ALVMNVS BOOK FVND SHORT STORIES OF AMERICA EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY, COURSE OUTLINE, AND READING LISTS BY ROBERT L. RAMSAY, PH.D. / r PBOFES8OB OF ENGLISH, UNIVERSITY OP MISSOURI HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO fiiticrjji&e pies? Cambrib0e COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The short stories reprinted in this collection are used by permission of and special arrangement with the proprietors of their respective copyrights. fcfjt Rtbmffoe JJrt CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED IN THE U S . A TO MY WIFE HELPER I CRITIC : FRIEND THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED 7013 CONTENTS A MAP OP THE PRINCIPAL LOCAL-COLOR REGIONS OP THE UNITED STATES Frontispiece PREFACE vii THE SHORT STORY AS INTERPRETER OF AMERICA I. THE "SECOND DISCOVERY OF AMERICA" .... 1 II. THE "LITERARY STATES" OF AMERICA 5 III. STAGES OF THE LOCAL-COLOR MOVEMENT .... 20 AMERICAN TYPES: STORIES OF THE FRONTIER 1. THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP BretHarte 29 (The "Forty-Niners" of the Mountain West) 2. TAKING THE BLUE RIBBON AT THE COUNTY FAIR Mary N. Murfree ... 42 (The Mountaineers of "Appalachia") .3. BEN AND JUDAS . . . Maurice Thompson ... 66 (The Negroes of the Lower South) 4. AMONG THE CORN-ROWS . Hamlin Garland ... 88 (The Homesteaders of the Middle West) 6. ELLIE'S FURNISHING . . Helen R. Martin . . . 105 (The Pennsylvania Dutch) AMERICAN TRADITIONS: STORIES OF SOCIAL HERITAGE 6. THE ARRIVAL OP A TRUE SOUTHERN LADY Francis HopJcinson Smith . 123 (The Old Dominion) 7. ON THE WALPOLE ROAD . Mary Willcins Freeman . 136 (Old New England) 8. AT THE 'CADIAN BALL . Kate Chopin 149 (Creole Land) 9. THE PEARLS OP LORETO . Gertriide Atherton . . . 161 (California and the Old West) vi CONTENTS AMERICAN LANDSCAPES: STORIES OF THE SPIRIT OF PLACE 10. THE WINDIGO .... Mary Hartwett Catherwood 191 (Mackinac) 11. THE GIRL AT DUKE'S . . James Weber Linn . . . 213 (The Arid Southwest) 12. LOVE OF LIFE .... Jack London 231 (Alaska) AMERICAN COMMUNITIES: STORIES OF COM- MUNAL CONSCIOUSNESS 13. BY THE ROD OF His WRATH William AUen White . . 257 (The Middle West) 14. THE MAKING OF A NEW YORKER 0. Henry 273 (New York City) 15. A MUNICIPAL REPORT . 0. Henry 280 (The Blue Grass) THE REGIONALIST AT WORK 16. A LOCAL COLORIST . . Annie Trumbull Slosson . 301 THE ESSENTIALS OF SHORT-STORY WRITING: STUDY QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS A. CONCERNING THE PLOT 321 B. CONCERNING THE CHARACTERIZATION 330 C. CONCERNING THE SETTING 333 D. CONCERNING THE MOOD 336 E. CONCERNING THE STORY AS A WHOLE 337 READING LISTS A. ONE HUNDRED ADDITIONAL LOCAL-COLOR STORIES . 340 B. TWENTY-FIVE STORIES OF SOCIAL BACKGROUND . . 344 C. FIFTEEN HISTORICAL SHORT STORIES 345 D. FORTY REPRESENTATIVE PLOT OR CHARACTER STORIES 345 E. TWENTY REPRESENTATIVE STORIES OF SPECIAL TYPES 346 F. FIFTEEN STORIES OF MOOD 347 G. SOME REPRESENTATIVE MODERN ONE-ACT PLAYS . . 347 PREFACE RECENT progress in the teaching of English composition and literature in our high schools and colleges has been marked by two tendencies : a rapidly increasing use of the short story, both in general English courses and in special courses in story-writing, and a discovery of the possibility of uniting with mutual profit the study of English composi- tion and the study of American life and institutions. The present collection has been made in sympathy with both these tendencies- Our teachers have discovered that the material used and the compositions assigned in English courses lose none of their value by being made actual and living. What our students read and admire most is certainly the current short story; what they have too often been required to write is the Weekly Theme a curious product, which re- sembles nothing whatever in the real world of literature, and which no one would ever read or write except under dire compulsion. Yet the study of those actual forms that writers use who must get themselves read, and the attempt to imitate and reproduce such forms of writing, furnish quite as sound a way of imparting the principles of punctu- ation, spelling, and good usage, and a far more effective means of awakening the student to the real meaning of the discipline he is undergoing, and stimulating in him an am- bition to express himself. The connection between composition and citizenship arose out of the practical necessities of the strenuous year when our schools were called upon to prepare for American participation in the great World War. The combination has been deemed worthy of continuance by many of our institutions. It will be found fruitful provided the term viii PREFACE "citizenship" is not too narrowly interpreted. If citizen- ship is taken to mean merely knowledge of our political and governmental institutions, and the student is required to write nothing but digests and discussions of the problems of politics, the resulting discipline will be narrower and less vital than before. A considerable proportion of our stu- dents, perhaps happily for the Republic, are not politically minded. Many of those most highly gifted and best worth training will never have anything of their own to say about governmental institutions; and all of them need the oppor- tunity to try other forms of composition than a continuous succession of exposition and argument. It is entirely pos- sible, however, without sacrificing the very real values of the alliance, to relieve it of rigidity and monotony. If it be the duty of a good citizen to know the life and not merely the institutions of his country, a course in citizen- ship may well find room to train the sympathetic imagina- tion as well as the intelligent comprehension of its students. Such imaginative training in the quality of American life is found in literature; and most immediately in that sort of literature through which American writers for the last half- century have striven to interpret America. This literary movement, known variously as American Regionalism, Local Color, or the Spirit of Home, it is the object of the present volume to illustrate. It is hoped, therefore, that the stories here brought together with the definite purpose of showing how each section of America has reached self- revelation through the national American form of the short story may be found of service to forward-looking teachers both of English and of Americanism. Perhaps it may be helpful to add a few suggestions for the planning of a special course in story-writing, or, as it is often called, Narration and Description. In the first place, such a course should not be made too narrow or technical. The story in its broadest sense not the tech- PREFACE ix nical "Short-Story" invented by Poe, which is difficult for beginners and should be brought in, if at all, only at the end should be taken as central, but need not be the only form of composition required. A profitable course may indeed be arranged in which the story is the only literary form attempted; for all the ingredients of narration ac- tion, dialogue, comment all the special story elements plot, character, setting, and mood or atmosphere, and every variety of description as well, may be studied and practiced within its comprehensive limits. But it is preferable, on the whole, to use this literary form rather as a nucleus, and to illuminate the special aspects of its tech- nique by a comparative study of forms more confined in their range. Thus the anecdote will illustrate in miniature the elements of plot-structure; the photo-play may give practice in the invention of plots and the handling of pure action; the one-act play or dramatic sketch, composed of action plus dialogue, will supply special opportunities for character-drawing without analysis or description; the descriptive sketch may exemplify setting and characteriza- tion, and may be used for drill in every sort of description proper; the personal essay provides pure comment and analysis; and the lyric poem may convey mere mood or atmosphere. In this way every aspect of story- writing may be separately approached before the complete and com- posite form is attempted. The contemporary study and practice of several different forms probably gives the maxi- mum benefit in broadening and stimulating the student's range of reading and appreciation. There is a danger that sometimes arises, especially in high-school courses in story-writing, of neglecting the ele- mentary matters of formal correctness in favor of the more interesting problems of imaginative composition. The teacher must be unremitting in checking careless habit' that have persisted, and should insist upon a high stand x PREFACE ard of accuracy in all matters of form and grammar, diction, sentence-structure, and paragraphing. On no ac- count should the intellectual side of imaginative composi- tion be lost sight of. Hard thinking is needed for the mastery of fundamental principles of structure and tech- nique in the "literature of power" quite as much as in the "literature of knowledge." The course should comprise theory, example, and prac- tice, example being more important than theory, and practice more important than either. The theory for an elementary course may often be most advantageously given s v. i *?by lectures and discussions, or in the process of analyzing ^\ and studying the examples. A set of study questions for the analysis and criticism of stories read, and also of those written by students, is provided at the end of this volume. The sixteen stories here included will exemplify many different methods of plot-handing, character-drawing, and mood-shaping, as well as a wide variety of settings; but if additional outside reading is desired, a list of some two hundred noteworthy short stories and one-act plays has been appended which may be used for outside reading. In the matter of practice, it is more profitable that a few stories should be carefully revised and rewritten than that many should be merely projected or half-done. Much of the efficiency of the course, perhaps more than in teaching any other course in composition, depends on frequent con- ference with the individual student. It remains to acknowledge, with thanks, the kindly permission of the various authors and publishers to use copyright material. Specific acknowledgment is made in each case in a footnote at the beginning of the story. In preparing the introductory account of the progress and development of the local-color movement, the editor has incurred an especial obligation to four books : A History of American Literature since 1870, by Professor Fred Lewis PREFACE xi Pattee; The American Short Story: a Study of the Influence of Locality in its Development, by Dr. Elias Lieberman; The Frontier in American History, by Professor Frederick J. Turner; and The Spirit of Home in the Literature of the Lower South, an unpublished University of Missouri thesis by Mr. J. P. Fagan. ROBEET L. RAMSAY COLUMBIA, MI8SOUBI \ June. 1921 , SHORT STORIES OF AMERICA THE SHORT STORY AS INTERPRETER OP AMERICA The sun of truth strikes each part of the earth at a little different angle; it is this angle which gives life and infinite variety to literature. HAMLIN GAHLAND, Crumbling Idols (1894) I THE "SECOND DISCOVERY OF AMERICA" THE most original contribution of America to the litera- ture of the world has been, on the whole, the development of the short story. Most of our other literary achievements have had a strong tincture of foreign influence. Cooper was the American Walter Scott, Bryant the American Wordsworth, Irving the American Addison ; but Poe and his successors have been rather imitated abroad than imitators. The American short story, although something very like it was invented independently in France at about the same time, was borrowed from nowhere. It was Poe, the most genuinely original of American writers, who took the leisurely old tale, unregulated and unrestrained, that had been handed down from time immemorial, and gave it the unity, the definition, and the concentration that turned it into the modern short story. There was something dis- tinctively American about the new form. Whether, as Bret Harte suggested, it was the universal American addic- tion to "swapping funny stories" that prepared the soil, or whether it was our American passion for speed and mechanical perfection that created a congenial climate, certainly no other form has made so general an appeal to American readers or enlisted so many American writers 2 THE SHORT STORY eager to learn its mysteries and to discover all its possible adaptations. Among the many varieties of our national literary form developed by this prodigious activity, the most distinc- tively national has been the story of American local color. Just as the parent stem of the modern short story sprang from the genius of Poe in the thirties, so it is to the genius of Bret Harte in the seventies that we owe its most im- portant offshoot. The essence of Poe's modification of the old tale lay in his concentration upon a "single effect" : his selection of some one element of the narrative upon which to focus, as under the limelight, the entire structure and progress of the story. Now the element which Poe nearly always chose for this purpose was a certain sort of atmosphere or mood. Having determined to arouse in the minds of his readers a special emotional state, such as gloom in "The Fall of the House of Usher," or horror in "The Black Cat," he contrived with masterly ingenuity that every word and detail in the whole story should serve to heighten and intensify the chosen effect. It was soon seen by his successors that the same concentration might be used for other elements of the narrative beside the mood. There might be stories whose single effect lay in the action or in the characterization ; and so there arose short stories of plot and character. Bret Harte was the first American writer to see that it was equally possible for the "single effect" to be secured in the setting of the story. Thus he became the founder of the school of Ameri- can regionalism the first American local colorist. The story of local color by no means neglects the other elements of the short story plot, character, or mood. It may, and in its best examples it does exhibit, as the stories brought together in this volume will show, the most skillful and dramatic handling of the action, the most sympathetic and subtle character-drawing, and the most AS INTERPRETER OF AMERICA 3 intense and moving emotional appeal. Hence all sides of the art of story-writing may be studied in such stories quite as well as in a more heterogeneous collection. But whereas in the ordinary story the element of place is sec- ondary, in the local-color story the background comes into the foreground. No story is a story of local color in the fullest sense if its locality could be changed without essen- tially altering its appeal. Every story, of course, has a setting somewhere ; the genuine local-color story must be laid where it is, or nowhere. From the perusal of such a story the most lasting impression always carried away is the sense of intimate revelation of its chosen region. When we read these stories we become travelers and explorers ; we get acquainted, without stirring from our armchairs, with places we have never visited, and our explorations are guided so that we see and learn far more than any casual traveler has time or penetration to discover. The time was ripe for this new and delightful form of literature when it came to America. In the Middle West and West, where it first arose, the period was one of rapid opening-up of strange regions, extraordinary shifting of population, and a new spirit of mutual interest and curi- osity. In the South, where the movement was destined to take deepest root, there was a new generation of writers just coming to manhood whose impressionable childish years had been spent amid the stress of the Civil War a war fought on the issue between the centrifugal tendency of sectionalism and the centripetal force of national unity. "States' Rights" against "The Union" may be translated in terms of literature to read "Regionalism" versus "Amer- icanism" the literature of the restricted locality as over against the literature of the undifferentiated nation as a whole. Happily the two opposing literary ideals might be pursued peacefully side by side. Most of the younger Southern writers, led by all the influences of their heredity 4 THE SHORT STORY and environment, joined enthusiastically in the region- alistic movement, and strove to interpret to their fellow- countrymen the rich diversity of manners and traditions which they found in one or another of the many different divisions of the South. In the North and East, naturally, the opposite ideal predominated, symbolized by the numer- ous attempts to write what was called ''the great Ameri- can novel" ; and although "the great American novel" so anxiously expected has never yet appeared, much splendid work conceived in the broad spirit of nationalism has been produced by such masters as Howells, James, and their followers. But the spirit of regionalism was by no means absent in the North. Especially in New England, and also a little later in several parts of the Middle States, there arose vigorous and important schools of local colorists, whose work is not behind that done in any other part of the country. Regionalism in literature is, of course, not confined to America, but is part of a world-wide movement which it is not the province of this introduction to discuss. Nor is it by any means confined in its literary expression to the short story. Although, in America at least, it has scored its greatest triumphs in the form of connected series of short stories, its writers have not infrequently resorted to the novel or to poetry. All in all, it has been the largest factor in American literature for nearly half a century. The astonishing outburst of local-color writing that began in 1870, and has continued in a scarcely diminishing stream ever since, has been described in an eloquent paragraph by Professor Pattee, who was the first to provide a connected account of its earlier stages : "America, shaken from narrow sectionalism and con- templation of Europe, woke up and discovered America. In a kind of astonishment she wandered from section to section of her own land, discovering everywhere peoples AS INTERPRETER OF AMERICA 5 and manners and languages that were as strange to her even as foreign lands. Mark Twain and Harte and Miller opened to view the wild regions and wilder society of early California and the Sierra Nevadas ; Eggleston pictured the primitive settlements of Indiana ; Cable told the romance of the Creoles and of the picturesque descendants of the Acadians on the bayous of Louisiana; Page and Harris and F. H. Smith and others caught a vision of the romance of the Old South ; Allen told of Kentucky life ; Miss French of the dwellers in the canebrakes of Arkansas; and Miss Murfree of a strange people in the Great Smoky Moun- tains of Tennessee. In twenty years every isolated neigh- borhood in America had had its chronicler and photog- rapher." * THE "LITERARY STATES" OF AMERICA To understand the regionalistic movement in America, the study of American literature and American geography must go hand in hand. Only upon a map may the peculiar character and the interrelations of the diverse districts which have been chosen as backgrounds be adequately appreciated. Hence a map of the principal local-color regions of the United States has been provided as frontis- piece to the present volume. The preparation of a map of this kind involves some difficult problems, and the results here presented must be considered merely as tentative. The outlines traced by the literary geographer must often disagree with the familiar product of political and economic map-making. Official and literary boundaries but seldom coincide; the United States and what may be called the "Literary States" of 1 Quoted from F. L. Pattee, A History of American Literature since 1870, p. 15. 6 THE SHORT STORY America differ widely in their demarcation. Often several political States must be joined in one literary region, and again one State must be divided into several distinct liter- ary domains. Certain sections rated as comparatively poor and backward are rich in treasure of the imagination and overflowing with fictitious inhabitants. Others that figure prominently in the census reports of population and wealth must be left blank upon our literary map, or inscribed per- chance, as the old cartographers once did, "Here be deserts and cannibals" ; for diligent as the explorers for local color have been, there is still abundant room for new discoveries to be made and fresh claims to be staked out. Such regions, unexplored or explored but unsuccessfully as yet, are usually found on the borders between the greater divisions of the country ; for example, Delaware and Mary- land between the Middle States and the South, Ohio be- tween the East and the Middle West, northern Missouri between South and Middle West, western Nebraska and the Dakotas between Middle West and West, Oklahoma and eastern Texas between South and West. These States have by no means been behind the others in producing notable and admirable literature, but, probably just be- cause of their transitional location, they have as yet at- tracted but little attention from the local colorists. For this reason a wide neutral strip has been indicated on the map between the larger divisions. Within these five main divisions New England, the East, the South, the Middle West, and the West we have found room for twenty- five smaller divisions, each of which has been the setting for a notable school of local-color writers. These may ac- cordingly be called the twenty-five "Literary States" of America. The salient characteristics and chief representa- tives of each are herewith briefly recounted, r AS INTERPRETER OF AMERICA 7 I. NEW ENGLAND MOST of New England must be taken together to form the first of our "Literary States" ; for little discrimination has been made by local-color writers between Maine and Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. All share alike in the common physical background of bleak New England hills and rocky farms, the unmistakable New England types of men and women, and, most important of all, the indelible New England traditions. To this uni- formity there is one exception, one part of the section which has a distinct and notable individuality in fiction and which must hence be set apart. So we have I. Old New England. The New England school of local colorists begins in the seventies. The galaxy of New Eng- land writers of the first half of the century were not pri- marily local colorists. Although every one of them was deeply marked with the inescapable New England char- acteristics, they were universal rather than local, and did not have the essential mark of the regionalist, for they did not place the setting foremost in their work. Of them all perhaps James Russell Lowell was the nearest to being a genuine regionalist with his eternally typical New Eng- lander Hosea Biglow. Later Harriet Beecher Stowe, in her Maine novels, anticipated in large measure the ideals of the coming school. Indeed, Mrs. Stowe has some claim to be considered the mother of American regionalism, just as George Eliot was the mother of contemporary English regionalism. But the New England local-color school proper comprises first of all that famous group of short- story writers, all women, who became the chroniclers of what has been called the New England decline : Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Rose Terry Cooke, Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, and Alice Brown; to whom must be added such depicters of 8 THE SHORT STORY New England types and manners as Howells with his many studies of Boston life, Rowland E. Robinson with his Ver- mont sketches, Winston Churchill for his fine novel Conis- ton, Edith Wharton, Annie Trumbull Slosson, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Dorothy Canfield, Holman F. Day, Edward Arlington Robinson, and Robert Frost. Of them all Mrs. Freeman stands supreme ; and one of the stories most characteristic of her quiet, restrained, consummate art, "On the Walpole Road," has been taken for the present collection. Another New England story by Mrs. Slosson, "A Local Colorist," has also been included for its charmingly humorous exemplification of just what dialect and local color are and how to find them. . 2. The New England Coast. Easily distinguishable from the local color of New England as a whole, with its age-long traditions, is that of the coast strip and island region with the adjacent waters, best known under the names of Gloucester or Cape Cod. The regionalism of the Coast is picturesque rather than traditional, and centers about the life and customs of the typical New England fisherman and sailor. Its best-known exponents are Mrs. Sarah Pratt Greene, author of Cape Cod Folks, Joseph C. Lincoln, Norman Duncan, J. B. Connolly, Peter B. Kyne, Joseph Hergesheimer, and, for one masterpiece, Rudyard Kipling with his Captains Courageous. II. THE EAST LIKE New England, the Eastern States proper, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, -belong together for pur- poses of local color, and most of the territory of these States falls into a single literary region, which I have ven- tured to call the Middle East. But the section also contains four clearly demarcated smaller regions which must be considered separate "Literary States," making five in alL AS INTERPRETER OF AMERICA 9 3. The Middle East. Although many writers have laid their stories at one point or another within this general region, few can be considered primarily local colorists, and even these have applied their local color but lightly. Of the number Mrs. Deland, whose Old Chester is localized in western Pennsylvania, is easily chief. Westcott's David Harum, laid in middle western New York, and the New Jersey stories of Hopkinson Smith and Sewell Ford must not pass unmentioned. 4. Upper New York. The Adirondack region and the rugged frontier country of mountain, lake, and river lying just south of the St. Lawrence and east of Lake Ontario constitutes a distinctly separate literary district. Its char- acter is determined by its proximity to New England and to French Quebec, but most of all by its wonderful natural background. Here Mr. Irving Bacheller reigns supreme; but the earlier Adirondack stories of Philander Deming are too good to be forgotten. 5. New York City. A most important local-color re- gion is constituted by the metropolis and its environs, which for our purposes must be taken to include the counties on both sides of the lower Hudson River and the Catskill Mountains, sacred to memories of Washington Irving. Irving, with his tales and sketches of the old Dutch traditions and colonial types, was the most im- portant forerunner of the whole regionalistic movement, although his work must be regarded rather as prophecy than as fulfillment. The large and influential school of writers who have chosen in our own day to depict the different aspects of the great city can only be enumerated here. First come those who have tried to convey its spirit as a whole Richard Harding Davis, H. C. Bunner, Brander Matthews, O. Henry, Ernest Poole, and many others; then those who have restricted themselves to a single facet of its multifarious personality, such as Edith 10 THE SHORT STORY Wharton and Robert W. Chambers for New York "so- ciety " ; Edwin Lefevre and David Graham Phillips for the New York business world ; Stephen Crane and Henry Har- land for the slums ; Bruno Lessing, Montague Glass, and Fannie Hurst for New York Hebrew life ; Myra Kelly for the immigrant school children ; and many another chron- icler of the kaleidoscopic life of what not so long ago O. Henry could still call the "Four Million" already become the Five Million. The present volume has found room for but one New York story, a most inadequate allowance ; our selection, as perhaps goes without saying, js taken from O. Henry. 6. Philadelphia. The Quaker City naturally suffers by comparison with its mightier rival. Although no spot in America has a greater wealth of tradition or more indi- viduality of character to attract the regionalist, the num- ber of stories of Philadelphia life is small. But their quality has been high, and no other part of the nation has had a more serious and enduring presentation of its social herit- age than Philadelphia in the novels of Dr. S. Weir Mitchell. Others who have used the Philadelphia background for novels or short stories are Thomas A. Janvier, Rebecca Harding Davis, Cyrus Townsend Brady, and Paul Lei- cester Ford. 7. The Pennsylvania Dutch. The counties of York and Lancaster and the adjacent parts of southern Penn- sylvania are the home of a distinctive population of Low- German origin, whose picturesque language and manners have furnished an abundant harvest for the seeker of local color. Two women have almost preempted the field : Mrs. Helen R. Martin, who writes as an onlooker and with irresistible humor of the lighter side of these quaint people ; and Elsie Singmaster, who is one of the folk she depicts, and who seeks rather to portray the pathos and tragedy of their cramped and isolated lives. Sympathetic pictures of AS INTERPRETER OF AMERICA 11 Pennsylvania Dutch life are given also by Katharine Riegel Loose ("Georg Schock") and Reginald Wright Kauffman. III. THE SOUTH PASSING across the border States of Maryland and Dela- ware, we come to that division of America which has furnished the regionalist with a larger number of distinct and strongly individualized districts than any other. Comparatively isolated physically, the South falls natu- rally into many subdivisions that are also more or less iso- lated from each other. Foreign immigration, a force that has made mightily for uniformity in the rest of the coun- try, has largely passed it by. Most of all, its deep-rooted ideals of local independence and sectional individuality, as has already been pointed out, have reenforced the re- gional differences and caused them to increase with the years. As a result, we find in the South no less than nine of our "Literary States." 8. The Old Dominion. Virginia, the eldest in the sister- hood of States, and the soul of the Southern Confederacy, was predestined to preeminence in that sort of local color of which the main ingredient is tradition. The cultivation of Virginia local color goes back to the ante-bellum sketches of D. H. Strother and E. A. Pollard, and the glowing his- torical novels of John Esten Cooke. It found classic ex- pression in 1884, when "Marse Chan" appeared, the first and finest of a memorable series of stories by Thomas Nelson Page. Page's vivid pictures of Southern social in- heritance were paralleled by the more delicate but equally authoritative portrayal of Francis Hopkinson Smith, one of whose story-sketches from the famous volume Colonel Carter of Cartersville has been chosen for inclusion in this collection. Among the flourishing school of later Vir- 12 THE SHORT STORY ginia regionalists may be mentioned Armistead C. Gordon, perhaps the closest in spirit to Page and Smith, with such minor story-tellers as Amelie Rives, Anna Cogswell Wood, Mary Virginia Terhune ("Marion Harland"), and Molly Elliot Seawell ; and three other writers of greater significance, who have struck out interesting separate paths for themselves Mary Johnston, Ellen Glasgow, and James Branch Cabell. 9. Appalachia. Adjoining Virginia on the west is the great mountain section of the South, comprising parts of seven States Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina, Alabama and Georgia. Thrust like a spear-head right into the heart of the South, it has remained the most isolated part of America, and as a natural consequence has become a rich field for the picturesque regionalist. Sidney Lanier was the first to draw the mountaineer as a type in fiction, in his early novel Tiger Lilies. The mistress of the domain is Mary N. Murfree, better known as "Charles Egbert Craddock," whose striking early story, "Taking the Blue Ribbon at the County Fair," is here included. Local-color work al- most as good has been done by John Fox on the Kentucky side of the section, by Constance Fenimore Woolson, Sarah Barnwell Elliott, Joel Chandler Harris, Will Allen Dromgoole, and a recent contributor to the field, Lucy Furman. 10. The Blue Grass. Across the mountains we come to the rich plateau stretching through the center of Kentucky and Tennessee. The Blue Grass is a sort of transplanted Virginia, with much the same aristocratic pride of tradi- tion combined with an unmistakable individuality of its own. In this kingdom rules James Lane Allen as story- writer, and with him John Fox and the two Kentucky poets Robert Burns Wilson and Madison Cawein. Mary Hartwell Catherwood has laid one or two of her stories in AS INTERPRETER OF AMERICA 13 Kentucky. Here, too, belongs in spirit the work of Amer- ica's most inspired song-writer and musician, Stephen Collins Foster. One of O. Henry's best stories, "A Muni- cipal Report," a fine picture of the spirit of the section as localized in the Tennessee hah* at Nashville, has been included in this volume. The latest story-writer to depict Kentucky life is Irvin S. Cobb. 11. The Middle South. Passing southward from Vir- ginia we come to the Carolinas, for which I have ventured to coin a new title. Like most middle sections, it has at- tracted few local colorists. The work of William Gilmore Simms lies before our movement. The North Carolina Sketches of Mary N. Carter and the novels of Thomas Dixon are nearly all that deserve mention. 12. The Lower South. With the lower tier of States running from Charleston, South Carolina, through Geor- gia, Alabama, and Mississippi, we come to one of the most important fields of American local-color work. This is the Black Belt, where the negro outnumbers the white man, and cotton rules supreme. The main elements of the population from the writer's point of view are the negro, the "cracker" or poor white, and the planter or aristocrat. Each of these has had its story-writer and poet. The fore- runners of the school were Longstreet, Baldwin, and Jack- son before the Civil War, and Sidney Lanier and Richard Malcolm Johnston just after it. With the eighties came Joel Chandler Harris, unsurpassed in his presentation both of the negro and the cracker types ; Harry Stillwell Edwards, for the planter and the negro; and Will N. Harben, whose North Georgia Sketches gave the most faith- ful pictures yet drawn of the poor whites. Others worthy of mention are Owen W T ister, for his masterly drawing of aristocratic Charleston in his novel Lady Baltimore; Corra Harris, chronicler of life in the small Southern town ; Frank Stanton, the best living writer of negro dialect 14 THE SHORT STORY poetry ; Constance Fenimore Woolson, Augusta Jane Wil- son, Samuel Minturn Peck, Maurice Thompson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and latest of all Octavus Roy Cohen. The story selected from this section is a sympathetic pic- ture of the relations between master and slave, by Maurice Thompson. 13. The Swamp Region. Southern Georgia and Ala- bama is a submerged land of marshes and swamps, and the great swamp continues south till it covers the larger part of Florida. Here the physical surroundings dominate the life of the inhabitants ; and most writers who have chosen it as a background have emphasized the overpow- ering presence of the swamp, from Sidney Lanier in his beautiful poem "The Marshes of Glynn" to Captain Greene in his weird and powerful story "The Cat of the Canebrakes." Here also belong the coast and coastal islands of South Carolina and Georgia, with a special type of negro depicted in some of the stories of Harris and John Bennett. 14. The Creole Country. The delta of the Mississippi River offers a region with perhaps the most nearly unique background, in its types, its traditions, and its natural characteristics, in America. The pure-blooded French and Spanish people of lower Louisiana have produced a civili- zation quite unlike anything else that America can show, and a brilliant group of writers have taken advantage of its rich materials. Some of them, such as Charles Gayarr6 and Alcee Fortier, have written in their native French and naturally have had few readers save among their own people. The best-known outside the section is undoubtedly George W. Cable, although in the opinion of many critics his work is surpassed in fidelity and truth by that of two women story-tellers of Louisiana, Grace Elizabeth King and Kate Chopin. One of Mrs. Chopin's Bayou Tales, "At the 'Cadian Ball," has been chosen to represent the section. AS INTERPRETER OF AMERICA 15 Some of the best stories of Louisiana are found among the works of Lafcadio Hearn and O. Henry. 15. The River Country. Passing up the Mississippi till we come to Anglo-Saxon territory, we reach the section dominated by the romance and beauty of the great river. The chief name here that comes to mind is, of course, Mark Twain's; others are Irwin Russell, first master of negro dialect verse ; Ruth McEnery Stuart, whose stories perhaps belong here rather than in lower Louisiana ; John Hay, in some of the Pike County Ballads; and among a host of later story-tellers Norman Duncan and Elmore Elliott Peake. 16. Canebrakes and Ozarks. The last of the Southern regions is made up of the swamp country of Arkansas and the isolated mountain valleys of southern Missouri. Just as the Blue Grass is a sort of transplanted, Virginia, so the Ozarks are, as it were, a reduced edition of Appalachia, and the Canebrakes people resemble in many ways the crackers and poor whites of piedmont Georgia and the Carolinas. The most notable depicter of the section in fiction is beyond doubt Alice French, better known as "Octave Thanet." A faithful study of life in southern Missouri is given by Homer Croy in his recent novel Boone Stop. The section, moreover, has suffered many things at the hands of such writers as Opie Read and Harold Bell Wright. IV. THE MIDDLE WEST THE boundaries of the Middle West are less fixed than in the East and South, and its subdivisions are less distinct. But there are four fairly well-marked regions that belong here. 17. The Corn Belt. The characteristic physical fea- tures of the southern half of the Middle West are, on the one hand, the great prairie beginning in western Ohio and 16 THE SHORT STORY running through Indiana, Illinois, northern Missouri, southern Iowa, and eastern Kansas and Nebraska, and, on the other hand, the omnipresent staple crop of Indian corn. With respect to its population it is chiefly marked by the absence of any one predominant element such as is found in every other section of America. Made up"of New Englanders, Easterners, Southerners, Germans, Irish, mountaineers, and negroes in nearly equal proportions, it is really a kind of microcosm of the country, a United States in miniature, the combined and evenly blended center and heart of the nation. The chief writers who have tried to express its spirit have been, first, the pioneers Edward Eggleston and Mark Twain, with whom are asso- ciated Joseph Kirkland, E. F. Howe, and John Hay, authors respectively of Zury, The Story of a Country Town y and Pike County Ballads; secondly, the representatives of the period of rapid growth and increasing wealth, com- fortable, complacent, optimistic, and usually sentimental James Whitcomb Riley, Will Carleton, Eugene Field, Maurice Thompson, Booth Tarkington, Meredith Nichol- son, Alice Hegan Rice, Margaret Hill McCarter, Eugene Ware, Walt Mason; thirdly, the younger generation of writers through whom to-day the new spirit of unrest, social questioning, and truth-seeking is busily asserting itself Theodore Dreiser, Floyd Dell, and Sherwood Anderson with their searching tales and novels of mid- western life, and the two poets laureate of the Middle West, Edgar Lee Masters and Nicholas Vachel Lindsay. But it is in the work of William Allen White, who can scarcely be identified with any one of these three suc- cessive groups, but who shares something in spirit with each of them, that we have found the story which, for the purposes of this collection, seems most adequately to represent the section. 18. The Wheat Belt. The northern part of the Middle AS INTERPRETER OF AMERICA 17 West is hard to mark off from the southern, and there is a wide variable strip that may be included in either. But the two divisions are distinct in spirit and temper. The differ- ence in the chief crop has perhaps a closer relation to literature than has always been realized ; for the literature of a region is, after all, merely one of its crops. There is also a decided difference in the proportionate ingredients of the population. The Wheat Belt was mainly settled from New England, whereas the Corn Belt has only a minority of New Englanders, and a much stronger infusion of Southern blood and influence. Both sections have very large German elements, but the Wheat Belt has also a great mass of Scandinavian immigration that is not found elsewhere. In literature the Corn Belt has expressed itself mainly in the novel and in poetry, with few notable short stories ; the Wheat Belt, on the other hand, has one short- story writer, Hamlin Garland, who ranks among the very best that America has produced. One of his most typical pictures of the region, from the volume entitled Main- Traveled Roads, has been chosen for this collection. Be- sides Garland there should be mentioned Frank Norris's epic trilogy of the wheat, Willa Gather's fine Nebraska novels, and the recent astonishing outburst of small-town stories by Zona Gale, Mary S. Watts, Rupert Hughes, and Sinclair Lewis. 19. Chicago. Chicago is the center of the entire Middle West, and binds together its' divisions into a real unity. The great city has developed a genuine individuality, and a large and flourishing school of writers have sought to express it in fiction and poetry. Among them are the novelists Henry B. Fuller and Frank Norris, Joseph Medill Patterson and Upton Sinclair, Robert Herrick, William Payne, and Theodore Dreiser; the humorists and short-story writers George Ade, Finley Peter Dunne, and Edith Wyatt; and the poet Carl Sandburg. 18 THE SHORT STORY 20. Mackinac. In the northern woods of Upper Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, we come upon an- other distinctive section, with strongly marked physical features, and also with rich and romantic traditions run- ning back to the old French days. This region was first explored for literature by Constance Fenimore Woolson in the brilliant volume which she entitled Castle Nowhere. Miss Woolson was followed by one of our best American story-tellers, whose work has been unjustifiably neglected Mary Hartwell Catherwood. One of Mrs. Catherwood's most effective stories, "The Windigo," is included in this volume. Others who have followed the lead of Mrs. Catherwood in recalling French memories from the frontier days are Maurice Thompson in his novel Alice of Old Vincennes, and Gilbert Parker with his vivid historical romances. More recent are the lumber stories of Stewart Edward White and Gene Stratton Porter. V. THE WEST IN the West, naturally enough, the literary sections are much larger and much less perfectly demarcated than in any of the other main divisions. But it is possible to dis- tinguish five regions. 21. The Cattle Country. The real West begins at the line, approximating the hundredth parallel of longitude, where the rainfall becomes insufficient for ordinary agri- cultural operations. Stretching thence to the Rocky Moun- tains, and running all the way from northern Montana and Idaho to Texas and Arizona, are the Great Plains, identified for literary purposes almost exclusively with the cattle industry and the cowboy. A host of writers have tried to write cowboy stories, among whom Owen Wister is easily chief. O. Henry, in his volume The Heart of the West, has some splendid cowboy tales. Other writers who AS INTERPRETER OF AMERICA 19 have known and described the genuine cowboy are Caro- line Lockhart, Stewart Edward White, Theodore Roose- velt, Vincent Fortune, Emerson Hough, Zane Grey, and Alfred Henry Lewis. Before the cowboy was the fur- trader; and the epic of the early Western fur-trade and the exploring expeditions up the Missouri River has re- cently been made to live again in the stirring narrative poems of John G. Neihardt. In this section, too, at its southwestern extremity, is laid the scene of the first half of William Vaughn Moody's The Great Divide, the best ex- ample yet produced of local color in the American drama. 22. The Mountain West. In this region the whole American local-color movement began, with Bret Harte's stories of the "Forty-Niners." Harte's "The Luck of Roaring Camp," the appearance of which in 1870 ushered in the movement, has been selected as likewise the opening story of the present volume. Contemporary with Harte's stories were the glowing Western lyrics and narrative poems of Joaquin Miller. But since the passing of these two giants of the movement, the Mountain West has been comparatively neglected. An occasional story by Owen Wister or Miss Atherton is laid somewhere in the Rockies. Just recently there have been some good stories of Oregon and Washington by Alfred Henry Lewis and Peter B. Kyne. 23. The Arid West. The region which used to be called the Great American Desert, and for which Mr. Lindsay has recently suggested the name of New Arabia, has attracted many writers. Among them are Mary Hallock Foote, with her stories of army life; Stewart Edward White, with his Arizona tales; James Weber Linn, with one almost perfect story, "The Girl at Duke's" (included herein); Thomas A. Janvier, Eugene Manlove Rhodes, B. M. Bower, George Pattullo, and Mary Austin. 24. California and the Old West. We do not always 20 THE SHORT STORY . realize that one of the oldest parts of our country in point of settlement, almost as old as Virginia or Massachusetts, is California. The old Spanish missions and the long and romantic story of Spanish civilization have furnished rich material for stories of traditional regionalism, and natu- rally a very large school of writers has been attracted. Be- ginning with Bret Harte in his novel Gabriel Conroy, we must mention Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona, and many stories of Frank Norris, Ambrose Bierce, Grace McFar- land, Stewart Edward White, Owen Wister, Jack London, and Gertrude Atherton. One of the best of Miss Ather- ton's stories, from her volume entitled The Splendid Idle Forties, has been chosen to illustrate this section. 25. Alaska. Alaska is our last frontier, and the Klon- diker is the last figure to take his place in the gallery of picturesque American types. The chief name to conjure with here is, of course, Jack London, whose typical North- ern story, "Love of Life," has been taken to represent the region. Better even than London's virile tales is the stir- ring but too little known novel of Elizabeth Robins en- titled The Magnetic North. On a lower level are the Arctic stories of Rex Beach ; and finally, not to be omitted is the vigorous and manly poetry of Robert W. Service. nr STAGES OF THE LOCAL-COLOR MOVEMENT THE foregoing survey of American local-color literature has been geographical rather than chronological, and fails to reveal one of its most striking characteristics ; that is, the orderly and progressive way it has grown and developed. It remains to give a brief outline of the main stages through which the movement has passed. If we analyze the task of the local-color writer who de- sires to interpret the life and spirit of any particular region, AS INTERPRETER OF AMERICA 21 we shall find that there are just three factors that combine to make up and explain its special individuality. These are, first, the people, or racial stock ; second, the history and resultant traditions that they brought with them or wrought out there for themselves ; and, third, the land, the physical and natural background of the region itself. These three fundamental elements may be drawn upon in varying proportions. Now one of them, and now another, is more prominent, or appeals more insistently to the story- teller. The first element, the people themselves, with their picturesque peculiarities of manners or speech or types of character, is the most obvious of the three, and the one that most naturally impresses an observer from the out- side. The second, the traditions and principles or stand- ards of conduct handed down from the past, goes deeper, and for that very reason commonly escapes the attention of the outsider and requires the inborn understanding and sympathy of a native. The third, the silent influence of natural surroundings, is the subtlest and least tangible of the three factors ; it demands an interpreter capable of judgment and reflection, and able to weigh the hidden springs of social action. Now when we compare writers and dates, we find that the whole local-color movement falls into four distin- guishable stages, according as it came to emphasize each of these three elements in turn, and finally to combine them into a real unity. First came the local colorists who are primarily inter- ested in the people of their sections. Their productions we may call stories of American Types. These writers are the Picturesque Regionalists, who strive to bring out all that is quaint, humorous, or pathetic in the customs, dia- lect, and character of the inhabitants. The essential thing about this first form of local color is that it invariably arises in what may be called frontier sections. It is the expression fg THE SHORT STORY in American literature of that Spirit of the Frontier so bril- liantly studied in the historical essays of Professor Turner : "That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness ; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients ; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic, but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant indi- vidualism, working for good and for evil ; and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom these are the traits of the frontier." l Here we must place Harte with his " Forty-Niners," Eggleston with his circuit- riders, Garland with his homesteaders, Wister with his cowboys, London with his Klondikers, and also for we must not forget that, as Professor Turner has showed us, the frontier has a social as well as a geographical sense Miss Murfree with her mountaineers, Mrs. Martin with her Pennsylvania Dutch, and Harris and Thompson with their negroes and crackers. The stories of this class began to ap- pear in the seventies, though they have never ceased to be written as new frontiers with picturesque new types have been discovered, or as writers with an eye primarily for the picturesque have arisen in the older sections. With the eighties, however, came stories with a shift of emphasis. The local color of picturesque frontier life was joined by the local color of Social Heritage the sort of local color that depends rather upon traditions and history. Naturally this variety flourished only in older sections with a sufficiently rich historical background such sections as the Virginia of Thomas Nelson Page ; the Louisiana of Mr. Cable, Miss King, and Mrs. Chopin ; the New England of Miss Wilkins, Miss Jewett, and Miss Brown ; or in Ken- tucky, northern Michigan with its French memories, or southern California with its recollections of old Spanish life. Of course, any one of these sections might harbor the 1 F. J. Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in American History. \ AS INTERPRETER OF AMERICA 23 Traditional and the Picturesque Regionalist side by side : for example, Miss Wilkins and Rowland E. Robinson in New England, or Mrs. Catherwood and Stewart Edward White in the Northern Woods. With the nineties, again, we find first appearing the local color that lays chief emphasis on the landscape the local color of Natural Background. Such stories are obviously best suited to sections where nature is particularly attrac- tive, dangerous, or overwhelming, such as the bayous of Louisiana or the Northern woods, the Southern swamps, Western deserts, or Alaskan icefields. Thus we have the work of Hearn in Louisiana, in such a story as Chita; or of Mrs. Catherwood about Mackinac, Greene in the Alabama canebrakes, Linn in the arid Western region, or London in the frozen North. The peculiarity of these stories is not merely that they have excellent descriptions of nature. Miss Murfree's mountain stories, which certainly belong rather to the picturesque division of the movement, are full of detached descriptions of mountain scenery; and indeed, a story might contain much skillful description without being a local-color story at all. But these stories go further : they make the natural background so pervasive and compelling in its influence as in a sense to become the chief character of the story, while the human characters in comparison be- come merely a kind of scenery. In a word, they repeat the perfect integration of actors and environment achieved by Thomas Hardy in such a masterpiece as his Return of the Native, and doubtless owe much to Hardy's example. They have vindicated for themselves the privilege demanded by Hardy's disciple Eden Phillpotts : " To me the phenomena of man's environment are as interesting as man himself. . . . If I deem a forest or river, a wild space, a hilltop, or the changing apparitions of inanimate nature as vital as the adventures of men and women, and as much a part of the 24 THE SHORT STORY material which I handle, then to these things must be apportioned the significance I desire for them. If I choose to make a river a protagonist, or lift a forest, in its unknow- able attributes, into a presence more portentous than the human beings who move within it, none has the right to deny me .... On yet a wider wing we may seek for our heroes and heroines; we may incarnate the seasons and set them moving, mighty and magic-fingered, upon the face of the earth, to tell a story laden with unsleeping activities, mysterious negations and frustrations, battles and plots, tragedies and triumphs. Before such an immense spectacle man's exact significance in the warp and woof will be found to change ; his thread becomes relegated to its fair place in the loom, and we discover mightier stories than his hugely outlined on the tapestries that hang between the stars." 1 Finally, and not until after 1900, there appears a blend- ing of the three elements ; and we have stories of American Communities, or the local color of Communal Conscious- ness. In these stories the spirit of the community is the real essence of the tale. The characters become the background, while the social unit in which they live takes on a person- ality determined alike by its people, its traditions, and its natural surroundings, moves into the foreground, and be- comes the active hero. The most consummate examples of this sort of fiction are perhaps such novels as The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy, or Widecombe Fair by Eden Phillpotts, which attempts, in its author's phrase, "to view a village at a stroke" ; but inspired by the same spirit are many American stories by such writers as Frank Norris, Margaret Deland, Ellen Glasgow, Willa Gather, William Allen White, and O. Henry ; it breathes likewise through the poetry of Edgar Lee Masters and Robert Frost ; and in the "Gospel of Beauty" of Nicholas Vachel Lindsay it even becomes a sort of prophetic message : 1 From the "Foreword" to Widecombe Fair. AS INTERPRETER OF AMERICA "Let not our town be large, remembering That little Athens was the Muses' home, That Oxford rules the heart of London still. That Florence gave the Renaissance to Rome. Record it for the grandson of your son A city is not builded in a day : Our little town cannot complete her soul Till countless generations pass away. Now let each child be joined as to a church To her perpetual hopes, each man ordained : Let every street be made a reverent aisle Where Music grows and Beauty is unchained.** J 1 From On the Building of Springfield. It need hardly be said that the fourfold classification outlined above is not meant to be a hard-and-fast one. Many stories are on the border-line between two or more groups, and often we may find writers from all four groups side by side in a single section. But provided that the groups are understood as depending on relative emphasis rather than as rigidly exclusive, they do correspond to actual stages that may be discerned in the development of the American regionalistic movement. As such, the scheme has been followed in the arrangement of the present volume. AMERICAN TYPES STORIES OF THE FRONTIER He weren't no saint them engineer! Is all pretty much alike, One wife in Natchearunder-the-Eitt And another one here, in Pike; A Jceerless man in his talk was Jim r And an awkward hand in a row, But he never flunked, and he never lied, I reckon he never knowed how. JOHN HAY, Pike County Ballads THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP* BY BRET HARTE THERE was commotion in Roaring Camp. It could not have been a fight, for in 1850 that was not novel enough to have called together the entire settlement. The ditches and claims were not only deserted, but "Tuttle's grocery" had contributed its gamblers, who, it will be remembered, calmly continued their game the day that French Pete and Kanaka Joe shot each other to death over the bar in the front room. The whole camp was collected before a rude cabin on the outer edge of the clearing. Conversation was carried on in a low tone, but the name of a woman was frequently repeated. It was a name familiar enough in the camp "Cherokee Sal." Perhaps the less said of her the better. She was a coarse and, it is to be feared, a very sinful woman. But at that time she was the only woman in Roaring Camp, and was just then lying in sore extremity, when she most needed the ministration of her own sex. Dissolute, abandoned, and irreclaimable, she was yet suffering a martyrdom hard enough to bear even when veiled by sympathizing woman- hood, but now terrible in her loneliness. The primal curse had come to her in that original isolation which must have made the punishment of the first transgression so dreadful. It was, perhaps, part of the expiation of her sin that, at a moment when she most lacked her sex's intuitive tender- ness and care, she met only the half -contemptuous faces of her masculine associates. Yet a few of the spectators were, I think, touched by her sufferings. Sandy Tipton thought 1 Reprinted by permission from The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Stones by Bret Harte. Copyright by Houghton Mifflin Company. 80 AMERICAN TYPES it was "rough on Sal," and, in the contemplation of her condition, for a moment rose superior to the fact that he had an ace and two bowers in his sleeve. It will be seen also that the situation was novel. Deaths were by no means uncommon in Roaring Camp, but a birth was a new thing. People had been dismissed the camp effectively, finally, and with no possibility of return ; but this was the first time that anybody had been introduced ab initio. Hence the excitement. "You go in there, Stumpy," said a prominent citizen known as " Kentuck," addressing one of the loungers. " Go in there, and see what you kin do. You've had experience in them things." Perhaps there was a fitness in the selection. Stumpy, in other climes, had been the putative head of two families ; in fact, it was owing to some legal informality in these pro- ceedings that Roaring Camp a city of refuge was in- debted to his company. The crowd approved the choice, and Stumpy was wise enough to bow to the majority. The door closed on the extempore surgeon and midwife, and Roaring Camp sat down outside, smoked its pipe, and awaited the issue. The assemblage numbered about a hundred men. One or two of these were actual fugitives from justice, some were criminal, and all were reckless. Physically they exhibited no indication of their past lives and character. The great- est scamp had a Raphael face, with a profusion of blond hair ; Oakhurst, a gambler, had the melancholy air and in- tellectual abstraction of a Hamlet; the coolest and most courageous man was scarcely over five feet in height, with a soft voice and an embarrassed, timid manner. The term "roughs" applied to them was a distinction rather than a definition. Perhaps in the minor details of fingers, toes, ears, etc., the camp may have been deficient, but these slight omissions did not detract from their aggregate force. THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP 31 The strongest man had but three fingers on his right hand ; the best shot had but one eye. Such was the physical aspect of the men that were dis- persed around the cabin. The camp lay in a triangular valley between two hills and a river. The only outlet was a steep trail over the summit of a hill that faced the cabin, now illuminated by the rising moon. The suffering woman might have seen it from the rude bunk whereon she lay seen it winding like a silver thread until it was lost in the stars above. A fire of withered pine boughs added sociability to the gathering. By degrees the natural levity of Roaring Camp returned. Bets were freely offered and taken regarding the result. Three to five that "Sal would get through with it" ; even that the child would survive ; side bets as to the sex and complexion of the coming stranger. In the midst of an excited discussion an exclamation came from those nearest the door, and the camp stopped to listen. Above the sway- ing and moaning of the pines, the swift rush of the river, and the crackling of the fire rose a sharp, querulous cry a cry unlike anything heard before in the camp. The pines stopped moaning, the river ceased to rush, and the fire to crackle. It seemed as if Nature had stopped to listen too. The camp rose to its feet as one man ! It was proposed to explode a barrel of gunpowder ; but in consideration of the situation of the mother, better counsels prevailed, and only a few revolvers were discharged ; for whether owing to the rude surgery of the camp, or some other reason, Chero- kee Sal was sinking fast. Within an hour she had climbed, as it were, that rugged road that led to the stars, and so passed out of Roaring Camp, its sin and shame, forever. I do not think that the announcement disturbed them much, except in speculation as to the fate of the child. " Can he live now?" was asked of Stumpy. The answer was doubt- ful. The only other being of Cherokee Sal's sex and ma- 32 AMERICAN TYPES ternal condition in the settlement was an ass. There was some conjecture as to fitness, but the experiment was tried. It was less problematical than the ancient treatment of Romulus and Remus, and apparently as successful. When these details were completed, which exhausted another hour, the door was opened, and the anxious crowd of men, who had already formed themselves into a queue, entered in single file. Beside the low bunk or shelf, on which the figure of the mother was starkly outlined below the blankets, stood a pine table. On this a candle-box was placed, and within it, swathed in staring red flannel, lay the last arrival at Roaring Camp. Beside the candle-box was placed a hat. Its use was soon indicated. " Gentlemen," said Stumpy, with a singular mixture of authority and ex- qfficio complacency, " gentlemen will please pass in at the front door, round the table, and out at the back door. Them as wishes to contribute anything toward the orphan will find a hat handy." The first man entered with his hat on ; he uncovered, however, as he looked about him, and so unconsciously set an example to the next. In such com- munities good and bad actions are catching. As the pro- cession filed in comments were audible criticisms ad- dressed perhaps rather to Stumpy in the character of showman: "Is that him?" "Mighty small specimen"; "Hasn't more'n got the color"; "Ain't bigger nor a der- ringer." The contributions were as characteristic : a silver tobacco box ; a doubloon ; a navy revolver, silver-mounted ; a gold specimen; a very beautifully embroidered lady's handkerchief (from Oakhurst the gambler) ; a diamond breastpin ; a diamond ring (suggested by the pin, with the remark from the giver that he "saw that pin and went two diamonds better") ; a slung-shot; a Bible (contributor not detected) ; a golden spur ; a silver teaspoon (the initials, I regret to say, were not the giver's) ; a pair of surgeon's shears ; a lancet ; a Bank of England note for five pounds ; THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP 33 and about two hundred dollars in loose gold and silver coin. During these proceedings Stumpy maintained a si- lence as impassive as the dead on his left, a gravity as in- scrutable as that of the newly born on his right. Only one incident occurred to break the monotony of the curious procession. As Kentuck bent over the candle-box half curiously, the child turned, and, in a spasm of pain, caught at his groping finger, and held it fast for a moment. Ken- tuck looked foolish and embarrassed. Something like a blush tried to assert itself in his weather-beaten cheek. "The d d little cuss!" he said, as he extricated his finger, with perhaps more tenderness and care than he might have been deemed capable of showing. He held that finger a little apart from its fellows as he went out, and ex- amined it curiously. The examination provoked the same original remark in regard to the child. In fact, he seemed to enjoy repeating it. "He ragtled with my finger," he remarked to Tipton, holding up the member, "the d d little cuss!" It was four o'clock before the camp sought repose. A light burnt in the cabin where the watchers sat, for Stumpy did not go to bed that night. Nor did Kentuck. He drank quite freely, and related with great gusto his experience, invariably ending with his characteristic condemnation of the newcomer. It seemed to relieve him of any unjust im- plication of sentiment, and Kentuck had the weaknesses of the nobler sex. When everybody else had gone to bed, he walked down to the river and whistled reflectingly. Then he walked up the gulch past the cabin, still whistling with demonstrative unconcern. At a large redwood tree he paused and retraced his steps, and again passed the cabin. Halfway down to the river's bank he again paused, and then returned and knocked at the door. It was opened by Stumpy. "How goes it?" said Kentuck, looking past Stumpy toward the candle-box. "All serene!" replied 34 AMERICAN TYPES Stumpy. "Any thing up?" "Nothing." There was a pause an embarrassing one Stumpy still holding the door. Then Kentuck had recourse to his finger, which he held up to Stumpy. "Rastled with it the d d little cuss," he said, and retired. The next day Cherokee Sal had such rude sepulture as Roaring Camp afforded. After her body had been com- mitted to the hillside, there was a formal meeting of the camp to discuss what should be done with her infant. A resolution to adopt it was unanimous and enthusiastic. But an animated discussion in regard to the manner and feasibility of providing for its wants at once sprang up. It was remarkable that the argument partook of none of those fierce personalities with which discussions were us- ually conducted at Roaring Camp. Tipton proposed that they should send the child to Red Dog a distance of forty miles where female attention could be procured. But the unlucky suggestion met with fierce and unanimous opposition. It was evident that no plan which entailed parting from their new acquisition would for a moment be entertained. "Besides," said Tom Ryder, "them fellows at Red Dog would swap it, and ring in somebody else on us." A disbelief in the honesty of other camps prevailed at Roaring Camp, as in other places. The introduction of a female nurse in the camp also met with objection. It was argued that no decent woman could be prevailed on to accept Roaring Camp as her home, and the speaker urged that "they didn't want any more of the other kind." This unkind allusion to the defunct mother, harsh as it may seem, was the first spasm of propriety the first symptom of the camp's regeneration. Stumpy ad- vanced nothing. Perhaps he felt a certain delicacy in inter- fering with the selection of a possible successor in office. But when questioned, he averred stoutly that he and "Jinny" the mammal before alluded to could man- THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP 35 age to rear the child. There was something original, inde- pendent, and heroic about the plan that pleased the camp. Stumpy Was retained. Certain articles were sent for to Sacramento. "Mind," said the treasurer, as he pressed a bag of gold-dust into the expressman's hand, "the best that can be got lace, you know, and filigree-work and frills d n the cost ! " Strange to say, the child thrived. Perhaps the invigo- rating climate of the mountain camp was compensation for material deficiencies. Nature took the foundling to her broader breast. In that rare atmosphere of the Sierra foot- hills that air pungent with balsamic odor, that ethereal cordial at once bracing and exhilarating he may have found food and nourishment, or a subtle chemistry that transmuted ass's milk to lime and phosphorus. Stumpy inclined to the belief that it was the latter and good nurs- ing. "Me and that ass," he would say, "has been father and mother to him ! Don't you," he would add, apostro- phizing the helpless bundle before him, "never go back on us." By the time he was a month old the necessity of giving him a name became apparent. He had generally been known as "The Kid," "Stumpy's Boy," "The Coyote" (an allusion to his vocal powers), and even by Kentuck's endearing diminutive of "The d d little cuss." But these were felt to be vague and unsatisfactory, and were at last dismissed under another influence. Gamblers and ad- venturers are generally superstitious, and Oakhurst one day declared that the baby had brought "the luck" to Roaring Camp. It was certain that of v late they had been success- ful. "Luck" was the name agreed upon, with the prefix of Tommy for greater convenience. No allusion was made to the mother, and the father was unknown. "It's better," said the philosophical Oakhurst, "to take a fresh deal all round. Call him Luck, and start him fair." A day was 86 AMERICAN TYPES accordingly set apart for the christening. What was meant by this ceremony the reader may imagine who has already gathered some idea of the reckless irreverence of Roaring Camp. The master of ceremonies was one "Boston," a noted wag, and the occasion seemed to promise the greatest facetiousness. This ingenious satirist had spent two days in preparing a burlesque of the Church service, with pointed local allusions. The choir was properly trained, and Sandy Tipton was to stand godfather. But after the procession had marched to the grove with music and banners, and the child had been deposited before a mock altar, Stumpy stepped before the expectant crowd. " It ain't my style to spoil fun, boys," said the little man, stoutly eyeing the faces around him, "but it strikes me that this thing ain't exactly on the squar. It's playin* it pretty low down on this yer baby to ring in fun on him that he ain't goin' to understand. And ef there's goin' to be any godfathers round, I'd like to see who's got any better rights than me." A silence followed Stumpy 's speech. To the credit of all humorists be it said that the first man to acknowledge its justice was the satirist thus stopped of his fun. "But," said Stumpy, quickly following up his advantage, "we're here for a christening, and we'll have it. I proclaim you Thomas Luck, according to the laws of the United States and the State of California, so help me God." It was the first time that the name of the Deity had been otherwise uttered than profanely in the camp. The form of christen- ing was perhaps even more ludicrous than the satirist had conceived ; but strangely enough, nobody saw it and no- body laughed. "Tommy" was christened as seriously as he would have been under a Christian roof, and cried and was comforted in as orthodox fashion. And so the work of regeneration began in Roaring Camp. Almost imperceptibly a change came over the settlement. The cabin assigned to "Tommy Luck" or "The Luck," THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP 37 as he was more frequently called first showed signs of improvement. It was kept scrupulously clean and white- washed. Then it was boarded, clothed, and papered. The rosewood cradle, packed eighty miles by mule, had, in Stumpy 's way of putting it, "sorter killed the rest of the furniture." So the rehabilitation of the cabin became a necessity. The men who were in the habit of lounging in at Stumpy 's to see "how 'The Luck' got on" seemed to ap- preciate the change, and in self-defense the rival establish- ment of "Tuttle's grocery" bestirred itself and imported a carpet and mirrors. The reflections of the latter on the appearance of Roaring Camp tended to produce stricter habits of personal cleanliness. Again, Stumpy imposed a kind of quarantine upon those who, aspired to the honor and privilege of holding The Luck. It was a cruel mortifi- cation to Kentuck who, in the carelessness of a large nature and the habits of frontier life, had begun to regard all garments as a second cuticle, which, like a snake's, only sloughed off through decay to be debarred this privilege from certain prudential reasons. Yet such was the subtle influence of innovation that he thereafter appeared regu- larly every afternoon in a clean shirt and face still shining from his ablutions. Nor were moral and social sanitary laws neglected. "Tommy," who was supposed to spend his whole existence in a persistent attempt to repose, must not be disturbed by noise. The shouting and yelling, which had gained the camp its infelicitous title, were not per- mitted within hearing distance of Stumpy's. The men con- versed in whispers or smoked with Indian gravity. Pro- fanity was tacitly given up in these sacred precincts, and throughout the camp a popular form of expletive, known as "D n the luck !" and "Curse the luck !" was aban- doned, as having a new personal bearing. Vocal music was not interdicted, being supposed to have a soothing, tran- quilizing quality; and one song, sung by "Man-o'-War 88 AMERICAN TYPES Jack," an English sailor from Her Majesty's Australian colonies, was quite popular as a lullaby. It was a lugubri- ous recital of the exploits of "the Arethusa, Seventy-Four," in a muffled minor, ending with a prolonged dying fall at the burden of each verse, "On b-oo-o-ard of the Arethusa." It was a fine sight to see Jack holding The Luck, rocking from side to side as if with the motion of a ship, and croon- ing forth this naval ditty. Either through the peculiar rocking of Jack or the length of his song it contained ninety stanzas, and was continued with conscientious de- liberation to the bitter end the lullaby generally had the desired effect. At such times the men would lie at full length under the trees in the soft summer twilight, smok- ing their pipes and drinking in the melodious utterances. An indistinct idea that this was pastoral happiness per- vaded the camp. "This 'ere kind o' think," said the Cock- ney Simmons, meditatively reclining on his elbow, "is 'evingly." It reminded him of Greenwich. On the long summer days The Luck was usually carried to the gulch from whence the golden store of Roaring Camp was taken. There, on a blanket spread over pine boughs, he would lie while the men were working in the ditches be- low. Latterly there was a rude attempt to decorate this bower with flowers and sweet-smelling shrubs, and gener- ally some one would bring him a cluster of wild honey- suckles, azaleas, or the painted blossoms of Las Mariposas. The men had suddenly awakened to the fact that there were beauty and significance in these trifles, which they had so long trodden carelessly beneath their feet. A flake of glittering mica, a fragment of variegated quartz, a bright pebble from the bed of the creek, became beautiful to eyes thus cleared and strengthened, and were invariably put aside for The Luck. It was wonderful how many treasures the woods and hillsides yielded that "would do for Tommy." Surrounded by playthings such as never child THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP 39 out of fairyland had before, it is to be hoped that Tommy was content. He appeared to be serenely happy, albeit there was an infantine gravity about him, a contemplative light in his round gray eyes, that sometimes worried Stumpy. He was always tractable and quiet, and it is re- corded that once, having crept beyond his "corral," a hedge of tessellated pine boughs, which surrounded his bed, he dropped over the bank on his head in the soft earth, and remained with his mottled legs in the air in that posi- tion for at least five minutes with unflinching gravity. He was extricated without a murmur. I hesitate to record the many other instances of his sagacity, which rest, unfortu- nately, upon the statements of prejudiced friends. Some of them were not without a tinge of superstition. " I crep* up the bank just now," said Kentuck one day, in a breath- less state of excitement, "and dern my skin if he wasn't a-talkin* to a jaybird as was a-sittin* on his lap. There they was, just as free and sociable as anything you please, a-jawin* at each other just like two cherrybums." How- beit, whether creeping over the pine boughs or lying lazily on his back blinking at the leaves above him, to him the birds sang, the squirrels chattered, and the flowers bloomed. Nature was his nurse and playfellow. For him she would let slip between the leaves golden shafts of sunlight that fell just within his grasp ; she would send wandering breezes to visit him with the balm of bay and resinous gum ; to him the tall redwoods nodded familiarly and sleepily, the bum- blebees buzzed, and the rooks cawed a slumbrous accom- paniment. Such was the golden summer of Roaring Camp. They were "flush times," and the luck was with them. The claims had yielded enormously. The camp was jealous of its privileges and looked suspiciously on strangers. No en- couragement was given to immigration, and, to make their seclusion more perfect, the land on either side of the moun- 40 AMERICAN TYPES tain wall that surrounded the camp they duly preempted. This, and a reputation for singular proficiency with the re- volver, kept the reserve of Roaring Camp inviolate. The expressman their only connecting link with the sur- rounding world sometimes told wonderful stories of the camp. He would say, "They've a street up there in 'Roar- ing* that would lay over any street in Red Dog. They've got vines and flowers round their houses, and they wash themselves twice a day. But they're mighty rough on strangers, and they worship an Ingin baby." With the prosperity of the camp came a desire for further improvement. It was proposed to build a hotel in the fol- lowing spring, and