THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 Stonepasturea
 
 Stonepaetures 
 
 BY 
 
 ELEANOR STUART 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 1895
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1895, 
 BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
 
 PS 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PACK 
 
 I. A CITY WITHOUT A STREET . . I 
 
 II. WEDDING GLOOM .... 9 
 
 III. THE BLAST RITE . 2Q 
 
 IV. QUARRY THE SCHEMER t 57 
 
 V. HOPE AHEAD 71 
 
 VI. A BAD BARGAIN 86 
 
 VII. TROUBLE ACCUMULATES ... 99 
 
 VIII. QUARRY'S ATTEMPT AT EXPLANATION, in 
 
 IX. BREAKING UP A HOME . . . 120 
 X. QUARRY RECKONS WITHOUT HIS 
 
 HOSTESS 135 
 
 XI. THE STRIKE 149 
 
 XII. THE EYE OF GOD .... 166 
 
 EPILOGUE 175 
 
 v
 
 STONEPASTURES. 
 
 i. 
 
 A CITY WITHOUT A STREET. 
 "To know a man well you must learn his city." 
 
 THERE are three districts in Soot 
 City : By the Bridge, By the 
 Tracks, and the Stonepastures. 
 
 Simeon Quarry who lived with 
 the Buttes By the Tracks, and who 
 knew more of this story than I do 
 always began the tale of his town 
 with this phrase, " As way back as 
 '30 " ; for that was the year when 
 the big birds sitting on the big 
 boulders first watched the stran-
 
 Stotupastrtrcs. 
 
 gers with the strings and water lev 
 els, and heard the strangers' words. 
 
 There abode in the wilderness 
 of those days for everything was 
 Stonepastures then a Methodist 
 preacher with a taste for the scrip- 
 turally obscure. His circuit in 
 cluded the site of Soot City, to 
 which place he gave the name of 
 Padan-Aram, which endures as the 
 county name until to-day. 
 
 Among the strange words the 
 birds heard were " ile," " iron," and 
 " smelt-oven." These sounds were 
 each an " open sesame " to hordes 
 of foreign workers, with a propor 
 tion of native Americans generalled 
 by Jo Bentley grandfather of the 
 Bentley whose plant is still the first 
 in Soot City.
 
 ils without a Street. 
 
 In a single lustre there sprang 
 from the arid strip of country con 
 fined with treeless hills " Baldhead 
 Rangers" and "Cleanshorns" rows 
 on rows of mean houses, containing 
 men and women every year lessen 
 ing their acquaintance with the 
 world without. Soot City was their 
 cradle, the arena of their endeavour, 
 their deathbed, and their sepulchre. 
 
 By the Bridge dwelt foreman, 
 bookkeepers, furnace masters, to 
 gether with the Bentleys' outdoor 
 servants for they had a great place 
 now. The son had rowed in the 
 Cambridge boat, the daughters had 
 become Episcopalians and gave 
 great house parties, and the people 
 By the Bridge who knew them best 
 were the lawyer, the doctor, the
 
 baker, and the undertaker, who 
 conspired against the rest of hu 
 manity as occasion permitted. 
 
 Soot City has no street. In 
 stead, it has narrow-gauge tracks, 
 along which the workmen go forth 
 to and return from labour in the 
 empty ore cars. The houses By 
 the Tracks are ranged on either 
 side of them, and are inhabited by 
 mechanics, iron workers, truckmen, 
 freight handlers, and preachers of 
 minor denominations. 
 
 Beyond the bridge are the Stone- 
 pastures, and beyond these the ore 
 bed, the smelting place, and the 
 nutt and bolt factory. The bridge 
 straddles the tracks so that the 
 highroad may traverse the town, 
 and the narrow gauge runs from
 
 31 (Kits witljottt a Street. 5 
 
 the gate of Bentley's Place to the 
 ore bed under the bridge and over 
 the Stonepastures. The tracks are 
 only four miles long, joining the 
 main line at the furnaces. 
 
 No townsman ever looked at the 
 sunset, because it went down on the 
 Stonepastures. Every ones sun 
 set was " over there " ; and in the 
 mean hovels that stood out sharply 
 to the town gaze in an evening's 
 afterglow dwelt men who had the 
 white-lead poison in their hands, or 
 who had been scorched in a blast, 
 or who, trying to preserve them 
 selves in alcohol, had failed. 
 
 The men were hungry and 
 chafed, wrenching themselves from 
 sleep of a morning to a dull day, 
 three parts thirst to one of hunger.
 
 The children went to school and 
 learned to know their parents' 
 mistakes, bringing home bitterness 
 instead of bread. The mothers 
 washed rags in rusty water, prayed 
 and played with the children, or 
 picked up scrap-iron for the men 
 to sell. 
 
 Accident and sudden death were 
 about as frequent as night and 
 day. A squeeze between two ore 
 cars, or a tendency to slumber 
 on the tracks after a "cosey of ar 
 rack " at Grigg's drinkshop, meant 
 black on some one's door-handle. 
 But the " blast " was the horror 
 that made the women kiss their 
 men with the fervour of the 
 last parting when they went off to 
 work at the ore bed. The blast
 
 31 il2 without a Street. 7 
 
 was not famous for respect of 
 persons. It rarely killed, but its 
 victims were rarely cured. There 
 was a rocky stretch by the ore bed 
 which young Bentley was having 
 blown out for the town reservoir, 
 and the new iron vein backed 
 against it. Scarcely a blast had 
 been managed without some one 
 being thrown to the earth, mangled 
 with jagged stones " the throw " 
 the men called them. It might be 
 that some one would fall with the 
 shock and find himself thereafter 
 deaf to everything but the " dumb 
 roaring," and such a one would die 
 of what the unlettered Methodist 
 preacher said was " eternal injuries." 
 The very children feared the blast. 
 There were, however, three things
 
 that Soot City loved : Pay-day, J ari 
 sen, and the cinder-flare. At night 
 they would pause in their homeward 
 way from drinkshop or chapel or 
 Jarlsen's neat sitting room, and look 
 toward the smelting furnace. And 
 as the blaze jumped into the yawn 
 ing sky they would bless its fierce 
 ness, and look at the houses and 
 tracks standing out clearly, saying 
 along with their, good-nights and 
 good-byes, " God's lookin' at cher, 
 Bill ! " 
 
 For they named the light from 
 the dumped cinder " The eye of 
 God."
 
 II. 
 
 WEDDING GLOOM. 
 
 " Death doesn't wait for a man to have his 
 laugh out." Salt-miners' saying, 
 
 IT is hard for people who have 
 never seen places like Soot City 
 to believe in natures like Emma 
 Butte's and August Jarlsen's. In 
 river cities the labouring popula 
 tion may be augmented daily with 
 a load of tramps and paupers who 
 can travel on the river about as 
 cheaply as their own feet can take 
 them. No travel is as cheap as 
 river boating. River fares cost 
 much less than shoes, and no
 
 Slonqjusttjres. 
 
 other cities have the shifting masses 
 that the river cities get. 
 
 This is not the nature of an in 
 land town whose mine or iron 
 vein is booming. No one leaves 
 it. What is usual with one man 
 may become the common talk of 
 his district, if he be an influence in 
 it. The vice of a member of the 
 town corporation is the sorrow of 
 the county. The men have gained 
 their livelihood at the hands of the 
 town ; they nurse their birthplace 
 when its resource is threatened ; 
 they work for it. Even as they 
 live by it they die for it. 
 
 In feeling J arisen was an Ameri 
 can ; his ideals were American. 
 He went to church soberly, had a 
 bust of Lincoln on his mantel,
 
 <B>lo0m. 
 
 eschewed labour unions, and gave 
 away a third of the not too princely 
 stipend awarded him by the Bent- 
 leys for his position of payman. 
 
 For all that, when the native 
 Swedes got very drunk of an 
 evening and, congregating By the 
 Bridge, swore in their high, un 
 earthly voices, he would be much 
 ashamed and wish and even urge 
 them farther. For he too was born 
 in Sweden, and said " y " for " j " 
 even yet, if the men hurried him. 
 
 His room was By the Bridge. 
 His wont was to ask the better set, 
 the more American labourers, to his 
 room of an evening. He then, like 
 King David, charmed them with a 
 harp. He would sit in front of the 
 stove on a packing-box covered
 
 12 Stonepastnrea. 
 
 with pinkish jute, and there play 
 and sing strange, sweet songs about 
 birds and lonely mountains, and 
 kings' daughters and sad forests, 
 and immortality ; for these are of 
 the kinds of songs that come from 
 the North. 
 
 Jarlsen's generosity was remark 
 able ; for his countrymen are 
 money-getters beyond any non- 
 Semitic people. The knowledge 
 of the value of money is born in 
 them. There is a saying at the 
 ore beds that testifies to this : " A 
 Swede will go farther for a dollar 
 than an Irishman will for a drink." 
 
 But when J arisen took Emma 
 Butte, in the face of the whole 
 town, the men of his acquaintance 
 marvelled greatly. If he were the
 
 tabbing loom. 13 
 
 man whom Soot City loved, Emma 
 was the woman who ruled it. She 
 " had not the class " that her lover 
 had. 
 
 Coming into the city as a child, 
 she had learned the less rough 
 speech of the town labour and 
 taken on herself the somewhat 
 milder manners of the people she 
 now saw. But she had never tried 
 to make a place among them ; she 
 lived with her father, plying her odd 
 trade she was a barber and mak 
 ing her oddest pennies in another 
 way, as shall be presently set forth. 
 
 In the lighter social semblance 
 of their town the Bentleys were 
 paramount. Their doings came to 
 the town ear somehow, and the 
 people followed their lead, if it
 
 14 Qtoncjwstnres. 
 
 were a possible thing for them. 
 For example, one of the clerical 
 workers By the Bridge had in 
 vented an intrenching tool, a spade, 
 which had been adopted by the 
 army. As a consequence, he was 
 invited to eat at the Bentleys' 
 Place. On his return from the 
 feast he reported to his eager cir 
 cle that not only had the ground- 
 floor rooms been filled with people, 
 but that Miss Bentley's bedroom 
 looked like an intelligence office, 
 so full was it of the maids of the 
 ladies below. 
 
 This detail of magnificence so 
 possessed the minds of the female 
 portion of the inventor's acquaint 
 ance that By the Tracks was drawn 
 on for Abigails. Male escort was
 
 (Bloom. 15 
 
 frowned down completely. One 
 might return from a Soot City revel 
 with a man, but to go with one 
 if he were not " steady company " 
 was proof positive that there 
 was no quarter-dollar wherewith to 
 hire attendance. Emma was often 
 retained as lady-in-waiting, and 
 through this curiously pretentious 
 institution met and obtained Jarl- 
 sen, as well as her fees. 
 
 Quarry boarded in the Butte 
 household. No one knew why. 
 He imposed on them always, and 
 made them uncomfortable with his 
 odd ways and bad tongue. His 
 board was paid intermittently and 
 with recurrent ill will. He was al 
 ways a stranger and equally an in 
 mate. He had a fashion of rapping
 
 16 Btoncpastures. 
 
 at Emma's window (her room was 
 on the ground floor) and complain 
 ing to her of slights imposed on him 
 by members of her acquaintance. 
 
 She felt him to be the only man 
 life had shown her whose faults were 
 not condoned by a liking for her 
 self: 
 
 Every Sunday found her in a 
 leather apron giving Quarry his 
 Sunday morning's dram of sweet 
 ened rum in his tea, to keep him 
 quiet through shaving hours. He 
 came from Ryde, Isle of Wight, 
 and drank tea to the memory of his 
 old home, which had long since for 
 gotten him. 
 
 Then Emma would get to work. 
 Her apron was of red leather 
 hemmed up with brass-topped
 
 loom. 17 
 
 nails. It had a pocket lined with 
 tin, where her lather brush was put 
 when she took the razor from un 
 der the straps on her left sleeve to 
 stroke a labourer's jowl. Her lips 
 would be pressed together tightly 
 then, her curling hair caught back 
 with a round comb, like a child's. 
 When she lathered she talked and 
 laughed, but when she shaved she 
 was silent. 
 
 J arisen shaved himself latterly, 
 and no one understood it but 
 Emma. All the men thought she 
 "had a fluke and struck ile, when 
 she was just digging for potatoes." 
 That she, in the exercise of her odd 
 function, should have secured Jarl- 
 sen seemed to them a wonderful 
 thing. But it was not.
 
 1 8 SlonejjaQlurea. 
 
 Emma was a very good woman, 
 and that is just the same as a lady 
 to men of Jarlsen's. make. 
 
 He had begun to shave himself 
 the day he felt he loved his barber. 
 The town discovered his feelings 
 the very day he did, and promptly 
 prophesied trouble. "Jest es soon 
 es he felt like marryin' her he 
 should hev broke her into shavin' 
 weekdays, an''kep' a clean chin on 
 him all the time," was what every 
 one said. 
 
 Of course, in the eyes of her 
 townspeople Emma put on airs 
 also, for she took to going to 
 church. She never went so far as 
 to stand during the singing, for that 
 would have cost her all her trade. 
 No one stands up in the extremely
 
 (Sloom. 19 
 
 unorthodox Methodist chapel Soot 
 City operatives affect, except those 
 who are converted or those desir 
 ing the prayers of converts. 
 
 Now, J arisen stood always and 
 was never criticised. His friends 
 said he could sing better if he 
 stood. No one ever asked him if 
 this were true, because they were 
 sure he would say it was not. Thus 
 it may appear that Soot City was 
 not religious, except at blast rites 
 and funerals. 
 
 Emma's heart grew mellow with 
 his singing as she sat beside him. 
 She loved him dearly, as young 
 women do love the men who en 
 rich their lives ; there was a large 
 element of gratitude in what she 
 felt. She never talked as the others
 
 20 
 
 talked about their men, for, as was 
 said, she was a very good woman. 
 And so she got the name of be 
 ing a lady. The others hated her, 
 and most of the men asked her 
 advice and acted on it. 
 
 On the eve of her wedding she 
 sat in her white pique wedding 
 dress, listening to the snarl of the 
 country fiddles as they were played 
 for the dancers. They snarled for 
 two reasons : they were not good 
 fiddles and they were not well 
 played. 
 
 The bride-elect was not to go into 
 the dancing room erst kitchen and 
 tonsorial arena until Jarlsen came 
 and led her thither. He was a little 
 behind his time, she thought, but 
 her serenity remained complete.
 
 21 
 
 There had been yet no clamour 
 of voices and no clatter of feet, 
 going the faster because so near 
 the last dance. She could hear 
 her name and Jarlsen's. One man 
 told how he had gone to pay off 
 the extra men who were to be dis 
 charged after the blast by the new 
 vein. 
 
 She remembered that Quarry was 
 on that detail as machinist. That 
 made her think it must have been 
 a long job, for Quarry's voice car 
 ried wonderfully, and she did not 
 distinguish it among the others in 
 the kitchen. Her mind wandered 
 to the consideration of the capa 
 bilities of her shaving apron as a 
 cover for the packing-box her lover 
 sat on when he played. That sug-
 
 Stonepaslures. 
 
 gested to her the probability she 
 should never shave again, and that 
 no woman would dare after her 
 marriage to stand in her doorway 
 and say in venomous admiration, 
 " How elegant you shave ! " They 
 had done it often heretofore, God 
 knew. 
 
