KILLY
 
 315E
 
 MR. BILLY BUTTONS 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 WALTER LECKY. s^ 
 
 s 
 
 NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO: 
 
 BENZIGER BROTHERS, 
 
 nitmxt TO m I rt-BLisMEns o 
 
 OLV ATOSTOLIC SBB | ENZIGE's MAGAZINE
 
 Copyright. 1896, by BENZIGKR BROTHERS.
 
 Dedication. 
 
 THIS STORY OF MR. BILLY BUTTONS IS DEDICATED TO 
 
 THE ONE WHO FIRST VIEWED IT WITH FAVOR 
 
 TO MY FRIEND 
 
 RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 THE " DUKESBOROUGH TALES," 
 
 p 
 
 ETC. 
 
 2136940
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CMArrn rxci 
 
 I. SKINNY BBNOIT . i 
 
 II. BILLY BUTTONS RELATES, 34 
 
 III. BUTTONS' LOST LOVE, 54 
 
 IV. THE COMING OF SLITHERS, 74 
 
 V. THE WOOING OF MILLY, . . 90 
 
 VI. SKINNY BENOIT'S SON, . . . . . . lai 
 
 VII. THE RETURN OF COR KEY SLITHERS, , . . 139 
 
 VIII. AN OLD MUSICIAN, 157 
 
 IX. PERB MONNIER, ....... 184 
 
 X. HOME AT LAST, ....... 208 
 
 XI. THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS, .... 140
 
 MR. BILLY BUTTONS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SKINNY BENOIT. 
 
 "A COUNTRY doctor leads a strange life; that 
 is a saying of one of them. His life is one 
 of sacrifice." Those words I wrote in my diary 
 long ago, before these wild hills became my 
 friends. It is an opinion of mine that to enjoy 
 Nature you must be on speaking terms with 
 her. Toby, my good gray nag, seems to know 
 this. No sooner does he come to a lovely 
 snatch of scenery than his usual quick jog be- 
 comes a sedate walk. A friend of mine called 
 Toby a brute; it was strange on my part to 
 resent it why I could not explain. Perhaps I 
 was thinking of Toby being able to feast his 
 eyes on nature, while so many men, so far re- 
 moved from the brute, I follow the moralists, 
 would find in these same scenes nothing to give 
 
 9
 
 I0 SKINNY BENOIT. 
 
 delight. When I was a younger man I had 
 written, as I have said, that a doctor's life was 
 one of sacrifice; now that I have passed the 
 fifties I see no reason to change that entry in 
 my diary. My fife has been a hard one, full 
 of peril. Our little village lies in these moun- 
 tains isolated from railways " which means," 
 said a New-Yorker, Dr. Jenks, " from civiliza- 
 tion." The nearest town lies twenty miles to the 
 south, and that by a narrow mountain road. In 
 winter this road is snow-bound, and Snipeville 
 for that is the name of our village settles down 
 to cut logs: some logs, such as spruce and balsam, 
 for Dixon's pulp-mill; others for Parker's saw- 
 mill. The village store has been well supplied in 
 the autumn with teas, sugars, coffees, and canned 
 fruits, so there is no want of what we call here 
 the luxuries of life. Every family has killed 
 its fat hog and salted him, filled the cellar with 
 potatoes, cabbages, turnips, carrots, a few beets, 
 and stacked the yard with piles of fuel. We 
 are poor, it is true, but our poverty is of a 
 different sort from that felt by the toilers in the 
 city. Jamsey Duquette sold his farm three years 
 ago and went East. He was glad to come 
 back to the mountains. " Doctor," says he, 
 " when you have to buy everything, even the
 
 SKINNY BENOIT. II 
 
 water, and live in three rooms not as big as a 
 hencoop, and never see a hill, or bit of grass, 
 or anything that you were brought up to, you 
 get your senses back and long to see Snipe- 
 ville." I had this thought of Jamsey's in my 
 mind when Toby passed Slippery Creek, as he 
 rounded Owl's Head. As was his wont, he 
 became sedate. I lay back in my sleigh, cosey 
 in my furs, chatting with the snow-crowned hills 
 and the frozen Salmon River. Now and then 
 that inner Me, one of the most loving of com- 
 panions, suggested that if my life was hard the 
 pleasure of such scenes as lay before me, and 
 the robust health to enjoy them, more than 
 repaid the sacrifice. 
 
 From behind a few straggling choke-cherry 
 bushes came a wild, plaintive laugh. Toby 
 stopped. William Buttons, of Squidville, avows 
 that my horse knows when some one needs my 
 service. It is the old story: if a man or brute 
 shows some signs of intelligence more than the 
 ordinary our imagination supplies the super- 
 natural. 
 
 "Who's there?" and I peered into the 
 cherries. " It's me, doctor," she answered; and 
 crazed Jenny Sauve" jumped from her hiding- 
 place, patted Toby's head, gave him a few
 
 12 SKINNY BENOIT. 
 
 dried brown leaves to eat, and then seated her- 
 self beside me. 
 
 " Jenny's a good girl to-day ?" Jenny shook 
 her head. 
 
 "Where was Jenny going?" 
 
 Another wild, plaintive laugh. " Jenny was 
 a pretty girl." The handsome face, with the 
 strange, fiery, wandering blue eyes, curved in 
 suppressed laughter. It has always been a 
 strange thing to me the pleasure that idiots 
 take in being praised. This reminds me that 
 more than twenty years ago I prepared a paper 
 on the " Sensibility of Idiots to Flattery." I 
 read it to Jenks; he laughed at it, called it 
 unscientific. Jenks is a New York specialist, 
 which means unbounded egotism, linked with 
 scepticism of other men's works. 
 
 "Will I drive Jenny to the store?" 
 
 " No, no, doctor; go to Skinny Benoit's. 
 Skinny is sick." 
 
 "Very bad, Jenny?" 
 
 " She cry much; one tooth," and, laughing 
 Jenny, opening her mouth, beat time on her 
 pearly teeth with the long nail of her index 
 finger. Here I admit that I am no specialist, 
 to use a phrase of Blind Cagy's. I am an 
 all-round man. Tooth-pulling is one of my
 
 SKINNY BENOIT. IJ 
 
 arts, and it was easy to see, by Jenny, that 
 my service as a dentist was required at Skinny 
 Benoit's. I gave Jenny a few pennies and told 
 her to sing me a song. She clutched the coins 
 in her right hand, hiding them in the folds of 
 her bare-worn calico gown, while she used the 
 left hand to brush back the long, unkempt, 
 vagrant yellow curls, tossed to and fro by the 
 sharp, snappy breeze. A quick shake of the 
 head, like a high-bred horse setting out to win, 
 and she sang in a jerky, sad way: 
 
 "J'ai vu la fille du meunier: 
 
 Comme est belle! 
 Avec son bonnet de dentelle 
 
 Qui voltige au vent printanier. 
 J'ai vu la fille du meunier. 
 La belle fille, 
 Au gai, 
 Au gai, 
 Chantait le long de la charmille." 
 
 I turned Toby's head and took the narrow 
 wood road that leads to Skinny 's. 
 
 Henriette Benoit better known as Skinny, on 
 account of her emaciated form lived in a little 
 maple grove that yielded enough syrup to smear 
 her morning buckwheat cakes. The house was 
 a log one, the usual kind to be met with in
 
 I^ SKINNY BENOIT. 
 
 these mountains. Before the door lay a few 
 half-rotten logs, with an axe carelessly stuck 
 in the butt-end of one of them. I drove to 
 the rickety door, that had been years ago 
 smeared with common red paint, and jumped 
 from the sleigh. Jenny, with the grace and 
 ease of a fawn, had preceded me, and while I 
 tied Toby to the half-rotten logs she threw 
 affectionately over his shoulders my big buffalo- 
 robe, and went in search of dry leaves, the only 
 dish the poor thing was able to procure for 
 him. I pulled the latch-string and entered 
 Skinny's house. There is no ceremony, no 
 " bowing and scraping," to use a phrase of 
 William Buttons, about a country doctor. The 
 women folks are always glad to see him, either 
 on account of present or impending ills. 
 
 Skinny sat near the stove, with a huge towel 
 tightly drawn around her head. As she rocked 
 herself on her rickety chair she muttered, " Ah 
 me ! ah mi ! ah mo ! " ending in a long-drawn 
 sigh. This reminded me that I had written in 
 the medical paper, tabooed by Jenks as unsci 
 entific, " that a great deal of sorrow escapes by 
 way of music." 
 
 "What's the matter, Mrs. Benoit? " I asked, 
 and put my medical chest on the plain deal
 
 SKINNY BENOIT. 1$ 
 
 table, littered with dishes and broken crockery 
 that Jenny had got from the neighbors. 
 
 " Take a seat, doctor, and warm yourself; it's 
 blustering out," and Skinny rose from the only 
 chair she possessed, and sat on a low stool. 
 The chair, stool, and rough deal table were the 
 only furniture that she owned. For a bed she 
 had placed some oat straw in one corner of the 
 cabin. On this was thrown a worn mattress of 
 dried shavings, a few old quilts, whose faded 
 colors told of long-gone splendor, and a thread- 
 bare spread. Despite the scanty furnishings of 
 her home, there was about it an air of .neat- 
 ness and cleanliness. 
 
 On the walls were hung a few religious pict- 
 ures, gotten from a Jewish pedlar in exchange 
 for maple-syrup, and a large framed picture of 
 a country store in Canada, with a young man 
 and woman standing in the door full of smiles 
 and happiness. It required some effort to be- 
 lieve that that fair young bride was no other 
 than the towelled Skinny. " Fact is a harder 
 pill to swallow than fiction," is the truest thing 
 that Buttons spat out. 
 
 " You're a great one, Granny Benoit, to make 
 such a fuss about a stump." 
 
 I opened my chest. Skinny took no notice
 
 X 6 SKINNY BENOIT. 
 
 of my banter, but slowly unfolded the towel 
 from her head; this done, she pityingly glanced 
 at me with her little bloodshot eyes, and in 
 evident pain opened her mouth. I held the 
 forceps in my right hand, behind my back, 
 while I curved my left, making a rest of it 
 for her old white head. 
 
 " Take the chair; sit higher, and lean back 
 your head in my arm, granny." 
 
 "Anything you say, doctor," said Skinny, 
 following my commands. A look into the 
 mouth was sufficient to reveal the cause of her 
 pain. The one tooth the only reminder left 
 of the pearly row so prominent in the framed 
 picture had got to go. To use one of our 
 mountain phrases, " For years it had stood there 
 alone, like a burnt pine log in a bit of cleared 
 land." 
 
 ' ' Are you ready, granny ? ' ' 
 
 " No, doctor, not yet; let me see him before 
 you pull him he's the last," and a tear 
 wriggled down, winding its way through the 
 brown, drooping wrinkles of her face. 
 
 Skinny rose from the chair, pulled out the 
 table-drawer, and brought out a broken looking- 
 glass. She opened her mouth and gazed long 
 and wistfully at the solitary stump, the cause
 
 SKINNY BENOIT. IJ 
 
 of all her woe. I leaned against the rickety 
 chair, and this thought, which I intend to put in 
 my diary as soon as I go home, came: " Man's 
 a queer animal wedded to his infirmities." 
 
 "I'm ready now, doctor," and Skinny was 
 in her old position. " The poor fellow has got 
 to go," said granny, " and the sooner the 
 better. I won't flinch an inch, doctor; but for 
 Heaven's sake don't break it, do your job 
 thorough." 
 
 I nodded assent a quick jerk and the de- 
 cayed stump, the last bit of her beauty, as 
 Skinny called it, lay in the palm of her hand. 
 A sad smile hovered over her face as the 
 gaunt fingers lovingly rolled it in a gingham rag 
 and put it away in a little wallet that she 
 carried in her bosom. 
 
 " Faith, granny," said I as I wiped my 
 fingers with a piece of batting, " you think more 
 of your enemies than I would. You take them 
 to your heart." Skinny made a feint to smile. 
 Looking up at the framed picture, " I once 
 was proud of these same teeth," said she, 
 " and of this old face. God forgive my van- 
 ity ! That was long ago, in the days of the 
 framed picture. I was not a bad-looking girl 
 either, if I do say it, ugly as I am now. But
 
 l8 SKINNY BENOIT. 
 
 what's the use of filling strangers ears with 
 the things that made Skinny as she is ? " She 
 buried her head in her towel and was silent. 
 
 It seems to me that gossip is half the life 
 of a country physician. I know it is the fashion 
 of writers to hurl hard names against gossip; 
 but take it out of life, and surely then life is 
 not worth living. The philosophers have been 
 great gossipers: that, by the way, is worthy of 
 my diary. I like to gossip. Open confessions, 
 says the moralist, are good for the soul. My 
 curiosity was excited, my appetite whetted, by 
 granny's words and way. It was not for noth- 
 ing that she burrowed in the towel. I had 
 extracted granny's tooth: could I not extract 
 through gossip the story of her early life, and 
 know something of the framed picture ? 
 
 The neighbors had declared that granny came 
 to the log cabin years ago, when the crazy girl 
 was but a baby; from where she was never 
 known to tell. I pulled the stool nearer the 
 stove, and sat down by Skinny 's side. 
 
 'Will I get cold without that towel?" said 
 Skinny. 
 
 ' No, granny; the old stump drawn, all will 
 be well." 
 
 " Ay, the old stump," muttered Skinny as
 
 SKINNY BENOIT. 19 
 
 she told me, unasked, the story of the framed 
 picture the story of a life. 
 
 It may be a weakness of mine to listen to 
 my neighbors' business, but it is one that has 
 given me much pleasure. Women are as sup- 
 ple as ivy plants, is a mountain saying. They 
 want to lean on something. There is no oak 
 like a sympathetic listener. Skinny's tale was 
 full of interest to me, and I take it for granted 
 that there are a large class in this world with 
 the same kind of feeling as a country doctor. 
 To them I will owe no apology for telling the 
 tale, and that in Skinny's homely way. 
 
 " My father came from Lyons," said she, 
 resting her head on the shut knuckles of the 
 left hand, " and settled in Montreal. He had 
 not been long in that city when he fell in love, 
 and married the Widow Le May, that kept the 
 baker-shop in Notre Dame Street. Madame Le 
 May's first-born was me," and Skinny laughed 
 a little broken, sorrow-fringed laugh. " She was 
 the woman for you, doctor; she could bake more 
 bread than half a dozen men. You don't believe 
 it; mats cest vrai. A few weeks after my birth 
 she died." Her voice was tremulous, and tears 
 ran down her crumpled face. " I often shut 
 my eyes and think I see the kind of a woman
 
 ao SKINNY BENOIT. 
 
 my mother was. She had long black hair, 
 that I am sure, and her eyes, they were as 
 bright as coals, but black, black. Her mouth 
 was small, and her cheeks as round and ' fat as 
 a plum.' I described her one day to my father. 
 4 Mon Dieu, Henriette ! it's your mother. She 
 must be hovering round you like a butterfly; 
 she did like you uncommon well.' After poor 
 mother's death my father, who was a dancing- 
 master, and could make nothing out of the bak- 
 ing, sold the shop, and opened a little school of 
 dancing on St. Catherine Street. Here I re- 
 mained until my sixteenth year, when the life- 
 struggle became too great for my father. One 
 day, it seems like yesterday, I was standing 
 over the tub washing some shirts for him (he 
 was always particular about his linen), when a 
 young man opened the door and handed me a 
 letter. I laid it on the dresser-shelf, thinking 
 it meant a new pupil. 
 
 " As soon as father entered I gave him the 
 letter. He slowly read it, spelling out the 
 words, and hung down his head. 
 
 ' Are you sick, father ? ' I asked. 
 
 ' Not sick, but tired, Henriette.' 
 4 I thought I saw a tear run down his 
 cheeks.
 
 SKINNY BENOIT. 71 
 
 "'You are crying, father,' and I dropped on 
 his knee, put my arm about his neck, and we 
 both cried. 
 
 " ' Henriette,' said my father, drying his 
 tears, ' you are a foolish child ; you must not 
 cry: we may be happy yet.' 
 
 ' You are not happy now, father I know 
 you're not,' and I pressed his old gray head 
 to my bosom. 
 
 " ' No, not happy,' he said, his voice was 
 like his own old fiddle when a couple of strings 
 were broken, ' and you may as well know the 
 cause. My little school has been shut for the 
 last year. I could find no pupils; the sacred 
 art of dancing is dead in Montreal. A fellow 
 called Fournier teaches what he calls a complete 
 course in six lessons. No one wants to study 
 and know a thing thorough in these times, so 
 all my pupils have gone to Fournier. Whenever 
 I seek a pupil madame says: " M. Bourbonnais, 
 you are too old and stiff to teach ma'm'selle." 
 ' Man Dieu, Henriette, it maddens me Bour- 
 bonnais, that taught in the chateaux of the 
 Faubourg St. Germain; Bourbonnais, that danced 
 before the empress and was complimented by 
 Taglioni.' He jumped from his seat, and, 
 crumpling the letter in a solid piece, threw it
 
 22 SKINNY BENOIT. 
 
 into the fire, and stood there watching it burn. 
 
 "'What have you been doing, father?' I 
 said; and I pulled down his head and kissed 
 him. 
 
 " ' Doing, Henriette ? Earning a poor living 
 for all that is left to me in this world that's 
 you, dear. A poor living indeed, but working 
 hard for it. Every morning before you were 
 awake I took my fiddle, kissed you, dropped a 
 tear on your pretty face, and went out fasting 
 to earn our poor breakfast. 
 
 " ' I went into the back streets, where I was 
 unknown, and danced and played for a sou. 
 
 " ' Some, the poorest, were glad to see Henri 
 Bourbonnais. If they could not give him money 
 they gave food, which I carried home in the 
 pillow-slip that I sewed one night, while you 
 were asleep, in the inside of my old threadbare 
 coat. The rich passed me by in scorn. Not 
 a few gibed me, and made fun of my music, 
 and laughed at my dance. Ah, Henriette, it 
 is so easy to make fun of the unfortunate ! 
 Every noon I came home smiling, lest you 
 might guess the truth, but sad of heart. On 
 my way I visited a little church, attracted by 
 its flickering little altar-lamp. The lamp seemed 
 always to be going out, yet managed to live on;
 
 SKINNY BENOIT. 23 
 
 it was so like your old father for the last twelve 
 months. In that little church, to the right-hand 
 side of its main altar, you can see in yellow 
 letters: " Come to Me, all ye that labor and are 
 heavy laden, and I will refresh you." I have 
 knelt for hours before those yellow letters, say- 
 ing, I am heavy laden; and asking God to keep 
 His promise. Will He do so ? My poor old 
 shoulders ache. Fiddling and dancing will soon 
 be beyond me, and then, Henriette ' 
 
 " His voice broke in pieces; a big clump of 
 sorrow choked him. I turned away my head; I 
 could not speak. 
 
 " ' Give me my fiddle, child; if we speak 
 your old father will act silly about these things, 
 and you will ruin your pretty face with tears. 
 Let the fiddle do the talking.' 
 
 " The tune he played was one my mother 
 taught him ; it is pretty common in Canada with 
 the Scotch. The best I can remember, they 
 call it ' Highland Mary.' Big Donald McKinnon 
 said it was written by one of his father's chums. 
 He must have been smarter than Donald, or his 
 father either, to have picked out of his head 
 such a sweet song. My father liked the tune 
 on account of mother. He used to say he 
 had lost everything belonging to her but that
 
 24 SKINNY BENOIT. 
 
 bit of a tune. When he finished I took his 
 fiddle and put it in the old green baize bag 
 my first piece of needle-work. I have that 
 fiddle yet, doctor, and I would starve rather 
 than part with it. 
 
 " He leaned his head on the chair-back and 
 drew a long, broken, heavy sigh. Tears ran 
 down my cheeks as I gazed on his pinched and 
 worn old face. The old clock that he called 
 Willy -Wag-tail was the only thing I could hear 
 in the house, and its tick was as loud as the 
 stroke of a hammer. I became afraid and ran 
 to my father. I tried to kiss him, but his face 
 was freezing cold. I spoke to him. I watched 
 his mouth for an answer. Everything was so 
 quiet except the clock. ' God ! ' I cried, ' You 
 keep Your promises my father is dead ! ' 
 
 " I must then have fallen to the floor. The 
 first thing I remember was a feeling of strange 
 pains, like the jags of a thousand needles plastered 
 over my body. I tried to raise myself; I could 
 not. Then, with all my strength, I tried to 
 turn on my side, thinking to shake off the pains. 
 Strength, did I say? I had none; and so I 
 lay like a log. Now and then I could hear a 
 voice, a sweet voice, telling me to open my 
 eyes, and I could feel a soft hand pressing my
 
 SKINNY BENOIT. 25 
 
 cheek. The hand moved to my burning eyes, 
 and I felt something soft, cooling, strengthening 
 falling into them, something loosening the eye- 
 lids, putting out the fire and bidding me see. 
 How strange was that seeing ! It was as if I 
 had been dead for years, and suddenly awoke. 
 I was in a large room full of little white beds, 
 in every one of which was a woman. Some 
 were as young as me, others younger, some 
 middle-aged, many old. What were they doing 
 here ? For by the light that fell on my bed, 
 through the big red-curtained window, I knew it 
 was mid-day. I tried to speak; I could not. 
 I wanted to say one word: ' Father.' My 
 mouth moved, but no sound came to my ear. 
 *" Dazed, full of fear that I was mad, I shut 
 my eyes, and again I felt the soft pressure of 
 that hand on my cheek. I opened my eyes. 
 Leaning over the head of my bed was a sweet 
 face, with a big white frame around it, like the 
 wings of a bird. I knew by the voice it was 
 living, and that I was not mad. ' Henriette,' 
 it said, ' do not fear; I am only Sister Marie. 
 You are in the H6tel Dieu. I will take the 
 best of care of you until you are better.' Ah, 
 doctor ! when you're sick there's no music like 
 a kind woman's tongue. The voice of Sister
 
 26 SKINNY BENOIT. 
 
 Marie was worth the full of your sleigh of pills 
 and medicine. It gave me strength then and 
 there to turn on my side, and it thawed my 
 tongue. I was astonished at my own speaking, 
 it was so strong and my tongue was so easy. 
 
 " ' Where is my father ? ' was the first ques- 
 tion. The sister bent down her head, and in a 
 soft way whispered in my ear, ' At rest, child ; ' 
 then, turning her head, ' Yes, my old master, 
 Henri Bourbonnais, good old soul, lies in Mount 
 Royal. It is a trial, Henriette, the first mile- 
 stone of sorrow in your life; but accept it. It 
 is the hand of the Lord.' My eyes filled with 
 tears; the sister faded away like a bit of chimney 
 smoke. I saw an old man surrounded by a noisy 
 crowd of boys, jeering and laughing at his thread- 
 bare coat. He played a fiddle and attempted 
 a dance to its music. A window opened, a sun- 
 burnt hand tossed him a sou ; he painfully stooped 
 and picked it out of the mud, bowed his old 
 white head, and muttered, ' Merci, madame , ' 
 passing to another door. I followed him from 
 door to door, from street to street, until he en- 
 tered a little chapel, and I heard him cry his 
 burden was heavy. A white figure passed and 
 touched his forehead. The little chapel faded 
 from view. I opened my eyes. I heard a voice
 
 SKINNY BENOIT. 7 
 
 saying, ' The Lord keeps His promises.' It was 
 that of Sister Marie. 
 
 " ' To be left so young, and no friends, sister.' 
 
 " ' The Lord giveth and taketh as is His will,' 
 said she; ' happy are they who submit.' 
 
 " ' Happy, Sister Marie ? ' and I closed my 
 weary eyes in sleep. 
 
 " St. Henri is a little town a few miles out- 
 side of Montreal." The very name brought 
 tears to granny's eyes. Her story was gaining 
 in interest. I threw a big pine log on the 
 smouldering coals, while Skinny continued: 
 
 " Doctor, you don't know how much I love 
 that little town. As soon as I was well the 
 sisters found me a place there with a family 
 called Cartier. It was so lonely at first that I 
 wanted to die and be with father. One day 
 Dr. Cartier sent me to Napoleon La Flamme's 
 for a loaf of bread. Napoleon kept his little 
 shop a few doors' distant. It was a neat little 
 place, and Napoleon, if I do say it, was such a 
 bon garqon. Look at his picture, doctor, beside 
 me. It's as like him as two peas on the one 
 bush. My picture has changed for the worse. 
 
 " When I went into his shop he was all 
 smiles. He left half a dozen of his customers 
 waiting and came to me. ' Comment qa veus,
 
 28 SKINNY BENOIT. 
 
 Ma'm'selle Bourbonnais ?' he said ; and then I saw 
 all the customers winking and shaking their heads. 
 I would have cried then had not Jenny Lavoie 
 said to Victoria Borsu, ' I don't see what Napo- 
 leon sees in that black thing. 1 That was me. 
 After that I was mad, and made up my mind 
 to spite them. ' I am very well, Mr. Napoleon 
 La Flamme,' said I; 'and how be yourself?' 
 ' Between fairly and middling,' said he, ' Ma'm'- 
 selle Bourbonnais;' and he wrapped my loaf in 
 white paper, that was the best kind he had in 
 the store, and tied it with a red string. 
 
 " ' That will hold, I'll warrant you, Ma'm'selle 
 Bourbonnais.' I took my loaf and went out. 
 Victoria and Jenny made faces at me; even Mrs. 
 Chapuis, that lives next door to Cartier's and 
 goes to church every morning, called me Mon- 
 treal boue. When I was on the front step I 
 could hear Napoleon saying, ' Girls, she's a 
 rattler.' I was so proud that I let the loaf fall 
 on the ground. Only for the red string and 
 the white paper the loaf would have been de- 
 stroyed outright. 
 
 Dr. Cartier was a little bit of a man, always 
 scolding about things that did not concern him. 
 Mrs. Cartier was a big, raw-boned woman, that 
 spent her time lying on a sofa reading novels
 
 SKINNY BENOIT. 29 
 
 that kind of books with yellow covers. I was 
 to do all the housework, besides washing two 
 dirty-looking dogs, Gyp and Fan, in the suds 
 every Saturday. One Saturday I put Gyp in 
 the tub and turned the kettle-spout on his 
 back. I reckon it was a little warm, for he did 
 what he had never done before jumped from 
 the tub yelling like a scalded young one, and 
 ran to Mrs. Cartier, spotting all her book, as 
 she said, with dirty water. My mistress called 
 the doctor and told him that I had warmed 
 Gyp up to boiling. Then, shaking her finger 
 at me and turning to her husband, she said, 
 4 Love, attend to that asylum girl; this book 
 is so interesting.' The doctor ran at me like 
 a T>ear, danced all around me, called me hard 
 names, threatened me with prison, and ended 
 by slapping my face. As soon as he left the 
 kitchen I took my hat and went down to Napo- 
 leon's shop. There was nobody in but Napoleon. 
 As soon as I saw him I began to cry and wish 
 myself dead. 
 
 " ' Henriette,' said Napoleon, fixing me a seat 
 on a cracker-barrel and sitting down by my side, 
 ' these Cartiers are a low set. They sprung 
 from nothing, as you can easy see. They have 
 killed a dozen girls, and they'll kill you if you
 
 JO SKINNY BENOIT. 
 
 don't get out. Now, I'm lonely. I have a good 
 store, five hundred dollars in bank, two cows and 
 a year-old heifer, all in tip-top condition. I 
 have a home, you're out of a home; let us 
 strike a bargain. If you're in it let me kiss you 
 to seal it,' and he stretched his neck under my 
 mouth. 
 
 "I do not know how it happened, but, law 
 me, doctor, what a powerful kiss Napoleon gave 
 me! ' My brand is on you now,' says he, ' and 
 you need have no fear for the Cartiers.' 
 
 " Just then Jenny Lavoie came in with a terri- 
 ble face on her. ' Shake,' says Napoleon; ' Hen- 
 riette and I are engaged. Take a bid to the 
 wedding.' Jenny walked up to me and kissed 
 me, whispering in my ear that it was her that 
 put Napoleon's mind on me as just the thing 
 he wanted. You don't know, doctor, how much 
 deceit and lying there is in Canada. The wed- 
 ding was a grand affair. Everybody was asked 
 and everybody came. It lasted three days, 
 with a new fiddler every night. That first year 
 was all joy, doctor." And Skinny, possibly 
 comparing it with the gloomy years that fol- 
 lowed it, used the towel on her reeking, blood- 
 shot eyes. 
 
 ' They say that every calm calls a storm ;
 
 SKINNY BENOIT. 31 
 
 it was so with me,' continued Skinny. " About 
 a year after the birth of my son Frank there 
 came what Napoleon called a crash. Money 
 left the country all at once, and Napoleon's 
 books were filled with trust. The best farmers 
 had not a sou. On an evil day Napoleon re- 
 ceived a letter from James Weeks him that 
 runs the Hunter's Paradise in Squidville. The 
 prospects, wrote Jim, are on the ups, and a 
 good thing might be made by logging it on the 
 Salmon River. So Napoleon sold his little shop 
 that's the picture of it that's framed and 
 came to Squidville. Work was scarce that win- 
 ter, so in the next fall Napoleon went to guid- 
 ing." 
 
 Her voice was low, passion-tossed, and trem- 
 ulous. "Jim Weeks got him a party from 
 New York; their name was Jenks. There was 
 in that party Dr. Jenks, his wife, and his son 
 a young man of twenty-three or there- 
 abouts." 
 
 Tears were flowing freely from granny's eyes. 
 
 " The first day's hunt was started in the direc- 
 tion of Mud Pond, Blind Cagy putting out the 
 dogs, as he knew the lie of the country better 
 than Napoleon. At the burnt hill Cagy came 
 on a doe and two fawns. The dogs tracked
 
 32 SKINNY BENOIT. 
 
 the fawns; and you know how fawns fool a dog, 
 scooting here and there; so Napoleon, thinking 
 to help the dogs a bit, crept through the brush, 
 keeping his eye peeled, as Cagy said, for the 
 old one, that was pretty nigh the youngsters. 
 Young Jenks, who was watching one of the run- 
 ways, saw him, and, having no learning about 
 hunting, thought he was a deer. He took aim 
 and fired, killing poor Napoleon on the spot. 
 " That's what there is to that picture, doctor." 
 Just then laughing Jenny came in singing: 
 
 " Monsieur d'Marlbrook est mort, 
 Mironton, mironton, mirontaine; 
 Monsieur d'Marlbrook est mort, 
 Est mort et enterr6." 
 
 " What about Jenny ? " I asked. 
 
 Skinny was wiping her eyes with the towel. 
 Looking out on the coming darkness, in a 
 broken way she muttered: 
 
 ' The night's a bad one; the wind is up, and 
 there may be a drift; besides, Toby has the 
 shivers. Go home, doctor; that's another story, 
 to be told some other day." 
 
 "Come, Jenny," said Skinny, turning to the 
 child, " the big black dog is out; get to bed, 
 or he'll eat you up."
 
 SKINNY BENOIT. 33 
 
 The sweet voice was silent; the mirth had 
 flown. Crouched in a corner, with wild, glitter- 
 ing eyes and painful face, was Jenny Sauve". 
 
 I went out, jumped into my cutter, wrapped 
 myself in fur, and away went Toby.
 
 34 BILLY BUTTONS RELATES. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 BILLY BUTTONS RELATES. 
 
 THERE were but two holidays in Squidville: 
 one was election- day, when all the choppers were 
 supposed to show their colors and vote for Pink 
 or Punk, as their " convictions were in it," to 
 use one of their characteristic phrases; the 
 other was the Fourth of July, when the sur- 
 rounding towns as far as Snipeville came in a 
 body to celebrate that glorious day in front of 
 Jim Weeks' hotel. 
 
 Election-day was mostly passed in arguing the 
 respective differences of the two great political 
 parties; or listening to the slippery wisdom of 
 Weeks, who, belonging to neither party, was 
 considered of both. Women were not allowed 
 "to twang their muzzle" another Squidville 
 saying on such occasions. " A woman has no 
 more right in politics than a crow in a corn- 
 field," said Buttons to Charlie Parker, who had 
 spent a winter in Oberlin College, and came 
 back full of women's rights and tariff. Buttons
 
 BILLY BUTTONS RELATES. 35 
 
 was highly applauded for his forcible utterance; 
 even Weeks, whose verdict was final, was heard 
 to say that " a sprinkling of college made a 
 man a fool," as any living body could see by 
 the ranting of that Parker lad. Buttons was not 
 much of a hand at ciphering out the papers, 
 but " wherever he got his pickin's he walked 
 straight away from that Parker on the woman 
 business." Poor Parker died soon after of lung 
 trouble, and not a few of our folks said that 
 it was Weeks' way of putting it that made him 
 go off so soon. 
 
 The Fourth of July was a different kind of 
 holiday. Jim Weeks donated his grove, and 
 the picnic, under the auspices of the St. Jean- 
 Baptiste Society, was an amiable affair for char- 
 ity's sake. Every kind of conveyance was taken 
 from its hiding-place and made tidy to do ser- 
 vice on that day. Mothers for months had 
 saved their pennies on butter and eggs to buy 
 white waists and red skirts for their daughters. 
 White straw hats with black bands, showy scarfs, 
 mostly of a bright red color, and cheap, flashy 
 jewelry, as breast-pins, rings, and watch-chains, 
 had materially reduced the hard-earned winter's 
 pay of the young men. What of that ? It 
 was Squidville's way; and here I remark, with
 
 36 BILLY BUTTONS RELATES. 
 
 Cagy, that to set yourself up against the ways 
 of your neighbors " shows that your roof needs 
 shingling." Everybody was supposed to be 
 happy on the Fourth. The old men for that 
 day were young, and indulged in such harmless 
 sports as running up greased poles, catching but- 
 tered pigs, or, tied in bags, running races. 
 Women were free to gossip, cajole, coax. Man 
 was the victim of her wiles that day, and the 
 money gained by her arts, when the day's en- 
 joyment was over, was lovingly given to Pere 
 Monnier, whose kindly smile was a great reward. 
 It was the proud boast of Weeks that there 
 was but one religion in Squidville that day, and 
 that was love for Pere Monnier, whose strong, 
 man-loving nature had conquered creeds and 
 races. The Fourth was a rare day, given up to 
 music, drollery, horse-racing, and horse-trading. 
 It came rather strange to the folks of Squid- 
 ville to have another holiday added to their 
 scanty list. Those who have stopped over a 
 night at the Hunter's Paradise have had their 
 ears, I reckon, filled with how came Hirarn 
 Jones' day. 
 
 Cagy tells the story well, but I prefer But- 
 tons' way of handling it. It was while on a 
 professional visit to Mrs. Andrieux, last winter,
 
 BTLLY BUTTONS RELATES. 37 
 
 that I stopped with my old friend Weeks, and 
 heard Buttons tell the story after this fashion: 
 
 Rev. Harrison Gliggins, our pastor of well- 
 nigh five-and-forty years' standing, rich in the 
 promises of his Maker, had passed the portals 
 of the beyond, joined the many on the great 
 camping-ground. Brother Gliggins was a mem- 
 ber of the Appomattox Lodge of the G. A. R., 
 and one of the charter members of Brimstone 
 Lodge of I. O. O. F. The Porcupine Pioneer 
 spoke of him as " a man of metallic physique, 
 a sweet poet whose ' Bid Me Bloom Again ' 
 will last as long as the Adirondacks. " To fill 
 the place of such a man was no easy job. 
 The congregation that he had built up and held 
 by the spell of his voice, after his death had 
 become disorganized. There were many causes 
 at work to destroy the forty-five years' work of 
 our dead brother. One of the strongest was 
 Jim Weeks, urged by his daughter Mary to 
 introduce a bit of music into the church. 
 Weeks' idea was to get a melodeon and let 
 Mary play be, as folks said, " a kind of an or- 
 ganer." A good many that had sat at the feet 
 of Brother Gliggins for thirty years would not 
 hear of any new patented thing like one of 
 these melodeons squealing in church. " It
 
 38 BILLY BUTTONS RELATES. 
 
 would," said Sal Purdy, who had led the choir 
 during the life of Brother Gliggins, " make a 
 pandimion in the church;" and everybody knew 
 what Gliggins used to say: " Show me the 
 pandimion and I'll show you Satan." Weeks' 
 only daughter, Mary, a girl of eighteen, had 
 spent a few months in New York City, and 
 while there, under the distinguished teaching of 
 Mademoiselle Grondier, had learned to play 
 " Nearer, my God, to Thee," " Mansions in the 
 Sky." The proud father had purchased an 
 organ for his daughter in Malone, and set it in 
 the most conspicuous corner of his cosey parlor. 
 The highest tribute he could pay a friend was 
 an invitation to this parlor, where Mary, mind- 
 ful of her accomplishments, threw back her long 
 yellow curls, casting a glance at the open music- 
 sheets, while she sang in her soft mountain voice 
 her treasured and envied repertory. It was the 
 ambition of Weeks' life to have those " same 
 bits of melody swinging through the church, 
 and Mary just showing them from the loft that 
 people don't go to New York for nothing." 
 Mary had lost her mother in infancy; her father 
 remained unmarried for the sake of the child, 
 who was, as he delighted to tell, " the dead 
 spit of her mother." A kind lady, who was
 
 BILLY BUTTONS RELATES. 39 
 
 accustomed to board at her father's hotel every 
 summer, took a deep interest in the pretty, 
 motherless child. After many entreaties she per- 
 suaded Weeks to let Mary pass a few months 
 every winter in New York City. 
 
 A few weeks of her second winter's visit had 
 passed sight-seeing, and adding a new hymn to 
 her slender repertory, when she received a letter 
 from her father stating that " many of the folks 
 were a-coming over to the hymns in church, 
 since it had been explained to them that all 
 the churches were a-running in the music line. 
 Even Sal Purdy, since her last visit to Mr. 
 Perkins, of Snipeville, who boldly told her, with- 
 out putting a finger in his mouth, that music 
 w*s much made of in the Scriptures, was a-com- 
 ing in; so you may hold yourself in readiness," 
 wrote the proud father, " as soon as you come 
 home, to be our organer. " 
 
 A postscript added that " as yet they were 
 without a minister, but from the many applica- 
 tions they hoped soon to have a man full of 
 the Lord in their midst." Mary kissed the 
 letter, crumpled it in her skirt-pocket, and dreamt 
 that night of her far-off mountain home. The 
 attractions of the great city, so strange on her 
 first acquaintance, were becoming fascinating
 
 40 BILLY BUTTONS RELATES. 
 
 she forgot Squidville with the coming of morn- 
 ing. Vacation-time sped quickly. To this 
 girl from the heart of the Adirondacks that 
 vacation had been a fairy dream. When the 
 time to return came a strange, wild rebellion 
 against her dismal country life was born in her 
 soul. 
 
 " How happy you are, Miss Grondier, " she 
 said, not daring to look her teacher in the face, 
 "to be able to live in this great city. I am 
 miserable. I hate that horrid Squidville. It 
 will be so dull. Just think that in ten minutes 
 more my train will leave here; and who knows 
 if I shall ever come back ? ' ' 
 
 " What a beautiful station this Grand Central 
 is," said the astute teacher, leading her pupil 
 to other thoughts. 
 
 " Yes, it is beautiful," and Mary Weeks' 
 eyes were filled with tears. " That's the reason 
 I hate to leave it. Everything is beautiful in 
 this city. To-morrow morning at eight I will 
 get off this train," Mary burst into wild 
 laughter, " and, goodness, Miss Grondier, our 
 depot is about the size of that coal-box. Here, 
 look what houses are around, and what lights. 
 Our depot is in the woods, nothing but woods,
 
 BILLY BUTTONS RELATES. 41 
 
 woods, and the only light at this time of night 
 is Billy Buttons' lantern, and then the half of 
 the time it is out." 
 
