
 Mrs. Jerkins, with her one fang tooth sticking 
 out over her lip. When this woman smiled it 
 made me feel sick with dislike. Her tall and 
 slender form, her wisp of hair twisted in a tight 
 
60 WAYSIDE EXPEEIENCES. 
 
 little wad on the back of her head her whole 
 personality was so repulsive to me, a little child 
 though I was, that years have only intensified it. 
 
 I can see now that I have grown older, she 
 meant well enough, but I am sure God never 
 intended she should have the care of children, 
 which may be the reason none ever came to 
 them. Yet she seemed to delight in showing 
 me off. She would say to people, "What do 
 you think of our girl?" Such remarks made 
 me so angry I am sure they did not think well 
 of me. I was ashamed of her and her deceit- 
 ful ways. She really wanted to make people 
 think I was her very own. 
 
 Once when the minister was calling, she 
 prattled on about "our little daughter," al- 
 lowing the good man to believe I was their own 
 child, and he was a new minister too. My child 
 temper got the best of me, and I cried out, "I 
 am not your girl. My papa and mama are 
 dead," and I rushed out of the room. When 
 the preacher had gone she found me out and 
 said I had the same as called her a liar. I must 
 be punished she said, and she beat me with one 
 of Sam's slippers. It is a great wrong for a 
 child to hate anyone as I hated this woman. 
 
 Of course I went to school. That was one 
 consolation. I had to spend less time with Mrs. 
 Jerkins. On my way back one day, I found a 
 forlorn little kitten and I carried it home. I 
 knew what a storm it would raise if I let her 
 see it, so I slipped into the basement with it, 
 fixed a nest and fed it milk I had filched from 
 
THE CONFESSION OF A SECOND WIFE. 61 
 
 the kitchen. This poor little animal seemed so 
 like myself, so friendless and lonely, that my 
 love went to it forcibly. However, it died next 
 day. 
 
 I found a shoe box for a coffin and dug a 
 grave in the corner of the garden. I made a 
 soft bed of cotton for my little dead friend and 
 laid it tenderly to rest. I sang, " Jesus Lover 
 of my soul," and said "dust to dust" as I 
 shoveled in the dirt. On a piece of board I 
 wrote, or printed, rather, "Kittie Keller, Died 
 
 . ' ' I would not admit the name Jerkins for 
 
 myself or my dead cat. 
 
 "Silly child, come in here and red up the 
 dishes," said Mrs. Jerkins, when she discovered 
 my occupation. "Sam'll'tend to you when he 
 gets home." 
 
 Often the old jade would lie, magnify and 
 misrepresent my acts in order to cause Sam to 
 "tend" to me. But the good old man under- 
 stood, usually. He would take me on his knee 
 and talk to me. Had he not been so dirty with 
 his tobacco juice I should have liked him very 
 well, or had he not been the husband of Mrs. 
 Jerkins. He was an ignorant old chap, honest 
 and kind. I remember still how rough his 
 hands were and how in Winter they were full 
 of cracks and bled at times. For this he would 
 pour the cracks full of melted tallow, saying, 
 "There, I'll bet that'll fix 'em." 
 
 Often when I carried his dinner bucket to 
 the mill, he would thank me with a penny or a 
 
62 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 nickel. Don 't tell mother, ' ' he would say, ' * and 
 spend it for candy on your way home." 
 
 If Mrs. Jerkins discovered I had candy she 
 would pounce upon me, shake me by the shoul- 
 ders, saying, "Mable Jerkins, you've been 
 stealing. Where did you get money to buy 
 candy?" 
 
 "I ain't been stealing and I ain't Mable Jer- 
 kins," I would say. 
 
 "Well, Jerkins is good enough to get your 
 food and clothes with, an' it's good as Keller 
 anyday, Miss Mable!" 
 
 Imagine a character like this for a daily ex- 
 ample to a child. Indeed it seems to me, as 
 I look back to those years, it is a wonder that 
 I had any redeeming traits whatever. I was 
 her errand runner, water and coal lugger, and 
 I did tasks that no child of my age should have 
 been asked to do. Eaeh year my dislike for this 
 woman increased. 
 
 I was never allowed to have even girl 
 friends come to the house, and had a boy friend 
 shown his face inside the gate it would have 
 caused a Jerkins earthquake. The only pleas- 
 ure I had with my school friends was away 
 from home. 
 
 You may wonder what all this I am telling 
 you of my childhood, has to do with the con- 
 fessions of a second wife. It is that I want you 
 to know the experiences I had which led up 
 to the meeting of my husband. At fourteen 
 I was sent to work in a store, and my foster 
 mother took my wages regularly. I had to ac- 
 
THE CONFESSION OF A SECOND WIFE. 63 
 
 count for every cent I spent. She was surely 
 trying to make me a good investment. 
 
 Before I went to the store I had become 
 quite a successful peddler. Mrs. Jerkins was 
 constantly answering advertisements and get- 
 ting something for me to sell from door to door. 
 There was soap, jewelry, kitchen utensils and 
 what not. I was instructed how to say I only 
 lacked one more to fill up my club. Would the 
 kind lady help me out? Had Dickins known 
 Mrs. Jerkins he would have used her as a cha 
 racter as remarkable as Fagin. I am glad Dick- 
 ins never knew her. I wish I never had. 
 
 When I was seventeen and seemed quite a 
 young woman, I worked in a lumber office. My 
 salary was then six dollars a week, but my 
 keeper never allowed it to stay in my hands. I 
 longed for another year to pass, then I resolved, 
 I would say good bye to the Jerkins' home for- 
 ever. I did not hesitate to tell Mrs. Jerkins 
 my intention, and she informed me that I was 
 "an ungrateful young huzzy." 
 
 "Where would you be now if we hadn't 
 took ye in when ye didn't have a place to sleep 
 even?" 
 
 I had long ago ceased disputing with this 
 woman. She was just too ignorant to under- 
 stand. I was grateful, especially to Sam, but 
 this could never offset the insult and degrada- 
 tion she had imposed upon me, a helpless lit- 
 tle child. 
 
 Near the lumber office was a little park and 
 as I passed either going or coming, frequently 
 
64 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 I saw a nicely dressed woman sitting on one of 
 the benches. She smiled and spoke to me. 
 After this had happened a few times she called 
 me to her and we talked a few minutes. Nearly 
 every pleasant evening she would be waiting 
 for me as I finished my work, and we would 
 walk home together. Little by little she drew 
 out my sad story, and once she went to the Jer- 
 kins home with me. There she spoke a few 
 words with my foster mother. Mrs. Jerkins 
 was very cold and told the lady she "didn't 
 care to have her daughter pickin' up with 
 strangers. ' ' 
 
 The next day I was paid my six dollars. I 
 went home gathered my few belongings in a 
 bundle and wrote a note for Mrs. Jerkins. In 
 it I told her I would trouble her no longer; 
 that I was leaving her for good ; that if ever 
 I were able I would repay her for what she had 
 done for me. 
 
 She was talking over the back fence with 
 a neighbor. I could hear her voice as I wrote 
 how I hated that voice I heard her cackling 
 laugh. Fearing she might come in I scrambled 
 my things together, left my note on the kitchen 
 table and ran out the front door. 
 
 I was to meet my friend at the station and 
 there I found her waiting. I have never known 
 much about this woman, or who she was. It 
 came afterwards to me that she was a woman of 
 questionable repute, but surely she treated me 
 kindly and gave me good advice. She evidently 
 knew the world, and she may have been testing 
 
THE CONFESSION OF A SECOND WIFE. 65 
 
 herself to see if she was not altogether bad. I 
 had confided in her my ambition to become a 
 nurse. She approved of the idea. She took 
 me now to a much larger city two or three 
 hundred miles from my home, and there left 
 me with the Mother Superior of a large Catho- 
 lic hospital. 
 
 I had not been reared in the Catholic faith, 
 yet this good woman soon became like a mother 
 to me. She was the first person, since my par- 
 ents had died that I really loved. Think of a 
 child with as empty a heart as mine. It was 
 she who protected me from Mrs. Jerkins, and 
 under whose care. I was made a competent pro- 
 fessional nurse. 
 
 I had not been at the hospital a year before 
 Mrs. Jerkins' letters began to come. She not 
 only wrote to me but to the Sisters. In these 
 letters she called me a thief and a liar. She 
 said I ran away with a common woman, and sht 
 did everything she could to drive me away from 
 the place. When I received one of these let- 
 ters, or she received one, the good sister would 
 comfort me, saying she understood, not to 
 mind; that this woman was insane or some- 
 thing. The letters such a jumble of illiterate 
 falsehood and obscenity I never realized could 
 be written, and that by a woman. After this 
 had gone on for some months, the Mother Su 
 perior had a lawyer write to Mr. and Mrs. 
 Sam Jerkins, telling them if any more letters of 
 the kind came, he would put the whole matter 
 in the hands of the postal authorities to deal 
 
66 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 with as they saw fit. Poor old Sam could not 
 read, so I doubt if he ever knew anything about 
 it. In any case, we received no more letters. 
 
 It was at the hospital I met Jerry. We 
 all liked him, thirty or forty of us nurses. 
 When I was on night duty for my ward, he 
 would often sit by my table and talk. Dr. Jerry 
 knew it was against the rules, but the Mother 
 Superior thought as much of him as any of the 
 rest of us, so he was a privileged character. 
 Then too, Dr. Jerry was one of the, if not the 
 rising young surgeon of the institution. 
 
 By and by, especially during my senior year, 
 Dr. Jerry used to select me to take out on pri- 
 vate cases. The hospital collected my fees, but 
 I was glad of that, glad to repay them what I 
 could for all they had done for me. Once 
 when riding to a case, Dr. Jerry turned his car 
 out into a country road. 
 
 "There is no hurry," he said, when I in- 
 quired why he was going that way, ''little 
 fresh air will do you good. ' ' 
 
 On this ride he talked to me about himself. 
 I had never had a man talk to me that way be- 
 fore. I was past nineteen then and he was 
 thirty-five. He told me of his unhappy married 
 life. I have read since that men are prone to 
 make confessions about their domestic unhappi- 
 ness to young girls. I did not know then what 
 strange animals men are. He said his wife 
 was a good woman, but it had been a mistake 
 from the first. He had been too young to know 
 what he was doing then. She was a few years 
 
THE CONFESSION OF A SECOND WIFE. 67 
 
 his senior and had become his mother instead 
 of his wife. She played the part of a jealous 
 keeper. He thanked God there were no chil- 
 dren. 
 
 As soon as he had any cause, he said he 
 would make the break. He would make it 
 kindly and decently if he could, but was bound 
 to make it some way sooner or later. 
 
 "What I need," he went on to say, "is a 
 young wife, one who will be my companion and 
 friend instead of my guardian. If I were free 
 today, Mable, I'd ask you to fill that place. I 
 have learned to love you more than I ever 
 thought possible." 
 
 "Oh, Dr. Jerry," I cried, "you mustn't talk 
 to me that way. It isn't right." 
 
 "Right or wrong, it's true. What's the use, 
 I say, little girl, what's the use? We've only 
 one life to live, here at least, and if we don't 
 get happiness out of it someway as we go along, 
 we don't get any good from living, do we?" 
 
 I didn't know what to say. I had no ex- 
 perience with men, and not much with his kind 
 of world either. I thought of Mrs. Jerkins 
 and wondered if the doctor's wife was any- 
 thing like her. Mrs. Jerkins made me feel sor- 
 ry for him, just as I had been sorry for myself. 
 Presently after we had been silent for some 
 time, while his car went purring along the 
 smooth country road, he asked abruptly if 1 did 
 not love him. 
 
 "Yes, we all like you, Dr. Jerry." 
 
68 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 "No, I mean you, not we. Do you not love 
 me for myself. Suppose I were free today and 
 asked you to marry me, what would you say, 
 Mable?" 
 
 Mable?" 
 
 "I think I'd say yes, doctor, at least, by 
 and by maybe. ' ' 
 
 "Then kiss me now." 
 
 I kissed him, first looking if anybody was 
 about, to see us. My, how jolly wicked I 
 felt ! Someway the other woman did not seem 
 to concern me. It was not my affair. All that 
 was Dr. Jerry 's affairs, not mine. I have had 
 those who told me since I should have had noth- 
 ing whatever to do with a married man. I ad- 
 mit this may have been good advise, still I 
 could not help how things turned out. 
 
 Well, matters went along about as usual for 
 several months. I had by this time finished 
 my work at the hospital and had received my 
 nurse's certificate. Dr. Jerry and his friend 
 kept me busy most of the time. How rich I felt, 
 earning a professional nurse's salary all my 
 own. I admit I took some pride in my clothes 
 my appearance you know. People seemed to 
 like me all the better for that. I knew I was 
 no less efficient because I insisted on my uni- 
 forms and all that goes to make up an outfit, 
 being immaculate. They just had to admit my 
 competency. Some of the money I earned I sent 
 to poor old Sam Jerkins. All I received from 
 them was the return registered letter cards. 
 By this time Jerry had left his wife and one 
 
THE CONFESSION OF A SECOND WIFE. 69 
 
 day he told me he had determined to change his 
 location to another town. 
 
 " As soon as 1 get a start, I will get you work 
 there and you will come, won't you? I must 
 be near you," he said. What could I do but 
 agree, and why should I not ? I had no one else 
 but Jerry, and I have no one still. 
 
 After he had been gone a few weeks, his 
 wife called on me. She wanted to see, she said, 
 the woman that was coming between her and 
 her husband. I did not know how to take her, 
 or what to say. I was afraid of her in a way. 
 She called me a poor deluded child. She did 
 not blame me, she said, I did not know what I 
 was doing. Then she went on telling me a long 
 story of her domestic history. She made Jerry 
 out a brute and a rascal and warned me I would 
 live to rue the day I ever met him, just as she 
 did. 
 
 "If the doctor is such a bad man, why do 
 you care about all this?" I asked. 
 
 "I don't care, believe me. I am only too 
 glad to be rid of him. All I want is justice 
 now and the court will give me that, depend 
 on it." 
 
 The more she maligned Dr. Jerry the more 
 I seemed to like him. While I had done noth- 
 ing wrong as I saw it, Jerry's wife made it her 
 business to see that everybody thought I was 
 the cause of her divorce action. I was not the 
 cause of her troubles and Jerry has repeatedly 
 said so. There was bound to be a break up in 
 that home, and had I not come along to take a 
 
70 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 place in his life, there would have been some- 
 one else, no doubt. 
 
 My work fell almost to nothing after Jerry 
 left the town. I went to Mother Superior ask- 
 ing her what I had better do. She believed in 
 me and said Dr. Jerry was very unwise to allow 
 such a misfortune to come to an innocent girl. 
 
 Someway, however, I did not blame him. 
 My love perhaps, made me blind to what might 
 be called the hard facts and no doubt I was a 
 biased judge. He wrote me of his lonely strug- 
 gle to get a professional start in the new town 
 to which he had gone. He said his wife had 
 started her divorce action and he would not ap- 
 pear to oppose her, no matter what she made 
 out in her petition. Let her make it out as 
 badly as she pleased. The worst she made it 
 the sooner she would set him free. He had 
 given her everything he had in the world, and 
 all he asked was that she should let him alone. 
 But she did not do that, for she easily found 
 persons or friends in the town where he had Lo 
 cated, and soon set the gossiping tongues busy 
 with his affairs. This is a subtle way that a 
 woman can use to take her sweet revenge on the 
 man who has failed to make her happy. You 
 will notice I do not say, revenge on the man 
 she has failed to make happy, for I realized 
 how few unsuccessful wives will admit any 
 blame to themselves. Maybe I would be like 
 all the rest under like circumstances, but I do 
 not think so now. 
 
THE CONFESSION OF A SECOND WIFE. 71 
 
 It was my good friend, the Mother Super- 
 ior, who came to me at last telling me I had 
 been made corespondent in the divorce case, and 
 that plenty of witnesses were at hand to say 
 how often I had been seen riding with the doc- 
 tor, etc. She advised me to get my credentials 
 together and leave the place. No matter how 
 innocent I may be, my chances for work and 
 success there had been ruined. This advice I 
 followed at once, going to a city of size in the 
 middle West. There I landed, a lonely little 
 stranger, with my suit case and trunk, a few 
 dollars of my savings and just one friend in all 
 the world that I could really call my own, Dr. 
 Jerry. And all I had of him was his letters. 
 Don't think I am forgetting the good Sisters 
 at the hospitals and the nurses, but some way 
 they seemed a long way off and I was very 
 much alone. 
 
 I was lucky at this place. I found work al- 
 most from the start. My boarding house with 
 a widow lady was homelike, and she began to 
 mother me at once, a good soul. I was not 
 much at home with her, for one or two doctors 
 took a fancy to me, and after the first case or 
 two, when I had proven my competency, they 
 kept me at work. It was not altogether a game 
 of catching somebody's fancy. Still I always 
 felt as if I should have had a much harder time 
 had I been altogether plain, even far more cap- 
 able. In the hospital we were taught to be 
 motion machines without emotion. The ideal 
 nurse we were told, was one with no feelings of 
 
72 WAYSIDE EXPEBIENCES. 
 
 her own that might come between her and 
 duty. This hardening of the heart may be well 
 enough in institutional work, but I found it 
 paid me well to show an interest in people 
 when I began my work outside. I therefore 
 tried to be nice to everybody. 
 
 I soon had several men who wanted to be 
 especially friendly in one way or another, but 
 I repulsed them all as kindly as I could. Dr. 
 Jerry always came into my mind. I saw him 
 working away alone, doing his best to make 
 our future happiness possible. Every letter 
 was full of his plans and hopes. Success was 
 coming slowly. My work and these letters 
 were all I had to live for then. 
 
 There was one thing I gave Mrs. Jerkins cre- 
 dit for. She made me believe a cent was a very 
 great thing and it was easy for me to be pru- 
 dent and saving with my money. While I lik- 
 ed nice things I did not spend a dollar foolish- 
 ly. The good Sisters had added to my practi- 
 cal ideas of life and things. Before the year 
 I worked at this place was up, I had quite a lit- 
 tle fund in the savings bank and it was a source 
 of great comfort to me. Money can be a good 
 friend to us, as well as a bad enemy. 
 
 After I had been away from Jerry about a 
 year, I received a telegram one day. It said the 
 divorce was granted and he was coming for 
 me. I was happy, there is no need to deny 
 that. As soon as he arrived and hugged me in 
 his big arms, I knew everything would be all 
 right. We immediately went for the license 
 
THE CONFESSION OF A SECOND WIFE. 73 
 
 and a judge at the court house married us. 
 That night we took the train for the West and 
 our honeymoon trip found us in Denver and at 
 other places of interest among those wonderful 
 mountains of Colorado. 
 
 When the month we had planned to spend 
 was over, Jerry said, "Now we'll go back and 
 beard the lion in his den.'* 
 
 You may think I have been a long time com- 
 ing to the point in my story where the "con- 
 fessions of a second wife" begin, but I could 
 not make you know me and what I am in any 
 other way. The first year of our married life 
 I was Jerry's office nurse. It was lovely to be 
 with him again, working together, just as we 
 used to at the hospital only now a hundred 
 times dearer. We had a cute little apart- 
 ment attached to the office, and these we fixed 
 up as fast as we could. Here my savings ac- 
 count came into good use. It was the first real 
 home I had ever known. Our evenings we 
 spent playing chess, reading or with music. If 
 we went out it was to the theatre or to some 
 public place. Scarcely anyone sought our ac- 
 quaintance, and though the doctor was becom- 
 ing quite generally known, we did not seem 
 to have any social advantages or opportunities 
 indeed we did not seek any. We were so hap- 
 py together we did not seem to miss these 
 things. You may readily understand from the 
 experiences I have related, I was entirely inex- 
 perienced in social affairs, and knew nothing of 
 the ways and means of social climbers. I hated 
 
74 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 snobbery as much as I used to hate Mrs. Jer- 
 kins. 
 
 I had learned never to say anything person- 
 al to anyone, and never to repeat what was said 
 to me. Some of the apartment neighbors were 
 friendly and talkative, but they could not un- 
 derstand why I did not join in with all their 
 gossip. The average gossip is one who seems 
 to seek obscurity or security, or both, to cover 
 their own shortcomings by besmudging other 
 people. Ink fishes, Dr. Jerry calls them. For 
 this reason I was misjudged. Some made it 
 their business to investigate the doctor 's past 
 history, and how or by what means they traced 
 it, I never knew. Not that we had anything 
 to cover up or that we were ashamed of, still 
 you know what the usual thought is about 
 divorce. I was conscious of a change in my 
 neighbors very presently. 
 
 One day I overheard my next door neighbor 
 say to the woman below : 
 
 "No wonder she has nothing to say. The 
 doctor is a divorced man, and they say she 
 caused it. She had just better keep still." 
 
 This woman was divorced herself and had 
 all manner of callers. We often heard their 
 ribald jokes, their parodies on the popular 
 songs, through the partitions. Because I want- 
 ed to live true and kind, avoiding all gossip 
 and tales-mongering, I was branded. I wanted 
 friends that were true, but I did not expect to 
 find them among the tenants of our present 
 quarters. 
 
THE CONFESSION OF A SECOND WIFE. 75 
 
 At my suggestion Jerry took a house in a 
 resident district and moved his offices to a 
 more central location in the business section. 
 This brought us into close contact with many 
 nice families. We had good things for our 
 home by this time and Jerry had a new car. 
 As far as money goes or what it will buy, we 
 were as good as any of our neighbors. Some 
 of the ladies called. They were very nice to 
 me. One family, good Catholics, were especial- 
 ly friendly because I had been trained in a 
 Catholic hospital. This Mrs. Brindlay could 
 not do enough for me. She would run in with 
 bits of something particularly good she took 
 great pride in her cooking and I would go 
 back the next day or so with her dish and sit 
 in a few minutes with fancy work or merely 
 to chat. Not long after this the calls suddently 
 ceased, and one day I saw her on the car, but 
 she looked the other way, refusing to see me. 
 For a moment I was hurt, and I cried a little 
 when I told Jerry about it. 
 
 "She has probably heard the same old 
 story," he said. 
 
 I am too proud to beg favors of anybody, 
 so, when I met this woman after that I held my 
 head just as high as she did. My love for 
 the dear old Mother Superior had always made 
 me favorable to Catholics, though I had not 
 embraced the faith. However, I found people 
 are all about alike no matter to what church 
 they may claim alliance. 
 
 Next to our house was the beautiful new 
 
76 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. , 
 
 home of a saloon keeper. His wife was kind 
 and friendly. She was an excellent house- 
 keeper, and we had many nice chats across 
 the lawn as we tended our flowers. We ex- 
 changed many informal calls. Other neighbors 
 saw this and one good- woman, one I valued 
 very much, gave me the advise that if I ex- 
 pected people to have anything to do with me, 
 I must not call on the saloon keeper 's wife. 
 
 Dear me, I thought, what a world it is! 
 People class themselves according to their busi- 
 ness, past vicissitudes and what not. They 
 make up their lists from any and every motive 
 but the one of real personal friendship and 
 mutual attraction. However, we soon left the 
 neighborhood to occupy a new house of our own 
 and I was saved from openly hurting the feel- 
 ings of poor Mrs. Saloonist. I have insisted in 
 keeping my friendship with her, for she is good 
 and true, even though her husband does sell 
 liquor. 
 
 Not one word had I said in all this time 
 about personal things. I demanded that peo- 
 ple take me as I am and for what I am, or 
 leave me alone. I have always been a good 
 girl and a good woman. If it was a sin to 
 love Jerry it is a sin I am proud of. We have 
 been so happy together it has been well worth 
 all it cost. 
 
 At Jerry's suggestion we began attending 
 the Unitarian church. The doctor said these 
 people are among the most intelligent and fair 
 minded in the world. The minister called upon 
 
THE CONFESSION OF A SECOND WIFE. 77 
 
 us and we resolved to go regularly and make 
 for ourselves a social circle. For several Sun- 
 days we attended the service. Everybody was 
 friendly and seemed happy to meet us. I know 
 we looked fit. I had a new suit and my hat 
 was as up-to-date as any I saw there. We 
 drove up in our new car making as good a turn- 
 out as anyone could wish. We had nothing 
 of which to be ashamed. 
 
 I was invited and went to the Ladies* So- 
 ciety once. I only went once the climate 
 was too cold. It was at a fine home. We the 
 ladies went in and seated ourselves. The maids 
 brought us tea and wafers. There was much 
 chatting and small talk. Everybody seemea 
 to know everybody, but nobody knew me. I 
 sat in my corner alone, sipped my tea and made 
 my getaway as soon as I could decently. 
 
 "So glad to have met you," my hostess said, 
 as I pressed her hand at my going. "Sorry you 
 cannot remain longer. Good bye, Mrs. Doc- 
 tor ." 
 
 I felt her coldness and her deceit. Jerry 
 says the same old snake trailed in there no 
 doubt, with his wicked venom. He says I must 
 not mind. I am too sensitive. In time people 
 will come to know us better and will like me 
 for myself. Meantime let them say what they 
 say. 
 
 It is all very well for a man to talk, but 
 I know women. I have nursed them and stud- 
 ied them under all circumstances. The mean- 
 est, most contemptible enemy a woman has is 
 
78 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 some other woman. They are poor narrow- 
 minded, shallow-souled mortals, most of them. 
 Their sex history for many ages has developed 
 just this thing as a sex instinct in the human 
 female. 
 
 The only real friend I have made during my 
 married life is an old maid school teacher, who 
 cares no more about men than she knows about 
 the scenery on the moon. Of course I know 
 Jerry does not realize the price he has made 
 me- pay for loving him and marrying him. I 
 don't want him to realize. I expect it will be 
 different some day, especially when we have 
 children of our own. 
 
 I am happy now for the stork is coming our 
 way by and by. When this comes I won 't care 
 for the slights I get that I don't deserve. Up 
 to now I've only had my cat, my horse and 
 Jerry to love. Now somebody else is coming. 
 
 I won't say I have anything to regret. I 
 have just the best and kindest husband that 
 ever lived. He has been my friend and teacher. 
 He has made up for all that barren childhood. 
 Now when the baby comes my happiness will 
 be complete. What will I care for the rest 
 of the world? 
 
 ''Only God and I, 
 Know what is in my heart, ' ' 
 and God knows I have never done a wrong 
 thing intentionally and very few uninten- 
 tionally. 
 
 I hope though, the good fates may save 
 other girls from what I have experienced. If 
 
THE CONFESSION OF A SECOND WIFE. 79 
 
 love can come to you without the price I have 
 paid for mine, it is well. I hope it may, but 
 if you must pay, then do it, for there is com- 
 pensation. I only hope you may find another 
 like Jerry. But I doubt it, for I tell him there 
 is not just such another man as he in all this 
 world. 
 
Dr. Xury's Marvelous Cure. 
 
 "There is absolutely nothing wrong with the 
 woman," Dr. Xury was saying to the group of 
 doctors about him, having what they called a 
 consultation over the case of Mrs. J. DeWitt 
 Smith. It may have been a consultation, but 
 it appeared more like a smoker at the Medical 
 Club. "The Doctors' Room" at the hospital 
 now contained the chief of medical staff, Dr. 
 Bumpus, young Snypers, the house surgeon, Dr. 
 Milton Moore, chief of surgical staff, and our 
 old friend Dr. Xury T. Lane. 
 
 "She can't walk because she won't walk, 
 or I might say because she hasn't walked for 
 fifteen years not that anyone has seen. Her 
 wires are down and she can't get central. The 
 muscles of her legs and her will are divorced." 
 "Do you mean to say the cross fibers of 
 the cortex are functionally disassociated, so 
 to speak?" interposed Dr. Bumpus. 
 
 "No, the trouble is in the pons, or in the 
 coordination function of the cerebellum," Dr. 
 Moore observed with a smile. 
 
 "Now here, Moore," said Dr. Xury, "let 
 us end this nonsense. You all saw that her 
 reflexes are normal, all of them ; she has all her 
 faculties except she can't walk. There is some 
 atrophy of her leg muscles, but not as much as 
 we might expect after all these years of disuse. 
 
82 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 As I said before, she can't walk because she 
 won't; bcause she thinks she can't. We must 
 then make her think she can and she will. 
 When she wills to walk she can. She will 
 walk. She can walk." 
 
 "You better can that!" Snypers said, who 
 never passed up a chance to try to be funny. 
 
 "Snipes-on-toast, you're in the wrong call- 
 ing. You should be the right end-man in a 
 a minstrel show," Xury replied. 
 
 "I couldn't be that I'm left handed," and 
 with that telling thrust the house docter leered 
 at Dr. Xury, rumbled a fresh cigarette be- 
 tween his palms and rushed off to the labora- 
 tory. 
 
 "Leave her to me, Bumpus. I will use drug- 
 less healing on her." 
 
 "What?" asked Dr. Moore, eyeing Dr. Xury 
 closely. 
 
 ' ' Psycho-therapy mental suggestion, ' ' Dr. 
 Lane replied. 
 
 ' ' She has had all of these things, ' ' Dr. Bum- 
 pus explained. 
 
 "I know, but she hasn't had my kind of 
 Psycho-therapy. It is something new, at least 
 to her." 
 
 "Tell us, tell us," Dr. Moore commanded. 
 
 "Provided only that I am to have full 
 charge and get all the glory. ' ' 
 
 "Agreed!" they cried. 
 
 "Then listen. I will give her a little teaser 
 of the will called Dr. Pacquelin Cautery ! ' ' 
 
DE. XURY'S MARVELOUS CURE. 83 
 
 ''That's rather tough, isn't it, Lane?" 
 Moore was a tender hearted fellow, and little 
 deserved his reputation as the "hospital 
 butcher" as some made bold to call him on 
 account of his many fearless operations. How- 
 ever, no one questioned his skill as a careful 
 surgeon. 
 