to invite one or two decent families to reside there for the sake of The Luck, who might perhaps profit by female companionship. The sacrifice that this concession to the sex cost these men, who were fiercely skeptical in regard to its general virtue and usefulness, can only be accounted for by their affection for Tommy. A few still held out. But the resolve could not be carried into effect for three months, and the minority meekly yielded in the hope that something might turn up to prevent it. And it did. The winter of 1851 will long be remembered in the foot- hills. The snow lay deep on the Sierras, and every moun- tain creek became a river, and every river a lake. Each gorge and gulch was transformed into a tumultuous water- course that descended the hillsides, tearing down giant trees and scattering its drift and debris along the plain. Red Dog had been twice under water, and Roaring Camp had been forewarned. "Water put the gold into them gulches," said Stumpy. "It's been here once and will be here again!" And that night the North Fork suddenly leaped over its banks and swept up the triangular valley of Roaring Camp. In the confusion of rushing water, crashing trees, and THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP 41 crackling timber, and the darkness which seemed to flow with the water and blot out the fair valley, but little could be "done to collect the scattered camp. When the morning broke, the cabin of Stumpy, nearest the river-bank, was gone. Higher up the gulch they found the body of its un- lucky owner ; but the pride, the hope, the joy, The Luck, of Roaring Camp had disappeared. They were returning with sad hearts when a shout from the bank recalled them. It was a relief-boat from down the river. They had picked up, they said, a man and an infant, nearly ex- hausted, about two miles below. Did anybody know them, and did they belong here ? It needed but a glance to show them Kentuck lying there, cruelly crushed and bruised, but still holding The Luck of Roaring Camp in his arms. As they bent over the strangely assorted pair, they saw that the child was cold and pulseless. "He is dead," said one. Kentuck opened his eyes. "Dead?" he repeated feebly. "Yes, my man, and you are dying too." A smile lit the eyes of the expiring Kentuck. "Dying!" he repeated; "he's a-takin' me with him. Tell the boys I've got The Luck with me now" ; and the strong man, clinging to the frail babe as a drowning man is said to cling to a straw, drifted away into the shadowy river that flows forever to the unknown sea. TAKING THE BLUE RIBBON AT THE COUNTY FAIR 1 BY MARY N. MURFREE JENKS HOLMS sat on the fence. He slowly turned the quid of tobacco in his cheek, and lifting up his voice spoke with an oracular drawl : "Ef he kin take the certificate it's the mos' ez he kin do. He ain't never a-goin' ter git no premi-wm in this Me, sure's ye air a born sinner." And he relapsed into silence. His long legs dangled de- jectedly among the roadside weeds; his brown jeans trousers, that had despaired of ever reaching his ankles, were ornamented here and there with ill-adjusted patches, and his loose-fitting coat was out at the elbows. An old white wool hat drooped over his eyes, which were fixed ab- sently on certain distant blue mountain ranges, that melted tenderly into the blue of the noonday sky, and framed an exquisite mosaic of poly-tinted fields in the valley, far, far below the grim gray crag on which his little home was perched. Despite his long legs he was a light weight, or he would not have chosen as his favorite seat so rickety a fence. His interlocutor, a heavier man, apparently had some doubts, for he leaned only slightly against one of the projecting rails as he whittled a pine stick, and with his every movement the frail structure trembled. The log cabin seemed as rickety as the fence. The little front porch had lost a puncheon here and there hi the flooring perhaps on 1 Reprinted by permission from The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain t and Other Stories, by Charles Egbert Craddock (Mary N. Murfree). Copyright by Houghton Mifflin Company. TAKING THE BLUE RIBBON 48 some cold winter night when Hollis's energy was not suf- ficiently exuberant to convey him to the woodpile; the slender posts that upheld its roof seemed hardly strong enough to withstand the weight of the luxuriant vines with their wealth of golden gourds which had clambered far over the moss-grown clapboards ; the windows had fewer panes of glass than rags ; and the chimney, built of clay and sticks, leaned portentously away from the house. The open door displayed a rough, uncovered floor; a few old rush-bot- tomed chairs; a bedstead with a patchwork calico quilt, the mattress swagging in the center and showing the badly arranged cords below ; strings of bright red pepper hanging from the dark rafters ; a group of tow-headed, grave-faced, barefooted children ; and, occupying almost one side of the room, a broad, deep, old-fashioned fireplace, where winter and summer a lazy fire burned under a lazy pot. Notwithstanding the poverty of the aspect of the place and the evident sloth of its master, it was characterized by a scrupulous cleanliness strangely at variance with its for- lorn deficiencies. The rough floor was not only swept but scoured; the dark rafters, whence depended the flaming banners of the red pepper, harbored no cobwebs ; the grave faces of the white-haired children bore no more dirt than was consistent with their recent occupation of making mud- pies; and the sedate, bald-headed baby, lying silent but wide awake in an uncouth wooden cradle, was as clean as clear spring water and yellow soap could make it. Mrs. Hollis herself, seen through the vista of opposite open doors, energetically rubbing the coarse wet clothes upon the resonant washboard, seemed neat enough in her blue- and-white checked homespun dress, and with her scanty hair drawn smoothly back from her brow into a tidy little knot on the top of her head. Spare and gaunt she was, and with many lines in her prematurely old face. Perhaps they told of the hard fight 44 AMERICAN TYPES her brave spirit waged against the stern ordering of her life ; of the struggles with squalor inevitable concomi- tant of poverty and to keep together the souls and bodies of those numerous children, with no more efficient assistance than could be wrung from her reluctant husband in the short intervals when he did not sit on the fence. She managed as well as she could ; there was an abundance of fine fruit in that low line of foliage behind the house but everybody on Old Bear Mountain had fine fruit. Something rarer, she had good vegetables the planting and hoeing being her own work and her eldest daughter's ; an occasional shallow furrow representing the contribu- tion of her husband's plough. The althea-bushes and the branches of the laurel sheltered a goodly number of roost- ing hens in these September nights ; and to the pond, which had been formed by damming the waters of the spring branch in the hollow across the road, was moving even now a stately procession of geese in single file. These simple belongings were the trophies of a gallant battle against unalterable conditions and the dragging, dispiriting clog of her husband's inertia. His inner life does it seem hard to realize that In that uncouth personality concentered the complex, incompre- hensible, ever-shifting emotions of that inner life which, after all, is so much stronger, and deeper, and broader than the material ? Here, too, beat the hot heart of humanity beat with no measured throb. He had his hopes, his pleas- ure, his pain, like those of a higher culture, differing only in object, and something perhaps in degree. His disappoint- ments were bitter and lasting ; his triumphs, few and sor- did ; his single aspiration to take the premium offered by the directors of the Kildeer County Fair for the best equestrian. This incongruous and unpromising ambition had sprung up in this wise: Between the country people of Kildeer TAKING THE BLUE RIBBON 45 County and the citizens of the village of Colbury, the county-seat, existed a bitter and deeply rooted animosity manifesting itself at conventions, elections for the legisla- ture, etc., the rural population voting as a unit against the town's candidate. On all occasions of public meetings there was a struggle to crush any invidious distinction against the "country boys," especially at the annual fair. Here to the rustics of Kildeer County came the tug of war. The population of the outlying districts was more numer- ous, and, when it could be used as a suffrage engine, all- powerful ; but the region immediately adjacent to the town was far more fertile. On those fine meadows grazed the graceful Jersey; there gamboled sundry long-tailed colts with long-tailed pedigrees; there greedy Berkshires fat- tened themselves to abnormal proportions ; and the meri- nos could hardly walk, for the weight of their own rich wardrobes. The well-to-do farmers of this section were hand-in-glove with the town's people; they drove their trotters in every day or so to get their mail, to chat with their cronies, to attend to their affairs in court, to sell or to buy their pleasures centered in the town, and they turned the cold shoulder upon the country, which sup- ported them, and gave their influence to Colbury, account- ing themselves an integrant part of it. Thus, at the fairs the town claimed the honor and glory. The blue ribbon decorated cattle and horses bred within ten miles of the flaunting flag on the judges' stand, and the foaming moun- tain torrents and the placid stream in the valley beheld no cerulean hues save those of the sky which they reflected. The premium offered this year for the best rider was, as it happened, a new feature, and excited especial interest. The country's blood was up. Here was something for which it could fairly compete, with none of the disadvantages of the false position in which it was placed. Hence a prosper- ous landed proprietor, the leader of the rural faction, dwell- 46 AMERICAN TYPES ing midway between the town and the range of mountains that bounded the county on the north and east, bethought himself one day of Jenkins Hollis, whose famous riding had been the feature of a certain dashing cavalry charge once famous, too forgotten now by all but the men who, for the first and only time in their existence, penetrated in those war days the blue mountains fencing in their county from the outer world, and looked upon the alien life beyond that wooded barrier. The experience of those four years, submerged in the whirling rush of events elsewhere, sur- vives in these eventless regions in a dreamy, dispassionate sort of longevity. And Jenkins Hollis's feat of riding stol- idly one could hardly say bravely up an almost sheer precipice to a flame-belching battery came suddenly into the landed magnate's recollection with the gentle vapors and soothing aroma of a meditative after-dinner pipe. Quivering with party spirit, Squire Goodlet sent for Hollis and offered to lend him the best horse on the place, and a saddle and bridle, if he would go down to Colbury and beat those town fellows out on their own ground. No misgivings had Hollis. The inordinate personal pride characteristic of the mountaineer precluded his feeling a shrinking pain at the prospect of being presented, a sorry contrast, among the well-clad, well-to-do town's people, to compete in a public contest. He did not appreciate the difference he thought himself as good as the best. And to-day, complacent enough, he sat upon the rickety fence at home, oracularly disparaging the equestrian ac- complishments of the town's noted champion. "I dunno I dunno," said his young companion doubt- fully. "Hackett sets mighty firm onto his saddle. He's ez straight ez any shingle, an' ez tough ez a pine-knot. He come up hyar las' summer war it las' summer, now? No, 't war summer afore las' with some o' them other Colbury folks, a-fox-huntin', an* a-deer-huntin', an' one TAKING THE BLUE RIBBON 47 thing an* 'nother. I seen 'em a time or two in the woods. An' he kin ride jes' ez good 'mongst the gullies and boulders like ez ef he had been born in the hills. He ain't a-goin' ter be beat easy." "It don't make no differ," retorted Jenks Hollis. "He'll never git no premi-wra. The certif 'cate's good a-plenty fur what ridin' he kin do." Doubt was still expressed in the face of the young man, but he said no more, and, after a short silence, Mr. Hollis, perhaps not relishing his visitor's want of appreciation, dismounted, so to speak, from the fence, and slouched off slowly up the road. Jacob Brice still stood leaning against the rails and whittling his pine stick, in no wise angered or dismayed by his host's unceremonious departure, for social etiquette is not very rigid on Old Bear Mountain. He was a tall athletic fellow, clad in a suit of brown jeans, which dis- played, besides the ornaments of patches, sundry deep grass stains about the knees. Not that piety induced Brice to spend much time in the lowly attitude of prayer, unless, indeed, Diana might be accounted the goddess of his wor- ship. The green juice was pressed out when kneeling, hidden in some leafy, grassy nook, he heard the infrequent cry of the wild turkey, or his large, intent blue eyes caught a glimpse of the stately head of an antlered buck, moving majestically in the alternate sheen of the sunlight and shadow of the overhanging crags; or while with his deft hunter's hands he dragged himself by slow, noiseless de- grees through the ferns and tufts of rank weeds to the water's edge, that he might catch a shot at the feeding wild duck. A leather belt around his waist supported his pow- der-horn and shot-pouch for his accouterments were exactly such as might have been borne a hundred years ago by a hunter of Old Bear Mountain and his gun leaned against the trunk of a chestnut-oak. 48 AMERICAN TYPES Although he still stood outside the fence, aimlessly lounging, there was a look on his face of a half -suppressed expectancy, which rendered the features less statuesque than was their wont an expectancy that showed itself in the furtive lifting of his eyelids now and then, enabling him to survey the doorway without turning his head. Sud- denly his face reassumed its habitual, inexpressive mask of immobility, and the furtive eyes were persistently down- cast. A flare of color, and Cynthia Hollis was standing in the doorway, leaning against its frame. She was robed, like September, in brilliant yellow. The material and make were of the meanest, but there was a certain appropriate- ness in the color with her slumberous dark eyes and the curling tendrils of brown hair which fell upon her forehead and were clustered together at the back of her neck. No cuffs and no collar could this costume boast, but she had shown the inclination to finery characteristic of her age and sex by wearing around her throat, where the yellow hue of her dress met the creamy tint of her skin, a row of large black beads, threaded upon a shoe-string in default of an elastic, the brass ends flaunting brazenly enough among them. She held in her hand a string of red pepper, to which she was adding some newly gathered pods. A slow job Cynthia seemed to make of it. She took no more notice of the man under the tree than he accorded to her. There they stood, within twelve feet of each other, in utter silence, and, to all appearance, each entirely unconscious of the other's existence : he whittling his pine stick ; she, slowly, slowly stringing the pods of red pepper. There was something almost portentous in the gravity and sobriety of demeanor of this girl of seventeen; she manifested less interest in the young man than her own grandmother might have shown. TAKING THE BLUE RIBBON 49 He was constrained to speak first. "Cynthy" he said at length, without raising his eyes or turning his head. She did not answer ; but he knew without looking that she had fixed those slumberous brown eyes upon him, waiting for him to go on. "Cynthy" he said again, with a hesitat- ing, uneasy manner. Then, with an awkward attempt at raillery, "Ain't ye never a-thinkin' 'bout a-gittin' mar- ried?" He cast a laughing glance toward her, and looked down quickly at his clasp-knife and the stick he was whittling. It was growing very slender now. Cynthia's serious face relaxed its gravity. "Ye air fool- ish, Jacob," she said, laughing. After stringing on another pepper-pod with great deliberation, she continued: "Ef I war a-studyin' 'bout a-gittin' married, thar ain't nobody round 'bout hyar ez I'd hev." And she added another pod to the flaming red string, so bright against the yellow of her dress. That stick could not long escape annihilation. The clasp- knife moved vigorously through its fibers, and accented certain arbitrary clauses in its owner's retort. "Ye talk like," he said, his face as monotonous in its expression as if every line were cut in marble "ye talk like ye thought ez how I war a-goin' ter ax ye ter marry me. I ain't, though, nuther." The stick was a shaving. It fell among the weeds. The young hunter shut his clasp-knife with a snap, shouldered his gun, and without a word of adieu on either side the con- ference terminated, and he walked off down the sandy road. Cynthia stood watching him until the laurel-bushes hid him from sight ; then sliding from the door-frame to the step, she sat motionless, a bright-hued mass of yellow draperies and red peppers, her slumberous deep eyes rest- ing on the leaves that had closed upon him. 50 AMERICAN TYPES She was the central figure of a still landscape. The mid- day sunshine fell in broad effulgence upon it ; the homely, dun-colored shadows had been running away all the morn- ing, as if shirking the contrast with the splendors of the golden light, until nothing was left of them except a dark circle beneath the wide-spreading trees. No breath of wind stirred the leaves, or rippled the surface of the little pond. The lethargy of the hour had descended even upon the towering pine-trees growing on the precipitous slope of the mountain, and showing their topmost plumes just above the frowning, gray crag their melancholy song was hushed. The silent masses of dazzling white clouds were poised motionless in the ambient air, high above the valley and the misty expanse of the distant, wooded ranges. A lazy, lazy day, and very, very warm. The birds had much ado to find sheltering shady nooks where they might escape the glare and the heat ; their gay carols were out of season, and they blinked and nodded under their leafy um- brellas, and fanned themselves with their wings, and twit- tered disapproval of the weather. "Hot, hot, red-hot!" said the birds "broiling hot!" Now and then an acorn fell from among the serrated chestnut leaves, striking upon the fence with a sounding thwack, and rebounding in the weeds. Those chestnut- oaks always seem to unaccustomed eyes the creation of Nature in a fit of mental aberration useful freak ! the mountain swine fatten on the plenteous mast, and the bark is highly esteemed at the tanyard. A large cat was lying at full length on the floor of the little porch, watching with drowsy, half-closed eyes the assembled birds in the tree. But she seemed to have re- linquished the pleasures of the chase until the mercury should fall. Close in to the muddiest side of the pond over there, which was all silver and blue with the reflection of the TAKING THE BLUE RIBBON 51 great masses of white clouds, and the deep azure sky, a fleet of shining, snowy geese was moored, perfectly motion- less too. No circumnavigation for them this hot day. And Cynthia's dark brown eyes, fixed upon the leafy vista of the road, were as slumberous as the noontide sun- shine. "Cynthy! Whar is the gal?" said poor Mrs. Hollis, as she came around the house to hang out the ragged clothes on the althea-bushes and the rickety fence. "Cynthy, air ye a-goin' ter sit thar in the door all day, an* that thar pot a-bilin' all the stren'th out'n that thar cabbige an' roas'in'- ears ? Dish up dinner, child, an' don't be so slow an' slack- twisted like yer dad." Great merriment there was, to be sure, at the Kildeer Fair Grounds, situated on the outskirts of Colbury, when it became known to the convulsed town faction that the gawky Jenks Hollis intended to compete for the premium to be awarded to the best and most graceful rider. The contests of the week had as usual resulted in Colbury's favor ; this was the last day of the fair, and the defeated country population anxiously but still hopefully awaited its notable event. A warm sun shone ; a brisk autumnal breeze waved the flag flying from the judges' stand ; a brass band in the upper story of that structure thrilled the air with the vibrations of popular waltzes and marches, somewhat marred now and then by mysteriously discordant bass tones ; the judges, portly, red-faced, middle-aged gentlemen, sat below in cane-bottom chairs critically a-tilt on the hind legs. The rough wooden amphitheater, a bold satire on the stately Roman edifice, was filled with the denizens of Colbury and the rosy rural faces of the country people of Kildeer County; and within the charmed arena the competitors for the blue ribbon and the saddle and bridle to be awarded 62 AMERICAN TYPES to the best rider were just now entering, ready mounted, from a door beneath the tiers of seats, and were slowly making the tour of the circle around the judges' stand. One by one they came, with a certain nonchalant pride of demeanor, conscious of an effort to display themselves and their horses to the greatest advantage, and yet a little ashamed of the consciousness. For the most part they were young men, prosperous looking, and clad according to the requirements of fashion which prevailed in this little town. Shut in though it was from the pomps and vanities of the world by the encircling chains of blue ranges and the bend- ing sky which rested upon their summits, the frivolity of the mode, though somewhat belated, found its way and ruled with imperative rigor. Good riders they were un- doubtedly, accustomed to the saddle almost from infancy, and well mounted. A certain air of gallantry, always char- acteristic of an athletic horseman, commended these eques- trian figures to the eye as they slowly circled about. Still they came eight nine ten the eleventh, the long, lank frame of Jenkins Hollis mounted on Squire Goodlet's "John Barleycorn." The horsemen received this ungainly addition to their party with polite composure, and the genteel element of the spectators remained silent too from the force of good breeding and good feeling; but the "roughs," always criti- cally a-loose in a crowd, shouted and screamed with de- risive hilarity. What they were laughing at Jenks Hollis never knew. Grave and stolid, but as complacent as the best, he too made the usual circuit with his ill-fitting jeans suit, his slouching old wool hat, and his long, gaunt figure. But he sat the spirited "John Barleycorn" as if he were a part of the steed, and held up his head with unwonted dignity, inspired perhaps by the stately attitudes of the horse, which were the result of no training nor compelling reins, but the instinct transmitted through a long line TAKING THE BLUE RIBBON 53 of high-headed ancestry. Of a fine old family was "John Barleycorn." A deeper sensation was in store for the spectators. Be- fore Jenkins Hollis's appearance most of them had heard of his intention to compete, but the feeling was one of un- mixed astonishment when entry number twelve rode into the arena, and, on the part of the country people, this sur- prise was supplemented by an intense indignation. The twelfth man was Jacob Brice. As he was a "mounting boy," one would imagine that, if victory should crown his efforts, the rural faction ought to feel the elation of success, but the prevailing sentiment toward him was that which every well-conducted mind must entertain concerning the individual who runs against the nominee. Notwithstand- ing the fact that Brice was a notable rider, too, and well calculated to try the mettle of the town's champion, there arose from the excited countrymen a keen, bitter, and out- raged cry of "Take him out !" So strongly does the par- tisan heart pulsate to the interests of the nominee ! This frantic petition had no effect on the interloper. A man who has inherited half a dozen violent quarrels, any one of which may at any moment burst into a vendetta, in- heriting little else, is not easily dismayed by the dis- approbation of either friend or foe. His statuesque features, shaded by the drooping brim of his old black hat, were aa calm as ever, and his slow blue eyes did not, for one mo-. ment, rest upon the excited scene about him, so unspeak- ably new to his scanty experience. His fine figure showed to great advantage on horseback, despite his uncouth, coarse garb ; he was mounted upon a sturdy, brown mare of obscure origin, but good-looking, clean-built, sure- footed, and with the blended charm of spirit and docility ; she represented his whole estate, except his gun and his lean, old hound, that had accompanied him to the fair, and was even now improving the shining hour by quarreling 54 AMERICAN TYPES over a bone outside the grounds with other people's hand- somer dogs. The judges were exacting. The riders were ordered to gallop to the right and around they went. To the left and there was again the spectacle of the swiftly circling equestrian figures. They were required to draw up in a line, and to dismount ; then to mount, and again to alight. Those whom these maneuvers proved inferior were dis- missed at once, and the circle was reduced to eight. An exchange of horses was commanded; and once more the riding, fast and slow, left and right, the mounting and dis- mounting, were repeated. The proficiency of the remaining candidates rendered them worthy of more difficult ordeals. They were required to snatch a hat from the ground while riding at full gallop. Pistols loaded with blank cartridges were fired behind the horses, and subsequently close to their quivering and snorting nostrils, in order that the rela- tive capacity of the riders to manage a frightened and unruly steed might be compared, and the criticism of the judges mowed the number down to four. Free speech is conceded by all right-thinking people to be a blessing. It is often a balm. Outside of the building and of earshot the defeated aspirants took what comfort they could in consigning, with great fervor and volubility, all the judicial magnates to that torrid region unknown to polite geographical works. Of the four horsemen remaining in the ring, two were Jenkins Hollis and Jacob Brice. Short turns at full gallop were prescribed. The horses were required to go backward at various gaits. Bars were brought in and the crowd en- joyed the exhibition of the standing-leap, at an ever-in- creasing height, and then the flying-leap a tumultuous confused impression of thundering hoofs and tossing mane and grim, defiant faces of horse and rider, in the lightning- like moment of passing. Obstructions were piled on the TAKING THE BLUE RIBBON 55 track for the "long jumps," and in one of the wildest leaps a good rider was unhorsed and rolled on the ground, while his recreant steed, that had balked at the last moment, scampered around and around the arena in a wild effort to find the door beneath the tiers of seats to escape so fierce a competition. This accident reduced the number of candi- dates to the two mountaineers and Tip Hackett, the man whom Jacob had pronounced a formidable rival. The cir- cling about, the mounting and dismounting, the exchange of horses, were several times repeated without any apparent result, and excitement rose to fever heat. The premium and certificate lay between the three men. The town faction trembled at the thought that the sub- stantial award of the saddle and bridle, with the decora- tion of the blue ribbon, and the intangible but still precious secondary glory of the certificate and the red ribbon might be given to the two mountaineers, leaving the crack rider of Colbury in an ignominious lurch ; while the country party feared Hollis's defeat by Hackett rather less than that Jenks would be required to relinquish the premium to the interloper Brice, for the young hunter's riding had stricken a pang of prophetic terror to more than one partisan rustic's heart. In the midst of the perplexing doubt, which tried the judges' minds, came the hour for dinner, and the deci- sion was postponed until after that meal. The competitors left the arena, and the spectators trans- ferred their attention to unburdening hampers, or to jost- lin-g one another in the dining-hall. Everybody was feasting but Cynthia Hollis. The in- tense excitement of the day, the novel sights and sounds utterly undreamed of in her former life, the abruptly struck chords of new emotions suddenly set vibrating within her, had dulled her relish for the midday meal ; and while the other members of the family repaired to the shade of a tree outside the grounds to enjoy that refection, she wandered 56 AMERICAN TYPES about the "floral hall," gazing at the splendors of bloom thronging there, all so different from the shy grace, the fragility of poise, the delicacy of texture of the flowers of her ken the rhododendron, the azalea, the Chilhowee lily yet vastly imposing in their massed exuberance and scarlet pride, for somehow they all seemed high colored. She went more than once to note with a kind. of aghast dismay those trophies of feminine industry, the quilts; some were of the "log cabin" and "rising sun" variety, but others were of geometric intricacy of form and were kaleidoscopic of color with an amazing labyrinth of stitch- ings and embroideries it seemed a species of effrontery to dub one gorgeous poly-tinted silken banner a quilt. But already it bore a blue ribbon, and its owner was the richer by the prize of a glass bowl and the envy of a score of deft-handed competitors. She gazed upon the glittering jellies and preserves, upon the biscuits and cheeses, the hair-work and wax flowers, and paintings. These latter treated for the most part of castles and seas rather than of the surrounding altitudes, but Cynthia came to a pause of blank surprise in front of a shadow rather than a picture which represented a spring of still brown water in a mossy cleft of a rock where the fronds of a fern seemed to stir in the foreground. "I hev viewed the like o' that a many a time," she said disparagingly. To her it hardly seemed rare enough for the blue ribbon on the frame. In the next room she dawdled through great piles of prize fruits and vegetables watermelons unduly vast of bulk, peaches and pears and pumpkins of proportions never seen before out of a nightmare, stalks of Indian corn eighteen feet high with seven ears each all apparently attesting what they could do when they would, and that all the enterprise of Kildeer County was not exclusively of the feminine persuasion. Finally Cynthia came out from the midst of them and TAKING THE BLUE RIBBON 57 stood leaning against one of the large pillars which sup- ported the roof of the amphitheater, still gazing about the half -deserted building, with the smouldering fires of her slumberous eyes newly kindled. To other eyes and ears it might not have seemed a scene of tumultuous metropolitan life, with the murmuring trees close at hand dappling the floor with sycamore shadows, the fields of Indian corn across the road, the exuberant rush of the stream down the slope just beyond, the few hundred spectators who had intently watched the events of the day; but to Cynthia Hollis the excitement of the crowd and movement and noise could no further go. .'' By the natural force of gravitation Jacob Brice presently was walking slowly and apparently aimlessly around to where she was standing. He said nothing, however, when he was beside her, and she seemed entirely unconscious of his presence. Her yellow dress was as stiff as a board, and as clean as her strong young arms could make it; at her throat were the shining black beads ; on her head she wore a limp, yellow calico sunbonnet, which hung down over her eyes, and almost obscured her countenance. To this article she perhaps owed the singular purity and transparency of her complexion, as much as to the mountain air, and the chiefly vegetable fare of her father's table. She wore it constantly, although it operated almost as a mask, render- ing her more easily recognizable to their few neighbors by her flaring attire than by her features, and obstructing from her own view all surrounding scenery, so that she could hardly see the cow, which so much of her time she was slowly poking after. She spoke unexpectedly, and without any other symp- tom that she knew of the young hunter's proximity. "I never thought, Jacob, ez how ye would hev come down hyar, all the way from the mountings, to ride ag'in* my dad, an* beat him out'n that thar saddle an* bridle." 58 AMERICAN TYPES "Ye won't hev nothin' ter say ter me," retorted Jacob sourly. A long silence ensued. Then he resumed didactically, but with some irrelevancy, "I tole ye t'other day ez how ye war old enough ter be a-studyin' 'bout gittin' married." "They don't think nothin' of ye ter our house, Jacob. Dad's always a-jowin' at ye." Cynthia's candor certainly could not be called in question. The young hunter replied with some natural irritation : "He hed better not let me hear him, ef he wants to keep whole bones inside his skin. He better not tell me, nuther." "He don't keer enough 'bout ye, Jacob, ter tell ye. He don't think nothin' of ye." Love is popularly supposed to dull the mental faculties. It developed in Jacob Brice sudden strategic abilities. "Thar is them ez does," he said diplomatically. Cynthia spoke promptly with more vivacity than usual, but in her customary drawl and apparently utterly irrele- vantly : "I never in all my days see no sech red-headed gal ez that thar Becky Stiles. She's the red-headedest gal ever I see." And Cynthia once more was silent. Jacob resumed, also irrelevantly : "When I goes a-huntin' up yander ter Pine Lick, they is mighty perlite ter me. They ain't never done nothin' ag'in' me, ez I knows on." Then, after a pause of deep cogitation, he added, "Nor hev they said nothin' ag'in' me, nuther." Cynthia took up her side of the dialogue, if dialogue it could be called, with wonted irrelevancy: "That thar Becky Stiles, she's got the freckledest face ez freckled ez any turkey-aig" (with an indescribable drawl on the last word). "They ain't done nothin' ag'in' me," reiterated Jacob astutely, ''nor said nothin' nuther none of 'em." TAKING THE BLUE RIBBON 59 Cynthia looked hard across the amphitheater at the dis- tant Great Smoky Mountains shimmering in the hazy September sunlight so ineffably beautiful, so delicately blue, that they might have seemed the ideal scenery of some impossibly lovely ideal world. Perhaps she was won- dering what the unconscious Becky Stiles, far away in those dark woods about Pine Lick, had secured in this life besides her freckled face. Was this the sylvan deity of the young hunter's adoration ? |* Cynthia took off her sunbonnet to use it for a fan. Per- haps it was well for her that she did so at this moment ; it had so entirely concealed her head that her hair might have been the color of Becky Stiles's, and no one the wiser. The dark brown tendrils curled delicately on her creamy forehead ; the excitement of the day had flushed her pale cheeks with an unwonted glow ; her eyes were alight with their newly kindled fires ; the clinging curtain of her bonnet had concealed the sloping curves of her shoulders alto- gether she was attractive enough, despite the flare of her yellow dress, and especially attractive to the untutored eyes'of Jacob Brice. He relented suddenly, and lost all the advantages of his tact and diplomacy. "I likes ye better nor I does Becky Stiles," he said mod- erately. Then with more fervor, " I likes ye better nor any gal I ever see." The usual long pause ensued. "Ye hev got a mighty cur'ous way o* showin* it," Cynthia replied. "I dunno what ye're talkin* 'bout, Cynthy." "Ye hev got a mighty cur'ous way o' showin' it," she reiterated, with renewed animation "a-comin' all the way down hyar from the mountings ter beat my dad out'n that thar saddle an* bridle, what he's done sot his heart onto. Mighty cur'ous way." "Look hyar, Cynthy " The young hunter broke off 60 AMERICAN TYPES suddenly, and did not speak again for several minutes. A great perplexity was surging this way and that in his slow brains a great struggle was waging in his heart. He was to choose between love and ambition nay, avarice too was ranged beside his aspiration. He felt himself an as- sured victor in the competition, and he had seen that saddle and bridle. They were on exhibition to-day, and to him their material and workmanship seemed beyond expression wonderful, and elegant, and substantial. He could never hope otherwise to own such accouterments. His eyes would never again even rest upon such resplendent objects, unless indeed in Hollis's possession. Any one who has ever loved a horse can appreciate a horseman's dear desire that beauty should go beautifully caparisoned. And then, there was his pride in his own riding, and his anxiety to have his pre- eminence in that accomplishment acknowledged and recog- nized by his friends, and, dearer triumph still, by his ene- mies. A terrible pang before he spoke again. "Look hyar, Cynthy," he said at last ; "ef ye will marry me, I won't go back in yander no more. I'll leave the premi-wm ter them ez kin git it." " Ye're foolish, Jacob," she replied, still fanning with the yellow calico sunbonnet. "Ain't I done tole ye, ez how they don't think nothin' of ye ter our house ? I don't want all of 'em a-jowin' at me, too." "Ye talk like ye ain't got good sense, Cynthy," said Jacob irritably. "What's ter hender me from hitchin' up my mare ter my uncle's wagon an' ye an* me a-drivin' up hyar to the Cross-Roads, fifteen mile, and git Pa'son Jones ter marry us? We'll get the license down hyar ter the Court-House afore we start. An' while they'll all be a- foolin' away thar time a-ridin' round that thar ring, ye an' me will be a-gittin* married." Ten minutes ago Jacob Brice did not think riding around that ring was such a repre- hensible waste of time. "What's ter hender? It don't make no differ how they jow then." TAKING THE BLUE RIBBON 61 "I done tole ye, Jacob," said the sedate Cynthia, still fanning with the sunbonnet. With a sudden return of his inspiration, Jacob retorted, affecting an air of stolid indifference : " Jes' ez ye choose. I won't hev ter ax Becky Stiles twict." And he turned to go. "I never said no, Jacob," said Cynthia precipitately. "I never said ez how I wouldn't hev ye." "Waal, then, jes' come along with me right now while I hitch up the mare. I ain't a-goin' ter leave yer a-standin* hyar. Ye're too skittish. Time I come back ye'd hev done run away I dunno whar." A moment's pause and he added : "Is ye a-goin' ter stand thar all day, Cynthy Hollis, a- lookin' up an' around, and a-turnin' yer neck fust this way and then t'other, an' a-lookin' fur all the worl' like a wild turkey in a trap, or one o' them thar skeery young deer, or sech senseless critters? What ails the gal?" "Thar'll be nobody ter help along the work ter our house," said Cynthia, the weight of the home difficulties bearing heavily on her conscience. "What's ter hender ye from a-goin' down thar an* lendin' a hand every wunst in a while ? But ef ye 're a-goin' ter stand thar like ye hedn't no more action than a a- dunno-what jes' like yer dad, I ain't. I'll jes' leave ye a-growed ter that thar post, an' I'll jes' light out stiddier, an' afore the cows get ter Pine Lick, I'll be thar too. Jes' ez ye choose. Come along ef ye wants ter come. I ain't a-goin' ter ax ye no more." "I'm a-comin'," said Cynthia. There was great, though illogical rejoicing on the part of the country faction when the crowds were again seated, tier above tier, in the amphitheater, and the riders were once more summoned into the arena, to discover from Jacob Brice's unaccounted-for absence that he had with- drawn and left the nominee to his chances. 62 AMERICAN TYPES In the ensuing competition it became very evident to the not altogether impartially disposed judges that they could not, without incurring the suspicions alike of friend and foe, award the premium to their fellow-townsman. Straight as a shingle though he might be, more prepossessing to the eye, the ex-cavalryman of fifty battles was far better trained in all the arts of horsemanship. A wild shout of joy burst from the rural party when the most portly and rubicund of the portly and red-faced judges advanced into the ring and decorated Jenkins Hollis with the blue ribbon. A frantic antistrophe rent the air. "Take it off ! " vociferated the bitter town faction "Take it off!" A diversion was produced by the refusal of the Colbury champion to receive the empty honor of the red ribbon and the certificate. Thus did he except to the ruling of the judges. In high dudgeon he faced about and left the arena, followed shortly by the decorated Jenks, bearing the pre- cious saddle and bridle, and going with a wooden face to receive the congratulations of his friends. The entries for the slow mule race had been withdrawn at the last moment; and the spectators, balked of that unique sport, and the fair being virtually over, were rising from their seats and making their noisy preparations for departure. Before Jenks had cleared the fair building, be- ing somewhat impeded by the moving mass of humanity, he encountered one of his neighbors, a listless mountaineer, who spoke on this wise : "Does ye know that thar gal o* yourn that thar Cynthy?" Mr. Hollis nodded his expressionless head presum- ably he did know Cynthia. "Waal," continued his leisurely interlocutor, still inter- rogative, "does ye know Jacob Brice?" Ill-starred association of ideas ! There was a look of ap- prehension on Jenkins Hollis's wooden face. TAKING THE BLUE RIBBON 63 "They Lev done got a license down hyar ter the Court- House an* gone a-kitin j out on the Old B'ar road." This was explicit. "Whar's my horse?" exclaimed Jenks, appropriating "John Barleycorn" in his haste. Great as was his hurry, it was not too imperative to prevent him from strapping upon the horse the premium saddle, and inserting in his mouth the new bit and bridle. And in less than ten min- utes a goodly number of recruits from the crowd assembled in Colbury were also "a-kitin"' out on the road to Old Bear, delighted with a new excitement, and bent on run- ning down the eloping couple with no more appreciation of the sentimental phase of the question and the tender illu- sions of love's young dream than if Jacob and Cynthia were two mountain foxes. Dawn the red-clay slopes of the outskirts of the town "John Barleycorn" thunders with a train of horsemen at his heels. Splash into the clear fair stream whose trans- lucent depths tell of its birthplace among the mountain springs how the silver spray showers about as the pur- suers surge through the ford leaving behind them a foamy wake ! and now they are pressing hard up the steep as- cent of the opposite bank, and galloping furiously along a level stretch of road, with the fences and trees whirling by, and the September landscape flying on the wings of the wind. The chase leads past fields of tasseled Indian corn, with yellowing thickly swathed ears, leaning heavily from the stalk; past wheat-lands, the crops harvested and the crab-grass having its day at last; past "woods-lots" and their black shadows, and out again into the September sun- shine; past rickety little homes, not unlike Hollis's own, with tow-headed children, exactly like his, standing with wide eyes, looking at the rush and hurry of the pursuit sometimes in the ill-kept yards a wood-fire is burning under the boiling sorghum kettle, or beneath the branches of the 64 AMERICAN TYPES orchard near at hand a cider-mill is crushing the juice out of the red and yellow, ripe and luscious apples. Homeward- bound prize cattle are overtaken a Durham bull, re- luctantly permitting himself to be led into a fence corner that the hunt may sweep by unobstructed, and turning his proud blue-ribboned head angrily toward the riders as if indignant that anything except him should absorb atten- tion ; a gallant horse, with another floating blue streamer, bearing himself as becometh a king's son ; the chase comes near to crushing sundry grunting porkers impervious to pride and glory in any worldly distinctions of cerulean decorations, and at last is fain to draw up and wait until a flock of silly over-dressed sheep, running in frantic fear every way but the right way, can be gathered together and guided to a place of safety. And once more, forward ; past white frame houses with porches, and vine-grown verandas, and well-tended gar- dens, and groves of oak and beech and hickory trees "John Barleycorn" makes an ineffectual but gallant struggle to get in at the large white gate of one of these comfortable places, Squire Goodlet's home, but he is urged back into the road, and again the pursuit sweeps on. Those blue mountains, the long parallel ranges of Old Bear and his brothers, seem no more a misty, uncertain mirage against the delicious, indefinable tints of the horizon. Sharply outlined they are now, with dark, irregular shad- ows upon their precipitous slopes which tell of wild ra- vines, and rock-lined gorges, and swirling mountain tor- rents, and great, beetling, gray crags. A breath of balsams comes on the freshening wind the lungs expand to meet it. There is a new aspect in the scene ; a revivifying cur- rent thrills through the blood ; a sudden ideal beauty de- scends on prosaic creation. "Tears like I can't git my breath good in them flat countries," says Jenkins Hollis to himself, as "John Bar- TAKING THE BLUE RIBBON 65 leycorn" improves his speed under the exhilarating influ- ence of the wind. " I'm nigh on to sifflicated every time I goes down yander ter Colbury " (with a jerk of his wooden head in the direction of the village). Long stretches of woods are on either side of theTroad now, with no sign of the changing season in the foliage save the slender, pointed, scarlet leaves and creamy plumes of the sourwood, gleaming here and there; and presently another panorama of open country unrolls to the view. Two or three frame houses appear with gardens and or- chards, a number of humble log cabins, and a dingy little store, and the Cross-Roads are reached. And here the con- clusive intelligence meets the party that Jacob and Cynthia were married by Parson Jones an hour ago, and were still "a-kitin'," at last accounts, out on the road to Old Bear. The pursuit stayed its ardor. On the auspicious day when Jenkins Hollis took the blue ribbon at the County Fair .and won the saddle and bridle, he lost his daughter. They saw Cynthia no more until late in the autumn, when she came, without a word of self-justification or apology for her conduct, to lend her mother a helping hand in spinning and weaving her little brothers' and sisters' clothes. And gradually the eclat attendant upon her nup- tials was forgotten, except that Mrs. Hollis now and then remarks that she " dunno how we could hev bore up ag'in' Cynthy's a-runnin' away like she done, ef it hedn't a-been fur that thar saddle an' bridle an' takin' the blue ribbon at the County Fair." BEN AND JUDAS 1 BY MAURICE THOMPSON ON a dark and stormy summer night, early in the present century, two male children were born on the Wilson plan- tation in middle Georgia. One of the babes carne into the world covered with a skin as black as the night, the other was of that complexion known as sandy ; one was born a slave, the other a free American citizen. Two such screech- ing and squalling infants never before or since assaulted simultaneously the peace of the world. Such lungs had they, and such vocal chords, that cabin and mansion fairly shook with their boisterous and unrhythmical wailing. The white mother died, leaving her chubby, kicking, bawling offspring to share the breast of the more fortunate colored matron with the fat, black, howling hereditary dependent thereto; and so Ben and Judas, master and slave, began their companionship at the very fountain of life. They grew, as it were, arm in arm and quite apace with each other, as healthy boys will, crawling, then toddling, anon running on the sandy lawn between the cabin and the man- sion, often quarreling, sometimes fighting vigorously. Soon enough, however, Judas discovered that, by some invisible and inscrutable decree, he was slave to Ben, and Ben be- came aware that he was rightful master to Judas. The conditions adjusted themselves to the lives of the boys in a most peculiar way. The twain became almost inseparable, and grew up so intimately that Judas looked like the black shadow of Ben. If one rode a horse, the other rode a mule ; if the white boy habitually set his hat far back on his head, Reprinted by permission from Stories of the Cherokee Hills, by Maurice Thompson. Copyright by Houghton Mifflin Company. BEN AND JUDAS 67 the negro did the same ; if Ben went swimming or fishing, there went Judas also. And yet Ben was forever scolding Judas and threatening to whip him, a proceeding treated quite respectfully and as a matter of course by the slave. Wherever they went Ben walked a pace or two in advance of Judas, who followed, however, with exactly the conse- quential air of his master, and with a step timed to every peculiarity observable in the pace set by his leader. Ben's father, who became dissipated and careless after his wife's death, left the boy to come up rather loosely, and there was no one to make a note of the constantly growing familiarity between the two youths ; nor did any person chance to ob- serve how much alike they were becoming as time slipped away. Ben's education was neglected, albeit now and again a tutor was brought to the Wilson place, and some effort was made to soften the crust of ignorance which was forming around the lad's mind. Stormy and self-willed, with a peculiar facility in the rapid selection and instan- taneous use of the most picturesque and outlandish ex- pletives, Ben drove these adventurous disciples of learning one by one from the place, and at length grew to manhood and to be master of the Wilson plantation (when his father died) without having changed in the least the manner of his life. He did not marry, nor did he think of marriage, but grew stout and round-shouldered, stormed and raved when he felt like it, threatened all the negroes, whipped not one of them, and so went along into middle life, and beyond, with Judas treading as exactly as possible in his footprints. They grew prematurely old, these two men : the master's white hair was matched by the slave's snowy wool ; they both walked with a shuffling gait, and their faces gradually took on a network of wrinkles ; neither wore any beard. To this day it remains doubtful which was indebted most to the other in the matter of borrowed characteristics. The 68 AMERICAN TYPES negro hoarded up the white man's words, especially the polysyllabic ones, and in turn the white man adopted in an elusive, modified way the negro's pronunciation and ges- tures. If the African apostatized and fell away from the grace of a savage taste to like soda biscuits and very sweet coffee, the American of Scotch descent dropped so low in barbarity that he became a confirmed 'possum-eater. Ben Wilson could read, after a fashion, and had a taste for ro- mance of the swashbuckler, kidnap-a-heroine sort. Judas was a good listener, as his master mouthed these wonder- ful stories aloud, and his hereditary Congo imagination, crude but powerful, was fed and strengthened by the pabulum thus absorbed. It was a picture worth seeing, worth sketching in pure colors and setting in an imperishable frame, that group, the master, the slave, and the dog Chawm. Chawm is a name boiled down from "chew them"; as a Latin com- mentator would put it : chew them, vel chaw them, vel chaw 'em, vel chawm. He was a copperas-yellow cur of middle size and indefinite age, who loved to lie at the feet of his two masters and snap at the flies. This trio, when they came together for a literary purpose, usually occupied that part of the old vine-covered veranda which caught the black afternoon shade of the Wilson mansion. In paren- thesis let me say that I use this word mansion out of cour- tesy, for the house was small and dilapidated ; the custom of the country made it a mansion, just as Ben Wilson was made Colonel Ben. There they were, the white, the black, and the dog, en- joying a certain story of medieval days, about a nameless, terrible knight-errant who had stolen and borne away the beautiful Rosamond ; and about the slender, graceful youth who buckled his heavy armor on to ride off in melodra- matic pursuit. Judas listened with eyes half closed and mouth agape; Chawm was panting, possibly with excite- BEN AND JUDAS 69 ment, his red tongue lolling and weltering, and his kindly brown eyes upturned to watch the motions of Ben's lei- surely lips. There was a wayward breeze, a desultory satin rustle, in the vine-leaves. The sky was cloudless, the red country road hot and dusty, the mansion all silent within. Some negro ploughmen were singing plaintively far off in a cornfield. The eyes of Judas grew blissfully heavy, closed themselves, his under jaw fell lower, he snored in a deep, mellow, well-satisfied key. Ben ceased reading and looked at the sleepers, for Chawm, too, had fallen into a light doze. "Dad blast yer lazy hides ! Wake erp yer, er I'll thrash ye till ye don't know yerselves ! Wake up, I say ! " Ben's voice started echoes in every direction. Chawm sprung to his feet, Judas caught his breath with an inward snort and started up, glaring inquiringly at his raging master. "Yer jes' go to that watermillion patch and git to yer hoein' of them vines mighty fast, er I'll whale enough hide off'm yer to half-sole my boots, yer lazy, good-fer-nothin', low-down, sleepy-headed, snorin', flop-yeared" He hesi- tated, rummaged in his memory for yet another adjective. Meantime, Judas had scrambled up unsteadily, and was saying, "Yah sah, yah sah," as fast as ever he could, and bowing apologetically while his hands performed rapid de- precatory gestures. "Move off, I say !" thundered Ben. Chawm, with his tail between his legs, followed Judas, who went in search of his hoe, and soon after the negro was heard singing a camp-meeting song over in the melon patch : "Ya-a-as, my mother's over yander, Ya-a-as, my mother's over yander, Ya-a-as, my mother's over yander, On de oder sho'." To any casual observer who for a series of years had 70 AMERICAN TYPES chanced now and again to see these twain, it must have appeared that Ben Wilson's chief aim in life was to storm at Judas, and that Judas, not daring to respond in kind directly to the voluble raging of his master, lived for the sole purpose of singing religious songs and heaping male- dictions on Bolus, his mule. If Ben desired his horse sad- dled and brought to him, he issued the order somewhat as follows : "Judas ! Hey there, ye ole hump-backed scamp ! How long air ye a-goin' to be a-f etchin* me that hoss ? Hurry up ! Step lively, er I'll tie ye up an* jest whale the whole skin off 'm ye ! Trot lively, I say ! " Really, what did Judas care if Ben spoke thus to him ? The master never had struck the slave in anger since the days when they enjoyed the luxury of their childish fisti- cuffs. These threats were the merest mouthing, and Judas knew it very well. " Yah, dar ! Yo* Bolus ! yo* ole rib-nosed, so'-eyed, knock-kneed, pigeon-toed t'ief ! I jes' wa' yo' out wid er fence-rail, ef yo' don' step pow'ful libely now; sho's yo' bo'nljestwill!" This was the echo sent back from the rickety stables by Judas to the ears of his master, who sat smoking his short pipe on the sunken veranda under his vine and close to his gnarled fig-tree. The voice was meant to sound very sav- age ; but in spite of Judas it would be melodious and unim- pressive, a mere echo and nothing more vox, et praterea nihil. Ben always chuckled reflectively when he heard Judas roaring like that. He could not have said just why he chuckled ; perhaps it was mere force of habit. "Dad blast that fool nigger !" he would mutter below his breath. "Puts me in mind of a hongry mule a-brayin' fer fodder. I'll skin 'im alive fer it yet." 4 "Consoun* Mars' Ben ! Better keep he ole mouf shet," BEN AND JUDAS 71 Judas would growl ; but neither ever heard the side remarks of the other. Indeed, in a certain restricted and abnormal way they were very tender of each other's feelings. The older they grew the nearer came these two men together. It was as if, setting out from widely separated birthrights, they had journeyed towards the same end, and thus, their paths converging, they were at last to lie down in graves dug side by side. But no matter if their cradle was a common one, and not- withstanding that their footsteps kept such even time, Ben was master, Judas slave. They were differentiated at this one point, and at another, the point of color, irrevocably, hopelessly. As other differences were sloughed; as atom by atom their lines blended together; as strange attachments, like the feelers of vines, grew between the'm; and as the license of familiarity took possession of them more and more, the attitude of the master partook of tyranny in a greater degree. I use the word "attitude," because it ex- presses precisely my meaning. Ben Wilson's tyranny was an attitude, nothing more. Judas never had seen the mo- ment when he was afraid of his master; still, there was a line over which he dared not step the line of downright disobedience. In some obscure way the negro felt the weak- ness of the white man's character, from which a stream of flashing, rumbling threats had poured for a lifetime; he knew that Ben Wilson was a harmless blusterer, who was scarcely aware of his own windy utterances, and yet he hesitated to admit that he knew it nay, he forced him- self to be proud of his master's prodigious temperamental expansions. He felt his own importance in the world barely below that of the man who owned him, and deep in his old heart stirred the delicious dream of freedom. What a dream! Amorphous as a cloud, and rosy as ever morning vapor was, it informed his soul with vague, haunting per- fumes and nameless strains of song. Strange that so crude 72 AMERICAN TYPES a being could absorb such an element into the innermost tissues of his life ! Judas had a conscience, rudimentary, indeed, but insistent, which gnawed him frightfully at times ; not for stealing, he was callous to that, but for rebellion, which he could not cast out of him entirely. Oc- casionally he soliloquized : " Ef I could jest be de mars' erwhile an* Mars' Ben be de nigger, bress de good Lor* but wouldn't I jest mor' 'n mek 'im bounce erroun' one time ! Sorty fink I'd wake 'im up afore day, an 5 wouldn't I cuss 'im an' 'buse 'im an' rah an' cha'ge at 'im tell he know 'zactly how it was hese'f ! Yo* may say so, honey, dat yo' may ! " Following treasonable thoughts like these came bitings by the hot teeth of the poor slave's conscience, all the deeper and crueler by contrast with the love forever up- gushing to be lavished on his truly indulgent, but strongly exasperating master. "Lor', do forgib po' ole Judas," he would pray, "kase he been er jokin' ter hese'f 'bout er pow'ful ticklish ci'cum- stance, sho' 's yo' bo'n, Lor' ; an' he no business trompin' roun' er ole well in de night. Git he neck broke, sho' !" Notwithstanding conscience and prayer, however, the thought grew clearer and waxed more vigorous in the heart of Judas as the years slipped by and Ben gradually in- creased his scolding. The more he fought it the closer clung to him the vision of that revolution which would turn him on top and Ben below, if but for a few moments of delirious triumph. "Lor', but wouldn't Mars' Ben hate 'r hab dis ole nigger er cha'gin' an' er rantin' an' er yellin' at 'im, an' jest er cussin' 'im like de berry debil fo* eberyt'ing 'at's mean, an* de sweat jest er rollin' off'm 'im an' 'im jest er linkin' down ter wo'k, an' me jest eberlastin'ly an' outlandishly er gibbin' 'im der limmer jaw fo' he laziness an' he dog-gone general no 'countness ! Ef dat wouldn't be satisfactions! BEN AND JUDAS 73 ter dis yer darkey, den I dunno nuffin' 't all 'bout it. Dat's his way er doin' me, an' it seem lak my time or ter be comin' erlong pooty soon ter do 'im dat er way er leetle, detail take de nigger ef it don't ! " In good truth, however, Judas had no right to complain of hard work ; he did not earn his salt. A large part of the time he and his master occupied with angling in the rivulet hard by, wherein catfish were the chief game. Side by side on the sandy bank of the stream the twain looked like two frogs ready to leap into the water, so expectant and eager were their wrinkled faces and protruding eyes ; so comically set akimbo their arms and legs. With little art they cast and recast their clumsy bait of bacon-rind, exchanging few words, but enjoying, doubtless, a sense of subtile compan- ionship peculiarly satisfying. "Airy a bite, Judas?" "No, sah." ''Too lazy to keep yer hook baited?" /No, sah." A while of silence, the river swashing dreamily, the sun- shine shimmering far along the slowly lapsing current; then Judas begins humming a revival tune. " Shet yer mouth ; stop that infernal howlin', yer blasted old eejit, er I'll take this yer fish-pole an' I'll nat 'rally lam the life out of ye !" storms the master. " Ye'll scare all the fish till they'll go clean to the Gulf of Mexico. Hain't ye got a strifiin' of sense left ? " The slave sulks in silence. Ten minutes later Ben takes out a plug of bright, greasy-looking navy tobacco, and after biting off a liberal chew says, in a very soft voice : "Here, Jude, try some of my tobacker, an' maybe yer luck'll change." Judas fills his cheek with the comforting weed and gazes with expectant contentment into the stream, but the luck continues much the same. The wind may blow a trifle 74 AMERICAN TYPES sweeter, fluting an old Pan-pipe tune in a half-whisper through the fringe of shining reeds, and the thrushes may trill suddenly a strange, soft phrase from the dark foliage of the grove hard by ; still, in blissful ignorance of the voices of nature and all unaware of their own picturesqueness, without a nibble to encourage them, the two white-haired men watch away the golden afternoon. At last, just as Judas has given up and is winding his line around his pole, Ben yanks out a slimy, wriggling, prickly catfish, and his round face flings forth through its screen of wrinkles a epray of sudden excitement. "Grab 'im, Judas ! Grab 'im, ye lubberly old lout ye ! What ye doin' a-grinnin' an* a-gazin' an* that fish a-flop- pin' right back grab 'im ! If ye do let 'im get away, I'll break yer old neck an* pull out yer backbone grab 'im, I say!" Judas scrambles after the fish, sprawling and grabbing, while it actively flops about in the sand. It spears him cruelly till the red blood is spattered over his great rusty black hands, but he captures it finally and puts a stick through its gills. On many and many an afternoon they trudged home- ward together in the softening light, Judas carrying both rods on his shoulder, the bait-cups in his hands, and the string of fish, if there were any, dangling somewhere about his squat person. The black man might have been the in- carnate shadow of the white one, so much were they alike in everything but color. Even to a slight limp of the left leg, their movements were the same. Each had a peculiar fashion of setting his right elbow at a certain angle, and of elevating slightly the right shoulder. Precisely alike sat their well-worn straw hats far over on the back of their heads. It was in the spring of 1860 that Ben took the measles and came near to death. Judas nursed his master with a BEN AND JUDAS 75 faithfulness that knew not the shadow of abatement until the disease had spent its force and Ben began to con- valesce. With the turn of the tide which bore him back from the shore of death the master recovered his tongue, and grew refractory and abusive inversely as the negro was silent and obedient. He exhausted upon poor Judas, over and over again, the vocabulary of vituperative epithets at his command. When Ben was quite well Judas lay down with the disease. "A nigger with the measles! Well, I'll be dern! Ye're gone, Jude gone fer sure. Measles nearly always kills a nigger, an* ye mought es well begin ter wall up yer eyes an' wiggle yer toes." Ben uttered these consoling words as he entered his old slave's cabin and stood beside the low bed. "Not much use ter do anythin' fer ye's I know of bound ter go this time. Don't ye feel a sort of dyin* sensation in yer blamed old bones already ? " But Judas was nursed by his master as a child by its mother. Never was man better cared for night and day. Ben's whole life for the time was centered in the one thought of saving the slave. In this he was absolutely un- selfish and at last successful. As Judas grew better, after the crisis was passed, he did not fail to follow his master's example and make himself as troublesome as possible. Nothing was good enough for him ; none of his food was properly prepared or served, his bed was not right, he wanted water from a certain distant spring, he grumbled at Ben without reason, and grew more abusive and personal daily. At last one afternoon Ben came out of the cabin with a very peculiar look on his face. He stopped as he left the threshold, and with his hands in his trousers' pockets and his head thrown back, he whistled a low, gentle note. "Well, I'll everlastia'ly jest be dad burned!" he ex- 76 AMERICAN TYPES claimed. Then he puffed out his wrinkled cheeks till they looked like two freckled bladders. " Who'd 'a' thought it ! " He chuckled long and low, looking down at his boots and then up at the sky. "Cussed me ! Cussed me ! The blame old rooster a-cussin' me ! Don't seem possible, but he did all the same. Gamest nigger I ever seen !" It must have been a revelation to the master when the old slave actually swore at him and cursed him vigorously. Ben went about chuckling retrospectively and muttering to himself : "The old coon, he cussed me !" Next day for dinner Judas had chicken pie and dump- lings, his favorite pot, and Ben brought some old peach brandy from the cellar and poured it for him with his own hand. In due time the negro got well and the two resumed their old life, a little feebler, a trifle more stoop in their shoulders, their voices huskier, but yet quite as happy as before. The watermelon-patch has ever been the jewel on the breast of the Georgia plantation. " What is home without a watermelon?" runs the well-known phrase, and in sooth what cool, delicious suggestions run with it! Ben and Judas each had a patch, year in and year out. Not that Ben ever hoed in his ; but he made Judas keep it free of weeds. Here was a source of trouble; for invariably the negro's patch was better, the melons were the larger and finer. Scold and storm and threaten as he might, Ben could not change this, nor could he convince his slave that there was anything at all strange in the matter. "How I gwine fin' out 'bout what mek yo' watermillions so runty an* so scrunty ?" Judas exclaimed. "Hain't I jest hoed 'em an' ploughed 'em an' took care ob 'em an' try ter mek 'em do somefin'? But dey jest kinder wommux an' squommux erlong an' don't grow wof er dern ! I jest sw'a' I BEN AND JUDAS 77 can't holp it, Mars' Ben, ef yo' got no luck erbout yo' no- how ! Water-millions grows ter luck, not ter de hoe." "Luck! Luck!" bawled Ben, shaking his fist at the negro. " Luck ! yer old lump er lamp-black yer old, lazy, sneakin' scamp ! I'll show ye about luck ! Ef I don't have a good patch of watermillions next year I'll skin ye alive, see ef I don't, ye old villain ye ! " It was one of Ben's greatest luxuries to sit on the top rail of the worm-fence which enclosed the melon-patch, his own particular patch, and superintend the hoeing thereof. To Judas this was a bitter ordeal, and its particular tang grew more offensive year by year, as the half -smothered longing to.be master, if but for a moment, gripped his imagination closer and closer. "Ef I jest could set up dah on dat fence an' cuss 'iin while he hoed, an' ef I jest could one time see 'im er hus'lin' erroun' w'en I tole 'im, dis nigger'd be ready ter die right den. Lor', I'd give it to 'im good ! " Any observer a trifle sharper than Ben would have read Judas's thoughts as he ruminated thus ; but Ben was not a student of human nature or, for that matter, any other nature and he scolded away merely to give vent to the pressure of habit. One morning, when the melon vines were young it must have been late in April Judas leaned on his hoe- handle, and looking up at Ben, who sat on the fence-top, as usual, smoking his short pipe, he remarked : "Don't ye yer dat mockin'-bird er tee-diddlin' an* er too- doodlin', Mars' Ben?" "I'll tee-diddle an' too-doodle ye, ef ye don't keep on a-hoein' ! " raged Ben. "This year I'm bound ter have some big melons, ef I have ter wear ye out ter do it ! " Judas sprung to work, and for about a minute hoed des- perately ; then looking up again he said, " De feesh allus bites bestest w'en de mockm'-birds tee-diddles an' too- doodles dat a way." 78 AMERICAN TYPES Such a flood of abusive eloquence as Ben now let go upon the balmy morning air would have surprised and over- whelmed a less adequately fortified soul than that of Judas. The negro, however, was well prepared for the onslaught, and received it with most industrious though indifferent silence. When the master had exhausted both his breath and his vocabulary, the negro turned up his rheumy eyes and suggested that "feesh ain't gwine ter bite eber' day like dey'll bite ter-day." This remark was made in a tone of voice expressive of absent-mindedness, and almost instantly the speaker added dreamily, leaning on his hoe again : "Time do crawl off wid a feller's life pow'ful fast, Mars' Ben. Seem lak yistyd'y, or day 'fore yistyd'y, 'at we's leetle beety boys. Don' yo' 'member w'en ole Bolus dat fust Bolus, I mean done went an* kick de lof ' outer de new stable ? We's er gittin' pooty ole, Mars' Ben, pooty ole, ain't we?" " Yes, an' we'll die an' be buried an' resurrected, ye old vagabond ye, before ye get one hill of this here patch hoed !" roared Ben. Judas did not move, but, wagging his head in a dreamy way, said : "I 'members one time" here he chuckled softly "I 'members one time w'en we had er fight an' I whirped yo' ; made yo' yelp out an' say * 'Nough, 'nough ! Take 'im off ! ' an' Moses, how I wus er linkin' it ter yo' wid bof fists ter onct ! Does yo' rickermember dat, Mars' Ben ? " Ben remembered. It was when they were little children, before Judas had found out his hereditary limitation, and before Ben had dreamed of asserting the superiority in- herent in his blood. Somehow the retrospect filled the master's vision instantly with a sort of Indian-summer haze of tenderness. He forgot to scold. For some time there was silence, save that the mocking-bird poured forth BEN AND JUDAS 79 a song as rich and plaintive as any ever heard by Sappho under the rose-bannered garden walls of Mitylene; then Judas, with sudden energy, exclaimed : "Mars' Ben, yo' nebber did whirp me, did yo'?" Ben, having lapsed into retrospective distance, did not heed the negro's interrogation, but sat there on the fence with his pipe-stem clamped between his teeth. He was smiling in a mild, childish way. "No," added Judas, answering his own question "no, yo s nebber whirped me in yo' life ; but I whirped yo' onct like de berry debil, didn't I, Mars' Ben ?" Ben's hat was far back on his head, and his thin, white hair shone like silver floss on his wrinkled forehead the expression of his face that of silly delight in a barren and commonplace reminiscence. "Mars' Ben, I wants ter ax one leetle fabor ob yo'." The master clung to his distance and his dream. "Heydar! Mars' Ben!" "Well, what yer want, yer old scarecrow?" inquired Ben, pulling himself together and yawning so that he dropped his pipe, which Judas quickly restored to him. "Well, Mars' Ben, 'tain't much w'at I wants, but I's been er wantin' it seem lak er thousan' years." Ben began to look dreamy again. "I wants ter swap places wid yo', Mars' Ben, dat's w'at I wants," continued Judas, speaking rapidly, as if forcing out the words against heavy pressure of restraint. "I wants ter set up dah on dat fence, an' yo' git down yer an' I cuss yo', an' yo' jest hoe like de debil dat's w'at I wants." i It was a slow process by which Judas at last forced upon his master's comprehension the preposterous proposition for a temporary exchange of situations. Ben could not understand it fully until it had been insinuated into his mind particle by particle, so to speak ; for the direct method 80 AMERICAN TYPES failed wholly, and the wily old African resorted to subtile suggestion and elusive supposititious illustration of his desire. "We's been er libin* tergedder lo! dese many ye'rs, Mars' Ben, an* did I eber 'fuse ter do anyfing 'at yo' axed me ? No, sah, I neber did. Sort er seem lak yo' mought do jest dis one leetle 'commodation fo' me." , Ben began to grin in a sheepish, half -fascinated way as the proposition gradually took hold of his imagination. How would it feel to be a "nigger" and have a master over him? What sort of sensation would it afford to be compelled to do implicitly the will of another, and that other a querulous and conscienceless old sinner like Judas ? The end of it was that he slid down from his perch and took the hoe, while Judas got up and sat on the fence. "Han* me dat pipe," was the first peremptory order. Ben winced, but gave up the coveted nicotian censer. ^ "Now, den, yo' flop-yeared, bandy-shanked, hook-nosed, freckle-faced, wall-eyed, double-chinned, bald-headed, hump-shouFered " "Come, now, Judas," Ben interrupted, "I won't stan* no sech langwidges " "HoP on dah, Mars' Ben," cried Judas, in an injured tone. " Yo' p'omised me yo' 'd do it, an' I knows yo' 's not gwine back on yo' wo'd ; no Wilson eber do dat." Ben was abashed. It was true no Wilson ever broke a promise. The Wilsons were men of honor. "Well, fire away," he said, falling to work again. "Fire away!" "Hussle up, dah ! Hussle up, yo' lazy ole vagabon' yo', er I'll git down f'om heah, an' I'll w'ar out ebery hic'ry sprout in de county on yo' ole rusty back ! Git erlong ! hurry up ! faster ! Don' yo' heah ? Ef I do come down dah I'll jes' nat'rally comb yo' head tell ebery ha'r on it'll sw'ar de day ob judgment done come ! I'll wa'm yo' jacket BEN AND JUDAS 81 tell de dus* er comin' out'n it'll look lak a sto'm-cloud ! Wiggle faster, er I'll yank out yo' backbone an* mek er trace-chain out'n it ! Don' yo' heah me, Ben ? " Ben heard and obeyed. Never did hoe go faster, never was soil so stirred and pulverized. The sweat sprung from every pore of the man's skin ; it trickled over his face and streamed from his chin, it saturated his clothes. Judas was intoxicated with delight; almost delirious with the sensation of freedom and masterhood. His elo- quence increased as the situation affected his imagination, and his words tumbled forth in torrents. Not less was Ben absorbed and carried away. He was a slave, Judas was his master, the puppet must wriggle when the owner pulled the strings. He worked furiously. Judas forgot to smoke the pipe, but held it in his hand and made all sorts of gestures with it. "Hit dem clods ! Mash 'em fine !" he screamed. "Don* look up, yo' ole poky tarrypin yo' ! Ef yo' does I'll wom- mux de hide off'm yo' blamed ole back f aster 'n forty-seben shoemakers kin peg it on ag'in ! Hussle, I tole yo', er I'll jest wring yo' neck an' tie yo' years in er hard knot ! Yo' heah me now, Ben?" This was bad enough, but not the worst, for Judas used many words and phrases not permissible in print. He spared no joint of his master's armor, he left no vulnerable point unassailed. The accumulated riches of a lifetime spent in collecting a picturesque vocabulary, and the stored force of nearly sixty years given to private practice in using it, now served him a full turn. In the thickest shower of the negro's mingled threats, commands, and maledictions, however, Ben quit work, and, leaning on his hoe, panted rapidly. He gazed up at Judas pathetically and said : "How that mockin'-bird does tee-diddle an'too-doodle !" Judas actually stopped short in the mid career of his elo- quence, and Ben added : 82 AMERICAN TYPES "Never see sich signs for feesh a-bitin* ; did you, Judas ?" The charm was broken, the farce was ended. A little later the two old men might have been seen with their bait- cups and fishing-poles in their hands toddling along down the slope to the rivulet, the white leading, the black follow- ing. They were both rather abstracted, it appeared, for each cast in his hook without any bacon-rind on it, and sat on the stream's bank all the rest of the forenoon in blissf ul expectancy of an impossible nibble. One good came of the little episode at the melon-patch. The vine around whose roots Ben had plied the hoe with such vigor thrived amazingly, and in due time bore a watermelon of huge size, a grand spheroid as green as emer- ald and as richly soft in surface color as the most costly old velvet. " Got de twin ob it down dah in my patch," said Judas ; "jest es much like it es one bean's like anoder bean. Yo* orter come down an' see it, Mars' Ben." Ben went, and sure enough, there was a melon just the duplicate of his own. Of course, however, he claimed that he saw some indices of inferiority in Judas's fruit, but he couldn't just point them out possibly the rind was not as healthy-looking, he thought, and then the stem appeared to be shriveling. Judas, for his part, was quite sure that his master's melon would not "sweeten up" as his would, and that it would be found lacking in that "jawleeciousness" and that "fo'-de-Lor'-sake-hand-me-some-moreness" so characteristic of those of his own raising. Ben's pride in his melon matured and ripened at the same time with the maturing and ripening of that wonder- ful globule of racy pulp and juice whose core he longed to see. After so many failures, here at last was his triumph. There was a certain danger connected with plucking this melon. It was of a variety locally called "ice-rind" on account of the thickness of the outer part or shell, which BEN AND JUDAS 83 made it very difficult to know when it was ripe, and so Ben dreaded to act. Every evening in the latest dusk of twi- light he would go out and lean over the patch fence to have a darkling view of his treasure, which thus seen was mightily magnified. When the moment of sacrifice had come, Ben actually shrunk from the task of plucking that melon. He leaned on the fence until it was quite dark and until the moon had begun to show in the east before he bethought him that that night was Judas's birth-night, and then a v bright idea came to him. He would take the melon to the old slave's cabin and they would have a feast. But when he had climbed over the fence and had stooped above the huge dusky sphere, his heart failed him, and at the same time another thought struck him with great force. He straight- ened himself up, placed his hands on his hips, and chuckled. Just the thing ! The best joke on Judas ! He would go to the negro's patch, steal his big melon, and share it with him on the following day. His own melon he would keep a few days longer to be sure that it had ripened. A very simple proceeding, with- out a thought of dishonor in it. It was as beautiful and balmy a midsummer night as ever fell upon the world. Ben felt its soft influence in his old blood as he toddled surreptitiously along the path leading through a little wood to Judas's cabin and patch. He was picturing in his mind how foolish Judas would look and how beaten he would feel when he found out that he had been feasting on his own big melon. One might have seen by the increasing light of the moon that Ben's trellis- work of facial wrinkles could scarcely hold in the laughing glee that was in him, and his eyes twinkled while his mouth drew itself on to a set, suppressed smile. Chawm trotted along silently at Ben's heels, his tail drooping and his ears hanging limp. In the distance, amid the hills, an owl was 84 AMERICAN TYPES hooting dolefully, but the little wood was as silent as the grave. Suddenly Ben heard a footfall coming up the path, and he slipped into the bushes just in time to let Judas go shuffling by all unaware. "The blamed old rooster," he said to himself in a tender, affectionate whisper. "The blamed old rooster ! I wonder what he's a-thinkin' about jest now ? " Chawm slipped out and fell noiselessly behind Judas, following him on toward the mansion. Ben chuckled with deep satisfaction as he climbed over into Judas's patch and laid hands on the negro's large melon. What a typical thief he appeared as he hurried furtively along, stooping low with his ill-gotten load, his crooked shadow dancing vaguely beside him ! Over the fence he toiled with difficulty, the melon was so heavy and slippery; then along the path. Once in the shadowy wood, he laid down his burden and wiped his dewy face with his sleeve. He did not realize how excited he was ; it was the first time hi all his life that he had ever stolen anything even in fun. Every little sound startled him and made him pant. He felt as if running as fast as his legs could carry him would be the richest of all luxuries. When again he picked up the melon and resumed his way he found his heart fluttering and his limbs weak, but he hurried on. Suddenly he halted, with a black apparition barring the path before him. "Judas ! you old coon !" "Mars' Ben!" They leaned forward and glared at each other. "Mars' Ben ! Yo' been er stealin' my watermillion !" "Judas! You thievin' old rooster! You've stole " Their voices blended, and such a mixture ! The wood resounded. They stood facing each other, as much alike as duplicates in everything save color, each clasping in his arms the other's watermelon. It was a moment of intense BEN AND JUDAS 85 surprise, of voluble swearing, of picturesque posturing; then followed a sudden collapse and down fell both great, ' ripe, luscious spheres with a dull, heavy bump, breaking open on the ground and filling the air with a spray of sweet juice and the faint luxuriant aroma so dear to Georgian nostrils. Chawm stepped forward and sniffed idly and in- differently at one of the pieces. A little screech-owl mewed plaintively in a bush hard by. Both men, having ex- hausted themselves simultaneously, began to sway and tremble, their legs slowly giving way under them. The spot of moonlight in which they stood lent a strange effect to their bent and faltering forms. Judas had been more or less a thief all his life, but this was the first time he had ever been caught in the act; therefore he was as deeply shocked as was Ben. Down they sank until they sat flat on the ground in the path and facing each other, the broken melons between them. Chawm took position a little to one side and looked on gravely, as if he felt the solemnity of the occasion. Judas was first to speak. "Well, I jest be 'sentially an' eberlastin'ly " "Shet up !" stormed Ben. They looked sheepishly at each otner, while Chawm licked his jaws with perfunctory nonchalance. After what seemed a very long silence, Ben said: " Jude, ax a blessin' afore we eats." Judas hesitated. "Did ye hear what A was a-sayin* for yer to do?" in- quired Ben. "Ax a blessin', I say !" The negro bowed his old snow-fleeced head and prayed : "Lor*, hab mercy on two ole villyans an' w'at dey done steal f 'om one 'nudder. Spaycially, Lor', forgib Mars' Ben, kase he rich an' free an' he orter hab mo' honah 'bout 'im 'an ter steal f 'om po' nigger. I used to fink, Lor', dat Mars' Ben's er mighty good man, but seem lak yer lately he 86 AMERICAN TYPES gittin* so on'ry 'at yo'll be erbleeged ter hannel 'im pooty sabage ef he keep on. Dey may be 'nough good lef ' in 'im ter pay fer de trouble ob foolin' 'long wid 'im, but hit's pow'ful doubtful, an' dat's er fac'. Lor', I don't advise yo' ter go much outer yo' way ter 'commodate sich er outda- cious old sneak-t'ief an* sich er " "Judas !" roared Ben, "yer jest stop right now !" "An* bress dese watermillions w'at we's erbout ter re- ceib, amen!" concluded Judas. "Try er piece er dis here solid core, Mars' Ben ; hit look mighty jawleecious." And so there in the space of moonlight they munched, with many watery mouthings, the sweet central hearts of the pilfered fruit. All around them the birds stirred in their sleep, rustling the leaves and letting go a few dreamy chirps. Overhead a great rift uncovered the almost purple sky. They did not converse while they were eating, but when the repast was ended Judas apologized and explained in their joint behalf : " Yo' see, Mars' Ben, I's yo' nigger an* yo' 's my marster. W'at 's yo's is mine, an' w'at 's mine's yo's ; don' yo' see ? an' hit ain't no mo' harm 'an no thin' fo' us ter steal f'om one 'nudder. Lor', Mars' Ben, I been er knowin' all my life 'at I was er stealin' f'om yo' ; but I nebber dream 'at it was yo' 'at was er takin' all er my bestest watermillions an' t'ings. 