 " You will soon forget this city, child," said 
 Miss Grondier, kissing her crying pupil. 
 
 " All aboard !" said the colored porter, and 
 the train moved out of the great city, bearing 
 away a girlish heart. 
 
 Miss Grondier waved a handkerchief, shed a 
 tear with some effort, and, hurrying through the 
 depot to the street, entered a street-car home- 
 ward bound. 
 
 The train sped quickly on, past city and 
 sleeping hamlet, entering the great forest, sound- 
 ing the death-knell across lovely lakes to the 
 wild deer that browsed among their reeds. 
 Mary's sleep was calm and unbroken. 
 
 " Next station Ringville !" shouted the colored 
 gentleman. Mary jumped from her cot, and in 
 her eagerness to see the little coal-box station 
 once more forgot the great city. The train 
 stopped. Mary grasped her little travelling-bag 
 and was soon on the platform in the embrace 
 of her father. 
 
 " Mary, Mary ! " shouted the frantic father, 
 " you must never leave me again. I'm getting
 
 42 BILLY BUTTONS RELATES. 
 
 old. Everything is a kind of queer around the 
 house since you left. My hotel has been a 
 barrack for the last two months." 
 
 " That's the truest word in your life," said 
 Buttons, grasping Mary's hand. 
 
 " I got a kind of new coat, Mary, to give 
 you a welcome," said Cagy, cramping the wagon 
 that was to bear away the first girl in Squid- 
 ville. 
 
 " Come, Mary, jump in the wagon; I long to 
 see you at the Hunter's Paradise. I left La 
 Flamme's dogs to watch the premises; so I 
 worry," said. Weeks, helping his daughter to 
 seat herself in the wagon. 
 
 " No fear," said Cagy, taking the reins. 
 
 " It's a go ! " shouted Weeks, clapping his 
 daughter's back, and away went the wagon. 
 
 Billy Buttons sauntered slowly after. His 
 thoughts were busied on the fitness of Mrs. 
 Poulet to be his wife, and the means of accom- 
 plishing such an arduous undertaking. He was 
 in a jovial mood. His pipe was sending out 
 a steady smoke, a sure sign of the inward peace 
 of an Adirondack guide. " I'll just step in and 
 see her," he was saying to himself, when a 
 voice from behind shouted: 
 
 " I say, sir, is this the nearest road to Weeks'
 
 BILLY BUTTONS RELATES. 43 
 
 James Weeks, sir ? I mean Weeks of the 
 Hunter's Paradise, sir." 
 
 The stranger was a short, stout, good-looking 
 man, bearing on the forties. One hand clutched 
 a worn-out satchel stuffed with papers; the other 
 held his eyeglass, and was in constant use in 
 the vain attempt of adjusting it to either eye. 
 
 " Keep right ahead follow the wagon-track, 
 sir, and you cannot miss it," said Buttons. 
 " It's the only frame house, sir, in these parts." 
 
 The stranger quickened his gait, and was soon 
 by the side of Buttons, who eyed him suspi- 
 ciously. " It's a fine healthy morning, sir," said 
 the stranger. 
 
 " Healthy, sir that's the word. It would 
 almbst put life in a dead man." 
 
 " Are you of these parts ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, of these very parts. I am known 
 to everybody as William Buttons, the guide. 
 What may be your name, sir? if I am not a 
 little out of my way in asking such a question." 
 
 " My name, sir," said the stranger, tugging 
 on his satchel, " is better known in the great 
 metropolis than in these parts. I am, sir, an 
 evangelist, and my name, sir, is the Rev. Hiram 
 Marcellus Jones. People call me the Sweeping 
 Cyclone."
 
 44 BILLY BUTTONS RELATES. 
 
 The smoke ceased in Buttons' pipe. He was 
 not astonished an Adirondack guide rarely is. 
 Relieving the Cyclone of his scanty baggage, he 
 asked him if, " for the sake of the nearness, 
 would he not just cross a few fields ? " The 
 Cyclone willingly assented, and Buttons, with his 
 mind on Poulet, save a few odd thoughts on 
 his companion, led the way to the Hunter's 
 Paradise. 
 
 Sunday was a lovely day. The trees were 
 putting on their spring bonnets, and the long- 
 lost warblers flitted in song from tree to tree, 
 happy in their old surroundings. Here and there 
 a few flowers cautiously peeped, reconnoitring 
 for their hidden fellows. Although it was early 
 in the morning, smoke crept from many a house- 
 hold that at this time on ordinary Sundays were 
 accustomed to slumber. Something was agog 
 and that something was, as a paper posted in 
 Weeks' hotel said, " the coming of Hiram Jones, 
 the fertilizer of the vineyard of the Lord. 
 Moody's only Christian rival." Hiram M. 
 Jones, D.D., was to fill the pulpit. Weeks' 
 organ had been carted to the church. Mary 
 Weeks, " with new tunes," was to preside at 
 the organ, " rendering melodies to the Lord." 
 All these things and many more said the paper,
 
 BILLY BUTTONS RELATES. 45 
 
 "in," as Cagy remarked, the " finest words that 
 ever dirtied a sheet." Weeks to his dying day 
 claimed that Mary had not only " pasted up that 
 notice, but had composed it out of her own 
 skull." It may have been so, but country jeal- 
 ousy would have it otherwise. The little bell of 
 Pere Monnier's church sang sweetly over the 
 hills: " It's just ten o'clock. Come all to Mass." 
 In answer to the bell's song came the clatter of 
 horses' hoofs, and the merry voices of old and 
 young in the Canadian patois. They had to be 
 in time, for Pere Monnier was strict as to his 
 hours of service. Following on the heels of 
 Pere Monnier's flock came a motley throng in 
 all kinds of wagons; the Squidville stage in the 
 lead', containing Weeks, his daughter Mary, Sal 
 Purdy, and the Rev. Hiram Marcellus Jones. 
 That the Cyclone in the space of a few days had 
 converted so persistent a hater of the melodeon 
 to a staunch supporter was, as she herself put it, 
 " of powers other than earthly." The strange 
 procession halted at the meeting-house a small 
 brick building and entered. The exterior was 
 severely simple, while the interior was of the 
 homeliest description. The pews were roughly 
 hewn paint was too cheery for a building that 
 was only used once a week, and then as a
 
 46 BILLY BUTTONS RELATES. 
 
 soul-chastiser. There was an attempt at a pul- 
 pit the chef-d'oeuvre of a village genius. The 
 attempt was fantastically crowned by a huge 
 red cushion, the gift of Gliggins* second wife. 
 Behind the pulpit was a sofa of faded hues, 
 whereon the minister sat during the singing of 
 the hymns. The service was over. In front of 
 the door little knots of men and women gath- 
 ered discussing the preacher and the music 
 things now inseparable. The centre of one of 
 these groups was Weeks, bowing and smiling. 
 
 As Sal Purdy came within range of his voice 
 he shouted, " Sal, what do you think of Jones ?" 
 
 "Think, Jim Weeks? I ain't able to think 
 I am about ' curmuddled.' He's an angel, 
 that man. And, bless my soul, Jim Weeks, I 
 wouldn't live without music. This day is surely 
 a taste of what he called beyond ' the im- 
 pirnin blue,' " was Sal's response. 
 
 " He's a Jim dandy; make no mistake about 
 it, Sal," said Berry. 
 
 " He talks like a book. Didn't you see how 
 he rolled his eyes, pounded the pulpit, knocked 
 that darned cushion down? and the whole busi- 
 ness as unconcernedly as I would chop a log," 
 said the usually sedate Ike Perkins.
 
 BILLY BUTTONS RELATES. 47 
 
 " Well, Jim Weeks, I give in my gun," said 
 Bill Whistler, one of the leaders of the no-music 
 crusade. " That sermon was a corker ! It was 
 so powerful that old Middy Slack cried; and for 
 him to cry it takes a No. i preacher." 
 
 Weeks was elated. To these curious remarks 
 he had but one reply. " Boys, Jones 's the 
 stuff. That sermon was onions to the eyes all 
 round. Let us, on the strength of it, give him 
 an unanimous call. All in favor shout aye; con- 
 trary, no." 
 
 There was not a dissenting voice. And it 
 came to pass that the Rev. Hiram Marcellus 
 Jones became pastor of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church of Squidville. Being a bachelor, he 
 preferred a room in Weeks' hotel to any log 
 cabin in Pleasant View. 
 
 Under his loving and devoted care the dis- 
 organized congregation became organized. Stray 
 sheep entered the fold, and his power as a preacher 
 became, as he loved to put it, " manifest for 
 God's glory." He had many calls from the 
 neighboring charges, and, being of a travelling 
 disposition, he generally accepted them. 
 
 It was noticed on these occasions that Mary 
 Weeks was his constant companion. " Her
 
 48 BILLY BUTTONS RELATES. 
 
 voice," said the Cyclone to a brother divine., 
 '* is a worthy instrument used by the Lord to 
 prepare the way for my preaching." 
 
 The first year of his pastorship ended in glory. 
 The coming year it was announced that Brother 
 Jones, in order to carry out more satisfactorily 
 his work in the ministry, would wed one of the 
 " parish folks." This announcement, strange 
 to say, caused little commotion in the usually 
 talkative town. When it was later authorita- 
 tively stated that the maiden's name was Mary 
 Weeks, people shook their heads in a knowing 
 way, saying to each other, " I told you it was 
 bound to be." That marriage was the greatest 
 event in the checkered career of Squidville. 
 There came nine brother divines to wish Brother 
 Jones " days of thankfulness in the Lord," 
 while delegations from all the surrounding settle- 
 ments entered Squidville as a mark of appre- 
 ciation of the " mighty revival that had come 
 to pass, so to say, by his hands." So great 
 was the throng of well-wishers that came to the 
 marriage feast that the Hunter's Paradise for 
 the first time in its history lacked accommoda- 
 tion. 
 
 " By crackey ! " said Buttons, as he sat on 
 the empty soap-box viewing the long line of
 
 BILLY BUTTONS RELATES. 49 
 
 strange faces that passed through the corridor 
 that led to the hotel dining-room, " these long, 
 thin-pointed, whiskered, shouting click will eat 
 our friend James out of house and home." 
 
 " I am not thinking, William, of other peo- 
 ple's crooked stomachs, this very minute; but of 
 poor Mary. You know, William, that chickens 
 of different ages don't go very good in the 
 same coop," said Cagy, seating himself near his 
 inseparable friend. 
 
 " There's a chunk of truth, Cagy, in that 
 very saying; besides, an old plaster is a poor 
 remedy for a young sore. But it's none of our 
 business; so let us go home." 
 
 Cagy aros,e, and the two old guides, sorrow- 
 ing, ^went down the road. The guests in the 
 dining-room sat wondering at the heaped-up 
 plates of half a dozen good things recklessly 
 jostling each other. Brother Jones gave the 
 word of command, and a hundred knives and 
 forks made a quick attack on the plates. When 
 about half done that is the way we calculate 
 in these parts Bill Whistler moved that they 
 should name the day " Hiram Jones', and keep 
 it till Gabriel sounds the last roll-call." Bill was 
 a Grand Army man, and his sentiments were 
 felt to be in the right tune. It was passed,
 
 50 BILLY BUTTONS RELATES. 
 
 and after the plates were cleared, and Brother 
 Perkins had spoken a few words of cheer, the 
 happy couple left for Snipeville. 
 
 If Brother Jones was energetic in the days of 
 his bachelorhood, he was doubly so after mar- 
 riage. That year he founded in Squidville an 
 Endeavor Society, a savings-bank for the chop- 
 pers, and, in partnership with his father-in-law, 
 started a shingle-mill just, as he said, " to keep 
 the boys in work." These doings for the good 
 of Squidville made people bless the coming of 
 Hiram Jones. Two men stood aloof from this 
 chorus of praise the two old guides who had loved 
 and known Mary Weeks from her birth. It was 
 their outspoken opinion that she was unhappy; 
 and they pointed to the fact that she " was 
 sickly and pale, and not caring a bit for music." 
 Squidville folk laughed at the clattering of two 
 old fools. 
 
 Two years had passed years of prosperity for 
 Hiram Jones. His parish had grown, his En- 
 deavor Society had become a success. Spirit- 
 ually he was well equipped. Materially his bank 
 had all the choppers' money; his shingle-mill 
 was on " the ups," as Weeks said. Weeks 
 showed his appreciation of this by putting all 
 his cash into the business. Squidville on its
 
 BILLY BUTTONS RELATES. 51 
 
 part had been faithful to its promise. It was 
 Hiram Jones' day, and from every house they 
 were coming in their holiday attire to do honor 
 to their benefactor. The place of meeting was 
 in front of Jim Weeks' hotel. 
 
 The first-comers were a little astonished to find 
 the hotel securely locked. ' No amount of rapping 
 could rouse the inmates. As the day passed 
 the crowd grew large and uneasy. Where is 
 Brother Jones? was the only question that seemed 
 to take life on the lips of that motley throng. 
 There was no one to answer. 
 
 It was growing late, and many had come from 
 afar and were anxious to return to their homes 
 before the coming of the dark spring night. 
 They gathered in groups, and warmly discussed 
 whether it was best to go home, or to break the 
 door and " see what it all means." 
 
 In the midst of these discussions a huge mas- 
 tiff dog was seen bounding and barking up the 
 road. A hundred voices as one shouted, " Here 
 comes Pere Monnier see his dog ! " It was 
 true: following close to the hound was the well- 
 known form of Pere Monnier coming their way. 
 
 " Let us follow his advice," said Whistler. 
 " I'll warrant it's a good one." 
 
 The pastor of the French-Canadian church
 
 52 BILLY BUTTONS RELATES. 
 
 listened attentively to their stones. " Go," said 
 he, addressing himself to the crowd, " and wait 
 in the grove. I will knock at the door Jim 
 Weeks had always an open door for me. It 
 was with him I lived when I first came amongst 
 you." The crowd hurried to the grove, while 
 Pere Monnier struck the door with his cane. 
 It was quickly opened to let him enter and as 
 quickly shut. 
 
 Before him stood Weeks, pale and frightened, 
 the tears running down his cheeks, his limbs 
 quavering, and his voice hollow and broken. " O 
 Pere Monnier Pere Monnier my old friend ! I 
 wish I were dead beside my girl my dead Mary ! 
 Jones, the scoundrel, killed her by inches ! He 
 left a week ago and took every dollar that I 
 had. O Pere Monnier, Pere Monnier! " 
 
 "She has left a little girl," said the doctor 
 from the head of the stairs. " Mr. Weeks has 
 given it to Mrs. La Flamme her they call 
 Skinny Benoit to try and raise. Come, Skinny, 
 and see the pere." 
 
 ' We will have it baptized to-morrow, pere, 
 if you see fit," said Skinny; " and I'll be true 
 to the mother's wish, and call its first name 
 Jenny; but as for its second name, what can it 
 be, pere ? Weeks won't have it Jones."
 
 BILLY BUTTONS RELATES. 53 
 
 "Call it Sauve"," said Pere Monnier, entering 
 the dead woman's room. 
 
 " Ay, pere, Jenny Sauv6; cest beau nom for 
 a youngster," said Skinny. 
 
 " I'll explain all to the people," said the doc- 
 tor, taking his hat. 
 
 Within lay the corpse of Mrs. Jones, Pere 
 Monnier and Jim Weeks bending over it; near 
 to them Skinny Benoit, pressing to her bosom 
 the new-born babe; without was a cursing, howl- 
 ing mob. Thus came Hiram Jones' day, to 
 remain, as Bill Whistler said, " till Gabriel sounds 
 the last roll-call."
 
 54 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 
 
 ONE July evening our boat lay at anchor in 
 that beautiful sheet of mountain water called by 
 the natives Round Pond, by the few fastidious 
 New York sportsmen that annually visit it In- 
 dian Lake. We had whipped the pond from 
 early morning, I speak in the plural, for Billy 
 Buttons was my guide, and without a nibble to 
 keep hope in expectancy. The burning sun had 
 skin-furrowed my cheeks and pricked my flesh, 
 while legions of singing mosquitoes had called 
 and held their irritating conventions on the 
 tracks old Sol had made. I was uneasy; But- 
 tons noticed this, for he grasped the paddle 
 and with a few quick passes brought the anchor- 
 rope within my reach, shouting as he did so, 
 " Doctor, pull her in." A few jerks and I 
 landed the anchor, an awkward-looking stone, 
 incased in black mud, in the bow. 
 
 "Where are you bound for, William?" I 
 asked.
 
 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 55 
 
 " For Charley Pond, doctor. There's no use 
 in fooling any more here. The little fellows we 
 don't want, and the big fellows ain't in the 
 biting humor; and, what's more, fish on a tarna- 
 tion hot day like this, doctor, ain't frying in 
 the middle of the lake; they're gone up the 
 brooks to cool. You'll find them skulking under 
 the elders. What a tarnation day this has been, 
 doctor. But here goes!" And Buttons, taking 
 the oars, touched the waters, making scarcely a 
 ripple, and away went the boat. 
 
 It may be foolish, but so beautiful was the 
 motion of the boat under the artistic guidance 
 of Buttons that I thought it was alive. Buttons 
 had some like thoughts, for he said: " Doctor, 
 I haven't much in this world, but if she [the 
 boat] would go to pieces on one of those float- 
 ing hemlocks it would be the death of me. 
 She's as skittish as a kitten, doctor. There's 
 no duck in these waters that can do the bow- 
 ing act with her. She's a rattler, you may pin 
 your faith to that every time. What do you 
 think, doctor ? " 
 
 I simply answered, " She's all you say. 
 Stumps ahead, William." 
 
 " She'll dodge them by the bushel," was 
 Buttons' assuring reply.
 
 56 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 
 
 We had passed out of Indian Lake into a 
 narrow channel dangerously dotted with half- 
 burnt pine logs. The edges of this channel 
 were lined with a scrubbish growth of dwarfish 
 elder, " home of the foxy three-pounders," to 
 cite Buttons' passing comment. From these 
 elders floated long trailing, sun-burnt yellow 
 moss, like the dishevelled hair of some village 
 beauty. Guarding this dwarfish growth rose 
 many a mile of stately spruce and pine, half a 
 century ago the home of troops of yelping 
 wolves, now the playground of the red squirrel 
 and his lesser friend, the chattering, greedy 
 chipmunk. This channel has two branches, one 
 broad and deep, called the Salmon, the other 
 gradually becoming narrower and narrower until 
 the occupant of the boat can comfortably touch 
 either bank with outstretched arms. This chan- 
 nel is difficult of access, but under the mas- 
 terly skill of Buttons difficulties of this kind were 
 converted into pleasures. Our way led by this 
 channel. Buttons, as was his way when he 
 scented sport, broke into song as naturally as a 
 bird. I remember a few lines of it: 
 
 " Chantons, chantons 1'air du dfepart 
 Nagez rameurs car 1'onde fuit, 
 Lc rapide est proche, ct le jour finit."
 
 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 57 
 
 As an answer to this Canadian boatman's song 
 eame the quick sound of the chopper's axe, 
 mingled with a weak human attempt to follow 
 the lusty song of William Buttons. 
 
 " Get a hold on that twig, doc., and jerk 
 us off that darned stump," said Buttons, rising 
 in the boat and leaving the weary chopper to 
 indifferently continue the song. The paddle was 
 exchanged for an oar. "That's good, doc.; 
 another jerk and she'll get there as sure as my 
 name is Buttons. Ay, there she goes as straight 
 as a pin. See how she shakes her noddle. 
 Charley Pond, doctor don't you see it peeping 
 atween the bushes like a cat's eye in the dark ? " 
 
 Then addressing himself to the boat: " Don't 
 be rubbing your nose against every stump you 
 meet, or, my pretty pet, you'll have a face on 
 you as black as a crow's wing coming home." 
 The boat steadied herself as if obedient to her 
 master's will, skilfully avoided a huge log, and 
 with a saucy skip made her first bow in Charley 
 Pond. The little lake is wooded to the very 
 shore with the finest specimens of spruce, tama- 
 rack, and pine. It is rimmed with soft moun- 
 tain moss in many a tangled form, whose bright 
 hues strangely mingle with the shadow of its 
 guardian trees. A few canvasback ducks sport-
 
 5 8 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 
 
 ing in its waters eyed us long and curiously; 
 then, with a quick wing splash and broken 
 chatter, they rose, circled above us, stretched 
 their necks, and, as Buttons said, " struck camp 
 somewhere else." Our boat by this time was 
 close to the opposite shore, about twenty feet 
 from it, by the side of a wind-fallen pine that 
 ran into the lake. 
 
 " Doctor," said Buttons, " get your anchor 
 unfastened and hitch your rope to one of the 
 branches. This is a great place for trout, if 
 those cursed bull-pouts will go asleep and leave 
 the bait alone. All fixed good. Why, doctor, 
 you're the genuine stuff, what Hiram Jones used 
 to call ' Israel's cream ' ; me and Cagy were the 
 buttermilk. I'll be bound to make a fisher out 
 of you. Throw me down the bait. How would 
 a minny go ? Give me your hook. It's baited ; 
 throw it in; no splashing gently, doctor. By 
 crackey ! you have a bite ; go easy, let him drown 
 himself. Good ! keep your line tight, he's com- 
 ing on the run. Hold on; keep a stiff upper 
 lip, doctor, and I'll get the net under him in 
 a jiffy. Conscience, doctor, he's a beauty ! a 
 good two pounds if he's an ounce." 
 
 Encouraged by the commands and comments 
 of Buttons, who caught trout after trout with
 
 \ 
 
 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 59 
 
 the utmost unconcern, now and then slyly drop- 
 ping one of them into my basket, I soon was 
 in such a jovial frame of mind that my poor 
 sick patients were forgotten, and I found my- 
 self proposing to William Buttons to build a 
 bough shanty, and spend a few days in this 
 most delightful retreat. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " was William's reply. " If you 
 would do that folks would think you were out 
 of your head. They would be a-hunting and 
 scratching for you all over the country, and of 
 course come here. Then what would happen ? 
 Every crank in these woods would go a-fishing 
 in Charley Pond and spoil everything. No, 
 doctor, we'll soon get a gait on us; besides, 
 there's a squall a- working to us. Unhitch the 
 rope; I'll make for Dory's camp until it's over." 
 
 I never dispute the weather-knowledge of an 
 Adirondack guide. A dark cloud passed over 
 the lake, a few quick, sharp thunder-shots, and 
 a serpentine ribbon of brilliant lightning skimmed 
 the bosom of the lake as lightly as a swallow's 
 wing. The wind rose, at first like the chat- 
 tering of birds; then, grasping the pine trees 
 and swaying their branches, sang untranslatable 
 requiems. 
 
 The placid waters jumped, curled, and lashed
 
 60 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 
 
 the shore, rimming the lake with creamy slobber. 
 A few drops of rain, then a quick thunderclap, 
 and the drops became torrents, whipping the 
 already infuriated lake. A few frogs croaked 
 their unmusical benisons, while we quickly pulled 
 shoreward and hurriedly sought refuge in Dory's 
 camp. And what a refuge ! but any port has 
 its shelter in a storm. Dory's was a sorry sight. 
 The roof leaked, and the wind, charged with 
 rain, took its own way through the doorless and 
 almost roofless camp. Buttons minded little 
 wind or rain. "It is," he remarked, " a 
 little summer coughing-fit, that will soon rid 
 itself by a good rain-spit." He busied himself 
 in making our quarters comfortable by quickly 
 erecting, with pieces of worm-eaten boards and 
 barked slabs, a comparatively comfortable abode. 
 A few cracker-boxes, stuck on their end deep 
 in the gluey mud, became chairs, while a broad 
 board resting on Our knees was a handy table. 
 This done, " She may growl all night, doctor," 
 said Buttons, opening a can of dried beef, 
 while I cut a loaf with his big, long, coarse- 
 bladed knife-of-all-work into huge pieces. An 
 Adirondack guide wants none of your thin 
 society bread-slices. There is a charm in puff- 
 ing out the cheeks with as much bread as the
 
 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 61 
 
 mouth can hold that is, as Cagy says, " giving 
 play to the grinders." When Buttons was dry 
 he pushed the table to me, .went out, threw 
 back his head, and took, as he said, " a whack 
 at heaven's spill." It was of little account that 
 the rain fell equally on the other parts of his 
 face, as Buttons claimed that all the skin-furrows 
 drained into his mouth. Every man to his 
 taste. I admired Buttons' way of drinking, but 
 I could not follow it; so as soon as Buttons 
 was seated I transferred the table, upturned the 
 beef from the can, caught some of the "spill," 
 and took, as they say in these parts, " a long 
 pull and a steady pull." 
 
 That pull finished one of the best meals in 
 my life. As I sit in my office these long 
 winter nights, penning these old memories from 
 my diary, sickened by medicine-smells waiting 
 f or some unfortunate, what would I not give for 
 such another meal with Billy Buttons at Dory's ? 
 Oh, Charley Pond, Dory's, heaven's spill, and 
 Billy Buttons ! somehow or other you make me 
 sad to-night. When I was a younger man I 
 wrote in my diary, " Glad days are sad memo- 
 ries." I caught that sentence one day passing 
 Owl's Head. It came to me broke through my 
 headful of prescriptions. I let them go, and
 
 62 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 
 
 gleefully bagged it. I could not help saying to 
 Toby, " I have got a good thing." Speaking 
 even to a horse eases a fellow's mind. 
 
 " None of your pies and puddings to kick 
 antics in my stomach after a good meal, but a 
 good smoke and plenty of good guff," is a 
 saying of Cagy's much quoted by Billy Buttons. 
 
 Buttons is not the man to quote a phrase 
 and go contrary to it. While I was emptying 
 the beef-can he unrolled his big black plug of 
 tobacco from his deer-skin pouch, cut little bits 
 from it, placed these in the heel of his left 
 hand, grinding them with the knuckles of his 
 right. This done, " Take your seat, doctor," 
 said Buttons; " pull out your pipe and fill it: 
 I have crushed enough for two." 
 
 No man is quicker for a pipe than I. Soon 
 our pipes were in working order. Suddenly the 
 smoke ceased in Buttons' ; it was a way he 
 had of being solemn. " Doctor," said he, " I'm 
 a-thinking mighty heavy. ' ' 
 
 " What are you thinking about, William ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 4 The only thing an old rounder like me 
 thinks about old times, old times; about the 
 first time I came to Charley Pond, and built 
 this camp; now it's gone to pieces. I feel for
 
 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 63 
 
 it, doctor; it seems to have something to do 
 with me, but I can't cipher it out in talk. I 
 feel it, just the same. It's out of ' kilter,' and 
 I'm going the same way that's how I size it." 
 Buttons hung his head. I watched my pipe- 
 smoke, and listened to the wind. Gradually 
 Buttons' head assumed its ordinary position, 
 and the smoke rose in his pipe. His cheeks 
 were wet. 
 
 " I wish I was a scholar," said Buttons, 
 drawing his glazed coat-sleeve across his face. 
 " I would write a book." 
 
 "What would you put in it, William?" I 
 eagerly asked. "A bear-story?" 
 
 Buttons answered angrily: " Bear-stories for 
 New York sports the more the better. This 
 story is for myself, and a fellow doesn't want 
 to fool himself with lies. It is a bit of a 
 woman-story that has hankered around my heart 
 a good many years; when you would hear it 
 you would know why I brought you here." 
 
 I frankly admitted that the life of a country 
 doctor lends itself to inquisitiveness I believe 
 that is the way I put it in my diary. I could 
 not sleep without knowing that story. Would 
 Buttons tell it ? How could I start him ? But- 
 tons solved the difficulty.
 
 64 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 
 
 " Doctor," said he, "I'm not the man to 
 keep a story from you, and I see that the 
 bluster outside will last while I'm telling it, so 
 here goes: a man must have a beginning to a 
 story. One night while I was sitting with Cagy 
 by Jim Weeks' big office-stove swapping deer- 
 stories, an old gentleman, a young lady, and a 
 little girl came in. ' They're city folks,' said 
 Cagy. I planted my eyes on them. ' So they 
 be,' says I; 'at least they have that air about 
 them.' ' Some of us is in for a job,' says 
 Cagy; ' they'll surely want a guide.' Just then 
 I heard my name called by Weeks, and over I 
 went to his desk. ' Billy,' says he, ' don't you 
 know that old gent that's just gone up-stairs for 
 the night?' ' Not from Adam,' was my word. 
 'Why, Billy, that's queer,' said Jim. 'That's 
 old Jenks from New York, the father of the 
 boy that shot Skinny's husband. He wants a 
 guide for the summer. Be ready with your kit; 
 he'll make an early start.' ' What direction, 
 Jim, is he pointing for ? ' I asked. ' He wants 
 a quiet place,' said Jim, ' where he can build a 
 camp and be entirely alone. His daughter is 
 consumptive, and it is more for her sake than 
 anything else. I have sold him our old board 
 shanty at Charley Pond. You will soon make it
 
 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 65 
 
 slick as a new pin. Cut away all the brush. 
 Spick her up in good shape. You'll find a 
 scythe on the shed roof. If you need any tools 
 you'll find them in Bill Whistler's log house 
 a-back of the shanty.' 
 
 " Times were bad. I was glad to get a job; 
 so I sat up all night mending my old clothes 
 and shining my gun. By the break of day I 
 was at the hotel. Old Jenks was ready, and 
 away we went. It took us about six hours 
 to get there, as in those days the little channel 
 was more blocked than now. Berry and La 
 Jeunesse came along to make the carries and 
 clean out the channel. Jenks was delighted 
 with Charley Pond. He ordered the board shanty 
 to be pulled down, and a log cabin built in its 
 place. We could tent until the work was done. 
 The camp was to be called after his daughter, 
 whose name was Dory. In a week all was 
 ready a regular dove's nest, and we took pos- 
 session of it: Professor Jenks, his daughter Dory, 
 the little girl Milly, and your true friend, Will- 
 iam Buttons. It was then I began to cast 
 my eyes around, and see in what company I 
 was. Maybe you think I was not taken off 
 my feet when Jenks told me that Dory was as 
 blind as a bat that her eyes were full of cata-
 
 66 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 
 
 racts ! I could hardly believe it> as her eyes 
 looked natural, and she used to find her way 
 through the brush. She was as handsome as a 
 picture, doctor, and as good as God ever made. 
 Every morning I used to watch her leaning 
 against the trunk of a tree listening to the 
 robins. Sometimes they would be sleepy, bob- 
 bing their little heads; then she would sing, 
 and all at once they would shake their wings, 
 peck their bills on the branches, and start in 
 song. Then she would laugh a very merry 
 laugh at first, but the tail of it, doctor, was like 
 the cry of a loup-garou. I have often heard 
 the owls answer the tail of that laugh. Every 
 day I took her on the lake, gathered fresh moss 
 for her, baited her hook, told her stories of the 
 voyageurs. She was a fine fisher knew how to 
 hold her line, and when to snap. When we 
 came near logs she would say, ' William, where 
 are they ? How deep shall I let my line ? ' 
 I would tell her, and no man that I have ever 
 seen in these woods, with his eyes wide open, 
 snarled his line less than Dory Jenks. 
 
 " She liked the lake in a storm. She said 
 she could understand the ' music of water and 
 wind-songs; that everything was full of music.' 
 I remember how she used to sit by a little
 
 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 67 
 
 brook, with her small white hands gloved in the 
 soft green moss, listening to its prattle, mocking 
 its song. In those times I used to sit near her, 
 my heart making as much noise as the brook, 
 my eyes content watching her every move; and 
 some kind of a feeling, that I never had in my 
 life before, creeping through me and making me 
 happy. I wanted nobody around her but my- 
 self; not even Milly, who was, as Dory told me 
 one summer night after I had sung to her guitar 
 a little song that ends: 
 
 ' Je n'ai ni bien, ni rang, ni gloire, 
 Mais j'ai beaucoup, beaucoup d'amour,' 
 
 a New York waif taken from the streets, daughter 
 of a drunken Spanish cigar- maker. I'll never 
 forget that night, doctor; the sky was the color 
 of smoke rising from the chimney on a frosty 
 morning; one little star, about the size of a 
 dollar, was like a gold pin stuck in a white 
 woollen scarf. The lake was calm, trouts were 
 jumping here and there, a crane was sleeping 
 on a pine log, a few night-hawks were buzzing 
 along the shore. ' It's glorious,' said Dory; 
 ' I forget my pain. Sing, William, one of your 
 dear old songs; I'll accompany you with my 
 guitar.' I had many songs, but I sorted out the
 
 68 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 
 
 one with the lines I told you, because I wanted 
 to say something I had in my heart by some 
 other body's mouth. After the song we sat 
 there until Milly waved a red lantern, a sign to 
 come in. I was angry with Milly and said she 
 knew too much for a child. ' Not so,' said 
 Dory, ' Milly is my girl and promise me, 
 William Buttons, if anything happens to me and 
 pa of course I know it won't, but if it should 
 that you will befriend Milly. Just promise, 
 William Buttons mountain hearts keep promises 
 say you will, William Buttons.' I promised; 
 she pressed my hand; a thrill of wild delight 
 passed through me at that moment. 
 
 " Months passed away. ' Dory was,' said 
 Professor Jenks, ' gaining strength every day, 
 finding new life in the woods.' Daily he 
 thanked me for my kindness to his daughter, 
 promising to well repay all my service. His 
 talk stabbed me. What had money to do with 
 the services I rendered to Dory ? 
 
 ' The snow came one morning like a handful 
 of flour thrown here and there on the ground 
 and on the brush. ' It was a good day for a 
 deer-hunt,' said Jenks. ' Bill Whistler was going 
 out, Cagy was to meet him at the burned land; 
 would I not take Dory in my boat and guard
 
 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 69 
 
 the pond ? Dory's one wish was to shoot a deer. 
 She would be safe with me.' ' I would lose 
 my life for her, professor,' I replied. ' Of course 
 you would, kind fellow; all you guides are most 
 devoted to your parties. I shall repay you, 
 have no fear, William; your kindness to my 
 poor Dory will not go unrewarded,' said Jenks. 
 My blood was boiling. Does Jenks think that 
 I have no feelings, that I am like all the guides, 
 that guides merely work for money? would lose 
 their life for it ! I muttered. Jenks shouldered 
 his gun, kissed his daughter, and started for 
 Whistler's. I righted my boat, helped Dory to 
 her seat, and pushed out from the shore. It 
 was a clean-cut day; a little sharp, but just the 
 thing for a hunt. A loud whistle told me that 
 Whistler and Cagy had met. ' Shall we soon 
 see a deer ? ' said Dory. ' That depends, ' said 
 I, ' on three things if Cagy finds a track, if the 
 other men miss. him, and if he comes here.' 
 ' So many ifs, William, that I fear we shall see 
 no deer to-day,' said Dory, fingering her gun. 
 ' Don't give up hope, Miss Jenks,' said I; ' Cagy 
 knows I am here, and unless he's changed a 
 good deal Mr. Deer will have to visit William 
 Buttons.' 'Hark ! don't you hear a hound away 
 off ? ' said Dory, looking in the direction of the
 
 70 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 
 
 sound. ' I do, Miss Jenks,' says I; ' it's Cagy's 
 dog, Mickey.' 'What music he makes! the 
 whole woods are filled with his voice, noble 
 animal now he stops ! ' said Dory. ' They are 
 in the swamp, Miss Jenks; the deer is circling: 
 there he goes hear the dog coming this way ? 
 You will soon hear some shooting that is, if they 
 are on the right runaways.' ' I don't hear the 
 dog, William I do hope he will bring him here,' 
 said Dory, moving restlessly in her seat. ' Hear 
 him now, Miss Jenks ? That deer never was 
 born that could lose Cagy's dog; he lost him 
 in the poplars, but it was only for a minute. 
 Listen ! the deer is taking a sweep; the dog will 
 hang to him, he's bound to water him, trust 
 Billy Buttons Cagy would shoot a dog that 
 would give up his deer. Bang, bang six shots 
 they didn't get him too many cracks. Miss 
 Jenks, he's coming on the dead run for Charley 
 Pond. Keep quiet and he'll get more than he 
 bargained for.' The word was no sooner out 
 of my mouth than a huge buck came to the 
 edge of the lake, stood for a moment with 
 pointed ears listening to the coming dog, shot 
 his eyes around the lake, plunged in and swam 
 for the opposite shore. It was but the work of 
 a moment to cut off his retreat by getting
 
 
 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 71 
 
 between him and the shore. He saw this 
 deers are no fools; his eyes flashed like lanterns 
 in the woods in a dark night, his body was all 
 nerves, and, turning on his back track, he was 
 making for the shore. One glance was enough ; 
 the dog had come to the lake, savagely growled, 
 closely scanned the water, and saw a moving 
 spot. He was too old in the business not to 
 know what that meant a lively bark to warn 
 his master that his prey was secure, a dance of 
 joy, a plunge, and Cagy's dog, the best that 
 ever put foot to clay, was swimming towards 
 him. Now was the time. I came as close to 
 Dory in the boat as was prudent for our safety, 
 and, stretching my right hand, guided the barrel 
 of her gun. The deer was but a rod from us. 
 ' Shoot,' I cried, and the sharp, pleasant clang 
 of the Winchester rang over the lake and went 
 a-rambling in the woods. A sharp cry from 
 Dory and, quicker than I speak, our boat was 
 struck by the deer's antlers, capsized, and Dory 
 and I in the lake. My first thought was of 
 her; there she was struggling for life, ready to 
 sink. I quickly grasped her, held up her head, 
 and, with a few strokes, brought her ashore. 
 
 " Whistler, Cagy, and her father had returned; 
 they heard my story, sent for Mrs. Whistler,
 
 j2 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 
 
 tried every means to revive her, but " a tear 
 started in Buttons' eye " she died in two hours 
 after, doctor. Just before she died she opened 
 her mouth just a little bit and said: ' Charley.' 
 That word, doctor, made me stagger. I wanted 
 her to speak again, but it was not to be. 
 
 " We buried her in Squidville graveyard, just 
 under the big white beech tree; it was my way. 
 Her poor old father had lost his mind and could 
 not give an order about the grave. Weeks 
 took him to New York; that was the last I 
 heard of him. The beech tree yes, I picked 
 that place out just because I thought of how 
 she used to lean against the trees and listen to 
 the birds' songs. It is the biggest tree in the 
 graveyard, and singing birds, doctor, like big 
 trees they want a height when they pitch their 
 voices. I planted rose trees, but they died for 
 want of sun the big beech wpuld have no other 
 mate in guarding Dory's grave. Years after, 
 when in Montreal, I bought a piece of marble, 
 made them cut on it ' Charley,' and put it at 
 the head of Dory's grave. People thought it 
 was strange, so may you ; but that matters little. 
 I always say that strange things are only strange 
 to those who don't understand them. 
 
 " That's my story. That's why I am here,
 
 BUTTONS' LOST LOVE. 73 
 
 brought by a fading memory. Dory's camp is 
 a ruin, and I, Billy Buttons but no use in 
 complaining; life is rather short for that. Fill 
 your pipe, doctor, and let us go; that rain-spit 
 is over. ' ' 
 
 We righted the boat and pulled out. The 
 lake was calm, the ducks had returned, the 
 moss was arrayed in a bridal dress of slobber, 
 a robin from a tall pine sang us a parting 
 song. Out of Charley Pond and down the 
 narrow channel glided our little boat, Buttons 
 smoking and thinking mighty heavy, the country 
 doctor impatient to pen an old guide's story.
 