 "It is the only thing I can think of to make 
 a quick connection between her will and her 
 legs. When it is over the memory will linger, 
 too. This will tend to save relapse. She has 
 been talked to by New Thought healers and 
 prayed over by Christian Scientist. At eleven 
 fifty-five each day, she tells me, she has con- 
 centrated her mind and she says she once had 
 a powerful mind on getting well. 'I will bt> 
 well, I will be well, I am not sick. Disease is 
 thought error. Away wrong thoughts.' This 
 or something like it she repeated over and over, 
 until twelve five. Ten minutes of intense con- 
 centration, she tells me. Somehow she lacked 
 the necessary faith or something was wrong, 
 and it did not do the work. However, these 
 absent treatments cost her four dollars each 
 and were from one of the most celebrated heal- 
 ers close to the original font in dear old Boston. 
 
 "As Bumpus knows, she has taken drugs 
 enough to stock a small drugstore. She has 
 been Homeopathed, Allopathed and Schuetsler- 
 ized. She has been Galvanized, Faradized and 
 Mesmerized. She has been ozoned, vibrated 
 and X-rayed. She has paid for several static 
 machines in fees. The violet-ray has been turn- 
 
84 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 ed on her back. She has had electric light 
 baths, electric medicated baths and the whole 
 line of several dozen hydro-therapy stunts. 
 Masseurs from Sweden have rubbed, swatted, 
 pinched, punched and pummeled her. Osteo- 
 paths from our dear Kirksville, Mo., have giv- 
 en her wise counsel and many manipulations. 
 And last but not least a Chi-ro-prac-tic brother 
 only recently adjusted and replaced seven sub- 
 luxed bones of her spinal column. How this 
 terrible condition could have been missed by all 
 her other doctors, she says, is something she 
 cannot understand. She admits it hurt her 
 considerably when this wonderful new doctor 
 fixed her spine, but still for some strange rea- 
 son it has done no good. I did not tell her 
 what I am going to do will hurt her ten times 
 more, but she will find that out later. The doc- 
 tor tells her that the nerves have been impinged 
 upon impinged, wonderfully effective word 
 that, isn't it? so long that a degenerative pro- 
 cess has set in, making her restoration extreme- 
 ly precarious and the duration necessarily pro- 
 tracted ! These are her words, not mine. Well, 
 he extracted about five hundred dollars of 
 their money, before she lost faith and hope 
 charity she could not see in the matter. 
 
 "This unhappy result now brings her to 
 us. She has traveled around the circle. She 
 has employed every sort of cure, pathy and 
 ism. She has kept her husband poor paying 
 the bills. He says he has spent a fortune on 
 her, to say nothing of his own loss of time 
 
DR. XURY'S MARVELOUS CUKE. 85 
 
 and worry about it. It is fortunate that the ma- 
 jesty of the law overlooks the fact that several 
 sorts of doctors constantly obtain money under 
 false pretense, and are seldom if ever molested. 
 The same methods if used by a horsetrader or 
 a merchant would land either in the pen. Then 
 we, real medical profession, must pay the pen- 
 alty of public confidence sacrificed, because of 
 all this sort of thing. It is so disgusting I 
 sometimes wish I, had been a sailor or some- 
 thing commendable." 
 
 "Well Xury, if you have got that all out of 
 your system, I think I'll go," said Dr. Moore, 
 and the conference ended. 
 
 The next day Dr. Xury had his preliminary 
 interview with his patient, Mrs. J. DeWitt 
 Smith. Everybody knew her husband as Jim 
 Smith the wholesale grocer, but Mrs. Smith has 
 elitized James out of it. 
 
 "Mrs. Smith," the doctor began, "I am 
 going to cure you. I am going to make you 
 walk." 
 
 "Oh, doctor, I wish I could believe you." 
 
 "You must believe me. Inside of ten days 
 you will walk out to your carriage and go 
 home." 
 
 This was said so calmly and with such as- 
 surance that Mrs. Smith smiled through her 
 tears. 
 
 "Tell me doctor, what I must do." 
 
 "Do nothing but get well and walk, work 
 and act like other folks." 
 
86 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 "Oh, if I only could!" 
 "You really want to be well, Mrs. Smith?" 
 "How can you ask me such a question, doc- 
 tor? I'd rather die than be this way all my 
 life." 
 
 "All right, then I'll tell you what we must 
 do. There seems to be some obstruction to the 
 motor impulses that come from the motor areas 
 in the brain, so that your will or wish to walk 
 does not reach the muscles of your legs. We 
 must use the actual cautery over your back at 
 certain places. We can locate this area fairly 
 well, but should the first application fail, we 
 must extend the treatment downward until the 
 right part has been reached." 
 
 Mrs. Smith was listening intently. 
 "Will I have to take ether, doctor?" 
 "No, we will not use an anesthetic, for we 
 wish to make as much impression on the cere- 
 bral centers as we can." (There is no lie about 
 that, the doctor thought.) 
 
 "Won't it hurt me dreadfully?" 
 "Yes, it will hurt some of course, but only 
 for an instant, and I hope very much we shall 
 not have to repeat the process. If we make 
 the right impression by the second day you will 
 be able to take a few steps. On the third day 
 you should be able to walk across the room and 
 by the fourth day, out into the hall. One week 
 from tomorrow you will walk out to your car- 
 riage and thereafter, as your muscles gain 
 strength, you will walk as well as you ever 
 did when a girl." 
 
DR. XUBY'S MARVELOUS CUBE. 87 
 
 ' ' It's too good to be true! Oh, doctor, if 
 you cure me your fortune is made." 
 
 "No, I am not working for a fortune. M> 
 only thought is to get you well." 
 
 All that day Mrs. Smith worried about the 
 next morning. Many times she asked the nurse 
 if she thought it would hurt very much, ho\\ 
 long it would take, what had been her exper- 
 ience with such cases, if she ever saw a case 
 just like hers before, and a dozen other ques- 
 tions showing her great concern. She slept 
 little during the night. The morning brought 
 her a variety of moods. At moments she lost 
 all faith in the plan and wept bitterly. Pre- 
 sently she would recover herself and declare 
 she was ready and willing for she knew Dr. 
 Xury T. Lane knew his business. 
 
 When the appointed hour had come, the, 
 nurse wheeled the patient into the operating 
 room and bared her back. 
 
 "If I were not sure of success in this case 
 I would feel like a cruel wretch to torture this 
 woman as I am about to do," said Dr. Xury 
 quietly to the house doctor, as they started the 
 Pacquelin cautery going in the instrument room 
 off the surgery. 
 
 "We are ready, nurse, whenever you are," 
 called the doctor through the doorway. 
 
 Presently they came in, the cautery wheez- 
 ing and the white hot platinum tip glowing. 
 
 "Oh, doctor, I can't stand it, I know I 
 can't," Mrs. Smith cried out the moment she 
 saw the apparatus. 
 
S8 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 "I think you can or I would not do it," 
 said the doctor calmly. 
 
 "I shall faint, I know I will." 
 
 "Very well, madam, it is for you to say. 
 Shall we give it up?" 
 
 "Give me a little time, doctor, just a lit- 
 tle time." 
 
 While they waited the cautery tip cooled 
 to a dull red, then to the color of the metal. The 
 doctors waited saying not a word. Mrs. Smith 
 sat in the operating chair, holding the blanket 
 to cover her chest, and looking at the doctor. 
 Finally she said, "Go ahead and do it. I'll 
 stand it if it kills me." 
 
 "Very good. It will not kill you, it will 
 cure." 
 
 Once more the cautery was pumped and the 
 tip turned white. Dr. Xury advanced and 
 touched the tip to the white skin of Mrs. J. 
 DeWitt Smith's back near the spine. She 
 screamed and flitched, as well she might, for 
 the skin sizzled and smoked. One more touch 
 opposite, after a moment of waiting followed 
 by more screams. In all ten of these burned 
 spots were made, causing several times as many 
 screams. Distant orderlies and nurses to say 
 nothing of disturbed patients, wondered what 
 was going on in the operating wing. 
 
 "There, it's done," said the doctor. "Dress 
 it nurse, I am sure the wounds are aseptic." 
 Turning to leave, he said, "I will see you to- 
 ward evening, Mrs. Smith." The poor soul 
 
DE. XURY'S MAEVELOUS CUEE. 89 
 
 was sobbing too much to pay any attention. In 
 telling of it afterwards Dr. Xury said he felt 
 guilty of almost barbaric cruelty, yet he knew 
 he was justified. 
 
 Toward night he found his patient nearly 
 recovered from her shock, cheerfully waiting 
 to see him. 
 
 "Oh, but you punished me dreadfully, doc- 
 tor, ' ' was her greeting. 
 
 "We have to be cruel sometimes to be 
 kind," he replied. 
 
 "I hope," he continued, "this will end it. 
 If by tomorrow afternoon you have not walked 
 at least three steps, from your bed to that 
 chair, then the next morning we must continue 
 the burning lower down the spine. You will 
 try and see how the result has been by tomor- 
 row." 
 
 "Yes, doctor, I will try. I think I begin 
 to feel more power in my limbs already." 
 
 The doctor smiled and thought, "the sug- 
 gestive power of Pacquelin is surely great." 
 
 Mrs. Smith slept well that night, ate a good 
 breakfast and when the usual morning pro- 
 gram was over, she called her nurse. 
 
 "I want you to fix me to try a few steps. 
 I can move my legs better in bed I know. I 
 believe if you will let me sit on the edge of the 
 bed, and you stand by the chair over there to 
 be ready in case I fall, I can do it. I would 
 not have Dr. Lane fail in my case for the world, 
 he is such an earnest good fellow, don't you 
 think so nurse?" 
 
90 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 "Dr. Lane is surely devoted to his work. No 
 doctor could be more sincere and we think 
 none more competent," the nurse replied. 
 
 Presently things were arranged and Mrs. 
 Smith sat swinging her legs from the side of 
 the high surgical bed. 
 
 "See nurse, I can use them/' she cried like 
 a pleased child. 
 
 The nurse came and helped her down to the 
 floor. ' ' Now walk to the chair and I will steady 
 
 you." 
 
 This was done, Mrs. Smith trembling and 
 somewhat wabbly on her legs, reached the 
 chair safely and without falling. 
 
 "Oh, to think I have walked four steps and 
 not one step have I taken before in fifteen 
 years! What will my poor husband say?" and 
 at the thought of this she burst into tears. 
 
 After a little time the nurse called Dr. Xury 
 over the telephone. 
 
 "She has done it. She walked to her chair, 
 four or five steps. I supported her just a little 
 but not much." 
 
 "Let her try to walk back to the bed alone," 
 the doctor said and gave further orders about 
 the massage of the wasted muscles. 
 
 Next morning Dr. Xury burst into the con- 
 sultation room, saying, "Eureka! I have found 
 a new drugless healing system that beats them 
 all. My patient Mrs. Jim Smith or Mrs. J. 
 DeWitt Smith, just as you prefer, has walked 
 already a total of eight steps. She is very tired 
 she says, from this long journey, but tomorrow 
 
DR. XURY'S MARVELOUS CURE. 91 
 
 she promises to pace around the room. In a 
 week she will be able to enter the Marathon 
 race." 
 
 "Well, it's really remarkable," said Dr. 
 Moore. 
 
 "No, there is nothing remarkable about it, 
 except the fact that the human will may be 
 reached by many means. Listen, I want to get 
 this off my mind." 
 
 They gathered about Dr. Xury knowing the 
 signs that meant he was about to deliver an in- 
 teresting observation. 
 
 "The power of mind over the bodily func- 
 tions is not a new discovery. All we have is 
 a few new methods of accomplishing the same 
 old result. During the Crusades, weak and 
 famished soldiers of the Cross fought like de- 
 mons and won miraculous victories because 
 they believed they followed the holy spear, the 
 very one that had pierced the side of Jesus. 
 The spear was a fake, but it did the business. 
 Joan of Arc led the French armies, clad in a 
 soldier's trappings and the men believed, as 
 she believed, that she was guided by supernat- 
 ural voices. This little maid was troubled with 
 nothing more than hallucinations, but she did 
 wonders. A man in hard luck consults one of 
 these fortune tellers, clairvoyants or what not, 
 and is told that great success awaits him just 
 around the corner. He goes out believing, gets 
 in line wUh natural causes and wins. Same 
 thing again. A poor drunk listens to the songs 
 and the exhortations of the Salvation Army. 
 
92 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 He sees a ray of hope. He somehow comes to 
 believe he may yet be a man, and he braces up 
 and tries the better way. Presently through 
 the help of those about him, he gets a job. 
 Then he fights his way to freedom from the 
 drink habit, using a will power that is much 
 improved by his faith and religious emotions. 
 He then gets up in the meetings and tells others 
 what Jesus has done for him." 
 
 "How about Christian Science?" asked Dr. 
 Rumpus. 
 
 "The same," said Dr. Xury. "If the will is 
 stimulated by the needed faith in the prayers 
 and the program of mental gymnastics prescrib- 
 ed, and if no organic trouble stands in the way, 
 wonders can be done for functional disorders. 
 It matters not how this effect on the will is se- 
 cured. The various drugless healing cults re- 
 present just so many roads that lead to Rome, 
 that is, the stimulation of the will. ' ' 
 
 "How about reported cures of organic les- 
 ions such as broken bones, etc.?" Dr. Moore 
 asked. 
 
 "They cannot demonstrate a single case of 
 the kind, by any experimental evidence that a 
 jury of rational minded men would accept. 
 This is an interesting field. There is just mys- 
 tery enough about such cases to allow supersti- 
 tion to take hold firmly. A man who has not 
 walked for years, falls in the hammock and re- 
 ceives a good bump on the floor. Then he gets 
 up and walks as good as anybody, except for 
 his muscular weakness. A boy has not spoken 
 
DR. XUKY'S MARVELOUS CURE. 93 
 
 a word for months or years, and suddenly cries 
 out because the house is on fire, and thereaf- 
 ter talks as other people. Sightless eyes have 
 suddenly come to see, ears that heard not now 
 hear and so on to the end of these functional 
 disorders. Do you think a degenerated optic 
 nerve or an ankylosed bony chain of the ear 
 ever recovered function? Did a case of loco- 
 motor ataxia or real paresis ever get a cure? 
 Nay, not one. 
 
 " Coming now to our case, Mrs. Smith, let 
 us admit that at one time she may have had 
 a congestion or something along the motor 
 tract somewhere which did produce a tempo- 
 rary paralysis. She could not use her legs 
 then, but since that passed she has only thought 
 she could not. Her general weakness and the 
 muscular atrophy have aided her in that belief. 
 Now her faith in me and her fear of further 
 treatment from Dr. Pacquelin have caused her 
 to use her will and make an effort. As far as 
 her strength will allow this has been a success. 
 It is now only a matter of giving the muscles 
 exercise and food, and we shall record another 
 wonderful cure by drugless methods. All hail 
 to psycho-therapy ! " 
 
 "Hurrah for Dr. Xury," they shouted and 
 went to their various tasks. 
 
 It was a happy group that met in Mrs. 
 Smith's room the evening of her " first four 
 steps in fifteen years." 
 
94 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 "To think, husband," said the patient, 
 "that I am going to walk like other women." 
 
 "Let us hope it will be permanent," Mr. 
 Smith observed. He had been in the curing 
 game so long and had seen so many repeated 
 failures, no one could blame him for a pessi- 
 mistic attitude. 
 
 "Oh, Dr. Xury says there will be no re- 
 lapse, and if there is it is only a matter of 
 burning my spine some more. I don't think 
 it will be necessary, my dear, ever to do that 
 again. ' ' 
 
 "Let us hope not," he said with a smile. 
 It is quite likely he began to understand Dr. 
 Xury's treatment idea, but was far too wise to 
 belittle it in any way. It was results that in- 
 terested him. 
 
 Day by day Mrs. Smith 's efforts to walk con- 
 tinued with better success. By the end of the 
 week she could make the whole length of the 
 hospital corridor. A bit out of breath when 
 she reached her own door again but smiling 
 and happy. "My, wasn't that a splendid long 
 trip?" she said. 
 
 On the eighth day she was dressed for the 
 street and walked out to the cab holding gently 
 to her husband's arm. 
 
 "Dr. Lane, you will never see me here 
 again." 
 
 "I hope not, madam, for your sake, not 
 ours. ' ' 
 
 "You have treated me dreadfully and won- 
 derfully. I can never thank you enough 01 
 
DR. XUEY >S MARVELOUS CURE. 95 
 
 pay you enough. I shall cry out your name 
 from the house tops." 
 
 "Don't do that," he said, "it would be ad- 
 vertising, and doctors are not allowed to ad- 
 vertise." 
 
 "I shall advertise you just the same," and 
 with smiles and good byes, they drove away. 
 
 The next day the newspapers carried a 
 story headed: 
 
 Mrs. J. DeWitt Smith cured. A help- 
 less invalid for fifteen years. Has not tak- 
 en a step in all that time, now well and 
 walking. Restored by a remarkable oper- 
 ation done by Dr. Xury T. Lane. 
 
 So the story went on for a column or more, 
 giving details with the usual glowing inaccu- 
 racy of the usual reporter's story of any medi- 
 cal matter. 
 
 "Who wrote the advertisement?" asked 
 Dr. Moore of Xury as they met next day. 
 
 "Not guilty!" said Dr. Xury. 
 "Well, it will do you some good anyway," 
 the surgeon said. Like all doctors he under- 
 stood the value of publicity. 
 
 "I hope it will, though I had nothing what- 
 ever to do with it. I fear it will be the only 
 fee I shall ever get from the case." 
 
 "How's that?" 
 
 "Well you see, Jim Smith tells me he has 
 spent about every dollar he had or could get 
 hold of, on his wife's treatments. You see the 
 other fellows beat me to it." 
 
96 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 1 'There it is again, the same old story. Oh, 
 Honesty, where is thy reward ? " Dr. Moore ob- 
 served. 
 
 "Oh, I may get a fee some time. Jim Smith 
 is a square chap and says he will pay me. I've 
 had my real pay though." 
 
 "How?" asked Moore. 
 
 "My pay was the pleasure I felt to see that 
 poor deluded woman get her mental and physi- 
 cal legs under again. My pay was to see the 
 joy in poor old Jim Smith's face when he saw 
 his wife walking. My pay will be the smile of 
 gratitude they will give me, the glad hand of 
 welcome when we meet, the consciousness of 
 doing a human service that's my pay." 
 
 "Yes, but it won't help on the rent or the 
 grocer's bill." 
 
 ' ' I know, I know, we must attend to that dear 
 dollar also," laughed Xury. By this time the 
 usual group was again in the Doctor's room. 
 Said Doctor Moore: 
 
 "Your cure of Mrs. Smith, Xury, makes me 
 think of a story old Doctor Betterman used to 
 tell, about Sim Perkins, who lived down there 
 in Perryville near him. Dr. Betterman had 
 been called so often and at every hour of day 
 or night, with no prospect of pay, that finally 
 the doctor became disgusted, especially when 
 on all occasions there was little if anything the 
 matter with Sim. People generally said he was 
 too lazy to breathe and pretended sickness so 
 the neighbors would bring in things to eat and 
 encourage their hard lot by giving Mrs. Perkins 
 
DR. XURY'S MARVELOUS CURE. 97 
 
 washings to do. No matter how sick Sim seemed 
 to be his appetite was always good. 
 
 "Mrs. Perkins it seems was a worthy hard- 
 working woman, and but for her the family 
 surely would have been on the town. I am not 
 sure whether Sim was a simple feigner or an 
 hysteric. At any rate the old doctor decided 
 he had been made a dupe long enough. On one 
 occasion he fixed up such an outrageous mixture 
 of quassa, gentian and assafoetida that he 
 thought would be so rotten to take that it 
 would be a long time before Sim would want 
 to see him again. Within a week Dr. Better- 
 man had another call. 
 
 " 'Say, doc,' said Sim, 'that was gol derned 
 powerful medicine ye sent me, but I think it's 
 chirkin' me up some. Can ye fix me up an- 
 other bottle like it?' 
 
 "Dr. Betterman said he knew then nothing 
 short of prussic acid would rid him of such a 
 patient. However, on the occasion in question 
 he resolved to try a new experiment. Tak- 
 ing Mrs. Perkins aside he put her next and 
 then went in to Sim, who was moaning and 
 writhing on his bed. Sim did not know they 
 had sneaked up to the window, which was 
 open, and saw him resting comfortably. When 
 he heard the doctor approach the bed, then the 
 pain began. 
 
 "Betterman used to say it was a bad thing 
 to feel as he did toward Sim for some day he 
 might be sick in truth and no one would be- 
 
98 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 lieve him. In any case he knew at this time 
 it was the same old bluff. 
 
 " 'Well, Sim, what's the matter now?' he 
 asked. 
 
 " 'Oh, doc, the misery is all over me, in my 
 head, in my back and legs. My heart stops 
 beatin' every little while an' I can't get my 
 breath. ' 
 
 " After examining him with some care, dur- 
 ing which Sim had seemingly lapsed into a 
 state of coma vigil, the doctor turned to Mrs. 
 Perkins and said, 'Madam, I am afraid your 
 husband is done for this time, I guess he has 
 already gone.' 
 
 " 'Well, I hope to the Lord he has,' she re- 
 plied, according to their secret arrangement. 
 
 " 'Yes/ said the doctor, rubbing his hand 
 across Sim's brow, 'Yes, he's getting cold al- 
 ready. Poor old Sim, he has gone to rest. No- 
 body ever said he was much of a worker, but 
 he had his good points. Good-bye, Mrs. Per- 
 kins, I'll stop at the undertaker's and tell 
 him he better come right over and get the 
 body ready for burial.' 
 
 "The doctor had scarcely reached the door 
 when Sim kicked off the bed clothes, yelled 
 like an Indian on the warpath and came run- 
 ning into the kitchen. 
 
 " 'Come back, you old skinflint. Here you 
 she devil, I ain't dead yit. Ye needn't send 
 fer no undertaker,' and there followed a blue 
 streak of swearing not suitable for print, but 
 seemingly helpful to Sim. 
 
DR. XUBY '8 MARVELOUS CURE. 99 
 
 " 'Well, Sim, we knew you were not sick, 
 so we tried a little experiment on you and it 
 has worked splendidly. It is what we call 
 psycho-therapy or mental healing.' 
 
 "'Psycho-hell! I'll send and git a doctor 
 that knows suthin'. You don't know nothin'.' 
 
 "All right, good-bye, Mr. Perkins, the doc- 
 tor replied and went away laughing. 
 
 "People round about heard the story and 
 Sim never saw the last of it. If they wished 
 to nag him they would say, 'Well, Sim, what 
 do you think of mental healing?' 
 
 "The good part of old Doctor Betterman's 
 story is that Sim was so ashamed of being the 
 butt of the joke, he braced up and worked 
 better than he ever had before, and was never 
 sick a day thereafter." 
 
Mrs. King's Boarding House. 
 
 "I never would V took her, Ezra, only she's 
 Jim Little's sister. I did it I broke the rule 
 to please Jim. 'Tain't likely she'll stay long, 
 Ezra." 
 
 We, the boarders at Mrs. King's Boarding 
 House, knew how frequently the good old 
 woman refused to accept women boarders. 
 "I've got nothin' agin 'em," she used to ex- 
 plain to us as we sat about her long table, 
 "but I'm keepin' a home for stray men, till 
 they gets homes of their own. I don't say 
 'cause a woman, old or young, ain't got no 
 home to go to, 'cept a boarding house, it's 
 anything agin her. I've got my hands full 
 tendin' to my boys. The Lord will have to 
 provide some other place for lone women 
 folks." 
 
 Mrs. King's "boys" were just as well 
 pleased that she took this attitude. We boys, 
 at least those under her roof any time at all, 
 learned to love the old lady. She mothered 
 us all without fear or favor. She laid out our 
 weekly laundry, inspected and mended the 
 holes in our socks, carried our ties to the 
 kitchen to be ironed out, and in sickness nursed 
 us back to health. Some of ns were young and 
 looked the future in the face hopefully. A few 
 were on the seamy side of life bald old boys, 
 
102 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 who had no other ambition or expectation than 
 to finish out the game of existence in Mrs. 
 King's or a similar hostelry. Conspicuous 
 among those we called the old boys, though he 
 was still under forty, was Simon Newbury 
 Sim as we called him a bank teller long ago 
 ruined by the salary habit, he said. We called 
 Sim old not so much because of his years as 
 his bald pate and quiet ways. He never joined 
 us in any of our nightlarks. He was as regular 
 and punctual as the time lock on the safe at 
 the bank. 
 
 Mrs. King was kind to Sim, though she fav- 
 ored the "dinner pail" set young mechanics. 
 
 "I'd rather board a man," she often said, 
 "with a good appetite one that enjoys his 
 vittels an' don't go pickin' and leavin' things. 
 These men with finnicky stomachs are as tire- 
 some as invalid women." 
 
 Still when "old Sim" took sick she would 
 not hear of his going to a hospital. We sus- 
 pected she knew more of Simon Newbury 's 
 history than we did. While she was a woman 
 that talked much she was exceedingly wise 
 with what she did not say. 
 
 (We must crave pardon of those experts in 
 the art of short story writing for bringing 
 Sim into the opening scene of our play, for 
 this is not Sim's story.) 
 
 Ezra King looked at his wife over his spec- 
 tacles. A smile flitted about his clean shaven 
 lip as he held the evening paper aside to listen 
 to his wife's explanation. 
 
MRS. KING'S BOARDING HOUSE. 103 
 
 Mr. King, "Papa" King we called him, 
 was a sprightly old fellow of eighty. If any- 
 one asked his age he would say, "Waal, I 
 ain't so young as I used to be, nor as old as I 
 look, but if the Lord spares me till the twenty- 
 first of the coming June, I'll be eighty-one." 
 For many years Mr. Bang had been a deacon 
 in the First M. E. Church and passed the con- 
 tribution box with precision and care. He 
 always paused at his own pew, holding the 
 long handle out toward his wife, smiled, 
 stroked his snow white beard, received a smile 
 in return as she dropped in her mite, and 
 trudged along down the aisle. 
 
 Ezra Bang had been a carriage and wagon 
 maker. His shop was not large enough to be 
 absorbed by the trust and too small to kill 
 outright. For at least twenty years he and his 
 few workmen kept the place going on repair 
 work and such odd jobs as came his way. He 
 said he had to work to keep from dying. 
 
 There had been more prosperous days, and 
 the King family then enjoyed some social 
 prominence. This was in the pre-trust period, 
 soon after the Civil War. The sons we knew 
 about the children for Mrs. King would start 
 on them with the slightest provocation 
 were both married and prosperous men in 
 Chicago, with families of their own. There 
 were two daughters, one the wife of a diplo- 
 mat in the government service in Europe, and 
 the other the wife of a New York banker. 
 
104 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 "The children don't think much of my keep- 
 ing boarders," Mrs. King explained, "but, 
 land sakes, I ain 't goin ' to live in this big house 
 alone. Ezra and I want young folks about us. 
 We'd die if we had to go traipsin' around the 
 world the way they do. We're doin' our part 
 of the Lord's work jest this way. I'd rather 
 do it, if I didn't make a cent on 'em." 
 
 However that might be, we knew very well 
 that once a week we had to "come across" 
 with our board money, and we knew a little 
 red book down in the old book-case desk where 
 our accounts were kept correct to the cent. 
 
 "Keepin' boarders is like any other busi- 
 ness," she would say, "an' so long as any boy 
 of mine is well and workin ' he 's got to pay his 
 bills. I ain't sayin' what I'd do if any one 
 of 'em got sick." 
 
 We knew how the good old soul had kept 
 Jim Little that time he broke his leg, and how 
 she stood the doctor off for twelve weeks that 
 Jim was trying to get his bones spliced to- 
 gether again. She declared nobody took any 
 risk on a boy with such eyes as Jim Little 
 had. Jim proved it too, for when the leg got 
 well, in due time all the bills were paid. 
 
 (It does seem odd how these minor parts 
 slip into this play. This isn't Jim's story any 
 more than it is old Sims'.) 
 
 "Waal, Ma, you always did favor Jim Little. 
 'Tain't for me to say he ain't deservin' an' 
 you know best, Ma, you know best. ' ' Then the 
 
MRS. KING'S BOARDING HOUSE. 105 
 
 old man lifted his paper to continue his read- 
 ing. 
 
 " She's coming to-night and Jim's gone to 
 meet her now. So I better get that front room 
 tidied up a bit for her. No tellin' what fussin' 
 she'll make," and the old lady pattered off up 
 stairs. 
 
 (If our play had a good orchestra we would 
 ask now for a bit of low weird music, and the 
 switch tender would put out all the lights ex- 
 cept the "spot" for Lottie Little would be the 
 whole show, except for Ezra and Ma King. It 
 is their show, you can see that, but Lottie is 
 the one who gets the bulky envelope at the 
 box office every Tuesday night.) 
 
 It floated about the house, the news did if 
 that is the proper way to speak of news that 
 Jim's sister was coming, and we heard it a 
 we came in one by one from our work at the 
 supper hour. Those of us who worked with 
 hands always "got ready" for supper. Mrs. 
 King's was not a table d'hote, nor was it a 
 catch-as-catch-can affair. We sat down with 
 more or less military precision. Supper was 
 our one meal of state and "Papa" King al- 
 ways said grace. We knew all the old man's 
 blessings. He had three for everyday use and 
 a few special ones for such unusual days as 
 Christmas, Thanksgiving and the like. Some 
 of the boys had them numbered, number one, 
 number two, and number three. They would 
 bet such reckless stakes as a cigar or a nickel 
 which one it would be. It seemed a little sac- 
 
106 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 rilegious to me, still we could not help smiling 
 at this sporting interest. Number one started, 
 "Lord, we thank thee for this food. Bless us 
 as we partake of it. Watch over us as we 
 spend the strength in Thy service, that all may 
 redound to Thy glory, Amen." Number two 
 was more crisp and crackly, like a new bank 
 note, but, no, let us desist. There is the cue, 
 and here comes Lottie. 
 