 Her window was raised slightly, 
 and some one tapped on the jamb. 
 She turned her head at this usual 
 intrusion. "Come off, Quarry!" 
 she said hotly. 
 
 He came in through the window 
 and stood by the door. " It's a real 
 pity Jarlsen's late," he answered. 
 His voice was hard and nasal, the 
 most effective voice for taunts. 
 
 " Is he late ? " she asked more 
 crossly.
 
 tOebbing (Sioom. 23 
 
 Quarry laughed. " I guess," he 
 said, " you knew he was late before 
 it would have been quite time for 
 him to come. You know the lis 
 tening heart worries terrible they 
 say, and you ain't got no call to be 
 so high with me. You can hear 
 them girls in the kitchen laughin' 
 at you, same's I do. I guess Jarl- 
 sen's getting tired, may-be. He's 
 kinder in demand, seein' he's the 
 only fellow that's kep' his com 
 plexion in the whole plant." 
 
 Emma grew rather white. " Stop 
 your nasty tongue ! " she cried im 
 peratively. " You're always lying ! 
 Your face is lying and your eyes 
 can't see straight. You let what 
 people do to me alone, or you'll 
 have business of your own to settle.
 
 24 Stonepastures. 
 
 If I was a man, and couldn't get a 
 respectable girl to marry me be 
 cause I was a liar and she hated 
 me, I'd let her alone for shame's 
 sake, when she took up with a man 
 who can tell the truth." 
 
 Her voice sounded very loud in 
 her ears as she stopped ; for the 
 two fiddles were still, and there was 
 no talking among the dancers. 
 
 Quarry opened the door as if 
 some one had knocked, and looked 
 out His features acquired a sud 
 den prominence as the colour flew 
 from his face. Fear crept into Em 
 ma's eyes while she looked at him, 
 shaking with his shadow on the 
 half-open door. 
 
 She forgot him in the great cry 
 that burst from the other room. It
 
 (SHoom. 25 
 
 was a horrified, helpless cry, that 
 gave place to a shocked silence. 
 
 She wrenched the door back and 
 stood on the threshold in her white, 
 scant gown of mechanic's bride's 
 finery. Her attitude showed faint- 
 ness, and her head hung down for 
 lack of courage. 
 
 The two fiddlers were kneeling, 
 with their tears streaming like rain ; 
 they were Polacks, and knelt in 
 gratitude for any excitement. The 
 other men were hushed and stern. 
 
 On the big table where the ar 
 rack punch had been in company 
 with the less heady beer there was 
 a long, writhing hummock, covered 
 with burlap. 
 
 No form was discernible, but 
 Emma knew at the first strong
 
 26 Stonejwstnrjes. 
 
 heart-beat that it was J arisen, 
 singed and crippled with a care 
 less blast, as many another had 
 been. 
 
 The women wailed at her, and 
 the men tried to stay her with 
 their rusty hands. Yet she went 
 forward, pity for him drawing her, 
 and did not pause until she looked 
 him in the face. 
 
 It was black. The hair was gone ; 
 his teeth were fixed in the cracked 
 lower lip, and the eyes, once so 
 wide and bold, were pinkish seams 
 beneath the puffed-out temples. 
 
 The women had crowded to her 
 back. Their breathing was heavy 
 and in unison. 
 
 Emma leaned over him and said 
 softly, in a mother's voice, " Do you
 
 <S>i00m. 27 
 
 hear me speak?" She raised his 
 head on her arm, but it settled back 
 on the table with a sharp crack. He 
 had not heard. 
 
 She scanned him closely. She 
 had not yet the full sense of this 
 man covered with burlap and dis 
 abled ; she only knew that it was 
 not death. But now her lower lip 
 jerked down at the corners, though 
 her eyes were dry. The Polack 
 fiddlers drew each a long breath ; 
 they saw the crisis of the scene 
 approaching, and were preparing to 
 bellow loudly. 
 
 Emma raised her head. "God's 
 name," she said, " he's blasted ! " 
 
 The women's faces were curious, 
 inquisitive ; and Quarry stood at her 
 side sobbing like a Polack.
 
 28 Stoncjwstnres. 
 
 The men who had lifted the 
 Swede in after the blast raised him 
 again, and laid him on the bed in 
 Emma's room.
 
 III. 
 
 THE BLAST RITE. 
 
 " Sometimes if you make ready for bad luck 
 it doesn't come." 
 
 No one in Soot City was sur 
 prised at a funeral for a man yet in 
 the flesh. Such rites were a custom 
 in the terrible, black little town, 
 where the birds flew low for the 
 damp of steam and the prevalence 
 of soot in the air, and where any 
 fine man who took life eagerly in 
 the morning might be blasted at 
 the noontide snack. 
 
 The Scandinavian labourers gave 
 
 29
 
 30 Stonepastnres. 
 
 a tone to all the customs of the 
 town, as the Polacks gave an in 
 tensity to all its dissipations. The 
 drink of expatriated Poland is 
 crude alcohol and water, and their 
 drunkenness is a restless insanity 
 that would be murderous in a less 
 childish people. One idea that is 
 directly referable to the Swede 
 minds is that which gave rise to 
 the blast rites. Their feeling had 
 become general that a man might 
 " get beyond the blast " that is, get 
 over its scorch and shock if only 
 his friends could be brought to be 
 have as if he were really dead. 
 
 Emma was more than Norse in 
 her superstitious observances. She 
 would put a handful of soil from 
 her bit of garden into her wedding
 
 Blast Kite. 31 
 
 shoes, just like any tow-headed bride 
 in the Swede quarter. This was 
 called "getting the favour of home." 
 It was very solemn, and often fol 
 lowed by hysterics. 
 
 But the circumstances of Jarl- 
 sen's mishap favoured the idea of 
 complete death. He had left a pa 
 per with his landlord, " Wavering 
 Jim," providing for Emma in case 
 of " death, accident, or blast." It 
 wasn't a legalized proceeding, but 
 the ignorance of Soot City re 
 spected writing beyond most 
 things, and no one would dispute 
 a paper with names signed to it. 
 The three hundred dollars coming 
 thus yearly to Emma would mean 
 a great deal of comfort to her. 
 
 The blast rite was to be at Em-
 
 32 6tonepa0tures. 
 
 ma's house, as Jarlsen's body was as 
 much an essential to it as if there 
 could have been a sequent inter 
 ment. The men came in and out 
 a good deal and whispered as to 
 how to tell Emma of her legacy, 
 for every one felt it would be un 
 becoming to force the news on her. 
 The way in which they broke it to 
 her would have been tactful even 
 for gentlemen. 
 
 Wavering Jim came down the 
 tracks in an ore car that sided by 
 the Buttes's gate every night. He 
 didn't get out of it, but waved his 
 hand to her. Emma guessed that 
 he wanted to say something in pri 
 vate, and went to the gate to hear 
 it. "Well," he said, "the weather 
 ain't stopped bein' fine, cert'in'y."
 
 l)e Blast Hite. 33 
 
 Emma knew it must be some 
 thing very important to call for a 
 preamble as ornate as this remark 
 about the weather. 
 
 Jim paused and looked about 
 him. " Quarry ain't in," said Emma 
 instinctively. " Emma," he said, 
 " I'm stone sure you're frettin' 
 yourself into a terrible chafe 'bout 
 gettin* Mr. J arisen proper ac 
 commodations, regardin' soup, soft 
 victual, and invalid's board gen 
 erally." 
 
 The girl's eyes bulged with appre 
 hension. " We don't want no sub 
 scription papers for us, and if Miss 
 Bentley sends her soup here I'll 
 water the flowers with it. We ain't 
 no Stonepasture poverty yet, to 
 drink the dishwater outer By the
 
 34 Btonepastnres. 
 
 Bridge kitchen. He can't eat 
 nothing but what I get and 
 cook." 
 
 " Now jest dry up, Emma Butte," 
 said Jim very gently; "old sheep 
 Bentley with her soup and her 
 weepin' ain't goin' to come soothin' 
 and scratchin' 'round this yard. Jarl- 
 sen left a little paper with me that 
 fixes that. All that you've got to 
 do is to practise your signature on 
 his papers in the presence of a few 
 old friends. He grabbed consider 
 able 'fore he was taken," said Jim 
 sympathetically. Leaving the car, 
 he walked nimbly down tracks. No 
 one understands the Godsend news 
 is, in a labouring community. Jim 
 felt elated that he had lodged a man 
 who had money to look after. This
 
 Blast flite. 35 
 
 vicarious business transaction was 
 the biggest in his life. 
 
 Then the undertaker called that 
 evening. He made the same an 
 nouncement. Small and sympa 
 thetic, he threw a cheerfulness into 
 all his sombre doings. He was a 
 rarely lovely man, and had as little 
 jealousy as a sleeping child. He 
 attended blast rites where he never 
 made a penny, as faithfully as he did 
 funerals whereby he supported him 
 self and his friends. 
 
 His family were four striped cats. 
 
 He was extremely fond of 
 prayers and hymns, and, conse 
 quently, women. The men never 
 guessed it of him. They knew 
 that he would lend money, but 
 had not yet discovered that, had
 
 3 6 Stone pastures. 
 
 they been able to repeat a sacred 
 stanza, they need not have repaid 
 him. 
 
 Emma's heart beat fast with grat 
 itude when Jeremy Black kissed 
 her. She felt all along that one 
 of the women might have done 
 so, and it added to her uneasiness 
 about Quarry's visiting, for he would 
 look at her and smile, and then wag 
 his shaggy head, as he had always 
 done when he had been about the 
 Tracks telling lies. 
 
 She held little, black-coated Jerry 
 very close to her, as disappointed 
 children hug the family cat or dog. 
 The day before she had gone in to 
 kiss J arisen, but his poor face was 
 sore with scorch and his side was 
 bruised from where the blast threw
 
 t)e Sictst Rite. 37 
 
 him. So she had spread her long 
 ing hands over him in realization 
 that the women wouldn't love the 
 barber and that her man couldn't 
 see her sorrow. 
 
 Jeremy was immensely pleased 
 
 with her. He came soon to the 
 
 % 
 
 subject of the blast rite, and ar 
 ranged it in his deprecating way, 
 holding his barber's brown hand 
 against his side and calling her 
 Jarlsen's love names, but in a safe, 
 motherly voice that made Emma 
 sure she need not fear the women 
 even if they saw her with him. 
 " Now, Emma, you can't get a reg 
 ular preacher to pray over anything 
 but a sure and cold corpse, so we'll 
 get Quarry to say the sermon, al- 
 ludin' to past virtues and the fu-
 
 38 Stonepastutts. 
 
 ture crown. It'll make things right 
 with Quarry, who ain't the Tracks' 
 darling just exactly, and I'll take 
 the prayers myself. Then the Po- 
 lacks will riddle and I'll sing ' The 
 land beyond the sky ' and ' Peace 
 comes after pain ' that's a nice 
 song, perfectly novel, with three 
 acts and a chorus. I won't let on 
 it has a chorus, for them Polacks is 
 so insaturated with alcohol they 
 might get things noisy." 
 
 " But do speak good and loud," 
 said Emma, "for August might 
 hear something to please him." 
 
 "That's right," said Jerry, "don't 
 you lose your grit. You kin never 
 tell how far a man will get beyond 
 the blast with good nursing." 
 
 Every one knew that Jarlsen was
 
 l)e Blast ftite. 39 
 
 stone-deaf since the blast, and Em 
 ma spoke of his hearing the in 
 one sense post-mortem eulogies 
 from a desire to combat the idea. 
 Perhaps Jeremy feared she might 
 appeal to him for encouragement 
 on this point, for he hurried on to 
 the next. 
 
 " Since the beloved lips is silent, 
 I expect I'm the first singer in the 
 city. He had a way of doing gar 
 gles on the upper notes that would 
 beat a seraph singing. But I'm 
 goin' to organize as notional a rite 
 as I can, bringing forty years of ex 
 perience, man and boy, to bear on 
 this one sad occasion. It'll be the 
 blasted best blast rite ever you saw. 
 It's queer they can't cover them 
 blasts or get the men off in time,
 
 4 Stoncpflstures. 
 
 or so's they won't touch the torch 
 to it before the word's given ! I've 
 had some corpses in two years 
 from blasts, and all jest es ragged 
 and singed es could be, let alone 
 the blasts that's lying deaf and 
 blind round the city yet ! " 
 
 The day of the mock-death serv 
 ice dawned clear and bright, which 
 was held to be bad by the weather- 
 weird-wise, as the Scotch among 
 them said. Quarry had rum in his 
 tea as early as 6 A. M. He was 
 always up early on rum days, but 
 he beat his own precedent this 
 morning. 
 
 He insisted upon setting the 
 house in readiness. He had formed 
 a habit of talking to himself since 
 he had grown fearful of committing
 
 Siaat Bite. 41 
 
 himself with talking to the other 
 men, for Quarry had many things 
 to hide, and knew his limitations 
 as regarded discretion. His main 
 thought was that he would rather 
 spend money on what was only an 
 approach to Jarlsen's corpse than 
 hoard it. Besides that, he had the 
 cosy consciousness that it had 
 looked friendly when he and Em 
 ma had issued together from her 
 room on the night when J arisen 
 came singed to his wedding dance. 
 " The greatest thing happened me 
 since my first drink," he kept saying 
 like a refrain, as he cut long festoons 
 of coloured paper to hang about the 
 mantel and the thinly gilt picture 
 frames. He went By the Bridge 
 to Jarlsen's old room, which was
 
 42 Stonqwstures. 
 
 still in some confusion, with his 
 working clothes tossed aside by 
 Wavering Jim. Jarlsen had folded 
 them neatly when he had donned his 
 wedding suit to go pay off the men. 
 It was Jarlsen's portrait in crayon 
 that Quarry had come for. He tied 
 it up with a lank bow-knot of cheap 
 cr$pe, and laughed in real mirth. 
 
 " Now, Jarlsen," he said in banter, 
 " I do seem to see myself somehow 
 in the glass over your portrait. 
 Funny, ain't it ? " 
 
 By the Bridge he purchased five 
 sticks of pretzels, for in Soot City 
 long sticks are run by venders 
 through these open-work wares. 
 
 When all was ready at the 
 Buttes's, he helped lift the big 
 Swede from Emma's cot to the
 
 (El)* Blast ftite. 43 
 
 kitchen table. He was dressed, of 
 course, in what was to have been 
 his wedding suit, and the odd 
 lengths of hair that were left him 
 were brushed out on either side 
 of his head to make a good show. 
 His beard had not grown on one 
 cheek, and Quarry surveyed him 
 with great satisfaction. " Seems 
 they've kind o' singed them right- 
 hand glands where the hair starts 
 out," he said. " It's real hard to 
 keep your complexion right here." 
 Emma had been sleeping on a 
 couple of ironing boards laid on 
 the hard clay of the lean-to where 
 the pans and scant house-tackle 
 were kept. The thought of hard 
 ship had not occurred to her. She 
 had saved her heartbroken minutes 
 
 4
 
 44 
 
 for the sordid privacy of the chill 
 lean-to. The place had for her the 
 charm of liberty, which, we are told, 
 is the charm of paradise itself. 
 