 74 THE COMING OF SLITHERS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE COMING OF SLITHERS. 
 
 IT was after a lucky bear-hunt that Professor 
 Clark, startled by the wonderful knowledge of 
 his Adirondack guides, declared that " the nat- 
 ural intelligence of Squidville's children should 
 be quickened by education. To show you," 
 continued the professor, " that I am in dead 
 earnest in this matter I will donate the sum of 
 one hundred dollars, yes, one hundred, and 
 that at once, as a starter." 
 
 Cagy drank in the professor's words, and under 
 the pretext of " Provisions out, sir," left the 
 camp that night with basket and rifle for the 
 Hunter's Paradise. The basket was to be filled 
 with canned goods, and the rifle to be handy 
 in case of an odd shot. 
 
 Cagy communed with himself on the way. 
 He had often heard sportsmen when talking of 
 this or that guide say: " The greatest pity in 
 the world the poor fellow can neither read nor 
 write." 
 
 " The same," thought Cagy, " would be said
 
 THE COMING OF SLITHERS. 75 
 
 of the rising folk if they didn't get a chance." 
 Now was the time he would see Billy Buttons, 
 and if he thought it was right, then they would 
 lay before Weeks what Clark had said, neither 
 cutting it shorter nor making it longer. 
 
 Cagy, by near cuts only known to the trained 
 guide, wa.; soon in sight of Buttons' log cabin. 
 The little Poulets sat in front of the door, for 
 William had captured the widow and her brood. 
 
 An Adirondack guide is long-winded when his 
 subject is a hunt. Then he recognizes that 
 he is an artist and must carefully produce each 
 shade of his masterpiece. On other subjects, 
 and especially with his fellows, he bags his game 
 with the first shot. Cagy lost no words with 
 Buttons, and with the swarm of young Poulets 
 on hand Buttons was right glad to second the 
 motion that "Jim be informed of the offer of 
 the finest man that ever struck the woods." It 
 was but a step to Weeks', and the two old 
 chums made it a lively one. 
 
 They were welcomed by Weeks' giant hand- 
 shake and hearty voice: "Boys, what's up? 
 Something worth scratching for, I'll warrant." 
 
 To Weeks' question Cagy answered by cross- 
 ing his lips a mountain sign that means, " Folks 
 around and leakage in them."
 
 76 THE COMING OF SLITHERS. 
 
 Telling his boy-of-all-work, Frank La Flamme, 
 to fill Cagy's basket, he invited the guides to 
 his barn, promising them something worth seeing 
 - the best colt from here to Snipeville. Once 
 in secrecy, Cagy's message was quickly laid be- 
 fore him, with Buttons' often-repeated comment 
 that " A school would be the making of Squid- 
 ville for now and forever." 
 
 " Cagy, you're what I call a genuine corker; 
 you're always thinking of other folks one of 
 those lads that sees ahead. I have no family; 
 I had, " Buttons and Cagy turned their heads, 
 " but I am for the good of Squidville every 
 time; so I'll go the professor a hundred." 
 
 ' Thank you, Jim Weeks," said Cagy, " and 
 if you'll be so kind as to keep out of my 
 monthly check ten dollars, just to keep the 
 ball a-hopping, I'll be more than obliged." 
 
 There was a tear in Buttons' eye as he 
 stammered out: " Changed times with Billy 
 Buttons; put me down for five." 
 
 " Is marriage a failure, Billy? " said Weeks, 
 laying his finger-tips kindly on Buttons' shoulder. 
 
 " No, Jim; since I come by the Poulets I'm 
 as happy as a lark, but when a fellow has so 
 many bills pecking at what he brings in not 
 that I begrudge anything to my wife or the
 
 THE COMING OF SLITHERS. 77 
 
 children of Tom Poulet he cannot be as free 
 as he would wish." 
 
 " Your five is better than my hundred," said 
 Weeks; "it is harder for you to spare it." 
 
 Cagy scratched his head; his face wore a 
 troubled expression. " Jim Weeks," said he, 
 " take another five from my wages and put it 
 along with Buttons' as an evener; what's mine 
 is Billy's. If I was dying to-morrow I would 
 make for Billy's." 
 
 " My house is yours, and the latch-string is 
 out for you by day and night, whenever you're 
 around," said Buttons, grasping his friend's hand. 
 
 " I know it, old man, I know it," said Cagy. 
 '* You and Jim will see to things. I must be 
 making for the camp." 
 
 Next day at the dinner-hour Billy Buttons, 
 accompanied by young La Flamme lustily ring- 
 ing Jim Weeks' dinner-bell, made a tour of 
 Squidville. It was a way of telling folk " that 
 something was a-coming to a head." On his 
 return he stopped at every house and sang: 
 
 " To-night or never 
 Lost forever, 
 
 A school. 
 
 Come one, come all, 
 To Jim Weeks 1 . Oh, oh, oh!"
 
 78 THE COMING OF SLITHERS. 
 
 The prolonged " Oh ! " was musically sup- 
 ported by the timely ringing of La Flamme's 
 bell. Squidville had so few excitements that 
 fall that it gladly listened to William's voice. 
 
 There is no appointed hour in these parts to 
 open a meeting. It is our way to begin when 
 the hall is well filled. That night by seven, 
 a decent hour, it was overflowing. Jim Weeks, 
 amid applause, was made chairman. He excused 
 himself for not sitting, preferring to lean against 
 a cracker-barrel the better to study their faces. 
 His speech was allowed on all hands to have 
 been a rip-snorter. He stopped at nothing. 
 He cited the Bible, and what some big city 
 gun had told him in confidence. When he came 
 to say: " We are Americans; Squidville is in New 
 York, and every loon knows that New York is 
 in America, therefore Squidville folks are Ameri- 
 cans, and it is the right of every American to 
 have an education," the audience went wild. 
 
 " I wouldn't miss that for all I'm worth," 
 was the ordinary comment. 
 
 Bill Whistler, just as the meeting was going 
 to take names and their contributions, asked 
 privilege to say a few words. It was granted. 
 " Fellow-taxpayers," said he, " our burdens 
 are "
 
 THE COMING OF SLITHERS. 79 
 
 There was a shuffling of feet and a craning 
 of necks. 
 
 " I move that Whistler turns off his gas," 
 said Buttons. 
 
 " Second the motion," said La Jeunesse. 
 
 " He's not in it with you, Jim," said Berry. 
 
 " He's talking through his hat," said Brie. 
 
 " I'll ring the changes on him," said La 
 Flamme, vigorously shaking his bell. 
 
 " This is coming to be a pandimion, and you 
 know what Gliggins said about pandimions, " 
 shouted a female voice from the crowd. 
 
 " Boys ! " shouted Weeks, " here's the point: 
 will we let our young folks grow up like a lot 
 of woodchucks, just know enough to carry them 
 around, for the sake of a few miserable dollars 
 in the way of taxes? or will we make men of 
 them, and put some of them on the road to 
 be senators? Just think of it, boys me calling 
 one of the youngsters Senator Whistler, Senator 
 Poulet; that's the way, as Jenks used to say, 
 ' to cast your optics on a thing.' ' 
 
 Weeks had conquered. Bill Whistler yielded 
 to his spell. " Ay," said he, " true; I should 
 have looked at it by Jim's way. My Johnny 
 or Zebediah might be senators, exactly. I am 
 a great man for discussion. Last week's Pioneer
 
 8o 
 
 said : ' Let there be discussion ; everything above- 
 board; the man that provokes discussion is a 
 benefactor.' Now, boys, you'll have to give me 
 credit for getting that last corker of an argu- 
 ment out of Jim." 
 
 The meeting was a great success. Enough 
 money was contributed to build a district school 
 and keep it in fuel for two winters. Weeks 
 gave the building-lot, and became the first 
 trustee. It was a new and strange duty, but 
 he was not the man to flinch from a trust. 
 A few weeks later the first page of the Por- 
 cupine Pioneer contained the following notice: 
 
 " HUNTER'S PARADISE. 
 "Best Summer Board in the Adirondack. 
 
 " To all whom it may concern : I, James Weeks, 
 being duly appointed trustee of Squidville school by a 
 meeting of taxpayers called for that purpose, do hereby 
 notify teachers that I am on the lookout for one of 
 them, provided the same comes up to my notion of 
 what is wanted. Petitioners must be gentlemen, Chris- 
 tians, and scholars. No bad habits. Must have a 
 good ' commend ' from former boss. 
 
 " Notay Bainaz. 
 
 "All Petitioners must bring their characters along 
 with them." 
 
 This advertisement was handsomely supported 
 by an editorial pointedly headed, "To Be or
 
 THE COMING OF SLITHERS. 8l 
 
 Not to Be: That's the Question." In this 
 editorial were shown the labors of Weeks in be- 
 half of education, and an advice to its readers 
 that the right man would be well treated. 
 This appeal was answered in person by a man of 
 thirty, tall and slim, bulging forehead, cat-eyes 
 steel-gray, pointed nose, thin lips, and retreating 
 chin. His voice, as Sal Purdy said, was the 
 only thing pretty about him. That, she declared, 
 was " as sweet as syrup." He wore a black 
 suit of ministerial cut, kid gloves, beaver hat, 
 a little shiny and tilted to one side. His 
 right hand held an umbrella much the worse for 
 wear. He carried a little satchel in his left 
 hand, containing his " recommends." As he 
 came by the stage, it gave Squidville a chance 
 of seeing him. .Every house was crowded with 
 eager faces to get a peep at the man of learn- 
 ing. It was the general say that he was some- 
 thing out of the run, and the hope was expressed 
 that Weeks would see his way " to let him 
 have the school." Berry had taken an interest 
 in the stranger. As the stage halted in front 
 of the Hunter's Paradise he grasped the pro- 
 fessor's hand, warning him that the prettiest 
 way to come at Jim was to keep his tongue 
 from wabbling and allow Jim to do the talking.
 
 82 THE COMING OF SLITHERS. 
 
 The stranger thanked the stage-driver for his 
 sage advice, and, taking his belongings, waited 
 on Squidville's trustee. Buttons gave the pro- 
 fessor the only arm-chair. La Flamme ran to 
 tell his master that " one of the city folk was 
 come." 
 
 "How do? Just got here?" was Weeks' 
 salutation. 
 
 The professor rose, put his umbrella on the 
 counter, his bag on the chair, pulled from his 
 vest-pocket his eyeglasses, wiped them with a 
 faded handkerchief extracted from his coat-tail 
 pocket, and calmly placed them on his nose. 
 
 A profound impression sat on Buttons' face. 
 
 " My health, sir ! " said the man of learning, 
 "is of the best at its acme, if I may say so. 
 I am in splendid form for a scholar. I have 
 got rid of waste tissue, that clog of all true 
 scholars. And here I may state that, reading in 
 the Porcupine your most healthy epistle to the 
 teaching brethren, I bethought of offering my 
 services as preceptor magtster, as we say in the 
 Latin tongue to an institution that shall per- 
 petuate your name and fame, not only to the 
 rising generations, but, as a scholar would put 
 it, per omnia s&cula sceculorum."
 
 THE COMING OF SLITHERS. 83 
 
 The final sentence was too much for Buttons. 
 Jumping from his seat, he exclaimed: " Pro- 
 fessor, you're a whole luminary in yourself. 
 Why, Jim, that's mighty powerful speaking. If 
 only the Poulets knew how to speak that last 
 language I would die like a seigneur. Pere 
 Monnier's the only man I ever heard speaking 
 those same words, and the only difference is 
 that he uses his hands more." 
 
 4< The Poulets may learn it if I am retained," 
 said the stranger. " My ambition will be to 
 train a race of Americans that shall love their 
 God and their country, and willingly die for 
 both; men " and the professor waxed warm 
 " whose brave hearts shall throb to the siren 
 strings of humanity." Here he remembered 
 Berry's advice, removed his bag, and meekly 
 sat down. 
 
 " Show me your commends," said Weeks. 
 
 A smile played on Buttons' face as he said: 
 "I'll warrant he's chock-full of them." 
 
 " Quality, William Buttons, not quantity, 
 counts," said Weeks. 
 
 " That is most excellently put," said the pro- 
 fessor; " a magnificent example of conciseness." 
 
 The little bag was quietly opened, and a
 
 84 THE COMING OF SLITHERS. 
 
 huge bundle of papers, faded and fresh leaves, 
 neatly spread on the counter. 
 
 " These," said the smiling stranger, " are but 
 a few." 
 
 " My heavens ! " said Buttons, " only a few; 
 if you have any more you have the longest 
 character of any man of my acquaintance." 
 
 Weeks patiently read letter after letter at 
 least he spent some time on every sheet. An 
 old yellow leaf, roughly scrawled, held him. 
 " Listen, Billy ! On account of this commend 
 I give the care of Squidville school, at eight 
 dollars per week, am I understood pertinently 
 and distinctly? to Corkey Slithers, here present, 
 to have and to hold for the natural term of 
 one year." 
 
 Corkey rose, bowed, saying: " Mr. Trustee, 
 you are, sir, distinctly, pertinently understood, 
 and your offer accepted, by Corkey Slithers." 
 Buttons shook the professor's hand. 
 
 Weeks read in a loud, stumbling voice from 
 the yellow leaf : 
 
 " CORKEY SLITHERS, Esq., 
 
 well known to me, who knew him since he wasn't 
 the hight of your nee, asks for a commend, and I give 
 it this very minit. Corkey is an Americin, true blew 
 at that, who belives that the poorest should have an
 
 THE COMING OF SLITHERS. 85 
 
 edukashun cqal to the rich. He's a worker from away 
 back, a man of the people. 
 " Yours, 
 
 " MR. TATTERS MCGARVEY, 
 
 " Constitution House, Snipcvillc" 
 
 " That's an honest letter," said Weeks, care- 
 fully folding it; " none of your nonsense about 
 Tatters." 
 
 " Exactly," said the professor; " he over- 
 spells in some places, but it was not for its 
 spelling, but for its honesty, that I laid it be- 
 fore you, Mr. Trustee." 
 
 " It's hard, Mr. Slithers," said Weeks, " for 
 an old dog to learn new tricks. When we 
 were young, Tatters and I, there were neither 
 schools nor school-masters. What we have in 
 our skulls is but pickin's gathered here and 
 there. We know our want, and don't wish 
 the children to be like us in that respect. In 
 honesty and kindness we have no masters. You 
 have had a long, rough ride, professor, and 
 must be hungry. It's dinner-time. Ring the 
 bell, Frankie; come along with us, Buttons, and 
 make no excuses." 
 
 " Well, by jingo, that's as tidy as my boat," 
 said Buttons as La Jeunesse drove the last 
 nail in the saddle-boards of Squidville's school.
 
 86 THE COMING OF SLITHERS. 
 
 A crowd had gathered " to see her finished, 
 done up in good style." 
 
 To William's outburst came their contented 
 cry, " Yes, by jingo, she's all you say, and 
 more." 
 
 La Jeunesse ran down the ladder like a cat; 
 Weeks threw up his hat; the professor took a 
 side-squint at his academy; Frankie rang the 
 bell; and Cagy's fellow-guides, from Snipeville 
 and Porcupine Creek, sang: 
 
 "We won't go home till morning, 
 We won't go home till morning 
 Till daylight does appear." 
 
 Seeing folk make so merry, a bright idea 
 came to Weeks. Running to the Hunter's Para- 
 dise, astonishing everybody by his agility, he 
 wrote a notice, and, coming as quickly as he 
 had gone, nailed it to the door. It read: 
 
 "At 7 P.M. sharp a meeting of praise and thanks 
 will be held in this school-house. All invited. Bring 
 chairs; benches put in next week. First appearance 
 of Professor Slithers in his capacity of Principal. 
 Friends of education turn out, and show the people 
 of the surrounding towns that you are no back-sliders. 
 Astonish Mr. Corkey by what the Pioneer calls ' our 
 exuberance.' A fee of ten cents at the door, to buy
 
 THE COMING OF SLITHERS. 87 
 
 books for the orphans. Long live Squidville, and hip, 
 hurrah, boys, for Corkey Slithers! 
 
 "JiM WEEKS, Trustee." 
 
 Milly De La Rosa, a pretty miss of seven- 
 teen, was called on by the happy crowd to 
 " cipher out what Jim Weeks was up to." 
 Milly was the village pet. 
 
 " Don't be afraid," said Buttons in a fatherly 
 way, " Milly; you're ciphering it out first rate." 
 
 "Loud, black-eyes!" said Weeks, "or I'll 
 make Frankie stay in the store to-night." Milly 
 blushed. 
 
 " Go on, child," said the delighted Cagy; 
 " it's astonishing how you get around Weeks' 
 lingo. You're as smart as a steel trap, and 
 Corkey will polish you off like a diamond." 
 
 " That's all," said Milly, with a saucy shake 
 of the head. 
 
 "Bravo!" shouted the crowd. "Untutored 
 children," said the professor; " what a rich soil 
 to sow in the immortal seeds of education ! " 
 
 " You struck bottom that time," said But- 
 tons; " it's in them every time for the taking 
 out. They're as quick as chain-lightning." 
 
 "Naked truth, Buttons," said Whistler: "just 
 the stuff to make your senators." 
 
 " You bet," says Berry, " and they wouldn't
 
 88 THE COMING OF SLITHERS. 
 
 blather away in Washington and let the country 
 go to shocks." 
 
 Frankie rang his bell. Weeks and the pro- 
 fessor started for the Hunter's Paradise, followed 
 by the crowd singing. 
 
 At seven the school-house was filled, and 
 Chairman Weeks had called the meeting to 
 order. His remarks, as I find them in the 
 Pioneer, were that Education makes the man, 
 the want of it the fellow; that he felt its loss 
 in every step of life. That the best thing a 
 man could do for his country was to help to edu- 
 cate his fellow-men. For this reason the orphan 
 lad that he had brought up as his own child, 
 the son of poor Napoleon La Flamme, would 
 be placed under the care of his friend Professor 
 Slithers, and he hoped that all parents and 
 guardians of children would follow his example. 
 
 The speech of Professor Slithers I take from 
 the same journal: 
 
 " Libertas et natale solum, as we say in the 
 Latin tongue. Friends, that is a sentiment to 
 be profoundly cherished. How shall we cherish 
 it ? By giving our sons and daughters, in the 
 words of our distinguished chairman, an educa- 
 tion." 
 
 Here there is a break, as there was not space
 
 THE COMING OF SLITHERS. 89 
 
 in the first page of the Pioneer to insert the 
 whole speech. In the advertising part of the 
 same paper you will find the wind-up, which 
 took Squidville by storm. I copy it: 
 
 " Education is liberty. Liberty shall never 
 die. Slavery is Carthage; and as the Latins 
 say, Delenda est Carthago. When the rotten 
 governments of Europe are sunk in the ocean, 
 when not a vestige of the earth shall remain, 
 Liberty, as represented by our Eagle, shall on 
 the highest pinnacle of the Rockies stand, spread 
 her tail-feathers, kick out her hind leg in de- 
 rision, and say Boo ! to the rest of the world. 
 These, O men of Squidville ! be the undying 
 sentiments of Slithers." 
 
 "Such sentiments won him the heart of Squid- 
 ville town, and the promise by the morrow of 
 seventy " regular scholars." No wonder that 
 Weeks said: " Professor Clark, may heaven be 
 your bed, for what you have done for us ! " 
 And Jemmie Barbier, the village patriarch and 
 guardian of Milly De La Rosa: " It's hard for 
 my old wife to spare Milly, but we must make 
 a little sacrifice in this world, and to what you 
 say, Jim Weeks, I say Amen, and add, May 
 heaven be your bed ! "
 
 90 THE WOOING OF MILLT. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 
 
 THE election was over; the party of Pink 
 had won, congratulations were hearty. ' The 
 people's will had triumphed. Popular govern- 
 ment had been vindicated," said the solitary 
 leader in the Porcupine Pioneer, hemmed in be- 
 tween a crowing rooster and Old Glory. 
 
 Bill Whistler had other ideas, standing on 
 Weeks' piazza and looking at the half-drunken 
 voters with right hands in their trousers pockets 
 firmly clutching the two-dollar bills, " the or- 
 dinary price of votes in these parts," he was 
 heard to remark; " the people's will and popular 
 government are catchwords that mean noth- 
 ing. The drunken fellows don't know what they 
 are voting for. You have filled them with 
 whiskey, put their price in their hands, told them 
 to vote; they have done so, and now you have 
 the hardihood to call this the people's will, 
 popular government."
 
 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 9! 
 
 " Bill," said Berry, whose stage had carried 
 the colors of Punk, " no use in talking. Pink 
 had the most money and the most whiskey; 
 that's what sweeps the stakes." 
 
 " We ain't to blame," said a staggering voter; 
 " it's the Church-folk the best pickings at that, 
 these temperance fellows who sent us the whis- 
 key." 
 
 " Strange thing," said Ike Perkins, " that they 
 preach temperance every day in the year but 
 election-day. About their whole concern on 
 that day is to make drunkards." 
 
 " That's a fact, Ike. Yet the election of Pink 
 is, according to the Pioneer ', the people's will, 
 vindication of popular government," was Whis- 
 tUr's last shot at the triumphant party approach- 
 ing the Hunter's Paradise. Pink, smiling, shak- 
 ing hands with every man he met, telling jokes 
 of Squidville prepared for the day, was escorted 
 to the private room and closeted with Jim 
 Weeks. 
 
 The outcome of this secret meeting was that 
 Squidville was to have a post-office with full 
 connections with Snipeville. Weeks was ever 
 mindful of his friends. 
 
 On Pink's memorandum- book, slated for 
 Squidville's first post-master, was the name of
 
 92 THE WOOING OF MILLY, 
 
 William Buttons. " He has married into a 
 houseful of Poulets, is getting old, and for what 
 he was deserves the office. With Buttons as 
 post-master, and Cagy running the Snipeville 
 stage, the mail is bound to get there," was 
 Weeks' exultant word. 
 
 Pink closed his memorandum-book, and in a 
 knowing way pressed Weeks' hand. Teams 
 were in readiness; Pink's party drove forth amid 
 yells and human imitations of cock-crowing. 
 Whistler sauntered home with a showy con- 
 tempt for the drunken men that had betrayed 
 their party. Little groups lingered in the Hunt- 
 er's Paradise telling of the things that had 
 happened until Weeks, tired of his day's work, 
 shouted, " Time to close; all home; your wives 
 will think that you're lost." 
 
 With a " Don't trouble yourself about that, 
 Jim," the merry groups went home. Night 
 fell on the mountain town. La Flamme's dogs 
 warned a yelping fox to retreat. 
 
 Billy Buttons said to his wife, " There's 
 music in Squidville to-night." 4< There may be 
 more by the morrow," was the sleepy reply. 
 
 It was so. He was sleeping, dreaming of 
 deer and Charley Pond, when his door was 
 pounded to the tune of ringing laughter. He
 
 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 93 
 
 arose, hurriedly dressed, and opening the door 
 found himself in the arms of Jim Weeks. 
 
 While Bill Whistler congratulated him on be- 
 ing post-master from that very minute, with 
 power to name the man who should carry the 
 mail between his town and Snipeville, Buttons, 
 for the first time in his life, " became," as Cagy 
 remarked, " so rattled that he couldn't draw a 
 tricker." It passed. He was no speech-maker, 
 but like all guides in a moment when dumb- 
 ness might mean ingratitude his tongue was 
 thawed. 
 
 " Boys," said he, " you are all corkers. I 
 wish I was Slithers, to tell you all I feel. To 
 be the first post-master of Squidville is no small 
 honor; I know that, and my only thought will 
 be to please you. I'm no scholar; but my 
 stepson Poulet I'm only saying what Slithers 
 says can read anything on paper. I'll do my 
 best, boys, and you'll all help me." 
 
 " You ought to be pretty certain of that, 
 Billy," was their joint reply. 
 
 " Boys, I have known it for thirty years," 
 was his answer. 
 
 " Post-master Buttons, who will run the Snipe- 
 ville stage ? " said Weeks in a bantering way. 
 
 " I don't want to be too bossy at first, Jim;
 
 94 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 
 
 but if you left it to me Cagy, the best fellow 
 in the world, should have it," said Buttons. 
 
 "Struck the mark !" said Weeks. " Heavens, 
 what a team they'll make ! " said Andrieux. 
 " Cagy's fixed for life!" said Whistler. "What 
 a pair of steppers!" shouted Brie. "They're 
 as good as they make them," said Berry. Cagy 
 clasped Buttons' hand, while the well-wishers went 
 to their daily employment. 
 
 Mrs. Buttons was right. " There was more 
 music in the morning." The young Poulets, 
 carried away by the importance that had come 
 to stay in their family, opened their throats and 
 sent forth a volume of sound, making Professor 
 Slithers remark, "Menagerie on fire?" 
 
 The remainder of the day was spent by the 
 two old guides looking for a suitable building 
 to carry on "the lettering business." Towards 
 evening a bargain was had of a frame house 
 on the banks of the Salmon River, largely dilapi- 
 dated, but, as Cagy remarked, " easy to right." 
 It was considered spacious, a point of note in 
 a country post-office. 
 
 " I'll put up my stand here," said Buttons, 
 lounging in a corner of the house. " I'll have 
 a desk, a few forms for the boys to sit on." 
 
 " It would be a first-class idea to put the
 
 TH WOOING OF MILLY. 95 
 
 box-stove in the middle of the floor," said 
 Cagy; " it would give the boys more room to 
 kick." 
 
 " Right you are, Cagy; I'll have no cooping 
 business in my office." 
 
 " I have a thought, Billy, that you ought 
 to square off the other corner for a store." 
 
 " That same idea, Cagy, is hatching in my 
 skull. Folks, when they come for letters, will 
 be willing to take home a few groceries under 
 their arm. A post-office is no great shakes as 
 a money-maker. It's only as a feeder to a store 
 that it counts." 
 
 " One thing, Billy, you must not forget, and 
 that's to gouge a good hole in the door, for 
 polite folk who won't come in to pass through 
 their mail." 
 
 " It's a mighty queer way for folk," said 
 Buttons, " even if they are on the ups, to think 
 that a post- master has nothing else to do but 
 stand behind a door waiting to see a letter shoot 
 through." 
 
 " You're shooting high, Billy. My meaning 
 is, after you gouge the hole, to put a box 
 behind it, what Mr. Corkey would call a re- 
 ceiver. There's no need then to be standing 
 behind the door. Go about your business. As
 
 96 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 
 
 soon as the letter is sent scooting it will take 
 a drop, and be there until you pick it up." 
 
 " Why, Cagy," said the delighted Buttons, 
 " that's as clear as spring- water with a sandy 
 bottom. A fellow in my business has to put 
 up with all kinds of folk. I'll follow your 
 plan, though, there's no mistake about it, in a 
 free country like this I think everybody should 
 come right up to the counter and do their busi- 
 ness open." 
 
 " Free country, Billy, has nothing to do with 
 it. It's all nature, and she's a lassie pretty 
 hard to twist. You cannot make woodchucks 
 run like foxes, or ducks trot like hens. Take 
 folks as they be and hold your reins accord- 
 ingly." 
 
 " It's a fact, Cagy. It's time to go. Pull 
 the door after you; as soon as I am rigged 
 I'll have to put a lock on the door. It seems 
 all so funny, these new lifts in life, don't it, 
 Cagy? so funny to leave the woods and all our 
 bearings. With the help of God I won't part 
 with my gun and dog. I'll have a whack at 
 the deer this fall." 
 
 " Billy," said Cagy mournfully, "if we are 
 going into the government business it doesn't 
 mean that we are going to give up our liberty.
 
 THE WOOING OF M1LLY. 97 
 
 By deer-time the Poulets will be able to run 
 the office tip-top, and Brie can take my place, 
 so we'll be able to do the right thing by the 
 deer. Anyway, it wouldn't make much fuss if 
 the letters were three or four weeks later; news 
 don't spoil." 
 
 Two old guides went laughing down Pleasant 
 View. Three months passed before the neces- 
 sary papers came from Washington. When they 
 came it was known to Squidville. Berry an- 
 nourK . i the news from his passing stage. " Boys, 
 hurrah ! the senator's made Buttons a post-master 
 without a whimper. I have all the papers." 
 He had. They were addressed to Jim Weeks. 
 
 A crowd gathered at the Hunter's Paradise to 
 hear the " latest." Weeks, opening the bulky 
 envelope, from the piazza addressed them: " This 
 is a bright day for us. We're in it with the 
 rest of the country. We have churches, school, 
 and now, to crown everything, a post-office. 
 Your loves and sorrows will be attended to 
 now. The half of you can sell your horses, 
 seeing business is so easy. Give your letters 
 to friend Buttons; he'll see that they make a 
 good start. You have only to write. Buttons, 
 as soon as he is able, will sell everything in 
 his line. Show your spunk by writing to all
 
 98 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 
 
 your friends, and help Billy. He's only allowed 
 what stamps he crosses. Give him enough. 
 You'll find him in at eight to-morrow; give 
 him a call." 
 
 This speech of Jim's was received with cheers. 
 It was the general say that a stiff business in 
 letter-writing would be done that day. To the 
 honor of local patriotism be it written that 
 men and women hunted up lost uncles and dis- 
 tant cousins in order to show their appreciation 
 of William Buttons. Professor Slithers gave 
 half a day to his scholars in order to direct 
 the huge bundle of letters for the morning's 
 mail. Cagy busied himself with the rigging of 
 the Snipeville stage. It was to start at nine, 
 returning the next evening at three, meeting 
 Berry at Squidville; transferring passengers there 
 for Porcupine Creek, Mud Pond, Duck Lake, 
 Otter Bend, and all points south. Snipeville 
 was to give a supper. Tatters McGarvey, Esq., 
 was to make a speech and Cagy was down to 
 reply. It was the trial of his life. As he 
 rigged his stage he made his speech, violently 
 shaking the wheels when he scored a point, 
 surlily scratching his head when he missed the 
 mark. 
 
 Not since the days when the doctor announced
 
 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 99 
 
 the flight of Hiram Jones was there such a 
 nimotion in Squidville. " It is," said Bill 
 Whistler, " my idea of a popular demonstra- 
 tion." 
 
 Commotion, like a dry-bough fire, soon sub- 
 sides. People are limited on every subject. 
 After Weeks' speech had been viewed from 
 every point bed was refreshing. Tongues tire, 
 eyes shut of their own accord, and heads be- 
 come heavy. Sleep, whispering of the great 
 things of the morrow, tickled the Squidvillites. 
 They bent to her sway. La Flamme's dogs kept 
 watch. Afar away a fox now and then sent 
 them a note of defiance. A deer under the 
 cover of night crossed the river. A catamount 
 hufig on the edge of the mountain. The dogs 
 laughed at such insolence: they, too, were 
 dreaming of the morrow. Squidville slept. It 
 is easy to tell when a mountain town awakes. 
 A slight thread of smoke peeps from a chimney, 
 curling itself into light gray rings, dying in 
 the arms of the cool mountain breeze. Other 
 chimneys follow, doors creak on rusty hinges, 
 pent-up dogs salute their fellows, cows bellow, 
 calves become frisky, and folks are busy doing 
 " chores." 
 
 " What a life ! " says the sallow, thin-blooded
 
 100 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 
 
 sportsman as he turns in his bed, pulls the 
 chair near that holds his vest, extracts his watch 
 just marking five. He turns on the other side, 
 smiles at his fellows, hears the jingle of gold 
 in the dropped vest, consoles himself, and goes 
 to sleep. 
 
 44 What a scarecrow that sport is ! " says the 
 guide later. 
 
 " As sallow as a duck's foot; a few crooked 
 bones rolled in parchment, and making a poor 
 parcel at that. He's as full of disease as an 
 egg's full of meat," says another, " and as 
 shrivelled as a beech leaf out all winter." 
 
 44 He's bound to snap. There's no sap in 
 him," says a third. 
 
 44 I wouldn't be in his boots for all the 
 money in the world," says a fourth. 
 
 It's our way to criticise each other. Happi- 
 ness is many-sided. It is consoling to have such 
 a word in the dictionary as opinion. 
 
 Buttons' chimney led Squidville in the morn- 
 ing. It was closely followed by Weeks'. " I'm 
 going over to Jim's for instructions," was Buttons' 
 parting words to his wife. Early as it was the 
 Hunter's Paradise was open, and young La 
 Flamme so intent on writing that Buttons had 
 to slap him on the shoulders to make him aware
 
 THE WOOING OF MILLV. 1OI 
 
 of his presence. " Hello, Billy ! ain't you early 
 up? " was his word. " Not a bit more than you 
 be," was Buttons' retort. 
 
 "Do you open your office at eight, Billy?" 
 ' ' Well, yes, Frank, that is the intention to 
 have the mail made up for Cagy to have a 
 good start." 
 
 44 It's rather early, Billy. There's no sense in 
 shutting up at three and opening at eight. The 
 time between is just when a fellow has a chance 
 to skip out and post his letter." 
 
 44 Young man," said Buttons with an air of 
 authority, " government business is not like run- 
 ning a hotel: it has its hours. You're at every- 
 body's hour. I'm a government servant. As 
 fo your talk about shutting up, it shows how 
 little you know about government business. 
 There is no shut up, no such thing as a still 
 post-office. I have put in a receiver; if I'm 
 out he's in." 
 
 "A receiver, Billy! Who is he?" 
 44 There you are again, youngster; you have 
 been to Slithers' school for a year, and you 
 don't know what a receiver is. It doesn't argue 
 for a long head. In the door I've gouged a 
 hole big enough for a decent-sized envelope to 
 slide through. Push it until it takes a drop.
 
 102 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 
 
 Of course it is only for gentle folk; but I sup- 
 pose you're like all the youngsters: you'll be 
 cock of the roost or nothing." 
 
 " Good-morning, post-master !" said the hearty 
 Weeks, opening a side door. " Go to your 
 breakfast, Frankie." 
 
 The boy's face lighted up; bounding from the 
 store, he followed a path that soon brought him, 
 unnoticed, to the post-office. The gouged hole 
 made him dance with delight. 
 
 " Buttons never picked that out of his own 
 head," he shouted. " Just the thing. I can 
 write to Milly, and no one will be the wiser." 
 His heart beat faster: his heart was wound up 
 in that delicious name. ' I don't see why 
 Jemmie Barbier went to Snipeville to live. Milly 
 didn't like it a bit. I can't bear that Slithers. 
 He thought, because he was her teacher, that 
 he would cut me out. He can write better 
 than me, has more in his head to work on; but 
 if she likes me the best she won't pay much 
 attention to the writing; it's what's in it that 
 counts. Cagy will work for me. She'll visit my 
 mother and make friends with Jenny. They'll 
 work for me. Everybody is on my side. Any- 
 how, I don't see how she can like that horrid 
 Corkey."
 
 THE WOOING OF MILLY. lOJ 
 
 These broken mutterings were consoling. La 
 Flamme put his letter in the receiver, laughed 
 at its pleasant dropping sound, and, taking the 
 same path, gleefully ran to the Hunter's Para- 
 dise. A few hours after the post-office was 
 opened for business, the Snipeville stage before 
 the door, and a brisk business for Buttons. The 
 people had shown their spunk. A late caller 
 was Professor Slithers, who had left his school 
 in charge of the largest girl. His thoughts were 
 of Milly De La Rosa. 
 
 " How romantic her history !" he was saying. 
 " Daughter of Castile mated to Corkey Slithers, 
 ha, ha ! I know my poem, when she reads it, 
 will take her. What a capital idea is poetry ! 
 things you cannot think of saying in prose, 
 how easy they go in verse ! What a fine begin- 
 ning is the opening line: 
 
 ' Enchantress of Castile* ! 
 
 Then, showing the power she has concentrated 
 on the seat of my affections, I remark: 
 
 4 1 bend beneath thy heel.' 
 
 If this is not poetry, then all the poetry in 
 the Recent Collection of American Verse is un- 
 mitigated prose. That poem is my bait, so
 
 104 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 
 
 tempting that, once drawn in the line of her 
 swimming, she'll hook." 
 
 Reflections such as these steadied his nerves 
 and brought victory nodding to him. He was 
 soon in sight of the office. The Snipeville 
 stage had left a fact that made his pleasant 
 thoughts sour. The door was shut additional 
 evidence " of the way things were run." Within 
 was a laughing crowd listening to Buttons' in- 
 imitable wood-tales. Sourness dislikes pleasantry. 
 He was on his heel to return when the rough, 
 awkward mouth of the receiver caught his eye. 
 A wave of joy passed through him. The effect 
 was visible in his eyes and a wriggling in his 
 left foot. Taking his letter, pursy and un- 
 pressed, he squeezed it through the opening. 
 The drop was music. It was a day's thought, 
 a pretty story. The opening chapter in Squid- 
 ville, the grand finale in Snipeville. The last 
 act was a hooked fish. All of us have theatres 
 pretty thoroughly rigged. Buttons stopped his 
 tale to remark that the professor was of the 
 gentle folk. 
 
 There was a smile, a shuffling of feet, and 
 the story became more interesting. The pro- 
 fessor was on his return. His brain-puppets 
 were in scene first, act the second. It repre-
 
 THE WOOING OP MILLY. 105 
 
 sented William Buttons extracting from the re- 
 ceiver a letter addressed to Milly De La Rosa, 
 containing intentions of love, and a poem after 
 the manner of a Recent Collection of Verse. 
 The actor that represented William seemed puz- 
 zled at the handwriting, and was saying to Cagy: 
 " I wonder who writes to Milly; I'll bet that 
 letter's worth having." *' It wouldn't be Mr. 
 Corkey ? " responds Cagy. "A happy day for 
 Milly to be mated to such a man," is Buttons' 
 remark. Cagy puts the letter into the Snipe- 
 ville bag with an air of importance, and the 
 curtain drops. 
 
 Weeks passed; the general verdict was that 
 Buttons had shown himself equal to his post. 
 Harmony would make the world tasteless. Growl- 
 ers are the salt of the earth. There were two 
 in Squidville. Milly had not written, and But- 
 tons' office was denounced by Slithers as an ab- 
 surdity; in the more expressive vocabulary of 
 La Flamme, as a worn-out fake. Such expres- 
 sions were perplexing. If Milly would not write, 
 why blame Buttons ? It is not commendable to 
 commit forgery. How else could William have 
 given letters to his eye-devouring callers ? Cagy 
 was slyly questioned. He kept the saddle by 
 an aphorism; " You cannot tell what you don't
 
 106 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 
 
 know." Plants grow towards the sun; love to 
 its object. Letters were to be the rays. Shut 
 off, love and plants languish. It takes time to 
 kill them. Give them sunshine in the drooping 
 state, and they will quickly revive. Months had 
 passed. Slithers, unconsolable at first, was ad- 
 justing his sorrow. It was not the first time 
 he had balanced his books. 
 
 La Flamme became sick and lonely. The 
 store was a nuisance, friends a bother. Life was 
 full of blue streaks, sleep a friend. In church 
 he made a mental vow never to believe a 
 woman's word. He did not express it, but the 
 idea was constant in his mind that woman was 
 created, much as the mountain brier, to tear 
 men's flesh. The thought bothered him, as it 
 awoke another, that these briers gave fruit. At 
 this he forgot himself and muttered: " Love ! 
 Yes, but you must tear yourself to pluck it." 
 His mutterings made a charitable friend in a 
 back pew elbow him. He was in a mood to 
 resent. His eyes did the fighting. It was dur- 
 ing the battle of glances that Pere Monnier, in 
 his artless way, said: " To accomplish anything 
 in this life requires sacrifice." The rest of the 
 sermon was forgotten; this was a limb pulled 
 from the tree to cudgel the blue streaks. His
 
 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 107 
 
 love for Pere Monnier was great from that 
 day. 
 
 La Flamme was of that great company of 
 sinners who pick a line from a sermon and 
 label it, " Meant for me." The sentence fitted 
 his mood. It became his pocket-pistol through 
 life. With it he shot sorrow, and, let us hope, 
 kept the way open to the better land. 
 