 "My, my! Mrs. King, what a nice family of 
 boys you have got." 
 
 This was after Jim had pronounced our 
 names all around the table, and each one of 
 the "boys," even old Sim, had made a neat 
 little bow to the intruder. (There might be 
 a better word than that, but just now it has 
 slipped me.) 
 
 "Jim," said Mrs. King, "did I hear you 
 call your sister Mrs. Arnold?" 
 
 "There, Jim, I told you, you would get these 
 folks mixed up," interrupted Lottie. "I am a 
 widow, Mrs. King. My maiden name was Lot- 
 tie Little." 
 
 "Are you grass or sod, Mrs. Arnold?" old 
 Sim asked. How shocked we were! No one 
 even suspected that old bald head of humor. 
 
 "What a precocious boy your youngest is, 
 Mrs. King," said the girl, trying to make the 
 best of it. Her face reddened for a moment. 
 "No, sir, I am only a plain grass widow. Jim 
 should not have used that name for the court 
 has said I am now just Lottie Little again, 
 with no handles or attachments." 
 
MRS. KING'S BOARDING HOUSE. 107 
 
 We boys were a little embarrassed by the 
 turn of affairs, but Mrs. King came to our res- 
 cue. 
 
 "You will have to excuse the boys/' the 
 old lady said, "they are not used to havin' 
 ladies in the family/' 
 
 At this the table talk went along to things 
 less personal and the meal came to an end 
 about as usual. 
 
 (We have come now to that part of the 
 play that earns the money. It is best to fol- 
 low closely here.) 
 
 The next day Mrs. King and Lottie had a 
 heart to heart visit. She had come to the girl, 
 I say girl for she was only twenty-two, yet 
 some girls at that figure are mighty old, for 
 her "getting acquainted talk." The dear old 
 soul always had these talks with every one of 
 her boys, as she called us. It was not idle 
 curiosity that prompted her to draw us out. 
 We told her of our past and present. We laid 
 away in her care our plans and hopes for the 
 future. It made us feel better, this mothering 
 of us. I am sure some of us were better men 
 because she believed in us. 
 
 They were seated in Lottie's room. The 
 maids were doing the after-dinner work in the 
 kitchen. You could hear the clatter of the 
 dishes and the sound of voices as they talked 
 at their work. The old lady went over to the 
 door and closed it. 
 
 "Now we'll have just a nice visit by our- 
 selves. Boys are all right, but there's nothing 
 
108 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 like two girls openin' their hearts to one an- 
 other. You needn't smile I'm a girl yet I'm 
 just as young as you are in here and here," 
 she said putting her hand on her head and over 
 
 her heart. 
 
 "You promised to tell me all about your 
 gettin' married. You don't mind to tell me all 
 about it do you?" 
 
 The girl sat in the low rocker, her hands 
 folded and her eyes cast down. 
 
 " There isn't much to tell and nothing I am 
 ashamed of at least I thought I was doing 
 what was best. You see, I married Frank 
 Arnold when I was eighteen. I had just grad- 
 duated from high school and father said I 
 should go to a business college and fit myself 
 to earn something. Instead I ran away and 
 married Frank. He was twenty-five then, and 
 I thought he was one of the nicest boys in our 
 town. When we got back from the wedding 
 trip I telephoned to mother. 'I'm married, 
 Mama,' I said, 'may I come home and see 
 you?' She was just the same to me as ever, but 
 Papa said he would have nothing more to do 
 with me. I had made my own bed and now I 
 could lie in it. He knew Frank Arnold better 
 than I did, and I would see the day when I 
 would wish I had listened to his advice. I 
 have seen that day, Mrs. King, but I thought 
 my father cruel then," and the girl wiped a 
 few tears from her eyes. 
 
 "Yes, yes, child, you were just too young 
 
MRS. KING'S BOARDING HOUSE. 109 
 
 to know what you were doing. What came 
 next?" 
 
 "Well, we soon went to housekeeping. It 
 was great fun at first, and while I had never 
 been taught to cook very much, Frank did not 
 seem to mind it when I made a failure of the 
 biscuits and other things I tried. If he had 
 given me time I would have learned, wouldn't 
 I ? Then I got pregnant. After that Frank was 
 hateful to me, and I suppose I was the same 
 to him. He would not let me alone, and I fixed 
 up another room for myself. Nearly every 
 night I would hear him coming in, may be at 
 twelve, one or two o'clock. He would go to 
 bed, without coming to ask how I was or any- 
 thing, and sometimes I cried half the night. I 
 saw him but little except at the few meals he 
 ate at home. He'd rather get his supper down 
 town and spend the evening with the boys, 
 playing pool or something some said cards, 
 but I never knew. Many of those days and 
 nights I sat at home alone with my thoughts. 
 
 "Once I asked him, if he did not care to 
 be with me, why had he married me? Was I 
 to blame for my condition? He said I should 
 have known better than to get that way. I 
 asked him what he did out every night. He 
 said it was none of my business what he did ; 
 he wanted me to distinctly understand that I 
 had no right to question his movements. A 
 few days after that some of my girl friends 
 brought me the information that Frank had 
 been seen out joy-riding with a party, the worn- 
 
110 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 en of which were of more or less questionable 
 repute. When I accused him of it he was 
 mad all through. He called me a jealous fool 
 and slapped me in the face. I have heard of 
 wives that love their husbands all the more 
 when beaten by them, but with that blow all 
 my love for Frank Arnold was killed. I cried 
 myself sick over it, and had it not been for 
 my mother, and for the thoughts of my unborn 
 baby, I think I would have killed myself, I 
 was so unhappy. Oh, what brutes men are, I 
 thought. All they want of a wife is to satisfy 
 their lusts. Frank even told me he was a fool 
 to marry the single men were the ones that 
 had the good times." 
 
 "How dreadful, how dreadful!" the old 
 lady commented. "Poor child," she said as 
 she drew her chair closer and stroked the girl's 
 hand. 
 
 "Do'you want to hear the rest of it?" Lot- 
 tie asked. 
 
 "Yes, yes, go on. When you are done, I 
 will tell you a little story myself. ' ' 
 
 "As I said, I never could have lived but 
 for my mother. She came to see me nearly 
 every day. She said Frank would be different 
 after the baby was born. I thought, yes, he 
 will be different until another is coming then 
 it will be the same story over again. What 
 hope has a wife with such a husband, and 
 what courage to bring a family into the world ? 
 I did not care what happened. Along toward 
 the last I was sick in bed, and I had some kind 
 
MRS. KING'S BOARDING HOUSE. Ill 
 
 of convulsions. When the baby was born, it 
 was dead. The doctor said Frank had some di- 
 sease. He told Mother this privately, but sht, 
 told me. When they told Frank the baby was 
 dead, he did not seem to care in the least. I 
 am glad now myself, but when I saw the poor 
 little thing, so cute and innocent lying there 
 cold and dead, I thought my heart would 
 break. 
 
 "When I got well, I went to see a lawyer, 
 and applied for a divorce. As soon as I did 
 this Frank left the house and never came back. 
 After a long wait the case came up and the 
 lawyer got me two thousand dollars alimony 
 and Frank did not appear to oppose the suit. 
 His father is well to do and they paid it with- 
 out delay. The doctor told the judge what I 
 had been through and some girl friends testi- 
 fied about the way Frank had acted. The di- 
 vorce was granted in a very few minutes. It 
 seems ages ago that year with Frank Ar- 
 nold. I have stopped thinking about it now, 
 but I could not see where I had been to blame. 
 I was just a foolish kid, and my father said 
 my good looks was my ruin. But I am not 
 ruined, am I, Mrs. King? I just made a mistake, 
 that is all. I hope I'll never marry again. It 
 seems now days as if men looked upon mar- 
 riage as a choice between a legal prostitute 
 and the kind money will buy. I heard some 
 women talking on the train as I came here. 
 One of them said, 'What has he got me for if 
 
112 WAYSIDE EXPEEIENCES. 
 
 he can't support me as I want to be support- 
 ed. I was better off at home with my folks.' 
 The other said, 'Sure, you can get plenty of 
 men with money. If I had your looks I would 
 not take much from him, I can tell you.' 
 
 "Dear me, I thought, is the whole world 
 fighting and struggling with this marriage 
 thing? Are men only buying and women sell- 
 ing themselves to the highest bidder? Is there 
 no such thing as love between the sexes? Has 
 it come to be merely a traffic in passion and 
 lust? Do wives soon tire of husbands and hus- 
 bands of wives? When this comes is love dead? 
 When I came out of school my head was full 
 of ideals and my heart of passion. I dreamed 
 of a home and love. I pictured my children 
 and wanted them. I never thought the world 
 was like this. It took me nearly five years to 
 get over the shock of parting with my illusions. 
 I am not sure I am free from all of them yet, 
 I am just a bit hardened now and a little bit- 
 ter too may be. Still I am going to do some- 
 thing and be something yet. I've tasted of 
 experience and it was not pleasant. What I 
 thought would be sweet, turned out bitter. 
 Now Mrs. King, that's all my story. Do you 
 see any hope for me?" and the girl smiled 
 through her tears. 
 
 The old lady smoothed the apron over her 
 knees and said, "Yes, dear child, you have all 
 the world before you. You are just at life's 
 threshold. What you have been through seems 
 hard, but others have seen worse. You feel 
 
MRS. KING'S BOARDING HOUSE. 113 
 
 wronged and sore, but others have had greater 
 injustice and greater wrongs to bear. You 
 are just now a bit down on men, but, land 
 sakes, let me tell you child, you just can't 
 judge 'em all by the sample you happened to 
 get an' the few others you hear about. There's 
 some pesky bad men, and some just as bad 
 women, but the old world is full of good ones, 
 both sexes. What you and me, and other folks, 
 has got to do is to find out the good ones and 
 let the other kind alone. I ain't sayin' a wom- 
 an would want to marry every man she meets. 
 Even the best of ' em has got some weak points. 
 I suspect all of us has got some failin's. Now 
 there's Ezra we've been married go in' on 
 sixty years. It don't seem such a long time 
 ago he used to come courtin' around our 
 house. My father used to say Ezra King had 
 likely parts, even for a young wheelwright, 
 an' I guess Ezra had the pick of the girls in 
 our old home town.'* 
 
 A kind of far away look came into the old 
 lady's eyes as she called out of memory the 
 days of her youth. The girl said nothing. 
 
 "Well, when Ezra asked me, I was glad 
 'cause I wanted him. In those days girls 
 were educated mostly to do useful work. My 
 mother told Ezra he was gettin' as good a 
 housekeeper as there was to be found. I could 
 make, I will say myself without boastin,' as 
 good biscuits then as I can now. But, dear 
 me, now days girls don't think housekeepin' 
 amounts to anything. They want a full set of 
 
114 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 servants to come along with the marriage li- 
 cense. 'Stead of helping their mothers, as I 
 used to, they expect the mothers to wait on 
 them, unless parents can hire someone to do 
 it. 
 
 44 But I'm gettin' off my story. Let's see, 
 oh, yes, we soon fixed a place for ourselves, 
 and our wedding journey was from my father's 
 house to one of our own. My mother used to 
 say, 'There ain't no roof big enough to cover 
 two families' an' I ain't disputin' her word 
 none yet. We had a little house first down by 
 the wagon shop. It cost us four dollars a 
 month rent. Ezra gave me ten dollars to buy 
 our dishes and kitchen fixin's and, my! what 
 an outfit we had! I was only eighteen just 
 the same as you and my first baby came in- 
 side a year. I had four that's living and two 
 that's dead. I've got now, let me see, twelve 
 grandchildren, some of 'em as old as you be. 
 Well, as I was a sayin' we went to house- 
 keeping down by the wagon shop. It wasn't 
 more 'n half a block away, and sometimes 
 Ezra would come to the door and wave his 
 hand to me where I'd be sittin' by the win- 
 dow with my sewin' work or somethin.' When 
 I'd see his big shoulders and the apron swing 
 in' in his hand, I'd say to myself, that's my 
 Ezra, and I was proud of him. I've been proud 
 of him ever since. 
 
 "By and by when I got nearer the time for 
 the baby I was ashamed to go out you know 
 how women feel about such things he'd say, 
 
MRS. KING'S BOARDING HOUSE. 115 
 
 'What's the difference? 'Tain't nothin' we 
 need be ashamed of.' I do believe Ezra was 
 prouder of me them times than any other. 
 But I would not get out much 'cept at dusk, 
 we'd go walking down the river road, where 
 we most likely wouldn't meet anyone. Ezra 
 would be just as tender and courtin' like and, 
 land sakes! I don't say we was different from 
 other folks, but one thing Ezra never went 
 traipsin' around after other women then or 
 any time. 
 
 4 'We had too much to do, tendin' the chil- 
 dren and gettin' a start in the world to think 
 about bein' tired of one another. May be 
 times has changed, but I have a notion folks 
 is about the same as they always was. Of 
 course I know there's a difference somehow 
 'twixt men and women just about the same 
 difference as between the critters of the field; 
 but men are supposed to be human and civi- 
 lized and ought to have some sense of honor 
 and consideration for what a wife is doin' for 
 'em when she bears 'em a child. But that's 
 neither here nor there. It has nothin' to do 
 with my story. 
 
 "Well, just as we got nicely started in, an' 
 Ezra had moved us here to begin a shop for 
 himself and we had the four children comin' 
 along, what should happen but the war. Every- 
 body was goin' to the army there was noth- 
 in' but hard times. Ezra wanted to go too, 
 but I said there was plenty that wouldn't leave 
 a widow and four children that could do the 
 
116 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 fightin.' So he went to makin' wagons for the 
 government and done very well by it too. Many 
 times some of them big officials from Washing- 
 ton would come up to see him about wagons an' 
 he nearly always brought them up for dinner 
 to show 'em the reasons why he couldn't go to 
 war, meanin' the children and me. I was keep- 
 in' help them da.ys and we'd get up a good din- 
 ner for 'em. My, how they used to talk and 
 praise things up, but it made Ezra proud to 
 have other men praise his wife. Still I expect 
 if he thought I fancied or cared more for the 
 praise of outsiders than I did for his, we 'd had 
 trouble same as some other folks. 
 
 1 'After the war was over we got some con- 
 siderable well to do. The children grew up 
 an* we gave 'em a good deal better education 
 than we ever had, but I ain't sayin' it has 
 made 'em any happier. Then by and by, these 
 here trust came along an' Ezra couldn't make 
 wagons to sell agin 'em. Soon after this a 
 bank failed and 'most swamped us, but the 
 house was mine and they couldn't touch that. 
 I remember the night Ezra came home after it 
 happened. He kissed me just as he always 
 does, but he was mighty glum. When he told 
 me how things had gone, I said, 'What's the 
 difference, Ezra? We're gettin' old and don't 
 need much the children are all settled for 
 themselves, so we will get along all right.' 
 Since then I took in boys for boarders to keep 
 the old house from bein' empty and lonesome, 
 and Ezra sees to tinkering about the shop 
 
MRS. KING'S BOARDING HOUSE. 117 
 
 some, so we can't complain about the way the 
 Lord's dealt with us. It ain't much trouble in 
 this world to be happy if folks don't ask too 
 much to make 'em so, an' most happy mar- 
 riages comes from both parties not expectin' 
 nor countin' on the other bein' an angel. My 
 notion of what they're callin' eugenics these 
 days is just common sense. If folks will work 
 hard and be honest with one another, there 
 won't be many divorces, an' what there is 
 ought to be anyway. 
 
 "Well now, ain't we had a good talk? I feel 
 a mighty sight better now I know all about 
 you an' you know all about Ezra and me. I 
 couldn't get a word out of that brother of 
 yours why you was sort of alone in the world. 
 Now I must trot along an' get the girls started 
 on them riz-biscuits. You never did see such 
 appetites for riz-biscuits as my boys have, 'spe- 
 cially that Sim, an' he ain't nothin' but a 
 bank clerk neither. Cheer up now, my dear. 
 I ain't sorry I broke my rule about women 
 boarders. I've been motherin' boys so long 
 it'll do me good to change for a while." 
 
 When the good old soul had gone down to 
 the tasks in the kitchen, Lottie sat by the win 
 dow and cried. If anyone had asked her why, 
 she could not have told. 
 
 (It might be well if in the play we leave 
 her here by the window, for she and the old 
 lady have said their lines. If the lesson has 
 not been carried home by the words of the last 
 scene, our task has failed. Anyway Lottie can 
 
118 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 go. There may be someone waiting for her at 
 the stage door with a limousine and a supper 
 engagement.) 
 
 I have been away from Mrs. King's 
 boarding House about a year now, trying to 
 take a few steps for myself up that ladder call- 
 ed Success. When I went away Lottie had 
 made herself one of us. She had started in the 
 study of the millinery business expecting to 
 set up for herself. 
 
 I rang the old familiar door bell and the 
 good old lady welcomed me heartily. I must 
 stay, while she asked me a thousand questions 
 about myself and how I had been getting along. 
 She could make people talk about themselves 
 the best of any person I ever knew. 
 
 As soon as I could get around to it I asked 
 about Lottie. 
 
 "For the land sakes! Didn't you know? 
 Why, she went and married Sim. They've 
 been married six months now and live just 
 around the other side of the block. Oh, but 
 they're happy! Sim just worships her, and I 
 guess she about the same as does him. Some 
 of you boys used to call him old Sim why 
 Sim's only thirty-five, even if he is so bald. 
 He's cashier now at the bank an' Ezra says 
 there ain't no handsomer couple comes to our 
 church. You ought to have been here. The 
 boys had no end of fun with Sim, but he took it 
 all sweet as could be. He said they was all jeal- 
 ous to see him gettin' Lottie away from 'em, 
 
MES. KING'S BOARDING HOUSE. 119 
 
 so he could stand it if they could. Now you 
 just make yourself to home, ' cause you got to 
 stay for supper an' I must go and see about 
 them riz-biscuits. The boys will be glad to see 
 you, and so will Ezra. After supper I'll take 
 you * round to see Lottie an' Sim," and the 
 dear old Mrs. King tottered out to the kitchen. 
 Now, who would have thought that of old 
 Sim? 
 
Sowing and Reaping Wild 
 Oats. 
 
 Mr. Charles Gaylord Jennings as the only 
 son of that well-known citizen, Judson Jen- 
 nings, the leading capitalist of our town. "Old 
 Jud" as his club members called him, had a 
 finger in about every good thing that commer- 
 cial enterprise offered. His practical hard- 
 headed business sense had made him a recog- 
 nized leader in business affairs. He made a 
 success of everything he undertook except 
 rearing a son. "Cholly" Jennings was his 
 father's constant sore spot, especially since he 
 went away to college. 
 
 It is not a part of our story to relate the 
 boy's experiences at school and college. He 
 came home from Yale at twenty-four and he 
 brought with him a tremendous record for be 
 ing a good fellow, also several vicious habits, 
 and the only knowledge he had of money was 
 the art of spending it. His first interview with 
 the "Governor" on reaching home was not es- 
 pecially reassuring. 
 
 "Charles," said his father, "what now?" 
 They were seated in the old gentleman's office 
 at the wholesale grocery house, which had been 
 the nester for the Jennings fortune. Judson 
 Jennings still called himself a wholesale gro- 
 
123 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 eer, notwithstanding his presidency of one 
 bank, his directorship in several others and his 
 large holdings in several of our growing indus- 
 trial concerns. 
 
 "Well, Dad, it's up to you." 
 
 The son knew the great longing of his fath- 
 er's heart, that he might be able and competent 
 to take his natural place at the head of the 
 house of Jennings when the father's time came 
 to surrender it. From numerous signs and 
 stray sentences in his father's letters for a 
 year or more, he realized that the time had 
 come for him to prove himself, and he had 
 come home with that determination firmly fix- 
 ed. His career at college had not been marked 
 with any special honors or record of great at- 
 tainment. He had managed to graduate he 
 had not disgraced himself that anyone knew. 
 He was popular among fellows of like finan- 
 cial standing. He had not worked he had no 
 decided ambitions and took very little interest 
 in anything unless it might be recognized in 
 his devotion to college athletics. He had also 
 been a party to many quietly conducted, 
 though questionable social affairs with women 
 he would not have cared to introduce to his 
 mother and sisters at home. 
 
 Following one of these social affairs "Chol- 
 ly" had a siege of gonorrhoea which a certain 
 doctor had "cured" for fifty dollars. When 
 this doctor investigated young Jennings' finan- 
 cial connection he wished he had charged him 
 a hundred. This had happened late in the 
 
SOWING AND REAPING WILD OATS. 123 
 
 Freshman year. It was during the Senior year 
 that Charles was an oarsman in a winning 
 crew and while in the practice work he ' ' strain- 
 ed" himself and was laid up with a severe at- 
 tack of orchitis. He took no part in the boat 
 races that year. 
 
 However, he came home in good health, 
 mind and body, as far as any usual observer 
 could judge, and his father welcomed him with 
 questioning hopes and fears. He came home 
 with his marriage plans all made, with a girl of 
 his choice from among the many good girls of 
 our town. The wedding day had been set for 
 October and the two fathers, old Judson Jen- 
 nings and old James Mclntosh, talked it over 
 at the club. 
 
 (< You see, Jim, that cub of mine hasn't the 
 first idea of what a dollar is worth. It is up 
 to us to teach him it may be too late, but I 
 am going to try." 
 
 "Oh, Charlie is all right. He'll come out 
 well. Carrie thinks everything of him and I 
 guess he does of her. Don't make it too hard 
 on them Judson. 
 
 "No, listen to me. I'm going to give him a 
 job that's all, you understand, a job. If he 
 makes good I'll promote him. If not, I'll fire 
 him." 
 
 "Then give him another job next day, eh, 
 Judson?" and Carrie's father chuckled. 
 
 Mr. Mclntosh knew of many times when 
 telegrams had been received at the Jennings of- 
 fice calling for hurry up funds or the father's 
 
124 WAYSIDE EXPEEIENCES. 
 
 personal presence to get his seemingly ne'er-do- 
 well son out of scrapes here and there in dif- 
 ferent parts of the country to which touring 
 car or other excursions had taken him. 
 
 "Well, I'm going to try once more and if 
 that daughter of yours don't make him settle 
 down and behave himself, attend to business 
 and amount to something, I'll cut him off with- 
 out a penny not a penny, by Gad!" and Jud- 
 son Jennings brought down his fist with a 
 sounding whack upon the table before them. 
 
 It was settled however, that Father Mcln- 
 tosh should give Carrie the house fittings and 
 furnishings and Father Jennings should give 
 her a deed to a neat little six room house that 
 would be their first home. Charles already had 
 a car he called his own, and he induced his 
 father to add a garage for it on the back end 
 of the lot. It was quite a come down for them 
 but "love in a cottage" had its redeeming 
 features. Carrie would keep one maid and she 
 felt sure they would get along on the quiet 
 they knew it was to be a sort of test and they 
 had only to accept it gracefully for the pre- 
 sent, looking to the future. 
 
 Charles Gaylord Jennings took his "job" 
 as the head of the order department in his fath- 
 er's wholesale grocery concern at one hundred 
 dollars a month. 
 
 "I shall expect you to live on that too, you 
 understand. It is four times what I started on 
 and you can do it." said his father. "Every 
 six months I will raise it, if your work shows 
 
SOWING AND REAPING WILD OATS. 125 
 
 you deserve it. This business has got to grow, 
 and if you can't make it increase, I'll hire 
 someone else who can." 
 
 So Charlie settled down to business. He 
 was down to the office on time and punched 
 into the clock with the others. He studied 
 hard to increase the sales and reduce expenses. 
 He discovered and reported several small 
 ''leaks" and felt a thrill of pleasure when he 
 saw the smile of satisfaction that crept over 
 his father's face. Outwardly the old man ap- 
 peared to take everything as a matter of course. 
 If things went well he said nothing. When 
 anything went wrong he "raised the devil" as 
 the old bookkeeper expressed it. However, as 
 the Summer went along, everybody said Char- 
 lie was making good, but "Old Jud" admitted 
 it to no one except "Old Jim" at the club. Mr. 
 Mclntosh told Carrie and Carrie told Charlie, 
 and the boy smiled. 
 
 The wedding day came along. The house 
 had been fitted and furnished handsomely. Car- 
 rie had been all the Summer getting together 
 those items of pretty details that every woman 
 of taste feels she must have to be happy, and 
 the wedding gifts added a plenty more. The 
 happy couple had planned a wedding journey 
 in their own car a few days with stops at 
 points of interest. 
 
 "We'll be back inside a week, Dad," the 
 son said. "I can't spare the time or the money 
 for a long trip. I am going after that new ter- 
 ritory as soon as we get home." 
 
126 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 The old father was immensely pleased with 
 his son's work that Summer, and he kissed the 
 bride and clasped his son's hands with more 
 than his usual show of affection. 
 
 About two weeks after the wedding, indeed 
 it followed their return from the trip, Carrie 
 was taken sick. She had dreadful pains about 
 the hips and an almost intolerable burning of 
 the urine. A chill or two sent her to bed and 
 old Dr. Blossom was called to see her. 
 
 "Ah, I see, I see," said the dear old doc- 
 tor. He had been the Mclntosh family physi- 
 cian for years and knew Carrie's health his- 
 tory from the cradle. He advised her to stay 
 in bed, gave her soothing medicines, prescrib- 
 ed vaginal douches, hot applications to the ab- 
 domen and pelvis and a liberal use of urinary 
 antiseptics. 
 
 "What is the matter with her, doctor" was 
 Charlie's anxious question at the door, as the 
 doctor was leaving. 
 
 "Just a little bladder inflammation. Often 
 happens in young married folks. Nothing ser- 
 ious, nothing serious. She'll be all right in a 
 few days. Over indulgence, my boy, over in- 
 dulgence. Don't worry, don't worry," and the 
 old doctor plodded out the gate. 
 
 As the doctor predicted, Carrie was about 
 again in a few days, looking a little pale to be 
 sure, but apparently well. She complained 
 still of some pain and was annoyed by a dis- 
 charge, but these troubles would soon pass 
 away the doctor said. The suspicion that lurk- 
 
SOWING AND REAPING WILD OATS. 127 
 
 ed in the husband's mind was mentioned to no 
 one. He just wondered if her sickness had 
 anything to do with the trouble he had at col- 
 lege, but it could not be. He had been perfect- 
 ly well now for three years or more. No, it 
 could not be. If the doctor had thought of 
 any such thing he would have said something. 
 He would forget it. Now to business. 
 
 After Carrie was quite herself again Char- 
 lie went after that new territory. He had been 
 studying salesmanship. A private course by 
 mail taken secretly, had given him many new 
 ideas. He figured he could double the business 
 inside a year. His father had been content to 
 let things drift along, attending to the wants 
 of his regular customers and collecting the 
 bills as they came due. What the Jennings 
 concern needed was new life, new blood. He 
 would inject this new life he was doing it. He 
 had put the accounting system on a better bas- 
 is. The orders were filled and delivered more 
 promptly. The city trade had already greatly 
 increased, and two new auto-trucks with "The 
 Judson Jennings Co." boldly lettered on them, 
 went about with loads of goods that told of 
 sales. 
 
 He went away on this trip to canvass a field 
 that had been neglected for some years. It 
 took about three weeks to cover it. There was 
 a daily letter to Carrie and daily orders to 
 the house. He added a good list of new names 
 to their accounts. He had with him the sales- 
 man who was to look after the territory after 
 
128 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 this initial canvass, and he returned glowing 
 with success. His father was pleased and for 
 once admitted it. The old man congratulated 
 himself upon the wisdom of putting the son 
 where he had to show his metal. Charles was 
 a Jennings all right and had good business 
 blood in him. He was evidently going to prove 
 out his heredity. He wished now Carrie would 
 give him a grandson. He wished the name of 
 Jennings might become a fixed institution in 
 the town to which he had himself come as a 
 poor boy. 
 
 The car was waiting at the station when 
 Charlie stepped off the train and Carrie was 
 in it to welcome him. It was late afternoon, 
 but he must stop at the office to file a report 
 and attend to some details. He wanted to see 
 his father too. 
 
 "Such a confirmed business man, I never 
 saw," she said, after waiting for him half an 
 hour at the office door, during which he had 
 his talk with his father. 
 
 "Yes, but Carrie, I'm making good. Dad's 
 as tickled as a boy with a new top. I can see 
 that," and away they spun for the little home. 
 
 Two or three days later Dr. Xury T. Lane 
 had an office caller. 
 
 "Well, Charlie, how are you?" he said 
 greeting Charles Gaylord Jennings with his 
 usual hearty handshake. Dr. Lane had been 
 long on friendly terms with young Jennings, 
 They belonged to the same club, yet he had 
 
SOWING AND REAPING WILD OATS. 129 
 
 seldom been called upon to attend any of the 
 family professionally. 
 
 "Doc, I've come to you as a friend as well 
 as a doctor. I'm up against something and 
 I want to know the truth. Now look at that 
 and tell me what's the matter," he said ex- 
 posing himself for the doctor's examination. 
 As the doctor made his study of the case, he 
 also did some thinking. 
 
 "When did this start?" 
 
 "Yesterday." 
 
 "Been away from home?" 
 "Yes, gone three weeks. Returned three 
 days ago. 
 
 "Exposed to anything while away?" 
 
 "Not on your life!" 
 
 "Well, if you want it blunt and straight, 
 you've got an acute case of gonorrhea." 
 
 The young man staggered as if struck. 
 
 "My God, doctor, you don't mean it." 
 "I certainly do." 
 