 Her behaviour was not very ago 
 nized. She crouched on the blan 
 keted boards and courted the slow 
 tears that crept from her eyes and 
 were healing to her hurt. They 
 alone relieved her ; and sometimes, 
 when they would not come, she 
 would grip the scant old skirt that 
 covered her and pray in a loud 
 whisper, with the vital faith of the 
 poor. 
 
 When she woke on the morning 
 of the blast rite they had already 
 moved Jarlsen. He lay on the 
 table, roused, but baffled by the 
 strange dimness in him. No voices
 
 Blast Bile. 45 
 
 and no light could come into his 
 world except through memory ; he 
 was heir to a limitless pain in the 
 sense of tyrannic suppression that 
 possessed him. 
 
 Etiquette assigned Emma the 
 place by the stove. She took it at 
 once as the mourners were gather 
 ing rapidly. The company at the 
 wedding dance was indistinguish 
 able in the crowd of to-day. 
 
 There were many operatives and 
 all the foremen of the new vein, 
 the nutt, and bolt factory, etc. 
 These last had their clerks in 
 attendance. Miss Bentley came 
 among the first arrivals, bringing 
 Emma sweet crackers and a hymn- 
 book. 
 
 And Emma cursed her a great,
 
 46 Slonqjastnres. 
 
 ignorant, insolent, heartfelt curse 
 because she thought these things 
 could console her ; things the 
 Misses Bentley would never offer 
 each other if their men had the 
 
 blast. But Miss Bentley was one 
 
 \ 
 
 more of those devout women, not 
 a few, who, because of a congeni 
 tal shyness, can not do a kindness 
 kindly. Emma would have given 
 thanks for the same things given 
 another way. 
 
 The foremen also brought their 
 wives, worthy women with sleek 
 children, who consumed many pret 
 zels with a brisk crunching that an 
 noyed Emma greatly. She wanted 
 people to be sad and unable to 
 eat ; to be upset with the trouble 
 that had faded out her future
 
 Blast ttite. 47 
 
 with one too vivid moment of 
 pain. 
 
 Quarry sat at a table that was 
 covered with a white cloth. Upon 
 this lay a Bible and a bound time 
 table. The fitness of this was in 
 the binding, which was ecclesias 
 tically purple. 
 
 The table was flanked by the Po- 
 lacks, looking wretched, as if they 
 had wept all night and grieved 
 since morning on empty stomachs. 
 They tuned their fiddles with writh 
 ing faces, and played the " Land o' 
 the Leal," as the remaining space in 
 Emma's kitchen was being filled 
 with the less shy among the la 
 bourers. The others stood at the 
 open windows where the sunlight 
 should have been.
 
 48 Stonepastttres. 
 
 Jeremy Black offered prayer, shy 
 ly enough, for the Methodist minis 
 ter was attending as a layman. He 
 prayed for this and that, rather in- 
 consequently, and with a red face ; 
 but Emma liked it better than any 
 thing else in the service. It was 
 like her own prayer of last night : 
 " O Lord, thou knowest what I 
 want and what I don't want. Please 
 don't send me what I don't want. 
 Good-night." Even to God Emma 
 could not name Jarlsen's death. 
 
 Her father came in at the climax 
 of Jerry's petition. He shook his 
 head at Jarlsen's big, quiet shape 
 on the table, and announced in a 
 voice that shook with emotion that 
 " young men would be young men." 
 No one but Emma was galled with
 
 J31ast Hite. 49 
 
 this needlessly irrelevant statement. 
 In the less book-learned phases of 
 life many people use expressions 
 just because they admire them, not 
 because they express their feeling, 
 their fancy, or a fact. It is no more 
 to be wondered at than the prayers 
 they make, which would read like 
 telegraphic messages in a High 
 Church congregation. 
 
 After his prayer Jerry sang. It 
 is confessed that he sang less for 
 art than for audience. He loved 
 to sing. His voice was thin and 
 rather sweet ; his intonation very 
 sure and happy. 'He contrived to 
 infuse a wistfulness into the most 
 martial or condemnatory ballads, 
 types of song he particularly af 
 fected.
 
 5 
 
 There is always a good deal of 
 preface to singing like his, and he 
 was not above throat-clearing and 
 loud swallowing. The verse he 
 sang had been used at blast rites 
 since the Swedes came first to Soot 
 City. Its refrain was sung softly by 
 every one to an accompaniment of 
 rocking bodies : 
 
 " Don't fret, old wife, nor cry, 
 For God won't pass you by ; 
 
 He may come late, but if you wait, 
 You'll get behind the sky." 
 
 Then Quarry rose with some 
 pomp and spoke thus : " Ladies 
 and friends : Some lives is all chair- 
 cars and champagne ; some lives 
 is neither. I'm not saying what 
 they are, for this is no time to start 
 more tears. Some feels the whip,
 
 &t)e Blast Eiic. 5 1 
 
 some wears the willow, some gets 
 their own way. These last says the 
 skimpiest ' Glory be to God ! ' 
 
 " This house is a house of mourn 
 ing. The one ewe lamb went to the 
 pasture, and come home bit by the 
 wolf! Here to-day, there to-mor 
 row ! Our God is a very fearful 
 thing ! " 
 
 Quarry was considered an orator 
 in Soot City. He always spoke at 
 social functions and stirred his audi 
 ences. 
 
 "This man" here the blackest 
 Polack snorted like the report of 
 firearms, and every one at the 
 sound burst into weeping "this 
 man," screamed Quarry, strengthen 
 ing his effect, " was a good man ! 
 He knew ten at night as well as
 
 52 0l0nqm0lmre0. 
 
 the town clock. He was a Chris 
 tian gentleman, and done as well 
 by his friends as he did by the 
 chapel, and what more can a man 
 do? In passing out, those that 
 knowed him good, or any of the 
 men that were pretty common 
 with him, can put their hands on 
 his hand, as some has the feelin' 
 it's best." 
 
 Thereupon Quarry made way for 
 himself to the kitchen table, and 
 stood striving against a triumph so 
 strong that it seemed a physical sen 
 sation. And J arisen lay scorched, 
 inert, and blasted. 
 
 To any one knowing the old 
 Saxon custom of touching a corpse 
 as a means of finding its uncon- 
 fessed murderer the scene would
 
 Blast Kite. 53 
 
 have been more intense from the 
 moment that the first hand a 
 woman's was laid on the least 
 sore member of Jarlsen's wrecked 
 body. 
 
 None but Miss Bentley knew 
 that the custom was a primitive 
 habit of the race. She alone had 
 a vision of spurting blood as the 
 guilty hand touched its victim. 
 That vision was usual to her at 
 the blast rites, and she felt a 
 strange thrill of uncertainty when 
 she put her own innocent, helping 
 hand on a blasted labourer. 
 
 The greater part of the crowd 
 strolled off, subdued, into the bright 
 morning. The rest lingered to lay 
 hands on an old friend. 
 
 J arisen, the man who had given
 
 54 
 
 his ear to their sorrows and lent his 
 high, searching voice to all their 
 social joys, was virtually dead to 
 them ; and it was in tense silence 
 that the heavy-footed workmen ap 
 proached the table. Then there 
 would be a sobbing sigh, and some 
 one would pass out at the door. 
 Few people can touch the dead 
 without tears, and as Jerry Black 
 said, " The blasts is dead men with 
 live tongues." 
 
 They had all gone ; the room 
 grew light as the crowd moved from 
 the windows. Sunlight bathed the 
 floor at Emma's feet, and Black 
 stood beside her, knowing she 
 feared to be without him when 
 J arisen was deaf to her and Quarry 
 spoke his kind of love to her, and
 
 Blast Bile. 55 
 
 her father was only a peevish old 
 child. Quarry laid a nervous hand 
 on Jarlsen, who had been roused 
 more than once through his tactile 
 sense as some old friend's hand had 
 lain for a moment on his. 
 
 When Quarry's touch fell on him, 
 he cried out, " O Emma, Emma ! 
 am I dead, that I can not hear you ? 
 Is your voice gone behind the sky, 
 that you hold your mouth yet ? Is 
 your hand cut off you ? Don't 
 marry Quarry till I am home 
 again ! Emma, tell me where you 
 are. It is all black inside me ! " 
 
 Emma leaped to him. She was 
 " swift as a wicked cat," Quarry 
 told her later on when he cursed 
 her. 
 
 She hurt him cruelly, but Jarlsen
 
 56 
 
 smiled, and his blackened face grew 
 brighter. " I shall not marry until 
 Heaven " she vowed, but he could 
 not hear. The pain of her embrace 
 was fearful, but she clung fast, and 
 called out in her big voice the loy 
 alty he longed for and that he felt 
 in the suffering her strong arms 
 caused him, even though he could 
 not hear. 
 
 And then Jerry touched her. 
 " I'm afraid he's fainted," he said, 
 as though he apologized.
 
 IV. 
 
 QUARRY THE SCHEMER. 
 
 " The winged word of spite outstrips a kind 
 ness." 
 
 EMMA was too tired to feel her 
 unhappiness, and too relieved, now 
 that everything was over, to feel 
 her loneliness very much. The 
 blast rite had somehow robbed her 
 of her hope of Jarlsen's recovery, 
 and established the idea of his 
 death in her mind. Jeremy Black 
 nursed him at first, after her out 
 burst. In the neighbours' phrase, 
 he " turned and fed the poor blast." 
 
 57
 
 58 Slonepaslures. 
 
 Emma's crude nature found a 
 pleasure never before known to 
 her in food, and in lying on the 
 lean-to floor and thanking God 
 that her barber days were over. 
 Her voice was harsh and loud; she 
 had always hidden it from J arisen. 
 To-day she sang and was not 
 ashamed. 
 
 Then Black went mysteriously to 
 the city. This might mean New 
 York, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, or 
 some nearer, smaller town than 
 either of these. He left at the be 
 ginning of the drought, and Emma, 
 with the rest of his townspeople, 
 envied him sorely. Her resumed 
 service to Jarlsen was automatic. 
 He spoke, but she did not listen ; 
 she was afraid of being hurt if she
 
 tfye Schemer. 59 
 
 heard his words. The drought 
 made her double work, for her pa 
 tient drank a great deal of water, 
 and refused it with a wearied pa 
 tience if it were not cold. She 
 often went at noon to the Bridge 
 well, her tin dipper growing burn 
 ing hot beneath a sun that made 
 the mica specks shine in the road 
 side dust. She lagged heavily down 
 the hill, the people greeting her and 
 she answering without knowledge 
 of what they said. She had learned 
 that forgetfulness is the better part 
 of wisdom. 
 
 She could not ignore Quarry ; 
 he was merciless. On Sunday she 
 went at six for Jarlsen's drink 
 from the well. She had a hand 
 ful of oatmeal to put in it ; and, 
 
 5
 
 60 Sttmepastttres. 
 
 as she leaned over and caught the 
 dripping bucket, she heard Quarry's 
 voice in the alder thicket that smelt 
 sweet with the heavy dew on it. 
 
 " She's a real good girl, and I 
 can't help but feel, ef she could 
 let me at her wedding dance, set 
 alone with her waitin' till Jarlsen 
 come, that I owe it to her to marry 
 her, and I think when she's worn 
 out her mourning thet she'd be 
 agreeable. He was a queer fellow ; 
 hed them fancy virtues thet pre 
 vents a man from making a good 
 husband jest as sure as his havin' 
 the vices would. He give his 
 money to lame-legged and blind- 
 eyed, and thet's keepin' it from 
 wifie jest es much es if he give 
 it up for drink."
 
 the Schemer. 61 
 
 A woman's voice answered him 
 in full assent : " You'll not be the 
 only one to marry her, though ; 
 she's got money now, and a rare 
 head for livin' straight." 
 
 Emma had not seen the woman, 
 but guessed it must be one of those 
 who " wrought " in the offices of the 
 plant, writing, or sorting the mass of 
 mail. Excepting herself Quarry 
 rarely spoke to any one of less class 
 among the women. 
 
 She was very angry, and could see 
 how Quarry had used it all in his 
 talk ; all the circumstances of her 
 courtship he could twist into evi 
 dence that she had loved nothing 
 of Jarlsen but what he had left her. 
 She could hear the woman's opinion 
 that her conduct was not quite right,
 
 62 Stonepasturcs. 
 
 uttered in the dry tone she used 
 when speaking of her straight life. 
 
 She said to herself just as fiercely 
 as ever that Quarry was a liar, but 
 she felt that happiness had given 
 her the power to fight him, and 
 now her happiness was gone. She 
 remembered with a dim horror 
 that Quarry had resumed a prac 
 tice, since Jarlsen's mishap, that she 
 hoped her engagement had ended. 
 Up to the day that they had spoken 
 of their marriage publicly, Quarry 
 would take things into his hands 
 that Emma had lately touched and 
 fondle them. He had done so 
 again the day of the blast rite, she 
 remembered. 
 
 She had intended to revel in her 
 grief at chapel that morning, and
 
 tl)e Schemer. 63 
 
 Quarry had divined her intention. 
 She meant to stand in the singing, 
 as Jarlsen had stood, and sob when 
 the preacher shivered and scowled 
 and beat the reading-desk with his 
 fists. She would not go now. She 
 felt that no one would believe that 
 she mourned for him if Quarry had 
 been talking about her very much 
 in the way she had heard. She 
 burned to speak with him of the 
 traitor's part he had played. 
 
 It was as usual in Soot City as 
 in other places for folks to bethink 
 themselves of the church when 
 trouble thwarts them ; and so every 
 one went to church expecting Em 
 ma. And Quarry's tongue was not 
 quite long enough to have reached 
 the general ear in so short a time.
 
 64 Slonepastnrca. 
 
 The congregation was very large, 
 and the flattered minister observed 
 Emma's absence with satisfaction. 
 He never thought that his hearers 
 could have been ignorant of her 
 intention to stay at home, and 
 supposed that in the sudden calam 
 ity come upon the town they had 
 found a warning anent churchless 
 ways. He announced an extra 
 service at three in the afternoon, 
 and the only person who answered 
 it was Jeremy Black's foreman, who 
 came to protest. 
 
 After service Quarry went straight 
 to Emma's room. He could not ac 
 count for her absence ; he had in 
 tended to sit with her in the front 
 pew while she stood in the singing. 
 He expected to colour his stories
 
 tfye Schemer. 65 
 
 with her behaviour and satisfy every 
 one that she had loved the money 
 J arisen left her the best of all his 
 attentions. 
 
 She was sitting with her charge, 
 who lay with his face turned away 
 from the sun blind, maimed, deaf 
 yet as conscious of Quarry's pres 
 ence as when last week he had 
 turned to him with lazy scorn and 
 a short word. 
 
 " Emma," said Quarry. 
 
 " Yes," she said, after a pause. 
 She had been wondering if he 
 could have been telling about the 
 money everywhere and " setting the 
 men on her." 
 