'Spec' we's 'bout eben now, Mars' Ben. Ef yo's a leetle bit ahead ob me I's not er keerin' ; hit's all right." So they wiped their mouths and parted for the night. "Good-night, Mars' Ben." "Good-night, Judas." It would be cruel to follow them farther down the road of life, for rheumatism came, and then the war. Many an afternoon the trio, Ben, Judas, and Chawm, sat on the old veranda and listened to the far-off thunder of battle, not fairly realizing its meaning, but feeling that in some vague BEN AND JUDAS 87 way it meant a great deal. After war, peace. After peace, reconstruction. After reconstruction, politics. Somebody took the trouble to insist upon having Ben Wilson go to the polls and vote. Of course Judas went with him. What a curious-looking twain they were, tottering along, almost side by side now, their limbs trembling and their eyes nearly blind ! t . "Got yer ticket, Jude ?" inquired Ben. "No, sah, dat's all right. Yo' jest drap one in, hit'll do fo' bofe ob us," answered Judas. And it was done. They died a year ago. Their graves are side by side, and so close together that a single slab might serve to cover them both. If I were rich it should be an imperishable monument, inscribed simply : BEN AND JUDAS AET. SEVENTY YEARS, ONE MONTH, AND FOURTEEN DAYS AMONG THE CORN-ROWS 1 BY HAMLIN GARLAND A CORNFIELD in July is a sultry place. The soil is hot and dry; the wind comes across the lazily murmuring leaves laden with a warm, sickening smell drawn from the rapidly growing, broad-flung banners of the corn. The sun, nearly vertical, drops a flood of dazzling light upon the field, over which the cool shadows run, only to make the heat seem the more intense. Julia Peterson, faint with hunger, was toiling back and forth between the corn-rows, holding the handles of the double-shovel corn-plough, while her little brother Otto rode the steaming horse. Her heart was full of bitterness, her face flushed with heat, and her muscles aching with fatigue. The heat grew terrible. The corn came to her shoulders, and not a breath seemed to reach her, while the sun, nearing the noon mark, lay pitilessly upon her shoul- ders, protected only by a calico dress. The dust rose under her feet, and as she was wet w T ith perspiration it soiled her, till, with a woman's instinctive cleanliness, she shuddered. Her head throbbed dangerously. What matter to her that the kingbird pitched jovially from the maples to catch a wandering bluebottle fly, that the robin was feeding its young, that the bobolink was singing ? All these things, if she saw them, only threw her bondage to labor into greater relief. Across the field, in another patch of corn, she could see her father a big, gruff- voiced, wide-bearded Norwegian 1 This is Part II of the story. Reprinted by permission from Main- Traveled Roads, by Hamlin Garland. (The Macmillan Company.) Copy- right, 1899, by Hamlin Garland. AMONG THE CORN-ROWS 89 at work also with a plough. The corn must be ploughed, and so she toiled on, the tears dropping from the shadow of the ugly sunbonnet she wore. Her shoes, coarse and square- toed, chafed her feet; her hands, large and strong, were browned, or, more properly, burnt, on the backs by the sun. The horse's harness "creafc-eracked" as he swung steadily and patiently forward, the moisture pouring from his sides, his nostrils distended. The field bordered on a road, and on the other side of the road ran a river a broad, clear, shallow expanse at that point, and the eyes of the boy gazed longingly at the pond and the cool shadow each time that he turned at the fence. " Say, Jule, I'm goin' in ! Come, can't I ? Come say ! " he pleaded, as they stopped at the fence to let the horse breathe. "I've let you go wade twice." "But that don't do any good. My legs is all smarty, 'cause oP Jack sweats so." The boy turned around on the horse's back and slid back to his rump. " I can't stand it ! " he burst out, sliding off and darting under the fence. "Father can't see." The girl put her elbows on the fence and watched her little brother as he sped away to the pool, throwing off his clothes as he ran, whooping with uncontrollable delight. Soon she could hear him splashing about hi the water a short distance up the stream, and caught glimpses of his little shiny body and happy face. How cool that water looked! And the shadows there by the big basswood! How that water would cool her blistered feet. An impulse seized her, and she squeezed between the rails of the fence, and stood in the road looking up and down to see that the way was clear. It was not a main-traveled road; no one was likely to come ; why not ? She hurriedly took off her shoes and stockings how delicious the cool, soft velvet of the grass ! and sitting 90 AMERICAN TYPES down on the bank under the great basswood, whose roots formed an abrupt bank, she slid her poor blistered, chafed feet into the water, her bare head leaned against the huge tree-trunk. And now, as she rested, the beauty of the scene came to her. Over her the wind moved the leaves. A jay screamed far off, as if answering the cries of the boy. A kingfisher crossed and recrossed the stream with dipping sweep of his wings. The river sang with its lips to the pebbles. The vast clouds went by majestically, far above the tree-tops, and the snap and buzzing and ringing whir of July insects made a ceaseless, slumberous undertone of song solvent of all else. The tired girl forgot her work. She began to dream. This would not last always. Some one would come to release her from such drudgery. This was her constant, tenderest, and most secret dream. He would be a Yankee, not a Norwegian. The Yankees didn't ask their wives to work in the field. He would have a home. Perhaps he'd live in town perhaps a merchant ! And then she thought of the drug clerk in Rock River who had looked at her A voice broke in on her dream, a fresh, manly voice. " Well, by jinks ! if it ain't Julia ! Just the one I wanted to see!" The girl turned, saw a pleasant-faced young fellow in a derby hat and a cutaway suit of diagonals. "Bob Rodemaker! How come " She remembered her situation and flushed, looked down at the water, and remained perfectly still. "Ain't you goin' to shake hands? Y* don't seem very glad t' see me." She began to grow angry. "If you had any eyes, you'd see." Rob looked over the edge of the bank, whistled, turned away. " Oh, I see ! Excuse me ! Don't blame yeh a bit, though. Good weather f'r corn," he went on, looking up at AMONG THE CORN-ROWS 91 the trees. "Corn seems to be pretty well forward," he con- tinued, in a louder voice, as he walked away, still gazing into the air. "Crops is looking first-class in Boomtown. Hello! This Otto? H'yare, y' little scamp! Get on to that horse ag'in. Quick, 'r I'll take y'r skin off an' hang it on the fence. What y' been doin' ?" " Ben in swimmin'. Jimminy, ain't it fun ! When 'd y' get back?" said the boy, grinning. "Never you mind!" replied Rob, leaping the fence by laying his left hand on the top rail. " Get on to that horse." He tossed the boy up on the horse, and hung his coat on the fence. "I s'pose the oP man makes her plough, same as usual?" "Yup," said Otto. "Dod ding a man that'll do that! I don't mind if it's necessary, but it ain't necessary in his case." He continued to mutter in this way as he went across to the other side of the field. As they turned to come back, Rob went up and looked at the horse's mouth. "Gettin' purty near of age. Say, who's sparkin' Julia now anybody ? " "Nobody 'cept some oP Norwegians. She won't have them. For wants her to, but she won't." "Good f'r her. Nobody comes t' see her Sunday nights, eh?" "Nope; only Tias Anderson an' Ole Hoover; but she goes off an' leaves 'em." "Chk!" said Rob, starting old Jack across the field. It was almost noon, and Jack moved reluctantly. He knew the time of day as well as the boy. He made this round after distinct protest. In the meantime Julia, putting on her shoes and stock- ings, went to the fence and watched the man's shining white shirt as he moved across the cornfield. There had never been any special tenderness between them, but she had always liked him. They had been at school together. 92 AMERICAN TYPES She wondered why he had come back at this time of the year, and wondered how long he would stay. How long had he stood looking at her? She flushed again at the thought of it. But he was n't to blame ; it was a public road. She might have known better. She stood under a little popple-tree, whose leaves shook musically at every zephyr, and her eyes, through half -shut lids, roved over the sea of deep-green, glossy leaves, dappled here and there by cloud shadows, stirred here and there like water by the wind ; and out of it all a longing to be free from such toil rose like a breath, filling her throat and quickening the motion of her heart. Must this go on for- ever, this life of heat and dust and labor ? What did it all mean? The girl laid her chin on her strong red wrists, and looked up into the blue spaces between the vast clouds aerial mountains dissolving in a shoreless azure sea. How cool and sweet and restful they looked ! If she might only lie out on the billowy, snow-white, sunlit edge ! The voices of the driver and the ploughman recalled her, and she fixed her eyes again upon the slowly nodding head of the patient horse, on the boy turned half about on his saddle, talking to the white-sleeved man, whose derby hat bobbed up and down quite curiously, like the horse's head. Would she ask him to dinner ? What would her people say ? "Phew! it's hot!" was the greeting the young fellow gave as he came up. He smiled in a frank, boyish way, as he hung his hat on the top of a stake and looked up at her. "D'y* know, I kind o' enjoy gettin' at it again? Fact. It ain't no work for a girl, though," he added. "When 'd you get back?" she asked, the flush not yet out of her face. Rob was looking at her thick, fine hair and full Scandi- navian face, rich as a rose in color, and did not reply for a few seconds. She stood with her hideous sunbonnet pushed AMONG THE CORN-ROWS 93 back on her shoulders. A kingbird was chattering over- head. "Oh, a few days ago." "How long y' goin' t' stay?" "Oh, I d' know. A week, mebbe." A far-off halloo came pulsing across the shimmering air. The boy screamed "Dinner !" and waved his hat with an answering whoop, then flopped off the horse like a turtle off a stone into water. He had the horse unhooked in an instant, and had flung his toes up over the horse's back, in act to climb on, when Rob said : "H'yare, young feller! Wait a minute. Tired?" he asked the girl, with a tone that was more than kindly. It was almost tender. "Yes," she replied, in a low voice. "My shoes hurt me." "Well, here y' go," he replied, taking his stand by the horse, and holding out his hand like a step. She colored and smiled a little as she lifted her foot into his huge, hard, sun- burned hand. "Oop-a-daisy !" he called. She gave a spring, and sat on the horse like one at home there. Rob had a deliciously unconscious, abstracted, business- like air. He really left her nothing to do but enjoy his company, while he went ahead and did precisely as he pleased. " We don't raise much corn out there, an* so I kind o' like to see it once more." "I wish I didn't have to see another hill of corn as long as I live !" replied the girl, bitterly. " Don't know as I blame yeh a bit. But, all the same, I'm glad you was working in it to-day," he thought to himself, as he walked beside her horse toward the house. "Will you stop to dinner?" she inquired bluntly, almost surlily. It was evident there were reasons why she did n't mean to press him to do so. 94, AMERICAN TYPES "You bet I will," he replied; "that is, if you want I should." " You know how we live," she replied evasively. " If you can stand it, why " She broke off abruptly. Yes, he remembered how they lived in that big, square, dirty, white frame house. It had been three or four years since he had been in it, but the smell of the cabbage and onions, the penetrating, peculiar mixture of odors, assailed his memory as something unforgettable. "I guess I'll stop," he said, as she hesitated. She said no more, but tried to act as if she were not in any way responsible for what came afterward. " I guess I c'n stand f 'r one meal what you stand all thc> while," he added. As she left them at the well and went to the house, ha saw her limp painfully, and the memory of her face so close to his lips as he helped her down from the horse gave him pleasure at the same time that he was touched by its tired and gloomy look. Mrs. Peterson came to the door of the kitchen, looking just the same as ever. Broad-faced, un- wieldy, flabby, apparently wearing the same dress he re- membered to have seen her in years before, a dirty, drab- colored thing, she looked as shapeless as a sack of wool. Her English was limited to, "How de do, Rob ?" He washed at the pump, while the girl, in the attempt to be hospitable, held the clean towel for him. "You 're purty well used up, eh ? " he said to her. "Yes; it's awful hot out there." "Can't you lay off this afternoon ? It ain't right/' "No. He won't listen to that." "Well, let me take your place/' "No; there ain't any use o' that." Peterson, a brawny, wide-bearded Norwegian, came up at this moment, and spoke to Rob in a sullen, gruff way. "Hallo, whan yo' gaet back?" AMONG THE CORN-ROWS 95 "To-day. He ain't very glad to see me," said Rob, winking at Julia. "He ain't b'ilin* over with enthusi- asm ; but I c'n stand it, for your sake," he added, with amazing assurance ; but the girl had turned away, and it was wasted. At the table he ate heartily of the "bean swaagen," which filled a large wooden bowl in the center of the table, and which was ladled into smaller wooden bowls at each plate. Julia had tried hard to convert her mother to Yankee ways, and had at last given it up in despair. Rob kept on safe subjects, mainly asking questions about the crops of Peterson, and when addressing the girl, inquired of the schoolmates. By skillful questioning, he kept the sub- ject of marriage uppermost, and seemingly was getting an inventory of the girls not yet married or engaged. It was embarrassing for the girl. She was all too well aware of the difference between her home and the home of her schoolmates and friends. She knew that it was not pleasant for her "Yankee" friends to come to visit her when they could not feel sure of a welcome from the tire- less, silent, and grim-visaged old Norse, if, indeed, they could escape insult. Julia ate her food mechanically, and it could hardly be said that she enjoyed the brisk talk of the young man, his eyes were upon her so constantly and his smile so obviously addressed to her. She rose as soon as possible and, going outside, took a seat on a chair under the trees in the yard. She was not a coarse or dull girl. In fact, she had developed so rapidly by contact with the young people of the neighborhood that she no longer found pleas- ure in her own home. She didn't believe in keeping up the old-fashioned Norwegian customs, and her life with her mother was not one to breed love or confidence. She was more like a hired hand. The love of the mother for her "Yulyie" was sincere, though rough and inarticulate, and it was her jealousy of the young "Yankees" that widened 96 AMERICAN TYPES the chasm between the girl and herself an inevitable result. Rob followed the girl out into the yard, and threw him- self on the grass at her feet, perfectly unconscious of the fact that this attitude was exceedingly graceful and becom- ing to them both. He did it because he wanted to talk to her, and the grass was cool and easy ; there was n't any other chair, anyway. "Do they keep up the ly-ceum and the sociables same as ever?" "Yes. The others go a good 'eal, but I don't. We're gettin* such a stock round us, and father thinks he needs me s' much, I don't get out often. I'm gettin' sick of it." "I sh'd think y* would," he replied, his eyes on her face. "I c'd stand the churnin' and housework, but when it comes t' workin' outdoors in the dirt an' hot sun, gettin' all sunburned and chapped up, it's another thing. An' then it seems as if he gets stingier 'n' stingier every year. I ain't had a new dress in I d'-know-how-long. He says it's all nonsense, an' mother's just about as bad. She don't want a new dress, an' so she thinks I don't." The girl was feeling the influence of a sympathetic listener and was making up for the long silence. "I've tried t' go out t' work, but they won't let me. They'd have t' pay a hand twenty dollars a month f'r the work I do, an' they like cheap help ; but I'm not goin' t' stand it much longer, I can tell you that." Rob thought she was very handsome as she sat there with her eyes fixed on the horizon, while these rebellious thoughts found utterance in her quivering, passionate voice. "Yulie ! Kom haar !" roared the old man from the well. A frown of anger and pain came into her face. She looked at Rob. "That means more work." AMONG THE CORN-ROWS 97 "Say ! let me go out in your place. Come, now; what's the use " "No; it wouldn't do no good. It ain't t'-day s* much; it's every day, and " "Yulie!" called Peterson again, with a string of impa- tient Norwegian. "Batter yo' kom pooty hal quick." "Well, all right, only I'd like to " Rob submitted. "Well, good-bye," she said, with a little touch of feeling. "When d'ye go back?" "I don't know. I'll see y* again before I go. Good-bye." He stood watching her slow, painful pace till she reached the well, where Otto was standing with the horse. He stood watching them as they moved out into the road and turned down toward the field. He felt that she had sent him away ; but still there was a look in her eyes which was not alto- gether He gave it up in despair at last. He was not good at analyses of this nature ; he was used to plain, blunt expres- sions. There was a woman's subtlety here quite beyond his reach. He sauntered slowly off up the road after his talk with Julia. His head was low on his breast ; he was thinking as one who is about to take a decided and important step. He stopped at length, and, turning, watched the girl moving along in the deeps of the corn. Hardly a leaf was stirring; the untempered sunlight fell in a burning flood upon the field; the grasshoppers rose, snapped, buzzed, and fell ; the locust uttered its dry, heat-intensifying cry. The man lifted his head. "It's a d n shame!" he said, beginning rapidly to retrace his steps. He stood leaning on the fence, awaiting the girl's coming very much as she had waited his on the round he had made before dinner. He grew impatient at the slow gait of the horse, and drummed on the rail while he whistled. Then he took off his hat and dusted it ner- 08 AMERICAN TYPES vously. As the horse got a little nearer he wiped his face carefully, pushed his hat back on his head, and climbed over the fence, where he stood with elbows on the middle rail as the girl and boy and horse came to the end of the furrow. "Hot, ain't it?" he said, as she looked up. " Jimminy Peters, it's awful !" puffed the boy. The girl did not reply till she swung the plough about after the horse, and set it upright into the next row. Her powerful body had a superb swaying motion at the waist as she did this a motion which affected Rob vaguely but massively. "I thought you'd gone," she said gravely, pushing back her bonnet till he could see her face dewed with sweat, and pink as a rose. She had the high cheek-bones of her race, but she had also their exquisite fairness of color. "Say, Otto," asked Rob, alluringly, "wan' to go swim- min'?" "You bet," replied Otto. "Well, I'll go a round if " The boy dropped off the horse, not waiting to hear any more. Rob grinned, but the girl dropped her eye^, then looked away. "Got rid o' him mighty quick. Say, Julyie, I hate like thunder t' see you out here ; it ain't right. I wish you'd I wish" She could not look at him now, and her bosom rose and fell with a motion that was not due to fatigue. Her moist hair matted around her forehead gave her a boyish look. Rob nervously tried again, tearing splinters from the fence. " Say, now, I'll tell yeh what I came back here for t' git married; and if you're willin', I'll do it to-night. Come, now, whaddy y' say ? " "What 've I got t' do 'bout it?" she finally asked, the AMONG THE CORN-ROWS 99 color flooding her face, and a faint smile coming to her lips. "Go ahead. I ain't got anything " Rob put a splinter in his mouth and faced her. "Oh, looky here, now, Julyie ! You know what I mean ! I've got a good claim out near Boomtown a rattlin' good claim ; a shanty on it fourteen by sixteen no tarred paper about it, and a suller to keep butter in, and a hundred acres o' wheat just about ready to turn now. I need a wife." Here he straightened up, threw away the splinter, and took off his hat. He was a very pleasant figure as the girl stole a look at him. His black laughing eyes were espe- cially earnest just now. His voice had a touch of pleading. The popple-tree over their heads murmured applause at his eloquence, then hushed to listen. A cloud dropped a silent shadow down upon them, and it sent a little thrill of fear through Rob, as if it were an omen of failure. As the girl remained silent, looking away, he began, man-fashion, to desire her more and more, as he feared to lose her. He put his hat on the post again and took out his jack-knife. Her calico dress draped her supple and powerful figure simply but naturally. The stoop in her shoulders, given by labor, disappeared as she partly leaned upon the fence. The curves of her muscular arms showed through her sleeve. "It's all-fired lonesome f'r me out there on that claim, and it ain't no picnic f 'r you here. Now, if you'll come out there with me, you needn't do anything but cook fr me, and after harvest we can git a good layout o' furniture, an' I'll lath and plaster the house and put a little hell [ell] in the rear." He smiled, and so did she. He felt encouraged to say : "An* there we be, as snug as y' please. We're close t* Boomtown, an' we can go down there to church sociables an' things, and they're a jolly lot there." The girl was still silent, but the man's simple enthusiasm came to her charged with passion and a sort of romance 100 AMERICAN TYPES such as her hard life had known little of. There was some- thing enticing about this trip to the West. " What'll my folks say ?" she said at last. A virtual surrender, but Rob was not acute enough to see it. He pressed on eagerly : " I don't care. Do you ? They'll jest keep y* ploughin' corn and milkin* cows till the day of judgment. Come, Julyie, I ain't got no time to fool away. I've got t' get back t' that grain. It's a whoopin' old crop, sure's y'r born, an* that means sompin' purty scrumptious in furniture this fall. Come, now." He approached her and laid his hand on her shoulder very much as he would have touched Albert Seagraves or any other comrade. " Whaddy y ' say ? " She neither started nor shrunk nor looked at him. She simply moved a step away. "They'd never let me go," she replied bitterly. "I'm too cheap a hand. I do a man's work an' get no pay at all." " You'll have half o' all I c'n make," he put in. "How long c'n you wait?" she asked, looking down at her dress. "Just two minutes," he said, pulling out his watch. "It ain't no use t' wait. The old man'll be jest as mad a week from now as he is to-day. Why not go now ?" "I'm of age in a few days," she mused, wavering, calcu- lating. "You c'n be of age to-night if you'll jeskcall on old Squire Hatfield with me." "All right, Rob," the girl said, turning and holding out her hand. "That's the talk ! " he exclaimed, seizing it. "And now a kiss, to bind the bargain, as the fellah says." " I guess we c'n get along without that." "No, we can't. It won't seem like an engagement with- out it." "It ain't goin' to seem much like one, anyway," she AMONG THE CORN-ROWS Ifll answered, with a sudden realization of how far from her dreams of courtship this reality was. "Say, now, Julyie, that ain't fair; it ain't treatin* me right. You don't seem to understand that I like you, but I do." Rob was carried quite out of himself by the time, the place, and the girl. He had said a very moving thing. The tears sprang involuntarily to the girl's eyes. "Do you mean it ? If y' do, you may." She was trembling with emotion for the first time. The sincerity of the man's voice had gone deep. He put his arm around her almost timidly, and kissed her on the cheek, a great love for her springing up in his heart. "That settles it," he said. "Don't cry, Julyie. You'll never be sorry for it. Don't cry. It kind o' hurts me to see it." He hardly understood her feelings. He was only aware that she was crying, and tried in a bungling way to soothe her. But now that she had given way, she sat down in the grass and wept bitterly. " Yulyie!" yelled the vigilant old Norwegian, like a dis- tant foghorn. The girl sprang up ; the habit of obedience was strong. " No ; you set right there, and I'll go round," he said. "Otto!" The boy came scrambling out of the wood, half dressed. Rob tossed him up on the horse, snatched Julia's sun- bonnet, put his own hat on her head, and moved off down the corn-rows, leaving the girl smiling through her tears as he whistled and chirped to the horse. Farmer Peterson, seeing the familiar sunbonnet above the corn-rows, went back to his work, with a sentence of Norwegian trailing after him like the tail of a kite something about lazy girls who didn't earn the crust of their bread, etc. Rob was wild with delight. "Git up there, Jack! Hay, .tO* : AMERICAN TYPES you old corncrib! Say, Otto, can you keep your mouth shet if it puts money in your pocket? " "Jest try me V see," said the keen-eyed little scamp. "Well, you keep quiet about my bein' here this after- noon, and I'll put a dollar on y'r tongue hay? what? understand?" "Show me y'r dollar," said the boy, turning about and showing his tongue. "All right. Begin to practise now by not talkin' to me." Rob went over the whole situation on his way back, and when he got in sight of the girl his plan was made. She stood waiting for him with a new look on her face. Her sullenness had given way to a peculiar eagerness and anxiety to believe in him. She was already living that free life in a far-off, wonderful country. No more would her stern father and sullen mother force her to tasks which she hated. She'd be a member of a new firm. She'd work, of course, but it would be because she wanted to, and not be- cause she was forced to. The independence and the love promised grew more and more attractive. She laughed back with a softer light in her eyes, when she saw the smil- ing face of Rob looking at her from her sunbonnet. "Now you mustn't do any more o' this," he said. "You go back to the house an' tell y'r mother you're too lame to plough any more to-day, and it's gettin' late, anyhow. To- night!" he whispered quickly. "Eleven! Here!" The girl's heart leaped with fear. "I'm afraid." "Not of me, areyeh?" "No, I'm not afraid of you, Rob." " I'm glad o' that. I I want you to like me, Julyie ; won't you?" "I'll try," she answered, with a smile. "To-night, then," he said, as she moved away. "To-night. Good-bye." "Good-bye." AMONG THE CORN-ROWS 103 He stood and watched her till her tall figure was lost among the drooping corn-leaves. There was a singular choking feeling in his throat. The girl's voice and face had brought up so many memories of parties and picnics and excursions on far-off holidays, and at the same time held suggestions of the future. He already felt that it was going to be an unconscionably long time before eleven o'clock. He saw her go to the house, and then he turned and walked slowly up the dusty road. Out of the May-weed the grasshoppers sprang, buzzing and snapping their dull red wings. Butterflies, yellow and white, fluttered around moist places in the ditch, and slender, striped water-snakes glided across the stagnant pools at sound of footsteps. But the mind of the man was far away on his claim, building a new house, with a woman's advice and presence. It was a windless night. The katydids and an occasional cricket were the only sounds Rob could hear as he stood beside his team and strained his ear to listen. At long inter- vals a little breeze ran through the corn like a swift serpent, bringing to his nostrils the sappy smell of the growing corn. The horses stamped uneasily as the mosquitoes settled on their shining limbs. The sky was full of stars, but there was no moon. " What if she don't come ? " he thought. " Or can't come ? I can't stand that. I'll go to the old man an' say, 'Looky here 'Sh!" He listened again. There was a rustling in the corn. It was not like the fitful movement of the wind ; it was steady, slower, and approaching. It ceased. He whistled the wail- ing sweet cry of the prairie-chicken. Then a figure came out into the road a woman Julia ! He took her in his arms as she came panting up to him. "Rob!" "Julyie!" 104 AMERICAN TYPES A few words, the dull tread of swift horses, the rising of a silent train of dust, and then the wind wandered in the growing corn, the dust fell, a dog barked down the road, and the katydids sang to the liquid contralto of the river in its shallows. ELLIE'S FURNISHING 1 BY MRS. HELEN R. MARTIN THE school-teacher, Eli Darmstetter, had "composed" the form of invitation to be sent to those friends and relatives who lived too far away to be invited by word of mouth. CANAAN, LANCASTER Co., PA. May 10, 1895 DEAR FRIEND : Inclosed please find an Invitation to our Daughter Ellie Furnishing Party, it was to take place on May 5, 1895. But oweing to Some of her Prominent Friends being away and Some had former engagements, We Concluded to postpone the affair until the 10th inst. So I hope it will be Convenient for you and your Esteemable Wife to confer us a favor and pleasure by being present at that Evening. With Regards and Respects I Remain Truly yours DANIEL SEEDENSTICKER Mr. Seidensticker had this form, with some variations to suit individual cases, copied and sent far and wide to all his friends, acquaintance, kith and kin ; and the replies that they brought during the several weeks following afforded high entertainment, not to say mad dissipation, to the Seidenstickers. Indeed, so broken up was the dull mono- tony of their lives by the unaccustomed daily arrival of mail, and by preparations for the Furnishing Party and expeditions to town to buy the furniture for Ellie's parlor, that the nerve and brain of the family were strained to a severe tension in sustaining all this unwonted mental and physical activity. 1 Reprinted by permission from The Betrothal of Elypholaie, by Mrs. Helen R. Martin. Copyright, 1907, by the Century Company. 106 AMERICAN TYPES "This here'n is from Bucks County," Mrs. Seidensticker one evening announced to her assembled family as she opened a letter which Jakey, her nine-year-old son, had just brought from the post-office at Canaan. It was a mild evening in early May, and they were all gathered on the kitchen porch to enjoy the budget of mail which, since the sending forth of the invitations, had come to be the most important feature of their day ; Ellie, the grown-up daugh- ter ; Silas, her elder brother, who shared his father's labors on then* large farm ; Jakey, the little brother ; and Mr. and Mrs. Seidensticker. Mrs. Seidensticker, a large, stout woman a little past middle age, wore the New Mennonite plain dress and white cap, but her fat, dull countenance did not bear that stamp of other-worldliness so characteristic of many New Men- nonites. Her pretty, dainty daughter Ellie, who was dressed "fashionable," had much more than her mother the pensive, nun-like face so often seen behind the black sunbonnets of the wives of Lancaster County farmers. Mr. Seidensticker, a hard-working Pennsylvania Dutch farmer, did not wear the Mennonite garb. He had never "turned plain" and "given himself up," and he still "re- mained in the world." "It's from Cousin Elipholat," Mrs. Seidensticker con- tinued. "Ellie, you read it oncet," she added, leaning forward in her chair and passing the letter to her daughter, who sat near her on the porch. " You're handier at readin* writin' than what I am still." "Leave Si read it," Ellie indifferently returned. Her mother looked at her inquiringly. "What's the matter of you, Ellie ? Ain't you mebbe feelin' just so good or what?" "Oh, I'm feelin' just so middlin'; I don't want for to read. Leave Si." Mrs. Seidensticker had been vaguely conscious, in the ELITE'S FUKNISHING 107 past few days, of the fact that something was troubling Ellie. The girl was not like herself ; ever since she and Sam Shunk, her "gentleman friend," had gone to town to- gether to buy the furniture for the parlor in which Ellie was to "set up Sa'urdays and keep company" with him, she had been pale and listless, and at times she wore a look of suffering that troubled the mother deeply. Could some- thing have gone wrong between Ellie and Sam? Mrs. Seidensticker's questionings had brought no confidences from Ellie. What a mortification it would be if, when all the preparations were made for the "Furnishing" party, at which the engagement of Ellie and Sam was to be "put out," it should transpire that "one of 'em wasn't satisfied with the other"! Mrs. Seidensticker was greatly troubled. "Then, Si, you read it," she said with a sigh, giving the letter to her grown son, who sat on the porch-step at her feet. Silas, bending to the task allotted to him, strenuously grasped the sheet with both his hands. Dear cousins my Pop he can't come, Because he ain't no more alive. He died. He was layin' for 22 weeks. It's five years back already that he died for me I'm sorry he can't come. But he's dead. I would come but I'm turned plain and wear the garb now and so parties and such things like them don't do me no good, and I'd best not addict to them things. Pop he would of like to come. But he is dead this five years now. Your Well Wisher EUPHOLAT HlNNERSHIZ "Now, think !" said Mrs. Seidensticker with a long sigh. "I didn't never hear that Cousin Jake passed away. He was a good man," she said mournfully. " If yous could see him right now here on this porch, you'd know he was one of the finest men settin' ! He was just comin' forty years old when I seen him last ; that was mebbe fifteen years back 108 AMERICAN TYPES already. I ain't sure it was just to say fifteen but we won't stop at fifteen, but we'll give it that anyhow. Do you mind of him, Pop ?" she asked her husband. ; Mr. Seidensticker drew his long, thin length up from the pump-bed and leaned against a pillar of the porch. " Ach, yes, I mind of him. He had sich a long beard that way. He was very proud of hisseff with his beard, Mom." "Yes," she said, thoughtfully reminiscent; "he was the high-feelingest man! You see," she explained to her children, "he married sich a tony wife ! She was wonderful tony. Her pop was a head-waiter in a hotel, and she was, oh, a way-up woman. If she got mad, I want you to notice of the sparks didn't fly !" "And do you mind, Mom," said Ellie's soft voice, "how oncet when you took me to Bucks County to see her when I was a little girl, she used to use napkins on the table for every day still?" "Yes," nodded her mother. "She sayed she was raised that way. But people's ways is different in Bucks County to what they are here. I've took notice of that whenever I traveled to Bucks County. Yes, the world changes a heap in thirty or forty miles already. She was so much for makin' the windows open in summer-time. I ain't. We ain't raised to that in Lancaster County. It draws flies. And she didn't raise her babies like what I did. She sayed I was too much for keepin* 'em covered up and hot. She wasn't in for that. She did, now, have queer ways to her- self. She didn't have no children but only Elipholat and another one that was born dead. She didn't want no more, she sayed, still ; she wasn't no friend to children. But I tole her when you're married, you ain't ast do you favor children or no. And she sayed the Lord didn't give but the two children ; and she must say she didn't never disagree with the Lord that He did not treat her like them Stuffen- kind fambly that had nineteen, so they never could stay in ELLIE'S FURNISHING 109 the house all together mit, but two had to take turn stay- ing outside. Yes, that's the way she'd talk still ; like they all in Bucks County, makin' joke of what they hadn't should." "Who's the other letter from, Mom ? " asked Jakey from his perch on the porch railing. " I brung two and a postal card. When John Doen give me our mail, he sayed he couldn't make out the writin' on that there postal card, only he could see it was from Ebenezer Duttonhoffer." "Oh, him," nodded Mrs. Seidensticker. "Here, Si, read it oncet." The early shades of the May evening were gathering and Silas was obliged to hold the postal card close to his eyes in order to decipher its faintly-penciled message. FRIEND MARY : Pete he has fallin' fits now and he's often took worse, so it don't suit just so very convenynt and the horse he has bots and this after the mare she got pink eye for me but if the weather ain't inclement and we can make it so it suits yet for one of the horses we will come then if Sally's foot gets better she's got it so bad in her foot. Respectfullie EBENEZER DUTTONHOFFER "Ach," said Mr. Seidensticker; "them Duttonhoffers was always a ridic'lous fambly for havin' things happen of 'em. They'll all be here, you mind if they ain't ! Pete with his fallin' fits and Sally with her leg or foot or whatever and every one of 'em. They're always close by when they know a body's goin' to have entertainment. And when you go to their place they're just that near they never ast you to eat. Ach, mebbe they'll ast you to pick a piece but they ain't givin' you no square meal." "Here's one from Cocalico," said Mrs. Seidensticker. "That must be from Sister Lizzie Miller. Here, Si." "You'd better make the lamp lit then. I can't hardly see no more," said Silas, 110 AMERICAN TYPES "There's just only this one any more; I guess you can make out to read that." "Gimme here, then." Silas changed his position a bit and strained his eyes to read. SISTER MARY : I wish you the grace and Piece of the Lord. Mamie got Daniel's Invitation all right she was snitzing the apples and cut herself so ugly in the thumb I'm writing for her I'd leave her come if I other- wise could but I don't know what to wear on her. I'd sooner she'd go as stay for all we're getting strangers Thursdays and we've made out to clean the kitchen to-morrow, so I don't know how long it will go before I can get time to make her a new dress already. It would be wishful for her to have a new dress her other one where she bought off of Haverbushes is wore out yet. SISTER LIZZIE "Sister Lizzie's a wonderful hard-workin' woman," re- marked Mrs. Seidensticker. "And now her children's all growed up over her, she works as hard as ever she did still. And her man, he always used her so mean that way." "Does he farm yet?" inquired Mr. Seidensticker, who, having washed his hands at the pump close by the porch, while listening to the letters, was now drying them on one of the roller-towels which hung on the brick wall of the house. The Seidensticker towel-system was unique. Two towels always hung on the side of the house, one of them doing its second week of service for the entire family, the other its first the former being used exclusively for hands, and the fresher one for faces. The pump, the two roller-towels, and one "wash rag " hanging over the top of the pump (and known in the family as the wash rag) constituted the only toilet appointments of the household. "Whether Sister Lizzie's man farms?" inquiringly re- peated Mrs. Seidensticker. "No, he don't carry on no thin* now. He's such a wonderful man for snitz pie. I guess that's ELLIE'S FURNISHING 111 why they're snitzing so early. Their winter snits mebbe give out for 'em. Yes, Lizzie's man was always a friend' to pie. And he always sayed to Lizzie, 'Put right much sugar on it.' Lizzie thought that's what made his teeth go so fast, so's he had to get his store ones already. He's got his store teeth better'n thirty years now." The sound, at this minute, of wheels in the distance, on the road which passed their gate, suddenly set the whole family on the qui vive of expectation. Jakey leaped like a squirrel from the porch railing and ran to the front fence. Mr. Seidensticker dropped the family hand-towel and craned his long thin neck around the pump; Silas, Ellie, and Mrs. Seidensticker leaned forward expectantly. Not that they were dreading or pleasantly anticipating (as might have appeared) either a foe or a friend in the ap- proaching vehicle ; but in the dull monotony of their lives the passing of a wagon was an episode of exciting interest. For a wagon to pass a Lancaster County farmhouse, and the inmates thereof to miss seeing whose wagon it was, was a mishap to be lamented for days to come. "It's John Herr's !" Jakey called, as soon as the horse was near enough for him to recognize it. "Oh, him !" Mrs. Seidensticker said in a tone of satisfied curiosity. "I guess he's been in to Canaan for his mail, mebbe." When John Herr's buggy had passed and disappeared, Jakey came back to the porch. "Did you fetch the mail for Abe's this evening?" Mrs. Seidensticker inquired of the child. "Abe's" was their designation for the household, a half- mile distant, belonging to the young married sister of Mrs. Seidensticker, who had married a farmer named Abe Kuhns. " Whether I fetched the mail for Abe's ? " repeated Jakey. "Yes, I fetched it down to 'em then." 112 AMERICAN TYPES "What did they get?" "Nothin* but the Weekly Intelligencer" Jakey replied, taking a handful of dried apples out of a pan on the porch bench and beginning to eat them. "You're to leave them snits be now," admonished his mother. "I didn't eat very hearty at supper," argued Jakey. "I had to hurry to get done once, to go for the mail already, and I had only butter-bread and coffee soup." "Well, if you feel for some more supper, go to the cup- board and get a piece. Don't eat them snits. They're un- healthy when they ain't cooked." "I like 'em better'n a piece," protested Jakey, though he obediently put them back into the pan ; the children of the Pennsylvania Dutch are reared in old-fashioned implicit obedience to parental authority. "But you wouldn't like the stomeek ache you'd mebbe get if you eat 'em," said his father. "A body must be a little forethoughted that way about what they eat still." Mrs. Seidensticker's stout figure rose heavily from her rocking-chair. "I'd mebbe better come in now. You just stay settin'," she added to Ellie. "You seem like as if you was a little tired. You're so quiet this evening. Ain't you mebbe feelin' good, Ellie?" "Oh, I'm feelin' just so middlin'," Ellie softly answered. "Is Sam comin' to-night?" Ellie rose from her straight-backed seat and took her mother's low rocking-chair. "He didn't speak nothin* about when he'd come over again," she answered. "Well, I'm goin' to bed," her mother announced with a yawn as she walked to the kitchen door. "Are you comin', Pop?" "I might as well, I guess." Silas and Jakey, without comment, followed their par- ELLIE'S FURNISHING 113 ents indoors and left Ellie alone on the porch. It was gen- erally understood that the coast must be clear for a pos- sible visit from Sam. Sam Shunk had been Ellie Seidensticker's "steady regu- lar gentleman friend," not only for the past four months, since her eighteenth birthday, but he had "kept steady comp'ny " with her even before either he or she had reached the age or the worldly condition when "settin* up Sa'ur- days " was, according to the social rubrics of Canaan Town- ship, the proper and conventional procedure. Time had, therefore, established his prerogative to the sobriquet of "Friend" with a capital F and an especial significance. Left alone on the porch in the gathering spring twilight, Ellie's pretty head drooped upon her breast, and a long, tired sigh swelled her young bosom. Presently two big tears trickled over her pale cheeks and a little gasping sigh came from her throat. The measure of her Spartan self- control in the presence of her family was the exceeding trouble and distress manifest just now in every line of her relaxed form and delicate face. The secret grief that was rending her was the realization that she must give up Sam. In anguish of spirit she asked herself how she could ever bring herself to do it. For, oh, she loved him ! He was so kind, so strong, so handsome ! In all the township, where was his peer ? Her soul was knit to his and she did not, she did not, want to give him up ! But she must. Sam belonged to the World. And she she was about to give herself to the service of her Lord and Master, who forbade that His children be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. It was the "Furnishing" that had brought Ellie to this state of self-abnegation. Her mother, as has been said, was a New Mennonite. The creed of this sect, forbidding not only gay apparel, but also any but the plainest and sim- plest of household furnishings, the custom has grown up 114 AMERICAN TYPES among its members of leaving the "front room" of their homes unfurnished until the eldest daughter shall have come of age, when, if by that time she has not been moved by the spirit to "give herself up," that is, to abandon the vain pomps and glories of this wicked world, "turn plain" and join the New Mennonites, her parents give vent to their long repressed human instincts for adornment and fit up the parlor for her in the best style they can afford. New Mennonites never force their own convictions upon their children, for since it is the Spirit only, and not any human agent, which can teach men the way of salvation, and as the "mere morality" of the unconverted can never be counted unto a man for righteousness, either he must, of his own free will and accord and without outside influence, give himself absolutely and entirely to the Lord's service, or else be a child of "the Enemy" outright. There is no medium course. It is thus that the New Mennonites ex- plain the seeming inconsistency of freely allowing to their children the "vanities" which they themselves eschew as sinful. The event regularly known in Lancaster County as "Furnishing" is, next to marriage, the most auspicious time in a young girl's life. As soon as her parents have "furnished" for her, she is expected to enter upon her matrimonial campaign and, anon, settle down to "keep comp'ny" with one especial "Friend," whom, as soon as convenient, she marries, and then the furniture of her par- lor is taken with her into her own new home. Now Ellie had always anticipated with delight the time of her "Furnishing," and when it had at last arrived, she threw herself, heart and soul, into the joy of choosing her "things" the cabinet organ, the "stuffed" sofa and chairs, the marble-topped table, plush album, gilt-framed "Snow Scene," and Brussels carpet. Sam had gone with her, one Saturday morning, to Lancaster, to help her do ELLIE'S FURNISHING 115 her choosing. Later in the day he and she had gone to the Vaudeville Show at the Park, and it had been the shock of the latter, combined with what she had suddenly felt to be the wicked selfishness of her enormous expenditures for things unnecessary for the soul and only pleasing to the worldly eye, that had brought her to a realization of the frivolity and error of temporizing with the World, and had convinced her of her duty to abandon its pomps and hol- lowness; to seek and hold fast to the Truth that the Saviour had died to reveal to cold and indifferent man. Her religious nature was awakened, and with clear vision she saw the real things of her life in their true contrast to its vanities. She knew, with a fatal certainty, that never again would she find joy in the things that heretofore had absorbed her to the neglect of her soul's salvation. She must give herself up. And she must therefore abandon Sam. How was she ever to break it to him, loving and trusting her as he did? "What '11 he think of me, comin' with somepin' like this and my promise passed only four weeks a 'ready. And he's so much for me to dress ! And I was always so wonderful stylish ! How will I ever tell him I'm turnin' plain as soon as I otherwise can?" But this weakness, she knew, was only a temptation of the Enemy of her soul, who watched every thought of her heart, to trip her up and drag her back into the World at the least opportunity. Meanwhile, while Ellie was sitting on the porch in the May twilight, battling with the weakness of the flesh in the sacrifice which she was called upon to make for the faith that was in her, Sam Shunk was trudging down the road, towards the home of his sweetheart, on an errand that made every step of this usually blissful walk one of pain and effort. 116 AMERICAN TYPES He found Ellie alone on the porch where, a few moments before, her family had left her. The new pink shirt-waist which she wore made her cheeks look so like ripe peaches that, for a forgetful instant, he anticipated with satisfaction the kisses he would pres- ently press upon their downy softness. But only for an instant. The chilling remembrance came to him of the sad purport of his visit to her to-night. With a heavy heart he seated himself in the rocking- chair at her side. So absorbed was he in his own mental burden that he failed to notice how subdued and reserved was the greeting which she gave him. From force of habit he began with his usual form of social intercourse in opening up his customary weekly stint of courting. "Nice evening, this evening; say not?" "Ain't !" Ellie's low soft voice agreed. " How's the folks?" " They re pretty well." A faint impression of something unaccustomed in her tone caused Sam to steal a glance at her fair and delicate face at his side. "How's your Mom?" he inquired conversationally. Sam was not brilliant in dialogue, and as Ellie herself was usually not remarkably articulate, their social intercourse was sometimes a little difficult. "She's pretty well, too," she replied. "How's your Pop?" "He's old-fashioned." Sam gently rocked his chair and gazed out across the darkening lawn. "Nice evening, this evening, ain't it is," he returned to the charge. "Yes, anyhow," sweetly agreed Ellie. ELLIE'S FURNISHING 117 "How's Jakey?" "He's pretty well." "Is Si well, too ?" Sam asked by way of variety. "Yes, he's pretty well." They rocked in silence for a few minutes. "I'm glad the folks is all well." "Yes, they're all right good," Ellie consented with com- placent absence of originality. "It's right warm, ain't?" " Yes, Pop he sayed it would make somepin* down before morning, he thought." " Say, Ellie ! I don't trust to be on them trolley cars in Lancaster when it's goin' to give a gust. Last time I was goin' to take a trolley ride, I seen it was thunderin' and I tole the conductor I wanted off right away at the corner already." "I guess! "Ellie nodded. Sam now fell into a temporary silence as he gloomily con- templated the dread task at his hands of telling Ellie the object of his visit. Again he stole a side glance at her, and the strange, plaintive look he detected about her sweet eyes smote his big, generous heart. How could he make her unhappy ? She trusted him and believed in his love for her. What should he do? "Say, Ellie?" "What, Sam?" "That man in the dime matynee in there at Lancaster, last Sa'urday, that could twist himself so queer, still, say, Ellie, that was false hair he had on 1 " "You think!" "I'm pretty near sure." "Now think!" Ellie said wonderingly. "And that colored lady you mind of that sung sich a touchin' piece about * I wisht my color would fade ' ; say, Ellie, she was only a white person with shoe-blacking or whatever on her face !" 118 AMERICAN TYPES "I say !" cried Ellie in surprise. "A body hadn't ought to give their countenance to sich shows like what them is, Ellie. It don't do a person no good." "No, Sam, I don't think so nuther. And if you feel a little conscientious, you'd better let sich things be, .then." "Ellie, I got to tell you somepin' !" "Don't tell me to-night, Sam," Ellie pleaded, feeling sure he was going to press her to name their wedding-day, as he had lately been doing most strenuously. "I ain't feelin' good to-night. Don't speak nothin' to me to-night." "I can't help for that I got to tell you this here. Say, Ellie, it ain't that I haven't got no love to you but indeed, Ellie, I can't marry you." Ellie slowly turned hi her chair and gazed at him in the deepening darkness. "Why not, Sam?" she asked, in a voice so low that he scarcely caught her words. "Ellie, I'm going to give myself up!" "Oh, Sam!" "Don't tempt me not to!" he cried almost piteously. "I want you you know how bad I want you but you're in the World, Ellie, and I can't marry you ! If it breaks my heart and yours, I've got to leave you and cleave unto Christ ! It was goin' with you to town done it and buyin' them things for your ' Furnishing ' and then seein' the dime matynee. I seen, Ellie, how pleasing to the eye it was, but not for the glory of Gawd. And I can't never no more give my countenance to fashionable things. I'm turnin' plain as soon as I can get to town to get my plain clo'es once. Servin' the Lord ain't easy, it ain't easy," he said. "You mind where the Bible says, 'If a man smite thee, turn him the other cheek.' That's pretty hard, and it wouldn't suit me so well to do it. Indeed, I say that. But I ELLIE'S FURNISHING 119 must do all them things if I'm a child of Gawd. And John Souders preached how he seen 'em die horrible already when they was unconverted." "But, Sam " "Ellie!" Sam quickly interrupted, as though dreading the effect of her pleading, "it's like dyin' to me to give you up. I'd most ruther be dead. But it's my duty. Last night my sins opened up before me and I was wonderful con- cerned ; and at last, after a great struggle, I made up my mind I'd give myself to the guidance of the Spirit. Then, here this mornin', already, when I fell awake, the Enemy was temptin' me, and he tole me how pretty you was and how sweet, Ellie. But," Sam solemnly added, "I've over- come the Enemy, and I come here to-night yet to give you good-bye." Only "the angels in the heavens above and the demons down under the sea" could measure the sacrifice which the stalwart youth was thus making in his loyalty to what he felt to be a larger truth of life than any mere personal rela- tion of his own. "Sam ! Sam ! Listen at me." Ellie leaned forward in her eagerness and clasped his big arm with both her hands. "7 got in trouble, too, Sam, about my sins, after we'd been to town. I was in wonderful trouble, Sam. And that evening," she eagerly went on, "the sky got so red I thought the world would go to an end. And next day I seen how nice and humble Mom looked in her plain dress and, Sam, I hated my Furniture and my fashionable clo'es ! And that next evening, the sky was redder than ever ! And Sam, I let loose of everything my clo'es, my Furniture, the party and you and joined to the Lord ! And this morning I went over to Mamie Herr's that I got mad at 'cause she talked down on you and I knowed I must be made satisfied with all my enemies, so I tole her 120 AMERICAN TYPES I was n't any more mad yet. And, oh, Sam, it never sus- picioned me that the Spirit was guidin' you, too !" Sam's arms were about her now, and she was clinging to him: "'Gawd works in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.' " "Ain't he does, Ellie!" he whispered, pressing an ecstatic kiss upon her lips. "Ain't he does!" was Ellie's rapturous response. AMERICAN TRADITIONS STORIES OF SOCIAL HERITAGE Forgotten! No! we cannot all forget, Or, when we do, farewell to Honor's face, To Hope's sweet tendance, Valor's unpaid debt,* And every noblest Grace, Which, nursed in Love, might still benignly bloom Above a nation s tomb! Forgotten! Tho' a thousand years should pass, Methinks our air will throb with memory's thritts f A conscious grief weigh down the faltering grass t A pathos shroud the hills, Waves roll lamenting^ autumn sunsets yearn For the old time's return! PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE, Poems of the War THE ARRIVAL OF A TRUE SOUTHERN LADY 1 BY FRANCIS HOPKINSON SMITH "MISTRESS yer, sah ! Come yistidd'y mawnin'." How Chad beamed all over when this simple statement fell from his lips ! I had not seen him since the night when he stood behind my chair and with bated breath whispered his anxieties lest the second advent of "de grocerman" should bring dire destruction to the Colonel's household. To-day he looked ten years younger. His kinky gray hair, generally knotted into little wads, was now divided by a well-defined path starting from the great wrinkle in his forehead and ending in a dense tangle of underbrush that no comb dared penetrate. His face glistened all over. His mouth was wide open, showing a great cavity in which each tooth seemed to dance with delight. His jacket was as white and stiff as soap and starch could make it, while a cast-off cravat of the Colonel's double starched to suit Chad's own ideas of propriety was tied in a single knot, the two ends reaching to the very edge of each ear. To crown all, a red carnation flamed away on the lapel of his jacket, just above an outside pocket, which held in check a pair of white cotton gloves bulging with importance and eager for use. Every time he bowed he touched with a sweep both sides of the narrow hall. It was the first time in some weeks that I had seen the interior of the Colonel's cozy dining-room by daylight. Of late my visits had been made after dark, with drawn cur- 1 Reprinted by permission from Colonel Carter of Cartersville, by F. Hopkinson Smith. Copyright by Houghton MifSin Company. 124 AMERICAN TRADITIONS tains, lighted candles, and roaring wood fires. But this time it was in the morning and a bright, sunny, lovely spring morning at that with one window open in the L and the curtains drawn back from the other; with the honeysuckle beginning to bud, its long runners twisting themselves inquiringly through the half -closed shutters as if anxious to discover what all this bustle inside was about. It was easy to see that some other touch besides that of the Colonel and his faithful man-of -all-work had left its impress in the bachelor apartment. There was a general air of order apparent. The irregular line of footgear which decorated the washboard of one wall, beginning with a pair of worsted slippers and ending with a wooden bootjack, was gone. Whisk-brooms and dusters that had never known a restful nail since they entered the Colonel's serv- ice were now suspended peacefully on convenient hooks. Dainty white curtains, gathered like a child's frock, flapped lazily against the broken green blinds, while some sprays of arbutus, plucked by Miss Nancy on her way to the rail- road station, drooped about a tall glass on the mantel. Chad had solved the mystery Aunt Nancy came yesterday. I found the table set for four, its chief feature being a tray bearing a heap of eggshell cups and saucers I had not seen before, and an old-fashioned tea-urn humming a tune all to itself. "De Colonel's out, but he comin' back d'rektly," Chad said eagerly, all out of breath with excitement. Then fol- lowed the information that Mr. Fitzpatrick was coming to breakfast, and that he was to tell Miss Nancy the moment we arrived. He then reduced the bulge in his outside pocket by thrusting his big hands into his white gloves, gave a sidelong glance at the flower in his buttonhole, and bore my card aloft with the air of a cupbearer serving a princess. THE ARRIVAL OF A TRUE SOUTHERN LADY 125 A soft step on the stair, the rustle of silk, a warning word outside: "Look out for dat lower step, mistress dat's it" ; and Miss Nancy entered the room. No, I am wrong. She became a part of it ; as much so as the old andirons and the easy-chairs and the old-fashioned mantelpieces, the snowy curtains and the trailing vine. More so when she gave me the slightest dip of a curtsy and laid her dainty, wrinkled little hand in mine, and said in the sweetest possible voice how glad she was to see me after so many years, and how grateful she felt for all my kind- ness to the dear Colonel. Then she sank into a quaint rock- ing-chair that Chad had brought down behind her, rested her feet on a low stool that mysteriously appeared from under the table, and took her knitting from her reticule. She had changed somewhat since I last saw her, but only as would an old bit of precious stuff that grew the more mellow and harmonious in tone as it grew the older. She had the same silky gray hair a trifle whiter, perhaps ; the same frank, tender mouth, winning wherever she smiled ; the same slight, graceful figure ; and the same manner its very simplicity a reflex of that refined and quiet life she had always led. For hers had been an isolated life, buried since her girlhood in a great house far away from the broadening influences of a city, and saddened by the daily witness of a slow decay of all she had been taught to revere. But it had been a life so filled with the largeness of generous deeds that its returns had brought her the love and rever- ence of every living soul she knew. While she sat and talked to me of her journey I ha,d time to enjoy again the quaintness of her dress the quaint- ness of forty years before. There was the same old-fash- ioned, soft gray silk with up-and-down stripes spotted with sprigs of flowers, the lace cap with its frill of narrow pink ribbons and two wide pink strings that fell over the shoulders, and the handkerchief of India mull folded across 126 AMERICAN TRADITIONS the breast and fastened with an amethyst pin. Her little bits of feet they were literally so were encased in white stockings and heelless morocco slippers bound with braid. But her dress was never somber. She always seemed to remember, even in her bright ribbons and silks, the days of her girlhood, when half the young men in the county were wild about her. When she moved she wafted towards you a perfume of sweet lavender the very smell that you remember came from your own mother's old-fashioned bureau drawer when she let you stand on tiptoe to see her pretty things. When you kissed her and once I did her cheek was as soft as a child's and fragrant with rose- water. But I hear the Colonel's voice outside, laughing with Fitz. "Come in, suh, and see the dearest woman in the world." The next instant he burst in dressed in his gala combina- tion white waistcoat and cravat, the old coat thrown wide open as if to welcome the world, and a bunch of red roses in his hand. "Nancy, here's my dear friend Fitz, whom I have told you about the most extraord'nary man of modern times. Ah, Major ! you here ? Came in early, did you, so as to have Aunt Nancy all to yo'self ? Sit down, Fitz, right along- side of her." And he kissed her hand gallantly. "Isn't she the most delightful bit of old porcelain you ever saw in all yo' bawn days?" Miss Nancy rose, made another of her graceful curtsies, and begged that neither of us would mind the Colonel's raillery; she never could keep him in order. And she laughed softly as she gave her hand to Fitz, who touched it very much as if he quite believed the Colonel's reference to the porcelain to be true. "There you go, Nancy, 'busin' me like a dog, and here THE ARRIVAL OF A TRUE SOUTHERN LADY 127 I've been a-trampin' the streets for a' hour lookin' for flow- ers for you ! You are breakin' my heart, Miss Caarter, with yo' coldness and contempt. Another word and you shall not have a single bud." And the Colonel gayly tucked a rose under her chin with a loving stroke of his hand, and threw the others in a heap on her lap. "Breakfast sarved, mistress," said Chad in a low voice. The Colonel gave his arm to his aunt with the air of a courtier ; Fitz and I disposed ourselves on each side ; Chad, with reverential mien, screwed his eyes up tight ; and the Colonel said grace with an increased fervor in his voice, no doubt remembering in his heart the blessing of the last arrival. Throughout the entire repast the Colonel was in his gayest mood, brimming over with anecdotes and personal reminiscences and full of his rose-colored plans for the future. Many things had combined to produce this happy frame of mind. There was first the Scheme, which had languished for weeks owing to the vise-like condition of the money market another of Fitz's mendacious excuses and which had now been suddenly galvanized into temporary life by an inquiry made by certain bankers who were seek- ing an outlet for English capital, and who had expressed a desire to investigate the "Garden Spot of Virginia." Only an "inquiry," but to the Colonel the papers were already signed. Then there was the arrival of his distinguished guest, whom he loved devotedly and with a certain old- school gallantry and tenderness as picturesque as it was interesting. Last of all there was that important episode of the bills. For Miss Nancy, the night she arrived, had collected all the household accounts, including the highly esteemed passbook they were all of the one kind, un- paid and had dispatched Chad early in the morning to 128 AMERICAN TRADITIONS the several creditors with his pocket full of crisp bank- notes. Chad had returned from this liquidating tour, and the full meaning of that trusty agent's mission had dawned upon the Colonel. He buttoned his coat tightly over his chest, straightened himself up, sought out his aunt, and said, with some dignity and a slightly injured air : "Nancy, yo' interfe'ence in my household affairs this mornin' was vehy creditable to yo' heart, and deeply touches me ; but if I thought you regarded it in any other light except as a short tempo'ary loan, it would offend me keenly. Within a few days, however, I shall receive a vehy large amount of securities from an English syndicate that is investigatin' my railroad. I shall then return the amount to you with interest, together with that other sum which you loaned me when I left Caarter Hall." The little lady's only reply was to slip her hand into his and kiss him on the forehead. And yet that very morning he had turned his pockets inside out for the remains of the last dollar of the money she had given him when he left home. When it had all been raked together, and its pitiable insufficiency had become apparent, this dialogue took place : "Chad, did you find any money on the flo* when you breshed my clothes?" "No, Colonel." "Look round on the mantelpiece; perhaps I left some bills under the clock." "Ain't none dar, sah." Then Chad, with that same anxious look suddenly re- vived in his face, w r ent below into the kitchen, mounted a chair, took down an old broken tea-cup from the top shelf, and poured out into his wrinkled palm a handful of small silver coin his entire collection of tips, and all the money he had. This he carried to the Colonel, with a lie in his THE ARRIVAL OF A TRUE SOUTHERN LADY 129 mouth that the recording angel blotted out the moment it fell from his lips. "Here's some change, Marsa George, I forgot to gib ye ; been left ober from de marketin'." And the Colonel gathered it all in, and went out and spent every penny of it on roses for "dear Nancy !" All of these things, as I have said, had acted like a tonic on the Colonel, bracing him up to renewed efforts, and re- acting on his guests, who in return did their best to make the breakfast a merry one. Fitz, always delightful, was more brilliant than ever, his native wit, expressed in a brogue with verbal shadings so slight that it is hardly possible to give it in print, keeping the table in a roar ; while Miss Nancy, encouraged by the ease and freedom of everybody about her, forgot for a time her quiet reserve, and was charming in the way she turned over the leaves of her own youthful experiences. And so the talk went on until, with a smile to everybody, the little lady rose, called Chad, who stood ready with shawl and cushion, and, saying she would retire to her room until the gentlemen had finished smoking, disap- peared through the doorway. The talk had evidently aroused some memory long buried in the Colonel's mind ; for when Fitz had gone the dear old fellow picked up the glass holding the roses which he had given his aunt in the morning, and, while repeating her name softly to himself, buried his face in their frag- rance. Something, perhaps, in their perfume stirred that haunting memory the deeper, for he suddenly raised his head and burst out : "Ah, Major, you ought to have seen that woman forty years ago! Why, suh, she was just a rose herself!" And then followed in disconnected scraps, as if he were recalling it to himself, with long pauses between, that story which I had heard hinted at before. A story never 130 AMERICAN TRADITIONS told the children, and never even whispered in Aunt Nancy's presence the one love affair of her life. She and Robert had grown up together he a tall, brown-eyed young fellow just out of the university, and she a fair-haired, joyous girl with half the county at her feet. Nancy had not loved him at first, nor ever did until the day he had saved her life in that wild dash across country when her horse took fright, and he, riding neck and neck, had lifted her clear of her saddle. After that there had been but one pair of eyes and arms for her in the wide world. All of that spring and summer, as the Colonel put it, she was like a bird pouring out her soul in one con- tinuous song. Then there had come a night in Richmond the night of the ball followed by her sudden return home, hollow-eyed and white, and the mysterious post- ponement of the wedding for a year. Everybody wondered, but no one knew, and only as the months went by did her spirits gain a little, and she begin to sing once more. It was at a great party on a neighboring estate, amid the swim of the music and the whirl of soft lace. Suddenly loud voices and threats, a shower of cards flung at a man's face, an uplifted arm caught by the host. Then a hall door thrust open and a half -frenzied man with disordered dress staggering out. Then the startled face of a young girl all in white and a cry no one ever forgot : "Oh, Robert! Not again?" Her long ride home in the dead of the night, Nancy alone in the coach, her escort a distant cousin on horseback behind. i Then the pursuit. The steady rise and fall of the hoof- beats back in the forest ; the reining in of Robert's panting horse covered with foam; his command to halt; a flash, and then that sweet face stretched out in the road in the moonlight by the side of the overturned coach, the cousin THE ARRIVAL OF A TRUE SOUTHERN LADY 131 bending over her with a bullet-hole in his hat, and Robert, ghastly white and sobered, with the smoking pistol in his hand. Then the long, halting procession homeward hi the gray dawn. It was not so easy after this to keep the secret shut away ; so one day, when the shock had passed her arms about her uncle's neck the whole story came out. She told of that other night there in Richmond, with Robert reeling and half -crazed; of his promise of reform, and the post- ponement of the wedding, while she waited and trusted : so sad a story that the old uncle forgot all the traditions that bound Southern families, and sustained her in her de- termination never to see Robert again. For days the broken-hearted lover haunted the place, while an out-bound ship waited in Norfolk harbor. Even Robert's father, crushed and humiliated by it all, had made no intercession for him. But now, he begged, would she see his son for the last time, only that he might touch her hand and say good-bye ? That last good-bye lasted an hour, Chad walking his horse all the while before the porch door, until that tot- tering figure, holding to the railings and steadying itself, came down the steps. A shutter thrown back, and Nancy at the open window watching him mount. As he wheels he raises his hat. She pushes aside the climbing roses. In an instant he has cleared the garden-beds, and has reined in his horse just below her window-sill. Looking up into her face : "Nancy, for the last time, shall I stay?" She only shakes her head. "Then look, Nancy, look ! This is your work !" A gleam of steel in a clenched hand, a burst of smoke, 132 AMERICAN TRADITIONS and before Chad can reach him Nancy's lover lies dead in the flowers at her feet. It had not been an easy story for the Colonel. When he ceased he passed his hand across his forehead as if the air of the room stifled him. Then laying down his pipe, he bent once more over the slender vase, his face in the roses. "May I come in?" In an instant the Colonel's old manner returned. "May you come in, Nancy? Why, you dear woman, if you had stayed away five minutes longer I should have gone for you myself. What ! Another skein of yarn ? " " Yes," she said, seating herself. " Hold out your hands." The loop slipped so easily over the Colonel's arms that it was quite evident that the r6le was not new to him. "Befo* I forget it, Nancy, Mr. Fitzpatrick was called suddenly away to attend to some business connected with my railroad, and left his vehy kindest regards