 Buttons had a keen ear for sound. The 
 sayings of Slithers and La Flamme nettled him. 
 He would have made them chew their words had 
 he not learned at Charley Pond that love made 
 men queer. Like all guides, he leaned on the 
 past. Pitying their condition, he asked Cagy to 
 find out " a something of Milly." A day later 
 Cagy's information was poured into his ears, 
 prefaced by a remark that Milly had no right to 
 marry out of Squidville. The information was 
 scanty, but prickly. It spoke of Slithers as " an 
 educated fool," of La Flamme as "an ungrate- 
 full wretch." The terms were strong. 
 
 The information came from Milly. Rumor 
 added that she was engaged. This news leaked, 
 and Squidville had its laugh. " Corkey was 
 jilted, La Flamme was crazy," was the way it 
 was put Corkey from past battles learned to 
 laugh; La Flamme keenly felt the sore, but
 
 108 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 
 
 cheered himself by shooting the spectre with his 
 pocket-pistol. Cagy was proud of him. " His 
 father every time," he said: " under fire he 
 won't flinch." 
 
 In the way Milly had said " ungrateful wretch " 
 the old guide, so accustomed to study faces, 
 read hope. ** Come with me, Frankie," he 
 said. " I'll never go back on your father's 
 son. You'll have a free ride, and you have a 
 fine excuse. Tell Weeks you want to see your 
 mother and Jenny. I have found the track, 
 and the deer is not so far but we can run her 
 down. Once she hears your music, and knows 
 you are in dead earnest, I don't think she'll 
 run far." 
 
 La Flamme listened. Had he followed his 
 first thought he would have started. Reflection 
 made him a coward. It began with an if, 
 allowed the conclusion; started another if, 
 allowed its conclusion. Soon he had a bundle 
 of them. The end of the play represented 
 him leaving Snipeville in disgrace ; Milly and her 
 lover, heads closely pressed behind a window 
 making fun of him. He admitted his cowardice- 
 was downed by a brain-figment. He had for- 
 gotten his pocket-pistol. Cagy started. La 
 Flamme bade him a wistful good-bye. They
 
 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 109 
 
 prate of love, that it conquers all things. Sar- 
 casm has often dulled its edge. " He who waits 
 will be rewarded," is a stock phrase, used as a 
 trotter by the well-to-do. It is not much in 
 vogue with the waiter. Like most stock phrases, 
 an accident may give it a meaning. 
 
 A year had passed. Slithers, despite the vil- 
 lage talk, had continued to woo the muses as 
 meshes for entangling Milly. La Flamme had 
 daily fed Buttons' receiver with letters. Milly 
 was dead to such appeals. One day the Snipe- 
 ville stage brought a note. It was for Frankie 
 La Flamme. The handwriting thrilled him. 
 It was evening before he opened it. It was 
 short, a few lines. His eyes filled with tears; 
 he read: 
 
 "Jenny Sauv has died of fever to-day. Your 
 mother is very low. Lose no time. 
 
 " MILLY DE LA ROSA." 
 
 Music consoles in sorrow. He whistled. 
 Cagy, who knew the contents of the note, in- 
 formed Weeks. It brought a sad scene to his 
 memory. Brushing his tears aside with the 
 sleeve of his coat, he ordered a buggy, and 
 bade Frankie to get to his mother " as fast as 
 Nelly could put." He but hinted at La
 
 110 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 
 
 Flamme's intention. The spirited beast threw 
 up her head, pawed vigorously, sniffed the night 
 air, and started. 
 
 The road for a few miles was straight and 
 broad; then it curved, followed the river a few 
 miles, became narrow and crooked entering the 
 woods. The night, calm at first, became fretful 
 and broken. Rain changed to sleet, and the 
 wind became cold and pointed. The moon lay 
 amid dark clouds, sending now and then a flicker- 
 ing glance to make darker the harsh river. La 
 Flamme was sure of his road until he entered 
 the forest. Here doubts arose. So many roads 
 branched, some broader and more travelled than 
 the one he was on. He lighted his lamp, 
 fixed it to his dash-board, uttered a prayer for 
 Jenny, and took the road that seemed most 
 travelled. After an hour's drive it led to a 
 deserted logging-camp. Baffled and cold, he 
 turned his horse to seek his first road. The 
 wind was rising. The branches of the trees 
 clashed above his head, thunder seemed human 
 in its mighty groan, pines whistled, lightning 
 played before his eyes, now cracking a branch, 
 now heavily crushing a stately tree. The sleet 
 became more worrying. At first it brought the
 
 THE WOOING OF MILLY. Ill 
 
 blood to his cheeks, now it seemed to lay open 
 his face with the keenness of a razor-blade. 
 Stories of ghosts peopled his mind. 
 
 A rustle amid the branches, a quick, snappy 
 yell, told him that the dreaded loup-garou was 
 on his track. He pulled his fur coat closer to 
 his shivering body, pressed the musk-rat cap 
 closer to his head, and shouted to his faithful 
 horse. She knew and loved his voice. Her 
 trot became faster, but jerkier. He was on his 
 old road. His lamp tossed and flickered. Sleet 
 blinded him, cold crept through his buckskin 
 gloves, making the reins fall from his hands. 
 His head became dizzy, his limbs stiff. He tried 
 to shake off this growing numbness curved his 
 mouth to whistle, clapped his hands to his sides, 
 pounded his feet on the bottom of his buggy. 
 It increased his weakness. Gathering his voice- 
 strength, he shouted to his horse, " To Snipe- 
 ville, Nelly !" A hungry fox, buried in fallen 
 brush, barked. 
 
 Compulsory confinement often gives boldness 
 to shy creatures. " To accomplish anything in 
 this world requires sacrifice," came to him in 
 his agony. He bent his head, tried to curve 
 his voice to speech. He listened; no sound
 
 113 THE WOOING OF M1LLY. 
 
 came. He thought he saw a light. Was it 
 his lamp ? The buggy swayed; he felt a sweet, 
 pressing pain. 
 
 Jemmie Barbier sat singing in his cabin, won- 
 dering " what the night would turn to." He 
 thought he heard a noise, but, as he said after- 
 wards, " who thinks of noise in a storm." 
 " Worst night I have seen in twenty years," 
 he muttered as he went to the door to take 
 a peep at the elements. " Wind's changed; go- 
 ing down as quick as it came up. I'll make a 
 start for Skinny's." Suddenly he became alarmed 
 at a strange noise and a swinging light at the 
 end of his house. Taking his lantern and gun, 
 he cautiously advanced. 
 
 His first words were: " Some poor fellow hat 
 gone to his reward to-night. Bless my soul, 
 Jim Weeks' Nelly ! She couldn't drag the buggy- 
 far in that way. It must have upset within 
 a mile of here." Barbier carefully unhitched 
 the stamping, maddened horse. One of the 
 buggy-wheels, coming in contact with the house, 
 was broken and the axle twisted. This seemed 
 to have restrained the poor animal. Gently 
 leading her to the barn, he wrapped her in an 
 old blanket, wishing that Milly or his wife was 
 home " to wisp her a bit." " She'll be her-
 
 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 113 
 
 self again," he said, as he quickly hitched his 
 own horse and started out to seek Nelly's 
 driver. He was old, past the seventies, but 
 his arm was strong and his sight was keen. 
 
 The reins in one hand, the lantern in the 
 other, he kept his eyes glancing from one side 
 of the road to the other. About a hundred 
 rods from his house, just ahead of his horse's 
 nose, he saw something black lying. Shouting 
 " Whoa, my pet ! " he dismounted and ap- 
 proached the lifeless-looking mass. He shook 
 it, saying: "If ye be earthly, in the name of 
 God speak." There was no answer. Getting 
 on his knees, he turned the body over until 
 his light fell on the face. A sigh burst from 
 the old woodsman. " Frankie La Flamme, 
 you're surely not dead !" Cramping his wagon, 
 he lifted the youth tenderly and laid him across 
 the buggy-seat. Starting his horse, he held the 
 limp body until the door was reached; then 
 carried it to his bed and rubbed it long, using 
 such simple remedies as his cabin gave. He 
 was doubtful of success. Sometimes he thought 
 La Flamme was dead; then he blamed his hear- 
 ing and continued to rub. 
 
 " It's time to go," said Mrs. Barbier to Milly,
 
 114 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 
 
 " and see what's become of your uncle. I worry 
 about him. We can do nothing more. We 
 stayed with her to the last." 
 
 " Skinny died a happy death, auntie. Pere 
 Monnier said she made her purgatory in this 
 life," said Milly. 
 
 " Yes, dear, she died a very happy death. 
 As for purgatory, a little of it wouldn't do any 
 of us a bit of harm." 
 
 " Do dying people, auntie, always talk of 
 their young days ? Didn't you hear how Skinny 
 spoke of her mother her eyes bright as coals, 
 but black, black; her father, his old violin, 
 Sister Marie, her husband, and Frankie, who 
 might have been here ?" 
 
 " Yes, dear, that's my way of thinking. I kind 
 of believe that God shows us the bright spots 
 in our life before he takes us." 
 
 " Well, auntie, then I'll talk of you and Uncle 
 Jemmie when I'm dying." 
 
 " There may be more to think of than us, 
 child." 
 
 Mrs. Barbier and Milly knelt by the side of 
 the old mattress on which Skinny lay, and 
 prayed. On a little fresh straw, covered with 
 a worn-out spread, lay the once laughing Jenny 
 Sauve, sweet in death.
 
 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 115 
 
 "We have all to come to this," said Mrs. 
 Barbier, rising; then, turning to the anxious faces 
 that had hurried from their homes on the first 
 noise of Skinny's death, "Wash and dress her. 
 Milly and I are a little sleepy; besides, Jemmie's 
 old, and helpless about getting his own food. 
 Come, Milly, and don't forget Skinny's present . 
 the picture. I'll keep the violin for Frankie." 
 
 They passed out, and in a few minutes were 
 in view of the log cabin. " Uncle was just 
 coming for us, auntie," said Milly: "see old 
 Peggin harnessed before the door." 
 
 " It was always his way, child, since I've known 
 him." The door was wide open. They entered. 
 Tucked in the cosey bed lay Frank La Flamme, 
 Jemmie Barbier bending over him, towel in hand. 
 His face wore a triumphant smile. 
 
 " I've got him where I wanted him. I've got 
 him. Your old man is no slouch, Selina. I've 
 cured him myself. He was dead all morning. 
 About half an hour ago he commenced to live, 
 and is doing first rate since. He's his father, 
 every inch of him; cordy as a beech." 
 
 "Since he sleeps, uncle," said Milly, "tell 
 us how and where you found him." 
 
 "You little rascal! you're not a bit sleepy." 
 
 "Why don't you answer my question, uncle?"
 
 Tl6 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 
 
 " Because I'm no hand at story-telling. You 
 get him well, and then you'll have the water at 
 first dip." 
 
 A few weeks later Frankie lay by the win- 
 dow, gazing at the long, dark line of bleak 
 pines. He had just been told of his mother's 
 death. It was a sad day. Milly had twitted 
 him for promising to write daily, and then 
 " shamefully breaking his promise." Explana- 
 tions made things worse. She had nursed him 
 back to health; " but," and her eyes showered 
 fire-sparks, " they could only be friends." She 
 had almost said the terrible yes to another. 
 Frankie, left to himself, drew his pocket-pistol 
 charged with sacrifice. It shot the spectre of 
 his mother. Love laughed at its bullets. No 
 other would have the choice of his life; saved 
 from death was to him preserved for a better 
 life. Like most woodsmen, his beliefs were 
 positive. What better life than to be mated 
 with Milly ? He pressed his head to the pillow, 
 shut his eyes, and went through the drama 
 " Love." Milly's tip-toeing called him to his 
 surroundings. Love is all ears, ever ready to 
 catch the slightest sound of the object loved. 
 He nestled in his cot, pretending sleep, but 
 letting his half-shut eyes take in the vision.
 
 THE WOOING OF MILLY. II? 
 
 Woman's eyes are quick; she smiled at his 
 trickery. " Frankie La Flamme, don't you close 
 your eyes when you sleep ? " she said. He 
 smiled and was captured. " Guess who's here ?" 
 she said. He was indifferent. " Oh, do guess !" 
 she continued. " I'll give the first letter of 
 the name." He shut his eyes. The name of 
 his rival crossed his mind and soured his thoughts. 
 ' ' Guess quick ; they come ! " she cried. He 
 turned to look her full in the face. Fortune 
 was on the turn: Billy Buttons and Cagy en- 
 tered the room, Buttons carrying a huge bag. 
 Stepping in front of the sick man's cot, he 
 emptied the bag before him, shouting, " Cagy, 
 make the darned thing clear." Envelopes, big 
 and small, crushed and bulgy, envelopes of all 
 colors and makes, made the strange-looking pile. 
 What a heap of fond dreams ! Frankie's eyes 
 were lost in them. 
 
 " Sit down, Milly; you have something to 
 hear," said Cagy. " I'm to blame for this whole 
 mess. I told Bill to put in a receiver. Bill 
 was always obliging. To help folks in it went; 
 but in putting it in devil a hole he left to take 
 out the letters. Well, it might have run on till 
 Gabriel blows his trumpet had not La Jeunesse 
 thrown little Brie against it, and smashed the
 
 Il8 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 
 
 darned thing. The minute it fell, pop came the 
 letters by the bushel. They were all for you 
 in two handwritings. ' Faith/ says I, ' Milly 
 will have reading for six weeks, constant go. 
 Says Whistler, ' She has got the grip on But- 
 tons. She can send him to the jail for obstructing 
 the going of Uncle Sam's mail.' It's a life job 
 at that. Weeks thought it was best to lay the 
 outs and ins of the case before Pere Monnier. 
 Whistler said that the pere would know all the 
 law in the case, and he advised Billy to take 
 his medicine like a man. Buttons don't fear 
 the face of clay, and he done too much for 
 you when old Jenks' brain cracked for you to 
 bring action against him for a few letters. Pere 
 Monnier fixed the thing in a jiffy. He told 
 Buttons to bring you the letters, and hoped the 
 reading would do you and Frankie much good. 
 I hope so. That's all there is to the story, if 
 I was to die on the spot ! Of course if you 
 want to be mean but I don't think there's a 
 drop of that kind in you you'll report us. I 
 don't care for myself, but Buttons has a lot of 
 mouths to fill." 
 
 Tears trickled down the girl's cheeks. " Re- 
 port you ! " she sobbed. " How could you say
 
 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 119 
 
 that of your little girl, Cagy ? And you stand 
 there and let him, Billy ! " 
 
 She was caught in the arms of two old 
 guides who stammered out apologies, Cagy's 
 voice highest, saying, " Milly, didn't I provise 
 there's not a drop of that kind in you, and 
 ain't it so ? " 
 
 " Milly," said Buttons, " Cagy would knock 
 the man down that would say anything about 
 you. You're a credit to Squidville. If poor 
 Dory was alive, wouldn't she be proud of you! 
 No wonder Jemmie, ay, and for that matter 
 Frankie's daft about you. Cagy, come and let 
 the two youngsters read the pile and have a 
 bit of a talk over it. I'll have no new wrinkles 
 in my business again. Every man must come 
 up to the counter and do his business open; no 
 more receivers for gentle folk in Squidville." 
 
 " Don't be rubbing the healing skin on the 
 old sore," said Cagy. " It's all over. Let us 
 go to the kitchen and have a smoke with 
 Jemmie." 
 
 " Dinner's all ready," said Selina, poking her 
 head into the room. " It's a cure for sore 
 eyes to see Blind Cagy and Billy Buttons in 
 our house. Yous won't put a foot out of this
 
 120 THE WOOING OF MILLY. 
 
 door to-night. It's little enough that the Snipe- 
 ville stage can take one day in the year." 
 Cagy was of the same way of thinking; he 
 held the reins. 
 
 When he arrived a day late in Squidville his 
 only remark was, " Another man would have 
 remained a couple of days." On this Whistler 
 said, " It seems strange there could be such a 
 storm in Snipeville and not strike us." 
 
 A year after Professor Corkey Slithers ad- 
 dressed his pupils: ' I have this jocund day 
 received an invitation to the wedding of two 
 of my former pupils, Frankie La Flamme and 
 Milly De La Rosa. Tell your mothers to send 
 flowers to the church next Tuesday, where your 
 teacher and you, my boys and girls, will put 
 up the finest decoration that Squidville shall 
 ever see, if she shall prolong her existence to 
 the end of the world." 
 
 " Big-hearted Slithers ! " said Weeks. 
 " Knows when to give up," said Buttons. 
 " A gentleman and a scholar," was the com- 
 mon word. Pere Monnier heartily laughed. 
 Squidville was happy.
 
 SKINNY BENOIT'S SON. 121 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 SKINNY BENOIT'S SON. 
 
 " HAVE you heard of Squidville, on the Sal- 
 mon River? Of course you must. It was there 
 that Bob Stevens fought his famous fight with 
 the big Indian Jock. 
 
 " The little stage over yonder at Ransom's 
 runs through Squidville and stops at Porcupine 
 Creek. You say you want fishing; if you do, 
 youngster, that's the place." 
 ^The speaker was a tall, angular man with 
 high forehead, indented cheeks, and gray, pierc- 
 ing eyes. He was still lithe and active, al- 
 though past the forties. It was easy to see 
 that he was a French-Canadian, and his tanned 
 cheeks and shoulder-droop made the guessing of 
 his occupation an easy task. A few days before 
 the rain had come down in torrents, the river 
 was swollen, and thousands of logs, like bits of 
 kindling-wood, were carried down its angry cur- 
 rent from Squidville and Porcupine Creek. The 
 rain had ceased, the river subsided, and the
 
 SKINNY BENOIT'S SON. 
 
 choppers had come down to Malone to have 
 their logs measured, and to receive pay for 
 their winter's work. One of them was the 
 speaker, Frank La Flamme; and the man that 
 he wished to visit his mountain home was a 
 clerk of the company that had bought his logs. 
 The clerk promised that his first vacation would 
 be passed in Squidville; and as the stageman 
 was hitching his horses La Flamme, with a 
 " Mind your promise, youngster," hurried off 
 and mounted the stage. An elderly lady, with 
 a noticeable tinge of Sioux blood in her veins, 
 was just then being politely helped into the 
 stage by a grave, dignified, bald-headed mer- 
 chant, while his business partner was barely able 
 to place by her side a huge basket of groceries. 
 " Comment fa va, grandmother. You're early 
 getting ready for the dance." The old lady 
 smiled, muttered " Out, 1 ' and settled herself to 
 sleep. The bald-headed man, hearing La 
 Flamme's voice, seemed glad. His face, at 
 least, showed some lighter shades akin to 
 laughter. 
 
 "Hello, Frank! ain't you comin' in?" 
 
 11 I guess not, Mr. Ransom." 
 
 *' Well, Frank, you may do as you please. 
 You promised to pay us the interest, at least,
 
 SKINNY BENOIT'S SON. 1*3 
 
 as soon as you sold your logs. If you break 
 your promise I cannot keep mine." 
 
 " Mr. Ransom," said La Flamme, holding 
 down his head, " do give me a little time. 
 Times are bad; the new standard has destroyed 
 us this year; and, as if that was not enough, 
 I had to lose my horse with a spavin. What 
 was I to do ? I had to go in debt for another, 
 so that I could skid my logs in time. You 
 can wait. You know I'm as honest as the 
 sun. Didn't I deal with you for twenty years, 
 and didn't you always get your pay some 
 time ?" 
 
 " I won't wait, Frank," was the gruff answer 
 of Mr. Ransom as he politely bowed to his 
 now nodding customer, Grandmother Croquet. 
 It was not Croquet's way to notice what she 
 disdainfully called " Yankee business touches." 
 
 ' Ransom, you're a scoundrel; you told me 
 to come and trade, and pay when I got ready; 
 now, because I am deep in your books, you 
 throw away the glove and show your hand. I 
 can't pay; so do your best," was La Flamme's 
 rejoinder, hissed through his teeth, while his 
 dark gray eyes became feline in their expres- 
 sion. 
 
 The crack of the stageman's whip was the
 
 124 SKINNY BENOIT'S SON. 
 
 full-stop mark to the conversation. The old 
 lady woke, rubbed her eyes, and noting La 
 Flamme's sulk, that had spread over his face, 
 muttered, " Devra avoir hdnte, Frangois " ; then 
 gave a sharp look at her basket, shut her eyes, 
 and went asleep. A half-dozen of choppers, 
 with their bright red stockings drawn tightly 
 over their pants' legs, and their wide-rimmed 
 hats set back on their heads, boarded the 
 stage, talking loudly their patois, gesticulat- 
 ing, laughing immoderately, presenting to the 
 casual observer that peculiar phase of the 
 French-Canadian character present contentment. 
 
 44 Gee up ! " said the stageman. 
 
 " Get a gait on your horses," said one of 
 the choppers. 44 I like that horse on the nigh, 
 but his mate's a dandy," said another. " They 
 are breeched and spavined," said a third. " I 
 wouldn't give a dollar mortgage on them," said 
 the fourth, pulling from his inside pocket a 
 huge black bottle of Canadian high-wines. The 
 bottle was carelessly passed around; even the 
 elderly lady with the tinge of Sioux awoke in 
 time to take what Berry, the driver, called " a 
 ' sky-flier' of a pull." La Flamme, with sullen 
 look, held himself aloof from this growing weak-
 
 SKINNY BENOIT'S SON. 125 
 
 ness of the French-Canadian who has made the 
 States his home. 
 
 It was strange so strange to his fellow- 
 choppers that little Piquet vowed that " Frank 
 was coming to be an angel." 
 
 " There's as much fear of that as a wood- 
 chuck leaving his hole when you are around," 
 said big La Jeunesse, looking serious. 
 
 " Hand him that bottle, Brie, and let him 
 have an old-time swig; it's the genuine thing. 
 See how it opened Grandmother Croquet's eyes," 
 cried Berry, turning on his seat to see if An- 
 drieux, who hugged the bottle to his chest, 
 would fulfil his commands. 
 
 " Andrieux," said La Flamme, drawing his 
 tm'n lips in the way of his teeth, " I will not 
 touch that cursed stuff. It has been my ruin 
 for many a day. Can't you fellows have fun 
 enough without me ? I have bother enough. 
 That miserable beggar the horse-dealer met me 
 an hour ago and made me pay in full for that 
 old horse that he ' palmed ' on me as a young 
 beast yes, all the money that I had, even the 
 interest due to Ransom. I guess it's always 
 the way: if you're poor everybody wants to 
 bite you."
 
 iz6 SKINNY BENOIT'S SON. 
 
 ' ' How much did you give him ? ' ' said Berry, 
 cracking his whip. 
 
 " One hundred and twenty-five," was La 
 Flamme's doleful reply. 
 
 " Heavens ! " said Piquet. 
 
 " You were taken in," said Andrieux. 
 
 " The horse ain't worth fifty dollars. The 
 moment I saw him I told you that he was 
 spavined. Didn't I, Frank ? " shouted Brie. 
 
 " You fellows know everything about a horse 
 when somebody tells you. Why don't you air 
 your wisdom before a fellow as poor as I be 
 makes a trade?" was La Flamme's sarcastic 
 reply. 
 
 "Well, La Flam me " and Brie pulled from 
 his pocket a huge plug of newly bought tobacco, 
 carefully rolled in a deer-skin bag "because 
 you have the name of being a kind of horse- 
 jockey; and no matter how good a hand a man 
 might be around horses, he's not such a fool 
 as to give pointers to a jockey." 
 
 The discussion came to an abrupt end by 
 Berry jumping from his wagon, dancing and 
 slapping his hands against the side of his big 
 coat, shouting, " Squidville ! All out for Squid- 
 ville ! " 
 
 Squidville its origin is lost in obscurity, like
 
 SKINNY BENOIT'S SON. 127 
 
 that of most mountain towns in these regions. 
 Billy Buttons, the guide, avows that it is named 
 after a man named Squid, while Blind Cagy 
 says that its name is Skidville, or the place 
 where they skidded logs. The traveller has no 
 escape between these rural historians, whose 
 arguments pro and con are the nightly fascina- 
 tion of Squidville Hotel. Squidville I prefer 
 the spelling of Buttons " is the easiest town in 
 the state to find your way in " ; that is the 
 first salutation of Jim Weeks, the jolly, fat pro- 
 prietor of the Hunter's Paradise. The town 
 skulks along the Salmon River for a distance 
 of half a mile. " The number of log cabins 
 in this our city," says Buttons, " is two-and- 
 twtnty, sir." 
 
 " Mind, we are not counting the hotel, 
 which be a frame house, sir, with nigh twenty 
 beds as fine as silk," Cagy drops in to remark. 
 
 There is but one street in this village Pleas- 
 ant View. Country folk have their ideas of 
 beauty as well as their city brethren. When 
 Squidville was laid out by Mr. Potter, the genial 
 Weeks standing on the top of the brae that 
 leads through the woods to Porcupine Creek, 
 and looking at the Salmon River winding itself 
 like a silver thread through the bits of green
 
 iz8 SKINNY BENOIT'S SON. 
 
 wood and marshy meadow-land, as if inspired, 
 so says Cagy cried out : ' ' Boys, a pleasant 
 view ! " That exclamation named Squidville's 
 only street, and immortalized the name of Weeks. 
 The last house on Pleasant View looks like a 
 cross between a Queen Anne cottage and a lum- 
 bering shanty. There is a liberty-pole before 
 the door, and a tattered flag flying from it. 
 Swinging from a post, ornamented in lines of 
 red and white, plainly telling of Weeks' love 
 for his old trade, is a flaming golden sign: 
 
 " Hunter's Paradise. 
 Jim Weeks, Prop. 
 Best Summer Resort in the Adirondacks." 
 
 Before the door, shivering in the cold, ran 
 two bow-legged, long-eared hounds, whining and 
 waving their tails. Grandmother Croquet, fiercely 
 holding her basket, was the first to amble from 
 the stage. Weeks, bareheaded and bowing, 
 escorted her to the hotel, while Buttons re- 
 marked that he did not know where Croquet 
 got the money to buy such a lot of things, 
 and Cagy, hot with rage, avowed that Croquet's 
 folks " have as good a right to money as any 
 folks in this darned country." Mrs. Croquet 
 and her basket safe in the care of Weeks, the
 
 SKINNY BENOIT'S SON. 129 
 
 wood-choppers sprang lightly from the stage and 
 were soon busy helping the slow Berry to un- 
 hitch and feed his curdy-looking team. Kind- 
 ness is a mountain virtue; it is the golden link 
 that unites these poor people and makes life 
 pleasant during the long, sullen stretches of the 
 winter months. There are scores of men and 
 women daily met with, up and down the road 
 of life, who have a kind of philosophy that tells 
 them that every natural event in their lives is 
 heralded by a supernatural one. The poet was 
 in sight of this when he wrote, " Coming events 
 cast their shadows before." It is useless to 
 argue with such people in the vain effort of 
 converting them. Would it not be pleasant 
 t be able to write of this superstition as a 
 corn only found on the toes of the ignorant ? 
 Very; but would it be true? If biography be 
 not a grand conspiracy against truth, as some 
 one said of history, many prominent agnostics 
 wore a tight- fitting shoe. 
 
 La Flamme was the last to jump from the 
 stage, and when he had done so he leaned 
 against the stage-shafts as if dazed. His ordi- 
 nary habit would have been to lend Berry a 
 willing hand to unyoke his team. Brie, noticing 
 this, shouted, " La Flamme, are you dreaming ? "
 
 130 SKINNY BENOIT'S SON. 
 
 Yes, he was dreaming. 
 
 A few days before a blackbird, during a heavy 
 snow-storm, had beaten its way through the 
 paper pane and sought safety and rest on the 
 shoulder of his wife, as she busied herself pre- 
 paring the brown johnny-cake and the thick, 
 black coffee for her husband. La Flamme in 
 the natural goodness of his heart, instead of 
 killing the drooping bird and averting ill luck, 
 caught it, gave it something to eat, tenderly 
 nursed it, and when the storm was spent re- 
 stored it to liberty and its native haunts. 
 Dreaming there by the stage-shaft, this bird 
 once more crossed his vision. We are but the 
 sport of thought. His Canadian mother had 
 often sung to him what a dire messenger of 
 ill luck was the blackbird. Her teaching had 
 not been lost. The kindliness of the man's 
 heart had saved the bird, but in that very act 
 he saw the beginning of his misfortune. Why 
 did the horse-dealer, who lived in Belmont, 
 happen to be in Malone? Why did Ransom, 
 in whose store he had traded for twenty years, 
 threaten him with law ? He could not answer 
 these questions a few minutes ago; now it was 
 easy to do so when the scene in his cabin a
 
 SKINNY BENOIT'S SON. 131 
 
 few days ago came to his memory. It was 
 his failure to kill the blackbird, and black super- 
 stition drove kindness from the wood-chopper's 
 warm heart. " Why didn't I kill that cursed 
 bird ? " he muttered. " Misfortune is on me 
 and mine." How often has an accident, taking 
 place at the right moment, confirmed as a life- 
 long truth the silliest superstition ! It was to 
 be so with Frank La Flamme. 
 
 Brie led one horse to the stable, Berry an- 
 other. As they did so the stage-shafts fell to 
 the ground. 
 
 The dreamer woke and walked over to Weeks, 
 the two dogs executing a kind of dance around 
 him. It was at this moment that Buttons, sit- 
 ting on an empty soap-box on the piazza, re- 
 marked to Cagy " that it was the first time in 
 his life that he had seen Frank slow to make 
 of his dogs." 
 
 "And look at them," says Cagy, "with 
 their front paws on his vest, as if they were 
 Christians. ' ' 
 
 La Flamme took no notice of his dogs, but, 
 bidding bon voyage to Andrieux, mounted the 
 piazza. Buttons had a dozen questions ready 
 for him, when Cagy, with a knowing nudge,
 
 IJ2 SKINNY BENOIT & SON. 
 
 brought Buttons' ear close to his mouth and 
 whispered: " La Flamme's little girl is in the 
 store, crying." 
 
 " You don't say so ! " was Buttons' reply 
 as he and Cagy craned their necks striking an 
 attitude peculiar to an Adirondack guide. 
 
 "Is pa here, Mr. Weeks?" said the dark- 
 eyed, scantily clad little maid, looking piteously 
 in the landlord's face. 
 
 " Yes, dear, he has just put his foot on the 
 piazza. And what's the matter with my girl 
 to-day ? You have been crying," said the land- 
 lord, rubbing away the child's tears with the 
 back of his big hand. 
 
 " Because mamma is sick, very sick. The 
 priest and doctor are with her, and she wants 
 my papa," sobbed the child. 
 
 La Flamme stood in the doorway; the words 
 smote his heavy heart. " Aily! Aily! " he 
 cried. 
 
 " Papa mamma ! " sobbed the child, as she 
 fell in her father's arms. 
 
 About a quarter of a mile from the village 
 hostelry, in one of the two-and-twenty low, 
 shambling log houses, lived La Flamme. His 
 house was built in Squidville's only style logs 
 mortised together, with here and there a huge
 
 SKINNY BENOIT'S SON. 133 
 
 iron clamp, " to steady her a bit," as Cagy 
 used to remark. The space between the logs 
 was filled up with rough mortar. The effect 
 of such a house on the eye was far from pleas- 
 ing; yet in point of comfort it far excelled 
 the ordinary country frame house. It was one 
 of Buttons' ordinary remarks that " such houses 
 were native to the soil," and there was much 
 truth in this observation. 
 
 When dark clouds teem on the mountain's 
 brow, and fierce winds drive the sleet over the 
 lowlands, making it as prickly as sharp-pointed 
 needles, there is an indescribable comfort in a 
 log cabin, with its laughing fire of crackling pine 
 logs. A stranger would easily guess that there 
 was something wrong in this cabin from the 
 continual opening and shutting of the door, and 
 the dozen or more women, with black shawls 
 closely drawn about their heads, that formed 
 themselves in little knots before the door, talk- 
 ing in a subdued voice. One of them, a 
 woman of coarse features and rugged build, 
 leaving the others, pulled the latch-string and 
 entered. 
 
 " Glad to see you, Mrs. Poulet," said But- 
 tons, who had led the village in its race to the 
 sick-house.
 
 134 SKINNY BENOIT S SON. 
 
 "Will she be at herself again?" inquired 
 Cagy. 
 
 Throwing her head back, and letting the shawl 
 fall on her broad shoulders, Mrs. Poulet scorn- 
 fully rejoined, " You fellows here, drinking up 
 all the air that the poor woman should have;" 
 and then with stately step advanced to the 
 sick woman's bed. 
 
 " That's a tomboy for you ! " was the only 
 remark that slipped the tongue of the crest- 
 fallen Cagy. 
 
 " Poor Milly ! " said Mrs. Poulet, bending over 
 the sick woman; then, turning to La Flamme, 
 who was kneeling by the bedside of his wife, 
 pillowing her drooping head on his tawny arm: 
 " Better send Aily to some of the neighbors. 
 She is breaking her heart, poor thing." 
 
 Aily was leaning over her mother's face kiss- 
 ing the damp sweat from her forehead. La 
 Flamme did not hear: his eyes were fastened 
 on a rough print representing Christ as the 
 good pastor bought years ago from a Jewish 
 pedlar, and pinned to the side wall near his bed. 
 
 " She is getting worse," said Mrs. Poulet, 
 turning away her head to hide her tears. 
 
 At this remark the young priest, who had 
 stood by the foot of the bed, now knelt by
 
 SKINNY BENOIT'S SON. 135 
 
 the side of it and commenced to pray aloud 
 in French. He was joined by a dozen voices: 
 even those out-of-doors knelt on the cold, damp 
 ground to utter, in response to the rich, bass 
 voice of their priest, a prayer for Milly La 
 Flamme. The doctor, a thin, talkative man, 
 whose hero was Thomas Paine, removed his fur 
 cap. This doctor used to take my place when 
 the roads between Snipeville and Squidville were 
 blocked. It is told to this day in Squidville 
 that his lips moved as if in prayer. 
 
 " I think it would ease her to have warm 
 bottles to her feet," said Mrs. Croquet, panting 
 from her quick walk. 
 
 " You can have all the bottles you want in 
 "my store," said Weeks. 
 
 " I'll have them in a jiffy," said Buttons, 
 opening the door. 
 
 " It's useless," said the doctor. 
 
 " Ay, useless sure," muttered Mrs. Poulet. 
 
 La Flamme's wife looked at her husband; his 
 eyes were still fastened on the print; then her 
 eyes wandered to it. Aily, wondering, looked 
 at her parents' faces and set hers in the same 
 direction. 
 
 " Bon Past fur" said La Flamme. 
 
 " Aidez ma tntre," responded Aily.
 
 136 SKINNY BENOIT'S SON. 
 
 " She is dead," said the doctor. 
 
 " Dead," repeated the priest. 
 
 " She was a good woman," said Mrs. Croquet. 
 
 " Good and bad all together must go," said 
 Mrs. Poulet, pulling the shawl over her head. 
 
 44 It's a hard one for poor Frank," ejaculated 
 Weeks, with tears running down his cheeks. 
 
 " She died like an angel," said Brie. 
 
 " She went off in the crack of a whip," said 
 Berry. 
 
 " Here's the bottles," said Buttons, opening 
 the door. 
 
 " Yer too late, Buttons; and she don't want 
 bottles on the other side. God rest her," 
 said Cagy. 
 
 " Amen," replied Buttons. " But you don't 
 tell me it's all over with her ? " 
 
 " She's as dead as a nail," said Cagy, with 
 a long-drawn sigh. 
 
 " Ay, sure, Billy Buttons," put in a dozen 
 voices, " Milly La Flamme is dead." 
 
 Squidville has a graveyard on the Porcupine 
 road, a good half-mile from the village. It is 
 a bit of clearing of about three acres in the 
 heart of the woods, fenced in with huge burnt 
 logs. In the centre stands a rough wooden
 
 SKINNY BENOIT'S SON. 137 
 
 cross, and here and there a black pine stump, 
 looking like sentinels of the dead. To this quiet 
 spot came the body of Milly La Flamme, borne 
 on a rough country wagon, drawn by Weeks' 
 pair of four-year-old bay colts, followed by Berry 
 and the Squidville stage, carrying La Flamme, 
 the weeping Aily, and their relatives. 
 
 Behind the stage came the people of Squid- 
 ville mounted on all kinds of rigs. 
 
 The last prayer said, and the first shovelful 
 of clay thrown on the coffin by Pere Monnier, 
 La Flamme led his little girl from her mother's 
 grave. Before he had reached the stage a hand 
 was lightly laid on his shoulder. 
 
 He turned around. " Good-day, Frank." 
 ""Good-day, Sheriff Matson." " I am sorry 
 for your troubles, Frank," continued the sheriff, 
 " and had I known of them I would not be 
 here to-day. Poor fellow! you have trouble 
 enough without me bothering you, but" and 
 the sheriff's voice was troubled " have courage, 
 Frank. I will go home." 
 
 " Sheriff, I know it is not your fault to be 
 here to-day. You must do your duty. You 
 come from Ransom. Well, there's no use in 
 putting you to a second trip. All I have is 
 the two horses and wagon that La Jeunesse is
 
 138 SKINNY BENOIT'S SON. 
 
 driving. Take them; they will pay the debt. 
 There's no luck for me in this place. Tell 
 Ransom, sheriff, that it's the old story: get on 
 a storekeeper's books and slavery begins. That 
 was Milly's constant warning, sheriff; she often 
 used to say, ' It is better, Frank, to do without 
 something than go in debt for it.' But Milly 
 is dead, dead ! sheriff, and my motherless child 
 and I, as soon as we say good-by to Pere 
 Monnier, will start for the West. Some day 
 Aily and I might have money enough to buy 
 Milly a headstone." 
 
 ' ' Go away, papa, and leave mamma here ? ' ' 
 said the child. 
 
 " No, mamma is in heaven, Aily; and heaven 
 is in the West as well as here,"
 
 THE RETURN OF CORKEY SLITHERS. 139 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE RETURN OF CORKEY SLITHERS. 
 
 IT was a saying in Squidville, " Live in it 
 once, and you'll live in it again." I am free 
 to confess there is something in the saying. 
 
 Professor Slithers left us vowing vengeance, 
 shaking, as he put it, " the pulverized dust- 
 particles from his feet forever." After two years 
 of wandering, no one knows where, he returned, 
 which, in Squidville at least, made the saying 
 authentic. 
 
 It is of his coming, and the strange things 
 that thereafter happened, I write rather copy 
 from my old yellow diary. And, by the way, 
 to quote friend Buttons, " the past is a mighty 
 queer customer." What memories this old faded 
 copy-book brings memories of other days, when 
 I was a younger man, full of life, finding merri- 
 ment in these mountains and dear companion- 
 ship with brave mountaineers ! " Times change 
 as change they must," is an old refrain that 
 comes with a saddening influence as I write.
 
 140 THE RETURN OF CORKEY SLITHERS. 
 
 I notice my hair, once so black and curly, is 
 white, and my face as wrinkled as Skinny 
 Benoit's. The place is changed or is it that 
 my change changes all things ? I wonder which 
 it is. 
 
 A truce, old memories ! you blind my eyes ! 
 you keep from my sight these pencilled pages, 
 that tell of the return of Professor Slithers. 
 
 It is a habit of mine to pencil, from day to 
 day, the things that give laughter- food in Squid- 
 ville town. Fun, honest fun, does not care a 
 rap with whom it keeps company, tickling poor 
 and rich alike, oftener, methinks, in company 
 with the poor man. What light it brings to 
 his life, what joy to his poor household, authors, 
 in various ages, have attested. It has lit his 
 gloom, swept away his sorrow, cured many a 
 pain and ache better than the doctor. 
 