 Quarry looked at her and at Jarl- 
 sen with a twist in his mouth that 
 he thought of as " his smile." He
 
 66 
 
 realized that he could insult Emma 
 thoroughly in the presence of a Soot 
 citizen who could not stir to pro 
 tect her. 
 
 " The women think you might as 
 well marry," he said. " You've got 
 the fixin's, and if you take me 
 you've got the husband. The 
 whole place expects a wedding 
 off you. You've got the extra 
 money to care for your friend 
 here." 
 
 " I'd rather give up the money 
 than take you ; besides," she said 
 spitefully, "there's better men nor 
 you in the town that knows I have 
 money for my man. You ain't no 
 kind to love me after what I've had, 
 and I don't want you should make 
 my love for this one shabby, talkin'
 
 (dnurrji ttye Schemer. 67 
 
 it over all the time. You can get 
 out," she said very quietly. 
 
 Quarry went ; and, as he said 
 himself, his heart was sour. 
 
 Then Emma stayed at J arisen 's 
 side and prayed in the hot after 
 noon silence, and wondered why 
 God didn't do something worth 
 while that is how she thought it. 
 But she never doubted Him nor the 
 fate that He ordained, but rocked 
 in her only rocking-chair and kissed 
 her helpless lover boldly, longing 
 for a woman's touch as a sick child 
 longs for its mother. 
 
 When J arisen spoke her name 
 she trembled with love of him ; she 
 was awake now and filled with pity. 
 She did not answer, but, like a child, 
 prayed God to tell J arisen she heard
 
 68 
 
 him call, and then slept till the cool 
 ness of dusk awoke her. J arisen 
 slept a little while too, and told her 
 he had talked with her in dreams. 
 
 She got the supper, talking 
 within herself. " I can feel things 
 mend," she said. " Every one will 
 come out right, and my big man 
 will live again and lick that terrible 
 scant Christian, Quarry ! " 
 
 She ate her supper opposite her 
 silent old father. It was quite late ; 
 they had candles and a lamp, which 
 was only an extravagance for court- 
 ing-time in the sordid social usage 
 of Soot City. 
 
 Emma had not thought of this 
 till Ben Bowa, the youngest fore 
 man, stood in the narrow doorway. 
 
 " I didn't know to come in till I
 
 ttye Schemer. 69 
 
 saw lights making the shine," he 
 explained in Swedes' English. And 
 then many more came in, and the 
 kitchen was full. J arisen cried for 
 water from the next room, and be 
 fore Emma could get to her feet 
 Quarry had gone to him. 
 
 " How can I show them I don't 
 want one of them ? " she thought. 
 There was no word of Jarlsen, and 
 everything went on as it had when 
 the one or two men courted her be 
 fore Jarlsen took her. 
 
 Bowa cut profiles out of paper 
 and asked whose they were, and the 
 other men performed their trifling 
 social accomplishments. They were 
 endeavouring to " raise a laugh " ; 
 none came. 
 
 Late at night a wakeful neigh-
 
 7 Stone|jaslure0. 
 
 hour heard Emma's door close, and 
 later God heard her sobbing. " That 
 Quarry's done me ! " was what she 
 said. 
 
 And through the night her eyes 
 burned, and she felt that the dark 
 ness fell like a weight on them. 
 She longed even for Miss Bentley 
 or the Polack girls' overdressed 
 Madonnas.
 
 V. 
 
 HOPE AHEAD. 
 
 " Only the saints and the feeble-minded suffer 
 gladly." 
 
 EMMA tossed restlessly that night. 
 Once the cinder flare leaped upon 
 her walls, staining them with a flick 
 ering orange glow. This incident 
 emphasized to her mind the horrid 
 blackness that had lately fastened 
 on their household. 
 
 She awoke very early next morn 
 ing in the final, nervous way that 
 worried people dread, and sat hud 
 dled on the floor of the lean-to in 
 
 71
 
 72 Stonqmstitrcs. 
 
 the still, sunless cold. Jarlsen's loud 
 talk echoed in the empty kitchen, 
 but she knew she could not wake 
 him with her voice. The thought 
 recurred to her with all the force of 
 discovery that, waking or sleeping, 
 the voices of this world were dead 
 to him. 
 
 Black would return to-day. It 
 was odd to call this hour to-day. 
 The noontide that would bring 
 Black again to Soot City seemed 
 very different from any dim time of 
 loud agonies like that which makes 
 the dawns of the sore-hearted. 
 
 To-day she would also be paid 
 the " blast money," part accident in 
 surance and part Jarlsen's savings. 
 The anticipation of this pleased her 
 until she moved into the disordered
 
 73 
 
 kitchen and saw the chairs as Bowa 
 and the others had left them, and 
 smelt the lamp that was a survival 
 . of the courting days she had prized. 
 Then she groaned. 
 
 For a moment the idea of bring 
 ing out the leather barber's apron 
 and the keen razors, as a tacit con 
 tradiction to any report of her 
 wealth, seemed a clear inspiration. 
 But with Quarry and Wavering 
 Jim to talk, she knew all delicate 
 denial to be useless. 
 
 She opened the house and sat 
 along the narrow door-sill, her back 
 to one jamb, her knees drawn up 
 and fixed against the other. As 
 the sun came up, the cinder flare 
 crept in a stealthy flush along 
 the earth and lost its power in
 
 74 
 
 the heavens as the day grew 
 bright. 
 
 At last the cold stung her hands, 
 and the sun chased the shivers 
 down her back, so that she went 
 again into the house, forgetting 
 that an hour since she had loathed 
 it. Quarry was with Jarlsen, who 
 clamoured on, asking questions 
 whose answers he could not hear. 
 
 He was learning his deafness by 
 degrees, for his fits of silence were 
 longer, but with Quarry he talked 
 always. Quarry's touch was abom 
 inable to the Swede, and his pres 
 ence pricked to the quick a soul 
 whose every other approach was 
 blockaded. 
 
 Emma, in pity, took up the jug 
 of sweet oil to bathe the burns.
 
 75 
 
 Her hand was light from shaving, 
 and it had learned a wonderful cau 
 tion from the teachings of pain. 
 She could mitigate its brown 
 strength with a suddenness like 
 the swift softnesses of Jarlsen's old- 
 time singing, and he would smile at 
 her as she used to smile at his own 
 skilled tunefulness. She almost 
 stroked the scorches with her wise, 
 soothing hands. 
 
 She had meant to spend the 
 morning on the doorsill, in the 
 hope that a passing woman might 
 be kind and glance her way. She 
 longed so for a woman's friendship ! 
 She was sure that half the sting of 
 her sorrow would vanish with re 
 cital. 
 
 At the last accident, when they 
 
 6
 
 7 6 Stonepastnres. 
 
 brought home Jerry Black's half- 
 sister's husband from a squeeze be 
 tween the ore cars ; as soon as every 
 one had made quite sure he was 
 dead, Martha Long herself a per 
 sonage even in the presence of a 
 newly made widow caught Jerry's 
 sister in her arms and rocked to 
 and fro with her standing, until 
 both women fell on the plush sofa. 
 
 Such scenes dignify sorrow in 
 one type of the common mind. 
 
 Emma knew that Quarry had 
 lied about her, and through the 
 day she wondered what the lie 
 might have been. The absence of 
 feminine condolers worried her, and 
 added to her dread of the time 
 when the hands of the clock 
 should reach half past one. That
 
 77 
 
 was the hour of Jarlsen's leave- 
 taking on the day before that set 
 for their wedding. As the time 
 approached the ticking of the clock 
 seemed louder, and she went into 
 the lean-to to escape from it. She 
 lay there, covered over and quiet as 
 though night had come. 
 
 The latch rattled, and Martha 
 Long, with her thin face and burn 
 ing eyes, stood in the lean-to door 
 way with her baby's half-knit hood 
 in her fingers. She cast a glance of 
 piercing inquiry at Emma, and her 
 emphasis was not conciliatory. 
 
 "Well," she said, "God has 
 strange ways with the righteous. 
 You've had your troubles, poor 
 girl!" 
 
 " I don't see there's need for that
 
 78 
 
 kind o' talk," said Emma vaguely ; 
 " them as gives it ain't had over 
 much, I guess ! " 
 
 "Well, no offence," said Martha, 
 overbearingly ; " how is he ? " 
 
 " Making out no more. He 
 ain't got a piece of skin on him 
 that don't appear to be fried, and 
 he talks till your heart splits in 
 your body." 
 
 " It's a good sign if he's rebel 
 lious. My brother was fearful meek. 
 He could hear a little, and the 
 whole town had hopes, when one 
 morning he turned his head in to 
 the wall, and he says to poor Jarl- 
 sen, who was tending him, ' You 
 give that oatmeal and water where 
 it's wanted,' he says ; ' you can 
 give me a pleasure drink for the
 
 79 
 
 last I get.' He didn't drink much 
 ever, and Jarlsen give him a drop 
 of something, and then he lay still 
 and was dumb dead before your 
 poor feller could rinch the glass. 
 So it goes!" Martha ended dis 
 mally. 
 
 Emma did not find this quite 
 satisfactory, so she said nothing. 
 
 " And there is something you 
 have to be thankful for," said 
 Martha further, forgetting that 
 nothing causes man to hate his 
 lot like telling him to be thankful 
 for it ; " you've got a good man to 
 fall back on. That Quarry's more 
 to you in most ways nor your born 
 mother would be. Yesterday he 
 was saying as how risky it was to 
 marry where the language was dif-
 
 8o 
 
 ferent. Two tongues like that in 
 a house means secrets." 
 
 Emma had started up. " That 
 Quarry says more than his prayers," 
 she cried out fiercely ; " I knew he'd 
 been lyin' 'round about me. I don't 
 hold by his ways ; and I'm goin' to 
 stick by that husk of a husband in 
 there, ef he don't get better till the 
 day I die. He ain't talked kind 
 about me, and worse talk is due, I 
 know, but I'll bide my rights, and 
 have 'em." 
 
 Martha felt admiration. Emma 
 was not as Quarry had reported 
 her. She recited a few more " inci 
 dents," and strolled, without leave- 
 making and still knitting, toward 
 the door. " Come in some night 
 when you're lonesome," was all she
 
 81 
 
 had left in her heart of the invita 
 tion she had meant to give the girl 
 in Bovva's interest. It was plain to 
 her woman's eye that Emma loved 
 J arisen maimed better than a town 
 full of men of sound members. 
 
 She wondered, however, why the 
 girl hadn't the sense to take Quar 
 ry, who was getting in with the fac 
 tory hands like water through a 
 leak. 
 
 Black came in a moment after 
 Martha's departure. He had a 
 wallet in his hand, and his face 
 was clothed in a bright kindliness 
 that turned Emma's heart toward 
 him. 
 
 " I'm glad you've had lady's com 
 pany," he said. 
 
 " You're looking daft, dear," Em-
 
 82 
 
 ma answered, when she had studied 
 him. 
 
 Suddenly the little fellow spread 
 his hands. " Last night," he said, 
 " I went to heaven cheap fifty 
 cents entrance fee. I heard a man 
 play on a fiddle ; well, if the 
 sweetest voice in heaven sang its 
 best it couldn't learn that feller 
 much. I sat there and just pined 
 away to hear the back door shut, 
 or some other shabby kind of 
 sound, just to show it was really I 
 situated in the concert hall. But 
 that's not this," he concluded, put 
 ting his hand on the wallet ; " here's 
 your due." 
 
 Jerry held it out to her. His 
 face was red, and he made visible 
 efforts to control its expression,
 
 83 
 
 which changed from conscious di 
 plomacy to kindly eagerness. 
 
 " I seen a doctor in the town, a 
 professor of blasts, kind of. He 
 knows the ins and outs and con- 
 binizations of paralysis pretty pat, 
 and I told him I had a good 
 friend laid up in a blast, and he 
 said he'd charge maybe a hundred 
 or maybe fifty dollars to come 
 up on purpose to see him. So 
 that's your best way of layin' out 
 his money, Emma." 
 
 " I was thinkin' that would be 
 good myself," Emma answered with 
 a quiver of gratitude on her lips. 
 
 "And I'm obliged to say that 
 you could offer a little to Quarry, 
 just to keep his tongue sweet. 
 He's got a fearful gainin' way with
 
 84 
 
 his mouth, and them nutt and bolt 
 hands will pick up and listen to all 
 he has to say. They've been in 
 schools, and are crazy for talkin' 
 and politics. The kind of foolish 
 ness men gets from schools is the 
 worst kind." 
 
 Jerry was angry. 
 
 "Ain't he been talkin' on me, 
 maybe ? " Emma asked. 
 
 " Perhaps so, perhaps no. He's 
 so mean you could buy him for a 
 small price. He ain't much of a 
 luxury." 
 
 As they talked they heard the 
 dinner pails clanking as some of 
 the men came down the home 
 ward hill. Then an oar car sided 
 under the window close by the 
 house. In it were the workmen
 
 85 
 
 of the nutt and bolt factory 
 Quarry in their midst, his face ar 
 dently conceited and his gestures 
 highly alcoholic. 
 
 Emma scanned him with a fierce 
 contempt. " He wouldn't be like 
 that if he could stir around," she 
 exclaimed, pointing toward her own 
 room door. 
 
 Then she stood by Jarlsen's bed 
 to avoid Quarry, and as she looked 
 at him he laughed ; it was his old, 
 mirthful, kindly laughter. It seemed 
 to the girl, who cherished him, that 
 he had brought pain to their house, 
 and had also been spared its conse 
 quences. She suffered he slept.
 
 VI. 
 
 A BAD BARGAIN. 
 
 " It is well to pay your debts, on the chance 
 you'll lose your money." 
 
 IN four days' time Black received 
 a letter from the paralysis special 
 ist that delighted him. It consisted 
 solely of questions regarding trains 
 and Soot City conveyances and the 
 distance from the station to the pa 
 tient's abiding place. To the genial 
 undertaker intercourse with a man 
 too busy to con a time-table was 
 social promotion. 
 
 He went at once to Emma, and
 
 <2t Sab Sargain. 87 
 
 in a mixed state of reverence and 
 elation read her the physician's curt 
 note, with his own copious com 
 ment. 
 
 " Sounds 'cute, don't he ? " said 
 Black. " He knows I understand 
 him. It must be a kind of com 
 fort to him comin' to a strange 
 place to find a man of his own 
 stamp who feels just his way about 
 the game o' life." 
 
 Putting his tongue in his cheek, 
 he was soon lost in wonder to find 
 himself, after long years of compar 
 ative obscurity, so very like this 
 shining light of medical science. 
 
 Emma almost said her thought 
 aloud ; it was well she did not, for 
 she was saying inwardly, " You can 
 always tell when Jerry Black's been
 
 88 
 
 to the city, he has such an extra 
 green look." 
 
 With Martha Long for aid, she 
 prepared for the doctor joyfully. 
 They washed everything just for 
 the love of the unaccustomed, 
 that seizes women under suspense. 
 Everything had been washed for 
 the wedding, and was still much 
 cleaner than its ordinary state. 
 There was one day when the 
 house-cleaning was finished and the 
 doctor not yet come ; so Martha 
 undertook a little rudimentary 
 cooking, and Emma raked up the 
 little space of yard and dug out 
 the weeds from the beds of cinder- 
 spotted marigolds. 
 