 "My wife my wife has given it to me. 
 I thought I married a good girl what shall I 
 do? I'll have nothing more to do with her. She 
 has been untrue to me, maybe while I have 
 been away. If not then, before. Oh, these 
 damned deceitful lying women Oh, my Dad, 
 my poor old, Dad, what will he say?" and 
 Mr. Charles Gaylord Jennings stormed about 
 the office almost beside himself, talking of di- 
 vorce and other tragedies. 
 
 "Not so fast, Charlie," said Dr. Xury 
 when he thought the young man had relieved 
 
130 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 his mind a little. "Let us investigate this mat- 
 ter a moment. You have had this trouble be- 
 fore haven't you?" 
 
 "Doctor, I will not lie to you. I had some- 
 thing like it at college, but that was three or 
 four years ago, and I was cured of that all 
 right." 
 
 "No use to lie to me Charlie, for I know 
 this is not the first attack. I could see that 
 plain enough. Now let me tell you something. 
 It may hurt but it's true. You are the only 
 guilty party to this thing. You gave the di- 
 sease to your wife. Was she not sick with 
 something soon after you were married?" 
 
 "Yes, but Dr. Blossom said it was nothing." 
 
 "Well, may be so, but it was then you in- 
 fected her. She has now given you back your 
 old friends in a more virulent form she has 
 paid you back in your own coin and you de- 
 serve it. You have just been saying you would 
 have nothing more to do with her. You have 
 talked about a divorce, but what you ought to 
 do would be to crawl all the way home on your 
 hands and knees and beg her forgiveness. Talk 
 about marrying a good girl, why man, what 
 kind of a husband did she get when she mar- 
 ried you, with such a disease as this chronic 
 in your system? 
 
 "But the doctor said I was all right. What 
 are doctors good for, if we can't depend upon 
 what they say? I asked him if it would be all 
 right for me to marry, and he said it would." 
 
SOWING AND HEAPING WILD OATS. 131 
 
 "Yes, I know," said Dr. Lane, "we have 
 learned more about this disease than we used 
 to know. We know now that it is a worse 
 scourge than tuberculosis. It kills more wom- 
 en, most of them innocent women too, than any 
 other sickness. It steals into our homes like a 
 thief in the night, to rob us of our health and 
 happiness. Yet people are so prudish we can- 
 not educate them about it. When the govern- 
 ment taught the boys of the Navy to protect 
 themselves against this disease, there was a 
 hue and cry that the officials were encouraging 
 immorality. I leave it to you if it would not 
 be better for such fellows as you to have in- 
 struction about this trouble and its prevention 
 than to face what you must because of your 
 wild oats sowing. It will probably make you 
 sterile, if it has not already. Oh, I am giving 
 you the worst side of it I know, yet what about 
 the wife ? She may have her peritonitis and pel- 
 vic abscesses and have to go on the surgeon's 
 table to save her life, and then may be not save 
 it" 
 
 "That is enough doctor. I can't stand any 
 more," the young man cried. "Now give me 
 the best side of it." 
 
 "Well, I will treat you and do the best I 
 can. Your wife should have treatment also. 
 It will be a long hard fight and even then no 
 doctor on earth can say positively that you are 
 cured. You will both have to use antiseptic 
 protection or you will go on trading the disease 
 back and forth until you establish a like im- 
 
132 WAYSIDE EXPEEIENCES. 
 
 munity. At best your sex-happiness is nipped 
 in the bud and no one can say what the future 
 may have in store for either of you." 
 
 The treatments went along and after a few 
 months both Charlie and Carrie had fairly 
 good health again. The wife was thinner and 
 paler, but except that she tired very easily, she 
 was cheerful and happy. Charles G. Jennings 
 carried his secret. 
 
 A year or more went by. Charles was mak- 
 ing good. They had saved some money even 
 at the salary first received. By this time it had 
 been advanced to two hundred a month. The 
 old father was very proud and full of hope 
 about his son. The day ending the second 
 year, when they talked about the future, the 
 father said, "Charlie, what is the matter up at 
 your house? I haven't heard about any habios 
 yet. I want a grandson, you understand a 
 grandson." 
 
 "I don't know, Dad, we're both willing but 
 no signs yet," laughed the young man. 
 
 "You tell her for me, she'd look far better 
 fondling a baby than that pug she always has 
 with her. Tell her that you understand?" 
 
 That night Charlie repeated his father's 
 words to his wife. 
 
 "You may tell Father Jennings I fondle dogs 
 because I haven't anything else. Oh, Charlie, 
 I do want a baby I've been wanting one all 
 along, but I did not say much about it," and 
 the young wife burst into tears. 
 
SOWING AND EEAPING WILD OATS. 133 
 
 "There, there," he said, "it will come out 
 all right. If we can't get one of our own, we 
 can take one." 
 
 "No, I want one of my very own." 
 
 Several months passed, but no pregnancy oc- 
 curred. Carrie finally consulted Dr. Blossom 
 again. He said it might be due to acid secre- 
 tions, or uterine inflammation. He would treat 
 her and see if these things could not be cor- 
 rected. So the poor girl submitted herself to a 
 long series of treatments tampons, douches, 
 medicines, tonics, electricity and one thing and 
 another, two or three times a week, going to 
 the doctor's office. The fees counted up but 
 Charlie paid them without a word of protest. 
 Her health was now fairly good, and except for 
 a dragging down feeling she had little com- 
 plaint to make. Still she did not get pregnant. 
 
 Dr. Blossom finally proposed that they call in 
 a surgeon "who did his work" and see what 
 he thought. This worthy authority insisted 
 that she should undergo a curettement. The 
 uterus was enlarged and this operation would 
 restore it to a normal condition. This present 
 state might explain the failure of pregnancy. 
 
 Willing to make any sacrifice the young wife 
 went to the hospital. She was operated and 
 put to bed for three weeks. The bill was about 
 one hundred and fifty dollars, hospital fee and 
 all. It was paid of course and cheerfully, but 
 Charlie secretly felt the futility of it all. He 
 had not forgotten Dr. Xury's prediction. 
 
134 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 After the operation Carrie's health was 
 again about as usual. She had always been a 
 healthy girl, and only since her marriage had 
 she any health trouble to annoy her. She 
 thought the operation had helped the dragging 
 down feeling, but as months went by no sign 
 of pregnancy was recognized. 
 
 ''Doctor," said Charlie to Dr. Xury, one day, 
 "is there any way you can determine whose 
 fault it is we don't have any babies at our 
 house?" 
 
 "Yes, I can tell if it's your fault," and the 
 doctor explained to him the tests to be made 
 and the manner of making them. A few days 
 later Dr. Xury sat over his microscope study- 
 ing the specimen Charlie had brought. The 
 young man was waiting breathlessly. 
 
 "It is as I feared," the doctor said. "There 
 is not a single protozoon in it. You are abso- 
 lutely sterile." 
 
 Charlie dropped into a chair pale and 
 speechless. He saw all the hopes of a happy 
 family life gone. He would never be a father. 
 The grandson so much wished for by poor old 
 Dad would never come from him. He cursed 
 the folly of his past life. What a penalty to 
 pay for what he thought a harmless lark? 
 What would the future hold for him? For 
 Carrie for Dad? Getting to his feet finally 
 he went out saying, "Don't tell anybody, Dr. 
 Xury. Don't mention it, will you?" 
 
 As the months went along Charlie was tor- 
 mented with his thoughts. At times he thought 
 
SOWING AND REAPING WILD OATS. 135 
 
 he would tell his wife everything and give 
 her freedom to do what she thought best. He 
 loved her devotedly and could not bear the 
 thought she might turn against him. He could 
 not lose her. What difference did it make any- 
 way? Children are often a care and sorrow. 
 Perhaps if they had a son he would grow up 
 to be a curse instead of a blessing. We are 
 but atoms in the race. Each will run his course 
 and die. It does not matter who reproduces. 
 There are plenty to do this part of the race 
 function. Let us enjoy our lives and make 
 the best we can of them. It is a foolish vanity, 
 this ambition of his father's to keep up the 
 family name and standing. It is like the silly 
 pride of the crowned heads of Europe, to leave 
 plenty of heirs to the throne, often so poorly 
 bred that the children of the peasants are 
 superior to them. He would make a success of 
 himself, of his business and of everything else. 
 Perhaps the sisters would do better and give 
 Dad all the grandchildren he would want. 
 
 It was noticeable, however, that Charles G. 
 Jennings had changed. He was no longer the 
 gay fellow that came home from college. He 
 had become a serious, saddened, driving busi- 
 ness man. His father, now left practically 
 everything to him. The old man spent less and 
 less time at the office, and more at the club 
 playing chess with old Jim and other cronies. 
 In time the daughters married and gave the 
 old man several grandchildren. Still he could 
 not forgive Carrie for being childless. He said 
 
136 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 Charlie is a better business man that he ever 
 was, and other people think so too. 
 
 If you had come to our town at this time 
 you would have seen Mrs. Charles Gaylord 
 Jennings driving here and there on errands of 
 mercy and kindness. She was interested in 
 playgrounds, kindergartens for the poor, day 
 nurseries, etc. She had everything that money 
 could buy to make her happy. Her husband 
 has always been devoted and kind, often as 
 loving as a lover, but it palls on her some way. 
 She had many secret tears, when her mother- 
 hood promptings overcome her. She had dogs 
 to be sure. A prize bull terrier always rode 
 with her in the car. It was great fun washing 
 and tending him. He was such an intelligent 
 dog. 
 
 People used to say she hated babies. She 
 acted as if she could not bear to touch one or 
 in fact to see one. Meeting a mother pushing a 
 rosy-cheeked child down the street in a cab or 
 go-cart made her turn her face away. The 
 truth was she could hardly suppress her tears. 
 She was jealous of mothers then. She said 
 those who had more than they wanted or were 
 able to care for properly were the ones that 
 continued to bring them into the world, but 
 those who wanted them and had means to do 
 well by children could not have any. She said 
 an Allwise Providence had some strange ways 
 of adjusting things. 
 
SOWING AND REAPING WILD OATS. 137 
 
 Dr. Xury attended the girl. She was an or- 
 phan, about twenty years old, bright, healthy 
 and American born. When she left the or- 
 phanage she worked as a waitress at a hotel. 
 She was just the sort of girl some ardent fol- 
 lower of "the light that lies in woman's eyes" 
 would see and covet. She did not know the 
 world, or its ways. She did not know men or 
 their ways. She had no mother to tell her, 
 and she obeyed the Cosmic urge. She became 
 an illegitimate mother. 
 
 The baby was a fine healthy boy. At the 
 hospital Dr. Xury arranged everything. When 
 it was three weeks old the papers were signed 
 transferring the child to him. He promised the 
 mother it should have a good home. She cried 
 bitterly when she looked at the little face for 
 the last time, still she could see no better way 
 to do. She was but a plaything in the hands 
 of Fate. 
 
 That night Dr. Xury carried the child away. 
 He had provided a good-sized market basket 
 with a cover and in it he fixed a bed of cotton. 
 On this he laid the child, tucking the little 
 blanket about it, with the nursing bottle at 
 which the little fellow tugged away happily. 
 On a card he wrote in a disguised hand : 
 
 The good Stork leaves Mr. and Mrs. 
 Charles Gaylord Jennings a boy 
 three weeks old to-day. He is healthy, 
 American born and worthy of your 
 
138 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 love. If you do not want him, take 
 him to the Board of Charities. 
 
 A. D. T. Special. 
 
 It was Sunday night, rainy and dark. The 
 maid was out for her half day off. Carrie was 
 reading in the sitting room. Charlie was visit- 
 ing for an hour a newly-married sister. His 
 wife had not felt like going out. The door 
 bell rang. She got up wondering who would 
 call at such a time. Upon opening the door 
 she could see no one and thought it strange. 
 Some boys playing pranks, perhaps, she 
 thought. Just as she was about to close the 
 door she heard a strange little noise at her feet, 
 and looking down saw a basket. It moved a 
 little, and for a moment she was frightened. 
 Her curiosity got the better of her fear how- 
 ever, and she caught it up and carried it into 
 the light. 
 
 "Well, she's got a baby," said Dr. Xury as 
 he stepped from behind a tree and went to his 
 car waiting around the corner. 
 
 Once in the sitting room, off came the cover, 
 and there lay the sweetest, cleanest and dear- 
 est of babies one ever saw. 
 
 "Oh, you precious, darling thing" Carrie 
 cried, taking it in her arms. She read the 
 ticket fastened to the basket. She looked at 
 the child again, then hugging it to her bosom, 
 she could not keep back the happy tears. 
 
 An hour later Charles G. Jennings made his 
 way homeward and opened his door. He was 
 startled by a wife so radiant and smiling, 
 
SOWING AND REAPING WILD OATS. 139 
 
 though tears streamed down her face, he hardly 
 knew her. 
 
 ' ' Oh, Charlie, we 've got a baby a baby ! It 
 came in a basket it's ours, Charlie. The card 
 says so. You won't take it away from me, will 
 you? Nobody shall take it away. It's mine. 
 It's ours!" and -she hugged the child tightly as 
 if in fear it might disappear as suddenly as it 
 came. 
 
 " Bless your heart, Carrie, why didn't you 
 say you wanted a baby. You could have had 
 half a dozen by this time." It was not a nice 
 thing for him to say just at that moment, but 
 he meant well enough. 
 
 If you come to our town now, you will see 
 Mrs. Charles Gaylord Jennings driving h^r 
 husband down in their car. A sturdy little 
 child sits by her side instead of a dog. Oh, yes, 
 they have a dog or two. Baby Judson, now 
 over a year old, likes to play with the pug. 
 
 Old Jud sometimes wonders why on earth 
 Carrie would rather adopt a baby than have 
 one of her own. He just can't understand her. 
 Charlie understands her, and they are happy 
 now. 
 
 Isn't that Dr. Xury Lane a funny fellow? 
 
Bessie Tompkins' Test. 
 
 Not far from the city of London, Ontario, is 
 a little Canadian village, and not far from this 
 village is the home of an honest Canadian 
 farmer. The fifty odd acres had by hard labor 
 and prudent economy enabled him to rear his 
 family respectably. Two sons and three daugh- 
 ters had come to bless Jacob Tompkins and 
 his wife. On week days they were hard at 
 work, but Sunday always found them sitting in 
 a healthy red-faced row at the village church. 
 The Tompkins family were ardent Wesleyan 
 Methodists. 
 
 As time went along, the children grew older 
 and the boys graduated from the farm, one as 
 an employee of the Grand Trunk Railway, the 
 other in the lumber industries of the North 
 woods. The eldest daughter married the vil- 
 lage hardware merchant and started a little 
 brood or her own. This left Elizabeth and 
 Mary at home. 
 
 Then Mrs. Tompkins died. The children 
 comforted the father as best they could, but he 
 went about his tasks a little more saddened 
 and stooped. Getting a living from the farm 
 seemed harder every year. The horses were 
 old and slow. The fences needed the attention 
 of younger and stronger hands. The barns and 
 
142 WAYSIDE EXPEEIENCE8. 
 
 other buildings forgot that such a thing as 
 paint existed. The old wagon wheels wabbled 
 and creaked as Farmer Tompkins turned in at 
 his own gate, having made his usual Saturday 
 trip to the village. 
 
 "Here's a letter for ye, Bessie," he called 
 as he crawled down from the wagon at the 
 barn door. 
 
 The girl hearing his call, dropped her work 
 in the kitchen and came skipping toward the 
 barn. "Oh, good, Daddy," she cried, as 
 pleased as a child. Though Bessie was nine- 
 teen, she seemed but a child still, to her father. 
 Taking the letter she scanned the address. 
 "It's from Gertie McDermitt. Let's hurry, 
 Dad, 'cause supper is all ready," and the girl 
 began to assist with putting the horses away. 
 
 Presently they carried bundles and packages 
 into the kitchen and sat down to their evening 
 meal. Once Bessie took out the letter and 
 looked at it, but made no movement toward 
 opening it. The old man noticed, but said 
 nothing. When the supper was finished, he 
 moved his chair toward the stove and said, 
 "Read your letter now, Bessie, and see what 
 she says." 
 
 The girl took the letter from the bosom of 
 her dress, found the shears in the work basket 
 by the window, cut off the end of the envelope 
 and stood reading. The old father smoked his 
 pipe and watched her as she read. Her face 
 brightened as she took in the meaning of the 
 message, and she cried, "Oh, Dad, Gertie's got 
 
BESSIE TOMPKINS' TEST. 143 
 
 me a good job in Detroit. Read what she 
 says. ' ' 
 
 "A job, you say?" her father commented, as 
 he found his spectacles and adjusted them. 
 Mary stood with dish and dishcloth, waiting to 
 hear, and the old man read the letter aloud : 
 
 Detroit, Mich. 
 
 Dear Bessie : I have found you a 
 good place as cashier in the dining 
 room of the Star Hotel. I work in the 
 office, as you know, so if you will 
 come, we can room together. It pays 
 you $7.00 a week and keep, so it ain't 
 so bad. What they want is a good 
 steady honest girl and Mr. Drew, 
 he's the boss he favors country girls. 
 If you want it you must come at once 
 for the other girl is leaving Monday. 
 Soon as you get this you send me a 
 telegram. That is what Mr. Drew 
 says. 
 
 Now, Bessie, be sure to come for 
 this is a good chance and you want to 
 take it. I'll be looking for you 
 Monday. 
 
 Your friend, Gertie. 
 
 Farmer Tompkins folded the letter, put 
 away his spectacles and relighted his pipe. 
 Mary went on with her dishes and Bessie 
 stared at the fire. Not a word was said. 
 
 The old man thought of his dead wife. He 
 thought of the boys, and wondered if Mary 
 
144 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 would soon be leaving him too. Here he was 
 about at the end of the journey. They had 
 worked hard to bring up their children, then 
 just as they are old enough to be of some help, 
 off they go to shoulder their own burdens and 
 responsibilities with families, care and duties 
 of their own. There is no place in their lives 
 for an old man. He felt sure his wife might 
 have been with him yet but for her hard work, 
 trying to keep the girls at the village high 
 school, until they had finished. Still he could 
 not blame Bessie if she wanted to make her 
 own way in the world. Most all the decent 
 young men had gone to the larger towns and 
 cities from about there, and the girls would 
 have to follow, he guessed, if they made re- 
 spectable marriages. All his girls were good 
 looking and knew how to work. How could it 
 be otherwise with the mother they had? 
 
 Through the smoke from his pipe he saw 
 the face of his wife, young and happy again, 
 just as she was when they came out to On- 
 tario to get a farm of their own. But now 
 she was dead, and he an old man, a lonely old 
 man without her. As he sat there so silent and 
 thoughtful, he sighed, and a tear stole down 
 his cheek. Mary saw it and went into the pan- 
 try to hide her own. Bessie saw it too, and 
 said, "Oh, come now, Dad, I ain't goin' if you 
 don't want me to." 
 
 ''Well, little daughter, you're the baby, yet 
 I must not forget you're a woman grown and 
 
BESSIE TOMPKINS' TEST. 145 
 
 have a right to a chance. Do ye want to go, 
 Bessie?" 
 
 "Yes, Dad, I want to go and I'll tell you why. 
 One's enough at home and Mary's goin' to stay 
 with you. If I get along good, I can send 
 home part of what I earn to help and besides 
 I '11 be making my own way. ' ' 
 
 "All right, Bessie, go and try it. Ye know 
 where home is, and that ye got a home to 
 come to if ye need it." 
 
 Then they sat in silence and the old man 
 smoked. When the little old clock on the shelf 
 struck nine, the father arose, stretched his 
 arms and started for bed. At the door of his 
 room he paused. "Ye better take that early 
 train in the mornin', Bessie, even though it 
 be Sunday. So get your things ready." 
 
 That settled it beyond question. The old 
 clock was nearly ready to strike for midnight 
 when the sisters got to bed. The trunk had 
 been packed, the new suit laid out for the jour- 
 ney and every detail that a young woman con- 
 siders important had been attended to. Yet 
 Bessie could not sleep. Her mind was full of 
 her coming experience. When toward morn- 
 ing, she did surrender to the demands of na- 
 ture, she dreamed of roaring railroad trains 
 and rushing crowds of people. 
 
 At the station the old man kissed his daugh- 
 ter good bye. "Bessie," he said, "ye 're goin' 
 out into the world and it's hard. Ye 're good 
 now and I want ye to stay good. If trouble 
 and temptation comes, remember your mother 
 
146 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 and me. Don't ever come home if ye can't 
 come as good as ye 're leavin' now. We'll ex- 
 pect ye every Christmas time anyway an' if 
 ye don't come, I'll I'll know ye ain't good 
 any more so there ye have it. Good bye, 
 Bessie." 
 
 "Good bye, Dad, I'll be good and I'll be 
 home." 
 
 When the train pulled out, the girl saw her 
 father rumbling down the road toward home, 
 with his old team and wagon, his bent form out- 
 lined against the light beyond. 
 
 "Poor old Dad, I will be good," she said 
 to herself. 
 
 The new cashier at the Star Hotel restaur- 
 ant was what the boys on the road called "a 
 good looker." Her round healthy face had a 
 smile for everybody. Any girl with good looks 
 and a smile will have plenty of friends. Bessie 
 seemed to attract them without effort. She had 
 a kind of innocent freshness, yet so intelligent 
 and keen that people liked to know her. Many 
 a fat veteran of the road would say,, "Keep 
 the change, keep the change!" and Bessie on 
 seven dollars a week could not appreciate the 
 evils of tipping. She told Gertie, who warned 
 her not to let "any of them guys get too 
 fresh," that she was going to be a good fellow 
 to everybody; that she thought a girl had 
 no need to make herself a grouch in self 
 protection. 
 
BESSIE TOMPKINS' TEST. 147 
 
 Often one or several, if the place was 
 crowded during the rush hour, would gather 
 about her desk to chat. Some would hand her 
 a flower, others would share the chewing gum 
 and occasionally a box of chocolates would be 
 slipped through the window of her cage. 
 
 ''Do you ever get out of this cage?" asked 
 Perry Winters. Perry was a regular and al- 
 ways had a ticket to punch. He had a place 
 of some kind with a bank, messenger or some- 
 thing. Bessie never knew just what his posi- 
 tion was, though he seemed to have plenty of 
 money to spend. 
 
 "You make me think of a nice little canary 
 bird. Can't you chirp us a little tune?" 
 
 "No, I am no canary bird. May be I am a 
 hawk and I might scratch your eyes out," 
 laughed Bessie. 
 
 The Holiday time came and Bessie made her 
 first visit home. The children and grandchil- 
 dren were all there. The old man sat at the 
 head of the table and said the grace. He 
 thanked the Lord for his children. He prayed 
 they might all be spared to meet around that 
 family table another year. "Keep us," he 
 prayed, " as it were, in the hollow of Thy hand, 
 and if so be Thy will any of us are called to go, 
 make us ready to meet those waitin' on the 
 other side." 
 
 It all seemed so sad and morbid all the 
 time thinking and talking about death. She 
 wondered why old people have to bring in this 
 
148 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 subject on every occasion. She only stayed 
 two days at home. It seemed rather dull and 
 small. It was good to be back again in her 
 cage at the restaurant. At parting with her 
 father, she said, "111 be home this Summer, 
 Dad, and next Christmas too. I'm still good 
 and you need not worry, Dad." 
 
 Winter passed and the Summer came. De- 
 troit in Summer is always happy. There is so 
 much to do and to see and so many places to 
 go. The girls at the Star Hotel were at liberty 
 at eight o 'clock in the evening and Bessie often 
 joined Gertie and others for their outings. 
 There was dancing at Belle Isle Park, and at 
 the Amusement Parks up and down the river. 
 Summer garden theatres and many other so- 
 called places of innocent amusement received 
 their attention. Sometimes they went with 
 young men by appointment. Other times the 
 girls went alone, depending upon "catching 
 fellers" for dancing partners. Bessie did not 
 quite approve of this plan, but the other girls 
 seemed to think it was all right, so she made 
 no protest. She could not stay cooped up in 
 "that stuffy old hotel" all day and all night. 
 
 At first she had been sending home fifteen 
 dollars a month from her wages, but as Summer 
 came along she seemed to need so many new 
 things to "look decent" and seven dollars 
 a week does not go very far that the monthly 
 home lift did not go. At the parks and thea- 
 tres, she saw other women and observed their 
 
BESSIE TOMPKINS' TEST. 149 
 
 hats, jewelry and dresses. She often sighed 
 and wished she were rich instead of just a 
 seven dollar a week restaurant cashier. 
 
 "Say, kid," said Perry Winters, one day. 
 We're getting up a little auto party for Sun- 
 day night. There'll be three couples and I 
 want you to go with me. You'll be off Sunday 
 afternoon, so we can start early. We will run 
 out around Mt. Clemens, and stop at Wesley's 
 Road House for supper and get home by eleven 
 or twelve. Gertie's going with Bob, then 
 there's Bill Smith and his girl. What do you 
 say, Bessie?" 
 
 "I'll think it over, Perry and let you know 
 tomorrow. Very nice of you to ask me," and 
 Bessie reached for the next ticket to punch. 
 
 She talked with Gertie about the trip, and 
 was urged to accept. She had seen Billy 
 Smith with Bob and Perry but had never liked 
 his manner or looks very well. However, they 
 would, go. Girls on seven dollars a week can't 
 afford to be too particular, if they want to have 
 any good times at all. 
 
 The merry party in the big touring car 
 started early. The machine went purring 
 along the smooth roads. It was an ideal June 
 afternoon. As they spun along the North Riv- 
 er road, the setting sun glinted across the water 
 of some inlet here and there as they passed. 
 On the other side they caught glimpses of the 
 big steamers going or coming, with the black 
 smoke trailing out behind, sharply outlined 
 against the blue of the water and the sky. 
 
150 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 "That's St. Clair Flats off up there," said 
 Perry. "We'll take that in some time this Sum- 
 mer, Bess," and Perry seemed settled in the 
 intention of making himself a permanent escort 
 for the pretty cashier. The young man was 
 driving the car with skill and caution. As 
 he brought the big machine whirling along its 
 way, the girl could not help feeling a thrill of 
 admiration as she sat by his side. "What a 
 grand world it is, ' ' she thought. * ' Oh, why are 
 so many of us poor, and why so few to have 
 all the good things?" She thought of her 
 father and his wobbly old wagon. She asked 
 herself, What's the use? What's the gain? 
 People that have things are the ones who go on 
 and get them. There is no virtue in rusting 
 out in some isolated corner of the world, 
 thinking you are worthy and godly. For her 
 part, she wanted to be among those who know 
 things and do things not the humdrum, tasks, 
 but the things of an interesting life of change 
 and variety. Even the thrill of danger and the 
 risk of disaster made it worth while. 
 
 She saw her philosophy of life that day in 
 the way Perry handled the car. She saw that 
 their very speed had in it the elements of 
 safety. She had heard someone say it was the 
 cautious drivers that had all the accidents. 
 Once as they spun along they took a railroad 
 crossing with but a second or two margin. 
 The fireman on the locomotive put his head 
 out the cab window and yelled something that 
 Perry said sounded like calling them damn 
 
BESSIE TOMPKINS' TEST. 151 
 
 fools. "A miss is as good as a mile," he 
 quoted. 
 
 Then Billy Smith added, "The man who 
 hesitates is lost when driving a car or making 
 love to a girl!" 
 
 "Just the same, please don't take any more 
 such risks again," urged Bessie. 
 
 "All right, kid, you're it," the young man 
 replied. 
 
 They reached the road house about eight 
 o'clock, and, though they had telephoned ahead 
 for a private dining room, they had some time 
 to wait before the dinner was served. The 
 girls retired to the dressing room, to adjust 
 themselves, while the boys smoked under the 
 wide piazza that surrounded the big place. 
 Bessie finished her hair and started to join the 
 boys outside before the other girls were ready. 
 As she came around the corner she saw the 
 three heads close together in the shadow, and 
 she drew back a moment to listen. They whis- 
 pered too low for her to hear, but she was sure 
 Billy Smith said something about the "K.D." 
 but just then the other girls came. 
 
 "Here's Bessie eavesdropping," said Gertie. 
 
 "Yes, I heard Mr. Smith say something about 
 K.D. What is K. D. Billy?" 
 
 Each young man looked at the other, and 
 wondered what reply to make. Billy Smith 
 came to the rescue. "Why that is our way of 
 speaking of the Independent Order of the 
 Knights of Darkness," laughed Billy. "We 
 were planning to initiate a bunch of new mem- 
 
152 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 bers." Then they all laughed loudly as they 
 gathered about the table. 
 
 For a moment the incident made Bessie quiet 
 and thoughtful, but the dinner was served so 
 nicely and so well cooked, that she soon en- 
 tered into the spirit of the merry party. They 
 told stories, and recited toasts, some a little 
 suggestive and a bit off color, but decidedly 
 funny. Perry was a perfect mimic and a good 
 actor. They had a song or two from the boys, 
 some bits of parody nicely fixed to serve for 
 the occasion. It was a jolly party. 
 
 When the wine came on Bessie hardly knew 
 what to do. She had never tasted wine in her 
 life. She sipped a little but did not like the 
 taste of it. The others filled again, and the 
 boys urged her to "Come on and be a good 
 sport. " The girl wished she was in her little 
 room at the hotel. She managed, however, to 
 get down about half her glass, after repeated 
 sips. 
 
 By and by, when the dinner was finished, 
 Billy Smith, who claimed the honor of being 
 chairman of the house, arose and said, "Now, 
 ladies and gentlemen, the Captain of the Mystic 
 Crew orders each gentleman to escort his lady 
 through the labyrinth of the Castle of Wonders 
 and to show her all the secret passages, haunted 
 chambers, also the relics of past ages. The 
 Dragon is chained in No. 13, but beware of his 
 fiery breath. Noble Knights, advance ! ' ' 
 
 At this the young folks arose and the cur- 
 tains pulled aside, revealed a long hall with 
 
BESSIE TOMPKINS' TEST. 153 
 
 many colored lights, dim and weird, the effect 
 of which was emphasized by mirrors cunning- 
 ly set. At the doorway marked ' ' No. 13 ' ' they 
 paused to look in. There they saw, coming, as 
 it appeared, from the mouth of a great cave 
 a monster green dragon. Its eyes blinked fire, 
 and the hideous mouth hissed flame or seemed 
 to the whole scene illuminated by lights so 
 dim that shadows danced and flickered to con- 
 fuse and startle the beholder. The girls 
 screamed a little. 
 