 It is a theory of mine that no dyspeptic can 
 make a good physician. I have put many on 
 the road to recovery by telling a good story. 
 
 I remember how James Duquette showed signs 
 of betterment after hearing of Slithers* antics. 
 Maybe some others would like to hear them. 
 That's my only excuse for copying. " Maybe," 
 I say, but I know not. 
 
 I was, as is my usual custom, sitting in Weeks'
 
 THE RETURN OF CORKEY SLITHERS. 141 
 
 hotel one evening, just as the stage-coach rattled 
 to the door, when to my astonishment who 
 pops off but Slithers in a brand-new suit of 
 black, crowned with an elegant high hat. His 
 gloves were surely kid, while in one hand he 
 carelessly dallied a gold -headed cane. He had 
 baggage. I believe it was this fact that 
 gathered the crowd. I could hear Buttons dis- 
 tinctly say, " Slithers is on the ups, " while 
 Blind Cagy was poking fun at the stay-at-home 
 boys, and jocularly pointing to the big trunk, 
 on which was written, in large white letters, 
 
 " PROFESSOR SLITHERS. MEDIUM. 
 T. O. S." 
 
 *fhese last letters were full of worry to the 
 crowd. Buttons, who had, as he said, " a long 
 experience in tackling all kinds of lettering, 
 straight, crooked, and slanting," had to shake 
 his head and admit that " a-ciphering out 
 T. O. S. was too much for a common skull like 
 his," all of which added to the puzzle, and 
 stimulated wonder. The professor was not un- 
 mindful of this as he stepped on the hotel 
 piazza, shaking the landlord's hand warmly, and 
 saluting him in a high-pitched strain, after this 
 way : " Weeks, my bucolic old friend, facile
 
 142 THE RETURN OF CORKEY SLITHERS. 
 
 princeps among the stomach-ticklers of the 
 Adirondacks, a thing of beauty, a joy to see 
 yes, Weeks, behold your peripatetic Slithers, now 
 a comforter of humanity by occultism yes, 
 Slithers, T. O. S." Emphasis dwelling long on 
 these letters, aided by a rolling of his eyes, 
 deeper still made the mystery. 
 
 " There be something unnatural," said Sal 
 Purdy, " in these same letters; they're not 
 mortal." The trunk was soon out of sight, 
 stored in a room, and the curiosity-crowd went 
 its way, having a new nut to crack. 
 
 Squidville was in need of gossip, and the 
 strange letters came as a shower after a long 
 drouth, or as a thaw after a long frost-spell. 
 Tongues were loosened and discussion became a 
 pleasure. I was appealed to, as a man of learn- 
 ing, to solve a mystery that had been called 
 the " dark secret " by the genial Pere Monnier. 
 I but added to the puzzle. 
 
 Slithers was not unmindful of public excite- 
 ment; it was an excellent advertisement, and he 
 utilized it in a way which, to use one of our 
 phrases, " hurried the grist to his mill." 
 
 Hiring the school-house, he billed the town, 
 discarding the old-fashioned way of " making
 
 THE RETURN OF CORKEY SLITHERS. 143 
 
 announcers by bell-ringing." These bills showed 
 the cunning of the professor, and read: 
 
 "T. O. S. 
 
 SLITHERS ! 
 THE ONLY SLITHERS 
 MEDIUMISTIC OCCULTIC SLITHERS! 
 : UNRIVALLED SLITHERS!: 
 
 PSYCHOLOGICAL SLITHERS ! 
 W One and All Invited!"^ 
 
 Price, 10 cents, 
 N. B. Rapping Phenomena Later. 
 
 T. O. S." 
 
 The school-house was unable to contain all 
 those who were drawn in the hope that the 
 mystic letters might be expounded. Slithers was 
 not to be so easily caught. As he used to say 
 in former years, " He was a man that never 
 threw away a good thing." A taking adver- 
 tisement is not to be despised. The lecture 
 was on " Planchette, the Despair of Science," 
 and was as mystic to his hearers as were the 
 letters. I quote Cagy's criticism, which, if not 
 as elegant as that of the professional reviewer's, 
 was more to the point:
 
 144 THE RETURN OF CORKEY SLITHERS. 
 
 " You might as well follow a loon in the 
 water as Slithers, or a fox on foot. He may 
 understand himself, but if he does he'll soon 
 stew out his skull." 
 
 It is an opinion of mine that the more mys- 
 tic is humbuggery the more certain will it be 
 to succeed. Although in public we laugh at 
 the bogies of our children, to please society, 
 yet in private we are children hushed to sleep 
 with the same bogies. Slithers, give him his 
 due, knew the animal man, and gave him the 
 desired medicine. 
 
 It had its contemplated effect, which was to 
 draw the crowd. 
 
 Seeing things go his way, he hired a house, 
 hung out his sign, and boldly proclaimed that 
 he would give nightly seances wherein " rap- 
 ping, table-tipping phenomena, virtual manifesta- 
 tions, grandmother testimony, future-laid-bare, 
 and similar occurrences of the most momentous 
 and startling nature would be produced by the 
 magic wand of 
 
 " Yours truly, 
 " CORKEY SLITHERS, T. O. S." 
 
 This sign was noticed in a long editorial 
 article in the Porcupine Pioneer, whose editor,
 
 THE RETURN OF CORKEY SLITHERS. 145 
 
 Joel Spratt, was a Methodist deacon and a bitter 
 foe of Spiritualism. With this editorial Slithers' 
 fame swept the adjacent towns, bringing him 
 investigators and their dollars that were more 
 to his taste. Joel, in his sledge-hammer way, 
 contended that if ' ' a mortal wayfarer was to cast 
 off the slough and put on immortality, setting 
 out straight forward for mansions of eternal per- 
 petuity and bliss, he would neither want to come 
 to the mortal, nor, no matter how closely he 
 might hug that same fool-idea, he couldn't get 
 here, for no angel would let him pass." " If," 
 continued the editorial, " the same fellow went 
 off into eternal perdition, or in other words to 
 Sheol, he would have to stay there and make 
 the most of it. Men might be bribed, but 
 Satan never. ' ' 
 
 This last word was in large capitals, and was, 
 in the Porcupine office, supposed to be the 
 clinch " to the powerfullest bit of writing that 
 Joel ever greased paper with." 
 
 Slithers, confident of his attraction, called the 
 editorial " buggy," and thus, by the dexterous 
 use of a well-known word, took the wind from 
 Joel's sails. He even went further, and invited 
 the sceptic deacon to " come and eat his 
 words in the presence of ocular demonstration."
 
 146 THE RETURN OF CORKEY SLITHERS. 
 
 Squidville loved dearly a row, and, seeing a 
 chance lost through the deacon's cowardice, was 
 not slow to applaud the professor, a sure way 
 of making the deacon feel its grievance. 
 
 So things went, adding fame and money to 
 Slithers. But he was ambitious, and, like many 
 another, to ambition he succumbed. 
 
 Not content with worsting the Porcupine, he 
 challenged me to give testimony to " the truth 
 of his manifestations." It will be said of me, 
 I trust, that I covet no man's back seat. Be- 
 sides, in those days, I was as ready for a fray 
 as any man in the mountains. 
 
 I had, if I write it myself, and without ego- 
 tism, an ordinary amount of strong common- 
 sense always at my disposal. 
 
 Now to let Corkey know that I was hostile 
 to him would have been doubly arming him, 
 and no adversary is entitled to more than is his 
 due, so I wrote over my signature a card to 
 the Pioneer, with Joel's warm connivance, father- 
 ing the theories of Mr. Corkey, and demanding 
 that he may not be condemned until his case 
 was, as we put it, " sat upon." 
 
 This was a " pleasant surrender," said the 
 professor, who was not slow to send me, hastily, 
 the following note:
 
 THE RETURN OF CORKEY SLITHERS. 147 
 
 " Hunter's Paradise, 
 
 " Wednesday. 
 "DEAR DOCTOR: 
 
 " Quid pro quo. You are respectfully invited to my 
 seance to-night, which begins at nine, and is under the 
 control of Benjamin Franklin. 
 
 ' Sweet voices will speak to thee 
 
 From out the other shore 
 Sweet voices will speak to thee 
 And tell of days of yore.' 
 
 " CORKEY SLITHERS, T. O. S." 
 
 I persuaded a few friends to join me, among 
 them, by hard work, Joel Spratt. Jim Weeks, 
 as he always is, was willing to go where a bit 
 of fun might be started. As the night was 
 cold, I had an opportunity to wear my big 
 buffalo-coat, whose pockets were, as well befits 
 a country doctor's, capacious. Keeping my own 
 mind, I slipped into one of them what I had 
 long planned should be used to test Corkey's 
 marvels. 
 
 We quietly sauntered down the street, calling 
 at the post-office to take Buttons, whose laugh- 
 ing fellowship was much in a crowd. 
 
 The professor was located in one of the ordi- 
 nary log houses. 
 
 He had, with an eye to business, decorated 
 the homely abode with bunting, nailed a flag
 
 148 THE RETURN OF CORKEY SLITHERS. 
 
 with the mystic T. O. S. to the chimney, while 
 bills hanging from the door told of him as 
 " the bright particular star in the firmament of 
 occultic wisdom, the Stanley in the field of psy- 
 chology." 
 
 Corkey was there to meet and invite us "to 
 the most rigorous investigation, in order that we 
 should return to our homes with our precon- 
 ceived vulgar notions and deceits fully eradi- 
 cated." " You are free, gentlemen," he con- 
 tinued. "In fact, I invite the most thorough 
 scientific researches. Scoffers," casting a wither- 
 ing eye on Spratt, " shall pensively return to 
 their homes to-night, muttering, as they go, the 
 imperishable thought of William Shakespeare, 
 ' What fools we mortals be ! ' 
 
 The inside was tastefully decorated, for our 
 parts, with pictures that the professor claimed 
 were the work of the spirits, who, in their leisure 
 moments, had given their time to ornament the 
 chapel of their votary. 
 
 The house was divided into two apartments : 
 one for receiving visitors, containing chairs, a 
 table strewn with correspondence, a writing-desk, 
 where the professor, wheeling in his chair, trans- 
 acted, as he termed it, " his multifarious busi- 
 ness." His desk was ornamented by a bust of
 
 THE RETURN OF CORKEY SLITHERS. 149 
 
 Benjamin Franklin, the presiding deity of the 
 place. 
 
 Corkey was on the most intimate terms with 
 the philosopher, as was evidenced by his address- 
 ing him : " Benny, say out your say, old boy," 
 or, " Governor, do your duty." Let it be 
 written, also, that the professor had no fear in 
 the presence of the mightiest of our race. 
 Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Pompey, Napo- 
 leon, Wellington, and Grant came at his sweet 
 will and conversed on the most trivial things, 
 in the most peculiar way. On one occasion the 
 victor of Waterloo was known to give valuable 
 hints on hop-raising. It is needless to say that 
 Wellington became a general favorite, from his 
 kindly interest in the people of Squidville. 
 
 It was, as Slithers well put it, "a wonderful 
 change in spirit-land that made a warrior bold 
 and brave become a man of peace and betake 
 himself to the study of hops." That he had 
 made no ordinary progress, was well shown by 
 his practical hints about manuring the vines, 
 cultivating between the rows, and spraying them 
 often. 
 
 The other room was small, and was used 
 for sittings. The little window that lit it was 
 boarded up in such a way that not a glimmer of
 
 150 THE RETURN OF CORKEY SLITHERS. 
 
 light was possible. In this room was a plain deal 
 table about twelve feet long, and known as the 
 "seance-table." Rough, backless seats ran along 
 this table for the investigators who were satis- 
 fied with rapping, table-tapping, and, to use the 
 language of the professor, " kindred phenomena." 
 
 In this room " ponderable bodies without 
 appreciable agency in the presence of Corkey 
 Slithers were to be moved." For the more 
 sceptical there was a cabinet in one corner, 
 where material manifestations were given, where 
 the " disembodied spirits put on the corporeal 
 for better identification, and came to breathe to 
 their living dear ones messages of hope and 
 guarantees of immortality." Another article in 
 this room, that played an important part, was 
 an automaton music-box. 
 
 Corkey held that " spirits were extremely sus- 
 ceptible to music, that they took to it as a duck 
 to water, that it was in fact their element." 
 Declaring himself " the concatenation of medium- 
 istic powers," being a musical, writing, speak- 
 ing, drawing, and healing medium, he was duly 
 qualified to make this announcement. 
 
 The entrance-fee to this mystic shrine was the 
 sum of one dollar, prepaid, the rest of the house 
 " being free at a quarter prepaid."
 
 THE RETURN OF CORKEY SLITHERS. 151 
 
 " Let us go the apple-core at once, Slithers," 
 said Buttons, handing him a dollar, followed by 
 our party with an alacrity that brought a sparkle 
 to his eyes. 
 
 " That is true student-form," said the pro- 
 fessor. "It is readily seen you are the type of 
 investigators welcomed by every teacher of oc- 
 cultic science who yearns to conquer an empire 
 for his new art. Gentlemen, be seated within. 
 The benches will accommodate your party very 
 easily. I do not apologize for the poor furni- 
 ture, as spirits, free, untrammelled from flesh- 
 desires, no longer hunger for the flesh-pots of 
 Egypt. I believe the deacon may accuse me 
 of being biblical. I am proud to own that 
 that book is at my fingers' ends, as is most 
 books." Here he coughed, and waited for our 
 praise. Seeing that his bait was not a lure, 
 he continued: 
 
 " Gentlemen, to business. Honest investiga- 
 tors, in the name of Benjamin Franklin I bid 
 you welcome, and shall give every opportunity 
 that honesty can ask for a free and full inves- 
 tigation. Gentlemen, there are conditions for a 
 seance that the medium must demand. Elec- 
 tricity requires wires to give the distant message, 
 seed darkness to germinate, sunlight to grow.
 
 152 THE RETURN OF CORKEY SLITHERS. 
 
 Nature has her conditions, and only when these 
 are fulfilled does she deign to unfold herself. 
 Am I distinctly and pertinently understood?" 
 Noting that no one rose to offer comment, he 
 continued : 
 
 " Darkness is a necessary condition for physi- 
 cal manifestations, and I assume and insist upon 
 that condition. That is all. You are free, 
 before the seance, to poke into every hole and 
 corner, that you may satisfy yourself of the 
 genuineness of the seance you are about to 
 witness. Buttons, bring in a lamp. Deacon, 
 leave nothing in this chamber untouched. You 
 hold the negative of my affirmative, and hence 
 it is your duty to know that there can be no 
 room for trickery. ' ' 
 
 It was at this time that Buttons remarked 
 to me that the nail of the little finger of the 
 professor's right hand was " uncommonly long 
 and pointed." I made a mental registry, and, 
 with a sharp shot of my eyes, verified it. The 
 search of the deacon revealed nothing that might 
 assist in roguery. We were ready, and, joined 
 by a few irritable-looking ladies, sat around the 
 table in utter darkness, hands touching, hearts 
 beating, those of the women being audible, 
 waiting a sign. The spirits were, to use Corkey's
 
 THE RETURN OF CORKEY SLITHERS. 153 
 
 words, " unable to make connection" for a long 
 time. It seemed to me hours. During this sit- 
 ting I had this thought, which afterwards was 
 pencilled in my diary: " Solitary confinement is 
 odious to humanity." To rouse the spirits the 
 professor resorted to his music-box, grinding 
 out " Sweet Marie," and this failing proposed 
 that the company should join in song, leading 
 off with " Nearer, my God, to Thee." This 
 hymn exhausted his supply, but the singing of 
 " Marching Through Georgia" and " Suwanec 
 River" was kept up by the lusty throat of 
 William Buttons. 
 
 Finally there was a jerk at the table. With 
 it song ceased and a dead silence pervaded the 
 room. This silence was broken by the low 
 moan of one of the ladies, who swayed to and 
 fro, giving a motion to the table, and exciting 
 her companion to such a state that she saw 
 stars dancing over my head, and heard voices 
 giving messages. Her excitement and utterances 
 had a nervous effect on the deacon, who began 
 to sway and mutter. I was as cool as a cucum- 
 ber, while Buttons, who sat by ray right, and 
 whose hands touched mine, was equally cool 
 claiming that the stars " couldn't be over my 
 skull, or his eyes would twig them in a jiffy."
 
 154 THE RETURN OF CORKEY SLITHERS. 
 
 Soon there was a faint rapping rather scratch- 
 ing on the table. " If you are a spirit give 
 three raps," said the professor, who had left 
 the table. The raps came. " Who are you ? 
 Let me run over the alphabet." 
 
 This was done, and Percy Jenkins' name 
 spelled out. We all knew Percy as a big- 
 hearted fellow, who hadn't much here, and we 
 were anxious to hear how he thrived on the 
 other side. 
 
 " Ask him, Slithers," said Buttons, " how 
 does he like his new job, or if he is working at 
 all. You know he wasn't much of a hand over 
 here." 
 
 He had hardly spoken when one of the ladies 
 yelled, " There he is ! by the side of Deacon 
 Spratt ! circling round and round like a butter- 
 fly !" 
 
 Sure enough, there he was, staggering even 
 Buttons, who could not but say, " This beats 
 the devil ! " 
 
 It was then that I carefully drew my syringe 
 from my big pocket, charged as it was with 
 burning chemicals, and watched my opportunity. 
 It was not long in coming. Suddenly a cold 
 hand touched my ear, and a luminous face 
 peered into mine. " Now or never," said I
 
 THE RETURN OF CORKEY SLITHERS. 155 
 
 as I squirted the syringe's contents into the 
 vanishing face. 
 
 There was a wild, agonized yell, and a fall- 
 ing as if the cabinet was tumbling down. 
 
 I jumped from my seat, ran for the lamp, 
 and threw its light on the suspected corner. 
 There, with his hands pressed heavily to his 
 face, screaming with pain, crouched Corkey 
 Slithers in a long, white nightshirt, "decorated," 
 as Buttons said, " for the event." 
 
 Piteously he begged for mercy, a little oint- 
 ment to ease the pain, and a few hours to 
 leave town forever all of which I readily granted 
 in memory of other days when he was a better 
 man. 
 
 * " Well, I never thought that of Corkey," 
 said Buttons. " I know now who done the 
 rapping; that nail of his ain't long for nothing." 
 
 " Your humbuggery has cost you dearly," 
 said the deacon. " Yes; humbuggery, Corkey ! 
 Yes ! you are a man of sin, and I beseech 
 you to repent, for you know not when the 
 hand of the Lord will smite you in His wrath." 
 
 " True for you," said Buttons. " This, kind 
 of capering can bring no good." 
 
 Corkey sobbed like a whipped child, and offered 
 to give up our money.
 
 156 THE RETURN OF CORKEY SLITHERS. 
 
 " Come, boys," said I, " leave him to his 
 own thoughts. And as to the money you will 
 need it, Corkey, to carry you far away from 
 Squidville the farther the better." 
 
 " Honesty is the best policy," said the dea- 
 con as we wended our way home. 
 
 Buttons, always fighting for the under dog, in 
 bidding us good-night, said, " Poor, burned 
 Corkey ! How will he get to the railway ? And 
 if he's around when folks get up they'll murder 
 him. It's only last Sunday I heard Pere Monnier 
 say, ' Lend a helping hand to the weak and 
 fallen.' I I have half a mind to hitch up and 
 take him to safety." 
 
 Slithers by the morning had vanished, leaving 
 masks, headgear, crowns of every description, and 
 a brass sign advertising " Corkey Slithers 
 Teacher of Occultic Science," to pay his board- 
 bill.
 
 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 157 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 
 
 IT was his way, Pere Monnier's way, to pay 
 an annual visit to Montreal. As he used to 
 say, " A man should keep in touch with civil- 
 ization, if it was only for a few days every 
 twelvemonth." 
 
 Old Anna, the good priest's housekeeper, 
 thought differently, and was often heard to say, 
 even in his presence, that it was a mad rush for 
 old and half-backed books that took him to the 
 city. If her position was disputed, as it was 
 sure to be, by Napoleon, the man servant, she 
 would tap her old carpet-slipper quickly on the 
 floor, and, turning with a sarcastic twist from his 
 tantalizing words, poke the fire, nodding her 
 head and muttering: 
 
 " Books, ay, books ! If he hadn't enough 
 of them ! Books ! You cannot stir for them ! 
 Picked up everywhere, poking on his knees in 
 every old store, paying his good money, and 
 carting them here as if they were gold. Books !
 
 158 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 
 
 Many's the one's head they have put out of 
 kilter." 
 
 The pere's only response to such tirades from 
 his constant friend was a hearty laugh, the lift- 
 ing of some old half-clad tome, and shaking it 
 at her. She feared " the black art that slept 
 between the leaves," and a shake was enough 
 to silence one whose policy was, " It's better to 
 be quiet if your noise troubles your betters." 
 
 Not a few of Pere Monnier's parishioners 
 thought as Anna did, as was shown by the 
 presents they brought their pastor. If they were 
 from home any length of time, they were sure 
 to return with some book or other, fished from 
 a dust-heap in some old book-stall. The more 
 worn and foxed the better it was thought to 
 please the pere. They had an idea that books, 
 like wine, grow with age. They grasped a truth. 
 From such a strange way of increasing his 
 library many "queer customers" stood shoulder 
 to shoulder : Byron a helpmate to a stray copy 
 of Jeremy Taylor; the Summa of St. Thomas 
 supporting the arch scoffer Voltaire ; rollicking 
 Lever in his shirt-sleeves bending over Gury. 
 Each book, strange as his housing, was known to 
 the pere, who had a tale of how Le Roy 
 brought this raggy fellow as a New Year's gift,
 
 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 159 
 
 or how Rosalie found that giant bursting with 
 syllogisms modestly sleeping beneath a heap of 
 modern romances and Montreal dust. He was 
 proud of his books, and boasted of the intui- 
 tive taste of his parishioners, who so easily dis- 
 cerned, amid lesser lights, the sleeping wizards 
 of the olden time. 
 
 Whether for books, or to rub against civiliza- 
 tion for a few days, the evidence favoring the 
 former, Pere Monnier, leaving his little property 
 in the safe custody of Napoleon and Anna, 
 had gone to Montreal. It was winter-time, 
 to him the most pleasant of the seasons. The 
 land lay white in snow. The bare and bold 
 mountains were covered with the same soft man- 
 tlek Trees wove around their nakedness many 
 a fantastic ice design, prettier than their green 
 summer gown. The rivers and ponds were the 
 scenes of skating-tournaments, the music, the 
 merry, laughing voices of the young. On the 
 roads sleigh-bells jingled, while the light and 
 graceful cutters, bowing to each other, gave the 
 occupants a moment of banter. 
 
 Holding up a red pocket-handkerchief, by the 
 side of the little coal-box station, as the Mon- 
 treal train was rounding the curve, the engine 
 slackened pace, and soon, puffing and panting,
 
 160 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 
 
 stopped at the station. Pere Monnier, with a 
 bow to the conductor, entered the car, and was 
 soon lost in his Breviary. Trie scenery along 
 the route, for the most part picturesque, was so 
 well known to him that he preferred to finish 
 his ' ' office ' ' rather than chat with old friends 
 and evoke old memories. Being well known, he 
 had to endure what that entails a touch on 
 the shoulder, a slight tap on the back, a warm 
 hand-squeeze, and many a hearty bon jour. 
 These salutations were always followed by the 
 pere's rapid cross-examining as to the health, 
 wealth, gladness, or sorrow of the family, and 
 they not infrequently ended by whispering into 
 the pere's ear, " My son Johnny [or, " My 
 daughter Eliza "] has a book as long as my arm, 
 and as thick as my calf, full of gosh queer 
 lettering for M. le Cure." How the cross- 
 examiner's eyes would flash as his mind wan- 
 dered to his library, and speculated on what 
 shelf could he find room for the latest love- 
 token ! 
 
 Soon St. Henri was passed, and the pere, 
 opening his little grip, put away his Breviary, 
 and was ready when the porter called out, 
 " Montreal Bonaventura station ! All out ! 
 This way, sir !"
 
 AN OLD MUSICIAN. l6l 
 
 In another moment he was one of a half-run- 
 ning, eager crowd, peering this and that way, 
 some to discover friends, others as if in a 
 moment they could tell what a Canadian city 
 and people were like. Sleighs were ready, and 
 warm furs to wrap, and furry men with red or 
 black toques to persuade, argue, threaten, grab 
 your bag, and if they succeeded in seating you 
 in their sleigh to purr like a cat, mount the 
 dickey, make faces at their beaten rival, sing- 
 ing some familiar Canadian ditty. 
 
 But Pere Monnier resisted alike persuasion, 
 argument, and threat. He preferred to saunter 
 slowly through the streets. Being a man fond 
 of humankind, and with but few opportunities 
 of contact with human nature of a type differ- 
 ent from that to be seen in his own little 
 mountain parish, he enjoyed the sight of the 
 many faces to be met upon the busy thor- 
 oughfares and the quiet streets of the great 
 city. It was not only books that he gathered 
 up and took home with him from these period- 
 kal visits, but recollections of faces, and char- 
 acters, and sayings that remained fresh ever 
 after. It was a good hour from the midday 
 meal, and in that time his sauntering would 
 bring him to St. Patrice, where a hearty greet-
 
 162 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 
 
 ing was sure to await him. He had not gone 
 far when his eyes, so quick when sinners or 
 books were their objects, greeted an old book- 
 store and curio-shop. It was a find, and, ex- 
 plorer as he was, he would enter and note it 
 on his map. In front of the door were two 
 rickety deal tables, one lacking a foot, and lean- 
 ing so heavily to the maimed side that the 
 slightest touch gave the onlooker an awkward 
 feeling at the groundward movement of its con- 
 tents. By the dexterous use of a string, and the 
 keen eye of the bookseller, the falling proved 
 delusive, and many a passer-by was saved an 
 apology. The tables were covered by well- 
 thumbed, badly written stories in rough paper 
 covers, with a few coatless religious works to 
 keep the motley throng in order. The inside 
 corresponded to the outside in pleasing con- 
 fusion. The store was long and narrow, and 
 every nook was ingeniously utilized. Shelf after 
 shelf crept up the wall, bulging full of worth 
 and trash lovingly hugging each other. It was 
 a strange mingling of brain-children, who spat 
 spleen at each other in life, standing shoulder 
 to shoulder, presenting a stiff line to dust and 
 flies. And what a friendship ! When one was 
 taken, how lonely and sad looked his compan-
 
 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 163 
 
 ions, and how quickly they closed ranks ! The 
 floor was equally interesting: a huge clock of 
 the seventeenth century, once the possession of 
 a famous French beauty, solemnly ticking time 
 and life away; an armchair, cracked, squeaky, 
 and soiled, whereon the chivalrous Champlain 
 once sat; a sword, good, bright, and trusty, of 
 Maisonneuve; a little silver crucifix of the gallant 
 Brebeuf; a gold medal of Marguerite Bour- 
 geoys; a cane of Montcalm; Montgomery's cap; 
 ancient china, rare dishes, Japanese ware, Indian 
 relics, bits of rare-colored carpets, daggers, 
 pistols, long-barrelled guns, water-colored daubs, 
 engravings, something to catch civilized and sav- 
 age, a medley of climes and times, history that 
 is" mute. 
 
 Amidst these sat, or walked, the old book- 
 seller, wise and witty, genial to the lovers of 
 things artistic, a hater of pretensions and super- 
 ficial book-knowledge. He was of an old school, 
 and would not sell a rare book to a dunce. 
 He read a face as easily as he told the time 
 of his clock. No one was importuned to buy, 
 and every article had its price plainly marked. 
 That price was honest, and no amount of per- 
 suasion could change it. 
 
 " Talk, sir, has no effect on my prices; they
 
 164 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 
 
 are honest, sir a bare living; you see, I have 
 to deal in all things to do it. I guarantee that 
 you shall find your purchase what it was bought 
 for; that is John Thompson's reputation; it was 
 my father's, who kept sixty years in Edinburgh, 
 friend of Wally Scott, sir, who gave him that 
 reputation." 
 
 That bit of personal history was a warning to 
 the purchaser to buy at the marked price or 
 to go elsewhere. To the genuine book-lover 
 what hand was warmer, whose eyes were brighter, 
 than those of honest John Thompson ? He lies 
 in Mount Royal, sleeping these many years, 
 but how plainly his figure comes to me as I 
 write. I see the lithe and supple frame, bent 
 a bit by age, clad in the loved Scotch tweed 
 " sent from hame by Brother Jed," as he used 
 to say with a long Scotch drawl ; the talking, 
 merry blue eyes that told a story quicker than 
 the tongue, and with more art; the domelike 
 skull well thatched by long, glossy white hair, 
 fringing his tam-o'-shanter cap. It was love at 
 first sight between the warm-hearted pere and 
 the honest Scotchman. 
 
 " Just look around and see if I have not 
 something that you need. I know you want 
 no help. You'll find a step-ladder that will
 
 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 165 
 
 take you to the roof a little shaky, but safe. 
 A bookman like you, pre, needs no ladder. 
 Christopher North, when climbing like a monkey 
 from one book-shelf to another, used to say to 
 my father : 
 
 " ' Donald, maun, there's nothing hard to 
 mortals; ay, maun, there's something in that 
 same saying. 
 
 A breaking of words to win the pere's heart. 
 
 " I will do so, and I warrant if I want a 
 book I can imitate the monkey-movements of 
 Christopher North," rejoined Pere Monnier. 
 
 " As I think of it," said the bookseller, " I 
 have a splendid edition of Lactantius, Oxford 
 copy, 1684, best edition. How thoroughly they 
 made books in those days ! Those that survive 
 have, as Hazlitt says, ' the pure, silent air of 
 immortality.' Like him, I hate the dust and 
 smoke and noise of modern literature, froth, 
 puffery, skim-milk, waste paper, stuff to light 
 the morning fires with. Yes, sir, but Wally 
 Scott, Bobbie Burns ay, even Charlie Dickens, 
 that they hoot nowadays as a sentimentalist, 
 will live. They will bury your realists: little 
 Nell cannot be snuffed out by every tasteless 
 brat that dirties paper. But let me show you 
 Lactantius. It once had a place in Sterne's
 
 l66 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 
 
 library; strange, is it not? His name is written 
 on the fly-leaf; yes, yes, Laurence Sterne, author 
 of " Tristram Shandy." Who writes a book like 
 that nowadays ? Listen to your little men criti- 
 cising him ; they say ' he is bound to die ' 
 nonsense ! star-bombarding. I would not want 
 to see one of those mannikins enter my store. 
 Let him do his prating; there will always be 
 some one to need stove-paper." 
 
 The old bookman laughed, and bent over his 
 desk. As he did so a thin, spare figure entered, 
 wrapped tightly in an old brown cloak, carrying 
 a little package carelessly folded in an old news- 
 paper. He swept his large, lustrous almond eyes 
 on every nook of the book-store, and then with 
 a strange, hurrying step and startled face expres- 
 sion, brushed past Pere Monnier, and dropped 
 gracefully into the chair of Geoffrey Champlain. 
 
 " Here, pere," said the bookseller, " is Lac- 
 tantius; see Sterne's handwriting ! Take a seat 
 and examine it. I want to see what I can do 
 for Count Henry. Poor fellow ! titles don't 
 amount to much when there is nothing in the 
 pocketbook." 
 
 These last words were whispered in the pere's 
 ear. 
 
 Great as Pere Monnier's love was for books,
 
 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 167 
 
 it was greater for men. He merely glanced at 
 the Lactantius, and used it as a screen to 
 cover his real thought, which was a growing 
 interest in the ill-clad but noble occupant of 
 Champlain's chair. 
 
 " Bon jour, Count Henry ! A raw day for 
 you to be around. I have not sold the book, 
 but will; it's rare." 
 
 " That is sad to me," said the count, bend- 
 ing his head, his long, bony fingers playing with 
 the package. By the peculiar emphasis placed 
 on some word and his use of the pronoun, it 
 was easy to tell that he was a foreigner whose 
 book English was better than his colloquial. 
 
 ' I do so wish it to be sold; my circumstance 
 i* so poor, and the Brunetaires will make me 
 to pay my chamber or leave it to-day. It is 
 so sad to me," and tears, little glassy globules, 
 pin-points, came to the corner of his eyes, ran 
 into a furrow, waited for comrades, and then, 
 embracing, sped down his cheek. 
 
 " There is much douleur in life, Mr. Thomp- 
 son, but " and with an innate air of nobleness 
 he drew his old cloak closer and prepared to 
 withdraw. He bit his talk; what use to air 
 sorrow ? No man cares to accept another's bur- 
 den, and listening to another's ills is wearisome.
 
 1 68 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 
 
 The world's salve, like patent medicine, is for 
 all complaints. Its label is marked " Suffer." 
 It either kills or cures a blessing on either 
 hand. 
 
 As he arose his shoes, leaky, giving glimpses 
 of torn stockings wet with the melting snows, 
 were shuffled backwards to hide their awkward- 
 ness, while the parcel was drawn beneath the 
 cloak, and the startled look blotted out on 
 Champlain's chair crept into the eyes, and lit 
 up the olive wrinkles. 
 
 " How much is this book ? " asked Pere 
 Monnier, holding up a well-clad tome. 
 
 " Peut-etre," murmured the count, arresting 
 his footsteps. 
 
 " Sell it very cheap," said the bookman, 
 " yes, very cheap, and glad that a man like you 
 will get it. That's a handsome copy, sir a 
 bargain an ornament to a library. It is not 
 one of my books, so I can plead and show it 
 off. Open it. Corneille, the great Corneille. 
 Life by Fontanelle. Let me whisper in your 
 ear the price." 
 
 " No need, Mr. Thompson, I'll take it at your 
 value." 
 
 " Vraiment ? " uttered the count. 
 
 " Perhaps," said the bookseller, " the count
 
 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 169 
 
 might find in you a purchaser for a few other 
 
 rare books. Count, this is a Rev. Mr. 
 
 from the States. I was so busy talking of one 
 thing or another that I forgot to ask his name, 
 a sure sign he interested old Thompson." 
 
 The count bowed, saying: 
 
 " You do me the pleasure to acquaint. I 
 know of your land; it is beautiful, full of in- 
 telligence. But the books of it, I have few. 
 Circumstance, monsieur, is very afflicting on me." 
 
 He drew out the parcel, untied it, gazed on 
 his last treasures with eyes charged -with the 
 heart's electricity. Then said: 
 
 " The final of my library. Voil&, monsieur," 
 and his head turned away. 
 ^ " Your old friend Dante," said the bookseller. 
 
 " Out, out, monsieur. I loved him for his 
 pens6e, and souvenir of days that will never, 
 never come back to me. While I could keep 
 him I did not feel the douleur of parting with 
 my library, yet it was much to me; but the 
 master was comfort now adieu, monsieur, you 
 know him who ' sovra gli altri come aquila vola* 
 Let me see him again. You will be careful of 
 him; here is a baize to cover him." 
 
 " Count," remarked the bookman, " the gen- 
 tleman may not wish to buy."
 
 170 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 
 
 " Pardon, pardon," he answered, tapping his 
 forehead; " my emotion makes me forget. Par- 
 don, monsieur; circumstance is sad to me." 
 
 " I will buy," said Pere Monnier. " Make 
 the price, Mr. Thompson." 
 
 " Here it is," said the bookman, handing 
 the pere a piece of paper. 
 
 "Very, very cheap," said the pere. " Here 
 is the money." 
 
 " Give it to the count," said the bookseller. 
 
 " Merci ! merci ! monsieur," said the count; 
 "you have done me much to-day; my heart is 
 full. Bon jour." 
 
 "Strange man," said the bookseller "a 
 man with a history. Poverty is a leveller, no 
 doubt of that, but as Bobbie Burns says some- 
 where : ' Nature wrote the man on every feature. ' 
 Poverty degrades rogues, not men. The count 
 well, I must look him up; his books sold, 
 means near the end. I have little to spare, 
 but it's not Thompson to see such a man beg- 
 ging. Begging, did I say ? Nonsense ! The 
 count beg ? He couldn't do it. I must look 
 him up. Men of his stamp die in garrets 
 without a whimper; it's the curs that give 
 tongue. ' ' 
 
 His moralizing was cut short by Pere Monnier's
 
 AN OLD MUSICIAN. I? I 
 
 request to tie up the books, and keep them 
 until he should call. 
 
 " All right, reverend," was the blithe reply. 
 The pere sallied forth; the bookman eased his 
 mind with a song of home: 
 
 " Symon Brodie had a cow. 
 
 The cow was lost, and he could na find her ; 
 When he had done what man could do 
 The cow cam hame, and her tail behind her." 
 
 He whistled the chorus, waiting for a new 
 customer. 
 
 Pere Monnier's brisk walking soon brought 
 him in sight of the count standing in front of 
 a baker's shop, gleeful as a child, snuffing the 
 delicious smells. He could see him draw out 
 ther purse and fumble for a coin, make a mo- 
 tion as if to go, then remain still. Were the 
 future and the Brunetaires ominously shaping 
 themselves in his mind ? Hunger and honesty 
 gnawed him. His first duty was to pay the 
 irascible Madame Brunetaire. So he moved on, 
 closely followed by the pere. He seemed in 
 no great hurry; his homeward journey became 
 a strange roundabout by alleys and small streets. 
 Shabbiness avoids highways and glare. At length 
 he turned into a small street, quickened his pace, 
 until in front of a church door he suddenly
 
 172 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 
 
 stopped, and, leaning against the railing, listened 
 to Gounod's Ave Maria stealing through the 
 aisles, melting into the snowflakes around him. 
 As the music died away he entered the church, 
 wending his way slowly, his head down, his 
 heart oppressed by memories, and knelt in front 
 of a little altar by a swinging red lamp. Aris- 
 ing in a few minutes, he piteously looked in 
 the direction of the choir, as if begging for 
 music. None came, save the loose beat of his 
 old shoes on the wooden floor. Down the aisle 
 and out, the wild look blotted from his eyes, 
 the old cloak a little loose, and the old shoes 
 more shown. 
 
 "Bless me!" said the pere, "this is St. 
 Patrice; but it is long after the dinner-hour, 
 and I'm bound to wind this matter up. It 
 will be a tale worth telling my good friend, and 
 ample apology for an old trick of mine, dinner- 
 missing. ' ' 
 
 The count had turned a corner, and was now 
 in a shabby, dirty part of Lagauchetiere Street. 
 A few steps, he entered an open door decay- 
 ing on its hinges, mounted a staircase lurched 
 many feet from the wall, its natural support, 
 and was soon lost to view. Pere Monnier had 
 his foot on the first step when a shrill, shrieking
 
 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 173 
 
 voice from a little wrinkled mouth shouted in 
 Quebecquois French : 
 
 " Monsieur the Count ! Come down at once, 
 and pay or get ! That's my terms." 
 
 All of the commander's person visible at the 
 door was a bit of slippered foot, a wrinkled 
 mouth, a nose, and two gray eyes, cunning as 
 a fox's. Seeing her mistake, she slammed the 
 scarcely open door, shutting shriek and beauty 
 from the well-pleased pere. It was Madame 
 Brunetaire on her most orderly parade. Her 
 shriek brought the count from his seclusion. It 
 was a tocsin blast that no inmate could scorn. 
 Bad as it was, the presence of the commander, 
 which followed its disloyalty, was worse. Of 
 tw<5 evils the count chose the lesser. Purse in 
 hand, jingling the dollars, sweetest music to 
 soothe madame, music that would wreathe her 
 shattered homeliness with sunny smiles, he left 
 the room and met Pere Monnier on the stair. 
 The startled look bounded to his eyes. 
 