 She tended J arisen more and 
 more, and the friendliness Martha
 
 31 Bab Bargain. 89 
 
 showed toward her pleased her 
 mightily. She would take her to 
 the Swede's bed and show her how 
 his looks were coming back, and 
 then, forgetful of her presence, 
 would stand in silent wonder at 
 the expression of wisdom fast be 
 coming habitual to him. 
 
 He seemed to know more of 
 what was, and is, and is to be, than 
 any of the people she had seen, and 
 he had not seemed so wise when he 
 had lips wherewith to speak wisely. 
 For a half hour and more she would 
 
 sometimes watch him, unconscious 
 
 . 
 
 of time, and at last a fit of longing, 
 like a mother's, would bend her to 
 him. Anxious for his thoughts, she 
 would put her hand on his temple 
 as if feeling for them. He would
 
 90 0t0nc;pastttre0. 
 
 smile and say " Emma " ; then her 
 blushes would come as they had 
 when he was a bright mystery to 
 her, because she dared not raise her 
 eyes to his face ; and she took the 
 utterance of her name as an an 
 swer to her craving. 
 
 Quarry and her father had be 
 come cares she could not shoulder ; 
 she simply could not think of them. 
 Quarry never returned from work 
 without company, and he and his 
 friends would sit in the yard on 
 Emma's chairs, which they carried 
 from the kitchen without her per 
 mission. In a man she liked, this 
 proceeding might have been an 
 noying ; but from Quarry it was a 
 liberty that was enraging. 
 
 One day Emma heard him stir-
 
 Sob Sargain. 9 1 
 
 ring up strife with his tongue ; he 
 was a fascinating speaker, even 
 when as the Swedes said he 
 " talked beside his mouth," which 
 is their idiom for conversational 
 embellishment. 
 
 She called him to her. " Send 
 them away," she said shortly. 
 
 Without a word of dissent he 
 made them move, and Mr. Butte 
 shambled out to bring in the 
 chairs. 
 
 "Take them in yourself," she 
 called wickedly. " You was strong 
 enough to get them out there." 
 
 With a more sullen compliance 
 he put them just within the narrow 
 doorsill. 
 
 Still she eyed him with her 
 mouth stretched into something
 
 9 2 
 
 like a smile. " Put 'em in their 
 places," she said. 
 
 Again Quarry obeyed her. 
 
 Then her contemptuous smile be 
 came laughter. " You wouldn't hev 
 done thet ef you hedn't got wind 
 of what I'm goin' to even to you. 
 See here you talk too much. 
 Would you talk less if you had 
 more money? I guess maybe. 
 Here's what you said at Martha 
 Long's party. You showed how 
 it was a good thing August J ari 
 sen got the blast, because I kind o' 
 leaned toward you latterly. And 
 as for you, you says you'd always 
 leaned toward me, and it was bet 
 ter to have August J arisen saved 
 learnin' it." The girl covered him 
 with her tragic eyes, and expressed
 
 Bargain. 93 
 
 her own strong instinct in a ges 
 ture she had learned from the Po- 
 lacks she crossed herself with a 
 rapid hand. She had never before 
 felt Quarry to be so evil. " Now," 
 she said, " fifty dollars if you'll stop 
 that ! " 
 
 For a moment delight leaped from 
 his eyes. He threw out his hand ; 
 then he looked at her darkly, his 
 expression altered to one of fear 
 and misgiving. 
 
 "All right," he said finally. 
 
 "Well, I'll pay you later," said 
 Emma, and every word she spoke 
 cut like a whip, her voice was so 
 shrill with contemptuous anger. 
 
 She was a young girl, and had 
 hoped he would not take the 
 money; partly because she didn't
 
 94 
 
 wish to believe that he could be 
 mean enough to take it from her, 
 when he knew that he was the last 
 person the Swede would give it to, 
 had he any longer the power to 
 give. 
 
 Her lips shrank away from her 
 teeth in contemptuous, writhing 
 smiles when she thought of it. 
 
 She scarcely knew how to array 
 herself for the doctor's visit. She 
 wanted to impress him with a sense 
 of her fitness to nurse the patient. 
 She had had visions of Jarlsen's de 
 parture in an ambulance for some 
 city hospital, where a uniformed 
 woman would hear his groans and 
 heed them for hire only. 
 
 Quarry knew nothing of the 
 doctor's advent. Emma under-
 
 31 Sab Bargain. 95 
 
 stood that he would talk about it, 
 and that her enemies would say she 
 must be sure of Jarlsen's death 
 when she dared let loose a first- 
 class pill-man on him. 
 
 Then, besides, the Englishman 
 was unreasonable and iterative, like 
 many Englishmen ; and she knew 
 how he would search his mind for 
 ways to tell her that J arisen was as 
 good as dead already. " I ought 
 to pay him right away, or he'll 
 do a little of his fancy talkin', 
 maybe." 
 
 Black went to the station in a 
 funeral carriage, which was the more 
 imposing as there were but four in 
 Soot City. (Casually he paid toll 
 on the turnpike for the eight horses 
 that drew these vehicles, and they
 
 were always taxed as " pleasure 
 teams." Again casually he saw no 
 joke in this, even when the mourn 
 ers received legacies.) He wore a 
 red tie with his black, professionally 
 sombre clothes, and this he did as 
 he would not imply Jarlsen's death 
 to the doctor, in case the physician 
 should be standing on the platform 
 and should see him before he could 
 get speech of him. Black employed 
 his imagination in this sort of futile 
 arrangement of improbable circum 
 stance. 
 
 On the doctor's arrival they 
 drove directly to the Buttes. They 
 alighted at the Bridge and saw 
 thence to Emma's doorway, where 
 Quarry was standing. He looked 
 as though he had had rum in his
 
 31 Cab Bargain. 97 
 
 tea, and as if even that had not 
 reconciled him to existence. 
 
 "Where's Emma?" he asked of 
 Black. 
 
 "She's in with August. Dr. 
 Brent, this gentleman lives here ; 
 he's an old friend of Mr. Butte's, 
 and Mr. Jarlsen's too, I may say." 
 
 Quarry, returned in the noon re 
 cess to find a perfect stranger about 
 to invade the house ; did not un 
 derstand the situation, as was very 
 evident. He grinned absently, and 
 went toward Jarlsen's room door. 
 
 " Emma, come out here." His tone 
 was wheedling, and his fingers were 
 tapping nervously on the wall. She 
 came out to him quickly ; her eyes 
 were bright and her face was full of 
 a vigorous hope.
 
 98 
 
 " Hurry up ! " she said ; " I want 
 to bring the doctor in." 
 
 " Could you oblige me with the 
 trifle you named Thursday ? I want 
 to blow it right in this noon." 
 
 Emma thought it wise to pay 
 him at once, although her heart 
 was beating in her ears she 
 longed so for the doctor's opinion 
 on J arisen. She hesitated, and then 
 said : " It is in the wallet between 
 the shake-downs in the lean-to 
 chamber. Put it back where you 
 found it." 
 
 She forgot him as she greeted 
 the doctor; her whole mind was 
 full of the Swede.
 
 VII. 
 
 TROUBLE ACCUMULATES. 
 
 "If you're feeding a mean dog, be sure he'll 
 bite you when he's had enough." 
 
 THE doctor let Emma tell him 
 her own complete narrative of Jarl- 
 sen's mishap ; nor did he interrupt 
 once, save with questions that served 
 as a spur to her flagging memory. 
 Her mode of recital was detailed 
 and feminine, obnoxious to science. 
 She told, incidentally (but at great 
 length) how Jarlsen had always 
 treated her; and quoted his say 
 ings, which were, in her retrospec- 
 
 99
 
 ioo 
 
 tive judgment, prophetic. The doc 
 tor's manner was so courteous that 
 a more experienced girl than 
 Emma could not have inferred that 
 Jarlsen's relations with her before 
 the accident would not strike his 
 physician as indicative of his con 
 dition after it. 
 
 Dr. Brent had a sober, inscruta 
 ble smile ; he gave the observer an 
 impression of seeing with great dif 
 ficulty, although he wore no glasses. 
 His manner was at times indiffer 
 ent, yet he inspired confidence. As 
 Jerry had said, " He don't have to 
 hustle to cure you, like these farmin' 
 pill-men we hev to Soot City." 
 
 Emma was so rapt in the first 
 uninterrupted recital of her troubles 
 that she did not observe Quarry as
 
 trouble 
 
 he crossed the kitchen to the house 
 door. He had the wallet in his 
 hand, which shook ; his face twitched 
 and was chalk white. 
 
 " I hope that is not your father," 
 said Dr. Brent politely as he would 
 say : " There is a shower coming ; I 
 hope it may not wet you." 
 
 Emma looked at him and liked 
 him, for she saw that he knew at a 
 glance what Quarry was. And she 
 had taken lessons in him for a life 
 time and had not learned him yet. 
 Then the doctor rose and went into 
 Jarlsen's room. 
 
 Waiting for the doctor's opinion 
 is one of the fearful things that civ 
 ilization has imposed on humanity. 
 It is during such intervals of sus 
 pense that a racked mind learns the
 
 Btonejwstttrea. 
 
 pattern of the carpet, the similarity 
 in outline of some familiar pieces of 
 furniture, and of some impossible 
 beast or bird sprawling on the wall 
 papers. Emma discovered stains in 
 the sheer curtains at the window. 
 She prayed in a general way, and 
 feared the moment when the doctor 
 should appear again. 
 
 For the first time she observed 
 that quite a crowd surrounded the 
 house, looking in at the windows. 
 They wore long faces beneath their 
 eager eyes, and looked as though 
 good news would be a (conversa 
 tional) calamity. Jerry Black, how 
 ever, stood among them with the 
 perfect aspect of honest sympathy. 
 
 It was to him that Emma beck 
 oned. He entered the house in re-
 
 103 
 
 sponse, with an air of great impor 
 tance. He had been telling half 
 the town by twos and threes, and as 
 a great favour, exactly what he had 
 said to Dr. Brent. The town lis 
 tened in the hope of hearing what 
 Dr. Brent had said to him. 
 
 Emma motioned him to stand 
 close to her. 
 
 " When do you pay ? " said she. 
 
 "'Most any time," said Jerry. 
 " You can pay the first day for a 
 whole set of visits, or you can pay 
 when he sends a bill, or 'most any 
 way." 
 
 " How can I tell how often he's 
 comin' ? " 
 
 " He ain't let pass that he's corn- 
 in' more than this once, but you'll 
 have to go high for this once.
 
 104 Sionepastures. 
 
 Think of the fares here and back ; 
 the car money alone is twenty-five 
 dollars, and not countin' chair-cars 
 or meals." 
 
 " Well, I'll give him a hundred, 
 and see how he likes that." 
 
 " All right," said Jerry ; " you 
 give it to him now. He'd be 
 more likely to come later, if he 
 knew we pay before he can put 
 hat on to go home." 
 
 She had planned it all ; the 
 money should be put in his hand 
 just as he was leaving. She 
 thought of no receipt, just as she 
 thought of none for the money 
 she put in the plate on those de 
 lightful courtship Sundays. In 
 deed, she felt the transactions to 
 be similar.
 
 d rouble QlcctttnttlaUs. 105 
 
 She wanted to show, just as she 
 had shown then, that though Jarl- 
 sen was her man, he was no pauper. 
 The bill was to be paid in the sight 
 of the surrounding multitude at 
 the windows. 
 
 Presently Dr. Brent came out. 
 He looked at the faces set in the 
 window frames, and made no com 
 ment. Emma realized, with hope 
 full grown to thankfulness, that had 
 he felt there was nothing encourag 
 ing to say, he would have dispersed 
 the waiting men and women before 
 he spoke. 
 
 " Miss Butte," he said, " I've seen 
 worse than he recover. His sight 
 is gone, sealed up with scorch ; but 
 he'll hear again some day. Get him 
 up as soon as the smart goes."
 
 io6 
 
 Some one in the window said, 
 " He'll make wages dead easy if he 
 hears again." 
 
 " Fm glad ," said Dr. Brent, turn 
 ing toward the window. " Encour 
 age him to work when the smart is 
 over." 
 
 He declined Emma's offered meal, 
 and prepared for departure, writing 
 on a bit of paper what he wished to 
 have done for Jarlsen. When he 
 rose, hat in hand, Emma spoke to 
 him. Her voice had a thrill of pride 
 in it, and her high spirit lent a dig 
 nity to the gaudy finery intended 
 to decorate her awkward frock. 
 
 " Doctor," she said, "will you set 
 a minute ? " 
 
 She entered the lean-to, erect and 
 elastic. Three minutes passed while
 
 rouble 2Utrnnniate0. 107 
 
 the crowd asked the doctor ques 
 tions, which he answered in words 
 of such strangeness to their ears 
 that they enjoyed all the sensa 
 tions of those who communicate 
 with spirits. They laughed at his 
 least word, and he, perceiving it, 
 darkened his sayings the further. 
 
 When Emma returned, her face 
 was set and her cheeks flamed, so 
 that their heat alone drew the 
 tears to her eyes. Her hands 
 shook, and hardly held the bit of 
 soiled paper and the stumpy pencil 
 that she carried. " Will you tell me 
 your name and address ? " she asked 
 of the doctor. 
 
 A sigh broke from her lips that 
 tried not to be a groan. 
 
 Black looked at her, and the
 
 io8 
 
 colour flew from his face. He 
 said afterward that his heart beat 
 so that he thought some one 
 knocked on the door. He knew 
 what had happened. 
 
 So did the doctor. " My ac 
 counts are payable in May," he 
 said, being kind, and knowing Soot 
 City to be ignorant. 
 
 Emma smiled again, and, with 
 the patronizing manner that is the 
 outcome of complete shyness, said, 
 " Well, you're a real good doc 
 tor." 
 
 And so, with a slight constric 
 tion of his kindly heart, he shook 
 her hand and departed. 
 
 But she caught Black at his 
 exit. "That Quarry's stole!" said 
 she.
 
 2Ucmtmlote0. 109 
 
 Jerry looked sick and old ; his 
 voice sounded bitter. " I ain't got 
 a cent just now to spare," he said. 
 Then he grew fiercer, and cursed 
 the Englishman exhaustively and 
 with the awkwardness of a man 
 unused to such conversational in 
 dulgence. 
 
 The crowd followed as far as the 
 funeral carriage and stood to watch 
 it disappear in billows of dust. The 
 white horses and the black barouche 
 were alike buff before they were out 
 of sight of The Tracks. 
 
 And in sullen quiet Emma set 
 herself to wait for Quarry, not 
 trusting herself to look at Jarlsen 
 lest the sight of him should soften 
 her hate. 
 
 " He took the whole wallet ! "
 
 no 
 
 she repeated to herself, " and he 
 was the only man August wouldn't 
 give to. He knew it, too, or he'd 
 hev asked something off him when 
 first he seen we was settin' it up 
 together."
 
 VIII. 
 