for you, and his apologies for not seein' you befo' he left." Fitz had said nothing that resembled this, so far as my memory served me, but it was what he ought to have done, and the Colonel always corrected such little slips of cour- tesy by supplying them himself. "Politeness," he would sometimes say, "is becomin* rarer every day. I tell you, suh, the disease of bad manners is mo* contagious than the smallpox." So the deception was quite pardonable hi him. "And what does Mr. Fitzpatrick think of the success of your enterprise, George ? " The Colonel sailed away as usual with all his balloon top- sails set, his sea-room limited only by the skein, while his aunt wound her yarn silently, and listened with a face ex- pressive at once of deep interest and hope, mingled with a certain undefined doubt. THE ARRIVAL OF A TRUE SOUTHERN LADY 133 As the ball grew in size, she turned to me, and, with a penetration and practical insight into affairs for which I had not given her credit, began to dissect the scheme in detail. She had heard, she said, that there was lack of con- necting lines and consequent absence of freight, as well as insufficient harbor facilities at Warrentown. I parried the questions as well as I could, begging off on the plea that I was only a poor devil of a painter with a minimum knowledge of such matters, and ended by refer- ring her to Fitz. fc The Colonel, much to my surprise, listened to every word without opening his lips a silence encouraged at first by his pride that she could talk so well, and main- tained thereafter because of certain misgivings awakened in his mind as to the ultimate success of his pet enterprise. When she had punctured the last of his little balloons, he laid his hand on her shoulder, and, looking into her face, said: "Nancy, you really don't mean that my railroad will never be built ? " "No, George; but suppose it should not earn its ex- penses?" Her thoughts were new to the Colonel. Nobody except a few foolish people in the Street, anxious to sell less valuable securities, and utterly unable to grasp the great merits of the Cartersville and Warrentown Air Line Railroad plan, had ever before advanced any such ideas in his presence. He loosened his hands from the yarn, and took a seat by the window. His aunt's misgivings had evidently so thor- oughly disturbed him that for an instant I could see traces of a certain offended dignity, coupled with a nervous anxi- ety lest her inquiries had shaken my own confidence in his scheme. He began at once to reassure me. There was nothing to be uneasy about. Look at the bonds! Note the perfect 134 AMERICAN TRADITIONS safety of the plan of finance the earlier coupons omitted, the subsequent peace of the investor ! The peculiar loca- tion of the road, with the ancestral estates dotted along its line ! The dignity of the several stations ! He could hear them now in his mind called out as they whistled down brakes: "Carter Hall! Barboursville ! Talcott!" No; there was nothing about the road that should disturb his aunt. For all that a still more anxious look came into his face. He began pacing the floor, buried in deep thought, his thumbs hooked behind his back. At last he stopped and took her hand. "Dear Nancy, if anything should happen to you it would break my heart. Don't be angry, it is only the Major ; but yo' talk with him has so disturbed me that I am determined to secure you against personal loss/' Miss Nancy raised her eyes wonderingly. She evidently did not catch his meaning. "You have been good enough, my dear, to advance me certain sums of money which I still owe. I want to pay these now." "But, George, you " "My dearest Nancy" and he stooped down, and kissed her cheek "I will have my way. Of co'se you didn't mean anything, only I cannot let another hour pass with these accounts unsettled. Think, Nancy; it is my right. The delay affects my honor." The little lady dropped her knitting on the floor, and looked at me in a helpless way. The Colonel opened the table-drawer, and handed me pen and ink. "Now, Major, take this sheet of paper and draw a note of hand." I looked at his aunt inquiringly. She nodded her head in assent. "Yes, if it pleases George." THE ARRIVAL OF A TRUE SOUTHERN LADY 135 I began with the usual form, entering the words "I promise to pay," and stopped for instructions. "Payable when, Colonel?" I asked. "As soon as I get the money, suh." "But you will do that anyhow, George." "Yes, I know, Nancy; but I want to settle it in some safe way." Then he gazed at the ceiling in deep thought. "I have it, Major!" And the Colonel seized the pen. The note read as follows : On demand I promise to pay Ann Carter the sum of six hun- dred dollars, value received, with interest at the rate of six per cent from January 1st. Payable as soon as possible. GEORGE FAIRFAX CARTER I looked to see what effect this unexpected influx of wealth would produce on the dear lady ; but the trustful smile never wavered. She read to the very end the modest scrap of paper so suddenly enriched by the Colonel's signature, repeated in a whisper to herself "Payable as soon as possible," folded it with as much care as if it had been a Bank of England note, then thanked the Colonel graciously, and tucked it in her reticule. ON THE WALPOLE ROAD* BY MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN WALPOLE was a lively little rural emporium of trade; thither the villagers from the small country hamlets there- abouts went to make the bulk of their modest purchases. One summer afternoon two women were driving slowly along a road therefrom, in a dusty, old-fashioned chaise, whose bottom was heaped up with brown-paper parcels. One woman might have been seventy, but she looked younger, she was so hale and portly. She had a double, bristling chin, her gray eyes twinkled humorously over her spectacles, and she wore a wide-flaring black straw bonnet with purple bows on the inside of the rim. The afternoon was very warm, and she held in one black-mitted hand a palmleaf fan, which she waved gently, now and then, over against her capacious bosom. The other woman was younger forty, perhaps; her face was plain-featured and energetic. She wore a gray serge dress and drab cotton gloves, and held tightly on to the reins as she drove. Now and then she would slap them briskly upon the horse's back. He was a heavy, hard- worked farm animal, and was disposed to jog along at an easy pace this warm afternoon. There had not been any rain for a long time, and every- thing was very dusty. This road was not much traveled, and grass was growing between the wheel-ruts; but the soil flew up like smoke from the horse's hoofs and the wheels. The blackberry- vines climbing over the stone walls on either side, and the meadow-sweet and hardback bushes 1 Reprinted by permission from A Humble Romance and Other Stories, by Mary E. Wilkins. Copyright, 1887, by Harper & Brothers. ON THE WALPOLE ROAD 137 were powdered thickly with dust, and had gray leaves in- stead of green. The big-leaved things, such as burdock, growing close to the ground, had their veins all outlined in dust. The two women rode in a peaceful sort of way ; the old lady fanned herself mildly, and the younger one slapped the horse mechanically. Neither spoke, till they emerged into a more open space on a hill-crest. There they had an uninterrupted view of the northwest sky; the trees had hidden it before. "I declare, Almiry," said the old lady, "we air goin' to hev a thunder-shower." "It won't get up till we get home," replied the other, "an* ten chances to one it'll go round by the north, any- way, and not touch us at all. That's the way they do half the time here. If I'd 'a' seen a cloud as black as that down where I used to live, I'd 'a' known for sure there was goin' to be a heavy tempest, but here there's no knowin' any- thing about it. I would n't worry, anyway, Mis' Green, if it should come up before we get home; the horse ain't afraid of lightnin'." The old lady looked comical. "He ain't afraid of any- thing, is he, Almiry?" "No," answered her companion, giving the horse a spite- ful slap ; "he don't know enough to get scared even, that's a fact. I don't believe anything short of Gabriel's trumpet would start him up a bit." "I don't think you ought to speak that way, Almiry," said the old lady ; "it's kinder makin' light o' sacred things, seems to me. But as long as you've spoke of it, I don't be- lieve that would start him up either. Though I'll tell you one thing, Almiry : I don't believe thar's goin' to be any- thing very frightful 'bout Gabriel's trumpet. I think it's goin' to come kinder like the robins an' the flowers do in the spring, kinder meltin' right into everything else, sweet an' nateral like." 138 AMERICAN TRADITIONS "That ain't accordin' to Scripture," said Almira, stoutly. "It's accordin' to my Scripture. I tell you what 'tis, Almiry, I've found out one thing a-livin j so long, an' that is, thar ain't so much difference in things on this airth as thar is in the folks that see 'em. It's me a-seein' the Scrip- turs, an' it's you a-seein' the Scripturs, Almiry, an' you see one thing an' I another, an' I dare say we both see crooked mostly, with maybe a little straight mixed up with it, an* we'll never reely know how much is straight till we see to read it by the light of the New Jerusalem." "You ought to ha' ben a minister, Mis' Green." " Wa'al, so I would ha' ben ef I had ben a man ; I allers thought I would. But I s'pose the Lord thought there was more need of an extra hand just then to raise up children, an' bake an* brew an' wash dishes. You'd better drive along a leetle faster ef you kin, Almiry." Almira jerked the reins viciously and clucked, but the horse jogged along undisturbed. "It ain't no use," said she. "You might as well try to start up a stone post." "Wa'al, mebbe the shower won't come up," said the old lady, and she leaned back and began peacefully fanning herself. "That cloud makes me think of Aunt Rebecca's fun- eral," she broke out, suddenly. "Did I ever tell you about it, Almiry?" "No ; I don't think you ever did, Mis' Green." "Wa'al, mebbe you'll like to hear it, as we're joggin* along. It'll keep us from getting aggervated at the horse, poor, dumb thing ! "Wa'al, you see, Almiry, Aunt Rebecca was my aunt on my mother's side my mother's oldest sister she was an' I'd allers thought a sight of her. This happened twenty year ago or more, before Israel died. She was allers such an own-folks sort of a woman, an' jest the best hand when any one was sick. I'll never forgit how she missed me ON THE WALPOLE ROAD 139 through the typhus fever, the year after mother died. Thar I was took sick all of a sudden, an* four leetle chil- dren cryin', an' Israel couldn't get anybody but that shift- less Lyons woman, far and near, to come an* help. When Aunt Rebecca heerd of it she jest left everything an' come. She packed off that Lyons woman, bag an' baggage, an* tuk right hold, as nobody but her could ha' known how to. I allers knew I should ha* died ef it hadn't been for her. "She lived ten miles off, on this very road, too, but we allers used to visit back an' forth. I couldn't get along without goin' to see Aunt Rebecca once in so often; I'd get jest as lonesome an' homesick as could be. " So, feelin' that way, it ain't surprisin' that it gave me an awful shock when I heerd she was dead that mornin*. They sent the word by a man that they hailed, drivin' by. He was comin' down here to see about sellin' a horse, an' he said he'd jest as soon stop an' tell us as not. A real nice sort of a man he was a store-keeper from Comstock. Wa'al, I see Israel standin' out in the road an' talkin' with the man, an' I wondered what it could be about. But when he came in an' told me that Aunt Rebecca was dead, I jest sat right down, kinder stunned like. I couldn't ha' felt much worse ef it had been my mother. An' it was so awful sudden ! Why, I'd seen her only the week before, an' she looked uncommon smart for her, I thought. Ef it had been Uncle Enos, her husband, I shouldn't ha' wondered. He'd had the heart-disease for years, an' we'd thought he might die any minute ; but to think of her " I jest stared at Israel. I felt too bad to cry. I didn't, till I happened to look down at the apron I had on. It was like a dress she had ; she had a piece left, an' she gave it to me for an apron. When I saw that, I bust right out sobbin*. "*O Lord,' says I, 'this apron she give me! Oh, dear! dear! dear!' "'Sarah/ says Israel, 'it's the will of the Lord.' 140 AMERICAN TRADITIONS "'I know it,' says I, 'but she's dead, an' she gave me this apron, dear blessed woman ' ; an' I went right on cryin', though he tried to stop me. Every time I looked at that apron, it seemed as if I should die. "Thar wa'n't any particulars, Israel said. All the man that told him knew was that a woman hailed him from one of the front windows as he was drivin' by, and asked him to stop an' tell us. I s'posed most likely the woman that hailed him was Mis' Simmons, a widder woman that used to work for Aunt Rebecca busy times. "Wa'al, Israel kinder hurried me to get ready. The funeral was app'inted at two o'clock, an' we had a horse that wa'n't much swifter on the road than the one you're drivin' now. "So I got into my best black gown the quickest I could. I had a good black shawl, and a black bunnit too ; so I looked quite decent. I felt reel glad I had 'em. They were things I had when mother died. I don't see hardly how I had happened to keep the bunnit, but it was lucky I did. I got ready in such a flutter that I got on my black gown over the caliker one I'd been wearin', an' never knew it till I came to go to bed that night, but I don't think it was much wonder. "We'd been havin* a terrible dry spell, jest as we've been havin' now, an' everything was like powder. I thought my dress would be spoilt before we got thar. The horse was dreadful lazy, an' it was nothin' but g'langin' an' slappin' an' whippin* all the way, an' it didn't amount to nothin' then. "When we'd got halfway thar or so, thar come up an awful thunder-shower from the northwest, jest as it's doin' to-day. Wa'al, thar wa'n't nowhar to stop, an' we driv right along. The horse wa'n't afraid of lightnin', an' we got in under the shay top as far as we could, an' pulled the blanket up over us ; but we got drippin' wet. An' thar was ON THE WALPOLE ROAD 141 Israel in his meetin' coat, an* me in my best gown. Take it with the dust an* everything, they never looked anyhow again. "Wa'al, Israel g'langed to the horse, an* put the whip over her, but she jest jogged right along. What with feelin* so about Aunt Rebecca, an* worryin' about Israel's coat an' my best gown, I thought I should never live to git thar. "When we driv by the meetin'-house at Four Corners, where Aunt Rebecca lived, it was five minutes after two, an* two was the time sot for the funeral. I did feel reel worked up to think we was late, an' we chief mourners. When we got to the house thar seemed to be consider'ble goin' on around it, folks goin' in an' out, an' standin' in the yard, an' Israel said he didn't believe we was late, after all. He hollered to a man standin' by the fence, an' asked him if they had had the funeral. The man said no ; they was goin' to hev it at the meetin'-house at three o'clock. We was glad enough to hear that, an' Israel said he would drive round an' hitch the horse, an' I'd better go in an' get dried off a little, an' see the folks. " It had slacked up then, an' was only drizzlin* a leetle, an' lightnin' a good ways off now an' then. "Wa'al, I got out, an' went up to the house. Thar was quite a lot of men I knew standin' round the door an' in the entry, but they only bowed kinder stiff an' solemn, an* moved to let me pass. I noticed the entry floor was drip- pin' wet too. 'Been rainin' in,' thinks I. 'I wonder why they didn't shet the door.' I went right into the room on the left-hand side of the entry that was the settin'- room an' thar, a-settin' in a cheer by the winder, jest as straight an' smart as could be, in her new black bunnit an' gown, was Aunt Rebecca. "Wa'al, ef I was to tell you what I did, Almiry, I s'pose you'd think it was awful. But I s'pose the sudden change from feelin' so bad made me kinder highstericky. I jest sot 142 AMERICAN TRADITIONS right down in the first cheer I come to an' laughed; I laughed till the tears was runnin' down my cheeks, an' it was all I could do to breathe. There was quite a lot of Uncle Enos's folks settin' round the room his brother's family an' some cousins an' they looked at me as ef they thought I was crazy. But seein' them look only sot me off again. Some of the folks came in from the entry, an' stood starin' at me, but I jest laughed harder. Finally Aunt Rebecca comes up to me. " 'For mercy's sake, Sarah,' says she, 'what air you doin' so for?' f "Oh, dear !' says I. *I thought you was dead, an' thar you was a-settin'. Oh, dear !' "And then I begun to laugh again. I was awful 'shamed of myself, but I couldn't stop to save my life. "'For the land's sake, Aunt Rebecca,' says I, 'is thar a funeral or a weddin' ? An' ef thar is a funeral, who's dead ? ' '"Come into the bedroom with me a minute, Sarah,' says she. "Then we went into her bedroom, that opened out of the settin'-room, an' sot down, an' she told me that it was Uncle Enos that was dead. It seems she was the one that hailed the man, an' he was a little hard of hearin', an' thar was a misunderstandin' between 'em some way. "Uncle Enos had died very sudden, the day before, of heart-disease. He went into the settin'-room after break- fast, an' sot down by the winder, an' Aunt Rebecca found him thar dead in his cheer when she went in a few minutes afterwards. " It was such awful hot weather they had to hurry about the funeral. But that wa'n't all. Then she went on to tell me the rest. They had had the awfulest time that ever was. The shower had come up about one o'clock, and the barn had been struck by lightnin'. It was a big new one that Uncle Enos had sot great store by. He had laid out ON THE WALPOLE ROAD 143 considerable money on it, an' they'd jest got in twelve ton of hay. I s'pose that was how it happened to be struck. A barn is a good deal more likely to be when they've jest got hay in. Well, everybody sot to an' put the fire in the barn out. They handed buckets of water up to the men on the roof, an' put that out without much trouble by takin' it in time. "But after they'd got that put out they found the house was on fire. The same thunderbolt that struck the barn had struck that too, an' it was blazin' away at one end of the roof pretty lively "Wa'al, they went to work at that then, an' they'd jest got that fairly put out a few minutes before we come. Nothin' was hurt much, only thar was a good deal of water round : we had hard work next day cleanin' of it up. "Aunt Rebecca allers was a calm sort of woman, an' she didn't seem near as much flustered by it all as most folks would have been. "I couldn't help wonderin', an' lookin' at her pretty sharp to see how she took Uncle Enos's death, too. You see, thar was something kinder curious about their gittin' married. I'd heerd about it all from mother. I don't s'pose she ever wanted him, nor cared about him the best she could do, any more than she would have about any good, respectable man that was her neighbor. Uncle Enos was a pretty good sort of a man, though he was allers dreadful sot in his ways, an' I believe it would have been wuss than death, any time, for him to have given up anything he had determined to hev. But I must say I never thought so much of him after mother told me what she did. You see, the way of it was, my grandmother Wilson, Aunt Rebecca's mother, was awful sot on her hevin' him, an' she was dread- ful nervous an' feeble, an' Aunt Rebecca jest give in to her. The wust of it was, thar was some one else she wanted too, an' he wanted her. Abner Lyons his name was ; he wa'n't 144 AMERICAN TRADITIONS any relation to the Lyons woman I had when I was sick. He was a real likely young feller, an* thar wa'n't a thing ag'in* him that any one else could see; but grandmother fairly hated him, an* mother said she did believe her mother would rather hev buried Rebecca than seen her married to him. Well, grandmother took on, an* acted so, that Aunt Rebecca give in an* said she'd marry Uncle Enos, an* the weddin'-day come. "Mother said she looked handsome as a pictur', but thar was somethin* kinder awful about her when she stood up before the minister with Uncle Enos to be married. "She was dressed in green silk, an* had some roses in her hair. I kin imagine jest how she must hev looked. She was a good-lookin' woman when I knew her, an' they said when she was young there wa'n't many to compare with her. "Mother said Uncle Enos looked nice, but he had his mouth kinder hard sot, as ef now he'd got what he wanted, an* meant to hang on to it. He'd known all the time jest how matters was. Aunt Rebecca'd told him the whole story ; she declared she wouldn't marry him, without she did. "I s'pose, at the last minute, that Aunt Rebecca got kinder desp'rate, an' a realizin' sense of what she was doin' come over her, an' she thought she'd make one more effort to escape ; for when the minister asked that question 'bout thar bein' any obstacles to their gittin' married, an' ef thar were, let 'em speak up, or forever hold their peace, Aunt Rebecca did speak up. Mother said she looked straight at the parson, an' her eyes was shinin' and her cheeks white as lilies. "'Yes,' says she, 'tha-r is an obstacle, an' I will speak, an' then I will forever hold my peace. I don't love this man I'm standin' beside of, an' I love another man. Now ef Enos Fairweather wants me after what I've said, I've promised to marry him, an' you kin go on ; but I won't tell or act a lie before God an' man.' ON THE WALPOLE ROAD 14* "Mother said it was awful. You could hev heerd a pin, drop anywheres in the room. The minister jest stopped short an* looked at Uncle Enos, an* Uncle Enos nodded his head for him to go on. "But then the minister begun to hev doubts as to whether or no he ought to marry 'em after what Aunt Rebecca had said, an' it seemed for a minute as ef thar wouldn't be any weddin' at all. "But grandmother begun to cry, an' take on, an* Aunt Rebecca jest turned round an' looked at her. 'Go on,' says she to the minister. "Mother said ef thar was ever anybody looked fit to be a martyr, Aunt Rebecca did then. But it never seemed to me 't was right. Marryin' to please your relations an' dyin' to please the Lord is two things. "Wa'al, I never thought much of Uncle Enos after I heerd that story, though, as I said before, I guess he was a pretty good sort of a man. The principal thing that was bad about him, I guess, was, he was bound to hev Aunt Rebecca, an' he didn't let anything, even proper self- respect, stand in his way. "Aunt Rebecca allers did her duty by him, an' was a good wife an' good housekeeper. They never had any chil- dren. But I don't s'pose she was ever really happy or con- tented, an* I don't see how she could hev respected Uncle Enos, scursly, for my part, but you'd never hev known but what she did. "So I looked at her pretty sharp, as we sot thar in her little bedroom that opened out of the settin'-room ; thar was jest room for one cheer beside the bed, an' I sot on the bed. It seemed rather awful, with him a-layin' dead in the best room, but I couldn't help wonderin' ef she wouldn't marry Abner Lyons now. He'd never got married, but lived, all by himself, jest at the rise of the hill from where Aunt Rebecca lived. He'd never had a housekeeper, but 146 AMERICAN TRADITIONS jest shifted for himself, an* folks said his house was as neat as wax, an* he could cook an* wash dishes as handy as a woman. He used to hev his washin' out on the line by seven o'clock of a Monday mornin', anyhow ; that I know, for I've seen it myself; an' the clothes looked white as snow. I shouldn't hev been ashamed of 'em myself. "Aunt Rebecca looked very calm, an' I don't think she'd ben cryin'. But then that wa'n't nothin' to go by ; 'twa'n't her way. I don't believe she'd 'a* cried ef it had been Abner Lyons. Though I don't know, maybe, ef she'd married the man she'd wanted, she'd cried easier. For all Aunt Rebecca was so kind an' sympathizin' to other folks, she'd always seemed like a stone 'bout her own troubles. I don't s'pose, ef the barn an' house had both burned down, an* left her without a roof over her head, she'd 'a' seemed any different. I kin see her now, jest as she looked, settin' thar, tellin' me the story that would hev flustrated any other woman 'most to death. But her voice was jest as low an' even, an' never shook. Her hair was gray, but it was kinder crinkly, an' her forehead was as white an' smooth as a young girl's. "Aunt Rebecca's troubles always stayed in her heart, I s'pose, an* never pricked through. Except for her gray hair, she never looked as ef she'd had one. "She never took on any more when she went to the funeral, for they buried him at last, poor man. He had 'most as hard a time gittin* buried as he did gittin' mar- ried. I couldn't help peekin' round to see ef Abner Lyons was thar, an' he was, on the other side of the aisle from me. An' he was lookin' straight at Uncle Enos's coffin, that stood up in front under the pulpit, with the curiousest ex- pression that I ever did see. "He didn't look glad reely. I couldn't say he did, but all I could think of was a man who'd been runnin' an' runnin* to get to a place, an' at length had got in sight of it. ON THE WALPOLE ROAD 147 "Maybe 'twas dreadful for him to go to a man's funeral an' look that way, but natur' is natur', an' I always felt' somehow that ef Uncle Enos chose to do as he did 'twa'n't anythin' more than he ought to hev expected when he was dead. "But I did feel awful ashamed an' wicked, thinkin' of such things, with the poor man layin' dead before me. An* when I went up to look at him, layin' thar so helpless, I cried like a baby. Poor Uncle Enos ! It ain't for us to be down on folks after everything's all over. "Well, Aunt Rebecca married Abner Lyons 'bout two years after Uncle Enos died, an' they lived together jest five years an' seven months ; then she was took sudden with cholera-morbus from eatin' currants, an' died. He lived a year an* a half or so longer, an' then he died in a kind of consumption. "'Twa'n't long they had to be happy together, an' some- times I used to think they wa'n't so happy after all ; for thar's no mistake about it, Abner Lyons was awful fussy. I s'pose his livin' alone so long made him so ; but I don't believe Aunt Rebecca ever made a loaf of bread, after she was married, without his havin' something to say about it ; an' ef thar's anything that's aggervatin' to a woman, it's havin' a man fussin' around in her kitchen. "But ef Aunt Rebecca didn't find anything just as she thought it was goin' to be, she never let on she was disap- p'inted. "I declare, Almiry, thar's the house in sight, an* the shower has gone round to the northeast, an' we ain't had a speck of rain to lay the dust. " Well, my story's gone round to the northeast too. Ain't you tired out hearin' me talk, Almiry ? " "No, indeed, Mis' Green," replied Almira, slapping the reins; "I liked to hear you, only it's kind of come to me, as I've been listening, that I had heard it before. 148 AMERICAN TRADITIONS The last time I took you to Walpole, I guess, you told it." " Wa'al, I declare, I shouldn't wonder ef I did." Then the horse turned cautiously around the corner, and stopped willingly before the house. AT THE 'CADIAN BALL 1 BY KATE CHOPIN BOBIN6T, that big, brown, good-natured Bobinot, had no intention of going to the ball, even though he knew Calixta would be there. For what came of those balls but heart- ache, and a sickening disinclination for work the whole week through, till Saturday night came again and his tortures began afresh ? Why could he not love Ozeina, who would marry him to-morrow ; or Fronie, or any one of a dozen others, rather than that little Spanish vixen? Ca- lixta's slender foot had never touched Cuban soil ; but her mother's had, and the Spanish was in her blood all the same. For that reason the prairie people forgave her much that they would not have overlooked in their own daugh- ters or sisters. Her eyes Bobinot thought of her eyes, and weakened the bluest, the drowsiest, most tantalizing that ever looked into a man's; he thought of her flaxen hair that kinked worse than a mulatto's close to her head; that broad, smiling mouth and tip-tilted nose, that full figure ; that voice like a rich contralto song, with cadences in it that must have been taught by Satan, for there was no one else to teach her tricks on that 'Cadian prairie. Bobinot thought of them all as he ploughed his rows of cane. There had even been a breath of scandal whispered about her a year ago, when she went to Assumption but why talk of it ? No one did now. " C'est Espagnol, fa," most of them said with lenient shoulder-shrugs. "Bon chien tient de race" the old men mumbled over their pipes, stirred by 1 Reprinted by permission from Bayou Folk, by Elate Chopin. Copy- right by Houghton Mifflin Company. 150 AMERICAN TRADITIONS recollections. Nothing was made of it, except that Fronie threw it up to Calixta when the two quarreled and fought on the church steps after mass one Sunday, about a lover. Calixta swore roundly in fine 'Cadian French and with true Spanish spirit, and slapped Fronie 's face. Fronie had slapped her back ; " Tiens, bocotte, va! " "Espdce de lionise; prends fa, et fa!" till the cure himself was obliged to hasten and make peace between them. Bobinot thought of it all, and would not go to the ball. But in the afternoon, over at Friedheimer's store, where he was buying a trace-chain, he heard some one say that Alcee Laballiere would be there. Then wild horses could not have kept him away. He knew how it would be or rather he did not know how it would be if the handsome young planter came over to the ball as he sometimes did. If Alce happened to be in a serious mood, he might only go to the card-room and play a round or two ; or he might stand out on the galleries talking crops and politics with the old people. But there was no telling. A drink or two could put the devil in his head that was what Bobinot said to himself, as he wiped the sweat from his brow with his red bandanna ; a gleam from Calixta's eyes, a flash of her ankle, a twirl of her skirts could do the same. Yes, Bobinot would go to the ball. That was the year Alcee Laballiere put nine hundred acres in rice. It was putting a good deal of money into the ground, but the returns promised to be glorious. Old Madame Laballiere, sailing about the spacious galleries in her white volante, figured it all out in her head. Clarisse, her god-daughter, helped her a little, and together they built more air-castles than enough. Alee worked like a mule that time ; and if he did not kill himself, it was be- cause his constitution was an iron one. It was an everyday affair for him to come in from the field well-nigh exhausted, AT THE 'CADIAN BALL 151 and wet to the waist. He did not mind if there were visi- tors; he left them to his mother and Clarisse. There were often guests : young men and women who came up from the city, which was but a few hours away, to visit his beautiful kinswoman. She was worth going a good deal farther than that to see. Dainty as a lily ; hardy as a sunflower ; slim, tall, graceful like one of the reeds that grew in the marsh. Cold and kind and cruel by turn, and everything that was aggravating to Alcee. He would have liked to sweep the place of those visitors, often. Of the men, above all, with their ways and their manners ; their swaying of fans like women, and dandling about hammocks. He could have pitched them over the levee into the river, if it hadn't meant murder. That was Alcee. But he must have been crazy the day he came in from the rice-field, and, toil-stained as he was, clasped Clarisse by the arms and panted a volley of hot, blistering love-words into her face. No man had ever spoken love to her like that. "Monsieur ! " she exclaimed, looking him full in the eyes, without a quiver. Alcee's hands dropped and his glance wavered before the chill of her calm, clear eyes. "Par exemple!" she muttered disdainfully, as she turned from him, deftly adjusting the careful toilet that he had so brutally disarranged. That happened a day or two before the cyclone came that cut into the rice like fine steel. It was an awful thing, coming so swiftly, without a moment's warning in which to light a holy candle or set a piece of blessed palm burning. Old madame wept openly and said her beads, just as her son Didier, the New Orleans one, would have done. If such a thing had happened to Alphonse, the Laballiere planting cotton up in Natchitoches, he would have raved and stormed like a second cyclone, and made his surroundings 152 AMERICAN TRADITIONS. unbearable for a day or two. But Alee took the mis- fortune differently. He looked ill and gray after it, and said nothing. His speechlessness was frightful. Clarisse 's heart melted with tenderness ; but when she offered her soft, purring words of condolence, he accepted them with mute indifference. Then she and her nenaine wept afresh in each other's arms. A night or two later, when Clarisse went to her window to kneel there in the moonlight and say her prayers before retiring, she saw that Bruce, Alcee's negro servant, had led his master's saddle-horse noiselessly along the edge of the sward that bordered the gravel-path, and stood holding him near by. Presently, she heard Alcee quit his room, which was beneath her own, and traverse the lower portico. As he emerged from the shadow and crossed the strip of moonlight, she perceived that he carried a pair of well-filled saddle-bags which he at once flung across the animal's back. He then lost no time in mounting, and after a brief exchange of words with Bruce, went cantering away, tak- ing no precaution to avoid the noisy gravel as the negro had done. Clarisse had never suspected that it might be Alcee's custom to sally forth from the plantation secretly, and at such an hour ; for it was nearly midnight. And had it not been for the telltale saddle-bags, she would only have crept to bed, to wonder, to fret and dream unpleasant dreams. But her impatience and anxiety would not be held in check. Hastily unbolting the shutters of her door that opened upon the gallery, she stepped outside and called softly to the old negro. "Gre't Peter ! Miss Clarisse ! I wasn' sho it was a ghos* o' w'at, stan'in' up dah, plumb in de night, dataway." He mounted halfway up the long, broad flight of stairs. She was standing at the top. "Bruce, w'ere has Monsieur Alce gone?" she asked. AT THE 'CADIAN BALL 153 " W'y, he gone 'bout he business, I reckin," replied Bruce, striving to be noncommittal at the outset. "Were has Monsieur Alcee gone?" she reiterated, stamping her bare foot. "I won't ,stan' any nonsense or any lies ; mine, Bruce." "I don* ric'lic ez I eva tole you lie yit, Miss Clarisse. Mista Alcee, he all broke up, sho." "Were has he gone? Ah, Sainte Vierge! Faut de la patience! Butor, va!" "Wen I was in he room, a-breshin' off he clo'es to-day," the darkey began, settling himself against the stair-rail, "he look dat speechless an* down, I say, 'You 'pear tu me like some pussun w'at gwine have a spell o' sickness, Mista Alcee.' He say, 'You reckin?' T dat he git up, go look hisse'f stiddy in de glass. Den he go to de chimbly an' jerk up de quinine bottle an' po' a gre't hoss-dose on to he han'. An' he swalla dat mess in a wink, an' wash hit down wid a big dram o' w'iskey w'at he keep in he room, ag'inst he come all soppin' wet outen de fieP. "He 'lows, 'No, I ain' gwine be sick, Bruce.' Den he square off. He say, 'I kin mak' out to stan' up an' gi* an* take wid any man I knows, lessen hit's John L. Sulvun. But w'en God A'mighty an' a 'oman jines fo'ces ag'in' me, dat's one too many fur me.' I tell 'im, ' Jis so,' whils' I'se makin' out tobresh a spot off w'at ain' dah, on he coat colla. I tell 'im, 'You wants li'le res', suh.' He say, 'No, I wants li'le fling ; dat w'at I wants ; an' I gwine git it. Pitch me a fis'ful o' clo'es in dem 'ar saddle-bags.' Dat w'at he say. Don't you bodda, missy. He jis' gone a-caperin' yonda to de 'Cajun ball. Uh uh de skeeters is fair a-swarmin* like bees roun' yo' foots !" The mosquitoes were indeed attacking Clarisse's white feet savagely. She had unconsciously been alternately rubbing one foot over the other during the darkey's recital. "The 'Cadian ball," she repeated contemptuously. 154 AMERICAN TRADITIONS "Humph ! Par exemple! Nice conduc' for a Laballiere. An' he needs a saddle-bag, fill' with clothes, to go to the 'Cadianball!" "Oh, Miss Clarisse ; you go on to bed, chile ; git yo' soun' sleep. He 'low he come back in couple weeks o' so. I kiarn be repeatin' lot o' truck w'at young mans say, out heah face o* a young gal." Clarisse said no more, but turned and abruptly reentered the house. " You done talk too much wid yo' motif a'ready, you ole fool nigga, you," muttered Bruce to himself as he walked away. Alc6e reached the ball very late, of course too late for the chicken gumbo which had been served at midnight. The big, low-ceiled room they called it a hall was packed with men and women dancing to the music of three fiddles. There were broad galleries all around it. There was a room at one side where sober-faced men were play- ing cards. Another, in which babies were sleeping, was called le pare aux petits. Any one who is white may go to a 'Cadian ball, but he must pay for his lemonade, his coffee, and chicken gumbo. And he must behave himself like a 'Cadian. Grosbceuf was giving this ball. He had been giv- ing them since he was a young man, and he was a middle- aged one, now. In that time he could recall but one dis- turbance, and that was caused by American railroaders, who were not in touch with their surroundings and had no business there. " Ces maudits gens du raiderode" Grosboeuf called them. Alcee Laballiere's presence at the ball caused a flutter even among the men, who could not but admire his "nerve" after such misfortune befalling him. To be sure, they knew the Laballieres were rich that there were resources East, and more again in the city. But they felt it took a brave AT THE 'CADIAN BALL 155 homme to stand a blow like that philosophically. One old gentleman, who was in the habit of reading a Paris news- paper and knew things, chuckled t gleefully to everybody that Alcee's conduct was altogether chic, mais chic. That he had more panache than Boulanger. Well, perhaps he had. But what he did not show outwardly was that he was in a mood for ugly things to-night. Poor Bobinot alone felt it vaguely. He discerned a gleam of it in Alcee's handsome eyes, as the young planter stood in the doorway, looking with rather feverish glance upon the assembly, while he laughed and talked with a 'Cadian farmer who was beside him. Bobinot himself was dull-looking and clumsy. Most o the men were. But the young women were very beautiful. The eyes that glanced into Alcee's as they passed him were big, dark, soft as those of the young heifers standing out in the cool prairie grass. But the belle was Calixta. Her white dress was^ not nearly so handsome or well made as Frame's (she and Fronie had quite forgotten the battle on the church steps, and were friends again), nor were her slippers so stylish as those of Ozeina ; and she fanned herself with a handker- chief, since she had broken her red fan at the last ball, and her aunts and uncles were not willing to give her another. But all the men agreed she was at her best to-night. Such animation ! and abandon ! Such flashes of wit ! "He*, Bobinot! Mais w'at's the matta? Wat you standin' plante Id like ole Ma'ame Tina's cow in the bog, you?" That was good. That was an excellent thrust at Bobi- not, who had forgotten the figure of the dance with his mind bent on other things, and it started a clamor of laughter at his expense. He joined good-naturedly. It was better to receive even such notice as that from Calixta than none at all. But Madame Suzanne, sitting in a corner, 156 AMERICAN TRADITIONS whispered to her neighbor that if Ozeina were to conduct herself in a like manner, she should immediately be taken out to the mule-cart and driven home. The women did not always approve of Calixta. Now and then were short lulls in the dance, when couples flocked out upon the galleries for a brief respite and fresh air. The moon had gone down pale in the west, and hi the east was yet no promise of day. After such an interval, when the dancers again assembled to resume the inter- rupted quadrille, Calixta was not among them. She was sitting upon a bench out in the shadow, with Alcee beside her. They were acting like fools. He had at- tempted to take a little gold ring from her finger ; just for the fun of it, for there was nothing he could have done with the ring but replace it again. But she clinched her hand tight. He pretended that it was a very difficult matter to open it. Then he kept the hand in his. They seemed to forget about it. He played with her ear-ring, a thin cres- cent of gold hanging from her small brown ear. He caught a wisp of the kinky hair that had escaped its fastening, and rubbed the ends of it against his shaven cheek. "You know, last year in Assumption, Calixta?" They belonged to the younger generation, so preferred to speak English. "Don't come say Assumption to me, M'sieur Alcee. I done yeard Assumption till I'm plumb sick." " Yes, I know. The idiots ! Because you were in Assump- tion, and I happened to go to Assumption, they must have it that we went together. But it was nice hein, Calixta ? in Assumption?" They saw Bobinot emerge from the hall and stand a moment outside the lighted doorway, peering uneasily and searchingly into the darkness. He did not see them, and went slowly back. A "There is Bobinot looking for you. You are going to set AT THE 'CADIAN BALL 157 poor Bobin6t crazy. You'll marry him some day; hein, Calixta?" "I don't say no, me," she replied; striving to withdraw her hand, which he held more firmly for the attempt. "But come, Calixta; you know you said you would go back to Assumption, just to spite them." "No, I neva said that, me. You mus' dreamt that." "Oh, I thought you did. You know I'm going down to the city." "Wen?" "To-night." "Betta make has'e, then; it's mos* day." "Well,to-morrow'lldo." " Wat you goin' do, yonda ? " "I don't know. Drown myself in the lake, maybe; un- less you go down there to visit your uncle." Calixta's senses were reeling; and they well-night left her when she felt Alcee's lips brush her ear like the touch of a rose. " Mista Alcee ! Is dat Mista Alcee ? " the thick voice of a negro was asking ; he stood on the ground, holding to the banister-rails near which the couple sat. "Wat do you want now?" cried Alcee impatiently. "Can't I have a moment of peace?" "I ben huntin' you high an' low, suh," answered the man. "Dey dey some one in de road, onda de mulbare- tree, want see you a minute." "I wouldn't go out to the road to see the angel Gabriel. And if you come back here with any more talk, I'll have to break your neck." The negro turned mumbling away. Alcee and Calixta laughed softly about it. Her boister- ousness was all gone. They talked low, and laughed softly, as lovers do. "Alcee ! Alcee Laballiere !" It was not the negro's voice this time ; but one that went 158 AMERICAN TRADITIONS through AlceVs body like an electric shock, bringing him to his feet. Clarisse was standing there in her riding-habit, where the negro had stood. For an instant confusion reigned in Alcee's thoughts, as with one who awakes suddenly from a dream. But he felt that something of serious import had brought his cousin to the ball in the dead of night. "Wat does this mean, Clarisse?" he asked. "It means something has happen' at home. You mus* come." "Happened to maman?" he questioned, in alarm. "No; nSnaine is well, and asleep. It is something else. Not to frighten you. But you mus' come. Come with me, Alcee." There was no need for the imploring note. He would have followed the voice anywhere. She had now recognized the girl sitting back on the bench. "Ah, c'est vous, Calixta? Comment pa va, mon enfant?" "Tcha va Ven; et vous, mam'zelle?" Alcee swung himself over the low rail and started to fol- low Clarisse, without a word, without a glance back at the girl. He had forgotten he was leaving her there. But Clarisse whispered something to him, and he turned back to say "Good-night, Calixta," and offer his hand to press through the railing. She pretended not to see it. "How come that ? You settin' yere by yo'se'f , Calixta ? " It was Bobinot who had found her there alone. The danc- ers had not yet come out. She looked ghastly in the faint, gray light struggling out of the east. "Yes, that's me. Go yonda in the pare aux petits an* ask Aunt Olisse fu' my hat. She knows w'ere 'tis. I want to go home, me." "How you came?" AT THE 'CADIAN BALL 159 "I come afoot, with the Cateaus. But I'm goin' now. I ent goin' wait fu' 'em. I'm plumb wo' out, me." "Kin I go with you, Calixta?" "I don' care." They went together across the open prairie and along the edge of the fields, stumbling in the uncertain light. He told her to lift her dress that was getting wet and bedraggled ; for she was pulling at the weeds and grasses with her hands. " I don' care ; it's got to go in the tub, anyway. You been sayin' all along you want to marry me, Bobinot. Well, if you want, yet, I don' care, me." The glow of a sudden and overwhelming happiness shone out in the brown, rugged face of the young Acadian. He could not speak, for very joy. It choked him. "Oh, well, if you don't want," snapped Calixta, flip- pantly, pretending to be piqued at his silence. "Bon Dieu! You know that makes me crazy, w'at you sayin'. You mean that, Calixta ? You ent goin' turn roun' ag'in?" " I neva tole you that much yet, Bobinot. I mean that. Tiens" and she held out her hand in the business-like man- ner of a man who clinches a bargain with a hand-clasp. Bobinot grew bold with happiness and asked Calixta to kiss him. She turned her face, that was almost ugly after the night's dissipation, and looked steadily into his. "I don' want to kiss you, Bobinot," she said, turning away again, "not to-day. Some other time. Bonte divine! ent you satisfy, yet! 19 "Oh, I'm satisfy, Calixta," he said. .<* Riding through a patch of wood, Clarisse's saddle be- came ungirted, and she and Alcee dismounted to readjust it. For the twentieth time he asked her what had happened at home. 160 AMERICAN TRADITIONS " But, Clarisse, w'at is it ? Is it a misfortune ? " "Ah, Dieu sail! It's only something that happen* to me." "To you!" "I saw you go away las' night, Alcee, with those saddle- bags," she said, haltingly, striving to arrange something about the saddle, "an' I made Bruce tell me. He said you had gone to the ball, an' wouldn' be home for weeks an* weeks. I thought, Alcee maybe you were going to to Assumption. I got wild. An' then I knew if you didn't come back, now y to-night, I couldn't stan' it again." She had her face hidden in her arm that she was resting against the saddle when she said that. He began to wonder if this meant love. But she had to tell him so, before he believed it. And when she told him, he thought the face of the Universe was changed just like Bobinot. Was it last week the cyclone had well-nigh ruined him ? The cyclone seemed a huge joke, now. It was he, then, who, an hour ago, was kissing little Calixta's ear and whispering nonsense into it. Calixta was like a myth, now. The one, only, great reality in the world was Clarisse standing before him, telling him that she loved him. In the distance they heard the rapid discharge of pistol- shots ; but it did not disturb them. They knew it was only the negro musicians who had gone into the yard to fire their pistols into the air, as the custom is, and to announce "lebalestfini." THE PEARLS OF LORETO 1 BY GERTRUDE ATHERTON WITHIN memory of the most gnarled and coffee-colored Montereiio never had there been so exciting a race-day. All essential conditions seemed to have held counsel and agreed to combine. Not a wreath of fog floated across the bay to dim the sparkling air. Every horse, every vaquero, was alert and physically perfect. The rains were over ; the dust was not gathered. Pio Pico, Governor of the Californias, was in Monterey on one of his brief infrequent visits. Clad in black velvet, covered with jewels and ropes of gold, he sat on his big chestnut horse at the upper end of the field, with General Castro, Dona Modeste Castro, and other prominent Monterenos, his interest so keen that more than once the official dignity relaxed, and he shouted "Bravo !" with the rest. And what a brilliant sight it was ! The flowers had faded on the hills, for June was upon them ; but gayer than the hills had been was the race-field of Monterey. Caballeros, with silver on their wide gray hats and on their saddles of embossed leather, gold and silver embroidery on their vel- vet scrapes, crimson sashes about their slender waists, sil- ver spurs and buckskin botas, stood tensely in their stirrups as the racers flew by, or, during the short intervals, pressed each other with eager wagers. There was little money in that time. The golden skeleton within the sleeping body of California had not yet been laid bare. But ranches were 1 Reprinted by permission from The Splendid Idle Forties, by Gertrude Atherton. (Part V has been omitted.) Copyright, 1902, by Frederick A. Stokes Company. 162 AMERICAN TRADITIONS lost and won ; thousands of cattle would pass to other hands at the next rodeo; many a superbly caparisoned steed would rear and plunge between the spurs of a new master. And caballeros were not the only living pictures of that memorable day of a time forever gone. Beautiful women in silken fluttering gowns, bright flowers holding the man- tilla from flushed awakened faces, sat their impatient horses as easily as a gull rides a wave. The sun beat down, making dark cheeks pink and white cheeks darker, but those great eyes, strong with their own fires, never faltered. The old women in attendance grumbled vague remon- strances at all things, from the heat to intercepted coquet- ries. But their charges gave the good duefias little heed. They shouted until their little throats were hoarse, smashed their fans, beat the sides of their mounts with their tender Lands, in imitation of the vaqueros. "It is the gayest, the happiest, the most careless life in the world," thought Pio Pico, shutting his teeth, as he looked about him. "But how long will it last? Curse the Americans ! They are coming." But the bright hot spark that convulsed assembled Mon- terey shot from no ordinary condition. A stranger was there, a guest of General Castro, Don Vicente de la Vega y Arillaga, of Los Angeles. Not that a stranger was matter for comment in Monterey, capital of California, but this stranger had brought with him horses which threatened to disgrace the famous winners of the North. Two races had been won already by the black Southern beasts. "Dios de mi alma!" cried the girls, one to the other, "their coats are blacker than our hair ! Their nostrils pulse like a heart on fire ! Their eyes flash like water in the sun ! Ay! the handsome stranger, will he roll us in the dust? Ay! our golden horses, with the tails and manes of silver how beautiful is the contrast with the vaqueros in their black and silver, their soft white linen ! The shame ! the THE PEARLS OF LORETO 163 shame ! if they are put to shame ! Poor Guido ! Will he lose this day, when he has won so many ? But the stranger is so handsome ! Dios de mi vida ! his eyes are like dark blue stars. And he is so cold ! He alone he seems not to care. Madre de Dios I Madre de Dios ! he wins again ! No ! no! no! Yes! Ay/yilyil B-r-a-v-o!" Guido Cabanares dug his spurs into his horse and dashed to the head of the field, where Don Vicente sat at the left of General Castro. He was followed hotly by several friends, sympathetic and indignant. As he rode, he tore off his serape and flung it to the ground; even his silk riding- clothes sat heavily upon his fury. Don Vicente smiled, and rode forward to meet him. "At your service, seiior," he said, lifting his sombrero. "Take your mustangs back to Los Angeles !" cried Don Guido, beside himself with rage, the politeness and dignity of his race routed by passion. "Why do you bring your hideous brutes here to shame me in the eyes of Monterey ? Why" "Yes! Why? Why?" demanded his friends, surround- ing De la Vega. "This is not the huntiliation of a man, but of the North by the accursed South ! You even would take our capital from us ! Los Angeles, the capital of the Cali- fornias!" "What have politics to do with horse-racing ?" asked De la Vega, coldly. " Other strangers have brought their horses to your field, I suppose." " Yes, but they have not won. They have not been from the South." By this time almost every caballero on the field was wheeling about De la Vega. Some felt with Cabanares, others rejoiced in his defeat, but all resented the victory of the South over the North. "Will you run again?" demanded Cabanares. "Certainly. Do you think of putting your knife into my neck?" 164 AMERICAN TRADITIONS Cabanares drew back, somewhat abashed, the indiffer- ence of the other sputtering like water on his passion. "It is not a matter for blood," he said sulkily ; "but the head is hot and words are quick when horses run neck to neck. And, by the Mother of God, you shall not have the last race. My best horse has not run. Viva El Rayo!" "Viva El Rayo !" shouted the caballeros. "And let the race be between you two alone," cried one. "The North or the South ! Los Angeles or Monterey ! It will be the race of our life." "The North or the South !" cried the caballeros, wheel- ing and galloping across the field to the donas. "Twenty leagues to a real for Guido Cabaiiares." "What a pity that Ysabel is not here!" said Dona Modeste Castro to Pio Pico. "How those green eyes of hers would flash to-day !" "She would not come," said the Governor. "She said she was tired of the race." "Of whom do you speak?" asked De la Vega, who had rejoined them. "Of Ysabel Herrera, La Favorita of Monterey," an- swered Pio Pico. "The most beautiful woman in the Cali- fornias, since Chonita Iturbi y Moncada, my Vicente. It is at her uncle's that I stay. You have heard me speak of my old friend ; and surely you have heard of her." , "Ay I" said De la Vega. "I have heard of her." "Viva El Rayo!" "Ay, the ugly brute!" "What name? Vitriolo? Mother of God! Diablo or Demonio would suit him better. He looks as if he had been bred in hell. He will not stand the quirto; and El Rayo is more lightly built. We shall beat by a dozen lengths." The two vaqueros who were to ride the horses had stripped to their soft linen shirts and black velvet trousers, cast aside their sombreros, and bound their heads with THE PEARLS OF LORETO 165 tightly knotted handkerchiefs. Their spurs were fastened to bare brown heels ; the cruel quirto was in the hand of each ; they rode barebacked, winding their wiry legs in and out of a horsehair rope encircling the body of the animal. As they slowly passed the crowd on their way to the start- ing-point at the lower end of the field, and listened to the rattling fire of wagers and comments, they looked defiant, and alive to the importance of the coming event. El Rayo shone like burnished copper, his silver mane and tail glittering as if powdered with diamond-dust. He was long and graceful of body, thin of flank, slender of leg. With arched neck and flashing eyes, he walked with the pride of one who was aware of the admiration he excited. Vitriolo was black and powerful. His long neck fitted into well-placed shoulders. He had great depth of girth, immense length from shoulder-points to hips, big cannon- bones, and elastic pasterns. There was neither amiability nor pride in his mien ; rather a sullen sense of brute power, such as may have belonged to the knights of the Middle Ages. Now and again he curled his lips away from the bit and laid his ears back as if he intended to eat of the elegant Beau Brummel stepping so daintily beside him. Of the antagonistic crowd he took not the slightest notice. "The race begins! Holy Heaven!" The murmur rose to a shout a deep hoarse shout strangely crossed and recrossed by long silver notes ; a thrilling volume of sound rising above a sea of flashing eyes and parted lips and a vivid moving mass of color. Twice the horses scored, and were sent back. The third time they bounded by the starting-post neck and neck, nose to nose. Jose Abrigo, treasurer of Monterey, dashed his sombrero, heavy with silver eagles, to the ground, and the race was begun. Almost at once the black began to gain. Inch by inch he fought his way to the front, and the roar with which the 166 AMERICAN TRADITIONS crowd had greeted the start dropped into the silence cf apprehension. El Rayo was not easily to be shaken off. A third of the distance had been covered, and his nose was abreast of Vitriolo's flank. The vaqueros sat as if carved from sun- baked clay, as lightly as if hollowed, watching each other warily out of the corners of their eyes. The black continued to gain. Halfway from home light was visible between the two horses. The pace became terrific, the excitement so intense that not a sound was heard but that of racing hoofs. The horses swept onward like projectiles, the same smoothness, the same suggestion of eternal flight. The bodies were extended until the tense muscles rose under the satin coats. Vftriolo's eyes flashed viciously; El Rayo's strained with determination. Vi- triolo's nostrils were as red as angry craters; El Rayo's fluttered like paper in the wind. Three quarters of the race was run, and the rider of Vitriolo could tell by the sound of the hoof-beats behind him that he had a good lead of at least two lengths over the Northern champion. A smile curled the corners of his heavy lips ; the race was his already. Suddenly El Rayo's vaquero raised his hand, and down came the maddening quirto, first on one side, then on the other. The spurs dug ; the blood spurted. The crowd burst into a howl of delight as their favorite responded. Startled by the sound, Vitriolo's rider darted a glance over his shoulder, and saw El Rayo bearing down upon him like a thunderbolt, regaining the ground that he had lost, not by inches, but by feet. Two hundred paces from the finish he was at the black's flanks ; one hundred and fifty, he was at his girth ; one hundred, and the horses were neck and neck ; and still the quirto whirred down on El Rayo's heaving flanks, the spurs dug deeper into his quivering flesh. . The vaquero of Vitriolo sat like an image, using neither THE PEARLS OF LORETO 167 whip nor spur, his teeth set, his eyes rolling from the goal ahead to the rider at his side. The breathless intensity of the spectators had burst. They had begun to click their teeth, to mutter hoarsely, then to shout, to gesticulate, to shake their fists in each other's face, to push and scramble for a better view. "Holy God!" cried Pio Pico, carried out of himself, "the South is lost! Vitriolo the magnificent! Ah, who would have thought ? The black by the gold ! Ay! What ! No ! Holy Mary ! Holy God ! " Six strides more and the race is over. With the bark of a coyote the vaquero of the South leans forward over Vitri- olo's neck. The big black responds like a creature of reason. Down comes the quirto once only once. He fairly lifts his horse ahead and shoots into victory, winner by a neck. The South has vanquished the North. The crowd yelled and shouted until it was exhausted. But even Cabanares made no further demonstration to- ward De la Vega. Not only was he weary and depressed, but the victory had been nobly won. It grew late, and they rode to the town, caballeros push- ing as close to donas as they dared, dueiias in close attend- ance, one theme on the lips of all. Anger gave place to re- spect; moreover, De la Vega was the guest of General Castro, the best-beloved man in California. They were willing to extend the hand of friendship ; but he rode last, between the General and Dona Modeste, and seemed to care as little for their good will as for their ill. Pio Pico rode ahead, and as the cavalcade entered the town he broke from it and ascended the hill to carry the news to Ysabel Herrera. Monterey, rising to her pine-spiked hills, swept like a crescent moon about the sapphire bay. The surf roared and fought the white sandhills of the distant horn ; on that nearest the town stood the fort, grim and rude, but pul- 168 AMERICAN TRADITIONS sating with military life, and alert for American onslaught. In the valley the red-tiled white adobe houses studded a little city which was a series of corners radiating from a central irregular street. A few mansions were on the hill- side to the right, brush-crowded sandbanks on the left ; the perfect curve of hills, thick with pine woods and dense green undergrowth, rose high above and around all, a ram- part of splendid symmetry. "Ay! Ysabel! Ysabel!" cried the young people, as they swept down the broad street. "Bring her to us. Ex- cellency. Tell her she shall not know until she comes down. We will tell her. Ay! poor Guido !" The Governor turned and waved his hand, then con- tinued the ascent of the hill, toward a long low house which showed no sign of life. He alighted and glanced into a room opening upon the corridor that traversed the front. The room was large and dimly lighted by deeply set windows. The floor was bare, the furniture of horsehair ; saints and family portraits adorned the white walls ; on a chair lay a guitar ; it was a typical Californian sola of that day. The ships brought few luxuries, beyond raiment and jewels, to even the wealthy of that isolated country. "Ysabel," called the Governor, "where art thou ? Come down to the town and hear the fortune of the races. Al- varado Street streams like a comet. Why should the Star of Monterey withhold her light?" A girl rose from a sofa and came slowly forward to the corridor. Discontent marred her face as she gave her hand to the Governor to kiss, and looked down upon the brilliant town. The Senorita Dona Ysabel Herrera was poor. Were it not for her uncle she would not have where to lay her stately head and she was La Favorita of Monterey, the proudest beauty in California ! Her father had gambled away his last acre, his horse, his saddle, the THE PEARLS OF LORETO 169 serape off his back; then sent his motherless girl to his brother, and buried himself in Mexico. Don Antonio took the child to his heart, and sent for a widowed cousin to be her duefia. He bought her beautiful garments from the ships that touched the port, but had no inclination to gratify her famous longing to hang ropes of pearls on her soft black hair, to wind them about her white neck, and band them above her green resplendent eyes. "Unbend thy brows," said Pio Pico. "Wrinkles were not made for youth." Ysabel moved her brows apart, but the clouds still lay in her eyes. "Thou dost not ask of the races, O thou indifferent one ! What is the trouble, my Ysabel ! Will no one bring the pearls? The loveliest girl in all the Calif ornias has said, 'I will wed no man who does not bring me a lapful of pearls/ and no one has filled the front of that pretty flow- ered gown. But have reason, niha. Remember that our Alta California has no pearls on its shores, and that even the pearl fisheries of the terrible lower country are almost . worn out. Will nothing less content thee ? " * "No, senor." "Dios de mi alma! Thou hast ambition. No woman has had more offered her than thou. But thou art worthy of the most that man could give. Had I not a wife myself, I believe I should throw my jewels and my ugly old head at thy little feet." Ysabel glanced with some envy at the magnificent jewels with which the Governor of the Californias was hung, but did not covet the owner. An uglier man than Pio Pico rarely had entered this world. The upper lip of his enor- mous mouth dipped at the middle ; the broad, thick under lip hung down with its own weight. The nose was big and coarse, although there was a certain spirited suggestion in the cavernous nostrils. Intelligence and reflectiveness were 170 AMERICAN TRADITIONS also in his little eyes, and they were far apart. A small white mustache grew above his mouth; about his chin, from ear to ear, was a short stubby beard, whiter by con- trast with his copper-colored skin. He looked much like an intellectual bear. And Ysabel? In truth, she had reason for her pride. Her black hair, unblemished by gloss or tinge of blue, fell waving to her feet. California, haughty, passionate, rest- less, pleasure-loving, looked from her dark green eyes ; the soft black lashes dropped quickly when they became too expressive. Her full mouth was deeply red, but only a faint pink lay in her white cheeks ; the nose curved at bridge and nostrils. About her low shoulders she held a blue reboso, the finger-tips of each slim hand resting on the opposite elbow. She held her head a little back, and Pio Pico laughed as he looked at her. "Dios!" he said, "but thou might be an Estenega or an Iturbi y Moncada. Surely that lofty head better suits Old Spain than the Republic of Mexico. Draw the reboso about thy head now, and let us go down. They expect thee." She lifted the scarf above her hair, and walked down the steep rutted hill with the Governor, her flowered gown floating with a silken rustle about her. In a few moments she was listening to the tale of the races. "Ay, Ysabel ! Dios de mi alma! What a day ! A young senor from Los Angeles won the race almost all the races the Senor Don Vicente de la Vega y Arillaga. He has never been here, before. His horses ! Madre de Dios ! They ran like hares. Poor Guido ! Valgame Dios ! Even thou wouldst have been moved to pity. But he is so hand- some! Look! Look! He comes now, side by side with General Castro. Dios! his serape is as stiff with gold as the vestments of the padre." Ysabel looked up as a man rode past. His bold profile THE PEARLS OF LORETO 171 and thin face were passionate and severe; his dark blue eyes were full of power. Such a face was rare among the languid shallow men of her race. "He rides with General Castro," whispered Benicia Ortega. " He stays with him. We shall see him at the ball to-night." As Don Vicente passed Ysabel their eyes met for a moment. His opened suddenly with a bold eager flash, his arched nostrils twitching. The color left her face, and her eyes dropped heavily. Love needed no kindling in the heart of the Californian, II THE people of Monterey danced every night of their lives, and went nowhere so promptly as to the great sala of Dona Modeste Castro, their leader of fashion, whose gowns were made for her in the City of Mexico. Ysabel envied her bitterly. Not because the Dona Mo- deste 's skin was whiter than her own, for it could not be, nor her eyes greener, for they were not ; but because her jewels were richer than Pio Pico's, and upon all grand occasions a string of wonderful pearls gleamed in her storm- black hair. But one feminine compensation had Ysabel: she was taller ; Dona Modeste's slight elegant figure lacked YsabePs graceful inches, and perhaps she too felt a pang sometimes as the girl undulated above her like a snake about to strike. At the fashionable hour of ten Monterey was gathered for the dance. All the men except the officers wore black velvet or broadcloth coats and white trousers. All the women wore white, the waist long and pointed, the skirt full. Ysabel's gown was of embroidered crepe. Her hair was coiled about her head, and held by a tortoise comb framed with a narrow band of gold. Pio Pico, splendid with stars and crescents and rings and pins, led her in, and with his unique ugliness enhanced her beauty. ( ' 172 AMERICAN TRADITIONS She glanced eagerly about the room whilst replying ab- sently to the caballeros who surrounded her. Don Vicente de la Vega was not there. The thick circle about her parted, and General Castro bent over her hand, begging the honor of the contradanza. She sighed, and for the moment forgot the Southerner who had flashed and gone like the begin- ning of a dream. Here was a man the only man of her knowledge whom she could have loved, and who would have found her those pearls. Californians had so little am- bition! Then she gave a light audacious laugh. Governor Pico was shaking hands cordially with General Castro, the man he hated best in California. No two men could have contrasted more sharply than Jose Castro and Pio Pico with the exception of Alva- rado the most famous men of their country. The gold trim- mings of the general's uniform were his only jewels. His hair and beard the latter worn a la Basca, a narrow strip curving from upper lip to ear were as black as Pio Pico's once had been. The handsomest man in California, he had less consciousness than the least of the caballeros. His deep gray eyes were luminous with enthusiasm; his nose was sharp and bold ; his firm sensitive mouth was cut above a resolute chin. He looked what he was, the ardent patriot of a doomed cause. "Senorita," he said, as he led Ysabel out to the sweet, monotonous music of the contradanza, "did you see the caballero who rode with me to-day?" A red light rose to Ysabel's cheek. "Which one, com- andante ? Many rode with you." "I mean him who rode at my right, the winner of the races, Vicente, son of my old friend Juan Bautista de la Vega y Arillaga, of Los Angeles." "It may be. I think I saw a strange face." "He saw yours, Dona Ysabel, and is looking upon you now from the corridor without, although the fog is heavy THE PEARLS OF LORETO 173 about him. Cannot you see him that dark shadow by the pillar?" Ysabel never went through the graceful evolutions of the contradanza as she did that night. Her supple slender body curved and swayed and glided ; her round arms were like lazy snakes uncoiling ; her exquisitely poised head moved in perfect concord with her undulating hips. Her eyes grew brighter, her lips redder. The young men who stood near gave as loud a vent to their admiration as if she had been dancing El Son alone on the floor. But the man without made no sign. After the dance was over, General Castro led her to her duefia, and handing her a guitar, begged a song. She began a light love-ballad, singing with the grace and style of her Spanish blood ; a little mocking thing, but with a wild break now and again. As she sang, she fixed her eyes coquettishly on the adoring face of Guido Cabanares, who stood beside her, but saw every movement of the form beyond the window. Don Guido kept his ardent eyes riveted upon her, but detected no wandering in her glances. His lips trembled as he listened, and once he brushed the tears from his eyes. She gave him a little cynical smile, then broke her song in two. The man in the corridor had vaulted through the window. Ysabel, clinching her hands the better to control her jumping nerves, turned quickly to Cabanares, who had pressed behind her, and was pouring words into her ear. "Ysabel! Ysabel! Hast thou no pity? Dost thou not see that I am fit to set the world on fire for love of thee ? The very water boils as I drink it " She interrupted him with a scornful laugh, the sharper that her voice might not tremble. "Bring me my pearls. What is love worth when it will not grant one little desire ?" He groaned. " I have found a vein of gold on my rancho. I can pick the little shining pieces out with my fingers. I will have them beaten into a saddle for thee " 174 AMERICAN TRADITIONS But she had turned her back flat upon him, and was making a deep curtesy to the man whom General Castro presented. " I appreciate the honor of your acquaintance," she mur- mured mechanically. "At your feet, seiiorita," said Don Vicente. The art of making conversation had not been cultivated among the Californians, and Ysabel plied her large fan with slow grace, at a loss for^'further remark, and wonder- ing if her heart would suffocate her. But Don Vicente had the gift of words. "Seiiorita," he said, "I have stood in the chilling fog and felt the warmth of your lovely voice at my heart. The emo- tions I felt my poor tongue cannot translate. They swarm in my head like a hive of puzzled bees ; but perhaps they look through my eyes," and he fixed his powerful and pene- trating gaze on Ysabel's green depths. A waltz began, and he took her in his arms without ask- ing her indulgence, and regardless of the indignation of the mob of men about her. Ysabel, whose being was filled with tumult, lay passive as he held her closer than man had ever dared before. " I love you," he said, in his harsh voice. " I wish you for my wife. At once. When I saw you to-day standing with a hundred other beautiful women, I said : 'She is the fairest of them all. I shall have her.' And I read the future in " he suddenly dropped the formal "you" "in thine eyes, carina. Thy soul sprang to mine. Thy heart is locked in my heart closer, closer than my arms are holding thee now." The strength of his embrace was violent for a moment ; but Ysabel might have been cut from marble. Her body had lost its swaying grace ; it was almost rigid. She did not lift her eyes. But De la Vega was not discouraged. The music finished, and Ysabel was at once surrounded by a determined retinue. This intruding Southerner was THE PEARLS OF LORETO 175 welcome to the honors of the race-field, but the Star of Monterey was not for him. He smiled as he saw the menace of their eyes. "I would have her," he thought, "if they were a regi- ment of Castros which they are not." But he had not armed himself against diplomacy. "Senor Don Vicente de la Vega y Arillaga," said Don Guido Cabanares, who had been selected as spokesman, "perhaps you have not learned during your brief visit to our capital that the Senorita Dona Ysabel Herrera, La Favorita of Alta California, has sworn by the Holy Virgin, by the blessed Junipero Serra, that she will wed no man who does not bring her a lapful of pearls. Can you find those pearls on the sands of the South, Don Vicente ? For, by the holy cross of God, you cannot have her without them!" ' For a moment De la Vega was disconcerted. !. "Is this true?" he demanded, turning to Ysabel. "What, sefior ? " she asked vaguely. She had not listened to the words of her protesting admirer. A sneer bent his mouth. "That you have put a price upon yourself? That the man who ardently wishes to be your husband, who has even won your love, must first hang you with pearls like " He stopped suddenly, the blood burning his dark face, his eyes opening with an ex- pression of horrified hope. "Tell me! Tell me!" he ex- claimed. "Is this true?" For the first time since she had spoken with him Ysabel was herself. She crossed her arms and tapped her elbows with her pointed fingers. y "Yes," she said, "it is true." She raised her eyes to his and regarded him steadily. They looked like green pools frozen in a marble wall. The harp, the flute, the guitar, combined again, and once more he swung her from a furious circle. But he was safe ; 176 AMERICAN TRADITIONS General Castro had joined it. He waltzed her down the long room, through one adjoining, then into another, and, indifferent to the iron conventions of his race, closed the door behind them. They were in the sleeping-room of Dona Modeste. The bed with its rich satin coverlet, the bare floor, the simple furniture, were in semi-darkness; only on the altar in the corner were candles burning. Above it hung paintings of saints, finely executed by Mexican hands ; an ebony cross spread its black arms against the white wall; the candles flared to a golden Christ. He caught her hands and led her over to the altar. "Listen to me," he said. "I will bring you those pearls. You shall have such pearls as no queen in Europe possesses. Swear to me here, with your hands on this altar, that you will wed me when I return, no matter how or where I find those pearls." He was holding her hands between the candelabra. She looked at him with eyes of passionate surrender ; the man had conquered worldly ambitions. But he answered her before she had time to speak. "You love me, and would withdraw the conditions. But I am ready to do a daring and a terrible act. Furthermore, I wish to show you that I can succeed where all other men have failed. I ask only two things now. First, make me the vow I wish." " I swear it," she said. "Now," he said, his voice sinking to a harsh but caress- ing whisper, "give me one kiss for courage and hope." She leaned slowly forward, the blood pulsing in her lips ; but she had been brought up behind grated windows, and she drew back. "No," she said, "not now." For a moment he looked rebellious; then he laid his hands on her shoulders and pressed her to her knees. He knelt behind her, and together they told a rosary for his safe return. ' THE PEAELS OF LORETO 177 He left her there and went to his room. From his saddle- bag he took a long letter from an intimate friend, one of the younger Franciscan priests of the Mission of Santa Bar- bara, where he had been educated. He sought this para- graph : " Thou knowest, of course, my Vicente, of the pearl fish- eries of Baja California. It is whispered between our- selves, indeed, it is quite true that a short while ago the Indian divers discovered an extravagantly rich bed of pearls. Instead of reporting to any of the companies, they have hung them all upon our Most Sacred Lady of Loreto, in the Mission of Loreto ; and there, by the grace of God, they will remain. They are worth the ransom of a king, my Vicente, and the Church has come to her own again." in THE fog lay thick on the bay at dawn next morning. The white waves hid the blue, muffled the roar of the surf. Now and again a whale threw a volume of spray high in the air, a geyser from a phantom sea. Above the white sands straggled the white town, ghostly, prophetic. De la Vega, a dark sombrero pulled over his eyes, a dark scrape enveloping his tall figure, rode, unattended and watchful, out of the town. Not until he reached the nar- row road through the brush forest beyond did he give his horse rein. The indolence of the Californian was no longer in his carriage ; it looked alert and muscular ; reck- lessness accentuated the sternness of his face. As he rode, the fog receded slowly. He left the chaparral and rode by green marshes cut with sloughs and stained with vivid patches of orange. The frogs in the tules chanted their hoarse matins. Through brush-covered plains once more, with sparsely wooded hills in the dis- tance, and again the tules, the marsh, the patches of orange. He rode through a field of mustard ; the pale yel- 178 AMERICAN TRADITIONS low petals brushed his dark face, the delicate green leaves won his eyes from the hot glare of the ascending sun, the slender stalks, rebounding, smote his horse's flanks. He climbed hills to avoid the wide marshes, and descended into willow groves and fields of daisies. Before noon he was in the San Juan Mountains, thick with sturdy oaks, bending their heads before the madrono, that belle of the forest, with her robes of scarlet and her crown of bronze. The yellow lilies clung to her skirts, and the buckeye flung his flowers at her feet. The last redwoods were there, piercing the blue air with their thin inflexible arms, gray as a dusty band of friars. Out by the willows, whereunder crept the sluggish river, then between the hills curving about the valley of San Juan Bautista. At no time is California so beautiful as in the month of June. De la Vega's wild spirit and savage purpose were dormant for the moment as he rode down the valley toward the mission. The hills were like gold, like mammoth fawns veiled with violet mist, like rich tan velvet. Afar, bare blue steeps were pink in their chasms, brown on their spurs. The dark yellow fields were as if thick with gold-dust ; the pale mustard was a waving yellow sea. Not a tree marred the smooth hills. The earth sent forth a perfume of its own. Below the plateau from which rose the white walls of the mission was a wide field of bright green corn rising against the blue sky. The padres in their brown hooded robes came out upon the long corridor of the mission and welcomed the traveler. Their lands had gone from them, their mission was crumb- ling, but the spirit of hospitality lingered there still. They laid meat and fruit and drink on a table beneath the arches, then sat about him and asked him eagerly for news of the day. Was it true that the United States of America were at war with Mexico, or about to be ? True that their beloved flag might fall, and the Stars and Stripes of an insolent invader rise above the fort of Monterey? THE PEARLS OF LORETO 179 De la Vega recounted the meager and conflicting rumors which had reached California, but, not being a prophet, could not tell them that they would be the first to see the red-white-and-blue fluttering on the mountain before them. He refused to rest more than an hour, but mounted the fresh horse the padres gave him and went his way, riding hard and relentlessly, like all Calif ornians. He sped onward through the long hot day, leaving the hills for the marshes and a long stretch of ugly country, traversing the beautiful San Antonio Valley in the night, reaching the Mission of San Miguel at dawn, resting there for a few hours. That night he slept at a hospitable ranch- house in the park-like valley of Paso des Robles, a grim silent figure amongst gay-hearted people who delighted to welcome him. The early morning found him among the chrome hills ; and at the Mission of San Luis Obispo the good padres gave him breakfast. The little valley, round as a well, its bare hills red and brown, gray and pink, violet and black, from fire, sloping steeply from a dizzy height, impressed him with a sense of being prisoned in an enchanted vale where no message of the outer world could come, and he hastened on his way. Absorbed as he was, he felt the beauty he fled past. A line of golden hills lay against sharp blue peaks. A tower- ing mass of gray rocks had been cut and lashed by wind and water, earthquake and fire, into the semblance of a massive castle, still warlike in its ruin. He slept for a few hours that night in the Mission of Santa Ynes, and was high in the Santa Barbara Mountains at the next noon. For brief whiles he forgot his journey's purpose as his horse climbed slowly up the steep trails, knocking the loose stones down a thousand feet and more upon a roof of tree- tops which looked like stunted brush. Those gigantic masses of immense stones, each wearing a semblance to the face of man or beast ; those awful chasms and stupendous 180 AMERICAN TRADITIONS heights, densely wooded, bare, and many-hued, rising above, beyond, peak upon peak, cutting through the visible atmosphere was there no end ? He turned in his saddle and looked over low peaks and canons, rivers and abysms, black peaks smiting the fiery blue, far, far, to the dim azure mountains on the horizon. "Mother of God !" he thought. "No wonder California still shakes ! I would I could have stood upon a star and beheld the awful throes of this country's birth." And then his horse reared between the sharp spurs and galloped on. He avoided the Mission of Santa Barbara, resting at a rancho outside the town. In the morning, supplied as usual with a fresh horse, he fled onward, with the ocean at his right, its splendid roar in his ears. The cliffs towered high above him ; he saw no man's face for hours together ; but his thoughts companioned him, savage and sinister shapes whirling about the figure of a woman. On, on, sleeping at ranches or missions, meeting hospitality everywhere, avoiding Los Angeles, keeping close to the ponderous ocean, he left civilization behind him at last, and with an Indian guide entered upon that desert of mountain-tops, Baja California. Rapid traveling was not possible here. There were no valleys worthy the name. The sharp peaks, multiplying mile after mile, were like teeth of gigantic rakes, black and bare. A wilderness of mountain-tops, desolate as eternity, arid, parched, baked by the awful heat, the silence never broken by the cry of a bird, a hut rarely breaking the barren monotony, only an infrequent spring to save from death. It was almost impossible to get food or fresh horses. Many a night De la Vega and his stoical guide slept beneath a cactus, or in the mocking bed of a creek. The mustangs he managed to lasso were almost unridable, and would have bucked to death any but a Calif ornian. Sometimes he lived on cactus fruit and the dried meat he had brought with THE PEARLS OF LORETO 181 him ; occasionally he shot a rabbit. Again he had but the flesh of the rattlesnake roasted over coals. But honey-dew was on the leaves. He avoided the beaten trail, and cut his way through naked bushes spiked with thorns, and through groves of cacti miles in length. When the thick fog rolled up from the ocean he had to sit inactive on the rocks, or lose his way. A furious storm dashed him against a boulder, break- ing his mustang's leg; then a torrent, rising like a tidal wave, thundered down the gulch, and catching him on its crest, flung him upon a tree of thorns. When dawn came he found his guide dead. He cursed his luck, and went on. Lassoing another mustang, he pushed forward, having a general idea of the direction he should take. It was a week before he reached Loreto, a week of loneliness, hunger, thirst, and torrid monotony. A week, too, of thought and bitterness of spirit. In spite of his love, which never cooled, and his courage, which never quailed, Nature, in her guise of foul and crooked hag, mocked at earthly happiness, at human hope, at youth and passion. If he had not spent his life in the saddle, he would have been worn out when he finally reached Loreto, late one night. As it was, he slept in a hut until the following after- noon. Then he took a long swim in the bay, and, later, sauntered through the town. The forlorn little city was hardly more than a collection of Indians' huts about a church in a sandy waste. No longer the capital, even the barracks were toppling. When De la Vega entered the mission, not a white man but the padre and his assistant was in it ; the building was thronged with Indian worshipers. The mission, although the first built in California, was in a fair state of preservation. The Stations in their battered frames were mellow and distinct. The gold still gleamed in the vestments of the padre. 