 "Silence," said Billy. "The Imps of Dark- 
 ness demand silence." 
 
 So they went on from one surprise to an- 
 other. They saw devils dancing in the fire. 
 They looked upon a naked Eve holding an ani- 
 mated conversation with the Serpent. They 
 met Cupid and Psyche glowing in shocking 
 nudity. They saw also the Centaurs of the 
 wood, making love. There were many speci- 
 mens of fine art, exhibited for art's sake, but 
 the city police department had no jurisdiction. 
 The road house was outside the limits. 
 
 Bessie never remembered all she saw. 
 Things began to get hazy before long and she 
 said, "Oh, Perry, I'm feeling funny. I believe 
 I'm I'm going to faint." 
 
 Perry helped her into a little room off the 
 "Mysterious Castle of Wonders," and laid 
 her on a couch. The other two couples had 
 disappeared. 
 
 "Perry bring me something a dish a pail 
 anything," cried the girl holding her hand- 
 
154 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 kerchief over her mouth. In an alcove stood 
 a bed and near it a stand with a wash bowl and 
 pitcher. Perry brought the wash bowl. 
 
 "Oh, Perry, I'm so ashamed," she finally 
 gasped. 
 
 "It's a shame to lose all that good dinner," 
 Perry commented. 
 
 "I'm so sick, Perry, take me home." 
 
 "You'll feel better presently, kid. We can't 
 go till the others are ready." 
 
 Bessie lay there on the couch thinking. She 
 began to understand. She trembled a little as 
 she wondered what was best to do. She knew 
 the wine had been drugged and she felt sure 
 she knew for what purpose. 
 
 "If you don't mind I'll shut my eyes a lit- 
 tle," she said with a wan smile. Perry sat in 
 a chair by her side holding her hand. He was 
 a bit frightened. The K.D. had not worked 
 just as Billy said it would. By and by the girl 
 began to talk as if in a dream. 
 
 "Yes, Dad I'm home again I'm still a 
 good girl too, Dad. You said you said I could 
 not come home if I did not stay good. It was 
 hard hard just as you said it would be, Dad 
 hard for poor girls. They take us take us 
 for a good time they don't call it a good time 
 except except to make us bad. Oh, Dad, 
 I want to stay home now it's work work, 
 anyway for poor folks, no matter where you 
 are. Don't let me go back, Dad, 'cause I'm 
 good now. Don't Dad, don't don't don't!" 
 
BESSIE TOMPKINS' TEST. 155 
 
 Perry was shaking her by the shoulders. He 
 had sent for a glass of milk. "Here wake up, 
 Bessie and drink this. Don't you worry no- 
 body's going to hurt you. You'll be all right 
 soon." 
 
 After an hour or so, they went out on the 
 piazza. There Perry talked. The girl had but 
 little to say. Presently the others joined them. 
 The two girls staggered a little, but somehow 
 they were bundled into the car and away the 
 party went for the city. It was almost morn- 
 ing when they arrived. 
 
 "You can tell the Boss, we got stalled, and 
 could not get here sooner," said Billy Smith 
 as they parted. 
 
 Bessie was at her post as usual, but her smile 
 was wanting. Gertie did not appear, sending 
 word that she had a bad headache. 
 
 "Hello, Perry, how are the Knights of Dark- 
 ness?" This was Billy Smith's greeting when 
 the boys met next day. 
 
 "I'm sorry we tried that game on those girls. 
 Bessie is a good straight girl. I'm done with 
 that sort of thing, Billy," said Perry. 
 
 "Oh, hell, what do those hashers expect? 
 Do they think we blow our money on biscuit 
 shooters for nothing?" 
 
 "Well, count me out, I say. I've learned a 
 lesson I've had enough," and Perry looked 
 his friend squarely in the eye. 
 
 "You must be hard hit, Perry, eh? Maybe 
 we'll be getting an invite to a wedding." 
 
156 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 "I could do worse than to marry Bessie 
 Tompkins, I can tell you that," and Perry 
 turned on his heel to walk away. 
 
 The Summer wore away and the girl in the 
 cashier's cage at the Star Hotel restaurant was 
 moulting her illusions. Of all those who had 
 sought her friendship was there one .she could 
 trust and depend upon? What did it all 
 amount to? Week in and week out, the same 
 routine. She had used her salary to buy what 
 she thought she needed. She could then go the 
 rounds and wear out the things she had 
 bought and after that repeat the process. She 
 thought of the folks at home the same dreary 
 outlook faced her there. What did life amount 
 to anyway, especially for poor people? She 
 wondered if there were any really happy per- 
 sons in the world. She read in the paper one 
 day about a poor girl who had thrown her- 
 self into the river and found a watery grave 
 and peace. She did not blame the girl. She 
 even wished she had the courage to do the 
 same thing herself. Bessie Tompkins surely 
 had the blues. 
 
 Perry tried to be friendly; hoped she felt 
 none the worse for their trip; sorry it had 
 turned out as it did. "You know, kid," he 
 said, getting confidential, "I am through with 
 that bunch. I'm going to do what you'd like 
 to have me, Bessie I mean it." 
 
 Bessie only smiled. There were more tickets 
 to punch just then, and Perry passed out. 
 
BESSIE TOMPKINS' TEST. 157 
 
 "Mr. Drew," said Bessie one day, "I've been 
 here a year now and I guess I'll go home. 
 There is nothing in it. What's seven dollars a 
 week and meals, also a little room to sleep in? 
 It's a living, yes, but we can get that out on 
 the farm. It gets on my nerves to be poor in 
 a city. I don't mind it out there. You can find 
 plenty to take my place. I think I'll go 
 home. ' ' 
 
 "What's wrong, Miss Tompkins? Hitting 
 me for a raise? Well, I'll make it ten dollars 
 a week, if you'll stay. You suit me and I'd 
 rather not change. What do you say?" 
 
 "No, I am not bluffing you for more money. 
 Ten dollars is better than seven just three 
 dollars better in fact, three dollars to spend or 
 save. In about a thousand years I could save 
 enough to count. Inside a thousand years, I'll 
 be dead. No, I'm blue and homesick. Let me 
 go home to my Dad." 
 
 "All right girl, take a vacation anyway. 
 Maybe you will be ready to come back after 
 you've been there a month. I used to feel 
 that way myself, but I got over it. I'll hold 
 your place for you." 
 
 So Bessie packed her trunk again. "What 
 have I to show for my year's work?" she 
 asked herself. "Well, here's four pair of silk 
 stockings somewhat worn need darning at the 
 heels two pair of high heeled shoes, a little 
 lop-sided, one voile skirt and one picture hat, 
 also a small bundle of unpleasant memories, 
 and a list of risky experiences wherein I came 
 
158 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 near compromising myself. I have also a well 
 established bump of discontent in my head. 
 Maybe life is worth more treading the pave- 
 ments, but just now I'd rather go up in the cow 
 pasture and sit under a tree. I've tasted of 
 life, yes, I've had several proposals, one for 
 marriage the others for something else I'm 
 highly honored and highly favored, still I've 
 got a bad taste in my mouth. I'm going home 
 to Dad, while I can, for I'm still good. I'm go- 
 ing back where robins build nests and folks 
 can be trusted because they're honest. I'd 
 rather be the wife of a good clod-hopper, than 
 the legal doll of a swell rascal. Yes, Dad, I'm 
 coming. I had a letter today from John." 
 
 Bessie's soliloquy was interrupted here we 
 regret to say for she had more practical 
 thoughts coming. It was Mr. Drew. He paid 
 her the last week's salary and added fifty dol- 
 lars "as a slight token for a year of faithful 
 and honest service," he said. 
 
 "Are you sure it is not a bait to have me 
 come back, Mr. Drew?" Bessie asked. 
 
 Near the city of London, Ontario, is a little 
 Canadian village, and not far from this village 
 is the home of an honest Canadian farmer. An 
 old man sits by the fire smoking his pipe. He 
 don't work any more now he's too old and 
 Mrs. Parkins that's Bessie says Dad don't 
 need to work. John Parkins says so too and 
 what John says, goes. 
 
BESSIE TOMPKINS' TEST. 159 
 
 Bessie also says Dad's lots of help tending 
 the baby. The old man smiles when people call 
 John a good farmer don't the old place, the 
 new house and the barns all fixed over and 
 painted red, show it? The old man still calls 
 his Bessie a good girl and insists that the baby 
 looks just as she used to. 
 
 The little old clock on the shelf strikes 
 seven, and Mary has just finished the dishes. 
 
The Biophoretic Healer. 
 
 PARIS, April 9. "My discovery, myco- 
 lysine, which I am. confident will greatly 
 prolong human life and revolutionize the 
 practice of medicine, is available to duly 
 authenticated American physicians for 
 test and experiment if they apply to me 
 through the American Embassy. ' ' 
 
 In these words Dr. Eugene Louis Doyen, 
 a famous physician and surgeon outlined 
 the manner in which physicians in Amer- 
 ica can test for themselves the substanti- 
 ality of the claims Dr. Doyen made for 
 his new * * elixir of life " in a paper he read 
 before the medical congress at Monaco re- 
 cently. Newspaper Clipping. 
 
 The old Chase residence had been long va- 
 cant. Standing as it did facing a busy 
 thoroughfare in one of the older residence dis- 
 tricts, people wondered at its continued un- 
 occupancy. Perhaps its very massiveness, its 
 colonial grandeur both of interior and exterior, 
 made it quite out of harmony with the average 
 tenants' needs and requirements. To one en- 
 tering its wide doorway, the walls seemed to 
 moan out a sad history of past owners families 
 scattered and lost in the whirlpools of modern 
 life, or perchance dead and sleeping in the 
 peace of the grave. A cold and tomblike at- 
 
12 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 mosphere filled the stately halls, and one might 
 fancy admonitions of " Silence" would meet 
 him at every turn. A prospective tenant usu- 
 ally went away with a peculiar shiver creeping 
 over the spine. Though suave agents talked 
 glowingly of the possibilities of the place, for 
 some reason the Chase place long remained 
 tenantless. 
 
 The surprise and evident curiosity of the 
 neighborhood can be well imagined, when 
 workmen of every craft appeared, and with 
 energy and dispatch, remodeled, renewed and 
 refitted the whole premises, changing in sur- 
 prisingly short order the neglected aspect of 
 the place. Presently also, vans came bringing 
 furniture and fittings and the whole place as- 
 sumed an air of brisk activity. 
 
 Adjacent window hangings carefully screen- 
 ed many curious onlookers, who saw a stout 
 little man of foreign type, everywhere manifest 
 as the authority in the work at hand. Who 
 the newcomers were still remained a mystery. 
 
 Not that people, as a rule in large cities, care 
 to know their neighbors, yet who could make 
 use of the old Chase property, was a question 
 of some moment, especially to the ladies of the 
 vicinity. Within a day or two a sign appeared 
 before the gate, gold lettered and hung with 
 grotesque iron fittings. It read: 
 
 DR. A. SCHMOLDT 
 Biophoretic Healer. 
 
THE BIOPHORETIC HEALER. 163 
 
 A liveried footman paced up and down the 
 walk or loitered in the entryway, ready to wait 
 upon actual or prospective callers. True he 
 had little to do at first, but as an advertisement 
 he served a good purpose, and there came a 
 time when he was a very busy man. 
 
 People saw and wondered. They saw first, 
 then they came and last were conquered, dis- 
 turbing the ancient order of the Roman's mes- 
 sage. Many consulted their dictionaries to 
 determine the nature of this new healing art. 
 Light on "Biophoretie" healing was hard to 
 find, but most concluded it meant something 
 good appearances so indicated at least. 
 
 Curiosity is said to be a leading trait of the 
 feminine mind, and curiosity was working in 
 behalf of Dr. A. Schmoldt. In a few days it 
 had something tangible to work upon in the 
 shape of beautifully engraved invitations to 
 attend "my Thursday afternoon lectures on 
 Health". With the invitation was enclosed 
 a neatly printed circular entitled: "Biophor- 
 etic Healing. ' ' It was this circular that did the 
 business. 
 
 This circular said in part, ''Death is unnatu- 
 ral and unnecessary" which was a startling 
 statement. Nearly everybody expects to die 
 sooner or later, hence to be told that it is both 
 unnatural and unnecessary, could not fail to 
 stimulate our interest. Of all the unnecessary 
 things we do, dying is the least attractive. 
 
 "Death did not belong in the original plan 
 of the Creator it was acquired by the race. 
 
164 WAYSIDE EXPEKIENCES. 
 
 We have still forms of life in our tropical seas 
 that never die ; that still retain the original life 
 power," continued the circular. Mrs. Leopold 
 DeVinne asked old Dr. Blake if this was true, 
 He so assured her Blake knew, for he is pro- 
 fessor of biology at the university and he ex- 
 plained about the oemeba, etc. 
 
 "The human body today contains remnants 
 of the original immortal cells the true Germ 
 cells. We have to die because the somatic cell 
 or body cell predominates. This predomina- 
 tion increases connective tissue. The office 
 of the biophors is to feed the germ cells, but 
 so long as the somatic type holds sway, this 
 vital food cannot be produced in the body. If 
 enough biophors are produced to regenerate 
 the race through the process of reproduction, 
 and continue from one generation to another, 
 Nature has done her best. There is, however, 
 a constantly declining power as is evidenced 
 by the increase of disease and a gradual short- 
 ening of the average life period. Do not be 
 deceived by reports to the contrary, the race 
 is growing shorter lived every century. 
 
 "Now science steps forward to do for the 
 race what nature cannot. Science has analy- 
 zed the biophor and reproduced it. This vital 
 food substance is now administered in an as- 
 similatable form. It dissolves the excessive 
 connective tissue elements of the body, and 
 slowly but surely restores health and youth. 
 Eventually it will bring the race, if accepted 
 and used, to a condition not unlike that of the 
 
THE BIOPHORETIC HEALER. 165 
 
 primitive man, fresh from the hand of his 
 Maker. Life will be thus almost indefinitely 
 lengthened and if administered in the earliest 
 years an Earthly immortality is not unreason- 
 able to expect nor is it unattainable." This 
 and much more the circular said. 
 
 ''How grand! How wonderful!" was the 
 exclamation of many a fair reader, some of 
 whom felt the weight of years and avoirdupois 
 also. Mrs. DeVinne read the circular several 
 times. She was much interested and wondered 
 if by this treatment she could rid herself of 
 about one hundred pounds of excess flesh. 
 
 Dr. Schmoldt's advertising made plain that 
 the seats for the Thursday afternoon lectures 
 could be secured only by appointment and 
 would be limited strictly to forty. Not a mor- 
 tal above this number would be admitted. 
 Names of patronesses for assigned seats were 
 given and it was soon evident that great ex- 
 clusiveness would characterize Dr. Schmoldt's 
 service. While it did not say so, it carried 
 the impression that only people of wealth need 
 apply. 
 
 Those attending one lecture soon spread the 
 good news and admission tickets were eagerly 
 sought for. Offering to a needy and a dying 
 race, as did this learned doctor, a means of re- 
 gaining youth and health, perhaps beauty 
 along with it, pointing out the way without 
 charge, was surely a commendable thing. Of- 
 fering also, his medical skill to those who chose 
 to employ it, at reasonable fees, which might 
 
166 WAYSIDE EXPEElENCES. 
 
 give him some slight return for the many years 
 of plodding labor in the great laboratories of 
 Europe, could not be criticised. He surely de- 
 served some consideration for all this effort, 
 which led up to the discovery of the artificial 
 biophor, the greatest scientific achievement of 
 the age ! 
 
 It was along this line the doctor spoke at 
 the close of his opening lecture, using a marked 
 German adaptation of the English, and effec- 
 tive withal. He seemed to have forty enchant- 
 ed listeners, mostly ladies, though here and 
 there could be seen an anemic coupon cutter. 
 He especially mentioned his morning and after- 
 noon office hours, should any one care to con- 
 sult him. At the close of the lecture uniformed 
 pages handed out more circulars with titles 
 such as "True Selfhood," "Health and Will 
 Power/' "Mind and Disease," "The True 
 Story of the Biophoretic Elixir," etc. 
 
 Dr. Schmoldt and his "Biophoretic Elixir" 
 became the object of much talk in many homes. 
 The healer was discussed in many clubs and 
 circles. True testimony in favor of his powers 
 was still wanting, but none could say aught 
 against his claims. Prof. Blake with his pat- 
 ronizing smile said, theoretically it was all 
 scientific. 
 
 In time ladies, now one, now two, here and 
 there confessed to be taking or to have been 
 taking treatments from the new healer. They 
 were given, they said "very beautiful medi- 
 cine", also certain massage, baths and elec- 
 
THE BIOPHORETIC HEALER. 167 
 
 trical treatment at the healer's parlors. This 
 treatment was necessary they were told, to se- 
 cure an equal distribution of the great Elixir 
 throughout the tissues. This was what the 
 good doctor said at least. It was "woefully 
 expensive", yet few regretted the price, es- 
 pecially if it brought results. However, the 
 attention was perfect and everything so ele- 
 gant. 
 
 One lady confessed she felt ten years younger 
 after one month's treatment. Another had been 
 reduced twenty pounds in weight in an equal 
 time. Thus it came about that the footman 
 before Dr. Schmoldt 's door became a very busy 
 man. 
 
 In the midst of this era of prosperity let us 
 meet personally the now renowned, locally at 
 least, Dr. Aaron Schmoldt. A German of the 
 typical cast, fifty odd years of age, short and 
 stout, but with the glow of youth on his cheek, 
 which he said was due to the use of biophors, 
 but we have seen other healthy German citi- 
 zens who never heard of the "Elixir of Life." 
 Trained in one of the great universities of his 
 fatherland as a chemist, he was a doctor all 
 right but not of medicine. His degree was 
 that of doctor of pharmacy. Since leaving col- 
 lege he had spent his spare time and spare 
 money in chemical experiments. He was one 
 of many about to make a great discovery. 
 With the usual fortitude of his race he had 
 seen himself growing old with nothing achiev- 
 ed. He had dwelt upon the problem of pre- 
 
168 WAYSIDE EXPEEIENCES. 
 
 venting the increase of connective tissue in the 
 human body. Failure had always met him 
 more than half way. He thought of Schale, 
 Hoppe-Seyler and the many martyrs of science 
 and toiled on. Poverty came close and made 
 him taste of the bitterness of life. 
 
 At last he learned from others with whom 
 he came into professional contact, how easy it 
 was to separate the rich Americans from their 
 money. He knew of Prof. Lorenz and heard 
 of the fabulous fees a certain beef packer had 
 paid him. He too, would go to America and 
 have a hand in this money getting game. The 
 remaining part of the story of his evolution 
 need not be told. A few months as a prescrip- 
 tion clerk in a drug store, with study of Eng- 
 lish, a prudent saving of wages to add to his 
 former capital and we have brought the story 
 to his advent as a healer. 
 
 Now a swelling bank account, a growing pat- 
 ronage, and a clear sky for the future put our 
 scientific devotee in a very good frame of mind. 
 The office girl claimed she heard him humming 
 an old Germon love song, but however that may 
 be he was very pleasant and very gracious. 
 
 He had a laboratory and visitors were often 
 shown into this sanctum sanctorum where the 
 great Elixir was made, and the experiments 
 carried on to test its power. We must not mis- 
 judge the good man for he really expected 
 some day to discover the real biophor. He 
 often worked on his experiments into the late 
 hours of night. We might think it worth 
 
THE BIOPHORETIC HEALER. 169 
 
 while to criticise him for premature claims, but 
 other doctors have been likewise guilty. Dr. 
 Schmoldt had one good excuse he needed the 
 money. He would lay tribute on those who 
 had plenty, and using it for such a worthy end 
 as original pharmacological research would 
 more than offset the question of "taint/' 
 " Tainted money" is no uncommon thing in 
 America. 
 
 Sometimes he indulged in speculation as to 
 what would happen if he really did discover a 
 connective tissue solvent. He wondered what 
 fees he might collect for restoring such stiffen- 
 ed up old politicians as the Hon. Joseph Can- 
 non to the full elasticity of youth. He felt 
 sure a certain John D. Rockefeller would give 
 at least a million to be made young again. 
 What a field the ex-actress stars would make! 
 How cheerfully the great bankers would part 
 with their coin to feel again the thrills of boy- 
 hood. He would not hesitate to be young again 
 himself. Memories of youth came crowding 
 into his mind, memories of a sweetheart he had 
 lost because too poor to marry. Ah, it would 
 be a glorious achievement! 
 
 From such pleasant thoughts as these Dr. 
 Schmoldt was summoned one day to one of the 
 treatment rooms where the ponderous bulk of 
 Mrs. Leopold DeVinne lay upon the treatment 
 table. She was in a bad humor evidently. 
 Several months of the treatment had not re- 
 duced her weight an ounce. She had ordered 
 the lady attendant to call the doctor. 
 
170 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 "Vel, vat is et?" 
 
 "Dr. Schmoldt," she said, sitting upright 
 on the table, her massage gown covering her 
 massive legs, "I believe you and your old treat- 
 ment is all humbug. You promised to make 
 me thin. I am fatter than ever. You said I 
 would be young, but I feel utterly old today. I 
 have paid you hundreds of dollars, and all told 
 my friends have paid you thousands of dollars, 
 but I do not believe you have done any of us 
 a cent's worth of good." 
 
 "Vy vy, my gut lady," the doctor began, 
 "you make already too much demper. You do 
 not the Biophor understand. Let me make him 
 to you plain. ' ' 
 
 Then followed a long scientific explanation 
 in which many technical terms of several lan- 
 guages were used, still the good lady seemed 
 dissatisfied. When she had prepared herself 
 for the street, Dr. Schmoldt bowed her out with 
 great politeness. 
 
 "Poof!" he said elevating his shoulders, and 
 went back to his laboratory. 
 
 A few days later the doctor had a caller. 
 The card brought in to him gave no informa- 
 tion other than the name, but he noticed the 
 letters M. D. following it. 
 
 "I am one of the committee on credentials 
 for the Medical Society. We do not find your 
 license registered, doctor, and wondered why 
 you had neglected to comply with the law." 
 The caller looked at the great healer for a mo- 
 ment closely. 
 
THE BIOPHORETIC HE ALEE. 171 
 
 "Perhaps you are not aware that this is nec- 
 essary. Will you let me inspect your creden- 
 tials?" 
 
 "I haf no license. I do not practise medi- 
 cine. Dis is a massage parlor," said the healer. 
 
 "You use medicine do you not?" 
 
 "I some time prescribe a tonic. I am a 
 pharmacist. Dere is my diploma. I do not 
 use medicine like a doctor." 
 
 "What does this mean, where you describe 
 a certain Elixir?" asked the caller, pulling a 
 circular from his pocket. 
 
 "I import dat Elixir from Paree I furnish 
 it just the same as the druggist." 
 
 "Why do you use the title Doctor if you are 
 not an M. D.?" 
 
 "Vel, I am a doctor all right for reasons of 
 business I need not say what kind of a doctor, 
 vat?" 
 
 "Well, I will file my report, and I feel sure 
 you will hear from this matter again soon. 
 Good day." 
 
 "Very glad to met you, gut day, doktor," 
 said the healer. 
 
 "Got in himmel," said the now alarmed 
 Schmoldt," I wonder vat troubles he makes." 
 
 Immediately he left the house to consult his 
 attorney. 
 
 The next day the old Chase residence was 
 again for rent. The healer had disappeared. 
 Officers found the house empty. During the 
 night vans had again carried the furniture and 
 
172 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 fittings to unknown vaults. The bank account 
 was withdrawn at the opening hour and Dr. 
 A. Schmoldt passed into the memory of things 
 that disappoint and hopes that are vain. 
 
 Some of the ladies discussed the matter at 
 the Women's Club. 
 
 "It's a pity these doctors have to run every- 
 thing," one said. 
 
 "There is no such thing as medical free- 
 dom," said another. "If I want to pay Dr. 
 Schmoldt or anybody else for treating me, that 
 is my business and no affair of the Medical 
 Society." 
 
 "I see Dr. Schmoldt has migrated," said 
 Prof. Blake to Mrs. DeVinne. 
 
 "Yes, the old fraud." 
 
 "Oh, well I did like his theory very much. 
 We may hear from him again. Who knows? 
 Who knows? Wonderful theory," and the 
 old professor moved off toward his classroom. 
 
Susan Hillis- -Theoretical 
 Mother. 
 
 Society in that little Southern town was sur- 
 prisingly elite even punctilious. Susie Mar- 
 vin Susie is the youthful name for Susan, as 
 you know, yet Mrs. Marvin always used the 
 adult name for the more tender cognomen 
 when she wished to be emphatic Susan Mar- 
 vin I commenced to say, was one of the leaders 
 if not the leader of Harpersburg society, at 
 least for her particular generation. There had 
 been other leaders before her of course her 
 own mother for instance but Susie had been 
 child, maiden and woman she had been born, 
 budded and came out naturally it seemed to 
 set the pace for Harpersburg. 
 
 At twenty she had many admirers, also 
 among whom were a few very persistent ones. 
 This could not be otherwise for Susan was 
 bright, witty and energetic. She had too, what 
 people call beauty. Any healthy American 
 girl is beautiful for that matter, but Miss 
 Susan Marvin, with her blue eyes, pink cheeks, 
 light wavy hair, plump figure and sprightly 
 manner was well endowed by Nature to claim 
 much from the world, let her be called a beauty 
 or not. 
 
174 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 To all this add the fact that Susan had been 
 sent away to a "finishing school." This had 
 given her decided polish. She came home with 
 advanced ideas. She often talked of woman's 
 rights, the responsibility of motherhood, child 
 culture and all those intellectual things so 
 much more worthy of our conversation than 
 the ordinary prattle and neighborhood gossip. 
 This was her sentiment. 
 
 Susan expected to be married and she 
 wanted to be a mother. She confided to her 
 few most intimate girl friends that she wanted 
 two boys and one girl. It would be so nice to 
 have the boys a few years older and grow up 
 as brotherly protectors for the sister. They 
 would see to it that no improper association 
 was brought into the sister's life, and their 
 desire to keep her good will and good opinion 
 would exercise a restraining and beneficial in" 
 fluence upon them. These imaginary sons were 
 to be model boys and model men. They would 
 be such a credit to their parents and to 
 themselves. 
 
 It was a pleasure to hear Susie go on about 
 these unborn children. She had it all planned 
 out from the day of conception even, to say 
 nothing of the day of birth to the great day 
 of successful and noble manhood. Her eyes 
 would glisten as she told of her plans these 
 secret delicate plans so near to a young wom- 
 an's heart and not confessed to everybody, or 
 indeed not scarcely to anybody. 
 
SUSAN HILLIS THEORETICAL MOTHER. 175 
 
 In some way, perhaps accidentally, Susie had 
 run across a book on eugenics. This she had 
 digested thoroughly. By much reading and 
 thinking she had what might be termed a good 
 idea of theroretical matrimony and mother- 
 hood. She knew all about prenatal influences. 
 In her quiet moods she pictured the features, 
 dispositions and tendencies of these imaginary 
 children. One, the first, a son should have 
 musical talent and might be dedicated to the 
 church. Susie was thoroughly religious. She 
 had just then read "The Little Minister/ 7 and 
 to have her firstborn give his life to the min- 
 istry would be a glorious thing. She also read 
 "The Calling of Dan Matthews,'' and her son 
 should be like Dan, only he would stick to his 
 calling. 
 
 Once she let her imagination drift away un- 
 til it turned out a day-dream in which she saw 
 a young man of noble mien, standing in the 
 pulpit, filling the great church with his elo- 
 quent voice, moving a great congregation to 
 enrapt attention. She thrilled with pleasure 
 and pride as she looked about her this dream 
 was so real and saw many moved to tears. 
 When the service was over and the people pre- 
 pared to leave someone near leaned over the 
 pew and asked, "Who is this wonderful new 
 minister ? ' ' 
 
 "That is my son. His name is " Alas, 
 
 what would his name be? The startling fact 
 that she could not tell the lady his name, the 
 
176 WAYSIDE EXPEEIENCES. 
 
 name of her own son, brought Susie back to 
 her own world and she laughed heartily. 
 
 "There is no use counting your chickens be- 
 fore they are hatched," she said to herself, 
 which it seemed to me, was a very pertinent 
 remark. One thing had been settled, however, 
 the first boy would be John, just plain John. 
 
 How true it is that all these woman thoughts 
 are but the promptings of motherhood. This 
 wonderful Cosmic call to procreate is the great 
 dominating passion of all life. Susie and all 
 her kind do not express it so, but their ad- 
 miration for men is but the process for select- 
 ing suitable subjects to be fathers of their 
 children. Those men who admire Susie and her 
 kind, do not say so and perhaps do not know 
 it consciously, but what that admiration really 
 says is, "There is a girl that would make a 
 fine mother for my children. ' ' 
 
 Wonderful Cosmic urge. 
 
 Susie was twenty-two when she decided that 
 William Hillis was the man. She came to this 
 decision by the process of elimination, and it 
 just had to be, naturally, Billy Hillis. 
 
 "You see, it is this way," she said to her 
 mother one quiet afternoon as they talked it 
 over. That was one good thing among many 
 good things about Susan, she made a confidante 
 of her mother. 
 
 "I sure see it will be some way right soon. 
 I reckon it's the best way too, though it 11 be 
 
SUSAN HILLI& THEORETICAL MOTHER. 177 
 
 hard to see you go, Susan." Mrs. Marvin 
 wiped a tear from each eye. 
 