 QUARRY'S ATTEMPT AT EXPLANA 
 TION. 
 
 " A man will say more to himself in excuse 
 than he will to his God or his friend." 
 
 EMMA'S eyes roved from object 
 to object as though she sought 
 escape ; they always returned to 
 the door, whence she expected 
 Quarry. It was a duty, she rea 
 soned, to turn this man's stealing 
 to swift shame. Words flocked to 
 her tongue that she could not re 
 member having used before, and 
 her mind's eye saw the English 
 man wince under them. A demon 
 in
 
 of invective filled her brain with 
 fierce thoughts as she tore the 
 shake-downs apart in a final hunt 
 for the wallet. And then a fit of 
 sobs and shaking beset her as she 
 waited again in the kitchen for 
 what she hoped would be in some 
 sort vengeance. 
 
 She remembered every mean 
 and, in her characterizing adjective, 
 every " useless " thing Quarry had 
 done ; how he had lied, and when. 
 She remembered his drunkenness 
 that terrible drunkenness in which 
 his self-assurance seemed boundless; 
 the remembered vanity of his face 
 startled her, and it seemed marvel 
 lous that his faults had not kept 
 him from their household as they 
 had kept him from their hearts.
 
 's Attempt at Explanation. 113 
 
 When some person has been the 
 provoking cause of emotions so 
 strong that the mind can not shake 
 off their grasp, it is quick to miscon 
 ceive that person. Quarry's voice 
 was a shock to Emma when at last 
 she heard it in the yard, although a 
 short time ago she had seen and 
 had speech with him. 
 
 Her heart sank when she found 
 he was talking with himself and in 
 a laudatory strain. His effort was 
 to walk straight, but his accom 
 plishment was slight. He lurched 
 to and from either marigold border, 
 so that the walk seemed serpentine 
 to Emma's shocked gaze. " No," 
 he said, " the ruins is covered with 
 ivory ; I shall pluck away the vine, 
 and the presspit is discovered." He
 
 Slonejwstureo. 
 
 spoke as he walked, doing as much 
 as possible at each lucid interval 
 between lapses. " No friend shall 
 fall away into the presspit, like I 
 nearly did." 
 
 His fall was upon nothing more 
 precipitous than the chair by the 
 door. Seeing anger on Emma's 
 face, he attempted to soothe her 
 with vague smiles of fearful ex 
 tent ; they travelled swiftly across 
 his flushed face and divided it into 
 north and south intemperate zones. 
 
 " Stop that" called Emma; "you've 
 done enough ! " 
 
 "Not yet!" shouted Quarry, im 
 pelled by an erratic enthusiasm ; 
 " I'll do more for my Emma. I've 
 laid out the money real well. We'll 
 buy the deepo and live in it ! It's
 
 'o Attempt at Explanation. 115 
 
 the finest house in Soot City, and if 
 you want J arisen too, you can keep 
 him for hired help. I don't want 
 there should be any stinting where 
 love is king." 
 
 " Give me my wallet," said Emma. 
 
 " I have given it where it'll do the 
 most good. The town rejoices that 
 a good deed was done. Mine the 
 deed though not the money." He 
 used this phrase as a sort of chant. 
 
 "Quarry," said Emma sternly, 
 " sober up, and think true for a 
 minute ! " 
 
 But he interrupted to say: "So 
 ber up ? Emma, you're enough to 
 turn a saint. I am so sober that 
 the boys laugh at me the way they 
 done at Jarlsen, and I've done the 
 wonderfullest thing! Money'll be
 
 so loose you can pick it up off any 
 thing in such a little while ! I in 
 vested yours in a great concern ; 
 it's safe. I'm at the head of it!" 
 He finished, with some tardy regard 
 for truth, and, waving his arms 
 comprehensively, lapsed again into 
 vagueness. 
 
 " Where did you put it ? " Emma 
 uttered her queries with pains, as if 
 she put them to a foreigner. 
 
 Then came lavish excuse. " I 
 put it in an investment," said he. 
 He was a little sobered now, and 
 wore a scared look. " Mr. J arisen, 
 Tore he was took with the blast, got 
 me to promise to invest his money. 
 He had a pulmonition of the blast, 
 so he did." 
 
 Emma looked at him again ; her
 
 's Attempt at (Zfrqjlattation. 117 
 
 face was white and hopeless, and 
 its young modelling seemed aged 
 and heavy. 
 
 " You ain't gone and sunk that 
 altogether, Quarry, hev you ? If 
 you hev, there's only the Stonepas- 
 tures left. It'll be a hard thing to 
 pass the Bridge once for all and see 
 your work-fellers comin' through 
 on the cars, and you only comin' es 
 fur es the Pastures from the factory. 
 Can't you think what you done 
 with it?" 
 
 " I've spent it. It's invested 
 but still it's spent." 
 
 She saw that the men would 
 have to take the matter up for 
 her. At first anger had nerved 
 her, but now she felt weakly de 
 spairing. It seemed to her that
 
 there was no use in effort to set 
 right circumstances so awry, until, 
 as she said, " things had stopped 
 happening." 
 
 " Well, you're a thief, anyway," 
 she said, " and I'd fight you if I 
 had any pith in me ! " 
 
 Quarry raised himself. "That's 
 you all over," he remarked sadly. 
 " I've seen you leap on Jarlsen 
 quick as a wicked cat ; and a lady 
 as lifts a hand to a half-dead man 
 is no lady. You have made my 
 life very profane, Emma. I don't 
 find in you the flavour of a godly 
 woman, Emma Butte," he added 
 with a final effort at dignity. 
 " You're a a mean girl ! " 
 
 Emma rose, and, standing, looked 
 him over thoroughly. No idea of
 
 s Attempt at (Explanation. 119 
 
 law came to aid her ignorant help 
 lessness. She understood now the 
 saying that women were " put 
 upon." Some girls would have 
 cried, but Emma had one sweet 
 drop in the bitter draught. She 
 would have to move to the Stone- 
 pastures, but by so doing she could 
 pay the doctor, even though she 
 had to shave again.
 
 IX. 
 
 BREAKING UP A HOME. 
 
 " It is better to live under God's sky than un 
 der a roof when there's no luck there." 
 
 You and I, knowing the use of 
 pen, ink, and paper, and the efficacy 
 of latter-day postal systems, must 
 remember that there are degrees of 
 education ; also, that all the meth 
 ods of communication in well or 
 ganized communities are as un 
 known to the ignorant, Americo- 
 alien population of such places as 
 Soot City as is the fate of nations to 
 the speculative schoolboy. Emma 
 
 120
 
 Breaking Hp a fjome. 121 
 
 needed Black's counsel, but she did 
 not think of the post as a means 
 of getting a letter to a man in her 
 own town. She reasoned that post- 
 office people would slight mail mat 
 ter not destined to go by train to 
 other cities. So her anxious heart 
 kept her waking to catch the light, 
 that she might get away in secret 
 to Black's house and there put her 
 case in his ever-open and ever-busy 
 hands. 
 
 Youthful weariness demands 
 sleep. Emma was young and 
 overweary, and, as a consequence, 
 overslept. 
 
 It was in the fear that calamity 
 might have stolen another march 
 on her that she dressed herself. She 
 had about her a neatness that en-
 
 122 Stonepaslnrcs. 
 
 raged the down-at-heel disheart 
 ened, of which there are so many 
 in labouring communities. 
 
 " The world," she thought, " has 
 thumped me till I ain't got half 
 the spring I hed to start on ; and 
 that's the reason I'm goin' to dress 
 up. I'll wear cuffs till I've got to 
 sell 'em, and a collar, ef I do have 
 to shave for a livin'." 
 
 But she had not enough pleasure 
 in living left to heat the coffee that 
 her father had used at his breakfast ; 
 she was only thankful that he had 
 gone away for his paper By the 
 Bridge, and that she might set 
 about vacating the house, with a 
 will. She did not think of consult 
 ing him. When a man has con 
 sented all his life to anything and
 
 Breaking ftp a Ijome. 123 
 
 never met any circumstance, crucial 
 or casual, with aught but irrelevant 
 comment, he is rarely a factor in 
 other people's plans. 
 
 She was glad she had not had to 
 get breakfast, for she had to tend 
 J arisen. The day was wet, and his 
 hurts seemed the sorer for the 
 damp. When she had done all for 
 him she laid her hand on his, but 
 the dread of packing her wedding 
 things was making war on her en 
 ergies. She felt she could not rest 
 till she had packed the white gown 
 out of sight and mind. Before 
 now she had held a private service 
 of tears over her six wedding pres 
 ents. Miss Bentley had given her 
 a jacket edged with good fur, and 
 her sister had given her some fine
 
 124 Stonejmsttires. 
 
 stockings ; but her lover's gift 
 meant more to her than any other 
 inanimate thing. It certainly meant 
 more than bread, for she would have 
 starved before she sold it, and died 
 in happiness had her eyes but met 
 it as they closed finally. 
 
 It was a large locket of reddish 
 gold, embossed in clumsy ara 
 besque ; within were two photo 
 graphs of Jarlsen and of Cheyne 
 Falls, where they were to have 
 spent their wedding week. It was 
 the fashionable tribute from groom 
 to bride in Jarlsen's circle of Soot 
 citizens, and Emma felt that with 
 this gift he conferred his higher 
 class on her. It was just what he 
 would have given the first fore 
 man's daughter. She opened the
 
 Breaking Up a Ijome. 125 
 
 locket and looked in. Eve may 
 have felt like her and Emma 
 thought of her; it was an angel 
 with a fiery sword who put them 
 both out of God's Eden, she re 
 membered. But some of Eve's 
 memories must have been self-re 
 proachful, and Emma was spared 
 that misery. She was also a fine 
 enough type to appreciate that. 
 
 She was shutting up her little 
 shrine when Jerry Black found her. 
 They met with tears that had not 
 started at their meeting ; for Jerry 
 had wept at having to return in 
 sorrow to the house where but 
 yesterday hope had hurried him. 
 
 To begin a new series of troubles 
 just as he had completed an old one 
 told on his nerves. He had spent
 
 the long night praying for Emma, 
 his head on his shiny rosewood din 
 ing table. 
 
 He always showed this table with 
 pride ; it was made from the extra 
 wood he had been commissioned to 
 buy for the Bentley coffins. He 
 had made it himself, and time and 
 again had shown it to Miss Bent- 
 ley, in whom he felt a great disap 
 pointment, as she never manifested 
 any satisfaction at the sight. The 
 cats leaped upon it nightly, as it 
 was Jerry's habitual place of prayer, 
 and it sometimes seemed to him 
 that they exchanged glances with 
 each other in his despite, glances of 
 criticism at his fervour. He never 
 drove them away, however. 
 
 " Emma," he said, his lips trem-
 
 Breaking Up a $ome. 127 
 
 bling and his pale eyes filling fast, 
 "your trouble's fearful heavy, but 
 you won't give in. I've seen to 
 Quarry, and it jest ain't no use ; you 
 can't get anything out of him ; he 
 give it all in to the Workers' Pro 
 tective Circle. He give it in to the 
 aggression fund. They're going to 
 order a strike for the same pay for 
 winter days nine hours' work, as 
 they get for a ten-hours' summer's 
 day. I think that's it. My work's 
 among the peaceful, and some 
 times I thank God I hev it mostly 
 among dead men, seein' what the 
 live ones is like. But, Emma, he's 
 give the money in, so's the strike 
 fund can grow. He's a gainin', 
 winnin' kind of speaker, and he's 
 give up what he took to their cause,
 
 128 Stonepastntm 
 
 and no one ain't a-goin' to touch 
 him. Now you jest remember that 
 the night's blackest just before the 
 sun comes, and don't you loose 
 your grip. When J arisen comes 
 out from the blast you want him to 
 find you jest es straight and steady 
 es when he was took don't you 
 now ? " 
 
 The tears slipped from Emma's 
 eyes at the little man's tone. Her 
 face was as tranquil as it was sor 
 rowing, and, as she answered, there 
 was no bitterness in her voice and 
 no fretfulness or rebellion in ges 
 ture or look. She did not feel 
 bound to exhibit spirit in his pres 
 ence. " O Jerry," she said, " I think 
 I do. But I can't stay fit for him 
 when I live with thieves who rob
 
 Breaking Hp a $ome. 129 
 
 him. I'm glad he got the blast ef 
 I have to get low-toned ; he'll be 
 nearer a mate for me." 
 
 Jerry stayed on and helped her. 
 He packed away the white dress ; 
 he was used to handling things that 
 were sacred to the memory of a 
 happy past, and began to pull 
 Emma's house to pieces as only a 
 woman could be expected to do. 
 Martha Long came in ; she was 
 sewing as she walked. She was a 
 brisk woman, and got through half 
 her work on the wing. 
 
 " God's name ! " she said to Black, 
 " what's come to Emma ? She 
 looks hurt, and white as a death- 
 sheet." 
 
 Jerry told her what had hap 
 pened, and Martha, without a word,
 
 130 
 
 went over and took both the girl's 
 hands in hers and pressed them to 
 her sides ; she never lost hold of 
 her sewing, and presently set to 
 work again. 
 
 " Well," she half screamed in in 
 dignation, " of all the poison toads 
 and irregular vipers in the world 
 and out of it, I guess Quarry's the 
 lowest down. He's a dirt-mean 
 man ! I suppose you'll move out, 
 and take the yeller house on the 
 Pastures. There ain't no one in it 
 since last May, and it has a porch. 
 You won't stay there long," Martha 
 said with conviction. " Your kind 
 don't keep to no rent-free Stone- 
 pastures. You'll come back to the 
 town, and the crowd'll cheer you 
 you'll see."
 
 Breaking Hp a fjonte. 131 
 
 " Well," Emma replied, " I'm go 
 ing this afternoon." 
 
 Accordingly, at five, or a little 
 later, Jerry brought a funeral car 
 riage By the Bridge, and old Butte 
 and Emma and Jerry and Martha 
 carried J arisen on a shake-down 
 along the Tracks. The sun, as Jerry 
 observed, was " leanin' pretty near 
 the west line," and the sky was 
 bright above the Stonepastures. It 
 had cleared in the early afternoon, 
 and all the odours, bad and good, 
 seemed flying about, riding on the 
 cool breezes that swept over the 
 Tracks. The high-standing ripe 
 grasses caught the level shafts of 
 sun and bowed before the wind, 
 glorified in the bright light. Jarl- 
 sen questioned them about his re-
 
 moval, but gave no evidence that 
 he heard their replies except once, 
 when he said that Emma " sound 
 ed" tired. But his voice died 
 away in groanings, and he could 
 not answer their other questions. 
 Emma felt that he heard her 
 voice and did not distinguish the 
 words. 
 
 Jerry felt so too. He reminded 
 Emma of the blind man in the 
 Testament. " He seen the men 
 first as trees," he said, " even when 
 he was cured with grace, and not 
 with herbs and ointment and such ; 
 he didn't get clear vision right 
 away." 
 
 Emma felt happier than she had 
 thought possible. She ran back 
 into the yard and slipped off her
 
 Breaking Ep a f ome. 133 
 
 shoe. " I'll get the favour of home 
 for him," she thought. 
 