 "Does monsieur regret his bargain?" he 
 falteringly asked. 
 
 " By no means, count; I just came to visit," 
 was heartily delivered by the pere. " I take an 
 interest in every man, much more in a country- 
 man and scholar."
 
 174 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 
 
 " Ah, M. le Cure, you do me the grand 
 honor, but I have it not in my power to re- 
 ceive you. Circumstance is very, very sad to 
 me. I cannot ask you to my chamber it is 
 most miserable; but I have the grand confi- 
 dence that I will be better, monsieur; circum- 
 stances will not always be cruel to me. It is 
 to me the one grand consolation that the 
 deepest misery has an end. Human douleur 
 goes away with life. Death will cure me. 
 Hear, monsieur, a line from my Corneille: l je 
 te I'avoue, mon ami ! mon mat est incurable. ' 
 Pardon ! Madame calls; she will come. Pardon ! 
 she will come." 
 
 " Let her," said the pere, laughing; " a 
 woman that can let such a shriek is worthy 
 of study." 
 
 " I fear she will come. Pardon ! monsieur," 
 muttered the count. 
 
 " Well," continued the pere, " I have a little 
 home, a poor but cosey little church, warm- 
 hearted parishioners, books in all tongues and 
 dresses. I want an organist. You are a musi- 
 cian. Why not come home with me and be a 
 friend and companion, read your Dante, and be 
 as happy as you can ? I will settle with madame. 
 You keep your little store. I don't want to
 
 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 175 
 
 recommend myself, but I will say that you will 
 not find me unkind or harsh. Say yes." 
 
 The count hesitated. Madame's voice swept 
 the stair, a creaking door told of her coming. 
 
 " Say yes," said the pere; " the train leaves 
 in an hour. 
 
 " Monsieur, je dis," rose the madame's voice. 
 
 " Say yes," repeated the pere. 
 
 Tears filled the count's eyes, and stole down 
 bis cheeks. He shook his head; Pere Monnier 
 read yes. 
 
 " Je dis," said madame. 
 
 " Out, out," laughingly retorted the pere. 
 
 We are the victims of periodical fads. A 
 few years ago it was haste to the seashore to 
 find health, bathe in the breakers and gain 
 strength. All that has changed. Newspapers 
 and are not they omnipotent ? declare that the 
 seashore is unhealthy. Microbes hold their annual 
 convention by the loud, roaring sea; colored 
 folk find religion by its surf, and jaunty Jews 
 there elbow too closely mushroom respectability. 
 All things change, as change they must so goes 
 the song; the popular tune is, Heigh-ho to the 
 mountains. Respectability there has full length
 
 176 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 
 
 to swing its train, and, what is more gratifying, 
 unbridled opportunity to waste its pocketbook. 
 Inducements as these have crowded our moun- 
 tains with a peculiar class of aristocrats, who 
 quite naturally treat the inhabitants as bar- 
 barians. These Greeks, sallow and gaunt for 
 the most part, Sangrado types, swarm on the 
 lakes by day, reading cheap realism in yellow 
 covers, by night singing sentimental songs to the 
 tattered notes of a loose-stringed guitar. We 
 mountaineers laugh a mental laugh, the face as 
 serious as that of a bishop taking his see, use the 
 waste for many a needful thing, hoist ropes, spread 
 tents gladly for these summer circuses. I wrote 
 gladly; I was going to explain, but let the word 
 stand while I add, if the pay-car accompanies 
 each show. That is mercenary, you say; tell it 
 to the mountaineer, and, like the traditional Celt, 
 he will respond by asking, " Don't you think, 
 sir, our company's worth something?" On your 
 answer will depend whether you are a Greek or 
 brother barbarian. Pere Monnier lived in the 
 mountains, but in a secret nook unknown to the 
 Greeks. There was no noise in the woods save 
 that of pleasantry, singing birds, chattering squir- 
 rels, mumbling coons, with not unfrequently the 
 soft musical bleat of the doe calling her fawns
 
 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 177 
 
 to covert and rest. The brooks and lakes were 
 well stocked with fish, and their banks with the 
 wily musk-rat, the saucy minx, and the unsocial 
 otter. The woodsman's axe had not strewn the 
 mountains with giant trees for lumber or pulp- 
 wood; aloft they pointed with all their gracious 
 majesty, true guards of the mountains in their 
 merry green downs. Respectability had not shot 
 the warbling tribe in order to decorate spinsters' 
 hats, nor slaughtered fish to gain the empty 
 name of crack sportsman. Deer were not hur- 
 ried and worried to death by a mongrel crowd 
 of curs running at fifty cents a day, choice 
 game for those who crowded the lakes and were 
 in as much danger of shooting each other as 
 shooting the dog-run deer. Respectability had 
 not found this nook. She will, but the pere 
 will not know of her coming a blessing for 
 which he earnestly prayed. 
 
 Three years had passed three years of peace 
 and piety for M. le Comte. He had become 
 attached to the pere, loved the little, homely, 
 wooden church, and played its organ with as 
 much enthusiasm as in the days when brave 
 men applauded, and fair ladies waited in sun-
 
 178 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 
 
 shine and rain to kiss his hand. The parish- 
 ioners, sturdy fellows and comely women, saw 
 in him a scion of old France that France 
 long lost, but near and dear to every Canadian 
 heart. 
 
 Blood and nobility, even in our plebeian age, 
 count. Monsieur was, as they said, a French 
 Frenchman, and let any of the Yankees come 
 up to him. It was their mode of speaking, a 
 challenge to the saucy Yankee who had so often 
 derided their race and language. Monsieur le 
 Comte was not cold to their warmth. Like 
 most men, he held that blood meant more than 
 water. Canada was the daughter of France, 
 her ways and half-bitten French awoke but 
 memories of the fatherland. He was growing old 
 gracefully, and priest and people were happy 
 dreaming of years and Monsieur le Comte. 
 
 It was a summer habit of Pere Monnier 
 habits differ in season to walk in his garden 
 every evening, reciting the Breviary, now and 
 then bowing to a lily, touching lightly a sweet- 
 briar rose, or watching that bit of sunshine, 
 the golden robin fall from a tree, adding color 
 to a bed of poppies, or listening to his sombre- 
 clad namesake from a leafless maple twig sing 
 sweet roundelays to his brooding spouse. It
 
 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 179 
 
 was M. le Comte's delight, on such occasions, 
 to steal to the organ-loft, after opening every 
 window and door, and touch the keys, sending 
 the spirit of music on hushed wings through the 
 garden, giving a new meaning to flowers, a truer 
 insight to bird-songs, a soul to the Breviary's 
 printed page. How often had Pere Monnier 
 tried to give this divine feeling a name ! But, 
 baffled, he used this word-language to stimu- 
 late his memory, " A subtle something as easy 
 to capture as to define." It is vague, but let 
 the critic be reminded that it is a trifle hard to 
 put your word-drapery on a spirit. In his 
 failure of expression he found comfort quoting 
 Collins* lines: 
 
 " Exalting, trembling, raging, fainting, 
 Possesst beyond the Muse's painting." 
 
 It was after one of these scenes that Mon- 
 sieur le Comte, accompanied by a huge mastiff 
 the parish dog joined the pere. 
 
 " Well, well ! Yes, well, well ! how prosaic ! 
 But that is all the criticism I can sputter out 
 when you play." 
 
 " Ah, M. le Cure", it is to me much. The 
 eyes have given to me the best compliments. 
 It is easy to make nice words, but intelligence 
 talks with the eyes. The mouth deceives, the
 
 l8o AN OLD MUSICIAN. 
 
 eye never, never; ignorance or knowledge, 
 M. le Cur6, is the flashlight." 
 
 They had dropped into a rustic settee, shaded 
 by a huge maple tree. 
 
 " That makes me think what an experience 
 you must have had, count, in your life." 
 
 " Experience, pere, is the motive power in 
 sorrow; sorrows are all experiences." He was 
 using his native tongue. " What is life but a 
 series of experiences ? Experience is the fulness 
 of every life; it varies. If you say I had strange 
 experiences, yes; and as I feel so well to-day, 
 to-day so grateful, let me relate one. It will 
 be a commentary to the line from Corneille 
 quoted in those days of misery and Madame 
 Brunetaire; you remember it: ' Je te Vavoue, 
 mon ami! mon mat est incurable.' The story 
 is short. You are an artist, M. le Cur; I will 
 submit the skeleton, clothe it with flesh, give it 
 blood. It is a reality to me, but I cannot trans- 
 fer it as it is. I have lived it. It is a part 
 of me in flesh, blood, marrow; to you it can 
 be but the story of a friend. I can put the 
 bones together better standing; emotions want 
 room." 
 
 He stood; then, as if narrating the story of 
 another, he said slowly:
 
 AN OLD MUSICIAN. l8l 
 
 " Henri Marie Perry ve, Count of Cayla, of 
 illustrious descent, was born in Paris fifty years 
 ago, educated in the province. At an early age 
 he showed great love for music, and was sent 
 to study with the best Italian masters. He 
 became an artist whose fame still haunts the 
 concert-rooms of Europe. After a European 
 tour filled with honor and decorations he re- 
 turned to France, and wedded his first love, 
 Marie Auguesseu, a famous actress. One of his 
 letters at that time, now faded and torn, would 
 say that this rare artistic union was the height 
 of married bliss. She bore me two children," 
 he had unconsciously become the actor; 
 " they haunt me. I cannot see them, but I 
 fed their presence near, or is it a delusion of 
 a mad-wrung brain? Soon will the solution come. 
 I longed to see Canada and the great repub- 
 lic. It was easy to gratify my wish, as man- 
 agers had long been pressing me to take that 
 trip. I embarked from Havre, with my Marie 
 and her children, bidding a year's adieu to the 
 hundred friends who came to see us depart. 
 It was a long voyage, but we were young, 
 and the children healthful and merry. One 
 night I was awakened by creaking of cordage, 
 cursing, and human wailing. I jumped from my
 
 182 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 
 
 cot and hastened deckward. A quick, dull thump, 
 a lurch that was all. Some time when in 
 Montreal, if my history interests you, call at 
 the asylum and ask for a record of Count 
 Henry. It begins by my being picked up by 
 the fishing-smack Halifax, brought there, and 
 there remaining for years and years. ' Saved ' 
 is the record word hideous word to me. At 
 length little glimmers of reason fused in my 
 mind, until they became strong enough to war- 
 rant my keeper's writing on my passport, ' Harm- 
 less.' I was free, owner of a little money held 
 in France, and a few rare daily used books 
 that had followed us by the next outgoing vessel 
 from Havre, and had laid boxed for years and 
 years in the cellar of my asylum. No one 
 knew me but Thompson, and misery drove me 
 to him. The money drained day by day, van- 
 ished, and my only friends had to go. Poverty 
 is despotic. In my last struggle you came, Pere 
 Monnier; Marie and the babies besought the 
 Master, and He sent you, Pere Monnier my 
 own Pere Monnier. That is the tale. How easy 
 to box life ! I feel a strange sensation. I will 
 compose myself at the organ. List to my 
 music." 
 
 He stole away, and soon the garden was sad
 
 AN OLD MUSICIAN. 183 
 
 and dreamy with sound. Sound begot forms, 
 hope full of joy and life, charity folding her 
 wings over age, faith conquering death. 
 
 " Mozart's last requiem," said the pere. 
 
 A zephyr caught the dying strains, swelled 
 into a breeze, and played a melody with the 
 maple boughs. 
 
 " This is his masterpiece," said the pere. 
 " I must thank him and soothe him. It is 
 strange that he should delay his story, and this 
 his best, so long from me." 
 
 He entered the little church, clambered the 
 stairs that led to the organ-loft, and noiselessly 
 approached the bending count. His long, bony 
 fingers pressed the keyboard, but the spirit that 
 animated them had fled. 
 
 " Requiescat in pace ! " was the broken sob 
 of Pere Monnier.
 
 184 PERE MONNIER. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PERE MONNIER. 
 
 SQUIDVILLE had churches, a thriving school, 
 and a post-office, yet she was unsettled and 
 ambitious. Like most mountain towns, she 
 yearned for the airs of city life, and, like the 
 South Sea Islander, donned them by scraps. 
 Talk, that piquant sauce of small places, had 
 set the town agog about a new railway. The 
 railway was a month's sensation, then it grew 
 tiresome, and at length irritating. Folks whistled 
 whenever it was mentioned. " Whistling," said 
 Billy Buttons, "is the easiest way in the world 
 to squelch a gabby-mouthed creature." As a 
 saying it was much in vogue. 
 
 Railroad talk having collapsed, something new 
 was essential. " Men cannot gape at each other 
 and say nothing," was another nut from But- 
 tons' wisdom-pile. As a commentary to this 
 Cagy was wont to remark " that men are not 
 ducks, to pop their heads up and down, and 
 then go on." It was a strange remark of mine,
 
 PiRE MONNIER. 185 
 
 hurriedly pencilled in my diary, that deaf and 
 dumb people could not enjoy life in a village 
 like Squidville; seeing everybody talk about 
 every other body, and not being able to enjoy 
 that priceless luxury, they would certainly die. 
 It was Keats who truthfully wrote " that there 
 is not a fiercer hell than in the failure of a 
 great object." What failure can compare with 
 the failure to talk ? It was during one of these 
 lulls that bridge sensations that Squidville was 
 put in her usual mood. It came from a new 
 quarter, but that but added to its worth. For 
 years Pere Monnier had labored in Squidville. 
 He had seen his flock grow from a dozen families 
 of French and Irish wood-choppers to what he 
 was wont to call a tidy congregation. He had 
 built a neat church, mostly with his own hands, 
 and by his sunny disposition and open-hearted 
 kindness to men of all creeds he had won for 
 himself a niche near the core of all hearts. His 
 scanty purse was ever open to the wants of 
 poverty. On various occasions he was known 
 to give away his boots, and trudge home in his 
 leaky rubbers through the winter's snow, much 
 to the discomfort of Anna, the good old house- 
 keeper, who would solemnly aver that " Pere 
 Monnier had a terrible lot of book-sense, but
 
 l86 PERE MONNIER. 
 
 that kind of sense don't go in a town like 
 Squidville, where everybody takes whatever they 
 get, without considering from where it came." 
 Pere Monnier, on such occasions, would promise 
 to care for health and pocket in the future, 
 but in the face of poverty and hunger such 
 promises were eagerly forgotten, and the deer- 
 skin purse or wearing-apparel was offered in a 
 way that left neither sting nor aching memory 
 in the gift. He had his foibles most men 
 have. His were on the better side, and with 
 them he had won his way to hearts that held 
 little in common. It was a common sight to 
 see him standing amid his flowers, trowel in 
 hand, pointing to this phlox, or propping that 
 carnation, a bevy of keen-eyed, robust children 
 wondering that his head could contain all it 
 knew. 
 
 He loved children with that healthy love that 
 looks at them as the most interesting period, 
 the time of purity and bliss, when the world 
 has not as yet enslaved their hearts with its 
 siren airs. He fully understood the Master's 
 beautiful saying, " Suffer little children to come 
 unto Me." Children intuitively knew this, and 
 flocked to him, delighting to be the lambs of 
 such a shepherd. With gentleness he extracted
 
 P&RE MONNIER. 187 
 
 their manliness, and in their pastimes and games, 
 moving among them, but added to their respect, 
 while it heightened their love. " Be honorable 
 and you'll get along with Pere Monnier," was 
 the common say. It was a truth well put. 
 Dogs were his constant companions. A stranger 
 was sure to be told that " his Mickey could 
 water a deer before you would have time to 
 draw your tricker, " and the village would con- 
 firm this, and proudly add that it was a know- 
 ing deer that could fool the pere. Guides who 
 had resented what they were pleased to gingerly 
 call dominie influence, admiring Mickey's won- 
 derful skill, came near his master. From that 
 moment harshness and rudeness fled. " I didn't 
 like, him at first," said Snappy Woodruff, the 
 worst man that carries a gun in our woods, 
 " but ye have only to rub against him to find 
 the genuine stuff. None of your rotten wood 
 about him." On hearing this Buttons, stamping 
 a letter, fiercely exclaimed: " Snappy gave in 
 his gun, shot right through lungs and liver after 
 saying he wouldn't stand on the same side 
 of the river; that's dropping with the first bul- 
 let." Other men, and they were not few, saw 
 in the tall, athletic pere a rare scholar, alert 
 to every move that convulses society, and a
 
 l88 pfcRE MONN1ER. 
 
 'calm critic, capable of seeing through shams, 
 and pricking them with an irony and sarcasm 
 masterly blended. Such men could not under- 
 stand why a man of such great gifts, and these so 
 thoroughly developed by study and travel, could 
 spend the best years of his life among an igno- 
 rant and poverty-stricken people. 
 
 To one who had asked him for an explana- 
 tion he remarked in his earnest way, his gray 
 eyes lit up: "As it is written: ' For Thy sake 
 we are killed all the day long; we are accounted 
 as sheep for the slaughter.' ' Then, raising his 
 voice, and running his long, tapering ringers 
 through his well-mixed hair: " Nay, in all these 
 things we are more than conquerors through 
 Him that loved us." The questioner was gaz- 
 ing at the birds, books, and flowers that peeped 
 from every corner of the cottage. These words 
 withdrew his eyes, and riveted them on the 
 speaker. The face was tranquil, as if the 
 words were the subject of his meditation. " I 
 admire your life; I cannot comprehend your 
 philosophy," was the questioner's muttered re- 
 sponse. " And yet it is the only philosophy 
 that can cure your world-pain," was the quie* 
 rejoinder. Such was the man who was to 
 give Squidville its greatest and most lasting
 
 PERE MONNIER. 189 
 
 sensation. It came, as most sensations, from a 
 small beginning. 
 
 It was carefully coddled, watchfully tended; 
 it travelled, grew. To-day it is a part of Squid- 
 ville's history, and the foundation of this tale. 
 There is a saying that has been handed down 
 the ages. Like most sayings, it is the essence 
 of thousands of individual experiences. It is not 
 a verity under all conditions, but it has been, 
 so many times, that to-day it finds a place in 
 the common wisdom of the people. It runs, 
 " The nearer the church the further from God." 
 It was a verity on this occasion. The nearest 
 house to Pere Monnier was occupied by Louis 
 Frechette, a tall, angular Canadian, whose slight 
 sho"ulder-stoop and long, muscular arms told 
 of a race of wood-choppers. He was a good 
 man blessed with a large family, giving thanks 
 for each new arrival, and singing, " The more 
 the merrier." A few sports were heard to 
 wonder how he could support them. His answer 
 was short and pithy: ' The Sender will pro- 
 vide." It was a truth. 
 
 The children had plenty; they frisked and gam- 
 bolled on the green meadows, decked themselves 
 with daisies and buttercups, breathed the keen, 
 health-giving air, and fell asleep, each a prince
 
 1 90 PERE MONNIER. 
 
 in the realm of health. They groaned not 
 under the oppression of modern conveniences, 
 nor were they enervated by what we are pleased 
 to call the luxuries of civilization. In truth, 
 they were free from that most abominable tyr- 
 anny, " the tyranny of things." Dyspeptics, 
 whose yearly pilgrimage to our woods is the 
 new fad; men carrying more fat than they can 
 conveniently handle; lean, lanky, snappy-eyed 
 females, given to women's rights, ignorant of 
 men's wants; and those troubled with insomnia 
 envied the olive-hued little giants. They would 
 have gladly exchanged their finery and sallow- 
 ness for the health and appetite of the Fre- 
 chettes. The children were happy in their 
 station. An exchange could only mean misery. 
 They laughed at " city scarecrows," and rollicked 
 away to the music of bird and brook. Rollick- 
 ing and the noise it begot was the father's 
 staunch plea each Saturday night " that he had 
 to leave his house for a little rest, or the young 
 ones would drive him crazy." He was honest 
 in his delusion. With constant exertion he had 
 come to believe his plea was genuine. Ordinarily 
 mindful of his wife, he never coupled her with 
 his hobby; perchance he was thinking of a 
 mountain saying, " Every horse a different
 
 PERE MONNIER. IQI 
 
 halter." He acted on his plea, and after supper, 
 admonishing the children " to make less noise 
 when I'm out," he would wend his way to the 
 post-office, where other choice spirits, riders of 
 similar hobbies, came later. The post-master, to 
 make ends meet, kept in a glass case, shoulder 
 to shoulder with mixed candies, a line of long, 
 straw-colored cigars, cheap enough to enjoy after 
 a week of toil. With one of these, spurting 
 and reeking by turns, held in the extended 
 mouth of each, story after story of bear and 
 catamount was boastingly told. Each reciter was 
 the hero of his narrative. Some story suffered 
 when the young Poulets, rapping at their step- 
 father's office, sang out, " Near morn; and ma 
 can't see why some women don't keep their men 
 at home, hers is lost be them." The post- 
 master would then laughingly announce : "Wood- 
 chucks, to your holes ! " The door was locked, 
 and the hardy fellows, in their light jackets, 
 humming some old air brought by their fathers 
 from old France, sauntered home, smiling in the 
 night, asking the stars curious questions. Fre- 
 chette's pleasant delusion had a serious drawback. 
 On Sundays, when the villagers flocked to their 
 little church, gayly dressed, laughter in the eyes 
 and merriment in the mouth, happy within, no
 
 192 PERE MONNIER. 
 
 malice without, he slept. It was even hinted 
 by one of his relations that he snored. His 
 children, who caught the birds napping, and with- 
 out the slightest decrease of prattle, were unable 
 to disturb him. This staggered Buttons, who, 
 no matter when he went to bed, was always the 
 first to greet his pastor. His puzzle was this: he 
 could not understand that the noise that drove 
 a man crazy on Saturday night could make him 
 snore Sunday morning. 
 
 Frechette would not be unhorsed to explain. 
 Men rarely choose to analyze their delusions. 
 Frechette's conduct had been passed upon by 
 all church-going women. Stayers at home remem- 
 bered the adage about living in glass houses. 
 As he slept, he was condemned. 
 
 Women suffer from their husband's infirmities. 
 Mrs. Frechette followed the rule. She heard of 
 her spouse's infirmity in a thousand ways, each 
 way a nettle-sting. Human endurance has a 
 limit. In her misery she sought her pastor, 
 and asked for a cure. It was to come from 
 Pere Monnier, without a hint of her interfer- 
 ence one of the ways that love conquers all 
 things. The pere had but one salve for all such 
 ills; it was labelled KINDNESS, and rarely failed to 
 cure the sore. One Sunday morning service was
 
 PERE MONNIER. 193 
 
 late. Rumor, that talkative old dame, gathering 
 the worshippers in little Croups, gave to each 
 of them a different explanation. While they 
 listened to her prattle Pere Monnier stood by 
 the bedside of Louis Frechette, appealing to his 
 better nature. The appeal was debated. Fre- 
 chette, as usual with mountaineers, argued from 
 nature. His point most dogmatically asserted 
 was " that everything sleeps until it wakes." 
 Behind this to his mind impregnable fortress 
 he lay. Another rampart was " that it was the 
 business of churches to have bells to get the 
 folks around in time, and any minister that 
 don't bell his church is doing wrong, according 
 to the Canada belief." Half rising in his bed, 
 he exclaimed: " Pere, put a bell on the church; 
 sound her in the morn, the way they do in 
 Canada. Give us a chance, folks that have no 
 rooster-clocks to cackle in our ears, and I 
 warrant you I'll be there before Billy Buttons." 
 
 " A bell ! ay, a bell ! " whistled the pere. 
 
 " Yes, a bell ! a bell ! " more strongly and 
 firmly retorted Frechette. " All the folks are 
 talking about her; they're wild for her ready 
 to pop their names on paper, but you won't do 
 the asking." Pulling an old deer-skin bag from 
 under the pillow, he unfastened it, and from one
 
 194 PERE MONNIER. 
 
 corner of it, tucked away for years to bolster 
 a pet theory, he drew a five-dollar gold piece, 
 and with eyes of almost ecstatic joy, and hand 
 trembling with long pent-up emotion, he mut- 
 tered: " Pop me first for a five; pop me two 
 times if some of them don't toe the scratch. 
 I'll die happy when I hear her going it. That's 
 all the town wants, and you're the man to 
 give her, eh, pere ? Well, well ! just to hear 
 her playing out a bit of a tune, one of these 
 fine frosty mornings, will make me a lad again. 
 I wish you could get the mate of her, where 
 I came from." Youthful memories are the relish 
 of later life. 
 
 Pere Monnier clasped his hands, and hurried 
 to his church. The villagers read something in 
 his face. Not a few said that " there were 
 tracks of new-made tears." The hidden some- 
 thing was unbosomed when after service he an- 
 nounced, in his own sweet way, that he was to 
 blame for not studying the wishes of his flock 
 as regards a bell. There was a nodding, and 
 a steady working of eyes; even the youngsters 
 scratched their heads, that ancient sign-board of 
 wisdom. " He could not head the subscription; 
 that was already done by one who would not 
 allow his name to be given. He would from his
 
 PERE MONNTER. 195 
 
 scanty salary gladly subscribe, be the second 
 signer. Who would follow ? " The sensation took 
 life. It was dual. Who blamed the pere ? Who 
 was the first signer ? It disdained creeping, grew, 
 and for years distanced all competitors. The 
 rapid signing of names, with the promise to pay 
 as soon as logging commenced, convinced P6rc 
 Monnier that Frechette but spoke the tempera- 
 ture of the people's pulse when he said " that 
 all the folks are talking of her; they're wild for 
 her, ready to pop their names on paper." 
 
 Snow came, wages were good, and the Squid- 
 villites, true to their promises and signatures, 
 deposited in the hands of Pere Monnier an 
 adequate sum to place a little bell on their 
 church. If it could be up for New Year's Day, 
 was the common byword. Billy Buttons was 
 not slow to carry the people's wish to the pere, 
 He returned with the news that by Christmas 
 she would " be going it as well as ever she 
 would in her life. If not, might he never see 
 a deer." This gave his information the seal of 
 truth. When we vow by the loss of the things 
 we love even scepticism is silenced. This pleas- 
 ing news gave new life to Frechette. Believ- 
 ing Buttons, he would nevertheless hear from a 
 more authentic source the glad tidings. Pere
 
 196 PERE MONNIER. 
 
 Monnier, a lover of nature, sat in his cosey sitting- 
 room, surrounded by flowers and singing birds, 
 by times gazing at his Dante, at others listen- 
 ing to the storm scudding the snow-dust in its 
 wake, or watching the wind-wrung trees disrobe. 
 He was at peace, happy in his life among the 
 poor and poverty-stricken. He was consoled in 
 hardships by the deep, earnest love they bore 
 him. What was the city's glitter and jangle, 
 masking hypocrisies, hypocrisies that such a nature 
 as his would easily prick, to those rough but 
 loyal hearts ? The book seemed to whisper that 
 his was the true environment to study the cold 
 Ghibeline's immortal poem. The birds and 
 flowers flitted into his dream. Shutting his 
 eyes to crystallize into one form all these speak- 
 ing things, he muttered, "It is good to be 
 here." The door-bell rang, a hearty, whole- 
 souled noise disturbing Anna's nap over a batch 
 of cookies, and opening the mastiff's huge jaws 
 in a gruff rejoinder. 
 
 " Enter," said the pere, and the smiling face 
 of Louis Frechette graced the little sitting-room. 
 
 " A bustling day, pere. The snow is running 
 like a greyhound, but it will soon stop its can- 
 tering. It may leave a few drifts nothing to 
 bother you, pere. We were saying that you're
 
 PERE MONNIER. 197 
 
 getting to be quite a horseman since you took 
 to these roads. Yes, says I, and may you be 
 long spared on them. I wish we could only do 
 a little more for you, but, as Jemmie Barbier 
 says, if wishes were things the divil wouldn't 
 have many in his company below. Here's 
 another five to help to buy the bell-rope. You 
 forgot to put that in your announcer. You 
 might as well have Poux the dummy in your 
 tower as a bell without a rope tied to its 
 clapper. I might have waited a few days, but 
 I heard that you were going away to-morrow 
 to get her; so my wife says, ' Louis, you had 
 better be giving that money to the pere.' 
 That's so, says I, so up I steps. I must be 
 getting back. I was in a hurry, so I came with- 
 out fixing myself. Well, a poor man cannot 
 be too fidgety about his clothes. Get her as 
 good as you can; that you'll do, I'll warrant. 
 Good-night, mon pere." 
 
 The door was quickly shut, and the wiry form 
 of Frechette, incased in a ragged snow-robe, 
 was homeward bound. Pere Monnier, impelled 
 by the rough goodness of such a man, opened 
 the door to get another look at the wood- 
 chopper. The snow had curtained off all visible 
 things; the wind brought him back a chanson:
 
 198 PERE MONNIER. 
 
 "Vive la Canadienne, 
 Vole, mon coeur, vole; 
 Vive la Canadienne, 
 Et ses jolis yeux doux, 
 Et ses jolis yeux doux, 
 
 Tout doux, 
 Et ses jolis yeux doux." 
 
 It was a favorite with his mother, and for 
 the memory of her to whom the nobleness in 
 his nature belonged he continued the song, 
 much to Anna's chagrin, and the total destruc- 
 tion of the cookies. With a sigh of relief she 
 beheld a horseman come to the door, dismount, 
 and pull the bell. Pere Monnier hurriedly 
 answered the call, and read the message in the 
 bearer's face: " Some of your folks are sick, 
 John?" 
 
 " Yes, pere, my wife and three children, 
 desperately bad. I am on my way for the 
 doctor; but you said you should be called in 
 such a case as soon as him. Anyway, they 
 want to see you. I hate to bring you out, 
 roads are bad, as well as the night, but I 
 know you always told us that you would rather 
 be with the sick than the well." 
 
 " Don't mind excuses, John; it's only duty. 
 I am only too happy to go. If the doctor re-
 
 PERE MONNIER. 199 
 
 fuses to come tell him that I will see that he 
 gets his pay. ' ' 
 
 " O pere ! pere ! pere ! " was the only answer. 
 Tears had broken his speech. His sorrow pressed 
 lighter. He raised his head, gazed long at Pere 
 Monnier. Love glistened among tears. 
 
 A few minutes after his departure Pere Monnier 
 rode out of his yard, patting Molly, and promis- 
 ing her an extra feed if she would carefully 
 pick her way. The animal was willing, expressed 
 by a neigh, so away they went for a twenty- 
 mile journey. Following the highway for a few 
 miles, Pere Monnier struck into a narrow road 
 leading through a spruce and pine forest, and 
 opening into a hilly, sandy tract dotted with 
 huge boulders. Here rose a few scattered huts. 
 Before one of them a lantern burned, a sure 
 sign it was the sick-house. Riding up, he dis- 
 mounted, put his horse in a rickety shed, throw- 
 ing his buffalo-coat over him. Pulling the 
 latch-string, he entered. There was a subdued 
 greeting, and a hurried whispering among the 
 few neighbors that it was a miracle how Pere 
 Monnier " got through the woods." In his 
 honor a new lantern was lighted and held in a 
 corner of the house. By it a woman in the last
 
 200 PERK MONNIER. 
 
 stages of consumption was visible, lying on a 
 rough pallet of chaff. In the opposite corner 
 was a half-broken bedstead, propped up by a 
 row of cord-wood. There lay two children, wan 
 and emaciated, wrapped in a few old coats and 
 a faded horse-blanket. The mother stretched 
 out her long, fleshless fingers as a welcome. 
 The marriage-ring fell on her pallet; it had 
 been long since unable to find a hold. The 
 eyes of the little sick ones became brighter; 
 even the baby, held in a neighbor's arms, 
 stopped its natural but weird cry of " ma, 
 ma." The coming of a good man availeth 
 much, is a saying of mine. Soon a tale of 
 woe fell on his patient ear, first by the garrulous 
 neighbors, then by the broken, sobbing voice 
 of the dying woman. The little ones punctuated 
 the tale by sharp pain-cries. The tale was but 
 a chapter of sorrow in that long book, so 
 thoroughly known to him, the history of human 
 suffering. Although it was evident that no 
 human effort could lengthen the sufferer's life, 
 yet she could be comforted, consoled, and her 
 children saved. 
 
 " When is the mortgage due, Mrs. Livernois ?' 
 asked Pere Monnier, gently holding her hand, 
 while watching the sunken, glassy eyes.
 
 PERE MONNIER. 2OI 
 
 ' In a few days, pere. And he is as good 
 as his word; he will put us out. We have 
 sold everything, as you see; nothing left but me 
 and the young ones, and we won't be with John 
 long. Where we are going we'll need neither 
 house nor food. It's different with John, 
 poor fellow ! how he struggled, but " The 
 woman's voice sank to a whisper, and died in 
 a long, drawn-out sob. 
 
 "True for you, Mrs. Livernois; he is as good 
 as his word." 
 
 " We know that," broke from the neighbors' 
 lips. 
 
 Cruelty leaves a lasting impression. Long 
 after its obsequies its shadow is a torment; its 
 scar never heals. Pere Monnier was practical 
 true charity always is. Hunger is a poor listener 
 to beautiful phrases. Once relieved, it is docile. 
 Some of Frechette's bell-rope money was handed 
 to a neighbor to buy the necessary groceries. A 
 little sum was left in the bony hand of Mrs. 
 Livernois. " And as to the dreaded mortgage," 
 said Pere Monnier, " I will settle that with 
 Gregg. You must not worry about it. By the 
 way, I have a spare bed just the thing you 
 want. Some of the neighbors can come and get 
 it the quicker the better."
 
 202 PERE MONNIER. 
 
 There was a silence. All eyes were upon him 
 in whose coming came mercy. As he left the 
 house and struck the bridle-path he could not 
 help ejaculating: "Dispossessed from these 
 stones ! Of all animals man's cruelty is the most 
 developed." 
 
 He knew Josiah Padlock Gregg too well to 
 ask a further stay. He was troubled as he 
 thought of his promise to the sick woman, and 
 not a copper in his house save the bell-money. 
 At that moment the story of Abraham and 
 Isaac floated through his mind : ' ' God will 
 provide." No sooner had he reached home 
 than he dispatched Anna to Gregg with the 
 bell-money. 
 
 That worthy while counting the money retold 
 the story of Livernois, and ended it by warning 
 Anna that her master must have plenty of 
 money ' ' to prop up such skinflints as John 
 Livernois and his brood." Selfishness regards 
 charity as a fool. Anna's mind was agog. 
 " Merciful goodness ! had he given the bell- 
 money ? What would happen ? " 
 
 Every step was convincing. Gregg had 
 expressed a hope that a bell might be upon the 
 church some time ' ' before the coming of 
 Gabriel." She would use this as a means of
 
 PERE MONNIER. 203 
 
 drawing out Pere Monnier. Her ordinary walk, 
 a waddle of the tame-goose sort, became a trot. 
 Curiosity is the fruitful mother of worry. Pant- 
 ing, she arrived at the parsonage. Her master 
 opened the door with "You have paid Gregg 
 and brought me the mortgage ? " 
 
 "Yes, pere; but he talked about nothing but 
 a bell. He doubts its ever going up." 
 
 A shadow crossed the good man's face. It 
 was for a moment ; then he answered : ' ' Anna, 
 God will provide." 
 
 She hurried to the kitchen, shaking her head. 
 Her heart was heavy; her eyes were wet. "The 
 bell-money was gone. What would Pere Mon- 
 nier do ?" 
 
 Day after day passed, Anna noticing a change 
 in her old master. His books were forgotten; 
 the birds and flowers unnoticed. He sat by his 
 desk, writing and writing. She could hear that 
 dreary pen pass over the paper hour by hour. 
 He was as pleasant and as charitable as in the 
 olden time, but somehow or other the old smile 
 was wanting. The writing became less constant. 
 She could hear him read, stop, leave his desk, 
 walk his room, return, and then the dreary 
 sound of the pen. "Poor man! he's killing 
 himself to make bell-money," was her say. One
 
 204 PRE MONNIER. 
 
 day the writing ceased. Pere Monnier was 
 unable to leave his bed. " A little cold," he 
 said, "that would soon pass; he would be well 
 in a day or two." Anna knew better, so, despite 
 his remonstrances, the doctor came, felt his 
 pulse, chatted awhile, shook his head, as we 
 physicians are wont to do, and whispered in 
 Anna's ear, "Pneumonia." The news soon 
 spread. It was the only topic at the Hunter's 
 Paradise. Among those who listened to the 
 many tales of his generosity, drawn forth by his 
 sickness, was Miss Barton Inglis, who had lately 
 arrived for the deer-hunting season. She had 
 that day paid a visit to her old guide, Liver- 
 nois, and there learned what Pere Monnier 
 "had done for him and his." 
 
 "I must, Mr. Weeks, see this man before I 
 return." 
 
 "I shall go with you, Miss Inglis," said the 
 proprietor. "I know Pere Monnier for a good 
 many years. I am proud to say he slept his 
 first night under my roof. If you could only 
 wait a few days, until he is up and around. I 
 know you will enjoy your visit." 
 
 One evening Anna's dreams were rudely dis- 
 persed by the entry into her kitchen of James 
 Weeks and a young lady whom she knew to
 
 PfcRE MONNIER. 205 
 
 be "a city folk." The lady shook her hand, 
 asked for Pere Monnier, and acted as if she 
 had, to use Anna's phrase, "been bred and 
 born in the house." Weeks, after depositing 
 some little things that his old friend might 
 relish, retired, leaving the two women in close 
 conversation. "Now, Anna, tell me," said the 
 younger, "what is the cause of Pere Monnier's 
 sickness." After many warnings not to repeat, 
 the story of the bell "that should be up by 
 Christmas," but now, as Gregg says, "won't be 
 up to Gabriel's day," was told. 
 
 " I have a plan, Anna," said Miss Inglis. 
 "You will nurse the pere; get him well. Such a 
 man must live; we need him. During his re- 
 covery I will have a belfry built, and a bell 
 ready to ring in Christmas." 
 
 "I think the ringing," said Anna, "would 
 make him be himself again." 
 
 "You must keep the secret, Anna." 
 
 Tears ran down her cheeks. To her honor be 
 it written, with many tongue-bites she suc- 
 ceeded. 
 
 Pere Monnier's sickness was long and hard. 
 Within a few days of Christmas a change for 
 the better came. A new priest had come to 
 conduct the service. To him the pere deputed
 
 206 PERE MONNIER. 
 
 the task of explaining the delay in the bell. 
 He was not to spare Pere Monnier, and to 
 finish with the promise of having it as soon as 
 the pere was able. Christmas Eve came, long 
 and lonely for the sick man. The little church 
 was beautifully decorated with soft mountain 
 evergreens, and the little crib, built many a 
 month ago by his own hands, lent a quaint if 
 sad charm. He could hear the sleigh-bells mer- 
 rily ringing, and the happy voices of the chil- 
 dren. How he longed to be with them ! He 
 would form a picture of his little flock, and 
 pray for the peace which the world could not 
 give them. Picture after picture came. He 
 went by the altar the altar one blaze of light, 
 encircled by the dark green of cedar and spruce 
 pleading for his people. The choir was sing- 
 ing "Bethlehem." His eyes became weary, his 
 head heavy; he struggled a moment to hold 
 his dreams, then softly slept. He suddenly 
 awakes; it is striking twelve. Was he dream- 
 ing ? What sound is that ? It fills the air, 
 and bears joy into each household. It sends 
 greeting to all. Hear it again ! He feels his 
 head. Still louder and louder it rings over the 
 snow-covered vales, and dies away in far-off 
 mountain caves. "His head his weary head!"
 