182 AMERICAN TRADITIONS For a few moments De la Vega dared not raise his eyes to the Lady of Loreto, standing aloft in the dull blaze of adamantine candles. When he did, he rose suddenly from his knees and left the mission. The pearls were there. It took him but a short time to gain the confidence of the priest and the little population. He offered no explanation for his coming, beyond the curiosity of the traveler. The padre gave him a room in the mission, and spent every hour he could spare with the brilliant stranger. At night he thanked God for the sudden oasis in his life's desolation. The Indians soon grew accustomed to the lonely figure wandering about the sand plains, or kneeling for hours together before the altar in the church. And whom their padre trusted was to them as sacred and impersonal as the wooden saints of their religion. IV THE midnight stars watched over the mission. Framed by the cross-shaped window sunk deep in the adobe wall above the entrance, a mass of them assumed the form of the crucifix, throwing a golden trail full upon the Lady of Loreto, proud in her shining pearls. The long narrow body of the church seemed to have swallowed the shadows of the ages, and to yawn for more. De la Vega, booted and spurred, his scrape folded about him, his sombrero on his head, opened the sacristy door and entered the church. In one hand he held a sack; in the other, a candle sputtering in a bottle. He walked deliber- ately to the foot of the altar. In spite of his intrepid spirit, he stood appalled for a moment as he saw the dim radiance enveloping the Lady of Loreto. He scowled over his shoul- der at the menacing emblem of redemption and crossed himself. But had it been the finger of God, the face of Ysabel would have shone between He extinguished his candle, and swinging himself to the top of the altar plucked THE PEARLS OF LORETO 183 the pearls from the Virgin's gown and dropped them into the sack. His hand trembled a little, but he held his will between his teeth. How quiet it was ! The waves flung themselves upon the shore with the sullen wrath of impotence. A sea-gull screamed now and again, an exclamation-point in the si- lence above the waters. Suddenly De la Vega shook from head to foot, and snatched the knife from his belt. A faint creaking echoed through the hollow church. He strained his ears, holding his breath until his chest collapsed with the shock of outrushing air. But the sound was not re- peated, and he concluded that it had been but a vibration of his nerves. He glanced to the window above the doors. The stars in it were no longer visible ; they had melted into bars of flame. The sweat stood cold on his face, but he went on with his work. A rope of pearls, cunningly strung together with strands of seaweed, was wound about the Virgin's right arm. De la Vega was too nervous to uncoil it; he held the sack be- neath, and severed the strands with his knife. As he fin- ished, and was about to stoop and cut loose the pearls from the hem of the Virgin's gown, he uttered a hoarse cry and stood rigid. A cowled head, with thin lips drawn over yel- low teeth, furious eyes burning deep in withered sockets, projected on its long neck from the Virgin's right and con- fronted him. The body was unseen. "Thief!" hissed the priest. "Dog! Thou wouldst rob the Church? Accursed! Accursed!" There was not one moment for hesitation, one alterna- tive. Before the priest could complete his malediction. De la Vega's knife had flashed through the fire of the cross, The priest leaped, screeching, then rolled over and down and rebounded from the railing of the sanctuary. 184 AMERICAN TRADITIONS VI THE corridor of the Custom-House had been enclosed to protect the musicians and supper table from the wind and fog. The storeroom had been cleared, the floor scrubbed, the walls hung with the colors of Mexico. All in honor of Pio Pico, again in brief exile from his beloved Los Angeles. The Governor, blazing with diamonds, stood at the upper end of the room by Dona Modeste Castro's side. About them were Castro and other prominent men of Monterey, all talking of the rumored war between the United States and Mexico and prophesying various results. Neither Pico nor Castro looked amiable. The Governor had arrived in the morning to find that the General had allowed pas- quinades representing His Excellency in no complimentary light to disfigure the streets of Monterey. Castro, when taken to task, had replied haughtily that it was the Gover- nor's place to look after his own dignity; he, the Com- andante-General of the army of the Californias, had more important matters to attend to. The result had been a furious war of words, ending in a lame peace. "Tell us, Excellency," said Jos6 Abrigo, "what will be the outcome ? " "The Americans can have us if they wish," said Pio Pico bitterly. "We cannot prevent." "Never!" cried Castro. "What? We cannot protect ourselves against the invasion of bandoleros? Do you forget what blood stings the veins of the Calif ornian? A Spaniard stand with folded arms and see his country plucked from him ! Oh, sacrilege ! They will never have our California^ while a Californian lives to cut them down!" "Bravo ! Bravo !" cried many voices. "I tell you" began Pio Pico. But Dona Modeste interrupted him. "No more talk of THE PEARLS OF LORETO 185 war to-night,'* she said peremptorily. "Where is Ysabel ? " "She sent me word by Doila Juana that she could not make herself ready in time to come with me, but would follow with my good friend, Don Antonio, who of course had to wait for her. Her gown was not finished, I believe. I think she had done something naughty, and Dona Juana had tried to punish her, but had not succeeded. The old lady looked very sad. Ah, here is Dona Ysabel now !" "How lovely she is !" said Dona Modeste. "I think What! what!" "Dios de mi alma!" exclaimed Pio Pico, "where did she get those pearls ? " The crowd near the door had parted, and Ysabel entered on the arm of her uncle. Don Antonio's form was bent, and she looked taller by contrast. His thin sharp profile was outlined against her white neck, bared for the first time to the eyes of Monterey. Her shawl had just been laid aside, and he was near-sighted and did not notice the pearls. She had sewn them all over the front of her white silk gown. She had wound them in the black coils of her hair. They wreathed her neck and roped her arms. Never had she looked so beautiful. Her great green eyes were as radiant as spring. Her lips were redder than blood. A pink flame burned in her oval cheeks. Her head moved like a Californian lily on its stalk. No Montereno would ever forget her. "El Son!" cried the young men, with one accord. Her magnificent beauty extinguished every other woman in the room. She must not hide her light in the contradanza. She must madden all eyes at once. Ysabel bent her head and glided to the middle of the room. The other women moved back, their white gowns like a snowbank against the garish walls. The thin sweet music of the instruments rose above the boom of the tide. Ysabel lifted her dress with curving arms, displaying 186 AMERICAN TRADITIONS arched feet clad in flesh-colored stockings and white slip- pers, and danced El Son. Her little feet tapped time to the music; she whirled her body with utmost grace, holding her head so motionless that she could have balanced a glass of water upon it. She was inspired that night; and when, in the midst of the dance, De la Vega entered the room, a sort of madness pos- sessed her. She invented new figures. She glided back and forth, bending and swaying and doubling until to the eyes of her bewildered admirers the outlines of her lovely body were gone. Even the women shouted their approval, and the men went wild. They pulled their pockets inside out and flung handfuls of gold at her feet. Those who had only silver cursed their fate, but snatched the watches from their pockets, the rings from their fingers, and hurled them at her with shouts and cheers. They tore the lace ruffles from their shirts ; they rushed to the next room and ripped the silver eagles from their hats. Even Pio Pico flung one of his golden ropes at her feet, a hot blaze in his old ugly face, as he cried: t " Brava ! Brava ! Thou Star of Monterey J " Guido Cabanares, desperate at having nothing more to sacrifice to his idol, sprang upon a chair, and was about to tear down the Mexican flag, when the music stopped with a crash, as if musicians and instruments had been overturned, and a figure leaped into the room. The women uttered a loud cry and crossed themselves. Even the men fell back. YsabePs swaying body trembled and became rigid. De la Vega, who had watched her with folded arms, too entranced to offer her anything but the love that shook him, turned livid to his throat. A friar, his hood fallen back from his stubbled head, his brown habit stiff with dirt, smelling, reeling with fatigue, stood amongst them. His eyes were deep in his ashen face. They rolled about the room until they met De la Vega's. THE PEARLS OF LORETO 187 General Castro came hastily forward. "What does this mean ? " he asked. " What do you wish ? " The friar raised his arm, and pointed his shaking finger at De la Vega. "Kill him !" he said in a loud hoarse whisper. "He has desecrated the Mother of God !" Every caballero in the room turned upon De la Vega with furious satisfaction. Ysabel had quickened their blood, and they were willing to cool it in vengeance on the man of whom they still were jealous, and whom they suspected of having brought the wondrous pearls which covered their Favorita to-night. "What ? What ?" they cried eagerly. "Has he done this thing?" "He has robbed the Church. He has stripped the Blessed Virgin of her jewels. He has murdered a priest of the Holy Catholic Church." Horror stayed them for a moment, and then they rushed at De la Vega. "He does not deny it !" they cried. "Is it true ? Is it true ? " and they surged about him hot with menace. "It is quite true," said De la Vega, coldly. "I plundered the shrine of Loreto and murdered its priest." The women panted and gasped ; for a moment even the men were stunned, and in that moment an ominous sound mingled with the roar of the surf. Before the respite was over Ysabel had reached his side. "He did it for me !" she cried, in her clear triumphant voice. "For me ! And although you kill us both, I am the proudest woman in all the Californias, and I love him." "Good!" cried Castro, and he placed himself before them. "Stand back, every one of you. What? Are you barbarians, Indians, that you would do violence to a guest in your town ? What if he has committed a crime ? Is he not one of you, then, that you offer him blood instead of 188 AMERICAN TRADITIONS protection? Where is your pride of caste? your hospital- ity ? Oh, perfidy ! Fall back, and leave the guest of your capital to those who are compelled to judge him." The caballeros shrank back, sullen but abashed. He had touched the quick of their pride. - "Never mind!" cried the friar. "You cannot protect him from that. Listen!" Had the bay rison about the Custom-House ? "What is that?" demanded Castro, sharply. "The poor of Monterey; those who love their Cross better than the aristocrats love their caste. They know." De la Vega caught Ysabel in his arms and dashed across the room and corridor. His knife cut a long rift in the can- vas, and in a moment they stood upon the rocks. The shrieking crowd was on the other side of the Custom House. "Marcos !" he called to his boatman, "Marcos !" No answer came but the waves tugging at the rocks not two feet below them. He could see nothing. The fog was thick as night. "He is not here, Ysabel. We must swim. Anything but to be torn to pieces by those wild-cats. Are you afraid?" "No," she said. He folded her closely with one arm, and felt with his foot for the edge of the rocks. A wild roar came from behind. A dozen pistols were fired into the air. De la Vega reeled suddenly. " I am shot, Ysabel," he said, his knees bending. "Not in this world, my love !" She wound her arms about him, and dragging him to the brow of the rocks, hurled herself outward, carrying him with her. The waves tossed them on high, flung them against the rocks and ground them there, playing with them like a lion with its victim, then buried them. AMERICAN LANDSCAPES STORIES OF THE SPIRIT OF PLACE Within her face the rose Of Allegheny dawns; Limbed with Alaskan snows, Floridian starlight in her eye*. . . And in her hair The rapture of her rivers. . . Behold her where, Around her radiant youth. The spirits of the cataracts and plains, The genii of the floods and forests, meet In rainbow mists circling her brow and feet. MADISON CAWEIN, Kentucky Poem* THE WINDIGO 1 BY MARY HARTWELL CATHERWOOD THE cry of those rapids in Sainte Marie's River called the Sault could be heard at all hours through the settlement on the rising shore and into the forest beyond. Three quarters of a mile of frothing billows, like some colossal instrument, never ceased playing music down an inclined channel until the trance of winter locked it up. At August dusk, when all that shaggy world was sinking to darkness, the gushing monotone became very distinct. Louizon Cadotte and his father's young seignior, Jacques de Repentigny, stepped from a birch canoe on the bank near the fort, two Chippewa Indians following with their game. Hunting furnished no small addition to the food- supply of the settlement, for the English conquest had brought about scarcity at this as well as other Western posts. Peace was declared in Europe ; but soldiers on the frontier, waiting orders to march out at any time, were not abundantly supplied with stores, and they let season after season go by, reluctant to put in harvests which might be reaped by their successors. Jaeques was barely nineteen, and Louizon was con- siderably older. But the Repentignys had gone back to France after the fall of Quebec ; and five years of European life had matured the young seignior as decades of border experience would never mature his half-breed tenant. Yet Louizon was a fine dark-skinned fellow, well made for one of short stature. He trod close by his tall superior with 1 Reprinted by permission from The Chase of Saint-Cattin, and Other Stories of the French in the New World, by Mary Hartwell Catherwood. Copyright by Houghton Mifflin Company. 193 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES visible fondness ; enjoying this spectacle of a man the like of whom he had not seen on the frontier. Jacques looked back, as he walked, at the long zigzag shadows on the river. Forest fire in the distance showed a leaning column, black at base, pearl-colored in the prim- rose air, like smoke from some gigantic altar. He had seen islands in the lake under which the sky seemed to slip, throwing them above the horizon in mirage, and trees standing like detached bushes on a world rim of water. The Sainte Marie River was a beautiful light green in color, and sunset and twilight played upon it all the miracles of change. "I wish my father had never left this country," said young Repentigny, feeling that spell cast by the wilderness. "Here is his place. He should have withdrawn to the Sault, and accommodated himself to the English, instead of re- turning to France. The service in other parts of the world does not suit him. Plenty of good men have held to Canada and their honor also." "Yes, yes," assented Louizon. "The English cannot be got rid of. For my part, I shall be glad when this post changes hands. I am sick of our officers." He scowled with open resentment. The seigniory house faced the parade ground, and they could see against its large low mass, lounging on the gallery, one each side of a window, the white uniforms of two French soldiers. The window sashes, screened by small curtains across the mid- dle, were swung into the room ; and Louizon's wife leaned on her elbows across the sill, the rosy atmosphere of his own fire projecting to view every ring of her bewitching hair, and even her long eyelashes as she turned her gaze from side to side. It was so dark, and the object of their regard was so bright, that these buzzing bees of Frenchmen did not see her husband until he ran up the steps facing them. Both THE WINDIGO 193 of them greeted him heartily. He felt it a peculiar indignity that his wife's danglers forever passed their good-will on to him ; and he left them in the common hall, with his father and the young seignior, and the two or three Indians who congregated there every evening to ask for presents or to smoke. Louizon's wife met him in the middle of the broad low apartment where he had been so proud to introduce her as a bride, and turned her cheek to be kissed. She was not fond of having her lips touched. Her hazel-colored hair was per- fumed. She was so supple and exquisite, so dimpled and aggravating, that the Chippewa in him longed to take her by the scalp-lock of her light head ; but the Frenchman bestowed the salute. Louizon had married the prettiest woman in the settlement. Life overflowed in her, so that her presence spread animation. Both men and women paid homage to her. Her very mother-in-law was her slave. And this was the stranger spectacle because Madame Cadotte the senior, though born a Chippewa, did not easily make herself subservient to anybody. The time had been when Louizon was proud of any notice this siren conferred on him. But so exacting and tyrannical is the nature of man that when he got her he wanted to keep her entirely to himself. From his Chip- pewa mother, who, though treated with deference, had never dared to disobey his father, he inherited a fond and jealous nature; and his beautiful wife chafed it. Young Repentigny saw that she was like a Parisian. But Louizon felt that she was a spirit too fine and tantalizing for him to grasp, and she had him in her power. He hung his powder-horn behind the door, and stepped upon a stool to put his gun on its rack above the fireplace. The fire showed his round figure, short but well muscled, and the boyish petulance of his shaven lip. The sun shone hot upon the Sault of an August noon, but morning and 194 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES night were cool, and a blaze was usually kept in the chim- ney. " You found plenty of game ? " said his wife ; and it was one of this woman's wickedest charms that she could be so interested in her companion of the moment. "Yes," he answered, scowling more, and thinking of the brace on the gallery whom he had not shot, but wished to. She laughed at him. "Archange Cadotte," said Louizon, turning around on the stool before he descended ; and she spread out her skirts, taking two dancing steps to indicate that she heard him. "How long am I to be mortified by your conduct to Mon- sieur de Repentigny?" "Oh Monsieur de Repentigny. It is now that boy from France, at whom I have never looked." "The man I would have you look at, madame, you scarcely notice." "Why should I notice him? He pays little attention to me." "Ah, he is not one of your danglers, madame. He would not look at another man's wife. He has had trouble him- self." " So will you have if you scorch the backs of your legs," observed Archange. Louizon stood obstinately on the stool and ignored the heat. He was hi the act of stepping down, but he checked it as she spoke. "Monsieur de Repentigny came back to this country to marry a young English lady of Quebec. He thinks of her, not of you." "I am sure he is welcome," murmured Archange. "But it seems the young English lady prefers to stay in Quebec." "She never looked at any other man, madame. She is dead." THE WINDIGO 195 "No wonder. I should be dead, too, if I had looked at one stupid man all my life." Louizon's eyes sparkled. "Madame, I will have you know that the seignior of Sault Sainte Marie is entitled to your homage." "Monsieur, I will have you know that I do not pay homage to any man." "You, Archange Cadotte? You are in love with a new man every day." " Not in the least, monsieur. I only desire to have a new man in love with me every day." Her mischievous mouth was a scarlet button in her face, and Louizon leaped to the floor, and kicked the stool across the room. "The devil himself is no match at all for you !" "But I married him before I knew that," returned Archange ; and Louizon grinned in his wrath. "I don't like such women." "Oh, yes, you do. Men always like women whom they cannot chain." "I have never tried to chain you." Her husband ap- proached, shaking his finger at her. "There is not another woman in the settlement who has her way as you have. And see how you treat me !" "How do I treat you ? " inquired Archange, sitting down and resigning herself to statistics. "Sainte Marie ! Saint Joseph !" shouted the Frenchman. "How does she treat me ! And every man in the seigniory dangling at her apron string !" "You are mistaken. There is the young seignior; and there is the new English commandant, who must be now within the seigniory, for they expect him at the post to- morrow morning. It is all the same : if I look at a man you are furious, and if I refuse to look at him you are more furious still." 196 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES Loukon felt that inward breaking up which proved to him that he could not stand before the tongue of this woman. Groping for expression, he declared : " If thou wert sickly or blind, I would be just as good to thee as when thou wert a bride. I am not the kind that changes if a woman loses her fine looks." "No doubt you would like to see me with the smallpox," suggested Archange. "But it is never best to try a man too far." "You try me too far let me tell you that. But you shall try me no further." The Indian appeared distinctly on his softer French features, as one picture may be stamped over another. "Smoke a pipe, Louizon," urged the thorn in his flesh. "You are always so much more agreeable when your mouth is stopped." But he left the room without looking at her again. Ar- change remarked to herself that he would be better-natured when his mother had given him his supper; and she yawned, smiling at the maladroit creatures whom she made her sport. Her husband was the best young man in the settlement. She was entirely satisfied with him, and grate- ful to him for taking the orphan niece of a poor post com- mandant, without prospects since the conquest, and giving her sumptuous quarters and comparative wealth ; but she could not forbear amusing herself with his masculine weak- nesses. Archange was by no means a slave in the frontier house- hold. She did not spin, or draw water, or tend the oven. Her mother-in-law, Madame Cadotte, had a hold on peren- nially destitute Chippewa women who could be made to work for longer or shorter periods in a Frenchman's kitchen or loom-house instead of with savage implements. Ar- change's bed had ruffled curtains, and her pretty dresses, carefully folded, filled a large chest. THE WINDIGO 197 She returned to the high window-sill, and watched the purple distances growing black. She could smell the to- bacco the men were smoking in the open hall, and hear their voices. Archange knew what her mother-in-law was giving the young seignior and Louizon for their supper. She could fancy the officers laying down their pipes to draw to the board, also, for the Cadottes kept open house all the year round. The thump of the Indian drum was added to the deep melody of the rapids. There were always a few lodges of Chippewas about the Sault. When the trapping season and the maple-sugar-making were over and his profits drunk up, time was the largest possession of an Indian. He spent it around the door of his French brother, ready to fish or to drink whenever invited. If no one cared to go on the river, he turned to his hereditary amusements. Every night that the rapids were void of torches showing where the canoes of white fishers darted, the thump of the Indian drum and the yell of Indian dancers could be heard. Archange's mind was running on the new English garri- son who were said to be so near taking possession of the picketed fort, when she saw something red on the parade ground. The figure stood erect and motionless, gathering all the remaining light on its indistinct coloring, and Archange 's heart gave a leap at the hint of a military man in a red uniform. She was all alive, like a whitefisher cast- ing the net or a hunter sighting game. It was Archange's nature, without even taking thought, to turn her head on her round neck so that the illuminated curls would show against a background of wall, and wreathe her half-bare arms across the sill. To be looked at, to lure and tantalize, was more than pastime. It was a woman's chief privilege. Archange held the secret conviction that the priest himself could be made to give her lighter penances by an angelic expression she could assume. It is convenient to have large 198 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES brown eyes and the trick of casting them sidewise in sweet distress. But the Chippewa widow came in earlier than usual that evening, being anxious to go back to the lodges to watch the dancing. Archange pushed the sashes shut, ready for other diversion, and Michel Pensonneau never failed to furnish her that. The little boy was at the widow's heels. Michel was an orphan. "If Archange had children," Madame Cadotte had said to Louizon, "she would not seek other amusement. Take the little Pensonneau lad that his grandmother can hardly feed. He will give Archange something to do." So Louizon brought home the little Pensonneau lad. Archange looked at him, and considered that here was another person to wait on her. As to keeping him clean and making clothes for him, they might as well have expected her to train the sledge dogs. She made him serve her, but for mothering he had to go to Madame Cadotte. Yet Ar- change far outweighed Madame Cadotte with him. The labors put upon him by the autocrat of the house were sweeter than mococks full of maple sugar from the hand of the Chippewa housekeeper. At first Archange would not let him come into her room. She dictated to him through door or window. But when he grew fat with good food and was decently clad under Madame Cadotto's hand, the great promotion of entering that sacred apart- ment was allowed him. Michel came in whenever he could. It was his nightly habit to follow the Chippewa widow there after supper, and watch her brush Archange's hair. Michel stood at the end of the hearth with a roll of pagessanung, or plum-leather, in his fist. His cheeks had a hard garnered redness like polished apples. The Chippewa widow set her husband carefully against the wall. The husband was a bundle about two feet long, containing her best clothes tied up in her dead warrior's sashes and rolled THE WINDIGO 199 in a piece of cloth. His arm-bands and his necklace of bear's-claws appeared at the top as a grotesque head. This bundle the widow was obliged to carry with her every- where. To be seen without it was a disgrace, until that time when her husband's nearest relations should take it away from her and give her new clothes, thus signifying that she had mourned long enough to satisfy them. As the husband's relations were unable to cover themselves, the prospect of her release seemed distant. For her food she was glad to depend on her labor in the Cadotte household. There was no hunter to supply her lodge now. The widow let down Ar change's hair and began to brush it. The long mass was too much for its owner to handle. It spread around her like a garment, as she sat on her chair, and its ends touched the floor. Michel thought there was nothing more wonderful in the world than this glory of hair, its rings and ripples shining in the firelight. The widow's jaws worked in unobtrusive rumination on a piece of pleasantly bitter fungus, the Indian substitute for quinine, which the Chippewas called waubudone. As she consoled herself much with this medicine, and her many- syllabled name was hard to pronounce, Archange called her Waubudone, an offense against her dignity which the widow might not have endured from anybody else, though she bore it without a word from this soft-haired magnate. As she carefully carded the mass of hair lock by lock, thinking it an unnecessary nightly labor, the restless head under her hands was turned towards the portable husband. Archange had not much imagination, but to her the thing was uncanny. She repeated what she said every night : "Do stand him in the hall and let him smell the smoke, Waubudone." "No," refused the widow. "But I don't want him in my bedroom. You are not obliged to keep that thing in your sight all the time." 200, AMERICAN LANDSCAPES "Yes," said the widow. A dialect of mingled French and Chippewa was what they spoke, and Michel knew enough of both tongue to follow the talk. "Are they never going to take him from you? If they don't take him from you soon, I shall go to the lodges and speak to his people about it myself." The Chippewa widow usually passed over this threat in silence ; but, threading a lock with the comb, she now said : "Best not go to the lodges awhile." " Why ? " inquired Archange. " Have the English already arrived? Is the tribe dissatisfied?" "Don't know that." "Then why should I not go to the lodges?" "Windigo at the Sault now." Archange wheeled to look at her face. The widow was unmoved. She was little older than Archange, but her features showed a stoical harshness in the firelight. Michel, who often went to the lodges, widened his mouth and forgot to fill it with plum-leather. There was no sweet which Michel loved as he did this confection of wild plums and maple sugar boiled down and spread on sheets of birch bark. Madame Cadotte made the best pagessanung at the Sault. "Look at the boy," laughed Archange. "He will not want to go to the lodges any more after dark." The widow remarked, noting Michel's fat legs and arms: "Windigo like to eat him." "I would kill a windigo," declared Michel, in full revolt. " Not so easy to kill a windigo. Bad spirits help windigos. If man kill windigo and not tear him to pieces, he come to life again." Archange herself shuddered at such a tenacious creature. She was less superstitious than the Chippewa woman, but THE WINDIGO 201 the Northwest had its human terrors as dark as the shadow of witchcraft. Though a Chippewa was bound to dip his hand in the war kettle and taste the flesh of enemies after victory, there was nothing he considered more horrible than a confirmed cannibal. He believed that a person who had eaten human flesh to satisfy hunger was never afterwards contented with any other kind, and, being deranged and possessed by the spirit of a beast, he had to be killed for the safety of the community. The cannibal usually became what he was by stress of starvation: in the winter when hunting failed and he was far from help, or on a journey when provisions gave out, and his only choice was to eat a companion or die. But this did not excuse him. As soon as he was de- tected, the name of "windigo" was given him, and if he did not betake himself again to solitude he was shot or knocked on the head at the first convenient opportunity. Archange remembered one such wretched creature who had haunted the settlement awhile, and then disappeared. His canoe was known, and when it hovered even distantly on the river every child ran to its mother. The priest was less successful with this kind of outcast than with any other barbarian on the frontier. "Have you seen him, Waubudone?" inquired Archange. "I wonder if it is the same man who used to frighten us?" "This windigo a woman. Porcupine in her. She lie down and roll up and hide her head when you drive her off." "Did you drive her off?" "No. She only come past my lodge in the night." "Did you see her?" "No, I smell her." Archange had heard of the atmosphere which windigos far gone in cannibalism carried around them. She desired to know nothing more about the poor creature, or the class 202 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES to which the poor creature belonged, if such isolated beings may be classed. The Chippewa widow talked without being questioned, however, preparing to reduce Archangels mass of hair to the compass of a nightcap. "My grandmother told me there was a man dreamed he had to eat seven persons. He sat by the fire and shiv- ered. If his squaw wanted meat, he quarreled with her. 'Squaw, take care. Thou wilt drive me so far that I shall turn windigo.'" People who did not give Archange the keen interest of fascinating them were a great weariness to her. Humble or wretched human life filled her with disgust. She could dance all night at the weekly dances, laughing in her sleeve at girls from whom she took the best partners. But she never helped nurse a sick child, and it made her sleepy to hear of windigos and misery. Michel wanted to squat by the chimney and listen until Louizon came in; but she drove him out early. Louizon was kind to the orphan, who had been in some respects a failure, and occasionally let him sleep on blankets or skins by the hearth instead of groping to the dark attic. And if Michel ever wanted to escape the attic, it was to-night, when a windigo was abroad. But Louizon did not come. It must have been midnight when Archange sat up in bed, startled out of sleep by her mother-in-law, who held a candle between the curtains. Madame Cadotte's fea- tures were of a mild Chippewa type, yet the restless abo- riginal eye made Archange uncomfortable with its anxiety. "Louizon is still away," said his mother. "Perhaps he went whitefishing after he had his supper." The young wife yawned and rubbed her eyes, beginning to notice that her husband might be doing something unusual. "He did not come to his supper." "Yes, mama. He came in with Monsieur de Repen- tigny." THE WINDIGO 203 "I did not see him. The seignior ate alone." Archange stared, fully awake. "Where does the seignior say he is?" "The seignior does not know. They parted at the door." "Oh, he has gone to the lodges to watch the dancing." "I have been there. No one has seen him since he set out to hunt this morning." "Where are Louizon's canoemen?" "Jean Boucher and his son are at the dancing. They say he came into this house." Archange could not adjust her mind to anxiety without the suspicion that her mother-in-law might be acting as the instrument of Louizon's resentment. The huge feather bed was a tangible comfort interposed betwixt herself and calamity. "He was sulky to-night," she declared. "He has gone up to sleep in Michel's attic to frighten me." "I have been there. I have searched the house." "But are you sure it was Michel in the bed?" "There was no one. Michel is here." Archange snatched the curtain aside, and leaned out to see the orphan sprawled on a bearskin in front of the col- lapsing logs. He had pushed the sashes inward from the gallery and hoisted himself over the high sill after the bed drapery was closed for the night, for the window yet stood open. Madame Cadotte sheltered the candle she carried, but the wind blew it out. There was a rich glow from the fireplace upon Michel's stuffed legs and arms, his cheeks, and the full parted lips through which his breath audibly flowed. The other end of the room, lacking the candle, was in shadow. The thump of the Indian drum could still be heard, and distinctly and more distinctly, as if they were approaching the house, the rapids. Both women heard more. They had not noticed any voice at the window when they were speaking themselves, 204 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES but some offensive thing scented the wind, and they heard, hoarsely spoken in Chippewa from the gallery : "How fat he is!" Archange, with a gasp, threw herself upon her mother- in-law for safety, and Madame Cadotte put both arms and the smoking candle around her. A feeble yet dexterous scramble on the sill resulted in something dropping into the room. It moved toward the hearth glow, a gaunt verte- brate body scarcely expanded by ribs, but covered by a red blanket, and a head with deathlike features overhung by strips of hair. This vision of famine leaned forward and indented Michel with one finger, croaking again : "How fat he is!" The boy roused himself, and, for one instant stupid and apologetic, was going to sit up and whine. He saw what bent over him, and, bristling with unimaginable revolu- tions of arms and legs, he yelled a yell which seemed to sweep the thing back through the window. Next day no one thought of dancing or fishing or of the coming English. Frenchmen and Indians turned out to- gether to search for Louizon Cadotte. Though he never in his life had set foot to any expedition without first notify- ing his household, and it was not the custom to hunt alone in the woods, his disappearance would not have roused the settlement is so short a time had there been no windigo hanging about the Sault. It was told that the windigo, who entered his house again in the night, must have made way with him. Jacques Repentigny heard this with some amusement. Of windigos he had no experience, but he had hunted and Camped much of the summer with Louizon. "I do not think he would let himself be knocked on the head by a woman," said Jacques. "White chief doesn't know what helps a windigo," ex- plained a Chippewa; and the canoeman Jean Boucher THE WINDIGO 205 interpreted him. "Bad spirit makes a windigo strong as a bear. I saw this one. She stole my whitefish and ate them raw." "Why didn't you give her cooked food when you saw her?" demanded Jacques. "She would not eat that now. She likes offal better." "Yes, she was going to eat me," declared Michel Pen- sonneau. "After she finished Monsieur Louizon, she got through the window to carry me off." Michel enjoyed the windigo. Though he strummed on his lip and mourned aloud whenever Madame Cadotte was by, he felt so comfortably full of food and horror, and so important with his story, that life threatened him with nothing worse than satiety. While parties went up the river and down the river, and talked about the chutes in the rapids where a victim could be sucked down to death in an instant, or about tracing the windigo's secret camp, Archange hid herself in the attic. She lay upon Michel's bed and wept, or walked the plank floor. It was no place for her. At noon the bark roof heated her almost to fever. The dormer windows gave her little air, and there was dust as well as something like an individual sediment of the poverty from which the boy had come. Yet she could endure the loft dungeon better than the face of the Chippewa mother who blamed her, or the bluff excitement of Monsieur Cadotte. She could hear his voice from time to time, as he ran in for spirits or pro- visions for parties of searchers. And Archange had aver- sion, like the instinct of a maid, to betraying fondness for her husband. She was furious with him, also, for causing her pain. When she thought of the windigo, of the rapids, of any peril which might be working his limitless absence, she set clenched hands in her loosened hair and trembled with hysterical anguish. But the enormity of his behavior if he were alive made her hiss at the rafters. "Good, 206 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES monsieur ! Next time I will have four officers. I will have the entire garrison sitting along the gallery ! Yes, and they shall be English, too. And there is one thing you will never know, besides." She laughed through her weeping. "You will never know I made eyes at a windigo." The preenings and posings of a creature whose perfec- tions he once thought were the result of a happy chance had made Louizon roar. She remembered all their life to- gether, and moaned, "I will say this: he was the best husband that any girl ever had. We scarcely had a dis- agreement. But to be the widow of a man who is eaten up OSainte Marie!" In the clear August weather the wide river seemed to bring its opposite shores nearer. Islands within a stone's throw of the settlement, rocky drops in a boiling current, vividly showed their rich foliage of pines. On one of these islands Father Dablon and Father Marquette had built their first mission chapel ; and though they afterwards re- moved it to the mainland, the old tracery of foundation stones could still be seen. The mountains of Lake Superior showed like a cloud. On the ridge above fort and houses the Chippewa lodges were pleasant in the sunlight, sending ribbons of smoke from their camp-fires far above the ser- rated edge of the woods. Naked Indian children and their playmates of the settlement shouted to one another, as they ran along the river margin, threats of instant seizure by the windigo. The Chippewa widow, holding her hus- band in her arms, for she was not permitted to hang him on her back, stood and talked with her red-skinned intimates of the lodges. The Frenchwomen collected at the seigniory house. As for the men of the garrison, they were obliged to stay and receive the English then on the way from Detour. But they came out to see the boats off with the concern of brothers, and Archange's uncle, the post com- mandant, embraced Monsieur Cadotte. THE WINDIGO 207 The priest and Jacques Repentigny did not speak to each other about that wretched creature whose hoverings around the Sault were connected with Louizon Cadotte's disappearance. But the priest went with Louizon's father down the river, and Jacques led the party which took the opposite direction. Though so many years had passed since Father Dablon and Father Marquette built the first bark chapel, their successor found his work very little easier than theirs had been. A canoe was missing from the little fleet usually tied alongshore, but it was not the one belonging to Louizon. The young seignior took that one, having Jean Boucher and Jean's son to paddle for him. No other man of Sault Sainte Marie could pole up the rapids or paddle down them as this expert Chippewa could. He had been baptized with a French name, and his son after him, but no Chippewa of pure blood and name looked habitually as he did into those whirlpools called the chutes, where the slip of a paddle meant death. Yet nobody feared the rapids. It was com- mon for boys and girls to flit around near shore in birch canoes, balancing themselves and expertly dipping up whitefish. Jean Boucher thrust out his boat from behind an island, and, turning it as a fish glides, moved over thin sheets of water spraying upon rocks. The fall of the Sainte Marie is gradual, but even at its upper end there is a little hill to climb. Jean set his pole into the stone floor of the river, and lifted the vessel length by length from crest to crest of foam. His paddles lay behind him, and his arms were bare to the elbows, showing their strong red sinews. He had let his hair grow like a Frenchman's, and it hung forward shading his hatless brows. A skin apron was girded in front of him to meet waves which frothed up over the canoe's high prow. Blacksmith of the waters, he beat a path between juts of rock ; struggling to hold a point with the pole, call- 208 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES ing a quick word to his helper, and laughing as he forged his way. Other voyagers who did not care to tax them- selves with this labor made a portage with their canoes alongshore, and started above the glassy curve where the river bends down to its leap. Gros Cap rose in the sky, revealing its peak in bolder lines as the searchers pushed up the Sainte Marie, explor- ing mile after mile of pine and white birch and fantastic rock. The shaggy bank stooped to them, the illimitable glory of the wilderness witnessing a little procession of boats like chips floating by. It was almost sunset when they came back, the tired paddlers keeping near that shore on which they intended to land. No trace of Louizon Cadotte could be found ; and those who had not seen the windigo were ready to declare that there was no such thing about the Sault, when, just above the rapids, she appeared from the dense up-slope of forest. Jacques Repentigny's canoe had kept the lead, but a dozen light-bodied Chippewas sprung on shore and rushed past him into the bushes. The woman had disappeared in underbrush, but, sur- rounded by hunters in full chase, she came running oat, and fell on her hands, making a hoarse noise in her throat. As she looked up, all the marks in her aged aboriginal face were distinct to Jacques Repentigny. The sutures in her temples were parted. She rolled herself around in a ball, and hid her head in her dirty red blanket. Any wild beast was in harmony with the wilderness, but this sick human being was a blot upon it. Jacques felt the compassion of a god for her. Her pursuers were after her, and the thud of stones they threw made him heartsick, as if the thing were done to the woman he loved. "Let her alone !" he commanded fiercely. ''Kill her!" shouted the hunters. "Hit the windigo on the head!" THE WINDIGO 209 All that world of Northern air could not sweeten her, but Jacques picked her up without a thought of her offen- siveness and ran to his canoe. The bones resisted him; the claws scratched at him through her blanket. Jean Boucher lifted a paddle to hit the creature as soon as she was down. " If you strike her, I will kill you ! " warned Jacques, and he sprung into the boat. The superstitious Chippewas threw themselves madly into their canoes to follow. It would go hard, but they would get the windigo and take the young seignior out of her spell. The Frenchmen, with man's instinct for the chase, were in full cry with them. Jean Boucher laid down his paddle sulkily, and his son did the same. Jacques took a long pistol from his belt and pointed it at the old Indian. "If you don't paddle for life, I will shoot you." And his eyes were eyes which Jean respected as he never had re- spected anything before. The young man was a beautiful fellow. If he wanted to save a windigo, why, the saints let him. The priest might say a good word about it when you came to think, also. "Where shall I paddle to?" inquired Jean Boucher, drawing in his breath. The canoe leaped ahead, grazing hands stretched out to seize it. "To the other side of the river." "Down the rapids?" "Yes." " Go down rough or go down smooth ? " "Rough rough where they cannot catch you." The old canoeman snorted. He would like to see any of them catch him. They were straining after him, and half a dozen canoes shot down that glassy slide which leads to the rocks. It takes three minutes for a skillful paddler to run that 210 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES dangerous race of three quarters of a mile. Jean Boucher stood at the prow, and the waves boiled as high as his waist. Jacques dreaded only that the windigo might move and destroy the delicate poise of the boat ; but she lay very still. The little craft quivered from rock to rock without grazing one, rearing itself over a great breaker or sinking under a crest of foam. Now a billow towered up, and Jean broke it with his paddle, shouting his joy. Showers fell on the woman coiled in the bottom of the boat. They were going down very rough indeed. Yells from the other canoes grew less distinct. Jacques turned his head, keeping a true balance, and saw that their pursuers were skirting toward the shore. They must make a long detour to catch him after he reached the foot of the fall. The roar of awful waters met him as he looked ahead. Jean Boucher drove the paddle down and spoke to his son. The canoe leaned sidewise, sucked by the first chute, a caldron in the river bed where all Sainte Marie's current seemed to go down, and whirl, and rise, and froth, and roar. "Ha!" shouted Jean Boucher. His face glistened with beads of water and the glory of mastering Nature. Scarcely were they past the first pit when the canoe plunged on the verge of another. This sight was a moment of madness. The great chute, lined with moving water walls and floored with whirling foam, bellowed as if it were submerging the world. Columns of green water sheeted in white rose above it and fell forward on the current. As the canoemen held on with their paddles and shot by through spume and rain, every soul in the boat exulted except the woman who lay flat on its keel. The rapids gave a voyager the illusion that they were running uphill to meet him, that they were breasting and opposing him instead of carrying him forward. There was scarcely a breath be- tween riding the edge of the bottomless pit and shooting out on clear water. The rapids were past, and they paddled for the other shore, a mile away. THE WINDIGO 211 On the west side the green water seemed turning to fire, but as the sunset went out, shadows sank on the broad surface. The fresh evening breath of a primitive world blew across it. Down-river the channel turned, and Jacques could see nothing of the English or of the other party. His pursuers had decided to land at the settlement. It was twilight when Jean Boucher brought the canoe to pine woods which met them at the edge of the water. The young Repentigny had been wondering what he should do with his windigo. There was no settlement on this shore, and had there been one it would offer no hospitality to such as she was. His canoemen would hardly camp with her, and he had no provisions. To keep her from being stoned or torn to pieces he had made an inconsiderate flight. But his perplexity dissolved in a moment before the sight of Louizon Cadotte coming out of the woods towards them, having no hunting equipments and looking foolish. "Where have you been?" called Jacques. "Down this shore," responded Louizon. " Did you take a canoe and come out here last night ? " "Yes, monsieur. I wished to be by myself. The canoe is below. I was coming home." " It is time you were coming home, when all the men in the settlement are searching for you, and all the women trying to console your mother and your wife." "My wife she is not then talking with any one on the gallery?" Louizon's voice betrayed gratified revenge. " I do not know. But there is a woman in this canoe who might talk on the gallery and complain to the priest against a man who has got her stoned on his account. " Louizon did not understand this, even when he looked at the heap of dirty blanket in the canoe. "Who is it?" he inquired. "The Chippewas call her a windigo. They were all chasing her for eating you up. But now we can take her 212 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES back to the priest, and they will let her alone when they see you. Where is your canoe?" "Down here among the bushes," answered Louizon. He went to get it, ashamed to look the young seignior in the face. He was light-headed from hunger and exposure, and what followed seemed to him afterwards a piteous dream. "Come back!" called the young seignior, and Louizon turned back. The two men's eyes met in a solemn look. "Jean Boucher says this woman is dead." Jean Boucher stood on the bank, holding the canoe with one hand, and turning her unresisting face with the other. Jacques and Louizon took off their hats. They heard the cry of the whip-poor-will. The river had lost all its green and was purple, and purple shadows lay on the distant mountains and opposite ridge. Darkness was mercifully covering this poor demented Indian woman, overcome by the burdens of her life, aged without being venerable, perhaps made hideous by want and sorrow. When they had looked at her in silence, respecting her because she could no longer be hurt by anything in the world, Louizon whispered aside to his seignior: "What shall we do with her?" "Bury her," the old canoeman answered for him. One of the party yet thought of taking her back to the priest. But she did not belong to priests and rites. Jean Boucher said they could dig in the forest mould with a paddle, and he and his son would make her a grave. The two Chippewas left the burden to the young men. Jacques Repentigny and Louizon Cadotte took up the woman who, perhaps, had never been what they considered woman; who had missed the good, and got for her portion the ignorance and degradation of the world; yet who must be something to the Almighty, for he had sent youth and love to pity and take care of her in her death. They carried her into the woods between them. THE GIRL AT DUKE'S 1 BY JAMES WEBER LINN DUKE'S slept in the hot sun. Who was Duke, what was he, where did he come from, where did he go the scion of a noble house, or some intimate, humble citizen of the plains ? Nobody knows; his memory is shrouded in the mists of antiquity which wrap the early eighties. The railroad, toiling over the ruddy desert, crosses a little empty run, which in some seasons holds water from heaven knows where; and at the crossing stands, or crouches, Duke's. Rose-red hills, clasping in their jealous hearts the secret of fertility, some day to be delivered up at the touch of the Genius rose-red, sun-smitten, dusty, treeless, grassless a waterless hills roll and roll endlessly away from Duke's, lonely and bare as in the ages before history began; bi- sected by the two gleaming steel rails, seeming unhuman somehow, savage as the cacti, and no more a part of civili- zation than the flickering, quivering sun-devils are which dance hour after hour above them to the monotonous fiddling of Phaeton in his fiery chariot. Duke's is a tank, a platform, a little wooden shanty, and a name. Passengers upon the observation-cars of the Limited behold it, and in utter idleness watch its oblong diminish over the flat miles ; suddenly the train whips round the shoulder of a hill, and Duke's is gone forever from their memory. When had such a passenger been known to descend at Duke's? And yet, one afternoon of a day late in April, one did descend. The person who got off upon that little oasis of station platform was a girl. She had left the spring be- hind her piecing out its mosaic of showers and sunshine, 1 Reprinted by permission from McClure's Magazine, August, 1903. 214 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES with birds singing and mating, and had traveled two thou- sand miles to reach this forsaken spot in the land of burn- ing summer. The conductor, as he helped her from the step, looked at her doubtfully; the porter, who followed with her handbag, looked at Duke's disdainfully; and the passengers in the "tourist " looked wonderingly at all three. "Well, your folks ain't here," said the conductor. "Who did you expect, lady?" asked the porter. She replied shyly to both. She was a girl of twenty, per- haps; of a pretty timidity; plainly not one wfro was ac- customed to find for herself. "It is my uncle*. 'He knows that I am coming." "I suppose it's all right," meditated the conductor, "but I'd be easier in my mind if I saw him waiting for you. Some men got no sense of punctuality. And if I was lookin* for the jumpin'-off place, I certainly would n't go a step farther." "Lonely place to leave a lady in, foh suah," assented the porter. "Well, if you're easy in your mind, I guess we'll have to be pulling out," observed the conductor. "You're sure you won't come on to Wheeler?" "No, sir, I think I'd better not." They left her reluctantly 2 The porter tossed his carpet- covered stool to the platform, and swung aboard, waving his hand encouragingly. She watched the train foreshorten itself to a square in the distance, until the hill shut it out. Its last, least humming died away. Instantly primeval silence and desolation reasserted themselves. She looked about her, and saw her trunk, some rods from her. Farther off, the line of dying green showed where the creek had been. A lizard ran along the edge of the plat- form, and perceiving her, made an odd little noise in its throat, like the snapping of a match-box. Otherwise, there was no sign of life anywhere. Half an hour passed; an hour. THE GIRL AT DUKE'S 215 Her uncle was long in coming ! The shade of the tiny sta- tion shifted lazily over the hot boards. She made an effort to draw her trunk within it, for she was tired of standing, but though she flushed and panted in her endeavor, she was unsuccessful. Another half-hour passed. Her eyes were weary with gazing across the glowing slopes, and her brain ached with waiting. Off in the distance a bird lazily sailed, and she followed its flight aimlessly. A red rock looming upon a hill, a rock of sandstone carved and machicolated by the centuries, confronted her, and she stared at it till presently it glared and blurred, for she was crying. She stepped from the edge of the platform; at once her foot sank to the ankle in the soft, fine dust, which followed in a little jet as she drew back. She could hot travel far that way ; besides, she was quite ignorant of the road. " Come to Duke's," her uncle had written, "and I will meet you there." That was a month ago, after her mother died. The girl had come promptly, her warm young heart stirring with affection for the uncle whose hospitality asked no questions ; he had sent her the money for the journey, and she was here. It was incomprehensible, terrible, that he should fail her now. Should she go back ? To whom and how? Her questions mocked her. As she stood there forlornly, a musical note reached her ear, and another, and another, shaping themselves into the fragment of a tune which had been popular in New York years before. From behind the thrust of a hill rode a young man, sitting on a dusty sorrel pony, and singing as he rode. At the sight of him the girl's heart leaped, and then sank again ; for she saw that he was plainly bent on errands of his own. He did not glance in her direction. To call to him, without knowing what sort of man he might be, seemed dreadful ; and yet not so dreadful as to let him go and be left again to solitude. He crossed the space between two hills, the dust spouting and floating around him, while she 216 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES sought to make up her mind. He was disappearing, when she gave a low cry involuntary, it seemed, and so low that he must have had sharp ears to hear it at his distance. Hear it he did ; turned, saw her standing there, and, flicking the sorrel with his quirt, cantered toward her rapidly. In- stinctively she shrank a little, though she had called to him. ^ "You were not sent to meet me?" she faltered. "No, Miss," he said respectfully. "My name is Dudley Miss Dorothy Dudley. I I expected some one to meet me here." He waited in silence. He had removed his wide, corded hat, and she saw that his hair was brown, and his face tanned almost black; even his eyelids were tanned, and the blue of his eyes was in sharp contrast to them. "It was my uncle," the girl went on eagerly. A sudden fear seized her, and she cried: "He was to meet me at Duke's. This is Duke's, isn't it?"* "This city? Yes, ma'am." She looked at him hopelessly, and the tears, which she had restrained, stood in her eyes once more. "Maybe," he said gently, "if you was to tell me your uncle's name, Miss, I might know him. I know a good many round here." "Gage Mr. Henry F. Gage. His ranch is the Bar K." The young fellow gave a slight start. "Gage the BarK?" he repeated. "Why, Miss " He broke off. She ventured to look at him again; and her shy, quick glance noted the dear line of his forehead, the clean, firm line of his jaw, the little upward curving of his lips ; and her girl's heart told her that she was not wholly helpless now, and need not be afraid. She had time to wonder who he was, and on what errand he had been bound, before he spoke again. Yet his pause was scarcely perceptible. "I reckon I'm in some luck; yes, I reckon I am. You THE GIRL AT DUKE'S 217 wanted Mr. Gage, of the Bar K ? That's where I hang out, Miss." "You live there?" He nodded. "Foreman," he said pleasantly. "I am so glad!" She had not known how her nerves were strained until the relief came. "Can you take me there ? Is it far ? Do you know why my uncle didn't come to meet me ? " A strange expression, untranslatable to the girl, hovered upon his face. "You say you were expecting him? You wrote to Wheeler, didn't you? That's where we get our mail. Wheeler's about forty miles on. I reckon your letter's there now ; we've not been in not for ten days." "And suppose you hadn't come along?" " I guess maybe that was arranged. I don't guess you're the sort of lady that hard luck is wantin' to meet." He paused. " Your uncle Mr. Gage he's not at the ranch just now," he added. "Not at the ranch?" she said after him. "Yesterday was a week," he calculated, "that he went." "But what shall I do?" she cried. She told him, hur- riedly, all that she could of her affairs; she was glad to explain her strange presence there. She was as unsuspicious of him as a child, he could see. "Well, Miss," he answered, "I don't know. You see, of course, you could go on to Wheeler, or back to Winslow, and wait there t till you hear from him ; but there's no train till to-morrow, now." "But how could I wait here till then?" "And I reckon you're hungry, too," he said thoughtfully. " I could tote you right out to the Bar K on Pete he's a kitten when I give him the say-so ; but " He frowned. " But you would have to walk ! " she finished disappoint- edly. 218 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES "I hope you weren't thinking I was caring about that?" He saw her answer in her look, and it seemed to decide him. "Come," he said ; and though, as soon as he had de- cided, she hung back, hesitating, suddenly he put his two hands beneath her elbows, and lifted he? lightly into the saddle, in which she sat sidewise, as if it had been a chair. In front it had a great horn, or pommel, and the rear curved bluntly up, unlike any saddle the girl had ever seen. Obediently she steadied herself with one hand upon the pommel; her brown skirts fluttered against the sorrel j O pony's side, and the animal looked round nervously, but I the young man patted his nose, soothing him. '"There, be good," he said. "Do you want to lose your good luck, you Pete ? ]j am expectin' you to behave." He slipped the bridle over the pony's head. " Come on, quit your joking, horse ; come on now." After a moment the sorrel followed quietly. They set forward into the desert, the man trudging at the pony's head, and the girl, her little feet rising and falling with the pony's breathing, her right arm about the saddle-horn, and her brown eyes roaming over the hot, dry wastes, but always returning to fasten themselves upon the unconscious back of her young guide. The sun brooded and burned above them, but she was gay in the relief fromjtier loneliness. She asked him his name and why he had' come into this part of the country ; she asked him a hundred questions of her uncle, and of the Bar K ranch ; but the more she questioned him, the more somber grew his tone, the briefer his replies, until she began to wonder, and to remember again the wide desolate spaces about them, and her ignorance of her conductor and her destination. Fear crept into her heart again, and stilled her ; until, noticing her silence, he turned round, and, she hardly knew why, she was reassured. She thought how fine the life must be which made men so strong and yet so lightly formed ; and she wondered what he was thinking of, THE GIRL AT DUKE'S 219 and as she wondered she brushed the red dust from her skirts with her free hand. The heat made her sleepy. She did not know how long they had been traveling when, at the summit of a slope, he turned and said : "There's the Bar K, Miss." "Oh-h!" Imagine, set in the midst of masses of crusted rose-pink topaz and chrysolite, a single great emerald, like a seal, and dangling down from it, a narrow silken ribbon of the intens- est green. Thus you may conceive what wrung the excla- mation from* tlie girl's lips, and then kept her silent. The ranch was still a' mile away, but -in that thin clear air it showed as if it lay at their very feet. Up to their ears came the thin barking of a dog, and the faint soft sigh of puffing steam. A capful of vapor floated lazily through the trees, and a throb, throb, which the distance robbed of its harsh- ness, proclaimed the working of an engine. "What is that?" she asked. "That's the well, Miss, that irrigates the ranch. All the soil round here is rich, if they could only get water to it. Your uncle happened to find the water, just here." "Is that all my uncle's? I don't see how he could go away and leave it it's so beautiful. How soon do you think he will be back ? " The man failed to answer her, relapsing again into the moody silence from which the sight of the ranch had drawn him. And as they approached the place, her timidity rose once more, with the knowledge that she had offended him somehow, though in what way she did not' know. They had almost reached the buildings, in the midst of which towered the reservoir and coughed the engine, like a patron saint hoarse with many benedictions, when she ventured to say, half under her breath : "I hope you won't forget to let me see you again, to thank you for bringing me here. You know I'm very much 220 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES obliged to you ; I don't know what I could have done with- out you." "Are you, Miss?" \ "I don't know what I could hav f e,done without you," she repeated hurriedly, something in^his tone seeming to make his question mocking. He bowed gravely, took her hand in his, and helped her to the ground. For an instant he continued to hold her, his eyes searching her face. Her heart beat fast ; but he said only : "You know I'd be mighty glad to be of service to you." Then he released her, and they walked in silence up the little path which led to the door. As they did so a man came round the corner of the low building and confronted them. " Why, where the " he began ; then, seeing the girl, he left off speaking, with his mouth still open, and utter surprise written on his face. But he recovered himself quickly. "Why, Bill, up to your old tricks, hey ?" he said softly. "Like to meet your friend, if it's convenient, I would." The young man made no answer; she quickened her step, and they left him standing, with an evil smile upon his lips, staring after them. She could feel his sensual look upon her, as she unconsciously walked closer to her guide ; it followed her, piercing, enfolding, defiling her in spite of herself. The fear which had been partly forgotten 'sprang up in her heart again. Was this truly the Bar K ranch, or she could not finish the thought, even to herself, as she realized her own helplessness, her remoteness from all that she knew of civilization. "This is your uncle's shack, Miss ; I reckon you'd better keep it for to-night, anyway," he said ; but with that other man so near her, his voice had lost its power to reassure. "Yes," she answered nervously. "Can you can you send a woman here, please ? " THE GIRL AT DUKE'S 221 He shook Ms head. "There ain't any woman on the place, Miss ; I'm sor^y." Over his shoulder she caught the eyes of the other man, still turned steadfastly upon her. She knew that she was growing pale, but she tried to say bravely : "Never mind ; I I shall not need one, I think." Then, as he left her, she shut the door fast ; she meant to lock it, but there was no key, and she could only press a chair against it. She grew weak and sick as she stood there, straining her ears to hear the conversation that should pass outside. Her heart fluttered; her hands, grew cold; in a wild thought of escape, she looked about iftie room, to see whither she might fly. Mistily she saw the big bare oblong of it, the table with its red cloth, the deer's heads above the windows, the coyote skins upon the floor ; and then her eye caught the two narrow book-shelves upon the opposite wall, and, hardly knowing what she did, she crossed to them, and took down a volume at random. She meant to open it, to look at the fly-leaf, but her fingers refused to obey her. When she had them under her control, she looked quickly. A name was written there, in bold black chirography ; the lines wavered and trembled, then settled into a signature she knew. Henry F. Gage ! She had reached her destination. She sank into a chair, not know- ing whether she wished to laugh or cry. This was the Bar K! Lonely she was still, but no longer afraid. She had done right to trust the man who had been good to her ! While she sat there, trying to force herself to realize where she was, a silent, soft-padding Chinaman entered, and began to set the table for her supper. She watched him curiously, and saw that he provided only one place. She was* to eat alone, then. She spoke to him, conquering her aversion with an effort, and he bowed solemnly, the tips of his fingers upon his breast, but he made no attempt to answer her question ; and, when she said nothing more, he 222 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES went on deftly with his work. When she looked towards him, his beady, glittering black eyes were fastened upon whatever occupied his fingers ; yet when she looked away, she seemed to be conscious of their quick stare fixed upon her, and, though she hardly knew why, she was glad when the meal was ready, and, the yellow pointed nailST'once more apexed upon his breast, he signified to her that she should eat, and noiselessly took his departure. "When supper was over the sun was almost down and it was seven o'clock, yet there was still no decay in the bril- liance of the light. She went to the window and looked out, and the sight drew her, in spite of herself, into the open. She was in the emerald heart of a world of coral-pink. Softer than scarlet, more glowing than pink, the earth lay suffused, tinted like the embers of a dying fire. Gradually the plains became enclose; deep purple lowered in the sky, orange and gold and pearl; yet still the marvel and the richness of the rose claimed them and won them all, won then into its heart. Dorothy watched it; and for long minutes there was no change, no diminution of its irresist- ible splendor ; the beauty was flaunted unendurably, as if God would forgive the world no jot of abasement before his terrible glory. Then slowly a gray veil began to film the heavens ; for a moment, as the rose faded, the bright colors gleamed and displayed themselves again in bands and streaks ancf turning, prismatic spots ; then, suddenly, as if the fire were dead, the wind blew the embers black, and night fell. "That's part of why I stay in this section, I reckon," said the boy in a low voice. She knew that he had been standing quiet beside her. Because she had wronged him in her thoughts, her face caught the dying flush of the sun as she turned to him, and she put out her hand, "How wonderful it is! Does it come always?" THE GIRL AT DUKE'S 223 " 'Most always, at this, time of year. I reckon you didn't think much of me for 'not telling you there was no other ladies on this ranch ?" he asked bluntly. She flushed again. "I didn't mind," she said. But his eyes were upon her, reading her, and she added, "That is I did at first. But I knew you couldn't help yourself." " I kind o' didn't want to worry you before I had to," he said eagerly. "I thought it'd be better if you came out here, instead of waiting back to Duke's all night; but I reckon I'd ought to have told you at the time." "You did what you thought was right," she said shyly, defending him against himself. "I am very much obliged to you. Are you going to stay on here at the ranch? You said you were, didn't you ? " " Well, we're footloose me and Pete,** he said quickly. "We wouldn't want to bother you " "Oh, I didn't mean " She stopped, hardly knowing what, indeed, she had meant to say. "I hope we shall be friends," she added, and again she put out her hand to him half -unconsciously. He took it this time. "Friends!" he said, with a sudden gruffness that con- trasted oddly with the youthfulness of his face. "I reckon I'd like* mighty well to sit in that sort of a game with you, Miss Dudley. If, when you know me, you'd just ask me once to chip in, I'd chip in; the cards couldn't be held that'd pass me out. But it's not fair not fair to you. If you knew who you was playin' with, I reckon you'd have nothin' to do with me. Maybe I'm a tinhorn ; maybe I'm meaner'n a sheep-herd; how can you tell a lady like you, that don't know and hadn't ought to know bout such things a lady that the whole world is plum glad, I reckon, to be a cyarpet for ? It's not fair." Remembrance of the half-comprehenied words the other man had said came back to her as this one denied himself virtue, and she looked away; 224 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES He seemed to understand. "Don't you think," he said hurriedly, "that anything Big Ed says about me goes. I wouldn't I wouldn't want " "Was you wanting me ? " interrupted a voice. Out of the gloom appeared the man of whom he was speaking. "If it was anyways convenient couldn't you give me a knock- down to your friend ? " he repeated. *d| The girl and the boy sprang apart, but as^he approached she drew near to the younger man again instinctively, f "I reckon you'd best mosey," said the boy quietly. "If it was anyways convenient " began the man again, smiling his evil smile. The boy drove it back upon his teeth, and Big Ed dropped. "Yes; better mosey," said the boy again, through tight lips. "Do not mind him, Miss ; he is only joking." Big Ed rose and vanished, the boy looking after him. "Do not mind him," he repeated soothingly. "You see, he does not know who, you are, or he would not be saucy." His voice was tendeP'as a woman's. They walked to the door of the shack, and he bowed a good-night. "I I think I'm a little a little afraid," she whis- pered. "He was joking," the boy said again. "He knows now." "Are you are you going to explain to him ?" she asked. "Yes, Miss; I'll tell him who you are; that's all, you see/' He bowed again and closed the door. would not come to her, though she was very tired. The patron saint coughed monotonously on throughout the night ; a coyote on a hill howled tenaciously ; and when he ceased, and the thrw> of the engine had wrought itself innoticeably into the woof of the stillness, there recurred THE GIRL AT DUKE'S 225 another sound, faint, yet persistent, which summoned her wide awake, and kept her so. It went ind came; now it was unheard, now close by again, tapping, tapping, stealth- ily. She had barred her door and fastened her windows shut before she lay down, and the room was very hot. The night was endless ! At last she could endure that sound no longer, and, slipping from her bed, she stole in her bare feet to the window, and pushing aside the curtain ever so little, peered fearfully\mt. The moon was up. and turned the coral plains to silver. Before the shack she saw the boy standing, looking away into the colorless night As she watched him, he began his steady tramping up and down, up and down. His face was visible in the moonlight, hard and set, so that it frightened her. Yet she remained look- ing at him, fascinated ; her breath, which had been coming in silent gasps, softened and grew regular, and her heart left off the nervous rapidity of its hammering. Tears came into her eyes. Presently she crept back to bed, leaving that silent sentinel to his vigil under the purple-black sky, and, after a little, she slept soundly. She did not know how long she had slept, when she was awakened, sharply, as if the veil of her sleep, instead of being lifted, had been torn across. She lay palpitating, fancying that she had heard voices in alternations. Sud- denly a shot was fired, then another, close to the shack. She cowered in the bed, vibrant with horror. She knew that if for an instant she should draw the quilt froiA Tier mouth, where she had stuffed it, she would be screaming. Then a voice, the boy's voice, said, gently, at the door : "Excuse me, Miss ; if maybe you're awake, I wanted to say don't be scared ; it was a coyote I had to shoot. I know I oughtn't to have done it." The throb of the engine resumed its place in the silence. Her fears sank, but her horror remained. She fancied that she heard in her ears a cry which no coyote ever gave. The 226 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES chill wjiiqh comes before the dawn was in the air. At last the sun* rose and found her dressed and shivering. The noiseless Chinaman served her breakfast, as he had served her supper. She could not eat, but, when he had deferentially bowed and departed, she made a pretense. She was sitting at the table when a knock came, and the boy entered. His face was unchanged by his night's watch. "Good morning," she tried to say, rising quickly as he came in. "And to you, Miss." "Won't you sit down ?" "I thank you. I reckon we'll have to be movin', Miss." "Yes." She comprehended his meaning by one of those flashes of understanding*!!! which all that has passed seems to gather to one focus. "My uncle?" she asked trem- blingly, i "I reckon I'd best explain it to you going in, hadn't I ?" "Now," she insisted. "Where have you brought me to ? Where is my uncle? What is this place?" She kept her eyes on his, flutteringly, like a bird's. "This is the Bar K ranch," he said dutifully. "You didn't think-" " My uncle Mr. Gage ? " "Your uncle is dead, Miss Dudley," he replied somberly. The place reeled in red circles around her, and he caught her as she was falling. "Dead?" "Yes." j 7 "It can't be; it can't be !" she cried. "I have his let- ters" The boy told her obediently and mechanically. "He went out Tuesday was a week. When he didn't come back that night, we went to look for him. It ain't safe to leave them go more than one night, ever." His eyes swept that merciless ruddy plain. "We found him, Miss. He'd turned THE GIRL AT DUKE'S 227 down the wrong arroyo, you see, and then he couldn't seem to get straight again. Sometimes it is hard so to do. Well I reckon, that's all." "So, yesterday, you were telling me " She left the sentence unfinished., ; For the first time that morning, his face showed emo- tion. His lips twitched, and his words came a little jerkily. "That was bad. But I couldn't think what was best to do, and I didn't want to worry you out there. I hadn't no excuse, no right excuse, that is, such as would be fit and proper. It was partly seeing you, Miss ; I hadn't seen a lady like you, not for a long time. Never. And you was wanting to come right to this ranch ; and I knew I could make it safe and ^comfortable for you, this night, better than down then* dt Duke's. So " "I'm ready," she said. "When does the train go?" "East or west, Miss?" "East." " I supposed you'd be taking that one. At ten o'clock." "Must I ride in like yesterday?" "No, Miss. There is a wagon. But I'm afraid I'll have to go with you. There's nobody else, I reckon, I can trust. I know it ain't gentleman-like." The girl took the place that he pointed out in the light wagon. She was moving like a person in a dream. She hardly even knew why she had stared at him so eagerly when he entered, nor why she had drawn that long breath of relief when she perceived that he was unhurt. She thought she abhorred him ; she thought that her only wish was never to see him again, to get away, to escape, to leave behind her this country of death. They drove through clouds of dust, which rose and settled upon them. The old, bad, pmk buttes glimmered at them maliciously in the heaving distance, seeming to beckon to the girl, to lure her on as they had lured her uncle. Their beauty was dead ; 228 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES \ they grinned like skeletons. She had been driving forever, it"seemed to her, over slopes and through red river-beds as dry as bones. Not even a bird hung in the blue, not even a rabbit loped away listlessly before them ; theirs was the only life in the desert. The sun smote upon them, now from the side, now in their faces, now upon their backs. Where she was, whither she was going, she did not know. Yet she was not afraid, as she had been before only dull and careless of what happened to her. She was hardly mpre^a part of the world, the living, spinning world, than the bit of sandstone they were passing. They passed it ; she looked at her guide and there was Duke's asleep in the hot sun, amidst the rose-red, sun-beaten, grassless, treeless, water- less hills, as it had been yesterday, and should be to-mor- row. But she did not see it, for as it came in sight the boy's face paled, and he dropped the reins. " I reckon you can find your way now," he said, and his eyes closed peacefully. "I've " He toppled toward her, and she had to put her arms around him. "What is it ? what is it ? " she cried wildly. His Cf eyes opened slowly. "That coyote bit me," he murmured, and they closed again. The ponies, left to themselves, stopped. They had reached Duke's. She got water from the perishing creek and bathed his head, and then, taking off her hat, she sat and fanned him. Presently he revived again, and under his direction she found his flask and gave him whiskey. "I I didn't know I was such a dern fool," he whispered. "Hush!" she said. "You mustn't talk." "I saw this morning," he answered irrelevantly, "that you knew I was lying to you last night about that coyote. But I guess you was deceived then ? " "No," she said quickly; "I knew. I heard but I thought you weren't hurt." THE GIRL AT DUKE'S 229 "Don't you be good to me," he said. "I wasn't hurt bad I ain't lying to you now. I reckon I just keeled over with the sun me being a fool." "If you would get into the shade " she said hesitat- ingly. "Don't you be good to me," he repeated. But he moved obediently as she suggested. " JTiiat train'll be along soon now," he said. "We have to flagit, you know, Miss. Naturally, it don't stop." "I know." " I reckon you'll be going back to your folks ? " he asked at length. "There was only my uncle," she answered quietly. "Well, a lady like you has got plenty of friends every- where." "And yet you wouldn't be friends " "Friends !" he interrupted her. "You're goin* away so soon now I reckon it wouldn't be playing it low-down if I was to tell you " "You oughtn't to talk," she repeated. "I can't help myself, Miss. I've gqt^to say this. I told you I might be trash, and if you was'fo be staying here I wouldn't say a word more. But I can't let you go away thinkin' that what he said was true Big Ed " "Stop!" she cried. "Did you did you kill him?" She looked at him beseechingly, her eyes praying. But he answered sadly : " You can't understand, Miss. He miscomprehended right at first, and there weren't any chance to put him straight. He miscomprehended." The boy's eyes turned back towards the Bar K, and Dorothy knew clearly that his words were Big Ed's epitaph. "You can't understand," he repeated. " I never thought what he said was true," she said. The boy's face lightened, then fell into gloom again. "No," he answered to himself, "how could you under- 230 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES stand him a lady like you ? Well, I reckon I must be movm'." He tried to rise, but she restrained him. "No, no! I am afraid." "It'll be here right soon, now," he said gently. "Oh, if you wish to go, go !" she sobbed suddenly. "I can flag the train ; I can wait here alone. I would rather wait than have you stay ! Go, go ! " ^* I saw you here yesterday," he whispered, "and it was like 1 1 saw an angel an angel from heaven. Yes, I'll go, Miss; I know how I must be annoy in' you by my words. But would it be playing lowdown to say why I wouldn't be friends as you have said ? Would I dare take a hand in that there game ? What do I do first ? I lie to you lie to you about your uncle, a gentleman who has been kindly to me. Say I mean you no harm. But what do I do ? I lie. How do I cjare be friends with you after that ? Friends why, I ougnt to be ashamed of myself, I know ; you willnot speak to me, Miss ; but it's not friendship's been in my heart since I've seen you ! " She did not withdraw her eyes from his, and he went on, more and more rapidly : "I'm older than I look, I reckon. I'm twenty-six. I've seen a lot of things things that you wouldn't ever hear about. But I do not think I ever did a mean trick. I've been honest till yesterday ; and then it had to be you I lied to you. Well, I reckon I will be goin', now." "Are you- 4 are you going to leave me ? " she asked for- lornly. "Won't you stay ? " She knelt beside him, and his arm closed around her. The east-bound train, on time for a wonder, swept unflagged in a whirl of dust through Duke's, and passengers looking from the windows saw the two there, and laughed a little, LOVE OF LIFE* BY JACK LONDON " This out of all mil remain They have lived and have tossed: So much of the game will be gain, Though the gold of the dice has been lost" THEY limped painfully down the bank, and once the fore- most of the two men staggered among the rough-strewn rocks. They were tired and weak, and their faces had the drawn expression of patience which comes of hardship long endured. They were heavily burdened with blanket packs which were strapped to their shoulders. Head-straps, pass- ing across the forehead, helped support these packs. Each man carried a rifle. They walked in a stooped posture, the shoulders well forward, the head still farther forward, the eyes bent upon the ground. " I wish we had just about two of them cartridges that's layin' in that cache of ourn," said the second man. His voice was utterly and drearily expressionless. He spoke without enthusiasm ; but the first man, limping into the milky stream that foamed over the rocks, vouchsafed no reply. The other man followed at his heels. They did not re- move their footgear, though the water was icy cold so cold that their ankles ached and their feet went numb. In places the water dashed against their knees, and both men staggered for footing. The man who followed slipped on a smooth boulder, nearly fell, but recovered himself with a violent effort, at the same time uttering a sharp exclamation of pain. He i Reprinted by permission from Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London. Copyright, 1910, by the Macmillan Company. 232 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES seemed faint and dizzy, and put out his free hand while he reeled, as though seeking support against the air. When he had steadied himself he stepped forward, but reeled again and nearly fell. Then he stood still and looked at the other man, who had never turned his head. - The man stood still for fully a minute, as though debat- ing with himself. Then he called out : "I say, Bill, I've sprained my ankle." Bill staggered on through the milky water. He did not look around. The man watched him go, and though his face was expressionless as ever, his eyes were like the eyes of a wounded deer. The other man limped up the farther bank and contin- ued straight on without looking back. The man in the stream watched him. His lips trembled a little, so that the rough thatch of brown hair which covered them was vis- ibly agitated. His tongue even strayed out to moisten them. "Bill!" he cried out. It was the pleading cry of a strong man in distress, but Bill's head did not turn. The man watched him go, limp- ing grotesquely and lurching forward with stammering gait up the slow slope toward the soft sky-line of the low-lying hill. He watched him go till he passed over the crest and disappeared. Then he turned his gaze and slowly took in the circle of the world that remained to him now that Bill was gone. Near the horizon the sun was smoldering dimly, almost obscured by formless mists and vapors, which gave an impression of mass and density without outline or tangi- bility. The man pulled out his watch, the while resting his weight on one leg. It was four o'clock, and as the season was near the last of July or first of August he did not know the precise date within a week or two he knew that the sun roughly marked the northwest. He looked to LOVE OF LIFE 233 the south and knew that somewhere beyond those bleak hills lay the Great Bear Lake ; also, he knew that in that direction the Arctic Circle cut its forbidding way across the Canadian Barrens. This stream in which he stood was a feeder to the Coppermine River, which in turn flowed north and emptied into Coronation Gulf and the Arctic Ocean. He had never been there, but he had seen it, once, on a Hudson Bay Company chart. Again his gaze completed the circle of the world about him. It was not a heartening spectacle. Everywhere was soft sky-line. The hills were all low-lying. There were no trees, no shrubs, no grasses naught but a tremendous and terrible desolation that sent fear swiftly dawning into his eyes. "Bill !" he whispered, once and twice ; "Bill !" He cowered in the midst of the milky water, as though the vastness were pressing in upon him with overwhelming force, brutally crushing him with its complacent awf ulness. He began to shake as with an ague-fit, till the gun fell from his hand with a splash. This served to rouse him. He fought with his fear and pulled himself together, groping in the water and recovering the weapon. He hitched his pack farther over on his left shoulder, so as to take a por- tion of its weight from off the injured ankle. Then he pro- ceeded, slowly and carefully, wincing with pain, to the bank. He did not stop. With a desperation that was madness, unmindful of the pain, he hurried up the slope to the crest of the hill over which his comrade had disappeared more grotesque and comical by far than that limping, jerking comrade. But at the crest he saw a shallow valley, empty of life. He fought with his fear again, overcame it, hitched the pack still farther over on his left shoulder, and lurched on down the slope. The bottom of the valley was soggy with water, which 234 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES the thick moss held, sponge-like, close to the surface. This water squirted out from under his feet at every step, and each time he lifted a foot the action culminated in a suck- ing sound as the wet moss reluctantly released its grip. He picked his way from muskeg to muskeg, and followed the other man's footsteps along and across the rocky ledges which thrust like islets through the sea of moss. Though alone he was not lost. Farther on he knew he would come to where dead spruce and fir, very small and weazened, bordered the shore of a little lake, the tit-chin- nichilie in the tongue of the country, the "land of little sticks." And into that lake flowed a small stream, the water of which was not milky. There was rush-grass on that stream this he remembered well but no timber, and he would follow it till its first trickle ceased at a divide. He would cross this divide to the first trickle of another stream, flowing to the west, which he would follow until it emptied into the River Dease, and here he would find a cache under an upturned canoe and piled over with many rocks. And in this cache would be ammunition for his empty gun, fish-hooks and lines, a small net all the utilities for the killing and snaring of food. Also, he would find flour not much a piece of bacon and some beans. Bill would be waiting for him there, and they would paddle away south down the Dease to the Great Bear Lake. And south across the lake they would go, ever south, till they gained the Mackenzie. And south, still south, they would go, while the winter raced vainly after them, and the ice formed in the eddies, and the days grew chill and crisp, south to some warm Hudson Bay Company post, where timber grew tall and generous and there was grub without end. These were the thoughts of the man as he strove onward. But hard as he strove with his body, he strove equally hard with his mind, trying to think that Bill had not deserted LOVE OF LIFE 235 him, that Bill would surely wait for him at the cache. He was compelled to think this thought, or else there would not be any use to strive, and he would have lain down and died. And as the dim ball of the sun sank slowly into the northwest he covered every inch, and many times, of his and Bill's flight south before the downcoming winter. And he conned the grub of the cache and the grub of the Hudson Bay Company post over and over again. He had not eaten for two days; for a far longer time he had not had all he wanted to eat. Often he stooped and picked pale muskeg berries, put them into his mouth and chewed and swal- lowed them. A muskeg berry is a bit of seed enclosed in a bit of water. In the mouth the water melts away and the seed chews sharp and bitter. The man knew there was no nourishment in the berries, but he chewed them patiently with a hope greater than knowledge and defying expe- rience. At nine o'clock he stubbed his toe on a rocky ledge, and from sheer weariness and weakness staggered and fell He lay for some time, without movement, on his side. Then he slipped out of the pack-straps and clumsily dragged himself into a sitting posture. It was not yet dark, and in the lingering twilight he groped about among the rocks for shreds of dry moss. When he had gathered a heap he built a fire a smoldering, smudgy fire and put a tin pot of water on to boil. He unwrapped his pack, and the first thing he did was to count his matches. There were sixty-seven. He counted them three times to make sure. He divided them into sev- eral portions, wrapping them in oil paper, disposing of one bunch in his empty tobacco pouch, of another bunch in the inside band of his battered hat, of a third bunch under his shirt on the chest. This accomplished, a panic came upon him and he unwrapped them all and counted them again. There were still sixty-seven. 236 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES He dried his wet footgear by the fire. The moccasins were in soggy shreds. The blanket socks were worn through in places, and his feet were raw and bleeding. His ankle was throbbing and he gave it an examination. It had swollen to the size of his knee. He tore a long strip from one of his two blankets and bound the ankle tightly. He tore other strips and bound them about his feet to serve for both moccasins and socks. Then he drank the pot of water, steaming hot, wound his watch, and crawled between his blankets. He slept like a dead man. The brief darkness around midnight came and went. The sun arose in the northeast at least the day dawned in that quarter, for the sun was hidden by gray clouds. At six o'clock he awoke, quietly lying on his back. He gazed straight up into the gray sky and knew that he was hungry. As he rolled over on his elbow he was startled by a loud snort, and saw a bull caribou regarding him with alert curiosity. The animal was not more than fifty feet away, and instantly into the man's mind leaped the vision and the savor of a caribou steak sizzling and frying over a fire. Mechanically he reached for the empty gun, drew a bead, and pulled the trigger. The bull snorted and leaped away, his hoofs rattling and clattering as he fled across the ledges. The man cursed and flung the empty gun from him. He groaned aloud as he started to drag himself to his feet. It was a slow and arduous task. His joints were like rusty hinges. They worked harshly in their sockets, with much friction, and each bending or unbending was accomplished only through a sheer exertion of will. When he finally gained his feet, another minute or so was consumed in straightening up, so that he could stand erect as a man should stand. He crawled up a small knoll and surveyed the prospect. There were no trees, no bushes, nothing but a gray sea of LOVE OF. LIFE 237 moss scarcely diversified by gray rocks, gray-colored lake- lets, and gray streamlets. The sky was gray. There was no sun or hint of sun. He had no idea of north, and he had forgotten the way he had come to this spot the night before. But he was not lost. He knew that. Soon he would come to the land of the little sticks. He felt that it lay off to the left somewhere, not far possibly just over the next low hill. He went back to put his pack into shape for traveling. He assured himself of the existence of his three separate parcels of matches, though he did not stop to count them. But he did linger, debating, over a squat moose-hide sack. It was not large. He could hide it under his two hands. He knew that it weighed fifteen pounds as much as all the rest of the pack and it worried him. He finally set it to one side and proceeded to roll the pack. He paused to gaze at the squat moose-hide sack. He picked it up hastily with a defiant glance about him, as though the desolation were trying to rob him of it ; and when he rose to his feet to stagger on into the day, it was included in the pack on his back. He bore away to the left, stopping now and again to eat muskeg berries. His ankle had stiffened, his limp was more pronounced, but the pain of it was as nothing compared with the pain of his stomach. The hunger pangs were sharp. They gnawed and gnawed until he could not keep his mind steady on the course he must pursue to gain the land of little sticks. The muskeg berries did not allay this gnawing, while they made his tongue and the roof of his mouth sore with their irritating bite. He came upon a valley where rock ptarmigan rose on whirring wings from the ledges and muskegs. Ker ker her was the cry they made. He threw stones at them, but could not hit them. He placed his pack on the ground and stalked them as a cat stalks a sparrow. The sharp rocks 238 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES cut through his pants' legs till his knees left a trail of blood ; but the hurt was lost in the hurt of his hunger. He squirmed over the wet moss, saturating his clothes and chilling his body ; but he was not aware of it, so great was his fever for food. And always the ptarmigan rose, whir- ring, before him, till their ker ker ker became a mock to him, and he cursed them and cried aloud at them with their own cry. Once he crawled upon one that must have been asleep. He did not see it till it shot up in his face from its rocky nook. He made a clutch as startled as was the rise of the ptarmigan, and there remained in his hand three tail- feathers. As he watched its flight he hated it, as though it had done him some terrible wrong. Then he returned and shouldered his pack. As the day wore along he came into valleys or swales where game was more plentiful. A band of caribou passed by, twenty and odd animals, tantalizingly within rifle range. He felt a wild desire to run after them, a certitude that he could run them down. A black fox came toward him, carrying a ptarmigan in his mouth. The man shouted. It was a fearful cry, but the fox leaping away in fright did not drop the ptarmigan. Late in the afternoon he followed a stream, milky with lime, which ran through sparse patches of rush-grass. Grasping these rushes firmly near the root, he pulled up what resembled a young onion-sprout no larger than a shingle-nail. It was tender and his teeth sank into it with a crunch that promised deliciously of food. But its fibers were tough. It was composed of stringy filaments satu- rated with water, like the berries, and devoid of nourish- ment. But he threw off his pack and went into the rush- grass on hands and knees, crunching and munching, like some bovine creature. He was very weary and often wished to rest to lie LOVE OF LIFE 239 down and sleep ; but he was continually driven on not so much by his desire to gain the land of little sticks as by his hunger. He searched little ponds for frogs and dug up the earth with his nails for worms, though he knew in spite that neither frogs nor worms existed so far north. He looked into every pool of water vainly, until, as the long twilight came on, he discovered a solitary fish, the size of a minnow, in such a pool. He plunged his arm in up to the shoulder, but it eluded him. He reached for it with both hands and stirred up the milky mud at the bottom. In his excitement he fell in, wetting himself to the waist. Then the water was too muddy to admit of his seeing the fish, and he was compelled to wait until the sediment had settled. The pursuit was renewed, till the water was again muddied. But he could not wait. He unstrapped the tin bucket and began to bale the pool. He baled wildly at first, splashing himself and flinging the water so short a distance that it ran back into the pool. He worked more carefully, striving to be cool, though his heart was pounding against his chest and his hands were trembling. At the end of half an hour the pool was nearly dry. Not a cupful of water re- mained. And there was no fish. He found a hidden crevice among the stones through which it had escaped to the ad- joining and larger pool a pool which he could not empty in a night and a day. Had he known of the crevice, he could have closed it with a rock at the beginning and the fish would have been his. Thus he thought, and crumpled up and sank down upon the wet earth. At first he cried softly to himself, then he cried loudly to the pitiless desolation that ringed him around; and for a long time after he was shaken by great dry sobs. He built a fire and warmed himself by drinking quarts of hot water, and made camp on a rocky ledge in the same 240 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES fashion he had the night before. The last thing he did was to see that his matches were dry and to wind his watch. The blankets were wet and clammy. His ankle pulsed with pain. But he knew only that he was hungry, and through his restless sleep he dreamed of feasts and banquets and of food served and spread in all imaginable ways. He awoke chilled and sick. There was no sun. The gray of earth and sky had become deeper, more profound. A raw wind was blowing, and the first flurries of snow were whitening the hill-tops. The air about him thickened and grew white while he made a fire and boiled more water. It was wet snow, half rain, and the flakes were large and soggy. At first they melted as soon as they came in con- tact with the earth, but ever more fell, covering the ground, putting out the fire, spoiling his supply of moss-fuel. This was the signal for him to strap on his pack and stumble onward he knew not where. He was not concerned with the land of little sticks, nor with Bill and the cache under the upturned canoe by the River Dease. He was mastered by the verb "to eat." He was hunger-mad. He took no heed of the course he pursued, so long as that course led him through the swale bottoms. He felt his way through the wet snow to the watery muskeg berries, and went by feel as he pulled up the rush-grass by the roots. But it was tasteless stuff and did not satisfy. He found a weed that tasted sour, and he ate all he could find of it, which was not much, for it was a creeping growth, easily hidden under the several inches of snow. He had no fire that night nor hot water, and crawled under his blanket to sleep the broken hunger-sleep. The snow turned into a cold rain. He awakened many times to feel it falling on his upturned face. Day came a gray day and no sun. It had ceased raining. The keenness of his hunger had departed. Sensibility, so far as concerned the yearning for food, had been exhausted. There was a LOVE OF LIFE Ml dull, heavy ache in his stomach, but it did not bother him so much. He was more rational, and once more he was chiefly interested in the land of little sticks and the cache by the River Dease. He ripped the remnant of one of his blankets into strips and bound his bleeding feet. Also, he recinched the in- jured ankle and prepared himself for a day of travel. When he came to his pack he paused long over the squat moose- hide sack, but in the end it went with him. The snow had melted under the rain and only the hill- tops showed white. The sun came out, and he succeeded in locating the points of the compass, though he knew now that he was lost. Perhaps, in his previous days' wander- ings, he had edged away too far to the left. He now bore off to the right to counteract the possible deviation from his true course. Though the hunger pangs were no longer so exquisite, he realized that he was weak. He was compelled to pause for frequent rests when he attacked the muskeg berries and rush-grass patches. His tongue felt dry and large, as though covered with a fine hairy growth, and it tasted bitter in his mouth. His heart gave him a great deal of trouble. When he had traveled a few minutes it would begin a remorseless thump, thump, thump, and then leap up and away in a painful flutter of beats that choked him and made him go faint and dizzy. In the middle of the day he found two minnows in a large pool. It was impossible to bale it, but he was calmer now and managed to catch them in his tin bucket. They were no longer than his little finger, but he was not particu- larly hungry. The dull ache in his stomach had been grow- ing duller and fainter. It seemed almost that his stomach was dozing. He ate the fish raw, masticating with pains- taking care, for the eating was an act of pure reason. While he had no desire to eat he knew that he must eat to live. 242 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES In the evening he caught three more minnows, eating two and saving the third for breakfast. The sun had dried stray shreds of moss, and he was able to warm himself with hot water. He had not covered more then ten miles that day, and the next day, traveling whenever his heart per- mitted him, he covered no more than five miles. But his stomach did not give him the slightest uneasiness. It had gone to sleep. He was in a strange country, too, and the caribou were growing more plentiful, also the wolves. Often their yelps drifted across the desolation, and once he saw three of them slinking away before his path. Another night, and in the morning, being more rational, he untied the leather string that fastened the squat moose- hide sack. From its open mouth poured a yellow stream of coarse gold-dust and nuggets. He roughly divided the gold in halves, caching one half on a prominent ledge, wrapped in a piece of blanket, and returning the other half to the sack. He also began to use strips of the one remain- ing blanket for his feet. He still clung to his gun, for there were cartridges in that cache by the River Dease. This was a day of fog, and this day hunger awoke in him again. He was very weak and was afflicted with a giddiness which at times blinded him. It was no uncom- mon thing now for him to stumble and fall ; and stumbling once, he fell squarely into a ptarmigan nest. There were four newly hatched chicks a day old little specks of pulsating life no more than a mouthful ; and he ate them ravenously, thrusting them alive into his mouth and crunch- ing them like egg-shells between his teeth. The mother ptarmigan beat about him with great out-cry. He used his gun as a club with which to knock her over, but she dodged out of reach. He threw stones at her and with one chance shot broke a wing. Then she fluttered away, run- ning, trailing the broken wing, with him in pursuit. The little chicks had no more than whetted his appetite. LOVE OF LIFE 243 He hopped and bobbed clumsily along on his injured ankle, throwing stones and screaming hoarsely at times ; at other times hopping and bobbing silently along, picking himself up grimly and patiently when he fell, or rubbing his eyes with his hand when the giddiness threatened to overpower him. The chase led him across swampy ground in the bottom of the valley, and he came upon footprints in the soggy moss. They were not his own he could see that. They must be Bill's. But he could not stop, for the mother ptarmigan was running on. He would catch her first, then he would return and investigate. He exhausted the mother ptarmigan ; but he exhausted himself. She lay panting on her side. He lay panting on his side, a dozen feet away, unable to crawl to her. And as he recovered she recovered, fluttering out of reach as his hun- gry hand went out to her. The chase was resumed. Night settled down and she escaped. He stumbled from weakness and pitched head-foremost on his face, cutting his cheek, his pack upon his back. He did not move for a long while ; then he rolled over on his side, wound his watch, and lay there until morning. Another day of fog. Half of his last blanket had gone into foot-wrappings. He failed to pick up Bill's trail. It did not matter. His hunger was driving him too compellingly only only he wondered if Bill, too, were lost. By mid- day the irk of his pack became too oppressive. Again he divided the gold, this time merely spilling half of it on the ground. In the afternoon he threw the rest of it away, there remaining to him only the half-blanket, the tin bucket, and the rifle. An hallucination began to trouble him. He felt confident that one cartridge remained to him. It was in the chamber of the rifle and he had overlooked it. On the other hand, he knew all the time that the chamber was empty. But the 244 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES hallucination persisted. He fought it off for hours, then threw his rifle open and was confronted with emptiness. The disappointment was as bitter as though he had really expected to find the cartridge. He plodded on for half an hour, when the hallucination arose again. Again he fought it and still it persisted, till for very relief he opened his rifle to unconvince himself. At times his mind wandered farther afield, and he plodded on, a mere automaton, strange conceits and whimsicalities gnawing at his brain like worms. But these excursions out of the real were of brief duration, for ever the pangs of the hunger-bite called him back. He was jerked back abruptly once from such an excursion by a sight that caused him nearly to faint. He reeled and swayed, doddering like a drunken man to keep from falling. Before him stood a horse. A horse ! He could not believe his eyes. A thick mist was in them, intershot with sparkling points of light. He rubbed his eyes savagely to clear his vision, and beheld not a horse, but a great brown bear. The animal was study- ing him with bellicose curiosity. The man had brought his gun halfway to his shoulder before he realized. He lowered it and drew his bunting- knife from its beaded sheath at his hip. Before him was meat and life. He ran his thumb along the edge of his knife. It was sharp. The point was sharp. He would fling himself upon the bear and kill it. But his heart began its warning thump, thump, thump. Then followed the wild upward leap and tattoo of flutters, the pressing as of an iron band about his forehead, the creeping of the dizziness into his brain. His desperate courage was evicted by a great surge of fear. In his weakness, what if the animal attacked him ! He drew himself up to his most imposing stature, gripping the knife and staring hard at the bear. The bear advanced clumsily a couple of steps, reared up and gave vent to a LOVE OF LIFE 245 tentative growl. If the man ran he would run after him ; but the man did not run. He was animated now with the courage of fear. He, too, growled, savagely, terribly, voic- ing the fear that is to life germane and that lies twisted about life's deepest roots. The bear edged away to one side, growling menacingly, himself appalled by this mysterious creature that appeared upright and unafraid. But the man did not move. He stood like a statue till the danger was past, when he yielded to a fit of trembling and sank down into the wet moss. He pulled himself together and went on, afraid now in a new way. It was not the fear that he should die passively from lack of food, but that he should be destroyed violently before starvation had exhausted the last particle of the endeavor in him that made toward surviving. There were the wolves. Back and forth across the desolation drifted their howls, weaving the very air into a fabric of menace that was so tangible that he found himself, arms in the air, pressing it back from him as it might be the walls of a wind-blown tent. Now and again the wolves in packs of two and three crossed his path. But they sheered clear of him. They were not in sufficient numbers, and besides they were hunting the caribou which did not battle, while this strange crea- ture that walked erect might scratch and bite. In the late afternoon he came upon scattered bones where the wolves had made a kill. The debris had been a caribou calf an hour before, squawking and running and very much alive. He contemplated the bones, clean-picked and polished, pink with the cell-life in them which had not yet died. Could it possibly be that he might be that ere the day was done ! Such was life, eh ? A vain and fleeting thing. It was only life that pained. There was no hurt in death. To die was to sleep. It meant cessation, rest. Then why was he not content to die ? 246 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES ' But he did not moralize long. He was squatting in the moss, a bone in his mouth, sucking at the shreds of life that still dyed it faintly pink. The sweet meaty taste, thin and elusive almost as a memory, maddened him. He closed his jaws on the bones and crunched. Sometimes it was the bone that broke, sometimes his teeth. Then he crushed the bones between rocks, pounded them to a pulp and swallowed them. He pounded his fingers, too, in his haste, and yet found a moment in which to feel surprise at the fact that his fingers did not hurt much when caught under the descending rock. Came frightful days of snow and rain. He did not know when he made camp, when he broke camp. He traveled in the night as much as in the day. He rested wherever he fell, crawled on whenever the dying life in him flickered up and burned less dimly. He as a man no longer strove. It was the life in him, unwilling to die, that drove him on. He did not suffer. His nerves had become blunted, numb, while his mind was filled with weird visions and delicious dreams. But ever he sucked and chewed on the crushed bones of the caribou calf, the least remnants of which he had gathered up and carried with him. He crossed no more hills or divides, but automatically followed a large stream which flowed through a wide and shallow valley. He did not see this stream or this valley. He saw nothing save visions. Soul and body walked or crawled side by side, yet apart, so slender was the thread that bound them. He awoke in his right mind, lying on his back on a rocky ledge. The sun was shining bright and warm. Afar off he heard the squawking of caribou calves. He was aware of vague memories of rain and wind and snow, but whether he had been beaten by the storm for two days or two weeks he did not know. For some time he lay without movement, the genial sun- LOVE OF LIFE 247 shine pouring upon him and saturating his miserable body with its warmth. A fine day, he thought. Perhaps he could manage to locate himself. By a painful effort he rolled over on his side. Below him flowed a wide and slug- gish river. Its unfamiliarity puzzled him. Slowly he fol- lowed it with his eyes, winding in wide sweeps among the bleak bare hills, bleaker and barer and lower-lying than any hills he had yet encountered. Slowly, deliberately, without excitement or more than the most casual interest, he followed the course of the strange stream toward the sky-line and saw it emptying into a bright and shining sea. He was still unexcited. Most unusual, he thought, a vision, or a mirage more likely a vision, a trick of his disordered mind. He was confirmed in this by sight of a ship lying at anchor in the midst of the shining sea. He closed his eyes for a while, then opened them. Strange how the vision persisted ! Yet not strange. He knew there were no seas or ships in the heart of the barren lands, just as he had known there was no cartridge in the empty rifle. He heard a snuffle behind him a half -choking gasp or cough. Very slowly, because of his exceeding weakness and stiffness, he rolled over on his other side. He could see nothing near at hand, but he waited patiently. Again came the snuffle and cough, and outlined between two jagged rocks not a score of feet away he made out the gray head of a wolf. The sharp ears were not pricked so sharply as he had seen them on other wolves ; the eyes were bleared and blood-shot, the head seemed to droop limply and forlornly. The animal blinked continually in the sunshine. It seemed sick. As he looked it snuffled and coughed again. This, at least, was real, he thought, and turned on the other side so that he might see the reality of the world which had been veiled from him before by the vision. But the sea still shone in the distance and the ship's spars were plainly discernible. Was it reality after all ? He closed his 248 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES eyes for a long while and thought, and then it came to him. He had been making north by east, away from the Dease Divide and into the Coppermine Valley. This wide and sluggish river was the Coppermine. That shining sea was the Arctic Ocean. That ship was a whaler, strayed east, far east, from the mouth of the Mackenzie, and it was lying at anchor in Coronation Gulf. He remembered the Hudson Bay Company chart he had seen long ago, and it was all clear and reasonable to him. He sat up and turned his attention to immediate affairs. He had worn through the blanket-wrappings, and his feet were like shapeless lumps of raw meat. His last blanket was gone. Rifle and knife were both missing. He had lost his hat somewhere, with the bunch of matches in the band, but the matches against his chest were safe and dry inside the tobacco pouch and oil-paper. He looked at his watch. It marked eleven o'clock and was still running. Evidently he had kept it wound. He was calm and collected. Though extremely weak he had no sensation of pain. He was not hungry. The thought of food was not even pleasant to him, and whatever he did was done by his reason alone. He ripped off his pants' legs to the knees and bound them about his feet. Somehow he had succeeded in retaining the tin bucket. He would have some hot water before he began what he foresaw was to be a terrible journey to the ship. His movements were slow. He shook as with a palsy. When he started to collect dry moss he found he could not rise to his feet. He tried again and again, then contented himself with crawling about on hands and knees. Once he crawled near to the sick wolf. The animal dragged itself reluctantly out of his way, licking its chops with a tongue which seemed hardly to have the strength to curl. The man noticed that the tongue was not the customary health- | ful red. It was a yellowish brown and seemed coated with a rough and half -dry mucus. LOVE OF LIFE 249 After he had drunk a quart of hot water the man found he was able to stand, and even to walk as well as a dying man might be supposed to walk. Every minute or so he was compelled to rest. His steps were feeble and uncertain, just as the wolf's that trailed him were feeble and uncer- tain ; and that night, when the shining sea was blotted out by blackness, he knew he was nearer to it by no more than four miles. Throughout the night he heard the cough of the sick wolf, and now and then the squawking of the caribou calves. There was life all around him, but it was strong life, very much alive and well, and he knew the sick wolf clung to the sick man's trail in the hope that the man would die first. In the morning, on opening his eyes, he beheld it regarding him with a wistful and hungry stare. It stood crouched, with tail between its legs, like a miserable and woe-begone dog. It shivered in the chill morning wind, and grinned dispiritedly when the man spoke to it in a voice which achieved no more than a hoarse whisper. The sun rose brightly, and all morning the man tottered and fell toward the ship on the shining sea. The weather was perfect. It was the brief Indian summer of the high latitudes. It might last a week. To-morrow or next day it might be gone. In the afternoon the man came upon a trail. It was of another man, who did not walk, but who dragged himself on all fours. The man thought it might be Bill, but he thought in a dull, uninterested way. He had no curiosity. In fact sensation and emotion had left him. He was no longer susceptible to pain. Stomach and nerves had gone to sleep. Yet the life that was in him drove him on. He was very weary, but it refused to die. It was because it refused to die that he still ate muskeg berries and min- nows, drank his hot water, and kept a wary eye on the sick wolf. 250 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES He followed the trail of the other man who dragged him- self along, and soon came to the end of it a few fresh- picked bones where the soggy moss was marked by the foot-pads of many wolves. He saw a squat moose-hide sack, mate to his own, which had been torn by sharp teeth. He picked it up, though its weight was almost too much for his feeble fingers. Bill had carried it to the last. Ha ! ha ! He would have the laugh on Bill. He would survive and carry it to the ship in the shining sea. His mirth was hoarse and ghastly, like a raven's croak, and the sick wolf joined him, howling lugubriously. The man ceased suddenly. How could he have the laugh on Bill if that were Bill ; if those bones, so pinky -white and clean, were Bill ! He turned away. Well, Bill had deserted him; but he would not take the gold, nor would he suck Bill's bones. Bill would have, though, had it been the other way around, he mused, as he staggered on. He came to a pool of water. Stooping over in quest of minnows, he jerked his head back as though he had been stung. He had caught sight of his reflected face. So hor- rible was it that sensibility awoke long enough to be shocked. There were three minnows in the pool, which was too large to drain ; and after several ineffectual attempts to catch them in the tin bucket he forbore. He was afraid, because of his great weakness, that he might fall in and drown. It was for this reason that he did not trust himself to the river astride one of the many drift-logs which lined its sand-spits. That day he decreased the distance between him and the ship by three miles; the next day by two for he was crawling now as Bill had crawled ; and the end of the fifth day found the ship still seven miles away and him unable to make even a mile a day. Still the Indian summer held on, and he continued to crawl and faint, turn and turn about ; and ever the sick wolf coughed and wheezed at his LOVE OF LIFE 251 heels. His knees had become raw meat like his feet, and though he padded them with the shirt from his back it was a red track he left behind him on the moss and stones. Once glancing back he saw the wolf licking hungrily his bleeding trail, and he saw sharply what his own end might be unless unless he could get the wolf. Then began as grim a tragedy of existence as was ever played a sick man that crawled, a sick wolf that limped, two creatures dragging their dying carcasses across the desolation and hunting each other's lives. Had it been a well wolf, it would not have mattered so much to the man ; but the thought of going to feed the maw of that loathsome and all but dead thing was repugnant to him. He was finicky. His mind had begun to wander again, and to be perplexed by hallucinations, while his lucid intervals grew rarer and shorter. He was awakened once from a faint by a wheeze close in his ear. The wolf leaped lamely back, losing its footing and falling in its weakness. It was ludicrous, but he was not amused. Nor was he even afraid. He was too far gone for that. But his mind was for the moment clear, and he lay and considered. The ship was no more than four miles away. He could see it quite distinctly when he rubbed the mists out of his eyes, and he could see the white sail of a small boat cutting the water of the shining sea. But he could never crawl those four miles. He knew that, and was very calm in the knowledge. He knew that he could not crawl half a mile. And yet he wanted to live. It was un- reasonable that he should die after all he had undergone. Fate asked too much of him. And, dying, he declined to die. It was stark madness, perhaps, but in the very grip of Death he defied Death and refused to die. He closed his eyes and composed himself with infinite precaution. He steeled himself to keep above the suffocat- ing languor that lapped like a rising tide through all the 252 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES wells of his being. It was very like a sea, this deadly lan- guor, that rose and rose and drowned his consciousness bit by bit. Sometimes he was all but submerged, swimming through oblivion with a faltering stroke; and again, by some strange alchemy of soul, he would find another shred of will and strike out more strongly. Without movement he lay on his back, and he could hear slowly drawing near and nearer the wheezing intake and output of the sick wolf 's breath. It drew closer, ever closer, through an infinitude of time, and he did not move. It was at his ear. The harsh dry tongue grated like sandpaper against his cheek. His hands shot out or at least he willed them to shoot out. The fingers were curved like talons, but they closed on empty air. Swiftness and certi- tude require strength, and the man had not this strength. The patience of the wolf was terrible. The man's pa- tience was no less terrible. For half a day he lay motionless, fighting off unconsciousness and waiting for the thing that was to feed upon him and upon which he wished to feed. Sometimes the languid sea rose over him and he dreamed long dreams ; but ever through it all, waking and dream- ing, he waited for the wheezing breath and the harsh caress of the tongue. He did not hear the breath, and he slipped slowly from some dream to the feel of the tongue along his hand. He waited. The fangs pressed softly ; the pressure increased ; the wolf was exerting its last strength in an effort to sink teeth in the food for which it had waited so long. But the man had waited long, and the lacerated hand closed on the jaw. Slowly, while the wolf struggled feebly and the hand clutched feebly, the other hand crept across to a grip. Five minutes later the whole weight of the man's body was on top of the wolf. The hands had not sufficient strength to choke the animal, but the face of the man was pressed close to the throat of the wolf and the mouth was full of hair. LOVE OF LIFE 253 At the end of half an hour the man was aware of a warm trickle in his throat. It was not pleasant. It was like mol- ten lead being forced into his stomach, but it was forced by his will alone. Later the man rolled over on his back and slept. There were some members of a scientific expedition on the whaleship Bedford. From the deck they remarked a strange object on the shore. It was moving down the beach toward the water. They were unable to classify it, and, being scientific men, they climbed into the whaleboat alongside and went ashore to see. And they saw something that was alive, but that could hardly be called a man. It was blind, unconscious. It squirmed along the ground like some monstrous worm. Most of its efforts were ineffectual, but it was persistent, and it writhed and twisted and went ahead perhaps a score of feet an hour. Three weeks afterward the man lay in a bunk on the whaleship Bedford, and with tears streaming down his wasted cheeks told who he was and what he had undergone. He also babbled incoherently of his mother, of sunny Southern California, and a home among the orange groves and flowers. The days were not many after that when he sat at table with the scientific men and ship's officers. He gloated over the spectacle of so much food, watching it anxiously as it went into the mouths of others. With the disappearance of each mouthful an expression of deep regret came into his eyes. He was quite sane, yet he hated those men at meal- time because they ate so much food. He was haunted by a fear that it would not last. He inquired of the cook, the cabin-boy, the captain, concerning the food stores. They reassured him countless times ; but he could not believe them, and pried cunningly about the lazarette to see with his own eyes. 254 AMERICAN LANDSCAPES It was noticed that the man was getting fat. He grew stouter with each day. The scientific men shook their heads and theorized. They limited the man at his meals, but still his girth increased and his body swelled prodi- giously under his shirt. The sailors grinned. They knew. And when the scienti- fic men set a watch on the man, they knew too. They saw him slouch for'ard after breakfast, and like a mendicant, with outstretched palm, accost a sailor. The sailor grinned and passed him a fragment of sea-biscuit. He clutched it avariciously, looked at it as a miser looks at gold, and thrust it into his shirt bosom. Similar were the donations from other grinning sailors. The scientific men were discreet. They left him alone. But they privily examined his bunk. It was lined with hardtack ; the mattress was stuffed with hardtack ; every nook and cranny was filled with hardtack. Yet he was sane. He was taking precautions against another possible famine that was all. He would recover from it, the scientific men said ; and he did, ere the Bedford's anchor rumbled down in San Francisco Bay. AMERICAN COMMUNITIES STORIES OF COMMUNAL CONSCIOUSNESS 7 loathed you, Spoon River, f tried to rise above you. I was ashamed of you. I despised you As the place of my nativity. And there in Rome, among the artists t Speaking Italian, speaking French, I seemed to myself at times to be free Of every trace of my origin .... But still they'd pass my work and say: "What are you driving at, my friend? Sometimes the face looks like Apollo's; At other times it has a trace of Lincoln's" There was no culture, you know, in Spoon River, And I burned with shame and held my peace. And what could I do, all covered over And weighted down with Western soil, Except aspire, and pray for another Birth in the world, with all of Spoon River Rooted out of my soul f EDGAR LEE MASTEES, /Spoon River Anthology BY THE ROD OP HIS WEATH 1 BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE SATURDAY afternoons, when the town is full, and farmers are coming in to the office to pay their subscriptions for the Weekly, it is our habit, after the paper is out, to sit hi the office and look over Main Street, where perhaps five hundred people are milling, and consider with one another the nature of our particular little can of angle-worms and its relation to the great forces that move the world. The town often seems to us to be dismembered from the earth, and to be a chunk of humanity drifting through space by itself, like a vagrant star, forgotten of the law that governs the universe. Go where our people will, they find change ; but when they come home, they look out of the hack as they ride through town, seeing the old familiar buildings and bill-boards and street-signs, and say with surprise, as Mathew Boris said after a busy and eventful day in Kansas City, where he had been marketing his steers : " Well, the old town seems to keep right on, just the same." The old men in town seem always to have been old, and though the middle-aged do sometimes step across the old- age line, the young men remain perennially young, and when they grow fat or dry up, and their hair thins and whitens, they are still called by their diminutive names, and to most of us they are known as sons of the old men. Here a new house goes up, and there a new store is built, but they rise slowly, and every one in town has time to go through them and over them and criticize the architectural taste of the builders, so that by the time a building is 1 Reprinted by permission from In Our Town, by William Allen White. Copyright, 1906, by the Macmillan Company. 258 AMERICAN COMMUNITIES finished it seems to have grown into the original conscious- ness of the people, and to be a part of then* earliest memo- ries. We send our children to Sunday School, and we go to church and learn how God's rewards or punishments fell upon the men of old, as they were faithful or recreant ; but we don't seem to be like the men of old, for we are neither very good nor very bad hardly worth God's while to sort us over for any uncommon lot. Only once, in the case of John Markley, did the Lord reach into our town and show his righteous judgment. And that judgment was shown so clearly through the hearts of our people that very likely John Markley does not consider it the judgment of God at all, but the prejudice of the neighbors. When we have been talking over the case of John Markley in the office, we have generally ended by wonder- ing whether God or whatever one cares to call the force that operates the moral laws, as well as those that in our ignorance we set apart as the physical laws of the world whether God moves by cataclysm and accidents, or whether He moves with blessing or chastisement, through human nature as it is, in the ordinary business of the lives of men. But we have never settled that in our office any more than they have in the great schools, and as John Markley, game to the end, has never said what he thought of the town's treatment of him, it will never be known which side of our controversy is right. Years ago, perhaps as long ago as the drought of seventy- four, men began calling him "Honest John Markley." He was the fairest man in town, and he made money by it, for when he opened his little bank Centennial year, which was the year of the big wheat crop, farmers stood in line half an hour at a time, at the door of his bank, waiting to give him their money. He was a plain, imcollared, short- whiskered man, brown-haired and gray-eyed, whose wife always made his shirts and, being a famous cook in town, BY THE ROD OF HIS WRATH 259 kept him round and chubby. He referred to her as "Ma," and she called him "Pa Markley" so insistently that when we elected him State Senator, after he made his bank a national bank, in 1880, the town and county couldn't get used to calling him Senator Markley, so "Pa Markley " it was until after his senatorial fame had been forgotten. Their children had grown up and left home before the boom of the eighties came one girl went to California and the boy to South America ; and when John Markley began to write his wealth in six figures which is almost beyond the dreams of avarice in a town like ours he and his wife were lonely and knew little what to do with their income. They bought new furniture for the parlor, and the Ladies' Missionary Society of the First Methodist Church, the only souls that saw it with the linen jackets off, say it was lovely to behold; they bought everything the fruit- tree man had in his catalogue, and their five acres on Ex- change Street were pimpled over with shrubs that never bloomed and with trees that never bore fruit. He passed the hat in church being a brother-in-law to the organiza- tion, as he explained; sang "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching" at Grand Army entertainments, and always as an encore dragged "Ma" out to sing with him "Dear, Dear, What Can the Matter Be." She was a skinny, sharp-eyed, shy little woman in her late fifties when the trouble came. She rose at every annual meeting of the church to give a hundred dollars, but her voice never lasted until she got through announcing her donation, and she sat down demurely, blushing and looking down her nose as though she had disgraced the family. She had lost a brother in the war, and never came further out of mourn- ing than purple flowers in her bonnet. She bought John Markley's clothes, so that his Sunday finery contained nothing giddier than a gray made-up tie, that she pinned around the collars which her own hands had ironed. 260 AMERICAN COMMUNITIES Slowly as their fortune piled up, and people said they had a million, his brown beard grizzled a little, and his brow crept up and up and his girth stretched out to forty- four. But his hands did not whiten or soften, and though he was "Honest John," and every quarter-section of land that he bought doubled hi value by some magic that he only seemed to know, he kept the habits of his youth, rose early, washed at the kitchen basin, and was the first man at his office hi the morning. At night, after a hard day's work, he smoked a cob-pipe in the basement, where he could spit into the furnace and watch the fire until nine o'clock, when he put out the cat and bedded down the fire, while "Ma" set the buckwheat cakes. They never had a servant in their house. We used to see John Markley pass the office window a dozen times a day, a hale, vigorous man, whose heels clicked hard on the sidewalk as he came hurrying along head back and shoulders rolling. He was a powerful, mas- culine, indomitable creature, who looked out of defiant, cold, unblinking eyes as though he were just about to tell the whole world to go to hell I The town was proud of him. He was our "prominent citizen," and when he was elected president of the district bankers' association, and his name appeared in the papers as a possible candidate for United States Senator or Minister to Mexico or Secretary of the Interior, we were glad that "Honest John Markley" was our fellow-townsman. And then came the crash. Man is a curious creature, and, even if he is nine parts good, the old Adam in him must burn out one way or another in his youth, or there comes a danger period at the height of his middle life when his submerged tenth that has been smoldering for years flares up and destroys him. Wherefore the problem which we have never been able to solve, though we have talked it over in the office a dozen times : whether John Markley BY THE ROD OF HIS WRATH 261 had begun to feel, before he met the Hobart woman, that he wasn't getting enough out of life for the money he had invested in it ; or whether she put the notion in his head. It is scarcely correct to speak of his having met her, for she grew up in the town, and had been working for the Markley Mortgage and Investment Company for half a dozen years before he began to notice her. From a brassy street-gadding child of twelve, whose mother crowded her into grown-up society before she left the high school, and let her spell her name Ysabelle, she had grown into woman- hood like a rank weed ; had married at nineteen, was di- vorced at twenty-one, and having tried music-teaching and failed, china-painting and failed, she learned stenography by sheer force of her own will, with no instruction save that in her book, and opened an office for such work as she could get, while aiming for the best job in town the position of cashier and stenographer for the Markley Mortgage Company. It took her three years to get in and another year to make herself invaluable. She was big and strong, did the work of two men for the pay of one, and for five years John Markley, who saw that she had plenty of work to do, did not seem to know that she was on earth. But one day "Alphabetical" Morrison, who was in our office pick- ing up his bundle of exchanges, looked rather idly out of the window, and suddenly rested his roving eyes upon John Markley and Mrs. Hobart, standing and talking in front of the post office. The man at the desk near Morrison happened to be looking out at that moment, and he, too, saw what Morrison saw which was nothing at all, except a man standing beside a woman. Probably the pair had met in exactly the same place at exactly the same time, and had exchanged an idle word daily for five years, and no one had noticed it, but that day Morrison unconsciously put his hand to his chin and scratched his jaw, and his eyes and the man's at the desk beside him met in a surprised inter- 262 AMERICAN COMMUNITIES rogation, and Morrison's mouth and nose twitched, and the other man said, as he turned his face into his work, "Well, wouldn't that get you !" The conversation went no further. Neither could have said what he saw. But there is something in every human creature a survival of our jungle days which lets our eyes see more than our consciousness records in language. And these men, who saw Markley and the woman, could not have defined the canine impression which he gave them. Yet it was there. The volcano was beginning to smoke. It was a month later before the town saw the flames., During that time John Markley had been walking to and from his midday dinner with Isabel Hobart, had been help* ing her on and off with her wraps in the office, and had been all but kicking up the dirt behind him and barking around her, as the clerks there told us, without causing comment. An honest man always has such a long start when he runs away from himself that no one misses him until he is beyond extradition. Matters went along thus for nearly a year before the woman in the cottage on Exchange Street knew how they stood. And that speaks well of our town ; for we are not a mean town, and if any one ever had our sympathy it was Mrs. Markley, as she went about her quiet ways, giving her missionary teas, looking after the poor of her church, making her famous doughnuts for the socials, doing her part at the Relief Corps chicken-pie sup- pers, digging her club paper out of the encyclopaedia, and making over her black silk the third time for every day. If John Markley was cross with her in that time and the neighbors say that he was ; if he sat for hours in the house without saying a word, and grumbled and flew into a rage at the least ruffling of the domestic waters his wife kept her grief to herself, and even when she left town to visit her daughter in California no one knew what she knew. BY THE ROD OF HIS WRATH 263 A month passed, two months passed, and John Markley's name had become a byword and a hissing. Three months passed, a year went by, and still the wife did not return. And then one day Ab Handy, who sometimes prepared John Markley's abstracts, came into our office and whis- pered to the man at the desk that there was a little paper filed in the court which, under the circumstances, Mr. Markley would rather we would say as little about as is consistent with our policy in such cases. Handy didn't say what it was, and backed out bowing and eating dirt, and we sent a boy hot-foot to the court-house to find out what had been filed. The boy came back with a copy of a peti- tion for divorce that had been entered by John Markley, alleging desertion. John Markley did not face the town when he brought his suit, but left for Chicago on the after- noon train, and was gone nearly a month. The broken little woman did not come back to contest the case, and the divorce was granted. The day before his marriage to Isabel Hobart, John Markley shaved off his grizzled brown beard, and showed the town a face so strong and cunning and brutal that men were shocked; they said that she wished to make him appear young, and the shave did drop ten years from his countenance ; but it uncovered his soul so shamelessly that it seemed immodest to look at his face. Upon the return from the wedding trip, the employees of the Markley Mort- gage Company, at John Markley's suggestion, gave a reception for the bride and groom, and the Lord laid the first visible stripe on John Markley while he stood with his bride for three hours, waiting for the thousand invited guests who never came. "Alphabetical" Morrison, who owed John Markley money, and had to go, told us in the office the next day that John Markley in evening clothes, with his great paunch swathed in a white silk vest, smirk- ing like a gorged jackal, showing his fellow-townsmen for 2C4 AMERICAN COMMUNITIES the first time his coarse, yellow teeth and his thin, cruel lips, looked like some horrible cartoon of his former self. Colonel Morrison did not describe the bride, but she passed our office that day, going the rounds of the dry-goods stores, giggling with the men clerks a picture of sin that made men wet their lips. She was big, oversexed, and feline ; rat- tling in silks, with an aura of sensuousness around her which seemed to glow like a coal, without a flicker of kind- ness or shame or sweetness, and which all the town knew instinctively must clinker into something black and ugly as the years went by. So the threshold of the cottage on Exchange Street was not darkened by our people. And when the big house went up a palace for a country town, though it only cost John Markley twenty-five thousand dollars he, who had been so reticent about his affairs in other years, tried to talk to his old friends of the house, telling them expansively that he was putting it up so that the town would have some- thing in the way of a house for public gatherings ; but he aroused no responsive enthusiasm, and long before the big opening reception his fervor had been quenched. Though we are a curious people, and though we all were anx ; .ous to know how the inside of the new house looked, we did not go to the reception ; only the socially impossible, and the traveling men's wives at the Metropole, whom Mrs. Markley had met when she was boarding during the week they moved, gathered to hear the orchestra from Kansas City, to eat the Topeka caterer's food, and to fall down on the newly waxed floors of the Markley mansion. But our professional instinct at the office told us that the town was eager for news of that house, and we took three columns to write up the reception. Our description of the place began with the swimming-pool in the cellar and ended with the ballroom in the third story. It took John Markley a long time to realize that the BY THE ROD OF HIS WRATH 265 town was done with him, for there was no uprising, no demonstration, just a gradual loosening of his hold upon the community. In other years his neighbors had urged him and expected him to serve on the school board, of which he had been chairman for a dozen years, but the spring that the big house was opened Mrs. Julia Worth- ington was elected in his place. At the June meeting of the Methodist Conference a new director was chosen to fill John Markley's place on the college board, and when he canceled his annual subscription no one came to ask him to renew it. In the fall his party selected a new ward com- mitteeman, and though Markley had been treasurer of the committee for a dozen years, his successor was named from the Worthington bank, and they had the grace not to come to Markley with the subscription-paper asking for money. It took some time for the sense of the situation to penetrate John Markley's thick skin; whereupon the fight began in earnest, and men around town said that John Markley had knocked the lid off his barrel. He doubled his dona- tion to the county campaign fund ; he crowded himself at the head of every subscription-paper; and frequently he brought us communications to print, offering to give as much money himself for the library, or the Provident As- sociation, or the Y.M.C.A., as the rest of the town would subscribe combined. He mended church roofs under which he never had sat ; he bought church bells whose calls he never heeded ; and paid the greater part of the pipe-organ debts in two stone churches. Colonel Morrison remarked in the office one day that John Markley was raising the price of popular esteem so high that none but the rich could afford it. "But," chuckled the Colonel, "I notice old John hasn't got a corner on it yet, and he doesn't seem to have all he needs for his own use." The wrench that had torn open his treasure-chest had also loosened John Markley's hard face, and he had begun to smile. He became as affable 266 AMERICAN COMMUNITIES as a man may who has lived for fifty years silent and self- contained. He beamed upon his old friends, and once or twice a week he went the rounds of the stores making small purchases, to let the clerks bask in his sunlight. If a new preacher came to town the Markleys went to his church, and Mrs. Markley tried to be the first woman to call on his wife. All the noted campaign speakers assigned to our town were invited to be the Markleys' guests, and Mrs. Markley sent her husband, red-necktied, high-hatted, and tailor- made, to the train to meet the distinguished guest. If the man was as much as a United States Senator, Markley hired the band, and in an open hack rode in solemn state with his prize through the town behind the tinkling cym- bals, and then, with much punctility, took the statesman up and down Main Street afoot, into all the stores and offices, introducing him to the common people. At such times John Markley was the soul of cordiality ; he seemed hungry for a kind look and a pleasant word with his old friends. About this time his defiant eyes began to lose their boring points, and to wander and hunt for something they had lost. When we had a State convention of the dominant party, the Markleys saw to it that the Governor and all the important people attending, with their wives, stopped in the big house. The Markleys gave receptions to them, which the men in our town dared not ignore, but sent their wives away visiting and went alone. This familiarity with politicians probably gave the Markleys the idea that they might help their status in the community if John Markley ran for Governor. He announced his candidacy, and the Kansas City papers, which did not appreciate the local situation, spoke well of him ; but his boom died in the first month, when some of his old friends called at the back room of the bank to tell him that the Democrats would air his family affairs if he made another move. He looked up BY THE ROD OF HIS WRATH 267 pitiably into Ab Handy's face when the men were done talking and said: "Don't you suppose they'll ever quit? Ain't they no statute of limitation?" And then he arose and stood by his desk with one arm akimbo and his other hand at his temple as he sighed : "Oh, hell, Ab what's the use ? Tell 'em I'm out of it !" Mrs. Markley seems to have shut him out of the G. A.R., thinking maybe that the old boys and their wives were not of her social level, or perhaps she had some idea of playing even with them, because their wives had not recognized her ; but she shut away much of her husband's social com- fort when she barred his comrades, and they in turn grew harder toward him than they were at first. As the Markleys entered their second year, Mrs. Markley alone in the big house, with only the new people from the hotel to eat her dinners, and with only the beer-drinldng crowd from the West Side to dance in the attic ballroom, had much time to think, and she bethought her of the lecturers who were upon the college lecture course, whereupon John Markley had to carve for authors and explorers, and an occasional Senator or Congressman, who, after a hard evening's work on the platform, paid for his dinner and lodging by sitting up on a gilded high-backed and uncomfortable chair in the stately reception-room of the Markley home, talking John Markley into a snore, before Isabel let them go to bed. Isabel sent the accounts of these affairs to the office for us to print, with the lists of invited guests, who never ac- cepted. And the town grinned. At the end of two years John Markley's fat wit told him that it was a losing fight. He had been dropped from the head of the Merchants' Association ; he was cut off from the executive committee of the Fair ; he was not asked to serve on the railroad committee. His old friends, whom he asked over to spend the evening at his house, always had good excuses, which they gave him later over the tele- 268 AMERICAN COMMUNITIES phone, and their wives, who used to call him by his first name, scarcely recognized him on the street. He quit com- ing to our office with pieces for the paper telling the town his views on this or that local matter ; and gradually gave up the fight for his old place on the school board. The clerks in the Markley Mortgage Company office say that he fell into a moody way, and would come to the office and refuse to speak to any one for hours. Also, as the big house often glowed until midnight for a dance of the so- cially impossible who used the Markley ballroom, rent free, as a convenience, John Markley grew to have a sleepy look by day, and lines came into his red, shaved face. He grew anxious about his health, and a hundred worries tightened his belt and shook his great fat hand just the least in the world, and when through some gossip that his wife brought him from the kitchen he felt the scorn of an old friend burn his soul like a caustic, for many days he would brood over it. Finally care began to chisel down his flinty face, to cut the fat from his bull neck, so that the cords stood out, and, through staring in impotent rage and pain at the ceiling in the darkness of the night, red rims began to worm around his eyes. He was not sixty years old then, end he had lashed himself into seventy. However, his money-cunning did not grow dull. He kept his golden touch, and his impotent dollars piled higher and higher. The pile must have mocked Isabel Markley, for it could bring her nothing that she wanted. She stopped try- ing to give big parties and receptions. Her social efforts tapered down to little dinners for the new people in town. But as the dinner hour grew near she raged so the serv- ants said whenever the telephone rang, and in the end she had to give up even the dinner scheme. So there came a time when they began to take trips to the seashore and the mountains, flitting from hotel to hotel. In the office we knew when they changed quarters, for at BY THE ROD OF HIS WRATH 269 each resort John Markley would see the reporters and give out a long interview, which was generally prefaced by the statement that he was a prominent Western capitalist, who had refused the nomination for Governor or for Senator, or for whatever Isabel Markley happened to think of ; and papers containing these interviews, marked in green ink, came addressed to the office in her stylish, angular hand. During grand-opera season one might see the Markleys hanging about the great hotels of Chicago or Kansas City, he a tired, sleepy-faced, prematurely old man, who seemed to be counting the hours till bedtime, and she a tailored, rather overfed figure, with a freshly varnished face and unhealthy, bright, bold eyes, walking slightly ahead of her shambling companion, looking nervously about her in search of some indefinite thing that was gone from her life. One day John Markley shuffled into our office, bedizened as usual, and fumbled in his pocket for several minutes before he could find the copy of the Mexican Herald con- taining the news of his boy's death in Vera Cruz. He had passed the time of life for tears ; yet, when he asked us to reprint the item, he said sadly: "The old settlers will remember him maybe. I don't know whether they will or not." He seemed a pitiful figure as he dragged himself out of the office so stooped and weazened and so utterly alone, but when he turned around and came back upon some second thought, his teeth snapped viciously as he snarled : "Here, give it back. I guess I don't want it printed. They don't care for me, anyway." The boys in his office told the boys in our office that the old man was cross and petulant that year, and there is no doubt that Isabel Markley was beginning to find her mess of pottage bitter. The women around town, who have a wireless system of collecting news, said that the Markleys quarreled, and that she was cruel to him. Certain it is that she began to feed on young boys, and made the old fellow 270 AMERICAN COMMUNITIES sit up in his evening clothes until impossible hours, for sheer appearance' sake, while his bed was piled with the wraps of boys and girls from what our paper called the Hand-Holders' Union, who were invading the Markley home, eating the Markley olives and canned lobster, and dancing to the music of the Markley pianola. Occasionally a young traveling man would be spoken of by these young people as Isabel Markley's "fellow." Mrs. Markley began to make fun of her husband to the girls of the third-rate dancing set whose mothers let them go to her house; also, she reviled John Markley to the servants. It was known in the town that she nicknamed him the " Goat." As for Markley, the fight was gone from him, and his whole life was devoted to getting money. That part of his brain which knew the accumulative secret kept its tireless energy ; but his emotions, his sensibilities, his passions seemed to be either atrophied or burned out, and, sitting at his desk in the back room of the Mortgage Company's offices, he looked like a busy spider spinning his web of gold around the town. It was the town theory that he and Isabel must have fought it out to a finish about the night sessions ; for there came a time when he went to bed at nine o'clock, and she either lighted up and prepared to celebrate with the cheap people at home, or attached one of her young men, and went out to some impossible gather- ing generally where there was much beer, and many risqu$ things said, and the women were all good fellows. And thus another year flew by. One night, when the great house was still, John Markley grew sick, and, in the terror of death that, his office people say, was always with him, rose to call for help. In the dark hall, feeling for an electric-light switch, he must have lost his way, for he fell down the hard oak stairs. It was never known how long he lay there unable to move one half of his body, but his wife stood nearly an hour at the front door BY THE ROD OF HIS WRATH 271 that night, and when she finally switched on the light, she and the man with her saw Markley lying before them with one eye shut and with half his face withered and dead, the other half around the open eye quivering with hate. He choked on an oath, and shook at her a gnarled bare arm. Her face was flushed, and her tongue was unsure, but she laughed a shrill, wicked laugh and cried: "Ah, you old goat ; don't you double your fist at me !" Whereupon she shuddered away from the shaking figure at her feet and scurried upstairs. And the man standing in the doorway, wondering what the old man had heard, wak- ened the house, and helped to carry John Markley upstairs to his bed. It was nearly three months before he could be wheeled to his office, where he still sits every day, spinning his golden web and filling his soul with poison. They say that, helpless as he is, he may live for a score of years. Isabel Markley knows how old she will be then. A thousand times she has counted it. To see our town of a summer twilight, with the families riding abroad behind their good old nags, under the over- hanging elms that meet above our newly paved streets, one would not think that there could exist in so lovely a place as miserable a creature as John Markley is ; or as Isabel, his wife, for that matter. The town out beyond Main Street, which is always dreary and ugly with tin gorgons on the cornices the town is a great grove springing from a bluegrass sod, with porch boxes making flecks of color among the vines ; cannas and elephant ears and foliage plants rise from the wide lawns ; and children bloom like moving flowers all through the picture. There are certain streets, like the one past the Markley mansion, upon which we make it a point always to drive with our visitors show streets we may as well frankly call them and one of these leads down a wide, handsome 27S AMERICAN COMMUNITIES street out to the college. There the town often goes in its best bib and tucker to hear the lecturers whom Mrs. Markley feeds. Last winter one came who converted Dan Gregg once Governor, but for ten years best known among us as the town infidel. The lecturer explained how matter had probably evolved from some one form even the elements coming in a most natural way from a com- mon source. He made it plain that all matter is but a form of motion ; that atoms themselves are divided into ions and corpuscles, which are merely different forms of electrical motion, and that all this motion seems to tend to one form, which is the spirit of the universe. Dan said he had found God there, and, although the pious were shocked, in our office we were glad that Dan had found his God anywhere. While we were sitting in front of the office one fine evening this spring, looking at the stars and talking of Dan Gregg's God and ours, we began to wonder whether or not the God that is the spirit of things at the base of this material world might not be indeed the spirit that moves men to execute his laws. Men in the colleges to-day think they have found the moving spirit of matter ; but do they know his wonder- ful being as well as the old Hebrew prophets knew it who wrote the Psalms and the Proverbs and the wisdom of the Great Book ? That brought us back to the old question about John Markley. Was it God, moving in us, that pun- ished Markley "by the rod of his wrath," that used our hearts as wireless stations for his displeasure to travel through, or was it the chance prejudice of a simple people ? It was late when we broke up and left the office Dan Gregg, Henry Larmy, the reporter, and old George. As we parted, looking up at the stars where our ways divided out under the elms, we heard, far up Exchange Street, the clatter of the pianola in the Markley home, and saw the high windows glowing like lost souls in the night. THE MAKING OF A NEW YORKER* BY O. HENRY BESIDES many other things, Haggles was a poet. He was called a tramp; but that was only an elliptical way of saying that he was a philosopher, an artist, a traveler, a naturalist, and a discoverer. But most of all he was a poet. In all hi life he never wrote a line of verse ; he lived his poetry. ] lis Odyssey would have been a Limerick, had it been wri ten. But, to linger with the primary proposition, Haggles vas a poet. Raggles's specialty, had he been driven to ink and paper, would have been sonnets to the cities. He studied cities as women study their reflections in mirrors ; as children study the glue and sawdust of a dislocated doll ; as the men who write about wild animals study the cages in the zoo. A city to Raggles was not merely a pile of bricks and mortar, peopled by a certain number of inhabitants ; it was a thing with a soul characteristic and distinct ; an individual con- glomeration of life, with its own peculiar essence, flavor, and feeling. Two thousand miles to the north and south, east and west, Raggles wandered in poetic fervor, taking the cities to his breast. He footed it on dusty roads, or sped magnificently in freight cars, counting time as of no account. And when he had found the heart of a city and listened to its secret confession, he strayed on, restless, to another. Fickle Raggles ! but perhaps he had not met the civic corporation that could engage and hold his critical fancy. Through the ancient poets we have learned that the 1 Reprinted by permission from The Trimmed Lamp, by O. Henry. Copyright, 1907, by Doubleday, Page and Company. 