 But while the handful of mould 
 was still in her hand she put her 
 shoe on again. " I'd liefer shake 
 off the dust from my feet," she 
 said ; " this ain't no home to get 
 the favour from." 
 
 Martha Long stood at the gate, 
 " You're in a hurry to go," she re 
 marked. 
 
 "To-morrow begins the new 
 month's rent," said Emma. " I quit 
 to-day or pay to-morrow. I'm goin' 
 where there ain't no rents to pay. I 
 can't afford rents and city doctors 
 together." 
 
 Martha's face darkened. " I'm 
 layin' for him right here," she called 
 as the funeral carriage moved away.
 
 134 Qtoneyastnus. 
 
 She was surprised at Emma's good 
 bye mood ; it was so resolute and 
 cheerful. " He's a pretty low rep 
 tile," was the last thing she called 
 to Emma as the conveyance grew 
 smaller on the distant road.
 
 X. 
 
 QUARRY RECKONS WITHOUT HIS 
 HOSTESS. 
 
 " Strife's a poor thing to come home to." 
 
 IN two days' time Emma was 
 " settled in." Hers was an odd 
 house for the Stonepastures. She 
 paid no rent for it, but there were 
 curtains at the windows and a shoe- 
 scraper and a mat at the door. She 
 had not been up an hour on her first 
 morning before the grass around the 
 house was cut down with a bor 
 rowed sickle. The objectless, listless 
 denizens of the district watched her 
 
 135
 
 Stonepcistures. 
 
 with some pleasure. They had no 
 individual life, merely existing as a 
 class and watching the individuality 
 of others take shape in thrift and 
 then in prosperity with a dull envy. 
 One man said she " hed a peck of 
 ambition " in a tone that meant on 
 the Pastures, in " Calamity Row," 
 that any endeavour to better one's 
 self comes to confusion. 
 
 At first the big boulders de 
 pressed her somewhat, but Jerry 
 told her she could " garden on them " 
 in the summer time ; and, indeed, 
 flowers could grow from the thin 
 soil that edged them. For two 
 weeks and more she lived, quietly 
 amazed to find herself so happy. 
 From day to day she watched the 
 Swede's improvement. As the pain
 
 Reckons. 137 
 
 left him he took to singing, but his 
 voice was not so accurate as in the 
 old days when he heard clearly. 
 Many of the songs she had heard 
 from him in courting time, and she 
 was infinitely happy to know that 
 he remembered them as well as she 
 did. He would tell the meaning of 
 each verse after he had sung it, as 
 she cooked or sewed after shaving 
 all day. 
 
 For she shaved again. It seemed 
 very odd and yet very natural to 
 her. She had a good deal of busi 
 ness to arrange before " resuming 
 trade." Her subscriptions to the 
 Philadelphia Ledger and the Work- 
 fellows' Union had run out ; in fact, 
 her wedding day had been depend 
 ent on their expiration. Emma
 
 Qtonejwstnres. 
 
 had a great idea of doing things the 
 right way, and news has been the 
 tradition of barber-shops since men's 
 vanity first devised a shorn chin. 
 Emma was gratified to find her 
 standing unimpaired by her sojourn 
 with the paupers. Socially she 
 seemed secure. The women were 
 prone to be officiously sympathet 
 ic, and were also inclined to disbe 
 lieve the tale of Quarry's misdeed. 
 " There's faults on both sides, may 
 be," and " Who can see the whole 
 show through a slit in the tent?" 
 were felt to be convenient phrases 
 and used largely as such. The 
 phrase " rent-free " found its way 
 from the neighbours' lips to Em 
 ma's ears rather oftener than she 
 cared for ; it spurred her on to
 
 Beckons. 139 
 
 grudge herself food and deny her 
 self the midday beer it had been 
 her wont to consume. She worked 
 from eight in the morning to six at 
 night, with nothing but bread and 
 soup at her slack time in the early 
 afternoon. 
 
 The soup was much like Quarry's 
 stories made up out of almost 
 nothing. She carried it to work in 
 a bottle with a screwed-on tin top ; 
 this she put into the little boiler 
 that the shaving water was heated 
 in, " and so," she would say, to 
 amuse a new customer, "thet's all 
 the cooking I hev to do ; I boil 
 my bottle, and there I am ! " 
 
 She had rented a room By the 
 Bridge from Miss Bentley, who was 
 much surprised when Emma paid
 
 140 
 
 the rent ; and through her new and 
 improved business situation in the 
 town she was able to command a 
 " high-class custom." 
 
 Since the evening that Quarry 
 had suggested the depot as a place 
 of residence Emma had been free of 
 his presence. She had heard of him 
 from the men, however, and knew 
 that he was speaking to them from 
 the Bridge every evening. Revolt 
 was in the air of Soot City ; there 
 were meetings, quite covertly, con 
 ducted by socialistic workmen in 
 the cause of workfellows' profits. 
 Monopoly and co-operative profit 
 were talked of constantly, and 
 Grigg sold many drinks. It is a 
 pity that the workingmen who in 
 vent Utopias should attempt to
 
 Eeckone. 141 
 
 sanctify them with an alcoholic im 
 mersion. It antagonizes even the 
 fair-minded. The preachers took to 
 finding comparisons, more or less 
 apposite, between Dives and Laz 
 arus, pronouncing the socialism of 
 him who has not, grabbing from 
 him who has, to be merely a mod 
 ern variation of a scriptural scheme 
 of all things in common. As some 
 men go to church to find bibli 
 cal sanction for their shortcomings ; 
 the ringleaders of what was fast be 
 coming an agitation, took to the 
 sanctuaries, whither the rest of the 
 town felt it safe to follow them. 
 
 Emma regarded Quarry's effront 
 ery as monumental, but she never 
 conceived a possibility of his com 
 ing to her new house in the Stone-
 
 pastures. She felt that, as she had 
 gone down in the world, he thought 
 he had risen, and that the Stone- 
 pastures were very far away from 
 him now. Her eyes would scan the 
 road, in her swift evening walks 
 searching for his slightly crooked 
 form. The thought of him dis 
 tressed her, as horror comes upon a 
 child in the dark, and after nightfall 
 she remembered him as such a 
 power for evil. Returning from the 
 town she always wore for warmth 
 her leathern apron v/ith a shawl, 
 her jacket was too good to be 
 worn out in the dark. This scruple 
 was pure conscience, for she no 
 longer had Jarlsen's eye for which 
 to save her dresses. 
 
 He could tell the difference in
 
 Eeckono. 143 
 
 footfalls now, and distinguish voices. 
 Emma longed for the moment when 
 he should be able to hear her speak 
 his name. This hoped-for moment 
 occupied many of her hours, and 
 she thought of it on the still, cold 
 night when she saw Quarry walk 
 ing toward the Pastures about ten 
 yards ahead of her. She slackened 
 her pace instantly, and he was soon 
 lost in the starless dark. 
 
 She dreaded him. As she walked 
 she feared she might stumble on 
 him lying drunk in her path, with 
 his mouth full of the hideous words 
 he used at such times ; or, this fear 
 forgotten, her breath would come 
 in loud pantings at the thought of 
 his hands laid on her from behind. 
 When she came to her own door
 
 144 Stonepastnreo. 
 
 there was still no sight of him ; she 
 looked both up and down the road 
 to make sure. She could not see 
 far, for most of the houses were 
 dark ; lights are too expensive for 
 the rent-free Pastures. Raising the 
 latch, she pushed the door quietly 
 open and looked into her own 
 home. 
 
 Quarry was at the kitchen table 
 facing her, glaring in Jarlsen's se 
 renely blind countenance. Sleep 
 had double-locked the Swede's 
 seared vision, and in complete un 
 consciousness he breathed freely, 
 within a glance of Quarry's eyes 
 alive with malice. 
 
 Emma was frightened, so much 
 so that she could not call. It 
 seemed that Quarry must have
 
 (filttarrg Reckons. 145 
 
 something to kill with, in his 
 coarse, cramped hands. It flashed 
 across her that if she received him 
 roughly he would strike or stab, 
 and that an appearance of polite 
 ness would surely gain her time. 
 Calmness came to her when she 
 had determined how to act. 
 
 She rattled the latch, her heart 
 jumping so that she felt as if it had 
 thrown her into the room. Quarry 
 let fall something that gave out the 
 sound of thin metal as it struck the 
 brick flooring round the stove. A 
 flight of chills froze her blood, while 
 her cheeks burned with a steady, 
 excited glow. 
 
 Quarry could not avoid her eyes 
 and she saw that were he to have 
 the first word he would announce
 
 146 
 
 himself at bay and make trouble. 
 She almost ran to him with her 
 hand stretched out. " Quarry," said 
 she in a little voice that she strained 
 to make audible, " Quarry, you'll 
 have a bite, won't you ? It's a cold 
 bite, but a ready one." 
 
 Emma thought later that it was 
 at the sound of Quarry's name in 
 her voice that Jarlsen wakened. 
 He knew at once that Quarry was 
 there, for a look that had been ab 
 sent from his face since they moved 
 from By the Tracks swept its strong 
 patience and sweetness away. He 
 stood on his feet and reached out 
 for the Englishman. The bandages 
 on his right hand seemed too tight, 
 and the veins in it bursting. 
 
 "I'm not dead yet!" he said
 
 Reckons. 147 
 
 fiercely, " and no thanks to 
 you ! " 
 
 Emma could have cried for joy. 
 To her it seemed more than likely 
 that he saw again ; but when she 
 noticed how easily Quarry had 
 eluded his big rival, the situation 
 was obscured. 
 
 " Did I hurt him ? " called Jarlsen 
 eagerly. He had fallen back on his 
 chair, but was sitting on its edge, 
 his eyes burning, and the blood red 
 dening the fine skin on his fore 
 head. 
 
 She did not answer, having 
 learned not to waste words on his 
 deafness. She saw Quarry stoop 
 down and lift up the knife he had 
 let fall. 
 
 Then she spoke, and very gently.
 
 148 
 
 " You'd better stay here, Quarry," 
 she said ; " you're accustomed to 
 your home here, and there's most 
 sleep in an old nest." 
 
 And he stayed. Emma turned 
 him in with old Butte, and light 
 ed a new candle, which she left to 
 illumine the rats through the night. 
 Then she locked Jarlsen's door on 
 the outside, and tied the key around 
 her neck. She reflected with pride 
 that her Swede had only been sit 
 ting up for two days, and yet wanted 
 to fight on the evening of the sec 
 ond. In her joy at his returning 
 strength she lost sight of danger.
 
 XI. 
 
 THE STRIKE. 
 " Having ears to hear, let them hear." 
 
 THE sleep of young strength puts 
 a wide distance between yesterday's 
 cares and to-day's. The dawn that 
 awoke Emma was gray, but it did 
 not suggest the blight of ashes as 
 had last night's twilight. She was 
 sure of the return of Jarlsen's facul 
 ties, and she also knew that Quarry 
 could have made no disturbance 
 through the night. She was in 
 clined to think that he meant to 
 frighten them, and by daylight his 
 
 149
 
 150 Stoncpasttires. 
 
 acts seemed more like very bad 
 manners than like an attempt at 
 murder. 
 
 In the morning, before setting 
 out, she changed the bandage on 
 Jarlsen's hand. The wide burns 
 were " guttering," seaming up in 
 red lines. She told him this, and 
 though he made no reply she felt 
 sure, with unshakable, feminine 
 sureness, that he had heard. She 
 led him out to his hammock and 
 placed him in it. Quarry was ha 
 ranguing Old Butte, and the sound 
 of his voice seemed to make the 
 Swede nervous. Emma was cer 
 tain that he had heard him. 
 
 She had always liked the Pastures 
 as a place to walk ; the air was less 
 flat than in the town ; and it was
 
 Strike. 
 
 pleasant to set one's face against 
 poverty and one's feet toward a 
 place where people were rich 
 enough to pay rent. Bentley's 
 Place overtopped the city on an 
 artificial and costly eminence. The 
 little house that was placed like a 
 lodge was the terminal station of 
 the narrow-gauge railway. She 
 knew herself to be two miles and 
 three quarters from that, and a mile 
 or more from the plant. 
 
 Usually she met the day squad 
 coming out from the town, the 
 men standing in the ore cars, the 
 smoke from their pipes and the 
 straining, overworked little engine 
 blown behind them toward the 
 town like a message sent home, 
 Emma thought. But to-day no
 
 152 Stcnepastures. 
 
 cars passed, and she, being a child 
 of toil, was quick to know that this 
 meant a strike. She hurried on 
 to her earnings, remembering that 
 when men are out of work they 
 have all day in which to spend 
 their savings. Women see so little 
 in strikes but higher wages until 
 some one is dead. 
 
 When she reached the Bridge it 
 was crowded with people. Men 
 who had not worked at the plant 
 for years were exhorting their fel 
 lows not to submit to tyranny. 
 Many large words were being mis 
 used with great pride by those who 
 never had a chance to talk except 
 when the crowd was too busy to 
 listen. The women were not very 
 carefully dressed, having had no
 
 l)e Strike. 153 
 
 time for fastenings or strings. 
 They, together with the children 
 they brought with them, seemed to 
 regard the occasion as one of fes 
 tivity. 
 
 Nothing was denounced very 
 definitely. One stranger was said 
 to be a reporter, whereupon half a 
 dozen people beset him, anxious 
 to have their views in the paper. 
 Emma could learn nothing from 
 any of them. They used Quarry's 
 and Bowa's names frequently, so 
 that she forebore mentioning under 
 whose roof the Englishman had 
 passed the night. 
 
 Her shop was in the fourth 
 house from the Bridge ; a steep 
 diagonal path ran from its back 
 door to the Tracks. The men were
 
 154 Stonepastnres. 
 
 swarming to it before she was quite 
 ready to have them, and many ar 
 rived by the rarely used footway. 
 News came with them, and she 
 found herself believing first one re 
 port and then another. Bowa came 
 to be shaved ; she was surprised at 
 his thinking of a thing so incidental 
 to a holiday toilet as a shave, but 
 she supposed that he was resolved 
 to die tidy, and said as much. 
 
 He could not be at the plant, he 
 explained, and felt that he had no 
 need to be there. His smile was 
 exceedingly subtle, but his hands 
 worked against his will in an em 
 barrassed fashion. 
 
 The day wore on until about four 
 o'clock. Her business had been im 
 mense, and she had listened to the
 
 i)e Strike. 155 
 
 many accounts and descriptions of 
 the plant until she felt she knew it 
 perfectly. In the centre was the 
 powder house, where explosives 
 were kept ; on the city flank was 
 the nutt and bolt factory, and very 
 near, but south of it, the furnace. 
 It was set on a steep "slide" of 
 rock ; its door, through which the 
 furnace was fed, was on the summit 
 side ; and on the base side, lower 
 on the slide by eight feet or more, 
 was another door through which 
 the " cinder " flew away at night into 
 the darkness like a burning river. 
 This door seems complicated on 
 paper, though in fact its construc 
 tion is simple. A skewer secures 
 it at its upper edge a skewer with 
 a large loop at one end. Into this
 
 156 Stonejwslttres. 
 
 loop the hook of the fire-tenders' 
 strange implement is thrust when 
 the door is to be opened. "The 
 Devil's Crook" is what the men 
 have named the long oak stick 
 finished at one end with an iron 
 hook. It does look like a thing 
 wherewith to herd black sheep. 
 