 PERE MONNIER. 207 
 
 Tears run down his cheeks. "Is reason gone?" 
 Still louder and louder it calls Pere Monnier to 
 health, and tells the love of his people. Fre- 
 chette holds the bell-rope. It stops. A wild 
 cheer rends the air. His room is thrown open, 
 and a dozen voices tell him the tale of the 
 Squidville bell. 
 
 The traveller of to-day who visits Squidville's 
 lonely churchyard will find a grave on the 
 brow of the hill, guarded by the spreading 
 branches of a giant maple. There is a well- 
 tracked path to the grave. In summer-time this 
 grave is covered with daisies, buttercups, and 
 roses children's gifts. 
 
 There is a marble monument in the shape of 
 a bell, and on it this curious inscription: 
 
 To the Memory 
 Of 
 
 pere /Bonnier. 
 
 'Christ's lore and His Apostles' twelve 
 He taught, but first he followed it himself." 
 
 Erected 
 
 by 
 
 CHARLES, JAMES, AND JENNY LIVERNOI8, 
 Children 
 
 of 
 JOHN AND FROZINA LIVERNOIS,
 
 208 HOME AT LAST. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HOME AT LAST. 
 
 PASSENGERS coming to our town came by the 
 stage; whenever any other conveyance was used 
 it became noteworthy and a subject of talk. 
 When, then, one fine summer morning a spank- 
 ing pair of bays, drawing a fashionable carriage 
 containing a lady and a child, drove up to the 
 Hunter's Paradise, there were few of us that did 
 not take a stroll in that direction. 
 
 I cannot deny but curiosity was at the bot- 
 tom, nor am I going to condemn myself for 
 giving way to a feeling which has prompted our 
 race in all ages to marvellous adventures. With- 
 out it how wanting would our lives be, espe- 
 cially in a mountain town ! So curiosity keeps 
 away dulness. By the time I had reached the 
 hotel the lady and her child had alighted, and 
 were superintending the transfer of their bag- 
 gage. I took a seat on the piazza, interested 
 in the new-comers. 
 
 The lady seemed to eye the hotel curiously.
 
 HOME AT LAST. 209 
 
 As her gaze rested on the piazza I had a fairly 
 good shot at her face, which was young and 
 beautiful. There was something in the face 
 known to me that set me rummaging amid old 
 memories. 
 
 "Well," said Buttons, who had joined me, 
 "Weeks is going to have some trade. That's 
 an elegant rig. I wonder if she wants a guide ? 
 Things are dull in the lettering business ; I 
 could leave it for a couple of weeks to one of 
 the youngsters if I could get a soft snap. I 
 ain't as young as I used to be, that's sure ; 
 but I am spry enough to guide any lady, no 
 matter how active she be. It's no harm to be 
 ahead for the job, so I'll ask Weeks." 
 
 "Billy," said I, "does she remind you of 
 anybody you have ever seen ? Her face is 
 familiar ; yet who she is, or from whence she 
 comes, I can't collect myself enough to know. 
 Well, there goes Jim, smiling as usual. How he 
 manages to keep so light-hearted is my puzzle." 
 
 "It's only on the surface; the heart's ate out 
 years ago," said Buttons, "ay, years ago. How 
 can it be otherwise ? neither child nor chick 
 left him. You see only the bark, and the use 
 of that is for hiding. Tis as Pere Monnier 
 says, the coffin the corpse is inside.
 
 210 HOME AT LAST. 
 
 ' ' Now I get a good sight on her, yes, that 
 face is powerfully natural to me, but I'm pok- 
 ing my memory for a name. 
 
 "What eyes black as jet! regular daggers! 
 That's as handsome a face as ever struck these 
 parts. Well, now it does look like some face 
 that I have seen years ago. It may take a long 
 time to cipher it out, but I'll get it or lose 
 my night's sleep. Here she comes; get a good 
 look at her, doctor." 
 
 The lady, holding the child's hand, was soon 
 in front of us, smiling very pleasantly. 
 
 "Doctor," said Weeks, "this is Mrs. Minton, 
 from Chicago. She wishes to be introduced to 
 you and Buttons. She says she has heard of 
 you ; and who in thunder does not know Billy ? 
 The lady tells me she has been here before. 
 That beats me; I must be losing my memory. 
 Once I was good in remembering faces. But- 
 tons, you know everybody who comes here: can 
 you guess the lady ? " 
 
 "Jim," said Buttons, "it's mighty queer; I 
 can't for my life. Yet me and the doctor 
 were saying there's something very familiar in 
 that same face. It's like an old letter you 
 stick away somewhere. You know of it, but 
 you can't just place it on the minute. I have
 
 HOME AT LAST. SI I 
 
 seen them eyes in one woman, God rest her 
 soul!" and Buttons raised his hat. "She was 
 a good woman at that, one of the best ; as 
 Cagy put it, ' Her likes will never be seen round 
 these diggings again.' She is over there, ma'am," 
 pointing in the direction of the little graveyard, 
 "these many a days, sleeping where we'll all 
 sleep some day." 
 
 A large, reeky tear hastily ran down Buttons' 
 cheek. He was unaware that his simple words 
 had a like effect on the lady. 
 
 Weeks, dreaming of his own sorrows, was mak- 
 ing a desperate effort to conceal his emotion. 
 
 I was not indifferent, but somehow or other 
 the sorrows of man have long since ceased 
 to clraw my tears. Amid such scenes I am 
 possessed with a gentle melancholy, and not 
 infrequently have caught myself muttering these 
 strange lines of Shelley: 
 
 " All things that we love and cherish, 
 Like ourselves, must fade and perish." 
 
 'I am that woman's daughter," said the 
 lady, pressing a handkerchief to her eyes; "that 
 woman's daughter come back to see a mother's 
 grave, and those who were kind in the black, 
 gnawing days of adversity so long ago."
 
 aia HOME AT LAST. 
 
 "It's all like a dream to me," said Weeks, 
 "all like a dream. To think that little Aily 
 should be in my house, grown big, married at 
 that; ay, what's more, having a youngster of 
 her own, as like her grandmother as two peas. 
 I'm right glad to see Aily; couldn't be prouder 
 if it was one of my own but in a kind of a 
 way you are, as I brought up your father. I 
 take it that you have, as we say, struck luck. 
 It was very hard for me to see your father 
 going out West, but it was all for the best. 
 Squidville is a poor place ; we live, nothing 
 more. But come in, Aily pardon my being so 
 familiar, but old Weeks would like to be close 
 to your father's daughter. I heard you call the 
 little tot Milly ; do you tell me that's her 
 name ? Well, well, what memories float into 
 my old skull ! I must take the tot in my arms 
 and alarm the whole house who's come. While 
 you stay you'll be boss here, and we'll have a 
 gay old time dancing attendance on you." 
 
 Clasping the eagerly listening child in his 
 burly arms, he hastened to prepare a meal for 
 the little Aily who had covered him with kisses 
 and mumbled promises on that dreary day when 
 her father, broken-hearted, clasped his cabin 
 door for the last time, and set out for the West
 
 HOME AT LAST. 213 
 
 to find a home and fortune in a new land. 
 Happiness he craved not; that was buried with 
 his wife in the lonely little mountain graveyard. 
 As he became rich and polished men wondered 
 why some woman would not find in him a lov- 
 ing partner. They knew him not ; nor could 
 they know that by his Milly's grave on the day 
 of his departure he had knelt with his child, and 
 in his rough way vowed that " no woman should 
 lord it over Milly's child." He could love but 
 once; and, the link broken, he lived for Aily, 
 each day finding in her something of the Milly 
 he had lost. 
 
 At his death he had but one wish: that he 
 should be carried back and laid by the side of 
 his -wife, with a little tombstone marked, "Home 
 at last." It was " to have no other squivering 
 upon it." In his last battle business friends were 
 forgotten; his wish was to lie among the friends 
 of his youth until the angel's trumpet should 
 wake the Adirondacks. 
 
 It was to fulfil this pious duty that Aily re- 
 turned to her early home. 
 
 As she stood there one could easily dream that 
 it was Milly, the village favorite. 
 
 Buttons was dreaming so as he muttered: 
 " Milly, Milly, and is it you ?"
 
 214 HOME AT LAST. 
 
 " Is Aily forgotten ? " asked the lady, rousing 
 Buttons from his dreams. Don't you remember 
 your little girl, Billy Buttons ? One of my 
 father's last sayings was, 'Aily, don't let any- 
 body put me beside your mother but Weeks, 
 Cagy, Buttons, and the doctor ; they'll do it 
 gently. Before they clay me for good I want 
 Pere Monnier to say a few prayers, just a few. 
 He's pretty old, but as he married me, and shut 
 your mother's eyes, I want him to do the last 
 turn for me. Then, before coming away, get 
 his blessing, and show him little Milly, and tell 
 him I have lain many a night in the West 
 thinking what he done for me and everybody 
 else.' ' 
 
 "Ah, the pere is old, Aily !" said Buttons, his 
 eyes becoming wet, "old, Aily; he is not long 
 for us, but I want to lay down my own burden 
 before he goes. I have been all through the 
 war, and didn't bother much ; but I'm now a 
 kind of lonely, so that when I come to fire my 
 last shot I would be a bit easier if the pere was 
 around. But I must hurry up; the pere is near 
 the end. I saw him going up to Cagy's yester- 
 day, just creeping along, holding his stick on 
 the ground to give him a lift. ' My ! ' says I, 
 4 I knew you when you could climb a hill faster
 
 HOME AT LAST. 215 
 
 than a deer, and jump at the first go-off any 
 fence in these parts.' It was mighty sorrowful 
 thinkin' ; it made me sit down on a stump and 
 feel as if I wanted to sink there on the spot. 
 I'm not much on the tear business, it was al- 
 ways a kind of soft to a fellow of my turn, but 
 when I see him hobbling along like a deer 
 wounded in the hind end, and then thought of 
 how he used to run, no matter how I squeezed 
 my eyes the water came fussing down my cheeks, 
 and pretty hot at that." 
 
 "Is Cagy sick?" said Aily. 
 
 "Well," continued Buttons, "you can't call 
 him just well, or he wouldn't be in bed a minute. 
 Whenever he gives in his gun deuce a much shot 
 he has left. It's never been his way to lie down 
 and sputter with a toothache. When he's down 
 it's a tarnation blow that has struck him, keep 
 that afore you. Mind, I don't say he's never 
 going to reclaim his gun ; it looks by his talk 
 as if he would. ' Buttons,' says he, ' this is the 
 first year in fifty that I haven't loosened up a 
 deer with a bullet, but we'll soon have a whack at 
 them. : That's not dying talk, but then Cagy 
 won't say ' die ' until he's a prisoner. I wouldn't 
 wonder but your coming would speed him a 
 bit. If he's alive, even if he's carried, he'll
 
 2l6 HOME AT LAST. 
 
 help to put your father away in his cwn lot, 
 and that's the best in the graveyard." 
 
 "The best, Billy! That would be kindness 
 itself. But as we like to follow father's last 
 injunction, it will be necessary to bury him 
 with my mother, in her lot, if there is a place 
 there. I trust there is room enough." 
 
 "Yes, Aily, there's room and to spare; but 
 you and me are talking of the very same place. 
 When you went West Cagy bought the plot; 
 I went with him to do it. ' Billy,' says he, 
 * Frank's going cuts my heart. I was just a- 
 looking over the fence at Milly's grave; it's un- 
 commonly lonely, Buttons.' Just then I saw 
 him wiping his eyes, for the first time in years. 
 'Uncommonly lonely, Buttons,' he went on, 
 ' and what's worse, I don't know what stranger 
 may be planted in it. That's what makes me 
 thaw a bit. You have your own piece and 
 don't want this, else I'd give you the first 
 chance ; but I kind of want a place after my 
 jigs are over to take my long nap, and it strikes 
 me it wouldn't be bad policy to buy the lot, 
 and get my certifier. A fellow like me don't 
 want to sleep nigh folks he'll have to be intro- 
 duced to when Gabriel sounds the horn. Be- 
 sides, it's next to your hole, so that when the
 
 HOME AT LAST. 217 
 
 great creeping-out comes, as in old times, we'd 
 shoulder the burden together. At any rate, we 
 could have a quiet word on the situation/ I 
 never saw Cagy so strange- looking as that day. 
 So up we steps to Pere Monnier and got our 
 certifier, and Cagy, putting three thicknesses of 
 brown paper around it, put it in a mink-skin 
 bag and hung it about his neck, where he car- 
 ries it to-day. That give him the title ; so he 
 fixed it good and as handsome as a June rose, 
 put iron rods and chains all around, and that 
 was not all. One day he says: ' Do you know 
 the hardest drive I ever got ? It was when 
 La Flamme said, " Some day Aily and I might 
 have money enough to buy Milly a headstone." 
 It's* a good many years ago. I suppose they 
 ain't on the ups, and they will never come. 
 Well, I have ordered a bit of stone to be put 
 there. I wouldn't let them letter it much. Just 
 Milly's name; if her own ever come back they 
 can fill it in.' So up went the stone. He was 
 proud of it, and in summer evenings after work 
 he would walk out there to weed, train, or 
 water all kinds of flowers he had growing on 
 your mother's grave. If there's anything against 
 Cagy lying there he's not the man to sneak in 
 where he's not in his place, and he knows he's
 
 2l8 HOME AT LAST. 
 
 welcome to the best spot I have no mistake, 
 Aily. Cagy will give you his certifier; but if 
 there's room, better let him nest in the tree of 
 his choosing." 
 
 Tears had long been chasing each other on 
 the soft cheeks of Aily. She had often heard 
 her father in the long winter nights talk of 
 Cagy and his strange way. One of those 
 stories came to her bit by bit. She could see 
 her father's face and the queer curve to his 
 lips. His voice was ringing in her ears, saying: 
 "Cagy felt bad the morning we left. He car- 
 ried you to the station, Aily, weeping like a 
 child. Now and then he would mutter, ' I 
 have been through the mill.' While we were 
 waiting for the train he told me something 
 that was staggering, if it had been at any 
 other time. He had been married when but 
 a youth, but, as he spoke it, ' After marriage 
 I had to come to the States for work. I was 
 to send for Felina, my wife, in a couple of 
 months. Well, before that time was up, break- 
 ing her heart about me, she went to a better 
 country. I was on my way home when I heard 
 the news. I returned and never wanted to see 
 my old home. They had clayed for good all 
 that was dear to me. Like yourself, I must
 
 HOME AT LAST. 219 
 
 wait, perhaps for years, until I see her. That's 
 how I left Canada never to return. I struck up 
 with Buttons here, so I have been pegging away 
 ever since, with a big black load on my heart 
 that nobody could lift, much less make light. I 
 promised to be Felina's, and when the end 
 comes along I won't be looking around, like 
 these fellows that marry two or three times, to 
 see which of the mates I'll be tackled with.' " 
 
 This story that Buttons had told her made 
 her uneasy to see the loyal heart, true in love 
 and friendship, strange only to those who knew 
 it not. 
 
 ' ' Can we not see Cagy at once ? " she was 
 going to say, when Buttons arose and the bell 
 rang< merrily out the dinner-greeting of the 
 Hunter's Paradise. 
 
 Milly, holding Weeks' hand, now on the most 
 friendly terms with him, was calling her. She 
 went. 
 
 That night news travels rapidly it was the 
 talk of every fireside, the death and coming 
 burial of all that was earthly of Frank La 
 Flamme. His history was passed from mouth to 
 mouth, and the best in him brought to the sur- 
 face. Death brings to us many fine things ut- 
 terly ignored in life.
 
 220 HOME AT LAST. 
 
 Squidvillites were proud of him, that, despite 
 wealth, he had never forgotten them, had their 
 memory green in his memory, and dying wished 
 to sleep among them in the little graveyard he 
 had helped as a boy to clear. Nor was his 
 wife forgotten the village beauty, the patient 
 wife who had been lying all those long, dreary 
 years facing the big black cross, waiting for the 
 only man of many who tried to win her girlish 
 heart. Any failings and no man is free were 
 overlooked, and the young were asked to learn 
 a lesson in true love from the hearse and bay 
 horses that were to drive through the village 
 next morning. Widows who had married again 
 for once had little to say. Youth, humming 
 songs of love, scorned any compromise, and 
 spoke only of lasting fidelity. 
 
 It became a saying which took root in the 
 village, and was often subsequently used by 
 youth with the land of love very near, and yet 
 not within grasp, "As faithful as La Flamme." 
 On various occasions it had the desired effect of 
 converting wavering maidens to cast their fates 
 with ambitious youths. 
 
 In a little maple grove, visible from the 
 Hunter's Paradise, lived William Cagy, better 
 known to fame as Blind Cagy, from the
 
 HOME AT LAST. 221 
 
 loss ot his left eye a loss that was his 
 boast, and gave to his nickname a title of 
 honor. Strange as it may seem, it was a bit of 
 pure affection in behalf of Squidville that was 
 accountable for the dropping of William and the 
 giving of Blind a change, here be it remarked, 
 that was satisfactory to all parties. 
 
 When the news was first bruited in Weeks' 
 that a war was on hand Cagy, then a mere 
 stripling, was heard to remark "that he had no 
 personal dislike to Jeff." The names of great 
 men were all familiarly treated by the Squid- 
 villites. " But if old Horace was a-getting hot 
 about it he feared there was something in it 
 that didn't just look right; but, anyhow, he 
 would wait for Horace's second toot, which 
 should be due that night." 
 
 The Tribune brought it, and Weeks, sitting on 
 a cracker- barrel, his hearers on empty soap- 
 boxes, elbows leaning on their knees, hats 
 brushed back for a better view, faces eagerly 
 peering into Jim's, heard that spectacled worthy 
 read what was allowed to be "a tarnation hot 
 bit of writing chunky and collopy, and as 
 gritty as an oak-knot." 
 
 "There will soon be the deuce to pay," re- 
 marked the reader, finishing with a knowing
 
 222 HOME AT LAST. 
 
 head-shake ; ' ' when old Horace whoops it in 
 that style it's a-gettin' ready for the hunt you 
 ought to be, boys. There's music a- brewing, 
 and the dance is about to be called." 
 
 "I hear," said Jed Parker, "that they're 
 recruitin' in Malone, or at any rate they've 
 tooted a call for to-morrow by ten that's 
 what I heard; and seein' Horace a-going it at 
 that gait makes the thing pretty certain. Well, 
 little I thought their foolin' would come to 
 this; but, as Horace says, the die is cast, flesh 
 will fly and blood flow before the end of this, 
 and many a woman and child have wet eyes." 
 
 Just then Cagy became uneasy and whispered 
 something in young Buttons' ear. That young- 
 ster nodded and winked, and then both with- 
 drew. 
 
 " It's bad policy to read when the youngsters 
 are around," was Weeks' word. 
 
 "They're off to the front, I'll bet my life," 
 said old Jed, blaming his sputtering tongue, 
 "that blabbed about the Malone meeting." 
 
 Jed was right; the first man to step up at 
 that meeting was Cagy, young Buttons a close 
 second. In Buttons' homely phrase, "They 
 wanted to be sent where they could see some 
 game."
 
 HOME AT LAST. 223 
 
 They had their wish. Buttons returned un- 
 scathed to tell the valor and grit of the Johnny 
 rebs. Cagy left a finger at Yorktown and an 
 eye at Vicksburg uncomplainingly. 
 
 With his home-coming his name was changed. 
 The money he brought tied up in his deer-skin 
 purse bought a maple strip, made a clearing, 
 and erected a neat, cosey log cabin. Time and 
 patience and a never-ceasing watchfulness had 
 twined trailing vines in many a pretty design, 
 making in summer-time the cottage one strange- 
 looking flowering shrub. The garden, with its 
 useful vegetables, was merrily lit up by bits of 
 phlox, beds of poppies, and patches of portulaca. 
 Birds, well knowing the occupant's love for their 
 musrc, and the perfect safety thai was found 
 in the maple grove, came early and lingered 
 late. Even in snow-time one has remarked, 
 " They only changed their coat to fit the frost 
 and homed with Cagy." 
 
 The cabin was substantially furnished ; the 
 walls decorated with pictures of Lincoln, Grant; 
 Sheridan on his charger, right over Cagy's bed, 
 where he might "have a peep at Phil every 
 morning"; Sherman; and a strange face in that 
 company, as Squidville in her ultramontane pa- 
 triotism was not slow to point out : it was
 
 324 HOME AT LAST. 
 
 Robert Lee. No amount of argument or in- 
 vective could make Cagy listen to the invitation 
 to "plaster over that with another picture." 
 To such remarks he had but one argument, 
 driven home by hitting his closed fist against 
 the nearest piece of woodwork and spitting 
 through his teeth : 
 
 "Plaster Lee's face! Don't try that, friend. 
 Lee may have been on the wrong track, as many 
 a one before him, and a lot behind him will be, 
 but I guess he thought he was as right as we 
 be. That's neither here nor there now; we're 
 all one, if them flabbergasted politicians would 
 leave us alone. As for Rob Lee, he was a man, 
 and a man's face, in these days of pygmies and 
 sneaks, is welcome; so when Rob comes down 
 out of that it will be the day after they carry 
 Cagy out for good." 
 
 Somehow or other Squidvillites looking at 
 that face softened in after years. 
 
 On the window-sill was a large Bible, referred 
 to by its owner as " the wonderful Book of 
 God, containing a bit of balm for every way- 
 farer's ill." It was large, bound in calf-skin, big 
 type, full of pictures, a treasure from old France 
 brought by some fighting ancestor and be- 
 queathed to the eldest son in every family. It
 
 HOME AT LAST. 225 
 
 was always marked by the owner's "one-glassed" 
 spectacles, as the neighbors called them. 
 
 There were a few other books, yellowish 
 leaved and blotted from long thumbing, their 
 covers very thick from many coatings made to 
 keep them "in readin' condition." 
 
 Their outside told no tales, but a learning- 
 hungry stepson of Buttons found in Cagy's ab- 
 sence ' ' that they were the novels of Walter 
 Scott," and when he bore this information to 
 the Hunter's Paradise there was commotion, and 
 a well- ventilated opinion that Cagy's head " was 
 cracked to be puttering away his time in such 
 silly stuff." 
 
 It was also hinted that the blind eye pulled 
 on some of his brain-strings when the folks re- 
 membered how often they had seen him by the 
 river-bank, lying under a maple, with a sodded 
 stone for a pillow, "readin' contentedly one of 
 them books, his one eye stuck into the print 
 for hours, heeding nothing around, as if every 
 thing was dead." Even his dog "smelled the 
 rat," and lay at his feet like a cat by the side 
 of a mouse-hole. 
 
 The last fireside to hear the news, which 
 was owing to sickness, was Cagy's. A cold that 
 came of a wetting while mail-driving had settled
 
 226 HOME AT LAST. 
 
 on his chest, and although he had tried to con- 
 quer it with a concoction of cream-of-tartar and 
 maple-syrup, ' ' drunk as hot as you could stand 
 it," and fought it with all the grit he had, the 
 battle was unequal. 
 
 The mail-route had to be given to less ex- 
 perienced hands, wh'le Cagy by degrees was 
 forced to keep within his cabin, and finally 
 forced to bed. He was bolstered up, his candle 
 on a sconce of his make, his one eye gleaning 
 the adventures of Rob Roy, his heart pattering 
 with sympathy. 
 
 It was characteristic of him to have a kindly 
 feeling "for daredevils," as his expression ran. 
 
 The fire burned well, a chattering pine log 
 throwing a yellowish light over the walls, light- 
 ing up the pictured warriors, and shining on 
 skins of otter, mink, bear, guns, fishing-rods, 
 etc., things which indicated his life-foibles. 
 
 The dog that lay in front of the fire, now 
 and then grinning at a flying spark lighting on 
 his body, started to his feet, shook himself, ran 
 to the door, scratched it, then jumped on his 
 master's bed and gave a well-pleased bark. Rob 
 Roy was carefully marked with the one-eyed 
 glasses, and gently buried in the clothes. There 
 had never been a lock or bolt to Cagy's door.
 
 HOME AT LAST. 227 
 
 All that was necessary to give it, said the 
 neighbors, " was a shove and it opened itseh." 
 
 Soon there was a feet-coming and the ac- 
 customed shove, and the loud, merry voice, so 
 long known to Cagy, of Billy Buttons. 
 
 Time had worsted Billy badly, stooped his 
 back, whitened his head, wrinkled his face, stiff- 
 ened his limbs, but the voice was as young as 
 the first time it fell on Cagy's ears, capturing 
 him. That cheery voice was the spokesman of 
 a heart that every Squid villite vowed " was as 
 soft as a girl's, as fine as silk, and when it come 
 to stand up for what was right the bravest in 
 the town." 
 
 Cagy, in speaking of Buttons' heart, had al- 
 ways 1 ' to wipe his eyes when he came to that 
 part of his story where, upon losing his eye, 
 Buttons said, as he kept on firing, "Cagy, old 
 boy, I wish it was my eye, or, for that matter, 
 my two, they knocked out, and let you go; but 
 cheer up, they couldn't kill you by putting an 
 eye out. There's more before you." 
 
 That was consoling, and on Cagy's part a 
 memory that did honor to Buttons' heart. 
 
 ' ' Man alive ! Cagy, is it in bed ye are, and 
 the whole town about crazy ? Above all the 
 men you're wanted, and it's in bed ye are.
 
 228 HOME AT LAST. 
 
 Think of that ! But leaving foolin' go, are you 
 laid up for awhile, or is it something that's a- 
 working off ? 
 
 "Well, Billy," and Cagy pulled himself up, 
 putting his knees on a line with his head, "it's 
 a cold that I'm trying to syrup out, but it 
 sticks like a burr, and there's no telling how 
 long I may be here." 
 
 "You'll be up soon," said Buttons, impa- 
 tient to communicate the strange news he held 
 " soon, Cagy. But do you know who's come 
 to town ? Well, you don't, or who could, for 
 that matter, unless they were witches ? I'll 
 never say again that anything is strange. Little 
 Aily La Flamme is down at Weeks' ; full 
 woman, married at that, and has a youngster 
 into the bargain. Why, she's the dead spit of 
 her mother, and you know what that was 
 the same nose, same eyes, and the same way 
 of throwing back her head. Well, you're looking 
 at me. I don't wonder a bit; and I have 
 more wondering in store for you. She comes 
 on a sad business," there were tears in both 
 men's eyes, "sad business for you and me, 
 Cagy. She comes to bury her " 
 
 " Father. Billy ! " said Cagy, clearing his eyes 
 with the sheet, "that's the end of us all; but
 
 HOME AT LAST. 229 
 
 I'm glad that Frank came back to Milly. She 
 was lonely, Billy, so lonely that I thought of 
 keeping her company; but now that her right- 
 ful partner has come back I'll be content any- 
 where you put me of course, the nearer my 
 chums the better. Perhaps you could spare a 
 bit of your ground. You and I have been 
 pretty close in life, and I kind of hate to get 
 away from you." 
 
 He was fingering a little bag that hung 
 around his neck, and from it he drew his ' ' cer- 
 tifier " and handed it to Buttons. 
 
 "That belongs to Aily. I just kept it, 
 waitin' for her. I'm only sorry that the stone 
 is so poor. I suppose they will put in its place 
 sonfething grand, like what we've seen during 
 the war; but I'll never see it, and I'm just as 
 glad. That little bit I have seen it so often 
 it has got close to me, and no big affair could 
 take its place." 
 
 " Man, you're a-talking as if you had given 
 up the hunt. When you drop, Cagy, we'll 
 plant you beside Milly and Frank. That's Aily's 
 way of concocting it. But you're not getting 
 any of those quavers in your skull ? Never say 
 die; a cold won't drop you; it will take a few 
 of them new-fangled diseases that the doctors
 
 230 HOME AT LAST. 
 
 spout out without drawing a breath to knock 
 you over. You're good for a hundred. 
 
 ' ' Now, the funeral will be to-morrow ; so, if 
 you can, you're coming. 
 
 " Come to my house and have a bit of some- 
 thing early; then you and I will creep over to 
 Weeks', where there will be a team and Aily 
 waiting for us. She's full of you ; and maybe I 
 didn't tell her what you had done ; and you 
 needn't be shaking your skull, it was right. I 
 don't believe in letting a man die before I give 
 out my opinion. Well, I wish you could see 
 Aily; you would see a second Milly, and if you 
 saw the youngster you would have an exact 
 third. My ! how things change; it seems only 
 yesterday since Milly was married, and since 
 but it's not good to be thinkin' too much. Now 
 get over, Cagy, early. I will be on the look- 
 out. Try and sleep. Let me fix the quilts 
 about you. There; you're as comfortable as a 
 bird in a nest. Good-night." 
 
 When his footsteps could be no longer heard, 
 Cagy reached for his Bible. His candle was 
 burning low, yet there was light enough to 
 enable him to read the few lines that his eye 
 had fastened on by accident : 
 
 ' ' The days of man are short, and the
 
 HOME AT LAST. 2J1 
 
 number of his months is with Thee: Thou 
 hast appointed his bounds which cannot be 
 passed." 
 
 A moth entangled itself in the sputtering 
 light; the words were no longer legible. As he 
 closed the book the candle went out. "Rob 
 Roy " beneath him, marked with the one-eyed 
 glass, now broken, was forgotten. The flicker- 
 ing glow of the dying pine log brought him 
 strange thoughts and long-buried faces. 
 
 The morning came, one of great excitement 
 for Squid ville. If the truth were told, it would 
 run that there were few sound sleepers in the 
 village that night. 
 
 Daylight beheld a steady smoke from every 
 chimney-pot, telling of expectations and bustle 
 within. The Hunter's Paradise, a strange 
 thing in its history, was kept open all night, and 
 held little groups of villagers, amid smoke-puffs 
 narrating all that was known of La Flamme, as 
 well as venting a thousand conjectures as to his 
 life in the far West. In this every man's imagi- 
 nation was free, and as a consequence there was 
 no end of talk, so the night unnoticed had worn 
 away, and the sun was feeling his way beyond 
 the pines, scaling the mountains; the higher up 
 he went the better was he to be seen. He
 
 23* HOME AT LAST. 
 
 was now tipping the chimneys, and throwing a 
 kind of lantern-light on the roads. 
 
 That was enough to set life agog in a moun- 
 tain town. 
 
 It was a saying that "a little light, with a 
 bit of feeling, was enough for a mountaineer to 
 guess his diggings." 
 
 Buttons' sleep was scant and jumpy. The 
 first streak of light that blinked through the 
 window-pane was a welcome excuse to jump 
 from his bed and open his door to the morn- 
 ing's freshness. 
 
 He could hear the noise and note the lights 
 in Weeks', an observation which on any other 
 occasion would tickle his feet to tread in that 
 direction. The present was little to his taste, 
 bedded as he was in the past. He was nervous 
 and sad. As he dressed the years slid past 
 him, each a hideous spectre of vanished things. 
 He had for the first time in his life fully awak- 
 ened to the passing of things. 
 
 The thought rushed across his brain of the 
 nothingness of Billy Buttons. 
 
 He went out into the keen air and whistled, 
 giving music to his dancing brain-phantoms. 
 
 He looked towards the little graveyard, 
 thought of La Flamme, and this somehow or
 
 HOME AT LAST. 233 
 
 other travelled his mind to Cagy. He but 
 added a new figure. 
 
 When his wife called him to breakfast he was 
 in a kind of dream, where he stood old and 
 raggy by a grave marked Past. Strange, he 
 was wishing to be there, not caring to march 
 when all his love rested there. 
 
 As he sat at the table, his dream gone, he 
 was moved to say audibly : 
 
 "There's not much in death, after all, when 
 love is buried, and the future is a cold stranger. 
 I rather think I'd like it." 
 
 This begot strange suspicions in the wife's 
 head, who, womanly enough, remarked that 
 ' ' people ain't supposed to skip off because their 
 friends do. I suppose you got those ideas from 
 Cagy last night, who's sick a-cause of Frank's 
 endin'." 
 
 " Cagy ay, wife Cagy he should have 
 been here, as he promised ; he must be right 
 sick in good earnest, so let one of the young- 
 sters go and see if he can come." 
 
 The breakfast went on in silence until his 
 stepson returned with the news that Cagy had 
 a bad night. He was sorry that he could not 
 get out, much less sit up in bed, and wanted 
 pa to hurry over after the funeral. He would
 
 234 HOME AT LAST. 
 
 be a-thankin' Mrs. Buttons for a mug of gruel, 
 very weak and a bit tasty, as his appetite was 
 a kind of scratchy. 
 
 This news sorely depressed Buttons. He had 
 an idea that when a man of Cagy's fibre came 
 to a mug of gruel, and that having to be 
 sweetened like a child's meal, the hunt was 
 over. 
 
 With big tears jumping from wrinkle to 
 wrinkle, he solemnly announced to his family 
 that ' ' Cagy would never draw a tricker, and as 
 for me, to keep the gun long after he's gone 
 is something that I don't expect." There was 
 a family sob to punctuate this announcement. 
 
 Mrs. Buttons and family hastened to prepare 
 the best they had in the most appetizing way 
 for the sick man. Billy Buttons, sober and 
 subdued, for the first time in his life keenly 
 conscious of age, slowly sauntered to Weeks', 
 there to await the little funeral cortege. 
 
 The coming was announced by the ringing of 
 the church-bell. Up the village street came a 
 country wagon containing a cofKn, all that was 
 mortal of La Flamme, drawn by two bay colts, 
 followed by Squidville, "just," said a by- 
 stander, ' ' a perfect image of the way his wife 
 went to her long rest."
 
 HOME AT LAST. 235 
 
 On went the cortege, the little bell "ringing 
 its three rings, then takin* a bit of a breathin'- 
 spell," until the cemetery was reached, and the 
 brown-looking clay that told of a new grave ap- 
 proached. Standing there was Pere Monnier, 
 bent and broken on the wheel of time, looking 
 in at the open grave with a sorrowful look, one 
 that spoke of strange thoughts then tenanting 
 his mind. Soon were grouped around him Aily, 
 worn and sobbing, linking the past and present; 
 her husband, giving rejected comfort; the child, 
 full of wonder, not knowing whether to smile or 
 cry ; Weeks, holding its hand ; Buttons, with 
 the shovel that was to put his friend from 
 mortal view. 
 
 The pere spoke a few words of comfort, 
 blessed Aily and her child, then tottered along 
 the little path on his way to Cagy's. 
 
 "Ah, Billy ! " said Weeks, lifting the child in 
 his arms, "that's farewell to Frankie; and 
 who'll be next ? It looks as if the pere is 
 nearin' the end. 
 
 "Where is he going ? My ! how he totters; 
 but he never complains. I said to him the 
 other day that he should take a rest. What do 
 you think he answers me ? ' Jim, there will be 
 a long rest some day, so as long as we can it
 
 236 HOME AT LAST. 
 
 is better to keep doing something.' That's him 
 as long as I can remember never himself, but 
 his people. I'm not of his way of thinkin', but 
 that never made the pere a bit cooler to me 
 and mine. Well, he's turning up by Cagy's, 
 which makes me think that this gatherin' is a 
 kind of queer without poor Cagy. 
 
 " I'll be a-gettin' that way myself. Come, 
 Billy, we've crossed many a fence together." 
 
 "And I'm going," said the child. "Can't I 
 go, ma, with Uncle Jim ? " 
 
 "Better all go," was Aily's quiet reply. 
 "Cagy, child, was grandma's uncle. He liked 
 her as much as Uncle Jim likes you." 
 
 "And more, ay, more, Aily," muttered 
 Weeks. 
 
 " He was also your grandpa's best friend and 
 I was once his little girl. He kept that plot 
 for my father, attended it, planted the flowers, 
 and, being part of us in life, in death shall 
 sleep among us." 
 
 "Is that the thing that killed grandpa? I 
 don't like it ! " cried the child. 
 
 They were at Cagy's house, amid his flowers 
 and song-birds. The door was open, some one 
 was reading; they stopped and listened. These 
 words fell on their ears:
 
 HOME AT LAST. 2J7 
 
 44 He that loveth his neighbor hath fulfilled 
 the law." 
 
 Then there was a pause, and they entered 
 and gathered around the sick man's bed. Pere 
 Monnier closed the Bible and put it on the win- 
 dow-shelf, rose, whispered something in Cagy's 
 ear, to which he replied: 
 
 "I'm ready, pere; I'll go and look over the 
 ground before you come. Farewell; everything 
 is left for you to see to." The pere then left. 
 
 "You're getting weaker, Cagy," said Buttons, 
 "but rouse yourself; here's Aily, your little 
 girl, come back; yes, Aily and another little 
 Milly." 
 
 "Do, Cagy, sit up and see this child; she 
 begs "a kiss," said Weeks. 
 
 "Fix me up, Buttons; pillar me behind, a 
 little sidewise. I want to get my good eye on 
 you all. Poke over the child now; ay ! that's 
 a kiss that ought to make me better if there 
 was any betterin' to me. I have been in many 
 a tough corner in my day, but this ends the 
 hunt. Don't be blurting, Buttons; a man's 
 days are numbered, and when the time comes 
 let him hand in his gun with due reverence. 
 
 "I fixed up my account, temporal and spirit- 
 ual, as best I knew ; so I'm just awaitin* the
 
 238 HOME AT LAST. 
 
 call. I won't be lonely either; there's some 
 one on the other side a-keepin* watch this 
 many a day. I go off content, seein' you, 
 Aily, and the certifier in yo^r hand ; besides 
 this I want you to have my books. I stopped 
 on ' Rob Roy,' page 243. Take that Bible, 
 given by my mother; that's for little Milly. 
 As to my home and belongings, that's Buttons'; 
 all but my gun, that's for Jim. 
 
 " Everything is in tip-top shape, so I'm not 
 complainin'. 
 
 " If you pull out the pillars, and let me 
 down easy, I will be a bit better. 
 
 "Turn me over on my side; I want to have 
 my one eye on the youngster." 
 
 "This is hard lines on me," said Buttons. 
 "I don't see why I'm left, and Cagy gettin' 
 ready to start." 
 
 "I pity poor Buttons," said Weeks; "it's 
 long they've hunted together." 
 
 "Is there any hope?" said Aily, bending 
 over her father's friend. 
 
 "Not much, I fear," said her husband; "he 
 seems to be sinking since we put him down. 
 See how strange his eyes are straining, as if 
 he wished to see some one." 
 
 " He is smiling like a child," said Buttons,
 
 HOME AT LAST. 239 
 
 holding his hand "smiling as if he's happy. 
 Listen; he's going to say something." 
 
 They listened; but one word fell from his 
 lips "Felina." 
 
 The spirit had fled. 
 
 On the little gravestone, a few weeks later, 
 a man came and chiselled under Milly's name 
 "Frankie: Cagy," and then La Flamme's dy- 
 ing wish: 
 
 " HOME AT LAST."
 
 240 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 
 
 THE making of the St. Lawrence & Adiron- 
 dack Railway through Squidville was, perhaps, 
 the biggest event in the history of that inter- 
 esting town. It gave work to men, boys, horses, 
 and, to apply a phrase that took life at that 
 time, " everything was a- working, and what 
 was not was eaten up." It was a truthful 
 phrase, as most phrases coined by the common 
 people are. Their language-coin is minted for 
 use, and it is worth what it weighs. They do 
 not slide around the bush, but aim right at the 
 bull's-eye, a homely virtue in these days of 
 mincing redundancies and delicate, bloodless 
 word-phrasing. The farmer used his team, his 
 boys were water-carriers, his beef was toothsome 
 for the "bosses," his pork and potatoes the life 
 of the workers. Spare oats and hay brought a 
 good price. Chickens found a ready purchaser 
 in the engineer corps. So everything was gallop- 
 ing in those times.
 