274 AMERICAN COMMUNITIES cities are feminine. So they were to poet Haggles ; and his mind carried a concrete and clear conception of the figure that symbolized and typified each one that he had wooed. Chicago seemed to swoop down upon him with a breezy suggestion of Mrs. Partington, plumes and patchouli, and to disturb his rest with a soaring and beautiful song of future promise. But Raggles would awake to a sense of shivering cold and a haunting impression of ideals lost in a depressing aura of potato salad and fish. Thus Chicago affected him. Perhaps there is a vague- ness and inaccuracy in the description ; but that is Raggles 's fault. He should have recorded his sensations in magazine poems. Pittsburgh impressed him as the play of Othello per- formed in the Russian language in a railroad station by Dockstader's minstrels. A royal and generous lady this Pittsburgh, though homely, hearty, with flushed face, washing the dishes in a silk dress and white kid slippers, and bidding Raggles sit before the roaring fireplace and drink champagne with his pigs' feet and fried potatoes. New Orleans had simply gazed down upon him from a balcony. He could see her pensive, starry eyes and catch the flutter of her fan, and that was all. Only once he came face tq face with her. It was at dawn, when she was flush- ing the red bricks of the banquette with a pail of water. She laughed and hummed a chansonnette and filled Rag- gles's shoes with ice-cold water. Attons! Boston construed herself to the poetic Raggles in an erratic and singular way. It seemed to him that he had drunk cold tea and that the city was a white, cold cloth that had been bound tightly around his brow to spur him to some unknown but tremendous mental effort. And, after all, he came to shovel snow for a livelihood ; and the cloth, becoming wet, tightened its knots and could not be removed. THE MAKING OF A NEW YORKER 275 Indefinite and unintelligible ideas, you will say; but your disapprobation should be tempered with gratitude, for these are poets' fancies and suppose you had come upon them in verse ! One day Haggles came and laid siege to the heart of the great city of Manhattan. She was the greatest of all ; and he wanted to learn her note in the scale ; to taste and ap- praise and classify and solve and label her, and arrange her with the other cities that had given him up the secret of their individuality. And here we cease to be Raggles's translator and become his chronicler. Raggles landed from a ferry-boat one morning and walked into the core of the town with the blase air of a cosmopolite. He was dressed with care to play the role of an "unidentified man." No country, race, class, clique, union, party, clan, or bowling association could have claimed him. His clothing, which had been donated to him piecemeal by citizens of different height, but same number of inches around the heart, was not yet as uncomfortable to his figure as those specimens of raiment, self -measured, that are railroaded to you by transcontinental tailors with a suitcase, suspenders, silk handkerchief, and pearl studs as a bonus. Without money as a poet should be but with the ardor of an astronomer discovering a new star in the chorus of the Milky Way, or a man who has seen ink suddenly flow from his fountain pen, Raggles wan- dered into the great city. Late in the afternoon he drew out of the roar and com- motion with a look of dumb terror on his countenance. He was defeated, puzzled, discomfited, frightened. Other cities had been to him as long primer to read ; as country maidens quickly to fathom ; as send-price-of-subscription- with-answer rebuses to solve ; as oyster cocktails to swal- low; but here was one as cold, glittering, serene, impos- sible as a four-carat diamond in a window to a lover outside 276 AMERICAN COMMUNITIES fingering damply in his pocket his ribbon-counter salary. The greetings of the other cities he had known their homespun kindliness, their human gamut of rough char- ity, friendly curses, garrulous curiosity, and easily esti- mated credulity or indifference. This city of Manhattan gave him no clue ; it was walled against him. Like a river of adamant it flowed past him in the streets. Never an eye was turned upon him; no voice spoke to him. His heart yearned for the clap of Pittsburgh's sooty hand on his shoulder; for Chicago's menacing but social yawp in his ear ; for the pale and eleemosynary stare through the Bos- tonian eyeglass even for the precipitate but unmalicious boot-toe of Louisville or St. Louis. On Broadway Haggles, successful suitor of many cities, stood, bashful, like any country swain. For the first time he experienced the poignant humiliation of being ignored. And when he tried to reduce this brilliant, swiftly chang- ing, ice-cold city to a formula he failed utterly. Poet though he was, it offered him no color similes, no points of comparison, no flaw in its polished facets, no handle by which he could hold it up and view its shape and structure, as he familiarly and often contemptuously had done with other towns. The houses were interminable ramparts loop- holed for defense; the people were bright but bloodless specters passing in sinister and selfish array. The thing that weighed heaviest on Raggles's soul and clogged his poet's fancy was the spirit of absolute egotism that seemed to saturate the people as toys are saturated with paint. Each one that he considered appeared a mon- ster of abominable and insolent conceit. Humanity was gone from them; they were toddling idols of stone and varnish, worshiping themselves and greedy for though oblivious of worship from their fellow graven images. Frozen, cruel, implacable, impervious, cut to an identical pattern, they hurried on their ways like statues brought by THE MAKING OF A NEW YORKER 277 some miracles to motion, while soul and feeling lay un- aroused in the reluctant marble. Gradually Raggles became conscious of certain types. One was an elderly gentleman with a snow-white, short beard, pink, unwrinkled face, and stony, sharp blue eyes, attired in the fashion of a gilded youth, who seemed to personify the city's wealth, ripeness, and frigid unconcern. Another type was a woman, tall, beautiful, clear as a steel engraving, goddess-like, calm, clothed like the princesses of old, with eyes as coldly blue as the reflection of sunlight on a glacier. And another was a by-product of this town of marionettes a broad, swaggering, grim, threateningly sedate fellow, with a jowl as large as a harvested wheat- field, the complexion of a baptized infant, and the knuckles of a prize-fighter. This type leaned against cigar signs and viewed the world with frappeed contumely. A poet is a sensitive creature, and Raggles soon shriveled in the bleak embrace of the undecipherable. The chill, sphinx-like, ironical, illegible, unnatural, ruthless expres- sion of the city left him downcast and bewildered. Had it no heart? Better the woodpile, the scolding of vinegar- faced housewives at back doors, the kindly spleen of bar- tenders behind provincial free-lunch counters, the amiable truculence of rural constables, the kicks, arrests* and happy-go-lucky chances of the other vulgar, loud, crude cities than this freezing heartlessness. Raggles summoned his courage and sought alms from the populace. Unheeding, regardless, they passed on without the wink of an eyelash to testify that they were conscious of his existence. And then he said to himself that this fair but pitiless city of Manhattan was without a soul ; that its inhabitants were manikins moved by wires and springs and that he was alone in a great wilderness. Raggles started to cross the street. There was a blast, a roar, a hissing, and a crash as something struck him and 278 AMERICAN COMMUNITIES hurled him over and over six yards from where he had been. As he was coming down like the stick of a rocket, the earth and all the cities thereof turned to a fractured dream. Haggles opened his eyes. First an odor made itself known to him an odor of the earliest spring flowers of Paradise. And then a hand soft as a falling petal touched his brow. Bending over him was the woman clothed like the princesses of old, with blue eyes, now soft and humid with human sympathy. Under his head on the pavement were silks and furs. With Raggles's hat in his hand, and with his face pinker than ever from a vehement burst of oratory against reckless driving, stood the elderly gentle- man who personified the city's wealth and ripeness. From a near-by cafe hurried the by-product with the vast jowl and baby complexion, bearing a glass full of a crimson fluid that suggested delightful possibilities. "Drink dis, sport," said the by-product, holding the glass to Raggles's lips. Hundreds of people huddled around in a moment, their faces wearing the deepest concern. Two flattering and gorgeous policemen got into the circle and pressed back the overplus of Samaritans. An old lady in a black shawl spoke loudly of camphor; a newsboy slipped one of his papers beneath Raggles's elbow, where it lay on the muddy pave- ment. A brisk young man with a notebook was asking for names. A bell clanged importantly, and the ambulance cleaned a lane through the crowd. A cool surgeon slipped into the midst of affairs. "How do you feel, old man ?" asked the surgeon, stoop- ing easily to his task. The princess of silks and satins wiped a red drop or two from Raggles's brow with a fragrant cobweb. "Me ?" said Haggles, with a seraphic smile, "I feel fine." He had found the heart of his new city. THE MAKING OF A NEW YORKER 279 In three days they let him leave his cot for the con- valescent ward in the hospital. He had been in there an hour when the attendants heard sounds of conflict. Upon investigation they found that Haggles had assaulted and damaged a brother convalescent a glowering transient whom a freight train collision had sent in to be patched up. "What's all this about?" inquired the head nurse. "He was runnin' down me town," said Haggles. "What town?" asked the nurse. "Noo York," said Haggles. A MUNICIPAL REPORT 1 BY O. HENRY The cities are full of pride, Challenging each to each This from her mountainside, That from her burthened beach. R. KIPLING Fancy a novel about Chicago or Buffalo, let us say, or Nashville, Tennessee! There are just three big cities in the United States that are ''story cities" New York, of course, New Orleans, and, best of the lot, San Francisco. FRANK NORRIS EAST is East, and West is San Francisco, according to Cali- fornians. Calif ornians are a race of people ; they are not merely inhabitants of a State. They are the Southerners of the West. Now, Chicagoans are no less loyal to their city ; but when you ask them why, they stammer and speak of lake fish and the new Odd Fellows' Building. But Cali- fornians go into detail. Of course they have, in the climate, an argument that is good for half an hour while you are thinking of yoar coal bills and heavy underwear. But as soon as they come to mistake your silence for conviction, madness comes upon them, and they picture the city of the Golden Gate as the Bagdad of the New World. So far, as a matter of opinion, no refutation is necessary. But, dear cousins all (from Adam and Eve descended), it is a rash one who will lay his finger on the map and say : " In this town there can be no romance what could happen here?" Yes, it is a bold and a rash deed to challenge in one sentence history, romance, and Rand and McNally. 1 Reprinted by permission from Strictly Business, by O. Henry. Copy- right, 1911, by Doubleday, Page and Company. A MUNICIPAL REPORT 281 NASHVILLE. A city, port of delivery, and the capital of the State of Tennessee, is on the Cumberland River and on the N. C. & St. L. and the L. & N. railroads. This city is regarded as the most important educational center in the South. I stepped off the train at 8 P.M. Having searched the thesaurus in vain for adjectives, I must, as a substitution, hie me to comparison in the form of a recipe. Take of London fog 30 parts ; malaria 10 parts ; gas leaks 20 parts ; dewdrops gathered in a brickyard at sunrise, 25 parts; odor of honeysuckle 15 parts. Mix. The mixture will give you an approximate conception of a Nashville drizzle. It is not so fragrant as a moth-ball nor as thick as pea-soup ; but 'tis enough 'twill serve. I went to a hotel in a tumbril. It required strong self- suppression for me to keep from climbing to the top of it and giving an imitation of Sidney Carton. The vehicle was drawn by beasts of a bygone era and driven by something dark and emancipated. I was sleepy and tired, so when I got to the hotel I hur- riedly paid it the fifty cents it demanded (with approxi- mate lagniappe, I assure you). I knew its habits ; and I did not want to hear it prate about its old "marster" or any- thing that happened " befo* de wah." The hotel was one of the kind described as "renovated." That means twenty thousand dollars' worth of new marble pillars, tiling, electric lights and brass cuspidors in the lobby, and a new L. & N. time-table and a lithograph of Lookout Mountain in each one of the great rooms above. The management was without reproach, the attention full of exquisite Southern courtesy, the service as slow as the progress of a snail and as good-humored as Rip Van Winkle. The food was worth traveling a thousand miles for. There is no other hotel in the world where you can get such chicken livers en brochette. At dinner I asked a negro waiter if there was anything AMERICAN COMMUNITIES doing in town. He pondered gravely for a minute, and then replied : "Well, boss, I don't really reckon there's anything at all doin' after sundown." Sundown had been accomplished ; it had been drowned in the drizzle long before. So that spectacle was denied me. But I went forth upon the streets in the drizzle to see what might be there. It is built on undulating grounds ; and the streets are lighted by electricity at a cost of $32,470 per annum. As I left the hotel there was a race riot. Down upon me charged a company of freedmen, or Arabs, or Zulus, armed with no, I saw with relief that they were not rifles, but whips. And I saw dimly a caravan of black, clumsy vehicles; and at the reassuring shouts. "Kyar you any- where in the town, boss, f uh fifty cents," I reasoned that I was merely a "fare" instead of a victim. I walked through long streets, all leading uphill. I wondered how those streets ever came down again. Per- haps they didn't until they were " graded." On a few of the " main streets " I saw lights in stores here and there ; saw street-cars go by conveying worthy burghers hither and yon ; saw people pass engaged in the art of conversation ; and heard a burst of semi-lively laughter issuing from a soda-water and ice-cream parlor. The streets other than " main " seemed to have enticed upon then* borders houses consecrated to peace and domesticity. In many of them lights shone behind discreetly drawn window shades ; in a few, pianos tinkled orderly and irreproachable music. There was, indeed, little " doing." I wished I had come before sun- down. So I returned to my hotel. In November, 1864, the Confederate General Hood advanced against Nashville, where he shut up a National force under General Thomas. The latter then sallied forth and defeated the Confederates in a terrible conflict. A MUNICIPAL REPORT 283 All my life I have heard of, admired, and witnessed the fine marksmanship of the South in its peaceful conflicts in the tobacco-chewing regions. But in my hotel a surprise awaited me. There were twelve bright, new, imposing, capacious brass cuspidors in the great lobby, tall enough to be called urns and so wide-mouthed that the crack pitcher of a lady baseball team should have been able to throw a ball into one of them at five paces distant. But, although a terrible battle had raged and was still raging, the enemy had not suffered. Bright, new, imposing, capacious, un- touched, they stood. But, shades of Jefferson Brick ! the tile floor the beautiful tile floor ! I could not avoid think- ing of the battle of Nashville, and trying to draw, as is my foolish habit, some deductions about hereditary marks- manship. Here I first saw Major (by misplaced courtesy) Went- worth Caswell. I knew him for a type the moment my eyes suffered from the sight of him. A rat has no geographi- cal habitat. My old friend, A. Tennyson, said, as he so well said almost everything : "Prophet, curse me the blabbing lip, And curse me the British vermin, the rat." Let us regard the word "British" as interchangeable ad lib. A rat is a rat. This man was hunting about the hotel lobby like a starved dog that had forgotten where he had buried a bone. He had a face of great acreage, red, pulpy, and with a kind of sleepy massiveness like that of Buddha. He possessed one single virtue he was very smoothly shaven. The mark of the beast is not indelible upon a man until he goes about with a stubble. I think that if he had not used his razor that day I would have repulsed his advances, and the criminal calendar of the world would have been spared the addition of one murder. I happened to be standing within five feet of a cuspidor 284 AMERICAN COMMUNITIES when Major Caswell opened fire upon it. I had been observant enough to perceive that the attacking force was using Gatlings instead of squirrel rifles ; so I side-stepped so promptly that the Major seized the opportunity to apologize to a non-combatant. He had the blabbing lip. In four minutes he had become my friend and had dragged me to the bar. I desire to interpolate here that I am a Southerner. But I am not one by profession or trade. I eschew the string tie, the slouch hat, the Prince Albert, the number of bales of cotton destroyed by Sherman, and plug chewing. When the orchestra plays " Dixie " I do not cheer. I slide a little lower on the leather-cornered seat and well order another Wiirzburger and wish that Longstreet had but what's the use? Major Caswell banged the bar with his fist, and the first gun at Fort Sumter reechoed. When he fired the last one at Appomattox I began to hope. But then he began on family trees, and demonstrated that Adam was only a third cousin of a collateral branch of the Caswell family. Gene- alogy disposed of, he took up, to my distaste, his private family matters. He spoke of his wife, traced her descent back to Eve, and profanely denied any possible rumoi that she may have had relations in the land of Nod. By this time I began to suspect that he was trying to obscure by noise the fact that he had ordered the drinks, on the chance that I would be bewildered into paying for them. But when they were down he crashed a silver dollar loudly upon the bar. Then, of course, another serving was obligatory. And when I had paid for that I took leave of him brusquely ; for I wanted no more of him. But before I had obtained my release he had prated loudly of an income that his wife received, and showed a handful of silver money. When I got my key at the desk the clerk said to me cour- A MUNICIPAL REPORT 285 teously : "If that man Caswell has annoyed you, and if you would like to make a complaint, we will have him ejected. He is a nuisance, a loafer, and without any known means of support, although he seems to have some money most of the time. But we don't seem to be able to hit upon any means of throwing him out legally." "Why, no," said I, after some reflection ; "I don't see my way clear to making a complaint. But I would like to place myself on record as asserting that I do not care for his com- pany. Your town," I continued, "seems to be a quiet one. What manner of entertainment, adventure, or excitement have you to offer to the stranger within your gates ? " "Well, sir," said the clerk, "there will be a show here next Thursday. It is I'll look it up and have the an- nouncement sent up to your room with the ice water. Good-night." After I went up to my room I looked out the window. It was only about ten o'clock, but I looked upon a silent town. The drizzle continued, spangled with dim lights, as far apart as currants in a cake sold at the Ladies' Exchange. "A quiet place," I said to myself, as my first shoe struck the ceiling of the occupant of the room beneath mine. "Nothing of the life here that gives color and variety to the cities in the East and West. Just a good, ordinary, humdrum, business town." Nashville occupies a foremost place among the manufacturing centers of the country. It is the fifth boot and shoe market in the United States, the largest candy and cracker manufacturing city in the South, and does an enormous wholesale dry-goods, grocery, and drug business. I must tell you how I came to be in Nashville, and I assure you the digression brings as much tedium to me as it does to you. I was traveling elsewhere on my own business, but I had a commission from a Northern literary magazine 286 AMERICAN COMMUNITIES to stop over there and establish a personal connection be- tween the publication and one of its contributors, Azalea Adair. Adair (there was no clue to the personality except the handwriting) had sent in some essays (lost art !) and poems that had made the editors swear approvingly over their one-o'clock luncheon. So they had commissioned me to round up said Adair and corner by contract his or her out- put at two cents a word before some other publisher offered her ten or twenty. At nine o'clock the next morning, after my chicken livers en brochette (try them if you can find that hotel), I strayed out into the drizzle, which was still on for an unlimited run. At the first corner I came upon Uncle Caesar. He was a stalwart negro, older than the pyramids, with gray wool and a face that reminded me of Brutus, and a second after- wards of the late King Cetewayo. He wore the most remarkable coat that I ever had seen or expect to see. It reached to his ankles and had once been a Confederate gray in color. But rain and sun and age had so variegated it that Joseph's coat, beside it, would have faded to a pale mono- chrome. I must linger with that coat, for it has to do with the story the story that is so long in coming, because you can hardly expect anything to happen in Nashville. Once it must have been the military coat of an officer. The cape of it had vanished, but all adown its front it had been frogged and tasseled magnificently. But now the frogs and tassels were gone. In their stead had been patiently stitched (I surmised by some surviving "black mammy") new frogs made of cunningly twisted common hempen twine. This twine was frayed and disheveled. It must have been added to the coat as a substitute for van- ished splendors, with tasteless but painstaking devotion, for it followed faithfully the curves of the long-missing frogs. And, to complete the comedy and pathos of the gar- A MUNICIPAL REPORT 287 ment, all its buttons were gone save one. The second but- ton from the top alone remained. The coat was fastened by other twine strings tied through the buttonholes and other holes rudely pierced in the opposite side. There was never such a weird garment so fantastically bedecked and of so many mottled hues. The lone button was the size of a half- dollar, made of yellow horn and sewed on with coarse twine. This negro stood by a carriage so old that Ham himself might have started a hack-line with it after he left the ark with the two animals hitched to it. As I approached he threw open the door, drew out a feather duster, waved it without using it, and said in deep, rumbling tones : "Step right in, suh; ain't a speck of dust in it jus* got back from a funeral, suh." I inferred that on such gala occasions carriages were given an extra cleaning. I looked up and down the street and perceived that there was little choice among the vehicles for hire that lined the curb. I looked in my memo- randum book for the address of Azalea Adair. "I want to go to 861 Jessamine Street," I said, and was about to step into the hack. But for an instant the thick, long, gorilla-like arm of the old negro barred me. On his massive and saturnine face a look of sudden suspicion and enmity flashed for a moment. Then, with quickly returning conviction, he asked bland- ishingly : "What are you gwine there for, boss ? " "What is that to you ?" I asked, a little sharply. "Nothin', suh, jus* nothin'. Only it's a lonesome kind of part of town and few folks ever has business out there. Step right in. The seats is clean jes' got back from a funeral, suh." A mile and a half it must have been to our journey's end. I could hear nothing but the fearful rattle of the ancient hack over the uneven brick paving ; I could smell nothing but the drizzle, now further flavored with coal smoke and 288 AMERICAN COMMUNITIES something like a mixture of tar and oleander blossoms. All I could see through the streaming windows were two rows of dim houses. The city has an area of 10 square miles ; 181 miles of streets, of which 137 miles are paved ; a system of waterworks that cost $2,000,000, with 77 miles of mains. Eight-sixty-one Jessamine Street was a decayed man- sion. Thirty yards back from the street it stood, outmerged in a splendid grove of trees and untrimmed shrubbery. A row of box bushes overflowed and almost hid the paling fence from sight ; the gate was kept closed by a rope noose that encircled the gate-post and the first paling of the gate. But when you got inside you saw that eight-sixty-one was a shell, a shadow, a ghost of former grandeur and excellence. But in the story, I have not yet got inside. When the hack had ceased from rattling and the weary quadrupeds came to a rest, I handed my Jehu his fifty cents with an additional quarter, feeling a glow of conscious gen- erosity as I did so. He refused it. "It's two dollars, suh," he said. " How's that ? " I asked. " I plainly heard you call out at the hotel : 'Fifty cents to any part of the town.' " "It's two dollars, suh," he repeated obstinately. "It's a long ways from the hotel." "It is within the city limits and well within them," I argued. " Don't think that you have picked up a greenhorn Yankee. Do you see those hills over there?" I went on, pointing toward the east (I could not see them, myself, for the drizzle) ; "well, I was born and raised on their other side. You old fool nigger, can't you tell people from other people when you see 'em ? " The grim face of King Cetewayo softened. "Is you from the South, suh ? I reckon it was them shoes of yourn fooled me. They is somethin' sharp in the toes for a Southern genTman to wear." A MUNICIPAL REPORT 289 "Then the charge is fifty cents, I suppose ?" said I inex- orably. His former expression, a mingling of cupidity and hos- tility, returned, remained ten seconds, and vanished. "Boss," he said, "fifty cents is right; but I needs two dollars, suh; I'm obleeged to have two dollars. I ain't demandin' it now, suh, after I knows whar you's from ; I'm jus' sayin' that I has to have two dollars to-night, and busi- ness is mighty po'." Peace and confidence settled upon his heavy features. He had been luckier than he had hoped. Instead of having picked up a greenhorn, ignorant of rates, he had come upon an inheritance. "You confounded old rascal," I said, reaching down to my pocket, "you ought to be turned over to the police." For the first time I saw him smile. He knew ; he knew; HE KNEW. I gave him two one-dollar bills. As I handed them over I noticed that one of them had seen parlous times. Its upper right-hand corner was missing, and it had been torn through in the middle, but joined again. A strip of blue tissue paper, pasted over the split, preserved its negotia- bility. Enough of the African bandit for the present : I left him happy, lifted the rope, and opened the creaky gate. The house, as I said, was a shell. A paint-brush had not touched it in twenty years. I could not see why a strong wind should not have bowled it over like a house of cards until I looked again at the trees that hugged it close the trees that saw the battle of Nashville and still drew their protecting branches around it against storm and enemy and cold. Azalea Adair, fifty years old, white-haired, a descendant of the cavaliers, as thin and frail as the house she lived in, robed in the cheapest and cleanest dress I ever saw, with an air as simple as a queen's, received me. ' $90 AMERICAN COMMUNITIES The reception-room seemed a mile square, because there was nothing in it except some rows of books, on unpainted white-pine bookshelves, a cracked marble-top table, a rag rug, a hairless horsehair sofa, and two or three chairs. Yes, there was a picture on the wall, a colored crayon drawing of a cluster of pansies. I looked around for the portrait of Andrew Jackson and the pinecone hanging basket, but they were not there. Azalea Adair and I had conversation, a little of which will be repeated to you. She was a product of the old South, gently nurtured in the sheltered life. Her learn- ing was not broad, but was deep and of splendid originality in its somewhat narrow scope. She had been educated at home, and her knowledge of the world was derived from inference and by inspiration. Of such is the precious, small group of essayists made. While she talked to me I kept brushing my fingers, trying, unconsciously, to rid them guiltily of the absent dust from the half-calf backs of Lamb, Chaucer, Hazlitt, Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne, and Hood. She was exquisite, she was a valuable discovery. Nearly everybody nowadays knows too much oh, so much too much of real life. I could perceive clearly that Azalea Adair was very poor. A house and a dress she had, not much else, I fancied. So, divided between my duty to the magazine and my loyalty to the poets and essayists who fought Thomas in the valley of the Cumberland, I listened to her voice, which was like a harpsichord's, and found that I could not speak of con- tracts. In the presence of the nine Muses and the three Graces one hesitated to lower the topic to two cents. There would have to be another colloquy after I had regained my commercialism. But I spoke of my mission, and three o'clock of the next afternoon was set for the dis- cussion of the business proposition. "Your town," I said, as I began to make ready to depart A MUNICIPAL REPORT 291 (which is the time for smooth generalities), "seems to be a quiet, sedate place. A home town, I should say, where few things out of the ordinary ever happen." It carries on an extensive trade in stoves and hollow ware with the West and South, and its flouring mills have a daily capacity of more than two thousand barrels. Azalea Adair seemed to reflect. " I have never thought of it that way," she said, with a kind of sincere intensity that seemed to belong to her. "Isn't it in the still, quiet places that things do happen? I fancy that when God began to create the earth on the first Monday morning one could have leaned out one's window and heard the drops of mud splashing from His trowel as He built up the everlasting hills. What did the noisiest project in the world I mean the building of the tower of Babel result in finally ? A page and a half of Esperanto in the North American Review." "Of course," said I platitudinously, "human nature is the same everywhere ; but there is more color er more drama and movement and er romance in some cities than in others." "On the surface," said Azalea Adair. "I have traveled many times around the world in a golden airship wafted on two wings print and dreams. I have seen (on one of my imaginary tours) the Sultan of Turkey bowstring with his own hands one of his wives who had uncovered her face in public. I have seen a man in Nashville tear up his theater tickets because his wife was going out with her face cov- ered with rice powder. In San Francisco's Chinatown I saw the slave girl Sing Yee dipped slowly, inch by inch, in boiling almond oil to make her swear she would never see her American lover again. She gave in when the boiling oil had reached three inches above her knee. At a euchre party in East Nashville the other night I saw Kitty Mor- gan cut dead by seven of her schoolmates and lifelong 92 AMERICAN COMMUNITIES friends because she had married a house painter. The boil- ing oil was sizzling as high as her heart ; but I wish you could have seen the fine little smile that she carried from table to table. Oh, yes, it is a humdrum town. Just a few miles of red brick houses and mud and stores and lumber yards." Some one knocked hollowly at the back of the house. Azalea Adair breathed a soft apology and went to investi- gate the sound. She came back in three minutes with brightened eyes, a faint flush on her cheeks, and ten years lifted from her shoulders. "You must have a cup of tea before you go," she said, "and a sugar cake." She reached and shook a little iron bell. In shuffled a small negro girl about twelve, barefoot, not very tidy, glowering at me with thumb in mouth and bulging eyes. Azalea Adair opened a tiny, worn purse and drew out a dollar bill, a dollar bill with the upper right-hand corner missing, torn in two pieces and pasted together again with a strip of blue tissue paper. It was one of the bills I had given the piratical negro there was no doubt of it. "Go up to Mr. Baker's store on the corner, Impy," she said, handing the girl the dollar bill, "and get a quarter of a pound of tea the kind he always sends me and ten cents' worth of sugar cakes. Now, hurry. The supply of tea in the house happens to be exhausted," she explained to me. Impy left by the back way. Before the scrape of her hard, bare feet had died away on the back porch, a wild shriek I was sure it was hers filled the hollow house. Then the deep, gruff tones of an angry man's voice mingled with the girl's further squeals and unintelligible words. Azalea Adair rose without surprise or emotion and dis- appeared. For two minutes I heard the hoarse rumble of A MUNICIPAL REPORT 293 the man's voice ; then something like an oath and a slight scuffle, and she returned calmly to her chair. "This is a roomy house," she said, "and I have a tenant for part of it. I am sorry to have to rescind my invitation to tea. It was impossible to get the kind I always use at the store. Perhaps to-morrow Mr. Baker will be able to supply me." I was sure that Impy had not had time to leave the house. I inquired concerning street-car lines and took my leave. After I was well on my way I remembered that I had not learned Azalea Adair's name. But to-morrow would do. That same day I started in on the course of iniquity that this uneventful city forced upon me. I was in the town only two days, but in that time I managed to lie shame- lessly by telegraph, and to be an accomplice after the fact, if that is the correct legal term to a murder. As I rounded the corner nearest my hotel the Afrite coachman of the polychromatic, nonpareil coat seized me, swung open the dungeony door of his peripatetic sarcoph- agus, flirted his feather duster, and began his ritual : "Step right in, boss. Carriage is clean jus* got back from a funeral. Fifty cents to any " And then he knew me and grinned broadly. " 'Scuse me, boss ; you is de genTman what rid out with me dis mawn- in\ Thank you kindly, suh." "I am going out to eight-sixty-one again to-morrow afternoon at three," said I, "and if you will be here, I'll let you drive me. So you know Miss Adair ? " I concluded, thinking of my dollar bill. "I belonged to her father, Judge Adair, suh," he re- plied. "I judge that she is pretty poor," I said. "She hasn't much money to speak of, has she?" For an instant I looked again at the fierce countenance 294 AMERICAN COMMUNITIES of King Cetewayo, and then he changed back to an extor- tionate old negro hack-driver. "She ain't gwine to starve, suh," he said slowly. "She has reso'ces, suh ; she has reso'ces." " I shall pay you fifty cents for the trip," said I. "Dat is puffeckly correct, suh," he answered humbly. "I jus* had to have dat two dollars dis mawnin', boss." I went to the hotel and lied by electricity. I wired the magazine: "A. Adair holds out for eight cents a word." The answer that came back was : " Give it to her quick, you duffer." Just before dinner "Major" Wentworth Caswell bore down upon me with the greetings of a long-lost friend. I have seen few men whom I have so instantaneously hated, and of whom it was so difficult to be rid. I was standing at the bar when he invaded me ; therefore I could not wave the white ribbon in his face. I would have paid gladly for the drinks, hoping, thereby, to escape another ; but he was one of those despicable, roaring, advertising bibbers who must have brass bands and fireworks attend upon every cent that they waste in their follies. With an air of producing millions he drew two one-dollar bills from a pocket and dashed one of them upon the bar. I looked once more at the dollar bill with the upper right- hand corner missing, torn through the middle, and patched with a strip of blue tissue paper. It was my dollar bill again. It could have been no other. I went up to my room. The drizzle and the monotony of a dreary, eventless Southern town had made me tired and listless. I remember that just before I went to bed I men- tally disposed of the mysterious dollar bill (which might have formed the clue to a tremendously fine detective story of San Francisco) by saying to myself sleepily: "Seems as if a lot of people here own stock in the Hack-Drivers' Trust. A MUNICIPAL REPORT 295 Pays dividends promptly, too. Wonder if " Then I fell asleep. King Cetewayo was at his post the next day, and rattled my bones over the stones out to eight-sixty-one. He was to wait and rattle me back again when I was ready. Azalea Adair looked paler and cleaner and frailer than she had looked on the day before. After she had signed the contract at eight cents per word, she grew still paler and began to slip out of her chair. Without much trouble I managed to get her up on the antediluvian horsehair sofa and then I ran out to the sidewalk and yelled to the coffee- colored pirate to bring a doctor. With a wisdom that I had not suspected in him, he abandoned his team and struck off up the street afoot, realizing the value of speed. In ten minutes he returned with a grave, gray-haired, and cap- able man of medicine. In a few words (worth much less than eight cents each) I explained to him my presence in the hollow house of mystery. He bowed with stately un- derstanding, and turned to the old negro. "Uncle Caesar," he said calmly, "run up to my house and ask Miss Lucy to give you a cream pitcher full of fresh milk and half a tumbler of port wine. And hurry back. Don't drive run. I want you to get back sometime this week." It occurred to me that Dr. Merriman also felt a distrust as to the speeding powers of the land-pirate's steeds. After Uncle Csesar was gone, lumberingly, but swiftly, up the street, the doctor looked me over with great politeness and as much careful calculation until he had decided that I might do. "It is only a case of insufficient nutrition," he said. "In other words, the result of poverty, pride, and starvation. Mrs. Caswell has many devoted friends who would be glad to aid her, but she will accept nothing except from that old negro, Uncle Csesar, who was once owned by her family." 296 AMERICAN COMMUNITIES "Mrs. Caswell !" said I, in surprise. And then I looked at the contract and saw that she had signed it "Azalea Adair Caswell." "I thought she was Miss Adair," I said. "Married to a drunken, worthless loafer, sir," said the doctor. " It is said that he robs her even of the small sums that her old servant contributes toward her support." When the milk and wine had been brought, the doctor soon revived Azalea Adair. She sat up and talked of the beauty of the autumn leaves that were then in season, and their height of color. She referred lightly to her fainting seizure as the outcome of an old palpitation of the heart. Impy fanned her as she lay on the sofa. The doctor was due elsewhere, and I followed him to the door. I told him that it was within my power and intentions to make a reasonable advance of money to Azalea Adair on future contributions to the magazine, and he seemed pleased. "By the way," he said, "perhaps you would like to know that you have had royalty for a coachman. Old Caesar's grandfather was a king in Congo. Caesar himself has royal ways, as you may have observed." As the doctor was moving off I heard Uncle Caesar's voice inside : " Did he git bof e of dem two dollars from you, Mis' Zalea?" "Yes, Caesar," I heard Azalea Adair answer weakly. And then I went in and concluded business negotiations with our contributor. I assumed the responsibility of advancing fifty dollars, putting it as a necessary formality in binding our bargain. And then Uncle Caesar drove me back to the hotel* Here ends all of the story as far as I can testify as a wit- ness. The rest must be only bare statements of facts. At about six o'clock I went out for a stroll. Uncle Caesar was at his corner. He threw open the door of his carriage, flourished his duster, and began his depressing formula: A MUNICIPAL REPORT 297 "Step right in, suh. Fifty cents to anywhere in the city hack's puffickly clean, suh jus' got back from a fun- eral" And then he recognized me. I think his eyesight was getting bad. His coat had taken on a few more faded shades of color, the twine strings were more frayed and ragged, the last remaining button the button of yellow horn was gone. A motley descendant of kings was Uncle Caesar ! About two hours later I saw an excited crowd besieg- ing the front of a drug-store. In a desert where nothing happens this was manna; so I edged my way inside. On an extemporized couch of empty boxes and chairs was stretched the mortal corporeality of Major Wentworth Caswell. A doctor was testing him for the immortal in- gredient. His decision was that it was conspicuous by its absence. The erstwhile Major had been found dead on a dark street and brought by curious and ennuied citizens to the drug-store. The late human being had been engaged in terrific battle the details showed that. Loafer and reprobate though he had been, he had been also a warrior. But he had lost. His hands were yet clinched so tightly that his fingers would not be opened. The gentle citizens who had known him stood about and searched then* vocab- ularies to find some good words, if it were possible, to speak of him. One kind-looking man said, after much thought: "When *Cas* was about fo'teen he was one of the best spellers in school." While I stood there the fingers of the right hand of "the man that was," which hung down the side of a white-pine box, relaxed, and dropped something at my feet. I covered it with one foot quietly, and a little later on I picked it up and pocketed it. I reasoned that in his last struggle his hand must have seized that object unwittingly and held it in a death grip. 298 AMERICAN COMMUNITIES At the hotel that night the main topic of conversation, with the possible exceptions of politics and prohibition, was the demise of Major Caswell. I heard one man say to a group of listeners : "In my opinion, gentlemen, Caswell was murdered by some of these no-account niggers for his money. He had fifty dollars this afternoon which he showed to several gentlemen in the hotel. When he was found the money was not on his person." I left the city the next morning at nine, and as the train was crossing the bridge over the Cumberland River I took out of my pocket a yellow horn overcoat button the size of a fifty-cent piece, with frayed ends of coarse twine hanging from it, and cast it out of the window into the slow, muddy waters below. / wonder what's doing in Buffalo! THE REGIONALIST AT WORK A LOCAL COLOEISfi BY ANNIE TRUMBULL SLOSSON WHEN I was a mite of a child I was always sayin' that I'd be a book-writer when I growed up. I rec'lect lots of times folks askin' me as they're always doin* with young ones, you know what I was goin' to be when I got a woman grown, and my sayin' every time I should be a great author. Sometimes I'd make it more particular and say a poet or a story-writer, or again I'd have it a editor or some kind of newspaper-maker, but most gen'rally 'twas just a plain author, no particular sort. So, feelin' that way from the very beginnin', 'twas queer that I never did write for print as the years went by. I was forever thinkin' about it, plannin' for it, surmisin' just how 'twould feel when my own makin's-up was printed out and read all over the airth, and I never for one single minute give up bein' certain sure that before I died and long afterwards, too I should be known and spoke of as a great, a dreadful great, author- ess. But I never seemed to get at it. You see, I was so busy. I never had to work for my livin', but I was oldest of five and had lots to do helpin' ma with the little ones and the housework. Then there was school and lessons till I was nigh seventeen, and after that beaux, and pretty soon one beau in partic'lar Mr. Kidder, you know. You can't write much in courtin' days, nor in marryin'-time neither, and 'course when little Nathan come and then Fanny Ann and Prudence, my hands were too full for authorin*. But I kep* on lottin' on doin' it some day, knowin' I should manage it somehow. 1 Reprinted by permission from A Local Colorist, by Annie Trumbull Slosson. Copyright, 1912, by Charles Scribner's Sons. 302 THE REGIONALIST AT WORK It wa'n't till I was left all alone by myself two year ago that I felt I could really begin. I set the day quite a spell aforehand. It was to be the 28th of May. The spring cleanin' would be through by that time, and the preservin' and cannin' and puttin' up jell and pickles not begun. Only a few summer boarders generally come as early as that, so there wouldn't be much goin' on outside to watch from the windows and take off my mind. Altogether it seemed just the right time. Of course there had to be a set day in case my writin's turned out pop'lar and talked about, and I was pretty certain they would. Folks always want to know all about great writers, and I kep' sayin' over to myself words from the newspaper accounts : " It was only a few years ago, on the 28th of May, that this interestin' " - or " thrillinY' or "beautiful," or something, as the case might be "au- thoress begun her first and perchance her greatest book." I laid in my writin' things, a new bottle of ink, some pens, and a quire of paper, and fixed my table in a good light. That was in March, for I was always forehanded. I was beginnin* to be a mite impatient, wantin' to have the worst over, when one day a new idee come into my head. Up to that cold March mornin', if you'll believe it, I never once thought what kind of writin' I should begin with; verses or prose pieces, narr'tives or what-all, I hadn't de- cided on any of 'em. It didn't take very long, though. I was dreadful fond of story-books, and I never cared no great for poetry or lives of folks or travelin' adventur's. I'd write stories, just one first off, and then a lot of 'em " by the authoress of ." My ! I hadn't fixed on a name. But that could come later when I knew what kind of a story it was. Then come the hardest of all what it should be about. I couldn't make up my mind about that. I won't go over all the different plans I had : to write about lords and earls, or lay it in heathen lands, or in Mayflower days among the Pilgrims, or in the Civil Waij or among A LOCAL COLORIST '303 pirates and Captain Kidd, or early Christian martyrs. I went over all them and lots more, but wasn't a bit nearer decidin', when Mary Dowd passed through here on her way to Hall. She'd writ me aforehand, and I went over to the depot to see her. There was only about half an hour be- tween trains, and we had a great deal to say. She is real smart, you know had the Dayville School three terms, and is a great book-reader, so I wanted her advice. But she was all for my tellin' her first how my rhubarb pies was made ; then she branched off into pie crust generally, and how hers never had that light shortness mine always had, and it was only a few minutes before train-time that I got a chance to put my case. She was real interested, and she says right off quick, without havin' to think it over, "Oh," she says, "write a dialect story ; that's the only thing that takes these days." "What in creation's that ? " I says, and she looked 'most sorry for me. But she's real kind-hearted, and she begun to explain. Before I could get much idee of the thing the train whistled and she started to pick up her bag. Near as I could understand, dialect I didn't know just how to spell it or speak it then, but I got it right after- ward dialect was any kind of queer, outlandish talk folks in any deestrict use, the queerer the better. The more you put in your story and the worse 'twas spelt and the harder to understand, why, as I gathered from what she said as she climbed up the steps bag in one hand and umbrella in the other and a book under each arm, so't she couldn't help steppin' on her skirt in front every step why, the better your story was and the bigger pay it fetched. " But where'll I get this derelict talk ? " I says, not gettin' the right word first off, and knowin' the other from Captain Gates, who'd followed the sea. "Go 'round till you find it," she says, as she went into the car, and tripped on the sill so's she 'most fell over, "and then write it out." "How '11 1 know how to spell it ?" I calls out as she settles 304 THE REGIONALIST AT WORK into her seat and begins to fix her things. " You don't have to know," says she through the window ; "don't make any difference how it's spelt ; that's why it's so easy." Just as the train started she put her face down to the open part of the window it was only up a little way and was wedged there as they always be in cars and called out, "And be sure you put in lots of local color." "What color?" I hol- lered out as loud as I could. I see her mouth open, but I couldn't for the life of me catch a word, and in a jiffy she was out of sight. Well, I wrote to her for more partic'lars, and she sent me a whole sheetful of explainin's. She said dialect was 'most everywheres, but different in different places. I'd find it nigh me or further away. But when I'd got it I mustn't only take it down lit'ral, but I must put hi the color she'd spoke of, which meant the sort of folks that talked the dialect, how they looked and acted, and all about the place and the scenery, and partic'lar the weather. There must be dark, lowerin' clouds, or an azure sky, or wailin' winds, or lurid sunsets, or something similar. That was all called local color, she said, and it was a most im- portant in fact, a necessary ingredjent. "Like lard in pie crust," I says to myself, for that word ingredjent sounded like receipt-book talk, and the last part of her letter was about my rhubarb pies again. Well, 'course I had to begin now, first thing, to hunt up folks that talked dialects, and it wasn't any easy job I tell you. Mary'd said it might be found right 'round you or further away. 'Twas certain sure it couldn't be 'round me, for I lived then, just as I do now, here in the mountains, though it was in Francony those days instead of here in Lisbon, and there wasn't a thing of the kind in the whole place. I knew every single soul for miles 'round, and they all talked good, plain, sensible talk like everybody else, nothin' queer or what you might call dialectic. But I was set on bein' fair and correct, and not leavin' any stone A LOCAL COLORIST 305 unturned, as the sayin' is, without turnin' it up. So I went over in my mind all the folks there and what languages they used. I didn't seem to find anything singular, but thinks I, I'll go 'round amongst the people a little and talk with 'em and take partic'lar notice of what they say. It didn't come to anything. Even the old aged folks that might have fetched down from past generations some strange lingo or other, they talked the right kind of talk we all of us use. I didn't tell 'em what I was at, but sort of drawed 'em out on different subjects and watched sharp for any dialects. But not a sign of 'em turned up. Even Gran'sir Peckham, more'n eighty year old, didn't show a mite of it. I talked about the weather with him as he stood at the gate one time ; asked him if he thought 'twould be a nice day, and so on. He said just what anybody any- wheres that had took notice of the clouds would say, that it was goin' to be catchin' weather like the day afore, when he got soppin' wet over to the medder lot, and he cal'lated 'twould keep on thataway till the moon fulled. "Tany rate," he says, "it's growthy weather for grass." Nobody could have talked sensibler nor more like other folks nor with scurser dialect. And Aunt Drusilly Bowles, born and raised right there on the Butter Hill road, she was just the same. A mite of a body she is, you know, lookin' as if you could blow her over with one breath, but tough and rugged. She was carryin' two pails of water, one in each hand, as I went by, and I called out to her, "Ain't they heavy ? " I says. "Not a mite that is, for me," says she. "I could heft twice as much." She come out to the road, still a-carryin' the pails, and went on talkin'. " I don't see," says she, "but I'm jest as spry and up-and-doin' as I was twenty year back. The Priests, our branch mother's side, ye know they're a long-lived tribe and peart and chirky to the last. Ma herself was dreadful poor, never weighed ninety pound in all her born days, but she was 306 THE REGIONALIST AT WORK powerful strong, all bone and sinner to the last. There wa'n't never a peakid or pindlin' Priest I ever heerd tell on," she says, straightenin' up, sort o' proud like. And it was all like that, plain, nat'ral language like anybody's, not a sign of dialection, as you might call it. So I traipsed 'round that town till my feet ached lookin' for what I knowed aforehand wasn't there. I wouldn't go anywheres else till I'd tried every chance to home. When I was sure there wasn't a speck o* real dialect in Francony nor for miles 'round there, I took the cars for Haverhill, where my niece's son, Eben Reynolds, lived. Ridin' in the stage over to Bethlehem for the mornin* train, I couldn't get this thing out o' my head. You're something of a writer yourself, ma'am, and must know how it kind o' spiles things havin' to think how they'd look in print. I know I heerd Leonard Colby say once he used to write pieces for the paper, you know that he couldn't even say good-night to his girl when he was keepin' company with Ellen Peabody without thinkin' to himself how 'twould be called in print "a yearnin' embrace" or some- thing ; said it took part of the int'rest out of it. So 'twas with me that time. 'Twas a real nice mornin', a spring feelin' in the air, the trees not exactly budded out, but showin' they were goin' to be pretty soon, a kind of live purplish gray all over 'em, and the sky a pictur'. But I couldn't just set still and let it all soak into me without act'ally thinkin' about it, as I used to, no more'n these new folks that call theirselves natur'-lovers can really love natur'. They're after book names for what they see, ex- amples of amazin* smartness in birds or creatur's like what Professor Thingamy or Doctor Thisorthat writ about. And I was huntin' for the dialect way of tellin' what I see that day. I looked up to the sky, such a pretty blue, and the little soft white woolly clouds strimmered all over it, and I wondered if there was any dialectic word that answered to A LOCAL COLORIST 307 "strimmer." Seems 's if there couldn't be one that pictured out the real thing so good. For them clouds was strim- mered and nothin' else. I thought as I see the apple-trees with their spranglin', crooked, knotty branches showin' already signs of the spring life, thinks I, "They'll be pink with blowth afore we know it." And then 'stead of just being comfortable and pleased over that idee I went and begun guessin' if there was any other word in any part of the world that stood for "blowth." Certain sure there couldn't be a word that described things so plain. Why, you can't only see the posies as you're sayin' it, but you can act 'ally smell 'em. "Oh, how glad I be," I says to myself, "that I don't have to talk dialect or any other out- landish languages started, I dare say, in Babel times when folks got so mixed up and confused." 'Course I'm always kind to foreigners and make allowances for 'em. Look at it one way, it ain't their fault their talkin' that way. But I feel to rejoice, as they say in prayer-meetin', that I wasn't born or raised one. Sometimes seems 's if, even if I had been, I'd have broke away when I growed up and sensed things. I can't pictur' anybody with a drop of Spooner blood in 'em talkin' such lingo as Dutch Peter over to Lisbon or Mary Bodoe on Wallace Hill keep jabberin' all the time. However and wherewithal, as Deacon Lamb used to say in meetin's, thankful as I might be that I talked good New Hampshire, I was bound to find the other kind afore May 28th, when my book was to begin. But I hadn't any more luck Haverhill way than 'round home. It made me feel real mean, too, visitin' as I was and folks showin' me so much attention, and me spyin' on 'em, as you might say, and prickin' up my ears in hopes of hearin' some queer dialecty talk to use in my writin's. Served me right that I didn't hear a speck. Eben's folks come from our way, and o' course they talked good Fran- cony-American, and their neighbors done the same. When 808 THE REGIONALIST AT WORK I went over the river to Bradford I was in Vermont, you know. I thought mebbe they'd speak different over there, but they didn't. They conversed jest our way, only more so, if anything. For some of the old folks kep' up words I had 'most forgot, but good, sensible, straight-meanin' words, with nothin' outlandish or dialectical about 'em. Grandma Quimby, raised in Whitefield, but marryin' a Bradford man and livin' there thirty year, she says when I asked her how her little granddaughter Dorry was, "Little?" says she. "Why, you'd ought to see her; she's a great big gormin' girl now." That "gormin"' did bring back old times and pa. He always applied that term to me when I was growin' up, and it's a scrumtious word. I do lot on words that pictur' things out like that. And her daughter, Aunt Meeny Tucker, she puts in : " And Cyrus 's gettin' a big boy too. It's all his pa can do to manage him. He's got the Dodge grit, and he's real masterful, runs all over the town without leave, the kitin'est boy." Exactly what ma used to say about Dan'l. Oh, I do so set by the good, plain, meanin* talk ! By this time I see I must go further away if I expected to get hold of anything to use in my writin's, and I decided to go to Nashaway to Jane Webster's, and if I didn't get it there to keep on as fur as Brown's Corners, 'cross the Massachusetts line. "If I don't find it there," I says to myself, " I'll give up. I can't go to Injy's coral strands, not even to find ingredjents for my book-writin'." 'Twas the same story at Nashaway, no dialects at all, not the least taste, though I visited 'round, in all classes, as they say. Then I went to Massachusetts. But, dear land ! Brown's Corners wasn't a mite different from Francony or Lisbon, Haverhill or Bradford. Common talk full o' com- mon sense, both of 'em common to all New England, f'r aught I know. I didn't know anybody at the Corners but Mis' Harris Spooner, own cousin to Mr. Kidder's first A LOCAL COLORIST 309 wife, and I put up with her. She'd always lived in Massa- chusetts, bom there, and I sort of hoped I could pick up something singular in her conversation worth puttin' into my story. But 'twas no good ; seems even there so nigh to Boston their languages is same as ourn. She didn't talk of anything scursely but about Viletty Mr. Kidder's first, you know, my predecessor, 's they say and how pious and sickly she was. Told me all about her last days, how white and meechin' she looked, and how dreadful poor and skinny, and yet how she hung on, hung on till seemed 's if she never 'd pass away. And she dwelt on Mr. Kidder's sorrer and how he kind o' clung to Viletty 's if he couldn't part with her, and how mebbe that was the reason she hung on, hung on so long. She said some folks think if you hold on too tight to them you set by when they 're sick and ready to go, they can't break loose, somethin' seems to draw 'em back and pin 'em down. And she told how she says to him frequent, "Reuben, Reuben," says she, "let her go home, loose your hold and let her depart." Well, seems he did. 'Tany rate she did depart, or else o* course I wouldn't have been Mis' Reuben Kidder now. 'Twas real interestin* and nigh about all news to me, for Mr. Kidder wasn't no great of a talker. Anyway, men-folks never seem to talk about things as well as women, do they? Leave out the little trimmin's that set it off so and stick to main facts, the last thing we care about. He'd never once mentioned all the time we lived together how Viletty had hung on, hung on, and it's bein' thought likely 'twas because of his tight hold on her. You'd think he'd a-known it would be entertainin' to me, takin' Viletty's place as I had. The whole narr'tive was spoke in as good plain talk as any I could have put it in myself, down to the very end, Viletty's dyin' words, the layin' out, the wreaths and crowns and pillers from the neighbors, and the funeral exercises. She said she'd take me out to the buryin'-ground afore I left, a dreadful sightly 310 THE REGIONALIST AT WORK place on Dodd's Hill, to see the grave. I'd have admired to go, but it rained the whole endurin* time, and I didn't get a chance. Well, here 'twas the 24th of May, and no dialections to put into that story that was to be started on the 28th. I was dreadful upset and put out. Seemed certain sure that I couldn't do the kind of book that was most in the fashion that time, and so must set to work at something different. As for the local color, if that only meant sceneries and weather and actin's and doin's, why, I could fix them all right, but, as I understood Mary Dowd to say, that wasn't no use without a lot o' this dialect, and that I couldn't find high nor low. Up to that time I hadn't told a single creatur* what I was at. But that day, as I was goin' along in the train, who should get in at Greenfield station but Abby Matthews on her way home from visitin' with Ephraim's folks. I was so glad to see her, and so filled up with all I 'd been through and wanted to go through, that I spilled over and emptied out my whole heart. I told her every single thing, how I 'd always been set on bein' an authoress and what Mary Dowd said and how I 'd traipsed all over the airth lookin' for dialects and couldn't find a speck, and me only four days from the date I 'd set for beginnin' my great, prob'ly my greatest, work. She was real interested and pleased too, said 'twould be a great thing for Francony and for Graf ton County in fact, for the whole State o' New Hampshire to have an authoress of their own. As for this dialect, she said she'd heerd of it as bein' all the go nowadays in story-book writin', but to the best of her rememberin' she hadn't never seen a case of it herself. It was some kind of queer-soundin' talk when you heerd it, and queerer-lookin' when you read it, and the spellin' was every which way, no reg'lar rule. As for her, says she, she never conceited folks did talk just that way in any dees- trict on the airth ; she'd always held that the story-writers A LOCAL COLORIST 311 made it up as they went along, and she'd advise me to do so myself. As for "local color," she never'd heerd of such a thing, and I'd better not have anything to do with it. "Tell your story plain and straight, and put everything down in black and white, and steer clear o' any other colors, local or be-they-who-they-be," she says. "But I can't make up a thing I don't know anything about/' says I. " If I only could see a sample of this dialectical talk or hear somebody speak a mite of it, I'd see where I was standin', but I can't make a start afore I know more about it ; that's the thing of it. I'm every bit as sot as you can be, Abby Matthews, on beginnin' this great work. All is, I must have a mite of a hint or a help to start me, and then I can go on like a house afire." She see the sense of that, and just then the train slowed up comin' into Bath, where she was goin* to get out, and in a minute I was left by myself again. "Well, Abby ain't been of much use in one way," thinks I, "but she gave me sympathy, and 'twas a sight of com- fort to talk things over with her. And, after all, I guess sympathy's worth more'n dialect in the long run, and some- times seems 's if 'twas nigh about as scurse." I just gave up hope that night, yet 'twas only next day that I found what I was lookin' for dialect and plenty of it. I'm afraid you won't hardly understand, and mebbe'll think it dreadful when I tell you 'twas in answer to prayer. I've always been in the habit of askin' the Lord for what I wanted, even if I wasn't sure 'twas a right thing to want. I left it to Him to decide that and to show me if I 'd made a mistake. He give the gift of tongues one time, you know, and He promises to put the very words into your mouth that you'd ought to speak in tryin' times, so why'd this thing be so dreadful different ? Anyway, I tried it, and I told Him the whole story that night. And I says if there wasn't any harm in my bein' an authoress and lots of real Christians followed that business, as He well knew 812 THE REGIONALIST AT WORK and if I couldn't be a real fav'rite without puttin' in this thing, would He p'int out to me where to find it and how I'd ought to make use of it and, if 'twas possible, to do good with it. I got up real comforted and went to bed easier in my mind than I had for a long spell. I was 'round the house next forenoon doin' the work, and I stepped to the window to shake out my dust-cloth. I see some one goin* along the road ; a stranger I knew 'twas right off. 'Twas a young lady, real nice-lookin', and I guessed she must be an early summer boarder. I didn't want to be seen starin' at her, and was just goin' to step back out o' sight, when she looked up and smiled in a real pretty, friendly way. 'Course I smiled back, and she come closer and says " Good- morning." I slat the dust-cloth down and come 'round to the front door, and in five minutes we was talkin' away like old cronies. Seems she was stayin' over to Mis' Nichols's I'd heerd they was expectin' a boarder only come night before, and she was lookin' 'round the place. Well, I hadn't heerd her say a dozen words 'fore I see she talked different from the folks 'round there, different from any- body I'd heerd anywheres. Now I can't show you just how 'twas different. I never could act out things and show how folks did 'em, copy in' their talk and ways. I always broke down and sp'iled the dialogues at school exhibition if they give me a part. But I can tell you some of the things that made this talk so dreadful queer and give me, right at the very beginnin', what they call in prayer-meetin* a tremblin' hope that I was findin' what I'd looked for so long. First place, everything she said sounded like readin' out of a book. Now you know 'most everybody has two kinds of talk, one for speakin' and the other for writin' and readin'. Talk-talk and book-talk, as you might put it. But my ! you couldn't see any difference here ; any of it might have been read off from a book or a paper. And then A LOCAL COLORIST 313 such queer, long, stretched-out words, some of 'em span new to me and some I'd seen in books or heerd in sermons or lectur's. She had a way of stoppin' short 'twixt her words that I couldn't make out or get used to, like this : When she wanted to say she didn't like winter 's well as summer she said she "did not like it at," then a kind of stop before she put in "all." First off I thought it was an acci- dent and she'd stopped to swaller or get her breath or something. But she done it again and kep' doin' it, and I see 'twas a habit part of her dialects. "At all" says she every single time 'stead of "atall," as everybody else says. Then the most musical thing I almost laughed every time she said it when she asked me if I'd ever been somewheres or done something partic'lar she'd say " Did you " this or that, with a stop between the words long enough for a swaller, or a stutter, or a gap, or a hic- cup. " Did you," she'd always say, 'stead of " didjer," as other folks say. And when she wanted to put in "ever" she'd stop the same way 'twixt you and ever. '* Did-you- ever" she says, 'stead of the right way, "Didjever," like other folks. She was int'rested in all I said and real friendly, wanted to keep me talkin', and hoped she wasn't incon- veniencin' me, and so on. And when I said I wasn't par- tic'lar busy, only just potterin' 'round, she says, "Pot- term'! Such a delightful term!" she says; "it reminds me of Keerammix" whoever he was "and the plastic art. Potterin' !" she says over again, laughin', as if 'twas some uncommon, foreignish word or other. Where did she come from? Why, that word's used all over the airth, f ar's I "know. I did hear a woman one time from down Con- necticut way say putterin' 'stead of potterin', but I guess that was only her way of pronouncin' it. When I says of Joel Butts, settin' on his doorstep 'cross the street, that he was "shif'less as a cow blackbird," she claspt her hands and says, "Delicious! and shows such a fa-mil-i-ar-i-ty with 814 THE REGIONALIST AT WORK nature and a certain knowledge of orni something." (I writ that down as quick as she went away.) 