 "Mother dear, you all you know I will al- 
 ways be your daughter and will always love 
 you just the same." 
 
 "Yes, yes, honey, I know, I reckon I know. 
 Now tell me." 
 
 "Well, it's this way. There is Sam Douglas. 
 Sam is good but headstrong. His family is all 
 right, but I can't help thinking of the old 
 Judge when I am with Sam. So out goes he," 
 and she folded her little finger into her palm. 
 
 "Now this is George Norris. I like George. 
 He is a jolly good friend but too sporty. The 
 future never enters his head. He is a good 
 fair weather fellow, but I don't think he would 
 bear the storm. Out goes George." The ring 
 finger was then closed. 
 
 ' ' Now comes Perry J. Perkins. Perry knows 
 money when he sees it. His father's bank will 
 be Perry's bank some day. It is a good family 
 too. Perry's sister Jennie has always been my 
 best chum. How would Perry do, mother?" 
 
 "Susan, child, your father and me will be 
 suited when you are." 
 
 "Then, mother, I'll tell you why I am going 
 to marry William Hillis if he asks me, and I 
 reckon he will tonight. Billy is good, kind and 
 has no bad habits. His family is old, respected 
 and among the best as good as ours. He is 
 ambitious and has a good future in his profes- 
 sion. He isn't so much on looks, but makes 
 up for it in character, and and mother, I 
 
178 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 think I like him better than any boy I ever 
 knew." 
 
 Then the two women wept a few minutes 
 quietly. 
 
 Billy did ask and was accepted. The town 
 of Harpersburg congratulated both Billy and 
 Susan. The wedding, honeymoon and all that 
 went along as such things usually do. All this 
 is not a part of our story. 
 
 William loved his wife. No doubt about 
 that. When they took the train for a new 
 home in a large northern city where Billy had 
 secured a good position in the engineering de- 
 partment of a great steel manufacturing con- 
 cern, he said, "Never fear, mother, I'll take 
 good care of her." 
 
 "I know you will, William," yet Susan's 
 mother cried as if she doubted it. These fam- 
 ily partings seem hard, yet such is the way of 
 life. We should be used to it by this time. 
 
 Billy and Susan had been married a year to 
 the day when John arrived. Susan had been 
 getting ready for him for months. She made 
 all the dainty little baby things with her own 
 hands. She read a good deal, good fiction and 
 religious writings. She read "The Logic of 
 Christian Evidence," Paley's "Law and Evi- 
 dence" and other works of sound theology. 
 She wanted to give John his bent for the min- 
 istry. She kept herself cheerful and happy in 
 spite of some aches and pains for she wished 
 
SUSAN HILLIS^-THEORETICAL MOTHER. 179 
 
 him to have a good disposition. John should 
 be a model baby. His mother knew the im- 
 portance prenatal impressions and influence. 
 
 Mother Marvin had come North for the great 
 occasion and to lend her skill and aid in the 
 trying time. She declared she could not stand 
 the Northern niggers Susan had a colored 
 cook just then "If they was down our way 
 they'd soon learn their place." The obstrep- 
 erous cook was banished and Mrs. Marvin car- 
 ried the whole load of household affairs alone. 
 She'd rather do it, she said, than have to stand 
 these Northern niggers. 
 
 When baby John was washed and dressed 
 and Grandma laid him on Mamma Susan's arm 
 in the bed beside which sat the proud and 
 happy Billy, the young mother said, " Isn't 
 he glorious, Billy? God is good oh, so good. 
 Now I'm a mother. I'm paying my debt. But, 
 Billy, I don't think I want any more at least 
 I don't think so just now." 
 
 Baby John cried a good deal. He seemed 
 to have all the forty different kinds of colic 
 and Billy said he yelled just for the fun of it. 
 At the office some one told him about the 
 Jewish man who said, "Ve haf a ten tousand 
 dollar baby up at our house, but ve vould not 
 gif ten cents for anoder just like 'im." Billy 
 said he agreed with the gentleman. 
 
 Mother Marvin's methods of baby training 
 did not agree very well with Mamma Susan's 
 but rather than give offense she decided to let 
 
180 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 things go until she should get up. Then she 
 would start in rightly with baby John and he 
 would soon be a good baby. But Susan did not 
 get up for a month, and by that time John's 
 bad habits seemed somewhat confirmed. He 
 would sleep days and yell nights of course 
 1 'yell" is not a nice word but that was what 
 Billy called it. 
 
 Still baby thrived, and when Susan got 
 about Mother Marvin went home. She said the 
 less mother-in-law we have about as a steady 
 thing is, as a rule, the better. Billy said he 
 wished all mother-in-law records were as good 
 as his. 
 
 "I don't think you will have to come again 
 very soon, Mother not for the same purpose," 
 Susan said at parting. "I've changed my 
 ideas some lately." 
 
 "Oh, well, we shall see we shall see," was 
 Mrs. Marvin's reply. 
 
 Little John did like music. When a year old 
 he would get a basin from the kitchen and a 
 tack hammer or something and creep into the 
 living room. Then he would pound away so 
 loudly no one could talk and be heard. Of 
 course company said it was so cute, but Mamma 
 Susan would say, "Why son, son John, you 
 can't do that." Then she would take the 
 things away from him. In a few minutes he 
 would have either the same objects or some- 
 thing equally effective and resume his labors. 
 Mamma would repeat the disarming process, 
 at which the sensitive feelings of son John 
 
SUSAN HILLIS THEORETICAL MOTHER. 181 
 
 would be decidedly hurt and he would make 
 loud music with his own voice. At this junc- 
 ture mamma would beg to be excused to take 
 baby to another room, where after many sorts 
 of cajoling his wounded heart would be for- 
 gotten in sleep. 
 
 Presently Mamma Susan would return say- 
 ing, "He was sleepy, that's all. Still I will ad- 
 mit I have had all my baby theories spoiled. 
 This boy John just upsets all my plans for 
 him." 
 
 When John was two he was too cute for any- 
 thing. He would catch the cat by the tail and 
 throw him down stairs and say, "Ta tat," 
 and point his thumb at the discomforted crea- 
 ture. Once kitty rebelled and the cat came 
 back with a good scratch across the child's 
 hand and arm. It took considerable nursing 
 and petting to sooth his heart after this. He 
 kept saying, "Tat hurt John's warrum." 
 When those final sobs ended in sleep, mamma 
 laid him on the bed saying, "Poor little son." 
 
 Kitty was banished. 
 
 Susan was telling callers one day how Papa 
 William had said he would have to take the 
 kinks out of John and how the baby at break- 
 fast that morning had said, "Papa, I take 
 tinks out of oo." Mamma thought it was a 
 funny story, and little John thought so too, 
 for he laughed with the rest. His ego was al- 
 ready swelling rapidly. He was the center of 
 
182 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 the stage. He ruled the house. He was getting 
 to be master of all he surveyed. He was such 
 a cute child. 
 
 By this time William Hillis had won promo- 
 tion and felt established enough to buy a home. 
 It was a new place, eight rooms, modern but 
 undecorated. They decided to leave the walls 
 as they were till son got a little older, and too, 
 to make the old furniture do. It was already 
 well marked and dented by the baby's busy 
 hammer, and the walls were not long wanting 
 his attention. He discovered he could pound 
 holes in the plaster, and papa's pencil was 
 handy to trace all kinds of criss-cross marks 
 along the white spaces. Of course Mamma 
 said, * ' Why son, son John, ' ' and took the pencil 
 away. He was such an active child. 
 
 Summer came and John was now three. The 
 porch with its improvised gate would hold him 
 no longer. He had discovered that there were 
 other children in the world. Many times a day 
 Mamma Susan would seek him, calling "John, 
 son John, come home," but son John paid no 
 heed. She usually carried him home held under 
 an arm with his heels beating a vigorous tattoo 
 against her back and his lusty voice letting 
 the whole neighborhood know his displeasure. 
 
 Next door lived the Greens. Little Lizzie 
 was four and Benny six. They were gentle 
 children and humored him. John often played 
 with the Green children. One day things did 
 no go to suit him, so he caught up the little 
 sand spade and with one sturdy blow on the 
 
SUSAN HILLIS THEORETICAL MOTHER. 183 
 
 head with his three year old arm, felled Lizzie 
 to the walk where she lay unconscious until 
 discovered by a passer-by, who called the 
 alarmed mothers upon the scene. For this John 
 received a "good whipping, " which he seemed 
 to forget by the next day. 
 
 Mrs. Green informed Mrs. Hillis that here- 
 after John could not play with her children. 
 "He's just a little savage and you keep him 
 at home until you can teach him better." This 
 and other things she said quite forcibly. Billy 
 had a fence built between the lots. Susan was 
 dreadfully hurt about John. She talked to him 
 a good deal, then some more. 
 
 It began to dawn upon Susan that mother- 
 hood was something more than theory. The 
 child worried her. The only peace she had was 
 when John was asleep. Billy noticed how thin 
 she was getting, and her pink cheeks were pale 
 now. 
 
 "You must have help Susan," he said. 
 
 "Will, the last three girls I had left on ac- 
 count of baby. I just can't have these outside 
 influences in the house." 
 
 It was a proud day when little John, now 
 five years old, was carried away to the kinder- 
 garten. It was great fun riding in the wagon, 
 a row of children facing all about, with a kind 
 teacher to oversee them. The school was but a 
 few blocks away and Mamma Susan could see 
 the building from the front porch. About an 
 
184 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 hour after the wagon had rumbled away with 
 the children, she looked down the street. 
 There she saw John trudging homeward with 
 a larger boy following at a respectful distance. 
 "Why, son, son John, what is the matter?" 
 was the mother's greeting. 
 "I don't like that school. I came home/' 
 Just then the older boy came up the steps 
 and handed Mrs. Hillis a note. It read: 
 
 Dear Mrs. Hillis: Your son is so incor- 
 rigible we let him go or rather sent him 
 home for the present. If you will come 
 with him for a day or two I think we will 
 get on all right with him. 
 
 He has never learned the least idea of 
 obedience and has no conception whatever 
 of the rights of others. 
 
 Come with him tomorrow. 
 
 Respectfully, 
 Martha Allington, Teacher. 
 
 Poor little Mamma Susan, first angry, then 
 chagrined, burst into tears. John stood mutely 
 by watching her. Finally she dried her eyes 
 and asked, "What did you do at school, 
 John?" 
 
 "Nothing! I just shoved a boy out of my 
 way that's all." 
 
 "What then?" 
 
 "That teacher came the one with things on 
 her eyes she came and set me up on a high 
 chair." 
 
 "Then?" 
 
SUSAN HILLIS THEORETICAL MOTHEE. 185 
 
 "Then I got down. I won't sit on a high 
 chair, so I won't." 
 
 "Then what?" 
 
 4 'She put me up again, then then I kicked 
 at her." 
 
 "Oh, son, son." 
 
 "Then I wouldn't stay any more, an' she 
 said, 'Go home, boy, go home.' " 
 
 "Then what?" 
 
 "Then I came out an' that boy kept fol- 
 lowin' behind me. One time I turned 'round 
 and made a face at him." 
 
 Again Susan was cast down with the con- 
 viction that she had failed as a mother. She 
 wondered why. She tried to analyze the whole 
 thing. The words of that note from the teach- 
 er kept ringing in her ears: 
 
 "Never learned the first idea of obedience. 
 No conception of the rights of others." 
 
 She had tried to be so patient with John. 
 He was such an active child, so full of life, she 
 could not confine him altogether. She could 
 not correct and punish a baby for every little 
 baby trick. What was wrong? Those cruel 
 words could not be true. "Never learned the 
 first idea of obedience. No conception of the 
 rights of others." What had he been sent to 
 the school for? Did they expect little angels 
 of perfection to come to them? 
 
 When John was eight he was kidnapped 
 at least he said he was. Two rough men, 
 tramps he called them, took him down the rail- 
 
186 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 road track and were waiting for a train to 
 come along to carry him off. Watching for a 
 chance when they were not looking he had 
 slipped away and came home. Susan believed 
 the story, and made William believe it. They 
 called in the police and from them the news- 
 papers heard the tale. It made a good 
 item and the boys with noses for news worked 
 it for all it was worth. The "tramps" read 
 the story and went to headquarters. 
 
 They worked they said, at the Riggles Liv- 
 ery Stable. The boy had been a frequent 
 loiterer about the barn and had been suspected 
 of stealing whips. On this day they hid and 
 watched him. When he had selected a whip 
 and skipped away they ran after him, caught 
 him, took the Whip away and gave him a few 
 good cuts with it. This sent him home crying. 
 
 This version of the story was told to John's 
 parents. It seemed as if the boy had some 
 diabolical skill for revenge, since in that state 
 kidnapping is punished by life imprisonment. 
 The welts and bruises John bore now looked 
 very differently than when supposed to origi- 
 nate in a fierce struggle with two ruffians. 
 
 Mamma Susan threw herself upon the boy's 
 bed that night and cried as if her heart would 
 break, but John was obdurate. 
 
 "Those men told lies they did mamma, 
 they did." 
 
 "Oh, son, I'd rather see you dead and put 
 in the cold ground than have you grow up a 
 
SUSAN HILLIS THEORETICAL MOTHER. 187 
 
 liar and a thief. Oh, God, what have I done 
 to deserve all this? What have I done?" 
 
 Tears stood out in John's eyes. He did not 
 like the thought of that cold ground, but he 
 would not confess. 
 
 When John was sixteen he managed to fin- 
 ish the Grammar school. He did not like study 
 very well and was somewhat backward in his 
 work. He told his father he wanted to go to 
 work. He was already a confirmed cigarette 
 user and had other vices his parents knew 
 nothing of. He said he wanted to be a man 
 and get into men's work. He had education 
 enough. 
 
 By this time William held an important office 
 with the steel company and had a good income. 
 He urged upon John the importance of his get- 
 ting such an education that he might follow 
 his father in the same line of work. The boy 
 had always had plenty of spending money, but 
 he never knew the value of a dollar by earn- 
 ing one with his own labor. 
 
 "You can settle the matter right now, my 
 son," said William, "you are going to school. 
 Just when and for what purpose we will de- 
 cide before the time comes." 
 
 Before the matter was settled, however, John 
 had disappeared. Not a trace of him could be 
 found. 
 
 The worry and suspense made Susan sick. 
 She seemed already an old woman. Care and 
 anxiety had driven all the bloom from her 
 
188 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 cheeks and the wavy hair was streaked with 
 gray. 
 
 Days and weeks went by but not a word 
 from John. The coming of the postman, so 
 closely watched at first, no longer interested 
 her. She knew he was dead. Then at other 
 times she imagined him living and wandering 
 about, begging for food at people's doors. Dis- 
 pair had taken a firm grip on Susan's heart. 
 The only solace she had left was to pray for 
 John. Every night she wondered where he 
 was; if he had any place to sleep. At every 
 meal she could scarcely eat thinking how John 
 might be hungry at that moment. 
 
 William had employed detectives, police and 
 newspaper advertisements. He had followed 
 down many false clues. His advertisements 
 brought many letters from people impersonat- 
 ing John and asking for money. But no word 
 came from anyone concerning the real John. 
 
 Six months passed, then one day a telegram 
 came. 
 
 Brooklyn Navy Yard, 
 Joined the navy. Come and get me out. 
 
 John. 
 
 Both mother and father started for New 
 York at once. Susan revived wonderfully 
 when she knew John was alive and no doubt 
 well. She chatted about what they would do ; 
 how good it would be to have John at home; 
 how they must take him into William's office; 
 get him interested in some worthy endeavor, 
 
SUSAN HILLIS THEORETICAL MOTHER. 189 
 
 etc. To all this William said little. He 
 seemed unusually quiet and thoughtful. 
 
 At the Navy Yard they found John, enlisted 
 under an assumed name. One of the govern- 
 ment launches took them out to his ship. It 
 was an embarrassing meeting. The boy hardly 
 expected to see his mother. He was looking 
 for his father to come and take him away, as 
 he had seen other fathers do with their sons. 
 His face got very red and he swallowed hard 
 at times as if something choked him. 
 
 ''Oh, son, why did you do it?" This was 
 Susan's greeting as she clasped her boy in her 
 arms. 
 
 There is no need to dwell upon the visit. 
 Mother and father were shown over the ship. 
 It seemed like a great floating white castle to 
 them. Everything moved like clockwork. Or- 
 der, system, cleanliness, obedience, law and 
 punishment were there. There had been a 
 long interview between William and the com- 
 manding officer. 
 
 " You 11 see about it tomorrow, won't you, 
 Dad?" 
 
 This was John's good bye question as they 
 left for the hotel. After supper William said, 
 "I want to tell you a few things, Sue. I think 
 we had better leave John where he is. For a 
 few hundred dollars I can arrange his release, 
 but I am sure it would be a bad investment." 
 
 "But William, think how the boy will feel 
 if we don't take him home." 
 
190 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 "Think how we will feel if we do. No, 
 little wife, I've let you ran that boy ever since 
 he was born, but it's time now I took a hand 
 before it's too late. John Hillis is going to 
 stay in the navy and serve his time out. It 
 will make a man of him." 
 
 By tactful explanation John was finally re- 
 conciled to trying it a while longer. By the 
 time his first home leave came, he had begun 
 to take some pride in his new life and work, 
 letters from his teachers and officers began to 
 praise his deportment and progress. After the 
 visit home, he went back determined to stick 
 it out. 
 
 John is still in the navy. He has two more 
 years to serve. In his last letter, among other 
 things he said, "Yes, mother, it is a sure thing, 
 they do teach, us to obey orders and we get 
 a mighty good notion of the rights of others." 
 
 After John had gone Susan said, "William, 
 God is good. I think we better have another 
 baby right away before it is too late. I think 
 I am better fitted now to be a mother. I have 
 learned that motherhood means something 
 more than a loving heart and the organs of 
 reproduction. I want to try again, Billy." 
 
Joel Rigby's Monument 
 
 The old man had been talking nearly all the 
 morning with "one o' them travelin' agents". 
 The invalid wife had seen the "goin' on" from 
 her usual outlook, seated by the "settin' room" 
 window. During the interview Joel Rigby 
 and the agent had come from the barn to the 
 front porch, and from where they sat looking 
 over the catalogues, sundry low voiced re- 
 marks had caught the ever-alert ear of the old 
 lady, dulled by age and sickness though it was, 
 yet keen enough to know what was going on 
 about the premises. She had the usual ques- 
 tion mark of fear common to all pessimists. 
 Harm is always looked for, but good is not ex- 
 pected. If it comes, it is a wonder, that is all 
 there is to it. 
 
 Stray glimpses too, she caught, of pictures, 
 as she looked across the porch from the win- 
 dow where she sat, and had been sitting 
 most of the waking hours for the past twenty 
 years. The pictures gave her at once a grave 
 suspicion that "Pa" was again bent on buying 
 a monument. She had on several previous oc- 
 casions thwarted a like purpose, and she meant 
 to do so now. 
 
 Had these catalogue books been open to 
 "Ma" as they had been to the good old man, 
 
192 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 certainly nothing less than another "bad 
 spell" would have followed, for there was no 
 end of death suggestions: Angels with hover- 
 ing wings, all carved from the immortal mar- 
 ble, stationed on square and circular pedestals ; 
 also cherubims with glad smiles, to say nothing 
 of lambs, doves and open books. All these 
 Joel Rigby saw with just a little shiver run- 
 ning up and down his spine, and faithful care- 
 taker that he was, and had been all these years, 
 he knew full well the danger of taking "Ma" 
 into the details of this monument transaction. 
 
 Ma let us fall into the old man's way and 
 call her so had been dying for twenty years, 
 or it was expected she would die most any time. 
 Some of the neighbors were cold hearted 
 enough to say it might be a good thing, for it 
 would give Joel a chance to have a little peace 
 before his own time came. Some were willing 
 to bet she would outlive the old man yet, for he 
 was then eighty-seven. Long since the village 
 doctor's gig ceased hitching at the Rigby gate, 
 and for a year or two it had not even halted, 
 as the doctor flew by, his long white whiskers 
 and hair flying in the wind. 
 
 Mrs. Joel Rigby kept track of things. "Pa, 
 I wonder who 's sick up the plank road to make 
 Dr. Black in such a powerful sight of hurry?" 
 Joel knew this meant he should waylay the 
 doctor or any passerby to gain the desired in- 
 formation. 
 
 When a woman of Lucretia Rigby 's deter- 
 mination had made up her mind to be incurably 
 
JOEL RIGHT'S MONUMENT. 193 
 
 sick there was no further use for a doctor. It 
 is true Joel would at long intervals hail the 
 passing doctor. "Now you're passin' Doc, 
 come in and see my wife. ' ' The doctor under- 
 stood what "now you're passin' " meant. He 
 would not be expected to charge a regular fee. 
 The expense, this played an important 
 role in all the Rigby deliberations. Ma's 
 greatest virtue had been to save. Not a thing 
 could go to waste about her domain. Even the 
 decaying apples must be used first, and Pa had 
 once braved reproach to suggest that she kept 
 them eating "rotten apples all the time, trying 
 to save the sound ones." 
 
 But this monument matter was an important 
 event. There had been two hundred dollars 
 in the Wellsville Corners Bank for some time, 
 laid aside for this special monumental purpose. 
 This was not all that scrimping and scraping 
 for fifty odd years had accomplished to be 
 sure, for there was much more in this and other 
 safe places. But this monument fund had 
 waited patiently for the opportune time to be 
 used for its destined purpose. Joel had been 
 "lottin' " on living to see the family properly 
 represented in the village cemetery. 
 
 Now as he bid the friendly agent good-bye at 
 the stable door, a settled feeling crept over the 
 stooped and tottering old man, a feeling that 
 comes to one who believes that an eternal peace 
 has been made with the Almighty and the last 
 worldly duty properly done. The illustrated 
 monument catalogue was tucked away in the 
 
194 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 little box at the barn where he kept his ' ' Sweet 
 Cuba Fine Cut" tobacco and his "pep 'mints". 
 Years and years ago he had fought and won 
 the battle which forever gave him these two 
 indulgences, and in the oft repeated phrase of 
 the morning prayer about "forgivin' and for- 
 gettin' our sinful indulgences," fine cut and 
 peppermints played an important part. 
 
 Monument No. 241 had been selected. A 
 square, massive granite block, with sloping top 
 and on either side a polished space for names 
 and other data. The agent had carried away 
 the paper upon which the old man had scrawl- 
 ed the family names and dates. 
 
 "Now remember," Joel said at parting, "I 
 ain't signed nothin' an' if that stone ain't sot 
 up by Decoration Day I don't want it." 
 
 "Oh, we shall surely have it there by that 
 time, ' ' the agent insisted, carefully putting the 
 folded paper in his pocket book, thinking it 
 might serve as evidence of the order if need 
 arose. 
 
 "I never sign nothin'' Joel had said. 
 "When the stone is sot up the money is ready." 
 
 The book safely hidden the horse Billy re- 
 membered with a "pep 'mint" or two, then the 
 poor old man collected all his courage and tot- 
 tered off toward the house, where he knew the 
 ordeal of explaining what he had done and 
 what he had not done, awaited him. He mar- 
 veled now, as he made his way along the grass 
 path, how little he feared what Ma might say, 
 but buying a monument was different a part 
 
JOEL RIGBY'S MONUMENT. 195 
 
 of one's last earthly acts, he thought, and this 
 lent him justification. He had faithfully re- 
 ported and consulted, even abided by Ma's 
 judgement in every business detail during all 
 those fifty odd years of their married life. Now 
 to break over and really do something of which 
 he knew she did not approve, called for super- 
 human strength, and surprised him how little 
 he seemed concerned. As he went along he 
 hummed his favorite tune, "Oh, Happy day 
 that fixed my chice," as he said it, and this 
 was his song, treading the narrow pathway that 
 led to the house. 
 
 In the early days Joel Rigby had been a 
 drover, and some even yet lived who said he 
 was a tricky buyer and seller, but so many 
 years had passed since Joel had been little else 
 but his wife's faithful nurse, and doing little 
 else save now and then some feeble plodding 
 about the garden and doing the ' ' chores ' ', that 
 such a character, had he rightly deserved it, 
 was long since forgotten. A faithful mourner 
 at the communion bench at the "Corner's" 
 Methodist Church, Joel often sought consola- 
 tion with tearful eyes and endeavored to feel 
 that he had made and was making full atone- 
 ment. He always "jined" in the singing and 
 his quavering old voice told very well the story 
 of his spiritual enthusiasm. Better evidence 
 still of the old man's sincerity was his prayers. 
 When he testified of the "savin 'grace" and said 
 how he hardly knew where he should have been 
 that day but for "my wife's prayers" he never 
 
196 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 failed to bring forth a loud chorus of hearty 
 and fervent "amens", even though the same 
 story had been told a hundred times before at 
 the " class meetin' " hour. 
 
 Such was Ma's faithful servant, nurse and 
 attendant through all these years the decided 
 old lady had sat in her usual chair in her usual 
 corner of the "settin' room." True this service 
 from time to time had been augumented by a 
 "woman" employed after due deliberation and 
 discussion especially of the matter of wages. 
 A liberal pension from the government and 
 habits of constant scrimping had kept them 
 far from penury, but "Ma" could endure a 
 "hired woman" only about so long. The kit- 
 chen floor, though scrubbed every morning 
 "right after prayers and dishes" and always 
 so respected by Joel that he tip-toed across 
 it, was never quite so white as she used to 
 keep it. One thing and the only thing about 
 which she was willing to boast was the fact 
 that she was neat, and always had been so. 
 Neatness was a twin sister of godliness and 
 they were never separated in her mind. 
 
 In former years it was not much trouble for 
 Ma to put the pans and other utensils in their 
 proper places. These "hired wimmin" never 
 could learn that the yellow bowls must be 
 turned upside down and arranged in a row 
 from large to small on the third shelf, and that 
 the bone handled knives and forks must be 
 placed side by side at the South end of the 
 second shelf. Then too, the "salt risin' emp- 
 
JOEL RIGBY'S MONUMENT. 197 
 
 tins" were always "spilin' " and they peeled 
 the "pertaters as if they weren't worth a dol- 
 lar a bushel, an' the very best part is right 
 next the peelin'." 
 
 "Land sakes, dew tell that woman to pack 
 her duds and go. I'm so nervous my heart's 
 bustin'." This remark had been heard many 
 times in the old farm house, and Joel would 
 bundle "that woman" off. Then often for 
 a week or a month, two whole dollars a week 
 had been saved, besides "what the critter 
 wasted and et herself." A long respected 
 Rigby axiom had been, "Savin' is the same as 
 earnin'." It was observed that a three dol- 
 lar a week woman lasted less time than the two 
 dollar grade. The more expense involved the 
 sooner it undermined Ma's nerves. 
 
 Along the path came Joel humming "Oh 
 happy day" just as if this monument business 
 had not come up to be fought out. Two hun- 
 dred dollars! Years and years had passed 
 since a sum of even two figures had been spent 
 all at one plunge and now to think of a sum 
 with three figures should make one tremble. 
 But Joel felt never a tremble. He was think- 
 ing how fine and grand that monument would 
 look, standing there on the hillside in the vil- 
 lage cemetery. 
 
 As he passed the corner of the house, now 
 as usual he rolled his well worn quid into his 
 hand and gave it careful scrutiny. Deciding 
 that the goodness was all out of it, instead of 
 placing it carefully in his nickel tobacco box, 
 
198 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 he deposited it at the root of the old poplar 
 tree along with many companions of like fate, 
 which made a neat little mound there. Joel 
 never chewed tobacco in the house. It made 
 Ma nervous. 
 
 "Joel," came the commanding voice from 
 the sitting room. Mrs. Rigby never said 
 "Joel" except on serious and important oc- 
 casions. 
 
 "Come in here." The old man approached. 
 "Why, Pa, dew look at your boots." 
 
 Looking as bid, the old man hastily tottered 
 off to the kitchen steps where he gravely and 
 slowly swept and brushed his cowhides, mean- 
 while realizing that he had less courage than 
 he thought. The task done, he once more en- 
 tered the invincible presence. This time her 
 gaze fixed itself upon his face instead of his 
 feet. 
 
 "Pa, go wash your face; you'll feel better. 
 There is somethin' on your whiskers too." 
 Could it be possible that in the excitement of 
 the monument ordering he had forgotten his 
 tobacco juice ? Such a thing had been so often 
 called to his mind, that his usual habit was to 
 gather the long white beard in his hand and 
 hold it well away from the line of his abundant 
 expectoration. Clutching it now, he obeyed 
 again and gave his face a thorough scrubbing 
 at the kitchen sink. At last approaching the 
 sitting room door, he asked meekly, "Did ye 
 want anything, Ma?" 
 
JOEL RIGHT'S MONUMENT. 199 
 
 " Codfish and saleratus! Dew I want any- 
 thing?" 
 
 Here the little old lady set her thin lips firm- 
 ly together and fixed her sharp black eyes on 
 her husband. A picture of discomfort he sat, 
 his long white beard twitching nervously as he 
 twirled his thumbs and looked at the floor. 
 The well patched over-alls hutched up nearly 
 to his shoulders and a "jumper" of like ma- 
 terial covered his bony frame, and covered too, 
 a kindly heart. He often bemoaned their 
 lonely and forsaken lot, with no kith or kin to 
 help them along the last years of life. It was 
 a problem he had never been able to solve, 
 just as we other mortals often fail to realize 
 what course of conduct builds for a happy and 
 peaceful love-cared old age. It is a great art 
 to grow old gracefully and cheerfully. 
 
 "Be you goin' to buy a monument?" 
 
 Here he was face to face with the long and 
 short of it. 
 
 "Why Ma, I've been lottin' on dewing it for 
 a long time now, an' I'm lookin' into it a little. 
 I haint really done it yet I signed nuthin'. I 
 told 'em what they could do, that's all," he 
 hastened to explain. 
 