 Emma was weary of constant ex 
 clamation and argument. It was 
 time she ate ; so she closed her 
 door and " boiled her bottle," allow 
 ing the men who were already in 
 the shop to remain there. She saw 
 Bowa get up from his chair and 
 leave by the back door, silent and 
 hurried. As was natural, Emma 
 turned to the window to see what 
 had caught his eye in the street. 
 
 Young Bentley had driven up in
 
 Strike. 157 
 
 his buggy ; his liveried servant sat 
 beside him, and the horse he drove 
 plunged and shook with nervous 
 ness at being surrounded by a 
 crowd of loud-voiced people. Bent- 
 ley stood up in the little buggy, 
 having given the reins to his man. 
 " See here," he said, addressing the 
 crowd, "if we have a strike, you'd 
 better remember that I can stand 
 it, and you can't. I've sent police 
 to the plant to protect my prop 
 erty, and you had better stand by 
 them ; for the plant is the machine 
 you make your bread with, and it's 
 the only thing you can work at. 
 I've got lots of irons on the fire. 
 Now some one has trifled with 
 this road bed, in the cut here, By 
 the Bridge. I suppose you want
 
 158 0i0ne:pasttn:es. 
 
 to make me lose my charter. I'm 
 going to examine the damage now, 
 and I hope you'll come with me." 
 
 He jumped to the ground and 
 began to descend the steps leading 
 to the road-bed in the cut, over 
 which the Bridge is. No one fol 
 lowed him, but with admirable 
 nerve he neither hesitated nor 
 quickened his pace. 
 
 Emma remembered that Jarlsen 
 had liked him, and that he had 
 called to ask for him once By the 
 Tracks and twice on the Pastures. 
 No Bentley had visited the Pas 
 tures before, and Emma felt the 
 distinction keenly. She opened the 
 door and went out, merely observ 
 ing to the bystanders that .they 
 "hed no spring."
 
 l)c Strike. 159 
 
 Before she got to the stair's head 
 about six men had followed her, 
 looking deeply ashamed of each 
 other, but at present firm in their 
 duty. Emma let them pass her, 
 and slipped into the advancing 
 crowd. 
 
 Bowa and three companions were 
 standing on the tracks by two over 
 turned ore cars. They seemed more 
 sheepish than defiant, and Emma 
 noticed with pride how neat Bowa 
 looked as he tried not to flinch 
 under Bentley's contemptuous gaze. 
 The rails were torn up for about 
 twenty yards, and in the silence 
 that preceded Bentley's first words 
 Emma realized that this meant 
 prison. 
 
 "Did you do that?" he said at
 
 160 
 
 length. Then turning to the men 
 at his back, he said very pleasantly, 
 " I think we can put this right 
 with " his voice grew suddenly 
 louder " two more to help us." 
 
 Two Soot City police appeared, 
 and very quietly secured Bowa and 
 his friends. They were too sur 
 prised to make any resistance, and 
 went silent and sullen at Bentley's 
 curt bidding. Some one cried, 
 " Shame ! " at the plant owner. 
 Martha Long answered " Non 
 sense!" very loud. But her tears 
 fell for Bowa, and she pleaded for 
 him in words. 
 
 " Mr. Bentley," she said, " he was 
 put up to that. He's young for the 
 shadder of a prison to fall on him. 
 He's as mild as new milk, and he's
 
 Strike. 161 
 
 had his taste, and he won't want no 
 more." 
 
 " Martha," Bentley answered, " I 
 think making an example of a 
 workman is making a martyr of 
 him and an enemy of his labour 
 organization. I don't want any 
 strikes, so I'll probably let him off; 
 but I wouldn't promise any one." 
 
 Martha went away well com 
 forted, and Emma, when the dark 
 ness had fallen, set out for home. 
 She considered the strike was over, 
 and laughed as she made herself 
 pictures of Quarry's discomfiture ; 
 his plans would be henceforth un 
 heeded, and, as he had not suc 
 ceeded, the men would not fear 
 him, and not fearing meant, under 
 such conditions, shunning. She
 
 162 Btonejwsturcs. 
 
 had had a diverting day ; the silver 
 jingled in her pocket, and her wish 
 was that Jarlsen might have ears 
 to hear all about it. 
 
 The cottage was dark, but before 
 she came within a hundred yards of 
 it, while it yet stood out black and 
 square against the dark east, she 
 heard Jarlsen calling, " Emma, hur 
 ry, girl ! Emma, girl, hurry ! " 
 
 She ran to him, stumbling and 
 in dread, and groped in the dark 
 ness of the room with tender hands 
 that feared she longed to know 
 just what. 
 
 " I'm all right," he said ; " but 
 listen. Speak to me ; I can hear. 
 I've heard ever since we moved. 
 I've wanted to say so, but I wanted 
 to go on hearing your father talk
 
 Strike. 163 
 
 to Quarry. I've heard it all. I'm 
 done with secrets ; I'm pretty near 
 done with theirs. Speak to me, 
 Emma ; I can prove it." 
 
 " I'm so bursting-out happy, I 
 can't talk much," said she. 
 
 Her speech followed her in his 
 voice. "' I'm so bursting-out happy, 
 I can't talk much.' But I can hear ! 
 Emma, Quarry and your poppa 
 have been setting it up since we 
 came here, and I was afraid to say 
 I heard, for fear two couldn't keep 
 a secret. Emma, we want the 
 plant's pension, and we're going to 
 get it! 
 
 " You're going now," he said, " to 
 run out to the plant to run your 
 best ; when you get there, go to the 
 furnace. If you keep right on By
 
 164 
 
 the Tracks, nobody '11 mind you. 
 Quarry's bought the furnace-mind 
 ers, and they're going to leave for 
 the station to report a disturbance 
 in the factory. The Devil's Crook 
 is in the little house by the fur 
 nace ; it is by the door. You take 
 it as you pass no one'll be there 
 and when you see a light in the 
 factory you open the centre door 
 and make a flare, for the police 
 can't see in the dark. You'll catch 
 'em ; O Emma, hurry ! I've got a 
 good chance to fix Quarry, and he 
 didn't warn me of that blast, or I 
 wouldn't be here now. He put his 
 flag behind his back when he saw 
 me come, and I walked right on. 
 Hurry, Emma girl ! Don't burn 
 yourself ! "
 
 Strike. 165 
 
 Emma could feel that he wanted 
 to go himself. She caught up her 
 shawl. "Is it the powder house ?" 
 she asked. 
 
 " For God's sake," he said loud 
 ly, " get started ! Of course it is ! " 
 
 She ran out into the wide dark 
 ness. She was racing death, and 
 she knew it.
 
 XII. 
 
 THE EYE OF GOD. 
 
 " And the eye of God shall pierce the 
 lengthy darkness." 
 
 EMMA'S first thought was of the 
 time that it would take her to get 
 to the plant. Young Bentley had 
 once run a mile under five min 
 utes, and his feat had been in the 
 newspapers ; but she could not, of 
 course, count on herself for like 
 speed. She felt that the cinder 
 flare would light up her life's crisis. 
 Jarlsen's excited voice echoed in 
 her mind, and the thought that 
 
 166
 
 of <B>o5. 167 
 
 Quarry might have saved him with 
 the warning flag, instead of letting 
 him come unchecked on live pow 
 der, urged her on the faster. She 
 saw that to-day's attempt at the 
 Tracks was a forced incident, in 
 tended to look like the strike's 
 crisis. She remembered her own 
 part in it with laughter. 
 
 She was choked with anxiety. 
 It seemed to her that if the pow 
 der house were fired there would 
 be no food anywhere in Soot City. 
 Who would be killed and how 
 much would be damaged was an 
 unanswerable question that weak 
 ened her with painful suspense. 
 She barely noticed the hissing rush 
 of her breath or felt the pain in her 
 side. Her feet grew heavy, and the
 
 168 Stonejwstnres. 
 
 noise of their fall on the road-bed 
 sounded to her as if it was far off 
 in the town. Her neck was craned 
 in the direction of the plant, and 
 she wanted to throw herself along 
 the earth. When the lights at the 
 sidings and at the station grew 
 nearer her dimmed eyes could bare 
 ly distinguish them. Some warm 
 thing, with a new taste, crept over 
 her lips. She put up her hand to 
 it, and saw in the light at the first 
 siding that it was blood. 
 
 Her body rocked with the push 
 of her heart-beats, and "yet," she 
 thought, " I may be late." 
 
 At last she passed the station. 
 Through its Windless windows she 
 could see Benz, the furnace-tender, 
 talking fast to the police. For a
 
 moment she thought of going in 
 and telling her story, but she feared 
 a loss of time, and started furiously 
 up the grade to the tool-house. She 
 found the door standing open and 
 entered boldly, snatching the crook 
 and striking at a man who raised 
 himself from the floor. He lay 
 down again at once, saying, "All 
 right, only don't tell me where you 
 put it." 
 
 " I'm in time," she thought. 
 
 There was a little patch of light 
 before the threshold. Looking up, 
 she saw four policemen crossing by 
 the powder house to the factory. 
 Then the scheme came entire into 
 her puzzled brain. They were 
 called out on search and it was 
 their lights in the factory that were
 
 170 
 
 to be taken as the signal for Quar 
 ry's men to fire the mine. The 
 furnace-tenders had gone as guides, 
 and the unshifted cinder could not 
 expose offenders. 
 
 11 He's a cute viper ! " Emma was 
 talking to herself to keep her nerve ; 
 she was spent and breathless. 
 
 The heat by the furnace was ter 
 rible ; it shone on the iron trough 
 in an outlined square of yellow, 
 where the light streamed through 
 the door cracks. She fitted the 
 crook's hook to the loop of the 
 skewer and paused, waiting. Her 
 thoughts were busy with the way 
 in which they might fire the pow 
 der stores. Heat and cold hurried 
 through her alternately ; her hands 
 and brow were wet. There were,
 
 l)e (Kg* of (Sob. 171 
 
 of course, no men on duty at the 
 plant save forty of the factory force, 
 Quarry among them. Emma saw 
 that this was part of the blind. 
 
 The electric lights were out ; 
 they had not been turned on since 
 early the last evening, but presently 
 one shone from the ground floor of 
 the factory. Emma pulled back her 
 crook exultingly, but the skewer 
 would not give. She jerked, but it 
 was firm. Gathering her strength, 
 she braced her feet and threw her 
 self back. She saw a fiery line pass 
 above her head, and heard the red- 
 hot skewer tinkle against a stone 
 behind her. She rushed to the front 
 of the furnace to get rid of the heat, 
 and stood on the crest of the in 
 cline.
 
 Stonejmsinrea. 
 
 As the cinder flew in a glowing 
 mass down the trough to the cinder 
 hill, she saw the spires at the city 
 and the Bridge. Then she looked 
 directly before her. 
 
 As the night lifted from the 
 plant yard she saw that some one 
 was running ; the figure took on it 
 the red of the brightening furnace 
 waste, and the flame of the torch 
 the runner carried grew white in 
 the rosy glare. The light spread 
 higher, and Emma saw the tops of 
 the elm trees that grew on the 
 other side of the factory. The cin 
 der rattled in the trough with a 
 grating loudness. 
 
 " He hes a train of oiled rope 
 laid," said she. 
 
 The plant-hand was Quarry, and
 
 of <S>o&. 173 
 
 still he ran toward the powder 
 house in the vivid light. The men, 
 most of them police, were watching 
 him. He knelt with his light in 
 his hand, and fell forward, the torch 
 under him. Then Emma heard a 
 pistol shot that sounded like snap 
 ping fingers in the din of the cinder 
 waste. 
 
 Bentley's voice was hardly heard 
 in the various noise that followed 
 the shot. " Lock up God's eye ! " 
 he called ; " it's done big work, but 
 don't waste fuel." 
 
 And a woman's voice, peevish 
 from fatigue, called from the height : 
 " I can't I'm broken, I'm so tired !" 
 
 But Quarry did not stir ; his 
 torch was out. And in the house 
 on the Pastures Jarlsen's eyes
 
 174 Stonejwsturcs. 
 
 strained themselves to pierce their 
 own darkness, although the cloudy 
 sky was like a red sea, and the plant 
 stood out plainly with orange elm 
 trees and bright roofs.
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 WE were disputing in the train 
 as to whether it was five or six 
 years since Quarry's death. I said 
 six, and was told that I was always 
 wrong. My adversary evidently 
 considered this second-rate rejoin 
 der a retort. Presently he said, 
 " You may be right, for I think 
 Jarlsen's boy is five." 
 
 Jerry Black met us at the sta 
 tion ; he wore a bailiffs uniform 
 of corduroy. The Bentleys were 
 very English now, but kinder than 
 ever. We got into an omnibus, 
 
 175
 
 176 Sionepasttireo. 
 
 and asked Jerry to come too. He 
 had to be urged, for he is still 
 modest. 
 
 " How are the Stonepastures ? " 
 said I, anxious to start the con 
 versation. 
 
 " Lean livin' yet," he answered, 
 sighing ; " but we've got a home for 
 the aged indigent, and a hospital." 
 
 He began to talk in earnest, and, 
 among other things, told us that 
 Emma paid the doctor the week 
 after Quarry died. He said she 
 felt as if she had killed Quarry, but 
 that her marriage had put it out 
 of her head. "The Jarlsens are 
 getting on fine," he remarked con 
 fidentially, " more than happy in 
 their fortunes. August has sold 
 his idea for freight couplers to the
 
 177 
 
 plant, and he's living in the back 
 of the new schoolhouse, and he 
 goes away singing and gets paid 
 for it. He bought a piano with 
 his savings." 
 
 " Emma's too fine to shave me, 
 ! suppose," said I. 
 
 " Don't name it to her, please," 
 implored Jerry. 
 
 We arrived at the church it was 
 Bentley's wedding we were attend 
 ing and on either side of the walk 
 through the yard the men and 
 women of the plant waited for the 
 bride. There was not a foot of 
 space left in the church. Bowa 
 stood next me, and with him was 
 Martha Long. " It's a pleasanter 
 time than the last," she said as I 
 greeted her. We had been staying
 
 178 
 
 at the plant in the strike when 
 Quarry had gone under, and I was 
 pleased that she remembered it. 
 Black was everywhere. At last he 
 pushed us all back to clear the path 
 for the bride. Bentley was in the 
 church at the chancel. 
 
 Then there broke on our eager 
 ears the finest tenor I had ever 
 heard. They say he sang a Swe 
 dish wedding song. I don't care 
 what it was I almost cried when 
 he stopped. His voice rose high 
 and strong, and seemed to spread 
 like perfume ; he sang gladly. 
 
 "Who is that?" I asked. 
 
 Every one within hearing an 
 swered proudly, " J arisen." 
 
 THE END.
 
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 BY A. CONAN DOYLE. 
 
 ''THE STARK MUNRO LETTERS. Being a Se- 
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