'Course I didn't let her see I was usin' her for a copy; she didn't sus- picion it. She ast lots of questions and listened sharp to what I said. But I guess she see pretty quick there wa'n't nothin' queer about my languages. The commonest things, the talk used by all sensible folks the world over, seemed to strike her most and stir her all up. Times I thought she wasn't exactly polite, what we'd call, for she'd repeat over something I'd said and laugh, but as she always ended by praisin' it up I didn't mind. And I was so tickled at findin' a case of genuin' dialects. There was a chiny posy-holder in my window with some dried grass in it from last year, just a common one, had belonged to ma. She didn't seem to know what 'twas 'tall; asked if it was an "antic" or a "airloom"; and again she spoke of it as a "varze." When I told her over again and louder, conceitin' she might be a mite hard o' hearin', that 'twas only a old crock'ry posy- holder, she hollered out, "Posy-holder how dear!" And I hadn't said a word about the price. I didn't want to sell it, anyway. "Posy," says she, "the quaint old word of the poets, Old English," she says. But I told her no, 'twas Chinee, I guessed, fetched over by ma's brother, Uncle Elam, who follered the sea. That started her off again, and she says it after me: "Follered the sea! How expressive and vivid, suggestin* the call of the ocean to its lovers," and such queer, crazy- soundin' talk. I had to write it down quick, makin' an excuse to go into the other room. Another thing queer was her 'pologisin' the whole 'durin' time for goodness knows what and beggin' me to forgive her for somethin' or 'nother. If she didn't sense what I said and wanted to hear it over again, she'd ask me to excuse her dumbness by sayin' " Beg pardon." Time and again she says that when she hadn't done a thing, and when I answered polite every time, A LOCAL COLORIST 315 "Don't mention it,'* I see she was still expectin' somethin' and waitin' for me to say over again what I'd said afore. Then I see 'twas dialect for "What say ? " and I put it down on my list. She had lots of those dialectics. When she was surprised at anything I'd tell her, she'd say, kind o' drawl- in* like, "Fancy !" the fan part sort o' spread out, and I found that meant "Do tell " or "You don't say." And over 'n' over when I fetched in some common sayin', a weather sign about thunder in the mornin', farmers take warnin', or how turnin* back some o' your clothes you'd put on wrong side afore was bad luck, or any such well-known things, she'd say a real queer word, "Foclore," 'most 's if she was swearin', as Uncle Ben Knapp used to say "C'rin- thians!" when he got excited. One time I fetched her out a glass of milk and some hot gingerbread I'd just baked, and I fixed her in the rocker under the big ellum. She was real tickled, and give me to understand that it made her think of somebody named Al Fresscoe. I s'pose he most gen'rally et outdoors. She al- ways had some queer remark to make about everything. When Si Little's ox team was standin' out in the road one day she went out and looked right into the creatur's' faces, and she says over some lingo about Juno and oxides; or mebbe 'twas ox-hides. And when I was tellin' her about Elbert Hill and how climbin' he was, how he'd come up from a poor boy, and now took in partner with Knight Brothers and aimin' to be a selectman some day, she was real struck and says, "Excelsior!" I think 'twas that; 'twas some kind o' stuffin' material, anyway. Even the commonest things like sayin' Jabez Goss was the well-to-doist man in Littleton, which everybody knows he is, she'd appear so struck or tickled over. I'd wonder every minute what fur- off ign'rant country she come from. Once I was tellin' her about Jesse Baker to Sugar Hill and how he could make verses on anything in the heavens or airth or the waters 816 THE REGIONALIST AT WORK under the airth, Pr aught I know. I said nobody ever learnt him how to do it, he just took to it soon's he could speak ; 'twas natur', I guessed. And she says some of her queer out- landish jabber about poets bein' nasty and not fit. She didn't say for what. Wonder if she'd say that about Watts and the rest o' the hymn-makers. 'Course this I'm tellin' you didn't all take place in that first meetin'. It wanted four days then to the 28th, the time I was to become an authoress, and I contrived to see Miss Mandeville (I'd found out her name) lots. I'd run out in the front yard whenever I see her comin' by, and I'd happen into the store if she went in. She was more'n willin' to talk with me, and I got together a whole mess of dialections and writ 'em down careful, though I didn't worry about the spellin', as I'd heerd that wasn't no great matter. She come into my house two or three times and was real int'rested in my things and talked dialect about 'em like a streak all the time. She looked at my old clock on the mantel-shelf that was grandma's and asked about it. It had stopped, as it had a way of doin' frequent, and I told her it didn't keep reg'lar time like my new one in the kitchen, but I said I liked it better than that one because it had been in our family so long and I'd seen it since I was a speck of a young one, and she says, "That goes without sayin'," says she. I hadn't an idee what she meant, for it don't go at all most times whether you say anything or not. She was lookin' over my photograph album and she come to a likeness of Timothy Banks that used to keep store to Whitefield and moved down East. She turned it over to look on the back for his name, I s'pose, and she says, "Oh, Parree ! " 'Twas one of her bywords, I guess, for there wa'n't any name there, only the man that took the pictur* down in Paris, Maine, where the Bankses live. Oh, she had some outlandish word for everything under the sun. What do you think she called goin' anywheres to stay over A LOCAL COLORIST 317 Sabbath day ? You'd never guess. Wee Kend ! Tears to be dialect for visitin' from Saturday to Monday bakin'- day to wash-day, you know. But I can't tell you half; 'twould take a month o' Sundays. She had the out-o'-the-wayest words for everything. Speakin' o' Lyman Waters and how he'd fell away from his religion and now didn't even believe there was any God at all, what do you think she called him ? An " agg nostick ! " That was her dialection for a plain, common infidel that says in his heart there is no God. The Bible just calls him a fool, you know. And them different ways folks get into by spells, catchin' ways, you know, that runs through a deestrict, she spoke of as "fads." Asked me one time if I'd took up this new fad of mas-ti-catin' my food a long time as recommended by Whitcher, or Belcher, or some one or other. But I told her no, I just chewed my victuals before swallerin', 's I always had. I was so tickled by findin' all these dialects for my story that I 'most forgot I hadn't got a mite of local color to spread over 'em. How could I get it, not knowin' anything of the kind of local'ty she come from, her folks, and her bringin' up ? Mebbe, thinks I, that will come out after a spell, and I can put it on last thing, like the third coat o* paint Lias Davis is puttin* on his house 'cross the road there. Sing'lar, I says to myself, to speak o' writin' 's if 'twas different colors. Though, come to think of it, I've heerd of blue laws and blue books and yellow newspapers, red letters and black lists. But I never knew anything till lately of this local colorin' matter to stories, and I haven't got an idee how to put it on, just plain and thick all over, or strimmered about and different in spots. 'Course I could describe Miss Mandeville and all her colors red- dish hair, and indiger blue eyes, and pale-complected, and all. I could put in the weather, too ; there's more in Fran- cony than most deestricts, and it's all colors, too, probably 318 THE REGIONALIST AT WORK local 's well as the rest, though I hadn't got yet a real clear idee what that was. But that way-off, sing'lar land she come from, where her folks lived, and everybody talked dialect talk, why, I hadn't no more idee how to paint it out than than anything. Well, come May 28th, I waked up 'fore sunrise full o* my story. I got breakfast out o' the way and washed up the dishes bright and early and done the housework so 's to be all ready to set down to my writin'. My list o' dialec- tions, all took from this queer boarder's talk, was real lengthy now, plenty to begin with, anyway. As for the colorin', I could put in some weather and scenery Mary Dowd said that was part of it and touch it up bime-by with another shade or so as I got some more information. I'm sot on havin' lots of that color 'tany rate, thinks I, so if it runs or fades there'll be enough left to show. I'd tried my pen and found it went all right, and took a clean sheet o' paper to begin, when all of a sudden I rec'lected that I hadn't said my prayers that tnornin'. I was dread- ful ashamed. But it's bein' the great anniversary I'd looked ahead to so long and me so excited and nerved up and all, I'd clean forgot my duty and my religion. Land's sake, how small I felt ! Down went my pen and I shoved back my chair and went up-chamber 's quick as I could go. It's well I done it. And yet it fetched me the biggest dis- app'intment of my whole We long and as good as changed all my futur', my line o' business, my hopes, my every- thing. I was kneelin* by my bed, dreadful ashamed and just beginnin' to tell the Lord about it, when before you could say Jack Robinson a queer feelin' come all over me, and I was seein' things in a terrible different light. What had I been doin' these last few days ? What was I lookin' ahead to doin' the days to come? I 'most heerd them questions asked out loud by some one, and I hid my face in the patchwork quilt and wished it could cover me A LOCAL COLORIST 319 up soul and body, I was that ashamed. A poor young creatur', a stranger within our gates, had come to my door, come friendly and well-meanin'. And how had I acted to her? I had drawed her out, spied on her, took notice of her mistakes, set down on paper her dialections, rejoicin' over her stumblin' speech that I might set it out in print for the world to laugh over. And all that I, Abigail Jane Kidder, might be a great authoress. Do you wonder I was so ashamed I could a-crawled under that bed if 'twould a-hid me from every human bein'. That poor young creatur' ! I thinks. Was it her fault she used that form o' speech, that "lispin', stammerin' tongue," as the hymn says ? Didn't most likely her own folks use it, or simi- lar, in that fur-off land from whence she come ? Mightn't I, raised 's I'd been in a civilized c'mmunity, amongst plain-speakin' folks, have got into that kind o' dialectics if my relations and neighbors had all talked it in my com- p'ny ? Likely enough, for language is dreadful catchin'. Well, never mind about that next hour. That's between me and some One else. But when I got up off my knees, brushed off my skirt, and smoothed out the quilt, I knew as well as I know it this very minute that I wasn't ever goin' to be a dialectical story-writer. I'd left off that habit afore 'twas too strong to break. I won't deny I was disapp'inted. I own 'twas kind o' hard, one way, to think that the 28th of May, looked ahead to so long as the day of my beginnin' to be a great author- es, was, after all, the day of my leavin' off bein' one. But I knew my duty and I meant to do it. You might think I could a-took up some other kind of writin' that wouldn't ask me to draw out sing'lar folks and make fun of 'em. But somehow the sad turnin' out of this experiment kind o' set me ag'in' literary things, and I couldn't scursely look at that new pen and the clean white foolscap without feelin' qualmy. So I ain't an authoress, after all, and I guess I never will be now. 320 THE REGIONALIST AT WORK It come out after Miss Mandeville went away I forgot to say she'd gone that very day afore I see her again, called home sudden it come out she was from Boston way, not so dreadful fur off, after all, and was some kind of a writin* person. Some folks had it she was lookin' up dialectics herself to make pieces out of, but that couldn't be, I guess, or she wouldn't a-come here. Though mebbe she d been misinformed, and so, after she met me and the other folks and heerd us talk, she found out she'd come to the wrong local'ty and went off. But I think of her frequent, and sometimes I find myself hopin' that though she wa'n't here long she may a-profited a mite by what she heerd, and left off some of her own talk and took on some o' ourn. As I said afore, language is real catchin', and we never know what little word o' ourn, dropped in season, as they say, may spring up and bear fruit yea. a hundredfold. And mebbe even dialect, if it ain't been too long standin', may be broke up and helped, or mebbe clean cured, take it in time and afore you're too old and sot in your ways. THE ESSENTIALS OF SHORT-STORY WRITING: STUDY QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS WHEN we try to learn the secrets of the fascinating mystery of story-writing, we may usefully begin by examining and carefully analyzing the methods of older writers who have confessedly mas- tered the art. Such study of the best examples must be very soon followed and constantly accompanied by efforts to practice the mystery for ourselves in all its different aspects. Finally our own attempts must be subjected to repeated self-criticism and com- parison at every point with our selected models. For it is only by the inevitable, though toilsome, process of writing and rewriting, discarding and recasting, rejection and revision, the road over which every successful writer has made his way, that we learn how to handle our tools and make them do what we want them to do, come at last to the conscious ability to express our own ideas, and achieve the reward of true originality, always pro- vided we have any. These three essential steps, example, prac- tice, self-criticism, may perhaps be facilitated by the questions and suggestions here presented. The twenty-five study questions, in connection with the brief explanations appended where they seem needed, will guide the student in analyzing the stories con- tained in this volume, or any others he cares to examine. Begin- ning first with the plot, he will proceed in turn to the other three essential elements of every story, character-drawing, setting, and mood, and end by considering a few problems that have to do with the story as a whole. After each division he will find sug- gestions for exercises and original stories. When any of these have been completed, the student should once more go over the ques- tions and use them to discover weaknesses or possible improve- ments in his own work. The whole forms a brief outline for a course in story-writing which may be expanded or altered at any point as circumstances suggest. A. CONCERNING THE PLOT (SruDY particularly the plots of "The Luck of Roaring Camp," *' Taking the Blue Ribbon," "Among the Corn Rows," "The 322 ESSENTIALS OF SHORT-STORY WRITING Arrival of a True Southern Lady," "On the Walpole Road," "The Pearls of Loreto," "The Girl at Duke's," and "By the Rod of His Wrath.") L Plot-Analysis. What are the vital points, and what the principal parts, in the progress of the story? Are these dis- tinct and clearly articulated? A SIMPLE method of analyzing the plot of a story is to pick out the three vital points without which a complete plot is impossible : namely, the initial step, where the suspense begins ; the turning point, where the hero's fortunes change from good to bad, or from bad to good ; and the denouement, where the suspense is over. By these three points the story is divided into four principal parts : first, the antecedent action, or all that happens before the initial step; second, the rising or falling action, as the case may be, between initial step and turning point ; third, the corresponding falling or rising action between turning point and denouement ; and fourth, the aftermath, or all that happens after the denoue- ment. The first and fourth of these parts are unessential and may be entirely omitted ; the second and third are sometimes repeated, in cases where there is more than one turning point. The struc- ture of a story is most easily shown by means of a diagram, in which the three vital points may be indicated by the letters A, B, and C. Thus the plot of "The Luck of Roaring Camp" is as fol- lows: B The antecedent action here is the founding and reckless life of a typical mining camp. A, the initial step, is the birth of the "Luck" ("There rose a sharp, querulous cry a cry unlike any- thing heard before in the camp"). A-B, the rising action, tells the progressive reformation of the camp under the influence of a little child. B, the turning-point, is the flood ("That night the North Fork suddenly leaped its banks"). B-C, the falling action, narrates the destruction of the camp and the death of many of its inhabitants. C, the denouement, is the death of the child and its STUDY QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS . 323 protector ("He's a-taking me with him tell the boys I've got the Luck with me now ") . The aftermath is entirely omitted. 2. Plot-Form. What kind of plot is employed, and is the variety well-chosen? PLOTS may be usefully classified in three ways. When the falling action precedes the rising that is, when the story opens with trouble for the hero and ends happily for him, the plot is of the comic type ; when the rising action comes first, then the falling, it is tragic. Again, if the turning-point is approximately midway between initial step and denouement, we have a balanced plot; if the turning-point is closer to the end, so that it is swiftly or immediately followed by the denouement, the plot may be called accelerated ; if, on the other hand, the turning-point is close to the initial step, and the bulk of the story comes between the turn and the denouement, the plot is retarded. Finally, when there is but one plot and one set of vital points and parts, the plot is simple ; if there are several successive ups and downs, involving repeated or secondary initial steps, turning-points, or denouements, the plot may be termed compound ; and if two or more distinct plots are interwoven, we have what may be called a complex plot. Thus the plot of "The Luck of Roaring Camp," as diagrammed above, may be classified as simple, tragic," and accelerated. The plot of "By the Rod of His Wrath," on the other hand, is simple, tragic, and retarded : A f the initial step, is the beginning of John Markley's good reputation among his townspeople ("Men began calling him * Honest John Markley'"). A-B, the rising action, tells of his increasing prosperity and popularity. B, the turning-point, is the entrance into his life of Isabel Hobart ("And then came the crash"). B-C, the falling action, describes his loss of the esteem of his fellow-citizens and his growing loneliness. C, the denoue- ment, is his stroke of paralysis ("He fell down the hard oak stairs"). And the years of hopeless misery that followed are the aftermath. < 324 ESSENTIALS OF SHORT-STORY WRITING Again, in "The Girl at Duke's" we find a compound, comic, accelerated plot. There are no fewer than seven turning-points, and hence we have in alternation four falling and four rising actions : Miss Dudley journeys West to live with her uncle on his Ari- zona ranch (antecedent action). But when she arrives at the station, Duke's, she finds no one to meet her (A). After a lonely wait (A-B 1 ), the foreman arrives at the station (B l ). She pro- ceeds to ride with him to the ranch (B l -B 2 ) ; but on reaching it she encounters (B 2 ) , instead of her uncle, the sinister personality of Big Ed. She grows alarmed and almost panic-stricken (B^-B 3 ), until she is reassured (# 3 ) by discovering her uncle's signature in one of his books. She rests, discovers the beauty of the desert landscape, and makes friends with the youthful foreman (B 3 -!? 4 ). But a second time she is alarmed by the interference of Big Ed (J5 4 ) ; and she passes a night of sleepless apprehension (B*-B 5 ), till she hears shots in the dark (B 6 ), and finds renewed reassurance and protection (B*-B*). In the morning, however, her worst fears are confirmed by the news (B*) of her uncle's death, and she must return to Duke's with her, protector (ff-B'). Before the train arrives, however, she learns what the boy has done for her (IT), and a brief love-scene (B 7 -C) brings the proper ending (C, "She knelt beside him, and his arm closed around her"). One further example may be given. In "At the 'Cadian Ball" we have a complex plot, of which the two interwoven members are, both of them, simple, comic, and accelerated : STUDY QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 325 Skillfully paralleling the main plot, that of the young planter Laballiere, and his love for Clarisse, is the plot of the Acadian farmer Bobin6t and his love for Calixta. We begin with o, the initial step of the minor plot Bobin6t's despair of ever winning Calixta' s favor ; and immediately follows A, the scene where the young planter is repulsed by the aristocratic Clarisse. Then comes the falling action A-B, a series of misfortunes for Labal- liere, culminating in his reckless impulse to run away with the Acadian beauty. Meanwhile (a-6) Bobinot is having an equally bad time. Just before it is too late, at B, the turning-point for Laballiere, Clarisse relents ; and similarly at b comes a change of heart to Calixta. Two brief love-scenes, B-C and 6-c, end, at C and c respectively, happily for each lover. 3. Plot-Proportion. Is the movement of the story well-reg* ulated, or could the scenes have been better proportioned in length and amount of detail? THIS is best seen by constructing a scene-plot, or scenario. A scene in a story is all that happens at a single place and on a single occasion. A scenario is a list of the scenes, including a title for each, its place, time, characters, and length, together with any intervening passages of summary, description, or discussion. For example, the scenario of "Among the Corn Rows" would read as follows : Description of the cornfield (66 words). First scene: the Return of Rob Rodemaker ; a morning in July ; by the riverside ; Julia Peterson, her brother Otto, and Rob (about 1000 words). Second scene : Getting Better Acquainted ; noon ; by the fence ; same characters (about 500 words). Summary of the dinner, with descriptions of Julia's parents (about 500 words). Third scene: Julia's Discontent ; after dinner ; in the yard ; Rob and Julia (about 400 words). Summary of Rob's self-communion and decision (250 words). Fourth scene: the Proposal; afternoon; by the fence; Rob, Julia, and Otto (about 1600 words). Fifth scene : the Elope- ment; same evening; at the fence; Rob and Julia (200 words). 4. Plot-Order. In telling the story, does the author follow or depart from the strict chronological order of events? How far is his adherence or departure justified? WE have the straightforward order when the events are related in succession just as they occur, as in a chronicle ; the reversed order when the events are told backwards, beginning after the story is 326 ESSENTIALS OF SHORT-STORY WRITING over, as in some detective stories ; and the broken order when the story runs partly forward, partly backwards, or when there are deliberate omissions. The plot-order of a story may be best studied by making an event-plot or chronicle. For instance, in "On the Walpole Road" there are five events, separated by wide intervals, actually occur- ring in the following order (the prefixed numbers show the order in which they are narrated in the story) : (3) Aunt Rebecca's unwilling marriage to Uncle Enos. (Inter- val of many years, exact number not stated, but enough to carry her from girlhood to old age.) (2) Uncle Enos's funeral. (Inter- val of two years.) (4) Aunt Rebecca's second marriage, this time to her old lover Abner Lyons. (Interval of five years and seven months.) (5) Death of Aunt Rebecca. (Interval of a year and a hah 5 .) (6) Death of Abner Lyons. (Interval of over ten years, oi twenty years after the funeral of Uncle Enos.) (1) The drive to Walpole of Mrs. Green and Almira. For another example of broken order study "The Arrival of a True Southern Lady" ; for judicious omissions study "Among the Corn-Rows" and "The Pearls of Loreto." 5. Plot-Interest. What sort of interest or suspense does the story offer? If there is more than one kind of suspense, how are they interwoven? THE interest proper to any story is always its suspense; but this suspense may be aroused either about the future, the past, or the present. When it is about the future that is, about the out- come of a given situation we may call it deductive ; when about the past that is, about the cause or explanation of a given situation, as in a detective or mystery story we may call it inductive ; when about the present or permanent truth that is, about the answer to some ethical or philosophic question, as in a problem story we may call it speculative suspense. Study how the deductive and inductive kinds of suspense are interwoven in "The Girl at Duke's"; how the deductive and speculative are interwoven in "By the Rod of His Wrath." 6. Plot-Handling. Is the plot developed with due attention to the three essential qualities of suspense, surprise, and sat- isfaction? Can you suggest how it might have been bet- tered in any of these respects? IN an ideal plot, we should have the utmost possible suspense before the denouement, the greatest possible surprise at the STUDY QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 327 denouement, and the most genuine satisfaction after the denoue- ment. The first and second of these qualities may rightly be sacri- ficed to some extent, if necessary, for the sake of other interests beside plot; but when the third quality is sacrificed, the story inevitably becomes what is called a melodrama or farce that is, second-rate. SUGGESTIONS FOB EXERCISES IN PLOT-CONSTRUCTION AND PLOT-HANDLING a. Read to the class a well-constructed story, up to the turning- point ; then ask them to complete it, and compare the results with the original. Two good stories for this purpose are H. G. Wells's "The Country of the Blind" and "Miss Winchelsea's Heart." b. Read the closing scene, or denouement, of a story, with only such explanation as is necessary, and ask the class to supply an adequate preparation; then compare with the original. Two excellent denouements for this purpose may be found in H. C. Bunner's "The Love Letters of Smith" and Algernon Blackwood's "The Haunted Island." C. Summarize briefly some well-constructed story with which the class is unfamiliar, and ask them to write the entire story. Here again a comparison of results will be equivalent to the criticism of an expert. d. Use in the same way one of the following practice plots, each of which will be found to have sharply marked and effective turns and climaxes. (The three "vital points" are marked with the letters A, B, and C.) (1) Mr. Swiggles decides at the last moment that he does not wish to marry Amanda Jenkins, and (A) answers "I won't" instead of "I will" at the altar. Then he escapes through the window. Mr. Jenkins, Amanda's father, looks for him with a shot-gun, and finds him. But Swiggles refuses to do his duty until he is assured (B) that if, in order to repair Miss Jenkins's humiliation, he will go through the service again, she this time will refuse to take the final vow. At the second service, however, when the time comes for Amanda to say "I won't," she (C) says "I will." (2) A heavy freight train, when nearly at the top of a mountain, breaks in two (A) of its own weight, and the cars start down grade. The danger is telegraphed to the station at the foot. An important passenger train, with a party of 328 ESSENTIALS OF SHORT-STORY WRITING wealthy business men, is due. Dick Benson, a young engineer who, after having been expelled from school, has left home and drifted into railway work, volunteers to take a switch engine up the grade to stop the runaway. When as close to the down-coming freight as he dares get, he reverses his engine and starts downward again, in order to break the force of the collision. The collision comes, and with it a pro- longed and desperate struggle to keep on the track and stop. Dick fights the runaway till (B} he conquers its momentum just outside the station. As he alights from the cab (C), he meets his father on the passenger train that he has saved. (3) Elsie Cheatham, a pretty but selfish girl, has a warm admirer in her home town. His name is John Wilson. She comes away to attend school in another town. Finding life a little dull there, she forms a plan (A) with the aid of her room- mate, Kitty Powell, to impose upon John's interest in her. She has Kitty write him that Elsie is down with influenza and in the hospital. A gratifying stream of flowers, then books, and finally candy is the result, while Kitty continues to write and report the patient's gradual recovery. But an important social function approaching, for which Elsie spe- cially desires flowers, she gets Kitty to write to John (B) that she has had a sudden relapse. Promptly the desired flowers arrive. That evening Elsie comes down the stairway wearing the flowers and looking the picture of health, to join her escort to the dance. Meanwhile John is so anxious that he has come up to the school in person, and Elsie finds both men waiting for her in the drawing-room. After a brief but pointed conversation (C), both men depart, leaving Elsie with her flowers. (4) Algernon Stuyvesant is a widowed mother's only care and has never been allowed away from home. All his prepar- atory training has been done by private tutors. When he comes away to school, his mother, much to his disappointment, insists on coming with him. She takes a house in the town so that she can watch over him. Algernon is a big heavy fellow, and would like to take part in football, but his mother thinks that idea too dreadful to contemplate. On the first night in the school town (A) he goes out, promising to return by nine o'clock. He gets into a class fight; his fighting blood is aroused, and he helps materially to turn the conflict against the opposing class, though himself badly bruised in the STUDY QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 329 process (B). When he gets home, a bit after twelve, his mother nearly collapses. She is about to send for a doctor and trained nurse; but at this point Algernon asserts himself. The next morning when some prominent upper-classmen call and ask Algernon to come out for the team (C) his mother consents. (5) Alfred Vanderwent, millionaire's son, vain and spoiled, has been chief pitcher on the school team during his first two years. But he meets his superior on the diamond when his last year brings a newcomer, Silas Hanks. Bitterly disap- pointed at losing his position on the team, Vanderwent employs a private detective to look up Hanks's record. Hanks is very poor, and it is discovered that his father is a convict in the State penitentiary. During an important game, Vanderwent has one of his friends call out an insulting refer- ence to the pitcher's father. Unnerved by this proof that his secret is known, Hanks goes to pieces, loses the game, and immediately afterwards is dropped from the team. In despair, he packs up and is about to leave school. But mean- while (B) an upper-classman, passing through the grand- stand, picks up a telegram sent to Vanderwent by the detec- tive, and learns from it the unfair methods that have been employed to injure Hanks. He makes his discovery (C) known at a student mass-meeting, and Vanderwent is run out of school by public sentiment, while Hanks regains his position, and steps are taken to help him prove his father's innocence. (6) Tom Hood, sophomore, has a grudge against Harry Brown, incoming freshman, in connection with their rival attentions to the same gir 1 back in the home town. Hood prepares to see that Brown is unmercifully hazed, in spite of a strict college rule that any one detected in hazing will be immediately expelled. Brown and his room-mate are inter- ested in amateur dramatics, and have considerable experience in the art of make-up. Hood comes (A) with some sophomore friends one night to Brown's boarding-house ; they plant a laddei beneath the window that Hood feels sure belongs to Brown's room, and Hood mounts and enters. The room is dark and empty. Hearing feminine voices at the door (B), Hood hastily conceals himself in a closet. Discovered, and threatened with exposure, he is forced to confess his designs for Brown's discomfiture ; and in spite of his abject apologies 330 ESSENTIALS OF SHORT-STORY WRITING the girls compel him to perform all the "stunts" that he had in mind for Brown, before they at last permit him to with- draw. The next day he discovers (C) that Brown and his room-mate, who had learned of his intended visit before- hand, have entertained him in disguise. ; (7) Grace Denham is an ambitious girl, whose keen desire . to make her way in life and to rise in the world is partly explained by the circumstances of her childhood. She remem- bers days of wretched poverty and more than one bitter humiliation, and she realizes that the hardships of her home were due to her father's incapacity for "getting on" in the world. Grace loves her father, who has many attractive traits and the most charming disposition in the world, but ! she is forced to admit to herself that he has always lacked the faculty of success, and she knows what poverty has meant to her mother. While away at school she is receiving attention 04) from Philip Severance, a man with all sorts of admirable and attractive qualities. She cares for him ; but a certain incident (B) reveals to her that his character is almost a replica of her father's, and she comes to see that he too will never succeed in life ; and she consequently (C) refuses him. (N.B. These plots, or plots closely resembling them, have been employed in well-known published stories ; consequently they cannot be used in stories offered for publication without rendering the author liable to the charge of plagiarism. They may be legitimately utilized for practice stories, or in the construction of plot-diagrams, scenarios, and event-plots, as illustrated above. Time spent in preliminary planning along such lines, before the actual composition of any story is begun, will always be found time saved in the end.) e. Build up an original and complete plot from some germinal incident or situation taken either from your own experience, from your observation of others, from your reading of history, biographies, or newspapers, or from your imagination. Test it, to make sure of the presence of the vital points, by making a diagram ; then work out a careful and detailed scenario, and also an event-plot; and then write the story, preferably beginning with the last scene. B. CONCERNING THE CHARACTERIZATION (FOR character-drawing study particularly "Taking the Blue Ribbon,'* "Ben and Judas," "Among the Corn-Rows," "Ellie's STUDY QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 831 Furnishing," "On the Walpole Road," "At the 'Cadian Ball," "The Girl at Duke's," "By the Rod of His Wrath," and "A Municipal Report.") 7. Grouping. Which cnaracter is the hero, and how are the minor characters used, by their number and selection, to set off the main character or characters? NOTE particularly the effective choice of minor characters and the skillful grouping in "Taking the Blue Ribbon," "Among the Corn-Rows," "On the Walpole Road," and "At the 'Cadian Ball." 8. Means. What means of character-drawing are mainly employed? Can you suggest how other means might be helpfully substituted or added? THE means of presenting character may be classified as seven in number. Three of these may be called direct means: namely, Action (including both habitual and momentary actions, and gestures) ; Talk (as adapted to the age, class, education, home, or personality of the character) ; and Thoughts (including reflec- tions, sensations, and emotions). One is neutral in its nature the Reactions (that is, contrast with other characters and effects upon their thoughts, words, and actions). Three are indirect: namely, Setting (including dress, possessions, home, name, bio- graphical details) ; Looks (that is, personal appearance, whether revealing, misleading, or indifferent) ; and Analysis (explicit and detailed statement). Contrast the means of characterization in "At the 'Cadian Ball," almost exclusively direct, with the mainly indirect means used in "By the Rod of His Wrath." Study the use made of Reactions in "On the Walpole Road" and "The Girl at Duke's." 9. Method. Are the characters predominantly types or indi- ( viduals? Is the method chosen the best in each case? A TYPE is a character drawn with the emphasis mainly upon a single quality or social relation ; an individual is a combination of diverse characteristics. Nearly all the stories in this collection use exclusively the typical method of characterization, as it is natural for local-color stories to do. The other method is illus- trated, however, in "The Girl at Duke's" and "By the Rod of His Wrath." , 332 ESSENTIALS OF SHORT-STORY WRITING 10. Dialogue. Is enough dialogue used for effective character- ization? Is there any superfluous dialogue? Is it real talk? Is it in character? Is it readable? STUDY particularly the dialogue of "Taking the Blue Ribbon,'* "Benand Judas,"' "Ellie's Furnishing," "On the Walpole Road," and " At the 'Cadian Ball." 11. Effectiveness. Do the characters live? If not, why not? SUGGESTIONS FOR STORIES OF CHARACTERIZATION a. Make a character-sketch, using the three indirect means of characterization, of one of the following types : (1) A football player who is a giant in body, but at bottom a physical coward (might perhaps be contrasted with his opposite). (2) A brilliant student (man or woman) who wants at the same time to take a leading part in school life and to have a reputation for intellectual ability, and who, in order to keep up the latter pose, is gradually led to take up dishonest methods. (3) An ambitious girl who is receiving attention from a man whom she cares for, but sees clearly will never succeed in life. (4) An honest and honorable man with an ungovernable temper, who has to stand a cross-examination at the hands of a clever and unscrupulous lawyer who knows his weakness. (5) A pretty but selfish girl who imposes upon an admirer in order to have a good time without meaning to make him any return. (6) An ambitious but not very able student who receives credit for a brilliant story in the school magazine, really contributed by another student with the same initials, and who is asked, through the agency of an instructor, to submit more of his work to an Eastern maga- , zine ; let him be very envious of the superior ability of the real author. (7) A brilliant but incurably indolent student, who is chosen upon the debating team (or to take part in a dramatic performance), but who neglects adequate prepara- tion until the appointed day. b. Write a scene in dialogue, using one or more of the types men- tioned above, and employing the three direct means of char- acterization. Put the characters in a situation such as one of the following : (1) Two men who are trapped on the top story of a burning building. (2) Two girls sitting up to talk over a dance. (3) A girl and a man who proposes marriage, but is rejected. (4) STUDY QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 333 A policeman and a man who, though innocent, has been arrested on account of a mistaken likeness. (5) Two foreign- ers of different nationalities discussing their first visit to a baseball game. (6) A teacher and a pupil who, though inno- cent, has been accused of cheating. (7) A mistress and her cook, as a result of which the cook is offended and leaves. (8) A farmer and his son who has just been expelled from school and has returned home. c. Having become acquainted with your character in this way, find a complete plot in which you can place him. It has been said that a story should always exhibit "conduct in a crisis" ; with this in mind, build up a story around your character by inventing some crisis that will clearly reveal his or her nature. Use as much of your character-sketch and dialogue as will fit in the complete story. d. Develop in the same way a character based upon some pic- turesque individual or some forceful personality you have known or read about. C. CONCERNING THE SETTING (FoR setting study all the stories in this collection) 12. Backgrounds. What is the imaginary place, time, and social setting of the story? Is any one of these three settings made the dominant feature of the story? Is any one of them neglected? EVERY story must have a threefold setting local, temporal, and social although one or more of these different aspects of the setting may be comparatively ignored in case the chief interest lies elsewhere. When the local setting is the dominant element in the story, as it is in all the stories contained in this volume, we have a local-color story; when the dominant element is the age or period when the story occurs, we have a historical short story; when the dominant element is the social class, group, or profes- sion to which the characters belong, we have a story of social background. The last-named variety, although often confused with the local-color story, is essentially distinct. Although the stories here brought together are all primarily local-color stories, we find more or less attention paid to the historical setting in "The Luck of Roaring Camp," "The Arrival of a True Southern Lady," "The Pearls of Loreto," "The Win- digo," and "By the Rod of His Wrath." In the last-mentioned 334 ESSENTIALS OF SHORT-STORY WRITING story we have also a distinctive social background (journalism), and another (tramp-life) in "The Making of a New Yorker." 13. Means. What means of obtaining " local color " have been mainly employed in the story? Can you suggest how others might have been usefully added or substituted ? THE means of obtaining local color are chiefly five : (1) Types, or distinctive selection of characters; (2) Talk, or distinctive dia- lect; (3) Customs, or distinctive social usages; (4) Traditions, or distinctive inherited ideals; (5) Descriptions, or distinctive por- trayal of the natural or social background. Study how, in accordance with the plan followed in arranging this collection, the stories in the first group called "American Types" secure their local color chiefly by means of their character types, aided by dialect and distinctive customs; how tradition is added in the second group, called "American Traditions," and description of the natural background in the third group, called "American Landscapes"; while all the means are blended in the fourth and final group entitled "American Communities." 14. Dialect. What sort of dialect, if any, is employed, and how is it chiefly indicated? Is it accurate? appropriate? read- able? DIALECT may be indicated in four ways ; by the pronunciation (as conveyed generally by distorting the spelling), by the vocabulary, by the idioms, or by the rhythm and cadence. Here also the stories in this volume show a progress in delicacy and in read- ability. Earlier stories, such as "The Luck of Roaring Camp," "Taking the Blue Ribbon," and "Ben and Judas," depend almost entirely on distorted spelling; later ones, such as "Among the Corn-Rows,'* "Ellie's Furnishing," "On the Walpole Road," pay much more attention to vocabulary and idiom; the most recent, such as "The Girl at Duke's" and "By the Rod of His Wrath," use idiom almost exclusively. In the most finished specimens of dialect writing, such as "At the 'Cadian Ball," "A Municipal Report," "A Local Colorist," there is exquisite illus- tration of all four methods. Especially interesting in this regard is a comparison of an early and a late example of similar dialects, as for instance Bret Harte and Jack London for the talk of prospector and miner, or Maurice Thompson and O. Henry or Cohen for negro dialect. STUDY QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 335 15. Description. What methods of description are chiefly employed? Is enough description used for fullest effec- tiveness? Is there any superfluous description? Are the descriptive passages well distributed? SOME of the more important methods of description are objective, subjective or focused, selective or snapshot, description by effect, and description colored by emotion. Study for masterly use of every sort of description especially "Among the Corn-Rows," "The Windigo," "The Girl at Duke's," and "Love of Life." 16. Names. Are the names selected for the characters and places suitable in every way to the setting of the story? Has any attempt also been made to suit them to the per- sonalities to which they belong? ALL of our stories show skillful adaptation of names to the most diverse localities and social backgrounds. The only attempt to suit them also to personalities is in "By the Rod of His Wrath/' and there only in nicknames, such as "Honest John Markley," "Alphabetical Morrison," or the spelling "Ysabelle" for "Isa- bel." SUGGESTIONS FOB STORIES OF LOCAL COLOR, HISTORICAL OB SOCIAL BACKGROUND a. Select one of the following settings : A ravine by a gigantic waterfall; a small hermit shack on a little farm high on a mountain ; a small island on the seashore or on a lake; a lighthouse; a tenement under the end of a suspension bridge in a great city; a country store; a little bakeshop in a city; a power station; an engine- or boiler- room; the spire of a church or summit of a skyscraper; an tlevator; a cab; a street-car; a city office; a river show-boat; a sleeping-car; inside a boiler; a ranch; a foreign city you have studied in books; an art-gallery; a camp in the woods; an airplane or dirigible balloon; an armored tank; a sub- marine. One of the twenty-five American or the twenty foreign settings employed in the local stories listed on pages 340-44. Some new region, section, or locality with which you are familiar and which you believe capable of furnishing an effective background. 336 ESSENTIALS OF SHORT-STORY WRITING One of the social backgrounds illustrated in the stories listed on page 344, or some new social background of your own choice. Your favorite period of past history (compare the group of historical short stories listed on page 345), or some future age in which you would like to live. b. Write a descriptive sketch of the setting you have chosen. Use the following recipe for successful local-color stories: Take six peculiarities of dialect, five distinctive customs, four typical localities, three distinctive types of character, two special traditions, and one plot that could not happen any- where else, and combine judiciously and sympathetically. A preliminary descriptive essay may serve as a sort of palette on which to collect and prepare all the ingredients of local color except the plot. c. Find your plot and write the story, using as much of your preliminary sketch as you find to be really suitable. D. CONCERNING THE MOOD 17. Atmosphere. What is the prevailing mood of the story? Can you suggest any way in which the chosen mood might have been better sustained or intensified? STORY moods, of course fall primarily into the two great divisions of comedy and tragedy. More precisely, an ascending scale of moods may be distinguished, running all the way from the Ludi- crous, or Farcical, through the Fantastic, Pure Comedy, the Grotesque, the Burlesque, Irony, Satire, Sentiment, Pathos, Pure Tragedy, the Terrible, to the Horrible. For examples see the list on page 347. A number of these moods are exemplified in our col- lection. We have the spirit of pure comedy in "Taking the Blue Ribbon," "On the Walpole Road," and "The Windigo," of comedy touched with farce in "Ben and Judas," with the gro- tesque in "The Making of a New Yorker," or with irony in "Ellie's Furnishing" and "A Local Colorist"; studies in various kinds of sentiment in "Among the Corn-Rows," "At the 'Cadian Ball," and " The Girl at Duke's " ; studies in pathos in " The Luck of Roaring Camp" and "A Municipal Report"; almost pure tragedy in "The Arrival of a True Southern Lady," "The Pearls of Loreto," and "By the Rod of His Wrath" ; and tragedy with a touch of the terrible in "Love of Life." STUDY QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 337 18. Ideal. Does the story contain any ideal or inner truth? Has it any definite purpose, or does it raise a moral or social problem, or does it teach any lesson? If so, is this pur- pose or lesson artistically interwoven? SOME instances of idealism skillfully embodied in a story may be studied in "The Luck of Roaring Camp," "Ben and Judas," and "Among the Corn-Rows" ; and we may learn from the repre- sentatives of New England and the Middle West, as might be expected, how to inculcate a direct moral lesson (in "On the Wai- pole Road" and "By the Rod of His Wrath"). SUGGESTIONS FOR STORIES OP MOOD a. Write a story which shall be as tragic as you can make it; another which shall be as funny as you can permit yourself to become. b. Select some poem or musical composition which appeals to you for the intensity and perfection with which it conveys a certain mood ; and strive to reproduce that mood as exactly as possible in a story. Try, for example, to catch the spirit of Coleridge's "Kubla Khan," Burns's "Comin' through the Rye," Moore's "Believe me, if all those endearing young charms," Thomson's "City of Dreadful Night," or Pope's "Dunciad"; or of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," Men- delssohn's "Spring Song," or Verdi's " Miserere."/* E. CONCERNING THE STORY AS A WHOLE 19. Angle. What angle of narration is chosen? Would the choice of another angle have improved the story? WITH respect to the "angle of narration," stories are classified according as they are written in the third person or the first per- son, according as they tell only external events or internal mental processes as well, and according as they are told from the point of view of one or more characters. Third-person stories may use an unlimited point of view (the omniscient or Godlike angle), or may restrict themselves to the point of view of a single character (the guardian-angel angle), or may tell only external events (angle of the invisible spectator). First- person stories may be told by the hero (the autobiographic angle), or by a subordinate actor (angle of the minor character), or by some one entirely apart from the 338 ESSENTIALS OF SHORT-STORY WRITING story (angle of the onlooker). Additional variations are the letter method, the diary method, and others. Study the use of the Godlike angle in "Among the Corn- Rows," "At the 'Cadian Ball," and "The Windigo"; of the guardian-angel angle in "The Girl at Duke's" ; of the angle of the invisible spectator in "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and "Love of Life" ; of the autobiographic angle in "A Local Colorist" ; of the angle of the minor character in "A Municipal Report" ; and of the angle of the onlooker in ^On the Walpole Road" and "By the Rod of His Wrath." 20. Opening. What method of beginning is used? Would the story be improved by a different beginning? A STORY may be begun either by the direct opening (that is, at the initial step, or with some other event arousing immediate sus- pense), or by an indirect opening (preparatory explanation of antecedent action, or description of character or setting), or by a roundabout opening (an essay-like discussion, or the so-called "induction"). Study the direct opening in "The Luck of Roaring Camp," the indirect opening in "Among the Corn-Rows," "The Pearls of Loreto," "The Girl at Duke's," and "The Windigo," and the dis- cursory or roundabout opening in "By the Rod of His Wrath." The "induction" is illustrated in the openings of "The Arrival of a True Southern Lady" and "On the Walpole Road." 21. Close. What method of ending is used? Would the story be improved if ended in a different way? THE ending may be direct (with the immediate denouement), indirect (with more or less aftermath), or roundabout (with a moral, interpretative comment, "echo," or by closing the "induc- tion"). Study the direct ending in "The Luck of Roaring Camp," "The Pearls of Loreto," and "The Girl at Duke's" ; the indirect ending in "Among the Corn-Rows," "At the 'Cadian Ball," and "The Windigo" ; the roundabout ending, with a sort of moral, in "By the Rod of His Wrath," by echoing the title, in "Taking the Blue Ribbon," by echoing the opening, in " A Municipal Report," or by closing the induction, in "The Arrival of a True Southern Lady" and "On the Walpole Road." STUDY QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 339 22. Truth. Is the story true to fact (that is, based to any extent on actual events)? Is it true to life (that is, might it hap- pen)? Is it true to itself (that is, is it probable and con- sistent)? Point out any way in which it might be given added truth. EXCEPT for a few touches of historical fact in "The Pearls of Loreto" and "The Windigo," our stories are intended merely to be true to life and consistent. 23. Unity. Has the story unity of time, place, and action? Has it unity of point of view? Has it inner unity, or unity of effect? If not, could these unities have been attained, and would the story have been improved thereby? STUDY for examples of observance of all the unities, both outer and inner, "Among the Corn-Rows," "Ellie's Furnishing," and (practically) "The Girl at Duke's." 24. Title. Is the title suitable and attractive? In what spe- cial way is the latter quality secured? A TITLE should be new, brief, apt, "pat" or easily slipping off the tongue, and above all attractive. Some of the ways in which a title may be made attractive are by alliteration, figure of speech, word-play, surprise, puzzle, allusion to the Bible, to English litera- ture, or to current jargon, use of a foreign phrase, or by modest reserve. Study the titles of the foregoing stories, and also of those in the following lists, where examples of all the qualities of a good title may be found abundantly. 25. Style. Are any faults grammatical, rhetorical, or sty- listic to be found in the story? Is it written with any no- table power, grace, and beauty? What is its length, and is this well judged? Sum up briefly your estimate of the story's excellencies and deficiencies. * * * Remember that there are no iron-clad "rides of writing" merely counsels based on observation and experience. Few of the principles suggested above have not at one time or another been successfully violated. The only rule that a writer must observe is, Never be tedious. At the same time, it is also true that thousands of writers who have violated, through ignorance or pervcrsity t the customary principles of technique, have failed. Even in order to violate them successfully, it is advisable to know them first. READING LISTS (The following two hundred and fifty stories and plays are representative of many different aspects of story technique. Most of them may justly be catted classics in their respective fields. With the majority of them the student and lover of the short story should be familiar.) A. ONE HUNDRED ADDITIONAL LOCAL-COLOR STORIES SEVENTY-FIVE AMERICAN LOCAL-COLOR STORIES IN TWENTY-FIVE AMERICAN SETTINGS I. NEW ENGLAND. 1. (Old New England.) Rose Terry Cooke, "Freedom Wheeler's Controversy with Providence" (in Somebody's Neighbors} ; Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, "The Revolt of Mother" (in A New England Nun), "A New England Nun" (title story) ; Sarah Orne Jewett, "An Only Son" (in Tales of New England) ; Alice Brown, "The Flat-Iron Lot" (in Tiverton Tales); Rowland E. Robinson, "An Old-Time March Meeting" (in Out of Bondage) ; Dorothy Canfield, "Flint and Fire" (in Hillsboro People). 2. (New England Coast.) Joseph C. Lincoln, "Two Pairs of Shoes" (in The Old Home House)', J. B. Connolly, "The Trawler" (in Head Winds). IE. THE EAST. 3. (The Middle East.) Margaret Deland, "The Promises of Dorothea" (in Old Chester Tales); Sewell Ford, "Through the Needle's Eye" (in Truegate of Mogador). 4. (Upper New York.) Philander Deming, "John's Trial" (in Adirondack Stories). 5. (New York City.) Washington Irving, "Dolph Hey- liger" (in Bracebridge Hall), "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (in The Sketch-book); R. H. Davis, "My Disreputable Friend Mr. Raegen" (in Gallegher) ; Brander Matthews, "In Search of Local Color" (in Vignettes of Manhattan); O. Henry, "The Voice of the City" (title story), "An Unfinished Story" (in The Four Million). 6. (Philadelphia.) Thomas A. Janvier, "In the St. Peter's Set" (in The Passing of Thomas). READING LISTS 341 7. (The Pennsylvania Dutch.) Helen R. Martin, "The Narrow Escape of Permilla" (in The Betrothal of Ely- pholate) ; Elsie Singmaster (Mrs. Harold Lewars), "The Belsnickel" (Century, January, 1911). HI. THE SOUTH. 8. (The Old Dominion.) fThomas Nelson Page, "Marse Chan" and "Meh Lady" (in In Ole Virginia) ; F. Hop- kinson Smith, "An Old Family Servant" (in Colonel Carter of Carter sville) ; Armistead C. Gordon, "Ommi- randy" (title story). 9. (Appalachia.) Mary N. Murfree ("Charles Egbert Craddock"), "Drifting Down Lost Creek" and "The Dancin' Party at Harrison's Cove" (in In the Tennessee Mountains) ; John Fox, "Christmas Eve on Lonesome" (title story), "Hell fer Sartain" (title story) ; Joel Chand- ler Harris, "At Teague Poteet's" (in Mingo) ; Lucy Furman, "A Day's Work" (Outlook, February 18, 1920). 10. (The Blue Grass.) James Lane Allen, "Two Gentle- men of Kentucky" and "King Solomon of Kentucky" (in Flute and Violin) ; Mary H. Catherwood, "A Ken- tucky Princess" (in The Queen of the Swamp). 11. (The Middle South.) Mary N. Carter, "A White Day" (in North Carolina Sketches). 12. (The Lower South.) Augustus B. Longstreet, "The Militia Company Drill" (in Georgia Scenes)-, Richard Malcolm Johnston, "The Goosepond School" (in Dukes- borough Tales) ; Joel Chandler Harris, "Ananias" (in Balaam and His Master) ; Harry Stillwell Edwards, " Aeneas Africanus" (title story); W. N. Harben, "The Convict's Return" (in North Georgia Sketches) ; Octavus Roy Cohen, "Painless Extraction" (in Polished Ebony). 13. (The Swamp Region.) Frederick Stuart Greene, "The Cat of the Canebrakes" (in The Yearbook of the American Short Story, 1916). 14. (Creole Land.) George W. Cable, "Madame Delphine" (title story), " Jean-ah Poquelin" (in Old Creole Days) ; Lafcadio Hearn, "Chita, a Memory of Last Island" (title story); Grace King, "Monsieur Motte" (title story), "Bonne Maman" (in Tales of a Time and Place). 15. (The River Country.) J. B. Connolly, "Down River" (in Head Winds) ; Elmore Elliott Peake, "The Flight of 342 READING LISTS the River Belle'* (Appleton's Booklover's Magazine, Sep- tember, 1905). 16. (Ozarks and Canebrakes.) Alice French ("Octave Thanet"), "Whitsun Harp, Regulator" (in Knitters in the Sun). IV. THE MIDDLE WEST. 17. (The Corn Belt.) James Whitcomb Riley, "Where is Mary Alice Smith?" (in Sketches in Prose}; William Allen White, "The One a Pharisee" (in God's Puppets] ; Theodore Dreiser, "The Lost Phoebe" (in Free and Other Stories] ; Sherwood Anderson, "The Man of Ideas" (in Winesburg, Ohio). 18. (The Wheat Belt.) Hamlin Garland, "The Return of a Private" and "The Lion's Paw" (in Main Travelled Roads] ; Zona Gale, "Evening Dress" (in Friendship Vil- lage Love Stories]. 19. (Chicago.) Frank Norris, "A Deal in WTieat" (title story); Henry B. Fuller, "Striking an Average" (in Under tJie Skylights] ; George Ade, "Erne Whittlesey" (in In Babel]. 20. (Mackinac.) Mary Hartwell Catherwood, "The Black Feather" (in Mackinac and Latce Stories] ; Stewart Ed- ward White, "The Riverman" (in Blazed Trail Stories]. V. THE WEST. 21. (The Cattle Country.') Owen Wister, "The Jimmyjohn Boss" (title story); O. Henry, "Hearts and Crosses" (in The Heart of the West]. 22. (The Mountain West.) Bret Harte, "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" and "Tennessee's Partner" (in The Luck of Roaring Camp]; Mary Hallock Foote, "Maverick" (in The Cup of Trembling] ; Owen Wister, "Timberline" (in Members oftlie Family]. 23. (The Arid West.) Stewart Edward White, "The Emi- grant" (in Arizona Nights] ; Frank Norris, "A Memo- randum of Sudden Death" (in A Deal in Wheat]. 24. (California and the Old West.) Gertrude Atherton, "The Conquest of Dona Jacoba" (in The Splendid Idle Forties]; Frank Norris, "The House with the Blinds" (in The Third Circle]-, Owen Wister, "Padre Ignazio" (in The Jimmyjohn Boss]. ' READING LISTS 343 25. (Alaska.) Jack London, "The White Silence" (in The Son of the Wolf), "To Build a Fire" (in Lost Face). TWENTY-FIVE LOCAL-COLOR STORIES IN TWENTY FOREIGN SETTINGS 1 (Corsica.) Merimee, "Mateo Falcone." 2. (English Midlands.) George Eliot, "Amos Barton" (in Scenes jrom Clerical Life). 3. (Wessex.) Thomas Hardy, "The Three Strangers" (in Wessex Tales), "The Son's Veto" (in Life's Little Ironies); Eden Phillpotts, "An Old Testament Man" (in The Striking Hours) 4. (Cornwall.) A. T. Quiller-Couch, "The Drawn Blind" (in The Delectable Duchy). 5 (London, East End.) Thomas Burke, "Gina of the China- town'' (in Limehouse Nights). 6. (London, Thames River.) W. W. Jacobs, "The Money Box" (in Odd Craft). 7. (The "Black Country.") Arnold Bennett, "The Lion's Share" (in The Matador of the Five Towns). 8. (Scotch Highlands.) R. L. Stevenson, "The Merry Men" (title story). 9. (Scotch Lowlands.) J. M. Barrie, "How Gavin Birse Pit it to Meg Lownie" (in A Window in Thrums) Ian Maclaren, "A Fight with Death" (in Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush). 10. (Wales.) Caradoc Evans, "A Father in Sion" (in My People). 11. (Ireland.) George Moore, "The Exile" (in The Untilied Field) 12. (Canada.) Gilbert Parker, "A Lodge in the Wilderness" (in Northern Lights). 13. (Latin America ) O. Henry, "On Behalf of the Manage- ment" (in Roads of Destiny). $ 14. (South Seas.) R. L. Stevenson, "The Beach of Falesa" (in Island Nights Entertainments). 15 (Philippine Islands.) James M. Hopper, "The Struggles and Triumph of Isidro" (in Caybigan). 16 (India ) Kipling, "Without Benefit of Clergy" (in Life's Handicap) ; "On the City Wall" (in InBlack and White),"In the House of Suddhoo" (in Plain Tales from the Hills) ; Rabindranath Tagore, "Vision" (in The Hungry Stones). 17 vJapan.) Lafcadio Hearn, "The Dream of Akinosuke" (in Kwaidan) ; Pierre Loti, "The Idyl of an Old Couple." 344 READING LISTS 18. (China.) Lafcadio Hearn, "The Soul of the Great Bell" (in Some Chinese Ghosts). 19. (East Indies.) Joseph Conrad, "The Lagoon'* (in Tales of Unrest). 20. (Africa.) Joseph Conrad, "An Outpost of Progress" (in Tales of Unrest). B. TWENTY-FIVE STORIES OF SOCIAL BACKGROUND (School and College Life.) Owen Wister, "Philosophy Four" (title story); C. M. Flandrau, "Wellington" (in Harvard Epi- sodes) ; Frederick Stuart Greene, "Molly McGuire, Fourteen" (Century, September, 1917) ; Kipling, "The Flag of Their Coun- try" (in Stalky and Co.) ; Owen Johnson, "The Tennessee Shad" (in Lawrenceville Stories). (Sport.) R. D. Paine, "The Freshman Fullback" (in College Years). (Children.) Kenneth Grahame, "The Finding of the Princess" (in The Golden Age) ; William Allen W r hite, "The King of Boy- ville" (in The Real Issue) ; Booth Tarkington, "The Quiet After- noon" (inPenrod). (Negroes.) Joel Chandler Harris, ''Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and the Tar Baby*' (in Uncle Remus) ; Paul Laurence Dunbar," Anner Lizer's Stumblin* Block" (in Folks from Dixie) ; Ruth McEnery Stuart, "Holly and Pizen'* (title story). (Jews.) Israel Zangwill, "A Rose of the Ghetto" (in The King of Schnorrers) ; Bruno Lessing, "The End of the Task" (in Chil- dren of Men). (Slums.) Arthur Morrison, "On the Stairs** (in Tales of Mean Streets). (Artists.) Edith Wharton, "The Daunt Diana" (in Tales of Men and Ghosts) (Actors.) Virginia Tracy, "The Lotus Eaters*' (in Merely Players). (Soldiers.) Kipling, "The Courting of Dinah Shadd" (in Life's Handicap). (Seamen.) Joseph Conrad, "Typhoon** (title story). (Journalism.) Jesse Lynch Williams, "The Stolen Story" (title story) ; William Allen White, "The Casting Out of Jimmy Myers" (in In Our Town). (Politics.) Booth Tarkington, "Mrs. Protheroe" (in In ihe Arena) ; Brand Whitlock, "The Gold Brick** (title story). u (Business.) Edwin Lefevre, "The Woman and Her Bonds** READING LISTS 345 (in Wall Street Stories}; Edna Ferber, "His Mother's Son" (in Roast Beef Medium). (Machinery.) Kipling, " .007 " (in The Day's Work). C. FIFTEEN HISTORICAL SHORT STORIES Hawthorne, "The Gray Champion" (in Twice-Told Tales}; Stevenson, "The Sire de Maletroit's Door" and "A Lodging for the Night" (in New Arabian Nights} ; Kipling, "A Centurion of the Thirtieth" and "The Joyous Venture" (in Puck of Pook's Hill] ; Ambrose Bierce, "The Horseman in the Sky" (in In the Midst of Life}; Mary Hartwell Catherwood, "Wolfe's Cove" (in The Cliase of St. Castin}, "The Little Renault" (in The Spirit of an Illinois Town} ; Maurice Hewlett, "The Madonna of the Peach Tree" (in Little Novels of Italy} ; Marjorie Bowen, "The Half Brothers" (in Shadows of Yesterday}; Alexandre Dumas, "Solange"; Gautier, "Arria Marcella"; Flaubert, "Herodias"; Daudet, "The Last Lesson" and "The Siege of Berlin" ; Anatole France, "The Procurator of Judea." (Most of the French stories may be found in W. H. Wright's collection, The Great Modern French Stories}. D. FORTY REPRESENTATIVE PLOT OR CHARACTER STORIES A. TEN AMERICAN STORIES OF PLOT OR CHARACTER Irving, "Rip Van Winkle" ; Hawthorne, "Ethan Brand'* and " The Ambitious Guest" ; Poe, "The Cask of Amontillado," " The Pit and the Pendulum/' and "The Masque of the Red Death" ; Aldrich, "Marjorie Daw" ; H. C. Bunner, "The Love Letters of Smith" (in Short Sixes} ; Henry James, "The Real Thing"; O. Henry, "A Retrieved Reformation.* B. TEN ENGLISH STORIES OF PLOT OR CHARACTER Stevenson, "Markheim'' ; Kipling, "The Man Who Was" and "The Man Who Would Be King" ; J. M. Barrie, "A Cloak with Beads" (m A Window in Thrums} ; John Brown, "Rab and His Friends'* (title story) ; Thomas Hardy, "A Tragedy of Two Am- bitions" (in Life's Little Ironies}; Leonard Merrick, "The Bishop's Comedy ' (in Whispers about Women} ; John Galsworthy, ' Quality" (in The Inn of Tranquillity} ; Joseph Conrad, "Youth" (title story) ; Stacy Aumonier, "A Source of Irritation "' (Century, January, 1918). 846 READING LISTS 4 C. TEN FRENCH STORIES OF PLOT OR CHARACTER Gaii tier, "The Nest of Nightingales"; Maupassant, "The Necklace," "A Piece of String," and "Two Friends"; Balzac, "La Grande Breteche" and "A Passion in the Desert"; Daudet, "The Elixir" and "Aged Folk"; Coppee, "The Substitute"; Zola, "The Attack on the Mill." D. TEN STORIES OF PLOT OR CHARACTER FROM RUSSIA AND OTHER , COUNTRIES Pushkin, "The Queen of Spades"; Gogol, "The Cloak"; Dostoyevsky, "The Thief"; Tolstoy, "The Long Exile"; Turgenev, "A Lear of the Steppes"; Tchekhov, "The Darling"; Gorky, "One Autumn Night" ;Heyse (German), "L'Arrabiata"; Bjoernsen (Norwegian), "The Father"; Selma Lagerlof (Swed- ish), "A Christmas Guest." (Most of the Russian stories may be found in Thomas Seltzer's Best Russian Short Stories.) E. TWENTY REPRESENTATIVE STORIES OF SPECIAL TYPES A. TEN DETECTIVE OR MYSTERY STORIES Poe, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Purloined Letter"; Kipling, "The Mark of the Beast" (in Life's Handi- cap); Richard Harding Davis, "Gallegher"; Conan Doyle, "The Red-Headed League"; Owen Johnson, "One Hundred in the Dark''; G. K. Chesterton, "The Blue Cross" (in The Innocence of Father Brown} , Algernon Blackwood, "A Psychical Invasion" (in John Silence, Physician Extraordinary) ; Poe, "The Goldbug "; Stockton, "The Lady or the Tiger?" B. TEN PURPOSE OR PROBLEM STORIES Hawthorne, "The Birthmark" and "Dr. Heidegger's Experi- ment"; E. E. Hale, "The Man without a Country"; Stevenson, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "Will of the Mill"; H. G. Wells, " The Country of the Blind " ; Jerome K. Jerome, " The Passing of the Third Floor Back". Tolstoy, "God Sees the Truth, but Waits,'* "Where Love is There God is Also "; Andreyev, "Laza- rus." C. TEN STORIES OF THE SUPERNATURAL Merimee, *' Venus d'Hle ' ' ; Poe, " Ligeia " ; Kipling, ' ' The Brush- wood Boy'* (in The Day's Work) and "They" (in Traffics and Discoveries); Henry James, "The Turn of the Screw" (in The READING LISTS 347 Two Magics}-, Edith Wharton, "The Triumph of Night" (in Xingu); O. Henry, "The Furnished Room" (in The Four Mil- lion); Fiona Macleod, "The Dan-nan-ron" (in The Dominion of Dreams); Algernon Blackwood, "A Haunted Island" (in The Empty House), " The Glamor of the Snow " (Forum, 1911) ; W. W. Jacobs, "The Monkey's Paw" (in The Lady of the Barge). F. FIFTEEN STORIES OF MOOD (arranged in a rising scale) (The Ludicrous, or Farcical.) Ellis Parker Butler, "Pigs is Pigs " (American, September, 1905). (The Fantastic.) Frank R. Stockton, "The Christmas Wreck" (title story); Leonard Merrick, "The Third M" (in Whispers about Women); Lord Dunsany, "A Story of Land and Sea" (Forum, February, 1915). (Pure Comedy.) H. C. Bunner, "A Sisterly Scheme" (in Short Sixes). (The Grotesque.) Mark Twain, "The Jumping Frog" (title story); O. Henry, "The Hiding of Black Bill" (hi Options). (The Burlesque.) Stephen Leacock, "A Hero in Homespun" (in Nonsense Novels). (Irony.) H. G. Wells, "Miss Winchelsea's Heart" (in The Country of the Blind). (Satire.) Edith Wharton, "Xingu" (title story). (Sentiment.) J. M. Barrie, "Two of Them" (title story). (Pathos.) Daudet, "The Death of the Dauphin." (Pure Tragedy.) Poe, "The Fall of the House of Usher"; Maupassant, "The Coward." (The Terrible.) H. G. Wells, "The Cone" (in Thirty Strange Stories). (The Horrible.) Poe, "The Black Cat." G. SOME REPRESENTATIVE MODERN ONE-ACT PLAYS A. PLAYS REMARKABLE IN FORM AND EXPRESSION George Bernard Shaw, "How He Lied to Her Husband," "The Man of Destiny," "The Dark Lady of the Sonnets," "The Showing up of Blanco Posnet," "Press Cuttings"; J. M. Barrie, "The Twelve Pound Look," "The Will," "Rosalind" (all in Half Hours); Gorky, "A Night's Lodging": Strindberg, "The Link," "Miss Julia," "The Stronger,'' "The Outlaw," "Fac- ing Death"; Schnitzler, "The Affairs of Anatol" (seven plays); Tchekhov, "A Marriage Proposal." 348 READING LISTS B. PLAYS REMARKABLE FOR LOCAL COLOR OR DIALECT J. M. Synge, "Riders to the Sea"; W. B. Yeats, "Cathleen Ni Houlihan," "The Pot of Broth"; Lady Gregory, "The Work- house Ward," "The Gaol Gate," "Hyacinth Halvey," "The Rising of the Moon," "Spreading the News" (all in Seven Short Plays) ; Percy Mackaye, Yankee Fantasies (five plays) ; Ridgely Torrence, Plays for a Negro Theater (three plays); Jeannette Marks, Three Welsh Plays. C. PLAYS REMARKABLE FOR SYMBOLISM OR PRESENTATION OF THE SUPERNATURAL Maeterlinck, "The Intruder," "The Blind," "Home"; C. R. Kennedy, "The Terrible Meek"; Lord Dunsany, "The Glitter- ing Gate," "The Golden Doom," "The Lost Silk Hat," "The Queen's Enemies," "A Night at an Inn"; Lady Gregory, "The Traveling Man"; W. B. Yeats, "The Hour Glass"; Rabin- dranath Tagore, "Chitra"; Oscar Wilde, "Salome." D. NOTEWORTHY RECENT AMERICAN ONE- ACT PLAYS Harvard Plays (4 vols.) ; Washington Square Plays; Wisconsin Plays (2 vols.); Provincetown Plays; Margaret G. Mayorga, Representative One-Act Plays by American Authors. AMERICAN GOVERNMENT GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS IN THE UNITED STATES. Revised Edition. By WILLIAM B. GUITTEAU, Ph.D., Superintendent of Schools, Toledo, Ohio. This book fully covers the problems of American Democracy. It gives an adequate knowledge of the various forms of government, local, state, and national, emphasizing the practical activities in which students are most interested, and the problems with which as citizens they will be most concerned. GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS IN THE UNITED STATES. Briefer Edition. By WILLIAM BACKUS GUITTEAU. This book meets the requirements of high schools limiting the work in civics to less than a year PREPARING FOR CITIZENSHIP. By WILLIAM BACKUS GUITTEAU. This is an admirable textbook for the upper grammar grades, or for the first year of the high school. All necessary facts regarding local, state, and national government are given, witb the main em- phasis upon the practical aspects of government. CIVIL GOVERNMENT IN THE UNITED STATES. By JOHN FISKE, LL.D. New Edition, with additions by D. S. Sanforc^ Head Master of the Sanford School, Redding Ridge, Conn. AMERICAN IDEALS. Edited by NORMAN FOERSTER ai;d W. W. PIERSON, Jr., University of North Carolina. This collection of representative essays and addresses of our most eminent statesmen and men of letters reveals the broad foundations from which our national ideals have sprung. AMERICANIZATION AND CITIZENSHIP. By HANSON HART WEBSTER. Important and distinctive features of this book are: (i) the Catechism upon the United States Constitution ; (2) the statement of the principles underlying our government ; (3) the explanation of the duties and privileges of citizens. It is recommended as a valuable handbook for all Americans, both native and foreign-born. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY; mo LITERATURE SELECTIONS Modern Prose and Poetry for Secondary Schools. Edited by MARGARET ASHMUN. Prose Literature for Secondary Schools. With some sug* gestions for correlation with composition. Edited by MARGARET ASHMUN. With an Introduction by WILLARD G. BLEYER. The High School Prize Speaker. Edited by WILLIAM L. SNOW. American and English Classics for Grammar Grades. Selections from the Riverside Literature Series for Fifth Grade Reading. Selections from the Riverside Literature Series for Sixth Grade Reading. Selections from the Riverside Literature Series for Seventh Grade Reading. Selections from the Riverside Literature Series for Eighth Grade Reading. American Classics. (Poems and Prose.) American Poems. Edited by HORACE E. SCUDDER. American Prose. Edited by HORACE E. SCUDDER. Literary Masterpieces. Masterpieces of American Literature. Edited by HORACB E. SCUDDER. Masterpieces of British Literature. Edited by HORACE E. SCUDDER. Masterpieces of Greek Literature. (Translations.) Super vising editor, JOHN HENRY WRIGHT. Masterpieces of Latin Literature. (Translations.) Edited by G. J. LAING. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO ENGLISH LITERATURE A Short History of England's Literature. By EVA MARCH TAPPAN. A Student's History of English Literature. By WILLIAM EDWARD SIMONDS. Lives of Great English Writers. From Chaucer to Brown- ing. By W. S. HINCHMAN and FRANCIS B. GUMMERE. Masterpieces of British Literature. Edited by HORACE E. SCUDDER. Readings in English Prose of the i8th Century. Edited by RAYMOND MACDONALD ALDEN. A Victorian Anthology. Edited by EDMUND CLARENCE STED- MAN. Students' Edition. AMERICAN LITERATURE A Short History of England's and America's Literature, By EVA MARCH TAPPAN. A Short History of America's Literature. With Selections from Colonial and Revolutionary Writers. By EVA MARCH TAPPAN. A History of American Literature. By WILLIAM E. SIMONDS, Masterpieces of American Literature. Edited by HORACE E. SCUDDER. Readings in English Prose of the ipth Century. Edited by RAYMOND MACDONALD ALDEN. Part 7, Part II. Complete. The Chief American Prose Writers. Edited by NORM>N FOERSTER. An American Anthology. Edited by EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN. Students' Edition. The Chief American Poets. Edited by CURTIS HIDDEN PAGE. The Little Book of Modern Verse. Edited by JESSIE B, RITTENHOUSE. R.L.S. No. 254. Library binding. The Little Book of American Poets. Edited by JESSIE B. RITTENHOUSE. R.L.S. No. 255. Library binding. A Treasury of War Poetry. Edited by GEORGE HERBERT CLARKE. R.L.S. No. 262. Cloth. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 1909 Riverside Literature Series LIBRARY BINDING Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Piers the Ploughman. WEBSTER AND NEILSON. Chaucer's The Prologue, The Knight's Tale, and The Nun's Priest's Tale. MATHER. Malory's The Book of Merlin and the Book of Sir Balin. CHILD. Ralph Roister Doister. CHILD. The Second Shepherds' Play, Everyman, and Other Early Plays. CHILD. Spenser's Faerie Queene. Book I. SHACKFORD. Bacon's Essays. NORTHUP. Shakespeare Questions. SHEPARD. Milton's Of Education, Areopagitica, The Commonwealth. LOCK- WOOD. Boswell's Life of Johnson. JENSEN. Goldsmith's The Good-Natured Man, and She Stoops to Con- quer. DICKINSON. Sheridan's The School for Scandal. WEBSTER. Shelley's Poems. (Selected.) CLARKE. Huxley's Autobiography, and Selected Essays. SNELL. Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold. JOHNSON. Selected Literary Essays from James Russell Lowell. HOWE and FOERSTER. Howells's A Modern Instance. 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The close study of vigorous and artistic writing is generally acknowledged to be the best method of gaining a mastery of the tech- nique of composition. In the Riverside Essays the material consists of essays which, with few exceptions, have been printed entire. Other advantages of the Riverside Essays for both in- structor and student lie in the fact that the material is presented in separate volumes, each of which is devoted to a single author and contains two or more representa- tive essays. Finally, the series has none of the earmarks of the ordinary textbook which the student passes on, marked and battered, to the next college generation. The books are attractively printed, and bound in the Library Bind- ing of the Riverside Literature Series. The student will therefore be glad to keep these books for his own library. PROMOTING GOOD CITIZENSHIP By JAMES BRYCE. With an Introduction. Riverside Literature Series, No. 227, Library Binding. 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