 "Lottin on it! I'm not lottin' on it you 
 may be, but I'm not," and she brought out the 
 "I" with emphasis. "Land sakes! I rather 
 have the money to keep us out of the poorhouse, 
 instead of piling it up there in a new fangled 
 tomb-stun. We've got nobody to be weeping 
 
200 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 around anyway." The old lady lifted her 
 glasses to wipe away her tears. 
 
 " There, there, Ma, don't take on so. I can 
 tell 'em not to bring it. I ain't signed nuthin'." 
 
 "No, but your sot on havin' it, and it's just 
 sinful vanity. I'd a good sight rather other 
 people would put up my monument. If they 
 can't remember us without a tomb-stun, it'll 
 take more'n that to make 'em do it. Oh, my 
 head is going to bust ! ' ' and rocking to and fro, 
 the old invalid pressed her hands to her tem- 
 ples. 
 
 "But Ma, Squire Brainard set up his tomb- 
 stun an' nobody said nuthin'," the husband 
 urged. 
 
 "There, there, never mind, never mind, 
 'nough said. Pa, you put the kettle bilin' for 
 some tea." Glad to escape, the old man shuf- 
 fled from the room. 
 
 The monument however, remained the one 
 great item in Joel Rigby's mind during the 
 days that intervened the agent's visit and 
 Decoration Day. If the promises were kept, 
 the ever-enduring granite block would mark, 
 with dignity and good taste the last resting 
 place of the Rigby family. He hoped nothing 
 would happen. Surely nothing could happen 
 to him or anybody in so short a time. 
 
 Somewhere ' ' out West ' ' a daughter, the only 
 child that had blessed their home, was sleeping 
 in the peace of the grave, and though years had 
 flown, Joel thought how fitting and appropri- 
 
JOEL RIGBY'S MONUMENT. 201 
 
 ate it would be to have Ludencia removed and 
 brought home to rest along with Pa and Ma, 
 and where the new monument would, by Deco- 
 ration Day, mark well the family burial place. 
 All this however, was dismissed with a sigh. 
 He did not know how Ma would take it, and 
 then too, there was the expense. They never 
 heard from Jim, Ludencia 's husband. Jim 
 might object to such a plan. Ma had opposed 
 Jim. He was not good enough for Ludencia, 
 she said, but the girl had a will and a mind of 
 her own. Some said she came honestly by it. 
 For his part he liked Jim well enough. In the 
 parlor there was a daguerreotype picture of 
 Jim and Ludencia just after they went away. 
 There had been no wedding. They just drove 
 away and were married, hardly saying good bye 
 to the old folks. Ludencia had written sending 
 the picture, saying how happy she was and 
 asking forgiveness. They never wrote letters, 
 and "out West" somewhere was almost out of 
 the world. It was out of their world his 
 world Ma's world. 
 
 The next news had been a letter from Jim. 
 Ludencia had died giving birth to a little 
 daughter. Ma had taken to her chair soon 
 after that. They did not reply to Jim 's letter. 
 They talked it over, talked about writing or 
 having the squire at the Corners write, but it 
 never came to anything. Maybe the child was 
 dead too by this time. It would be time enough 
 to find this grandchild after they were gone. 
 Let the squire attend to that. 
 
202 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 Only once since the agent's visit had the old 
 lady referred again to the monument. "Pa," 
 she said, "be you sot on gettin' the 
 monument ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' Ma, we aint got much longer to stay here. ' ' 
 The poor old man's voice trembled and a tear 
 stole down his withered cheek. "And besides, 
 I'd feel more comfortable like if we could use 
 a little of what we've got laid by in this way. 
 Then too, we've got nobody to dew for us and 
 nobody to do for, except ma 'be the child." 
 They sometimes spoke of "the child" or "Lu- 
 dencia's child." They had never known her 
 name. 
 
 "Never mind, never mind, there, there, 
 'nough said. I shall have a spell if you keep 
 on," and she motioned him away. The order 
 for monument No. 241 he knew was sealed. 
 
 On the morning of the eventful day that was 
 to bring the monument, Joel Rigby came bust- 
 ling in from the barn with more than his usual 
 alacrity. He had news from the agent. A 
 messenger told him to come down to the ceme- 
 tery at once. 
 
 "Ma," he said, "the monument's come." 
 
 The old lady heard with eyelids closed an 
 indifference entirely assumed to dampen the 
 old man's excitement. She thought him 
 worldly to be so much concerned about such a 
 thing. 
 
 "Ma," coming closer, "it's come." 
 
 "Land sakes, Pa, you act like a four year old 
 
JOEL RIGBY'S MONUMENT. 203 
 
 boy. You'd better send the money to convert 
 the heathen. I'm glad I aint got it to answer 
 for." 
 
 The old man fumbled with his hat a moment 
 and muttered something about going down to 
 "show 'em how to sot it up." 
 
 Old Billy was hitched up in short order and 
 the wobbly old buggy was soon sheltered in the 
 "meetin' house" shed, and Joel was helping 
 at the job of setting up his own monument. 
 
 At last when the final stroke was done, the 
 money paid, the workmen and the agent gone, 
 the old man still stood looking at the stone, 
 reading the names and birth dates. Now and 
 then his hands smoothed down the sloping 
 sides as if to caress it. "Rigby" he repeated, 
 looking down as he read the bold letters at the 
 base. "Rigby" he said again, and his tired 
 head rested against the polished surface where 
 the names had been cut. It was all there ex- 
 cept the date of death. That might not be 
 long he thought. Another year perhaps, they 
 would come and cut the date. "Joel Rigby, 
 
 Born August 5th, 1819. Died , ". It 
 
 was Decoration Day now in his fancy. He 
 thought he saw the comrades, many old and 
 bent like himself, coming to lay a wreath on 
 his grave. He heard the fife and drum. The 
 old G. A. R. boys were marching, the ladies' 
 Corps following proudly in the rear. Flags, 
 big and little, everywhere waving. They did 
 not mind the dusty road or the warm sun. It 
 was a duty they loved and none too feeble to 
 
204 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 make that little yearly march from the hall to 
 the graves, and back to the hall again. 
 
 Leaning now against the monument the old 
 man fancied he heard voices calling him, Lu- 
 dencia's among them. Yes, it was Ludencia. 
 She was running down to the gate to meet him, 
 calling "Oh dad, I'm glad you've come. Sup- 
 per is all ready. My but you look tired ! ' ' 
 
 How tired he felt. Pulling at those ropes 
 and levers with the men, was a young man's 
 work. He was surely an old man now. He 
 heard the girl still talking. He felt her hand 
 in his, but the other voices would not be quiet. 
 If they would only let him rest. Rest, that 
 was all he asked. 
 
 Down the tired old man slowly settled, half 
 sitting at the side of the new monument. There 
 he lay hour after hour, so still and at peace. 
 It was the peace of death. 
 
 Old Billy, calling and pawing in the church 
 shed caused the villagers to wonder. The next 
 morning they found the old man dead beside 
 the stone to mark his grave. On Decoration 
 Day they laid him there, with flags at his head. 
 They marched again with fife and drum, but 
 someway death seemed so near, the ranks of 
 the marchers growing fewer every year, that 
 little but sorrow stirred their minds. Patriot- 
 ism is always tinged with grief. 
 
 On the day of the monument setting, at the 
 farm house a mile or more away, the old lady 
 rocked back and forth in her chair, gently to 
 
JOEL BIGBY'S MONUMENT. 205 
 
 be sure, but restlessly, wondering why Pa did 
 not come. The hired woman must look every 
 now and then to see if there was sight of him. 
 She must be sure and have tea ready, as Pa 
 would be tired. 
 
 She did not realize that the old man was 
 tired no more; that somewhere he was even 
 then rejoicing and awaiting her soon-coming 
 with Ludencia and the angels. 
 
How and Why I Failed as a 
 Wife. 
 
 It has always been one of my fixed inten- 
 tions, to which I have religiously adhered, 
 never to "tell things" about my husband to 
 anyone, not even to my own mother. I have 
 also included in this my mother-in-law. The 
 day I was married my mother said, "Now you 
 have made your bed, lie in it. ' ' It matters not 
 how fully we girls made confidantes of each 
 other and our mother, a practice I always sup- 
 posed was a sign of good moral health, we 
 ended these confidences about the sacred per- 
 sonal matters of the married relation, before 
 they began. 
 
 I have many times held in contempt those 
 wives who prattle about their husbands and all 
 their petty trials with them. I have been 
 shocked at the abandon displayed by some 
 really vulgar talk talk that I have heard 
 wives carry on in their confidential gossips 
 over their teacups. Of what husbands say 
 about wives I know nothing, or knew nothing 
 until now. 
 
 * What shall I say then, when I have read 
 what my own husband, Hugh Stunt, M. D., puts 
 
 * NOTE: The author here has reference to an 
 article published by Dr. Stunt telling his experience 
 as the husband of a "clinging vine." 
 
208 WAYSIDE EXPEEIENCES. 
 
 in print things that I have not dared to 
 breathe to my own mother. At first I was 
 desperate, but now after more careful consid- 
 eration of all things, I have decided to turn 
 the trick. I will give him a liberal dose of 
 his own medicine. Doctor's don't like to take 
 medicine as a rule. They have no use for it 
 but to give to others. I took mine with many 
 tears that is a woman's way her privilege, 
 but I have said nothing to Hugh. I shall say 
 nothing even after this appears unless he be- 
 gins it. 
 
 I was no more surprised when I read Hugh's 
 "Clinging Vine" story than he will be when 
 he reads my come back. I would have nothing 
 to say as far as I am concerned personally, for 
 I know our case involves all those technical 
 points of sex psychology that my husband, 
 Dr. Hugh, a man devoted to his science, should 
 understand very well. It is for the sake of 
 other "clinging vines" like me, I am going to 
 tell the "other side of the story." I am not 
 going to say Hugh Stunt was a spoiled youth, 
 fed on great and glorious prophecies until his 
 ego swelled abnormally. I am not saying he 
 was a pampered, idolized, egoized son of doting 
 parents, who never allowed him to know what 
 a dollar costs by earning it, as Sam Smith's 
 did the classmate he tells us about, who now 
 makes ten thousand a year clear, while he 
 makes but three. I am not going to say dear 
 Hugh is jealous of other men's success and is 
 looking for the "goat"; that poor little wife 
 
HOW AND WHY I FAILED AS A WIFE. 209 
 
 Gabrielle, who for nearly ten years has been 
 his cook and bottle-washer, errandboy and 
 nursemaid, yet, on his own admission, a suc- 
 cessful wife socially and morally she, Gabri- 
 elle must be the goat I am not saying any of 
 these things. I shall not say anything resent- 
 fully or with the sting of revenge in it, for I still 
 love my husband and his silly little clinging 
 vine story is but the outburst of one of his 
 moods. It was hatched in a funk the day he 
 heard from Dr. Sam Smith about the thousand 
 dollar fee he (Dr. Stunt) did not get and was 
 not in a position to get. That fee story sent 
 Dr. Hugh to his den in great pique and there 
 he healed it by committing to paper some of 
 the most sacred and private things psychic 
 things of two family lives. 
 
 His good mother, my mother-in-law, charges 
 me with having no respect for the privacies of 
 others. I wonder what she will say of Hugh 
 now, who has put in cold print many things I 
 never would have dared to mention or cared 
 to mention, but to him. But the worm turns 
 the clinging vine may become a tree, or may 
 not have been a vine at all. The privacies my 
 story will reveal are all honorable and inno- 
 cent ones, and I run no risk in writing of them 
 for I have no reputation to lose it seems. I 
 may have a chance to gain some poor wife's 
 thanks one who loves her husband but who 
 does not know how to manage him and make 
 a great financial success out of him, as Hugh 
 says Sam Smith's "deadly competent school 
 
210 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 teacher" wife did with him. What a misfor- 
 tune it is that men are made or unmade by 
 their wives. Poor tender dears I never real- 
 ized before what a responsibility we wives of 
 men carry on our heads! 
 
 The truth is doctors are a jealous, punctili- 
 ous lot, and my Hugh is the best sample I 
 know. They lay claim to a vast amount of 
 fraternalism but it is on par with what is said 
 of beauty it is only skin deep. Most of them 
 are great bluffers and self-puffers. If one gets 
 an unusually large fee the other fellows go 
 home, lock themselves in and write nasty 
 tirades about their wives, talk strong enough 
 to call for weapons had another said half as 
 much and half as bad. Those who do not gain 
 their mental balance by this method, have 
 other equally desperate and foolish ones. They 
 just have to obtain vent someway. 
 
 Nor would I have you suppose that Dr. Hugh 
 Stunt my husband, whom I took for "better 
 or for worse" and all that, really thinks that 
 success in life is measured by dollars and cents 
 merely, though I admit his story sounds that 
 way. Hugh is not paranoiac these mental ab- 
 errations are only temporary. Time and 
 again I have heard him say that many poor 
 men were a greater success than many rich 
 ones. Success he often declaims, when it fits 
 his mood, is that measure of which we radiate 
 joy, love, goodwill the cheer we inspire the 
 help we lend others the story of what we 
 shed off, not what we gather in to hoard and 
 
HOW AND WHY T FAILED AS A WIFE. 211 
 
 keep. If I were to tell you of the many cases 
 he has treated free of charge, of the thousands 
 of dollars he has never collected from poor peo- 
 ple of our town, and how stubbornly he resents 
 my "meddling with his business," and how 
 vigorously he insists that his home life and his 
 practice must be as historically divorced as is 
 the church and state in America, you might 
 understand more readily why his income 
 slumps to about three thousand a year, while 
 his colleague Sam's runs around ten thousand 
 a year. Hugh would not stand one minute to 
 have me "butt in" about collecting his bills. 
 He does not respect Mrs. Dr. Sam for her ac- 
 tivities. He has said in my hearing that it 
 commercialized the profession, cheapend it, de- 
 graded it into a mere money making trade. 
 Hugh is wonderfully ethical indeed I fear 
 more of a stickler about all those delicate 
 points of the professional code than the usual 
 run of doctors, yet he fails to see how much 
 it costs him to be so traditionally ethical, and 
 blames poor me for the loss. 
 
 I am, therefore for all these reasons and still 
 other reasons, going to tell my side of the story 
 and let you decide if I am a "clinging vine," 
 a living burden and a deadly hindrance to a 
 natural monarch of the forest, or perchance, a 
 weeping willow standing by the side of a com- 
 mon scrub oak. Remember these are Hugh's 
 metaphors, not mine. 
 
 There are too many Hugh Stunts at large 
 in our beloved land to allow such a message as 
 
212 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 his to pass unchallenged. Too many men are 
 so besotted with self-esteem which they cannot 
 turn into cash, that thousands of Gabrielles 
 are in great peril unless I administer my anti- 
 dote anti-toxine or whatever it may be my 
 side of the story. I'll trust it to have some 
 neutralizing effect anyway. 
 
 II 
 
 My father was a farmer's son and my mother 
 a country girl. They were married early in 
 life and I was the third of four daughters to 
 branch out on the family tree. When we were 
 old enough to need better school advantages 
 my father sold his little property and business 
 at the cross-roads and we moved to town. It 
 was largely for our supposed benefit that this 
 change was made. My father then started a 
 feed and coal business, small at first, but it 
 soon grew into some importance in a few 
 years. My father was and is still a genial man, 
 honest and agreeable; he makes friends and 
 customers by square dealing. This plan of 
 business, however, never lifted the family 
 much above the hand-to-mouth stage. We 
 had a comfortable small home which was our 
 own. It was not a very modern house, and 
 father had bought it cheaply on that account 
 no doubt. The second floor space was unequal- 
 ly divided. The smallest of the three bedrooms 
 we kept for what we called our guest chamber. 
 The next in size was father's and mother's 
 room, and the other, the large one, was "our 
 
HOW AND WHY I FAILED AS A WIFE. 213 
 
 room." I do not need to dwell long upon this 
 home picture to show the reason, or reasons, 
 why four girls "herded" in one room, two in 
 a bed. I well remember when Mother Stunt 
 "third degreed" all these things out of me, 
 when I went that week for my official try-out. 
 But of that when I get to it. 
 
 My father was a good business man, and I 
 am sure mother will say, a good husband. We 
 had no fixed income. I remember how father 
 used to say often of a Saturday night, "Well, 
 Milly" mother's name "business was good 
 this week. What do we need?" 
 
 Then mother would get out her list. Shoes 
 for Gabrielle; new hat for this one; coats all 
 around; such and such groceries, etc. My 
 father was what is called a good provider, and 
 four growing girls needed much and many 
 things. As we grew older our needs seemed 
 to increase. My father is a good business man. 
 I say so, and all who know him, say so. He 
 always bought and sold for cash, and followed 
 the rule of "pay as you go or don't go." He 
 kept his books carefully at the feed store, and 
 later when the business grew, had them kept 
 by bookkeepers. He knew his expense account 
 by items: freight, delivery, payroll, house and 
 home, etc. When the profit was good the 
 "house and home" account went up; if profits 
 went down, this fluctuating account had to 
 shrink. That is, we waited for new things to 
 wear, bought less and cheaper things for the 
 table, and kept under the line. 
 
214 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 I never learned the details of this bookkeep- 
 ing, but I knew its general principles and pur- 
 port. It was to live within your income or 
 profits and save a reasonable margin for the 
 rainy day. Mother was a prudent woman, 
 provident but not penurious, liberal not lavish, 
 saving without parsimony. We were taught 
 as children to avoid the penny-wise-pound- 
 foolish system. My father used to say, "Some 
 people waste a dollar's worth of time and en- 
 ergy trying to save a penny." He carried the 
 idea of, not what number of cents can you 
 scrimp out of your income, but how many 
 clean, honest dollars can you add to it, each 
 week. He often talked of people who kept 
 themselves so busy watching pennies that great 
 opportunities for good dollars passed by them 
 unseen. There is a point at which saving 
 ceases to be a virtue. It may become merely 
 a penurious habit. This was his teaching. 
 
 I have gone into these personalities to show 
 what a different heredity fell to my lot than 
 to Hugh's. I say heredity, but I may as well 
 add training also. We are all inclined to think 
 our own brand of these heredity goods the best 
 on the market, as you may notice from the 
 other story, yet with all due allowance for my 
 bias, I will always insist that my father was 
 and is a good business man and did well by 
 his children. Neither do I wish to condemn 
 Hugh's heredity and home training. I merely 
 want to contrast it and hint perhaps well, 
 that there is some truth in the saying about 
 
HOW AND WHY I FAILED AS A WIFE. 215 
 
 people thinking all ways and habits are vicious 
 but their own. 
 
 The income of the Stunt home was a stated 
 salary. Hugh's father knew to the cent what 
 to count upon and the very day to expect it. 
 It was fixed and certain. Expenses are not 
 fixed and are certain to increase, unless careful 
 watch is kept by methods of record and com- 
 parison. Once a month Prof. Stunt received 
 his salary check and brought it home to his 
 wife, who proceeded to dissect it into the vari- 
 ous parts and portions designed for the several 
 uses and purposes of the family. A few years 
 of this simple process fixed upon Hugh's father 
 a chronic salary habit, and upon the rest of the 
 family, especially his wife, certain very nar- 
 row-minded notions about domestic economy in 
 general. A New England Yankee you recall 
 that my mother Stunt is of Boston origin is 
 one of those especially inclined to think no 
 ways but his are right. I admit that baked 
 beans and brown bread are good and whole- 
 some items of civilized diet, but why Saturday 
 night and Sunday morning is the only right 
 time in the week to eat these substantial deli- 
 cacies remains to me an unsolved mystery. Not 
 so to a Bostonian. That has been a settled fact 
 of history for centuries ! 
 
 This Boston bean mystery is no more difficult 
 to understand, however, than why Wednesday 
 evening and no other evening, could be utilized 
 by my mother-in-law to post her account book. 
 I know my bookkeeper sister laughed when I 
 
216 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 told her about it and said, five minutes a day 
 and half an hour a week or month for footings 
 and comparisons, would be plenty of time in 
 which to keep the record of any family house- 
 hold accounts. What interested me was the 
 habit a thing so sacred it came before all 
 other social or religious duties, and amounts 
 to an eccentricity if not indeed to a mania a 
 mild monomania. 
 
 I was not as wise then at nineteen, when I 
 spent that "official try-out week" with mother 
 Stunt as I am now at twenty-nine. I did not 
 realize the meaning of it all. I might have 
 been more tactful, yes, deceitful. I could have 
 said, "What a fine system. Teach me how to 
 do it," etc., yet knowing well all the things I 
 have herein stated. I had been taught that 
 honesty and sincerity were virtues, so it was 
 easy for my prospective mother-in-law to find 
 flaws in my mental equipment flaws as she 
 would judge, because no ways and habits of 
 life were right, but her own. 
 
 I believe thousands of wives will agree with 
 me that it is a question whose home methods 
 were the better, Hugh's or mine, yet it is easy 
 for all to admit each system was suited to the 
 home it served. However, I think I have the 
 best of the argument, when I hold that, like 
 my father, Dr. Hugh Stunt has no fixed income. 
 As a business for getting cash medical practice 
 is irregular and uncertain, often fluctuating, 
 even more so than the profits from a feed and 
 coal business. I do not think anyone will deny 
 
HOW AND WHY I FAILED AS A WIFE. 217 
 
 it was a hard position for me to fill as a 
 sensitive high-strung girl of nineteen. 
 
 There is a point my dear Hugh has lost sight 
 of that I wish to mention here. These very 
 habits of life that naturally follow and influ- 
 ence the whole family one might say infect 
 of a salary habit victim, followed my husband 
 into his professional career. Had he been 
 reared in the home of Sam Smith, whose 
 father, like mine, looked for his income in the 
 profit from a job of work or a car of coal, it 
 would not have been so hard for him or for 
 me. Dr. Sam is not only a good doctor he 
 is a good business schemer. He does not lose 
 sight of the "main chance." They see differ- 
 ent visions. My Hugh sees an interesting case, 
 a brilliant diagnosis. Dr. Sam sees a good fee 
 also, and looks well to its collection. Could it 
 be expected of me, a girl of nineteen, to change 
 all this in my husband? He was ten years 
 my senior, and had I not been so blindly in 
 love with him, had I not thought him so ideal 
 and so perfect, had I had the wisdom to recog- 
 nize his needs then, do you imagine he would 
 have accepted any suggestion from me? Do 
 you? 
 
 Right here I am going to say about the hard- 
 est thing in all my part of the story. Do you 
 think it manly and honorable for my husband 
 to whimper like a sick pup, and lay the blame of 
 what he calls his failure in life upon his wife, 
 who has loved him almost to folly? Another 
 thing: What do you think of a man who at 
 
218 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 thirty-nine calls himself a failure because his in- 
 come is not as much as some other fellow's he 
 knows, who he says wonder how he found it 
 out is not as good a man as he? What do 
 you think of a man who rails at his wife be- 
 cause she does not insist upon buying his socks 
 and suspenders and who tries to dress herself 
 to please him instead of other men ; who blames 
 her because she does not pack him off for a 
 post graduate course in Europe? If you were 
 an Englishman wouldn't you call him a bally 
 ass? 
 
 My Hugh should head the Suffragette move- 
 ment. He thinks wives and mothers, should 
 recognize their obligations in the making of 
 successful husbands. 
 
 Ill 
 
 But I must not get ahead of my story. As 
 fast as we graduated from High School father 
 gave each of us a chance to select what might 
 be termed a calling. Mother had always 
 taught us that the best calling a girl could 
 aspire to was that of being a successful wife 
 and mother a real home keeper. To that end 
 we all knew how to do housework plain house- 
 work with no fancy frills or names attached to 
 it. We knew what order and cleanliness 
 meant, though a speck of dust made no such 
 marked disturbance in our home as it did at 
 Prof. Stunt 's. Mother often said, ' ' The reason 
 why many men have their dens and clubs is. 
 
HOW AND WHY I FAILED AS A WIFE. 219 
 
 they are driven out of the house by nagging 
 wives who give them no peace at home to be 
 natural and easy, contented and restful when 
 they want to relax and smoke." My experi- 
 ence might cause me to add : Wives who want 
 to be queens of homes are apt to be despots 
 also. 
 
 My two elder sisters did not choose to accept 
 offers of marriage, and after study at business 
 college, have filled business positions and are 
 self-supporting, thus saving at least two good 
 men from the burden of " clinging vines" we 
 are all of that type remember. I, the sup- 
 posed to be. best looking of the group, fancied 
 I would like to try music as a career, and I 
 was in the process of making when Hugh 
 Stunt came into my life. I had really "grown 
 up" while he was away at medical college. 
 We knew him or of him, and, as everybody 
 knew and loved the old professor, the son was 
 more or less a local celebrity. 
 
 I was immensely flattered when he began to 
 show an interest in me. I am not going into 
 the details of that year of courtship. I can't 
 do it I count it too sacred to put on paper. 
 It is enough to say we became engaged. This 
 event seems to have wrecked two great careers, 
 Hugh's in medicine and mine in music. I am 
 not dwelling on the promise I gave my teachers 
 of developing great talent. They talked to 
 me of an operatic future. I could sing well 
 and can yet. My piano technique also, was 
 much praised. I could not charge I would 
 
220 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 not say that my dear Hugh has stood in my 
 way of becoming a professional performer in 
 either line of my art. I had my doubts and 
 still have, about my making any real success 
 in such a career. I knew what a slave-like 
 struggle it meant what years of grinding 
 work, what constant devotion it demanded, 
 what rigid codes of living, hygiene, diet and 
 all that, which such an undertaking requires. 
 Luckily I was not inflated with the praise my 
 amateur efforts called forth from biased and in- 
 competent friends and relatives. Luckily I 
 say, for I know now how such hopes unrealized 
 have soured my husband's soul, when they 
 were encouraged in him. Better I thought, to 
 be the wife of the man I love, the mother of 
 his children and the maker of his home, than 
 chance failure in music. 
 
 One day father said to me, "Gabby, Dr. 
 Hugh Stunt was in to see me today and says 
 he wants to marry you. How about it?" 
 
 I knew it was coming, still I felt my face 
 grow hot. 
 
 "Yes, Pa, he's asked me." 
 
 "What did you say?" 
 
 "Why, I I said I would," I stammered. 
 
 "Then what's the use his coming to me if 
 you two had settled it already?" He was 
 laughing so I knew he was teasing me. 
 
 "Now, Pa, stop. You know how it is. We 
 want everybody's approval. That is why 
 Hugh came to you. Don't you like him, Pa?" 
 
HOW AND WHY I FAILED AS A WIFE. 221 
 
 "Oh, yes, I like him well enough. I'm not 
 marrying him though, so it don't matter much 
 whether I like him or not. People speak well 
 of him. Seems a nervous chap and has a case 
 of big head, but they seem to need it now 
 days." 
 
 That same day mother and I had a long 
 talk and a few happy tears together. Among 
 many other things she said to me, I remember 
 this : 
 
 li Gabby, since you and Hugh have been 
 keeping company I have tried to find out what 
 I could about him for your benefit. I do not 
 suppose a girl in love could accept advice, but 
 I'll do my duty by you anyway. Hugh Stunt 
 has lived a very different home life than you. 
 It has been a home in which what they call 
 culture has always been emphasized. The 
 Stunts are mental aristocrats and had they 
 been wealthy they would have been very ex- 
 clusive. I think you will discover that his 
 mother will consider he is marrying beneath 
 him when he marries you. What Hugh really 
 needs is a wife who can bring to him ample 
 means to continue along the same trend of 
 life." 
 
 "But Mother, we are just as good as they 
 are," I interrupted. 
 
 "Yes, as we see it, but well, you will under- 
 stand later. Love is a great leveler, and it may 
 do the thing, if you are both really in love 
 with each other. As near as I can learn Hugh 
 has always been a nervous boy, subject to fits 
 
222 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 of temper, tantrums some folks call it and 
 I hope he has or will outgrow it. He has been 
 so bright at school that great things have been 
 predicted of him and expected of him. He has 
 been taught to think the world should fall at 
 his feet, and if it don't he will blame the 
 world, the stupid world and not himself." 
 
 "Hugh is getting a good practice every- 
 body likes him and says he is a good doctor," 
 I said. 
 
 "Yes, I know, but being a good doctor and 
 getting a money success out of it are two differ- 
 ent things. But I want to speak of something 
 more important, to you at least. He will ex- 
 pect you to come and live with his mother. 
 It would be nice if you could for she would 
 now be left entirely alone. As to whether you 
 should or could is not for me to say. One thing 
 I do know: As the old saying is, 'No roof is 
 large enough to cover two families, ' I fear you 
 would have a sorry time. If it turns out that 
 you have to live with Hugh's mother I hope 
 it may be for the best, I hope so. I am sure 
 you can get along someway, and when she is 
 gone you will not be sorry you were good to 
 her and humored her in her ways." 
 
 This as I remember it, was my mother's 
 warning. You may be sure I accepted Hugh's 
 mother's invitation to spend a week with her 
 with some fear and trembling. 
 
 "I know what she wants," I told Hugh. 
 "She wants to size me up and see what a bad 
 bargain you are making." 
 
HOW AND WHY I FAILED AS A WIFE. 223 
 
 "Nonsense, Gabrielle, mother just wants to 
 get better acquainted with you, since you are 
 going to be her daughter. She wants to know 
 you and you to know her." 
 
 "I know I shall feel as if I were on trial 
 for my life all the time I am there, but I will 
 come. Hugh, I love you so much I want to be 
 and do just what is best for you," I said. 
 
 "I know you do, dear heart, I know you 
 will." 
 
 IV 
 
 One of the first things I noticed when I en- 
 tered Hugh's home, or rather his mother's 
 home, was its stately formality. The very 
 walls reflected dignity, austere precision and 
 cold serenity. Mrs. Stunt greeted me kindly 
 but without enthusiasm. She did not offer to 
 kiss me, nor did I her. We shook hands. 
 