 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 241 
 
 Towns are like individuals. A chance once 
 comes to them of marring or making. The long- 
 headed woodmen knew the difference. Mort- 
 gages were paid up; bits of land added to the 
 original contract. Long-standing store-accounts, 
 bequeathed from generation to generation, were 
 cancelled. Men held their heads high, indulged 
 in a couple of cigars a week, contracted buggies, 
 and blanketed their horses. 
 
 It has been an observation of mine that in 
 rural communities a man's wealth may easily be 
 gauged by the look of the animals around his 
 place. "Show me your company, and I will 
 tell who you are," is an old saw. I suggest, 
 Show me your barns, and I'll tell you what 
 kind 'of a farmer you are. When barns are 
 paintless, patchy, and rickety I look for a hole 
 in the owner's hat, and a badly fitted patch, of 
 a color other than the pants, on his knee-caps. 
 
 Long hair, squeaky boots, and pessimism may 
 run in the same rut without astounding me. 
 Man vibrates to environment. The music is 
 dress. 
 
 Youngsters courted violently, the males donat- 
 ing largely such allurements as silver-tipped hair- 
 combs, monogram rings, the metal of no con- 
 sequence, the value lying in the extent to which
 
 242 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 
 
 it shone. Colored handkerchiefs, mostly silk, 
 pocketbooks with a silver clasp, bracelets, candy 
 artfully arranged that the package was a poeti 
 cally composed love-letter. Candy played a 
 prominent part that year. The bashful swain 
 handed his love a " lozenger " with this blunt 
 phrase, "Honey, will you be mine?" Gentle 
 Phyllis checkmated him with this taking trump 
 found in the same package, "Just name the 
 day." Could there be anything so simple and 
 yet so poetic as lay hidden in a package of 
 Squidville candy ? Billy Buttons, always ready 
 to voice a fitting phrase, sold this candy as 
 "Questions and Answers." These things being 
 known, the wonderment ceases that marriages 
 that year made bachelors so scarce as to be 
 numbered on the two hands, not counting the 
 thumbs. 
 
 And here I remark, for the benefit of the 
 new woman, that in this lottery every man 
 drew a prize, and treasured that prize more 
 lovingly and ardently than on the lucky day he 
 drew it. The reason, I think, is that the Squid- 
 villite has learned that human nature will run 
 easy when greased by love. That greasing he 
 does not leave to his partner. He shoulders his 
 share. What is heavy for one is light for two.
 
 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 843 
 
 Married women bought shawls and new bon- 
 nets. They were not extravagant. They had 
 economized on butter and eggs, until, unknown 
 to their husbands, they had safely housed, in a 
 newly knit stocking, the desired store of pennies. 
 Then, some Sunday morning, the pennies were 
 gone, but the shawl and hat were ready. 
 
 Children were kindly but forcibly reminded of 
 the whipping that awaited them in case of dis- 
 closure of the secret to the father, who was 
 just then enjoying, with the ease of a prince, a 
 long projectile named "Rising Sun Cigar." 
 When the bell rang its sweet invitation to come 
 and worship God, and the husband called, "It's 
 time for church, ma cherie, come ' veet,' " the 
 wife," with a grave face, bonnet and shawl most 
 artistically arranged, was soon by his side, care- 
 lessly looking into his eyes. 
 
 There was a quick heart-beat, a welling of 
 love, a talking of eyes, and a kiss that set the 
 children prattling. When the church-goers com- 
 plimented him on the "youngness" of his wife 
 he blushingly remarked : 
 
 "Ay, ay ! It would be hard to find her 
 equal. No mistake of that." 
 
 It was honorable pride, and a true setting of 
 love.
 
 244 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 
 
 As they homeward went laughingly he told 
 her all the compliments paid her, and added 
 his own, by far the most delightful to a good 
 woman's ears. In them were the magic memories 
 of life. 
 
 In the great business bustle Billy Buttons 
 bore a distinguished part. The "lettering busi- 
 ness" was increased one hundredfold, while the 
 original bait of drawing customers by keeping 
 a post-office showed itself a brilliant scheme. 
 Trade was brisk. A man, while waiting for the 
 assortment of his mail, saw many things to 
 touch his pocketbook, and at reasonable prices. 
 
 The post-master's well-known honesty and per- 
 fect frankness in regard to his goods soon 
 made his name known to the railway-camps. 
 Then there were other attractions, dear to the 
 tired workmen. Everybody was welcome to the 
 post-office, and everybody free to tell his yarn, 
 assured of a listening and approving crowd. 
 
 There was no flagging, as the master could al- 
 ways be depended on for a war- or hunting- 
 story. To his credit be it written, the war- 
 stories were rot his own exploits. Hunting- 
 stories gave him a wider range, and brought out 
 more fully his great gifts as a born story-teller. 
 In these, as hero, he divided honors with
 
 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 245 
 
 Cagy, always giving due share to those wonder- 
 ful dogs he had bred and trained. 
 
 Patronage such as this meant money, and by 
 the time the railway was laid the post-master 
 had, in various stockings and old shoes, the snug 
 sum of two thousand dollars. A part of this 
 was carried to his home; the remainder he kept 
 in his office covered with old papers, mailed as 
 a token of home love, but never called for by 
 the owners. 
 
 It was, as he said, handy if one of his friends 
 needed a "lift"; just in a place where he 
 could get it easily, and no one was the wiser. 
 His wife objected, the feminine element being 
 noted in history as always suspicious of the 
 future. Her ideas of thieves were foolish to his 
 view. He called her reasonings "ravings," re- 
 minding her that his every cent was honestly got, 
 and that no man or woman would steal from 
 Billy Buttons. In her own way she was a lo- 
 gician, and argued that if thieves did not believe 
 in honesty what did they care how honestly a 
 thing was got if they could put their hands on it. 
 
 All this was adverse to the mind of her hus- 
 band, and the old stockings and paper-stuffed 
 shoe lay under the thousand weeklies, holding a 
 bit of balm for the needy.
 
 246 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 
 
 The post-master lived under a pretty delusion 
 that no robber, no matter how acute he might 
 be, would have brains enough "to poke amid 
 old papers." Supported by this thought, he 
 laughed at his wife's notions, and went on, day 
 after day, augmenting the paper-heap. 
 
 Many a woman of Squidville, wanting papers 
 to stuff holes and corners, came to him, know- 
 ing his large store, but with a laugh and a word 
 he managed to baffle them and send them home 
 in good humor. 
 
 "How can I give them," he would say, "as 
 they ain't mine and I don't know when the 
 owner might call ? A post-master ain't like 
 common folks ; their papers are their own ; mine 
 belong to everybody. Besides, the papers I 
 would give, perhaps, contain something better 
 not known, so, all in all, I must do my duty 
 and leave them where they are. 
 
 There was one man that knew of the treasure 
 beneath the dusty, ill-kept heap, whose cat-eyes 
 for a moment glimpsed at the stockings, and 
 riveted themselves on the old shoe when its 
 master took from it the full of his fingers of 
 notes to help ' ' a silly man that was trying to 
 fool the people for a living, and, like a fool, was
 
 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 247 
 
 caught when he was making the biggest jump of 
 his life." 
 
 When Corkey Slithers, bleeding and whining, 
 was left with a warning to quit Squidville for- 
 ever, Buttons returned home to harness his horse 
 and start in quest of the fallen professor of oc- 
 cultism. He found him scarcely knowing what 
 to do, and, arousing him to a sense of danger, 
 he put him in his buggy and drove to the post- 
 office. 
 
 Although it was the post-office talk for weeks 
 that Corkey ' ' was coining money, that he had 
 struck a regular hail-storm in that line," Buttons 
 was incredulous. 
 
 He had a poor idea of Squidville's individual 
 generosity when it comes to pay for " capering 
 that brings in nothing back." 
 
 To the Rev. Jamie Snooter, a travelling tem- 
 perance-talker, who boasted of his conversions in 
 all the mountain towns, and who boldly attacked 
 Billy on smoking and drinking, clenching it 
 down, as he said, with Billy's logic on capering, 
 he replied, stamping the letters violently, " that 
 smoking and drinking did give something back. 
 Smoking soothed the mind and made his back 
 memory flow like the Salmon River after a rain-
 
 248 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 
 
 crop. A drink cured colic as fast as it struck 
 it." The audience, mostly a crowd of experi- 
 mentalists, were with Buttons, and openly 
 laughed at what they called ' ' the snooterings of 
 Mr. Snooter." 
 
 When Weeks heard of Billy's brilliant dash 
 against Snooter he could not eat his dinner 
 until he had congratulated him. "Just a bit of 
 rock-sense I put against the Rev. Jamie's froth, 
 making his arguments more suddy than when 
 they struck me. Folks that have a bit of learn- 
 in' nowadays," continued he, "will have a 
 hobby not for saving man, but making them- 
 selves a bit known. The country is full of 
 sham and shoddy, Jim Weeks." 
 
 The quiet laugh and the slow head-shake of 
 the hotel-man were convincing of his sympathies 
 on this point. 
 
 Corkey, when asked pointblank if "by his 
 capering he had made any money," whiningly 
 denied, confirming Buttons in his suspicions. 
 
 " I trusted," he said, and, seeing now that 
 his art was ruined by an unholy contact with 
 science, he had no hopes of collecting. "People 
 will say ' fraud,' not knowing how the spirit, 
 observing, as only a spirit can, the use of the 
 doctor's syringe, concealed in his big pocket,
 
 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 249 
 
 vanished at the moment of action, throwing me 
 in full shot of the doctor's fluid and tangling 
 me with a perplexing gown. The common mind 
 is unable to reason out such obscurities, and 
 hence, Mr. Post-master, it avails itself of that 
 destructive word fraud. Call a sane dog mad, 
 and he will be clubbed to death. Say fraud, 
 and woe to the victim. 
 
 " May I trust that I am particularly under- 
 stood, William Buttons ? " 
 
 " Hush your clattering, Corkey. Your learnin' 
 and speechifying has been your blight. I fear 
 your mainspring is out of kelter. I wish I 
 had a looking-glass till you would see what a 
 spectacle you've come to. Your face has 
 cracks on it that soap won't thaw out. You 
 were never much noted for beauty, with all your 
 puttying and powdering and sweet-water sprin- 
 kling, but now no concoction could make you 
 passable in a crowd. Poor Corkey, you are like 
 an effigy of something a fellow might think he 
 would meet in the woods. Faith, the preacher 
 had a head on him when he said, ' Put it in 
 your skulls and keep it there; observin' will con- 
 firm it. Beauty's skin deep; no more, no 
 less.' 
 
 "The observin' is all on you, Corkey. The
 
 250 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 
 
 only woman you can court now is a blind one; 
 even her, if she has good feelin', will note the 
 ruts. But, Corkey, misfortune should learn you 
 a bit," and Buttons on one knee fumbled amid 
 the papers, exposing stockings and diving into 
 the old shoe, bringing out the full of his fingers 
 of notes and closing Corkey 's hand upon them. 
 The papers were carelessly kicked until the 
 treasure was again hidden. "Take this, Corkey. 
 It's all for the days when you were courting 
 Milly La Flamme; all for those days. There 
 was no tucks then in your skull ; you were an 
 honest man, and doing fine work, training the 
 young. 
 
 " I don't forget how you set the Poulets 
 reading and spelling until they could cipher out 
 anything in print. Many a time, too, you gave 
 me a lift in the lettering. So, for all you done 
 in those old days, take the bills, Mr. Corkey. 
 Go somewhere and follow out your profession, 
 and leave your spirit business to bigger fools. 
 Come, let us be getting out of Squidville if you 
 fear a tattered hide." 
 
 Corkey, casting a wistful look at the old 
 papers, was soon in the buggy, waving his hand 
 and saying : ' ' Farewell to Squidville ! And 
 while I take issue with you, Billy Buttons,
 
 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 251 
 
 whether I shall lie in roses, or, as now, stumble 
 amid briars and thorns, your name shall scin- 
 tillate passionately through memory's cells, every 
 vibration telling of your goodness." 
 
 "The moon is just right for bears," remarked 
 Buttons as he took his seat beside Slithers. 
 "I'll bet they'll be nibbling corn to-night. 
 Many such nights Cagy and I were afoot under 
 her glance. She filled my mind with thinkin'. 
 When she's shining, just as she is now, that, 
 says I, is Buttons when all is going his way. 
 When she dips under a cloud, that, too, says I, 
 is Buttons in hard luck. Corkey, you should 
 think of these things. You're down, but you 
 will, if you take care of yourself, be some day 
 on the ups." 
 
 His moralizing was rudely broken by Slithers, 
 who rather sang than spoke: 
 
 "Farewell, a long farewell to the pleasant 
 oanks of the Salmon, whose soft music gurgles 
 in the ears of your fervent admirer, Corkey 
 Slithers." 
 
 " A funny world this," thought Buttons. 
 "Gee up!" and the knowing horse assumed his 
 gait. 
 
 They drove to the little coal-box station to 
 catch the early train for Montreal.
 
 252 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 
 
 Squidville awoke next morning, and, in fury, 
 rushed to the professor's den. But the bird had 
 flown. 
 
 A few of the ardent spirits started to seek 
 the "swindler" by the various roads that led 
 from Squidville. On one of these they met 
 William Buttons coming at an easy jog, pipe in 
 hand singing : 
 
 "Je tiens cette maximc utile 
 
 De ce fumeux monsieur de Crac. 
 En champagne comme i la ville 
 J'adore 1'amour et le tabac. 
 
 " Quand ce grand homme allait en guerre 
 
 II portrait, dans son petit sac : 
 Le don portrait de sa bergere, 
 Avec la pipe de tabac." 
 
 As they came within hailing distance he was 
 greeted with: "Buttons, we're looking for Cor- 
 key, and we'll end him. Have you seen him ? 
 Were you on the hunt ? " 
 
 Putting his two hands to his mouth, in the 
 shape of a boat, the better to convey sound, 
 he informed the hunters, much to their disgust, 
 that there was no use in following up the 
 trail, as it would be lost at the station. "He's 
 gone, and forever." There was a halt and a 
 turning of buggies. Corkey had safely fled.
 
 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 253 
 
 Banks were made for the thrifty and careful. 
 Their existence was not unknown to Buttons, 
 who, in earlier years, had made a deposit of 
 twenty-five dollars, but drew it out the same 
 day, to the disgust and with the grumbling of 
 the cashier, to help to bury the wife "of a poor 
 cuss " whose ills constant never took him pre- 
 pared. 
 
 The cashier's anger, opening in a curse, left 
 in Buttons' mouth an unwholesome taste of all 
 money-houses. He was wont to say, and I am 
 far from taking the negative, that "civility in 
 such institutions is a polish that thickens or 
 lessens according to the rank of the depositor." I 
 often wondered if it was not on account of this 
 polish that bank-clerks were so much sought 
 after to take classes in Sunday-schools. If they 
 were not so migratory, and so uncertain often- 
 times of returning, in this occupation their success 
 had been long ago proverbial. As it is, thanks 
 to the polish so necessary to institutions where 
 crafty civility is a law of life, they are always 
 preferred to the workingman. Despite the twad- 
 dle we hear and read of the dignity of labor, the 
 dignity of dress is higher. The moralists fume 
 about the hidden diseases, of the rottenness 
 within, of the whiteness without, but talk is
 
 254 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 
 
 merely a matter of their craft. When the rot- 
 tenness is hidden by a few yards of silk, or 
 even costly broadcloth, these same moralists are 
 mesmerized, and either deny the disease or call 
 it by some name that takes away the odium. 
 Unsavory smells may, for the time, appear 
 sweet with a liberal quantity of perfumery. 
 
 Buttons cared little for surface-polish that 
 not-to-be-despised vesture which so often has 
 masked depravity for years. 
 
 He despised, by his conduct, the dictum of 
 the cynical Talleyrand, who declared that speech 
 was made to hide thought. Buttons was not 
 civilized enough for such a dictum ; he was not 
 sufficiently emasculated. A spade was a spade, 
 and he thought it was right to call it such in 
 company. Think of this mountaineer defining it 
 as "an instrument by which clay may be turned 
 over"! Words were to him for the expression 
 of what he felt. They were clean-cut, and 
 went to the bull's-eye at once. His book- 
 learning was scanty, but ably seconded by com- 
 mon-sense a lack that gives to modern book- 
 lore a hieroglyphic appearance. Yet may not 
 the reader, thinking of the pile of waste paper 
 and its hidden treasure, thank Heaven that 
 their common-sense is of another kind a kind
 
 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 255 
 
 that would save them from such carelessness. 
 Their common-sense would lead them to a 
 bank, where polish would greet them, and civil- 
 ity, bowing, would take their money. Buttons 
 might lose his money by a thief ; once the 
 hiding-place was known the taking were easy. 
 The depositor might lose his, as he has often 
 done. 
 
 What difference, then, there must be between 
 polish and a common thief ! The one is a thief; 
 the other an absconder, a bank-wrecker. There 
 is no difference, you exclaim ; it is a playing 
 of words mere cant. Be it so, for it is so ; 
 and the sooner you learn that cant is our 
 ordinary coin, and either learn it and be world- 
 ly, or abhor it and withdraw into your cave, 
 the wiser will men deem you. Would you re- 
 form all this an Augean stable ? If you would, 
 call not your task a reformation. That word 
 has lost its original meaning, although grave 
 Dr. Trench has taken no notice. An elevation 
 of one's self, by any and every means, at some- 
 body's expense, will be its definition by the 
 future lexicographer. 
 
 Buttons was too near nature to have polish, 
 and his life was spent among those who had 
 not studied the dictum of M. Talleyrand.
 
 256 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 
 
 These are the only valid reasons I may give : 
 Lack of polish and cant, which made Buttons 
 leave, year after year, his hard-earned store in 
 an old shoe, a poor safe, its door but a stuff- 
 ing of old paper, when he might have had it 
 in security and at interest. 
 
 Custom has a parasitic growth. The passing 
 years, and the old shoe's safety, were convinc- 
 ing that security can lie in a bundle of news- 
 papers. To this thought he accustomed him- 
 self, and rarely, unless when needful, bothered 
 himself about the money. 
 
 Age had come upon him not gently, he held, 
 but "with a cat-spring." He was peevish un- 
 der her meshes. His had been a life in the 
 open a communing with Nature in all the forms 
 she presents in the Adirondacks. These forms 
 were many, and to her lover ever delightful. 
 In spring, the dark green stretches of cedar and 
 pine, sentinelling the cool, child-laughing Sal- 
 mon. The speckled beauties mischievously lurk- 
 ing under the sun-dried rock, in their eagerness 
 for prey biting at an illusion as he warily 
 drew the fly in their way. Then the thrilling 
 hiss of the line, and the merry music of the 
 reel, and the sunlight on the delicate colors, as, 
 pluckily fighting, their owner ran alongside the
 
 THE PASSING Or BILLY BUTTONS, 257 
 
 boat to death and the fisherman's basket. In 
 summer, the lone boating on the loveliest of 
 lakes, robins spilling music along his route 
 a nosegay at every landing. In autumn, the 
 glorious deer-hunt and ravishing dog-music. All 
 is quiet; then a sharp bark. Your eyes are 
 strained in the direction of the dog, and your 
 gun unconsciously follows the motion of the 
 eye. There is a lull ; the music has stopped ; 
 disgust sits on your face, and the gun hangs 
 stupidly by your side. Faith is pinned to the 
 dog. The crafty, cunning fellow deserves your 
 faith. Through briars and thorns and ragged 
 choke-cherries, not caring a button for a blood- 
 speck on his hide, he has followed his prey, 
 circled with him in the spruce, followed him to 
 the edge of the pine, dogged him by the moun- 
 tain brooks, across the glade, over the moun- 
 tains, backwards and forwards, keeping your 
 spirits dancing to the mad, merry music of his 
 tongue. And nearer and nearer the music 
 comes ! quicker, sharper, surer, a ring of triumph 
 in it, trembling by times, always exulting. The 
 gun is ready it no longer hangs by the side ; 
 the hold is one steady for action the eyes are 
 quick and jerky. Nor is there long to wait. 
 With the softness of an evening breeze the
 
 258 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 
 
 majestic fellow Apollo, with the sandals of 
 Hermes divides the brush, his antlers thrown 
 back, his perfect nose testing danger, his ears 
 quick, decisive, catching every sound, his big 
 black eyes pools of pity. 
 
 The dog knows not mercy, and his wild music 
 has brought the brute within to the surface. 
 The brute has no ideas of beauty, and to him 
 pity is unknown. The dog taunts you he has 
 done his duty. Comrades are listening for the 
 welcome shot, which shall conjure up visions of 
 venison, and a good story for the camp-fire. A 
 crack, quick, airy, goes booming through the 
 woods, strays around the edges of the lakes, and 
 dies. It is enough. Comrades rejoice. A jump, 
 a piercing bleat, like a sheep when on a stormy 
 night she has lost her young, a throwing forth 
 of the majestic head, a snappy twitch of the 
 body the hunt is over the deer is dead. 
 Closer comes the dog in sight of his prey, proud 
 of his master's prowess, wildly leaping, shaking 
 his head, wagging his tail, lying beside the 
 fallen monarch, lapping his blood, the petted 
 and spoiled, reading in his master's eye the only 
 trophy that is worth trying for love. 
 
 Keen as was Buttons' vim for sport, Cagy tells 
 where it was paralyzed by the spell of beauty.
 
 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 259 
 
 Those who believe that beauty is a quality 
 only sought after by the cultured (and it is an 
 opinion violently held) live in their own domain. 
 The poor man's wife, who in the burning, sap- 
 ping city, rears a consumptive geranium in some 
 old canister, wearily awaiting the blasted bud to 
 flower, worships beauty. The poor man's child, 
 in her first country walk, who rolls in the green 
 grass so soft, from her raggy carpet, and kisses 
 the buttercups, or who chases the mottled but- 
 terfly and fixes her curls, the brook her mirror, 
 the comb her fingers, is a lover of beauty. 
 Love is universal, and wherever the watchful 
 imp goes his mantle is beauty. 
 
 The story runs that one day Billy Buttons, 
 tired^of hearing dogs, and seeing no game, lay 
 down on a green patch by the Salmon River, 
 a patch hid by a few stunted willows, and went 
 into deep slumber for a few hours. He 
 awoke carefully, as was his fashion, to find a 
 few rods from him a huge buck, throwing 
 cooling showers over his back and refreshing 
 himself for a new run. The sight was so beau- 
 tiful that I quote William's language : "I could 
 not draw a tricker to save my life. I scared 
 the fellow away, and when the dogs came up 
 and crossed the stream I leashed them. Every-
 
 260 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 
 
 thing should have one chance, while they're liv- 
 ing, for their life." 
 
 To these delights of autumn add that of the 
 forest shading itself into winter; see the green 
 clasping yellow; the yellow drifting into wine- 
 color, then darker and darker, until it reaches 
 the dark brown gnarled leaf nipped by a baby 
 frost, the idle sport of every scampering gale. 
 What is more palatable to the artistic in man 
 than the silvery thread of the river stoled in 
 green just as the sun lies down to rest, breath- 
 ing twilight with his last beams, draining his last 
 goblet to the moon's short and mystic reign ? 
 
 How often had Buttons gazed on such scenes 
 brewing sadness, his soul not deigning to give 
 its thoughts speech-setting. 
 
 Nor was winter less full of pleasantry to this 
 lover of nature. The jingle of sleigh-bells, the 
 mountain dances, the dashing hunts after the 
 fox, the retelling of folk-lore by the crackling 
 pine-wood these made a joyous time, and winter 
 was as welcome as her lighter-dressed sisters. 
 
 Age had come. I had written to Billy But- 
 tons, and times had changed. Old faces had 
 slipped away; new ones wore a strange air. 
 The rude mountain town was changing into a 
 conventional country village. Parties were spring-
 
 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 261 
 
 ing up, and selfishness growing. The strangers, 
 who knew him not, tried to have the post- 
 office in new hands, and, this failing, weekly 
 petitioned Washington for a business post-master. 
 Yes, that horrid word "business" was prefixing 
 itself to everything and everybody, and dealing 
 death-blow to the pleasant life of early Squidville. 
 The friends of his youth had gone. Some, 
 like Pere Monnier and Cagy, were sleeping their 
 last sweet sleep; others, like Weeks, had sold 
 out and gone West to join the Mintons. Billy 
 Buttons no longer visited the Hunter's Paradise, 
 whose name had been changed to the Brunswick. 
 The new owner was spruce and spry. He had 
 enlarged the premises, painted them a gaudy 
 color, businesslike. Your ordinary tourist loves 
 show. There was a large card in the office, 
 limiting the privileges of guides. Buttons being 
 post-master, these privileges might have been 
 extended; but he was not the man to sail under 
 false colors. "Guiding is my life-work," he 
 warmly said. "This lettering affair was some- 
 thing the boys put upon me, so I keep it for 
 their sake, and if they were around to-day there 
 would be no sneaking after it. It's easy seen 
 my partners got the start of me in the long 
 journey."
 
 262 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 
 
 Nor was the little church the same. The new 
 minister had neither the devotion nor the win- 
 ning ways of Pere Monnier. He loudly voiced 
 the complaint against the post-master's way of 
 doing business. He rarely called on him, and, 
 when he did, his signs of being bored at the old 
 hunter's tales were evident. 
 
 "Perhaps it is," said Buttons, "because I am 
 always telling him of Pere Monnier. I am sorry 
 it vexes him, but a man must speak of his own 
 life; and the best part of mine was Pere Mon- 
 nier. These woods shall never see his like 
 again. Just the kind of a man that Christ, as 
 I know Him, would have said to ' come and 
 follow Me,' and made him an apostle right on 
 the spot. Well, he's gone ahead, and although 
 I'm rough material from him, I ain't a bit 
 afraid to follow. As he used to say, ' God 
 won't expect much from them that haven't over- 
 much to bank on, and if you follow me I'll 
 show you the way,' and I may have been a 
 little roundabout, but I never got lost that I 
 couldn't find the trail, and if I brought a little 
 mud with me it was washed away. If the wise 
 man fell seven times a day, repented, and came 
 to grace, do you have grit. There's aye a 
 chance for you, Buttons. And when I do get in
 
 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 263 
 
 beside Cagy and Frank and his wife I don't 
 care how high they are that Pere Monnier's 
 with, he'll come down and take my hand. I 
 remember him one day talking to a big man. 
 There was a crowd around him when I and Cagy, 
 in our worst clothes, passed. He broke away 
 from the rich folk and called to us, ' Boys, is it 
 passing your pastor you are and not giving him 
 a ban jour? It's the least you could do.' 
 
 "'Seeing you were engaged,' says I, 'and 
 us in our working-rags ' 
 
 "'Nonsense!' says he; 'nonsense! You're 
 my own people, and clothes makes no man.' 
 Thumping us on the heart, ' If that's clean, 
 you're gentlemen.' And a cigar went to each 
 of us. 
 
 "'Buttons,' says Cagy, 'will you ever for- 
 get this day? It's as sacred to me as my Bible. 
 May the Lord spare him his health many a day, 
 to thump men's hearts and drive in his little 
 bit of balm.' " 
 
 Buttons was not resentful to these changing 
 things. He spoke of them more with sadness 
 than bitterness. He reckoned that his days were 
 numbered, and he hoped that when his hour 
 came he would, with courage and decency, pass 
 over to his fathers. There was one longing, for
 
 264 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 
 
 life has its hobbies to the end. That longing 
 was to die as post-master of Squidville-town. 
 
 His homely phrase was, to die in harness. 
 Age has its hobbies as well as youth, and 
 clings more tenaciously to them. The death of 
 a hobby is a chip from the block of life. It 
 was useless to argue old age, that is uncom- 
 plimentary and in bad taste, physical debilities, 
 which meant memories of health, a contrast 
 fraught with sadness, for giving up the post- 
 office. He was heedless, firm in resolve to die 
 in the lettering business. The grocery trade 
 had been gladly turned over to his stepsons, the 
 Poulets, with the distinct understanding that the 
 corner sacred to letters was sacred to Buttons. 
 
 I think he was right. Possibly he came to 
 his idea by sound logic. Logic does exist out- 
 side the schools. In other days, when spry and 
 joyous, I had heard him say: 
 
 " If you want to kill an old man quick let 
 him have nothing to do." 
 
 To that same idea I adhere experience in my 
 case makes it a truth. 
 
 Old age is prone to ask questions from the 
 future, and to no age will that mysterious 
 nymph unveil. To be thus thwarted, I grant, 
 is not pleasant. Then comes lone-voiced sad-
 
 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 265 
 
 ness, and the best cure is work. Continu- 
 ally to live in the future is to ignore the pres- 
 ent, and to be untaught of the past. "Live 
 well to-day and you will make the best prepa- 
 ration for the morrow," was a practical text of 
 Pere Monnier. Buttons kept his little corner 
 fenced in with stout railing as his own pre- 
 serve. 
 
 He had become a great reader, and he had 
 the country post-master's well-known and re- 
 spected right of reading all the newspapers that 
 came to his office. It was not unfrequent to 
 hear the farmer ask, " Billy, had you time to 
 give it a glance?" referring to his weekly news- 
 paper. These glimpses kept the old post- 
 master busy when not receiving and distributing 
 mail. 
 
 Day by day he hobbled to and fro between 
 his house and his office attended by an aged 
 hound, the master's gait seeming to suit the 
 dog's. This hound was dear to the old man's 
 heart. It was a dying present of Pere Monnier 
 to the post-master. The pere loved a dog and 
 gun things that endeared him to early Squid- 
 ville. 
 
 It was meet that his champion dog, Mickey 
 Free, whose wonderful skill in deer-tracking had
 
 266 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 
 
 won the heart of the guides for his master, 
 should be left, when that master was no more, 
 to the watchful tendance of loving hands, in 
 other words, to William Buttons. An old dog, 
 his master dead, kept for show, not for love, is 
 a sad sight. In Buttons' case there was a 
 double love love for the man of men, love for 
 the intrinsic worth of Mickey, whose cunning had 
 given Buttons many a shot. 
 
 So they toddled together. When Sunday 
 came the dog left him at the church door hunt- 
 ing every nook of the garden for his old master. 
 
 No inducement could make him enter the par- 
 sonage or make friends with the new rector. 
 His faithfulness and lonesomeness welled up 
 many a memory in the parishioners' hearts. 
 When the service was over he took his place 
 by his master's side. 
 
 "There goes the pere's dog and Billy But- 
 tons," said the parishioners. 
 
 Winter had come, more than unusually cold 
 and stormy. Roads were t?ad, walking puz- 
 zling, even to the young. Buttons would not 
 be home-bound, so there was only one way, 
 said his family, to settle matters. A bed came 
 to the office, and an old sleeveless coat as a 
 shake-down for Mickey. The Poulets would see
 
 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 267 
 
 that their father wanted nothing. This move 
 captivated Billy Buttons. 
 
 "Don't bother yourself," he said, "carting 
 me any food. The store's full of all kinds of 
 canned goods, fit enough for Bonaparte and his 
 officers. I'll be like the rats nibble here and 
 there when you're not around. Me and Mickey 
 will get along, never fear. If we can't do any- 
 thing else, we can sit and look out of the 
 window and watch the woods and think. I 
 guess he's like myself. If he hunts any more 
 it will be with his memory." 
 
 This life was to his taste, and his taste was 
 respected. Billy Buttons and Mickey Free, 
 man and dog bound together by mutual ties of 
 love," took up their winter quarters in the post- 
 office. 
 
 The post-master was an early riser. Long 
 years of practice had confirmed him in his habit. 
 The first puff of smoke in the village came 
 from his chimney. It kept many a clock in 
 order. 
 
 "Set her about five minutes past five. But- 
 tons smokes, and you'll be close to the right," 
 was a common expression. 
 
 The stepsons came a few hours later. 
 
 One morning there was no smoke from But-
 
 268 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 
 
 tons' chimney. This troublesome fact was no- 
 ticed by Mrs. Buttons. She had, as often 
 before, strange dreams through the night. She 
 dreamt she saw Cagy prepare a bed of roses, 
 and when she asked him what he was doing 
 that for he smiled and said ' ' that it was a bed 
 for one who lived up to his lights." 
 
 Being further impelled by human curiosity to 
 inquire who was the lucky one, Cagy breathed 
 her husband's name, and went out of her sight 
 like a hawk when she was looking at him. 
 Then she awoke. Mickey was savagely barking, 
 but as he had often done that before it gave 
 her but little thought. Now she had something 
 to spin, three strands of yarn to twist into a 
 tale. Nervous by nature, suspense became an- 
 guish. Her sons were aroused and her fears 
 made known. They argued that their father 
 might have been sick, thus allaying the smoke 
 theory; the dog's barking betokened little, but 
 when they came to the dream, they met it with 
 laughter. 
 
 Laughter makes no converts. It may effect a 
 prudent silence, and silence so glibly prated as 
 consent is a falsity which passes with unleavened 
 minds for truth. Truth-tasting as an occupation 
 employs but few. Mrs. Buttons would be con-
 
 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 269 
 
 vinced when her sons would return. As they 
 made ready to comply with her wishes, a neigh- 
 bor in a hurry for his breakfast came with the 
 news that he went to the office for groceries 
 necessary for that meal, and "knocked knocked 
 for fully a good ten minutes, and neither Billy 
 nor the dog let on, which was a bit queer, so 
 I came to get one of the boys to open and let 
 me have what I want, as it's getting well on." 
 
 Mrs. Buttons' suspicions were being confirmed. 
 Her spinning was not in vain. The boys and 
 neighbor hurried ahead. Youth runs well. Age 
 and Mrs. Buttons came trotting after. Her 
 mind was full of rude thinking, a land of dark 
 and depressing shadows. An old shawl was 
 carelessly twisted around her small, drooping 
 form, the wind flapping its ends. 
 
 "Mother," cried the boys, "go back to the 
 house, put something on your head, and take off 
 your slippers. You'll surely be laid up after 
 this. It will be a nice mess, you and father 
 sick together." The language was rough as a co- 
 coanut-shell, but it had milk of kindness within. 
 
 She heeded them not, impelled by her mind- 
 spinning. The cold was keen 'and bitingly blown 
 by the wind, yet she felt it not. When the 
 mind is mad the body is forgotten.
 
 270 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 
 
 On she went, hoping, doubting, reaching the 
 post-office door as her sons were preparing to 
 burst it open. 
 
 "Wait!" she cried. "Knock louder. Let 
 me call him. If he is not dead entirely, when 
 he hears my voice he will answer." 
 
 They obeyed her wish. They pounded the 
 door first with their strong fists, then with stones, 
 letting her raise her weak voice to its highest 
 pitch. No answer came to change her anguish. 
 Tears clothed her eyes, a piercing sob came to 
 her lips. 
 
 "Break in the door," said the neighbor, "he 
 may be only unconscious. You know, Mrs. But- 
 tons, he was an old man, and the old oftentimes 
 get fainting-fits. A little water will recruit him. 
 Just duck it over his face and rub him up good. 
 I'll run and get some." He went. 
 
 Where there is a will there is a way, and 
 there were both will and way in breaking the 
 door of the post-office. As it fell inside Mrs. 
 Buttons entered, treading her way on it calling: 
 
 " Billy, it's me your wife. Where are you?" 
 
 Grief had blinded her. There he lay, a few 
 feet from her, bleeding, dead. At the shoulder 
 of his extended right arm lay the nose of Mickey,
 
 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 271 
 
 his form hardly recognizable. The bloody floor- 
 track told that, dying, he had crawled up to his 
 dead master and, resting on the arm that had so 
 long fondled him, breathed his last. 
 
 " My dream ! my dream ! " said the widow. 
 " Sure enough he's with Cagy to-day, and if dogs 
 could go poor Mickey would follow his master." 
 
 She knelt by her husband's side in his blood, 
 muttering a hasty prayer. Then, passion con- 
 quering grief, she raised her eyes and clasped 
 hands, asking vengeance of God. Sorrow, hence- 
 forth, was to gangrene her life. Some day death 
 would come as a respite. 
 
 The store showed evidence of a violent strug- 
 gle, in which the dog bore no insignificant part. 
 A back window, shattered to pieces, was convinc- 
 ing proof that by this way the murderer had 
 gained admittance. His coming aroused the 
 dog, who in turn would awake his master. As 
 Buttons lay in his nightgown in the middle of 
 the store, it was evident that he was aware of 
 the intruder's design, and hastened to give him 
 battle. The bullet-holes told of unequal strife. 
 Yet, the bloody iron bar, lying as it fell from the 
 dead man's hands, and the crimson stains lead- 
 ing from the broken window through the brush,
 
 272 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 
 
 lost in the slightly frozen river, were convincing 
 that the slayer would carry through life scars o f 
 the old woodsman's defence. 
 
 The winter had passed a winter full of work. 
 Thousands of logs had been drawn to the Salmon 
 River, ready for the thaw and the first freshlets 
 to start them down to Dixon's saw-mill. Spring 
 came with her nimble and delicate fingers, pluck- 
 ing leaves from buds, with her wand changing 
 the breaking, grumbling ice into crystal pools, 
 throwing bits of green here and there to light 
 up the cold fields and mock the hilltop patches 
 of snow. 
 
 How the logs shot, jumped, dived, playing 
 like river-snakes in the slobbery waters, the sun 
 shining on their moss-covered backs! The riv- 
 er's bank had a merry crew to watch their antics 
 and keep them in order. This land-coming fel- 
 low was shoved to the current; that "lagger" 
 made, with a well-directed prod of the ' ' cant- 
 hook," to quicken his pace. 
 
 A few of the logs, caught by an eddy, were 
 whirled into the mouth of a brook. As the 
 driver dislodged them his hook brought with it 
 a man's body. 
 
 When it lay on the shore, surrounded by the
 
 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 273 
 
 drivers, a suggestion of the "boss" Was followed 
 by one of his men "to search the corpse's pock- 
 ets for means of identification." 
 
 Stuffed in the inside pocket was an old shoe 
 full of bills, some of them fringed with blood. 
 Each of the trouser-pockets held a stocking half- 
 filled with gold. 
 
 "That's all," said the searcher. "His money 
 didn't do him much good. I wonder if there's 
 anything for us in this find. If I had a little 
 of the yellow stuff I think I could warm you on 
 it. You'll find the coroner won't let this pile 
 go through his hands, as big as it is; no, it's 
 too sticky." 
 
 "You didn't try his inside vest-pocket," said 
 the boss. ' ' Often folks keep their letters there ; 
 it won't do any harm to try. One of you count 
 the money in the shoe, for fear that there be 
 any trouble hereafter." 
 
 " To begin with," said the driver who began 
 the count, "here is a check. I wish you would 
 cipher it out." " Here's two old envelopes," 
 said the pocket-searcher, " for you after you get 
 through ; there's some kind of scrawling on 
 them." 
 
 "This is a check," said the boss, "payable to 
 William Buttons, and made out to the same by
 
 274 THE PASSING OF BILLY BUTTONS. 
 
 Narcisse Monnier. I think that's the reading. 
 The wet has blurred it a little." 
 
 "That's it," said one of the crowd. "Billy 
 told me that he had one of them for five dol- 
 lars, but as it was the only bit of writin' he had 
 of the pere, he wouldn't change it for no 
 money." 
 
 " You're right. It's for a five," said the 
 boss. 
 
 "The envelope is plain enough: 
 
 Mr. Cor key Slithers, T. O. S. t 
 
 whatever that means." 
 
 "Throw the villain into the river; smash him 
 among the logs ! We know who killed Buttons 
 now," were the savage cries of the excited 
 group. 
 
 " Be calm, calm, boys," said the boss. 
 "He's dead; you can't injure him. 'Ven- 
 geance is Mine, saith the Lord.' ' 
 
 PRIKTKD BY BINZIGKR BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
 
 A 000128009 8