 "If you are going to be Hugh's wife," she 
 began, when we were seated and the doctor 
 had gone about his work, and continued with 
 what sounded to me like a set speech of the 
 lady chairman of the Women's League. I 
 never thought of it then, but I have since won- 
 dered how it happened that Hugh had such a 
 rush of business that week. I scarcely saw him 
 during the whole visit. 
 
 "If you are to be Hugh's wife." I won- 
 dered what the "if" meant. Had she any 
 doubts about it? Was our engagement pro- 
 visional? If I were not to be his wife, what 
 
224 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 was I to be? I had heard of wives that were 
 their husbands' dolls; others that were called 
 clothes horses, but I was not able to fathom 
 what my future mother-in-law had in her mind. 
 Well, she went on to say how she thought it 
 would be best for us to know each other bet- 
 ter, especially if we were going to live to- 
 gether. As she talked I looked about me and 
 asked myself if I could ever be happy in that 
 house in that atmosphere. 
 
 Day by day my visit passed and we got on 
 somehow. The only topic I could introduce for 
 conversation that seemed to arouse any inter- 
 est in her was when we talked of Hugh. She 
 never called me Grabrielle. I was Miss when 
 she addressed me. More often, she would be- 
 gin her addresses with that impressive title, 
 "Say." I was in a flutter of fear and excite- 
 ment all the time I was there. I wanted to 
 make a good impression for Hugh's sake as 
 well as my own. I had a feeling all the time 
 as if she did not want to like me. 
 
 "Oh, Hugh is a wonderful boy," she would 
 say. "He has such a bright future. He has 
 great success with his cases, and all his faculty 
 said he would go to the top of his profession. 
 There are few boys like Hugh." 
 
 To hear all this praise for the man I loved 
 only pleased me and I was a flattering listener. 
 I did not see in it the covert insinuation that 
 he was foolish to waste himself on such a poor 
 prospect as little Gabrielle. It took years for 
 that to seep through my soul. 
 
HOW AND WHY I FAILED AS A WIFE. 225 
 
 One evening she got out her account book. 
 She opened it as reverently as one would the 
 big family Bible. 
 
 "Do you know," she said, "I do not think 
 young people realize the meaning the finan- 
 cial meaning of running a home. If you and 
 Hugh ever expect to get on in life and have 
 anything, you will have to do as I have done. 
 I mean you, yourself. I know Hugh better 
 than you do, as I knew his father before him. 
 If you do not know how and do not manage the 
 purse you will never have anything." 
 
 "I don't know," I replied. "Papa earns 
 the money at our house and he knows from the 
 condition of his business what to allow us to 
 spend. ' ' 
 
 "But I know," she almost snapped. "Those 
 who spend all the business or the law allows 
 never have anything left." 
 
 I knew I had made a blunder somehow, and 
 explained that the money getter should know 
 what the home expense should be what could 
 be afforded. I could see she thought I was too 
 dense to understand her. However, she went 
 on to show me how she knew by her record 
 what it had cost from week to week to live, 
 to run the Stunt home away back year by year 
 long before Hugh was born. I am sure she 
 could have footed up and told me to the cent 
 just what Hugh had cost from his birth to the 
 present moment. It seemed sordid to me, this 
 reducing of life to mere dollars and cents and 
 
226 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 translating all its meaning into terms of 
 money. 
 
 "Hugh, as I said, has a great future in his 
 profession. He is making a great sacrifice in 
 his plans by marrying now, ' ' she said. I knew 
 Hugh had talked of going abroad to study some 
 more, and I thought I knew what she meant. 
 
 "Do you think I shall hinder him? If I 
 thought so I would give him up. I love him 
 too well to want to stand in his way." 
 
 "If you get the right idea of your duty 
 you will help, not hinder. I am trying to show 
 you. Young people in love are blind to the 
 practical things of life. Living costs just the 
 same. You have got to plan ahead, look ahead 
 and provide for next month, next year the 
 future." 
 
 Thus she went on giving me a wholesome 
 discourse on household management and do- 
 mestic economy in general. I took it in the 
 best I could. I did not realize then as I do 
 now, that the habits this good and capable 
 woman had established in her household and 
 fixed in the minds of its members, especially 
 my Hugh's meant so much to me. I did not 
 realize then, as now, that such women teach 
 their husbands to regard them as official stew- 
 ards, shrewd buyers, bargain hunters, and if 
 by all this racing and chasing they obtain the 
 needful at less cost than the month before it 
 is a mark of competency. 
 
 Until now I had supposed a successful house- 
 wife secured her supplies and provisions by 
 
HOW AND WHY I FAILED AS A WIFE. 227 
 
 any reasonable and prudent plan, used these 
 things without undue waste, kept her table 
 wholesome and appetizing, did her housework 
 or saw it done with regularity, order and neat- 
 ness, then if she had any spare time as she 
 should have, she might well spend it in social, 
 church or other public concerns for the good, 
 not only of other people, but of herself and 
 her husband. 
 
 I confess I went home from this visit con- 
 siderably muddled. 
 
 1 ' Well, how did you like mother ? ' ' asked 
 Hugh on his next call at my home. 
 
 "She is a lovely old lady," I replied. 
 
 "But how do you like her?" he insisted. 
 
 "Why, I like her I like her better than 
 she likes me." 
 
 "What do you mean?'' 
 
 "I mean that I will never suit her no girl 
 is good enough, no girl knows enough or has 
 the right characteristics the mind suited well 
 enough to marry your mother's son." 
 
 "Why, Gabrielle, how you talk!" he cried. 
 
 "I mean what I say. Your mother is lovely 
 to you, to anybody who does not invade her 
 life and yours as she fears I am about to do." 
 
 "Nonsense, sweetheart, mother thinks well 
 of you. From all this I take it, you would not 
 like to live with her then." 
 
 "Not if we could do any other way," I 
 said. "I'd rather have just two rooms and be 
 by ourselves than a whole house like yours, 
 
228 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 where I could not be myself and meet my own 
 problems in my own way." 
 
 "Well, dear, I settled that last night and I 
 have come to take you to see the house that is 
 to be our home. Come." 
 
 I was perfectly delighted, and we went to 
 inspect the house Hugh had rented. You can 
 see how much voice I had in its selection. I 
 suppose I should have objected then and in- 
 sisted it was too good, too expensive and made 
 him cancel his lease. Hugh says in his story 
 that apart from my sisters I am unable to 
 make any decision and that I have shunted all 
 this onto his shoulders. He fails, like many 
 men fail, to recognize the difference between 
 the desire to please the one we love and mental 
 incapacity to make a choice. However, in the 
 next breath he says his whole life married 
 life has resolved itself into one choice 
 whether to submit to me or be a brute to his 
 wife. Such lovely consistency! I have always 
 submitted to him, just as about the first house, 
 its furnishings, everything. So far I have sub- 
 mitted to his wishes in another matter so deli- 
 cate and private I hesitate to mention it, but 
 I will. All along I have wanted a baby and 
 still want one. What do you suppose my bus- 
 band said when we first talked it over? We 
 have never mentioned it since. 
 
 "Children, Gabrielle?" he said. "I gave up 
 going to Europe in order to be married. If 
 we start in raising a family, I will never be 
 able to go." 
 
HOW AND WHY I FAILED AS A WIFE. 229 
 
 Do you blame me for tears? Do you wonder 
 that I dislike to speak of these great privacies ? 
 So far I have given up what should be the 
 greatest desire of a woman's heart mother- 
 hood. I have laid all my sacrifice on the altar 
 of my love for Hugh. You can see how much 
 he appreciates it. Now I feel like saying, Very 
 well, I shall do so no longer. The more you try 
 to please some men the more you may try. 
 The more you do for them the more they ex- 
 pect of you. 
 
 I sit at home day after day, often seeing no 
 one, waiting on my husband's return. Some- 
 times I am alone all or half the night. Because 
 I have sometimes resented being alone so much 
 and was demonstrative of my affection I got on 
 my husband's nerve. It seems he has longed 
 for the cold uncompromising austerity of his 
 mother, as the desert traveler longs for the 
 bracing wind from snow-capped mountains. 
 
 He has no sympathy with the fact, that I 
 am home all the time ; that I need to have out- 
 side atmosphere. I need change, diversion and 
 social life. He meets people all the day, and 
 wants to come home and stay there while he 
 may. Most of the time I have realized this, and 
 gave way. I have longed for companionship 
 and once proposed that my youngest sister 
 might come and live with us. 
 
 "Gabrielle," he said, "have your sister if 
 you must, but really we cannot afford to in- 
 crease the expenses. Besides, 1 did not marry 
 the whole family." 
 
230 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 Thus the matter rested. I have lived alone, 
 except for my husband, who sometimes eats 
 and sleeps at home, but not regularly. It 
 seems I am inclined to get ahead of my story, 
 for I am about to relate for you the story of 
 our wedding trip to Boston. We must take 
 this journey, though it seemed a foolish ex- 
 pense. I told Hugh, I'd rather ride from my 
 father's house to our new home and let it go 
 at that. The house Hugh had rented was prac- 
 tically ready for us by our wedding day, for 
 Hugh's capable mother had arranged all the 
 furniture and fittings nearly. I was not in it. 
 I had longed for the fun of selecting and plac- 
 ing the things, this here and that there, but 
 Hugh and his mother feathered the home nest 
 for me. Mother Stunt assured us everything 
 would be finished and dinner ready for us the 
 day we should return. So, with bag and bag- 
 gage, with rice and old shoes flying after us, 
 we were off for Boston. 
 
 V 
 
 They say, you will never really know a man 
 until you are married to him. During that 
 Boston trip I came to know Hugh Stunt better 
 than I had before. He had insisted on this 
 journey he had planned it for years this way. 
 It had been his mother's childhood home and 
 to him Boston was a sort of Mecca to which 
 he was duty bound to make a pilgrimage. She 
 had filled his mind with reverent curiosity 
 
HOW AND WHY I FAILED AS A WIFE. 231 
 
 about the city and he talked on the way about 
 how we should visit Bunker Hill, the Old 
 South Church, Longfellow's home, etc., and 
 make side trips to the many shrines of Ameri- 
 can patriotism in that vicinity. We did. We 
 wore ourselves out trailing the marks of the 
 Historical Society. But it made Hugh happy or 
 seemed to, and I would have walked my legs 
 off to make him pleased. 
 
 As you may well assume, I had never trav- 
 eled any and was a frightened little stranger 
 to the ways of big hotels and dining car ser- 
 vice. I could not read or understand the menu 
 cards. Ashamed of my ignorance, I insisted 
 that Hugh should order for us both, and I was 
 always pleased with what he selected. I see 
 from his story I made a mistake there. I 
 should have made a critical selection. I 
 should have returned by a well reprimanded 
 waiter certain dishes not quite up to my liking 
 and caused the chef to know of my presence 
 the whole hotel management to realize that the 
 roof covered at that moment a real American 
 epicure, viz : Gabrielle Stunt, newlywed ! 
 
 At this distance from that week or more of 
 our honeymoon trip I can safely say I was in- 
 fatuated with my husband and I am sure he 
 was with me. It was the passionate physical 
 climax of our year of courtship. We were 
 drunk on love. I cannot deal with all the 
 sacred details of those days I cannot lay bare 
 what would show the intensity of my bus- 
 band's feelings for me, and how intense pas- 
 
232 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 sion was followed by what seemed like fits of 
 revulsion. 
 
 I could not understand. I knew nothing of 
 men. Why I was the sweetest thing on earth 
 one moment and not worth speaking to the 
 next, I could not make out. What ailed my 
 husband? I think now he had several "brain 
 storms" on that trip. One day for example, 
 we went to the beach, Nahant I think it was, 
 and presently we found ourselves out on the 
 white sands alone. My husband sat there, look- 
 ing as glum as an owl, for an hour or more 
 without saying a word. I always appreciate 
 people who have that saving sense of humor 
 people who can find something bright in every 
 situation, no matter how dark it may 
 seem. My Hugh seems to be lacking in the 
 bump of humor. 
 
 I let him sit there a long time saying nothing, 
 just looking at him, to see how long he would 
 keep it up. Finally I insisted on knowing what 
 was the matter with him. He blamed his pet- 
 tish conduct on the want of sleep. I know it 
 now, but I did not then my husband was suf- 
 fering from the reaction of having all that I 
 was, mentally and physically. 
 
 It seems to me now as I look back over the 
 years I have been a wife, that someone must 
 have understood men very well when the laws 
 of the monogamous marriage system were es- 
 tablished. The psychology of sex is such, that 
 the satiated husband is quite a different in- 
 dividual from the eager and expectant lover, 
 
HOW AND WHY I FAILED AS A WIFE. 233 
 
 whose every thought is to find favor. One 
 would have thought my husband as a doctor, 
 would have known all this, and instead of play- 
 ing the part of a sulky child, he could have 
 taught me well, instead of condemning me for 
 my loving ignorance. 
 
 It seemed strange to me why a husband could 
 not relax and be natural. Why he could not 
 sleep in the presence of his wife. Hugh acted 
 so strangely I was frightened. I thought of a 
 thousand foolish things. I even caught myself 
 wondering if I had been such a disappointment 
 to him that he had thoughts of suicide. I 
 dared not leave him. Remember I was young, 
 inexperienced and desperately in love. 
 
 That evening after dinner we were in our 
 room. 
 
 "Oh, do go away and amuse yourself. I 
 must sleep," he blurted at me. 
 
 "What shall I do?" I asked. 
 
 "Do? For God's sake, do anything you like, 
 just so you let me get some rest, ' ' and he paced 
 about the room as if distracted. 
 
 What do you think of all this for conduct of 
 a new husband, ten years the senior of his 
 young wife? Are any of the charges he makes 
 against me other than the mistake of loving 
 intensely and due to a young girl's ignorance 
 of men and the world? My husband engaged 
 the room next ours and went to bed. I, the 
 wife of less than a week, was banished. The 
 first two or three nights of our wedded life, 
 
234 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 my husband could not be content unless his 
 arm was a pillow for my head. In less than a 
 week he had to have a separate room. 
 
 That night I cried myself to sleep. 
 
 The truth of the matter is I married a neu- 
 rotic, but I did not know it then. I was roman- 
 tic and dramatic. If my husband did not want 
 me I would go home. I awoke in the early 
 hours of the morning and thought I would 
 dress and pack my things and return home 
 alone. I crept to the door between the rooms 
 and tried the lock. It opened and peeping 
 through I saw my husband sleeping sweetly. 
 All my resolution vanished. I could not leave 
 him. May be he was sick, though I believed 
 it temper. I went in and sat down on the foot 
 of his bed. The stir I made woke him. 
 
 "What are you doing here?" he roared at 
 me, as if I had been a burglar going through 
 his trousers for his coin. 
 
 I meant to tell him I was going home, but 
 instead I begged him not to drive me away. 
 I should have been strong I was weak. I 
 cried again. Suddenly he grabbed me and 
 pulled me into the bed with him, calling me 
 his sweetheart wife, begging my forgiveness 
 and so on till the morning sun brightened our 
 windows and chased away the cloud of young 
 newly weds' first quarrel. 
 
 I am wiser now. though Hugh don't seem to 
 know it. What I should have done is this: I 
 should have played off. When hubby wanted 
 to be left alone, I should have put on my best 
 
HOW AND WHY I FAILED AS A WIFE. 235 
 
 hat and frock, along with my prettiest smile 
 and walked the hotel lobby, the parlors, the 
 conservatory. I should have met other people, 
 other couples, other men. I should have said, 
 "Hugh dear, you need sleep this afternoon, or 
 this evening, so I am going for a walk in the 
 Common. I may do the Gardens, and out to 
 Copley Square and back. Just you be easy. 
 I'll amuse myself." 
 
 Girls, take my experience as a lesson. Don't 
 let your husbands imagine you think they are 
 gods. Men like * ' clinging vines ' ' all right but 
 not as a steady diet. Men want most the love 
 they haven't got. They are very solicitous 
 about what they are not sure of. Don't let 
 them get too cock-sure of you. It palls on 
 them. 
 
 At twenty-nine I am going to change, on oc- 
 casions, from being a "clinging vine" and be 
 a bramble bush. Men need a few scratches it 
 seems to teach them to appreciate. 
 
 We came home from Boston to find our new 
 home all ready and waiting. Our mothers had 
 joined hands to complete the details and we 
 sat down to our first meal with perfect appoint- 
 ments. 
 
 Then we began to live. 
 
 VI. 
 
 I had my next big lesson in neurotic husbands 
 the day after we got home. Being anxious to 
 please and to prepare just what would suit 
 Hugh's taste best, I 'phoned to him to know 
 
236 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 what he would like for dinner. I was even 
 then a good cook and to have nice dinners was 
 something I should take great pride in. I had 
 heard the way to a man's heart is through his 
 stomach, and I knew good cooking was an 
 important essential in successful marriage. 
 
 I have learned since then, men will say 
 things, both to their wives and to others, over 
 the telephone, that they would not say face to 
 face. As a promoter of rudeness and ill man- 
 ners the telephone is a great success. What 
 do you suppose my husband said when I 
 'phoned to know what he wanted for dinner? 
 
 "Get whatever you damn please and don't 
 bother me about it, ' ' he shouted angrily. 
 
 Foolishly I went at once to the office and had 
 it out with him. What I should have done is 
 this : I should have said, ' ' All right Mr. Hugh, 
 I'll do just that and if it don't suit you, see to 
 it that you say nothing." 
 
 He made such an ado about being bothered 
 to tell what he liked that I tried getting things 
 myself. Sometimes he was pleased ; often not. 
 When anything pleased him he had nothing to 
 say, but he did not hesitate to express his dis- 
 pleasure when things did not suit him. When 
 everything was just right, nothing said taken 
 as a matter of course. Silence was the only 
 praise I got. The least detail at fault and I 
 heard about it in good strong terms. 
 
 Often I would fix up something especially 
 nice, thinking, "Hugh will like this and com- 
 pliment me on it." When he came home, he 
 
HOW AND WHY I FAILED AS A WIFE. 237 
 
 gobbled it down without a word. I wondered 
 if all men were so heartless. 
 
 Day by day, I worked away, alone from 
 morning till night and often when calls de- 
 manded, all or half the night I waited on his 
 return. After dinner he would go to his "den" 
 for an hour or two, then to bed. Still when I 
 wanted his company what little time he was at 
 home, I became a nuisance. So I put a crimp 
 on the den business. I moved in myself. 
 
 When in the course of time the bills for 
 meats especially seemed to run too high and 
 Hugh said we must be more economical, I said, 
 * ' Very well, you will just order what you want 
 and I will cook it. I seem to be just a cook 
 about here anyway." 
 
 When a month or so later, I pointed out to 
 him that his bills were running higher than 
 mine had, what do you suppose he said? 
 
 "By George, this high cost of living is get- 
 ting fierce, isn't it?" 
 
 Not a word of apology or suggestion that I 
 had done or was doing well. Not a word of 
 admission that he was not as careful a buyer 
 as I had been. I do not believe there ever was 
 a particle of room in Hugh's head for a word 
 of self-reproach. 
 
 My whole life has come to be regulated by 
 the question mark of dollars. I dare not 
 breathe without considering the cost. If my 
 sisters visit me, I am afraid Hugh will begrudge 
 what they eat. If I went ahead and did things 
 socially or otherwise, I was called into account 
 
238 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 because of the expense incurred. Now I am 
 held up to the disapproval of the whole world 
 because I am a "clinging vine." It is a beau- 
 tiful lesson, a perfect clinical study of hysteria. 
 
 I have made my sacrifices, but I have not 
 boasted of them. I have loved to excess and 
 that is my great error. I have come to the 
 point where I can appreciate the philosophy of 
 the Stoic, who holds it unwise to have any very 
 vital affections. I should have kept myself in 
 the attitude of indifference quiet, sane indif- 
 ference. I should have said to my Hugh, ' ' Now 
 go along your own way. When you want to be 
 alone I will find other company. Study your 
 cases, chase your career; it does not interest 
 me." 
 
 To such men as my husband, happiness from 
 day to day is nothing. They do not live now 
 and here. The lesson of the hour is lost. It 
 is fame, fortune or some hoped for future, often 
 not to be attained, that absorbs all their minds. 
 It is not what they have that makes them 
 happy; it is the struggle for what they have 
 not. 
 
 Gabrielle was earnestly courted. Hours and 
 hours spent in seeking her, but once married, 
 she is put in a home and forgotten, except at 
 meal time or when needed to satisfy that great 
 demand of men's nature, other than for food 
 or shelter the demands of sex. 
 
 Gabrielle wants happiness now from day to 
 day, and because she does, she is totally lack- 
 ing in the conception of her husband's studi- 
 
HOW AND WHY I FAILED AS A WIFE. 239 
 
 ous nature and the demands of his profession. 
 She wants a real home and wants to hear the 
 music of children's voices in it, but she is for- 
 bidden because her husband wants sometime 
 or other, to take a post graduate course in Eu- 
 rope. She wants to receive and be received 
 by many friends and neighbors but her hus- 
 band forbids, because he wants to stay at home 
 and to be quiet, to study, to pore over big 
 books of science. 
 
 Hugh lacks a proper conception of his wife 's 
 hunger for happiness and her social needs. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Almost anyone at all skilled in the use of 
 platitudes can write a high sounding essay on 
 the economic aspects of marriage. It is un- 
 safe to draw conclusions from any experience 
 too closely associated with our own lives. We 
 cannot get away from our own prejudices. It 
 would not be fair for me to judge all men by 
 the few samples with whom I have been closely 
 associated my father or my Hugh for instance. 
 It would not be fair for men to judge all 
 women by the few samples each had happened 
 to run across. A few deductions may be safely 
 made however, I firmly believe, and I will make 
 them as bravely as I can. 
 
 A doctor who is obliged to make his living 
 and his saving for the rainy day, from the daily 
 grind of general practice, should not be dream- 
 ing of research work, great scientific discover- 
 ies and professional fame. He must keep busy 
 
240 WAYSIDE EXPEBIENCES. 
 
 curing the stomach aches, coughs and other 
 little mean everyday human ills that make up 
 the bulk of all professional activity. Also he 
 must be just as keen to collect his bills and 
 keep his credit good as he is to treat the sick 
 successfully. If he has an incurable desire to 
 do research work, and has recognized ability 
 as an original research worker, he should con- 
 nect himself with an institution where such 
 skill is needed and paid for. 
 
 My Hugh has failed, though he says he is 
 made of this stuff researchers must have in 
 them failed because he has spent all his ener- 
 gy trying to live his wife 's life for her. I have 
 shown you how he has lived my life. I have 
 told you the God 's truth, sparing neither of us. 
 What could have hindered a strong man from 
 attaining his ends in spite of anything? It all 
 depends upon his attitude. My husband ex- 
 pected the world to come seeking him; he 
 seemed to wait on being discovered. He 
 thinks he should be recognized as "my father's 
 son." Success does not seek us we must 
 chase after it, run after it and grasp it. Dr. 
 Sam Smith does things. Dr. Hugh Stunt waits. 
 To get on the surgical staff Dr. Sam courted 
 and cultivated the people he needed, the men 
 and women of the official boards. He got the 
 tools he needed and somehow learned to use 
 them. He pushed his way in. Dr. Hugh 
 would not do this. It was beneath his dignity. 
 He waited for the committees to come begging 
 him kneeling to him and he has waited in 
 
HOW AND WHY I FAILED AS A WIFE. 241 
 
 vain. Now he tells us Gabrielle is to blame 
 because he is not recognized. 
 
 I have tried to get him out among people. I 
 tried to keep the social standing we needed, 
 and he says we wasted hundreds of evenings. 
 This he calls balderdash and rot. The long and 
 short of it is, Dr. Sam could deliver the goods 
 and Dr. Hugh could not. One has initiative 
 and self-reliance ; the other is a victim of brain 
 fag and flabby nerves. One can dig things out 
 for himself; the other must be taught by rote 
 and by rule. One is -a natural mechanic, and 
 has well trained muscles; the other could not 
 make a chicken coop or scarcely drive a nail. 
 
 I am not discrediting Dr. Sam's wife; she 
 has carried her end but Sam would have done 
 just as well had he married me, and I am sure 
 Mrs. Sam would not have done any better than 
 I have, had she married my Hugh with the re- 
 sponsibility of his making on her hands. Doc- 
 tors are not good diagnosticians of their own 
 cases, and Dr. Hugh has failed in his diagnosis. 
 It is a case of hypertrophy of the ego ! 
 
 Dr. Sam little realized, when he so gallantly 
 credited all his success to his wife, what a 
 thrust he was giving me. Dr. Hugh was itch- 
 ing to find some excuse for himself and how 
 eagerly he clutched it. What made the dif- 
 ference ? Ha ! the wife ! Eureka ! and with the 
 cry of Archimedes on his lips, he would have 
 run home naked I suppose, had he been at the 
 bath as was the Greek, for he had found the 
 cause of his failure ! 
 
242 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 It happens that I am more or less confiden- 
 tial with Mrs. Dr. Sam, or she is with me. She 
 tells me she just had to look after Dr. Sam's 
 ties, clothes, etc., for he is so careless about his 
 personal appearance, that she feared he would 
 discredit himself. She envies me, she says, my 
 husband of such careful personal habits as to 
 dress and appearance. 
 
 So I could go on analyzing and comparing, 
 but to what end? Could I illustrate even by 
 contrast what is a successful marriage? Can 
 I throw any more light on the economics 
 of wedlock? Personally if Hugh thought 
 so, I should say he had done fairly well. 
 He has three times the average income of 
 doctors in general; he is looked upon as 
 a good doctor and his families stick to him 
 as well as to any doctor. He carries all the 
 life insurance he needs to carry. If he should 
 die, I am sure I could manage very well. I 
 have two trades I am a good housekeeper and 
 I can teach music. We have a beautiful home 
 and have kept out of debt. It is easy to see 
 so many much worse off than we are, that it 
 does not discourage me to see the few who are 
 better off. 
 
 Dr. Hugh has failed in some ways. He is 
 dissatisfied with himself but he thinks he is 
 finding fault with me. He is too egotistical 
 to take the blame to himself. He is not the 
 father of children ; he does not respect his wife, 
 though he admits he still loves me. He does 
 
HOW AND WHY I FAILED AS A WIFE. 243 
 
 not hesitate to make what seems to me untruth- 
 ful statements and criticisms. 
 
 It is never too late to mend to change ; our 
 relationship is not fixed. If this amounts to 
 an irreconcilable incompatibility, the relation- 
 ship can be easily broken. Much as I love my 
 husband, it cannot be forever a one-sided love. 
 I will not be the drag that hinders this con- 
 scientious husband's professional ambitions. 
 If these ambitions come before home, wife and 
 well born children, then such a husband should 
 not have these things that most men count most 
 worthy. To such as have such ignoble prompt- 
 ings of ambition, there awaits a Waterloo, just 
 as it awaited another who was besotted with 
 ambition. 
 
 If Dr. Hugh Stunt or his like can find any 
 comfort in my side of the story he and they 
 are welcome to it. It is a fatal error to mis- 
 interpret a devoted love it may be an error to 
 show such a love. I have confessed my want 
 of wisdom. 
 
 If my good intentions have paved the way to 
 the hell of domestic tragedy, then I must bear 
 my fate with what fortitude I may. It all be- 
 longs as I have said to the domain of the 
 psychology of sex the unsolved riddle of the 
 human world. 
 
 If the test of love is sacrifice, I have stood 
 that test. 
 
 If the anchor of love is appreciation, I may 
 be drifting, for I do not believe I have been ap- 
 
244 WAYSIDE EXPERIENCES. 
 
 predated thus far as some husbands would 
 have appreciated me. 
 
 Anyway I feel better to have told you how I 
 feel about it. 
 
 I wonder what Hugh will think when he 
 reads this? 
 
The Epilogue. 
 
 Some there were, from among the throng of 
 travelers along Life's great Highway, who did 
 pause to examine the burdens which their fel- 
 lows bore. Though each one called his burden 
 Experience, this examination revealed the di- 
 verse and varied character of their contents. 
 
 Some were gross and foul, throwing out the 
 fetid odor the stench of crime, disease and 
 misspent lives. Others were of pain, sickness 
 and sorrow caused by the mistakes of ignorance 
 rather than intent. Others still, were of sac- 
 rifices, sorrows, anxieties, cares, and all that 
 which is offered on the altar of Love. 
 
 Again there were some made up of disap- 
 pointments and grief; memories of broken 
 ties; little ones laid in untimely graves; lovers 
 who were unfaithful; wives gone astray; hus- 
 bands who forgot the holy vows; and indeed 
 it seems that some one traveler or another car- 
 ried with his burden of Experience all that was 
 possible for the human race to suffer and en- 
 dure or enjoy. For it is true not all these 
 burdens were of grief and regret ; indeed some 
 were memories of great happiness. 
 
 But time is fleeting and sunshine soon passes 
 away. The ways of life lead always toward 
 the night. He is wise indeed who has oppor- 
 
246 THE EPILOGUE. 
 
 tunity to examine the Experience of others and 
 thereby profit. Judgment seems to be the 
 last development of the human soul and Ex- 
 perience is the only food that appears to nour- 
 ish it. If in pausing you and I to examine 
 the burdens laid bare in this little record, we 
 add anything to our faculties of wise judge- 
 ment our labor will not be in vain. It is better 
 that we carry on our way to the end of the 
 journey Experiences of joy rather than of sor- 
 row. It is better to take the right ro*ad than 
 the wrong. Here are a few guideboards that 
 point out the roads we should not and need not 
 take. If you have read them carefully, I pray 
 Heaven speed you on your way with smiles and 
 song Peace is waiting to welcome you at 
 
 THE END. 
 
84521 
 
 'ERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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